1I settle in my chair and look at my partner. We just came back from interviewing a victim at the hospital. "Flip you for the DD-5?" I question.
Elliot sighs and pulls a quarter from his pocket. "Heads or tails?" He asks.
"Heads." I reply, watching him send it flying into the air. It lands on his desk and I peer over the wall of personal effects between our desks. Heads. "Here ya go." I hand him the file, grinning.
He mutters something unrepeatable and glares at me. "How do you win every time?"
"Don't ask me." I shrug. The squad's actually sort of quiet this morning. I think it has something do to with the fact that Munch and Fin are in court and not here. The boss is in a meeting downtown and everybody else is working. "You know, my mother used to say that if you keep making faces like that, your face will eventually get stuck that way." I comment and Elliot glares at me again.
I stifle a laugh, at the look on his face, hearing conversation behind me. Normally I'd ignore it, but I think I recognize one of the voices. I turn my chair around, as a uniform guides my kid cousin Brian into the squad.
I shake my head. He's the splitting image of his late father. He and Charlie would pass for brothers. They have the same build - short, rather than tall, but solid and muscular. They have the same hair - a dark shade of auburn rather than the red that my grandmother had. Father and son also share the same pale grey eyes that were inherited from my grandfather.
They even have the same smile. A charmer's smile. It's not a dangerous bad-boy grin. It's more innocent and boyish. The last time I saw my cousin, he was dressed in a tux, for his wedding last July. Now he's dressed in jeans and a dark t-shirt. "What are you doing here?" I demand, pushing my hair out of my eyes. "The last time I checked, Boston was a four-hour drive. You wouldn't make that long of a drive just to bug me, would you?"
He shakes his head. "We flew in, yesterday. Sydney's older sister just spilt from her husband, so Syd's down there, helping her get settled in a new place. They told me to get lost, so I got lost."
Sydney. His newlywed wife. She's stubborn, she has a temper, and a mind of her own. I like her. She'll make him walk the line and if he's pissing her off, he knows it. She'll be good for him. "So you got lost and somehow wound up here?" I raise an eyebrow.
Brian rolls his eyes, impatiently. "I tried to call you, last night, but all I got was your damned machine."
"Yeah. I worked late and I didn't wanna go home, so I crashed here. So what do you want?"
He gets himself a chair. My partner looks at me and raises an eyebrow. He wants an introduction. "Kid, this is my partner, Detective Elliot Stabler. El, this is my cousin Brian."
After they trade handshakes, Brian turns back to me. "You know, I've been working for a year now."
"Yeah."
"Do you think you can explain to me why I'm still on a desk?"
I grin at him. "I didn't warn you, kid. Rookies get the crappy jobs. Like paper-shuffling. Rookies get the jobs that everyone else hates."
"Duh." He responds. "But a year? I should be out in the field by now."
"Not really." I shake my head. "I know you did well in school and in your training, so don't start with that. You're good. But you're young. Your bosses could just be giving you crappy jobs, to see how you handle it. To see if you're cut out for fieldwork. Your bosses are probably just watching you, to see if you're ready."
"I've been ready for a year now!" He protests.
"Have you?" I raise an eyebrow, again. "Because there's training and then there's the real thing."
"What's the difference?"
I sigh and rub my eyes. "There is a difference. When you're training, it's a controlled setting. You know what's gonna happen. And if you screw up, you get a second chance. Out in the street, you don't know what's going to happen. You don't know what your perp might have on him or what he might do. Believe me, kid - a perp that's on the run isn't going to give you a second chance. You got one shot to get it right or it's all gone to hell. You think you're ready for it, but you're not. Nobody's really ready for it." Overeager rookies - usually the first ones to get themselves killed.
"I'm ready." Brian decides to argue with me.
I shake my head. "Are you? You think you know what you'd do, in a situation, but it's different, when you're actually out there. Everybody thinks they're ready for it, but nobody is."
"Were you?"
"Oh, hell, no." I respond, honestly. "Two years in, I had my first justified shooting. I lost it. They'd taught me how to shoot, but I'd never thought I'd actually have to kill."
"So you think the bosses are just testing me?" My cousin looks at me, curious.
"Yeah. Paper-shuffling and crappy jobs - it's a rite of passage for newbies."
"'Cause I don't think they like me, in the office."
I shake my head, grinning at him. "Do they pick on you?"
Brian rolls his eyes. "Constantly."
"They like you. If they didn't like you and wanted to kick your ass, they wouldn't pick on you. Don't ask me why, 'cause I understand it just about as much as you do. I think they're just messing with you."
"You think?"
"Um-hm. The guys like to play stupid little mind games with the rookies, sometimes, at least around here. They think it's funny. I never told you what they did to me, did I?"
"No." My young cousin leans back in the chair.
I tuck a stray bit of my hair back behind one ear. "When I first started out, some idiot started a betting pool on how long I'd last. How long it would be before I quit. The highest bet was two weeks. And I didn't find out about that for a year."
"But it's not fair. I should be"-
I roll my eyes. My cousin might have inherited his father's looks, but he didn't get the old man's personality. Charlie never complained about anything. He just took what he got and kept his mouth shut. All his son does is whine.
I shake my head and sigh. "You know, I've met little kids who whine less than you do. Kids who've been through more crap than most adults could handle and they don't whine about it. You picked your job. Law enforcement's a competitive field. You gotta show 'em you can keep up. If you wanna be in the field, instead of on a desk, grow up and suck it up. I hate paperwork, too. I don't like getting dragged out of bed at two in the morning, either, but see that office over there?" I point in the direction of Cragen's office.
Brian nods.
"That's my boss's office. If I start bitching, I'm off the squad. If you whine and complain about it, they're gonna think you're this immature little punk and leave you on a desk. You gotta suck it up and deal with it. If you bitch about paperwork, what are you gonna do with on a stakeout? If you wanna be in the field, stop whining like a five-year-old and grow up."
"I don't"-
"You're doing it now. Whining about being stuck on a desk and shuffling paper. I don't like it, either. But I'm not gonna whine about it. You ever see that movie with Tom Hanks in it? The one where he's coaching the girls' team?"
He only blinks at me.
"'There's no cryin' in baseball.' You gotta suck it up, kid. You gotta show your bosses that they can trust you in the field. That you're not gonna screw things up. And that you're not gonna drive everybody else nuts on a stakeout, bitching about how boring it is."
He sighs and pulls his cell phone from his pocket, as it rings. "Hey, babe. What's going on? Right. Damn. I'll be there in a half-hour." He ends the call and looks at me. "Sydney's gonna kill me - we're supposed to be having lunch with Sandy and I'm late."
"Tell her I said hey." I wave him out the door.
When he's gone, Elliot looks at me. "Liv?"
"Hm?" I pop the end of my pen in my mouth.
"You stole my line." He remarks and I laugh, at the look at his face.
"It wasn't your line, unless you're Tom Hanks." I comment.
"You don't remember me telling you that?" He raises an eyebrow.
"Yeah. I do remember you telling me that. But just because you quoted it doesn't make it your line." I persist.
He rolls his eyes. "You should've been a lawyer. You've got the qualities for it."
"Oh, yeah?" I raise an eyebrow. "Like what?"
"You're stubborn."
"That's inherited. I was born that way." I grin at him.
"You always seem to win an argument."
"Not my fault." I shake my head. "I just know how to win 'em and I go for it."
"And you're a pain in the ass."
I mock-glare at him, knowing he's joking. "Am I? 'Cause if I'm such a pain in the ass, all you gotta do is request another partner and Cragen will pair me with someone else. But then I'd make sure you got stuck breaking in some wet-behind-the-ears rookie. I know you wouldn't have the patience to do that."
He returns my mock-glare and we both laugh.
(A/n: Did anyone catch the obvious season one episode reference? I just got my hands on the season one DVDs, so bear with me. Let me know in a review, if you notice it.)
