I got up early this morning to beat my partner into the squadroom. The logical side of my mind argued that it was stupid to get up early to get to work early just so I could have revenge. But the revenge won out. And I'm here.
It's payback time. He stuck me with his paperwork and I want to get him back. I look at the pile in my inbox, cup of coffee in hand. You give what you get. And I know he's not expecting it. He's not expecting me to retaliate. Ha.
He does underestimate me, sometimes. I know he doesn't mean to, but he does. I make sure Cragen's office door is shut before I put my plan into action. Nobody else is here to blow my little scheme, either.
I take half of yesterday's finished paperwork that he stuck me with and slide it under the pile already sitting in his inbox. Then I take the pile that's in my inbox and put it in his box. It's only fair.
Munch and Fin show up first, actually talking, not arguing. And Munch isn't giving one of his never-ending rants. "Someone's in a good mood." John comments, sourly, giving me his trademark over-the-glasses look.
I grin at him "Aww, c'mon, Munch. It's spring. We don't have to see another blizzard for the next few months. Even you should be happy about that."
He takes off his glasses, looking pale and naked without them. "It's the weather that's making you happy? Did you miss the fact that it's raining?"
"I know it's raining. But I like rain a hell of a lot better than snow. Rain I don't have to shovel my car out from under." I point out.
"I thought you might have had a date or something." Munch calls over his shoulder, heading to his desk.
"Nope." I tuck my hair back from my face.
Finally, Elliot shows up. His first stop, like mine was, is the coffee pot. Then, he comes over to sit across from me, again. "Morning." He greets and I yawn. "Hey."
I adjust one of the pictures on my desk and then I feel his eyes on me. "What?" I raise my head, looking at him.
Elliot glances at me, then at the pile in his inbox.
"Why are you looking at me?" I ask, innocently. "It's all yours."
He rolls his eyes at me and takes the first file off the stack. He's not going to say anything. Not yet, anyway.
I take yesterday's finished paperwork and file it away, neatly, leaving him to work away. When that's done, I get myself another cup of coffee . Someone brought in bagels. I grab one for myself and one for him, heading back to my desk.
I do little things - finish up a couple of reports, clean my desk and check my voicemail. He hasn't caught on yet. But he will.
He's getting down to the bottom of the pile. I fake a cough for an excuse to cover the grin on my face.
When he opens a file and looks at me, sharply, I grin at him. "Ever heard of a little thing called revenge, El? That's what you get for sticking me with your paperwork."
He doesn't answer. He just mutters something that I don't catch and glares at me.
"You give what you get." I tell him, still grinning. "It's fair."
A case finally does come in, not long after that, but Munch and Fin catch it. Elliot and I are due in court on the case of that baby-selling bastard we collared.
The worst part was going to find the couples who'd bought the babies and having to take the kids away. They'd been sold and bought, like property, but the 'parents' who'd paid as much as fifty thousand dollars for someone else's baby, illegally, put up a fight. There was no paperwork, no legal adoption, so they'd never had rights to the kids in the first place.
At least all of the kids were still babies. We weren't taking them away from the only parents they'd known. They were too young to understand what was going on. But a baby in a foster home? It drives me crazy to know that I'm divided on this.
The people who were calling themselves 'parents' had paid for a kid, just like you would a car. But all of them were taking excellent care of the babies. They won't get that kind of attention in a foster home. The system lets kids fall through the cracks all the time and these were just babies that ACS was placing in the system.
I shake my head, slightly, frustrated with myself. I should know by now that our cases aren't black and white. You can feel a million different things, but it doesn't matter how you feel. The law's the law. With no legal adoption and no way to find the birth mothers, those babies had to be placed in foster homes.
I'm just getting my coat to leave for the courthouse, when Elliot takes a call on his cell. He has a short conversation and looks at me. "That was Novak. She worked out a plea bargain this morning."
"You're kidding." I protest. "She's not going to plead this son of a bitch out."
"Liv, he's doing at least fifteen years."
"Why the hell would she plead him out? We busted our asses setting him up." I shake my head, frustrated with the wasted work. "We've got the tape. He offered to sell us a baby girl."
"I said that. She said it came from over her head. She had to plead it out."
Damn lawyers and politics. It gets frustrating to work with a bunch of lawyers who only give a damn about what something looks like in the papers or what people are going to think. "See, if the DA's office had a bunch of defense attorneys on staff, this political crap wouldn't be happening." I shake my head.
"But then you'd be even more pissed off, because you hate defense attorneys more than you hate prosecutors." Elliot points out with a grin.
"True. But defense attorneys don't really give a damn about what something's going to look like in the papers or what the people think. All they care about is what the jury thinks. They're not so wrapped up in political crap." I stretch and walk back to my desk.
"There's gotta be one prosecutor you like. What'd you think of Kibre?"
I shrug. "She's a damn good attorney. We need more prosecutors like her. She'll do what it takes to win her cases, politically correct or not." A passing uniform hands me a slip with a message on it. I thank him, quietly and read it.
"Did a date call you back?" Elliot raises an eyebrow.
"No. If you have to know, I haven't had a date in about three months. Not that it's any of your business. Just a friend of mine. The same one I had dinner with last night." I shift in my chair, seeing him give me a skeptical look.
"You remember my friend Dana? We had lunch with her a couple of months ago, at the diner around the block. The paramedic married to a cop."
"Yeah. I remember."
"I had dinner with her last night. She called."
"Girl talk, huh?"
"So? I hang out with you guys all day." I shrug. "When I'm out with a few friends, I'm not a cop. I'm not a detective. I'm Liv. And they pretend to hate me, because I'm the only one still single."
"So they'd be happy to be single." Elliot shakes his head.
"They think they would. But they don't know that I'd give it all up to have what they have. A family. Someone to go home to. Walking into an empty apartment gets kind of depressing after so long." I rub my eyes.
Looking for something to do, I take a couple of files back from him and set to work. When I look up to toss my fading pen in the trash and get a new one, I catch him looking at me. But not in a way he should be, as my partner. Dana was right. Maybe he does feel the same way. But I can't ask him right here, in the middle of the squad. I'll have to bite my tongue and wait.
Later on, when he's driving me home, I'm sitting on the edge of my seat. I don't know what I want to do. Do I want to invite him in? Put everything on the line and hope to hell I get the outcome I want? Or do I play shy and let him walk away again?
No. I'm not going to play shy. I'm going to let him up. When he stops on the curb, I turn to him and smile, slightly. "Do you wanna come up? Have a cup of coffee?"
He shrugs and yanks the keys from the ignition, following me into my building.
It takes me two tries to get the key in the lock. When I finally have the door open, I show him inside. I turn on a couple of lights and turn the coffee pot back on. "It'll be a minute." I tell him, stepping into the kitchen. "Make yourself at home."
I hear him flipping channels on my TV, sitting on my couch. He's watching something to do with sports. Typical guy.
I make a cup of coffee for him and get myself a glass of juice. If I have coffee now, I'll be up all night. And this is one of the few times when I don't need to be up all night.
I join him on the couch and tuck my legs up, comfortably.
"I like the paint, Liv." He nods at the living room walls that I painted a shade of blue a couple of weekends ago. "It lightens the place up."
"Yeah. I needed something to do and I was sick of white." I grin at him.
He shakes his head and sighs, flipping off the TV. Then, he turns to me. I swallow, hearing my own heartbeat. I can see the look on his face. I can read him so damned well by now that I know what's he feeling.
"Liv . . . " He trails off, reaching to cup my cheek in one strong hand. I swallow, hard and look at him. Our eyes meet for a spilt second. I don't even think we need to talk. Words would be a waste of time right now. We both know each other so well that we don't need to talk.
His fingers are warm against my skin. His free hand touches my back, his arm pulling me close. I close my eyes, as he lifts my chin. "Look at me."
I open my eyes again and find myself staring right into those blue eyes that drive me crazy. He kisses me, softly, at first, almost tentative. But that's not what I want. He's reminding me of the first guy I kissed when I was fifteen. I don't want to be handled like I'm some piece of glass.
One hand slips into my hair, holding me there, not letting me pull away. He parts our lips to let me breathe and then kisses me again. I can feel myself slipping, losing control. It's been a long time since I've felt this way. His tongue slips into my mouth and my mind goes blank. All that's on my mind right now is him and what he's doing to me.
(A/n: This is short, again, but I have school to catch up on and I can't really go any further, because of how I rated this story. It's really hard to write anything past PG-13 when your mother's in the next room. But the people got what they wanted, right?)