A/N: The law of inertia - objects at rest will stay at rest until they're forced by momentum. Objects in motion will remain in motion until they're forced to stop.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own the show or the characters, but, oh, how I wish I did.
March 19th, 6:43 AM
"I don't want to rush you, or anything," Olivia blew into her hands hotly and rubbed them together, "But I'd like a COD before I turn into your next cold body." Her legs bounced, her body jostled, and she hoped her sarcasm was enough to shield how upset she was.
The body on the wet grass, the bruised face and broken frame, nothing more than the mangled remains of a girl she once knew. Though it had been years since they'd seen each other face-to-face, there were many late-night phone calls and strings of texts between them, up until six months ago, when her text went unanswered.
Elliot leaned over, lowering his voice, and he made sure he was looking right at her. "You got this? You good?"
"I'm good," she nodded curtly and then tilted her head to look past him toward the medical examiner. "Ballpark figure, huh, Melinda?"
Melinda Warner looked over her shoulder, the annoyance in her eyes clear, and she curled her lips to the left as she said, "I won't know for sure until I do a full exam, but...burst vessels in her eyes, bruising around her mouth and on her neck…"
"Shit," Olivia shut her eyes and exhaled. She tried to keep herself from imagining someone holding her friend down, smothering the life out of her, convincing herself that she had to do her job. We don't get to pick the vic. "We need to make sure this isn't connected to…"
"It's not," Elliot reassured her, convinced there was no way to make a connection between Olivia and their vic other than knowing them personally. "Listen, Doc, call us when you know exactly how this happened. We'll go talk to the family." He hooked his left hand around the inside of Olivia's arm and pulled her away from the muddy sidewalk, yanking her harder when she wouldn't give in to his silent demand. "Come on, Benson," he said gently.
Finally, she caved, letting out a long and heated breath, and she turned slowly, falling in step with him as he guided her toward the waiting car. "Before you even ask," she started, "The last thing I ever said to her was that I couldn't take the advice she gave me, and that was months ago. She never answered me, that's the last I heard from her."
"I wasn't gonna ask," he told her, and as he walked around to the driver's side of the car, he tilted his head. "I don't know why Cragen told me, okay?" He rested his hands on the hood of the car. "Maybe he thought it would be better coming from me, he knows I'd keep you calm, but no one thinks you had anything to do with this." He rubbed the knuckles of his right hand across his forehead. "Just a really shitty coincidence at a really fucked-up time." He narrowed his eyes. "Was she seeing anyone, that you know of?"
"Some guy from work," she said to him, and then she opened the car door. "Let's get this over with." She got into the car and slammed the door.
He sighed and settled himself behind the wheel, buckled his seatbelt, and then started the car, but before he shifted into gear, he looked at her. "What advice did she give you that you couldn't take?"
"Couldn't let that one go, huh?" she smirked and popped open the glove compartment. They'd spent countless hours in this beat-up, red, sedan. Days on end, long nights, things had a way of collecting in the crevices and she shuffled things around to find a pair of her gloves she knew was buried there somewhere. "She knew I, uh," she cleared her throat, moving aside piles of fast-food napkins and packets of sugar. "She knew how I felt about this guy, and she was trying to convince me the best thing to do was tell him. She didn't understand how complicated things were," she paused, fingers clutching the leather of one glove. "How complicated they...they still are." A small victorious grunt escaped as she found her other glove, and she gratefully pulled them onto her still-frozen fingers.
"Slightly less complicated, actually," he joked, and he reached out a hand toward her as he said softly, "Don't move."
Suddenly she froze, every muscle rooted to its current position, and she watched, holding her breath, as his thick fingers crept closer to her neck. Her heart sped up, beat harder, and she mentally chided herself for hoping it would be another mind-melting kiss to make her forget the pure Hell of the morning. She laughed, a little relieved and a little upset, when his fingers closed around a small, pink sprinkle that had been dangling on the lapel of her collar. "Seriously?"
He winked as he examined the small, sweet bit, and when he deemed it safe for human consumption, he popped it into his mouth. He shifted in his seat, pulled the gear shift into drive, and stepped on the gas. As he drove, he tried to focus on work, running over the series of scripted questions he was trained to ask the family. Each numbered inquisition was interrupted by the other rumblings of his plagued mind. How could he afford rent in Manhattan on his salary alone? What would he do if the kids chose Kathy? Would Olivia be willing to be a character witness if the judge needed one? Why wasn't he more upset about his marriage falling apart? Why wasn't Kathy?
That last thought made him gasp out loud, but he covered it with a hard cough. He knew why, deep down, but the thought of it still hurt. The only serious relationship he'd ever had, the only woman who knew him in the most biblical of senses, was quietly walking away without a fight, without objection. Maybe she knew it would do no good, fighting would only prolong the inevitable, but the sting of pure indifference made him wonder if the last two decades meant anything to her at all, or if they'd been merely settling for "safe." He raised a brow, then, his thoughts shifting to the woman at his right. All endings came with new beginnings.
"You okay?" she asked, reading the signs and knowing what the look on his face truly meant.
He nodded. "Fine," he gave her.
She jutted a thumb over her shoulder. "Because you missed the turn." She pressed her lips together, stifling a laugh. The way he cursed under his breath and swerved hard at the next right brought out one of her favorite parts of his personality. "Smooth," she teased. "Sorry, I was just thinking, I guess I lost…"
"Kathy still loves you, you know," Olivia's voice was soft, almost sad. "Don't look at me like that, I know exactly what you were thinking." Her gloved finger pointed at the steering wheel. "You missed the turn because you were staring at your ring." When the word ring left her lips, she cringed. Only a few hours ago, she had kissed him. More eagerly and wantonly than she'd ever kissed anyone before, more passionately than she'd probably kiss anyone else ever again. While he was wearing that ring, the one that marked him as someone else's, declared him off-limits. It made her stomach churn; she burped silently, suddenly regretting eating the donut Elliot had given her.
"You ever meet her parents?" he asked, watching the road more carefully now. He mumbled the street name to himself over and over again.
She let out another hard burst of air. "Uh, no," she said flatly. "I made it a point to never meet my friends' parents, so they'd never expect to meet mine." She combed her fingers through her hair, at once regretting ever cutting it, missing the comfort longer locks had given her. "My mother wasn't really someone I wanted to bring people around, ya know?"
"Yeah," he breathed. His brows rose and fell in a moment of absolute despondence. Again, thoughts veered away from the task at hand, but he turned down the right road this time. Watching the numbers on the townhouses, he wondered how his father and her mother could be so much alike. "I know." He pulled over, bringing the car against the curb. He smiled sadly. He'd always wanted to meet more of Olivia's friends, but not like this. Never like this.
She didn't wait for him, popping her door open and bolting from the car. She almost tripped rushing up the porch steps, ignoring his cries for her to wait for him. She rolled her eyes and rang the bell, hoping whoever was home would be awake and alert. When she heard footsteps just beyond the door, she held her breath.
Saving her from speaking, Elliot leaped in as soon as the man's face appeared in front of him. "NYPD, are you Mister Delacorte?" He felt Olivia's knees bouncing beside him. "Your daughter, Monica…"
"You found her?" The man's eyes widened, he opened the door a bit more, and he stepped out onto the porch. "Where? When? Is she all right?"
The hope in his eyes made Olivia sick to her stomach. If it was going to come from anyone, it needed to be her. "Mister Delacorte, I'm so sorry, we found her…"
"Oh, God,," the man closed his eyes as the color drained from his face. He ran a trembling hand down his fallen face, took a shaky breath, and looked right into Olivia's eyes. "How?"
Olivia shot Elliot a look, then turned back to the distraught father of their victim. "Maybe you should sit down, Sir."
"Oh, uh, right," he tried to smile though there were streams of tears rolling down his cheeks. "Please, come in and...I'll get my wife." He stepped aside and let the two detectives into the home.
Olivia bit her lip as she watched him shut the door and walk toward the kitchen. "I hate this," she muttered. "Worst part of the job." She looked around, spying photographs on the walls and shelves, some made her smile, her friend's face and bright smile in each one. "Oh," she took a step forward, reaching out for a frame on the end table. "I remember this," she said, starting to sniffle, "Like it was yesterday."
Elliot got a glimpse of the photo, smiling in spite of the situation. "Look at you," he said proudly, staring down at a younger version of his partner. "Honors?" he watched her nod. "That's my girl."
"Summa Cum Laude," she declared, setting the picture of her and her friend on their college graduation day. "First in the class. Almost wasn't, though. Monica dragged me into the dean's office and gave him hell because she had found out somehow the kid in front of me cheated on his finals, and demanded he look into it before she went to Channel Four." She smiled again, her eyes burned. "He investigated, and the morning of our convocation, he told me I'd be carrying the flag. It never mattered to me, but she...fought for me."
"Now we're gonna fight for her." He whispered, brushing his knuckles under her eyes. "You are so…" he stopped and then his eyes darted toward the couple coming into the room. He lowered his hands and stepped forward, preparing to deliver to them the news no parent ever wants to hear.
It took over an hour, but in talking with Monica's parents, they learned more than they'd planned. Getting into the car, Olivia wiped her eyes and pulled out her cell phone, knowing Cragen would need to know that Monica had been missing for the last six months. "Shit," she hissed, looking down at the device in her hands.
"Forget your passcode?" Elliot guessed, opening the driver's side door. "It's my badge…"
"No, uh," she swallowed hard and looked at him over the hood of the maroon car. "Kathy called me. Twice." She watched his face contort, his nostrils flared as his eyes narrowed. The vein in his neck that throbbed and pulsed when he was trying to hold back his temper started to twitch and redden. "She left a message, I don't…"
"Get in the car," he interrupted gruffly, "And put it on speaker." He dropped into his seat, slammed the door, and before Olivia got in, he slammed both hands against the wheel. He took a breath when he felt the slight shake of the car as Olivia eased into it. "Go on," he said, nodding once at the phone still in her hand. Exhaling harshly, loudly, he tried to stay calm, his mind flipping through a Rolodex of reasons Kathy would call Olivia. None of them worked in his favor. He was just starting to feel like his life was moving in the right direction, like he had momentum again. Leave it to Kathy to bring it all to a screeching halt.
With pressed together lips, Olivia hit the play icon on the screen, then switched the audio to speakerphone. Her eyes crinkled slightly as she heard Kathy's voice.
Olivia, hi, I'm sorry to be calling this early, I know you're at work. With Elliot, right? He's there with you, he's okay? Look, I know we aren't in the greatest place now, but he didn't come home last night. Captain Cragen told me that it was over, whatever it was, and that you were coming home. I expected… There was an audible sigh. I don't know why, but I expected him to come home. Tell him to call me? Please? The kids need to see him and my lawyer needs a signature on the… Her voice cracked on her last word, just before a cold beep cut her off and ended the call.
"Don't know what she's trying to pull," he said with a growl, pulling away from the curb and heading back toward the station. "I know for a fucking fact she feels nothing, one way or the other, about where I am or what I'm doing! Shit, and I told her I was staying with you, I talked to her, and I talked to the kids. You heard both of those conversations!" He shook his head as his annoyance built and he stepped a little harder on the gas pedal. "Fuck, she was trying to make you feel guilty, or convince you she doesn't want this as much as I do, well that's bullshit, Liv! I swear, on my life, that…"
"Hey!" she shouted, an effort to calm him down. "I know, relax." She leaned to one side and shoved her phone back into her pocket. "We can deal with her, and the rest of our personal shit later. Right now, my priority is finding out what happened to Monica." She ignored his attempt at an apology, grabbed the half-empty cup of ice-cold coffee, and sipped with a grimace as she stared out of her window at the grey-looking city. "Six months," she muttered, and then she hummed. "That's why she never answered me." She looked over at Elliot again, downed the last of her coffee, and said, "Drive faster."
A/N: Next? What happened to Monica? And Elliot goes home for the last time.