Chapter Three
December 24th
11:46 AM
She saw the flag announcing new mail, but she ignored it, continuing to play Minesweeper without bothering to check whatever silly chain letter Casey had undoubtedly forwarded her. Lake was up to his nose in paperwork, none of which appeared to be current or in any way involved with their department. Fin, who was the most likely to be aware that Olivia was completely blowing off work, had made no less that 16 trips to the locker room, the vending machine, and the coffee pot in the three hours he'd been there. Elliot gave the closest impression of doing work, but Olivia was well aware that he'd been re-arranging some sort of list all morning, handwriting it each time, shredding it, and then starting over. The fact that he wasn't using his computer gave away his paranoia that someone would pick it up off the printer, which proved that it wasn't work either.
Crime didn't take a holiday, but the detectives of the Special Victims Unit might as well have.
Olivia did a quick sweep of the room between each game to make sure that no one was paying any attention, in need of assistance, or about to yell at her. Nothing had changed in the duration of her last 2-second game, so she started up a new game. She heard Elliot clear his throat, but she was doing pretty well and didn't bother to look up. A moment later, she felt Elliot kick her under the desk, but she was fairly sure she was about to beat her own record and therefore paid no attention to him.
The ball of waded up paper he chucked at her just pissed her off, so she ignored him even after she blew up her playing field. Irritated, she didn't bother looking around when she started a new game.
A pencil came flying at her, but she caught the movement out of the corner of her eye and leaned away fast enough that it sailed right past her. The sound of Elliot's feet stomping under his desk would have amused her on a regular day, simply because she loved to see how quickly he became unhinged just because she wouldn't make eye contact. But it wasn't a regular day. It was Christmas Eve and she had other places she wanted to be for once and so had no intention of looking at the man who was liable to rope her into doing something that would result in the ruination of her plans, her holiday, her career, her reputation, or any combination of the above.
When Elliot's fists slammed down on his desk in frustration, she had to fake a cough to cover the laugh that escaped.
"Olivia, I think Elliot's trying to get your attention." Lake sounded confused and Olivia was sure he looked confused, since he usually did, but she didn't look at him either. She'd moved onto Hearts, a game she didn't entirely understand.
And then there were hands on her shoulders and a face next to hers. "I know you're busy, baby, but he's going to start bawling in about two seconds and I really don't want to see that." She looked up at Fin, the only man in the world who could call her baby without getting a black eye, and smiled.
Fin went back to his mission of not sitting still for two whole minutes. Olivia finally looked at her partner, not quite knowing what to make of the glare he was shooting at Fin's retreating figure.
"What?" She hadn't meant to sound exasperated, because she wasn't, not really. She wasn't all that involved in not working.
"Read your email."
Rolling her eyes, she opened up her inbox. She had five messages – all from Elliot. One, the first one, indicated that he wanted to ask her a favor. The other four simply said "read your email" in all caps. She wanted to laugh. The man was insane. She didn't bother opening any of them. Instead she looked across the three feet of desk space that separated them. "What's up?"
He rolled his eyes. "Read your email."
She glanced at the irritating, innocuous list of emails. "Why? Is something going to jump out and scare me?"
"Read your damn mail!" Rather than glaring at her, he looked at his watch. And then, apparently to verify that it was accurate, he turned around and checked the clock on the wall.
She gave in and opened the super secret email. She couldn't help but laugh. "Yeah, El, go ahead. No one will notice you're gone."
His head snapped around, checking the room for the brass or IAB or Cragen or someone with a tape recorder. "Do you have to tell everyone?"
"Does it look like anyone's listening?" She didn't need to look around to know that no one was. Elliot had only held their attention while he was going about getting her to look at him in an entirely childish manner. Once he'd stopped making a nuisance out of himself, they'd gone back to whatever they were doing.
"Yes or no?"
"Of course I'll cover for you while you go shopping, El. What are partners for?" She snickered as he panicked, grabbing a file at random from his desk and pretending to read it, feigning his preoccupation with work for anyone who were to look.
A moment later, he peeked up. "Is anyone looking?"
"No, El, because no one's done a damn thing all day." She nodded towards their boss's office. "He's had the phone receiver to his ear for two solid hours and hasn't made a single comment. How much do you want to bet he's pretending to be on the phone so no one will bother him?"
He dropped the file he'd been holding, a smile lighting his face. "I shouldn't be too long. I owe you one."
She grinned while she watched him put on his coat. "You owe me more than I can count, but I'll add one to the tab."
December 24th
12:35 PM
Olivia tapped her foot impatiently and stared at her computer clock. She'd beaten her best time on Minesweeper twice, actually won a hand of Hearts, and wound up owing her computer several thousand dollars for Solitaire hands she'd lost before she realized how late it was. He'd been paranoid about getting in trouble. He'd said he'd be quick. She'd promised no one would notice.
Of course, that was on the condition that 'too long' wasn't, in fact, too long.
Her leg bounced up and down nervously as she surreptitiously checked both that her cell was working and her boss was still at his desk. Her phone appeared to be fine and, although he'd given up the ruse that he was on the phone, Cragen still appeared to be cemented to his chair. She wanted to not be anxious. She wanted to enjoy the time she knew Elliot wasn't trying to bug her.
But she much preferred him bugging her from a few feet away to not knowing where he was or what he was doing. Damn it, she hated that she was just as dependent on him as he was on her. They were the poster children for codependency. She made a mental note to mention it to Huang, provided Elliot was fine and had some sort of warm drink to thank her for her concern.
December 24th
12:45 PM
She'd given up even pretending to work or play or screw around. She was staring at her phone with her bottom lip worked between her teeth, hard enough to hurt to remind her to keep her mouth shut. It just wouldn't due for her to call attention to Elliot's absence when she'd agreed to cover for him.
But her mind kept flashing to images of him, lying hurt somewhere or being held hostage or being in an accident, with no one looking for him because she hadn't told anyone he was missing.
She saw Cragen's door open out of the corner of her eye and she tried as hard as she could to erase the worry from her face.
"Where's your partner?"
She looked up slowly, carefully measuring her response so that she appeared to have been engrossed in something like work that involved deep thought. Being creative, she even threw in a glance at her watch. "I think he went to get lunch."
His eyes narrowed. Cops shopping on duty were one of his big pet peeves and he seemed to have some idea that one of his perpetually wayward detectives was doing just that. Finally he nodded. "Ok. Let me know when he gets back."
It would be too obvious for her to pick up her phone and immediately warn him to bring back food.
But it would settle her nerves to get him on the phone.
She turned to her computer instead, sending him a note to bring food or get fired. Hoping that the note would also tell him that she'd already covered for him and should therefore get back before she was caught lying, she stared at her inbox waiting for a reply. An acknowledgement of some sort that he was alive and well and taking advantage of her.
December 24th
12:52 PM
"Is he still getting lunch?" Cragen was looking at his watch and Olivia tried her best to read him. It could have been that he honestly couldn't remember when he'd asked. Entirely possible, since Olivia couldn't honestly be sure what time he'd asked either, unless she checked her mail. It could have been that he was well aware that Elliot had not set foot in the precinct in over an hour and he was testing to see if Olivia would lie for him. That one was immediately discounted; he knew she'd lie for her partner and he'd lie for her and they'd already covered that ground a few hundred times. Or it could have been that he wasn't paying close attention and had mistaken one of the other men in the room for Elliot.
She nodded, deciding she'd stick with the lie until something else came to her. It hadn't been that long, she rationalized, he could have just lost track of time. Still, her email should have sparked a response and she glared at her inbox as though it was hiding something from her.
December 24th
1:16 PM
"Where the hell is Stabler?"
Olivia didn't even look up when the captain came charging out of his office. She was busy trying to remember where the emergency exits were because, damn it, it was an emergency and she needed an exit. The only one that came to her, despite the fairly obvious one a few feet behind her, was the main one, the one she almost always used, the one that an angry Captain Don Cragen was blocking.
"Um-" She wasn't sure what she was going to say.
Until the most welcome sight she'd ever seen came around the corner. "He's right behind you." Elliot was flushed, a sure sign that something was wrong, but Cragen didn't take the time to notice.
"You're wife has been trying to reach you all morning. Eventually she gave up trying and started calling me."
Elliot, who was sadly empty handed which completely ruined Olivia's claim about lunch, shrugged. "My phone didn't ring." He pulled it out of his pocket, stared at the display for a moment, and then shook it. A second look at the display caused a deeper flush, one of anger, to color his face. "I dropped it this morning, but I didn't think it broke."
"Apparently, you were wrong. Call your wife." Cragen turned to go back to his office, but stopped at the last minute to look between the partners. "I notice you forgot the lunch you went out two hours ago to get."
Elliot didn't say anything, at least not verbally. His eyes darted to Olivia's, looking for some indication of what he was supposed to say. She suddenly found her nails captivating.
Cragen shook his head. "Consider it your Christmas gift. Both of you." He stormed into his office and slammed the door.
With the boss gone and her partner once again seated at his desk, Olivia wanted to run over and hug him. She was so relieved that he was ok; she didn't even care that the boss had caught them in the midst of one of their games. In lieu of hugging him, she wanted to say she was glad to see him in one, healthy, conscious piece.
Translated into something that wouldn't freak him out, her statement came out as "Where the fuck have you been?"
He took a long moment, dropping his face into his hands and then sighing. "In addition to the new phone I now have to buy, I'm also in desperate need of a new car."
She allowed the terror to cross her face for a moment. "What happened?"
"Some woman driving forty backwards in a minivan through a parking lot. Need I say more?"
She still kind of wanted to hug him, to show support as well as to convince herself that he was all right. "I tried to tell you to bring lunch back, but-" She motioned at his dead phone. "I guess it's a good thing Santa's coming tonight."
"It wouldn't have even been so bad except that she wanted to call the cops. I tried to explain that I was the cops and that I was still willing to let it go, but she saw my gun and started screaming for security." His face grew redder as he explained.
She couldn't help but laugh, knowing that it hadn't been at all funny when he was in the moment. "I knew all along you were secretly a purse snatcher." A maniacal smile lit on her lips. "But, really, El, you should know better than to walk around flashing your gun at unsuspecting women."
The red color of his face paled as his eyes met hers. It wasn't often she made a comment quite so bold. After a moment of complete panic, his eyes left hers and he dropped her statement without acknowledging it. "Don't ever tell security guards that you're a cop. They think it's an insult." He rolled his eyes. "Kathy's going to kill me. I didn't get anything done that I needed to."
Amused for some twisted reason that Kathy was going to have a bad day, forced to drag out shopping with a newborn in tow, Olivia grinned. "I'd volunteer to cover for you, but I suspect Cragen will put out an APB on you if you leave his line of sight for the rest of the day. And I doubt he's going to take my word for anything either."
He stood up to pull a phonebook off one of the filing cabinets. "You don't happen to know any good body shops, do you?"
"I've never owned a car, El."
He looked up and smiled at her quite unexpectedly. "If you decide you want to buy me a gift this year, I could really use a time machine."
Giggling, she turned to her computer and opened up a new game of Minesweeper. "And here I thought you wanted a wagon."
