A/N:As long as I got you by my side, I know what I wanna do in this life (Soldier - James TW)

DISCLAIMER: SVU and all related plot/characters originally belong to Dick Wolf. This story is allllllllllllllll mine. © TStabler

It's been three hours and Porter still hasn't sent Elliot any information; it's both a relief and an annoyance. They've buried themselves in work, but both have certainly been preoccupied by thoughts of what could have happened that morning. What they could've done. She slips the top of her pen into her mouth as she reads a written confession, only half understanding what it says because she keeps replaying the memory, the moment her phone rang, the instant the clerk was about to let them into his office to sign a piece of paper that would change everything. And nothing at all.

"Here," his voice is smooth like melted caramel as he drops a foam cup on her desk. He furrows his brows when she doesn't look up at him, and he shifts his eyes around the room before leaning over her. He places one hand on either side of her, palms on her desk, trapping her in the space between his arms. He bends, turns his head, and whispers in her ear. "If there's something you need to say to me…"

"Nope," she says, purposely not glancing at him. The moment she does is the moment she breaks. The bridge between Detective Benson and Olivia collapses, what she desperately wants and the tasks at hand collide, and she doesn't know how to handle the fallout from that.

He moves back less than an inch, turns just a few degrees more, so his voice and hot breath hit right into her ear. "What...the fuck...is the problem?" He leans in, let's his teeth nip her earlobe between them, pulls a bit, and lets it go. He feels her shiver, hears her near-silent moan, smirks. "Well?"

She shakes her head slightly, her lip caught between her lips. As she shrugs once, she says, "I don't like being dicked around."

"Excuse me?" His breath is still puffing right into her ear and he knows he's giving her chills. "You think I'm fucking…"

"Porter," she says, finally bracing herself and looking at him. "And Cragen. Both of them have been fucking using us like pawns, playing some fucked up game of Battleship with us." She slams the file in her hands down and she shoots him a questioning glare. "Doesn't it seem rather fucking odd...that Porter went to Cragen to make it look legit, yet Cragen didn't say shit to us about it? And in my first little chat with Porter he tells us he cleared it with the captain, it was Tucker who told you it was bullshit…"

"What are you getting at?" Elliot lowers his voice again, but it's only because the way she's looking at him right now is fucking turning him on and if he speaks any louder he'll moan.

She takes a breath, licks her lips, and says, "Cragen assumes Tucker told us not to do the damn thing, he wanted us to set Porter up, let IAB and the Feds take him down. He also knows Porter wants us to show up to some house in the Hamptons with our guard down…"

"You think Cragen's trying to see if we'll take another op without him, if we'd just follow Porter's orders to take him out ourselves," he whispers, and he cocks his head to the side. "They're both using us…"

"To piss each other off," Olivia nods. "Cragen's still upset that we went upstate without a permission slip, he knows something fucking happened up there, feels slighted because he's outta the loop," she scrapes her teeth over her lip. "And you heard Tucker, Porter blames us because we closed the case, got the bad guy and glory for this unit with no help from him, he lost his job and blames us."

Elliot lets out a soft, confirming grunt. "Shit," he hisses.

"Yeah," she breathes. "Now, unless you want to give Cragen another reason to fire us both," she narrows her eyes but it reads more seductive than angry, "Back the hell up."

He chuckles, feels her tremble again, and says, "I always stand here, right here, when we're looking at something on your computer. So…" he moves his left hand, his ring clicks against the space bar as he types something into a search bar, and then he laughs softly. "That's what we're doing." He kisses the back of her head softly, but moves a respectable three inches when he heard Cragen's door open.

Cragen clears his throat, looks at the two detects are staring him in the eyes, and he slowly walks toward them. "I know there's an issue with Agent Porter…"

"Yeah, relax," Elliot offers, shoving one hand into his pocket while the other lifts off of Olivia's desk and flattens our toward Cragen. "We're gonna let Tucker and…"

"It's been handled," Cragen says, and he looks down at Olivia. "He's on his way to Mount Sinai. There was...an accident." He clears his throat again. "I'm not entirely sure what's going on between you and him, but I…"

"Nothing," Olivia spits out almost offended. "There was nothing…"

"Nothing happened between the two of you in Syracuse?" Cragen watches her shake her head and folds his arms. "Huh. I thought maybe that's why he was trying so hard to get you to work with him. Get more time with you." He scratches his chin. "Well, uh, at any rate...he's gonna be fine, he's…"

"What kind of accident?" Elliot asks, but in the pit of his stomach he already knows. He remembers how the Feds work, how they take care of their own problems, and Porter has become a problem. "Cap?" he prods.

"The, uh, brakes on his car malfunctioned," Cragen states, and he tries to bring himself to sound more upset. "He couldn't slow down or stop, tried to turn down Madison and drove right into the side of a building." He holds up both hands and says, "He'll live." He points to the open file on Olivia's desk and then the monitor. "Where are you on this?"

Elliot and Olivia share a look, they both know there's more to the story than what Cragen has said, but they decide to let it go for now. They have to pick their battles with Cragen for a little while longer. "Uh," Elliot hums dumbly, pointing at the computer.

Olivia pipes up, saving them both, and says, "Confession stands." She tips the file up a bit. "He was sober, the traffic cameras on Lex got him coming out of the bar, practically dragging her. There's no way she could have possibly consented to anything." She looks up at Cragen as she leans back in her chair, forgetting that Elliot is right behind her. Her head his his stomach, he doesn't move at all, and she freezes for a moment. "Just waiting for tox to confirm."

Cragen nods. "Good," he says. "Then go home. Your apartment's been cleared. Stabler, you, too." He checks his watch. "Lab won't have anything for you until tomorrow, we got the hump in holding. So for tonight, you're done."

"Not arguing," Elliot spits. He grabs his coat and hands Olivia's to her, nods once at Cragen, and then checks his watch before he leads her out of the room. "Fuck," he hisses, and he throws his head back with a wince and repeats. "Fuck." His fists clench and he storms toward the elevator. He punches the call button so hard the plastic rim cracks.

"Christ," she shoots out, grabbing his hand before he can punch the wall. "The fucking thing hasn't been fixed that long, you wanna break it again?" She leans in, her fingers running over his knuckles.

"He knew," he whispers, his eyes closed and his head lightly shaking. "He fucking knew."

"Who knew what?" She narrows her eyes and pushes him through the opening doors.

He slides his free hand down his face and lets his head slam back into the wall of the elevator. "Porter," he moans. "He knew where we were when he called. He knew why. He knew exactly when to call back and drag us away from…" he inhales and his entire body hurts with the thought. "He purposely kept us waiting, kept us busy...then suddenly gets into a mysteriously convenient accident the same time every government office closes shop?"

"You don't think there was an accident," she surmises.

He bites his lip and he eyes the blinking red light in the corner of the elevator. "I think he knew, and he played us like a couple of fucking tambourines just so we couldn't. Why the fuck do you think he pulled your file?"

"How could he have known?" She asks the question as she drags a hand through her hair, then runs that same hand down Elliot's arm. His blue suit crinkles under her touch and she rugs on the wool coat in his hands, silently telling him to put it on. "We didn't tell anybody, and we didn't even plan on doing it until you had the idea...at a crime scene, in the middle of the damn street!"

"I fucking know that," he huffs. He hits his head hard against the wall and then pops up, digs around in his pocket, and grabs his phone. He punches a button on the wall, then turns and pulls her into him with a finger to his lips.

She raises an eyebrow but smirks wickedly, feeling his hand work into the pocket of her pants. She watches him pull her phone out, and when the doors open again, he holds both phones in one hand and pulls her through the TARU lobby with the other.

He makes a beeline for the most familiar desk and snaps at the tech detective behind it. When eye contact is made with Morales, he makes a scribbling gesture with his hand, asking for a pen and paper. When he gets it, he writes a note, slaps the two phones down, and slides them across the desk.

Morales scrunches his face up, but once he reads what Elliot wrote to him, his eyes pop. Immediately, he plugs each phone into wires connected to his computer. His fingers move like tan rocket ships, blurring and clicking, and he snaps back at Elliot, then crooks a finger at both detectives and twists his monitor.

Elliot's left hand curls and pounds down on the desk, and he pulls Olivia closer to him with his right.

A few more clicks, a loud beeping noise, and Morales exhales. "Clear," he says. "This was a pretty sophisticated wire-tap. Not only capable of listening to and recording phone calls, but you both had key-loggers installed, which probably transmitted every e-mail, text message, and written memo. Whoever did this also had remote access to the camera and microphone."

Olivia's face goes white and she leans into Elliot's hold. "So we didn't even need to be on the phone, they could've…"

"Liv," Morales looks at her, and he folds his arms. "If you turned them off and kept them in the corner of the room, whoever did this could have turned them on, listened to, watched, and recorded everything."

"Son of a bitch," Elliot fumes. He taps on Morales screen. "Any way you can back track? Figure out where the bastard is?"

"With this kind of technology and remote monitoring, El," Morales shrugs and looks at him, "Someone in Tokyo could have been watching a 1080i high-def video of you brushing your teeth. With web-based apps and net-capable phones like this, guy could've been anywhere." He leans forward and types what looks like a foreign language, and then says, but there is a back door that may tell us the ISP or serial port number of the device that tapped into yours."

There's more typing and more clicking and Elliot and Olivia look at each other knowingly, having an idea whose phone or computer going to come up in this off-the-cuff and unofficial investigation.

"Liv, El," Morales grabs their attention and makes a slight condescending noise as if he is the King of TARU, "I got a phone number and an ISP, I can get a name if you want me to…"

"Do it," Elliot barks with a tightly clenched jaw, and he leans over to watch the screen.

"Hey," Olivia pulls him up, one hand on each shoulder, and she says, "Hey, Morales, don't...don't bother." She looks into his eyes.

He blinks rapidly, stunned. "You don't want to know who…"

"We already do," she grabs his chin and turns his head, points one finger at the screen, right to the nine digit number the trace has discovered.

Elliot closes his eyes, slowly turns back to Olivia, and pulls her close. He kisses her forehead and then slaps Morales in the shoulder. "Thanks, man," he says. "I owe ya one."

"Nah, that's what friends are for," he tells them in return. "You want me to wipe the phones for you?"

"We're due for new ones, anyway," Elliot laughs, and then he looks at Olivia. "New numbers, new plan. One. Joint." He loops an arm around her and says, "And as soon as we get them, we are bringing them right back here for Magic Morales to put all kinds of roadblocks and firewalls on them." He takes a deep breath. "And yes, I'm ignoring it, I know."

"Well, I'm not," she states, and she heads for the hallway, for the elevator, to go talk to the man who tried like hell to keep her from making the one move that would make her feel less like shit, make her feel less guilty for enjoying the last five months of her life.

"Where are you going?" He yells after her, and he catches up to her at the elevator. "Honey, we can deal with it tomorrow, after we go to Telecom, stop by the court…"

"I am dealing with this right the fuck now," she interrupts, and she throws herself into him, kisses him hard, deep, unconcerned with anyone in the Tech Unit who may be watching, because fuck she's used to being watched. She pulls away but her fingers are still curled around his collar. "Like I said, I don't like being dicked around." She backs away from him and hits the elevator button. "Especially not by my boss."

A/N: Whhhhhhaaaaaa?