Title: One Hell Of A Racket
Authors: Sara And Lizzie
Rating: T for language, mild sex
Disclaimer: It would be nice to own such a vast enterprise, but it's all Dick Wolf.
Summary: Through a series of what can only be described as unfortunate events, Elliot and Olivia become the prime suspects in the murder of several informants who are key witnesses against the mob and a Colombian drug cartel. They're forced into hiding until they can clear their names, the question of whether that is possible, as well as the fact they're endangering everyone around them.
Author's Note: We haven't written SVU fiction in 35 years, approximately. We've been really into Grey's, but this struck us hard. So this story, we're trying as hard as we can not to let our ideas run ahead of us. In English, we're taking it slow, drawing it out and trying to paint the full picture. That's why it feels likenothing is happening.
And as always….REVIEW.
East Side, Manhattan
7:34 AM
After all of these years living this life, Olivia had developed the uncanny ability to judge the kind of day she was going to have by the kind of morning she experienced. That particular morning, she woke up with an underlying sense of apprehension.
'Right' she thought. 'Meeting at the F.B.I headquarters at ten.' A smile graced her lips as she recalled last night's dinner with Elliot. It was embarrassing, really, the hope she took from such simple interaction.
'Never gonna happen, Liv.' She thought to herself. But it was useless. She hoped for it anyway. She peered out her window as she dressed. Blue skies and sun. Definitely a day to walk to work.
Half an hour later, she was getting suspicious. She had time to sip her coffee and stroll at a leisurely pace to the precinct. It seemed like an indication for a great day, but things never went this well.
"Sorry." Came a voice she recognized, as someone bumped into her. She looked at the offending blonde woman. "Olivia?"
"Kathy. Hi." Olivia said awkwardly. "What are you doing up here?"
"I transferred hospitals." Kathy replied with a swallow, hating how intimidated she was by Olivia. "Um, how's Elliot?" she asked, instantly regretting it. Olivia stiffened.
"As well as can be expected," Olivia replied, not bothering to hide the instinctive protectiveness she felt for him. "You haven't talked to him?" she asked.
"Not since he had the kids last weekend. Have you…seen a lot of him?"
"I'm his partner, Kathy."
'Right'. Kathy thought. That partner word again. It was always thrown in her face, supposed to cover all the sins between the two of them. "I know you think I'm the bad guy." Kathy said. "But you have no idea what it was like. You're the one he talks to. You couldn't know."
Olivia decided the implications of that statement were just too much to deal with. She gave a tight lipped smile. "I'll see you Kathy." She said, hastily walking away. She looked up in time to see a cloud slide in front of the sun.
Oh yeah. It was going to be a fantastic day.
"Cap!" Elliot called as he sauntered into the precinct and settled in at his desk. "Any idea what the F.B.I wants with us?"
Cragen furrowed his brow and shook his head. "I'm hardly privy to classified government information," he said. "But I did receive a call from our friends over at Police Plaza stressing the need for your cooperation."
"The brass are in on this?" Olivia piped up, sailing in the door and pulling out the chair at her own desk.
Elliot blinked at her, appreciatively taking in her windblown appearance. "Did you walk here?" he asked.
She nodded and reached into her large shoulder bag, producing a bag from the bakery near her apartment. Tossing it to Elliot, she warned him, "One of those is mine." He pulled out a muffin and tossed the bag back to her.
"Hey Stabler," Finn called. "Wanna switch partners?"
Elliot grinned across the desk at Olivia. "Not a chance."
F.B.I- Federal Plaza, Lower Manhattan
10:23 AM
"Detectives." Said the tall, brown haired man whose office they had just stepped into. "Thank you for waiting."
Olivia nodded, shooting a glance at Elliot, telling him with her eyes that now was not the time to do anything stupid. "The wait wasn't a problem," She said. "We're just confused why we're here."
"Well, let's start by saying that I'm Agent Diaz, Federal Bureau of Investigation."
Olivia smiled. "Detective Benson."
Elliot extended his hand. "Detective Stabler."
"Have a seat." Diaz said, seating himself behind his desk, and gesturing to the chairs in front of it. They sat in perfect synchronicity, both settling down into their chairs at the same time. "And, obviously, you have questions."
He cleared his throat. "What I'm about to tell you is not something you can take out of this room. Your captain will be briefed, but I'm afraid it's on a strictly need to know basis."
"Hm. We're need to know." Elliot said, letting a touch of sarcasm into his voice.
"It's because of your case. The Petrovsky case. The witnesses and interviews you made were conducted upon our informants."
"Informants?" Olivia asked, in a tone that conveyed she was hardly convinced by the story.
Diaz nodded solemnly. "You'll find many of the people around Petrovsky are in fact, our informants. You see detectives, Petrovsky is an influential mob boss. He's been in a turf war with the Italians and the Colombians for some time, and recently teamed up with the Colombians against the Italians." Diaz folded his hands on top of his desk and looked at them.
"I'll give it to you straight. People are getting killed left and right. Women are getting raped. Drugs are getting sold, and people are afraid. We're closing in on this thing before it escalates any further, and to do so, we've planted or bought a handful of informants in various places."
Olivia shook her head. "You can't ask us to drop this case. It's our jurisdiction."
Diaz frowned. "To go on with it…."
"Detective Diaz," Elliot said, "There's a twenty year old woman in a bed at Sacred Heart because Petrovsky raped her, beat her and left her lying in a gutter. She's looking to us for justice. What do we tell her?"
Diaz considered this, and stood. "Excuse me." He said, leaving the room. Olivia slumped in her seat and looked at Elliot. He raised his eyebrows back at her, indicating that he was as surprised as she was.
They sat in silence until Diaz opened the heavy mahogany door and sat back down at his desk. "You may continue with your investigation," he told them, "However, you may not question any of our informants. We will be in touch with you with a list of names."
And just like that, their meeting was over.
Olivia turned to Elliot as soon as they were strapped in a car and had started the slow crawl back uptown to the precinct. "What the hell was that?" she exploded.
"I don't know, Liv. I never expected he'd try to get us to close the case."
"This makes me uneasy." She commented after awhile.
"What about it?" he prodded, trying to get her to open up. It was something she rarely did. No, it wasn't. She opened up to him all the time. It was rare that she let him glimpse her vulnerable side. The side that wasn't invincible.
"Nothing. It's silly." She said, biting her lip. She didn't want him to feel like he had to protect her. "I bumped in to Kathy this morning." She said lightly.
Elliot tensed and turned his head away from the inching traffic to look at her. "Where?"
"On my way to work."
"And you couldn't tell me before?"
"Lot going on. She seems okay."
Elliot nodded. "Well I'm glad. That she's okay."
They rode in silence for a few more minutes, each of them lost in thought, each of them worried that this conversation would lead down that rode. Olivia's face betrayed no emotion. She had long since learned to hide her feelings where Elliot was concerned.
Elliot looked at her with envy. She was stoic. A blank slate. 'Tabula rasa'he mused, the little Latin that had stayed with him since high school flying through his head. He was the one who got angry. He snapped, yelled and hit things, but Liv was the strong one. The one in control.
The silence got to be too heavy, too much. Olivia looked over at him and grinned. "So how much did you want to take a shot at Diaz and his pretentious, need to know attitude?"