"That's not true," Olivia said.

"Sure it is," Brian said. "It's like Johnny says—"

"Brian, I don't believe for a second that John is sitting there with you this week advocating for our separation."

For all Munch's quips about marriage — and his four divorces — he'd been too much of a supporter of them making their familial institution an honest one. He was too invested in and protective of the kids. Of her, of Brian. As individuals — and as a couple, as a family. For all the stupid — uncalled for, hurtful, unpolitically correct mumbo John spouted over the years, he had consistently bended over backwards to help them as a family. He jested — because it was the only way he knew how to verbally show how much he cared with the hope that no one outside his circle would actually see. He'd want what was best for all of them — and Olivia didn't believe that John Munch thought that was separation and divorce, not right now. Not yet. He was too much of a romantic.

"Who said anything about separation?" Brian growled at her.

She exhaled and rubbed at eyebrow. "OK, I'm sorry," she allowed. "I didn't mean to interrupt you. Finish what you were saying."

He didn't immediately. They sat there — simmering from afar.

"He says you're a survivor," Brian finally provided after that extended silence seemed to drag on — an anchor that he didn't seem to want to pull. "You didn't want my help then. You don't really want it now. You don't need it."

"Brian," she pressed firmly, her own anger and frustration bubbling again, "I have been telling you for weeks — months — that I need and want your help. I am saying it to you right now."

"Right," he said. "On the phone. You never say this shit to my face."

"Because you're never home," she did raise voice that time. "You just make it a priority not to show up. And when you are, you walk away from me when I try to talk to you."

"There's never any time to talk," he said. "You don't want to talk when the kids are around."

"They don't need to hear this, Brian," she said. "Because we're … we're raising our voices—"

"I am not yelling at you," Brian said.

"You are frustrated. You are raising your voice. We both are," she said — though that time she did her best to keep her voice and tone even.

"I don't yell at you. I don't tell at them."

"You're using that tone, Brian," she said. "This one is the one you reserve for me. But the kids know it. And they shouldn't have to. And they do know what it means."

"They know we fight," Brian said. "Parents, adult people, married people fight."

"They shouldn't have to hear it," she said. "Fine, they can know as adult people we don't always see eye-to-eye or have the same opinion and that we can disagree or even argue — but I don't want them to see it or hear it, Brian."

"Right. So your rule around that is that I'm just never allowed to talk in my own fucking house to my wife," he said. Tone attached.

"We are talking right now," she pressed harder — again. This time near syllable by syllable to drive it home. Though, she could've argued even harder that it was him he rarely talked to her — especially right now. Especially the past weeks, months, YEAR.

"On the phone," he said. "About big fucking shit. You're telling me that this is some sort of post-Lewis walkabout that I was supposed to be there for — now, Liv. Over the fucking phone. How do you think that makes me feel?"

She just shook her head and looked down — willing herself not to cry. Praying that he wouldn't be able to hear the emotion in her voice when she let herself vocalize to him again. She just stared at the weather-striped, sand-blasted, wind and water beaten wood of that deteriorating deck she was sitting on. She listened to the waves and the wind — and she tried to not feel him there on the other end of the line as much as she wanted to know he was there.

"Yea, we're out of sync," Brian finally near whispered in her ear. "But I love you. I care about you guys. Saying that shit, it makes me feel …"

His voice changed — and he faded out. He stopped himself to try to control and hide his emotion too. Emotion that was different from all that anger that had radiated from him for months.

"That's fair …," Olivia allowed. Eventually. "You're right. I'm sorry."

And the quiet hung between them. His breathing was different. The presence of him there was different too.

"Bri, come for the weekend," she said. "The kids are sleeping through the night here. We can talk. If Cragen comes Saturday, we can leave them with him, go for a walk. Maybe we can even find a patio to ourselves for a meal. When's the last time we got to do that? We can talk there. We can do some of this — start working on some of this — face-to-face."

"On your terms," he said. "Again. To protect yourself. Like always."

"Brian …," she sighed.

"Covid's just made all of that clearer," Brian said. "It's not just that you don't need me. You barely want me around. None of you do."

She sighed."Cass, are you trying to convince yourself or me of that? If that's the conversation we're going to have we're just going to keep going around and around and not get anywhere."

"About right. Sounds like home," he said.

And her exhale became longer — more measured. "I've already disagreed with you. I don't believe that statement to be true. I don't think you actually do either."

"And you always have to be right, right, Liv? So my side in an 'argument' it doesn't matter. It's just prolonging the conversation, the inevitable."

"Well, if that's really the way you feel about it there's probably not much point in continuing the conversation," she said.

And they sat there. But neither of them hung up. She was more aware of his breathing — that anchor he was holding down on his end of the line — than the waves now.

"Brian … I'm hearing that you're upset with me. That you are angry with me about …," she sighed. "I"m not entirely clear what. Or if it's just … me. And, fine. I'm willing to continue down this path and work on understanding what I've done that is so wrong to have you this upset for this long. I am willing to be wrong — and I will admit I am when I understand what it is that I've done. But if this is about — the pandemic and schooling and social distancing and summer vacation and the kids — when I've been in essence single parenting for pushing four months, you're going to be in for a bit of an uphill battle convincing me that I'm the one who's been in the wrong."

"Don't make this about the kids," he said.

"This is about the kids," she did raise her voice in exasperation and then forced herself to take a breath and even it out. "Brian, that's the whole thing at this point. It's not just about me or us or our relationship. There's them. They can feel the tension between us. They are scared and confused about what is going on between us and in our family. And I'm the one at home fielding questions about if we're getting a divorce and making up excuses about why you won't be here this weekend or next week or any night of the week ever."

She exhaled and waited for a response but there was nothing but his own breathing steady and even on the other end.

"You put your name on their adoption papers, Brian," she said. "You fought for that. For them."

"I know that," he barked — mutely but firmly.

"You made a commitment, Bri. To them — and to me. I listened to you for years talk about how you weren't ever going to be that cop pop that maybe showed up to one Little League game a year, who didn't know what was going on in his kids life. You know I wasn't looking for absentee as one of the personality traits in the person I was going to co-parent with, to be the father of my children. I was willing, ready and able to do it on my own."

"We already covered that," he said. "You don't need me."

"But the kids do," she said. "And you are fucking it up, Cass. You're likely getting it very close to a place where it's going to be beyond repair."

That breathing again. And the tension. She could feel the turmoil in him — but there still weren't words.

"You want to talk about Elliot? He's part of what I'm doing wrong that's making you so angry?" She put to him. "I spent thirteen years watching Elliot Stabler go home late — or not at all. He was rarely home for dinner. It was an event when he was helping with homework or a school project. He forgot to sign forms and send in checks and milk money to school all the time. He missed the kids birthday. The twins were in with a slice of their own birthday cake for their dad more times than I can count. Maybe their entire childhood. I got handed his credit card to go and buy birthday gifts for his wife. I think about the only events he made getting to a priority where the kids' First Communion and Confirmations. Dickie and Lizzie didn't even participate in sports, which I don't know if that's any better than all the soccer games, volleyball and swim meets he missed with Maureen and Kathleen. Or the mental illness, drunk driving, teenaged partying and hook-ups and drug abuse that he somehow either missed or just ignored because he either didn't want to or just didn't know to deal with it. Any of it — as a father. Did he do good work for the NYPD and for SVU and for victims and their families? I think, objectively that would ultimately land on the 'yes' side. But was he a good father? I really don't know. And I also don't know how his kids would answer that. Maybe 'yes' with caveats. Was he a typical cop absentee father? I think all his kids would say 'yes'. And in the glimpses of the relationship he now has with his adult children, yes it's clear they care about him deeply and they are intensely worried about him. But do I get the sense of any closeness or real connection or ongoing engagement and involvement in their lives? No. In his grandchildren's lives? No. And as for how he's managing his relationship with his fourteen-year-old son? Brian, he's on-track for as bad or worse than where you're headed with Benji. Eilliot might've been a good partner — debatably, with the time and space since then — was he? I still don't know. You know that. We've had that conversation. What I do know is that he isn't the kind of person — man — that I would want as a partner in raising my children. But right now — you aren't being such of a partner to me, Bri. Or much of a father to Benji and Emmy."

"That's not fair," Brian said.

"How is it not fair, Brian?"

"Ben doesn't want anything to do with me," Brian said.

Olivia shook her head. "That's bullshit, Bri," she said. "Do you want to know why I'm calling tonight?"

"The weekend. My birthday. Chew out my ass," he said.

She exhaled — to the point she knew her nostrils flared. She thought it was enough to challenge some of the wind that was blowing at her.

"Because Benji told me that he thinks you have depression so we should be trying to be more understanding of you — because you're hurting so much you're embraced and don't know how to talk about it. And, Brian, I don't think he's wrong."

"This where you tell me to just take another pill," he said.

Olivia exhaled and rubbed her eyebrow again. "Brian, whether you want to explore taking medication to help you with your mental health is your business. I keep hoping that you will think about your family — your kids — in making that decision. Do I think you might benefit from it? Yes. But I also think you'd benefit from talk therapy — and I've told you that for years."

"Just because it worked for you doesn't mean it works for everyone else," he said.

"I recognize that," she said. "But when I've got my twelve-year-old telling me he's concerned his father is going to be one of those cops that eats his gun—"

"He didn't say that," Brian said. "Not using those words. You're putting words in his mouth."

"I'm not, Brian," she said. "And when Benji is asking me questions like that I feel pretty strongly about the urgency of stressing to my husband — my best friend, the father of my children — that I think he needs help above and beyond us talking even on the best of days will ever provide and that you aren't going to find at the bottom of however many bottles of empties you have in the house right now."

"I think you should be thinking about where he's hearing shit like that in the first place," Brian said.

"I'm pretty sure he heard it from you, Brian," she said. "You've had a cluster of suicides in your unit. Cops have eaten their guns. You've used those words."

"Not with Ben," he said.

"Our walls have ears, Bri," she said, "which is the exact same reason I don't like having full blown arguments and disagreements around the kids."

"He wouldn't have known what I was talking about," Brian said.

"Brian," she sighed. "Benji's not a little boy anymore. He's smart, emotionally intelligent, astute. What's been happening at your office has deeply affected you. I'd be lying if I said I didn't worry that at some point that's going to be you. That's going to be us, our family. And, Brian, I don't know if that's something any of us will come back from."

He didn't miss a beat. It was like he didn't even hear that — process it, understand just the level of hurt and damage that would do to her. To the kids. Or maybe he couldn't acknowledge it.

"You should be worried about what fucking screen-time online you're giving him with whatever fucking shoot'em up with little shit talking bro fracks has got him even the concept of what means," Brian pressed.

"You know I don't let them play those kinds of games or have those kinds of online interactions," she said.

"Well, he's hearing it fucking somewhere," Brian said. "And it's you who's made all the fucking decisions about what shows and games and apps and every other aspect of his online and media consumption is for the past two years. You have completely taken over every aspect of the parenting and decision-making of the kids," he said. "I have no say. You don't care what my opinion is — not about their school stuff, not about Ben's lupus."

"You have completely checked out on actively participating in any conversations — or management of any of the work or appointments or … all of it! Anything related to their school and Benji's health," she pushed back.

"Because you took over all of it since the beginning of Covid," he said.

"At the beginning of this, Brian," her voice raised again. "We made the decision together at the beginning that I'd go to his appointments with him. When we started to phase back to in-office, we made the decision you'd go back first. I was the one home. This isn't March 2020 anymore. It's not the summer of 2020 or September 2020. I'm back to work — all day, every day. At the precinct. The city is different. The protocols are different—"

"Now we're going to acknowledge it's different," Brian muttered. "When it's to your advantage, puts you in the right. Again."

She ignored it. "His appointments are different," she said. "I have asked you repeatedly to go with Benji to some of his appointments, to take him — and it's always some excuse. You couldn't even pick us up from the hospital after his last MRI!"

"Look, I've got work and caseload and managing a whole lot of Covid backlog and changed protocols too, and I'm doing the best I can," he said.

"And you think I'm not?" Olivia spat at him. "After how our family has been this past year? Where I'm having to be the primary disciplinarian every time? Where I'm having to be mom and tutor and school teacher and nurse and counsellor and therapist and advocate and friend and playmate and entertainment committee coordinator and fitness coach and nutritionist and personal chef and warden? I don't know how to be all of that. I have days where I HATE who and what I've become to my children in all of this. Because I'm having to be all those things every day. I can't just be 'mom' anymore. And, Brian, I'm just so, so tired. I'm exhausted. And this … you … aren't helping."

AUTHOR NOTE:

This is TO BE CONTINUED.

I've got several more potential chapters written in an ongoing conversation with them. I'm not sure if it will be presented as one big conversation or a couple conversations over a few nights.

I've got them talking about his 50th birthday, his depression, his relationship with Benji and Brian's past trauma/rape, their relationship and sex life.

I know what chapter would likely come after this conversation around their relationship and family life happens.

I haven't watched any of S23 or Organized Crime S02 yet. I'm not sure when I will. So what's happened or what was in 'the letter' won't impact the direction of this conversation or the following chapter. And, please NO SPOILERS from the new seasons!

Reviews, comments and feedback are motivating in getting next chapters up in a timely manner. And they're also very appreciated.