A/N: In the lives of NYPD detectives, the lines between day and night are blurred together, and so are the lines between partner and lover.
DISCLAIMER: If I owned the characters I wouldn't need to write a disclaimer.
"Fucking hell," Olivia complained, rolling her eyes. She looked down at her ringing cell phone, declined the call, and looked over at her partner. "If Kathy calls me one more time..."
"Oh," her partner interrupted, "so that's why she stopped calling me."
Olivia suddenly went white. "Jesus," she spat, picking up her phone and redialing the most recent missed call. "Kathy, hi, sorry, is it one of the kids?" she asked in a panic, but quickly shrunk and rolled her eyes again, and slumped down in her chair. "Oh, um, no, no, we...we'll be here all night. I haven't heard it ring, it's probably dead. Hey, Kathy? I have to go, we have to run and..." She looked up at Elliot. "She hung up on me."
"Shame," Elliot said sarcastically. "Liv, don't you think that if I thought, for a single moment, that something had happened to one of my kids, I would've ignored all her calls?" He shook his head. "I know what she wants, and I don't really care."
"Talking like that is gonna find you on the receiving end of a very sharp divorce," she told him, pointing a finger at him.
"Yeah? That's what I've been waiting for, for the last two years, so if she could get a move on..." he waved a hand and made an exaggeratedly irritated expression.
Olivia narrowed her eyes, crossed her arms, and shook her head at him. "You can't be serious," she scoffed. "Your family, El, that's your whole life. It has been for as long as I've known you, and..."
"My family, Liv," he said, parroting her words, "Will always be my top priority. But, uh, Kathy, ya know, she hasn't been...we've had a lot of..." he cleared his throat. "You know, you're my family. You do know that, don't you?"
She shot him an odd look, one eyebrow up, her mouth in a twisted and confused line. "Warner call, yet?"
He sighed. "Nope," he said, "But she said it would take a couple hours."
"It's been a couple hours," she said with an annoyed breath.
"Well, enjoy the break!" He laughed and asked, "How often do we get to just sit and...do nothing? Talk?"
"We haven't actually talked in weeks," she reminded him with a firmness in her voice she hoped came off as threatening.
"Yeah," he exhaled, "So let's talk. Did you look into that apartment?"
She shook her head as she took a sip of her coffee. "No, it's a bit out of my price range, and I haven't been where I am that long. I'm just starting to like the place."
"It's only got one bedroom," he said, squinting.
"Why the hell do I need more than one bedroom?" she retorted.
He looked offended for a moment, but then he smirked almost wickedly. "Well, yeah, I see your point." He licked his lips and leaned back in his chair, starting to flip a pen around in his hand. "What if...what if I offered to split the rent with you?"
"Jesus, El," she huffed, "That's a nice offer, but unless you were living with..." and she stopped, almost choking on her words. She looked at him, the slight worry evident in his eyes, and she said, "You're serious." She looked over her shoulder and then leaned closer to Elliot. "Do you want me to call her back? I can take swing with Fin, you can go home and…"
"Do I look broken up about this?" he asked, a smug look on his face. "I was, yeah, but now I get it. I accept it, and I agree with her. This is…this is what's best for everyone involved. Trust me." He blinked and then said, "Do you remember when we took the twins to that amusement park in Jersey?"
"The weekend you took them to see your mom?" she asked. When he nodded she said, "Yeah, of course, I remember."
His smile grew a bit, and his eyes lit up. "After the log flume, when you took her to change into dry clothes…and she was embarrassed…do you remember what you did?"
She grinned and nodded, but looked down and pretended to look for a file. "I made her sing…"
"Don't Be Jealous of my Boogie," he laughed. "Yeah."
"But how did you even know that?" she asked. "We were in the women's restroom."
He shrugged and licked his lips. "I have my ways," he said. "I am a detective, after all." He chuckled and then cleared his throat. "You, uh, you made her day, Liv. Really. She was different after that, more…more confident. I don't know if I ever thanked you."
"You didn't have to," she said, smiling at him. "You, um, you don't have to thank me. You've got great kids, El, and if I can, somehow, help them or make their lives better in some small way…" she raised and lowered her shoulders and exhaled deeply. "That's all I can do, and I'm happy…and honored to do it."
He shook his head fast. "No, Liv, you…you have changed their lives and made them better people. You teach them and encourage them, motivate them, give them advice and…every day one of them tells me something you told them, or something you taught them, and I need you to know…you've done the same damn thing for me."
She cleared her throat again, smoothing her hands down over the sleeves of her blue sweater, tugging at the cuffs. She bit her lip and swiped her bangs out of her eyes with one finger, flicking her head back a bit, and chewed on the inside of her cheek for a moment. "That was a really nice day," she whispered. "Why didn't you take Kath…"
"Because that day, Liv, it just had to be you," he told her, cutting off the rest of her sentence. They held each other's gaze for a moment, maybe a bit too long. Just as it seemed he was going to say something, the phone rang, causing both of them to startle. He moved first. "Stabler," he said, but it came out a dry croak.
Olivia eyed him suspiciously. There was something different about him, something on his mind, she could tell, that he wasn't confiding to her. She brushed it off when he hung up the phone and shot her a look. "What?"
"That was Warner," he said.
"Yeah, I figured that out," she said. "What did she say?"
He bit his lip and tilted his head, puzzled and annoyed. "The sample on our vic's thighs…she ran it, and it had 13 markers in common with our vic."
"Her father?" Olivia asked, a grimace on her face that conveyed disgust, but not shock. Sadly, this was something she had seen before, more than once.
Elliot gritted his teeth and started to get out of his chair. "Let's go talk to the lying sack of shit, shall we?"
She rose, but turned quickly at the sound of Cragen's door slamming open. "Not yet," he shouted. "Got another body." He held out a torn piece of paper as he walked over to them. "Warner will meet you there, so will Munch."
"Three of us?" Elliot questioned.
"Four," Cragen said, nodding once. "Fin's already there."
Olivia narrowed her eyes. "All hands on deck?" she asked. "Cap, who is it?"
"Just go," Cragen said sternly. "Call me when you get there."
She took the paper, looked at it, and then looked at Elliot. "Ready?"
He nodded and the two ran, side by side, in step, out through the squadroom doors.
Cragen watched them go, hoping they could handle the case without letting any personal issues get in the way, because this case was going to get very personal, very soon.
A/N: Uh oh!