CHAPTER TITLE: "Eye of the Beast (Hours 7-10)"

PAIRINGS: None specified

SEASON: Late Season Four. Alex Cabot is still around and the Stabler marriage is still, well, stable-ish.
RATING: M
WARNINGS: Lots of language, more implied violence. Big ol' angst fest.

SUMMARY: See parent chapter (Zero Hour)

DISCLAIMERS: See Chapter 1

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Sorry this took a bit longer to update than the last couple of chapters...Stabler gave me the cold shoulder ((sheepish grin)). Thank you so much for the reviews so far! They mean the world.

"Eye of the Beast (Hours 7-10)"

Hour 7
(5:18 am)
Tuesday Jan 21st
Precinct

After Warner had made it to Bellevue the crisis team had grudgingly come back to the station and fallen again into their assigned roles. No one spoke to each other. None of the spoke at all really, aside from John letting Cragen know (when the captain gave them all an angry look upon seeing them Fin and Benson-less) about Ryan's threat against Fin if they extracted Olivia. Elliot could not get the image out of his head. His partner, standing not but six feet from him ... and they just let her walk away.

Now the team either sat or stood paying attention only to the tasks which had been assigned them. Cragen and Huang immediately tried to get back on the line with Jay and were now off on a corner of the table speaking in hushed tones. Huang would suggest something, Cragen would repeat it in his own words according to the standing of his relationship with Jay. The HRT tech crew had gotten the fiber optics in just a few minutes after the handoff, and both John and Elliot were far more interested in watching their partners than they were listening to Cragen and Huang try to sweet talk Jay into ignoring his cousin and just ending things now. A couple of other negotiators were standing behind them, watching, on hand to alert Huang to any escalation or incident going on within the autopsy suite that they couldn't ascertain simply talking to Wheylan. It had been two hours now, and there had been no setbacks. There had not been any progress, either.

"John, Elliot."

A rosy cheeked Alex was beside them holding a cardboard carrying case of coffee in one gloved hand. With nothing to do but get in the way, the A.D.A had left for a little while both to see Melinda and to help however she could in making the team comfortable. Simply getting them what they needed when she knew full well no one would leave to do it for themselves. She handed each beleaguered looking detective a cup and set the case on the table. With murmurs of thanks they took it gratefully and John closed his eyes as he pushed the lid up a slit and blew off some steam.

"How's doc Warner?" Elliot asked wearily and took a healthy sip.

"They wouldn't let me see her," she replied. "They took her to surgery to repair the ligament damage and reconstruct her knee. They said she was stable, though, and raising all living hell that they weren't going to let her come back to the station after surgery."

Elliot chuckled tiredly and rubbed his face.

"How's it going?" Cabot nodded at the notebook computer sitting in the middle of the makeshift table. She pulled up a chair and sat next to John.

"You tell me," John said with an uncharacteristic nip to his voice. "Looks like they're having fun, doesn't it?"

Alex looked at the computer and via the link the rescue team technicians had set up, watched the room through the monitor. The fiber optics had come out along the southeast wall near the floor just as planned and the tiny camera was aimed up and right at the two detectives maybe six feet away. With its angle, and the positions of everyone in the suite, even with the dim yellow emergency lighting Alex could see Jay and his cousin as well. Jay was on Olivia's cell phone, Ryan was sitting in a desk chair with his feet up on a table obviously listening to the conversation because, even though the volume was kept down, they could hear him interject a comment or an insult every once in a while.

Alex's heart twisted and a cold anxiety began to settle in her chest. Olivia was curled in on herself, her knees drawn up close to her chest and her arms crossed and tucked in against her body. Fin was sitting right next to her, legs also bent up close, discreetly blowing in hands cupped in front of his face. Each were watching Jay and Ryan warily, and both looked like they could curl up in a dark room and sleep for days. It was plainly pretty cold in that basement already and it didn't appear Benson's peach coloured Lycra stretch shirt was doing her any sort of good.

Cabot shook her head slightly. "How cold is it in there?" She looked up towards one of the other personnel lingering nearby, searching for hopeful news she was not likely to hear.

One of the technicians answered in kind. "We're guessing the suite was sitting at around 68, 69 degrees last night. Seven hours with the power off..." He shrugged and looked left at an EMT. "It's dropped around the low to mid 50's."

Alex closed her eyes. God. Jay and his cousin still had they're coats on, but Olivia and Fin had given theirs to Warner...they were probably freezing. She was heartsick.

"High 50's if there's good insulation," the EMT offered. "We're watching the readings from the optics pretty closely," he assured her. It didn't work. It had stopped snowing around three-thirty this morning. The cloud cover had lifted, and temperatures outside had since plummeted into the teens.

John made a snort. "And will do what, exactly, if it gets below," he made quotation marks with his fingers, "acceptable levels." One cynical eyebrow arched in question.

No one answered.

Munch shook his head and pushed his chair back. "City's best and brightest," he muttered testily.

"John," Alex began gently in their defense. There was nothing they could do. Nothing anyone could do yet.

"Save the closing arguments for the courtroom, counselor," he snapped as he stood and started to walk away. Restrooms, outside in the butt freezing cold, he didn't care. He just had to leave.

Alex watched him. She looked at Elliot - his eyes were still glued to the computer monitor, but as if sensing someone was watching him, he turned and they locked eyes. Hers looked lost, she didn't know what to do, what to say, to either him OR John. And obviously, she'd just said the wrong thing to one of them.

Elliot offered a small smile and put her out of her misery with a reassuring, "I'll go talk to him."

He left, his sneakers squeaking softly on the hard floor as he trudged after John. Alex slumped back into her seat, feeling powerless. She focused once more on the monitor, watching the other two detectives as the quiet conversation between Captain Cragen and their captors played out through the speaker phone down the table.

xxx

Elliot stood for a long time not saying a word. He found Munch outside, sitting on a crate next to the Dumpster behind the station house. He was wearing neither coat nor hat and gloves. The light on the brick wall above the door turned the breath leaving his lips a pale yellow. He was staring out down the alley towards the street, where the red and blue and white from patrol car lights still going full tilt bounced off the other buildings. He didn't seem aware that Stabler was watching him, or that he'd even come outside with him.

"You going for the slow peaceful death?" Elliot crossed his arms. Not knowing where John had gone off to, he'd not grabbed his coat either and his sweatshirt was useless in this cold. John blinked, turned his head. Elliot offered a tight smile. "I've heard with hypothermia you just get tired first. Y'know, doze off, close your eyes..." He walked towards the other man and sat on an overturned plastic bucket. "Next thing you know you're singin to Saint Peter."

He turned his face away again. "It feels good," John replied lamely.

"John, it's fifteen degrees out here."

"Yeah well it's better than sitting nice and cozy warm in there," came the bitter reply. And Elliot understood. Munch felt guilty. Guilty that he was able to sit inside the station house drinking coffee where it was warm while his partner was in the basement of a morgue without heat and the temperature still falling. Elliot understood this. God, how he understood the guilt. Munch wasn't the only one with a vital organ missing right now...

"Am I in contempt?" John asked after a moment of quiet contemplation from them both.

"She's just trying to help." Stabler recalled the helpless look on Cabot's face.

"It's not working."

"I know. I don't think she took it personally anyway."

Silence. The minutes ticked by. "You know I've been thinking," John went on in a contemplative manner and in a voice deeper than usual. It didn't look like he was bothered at all by the cold. Elliot honestly didn't think he even noticed it.

"About?"

"Today. Last night. Wondering what I'd have done differently if we'd known."

Elliot said nothing. He knew what he'd have done differently...or rather, not done. He pushed a lump down back into his stomach. John didn't keep going though, so Stabler obliged his need to talk by asking quietly, "What'd you come up with?"

There was a long pause between them and then John looked seriously at Elliot. With a straight face he said, "I'd have planted one on 'im. Full view of the rest of the station."

Beat. Neither man reacted. And then Elliot couldn't help himself, and his angular face split into a grin. A second later, John's features followed suit. Suddenly both men were chuckling. Chuckles evolved and turned into full belly laughs that ricocheted around off the close walls of the snow-filled alley.

As usual, John Munch deflected seriousness with humour, but what most people couldn't see was the depth of the emotion beneath the sarcasm. Elliot wasn't "most people." He knew. He could see, he understood. He felt the same.

John cared about his partner. Intensely so.

After a few minutes the laughing died down and both men were wiping at watery eyes that, neither would admit to the other, had nothing to do with the joke they'd just shared in. They'd shared something quite a bit more personal.

"C'mon." Elliot clapped John on the back and stood sniffing. "I'm freezing my ass off."

John stood as well and Elliot left his hand on the man's shoulder as he opened the door and they went back inside.

The demons exorcised in the alley stayed there, drifting like fog and then vanishing into the frigid air as the metal door squealed and clunked shut.

Hour 9
(7:25 am)
Autopsy suite

They'd reached a stalemate. Without having to hear the captain's side of the conversation, Fin could tell he was getting farther and farther in the door with Jay. Jay wanted out. He was tired, he just wanted things to end. The problem lay with the fact that Jay was so tired of things, he was fighting his cousin less and less and consequently putting Ryan in more and more control over him. Wallace seemed intent on wanting out without consequence, which considering the fact he'd blown Warner's knee out and shot and killed her autopsy tech, just wasn't going to happen. Everything Jay said, Ryan argued with, and then Jay would give in and amend his requests to Cragen in pacification of the incessant complaints.

Fin looked to his side at Benson. He frowned. She'd been sitting in the same position now for over three hours. Every now and again he caught a twitch in the expression on her face when she shifted. He was stiff. From sitting for so long as well as from the cold. If he was stiff, she was stiff, and regardless of the fact the sling had been ditched over the weekend, her shoulder was probably killing her. And if she'd gotten up on Monday morning anywhere near the time he had, then she'd been awake now for over twenty-four hours solid. Her eyes, however...her eyes were alert and focused and glued to Jay. Fin could tell just by looking at them that she was working out what to say next, figuring out how best to connect to him again.

Neither detective had spoken to either man since the handoff. With Ryan having asserted himself as a credible threat instead of just a sidekick, talking at all, even to each other was a risk. One they couldn't take unless they had a plan should an attempt backfire in their faces.

Heaving a muffled sigh, Fin blew into his hands again and then tucked them under an arm each. John SO owed him breakfast when this shit was over.

xxx
Precinct

Don blew out a long breath and rested his forehead in one hand. He was beyond frustrated. He'd batted around everything from the weather to sports with Jay and then after what seemed like hours of casual conversation, the captain would carefully guide them back to the situation. Back and forth, back and forth. He'd be so close to reaching resolution, and then the blasted cousin would step in and say something and Jay would backtrack.

Huang was just as frustrated. After a long pause during which his eyes were fixed on the scene displayed before him on the monitor, he came to a decision. "We need a break," he said to Cragen. "Jay needs it, and you need it."

"I'm not leaving," Don said stubbornly. "Not until this is over."

"Don." George looked at him gently. "It's been five hours and we've gotten nothing accomplished. We're no closer to getting him to stand down than we were when we started. Olivia's batteries are on the clock. We need a new approach, and we have to come at it again fresh."

Cragen sighed and then nodded. "Jay," he said. "I've always prided myself on being pretty perceptive. You look pretty tired." He new procedure, but thank God Jay hadn't told his cousin about the fact they had surveillance equipment trained on them. "I'm pretty tired myself. What d'you say we take a bit of a break. Come back when we've both had time to think."

He watched as Jay rubbed the back of his neck. Nodded. "Yeah," he breathed. "Yeah that'd be good I think."

"Appeal to his physical needs," Huang guided. "Touch his humanity."

"There anything you need down there? Anything we can get?"

Pause. He watched Jay turn to Ryan. "You want anything?"

"Yeah. Fucking heat turned back on."

"I already told you, man, they can't do it. They do, and we'll have SWAT comin through those bay doors just like you don't want them to." He nodded at the large doors on the opposite side of the room that let ambulances bearing the dead back right up to the autopsy suite.

"Fine. Whatever. Coffee then. Maybe a bagel. I'm starving."

"Yeah, Cap." Jay got back on. "Look could we get something to eat maybe? Bagels or donuts or something? Maybe a coffee or something?"

"You bet," Cragen said firmly. Basic needs of survival were one of those things that were negotiable without debate. "We'll get on it."

"Yeah I just...I still don't want anyone comin in here though y'know?"

Cragen paused. One of the HRT computer technicians had suddenly perked up and two of them began talking quickly to each other. "Ok Jay," he said into the headset. "We'll see what we can do." He looked at the monitor, and decided to go for a little something extra, this time for the other people in the room. Reassert his approval of Jay's compassion so far.

"Look, it seems like its pretty cold in there. How about we send a couple of jackets in with breakfast."

"Yeah. That'd be okay." Jay seemed to know what he was getting at, because without being asked, he said, "Look Cap, Ryan's buggin me. Wants to talk private or some shit. Here."

He surprised them all. They watched on the monitor as he tossed the sleek phone to Olivia. She didn't even have time to actually catch it, it just kind of landed in her lap.

"The hell are you doing?" Ryan demanded.

"Relax," Jay said, tired. "We'll make her hang up before we go."

Cragen was glued to the monitor, as was everyone else on the squad, as Benson looked at both men cautiously before bringing the phone up to her ear.

"Olivia," Don said before she could speak. It'd been hours since he'd last spoken to her.

"Captain."

"How're you and Fin holding up?"

Pause. "We're uh..." She looked at Tutuola. "We're okay," she said carefully. She didn't look it yet, but she sounded exhausted. "It's getting a little chilly though."

"You should have worn long sleeves," he said cryptically, subtly letting her know that they were being watched. "Don't look," he commanded her before head could swivel in an attempt to see it. "Southeast wall. Near the floor." He cheered her as her head remained stationary but her eyes flicked to that spot. They tracked for a moment.

"Yes," they heard Elliot breathe in relief and he lightly punched the air with a fist as she made "eye contact" with the line. She stared. They stared back. A split second later, she dazzled the squad room with the smallest of smiles. And then, so as not to arouse suspicion, she looked right away.

It was stupid. It was a fiber optic cable the width of her pinkie finger with sensors and a micro camera attached. A damn wire. Nonetheless, Olivia was swept with a feeling of comfort at the knowledge that their people were watching them. Made it feel almost as if they were in the room instead of across a parking terrace and the oppressive isolation vanished. Their backs were covered in the only way possible right now, but it was enough.

"How're you doing?" Don asked again, his voice low and laced with a little more emotion than before.

She looked at Fin and he nodded his understanding of what'd just happened. "We're okay," she repeated softly. It meant a little more to Cragen this time.

"Look I know it's been long. We're working on getting this resolved," Cragen went on. "In the meantime, we're going to try to get some jackets down to you two."

"Okay." She nodded.

"Wrap it up already," Ryan growled. "Jesus. Talks more than my sister."

"Olivia." Pause. "You guys tough it out a little longer down there, okay? Few more hours, we'll have you out."

Ryan angrily snatched the phone away before she could reply. There was a click through the speaker phone as he hung up and they watched as he closed it and tossed it on the counter. Then he and Jay disappeared from view of the camera as they left the autopsy suite to presumably stand in the hall.

Even had his detective answered him, Cragen wondered if she believed his promise.

He questioned whether or not he believed it himself.

"Captain Cragen." Don looked up. Lt. Aston and the technician from earlier were standing next to him. They looked anxious and excited at the same time. The expression on Aston's face was bordering on giddy. "We need to talk."

He glanced almost longingly at the monitor.

"Go, Cap," Elliot urged him with a wave. "Take a break. We'll keep an eye on things." He had no intention of leaving that computer.

Cragen nodded reluctantly. John was walking around the squad room stretching and Huang was watching the monitor. His job was to ascertain the mental and emotional well-being of the hostages as well as the hostage-takers and this would be the first time he would be able to observe their behaviour when Jay and Ryan's presence was not dictating how they reacted.

"The second something changes, I wanna know about it," Cragen finally barked at both men and then begrudgingly he stood and led Aston and his hacker towards the back and into his office.

(7:43 am)
Autopsy suite

The second the two men left the room to talk without being overheard, the tension left her muscles and Olivia's taut posture crumpled. She tucked her arms into her body again and dropped her head to her knees.

"Hey." At last they were able to speak freely to one another and Fin put a hand on her back. "Y'okay?"

She nodded. "Yeah," she answered without lifting her head up. "Southeast wall, near the base boards."

He looked. "Ears too?" He asked, wondering whether the station had an audio as well as visual presence.

"No clue. Cragen didn't say." She huffed a breath and raised her head, leaning it back against the cupboard doors behind her. She closed her eyes.

Fin noticed the little lines creasing the corners of her eyes, the tension around her lips. "How is it?" He asked.

"Can I lie?"

"You could, but you suck at it so I'd know you was lying anyway."

Olivia had to chuckle at that and she opened her eyes. "Hurts like hell," she admitted with a dry smile. "My Ibuprofen was in my coat pocket."

They fell silent. Fin's eyes drifted to the Rubbermaid trash bin in the corner. He knew Olivia had thought about it already. But, like she had no doubt decided, that can was in full view of the little windows in the doors of the suite...Jay and Ryan would be able to see everything they did. Ryan was getting increasingly impatient, paranoid, and physical. Going for their weapons, at least right now, was an open invitation for a bullet.

Minutes passed as they were each bogged with their own thoughts. "You should have seen it, Fin." Benson said after a while.

"Mad house, huh?"

"They have units from Chester out there." She crossed her arms over her knees and looked at him. "I couldn't see the street because of the crowd. You'd think we had a prison riot going down here. Unbelievable." She was oblivious to how important she and Fin were considered amongst New York's law enforcement and seemed surprised at the uproar this was causing.

"John? Elliot?"

She nodded. "Yeah. They were there. Huang too." Sensing where he was headed, she added, "John was looking for you. He looked pretty upset."

Fin nodded, trying to act nonchalant as he asked, "You talk to 'em?"

She looked at him a moment longer and then looked away. Guilt flooded her as her fight with Elliot rushed back. "No." She looked at the floor and shook her head. "No I didn't." She swallowed as a lump formed. "Wish I had."

Fin said nothing, deciding it might be better to let her come out with it herself rather than him pushing her to talk. "He was there. That's gotta mean something."

Olivia shook her head. "We said some pretty horrible things, Fin," she said, for it'd been obvious he'd overheard it. She took a deep breath. "But you know, most of what he said is probably true. I deserved it."

He nodded. She was ready. He would listen. "What happened?"

"The day after you visited me at Bellevue, Internal Affairs stopped by. They told me you had directed them to me after they'd talked to you a few days earlier."

"Oooh," Fin was slowly shaking his head, anger creeping into his eyes. "Man that's bullshit." Daniel had told his lawyer about Elliot's attacking him in the ER the night of the shooting, and she'd sent the rat squad to question Fin about it. "I gave 'em the slip, told 'em I wasn't the right person to ask. I never told them to come after you."

She believed him. "I know. They told me what Daniel's lawyer had said, and they asked if it was true. I said I was in surgery, I didn't see it. They said a nurse had told them she'd overheard you and I talking about it...so they knew I knew about it."

"I think my hatred just reached new heights," Fin growled out. "Askin the damn nurses. That what you and Elliot were fighting over? That Internal Affairs was screwin with you?"

Olivia shook her head. If only it'd been that simple. "They didn't stop with Daniel. They started backtracking, going over old cases, bringing up every time Elliot'd been rough with someone. They questioned me on all of them. Said they had authorization to go for my badge with obstruction if I didn't cooperate with the investigation."

IAB had been at Elliot's heels for as long as he could remember. Anything he did, they scrutinized. Now because of a punk seventeen year old kid, they were able to go for his throat. And they were using Olivia to do it.

"Authorization," Fin spat, his voice rising. "Who the hell from?"

"They didn't say." She shrugged. "I kept everything as vague as possible. No direct answers." She paused and took a steadying deep breath. "The reason for the investigation, they said, was to get grounds on which to put him on bi-monthly evaluations. It was either evals, or they had a green light to suspend him. If they couldn't get him to agree to the evaluations, they were going to."

Tutuola was staring at her, suddenly understanding. "So your fight.."

"They told him," Benson acknowledged with a nod. "That I'd been helping them. I'd asked them to let me talk to him first. I told them if I couldn't get him to agree to the evaluations on his own, that I wanted them to force them instead of doing something more extreme like admin leave." She swallowed. "It was that or indefinite suspension, Fin," she said helplessly, her dark eyes begging for forgiveness. "I wasn't going to let them have his badge for protecting me. Not when I could stop it."

"Did you tell him all this shit before that rep came last night?" He asked incredulously. Surely she had...

"I tried." Tears were threatening to well. "They'd started coming to his house last week. I suggested he just listen to what they said and take it in stride, he didn't want to hear it. I tried to talk to him about it Thursday, after we watched Hedges' confession. He wouldn't let me get anything out." She was looking away now. "I couldn't get him to go to one on his own, so they called me on Sunday and told me they were going to force it. Then Cragen called me last night, and I knew. The look on his face, Fin..." She trailed off and exhaled miserably. The fight was burning in her memory again and the sick feeling in her stomach returned as if it'd just taken place.

Fin was enraged. Leave it to the rat squad. She hadn't played their game by their rules, so what do the sons of bitches do? They'd gone for her weak spot.

Her Achilles.

And they'd threatened her partner.

The one thing they knew they could use against her that would all but force her cooperation.

"I don't think we're going to get through this one," she said, blinking moisture back.

"Jesus..." Fin sighed, looking at her in concern. No the hell wonder she'd looked so haggard the last week and a half. "Cragen know about any of this?"

She shook her head. "I didn't want him involved yet. I figured I'd need his help talking to Elliot eventually though, so I told him I was worried. He said he understood why and that if I needed, he'd back me." Pause. "I never got the chance to explain it to him, Fin. To Elliot. And they hit Cragen with it before I could talk to him again. And now we're here and he's going to go on thinking that I sold him.."

"Olivia.."

"He'll never forgive me."

"Hey."

She stopped and looked at him, tears shimmering but staying put. "What."

"Make you a deal," he began quietly after he had her attention drawn away from her blame. "We keep our asses alive until Cragen makes his move. Neither of us leaves without the other. When we get outta here, if Elliot won't hear you out on all this I'll talk to him." He smiled. "He don't listen to me, I get your permission to beat the hell out of him."

Olivia laughed and she looked down. Fin had his hand out between their scrunched up legs, his palm up. She met his eyes. Smiling in return, she nodded and whispered, "Deal." She dropped her right hand down into his left. Fin's own freezing cold fingers closed around hers and squeezed. Their eyes remained on each other.

"Thanks for comin back, by the way," Tutuola said after a moment.

Benson smiled quietly. "Like Jay'd listen to you anyway, homeboy."

They both leaned their heads back and fell silent, watching the suite doors carefully and reveling in the warmth the bond strengthening between them was generating.

Their hands remained locked together.

Hour 10
(8:00 am)
Precinct

Sweet mother of God.

He couldn't think. He couldn't breathe. He didn't move.

Elliot Stabler sat rigid, staring at the monitor but not seeing a thing. The second Olivia had brought up their fight with Fin, he'd been riveted. He'd sat up a little straighter, leaned in a little closer. His attention was the only thing that had remained steady. His thoughts, his emotions, had bounced around his chest like a racquetball served too hard in too small a court.

Alex had respectfully vacated the squad room, and Huang, though unaware of why Olivia's discussion with Fin was so upsetting, was watching him carefully. Silently. Elliot ignored him. He didn't even care that he and probably Alex too had heard everything. All he could focus on was what Olivia had just admitted to Fin to.

God in heaven. As if Stabler wasn't still feeling guilty enough about the things he'd said to her last night, learning the truth behind Olivia's apparent betrayal gutted him completely. She'd only been trying to protect him. She'd been harassed and manipulated, threatened even, and all she'd thought about was saving his ass from getting burned. Up until the last second even she'd been shielding him from personal embarrassment by not telling Cragen the reason she might need his help. What had seemed so out of character for his partner had just been revealed as testament to the strength of her character.

Perp, fellow police officer, total stranger...he'd ripped into her more viciously than he could remember steamrolling anybody before.

Elliot's hands were cold and he felt like he was going to pass out. He'd ignored her suggestions, he'd slipped away from her conversations, he'd brushed off her attempts to explain. Then in a fit of blinding rage and impetuously wounded pride, he'd torn apart everything they'd worked over the last four and a half years to solidify between them. He suddenly realized emotionally, verbally, and in every other sense probably possible, he had likely destroyed them both that night.

And she was over there right now, confessing her 'sins' to Fin and getting emotional over the thought that he wouldn't forgive her?

Oh the irony.

The only forgiveness needed right now was the kind of God-given grace Elliot couldn't ever hope to deserve. He didn't think, were Olivia standing in front of him right this second, he'd deserve to even ask for it.

Ever.

"...Elliot?"

Stabler blinked and looked up.

Cragen had come out of his office. He was staring at him quizzically. "You with us detective?" A concerned frown formed when Elliot didn't reply. "What happened?" His eyes immediately darted to the monitor in panic. Jay and Ryan were still in the hall and Olivia and Fin were sitting quietly, holding hands. He looked at Huang, not understanding why Elliot's face had no colour when the suite was quiet and both detectives appeared unharmed.

"Sorry, what'd you say?" Elliot cleared his throat and tried to focus. "Zoned for a second."

"Understatement," Cragen acknowledged, his frown set in place. "I said, Lt. Aston has an idea that will give us a foothold in there." He'd expected more of a reaction.

Elliot nodded absently. His stomach was churning and a sour taste was rising at the back of his throat. "That's good," he murmured, having not heard a word. "You excuse me for a second?" Without waiting to be, he pushed his chair back loudly.

"Elliot!" Cragen called after him as he strode from the squad room at a power walk.

Stabler didn't hear him. He didn't turn back around. He was oblivious to the curious onlookers passing by. The first trash bin he came to in the hallway, he lunged for. Gripping the lip with shaking hands, Elliot bent at the waist...

...and promptly threw up.

End Part 8