Unrequited

Chapter 2

Elliot looks at his watch mentally running through his schedule. It's a little after 5pm but he doesn't have any plans. "Yeah I think that can work. Where are you interested in going?" A few minutes later they've ironed out a date at a small Mediterranean restaurant in Manhattan for 7:30pm.

Placing the phone back on the counter, his hand scrubs down his face in a mix of anxiety and disbelief that he's let Maureen talk him into this. He's only doing this because he's tired of hearing her incessantly pressuring him about needing companionship in his life.

Dad you are going to die alone, it's time to start dating.

You still look decent for your age, women would love to go out with you.

Do it now before it's too late.

Whatever that meant. Maureen had shown him a picture of Pippa Cox, the attractive redhead attorney and he agreed figuring it would end like most of his dates did. It would be a comfortable dinner with chit chat that he would try and steer away from work as much as possible and once they found out he was a divorced father of five or he found them a little too flimsy then there would never be a second date.

Being alone should've bothered him more than it did but it's something he had gotten accustomed to over the years. Truth be told he relished the time alone. He had gone from his parents house to being married and as the years went on and kids were born, between work and home he never really had to time to just be him.

Elliot was off balance when he and Kathy separated the first time and being alone represented failure at a marriage that he felt he single handedly ended between his temper and lack of presence. However, this time around they had mutually agreed that the marriage was becoming something of convenience as opposed to want. He moved out a year after he retired from SVU and their divorce was finalized a year later. He's been alone ever since and he's enjoyed it...for the most part. There have been therapy sessions to help him work on himself and understand what life is like when you live it for what you want and not out of some sense of responsibility. The kids are grown except Eli and living their own lives and he realized it was time for him to do the same.

Dating wasn't a huge part of that equation because instead he focused on his undercover work he did with the Feds every few months, spent time with his son, worked out, hung out with some work friends and just enjoyed life. It was mostly content but there were those random times during the days but mostly at night when all he could hear was the sounds of the city that his thoughts turned to her...turned to Olivia.

Cragen told him about everything that happened with Lewis while he was overseas on assignment and he called her once and left a voicemail but she never returned the call. When that didn't work he sent flowers but didn't sign the card, a coward move that he beat himself up about later. Unable to stay away any longer, he went by her apartment only to be told that she moved out and he found out a day later that she had moved in with her boyfriend...Brian Cassidy. The memory still sticks with him of seeing them walk down the block of where their new apartment was arm in arm. Cassidy clearly cracking a joke and her laughing hitting him on the shoulder.

She was safe and happy. He wasn't going to swoop in the jealous selfish prick he was so many times when they were partners and disrupt that. If anyone deserved to be happy, it was Olivia Benson.

Elliot pulls up to the restaurant at 7, a little earlier than they agreed to and decides to sit in the car and pull himself together. His phone rings and right away he knows it's his eldest daughter.

"Yes Maureen," he answers without bothering to look at the caller id.

"Are you there yet?"

"I just pulled up, about to get out of the car now," he opens the door to his jeep and locks it back. "I'm now walking across the street, uh oh there's a car coming, one second," he lets the car pass by and continues. "I am now walking up to the curb where the restaurant is."