A/N: Well... I'm at it again. Why I'm letting myself start a new multi-chap story in a different universe I don't actually know. Call it the Christmas crazies.
Disclaimer: There's a lot of this I don't own. But I'm not making any money on it, so all the Barbas and Carisis of the world can just mind their business and not sue me.
Olivia groaned as her stupid alarm clock made its stupid noise, pulling her from what was otherwise an uneventful but completely calm sleep. She slammed the button down and rolled onto her back, adjusting to the light of the early morning filtering through the window.
She hears movement from the door and cracks her eye just enough to see her boyfriend, Ed Tucker, entering the room, already dressed for work in his grey suit and her favorite blue tie. He has a mug of coffee in one hand and the newspaper in the other, and he's muttering about something.
"Good morning," Olivia said in nearly a whisper, her voice still laden with sleep.
"This is unbelievable," Ed muttered, perching on the end of the bed. "Kidnappings are up 25% since this time last year with nearly three quarters of them stemming from the rise in internet chat room activity among teenagers."
There it was again. Ed was a good eight years older than Olivia, and while that gap normally didn't bother her much, his absolute resistance to adapt to any new technological advances, good or bad, always made him sound like a grandpa.
Olivia slid out from under the warm covers into the chill of their bedroom and padded to the bathroom to brush her teeth.
"Aren't you going to be late?" she asked, but Ed was still engrossed in his article.
"Kids today are out there spending all their time sitting behind screens," Ed grumbled. "What happened to playing outside? Getting fresh air?"
"So they can get nabbed from the park instead?" Olivia said, through a mouthful of toothpaste.
"You think that machine is your friend, but it's not," Ed said, leaving the bedroom. "I'll see you tonight, hon."
"Bye," Olivia tossed back, rinsing off her toothbrush. She waits for the telltale signs that Ed's leaving. The crunch of the paper to the kitchen counter, the clank of his mug in the sink, the snap of his briefcase, then the door.
Quickly, Olivia tiptoed into the living room with no sign of Ed. She slid to the front window to look down on the Manhattan street below where he was trudging down the front steps and unlocking his sedan. As soon as he pulled away from the curb she ran back to her computer and lifted the lid. Her AOL was still open and she punched in her credentials, PersephoneJ, and waited for the screen to load. She got excited when the icon flashed and the words she wanted to hear rang from the speakers. She had mail from her new penpal, SemperFi6313, entitled "Growing Up."
She eagerly clicked the icon and began devouring her penpal's latest letter:
Although I'll swear to anyone who will listen these days that I always wanted to be a cop, there was a time I wanted to be an architect. I used to sit for hours on the floor of my bedroom with blocks, plastic cups, anything I could get my hands on and just build. It always felt good to make something out of nothing, to create something out of whatever I could find. I would imagine myself standing at street level in Manhattan, staring up at the skeleton of a building thinking "I designed that." Then I got to high school and tried to take a drafting class and realized the only thing I was ever going to design was a building made out of Lincoln Logs.
I also wanted to be an astronaut for some time. I'm a bit embarrassed to admit how old I was when that dream popped into my head. I'd watched the moon landing with my family, like just about everybody else in 1969, and I was little, but old enough to remember what a big deal it was. When the architect thing fell through I thought maybe I could do the training, see what happened, but then life got in the way. I still sometimes wonder what it would be like to walk that tarmac to the shuttle on a crisp fall day and see the earth get smaller and smaller as you blasted off into orbit.
But then again, wouldn't it be a crime to leave New York in the fall? I love New York in the fall. Makes me wanna buy a large coffee, a big ass donut, and carve some pumpkins. I'd send you a large coffee and a big ass donut if I knew your name and address. But not knowing is kind of fun too. We see so many things every day that we wish we could unsee with our jobs, sometimes it's nice to not know everything.
For now, I just like to read whatever you're willing to share.
Talk soon.
Olivia didn't know why she felt her heart swell every time she got a new note from her pen pal. He (or she, but Olivia really thought her pen pal was a he) was interesting and always had a lot to say. Meeting new people was one of her favorite parts of her job, though they were usually under stressful circumstances. So when she created a screen name on a whim one night and wandered into the NYPD Brothers in Blue chatroom, she was excited to find someone to commiserate with about the trials of the job. Her pen pal had made some sort of joke which she found funny but seemed to confuse everyone else in the chat room. When she responded positively, the person asked her to go to a private chat, and they stayed up for quite a few hours talking, well beyond midnight. They'd agreed to become pen pals but stay anonymous, just because of work and all.
Olivia couldn't wait until she got home tonight to send her reply. The best time to write her penpal was when Ed was out of the house. He would not so subtly grunt and groan if she spent more than 10 minutes behind her laptop, which just made for a long and tortuous writing process. Even though she knew she had to get to work, Olivia sat down to send a quick reply.
Elliot poured himself a tall cup of coffee on this fine fall morning. It was Monday which was annoying, but he had the twins last night for a sleepover and they were currently arguing over which cartoon to watch while they ate their cereal. Even two years out, being divorced had been hard for Elliot. He and Kathy had 50/50 custody and they were overall civil with one another. She'd gotten remarried earlier this year, and it probably wasn't a coincidence that it was right around the same time he'd agreed to move in with…
"Ugh, I'm late," his girlfriend Dani Beck said, running out from their bedroom trying to put her shoes on. "Cap fired Jack Benton, good riddance. But that's double the work now for me. Marty Slotz died so that makes one less person I'm not speaking to. Nilson got a big write up in the paper about his collar yesterday so he'll be insufferable."
Dani was fine, Elliot supposed. She looked a bit like Kathy but with a little more police grit to her. She was perfectly fine with the kids and they liked her enough. Or they were at least polite and tolerated her. But she was a bit much at times, like this morning, when all Elliot really wanted was some quiet.
"Don't forget tonight we have that dinner with Barton and Banks," Dani said.
"Am I going to that?" Elliot said. "Thought that was a 'you thing."
Dani was very politically and socially aware and she was involved in a shocking number of charities for the fact that she barely had any time to do much else outside of work. She was always offering her expertise from living abroad as a consultant to help them with their efforts.
"You said you were going when they asked me," Dani said, tossing her hair up into a bun.
"Can't I just give them money or something?" Elliot asked. "What is it? Stop Albanian Sex Trafficking? I'm for that."
"What's sex trafficking?" Dickie asked from his spot on the couch.
"Nothing bud," Elliot said, standing from the kitchen table. "You two gotta go anyway. Dani is going to drop you at school this morning."
Lizzie grumbled a bit, but both twins brought their cereal bowls out to the sink and grabbed their coats and backpacks from the rack.
"I'll see you guys later in the week," Elliot said, hugging them both and planting kisses to the tops of their heads. "Tell your sisters I love them, be good for your Mom and Kurt this week and be good for Dani on the way to school. I love you."
"Love you, Daddy," both twins said as they followed Dani out into the hall.
Elliot sat still at the table for a minute before going and peeking out the window. Once Dani and the kids were far enough down the block he wandered into the den that doubled as Dickie and Lizzie's room when they spent the night and powered up his computer.
His AOL screen flashed to life and he entered his screen name, SemperFi6313, and waited for everything to load. He had a brand new message from his pen pal PersephoneJ that he couldn't wait to read:
Dear Friend,
I like to start my notes to you like we're already in the middle of a conversation, like we're sitting hours into a stakeout trying to pass the time and grasping for topics to discuss. I pretend we're old and dear friends instead of what we really are, two cops who met in a chat room we both claimed to have never been in before. What will SemperFi6313 say today, I wonder.
Today you told me a delightful story about your childhood dreams, and I wish I had something equally fascinating to share back, but in reality, the only thing I've ever wanted to do was help people. I never had this grand plan for my life, nor did I have all the details hammered out. I could have just as easily been a nurse, or a teacher, or a social worker. It wasn't until I was 16 that I had an impactful meeting with a police officer, and even then, it didn't strike me at the time that being a cop is what I wanted to do with my life. It wasn't until years later when I graduated from college, so lost about what would come next that I remembered his kind words and actions toward me and I thought "yes, I could do that," and joined the academy.
I'd gladly accept that large coffee and donut from you because the stuff my coworker usually makes is complete sludge. I don't know how he's always the first one to make it to the communal pot in the morning and he can mess it up so horribly, terribly bad. We've tried to tell him gently that it tastes like battery acid, but he never makes a change.
Someday, who knows, maybe we'll meet accidentally in the line at some bodega, you'll be in front of me and pay it forward for my coffee, and not even know. I agree with you that, for now, this not knowing has its charms. It lets me tell you things I wouldn't tell people in my real life for fear of being judged. But you, my faceless brother in blue, you'll never judge and you'll never tell. And that goes both ways. So tell me some more about yourself.
Have a good day on the job and stay safe,
PersephoneJ
Elliot could never hide the smile from his face when he read Persephone's letters. He assumed of course, that wasn't her real name, because that would be far too easy to look her up in the system and find exactly who she was (and he'd tried, there weren't any female cops named Persephone in the system). Of course, he'd used his badge number in his screen name, but it is what it is. Even if he couldn't track her down the way he wanted, it made him feel good to know she was out there somewhere. He liked reading her letters in private when Dani wasn't home so he could enjoy them and react to them how he wanted without her over his shoulder.
Maybe that made him a bad boyfriend. Maybe it just made him human. Either way, he didn't have too much time to talk about it as his cell phone lit up with the name "Bell" and he answered right away.
"What have we got?" Elliot asked, already standing and sliding on his suit jacket, ready to take on another day of the worst the world had to offer.
A/N: SO, anybody got clues on where this is going? This story is based on another work of fiction, also set in New York and it happens to be one of my favorite stories of all time. Can you name that thing I'm ripping off?
As with everything I write, our faves don't always cooperate, but I hope you'll join us for the ride! Review if you're so inclined!