Note from author: This is the last chapter. Thanks to everyone that has reviewed...next time, I hope there will be a few more! The readers keep me going; I need you to tell me if you want more.
As she continues down the tapered path, she takes long, laborious strides that cause her arms to sway haphazardly at her sides. Surveying her concentration on the mere task at hand –putting one foot in front of the other –he discerns the obvious variation in her demeanor: a ubiquitous, overriding sense of an exhausting, wearisome sadness. Her hazy eyes, her wayward arms, her long, laborious strides; they are all representative of the overpowering existence of impending gloom; and for this, he feels guilty.
He supposes that it wasn't his fault that she quit: the kiss simply served as a catalyst, an immediate incentive to conclude an epoch of her life that had previously held so much significance.
He knows that the true reason for her resignation was that man; the man; a simple, random human being that had left so much unfinished business for her to tie up, so many things left to uncover. The man had been shot on that day, the day when right and wrong could not be distinguished, or put into two diametrically opposing columns on a piece of loose-leaf. It was on this day that monikers like "perp" or 'victim" were completely meaningless, because who knew what they were anymore? As far as Olivia was concerned, she was as close to a perp as she was to a cop; duty was something that could no longer be summarized in a job description.
It had never made sense to him, however, that this man; a man with no name, no history, no life; had ruined hers so efficiently. He refused to believe that a man, who was really nothing more than a rapist, held so much arduous power over her; but then again, maybe she was nothing more than a cop.
"Elliot?"
Her voice awakens him immediately from his silent reverie, and he instantaneously realizes that she has discovered him and his hiding place; she has found him out once again.
"What are you doing here?"
He doesn't bother to act surprised, to cover up his not so covert operation. He knows that she knows exactly what he is doing, and in a way he is relieved.
"Watching you."
She takes a deep sigh, and takes the seat next to him on the park bench. They are the only two who would be out in Central Park at this time of night; "Good Samaritan"-like vigilance is foolish to them now. They know what exactly what risks there are in this ambiance; but there are simply too many dangers for them to begin worrying now.
"Got a new partner yet?" she asks coolly, staring openly at the scenery before them.
They look like quite a pair in this moment; this is something they are both aware of. They both sit rigidly, side by side, not bothering to look at one another; only concentrating on the weak shadows cast by the full moon as they reflect a pale, insipid glow on the grass. Sirens actively screech around them, a clamor so essential to their own lives that it is now a fundamental part of their nightly circadian rhythm. Sometimes, she thinks the presence of silence would alarm them.
"James Murphy, good guy," he responds absentmindedly, but only they know that there is no such thing. The unconscious does not exist for them: if it did, maybe they wouldn't be so good at what they did and so bad at life. "Two weeks, at most."
She nods in understanding, and they are both aware of the fact that "good guys" don't last in their department. To preserve one's morality, at all costs, is to commit suicide.
Her eyes focus on a precarious orange sparkle hovering in the pallid sky above them. It is a salient shade of ginger, striking in contrast to the dull glow of the early morning sky; a prominent inaccuracy in an artistic masterpiece; the wrong paint in a picturesque, soothing watercolor.
"What have you been doing, Liv?" he asks, turning his head to establish eye contact, indicating that he wants to talk about her and them, a bond that he so fervently convinces himself is not shattered.
"Thinking," she says firmly. "A lot of thinking."
"About what?" he gently prods.
"Everything," she responds, with a short, sardonic laugh. "Everything there is to think about."
"Well that's not such a bad thing, is it?"
She turns to face him now; her lips relaxing into a weary, knowing smile.
Don't patronize me, Elliot. You've been there.
"Thinking too much…" she begins, with a heavy sigh, "can get you into trouble."
She now discerns that the brilliant orange spark is not an artistic faux pas, but a great, imminent orb of helium, most likely belonging to a dissatisfied child. It lingers aimlessly in the sky, only seeming to move from side to side but without the bravery to either return to the ground or continue upwards. It persists procrastinating, avoiding its fate; and Olivia feels a stab of sympathy towards the suspended object, merely because it is so vigorously, and foolishly, trying to evade the inevitable.
Some things are just meant to happen.
"Everyone has a crisis of faith, Olivia," he offers. "You think about things for a while, question them, and then go back to what you had before…you know, the solid things."
"But what's solid, Elliot?" she asks, her intonation rising with exigency, demanding a concrete response. "The fact that I used to come home to an empty apartment every night? That I haven't had a good night's sleep in years? My non-existent personal relationships with people?"
"And what are you doing now? Are you having sex more often? Sleeping better? Meeting new people?"
She knows that he sees it too, because it seems that they see everything together, these days. He responds with the same urgency, the same passion, the same active, hopeful reaction when really, only they know that everything is, indeed, hopeless. He knows that the balloon will float away, meet its eventual doom; but he attempts to help, just for the sake of trying.
What would happen if we just gave up; stopped trying? Not only would we lose everyone else, we'd lose ourselves.
She pauses for a moment, seemingly startled at the verity of Elliot's response. As much as she wished for a rightanswer, something that she could use as a source of reassurance, something comforting; she had never expected it. She was so used to being disappointed by everything and everyone that she found herself unfamiliar with something real, with something true, with something right.
'Right.' That's a word –no, an idea –that I'm not too accustomed to.
"You've already seen it, Liv," he says softly, lighter than the spherical object that is roaming aimlessly amidst the stars. "You can't forget it…you can't drift away."
"You know," she begins, turning away from him once more to focus on the scenery before them, "watching balloons float away used to depress me."
"And now?"
"And now," she shifts her weight to let her head rest on the nape of his neck, a stray lock of hair dancing tenderly on the tip of his eyelash, "I think it's beautiful."
Fin.