Chapter Text
[DAY THREE - SUNDAY]
Red and blue cruise lights swirl outside the building for the third night in a row, and Olivia immediately begins to panic.
She yanks at the cuffs, pivoting towards the slumped figure of Kathy Stabler beside her. Shadows partially conceal Kathy's frightened face and rain lashes against the window panes, just as it did last night and the night before.
He's coming.
His footsteps echo as he approaches, but it doesn't fucking matter that she can see because her wrists are still bound, Kathy is still here, and there's still no escape.
“Kathy,” Olivia whispers. And again, louder. “Kathy?!” Louder because the footsteps are getting closer, her heart is pounding in her ears, and she has to get Kathy out of here.
Then, she hears it. A muffled voice calling out from somewhere outside the room.
A voice she knows as well as her own heartbeat.
Except it's not possible; he never comes for her.
Kathy.
The emergency vehicle lights shut off, bathing them in total darkness. The tip of the cigarette appears, hovering above Kathy, and there is the lone brown eye, tinged with red.
Kathy’s eyes are wide, unblinking, as she stares up at him- only her chest isn't moving.
She's frozen.
She's dead.
Olivia opens her mouth to scream-
“Liv?” Fin rests a hand gently on Olivia's elbow.
She jumps, hot coffee spilling over from the Styrofoam cup in her hand onto her wrist. The coffee sears her skin and she hisses through her teeth, droplets splattering on the hem of her pants as the cup slips out of her hand and lands on the floor.
“Jesus! What…fuck!” Fin arches backwards to avoid the spill but fails, his shoes taking the brunt of it. He reaches for her again, managing to grasp her biceps. “Are you okay!?”
“Ow,” Olivia whimpers. Reflexive tears are already forming behind her eyes, the skin on her wrist bright pink and stinging painfully. Fin places a protective arm around her, guiding her away from the coffee station and the prying eyes of Bruno and Carisi.
“What the hell is going on with you!?” he frets. “You’re a mess!” He pushes her into the kitchenette and turns on the tap, shoving her wrist under lukewarm water.
The relief is instant, and her shoulders deflate as she watches the angry pink spot on her hand start to fade. “Fin, I…I…I am okay it's just a mild-”
“You're not okay! Did you sleep last night?”
Olivia catches a glimpse of her reflection in the glass above the sink. The circles beneath her eyes are now a deep brown, the skin around them red and blotchy. The concealer she spent thirty minutes applying this morning is doing nothing to mask either one.
She tossed and turned for hours last night, her brain replaying the argument with Elliot, over and over and over like a broken record, dissecting every word. She gave in at one in the morning and took an Ambien, hoping it would quiet her brain so she could finally sleep. But every time she closed her eyes, panic crept back in at the edges, and her eyes would fly open, heart racing inside her chest.
“Look, maybe we need some space for a little while…”
She should have known they'd reach this point sooner rather than later.
He’d sounded so exhausted, so defeated. And she knows why: he's growing tired of the waiting, tired of being pushed away, tired of her.
Ed, Brian- they would have tired of her, too. She ended it before they had the chance, before she'd have to hear the defeat in their voices, or watch the weariness in their eyes transform into resentment.
That same desperation is clawing at her insides now, telling her to let Elliot go, before it's too late. But she can’t. She can't let Elliot go; she doesn't know how. His absence leaves an emptiness inside her chest, a void she cannot fill, has never been able to fill, because it's shaped like him, and it murmurs her name, and it aches for his touch.
I carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart) i am never without it.
“Liv, please tell me what's going on,” Fin shuts off the water, keeping hold of her hand. He tries to meet her gaze, but if she looks him in the eye, she’ll break down again.
She stares at the faucet, instead.
“Bad dreams,” she mutters.
“Did you take your Ambien?”
She clenches her jaw. “It didn't work.”
She finally fell into a restless sleep around three and awoke not two hours later, Kathy's wide, unblinking eyes burned into her brain. A sob lodged itself inside her throat and there was no stopping it; it tore its way out of her. She broke down crying beside the faint glow of the lamp on her nightstand in her empty bedroom.
She cried; and she cried; and she cried- the deep, wracking sobs that burn your eyes, and make it difficult to breathe.
And the tears wouldn't stop. It was a deluge, like a dam broke from somewhere inside her chest, and after a few minutes she didn't know what or who she was crying for anymore, and she didn't know why, and she didn't know how to stop it. So, she just kept crying, until her head was pounding, her abdomen ached, and her body ran out of tears to shed.
Only, there was no relief. No alleviation of the tightness in her chest, no easement of the panic and the guilt and the fear. Just more tears, waiting, building back up behind her eyes and demanding release. She lay in bed until her alarm rang, staring up at the ceiling, eyes swollen and puffy, her brain foggy from the Ambien, wondering if she was on the verge of some sort of breakdown.
“Then, please, do something. Call Lindstrom, call Elliot!” Fin begs, grabbing a hand towel for her. “You need to-”
“I need you to stop coddling me, Fin,” Olivia snaps, snatching the hand towel. “I told you I'm fine, I just need some fucking sleep, and I don't need to call Lindstrom!” She throws the towel back onto the counter, a shocked Fin gaping at her as she runs a shaky hand across her forehead.
“Cap,” Carisi sticks his head into the kitchenette. “Amanda and Curry are back- they found fingerprints in de Luca’s apartment.”
Olivia turns and stalks past Carisi and Fin into the squadroom, where a bleary-eyed Rollins and Curry are whispering with Bruno. The floor beneath the coffee pot is clean and dry, and a red hot rage pulses through her at the sight of it because that was her mess, and it was her job to clean it up, not theirs.
Her team abruptly stops talking when she enters the room, staring warily at her. It's so silent you could hear a pin drop, and Olivia has the sudden urge to put her head in her hands and scream at the top of her lungs, until her throat feels as raw and sore as the rest of her.
She bites her tongue, hard, drawing blood. “Carisi says you found prints,” she manages, her tone unnaturally flat. She swallows. That all too familiar metallic taste descends down her throat where it joins the ball of nausea that's churning in her stomach.
Amanda and Bruno both take one large step backwards at the same time, leaving Curry alone, front and center, like some sort of comedy bit from a movie.
Curry whips her head around to glare at them. She sighs heavily and squares her shoulders, as if she's preparing for some sort of onslaught. “Captain, why don't we step into your office, and we can talk about it.”
That red hot rage is back. She doesn't know where it's coming from, but it’s had enough of everyone treating her like a fucking child.
This is her fucking unit!
“You can tell me right here!” Her voice is shrill; Bruno and Amanda wince.
Curry doesn't.
“And if you think that you-”
“Now,” Curry commands, her voice low and authoritative.
In the three years Curry’s been at SVU, she’s never pulled rank or given an order to anyone, not once, least of all Olivia, who is, in a technical sense, her superior. The shock of it is like a bucket of ice water, and Olivia clamps her mouth shut, stunned.
Curry holds open the door to Olivia's office, and Olivia blinks, her brain scrambling to catch up. She obeys wordlessly. Curry follows her inside, shutting the door behind them with a click.
“You can't keep going like this,” she says immediately, her hand still on the doorknob. “Do you know how dangerous sleep deprivation is?”
Olivia barely registers her words.
She's pacing in front of her desk, wringing her hands, self-awareness slowly worming its way back into her consciousness. A woman is missing, they’ve got at least one dead body on their hands, her team can’t trust her to handle the findings of a simple search warrant, and she’s being “handled” by a fellow Captain.
They're scared of her.
She's scared of her.
She's borderline delirious.
She's always been a fortress, formidable, a bastion for victims, the backbone of this unit, and she’s crumbling like a house of cards over a bad dream, and the fear of getting dumped by-
Dumped?
Dumped?!
What the hell is wrong with her?! They’re not even fucking! How can she get dumped?! And why is she losing her mind over this?! It's not like he's going to walk away again! He promised that he wasn't going to-
“Captain?” Curry approaches Olivia slowly, like a horse that may spook. “Maybe you should take a seat for a..”
“Just tell me!”
Curry purses her lips, and takes a deep breath. “We found two partial prints. One on the front door, and one on the wall near de Luca's bedroom. I’m not sure how, maybe sheer dumb luck, but we have a 12-point match.”
Olivia stares at her, waiting.
“The prints belong to Alfredo Romero. He has a long list of priors- theft, assault, illegal gambling, low-level drug trafficking. He's known muscle for the Lucchese Crime Family.”
Mafia.
Olivia's vision starts tunneling. Curry and her voice move further and further away, a train chugging off to some remote out-of-body place as the walls of her office close in around her.
She knew. She knew this case didn't belong with homicide or SVU. She knew it when she saw the symbol on Bianca de Luca’s face, and she knew it when she saw the woman in the photograph.
But the alternative to living in denial is living in reality. And reality means acknowledging that Elliot can't be a paper pusher for the rest of his career. Reality means admitting she wants him to be a paper pusher, so she knows where he is every hour of every day, and it means admitting she can't control everything around her.
It was only a matter of time before the OCCB had another big case dropped on their doorstep- before he would be taken from her again. Only now she is going to be the one dropping it there. It will be her fault- her fault if he goes undercover, her fault if something happens to him, her fault if-
Curry has a vice grip on Olivia's arms, and she guides her over to the couch, pushing her forcefully down and back against the cushions.
“Olivia? Olivia, you need to breathe.”
Olivia opens her mouth to shout that she is fucking breathing! but she starts gasping for air instead, her brain swimming from the temporary lack of oxygen. Curry's concerned face is growing closer, chugging back from the other end of that tunnel, as she places a grounding hand against Olivia's back. Curry's hand is warm, and she starts rubbing light circles between Olivia’s shoulder blades. The pressure behind Olivia’s eyes is overwhelming again, and she puts her head in her hands. Salt trickles down her cheeks and over her lips, dampening her palms.
It's quiet; even the normal muted chatter from the squadroom is absent. Olivia can hear the old clock on the wall ticking softly. It was Cragen’s. She never took it down.
Tendrils of embarrassment start snaking their way up from the pit of her stomach as she sits there. She's cracked open; the meaty part of her underbelly she spent years building a shell around is exposed, her weaknesses on full display.
They'll all know, now.
They probably knew already.
She's not sure which one terrifies her more.
Olivia finally manages to quell the tears and scrubs her hands down her face, a last ditch effort to hide them. She knows it's in vain, Curry is astute, but she does it anyway. “I'm sorry, I'm…I'm not my best today,” she whispers.
“Yeah, well, join the club,” Curry mutters sarcastically.
Olivia leans back to stare her down, a skeptic retort on her lips, and finds herself stunned for the second time that morning. Curry's eyes are red-rimmed, exhaustion etched into the lines of her face as she makes eye contact with Olivia. It's something Olivia should have noticed the moment Curry walked in. It's always something Olivia notices: because her team, and their well-being, is important to her.
Except she didn't notice it today because she's wrapped up in her own head, worried about herself. The guilt is heavy enough to suffocate her. She ducks her head to get a deep breath in as she clasps her hands together.
“I'm sorry,” she says again.
“You're worried about involving Stabler,” Curry bends over, also clasping her hands together, mirroring Olivia's posture.
It's a psychological technique, mirroring. It can be subconscious, but it can also be intentional, a way to build rapport with someone- make them trust you. It took Olivia years to learn what it was and how to use it to help victims of assault.
But Curry?
With Curry it's always been pure instinct.
“It must have been really scary for you, when he was in that accident,” she adds.
Olivia knows exactly what Curry’s doing, and she wants to be annoyed, because she's not a victim being questioned about an assault, and Curry's not her therapist.
But she's exhausted.
And she is worried about Elliot.
And she was scared, absolutely terrified that he was going to leave her again.
Alone-
Only he wouldn’t have been walking away from her. She couldn't have imagined him gallivanting off with his happy kids, and his happy wife, living their happy life. It was her talisman of protection the first time- to ward off the self-loathing and the heartbreak.
No, he would have been gone forever. The light in the blues of his eyes gone, the deep rumble of his baritone gone, the warmth of his arms- her cocoon of safety - gone.
His love: gone.
Gone, gone, gone, gone, gone.
And she never worked though any of that- never allowed herself to process it. Then again, how could she? How could she ever process a world, the possibility of a world, without him in it?
A not admitting of the wound
Until it grew so wide-
Olivia unclenches her hands, wiping them down her thighs. “I can't bring Bell the case that sends him under again. I can't.”
“Then, I'll do it.”
Olivia looks up, frowning. “What?”
“I’ll bring Bell the case,” Curry stands up, walking over to the desk to retrieve Olivia's cell phone. “I’ll make the call, I'll take responsibility for bringing the OCCB in.”
“But you can’t!”
“Why not?”
“Because…you…you’re…you're not…”
“The Captain?” Curry raises her eyebrows as she takes her seat again beside Olivia.
Olivia opens her mouth. She shuts it.
“Let this one fall on me. Give yourself an out.” Curry hands her the phone. “Or not. It's your call, Boss.”
Olivia hesitates. The whole thing is silly, a ridiculous exercise in semantics. It's her unit, so it's her case. Curry being the one to refer it to the OCCB doesn't change a damn thing logistically.
But it does make the whole thing feel more palatable.
She swallows thickly and takes the phone out of Curry's hand to bring up her contacts list.
Ayanna picks up on the fourth ring.
“Liv?” Ayanna sounds confused, which quickly dovetails into worry. “Is everything okay? What's going on? Did-”
“Yes, yes, ummm…. everything's fine,” Olivia gulps and runs her sweaty palms down her thighs again, making desperate eye contact with Curry.
“Sergeant Bell? This is Captain Reneé Curry, I'm here with Captain Benson.”
The phone line goes totally silent. Curry squints, “Ummm…you there?”
“Yes,” Ayanna responds curtly.
The silence stretches on, and Olivia has that urge to put her head in her hands and scream at the top of her lungs again.
Thankfully, Curry recovers, and takes the reins. “We’re calling about a case. We picked up a homicide two days ago, a woman in her early twenties. There was a strange mark carved into her face. We now have reason to believe there's Mafia involvement.”
“Based on what?”
“Prints at one of our crime scenes belong to Alfredo Romero. He’s known muscle for the Lucchese Crime Family.”
Ayanna sighs. “Shit. I should have seen this coming.”
“Why?” Olivia hopes she doesn't sound as frantic as she suddenly feels.
“There's been increased chatter through Interpol the last few months. The Lucchese Family have extensive networks through Italy and Eastern Europe that- Jackson! What did I tell you about jumping on the- Jackson!”
Ayanna’s phone clatters onto a hard surface; Olivia and Curry wince simultaneously. Bell’s stern voice is muffled, and then she's fumbling with the phone again, cursing under her breath. “Sorry, Jesus. Sorry.”
Curry unsuccessfully tries to hold back a smile, and clears her throat. “Do you really think this could all be connected? Our case involves a family, a brother and a sister wh-”
“What do you think, Liv?” Ayanna interrupts.
“Me?” Olivia squeaks.
There's a pause.
“Okay, what the hell is going on?” The worry in Ayanna's voice is back. “You don't sound like yourself at all, and why is Captain Curry on this call with you?”
Curry looks offended. She opens her mouth to respond, but Olivia jumps in first this time. “I can stop by the OCCB in the morning, but Curry is the one bringing you the-”
“Curry is bringing me this case?” Now Ayanna sounds offended.
“Yes, I-”
“Isn't this your case? This is your unit, so if-”
“Ayanna, I need you to listen to me!” Curry reaches over to grab Olivia's hand, squeezing it tightly. Olivia takes a shaky breath.
“Olivia? If something’s wrong, would you please tell me?” Ayanna asks softly, a hint of a plea in her voice.
“I’m fine,” Olivia says, and she doesn't sound fine; she doesn't sound convincing at all. There's a sharp inhale on the other end of the phone line, which means Bell isn't convinced either.
But she doesn't push it.
“Alright, fine then, I’ll see you tomorrow. And have Curry send me the file this afternoon,” she adds snidely.
She hangs up.
Curry shakes her head, blowing out a breath as she lets go of Olivia's hand. “Is she always like that?”
“She probably doesn't appreciate being lied to.”
“Yeah, well, who does?”
The nausea in Olivia's stomach is roiling again; everything is about to spiral completely out of her control. Ayanna is probably calling Elliot right now, and then he's going to call her. She can just hear him:
You should have called me!
Why didn't you talk to me about this?
Look, maybe we need some space for a little while…
The case will be officially transferred to the OCCB, which means Ayanna calls the shots, not her, and if Interpol gets involved, he could be sent under again for months. She will have no idea where he is, if he's okay, or when she'll hear from him again. He could wind up in a ditch somewhere, two holes in his chest and blood pooling around his cooling body while she's at home, clueless, folding laundry and watching trashy reality television.
She wants to handcuff him to his desk. She wants to dig her nails into his arms until they're so deeply embedded that no one can extricate him from her. She wants to snap and snarl like a territorial wolf if anyone so much as looks at him. She wants her arms and legs entangled around his body while he's buried so deeply inside of her that it's impossible to tell where she starts and he ends.
And what if he wants to go?
What if being apart from him hurts her more, (has always hurt her more) than it hurts him?
And what if the space and the time makes him realize she's not actually what he wants, that she's too broken, that maybe it wouldn’t work out?
He won't leave this time. He’ll stick around out of obligation, a promise he made when he still had hope for them. There will be defeat, and there will be disappointment, and it will never fucking end because she can't let him go.
“So, the game plan?” Curry asks.
Olivia blinks. “Huh?”
“Game plan. Do you want the game plan?” Curry asks again, her eyebrows raised expectantly.
“Oh…uhhh yeah. Yeah, the game plan,” Olivia nods.
Curry studies her for a few seconds, as if she’s making sure she has Olivia's attention, before continuing. “We need to put eyes on Romero. We don't have a body yet, so if we pick him up too soon we tip our hat.”
“But we don't have the manpower for-”
“Not us. Unis,” Curry says, standing up. “Detectives are too obvious, he’d make us. We get a loan on a couple of kids from the local precinct, and he'll think they're just tailing him for drugs.”
“Curry, that's a lot of trust to-”
“We don't need to trust them. We don't need them to do anything other than make sure he doesn't disappear.” Curry leans against the edge of Olivia's desk, arms crossed. “And I want to send Fin and Bruno back out. This time to the Bronx and Queens. Camilla de Luca is the only other homicide in Manhattan with the same M.O. But if there's been chatter through Interpol, there have to be more bodies.”
The cogs in Olivia's brain are starting to turn again. “It still seems like some sort of gang symbol, but Mafia doesn't normally operate that way. The whole thing doesn't fit any of the typical patterns.”
Curry nods. “You’re right. I’ll have Rollins do some research - see if she can't find something.” She yawns, wiping a hand down her face. “And I'll get the report and paperwork ready to send over to Bell.” She starts moving files around on Olivia's desk and then stops. She opens the side drawer, frowning. “Where are your pens?”
Olivia points at the middle top drawer.
Paperclips, rubber bands, and sticky notes are all jumbled together when Curry opens the drawer, and she grimaces. “How do you find anything in here?” She begins pulling the rubber bands and paperclips apart and putting them into separate piles.
“If you're gonna just-”
“Sorry,” Curry puts her hands up apologetically. She quits the compulsive organizing and closes the drawer carefully, black pen in hand. She plops down in Olivia's chair, scoots forward, grabs the paper file to her right, and opens it up.
It’s quiet again.
Olivia swallows, painfully. “Seems like you've got everything in order, here.”
Curry looks up, her eyes soft. “Are you sure you can't go home and try to rest? You're meeting Bell first thing tomorrow. You need a break.”
“I don't need a break,” Olivia says through gritted teeth. “I need to work this case.”
A break is the last thing she needs. A break means having nothing to do but climb the walls of her apartment while her team works the case, and Elliot thinks about space, and Curry sits in her chair, looking like she belongs there, except if she belongs there, then Olivia belongs nowhere, and if she's nowhere then who is she?
“Okay, I understand,” Curry says, with such kindness and empathy that Olivia wants to hate her for it. She stands back up with the folder and the pen, making her way towards the door.
“You're good at this, Cur-Reneé.” The words are tumbling out of her mouth before she’s fully registered what she’s saying. But it’s the truth.
She surprises Reneé too, who turns back with a quizzical expression. “This?”
“This job.”
Reneé’s eyes widen. “Captain, I…I wasn't trying to…you don't think I'm gunning for-”
Olivia puts her hand up, shaking her head. Reneé's shoulders sag in relief.
“I think you have a gift,” Olivia continues. “And you are a very valuable member of this team.” The pressure is behind her eyes again; she’s starting to think it’s here to stay.
Reneé's face flushes. “Thank you. That…that means a lot coming from you.”
“And I appreciate your help today- not just with the case.”
“I really didn't do very mu-”
“Yes, you did.”
Reneé nods, finally accepting the compliment. “I’m grateful to work SVU. I can only hope…” she trails off. “I can only hope that I’ll always have a place here,” she says, a tremble in her voice.
“You will,” Olivia gives her a small smile. Reneé returns it.
“So, does this mean I don't have to worry about you leaving me to go back to IAB?” Olivia intended for her question to sound light-hearted, teasing, but it sounds desperate, like a plea.
Reneé pauses, her hand in the air as she reaches for the doorknob. “I’m not going back to IAB.” She says it so confidently, with no hesitation, like she'd made her mind up some time ago.
“Why not?”
Reneé meets Olivia's gaze, her eyes misty. “Too many ghosts,” she whispers. “See you out there.”
The door clicks shut.
The clock on the wall ticks softly behind her.
—
“Noah! Dinner!” Olivia calls out for the second time as she pulls the casserole out of the oven. It's some Stouffer’s frozen meal she found buried in the back of the freezer and it looks, frankly, disgusting. She deposits it on top of the stovetop, shucking the oven mitts as she suppresses another yawn.
She insisted on staying at the office all afternoon to “do something useful,” so Reneé tasked her with helping Amanda research. Except she spent most of the time staring blankly at her computer screen and compulsively checking her phone. She thinks she may have dozed off a few times, too, because it couldn’t possibly have gone from two pm to four pm as quickly as it did. She finally gave up at four-thirty and left, to her team’s visible relief.
She looks down at her watch again.
It's six-thirty; Elliot still hasn’t called her.
She knows him better than anyone. Either Ayanna never called him, or he's avoiding her. The former is unlikely; the latter has her spiraling about all the different ways he could be preparing to let her down. She tried typing out a text message three or four times, but each one sounded more desperate than the last.
Hey, how is your day going?
I talked to Ayanna earlier.
Are you avoiding me?
Why won't you call me?
She's pretty sure if he doesn't call her soon, she will lose whatever last bit of sanity she has left.
She hears Noah's bedroom door finally creak open and he pads over in his bare feet to the kitchen island, cellphone in hand. “Mom, Sophia, Emma, and I went to Chipotle like an hour ago, I'm not hungry.”
“What!?” Olivia swivels around, hands on her hips. “And you didn't think to tell me that before I put this in the oven?”
He shrugs and lifts his phone back up to his face.
She sighs, staring down at the sad state of her dinner, and pulls a plate out from the cabinet. “Well, can we sit together like a family, at least? While I eat…whatever this is?”
Noah rolls his eyes and plops down, leaning back against the chair with his arms crossed. Lately, it’s felt like pulling teeth getting him to communicate with her, and some days he refuses to sit down entirely, so she takes it as a win as she brings her plate over to the table.
“What did you guys get up to today?” She lifts her fork and takes a bite; it doesn't taste as bad as it looks. She chews half-heartedly and swallows.
He shrugs again. “Nothing.”
“You guys see a movie? Go shopping?”
“No.”
“Do anything else fun?”
“Not really.”
She's not getting anywhere with this line of questioning. “How’s dance going?”
He perks up at that, and shifts in his seat. “Good. Well ummm…I actually…I tried out for the competitive travel team.”
“You did?! When!?”
“A few weeks ago.”
“That's-” her throat tightens up “-that's a big deal, why didn't you tell me?” She takes another bite of food to mask the tremble in her voice. It's not a shock he didn't tell her, he's a teenager now, but he used to tell her everything. She knew there would come a day when he didn't, she just didn't expect it to come so quickly.
“Because you would get all excited before I knew if I made the team.”
He isn't wrong. “Well!?” she raises her eyebrows. “Did you make it?”
“Yeah,” he says sheepishly.
“Noah!” Olivia’s heart swells, and she reaches across the table to take his hand in her own. “Honey, I'm so proud of you.”
He smiles. It's the first smile from him she's seen all night. “Coach says college scouts come to the competitions!”
“Do Moms get to come to the competitions, too?” she jokes.
He smiles even wider. “Yeah! The first one is in August, and when we drive up to Rochester for the-”
“Rochester?!” Her brain is so sluggish today, it's finally catching up to her now what a travel team actually means. “Noah, that's five hours away fr-”
“So?” he interrupts. The smile falls off his face and the attitude returns. “They rent a bus for us! And the school pays for a hotel, it's no big deal.”
“But ten hours in the car for me with work would be-”
“Matt and Ginny said they could help if we needed it!”
“You told the McCanns you were trying out for the team?” Olivia asks, trying to keep her voice even.
“Well, yeah,” he says, as if she's asking him a dumb question, as if it's perfectly normal that his half-brother’s adopted parents receive important news about his life before his own mother. She purses her lips and stabs a piece of corn with her fork.
“I was just there last weekend,” he adds. “You were working.”
“Someone's gotta keep the lights on in this place,” Olivia responds bitterly.
“Why do you always get weird when I start talking about Matt and Ginny?” he grumbles.
“I don't get weird.”
“Yeah, you do! You're being weird right now! It's like you don't like them!”
“That's not true! I do like them.”
Well. That's only partially true.
They're good people. Matt coaches Connor’s baseball team and Ginny volunteers at adoption agencies across Upstate New York. They're accommodating and good-natured, almost to a fault, and they care for Noah, no strings attached.
But there is a secret part of her that resents them for giving her son a taste of what it’s like to be a part of a traditional nuclear family- living in the suburbs, having a Dad to play ball with, having a Mom who bakes rather than works.
To have what she cannot give him.
That same part of her fears he prefers them to her. That if, given the choice, he would choose the McCanns and never look back.
“You don’t have to come to the competitions. I can take the bus with the team. And the McCanns can-”
“I want to come,” Olivia asserts stubbornly. “I want to be there.”
“You have a really important job, Mom.” There is a resignation in his tone that makes her chest ache because nothing, nothing, is more important to her than Noah. Nothing.
“You are more important to me than my job,” she asserts firmly. “You’ve always been more important.”
He doesn't respond.
“You know that, right?” she pleads.
He looks down in his lap, nodding. He doesn't seem convinced, and God he can't think, he can't possibly think-
Tears spring to her eyes as her phone starts buzzing on the kitchen counter.
“Time for the nightly call with the boyfriend,” Noah stands up from the table, his attention still directed at the floor.
Olivia turns towards the counter, wiping at her face once she has her back to him. “He's not my boyfriend.”
Noah rolls his eyes as he heads toward his bedroom. “Whatever you say, Mom. I've got homework, anyway.”
Olivia snatches the phone.
It is Elliot.
He waited until the usual time to call.
She clears her throat, trying to steady her voice. “Hello?”
“Hey, Liv,” he says warmly.
The familiar comfort of his voice sends a fresh wave of tears. She’s wiping at her face again and she's so fucking sick of crying, of this endless well of emotion that's opened up inside her chest from God knows where. She can't control it. She can't control anything around her anymore. She carefully, quietly, swallows down the lump in her throat.
“You there?” he asks nervously.
She clears her throat again. “Just cleaning up from dinner.” She takes her plate from the table over to the sink.
“How was your day?”
“Fine.”
“Were you able to get any sleep last night?”
“Sorta.”
Fuck. She sounds like her son.
“No, actually. No. My day wasn't fine,” she corrects.
“Ayanna called me,” he responds casually, as if it just happened, as if he hadn't been sitting on this information all goddamned day, rather than calling her about it.
“Yeah I’ll bet she did,” Olivia mutters. “She tell you I’m a mess, too? That I needed to be handled?” She drops her plate into the sink and it clangs loudly against the metal basin.
“She was a little worried about you, yeah.”
Olivia puts the phone down and leans over the sink, gripping the edges so tightly her knuckles start turning white.
“She said you're stopping by in the morning.”
Olivia doesn't respond.
“You should have called me,” he implores.
“Called you for what, exactly?”
“To talk about this, we-”
“Ayanna called you this morning,” she says, her voice low. “If you wanted to talk about this, you should have called.”
“I should have called? You wanted me to call you, is that what this is? Like I'm supposed to read your-”
“Yeah, if you were both so worried about-”
“I was a little busy wh-”
“Busy? On desk duty?”
“You know what, Liv?” he scoffs. He blows out a breath loudly through his nose trying to gain control of his temper, and for a fraction of a second she's afraid he's going to just hang up on her. “You need someone to lash out at? Fine. Let's hear it.”
That stops her cold. “What?”
“Let's hear it!” he repeats, louder. “Say what you need to say! Get it off your chest!”
She opens her mouth but no words come out. She releases her vice grip on the sink, the edge leaving an indentation in her palms.
You should have known I would want you to call me!
Why didn't you check on me?
I’m going out of my mind for fear of losing you again.
There must be something wrong with you for loving me.
“Well?!”
“You know, you don't have to put up with me, Elliot. If I'm so-”
“Put up with you?!” he exclaims. “Is that what you think of me?!” his voice cracks and he stops, his breathing uneven.
She’s wounded him- she can hear it in his voice, and how, how is she still screwing this up? She's standing in her kitchen, staring at the glob of casserole in her sink picking a fight for the second night in a row, and hurting his feelings so she doesn't have to talk about her own.
And she can't keep doing this. She needs to ask him; she needs to know. She's vacillating between whiny and clingy, like some sort of desperate ‘pick me,’ and shutting down and pulling away from him altogether. She has to be giving him whiplash; she’d be sick of her, too.
“El? Can I…I need to ask you something.”
He's still breathing unevenly. “Okay,” his voice is so quiet she almost doesn't hear him.
“Last night when ummm…last night you…” she stops and looks up at the ceiling, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Ummm…” her voice shakes. She stops again. “What you said about…about…taking some space?”
He's silent. She can't hear his uneven breathing anymore. Is he holding his breath?
“Is that what you…is that what you want?”
He doesn’t respond right away and she squeezes her eyes shut, her heart beating wildly inside her chest in anticipation of being dealt a crushing blow.
“No,” he breathes out, and he sounds scared.
And how fucking dare he sound scared. He was the one that suggested it! Is it not what he wants? If it isn't, then why would he say it?! Did he change his fucking mind?!
She presses her fingers into her eyes to try to stop the newest wave of tears, and she doesn’t know why she’s still trying because they keep coming anyway, and there's relief in there somewhere she's pretty sure, but she's so overwhelmed, so utterly spent, she would have to dig around for it in the jumbled up shit in her chest, like the paperclips and rubber bands in her desk Reneé uselessly tried to untangle.
“I thought that's…I thought that's what you wanted,” he protests, like this is somehow her fault.
“What?! No!” She feels borderline indignant now; she spent the last twenty-four hours terrified that he was all but ready to give up on her. “Why would you think that?! When have I ever told you that I wa-”
“Then why won't you talk to me!?” he exclaims, his voice raw. He sounds as desperate as she feels, and God, this is her fault. It's all her fault because all she has to do is tell him the truth, and she can't even seem to fucking do that.
“I’m sorry, I'm sorry,” he hurriedly adds, a quiver in his voice. “That wasn't…you don't owe me any-”
“I'm scared,” Olivia blurts.
“You’re scared?” he questions, though she knows he knows. Fear is seeping from her pores, and it's laced through every word. But he wants to hear her say it- wants to hear her say why.
She bites down on her lip, hard.
“What if this is it?” she finally manages to say. It's a loaded question, a layered question, and she prays he understands, because she's not sure she has the strength to tease it out.
“It isn't,” he responds with that same certainty in his voice he had that night in her kitchen.
“But what if it is?”
He's quiet for a moment. “Then at least we had this,” he says, as if ‘this’ is enough.
It used to be enough.
It was never enough.
“I'm standing right here, Liv.” That quiet desperation in his voice is back, and he’s trying to mask it, but it's useless, she memorized every inflection, every swell and dip and lilt to his voice a long, long time ago.
“I know,” her voice breaks. “I know.”
He isn't sick of her. He doesn't resent her. He’s just waiting for her to let him in. She owes it to him to try, she just doesn't know where to begin.
“Did you actually sleep last night?”
“No.”
“Did you eat the dinner you were just cleaning up?”
“No.”
Elliot sighs.
“It was some shitty Stouffer’s meal,” she throws in as an explanation. “Noah stopped at Chipotle on the way home with his friends.”
“He didn't even bring you chips and guac?” Elliot jokes, obviously trying to lighten the mood.
“He tried out for the competitive dance team and didn't tell me.”
“Shit, Liv. Well, did he make the team?”
“Yeah, but…” she traces the grooves in the counter with her finger. “He thinks I care more about my job than him,” she’s starting to cry again, her voice watery, and she’s too tired to fight it anymore.
She’s being honest, sharing how she feels, and the Earth is still spinning on its axis.
“Did he tell you that?” Elliot asks carefully.
She sniffs. “No.”
“Then talk to him. Tell him the truth. He’ll open up to you.”
“But what if he doesn't?”
“He will,” he says confidently. “They always do. He loves you, Liv, you're his mother.”
She rolls her lips, to tamp down the fresh wave of emotion surging inside of her chest. “Okay,” she manages. “I'll talk to him.”
“Good. And…we…are we good?” he asks hesitantly.
“Always,” she whispers.
“I'll see you tomorrow. Promise me you'll call me tonight, if you need me?”
She hums out a non-committal response and hangs up, taking a deep breath in through her nose as she makes her way over to Noah's bedroom.
She knocks softly on his door.
Nothing.
“Noah?” she knocks again.
“What?” he finally calls out.
“Can I…can I come in?” she asks hesitantly.
She hears him sigh. His footfalls are heavy as he makes his way from his bed over to the door. He opens it a crack, his curls mussed from his pillow.
“I just wanted to…” she has to look up at him, he's a little taller than her now. When did she start having to look up at him?!
“I just wanted to say goodnight,” Olivia starts to reach for him and stops herself.
Noah looks left to right awkwardly. “Okay. Ummm…night.” He goes to shut the door.
“And I love you!” she blurts. Her vision starts blurring, but she can still see him hesitate, his hand on the door. “I love you so much. And you are so much more important to me than-”
“Mom,” Noah groans. He steps forward and wraps his arms around her; she buries her face in his chest. “I love you, too.” He still sounds slightly annoyed, but he holds her tighter to him as he says it, for just a fraction of a second, before letting go.
She draws back, cupping his cheeks in her hands. “I really am so proud of you,” she says, and she gets her second smile of the night.
“You know,” he starts, hesitating. “Maybe…maybe we could watch the Mets game together on Friday. If…if you want,” he adds in at the end hurriedly.
She frowns. “But I thought you didn't like baseball that much anymore?”
“I don't, really. But you still do. Right?”
He's extending an olive branch, and she'll be damned if she doesn't take it. She nods, wiping at her eyes.
“Now, can you stop crying, please?” he pleads. “I don't like it when you're sad.”
“I'm not sad, I'm…” she chuckles, wiping a hand down her face. “I don't know what I am.”
“Well whatever it is, you're crying like a lot, and-”
“Okay, okay,” she puts her hands up.
He starts to shut the door again, but she's resolved to extend an olive branch of her own.
“You wanna stop for breakfast, on your way into school tomorrow? Like we used to?”
His face lights up. “Yeah? You'll have time?”
“I'll make time,” she insists. “Wherever you want to go.”
“Anywhere?” He gives her a sly smile.
“Well, I don't have a choice now, do I?”
“Nope! Night!” He shuts the door quickly, still smiling. She feels just a little bit lighter, the corners of her mouth twitching, as she walks back to her bedroom.
The bedroom light is off, but the lamp on her nightstand is on, the familiar faint glow casting long shadows across the ceiling towards the door…
She shivers, wrapping her arms around herself. Her anxiety spikes as she looks down at her bed- where she's expected to sleep, where she will dream, where Kathy's wide, unblinking eyes—
She shakes her head, trying to clear the image from her mind so she can get ready for bed. She washes her face, removing the thick layer of foundation uselessly coating her red, blotchy skin. The dark circles under her eyes are starting to fade from a dark brown to a light purple and the skin is still swollen and puffy.
She has to sleep tonight. She has to.
She shuts off the bathroom light and climbs gingerly into bed, pulling the comforter up to her chest.
She lies still as a statue, staring at the ceiling.
She blinks once.
Twice.
Three times.
A cop car suddenly goes whizzing by, lights and sirens blaring, the cruise lights sending a flash of red and blue through her window.
She gasps and sits up, her heart pounding inside of her chest. She takes a few breaths, watching, waiting. The sound of the wailing fades and it's quiet again, aside from the normal city street chatter. She slowly lies back down, gripping the edge of her comforter.
Her chin quivers and she closes her eyes, trying to think about something pleasant. Noah. Breakfast with Noah. The flowers in her office. Elliot. When he told her he loved her…
The floorboards outside her room squeak, and footfalls traipse across the floor. Her eyes fly back open again. The door to Noah's bathroom opens and shuts, the light from the hall peeking through the crack underneath her door.
She whimpers and grabs for her phone off the nightstand.
Elliot picks up on the third ring. “Liv?” His voice is soft, gravelly.
Her heartbeat reflexively starts slowing down at the sound of his voice. “Did I…did I wake you up?”
“No, no. I was just reading.” His glasses click shut. “Is everything okay? Did you talk to Noah?”
“Yeah. Yeah, we…I think we’re okay.”
“That’s great, Liv,” that soft warmth is back in his voice and she wants to drown herself in it.
“What are you reading?” she murmurs, blinking up at the ceiling fan. It spins exactly one hundred times per minute. She counted last night.
“Just…well I got the kids’ baby books out of storage the other week.”
She waits for him to continue.
“I missed a lot, you know?”
She can feel the regret in his voice inside her own chest. “I know,” she murmurs. “It just goes by…..”
“So fast?”
“Yeah. Really fast.”
No more thy mother’s smiles,
No more the painted tiles,
Delight thee, nor the playthings on the floor,
That won thy little beating heart before.
It's silent again, but it's a comfortable silence, so she lets it stretch on, lets her breathing sync with his.
“I still can't sleep,” she finally admits, her voice catching at the end.
“Did you take anything?”
“I don't want to take anything!” she laments. “It didn't work last night! And if it doesn't work tonight, I'll just keep staring at the ceiling, and I can't stare at the ceiling anymore! I’ll lose my mind if I-”
“Hey, hey,” he interrupts gently. “You’re not gonna lose your mind. You'll sleep, eventually.”
“Yeah. Eventually.” A lone tear tracks down her cheek.
“Do you want me to talk to you until you fall asleep?”
What she wants is him. Here, in her arms, in her bed, where she knows he would be safe, and she would be safe, because they’re always safe when they're together; because they always have each other’s backs; because that's what partners do.
She could always just ask him to come here, right now; she wishes she knew how.
“Yes,” she murmurs.
The bedsheets shift as he settles; his light switch clicks off. “Do you want to hear more about Italy?”
She places the phone on the pillow beside her and turns on her side, tucking her hands beneath her cheek. “Talk to me about the terrace,” she whispers.
“Again?”
“Mmm,” she hums.
“Okay,” he whispers back. “The sunsets?”
She yawns, her eyelids already heavy. “Yeah. And the flowers. Tell me about the flowers.”
His voice settles itself down inside her chest as he speaks, and it makes her feel calm, and the pillow is soft, and she’s so so tired. She thinks maybe he's still talking about petals, and leaves, and stems, when she falls asleep, but she remembers nothing after that.
—
It's Night Four.
It feels like Night Forty.
The cruise lights swirl outside the building, the rain is beating against the windows, and still she yanks at the cuffs. She always yanks at the cuffs.
If she looks beside her, she will see the slumped figure of Kathy- the frozen Kathy, the dead Kathy, the Kathy that Elliot is coming for.
And it's all her fault. She couldn't protect her; she can't even protect herself.
Olivia squeezes her eyes shut because she doesn't want to see, she wants the darkness back, she wants the terror of the known, and this dream keeps changing, keeps evolving, and she doesn't want to see.
He's coming.
His footsteps echo as he approaches, but he could be three feet away or thirty because with her eyes shut the darkness is, once again, absolute.
Then, she hears it again. The muffled voice calling out from somewhere outside the room.
Olivia's eyes pop back open. “Elliot!” she shouts. “Elliot! In here!” She writhes around on the bed, finally pivoting towards the slumped figure of-
“Kathy,” Olivia whispers. And again, louder, “Kathy?!” Then, frantically: “Kathy!!” Frantically because the footsteps are getting closer, her heart is pounding in her ears, and Kathy isn't here.
She's gone.
Olivia's alone.
The emergency vehicle lights shut off, bathing her in total darkness.
He's there.
Stale sweat and cigarette smoke waft towards her, the smoke a thick blanket making her eyes water.
Elliot is calling out again. He's closer this time.
Much closer.
“Olivia!” is his desperate cry and it's her name, her full name.
He’s not coming for Kathy.
He's coming for her.
The tip of the cigarette appears, and there is the lone brown eye, tinged with red. Like a tiger preparing to pounce, a snarl slowly spreads across his mouth. But he doesn't flick the cigarette away.
He turns towards the door, and he waits.