It takes them the better part of a day to get the information they need from the bodyguard, to come up with a plan, to coordinate the resources of the Italian police and NYPD and Interpol, and as the sun sets it becomes plain that Captain Benson's energy is flagging. She hasn't complained - won't complain, Tia is sure - but the woman is quieter than she was in the beginning of the day, is allowing Elliot to take the lead more. It's no wonder really; Olivia worked a full day before flying overnight from New York to Rome, and somehow Tia doesn't think the NYPD splurged for a first class seat. Probably Olivia didn't sleep on the flight at all, and she - as Elliot would say - hit the ground running when she arrived. The time change may be messing with her head and she's low on sleep and as well as things have been going between Elliot and Olivia so far Tia hasn't forgotten their cataclysmic reunion. It's a lot for anyone to deal with all at once, and privately Tia is a little impressed. She's not sure she would have been half so professional as Olivia has been; when she gets sleepy, Tia tends to get waspish, and she's not too proud to admit it.
Someone should take the Captain back to the hotel, Tia thinks. Elliot is on the phone, sequestered in his office, and the other detectives are making noises about going home. There's only so much they can do tonight; it would be better to start fresh in the morning. Everyone is thinking longingly of showers and beds and dinner, and Olivia is sitting at Francesco's desk with her chin propped on her hand, staring dreamily at the whiteboard, her eyes a little vacant as if she has drifted off, though Tia doesn't know where she's gone.
Whatever this thing is between Elliot and Olivia, whatever it means, however they feel about one another, Tia started this day feeling kindly disposed towards Olivia, and Olivia has, at every turn, surprised and intrigued her. Tia likes seeing a woman in power, and she especially likes it when it's clear that woman has earned her power. Olivia is physically strong and mentally sharp and personally warm, and those are all qualities Tia admires. And Olivia is interesting, because she slapped Elliot's face and then worked with him all day without complaint, because she has a son whose age seems significant, because it's clear that she knows things about Elliot, things Tia doesn't know. Tia has always loved solving riddles.
Because it's late, because everyone else is in the process of leaving, because Elliot is busy, because she's curious, Tia approaches the Captain, perches on the edge of the desk and clears her throat, watches as Olivia's dark eyes come into focus and settle on her face.
"Everyone is going home," Tia tells her. "Shall I drive you to the hotel?"
Olivia's eyes snap towards Elliot's office door as if on reflex, and Tia hears the answer Olivia does not give. Not yet, that's what Olivia wants to say. She doesn't want to leave until she's had a chance to come to terms with Elliot.
"He shouldn't be much longer," Tia says softly, and Olivia's gaze slides away, her cheeks coloring slightly, as if in shame at having been caught out.
"Elliot says you're old friends."
"You could say that."
These two and their secrets. Tia would be annoyed, but the chase is half the fun.
"You worked together in New York?" she prompts the Captain gently. "Elliot used to be SVU, just like you."
"We were partners," Olivia says, confirming Tia's earlier suspicions. "For thirteen years."
Tia is not a superstitious woman herself, but she grew up in a house populated with ghosts. Her mother, her father, her Nonna, they all believed in things they could not see. Believed in signs and mysteries, saints and devils. In Rome, seventeen is the number of bad luck, but elsewhere thirteen is the harbinger of doom, and she knows this. For twelve years - twelve, the number of goodness, of completeness, of being whole - Elliot and Olivia worked together. Worked closely together, relied on one another, cared for one another, and in the thirteenth year it all fell apart so spectacularly that when they set eyes on one another again the first thing Olivia did was strike him, and curse him. There is an easy familiarity to the way they are with one another, a sense of comfort, that makes Tia think those first twelve years were good. They pushed their luck, she thinks. Their luck ran out.
"It's a long time to work with someone," Tia says slowly.
Olivia hums once in affirmation, but before Tia can say anything else the office door opens, and Elliot steps out, frowning when he sees the bullpen is empty, sees that Tia is sitting beside Olivia. There is something like suspicion in his gaze; does it worry him, seeing Olivia and Tia alone together? Which one is he more wary of? What scares him more, the thought of what Olivia might have to say, or the thought of what Tia might say to Olivia? Which secrets does he most want to keep?
"Lemme take you to the hotel, Liv," he says brusquely, authoritatively, making his way towards them. Tia couched her offer as a request, but Elliot has made a demand, and Olivia bristles at once. All day she has been getting along with him, allowing his hands to settle on her back, her shoulder, standing a little closer to him than is maybe wise, smiling at him when they succeed in some piece of the operation, but her patience, her resolve, must be wearing thin. Either that, or now that they are more or less alone she feels no particular compulsion to indulge him.
"Tia offered to take me," Olivia says. "You should go see Kathy."
"God damn it, Liv," Elliot growls, suddenly angry. And why should he be? Tia wonders. Olivia's statement was innocuous enough, and there didn't seem to be any hostility in it, but Elliot knows this woman better than Tia does; perhaps he has heard something that was meant for his ears, and his alone.
"Go home, El," Olivia says. She rises from her chair, reaches for her bag, but Elliot snaps, then. His arm shoots out quick as lightning, curls around her wrist, and their eyes catch one another's, and hold. Blazing, full of unspoken anger, and hurt, all the tumult of emotions they have kept buried all day are roiling through them, and Tia can see it, now. Elliot isn't going home, and Olivia isn't going back to the hotel. Not yet, at least.
"C'mere," he says, tugging on her arm. Olivia jerks herself out of his grip, but she follows as he leads her away, the pair of them seeking somewhere private, somewhere quiet, to air all their grievances, having apparently forgotten Tia and her offer of a ride completely.
It makes her cross, being left behind like this. Abandoned by a man who has always treated her with care, passed over for another woman, a woman who is not his wife but speaks her name so easily. Whatever they have to say to one another it's plain they do not want witnesses, but Tia wants her answers. For the sake of her pride, yes, but also for the sake of the power it will give her over Elliot. If she knows the name of his sins, if she knows the shape of his secrets, she will gain the upper hand over him. If she knows how another woman once made him stray, perhaps she will find the key to making him do so again.
There is only one place Elliot is likely to take Olivia at this time of the day; the building is always full of people, working in shifts, and though the liaison's office is quiet now the rest of the headquarters is not. There is somewhere private, somewhere isolated, somewhere no one else goes, somewhere Elliot likes to brood in solitude, and Tia knows he is going there now, and Tia knows, too, that there is more than one way to reach his safe haven.
There are two entrances to the roof. Elliot has led Olivia in the direction of the main one; he will thread his way through the building with her in tow, will slip through the door at the end of the corridor and up the stairs and emerge in the center of the roof. If Tia goes the other way she will enter the roof from the south side, the door she has chosen hidden behind vents and the vestibule of the main staircase. She can loiter in the shadows, and they will never know she was there at all.
She goes, then, on silent feet; she eases the door open very, very carefully, holds it open a crack, listening, before she steps out into the night. Elliot and Olivia aren't speaking, and so she can't place them at first, but then she hears the crunch of Elliot's boots against the grime on the roof. He went north, when he stepped out here, and that means Tia's path is clear. Easing the door open she steps through it, turns the handle so that it won't make a sound when she closes the door, when she lets the latch slowly turn back into place. The sky is dark but the lights of the city around them are enough to guide her way. She darts from the doorway to the shelter of a vent, and chances a glance around it.
Olivia is standing at the waist-high barrier at the very edge of the roof, her fingers curling against the stones as she looks out at the city. Elliot is pacing behind her, his head bowed. They do not speak, and they take no note of Tia, but she ducks back behind the vent anyway, not wanting to be found out. She will not be able to see them, but there is much she wants to hear.
"I said I'm sorry," Elliot begins after a moment, his voice tight. At the edge of the roof, Olivia scoffs.
"You think that's enough?" she asks him derisively. "You think you can apologize once, and that's enough?"
"No," Elliot answers. "No, I know it's not. But I am sorry."
"Doesn't look that way to me."
"Damn it, Olivia." He's been calling her Liv all day. It's a little jarring to hear him use her full name now.
"I'm serious," she snaps. "You didn't come looking for me. You didn't even tell me you were back on the job. It's pretty clear you've got everything you want right here. You're happy. You don't give a shit about me."
"That's not true."
He starts walking towards her; Tia can't see them, but his heavy boots give him away. There is a purpose to his steps that tells her he is not pacing. He is on a mission.
"Looks like it from where I'm standing. You never took my calls. You just…you were the most, single most important person in my life and you just…disappeared."
There is an ache in Olivia's voice that makes Tia feel guilty, for the first time since she decided to come out here. This conversation is meant to be private, and she's dead certain Elliot doesn't want her to know about any of this, and she wants to know but this pain is too heavy. It was not meant to be shared. Whatever they were to one another, Elliot had meant everything to Olivia once, and he left her behind and never looked back. No wonder he heard an accusation in Olivia's casual mention of Kathy; it is Kathy he chose, Olivia he abandoned. And if he was willing to do that to his partner of thirteen years, there's no telling what he would be willing to do to Tia.
"I was afraid," he says then, slowly, and there is a grief in his voice to match Olivia's. "If I'd heard your voice, I wouldn't have been able to leave."
"Maybe you shouldn't have fucking left, then."
"Do you know what it would have done to me?" he snaps, frustrated. "They wanted to hang me, Liv. They were gonna take my pension. How was I gonna support Kathy and the kids if they did that?"
"You could've beaten the rap."
Tia has no idea what that means.
"Maybe, maybe not. Tucker had it in for me. I was just coming off another IAB investigation, and then Jenna…Tucker wanted me gone."
"He wouldn't have done that to you."
Elliot laughs, sharp and unhappy. "That evil son of a bitch would've-"
"Don't talk about him like that."
"What the fuck, Liv?"
The rooftop goes quiet, an uneasy sort of stillness Tia likes not at all. The names they've mentioned mean nothing to her, but she can identify the anger in their voices, still present after all these years, can just catch the stench of a wound that has never healed.
"You could've jumped through the humps. Gone to anger management, taken the hit to your jacket-"
"And what would've happened to you if I did? Come on, Liv, you know how this works. You'd have been tainted by association. You think you would've ever made Captain if I'd still been there holding you back?"
"Don't pretend you left to save my career."
"I left to save you."
"Jesus," Olivia swears, and this time it is her feet Tia hears, a lighter step than Elliot's, quicker, no doubt putting space between them as their agitation grows, as they dig closer to the source of their hurt.
"You want to lie to me, fine, but don't lie to yourself," Elliot barks. "What did you have, while I was there? I was the most important person in your life, Liv? No boyfriend -"
"Fuck you-"
"No friends who weren't on the job," he digs in mercilessly. "You're a Captain now, you…Jesus, Liv, you've got a kid."
The revelation drops like a bomb, loud, and damaging, and in its wake they are all deafened, the sounds of the city muffled by heartbreak.
"How did you know?" Olivia asks him softly, when she rediscovers her voice.
"Tia told me. After everything, all those years…Liv, I know how much it means to you. I know how bad you wanted it. And I had to find out from Tia."
"Whose fault is that? You're the one who left-"
"And I have regretted every single fucking day of the last ten years."
It's the last thing Tia expected to hear him say.