Chapter 6

"What are you going to do?"

Elliot looked up towards the heavens (or if one was going to be literal, the roof of the sedan) seeking some sort of divine intervention so that he didn't have to find an answer to her question. Leave it to Olivia Benson, possessor of more intuition than the entire American Psychiatric Association, to ask the one question he didn't have clear answer to. This had to be the reason that people strove to keep their personal and professional lives separate-so that they didn't end up having beautiful best friends that asked ridiculously complex questions in ridiculously short sentences.

"I'm not transferring" he finally replied.

He looked over at her as she smirked, the expression no quite reaching her eyes. "Well I took that for granted" she quipped.

"Be relieved. Who else would put up with you?" He echoed her words from almost a year earlier. He was joking, not something that he did often anymore, but he knew she would get it. At this point either one of them would have a hell of a hard time working consistently with anyone else. Plus he was hoping his comment would be enough to get her off the subject. Olivia could be relentless when she was interrogating someone, and he did not want her turning that particular skill on him. He didn't know what he was going to do, but if she kept asking he would start blurting out truths he hadn't even considered yet.

"Elliot?" she said.

"I don't know Liv" he said, relieved to see that they were pulling into the parking lot next to the rectangular concrete building that held the M.E.'s offices and labs. He hated admitting that he didn't know what to do. Indecisiveness was not a good quality for a cop. He unbuckled his seatbelt and reached for the door handle. He could feel Olivia's eyes on him as he exited the car, her gaze keeping him warm even as the brisk December air hit his face and hands. He knew exactly what her eyes were doing right now. They were following him, even as she walked side by side with him. They were showing concern, worry, sympathy, and a bit of annoyance. Elliot and Olivia opened the doors and stepped inside the building, their feet striking the ground at the same time so that if anyone was listening, they would think that only one person had entered the building. Some things never change, he thought. No matter how awkward things got between them, physically they were still in sync. He always knew where she was in that way.

"About time you two got here" Melinda Warner commented as she looked up from a body.

"That our girl?" Liv said.

"Yeah. Danielle Shuhgnan. Twenty two years old, student at Hudson. Her parents had her fingerprinted as a child, and I used dental records to backstop the I.D." Warner continued "I did find something anomalous." Elliot waited for Melinda to continue. He had had to fight to keep from flinching when he heard the girl was from Hudson. He hated when a crime had any connection to his kids, and the fact that this girl was blonde and went to Hudson like Maureen made him-

"Elliot" Olivia said. He looked over at her. He could see that she was looking straight into his eyes and he once again had the oddest sensation that she was dredging something up from their depths. He almost expected her to start talking, but she just held his gaze. All of the sudden, he felt connected. It was like she was thinking the exact same thoughts as him, of Hudson and blonde hair and Maureen and he could see her willing him to push it down and focus on the case, to save the anger and panic for later. And he did.

"Could you repeat that?" He asked Melinda

"Sure", she said, her mouth twitching slightly with bemused sarcasm. "The marks on her legs were made with a regular pocket knife, but the ones on her chest with something curved and made of copper".

"How'd you get that?" Olivia asked.

Melinda walked over to the wall and flipped a switch so that two x-rays were illuminated. "See these marks on the ribs? Whoever killed this girl stabbed her so hard that he left distinct marks on the number two and three ribs, and top with a convex edge and the bottom with a concave edge. The weapon left copper trace in the bones."

"So what weapon has a large steeply curved blade and is made of copper?" Elliot asked.

"I don't know. I've got some of the interns matching weapons right now, and I ran the copper samples over to particulates to have them dated. I'll call you as soon as I've got something" Melinda said

"Alright, thanks" Olivia smiled as she left. Elliot followed her out, and they started the familiar walk down the corridor from Autopsy One to the building entrance.

"Ok" she said ten seconds later. Elliot braced himself. He should have known that she had let there previous conversation go too easily. "So we have a young girl from Hudson stabbed to death with some sort of curved copper dagger, than dumped nearly 30 blocks from the campus. What else?"

Elliot blinked. He hadn't expected that. It took him a moment to collect himself. "Not much else. Let's go notify the parents, maybe they can give us something." They got into the car and right away he could feel her eyes on him again. He was about to tell her he was ok when his phone rang. "Stabler" he answered. He heard his wife's voice on the other lined and almost groaned aloud. It had only been three hours since her call this morning. She hadn't had anything to say to him for two and a half years but today she couldn't leave him alone to do his job. The thought immediately made him burn with guilt. He should be happy to hear his wife's voice. It should brighten his day to have contact with her. But it didn't. It never had, really. He has always felt highly annoyed when she showed up at his work, inserting herself into a world she would never understand and didn't belong in. He had always felt like she was smothering him, insisting on reminding him of her presence. And when he had bee assigned Liv as a partner, it had gotten worse. Kathy understood (as much as she could) the responsibility that any partners had to another, that infamous "blue line". And so she had rarely vocalized anything that even remotely sounded like jealousy. But he had known she was jealous-she came down to the precinct more frequently to bring him dinner and made more of an effort to get to know his other coworkers. And she always kissed him before she left, which was odd because she had always been shy about public affection. Behind his thoughts, he could hear his wife still on the phone, asking if he wanted to grab a late lunch. "Kath" he said, trying to keep the aggravation out of his voice, "I can't. I have to go tell a twenty year old girl's parents that she's dead. I'll see you later". Damn, he thought as he hung up. Why had he made the comment about the unpleasantness he was about to deal with? He never talked about his cases with his family unless it was absolutely necessary, like that thing with the drinking parties and Kathleen last year. But this time he hadn't used a case to scare his kids into behaving. He had used it on the offense, as a weapon.

He could feel Olivia looking at him again. She had looked away, out the window while he was on the phone. This time he definitely wasn't going to look at her. He could feel the disapproval radiating out of her every pore, and for once he knew he deserved it. Usually when she looked at him like that it was during a case when they where having a disagreement. He was on solid ground then. But this, when he totally deserved her disapproval-this was something he did not know how to handle with. He reached his eyes briefly back towards the top of the sedan to once again ask god to intervene and make her hold her tongue until they arrived at the vic's parents house.