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
"Are you gonna call your…" he stops, seeing the glare she's giving him. He closes his mouth and drags a hand down his face. "You should call her, baby," he says softly, and he reaches out and brushes her hair behind her ear. "We got time, this takes a while, you know that."
She bites her lip as she looks around the hospital's hallway, the sterility of it affects her more now than it ever has and she struggles to pinpoint why. She spins her phone around in her hand as she eyes the few people at the nurse's station, one on the phone gesturing wildly to the man next to her for a pen, and she thinks about how incredibly similar her job is to theirs. She exhales and lets her eyes drift down the hall, the knowledge that behind the large wooden doors a doctor is performing an intensely invasive examination on a fifteen year old girl makes her stomach churn. She sighs and shakes her head as she resignedly dials her mother's number and raises the phone to her ear.
He bites his lip as he watches her face contort, the flashes of worry, fear, confusion, hope cross her features and he moves closer and kisses her forehead.
She smiles but then stiffens. "Mom? My boss said you…" she whips her eyes up to meet Elliot's, tears suddenly filling them. "Yeah, we...we did. He, uh, what?" She sniffles and softly and silently kisses his chin. "No, he didn't tell me. When did...this morning?"
He smiles and kisses her lips tenderly. He knows that his secret is out and he knows he did a damn good thing because she's looking at him with more love in her eyes than he's ever seen. "What?" he whispers, smirking.
"No, we are, we will, Mom," she says and she wipes her eyes. "Oh...yeah," her voice is a whisper. Her eyes close and her smile shifts into one that she's sure she's never formed before as she says, "Of course, you can, Mom. Yeah, I love you, too." She sniffles and shakes her head as she hung up, then lifts her gaze to Elliot again. "You called my mother this morning?"
He nods and kisses her again. "I promised her I'd tell her when we...I mean, she knew this was happening and wanted me to let her know when it did. She told me she was happy and proud that her little girl was marrying a Marine." He brushes her hair out of her eyes and winks at her.
Olivia nods with her lip caught between her teeth. "She is, um, she said...when we have the actual wedding...she wants to help me pick out my dress." She leans closer to him, she runs her fingers down his striped tie and crisp shirt, and she says, "You...because of you...she…" she shakes her head, too choked up to speak, and she smiles as she kisses him. "Thank you."
"I love you," he tells her, and he nuzzles her for a moment. He looks up, then, and slaps her in the arm. "Back to work," he spits, seeing the doctor heading toward them with a box filled with sealed white paper and plastic bags. He stands and quickly tugs on the bottom of his suit jacket, smiling professionally as he took the box. "Thanks, Doctor Williams." He nodded at the woman and nudged Olivia. "Let's get this stuff back to the lab."
"Eager to see Barton?" Olivia smirks at him almost seductively as they start to move down the hallway toward the doors.
"Yeah, almost as eager to see her as I am to see my proctologist," he says with a narrow-eyed grin. He lets his eyes travel the length of her body and he leans into her, licks his lips, and in a low voice he says, "I want to get this shit done, go home, and make love to my wife...over and over...until neither of us can fucking move."
Olivia clears her throat and tries to stifle a moan, but it ekes out between the smallest part in her flatly smirking lips. She nods as she turns her head and leads him out through the glass doors. She tugs lightly on her shirt and shakes her head as she rolls her eyes at herself. She hears the beep of the car alarm and opens the driver's side door, and then shoots him a playful grin. "I think your wife is gonna hold you to that." She winks at him and gets in, eagerly starting the car.
From the passenger side, he laughs, and he scratches a patch of stubble under his chin. "Don't get used to this," he says as he reaches over and brushes her hair back. "Tomorrow, I'm back behind the wheel." He laughs again as his body jerks in reaction to the car peeling out of the spot.
She has a mildly amused expression on her face, somewhere between flirtatious and challenging, and she mumbles, "We'll see about that," as she turns the wheel and steps on the gas.
His chuckle hits her ears and it's almost like the first time she'd heard him laugh, the sound strikes her to the core and fills her with a warmth and pure happiness that takes her breath away. Her smile fades with the gravity of how much she loves him, the reality of what they've done sinks in, her eyes dart momentarily to her rings before jerking back to the windshield and the road.
"What?" His question is flat, as if he expected this eventually. "You're not...I mean, it's too late for you to get cold feet, here." He offers a sideways smile and leans into her a bit, but she doesn't lighten her countenance at all. "Liv?"
"No, I'm not, I'm just…" she exhales as she turns the wheel again, an angry driver honks their horn at her failure to use her blinker. "I'm in a place I honestly never thought I'd be," she tells him, and she has mental flashes of bad dates and wine-induced conversations with friends about her resignation to a single life. "I gave up on this, a long time ago. Especially...having this with you." She presses her foot to the brake, slowing the car and finally, she shifts it into park in a spot closer to the back of the building than usual, near the entrance to the morgue and the lab.
He tilts his head and watches her turn the key, cutting the engine. "What are you talking about?"
She sighs again and drops her hands into her lap, turning her head to look at him. "This." She holds up her left hand, shows him the back of it and wiggles her fingers, and shrugs. "I'd convinced myself that I would be a perpetual bachelorette. I had a horrible habit of running when things got serious because I know the realities of this job, and I never wanted to leave anyone...for them to get that phone call at two in the morning...the one that says I'm not coming home." She sniffles as her mouth curls into a sardonic grin. "Finding someone who could handle all of the darkness that comes along with this gig, who can put up with my hours and the fact that...all of those hours are spent with you…" she raises one shoulder to her ear. "I gave up."
He moves his hands fast, both palms hit her face. He brushes his thumbs along the skin under her eyes and he smiles brightly at her. "You only gave people half a chance, you never let anyone else prove they could handle you and this job, because you...you were already sure you found the guy you wanted forever with, and you have him now." He leans over the console. "You know I did the same fucking thing. Even if she hadn't done what she did, I was leaving her...because she was never the one, she was never my happily-ever-after. Baby, everything I really fucking wanted and needed...I found with you." He kisses her lips softly, swipes his palms down her body and unhooks her seatbelt, and the sound of a car starting somewhere in the lot keeps him from making another move that would get them into trouble.
She feels him pull away and she breathes, "I love you." She grins when he says it back to her, and in an instant they're out of the car, carrying the sealed bags and boxes toward the heavy metal door to their left. Once inside, both of them immediately stiffen and Elliot raises the hand that isn't gripping the box of evidence and cups it over his mouth. "Never gonna get used to the smell in here," he complains, and he's almost up to the door to the lab, when someone stops him.
One manicured hand lands on his arm, another tugs at his jacket, and he pulls away from the eager grab and shoots his eyes toward the person trying like hell to practically tear his shirt off. "What the hell…" he rolls his eyes and swats at the woman. "Barton get the hell away from me!"
Barton giggles and shrugs. "I was just straightening out your collar. You got anything for me?" She bats her eyes and licks her lips.
"I do," Olivia grumbles, crossing her arms. "My foot up your ass."
Elliot snickers, hearing her, and he runs his left hand down her arm. "Relax, you won, no contest." He smirks and then turns back to Barton. "We're just here to drop this stuff off with O'Halloran and his band of merry lab rats." He drops his chin a bit to indicate the box in his hands. "Girl's alive so, thankfully, we don't have to deal with you."
Barton feigns offense and slaps both hands over his heart. "Your words wound me, Elliot!" She steps closer to him then. "I was a champion gymnast in high school. A cheerleader in college. I got moves that would make…"
"My wife makes my head spin, every night," he interrupts to stop her come-on, and he feels his lips curl as Olivia's flexibility takes over his thoughts. "She's pretty fucking limber, all that kickboxing and yoga…" he clears his throat and doesn't even say goodbye before giving Olivia a shove with his elbow and veering left through the lab doors. He whispers to her, "You were baring your fangs like a guard dog back there."
"She was trespassing," she retorts. She waves at the lab tech when she catches his eye and straightens up. She shoves her hands in her pockets and says, "This is a pretty time sensitive case, Ry. We need you to run all of this as soon as possible."
"Time sensitive?" O'Halloran takes the box and asks, "How?" He moves, setting the box on a metal table, and he starts to pull out the bags and Ziplocs.
Elliot answers him with a heavy sigh, and then he says, "Our vic is pointing the finger at a politician, he's heading out of town for a campaign tour, we've got forty-eight hours before he gets on a plane and becomes untouchable for a month."
O'Halloran grimaces but nods. "I'm on it," he starts signing logs and unsealing bags, but then he looks up. "Does Cragen know this case is high-profile?"
Olivia lets out a small scoff and raises one eyebrow. "We're pretty damn sure he already knows." She nods her thanks and turns on her heels, knowing Elliot is right behind her. She fishes the car keys out of her pocket and slips her ringed finger through the metal ring, twirls them around a few times, and looks over her shoulder. "What?" She throws the keys to him because she knows he's looking at her with inquiring eyes but doesn't want to ask the question.
"You think he knew when he handed us this case," he states as he shoves the keys into his pocket, and it's not a question at all, but an observation. "Babe?" he prods when he doesn't get an answer.
She leads him up the stairs, heading for their unit, and she says, "What better way to keep us from…" she thinks, she grins at him. "Celebrating."
"Oh, he is not keeping us from…" he laughs as he runs up the few steps between them, grabs her, spins her around, and kisses her. "No, no, we have plans. So we may have to do some damage control and field a few calls, but we can't really do anything else until the lab runs…"
"He's gonna send us to talk to the guy, all of his assistants, running mates, opponents…." she drags a hand through her hair. "He handed us a case that's gonna keep us busy for…"
Elliot cuts her off, kissing her again. It's slow and deep and a promise hangs on his tongue as it swipes and swirls against hers. "Politics," he pants, he kisses her again. "We need to make phone calls before barging in on politicians." He kisses her once more and moans her name softly. "Besides, we still have to take lunch. A long, long lunch." He pulls away from her and takes her hand, leads her up the stairs, and the promise that cling to their kiss finds life on his voice. He looks over his shoulder as they approach the landing. "Nothing...no one...is ever gonna make me think we made a mistake. I want to start...planning."
"A wedding?" Her right brow arcs and her head tilts.
He presses his lips together and whispers, so softly he almost doesn't say it at all. "A baby. A family." He shrugs slightly. "A life."
Her eyes narrow at his words and it's her turn to rush into him with a forceful kiss. She leaves him stunned as she pushes through the door, eager to get to work and show Cragen that she's done playing games. He's made them into his soldiers, and now they're at war.
A war they aim to win.
A/N: Is Cragen really trying to keep them from having a personal life? or are they just being paranoid? Either way...they find time. ;)