A/N: I'd fall a thousand times before I let you bring me down... (Kelly Clarkson)
DISCLAIMER: SVU and all related plot/characters originally belong to Dick Wolf. This story is allllllllllllllll mine. © TStabler
The gentrification of the city isn't lost on her; in fact, she notices every last bit of it. Every small improvement in her neighborhood means the loss of its panache, its character, its history. They'd only been driving for a few minutes, and they'd passed five freshly painted buildings with newly built facades and high-glass windows, placed where used to lie small bodegas and century-old speakeasies that had been repurposed into bookstores and cafes. Each new Starbucks means one less Tea and Sympathy and part of her absolutely hates it.
She looks at him and she can tell he hasn't noticed; he hasn't seen the fortified Apple store that completely destroyed one of the oldest architectural legacies in the city. He certainly isn't paying any attention to the hybrid plants that have been installed up and down each avenue, lining each street, and he definitely missed the epic mural that now camouflages years of graffiti and tags from generations of New Yorkers.
He hasn't noticed any of it for three reasons: one, he lives in Queens and much of this isn't his to notice; two, he's driving and therefore isn't focused on anything but the road laid out in front of him; three, the principal of the school that all four of his children attend has been found in the alley behind a flashy uptown apartment building and he's furiously trying to decide if he's thankful someone killed the bastard or pissed off that the son of a bitch will never have to answer for the horrible things he did to so many innocent people. Innocent children. Children that could have been his own.
She notices, as she stares at his determined face, that Manhattan isn't the only thing that's changed. His chin is more chiseled now than it was when she met him three years ago; his eyes have changed color. They're still blue, but brighter, and several shades blended together into a hue that doesn't exist anywhere but in his eyes. His hair is thinner, darker, and his body has changed in ways she's sure she isn't supposed to have noticed. Muscles that have built and broadened, his arms and legs, shoulders and thighs, and his ass...a part of him that she can't help staring at whenever he's in front of her.
She's watched his personality shift over time; where there was once nothing more than a cold, callous, infuriating asshole, there is now a kind and gentle soul, a sense of humor, severe insecurities masked by an overwhelming ego, a sympathetic and overprotective father, parts of him that it took little more than a week to discover and parts of him that are still hidden beneath his wicked temper and overblown attitude. But he's different.
Especially now.
His whole outlook on life is different; his mood swings are intense, his emotions are unstable, and he has no idea how to handle his life at the moment but he compensates by treating it all as if nothing has changed, that his life is as it always was but with Olivia filling the spot vacated by Kathy. She's learned some new things about him because of this; he is intimate with her in ways he's never been with anyone else, ever; his passion is fiery, his love effortless, and the way he looks at her...like he's always looked at her but more brazen and less apologetic...makes her weak.
She can't help it, she knows it's the wrong time, wrong place, but she smiles and reaches out to him. Her hand slowly and softly brushes his short hair back, her nails drag down his neck, and she hears him moan. She watches as he shifts his weight slightly and the tension seems to dissipate before her eyes.
His shoulders drop, he exhales, and he shifts his blue eyes only for a moment, and he returns her smile. "What are we gonna do?" he asks, pulling the car over and parking along the curb.
It takes her a moment; she squints her eyes slightly and then realizes he means about work, the case. Their perp is now their vic and neither one of them can bring themselves to care. "Our job," she shrugs, "What else could we…"
"This is really just justifiable homicide," he spits, and his nostrils flare. "We find out someone related to one of our vics did this…" he shakes his head and slowly turns the key, cutting the engine. "I can't be the guy that takes them down, because all I wanna do is shake their damn hand!" He shrugs and gives a bitter chuckle.
"Cragen always says we don't get to pick the vic," she reminds him, "We don't get to pick the perp either, you know that. We just…"
"Follow the evidence, follow the law, make the arrest, leave it up to the jury," he says like he is simply making a grocery list, stale and robotic. "I know, I know." He pulls the keys out of the ignition and twirls the keychain around his ring finger, taking slight pride in the way the metal clinks against his ring.
"You ready?" she asks and she lays her hand on the metal pull on the door. She pauses when she doesn't get an answer and turns, and she catches him staring. "What?"
"I love you," he tells her, and it sounds so genuine, so pure.
The tone of his voice melts a part of her heart as it hits her ears. She's choked up, fully unable to respond, but her mouth opens because she's trying like hell. Before she can make any kind of noise, he clears his throat.
He exhales harshly and looks down at the steering wheel as he says, "I know you think I don't, or that I shouldn't, but…" he licks his lips and looks at her again. "I'm not crazy, and I'm not just throwing myself into this thing with you because I don't know how to be single, or because I need to be married."
She can't argue, but she does give him a look that she hopes he understands.
"Yeah," he chuckles. "I know that's what you've been thinking." He takes another breath. "I'm sorry I kind of hit you over the head with this at the wrong time, here, but...this…" he holds up his left hand. "You and me...it's the only thing that makes sense, and you can't tell me you don't feel the same. The life we had in Syracuse...that's the life I wanna live...until the day I die." He chuckles. "I thought that when we came home, and things got back to normal, I'd forget...I'd slip back into things with Kathy and you'd meet some doctor or lawyer or reporter...but when you told me you saw her with that guy...it was like God telling me that I didn't have to forget, God's way of granting the prayer I'd been so desperately sending up for…" he pauses. "Three years."
She stares at him and wonders why he chose now, here, to finally talk about the very thing he's been avoiding. She nods at him once and says, "Okay. We...we'll figure it out." She leans over and kisses his forehead, closing her eyes when her lips touch his skin. She feels his hand pull at her hair and before she knows it, her lips are on his, his tongue weaving into her mouth, her heart leaping and throbbing in her chest.
When he pulls away he whispers, "Let's go," and he slowly nuzzles against her for a moment before moving. He gets out of the car and heads toward the first officer he sees, the red and blue lights of the squad cars making everything purple and hard to discern. "How?" is all he says as he works his way under the crime scene tape.
"Bloody mess," the uniformed cop says, shaking his head. "Someone beat the piss out of him." He juts a thumb over his shoulder and cringes, proving he hasn't developed the stomach to go with his job just yet, and maybe would be better suited to traffic or corporate beat.
Elliot nods once, and the expression born onto his face is something between vindication and disgust. He takes a deep breath and with a step forward, he reaches one hand out and back toward Olivia.
For a moment, she considers slipping her hand into his open palm, but that would be highly inappropriate here and now. She knows that. They both know that. With a silent laugh, she rolls her eyes at herself and realizes he's asking for a rubber glove. It's one of the things in her life that hasn't changed, and likely never will. He will never come to a crime scene with his own set of gloves or spare bags, or a pen-light, and she will always have at least two of everything.
She slaps a white glove into his hand and holds her breath as they head into the foyer of the townhouse. She turns her head and suppresses the urge to cough or gag because unlike the uniformed officer outside, she's grown far too used to the metallic smell of blood and gruesome sights like the one before them. "Damn," she says, and she turns to look over at Elliot.
They're thinking the exact same thing, and he voices it without hesitation. "This was a lot of rage," he tells her, and he guides her forward a bit. "One of the parents."
She nods, agreeing, and she starts analyzing spatter patterns and taking note of any gaps in furniture or decor to give them a hint of what exactly was used to beat the life out of the naked, broken man on the blood-soaked carpet. "Over there," she says, and she steps nonchalantly over a crime-scene technician to get to a shelf on the back wall.
Elliot rushes over with wide-eyes, eager to hear her theory, because he loves when she proves how much smarter she is than every other partner he has ever had. Hell, he thinks with a smirk, she's smarter than everyone else on the job, including him. "What'cha got?"
She doesn't take her eyes off the bare spot on the shelf as she says, "Missing bookend," and points to the other end of the long wooden surface. "What is that? Marble?"
"Looks like it," he replies, and he gingerly runs a gloved finger along the smooth edge of the incredibly expensive bookend, carved into the bust of Edgar Allen Poe. "He's got puncture wounds, maybe there were two…"
"Look," she interrupts, and she holds up her phone with narrow-eyes.
He takes it from her and lets out a soft "hmph" as he gazes at the Google image search results.
She voices the information he's already been made privy to, because she thinks that he needs to hear it. "The bookends are from a luxury decor site. One end is Poe, the other end is a raven."
"Quoth the raven," he says, and he turns around to look at the gruesome scene behind him one more time, "Nevermore."
A/N: oh.