Chapter 34 – Stabler

Lyrics by Switchfoot – Dare You To Move

Welcome to the planet
Welcome to existence
Everyone's here
Everyone's here
Everybody's watching you now
Everybody waits for you now
What happens next?
What happens next?
Dare you to move
Dare you to lift yourself up off the floor
Dare you to move
Like today never happened
Today never happened before
Welcome to the fall out
Welcome to existence
The tension is here
The tension is here
Between who you are and who you could be
Between how it is and how it should be
I dare you to move
I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor
I dare you to move
Like today never happened
Today never happened
Maybe redemption is stories to tell
Maybe forgiveness is right where you fell
Where can you run to escape from yourself?
Where you gonna go?
Where you gonna go?
Salvation is here
I dare you to move
I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor
I dare you to move
Like today never happened
Today never happened
Today never happened before…

Stabler

"Hey Olivia! Are you almost ready?" I knocked on the bathroom door impatiently. My 72 torture – "Ha ha," Olivia smirked – was finally over. Today was the first day back for both of us and I didn't want to be late. Olivia, on the other hand, seemed to have lost all sense of time. We were going in separate cars, but I still wanted to wait for her.

"Would you just go?" She yelled back. "I'll be fine!" I sighed and went over to the coffee table in my living room. I grabbed my badge and holster, slipping them both on my belt as I continued to wait. What can I say? I'm stubborn.

"I promise I'll show up even if you aren't there to hold my hand," she groaned, stepping into the living room as she tucked a stray fold of her shirt into her pants.

"But I want you to be there to hold my hand!" I pouted out my lower lip jokingly.

"You're such a jerk sometimes." She rolled her eyes and smiled, grabbing our coats off of the coat rack. "Ready?" She looked at me.

"Of course," I grinned, stepping outside. As soon as Olivia had done the same, I dramatically sucked in a huge breath of air, expanding my chest. "You smell that?" I asked.

"New York City air?" She raised her eyebrow at me. "Who could miss it?"

"I did," I retaliated. "It's been too long," I sighed, doing it again.

She started walking to her car and stopped at the driver's door. "It was three days El. You're such a drama queen."

"Hey!" Insulted, I ran down the stairs towards her.

A mischievous grin crossing her face from ear to ear, she hopped in her car and sped off, leaving me standing all alone on the side of the street. I couldn't help but laugh as I did the same, trying to catch up with her.

--XXX--

"Hey! You owe me five-fifty for that!" I followed Olivia into the squad room as she held a cup of coffee in one hand and a donut in the other, both of which she'd conveniently placed on my tab when we stopped at the coffee shop.

"Consider it partial payment," she said, taking a bite of the donut.

"For what?" I said, trying to sound outraged.

"For taking care of you for the past three days," she informed me.

"You're billing me for that? But I thought you were doing it out of the goodness of your heart," I joked.

"And the goodness of my stomach," she smiled, taking another bite out of the donut just for effect.

"Ha," I scoffed, rolling my eyes at her. Both us of knew full well she'd never pay me back and that I didn't really care.

Our little argument was quickly ended at the sound of a louder one coming from the squad room.

"Don't tell me they're at it already," Olivia half-groaned, half-laughed, checking her watch.

Sure enough, we walked in to find John and Fin sitting at their adjoined desk, arguing.

"Come on!" Munch insisted to his less-than-interested partner. "It's so obvious what the government is trying to do here!"

Fin looked up from his desk and gave John a death glare. "So write a book about it and sell it to people who care!"

"So you don't care that-" Before John could even bring up his latest government conspiracy theory, Fin stopped him.

"No, I don't! All I care about is that you're giving me a damn headache with this crap!"

"Fine." John sat back and shrugged, not at all silenced by Fin's outburst. "Then maybe I will write a book, sell millions of copies, become rich, and quit this job."

"Don't get my hopes up," Fin sighed, going back to his paperwork.

"Glad to see things haven't changed too much," I remarked as Olivia and I went over to our desk.

"Hey! Welcome back!" John smiled as the two of them turned to face us.

"Thanks," Olivia and I said in unison. We both sat down at our adjoined desks, glad to be back.

"Anything new with you guys?" Fin asked, tossing his papers aside.

"No." Olivia shrugged, taking a sip of her coffee.

"Nope." I shrugged and agreed. "Olivia's still mooching off of me though," I complained, not letting the subject drop.

"Fine," she smiled. "If you get over it, I'll buy you coffee tomorrow."

"Thank you." I crossed my arms, finally satisfied. Turning my attention back to John and Fin, I decided to dive right in. "Any new cases while we were gone?"

"No, it's been pretty slow," Fin said, leaning back in his chair.

"Good job," John interrupted. "Now we're going to be overrun with cases! You just jinxed us," he scolded Fin.

"Shut up Munch." His annoyed partner leaned over and grabbed a piece of paper. Crumpling it into a ball, he sent it sailing towards John's head.

"Hey!" The paper ball smacked him in the side of the head, landing on his desk.

"You guys are so immature," Olivia laughed at their antics, missing them more than anything.

"Oh yeah?" John picked the crumpled paper up and tossed it towards Olivia. Instead of hitting her, it missed its target by a good six inches and landed on the floor.

"Oooo," Olivia pretended to be impressed as she stared at it. "Maturity and aim of a child."

Just as John opened his mouth to retaliate, Cragen suddenly appeared in his doorway. "Elliot? Olivia? What are you guys doing here?" He looked back and forth between the two of us, like he never expected to see us again or something.

"Good to see you too," I answered, smiling.

"I didn't know you were planning on coming back so soon."

"We missed you guys," I said with a grin.

He didn't smile, he just walked towards Munch and Fin. "Twenty year old rape vic at Bellevue. Go talk to her." As they walked off, I could hear John grumbling, probably a bunch of I-told-you-so's. Then Cragen turned towards me. "Elliot, my office."

I turned around to look at Olivia, a confused look on my face. She just gave a no-idea shrug.

"What's up?" I wondered, walking into his office.

"Close the door." He was sitting at his desk, watching as I carried out his order. "Sit." He pointed to the chairs in front of his desk.

"Look, if this is about the hospital, the doctor said I'd be fine after a few days of bed rest." Taking the seat, I tried to stop him from telling me to take another few days off of work.

"This isn't about you," he quietly informed me. "It's about her." He nodded out the window towards Olivia.

"Oh." I was glad this wasn't about me, but not exactly crazy about the fact that it was about Olivia.

"Since I know she won't tell me the truth, how's she doing?" I felt the corners of my lips curl up as he said that, both of us knowing that he was right.

"As well as anyone in her situation could," I shrugged. "She takes it day by day."

He just stared at his desk, lost in thought as he listened to me. "Do you think she's ready to be back here, so soon?"

"Oh no." I shook my head, using a disapproving tone. "I am not getting involved with this. I don't want to be the one she hates if you make her take anymore time off. You figure that out by yourself."

"But you think I should?" I could see the desperation in his face for someone's, anyone's, opinion. I knew he had no idea what to do. He'd never had to deal with this before, one of his own being sexually assaulted.

I sighed, deciding to try and help him as best I could. "I think that she's still reeling from her attack, yes. But I also think that telling her to take more time off is probably the worst thing you could do." At the confusion on his face from my contradicting statements, I clarified. "You know Olivia. And you know that the only thing more important to her than her job is her independence and the respect of other people. Telling her to take more time off would be saying that you think she's weak, that you don't respect her, that she can't handle her job anymore. And that she should let this control her life. Right now, I think she deserves to have things go back to normal, without people sticking their necks out to protect her."

"Including you?" He asked about my last sentence, the slightest hint of a smile lingering on his face for a moment.

I just smiled, signaling he was right. I could preach about respect and getting things back to normal, but I'd always try to overly shield her, especially now. I just wouldn't let her know it.

--XXX--

"You okay?" I watched Olivia walk out of Cragen's office, almost slamming the door behind her. There was frustration on her face as she looked at me.

"Fine." She seemed depleted as she took her seat at her desk, right across from me. After my conversation with the Captain, he called her into his office.

"What'd he say?" I moved forward, resting my elbows on the piles of papers cluttering my desk.

"That I'm not working until I talk to Huang," she sighed, sounding as if she expected it.

"But he's not making you take anymore time off?" I asked hopefully.

"No," she scoffed. "Not unless he says I'm too emotionally unstable to work." She leaned over her desk, setting her elbows down as she held her forehead in her hands, everything obviously stressing her.

"It'll be okay Liv," I reassured her, though I wasn't sure about what.

"Easy for you to say," she whispered with mixed emotions, not meeting my eye. "Oh, and by the way," she snapped her head up, a 'you-think-you're-so-strong' fervor on her face, "you'll be happy to know that Cragen's making you guys talk to Huang too."

"What? Why?" I hated being shrinked, as did everyone else here. I think my lack of patience for shrinks revolved around the fact that I almost lost my job after one of the first sessions I had with one. I said I fantasized about killing perps and it's constantly been back to bite me on the ass ever since. We were part of an 'experiment' to start giving annual psyche evaluations. That's also how Munch lost his second SVU partner, Monique Jefferies.

At the question, I saw Olivia's face twist into defensive anger. "Because I'm just a disease dragging the whole squad down with me!" She snapped, suddenly rising from her desk and storming off, almost running into Munch and Fin as they appeared in the doorway.

Fin just watched her leave, while John started to follow her. "John!" I caught his attention and stopped him, shaking my head. "Just let her go." He turned, watching as she ran off. Right now, I think she needed to be alone more than anything.

"What happened?" Fin turned to me while his partner still stared down the hallway, only turning his gaze back around after a few minutes.

"Cragen's making her talk to Huang before she starts working again. And we have to talk to him too."

"Who? Huang?" Fin crossed his arms, the same displeasure with everything apparent on his face as well.

"Yeah." I nodded, leaning back on my squeaky chair.

"Why?" John spoke for the first time.

"That's what I asked her," I shrugged, "and that's what she said," I motioned towards the door, referring to what she snapped at me.