Shadow Of A Dream (4/?)
Defeated, Olivia Benson steps back into the squad room just in the right time to watch Elliot read what must be the letter Alex wrote her. “What the hell you think you’re doing?” she growls before practically jumping at him to rip the message out of his hands.
“Liv, calm down,” the detective takes a step back while holding the piece of paper high above his head so the furious brunette can’t reach it. But Olivia doesn’t stop pushing, pulling and partially even kicking Elliot around, until he lowers his arm, gives her the letter and admits “I already read it anyway.”
Olivia grabs it and quickly pushes it deep down into the pocket of her black trousers. She fixes an angry looking pair of eyes on her partner. “You had no right to read that,” she spits out.
“I know Liv,” Elliot says slightly out of breath from the almost-fight. “Look, I really am sorry, but I was worried because of your odd behavior and I thought this letter would explain it to me,” he looks very much uncomfortable now. “Which it did,” he takes a deep breath taking a step closer towards his partner. “Liv, I absolutely didn’t expect to read something like that.”
The brunette finally relaxes and lets her shoulders slump. “You think I did?” she says sadness replacing the anger in her voice.
Several minutes pass by in silence as Olivia lets the past half an hour replay in her head, before Elliot opens his mouth to speak.
“So,” he says, a smug smile playing at the corners of his lips, “Cabot has the hots for you, huh?”
When his partner does nothing but glare at him, he sighs deeply, thinking I guess it’s not the time for jokes…yet, before asking “Where’s your problem, Liv?”
“Where my problem is?” the detective repeats the question, anger rising in her voice again. “You mean apart from the fact that I am totally stupid and not able to once think before I speak?” she shakes her head in despair. “The whole fucking problem is, I screwed up, Elliot,” the brunette says, the desperation clearly audible in her voice.
She lets her face drop into her hands before taking a deep breath and looking up again. “She writes this…,” she stops to search for an adequate word “this mind-blowing message and I just can’t handle it. I freak, not believing those words are true, not believing they are actually from her and-,” her voice breaks and she hides her face in her hands again, shaking her head frenetically.
Elliot waits silently, giving his partner the time he knows she needs to pull herself back together.
“I mean, NO WAY?” she continues after some time, quoting the words she so ingloriously spat out before, “seriously, is there even one thing that could have been more stupid than saying this?”
Elliot shakes his head slightly, saying matter-of-factly “Probably not.”
The brunette looks up at her partner, glaring. “Rhetorical Question, Elliot,” she says slightly annoyed.
“Sorry,” he answers apologetically.
Thinking that analyzing the previous events wouldn’t be too much of a good idea he decides to immediately skip to the important part. “So, what are you going to do about it?” He asks, catching the brunette off guard.
“What? What do you mean?” she asks slightly confused since her thoughts are still running around the fact that she screwed up royally, effectively blocking the way to a much more productive way of thinking.
“I mean yes, you messed up,” he says like a devoted father to his devastated teenage girl. “Now get over it, stop drowning in self pity and let’s think of a way to fix this.”
Olivia considers his words for quite some time, looking as if this actually did not occur to her since she came back from that elevator, before snapping out of her haze. “You’re absolutely right. I have to do something,” she sits up straight in her chair, “obviously she feels something for me,” she says finally completely realizing the meaning of the words in the letter, finally letting herself believe.
“Obviously,” Elliot agrees, smiling encouragingly.
“And I feel something for her too,” the first sparks of hope are visible in the brunette’s eyes, “in fact, I feel very much something for her.”
Her partner leans back in his chair, nodding his head again saying “Obviously.”
“But how?” The small traces of hope in Olivia’s face disappear and despair dominates her features all over again. “How can I make this right?” She looks pleadingly into Elliot’s face, searching for help.
Elliot draws in a deep breath before releasing it loudly. Leaning forward he puts his forearms on his desk to support his weight and entwines his fingers, which makes him look like he’s about to pray.
With a voice that actually sounds like he is praying he calmly says “Liv, what you said was not that bad-“,
“Yes, it was,” she interrupts him furiously.
“Okay,” he says holding both his hands up, signaling he’s not going to argue with her.
“Let’s say it was not the most intelligent way to react,” he admits. “But,” he raises his voice when it seems like Olivia is going to try and protest again, “it’s not the end of the world.”
“But it is,” his normally very adult partner whines, yes whines.
“No,” Elliot disagrees firmly, needing and using all skill and patience he has collected during the years of being a father to three girls.
“It is not, because you are going to talk to her,” he makes a small pause for Olivia to process that, thinking Damn, “mind-blowing” was totally the right word to describe this letter because it sure seems her mind has been blown to China or something. Smiling slightly at that thought, he continues “You are going to explain to her why you reacted the way you did and you are going to tell her that you’re madly, deeply, truly in love with her since she first stepped a foot into this squad room. You are going to make this okay, Olivia Benson, you understand? You’re going to make this right again.” Being extremely proud of himself for sounding like NY’s finest life coach, Elliot Stabler watches contentedly when hope and determination finally find their way back into his partner’s face.
The brunette lets the words her partner so wisely spoke, sink in before nodding her head once, saying “Thanks Elliot, I really needed that and I’m going to talk to her first thing after work tonight.”
Smiling at the determination finally clearly audible again in the brunette’s voice he agrees satisfied “That’s what I wanted to hear.”
“Okay so now that we got that settled,” Elliot says changing the topic “let’s get to work.” He pushes a stack of DD-5’s into her direction.
The brunette looks at him confused “DD-5’s? What about that warrant? Shouldn’t we go search the apartment?”
“Oh yeah about that, Dad sent Fin and Munch to do that. Until they’re back we can hardly do anything so we’re restricted to desk duty.”
“Ugh,” Olivia groans “that’s so not fair.”
“Stop complaining partner,” Elliot says sighing “If you would have kept your mouth shut previously, we would be in that apartment right now.”
“God, don’t remind me,” Olivia replies, taking the first DD-5 from Elliot’s desk while busying her mind with pondering about what she would say to Alex this evening.