Part Thirty-Three

Dickie's next words were mumbled apologetically at the floor, strung together in a rapid succession of half-voiced syllables. Olivia strained to hear, afraid that her relatively foreign presence might sap the courage the teenager appeared to have only been able to drum up under threat of torture from his mother. Mercifully, Elliot seemed to take her side, although Olivia recognized it was more likely a fatherly instinct than an attempt to include her in the conversation.

"Damn it, Dickie, stand up straight."

The boy shuffled his feet, lifting himself slightly while still maintaining a good view of the floor. "Dick, dad."

Even without the slight contact of their arms, Olivia would have recognized the sudden shift in Elliot's mood. The whole room, it seemed, began to shrink, trapping all of them with an untamed animal liable to strike at any moment. Olivia could hear the sound of her partner trying to suck enough air into his lungs that he might not explode. She could practically hear the screech of the gears in his head as he desperately fought to keep his control in mixed company. Certainly they'd all seen him lose his temper more than once, but perhaps it was the fact that they might all see him lose his temper at once that demanded the change.

As she waited for the storm, Olivia wondered why it was that she could easily hear every single inaudible sign of her partner while Dickie's spoken words had presented such a problem for her ears.

Elliot moved forward then, stepping directly in front of Dickie. "I said stand up straight, Dickie." Ignoring his son's request was an obvious display of power, one which the boy instantly both recognized and acquiesced to. But even as his shoulders squared and rose and his chin jutted out, his height appeared to shrink.

At seventeen, Dickie was still awaiting the one real gift of adolescence, the benefit of the rush of testosterone, the increased height and weight that might allow him to actually look like the adult he wanted to be treated as. Olivia felt bad for the kid, knowing all too well what it was like to have an angry Elliot staring her down. She didn't want to know what it was like to not even be able to stare him back down. As much of a curse as it had been at thirteen, she'd found the benefits of standing five-foot-ten, one of which was being able to look Elliot in the eye without feeling like a shrimp.

Satisfied that he'd once again intimidated the person who'd dared challenge him, Elliot fell back against the door beside Olivia. Although his shoulder brushed hers, she knew that time it wasn't intentional. He wasn't trying to make contact with her. He wasn't trying to comfort her. He probably didn't even remember she was there at the moment. His entire focus was on Dickie just then, trying to work out how the boy figured into the nightmare that had befallen him.

"I, uh,-" Dickie's mumbling was all cleared up, but he'd immediately come down with a bad case of stuttering. "I, well, we were, um, well-" His pallor changed, first paling to a frightening ghostly white as he looked at his father, then turning a sickening yellow which nearly matched the color of his fading bruised eye as he glanced toward his mother.

"Spit it out, Dickie!" Although Elliot was the one who gave voice to the words, Olivia knew he was speaking for all of the adults. Or at least the two who didn't know what he was going to say.

Finally, with a heavy sigh that left him a looking rather deflated, Dickie started a narrative that was actually comprised of sentences. "Me and Caitlyn were fooling around." It took all of Olivia's willpower not to correct the boy's wording, but she bit back the urging in her head, which sounded an awful lot like her mother, and held her tongue. She didn't dare interrupt after what it had taken to get the boy talking.

Unfortunately, Elliot had other ideas. "Who the hell is Caitlyn?"

Olivia very nearly answered, pointing out that Caitlyn's identity was fairly obvious given the context, and she would have joked about the stupidity of Elliot's question under other circumstances, but she realized she was being included mostly because she was Elliot's partner and partly because she probably wouldn't have let him leave her side, so once again, she remained silent.

"She's my girlfriend." The yellow color disappeared, except for around his eye, quickly replaced by a vibrant red hue.

Elliot's face was reddening as well, although it wasn't quite as painfully obvious as on his paler skinned son. "Your what?"

Kathy stepped in, stopping Elliot from running off the topic in a rampage because his son was dating. "Whether or not he can have a steady girlfriend is a discussion for another day, Elliot."

Rather than being dissuaded, Elliot switched arguments. "What do you mean you were 'fooling around'?"

Dickie's face blushed deeper, the flush running all the way down his neck. He turned to Kathy with pleading eyes. "Mom?"

Kathy's mercy was spent, apparently, and she faced him with her arms folded over her chest and a stoic expression. "Don't look at me. You're the one who started this mess."

Dickie's pathetic face turned back to Elliot, briefly lighting on Olivia. "Does she have to be here?"

She was reaching for the door when Elliot's voice sounded in a bark that even she wouldn't have had the nerve to question. "Yes."

Realizing no one was in the mood to humor him, Dickie's speed-talking talent resurfaced. "We were fooling around and I didn't want to stop and she did and I tried to talk her into it and I was kissing her and stuff and I thought she was just playing because she was going along with it and then she hit me."

Olivia wanted to laugh out loud at the sheer joy of hearing it confirmed, what she'd initially believed only to begin to doubt, that Elliot hadn't been the one to strike his son. Even with Richard White still loose and wanting her dead, Olivia felt like a gigantic weight had been lifted off her shoulders.

Elliot, on the other hand, wasn't a bit relieved. Before anyone could react, he was across the room, grabbing Dickie's collar, lifting the boy onto his toes as Elliot screamed in his face. "What the hell is wrong with you? What did I tell you? How many times did I say it? If she says stop, you stop! Damn you!" Elliot was shaking with rage, his fury so strong and clear that Olivia knew, right then, he'd have rather hit his son than hear Dickie had tried to rape his girlfriend.

Dickie, for all his wanting to be an adult, was sobbing hysterically. "Dad, I didn't! I didn't mean to! I wouldn't! I didn't hurt her! She's ok! She's not even still mad at me! Please, daddy, I didn't do anything!"

Kathy had stepped forward, but froze seeing Elliot's rage. Olivia barely knew the kid, but she'd made a career out of reading people and she believed Dickie's story - that he hadn't meant to push the girl and that he hadn't done enough to cause any damage. She usually fared better than most other cops when it came to calming Elliot down, and though she had no idea how things had been between her partner and his wife when they'd been married, it looked like his soon-to-be ex-wife wasn't about to step in.

She reached out, placing her hand on Elliot's forearm, feeling the way he was shaking, knowing it wasn't from the effort of lifting the skinny boy. "Elliot, stop, listen to him."

She heard a gasp from Kathy as Elliot turned toward her, as though Kathy thought he might turn on his partner for interfering. Instead of an angry shout or whatever Kathy might have expected, Elliot only stared at Olivia, his eyes searching hers for any indication that she was misleading him.

She squeezed his arm, bringing his attention back to that small bit of contact. "Elliot, listen to what he has to say."

His hands immediately released Dickie, as though Elliot had only just realized what he was doing. He rubbed his eyes, the rage dissipating and revealing an exhausted looking man in its wake. "Jesus, Dickie, what possessed you to think she was kidding?"

Sniffling, trying to pretend he wasn't crying at the same time, Dickie shrugged. "She was laughing and stuff. She sounded like she was playing."

Elliot's eyes locked on Dickie's, the intensity of the stare causing Olivia to shiver even though she wasn't involved. "What did I tell you, Dickie?"

Fresh tears spilled over Dickie's cheeks. "I know, dad, I know. I'm sorry. I told her I was sorry and she said it was ok cause she taught me not to try it again."

But Elliot's stare didn't waver. "What did I tell you?"

The boy looked down, once again toeing an imaginary spot on the floor and whispering. "Never."

"What?" Elliot's voice was sharp and hard and Olivia very nearly interceded again.

Dickie looked up, meeting Elliot's eyes and nodding, sorrow written all over his face. "I know. You said never, ever think a girl is playing. She says stop, I stop, I know." He sniffled again, looking more and more like the child Olivia remembered with every tear. "I swear, I won't ever do it again."

"Never again." Elliot reached out, lifting Dickie's chin up until their eyes met again. "Not just the ones that can defend themselves, do you hear me?" He didn't wait for the nod of understanding. "Don't you ever pull something like that again, or so help me, I'll kill you myself."

After a long tense silence, Elliot leaned back against the door and let out a breath. Olivia knew his attention was lost and so brought up the question that lingered. "How the hell did IAB get involved?" Her gaze moved from her boss to Dickie, who was so mortified he couldn't even meet her glance. "How did a fight between you and your girlfriend wind up with IAB questioning your dad?"

Dickie wiped at the last of his tears and spoke to the floor. "My homeroom teacher saw my face and asked who hit me." He looked up, found Olivia's eyes on him, and turned back to the tiles. "I would have told her the truth, but she asked me in front of the whole class!"

Olivia couldn't hold back the laugh that bubbled forth. "And you didn't want to admit you'd been beaten up by a girl."

Elliot answered with the sort of authoritative tone that came from experience. "Liv, a seventeen-year-old boy does not announce to his class that he got beaten up by a girl unless he wants to get his ass kicked every single day."

She turned to him, her mouth open in shock. "You condone him nearly getting you suspended?"

"I'd rather he hadn't done anything to deserve getting beat up over in the first place."

Kathy cleared her throat, drawing the attention back to her. "As soon as he told me the truth, I dragged him in here to tell you, but, uh, apparently, you were out of town."

The tense moments listening to Dickie's story had pushed their time at the cabin to the back of her mind. But as soon as Kathy mentioned it, Olivia's mind filled with images and memories and her face colored in a fierce blush. She was not ready for a show-down with Kathy. Not when she wasn't entirely sure just what the hell was going on with Elliot. Suddenly Olivia was staring at the floor like Dickie had, hoping it might open up and swallow her into somewhere next week.

Elliot moved slightly in front of her, perhaps because he sensed her discomfort, perhaps because he wanted to prevent Kathy was realizing what made Olivia so uncomfortable. "Thanks for bringing him in." He looked at Dickie. "You give Caitlyn a call. Tell her your really sorry, that's she's welcome to come over and kick the crap out of you again, and then tell her you'll give her a call when you're twenty-one, cause that's the next time you'll be seeing her."

"But, dad-" Dickie's argument was cut off when Kathy pulled him through the door.

Cragen, who'd been watching and waiting through the whole scene, finally spoke. "After Dickie explained that you hadn't hit him, and Kathy mentioned something about some sleeping pills the doctor gave you, I started to suspect that you weren't the man we were after."

Elliot shuffled forward until he could collapse into a chair. "I can't believe he would do that."

Olivia sat beside him, stopping herself from reaching out for him because she wasn't sure how it would be received and because she didn't exactly feel like explaining it to Cragen either way. "He's a kid, El. He was scared." She didn't know why he was having trouble believing what he'd just defended moments earlier.

Elliot looked at her, baffled. "Huh?" And then he shrugged. "Oh, I don't care about him blaming me; it's the part about the girl I don't get. I told him a million times-"

"Elliot, he's a teenage boy. Hormones more or less erase any common sense in their heads. He got the message though." Olivia imagined the horror of not only getting hit by Caitlyn, but then having to tell the story multiple times to his parents and Cragen and even herself was something that Dickie wouldn't soon forget.

He kept shaking his head. "I told him so many times he'd just roll his eyes and tell me himself."

Cragen cleared his throat again, as if to remind them they were still sitting in front of him. "Elliot, I did follow up with Caitlyn. She's fine. She was more concerned that Dickie wouldn't go out with her anymore than she was about her virtue."

When Elliot didn't look up, Olivia waved her hand dismissively in his direction. "Don't bother, Don. Once he gets it in his head that he's done something wrong, no one's going to convince him otherwise."

Cragen smiled. "You're speaking from experience?"

"Well, I'm here and there's a convicted rapist and murder coming after me, but he decided I was better off here." She shrugged, knowing that while she was somewhat safe in the station, it was nowhere near as safe as the cabin. Not in her mind, at least. She glanced at Elliot, who was still shaking his head at himself, and turned back to her boss. "Did you get anywhere with the DA?"

"Do you really want to know?"

It was clear from his tone that she didn't. And still, she knew she had to hear it.