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She has played some roles too often to forget her lines.

More than two decades of keeping Elliot’s family together when he is either unable or unwilling to do so himself have her falling back into old habits, so when Bernie’s name flashes across her caller ID Olivia knows. 

She’s not just being called, she’s being called on, the way Kathleen did all those months ago for the intervention - the way she’s always been called on to step in and step up for a family that has somehow always been hers, and not hers at all. 

“I’m worried about Eli,” Bernie admits.

Olivia sighs. She’s not surprised because she’s been worried about him too, both before finding those pills and after. 

Privately, she wonders where the point is when the worry becomes too much and too big for her body. All she does these days is worry. 

It reminds her of old movies she watched when she was younger where some child would climb a tree and inevitably choose the wrong branch, something too thin or too frail to support their weight, and the resulting crash when they went tumbling back to the ground. That’s how Olivia feels some days: like she’s standing alone on a branch that’s about to break.

“Bernie,” she starts to say. 

“Just talk to him, Olivia,” Bernie interrupts. 

It’s a plea and a command in one and Olivia shakes her head even though the other woman can’t see her. Eli isn’t going to respond well to her and Olivia knows it, the same way she’d known that his father wouldn’t respond well to the intervention, but she didn’t deny Kathleen and she’s not going to deny Bernie. 

Watching out for the Stabler clan is a role she knows well and has never really given up, as she’s been forced to admit to herself since Elliot’s return. 

Elliot has enough to worry about anyway, she reasons. She can’t bring him home - can’t make him step away from the mission he’s already given months of his life to - but she can make sure that he has something to come home to. 

She can do what she’s always done, and keep the Stabler family together. 

“Come to his soccer game on Friday night,” Bernie offers, and Olivia agrees. 

She doesn’t get there until a few minutes after the game starts. It takes her a minute to find Bernie and Kathleen in their seats and since Kathleen doesn’t even bat an eye at her presence Olivia figures that Bernie must have told her about their conversation. 

Still, Olivia feels like her appearance merits an explanation. 

“Your grandma invited me,” she says.

Kathleen smiles warmly. “I’m glad you made it.”

Olivia realizes in that moment that, aside from Elliot, these two women are perhaps her staunchest supporters in the Stabler clan. They are bound, the three of them, by the same singular event that is now more than a decade old. 

It’s a bond she doesn’t share with anyone else. 

Olivia relaxes. Her shoulders fall a little and the tension in her muscles relents just enough to let her sink into the bench. She’s right behind Bernie and Kathleen and her eyes are fixed on the field as she searches for Eli; Kathleen leans back suddenly and angles her head toward Olivia without actually taking her eyes from the field.

“That’s Eli,” she tells Olivia with a finger aimed down the field. 

She’s tracking Elliot’s youngest child as he bobs and weaves around the other team, a blur of movement against the spotlights that illuminate the field. All around her parents are yelling encouragement for kids who likely can’t hear them, and even though she’s still dressed for work Olivia feels like she’s part of a different world for a moment. 

“Tea?” Bernie offers. She holds up a beat up old thermos and a small stack of thick styrofoam cups. Olivia is surprised by the offer, and Bernie takes her hesitation as tacit agreement and pours her a cup.

“Thank you,” Olivia says as she takes the offering. 

“It’s chamomile. Too late for caffeine.”

“It’s never too late for caffeine, grandma,” Kathleen chimes in. 

“Spoken like a career woman headed for a burnout.” She slaps her empty hand on Kathleen’s knee and squeezes .”There’s more to life than work, Katie.”

“I know, grandma.”

“If you don’t take care of yourself now -.”

“Grams,” Kathleen interrupts with an indulgent smile, “I was kidding.”

“No you weren’t,” Bernie shoots back. “Tell her, Olivia.”

She’s been caught off guard more in the last ten minutes than she has in the last ten days, and that’s saying something. 

“Oh, uh, I’m the wrong person to ask.”

“She’s a cop, grams,” Kathleen points out in the middle of a laugh. “And a mom.”

Bernie thinks for a second and then nods her head in acquiescence. “Then the tea will do you both good. Drink up girls.”

Olivia sips experimentally at her tea. It’s still hot but it doesn’t burn her, so she takes another sip and keeps an eye on Eli as she listens absentmindedly to Bernie and Kathleen’s commentary. Her mind wanders as she relaxes further. 

It’s easy to forget why she’s here. The tea and easy welcome and the way that Bernie and Kathleen just seamlessly fold her into their conversation as if she’s always been part of it lull Olivia into a sense of belonging that she doesn’t think to examine because she doesn’t realize that it’s there until the game is over and Eli jogs to a stop in front of them. 

Olivia is observant, so she catches the moment that Eli realizes there’s a third person behind his grandma and his sister and the hope flares in his eyes just to disappear again when he recognizes her instead of his father. 

“Olivia,” he says in surprise. His breathing is still labored and uneven from his exertion.

“Hey, Eli,” she replies gently. 

“I didn’t know you were coming.” He’s uneasy and uncertain but he tries to hide it.

Life is funny. This is the boy that Olivia held moments after his birth, that she cradled to her chest and murmured reassurances and soothing nonsense to as the ambulance hurtled down city streets to the hospital, yet he knows her the least of any of Elliot’s children. She is a stranger to him in a way that he will never be to her. 

“We invited her,” Kathleen explains. 

“And you agreed?”         

“Eli,” Bernie admonishes. 

Olivia doesn’t begrudge him the question, though. He’s not being impertinent: she can hear the confusion in his voice and see the calculation in his eyes as he studies her.              

“I did. I wanted to see how you were doing,” Olivia says.          

They’re all standing now, Bernie gathering up the few things she’s brought with her and handing them off to Kathleen as the younger woman takes in the interaction between Olivia and Eli. 

“Why?” Eli asks. 

Okay, maybe he’s being a little impertinent, but he’s a teenager and he’s having a hard time so Olivia doesn’t take it personally.

Much. 

“How about we walk to your car and talk about it.” Olivia slips back into the voice she uses with victims, the soothing one that helps her establish trust, and waits quietly while Eli watches her and tries to make up his mind. 

“Okay,” Eli finally agrees. 

“We’ll meet you at the car,” Kathleen tells them. “Thanks for coming, Olivia.”

Bernie takes the empty cup from Olivia’s hands and then squeezes Olivia’s forearm. “Don’t be a stranger, dear, and you really should try to stay off the caffeine.”

“Grams,” Kathleen chides.

Olivia smiles and covers Bernie’s hand with one of her own. “Thank you for the tea, Bernie.”

“Next time you come over we’ll sit out on the patio, you’ll love it.”

Then, Kathleen links her arm with Bernie’s and the two women move off in the direction of the car. 

Eli hefts a mid-sized gym bag up onto his shoulder and waits. 

“Do you need help with anything?” Olivia offers.

“I’m good, thanks.”

“C’mon.” Olivia nods her head in the direction that Bernie and Kathleen have gone and starts walking as Eli falls into step next to her. 

“This is weird,” Eli says before Olivia can speak. “I feel like I’m about to be interrogated. That’s what you do, right?”

“It is,” Olivia answers, but her thoughts have gone somewhere else. Is that how he sees her? As an intimidating stranger, someone who only shows up when something is wrong?

Can she blame him if it is? The first time Eli remembers meeting her is at his mother’s funeral, and the next time they’d seen each other had been at his father’s intervention. Eli doesn’t know her outside of these nightmares, the recent traumas that have colored his life, and Olivia feels it again at this moment: this isn’t going to work. 

She tries anyway. 

“I’m not here to interrogate you, Eli. I’m here because I’m worried about you.”

“Why? You don’t even know me.”

Olivia sighs and stops walking. She turns to face Eli, who has also stopped walking and is staring suspiciously at her. She’s learned over the years that the truth is always the better option, although not often the easier one, and it’s important to her to be honest with Eli. 

If she’s ever going to have any kind of relationship with the youngest Stabler then it’s imperative for her to gain his trust, and she can’t do that by lying to him. 

“I know that you’re stealing your grandma’s medication, Eli.”

“I’m not stealing anything,” he immediately shoots back, and his denial is surprisingly smooth.

“Eli --.”

“Is this why you’re here? Because you think I’m doing drugs and you’re trying to scare me into admitting it?”

“I’m here because I care about you, Eli, and --.”

“How can you care about me when you don’t even know me? Did my dad put you up to this?”

Olivia sighs heavily. It’s been a long day and this is going about as well as she’s expected. “No one put me up to this. I know what it’s like to lose your mother, Eli. I wasn’t as close with my mom as I’m sure you were with yours, but I know what that pain feels like.”

The admission pierces the veil of his anger. “You do?”

“I do. And I know how easy it is to lose yourself. I don’t want that for you, Eli.”

The young man hesitates. There’s so much Olivia doesn’t know about him, about the ways that he interacts with his siblings and his grandma and his dad. How he used to interact with his mom. Does anyone talk to him like this, she wonders. 

Olivia answers her own question: no, because they talk to him like family, like the youngest member of their tribe, and Olivia is talking to him like she talks to the other lost souls that find their way to her in need of help and guidance. 

She’s not family, but she’s not exactly a stranger, and living in limbo is exhausting. 

“Well, uh, thanks for that, I guess. But I’m not lost, and I’m not stealing my grandma’s pills, so … can I go now? I’m really tired and I need a shower.”

“Of course.” Then, on second thought, Olivia adds, “Do you have your phone?”

“Uh, yeah. Why?”

“Let me give you my number, just in case.”

Eli pulls his phone out of his bag and unlocks the screen before handing it to her. Olivia types in her name and phone number, hits save, and hands it back to him. 

“Call any time,” Olivia assures him. “Day or night, okay?” 

Eli gives her another assessing look. He’s still so young despite the circumstances that are trying to age him prematurely, and Olivia feels a twinge of fear at wondering what trials will find Noah in a few years, when he’s a teenager and the world widens beyond their bubble of safety and comfort. 

“Okay,” Eli finally agrees. “Night.”

Olivia watches Eli’s tall, slim figure travel away from her and toward his waiting family. He hasn’t thanked her for coming and she hasn’t told him he played a good game; she was relaxed with Bernie and Kathleen and felt absolutely out of place with Eli. 

She’s stuck in the in-between, one foot on either side of the line in damn near every aspect of her life. As Olivia turns to head back to her own vehicle she wonders what she wouldn’t give for a little clarity - just one aspect of her life where she had both feet on the same side of the divide, and a clear understanding of where she stands. 

Maybe tomorrow, she tells herself, and knows that it’s just wishful thinking.         

+++

The call comes in the middle of the night. 

Olivia has rolled over and picked up her phone before her eyes are even open and she has a split second to register that it’s just a number without a name on the screen, and that the time reads just after two a.m. 

“Hello?”

In the few seconds that pass between her greeting and the answer all she can hear is breathing. It’s fast and panicked and Olivia pulls herself up against the headboard.

“Olivia?” A voice asks before she can say anything else.

Her stomach drops. “Eli?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know who else to call and you said if I ever needed anything --.”

“Eli, take a breath.” When she hears him inhale deeply she continues. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

“Not me, but something’s wrong with my friend. I think he’s stopped breathing and I’ve already called 911 but I don’t … I’m afraid, and I tried to call my dad but he didn’t answer and I can’t …”

He trails off. Olivia is already out of bed and cradling her phone between her ear and her shoulder so that her hands are free to wiggle out of her pajamas and into jeans and a sweater. 

“Just tell me where you are, Eli.”

Eli rattles off his location and Olivia can hear the distant sound of sirens coming through the phone. 

“Okay, Eli, I need to make another call. When the ambulance gets there I want you to tell them you’re going to ride along and then call me back and tell me what hospital they’re taking you to. Can you do that? Eli,” Olivia calls sharply when he doesn’t answer. 

“Okay,” he answers belatedly. 

“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Olivia promises.

Her next call is to Fin. She hates to interrupt him in the middle of the night and tear him away from his home and Phoebe and sleep, but Olivia can’t drag Amanda away from her kids and she doesn’t want to wake Noah unless she doesn’t have any other options. 

Fin grumbles at her but the second she tells him it’s for Eli he shuts up. 

Fin is also the one who lives closest to her so it’s only a short time later that he’s knocking softly on her door. 

“Thanks, Fin,” Olivia says quietly as she lets him in. 

“I’m having flashbacks,” Fin retorts. “You running out at all hours of the night to save the Stablers.”

“He’s just a kid, Fin.”

“We both know that’s not true, Liv. Eli isn’t just any kid, he’s Elliot’s kid.”

“Fin --.”

“I’m not judging. Just stating facts. Now go help the kid. Can I get a pillow?”

“Already on the couch.”

“Get outta here.”

She’s sliding into her SUV and pulling out her phone again to call Eli, who hasn’t called her back like she told him to, when she sees a waiting text message. It’s from Eli letting her know that the paramedics won’t let him use the phone in the ambulance, but that they’re being taken to Mercy General. 

The city never sleeps but the late hour means that she makes it to the hospital in record time. The NYPD placard in the window of her car lets her swing into one of the parking spots designated for official use and then she’s practically leaping out of her seat to rush through the front doors.

Olivia knows she looks like just another harried mother as she approaches the admittance desk. 

“I’m looking for Eli Stabler, he was brought in with a friend by ambulance --.”

“Ma’am,” the tired woman behind the desk interrupts, “If you’ll just …”

The difference is that Olivia has a badge - which she rarely leaves home without - and she’s not above flashing it now to get the information she’s after.

“Olivia?” 

Eli’s voice interrupts her exchange with the administrator behind the desk. She spins to find him some distance behind her looking pale and lost, and she rushes to his side, reaching out to put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. 

“Eli,” she says, “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

“No, no, I’m okay. They won’t tell me anything about Mark, though, and they had him breathing again in the ambulance but he wasn’t doing so hot and I don’t know if I should … if he dies …”

“Hey,” Olivia coos reassuringly and Eli stops mid-ramble. “Let’s go sit down, okay, and then you can tell me everything that happened.”

“If he dies,” Eli starts again, and once again doesn’t finish.

Olivia can see how pale Eli is and the way his eyes don’t quite focus on anything. This is more than panic, though Olivia knows he’s feeling plenty of that: there’s something drug related there, and her heart constricts. She’s right to be worried about him because he’s not just stealing Bernie’s medication, he’s apparently using it as well, and if she had to guess Olivia would say that his friend is suffering from some kind of drug overdose or adverse reaction.

Elliot is undercover and doing his best to stay two steps ahead of a gang of mobsters - Albanian and otherwise - and his son is unmoored and losing control in the absence of the only parent he has left. 

“Olivia,” Eli says, and then her mouth falls open in surprise as Eli latches onto her hand like the scared kid that he is. “I wish my dad was here.”

“I know, sweetie.” She squeezes the hand that she holds and then takes a chance on reaching out and pulling him into her side for a hug. “He’d be here if he could.”

Goddamn you, Elliot, she curses in the privacy of her thoughts. 

Olivia gets Eli a bottle of water and a package of crackers from the vending machine and then tucks him into the chair in the corner. She makes him promise that he’ll finish both and then lets him know that she’ll be right back and goes in search of a nurse. 

Between trying to track down someone who knows about Mark - she doesn’t know his last name and can’t describe him, so has to go off of his arrival by ambulance and with Eli - and flashing her badge to get information that no one wants to give her, Olivia calls Bernie, and Bernie tells her that she’s calling Kathleen. It reminds Olivia of the old phone trees that parents used to have back when she was in school and cell phones weren’t around.

Eli is half out of it in his chair in the waiting room. He’s physically and emotionally exhausted and the high from the pill he’d taken earlier is starting to wear off. He’s worried about Mark, and being in trouble, and even though he doesn’t really know Olivia, she has come when he called and right now Eli just wants her to come back and sit with him. He’ll decode that particular want later. 

Eli doesn’t know how long he’s been sitting there when he hears his name. 

“Eli!”

He raises his head, stunned, and finds his dad striding across the waiting room with a thunderous look. 

“Dad?”

Eli jumps to his feet and then hesitates. He’d called his dad twice tonight, once from the street and once as he was climbing into the ambulance, and his dad hadn’t answered either time. But here he is and he looks pissed, and terrified, and Eli’s uncertainty chains him to his spot. 

But Elliot grabs him roughly and pulls him into his chest in the tightest hug Eli has felt since his mom died, and a cracked sob worms its way out of his throat. 

“Your voicemail,” Elliot begins.

Eli hardly remembers what he’d said. Something about an ambulance, he thinks, and the fear on his father’s face makes more sense now. 

“I’m okay,” Eli murmurs into his dad’s shoulder. “But I don’t know if Mark is.”

“Who is Mark?”

“My friend, dad,” Eli answers, and even tired and scared and a little high the irritation bleeds through. “He stopped breathing but they brought him back and then we got here and --.”

“Okay, bud,” Elliot soothes. “Why are you out here alone? Where’s Katie or your grandma?”

“They’re not here, but …”

“What do you mean, they’re not here? Why are you alone in the hospital at three a.m, Eli? Does anyone know you’re here?”

Eli hesitates again for just a second and then says, “She said I could call her at any time, so -.”

The end of his sentence trails off. At the same time, Elliot hears her: Olivia and that rich, commanding voice of hers as she argues with a nurse. 

“... told you twice,” she’s saying, “I’m not his mother, I’m --.”

“Liv,” Elliot calls because he can’t help it, and he’s already moving toward her. 

She turns surprised eyes on him. “Elliot,” she says. 

It’s the fucking street all over again, a year ago in the rain with a smoldering car and a world that suddenly doesn’t make sense. 

Only this time he gives in to the temptation that he resisted back then and reaches for her, clasping her bicep to ground himself in her presence. 

“Eli,” Olivia says in concern.

“I’m here,” Eli says from behind his dad. “Have they told you anything about Mark?”

“What happened?” Elliot asks at the same time. 

Olivia sighs. She looks beautiful but tired, and it hits Elliot that she’s shown up for his son in the middle of night. Eli doesn’t know her but he called her anyway, and she’s here for him just the way she was always there for his other kids, the way she’s always been here for him. 

“It looks like an adverse drug reaction,” Olivia explains. 

Elliot turns to his son but he doesn’t release Olivia’s arm. “Eli,” he says grimly, “Are you high?”

“... yes.”

One of Olivia’s hands comes up to touch the hand of his that’s still on her shoulder. The contact interrupts whatever response he’s about to make.

“There’ll be time for that later, Elliot,” she cautions him gently. Then, turning her attention to Eli she asks, “What’s Mark’s last name, and do you have phone numbers for his parents? I’d like to call his mother.”

“Uh, it’s Rafferty. I don’t know their number, but I do know their address.”

“I can work with that.”

So, Eli rattles off his friend’s address and notices the way Olivia squeezes his father’s wrist before dislodging his hand and disappearing down the hall. 

“Let’s sit down over here,” Elliot says.

He guides his son toward a different set of chairs than the ones Eli had occupied previously. His dad looks tired but awake, maybe even apprehensive, and Eli wishes not for the first time that he knew what his dad has been doing this whole time. He tries to check in regularly and sometimes when he shows up there’s an edge to his dad that Eli doesn’t recognize. His dad has always been a hard man to a certain extent, the disciplinarian to his mother’s softer approach, but there have been times lately that Eli wonders if his dad is becoming someone else. 

“Tell me what happened, son.”

So, Eli tells him. He tells his dad that it started as a way to make cash and then turned into something else, how Mark had told him that if they were going to sell the pills then they should at least know what they did, and then … Eli doesn’t know what happened. He doesn’t know why he kept taking them. Mark had tried to get him to try others and Eli had declined, but he’d kept taking his grandma’s pills. 

Elliot listens and says nothing. His expression changes once or twice but Eli can’t name the emotions he sees, and he wishes that Olivia would come back. 

That realization drives Eli to speak again.

“I lied to her face,” he says quietly. “I could have called someone else when you didn’t answer, but I didn’t know what to do and she said I could call her any time, so I did. I lied to her face, and she came anyway.”

“Olivia?” Elliot clarifies. Eli nods; Elliot asks his next question. “What do you mean, you lied to her?”

Eli blows out a breath and leans back in his chair. “She came to my soccer game a few days ago, with grandma and Katie. She said she knew about grandma’s meds and I told her I had no idea what she was talking about. She knew I was lying.”

“Well, that’s part of her job,” Elliot points out. 

“As a cop?”

“And a mom. She has a son, too.”

Eli vaguely remembers hearing something like that from someone. Probably Katie or grandma, since they’re the two who know Olivia best outside of their father. 

“Olivia has really been there for our family over the years, Eli.”

“Not just you?”

“Not just me. She was there for Dickie and Kathleen when they were in trouble; she helped pull your mom out of a wrecked car. In fact, she was the only one who was there with your mom when you were born.”

Somewhere down the hall, the sound of an angry, raised voice disrupts the relative quiet of the hospital just before dawn. It’s a woman and she’s just shy of being hysterical, but Elliot can’t make out what she’s saying.

“I didn’t know that,” Eli says quietly. “If she’s so important how come no one ever talked about her?”

Sometimes, Elliot thinks that Olivia has some kind of sixth sense that tells her exactly when to show up. Elliot is trying to think of a way to answer Eli’s question that’s honest without being too revealing when Olivia breezes right past them without so much as a glance. 

“Where the hell is my son?” That frantic, feminine voice shouts.

“Mrs. Rafferty,” Olivia calls in her most firm and reassuring tone. 

Eli and Elliot both straighten in their seats even though neither woman is looking at them. Mrs. Rafferty is a tall, thin woman who barrels down the hallway like she’s ready to beat down anyone who steps in her way, but she pulls up short when Olivia steps in front of her.

“Who are you?” Mrs. Rafferty demands. “Are you a nurse?”

“I’m Captain Benson, we spoke on the phone?”

Mark’s mother deflates. “Oh. Where is my son, Captain? Is he alright? What happened?”

“Why don’t you come with me and I’ll tell you what I know while we wait for the nurse to come back. She's with Mark now.”

Before they can start walking Mark’s mother glances over and sees Eli where he waits in his chair. Her face transforms immediately with recognition and fear, and she makes straight for him. 

“Eli? What the hell were you boys doing out there? What did you get into?”

Eli is frozen in fear, but Elliot is already on his feet. Olivia redirects the other woman’s attention before anyone else can speak, stepping into the space in front of Eli and blocking him from view with her body. 

“Eli saved your son’s life, Mrs. Rafferty. Now, if you’ll come with me we can go find that nurse.” 

They don’t see Olivia again for what must be hours (or at least one). Eli has been up for more than twenty-four hours when he finally falls asleep in his chair with his head on his dad’s shoulder. The emotional crash paired with the crash from his high knocks him out sometime around five a.m.

Elliot isn’t wide awake, but he knows he won’t sleep. Eli’s voicemail had scared the hell out of him and while that fear has mostly abated in the intervening hours, concern has taken its place. His son isn’t just stealing drugs, he’s selling them and using them as well. There’s a part of Elliot that insists that it could be worse - it could be meth, or heroine, or something along those lines - but that doesn’t make it any better, either. Eli could just as easily be in Mark’s place right now, or a few days down the line. 

He needs to come home. He needs to take care of his family and be there for his son.

This time it’s not her voice he hears but her footsteps. Her cadence is off, her stride truncated, and Elliot cuts his eyes toward her to watch her approach. She’s favoring the ankle she broke. He didn’t realize it still bothers her. 

“Hey,” Olivia greets him quietly. “I didn’t expect you to still be here.”

“We wanted to wait. How’s Mark?”

“He’ll be okay. The doctor suggested rehab. His mother doesn’t think it’s necessary.”

Olivia rubs her thumb over her eyebrow. Elliot hesitates just before he reaches for her. It’s hard these days to know where they stand, where their lines are, or if they even have any lines at all anymore. 

He doesn’t want to have any lines between them. The time for that separation is over for him, and she’s told him that she wants him to come home, so maybe it’s over for her as well. 

Elliot needs to take care of his family. So, he reaches a hand out and waits with bated breath until Olivia takes it. Her expression makes it clear that she’s not sure what he’s doing. He pulls gently on her hand until she settles herself into the chair next to him. 

“I haven’t seen you sit down once,” Elliot tells her gently. “Your ankle still bothering you?”

“It acts up sometimes,” Olivia answers. He’d expected her to lie and tell him she’s fine. “How’s Eli?”

“I think the high wore off about two hours ago. But in general? Obviously not as good as I thought.”

Olivia leans back in her chair and then tips her head back to rest on the wall and closes her eyes. Elliot doesn’t dare move because she’s still holding his hand and he’s afraid that if he draws attention to it she’ll let go. 

He must be thinking too loudly because Olivia chooses that moment to thread their fingers together. Elliot’s eyes snap to her face but her eyes are still closed. 

They stay like that for a while, Eli asleep on his shoulder and Olivia with her eyes closed and her head propped against the wall. Elliot alone stays alert. He watches the hospital come alive as the world wakes up, a silent sentinel even in this relatively safe space. 

Finally, Olivia opens her eyes and lifts her head. She squeezes his hand and offers him a tired smile. 

“Come on, I’ll drive you home.”

She lets go of his hand and climbs to her feet as Elliot wakes his son. Sitting down for a bit has helped her ankle but it still twinges when she puts pressure on it. She’ll have to take some ibuprofen when she gets home and rethink her choice of shoes for the day or she’ll have a hard time walking on it at all by lunch.

Eli asks about Mark as soon as he wakes up. Elliot reassures him that his friend will be fine and he can text him to check in, but it’s probably best if he doesn’t try to visit right now. Mark has a few things to work out with his mother. 

Elliot adjusts his pace when it’s clear that Olivia’s ankle is bothering her too much to let her keep her usual stride. Eli has obviously noticed the limp she’s trying to hide as well because he glances worriedly at her as they make their way out of the hospital. 

“Olivia?” Eli probes carefully. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she promises him warmly. “I broke my ankle a little while ago. It still bothers me sometimes.” 

Even though she’s offered to give them a ride Olivia wordlessly hands her keys to Elliot as they approach her SUV. They’re all tired as they climb into the vehicle, and with her ankle bothering her it’s no wonder she doesn’t want to drive. Elliot worries about her having to drive herself home and seriously considers just heading to her apartment and getting an Uber home from there. 

Olivia knows he’s thinking that, too, because she gives him that look he knows so well.

“I’ll be fine, El.”

It’s only the second time since he’s been back that she’s let his old nickname slip. The single syllable of it settles around him like a familiar blanket, warm and loved, and he smiles at her in response. 

“I know.”

He backs them out of the parking spot and notes how Olivia reaches over to hit the button that turns on the heated seat.

“Wow,” he teases, “The NYPD is really pulling out all the stops these days.”

“Being captain has its perks.”

In the backseat, Eli’s phone rings. He announces that it’s Katie and then connects the call, and the cab is soon filled with one sided conversation. Olivia has her head resting on the seat and her attention focused out the window as they drive, so Elliot takes another risk: he lays his arm across the wide console that separates their seats and dangles his wrist over the edge so that he can rest his hand on the area just above her knee. 

Olivia turns her attention to his hand. She studies it: how it looks against her knee, the lines of blue-green veins that criss-cross the back of it, the scars on his knuckles. When she rests her hand over it she takes in the difference in their skin tones. 

“Thank you, Liv.”

She raises her eyes to look at him. His wrist is resting lazily on the steering wheel and he’s leaning slightly toward her. When they come to a stop at a red light he turns those baby blues that she knows so well on her. 

“For tonight,” he elaborates, even though she doesn’t ask. “For going to his game, and taking an interest in him. For being there when I can’t be.”

“I’ve always been here, El.”

“I know,” he answers sadly. “But I haven’t, and I’m so sorry for that, Liv.”

“No, I wasn’t - I just mean that I’ve always cared about your kids. You know I’d do anything to help them; that hasn’t changed.”

“I do know that,” he assures her. On her knee, he turns his hand palm up and takes hold of hers. “And I should do a better job of telling you how much that means to me.”

She interlaces their fingers again. “We should do a better job of telling each other a lot of things, El.”

He chuckles and dares to take his eyes off the road for a second to smile at her. “You can say that again.”

Maybe it’s because she’s tired, but a streak of playfulness that Olivia hasn’t felt in ages takes over. “We should do a --.”

“Oh, shut up,” Elliot interrupts. 

But she’s right - and she knows it - and Eli has called her when he didn’t know what else to do, and she showed up the way she always does, and she’s teasing him now like she did a lifetime ago when they shared a squad car and an unknown future. 

Elliot has spent countless hours imagining that parallel universe that belongs to them, and regardless of the circumstances that have brought them here that’s where he finds himself now.

In a universe that they’re finally free to shape, and explore, and share. 

He feels the tiny tremor of surprise that snakes through her when he pulls her hand across the console to press a kiss to the back of it. 

“Elliot,” Olivia warns. 

He knows. She’s concerned about Eli and what he will think, and he knows that it’s too late because Eli has already seen it. It’s another talk on the list of talks that they need to have, and another reason that Elliot needs to come home. Soon. 

“It’s okay, Liv,” he promises. He doesn’t let go and neither does she even though he can see the indecision on her face, the concern.

By the time they pull up outside Elliot’s place both of their phones are dinging every few seconds with alerts and texts. The rest of the world is awake again and demanding their time and attention, and the tentative step they’ve taken in the last few hours will have to wait for another day to be addressed. 

Elliot leaves the vehicle running as everyone gets out. Olivia’s ankle doesn’t twinge as badly this time when she puts weight on it; she sets a hand on Eli’s shoulder and offers him a kind smile.

“Get some sleep, okay? Let me know if you need anything.”

Eli nods. He’s quiet and withdrawn again and Olivia resists the urge to sigh. She doesn’t know if it’s just a teenage thing or if he’s upset because of what he saw - because yes, she knows that he saw his dad kiss her hand - but she’s truly too tired right now to try to dissect it. 

She can only handle one crisis at a time. Well, a few at a time, but she’s not at the top of her game right now so one feels like enough. 

She’s just about to the other side of the car when Eli calls out.

“Olivia?”

She turns back to look at the young man standing on the sidewalk. “I have a game next Saturday. If you want … I mean, I wouldn’t mind if you came, if you want to. Maybe you can bring your son? I could kick the ball around with him after the game.”

Olivia legitimately can’t breathe around the sudden lump in her throat. She tries to speak and has to clear her throat before she can force the words out.

“We’d love to, Eli. See you on Saturday.”

Elliot is still waiting for her next to the driver’s side door. He holds it open for her and waits patiently for her to climb in and get settled. 

“Don’t suppose I can talk you into taking the day off and getting some sleep, can I?” He caves in when all he gets is a mild glare in response. “Didn’t think so. Be careful driving home, and stay off that ankle if you can, okay?”

It’s right there on the tip of her tongue: I’ll be fine, or it’s equally familiar counterpart, I can take care of myself. 

Instead, she says, “No promises about the ankle. Elliot --.”

“I know,” he says when she doesn’t continue. “I’m being as safe as I can. I’ll be home soon, Liv.”

“We have a lot to talk about.”

“And we will. I promise.”

She believes him. 

Elliot closes her door and she watches him move around the car until he’s standing on the sidewalk with Eli. They smile at each other through the glass; the boys turn to go inside and Olivia carefully pulls away from the curb and into the morning traffic. 

It’s been a long night, and she’s still not entirely certain of where she stands, but the picture is getting a little clearer every time she looks at it. 

There are challenges ahead and sometimes it seems like they’re balancing on breaking branches, but every day is a new beginning.

Today, the sunrise is full of promise.