A/N: OMG! Zebras was good! Not like Fault, but it ranks better than most episodes this season. I sorta knew Dale was the killer weeks in advance, which made the story really predictable, not to mention they really overkilled the theme of zebras in this episode; how they found out he was the killer was something I didn't expect: through a mosquito! When Liv does first walk into the crime lab and sees Elliot all duck-taped (quack!) in the chair, you could just see Gitano flash before her eyes and not to mention, I feel she had a slight tweaking/PTSD moment when she was told to drop the gun. The kissing scene? Why the fuck didn't Liv kiss Elliot instead?? Dale is so.... nerdy and looks too creepishly young for Liv that I was thinking "Liv's a cougar" during that scene. Bitch!Olivia beating up Elliot? OMG, Hot! And I swore I heard him say, "Do it, Bitch" (although I think he's actually saying, "Don't do it, bitch.") to egg her on. Meh, selective hearing. O'Halloran dead? WTF? He's the only cool CSU tech guy and RIP! But the eye sex, people? It was TOTALLY there last night! Woot! Go EO!

Story: Based on Zebras; 70% of the dialogue comes from the actual episode; The way Zebras should've ended, IMO. I'll be doing a post-zebras chapter, too. And there will be EO to make up for last nights episode too. :) Read, review, and enjoy!

She entered the crime lab just it was any other time, but erred on the side of caution for an odd reason. When Dale said on the phone he and Elliot were going to grab some sushi for dinner, she knew something was up. Olivia knew her partner better than anyone in the 1-6 and she knew for a fact that Elliot did not like sushi and the last time he hung around Dale, he nearly throttled him into the wall for commenting on the painting with Olivia in it in front of everyone in the bullpen.

Her heart sank ten floors when she saw her partner bound and bleeding in that chair.

"Elliot…" she whispered. His head snapped up to her withered beckoning and he began shaking his head violently side to side. His muffled screams broke her heart. His warning came too late. As she was about to run to him with her gun drawn, a familiar, nerdy voice commanded to stop.

"Don't move!" Olivia stopped dead in her tracks.
"Dale?" A pair of boots on the floor to her left caught her attention and she realized from the bloodstain on the floor that O'Halloran was dead.
"Put your gun down, Olivia!" She turned her head to look back at Dale, whom had his gun cocked and aimed at Olivia, and slowly placed her sig on the table nearby. Her panicked eyes darted to Elliot, who was bleeding and helpless in the chair before her.
"What are you doing here, Liv?" Dale asked. "I didn't want to have to hurt you, too…"
"Then don't," Olivia replied.
"I don't really have much of a choice; you see, you've seen a little too much," he snapped back, slowly approaching the detective with his loaded gun. Olivia turned around completely, with hands still in the air, to face Dale.
"Let's all calm down here, Dale. Just relax 'cause you did good."
"What?" he asked in a slightly confused voice. A small tear trickled down the side of his face, but he quickly wiped it away with his arm, his gun still aimed at Olivia.
"I can see what clearly happened here. One of Harrison's followers must've got in here, attacked these two, you found the bodies, secured the crime scene, and called me, right?"
"I did?"
"That's what I'm going to tell Cragen and you can work with the evidence so that everyone else believes it, too." She turned around and pointed at Elliot. "SVU hero is killed in the line of duty… it's perfect," she said with almost sheer delight in her voice. Dale glared at her and continued to aim the gun at her with shaky hands.

"You're lying, you're lying," he said as he walked closer to her.
"You think you're the only one," Olivia replied as she turned and glanced at Elliot, "whose life is Hell because of this prick?" As she crept closer to him, she slapped him hard alongside the head. His muffled cries of pain nearly killed her.
"Liv, do this! Liv, do that!" she yelled while she slapped him a third time. "I'm sick of it." She ripped the duck tape from his mouth and Dale became worried from Olivia's actions.
"Don't," he pleaded softly. He was growing softer with each passing minute.
"I want to hear him scream!" she shouted while she glared at Elliot, who looked up at his partner
"Don't you touch me, bit-"
"Did someone say you could talk?"
"Both of you, shut up!" Dale shouted. His eyes were all red and watery and his face grew pale. A few seconds of silence passed before Dale commanded Olivia to strike Elliot again.

"Hit him again." Olivia stood there silently for a moment and hesitated while Elliot stared up at her.
"Don't do it, bitch." This time, she balled her hand into a fist and punched him alongside his face.
"Don't hit me!" Elliot shouted while Olivia thrust her hands around her partner's neck.
"No more orders out of you, pal," she replied coldly.
"I don't believe you," Dale said as he shook his head and frowned.
"If you knew. I've had to deal with this prick for ten long years!" she screamed as her right fist made direct contact with the left side of his face. He couldn't speak, but his eyes took over for him.
"Do it, bitch," she heard him whisper silently to encourage her.
"If you knew half the shit he has done! Somebody needs to take him out!" Another fist came down hard on Elliot's face. While it appeared she was very convincing, her eyes were telling a different story. 'I'm sorry. I don't mean to hurt you…'

"It's just… I never knew you felt the same way as I did. I've never had anybody-"
"Don't listen to her; she'll turn on you the same way she turned on me."
"Damn it, shut up!" she screamed while Dale strutted over and struck Elliot with the butt of the gun.
"And when he's out of the picture, I'm going to need a new partner," she said in an unusually calm voice to Dale, who seemed to be hamming it all up.
"What about Cragen?" Dale asked in a worried, shy voice and Olivia laughed in reply.
"Honey, I got him wrapped around my little finger," she chuckled. "Same goes with Munch and Fin. Dale, if I say the word, you're in." Dale began to break down into a few tears and lowered the gun slowly.
"I like the sound of that," he said, trying to form a smile through his bitter tears.
"You like it because we get each other. We're connected." Olivia tapped his shoulder playfully. "We're connected."
"We're connected," Dale replied as he grasped her hand with his and held it warmly within his own. "Let's take care of the third wheel." As he pulled the gun on Elliot again and aimed for the middle of his forehead, Olivia became very nervous. She glanced at Elliot, who had averted his head to the side and expected the bullet to hit him anytime, and became scared for him.

"Wait," she whispered. "Just wait a second." She grabbed the hand that wasn't holding the gun and caressed it warmly with hers. "I'll take care of him. I want the last image in his head to be me," she said in a hurried, but cold voice. Dale smirked and pondered the idea over for a moment.

"Sure," he replied, after some careful thinking, "What could be more ironic than being knocked off by your own partner, Elliot? Bing, bang, bong!" He began to laugh as he said his famous three words.

Elliot glared at Dale while he handed Olivia the loaded gun and she stared at the black steel with apprehensive eyes. Looking over at Dale, she smiled before she approached her bleeding partner sitting in the chair before her. She circled the chair once, then twice like a hawk circling its prey. As she did so, she slapped Elliot once by his left ear, making him bleed more in the spot where Dale hit him earlier with a heavy object. As she came around to meet Elliot face-to-face, she crouched down on one knee before him and teased him with the gun by tracing the outline of his jaw with it slowly. He moaned in protest as she teased the bruises there, but Olivia shushed him and pressed the gun against his temple and stared deeply into his dark blue eyes.

"What are you waiting for?" Dale asked, growing impatient.
"I want to send this prick off with blue balls." Elliot stared into her eyes with a hint of shock. She mouthed, "Trust me" silently before she reached up around his head with one hand and pulled him closer, bringing his lips crashing down on hers. Her tongue demanded entrance gently, but fiercely, and he willingly gave her the permission she sought. Olivia snaked her other hand down Elliot's bleeding chest and caressed the growing erection in his pants. Elliot moaned, but Olivia smiled into the kiss as she continued her agonizing movements. Olivia opened her eyes first while making out with Elliot and he followed her soon after. She winked an eye to let Elliot know everything would be all right. She stood up and walked behind the chair to point the gun at the back of Elliot's head. Within seconds, she turned and pointed the gun at Dale. As he tried to desperately grab the knife from the table next to him, her cop instincts kicked in immediately and she fired two rounds into him and he fell lifeless to the floor.

"Bing, bang, bong." Olivia knelt down beside Dale's limp body and took the knife to free her partner. She released one wrist and he freed the other himself. As he began to stand, he collapsed into her arms.

"Take it easy, El. You'll be okay," she spoke calmly as she adjusted his jacket on his shoulders. He nodded his head and sat back down in the chair. She held her cell phone in her hand and called for a bus quickly.
"How did you know?" he asked in a weakened voice.
"You and raw fish?" Olivia smiled as she remembered the one and only time they ordered Japanese take-out while working late on a case a few years back and sushi was one of the components of the meal that night. She liked the sushi, but Elliot did not.

"What did you get, Liv?" Elliot asked, peeking into the plastic obento box that was on Olivia's desk.
"Tenpura with one side of rice, a few california rolls, and some sushi," she replied while she picked up a large piece of the shrimp with her chopsticks and dipped it in some soy sauce the Little Tokyo had provided with a few puny packets.

"Sounds too exotic for me. I'm playing it safe by having teriyaki chicken with some rice." He stood up from his desk over to the area of the bullpen where the coffee pot and microwave were.
"What are you doing, El?" she asked while he rummaged through a few thing around the microwaves.
"A fork."
"You're not supposed to eat Japanese food with a fork, Elliot," Olivia replied with a smile appearing on her face as Elliot returned to his desk.
"I know; I just want to stab and eat it," he said as he stabbed the rice with the fork and left it standing upright.
"You know, that's considered very disrespectful if you leave it like that."
"Why?"

"It's a funeral tradition; It's like you're disrespecting the dead when you do that in Japan," she replied as she bit off a piece of tenpura. Elliot shook his head and removed the fork.
"What are in those little rolled up things?" Elliot asked as he saw the california rolls in her box while he took a bite of his chicken.
"It's sushi. Wanna try it?" She didn't want to tell him the little orange dots were really fish eggs, so she kept silent about it. What you don't know can't hurt you, after all.
"Sure. Thanks, Liv," he replied. She picked up a piece of sushi with shrimp decorating the top with the opposite end of her chopsticks and placed it in Elliot's obento box. He stubbornly picked it up with his fork and placed it in his mouth. He chewed on it and his face became increasingly disgusted after few minutes passed.
"Are you okay, El?" Olivia asked, reaching over and placing a hand on his shoulder. He reached for a nearby napkin and politely spat the sushi out. Olivia couldn't help but laugh.
"Ugh! Liv, how can you eat this crap?" She popped another piece of sushi in her mouth while Elliot chugged his bottle of water.

"I guess I just like it. I'll admit, it is an acquired taste."
"I'm never eating that… stuff again. Raw fish, no thanks." Olivia polished off her obento box while Elliot demolished his teriyaki chicken. The next day, both detectives were sick from eating the sushi and Olivia never ordered from Little Tokyo again.

"I remember that night. We both got so sick the next day Cragen sent us home."
"Yeah, we never ordered from that place again," Olivia replied. A few minutes later, EMS and CSU crews arrived on the scene and the bodies of O'Halloran and Stuckey were wheeled out in body bags. As Olivia sat there, Cragen approached his detectives.

"What the hell happened here?" he asked, noticing the puddle of blood on the floor and an exhausted Elliot being inspected by the EMS team.
"It was Stuckey," Olivia replied. "He killed O'Halloran and then tried to kill Elliot so I shot him."
"Are they going to take Elliot to the hospital?" Cragen asked as they inspected the knife wounds on his chest and abdomen.
"Probably, captain. Doesn't look like Dale had enough force to really hurt Elliot, but it looks like he may need stitches and some overnight observation. I'll ride with him and let you know if something comes up."
"Get some rest tonight and I don't want to see both of you tomorrow. The paperwork can wait."
"Thanks." Cragen nodded his head and walked over to where a few CSU tech guys were investigating, leaving Olivia to be with Elliot.

"So, how is he?" she asked while the EMS crew cleaned up the scrapes and cuts on Elliot's face.
"He'll be fine. Five moderate slices on your partner. Had your guy penetrated any deeper with that knife, we'd be hauling his body out of here because of blood loss. Elliot will just need some stitches. We're going to take him down to Mercy General to get checked out there and keep him overnight to make sure he'll be okay."

"May I ride with him?" she asked and the EMS team had no problem as she rode along to keep her partner company.

TBC...

Okay, you know what time it is! Review and tell me your thoughts on this! Thanks for reading! :)