Alaskan Nights (A Law and Order: SVU fanfic)

Ch.34

She could feel Elliot's gaze on her from the resort, even as she sits on the rocks at the edge of the lake. She is not sure exactly when he arrived, but she knows for sure that he is there, watching her as he always did. She had long forgotten that he did that—that he would find her and observe her from afar when things were hard or when they were not talking. She does remember hating it, though. Hating the imposition and specifically hating the fact that he felt the need to keep an eye on her lest she flee when things got tough. Of course, she had run in the end...again and to further reaches this time, but she still hated the imposition, the watching and the waiting and especially the look that he would give her when he finally made his presence known.

With her knowledge of the past, it is strange to her that he had waited this long to draw her attention to him because while he did not always approach her, he did always find a way to let her know that he was there. Back in the bars of the city, he had been more brash and obvious, especially when he would find her chatting up a tipsy lawyer, but he had always done it and had never waited this long. So, contemplating whether he was actually there, she glances over her shoulder towards the resort and quickly scans the area. She finds him almost immediately, facing away from the balcony and on the phone; her heart is instantly gripped by thoughts of Lizzie and her current state. She wants to know, but she decides to turn back around and wait—for what she did not know but at least she knew that he was there. And she was here, too... somehow still in the same zip code with him, clutching their limp son in her tiring arms as he slept securely against her chest.

She imagines that the delay in his approach had partly been due to the surprising fact that he was dumbfounded that she was still here in Anchorage and not a million miles away. She is just as surprised as she had had to stop herself from devising an exit plan once she left their hotel room. The escape clock had started in her mind the minute she heard the crack in Lizzie's voice that signalled her onslaught of fighting words.

There was a little under an hour to Anchorage, another two to Sitka and then...and then...that was where the plan would always falter in her mind even as she hurled further and further down the hallways of the resort to the front desk and towards leaving with her son. It was not that she did not know how to run—no, she had proved that she was excellent at devising escape plans and executing them before it was because she was tired of the hurting; he was tired of giving it, expecting it and feeling it and so she could not do it anymore.

No, her plans of escape were empty, but they still made her feel good to think about it and to be reminded of a time when she felt the most in charge of her life even if it had somehow led to all of this torment and anguish. A torment and anguish that felt like it was finally coming to an end, even if Elliot and Rebecca still had hope for revival.

She was not mad at Lizzie. She was not even mad at herself—anymore. There was a peace that came with truly dying that she had not experienced before which was comical to her given the sheer number of times that she had knocked on death's proverbial door. It was a peace that had eventually guided her to her son after almost an hour of idle pacing. She missed and wanted her baby and with her plans of running away not making it past her mind, she started looking for him, finding him half asleep at the dining table with the others and bringing him to where she sat on the rocks even as Paul tried to chase her.

She needed him. She always did but if she was not going to run and instead, she was going to face every bad emotion that ran through her mind on the back of their morning, she needed him and as she watches his sweet face as he sleeps, she swells with pride that he still needed her, too.

+++

"I think she came straight for him," Rebecca offers as she approaches the balcony and settles beside Elliot on the railing of the open deck. "Tears still in her eyes, looking a little frantic."