Chapter 4
Elliot waited impatiently for his partner to show up at the scene. Cragen had told him that she was already at the station when the call came in, whereas Elliot had been enroute and had simply needed to do a little creative navigating to get to the scene quickly. He had already interviewed most of the neighbors, but wanted to wait for Olivia before questioning the person who found the body.
The person who had found the body was a little girl, a child. She was eight years old and had been on her way to school when she had decided to take a short cut through an alley that would get her to school about five minutes faster. Unfortunately, halfway down the no longer innocent shortcut was the body of a young woman in her twenties who had been mutilated and dumped there, sans any clothing. Elliot knew that he should interview the child quickly so that she could go home and be with her parents-he knew she needed to go home where she felt safe. However, he could already feel the tell tale signs of righteous rage beginning to build in his heart. That someone had not only murdered a young woman but forever stolen the innocent childhood from this young girl by subjecting her far too early to the realities and cruelties of the world was enough to make him want to hunt down the bastard and help him have a few "accidents" on his way to the tombs. He needed Olivia's steadiness, compassion, and confidence to keep him steady and keep the aggression in his eyes from reaching the eyes of the child.
He stood there in the chilly December air, trying to tamp down his anger and frustration enough to be able to at least ask the easy, basic questions from the child. He tried thinking of his family, sure that those images would ease the strain on his face and turn his eyes back from the dark, almost navy color (the color he knew they always took when he was experiencing particularly strong emotions) to a light, clearer blue. However, the only images that came to him were ones of his Dickie and Lizzy looking at him unsurely, Maureen looking at him with pity, Kathleen looking at him with a vague disdain, Kathy looking at him much the same as she had in the years immediately before the separation, and Olivia looking at him with eyes so wide they popped out of her skull. His new son didn't even look at him in a settling way. Instead, he looked at him wonderingly. Elliot sighed, feeling the warm air rush out of his lungs and the cold air fight to get in. Elliot Jr was just another person he was going to have to one day explain things too. Which meant that sooner or later he was going to have to figure out-
"El" he felt a sense of warmth and security rush through him as he heard Olivia walk up beside him.
"I interviewed our witness" she said, leaving him feel vaguely guilty that he had been so lost in his head that he hadn't even noticed that she had arrived. Typical Olivia. Arrive, asses the situation completely, and take charge. She would have seen right away that he hadn't yet interviewed the girl, seen her wide green eyes, trembling shoulder, and curly hair that had gone limp with the days early horrors. She would have seen Elliot facing the alley, fighting his emotions down to a point where he could be gentle with the child. And so without a word, she had stepped in and had his back, giving over all of herself to save both the little girl and him. It was what she did, why she made such a wonderful other half for him.
"She's going to be ok Elliot" Olivia said, breaking into his thoughts again. "Her parents are good people; They are going to get her into therapy and give her all the time she needs to deal with this".
"Warner said the woman was murdered somewhere else, then dumped here. Time of death about 12 hours ago. No one the Unis interviewed saw the body being dumped or recognized her" Elliot said, the tightness in his chest easing with every word she spoke. "We won't have much to go on until we get an i.d."
"Alright," she said, continuing to use the same voice she always used she was trying to talk him down. It was soothing, much like the one she used when talking to victims, but their was a different element in it that he could never quite identify. Of course, since he was usually seething internally when she used it, he never had the chance to examine it until he replayed it in his head. "I'll meet you back at the squad" she finished, and walked away.
All of the sudden, the ballast that had been pushing its way back into him rushed out. The frustration and frenetic anger came back, and he strode to his car, grabbing the door handle so quickly that the hinges cracked in protest as he opened the door and the slammed it shut again. He turned the ignition, rotating his wrist with much more force than necessary. As he pulled out onto the road and began the drive back to his squadroom, he thought impatiently about being able to sit across his desk from Olivia and once again feel her calm balance him out. And it occurred to him that even though she was likely going to arrive before him, he still felt like he was the one waiting for her.