Chapter 11

Finished the story and it's officially 21 chapters. I'm currently working on two more stories, most likely shorter than this one, and I'm hoping to start posting them soon.

There was a knock on the door. Tori slid himself slowly out of bed, not wanting to wake Olivia. He slipped on his pajama pants and walked over to the door, pulling on a wrinkled t-shirt as he went. He unlocked the door as quietly as he could and slipped outside, rather than talking to the stranger in the doorway.

"Oh, sorry. I must have the wrong room," the man looked a little surprised when he saw Tori.

"Who're you looking for?" Tori asked.

"Olivia Benson, but I guess I…"

"No, she's here. She's sleeping."

The man's jaw nearly hit the floor. When he regained his composure, he asked, "Who are you?"

"I could ask you the same question."

"Elliot Stabler, I'm her partner."

"Wait, I thought you didn't know she was here?"

"I traced the phone number, I need to talk to her. Can you tell her to meet me at the diner across the street?"

Tori nodded, then went back inside. He really didn't want to wake Olivia, especially for that guy, but it wasn't his place to interfere. If she wanted to be mad at him for tracing her phone, that was her job, not his.

"Ben," he said, shaking her gently by the shoulder. She woke up instantly, breathing heavily. She'd been having a bad dream, he realized. "You partner's at the diner, he wants to talk to you."

"How does he know where I am?" Olivia asked, shocked.

"Traced the phone. Probably flashed his police I.D. to get the room number. Major creep if you ask me, but he must really need to talk to you."

Olivia got dressed quickly and headed down to the diner. She was fuming mad and she was going to let Elliot know. "Why the hell did you come here?" she snapped, sitting down across from him.

"Casey was attacked," he said, very calmly, taking a sip of his coffee. Olivia's anger evaporated instantly. "He sent this." He handed her a picture of Casey, who had never been targeted by this guy before, with a shadowed figure behind her. The caption underneath read, 'Goodbye, Olivia. I'm her shadow now'

"When?"

"Yesterday. I just got back from the hospital when you called." She'd been with Tori all day yesterday.

"Is she okay?" She asked, staring at the photo in horror.

"Yeah. She was attacked like you. Injected with the same stuff as you after being knocked out, business card next to her bed instead of on her keys, and she wasn't raped. She's doing alright, we're keeping an eye on her apartment. And he's not using your business card anymore. He's leaving Casey's with the victims now."

"What do you want me to do? It's not like I know anything about this guy," she said, suddenly angry again. How dare her intrude on her happiness like that?

"I just thought you'd want to know."

"Then you should have called. Left a message. You came down here for a reason, what do you want?"

"Are you coming back?'

"No." The answer was out of her mouth before she could even think about it. At first she thought it was a mistake, she'd just said it out of anger, but the more she thought about it the more she realized it was true. She didn't want to go back to SVU. And now that she knew for sure he couldn't be the one they were looking for, she didn't want to leave Tori.

"Who was that guy?" Elliot said, not wanting to dwell on the subject anymore. It was a real blow finding out that he was losing his partner.

"I don't see how it's any of your business, but his name's Tori Swanson," she didn't think Elliot had any right to know, but she wanted him to know. She wanted him to see that she was happy. Much happier than she'd ever been in New York.

"You sleep with him?"

"Alright, that's it, you are way outta line. I'm a big girl, El, I can do whatever the hell I want without your permission." She slid out of the booth and glared at him, "Don't come back here, Elliot."