"Where the hell have you been?" she asked as Stabler came wandering in. He flashed her one of those grins, smug and charming; they both knew that routine wouldn't work on her, but he kept doing it anyway, like it amused him to annoy her.
"Out," he answered, flinging his jacket across the back of a nearby chair and rolling up his shirtsleeves. She raised an eyebrow at him; he was on thin fucking ice, and she had long since made it plain that honesty from him was a requirement of his continued employment at OC. If he knew what was good for him he'd answer her damn question, but he just shrugged.
"What have we got?"
What they had was a hell of a lot of work to do, and no time for his games. The rest of the squad was busy around them, on the phones, on the computers, working diligently in their converted office space, so she decided - for the moment - not to dress him down in front of everybody. A little healthy fear - of him as much as of her - would help keep the new recruits in line. She'd bust his balls in private.
"Got a tip from an old friend at Narcotics," she said. "He had a UC back in the day he thinks might be able to give us some dirt on Wheatley's operation."
"Let's pick him up." Stabler was already reaching for his jacket, eager to get back out into the world, get back to what he saw as real police work. Shoe leather and sweat, that's how he liked to operate, but he was learning his way around the computers, too - begrudingly. Sometimes old dogs really could learn new tricks, but that didn't mean they had to like it. Given the choice between working in the office or pounding the pavement, Stabler would be out the door every time.
"Already got him," she said. It was her turn to be smug. "He's working as an investigator with the DA now, and he agreed to come by for a debrief."
When she first took over this space she'd lobbied hard to have a two-way mirror installed in one of the little rooms at the back. She'd known it wouldn't get much use - so far they'd spent more time talking to witnesses in prison than in their own offices - but every squad needed an interview room. Now they had one, and they were gonna put it to good use.
Stabler fell into step beside her as she made her way back there; he had a habit of adjusting his stride to match hers, walking to her left and one step behind, like it was the most natural thing in the world that she should take the lead. More than once she'd wondered if he'd do the same thing with a male superior, or if there was some instinctual chivalry that had been bred into him at Catholic school he hadn't quite had a chance to shake. The man had spent years working sex crimes and that must have left its mark, too, she thought; no man could spend that long doing that work without developing either a healthy respect for women, or a bone deep resentment. It seemed to her Stabler had landed on respect, and that was all for the good.
"Say hello to Brian Cassidy," she said as they drew level with the two-way mirror. From this side they could see their UC-turned-investigator clearly, but he couldn't see anything other than himself. In the room he was lounging in his chair, his feet kicked up on the table and his arms crossed behind his head, whistling. The guy looked like a grade A douchebag to her; his hair was shorn close, like Stabler's, to hide the fact that he was on the wrong side of fifty and he'd lost most of it anyway, and his faded jeans and heavy black boots and wrinkled black button down made him look like he'd just rolled out of one of those seedy massage parlors SVU kept trying to shut down. When she'd brought him in he'd been cracking smart-ass jokes and leering at Jet, and Ayanna already couldn't stand the prick.
Apparently neither could Stabler; when she said the name Cassidy his face turned red, and as he looked into the room he swore.
"Son of a bitch," he said. "Brian fucking Cassidy."
"You know this guy?" That was news to her; she'd looked over Stabler's jacket more than once, there was nothing in there about him working Narcotics.
"He was with SVU for about five minutes. Last century."
One of the things she hated most about the old guard was that all those bastards knew each other, and they leveraged their friendships - and animosities - to keep up and comers on the outside looking in. Oh, she'd been around a long time herself, but NYPD was still an old boys' club, and she felt like a door had just been slammed in her face.
"SVU's like the mafia, isn't it? Once you're in, you're in for life."
SVU is a family, that's what Chief Garland liked to say. Like the fucking Corleones, that's what she always thought when she heard it.
"You've had some run-ins with them?" Stabler asked, curious. He'd been with SVU a long time, maybe he was wondering if she'd put in a call to his old Captain to get the dirt on him. She'd tried, but his old Captain was long retired, fishing off the coast of some island somewhere with no cell service. Living the fucking dream.
"I've heard some things."
It was better to keep him on his toes, and better not to let him know that Chief Garland had called her personally when the news got out that she was taking Stabler on. I've met some people who know him, and I've seen him in action, Garland had told her. You'll wanna keep an eye on him. Like she needed a Chief to tell her that.
Stabler grunted. "Listen, you mind if I go in alone? He might talk more openly if it's just me."
What she really wanted to do was tell him no and park him in the corridor to watch while she spoke to Cassidy alone. What she really wanted to say was fuck you and your connections. But Ayanna had been a cop for too long, and she knew how things worked. These two were old friends, old white men who had history, and so would have a connection all their own. Get a guy like Cassidy alone in a room with a guy like Stabler, and they'd say more to each other than they ever would with Ayanna looking over their shoulders. It might have been true but that didn't mean she had to like it.
"All right," she said. "But I'm watching. If I don't like where this is going or you're not asking the right questions, I'm coming in."
"You got it, boss."
Ordinarily that would have been the moment he shot her another one of those grins, but his jaw was working hard like he was trying to resist the urge to break something, and he gave his head a little shake the way he did when he got nervy. That didn't bode well.
"You good?"
Stabler didn't answer; he just marched into the room, and she sighed and switched the com on, watching and listening to see what might happen next.
The second Stabler walked through the door Cassidy straightened up, slammed his feet on the floor and looked up at him with a sharp, incredulous expression on his face. It was almost funny, really, how quickly he moved, how much Stabler's arrival seemed to have shaken the man. Like he'd seen a ghost - and not a particularly friendly one.
"Son of a bitch," he said. It wasn't lost on Ayanna that it was the same reaction Stabler'd had when he saw Cassidy's face for the first time. What have you gotten me into here, Stabler? She wondered. "Elliot Stabler. Long time no see."
It would have made sense if they were old friends for Stabler to go to him, shake his hand, clap him on the back the way the old boys always did when they ran into each other, but he didn't. He leaned back against the wall instead, crossed his arms over his chest. His face was dark, unreadable for once, but the distance between them told her she'd been wrong to think they were close. Maybe they had been brothers, once, but there was clearly bad blood between them now, and she'd gone and let him into the room alone.
Shit.
"Yeah, it has been a long time," Stabler said. "How you been, man?" The words had a smack of easy familiarity to them, but Stabler's eyes were narrowed, watching this man like a hawk circling its dinner. Probably he didn't give two shits how Cassidy had been doing since the last time they saw each other, but courtesy dictated that he ask.
"Getting by," Cassidy said dismissively. "Liv know you're back?"
Oh, what the fuck?
The name didn't mean anything to Ayanna, but the significance of it was plain. Cassidy had asked the question quickly, easily, but his eyes were sharp and intent, like he'd just thrown a punch, and Stabler tensed when the words struck him. They were supposed to be talking about Wheatley, but it was clear neither of them intended to do so until they'd cleared the air about this Liv, and Ayanna didn't have time to watch them hash out old hurts. Probably she should go in there now, move things along, but truth was she was actually a little curious, now, and content, for the moment, to let this play out. She knew a few things about Stabler, knew he grieved for his wife, knew he had a tense relationship with his kids, knew his jacket was littered with excessive force complaints, but there were still so many secrets she hadn't uncovered yet, and she was still trying to decide if she could trust this asshole. If there was a woman out there, a woman who meant something to him, she wanted to know about it.
"She does," Stabler said tightly.
Cassidy grinned, but there was no mirth in it; he looked like a man spoiling for a fight, and that grin was all teeth, sharp, like a shark.
"She kick your ass yet?"
Stabler's jaw was working again, like he was trying to swallow the words he really wanted to say. It was a remarkable display of restraint, Ayanna thought; usually he couldn't keep his mouth shut. Why was he holding back now? The questions bounced around her head, who this woman was, what Cassidy was talking about. Would this Liv kick Stabler's ass, given the chance? He was a big man, heavy with muscle, hands better suited to punching than typing on a computer. Was there a woman out there who could give him a run for his money? And what reason would she have to try? Just what the fuck had Stabler done?
"No."
"That's too bad," Cassidy said, a cruel sort of laughter in his voice. "I wanna be there when she does. I'll bring popcorn."
Stabler's tenuous hold on his temper couldn't last forever, and it snapped, then.
"What the fuck is your problem, man?"
He pushed up off the wall, stepped towards Cassidy like he was getting ready to brawl, and then thought better of it. Instead he retreated, pacing in his corner, like he was still waiting for the bell to go off before he went after his opponent. Ayanna leaned closer to the glass, watching. If they went after each other she'd have to put a stop to it; the last thing she needed was the DA finding out that one of her guys had beat the shit out of his investigator for being a smart ass.
"What's my problem? What's your problem, huh? Do you have any idea what you did to her?"
They were wading into dangerous territory. Both of them, Cassidy and Stabler, had their backs up, chests puffed out like gorillas, eyes locked on each other, angry - no, she thought, more than angry. Furious. The point of this reunion was to talk about Wheatley, but the two of them had clearly forgotten that, wanted to air old grievances instead. There was a part of Ayanna that knew she shouldn't let them; she needed to break them up, send Stabler out of the room, and talk to Cassidy one-on-one, get the info she needed and send him home. But, like every detective in the NYPD, there was a part of her that was too curious for her own good.
Stabler had been a wreck since his wife died. There was a picture of the woman on his desk, a picture of his pretty blonde wife, a memorial he couldn't part with. He wasn't sleeping, and he'd lost control of himself, gone reckless and rogue, dedicated to pursuing the man who'd taken her from him. Everything he did, everything he said, every twitch of his head and every nightmare he had, was about her. It didn't take a detective to see how much he missed her, how deeply he must have loved her. But here sat Brian Cassidy, talking about another woman. A woman they both evidently cared for. Before now she'd assumed Stabler had been devoted to his wife, but what if that wasn't true? Just how many skeletons were in his closet, and were any of them gonna come back to bite her in the ass?
I'll give them another minute, she told herself.
"Look Liv's a big girl," Stabler started to say, but he misjudged his audience, and his words were cut short with a curse.
"Oh, fuck you!" Cassidy was on his feet in an instant, mad as a hornet. Stabler stayed where he was in the corner, watching him, and even from outside the room Ayanna could feel the tension crackling and bubbling between them. "You weren't there when that asshole took her, and I spent months waking up to her screaming your name in the middle of the night."
On the other side of the glass Ayanna's blood ran cold. She'd thought this was just some spat over a woman, a pissing contest between two overgrown teenagers who'd been chasing after the same skirt, but she'd been wrong. Something had happened to this woman, something bad. And whatever her connection was to Stabler, screaming his name in her nightmares? That meant whatever was between them, it was intimate. Personal.
Maybe he really did cheat on his wife, she thought. Maybe he's just walking around feeling guilty about being a shitty husband.
"What asshole?"
Stabler's voice was low, and heated, demanding the way he'd get with a suspect he wanted to intimidate. Apparently he didn't know any more details about what had happened to his girl than Ayanna did. This girl he'd walked out on, this girl who knew he was back, but hadn't kicked his ass yet. Had he seen her since he came back to town? Ayanna wondered. Whatever he got up to on his own time was his own business, but he hadn't mentioned a life outside work and his kids. If there was a woman, she needed to know; they already suspected Wheatley had gone after Stabler's wife to get at him, and there had been that run-in with those thugs he thought were threatening his kid. If there was anyone else who might have a connection to him - and be in danger because of it - Ayanna needed to know so she could keep them safe, and keep Stabler's head above water.
"Jesus," Cassidy said, almost in disbelief, like he couldn't imagine a world in which Stabler didn't know what had happened to this Liv. Like he hated him for it.
"Cassidy, what asshole?" Stabler pushed himself off the wall, a desperate look on his face. Like he needed to know, like he couldn't go on not knowing, like it was eating him up inside. It must have been, if he cared about this woman, if he'd only just discovered that something terrible had happened to her, that she'd been hurt and missing him and he'd been in the dark about all of it.
"She didn't tell you?" Cassidy was just twisting the knife, now, and looking like he was enjoying every second of it.
"I've been going through some shit. She didn't want to pile on."
That, Ayanna thought, was the understatement of the century. Stabler had been unraveling over the course of the last few weeks, and if he had talked to his Liv, the woman must have seen it, and decided to keep her pain to herself. On the other side of the glass Cassidy went still for a second, a strangely sober expression crossing his face.
"Yeah, that's right. I heard about your wife. I am sorry about that, man."
He did actually sound sorry. However much these two might hate each other now they had been in the trenches together once, and that had a way of binding even the most heated adversaries together. And the loss of a wife was something different, something that even a wise-ass son of a bitch like Cassidy wouldn't mock.
Stabler ran his hand across his face, weary.
"Thanks." There wasn't really anything else he could say, and Ayanna knew it. A grief like that; no words could mend it. People said sorry and the bereaved said thanks and on and on it went until the rest of the world moved on and the condolences stopped coming. Cassidy was still looking for a fight, though, and he hadn't spoken his piece yet, not in full. He allowed them both a moment of silence, to acknowledge the loss of a good woman, a woman Stabler had loved, but then his eyes narrowed, and he dug back in mercilessly.
"Yeah, you really had it all there for a while, didn't you?" he said, very quietly, his voice dripping with disdain and maybe, she thought, with jealousy. "Pretty wife to take care of you, Liv watching your back-"
Partners, Ayanna thought. They must have been partners, if this Liv had watched his back. Maybe that's why Stabler, for all his machismo, didn't have a problem working for a female superior; maybe he'd had the misogyny beaten out of him while he was working with a female partner. She made a mental note to look the woman up, later. There might be secrets hiding in her jacket that hadn't been in Stabler's. This Liv might even have some pointers on how to handle him, though Ayanna thought she'd done a decent job so far of holding his leash.
Except she wasn't holding it now; she'd given him his head, and he was right back in the fight, spitting mad at the accusation Cassidy had just thrown at him.
"Don't talk about my wife," he hissed, the thick vein in the side of his neck standing out in stark relief as his blood boiled beneath his skin.
"I'll just talk about Liv then, huh?" Cassidy fired back. "Is that ok? Seeing as I'm kind of an expert on the subject."
The man said the words like he wanted them to hurt, like he was taking his own connection to Stabler's Liv, and rubbing his face in it. Reminding him that whatever Stabler's relationship to the woman might have been, Cassidy was the one lying next to her at night. Did that drive Stabler crazy? Ayanna wondered. The way he talked about his wife, his kids - when he talked about them, which wasn't often - there was an almost possessive quality to his voice, a fierce, dedicated sort of devotion. Had that devotion once extended to Liv? Had she been his, in some way, and did it tear him up to think about Cassidy touching her?
"You're a piece of shit."
Maybe it did.
"I'm not the one who walked out on her!" Cassidy was pacing by the back wall, and Stabler was sticking to his corner, but the room wasn't so very big, and they couldn't really get away from each other. The sound of his voice echoed off the cinderblocks like gunfire.
"I'm the one who stayed. I'm the one who was changing her bandages and taking her to doctor's appointments. I'm the one who helped her clean out her apartment when CSU got done with it. I'm the one who sat up with her when she was too fucked up to sleep. And where the fuck were you, huh? Off cozy with your wife somewhere, not giving a shit about Liv and what she went through."
From her vantage point Ayanna could see Stabler's face clearly, and the expressions washing over that face kept changing in time to the pounding beat of his heart. Rage, and grief, and confusion, and fear, all of it was there, written on his skin, in the shifting lines of his mouth, in the rise of eyebrows, while Cassidy unloaded all the pent-up resentment he'd been carrying around for God only knew how long. There was something vengeful about him, lashing out, grieving for the hurt this woman had endured and looking for someone to blame, and he'd found his target, now, and was laying into it with everything he had. The litany of horrors he'd just rattled off would be difficult for a stable man to listen to; what was going through Stabler's head, just now? And really, she thought, maybe she'd been wrong to think so poorly of Cassidy. If he'd stuck with his girl through hell like that, maybe he wasn't such a bad guy, after all.
"I didn't know-"
Stabler's voice sounded strangled, weak almost. Not once since they'd met had she seen him like this, confused and wounded, letting someone else get the better of him. Something about this news seemed to have broken something in him, like whatever pain this Liv felt was his pain, too, and it was only just now hitting him, after the fact.
"Oh, fuck that," Cassidy tossed Stabler's excuse aside dismissively. "It was all over the news. Pretty cop gets kidnapped and tortured? They put her on fucking TV, man."
Kidnapped and tortured. Something told Ayanna that Cassidy wasn't using those words lightly. Christ, what happened to this woman?
"I spent most of the last ten years overseas," Stabler said, and he sounded like he felt guilty for it, for the private security work he'd taken on, for the way he'd built a life for himself that didn't have room in it for his Liv. But why should he? If the woman had been his partner, it made sense they were close, but no partnership lasts forever, and he had a family of his own, a life of his own, and surely she had one, too. Why would he feel so beholden to her? Had this dumbass gone and fallen in love with his partner? Oh, shit, Ayanna thought, what if that's why he left?
She'd never gotten a straight answer on that, why Stabler had left the force, why he'd come back years later. It would make sense, she thought, if he'd gotten in too deep with the woman he was working with and left the job to save both their careers. But oh, Jesus, how fucked up must he be now? If that was why he left, to salvage his marriage, to be a better husband, but he went back to the NYPD and his wife got killed for it? No wonder the son of a bitch couldn't sleep.
"Oh, that's fucking great for you, isn't it?" Cassidy sneered. If Stabler was looking for understanding, he'd come to the wrong asshole. "Couldn't even be on the same continent with her, could you? She needed you, you son of a bitch, and you just turned your back-"
No longer content to stay on his side of the room Cassidy prowled towards him, intent, a boxer pushing an opponent back on the ropes. For his part Stabler stepped up, refused to be backed into the corner; his hackles were up, now, in the face of the accusations Cassidy was lobbing at him. This interview had gone straight to hell - thank God I'm not taping this - and she needed to stop it, but really, at this point, Ayanna wanted to see this play out, and she was sort of enjoying watching someone put Stabler in his place.
"You don't have any idea-" Stabler's voice was a low, dangerous sort of growl, but Cassidy wasn't backing down, either.
"She told me," he said, getting right up in Stabler's face. "How you just walked out. How you never answered your fucking phone. You know she's still got a picture of you in her bedroom?"
The man knew how to go for the jugular; Stabler looked like he'd just swallowed his own tongue.
"How would you know, you been in there lately?" The question was low, and intent, and deeply personal.
Cassidy laughed, but he backed off, paced back towards the other side of the room. It was hard to say which of them would have the advantage in a fight; Stabler was all hard, heavy muscle, powerful, but Cassidy wasn't exactly weak-looking, either. Stabler looked like a boxer in an expensive suit but Cassidy looked like a back alley brawler, like he wouldn't be afraid to fight dirty, and son of a bitch, but Ayanna hadn't checked him for weapons when she brought him in. The DA's investigators didn't carry, but Cassidy looked like the kind of man who might keep a knife tucked in the top of his boot. As interesting as this was, Ayanna didn't want to find out for sure; if they didn't get this shit out of their systems soon, she'd have to step in and put a stop to it no matter how much she wanted to know what might happen next.
"Wouldn't you like to know?" Cassidy sneered. He was avoiding the question, though; the answer was probably that Cassidy hadn't been anywhere near Stabler's girl for a while, but he wanted to leave the man twisting over it. "You fucking prick," he added as an afterthought. "That just burns you up inside, doesn't it? You're the one who walked out and you still don't want to let anyone else have her. You know she fucked Tucker, too, right?"
The only Tucker Ayanna had ever run into was that son of a bitch from IAB. Everybody hated that guy. She remembered him vaguely, iron-grey hair and a thick neck, Irish Catholic and an absolute bastard to every cop who crossed his path, she'd never heard anyone say a good word about that Tucker. Surely it wasn't the same one? It was hard to imagine anybody having sex with him, but this Liv, she'd been with Cassidy, and she'd had some kind of something with Stabler, so maybe her judgment when it came to men wasn't the best. Still, though, she thought. Surely not that Tucker.
Inside the room Stabler seemed equally surprised, and doubly as disgusted.
"I don't have to listen to this-" he was actually turning towards the door, like he meant to end the conversation himself. If he did that would be a relief; it would spare Ayanna the trouble of having to pull him up short herself.
"Yeah, that's right, your old buddy from IAB, that prick is the closest thing her kid ever had to a dad."
Jesus. It was that Tucker. Who is this woman? Ayanna wondered. Was she still a cop? She must have been, if she'd hooked up with Tucker - how else would they have crossed paths with each other? - but what cop in her right mind would lay down with a rat? And what was this about her kid? The kid must have come from somewhere, but he wasn't Cassidy's, based on the way he'd said her kid. Like it was nothing to do with him. Whoever this Liv was, Ayanna was starting to think it would be worth a trip to track her down and get a drink with her. The woman probably had some stories to tell, stories worth hearing.
"And he ate his gun last year." Ayanna remembered hearing something about that, and suddenly she felt the smallest stab of guilt. When she was young her mother used to say you shouldn't speak ill of the dead, and a part of her remembered every piece of advice her mother had ever given her. Had they still been together, Liv and Tucker, when he died? For the woman's sake Ayanna hoped not; it seemed to her that Liv had probably suffered enough. But Cassidy wasn't done yet, and Stabler was just listening, ashen faced, as the tirade carried on.
"You know her brother died, too, right? And you weren't there for any of it. Bet that makes you feel like a piece of shit."
Kidnapped, tortured, a fatherless child, Cassidy, Tucker's suicide, losing her brother; Christ, how much could one woman endure? In the years since Stabler left SVU, apparently his former partner had been through hell, and the agonized expression on Stabler's face articulated his own grief at the thought. It looked like he was coming out of his own skin; he couldn't stand still, kept running his hand over his head, pacing in the corner, twitching just a little. Ayanna felt kinda bad for the guy, now; he hadn't counted on any of this when he walked into that room.
Had he?
Or had he known, she wondered; was that why he'd reacted the way he did when he saw Cassidy's face? Because he'd known a reckoning was coming, because he knew he'd have to listen to the recitation of his own sins, because he knew he'd have to let Cassidy air his grievances, because he knew there were horrors that lurked in the past he had yet to atone for? His shoulders were already bowed beneath the weight of his grief for his wife; was he strong enough to carry this Liv's pain, too, or would her devastation be the thing that broke him, in the end? Ayanna needed the man in one piece; he was a cowboy, but he was a damn good investigator, and the most seasoned member of her team. If she was gonna bring Wheatley down, she needed Stabler with her, and she'd just gone and put him in a room with a man determined to shatter him into pieces, as payback for his own broken heart.
"Cassidy-"
"You wanna know what happened? What happened when you weren't here to watch her back?"
The tortured look on Stabler's face said no, but he was a cop. Whatever Cassidy had to say, whatever details he was keeping in his back pocket, Stabler would need to hear them, no matter how much it hurt. And Ayanna wanted to hear them, too. She wanted to know what had happened to this woman, this woman Stabler had cared for, this woman Cassidy had cared for.
"You left and they saddled her with a couple of rookies to train and they didn't know the first goddamn thing about her. Ran into this prick named Lewis. Real nasty son of a bitch. Serial. He liked to take his girls somewhere quiet, keep 'em for days. Raping 'em. Burning 'em with cigarettes, keys and wire hangers heated up on the stove. You have any idea what that looks like? A hot key pressed against bare skin? You have any idea what kinda mark that leaves? Son of a bitch had her for four days."
Silence settled heavy in that room as the implication of those words sunk in. It looked like Stabler wasn't breathing, but shit, Ayanna wasn't either. This was why she'd never worked sex crimes; she had a strong stomach, but walking around with images like that in your head all day, every day, was enough to drive even a strong cop insane. No one lasted too long, in sex crimes, but Stabler had worked SVU for years. He must have seen it all, and it must have been coming back to him, the sight and the sound and the smell of it, the visceral horror of what one determined man with access to a stove could inflict on another living person, only now all that pain and all that terror was centered on a woman he cared for. A woman he cared for who had suffered at the hands of a monster for four days. Four days was a fucking lifetime. And Stabler hadn't been there to save her.
I gotta take his gun away, Ayanna thought. He'd been borderline unstable before he went into that room with Cassidy; there was no telling where his head was at now, but it couldn't be anywhere good.
Seeing that his words had the intended effect, Cassidy picked up the thread on his story, relentless now.
"He drugged her, starved her. Wouldn't let her have water, gave her booze instead. Concussion, broken ribs. Broken wrist. And the fucking burns...I've got a strong stomach, man, but that...that shit was something else. She wasn't the same, after that. She had nightmares for years. Sometimes she'd go, like, almost into a trance. Like she wasn't even there. Like she was right back in that fucking room with him."
It wasn't all that surprising that this Liv would have been a little fucked up, after something like that. It sounded like PTSD, to Ayanna. But then some of the ways Stabler had been acting recently sounded like PTSD to her, too. Maybe it was something they shared in common, something they could talk about, or maybe it was a wound neither of them would be willing to reopen. If I were her, Ayanna thought, I'd never tell another living soul about it. Some things were better left to rot in the dark.
"She told me she pulled a gun on you."
It was the first time Stabler had spoken for what felt like an eternity, and his voice was hollow, and exhausted, now, like all the fight had been drained out of him. Maybe it had, and maybe that was for the best. Maybe this shit show was almost over, and she could go in and send Stabler out, pick Cassidy's brain for a second like they were meant to be doing in the first place, and save her questions for later, after Stabler had recovered himself. She had about a million of them, and she meant to get answers before she let him out in the field again.
"She told you about that? Yeah, my girlfriend came home and put a fucking gun in my face. But we got through it. All that shit that came after, we dealt with it, together."
He sounded proud of it. Proud of himself, but proud of her, too. Proud of what they'd accomplished together, the way they hadn't let it break them. He had every right to be proud, Ayanna thought. They'd been up against a horror that would have broken most people clean in half, and they'd come through it. Maybe Stabler could hear that, too. Maybe he could hear that his girl was ok, now, that she was safe, now, that there was no need for him to go and do something stupid in the name of making up for all the ways he hadn't been there for her when she needed him.
Or maybe Cassidy was about to blow up their unsteady truce, on purpose, just because he could.
"But the whole time she was wishing you were there instead," he said grimly. "I never told her I heard her call your name in her sleep. She wanted you to save her, and you didn't give a damn about her."
That was too much for Stabler. The implication that it was his fault, that Liv had been desperately hoping he'd come for her, the knowledge that he never had; it zapped through him like lightning, and he was back in the fight in a second. His whole body tensed and he stepped out of his corner, out into the room, hands clenched into fists by his side.
"You know that's not true-"
"You never saw what was right in front of your face, did you? All those years, she was right there. That woman...she's gorgeous and she's strong and she's smarter than both of us and she wanted you and you just kept her dangling. Wouldn't take her, wouldn't let her go. What, did it make you feel like a big man? Going home to fuck your wife, knowing Liv was waiting across town, that she'd let you any time you asked?"
Ayanna saw it happen almost in slow motion; Stabler had been pacing the room while Cassidy talked but he switched direction, started closing in, and she swore, already moving for the door. She was too late; she saw Stabler's fist collide with Cassidy's face through the glass before she could get the door open, and then they were wailing on each other. The pair of them were throwing punches when she got the door open, not standing back and swinging but grappling, in close with each other, fists hitting stomachs, knees in the brawl, Stabler pushing Cassidy back into the corner so he could use the wall to hold him place and get better leverage.
"Stabler! Stand down!"
The man didn't even react; he just kept punching. Furious, frenzied, and Cassidy was trying to give as good as he got but he had to keep his hands up to protect his face, and Stabler was a man possessed, beating on Cassidy like somehow hurting him would be enough to purge the memory of all the hideous things Cassidy had just told him. Like he'd forgotten, for a moment, that he was hitting an old friend, and not the man who'd tortured his girl.
There was no time; Ayanna stepped into the fray, shouting, her hands scrambling for purchase on Stabler's bulky shoulders, and he reared back, like he meant to hit her, too, but then his eyes landed on her face, and he just...stopped. His hands dropped and his body relaxed and his expression went blank, and Cassidy took advantage of the momentary break in Stabler's focus to punch him one last time, hard, right on the mouth.
"Hey, dickhead!" Ayanna was furious now, sliding in between them, but Cassidy seemed to know the thing was done, and Stabler did, too. They retreated; Cassidy slumped back in the corner, running his thumb around his lip to wipe away some of the blood, but his face was already purpling, and the skin above his brow was shredded, too. Stabler didn't wait to hear what Ayanna had to say; he just marched straight out of the room in silence, and she let him.
"We're cool," Cassidy said when she reached for him. She didn't listen; she caught him by the shoulders and guided him back to the table, let him plop down in the chair and bury his face in his hands for a minute.
"You wanna tell me what the fuck that was all about?" she sat herself on the edge of the table, close enough to keep an eye on him and to keep herself between him and the door, should Stabler decide to make a reappearance.
"Oh, that? That was nothing. Just old friends, catching up." Cassidy lifted his head from his hands long enough to give her a grin, but his teeth were still stained with blood.
"Didn't look too friendly to me."
"Hey, you don't gotta worry about me. I'm not telling my boss about this. Anybody asks, I walked into a door."
"With your face?"
"Tale as old as time, Sarge," he said. Working SVU, even for a short time, he'd probably heard that particular excuse a million times. His eyes seemed haunted by the memories.
"Who's Liv, Cassidy?"
And where can I find her? That's what Ayanna really wanted to know. She'd already made up her mind to track the woman down, after she had a chance to talk things through with Stabler. She wanted to meet the woman for herself, not just to satisfy her own personal curiosity - though that would be enough, on its own - but also to see if maybe this Liv could be an ally, someone who could help keep Stabler on the straight and narrow.
Cassidy's face went soft, regretful almost.
"Just somebody who deserved better than two sons of bitches like us."
Privately, Ayanna thought he was right about that.
"Listen, you didn't bring me in here just to wind Stabler up. Narcotics said you need help with something?"
And he did actually look like he wanted to help, she thought. He was gonna have two black eyes and that cut on his forehead needed cleaning, and he was probably gonna hurt like hell when he woke up tomorrow, but his expression was earnest. Like now that he'd cleared the air with Stabler, he was ready and willing to talk, eager to offer his help, if he could. Who the fuck is this guy? Ayanna wondered.
"You know anything about a guy named Richard Wheatley? Works in pharmaceuticals?"
"Nah, sorry. Name means nothing to me. You shoulda told me that on the phone, I coulda saved us both some time." And saved you getting your ass kicked, Ayanna thought.
"Right. Well. Thanks for stopping by."
"Hey, listen, any time," he said dryly.
Cassidy heaved himself up out of his chair, gingerly, and began to walk very slowly from the room.
"Hey, Cassidy?" Ayanna called as he walked away. "Your professional opinion - should I be worried about Stabler?"
In the doorway Cassidy paused, and looked back at her thoughtfully.
"You know, I didn't know him very long. We only worked together maybe two years, tops. But he's as solid as they come. He's a smart ass, and he thinks with his fists sometimes, but he's a good man to have in your corner. As long as he stays there. And listen. I know he's going through it, this shit with his wife. The guy's got kids. They mean everything to him. He's not gonna hurt himself."
It was a shockingly thoughtful response, and reflected an understanding of human nature she wouldn't have expected from a guy like Cassidy. Maybe there was a brain inside the meathead, after all.
"Kind words for a man who just kicked your ass."
"Yeah, well, maybe I deserved it. Felt good to get a few hits in, though. I been dreaming about punching him in the mouth for years."
And then he grinned, and walked away. Inside the room, still sitting on the table, Ayanna just shook her head.
Men.