A/N: Ask and you shall receive! Thanks for the feedback thus far. If you enjoy this chapter, feel free to favourite and review! 3
The schedule for this story, I am hoping, will be about twice (Sunday & Wednesday) a week, but that may vary due to… reasons. But stay tuned!
I hope you're having a blessed weekend.
Chapter One
Guardian
As the morning sun ever so carefully peaks through the shades into the quaint and quiet bedroom. Detective Olivia Benson of the NYPD's Special Victims Unit sleeps soundly. She turns in her sleep and her arm drapes over a form nestled under the bedsheets. It's rare Olivia should take a suitor, married to her work – she dedicates her time to New York's most sensitive cases. A normal evening routine for Olivia is home by seven, a movie, and whatever take-out is left over from the night before. Olivia isn't much of a cook, her speciality is toasted bagels with jelly or cream cheese. Of course, there was that one time she felt a little adventurous and tried both simultaneously.
((Ring))
((Ring))
((Ring))
Olivia groans rolling back over to face her window and bedside table where her cellphone is placed and plugged into its charger. She pushes herself up on her elbows and looks over at the bedside clock. 6:30 am. She rubs her face with one hand and reaches over for the cell phone.
"Is that me or you?" A voice from the mass next to her announces itself.
"Me." She replies rather bluntly. "Go back to sleep."
Olivia looks at her phone with a slight squint – her eyes still tired from the little sleep she has just gotten. As her eyes come into focus, she recognises the name instantly. 'Stabler'. Olivia answers and presses the small Blackberry Bold to her ear.
"Benson." A yawn escapes.
"Sorry to wake you." A gentle laugh from her partner.
"You're not."
"Good work, detective."
"Uh-huh, what you want? It's Saturday." Olivia sits up fully and stretches her free arm.
"We got a body in The Village's gay district."
Olivia climbs out of bed and walks over to the dresser opposite her bed. She opens the top drawer – empty. Really? No clean underwear? No.
"A kid?" She asks leaving her bedroom and walking into the hallway leading into the main area of her apartment.
"Nah, adult – happened a couple of hours ago, so we might be able to catch the guy if you hurry."
She opens a closet door in the hallway where a washer and dryer unit are stacked on top of each other.
"I'll be there as soon as I can." Olivia hangs up the phone as she opens the dryer and searches through the various clean clothes. A moment of triumph as she pulls out a pair of clean underwear. "Oh, thank god!" She exclaims pulling them on.
"A replay of last night?" The same male voice from before speaks.
Olivia turns swiftly to face the very tall, very handsome, and very muscular man standing behind her wearing nothing but his boxers. Olivia steps back against the washer and dryer and smiles.
"Sorry, Matt, I got a case to work on." She says with a pleading look on her face.
Matt puts up his hands and steps back allowing Olivia to escape the small closet-type space.
"Hey, I get it – I'm a firefighter after all. You'll be at the gym later?" He asks with a cocky smile along his chiselled jawline.
"I might…" Olivia calls from the bedroom as she's throwing on clothes. "Depends on what happens with this case."
"You, erm, thought any more about my offer from last night?" He asks as he leans against the wall outside the bedroom.
"Offer?" Olivia questioned as she exited the bedroom now wearing a long-sleeved sweater tucked into a pair of jeans, a belt, and her badge.
"Yeah – about us."
Olivia looks more confused.
"About us becoming exclusive."
Olivia's eyes widen in realisation. She bites her bottom lip – she had forgotten all about that question five minutes after he brought it up at dinner, never mind stewing on it while she slept off the four glasses of wine and two beers after they got back to her apartment. Olivia clears her throat and shifts slightly awkwardly from one foot to the other.
"Uh, no – sorry, got kinda distracted last night. I'll think more on it today while working."
Matt's face droops slightly, he casts his gaze to the floor and clears his throat.
"Oh, uh – yeah, I understand. Hey! We were both distracted!" He reassures her.
An Awkward silence falls. Moments feel like hours until Olivia breaks it -
"I gotta go, I'm sorry – listen, there are eggs in the fridge, bagels, cream cheese… jelly. Feel free to make yourself a coffee and just um, leave when you're done!" She walks over a locked chest of draws by the front door. She takes a key from under one of the plants decorating the top, unlocks it, and pulls out her gun. She checks it over, making sure the safety is on and she has bullets before placing it into the holder on her belt.
"I mean, I could stay. I could even cook you some dinner when you get back." He smiles at his suggestion.
Wow, handsome, great in bed, and he cooks. What a package. Olivia furrows her brow slightly and shakes her head.
"No – thanks, though. I don't know what time I'll be home and it wouldn't be fair to expect you to wait up."
Disappointment again. Matt's gaze once again finds the floor and he nods looking up at her.
"Yeah, I understand. Then… I'll text ya?"
"Yeah sure."
She's gone, leaving him standing there in her apartment.
Kat couldn't believe what she has been bearing witness to for the last two hours. As one of her dearest friends lays in a pool of her blood, dead. She sits on her sofa, gazing blankly out of the window watching the birds fly past while CSU canvas her entire apartment. She dislikes the idea of cops in her home, but she didn't know what else to do. Disposing of a body yourself is against the law, so it left her little option. Time feels like it's standing still for the bar owner. She feels like she's in a nightmare that is never going to end. Her tears are now dry, streaks left on her face, and her clothing is still covered in blood, waiting for processing. The last two hours seem like a blur, however, over and over again – like a horror movie it plays for her. Opening the door and Tammy falls in. She tried to keep her alive, but she could see the gaping stab wound in her stomach. Tammy used the last of her strength to get to Kat.
"Miss Koskov?" Kat looks up at the sound of her name from a male voice.
Detective Elliot Stabler stands over her holding a cup of warm tea.
"I got one of the officers to make you some tea." He says handing it to her.
Kat takes the mug and thanks him silently, she looks down into the dark brown liquid, seeing her reflection looking back at her. She looks over her shoulder at Tammy's dead body, now slightly further into her apartment. Elliot sighs.
"Miss Koskov, you probably shouldn't look at the body." His tone is calm, unusual for Elliot – given how brutally stabbed Tammy is he decided to take a more gentle tone with Kat. "Once my partner gets here, we'll be asking you some questions."
Kat turns back to Elliot and nods. "Thank you… should I prepare anything?"
"No, they'll just be some routine questions." He smiles and heads back over to the body.
A few moments later, Olivia arrives and walks into the apartment. She's greeted by Elliot. She looks around at all the blood on the floor, it's enough to make her feel sick to her stomach. The apartment is crawling with CSU. Melinda Warner, a medical examiner with the NYPD stands from the body and approaches the two detectives.
"TOD was three hours ago, the perp stabbed her at least twelve times, the fact she was even able to climb the stairs is nothing short of a miracle."
"Was she sexually assaulted?" Olivia asks.
"She's got anal and vaginal tearing and bruises on her inner thighs, but I won't know more until autopsy."
Olivia nods. Melinda heads back to the body.
"We got a name?" Olivia asks.
"Tabitha Wormwood. Twenty-two years old." Elliot looks down at his notes.
"Any witnesses?"
"Katrina Koskov – owns the apartment, she knew the vic. About 4 am there was a beating on her door when she opened it." Elliot motions to Tammy. "Tabitha fell through it."
Olivia walks over to the sofa where Kat is sitting, still staring out of the window and not touching her tea. Olivia is cautious as she approaches her, she knows that Kat is probably feeling a lot of emotions and trauma.
"Miss Koskov?"
Kat turns at the sound of her name. She tries her eyes again and places the mug of tea down on the table in front of her. Olivia takes a seat next to her and Elliot stands just to the side.
"Please, call me Kat." Her voice is shaky, she takes a tissue from the box on the table and dries her eyes again.
"Can you tell us what happened?"
Kat clears her throat. "Of course – I was asleep when I woke up to the sound of someone banging on my door…"
Thump, thump, thump. Kat groans as her eyes open to the sound of someone knocking on her door. The knocking gets louder. THUMP, THUMP, THUMP. Who is that?
"I fell asleep in front of the TV…"
Kat looks over at the TV, now just playing static, and then turns her attention to the clock on the wall. It's four in the morning. THUMP, THUMP, THUMP.
Kat starts to sob again. "I didn't know who it was. But I got up from the sofa…"
"Alright… I'm coming." She's tired, she didn't mean to fall asleep on the couch, and her back hurts from sleeping in an awkward position. Kat stands and walks over to the front door of her apartment.
"I'd been at work all night, I was tired and I just wanted to sleep. I looked through the peephole to see who was there…"
"She looks through the spy hole first, but she cannot see anything from the darkness."
"But I couldn't see anyone. So I reached for the baseball bat by my front door" Tears roll down Kat's cheeks. She takes a deep breath. Olivia reaches over to take her hand, but she pulls it away. "I unlocked the door and..."
First the chain lock, then the deadbolt, then she turns the lock slowly until… click. She opens the door, her eyes widen in shock as she catches the body that falls covered in blood. She screams as she looks down at her waitress, Tammy.
Kat clears her throat and blows her nose into the tissue she is holding. Olivia hates these interviews, sometimes it brings out so much trauma, and she knows that Kat is going to be sleeping with the lights on for a week.
"My partner told me – you knew the vic- Tabitha-"
"Tammy. She preferred to be called Tammy." Kat clears her throat again. "Tammy was… is like family to me. She's originally from Buffalo, but moved down to the city when she was fifteen."
"Did she come alone?"
"Her parents kicked her out. She grew up rich, one of those rich kids with a pony and a great house. One day her dad caught her making out with a female school friend. Beat the shit outta her and kicked her out. She got a bus down to the city and was homeless for about a month until the snow came. She wandered into my bar."
"You gave her a job?"
Kat shakes her head. "No, I'm not an idiot." She narrows her gaze. "I let her stay with me after I found out what happened to her. She lived with me here until she was eighteen. She got a job as an apprentice hairstylist and she moved out. She worked at the bar on weekends to help me out. I was her legal guardian…" She looks over her shoulder. "Look how good of a guardian I am."
Olivia looks up at Elliot, a single for him to leave and let her do what she does best and bring comfort to those who truly need it. Olivia attempts to touch Kat's hand again, but she moves it away.
"Please, I don't need the comfort of a cop." She says quietly. She casts her gaze towards the detective, her eyes bloodshot from crying. "I know about the history of New York's Finest against the LGBT community."
Olivia clears her throat. "Kat – what happened, it wasn't your fault and-"
"I told her she could go home early." Her voice breaks from the sob. "I-I told her, she could leave early. I should have been looking out for her and I didn't. I gave her to her rapist and killer. Me. I did that. No one else. How do I live with that?"
Olivia continues to flick through the crime scene pictures as she sits at her desk in SVU. It's been twenty-four hours since she has last spoken to Kat and the interaction is still tugging on her heart. Her phone buzzes on the desk next to her, she looks over and rolls her eyes seeing the name 'Matt' flash up again. She leans back in her chair and sighs. Elliot looks up from his computer, and he frowns. The phone buzzes again. Olivia's hand hits it with a thump, she opens the drawer of her desk, scoops it in, and slams it closed. Elliot's frown now becomes a chuckle.
"Unwanted attention." He asks looking back at his paperwork.
"Men are… something." She says looking back at the crime scene pictures.
"Men are what?"
"Needy."
"Not all men."
"Uh-huh. If you say so."
Elliot looks up at her.
"I'm not needy."
Olivia scoffs. "Okay, Elliot."
She's annoyed him now.
"In what way am I needy?" He asks looking at her.
"You need me to reassure you that you're not."
"That's not needy! That's you pissing me off!"
"Alright, alright. Kathy makes your lunch for you every day, right?" She asks.
"Yeah, of course."
"And if she missed a day – would you make your own lunch or would you just…" She shrugs. "Not bother?"
Elliot stares down at his desk, realising just how much he relies on Kathy.
"And in a fight, when she kinda stops talking to you, wanting space etc… whose's the first to crack?" Olivia grins.
"Okay – you made your point, Detective Benson." He admits defeat.
Just as they're getting back to work, Fin appears in the squad room carrying a file. He places the file on Olivia's desk and makes his way towards the back of the squad room where the monitors are.
"Liv, the building where Kat lives – came back with surveillance footage." He starts bringing up the monitor as Olivia and Elliot walk over from their desks.
The surveillance footage shows at five minutes to four, Tammy stumbles towards the building clutching her stomach. She punches in the code for the door and enters.
"She was already stabbed when she got to the building – this confirms Kat's story. Anything from the bar?" Olivia asks.
"Not yet. Nothing has been sent over yet."
Olivia frowns. It's been an entire day. Olivia looks over at Elliot.
"She said she was going to send it over yesterday."
"Nothing yet. Only what the building super has sent us."
Kat pushes on the double swinging door leading to the back room, she steps out into the dimly lit bar carrying a crate of wrapped breakfast sandwiches and places them on the bar. Nicky continues setting up the hot coffee station at the front of the bar. She looks over at Kat.
"How are you holding up?"
Kat looks up from the crate as she starts sorting the breakfast sandwiches into bacon, sausage, and egg crates.
"Uh, as good as I can be given the circumstances." Her Russian accent seems a little thicker than usual like she's tired. "You?"
Nicky sighs. "Tess has been destroyed since yesterday morning, I'm just trying to stay strong for her, ya know?" Nicky looks down at the plug socket for the coffee machines and realises she's an outlet short. She left her extender in the truck. She stands up fully. "Hey, I left the extra cable in the truck, I'll be right back." Kat nods in reply as Nicky leaves the bar.
Kat continues to place the sandwiches in the right crate when the door to her bar opens again. Kat looks up and into the eyes of Elliot and Olivia. Elliot breaks off from Olivia and starts looking around at the décor. Olivia walks over to the bar and takes a stool. She watches Kat for a moment who tries to ignore her in hope. Finally, she couldn't take it anymore.
"Just ask me out, detective – it'll break the tension." She says with a soft throaty laugh.
Olivia looks around and notices the rainbow flags hanging on the walls, the female athletes in frames, and pictures of drag kings pinned to a corkboard behind Kat. Olivia smirks.
"Oh really? Is that what you want?" She asks quietly. "A shakedown from a cop?" A little blush creeps over Kat's cheeks. As much as she enjoyed the thought of this particular detective arresting her, she pushes it to the back of her mind. She looks up at Olivia.
"What do you want, detective?" She asks.
"Security footage? From the night Tammy vanished."
"Did you not get the footage from outside my apartment?" She asks.
"Yeah, and we need the footage from when she leaves the bar so we can piece everything together and see if someone followed her from here."
Kat scoffs in reply. "Please, the only ones that are here at that time are the regulars."
"That doesn't matter, Kat – we need that footage."
Kat sighs and puts the last sandwich in its crate.
"Look, I can't just give that over-"
"Why?" Olivia cuts her off. Her tone is getting harsher.
"Because in that footage are several queer people who don't want to be a hate crime by the cops. I can't go just give you that footage."
"Even if it means catching the scumbag who killed your friend?"
Kat picks the crate up off the counter and walks around the bar ignoring Olivia's question. She walks through the threshold of the swinging door into the back. Olivia follows.
"Kat I know it's hard- but we need that-"
"No!" She comes out of the store room. She folds her arms. "You see these breakfast sandwiches I am making? I made fifty of those every Saturday night – to hand out today to homeless queer people in the area. Half of them are victims of abuse, police brutality, and hate crimes. The ones who come into my bar and drink in the evenings are the same. I even get some who were there during Stonewall."
Olivia thinks for a moment, she understands Kat's concern but she needs to catch this killer. She looks at Kat's worrisome face and nods.
"How about this, you show me the footage… here and if there's anything on it of interest, I'll take a picture with my phone and send it back to my squad. How's that for compromise?"
Kat thinks it over for a moment. It would keep the queer folk safe from the cops and for some reason, she seemed to find a lot of trust in Olivia, she couldn't say the same for her partner, even if he did bring her tea.
Kat nods and leads Olivia through the small winding corridor, past the storeroom to her office. It's small, like any bar office. Big enough for a desk, two chairs, and a safe. Upon that desk is a couple of framed pictures of Kat, Tammy, and some of the other woman in the bar. Kat sits down and logs onto her computer. She opens the security app and dates it back to the night Tammy was killed. Olivia leans over her shoulder watching the footage. It shows Tammy serving tables, Kat talking to Lola, Nicky and Tess playing pool, and a group of women in the booths chatting and laughing. Seeing Tammy walking around, laughing, joking with the customers – Kat's heart twinges. She holds back her tears.
"Can you fast it forward to when Tammy left for the night?"
Kat does just that, she watches as the group of women leave, Tess and Nicky move from the pool table and over to the bar. Kat stops it just as Lola gets up, waves to the bar, and leaves for the night. Then Kat speaks to Tammy and tells her she can leave for the night. Tammy looks excited and goes to put the dishes away. Ten minutes later, Tammy is leaving in her faux fur coat.
"You gotta camera outside the bar?" Olivia asks.
"I have them all over the place apart from the washroom." She says switching to the outside camera.
Tammy leaves the bar and starts walking down the road, as she does – in the distance, from the alleyway next to the bar a figure emerges and lures her into the alleyway. Kat stops the footage. Olivia takes the pictures.
Meanwhile, back in the bar, Elliot is looking at the different variety of breakfast sandwiches when the bar door opens. Nicky crosses the threshold, though not to have a sudden shock at seeing Elliot standing there.
"Whoa!" Nicky steps back. "Sorry, dude – breakfast line doesn't start for another hour. You're welcome to stick around and hang out." Nicky says going back over to the coffee machines.
The door opens again as Lola crosses the threshold.
"Well… actually…" Elliot reaches for his badge.
Back in the office, Kat is looking at the image on her screen. She can recognise that body shape, and her eyes widen.
"Oh god… Lola."
Elliot holds up his badge. "I'm Detective Stabler with the Special Victims Unit."
Lola freezes in the doorway looking at Elliot with eyes as wide as saucepans. Elliot frowns. Suddenly – like a bolt of lightning, the older lesbian takes off from the doorway, Elliot gives chase, pushing the door open.
As he chases after the much older woman, he reaches for his radio and places the mic just a few centimetres away from his mouth.
"Suspect on the run, female – 50s, short grey hair, stocky build."
Lola pants as she continues running down the streets of Greenwich Village trying to lose Elliot by ducking into alleyways but Elliot is right on the money each time and he's never that far from behind. She turns down another alleyway, running through a puddle until – a dead end. She stops and turns, she's out of breath and tired. She leans back against the chain-link fence blocking her path and admits defeat. Elliot approaches.
"You're under arrest" He cuffs her as they walk back towards the street.
Lola rests her head upon the hard metal desk in the dark interrogation room. Fingers scuffed through her hair, her body shakes with gentle sobs. What is even going on? She looks up from the table and catches a glimpse of herself in the one-way glass, she knows they're watching her. She looks around her already the idea of what prison would look like.
Beyond the glass, Elliot and Olivia watch her. Olivia's eyes never leave the older woman, she frowns thinking – she's crying, remorseful? Kat did say her name and recognised her from the footage. She hands the printouts from her cell phone to Elliot. He looks at the pictures, now enhanced, it was Lola leading Tammy into the alleyway by the bar. Did she rape and kill her?
"You think she did it?" Elliot asks.
"I don't think she would be crying like that."
"Could just be sad she was caught." He walks over to the door into the interrogation room.
Lola looks up sharply as Elliot enters. He places the file down on the table in front of him and takes a seat.
"Lola. My name is Detective Stabler I am a detective with The Special Victims Unit. We are investigating the murder of Tabitha Wormwood." He watches Lola's reaction.
Lola stares wide-eyed at Elliot.
He opens the files and places the pictures of Tammy's brutally murdered body on the table in front of him. "You were the last person to see her alive." He places the picture from Olivia's phone on the desk.
"I didn't kill her." Lola blurts.
"Well, it doesn't look that way. It looks like you lured her into an alleyway, raped and then stabbed her twelve times." Elliot points to the pictures, and Lola avoids looking down.
"No! That's not what happened!" She's panicking.
"Then what happened!? Why did you run?"
Lola pauses. "I… after I left the bar, I waited for Tammy, like I always do."
"You a stalker?"
"No, I -" Lola looks down. "I am a lonely, lonely, woman… I gave myself to a career that fired me on Friday." Tears silently rolled down her face. "I was desperate for some kind of connection." She swallows hard. "For about a year now, I've been… paying Tammy to spend time with me."
Elliot frowns.
"You've been paying her for sex?"
"And other stuff, like watching movies, cuddling… I caught her after she left the bar because I wanted to ask her back to my place. I needed some company."
"And what she say?"
"No – she said no, she had to be up early in the morning for work at the salon and then she was gonna help Kat set up for Saturday night."
"I bet that pissed you off-"
"No! I understood, we all help Kat with the bar from time to time." She takes a breath. "She headed down the alleyway behind the bar and onto 10th. That was the last time I saw her."
"Where you go after that?"
"Home. My building monitors who leaves and who goes in. You can see for yourself."
"Why'd you run?" He folds his arms.
"Come on, dude – I was the last person, other than the killer, to see her alive… I got scared."
Elliot opens the door, passes through and closes it behind him. He looks at Olivia who shrugs.
"Fin is pulling the security footage from Lola's building, but I feel she's innocent."
Elliot frowns.
"Think about it, those cuts – it was from hate and anger. I'm sure she has anger, but I don't think it was directed at Tammy."
Olivia's phone rings in her pocket, she pulls it out dreading to look at the screen. 'Matt'. She ignores the call and sends a quick text telling him she'll call him later. She places the phone back into her pocket and it rings again. Elliot rolls his eyes.
"Do you want me to talk to the guy?"
"Please – if there's one thing I don't need, it's a white knight." She looks at the caller ID – Katrina Koskov.
Olivia places the phone to her ear and steps away from Elliot.
"Kat? What's wrong?"
Elliot watches Olivia's face change from quizzical to worrisome.
"Alright, stay there!" Olivia hangs up and walks back over to Elliot.
With that same look of concern still plastered all over her face, she shifts slightly.
"That was Kat. Nicky, one of the other patrons of the bar, was attacked."
After speaking with Nicky at the hospital, Olivia learned all she could about the attacker. Luckily, Nicky had seen everything. He approached her as she left the bar after helping Kat give out sandwiches to the homeless. She had turned down the alleyway behind the bar and was heading onto 10th when he grabbed her. Fortunately, unlike Tammy, Nicky was able to fight him off and when he realised she wasn't going to go down easily, he fled. Nicky was badly hurt – he clubbed her over the head with a trashcan lid and started to wail on her until she defended herself.
The atmosphere in the bar is tense. Kat continues to pour drinks, take money, and try to stay as normal as possible even though one of her regulars was arrested and the other was attacked both on the same day. It's Sunday, so it's quiet anyway. Tess is in the hospital with Nicky and Lola is at home licking her wounds. Still, some of the others are drinking and attempting to keep things as normal as possible. Phoebe Lane an investment banker from the Upper East Side occupies one of the few vacant barstools as she nurses a gin & tonic. She's chatting to Jane, a housewife, and mother of two, who came out later in life. The booths are occupied by a couple of college girls who are very much entranced with each other. Young love. Kat leans against the back of the bar, she cannot help but feel anxious. Suddenly, the door opens again – Kat looks over and smiles seeing Lola, cautiously, like a deer, moving over the threshold. She takes her usual seat at the side of the bar. Kat already has a bud waiting for her.
"You alright?" Kat asks.
"As good as I'm gonna be. You?"
"Yeah… anxious, but okay."
"Is Nicky alright?"
"Banged up, concussed… the works, but she seems to be okay. Tess is with her."
The door opens again. A cool breeze hits Lola and Kat. The bar owner looks up, expecting to see another regular. However, this person – is far from the normal folk who come in. She tilts her head to the side as the figure takes a seat at the bar.
"Welcome to The Black Rose… what can I get for you?" Kat leans on the bar, looking down at Olivia Benson.
A/N: Please look forward to the next chapter on Wednesday called: Undercover.