Quinn's limp arm dangles over Susie's shoulder and sways aimlessly through her brown hair as they make their way back to the Olivia's house. The setting sun filters through his own brown curls as they flop up and down, revealing his restful face with each step that Susie takes.
"It's crazy, huh?"
Elliot looks up from his watch like a startled child, "What?"
Olivia tips her head to his watch.
"Oh, yeah. I keep having to remind myself that it's 10pm. This is definitely gonna take some getting used to." He replies motioning between this watch and the distant sun.
"Yeah, it threw me off at first, too." she offers, sinking her hands into the pockets of her dress. "Summer sunrise at 4, sunset at 10." she tilts her head to get a better view of the sleeping child before them and smiles. "It was so hard to get him down at night. I tried everything, even those curtains that block out the light, but they didn't help. So we spent a lot of hours on that porch, just waiting for the sun to set because it was the only time that he'd sleep." Her smile spreads widely across her face at the memory.
The smile quickly fades from her lips and he instantly wonders if it had been guilt that had suddenly overtaken the sweet memory. He feels a pull to reassure her but there is a part of him that needs her to fester in the guilt, as much as he hated to admit it. "This one summer," he starts, drawing her thoughts and her eyes back to him. "My siblings and I had a 6 o'clock bed time. It was so long ago that I can't even remember what we did to deserve it, but for three months we were forced to lay there and listen to all the neighbourhood kids play for hours in the light of day. Needless to say that that was the summer that I started to sneak out."
"Elliot Stabler?" She teases lowly. "The one with the cop dad, snuck out?"
"Oh yes, he did." Elliot nods. "My brothers and I would jump out of out our bedroom window and run to the near by park and a sneak back in before he came home. What's funny is that Maureen recently told me that she and Kathleen did the same."
Olivia quickly covers the laugh that leaves her mouth, "Really?"
"Yeah. Apparently us Stabler kids have never feared a one story jump to freedom. So pretty soon you'll be chasing him through a window." She cringes slightly at his break from reality and his tongue stings with the realisation.
"Sorry...I didn't mean to—"
"It's okay. Sometimes I forget, too." The sun peaks out from behind the clouds again and it sets her eyes alight as she turns to him, reflecting a similar conflict deep in the sea of brown which he'd seen in Rebecca earlier in the day. "I have to forget in order to live."
Elliot slows his gait under her gaze and they both watch as Susie cuts across the grass towards the house.
"You look the same, you know." He whispers so softly. She can't help but smile at the meekness of a man that she had previously described as being dynamic. A man turned soft and incapable of being as pointed and direct as he once was. The old Elliot Stabler would have said "You don't look like you're dying" but it's clear that the man that stands in front of her is just as changed as she is, although she isn't sure if it's for the best.
"You don't." she whispers back. She brings her hands to her chest and traces a deep pink scar that runs just below her collarbone. "And neither do I."
And I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I did this to you, all of it.
He begins to turn away with his brow already heavily furrowed but she presses on anyway. "You know, the doctors said that if I'd never had the twins that I may have never discovered my condition and that I could have gone all of my life living ignorant bliss."
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Alaskan Nights (A Law and Order: SVU fanfic)
FanficIn a moment of weakness, Olivia and Elliot have a one night stand. She later finds out that she is pregnant and flees to Alaska to escape the possible breakdown of their relationship, fearing what would happen if they didn't work out. Now three yea...