Apologies for the delay, even more so for those reading my other stories! Hope you enjoy this, we are coming towards the end now, only two chapters left before Liv and El get their lives back. Thank you to Joanie for for betaing. :-)
Chapter 6
Fin stood, leaning against the wall as he watched in silence. He knew the plan, Munch had gone over it again and again, and again - which Fin was grateful for, because he was having a hard time getting his head around it. He was making a concerted effort to move from years of ignoring Munch after the first few sentences, to actually paying attention and taking in every word he said. It wasn't just the stunning revelation that Munch was actually right about every single thing that he was telling them though, it was also the strange, unnerving feeling that took over him whenever his eyes fell on Olivia...and then moved across to Clone Olivia. The two were so similar physically, but their demeanours set them apart - as well as their proximities to Elliot.
Olivia sat alongside Elliot, their chairs pulled as close together as they could possibly manage; her arm resting lightly against his. Her eyes shone with a fire that her clone just could not replicate. Her drive, determination, her sense of purpose, were all there, so clear to see.
Clone Olivia on the other hand, sat at the opposite end of the table to Elliot - casting him a wary, disgusted glance periodically, which Fin was certain Eliot was aware of, but was choosing to ignore. Elliot was certainly more than a little preoccupied with leaning as close to Olivia as he could feasibly get without making too outward a display of physical affection. He was also angry, tense, and shared his partner's determination to sort out the mess that their lives were now in.
Elliot was shocked that Munch, Fin and Cragen hadn't realised that the woman they had worked with for so many years was not the same person. Why did they accept it so easily? The situation was pissing him off more and more by the minute.
Some bastard has stolen his life, tried to destroy his name, and attacked his character. This person had done his best to destroy what he and Olivia had; locking her away in a freezer and replacing her with a poor copy who somehow fooled everyone. The elite group of detectives he was a part of hadn't even noticed that he was missing, or that anything was different about Olivia. His own family had been brainwashed, and didn't remember him or notice that he had been gone for four and a half years.
Elliot was seriously pissed off about this crap.
He turned his attention back to Munch, carefully avoiding meeting Clone Olivia's eyes. It was time to end this, and get their lives back.
Today they would take Clone Olivia to confront the wizard.
Munch distracted Clone Olivia with the file from Huang, which she picked up with interest, browsing through the psychological profile of the wizard, while he eyed her cautiously from the other side of the room, Olivia and Elliot standing close enough that they could hold a whispered conversation.
"What if she doesn't come with us? I mean, we have to consider that she is just playing us, she's too cooperative - I don't like this, she could be leading us into a trap," Olivia said in a hushed tone.
"Yeah, this is all too easy. She's just gonna introduce us to him?" Elliot said, casting a wary glance at Olivia's clone.
"She either genuinely thinks that he really is a wonderful wizard, in which case we just let her lead us straight to him, or she is currently sitting over there, plotting against us in her mind as we speak," Munch said, as all three detectives turned their heads in perfect unison as they cast suspicious looks in her direction.
Munch held his wary gaze on the clone, while he spoke in a hushed tone. "I suspect that she is trying to work out how best to get away from us and warn the wizard. The clones are not dangerous per se, but they serve the wizard, and his programming skills are as adept as his brainwashing; she will try to escape and help him because she believes that he is a truly wonderful wizard and that you Elliot, are a truly terrible person."
Olivia glared angrily at her clone, placing her hand lightly on Elliot's arm absentmindedly. Elliot leaned down and placed a quick kiss on her head, her tension and anger lessening immediately as she turned to meet his eyes.
"It's ok baby, we're taking her down, and this son of a bitch who stole our lives," Elliot said as he took her hand and squeezed reassuringly. "Then we get our lives back, and we...well, we could..I mean..."
Munch sighed, "You could take your lives back, but this time, together; embracing your new found romantic love and venturing on to a new dawn of happiness together - yes, I think we get that part. You love Olivia, she loves you, I'm truly happy for you both, but we have a very serious conspiracy on a massive scale to put an end to tonight," he paused, gesturing to them, "So if you two could kiss now, then we can focus on the case and end a potential global conspiracy."
"Munch?" Olivia asked, dumfounded, "You want us to kiss?"
"Your love lives, ongoing sexual tension, undeniable chemistry and the amusing, yet somewhat sad way that you have denied your feelings for years, don't bother me. I just need you both focused, so you need to just kiss. I'll go talk to the clone, give you some privacy - but any further boundaries will need to be crossed once this mess is over because all you have is five minutes, then we take the clone and go."
"Wait, Munch, what if she doesn't go along with this?" Olivia asked, deftly changing the subject.
"Oh well that's easy, get your boundary crossing out of the way then we will just abduct her, and make her take us to him." Munch said with a shrug.
"You said she was genetically near identical to Olivia - that means she thinks like Liv. It won't be that easy to abduct her, she will know what we our next step is going to be," Elliot said.
Munch coughed, "Well, I did say near identical - she doesn't have all of the same attributes, and it is.." he said, pausing as he looked away from Olivia, not wanting to impart the information while making eye contact, "Actually relatively easy to kidnap her."
TEN MINUTES LATER.
After Munch called time on Olivia and Elliot's make out session, three times before they finally broke for air, turning their five minute boundary crossing session into eight minutes, they then took Clone Olivia hostage in one minute forty five seconds. It was an excruciatingly painful, one minute forty five seconds for Olivia however, who could not believe how easily her clone conceded.
It went down like this;
Elliot strode purposely over to Clone Olivia, who looked up from the papers now scattered across the table, with curiosity.
"Sorry but we can't take a risk with you," Elliot said as he reached forward and quickly took her gun from her holster.
Clone Olivia frowned, "What are you doing?"
"Abducting you - you have a backup?" Elliot asked.
"No," Clone Olivia said, shrugging, "but If you persist with this, I will have no choice but to call my squad, on my cell phone, and tell them I've been kidnapped."
Olivia rolled her eyes and let out a frustrated sigh as she walked over and held out her hand. Clone Olivia produced her cell phone and placed it in her hands without any argument, much to Olivia's amazement..and utter disbelief.
Olivia shook her head as Elliot cuffed Sergeant Benson's hands behind her back, shocked at just how easy it was to kidnap her clone.
"I'll happily take you to the Wizard, there is no need to resort to such an extreme tactic as kidnapping me," said Clone Olivia, as she glared at Olivia and then turned to Munch. "I mean, I expect this sort of behaviour from Elliot Stabler, but you Munch?"
Olivia and Elliot simply stared at each other as Munch let out a laugh.
"Ok, Sargeant, take us to your leader," Munch said in a deadly serious voice that made Elliot laugh involuntarily.
They walked through the corridor, Munch leading the way, Clone Olivia behind him, and Elliot and Olivia at the back. Elliot sensed Olivia's discomfort and glanced at her with concern.
"You ok Liv?" he said quietly.
"I'm fine," she said, a little sharply, telling Elliot that she was not fine, in the slightest, at all, whatsoever.
"What's up?" he asked as he placed a hand on her arm and stepped in front of her, halting her.
Olivia let out a sigh and met his eyes, "That clone is supposed to be a copy of me El - and..well, she's just nothing like me. How they all thought she was me for so long is beyond me, but that's another issue. We kidnapped her in 1 minute 45 seconds Elliot - that's just embarrassing."
"Hey, she's not you Liv, she's just a clone," he said, as he leant forward and placed a quick kiss on her head. "It would be much harder to kidnap you - damn near impossible actually, and if she had me watching her back she wouldn't get kidnapped at all."
"You're right El, I shouldn't feel like this, but it's hard to shake it...I just feel kind of offended. I really need to confront the person who designed this clone."
"Don't worry Liv, I'm having a conversation with that son of a bitch too," Elliot said determinedly.
"Thanks El, but I want a piece of him myself," Olivia said.
"Benson! Stabler!" shouted Munch from the other end of the corridor, as he briefly stepped away from Clone Olivia and moved a few steps closer toward them, "Global mind control conspiracy? Cloning? Evil Wizard? Sound familiar to you two? We are in the middle of something here, so could you put your intimate conversation on hold, there will be plenty of time for that after we save the world from the clone invasion."
Olivia was just about to inform Munch that she and Elliot were actually discussing the current situation and not what they were going to do when they finally got a chance to go back to Olivia's new apartment; together, alone, well except for Noah that is, wherever he was. However, her train of thought came to abrupt end when the fire door suddenly burst open, much to everyone's amazement, revealing Tucker, who quickly grabbed Clone Olivia.
"You are just trying to ruin everything! The wizards world is perfect!" Tucker exclaimed while keeping a firm grip on her upper arm and holding her tightly against him with his other arm. "The wizard perfected Olivia Benson - you were flawed, you had no substance, no essence," he continued, as he stared at Olivia, "You had no life, no passion, no fervour, no substance, no joy, no happiness, no...no...anything, until the wizard came along and made a whole new you. Look at her," he said as he turned his attention back to the clone.
"She's perfect now!" he laughed, as he pulled his gun and pointed it at her head.
"She was...she is, everything! Olivia Benson is the opposite to everything you just said. You, you idiot, have described her clone," Elliot shouted.
"I will not listen to your lies!" he said, "You just want to spoil the Wizards Wonderful World" I will not listen to anything you have to say. The wizard made Olivia's life new again - she was nothing, nothing! He gave her everything. Everything that you, Elliot Stabler denied her; a family, a life, a dizzying kind of happiness, a…"
"Oh SHUT UP!" Olivia shouted, I can't hear any more of this! Elliot didn't deny me anything, he did nothing but support me, and now, now that I know how much he loves me - now our lives can really start again."
Olivia turned to Elliot and looked at him with a mixture of love and determination, "You once said you'd support me to have a baby, you still feel that way? Will you be a father to Noah?""
"He would never say something like that! He would never do anything for you!" Clone Olivia shouted.
Elliot rolled his eyes and met Olivia's gaze with equal love and determination, "Always Liv, always. I'll adopt Noah, and then he will always know who his parents are,"
Munch gave another frustrated sigh as Olivia and Elliot leaned in for a kiss, only to be stopped by the strange sound of Clone Olivia laughing, in a slightly unhinged, almost villainous sort of way. Munch glanced at her warily.
"Oh, isn't that sweet - Olivia steals the baby and Elliot helps her. How lovely, how affirming, how perfect...oh but there's one little hitch…" she said, with a decidedly evil edge to her voice.
"What hitch?" Munch asked.
"Well," laughed Clone Olivia, "shouldn't you be asking yourself about now...who's watching the baby?"
Olivia paled as she turned to Munch, "Where is he?"
"With Lucy...the nanny…another clone..." Munch said, as realisation took hold in one fell swoop, "where is Noah, Sergeant Benson?"
Clone Olivia laughed a diabolical sounding laugh, and stared hard at Munch, although admittedly the gun jammed against her head did take the edge off her attempt at an fiendish demeanour somewhat.
"Noah is on ice, in the Wizard's castle, where you will never find him!" she laughed evilly.
"Really?" asked Tucker in amazement, as he lowered the gun slightly to turn her to face him, "When did that happen?"
"Swapped him for a clone baby - it's funny really, noone even noticed - I thought Fin might for a moment, but he just accepted it too. Can you put the gun down now, or I really am going to cancel our plans for drinks later," she said.
Tucker spun Clone Olivia back around, and put the gun back to her head as he glowered at Olivia, Munch and Elliot. "You need her alive to find out where the Wizard's castle is, and I won't hesitate to shoot her if you try to get to the Wizard."
Tightening his hold on Clone Olivia, he lunged backwards, bursting out through the fire door, and letting it close with a resounding bang.
Olivia folded her arms and leant back against the wall letting out a sigh.
"Liv, it's ok," said Elliot as he cupped her chin in his hand, tilting her face up to meet his eyes, "we will just give him a minute to think he's got away and then follow him straight to the castle...gotta be easy, I mean who can miss a castle in the middle of New York City?"
"It's not that El," Olivia said sadly, "She was kidnapped again, I'm just so…. mortified," she whispered as she shook her head in dismay.
Elliot leant forward and placed a soft kiss on her lips, immediately eliciting a smile from her.
Munch shook his head in annoyance and glanced at his watch in an exaggerated manner, "Fin is meeting us at the castle in ten minutes if you two love birds could focus for a moment."
Elliot cast a glare in Munch's direction, "And how are we going to find the castle in ten minutes?"
"Oh that's easy, it's not so much of a castle as a small dingy dungeon really - the Wizard just exaggerates these things to inflate his own feelings of self importance. Fin was outside, so he is just following him and the clone right to the door," Munch said with a satisfied smile.
"Let's go pay him a visit," Elliot said as he turned to Olivia. "No one insults you by designing a clone that can be kidnapped in one minute and forty five seconds, and gets away with it."
Next up, our detectives go to the wizard's lair to confront him. Will they rescue Noah? What will happen to Clone Noah? What on earth is Rollins doing all this time? What about Carisi? What will the wizard do when he sees the man he is unhealthily obsessed with? Are you still reading? lol