Law and Order: SVU is the intellectual property of Dick Wolf. The use of the characters, settings, and plotlines is not malicious. This is a work of fiction.

"Honey," he whispered, brushing her hair with his fingers. He sighed, his eyes closing briefly. No part of him wanted to wake her up, but he knew if he didn't, she'd be pissed. "Baby, come on." He bent his head lower, kissed her forehead, and then trailed his lips down the bridge of her nose and pecked the tip of it lightly. "Sweetheart, rise and shine."

She moaned lightly, rolling over onto her shoulder, mumbling something. The leather couch crinkled and creaked as she moved, and her loose top slipped down a bit, exposing skin and the fading blue of a hickey Elliot had left on her a while ago. "No," she complained, shaking her head.

He chuckled, his hands now sliding along the curves of her horizontal body. "Baby, this is important, come on." He kissed her, this time it was full on the lips, and he clutched her head in his hands so when he sat upright again, she had no choice but to follow with him.

Again, she moaned, the sound caught in her husband's mouth. Wakefulness was seeping in, and she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back hungrily.

He pushed her back, knowing if it lasted a moment longer he wouldn't be able to control himself, and he exhaled harshly, shaking his head. "Damn, baby." He laughed and kissed her forehead again. "You okay? You up, now?"

"Unfortunately," she grumbled, rolling her eyes. But then, she smirked, and one hand skittered up his thigh and lightly grazed his grown bulge. "But, uh, so are you."

He made a pained noise, begrudgingly shooing her hand away. "I wish we could do something about that, fuck, in the worst way, baby," he told her, pulling on his pants and shifting in his seat. "I, uh, I need you to come into the interrogation room with me."

Squinting, she raked her fingers through her hair and stifled a yawn. "But I thought Amaro and Rollins were..."

He shot her a look and cut her off. "They're not getting anywhere. Fin called me, he actually said that the only two people who would break this guy are..."

"Me and you," she sighed, nodding. She turned her eyes up at him. "We always were unstoppable together."

"We are," he corrected, giving her a pointed look. "And we always will be." He grinned and pulled her up off of her office couch. "Wanna go show the new-blood how this really works?"

She nodded, gave him a short and sweet kiss, and walked over to her desk. She lifted the almost-empty antacid bottle and shook out two of them, ignoring the concerned look Elliot was giving her. She led him out of her office and tried to wipe the sleep out of her eyes, hoping the leather-grain wasn't imprinted into the side of her face. She mumbled what she hoped was a friendly hello to Fin, blew by Rollins and Amaro, who were looking at her apologetically, and followed Elliot into the observation room. She narrowed her eyes when she was met with Barba and a redheaded lawyer that, at first glance, reminded her of someone she used to know.

"Benson," Barba said, grinning smugly. "This is Jane Trubedeux, she's taking over the Ramirez case."

"Yeah, hi," Olivia spat coldly as she chewed on her Tums. She folded her arms and looked back toward Barba. "What are we doing in here? Why's he holding out if you offered him a deal?"

Trubedeux scoffed. "He hasn't offered my client anything, yet. In fact, I'm beginning to think we're wasting time."

Barba held up a finger and looked, offended, at the younger woman. "Once he gives us something worthy of a deal, he'll have one, that's why I called in the best."

Elliot's smirk gleamed and he straightened out his tie a bit. "We get what we want out of him, and what, you cut his sentence in half?"

Barba crossed his arms and sat on the edge of a small table. "No, I take the conspiracy charge off the table and drop the attempted murder charge."

Olivia furrowed her brow. "Attempted murder?"

"Yeah," Barba said with a sly smile. "When he realized Bramson gave him up, he tried to run her over with his car."

Olivia and Elliot looked at each other, shot both lawyers an annoyed glance, then walked into the interrogation room, knowing Elliot was right behind her.

Ramirez sat up a little straighter. "Oh, hello, there," he said with a smarmy voice, dripping with lust. "They send you in here to seduce a confession out of me?" He leaned back in his chair and licked his lips. "I might be down for that."

"You wish," she said with a small laugh. "They sent me in here because no one seems to be able to make you understand that we are the only lifeline you have." She pulled out a chair and sat down, folding her hands on the cold table in front of her. "If you don't talk to us, we can't help you, and you have to take your chances with Bishop."

"Yeah, well," Ramirez frowned and slumped over a bit. "Your lawyer didn't do good enough, and I'm not giving up what I got unless I get what I want."

Elliot, coming up behind Ramirez, leaned over and spoke threateningly into his ear. "You're not getting what you want, unless you give us what you got." He leaned further over, his narrow-eyed glare rounding to shoot directly at Ramirez. "You asked us to guarantee your safety. We can't do that unless we know what, exactly, we're protecting you from, you understand?" He grabbed a folding chair and pulled it back toward him, deliberately making the metal legs scrape along the stone floor. He smirked when he saw the irritation on Ramirez's face, knowing it was getting under his skin.

Ramirez watched Elliot sit beside him and roll up his sleeves. Almost an entire sleeve of black and grey ink came into view on one arm, the unmistakable marine insignia, globe and anchor, what looked like the lower half of a crucifix, and several smaller, intricate designs stared at him from a rather thick and threatening group of muscles. He swallowed, wondering now which was more life-threatening, giving Bishop up or withholding information from Elliot.

Olivia turned her gaze from Elliot to Ramirez, and she kept a calm and steady voice as she asked, "How does Bishop factor into this? Why is she threatening you, exactly?"

Ramirez drummed his fingers on the table for a moment, licked his lips, and shook his head. "No, man. Not until you promise you'll keep her away from me. I want a private cell, armed guard twenty-four-seven, and I want..."

"That's not how this works," Elliot said, his voice low, cool. "You need to tell us how to get to Bishop, or we can't protect you."

"Do you talk directly to her?" Olivia asked, tilting her head. "Or do you go through someone else?" She was met with silence.

Ramirez heard a scraping sound and his head whipped toward Elliot, who stood up and spun his chair around. Ramirez chokes and his eyes widened, noticing Elliot looking back at him with an evil glare as one by one he cracked his knuckles. "Some...someone else," he choked out, fear lacing his words.

"We need a name," Elliot said, his jaw tight and his teeth clenched.

Ramirez sat, silent and still, and crossed his arms.

Elliot took a slow, deep breath, trying not to bare his fangs the way he usually would. After all, he wasn't just a detective anymore, he was much higher on the food chain and felt he should act as such. He leaned over, coming almost nose to nose with Ramirez. "Ya know what? Never mind." He pushed his chair back and stood up, and then looked at Olivia. "We'll find Bishop ourselves, we have a pretty solid lead. Gotta have this one tossed into Gen Pop at Rikers," he said with a shrug. Then, he turned, smirked, and narrowed his eyes at Ramirez. "How long do you think it'll take for Bishop to get to you?" He took a step forward. "An hour? A day? Maybe two?" He chuckled and folded his arms. "Maybe less than an hour?" He tilted his head, leaned a bit closer, and whispered, "Fifteen minutes?"

Olivia grinned, standing, and she headed over to the door. "All right, Sergeant," she said, "I'll get him moved as soon as I talk to his lawyer."

Elliot sneered at Ramirez before turning and moving toward Olivia, and just as he was about to walk out of the room, he heard the tell-tale whimper and panicked breathing that meant they were about to get exactly what they wanted.

"Wait!" Ramirez shouted, his eyes bulging out of his head and his mouth screwed into a horrified twist. "I'll...I'll tell you, but when I do, please, you have to put me someplace safe."

Elliot turned back toward him slowly and took three large steps, folding his large arms over his chest. "I'm listening."

Shaking slightly, Ramirez exhaled and pressed his lips together. "This guy, Marcus Devlin, he sets up phone calls. I've never met the lady in person, but she's the one that set me and Sarah up with the people at Angels of Mercy. She gave us fake papers, fictional lives, fixed it so we'd have no problem taking Valerie home. At first, it was just to have a cover, but then...a while ago there was this scam we helped her with. Smuggling drugs into the city with..."

"Baby formula?" Olivia said, her eyes wide. "No, we...we got them," she mumbled, moving closer to Elliot.

Ramirez shook his head. "No, you only got the people Bishop wanted you to get." He looked at Olivia. "Bishop knew the cops were sniffing around, someone tipped her off. She got us out of harm's way and let everyone else take the rap. Even told her partner to make sure there were no, uh, loose ends."

"Pfieffer," Olivia hissed.

With one arched brow, Elliot looked at Olivia. "Or Kendall," he said, the name tasting bitter on his tongue. It was a case he'd just as soon forget, one that haunted him enough, and now it was giving him even more grief.

Ramirez squinted. "Yeah, Kendall." He spat out a hushed, "Bastard," and then continued his confession. "Once the drug op was blown, Bishop flipped. Devlin, her fucking messenger boy, threatened me, threatened Sarah, told us if we left town or went to the cops she'd know and we'd end up like those other people." He cleared his throat. "We stayed pretty low-key for a while, then Sarah got a call, couple years ago, from Devlin. Bishop came up with this 'failproof' insurance fraud and charity gouging scheme, gave us a bunch of forged documents and hooked us up with that doctor. And Valerie..." He sighed and hung his head. "That poor kid...it wasn't right, it wasn't easy, but it was what we had to do," he told them, remorse seeming to overflow from his every pore.

"Did you have to rape and kill 'that poor kid,' too? Ir was that just revenge on Sarah?" Elliot snarled.

"That wasn't me!" Ramirez barked. "I never meant for her to die. I just...I didn't want her to hurt anymore. I couldn't be part of it. I told Devlin to tell Bishop I wanted out. And then I got wind of some schmuck cop poking around trying to save the kid's life, asked Sarah and the kid to move in with him, they were gonna take him to the cleaner's and leave me in the dust, well, not if I could help it! I called Devlin, told him what I knew, two days later Valerie gets whacked and I'm hauled in here as suspect numero uno? That ain't right," he shook his head again.

Olivia looked at Elliot and jerked her head back, and when they were far enough away from Ramirez, she whispered, "So you think Bishop told Sarah to pin the paternity on Goren? She knew he'd met her when they were adopting...wait, El, what if Goren was part of the plan the whole time?"

"He was always the backup plan," Elliot said, nodding. "Bishop knew what case Goren was working, made sure that Sarah would somehow get wrapped up in the investigation, and either by luck or by design, Sarah got him in bed." He bit his lower lip and scratched a spot behind his ear. "She set him up to eventually take the fall, to, what, get even with him for taking his partner back? Choosing Eames over her?"

"It cost her her job," Olivia said, and then tilted her head. "El, what if Goren found out? What if he figured it out, and he..."

Elliot rubbed a hand down his face. "Get Devlin's number from this punk," he told her, cutting her off. "Send Amaro and Rollins to talk to Sarah again, bring all this shit up."

"Where are you going?" she asked, huffing.

He shot her a hot look and a small grin tugged at the corners of his lips. "To talk to Goren," he said. And then he rolled his eyes. "Again." He blew her a kiss and walked away, his gut telling him this would finally end, tonight.

Peace and Love

Jo

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