Work Text:
one
A perp brings a knife to the squad room.
Oddly, it’s a bigger problem after the fact – when an investigation is opened, when rookies are raked over the coals for allowing this to happen. If a police precinct can be so careless, so unprotected, what does it say about the city’s other monuments, about the city’s security as a whole?
Olivia doesn’t have the answer to that.
Right now, she has a cut on her arm, still bleeding even though she refuses to go to the hospital, and a big, hulking man causing a scene in her squad room.
Not the perp, who was subdued and taken into custody hours ago.
Elliot.
“What the fuck happened?”
He’s yelling at a bewildered Muncy, and Fin gets up from his seat where he had been putting pressure on Olivia’s arm, trying to stop some of the blood. She’s shucked the blazer she arrived in, suddenly thankful she chose one she thrifted a couple weeks ago over the Alexander McQueens that she likes to wear some days. And that it’s summer, so she didn’t choose a long sleeve silk blouse that morning, the ones she buys when she wants to treat herself to something particularly feminine.
Either way, there is a hole in the arm of her blazer – one she’ll have to sew if she has time, but will, more likely, take to the tailor around the block from her apartment.
“Hey, man,” Fin is saying to Elliot now from her office doorway. “Quit it. It’s been a hard day.”
“Yeah, yeah I fucking know,” he replies, and his voice looms closer. “I heard on the news. Where is she?”
Fin turns to her, waiting, and she dips her head in silent permission. He gestures Elliot into her office, then hands him the bloody paper towels he’s still holding.
“Have fun,” Fin says, mostly to Olivia, and closes the door behind him.
Olivia doesn’t say anything at first, watching as Elliot registers what is in his hand, jaw clenching.
“What the fuck happened?”
She sighs, leaning back in her chair. “Can you do this,” she gestures to his whole protective act, “while you are applying pressure to the wound?”
That makes Elliot flinch too.
He sits in the chair that Fin had pulled around to her side of the desk, gently grasping her wrist and turning it to examine the cut. He makes a noise in the back of his throat, mouth set in a straight line in that barely contained type of way he does sometimes.
“You should be in the hospital.”
“No more hospitals for me,” Olivia sighs, shaking her head. “And it’s nothing.”
“It’s gushing.”
“You’re dramatic.”
Elliot exhales, finally placing the cleaner side of the cloth down on her wound. She winces, but otherwise it doesn’t really hurt.
“The Post said there was an attack,” he says, looking at her. “I came as soon as I heard.”
Olivia rolls her eyes. “Why are you reading The Post?”
“It’s in my phone,” he shrugs. “That, uh, news app.”
“Well, read actual news then,” Olivia says. “Some kid brought in a knife. Unis didn’t catch it.”
“Olivia.”
“I’m fine,” she says, though she’s a little shaken, if she’s honest. He had really been just that – a kid. Not much older than the one she had shot in the winter. But he was even more scared, and when she reached across the interview table to try to make some connection with the boy, he had sliced into her wrist with the knife he apparently kept attached to his hip. After that, there was yelling and bustling as about twenty cops and lawyers got very loud and very nervous.
The boy is now in the Tombs for assaulting an officer. Olivia can’t help feeling bad for him.
“The news likes to sensationalize sometimes.”
“Yeah, well,” Elliot hedges. “I had to see for myself.”
“If it was really bad, you wouldn’t have been let in, Elliot,” she reminds him. “It would’ve been dangerous.”
Elliot cracks a smile, wiping some of the blood that had fallen around her wrist with the paper towel. “Thanks, Captain. I’ve got a badge too, you know.”
Olivia sighs. “I just mean–”
“I don’t like this,” he says instead, gesturing with his head towards her wrist. “I don’t like you getting hurt. Don’t pretend like it wouldn’t be the same for you, if it was me.”
She inhales, tensing under his grip. Since the night in the kitchen, he’s been like this – protective, yes, and always there for her but also a little more daring with his words. What used to go unsaid, Elliot says now.
It terrifies and excites her in equal measure.
“You’re right,” she acquiesces. “I wouldn’t like it either.”
“So, let me come down here sometimes to make sure you’re okay.”
“Today,” she tells him. “Or on any other days when you are worried about my safety.”
There is a beat, and then Olivia shakes her head, smiling. Elliot grins at her.
“So, every day then,” he quips. “You’ll have to tell me your coffee order.”
“You already know it,” she hums, raising her eyebrows. “Could’ve used some right now.”
Elliot throws the ruined cloth into the trash. “I was in a little bit of a hurry to get here. Next time. You have a kit in your desk?”
He reaches around her to look and she grabs his wrist, glaring at him. Elliot raises his arms in surrender, grinning as he falls back in his chair. She pulls out her makeshift first aid kit, handing it over to him. His fingers are gentle and nimble as he unwraps the non-stick pad, placing it over her wound and Olivia helps, holding it there while he bites off a piece of gauze. Something about his teeth makes her stomach flutter and she swallows, looks away.
His grip is firm on her wrist as he wraps the gauze around it, applying enough pressure that it’ll hold. He finds tape in the kit and places it around her wrist to keep the wrapping tight and in place.
“Thank you,” Olivia says, voice thick. He looks up at her, eyes soft, and it makes her want to cry. She was fine before, a little shaken but there was no hankering for tears, for an emergency therapy appointment. Now, she thinks she was just lying to herself. She was just waiting for the moment when she could be alone, or be with someone who knows, who understands her, to finally feel everything she’s been feeling.
“You okay?” Elliot asks, looking at her like he knows she’s not. Olivia keeps swallowing, trying to ignore the lump in her throat, so her head shake is probably a tad unconvincing. “Let me take you home,” he says, gruffly. “You deserve to go home. Just for the day.”
“No, no–” she says, though it’s all rushing to her now. Elliot is so close to her, and his scent is so overpowering, and she leans forward, places her forehead against his and takes a deep exhale. Elliot tenses immediately, though she understands him enough at this point to know it’s because he’s surprised, and worried, but not uninterested.
“Let me take you home,” he repeats, and his breath is warm on her face. She doesn’t answer him for some time, so they sit there while Olivia tries not to think about the open blinds in her office. “Fuck this,” he finally says. “Get your things. I’m taking you home.”
No one tries to stop them when he leads her out.
It’s nearly three in the afternoon by the time they get into Elliot’s truck.
“Noah will be home soon,” Olivia says weakly. “With Martha.”
Elliot nods, mind working as he stares through the windshield. It’s sweet, she thinks, that he is so cautious with her sometimes. Not in a pitying way; she wouldn’t allow it if he felt pity. It’s more like he wants to get it all right with her, all the time.
Olivia doesn’t know how to tell him he doesn’t have to try so hard.
“We can go to my place,” he offers, glancing over at her, shy. Olivia chews on that for a moment, deciding if her desperation to see her son is really that – desperation. The last thing Noah needs after a long day at school is his mother being overbearing and too much because she had a crazy day at work.
“Please,” she finally says, nodding, and it takes less than a second for Elliot to shift the car into drive and peel out of there.
She thinks he almost turns on his lights so they can get across the bridge faster. She wonders if he thinks she’ll change her mind the second they set foot in Queens.
Olivia knows she won’t. She’s made a decision, coming with him this afternoon, letting him mark his territory back at the precinct, walking out with him, telling everyone that she is now his.
She gnaws on the side of her cheek while she watches the city whizz past her. At some point, her eyes flutter shut and she dozes for a couple minutes, only waking when she feels the car shut off. She jumps, disoriented but Elliot lays a firm grip on her shoulder and she sits up, blinking away the sudden fear that had coated her bones.
“We’re home,” he says, voice low and calming. Olivia nods, and gets out of the car.
Elliot takes her coat off at the door.
“You want some water?” He asks, when he’s already at the sink, pouring a glass. She slides into one of the kitchen stools, takes it and thanks him quietly, taking small sips. She feels better now. Her heart is pounding less and now she’s a little embarrassed – that she’s here at all, that Fin and her entire squad watched Elliot lead her out of the precinct, big hand splayed wide on the small of her back.
She’s trying to not care about being gossip fodder.
“You wanna watch a movie?” Elliot offers, looking at her carefully. For some reason, that makes her laugh and she pushes the glass away from her.
“Why?”
He shrugs. “Thought it might take your mind off things.”
Olivia smirks, looking down at the countertop. “Are you going to make a move on me halfway through?”
For a split second, Elliot looks offended. Then, he laughs, standing a little straighter.
“Give me some credit, Benson,” he says. “I’d let you watch the movie if you were interested in it.”
Olivia looks over at the comfy leather couch in his living room. The place feels empty, she assumes, without everyone around to fill the space. Still, the apartment is clean, and well-decorated. She pauses, glancing at him. “I probably wouldn’t be very interested in it.”
His eyes go soft. “Yeah?”
She nods, closing her eyes. “Yeah.”
Elliot rounds the corner, stops next to her and turns the chair towards him. It swivels and her knees bump into him, though he doesn’t seem to notice.
“You scared me today,” he says, ducking his head so that they are eye level.
“Yeah, well, you scare me every day,” she whispers. He doesn’t have an answer to that and she knows why, knows about all of the things that the OCCB is up to these days – the short undercover stints, the kidnappings, the danger. Olivia may not show up to Elliot’s work making a fuss, but she’s always kept informed about what he’s doing.
It should’ve been a sign, Olivia thinks. That there was never going to be anyone else.
She pushes her chair back so she’s standing, leaning into him. His hands catch her waist and she reaches forward to cup his cheeks.
“What are you doing?” Elliot asks, though she thinks it’s obvious.
Olivia smiles, drops her forehead to his. “I’m trying to be ready.”
This time, she kisses him in his kitchen.
two
Elliot drives into a fucking tree.
He’s been on high speed chases before – recently, too, but it’s late and rainy, that late spring downpour that puts the windshield wipers of his truck to max power and causes him to squint hard to keep track of the perp in front of him.
The expensive black car swerves, then hits the brakes and he hears a shout from Jamie in the passenger seat before he’s turning the wheel, hard, to avoid slamming into the back of the vehicle ahead of them. He tries to get control of his steering but the wheels get caught on something and they fly full speed ahead into the wooded area just off the road.
Elliot puts an arm out, slamming Jamie back into the seat as he still tries to avoid a head-on collision with his other hand.
He fails. The tree comes out of nowhere, illuminated by a single flash of lightning and Elliot has barely enough time to slam on the breaks before they are ramming into the trunk, his side getting the brunt of the damage. The force of the whiplash from the brakes and the accident cause him to black out.
He’ll have to go to church later. To thank God for the invention of seat belts. And that the accident occurred upstate, meaning the ambulances were a little speedier with less traffic.
He remembers, later, being in and out. Visions of red and blue light illuminating the rain, and then the darkness envelops him again. Every time, without fail, he wakes with one thing on his mind.
Well, two, because he hasn’t changed that much.
His family. And Olivia.
Elliot wakes in a hospital bed some hours later. His neck hurts and his left arm is in a sling and his four oldest children are sitting around him, looking at him not too dissimilarly to when he walked into that extended-stay hotel intervention three years ago.
“Hey,” he croaks out, and Kathleen stands to get the nurse while Maureen gets him water in a paper cup. Lizzie and Dickie stand against the wall, arms crossed over their torsos, glancing at him forlornly.
They are fraternal twins, all mixed gender ones are, but they used to look so different that Kathy would joke that one of them got switched at the hospital. Usually it was Dickie. Now, they look more alike than Elliot has ever seen them, even when they were newborns in matching cribs.
“I’m okay.”
“You almost died,” Lizzie says plainly. Maureen settles down on his hospital bed, watching him. She clearly has something to say, something ready to back her little sister up but is interrupted by the nurse, coming to check on Elliot. He lies about the pain, not wanting to get foggy from the drugs while his kids are here. The nurse doesn’t seem to believe him but she gazes at him knowingly.
“I’ll be back later,” she murmurs, then walks out, leaving the door open behind her.
“Did they say–” he winces as he tries to sit up, and Kathleen pushes on his good shoulder so that he’ll lay back down. “Was there any damage other than the car?”
“You mean your partner?” Maureen asks, disbelieving. Elliot nods, cautiously. She squints her eyes, glances over at her siblings. It’s Dickie who speaks up.
“He walked away with minor injuries. That’s why you’ve got that arm in a sling, by the way.”
Elliot exhales, relieved. Maureen’s eyes well and she gets up, walks out the door. He looks in the direction of his oldest departure, then turns back to Kathleen, confused. Her eyes are red from crying.
“Dad,” she says, voice thick. “You scared us. Carl has been up with Seamus and Kieran all night because they thought you were going to die.”
Elliot swallows, raising a hand helplessly towards Kathleen. “But I didn’t, baby. I’m fine.”
Lizzie steps forward, resting her hands on the end of the hospital bed.
“At least we would’ve been here this time.“
Elliot shuts his eyes, dropping his head. Certainly he understood the parallels, knew his PTSD would catch up with his body in terms of the crash. But in his mind, that was between him and the therapist he was still occasionally seeing; it wasn’t something his children should be worried about.
“It’s my job,” he says, voice low. “I protect people. I’m sorry if I scared you.”
Her sister cuts him off. “You’re getting older, Dad. You can’t be doing stuff like that anymore.” Elliot looks over at his son whose gaze is trained on his feet. Lizzie’s eyes, usually the kindest of the bunch, glare at him. “We don’t want to lose another parent.”
Elliot rests his head back against the pillow. “I’ll be more careful. No more reckless driving, I promise.”
There is only silence to tell him that it is not enough.
“You don’t get it.”
Kathleen stands, grabbing her coat. Lizzie sighs and turns away to do the same.
“Katie–”
“I’m going to get some sleep,” she says, clearly exhausted. “I’ll catch Mo on the way out. We’ll be back tomorrow.”
He hears Lizzie ask for a ride. At the door, she turns and comes back to him, kissing his head and murmuring that she loves him.
“Eli is taking the first flight tomorrow morning.”
Elliot nods, then is helpless to watch his other daughters leave him too. Dickie stands, shuffling his feet.
“What did you used to say all the time?” Dickie says quietly. “We do this because we care. Because we love you.”
He tips his head to Elliot, then walks out all the same.
Elliot doesn’t go back to sleep. He stares at the open doorway, wishing for someone to walk through it, wishes he could somehow fix everything in his life.
There is a noise, the sound of heels clacking and then Olivia is at his door, long hair wavy and messy. She’s out of breath, like she’s been running, or walking really fast.
To get to him, he realizes. To get to his side.
When she sees him, she stops, hesitates. Her face is paler than he’s seen it in a long time. She’s also wearing a dress, legs bare underneath a long, expensive-looking, black coat. She is wearing heels. It reminds him of when he first saw her after all that time away, dressed up for her ceremony.
Elliot really needs to stop fucking up her life with car accidents.
“Hey,” she says, exhaling deeply. “I just heard.”
“Who–”
“Kathleen called me,” she says, walking into the room. “She was vague on the phone. I thought–” She gestures with her hand to him. He can fill in the blanks.
Olivia probably thought he was comatose.
“Kathleen left an hour ago,” he explains. “I’m fine.”
She walks to his side, hesitates, then sits on the edge of the bed. It takes some maneuvering, but he manages to make some room for her without causing himself too much pain.
“She didn’t have to lie,” she tells him. “I would’ve come anyway.”
Elliot raises his good shoulder. “I’m not sure she knows that.” Olivia opens her mouth, brows furrowed like she’s offended and he shakes his head. “She probably thinks you have better things to do. That you deserve better.”
Olivia’s cheeks go pink, and she places her hand over his. It warms him.
“Where were you tonight?”
She rolls her eyes, but her lack of immediate answer worries him. His neck hurts from the whiplash, his arm is broken, but the bigger pain would be to find out that Olivia was on a date. It doesn’t matter that she left said date to come to his side. She still went and he schools himself, knows he has no right to be angry or jealous.
“NYPD Gala,” she finally says. “Stupid BX9 stuff. I didn’t even want to go.”
Elliot runs his thumb over her knuckles. “You gonna tell me I did you a favor too?”
It takes her a second to get it. When she does, she slaps her hand over her forehead, shaking her head.
“I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.”
Elliot laughs, so she relaxes a bit. He can smell her perfume and it beats the sterile hospital scent. He tugs on her hand.
“Liv?”
“What?”
He tries to turn his body, putting his weight on the side not in a cast. “I know you aren’t ready,” he says, softly. “But will you lay with me?”
It’s unfair to ask. And Elliot doesn’t exactly want her to feel forced to say yes because he’s a man asking in a hospital bed. But her smile is genuine when she squeezes his hand.
“Of course,” she says, though there is nothing of course about Olivia Benson crawling into his bed. She has dark glittery makeup on, he can see now, and she places a hand underneath her head to prop herself up. Her other hand slips back into his, intertwining their fingers.
“You look beautiful,” he can’t help but say.
“You look terrible,” she says back. He smiles, realizing that he has not gotten a look at his face before he invited her into his bed.
“Yeah, well,” he hedges, unsure how much he should tell her. “I did hit a tree.”
Olivia closes her eyes, sighing. “I bet you gave the kids quite a scare.”
“Trust me, I’ll be hearing more about it tomorrow,” he says. He squeezes her hand. “Did I give you a scare?”
She hums, nodding her head. “I tried to get here quickly, but it seemed a little bit counterproductive to get into a crash on my way to you.”
“I would agree with that.”
Olivia takes her hand away from his, reaches up to trace something on his face. A cut maybe, or a bruise. He had wanted to do the same when he almost held her in her kitchen.
“I just kept thinking,” she whispers. “He thinks I’m not ready.”
Elliot’s heart stutters in his chest, and he doesn’t think it’s because of all the wires hooked up to him. Her eyes land on his, dark and watery and he curves a hand around her jaw and pulls her forward, stopping just as they almost kiss.
“I don’t–” He starts, suddenly embarrassed. “I don’t know how long I was out. Everything might smell b–”
“El,” she whispers. “Shut up.”
He groans when their lips meet for the first time. It’s not where he would’ve pictured his first kiss with Olivia but maybe it fits them, their lifestyles, their traumas, shared and not. Olivia has to do a lot of the work since he’s a little immobile but she still moans into his mouth, so he figures he’s not fucking this up too majorly.
There is a knock at the door and they break apart. He catches the blush on Olivia’s cheeks as she rolls away to sit up. The nurse from before watches them, bemused.
“How about those drugs?”
Elliot doesn’t want them, but with Olivia not in his immediate vicinity he realizes how much his entire body feels like it’s been hit by a bus. Or more accurately, like it hit a tree.
“He’ll take them,” Olivia answers on his behalf, smiling down at him. Her lips are plump and swollen and she holds his hand as the morphine kicks in.
“Do you have to go?”
She shakes her head, bringing a chair over to his side. “I’ll stay until you fall asleep.”
Elliot hums, satisfied. He feels the haze of the drugs wash over him. “We’re going to do that again, right?”
He hears Olivia laugh, though his eyes are too tired to stay open.
“We are definitely doing that again,” she says, and she sounds happy. “Preferably in a place a little more cozy than this.”
Even on morphine, he’ll hold her to that.
three
Olivia finds a lump on her breast.
She’s been due for a mammogram for some time now – always forgetting to schedule it in between being a busy mom and a busy cop. She has to get a yearly physical, but that’s all done through work and it’s all covered but… it falls to the wayside.
She used to be better at this, being an adult. It’s supposed to be easier with age but her whole life is her son and her job (and sometimes a man who comes by, every now and then) and she stopped feeling like her own woman a long time ago.
It’s a Wednesday night when Olivia finds it. She’s grabbed a bottle of lotion to rub into the soft skin of her breasts – they’ve been a pain since she hit menopause a few years ago and it’s an act of self care, to massage the thick lotion into waning skin.
Sometimes, it’s foreplay too, but she hasn’t decided tonight if she wants that. Whenever she’s touched herself recently, her mind plays back to a scene in her kitchen. It’s either the event as it happened, which is nearly enough, or what could’ve happened if she let Elliot back her into her kitchen counter, which is more than enough to push her over the edge.
She’s just feeling, squeezing, when her hands stutter over a small lump on the side of her right breast, a few inches from the bottom of her armpit.
Olivia’s breath stops, and she goes very still. She puts down the lotion and crawls into her bed, pulling the covers over herself tightly. She closes her eyes, and when that doesn’t work, she pulls the comforter over her head.
This is normal. Not normal, but common. Reproductive education wasn’t the best in the ‘80s but Olivia’s been working at SVU for twenty-five years, she knows the ins and outs of a woman’s body like the back of her hand.
This feels different.
She schedules a mammogram the minute she gets into her office the next morning.
Olivia’s instincts, as usual, turn out to be correct. The doctor schedules a biopsy for the next week. She tries not to think about it for the first 48 hours. She texts Elliot on the third day.
The thing about Elliot is that he shows up now. Noah asks to see him multiple times a week and Olivia lets Elliot, sometimes, come over to their apartment and eat a casual dinner with her and her son. There is an unavoidable awkwardness when they are together, after Noah is asleep. Their eyes skitter away from the kitchen, where they had almost crossed that line.
It’s not lost on Olivia that she used excuses to hide her fear of Elliot meeting Noah and now she’s using her son to hide her fear of being alone with Elliot.
But she’s emotional, two glasses of wine, and Noah is at a friend’s house across town.
Busy tonight?
The answer comes a minute later. She almost spills her wine reaching for her phone.
Just left Katie’s.
Olivia bites her lip. Kathleen’s in Brooklyn, in a nice apartment she shares with her girlfriend. She debates why she has to ask Elliot over to her apartment outright, then remembers that she pulled away from him in her kitchen in the winter.
Come over?
Olivia stares at the phone, waiting. His text comes in a few seconds later.
Already on my way.
Jorge calls up half an hour later, still unwilling to let Elliot up to her apartment without checking with her first. A part of her still likes that, still remembers when she had to start looking at new apartments the day after Elliot stumbled into her apartment, drugged and loose-lipped.
She hadn’t slept well that night.
Olivia lets Elliot in with a shy smile, and she watches him sit on her couch, spreading out. She shakes her head, grabbing her wine glass.
“Want something to drink?” She asks, walking into the kitchen. She raises her voice. “I found that beer you like at the bodega down the street.”
Elliot makes a noise and she jumps, not realizing he’d followed her, sloshing the wine she was pouring for herself.
“I’ll take it, thanks,” he says, and she turns towards him, then back to the counter, blushing. “Is everything okay?” Olivia nods, snaps off a can and slides it across the island towards Elliot. “I just thought, you know, with Noah gone. Something might be wrong.”
Olivia leans back against the kitchen counter, sipping her wine. “How did you know Noah was gone?”
Elliot grins. “That kid of yours loves to text.”
“You gave him your number?”
“Yeah,” he says, easily, then hesitates when he looks at her. “He asked for it. I didn’t think–”
“No, no,” she says, bracing her hands behind her. “It’s fine.”
“I didn’t mean to overstep.”
She smiles at him. “Yes, you did.”
Elliot drops his chin, raises his eyebrows at her. “So, nothing’s wrong?”
Olivia steps forward, leaning on the island with her hands. “I–” She swallows, squinting her eyes. “I have a doctor’s appointment next week.” Elliot immediately tenses, but is silent. “I’m just nervous about it, that’s all. I was sitting here, wanting so badly to be called into work and then realizing how awful and pathetic that sounded.”
“So you texted me.”
She sighs. “So I texted you.”
“This, uh, appointment?” Elliot asks gently. “It’s bad?”
Olivia glances away. “It’s not routine.”
“What day is it? I could drive–”
“Elliot,” she warns, and he backs off, taking a long drink of his beer. “It’ll be too short for that anyway.”
“But I would,” he says roughly. “I would. You know that right?”
Olivia nods, smiling at him. “I do.”
“Good,” Elliot nods, picking up his glass. “Come on, your kid recommended a new movie for us to watch.”
Olivia is very aware of Elliot’s body on the other side of the couch. He’s hot-blooded – always has been, even back then, when he would wear lighter layers even in the winter. She runs cold, usually, which helps with the amount of blazers she has to wear.
She can feel the heat of his body, and it arouses her.
“You hate it.”
Olivia glances at him, shaking her head. “I don’t.”
She doesn’t know a single thing about the film. She knows there has been some action, that the lead male character is very macho but doesn’t know how to hold a gun, let alone shoot it.
It’s hard to pay attention to the film when there is a red-blooded male next to her, when that man is Elliot, when she feels jumpy and weak and she thinks that crawling into his warm body and letting him hold her sounds pretty great right now.
“Liv?”
Elliot looks worried and Olivia sits up, suddenly aware of all the things she could be missing out if the results of her appointment come out not in her favor. She tries to scoot over gracefully but bails halfway, standing and crawling into Elliot’s lap. His eyebrows shoot up, surprised, but he grabs the sides of her waist, steadying her so that she doesn’t fall off onto her ass.
“I haven’t been paying attention to the movie,” she tells him.
“I noticed,” he says. “Is this why you wanted me to come over?”
“To do what?”
“Am I your booty call, Olivia Benson?”
Olivia laughs, then a wave of sadness hits her at his attempt at lightness. She must be so confusing to him. He reaches up, pushing a piece of hair behind her shoulder.
“I’m scared,” she whispers. Elliot hums.
“I’ve noticed that too.”
“No,” she says, shaking her head. “I’m scared that I’m running out of time. That I missed my chance and we’ll never–”
“You didn’t,” he interrupts her, brows furrowed. “You didn’t miss your chance. You couldn’t. We have time, Olivia.”
“What if,” she says, “what if we don’t?”
He regards her, then pulls her closer. “I’m taking you to that fucking appointment.”
“It’s not even…” She rubs her eyes. “It’s just a biopsy.”
“I can wait in the waiting room,” he says, more determined than she has seen him in a while. “You aren’t missing your chance, Liv.”
She dips her head, pushing her forehead into his. “Can you prove it? Can you prove it to me tonight?”
Olivia can feel the muscles underneath the sweater he’s wearing.
“Just tonight?” He asks, voice low and slightly nervous. She shakes her head, finds his eyes.
“No, not just tonight.”
Elliot doesn’t kiss her right away. Not her lips, at least. Instead, he presses her down into her couch, kissing and caressing every inch of her skin as he peels off her clothes. It’s only when she starts shivering, completely bare against the sofa cushions, that he kisses her lips.
By then, her brain has completely shut off.
Elliot holds her hand while they wait for the appointment. And he kisses her in her kitchen five days later when the doctor calls her to tell that the cells in question are benign.
four
Elliot gets shot.
He and Olivia do not work cases together often, almost never since their moment in the kitchen in the winter. It’s May now, that early summer heat coming to Manhattan in full force and Olivia shows up at the OC headquarters with a missing kid and a gang of traffickers and he’s ready, immediately, to be of any help he can be.
Maybe, that was a bad idea.
Elliot knows a few things – like how he and Olivia were partners for thirteen years and in those years had one of the highest closing records in SVU history. That they were good partners, great even, but that their emotions got a little heightened sometimes, their dependence on each other a little dangerous.
And that was all when he was married. That was before he stood in her kitchen one night and essentially told her he wanted to be with her. And she told him she wanted to be with him too, but wasn’t ready, whatever that means.
In hindsight, he should’ve remembered all the reasons that partners don’t get romantically involved.
Because he’s… not on his A game, here.
Elliot keeps thinking about Olivia, even when she isn’t beside him, and he keeps worrying about her, even though she is a highly capable officer, ranked way higher than him.
It’s that worry, that need to protect her that gets him in trouble, makes him reckless, because what if something happens and there is simply no more time left for her to get ready?
It’s how he finds himself in a fist fight with a perp who had some things to say about the NYPD Captain. Something about the hit that was put on her back in the winter, something about her son and Elliot lost it. Remembered the look on her bruised face, the way her face crumpled with worry for Noah's safety.
All he knows is that he has a fist to his gut and Olivia’s voice in his ear, yelling for him to stand down and wait for backup and he thinks she heard everything that this punk said and that just makes him angrier. It makes him see red and then he’s trying to overpower the perp, get him subdued so he can take him in and catch his breath.
Except, in his anger, he loses control of his gun.
It’s the most rookie move a cop could do. Certainly not someone who has been on the force for nearly forty years. But Elliot’s not thinking about his gun – he doesn’t want to kill the guy – and therefore, he loses sight of it. At least up until the moment where it’s in the perp’s hands and pointed directly at him.
A shot rings out, and he falls, not fully registering the pain until he’s on his back. There is the rattling of his gun hitting the ground and the pounding of footsteps as the perp runs away.
Elliot!
Olivia sounds out of breath and worried on the phone. He trusts that she’s called the necessary people, made the necessary announcements over the radio so he drops it back on the ground. It’s only then that he realizes the bullet must be lodged somewhere on his right side, in his arm, maybe, because it hurts like a bitch to move it.
There are sirens. And then, there is nothing.
Olivia pushes through the double doors into the waiting room. The nurse at the front desk is one she works with often, and she stands, pointing down the hall. Olivia smiles at the woman gratefully, then turns, pushing through another pair of doors and walking into a wholly unexpected sight.
Elliot Stabler sitting on a wayward hospital bed pushed against the wall, with a white bandage wrapped around his shoulder. The deja vu hits her quickly and hard and she wonders if she should have a newspaper in her hand and embarrassment coloring her cheeks.
The OC squad stands around him, hovering, and Bell is saying something, something important but Elliot has noticed her arrival, sitting up straighter even though he winces as he does.
“Hey,” he greets her and the whole team turns to look at her owlishly. Olivia goes red under their scrutiny. She’d walked in here expecting something… different – monitors beeping and doctors racing to save his life. Instead, he’s gazing at her intensely, like he already knows how she feels, how she felt the moment she heard the gunshot go off.
Olivia tilts her head at him, blinking slowly.
“Wanted to save a hospital bed,” he murmurs, shrugging his good shoulder. Something about that makes Olivia clench her fist, her breath hitching. He notices, because of course he does.
And then Bell saves them.
“Okay,” she tells her team. “Everyone out. Give the man some space.”
Bell turns Jet around, takes her by the arm and pulls her down the hall the way Olivia had come. The two men who Olivia had just met on this case look between her and Elliot a few times before following their Sergeant.
When the doors close behind the last OC squad member, Elliot begins to stand and Olivia steps forward, to help him or push him back but he’s quick, even if he has to bite back a groan as he pushes himself up.
“I’m okay,” he says, calmly. “Bullet hit some old scar tissue. They want to discharge me today.”
“They want to?”
Elliot smiles, shuffles closer towards her. “I’m not a big fan of hospitals, if you can believe it.”
Olivia nods. “Me neither.”
“I’m sorry,” he says, and that surprises her. “You shouldn’t have had to hear that.”
She swallows, shaking her head. There is something about him standing in front of her with his dress shirt unbuttoned and that bullet wound patched up and, yes, it’s the deja vu again, because it’s fifteen years ago and her wishing she could do more than hand him a fucking newspaper.
Olivia struts towards him, her heels slapping against the tile floor, and reaches for Elliot, cupping his cheeks and leaning forward so that she can finally, finally kiss him. Her hands grace the bandage under his collar, grounding her as he slips his tongue into her mouth. They are at almost even height and he wraps his arms around the small of her back to pull her closer until they are completely flush against each other.
It’s the best fucking kiss of her life.
Which is embarrassing. Almost as embarrassing as the moan that passes from her lips to his, that has him grinning into their kiss, sloppy now with their shared giddiness. They are in a hospital for fuck’s sake. Sick people and overworked staff and all Olivia wants to do is burrow inside Elliot until they are both well and truly safe.
There is a cough, and a figure of someone passing them and they break apart quickly, wiping at their mouths. Olivia shakes her head, smiling.
“Something about you and hospitals, Benson,” Elliot teases her and she rolls her eyes, picks up his suit jacket and folds it over her arms. He raises an eyebrow at her. “You taking me home?”
She shrugs, smirking. “Someone’s gotta keep an eye on you. Make sure you don’t lose anything else.”
Elliot puts his hand over his chest in mock offense, then wraps his good arm over her shoulders, leading her back down the hallway.
“Can’t decide if I wish it hadn’t happened or not.”
Olivia turns her head from the TV, frowning up at him. She’s leaning against his chest and Elliot thinks that he could truly die happy right here. Not that he wants to. She’s changed into a pair of his sweatpants, NYPD hoodie hanging loosely off her bare torso. He’s never seen anything so beautiful.
“What? You getting shot?”
Elliot nods, mouth in a straight line.
“Why?” Olivia laughs. “What’s the dilemma?”
“Well,” he says, turning off whatever human interest news story they had been watching. “If I hadn’t been shot, you wouldn’t be here.” He winces as he maneuvers Olivia onto her back, watching as she looks at him exasperatedly, like she knows this would be a lot easier if she crawled on top of him. Not to be outdone, he settles between her thighs, hikes her leg up and presses his face into the curve of her neck.
“But if I hadn’t been shot, I could take you into my bedroom and fuck you the way you deserve.”
Olivia inhales, and he looks at her then, her eyes half-lidded with arousal. She smiles at him, runs her hand over the back of his bald head.
“You are too macho for your own good sometimes, you know that?”
“Oh, yeah,” he says, placing featherlight kisses to the side of her neck. “Why do you say that?”
“Well,” she teases, and he nearly groans at the rasp in her voice. “I’ve got two perfectly good shoulders.” She lifts her hips up into his groin, and turns her head to whisper into her ear: “And I like being on top.”
Elliot nearly rips his stitches, taking Olivia to his bed.
five
For the first time in her NYPD career, Olivia is the one that takes a bullet.
Olivia knows better, at her age, than to try to win in a foot race anymore.
It’s too much work for a Captain, and she usually loses, ends up sweating through her expensive clothes and limping home. So she sends one of the young people – Velasco, more than anyone else, is eager to prove himself.
This time, well, she’s alone. Not alone, but the first perp went west and Muncy followed and the second perp started running, despite the gun that Olivia had pointed at him, and she had no choice but to follow him.
That’s how she finds herself in an alley, breathing heavily, gun pointed at the ground while she looks for the perp. She’s had a bad track record with her service weapon recently, between that one Christmas two years ago and this past winter. A bad track record for her at least, and so maybe that’s why she’s hesitant, and faulty, not thinking clearly. Maybe that’s why she doesn’t hear the perp run past her down the alley. And maybe that’s why she missed the fact that he had a gun tucked into the waistband of his jeans in the first place.
Muncy should have seen it too.
Instead, the perp starts running down the far side of the alley, and it’s only when she starts running after him, yelling once again that she’s police, to stop, that he yanks the gun out of his pants and turns and shoots.
It’s somewhat fitting, with the way the past few years have shaped up, that Olivia’s first gunshot wound would be in the same ankle she broke thanks to some bullshit order from Richard Wheatley.
“Motherfucker!”
Olivia cries out, pain shooting through her leg, somewhere below her knee but above her ankle. She falls, hands barely able to catch herself before she goes sprawling onto the dirty cement, right next to the dumpsters where the bakery next door throws out day-old bagels.
The perp is long gone. Olivia sits up, moaning at the pain in her leg. She reaches for it and her hand comes away wet with blood and all she can think is great – surgery to remove the bullet and a hospital stay and weeks on crutches. She reaches for her radio, taking a few deep breaths. The pain is so great she can feel it in her head, blinding her.
“10-13, 10-13,” she calls into her radio. She probably doesn’t sound all that scared, to be honest. “Officer down. Bullet to the leg. I need a bus.”
The dispatcher answers immediately and Olivia sits back against the wall, still breathing hard. A wayward drop of water from the window unit above drips on her and she finds herself wanting, more than anything, a goddamn shower.
It turns out Olivia is not as outwardly calm as she feels on the inside because they give her a sedative in the ambulance, one that knocks her out hard enough that she remembers absolutely nothing about her arrival to the hospital. It’s like she closes her eyes, nods off, and when she wakes, Fin is at the foot of her bed, phone to his ear.
Her leg has a cast and it’s slightly propped up.
“Liv,” she hears, and when she turns her head, there is Elliot, blues eyes beseeching as he sits to the side of her bed.
“Jesus Christ,” she croaks.
“Well, look who decided to wake up,” Fin says, then to the person on the phone: “Yeah, she’s awake. Hold on, let me ask her.” He pulls the phone away from his ear. “Rollins says her TA can teach her next class if you want her to come.”
Olivia blinks, looks between the two men in the room.
“Does anyone care that I just got shot?”
Elliot makes a noise beside her, like he very much does, but Fin just shrugs.
“Would’ve been a little more exciting if it was upper body.”
Olivia huffs. “I fucking hate you,” she says to Fin, who grins at her. “No, I do. The bullet could’ve nicked an artery or a blood vessel and I could’ve bled out.”
“Please,” Elliot says, voice low. “Please don’t say that.”
“Sorry, Liv,” Fin says, though he sounds anything but. “You’d be a little less sympathetic if you had to spend the last however many hours with this guy asking the nurse for updates every goddamn minute.”
Olivia glances over at Elliot, who shrugs, unabashed. “I was worried.”
“How did you even know I was here?” Olivia asks. Realistically, Muncy told Fin about the 10-13 and which hospital she had been transported to. But Fin wouldn’t have called Elliot unless she had–
Elliot sits up straight, looking over at Fin, who is saying goodbye to Rollins with no real answer.
“Paramedic told me that you were asking for an Elliot when I arrived,” Fin says, nonchalantly, like he’s reading off the weather report. “I didn’t think you knew another one. Unfortunately.”
Olivia swallows, feels her cheeks go hot.
“You don’t remember?” Elliot asks. She very much does not – a mild sedative will do a lot to her apparently. Twenty years ago, she called out for Elliot in her sleep. Not much has changed, it seems.
“No,” she admits, watching Elliot’s face fall. She reaches forward, impulsively putting her hand over his, still clutching the hospital sheets. “But– I’m glad you’re here.”
The moment is broken by Fin, who coughs overly loud. “I guess that’s my cue,” he mumbles, finally pocketing his phone. “I told Rollins that Stabler had it handled. Which means I can get back to the precinct.”
“And find the son of a bitch who did this,” Elliot says.
“Stabler, I don’t tell you how to do your job.”
“Oh, you have in the past, I’m sure.”
Olivia rolls her eyes at the two men’s posturing. “Fin–”
He beats her to it. “Noah and your nanny are on the way so,” he looks between her and Elliot, “don’t get too rowdy. Don’t wanna traumatize the kid.”
Her cheeks go warm again and she leans her head back on the pillow, closing her eyes.
“Thanks for that,” she calls. He waves a hand as he walks out the door.
There is a long silence after he leaves. Olivia stares ahead, her palm still face down over his and when she goes to move her hand, Elliot grabs it, holding it tight.
“Liv–”
A nurse comes in then, and Elliot settles back in his chair as Olivia answers pain-related questions. She’ll have to be in the hospital for a few days to make sure no infection occurs, and then she should be on bed rest for another few days after that before she can even think of hobbling around on crutches.
“Great,” she sighs, once the nurse leaves. “Not like I have a kid or anything.”
“They just want to make sure you are okay,” Elliot says and she rolls his eyes at his pragmatism. “You know, I can take Noah back to my place. Tonight, even.”
“Elliot–”
“Look,” he says, grabbing her hand again. “It doesn’t have to be a big thing. It’s one friend doing a favor for another friend. And your kid already likes me.”
“You sure about that?”
Elliot nods. “Your son is very honest.”
Olivia laughs, rolling her head to one side to look at him. “We can discuss it with him. See if he’s open to the idea.”
He exhales, relieved. “That sounds good to me.”
She feels tired, even though logically she just woke up from the deepest sleep she’s had in months, years even. Elliot just keeps looking at her, blue eyes soft, like he’s lucky just to be there and fear crawls up her spine.
“Elliot,” she whispers. “I’m sorry.”
His eyebrows furrow. “For what?”
“You shouldn’t have had to come,” she says, and she must be more tethered to him than a simple handhold because she can feel when he tenses. “It’s not fair to you.”
“You think I didn’t want to come?” Elliot asks, incredulous. “You don’t think the moment I heard, I wasn’t already on my way?”
She feels her chin quiver. “It’s not fair for me to ask you–”
“Olivia,” he interrupts. “Don’t do this again.”
“Do what?”
“Push me away,” he says. “I thought we’ve been making progress.”
They had been. Before she was running down the alley, about to get shot, she and Elliot had made some headway in their… unconventional friendship. She wouldn’t quite call it dating, though it might’ve been what the young kids did these days. They went for drinks. They texted. He hung out with her and her son. Olivia tried not to notice all of the times when it looked like Elliot wanted to kiss her. She tried to ignore all of the times she wanted to give in and let him.
“We have been–”
“Okay,” he says, squeezing her hand. “Then it’s not unfair to ask me to come.” He pauses, shaking his head. “You know, when I said I care for you, it wasn’t the full truth. I just didn’t want to scare you. But I love you, Olivia. I love you and even if you never–” He swallows, looks down at their joined hands. “If you can never get there with me, it doesn’t matter. I’ll keep being here. Showing up.”
Olivia feels one single tear break from her eye and Elliot chuckles softly, reaching up to wipe it away.
“It’s okay,” he says, soothing her. She shakes her head.
“I can get there with you,” she says quietly. His eyebrows raise, surprised.
“Yeah?”
Olivia nods, taking a deep breath. “I think I’m there already.”
He smiles. “Now?”
She nods again, tentatively.
Elliot leans forward, tapping his forehead against hers. They sit like that for a while, and her heart beats harder than it did when she was running down the street while she waits for his kiss.
“Mom?”
Olivia jerks out of Elliot’s hold, as he stands from his perch, brushing his hands against his thighs.
“Elliot?”
“Hey baby,” she says, bringing her arms out to gather Noah in a hug. She glances at Martha, standing in the hallway, then over at Elliot, keeping a respectful distance from the reunited mother and son.
“Thank you, for bringing him,” Olivia says. “If it’s alright with him, he’ll go home with Elliot tonight.”
It ends up being more than alright with Noah.
one more
It doesn’t take some life-changing event.
Olivia’s been on the job for a long time, Elliot even longer. At their age, they know what they are doing in the field and no one is better than them. That’s always been true.
They spend the rest of the winter tentatively chatting, through text and calls, and their conversations warm with the weather.
In March, they work a case together, one of those personal ones that make Elliot a little more antsy, a little more unpredictable. At the end, when the arrests have been made and the victims have been helped, Elliot wraps a large hand around Olivia’s wrist, in that hallway that he has embarrassingly come to think of as theirs.
“Can I drive you home?”
Olivia cocks her head, biting her lip. “Why?”
Her car is out front. It would be incredibly inconvenient to take him up on this offer.
“Or we can take your car.”
“El,” she says, stroking his wrist. “What–”
“I just need–” Elliot shakes his head, blinking rapidly. “I need a normal night. With family.” He drops a shoulder against the wall. “I can’t go back to my empty apartment, Liv.”
Olivia drives Elliot back to her apartment. He sits at the kitchen counter with Noah, uselessly helping him with math homework while Olivia makes boxed mac and cheese. Elliot eats it cold with a glass of bourbon after Noah goes to sleep. Olivia sits next to him on the couch, feet in his lap while they watch the news and then they fall asleep like that, too exhausted to move.
Things accelerate after that.
April brings rain and weighted looks everytime they see each other. Olivia turns down a date with an advocate lawyer because the idea of it makes her feel like she is doing something wrong. She gets tipsy on cabernet after work with Elliot at the bar around the corner from the precinct and the entire NYPD lights up with gossip at the former partners staying out together after ten.
And they don’t even know the full story. They don’t know that Elliot walked her back to her apartment. That at some point on the walk, Elliot had tentatively grabbed her hand and they had kept it that way the entire walk. It started raining when they were a block away and they hurried to the lobby, giddy and excited as they watched the rain outside. Jorge walked into the backroom to give them privacy.
Elliot was respectful. He didn’t ask to come up because it was late and Noah was asleep. They stood near the front door of her apartment building, waiting for Elliot’s car to pick him up. He never tried to kiss her, and never tried to touch her outside the handhold. He’s waiting for her, she knows. He made a move and she rejected him and now it’s up to her.
It’s never been her strong suit. Maybe when she was younger and she went out to bars to forget, but even then people would approach her. She barely had to do any of the work. And that was a nameless person at a bar.
That wasn’t Elliot.
So she doesn’t kiss him, not in the lobby of her apartment, and he gets into his car to go back to Queens. And she doesn’t text him back for two weeks.
It’s the first week in May when Olivia gets her shit together. It’s not after a huge case, or an emotional one. There is no major shift. It’s just that she tries to run, tries to do what both of them have done in the past, and she finds that resisting her need for him is more exhausting than needing him.
Olivia takes Noah to Woodstock, then thinks about what she is going to say to Elliot during the entire two hour drive to his loft.
When he answers the door, a surprised expression quickly schooled to stoic, the carefully constructed words fly from her head. Instead, she steps forward, grips the back of his neck and kisses him – uncaring of time or place or situation.
Luckily, he’s alone. He grabs her waist and kicks the door closed, pushing her back against it.
“Liv–”
“I’m ready,” she says quickly, exhaling. “I’m ready for this. I’m sorry.”
Elliot shakes his head, rests his forehead against hers. “Don’t ever be sorry.”
Olivia licks her lips and he groans, pulling her back into him. They stumble towards his bedroom before getting caught up in each other on his couch. It’s there that they shuck their clothes, their eyes drinking in sights they were never allowed to see before. Golden skin and hidden tattoos and endless muscles. Olivia bites down on his shoulder when she straddles him, rocking into his lap.
“Bed,” he mumbles, lips nibbling on her neck. “We need to get to the bed.”
He takes her hands off of him and she pouts, but then he’s gripping her thighs, hiking her up so he can carry her the short distance into her bedroom. When he drops her down on her back, she frowns playfully up at him.
“Never do that again.”
Elliot laughs. “You don’t like being picked up?”
“I’m fifty-five years old.”
“And surprisingly light,” he says into a long kiss, hand slipping between her legs.
They lay in bed together for an hour after they are finished. Olivia dozes, naked and wrapped in his thick comforter. Sometimes she wakes to his eyes closed, bald head buried in the pillow. Other times, she opens her eyes to find him looking at her, fingers tracing her hip beneath the covers.
Olivia hums, scooting closer, though their legs are already tangled.
“Is this what you wanted to happen,” she asks, “back in the winter?”
Elliot smiles, a little sheepish. “Yeah, probably.”
She turns to her back, looks up at the ceiling. She remembers his tongue between her legs, the firm grip he held onto her thighs when he slid inside of her.
“I should’ve let you,” she says, exhaling. She means it to sound like a joke, but it falls flat. Elliot lifts a shoulder to his ear.
“You weren’t ready.”
Olivia rolls her eyes, turning away from Elliot so she can back up into his arms, cuddling into his chest. She traces the soft sheets.
“I just feel–” She swallows, surprised by the lump in her throat.
“Tell me,” he urges, squeezing her waist.
“I feel like we’ve wasted so much time.” Her voice sounds thick. “I wanted to, back then. I should’ve just been ready.”
“You can’t force yourself, Liv.”
“Being with you didn’t exactly feel like a chore, Elliot.”
“That’s not what I mean,” he tells her, his voice soothing. “I hurt you. There is no other way around that. And you needed time. Maybe you still need time, I don’t know. But I accept the time I have with you, however long it is. I fucking cherish it, Olivia.”
“I know that,” Olivia says, intertwining their fingers on her belly.
“When do you have to go home?” Elliot mumbles into her neck, fingers already shifting upward to cup her breast. Olivia sighs, turning back around and bracing her hands on his chest so that she can climb on top of him.
She rocks, once or twice, just enough to get Elliot’s breath hitching. She places a kiss on his lips, lets his hands wander to places they never would’ve before an hour ago.
“I am home.”