Chapter 2- Olivia
6:45 a.m.
The door clicked closed and Olivia exhaled. She took three composing breaths and tried to search for some sort of mantra to repeat in her brain.
That didn't just happen.
That didn't just happen.
That didn't just happen.
Her breath began to flow at a normal pace, but then she was reminded that it did in fact happen. Her shaky fingers fastened clothes over her body as quickly as she could. The last thing she needed was another colleague walking in on her. The thought of it being Munch or, God forbid, Cragen made her pre-workout shake rumble in her stomach. The fact that it had been Elliot didn't mortify her like the thought of Munch or Cragen did. Instead, it made her veins course with a heat that was making her consider another cold shower.
She needed to get a grip. Her poor partner was probably sulking in the squad-room, contemplating all his life choices as he watched bulk-ordered, department coffee drip into the pot that needed to be scrubbed clean. What had she been thinking standing in her place of work like she didn't care who saw her? 5:00 a.m. or not, she thought how she should be marching her dressed body down those stairs and begging Elliot for forgiveness.
Her poor partner. She halted in her train of thought. He'd looked. Even in all her efforts to defend that man's morality, she couldn't let that fact slip.
Elliot wouldn't do that. Elliot was a good man, a married man, and he always treated her with respect and professionalism. In fact, she'd never had a man on the force treat her with as much faith and confidence as Elliot did. They had a professional working relationship that reaffirmed her confidence that women had an equal place alongside their male counterparts. He was always nothing short of professional. Almost always.
Let me walk you up.
Blink your lights when you get inside.
It wasn't unprofessional, it was...it was protective. Partners had to be protective, it was the nature of the job. She'd looked back down at him as she exited the car that night several months back, and she couldn't deny how her veins felt the same way they did now.
She squeezed her eyes shut and found the imprint of his eyes on her, waiting for her. Almost two years of seamless partnership, and she'd just jeopardized the best working relationship she'd ever had. Sometimes she was convinced she was incapable of not pushing anything good out of her life. She had managed to screw everything up. Turn Around.
Or maybe he had?
Turn Around?
What the hell had he been thinking? That wasn't the partner she she didn't know Elliot as well as she thought she did. Maybe she just thought of him the way she wanted to, needed to- some sort of unrealistic standard to hold all men to. Elliot Stabler: defender of children, defender of women, defender of her.
Get a grip, Olivia.
She was so used to being mad at herself that she didn't consider that maybe she should be mad at him. He'd opened that door and saw her standing there. A professional partner would have turned around and never mentioned any kind of indiscretion. Instead he walked in like he had every right to, and he told her to turn around. Cocky bastard.
Mad at him. She decided to see how that would play out. Maybe she should call his wife while she was at it.
Hi Kathy, yeah Olivia, your husband's partner, no he's fine, he just can't keep his eyes to himself.
But who should she really be telling on? Him or herself? She was the single woman in the department, and god knows there was enough speculation flying around about who she was taking to bed these days. Brian Cassidy, definitely her partner Elliot Stabler, maybe Monique Jeffries, hell she's probably doing Munch too.
She'd heard the rumors. She was sure Elliot had too, but she would shrug them off with full confidence that no one knew what they were talking about. It was not like that with Elliot and she was realizing in that moment how much she prided herself on that.
After two years of working with Elliot, she was beginning to think she'd finally broken her track record of wanting men she couldn't have. Wanting men who could be her father. She respected Elliot. He shook her hand, and that cold gold band had been reassuring against her fingers. Elliot was firm in who he was. A man of faith, a marine, a husband, and a father. He didn't need a cheap affair to make him feel complete, not like the man who thought her sixteen-year-old self had breathed new life into him. A muse. She didn't want to be anyone's muse anymore. She was an officer of the law. Dignified and capable.
She fastened her slacks and brushed through her hair. She'd forgo makeup today. She grasped her holster, and her glock from her locker. She strapped them onto her body and instantly felt more complete. Her uniform of undesirability.
She glanced at her reflection in her mirror and couldn't help but grimace. She couldn't look at herself the same after that, how was Elliot supposed to? Elliot, who was innocently making coffee. She hoped he was suffering just as much as she was. What was wrong with her? Elliot had probably long-since moved on. He was probably on to thinking about how he needed to mow the lawn this weekend and how Kathleen was going to need braces soon. At least that's what she hoped Elliot was thinking about, that was what she needed to believe he was thinking about. Saint Elliot.
But she knew the truth. She knew that Elliot had a streak of rage that would make all the saints shake in their boots. He tried so hard to hide it with that family-man demeanor, but she could see it in the way his jaw would flutter, and his eyes would darken. He would clench those fists of his so hard that the veins on his forearms would ripple. She knew he was a ticking time bomb, and it scared her every day. She kept watchful eyes on him, taking his temperature with a glance, making sure he wasn't close to boiling. Elliot was a damn good detective, but she could foresee his downfall, and it kept her awake at night. She hoped in ten years time she would still be hitting the streets with him and not talking to him through a Rikers phone with a pane of glass between them.
She pushed the thought far away. It would never happen, and if it did, it would be because he was defending the defenseless.
God, how could she justify the worst parts of him? Because she could see the best parts. Then she thought about the worst parts of herself and how he was downstairs justifying them with a pot of coffee that neither of them wanted to drink.
What were the worst parts of her? All of her? That's surely what her mother thought on most days. Then she remembered she had dinner plans with Serena Benson that evening. It had been a few months since she'd laid eyes on her mother, not long enough.
She swallowed as she shut the locker and contemplated what she was going to say. With any luck Munch got antsy at home and decided to come in and talk their ears off about the Kennedy assassination. That would be a welcome distraction on this particular morning.
Jacqueline Kennedy, that's who her fiancé hadtold her she reminded him of- so classy and mature for just sixteen.
She wondered what Elliot thought she looked like. His Better Homes and Gardens family, full of towheaded children, definitely contrasted from her.
While most girls waited to come into their looks and gained confidence as they grew into them, Olivia lived each year in fear, knowing that with each passing calendar, her face would become more unlovable to her mother.
Poor Serena Benson. Raising a daughter with dark eyes, dark hair, and sad features that made her look like a classy widow. Sometimes Olivia wished she looked like Kathy Stabler. Maybe that would make her easier to stomach, all blonde and light like the simpler things in life.
Her skin was burning again. She decided to stop pondering things she had no business thinking about. She needed to bite the bullet and go face him.
Mad at him. That's how she was going to play this. If she had to feel like a sinner than so should he. Good Catholic Boy. Maybe he'd buy her actual coffee tomorrow to win back her allegiance. Not that he'd actually lost it.
Get a grip Olivia.
The 1-6th Precinct Squad-Room / 7:05 a.m.
Her boots, which put her almost at eye level with Elliot, slammed against the wooden staircase, and she took a little pride in making sure her steps sounded extra irritated. As she descended the last step, she scanned the squad room and came to the conclusion that they were alone.
His eyes lifted from the coffee pot, and she could see his Adam's apple bobbing in his throat, like he was holding back the stale donut she knew he consumed to pass the time before she came down.
"Olivia…" he began, and she could tell from just the sound of her name that he hadn't been thinking about braces or the lawn mower. She raised her hand in a stop motion, and his eyes latched on to her raised hand like they had latched onto her exposed breasts just minutes beforehand.
What did that song say? In a New York minute everything can change? Well fuck Don Henley, and fuck Don Cragen for partnering her with Elliot Stabler. At least Munch would have joked this situation away if he had been her partner.
"I don't want to hear whatever it is you might say," she said as she grasped the green coffee mug from his offering hand. He had let her borrow the mug on one of the first all-nighter cases they had worked together.
"I don't drink coffee" she told him on her first day. He scoffed at her and told her to wait until their first stakeout or case with a dwindling statute of limitations. She didn't listen to his warning and never brought a mug of her own into the office. She had very few personal belongings on her desk- A picture of her mother that reminded her why she did the job and some folded fortune cookie slips. Chinese take-out was the most sentiment she was capable of. Quick and easy.
"Take my extra mug; you're gonna need it," he said as he watched her eyes droop over their dead leads. She accepted the mug and the department coffee and hadn't been able to quit either since.
The first time she washed the mug she noticed the initials carved into the clay of the ceramic. K.S. Kathy Stabler or Kathleen Stabler? One of them had made it in a ceramics class. She felt like her lips never should have touched the rim of that mug, but it had been a year and a half, and Elliot had yet to ask for it back.
It almost felt like hers now.
"I was going to say I'm sorry," he said as his eyes dropped to the hot coffee that she was holding between them.
"Sorry for what?" she challenged with a scathing voice and a raised eyebrow. He knew for what. Turn Around. He swallowed, and she could see his brain searching for a suitable answer.
"Interrupting," he landed on with a pointed look directly to her eyes.
"Interrupting!" Munch's voice said as he took long strides from the door to the coffee stand. Munch's entrance jolted Olivia from their staring match, and she felt like she had just dropped all her cards on the table. Olivia folds.
Elliot's Adam's apple bobbed again.
"What are you two early birds doing?" Munch asked in a voice much too enthusiastic for 7:05 in the morning. Elliot's mouth began to open, but in usual Munch fashion, it became apparent that he wasn't actually looking for an answer.
"Slaves to Capitalism!" he said as he shook his head and poured himself coffee between them. Olivia caught Elliot's eye roll and smirked as her eyes did the same. That was the biggest olive branch she would be extending all day.
Thank God for John Munch; he'd saved them both.