A/N: Well this is my first attempt at an E/O so please don't hurt me. This was going to be a one shot but it kind of got away from me, the plot bunnies running rampant. Perhaps a two-shot, maybe three... Yeah... Anyway, I hope you like it.
A/N2: I thought after last week's episode "Presumed Guilty", I figured things would blow up around here. he he Needless to say, we all hope the rest of the body attached to that hand is guilty of being Elliot Stabler. ;D Anyway... enough day dreaming... ;)
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By 18lzytwner
Chapter 1
Rain fell relentlessly from the New York City sky, as Detectives Odafin Tutuola and Amanda Rollins rolled up in their standard issue police car at the crime scene.
"Crappy night to be doing this," Fin shook his head.
"Isn't every time we get a call crappy?" Rollins replied. She'd been in a mood for days now and her partner was fairly certain it had something to do with the return of her sister.
"I've been doing this too long," Fin muttered as they exited the car and went inside the residence where the crime had been discovered.
"Hope you brought your booties," Warner said to them just as they got out of the rain and bumped into her in the front hallway of the home.
"That bad huh?" Fin asked.
"Oh it's pretty bad," the coroner told them, pointing to around the corner of the hallway and disappearing back out to the coroner's van for the guys to bring in the gurney. Rollins swallowed hard as they moved into the space and the smell that invaded their nostrils made her want to vomit. No matter how many crime scenes they'd been to, they could never escape that smell, although she had to admit the smell was worse when a body had been laying out in the Georgia sun.
"Been dead awhile, so why are we here?" Fin wanted to know as he swiped a pair of booties from the patrol officer standing nearby.
"My guess is the fact that there is blood everywhere and that her chest is all mangled," Rollins pointed out, swallowing hard again, noticing a lump of flesh that wasn't connected to the poor woman's body anymore.
"There's that," Fin said.
"There's a little more to it than that," a familiar voice came out from one of the other rooms and both Detectives stood up a little straighter as the person entered the living room.
"Captain, you making house calls?" Fin asked.
"I do when they involve one of my own," the Captain handed over a card inside an evidence bag that he held in his gloved hand and Rollins took a look at it.
"Stabler? How old is this card? Where did forensics find it?" She asked, wondering how it came to be in the victim's possession since his sudden exit from the force over a year ago, which had given her the opening to join SVU. She heard stories enough to know that the former detective's name didn't get tossed around lightly. It was hard to tell what condition the card should have been in considering it was covered in blood.
"They found it on the kitchen floor in a small blood pool. It looks like the attacker hit her from behind, left her there for a short period of time, and then dragged her into the living room to finish what he started," Cragen told them.
"So she was in the middle of calling him when this happened?" Fin wondered.
"I don't think she got the chance. The phone line has been cut and the victim's cell phone is nowhere to be seen. The cell phone is what led the uni's here in the first place. No one could get a hold of this poor girl and finally they came to do a wellness check on her and they found this," the Captain told them. Both Fin and Rollins looked at each other wondering just how long their Captain had been out at the scene.
"Homicide called me about an hour ago when they found Elliot's card," Cragen explained.
"I don't remember her as a recent victim, so how she ended up with his card, I have no idea," Fin said, changing the subject slightly.
"I don't know either but I know someone who will," Cragen pointed out.
"You can't be serious. She's going to flip her lid," Tutuola shook his head. He'd been more protective of the "she" he mentioned since Elliot's departure although he was sure she would have told him she didn't need it.
"You think she isn't going to find out what you two are working on and go looking herself?" The Captain smirked.
"He makes an excellent point," Rollins said.
"All right, well can we at least get some more information and then have Munch tell her?" Fin wanted to know. He knew better than to get in a certain detective's way especially when it involved her former partner.
"Scared Fin?" Rollins chuckled.
"You should be too. To be partners that long then come to find out from your Captain," he turned to Cragen and said,
"No offense."
"None taken," the Captain smiled knowingly before Fin continued,
"Come to find out that your partner isn't coming back. Make matters worse, he never called her, sent a text, or even wrote a freaking letter. Elliot and I didn't always see eye to eye but I would have thought he'd have handled himself better than that," Tutuola shook his head.
"It sounds like a deal to me; probably better than hearing it from me again anyway. Keep me in the loop," the Captain ordered before leaving the two to work on the case in front of them.
"I guess I never had a partner that long for that to happen to me," Rollins shrugged her shoulders.
"Benson and Stabler were partners a lot longer than most in the department. Not a bad thing but when you get burned, it hurts twice as much. You ever breathe a word of what I'm about to say to you to anyone, I'll deny it," Fin started. Rollins moved closer to him and leaned in so they could have a mostly private conversation.
"I caught her crying in the crib after leaving the umpteenth message to Elliot. She pretended it didn't happen but we both know better," he said.
"After all this time, you really think she's going to be that much of a mess? I mean she is one of the toughest people I know," Rollins was a little skeptical. She remembered their first meeting and it wasn't exactly as though the senior detective had rolled out the welcome mat. Granted Nick took the brunt of it but still.
"Liv has always pushed her feelings inward. There are only two people who could get her to loosen up and one of them was Elliot. Now we got work to do," Fin told her. His partner nodded and they quickly got back to work; both secretly wondering if that piece of evidence just should have stayed with Homicide division.
Munch had filled her in the next morning and to everyone's shock, she seemed to take it well. That hadn't entirely been the case as she was upset but acted as though she wasn't; she was good at that, she always had been. She thought she'd finally given up on him. She thought that her life was finally finding some sort of new normal but just like that he was back in her life. All the anger, hurt, and disappointment flooded back and it was if today was the day she'd found out he wasn't coming back. To his credit, her new partner Nick offered to handle this for her. Not to imply that she couldn't handle it but in an effort to help her make sure she kept her distance. Both of their personal lives were a mess and they both knew it despite not openly talking about it.
She drove over to the address which the department last had. She didn't even know why she looked it up. After all, she'd been there plenty of times. Still as she pulled up out front, she wasn't sure what to expect.
Getting out of the car and heading for the door, she fully expected Kathy to open it upon seeing her coming and scream at her to stay away. After all, with Elliot's retirement, she'd finally get him all to herself. However that didn't happen and she took a deep breath before knocking on the door.
"Hey there little man, where are your parents?" She asked when little Elliot Jr. answered the door.
"Eli! What are you doing?" Kathy called out from the other room. He stood there as if he was in big trouble and Olivia smiled. For only being almost five, she could see that he would look a lot like his dad.
"He just opened the door for me. I don't want to intrude but I need to borrow Elliot, just for a minute," Olivia explained, not even crossing the threshold.
"Olivia? Come in," Kathy smiled slightly as she came to the door. The house seemed incredibly quiet but it was immaculate. Of course the older kids must be out of the house by now, Liv thought to herself.
"Thanks. Like I said, I just need to borrow Elliot for a second, and then I'll be on my way," she told her.
"Eli, why don't you go up to your room and play?" Kathy asked. The little guy smiled and ran off upstairs.
"I thought he'd be in school by now," Olivia commented as they took two seats at the kitchen table.
"He is. He had a fever this morning and we just got back from the doctor's. Why did you come here?" The question wasn't completely out of the ordinary but after being a detective for as long as Benson had been she knew something was up.
"Something on a case. I can't really get into it," Olivia responded.
"Elliot isn't on the force anymore. How is he privy to it?" Kathy wanted to know.
"It involves one of our old cases and I can't find his notes," Benson lied through her teeth, feeling the tension in the room go up.
"Well he took all his files when he moved out," Kathy dropped the bomb and Olivia didn't hide her surprise.
"I'm sorry. I didn't know. I wouldn't have bothered you," Olivia immediately stood up.
"You really didn't know. I guess that was one more thing Elliot forgot to do when he left. I heard all those messages you left him. I figured he told you that we got a divorce," the former Mrs. Stabler said, standing as well. She was obviously bitter despite the fact the relationship had been on the rocks before little Eli had come along. His birth had made things better but obviously not better enough.
"I have not spoken to Elliot in over a year. He never returned my messages. You assumed he just came to me after you guys broke up? You know that he would never cheat on you and I wouldn't let him, even if he tried. He never tried. I know you think we were sleeping together but we weren't. Even when you two had separated before we didn't. The feelings we shared were simply ones that every partnership has. You aren't partners for as long as we were without having strong protective feelings for each other," the insinuation angered Olivia; despite the fact she knew the feelings she had were much more than the typical partnership feelings.
"Here is his new address," Kathy grabbed a scrap of paper and wrote it down before handing it to Olivia. She gave a curt thank you and quickly left the home.
Driving not too far away to an apartment building, Olivia began to wonder if she should have waited until later. He could be out working. Despite the sizeable pension he would be getting from his retirement, it probably wouldn't be enough to cover the cost of child support and alimony. Still she knocked on the door to apartment three-bee and waited for an answer. To her surprise, the door opened.
"Liv?" Elliot couldn't believe she was standing on the other side of his door. It looked as though he hadn't shaved in a week and his usually very muscular frame seemed to have been toned down a lot. The past year had not been kind to him.
"We need to talk," she said, all business.
"Sure. I just put on a pot of coffee," he said. He led her through the living room which was sparse but immaculate into the kitchen which had a certain amount of charm from the golden tone of paint on the wall. She never figured him for a yellow paint kind of guy but it was obvious from the smell and the open windows, he'd been painting.
"What's going on?" He asked the question was simple enough but it obviously struck a nerve as her response was,
"How can you be so cavalier?"
"I…"
"You go from not even having the balls to tell me you're leaving the force to divorcing your wife to not telling the department you moved to just asking 'what is going on' ?" She spewed; this close to hauling off and popping him in the nose.
"I have a lot to answer for but my guess is that the Captain wouldn't want to be paying you for sitting here asking me about my troubles," Elliot replied as he took a seat on the stool he had for his kitchen bar. He offered her a seat on the stool next to him but she didn't take it.
"No, he wouldn't. We found a body that had your card. Her name has never come up before, she never even had a parking ticket but yet she has your card. Can you explain that?" Olivia wanted to know as she handed him the woman's information. He looked over the information and shook his head.
"I have no idea who this woman is. Maybe a friend gave her my card," he said, handing back the information.
"I'll let Fin and Rollins know," Olivia nodded her tone hadn't softened a bit.
"We need to talk Liv. We really do," Elliot started.
"Not now. I'm not sure I can handle it right now. Besides I'm working a case," with that she left the apartment, slamming the door as she went. Elliot heaved a sigh and stood back up. He deserved it. He deserved her anger. He had been so screwed up he just let everyone down. Now that it was over and he'd seen her again everything he tried to bury had resurfaced. Forgetting his painting, he went to clean up and head for the gym. He hadn't been in a long time but it was one place he could clear his mind. There was so much to say, he just needed something to help him focus on how to say it. Besides there was another stop he had to make after the gym.
"You want me to kick his ass?" The question came out of nowhere and Olivia turned around from her seat at her desk.
"I'll help," Nick spoke up, looking up from his paperwork.
"I don't know if you noticed but I didn't get this badge by being soft," she smirked.
"Didn't say you were soft, just offering as a friend," Tutuola said.
"Well I appreciate it boys but no thanks. I think a nice quiet night on the sofa with a bottle of wine will do just fine," Olivia smiled slightly.
"Sounds like fun but I think I got something on Lacie Johnson y'all should take a look at," Rollins said as she went up to the board where they had the pictures of the crime scene stuck up.
"Do tell," Munch said.
"Well turns out she had the name of a previous victim in her phone book, a Justine Rivers. Obviously before my time but it looks like Justine may have given Stabler's card to Lacie," Amanda explained.
"That certainly does give us a connection but something still seems off. Why give your friend a card that you probably threw out when your case was over?" Nick wanted to know.
"I was having the same thought. Something weird is going on here," Munch shook his head.
"Munch, my office," the Captain called out and quickly the Sergeant headed for the office.
"What was that all about?" Fin wondered.
"Why don't we bring in Justine and then we can go from there? I mean there happens to be a common link besides the card. There was a name in Lacie's address book which popped when I put it into the system and the address on his parole record is the same as Justine's, a Timothy Bronner," Rollins said.
"Bring them both in. I'm beginning to like less and less where this is headed," Olivia stood from her desk and headed for the board. She'd been quiet the whole time and no one had said anything but somewhere in the deep recesses of her mind, she could not remember Justine Rivers. Not all their cases had been memorable, in fact most you tried to forget, but it bothered her just the same.
"Shouldn't we wait for the DNA? I mean this guy thinks we're onto him and he's gone," Fin pointed out.
"You think he'd be stupid enough to leave behind DNA? I mean this last stint at Rikers wasn't exactly his first rodeo," Nick pointed out. Just then Olivia's desk phone rang and she quickly picked it up without looking at the number.
"Benson," Fin took a look at her as her expression changed to one he was all too familiar with, pain. Her color took a turn for the worse and he quickly stood up and went to her.
"What is it?" He asked when she got off the phone.
"I have to go," was all she said and she took off toward the locker room.
"That can't be good," Nick stood up and was about to follow her when Munch exited Cragen's office. He had a sour look on his face.
"That can't be good either," Fin shook his head. Then as they all were waiting for Munch to say something Olivia left the locker room and headed for the elevators. They all watched her go before turning back to Munch.
"Spill it," Fin said.
To Be Continued...