Unforgiven
She placed the flowers on the grave and moved to take a seat on a bench under a nearby tree. She hadn't been here since the funeral, and except for the priest and a couple of gravediggers, she had been the only one to attend. Charlie had been an only child. His parents were dead, and as far as Casey had known, the only friends he had left were street people. If she had known who they were and how to locate them, maybe she would have informed some of them about the funeral. If she had told the detectives, she was certain that they would have helped. They were kind, compassionate people who would have understood and agreed with her that even the homeless have a right to mourn their dead.
Some time later, she was staring at the grass around her toes, lost in thought and sadness when she was surprised to see black shoes and the legs of a pair of navy blue men's dress pants enter her field of vision and walk past her. She heard the footsteps stop close by. Looking up, she swallowed hard when she recognized the broad back and dark hair of Elliot Stabler. He was standing over Charlie's grave, and she could tell from the motion of his elbow that he was crossing himself.
He stood still for a while, and she wondered if he was saying a prayer or just thinking. She wanted to run so she wouldn't have to face him when he turned around but she stayed for two reasons: He could chase her down if he wanted to, and she would eventually have to deal with him anyway.
She saw his shoulders rise and fall in a deep sigh. He crossed himself again, and she held her breath. When he turned to face her, his expression was somber and a little tense, but not as angry as she had expected. He walked over and sat beside her on the bench, and she felt her heart move into her throat. They sat side by side for several minutes in silence. Casey was getting antsy and was just about to tell him to yell at her and get it over with already when he said softly, "You found a nice spot for him."
Casey looked around and said, "Thanks."
This part of the cemetery was screened off from the sea of headstones by a small, horseshoe-shaped copse of hemlocks. The needles they dropped replenished the soil and helped nourish the rhododendron bushes planted beneath them. The portulaca and petunias were done for the year, but a few hardy pansies were still blooming, and there were lots of bright yellow chrysanthemums. In the center of it all, there was a statue of St. Francis of Assisi talking to the animals, and a real live rabbit was hopping around under one of the bushes.
"I told the funeral director how he loved animals and liked to get out of the city and go hiking on the weekends, and he helped me find this place," Casey explained. "After he went off his meds, sometimes he would talk to animals and imagined that they answered back. I didn't mention that to the funeral director."
A gray dove lighted in one of the hemlocks and started singing its mournful song, and Casey felt her chest tighten up. She listened until she felt her heart would be squeezed to the point that it stopped beating, and finally she had to say something.
"How did you find me?"
"Olivia told me about Charlie a few days ago," he explained. "When I called your office and they said you had taken a personal day, I thought it was a pretty interesting coincidence that you chose my first day back to do it. It wasn't hard to search the city burial records and find out what I needed to know."
Casey nodded and smiled slightly. "That's what makes you a good detective."
"Yeah, I guess."
There was another long silence between them. She tried to watch Elliot out of the corner of her eye, but all she could see without turning her head was the general shape of him, solid, muscular, and a bit intimidating there beside her. She wanted to turn and look at him, but for the first time in the nearly five years they had been working together she was afraid to face him because she knew he would be angry with her.
And she knew why she was afraid.
In the past, the things that pissed him off had always been worked related. The law had dictated what she could do, and she was just a convenient target for his anger. Eventually, they closed the case, he got over it, and they moved on. This time, though, it was personal. She had used him to get what she wanted despite what the law said. Even though she was confident that she had done it for all the right reasons, it was the wrong thing to do and she wasn't sure he could ever get over it.
"Why didn't you tell us?" Elliot asked abruptly startling her out of her contemplation. "We'd have been there for you, helped you make arrangements, served as pall bearers, whatever you needed. You know that."
"I know," she responded quietly.
"Then why didn't you tell us?"
She shrugged and said meekly, "Because I was embarrassed."
She couldn't bear to look at Elliot, but she could feel him frowning at her in confusion.
"Embarrassed?" he said, and his tone of voice confirmed that she had been right about his expression. "Embarrassed about what? Loving someone with a mental illness?"
She opened her mouth to answer, but the words wouldn't come without the tears. So she closed her mouth, and the tears broke free and came on their own anyway. Elliot offered her his handkerchief, and she accepted it with a nod of thanks and dabbed at her tears.
She couldn't stop weeping, but when she could finally trust her voice not to waver when she talked, she told him, "I was embarrassed that I let it come to this, that I let him wind up on the streets where he died, that I couldn't save him."
She couldn't quite suppress her sobs anymore, and when she felt Elliot's strong arm slide around her shoulders, she finally let go. She could feel his cheek press against the top of her head as he rocked her and shushed her, and when she had finally cried herself out, he talked to her more kindly than she had any right to expect.
"I know you, Casey," he said sincerely, "and I know you never do anything halfway. There is no doubt in my mind that you did all you could to help Charlie, but sometimes all we can do just isn't enough. No matter how badly we want to, we can't work miracles."
"I should have taken better care of him," she said.
"You had to take care of yourself," he told her.
"That's just what Olivia said."
She could feel Elliot shrug when he said, "She's right."
"Then who takes care of people like Charlie?" she asked.
Elliot shrugged again. "I wish I could answer that."
They fell into silence again. After a while, Casey sniffled, dabbed her eyes dry, and returned Elliot's handkerchief to him. Then they sat side by side on the bench staring at the grave. The dove flew out of the tree. A cardinal alighted on Charlie's headstone and began its bright, warbling, whistling song.
Finally, Elliot broke the silence again.
"I understand why you did what you did to me on the stand," he said.
Casey sighed in relief, but immediately tensed again when he said, "That doesn't make it right."
He got up from the bench, approached the grave and crossed himself. The brave little cardinal stayed right there, singing away. Elliot walked back to where Casey was sitting, tense and ashamed, and placed a hand on her shoulder. It took her almost a minute to gather the nerve to look him in the eye.
He gave her a small, lopsided smile and squeezed her shoulder.
"It doesn't make it unforgivable, either."
He left her alone then, because she still needed some time to forgive herself.
Law and Order: Special Victims Unit and series characters property of Dick Wolf and Wolf Productions. No profit is being made from this story.