And before he started walking towards the exit again, he took a quick glance around before saying in a low, quiet but soft voice:

"Because now, my friend, you're talking about pure love."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Olivia slammed the papers loudly on the table and covered her face with her hands, groaning frustratedly. Time was slipping through their fingers like sand, every minute bringing them closer to defeat.

It had already been a week since Elliot had been arrested at the hospital, and the rest of the squad had been working almost non-stop since then. The homicide unit had taken responsibility for the case, but since the case was also related to the human trafficking investigation led by SVU, they had been allowed to be closely involved. Due to the ambiguities surrounding the case, they had been given a week, but time was inexorably running out, and they hadn't find anything significant to prove Elliot's innocence yet. They had also not been able to pay his 500,000 dollar bail, so he had had to remain in pretrial detention.

Mr. Reed and his inner circle had disappeared completely, and no one had heard from them, even though he had an arrest warrant because of Olivia. The club had been set up as a crime scene, and there had been constant guarding, but no outsiders had shown up. They had tried to reach eyewitnesses, but to no avail – many of them might believe that they would be exposed for their own crimes if the police started digging for more information.

Elliot's trial was only a couple of hours away, and Olivia felt like her whole body was on fire. Her eyes hurt, and every muscle in her body protested the fact that she had been sitting in a chair for almost two days straight. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Fin look up at her from his own papers.

"You okay? You should go to sleep, you look like a zombie."

"Thank you for your kind words," Olivia snorted and rubbed her eyes. "I would go to sleep if there was even one proof that Elliot didn't shoot Julia. I don't understand that…"

"Hey," Fin had stood up and was walking towards the coffee maker. "You're right that we don't have proper evidence, but neither does the prosecutor. Stabler is in custody only because Julia's blood was found on his clothes and…"

"Yeah, because he wasn't sure if she was alive! Or are you saying you wouldn't have checked her pulse?!" Olivia snapped, and Fin raised a reassuring hand.

"No, I didn't mean that! I was about to say that an unknown caller said an hour after the incident that Elliot was the only one who was in the toilet at the same time as Julia. But like I said, that may not be compelling enough evidence for the grand jury to find him guilty. He's a cop after all, they know your partner went to help you… Why would they think he's guilty?"

"I don't know, I just... I wish we had even found the surveillance cameras. I bet that a place teeming with criminals has cameras at least in every corner, and I…"

"And now we should wish there were no cameras," Cragen's voice interrupted her, and everyone turned to look at their captain, who was standing in the doorway of his office. The past week was as evident in his being as it was in everyone else's, but now there was a look on his face whose gloom made the blood freeze in Olivia's veins.

"What do you mean?" Munch frowned, and Cragen beckoned them into his office. Olivia slowly stood up, forcing her legs to move as fatigue and worry tried to make them resist her commands, but eventually she managed to move into her captain's office and closed the door after her.

Cragen sat down behind his desk and turned his computer screen towards them. Sighing deeply, he pressed play, and then raised his hand to press the corners of his eyes with his fingers.

They had been right - there had been a camera in the toilet. The video began with Elliot emerging from the door, obviously in a hurry, and disappearing into the toilet stall. Under normal circumstances, they could have expected Munch's dry comment about how he wished the camera wouldn't take a closer look at the toilet stall, but now the situation was so serious that no one said anything. Soon the toilet door opened again, and a blonde woman appeared in the video.

"That's Julia!" Olivia whispered.

"But why did she follow Elliot?" Fin asked quietly. "She is clearly not following nature's call, she's just standing there."

Everyone watched intently as for a moment Julia just stood there, but then the door to Elliot's toilet stall opened, and he encountered with the woman standing outside the door.

"Hello, handsome."

"Oh, this has the sounds too," Fin stated in surprise, and made the others hush.

"I thought this was the men's restroom."

"I'm aware of that."

"What is she doing?" Olivia whispered. "Why..." But her question was interrupted when Julia placed her hand on Elliot's chest.

"What's all the hurry?"

"My fiancee is probably already waiting," came Elliot's reply, but Olivia didn't register it. She only saw Julia pushing her partner against the wall, and suddenly her mouth felt dry. She swallowed, but then Julia's hand wandered to the wrong place, and Olivia's guts turned upside down.

"Julia, I…"

"What? Are you afraid that your fiancee will find out? Or you mean… Detective Benson?"

"She knew!" Munch exclaimed, but his voice felt coming from somewhere far away. Olivia's ears were buzzing, and her eyes seemed glued to the video playing on Cragen's computer screen.

Why isn't he moving?

Why doesn't he stop her?

"Where's she?"

"Well, we could say that she is taken care of. Don't worry, Detective Stabler."

"Why doesn't he do anything?" Fin's voice was confused as Elliot was still standing there, Julia's hand on his private area. "I…"

But then there was Julia's voice again:

"What's wrong? Have you never done it in the bathroom? Or are you just shy? I like shy men, I'm sure we'll also get the little Stabler excited..."

But then they all flinched when Elliot suddenly raised his hand and slapped Julia across the face. She quickly backed away and turned towards the door, holding her cheek, but then Elliot disappeared into the last toilet stall, and a few seconds later, a gunshot rang out. Julia collapsed to the ground, he reappeared, shoved something into his trouser pocket, and bent down to feel her pulse. The video ended when he ran out the toilet door.

A silence so deep it could have been cut with a knife descended on Cragen's office. No one looked away from the screen, no one said anything, everyone seemed to have forgotten how to breathe.

Seconds passed, the silence remained, but finally Munch's voice broke it:

"What the… What do you… What… Why… I'm…"

Cragen sighed again as he rested his forehead into his hands. "I don't know what to think, I'm just as confused as you. Why would Elliot have lied?"

"And why didn't he react when Julia revealed to him that she recognized you two?" Fin pointed the question at Olivia, who, however, was still frozen staring at the screen. Her ears were buzzing, and she was starting to feel dizzy, so she sat down without saying anything.

Munch shrugged. "Well, he's a guy who had the hand of an incredibly beautiful woman in his crotch, and who has divorced some time ago. Maybe…"

"Okay, I get your point, but now it was about Liv," Fin hissed. "He didn't know where his partner was, they were exposed, and you're still thinking that the magical touch of an unknown woman made him stay in place? My opinion is that I believe many things about Stabler, but there is something fishy about this."

"I agree with Fin," Cragen intervened. "But what is this video then? I don't know the original sender of it, but I know the prosecutor has seen this as well."

Fin frowned and rubbed his forehead in frustration. "But how can we be sure that the video has not been edited? Where has it been all week? It took the police some time to get to the club, and by then the whole place had been cleared. I'm sure the cameras were also removed, and the video could have been edited in the meantime."

"It is possible, but I got this video from the homicide unit. They have been analyzing it and have found no signs that it has been edited. I…"

"The gun," Olivia's voice interrupted Cragen, and everyone turned to look at her at the same time. She swallowed uncertainly before forcing her voice to cover the shaking of her body and the tightening feeling in her throat. "Where is the gun? In the video, Elliot takes the gun with him, but he doesn't use it anymore."

"What do you mean?" Fin asked, frowning, and Olivia licked her lips uncertainly.

"I mean… He found me and Mr. Reed, do you think he wouldn't have used a gun if… If he had it?" She swallowed as a lump began to rise in her throat as the memories came back to her. "So, he arbitrarily shot an unknown woman in the bathroom, took the gun with him, but then risked his life many times without using it?"

"Yeah, there's a point," Cragen bit his lip thoughtfully. "Did you see the gun?"

Olivia thought for a moment, but then shook her head. "No, I'm pretty sure I would have noticed."

"Pretty sure?"

"Yeah, well, I wasn't very..." However, Olivia didn't have time to answer, because Cragen's phone rang, and he picked it up irritably.

"Captain Cragen."

Immediately after her captain answered the phone, Olivia fell into her thoughts. This couldn't be right. Elliot had been so shocked by what had happened to her, had felt such a strong sense of guilt that there was no way he could have just stayed with Julia, who had been coming on to him.

Or was they?

What if that was what caused his sense of guilt?

But then why would he have shot Julia? Because she had exposed them? Maybe, but what good would that have done? The damage had already been done. Because he had been ashamed? No, it wasn't Elliot. He wouldn't have shot her just because of the shame of his manhood, because he hadn't shot Mr. Reed either.

Not the Elliot who risked his life to save you.

No.

It's Elliot.

It's your partner. Your best friend.

But what if…

"I need to see him" her voice sounded unfamiliar when she opened her mouth.

"What?"

"I need to see him," this time her voice was stronger, more determined. "We still have time, I need to ask him about the video and the gun, I need to…"

I need to ask him about Julia.

But her intentions were interrupted when Cragen lowered the phone from his ear and looked at them all with an unreadable expression on his face. Something in his being made a bad feeling spread inside Olivia, and cold shivers ran down her spine.

"You don't need to ask Elliot about the gun, it's been found. And it has his fingerprints on it."