Authors Note:
Thank you so much for EVERY review and tweet, I'm really happy to be doing this again, even if it makes me nervous. Mousie, you know you're my everything and you're the panic attack slayer. Can't believe you'll still be there for my nonsense all these years later. These babies still aren't mine, no matter how much I beg.
Chapter 2
Elliot flips the switch, illuminating the small apartment with the garish glow of fluorescent overhead lighting.
He scans the space around him, not expecting a threat tonight but eyeing the corners anyway. It's barely more than a studio - a bed, bathroom, television, small dinette, couch and some basic things in the kitchen – and with the way he had left the two closet doors and bathroom door open before he left, he's pretty sure that he doesn't have company.
After all the years of this, he trusts his gut instinct more than his line of sight anyway.
He's alone tonight.
Again.
He tosses the paper bag with the hot sub on the counter and shrugs out of the shitty secondhand coat, throwing it on the kitchen table before exhaling. He's been living here over a month so he knows there are some beers left in the fridge, some over the counter pain killers in the drawer. He's got some clothes they gave him in the closet and a few things in the bathroom, he doesn't need much more.
There is a faint smell to the place. As if the sewer pipes have never quite cleared.
Or maybe that's just this part of Newark.
He opens one of the drawers in the kitchen and reaches behind the stack of bills made out to Robert James Wooster, fiddling with the catch in the back. Click twice, up once. It's a rudimentary failsafe, but it's secure enough to store the personal phone that he pulls out now.
He powers it on, leaving the iPhone on the counter as he reaches for the beer. He'll only have one. Maybe two.
He misses the days of being able to drink it all away. Another useless, unproductive day of this filth doesn't make him feel any better.
The device lights up as he flips the top off the first beer, and he grabs it and the food before heading for the couch.
He barely has the television on before the messages start popping up on his screen, the voicemails lighting up too.
Call in.
Call in immediately.
Then, thirty minutes ago - Sending a car for you. Meet at the pickup in 45. Leave everything.
He had stopped for food and had been late getting to his phone, they must be wondering where the hell he is. His adrenaline picks up, wondering what had changed their plans and why.
Then a number he doesn't recognize.
This is Officer Tamin with NYPD. Please call me. It's urgent.
But he only has a second to care, because the next one makes every muscle still.
His ex-wife.
Where are you? It's an emergency. Please call back.
Please!
We're safe. But they're moving us. Why?
The messages aren't done, but he's already on his feet, heading for the back closet. One more safe space in the bedroom. His issued Glock 26 is in there.
He's dialing work first, because if his family is safe then the first thing he needs is to know what the hell is going on.
The other man answers before the first ring is even done. "Where have you been?"
He grabs his official holster and starts putting it on. "Why the fuck is my family being moved?"
"They're safe. NYPD tried to take jurisdiction, but we have them now. They're good. Everyone. Your wife and son are being taken to a hotel where they can shelter in place. Your daughter Liz is going to join them there. The others have details on their residences."
His head is starting to pound as he fumbles in the safe space for the wallet. "They didn't make me. I don't get why-"
"That isn't why you're being brought in." The other man is too calm. Too rational. Then again he's always been a stoic prick.
His hand closes around the black leather billfold. "Then why the fire drill?"
There is a long exhale over the line. "You're a target. We have reason to believe there's a hit out on you."
He straightens, not questioning the intel but not understanding why. "I just fucking told you, they haven't made me. They're not after me."
The pause on the other end is unusual. His handler sounds like he's being careful when normally he's cold, precise. Factual.
"They're not trying to get to you. You're collateral damage. They're after someone else."
He grabs his own leather jacket from the closet, like hell he will put on that rat-ass thing they had given him to wear. He flips open the wallet, making sure everything is in there before he leaves this shithole. He's under the distinct impression his job here might be done. It's been going nowhere anyway.
"Who?"
His eyes drop to the badge that will never be familiar. The ID that will never look right. FBI. How the hell this even happened he still doesn't know, but it is what it is. How it is.
The darkness, he remembers. The darkness had been like quicksand, and this had been an out. It had been a chance to escape.
Only he had never really escaped at all.
Silence.
"Who are they after? And how do I fit in?"
"Stabler, come in. Ten minutes and the car will be at the pickup."
"I've been out here a month, if you're pulling me in then I have a right to know why."
The other agent delays another second. And then, "It's Olivia."
He stops, his hand gripping the doorknob. It's a sucker punch. A fist right to his gut, his throat, his temples. For one weak moment, he closes his eyes. Focuses on breathing. His heartbeat slows until he swears he can hear every pound of it echo in his veins.
Nine years. Nine years. It keeps repeating itself in his head. Over three thousand days.
"-she's okay. For now. There's a threat that targets every male around her. Lost an NYPD Captain and her brother already. It's likely coming from within."
"Cragen?" he barely manages to push out of his throat, finally opening the door and making his way down the shadowed hall of the building.
"No, we're pretty sure he's somewhere off the coast of Florida on a boating trip right now. We're trying to make contact. Coast Guard is aware."
He doesn't even ask who then, because the other half of the horror suddenly hits him hard. Simon.
The way it slices into him, he can't even comprehend what she's going through. He'd never liked the guy but he was her brother. Some bastard took something from her again and fuck it all.
Fuck this.
The other agent is quiet. He knows Olivia too. Knows Simon. He knows how little she has always had left to lose.
This time, no one is going after her without him around. This time he's in fighting shape. His head is in it, he's got a federal badge and assets and despite what anyone tells him, he's got a right to be there.
This time he gets to tear someone apart.
"I want in on it, Porter. This is ours, right? If NYPD is compromised, this is ours."
"Stabler—"
"My family is good?"
"Yeah, you have my word."
"Then I want to see her. Now."
This time it's his. His. He's different these days. No one will be able to stop him, not even this job. If they hold him back, they can have this badge too. He doesn't care.
Even if she doesn't want him around, this time it's his to fix. No matter what.
And fuck everyone, because his life be damned, there will never be a next time that anyone goes after her.
-o0o-
He's not used to having this many options.
It's been over a month since he can last remember being out of his office building before eleven, and he's been surviving on whatever was open most nights. Chinese, pizza, even some meat passing for hotdogs. His arteries absolutely hate him, and lately his stomach has been joining in the protest.
But now, at eight-thirty, the world is still a veritable plethora of culinary options.
He ducks into the Pret A Manger two blocks from his apartment, the idea of a hot chicken parmesan wrap and fresh soup making his stomach grumble with anticipation. With the way his latest trial is going, it's making him anxious that his phone died while he had been at the gym, but another fifteen minutes and they can have access to him again.
He's stopping for wine, too. A big bottle of an ultra-smooth cabernet. He will probably fall asleep two glasses in, but this is how he's going down tonight. Full, a little drunk and with eight hours of sleep ahead.
A smarter man would have called Alyssa, because it's been an embarrassing number of days since he'd last spoken to her, and even more since he'd had sex, but tonight he just needs the time alone. The last thing he wants to do is make conversation or share his bed.
In less than ten minutes, he's holding a very promising full bag of food – even thinking ahead and ordering a breakfast sandwich for the morning – and he's mulling over his wine options. A Stag's Leap? A Jordan? No, Caymus.
He sure as hell deserves it. He's been fighting an impossible case the last few weeks and somehow still finding a way to win the battles - if not the war as yet.
There is a bell on the door to Forman's Liquor, and it prattles as he walks in. For some odd reason the sound makes him upbeat, as if he's about to celebrate a lone night of civil living in his apartment.
When he asks for the Caymus, the owner's eyebrows shoot up a little. "Special night?" the old man asks.
The guy wouldn't understand that just a few hours of peace and quiet is indeed a special night, so he just grins back. "You could say that."
"What year are you looking for, son? I got 2013, 2016 and 2019. You want anything further back than that, and I'd haveta order it for you."
He can afford the 2013, but there's a good chance he won't get through half the bottle before it goes to waste, so he settles on the 2016. For some reason his mood lightens as he grips the brown paper bag as he leaves. Maybe after a glass of the $100 bottle he'll call Alyssa after all. She'd understand if he tells her she can't stay the night. They've been doing this occasionally for a few months now, and there's no pressure.
No expectations.
The night is looking up. It's not unreasonably cold, it isn't raining or snowing, and his food is still warm. The Knicks are playing, and he can still catch the second half of the game.
So this is what it's like for those who don't work their life away, he muses. He heads toward his building, just on the south edge of Hell's Kitchen. The street is rather empty, but it's early enough that dozens of the apartment windows are illuminated, televisions flickering in some. He can hear a woman laughing loudly at the other end of the block, and even if he can't see her it makes him smile.
Yeah, he'll call Alyssa. If she's free, great. If she's not, no problem.
Lost in thought, he never hears the footsteps that creep up behind him. He never hears a tell-tale breath or feels the air shift.
It's the last thing that runs through his mind before the blast.
Sonofabitch was a ghost.
-o0o-
It's a dichotomy of belonging and displacement that hits him hard as soon as Porter pulls the vehicle in front of the 1-6.
The building lights are new, there are new brick barricades that protect the front steps. Bigger windows flank the front doors and despite the way they frame the brightly lit lobby, he knows they are now bulletproof.
"Remember she doesn't know, Stabler," Porter says quietly.
As if he can fucking forget.
Porter had asked him to work a child trafficking case undercover six years ago. With his SVU background and lack of an NYPD badge or official complications, he'd been ripe for the picking. In truth he'd been ripe for anything that would get him out of the house, get the beer or whiskey out of his hand, give him any sense of purpose. Even Kathy had encouraged him, desperate for anything that would change the destructive status quo of the previous six months.
He'd had anger to put somewhere. The fury needed an outlet. Even he'd known he was coming dangerously unraveled.
They'd brought him in for one case. He'd brought hell raining down upon their suspect in less than two months. That should have been the end of it.
But undercover assignments had proved to be far too alluring for him to walk away from. They were the ultimate escape. A chance to be someone else. In between he'd go home, be a father. But he'd never again managed to be a husband.
He'd never managed to forget.
For the last six years, only his family and the feds have known he is with the Bureau. He is as off the books as the agency can keep him, zero chance of anyone running his name and figuring out who or where he is. It's safer for his kids that way. Safer for Kathy. For him.
For everyone.
Then again, in the back of his mind he'd always known there might come a day.
"You owe me," Elliot tells him, no inflection in his words. "She's going to tell me to go to hell, and she'll be right. But since we own this, you're keeping me on no matter what One PP sends down. You got that?"
He doesn't care about Porter's own history with Olivia. He's spent six years of his life living in hellhole after hellhole – away from his kids too often - and the Bureau is going to give him an ounce of payback right now.
"Don't act like an asshole in there, Stabler. I know that's a stretch for you, but pissing all over a squad you haven't been inside of in nearly decade isn't going to win you points with anyone. Least of all with Olivia."
He gets out of the car then, his blood simmering. "You don't wanna go there. You stay out of everything between Olivia and I."
Across the roof of the car, Porter cocks his head and stares back for a long second before slamming his car door shut. "Is there anything left to get in the middle of? Like you said, you haven't ever returned a phone call. I'm thinking she's going to be a lot happier to see me than you."
He's so far beyond taking the bait now, though. Besides, he can't argue with the truth.
Porter signs them in and everything comes back, seeping into Elliot's skin. The air of the building is the same. The sounds echo the same. The doors of the elevators beep the same.
It's unsettling how little everything has changed when everything inside of him is so grotesquely different. Thousands of times he'd been here. Her stride had always matched his, she would outpace him sometimes in the later years. This building had been his home, his comfort. The place he shared with her.
This was the house that their partnership had built.
He hasn't been back to the squad room since that day. Not once.
The elevator opens and he exhales, knowing Porter is watching him like a hawk. He's waiting for any reason to intervene. But nine years later and it is only the memories of Olivia that shake him up as he steps off the elevator and heads down a too-familiar hall.
"You good?" Porter says under his breath, stopping short of fully walking in.
Elliot stops, too. The desks are different, the computer screens bigger. There are conference tables and unfamiliar faces. It smells cleaner than it had all those years ago. Maybe the heating system had finally been replaced.
He will not let Porter see one ounce of his fear. This had once been his and he will be damned if Porter is more comfortable here now.
His gaze finds only a young dark-haired detective at her desk. She looks up at him and stands, coming toward them.
The squad room has that familiar hum to it, the one that always felt like the calm before the incoming storm. The FBI and NYPD brass are about to descend, he and Porter are just at the front edge of the wave.
"Can I help you?" she asks, blocking his entrance to the rest of the room.
"Where's Olivia?" Elliot asks the question – says her name - before he can stop himself. His eyes are already on the office that Cragen used to occupy. He knows she made Captain; he'd had a few beers the night he'd found out. He'd toasted her silently and then gone for a run that had lasted miles too long.
But the shades are drawn on the office, and he's got no idea if she's even here at all.
The woman in front of him furrows her brow, tilting her head as she crosses her arms across her chest. "And you are?"
"That's Stabler, and he's got no fucking business bein' here. The other one is Porter, he's a shady fed and we don't need either of them around."
Elliot looks to his left at Fin, bracing himself. The familiarity and discord clash under his skin, and he forces himself to keep his voice low and steady. "Fin—"
But the other man steps up, blocking his view of the office windows. "Sergeant Tutuola," he counters, staring him down. "First name is friends only."
Elliot stands toe-to-toe with him, but all of the fight within him is instantly gone. The truth is that he's grateful to Fin for standing by Olivia for all this time; he's jealous of the years Fin's had next to her that he himself has not. "I'm not here to argue with you or make problems, Fin." He's quiet now. Apologetic.
This is about Olivia now. This is her house, her squad.
Her life that he's storming into.
He won't ever fault Fin for protecting her.
It's Porter who ends the standoff. "Glad this little reunion is over. Pretty sure we all know One PP has handed this to us. You have a dead Captain and some brothers in blue who have probably made a second income thanks to Sir Tobias, so can we skip the formalities?" Porter smiles, always too smug and brusque for his own good. "Now - as Agent Stabler just asked you - where is Captain Benson?"
Fin's body goes rigid and he straightens, a look of disgust evident on his face as he stills. He glares at Elliot. "What the fuck?"
He deserves everything he gets. He knows this. He knows how it looks. He'd walked away from the unit – from her – only to go back to the same life somewhere else. No one will understand why. No one will give a shit that going back to the job was the only thing that had saved him from an abyss that had threatened everything and everyone who depended on him.
"Please Fin," he clears his throat, trying for volume. "Where is she?"
Fin doesn't move. "She's in the playroom with her son."
The word is intended to hurt him, to show him how much he doesn't know.
Only he knows.
He knows far more than Fin could ever imagine. He knows Noah's birthday, knows about Ellie and Johnny Drake. He knows about how she almost lost her little boy more than once. He knows about the kidnapping by the boy's grandmother. He'd run a background check on her son's baseball coach, teacher and nanny after that.
He fucking knows.
He's silent, but he doesn't drop his gaze.
"Can we move this into the office please and wait for her there, Sergeant?" Porter finally asks, pointedly dismissing the female detective. "We've got half a dozen agents and our ASAC on their way. It would be good to get in sync with Captain Benson before they arrive."
It's a few more silent moments before Fin finally relents, heading towards the office and expecting them to follow. When they are in the smaller room, Elliot stills.
She's everywhere in here. Her desk, her sweater on the back of her chair, a pair of glasses resting on a stack of papers. Her bag is in the corner, and there are photos on her desk. The same picture frames as before, with a few new ones. A big white frame holding a grinning picture of Noah.
His temples are pounding. His hands itch – and he doesn't know if he wants to hit someone or hold her until she somehow forgives him.
She's on the other side of the two-way glass on the far wall. Her office overlooks the interrogation room that doubled as a playroom.
He focuses on it now, ignoring the conversation between Fin and Porter behind him. Her dark head is bent, and without being able to stop himself he moves past the others until he's up against the window. She can't see him, and he's grateful for the reprieve.
Olivia.
It's not the first time he's watched her since; he's too fucked up to be able to truly stay away. But this is different. This is their space, their lives, their history. This time she's going to see him back.
Just not yet.
Elliot watches her, and every movement she makes fascinates him. Noah is curled into her on the couch and she's talking to him softly while Lucy sits across the room, waiting. He knows Olivia is explaining why he's here while trying to reassure her son that there is nothing to be afraid of. Her voice will take on that special cadence she saves for children – soft and lulling and even-paced.
Her fingers thread through Noah's light brown curls and Elliot watches as she purses her lips. He knows her, she's trying not to cry. She kisses the top of his head and pulls him closer, and then Noah is saying something. Asking her something.
She half-smiles, but her head is ducked low so he can't see her expression. It's only after she surreptitiously wipes her eye with the back of her hand that she responds to him. Noah must hear a catch in his mother's voice because he suddenly looks up, concerned.
Only she smiles for him, holds his cheeks in her palms and kisses his forehead so that he can't see her pain.
She's always been good at shielding everyone from it.
His pulse has slowed while he watches her. The determination slides back under his skin. He'd had zero right to leave her the way he did, yet back then he'd had less of a right to stay. Every flinch she makes, every breath she's taking – it's so familiar that he loses sense of time. Their history roars in his ears, the sound of it drowning out everything else.
It's there, echoing in his head then. The last text she'd ever sent him, nine years ago.
I hope you find some peace, El. You've earned it.
He's watched her enough over the years to know neither one of them has ever found it.
Fin steps into the other room with Olivia and Noah then, and he looks up at the window, knowing Elliot can see him. His expression is flat as he presses the button on the wall. The window instantly goes dark, and he can't see her anymore.
He silently thanks Fin, even though he knows the other man was only shielding Olivia.
Elliot isn't sure he could have handled the look of disgust she will probably wear in the moment Fin tells her who is waiting for her.
Some things he just doesn't want to see.
-o0o- -o0o- -o0o- -o0o-
