Author's Note: There's one sentence/question that would summarize where this story is going, though it's not evident quite yet. Precisely one person knows what it is, and they're sworn to secrecy. Any ideas?
The other detective nodded at Olivia and the Stablers, none of whom were saying much of anything in the awkward silence that had ensured since Elliot walked in. "Do you need anything else?" he asked. "Captain Cerreta wanted me to make sure everything was okay in here before I left."
"Answers would be nice," Elliot muttered under his breath, and Kathy shot him a concerned look.
"You'll let me know if you need anything, right, Detective Benson? I'm Detective Driscoll, if I forgot to introduce myself."
"Thanks, Driscoll, I think I've got it from here." Olivia motioned for him to leave, and he closed the door to the interrogation room behind him.
She took stock of the situation in front of her. Elliot was wearing a faded Yankees t-shirt and rumpled blue jeans, much more casual than she was used to seeing him. When she allowed herself to look at his face, she could tell that he was in turmoil – and something in her gut said that it was more enduring than what had happened this morning. And it wasn't just because he had more than a few days worth of stubble.
"I'll ask again. Liv, what the hell are you doing here?"
Kathy motioned to say something, but Olivia stepped in front of her and looked straight at Elliot, fury burning in her brown eyes. "What the hell I'm doing here is helping your family, because apparently at one time, I meant enough to you for you to put my name on your kid's emergency contact forms. And when an emergency happened, Captain Cerreta here called Cragen, who called me and diverted me over here so I could help. Why I bothered, I don't have the foggiest clue."
"I would have called her anyway," Kathy interjected.
"Like hell, Kathy. I told you – this is between us," he said, pounding his fist on the table. "I thought school should be a safe place for the kids. You convinced me to let the kids go to school like normal this year. And now it's not?"
"You can't lock the kids up in a nuclear fallout shelter and expect them to live like hermits for the rest of their lives."
"You want to see me try?! Because that sounds like the best idea you've had in months!"
Olivia shrank back against the wall and watched the couple go at it. She knew their marriage hadn't been the easiest, though she wasn't privy to a lot of the inner workings. As long as they didn't let their emotions get too far out of control, she could be an innocent bystander.
"I told you I didn't want Olivia involved in this," Elliot said, snapping at Kathy, and the sound of her name from his lips snapped her out of her thinking. She whipped her head to look at Elliot. "I have to keep each of you safe. And Olivia is safe if she's not connected to me, and that's what I care about."
Kathy glanced uneasily between her husband and Olivia. "I think she'd have a different opinion about that, Elliot. Last time I checked, she's a cop, same as you were."
"Still am, technically, although the brass is putting heat on me to come back, at least in some capacity."
"You didn't tell me you'd talked to them."
"I don't tell you every phone call I get, same as I know you don't tell me all of yours." He furrowed his brows together and looked at Kathy, and Olivia realized that for him, it was almost like she wasn't even in the room. "They want me back, or at least to define the indefinite leave."
"You're driving yourself crazy up there in the guest room. The kids and I barely see you, and when we do, you look like hell."
"Thanks for the compliment. Really boosts the ol' ego, Kath."
"I mean it. I'm worried about you, and I know Olivia is too, if you'd let her in again."
Olivia drew her lip between her teeth and bit down, willing herself not to blurt out anything that would add a gallon of kerosene to the smoldering embers in the room. She had so many things she could say – wanted to say, even - but none of them felt appropriate in the moment.
"She cares about everyone she comes in contact with. That doesn't make me special in any way."
"She's always been there for you, Elliot, even in ways you never let me. I don't pretend to understand what your partnership was, but she's here this morning, and she wants to help. She cares, and damnit if I don't want to let her."
It was an odd feeling, being talked about like she wasn't even in the room, and she could now relate to the proverbial fly in the corner. Even more unusual, that Kathy was the one defending her to Elliot.
His shoulders sagged forward and he fell against the table in a tangled heap of emotions. "I know. I want her to, but –" His voice cracked, and whatever he said after that was lost in an unintelligible babbling haze, as tears streamed from his eyes.
Olivia crouched on the floor next to the table and looked at Elliot on the level he was at. He was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, trying to protect his kids, and Kathy, and maybe, apparently, her too. And he had to realize that as long as she was around, he would never have to shoulder that burden on his own. "Elliot, do you hear us?" she whispered, as Kathy crouched on the other side of him. Their eyes met over the hunch of his back, and Olivia could see concern radiating from the other woman's eyes.
"Liv – Kathy – Mo – Kat – Rich – Liz – Eli – Liv – Kathy – Mo – Kat – Rich – Liz – Eli," she heard him murmuring between fallen tears, and it took her a moment to realize he was reciting the six names of the people he felt the most obligated to protect. How long had she been a part of that list, and what had she done to merit inclusion next to his wife and children?
Kathy laid her hand on Elliot's shoulder and said, in a soft voice only loud enough for him and Olivia to hear, "you aren't alone. You have us."
Kathy tilted her head and wordlessly indicated something to Olivia, and she laid her hand on his corresponding shoulder. She felt him tense up beneath her touch, as if it was unexpected, but he made no motion to encourage her to pull back, so it wasn't unwelcome.
The three of them stayed as they were; Elliot chanting the names of his six people under his breath and Kathy and Olivia crouching steadfast on either side of him, not breaking the physical connection of simple touch. Olivia was silent; they'd always communicated best when they said nothing at all and let their actions speak for them. Kathy, on the other hand, was whispering soft murmurs of something resembling consolation or support. They were each expressing their feelings in the way that was most comfortable to them.
Olivia lost track of how long they stayed like that, a makeshift triptych commemorating the different kinds of love and commitment one could have for another, until they heard a knock at the door. Detective Driscoll popped his head in. "Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. Captain Cerreta wants to see you, Detective Benson."
"I'll be right back," she said, squeezing Elliot's shoulder as she stood.
"We're not going anywhere," was Kathy's only reply, and Elliot didn't flinch as she stood up and walked away, her heels clicking against the cold, unfeeling linoleum.
"I heard you needed me, Captain?" Olivia asked, as she walked into Cerreta's office. She forced herself to shift from the personal back to the professional now that she was Detective Benson again and not Olivia.
He turned around in his chair and faced her. "How's it going with the Stablers?"
"Well, they're both quite broken up about Eli's disappearance, as one would expect."
"You don't think they had anything to do with it, in other words."
"No, I don't."
"Is that your professional opinion, or your personal one? I know you and Detective Stabler were partners for many years; Captain Cragen made that explicitly clear when I talked to him earlier. I hope whatever you think about Detective Stabler personally isn't coloring your opinion here."
"I'm speaking as a SVU detective with over thirteen years of experience when I say I don't believe either Elliot or Kathy Stabler had anything to do with what happened to their son this morning, nor do they have any idea who might have done it."
He exhaled and maintained his steady focus on her. "Thank you, Detective Benson. I hope you understand, I wasn't insinuating anything about you specifically, but you and I both know how deeply the thin blue line cuts."
"I understand."
"We pulled a record of all police calls dispatched to their address," he said. "There's only one, but it might be a lead. Do you know anything about a B and E at their residence in," he flipped through a pile of case paperwork, looking for the incident report date, "June of this past summer?"
She gasped slightly, but shook her head. "No, I – honestly, I hadn't spoken to any of the Stabler family since the day of the shooting in May. I had no idea anything had happened."
He pushed the folder across the desk to her, and she saw pictures of their garage with every window shattered, jagged splinters of glass dotting the landscaping that surrounded it. Angry smears of black spray paint decorated the walls, and it looked as though someone had physically forced the garage door open. "Was anything stolen?" she asked. "Any witnesses?"
"A neighbor thought she heard breaking glass, but she initially blamed it on her own kids, and the Stabler family was at Sunday Mass. The only thing that they could tell was specifically stolen was a kid's tricycle, blue and silver."
"That's weird." She looked over the interview transcripts with the neighbors, but nothing particularly seemed to arouse any suspicion in her. From all accounts, it was a peaceful Sunday morning in a quiet neighborhood in mid-June, until it wasn't.
"What's even more unusual is that according to Mrs. Stabler's statements at the time, the item in question was in the back of the garage. Whoever did this had to walk past all the other family bicycles, as well as everything else in that garage, to get to that one specific tricycle."
"I take it sneaker impressions didn't go anywhere."
"Well, this wasn't our case here in SVU, because a stolen tricycle isn't exactly comparable to a rape victim, as you well know. But you can check the file, the test came back and showed that it's those Nikes every guy under 40 is wearing these days. If we're going to question every guy who owns a pair of those shoes, we might as well start with my own son."
"So, that's pretty much a wash."
"Exactly."
"Someone breaks into their garage, breaks all their windows and spray paints the place for kicks, and then takes off with a kid's tricycle? And it happens to be while they're off at church?"
"That's about as good of a summation as Officer Linden was able to come up with."
Something about this didn't feel quite as benign as what it initially appeared, and if she was picking up on that suspicion, then she was sure Elliot had too. If it had happened years ago – or even before the shooting – then maybe. Or if more was taken, or if any of the Stablers had been home to witness it. It felt planned.
Especially as it dawned on her in horror whose it must have been; only one Stabler would be riding a tricycle anymore, and he was the one with his whereabouts currently unknown. She looked at the picture that was paper clipped to the inside of the case file; the child in the photo had been cropped off, leaving only the tricycle in question, but there was no mistaking the little fingers that curled around the handlebars for anyone but Eli's.
Another detective, one whom she had not yet met, opened the door to the captain's office and cleared his throat. "Apologies, Captain, ma'am, but we have a potential break in the Stabler case. 911 reports multiple calls have come in about an unaccompanied toddler wandering near Little Neck Park that matches the general description of the missing Stabler child. We have Lu and Dawes on their way there now."
Cerreta raised his eyebrow and looked at Olivia. "You want to go talk to the Stablers again, Detective Benson?"
She nodded. Right now, she needed to be with them. She wouldn't elevate their hopes, but she at least needed to be there when the news came in. "On it, Captain."
As she rounded the corner out of his office and toward interrogation room three – where she knew Elliot and Kathy would be anxiously waiting for her return and for whatever she could tell them about her discussion with Captain Cerreta – she ducked into a corner. And for the first time all morning, she allowed herself to deeply exhale, and when a few tears came rushing down her face, she didn't attempt to restrain them.
It sounded like Eli would be okay. And in her line of work, she had to take every victory as they came, and this was genuinely cause for celebration, if it was him. Something told her it was.
There were still so many unanswered questions, but she had a feeling Elliot and Kathy could help supply at least some of the answers.
But who could have anything against such a sweet little boy like Eli?
-to be continued-
Author's Note: The questions will be answered in due time...I think I like that phrase too much.