It's my turn this time. She has been there for me. Put up with my attitude and my anger. Now she needs someone to talk to and if I don't go after her she will bury it all inside. Then I get to deal with the aftermath of her guilt. No thank you. I get to her apartment and a neighbor recognizes me and lets me in.
"Good afternoon Elliot," greets the elderly woman.
"Good afternoon.Thanks, Mrs. Paulson," I return.
She pauses at the door, "She was very quiet today."
I nod, "Yeah, I know."
She smiles and continues on. I head up to Olivia's apartment. I knock on her door.
"Liv, it's Elliot," I call out. I hear her open the locks but she doesn't open the door. When I do I find her on the couch sitting there staring at the bottle of whiskey on the table.
I join her on the couch, she just sits there, not moving.
"Liv, you did good," I tell her. It's not what she wants to hear but I have to break the silence.
She shakes her head, "There but for the grace of god go I." Her voice is a whisper, I can tell she hasn't had a drop of the alcohol.
"We all have our breaking point Olivia," I remind her. "God alone knows I've hit mine more than once this year."
"You had good reason," she says.
"Yeah, well you had a better one." I take her hands in mine. They are as cold as ice so I rub them between mine to warm them. "You didn't kill her, you left instead."
She still hasn't moved from her spot in the corner of the couch, "I wanted too. I did hurt her."
"And she hurt you, far more than you ever hurt her Olivia," I remind her.
"She gave me life," her voice is so quiet I have to stay still to hear her.
"It takes more than biology to be a parent." Her eyes aren't empty they are full of pain. "She may have given birth to you, but in a lot of ways you were the adult."
"I had to be. I had to survive." I can see the tears in her brown eyes now. They start to spill and she makes no effort to stop them.
"You did and you turned the pain into something good," I try to reassure her.
"Did I? Sometimes I hear it calling me Elliot," she tells me gesturing at the bottle.
"Yes you did, and so what if it calls you have never listened."
She smiles sadly, "How many times have you brought me home drunk on my ass?"
I give her a look, "Not nearly as many times as I've crashed on your couch because I was too drunk to drive home."
I haven't convinced her, she thinks there is a demon inside her and she keeps looking for it. "Honey, I know you. Your no more an alcoholic than I am. And neither one of us is vicious when we're drunk."
She shakes her head, still fighting it.
"Olivia you have to let it go or you will find that demon that you keep looking for. Only it won't be what you expect." I slide a little closer to her, "Your stronger than that. Why can't you accept it?"
"I don't feel strong Elliot," she admits. She moves finally and lets me hold her. Her head is on my shoulder and I can feel the tears on her face.
"You are strong, it takes strength to admit when your weak. When you need help," my voice breaks a little. "Liv, you were my strength this year. I couldn't admit that I was weak, I let my guilt over my failure nearly destroy me." I stroke her hair as I hold her tighter, "You never let me go. If you had I would have fallen."
"If you fall so do I," she tells me, her voice breaking as she finally lets go. This is the side that no one else sees, the side that is ripped apart by grief, guilt and doubt.
"Exactly," I remind her. "So what makes you think I'm going to let you fall?"
"I feel like I don't deserve this," she admits. "I sometimes wonder why the four of you put up with me."
"Why do we put up with you?" I muse. "You 're smart, you can kick ass when you want too, and you're a hell of a cop." I pause, "But that's not the point, we don't put up with you Olivia."
"Really," she says and I can hear the disbelief in her voice.
"Really, you have the wrong question," I tell her as I hold her a little tighter.
"And what is the question?"
"The answer is that you care and you make us laugh. When one of us is having a bad day you try to find out why so you can help. Even when we don't give you a straight answer you know us well enough to know what it is." I hesitate and take the plunge, "The question is why we love you."
I can feel her start to fight it and I refuse to let her, not this time. "Love," she says. "My mother claimed she loved me, even when she was hurting me."
"That isn't love and you know it," I remind her.
"What is then?" By some miracle she isn't fighting me on this. She has to be exhausted from fighting it out inside herself.
"It's kindness, acceptance, caring." I take a breath and continue, "It's being there for someone even when your furious at them. It's trust and believing." She hasn't moved yet but I can feel that the tears have slowed.
"Sometimes I can't do any of that for myself," she admits.
"That's when you have to let us do it for you," I tell her. She lifts her head and whatever she sees reassures her because she puts it back. I just hold her, it will probably be a long time before she lets me get this close again.
"Why do you love me Elliot?" she asks.
I smile, "Other than those reasons?"
"I can be a bitch, I can hurt you," she says in a quiet voice. "Why don't you leave?"
"Yes you can be a bitch and you can hurt me," I agree. "I don't leave because if I did I would leave a part of me behind." I hope I haven't gone too far.
"I can't leave either Elliot," she whispers. I can hear the fear in her voice. My strong Olivia is afraid, afraid of having love and of losing it. "I see what happened to you and Kathy and I see what can go wrong and I'm scared."
"If you don't take chances you will never be happy Olivia." I pull back to look at her, "I don't regret falling in love with Kathy. I don't regret that because if I did I would be regretting having my children, I would be regretting all of the good times she and I had. I do regret losing what we had, I have no idea when it happened or why. Maybe we were too young, our jobs and the kids didn't give us much time for each other. Somewhere we stopped making time for each other. That I regret, and yes it hurts. But if you aren't willing to risk the loss then you will never know the joy. The joy of walking into a room and seeing someone you love standing there, who or why doesn't matter."
She lets me talk on, she needs to hear me so I continue, "It hurts when you shut me out because I love you. But when you let me in again the hurt goes away and I wonder why I even felt it. I know you, I know you need your space so I try to be patient and wait you out."
"It hurts when you shut me out too," she tells me. "I was so afraid you would leave and never come back."
"I'll always come back," I promise.
She says nothing for a while, the bottle on the table has been forgotten. "What do we do now?" she finally asks.
I try to control my reaction, if she means what I think she does I don't want to scare her away. "We take it one day at a time," I answer and I am rewarded. She smiles a little her hand moves from around my waist to my neck and she pulls me close again.
Then she says the words I have hoped for, "I love you Elliot."
I kiss her forehead gently, "I know. I love you Olivia."
For a long moment time holds still and I wait on her. When her response comes I know we will be all right.
"I know," she whispers.