Alaskan Nights (A Law and Order: SVU fanfic)

Ch.32

Olivia sits perched on the edge of the toilet lid wrapped in her towel listening for signs of life on the other side of the door. She'd heard Elliot enter the room when she exited the shower ten minutes ago and had started to get dressed, but she'd since halted her efforts in favour of just listening to him exist after an hour of him consuming her mind. She had expected to hear the door open much earlier signalling his flight from Paul and Rebecca's latest argument but when she didn't and instead heard Paul storm out, she kicked herself for thinking that he would run. Elliot Stabler didn't run. She wasn't sure that he knew how. No, instead he was programmed to stand firm in the face of adversity while also staying calm and composed to comfort those around him. She was the runner. The one that ran across the states and oceans and most recently ran from his embrace.

She touches her lips at the memory of his warm breath on them just hours ago. She'd manage to scrub his look of disappointment from her mind as she scrubbed away at her skin but the longer she sat there, the more it began to creep back into her mind to haunt her. She wants him and his actions made it abundantly clear his desire towards her so why was it so hard to surrender? She knew why of course but it was easier to ponder the obvious than to act on it. It was easier to believe that she was doing right by him by denying them both. It was also hard to believe that he still thought of her in that way. Partially due to her transgressions but also because of how much she'd changed both physically and mentally. It wasn't as if he was a carbon copy of his former self but he was still Elliot. Big, strong, complicated Elliot. And she...she didn't know who the fuck she was. And so maybe it was better to keep the mess of a human being that she had become and was becoming away from him even if her heart told her to run into his arms and never let go. She knew what she had to do and she was going to do it...somehow.

She rises from the toilet lid and instinctively flushes it, "Good job, Liv." She mutters to herself as she reaches for her clothes.

+++

As he pushed through the connecting door, he found the room dimly lit by a lamp near the room door but just as quiet as the adjoining room that he'd just left. Through the low light, he observed the outline of two empty beds and breathed a sigh of relief, grateful that Rebecca had only been joking when she teased about there only being one bed in the room. He advanced towards the second bed, noticing that Olivia had things on the first and it was then that he noticed the curtains flattering lightly to the right of the bed. He walked towards the open sliding glass door, talking the cold air that snuck up his jeans in stride and expecting to see Olivia sitting on the balcony but when he doesn't find her and instead only finds evidence of her previous occupancy in a pill and her phone. He peeked back into the room and immediately noticed the light peeking out from under what he surmised to be the bathroom door. He turned back towards the balcony deciding to not risk seeing her in a towel or any stage of undress and instead took the few steps towards the railing.

The metal is unsurprisingly cool beneath his fingers and though he is only two stories up, he feels like he is on top of the world far above all of his problems and worries. The feeling is compounded when in the distance he sees the flickering lights of the local life on the outskirts of the massive resort and for a moment he imagines that he was one of them, living in a cottage much like Olivia's under the barely visible Aurora. The thought brings him more pain that comforts through because while it is so easy to imagine an alternative universe in which everything was mundanely perfect, his reality reeks of the insecurity of life and love. Would she ever feel the same way he did about her ever again? Would she be alive tomorrow?

His phone buzzes in his pocket jolting him before he could fall into the rabbit hole of his mind. He fishes it out from his pocket and is happy, anxious and a bit surprised to see that it is his sponsor, Liana. It isn't a complete surprise that she called, especially when he'd previously indicated during their earlier texts that he'd call her sometime today, but he was surprised that she was still up, given her reputation as an early bird. "Liana, why are you up at 3 am?" he asks as he brings the phone to his ear.