A/N: Okay, here's just a quick post-ep for Bombshell. I didn't really like the episode. They jerked us around with the 'sleepless man' plot and then just dropped it completely, and then we had to stare at Rose McGowan's creepy-ass lips (And I'm a Charmed fan, what happened?) and then the twincest thing was thrown in there like they didn't know how to end the episode so why not just gross us out?
Anyway, here is just some 'what may have happened' in the middle. It's not beta-ed so all mistakes are mine. I also don't own the characters or anything else SVU related. Suspend your disbelief for a second and enjoy...
'I'm Elliot and this is my wife, Olivia'
The case isn't over. But we've rammed headfirst into a dead end and after damn near twelve years, even Elliot and I know that all the zeal in the world won't create an exit.
'I'm Elliot and this is my wife, Olivia'
We're both quiet on the drive home from the swingers club. It's a comfortable silence that's tinged with the old familiar tension that always follows an undercover. It's our own struggle to come down off the adrenaline high of being someone else for a while. The precinct comes into view and I unbuckle my seatbelt.
'I'm Elliot and this is my wife, Olivia'
We never go straight home. We need an interloper of sorts to help us get back to our reality. That interloper just happens to be the unforgiving familiarity of the brick 1-6 precinct. I suppose it's better than a bottle of scotch…
"I don't know how couples become swingers," Elliot says, unknowingly interrupting my private thoughts as we enter the elevator to the bullpen. We're both tired, and I skipped lunch today so I'm a little tipsy from the martinis they served at the club.
"I guess it's the next step when threesomes get boring" I suggest as the floors ascend. I tear my eyes away from the red illuminated numbers, feeling dizzy.
"You okay?" Elliot asks, taking my arm to steady me. My hand finds the fine silk of his jacket.
The jacket he only wears when we blur reality and cross a few boundaries in our partnership.
The jacket that makes it okay for him to say things like 'I'm Elliot and this is my wife, Olivia.'
"Yeah, I'm fine," I say, pulling out of his grip. "Just shouldn't have skipping lunch earlier."
The elevator doors open to a dark and silent 1-6 precinct. No one of any interest is on-call tonight.
"God, it's dark," Elliot says, exiting the elevator.
He immediately shrugs out of the jacket, making reality a bit clearer. I take off my three inch heels, carefully redrawing a line in our partnership. Slowly as we make our way to the locker bay, I'm Olivia and he's Elliot again. We are no longer acting a role we'll never see play out in real life.
"Is it really two a.m.?" I ask, opening my locker to retrieve my purse, badge and gun. They define me, not the bogus life I was pretending I had at the club. Elliot reaches for the keys to his sensible family-man Toyota. We always do this. We always find things that can assimilate us back into our real life.
"Judging by the seven missed calls from Kathy, yeah, it's two a.m.," Elliot says, retrieving his shit-phone and placing the douche-phone they always give us for undercovers back in the locker. They never want anything that reeks of cop to go under with us.
"Did you forget to call again?" I ask. I take off the earrings I only wear for undercovers, placing them with the shoes I could taint as a hooker or a married man's wife without feeling any regret.
"It wouldn't be the first time," Elliot says with a shrug. He slowly takes off his tie and places it with the douche-phone. I turn around and lift my hair. He instantly reaches to unzip the back of my dress. As I shimmy out of the dress, he undoes the buttons on the shirt that even his dry-cleaner knows meant that we were undercover.
'I'm Elliot and this is my wife, Olivia'
It's all a tiresome illusion really…
"Yeah, well, let's just hope it's the last time" I say.
Elliot and I look up then. That statement was a bit too ambiguous, even for us. 'Us' being two people who are comfortable standing next to each other practically naked, but too uncomfortable to tell the truth to each other. We are—by definition—ambiguous. But I'm not the one to point that out.
"For Kathy's sake, I hope so" Elliot responds, no emotion in his voice or even any indication that he might elaborate for those of us not keeping up with his marriage statistics.
I clear my throat awkwardly and begin to pull on a pair of yoga pants and a t-shirt. Ambiguity is the theme of the night I suppose. He closes his locker as I brush some of the hairspray out of my hair. He watches me and I clip my ear with the brush as I falter under his scrutiny.
"What?" I ask.
"Don't forget to take your ring off," he says, watching the fake NYPD issue wedding ring glint in the lowlight as I brush my hair. My eyes flick down to his real wedding band. It says 'eternity' on the inside, like a dare he's placed on his marriage.
"Shit, I almost forgot about this thing," I say, dropping the brush back in my locker and twisting off the ring. My ring says nothing on the inside except for 'made in China.' I wonder what type of dare that is for me?
"You ready to go?" Elliot asks, jerking me out of my thoughts. He jingles his keys, standing comfortably in jeans and a grey hoodie I frequently steal from him.
"Yeah, but you don't have to take me Elliot," I say, stepping into my flip flops. I stumble a bit as I walk, forgetting that I was still slightly tipsy from my night out playing a married man's wife.
"Yeah right, lightweight," Elliot teases, grabbing my arm again.
"I told you I skipped lunch, and you would be just as drunk as me if Cassandra's hadn't been otherwise occupying you."
Our eyes meet and we make a conscious choice not to exchange any words. The truth would come out and I was too drunk for that and he was entirely too sober.
'I'm Elliot and this is my wife, Olivia.'
"Let's go home, Liv," he says, gently pulling me along beside him. The drive to my place is quiet again, and I'm glad that I don't have a partner that feels the need to ease the tension with bad eighties rock.
"You really think Cassandra's a victim?" I finally say, just for the hell of it really. Plus, it's what Benson would say. Not what Olivia—Elliot's wife—would say.
"Yeah, about as much as I think that dress you had on tonight could pass for modest."
I roll my eyes. I'd been waiting for a comment about the dress. It happened entirely too often when I transformed from Benson into Olivia. I'd long ago stopped being pissed that no one commented when Elliot transformed.
"Hey, it got the job done" I say.
He cuts his eyes at me as he pulls up to my building. I turn to say good-bye and thank him for the ride, but he's smiling at me in a completely non-Stabler way.
"What?" I ask. "You forget how to say good-bye?"
'This is my wife, Olivia...'
He kisses me quickly then. No tongue, no teeth and one hand still on the steering wheel.
"What was that for?" I ask when he pulls away.
"Guess I didn't want the undercover to end" he says with a nonchalant shrug. "Plus, who says I can't kiss my wife?"
I smile then and shake my head. What else can I do? I'm still tipsy and Elliot and I have never been good at redrawing the lines after an undercover. I guess we'd never really wanted to.
"Goodnight, Elliot" I say.
"Blink your lights."
'I'm Elliot and this is my wife, Olivia.'
A/N: Please review...and check out my other one-shot for 'Smoked' No Scapegoat or my story 3 Months Ago.