I own no one but my own people
A/N In Oprah Voice I. Love. Tuckson. I love Tuckson. I have loved them since Tuckson was just a tiny little crack ship with three shippers when Elliot was still on. I love that they're together, I want them to stay together forever and ever... I. Love. Tuckson. This story is for a group of amazing people that ship Benoight who tolerate my Tucksonness in great stride. So this story doesn't at all reflect my feelings on Tucker or Tuckson at all and please please please don't read it if you're a Tuckson lover because it'll just get you mad. But for those that don't ship them, I hope you enjoy :-)
Olivia was shaking as hard as she ever had in recent memory as she drove to the address Voight had texted her. She had tried to gather her thoughts before she arrived but there were far too many.
Tears were gathered in her eyes as she turned the corner and drove slowly down a nearly abandoned Brooklyn street. Several unsavory characters were walking quickly down the sidewalk and eying the police car she was driving with an uneasy eye.
She pulled up in front of a crumbling disheveled motel that customers could pay cash for the hour, shut off the car and walked in. It was also where Voight and Olinsky were waiting for her in room 4D.
As she made her way up to the room, she was trembling so hard she had to stop and support herself on the wall, the tears gathered in her eyes beginning to finally fall despite her continued efforts to stop them.
The SVU Lieutenant took a deep shaking breath and continued to make her way up the stairs and down the hallway where the Chicago Detective and Sergeant were waiting on her to make an appearance. She stood in front of the door for what felt life time before she summoned the courage to raise her hand and knock.
The second she did she wanted to turn tail and sprint back down the hall and the steps and get back into her car but she willed herself to stand in front of the door and wait as the locks untumbled from the inside and the door swung open.
Olinsky, in his second hand tattered jeans and flannel jacket was standing there, a stark opposite to Olivia's black work slacks and long navy blue coat.
"Where is he?" she asked, trying to hide anymore tears from falling.
"He's in the bathroom," he answered in his calm gentle voice.
Olivia moved past him into the hotel room without another word and she barely heard him shut the door behind the two of them. The bathroom door was shut and she heart the faint sound of a shower running.
"He didn't mean for it to happen," Olinsky told her after a long moment of silence between them. When she didn't answer and instead just slowly paced the floor, he tried again. "He didn't plan it I swear to God, Olivia."
"That makes it okay?" she asked, her voice betraying her and cracking at the last syllable. The water shut off in the bathroom and Olivia's heart began pounding as hard and fast as it had done in recent memory.
"I just don't want you thinking we went there just to do it."
"You mean murder him," said Olivia, her voice barely above a whisper. Olinsky stayed silent as she turned away from him and looked at the closed bathroom door where the faint sounds of someone moving around in there fluttered into the small bedroom.
After several moments she spoke again. "How'd it happen?"
"He was shot. One bullet through the head, he didn't suffer."
Olivia bit her lip as she turned from the door to look at the Detective, hoping with all of her might that the answer to her next question was a definite 'yes'. "I have to know, Alvin... Was it self defense?" she pleaded, desperation heavy in her tone.
If he said yes, she could walk away with her mind at ease. Voight and his best friend wouldn't be murderers, they would be innocent men who had saved their own lives.
Olinsky swallowed hard and looked dead straight into her eyes as he answered her. "No. I'm sorry."
She felt like she had been sucker punched. Every moment since she had gotten the call from Voight, Olivia had a thought in the back of her mind that it could be self defense. That they had no choice, that they had to kill him to protect themselves. But now that hope was shattered...
Olivia turned away from him and blinked back her tears. "You... you could have lied ya know," she told him, her voice trembling.
"Voight wants you to know the whole truth before you make any choices," he told her in a calm easy voice, as much of a 180 as you could get from his best friend as a voice could get. "He's not hiding anything from you."
Olivia didn't say anything because at that moment the bathroom door opened and Voight stepped out with a towel wrapped around his waist, a slight sheen of water on his well built chest.
Brown eyes met brown eyes as he looked at Olivia, looking sorry not for what he had done but for the fact he had dragged Olivia into the situation
"Hey, Olivia," he greeted as softly as his voice would allow him. When she didn't answer him, he swallowed hard and tried again. "Than you for coming."
"I didn't have a choice."
"You did though. You could have called the cops, told them where we were... I wouldn't have blamed you."
"There's still time," she told him with a dark glare.
Olivia expected the two Chicago officers to look terrified at the prospect of her calling the cops but both Voight and Olinsky looked cool as a cucumber. She ran a hand through her hair and began pacing the dirty carpeted floor.
She turned back to Voight, no longer attempting to hold back the tears that were falling. "Why? Why did you do this? Why are you even HERE, Voight, I told you I could handle Tucker on my own."
"He was stalking you," Voight answered simply.
"That doesn't give you a right to murder him!" she shouted.
"You know as well as I do that he never would have stopped" Voight argued just as calm as you please.
"I told you I could handle him! He was having issues with the breakup, that doesn't mean I wanted you to kill him!"
"You didn't see that apartment," Olinsky told her. "He had photos of you, he was tracking everywhere you went, that break in you told Hank about? Everything you were missing he had in his possession... he was getting dangerous."
"I Could. Handle. Him." she repeated for what felt like the hundredth time. "I didn't want you to come up here and-... and put a bullet in him," she finished in a harsh whisper.
"We didn't come up here for that," Voight assured her. "I swear on my kids lives, Olivia, we came up here to scare him, rough him up a bit... that's it."
She crossed her arms in front of her chest. "Really? That's it? Then how the FUCK did 'just scaring him' lead to Goddamn murder!?"
"Me and Al showed up at his apartment and we beat the shit out of him," Voight admitted without a single second of hesitation. Like beating a man to within an inch of his life was similar to going grocery shopping. He wasn't ashamed of what he had done, nor was Olinsky. This man had threatened the only woman Voight had loved since the death of his wife... There was no way they could let him get away with what he had done.
"That was ALL we planned to do," Olinsky emphasized. "We really didn't go up there to do anything else."
Olivia just stood there silently waiting for them to continue their story. She didn't care what their intentions were when they showed up at Tuckers apartment, it was what happened while they were there that upset her. It was what happened while they were that that led to Edward J Tucker being a corpse.
"He was on the floor, bleeding, bruised, looking like shit and after everything we did to him, he told us he wasn't gonna stop until you went back together with him or you were dead," Voight continued. "After the hell me and Al put him through, after all the threatening and everything else, he told us he wasn't going to stop... I couldn't chance him hurting you."
"So you shot an unarmed man in cold blood. Is that what you're seriously telling me right now?"
Looking dead straight in her eyes he nodded. "Yeah. And I don't regret it for even a second."
Olivia ran her hand through her hair. "I can't believe you... I can't believe you, Hank. You MURDERED him! Do you understand that?!"
"He threatened you," he said simply. "No one gets away with that."
"Oh my God..." She let out humorless laugh as she shook her head. "And, AND... not only did you murder a man but you called me, a New York City Police Officer, up to tell me what you did. Do you realize what position this put me in?"
"You deserved to know the truth about what happened to him," Voight told her.
Olivia shook her head s she turned from Voight to Olinsky. "You need to leave. I have to speak to him alone... Please."
Olinsky left without another word and the second the door latched behind him Olivia stormed up to Voight and using every ounce of strength she could muster, slapped him hard across the face.
Voight pursed his lips as he gingerly rubbed his cheek which was now the proud owner of a blistering red hand mark. The SVU Lieutenant stood in front of him, breaths heavy, tears and fury burning in her brown eyes. "I did this for you," he told her softly after a long moment of silence.
"I never asked you too!" she yelled. "I never once asked you to get involved and I NEVER even considered the idea of asking you to murder him!"
"You didn't have to. I look out for the people I love, and as much as it pains you to hear it that includes you. Just because you don't love me-."
"Don't start that again," she warned with an icy glare. "Do NOT start that shit again, Hank Voight! I owed you NOTHING when I started dating him and I still don't!"
"You knew how I felt about you and you still choose to date that rat psycho. You knew how much I loved you. You know how hard it is for me to feel ANYTHING since Camille!" he yelled. "But you just toss that away for HIM? The man that tried to throw you in jail, the man that punished you, not to mention your partner, just for rumors that you were sleeping together because of how jealous he was? Tell me how any of that makes sense! Tell me how the hell you could stomach the damn thought of sleeping with him when you knew I loved you!"
"It doesn't have to make sense to you! I'm allowed to not take your feelings into account with every single life decision I make, Hank! Something you
CLEARLY didn't do when you murdered a man in cold blood!"
Voight got right in her face, his bare chest pressing against her clothed one, a familiar fire brewing in his eyes. "I did it to protect you!" he barked at her in his trademark raspy voice.
"I DIDN'T WANT YOUR PROTECTION!" she screamed at him, pushing him so hard he was forced to take several steps backwards. "I didn't want you to come swooping in and saving me!"
Voight took a step towards her, preparing to lay to her before he forced himself to take a deep breath... He promised himself he wouldn't do this to her. She didn't deserve to get yelled or screamed at because of this. He was the bad guy here, not her. "Olivia, I know you loved the guy but he was going to kill you. He wasn't going to stop. No prison, no restraining order would have stopped him. I wasn't about to let him hurt you when I had a chance to stop him."
Olivia narrowed her eyes at the man standing in front of her. There was no possible way he was serious right now.
"You... you think I'm mad because of WHO you murdered?"
Voight shrugged carelessly. "You loved him."
"Exactly. LovED. There's a reason I broke up with him..." She sighed as she sat down on the bed, placing her hands in her lap. "I don't know why I started dating him. I was lonely, he understood the job, I thought he had changed into a sweet guy, take your pick. But when I saw what he was really like, that he hadn't changed, I broke it off. Then when he started stalking me, any feelings I had were long gone. I didn't love him today anymore than I loved him when he tried to throw me in prison."
Voight looked at her for a long moment, swallowing hard. "You're not mad because I killed Tucker?"
"No," she told him, looking straight into his eyes as she did so. "I'm mad because you committed murder period, I'm mad because you have such a low opinion of me that you felt murder was the only way this situation could have been handled."
"I don't have a low opinion of you at all," said Voight, meaning every word that came out of his mouth. "You're the most amazing cop and person I've ever met."
"Then why didn't you let me handle this?" she asked once again, tears springing to her eyes. "Why, when I told you I was dealing with the situation, did you come up here to New York to murder a man in cold blood?"
Voight looked at her for a long moment, watching as she wiped away her tears yet again. "You really wanna know the truth?"
"Yeah, I really wanna know the truth."
He sat down beside her on the bed and looked over at her "Because you know he wouldn't have stopped, Liv... You know as well as I do a restraining order is just a piece of paper, and how little time he would have gotten if you arrested him for stalking. The guy had connections, more damn connections than both of us put together will ever have, so even if you did arrest him he would have found a way to get off without a day in jail and he would have assaulted you or worse. You know it and I know it. It has nothing to do with your skills as a cop or anything else, but on how fucking insane this guy was. I wasn't going to risk losing the woman I love in case that happened. Not when I had a chance to stop him. I thought beating the shit out of him would do the trick but it didn't. I didn't have a choice."
Olivia swallowed hard as the two officers looked at one another. "You... you still murdered someone."
Voight nodded. "Yeah I did. That's why I called you. You deserved to know the truth about what happened to him and what role I played in it. I didn't want to lie to you, Liv."
Olivia bowed her head and looked down at the floor. "You put me in a horrible position You know that right? I'm a cop, Hank, and you tell me that you murder someone?"
"I do and I'm sorry you're struggling with this but, Liv, whatever you decide to do I'm okay with it," he said as softly as he could make his voice. "Al's okay with it... Trust me we can do the hard time, we have no problem with it. Whatever you decide to do, do what feels right for you, not for Al and certainly not for me."
There was a long moment of silence between them as Olivia let his words sink in. She looked up at him, brown eyes looking into brown and she realized for the first time just how amazingly soft his eyes were to contrast his hard face.
Voight reached up and gently stroked her face, finding himself pleasantly surprised when she leaned into his touch without turning away from him. "I will never let anyone hurt you," he whispered.
"I know," she whispered back, leaning her forehead against his.
Olivia took a shaking breath. "You're sure they can't... they can't find him?"
"Positive," he said without a hint of unsureness.
She closed her eyes for a moment, a tear slowly falling down her face. "I don't... want you punished for protecting me. You or Alvin."
"You're sure?" he asked. "Olivia, I don't want you to hve any doubt about this."
"I don't," she said with more confidence than she thought she would have. "You did what was best for me, you shouldn't have to go to jail for life for that. Thank you," she finished with a shaking voice choked with tears.
She hugged him, nuzzling his neck as he wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly, as if he would protet her from anything in this world that would even think about hurting her.
And by the Grace of God, he would...