Never Her

Two

The next few days were stressful for Elliot and Olivia. She was nervous for him but he just wanted to pretend nothing had happened. Every time she tried to bring it up, he would shut her down. He was quiet and reserved while she was scared for him.

The whole two days he just sat on the couch staring into an abyss. To pass time, Olivia cleaned the entire apartment. She didn't know what else to do other than stress clean. He wouldn't talk to her or even look in her direction. She had way too much on her mind to watch TV so she just simply cleaned.

She had been cleared to go back to work but Elliot still had to go into see Dr.Huang. He was pushing off going and it was making her even more anxious. She knew he was going to need help. This wasn't a normal situation. This shooting got to him more than any other ever had. He was in a dark place and Olivia wasn't sure how to pull him out. She wasn't even sure she could.

As she got ready for work that morning, he stayed sleeping. She watched him for a few minutes before getting out of bed. She didn't want to leave him alone because she was scared of what he would do when he was alone.

He awoke as she was pouring her coffee into her travel mug. He met her in the kitchen and made a beeline straight to the coffee pot.

"Good morning," she says as she loaded up her purse with her things to return back to work. Without an answer, she turns to face her husband. "Will you be okay today?", she asks making her way towards where he was sitting in his stool.

He gives her a blank stare as she stands between his knees and doesn't respond to her question. She places her hands on his cheeks and rests her forehead against his. Releasing a deep breath, she says, "I love you, Elliot. I'll see you when I get home, okay?". She went to place a soft kiss on his lips but at the last second he pulls away before she could. It felt like it was a punch to the gut. They never left like this. She felt the sadness and feelings of rejection seeping in. It broke her heart to see her husband so broken that he was pushing her away. She knew she shouldn't push him or it could end up being worse. She muttered a quick goodbye before leaving their apartment.

Once at work, she tried to just dive straight into work. She had to field all the questions from their coworkers on how Elliot was doing since the shooting. She gave little information and stayed focused on her work.

Soon, Cragen called her into his office. She let out a sigh while pushing herself out of her chair and stalked into the office. "What's up, Cap?", she asks taking a seat at one of the chairs opposite of his desk.

"How is Elliot?", Cragen asks as he sits down in his chair. He was worried when he heard Elliot was not answering Huang on his psychological evaluation to come back to work, especially after he heard Olivia was returning back to work.

She debated on telling her Captain what had happened but she didn't know if she should. But she knew she had to. However, she didn't want Elliot to lose his job. His job was everything to him. It could jeopardize his entire career but she valued his life more.

With a deep breath, she leaned forward and told him everything that happened. As she started talking, words spilled out of her mouth at lightening speed and tears started streaming down her face. Cragen just let her talk because he sensed it got to her just as much as Elliot.

"Olivia, I know you already know this, but this is serious. It needed to be reported. I know you wanted it to be off the record, but, I cannot do that. I'm sorry," he says sympathetically as he rounded the desk to give the woman some comforting words.

She tried to argue with him but she knew it was useless. Deep down, she knew it was a liability to have him on the squad until he was 100%. If he ever did get back to 100%.

The Captain instructed her to go home and take the day off. Annoyed, she packed up her bag and headed home.

By the time she arrived there, Elliot was sitting at their dining room table with his head in his hands. She dropped her stuff before meeting him over at the table and took a seat at the chair next to his. "Baby?", she quietly asks as she reaches her hand out to his shoulder.

Elliot looks up to her with blood shot eyes and lowers his hand to grab his empty tumbler glass. "Cragen called. I'm out," he states. He leans back in his chair and stares her down.

Her jaw drops in confusion as to what the hell could have happened between the time she left his office and the time she arrived home. "What do you mean you're 'out'?" She asks, perplexed. This all happened so fast.

"Because you couldn't keep your fucking mouth shut, I lost my job. He gave me an ultimatum. Long term therapy or retire," He spews and pours himself a new glass.

Olivia looks back and forth between him and his glass. She had no idea how much he had to drink before this and was wondering if he was even thinking rationally about this decision. Did he really retire?

"El, why don't you take some time to think?", she is trying to tread lightly because she didn't know where his head was at in the moment.

His head whipped in her direction immediately and he was burning holes into her face with his glare. "No, Olivia. This is all your fault. All of it. You hesitated grabbing your gun! You made me shoot her!", he raged on and she just let him yell. She knew he didn't mean what he was saying but it didn't make it sting any less.

He stood abruptly from his chair and stomped off to their bedroom. Olivia drug her hands up and down her face trying to ignore the pain of what he just said to her. The death of Jenna was neither of their faults.

There was a light knock on the door and it dawned on Olivia that Elliot's kids were supposed to come stay with them for the weekend.

She went and answered the door. There stood Kathy, the twins, and Eli. She let out a deep breath before saying, "Hi, Kath. I'm so sorry. I should have called you earlier. A lot has happened over the last few days and we had a really bad case. I don't think we can have the kids this weekend,". She tried to explain as gently as she could because she knew that it will piss Kathy off. She hated when their work interferes with the kids schedules.

Kathy rolled her eyes and sent the kids back downstairs. "What happened?" She asks as she crosses her arms.

Olivia gave her a very minimal rundown of what happened with the case. She didn't need to know everything because she didn't want Kathy to take the kids from Elliot because of this.

After Kathy left, she shut the door and leaned against it. This was going to be one hell of a ride for them.

She sat down and tried to come up with a plan. She wants Elliot to attend therapy and cope with what happened with Jenna. That is not easy. But the fact he quit his job today, it was very concerning to her. She had no idea what was yet to come.