A/N: Kinetic, the energy expended when parts move in any direction at any speed, as long as the motion is continuous.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own the show or the characters, but, oh, how I wish I did.
March 20th, 5:52 AM
"Is there a reason your partner is shooting coffee like tequila?" Ed Tuckers rose a brow at Elliot, his thin-lipped grin almost intrigued.
Elliot nodded as he scrunched up his face in a yawn. "Same reason I look like the before in a shaving cream commercial," he said. His voice was like sandpaper, gravelly and rough, tired. "We haven't really slept since we got back from the safehouse. Too much going on, too much shit to process." He crossed his arms, drummed his fingers along his inner arms, and then took another step closer to Tucker. "You're not gonna make her testify, are you?" he asked, fear in the question.
Tucker scratched the side of his chin as he crooked his jaw and shot another pensive glance toward Olivia. "Written statement was entered into evidence, and uh, with Fin's live corroborating statement, it should be enough." He exhaled and narrowed his eyes at Elliot's reaction. "But if Harris was still alive, she'd need to do it, and you wouldn't be able to shield her from it." He licked his lips and shoved his hands into the pockets of his navy blue suit jacket. "Now, you wanna explain why...in the last week...that son of a bitch, the men who worked for him, and the man who killed one of her friends are all…"
"Oh, come on, Ed!" Elliot whipped back. He yanked at the cuffs of his grey jacket. "Don't tell me you think I have the power to get away with, what, five murders scot-free...or that I could have had anything to do with having them all…"
"Honestly?" Tucker interjected with widened eyes. He nodded slowly. "I think if you'd have had a single unsupervised moment, you would have killed Harris when you had him in the box. And I think you'd know exactly who to call to have him and all of his cronies taken care of." He gave Elliot a challenging twist of a brow.
Snickering, Elliot stifled another yawn. "You think just because I'm Irish, I have ties to the fucking Irish Mob?" he scoffed. He shook his head and said, "That's absolute-"
"It would explain a lot of things," Tucker cut in, his lips curled in surprised affirmation. "How your father got away with a lot of shit that should have cost him his badge, how you and your precious partner have been able to tap dance all over the fucking rule-book and no one says boo...except me, and I get shot down every time." He squinted. "Things just have a way of working out in your favor, Stabler, so yeah, I think with one phone call to the right Donnely or the wrong O'Donnell, you can get shit done." He chuckled vilely and smirked at Elliot. "And I know all about Benson's skills with a computer, so I am sure even if I tried to dump your LUDs or trace e-mails, I wouldn't find anything, am I right?"
Flabbergasted, Elliot blinked twice. "Uh, yeah," he intoned, "But not because Liv hacked the damn system! I'm not in the fucking mob, you dick!" He watched as Tucker's face relaxed slightly. "What happened to Monica Delacorte had jack to do with Liv. It sucked, it hurt, but it wasn't related to any of this bullshit with Harris and that fucking hellhole. Monica got herself involved with an abusive sociopath, who in turn got a taste of his own medicine in lockup." He dragged one hand down the side of his scruffy face and sent a glance toward Olivia, who was chugging back one last hot swallow of black coffee. As he watched her turn and head for him, he straightened himself up and smoothed out his silver tie.
"Sorry," she exhaled and tossed her head back the moment she stepped between the two men. "I needed a minute to…" she cleared her throat , shook off her nerves, and looked at Tucker. "What's it gonna be?" She nibbled on the corner of her lip, her nails peeled absently at the bottom hem of her purple shirt.
"Just told your, uh, partner here," Tucker grinned at her, "That unless anything exigent pops up, you won't need to step foot into that courtroom." He nodded as she gave a deep sigh. "For what it's worth, Benson, I'm sorry you had to go through all that."
"Thanks," she muttered, looking down at her boots, the ones Elliot loved so much. She noticed, for the first time, the grey lines in the floor tiles were not part of the marble design, but cracks in the ceramic. She popped up, out of her absentminded thoughts, when Tucker spoke again. "Excuse me?"
"I know we don't see eye to eye, uh, professionally," Tucker continued, pulling his hands out of his pockets and popping his collar, "But if you ever need someone to help you forget about it, uh, I'd be happy to be that guy and make that happen." He tilted his gaze slightly at her.
She gave him a look, half offended and half disgusted, and then turned her eyes to meet Elliot's red, furious face. Her eyes widened and she tried hard to silently tell him to calm down, then looked back at Tucker. "Uh, no, thank you, but...I'm incredibly not interested, and you're married." She gestured to his left hand, his gold band shining in the light.
Tucker curled his hand and looked down, then, too, but smirked and shook his head. He leaned closer to her, ran his tongue across his lips, and whispered, "Didn't get in the way of you and Stabler, though, right?"
Olivia gasped and instinctively rushed in front of Elliot, moving one arm behind her back and catching his balled fist in her palm just as he swung. She cringed at the force of it, but looked at Tucker and gritted her teeth. "Okay, thanks for coming down here and telling me I don't have to humiliate myself in front of the entire criminal justice system, but I think you've worn out your welcome."
Tucker eyed the two of them suspiciously, trailed his hands down the length of his tie and shirt, and nodded at them. "Right, right, of course," he spoke, and he scraped his teeth along his lower lip. "Stay out of trouble." He looked at Elliot with a pompous grin. "Or call Uncle Clancey and get yourselves out of it before I get wind." He let out a rancorous huff and swiveled around, leaving the squadroom.
Once he was gone, Olivia let go of Elliot's fist and hunched over slightly. She gave a painful grunt and shook the cramp out of her right hand. "Jesus Christ, Elliot," she exhorted.
"Well, in my defense, I was trying to break his jaw, not your hand," he hurled at her. "What the fuck was that, huh?" He shot an arm toward the door and shook his head. "You expected me to just let him…"
She moved in fast, and with a tightly clenched jaw, she hissed, "I expect you to do your job! Tucker doesn't have a thing for me, he only said what he said because he knew you were listening. He pushes your buttons, he always has, he always will." She rubbed the thumb of her left hand into the palm of her right and seethed. "Damn it. He was begging you to make a mistake and hit him, and you almost gave him what he wanted! He's looking for a reason, any at all, to throw you out on your ass completely and stick me behind a desk in the fucking traffic division!"
His nostrils flared as he took embattled breaths. "Yeah," came a huff. "He's pretty sure it should have happened already. Accused me of…" he changed his mind, closed his eyes, and took a slow, deep inhale. "I'm sorry," he whispered, then, grabbing for her twitching, angry hand. He lifted it gently and said, "I would have never…"
"I know," she whispered back, and pulled away from him just as Cragen and Munch rushed into the room. "Hey, Cap," she said, stepping away from Elliot fully and crossing her arms, hiding her bruising hand under her elbow. "Everything okay?"
"You two," Cragen exhaled, hanging his hat on the hook near the door, "Tell me you got the asshole."
"Yeah," Elliot nodded fast. "They moved the prick to Rikers, he's in solitary, revoked any chance of parole," he squinted. "Why do you look like you're about to…"
"Good," Cragen snapped before Elliot could finish. "Here," he brandished a folded piece of paper at him. "Fin's still out, Munch is on the Fatalov case, Briscoe took a call from Sister Peg, so you two…" he let out another burdened breath. "I'm sorry, I know you're both tired." He jostled his wrist, nodding, in an effort to get Elliot to take the paper out of his hand.
With tight brows, Elliot grabbed it between two fingers and unfurled it, twisted himself toward Olivia, and read it. "This isn't a…"
"Just go," Cragen said, and he let the corners of his mouth turn up slightly. "Before I really do send you out on another call." He slapped Elliot in the shoulder then nodded at Olivia. "Get some sleep, please."
Elliot re-folded the approved PTO sheet Cragen had just handed him, looked up at Olivia, and said, "I'm not arguing." He brushed by her, grabbed both of their coats, and ushered her out the door before anyone could take back the glorious gift they'd just been given. He goaded her toward the stairs as he shoved his arms through his coat sleeves, not willing to wait for the elevator or take the chance of falling asleep inside of it. "Move, Benson," he chuckled.
She rolled her eyes and grabbed the banister, then hopped over it, landing solidly on the flight below. "Fast enough for you?" She took the steps two at a time then, and once on the final drag, she said, "I'll go start the car, you give that form to Debbie and sign us the hell out of here." She swatted at the paper in his hands and took her coat from him. She was in the middle of pulling it on when she froze and peered up at him, wide-eyed.
He had pride in his gaze and a sly smile. "No cameras, right here," he waved a finger around the stairwell. "I had to do it before we moved since, uh, there's two aimed at both doors."
She smiled back and her left hand shot up to her cheek, covering the spot he had just so quickly and quietly kissed. Staring as he pushed his way into the lobby, she sighed and dropped her hand. Trying to figure out how and when her life had completely inverted itself, she pulled open the door to the back alley of the building. Once outside, she pulled her coat tighter around herself, the weather still much too chilly for March, and walked faster along the rough pavement. The toes of her boots gripped too tightly to something sticky and she refused to think of what it might be.
The wind kicked up; blowing her short hair into her eyes and sending crumpled flyers and sheets of soggy newspaper whipping past her. On a normal day, she would have inwardly complained, kicked the broken bottles and tossed trash cans that surrounded her to vent her frustrations, but today, she let herself feel the breeze. The puddles of mystery liquid pooling under the dumpsters and cardboard castles for homeless royalty didn't seem so grotesque to her, not at this moment, and it didn't occur to her until she crossed over the ledge from the back alley to main walkway. "No," she whispered to no one, refusing to admit what some small voice in her head decried.
She fished around in her coat pocket for her keys, grabbing her copy of the one to Elliot's truck, the stunned expression still on her face. She chewed on her lip as she slowed her stride, and when she hit the button on the fob to unlock the cardoors, she let it really sink in.
There haven't been many moments in her life where happiness was genuine, so few memories of feeling any iota of contentment, so the emotion was generally unfamiliar. But she knew now, getting into the passenger seat of the Bronze Fire Ford F-One-Fifty, that is exactly what she was feeling. She slammed the door and let her head flop against the seat's rest. With a resigned frown, she pushed the auto start button on the fob and shook her head. She shouldn't be happy. Not now. Not like this.
Her happiness came at the expense of someone else's misery. She yawned and tried not to think of Kathy, alone at the house in Queens, signing papers and packing boxes, juggling schedules and reading over four separate parental custody agreements. She closed her eyes, pushing back the painful thought of the kids dividing their things into two separate piles, asking themselves why Daddy never came home. Her head dropped back even more as she tried to forget that her partner was grappling with a million different emotions wrapped in a layer of confusion and tied up with a bow made out of confliction. With a shift in position, she stifled the shame of what happened in the basement of Sealview Correctional and everything that followed it. How dare she be anything close to happy?
She popped one eye open at the sound of Elliot getting into the car, uncontrollably smiling at him. "Hi," she mumbled.
He smiled back, leaned over the console, and gave her a languid, sensuous kiss. With still-closed eyes, he retreated and whispered, "Hi." He nuzzled her for a moment, then righted himself and stepped on the brake. He shifted the gear and backed out of his spot. "Sorry, uh, I got a call back there."
"Hm?" she questioned lazily. "From?" She yawned and slumped a bit in her seat. With one finger, she tossed the hair out of her eyes. "El?"
He cleared his throat as he turned the wheel, heading in the direction of Olivia's place. "My lawyer," he said dryly. "Verifying dates, reasons, and, uh, I have to swing by the courthouse tomorrow to pick up the official…" he blew out through a rounded mouth, as though saying his next few words would take a great deal of effort. He swallowed hard again. "Dissolution documents," he mumbled. "There's...a problem with…" he coughed as he turned the wheel again, down another familiar street.
She dropped her head to the right, propping it up on the window. "What problem? She's not gonna sign them now, or…are you changing your mind?"
"No, God, no," he coughed again, the frog in his throat hopping madly. "The problem is with the kids. See, neither of us has a shot, here. She doesn't make enough on her own to fully support all four of them, I'm not home enough to provide the supervision they're gonna need, neither one of us has a place big enough for them because they're gonna need their own rooms and they…" he stopped talking. "He laid it all out for me, said that right now, they're free to stay with whichever parent they want, but, fuck, if I want a solid shot at any kind of permanent custody of my kids when all is said and done, I'm gonna need a five-bedroom, two-income, safe space and a nanny with insomnia."
She chuckled and then yawned as she tried to sit up a bit straighter. "Maureen is almost twenty years old, and she's still living at home, right? Commuting to Fordham?" She heard him hum affirmatively. "There's your nanny. You don't need someone hovering over them, you do realize your kids aren't…"
"Kids," he gritted out. "No, I...I guess when I filed, I was still thinking of them as my babies." He smiled sadly. "They're always gonna be my babies. I can't seem to wrap my head around how so much time has gone by so fast." He spun the wheel one last time, heading down Olivia's street, and he licked his lips before speaking again. "I'll call the man back, tell him they're pretty much old enough to take care of themselves, and they can choose who they want to stay with until…"
"Um, El?" her eyes focused on the small grassy hill beside the stone steps of her apartment building. She slowly broke into a smile, raised one hand, and pointed to the four kids sitting on the lawn. "I think they already have."
Elliot looked to where she was pointing, his eyes widened as he let out a loud yelp. He pulled up to the curb instead of turning into the downramp toward the parking garage. He stopped short, shoved the gear shift into park, and got out of the truck without even closing the door behind him. He ran, faster than his exhausted body could take at the moment, and met his children in a heartbreakingly beautiful group hug.
Olivia watched, holding back tears, as he kissed each forehead, cradled each child, and said I love you more times than she could possibly count. There it was again, the stinging and palpitating feeling in her chest, the rare but all-too-powerful tightening behind her heart. She wiped her eyes and moved when Elliot waved her over to the mess of tangled limbs and blonde hair. Her eyes closed as he pulled her into the hug, and a laugh escaped on a sigh when he kissed her forehead. She was afraid to feel it, terrified to get too used to it, but for the moment, for Elliot's sake, she allowed herself to be happy.
It would fade, though, once the kids told her and their father why they were really there.
A/N: Next? Why are the Stabler kids at Olivia's place? Where are they going to go now?
