You're Somebody Else || A Bensler/EO Reunion Fanfiction

Steps

She sat in the waiting room, wringing her hands nervously as they awaited any news of Kathy Stabler's condition... Fin had stayed with her, though he was standing and messing around on his phone. Her mind swirled, she had been thinking of all the words exchanged... the last forty-eight hours somehow felt like weeks. There had been so much to process, but not enough time to process it in... Elliot Stabler was back. Of course she had never imagined seeing him again, let alone under circumstances where she felt responsible for his emotional stability... where she felt as though she needed to bury her emotions because now was not the time or place to explain. She twisted the ring on her right hand around, a fidget she had picked up more recently, her gaze staring blankly at the tiles on the floor. Like many hospitals, there was a pattern to how they were laid... and like many hospitals there was an error in the pattern because the individuals who had laid it couldn't have cared less. 

She felt so many emotions that she wasn't even sure which would escape her first whenever the walls of her heart were breached. Would she express her sadness? Would she express her anger? Would she tell him how she did her best to move on? Would she tell him that no matter how hard she tried, she never could? Would she tell him... would she finally tell him the truth? 

The sound of Fin's phone ringing jarred her back to reality and her gazed snapped from the faulty pattern on the floor to Fin's face, wondering if it was news on the case... from his face, she knew it was Phoebe. She knew, because there was a softness in his features that he held only for her. It brought a ghost of a smile to her lips, though it faded as quickly as it had come. Fin was providing brief answers, brief updates on the situation, like a man who'd been married for a decade...not a fiancé who hadn't even set the date. She felt herself bristle, annoyed by the casual way in which he spoke to her, as if he took her presence in his life for granted. She realized, that in her annoyance she had stopped paying attention to what he was saying. "Okay, thanks," Fin said, his tone warm. There was a pause, as she assumed Phoebe replied, and then he added, "You too," before hanging up the phone. That was more than Olivia could bear.

"You too?" she asked incredulously, her tone laced with subtle hints of annoyance. It might not be a big deal at any other moment... but Elliot's wife was fighting for her life just a few rooms away and they had all been made brutally aware of the fragility of life for the millionth time... but more than that Phoebe had been Fin's first partner, a partner he finally admitted having feelings for. He had the opportunity to do what Olivia had always wanted to do and he was squandering another chance to say those words... to tell Phoebe I love you. She was on edge, her emotions slipping through the smallest of cracks in the armor she had built to protect her heart. "Phoebe just said 'I love you', and you couldn't say it back?" she added, annoyance ever-present in her tone as she shook her head slightly. She was judging him, openly. Fin shrugged slightly, not feeding into her emotion... he knew, better than anyone, how hard these past few days had been on her, "Her ex-husband was a cop," he replied, his tone casual and not defensive, "She knows the drill." There was a hint of amusement in his voice and Olivia needed to refrain from saying something more harsh...in reality she didn't get to judge him, she hadn't ever said it. 

Before their conversation could continue, however, she saw him... She stood, silently, urgency in every movement. She walked to meet him, shoving her emotions back beneath the surface once again as she focused on Elliot and his needs, "How is she?" she asked, her voice full of concern. "Cardiac arrest," Elliot reported, as if talking about a vic and not his wife... the distance in his voice was noted, "But her heart rate's stable now."  Olivia nodded, finding her voice, "Thank God," she replied, though something in her voice lacked conviction. Elliot either didn't notice or didn't care, "Just trying to figure out what caused it," he added, his brows furrowed. Olivia nodded slowly, unable to find words... she wanted to comfort him, to make him feel alright, but she knew that she couldn't. Something was still broken between them, like an unseen barrier keeping them just far enough away from each other that comfort couldn't be found between them. He moved to walk past her, his left arm rising so that he could rub at the back of his neck... she found herself wondering if he felt it too, the force field between them that kept them from falling back together the way they would've a decade ago.