Influenza

Chapter Twenty


Disclaimer: The show doesn't belong to me, neither do the characters, I make no cash profit off of my works.

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He was almost late getting into work that day, but, then again, he was almost late every morning after the kids stayed at his apartment. Getting them off to school normally took up all of his time, and in most of the cases, something always went wrong. Somebody left their bag at home, or didn't remember to get lunch money, making him have to turn around and head back the way he came. He was only late on one occasion, when Kathleen's car had needed jumping, and still, he had only been five minutes late.

When he walked in through the door, she was sitting at her desk, her back facing the way he entered. By then, nearly everybody in the office knew of their relationship, since they had already informed Cragen and news traveled through the precinct quicker than the girl's bathroom at any American High School. Munch and Fin had already confronted them about it, questioning why they hadn't been previously informed, and the two had simply stated that they didn't think everyone at work needed to know of their private lives.

Now, there was no way that would ever happen. Once he stuck a foot through the door, whispering started. Not just from the women cops, in contrast. Most of them were males, wondering to themselves and their buddies how Stabler, who was just freshly divorced, managed to get what they had been trying for in how ever long they had been working at the precinct. Some claimed that it was because the two had been having an affair before, causing his wife to leave. The others, who still believed in faithfulness, said that the two had finally admitted the way they felt after it was apparent that his marriage was not going to last. The latter was correct, but those were few and far between, and most went for the more scandalous point of view.

Olivia hadn't even noticed he was in the room, let alone the station, until he sat a brown paper bag down in front of her. "What is this?" she questioned, looking at it incredulously. "It's not donuts, is it?"

He shook his head, "Elizabeth made them for Home Ec and had a few left over, so she told me to bring them to work for you and Dumb and Dumber over there," he nodded towards Munch and Fin, who were engaged in an intense discussion over some kind of Government Conspiracy. Actually, Fin was pretending to listen, bobbing his head up and down every now in then, to give the illusion that he was paying attention, while Munch ranted and theorized.

She peeked into the bag, and found three, fairly large, muffins. "What kind are they?" she questioned, hoping that he wouldn't say blueberry. She was allergic to blueberry, and these looked very good to her empty stomach.

"Chocolate," he informed her. "She brought all the blueberry's with her, since you can't have them."

"Can't have what?" Fin questioned, having been looking for an easy exit to the conversation his partner had started up. He had noticed the bag sitting on the table, and figuring it was food, decided it would be the perfect excuse to ignore the older man. Even Munch would agree that food was better than conspiracies.

"Blueberries," Elliot replied. "Liz made chocolate muffins, I brought one for each of you."

"Just one?" this was from Munch, who had left his theory about cafeteria food in the dust. This type of food was much more interesting.

Elliot nodded, "Just the one..."

Olivia shrugged and grabbed a muffin from the bag, one was fine with her. There was silence for a few minutes, while Fin and Munch argued over the bigger muffin in the background, and Olivia and Elliot sat in a staring match, neither knowing what had started it or why it was continuing.

"No offense to your daughter, Stabler," Fin called out, from his desk, "but these aren't poisoned, are they?"

"Why would they be poisoned?" Elliot questioned, not breaking the connection with Olivia as he did so.

"I don't know," the man admitted, "but your staring Olivia down like you're waiting for her to eat the damn thing and get it over with."

John looked over the rim of his glasses and smiled wryly, "I don't think that's why he's staring..."

Ignoring the comment, Elliot continued to look at the woman seated across from him, "Kathleen told Maureen last night on the phone," he informed her, rapping his pen against his desk quietly.

"Oh?" Olivia questioned. "What did Maureen have to say about it?"

"Well, apparently, I told you so. She's been rooting for us ever since she heard about the divorce."

A smile tugged at the corners of her lips, which she immediately covered. No reason to give everybody more reasons to talk. "I always liked her, you know?"

"Yeah," he said, "so have I."

"I should hope so," Olivia replied, finally breaking eye contact and looking down at her paperwork. "She is your daughter, after all. Liking them comes with the territory."

He made a face, "I guess so..."

Olivia smiled, knowing that he was just joking. He caught her doing so, and a grin spread across his face, causing her smile to grow, as well. She rolled her eyes at the cocky look on his face, and went back to her work, determined to not let him she the effect his smile could have on her.

"The twins had an interesting conversation with me this morning," he claimed, looking up from his paperwork, expecting for her to do the same. She did and he caught her eye.

"Oh really? What about?"

He looked around, sighed when he caught one of their co-workers glancing in their direction, seemingly listening to the conversation. "I'll tell you later... how about, dinner at 9?"

She looked around much as he had, only to see why he hadn't told her what Dickey and Elizabeth had talked with him about, "Sure..." she agreed, "that's fine with me."

Just as he was about to reply, Cragen came out of his office and nodded in their direction, "Stabler, Benson, my office."

The two sighed simultaneously, understanding that the look on his face had meant a case, not a chewing out. They got up from their chairs, and headed towards the room.

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Instead of having dinner at nine, at Elliot's apartment, they stopped by a 24 hour Chinese take out place, and headed to hers, which was closer. It was almost eleven at night and they would end up reporting to work at seven the next morning, two hours early. Neither cared very much, it was all a part of the job, and they had both agreed to it when they became cops.

Their case wasn't anything new. A thirty something woman, possibly a hooker, was found dead in an alley, with signs of trauma that could only be caused by rape. Harsh, but ordinary for them. And, even though they had seen it hundreds of times, it still got to both of them. But, each knew that the other had their own ways of dealing with the job, and therefore didn't start up a conversation about their workday.

"So, what was this conversation about?" Olivia questioned, taking a bite of her peppered steak.

"Us," he informed her, "and marriage."

She nearly choked on her meat, and ended up coughing it back up, holding her chest in slight pain. "W...wh...what?"

"Dickey and Elizabeth asked me if the two of us were going to get married before next year." he stated, nonchalant. As if his children asked him about his love life every morning over their Cheerios. "Apparently, they have both given a lot of thought on the subject-- which is odd, since they just found out about our relationship yesterday."

"And Elizabeth wasn't exactly approving of it," she reminded him. Elliot nodded and another thought came to Olivia's mind, "So... what did you tell them?"

"I just said I didn't know, it was too soon in the relationship to be guessing on marriage dates," he shrugged and grabbed an egg roll from the paper bag. "To be honest, I was kind of caught off guard, and that was the only thing I could think of that would end the conversation."

"We haven't even been dating a week..."

"I know."

"Why would we be thinking about marriage so soon?"

Elliot shrugged, "I don't know."

"We wouldn't be," she stated.

"I know."

"We haven't even--"

"Yeah..."

Olivia dazed off for a few minutes, wondering how on earth his twins had come up with the idea of them being married by the end of the year. "You think we might?" she blurted out before she could stop herself, then smiled sheepishly for it. "I mean... do you think it's at all possible that we could be?"

He thought over his answer carefully, "Anything is possible, I guess..."

"But this isn't just anything, Elliot. This is our lives."

"I wouldn't be disappointed if we were..."

She smiled, "Neither would I."

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Since it was so late, she had offered him the couch bed, which he had agreed to. There was a extra change of clothes in the trunk of his car, for extreme cases that kept them at work for a day or longer. Also, there was a pair of clothes at her place, that they had kept there after the flu had made him bed ridden. He simply changed into the sweat pants there and they parted for the night.

Only, he found, an hour later, that sleep was fleeting. He lied in bed, staring at the ceiling, and going over their conversation in his mind, looking for any hidden clues she might have sneaked in. She had, after all, claimed that, marriage in the near future would be fine with her... and what did that mean exactly? That she wanted to get married, and sometime soon, or that, if he asked, she simply wouldn't say no?

After he got bored of lying in bed, he slid from under the covers, and quietly padded through the apartment and into her room. She was asleep, and he was thankful that at least one of them would be well rested for work in the morning. So as not to wake her, he sat in the rocking chair in the far corner of the room. She had told him once that it had belonged to her mother, who had gotten it from her mother, who's mother had made it. When Serena had passed, it was one of the few things that Olivia had received that meant something to her. He hoped she wouldn't be upset for him sitting in it.

While she slept, he sat in the chair, making sure not to rock, and watched her. He briefly wondered what she would think, were she to wake up, but she was sleeping so peacefully that he didn't think it likely that she would. As he watched the woman sleeping before him, he thought about the way their relationship was moving. True, they had only officially been dating about five days, but the feelings had manifested long before then. He knew he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her; but he didn't know how much time he should wait before he asked her to. As far as he was concerned, he would marry her the next morning, if that was what she wanted. But, he didn't want her to rush, and she hadn't really had the best relationships in the past.

How long was long enough? Three months, four months, half a year? They were moving fairly slow, because both had figured that would be the best. He had been rushed into marriage with his previous wife, and every time she had rushed in the past things had ended badly, so it only made sense to take things slowly. They didn't want to ruin what they could have because they wanted to, for a lack of better words, focus on the more physical aspects of a relationship. He was OK with it and she was OK with it, and things had been going well, but after what the kids had brought up... he was just wondering how slow they were going to be taking things.

"Are you just going to sit there all night?" a groggy voice called from the other side of the room.

Slightly surprised that she was awake, but still having expected it in more ways than one, he smiled. "I was planning on it, yes."

"Well," she replied, sitting up in her bed and looking across the room at him, "you sitting in that chair and staring is keeping me awake, so get your ass in bed, and stare. Maybe it won't be as noticeable."

"You sure?" he questioned.

"You think I can't control myself... or worried that you can't?" Not giving him the time to answer, she laid back down. "Just get into the bed, Stabler."

"Ma'am, yes ma'am," he agreed, getting out of the chair and crawling under the covers of her bed. She shifted positions immediately, turning to face him, hiding her face in his t-shirt. He wrapped his arms around her side and closed his eyes. Maybe he could get a few hours of sleep this way.

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Authors Note: Let me know what'cha think!