Chapter Text
January 19, 2023
The bruise bloomed purple and accusing beneath her dark and wary eye. Your fault, it seemed to whisper, your fault your fault your fault. As if it was his fault she'd been attacked, jumped in the street in front of her son, his fault her beautiful face had been marred by pain, his fault her ribs were bruised and tender now. As if she belonged to him, as if her safety was his charge, her beauty his to protect. It was a long, long time since last they'd been partners and it wasn't his job to watch her six anymore but his heart would not accept those pragmatic explanations; she belonged to him, and it was his duty to guard her steps, and he had failed.
Just another failure, in a long and painful string of them.
Still, though, she'd trusted him. Called him, not Fin, not Rollins, not one of the boys on her squad; she'd called him, and asked him to go pick up her son from the safe haven where she'd stashed him. And he'd said yes without hesitation, driven straight there, made small talk with the wide-eyed McCanns and spoken softly to Noah and brought the boy home safe and well. Those hours spent in the car with Olivia's son were precious to him, the first chance he'd ever had to talk to the boy, the first opportunity he'd been given to see for himself what kind of child Olivia was raising. It turned out that Noah was sweet and sensitive and funny, utterly lacking his mother's bitter tongue and waspish temper, and while Elliot drove, glancing now and again at Noah's face in the rearview mirror, he found himself wondering if Noah, who seemed to represent all the best parts of Olivia gathered in one place, was the kind of child Olivia herself might've been if she'd been wanted, if she'd been loved.
Back at the apartment he took Noah inside, made him dinner, played Mario Kart and let him win and found himself nostalgic for the days when his own children were small. Noah was ten, wide eyed and sweet, and as they played he forgot the horror that had torn him away from his mother, seemed to relax in Elliot's company, grateful to be home, convinced that everything was back to normal. Elliot was well practiced in this, setting a child's fears to rest, banishing the monsters that lurked under the bed and returning to domestic tranquility. He knew how to do this, how to care for a son, how to be a father, how to make a home, and it felt good, to finally get something right.
Teeth brushed and good-nights said Noah drifted off to sleep, and Elliot stayed right there in Olivia's kitchen, thinking about the old days, when his family was whole, when he knew who he was, when Olivia was by his side and everything made sense. It seemed like something from a dream, now; oh, he knew there had been nearly as much bad as good, knew that his marriage had been imperfect and unhappy at times, knew that he had failed his children in ways he'd never really be able to atone for, but in the dark and quiet of Olivia's kitchen late at night only the best parts of the past flickered in his memory, taunting him with the glory of what used to be. What might still be, if only he and Olivia were strong enough to make a different choice.
But then she came home, bruised and skittish, and the guilt returned, and with it a determination to put this mess right. It was wrong, he thought, wrong that she was all alone, that when she was in danger no one was there to shield her. It was wrong that she was so lonesome, so cold, wrong that they should spend so much time apart when all they wanted, when all he wanted was for them to be together. It was wrong, that they had wasted so much time, when time was so precious, so fleeting. Those boys the other night, they could've taken Olivia from him before he got the chance to tell her - clear-eyed and sober and honest - that he loved her, before he ever got the chance to learn how it felt to fall asleep beside her. So many years had passed them by; how many years would be left to them?
More to him than to her. Along with a host of curses and indignities, his status as an alpha had presented him with a singular gift: alphas and omegas lived longer than betas. The one good thing, the only good thing as far as he was concerned, about being an alpha was the genetic blessing of rapid healing and an extended lifespan. He could take the punishment doled out to him on the job more readily than a beta - any beta cop who'd been shot as many times as he had would've long since been forced into retirement - and as long as he looked after himself he'd be guaranteed more time with his children. But Olivia was a beta, and long life was not in the cards for her; how much time did she have left? Another two decades, maybe three, and then she'd be lost to him, if a bullet didn't find her, if cancer didn't take her, if if if. The bulk of her life was behind her now, and he did not want to waste even one more day of the time she had left in this cruel and lonesome separation.
Apart from the niggling fear of her demise - and the thought of the long lonely years without her that would follow after - it didn't bother him, that she was a beta. Kathy had been a beta, too; most people were. Less than one in a thousand people carried either the alpha or omega gene, eight million out of eight billion, and with the rise of medications to suppress heat they were no longer churning out prodigious numbers of children. Elliot's kind were fading away; the world had moved beyond the need for men like him, driven by their instinct, aggressive and possessive and protective and dangerous. Olivia wasn't like him, but then so few people were, and she was safe. She was a beta; she could not trigger his rut by her scent alone, would not go into a heat that made him lose his mind and all control of himself. The scent of her desire wouldn't turn him into a monster. Sometimes when he was with Olivia he could almost forget what he was.
Sometimes. Not tonight, though. Tonight he looked at her battered face, the tender way she held her aching body, and felt his alpha roaring in his chest, demanding that he take her, claim her, make her his, shelter her and ward off any future attackers with teeth bared and gun in hand. Tonight his alpha was loud, demanding that he stop wasting time, make her his mate and keep her warm and safe in the home - in the den - that he might make for her. Noah sleeping down the hall only exacerbated his packish desires; his own pack was scattered, now, Maureen and Karl and the boys here, Kathleen there, Dickie and Lizzie bouncing from apartment to apartment, Eli off at college, Kathy dead and buried. Elliot's apartment in Long Island City was empty now, but he was standing in a cozy apartment in Midtown looking at the woman he loved, while a child slept just down the hall, and here was where his alpha wanted to stay.
But Liv wasn't looking at him. Her discomfort was palpable; she was rummaging in the cupboards with trembling hands, back turned resolutely towards him. He could not see her face but he could feel it, the tense energy sparking and crackling in the air, the longing that had always been there but had in recent months grown so acute it took all his strength to stop himself from putting his hands on her. She was a beta, and so was not gifted with the heightened sense of smell that whispered to him now, had no idea how just the scent of her called to him. Every inch of the apartment smelled of her,lavender and mint and Liv, and tonight another layer had been added to that intoxicating bouquet, the palpable scent of want emanating from the other side of the kitchen island. Twenty-five years he'd known her, the scent of her so deeply ingrained in him that even in the dark he would know her by smell alone, and he'd never smelled her quite like this, so hungry, so needful, and his body was vibrating with it, instinct overtaking everything else.
The hell with this, he thought. The hell with waiting, with hesitation, with doubt; she was lonely, and so was he, and they didn't have to be. They both had everything they wanted right there in that kitchen, and all they had to do was reach for it.
"Liv, look at me," he growled, prowling slowly towards her, unable to fight the clamoring of his heart a second longer.
She didn't respond, not at first. Her shoulders tensed as she refused to heed his command, but she'd found the sugar at last and when she turned to tell him so she startled at the nearness of him. Slowly he reached out, took the sugar from her hands and placed it on the counter, and scented the rise of her fear right alongside her wanting. Those dark eyes were blown wide now, terrified and yearning, vulnerable in a way he had never seen her before. He knew what he was asking for; more than her trust, more than her body, he was asking for her heart. And that heart was a bruised and battered thing, prone to flight and misgivings, so often disappointed that it had grown wary and uncertain. To give him her heart, to turn over the tenderest piece of herself, to deliver into his hands the means of her own undoing; he knew that was the most terrifying thing he could ask of her. She'd prefer a bullet to that kind of grief, but he had no bullets for her. Only two hands that longed to hold her, and a heart that longed to love her.
"Liv," he breathed her name, a prayer, a plea. Everything, she was everything he'd ever wanted, everything he was ever gonna want. The moment was so fraught, so heavy; standing on the precipice, wanting to kiss her, close enough to do it if only he were brash enough to take her kiss from her without her explicit consent, he could scent the danger hanging in the air. A nod from her, a whispered yes and he would lift her off her feet right then, carry her to her bed and lay her down and cover her with his body, and hold her, for all the rest of her days. That's all it would take, just one little sign from her and everything would change, and they would never have to be alone, ever again.
"Elliot."
The sound of his name falling from her lips with such ragged desperation shot through him like lightning. Please, he prayed, hanging from the cliff's edge by his fingernails, please, just let me. Just let me love you. Just let me in.
"I want to," she confessed, but there was no joy in her; she sounded as if she were breaking in half, as if his proximity was painful to her, as if it hurt, knowing that he loved her.
"I want to, but I can't."
Damn her fear. Am I really that scary? he asked himself as he stood there with his hands on her hips, holding her so close and yet feeling her pulling farther and farther away. Was the thought of loving him really so terrifying to her? What did she think he was going to do? Was she afraid that he was going to leave her again, afraid that he might shatter her as he had done once before? Or was it something else, some deeper, less tangible terror that stayed her hand?
"Why not?" he tried not to sound demanding, but Jesus, he needed to know. He needed to know the name of her fears so that he could defeat them. He could not fight an enemy he could not see.
"Because what if it doesn't work out?"
The moment crystallized as understanding swept over him. They had been, always, part of one another; even when he was on the other side of the world she was part of him, living beneath his skin, her voice whispering to him in the back of his mind. Time and distance had not shaken this connection, this pull between them, and yet she was afraid that sex might. That trying and failing to make a life together might be the thing that ended them. This half-life they were living together was more than nothing, and she would rather cling to this dim light than risk falling entirely into darkness. What she did not know, what she could not seem to accept, was the truth Elliot knew already; they would never be rid of one another. No matter what happened, no matter what evil befell them, no matter how they fought and bled and wept, she would be, always, his. His partner. His heart. His mate.
"What if things work out?" he challenged her gently, begging her in his mind to please, please just consider, for a moment, how beautiful they could be together. To imagine, really imagine, how it might look, the life they could make for themselves. Dinners on the nights when they both got off work on time, weekends in the park with Noah, barbecues at Maureen's house with all his kids, Christmases and birthdays and every night falling asleep together. They went months not seeing each other now, and how, how could she think that was better than truly intertwining their lives? She'd never had a pack before; she didn't know what it was like, to belong somewhere. He wanted to show her.
"I'm not ready for this," she told him, backing away, shaking her head. "I'm not ready for this."
For this, for the overwhelming intensity of him. The nearness of him turned her thoughts into an insensible jumble, the scruff of his stubble against the softness of her cheek nearly enough to shatter her defenses and she had to pull away to save herself from falling. There were so many things she wanted to say, so many secrets she'd yet to share with him, so much darkness swirling in her heart but she could not find the breath to tell him.
To tell him what had been done to her, how she had changed, how she had been changed, through violence, against her will. For thirteen years they'd roamed the earth together, Olivia the beta proud with an alpha by her side, falling in love with the wild desperate heat of him and yet knowing he would never be hers. Elliot had claimed another, taken another beta as his mate, made a den with her and raised their children together and there was no place for Olivia in his pack. That was who they had been, but that time of their lives was over. In those days he had known her better than anyone alive, but he knew her as she was, not as she had become.
It was Lewis. While she was drugged, drunk, beaten, insensible, in between shoving pills and vodka down her throat, he'd drawn a dirty needle from the pockets of his filthy trousers and injected her with his own blood. Not just once; he'd done it a half a dozen times, and by the end his work was complete. The blood of a demented, diseased alpha coursing through her veins had changed her, on a fundamental level. He wanted her broken, diminished, to make her feel less than, make her feel herself beneath him, and he'd succeeded. The doctors discovered it in the hospital, broke the news to her there while the burns were still fresh. Forty-five years of her life erased in a moment, for she was a beta no more. Lewis madeher an omega, changed her on a cellular level, tore her life apart in every conceivable way, and Fin was the only person alive - besides the doctors - who knew.
The suppressants did more than just stop heat; they suppressed everything. Her sense of smell remained more or less the same, a bit more sensitive than before perhaps but as long as she took the pills she could not identify a person's emotions by their scent. Her instincts were dampened; she'd always wanted a family, and as long as she took the pills she couldn't tell whether her desire for a child of her own was the same innate longing she'd always felt or one heightened by the change in her genera, and once she brought Noah home it didn't really matter, anymore. As long as she took the pills she wouldn't go into heat, and the scent of an omega wouldn't bleed from her skin, and no one else could tell what she was.
Not even Elliot.
Elliot thought she was, still, the same woman she had always been. Thought she was still a beta, no threat to him; Elliot thought she was still her. And she wasn't ready for him to find out otherwise. Wasn't ready to tell him about Lewis, about the pain she had endured, about how a part of her had died in the beach house. Wasn't ready for him to learn that she was no more than a ghost, haunting a body that hadn't really belonged to her for a decade. Wasn't ready for him to find out she was broken.
Wasn't ready for another alpha to touch her, to feel the same black submission cloud her eyes, to watch as if from a distance as her body took over and gave no heed to the clamoring of her heart. Wasn't ready to feel like a beast in the arms of a predator, wasn't ready to face her own terrifying instincts. Wasn't ready to face the full truth of what she had become.
She loved him. Christ, she had always loved him. And she wanted him, shit, but she wanted him, wanted him so much that just standing within the circle of his arms made her wet, made her weak. It would've been so easy to give in, but the consequences of her surrender would be more than she could bear. It was better like this, she thought; better to want a thing than to grab hold of it and watch it crumble into dust in her hands. Better for him to want her than for him to learn the truth, and walk away.
"I'm not ready for this," she whispered, and watched in silent agony as her words broke his heart.