Put on your Season 17 hats, kids… this little ditty takes place in the Community Policing universe.
##
Ed nods at the desk sergeant, striding determinedly toward the elevator of the 1-6. He's just left the hospital, where what had to have been half the NYPD was still milling about waiting rooms mourning the untimely death of a brother officer. He'd paid his respects, and when he left, his feet seemed to have a mind of their own, taking him here, to see her.
They aren't quite what he would consider friends, but even from a distance he could see that the politics of this case had taken a toll on her. She's a woman of integrity, of heart…and he could appreciate how difficult it was for her to be torn between justice for the victim and loyalty to the shield.
Its early evening; just late enough for the hustle and bustle to have died down, and as he walks off the elevator and toward the squad room, he braces himself for the questioning glares of her detectives that seem to always accompany his impromptu visits. But they never come; when he turns the corner, he's met by a mostly quiet room, just a few uniformed officers and flex detectives floating around.
The sullen mood that permeates the space is palpable.
His eyes shift toward her office and he's not surprised at all to find her silhouette at her desk, hunched over paperwork as soft light from a corner lamp bathes the room.
"Lieutenant," he greets, walking in slowly. He stops just inside the door, hands in his pockets. He tries not to take it personally when her face falls, noticing that it's him darkening her doorway.
"Tucker…" she sighs, sitting up straight in her chair and running an exasperated hand through her hair. This case has zapped her of her energy and she just…can't.
He drops his chin to his chest. "That wasn't quite the reception I was hoping for," he says wryly.
She forces herself not to wonder what reception he was hoping for. "Sorry to disappoint," she quips tiredly instead. "What brings you by?" Please be nothing, please be nothing…
Ed shrugs, accepting her implicit, albeit unwilling, invitation and stepping further into her office. "Case was a doozy," he says. "Just wanted to check on ya."
Her eyes widen fractionally in surprise and she nods slowly. "That's…that's nice of you. Thanks." He looks at her expectantly, and she realizes she hasn't actually answered his inquiry. "I'm fine," she says. "Ready for this day to be over," she adds, huffing a humorless laugh.
Ed nods and then takes a deep breath and the next words out of his mouth surprise even him. "Come out with me."
Olivia looks at him blankly across her desk.
"Out?"
He shrugs one shoulder and the gesture is almost…innocent. She eyes him skeptically, unaccustomed to this Tucker. He'd bought her that drink months ago, and it was nice—bizarre, but nice. And then nothing else had come of it, so she'd written it off. "Yeah."
"With you?"
Ed cocks his head at her, a smirk at his lips. "I can't really use much smaller words, Lieutenant…"
Her eyes narrow at his mocking and she leans back in her chair. "By all means, charm me into submission," she says sarcastically.
He couldn't resist teasing her, mostly because she gave as good as she got.
"Come on," he prods. "This case sucked. Let's just go somewhere fun. Blow off some steam."
Somewhere fun? Olivia eyes him carefully before deciding that he's serious and, since the last time they spent time together out of work it wasn't an altogether terrible experience, maybe it won't be so bad. She looks at her watch.
"I know you wanna get home to your son," Ed chimes in. "I won't keep you long, I promise."
She lets a small smile tug at the corner of her lips as she closes the file she was working on, admitting defeat. She could use a little fun. "Alright, Tucker. I give."
##
They take Ed's car, and in between small talk, she asks him where he's taking her, rolling her eyes when all he'll give her is you'll see and that damned smirk.
Minutes later, he guides her toward a bowling alley at Chelsea Piers, and she looks at him in amused shock.
"You bowl?"
Hands once again find their way into his pockets, a sly grin on his face and he glances at her sideways as they walk. "Why is that so surprising, Lieutenant?"
"I just can't picture it…"
Suddenly, Ed stops walking and turns to face her. Olivia follows suit immediately.
"Tell me something, Olivia," he starts, and her breath catches at the sound of her name on his lips. He's said it before, but it's been so infrequently over the years… There's something about the way it rolls off his tongue. "What is it you see when you picture me off the job?" He eyes her curiously. "Cigar? Velvet robe? Slippered feet propped up on a dark wood coffee table…?"
Olivia's eyes dart between his and despite his straight face, it's the spark of humor she finds in his baby blue irises that gets her to crack a smile. She chuckles lightly, looking down at their feet before bravely meeting his gaze again. "Honestly, Tucker, I can't say I've given a whole lot of thought to you off the job…"
He nods understandingly, holding the door to the building open for her and letting his fingers hover over the small of her back as she leads the way inside. "Well," he says with a teasing lilt to his voice, "maybe that'll change."
##
Sal is at his perch behind the shoe counter and the second he spots Ed, he's got size 11 shoes on the counter before the IAB Captain can say a word. "You lose track of what day it is, Eddie?" he jibes.
Ed can feel the intrigue in Olivia's gaze as she watches the back-and-forth between Ed and the shoe clerk, her eyebrow lifted in interest.
"Yeah, yeah," he dismisses the older man and ignores Olivia. "Got hung up on a case. You know how it is…"
"Eddie?" Olivia repeats, bewildered.
It's then that Sal's attention is diverted to the brunette at Ed's side and he smiles at her, oozing charm as he leans his forearm against the counter. "And, ya brought a lady friend," he observes, leering exaggeratedly at her.
Ed rolls his eyes, gesturing between the two. "Lieutenant Olivia Benson," Ed emphasizes her title and she can't decide whether it's out of pride for her or a warning to his friend, "Sal Cavelli. He owns this dump," he explains to her. Sal grins at Olivia as they exchange pleasantries; they share in a mutual enjoyment of the mild discomfort Ed seems to exude during their interaction.
God help her, this Ed is… interesting. Somehow, he finds a way to be cocky and shy all at once, and it's an unexpectedly endearing combination.
Sal rolls his eyes as Ed wordlessly gestures for him to hurry up and, turning to Olivia, he reverts to business. "What size shoes, Sweets?"
##
"You're on a first-name basis with the bowling alley owner?"
Ed shrugs as they make their way toward their lane, shoes dangling loosely from their fingers. "I've been playing in a league here for years."
Olivia looks at him incredulously, her eyes sparkling with humor. "Ed Tucker is in a league?"
"With cops," he defends with a smirk.
"Still," she laughs, and he's seen her do it so rarely in the eons that they've known each other that he's briefly stupefied, watching her surreptitiously out of the corner of his eye while they walk. She shakes her head, glancing at him sideways before nudging him with her elbow. "You think you know someone…"
They find their lane and Ed busies himself with entering their names in the system while she slips out of her boots and into the bowling shoes. When she stands to find a ball, Tucker appraises her, secretly enjoying her change in height now that she's no longer in heels.
"Ready?" he smirks at her when she returns carrying a neon pink bowling ball.
"Whenever you are," she replies. He's set it up so he's going first, and she takes a seat in a nearby chair to watch. He sees her cross her legs in his peripheral vision and shakes his head of the distraction, instead focusing on the pins at the end of the lane. He holds the ball in front of him, and just before he moves to bowl, he hears her mumble "this I gotta see" under her breath.
"I heard that, Benson," he growls playfully over his shoulder.
Focused on his follow-through and his bowling ball racing toward the pins, he misses the involuntary shudder that wracks her body at the gruff tone of his voice.
##
Halfway through the first game, Ed heads to the bar to grab drinks and she takes the time to call Lucy and check in. He watches her while he waits for his order, appreciating how her features soften and her face brightens noticeably whenever she's talking to, or about, her son.
She's wrapping up the call when he puts a plastic cup in front of her. Without looking at it, she knows what it is. The words I think you should try the bourbon flit across her mind and they share a look before she takes a sip.
"As if my bowling wasn't shameful enough, now you want me to drink?" she teases, standing and wiping her hands down her thighs.
"Eh," he shrugs. "Bowling's more fun when you suck at it."
"Says the one who's gotten three strikes already," she fires back over her shoulder, gripping her ball and getting into position.
"It's all in the technique," he explains, coming up to stand next to her. He leans into her space, emboldened by alcohol and the fact that she even agreed to be here with him tonight. "I could show ya, if ya want," he offers cockily.
Olivia looks over her shoulder at him, perfectly sculpted eyebrow arching in challenge. "You are the expert," she teases.
She hasn't flirted this much or this mercilessly in so long; she didn't even know she remembered how. She tries to seem unaffected despite the heat of his body that hovers close to hers, almost touching but not quite, as he guides her through the motions that will force the bowling ball to go where she wants it to. The music is loud in the bowling alley but his gravelly voice is right against her ear & it's all she can focus on until he steps back, grudgingly, and motions for her to try on her own.
When she bowls a strike, she turns excitedly and the warmth she finds in his smile is momentarily disarming. He holds his hand up to her for a high-five, and as their palms touch, she'll be damned if she doesn't feel the tiniest spark…
##
A young family settles into the lane beside them toward the end of their second game, and on his last turn, Ed notices their young boy, who couldn't be much older than Noah, eyeing him curiously. From her seat, already back in her boots, Olivia watches warmly as Ed winks at her then crouches down to be eye level with the boy and challenges him to see who can get down the most pins.
The kid, Aidan, is barely heavier than the ball he's holding, and he hobbles determinedly up to the edge of the lane beside theirs. Ed steps up next to him. "Ready?" he asks. At the boy's nod, Ed turns around and Aidan grins in surprise when the silver-haired man pushes the ball softly between his legs, reverse-grandma style.
Unsurprisingly, Ed's ball quickly winds up in the gutter. But thanks to the gutters up in the family's lane, Aidan manages to knock down three pins.
Ed feigns disappointment but high-fives the little boy, palming his head and nodding goodnight to the parents as he quickly slips his shoes back on before he and Olivia make their way toward the door.
She'd hardly imagined Ed as anything other than IAB. Even the out-of-work experiences she'd had with him thus far had been tainted with something relating to the job. But this…tonight…had been eye opening, in many ways.
The Ed Tucker who'd interrogated her for murder, nearly sacrificed Brian to take down the 1-2, wasn't one she could picture around kids, laughing…but somehow, one by one, he was managing to blow all of the assumptions she'd made about him out of the water.
##
He parks outside her building and surprises her by cutting the engine and getting out when she moves to.
"Tucker, you don't have to—"
"I know," he says, cutting her off and jogging around the car to walk beside her to the door of her building. "I'm just makin' sure you get inside okay."
She nods and smiles, fishing her keys out of her purse. "Well," she starts lightly. "Thanks for tonight. I had…fun." Disbelief is evident in her tone and he doesn't hesitate to call her on it.
"You don't have to sound so surprised," he chuckles. Wordlessly, she cocks her head in concession and he reaches out to briefly grip her forearm. "Goodnight, Olivia."
Ed winks at her and turns to walk away. She takes a deep breath and before she can stop herself, calls out for him to wait. When he turns to face her, she offers him a helpless shrug. "It's not really that late," she ventures, watching his eyebrows lift on his forehead. "D'you wanna come up for a drink?"
Squaring his shoulders, Ed looks at her, eyes twinkling and lips twitching in the barest of smiles before he takes a step in her direction.
"Sure."
##
Upstairs, Ed peruses her photos while she checks on Noah—the walls and shelves providing a chronology of her life from what looks like high school all the way up through Noah's adoption.
In all the photos that she displays, in every stage of her life that's documented before him, there's one constant: she has a devastatingly beautiful smile.
Its a few minutes before she rejoins him in the living room and a quick scan of her reveals that she's ditched her blazer and she now stands before him in her bare feet, toes polished in a deep red peeking out under the hem of her dress pants.
He tears his gaze from her toes back to the frame he holds in his hand, before darting to look at her face. "It's hard to believe it's the same person," he marvels.
Olivia narrows her eyes at him. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" she challenges, stepping toward him to look at the photo over his shoulder. It's one from her 3rd year at SVU; the year she'd corrected a botched haircut with a short pixie.
Hearing the warning in her tone, he realizes how she construed his comment and rolls his eyes. "Please, you haven't aged at all," he compliments. "I was talkin' about your hair."
"What about it?"
Ed focuses on her now, putting the photo back on the shelf. Their eyes are taking each other in and she gasps when he reaches up, using his index finger to push a lock of her hair out of her face. "It was cute, but I think I like it better like this," he rasps.
Olivia doesn't say anything, instead swallows to lubricate her mouth that has suddenly gone dry under his scrutiny. Finally, she clears her throat. "I don't have any bourbon. Red wine okay?"
He smiles at her deflection, making his way to the couch as she flees to the safety of the kitchen. "Whatever you got is fine," he assures her.
##
Olivia is vaguely surprised at how easily conversation flows between them as they sit facing each other on her couch. There are fewer stimuli in her living room, giving them no option but to feed off each other versus being distracted by blaring music and screaming kids. They float from topic to topic effortlessly, and toward the end of the evening, she finds that between competing stories from their Academy days, her latest adventures with Noah and the steady banter that flows naturally between them, she hasn't thought about the Terrence Reynolds case at all. Ed had made it easy for her to just unplug completely, something that had rarely ever been an easy thing for her to do.
He'd made her laugh, they'd talked about everything but the job, and even if just for these few hours, she'd been able to just…let all the heavy stuff go.
After the third time she stifles a yawn behind her hand, Ed smiles warmly, and stands, "I should get goin'. I'm keepin' you up." He reaches down for his empty glass, intending to take it to the sink but she smacks his hand away.
"I'll get it later."
He leads the way to her door, stopping just across her threshold in her hallway. He turns to face her and his eyes once again examine her when she leans up against the doorframe. Seconds later, an amused smile stretches her lips when she realizes he's transfixed, once again, by her bare feet.
"They're feet, Tucker," she laughs softly. "Everyone has them."
"I know," he says defensively. "But yours are so…pretty."
"And you expected, what? Hobbit feet?"
Olivia beams when she sees the blush rise up to cover the skin of his upper chest and neck, and he looks down, his demeanor almost bashful, before scratching self-consciously at the back of his neck.
She shakes her head, increasingly amused, and there's a pause—though not an uncomfortable one—as they both try to determine what this evening was and how it should end.
"Thanks—uh, thanks for the drink," he stammers.
"Thanks for abducting me tonight," she throws back, eyes gleaming with mirth. "I, uh," she sighs and runs her fingers quickly through her hair, offering him a shy shrug, "I didn't realize how much I needed a little fun."
Ed nods, but neither of them make any effort to move; he is still rooted to his spot in the hall, she still against the doorframe.
Brown eyes lock on blue, and Ed is instantly stymied by the openness in her gaze. He sees acceptance, curiosity, even. And then, he watches her gaze dip down to his lips, lingering for a beat before meeting his eyes again.
He swallows thickly. What's the protocol here?
If he's honest, he's wanted to kiss her since that night at the bar months ago, but she was more cautious then. He hadn't wanted to push her. There had been so much going on.
Nerves overtake him suddenly, and he shuffles half a step closer to her. Olivia shifts her weight, standing up straight in response. Or invitation?
Ed holds his hands out in supplication, "Please…please don't kill me if I'm readin' this wrong," he pleads with a hoarse chuckle. His eyes search hers as he moves steadily closer to her.
"I don't know what's happening here," she admits softly. Her confession makes him pause and he waits for her to continue, "but that doesn't mean I don't want it to."
Ed nods subtly, moving toward her again. Inches now from her face, his eyes travel from her lips to her eyes. "Last chance," he warns, "if you don't want this…"
Her voice comes out in a whisper against his lips. "Ed, just—" the kiss me at the end of her sentence is lost as, in his excitement to finally hear her say his name, he brushes his lips against hers. The kiss is soft, tentative, his slightly chapped lips fitting perfectly between her plump ones.
A hand comes to grip her hip lightly and she grasps his forearm as the kiss breaks. Eyes open to gauge the other's reaction and when she sees a myriad of the emotions swirling in her own mind reflecting back at her, she smiles, tilting her head and leaning in again.
Ed grunts against her mouth, shuffling closer still as her right hand comes up to cup his face, her teeth nibbling gently at his lower lip before she teases him with her tongue.
It's just a taste. Subtle flavors of wine, bourbon & maybe a hint of a cigarette he smoked earlier all marry to create an essence that taste so much like what she might've expected, had she given any thought to what he'd taste like before tonight. It's overwhelming, but as their lips move over one another and the tip of his tongue against hers draws a low moan from her throat, she finds that she might be addicted to him.
This wasn't where she imagined her night going when he ambled into her office earlier, but right now, she has no complaints.
Slowly, they pull away, and he bites at her lip, tugging slightly as they separate. He's so close to her, she can feel the warm tickle of his breath on her skin.
His eyes are twinkling at her when she opens hers and she smiles shyly. "That was nice," she says, her voice husky with the beginnings of arousal.
Ed smiles for the umpteenth time tonight and she stifles a laugh when it crosses her mind that she's seen more of his teeth in the last few hours than she has in 15 years. "It was," he agrees simply. His fingers squeeze her hip gently and he searches her eyes. "Maybe we'll do it again sometime," he adds hopefully.
The hand that was on his face slides down and pats at his chest as they put a little more distance between their bodies. She quirks an eyebrow at him, the flirtation obvious and reminiscent of one of their first outings, and she replies with a delicate nod, "Maybe we will."
Ed releases her hip and her hand squeezes his lightly as she moves to retreat into her apartment. He starts walking backward toward the elevator while she disappears from his view.
He waits for her door to shut and the lock to click before he turns around, shoving his hands in his pockets, his mind feverishly running through every second of the unexpectedly eventful evening.
He imagines he probably looks like a fool as he steps out onto the street, a grin stretching across his face. There's a barely noticeable kick in his step as he walks toward his car, the last words she said to him still echoing in his head.
Maybe we will.
##
Don't worry; I haven't forgotten about You and I—there may even be an update to that this weekend. This was just a plot bunny I had that demanded to be written.
Review?