A/N: Moving, keep on moving, where I feel I'm home again. - Supergrass
DISCLAIMER: I do not own the show or the characters, but, oh, how I wish I did.
March 26th, 10:05 AM
Elliot watched, worried and attentive, as Olivia downed three cups of black coffee, one right after the other, in rapid succession. It concerned him because she usually stayed away from the half-empty pot of lukewarm and bitter swill on the back table. He walked over, pulling one of his own mugs off of the wooden curls on the banister where it had become custom to hang them, and he held it out expectantly. "Slow down," he whispered to her as she poured the last of the coffee into his cup. "Better yet, fucking stop."
She gave him a hard, narrow-eyed look, flaring her nostrils once, and swallowed a final gulp. "My nerves are shot," she hissed back to him.
"Mainlining caffeine isn't really gonna fix that," he teased, and as he poured milk into his mug, he lowered his voice even more. "What happened upstairs had nothing to do with me. You heard Tucker, no one else even knew he wanted me to take that job and transfer, so please, calm down."
"What if you did take it?" She looked at him again, her eyes pained and her face red. Her shaking hands ran down the front of her clean purple shirt, one she'd taken out of storage, and she eyed the hook across the room where her leather jacket hung, covered in dust from the explosion that could have taken Elliot out. "If you were in that room…"
"I wasn't," he interrupted. Letting himself trail his stare up and down her body, he groaned softly. The dark denim jeans clung to her thighs and her ass, her shirt was fitted in the right places and low cut enough to be tantalizing without being overtly sexy. Looking around, he made sure no one would notice, and then he dropped his head and kissed her once, quickly. "I wasn't. Tucker told us he changed his mind because recommending me for that promotion would have meant I owed him something," he chuckled then said, "I wasn't there. I was with you. Where I belong."
Nodding, she took a deep breath, but when she met his gaze again, the fear crept in once more. A scoff escaped as she shot her eyes toward the ceiling and curled her lips into a disbelieving sneer. "Thank God for small favors," she spoke through tightly clenched teeth.
Sipping his coffee, he hummed in agreement. "Pretty big favor, actually," he spoke, knowing what it took for Cragen to convince Tucker to recommend someone else for the job. Exhaling, he rocked on his heels once. "I want you to come to Shotzie's with me on Saturday." He took another sip, watching her eyes screw together. Chuckling, he said, "It's a tattoo shop."
Olivia finally put her empty cup in her hand down on the white table and put her hands in her pockets. Studying him, she mentally counted his tattoos, each one coming to life attached to a very specific memory. He had his fair share of ink already, and she vividly recalled the first time she saw every single piece. "What are you getting?" she asked, almost excited. "Where are you gonna put it?" She licked her lips, the possibilities skating across her mind.
"You'll see," he said with an almost seductive smirk, "And maybe this time you'll get one instead of just watching the guy torture me." He wagged his eyebrows, leaning toward her and stealing another quick kiss. He knew then that his plan had worked; she'd calmed down enough so that the panic attack was averted. "I love you," he whispered to her. Before she could answer him, he backed up a full foot, having heard Cragen's door open. There were footsteps heading toward them from the interrogation room and the voices of his captain and colleagues began to fill the air. He gave Olivia a small smile before turning on his heels and taking another swallow of his drink. "So we tracked down Henry Scanlon," he told Cragen, "He's the artist behind the newest issues of Le Morte. That's where that drawing came from."
Hiding her still slightly shivering hands under her folded arms, Olivia waited for Cragen to speak, but when he didn't she said, "He lives right above Gotham Comics. He's a person of interest, but we don't have enough to arrest him. We could question him, but that's about it, until we get something sold. What we have now is circumstantial at best, so what do you want us to do?"
"Go get his ass," Cragen barked, moving quickly across the room to the corkboard. He tacked up a photo of another victim along with a copy of the illustration found next to her body. "Before he finishes the story," he flicked the inked page, eyeing the black hand-lettered text. "According to this, he's already planning the final issue." He gave Elliot a harsh glare. "With an additional alternate ending."
Elliot dropped his mug onto the table, then moved toward the board and read the words on the page. "Shit," he hissed, "Can't let this bastard go after two more people." He hooked his left hand around Olivia's elbow, and pulled her with him as he strode toward the door. "Jackets," he said flatly, knowing she would hear him.
Like it was their routine, Olivia grabbed the two leather coats and yanked them off of their hooks on the way out of the squadroom doors. Without missing a beat, she tossed the black one over to Elliot and he caught it as she shoved her arms into the sleeves of her own. "Until now, he hasn't said anything to either of us, not since we were allowed back into the building."
Elliot exhaled, walking with her down the hall. He chewed on his lip as they passed the doors to file-storage, the bathrooms, the floor clerk, and when he stopped, he slapped the call button for the elevator. "He had Tucker in his office for an hour, then had a meeting with the chief, went right into the pit to watch Fin and Munch interrogate Nichols, then skulked back into his office, so when exactly was he supposed to talk to us?"
When the elevator doors slid open, she walked into the box and leaned against the back wall. "You don't think he's avoiding us? This isn't some sort of planned ignorance so he doesn't have to…"
"I think he's been busy with the eighteen other people under his command," he broke in, moved closer to her, and said, "But even if he is avoiding us, that's a good thing. It means he doesn't want to take any kind of action, he isn't trying to make us choose…" he waited until she turned her head and looked at him, then he smiled. "Because he knows what choice we would make."
Smiling back at him, she said, "I'm sure he does," then as the lift jerked to a stop and the doors opened, her shoulders dropped. Walking out into the lobby, she rubbed a hand over her forehead. "Okay," she breathed, and then her eyes narrowed. Something she'd been meaning to ask him formed into words that burned her tongue, begged to be born. "Are you sure that that choice would be...the one you really want to make?"
Turning around fast, he raised an eyebrow. "You didn't just ask me that," he spoke in a low voice, as if it hurt to say. He shook his head and reached for her arm, giving it a tight grip and hard tug. "Yes, Jesus."
"I'm just…" she exhaled, closing her eyes, and she knew from the warmth hitting her face and the cool air surrounding her that he'd pushed open the front doors and led her outside. Another deep breath and she opened her eyes as she found the strength to voice the thought that terrified her. "Less than ten days," she shrugged. "How can you...both of us, shit, how can we be where we are in ten fucking days? I've had relationships with other people that lasted months, and I couldn't even…"
"Nine years," he spat fast, checking his watch. "And ten months, two weeks, four days, four hours, and seventeen minutes." He kept talking as he goaded her toward the ruddy brown sedan that might as well have their names on the title. "You showed up two minutes to six, wearing a powder blue shirt under a navy blue suit, these black boots that made your legs look so damn long. Cragen wasn't even there yet, so I made you a cup of coffee and showed you how to…"
"Log into the system, check my email," her grin softened. "You remember…"
"Everything," he exhaled, unlocking the car. He pulled the driver's side door open but didn't get in. "It wasn't immediate...I don't think I fell in love with you in that exact moment, but I guess, as it was happening, every memory of you became permanently tattooed on parts of me I didn't even know I had." He splayed one hand out on the hood of the car, then pointed to her with the keys. "Listen, I made the offer, that promise to you, before Kathy left, before we got shot at, before that fucker Harris…" he let the brief but intense anger thinking about Sealview had sparked fade with a heavy exhalation. "So you know damn well I'm serious. I have loved you, for so damn long. Okay, yeah...it's been less than two weeks since things became a lot easier, since we made this more real than anything else ever was, but honestly…" he smirked and knew what he was about to say would make her realize how serious he was. "I'm the longest relationship you've ever had," he waited and watched the corners of her lips pull. Chuckling he said, "And you're the most intimate and intense relationship I've ever been in, how many times have we tried to fucking say it? You left…" he exhaled. "You transferred because you knew."
"And I came back because I knew," she said softly, then rushed around to his side of the car, grabbed the collar of his tee-shirt, and pulled him down to her with a whisper of his name.
He moaned, kissing her, feeling her soft lips against him, her hot tongue gliding with his. The way his whole body trembled with how much he needed her, he hoped his kiss conveyed how important she was. Wrapping his quivering arms around her, he leaned back against the car, pulled her flush to him, and moaned into her mouth. When she cried his name, he swallowed her moan and his shaking subsided. "I love you," he professed, brushing her nose with his. "It's been so much longer than eight fucking days." He kissed her once again, pressing his lips to hers firmly as he palmed and squeezed her denim-covered ass. "And it's everything I want, for the rest of my life."
As she nodded, her forehead grazed against his. "God, me, too." She let out a small laugh, gripping him just as tightly as he was her; her arms around his waist, fingers curled into the fabric of his tee-shirt. Slanting her mouth over his again, the memories came rushing back, how protective he'd always been, how he'd threatened every date and hated every boyfriend, the million ways they'd tried so desperately to tell each other how they'd felt, the fear that had kept them from actually admitting it out loud. "I love you," she said softly, her lips moving against his.
He slapped her ass hard with a quiet chuckle. "I know you do," he replied, and he shifted her body away from his and tugged the wrinkles out of his shirt. "We should…get back to..." he couldn't catch his breath, his shoulders rose and fell twice as he struggled for air. "Damn, baby," he laughed, then he bit his lip, scraped his teeth over it as he watched her move around to her side of the car.
Settling into her seat, she buckled up and waited for him to get in and start the car. Once he turned the key, she looked at him. "You really were leaving her," she said, her eyes focused on the lighter patch of skin on his left hand. "That's why you knew she wouldn't be there when I was staying with you after Picard..." her eyes closed, and as she cracked her knuckles she shook her head, unable to speak about it anymore.
"She left the hospital, uh, a little while after you showed up, went back to her mother's," he pulled out of his parking space and let out a heavy breath. "I thought that was it, ya know? I honestly have no idea why she came back, it just prolonged the inevitable, really. I guess she was hoping that being apart for that long would've made me more determined to hold onto her, but it just made me realize how much I loved you, and that I needed to let her go." He frowned and exhaled. "Why do you think getting a judge to review and file the papers was so damn easy? They'd been signed for over a year."
She chuckled and nodded. "We're a couple of fucking idiots," she said softly, reaching over the console. She wrapped her hand around his as it rested on the gear shift. "We ignored this, fought it like hell, and we missed out on so much."
He let out another easy breath, relaxing into his seat, and hooked his thumb up over the side of her hand. "No, we just knew that we needed to be absolutely ready for this. Nothing in the way, nothing holding us back, because this is...this is it, Liv." He spun the wheel with one hand, traveling toward the comic book shop where they knew their perp would be hiding.
"Yeah," she nodded, her lips in a flat smile, "It is." Resting her right palm on the handle of her door, she took a breath and said, "You're right. There's nothing in the way, so...you know, I'm ready when you are."
He parked beside the curb, slapping the vinyl badge against the windshield so the car wouldn't be ticketed, but before he opened his door he looked across to her. "I'm ready, I've been ready for months. It was my idea, remember?" He winked at her and knew that they'd just agreed to something life-altering, binding them to one another in ways they'd only fantasized about once upon a time. Invigorated, he got out of the car and tugged the chain around his neck up a bit, pulling his badge out from under the fabric of his shirt. "Stay behind me."
"When have I ever…" the severity of his glare made her stomach churn. Words failed and all she could do was nod; his overwhelming defense of her struck her to the core. She rested her right hand on her hip, over her gun, and only stayed half a step behind him as he led her into the small, nearly empty storefront.
Although the door was unlocked, the place didn't seem ready for customers. The lights were off and the television sets weren't even plugged into the outlets. Shelves were filled with dusty boxes of collectible cards and action figures, cases of comic books and board game manuals overflowed into piles of strewn plastic and paper. "NYPD!" Elliot shouted, aiming his gun. "Anyone here?" He took another step. "Henry Scanlon! NYPD, we need to…"
"El," Olivia's voice sounded defeated, breathless, and when he turned to her, she shook her head. "He's not gonna answer you." She holstered her gun and folded her arms. "Unless you're psychic."
"Damn," he huffed, spotting the body behind the counter. Leaping over the glass and metal, he spat out a harsh, "Call it in," before kneeling to check for a pulse. "Ask for Warner," he gruffed, cursing under his breath. He heard Olivia on the phone, spouting her badge number and the address, and he checked for any kind of ID. "Fuck," he mumbled, then looked around for anything the killer may have left behind, trying not to be grateful to whomever it was for ending the bastard's life. "Liv!" He yanked a torn piece of yellow paper off of the crumpled and bloodied body of Henry Scanlon. "Look at this." With wide eyes, he held it up, facing it outward toward Olivia.
"You're welcome," she read the red marker words, her shocked expression mirroring his. "What the fuck?" Looking at him, she saw the mild fear and morbid curiosity written in his features. "Here," she pulled two plastic bags out of her jacket pocket, then looked around for something to give him to write with. "Shit, what did we walk into, here?" She slapped her hand over a ball-point pen she'd found on the counter, then rolled it over to him as he got to his feet.
He bagged the wallet and the letter separately, pressed the tape down to seal them, then scrawled his name onto the label with the word "fingerprints" beside it, letting whoever would analyze it know he'd touched them. "Don't fucking know," he huffed, grabbing the evidence bags. "But someone knew we were onto this hump, left him here for us like a fucking Christmas present."
"Who knew, besides Cragen?" she asked with a hard gruff. "Novak certainly wouldn't kill anyone for us, or do anything else if there was a chance she'd break a nail." Biting the inside of her cheek, she drummed her fingers over her brown leather sleeves. Looking around at the dingy, cobweb speckled store, she pursed her lips. "This place hasn't been cleaned in a while, no one's been restocking or organizing."
"So it was closed for business, but we know Scanlon lived in the apartment upstairs," Elliot said. Then he theorized. "Someone bangs on the door hard enough for him to hear it from up there, he comes down to answer it…he won't let just anyone in if the shop is closed, so it's probably someone he knows." He turned and looked at Olivia. "Attacker jumps him, takes him by surprise, Scanlon thinks it's about money so he goes to the register to prove it's empty…"
"Doer shoots him in the back of the head, then writes us that little love note," Olivia finished, and her head whipped around when the lights began to flash through the window. "Patrol and CSU are here," she said with a sigh. "Where the hell is Warner?"
"Probably dealing with another body," he quipped. He walked over to her and pulled her away from the door so the other officers and criminalists could get into the place. "As much as I don't want to talk to her, one of us needs to call Novak. We gotta get a warrant for Scanlon's apartment and everything in it. Look for something to tell us if anyone else would want him dead. Maybe the note wasn't meant for us." Crossing his arms, he bowed his head in her direction. "Maybe we should ask her to talk to Morten's lawyer again. Get another name, because this could be one of them tying up loose ends."
"By we you mean me," she surmised, angling herself toward him and giving him a playfully annoyed look.
He chuckled. "Well, I could call her, but she'd start moaning into the phone or something and you…" he snorted at the way she held up a hand and rolled her eyes, but whispered, "Don't worry, I'll make you moan, later."
With her phone pressed to her ear, she returned his smokey gaze and smirked at him. "Promise?" she teased, waiting for Casey to answer the call. When the woman picked up, she held up a finger and turned away from Elliot.
He watched her walk outside, assuming she needed space to deal with Novak, and he stepped over to one of the crime scene technicians. "So you know, Detective Benson's prints, and mine, will be on the counter." He slapped the older man on the back. "Anyone call in someone from TARU? We need to see if these cameras work, if anything was recorded," he pointed to the three security cameras spaced along the ceiling.
"On it, Detective," a young officer replied before radioing in to dispatch.
Stepping further into the store, Elliot spoke to another crime scene specialist, this time a petite brunette with almondine eyes. "I need you to take pictures of everything, and look on these shelves for any copies of Le Morte. It's a graphic novel. You find any, bag 'em for me."
"Yes, Sir," the woman nodded then pushed her glasses up higher on her nose before starting to scour the bookcases for the gruesome comic books.
A voice from the doorway spoke directly to Elliot. "I don't know whether to be proud or worried."
Elliot laughed as he turned and shrugged. "I don't want your job, Cap," he declared firmly. "I know how to handle a crime scene, what to do when I'm the first on scene." He glanced out the window and smiled at Olivia. "She still growling at Novak out there?"
Cragen nodded, folding his arms. "I'm not here to babysit you," he said fast, as soon as Elliot faced him again. "Liv called this in, it became high priority, so I came down." He blew a puff of air out through his nose. "I don't doubt that you two can do your jobs."
"Who said you did?" Elliot raised an eyebrow, then tilted his head toward the door. "Did Liv say something to you?"
Shaking his head, Cragen said, "I don't even think she saw me coming, she's too busy snarling at the ADA." He curled his fingers together and dropped his arms low. "Just wanted you to know...I'm trying to believe you two can separate what happens at home from what happens on the job." His eyes bored directly into Elliot's. "I need to believe that, you understand?"
At first, Elliot squinted at his captain, confused. "You have no reason not to," he snapped. "You know damn well nothing would ever make us work any differently." Recognition fell on him, then. "You went to see Huang."
"Didn't have a choice," Cragen scoffed, "Got it over with, he signed off on it, hence I'm here and not trapped behind my desk." He rifled around in his pocket for something, then gripped it tightly in his hand as he spoke to Elliot. "You, uh, think Olivia would have said something to me?"
"No," Elliot shook his head and licked his lips. "We're good. We're...amazing," he brushed a hand through the air and exhaled fast. "Our guy's not, though. Scanlon's dead, so we need to not only tie him to the two vics, but figure out who killed him on top of it. Unless you wanna turn this one over to Homicide, that is." He scratched the back of his neck. "Your call, Cap."
Cragen stared at him for a moment. He wondered where the arrogant, temperamental, power-hungry cop was; the man who would be ready to fight like hell to keep this case for himself. Tilting his head, he pondered the calm, in-control, professional detective in front of him. "Maybe we should let them handle Scanlon's murder," he nodded, but before he could say anything else at all, Olivia walked back through the door.
She noticed that both men turned toward her immediately, their eyes holding different shades of the same expression. "Novak is on her way down here with two warrants, one for the store and the apartment upstairs, one for Scanlon's phone, computers, cameras, and…"
"Good," Cragen said, interrupting her, "But, uh, Stabler had the right idea. You two work on proving Scanlon is our perp, I'll let the local Homicide unit take this angle."
"That's the One-Nine?" Elliot asked, and when Cragen gave him a single nod, he smirked. "Samson and his rookie partner," he chuckled. "They're gonna hate us for this." He rubbed his chin and looked at Olivia. "I'm cool with letting them take it."
She raised an eyebrow at him. "Yeah?" she breathed. "Okay." She looked toward Cragen and said, "When she gets here, I'll let Warner know we need her to run DNA comparison." Her head turned back toward Elliot, "And when we get Scanlon's prints down to the lab, they can match them to the ones Ryan pulled off of Melanie Crenshaw's purse, and we'll be able to close this one." Her eyes dropped to the grimy carpet. "Give the parents some closure, get justice for these girls, and…"
"Keep Morten behind bars in Colorado," Elliot added, then looked at Cragen. "You want us to stay here until Samson and Pruitt show up?"
"Go back, work this from the house," Cragen told them, and he looked Elliot in the eyes as the two detectives moved toward the door. "Something's up with you." His words stopped Elliot cold.
"What do you mean?" He crossed his arms, but his focus was on Olivia, who'd moved out of the door and onto the sidewalk to meet the medical examiner.
"You know what I mean," Cragen whispered, stepping closer to the younger detective. "How long has it been since you exploded at work? Since someone complained about your attitude?" He held out a hand. "I came down here, honestly, because I expected to need to calm you down and pull you out of the field. I show up and not only are you completely calm, you're delegating and supervising." He gave Elliot a flummoxed expression. "And you just willingly handed a cold body that you know is related to a case you threatened to kill people over to a couple of guys you can't stand."
With a small smile, Elliot turned his head to face Cragen. "I still blow up at work, just, uh, not as often," he shrugged. "The last two weeks, ya know, a lot has changed, my life is a lot less stressful, less complicated than it used to be, maybe that's…"
"Elliot," Olivia poked her head through the door and interrupted the conversation, eying her partner, and when she beckoned him to her with a backward jerk of her head, he moved instantly without even acknowledging his captain again.
Cragen watched it all happen, and though it filled him with something resembling pride to see his protégé finally working to his absolute fullest potential, the reason behind it broke his heart. He squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his fingers into the bridge of his nose, then pulled his old flip phone out of his pocket. He dialed the number for the local precinct's homicide division, hoping he could forget everything he now knew.
As he spoke to the captain, a former colleague, he looked through the store's window and noticed things about Elliot and Olivia he'd been ignoring for years. Their subtle contact, the looks passing back and forth, the easy laughter, how in sync they were, and he knew that it was all adding up to something he wouldn't be able to just ignore for much longer.
He hung up and dropped his phone into his pocket, then wrapped his fingers around the large metal coin again. He pulled it out and twirled it around, rolling it over his knuckles and between his fingers, seeking guidance from the one place he'd always been able to get it. "Damn it," he spat, shoving the once-celebratory sobriety coin back into his jacket pocket. The vow had been broken, the faith shattered. He looked down at his watch and hoped that the men he called in would show up in time for him to run to his meeting, before he made another mistake that would destroy him.
And would take Elliot and Olivia down, too.
A/N: A conversation that's hard to have, followed by a first attempt at keeping a promise. Next.