Unknown Day
He was gone again. She'd just gotten him back after such a long time away and he was already gone. She felt so cold and scared and exposed and helpless. She squeezed her eyes closed as tightly as she could, refusing to look, refusing to see.
She only knew that his arms and the safety and warmth and acceptance she'd found in them were gone. No matter how hard she tried, her closed eyelids couldn't stem the flow of tears. Her cheeks were soaked with them as she cried, moaned around the gag, tried her best to scream.
He was there again, somehow, magically responding to her terror. He pulled the gag from her mouth, slowly, gently working free the tortured flesh of her lips, allowing her the freedom to scream and yell as much as she wanted.
She reached for him with her bound hands, fighting to lift her heavy arms with all the strength she could find, crying in her hysteria that he would leave her again, sobbing with the thought that he wasn't going to stay.
She couldn't take anymore. She was weak. She was defeated. She needed him to stay, to hold her, to love her.
Through her sobs, she forced out the word, her anguish stretching a single syllable into a hollow, excruciating plea. "El!"
And he responded, as she'd prayed he would, folding his arms around her, cradling her against his strong chest, enveloping her in the feeling of utter safety, offering her the protection she sought so desperately.
And again, he promised her that everything would be ok, that she was fine, that he wouldn't leave her.
She remembered the words she wanted to say, the profession of her undying love that she hope would make him stay with her, but the words wouldn't come out, the complexity of the sounds beyond her. She could only claw at the fabric of his shirt, clinging to him with the tiny, pathetic amount of strength she had remaining.
Day Three, cont'd
Speaking to Natalie at the hospital was slightly less helpful than it had been the first time. Her father showed up again, shutting them down before they got anything at all out of her. With his assurance that she would come in to the station following her classes that morning, Elliot and Olivia headed back to the car.
"Something's not right here, Liv."
She shrugged, agreeing with his instinct, but unable to voice her doubt for some reason. "Maybe if we can get her talking, away from daddy, we'll get something out of her."
Elliot shrugged, immediately siding with the father as he tended to do. "He's just trying to protect his daughter. I'd do the same thing."
"And obstruct the investigation into who raped her? I don't think so."
He smiled at her. "Yeah, you're right. I'd head up the investigation and then kill the bastard."
"We should go back to the university. She said she spends all her time there. He knows her. If he's been hanging around, watching her, then someone there can probably point him out."
Elliot shook his head. "Let's go to the station and wait for her statement."
"That's just wasting time. Might as well get some of the canvassing done." As with all cases, Olivia's first priority was to get the rapist off the street, regardless of any logical processes.
"There was no forced entry in her apartment, Liv. She had to have let him in. I'm not spending any more time on this until she tells me something that makes sense." Elliot had the advantage – they'd arrived in his car because he'd picked her up.
With an angry glare directed at him over the roof of the car, Olivia agreed. "We'll see what Cragen has to say." By the time she buckled her seat belt, she recalled Jill and her wiggling ass. "Maybe we'll have some info on the DNA by then."
Natalie arrived at the precinct a little before two, escorted by her boyfriend. Because of his attitude, Olivia suggested that Elliot let her work with Natalie alone. The last thing she wanted was to have a rape victim shut down because someone didn't believe her. Elliot said he'd talk to Derek, the boyfriend, while Olivia tried to extract some kind of sense out of Natalie.
And in just under forty minutes, Olivia extracted exactly what Elliot had wanted to hear.
Natalie admitted that she'd fabricated both rapes. Her father didn't approve of Derek and, at the risk of losing her tuition, she'd promised her father that she would break up with him. She hadn't and when she discovered she was pregnant, she'd panicked, deciding to claim that she'd been raped in the hopes she could blame the pregnancy on that. But when she'd confided in Derek about her plan, he'd gotten angry and beaten her.
Which, she revealed, had given her the perfect "evidence" for her plan.
Olivia was ready to strangle Natalie by the time she led the girl out of the interrogation room. She was expecting that Elliot would be out there, waiting for her, smug look in place, waiting to tell her he'd told her so.
It was so much worse when she had to track him down, find him in another interrogation room where he appeared about ready to beat a confession out of Derek, and admit that Natalie had played her.
Usually, whenever they faced a situation where Olivia had staunchly believed someone who wound up lying, Elliot would console her, reassure her about her skills as a detective, promise her that her ability to defend the most questionable victim was a strength, her strength, something he respected. Instead, Elliot had glared at her while he threatened the young couple about the punishment for filing false police reports.
Olivia felt as chastised as Natalie should have by the time they left, sinking down at her desk and wishing she could start the week anew and do everything differently.
Elliot dropped into his seat across from her, smiling smugly. She knew it was coming and he didn't disappoint her. "I knew she was lying."
Olivia slapped a folder on the desk in front of her and started writing up the explanation for their wasted time. "You think everyone's lying." It wasn't the sort of comment she would make toward him normally, but then, normally he didn't act like a jerk.
He shrugged, collecting all the useless pieces of paper that they'd already assembled for the case. "I'm right half the time." He was being pompous and she wasn't in the mood.
Standing up, Olivia shoved her chair back so hard it smacked into the desk behind her. "You know, if you've gotten to the point where you think half the rapes that are reported are made up by lying whores to get back at their wonderful, loving boyfriends, then you really need to get out of this unit."
Elliot wasn't one to ignore a challenge and he seized the opportunity to fight. He jumped to his feet, mirroring her stance and allowing his voice to grow loud enough to draw attention. "Don't tell me how to do my job."
She enjoyed the feeling of power, for having gotten such a reaction from him. Smirking, she kept her voice even and level. "Someone has to."
His lip curled up in a snarl, driven more by her cavalier attitude than by her words. "I've been doing this job since you were writing out parking tickets, so it's not going to be you."
It took her a moment to process his words, for the full meaning to sink in. Yes, granted he had a few more years on the job than she did, but his seniority was hardly something that came up often between them. In fact it had been years since he'd dared mention it, probably because he'd been aware such a remark would earn him a broken bone or two.
But finally the comment hit home, filling her with so much fury that she didn't care that she was shouting back at him. "Then maybe you're getting so old you need to retire." It was a ridiculous argument given the small handful of years separating them, but if that same small handful of years on the force was enough for him to throw in her face, then his age was fair game too.
Words were forming on his lips as the sounds from the rest of the bull pen died out. For a moment, Olivia thought it was solely due to their preposterous fight, however, when Cragen's voice filled the air, she realized the captain's wrath had something to do with the unnatural stillness in the air.
"Get your asses in my office." He didn't even look at them and Olivia suspected that was for the best. It was definitely an 'if looks could kill' moment, and Olivia had the sense to recognize she was lucky to be alive even if her partner didn't. For the second time in as many days, they filed unhappily into Cragen's office. He barely waited for them to pass through the door before he slammed it, crowding into their personal space one at a time until each of them backed up. "Why is it that every time I tell you two to keep your personal shit out of this office you think it means I want to see more of it?"
Olivia stared, shocked as much by Cragen's unexpected hostility as she had been by Elliot's harsh words. "Sir?" Usually, he was captain or Don, but when his face was beet red with anger, respect was required.
Cragen turned on her, his eyes flashing as he expected to take out all of his immediate anger on the one who dared speak.
But Elliot spoke up, his normally confident voice soft in the face of his angry boss. "You told me, not her."
Olivia's mind was reeling, trying to piece together what had happened – the warning Cragen claimed to have given, Elliot's unprovoked anger the day before. She recalled the fierce way Elliot had stared at her from the boss' office the afternoon prior, the certainty with which Elliot had accused her of telling Cragen about the kiss. She desperately wanted to know what had passed between them, especially knowing it had been in response to Elliot threatening the man who'd struck her.
But Cragen's voice interrupted any request for information that she might have made, his tone uncharacteristically mocking. "And what? I'm supposed to believe you two don't talk to each other?"
Olivia wanted to speak up, inform him that while they exchanged plenty of words constantly, very little in the way of talking was actually being done.
Cragen continued before she had the chance, walking back to his desk to shove files around in frustration. "Don't tell me about it. I don't want to hear it. Every time I turn around, you're up each other's asses."
Olivia's mouth fell open. Her face burned. She'd never felt so belittled in her life. She couldn't believe, despite all the implications that had been made by Cragen or their coworkers over the years, that he was throwing their relationship, the dynamic that had solved so many cases, in their faces.
"So I'll say it one more time." He glared at Elliot as if to say he didn't believe the truth for one second. "To both of you so there's no confusion." He looked both of them in the eye one at a time. "This is the absolute last warning you're getting. Keep your inappropriate feelings out of this office. Do I make myself clear?"
Olivia's shock precluded any kind of response. Her eyes darted to Elliot, trying to gauge his reaction. His jaw was clenched, the veins popping out in his neck. She was glad his hatred was directed at someone other than her for the moment. Of course, it didn't take long for her to grow just as upset as both of them, realizing the full implication of Cragen's words.
The outrage and irritation rose up in her and strangled her ability to stay quiet. "Exactly what the hell are you implying?"
Cragen's glare turned on her, locking on her for having the audacity to dispute his words. "I know what's going on here and it needs to stop. Last warning." He didn't wait for them to leave, instead turning and storming out the side door of his office.
Olivia had unfortunately been on the receiving end of Cragen's ill tempers before. Sometimes she'd deserved to be ripped a new one; sometimes she hadn't. Either way, regardless of whose fault the trouble had been, she and Elliot had always found a way to reassure each other, to comfort each other, to say, if only through a smile and brief eye contact that no matter their grievances with one another, they were ok. They were always strong, even when others thought they were weak.
So it was a bit disarming when Elliot glared at her. "You never should have told him." He stormed out, leaving Olivia steaming mad, completely humiliated, and utterly confused.
By the time she gathered enough of her flabbergasted self together to return to her desk, she found Casey had dropped by. Olivia would have found solace in the presence of another woman, someone who she could yank into the ladies room and vent about various pieces of the bullshit that had made up her day.
Except Casey was leaning on the edge of Elliot's desk, her classically attractive looks pleasantly arranged in a smile that seemed genuine, if a little excessive, her trim figure highlighted in the right places by a close fitting suit and tight shirt, her long legs appering from under the hem of her skirt, crossed at the ankle, on display for Elliot's all too appreciative eyes. And it was just a little more than she could take.
Furious and unable, or quite possibly unwilling, to control it, she stalked over to the apparently happy couple like a lioness about to pounce. All the frustration she felt with Elliot and Natalie and Cragen screwed up her face until a single look at Casey vanquished the redhead's pretty smile. Elliot didn't have time to turn around before Olivia leaned down into his ear, hissing just loud enough for him to hear her incensed words.
"Fuck, Elliot, did you nail Casey too?"
She didn't even pause as she stormed up to the crib, slamming her feet down with every step in an attempt to vent some of her frustration.
