Chapter Text
It started with a phone call when Elliot was still undercover in the middle of the country. “Grandma is turning ninety,” Kathleen had said, “and I think we should do something special.” He’d agreed, imagining they would make a reservation at Per Se or spend a weekend at the beach house; it was still on the market. It was something that still belonged to Bernadette Stabler. Something she remembered most days.
He didn’t realize Kathleen was planning a party until two weeks before his mother’s birthday, and he had no idea she’d tracked his siblings down from around the globe until Joe Jr. called and asked, “Will I be able to crash on your couch?”
Irate couldn’t begin to describe his reaction. “Did you know about this?” he asked Olivia after barreling into her office.
“That Kathleen is planning a birthday party for her grandmother?” she replied, her tone and demeanor not-so-subtly reminding Elliot to calm the fuck down.
He stilled. He pulled a breath in through his nose and expelled it slowly from between puckered lips. He looked to Olivia as his tense shoulders slumped, and she graced him with a smile.
She gestured to the sofa as she rose from her seat. It was what she’d been doing for him in the months since he’d been back – letting him in, letting him be irrationally angry about a call Bell made or Eli dropping another class, and then setting her beautiful, knowing eyes on him as she stabilized his pulse with that husky timbre.
She sat beside him with one leg curled beneath her. “I think it sounds fun. There’s a theme.”
“Nineties for ninety,” Elliot said with a laugh. “That’s not what- Mama deserves a party. Liv, it’s the guest list.”
Her hand darted across the small space between them to fold over his thigh. “How long has it been?”
“I saw Randall before he ran off to Miami with that cocktail waitress.”
Olivia remembered; it was not long after the towers collapsed.
“Joe? Jesus, it’s been…” He tilted his head back, counting. “He’s never met Eli.” He’d never met Olivia either. He’d been stationed somewhere in Europe – Germany, she thinks – when she started at SVU, and not long after that it was back-to-back tours in Afghanistan.
“And your sister?” she asked, knowing the eldest – Mary – had passed while he was in Italy.
“Fiona’s not coming.”
She drew her hand away, draping her arm across the back of the sofa.
Elliot shifted to mirror her posture, their hands almost touching. He could see the glint of gold under the open lapels of her crisp, white shirt, and he knew the compass pendant was cradled between her breasts. “You’ll be there, right?” he asked, softly. Hopefully.
“Lizzie promised to help me find something to wear.”
It was ludicrous to think Hudson’s theater department had clothing from the nineteen-nineties for costumes, as if slip dresses and a pleather, backless top were relics from the far past. Most of what Lizzie dropped off for Olivia was too skimpy. She considered pulling a more professional look together, opting for wide-legged pants and an oversized blazer she would have worn to work the first year of her partnership with Elliot.
Instead, she decided on a long, lavender silk dress with a tasteful slit. The halter neckline was less chaste, and Olivia wasn’t entirely sure she owned a bra that would support her ample chest, but it was the piece that best suited her. She rooted through a case of accessories and opted for a smoky gray, beaded choker. She mulled over what to do with her hair and opted to leave it down.
“Noah!” she called out into the hallway, and her son appeared a moment later wearing his wireless headphones around his neck. “I need your help.” She handed him the jewelry and gathered her hair with one hand, holding it up.
“This isn’t too tight?” he asked after he hooked the two ends together at the nape of her neck.
Olivia touched the necklace where it pressed against her throat. “No, it’s fine,” she lied. She would most likely take it off halfway through the evening.
“I don’t think she’d remember me but tell Mrs. Stabler I said happy birthday.”
Olivia turned to face him. She cupped his chin. “No one could forget you, Noah.”
“Mom,” he groaned, swatting her hand away. He backed up into the doorframe. “You look really pretty.”
“Thank you,” she said, smiling.
“I don’t want to hear you back home at ten o’clock.”
Her hand went to her hip as she leaned toward him. “What did you say?”
“You hardly ever go out for fun and when you do, you come home early.” Noah shrugged. “Just… have fun, Mom.”
She thought about Bernie and the Stabler siblings. Elliot’s attitude. It was all a dicey combination, and she’d been approaching the evening as more of a peacekeeper than a party guest. Her son may have been on to something.
The private room above the restaurant was crowded with men in track suits or flannel shirts and women sporting denim overalls or short plaid skirts with cropped sweaters. Elliot had taken the easy way out of dressing up by wearing a timeless pair of jeans and a black T-shirt. The music pouring from the speakers took him back to his time in the Academy and long nights with colicky babies, and to his shame, the decade he spent separating himself from his mother.
Bernie looked good, he thought. She looked bright. Present. He warned Kathleen that the crowd and the noise could be too much for her, and that even if she started the evening entertained and happy, she could become agitated. “I know,” his daughter had said. “I’ll take her back home if that happens.”
He supposed the party to celebrate Bernadette Stabler was as much for her family and friends as the birthday girl herself. An opportunity to reminisce. To regale her with stories that had fractured from her mind a long time ago or to help her hold onto the last remaining shards of some memories. An opportunity for her oldest and youngest sons to show their faces. They probably needed that absolution, even if it was Bernie smiling and hugging them as she did with any kind stranger.
Elliot squared his shoulders when he saw Randall weaving through the crowd toward him. They’d had an awkward lunch the previous day with Joe, and it bothered Elliot that his brothers seemed to think one meal together in over a decade was all it took to remedy a lifetime of distance and mistrust.
Randall clapped Elliot on the back as he sidled up next to him. “Mama looks content,” he observed. “Katie did a good job with all of this.”
“She really did,” Joe said, coming up behind them, forming a semi-circle of tall, broad-shouldered Stabler men that looked out at the crowd with a mixture of unease and nostalgia.
Elliot agreed with a nod. He shifted backward a step and then another, perusing the buffet of appetizers. He could hear his brothers continuing to talk. It was mundane at first – something about running into a guy from the old neighborhood and their favorite pizza joint being shuttered. His ears perked up when he heard Joe ask, “Who is that fucking fox?”
Randall snorted a laugh. Leaned closer to his brother. “That is the elusive Olivia.”
“No shit!” He turned to look at Elliot. “That knockout was your partner?”
Elliot reluctantly stepped back into their orbit and his eyes found Olivia on the other side of the room. His breath snagged in his throat at the sight of her in a pastel dress that accentuated her golden skin. Her long, loose hair framed her face. The cut of the dress was a showcase for her hourglass figure and voluptuous chest. “She was,” he said.
“I mean, I heard things, but…”
“What’d you hear?” he asked.
Joe smirked. “That she was gorgeous. That Kathy hated her.”
“Kathy never- she didn’t-”
“The lore,” Randall stepped in to say, “is that she’s the reason you two booked it to Europe.”
Elliot shook his head. “That is-” He was cut off by the sound of his mother calling for him and waving her arms from the table where she was seated. He glared at each of his brothers for a moment before he turned away.
“El absolutely fucked her, right?” Joe asked.
“Word on the street is that our brother is every bit the pious little shit he always wanted us to think he was,” Randall replied. He looked sideways at Joe. “Don’t go there, man. He may have never screwed her, but the truth is even worse. He’s in love with her.”
Olivia spied Bernie and Elliot, but she was intercepted by Dickie and his girlfriend on her way to them, and then Kathleen bounded toward her excitedly.
“Oh my God, Liv, you look a-ma-zing!” she told her.
“It’s not too much?” Olivia asked, glancing down at her ample cleavage.
Kathleen assured her it was not before she had to run off and confer with the caterer.
Olivia turned around and nearly collided with two familiar looking men. Randall had aged considerably since the one and only time she’d met him, but he still had a head of luxurious, dark hair that he no doubt lorded over his follicle-challenged younger brother. The only change from twenty years ago was threads of silver at his temples and hairline. The other man was just as tall and lean as Elliot, with close-cropped hair and a similarly disarming smile. “Hi,” she said, her eyes dancing from one to the other, “Randall. And you must be Joe Jr.?”
The youngest Stabler’s hand jutted toward her.
“This is the baby of the family,” Randall confirmed, clapping a hand over his brother’s shoulder with a pressure that warned him away from overstepping.
“Olivia Benson,” she introduced herself.
Joe lifted her hand up as he bowed his head. His eyes locked on Elliot in the distance as he pressed his lips below her knuckles. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Olivia.”
“Well,” she said, pulling her hand away, “I better say hi to Bernie.”
Kathleen relegated herself to the perimeter of the room for most of the evening. She monitored the buffet and alerted the caterer to any empty food trays. She greeted guests as they arrived and thanked anyone on their way out. Mostly, she was relieved that it seemed to be a lively affair and that Bernie looked pleased. That made it worthwhile, even if her father was cross about the guest list.
On cue, she saw her Uncle Joe approaching from the bar. Her memories of him were fuzzy. He was in basic training when she was born and any time she saw him before September 11th he was in some type of Army uniform – fatigues with his name stitched on the front pocket of the jacket, or just camo pants with a faded olive-green T-shirt and heavy boots. He visited twice, maybe, in between tours of duty overseas. He had always been crasser than her father, but since she’d started communicating with him via email and text leading up to the party, Kathleen had come to know him in a different way.
“Katie-did,” he said, raising his beer to her before taking a swig. “Don’t work too hard here. You deserve to enjoy the party too.”
She smiled. “I know. I am.”
“So, what’s the deal with your dad and Olivia?” he asked, pointing the neck of his bottle to his right where the two of them were seated with Bernie.
“I don’t think there’s an easy answer to that question, Uncle Joe.”
He laughed, shaking his head. “Your father always did overcomplicate things. You, uh- you like her though?”
“Olivia? She’s great. She’s done a lot for me over the years. For all of us, really.”
Joe smiled. “So, if your dad was in a romantic relationship with her-”
“None of us would be mad at him,” Kathleen supplied. “Dad’s been through a lot. We all just want him to be happy.”
He took a long pull from his beer and looked for a place to discard the empty bottle. “One thing I remember from way back is that one way we could get Elliot to do something was making him jealous.”
“Like what?”
Joe folded his arms across his chest and tilted back on his heels, as if the act of thinking back to the past was extra weight he had to carry. He ran through memories, skipping over a few she didn’t need to know about until he landed on something innocent. “Mama wanted to give her car to Randy, but it was a piece of junk. He would rather ride his bike everywhere than drive that. Plus, having the car would mean having to drive us younger kids around. Elliot didn’t want it until Randy started driving it and talked about all the freedom he had and all the girls who wanted rides. Didn’t take more than a day for your father to decide he should have the car. Spent that whole summer driving me to and from camps and softball games.” Joe laughed, shaking his head. “Randy had the whole summer to run around and make out with girls.”
“If you’re thinking about hitting on Olivia to make my dad jealous, you better stop,” she warned him gently. “He’s not that kid anymore. It’s not that harmless.”
Elliot stood at the bar, waiting for another diet soda for his mom and a glass of Cabernet for Olivia. His hands clenched into fists at his sides when he saw Joe’s reflection in the mirror, standing behind him. “Hey,” he said, turning sideways, making room for his brother at the bar.
“Mama really likes Olivia,” Joe observed.
“She does. Sometimes she even thinks Liv is-”
“What?” Joe pressed.
Elliot sighed. “Sometimes she thinks Liv is my wife.”
Joe looked appropriately saddened by the reality of his mother’s condition. He cleared his throat and said, “El, I don’t have to be back in London any time soon. I’m gonna stay. Visit mama. Get to know my nieces and nephews again.”
“Oh. Okay. You got a place to-”
“I won’t be on your couch,” he promised. He ordered another beer for himself and one for Elliot. “Here’s to mama,” Joe said, tapping the side of his bottle against the one his brother held. “And to Olivia.”
Elliot looked at him warily.
“She single?” Joe asked.
Elliot nodded.
He leaned closer to his older brother. “The two of you really never…”
“No.”
Joe clucked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “Jesus Christ, El. You have way more self-control than I do. If her tits looked half as good then as-”
“I was married.”
“That never stopped dad,” Joe noted.
“Yeah, well,” Elliot said, each word laced with venom, “I’m not him.”
“No, you’re not.” Joe set his beer down. “You won’t give yourself a goddamn break, Elliot. I’m real sorry about Kathy and mama and… but you gotta forgive yourself-”
The bartender set two drinks in front of Elliot. He told his brother, “I have to get these to the table,” and turned, rotating away with enough force that soda spilled over the side of the glass.
The table emptied as the kids ran onto the dance floor and Maureen helped Bernie get up and stretch her legs, leaving Elliot and Olivia alone. He shifted to the newly empty chair between them. His knee knocked against her thigh and the slit opened wider around her crossed legs. “You think she’s getting tired?” he asked, looking to where his mother shuffled through her party guests with the aid of his daughter’s arm and a walker.
“I think she’s having a ball,” Olivia said.
He held his breath when he felt the warmth of her palm on his bare arm. She had touched him more in the last several months than in all the years they’d been partners – a hand on his arm or leg or shoulder, or an embrace they both pulled away from too quickly – and the contact never failed to stun him. Elliot felt her everywhere as heat swarmed through his veins and ignited every nerve.
She pulled away and her hand touched her chest. “I feel naked without the compass,” Olivia told him, and they both blushed as she stroked a phantom gold chain. “This choker is kind of killing me.”
Elliot chuckled softly. “Wanna take it off?”
She responded by twisting at the waist, putting her back to him. She used both hands to gather her hair, elbows pointed out as she held the thick strands up at the crown of her head. She drew in a sharp breath when she felt the light press of his fingers on her skin. His hands were large and rough, but his touch was so delicate as he unhooked the necklace. Olivia wondered if he heard the hum that escaped her throat, a reaction to the tingle along her spine. She was rigid, still holding her hair up even as he folded his fingers closed around the choker that was pooled on his palm.
Elliot set the jewelry on the table. “All set,” he said, tugging gently at her wrists until she let go of her hair and the long tresses spilled down her shoulders.
She straightened her back against the chair, facing forward. “This music. It takes me back.”
He nodded. His lips parted with a question, but before he could pose it, they both heard a commotion on the other side of the room. Elliot stood, alarmed. He felt Olivia behind him as he darted through the gathering crowd to see a tray of food on the floor and his mother looking stricken as Maureen helped her into a chair. “What happened?” he barked.
“It’s okay, dad,” Maureen assured him.
“It was my fault, sir,” a young man in a black and white uniform said.
Elliot looked at Olivia apologetically. “I should…”
“Of course,” she said, her fingers briefly pressing against his back, shrouding him in an electric warmth. He forced himself to take a willing step away from her and crouched down in front of Bernie. “Mama? Are you okay?”
Olivia mingled as Elliot tended to his mother. She considered leaving, but it wasn’t even ten o’clock. Noah would scold her for being home so early, she thought with a laugh. She was studying the dessert table when she heard Joe Stabler behind her.
“I’ve tried everything,” he said, “and the cake with the chocolate mousse is the best.”
She looked at him as he came to a stop beside her. “I’m not even hungry but it all looks so good.”
“This music is making my ears bleed,” Joe told her as something upbeat and corny poured from the speakers.
“Yeah, I was never much of a Spice Girls fan.”
“I was gonna go outside. Have a smoke. Wanna get some air? I’ll tell you everything I remember about my brother. Like how he used to have a head of thick, long hair.”
“I’ve seen the photos,” Olivia told him.
Joe shrugged. “Well, then, maybe you can catch me up on the last few years. God knows Elliot won’t tell me anything.”
On the other side of the room, Elliot saw his brother shrugging out of his suit coat and draping it over Olivia’s shoulders as they walked together toward the exit. A different kind of heat swarmed through his veins, and he tugged at the suddenly binding crewneck collar of his T-shirt.