Saturday morning, Olivia was up and waiting for Dean Porter to knock on her apartment door. She didn't have to wait long. The evenly-toned sound of knuckles tapping against her door brought her out of her deep thought. She was thinking about Elliot. She had been imagining his reaction when he found out that she was gone and wouldn't be coming back for some time and not having a clue where she was. She thought about how not seeing Elliot was going to make her feel. Could she work without him that long? When she was in Oregon undercover, it had only been a little over six weeks. But even that had been a long time not seeing him or hearing his voice. And at the only opportunity she'd had of talking to Elliot she had abruptly slammed the phone back onto its hook.
She remembered the less than PG dream that she'd had while in the hospital after having been knocked out by an overzealous deputy with a nightstick. She'd been caught moaning Elliot's name in her sleep much to her embarrassment. She remembered the dream being many passionate kisses, lots of touching, the removal of clothing, and an all too abrupt ending before the big finale. As embarrassed as she would be to admit it, even to herself, before Sealview, most of her dreams seemed to be in that same genre. The dreams had only fueled her feelings for Elliot into something of a wildfire.
Olivia opened the door for Dean, a soft smile on her face that was anything but genuine. It wasn't that she was necessarily unhappy to see Dean, but the circumstances surrounding his arrival and their inevitable departure. She wheeled a small suitcase behind her as she stepped out into the hallway looking into her apartment one last time before turning off the light and locking the door. She glanced at the "4D" briefly as she walked; her steps one behind Dean's. Outside her building was an FBI issue SUV that was black with darkly tinted windows. Dean opened the passenger side door for her and put her suitcase in the back.
Another agent was in the driver's seat. He appeared very stereotypical. His eyes concealed by black sunglasses, a black suit, a black tie, and blonde hair that had been jelled back. His posture was stiff and proper. Behind her was a second agent who seemed much more relaxed and at ease. He had kind green eyes, light brown hair that was styled naturally, a deep navy suit, and a green tie. Once Dean was in the car, he introduced the agent driving as Agent James Larkin and the agent in the back as Agent Brent Hawley.
"You must be Detective Olivia Benson," Hawley said pleasantly with a smile reaching his hand to the front seat for Olivia to shake.
Olivia turned to return the smile and shake his hand, "nice to meet you, Agent Hawley."
"Brent, please, Detective," he replied.
"Only if you'll call me 'Olivia'," she said.
"Will do. And this stern son-of-a-bitch, well, just ignore him. Been working with him for the last five years and I feel like a barely know a thing about him," he joked lightly.
Larkin gave a slight grumble before sliding his glasses to the top of his head. He turned to Olivia revealing his eyes that were a shocking blue that she had only ever seen once before. Elliot. Elliot had the most beautiful, blue eyes. She soon realized that she'd been staring and snapped out of it. She shook her head slightly before shaking Larkin's hand that he'd outstretched.
"Nice to meet you," he said. His smile was with a closed mouth and was slightly crooked.
"You too," she replied still slightly focused on the agent's eyes.
Larkin put his sunglasses back into place over his eyes before starting the SUV and beginning them on their way.
"So, Olivia, Dean said that you've been undercover in a prison before?" Hawley asked.
"Uh, yeah, about seven months ago," she answered hesitantly not wanting to open a whole can of worms. She knew there would be more questions, some of which that she might not want to answer.
"What was the case?"
"One of the guards was raping inmates."
"Did you catch the guy?"
"Yeah, we got him… But not after he killed one of the inmates," Olivia said, her gaze shifting to the window because the car suddenly felt very small and trapped. Her mind was unwillingly traveling back to the basement. She could see Harris's smug face. She could feel him touching her, forcing his tongue into her mouth, his erection pressing into her backside.
"Olivia?"
"Olivia?"
"Olivia!"
She jumped slightly. "Oh, sorry. What were you saying?"
"Are you okay?" Dean asked, his expression full of worry.
"Yeah, I'm fine. It's just early," she said, her answer almost completely untruthful. She was used to early by now and she definitely wasn't fine. She shouldn't still be this affected by Harris. The memories shouldn't still be this intense. She was still having the occasional flashback. What had she gotten herself into? Did she really expect to be able to pull off this undercover assignment? Was this really the best way to overcome the trauma done by Harris?
"Are you sure you're okay with this assignment?" Dean asked remembering her slight hesitancy the other night.
"Yes, we need to catch whoever's doing this. Just because they're inmates doesn't mean they should be sold, raped, and beaten."
"Alright, good to finally meet someone truly dedicated to helping people," Hawley said.
"One of the most dedicated and somehow horribly annoying people I know," Dean said with a grin yanking her chain.
Olivia let out a laugh, "didn't stop you from asking for my help."
By eight-thirty, Olivia, Dean, Hawley, and Larkin stopped at a diner for breakfast. Olivia found herself without an appetite and was mindlessly moving her scrambled eggs around the plate. Most of the conversation was going between Dean and Hawley, but even Larkin was throwing in a sentence or two.
"Olivia, do you have any questions about anything that's happening today or anything with the case at all?"
"I don't think so. Everything seems pretty straight forward. Just how long do you think this will take?"
"Probably a few months at most, but we aren't exactly certain how many people in the prison are involved. We suspect it's a small group of male CO's and guards. There are very few women who work at Havencrest. The nurses, which are all female, have access to the death certificates. We don't if they are willingly in on it. We're not sure if the certificates are being stolen or if the nurses are being threatened," Larkin explained.
A few months. That was longer than any undercover operation she'd ever been on. Oregon was the longest. And it was longer than she'd ever even been away from New York.
"Do you have the profile memorized?"
"I'm ready to become Rose Lewison."
"Good," Dean said, pleased. "And, don't forget, if you feel threatened or uncomfortable or for any reason at all, you can ask me to pull you out."
"I know, but I think I'll be fine. I can handle this. I've done it before."
"But not for this long. And some of the guards can get a bit rough and touchy-feely."
"I know that, Dean. I'm a cop, I'll be fine."
"You know that strength and power is severely mismatched between guard and inmate. As strong of a woman as you are physically, these men are bigger, they are trained, and they have a weapon, which you don't."
"If you don't think I can do this, then why did you ask me?"
"Olivia, I asked you to do this because I know that you are more than capable of doing this. I just don't want to see you hurt… or worse. If they find out that you or I are cops, they won't hesitate to kill. This is very dangerous, and I don't want anything to happen to you."
Olivia was astounded by Dean's concern for her. She knew it would be good to have him watching her back. She knew she could trust him.
At the 16th precinct, all the way back in Manhattan, Elliot Stabler, Fin Tutuola, and John Munch were all arriving at work finding that Olivia's desk had been completely cleaned out. And when she failed to arrive they knew something was off. Elliot hastily got up from his desk and stormed into Cragen's office.
"Where the hell is Olivia?" he shouted, his face turning red with anger.
Cragen hated lying to Elliot. He had only been informed that Olivia was going undercover with the FBI and that he was not to tell a soul even that much. "She's out of state visiting a friend who's very sick. She didn't say where she was going she was in such a hurry. She got a call just a few minutes after you left. She packed up and was out of here."
"Did she say when she was getting back?" Elliot asked hopefully.
"No, I told her that she has enough leave saved up that she could have as much time as she needed," Cragen answered not having a clue himself of how long Olivia would be under.
Elliot promptly threw his fist into the wall of Cragen's office successfully splitting the knuckles of his right hand. His face was glowing red. He was beyond pissed. There was no way he could have held his anger in check. He couldn't believe she'd gone away a second time and not said a word to him.
"Go up to the cribs and cool off." Cragen ordered. "Now!" he added seeing his detective's glare and hesitancy to move.
Elliot slammed the office door shut on his way out, the loud noise resounded into the entire squad room. This left the Captain to feel absolutely horrible. He rested his elbows on the desk and held his aching head in his hands. What on earth could be so dangerous that he was not even allowed to tell Olivia's co-workers that she was undercover? He had a bad feeling about all of this. It was times like these that he wished he could turn to the bottle and drown his feelings with liquid, but he couldn't; that wasn't the answer. He prayed for her safety.
Elliot headed for the cribs ignoring the stares from everyone else. He sat down on the edge of the nearest bed. How long would she be gone this time? Would she call him? He hadn't even known that she had any friends out of state. As far as he knew, Olivia had always lived in New York. All that Elliot did know was that he just wanted her back as soon as possible.
/\/\/\/\
Thanks for reading(: I'll see you back for chapter three. Things are going to start picking up from here. I know it's been a slow start but we've got to get everything set up.
xoxo
~Liv