A Late Night Visit
It had been a long day, a long case. They had been investigating a report of a little 7-year-old boy being abused by his father when suddenly, three days ago, the boy and his father up and vanished without a trace with exception to the note the father left to the detectives informing them they only had three days to find the boy, or else. After frantically searching, the detectives found the boy in an abandoned warehouse in Queens, but by then the deed was done. The boy's throat had been cut and according to the M.E. the detectives had been an hour to late.
Now, after having been sent home by Cragen to get some sleep, Elliot was standing outside Olivia's door waiting for her to answer his persistent knocking.
"Liv. Olivia. Liv! Please open the door, I'm worried about you." Elliot called through the door as he knocked for the umpteenth time within the past ten minutes. "Liv, if you do not open this door, I will use my key," he called as he reached into his pocket to retrieve the key Olivia had presented to him to use in emergencies. As the door swung open, Elliot was greeted by a wall of darkness, not a single light was illuminated within the apartment. "Liv? You here?" Elliot called as he stepped over the threshold and shut the door behind him, enveloping himself in the darkness. He slowly made his way over to the side table that he knew was situated by the couch and had a lamp sitting on it. "Dammit" he whispered as he ran right into the corner of the table, successfully giving himself a dull ache in his thigh. After fumbling for a few seconds he was finally able to switch on the light and a sight of chaos welcomed him. The magazines that were normally stacked in a neat pile on the coffee table were strewn all over the living room, pots and pans were littering the floor of the kitchen, and a broken vase lay on the ground in the main entrance.
"Olivia?" Elliot called out again as feared washed over him. He slowly made his way towards her bedroom, praying that nothing had happened to her. " Liv? You in here?" He asked as he pushed open her door and peered in.
After a quick scan around the room, Elliot's eyes landed on the bed and there lay Olivia, sprawled diagonally across the bed, covers pushed down by her feet, clad only in a tank top and boy's boxer briefs.
"Olivia" he breathed as he rushed over to her to check if she was ok. Giving her a quick once over, he didn't see any visible injuries. "Olivia, wake up honey" he whispered as he placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. The next few seconds were a blur as Elliot stumbled back against the wall from a blow to the face as Olivia swung her arm and struck him, and Olivia sat straight up in bed and pointed the gun she kept under her pillow at Elliot.
"Elliot?" she breathed lowering her gun, now that she realized who was sitting on her bedroom floor rubbing their head from where it hit the wall. "Elliot, what are you doing here?" she yelled, as she reached down, grabbed the covers and threw them over herself.
"I came by to check on you, see how you were holding up after this case," He grumbled as he picked himself up off the floor, "I didn't expect you to be asleep."
"Elliot, I was up for 96 hours straight, my body didn't give me much of a choice. I got in here, laid down, and was out."
"Good point. But why is your apartment in shambles? I walked in and saw it and I was worried that something had happened to you."
"I was pissed that we got to the boy to late, and kinda pitched a hissy fit and threw stuff everywhere." she huffed " How did you get into my apartment in the first place?"
"The key you gave me." He replied as he pulled out his key ring and let it dangle from his finger as he showed her.
"Oh, right. Well it's…." she quickly glanced at the alarm clock on her night stand, "three- thirty in the morning! Elliot, you should be at home. Kathy's going to be pissed."
"Been there, done that" he replied. "She kicked me out. She told me if I was going to be home so late after three days of not being there at all, I shouldn't have even bothered to come home."
"So you came here to vent, thinking I'd be up? At 3 am?" she asked quizzically.
"Yeah, something like that. Look, sorry I bothered you. Get some more sleep and I'll see you at work in the morning." He quickly turned to the door to leave.
Olivia breathed a deep sigh and called out to Elliot before he could completely exit the room. "El, where you going?"
"The precinct, going to crash in the cribs for the night." He responded turning back around to look at her.
"Don't be ridiculous El. I've got a guestroom set up down the hall. Crash there." she said giving him a quick smirk. "Besides if you sleep in the cribs your back will be killing you and I don't really feel like listening to you bitch all day tomorrow."
"You sure? Because really I'll go and I promise not to bi…."
"I'm sure." She said cutting him off. "There is no reason why you should sleep on those crappy mattresses if you have a much better one available to you here. Go. Get some sleep and I'll see you in the morning." She said as she rolled onto her side to get some more sleep before she had to get up in a few hours.
"Thanks. I appreciate it." Elliot turned back around and walked out of the room and down the hall to the guest bedroom next to Olivia's room. He walked over to the bed, stripped off his shirt and jeans so he was clad in only his boxers, pulled back the covers, and climbed into bed.
Buzzzzzzzzzzz.
"You've got to be kidding me." Elliot grumbled as he reached over and snatched up his phone from where he'd left it on the nightstand. Incoming call: Kathy illuminated the screen. He flipped the phone open, hit ignore, and set the phone back on the table, then turned over to get some sleep.
Buzzzzzzzzzzz
"This is not gonna work" he mumbled as he selected ignore once again, and then switched his phone to silent. He closed his eyes again but was forced to blink a few seconds later when a bright light shown in the room. Squinting, he peered over at the phone and saw it going off yet again. Moaning, he rolled over to face the other way and shut his eyes trying to sleep and ignoring the light from phone as it lit up every few minutes.
Buzzzzzzzzzzz
"Oh com'on!" Olivia whined as she rolled over and grabbed her phone. Incoming call: Kathy. "Why is Kathy calling me?" Olivia thought as she flipped open her phone. "Hello?" she mumbled into the phone.
"Olivia," Kathy's voice rang out, "have you heard from Elliot tonight??"
Knowing that if she told the truth if could just make the situation worse, she faked a surprised voice and answered, "No, why? Is everything ok?"
"Yeah, we just had an argument tonight and he ended up leaving. I've been calling him for the past twenty minutes and he hasn't answered any of my calls and it's starting to piss me off, so I was thinking maybe you heard from him."
"You've got to be kidding me" Olivia thought to herself. Keeping her voice in check, she responded, "No Kathy, I haven't heard from him, but Elliot is a grown man. He can take care of himself. If he hasn't answered any of your calls it probably means he doesn't want to talk to you right now, so give him some room and he will talk to you when he's ready."
"No. that's not right. I have not seen my husband in three days and when he finally does decide to come home it's at 2:30 in the morning." Kathy screeched, "He can't do that it's not…."
"Damn it Kathy!" Olivia yelled, cutting over her tirade. That was it, she was done being nice. "Your husband is a cop for crying out loud! With the job comes the expectation that there will be cases that keep you away from home for days at a time! Elliot was not home for the past three days because we were searching for a little boy that had been kidnapped by his psychotic father. And you know what? We found him today, and it was too late, the boy was killed an hour before we got there. So give Elliot a damn break. You are supposed to be his wife not his handler. You're the one he's supposed to be able to talk with when he's trying to handle a tough case, not the one who yells at him for coming home so late because he was doing his job!"
"My god Olivia," Kathy said, "What is your problem?"
"My problem Kathy? My problem is that it is 4am and you're calling me looking for your husband. My problem is that you don't seem to realize that I am your husband's partner, not your marriage counselor. It is not my job to get him to sign divorce papers and it is not my job to know where he is at four in the morning when you two get into an argument. Keep me out of your marriage Kathy and don't call again." At that she slammed the phone shut, threw it onto her nightstand and rolled back over to make another attempt at getting some sleep.
In the guestroom, Elliot heard Olivia's phone going off and knew that his wife had given up on trying to reach him and was now trying to reach the next best person, his partner. He heard the soft rumble of Olivia's voice as she tried to calm Kathy down but was surprised when heard Olivia suddenly yelling into the phone. "Oh man, "he thought, "Kathy's really done it." After a few minutes he heard Olivia stop talking and slam the phone down on her side table. Knowing he needed to talk to her about this, he threw back the covers, got out of bed and padded out of the room and down the hall to Olivia's door.
"Liv?" he called as he knocked on the door and walked in. "You awake?"
"Yeah El what's up?" she asked, rolling over to glance at him, then leaned over and flicked on her bedside lamp.
"I just wanted to tell you I'm sorry, you know, 'bout Kathy. If I knew she'd resort to calling you I would've picked up my phone and talked to her."
"Oh, so you did know your phone was going off, huh? I thought you were losing your hearing in your old age and didn't hear it buzz" she joked.
"Funny. Don't forget, you're not far behind." He studied her for a moment. "You know I wouldn't be surprised if you asked for a new partner after tonight so that you escape dealing with this." He stated waving his hand towards her phone on the last word.
"Tried that once, remember? Couldn't stand it, hence the reason I came back."
The conversation died off and they just stared at each other until Olivia got fed up with the silence and piped up, "Couldn't sleep?"
"Nah. You?"
"Nope." She contemplated him for a minute before patting the bed next to her, "Come here."
"Wha?" he asked shocked. "Liv…"
"El, neither one of us can sleep, maybe if we just sit and chat we'll actually be able to relax and get some rest. Besides, this mattress is more comfortable than the one you're sleeping on anyhow."
Not finding anything in her statement that he could argue with, Elliot walked over to the bed and slipped underneath the covers, then leaned back against the wall and turned his head to look at her. "Liv?"
"Yeah?"
"Thanks."
"For what?" she asked, turning her head to look him in the eye.
"For everything. For dealing with my mood swings all these years. For helping Kathleen when she broke into that couples house. For helping Dickie when he got himself into a tight spot. For… dealing with Kathy. For just being there whenever I need you, even if I'm being a complete ass." He looked down suddenly not being able to look her in the eye.
"El. Elliot. Elliot look at me." She reached over and cupped his face in her hands tilting his head back up so he'd look at her. "I'm your partner, for better or worse, remember?"
He smiled remembering his words from so long ago come back to him. They held each other's gaze for a few more seconds, before a grin started to play across Olivia's face.
"What's so funny?" Elliot asked, noticing the smile.
"Elliot," she said, dropping her hands from his face, "I think after everything that's happened tonight, you owe me breakfast and coffee tomorrow."
"Olivia, after everything that's happened tonight, I think I owe you breakfast and coffee for at least a week if not longer." He chuckled.
"Well," she said grinning at him, "I'm not going to argue with that. Goodnight El." At that she slipped down into the bed and pulled the covers up to her shoulders.
"G'night Liv." Elliot whispered as he mimicked her actions.
Olivia reached over and flicked off the lamp and they both drifted off to sleep.