A/N: I love reading your reviews! Saw some questions in the comments so we'll answer those first.
So STABLERSBXTCH:
1.) I appreciate that you read the last chapter at Starbucks because that makes me feel like a real author, and that lady can chill.
2.) Let's assume Mark didn't look QUITE that bad 10 years ago when he and Olivia met. Sadly, I looked better 10 years ago too, haha.
3.) BLINK BLINK BLINK. Love warps into hate and all. They showed "Burned" on the USA Marathon last weekend and well... you're going to be seeing those themes for a few chapters.
And now, on with the next part of the show...
Elliot left the break room after washing out his coffee mug. He figured he had a few minutes before he had to go up and get Kathy for lunch. He decided to poke his head into the observation room and see how things were going for Olivia and Mark. Personally, Elliot hoped she decked the asshole, but she always seemed to give him more latitude than he deserved.
When he saw that Mark was there alone, picking at his suit jacket and straightening his tie, Elliot didn't hesitate to go right in.
"We need to talk," Elliot said, slamming the door shut behind him.
"Stabler," Mark said. "Shouldn't you be upstairs doing damage control with your wife?"
"Yeah, that's been handled," Elliot said.
"I'm sure you told her it meant nothing," Mark said. "Gave her the doting husband routine."
"It's none of your business what we did or didn't talk about," Elliot said. "No, I'm more interested in what your problem is."
"I don't have a problem," Mark said.
"You have a lot of problems," Elliot said. "You treat your wife like trash. You treat your kid like trash."
"She's not my kid, if you remember correctly," Mark said. "Or was your night with Olivia that insignificant that you keep forgetting."
"You raised her like she was yours," Elliot said. "You're really going to tell me those almost nine years meant nothing to you?"
"She was such a difficult child," Mark said. "Always waking up at inconvenient times. Crying. She wouldn't eat on a schedule. Had such a temper as a toddler when things didn't go her own way. Now of course I see where she gets it from."
Elliot could feel his blood boiling. That's literally what infants did. The adults were the ones who had to sacrifice. But he wasn't going to give Mark the satisfaction of seeing him get angry. Instead he leaned against the wall and rolled up his shirtsleeves.
"It hurt your ego after you found out?" Elliot asked. "That you'd been with your girlfriend, then fiance for over a year and you couldn't get her pregnant, but one night with a guy she didn't know, that did the trick?"
Elliot saw Mark's jaw twitch.
"I never wanted kids," Mark said. "That was Olivia."
"But she told me all about the cancer and infertility," Elliot said. "Told me you were excited when she got pregnant. So if you didn't want kids, had to be about the macho thing right. Damn, must have really hurt to find out it wasn't you at all, and that she lied to you about it."
Mark's jaw got even more tense and Elliot knew he was hitting the right nerves. And maybe he should stop, or maybe he should back off, but he didn't want to. Guys like Mark didn't have any business calling themselves husbands or fathers, let alone men. People like him were the reason so many girls streamed in and out of their precinct with little to no self worth, blaming themselves for things that weren't their fault.
"You know what I think," Elliot said, pushing off the wall and pacing the room. "I think she scares you. She's clearly a hell of a lot smarter than you. Better looking. Compassionate, empathetic. Men and children love her. Women want to be her. So what I don't understand is why you pushed her out of your life instead of thanking who or whatever you believe in that she chose you when she could have had anybody."
"She didn't choose me, I chose her," Mark said.
"Did you though?" Elliot asked, pushing more buttons. "Did you really have that many options?"
"I'm the one who talked to her first," Mark said. "I'm the one who asked her out."
"You kiss her first?" Elliot asked. "You take her to bed the first time? Because if the answer to either of those is no, then I think she chose you and not the other way around."
"I called the shots," Mark yelled. "I made the decisions."
"That seems to matter a lot to you," Elliot said. "Doesn't really sound like an equal marriage to me."
"What would you know about an equal marriage, Stabler?" Mark asked. "You got the perfect woman at home, cooks for you, and cleans for you, and does everything she's supposed to and you pushed her aside for some illegitimate whore with daddy issues."
"This conversation isn't about my wife," Elliot said, putting his hands in his pockets to keep from lunging across the room at him. "And Olivia isn't a whore."
"Well, she is a cheater," Mark said. "Though that probably doesn't phase you much, given that you're one too."
"You probably want me to be sorry, but I'm not sorry at all," Elliot said. "I'm sorry to my wife that I made a poor, in-the-moment decision without thinking of her first. But I'm not sorry to you at all. I'm not sorry I slept with Olivia. I'm not sorry we had a daughter. I'm not sorry she got to be satisfied for once considering that all seemed kind of new to her the night we spent together."
"I've never heard any complaints in the satisfaction department," Mark said, putting on a smug face.
"No, you probably wouldn't," Elliot said. "That's the thing about Olivia. Because she's so compassionate, it's in her nature to build up someone who can't meet expectations. Not tear them down. I'm sure she learned a lot of that from placating you over the years."
Mark rolled his shoulders and looked at Elliot.
"Maybe I won't sign those divorce papers or termination of parental rights papers," Mark said. "It's pretty obvious you want to sleep with my wife again, which is a different issue entirely and maybe something you should discuss with your wife. See if she's open to a threesome. But legally I'm Chelsea's father and whether I actually want to be or not, if I don't sign those papers you'll have no chance to make a claim to her. Maybe I'll even petition for full custody."
"There is not a court in this city that would give that to you," Elliot said. "Not the way you treat her or Olivia."
"I don't abuse them," Mark said. "Neither one of them have bruises on their body. Neither of them fear for their life when I'm in a room. I've never neglected to feed Chelsea or left her home alone. And I'm both the primary caregiver and breadwinner in the house. I'm a family court's dream."
"You just said you don't want children, you never have," Elliot said.
"Wanting something and being able to have it are two completely different things, Stabler," Mark said. "I assumed you knew all about that, lusting after your one night stand and all."
"You are not keeping her," Elliot said. "I won't let you. I'll take DNA to the court. I'll get Alex to sue your ass for anything I can find."
"And you'll say what exactly?" Mark said. "That you're the bio father who wasn't around for seven years? The one who after you met her kept your real identity a secret from her for another two because you were ashamed for your family to know what you'd done? The court will love that."
"I told you before that if you came for my job I would come for everything you have," Elliot said. "I have an amendment to that. If you come for my family, my partner, or any of my children, including Chelsea, I'll come for your life."
"Is that a threat, detective?" Mark said with a smirk. "Not quite the smartest thing to do in a police precinct, is it?"
"Don't push me you little bitch," Elliot said. "I'm serious."
"Ooh, the bad cop routine," Mark said. "Probably good for you to get some practice so when your daughter comes home knocked up by some nameless dick as a teenager just like her mother and grandmother you can use it on him."
That did it. Elliot snapped. He did this job every day to make sure bad things wouldn't happen to his children. He was Irish and Italian. While he didn't actually believe in superstition he didn't play with it either. Serena wasn't at fault. Olivia wasn't some prostitute like Mark made her out to be, and absolutely nothing like that would befall any of his girls as long as he was alive to walk this earth.
Before Elliot really knew what he was doing, he had Mark backed up against the wall and was wailing punches into his nose.
"This is assault," Mark yelled as he tried and failed to block the blows. "I'll sue, you'll be out of a job."
But Elliot didn't care. He just kept trying to connect punch after punch for Olivia and Chelsea who thought this man was supposed to love and protect them and all he did was hurt them, belittle them, and manipulate them. And Elliot landed some of the blows for himself, because if he hadn't slept with Olivia, or if he had found out about her pregnancy sooner, or if he had just done something differently they would never have been in the situation in the first place.
He could have protected them. They deserved so much better than what Mark gave them. They deserved to be loved, and treated like they were special. Chelsea should be a Daddy's girl just like Kathleen and Maureen and Lizzie. Olivia should know that someone out there thinks the world of her and that the world is infinitely better with her in it.
"Elliot," he heard a voice behind him, and without realizing it, he was being pulled off of Mark who now had a bloody nose and a busted lip. "What the hell are you doing?"
It was Cragen who busted in and pulled them apart.
"I want him arrested and charged with police brutality," Mark yelled, clutching his face.
"I heard what you said before he hit you," Cragen said to Mark. "You're just lucky it wasn't worse."
Elliot's knuckles hurt like hell and they were bleeding, but he didn't care. Olivia was strong and she could take care of herself, but Elliot would never stop fighting for her. Not even if she saw what he did and disapproved.
"Both of you, out in the bullpen," Cragen said. "Now. We'll get someone to clean you both up before you leave for the day."
Cragen pushed Elliot out the door first and walked between him and Mark into the bullpen. When they got there, Elliot saw Kathy and Olivia coming down from the cribs together. Both of them had red, puffy eyes like they'd been crying together, but at least neither of them was bloody or bruised, and they were still talking briefly as they walked. Elliot took that as a good sign. He didn't know what was going to happen with him and Kathy, or his and Liv's partnership after this, but if he had any chance of being able to really be in all of his children's lives, the two of them at least being civil to one another would help it go a long way.
As they all reached the floor, the door to the building stairs squeaked open, and Munch and Fin walked in with evidence bags, and Stacy, their victim, trailing behind them.
"So you can have a seat at Fin's desk," Munch said. "And I'll go grab one of the sketch artists so you can give him your description."
Munch stepped out from in front of Stacy to place the evidence bags on Fin's desk, and Elliot saw the girl go pale.
"I don't need a sketch artist," Stacy said, her legs starting to shake.
"Why not?" Munch said, turning back around to face her.
"Because that's him," Stacy said, pointing across the room. "That's Mess. That's the man who assaulted me."
All eyes in the room followed the direction of her finger.
She was pointing right at Mark Messer.
"You son of a bitch," Elliot said, turning around ready to hit Mark again, but Cragen had already seized him by the arm.
Elliot heard a gasp but he couldn't tell if it came from Stacy or Olivia. When he looked over his shoulder he saw Olivia running for the door to the roof.
"Mark Messer, you're under arrest for the assault of Anastasia Parker, you have the right to remain silent," Cragen said, putting Mark in cuffs and leading him over to the holding cell. "And you have no idea what pleasure I get from charging you with something."
Munch was getting Stacy seated and calmed down but Fin was looking from the roof door, to Kathy, to Elliot's knuckles, to Mark.
"What the hell did we miss?" Fin asked. "We were only gone an hour."
"A lot," Elliot said.
He was torn. He'd promised Kathy they'd go to lunch and he knew they still really needed to talk more, about what they were going to do, what they were going to tell the kids. But Olivia just found out her manipulative husband whom she was trying to divorce was accused of assaulting a teenager.
"Elliot go," Kathy said.
"But lunch, " Elliot said.
"She needs you," Kathy said. "Just… she needs you, okay. We'll talk later. Call me before you come home. And good luck."
"Are you sure?" Elliot asked, stepping closer and putting his hand on her shoulder.
"Very sure," Kathy said. "You and I are okay for now, but she's not. Go make things better."
"Thank you," Elliot said, squeezing her shoulder. Then he was taking the stairs to the roof two at a time to get to his partner.
A/N: Jelliot has arrived. Reviews are loved.
