A/N:This has finally been revisited. Sorry for the terribly long wait.
DISCLAIMER: Dick Wolf own SVU and the characters; TStabler© owns the story you're about to read.
Elliot walked into the TARU squad room, his eyes bright. But when he saw Olivia, standing near a filing cabinet, leaning a little too close to her partner, those eyes narrowed. "Liv," he said, his voice firm.
Her head snapped toward his voice, and she breathed a sigh of relief as she ran to him. Her arms wound around him and her head sunk into his shoulder.
He looked from her to her partner, caught between upset and pissed off. "What the hell did you do to her?"
David's eyes widened. "Nothing!" he almost yelped. "She got a weird e-mail, freaked out, and wanted to go downstairs to get you. I was trying to calm her down, convince her that running to you wasn't...I mean, we were tracing it when you walked in, and..."
"Running to me is exactly what she should always do," Elliot interrupted. He skimmed his hands over Olivia's arms and peered down at her. "What e-mail?"
She took a breath, pointed to her computer, and said, "The printer."
He wound his hand around hers, leading her back behind her desk, and reached out for the paper in the tray of the inkjet. His eyes scanned over it, his jaw tightened at the words. "Who the hell sent this to you? Where the fuck did this come from?"
David, stepping over to him, said, "That's what we're trying to find..."
"I was talking to my wife," Elliot said, his eyes slanting.
With crossed arms, David scoffed. "I don't think she needs to hear you cursing at her right now, actually. She's on the verge of tears. And I am her partner now, Stabler. You're gonna have to deal with it."
Elliot shook his head, pulling Olivia closer to him. He looked down at her computer screen, watching the flashing and scrolling of numbers as it searched for the sender's IP address. "How long is this gonna take?"
"Anywhere from another ten seconds to a few days," David answered. "Depends on how fast it narrows down the numbers, pinpoints the location. If the sender had a stable location, or if it was even sent from a computer, that matters, too."
Elliot's left eye twitched. He turned his head and kissed Olivia's forehead, his eyes closing for the briefest of moments. "As soon as you get a name, you send it down to me, got it?"
"Actually," David said, standing a little taller, "This isn't an SVU case. When we get a hit, my supervisor will..."
"I wasn't asking you to do me a favor," Elliot snapped. "I gave you an order."
David scoffed. "And you think that just because your badge is a different color than mine, you can do that?"
"Guys," Olivia said, her voice more tired than annoyed, "Stop. El, I love you for this, but if I didn't think we could handle..."
"Liv," Elliot interjected, "Some sick fuck claiming to be your father just sent you one of the most disgusting messages I've ever read." He looked into her eyes, serious and severe. "I am not going to sit on the bench for this. If this is your...the man who...well, that makes it a Special Victims case."
"One you can't work," she told him, one eyebrow in the air.
"Yeah? Bullshit," Elliot hissed. "No one threatens you and..."
"We got it covered, Stabler," David said, his patience wearing thin. "I'm not about to just stand by and..."
"Does your captain know?" Elliot asked, ignoring David. He saw Olivia nod, and then he tugged her toward the back of the squad room, heading for her supervisor's office. "We need to make sure he understands that everything you get on this asshole goes down to me. Through Cragen."
Olivia looked over her shoulder to David as Elliot led her away, and she shrugged an apology. She felt relieved, though. Knowing Elliot was with her now, on the case, she felt safer and could breath a lot easier.
"This picture is..." she stopped, speechless, as she held the glossy photo in trembling hands. "And you said...it wasn't there before?"
Elliot shook his head, stopping his pacing and sitting beside her in her new captain's office. "Breslin swears it wasn't. But...I mean...this has to be him, right? Munch?"
Olivia rested her head on his shoulder as one hand dropped from the edges of the picture to her swelling belly. "He's been sending us a lot of little messages," she said with a soft smile. "So, yeah. I think so."
"We're gonna be okay," he whispered to her, kissing her gently.
"I know," she returned just as quietly.
Elliot shook his head again, going over the emailed threats in his head. "Some of what the tool said...I mean, you wouldn't have taken any of it..."
"He wanted me to leave you," she said, cringing. "He threatened to come after me...the baby...unless I got away from you, and that's just..." She swallowed hard. "No."
He let out a relieved sounding sigh and kissed once more, letting his lips linger on hers for just a bit too long. "I love you," he whispered.
"I love you, too," she said to him with a nervous smile. She looked back toward her captain, who had just hung up his phone. "Well?"
"Cragen jumped at the chance to nail this son of a bitch," the man said.
Elliot rolled his eyes and slapped a hand against his leg, frustration being released. "I knew he would! Now would you please..."
"He also told me to keep the two of you out of it until it was absolutely necessary," the captain interrupted.
"What?" Elliot snapped. "He knows damn well I would..."
"He knows you would go after the son of a bitch yourself," Olivia said, looking at him. "You're on thin ice already, El. He's trying to keep you from facing murder charges, and he knows that...Cragen knows that I need you here, with me, not out there."
Elliot's head turned and his look softened when he met her eyes. He pulled her close to him and rocked her back and forth. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "Just...Captain Foster?"
"Yeah?" the man, no older than Elliot, returned with crossed arms.
"Keep us informed, huh?" Elliot requested.
Foster nodded. "Of course."
There was silence, then, as Elliot and Olivia took comfort in each other and the captain tried to decide whether or not he truly approved of his new detective's choice of life partner. The pensive moment was interrupted, though, when David burst through the door.
"Captain!" the young man yelled. "We got a hit on the..."
"What's his name?" Elliot asked, his voice threatening and his eyes stormy.
David swallowed, gulping down the fear building. He found his voice, and his dominance, and said, "I can't tell you that, Stabler, it's not your..."
"His name!" Elliot yelled. But then he calmed. His eyes went from pissed off to pleading. "Please," he almost whispered.
Olivia looked up, then, her own eyes betraying her anxiety and curiosity. "He's not gonna go after him."
David, giving in for Olivia's sake, sighed. He looked at Foster, who gave a gentle nod. He turned back to Olivia and Elliot and said, "We traced the IP back to a cell phone. Line was registered to a mechanic in Queens, guy named Hollister."
David sent another glance at his captain, gave Olivia an apologetic look, and left the room, hoping to prove once and for all that he was capable of protecting his partner.
The waiting was killing him. The not knowing was driving him mad. The only solace he had was knowing that his wife and children were safe, home, where nothing could hurt them. He stood, staring out at their street from the picture window in the living room.
He was waiting for someone to drive up, for someone to tell him it was over, or that it was all a bad joke. He sighed, then, as he felt her arms wrap around him, as he felt her body press against his, her chest tight against his back, her arms dragging lazily down his chest. He moaned softly and tilted his head back. "Hi."
"Hi," she replied, sliding her hands back up his body. "Come to bed."
He shook his head. "Not sleeping. Not tonight. Someone threatened to...I'm not taking chances. I'm not even blinking until this prick is out of our lives."
She dropped a kiss to his neck, then three soft ones to his shoulder blades. "I can't sleep without you. You know that."
He turned around in her arms, and he wrapped his own around her. "And I can't sleep knowing that some lunatic has his sights on you, and what he said in that...the things he said he would..." he choked back the urge to gag. "I'm not taking my eyes off of our front door until someone calls and tells me he's locked up."
She kissed him and a small smile was flattened between their joined lips. "You're amazing," she whispered. "An amazing man, an amazing partner, an amazing father...lover...husband..."
"With an amazing wife," he interrupted. "One that I would kill and die for."
"I pray every night that you will never do either," she whispered, kissing his neck.
He looked over her head, catching sight of the photo from Breslin's desk on the coffee table. "Shit," he said, running toward it, almost pushing Olivia away from him.
"What?" she asked, stunned.
Elliot lifted the photo and shook it. "Munch," he said. "He was trying to tell us...God, I don't know why I never..."
"Slow down," she said, walking toward him. "What?"
Elliot held out the picture and pointed. "This was taken at Stevenson's retirement party. We didn't even know the guy, Liv. Do you remember why we went?"
She nodded. "Yeah, we were stuck at the station. I drove that day. I drove out to Queens, picked you up, by the time we hit the thruway my car broke down. We had to have it towed to the nearest garage and take a taxi into..."
"And look," he said, jabbing a finger at the picture. "In the background...by the door...coming in..."
"The mechanic," she whispered. "He dropped off my car...oh, God, El, was that...?"
Elliot stopped her as he moved to grab his cell phone off the table. "The garage was in Queens. That must have been how he found you, ya know? Seeing you, seeing your name. How he realized who you were." He looked at her and dialed, calling Cragen.
Olivia looked from him, down to the photograph, then up toward the ceiling. "Thanks," she whispered, shutting her eyes. And she swore she heard a whispered reply, Munch's dry voice.
"Anytime, Kid."
Her eyes opened, she turned toward Elliot, and she wrapped her arms around him again. She smiled, sinking into his tightening hold, and she knew that with two guardian angels, one in Heaven and one with her on Earth, she would never have to worry.
Or, at least, she hoped.
A/N: FINAL chapter coming up. A moment of closure, of peace, or gratitude, and realization, all thrown into one.
