I own no one but my own people
A/N Thank you to Amanda AKA SVUxFanFic on here AKA ThsRThrStrories on twitter for being an amazing kick ass beta.
Olivia pulled up to Angela's Tuckers house that was surrounded by cop cars flashing their tell tale blue and red lights and CSU. There was an ambulance out front, but the paramedics were in no hurry. The house had already been taped off with bright yellow police tape.
Flashing her badge to the officer closest to the yellow tape, she ducked underneath the barrio and walked inside the home. The front rooms of the house weren't too disheveled or destroyed; it actually looked fairly well maintained, as if there hadn't been a murder committed there.
She followed the herd of uniformed officers and CSU to the bedroom where the crime had occurred. Olivia swallowed hard as she looked down on the bed at Angela Tucker, her blue eyes wide opened in fright, a single gunshot in the middle of her forehead. Her face was littered in bruises and gashes with broken shards of glass next to her pillow and embedded in her face. Her wrists had deep purple circular bruises where Williams had cuffed her to the bed frame. Her nightgown laid torn open, leaving the eighty year old woman exposed for the world to see.
Putting on a professional face, the Sergeant went over to Warner, who was standing next to the bed.
"Time of death?" she asked, staring down into her eyes, thinking how much they mirrored her sons. She flinched and looked towards their resident medical examiner, unable to look at them without the light shining in them.
"Body's still warm, I'd put it at around eight thirty."
"Right after she called Tucker," she sighed. "Any idea what's with the glass yet?"
Warner walked over to one of the CSUs, and took one of the evidence bags and handed it to Olivia.
"This was found next to the body."
Olivia took it from her and looked at it, grimacing when she saw a ripped, slightly crumpled photograph of a young Tucker in his Marine uniform looking proud, honorable, and distinguished in a bloody, shattered, wooden frame with no glass left.
"He beat her with a photo of her son?" She asked, her voice barely loud enough to hear it herself.
Warner nodded and Olivia sighed as she looked around the room, nodding towards an 8X10 piece of wall that was a shade lighter than the rest of the room, as far away from the bed as it could get. "He could have used the photo by the bed if it was just a rage attack," Olivia said out loud to no one in particular. "But he decided to grab the one furthest away, the only photo in the room just of Tucker. He wanted to send a message…" Her heart ripped in two. Olivia ran a hand through her hair and cleared her throat. "Do you know if Rollins and Amaro are here yet?"
"Out back."
Olivia thanked her, took one last sorrowful look at the body, and headed out of the room and to the back of the house, her anger growing with every step.
Nick and Amanda were talking to two uniformed officers just outside the back door and Olivia stormed over to the pair.
"What the hell is wrong with you two?" she barked, making the duo flinch and turn towards her. "Forgetting the fact the woman upstairs was the mother of a man whose job it is to take your badges if you screw up, but a victim specifies she doesn't want uniforms as her protection and you send her two officers?"
"Liv, I didn't-," Nick began but Olivia cut him off almost as soon as he opened his mouth.
"I am your commanding officer; you will address me with the proper respect." Normally Olivia had no problems with her squad using her first name or nickname but she was livid.
Amaro pursed his lips for a moment before going into an 'at ease' stance. "Sergeant, I made a judgment call. I didn't think IAB would protect her as well as actual police officers."
"It wasn't your call to make, Detective!" she yelled at him, "You let your personal feelings about IAB get in the way and now Angela Tucker is dead because of you! Not to mention your 'actual police officers' did a pretty piss poor job at protecting her, wouldn't you say?"
"That wasn't Nick's fault, Sergeant," said Amanda softly, withholding a flinch when Olivia turned her icy glare toward her. "We got her protection; it wasn't who she asked for but we got her it nonetheless."
"And what's your excuse, Rollins? You could have called IAB, you could have called me and let me know your partner here decided to go against a victim's wishes, you could have done the right thing but instead you went right along with it. You're right, it's not Nick's fault she's dead, you're both to blame for this."
"You asked us to get her a protective detail and we did. Just because she wanted someone from her son's unit-."
"Thomas Williams attacked her in uniform," Olivia told them, cutting Nick off again. "THAT'S why she wanted two people from IAB. Hell, you could have given her two cops in plainclothes and she would have probably been fine with it. But no, you two decided that the pissing match this unit wants to have with IAB and playing the Us VS Them game you should know is bullshit a week out of the academy was more important than a victim being re traumatized!"
Both Amanda and Amaro glanced at one another for a moment. They hadn't known that Angela had been attacked by Williams when he was in uniform. Olivia took a deep breath and shook her head at the nativity and stupidity of her detectives.
"You're both off this case. Fin and Carisi will handle everything from here on out."
"Olivia, that's not right. We didn't do anything wrong," protested Amaro.
"Sergeant, give us another chance," Amanda pleaded. "Okay we made one mistake; we didn't know she was attacked when he was in uniform. That's not our fault."
"I don't know how it works in New York," Voight's telltale raspy voice sounded, making the three NYPD officers turn towards the doorway where the Chicago Sergeant was standing in his trademark jeans, button down shirt and leather jacket. He walked over to the pair and stood beside Olivia, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "But in Chicago, a murdered woman is WAY more than just a mistake."
"Did you forget you were watching Noah?" asked Olivia, the words out before she could stop herself.
They both missed the look exchanged between Amaro and Rollins.
"Your nanny forgot her purse and came back. She said she has him for the night," he explained. "Thought I'd give you a hand here, it looks like you could use it."
"She doesn't need a hand," Amaro barked, earning him one of Voight's famous 'you have no idea how close you are to getting your ass beat' smiles.
"That a fact?" he asked, stroking his square jaw like he was truly considering Amaro's words.
"Yeah it is. She doesn't need anyone."
"I don't need you to speak for me, Detective," she emphasized, letting him know, again, that he was speaking to not one but two higher ranking officers. "I'm capable of telling anyone what I need or want at any time."
"You're also capable of talking to us without your boyfriend's input."
"Hey!" Voight barked a flash of anger in his brown eyes. "You are speaking to your commanding officer right now, Detective! Show some Goddamn respect!"
Olivia looked at her Detective for a moment. "You are crossing a line here, Nick..."
Amaro looked at her for a moment before he sighed, rubbing his hands over his hair. "Fine, I'm sorry alright?"
"No, not alright. All I ever hear from you, from BOTH of you, is that you're sorry." She looked between the both of them. "You've both made a hundred mistakes since I took over this unit and I have given you a hundred chances and accepted a hundred sorries. You have no idea how disappointed I am in both of you right now, and you are both DAMN lucky this is a volunteer only unit and I can't transfer anyone in to replace you two."
Amanda blinked back tears while Amaro looked stunned his former partner would say that to him. Amanda had been told by Olivia she was less than competent once before and it didn't hurt any less the second time, while Amaro would have much rather preferred her yelling than the disappointment in her words.
Olivia sighed and shook her head. "Just… go home. I don't want to see either of you right now."
Amaro looked like he was about to protest but with a jab in the side from Rollins's elbow, he thought better of it. Without another word, they turned back into the house.
"So that was fun," said Voight, far calmer than he was ten seconds ago.
"I had it handled," Olivia told him sharply, "And Amaro was right; you do not give input on how I deal with my Detectives."
He shrugged. "He disrespected you."
Olivia raised her brow in disbelief. "And you haven't?"
"We're the same rank and you aren't in charge of me. Big difference."
She rolled her eyes and Voight's smile fell. "Hey… you okay?"
"I'm fine."
"You're a horrible liar, Benson."
She gave him a sad smile but before she could answer there was a loud shout, Rollins's scream, and a crash from the front of the house. Olivia and Voight sprinted around to the front yard but stopped dead in their tracks at the sight before them.
Tucker was struggling against three CSUs with all his might to get at Amaro, now sporting a dark purple bruise on his jaw, who was struggling with Amanda's help to untangle himself from the two overturned garbage cans Olivia assumed he had been thrown into.
"LET GO OF ME!" the usually cool headed IAB agent was screaming as he fought to get at the SVU detective. His blue eyes were red and puffy like he had just got done sobbing and tears were quickly building up again.
"YOU DID THIS, AMARO! YOU KILLED HER!"
Amaro swallowed hard as he finally got back on his feet. He may have hated IAB but the fact Tucker had just lost his mother to the same man that had killed his wife and child wasn't lost on him. So for the first time since he joined SVU, he didn't argue with the Lieutenant.
"GET OFF!" Tucker shouted, wrenching out of the CSU's hold. He stormed up to Amaro but in a flash Olivia was in-between the two. She may have been mad at her Detectives but she wasn't about to let them get hurt while she was around.
"Ed, calm down," Olivia pleaded softly so that only he could hear her but he ignored her as if she hadn't spoken.
The Lieutenant jabbed a finger at Amaro over Olivia's shoulder, his entire body shaking with rage and grief, angry tears falling from his eyes. For the first time in his career in Internal Affairs, he didn't care that he didn't look strong and foreboding to the cops he was supposed to police. He wanted to scream and yell and hit someone right now. Since he couldn't do any of that to Thomas Williams, he would settle for Nick Amaro.
"You are DONE, Amaro!" he bellowed, still trying to get at him, but Olivia was doing his her best to keep him at bay. "I will take your job, I will take you pension, you won't even be able to get a job guarding the sewers when I'm done with you! DO YOU HEAR ME?!"
"Amaro, get out of here," Olivia told him not unkindly, less out of anger for him and more for Tucker's sake. Without a single argument both he and Amanda left, as did the CSUs that had gathered to watch what they thought would grow into a fight.
Tucker was struggling not to shed tears as he peered around her into the house with the door wide open.
"She- she hates having the front door open," he told Olivia with a crack in his normally hard voice. "She hates it, it gets bugs in the house, she doesn't…" He let out a sob and he turned to face her. "She hates having the door open, Olivia..."
Olivia swallowed her own tears and gently ran her hands up and down his arms, forgetting who was standing right beside her.
"You don't need to be here right now, Ed," said Olivia, her voice as soft and gentle as she could make it. "Let's just go somewhere else."
Voight narrowed his eyes in confusion, looking between her and Tucker for a moment before his eyes widened in shock. He realized where he had seen his face from, as well as the name. The name, Edward Jonathon Tucker, he had read a hundred times in the old reports from this case. The face…
He had seen it in bed next to Olivia Benson after they had sex… Ed Tucker, the king of the Manhattan rats, the man Olivia had been fucking with, was 'Not Boyfriend.'
"You're… you're IAB," Voight muttered loud enough for Olivia and Tucker to hear and turn towards him. "You're Lieutenant Tucker, you're the IAB agent involved in all of this case, and you were the one in her bed…" He looked dead in Olivia's eyes, "You're fucking someone from IAB?"
Olivia looked over his face, hardly able to stand the betrayal in his face. "This isn't the time," she begged, still not taking her arms from Tucker, hoping that Voights compassion for a man whose mother had just been murdered outweighed his hatred for IAB. "Please."
He swallowed hard and took a step towards her, narrowing his brown eyes in fury at her. If she didn't know any better, she would have thought he was going to hit her. Instead he just looked at her like she was no better than the criminals they dealt with on a daily basis. "Stay away from me," he growled before he stormed off.
"Voight, wait!" she cried out as she watched him storm away from the crime scene and her and towards his rental car. "Please wait…" said Olivia, far too soft for anyone to hear her.
When it was clear he wasn't coming back, she took a deep breath and turned back towards Tucker who didn't appear fazed in the least over the fact their secret had been discovered. He was still staring at the open door.
"Did she suffer?" he asked, his voice cracking slightly.
Olivia opened her mouth and closed it several times before he bit his lip and nodded.
"So that's a yes," he answered his own question with a mutter.
She walked back over to him and wrapped her arms around him, resting her head on his shoulder. The IAB Lieutenant responded with a hug, nuzzling his face in her neck. "What do you need?" she asked as she rubbed his back. "My apartment and talk, your apartment and sex, a drink at a bar, you want me to leave you alone? Just tell me what you need and I will do it, Ed, I swear to God."
"I don't know what I need right now," he said, "Can… can we just go… anyplace that's not here? Your place?"
"Of course." Olivia pulled away from him and looked up into his blue eyes. "Anything you need," she promised before, forgoing any sense of secrecy the two had left, she reached up and kissed him softly. She wasn't exactly surprised when he didn't kiss back.
She pulled away and gave him whatever sort of smile she could muster, which wasn't much. "Come on. I'll drive."
With their arms around each other, they left the crime scene.
Just remember fans of both ships, nothings over until it's over and trust me we are FAR from over. Please review.