AN: Hellooo! Another update, another episode! This episode is probably one of my [and I'm sure a lot of other's] favorites. So, let me know if I did it justice?
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 7 – 2006
Being partners with Olivia is… eye-opening. After spending the better half of a year being partnered with her, he's almost embarrassed by how he had treated her the past 7 odd years. She's a good cop, not that he didn't know that before, but she's just so – natural – at it.
While he had been in this unit and on the force longer than her, he's never seen anyone able to connect so easily, so quickly, with the victims and their families. Her empathy is a huge part of what makes her a good detective… her empathy is also a huge part of what makes them work well together.
Since Rickett, Elliot hasn't come close to throwing any perps through windows. His anger has gotten the best of him a few times, but he's been able to reel it in pretty quickly. Surprisingly, Olivia hasn't tried once to control or calm him. More surprisingly, just being around her kind of does that for him.
Elliot doesn't let her know, but she's probably the best partner he's had. Sure, there are days they just coexist and nights where they're in the office till 3 am, sharing some takeout-gone-cold, scratching their heads on the latest cases. But it's been so easy to just fall in with her.
The next major case the squad receives is a pedophile, serial killer, and absolute sadist of a man. His tell is slitting throats and assaulting young children. When a couple of children are kidnapped, the captain brings on all the forces: Munch, Fin, Benson, Stabler, Huang, Morales, Dr. Warner.
Benson and Stabler don't fully come on board until a planned stakeout is pushed into motion. They have reason to believe the suspect is going to try and get on a train to take the kids away. The plan is straightforward; get the guy, Victor Gitano, and find the kids… simple enough.
Wrong.
Everyone is in place when they spot the guy. Fin and Olivia are stationed in the crowd, Elliot is talking to the guy selling tickets. Elliot has been spending most of the time working on calming the guy down when Olivia calls that Gitano is looking straight at them. The ticket guy is scared, so scared that even the guy they're trying to catch notices and tries to make a break for it.
Olivia spots him in the crowd first and immediately trails him, "He's running!" she lets out into her radio before taking off in a slight jog behind him. Elliot catches up with her briefly before splitting up again, heading down to the tracks, Olivia on the main level, Fin upstairs.
Elliot's come to a halt, scanning every face in the crowd, looking for any sign of the man or the kids. He doesn't have to look much further when a loud commotion erupts, and Elliot's body instinctually takes him towards it. The crowd is frantically clearing on the level, let on to a potential danger.
Before he can make it to the main sounds of commotion, the clearing gives way to the little boy they have been looking for, Ryan. The kid isn't even 20 ft from him, but neither move. The boy just stands there, staring at Elliot. And Elliot does the same.
A scream causes them to both turn their head. Gitano has the other child in one arm and a large knife in the other. It all happens too fast. he clocks the young girl first, then the swinging knife connecting with his partner's throat, and lastly the blood.
He's in shock for a moment, watching the scene unravel like a nightmare he knows he's had before. He sees Olivia's hand reach her neck before her body hits the ground and her head lull to the side.
His body reacts before his brain catches up. "Olivia!" He's dodging people trying to make it to his partner, he's tempted to steamroll all of them but he's almost gentle in his approach to her. He doesn't know if his knees give out or if he consciously kneels down but he's beside her now, reaching his hand down to cover hers on her neck.
He's checking over her frantically, trying to see if she's breathing. It's a second before he goes to turn her head back to him that she moves it on her own. Their eyes lock before she speaks. "I'm ok, where's Gitano? Elliot I'm fine, go." She's winded but her voice is strong.
He didn't hear a word she said, to be honest. As soon as he saw her eyes, his mind completely swam… You've fucked up.
He doesn't dwell on it, can't dwell on it, instead forcing the thought out of his mind as he stands and sprints upstairs. But he's too late, he knows instantly. He's staring at a group of people crowded around something and Fin is approaching him somberly.
He's taken back a whole year a matter of seconds. He's enraged, he's boiling, he's… so fucking stupid.
"I don't suppose you want a day or two off?" Cragen's voice sounds from beside him, removing him from his thoughts. How could he have gone to Olivia, why on earth did he go to Olivia? A child is dead because he went to his partner and not to the child he could have saved.
"The kid was five meters in front of me, why didn't he run?" Elliot is nothing other than shellshocked. "All I had to do was reach out and grab him." He's staring off into space, numb.
Before Cragen can say anything, Olivia's voice rings out beside him, trying to console, "Elliot, it was chaos, there was nothing you could have done."
He glances in her direction, before looking down to her neck, the wound has stopped bleeding already, barely even there for having been on the other end of a guy who has slit so many throats he could probably hit the right spot with his eyes closed. "Please don't try to help me out right now."
He's angry, he makes it known to everyone before huffing off. Olivia doesn't have the opportunity to reply because they're hustling outside to where a car was reported stolen.
Back at the station, Elliot's being standoffish. He hasn't looked at her since they got back and he won't say a word to her. They interrogate a suspect who said he was going to send Gitano money but the whole time Elliot talks over her, interrupts her, doesn't let her get a word in edge wise. Abruptly, Elliot ends the interrogation and tells the guy to get out.
To say she's angry would be an understatement. She hasn't done a thing wrong and Elliot's pulling his high and mighty card over her again. She rises quickly from her seat at the questioning table and takes off after him.
He's on a mission to get out of there or something because she struggles to keep up with him. "Hey!" She calls, getting his attention before he has the chance to leave. "Is there something you want to say to me? Because if you do, let's hear it."
He turns swiftly, backtracking his steps to get closer to her. "Why didn't you shoot Gitano?"
She's instantly defensive, stunned almost. He hasn't once questioned her actions since they became partners. "He was using the child as a shield."
"How could you let him get so close to you?"
"There were innocent civilians around, I couldn't get a shot."
"Well, you got close, and Ryan's dead." He's serious and his eyes are intense and accusing as he speaks to her.
She raises her eyes in disbelief, shocked that he's pinning that child's death on her. "So, this is my fault?"
"I can't do this. I can't be looking over my shoulder making sure you're ok!"
"You son-of-a-bitch, you know that's not true!"
"I need to know you can do your job and not wait for me to come to the rescue!"
She stares at him incredulously, her mouth sealed into a tight line, unable to respond. The words almost knock the air out of her, her body in complete shock at his words. Her brain rattles: He's projecting, Olivia, he doesn't mean that. You did nothing wrong, you tried to go after the guy and the other child.
She opens her mouth to respond but doesn't get out another word before Cragen appears. "Alright, that's enough! Now need I remind you there's a little girl out there, missing. Knock it off. If I have to say this to you two again, you're both suspended."
She takes one final look at Elliot. There's a moment she almost recognizes the fear she sees in his gaze. He's spiraling, she can tell. He feels responsible for all of this, for the death of a child, and his brain can't process it… He's done more harm than good and he's afraid he'll continue to do the same.
Elliot doesn't know what comes over him but, after pissing everyone in the office off, he makes a trip to see Dr. Huang. At first, he thinks he'll talk about the case, only the case. But there's a part of him that knows none of this is about the case, that's not the underlying problem here.
He finally reaches the physiatrists office and, before knocking, there's a moment he thinks of Kathy. He wonders if she'd be proud of him if he told her where he was, finally reaching out for help. But he knows this is only a momentary fix and that it probably wouldn't mean anything to her.
The doctor lets him in quietly and there's a long moment of silence. Elliot wishes he would say something, but the doctor patiently waits.
Instead of speaking, Elliot looks the man over, trying to grasp at any sort of body language he can pick up. "You think I made the wrong choice."
"I actually was going to say, in situations like this, there is no good choice. You had to choose between saving the little boy or saving Olivia."
His voice is calm, so calm it almost irritates Elliot. How he can he be so calm when a little boy is dead and it's his fault? "Yeah, but she didn't need me."
"You didn't know that."
He pauses before he continues, he didn't necessarily think about it that way. He fully, whole-heartedly believed that Olivia had been severely injured by the man but, at the same time, that's not enough… "I wish I didn't." It comes out as a whisper.
"Didn't what? Didn't care so much?... Elliot, that's what makes you a good partner."
"She made me turn away."
"How? How does she make you do anything?"
Elliot goes silent again. How does she make him do anything? But he thinks back for a moment to every major interaction with her in the last year and realizes… she doesn't make him do anything; he's always done it himself. She hasn't stopped him from blowing up at suspects… she hasn't driven out of her way to make sure he was protected from a stalker… she made sure he got to his house ok… He's done all of these things because of her.
It clicks instantly… Elliot chose Olivia in that moment. She was focused on Gitano, probably didn't even know where Elliot was. And, whether it was conscious or not, something in him had to go make sure she was okay. Something in him cared more about her dying than the child he could have grabbed.
Something in him would probably do it again.
The realization hit and he somberly replies before taking his exit. "She didn't. It was my choice. Nobody was responsible for it but me."
After some more investigating, Munch's conspiracies finally save the day. He identifies the splatters they found on the boy's jacket which leads them to a deserted metal plating factory.
Elliot and Olivia don't wait for the backup they call, both of them having a hunch and determined to find and rescue the remaining child. They go in alone, guns drawn, making shorthand motions they learned long ago to each other. They're on the same page, in sync once again, the past put into the past for now. Olivia goes right, Elliot left.
Olivia's nerves are firing as she walks around abandon crates and pallets of material. She's listening so intently for any sort of movement or voices, hoping the first and only thing she hears is that of the little girl. Instead, a quick commotion comes followed shortly but gun shots.
The next round is aimed at her, she's ducking, avoiding flying objects as the bullets tear through the wood and plastic around her. She goes low, ending up on her stomach.
It's then that she sees the source of the gunfire. Victor has a gun to the back of Elliot's head and he's bleeding from the temple. She takes aim immediately from her spot on the ground, but she's got no cover and her gun is not as powerful as the one Gitano is holding.
"Shoot him! Kill him!" Elliot's screams are pleading but everything is happening too fast.
She makes her way to her feet, still keeping aim. Gitano and Elliot are both shouting, the words get lost between them.
"Shut up, Elliot!" She needs it to be quieter, she needs to stall, she needs to deescalate the situation as she's done so many times before.
But this is different from all the times before. This is Elliot with a gun to his head, already roughed up a bit. And he's screaming at her, telling her to shoot. But she can't, she can't be sure that she won't hit him, that Gitano won't move Elliot in front of him if she fires.
She wonders for a minute if the backup is going to come soon… if she can stall long enough.
"One step closer and I'll shoot him!" Gitano screams and she doesn't realize she had been walking forward.
"And then what, do you really think you're going to walk out of here?" She responds, thinking of the girl, distracting them all from the current position they are all in. "Tell us where the girl is, and we can both walk out of here."
"Dead! I used her up and bled her dry, do you want to hear how she screamed, how she begged for her mommy she sounded like?" The guy is proud of himself, still so sure in the current moment.
Elliot takes over her thoughts, replying quickly. "There's no reason to keep this piece of crap alive. Pull the trigger right now…. Olivia, pull it, shoot him!"
"There's a possibility she's still alive," Gitano sputters, delaying. He knows this is going too long already, that there was no chance Elliot and Olivia don't have back up on the way.
Olivia holds her gun firm, trying to coax more information out of the guy, but all he gives are vague, roundabout replies.
"She's here, she's not dead, if she weren't, he'd be long gone." Elliot says at one point, and she believes this, the girl has to be around her somewhere, but she needs to have more control of this situation… she needs Elliot.
The realization is hitting her more and more as she stares down her barrel at the two men in front of her. She never thought it would be this hard. She never thought it would come to this.
Gitano takes to taunting her, he's trying to hurry this along and he thinks this will get her to react. "God, you two, a couple of screw ups. How could you let that little boy go? You could have saved that boy."
She thinks of what Elliot must have been feeling after the whole situation at the train station. She knows that, for some unknown reason, he chose her over going after that boy. And she knows now that she's choosing him over taking the shot at Gitano.
"Olivia, look at me, you could do the right thing, I didn't I made that choice, it was my fault." It's like Elliot knows what she was thinking. His voice is softer now, his eyes locked completely with hers.
"I would have done the same thing." She almost whispers, her eyes getting cloudy. It's a confession to both of them.
"Don't make the same mistake."
She doesn't know where the act ends and where she starts. She knows part of what she and Elliot are doing is meant to keep Gitano engaged with what's happening in front of him. She doesn't believe for a moment that the girl is dead, but she says that she is out loud as Elliot nods.
Gitano is enveloped in the performance and starts to plead now; he'll tell them where the girl is.
That solidifies the information, she girl is alive, but they're locked into this show now and she's terrified. Elliot is over there saying that it's alright, that she can take the shot, and he's being pretty damn convincing. She can't tell if he's acting or not at this point.
She's on the verge of crying, which is not an act. She knows that Gitano is staring at her, can see her every move. "I'm sorry." she mouths before readjusting her aim. She's shaking by this point, praying that this all ends soon.
Elliot bows his head.
The sniper's shot is almost deafening. Elliot staggers as the grip on him is released. He only feels the guy fall to the ground but doesn't dare look back. He looks up at Olivia instead, tear marks streaking down his face.
He can't look at her for too long, so he then looks back to the ground where Gitano is laying as swarms of police officers invade the space.
"Quiet." He hears something… "Everyone quiet!" He knows he heard something, crying perhaps. He takes off running in the direction he thought it came from.
It doesn't take long for Olivia to be right beside him and they both begin yelling out the girl's name. He hears her voice crack the first few tries, but she goes on. It doesn't take long before they hear it again, muffled cries coming from one of the shipping containers.
They open it quickly and find the little girl inside, seemingly unharmed. It's over.
He prays as they pull her out that she won't have any lasting wounds from all of this, though he knows he will.
Olivia exits the hospital room with an exhale. "No major bodily injuries, says she hardly remembers what even happened." She takes a seat next to Elliot on the hospital bench as he only gives a slight nod in response.
It's tense, she can feel it. All the thoughts swirling in her mind, but she doesn't know what to say, wouldn't know how to articulate anything anyway.
"If that sniper hadn't beaten you to it… I know you would have taken the shot, Olivia." He beats her to words. He's looking over at her, but she can't meet his eye just yet. The feeling drains out of her body at his words and she's at a loss. She looks back at him.
"No, I wouldn't have. Did you really expect me to? Did you really expect me to cause your death, Elliot?" What about your kids?" She can feel the tears welling in her eyes again and she begs them not to fall.
"I don't know. I just couldn't get that boy out of my head." He's rubbing his hands over his face. She watches for a second as the tendons move as they form around the figure, but then returns her eyes to the ground in front of her.
"What about me?"
It's a breathless whisper when it comes out, though she can't remember telling her brain to form the words out loud. It's a confession as much as a plea. Out of all the partners she's had so far, Elliot has by far been the best. Though she wouldn't have ever admitted it, falling in beside Elliot was the easiest thing she had ever done.
"Look we both chose each other over the job, we can never let that happen again, otherwise, we can't be partners."
Elliot stands to leave, seemingly unscathed. Olivia feels as if her heart was just broken.
