It's only been a few weeks since this started, but true to form it's already complicated.
Truth be told, nothing in her experience has ever been light and easy. All of this somehow fits into her skewed definition of normalcy.
She hasn't asked him over to her apartment yet for anything more than a coffee before work, and she doesn't think she'll change her mind on that self-imposed rule even after tonight. She's too protective over what her son sees to let anyone into the life they're building these days.
Her son's normal is still intact, and she intends to keep it that way.
The men she dates these days don't stick around, and she doesn't really ask them to. She used to think they left because her job was too hard to understand or the shield was too bright between them – but she's dated enough cops by now to realize it's none of those things. It's her. It's the way she's locked up and locked down. It's the way she crates her life into boxes that stack up in walls around her.
But she doesn't care. This isn't love. It's not even sex. Yet.
Olivia grips the neck on the bottle of red and ignores the bite in the mid April air. She doesn't bother with extra lipstick or a change in clothes, he's known her for too long to be impressed by anything now.
Maybe that's why this whole thing is both incomprehensible and perfectly logical at the same time.
She barely knocks on his apartment door before he swings it open. She almost smiles, not at him but at how life always has the last laugh. She'd hated him for too many years. Blamed him. She'd cursed him and even spent nights in jail because of him. Yet here she stands.
They don't talk of any of it.
He's a constant at least. He's sixteen years, and that has to mean something.
He stands in the doorway and nothing about him softens as he looks at her. Everything about him is hard – his jaw, his body, his attitude. His apartment is dark – he's prone to navy and black and thick, midnight curtains – but incongruously there is some warmth to the place. Surprisingly he's a proficient cook so the smell seeping out of the doorway is rich, lush with simmering garlic and thyme. His eyes are crystal blue and they fluctuate between burning and chilling, and maybe that's why she's here. Those eyes probably remind her of something. Someone.
She still hasn't figured anything out yet.
"Olivia." He says her full name. There would never be use of a nickname between them. It's still hard enough to get him to use her first name when he talks to her. Back when this thing started, he'd even called her by her rank at dinner one night.
"Ed." She won't use his last name when they are alone. Not ever. It reminds her too much of who they are and who they have been. "Hope I'm not too late."
It's then that his somber expression cracks slightly. His eyes soften just a bit as he steps back. "Come in."
He'd asked her to come for dinner. Said he had to tell her something that he's been waiting to say. She assumes it's about this irregular dating pattern they've been hanging onto as they both waited out their simultaneous suspensions. He'd been cleared of wrongdoing in the trafficking case, but she'd fucked up by telling Barba about this dating thing and that landed both of them a good four weeks without pay. With twelve hours to go before she can go back to work, she already assumed tonight will either be a goodbye or an expectation of sex. She's not really against either idea.
It's the way he's looking at her that tells her she'd been wrong on both counts. The air feels sharp around her.
She walks in, sets the bottle on the coffee table and sheds her coat quickly before he tries to help her with it. She's still setting it over the back of the couch when she feels him walk up behind her. He's three steps away but she can hear him breathing as if he's right on her back.
"They're giving you the squad back," he says in that low, scratching voice of his.
Olivia exhales and nods. "Yeah." She turns, trying to gauge what's coming next.
He's unflinching as he looks at her, and that steady stare has always unnerved her. "You sure that's what you want? You want a change, now is the time to ask. They'd be only too happy to move you."
For some reason she doesn't think she'll be eating here tonight. She thinks that the bottle of wine she brought might never be opened. She's already regretting taking off her coat. "I requested the reinstatement, Ed. I want to be there."
He narrows his eyes, shifts. The intensity radiating off of him is making her skin hurt. "No matter what?" He's cryptic. He judges reactions before he gives information. That's always been his nature.
That watchfulness has always made her defensive. Olivia straightens. There's a blow coming, and she braces for it. "That's my squad. Always has been."
Something shutters in his expression. He lifts his chin just enough that she can how he's withdrawing from her without saying a word.
Her shoulders fall, and whatever hope she had for this to feel good or move forward slips away. Another evening, another end to something that never really started.
It had been a good bottle of wine, too. She'd figured they'd deserved it considering they would finally get to go back to work tomorrow. Tonight should have been a celebration of sorts. The weeks of forced leave had been a blessing in terms of her time with Noah and absolute hell when it came to everything else. She should have taken Noah on a vacation, somewhere sunny and warm, but she kept thinking maybe the squad would need her and the brass would let her come back sooner.
No such luck.
"There's something you need to know."
She shrugs and shakes her head just a little, looking over his shoulder at the breakfast nook that juts out from the kitchen area. She's starving, but she knows she'll end up having to pick something up on her way home. "Might as well just tell me."
"They sent me some files a few days ago. Cases that will be mine. Things I needed to watch out for."
"You mean they sent you personnel jackets. Cops you need to shadow. Don't sugarcoat it, Tucker." Her tone is more biting than she'd intended, but she's never been a fan of his job. Truth be told when Brian had left for IAB she'd disconnected from him too. Brian was back in Narcotics now or she could have never started this thing with his boss. "They sent you someone on my squad?"
She's followed the unit's cases over the last month. Kept in touch with Dodds and Fin. There hadn't been any fuckup's under Dodds, and she'd been both relieved and uncomfortable that all the shitstorms only occurred on her watch.
He just stares at her, as if trying to guess if she's going to take a swing at him. He lowers his voice and shoves his hands into his pockets. "Yeah."
There is no romance or attraction left in the room for her now. She gives him a rueful grin. "Well, guess it's not me if you're telling me. So who is it? Rollins? Carisi? I'm betting my life it's not Dodds."
"Olivia-"
But she doesn't want to hear it. It's all bullshit. She's never understood the witch hunt that surrounds SVU day in and day out, and she'd be damned if she'd date the one person fact-checking for the lynch mob at One PP. She grabs her coat. "Fin?" She laughs, and it's a hard, empty echo. Even she can hear the bitterness in the sound that comes out of her. "Go ahead, Tucker. Do your best to turn over every stone. But do me a favor when you're done picking apart my squad and-"
"Olivia-" he interrupts again, taking a step towards her.
But she's not afraid of him. Not back then and especially not in this moment. Olivia steps into him, stopping only when she's almost toe-to-toe. "I am sick and tired of having to watch my back both on the street and in the department. I'm not sure which one is more dangerous. But I'm telling you that I'll go to bat – all the way to the damned mat – for any one of my people. For every one of them."
He doesn't move. He's not intimidated at all. His eyes are flat, but there's pain in them too and that throws her off because she thinks it's pain he's feeling on her behalf.
He waits. Second after second after second.
Then, when the air is silent and the street noise below has evaporated, his whisper is barely discernible. "I've been assigned to watch Stabler."
In just that, she can't breathe.
She must wobble or take a step backwards because his hand wraps around her forearm, aiming to steady her. She can feel the shock of the name, the acidic, excruciating implication seep into her bones. The sound of that particular name makes her want to cry, but there is no way in hell she'll cry in front of Ed Tucker.
Olivia drops her gaze to the floor, her hair falls forward. She lets him hold onto her. "Sonofabitch," she manages softly. She won't let her voice shake. She can't.
He's closer then, and she's grateful. He steps in, pulls her body against him and she's desperate for the heat on her cold skin. "They're assigning him to you, Olivia. He asked for that and he got it, and you know why the department wants him there."
For one moment she hates the badge. She hates the protocol, the toxic way that the department treats her like the enemy when she's lost everything to the job. She nods. Yeah, she knows why. It's the ultimate nail in everyone's coffin. Everyone knows enough that her fledgling connection with Tucker won't last in the face of this. She'll need every ounce of strength she has to keep another man in line. And she'll fail and Tucker will probably try and cover for her.
And they will all go down. Once and for all. One PP can't legally justify firing them or declining a reinstatement, but it can just watch them burn themselves to the ground.
She wants to curl up. Everything seems to be crushing in on her, as if a million thoughts that she'd shoved away are suddenly crowding into her head all at the same time. Semper Fi, she thinks. It's on a medallion she'd been given once that she's long since tossed into a drawer somewhere.
Five years. Five years. It's been a lifetime since she's had to say that name.
"When?" Olivia manages. Her throat hurts, her palms ache.
To his credit, he doesn't let go of her. Instead his hand comes up, presses against her hair and encourages her to stay where she is. He knows. If anyone does, it's him.
"Probably tomorrow afternoon."
She won't cry, but she's close. Her breath is stunted. Her fingers grip his arms and she just focuses on holding it together. A thousand thoughts are swirling around in her head, but one keeps pushing to the front.
It takes time to reinstate.
It takes weeks. Months. It takes requalifying. It takes psych evals. It takes scaling bureaucratic brick walls.
He'd been trying to get back in for a long, long time.
He'd planned this. Expected to come back. He'd had time to prepare. She'd had none. He hadn't reached out at all.
He'd ambushed her after years of no contact.
She hangs onto the man in front of her for a little bit longer, wishing he had been just a bit more. But Ed Tucker had just been another casualty of the grip that someone else had shackled around her a lifetime ago.