Disclaimer: I still don't own them, and after my luck on Christmas gifts from Dick, I doubt Valentine's Day from Dick will be any better.
A couple of weeks later, Olivia had successfully moved all her belongings into Elliot's apartment, and gotten her casts off. She received permission to return to work on desk duty and light tasks as long as she continued to attend physical therapy twice a week to build strength in her legs again. Although it was a painful process for her, for the next month, she happily complied to all of the doctor's orders in order to regain full control of her life.
"Morning El," she said as she walked into the precinct around 10, holding a slip of paper triumphantly in her hand.
"Nice of you to finally join us," Munch teased.
"Well...whats's the verdict?" Elliot said standing up from his chair and approaching her, knowing that she had been at a doctor's appointment for an evaluation of her progress during physical therapy.
"Clear!" she smiled, "I can officially return to full duty work tasks!"
"Great! Now you can do my paperwork, good to hear," Fin said with a laugh, pushing a stack of folders toward the edge of his desk in her direction, "Nah, really that's great, I know how much you hate to be on desk duty."
"I'm going to turn this into Cragen, and then we can hit the streets, and guys, Elliot and I are catching the first case, so don't even think of trying to get assigned to anything but paperwork today."
She approached his door and raised her hand to knock, before entering, when the door swung open, startling her.
"Cap, I..."
"Congrats, Olivia," he interrupted, "Your co-workers over there have loud mouths," he said smiling at her, taking the note out of her hand.
"Thanks."
"Okay, people. We're back at full force, so no more excuses for incomplete tasks. Now, I just got a call from downtown, looks like a rape/ homicide. Killer spray painted on the wall, "eye for an eye". That's all I've got on it right now. Stabler, Benson, get to the scene and see what you can find. Munch, Fin, get on that phrase and see if it matches any M.O.s. Lets get on this. We need leads three hours ago!"
Elliot and Olivia hopped in the sedan, Elliot electing to drive. He maneuvered the car out of the parking lot and onto the crowded street, as he looked over at her and smiled.
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
"No reason, just happy that you're back here beside me again."
"Trust me, not nearly as happy as I am, but if you keep looking at me instead of driving, we're going to... rear-end them", she screeched the last part, as Elliot slammed on the brakes, barely missing the bumper of the minivan in front of them.
"Sorry," He said, gripping the wheel firmly with two hands, heart racing from the sudden burst of energy.
"S'okay. Maybe I'll drive next time," she said half-jokingly as she released her white knuckled grasp on the seat.
The twosome maneuvered through the busy streets and approached the alley where the body was found. They hoped out of the car, falling into perfect sync with each other.
"Detective Stabler, this is Detective Benson, SVU, whadda' we got?" Elliot said flashing his badge to the uniformed officers and slipping under the crime scene tape, lifting it for Olivia to slide under as well.
"Well, don't know much. Owner of this restaurant," he said pointing to a little diner, "was taking out the trash this morning getting ready for the breakfast rush, and saw the graffiti on the alley side of his building. He was pissed, and went over to get a closer look at it, and found the vic. He went inside and called 911, but no actual witnesses. Now as for the vic, she appears to be 25-30 years old, Caucasian, no id. At some point during the attack, the killer actually cut one of her eyes out of her face. No one's found it, so we're assuming he took it with him," one uniformed officer explained.
"An eye for an eye...literally," Elliot said running his hand over his short, brown hair.
"Do we have any prints, DNA, hairs? Anything to go on?" Olivia said, looking closely at the body.
"No, looks like the perp wore gloves, and a condom, which he took with him."
"Ok, well get her transported to the M.E.'s office and we'll see what we can come up with there. El, you think we should join the breakfast rush and talk to our restaurant owner here?"
"Sounds good, do you think we could get the precinct to pay for our breakfast if its work related?"
"Elliot," Olivia gave him a death stare. She knew that he was just kidding and that it was easier to deal with the traumatic things they were exposed to every day if they had a good sense of humor, but sometimes, it felt irreverent to the victim to be making jokes right afterward.
After speaking to the diner owner and coming up with nothing more, they retreated to the sedan, Olivia electing to drive this time.
"What do you make of it, El? Obviously that message was meant for someone, but who, and why?"
"Yeah, I don't know. Maybe the victim did something to the killer, so he was repaying her."
"But, why spray paint the message? If she's dead, it doesn't serve any purpose."
"Maybe not to you and me, but maybe to the perp, it served a purpose. I mean the guy cut someone's eye out. He's clearly avenging something."
"Maybe, but why keep the eye?"
"Souvenir? We've seen lots of cases where the killer takes some memento when it's a personal case."
"I don't care how much I love or hate someone, I would never take their eye home with me and sit it on my bedside table or something. That's just screwed up."
"Well, that's good to know. If I piss you off, I'll get to keep both of my eyes. I knew there was a reason that I loved you, your undying compassion," Elliot said sarcastically, with a grin, "I wonder if Munch and Fin found anything yet?"
"Probably not. My bet is that Munch as turned this into some big conspiracy and has bothered Fin about it the entire time. You know, 'eye for an eye', Hammurabi's code, past governments coming to rule us all. Dinner says that he has at least some theory involving that."
"I'm not taking that bet, I know I'll lose."
Inside the precinct, they found Munch and Fin huddled around one computer researching the phrase diligently.
"So Munch, you got any good theories about this case?" Olivia said, winking at Elliot.
"No, we haven't been able to come up with anything. No M.O.s, nothing."
"So Hammurabi's code isn't coming back to control the government as we know it?"
"No, that's way too simple. If someone was going to overthrow the government, they wouldn't use a code that would not be able to be successfully infiltrated into today's modern society. In fact, I think..."
"Its ok Munch, I was just kidding," Elliot interrupted him.
"Don't give him any ideas, man," Fin replied shaking his head.
About that time, Cragen reappeared in the room. "Ok, so what did we find out so far?"
"Nothing on the M.O."
"Nothing on witnesses."
"Body's at the M.E.'s so hopefully we can get an ID soon."
"Ok," Cragen spoke again, "Fin, Munch, why don't you get a picture of the body and take it around to see if anyone knows her. Elliot, Olivia, you guys..."
"Excuse me. I'm sorry to interrupt, but I have a package for Olivia Benson," a man said, holding a small box.
"I'm Olivia Benson, but I wasn't expecting a package. That's weird," she said, taking the small box.
"Yeah, the whole thing was kinda weird. A man approached me as I was walking by and said he'd give me $50 if I'd deliver this up to you. He said he would do it himself, but that it was an early Valentine's Day gift from a secret admirer and he didn't want to give himself away yet."
"Thank you," she said putting the small package on her desk. The man turned and walked out of the precinct.
"You seeing someone else, Liv?" Elliot questioned, attempting to fain jealousy, "cause that's not from me."
With that everyone laughed, and Olivia decided to open the package. She tore the tape from across the top of the box and opened the flaps to reveal a small gladlock container.
"Oh my god!" she said putting it down on her desk, and stepping away from it.
"What the hell is that," Fin said getting eye level with the container, "it looks like an eyeball. Was there anything else in the box?"
Elliot picked up the cardboard box and pulled out a small typed note.
"An eye for an eye, Olivia. Hopefully you got my message that I wrote earlier. I had to rape and murder a girl just to ensure you got the message that I'm serious. You took something important from me, so now I will do the same to you. So far, two deaths rest on your shoulders. How many more, until I feel avenged? Enjoy your gift."
"You okay?" Munch questioned Olivia.
"Yeah. He said two deaths. The girl and who else? That girl died because of me."
"No, that girl died because we have a psycho on our hands," Cragen said, patting her on the shoulder, "what's everyone standing around for. I gave you all orders. Lets get on this."