A/N:Hello, again! To anybody picking this back up, thank you for reading and I apologize for my hiatus there for a bit (got dumped, got covid, then got twitter lol). But, I'm back with a new inspiration to write again and a boatload of ideas for more fics that I'm hoping y'all will enjoy. Reviews/messages always welcome :)
Chapter 10 – Part 1 - 2008
So, they got back together. After little Eli was born, Elliot did the righteous thing and got back together with his wife, Kathy ~ fully. It seemed, from Olivia's outside point of view, that they were doing a lot better. Elliot was trying, as much as she knew he could. He was trying to be home more, trying to spend more time with his kids – all of them – and trying to make the vicennial-long marriage work out.
For a while, it seemed like it was working, too. Elliot was happier, outwardly. It seemed like having a newborn around really sparked his interest in his family, in his wife. Honestly, she wondered how long it would last. Now, Olivia doesn't always have the best outlook on marriage and family but this time, it was more eminent. She says it every year, but the cases were bad this year. Somehow it seems they get more violent and complex every year.
It happened slowly, but sure. Elliot kept having to spend more and more time working. Having been partners with him for almost four years now, she really able to pick up on just about an emotion Elliot shows. He was getting more and more frustrated at the beginning of the day, calming down after a few cups of coffee or a chase. It's a tell-tale sign that something was happening at home, but she wouldn't dare ask. Even though she had all but delivered his child, she still never felt it her place to involve herself in his life outside of work.
It came to a peak when Elliot and Olivia had found themselves working on one of the weirdest cases they had seen. Never did the two think they would have to try and bust an exotic animal smuggling ring, while working for the special victim's unit – but it happened.
It was a wild ride from the start. A dead bird was found in a dead woman's purse. After some digging, they found the woman to be a model who, after more digging was found to be hanging around with a wannabe hip-hop artist who ended up having a full-ass tiger in his house. This led to his arrest because an uncommon bacterium was found on the woman, which came back to only be found on… you guessed it… tigers.
While interrogating the guy, he revealed where it was he bought the tiger and, after some convincing, agreed to take someone in with him to meet the guy, Bushido. It was an easy enough decision for the department, sending Elliot because he's a mixed bag of things. The tattoos obviously giving him away as a veteran but, in normal clothes, he's gruff enough to not be pegged as a cop.
So, Elliot went UC. It lasted forever, or at least that's the way it felt to Olivia, but she wasn't the only one. Kathy had been calling Elliot's phone – which he wasn't allowed to take with him, instead the department giving him a burner cell for brief updates to his squad. With no contact for at least a few days, Kathy resorted to calling his desk phone. Olivia knew it was her, having picked up on her schedule and frequency over the years.
Kathy was consistent. If Elliot had spent the night in the city, she would call right around 7am, probably about when the kids were getting ready for school. She'd call every two hours from there until about 3pm. From there I went down to every half hour, probably trying to see if Elliot would make an appearance at home that evening. If 6pm came around before she had heard, she would call every 10 minutes, 3 times. .. and then she would give up.
Olivia's not sure why her brain memorized the schedule Elliot's wife had and wasn't until the second day that no one had heard from him that she really paid attention. But, every time she called that day, and the next, she too thought about Elliot, wondering where he was or if he was ok.
She had never answered the phone before. Knowing it wasn't her place or right to get involved in anything Kathy and Elliot related. She knows the man well enough to know he didn't tell Kathy he was going anywhere, especially not undercover. It's a double-edged sword, really, but at the same time she started to feel bad for the woman because she's probably at home (with five kids) thinking her husband is dead.
So, by the third day of not hearing from Elliot, she decided she would answer Kathy's call. It was the 6:20 call, the last one of the night, and she had answered the phone as if she had no clue who would be on the other end.
"Special Victims Unit." Standard answer for standard call to a work desk phone.
"Olivia? This is Kathy. Where the fuck is my husband?" She's mad at this point but, that's to be expected.
"Hi Kathy. Umm, Elliot's been working a tough case. He's been really busy lately…" She trails off, hoping that's enough for her.
"Are you working on it too? I swear to god, that man can't communicate worth anything."
"Well, we... he... really isn't allowed to talk about the cases, you know that." Olivia tries.
"Yeah yeah, I know. You guys only ever have each other in mind." The other woman huffs into the phone.
Olivia can tell the woman sounds exhausted, but she doesn't reply to Kathy's statement. She wasn't entirely sure who all she was including so Olivia chose not to assume and reply incorrectly.
"Is he even there?" The frustrated woman's voice comes through again, Olivia not answering fast enough for her liking. The woman doesn't even let her answer before blurting out, "I'm leaving."
"What do you mean? Where are you going?" Olivia rushes out.
"Does it matter? Not here. I can't do this anymore!"
Olivia feels like she's stuck between a rock and hard place here, so she pauses again. She considers lying first, saying Elliot was just there but she would have no reply for where he would have gone, if not home. She considers telling her that Elliot is undercover, but she knows she can't talk about the cases and doesn't want a mess to come for her if Kathy tells Cragen how she found out.
"You know what, I don't even care. Tell him he better fucking get ahold of me today or tell him not to come home again." The phone clicks off in her ear and she can't help but to breathe a sigh of relief that she didn't have to lie for herself or her partner.
However, almost as soon as she's finally able to breathe, a rush of anger overcomes her and she's putting the receiver back to her ear again. She needs to get ahold of Elliot, needs to make sure he's okay. Needs to put his life back together for him, again.
When she gets no answer after the third call, she slams the phone back down. She knows she shouldn't, but she grabs her jacket and keys. She's can't sit around and wait for his call anymore.
The last four hours are a blur, her head hasn't calmed yet. She's seated firmly in an uncomfortable hospital waiting room waiting for some doctor or nurse or even the damn cleaning lady to come tell her that her partner is going to be ok. To tell her that the bullet in his chest didn't hit anything major and he'll too have survived the last four hours.
After Kathy had called, Olivia had gone to Elliot's makeshift undercover apartment, surprised to actually find him there. He's unharmed, uninjured, relatively unfazed.
Until she had shown up.
Elliot had answered the door essentially naked, something Olivia was definitely not expecting to see.. well, ever. However, before she could think too much about it, he had her by the arm and was rushing her inside. She tried to relay as much information as she could quickly, picking up on his reaction. She gave him her phone, mentioned Kathy as she said she would.
He was distracted from what she was saying, she could tell. He hardly looked at her, looking only instead at the window, the blinds. Not two minutes later, there's knocking on the door and she's being pushed around again, to the back of the apartment.
Where the fuck am I supposed to go. Window? Under the bed?
It went so fast. She could hear the men from the bathroom she had chosen to hide in. She knew that they were going to come this way, probably were armed. There was only thing she could really do, right.
She took of her shirt in one fell swoop and threw it on the bed.
She waited until the steps got closer, into the room attached. She heard a crash, sounded like someone falling into something. The voices had sounded angry; she couldn't see anything behind the door, but she knew Elliot was in danger. She flushed the toilet as a distraction… did this count as risking your life?
She had taken a deep breath before she walked out of that bathroom, worried they would just fire at her for appearing.
"Are you ready for me, daddy?"
The line will probably always be ingrained in her head, she had thought. Her brain always did like to ditract from the reality of the situation.
She lost sight of the men holding guns for a moment, looking directly at Elliot as she strode toward him. He wouldn't look at her, wasn't playing into the act as well as she would have wanted him to. She stopped midway to reaching him, needed to really sell the act alone.
"Oh, didn't know we were having a party. That's gonna be $100 to watch, $250 to join ~ each."
The guy had lowered his gun down by this point, but she knew they weren't out of the woods yet. Elliot seemed almost frozen, still staring only at the two men in the room. By the looks of his quickly reddening chest and neck, he had not expected to see his partner half naked that day either.
Her regard went out the window in the next moment. There are so few times she would think she would ever be in a situation where she would need to do something like this, but she did the only thing she could think. Taking two fluid steps forward, she had closed the gap between her and Elliot.
Her breath had hitched on its own accord as she felt her skin meet his. She knew Elliot was muscular, but damn was he toned. As she glided her hand up his shirtless torso, she felt every muscle her hand slid over. She was careful not to linger too much - that wouldn't fit the role - but there was suddenly a part of her that wanted to take her time.
She'd leaned into him, pressed her full upper body against his, felt his skin come in contact with her own. Her entire world spun as she wrapped her arms around his neck, her check brushing his ear.
She heard the man approaching from behind her but chose to ignore it, instead trailing her hand down Elliot's chest.
It was odd how they only ever found intimacy when in they were in danger.
Elliot had said something, but her brain hardly processed it before one of the men was all but dragging her from the room. She wanted to object more, but she was at a loss, figuring there was nothing else she could do without giving her or her partner away. She could really only hope that Elliot had it from here.
The optimism was short lived, however.
She's glad now that she hadn't left, her curiosity – read: loyalty - having kept her there in the first place. She had a bad feeling about everything that had just happened, sure the guys keeping eyes on Elliot were pissed at the arrival of an outsider.
When Elliot and Bushido appeared from the apartment, her heart started to race but she had tried to remain calm, focused.
Just follow them, Olivia, they're probably just going to do some more work.
She didn't expect what came next. It was a nightmare brought to life… her partner colliding with the ground after receiving a close range shot to the chest. She thought that had to be it, not may people survive such a direct hit.
The adrenaline was tearing her from the driver's seat. She needed to get to Elliot, she needed to save him. Her police instinct, thankfully, took over first.
She had waited.
She waited until she was sure the car was gone and wasn't coming back. If the men saw her, she knew they would probably come back and take care of her too. She waited for people to collect around her partner, make it look more like she was just on duty in the area, in case someone was still around that was in with the guy who shot Elliot.
Then she raced.
She raced out of the car, not sure if she shut the door or took the keys, didn't really care. She fought through the people, announcing herself as an officer immediately so they knew to back away from him. She had called a bus on the way over and knew it would be here within a few minutes, so she knelt down next to him, touched his face in hopes some comfort could come from knowing she was there.
Elliot? Elliot, can you hear me? Can you hear me?
He was paling by this point, eyes roaming frantically but never really finding anything. She was trying to get him to communicate with her, to notice her. She had placed her hands over the wound, applying as much as she could, trying to keep the bleeding down. He grunted with the pressure, but any sign of feeling was a good sign at this point.
As she sits in the uncomfortable chair of the hospital waiting room, she tries to focus in. The doctor just finished telling her that Elliot was going to be alright, that he was simply resting now, and she could see him soon.
The wait was already long, she could make it another little bit to see Elliot. But now that the straight fear and adrenaline could subside, she couldn't stop the intrusive thoughts trying to break through to the front of her mind.
She feels responsible for this, for Elliot lying in the hospital bed. She shouldn't have gone to see him, probably wouldn't be in this mess if she hadn't. So, she feels selfish at this point. She had wanted to see him, wanted to make sure he was okay after going so long without answering anyone at the station. She had wanted to make sure he was ok without her.
It's then she snaps to. She wouldn't have changed her initial actions, wouldn't have changed anything she did that night. From talking to Kathy, to showing up at his place, all the way to wrapping her half naked body around his. Those men were dangerous whether or not she had intervened. If it wasn't then, they probably would have done the same thing at a different time.
At least this time she was there to save him.
The only thing she would change, is going to change, is to never let him go undercover alone again.
A/N: If you're wondering, these chapters are (mostly) going with the seasons. I wasn't originally planning to spend a whole chapter on Wildlife, but I did lol but there's another one in season 10 that I wanted to do too, so that's next ;)
