I've tried to make some edits and correct some of the horrendous grammar, spelling and typing mistakes. Horrors of horrors I found misplaced apostrophes and used the wrong form of there/their/they're. Horrifying. I hope the corrections went through...
I don't own anything, not making money off it, etc.
Chapter 1
11AM
New York City
It was a Tuesday in mid-December. It was cold, but without the chaos of the holiday season or the deep chill of late winter. There was no snow on the ground, but the sky was dark and threatening. Olivia barely glanced both ways in the habit of a true New Yorker and hurried across the street with brisk strides, cutting across the middle of the block. She glanced up at the familiar building and strode toward the entrance. It was mid-morning. It was possible no one was there, or it was possible they all were there. She couldn't decide which was better. 'Empty' she thought, pleading with no one. 'Let it be empty.' She felt a little nausea and pushed the feeling down, willing her body to cooperate. She didn't know whether to attribute that to the recent concussion or the thought of seeing him like this. Neither were pleasant thoughts. She pulled the green military-style cap a little lower on her head, hoping to cover the purple and yellow bruise on her temple and the 7 staples that faded into her hair.
She had only arrived back in New York this morning on the red eye. She had spent the last 7 weeks undercover in northern Oregon with a radical environmental group. She had spent the 18 hours before she got on a plane in a hospital. She spent the 18 hours before that in a local police station in less than accommodating circumstances. She was exhausted, physically, mentally and emotionally. The undercover gig for the FBI had worn her down. She thought they had mismanaged the whole project, targeted the wrong people and misjudged the dangerous leaders of the group. The FBI had erred badly in their assessment of Ethan Jones, the leader of the radical environmental group the EFA. Their miscues and lack of communication had led the entire group to be placed under siege, in rural Oregon, at the beginning of winter. They lived in old trailers and lived on the land, using natural gas and propane when necessary. By the end of the siege, which the FBI had mistakenly believed would last only a week at most, it had been almost 5 weeks. They had counted on Ethan turning over his people, not wanting to sacrifice them to the elements. What they had not counted on was the blind faith he had in his ideals and the ability to enforce his will on those in his encampment. They had spent over 30 days with no heat and barely any food. She calculated at most they were getting 600 calories a day, mostly in rice and tofu. One of the other members gave everyone packets of fresh herbs, which still grew in the cold, damp Oregon woods in order to prevent scurvy. Scurvy! Olivia didn't even know that was a thing people still got, she had assumed that went out the window with cholera and hard-tack. She closed her eyes, the memories pushing themselves into her thoughts, jumping over one another in a disorganized pile in her mind. It still hurt too much to think about Ginny, about the things she had helped her get through, and to remember what had happened to her. She felt with her hand the tender lump on her temple. 'What went wrong Ginny, how could that have happened? How could I have LET that happen?' she thought for the thousandth time. She shook her head to clear her mind as she jogged up the last few stairs. She panted a little at the slight effort. She was run down; it was going to take a while to get back into shape. She hadn't gotten on a scale recently but she figured she was down probably 20 pounds from her pre-Oregon weight. Her clothes felt like they belonged to someone else and her skin felt like a costume, her face a mask. She kept her head down as she flashed her badge at the young officer at the gate. She didn't recognize him. How quickly things changed in only 7 quick weeks.
Opting for the elevator instead of her usual stairs, she came into the second floor bullpen. A quick glance around told her it was a quiet morning. A slow day. Fin and Munch were nowhere to be found. Elliot's desk was empty but looked like he had thrown his coffee and paper down; he had been in at some point in the morning. A blond woman sat reviewing files at the desk next to Elliot's. The desk opposite him, her desk, her Old desk, was still empty. "Excuse me?" she asked the blond woman. The woman looked up and Olivia swore she was analyzing her.
"Can I help you?"
"Is Elliot Stabler in?" She asked. She couldn't help herself, and she regretted it the minute the words were out of her mouth.
"He's in interrogation. Can I help you with something?" the woman asked with a gentle voice. Olivia felt herself wanting to explain herself to this stranger. 'She's good at her job' she thought with a mental snide remark. "No, thank you, I'll just go see the Captain."
She walked across the bullpen and knocked on the closed door. She could see the familiar face of her captain through the open blinds.
"Come in." She opened the door and slid inside as Captain Cragan looked up.
"Olivia!" he said, half exclamation, half question. "You're back"
"I'm back." She replied, taking another step into the office.
"Sit down" He barked, a little too gruffly. "You are a sight for sore eyes. When did you get back?"
She stepped into his office, stood behind the armchairs in front of the big wooden desk, but she didn't sit as he had requested.
"Just this morning. I, uh, I just wanted to let someone know I was back in the city. I can't…I mean… I'm not ready to come back yet. I need some time. Need to work through some things." She paused, her voice was low, he had to strain to her hear. "I just wanted to let you know I was back." she repeated, suddenly feeling silly for wanting someone to know she was back in the city.
He looked at her then. Really looked at her. The Olivia Benson that he had known 7 weeks ago was hard to see. In front of him he saw a thin, pale woman, clearly fatigued, large dark eyes slightly unfocused, a far cry from the determined, vibrant woman he had known. THAT Olivia Benson never asked for time to work though things, she buried herself in her work, even when she SHOULD take time to work though things, like a tough case, a stalker, a parent's death.
"What did they do to you, Olivia?" he asked concernedly. She looked at him and smiled softly. "I'm fine, Captain. I just have to tie up some loose ends with the Feds. They tell me I need to be 'debriefed' which I am fairly certain means 'listen to what I did wrong' and then attend 'reorientation sessions' which I am betting are equal to getting my head shrunk. They won't release me for at least another week and I'd like to take another week after that for some…" she paused and looked down, fingers unconsciously running over the bruise at her temple again. Her eyes unfocused and she leaned forward and put her weight on the armchair across from the desk. "…Some personal things." She felt the same nausea and wondered briefly if she'd be able to stay on her feet. Standing for long, or even moderate amounts of time was still challenging, it was when the dizzy spells were at their worst.
Cragen nodded and squinted at her. "Olivia." She looked up at him and refocused. "Take off your hat." Olivia sighed. "Cap, I'm fine."
"I believe you." He said. "Now take off your hat." She looked at him and sighed as she pulled the cap from her head. Cragen took two steps toward her. "Good god Olivia! What did they hit you with? A baseball bat?"
She looked up at him "Yeah," she replied. "I think it was, one of those old wooden ones that kids use. It might've been a billy club, it was hard to tell in the chaos." He jerked up at that response. He hadn't been serious, but the thought of someone taking a swing at his detective with a baseball bat made him cringe.
"What kind of operation are they running over there?"
"You don't want to know Captain." She put the cap back on and brushed her hair over the bruise. She came and sat in the chair, knees on her elbows and gave her old Captain the abbreviated version of the hell she had just been though. Not all of it though, she couldn't tell him that. Couldn't even let herself think about that yet. "I'll get in touch with you as soon as I hear from the Feds. 1PP knows that I'm, they are working to find a place for me, I know I left you guys in a pinch and you had to fill my spot." She looked over her shoulder at the blond at the desk.
"Two weeks, Liv? Let me make some calls, move some things around. See if we can get a spot for you here. I'm not losing a highly effective, trained detective because of bureaucracy." She smiled at his tone, the first sign of the old Olivia he had seen. "Thanks. I'll be in touch."
"Olivia, where are you going now?" her boss asked, concerned.
"Home. I haven't had a warm shower or slept in a real bed in over 6 weeks, I haven't had a good meal in over a month. I'm going to enjoy it." He only nodded at her, a silent signal of assent.
She slid out the door as quickly as she came in, walking quickly across the familiar, still empty room. Elliot was still in interrogation. She was relieved. She wasn't ready to face him right now. She swung around the outside of the bullpen and left the folded newspaper she had in her bag on Munch's desk.
"Excuse me" she said to the blond woman. She knew this woman was
Stabler's new partner, her replacement. "Will you tell Munch I left something for him on his desk."
"Sure" she replied gently. "Are you sure there is nothing else you need?"
Olivia could feel her eyes evaluating her, taking in the dark circles under her eyes, the bruise, the attempt to hide it, the scrapes, her defeated posture. 'She thinks I'm a victim' she thought, which made her both angry and sad.
"No," Olivia replied hastily. "Nothing else." And she got out of the building as quickly as possible.
Olivia rushed home, grabbing a taxi down Central Park West towards her apartment. She couldn't wait to get home. Hopefully her things had been delivered to her apartment. She had been scooped out of the police station and into the hospital when she passed out in the holding cell and no one had grabbed her belongings, scant as they may be. They had put her directly on a plane to
New York, promising they would gather her things and deliver them to
New York. She had her passport and her pocketbook, her keys, her cellphone, which currently wasn't connected, things that her supervising agent had kept for her while she was inside. She had a small bag of toiletries she'd picked up at the airport, along with the local newspaper she'd picked up before she'd left Portland. She smiled at the thought of the paper. She knew that Munch would put two and two together, and save her from having to explain everything. Finally inside her apartment, which smelled stale and dusty, she took the longest, hottest shower she could stand. Clean and skin scrubbed pink, she thought a shower had never felt so good in her entire life. She looked longingly at her bed as she stripped the sheets and grabbed some clean ones to put on the bed later. She was so tired, tired of life. She glanced at the bedside clock. Twenty minutes until she had to be downtown. She grabbed her bag and coat and scarf and the same green cap and hurried downstairs to find a cab.
1-6 Station House
Fin and Munch walked into the bullpen, coffee in hands, arguing about something. Dani looked up at them as Elliot came around the corner from the interrogation rooms.
"You get anything from him?" Fin asked, referring to a suspect they'd been trying to get a confession from in the interrogation room.
"He copped to the robbery, but wouldn't say anything about the girl. It took me 90 minutes to get that out of him and then the little jerk lawyered up. We have nothing." Elliot scoffed, clearly irritated at his own failure.
Fin sat down and was sorting though paperwork at his desk, grumbling to
himself.
Munch had picked up the newspaper he'd found on his chair and was flipping through it, sitting on the side of the desk as the detectives waited for the meeting their boss had scheduled to review their active cases.
Dani looked up at Elliot. "A woman stopped by looking for you earlier. Didn't leave a name."
Elliot flipped through his messages, unconcerned. "What did she want?" People were always looking for him, she would come back or leave a message if it was important.
"Don't know." Dani replied. She asked for you and then went and talked to the captain.
"Hmm" Elliot replied, non-chalantly. getting his files and heading back towards the interrogation rooms.
Fin glanced up at his partner. "What're you reading, man, another conspiracy newsletter?"
"Nope," He replied, he flipped the front page over and showed it to them. "The Portland Gazette. Someone left it on my desk. Pretty sleepy little paper if you ask me."
Dani perked up. "Oh, Elliot's mystery visitor? She said she left something on your desk for you."
"Hmphh" Munch replied, turning the pages. "Hey," he said a few minutes later. "What did this woman say exactly? Did she ask where my desk was? If John Munch worked here?" he questioned Dani.
"No," she replied. "Just said on her way out 'Tell Munch I left something on his desk."
"So she knew I worked here, and where my desk was?" Munch asked.
Fin jumped in "What now, someone else is spying on you, keeping track of your periodical interests?" He loved any opportunity to give his partner a hard time about his idiosyncrasies.
Munch turned to his partner, part grin, part sneer on his weathered face. His dark glasses obscured his eyes. "Dani, what did this woman look like?"
"I dunno," Dani replied. "Tallish, maybe 5'8, brown hair, skinny. Too skinny, like I wanted to give her a cheeseburger. Kind of looked like she'd had a hard time, roughed up a bit, but she didn't want to make a report . Why?
"I think she's back." He replied with a grin. Slapped the newspaperon top of Fin's pile of paperwork scattering a pile of photos.
"What the -? What's this?" Fin protested.
Munch tapped the paper on his desk a few times. "Look at the headline. FBI Bust of Radical Enviro Group Leads to Arrests in MedeCo Bombing. Portland, Oregon. FBI. Environmental Group."
Fin grabbed the paper from him and scanned the article. "One member of the group, placed under arrest and later taken to a hospital for treatment remains missing, she is wanted for questioning." He read.
"Questioning, or maybe sent back to her old life. Dude." He exclaimed. "She's back!"
"Who's back?" Elliot asked, re-entering the room.
The two male detectives looked at him. Stabler looked at them and then at Dani. "Don't look at me" she said, "I have no idea what they are talking about."
Fin looked down at the paper and then at Elliot. "Benson. She's back."
Elliot shot them a look that made Dani think sparks were going to come out of his eyes. He grabbed the paper from Fin, glanced at the article and flipped it around to see the name of the paper. "Portland" he said. He grabbed his phone and dialed a number. He hung up quickly. "Still disconnected." He said, sounding either disappointed or angry, or both.
Cragen walked out of his office, coat over his arm. He was still aggravated over what he had heard earlier that morning. He wasn't going to just sit and wait to see how this panned out; he planned on heading downtown to the FBI offices for a meeting with the only contact he had regarding the case Olivia had been working on.
As he approached the group, he interrupted "Meeting needs to be rescheduled. Something came up."
Elliot turned around. He didn't beat around the bush. "Did Olivia come see you this morning?"
Cragen stopped walking and looked at the man in front of him. He looked like a spring, compressed, about to jerk up unpredictable. He was practically buzzing. The other detectives were hovering, clearly interested in what his answer was going to be.
"Yes, she did."
"So she's back"
"Yes"
"When?"
"She said just this morning."
Elliot turned away, rubbing his face with his hands.
"Give her some time." Cragen advised. "She's been through a lot. She'll contact you when she's ready. What are you going to do, burst into her apartment? Let her come to us, to you. You know she will."
"Do I?" he muttered as he turned back to his desk.
"But she's coming back though, right Cap?" Fin asked.
"She'll be back. Just don't know when yet." He reshuffled his bag and coat and headed out the door, leaving the others to stare at each other.
