A/N: What does Cragen have to say to Olivia? And Olivia has a surprise for Elliot. A good one?
DISCLAIMER: If I owned the characters I wouldn't need to write a disclaimer. And also, the show would need to be on HBO after 11PM…
The morning had been nteresting to say the least. The house's AI system had played a gently-awakening alarm in every room, rousing each person easily and not startling them awake in fear and anger. The IAN had set a full breakfast on the table before anyone had even stepped foot in the kitchen.
The kids' school things had been organized and packed, set out on the coffee table in the living room, and the snazzy little droid had packed lunches for them.
Elliot was still thinking about his easy and admittedly awesome morning at work, but he noticed, as he looked across his desk at his partner, that she wasn't thinking about anything nearly as happy. "Hey," he spat to her, "What's with you?"
She tapped a few keys on her computer's keyboard and then shot him a look. When she heard the bleep signifying that his message screen popped up, she simply nodded at his computer and went back to her own work, a scowl on her face.
Confused and concerned, he looked down at his own monitor. "What the…" he mumbled. He moved the mouse, clicked the link she'd sent him, and his eyes went from bare slits to dinner plates. He watched, his heart shattering, as the transcript from the agency's full interview with Cragen scrolled across his screen. The answers he had given, the reasons behind them, and the one thing he'd asked not be divulged.
He looked over at her and not giving much of a shit, he got up and moved to her. "Listen to me," he said, and he knelt beside her. He put his hands on her knees, rubbing up her thighs, and he softened his gaze when she did as requested and turned to him. He smiled and said, "You heard him. He thought he was...protecting you." He squeezed, pressing his fingers into her skin. "Baby, he...he did exactly what...what I would've done. You know that."
She nodded as she ran a hand through her hair and blew out a hard breath. "Explains...explains why we never found him. As hard as we looked, no trace of him in the last twenty-six years, and now…" she closed her eyes and shook her head. "How am I supposed to punish him for this?"
"You're the boss," he reminded her. "You don't have to. He didn't run downstairs to Berkin in Homicide and confess, he told a couple of agents in a division of a fucking highly superior agency...that doesn't answer to anyone else, makes its own rules, and can ignore something like this if it wants to, right?"
She laughed softly, dropping her hands on top of his. "I wanted...so badly to hear him give me a name, an address...the chance to talk to the son of a bitch." She hooked her fingers through Elliot's and squeezed. "I have questions that...that I will never have the answers to, ever."
He grinned smugly at her and drew small circles in the sides of her hands with his thumbs. "You have a pretty intense hacker finding every bit of information about Joseph Hollister, shit he didn't even know about himself, so I don't think you need to worry about…"
"I want to know why," she interrupted. "Why her? Why me? I want to know his reasons, and why he didn't fucking do anything about it when he...when he found us." She blinked and seemed almost shocked by the two tears that began rolling down her cheeks. "I'll have his medical records, his family history. I'll have his employment and tax records. But I will never have his reasons." She looked up, then, and locked eyes with the brass knob on Cragen's office door. "He...he dated my mother. He was a part of my childhood that...that I don't remember, and he knew exactly who I was when I volunteered for this unit, it was probably why he…"
"So what if it was?" He interrupted her and worked his right hand free from hers, brushed the hair off of her face, and cupped the side of her chin and cheek. "You're still a fucking brilliant detective, doing what you were meant to do, and you being here...brought us together. I won't hate any reason for that." He leaned in and kissed her and then whispered, "You were gonna have yourself transferred into this unit whether Cragen liked it or not, which would've tipped him off to your special agent alter ego a lot sooner, so maybe a little nepotism worked in your favor."
She laughed again, louder and more genuine, and she nodded. "You always say the right fucking thing," she kissed his forehead, his lips, and then whispered, "I love you."
"I love you, too," he got to his feet, moved back over to his desk, and held a hand out to the monitor. "And this...this doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. It doesn't change who you are, what you've become. Doesn't change our life with the kids, doesn't change your sweet little government job," he chuckled and said, "All this did...is give you the closure you never would've had without it."
She watched him sit, noticed his fingers move as he closed the documents and the message box, and when he set himself to the task of pulling up the records for their current SVU case, she turned her attention back towards the captain's door. "Maybe…" She took a deep breath and rose out of her chair, shaking as she started walking. She didn't knock, she didn't need to now, and closed the door behind her before she sat down in front of him.
Cragen's tired eyes met hers. "Liv," he spoke, but then bitterness set in. "Or should I say Agent Benson?"
"Cut the shit," she bit, and she folded her hands in her lap. "Just...please...tell me," she stopped and she licked her lips once and started picking at her cuticles, her fingers clawing around. "Tell me…" she looked into Cragen's eyes, reached into her pocket, and clicked her pen. "How'd you kill him?"
Cragen winced, realizing that she knew the one thing he'd begged them not to tell her. "I didn't mean to," he sighed, and he shrugged. "Not...not at first. I went there…" he stiffened. "I was wearing a wire, I was only going to get him to admit what he'd done, while there was still time to do something about it."
"You...a wire, you have the whole thing on tape?" Her eyes bulged and she shook her head. "I need that…"
"I burned it, Benson! I knew having that kind of evidence...I would have spent the rest of my life in jail! For what? Taking out a piece of trash! A guy no one was going to kiss?" Cragen stopped shouting and looked down, but he held up both hands. "I have the whole damn thing memorized, trust me." He kneaded both hands into his face and then dragged them down. "He didn't give it up. Not until I told him I knew your mother. That I knew...I knew you."
"What did he say?" Her question was hanging between soft emotion and firm demand. "What did he tell you?"
Cragen took pause, seeing her vulnerability shine through in a way he hadn't for quite some time. "Well, um...his story was almost the same as Serena's. He admitted following her across campus, attacking her, but then he...he said it wasn't random. That he chose her, wanted her. He remembered her name and when...when the local LEOs put out a request for information about her rape...because she was pregnant…" he shook his head. "Point is, he knew about you, but he also knew Serena would turn him in, and he was afraid of getting caught. He followed you, which made your mother think she was seeing things, made her paranoid."
"Made her drink," she said softly, "And then? How did his confession lead to you killing him?" Her nostrils flared and she wasn't sure if it was because she was angry or trying not to cry. Or both. "You told my agents you wanted to tell me face to face, so do it! Tell me!"
Cragen stood up, then. He walked around his desk and leaned against it, crossed his arms, and said, "He started talking about how he watched, how he stood at your window or in your yard, watched her beat the shit out of you, and...he didn't stop it because he said that the anger in Serena's eyes and the way she fought...turned him on," his jaw clenched and his teeth clicked. "When he started talking about his plans to go back and relive...Liv, he was gonna attack your mother again, and then what would have happened to you? Huh? I tried to arrest him, he resisted, he pulled a knife on me so I shot the bastard." His mouth twitched and his pulse throbbed in his neck. "I looked him right in the eyes and pulled the trigger, and I watched him fall, I watched him struggle to breathe, I watched the deer fill his eyes the way he watched it in your mother's, and I watched him die." He took a slow breath and shook his head halfway. "I'm not sorry."
Olivia shot to her feet and stared back at him, still shaking, and she took one step closer to him. "You told my guys that you were trying to protect us, that you never would have had a hand in hurting us."
"And I'm assuming you know I wasn't lying," he said as he gazed back at her. "Or I would be in federal lock up, or dead." He shrugged. "Whatever you people do," he scoffed.
She rolled her eyes and poked the inside of her cheek with her tongue, and then she looked at him again. "You've been...protecting me for a long time." She lowered her voice. "You can stop now," she told him.
"Oh, sweetheart, never," he said, and the disdain in his voice and features melted into warm love. "Liv, I know you knew more than I told them, before I even got there. You know I was once in love with your mother, and I was...I am...so proud of you, and honored to be a part of your life. But no more secrets." He looked away from her. "From either of us, deal?" He eyed her carefully.
She pressed her lips together and nodded, and then she said, "Now that you know, uh, about me, Elliot, and the CCA, you know that we…"
"Outrank me," he finished for her. "Yeah." He held out his hand and said, "No one else I'd rather take a backseat to, kid."
She laughed lightly and shook his hand, then gasped as she was pulled into a hug. "Cap," she said softly, and she met him in the hold, one of her hands resting on his shoulder as her eyes closed. Inwardly, she battled every emotion coursing through her, pushing down the pain and anger and guilt and allowing the relief, love, and gratitude to win, just this once. She sniffled and tried to straighten up. "Captain, I have to…"
"I know," Cragen pushed away from her, nodding. "You have to arrest me, there's no statute of limitations on…"
"I have to call someone at HQ, have a few of my agents take a little visit to our lab," she told him. "You burned your recorder, and I'm...burning mine." She smiled at him and slowly turned, not feeling the least bit guilty for letting him get away with murder.
Elliot watched her come out of his office and he kept his eyes trained on her as she walked back to their desks. "Well, I didn't hear screaming, so…"
"I didn't kill him," she laughed. She sat in her chair and leaned back. "You were right, I got...I got the closure I needed. I feel...lighter. Knowing what I know now, it makes everything so much easier." She reached for her coffee and as she sipped it she said, "You should check your email." She dropped her cup and picked up her phone, eager to make the phone call that would make it as though Cragen's interview had never happened.
Elliot did as he was told, and when he found the message she'd meant for him to read, he let out a short gasp and a squeal. "Are you fucking serious?"
She nodded at him as she spoke to the anamnesis specialist. She said a quick thank you and hung up and then said, "It makes things easier for us, ya know, if we have to go anywhere. Or if we want to...take a vacation." She smirked and then added, "Like the one you keep hinting at but are too afraid to actually ask me about."
"When?" He looked at her with the eyes of an excited child. "Baby, when?"
"As you as you take those classes and get your license," she told him, "But, I mean, the plane will have the same technology as the car, so you don't really need to pilot the whole time."
Elliot shook his head in wonderment and reread the email giving him direct orders from Olivia to take flying lessons at HQ's airport. "I fucking love you," he said.
He was so excited that he'd missed the tail end of the message, something she was hoping would happen.
She wanted to wait for the right time to tell him that he wasn't just a new hire at the agency, but that he was now one of the only two people in the world that were entirely above the law.
He didn't know it, but he was now almost as powerful as Olivia was. Almost.
And when he finds out, the power will go right to his head.
A/N: Can Elliot handle everything that his new life is bringing along with it?