A/N: Learning from the tears and the mistakes, We're not perfect but we've come such a long way (Soldier - James TW)
DISCLAIMER: SVU and all related plot/characters originally belong to Dick Wolf. This story is allllllllllllllll mine. © TStabler
"Hand to God," Elliot holds up his left hand while his right covers his heart. He toys with the pocket button of his pastel yellow button down, and he eyes Ed Tucker like a mountain lion eyeing an injured bird. "Jealous?"
"For so many reasons," Tucker says flatly, still baffled by the unbelievable truth about his sex-life that Elliot has just shared with him. He checks his watch and looks around, both loving and hating the moments he gets alone with his friend before he turns into a work rival. He sighs and yanks on the cuffs of his blue suit jacket. "You hear from…"
"No," Elliot interrupts, looking away from Tucker and down at a pile of half-done paperwork on his desk. "He, uh, he wouldn't call me. We aren't exactly on the best terms, right now."
Tucker narrows his eyes. "He's like your father," he crosses his arms and shakes his head. "It's gotten the two of you in some deep shit, might I add it's shit that I had to shovel through. What the hell hap…" he pauses. "Anything to do with Liv?" He smirks because of course the only person who could ever drive a wedge between Cragen and Elliot is Olivia.
Elliot nods, scraping his teeth over his lip. "Ever since he found out we were, uh, together…" he shrugs and shoots his eyes toward the empty office in the corner. "I mean, yeah, it happened fast in his eyes, but to us it took too fucking long to get where we are." His brows sag, his lips turn down. "How can he be mad at us for this? He has to know that we've been fighting this for years, and now that we're not...we've never been happier, or stronger! Nothing's changed as far as the job goes, we work the same way we always have. I know he's worried about what might happen if…" he smiles, a hazy glaze falls over his eyes. "Not if. When. When she…"
"Oh, I know that look," Tucker chuckles. It's the same look in his eyes he'd seen when every one of his kids was conceived, with a bit more pride and a bit less terror. He presses two fingers of his left hand into the palm of his right and shifts his weight. "I can tell ya, man, when you knock her up, I am staying far, the fuck, away from this place. Her? Raging hormones? Stuck behind a desk?" He shudders and slaps his palms down onto his knees. "No thank you."
Elliot laughs, but he drops his head into one hand as it leans on his desk. "The way she's gonna glow, how much more affectionate and protective she's gonna be, the light in her eyes when…"
"Man, you're really fucking in love with her, aren't you?" Tucker spits out, having never heard Elliot drone on this way before, and knowing what it must mean. They've been friends long enough for him to have seen it all, but he's never seen this.
"God, yes," Elliot whispers, and he clears his throat and straightens himself out. Thinking about her makes his body rigid and his heart pound, two things he can't deal with while he's at work without her. He licks his lips and pulls on his honeysuckle colored tie. "Maybe we should get…"
"Back to why I'm here?" Tucker finishes, and he pulls on the bottom of his suit jacket. He rolls some kinks out of his neck and looks over his shoulder again. "Where's Benson, anyhow?" He finally asks the question that's been plaguing him since he got here.
"Following up with Warner. She went solo because I promised her I'd stay away from the lab," he eyes Tucker, who knows all about Barton and her annoying crush. "Besides I, uh, thought it would be best if we handled this without her." His left eye arcs and he tilts his head, and when Tucker nods he knows his unspoken words are clearly understood.
"You said you found this thing where?" Tucker lifts a small, black box off of Elliot's desk and into his hand, turning it around to examine it. "Is it off?"
"Now? Yeah," Elliot says with a single nod. "But it wasn't this morning. Or last night. Who the hell knows what he heard, if he listened to me and Liv…"
"Trying to make that baby you want so desperately?" Tucker smirks and drops the wire-filled box back down to Elliot's desk. "I'm sure he would respect you guys enough to, uh, change the channel, so to speak." He crosses his arms again and swallows, his throat suddenly tight. He knows this means more paperwork, an internal investigation he isn't sure he wants to run, and potentially upsetting a friend he's had for years and one he hasn't made yet. He grins at the thought; he really would like to get on Benson's good side, especially now that she's married to the man he considers family. At least, when the badge comes off. "So, um, where was it?"
"On the ledge of our bedroom window. The wire was shoved under the frame, and since it was behind the curtains, I didn't notice it until…" he smiles again, leans back in his chair, and kicks one leg up onto the other. "Liv thought she saw a spider, and she…"
"She's scared of spiders?" Tucker looks flummoxed. He could have sworn she was fearless. "Benson?"
"Hell, no," Elliot laughs, gripping his biceps a bit tighter. "Of course not! She just got out of the shower, she didn't want to go near the window in nothing but a towel. We don't know our new neighbors, yet, and that, uh, that's not the kind of first impression we wanna make." He laughs again and says, "I moved the curtain, and it...well, it wasn't a spider. She saw the end of the pin mic."
"You're sure it was planted by Cragen?" Tucker bites the inside of his cheek. If Cragen bugged their house, he had to have a damn good reason, and maybe this is all just a misunderstanding. "Why would he do that?"
Elliot shakes his head again and drags his hands down his face. "He bugged our phones before." He holds up a hand knowingly, and squints a bit. "Yeah, yeah, it was Porter, at first, but Cragen was listening to everything, too. Even after we nailed Porter, he was still…" he stops speaking and shakes his head, dismissing it disdainfully. "He's the only one with a reason, I just...I have no idea what that reason is."
"I think it's about time I tell you, then," Cragen says, standing in the archway. He steps into the squadroom, eyeing Tucker and then Elliot, knowing they're both following his movements with their inquisitive stares. "My office? Both of you?" He sweeps out an arm, nods once, and leads them into his office, which still hasn't lost the odor of smoke and paint. It's a constant reminder of how close he'd come to losing Elliot and Olivia. To losing his family.
He moves behind his desk, throws his keys down, and plops into his large, leather chair. He throws a palm out telling Ed and Elliot to sit down, and he hits his chin forward silently asking one of them to close the door.
After kicking the door shut, Elliot sits, and he leans forward. "You're not denying it?" His anger takes over, his fear for his family's safety. "You bugged our house? How the hell did you even get the window open? We have a security system that would…"
"Yeah, Morales installed it, so I asked him to do me a favor," Cragen admits freely, without any trace of wavering emotion. "You asked me why? I'm gonna tell you why." He looks at Elliot, points one finger at him, and says, "Two reasons. One, I don't trust you. This...thing between you and Olivia." He drops his finger and slaps his palm flat out on his desk. "You can't expect me to believe that you can walk away from a twelve year marriage, a woman you've been with since you were seventeen, and dive into something you know she can't fucking handle! This is gonna blow up in your…"
"Try again," Elliot says coolly, his voice mellow despite the building rage. He knows Tucker is staring at him, waiting for the explosion that surprisingly isn't coming. "Kathy walked away before I did, and we both knew it was over. I didn't dive into something Liv can't handle, we both treaded a lot of fucking deep water to get where we are! I love her...have loved her...for so long, we love each other so much more and so differently than it ever was with anyone else. You know that, and that's what this is about."
Cragen flinches, but he puts up a stiff facade. "She doesn't do commitment, you're on the rebound…"
"We have been fully fucking committed to each other for a year, Cap. Almost a year. Longer than that if you count...before…" he scratches the back of his neck. "And I'm not rebounding. Shit, getting the hell away from Kathy was like shooting a full court, three-pointer! I didn't even hit the rim!" He lowers his gaze and his voice. "Captain Cragen, I was planning on leaving Kathy...before I found out she slept with an entire city block, okay? For Liv. I've been in love with Olivia…"
Cragen relents, holding up a hand. "Yeah, I...I know," he whispers. He blinks once. "My second reason…" he inhales and he drums his fingers along the surface of his desk. He shoots a hard look toward Tucker, knowing what he's about to say will open a new can of worms and he isn't ready to handle the fallout. "There are people who need to know what happened in Syracuse. People who've been demanding to be read in on it, get the unredacted files, and…"
"People," Elliot scoffs. He smooths his hands over his shirt as he leans back again. "You mean you? You can't handle that we did something without you, can you? That we took orders from…"
"No! I can't handle that the two of you are in danger and I can't help because I don't know the details of who the fuck is after you!" Cragen yells, then. He throws his hands up in the air and shouts, "Let's not get into the fact that you went upstate happily married and came back too wrapped up in your partner to care that your wife was cheating on you!"
"Happily…" Elliot fumes, unable to process what Cragen is saying. "If we were happy, she wouldn't have cheated on me, and I wouldn't have fallen…" he rubs his forehead. "So you bugged our house because you think, what, we lay in bed and just rehash old cases? You honestly thought we'd still be talking about…"
"The case that changed your lives," Cragen says with a firm nod. "I thought it would come up a couple times, yes." He closes his eyes and his entire body seems to concede. "I know...you were right, last night. I saw this happening, and I thought that if I at least kept you both on a tight enough leash, I could keep you from doing something that could jeopardize your careers. When you took off...something happened in those two weeks, you came back...closer. More in love than two people who are just partners should be."
Elliot smirks, nods. "Yeah, that's why we got married." He exhales and gives a complacently arrogant shrug. "We were never just partners. Those two weeks alone...made us realize what we really had, what we were avoiding...and what we were missing." He drops his feet to the floor and says. "I'm not gonna let anything happen to her."
Cragen cringes and says, "I know that. The two of you always do a damn good job of protecting each other. That's...what's what started this. That's why I went this far with this entire situation." He looks at Tucker, then at Elliot. "Upstate. Calderone...I need to know who took the shot. Which one of you, and why. I got people breathing down my neck about this, higher ups that need proof you did everything by the book, and the fact that no one fucking knows...the way he was killed, according to the few files we do have, it wasn't purely self defense. The fact that neither of you are talking...it makes you both look guilty."
Elliot snaps his head toward Tucker, his eyes wide, and he looks back at Cragen. "Wait, wait," he laughs almost bitterly. "You've been eavesdropping and spying on us...because you think we're covering up a murder?" He blinks and licks his lips. "First you think I have ulterior motives for being with Olivia, then you think I...how the fuck could you think I would ever hurt her?" His eyes fall and he seems to sadden. "And now you think we killed the son of a bitch in cold blood and are lying for each other?"
Cragen's silence is all the answer he gives.
Elliot scrapes his teeth over his lips and stands, and he looks down at Cragen. "One, I'm never gonna hurt her. You know that. Two, I'm not gonna tell you anything about that case, I can't. Except this," he blinks. "Calderone...figured us out. I don't know how, but he did. He cornered us, he was gonna kill her, make me watch. Then he was gonna shoot me. We did what we had to do to keep each other safe, alive, and when it came down to it...we both shot him."
Tucker tries to stop him before he breaks protocol and his NDA. "Elliot, you don't have to say…"
Elliot holds up a hand. "I can say this, Eddie," he affirms. Then he looks back toward Cragen. "I couldn't tell you if it was her bullet or mine, we don't even really know, but the reason it looks like overkill? The reason your little henchmen think it wasn't purely self defense...is because we both shot him right between the eyes. Man, if we didn't, he would have shot one of us, and we weren't going to let that happen." He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the black box, and he slams it down on the captain's desk. "I thought...for a long time, you were the only person I trusted. Then Liv came along and I had two people I could count on." He smirks but it's not happy. It's a realization. "Now, I guess I'm back to one. I know we have to work together, but after hours...stay the hell away from us."
Cragen watches Elliot leave, flinches as the door slams, and he looks at Tucker with a hint of regret in his eyes. There's still so much he has to tell Elliot, and now he might not get the chance.
A/N: After that crazy conversation at work, a hot encounter, and a moment with the kids.
