(A/n: I just wanted to point this out - I'm switching back to run-of-the-mill Olivia's POV. I have a hard time writing the thoughts of a guy who's old enough to be my dad. Oh, yeah - one more thing - there's a spoiler for season five's "Poison" later in this chapter.
I'm bent over the mirror in the bathroom, showered and dressed for another day of work, when he finally gets out of the shower. Why do I always pick guys who aren't morning people?
He comes up behind me, and I pull away. "Don't touch me. If you do, I'll have to start all over again and we'll never get out of here on time," I inform him, struggling to get my eyeliner on half-decently. It's not like I work in an environment where people actually pay attention to how I look, but I like to know that I look good.
He rolls his eyes at me in the mirror, wrapped in a towel. "You know you don't need that, right?"
"You're blind if you think I don't," I reply, finally getting a straight line under my lashes. Thank God. "Only a man can honestly believe in this 'natural beauty' crap. You've seen me without makeup."
"And you look fine."
"I look like hell," I retort, picking up my toothbrush. "Go get dressed, or we're gonna be late."
"Liv, you know, it's not like Munch and Fin are gonna care if you have makeup on or not," he calls, from the bedroom. "I don't even think they'd notice."
"I'd notice," I call back. "Besides - it's the only real 'girl' thing that I get to do for myself. I need something like this, before you guys forget that I am female."
"Like that's ever gonna happen," he snorts. "Olivia, any man who isn't dead sits up and watches you walk by."
"Jealous?" I retort with the question. "You're not gonna go all possessive on me now, are you?"
"No. Trust me. They're not gonna forget you're a girl any time soon."
I shake my head. "Shut the hell up, so I can brush my teeth."
"At least you don't do your makeup in the car," he comments, as we sit in a line of traffic. "Maureen does that and she usually makes a mess out of her face."
"If the city had the money to take care of the streets, it wouldn't happen," I reply. "There are way too many potholes in 'em."
"You're speaking from experience?" He raises an eyebrow.
"Yep. Used to do my makeup in the car all the time. You can pull it off if you want to sit in traffic for three hours." I shake my head. "When I was younger, I wasn't that much of a morning person. I figured out ways to get up late and still make it to work on time. But they usually involved doing my makeup in the car."
He shakes his head. "How do you do that here and not get killed?"
"Intersections," I reply, grinning. "Getting stuck in traffic like this. I figured it out. It's not hard, if you think about it."
There's not much going on at work, today. A case came in, not long ago, but Munch and Fin were next up, on the rotation. They caught it, and we're here.
"Liv," Elliot catches my attention, as I sort through the crap on my desk, looking for that one sheet of paper. I really need to clean up around here. I normally keep things neat, but I haven't had the time.
"What?" I look up, still distracted.
"What's today?" He probes.
"What?" I rub my forehead. "Don't play games with me today."
"Remember the MacPherson case?"
I sigh. Kelly MacPherson. She was twenty-two, when she was raped in her apartment. She was just a kid, from a small town in Pennsylvania who'd come to the big city to go to college. She'd be twenty-seven, now.
"Crap," I mutter. I hate these days. The day the Statute of Limitations ends. "Is today the day?" Five years goes by too fast.
We didn't tell her, because we wanted to keep her spirits up, but her case was pretty much hopeless from the start. She didn't have any enemies, any bitter ex-boyfriends - she barely knew anyone in the city. And the guy didn't leave us a damn thing. Nothing that could have traced him. No one heard or saw a thing. We worked it, like we do every case, but there was nothing else there to work.
"Yeah. You want me to call her?"
"Yeah," I nod. We'll go see her, to break the news. I won't tell women that over the phone and he's always gone along with me.
She's still in the city, living with a boyfriend. We find her apartment in Brooklyn and made our way up the stairs. I can't believe buildings in the city still don't have elevators.
The young woman from a small town who I first met in a hospital room has changed. I almost don't recognize Kelly, when she opens the door. She looks older. More mature. A little more confident.
She's dressed simply, in jeans and a t-shirt. "Detectives," she greets, tucking her light brown hair back behind one ear, as she lets us inside. "Did you find something?" There's hope in her face. In those green eyes that were so scared when I walked into that hospital room.
I hate this part. I really hate it. Having to tell them that some stupid law that they probably didn't even know existed stops us from arresting the son of a bitch. "There's a law - it's called the Statute of Limitations," I begin, quietly.
She nods. "Um-hm."
I finish what I'm saying, not even hearing my own words. She doesn't cry. I know she's upset, but she's angry. Different women, with different personalities respond differently, to this news. Some cry. Some are frustrated and angry, with the laws. And I can't blame them. They have every right to be upset and be angry.
Eventually, we leave, when she's on the phone with her boyfriend.
"You hate that, don't you?" Elliot asks the question, even though he knows the answer, as we walk out.
I huddle in my jacket. "Yeah. I do." I stretch and look up at the sky. It looks like it could snow in the next ten seconds. "I hate telling them that some stupid law stops us from arresting the son of a bitch."
"It's the law," he points out.
I roll my eyes. "Yeah. And it's stupid. There's no Statute on murder. You know as well as I do that when a woman's raped, part of her dies."
"If you wanna change it, find a lawyer and take it to Albany," he replies, pulling out the car keys. I know he gets what I'm saying. He's just trying to calm me down.
I slide into the passenger seat and shudder. It's colder in the car than it was outside.
"Should've left it running, huh?" Elliot remarks, turning the key in the ignition.
"Yeah. Whatever." I shrug. I'm not gonna mind the cold. This is when I hate my job. When a woman's been put through hell and the law that I'm sworn to uphold screws her over.
I was young, when the Statute went out on my mother's case. I don't think I was any older than four, but I do remember strange two men showing up at the apartment we were living in. She was still in school, so we were sharing it with her roommate and her roommate's boyfriend.
I remember seeing something shiny on one guy's coat, as a kid, sitting there, in a chair, watching the whole thing happen. I didn't know who they were or what was going on, but my mother was upset for days. Miserable. I remember her snapping at me. I remember her roommate taking me out, to get me away from her.
I never really understood what happened that day, until I figured it out, as an adult. As a cadet in the Police Academy. My birthday, my age at the time, and the date my mother had been raped. When I came across something in a book about the Statute of Limitations, I put it all together and I knew that the strangers that I'd seen as a four-year-old had to be cops.
We make the drive back to the precinct in silence.
I'm sorting out my desk, trying to get some things in order, when I feel eyes on me. I glance up at Elliot. "What?" I question, searching for that DD-5 I should have finished yesterday.
"Nothing," he grins. "You've got Grand Jury tomorrow, don't you?"
"Yeah. The Rourke case." I rub my forehead. "I swear, I spend more time in court than I spend here."
He shrugs. "You're about the only credible cop witness Novak has left."
"You aren't credible?"
"You don't have as much crap in your jacket as I do," he replies. "There's less stuff for the defense to throw at you. You didn't get cited for contempt and have your ass thrown in lockup."
I snort, remembering that. "If you'd kept your mouth shut"-
"Olivia, you weren't there. You would have done the same thing. Actually, I think you would have done something worse."
"Mouthed off to a judge? Nope. I wouldn't have done that." I shake my head. "When are you gonna learn? Sometimes, it's better if you don't say anything."
"You're smarter than I am." He holds up his hands in defeat.
"You remember that," I tell him, finally finding that sheet of paper. "Did you get Kathleen her birthday present yet?"
"No," he confesses, looking at me.
I shake my head in disgust. There are times when I think he might beat the stereotype. When he won't turn out to be the usual, wait-till-the-last-possible-minute-to-shop male. But he always does.
"Do you know what you're gonna get her?" I question, crossing one leg over the other.
"No."
I resist the urge to roll my eyes at him. He's an intelligent man - no doubting that fact - but he still doesn't get it. If you do the shopping early, you don't have to worry about it at the last second.
After the first year we worked together, he started giving me his credit card to go out and buy a gift for Kathy or the kids. I didn't like the idea - buying gifts for his family that were supposed to be from him - but I did it, so I'd be able to work with him and not be miserable. A man in the doghouse is always impossible to deal with.
"Liv," he turns to me. "Would you"-
"No," I cut him off, flatly. "I'm your girlfriend, now. Not just your partner. I should get a little more respect, here. And, besides, I already went out and got her something - I'm not doing it again. Teenagers are impossible to shop for."
"You're tellin' me," he replies.
"Tell me this: when you worked with guys, did you send them out to do your shopping for you?"
"What do you think?"
"Then why did I get the honor, huh? What makes me special enough to be your personal shopper?"
"You know why. You're a woman."
"Glad you noticed that," I retort. "Glad you were paying attention to me. But just because I'm female doesn't mean you can trust me to go out and shop for birthday gifts for your kids."
"Liv, shopping is not my thing," he persists.
"Do you think it's my favorite thing to do? Because I've got news for you - it's not. Not on my budget. You know your kids better than I do. You'll have an easier time if you go out and buy something for her, yourself."
"If you say so, Liv," he mutters, resigned to the fact that I'm not going to do his shopping.
"It'll mean more to her, knowing that you actually went out and bought it - you didn't send me to buy it for you. Trust me."
"I do trust you," he replies. "Are you gonna help me, at least?"
"She's your daughter," I retort. "You know her better than I do. You'd have an easier time shopping for her than I would."
"I hate to break up the debate, you two, but you've got another one." Cragen cuts into the conversation, appearing silently beside our desks.
"What's up?" I shove my chair back.
"Mother came home from a business trip to Hartford - found her husband beating her kids around. He's their stepfather. Mom and the biological dad are there - unis are sitting on the stepdad, in the hospital."
"How are the kids?" I question. Jesus. I hate child abuse cases. Just like anyone else. You don't have to be a parent to hurt when you see a kid in pain. That just comes with being a decent human being, in my mind.
I'm thinking about cases like these for days, afterwards. I'm always wondering what kind of sick person could hurt a kid. Who the hell would want to hurt a kid? How could a parent hurt their own child?
"The younger girl's okay - a couple of stitches, but they say she's fine. The older one they're still patching up. Get down there." The boss hands me the pink slip and walks back to his office.
In the narrow, bright, hallway outside a room, we introduce ourselves to the mother and her ex-husband - the children's biological father. Then, we take the younger child into an empty exam room. And then we start the questions. Gently, of course, because she's just a kid.
The little girl - she's no more than seven or eight, perches in a chair, looking right at me, the cut above her right eye stitched closed and bandaged. She's bruised and I know she's been through hell, but she's still smiling. Revealing missing baby teeth. She's innocent. Never asked to be beaten.
Her mother, when we walk out of the room, instantly scoops up the child. A mother's instinct. When something happens, protect the kids. "I shouldn't have left them, but I couldn't miss that meeting." She wipes her eyes. "I didn't think he'd do this!"
She never thought her husband would turn out to be abusive toward her children. Never suspected this. Until she walked in on it. God. I offer her a few words, to try and calm her. The kids are usually calmer than the parents.
We wait, to get a story from the older girl. According to her little sister, she got the worst of it. When the doctor gives us the okay, I decide to go it alone. Someone needs to be out here, with Mom and Dad.
An older girl, who looks like a younger version of her mother looks at me, sitting on the edge of a cot. She's cradling a broken arm, in a cast and she's got a black eye and spilt lip. She's no more than twelve. Someone should do to her stepfather what he did to these two sisters.
She gives me the same story her younger sister did, after a bit of gentle probing. I start off by asking her about the cast - focus the attention on something like that, to make her relax. Tell her that she'd be swarmed by people wanting to sign it, at her school.
She tells me that they were in the kitchen, making lunch for themselves, when it started. They didn't do anything to provoke him - not that it would matter, anyway. The bruises and broken bones, along with their stories, will send this son of a bitch to prison. I don't care if Casey wants to plead him out. He's going in.
He'll suffer in prison, too. Murderers and rapists are usually left alone, in prison. But child abusers are pretty much bottom-of-the-food-chain. Even at the lockup at Central Booking. You say something about a child abuser at the lockup, and they'll turn against the guy you just brought in. They might even hurt him. I've seen it happen.
We make the collar and let him sit in the cage for a while. At least we were able to bring him in.
"Liv." Elliot touches my shoulder, as I finally get my desk somewhat organized. "Let's go home, huh? C'mon."
We have a late dinner at the deli a block and a half from our place, and then, we go home and set up the Scrabble board in the middle of the kitchen table. He's convinced that someday, he's going to beat me at this game.
It's corny, but it's fun. I get to show him that I actually do have a vocabulary. I was playing Scrabble with my mother's old roommate, who babysat me when my mother thought to get me a babysitter, when I was eight or nine years old.
I smirk at him, at the end of the game. "Beat you again. You ever gonna give up?"
"No," he replies, reaching for my hand, taking it in his own.
"I'm gonna go get a shower, and then, I'm going to bed." I get up and stretch.
"You okay?" He stops me, looking at me, with concern in his face.
"Yeah. Every time we get one of those cases, I"- I shake my head. "I always wind up thinking the same thing. What kind of sick person's gonna hurt a kid? Why? Especially if it's their own kid."
"Don't you think I ask the same questions?" He raises an eyebrow.
"Yeah," I nod and lean up to kiss him on the cheek. "I guess it's just one thing we're not gonna be able to answer."
He hugs me, briefly, and kisses the top of my head. "Liv, if you wanna talk about it," he begins, quietly.
"I don't. I just always wind up asking myself those same damned questions, after something like that. I'm fine. And I wanna go to bed. Morning comes too damned early."
(A/n: Lemme know what you think. The Olivia doing Elliot's shopping thing - the only reason that's in here is because I saw a rerun of 'Chameleon' a couple of weeks ago and they kind of mention it. :)