Known and Unknown

by rahleeyah

A stranger comes to visit Angela Wheatley while she's in lockup.

A/N: obviously we don't know right now if Angela actually is responsible for killing Kathy and I may do a rewrite later on depending on how things shake out but for right now let's just pretend she is, yes?

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Perhaps a different woman, having found herself alone in a holding cell at the back of a dimly lit police station, would have succumbed to the indignity of her circumstances and wept. Perhaps a different woman would have allowed the worry for her future to overwhelm her, or broken beneath the pressure the police exerted over her and confessed all her sins in a desperate bid to obtain a lighter sentence, and a little less time spent in cells like that one. Angela Wheatley was not such a woman.

She sat on the bench that ran the perimeter of the room, positioned against the back wall so she could clearly see the comings and goings beyond her cell. She sat with her back straight, her ankles crossed, her hands folded neatly in her lap. She did not fidget, or sigh, did not pace or fret. Instead she sat, watching, and thinking.

This particular cell was deep within the bowels of the station, far from the more heavily trafficked corridors. Out of sight, out of mind. On the way down here, handcuffed and held in the rough clutches of two uniformed officers who smelled like sweat and shitty coffee, Angela noted that they passed a larger cell, holding several disreputable looking women. For a moment she had been quietly alarmed, thinking they meant to lock her up with prostitutes and drug dealers, but the officers just kept walking, until they'd left those women far behind. Apparently, Angela was to be given the star treatment; they were keeping her locked up all by herself.

There were several possible explanations for that decision, she thought. Perhaps they worried for her safety, crammed in a cell with so many other bodies. Richard's reach was vast, and it was not entirely out of the question that he might send someone to put her down before she had a chance to sell him out in an attempt to save her own skin. Then again, perhaps they thought that silence and isolation would unnerve her, leave her more amenable to confessing the next time they brought her into interview - and she was certain that they would, interview her again. Maybe it was just covid; maybe they had rules about how many people they could cram into each square foot of the station, and were just trying to adhere to pandemic guidelines. Whatever the reason, she was grateful for her solitude, and she knew they hadn't realized they were actually doing her a favor..

The police were like that. A drug dealer who'd flunked out of high school had an entirely different pathology from a woman like Angela Wheatley, but the police tended to think all criminals were the same. It was the complacency of the overworked.

From her cell she could see the corridor down which she'd travelled to reach that place; it had been, as near as she could reckon, about two hours since they'd dumped her in there, and in all that time not one single soul had come walking along that corridor. There was a desk just outside the cell, situated so that its occupant, a bored looking young man in uniform, could watch her from his chair. Not that he was doing much watching now. He had, at first, had kept his hands on the desk and his eyes trained on her face, but he seemed to have realized that she wasn't planning to do anything that might get him into trouble, and now he was just leaning back, thumbing through a magazine. There had been a moment when she'd wondered if speaking to him might help pass the time, give her something more interesting to focus on than the dirty walls of her cell, but she'd decided against it. It would be better, she thought, to keep her mouth shut, and not say anything to anybody. Better to leave them guessing.

In the quiet she could think, and so she did, thought about how the police had discovered her - she had a number of theories, on that front, but had yet to uncover the truth - and how she was going to talk her way out of this. There was no doubt in her mind that she could, and she would. But in the quiet she could hear the hum of the air conditioning and the rustling of the young officer's newspaper, and the sudden sound of bootheels on linoleum echoed down the corridor, and Angela tensed, slightly.

Someone was coming.

The gait was steady, hard, the march of a police officer; a soldier would have had better rhythm than a cop, but they both moved with the same uncompromising authority. Angela played a little game, listening; her cell was at the end of a turn in the corridor, and so she could not see, yet, who was coming to join her, and she made a guess of what she might find. She cocked her head, listened. It would not be another young officer, come to relieve this one; whoever was coming, she thought they must be older, more accustomed to command. They were not hurrying, but there was a purpose to their steps. As those steps drew nearer, Angela smiled; a woman, she thought to herself. The steps were not heavy enough for a man. Finally, she thought to herself. Something interesting.

At last the stranger stepped into view, and Angela saw with some satisfaction that she had been right on all counts. It was a woman, perhaps of an age with Angela. A pretty woman, with dark hair that fell in soft waves around a tired face. She was of a height with Angela, perhaps a little taller - certainly taller, in those boots. Her eyes were dark, and so too were her boots, and her trousers, and her blazer. Under the blazer she wore a white blouse, the neckline professional but not prudish. A golden necklace sparkled at the base of her throat, but it was a delicate piece, not particularly ostentatious, and not long enough to get in the way if her job got physical. The badge and gun displayed on her hips identified her as a cop.

"Officer," the woman said, and her voice was low, and surprisingly deep.

As she spoke the young man looked up from his magazine, and his face paled. He scrambled to his feet, did his best to stand at attention, but he looked shame-faced about having been discovered neglecting his duties.

"Captain Benson," he said by way of greeting.

Captain, Angela thought. That was interesting, too. When they first brought her to the station she had been interviewed by several detectives, starting with Elliot, and then a grim-faced female Sergeant had joined them. It had been apparent, watching those interactions, that the Sergeant was the one in command of the operation that had brought Angela down. A Captain, if she recalled correctly, was several rungs above a Sergeant on the ladder. This woman, whoever she was, must have been important. She must have worked hard to achieve her rank, Angela thought. She must have been tough, and tenacious. She might be worth talking to.

"Open the gate," the Captain said, gesturing towards the cell where Angela sat, watching. Apparently, the Captain wanted to speak to her, too.

The officer shifted uncomfortably on his feet.

"They told me not to let anyone-"

"And I'm telling you different. Open the gate."

Angela smiled. It seemed to her the Captain was used to getting her own way, but she wasn't spoiled, or entitled. She was powerful. Power came in many different forms, and Angela had a certain power all her own, but this Captain had the power of command. Experience and rank dictated that her word was law, and no matter what instructions the officer had been given, the Captain's wishes overrode them, and she knew that as well as he did.

The young man nodded and pulled a ring of keys off his belt loop. They approached the cell together, and he unlocked the door, and then the Captain was stepping inside. She pulled the door closed behind her, and leaned back against the bars of the cell, tucking her hands in her pockets and watching Angela in silence, an unreadable expression on her face. Mouth closed in a thin line, eyes hard, she just looked at Angela, studying her almost, though the reason for her interest was not immediately clear.

But there must have been a reason for her to come all the way down there, to step inside that cell, and so Angela cocked her head to the side, and looked back. Looked into that woman's face, looked at the spread of her shoulders, the gun heavy at her hip, the stance of her feet, relaxed but ready to fight at a moment's notice. It was an interesting combination, she thought, a soft, pretty face and the body language of a brawler. The officer had been instructed not to let anyone in to see Angela, but this woman had taken it upon herself to disregard those orders, to enter this room, to stand with her, and that was intriguing all on its own. Was she involved in the investigation into Richard? Or the investigation into Kathy Stabler's death? If she was, Angela thought, surely she would have shown her face before now, but if she wasn't, then what business did she have with Angela?

The silence stretched on, and Angela grew bored of just looking. She preferred solitude to observation, and it was apparent the Captain wasn't interested in talking. Maybe it was a test, to see which of them would break first. Maybe the Captain thought that if Angela broke the silence it would be an indicator of discomfort on her part, but that was the farthest thing from the truth; it was curiosity that compelled her to speak.

"What can I do for you, Captain?" she asked politely. Neither of them had moved; Angela was still seated primly along the back wall of the cell, and the Captain was still leaning against the bars at the front, the pair of them facing off with the uniformed officer watching anxiously from his desk.

A grim smile flickered across the Captain's face.

"Absolutely nothing," she said. "I just wanted to see the woman responsible for killing Kathy Stabler."

This is personal, Angela thought. The Captain had come all the way down here, unannounced and uninvited, and spoken Kathy Stabler's name with an easy familiarity. Maybe the silence and her claim that she didn't want anything from Angela were just a ploy to try to throw Angela off balance, but there was too much anger in the Captain's eyes for Angela to believe that. Too much anger, and too much hurt; Angela could see it now, a hurt that had not been there, before Kathy's name was spoken.

"Here I am," she said. "Are you going to ask me why I did it?"

They needed to know that, in order to bring her down. Not just how, but why. Means, motive, opportunity, that was the name of the game. So far, they didn't have any of it, she was sure of that, and she wasn't about to give it to them.

"Would you tell me if I did?" the Captain countered.

Angela smiled. She's all balls, this one, she thought.

"No."

The Captain nodded, satisfied; she'd known that already, that Angela had no intention of discussing what she'd done or the reasons for it. Every detail she gave the cops, they'd just use it to hang her. She didn't intend to help them along.

"They tell me you have kids," the Captain said after a moment. She shifted, pulled her hands out of her pockets and crossed her arms over her chest. Angela followed the movement of her hands closely; no wedding ring, she noted. Details like that mattered; it was important, Angela thought, to know as much about her enemies as possible, and she was certain, now, that this woman was her enemy.

"I do."

"Kathy did, too. Five of 'em. Five kids with no mother, because of you."

Definitely personal, Angela thought. The Captain spoke as if that was the worst sin a person - a woman - could commit, leaving children without their mother. Like leaving those children without their mother was the one unforgivable transgression. If circumstances had been different, Angela might have laughed in her face. A motherless child was not a mortal sin; a childless mother was.

"You know I was there, the day her youngest was born," The Captain told her.

Angela watched her curiously; she hadn't been expecting this woman to volunteer something so personal so quickly, and she wanted to hear more. Wanted to know just the extent of Captain Benson's connection to the Stabler family, wanted to know whether she should be worried about being alone, locked in a cell, with her.

"You knew her."

That was what Angela really wanted to know. She didn't want to talk about the kids - and really, she thought, they were hardly kids; two of them over thirty, two of them getting close, the youngest a teenager. It wasn't like they were babies. The oldest four would be fine, and the youngest still had a dad. A pretty shitty dad, Angela thought, but still. Elliot was better than nothing, and he'd get better with time. If the Captain thought she could shame Angela over the Stabler children she was wrong, and Angela was ready to move the conversation along.

When she asked her question she watched the Captain closely. Looked for a shift in her stance, a heightened tension, a fidget, a tell. All she got was a frown. Apparently, it would take more than one unexpected inquiry to rattle this woman. Angela approved of that.

"I did," she said, and then, to Angela's disappointment, she kept right on telling her story. "There was an accident, and Kathy's heart started to fail. I was sitting in that ambulance with her, holding her son when he was only a few minutes old, just praying that she'd make it. Just praying, God, please don't take this boy's mother away. She didn't die that day. That accident didn't kill her. You did."

Damn right, Angela thought. And I'd do it again.

The Captain was trying to play on her emotions, but it wasn't working; there was no room in Angela's heart for remorse. There was room for inquisitiveness, though; she'd been handed a fascinating piece of information. They must have been close, Kathy and the Captain. Must have been, for the Captain to have been on the scene of the accident, holding Kathy's newborn son, praying for a miracle. The kid was maybe, thirteen, fourteen now, and that solidified her suspicion that the Captain knew Kathy from the old days, and Angela mulled that over for a minute. Kathy had been a housewife and a sometime nurse, a mother first and foremost, and the Captain had certainly been a cop for more than ten years, to work her way up through the ranks. How then would they have met? Maybe their kids went to the same school, or maybe Kathy and the Captain had gone to school together, or maybe they'd crossed paths at the hospital, but somehow Angela didn't think so; New York was a big city, and it seemed unlikely for one cop to meet another cop's wife by chance, for them to have established a bond outside of the NYPD. The most obvious answer, Angela thought, was that the Captain knew Elliot. Met him on the job, met his family, got to know his wife. The Captain wasn't here for Kathy, Angela realized. She was here for Elliot.

Oh, this was going to be fun.

"You're friends with Elliot," she said. She didn't phrase it as a question, and she used Elliot's name casually, searching the Captain's face for a reaction. It seemed to Angela that the Captain had gone to an awful lot of trouble for a man who'd been out of her life for a decade; she'd been there when his son was born, prayed for his poor pitiful wife, and so it was clear they must have been close before he left. Were they close now? Elliot had turned up at Angela's door, told her that he thought she was the only person who could understand him, the only person he could talk to, and she'd taken that to mean he didn't have much in the way of friends. But here stood this Captain, and that made Angela curious. Obviously, the Captain knew Elliot was back in town, knew his wife had been killed. Had she gone to him, given him her condolences? Did she have any idea how much time Elliot had been spending with Angela? Would it bother her to find out?

"I've known Detective Stabler a long time," the Captain said. She was deliberate in her choice of words; she didn't approve of Angela calling him Elliot. That was intriguing.

"Did you think about him, when you gave the order to have Kathy killed?" the Captain asked her then. "Did you think about his kids? Did you have any idea how many lives you were going to ruin?"

Guilt was not an emotion Angela had time for. She felt neither shame nor regret; she had her reasons for acting as she did, and once the thing was done it was done, and she did not spare a moment for wishing it could be undone. The Captain's attempts to play on her humanity revealed more about the Captain than about Angela; here was a woman, Angela thought, who was compassionate, and empathetic. Interesting traits, in a lifelong cop. And interesting, too, her choice of words, that final question she'd asked.

"How many lives do you think I ruined, Captain? So far I'm only counting six."

But maybe, Angela thought, maybe the Captain had added herself to that number. Maybe the consequences of Kathy's death had rippled out far enough to touch this woman, whoever she was. A pretty woman now, she'd probably been just as pretty ten years before. When Elliot had worked with her. Just how close had they been? And just how close were they now? Had Elliot been telling the truth, when he told Angela she was the only person he felt he could talk to, or had he unburdened himself to his old friend as well?

"You're a hard one, aren't you?" the Captain asked, almost mockingly. As if she thought Angela was only putting on a brave face, as if she thought this was all just an act. As if she was completely unimpressed by Angela's calm facade.

"So are you," Angela said. "If you came here to intimidate me, Captain, you're wasting both our time."

"No intimidation," the Captain said easily. "Trust me, you're in enough shit as it is. I don't need to get my hands dirty. I am curious, though. You've been working with your ex-husband all along. That's a lot of loyalty, Angela, considering he traded you in for a younger model."

Inwardly Angela bristled, just a little. She didn't appreciate the way the Captain used her given name, and she didn't appreciate the insinuation that she had been cast aside. Her first instinct was to point out that she left him, and not the other way around, but she bit it back. If she got defensive now, the Captain would see it as weakness.

"It's not about him," she said evenly. "I hate him. He killed my son."

And I'll kill him myself, before this thing is through.

"But he was Richard's son, too, wasn't he?"

"Adopted." And Richard's family had never, ever let them forget it.

The Captain nodded; she'd known that already, Angela realized. She must have done her homework before she came down for this chat.

"You know, my son is adopted. And I can't imagine, even for a second...he must be a cold man, your ex. Maybe you two are made for each other."

There had been a time when Angela would have agreed. They were both fighters, she and Richard, but not in the way this Captain was. Not the way Elliot was. No, their way was different. Smoother. Slower. More methodical, more dignified. They'd understood that about one another, and they'd worked well together. For a time.

"How old is he?" Angela asked. She was tired of talking about Richard. "Your boy."

"Younger than yours," the Captain answered, neatly sidestepping the question. "How old was Rafiq when Richard killed him?"

There was a fencing club on the university's campus, and Angela had watched them compete, a time or two, in support of a student who was a particular favorite of hers. The Captain's easy evasion reminded her of those competitions; the attack, the parry, smooth, deliberate, designed to keep her target off balance. If she wants to dance, Angela thought, we can dance.

"If you're going to keep asking questions you already know the answer to, then I think we're done here. If you want to talk about Elliot, though, I'm all ears."

That was, it seemed to her, the best way to rattle this woman. Whatever her connection to Stabler, it was strong enough, powerful enough, to have her seeking Angela out, and maybe if she pressed the right buttons, something useful might fall out. Something she could use, the next time she was in a room with him, to make him uneasy. Something that might help her throw him off his game, and give her a chance at getting out of this hellhole in one piece. Even if it didn't, it might be fun.

"What's your connection to him?" The Captain asked. Her tone was nonchalant, but her eyes were intense. "I mean, I know he was looking into your ex. Where do you come in?"

The Captain was a cop, and like all the cops Angela had ever met, she couldn't let a question go unasked. The woman was invested, now. She wanted answers. Angela was all too happy to give them.

"I first met Elliot when he came to ask me questions about Rafiq's death. He didn't know I was Richard's ex-wife at the time. We became...close." The pause before the word, the inflection of it; Angela chose her weapons carefully, watching closely to see if they landed.

"That was a smart move," the Captain said. "Get to know the man who's looking into Richard, keep tabs on the investigation. A man like him sees a woman like you, he's gonna assume you're just another victim. He's gonna try to keep you safe."

A man like him; Angela smiled. The Captain was right, of course; the moment they'd first met she'd sensed a weakness in Stabler. A weakness for pretty women, a need to defend them. When he looked at her he saw a grieving mother, a woman whose pain mirrored his own; he'd never suspected her, not until his informant dropped her name in his lap, Angela was sure of that. What surprised her was how astutely the Captain had summed up his character. Like she knew his weaknesses just as well as Angela did.

"He's a good man," Angela said. She didn't mean it as a compliment. She was pretty sure the Captain knew that. "He kissed me, you know."

That did it; finally, she got a reaction out of her opponent. It was a small one, but remarkable nonetheless. The Captain's lips parted, and her eyelashes fluttered, surprised. Hurt, maybe. She didn't gasp, or shift uneasily on her feet, didn't make a display of her shock; it came over her quietly, and if Angela hadn't been looking for it, she never would have seen it. Whatever was going on in the Captain's head, she was keeping it contained, for now.

"When?"

Or maybe not. It wasn't a very professional question; the Captain had to know she was being played, now, but she couldn't stop herself. Angela was only too happy to oblige her.

"Two nights before I got arrested. He showed up at my door-"

It had been her intention to explain the whole thing, to lay it all out in excruciating detail, to watch the Captain squirm - and maybe figure out why it mattered to her so much - but the Captain let loose a short bark of laughter, and Angela stopped midsentence, frowning. She didn't appreciate being interrupted. On the other side of the cell the Captain moved, ran her thumb over her brow, brushed her hair back with a bitter expression on her face.

"Something funny about that?" Angela asked testily.

"Yeah, actually," the Captain said. "Did he tell you what happened to him that day?"

He hadn't. It wasn't like he'd come by to tell Angela about his day while she rubbed his feet and poured him a drink; she'd known the moment he turned up he wasn't looking to talk about work, and she hadn't asked him. It hadn't mattered, at the time. Or at least, she'd thought it didn't matter. Now she wasn't so sure. It seemed the Captain knew something Angela didn't, and that was frustrating. She wasn't used to being in the dark.

"We had other things to talk about."

"I'm sure you did." The Captain's voice was dripping with disdain.

"What am I missing here, Captain?"

"The night he showed up at your door? We'd just been shot at, and he'd just gone ten rounds with internal affairs, and he'd just had a fight with me." Her eyes raked over Angela with a chilly sort of animosity. "Any port in a storm."

"Excuse me?"

Angela's mind was racing, now, trying to piece it all together. We'd just been shot at, the Captain had said, but this was the first time Angela had ever seen the woman, and she was fairly certain the Captain wasn't part of the task force investigating Richard. So what had they been doing together, Elliot and the Captain, when someone shot at them? Why had someone shot at them? And what had they argued about? And God, what if the woman was right? Before now Angela had been pleased with the work she'd done with Elliot, how easy it had been to lead him to her door, into her arms, how charmed he'd seemed, how relieved he'd looked, each time he spoke to her. But he'd hidden this woman from her all along. What if the Captain was right; what if Elliot had only gone to Angela when he'd been turned away by the woman he really wanted? It stung her pride, just a bit. It also meant that maybe whatever feelings she'd managed to elicit from him weren't deep enough to allow her to continue to manipulate him. If her hold on him wasn't as strong as she thought, she was in trouble.

Across the cell from her the Captain just shrugged.

"It's not surprising he went to you. He needed to blow off some steam, and it's not like he had anywhere else to go."

But would he have, Angela wondered, if he hadn't fought with the Captain? If they hadn't argued, whatever that was about, would he have gone to her, and not to Angela? Had he been playing them both, all this time? Just how many secrets was he keeping? It was imperative that Angela know everything about her target, and she had been confident, before now, that she had done her research, that she had everything she needed. The taste of doubt in her mouth was bitter, and unfamiliar.

"Sometimes a man doesn't want to be nagged," Angela said coolly. It wouldn't do to let this woman know that she was rattled. She suspected that this Captain was one of the many people in Elliot's life telling him he needed to go to therapy, needed to take it easy with work, needed to take some time to grieve. They weren't wrong, all those people who were worried about him, but Angela hadn't told him any of that. It wasn't what he wanted to hear, and she'd known right away that badgering him about his mental health wouldn't keep him coming back to her.

"Sometimes a man doesn't know what's good for him."

"And you think you do?"

The Captain scoffed. "I've known Elliot a lot longer than you have."

There was something possessive about the way the Captain talked about Elliot. A beautiful woman with no ring, a man who'd been married his entire adult life, working together every hour of the day and night, facing danger together...Angela could do that math.

"You know," she said, leaning back just a little, trying to appear as relaxed as possible. "I always thought he must have been so devoted to his wife. All those years of marriage, all those kids, the way he just fell apart without her. But she's barely cold and he's already chasing after me. Where do you factor into all this, Captain? Don't tell me - you were partners, and you slept together. That's so cliche it's almost cute."

"You know what, sweetheart?" Captain Benson's pretty lips pulled back into a sneer, and she crossed the cell, prowling almost, and Angela rose to her feet, startled by the sudden venom in the Captain's voice. "You don't have any idea what you're talking about."

They were close now. Too close. In those boots the Captain was taller, and while her frame wasn't that much bigger she carried herself with a latent sort of violence, and there was, still, a gun holstered at her hip. In Angela's world, danger was an almost abstract concept; gunfire and bombs, those things were executed by orders, carried out by nameless drones at the bottom of the ladder, far away from Angela's eyes. Her hands never got dirty; fistfights were beneath her. The Captain, though, she looked like she knew how to land a punch, and how to take one.

"Shame to put a pretty face like yours in prison," the Captain said, but she was smiling tightly as she spoke, her eyes roving over Angela's face, almost leering, threatening. "A year or two in there, you won't be nearly so pretty."

"Have I touched a nerve?"

Either they'd slept together years before, Angela thought, or they'd wanted to. Maybe back then the formidable Captain had been just another detective, working side by side with a man she wanted, a man who went home to someone else at the end of every day. It was almost tragic, really, the thought that maybe a woman as accomplished and strong as the one in front of her could have harbored such a pathetic secret. Still carrying a torch for a man who'd always been in love with someone else. Maybe that was why the Captain had her back up now; maybe Angela had hit a little too close to home.

"Captain!" a deep voice rang out from behind them.

Elliot.

Angela had been so focused on the Captain she hadn't even heard him coming, but when she looked over the Captain's shoulder now she saw him, his face haggard, the young officer beside him and already in the process of unlocking the gate for him.

The Captain didn't immediately step away; she looked into Angela's eyes one last time, and there was so much hate in her gaze that Angela would have taken a step back from her, if only there had been room to move. The officer got the gate open and then Elliot was there, stepping inside. When his old friend didn't back down, he reached for her, his hand settling on her bicep.

"Liv-" he said in a tone of warning, and Angela drank in the sight of the two of them together, the fear in Elliot's face, the rage in the Captain's eyes, the easy sound of her name falling from his lips - her name, and not her rank. There was something intimate about the way he touched her, about the way he stood so close to her, about how their gazes caught, and held, for the briefest, most agonizing of instants.

But then the Captain jerked out of his grip, and the moment shattered.

"Get your hands off me," she hissed, and his hand fell away as she stepped back, started walking out of the cell.

Elliot didn't hesitate; he followed her, and Angela followed him, stood at the front of the cell while the gate clanged in her face, and Elliot reached for the Captain - for Liv - again. He hadn't even looked at Angela; he only had eyes for her. Outside the cell he blocked her progress with his heavy body, stood so close to her their chests were almost touching, his eyes intense, desperate, almost. His hand reached for her bicep again, and this time she let it stay there.

"I don't know what she told you-" he started to say, but Liv wasn't having it.

"If I had any information that was pertinent to your case, detective, I'd give it to you."

He took his hand off her then, his expression angry. It was easy to see what the Captain had just done; she'd pulled rank on him, and it hurt him. He'd been gone a long time; maybe when he left they'd been equals, and maybe now it stung, to be reminded that she had advanced beyond him, that he owed her deference now. Maybe it only stung when she threw it in his teeth. It was a fascinating dynamic, and one Angela only wished she'd known about sooner. If she'd only known this woman existed...oh, she could have used that to make him twist.

"I'd appreciate that, Captain," he said through clenched teeth.

The woman stopped short of rolling her eyes at him, but only barely. She turned away from him, took a step down the corridor, but then she seemed to think better of it. She turned back to him with fire in her eyes, and delivered her final blow.

"You know what, Elliot?" she said in a low, terrible voice. "Don't bother turning up for dinner."

And then before he could protest she was marching quickly away, the sound of her boots echoing off the walls until it faded into nothing. In her absence Elliot sighed, and his shoulders slumped, and he ran one hand over his head, angry and defeated. He must have felt, Angela thought, like everything was going to shit. The woman he'd been chasing turned out to be a killer, his old friend was angry with him, his case against Richard was unraveling, his kids didn't trust him anymore...who will he go to now? She wondered. Is there anyone left?

A man with nothing to lose was a dangerous enemy to have.

"Hey," he said after a moment, turning to the uniformed officer. "I know it goes without saying, but-"

"I didn't hear anything, sir," the young man said.

"Good man."

"But I did, Elliot," Angela told him quietly.

For the first time since he appeared he seemed to notice her; he approached the cell but didn't ask to be let inside again, just wrapped his hands around the bars and leaned towards her. He looked like he hadn't slept in days; his face was lined and his shirt was wrinkled, his sleeves rolled up to reveal the heavy black ink of the tattoo on his thick forearm. Angela had never particularly cared for tattoos and she held a particular dislike for that one, the memento of his service in the Marines.

I wonder if Liv feels the same way, she thought. I bet she doesn't. I bet she loves it.

"What the hell did you say to her?" Elliot asked her, his voice low but fierce with rage.

From the moment she'd been arrested, he'd been looking at her with self-loathing in his eyes, like he couldn't believe how stupid he'd been to trust her, like he blamed himself even more than he did her, for the way it all fell apart. She'd expected him to hate her; the fact that he seemed to hate himself was just further evidence, she thought, of that initial weakness she'd sensed in him. He could be hard, brutal in a fight, but he had a blindspot for women, something soft in him that made him easy to manipulate. Every man had a flaw, and caring too much was Elliot's.

Now, though, now he was angry with her. Angry, because she'd upset Liv. Maybe he knew already exactly what Angela had told the woman, maybe he knew how much it had hurt her, and maybe he felt as protective towards her as he had once felt towards Angela. Maybe she'd made a mistake antagonizing the woman.

"Sorry I ruined your dinner plans," she said casually, as if they were back at her house, not standing in a police station with the iron bars of a holding cell between them. That was the way she needed him to see her now. She needed him to look at her and see a friend, not the woman who'd killed his wife. The way he lingered with her, she got the feeling maybe it hadn't sunk in yet, what she'd done to him, to Kathy. Like he was still spiraling, running from his feelings and his fears, like he hadn't let himself face it yet. Like he was scared of what might happen to him when he did. That was good. She wanted him scared.

"Christ, Angela, it's not like that," he said. "It wasn't a date. She was finally gonna let me meet her kid."

So he had been, all along, working on his relationship with Liv, and telling Angela there was no one else for him to talk to. Jesus, she grumbled to herself, he's an even bigger mess than I thought. He'd had somewhere to go, someone he should have gone to, but he hadn't. Maybe he'd been afraid, she thought. Maybe what he'd meant, when he told her he needed her, was that he needed someone who didn't matter so goddamn much. She pushed her own wounded pride aside, and tried to think about what he'd just told her instead. Meeting a kid, that was a big step for a man and a woman, but a strange one for people who had known each other so long. Especially given what Captain Benson had told her, about holding Eli the day he was born. So she knew his kids, but he didn't know hers, Angela thought. Why?

"I thought you two were old friends?"

Elliot sighed, hung his head.

"He was born after I left," he said quietly.

"How long after?"

The Captain had told her the boy was adopted; really, she just wanted to see if she could make Elliot uncomfortable, insinuating he'd had an affair with the woman. Really, she just wanted to see if he was so off kilter that he'd just confess to it straight out.

"You just assume the worst about everybody, don't you?" he said instead, almost in disbelief, as if he couldn't imagine why she'd toss an accusation like that at his feet. "He's adopted."

So he knew that much, at least. How had that conversation gone, Angela wondered; had they kept in touch while he was away, or had he just turned up out of the blue asking Liv to go for coffee with him? Had they sat at a table outside a cafe somewhere, shivering in the cold, while they filled each other in all their secrets? Somehow she didn't think so; they didn't seem like "coffee and catch-up" kind of people.

"You missed a lot while you were gone, didn't you?"

From the moment they met, she'd realized that what Elliot Stabler needed, more than anything else, was a confidant. Someone he could unburden himself to, someone who wouldn't flinch, someone who wouldn't try to push him in any one direction. It was easy to fall back into that role now, to ask him gentle questions, and try to lead him to revealing his secrets. As long as he was comfortable with her, talking to her, she had him; the more he needed her, the more he could help her, in the end. As long as he was talking to her, half in love with her, he wasn't working on locking her away for the rest of her life, and every second this conversation bought her brought her closer to finding her way out of these charges.

"Yeah, I did." He hung his head; she could see that it was eating him up inside, everything he'd missed while he was away. While he was overseas, while he was in Rome with Kathy, his Liv had moved on, adopted a child, been promoted up the ranks, left him behind, and now he was alone, floating in life that should have felt familiar to him, but just felt like a nightmare instead. Here, Angela thought, was a man on the verge of a total breakdown. Maybe, she thought, maybe his Liv was the key to the whole house of cards. Maybe Liv would shatter him, in the end.

"She's pretty," she said softly.

Elliot's head jerked up, an expression of warning on his face, like Angela had just drifted into dangerous territory.

"Will you tell me about her?"

Unlike many of her colleagues at the university, Angela had always prided herself on her affinity for people. She liked knowing what made them tick, liked picking them apart, liked finding the little secrets and internal quirks that made each person special. Liked finding the handles to pull to get exactly the reaction she was hoping for. Looking at Elliot, now, she suspected he wanted to talk to someone about Liv. And who else could he turn to?

"I don't think that's a good idea," he said darkly.

"What's she like?"

When she's not on the job, when she's not looking at a suspect she hates, who is this woman, and why does she mean so much to you?

"I don't know how to answer that question. I mean, how would you describe me, if someone asked?"

He did look lost, she thought. That was good.

"I'd say you're arrogant, but it's only because you're good at what you do. You're smart, and you're tough, and you know how to come out on top. You're aggressive, you have to be in control. You're single-minded when you want something; you never give up, even when you should. You're so angry, but you're angry because you care, and you don't want to see other people get hurt. The way you've been hurt. You're lonely, and you're scared. You'd jump in front of a bullet for a stranger but you are terrified of your own heart. You're a good dad, or you would be if you weren't so focused on work all the time. How am I doing?"

It was sort of fun, she thought, reading him like that, showing him just how much she'd learned about him over the course of their brief acquaintance, how futile his attempts at hiding his heart from her had been. Or it was fun when she started, but by the time she finished a strange look had settled on his face. It was not quite a smile, but it was soft, almost. Understanding. Like she'd answered a question he hadn't even asked.

"Great," he told her. He sighed, hung his head, shifted his weight away from the bars, away from her. "You just described her."

It was all starting to make sense. The reason Liv meant so much to him, the reason he'd kept her a secret from Angela. It was more than just a man lusting after a beautiful woman. They were the same, Elliot and his Liv. Angry, hurt, vengeful, but with hearts that yearned to help, scarred and desperate to stop anyone else ever suffering the way they had done. This thing between them...it was love. Damn it.

"Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same," she quoted to him softly.

He scoffed, unimpressed.

"Is that from something?"

"Wuthering Heights."

"Sure," he said. Angela was certain he hadn't read it; she would have been willing to bet this man hadn't so much as looked at a book since high school. "Liv would have known that."

"Would she?"

"Look, I'm done talking to you," he told her. The way he was standing, his feet were well back from the bars but his hands still clung to them, half of him wanting to run from her and half of him drawn closer, his head hung between his shoulders while he tore himself in two, not knowing which way to go, the indecision killing him by inches.

"Then why are you still here?"

It seemed like that thought hadn't occurred to him until she asked him, like he hadn't even realized how inappropriate it was, him discussing his old flame with the woman who'd killed his wife. Finally he took a step back from the cell, let his hands fall away from the bars, gave his head a little shake, but he didn't leave, not completely.

I've got him, she thought.

"Is this how it goes?" she asked. "She gets mad at you and you go looking for someone else to make you feel better?"

You prick, she thought. She'd been enjoying a perfectly nice evening at home on her own terrace and he had come barging in with that wild look in his eyes, and he'd only done it because he'd fought with Liv. The Captain's words echoed through her mind; any port in a storm. She was Angela goddamn Wheatley, and she deserved better. Nevermind that none of it was real, nevermind that she'd only been trying to keep him sweet in order to save her own skin. She'd thought she had him, and now it turned out he'd belonged to someone else all along.

"You don't have any idea-"

"You love her, don't you."

A strangled sound escaped him, and he turned away, but he must have noticed the officer sitting at the desk, then, must have remembered they had an audience, and he turned back around, embarrassed at having been caught out. Probably, Angela thought, he didn't want to look the kid in the eye with an accusation like that hanging in the air. The young man had promised to keep his silence about this whole fiasco, but really, Angela thought, what were the chances of him not telling anybody what he'd seen? Was word of this going to spread through the whole NYPD like wildfire? What kind of impact would that have on Elliot's career, on Captain Benson's?

Oh, I hope they both get suspended, she thought.

"You know that night you kissed me," she said to him, "I thought you pulled away because you felt guilty. I thought you felt like you were betraying your wife. But that's not it at all, is it? You were betraying her. Liv."

At first she'd just wanted to rattle him with that accusation, but as she spoke it struck her how true it might have been. That maybe if Liv hadn't been angry with him, he never would have kissed her. Maybe he would have gone to her instead, and maybe he would have pulled away from Angela, and maybe he would have found it easier to swallow, the knowledge that Angela had orchestrated Kathy's death. Funny, how one little decision could change so many things.

"Don't say her name," he hissed, like he couldn't stand the sound of it coming from Angela's lips. Like he thought she had no right to it.

Maybe I should have killed her instead, Angela thought then. Maybe I had it all wrong. Maybe it wasn't the wife who meant the most to him. Maybe it was her.

"You are a piece of work, Elliot Stabler," she said wryly. "Did you cheat on your wife with her? And then you cheated on her with me?"

His face turned red and he stepped up close again, angry, again, furious, even, and she was reminded, not for the first time, how dangerous he was. Quick to anger, spoiling for a fight, a gun at his hip, he wouldn't hesitate to hurt someone, if they hurt the people close to him. And Angela, she was responsible for Kathy's death, and now she'd just gone and insulted both his women. A misstep, perhaps. She'd just wanted to see what might happen. Sometimes she just liked to set the dominoes up, and watch them fall; that was her weakness. Sometimes she couldn't stop.

"I never cheated on my wife. And I never cheated on Liv because I've never been with Liv."

He is such a man, she thought. It was typical, really, that he'd convinced himself that just because he'd never touched Captain Benson, there wasn't anything between them. There was more than one way for a man to be unfaithful to his wife, and Angela had seen them all.

"But you want to be, don't you? You told me you were confused-"

His hands tightened around her cell, so hard his knuckles went white, and she could see the thick vein in the side of his neck, pulsing in time to his raging, reckless heart.

"You know if these bars weren't between us I'd have wrung your neck by now? You killed my wife."

A strange expression came over his face, then, like he'd only just remembered that. Like somehow he had forgotten what she was doing in that cell, why he was standing outside of it. There must have been so much noise in his head, she thought, so much grief and so much guilt and so much rage, that he couldn't make sense of it. But he remembered, now, and she knew he wasn't going to forget again, not as long as he was looking at her.

"Nothing you say matters." It sounded to Angela like he was talking more to himself than to her. "Nothing you say is the truth. You act like you care but you're a snake, aren't you? Getting in my head, trying to make me think-"

"Oh, I have no idea what you think, Elliot," she cut him off breezily. "Whatever's going on in your head, that's on you. But you obviously want to talk to someone about this. Otherwise you'd have left by now."

On the other side of the cell she watched him, watched the flicker of emotions in his eyes, watched the incredulous turn of his mouth, as he realized that she was telling the truth. As he realized that, no matter how much he might insist that he was handling things on his own, that he didn't need help, there was a part of him that did want to talk. A part of him he tried to ignore, a part of him that was clawing its way up the back of his throat now. Did he realize now how twisted it was, that when he needed someone he had turned to his wife's killer? Was he hating himself for wanting her, even now, knowing what she'd done? Everything that ever mattered to him, every touchstone in his life that had ever kept him grounded, kept him on the straight and narrow, had been ripped away, and he was spinning, now, entirely alone. Maybe for the first time in his life, she thought. No Kathy, no Liv, no kids, work a disaster, who else could he reach for? No one but her. There was something sick about it, and she knew he didn't understand it. Angela understood it, though. This had been her plan all along.

"Yeah, I am confused," he confessed through clench teeth. "You confuse me. Liv confuses the hell out of me."

I bet she does, Angela thought. Maybe it had been easier when they'd been working together, when he'd been married. The regulations of their jobs and the vows of his marriage had drawn a clear line between them, and no doubt he'd told himself as long as he didn't touch her they were in the clear. Those boundaries had protected him, but they had been stripped away, now. There was nothing to stop him going after her, but he'd been stopping himself for years, and maybe, she thought, maybe his brain just hadn't caught up to his heart yet. Maybe he didn't know how to start.

"Can I tell you something?" she said, very softly. "I don't think you're confused at all. I think you're afraid. That woman, she came down here to see me. She wanted to defend you. And you want to defend her. It's obvious you care about her. She matters to you. And she wants to take care of you. So why don't you let her?"

The game was nearly over, and Angela knew it. Pretty soon he'd leave her, and pretty soon someone else would come get her, take her back to interview. Elliot being Elliot, he'd insist on questioning her himself; he'd tell his bosses, tell himself, that he knew her, and so would know best how to get to her. The opposite was true, Angela thought; he'd be too blinded by his own emotions to see what was right in front of him. He wouldn't press her as hard as he would a stranger, and he would have her words of encouragement echoing in his ears, and he would never see what was right in front of him.

"This is really none of your business-"

"No, it isn't. But you came to me. And my opinion? If you don't want to hurt her, stop pushing her away. Go apologize to her. Meet her kid. Let her be there for you."

Somehow she thought if he went to his Liv now, the woman would give him the ass chewing of his life. The way she'd looked when she left, she was ready for a fight. The last time they'd fought, Elliot and his Liv, he'd gone and kissed someone else. What would he do this time? Hopefully something dramatic, she thought. Maybe something that might blow his whole case. A cop on the edge was no good to his team, and she wanted to see him fall. That had, after all, been the point all along.

"You don't know the first thing about her."

Apparently, he hadn't lost his mind completely. He might have been wrecked, but he wasn't stupid enough to pressure his Liv when she was upset.

Maybe they really are the same, Angela thought. The way Elliot lashed out when he was angry, when someone pushed too hard and he wasn't ready to hear it; maybe he recognized that in himself, and maybe his Liv was just the same, and maybe he knew it. Jesus, maybe they deserve each other.

"No, but I know you."

"I promise you, you don't."

He looked up at her then, lifted his head, and his eyes were hard, and for the first time, she wondered if maybe he was right. If maybe she didn't know him, not as completely as she'd thought. It had seemed so easy, in the beginning, leading him along, watching him lose control of his life, watching him make one reckless, stupid choice after another, but he squared his shoulders, now, tucked his hands into his pockets, and the subtle shifting of his face, the unnerving calm that seemed to wash over him, made him look like another man entirely. Like maybe he'd come to a decision, listening to her. Like maybe he'd seen the light.

Shit, she thought.

"Elliot," she spoke his name softly, slid her hand through the bars, but he flashed her a bitter, terrible smile, and ignored her offer of comfort. A few days before, he would have taken that hand and held on. Not so now.

"I don't know why I'm talking to you."

He'd said that before, but he sounded less confused, now. She would have given anything to know what was happening in his head right then.

"You're gonna rot in prison," he continued mercilessly. 'You're never gonna see your kids again."

These fucking people, she thought.

"And what about you, Detective Stabler? Where are you going to go from here?"

What's gonna happen to you, when I'm not there to hold your hand? Would he ever forgive himself, for the way he'd turned to her, kissed her, fallen for her, however shallow his feelings might have been? Would he find someone more appropriate to lay his burdens on, or would he turn to someone worse? Was he really going to leave her behind?

A sense of determination seemed to settle over him as he looked at her. As if he was making up his mind, now, to look at her and see only a murderer, a monster who had destroyed his family, and not a woman he could have cared for. As if he was even now taking every memory of the kindness and want that had existed between them, and setting them on fire. As if he had decided to hate her, and would not be moved.

"Home," he said. Somehow, Angela got the feeling he wasn't talking about his empty apartment.

Evidently he'd looked his fill; he turned his back on her then, and walked away, his shoulders straight, his steps unfaltering, leaving her behind in that ghastly cell, shrinking from view, shrinking from his memory. He left her, and he did not look back.