A/N: Elliot gets a surprising offer from his bunkmate, Olivia gets a surprising offer from a classmate, Melinda and Alex start plotting evil things, and a new, old face appears!
DISCLAIMER: SVU and characters are owned by Dick Wolf. This story, all of it, is owned by TStabler©
"Man," Porter said, rubbing the sweat from his brow as he hoisted himself over the bar again, "Your wife is hot."
"Yeah, she is," Elliot said, grunting as he, too, did another chin-up.
Porter grunted, then asked, "When did you get married?"
Elliot smiled as he did another set, and said, "June Twelfth."
"You're, like, newlyweds, man," Porter said, chuckling as he pulled himself up.
Elliot grunted affirmatively. "We were practically married anyway, ya know? We lived together. We were together for a year, she's been my best friend for three, she's everything to me."
"You miss her?" Porter asked, stopping his chin-ups, dropping to the ground, and glancing at Elliot.
Elliot dropped down then, too, panting. "So much it hurts," Elliot said.
"You wanna go home?" Porter asked, taking a towel off of the shelf and wiping his face.
"I'd kill to go home to her, man," Elliot said. "Got eight more weeks of this shit, and then I have to pray they don't..."
"They won't," Porter said. "I'll make a phone call. Stabler, how are you with computers?"
Elliot shrugged. "I know my way around a CPU, why?"
"I can get you home to that sexy, little girl of yours," Porter said. "You tell me where you wanna go and I can guarantee you'll do most of your training there, and serve your year behind a desk. I can't promise you'll never see combat, but I can..."
"How the hell can you possibly make that kind of offer?" Elliot asked, interrupting. "And why would you do that for me?"
Porter smirked and slapped Elliot on the back. "I have connections," he said. "I'm doing this because I see in your eyes what I know would be in mine if I had a girl like that waiting for me. We're Marines, Stabler. We have to stick together. Semper Fi. And you'll pay me back one day, with interest." He walked away, leaving Elliot stunned, and a bit concerned.
He didn't know when, or how, he'd pay Porter back.
"That's not necessarily the case," Olivia said, talking back to her Legal Studies professor. "Three to four percent of all sex crimes are committed by women, and one-third of those cases are violent, resulting in death of the perp, the victim, or both. Women can be just as perverse and impulsive as men."
"What is your name?" the professor asked, checking her roll book.
"Benson," Olivia said. "Olivia Benson."
The professor smirked. "You know that how, exactly?"
"I did a lot of research," Olivia responded, not about to tell her entire freshman class that she was not only the product of a rape, but the result of abusive parenting, prompting her to read a thousand books on sex crimes, child advocacy laws, and legal procedures.
The professor tilted her head and asked, "Can you give me an example of a case, that went to trial, where the, uh, you called it a perp?"
Olivia paled a bit. Her husband's dad was a cop, and she had her share of run-ins with detectives. She didn't want to explain how she knew the cop-lingo. "Perp. Yeah. Perpetrator, predator, criminal."
"Right," the professor chuckled. "Cite a case where the perp was a woman."
"The State of New York versus Gail Farrell," Olivia said, without hesitation. "She was tried, and ultimately convicted, for the rape and murder of a sixteen year old boy. She met him in her English class."
Again, the professor smirked. "Impressive, Benson." She made a mental note to make a phone call to a friend of hers regarding this very smart girl.
Olivia nodded shyly, trying not to notice the guy next to her, staring. "Thanks, Professor Donnelly."
"That was impressive," the young man next to her said, smirking at her. "I'm Trevor," he told her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders
"I'm married," Olivia said, pushing his arm off of her back. "Happily married, to a U.S. Marine."
"Wow," Trevor said. "I really know how to pick 'em, don't I?" he laughed. "Will he kick my ass if I took you to dinner? Just as friends. I swear, I won't hit on you again."
"He won't," Olivia said, her smirk still in place, "But I might."
Trevor chuckled, then turned back to the front of the class. He liked this girl. He really liked this girl.
"You Stabler?" the commanding general asked, as Elliot walked into his office.
"Yes, Sir," Elliot replied, saluting.
The general smirked. "At ease," he said. "You're being deployed, Stabler."
"What?" Elliot spat. "How? I'm not even done..."
"Relax," the general said, holding up a hand. "Marine-talk for transferred. Your new training facility's in Connecticut, The Marine Academy of New Haven. They expect you to be a part of their PFC ranks at Oh-Five-Hundred. Your flight leaves in an hour and thirty minutes."
"New Haven?" Elliot asked, smirking. "Liv," he whispered.
"Did you just call me 'live,' Private?" the general asked, confused.
"No, Sir," Elliot said, stifling a chuckle. "Why am I being sent to New Haven, Sir?"
The general looked Elliot in the eyes. "Federal orders, Private Stabler. Go pack, and take Porter with you. He's going with you."
"So you and Shauna got married because you had a sudden urge to procreate?" Alex asked Joey, puffing on a cigarette, outside of a pizza place.
Joey nodded, inhaling on his own stick. "Crazy right?" he asked. "I keep looking at Maureen, and I know she's mine, but she's not mine. Does that make sense?"
"You're her father, but Brian's gonna be the daddy," Alex said, flicking her ashes onto the pavement.
"Exactly," Joey said. "When we got back from the courthouse and she saw the certificate in her hands, Shauna freaked. Started yelling about how she was just overcome with the excitement and spontaneity of it, and she didn't really wanna marry me."
"Who wouldn't wanna marry you?" Alex asked, flicking her cigarette. "You're gorgeous, you're intelligent, you're..."
"Not Elliot," Joey interrupted, blowing smoke out of his mouth and smirking accusingly at Alex.
Alex balked. "I never said you were," she said.
"You're only hanging out with me, trying to get close, because you missed your chance with my brother, right?" Joey said, his words stinging.
"At first," Alex said, "Yeah, but now that I know you're nothing like him, I actually like you a lot more than I ever liked him."
"Liar," Joey spat with a chuckle.
Alex shook her head and stepped closer to him. "I'm not lying."
Joey raised an eyebrow, smirked, and stepped toward her. "Prove it," he whispered.
Alex smirked, tossed her cigarette over her shoulder, and wrapped her arms around Joey's neck. She kissed him, trying very hard not to pretend he was Elliot.
"How the hell am I supposed to get any sleep with that boy crying like that?" Melinda yelled from her bed.
Her mother, rocking the baby boy in her arms, said, "You're not, Melinda. He's a baby, you're his mother, and you will never sleep again. Congratulations."
Melinda whined as she got out of the bed. "Fin should have to get his ass up at three in the morning, too."
"You should have thought about that before you let him off the hook," her mother said. "Welcome to single motherhood, Melinda." She handed her daughter the baby, kissed them both on the head and left the room.
Looking down at her son, Melinda sighed. "I'm sorry I messed things up with your daddy, Ken," she whispered to him. "I'll fix it, I promise."
Olivia walked into her apartment at nine-thirty, after a less than enjoyable dinner with Trevor. She sat at her laptop, typed in her password, and logged into the chatroom she usually found Elliot in, hoping to talk to him. She missed him terribly. She drummed her fingers, waiting impatiently, until she saw his name pop up on the room's list. She didn't have to click on it, he got to her first.
USMCSTABLER1020: I miss you.
LivEl61200: I miss you more.
USMCSTABLER1020: No way. I called my general 'Liv,' Liv.
LivEl61200: I wrote a creative writing essay on the healing powers of blue eyes.
LivEl61200: Beat that, sucker!
USMCSTABLER1020: Okay, I guess you miss me, huh? Lol. Oh! Hey! Did you know my bunkmate's dad is some big shot in the FBI?
LivEl61200: I did know that. You just told me.
USMCSTABLER1020: Smartass.
LivEl61200: You love me.
USMCSTABLER1020: You're right. I do love you.
LivEl61200: I love you, too, El. Why did you tell me about your roommate's dad?
USMCSTABLER1020: My dad knows him. Saved his life once.
LivEl61200: Nice!
USMCSTABLER1020: His dad was also the best man in my parents' wedding.
LivEl61200: Small world, huh?
USMCSTABLER1020: Yeah. Lol. Now he thinks we need to be best friends. He's even doing me random favors, trying to prove his loyalty.
LivEl61200: Milk it for all it's worth! Make him do your laundry!
USMCSTABLER1020: Lol. I should. Speaking of laundry, what are you wearing?
LivEl61200: OMG, El, really? Lol. Nothing sexy, just jeans and one of your old tee-shirts.
USMCSTABLER1020: You're always sexy. Which shirt?
LivEl61200: the Superman one I shrunk when I tried to do the laundry...;)
USMCSTABLER1020: You look cute in that!
USMCSTABLER1020: I don't want other guys looking at you when you're being all cute!
USMCSTABLER1020: Why the hell are you wearing that?
LivEl61200: Because I'm Supergirl, didn't you know?
USMCSTABLER1020: Psh! Of course I knew, I'm Superman, duh!
USMCSTABLER1020: Why are you really wearing it, Lois Lane?
LivEl61200: It smells like you.
USMCSTABLER1020: Lol. Cute.
USMCSTABLER1020: You kow what else smells like me?
LivEl61200: Kow? What's that, a Russian cow? You called me a cow in Russian?
USMCSTABLER1020: Know! I meant know!
USMCSTABLER1020: It's hard to walk and type at the same time! Lol. Do you KNOW what else smells like me?
LivEl61200: Yes! Your pillow, the NYPD hoodie I stole from you, and the bottle of your cologne I have in my bathroom.
From behind her, she heard the door creak open, and she heard a very familiar, very low voice say, "No, baby. Me."
A/N: Porter meets Olivia in the next chapter, Elliot meets Trevor, Casey and Fin deal with having the baby for the weekend, Alex and Joey go on a real date, and something unexpected happens with Brian and Kathy!