No one said anything after Cragen gave Fin the order. Olivia stood there expressionless, as Cragen turned back to his office and Amaro and Rollins suddenly remembered that they had a job to do. Fin stayed behind, giving her arm a small squeeze, before returning to his desk.
Olivia excuses herself and retreats to the bathroom. A minute is all she needs to get herself back together again, because it seems that no matter how hard she tries, the thin walls between what she knows is her past and what is now her present keep crumbling down. Olivia washes her face, careful not to smear the makeup. While drying her face and hands, her gaze slides down the mirror to her chest. She lets the paper towel drop into the bin as she extracts the emblem and looks at it, her thumb smoothes its surface.
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He jolts out of his seat when Fin's number flashes on the screen and he panics. Why would Fin call him after all this time? He should have known…if something happened to her he's never going to forgive himself. A hundred scenarios cross his mind in just a split second. He sees her crash on the floor, the blood streaming from between her fingers as she squeezes them to the cut on her throat, he sees the gun held to her head and hears the bullet before she falls down, he sees her eyes. Elliot squeezes his own eyes shut to clear away the black screen that's already forming there and presses the key.
"What happened?" he barks into the speaker.
"Elliot? Man, how are you? I wasn't sure…"
"Fin, what happened?" He demands, his voice thick and hoarse.
"Happened? Nothing happened. Look, I don't want to disturb you, but we have a case that you handled and I have some questions I wanna run by you, it might help us." Fin hesitates for a minute after this. Elliot takes a deep breath and releases it slowly to calm himself down and to repress the sound of his relief from reaching his former colleague. But the panic in his voice was not lost on Fin. He's been around them for too long to not recognize it. "Olivia is fine," he adds gently, realizing that it might have been better if he started the conversation with this statement.
"Yeah, sorry, I thought…what case?" Elliot brings the conversation back to a normal course.
"Karen Briggs. We have someone we like for it, we tied him to four other victims, but we have holes in her case and we can't locate her."
"I remember her. What d'you need?"
"I need to go over it with you, everything you handled. I'm sorry to drop it on you like that, man, but we…can you meet me?"
"Yeah, sure, where?"
"We can come over to you if you prefer."
Elliot holds from asking who's 'we'; if he knows Olivia Benson as well as he thinks he does, she's not going to set a foot again near his house even if it's her case too. "Sure. Tomorrow morning, I'll be home."
"Detective Rollins and I will be there. See you, Elliot." Fin signs off.
Detective Rollins. Yes, he does know Olivia as well as he thinks. Karen Briggs was their case, she must still be on it, but she steps down now and he doesn't blame her. It's been two weeks since he's been to her building and he's nowhere close to letting her go as he hoped to be.
Elliot looks around him, running a hand over his head and rubbing his neck. For a moment there he completely forgot himself or where he was. He's standing in the reception area of "AVG Security" and the receptionist curiously inspects him. He jumped off his seat when his eyes met the caller ID on his cellphone and he'd probably been loud answering it. Elliot tugs at his tie and re-arranges it before resuming his seat. He's in a suit again, after months of jeans and sweats, and waits for a meeting with Andrew, former Detective Second Grade Andrew Higgins, to go over the training he'll deliver to his employees.
He's already had two training sessions and it wasn't bad. Next week he's teaching in the Academy and he's actually excited about it. At first he thought they'd turn him down, but his friend there, who knew his father and him for many years, told him that he'd rather have a former cop who knows firsthand what not to do on the job then a squeaky clean one.
Only a few more minutes until the meeting and he's too restless to sit down. Elliot walks over to the window and looks at the street below through the shades, rubbing his forehead. The penetrating fear he's experienced refuses to let go of him. For a minute there he thought that his worst fears were becoming real, that this was the call he's been dreading for months. All this time he's been praying silently that she's safe, wondering who replaced him by her side, if it's Fin whom he trusts to have her back or some new blood, maybe this Detective Rollins. He knows she'd tell him that she doesn't need protection and that he's a cocky sonofabitch for thinking that she can get hurt because he's not there to have her back. But it's been his instinct to protect her from day one, and while she always evaded it, in the last couple of years he felt that she gave in, that she allowed him in. He saw it on her face outside the bathroom where Sonya died, when for the first time she needed him to hold her and he melted away with the knowledge that he should have been there sooner and ignore her eternal 'I'm fine' mantra.
Knowing that she gave in to his need to protect her makes him feel like the biggest bastard alive, because Olivia Benson is the strongest person he knows and she let him in only to have him throw it all away. He was no better than anyone else in her life.
"Mr. Stabler? Andrew is ready to see you." He hears the receptionist behind him.
"Yes, thank you," he mumbles and takes a deep breath before turning from the window and from his own thoughts.
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The car doors slam, and from his seat at the desk in Maureen's old room, which he turned into a little office, he can see the maroon squad car and the two detectives that walk to his doorstep. As he descends the stairs, he hears the knock on the front door. Elliot takes a deep breath and opens it, plastering a smile on his face to hide his nervousness over this encounter with his ex-colleague and the unfamiliar blonde detective who may be Olivia's partner for all he knows.
"Hey, Man, how are you? You look good!" Fin greets him warmly, patting his shoulder with a strong squeeze.
"Good, thanks," Elliot smiles a real warm smile, "come on in. How've you been?"
"Great. It was strange at first, you know," Fin says as he walks in towards the living room. After a short pause he adds "but then we got two new guys. This is Detective Rollins." He introduces Amanda.
"Nice to meet you, I'm Amanda Rollins. Heard so much about you." Rollins smiles, her voice pitches high. She's excited to meet the man that was Olivia's partner for thirteen years and was one of SVU's most prominent members. His handshake is very strong and he smiles at her, though the smile hardly reaches his blue eyes.
"Nice to meet you too. Fin's taking care of you new guys?" Elliot says and motions with his hand for them to sit.
"Actually, Detective Amaro is usually partnered with Detective Benson, but…" Amanda informs as she sits on the armchair across from Fin.
"Yeah, we don't want to steal too much of your time, thanks for meeting with us," Fin cuts in. He's not sure how Stabler feels about this whole thing and he doesn't know if he's over his past sensitivity about Olivia's partners.
"Don't worry, I'm glad to help. Can I get you anything to drink?"
"Nah, we're good," Fin answers for the both of them.
"So, what have you been up to since the retirement?" Fin asks gently.
"I started working as a trainer in several places." Elliot's voice is dismissive as if the detail he relates is insignificant.
"Nice!" Fin exclaims as Elliot finally takes a seat. He looks at him and he feels a bit awkward because he's not sure what to say to someone who practically vanished and seemed to not want anything to do with them till now.
"So…what about the Briggs case?" Elliot cuts to the point.
Fin describes everything they have on the case and Amanda chimes in at some points. As Elliot relates to them everything he remembers about the case, she glances at him and thinks that if she had to pick Olivia's former partner out of a lineup, she'd pick him. Something about the pace of his speech, about the way he moves his body and folds his arms across his chest, about the way he analyzes and talks about the case, something in him is similar or complementary to what she knows of Benson. And she has to admit, he's a very attractive man and she can definitely see women easily falling under his alpha-male spell. With the sunlight that reflects off the ring on his left hand, Amanda can also easily see how that would be a recipe for trouble.
An hour later, after they've went through the various reports they brought with them, they are quite done. Fin and Amanda thank Elliot and he seems more vibrant then he was when they first arrived. When they're standing at the door again, she feels that both men are a bit tense, and all of a sudden she senses that she's in the way.
"I'll wait in the car," she offers.
"Ok, will be right there," Fin takes her on it.
Amanda shakes hands with Elliot who politely dismisses her with 'good luck' and she leaves the two alone.
"How have you really been, El?" Fin asks the moment they're alone.
"I'm…getting along." Elliot's forehead frowns slightly and his eyes are fixed on a spot beyond Fin's shoulder and he can't see that Fin nods his head at this.
"You disappeared." Fin asserts and his words bring to life the third person who's not there with them on the porch.
"Yeah, I know…I…" Elliot breaks his stare and casts his head down. He wants to ask, he does, he wants to be able to ask about her, and how she's doing, who's her partner, if she's ok.
"We missed you, you know, we backed you up on this. She kept it together for a long time." Fin doesn't falter with his words.
"How is she?" Elliot finally manages to say and he brings his eyes to Fin.
"Did you talk to her?" Fin asks and when Elliot doesn't answer, he continues. "You should. She doesn't deserve that, Elliot, I don't know what you think, but I know you should talk to her."
Elliot's face is a mixture of softness and rigidness all at once, but all he does is bite his bottom lip and look away again.
Fin curls his lips. "Talk to her, man," he finally says.
Elliot nods silently and Fin grabs his hand and shakes it. "Thanks for all your help, really appreciate this."
"Sure, no problem, let me know if you need anything else." Elliot replies with a tired smile.
Fin pats his shoulder again and then takes the stoop stairs two at a time. Elliot watches him get into the driver's seat before the car starts and disappears with the curve of the street.
"Nice guy," Amanda tries as soon as Fin drives away.
"Yeah. Listen, don't talk to Benson about this, ok?" Fin replies, almost demands, and his impatient tone is the sign for her to drop the topic.
Elliot remains standing with the front door open, he's staring ahead but his eyes take in nothing of the cloudy street in front of him. He wonders if she talks to Fin, if she got the envelope he left in her mailbox, if it made her hate him more or forgive him some. He wonders when or if this hollow feeling will ever leave him, and he wishes he could talk to her about it, he knows she's the only one who can understand. He thinks about Fin's words and about what he's been trying to tell him.
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She doesn't ask, not when Fin relays the information they received from Elliot and not when she's alone with Amanda in the deserted bullpen. They haven't said anything and she doesn't ask. She just needs to give it a few more days and it will be ok again, it will.
Elliot's memory of the case helped them some; they tracked Karen Briggs up to a friend's beach house in New Jersey, which she left just a few days before, leaving no forwarding address, but it's something. They're closer and Olivia feels some relief because they might bring justice to all five victims. Talking to Calvin at his grandparents cheers her up, she stopped thinking about the 'what if's once she realized they were willing to let them stay in touch.
As usual, the squad is swamped with work and after spending almost an entire day in stakeout and chasing down a suspect with Amaro, Olivia finally enters her apartment building. When she opens her mailbox, she knows it will take some more time before her stomach will stop clenching whenever she does. On her way up she releases her hair from the clip that holds it up and lets it fall on her shoulders. She rubs her scalp and reaches for the keys. She stops in front of the door, and before she sees him she feels him there.
They could always sense each other's presence. Never having to turn back to know that the other is there.
TBC
