AN: I don't know why I feel continually compelled to mess with these two .. but I do and I'm sorry. I hope this helps as a nice distraction during this trying time in the world. Enjoy, stay safe and thanks for the words. X
She needs a shower, badly.
Her hair is a mess, she hasn't worn make up in days, she still has sleep in her eyes but there is a federal agent in her living room so her unkempt appearance would have to do. She takes a seat in front of Greene and listens as Elliot makes a god awful noise dragging a kitchen table chair across the floorboards before setting himself down to her left.
She leans down on her forearms, black leggings and a loose sweater now hiding the bikini beneath but she still feels incredibly exposed.
"So Olivia," Agent Greene begins and she catches the hint of discomfort beneath his cool exterior.
'Olivia.'
Over a decade on the force and her title has incidentally been stripped because of one psychotic serial killer that had it out for her.
It bothers her a lot more than she lets on.
"As Detective Stabler informed you, someone was asking for you in town yesterday at approximately 12noon at Lindy's Diner."
Midday.
24 hours ago.
She takes the information in, bracing herself for something else – something more. She had heard hushed tones exchanged between them while she was changing so she can only assume the bulk of information was yet to come.
"We're currently holding that man in town," Greene continues, caution imbedded in his tone. "You were obviously in no state to talk yesterday so that's why we've waited until today, but we have good reason to believe that he's a threat."
She scrubs her hands over her face before she clasps them together, trying to keep up with the information he is delivering but her mind is still stuck on midday. That was the same time she'd been down at the river, the same time as her panic attack.
She wonders if on some level she had felt this coming.
As the Agent continues to prattle off background information she is already privy too she becomes acutely aware of Elliot's proximity.
He is sitting close to her, too close - close enough that she wants to tell him to sit back and give her some room because his stare was burning her peripherals. In fact, she wants to tell him to leave the room altogether because there is still heightened tension from their earlier interaction that has in no way been dispelled.
Civilian versus Detective.
"The reason we have genuine concerns is because the man in question asked the owner of the diner for Olivia to start with.. then he changed it to Laura."
Her ears prick up at that last part, confusion intermingling in her chest, her eyes widening, no wonder Elliot didn't say shit to her yesterday, he knows she wouldn't have taken this lightly after her anxiety riddled episode but how he managed to keep that piece of information hidden she doesn't know.
She chances a glance over at him, disbelief lining her features but he is just staring at her with a neutral expression, chewing on the inside of his cheek as if he were watching a baseball game, waiting for the highlights to come on.
She shakes her head at him, completely taken aback at his indifference.
"Another concerning factor," Greene begins, "is that he had a second ID on him with a different name."
She is still looking at Elliot when the second piece of information lands and her stomach starts to spiral. She presses her eyes closed, a familiar niggle beginning to culminate in her chest but she does her best to push that feeling back down, because she can't go back down that rabbit hole.
She wonders if that is why Elliot is sitting so close to her right now. Does he expect her to relapse? To spiral? To fall on the floor in a huddled mess? Is he only sitting this close to her so he can catch her when she falls?
She wants to move past the details now – she just wants to get to the outcome.
Is she going to be re-identified?
Relocated?
A new state?
A new house?
Will she have to start all over again?
How many more months?
With or without Elliot?
"His drivers licence states his name as Andrew James Riley." Greene reads off his notepad. "The second ID is an international passport with the name Andrew Samuel Mathers." Greene looks up with a question in his eyes. "Either of those names ring a bell?"
She shakes her head.
"You sure?" Greene's eyes drop to the pad once more. "Brown hair, green eyes, olive skin, late 40's, foreign accent, 6'1." Greene prattles off the descriptive attributes all the while she can feel Elliot's stare on her like a hawk, watching every flicker of response to the information she is being delivered.
"Yes," her voice cracks.
"Yes what?" Greene gives her a look.
"Yes I'm sure," she confirms. "None of this rings a bell."
Greene and Elliot exchange a look and when the silence starts to extend it hits her, that perhaps she was the one under interrogation.
She raises her eyebrows at Greene, giving him a look. "Should it?" She parts her hand in question. "Am I supposed to know this person?"
"Well.." Greene clears his throat. "He says he knows you."
"Okay.."
"Quite intimately in fact." Greene confirms.
She leans further forward, giving him a look like she's going to need a little help.
A few beats pass before the Agent starts to sift through his bag and Olivia watches as he pulls an iPad out. He taps the screen to life, bringing up a row of photos before he selects one.
"This is the man," Greene confirms. "So I guess..you tell us?"
He hands it to her from across the coffee table and she leans across to take it, confusion intermingling as to why they had just drip fed his description when they could have easily led with his photo. She looks down at it, the sudden realisation hitting her like a tonne of bricks, a blinding wave moving through her chest as she takes in the guy's familiar face. She sits back on the couch, a mixture of concern, disbelief and embarrassment starting to intermingle.
She feels like she just got the wind knocked out of her.
Oh fuck.
It can't be.
It just can't.
She drops the iPad down on the coffee table with a clatter and stands up quickly. She hopes being upright will help shift the culmination of energy that had just flooded through her body but she can feel the heat from their stares as she nervously begins to pace behind the couch.
She feels lightheaded, her mind swarming in disbelief - she needs water.
"I take it you know this man?" Agent Greene states the obvious.
She stops to clutch the back of the sofa, trying to figure out how and why this is happening and how best to respond to this. She can still feel the sting of Elliot's eye contact on her every move and it's boring holes into her at this point.
She wills herself to take a breath and just remain calm, she can handle this, she can. She just really, really wishes he didn't have to be present for this.
"Elliot." She chances a glance at him. "Can you give us a minute please?"
His eyes flicker beneath her stare and she watches the muscle of his jaw jump the way it does when he's just been challenged. She knows the look he is giving her now is the one usually reserved for perps, feds, the IAB, occasionally Cragen and in some very rare cases – her.
"It's Detective.." he bites back. "And no."
She sees the small fire in his eyes, and she wants to retaliate - she does, but even she knows her hands are tied. Elliot is the detective assigned to her case, their personal and professional history is irrelevant right now and she had just tried to undermine him in front of a federal agent.
"Olivia," Agent Greene interjects gently, trying to diffuse the tension between them and draw her attention back to the topic at hand. "Detective Stabler needs to be here for this, we all need to be privy to what's at stake for your own safety so we can ascertain the risks. So if you can please just tell us how you know this man."
She exhales heavily through her nose, a wave of surrender moving through her, there was literally no way out of this fire except to walk blindly through it.
"Australian," she whispers. "Right?"
Greene nods and she sees Elliot do a double take.
She chances one more glance at Elliot before she rounds the couch from the other side. He has left barely any space between him and the couch so she has no choice but to knock his knees lightly as she passes. She drops back down onto the sofa, her hands returning to a clasped, prayer like position as if she could somehow pray her way out of this situation.
"He said his name was Drew.. not Andrew," she explains.
An-drew.
Greene sits a little forward as if they were finally getting somewhere.
"Okay good and can you confirm the nature of your relationship?"
"We don't have one." She cuts him off before anyone in the room can make that assumption.
"Okay.. so what would you call it?" Greene parts his hands in question. "An acquaintance? A person you met in town?"
She runs her hands up and down her thighs, trying to rid the clamminess that's accumulating beneath her palms.
"I guess you could say that," she sighs.
She knows she is being evasive as hell but she is also hell bent on not divulging unnecessarily information. Her eyes are desperate to move back to Elliot's to gauge his current reaction to all of this but she figures it is best from that point forward to pretend he isn't in the room for this.
She keeps her stare trained on solely Greene. "I met him during my first week in town," she continues. "And without getting into specifics, I can assure you he's not a threat."
"Olivia." Greene clears his throat. "We will need specifics, he was carrying a second ID, he asked for both of your names - if he's not a threat you're going to need to fill in those blanks for us because from where we're sitting he's our primary point of interest."
Her fingers flex at the newfound seriousness in Greene's tone and the emphasis on 'us' as if he and Elliot had both been sitting around shooting the breeze, discussing this situation at length.
She know she's not going to get away with evasiveness anymore.
"The two ID's.." she sucks in a breath, trying her best to craft her words as strategically as possible. "He mentioned something about a job in New Jersey, electrical or carpentry work.. that's where he said he was headed after. I don't think he had the proper visa paperwork so I'd hazard a guess that the second ID had something to do with that."
"You'd hazard a guess…" Greene repeats, his tone making it abundantly clear that this wasn't a time for assumptions or guesses. "And the reason that he would know both your names?"
Greene's eye contact doesn't waiver and her eye line drops down to her lap for a few short moments before they lift back up to his. "Ah, that was an error on my part."
The room stills and she shakes her head at the mere stupidity of it all.
"It was my first week, I led with Laura and it was later that I let it slip.. it was.." she sighs, not finishing the sentence entirely but the word is in the room.
Stupid.
A wave of silence moves through all three of them, she can feel the tension filtering out until it pads all four corners of the room.
"And where did you meet this man?" Greene continues.
"At the bar in town - 'Sam's Bar' I think it's called?" She presses her lips into a thin line but she can feel it, as much as she is doing a great job trying to block Elliot out entirely, the heat of his stare was palpable.
She waits uncomfortably for the next inevitable question.
"And he approached you?" Greene asks.
Silence.
She cannot believe these questions – she understands why they are being asked and that in the Agent's eyes, they're mandatory but she also knows without a shadow of a doubt that he is in no way connected to Moore.
She worries her lower lip, trying to figure out how best she can dodge this question because she refuses to parade details of her personal life in front of Elliot for zero reason.
Greene clasps his hands together, mirroring Olivia's stance.
"Listen," he begins, clearly gauging the discomfort in Olivia's eyes. "We just want to make sure we get both your stories straight, we have his version of events, we just want to know that it correlates with yours, then we can feel more comfortable releasing him - but until then we can't just let him walk."
His version of events.
Her heart begins to thud.
He already knows.
He knows everything.
And yet he is going to make her say it - right in front of Elliot, he's going to drag each and every detail out of her piece by piece.
"I approached him," she says through gritted teeth.
There is a pause in the air as a wave of tension does rounds across the room.
"Okay," Greene warms to her compliance. "And why did you feel compelled to approach Mr Mathers?"
She presses her eyes closed, trying not to sigh. "I heard his accent from across the bar," she recalls. "He seemed interesting, he didn't fit the profile of the typical locals.. I guess you could say I was a little starved for company out here."
Elliot's chair moves suddenly, the obnoxious squeak jarring her, reminding her that he was in fact still very present for this.
"And was that when he divulged his plan to work here illegally?" Greene ignores the disturbance.
She worries her lower lip once more before she releases it. "It was the next day."
A second wave of tension does rounds across the room.
"So you made plans to meet up the next day?" Greene questions neutrally.
She blinks back at the Agent's perceptive expression, she knows he isn't stupid, both of them clearly know the full story, and whatever Greene was pretending to read on that paper each time he looked down was pure bullshit.
She swallows - denial won't help, deception won't either, and her strategic choice of words now seemed pretty pointless.
"He told me the next morning.. over breakfast."
A few beats pass.
"So you spent the night together?" Greene asks the obvious.
"Yes."
Greene looks around the small cabin, his eyes subtly catching Elliot's on their pursuit.
"Here?" He motions to the living room. "He stayed here?"
"No," Olivia corrects. "I stayed with him, in town."
"In his motel room?" Greene questions.
"Yes." She responds as neutrally as possible, her heartbeat a rapid thud in her chest.
"The Lakeview Motel on Main Street?"
"Yes."
She doesn't dare look at Elliot in that moment, she expects another insufferable chair squeak to echo through the cabin but there is only stillness and silence.
Greene's eyes move back to hers. "So you never brought him back here?" His fingers tap the couch beneath him. "He never knew were you lived? It was never mentioned?"
"No one knows where I live Agent Greene," she leans forward to make that clear. "That's the whole point of being out here right?"
A humourless laugh fills the room and her face whips over to Elliot, her eyebrows lifting in shock when they lock with his.
"First intelligent thing I've heard all morning," he mutters to no one in particular.
Did he really just say that?
He has to be fucking kidding..
In front of a federal agent.
She is speechless.
A large part of her wants to stand up, push the table forward and storm the hell out of there but she is frozen in place. She knows it will do no good – she is bound to this interview until it's over and she will not give him the satisfaction of reacting to his insult. She moves her gaze intentionally back to Greene's, disbelief still churning in her gut as she refuses to let Elliot's jarring comment land.
"Just a couple more questions," Greene he assures her with a professional pokerface, gauging that she is close to the end of her tether. "Can you please clarify that it was just the one night you spent with him?"
The question had come out methodical without tone or judgement but she could feel the humiliation slamming into her like a wall.
Just the one night?
One night.
One night stand..
"Yes," she says through gritted teeth. "He was leaving for Jersey the next morning," she explains, offering reasoning for their limited interaction, knowing full well that if she had the chance she probably wouldn't have sought out second. "He mentioned he'd be coming back through a few months later, he said he'd look me up when he did. It was a passing comment, I didn't give him my number or a way of contacting me, so I can only assume that's why he was seeking me out."
"For round two?"
That came from Elliot and her face shoots across to his.
Her cheeks flame with heat, her heart thumping heavily in her chest as she blinks back at him in shock. She cannot believe it – again. She glares at him and it's a physical pull, she literally has to restrain herself from launching at him in that moment.
Did he really just say that to her?
In front of an Agent?
She feels like she has just been backhanded.
"Olivia." Greene interjects quickly, realising he has minutes – seconds more likely, to grasp the reigns of this interview before Olivia pulls the pin.
"I just have one more question, then I'll let you both-"
But it's Elliot that stands up unexpectedly, the chair squeaking loudly against the floorboards indicating that he was in fact the one that was done.
She watches dumbfounded as he stalks towards the open veranda doors, his boots clanking against wood before he disappears down the front steps. She is still watching his form disappear when Greene moves across the couch, his face filling her eye line directly.
"Detective," Greene begins with sympathy in his voice, trying to bring her back to the present moment. "I just need to ask one more thing, then I can let you rest."
Her eyes move back to his.
Detective.
She knows her embarrassment is evident in her cheeks and the fury over Elliot's behaviour is plastered right across her face - yet somehow she is still seated, somehow she still hasn't left, despite the fact that every fibre in her body screaming at her to do so.
"I just need to know if lines were blurred during your interactions with Mr Mathers," Greene questions. "Did you feel unsafe or threatened in any way? Because at this point we aren't ruling anyone out as a suspect and given the nature of Moore's intent I think it's valid we take this seriously. Mather's could have easily been prepping you, gaining your trust, intent on coming back now to carry out Moore's detailed instructions."
She shakes her head, still unable to fathom what had just happened with Elliot let alone Greene's insinuation, she scrubs a hand down her face, trying desperately to reign in her impending anger. She understands the question Greene is asking – she does, this is literally the kind of protocol she used to carry out on a daily basis with victims but she knows without a shadow of a doubt there was no risk with this guy – no red flags.
"He's Australian," she begins, her voice cracking before her heavy eyes move back to his. "As far as I know Moore's connections don't span other continents, and regardless as you know I've had over a decade of experience in sex crimes, I can spot the signs and I can tell you, he didn't display a single one of them."
"Okay good, so he wasn't aggressive or dominant with you… sexually."
She runs a hand through her hair, she wants to laugh at the directness of that question.
"The sex was consensual." She confirms flatly.
"Right, but was it dominant?" Greene prods.
Jesus he's starting to sound like Elliot. She wonders in that moment if they'd discussed these questions prior. Had Elliot known all along they would be asked? Had he really not given her the heads up?
Her eyes return to Greene's, she literally feels like she is getting vicariously grilled by her partner and she shakes her head, never in all her years on the job had she ever felt so put on display and pulled apart, even when Tucker had gone at her round after round.
"We were on the same page Agent Greene," she presses.
"And what page was that?"
"The consensual kind." She snaps.
She stands up then, wobbling a little on her feet, still feeling the residual effects of the drugs from last night as she steadiest herself.
"He's not a threat," she whispers down at the agent well and truly deflated. "Now are we done here?"
Greene nods.
"Good," she responds. "You can let yourself out."
She needs a shower.
TBC
