"Excuse me? Did I just hear that properly?" Captain Cragen was standing

in the doorway to the locker room and had obviously heard the last part of

the conversation. The two detectives froze, neither saying another word.

Slap Chapter 8

"Tutuola, you need to get back downstairs and meet with your perp and his lawyer. Then you need to meet me in my office. Detective Stabler, my office NOW." He turned briskly on his heel and walked out of the room.

Fin gave Elliot one last glare before stomping down the steps. Elliot watched him go. He yelled obscenities to no one in particular and punched his already dented locker once more for good measure.

In his dimly lit office Cragen sat behind his desk. He rarely felt the need to drink anymore, he'd developed many different ways of coping that didn't involve vodka, but right now he would have paid a LOT of money to be able to let the alcohol dull his senses. He saw Elliot outside his door and waved him in without a word. The detective walked him and sat down in the wooden chair, wordless.

"What the hell, Stabler." It was a comment as much as a question. "What am I supposed to do now? Shit, Elliot. You HIT her?"

"No, I mean, yes, but..." His Captain's eyebrows shot up at the 'but'.

"But? But? Elliot, we both no there can be no 'but' in a case like this.

Elliot sighed. '"I know." He continue to tell the entire story over to his captain, including the words, the slap, the look Olivia had given him and how she had failed to react.

"When was this?" Cragen asked.

"About a month ago."

"The day she gave me that ultimatum." It wasn't really a question.

"Yeah."

"Have you talked to her?"

"Barely."

"I don't know what'g going to happen to you here, but you need to fix this. With her. I don't know how you are going to, but you need to. If you don't, you both will regret it. Now get out of my sight. I don't know what I'm going to do with this. I'm let you know in the morning."

Elliot still sat, unmoving in the chair.

"Go, Elliot. Now!"

He left work and drove slowly home, taking the backroads instead of the highway. Reaching his home just before 11pm. His eye was swollen and bruised. He thought about what he was going to tell Kathy. He finally settled on the truth. It was a relief.

Cragen spent all night in his office, mulling over his decision, catching a few hours sleep on his cot. He'd talked with Fin at one point, discovered how deep the rift between his remaining detectives went. It was not as deep as he had originally thought. Turns out Tutuola's biggest issue was Benson's issue. If she could deal with Stabler, so could Fin. As soon as the hour was reasonable, he called Olivia and told her he was on his way over.

He knocked on the door and she had opened it promptly, mug of coffee in hand. She was wearing lounge pants and a grey t-shirt layered over a long sleeved white one, obviously appreciating a rare morning off.

"It's been less than 24 hours, Captain. You miss me that much?" she tried to joke, knowing that wasn't why he was there. He didn't say anything and she said "Somehow I don't think you are here about a case."

"I had a talk with Elliot last night," he said out of the blue. She turned to look at her old boss.

"He's no longer my partner, Captain. He is no longer my responsibility or my problem."

"But he is still your friend?" he countered. She pursed her lips but didn't reply. "Olivia, he told me he hit you?" He said it as if it was a question, as if he needed her confirmation, which he didn't, he had known it was the truth.

Olivia set down her coffee in order to use her hands when she talked. "Shit, Don, how much longer is this going to follow me? I did everything I could, I made him go to effing therapy, and I am still getting harassed about this. Fin. You! I officially transferred, what more do I need to do?"

"Olivia." He paused, not sure how to say what he wanted to say. She was right, he was no longer her boss, but he was Elliot's, and complicated things. "Olivia. I am no longer your commanding officer, but I am still your friend. What happened?"

She picked up her coffee and took a long drink, the strong drink burning her throat. It was a welcome feeling compared the words she was about to say.

"We...argued." Cragen looked at her at that and started to say something but she stopped him. "We argued and he said some things that he intended to hurt me and they did, and I knew that was why he was doing it. I slapped him, then he slapped me back, twice. He didn't hurt me, not really, but he wasn't in his right mind, Cap. He wasn't in control. I couldn't...I can't...We're too far gone. The problem Cap, is not the things he said, or the things he did. The problem is with me. The problem is that I stopped being able to differentiate myself. I believed him, Don! I know it's not true, I know all of that, but that shrink was right, all those years ago. We were too close. I can't separate myself from him, and I couldn't separate myself from the words that he said. We've been on borrowed time, Cap. You knew that long before we did."

He'd left her apartment with a heavy heart, both because of what he knew she was going through and because of his own failure to see what was happening, for his own failure to act before it was too late. He'd failed to act and it had cost him a detective and a friend. He just had to hope he wouldn't lose one or more others.

Later that morning he'd pulled Stabler into his office, telling him he was making official the requirement for seeing a shrink.

"I have in front of me," he gestured to a form, filled out in triplicate, "an Incident Report Form, filled out complete, signed and dated, with all the details." He handed it to the detective, who read it through, pale. It was an amazingly accurate description of what had happened. Olivia still swore that the cast was from falling in the park. He didn't believe her but she was sticking by that story. The rest was true, he'd run it by her and she agreed with what he had written. It outlined exactly what had happened, and the disciplinary actions taken, which included mandated psychiatric sessions for Stabler and two days of desk duty for both officers, which had actually occurred, though incidentally. It also was an official mark on the record of the offending officer. Something that would follow him the rest of his career, mar his arrests and his ability to be promoted.

Cragen looked at the detective closely, watching him read the form, gauging his reaction. He had been different in the past month; being forced into therapy and then losing his partner of 10 years had hit him hard. The shiner he gotten from Fin last night wasn't helping his appearance.

As he finished and passed the form back, he looked sharply at his Captain but didn't say anything.

Cragen spoke "I thought about writing it off, or writing it as a momentary loss of common sense, a heat of the moment argument."

"But you didn't." The first words Elliot spoke were, yet still sounded sad, as if he was a man who knew, without a doubt, that he had lost everything.

"No, I didn't. Because it wouldn't be true. You hitting Olivia was very different than Fin hitting you and you know it." Elliot sat, unmoved. "You didn't take a swing at your partner because you were angry with her. You slapped her because you were angry with yourself and you were out of control and THAT is unacceptable." He looked for a reaction from the younger detective and didn't get one. "Olivia saved your ass, and I think you know that. She told me you guys had been on borrowed time. Well, now she's gone and you are here on your own, on borrowed time."

He went on, "I am putting this form in my desk, locked. The minute you screw up, the minute I hear from Huang you are avoiding him, the minute Olivia asks me to, it comes out of my desk and into your file, fully dated and in the appropriate chronological order. Understand?"

Over the next week, Olivia settled in to her new precinct. The work wasn't too different from what she was used to, the pace was a little less intense and the lack of children was a welcome relief. She'd been partnered up with an experienced detective named Gary Olvetti. He was in his mid –fifties she figured, a cop's cop, with a handle brush mustache and totally white hair. They got along fine so far. He didn't ask too many personal questions, and the ones that that he did ask were easy to deflect. He was calm and collected, rarely raised his voice even with the suspects, easy to work with. They were still working out the bugs of a new partnership, but she thought it was going to work out fine. He was certainly less complicated and far less work than Elliot Stabler. She hadn't spoken with Elliot since the night on her stoop. Fin had called her and told her about what had happened later that night at the precinct. She knew she needed to call him soon or it would be too late, it would be even more awkward and difficult to salvage whatever relationship they had left.

Olvetti had asked where she'd come from and she'd answered the 1-6, knowing that any decent detective would have already have looked up his new partner in the system, asking was just polite. "Ah, the 1-6. Dilapidated old building over there, isn't it? You'll find we have some of the finer upgrades here. Notice our phones were made sometime after 1983…" He went on without a pause. "An old buddy of mine works out of the 1-6, we used to be partners back in the day, before his conspiracy theories turned my hair white." He ran his hand over his white hair. "John Munch, you know him?"

"Yeah," Olivia said. "You know Munch?"

"Yeah, for years. He still driving everyone nuts with his wild hypotheses?"

"Every chance he gets." She replied with a smile.

"Good to know he hasn't changed," he said, making a mental note to make sure he met John for a drink soon to find out the digs on his new partner.

The Friday of her second week she and Olvetti were leaving the courthouse, walking down the steps and chatting with their ADA, a man in his mid-thirties. "Hey," Olvetti said to her, "You wanna hotdog? My treat." He gestured toward the stand on the street corner.

"Yeah, sure," she said. Olvetti looked at the lawyer Mark Rufford, who shook his head. Olvetti continued down the steps, then stopped after 4 or 5 and looked back

at Olivia.

"Whaddyu like on it?" he asked in a thick Brooklyn accent.

"Mustard, no relish. And a Diet Coke," she replied. He nodded and headed towards the street vendor. Olivia looked back at Rufford and shook her head. "Breaking in a new partner is almost as much work as breaking in a new boyfriend."

"Tell me about it," the lawyer replied and winked at her. "You do that often? Break in new boyfriends?" Her eyebrows shot up, 'was he flirting with her?'

"Ah, no," she said, giving him the back off signal.

He smiled at her. "My last boyfriend never did figure out how I liked my coffee, finally had to cut him loose," he said with a smirk.

'Ah,' she thought. 'So that's how it was.' She smiled back and said with all seriousness "Coffee is incredibly important, I understand."

"Allright, I've gotta lunch meeting. Talk to you later, Detective." He nodded at her and headed down the steps. As she watched him go, she heard a yell from behind her.

"Benson!"

She looked back and saw Casey Novak hurrying down the steps towards her. She smiled and turned to hug the woman who had become more friend and less coworker in the past two weeks. She didn't notice her partner's head jump up in alert after hearing her name yelled, his hand go immediately to his weapon. She also didn't notice the man standing in front of her partner, whose head snapped up, eye's peeled towards the steps, hand also trained on his weapon.

On the steps, she gave Casey a squeeze and then stepped back, catching the eye of her partner and letting him know silently everything was fine. She noticed the familiar form behind him and quickly turned back towards Casey. She looked at her friend with wide eyes.

"That your new partner?" Casey asked.

"Yeah," Olivia said simply

"You see who is standing right next to him?" Casey asked, immediately understanding the look Olivia was giving her.

"Yeah, I'm waiting to see what's going to happen," she said.

"Maybe nothing, they don't know each other…" Casey said.

"No," Olivia replied. "Elliot will be wearing his badge and Olvetti is incapable of running into any NYPD officer without shooting the shit with him. They'll talk."

Casey tilted her head, considering this. "How's it going with him?"

Olivia thought for a moment. "Good. He's a good man, a good cop. As far as I can tell he wears the same blue shirt and brown pants to work every day. He can't understand why I don't wear the same thing everyday. He makes fun of my clothes, I make fun of his mustache. So far it's working."

"But he's not Elliot." Casey said it bluntly, pointing out what she had left out.

"No. Thank god for that," she replied.

They chatted for a short while, catching up on things, while Olivia had one eye on the situation down on the sidewalk. "I should probably head down there before things get even more awkward," she said. Casey nodded and joined her down the steps.

Down at the hotdog stand, Elliot had just given his order when he'd heard Casey yell Benson's name. His head had swung up, hand trained on his weapon before he'd recognized her voice and then relaxed when he saw the red-haired ADA on the steps. He hadn't expected the man next to him to do the same. He saw the older man eyeball the situation on the steps and then turn back to the vendor. Olivia had looked up at them, and while he wasn't sure she'd seen him, he knew Olivia, knew her powers of observation, and he knew she knew he was there. He turned to look at the man beside him while he waited for his dog.

He shifted his badge over a little to allow the man to see it and casually said "Hey, how's it goin?"

Olvetti nodded back "So far, so good."

'Brooklyn,' Elliot thought, born and bred. Olvetti caught sight of the badge hanging from the chain on Elliot's neck.

"Hey, NYPD?" he asked. He stuck out his hand. "Detective Gary Olvetti, the 0-9."

"Hey, good to meet you, Detective. Detective Stabler." He gestured with his head towards the steps where Olivia and Casey were still chatting. "That your partner?"

Olvetti narrowed his eyes, noticing the ring on Elliot's left hand. "A married man like you interested in the pretty lady cop, Detective?" he asked suspiciously.

Elliot lifted up his hands as if in surrender, "Hey, no worries." He stuck out his hand towards Olvetti, "Elliot Stabler, the 1-6." Elliot saw the light go on in Olvetti's eyes.

"Ah, the 1-6. So you know my partner up there then?"

"Benson. Ah, yeah. She's one of the good ones," Elliot said simply. He left out the complicated history the two of them shared.

"She's a complicated woman, that one," Olvetti replied.

"The good ones always are. So how's is going for you guys at the 0-9? She settling in okay?"

"Sure…so far, so good."

"Good." He paused as he took his dog from the vendor and then waited as Olvetti placed his order, thinking in his head, 'mustard, no relish…and a Diet Coke.'

"She eating okay?"

"Who, Benson? Sure, far as I know." Olvetti looked at the guy he had just met wondering exactly what kind of relationship this guy had with his new partner. He shrugged inwardly and figured it wasn't the first heterosexual partnership to go bad because of jealousy or sexual tension.

The vendor handed Olvetti his hotdogs and sodas. Olvetti turned to Elliot and nodded, his hands full.

Elliot looked back at Casey and Olivia, now headed towards them. He looked over at Olvetti and said before the women were in earshot, "You look after

her, understand? I owe her everything." Olvetti looked back at him and nodded, sharing an understanding that experienced cops had.

Olvetti held out the hotdogs towards Olivia as she approached and she took the one intended for her. "I see you two have met." She said with a smile at the two men. "Hey, Liv." Elliot said, almost sheepishly. "How are you?"

"I'm good, Elliot. You?" she said, trying not to make it sound awkward.

"Good, good," he replied.

"Gary, this is Casey Novak, ADA. Casey, this is my partner, Gary Olvetti." Casey reached out to shake his hand. He stashed a soda can under his arm and managed a shake.

In the pause after the introductions, Elliot said "I've gotten run back to court. It was good seeing you, Benson. Nice to meet you, Olvetti. Casey, I'll talk to you later about the Morris case." He gave them all a nod and jogged up the steps.

Olivia tried to fill the silence that followed "Casey was, is, the ADA over at SVU."

"Ah, so you must know my partner pretty well then, "Olvetti replied, taking a bit of his hotdog.

"Something like that," Casey replied. "She bust any balls yet?"

"A few," Olvetti replied with a grin.

Casey shot back "Cops or perps?"

Olvetti snorted with his mouth full. "A few of each."

"I expected no less," Casey said. "Whose your new ADA over at Homicide since Hammond left?" she asked.

"Ah, Rufford, Mark," Olivia replied between sips of her soda. "What do you know about him?"

"I don't know him, but I've seen him around, hard not to, you know?" She gave Olivia a look.

The detective smiled as she swallowed, "Yeah, he plays for the other team, Case."

"Damn," the red head said sheepishly. "What a shame. Well, by reputation he's a good prosecutor. Not particularly creative, but very good at what he does. "

"I can work with that," Olivia replied, taking another bite.

Casey looked at her friend, she didn't look like she had lost any more weight in the past two weeks, but she was still very skinny. She asked

"You eating okay, Liv?"

"Causpha" Olivia replied, exasperated, with her mouth full of hotdog. She gestured wildly to her mouth, as if to say 'obviously I am eating. Back off.'

"Okay, okay," the red head back-peddled. "Just checking. I'm sure there is some fire I have to put out in the office, I'm gonna grab a sandwich and head back. Nice to meet you, Detective," she said towards Olvetti.

Olivia swallowed the last of her hotdog and said to her partner, "Let's head back?" He still had 2/3 of his second hotdog left. He dug into his pocket and tossed her the keys as they headed towards their car.

In the car on the way back to the station, Olvetti polished off his lunch. "So, this Stabler seems like a good guy."

Olivia didn't reply right away. One of Olvetti's more annoying habits was his inability to sit in silence.

"Yeah, he is," replying slowly and softly, trying to keep her voice even.

"How long have you known him?" he asked innocently.

"Ten years."

Olvetti thought about that a minute. There was more here than met the eye. "Ten years is a long time."

"Yeah."

"I got the impression from him that you saved his life recently. That why you transferred?"

Okay, now he was getting into territory she was not about to discuss.

"We were partners for 10 years, Gary. I saved his life numerous times and he did the same for me." She was giving him very loud, very clear signals that this conversation was over. He wasn't stupid, or oblivious. She also suspected he wasn't going to drop this quite yet.

Olvetti was an experienced detective; he noticed his partner's stiff shoulders and white knuckles on the steering wheel. "I'm sure," he said simply. Then he went on, "But I don't think that is what he was talking about."

She didn't reply. She'd be damned before she'd talk about this with him. That was the whole point of transferring, to leave all that behind. They sat in

silence the rest of the way back.

Later that night, Olvetti shrugged off his coat as he slipped onto a bar stool, his cuffs rubbing on the bar worn smooth with years of use. He looked over at his old friend and smiled. "Hey, Munch. How's it goin?"

The thin man looked over at him over his glasses and said, "The man still hasn't gotten me down." He reached over and shook the hand of his old friend.

"So how's Benson working out for you? She kick your fluffy white ass yet?" Munch asked as he sipped his beer.

"She's a tough cookie, that one. Can't seem to get a read on her. She seems like a good cop though, went toe to toe with Crenshaw. He's this uptight rookie we have, thinks he knows everything and that every rule in the book has to be followed to a tee. She went right for a jugular, took him down a peg or two. Won over a lot of hearts in the squad that day." He stopped and took a sip of his beer. "I just can't figure out what makes her tick, won't tell me anything remotely personal. All I've gotten out of her is that she grew up in the city and that she's not married. Never met a woman who doesn't like to talk about herself. Can't get Jules and my girls to quiet down…" He paused as he took a sip. "So what's her deal?" he asked his old friend.

Munch took another sip before he answered. "She's a good cop, a good detective. Loyal, straight-shooter. Always has been quiet about herself though. She'll tell you when she's ready, when she thinks she can trust you." He muttered under his breath "Lord knows that's gotten her into trouble before…" Olvetti couldn't quite hear what John had muttered, but he kind of got the gist.

"Hey," Munch asked. "You notice Benson eating? Like you grab food together and she eats it?"

"Yeah, she eats. Got Chinese before we left tonight, she ate half my eggrolls. Yesterday we had burgers and she ate half my fries after telling me she didn't want any. Last time I make that mistake," he grumbled.

John pursed his lips and nodded. 'Good,' he thought. At least that wasn't going to be a problem.

"Why, Munch? I gotta be worried about something? I don't got time to be worried about shit like that at work," Olvetti replied.

"No, don't be bothered by that. Olivia tends to internalize shit, when things get bad she doesn't eat or sleep. Just checking in…"

"Hmph. That a problem before she left? Something happened, didn't it? You don't just transfer after a decade for no reason." Olvetti looked at his old friend who was looking intently at his beer. John was thinking about what had gone down at the precinct the night Olivia had left.

"Nah, she's fine. She'll tell you if she wants you to know. No big deal, huh?" Munch said. He wasn't going to share what he knew, even if Olvetti was his old buddy, not if Olivia didn't want him to know.

"Allright then." He lifted his beer and tilted towards Munch in a silent toast.

Munch jumped back in "You really want to rattle her chain though, jiggle your leg really fast under your desk so it makes the whole floor shake. She hates that!"

Olvetti smiled. "Duly noted. What else?"

tbc