Law and Order: SVU is the intellectual property of Dick Wolf. The use of the characters, settings, and plotlines is not malicious. This is a work of fiction.

"Cleaner," Olivia snapped, pulling a metal chair across the cement floor of the interrogation room. She straddled it, and as she leaned forward, she narrowed her eyes. "That's what they call you, huh?"

Lopez slumped, giving a dismissive "hmph" as he waved a hand in her direction. "You don't know..." he said with a shake of his head.

"Well, then tell me all about it," Olivia chirped, a bitterly inviting tone in her voice, her arms stretched wide in welcome. "Enlighten me, Carlo, because if you don't, you're gonna find yourself in one hot mess you can't clean up."

Lopez bit his lower lip, shifting his eyes in her direction. "What the hell are you talking about?"

Olivia grinned. She pulled a pile of files from the middle of the long, silver table over to her and one-by-one, she held them up. "Penelope Fielding...and her unborn child," she said, tossing the folder down near Lopez. The slap was so harsh, he flinched. It made Olivia grin a bit more snidely. "Cecelia Cruz," came out of her mouth disdainfully, another toss of another file. "Mary Kralik," she spat, throwing down a third folder, "And those are just the dead ones. Is this your handiwork? Huh? This how you clean up after you screw up?"

"No!" Lopez shouted, banging his fist on the table. With each tossed file, his heart pounded a little harder, his nostrils flared, and he was ready to blow. "Fuck, no! I didn't have shit to do with this, Benson! My job...what I do for them...it isn't this! And Cecilia? I would never hurt her. I was trying to save her. We all were."

"Then you'd better give me another suspect, fast, becuase you're the only person that connects the dots, here," Olivia whispered to him, leaning so close that she could hear his heart thumping against his chest. "You look good for this, IAB is ready to string you up, and me? I don't really care one way or another how we get you, as long as we get you. People like you give the rest of us cops a bad name, and the best part of my job is taking dirty cops like you out of the house."

Lopez lowered his head and trembled a bit as he opened and closed his mouth, trying to speak. "She was...she was supposed to be in Witness Protection. She was supposed to be safe. He...he promised she would be safe."

"Who, Carlo?" Olivia asked, more sympathetic now, turning her 'good-cop' on and her 'bad-cop' off. "Who promised?"

"Victor," Lopez confessed with a shaking breath. "Gary Victor, he's a..."

"Marshal," Olivia finished, the name ringing more than a few bells in her head. "You're not off the hook, here. Not until we find him, you understand?"

"What kind of trouble am I in, here, Detective Benson?" Lopez asked, his face screwed up with worry and fear.

Olivia rose to her feet and gathered the files. "That depends," she said, hearing the door open behind her. "You tell Detective Tutuola everything, lay it all down, and we'll tell the DA you cooperated. You'll need to testify against..."

"What are my chances here?" he interrupted, a plea in his voice that cracked through the thick air.

Swallowing hard and trying not to pity him, Olivia looked away. "You tell us everything, and at least you'll actually have a chance." She left Fin to it, hearing the low mumbles and soft voices, knowing that Lopez was caving. She walked out of the interrogation room, closing the door behind her, and once she was in the viewing room, she dropped the files into Cragen's arms. "You heard him," she said, looking at her captain.

"Yeah, and I saw the look on your face when he gave you a name," he said, sounding more like a concerned father than her boss. "You know the guy."

Olivia made a face, waving her head from side-to-side in contemplation. "Not personally, no. Not..not well, at least. He used to work with Andy Eckerson, and I used to..."

"Yeah, I, uh, I remember Elliot telling me about that." Cragen shot Olivia a look. "Speaking of Elliot..."

"He's in court," Olivia said a bit too fast. "With Kathy and his...Eli." Her face fell and her heart snapped like a dry twig. She pressed her lips together and looked toward the door. "I should go make a few phone calls. Track down Victor."

"You really want to drag Eckerson into this?" Cragen asked, which made her head whip around to face him. "You don't think you should wait for Elliot before you do that?"

Olivia furrowed her brow and tried to think, evaluating the tone of his voice and the look on his face. "Cap, what difference does it make if I call him with or without..."

"Olivia," Cragen folded his arms, keeping the files flush against him, and he took two steps toward her. He peered down at her knowingly, and he lowered his voice. "The man practically ripped Andy's head off the last time he saw him. When he told me you and...the look on his face, I...I just think, since he's in a delicate situation and may not be the most stable right now, you should hold off on talking to Eckerson. At least until Elliot gets back."

Olivia saw the warning in his eyes, and the look on his face sent goose-bumps rising along the edge of he spine. "If you want to say something to me, Captain, then say it. You think Elliot's going to be pissed at me because I made a phone call? You think he's, what, jealous?"

"I think in his current frame of mind, Olivia, he would take it the wrong way, yes." Cragen half-whispered. "I see things, and though there's nothing much I can do to keep anything from happening, as the command of this unit, the least I can do is limit the fallout. You want to call down to the DOJ and talk to someone else, fine. But do not..."

"Right," Olivia said softly, averting her eyes and running her hand through her hair. "You're...you're right. I should probably wait."

"For a lot of things," Cragen said. "Get me?"

She scraped her teeth along her bottom lip and nodded, feeling somewhere between violated and embarrassed. She walked out of the room and headed for her desk, wondering what business Cragen had even bringing up the possibility of personal feelings between her and Elliot. But she knew he was right. Elliot would be wounded, and pissed off, if he found out she went to Andy without telling him first. She sat down with a heavy plop and rolled some tension out of her neck, and as she turned to pull her drawer open, an arm reached out to her.

Slowly, she traced the arm, with her eyes, to its owner, and her face fell. Taking the cup of coffee the hand had offered, she asked, "What happened, El?"

He shook his head, not trusting himself to speak, and he walked over to his side of the paired desks. He dropped his own coffee down, practically falling into his chair, and let his head drop into his hands. "I had to listen to her...justify her affairs...and then she justified lying to me about the baby, and the judge..." he paused, looked up at Olivia, and his red, raw eyes blinked once. "Thanks for calling the one judge that couldn't use any personal knowledge against me."

"What happened?" she asked a second time, not satisfied with the jumbled mess of an explanation he had given her.

"He didn't really believe her actions were justifiable," he told her with a shrug. "As far as he knew, I was as loyal and faithful to her and my children..."

"You were, Elliot," Olivia interjected.

He nodded, licking his lips. "Fault-grounds for divorce. Her fault, not mine. Dissolution of marriage due to infidelity and adultery." He let out a grunting scoff and leaned back in his chair again. "Meets the grounds since I didn't know she had an affair before I slept with her, and because it wasn't just one affair, and because, oh yeah, she lied about the paternity of her child!" he boomed, having gotten himself upset again. "Fucking bastard had the balls to threaten me, said if I ever went near his son or his girlfriend again..." he stopped and made an angry face. "Little piss ant had no idea who the hell he was messing with, found out I was a cop and suddenly he apologizes and the sniveling little..."

"Elliot," Olivia said softly,. her eyes closed. "Please, calm down." She opened her eyes and looked at him. She knew he'd be upset, but the anger that was radiating off of him raised the temperature in the room by at least five degrees, and she now knew that what had happened in her apartment was a mistake. "Why don't you take the rest of the day..."

"God, no," he snorted. "The last thing I need is to be left alone, right now. I need to be here, I need to take my mind off of this bullshit, and I need..." he looked at her, the look in her eyes registering and clicking in his mind. "I need to be with you," he whispered. "Liv, that...I don't regret..."

"No?" she asked, a harsh whisper. "You sure?"

He leaned a little farther over, tilting his head and softening his look. "I'm hurt, pissed off in a couple ways for a couple reasons, and I am...fucking angry, Liv, but you and me...is the one thing, the only thing right now, that I don't regret."

Her eyes closed and opened slowly, her body visibly relaxed, and she was about to say something else when Fin came storming out of the back room. "Son-of-a-bitch is going down," he said, dropping a yellow notebook and pen onto his desk and picking up his phone. He looked at Olivia. "You get a hold of Eckerson, yet?"

"Excuse me?" Elliot said, his brows raising and a dangerous smirk crossing his lips. He looked at Olivia and waited.

"Lopez told me who was in charge of Cruz's case," Olivia said, raising a hand to him, palm out, asking him to calm down again. "Guy used to work with Andy, I have to call him and ask if he's heard from..."

"Fuck that," Elliot said, flipping to the E in the old-fashioned Rolodex on his desk.

Olivia rolled her eyes, catching Cragen's I-told-you-so smirk as she did. "It was only..."

He cut her off. "I'm calling him. You...you and that..." he mumbled under his breath as he dialed the numbers and shot Olivia a heated look, one that had too many other emotions hidden in it to count. "Eckerson," Elliot snapped when someone picked up. "Stabler, from the...yeah, yeah, good. Oh, she's doing great, actually. She's getting married. Listen, I need to ask you if you heard from..." he covered the mouthpiece and asked Olivia, "What's his name?"

A stunned look of sheer disbelief was on her face, along with an incredulous grin. "I'm getting married?"

"As far as he knows," Elliot said with a wink. "And it's not far off, I mean, you are. Eventually. What's the guy's name, I don't want to talk to this ass any longer than I have to."

She chuckled at him, shaking her head. "Gary Victor," she said, crossing her arms.

Elliot uncovered the receiver and said, "I need to know if you have heard from Gary Victor in the last twenty-four hours. His name came up in an investigation and we...oh," he said, his tone changing, his body stiffening. "Well, uh, then I guess we should. I'm glad we're on the same side of this one. What? No! Call a cab, or an Uber, we aren't chauffeurs. This is our case, so we're not doing you any special favors." He rolled his eyes. "No, some things never change," he griped, and then looked at Olivia. A slow smile grew. "But some things change for the better. Soon, yeah. Thanks." He hung up and ran a hand down his face.

"That didn't sound good," Olivia said, watching something flicker in Elliot's eyes.

"Victor has been dust in the wind for weeks," he said. "They've been after him, too. He, uh...he's a suspect in a murder in Pennsylvania." He narrowed his eyes. "Philadelphia." He sighed. "Eckerson's coming out here to help us find him, and then he's..."

"Elliot," she interrupted. "You told him I was getting married! Now, he's coming here and he's gonna ask..." she saw the evil smirk on his face. "You're a giant child."

"Just making sure he knows you're spoken for," Elliot said, taking a sip of his coffee. As he lowered the cup to his desk, his smirk faded. Everything hit him again, and he looked over at Olivia. "Can we take a walk?"

Her annoyance at his actions took a backseat to the pang of heartbreak she felt as she got a good look at his face. She nodded, rising. She grabbed her coffee and walked with him, hoping whatever they were walking toward would somehow lead to what they both needed. Assurance.

Peace and Love

Jo

MarchCommaJo on Twitter