Author's Comments: Well, I just saw spoilers, and I guess Liv doesn't lose her job completely. But this story will be AU in about a week anyway, because Elliot's never coming back and the show will never follow my plot, so I guess it doesn't matter that I had her get fired. Oh, and I know some of you didn't like the Tucker bed scene—believe me, it was no joy to write either.
Chapter Two
"Liv, can you come in?" Amanda's voice had a slight tremor to it that Olivia could detect even through the phone. "There's someone here who wants to question you . . . from the FBI. He said he'd be willing to talk to you in our precinct, if you want to stay on neutral ground."
"FBI?" On the one hand, maybe One PP had turned her in for corruption charges, trying to dig an even deeper hole for her to climb out of. But she didn't think so—it was more likely they would want to handle things in-house, to keep the feds out of their business, instead of risking revealing their own dirty little secrets. Which meant—maybe the FBI was not here to investigate her at all, but rather, to ask her questions about its own ongoing investigation. This could be a good thing for her, and for Tucker.
As if she needed any more prompting to say yes, Amanda added, "There's another reason I think you'll want to talk to this guy. If you come down, you'll see why."
"Why?" Why couldn't anyone just be straight with her?
"Just get down here. You'll see."
But instead of easing her fears, Amanda's words caused tremors to permeate through her arms and legs as she stepped back into her old precinct. Surely Amanda wouldn't set her up for an arrest, would she?
Olivia scanned the room as she stepped off the elevator, waiting for a blunt directive from a waiting officer: "Olivia Benson, come with us please."
Instead, she saw the same familiar faces, greeting her with a mixture of pity and determination. Amanda waved her hand toward the interrogation room. "He's in there. We thought it would give you more privacy. Dodds isn't here, and none of the rest of us will be listening in."
Olivia nodded, only pausing for a second with her hand on the door to the interrogation room. Sighing, she opened it and strode in, and then gasped, her head shaking involuntarily in a double take. "Elliot . . ."
His face scraggly with a well-trimmed beard, he raised his twinkling eyes to meet hers, and she swore he looked exactly like she remembered him. He stood from the chair across from her, letting his fingertips touch the table in between them, but not moving around the table to greet her, as if unsure of her reaction toward him.
She gulped, trying to get her bearings in the swimming pool that had consumed her mind. "What—what are you doing here, Elliot?"
The door clicked shut behind her, leaving her alone in the silence that filled the room. After an excruciating pause, he relieved her from the awkwardness by saying, "I . . . I work for the FBI now."
She sat down in the chair directly across from him, her mouth staying wide open the entire time. "I—I had heard rumors—"
"The rumors were true—"
"But I didn't know for sure—"
"Civil Rights Division. That's why I'm here."
She couldn't believe he was here. Right here, in the flesh, sitting before her own eyes like a ghost or something. She wanted to reach out and touch his arm, feel his skin beneath her fingers, see if he was real or if this was all just some sort of hallucination brought on by extreme anxiety.
He looked as if he wanted to do the same. Instead, their respective fingers lingered out on the table between them, inches apart.
"So," he said, his words soft, like pillow talk, "how are . . . things?"
"Right now, could be better."
"Yeah, I know. But, I mean, I heard you have a kid." Before she could fumble through the dictionary of her brain to find the right words, he said, "Congratulations. I know how much you wanted—"
"How did you know, Elliot?" She lowered her eyebrows at him. The reality of the situation began to sink in, causing hot blood to rush to her cheeks. What could he possibly know about her, without bothering to make contact with her for five solid years?
"I . . ." He looked down at his hands. "I might have seen you on Facebook."
"Dammit, Elliot."
"Okay, so I Facebook stalked you a little. I'm sorry."
"Why didn't you call?" She couldn't look at his face now, and leaned back in her chair to stare at the blank walls.
"I'm sorry, Liv. I—"
"Lewis." The word stopped him in his verbal tracks. "Did you know what happened with him?"
His voice barely registered above a whisper, every word deliberately planned to avoid the mine-field of her anger. "I didn't know until after it happened, when I saw you on the news. And then I guess I just felt guilty that I wasn't there to protect you, so I never got up the nerve to call you, and every day that I waited I figured you would be even more angry with me."
She stood now, compelled by her own fury to face the wall instead of his unbearably empathetic eyes. Bringing a hand to her forehead, she said, "So you decided it would be best not to call me at all. Not even to offer condolences."
He waited for a second, and she wanted to turn around and slap him. "I'm sorry, Liv. I don't know how to prove it to you."
She blinked back a tear, hoping it wouldn't escape, forcing others to join it in the memories of her trauma and subsequent lack of support from him. With one hand covering her mouth and the other on her hip, she forced her thoughts away from the past, and tried to regroup her focus to the present. Blinking control back into her psyche, she turned to face him again. But she couldn't let him into her world, not now. She would never trust him to be there for her, so she had to keep things on a superficial level.
"So, are you here because of what SVU dug up in the sting operation, then?"
His eyes searched hers for some connection, some understanding of what he had just said, but she wouldn't give him the satisfaction. Finally, his shoulders sagged and he said, "Yeah, that's exactly why I'm here."
