A/N: I know I always say this, but I apologize that it's taken me literally a year or more for the next update. I have been writing the whole time, but just lots of little snippets that didn't start pulling themselves together until today for some reason. But that means there's lots of delicious tidbits for those seasoned SVUers who really know their epis. XD I think this story is nearing it's end, with only one or perhaps two more chapters to go. Comment your suggestions! Actually just comment period, haha. I hope somebody's still following this story after my horrid absence. I do love you guys! Here we start in Liv's point of view, but end up in El's. Enjoy!
Olivia:
They sit in silence for a little while, just breathing in the stale air around them. It's not a peaceful moment, and not serene either, but there's certainly something to be said about being in a place that's still. Everything about the world – especially their section of it – is just go, go, go. The problem is most people never figure out that there's nowhere to actually go to. But she and Elliot are just standing there, overlooking the ledge beneath the window of her apartment living room. They're close to each other but nothing's touching, and yet still she can feel his fingers on her face and the want makes her ache.
"Why did you do it, Liv?" He asks, finally. "So many other people could've gone in there, why did it have to be you?"
She rubs her lips together, remembering. Her life before had made sense, there had been a reason before, she knows it. There had to have been. Then she sees the face before hers, and it all comes rushing back: searching those eyes with her own, looking for the truth and finding… the barren wasteland of brokenness, shattered by pain. She remembers the fire burning in her chest, the fire that had led her straight into Cragen's office as soon as Ashley went home. The hope, the desire, the need to change the world, even if for just this one young girl and her mother. "Because Ashley told me I couldn't do anything."
"And who on earth told you that you had to prove yourself to a kid?" Elliot questions, not in a sense of mockery, but of pure, honest-to-God disbelief.
How can she explain that she felt she owed it to the girl, for everything? Way back in the beginning, when Ashley first looked at her during the ride to the hospital, she was still just a case, then. There was nothing special about her. Young, yes, but they'd faced younger. There had always been a case worse than the one you were currently facing; there was hope in that. And if not, you took hope – as awful as it sounds – that this one wouldn't stay the worst. But then, then the tables turned, like they always do, somehow.
Unexpectedly, the girl fought back. She was pulling things off the shelves, the lifesaving materials crashing around the three of them. She was struggling so much her IV nearly came out. The EMT yelled at Olivia to grab the girl and make her stop, but the girl was fighting Olivia too. Olivia'd had to sit on her, grab the girl's hands together in one of her own and then hold her shoulders down with the other. Eventually sedated, the EMT looked at Olivia. I've never seen a rape victim attack a cop. She looked back to the girl, at the quiet, gentle face who was only moments before angry and frightened. Neither have I. She told the EMT.
Suddenly, she wasn't just a case anymore. She was Ashley, she was different. Olivia fought her hardest for that girl. And still, regardless of all of her attempts, Ashley had lost her mother anyway. "She needed something to hang onto. I couldn't leave her alone."
Elliot shakes his head. "Olivia, that's not your job! You're responsible for tracking down clues to catch the perp and bringing a solid case to the ADA. None of that includes putting yourself directly in the line of fire to get yourself attacked!" He looks at her sincerely, desperate to understand her motives and obviously angry at himself for letting her go in the first place. "You can't save everyone, Liv."
"No one else was gonna go," she murmurs, blinking up at him. "No one else was gonna stop him." A pause, "I had to do it. I just," this time an exasperated sigh. "I had to, El."
And if she looks back on everything she's done in this job, really on everything she's ever done in her life, that's been the reason. She felt she had to do so. As if that was why she had been brought into this world: to right the wrongs, to rescue those in desperation. There has to be a point when that's enough. There just has to be, because it's all she has. And she wonders – selfishly, and painfully admitting to herself and only her – if this is what happens: you give it all and try your hardest to save others because you can't save yourself.
Again, he breaks the silence first. "So…" and it's an open-ended statement if ever there was one.
"So what?"
"So what else?" When she still doesn't reply he clarifies again. "You've given me two things, and while granted two is plural, I highly doubt two encompasses everything." Then he watches her in exchange for a repeat of the question.
Instantly, images flash through her memory as visible and tangible as a movie. There is so much... the car crash, Cooper's suicide, the adoption rejection, prison, Kurt, Cecilia, the bomb, Picard, Asher, it's all jumbling up together. Too much has happened lately. A year is not meant to hold so much. She doesn't know where to start; she doesn't know what to tell him to explain all that she sees and feels. "There's so much I haven't told you," she says, sinking heavily onto the window ledge under the impossible weight of all those memories.
He looks down at her gently, but doesn't move to sit beside her. "Why?" His honest gaze holds her eyes, but she still doesn't know what to tell him so she blinks a few times before tearing herself away.
Another silence. If she had a nickel for every one of these she's experienced just these last few weeks, she'd probably be a millionaire. Sometimes she thinks the silences are the only real things in her life, and everything in between is just a masquerade to bide time until the next silence forces her back, back, back, back…
Something was wrong. They could hear the young man screaming. "Dad! Dad! Dad!" Not a "where are you?" kind of scream, but a "why did this happen to you? Don't be true, don't be hurt, don't be dead." kind of scream. Olivia and Elliot leaped from the car, their guns instantly in place as they ran towards the open door of the garage. And then a gun, no, two guns were at their faces. "Drop it!" The two men – one black, one white, both middle age – yelled. "Do it now!"
"NYPD!" Elliot answered back, Olivia slightly behind him and both groups still running towards each other.
"Drop the gun! Drop it! I said drop it!" The men insisted. They knew the other guys were Feds; they'd followed them there to pick up their perp – the son of the man in FBI custody.
"Hold on, we're cops!" She tried when she caught up, not understanding the issue.
"I don't give a damn." The white man snarled. He had the bigger gun, shot instead of hand. "Drop it or I'll drop you." He continued. This shouldn't be happening this way, she'd known. They were good cops; they could help. Why were the Feds messing with them instead of whatever the danger was that they'd been focusing on this whole time? FBI worked with local law enforcement all the time, so what the hell was the problem there? But you don't argue to that kind of force. Elliot lowered his gun at the exact same time and speed as she did, but she waited until he'd dropped his before letting go of hers, something in her still needing to have her partner's back.
"Both of you, on the ground. Move!" Still the white man, gun upraised. She looked to Elliot, but neither one could think of a way out. So this time she went first, going from a push-up stance to flat against the grass. Now, thinking back, she realizes with a start that it was the same position she'd landed in when Alex was shot, but she can't go there, she has to stay in this other memory.
"You too. On the ground." Elliot had yet to move. Once they were down though, they could see inside the garage and everything made sense. There was Gavin, their perp, crying as he sat clutching his father's dead and bloody body. They could see at least two other bodies in the same state, most likely FBI agents. "Get their guns and cuff them."
They'd just been trying to help, but now they looked like the best suspects. They'd gotten the address for the meet from Peter Snipes, the dead father. The FBI had no idea why they were there and no way to corroborate their story that they'd come only to pick up the son. For all those two men knew, Elliot and Olivia were the killers hoping to get a few more marks in. The guys were just doing their job. But they'd only been trying to do theirs, too.
Elliot looked at her in that unspoken language they had, and she knew. They were going to lock-up. They were going to be interrogated – separately – by the Feds. Their jackets were going to be pulled and their badges stripped and IAB was going to make a permanent home inside their asses. The next week or so was gonna be hell, and all for something that they had nothing to with. But his eyes locked with hers and she knew. He had her back and she had his. Even down on the ground with guns at their heads and dead bodies in front of them, it was them against the world. That was just the way it was always meant to be.
That wasn't the only time people had tried to get between them. Her mind goes forward, but only a little, not anywhere close to the present yet. In fact, she's completely forgotten that Elliot is standing next to her inside her apartment and that she was packing a suitcase to get out of town. Instead of thinking about all those implications, she's remembering something that happened during Casey's first year with them. It was open court, she was testifying a case – something she's done a hundred times without a hitch – and suddenly the other attorney called her a murderer. She'd been following a lead for a guy that kidnapped his victims, made them his bride and then kept them hidden for years until he got tired of them. As such, she'd been the first – and at that time only – cop at the site and the perp was dead. But she'd never thought anyone could accuse her of being the doer until she was pulled into Casey's office to try to clear things up after the ADA had called for an immediate recess.
"I can't believe that Granger's making me a suspect," Olivia spewed, incredulous.
"You went to the hotel alone." Casey iterated. "You were found with the body. He's trying to create reasonable doubt."
But none of those facts helped Olivia at all. "So what the hell do I do?"
"Fall on your sword." She said.
"Meaning what?" Olivia did not understand how any of this could've happened when she'd just been doing her job.
Casey turned to look at her for the first time since that mess at court, but didn't actually meet Olivia's eyes. "Well, you'll admit that you screwed up four years ago and that you went to the hotel room alone. Then you'll deny you murdered Gorman."
Again, no help whatsoever. "Casey," She didn't like being on this side of the equation. She was supposed to be putting on the guilt, not taking it. Only Casey interrupted her.
"I, I gotta talk to my boss. See if I can fix this mess." And Casey walked out of her own office, still without really looking at Olivia.
With a sigh, Olivia turned to Elliot as the door closed. She knew Casey would be able to figure it all out, but something was still bothering her. "She didn't even ask me if I did it."
"She can't." Elliot replied immediately, and then, catching the look on her face, further supported his statement. "Look, if she did, and you admitted killing Gorman, she couldn't put you on the stand without suborning perjury."
Olivia knew that, she just still didn't like it. She didn't belong there, inside that shadow of accusation and she couldn't prove that unless people wanted to know the truth. For Casey, yeah, she had her legal reasons, but that's only half of what's bothering Olivia. "You didn't ask me either." And somehow, before he even spoke she could hear the smile on his face without needing to look.
"I know you didn't." He said confidently, easily. Then he walked past her with a knowing grin. "You would've shot the bastard." And she smiled. It was them against the world again. Like it was meant to be.
But was it meant to be? And just like that, this time the world does come back, and everything's different yet nothing's changed. She's still sitting here on her damn windowsill pretending to live this life that's not a life, and this man that's her partner but not her partner – because he's so much more to her than that, something that not even the words best friend could truly encompass since they skipped pasted platonic and rocket-launched into complicated with Gitano – is still standing beside her pretending to be her partner, but a partner would not be here in her house like this, a partner would not still be there this very instant. A partner would not have stayed this long without her talking to him because it is now getting dark outside and surely they should be working, they should be doing something that does not have to do with her pretending to live this life that is not a life, so what the hell is Elliot doing here?
She goes to ask him just that, only he gets his question out first. "Just now, where were you?"
"What we used to be… who we used to be," she looks up at him with searching eyes. "When did we lose that?"
Elliot:
And he sits down beside her with a dense force, as if somebody had just thrown a forty pound bag on his shoulders. It hits him suddenly, this wave of recognition. He knows their relationship has shifted throughout the years, but he hasn't thought of it as lost. He is the strong papa, and she is the compassionate, protective mama. They are two halves of a whole person, a perfect partnership. Together they were unbreakable; this wall against evil in the world. He hasn't realized that anything was missing now that had been there before. But the way she says it makes the years and cases flash before his eyes, revealing a truth he's never seen before.
"Tatum and Becker?" he'd asked.
"Did you hear something Becker?" The male looked to his partner in a blatant ignorance of the interruption.
"Yeah, now that you mention it, I do. Sounds like something," she half-smiles "going right over your head."
It irritates him. "Look, pulling the case file, that was a boss-to-boss thing, that's not how my partner and I operate. But we're here now because we know that the important stuff is not in the file."
Tatum answers back quickly. "You're right. It's in our heads and we're just too lazy to go out, pick the guy up."
Something about his words, or maybe just his tone sends Benson off onto the edge. He watches her smash her fist into the cop's plate, right through his burger. "Look." She pauses, calming her tone. "I know that we're on your turf, and I would be prickly about it too. That's why I had every intention of coming in here and schmoozing and kissing a little ass. But we have got a ticking clock, do you understand?" Tatum sighs and she takes the moment to sit down before continuing. "Now my partner and I have been on this case for three days straight and we're too tired to get in a pissing match so I just need to know if you're going to help us or not."
Neither set of partners is sorry about their reaction, obviously, but the mutual understanding and inevitable respect go a long way.
"What do you want to know?" Tatum looks at her. That's when Elliot sits down too, getting himself on level with his partner.
"You interviewed over 200 people in the Weathers case. We don't have time to reinterview them all. Give us a shortcut." Olivia intercedes, handing the papers to the female partner. "Who'd you like?"
"Nobody good enough," she said.
But Olivia insists. "Okay, at this point, we'll take anyone."
Tatum now. "Just your creepy average guys who happened to be in the vicinity."
"Janitor at the school," Becker pulls a file out. "His name was Phil Dartman."
Olivia tests the perp's name inside her mouth as she flips through for a picture. "Did he have bad teeth?"
"No." Tatum shot in. "But the guy who lived down the street did. Clayton Mills."
Becker disagrees. "Naw, if you're looking for somebody with bad teeth my money's on this guy, Joe Hayes." Another file gets transferred. "He was dating the babysitter at the time. Did a stint in Attica. Assault." That was promising.
"Okay," Olivia muttered, gathering up all the papers they're brought and being careful to not mix in the ones the other team had just singled out for them.
"Good luck." Tatum shrugged, knowing luck was all they had.
What had separated the one pair of detectives from the other? Were Tatum and Becker the way he and Olivia were, or was it the other way around? Did it happen for that detective pair as it had for them? The boundaries had shifted, at some point in time, he's not exactly sure when. But before he knew it, they were raking each other around good-naturedly, drinking from each other's glass without even asking – heck he often finished her plate or the last bite of her hot dog (which she needed absolutely covered in relish) – and when they'd go out with the squad after a case they often ordered for each other. They match strides unconsciously, they read each other's body signals like it's their own personal language akin to the one his twins made up when they were little, and they have the good-cop/bad-cop routine down from any angle for any perp. Did Tatum and Becker blend together so seamlessly? How long had they been partners? Had they gone through the same things, pushed the same margins, rearranged the definitions of their partnership – relationship – as many times as Elliot and Olivia had, put their partner before a victim? Or were they a singularity? And if so, what did that mean? What did anything mean.
Like the time he'd found her outside of his house when he returned from the store, and with one look at her, he'd known exactly what she was thinking."Liv, you've gotta let it go." She nodded, but he knew she wouldn't. "You put a rapist on trial. You did your job."
"I think I made it worse," she argued. This was something that he needed to work through with her, so he put down the grocery bags he was holding and sat on the stoop beside her.
"You know that's not true."
Still, she fought him. "I made Carrie relive the worst thing that's ever happened to her." A pause as she contemplated the extent of possible damage. "I screwed any number of victims who might have sought counseling from Bethany Taylor. And a few less rapes might be reported because of it."
He makes her stop there. "And if Michael Gardner is convicted, he'll never rape another woman."
"It's not worth it," she jumped in. "It's not worth the cost."
But he wasn't going to let her get away with that. "To you or them?"
She shook her head. "I'm not talking about me,"
"Yeah, you are. For as long as I have known you, you've always identified with the victims. Maybe that's because you're a woman, I don't know. I do know it's one of the things that makes you a great cop. It's also one of the things that makes this job torture sometimes." He looks at her, searching for her to see this thing that he is trying to offer her, the help he is trying to give. "You can never go back and change things that have already happened, Olivia. You can't."
She thought for a minute quietly, staring absently at the concrete walk in front of them. "You kill yourself, to make something happen, or you do nothing. And it doesn't matter. There's always another child molester; there's always another rapist. And it's like, you have to sell a little piece of yourself to get the job done. So what the hell's the point?" And there are tears in her eyes now, he can see them but he can't touch them. She has always opened herself up to him, made herself vulnerable and yet he can't fix the part of her that she wants him to fix. Even if he could, he doesn't think he would. She may not like it, but the part of her that seems broken is the most beautiful soul that he's ever known.
"I don't know," he says honestly. "Maybe there isn't a point. Maybe the cost is too high." She's rocking slightly, her whole body nonetheless stiff with tension as the tears freeze inside her eyes because she won't let them fall. The only thing he can do is continue and hope it makes a difference, somewhere. "Olivia, no one's making you do this. The difference between you and all the victims is you can walk away." But he only says that because he knows she needs to hear it. The reality is, she never will. She'll be doing this until the day she dies because she's been doing it since the day she was born when she took the shame and anger and sadness of her mother.
So he's watching her now, waiting for the rebuttal that he knows is coming long before the edges of her lips curl into the tiniest hint of a sad smile. When she speaks, her voice comes out in a whisper soft as a flower petal and nonetheless broken. "No, I can't." And that's the moment that she gets up and crawls into the car, leaving him alone there on the stoop with only his grocery bags to calm his mind.
It wasn't the first time she'd done that to him, but she hadn't actually left. Even with the stint in Oregon with the Feds, it wasn't a personal choice to remove herself. And it feels like it's exactly the same now. She's running for the same reasons; the things they always come back to. And he can't understand what's happening now because of what the job means to her. Everyone thinks that with his family, he's the one that has everything to lose. But for Olivia, her life isn't separate from the job. She loves it more than life. She needs it in a way that he doesn't. She's the one who tears herself up when she can't make things right, who will wager her life to bring just one more bad guy down. His job has always been to help her find her footing so she doesn't crash and burn, which is exactly what she's doing now.
And that somehow reminds him of the cop he shot, years ago. There were certain protocols that you followed as a cop, ones that were drilled into you before you were even fully initiated into the Academy. If someone raises his gun at you, you shoot. Instantly, before they can. Every police officer knows it, and the only times they don't follow it are usually because of some extenuating circumstance like the perp holding a hostage. So for a cop to raise his gun at another cop, that was like committing suicide. Kendall wanted Elliot to shoot him. He knew what would happen; he knew Elliot would fire. Kendall had tilted his head back first, so that Elliot could glimpse the man's eyes right before he turned with the gun. He knew. Why did he make Elliot shoot him? The Captain had said it was because he didn't have the courage to do it himself. So was that what Olivia was doing here? Was she forcing him to let her leave, because she couldn't on her own? And where does that leave him?
"You must really love your job," A man from Homicide that Elliot had worked a case with once muttered. But he was all wrong.
"You've gotta hate it," Elliot insisted. "Otherwise you'll never be any good at it."
And she was good at her job, damn good. The problem, he realizes, is that she isn't hating it, she's hating herself. And Elliot senses suddenly that she needs this. That if she doesn't go now, she'll lose all track of who she is when she already feels like she isn't that anymore. Isn't helpful, isn't worthy, isn't human, isn't whatever the hell it must be that Elliot can't figure out. But he knows Olivia, his Livia. He always thought he'd lose her in the moment he wasn't there to protect her, but the truth is he'll lose her if he doesn't free her from the guilt of leaving him.
He picks the purple shirt off the floor and puts it in her hands, holding it to bridge the space between them, this electric contact. A long, hard look into those amber eyes, taking in all the features he's already memorized – olive skin, the smell of mandarin, the fighter outside, the lover inside – and says his last words. "You always know where to find me." Then he lets her go.
