The first time Grace Muncy heard Olivia Benson say the word fuck was in an elevator on a Tuesday afternoon. They were on their way out of the station, headed to meet a witness for an interview, when the elevator shuddered to a halt, and every light on the panel lit up, and an alarm began blaring somewhere deeper inside the shaft.
"Fuck," Olivia swore with gusto, slapping her palm sharply against the call button. Given how much noise the alarm was making Muncy kinda thought everybody in the building must have known they were in trouble already, but she didn't mention that the Cap.
"I'm sure it's ok," Muncy said.
"Shit. Motherfucker. Piece of shit," Olivia grumbled.
Muncy decided to give her boss a minute to collect herself.
Usually, Liv was cool, calm. Grace under pressure. Muncy's mom used to laugh and say it was ironic, really, that she'd chosen to call her daughter Grace, since little Grace turned out to be the least graceful child imaginable; Muncy had never really felt like she lived up to the promise of her name, but Olivia did. Poised, professional, thoughtful, compassionate, elegant in a cool, leather jacket sort of way, Liv was the kinda cop Muncy had always wanted to be, and Muncy had admired her new boss from the moment they met. It was a little unnerving, seeing the Cap so thrown off balance by the interruption to the elevator service, but it was sorta reassuring, too. Made her seem more human.
They still had cell reception in the elevator, so once Liv was done throwing her tantrum, swearing and pressing every button she could find over and over, the Cap started to make some calls. The Sarge and Velasco agreed to take the interview - and said they'd take the stairs - and building maintenance swore there was a tech en route, and nothing to worry about. Nothing to do, either, while they waited for help. The Cap didn't like that too much.
Since it looked like they weren't going anywhere any time soon Muncy did the only thing that made any sense; she plopped down on her ass on the floor of the elevator and stretched her legs out in front of her and tried to get comfortable. They were caught between floors and Muncy had seen some shit as a uni that made her swear off ever even attempting to open elevator doors if they didn't want to open on their own, and trying to go up through the ceiling tiles was, she knew, an impossibility, a fiction invented to sell Tom Cruise movies. They weren't going anywhere until the techs got the elevators fixed up, and so Muncy decided the best thing to do would be just to relax. The elevator probably had a whole bunch of fail safes in place to stop it randomly plummeting to the ground and even if it did they weren't that high up. Probably they wouldn't die. No need to get worked up, she thought. We'll just wait for the cavalry.
The Cap didn't seem to share her sense of calm; Liv was still standing, leaning against the doors of the elevators, her hand slipped under the collar of her blouse to rest against the beat of her own heart, her eyes closed as if she were in pain. The way her shoulders were moving it looked like she was breathing kinda heavy, and even though Muncy couldn't see her face she could feel Liv's discomfort, and that troubled her.
It was a new sensation for Muncy, feeling calm herself when the Cap was agitated. It was Liv's job to hold the line, to keep everybody else focused and steady. Leadership set the tone, and it had quickly become apparent to Muncy that Liv took that role seriously. Liv cared about her people, and Liv cared about the example she set for them, and she was a mentor to all the little ducklings under her wing, ever the voice of reason, always the one who knew exactly what to do. So what was Muncy supposed to do now, when Liv was the one who was upset, when Liv seemed to be the one who needed help? Should she say something, try to lighten the mood, try to reassure her boss, or should she just let Liv work through this one on her own?
The silence in the elevator was unnerving, and so ultimately Muncy decided to speak. It might not have been the best call, but surely it would be better, she thought, than sitting here watching a woman she respected come unglued and not doing anything to try to stop it.
" 's gonna be ok, Cap," she said, and Liv's dark eyes snapped to her face, a little wild around the edges, a little angry. A little scared, maybe. "They'll get us out of here in no time."
"I know," Liv said tightly. "I just…I don't like enclosed spaces."
So there was something the Captain was afraid of after all, Muncy realized. It was kinda sweet, Liv having a little phobia. Some people didn't like heights and some people got squeamish around blood and Liv didn't like tight quarters. What else don't I know about her? Muncy wondered. There was a great big question mark hanging over Liv's personal life; Muncy knew about Noah, about Liv's sweet little boy, but she didn't know anything about his dad or why Liv was raising him alone and she didn't know what Liv did on Friday nights after quitting time. Muncy didn't know what kinda music Liv liked - probably something old and slow and sad, Muncy thought - or what she did for fun or indeed if she did anything for fun. Between the job and the kid did Liv even have any time left over for herself?
"Would it help to talk?" Muncy asked. "Take your mind off it?"
Liv had started to pace, back and forth, back and forth, prowling along the front wall of the elevator carriage like a tiger trapped in a too-small cage. For all that she was kind and gentle Liv had claws and teeth, too, Muncy knew, and she didn't want to see them come out now.
"Maybe," Liv said. She didn't sound too sure.
"You got plans for the weekend?" Muncy figured that was as good a place to start as any.
"We're taking Noah to a show on Saturday. For his birthday."
Who's "we"? Muncy wondered.
"Oh, yeah? Which one?"
The subject of Broadway and Noah's interest in dance and the cost of tickets burned up almost five whole minutes, but Liv's distress seemed to be growing, and her answers were short, clipped, her affect distracted. That hand was still pressed against her heart, like she was trying to stop it from beating right out of her chest, and even from her perch on the floor Muncy could see that Liv was breathing too hard, too fast. Weekend plans weren't cutting it, as far as distractions went.
"You wanna sit down?" Muncy volunteered after a moment's awkward silence. "We might be here for a minute, you might be more comfortable -"
"No," Liv cut her off, a little testily. "I need to move."
She was swinging her arms a little as she prowled anxiously back and forth, as if she was reminding herself that there was still room enough in the elevator for her to stretch out, as if she were reminding herself that the walls weren't actually closing in on her, and Muncy was starting to get a little nervous herself. This didn't seem like a harmless little phobia; something was wrong.
"You really don't like tight spaces, huh? You know I was scared of heights for a long time. When I was little my brother locked me on the roof of our building. It really messed me up."
The first step of hostage negotiation was to establish a rapport with the perp. Make 'em feel comfortable, make 'em feel like someone understood 'em, let 'em know they weren't alone. This was almost like a hostage situation, Muncy thought; Liv's fear was keeping her prisoner, and maybe if Muncy could reach out to that fear, show it a little empathy - a little grace - maybe it might relent.
Then again, she might have just made a huge mistake.
"Yeah," Liv said, and her voice was surprisingly harsh, and Muncy flinched when she heard it. "Yeah, I never used to have a problem with it but…uh…something happened, a few years back."
Most people would have heard the note of warning in Liv's voice, and let the subject drop. Most people would have seen the darkness in her eyes, and known better than to pry. Hell, even Muncy recognized that she was on thin ice, but they were trapped here, and Liv clearly wasn't ok, and sometimes a wound had to be lanced in order to heal. Sometimes a fear had to be named before it could be vanquished. And sometimes Muncy was just too damn curious for her own good.
"I'm sorry," she said. "Was it…were you hurt?"
"I spent several hours locked in the trunk of a car," Liv said testily. "I was in there for hours, handcuffed, bleeding, just knowing that when the trunk opened I was gonna die. So no, Muncy, I really don't like tight spaces."
Jesus Christ.
That wasn't at all what Muncy had been expecting. She'd thought maybe it would be another elevator incident, or maybe Liv got caught up in a hostage situation that went on too long in a room too small to hold the people trapped inside it, but locked in the trunk of a car? Who the fuck had done that to Liv? How? Why? What else had they done? Liv said she'd thought she was going to die, but obviously she hadn't; how had she managed to get herself out of that nightmare alive? Muncy desperately wanted to know but a little part of her hesitated, refused to ask the questions, because she was a cop, and she knew how bad things could get, and she wasn't sure she was ready to think about Liv and what had been done to her, and she really wasn't sure now was the right moment to make Liv relieve that particular trauma.
But Muncy had brought it up, and now that the subject had been raised Liv was even more upset than before. It seemed like she was having a hard time catching her breath, and she was moving faster, swaying just a little each time she turned on her heel.
"Hey, Cap?" Muncy said tentatively. "Is there…is there maybe someone you wanna call? Somebody who might make you feel a little better?"
Sometimes Muncy was impulsive and sometimes she looked without leaping and she was still getting the hang of this SVU stuff, the empathy and the knowing what to say and when to say it and when to keep her mouth shut, and she was positive that the Cap needed to hear a calming voice now and not at all sure that hers would be enough. She'd made things worse, by being nosy, and she didn't know how to walk back what she'd done. She needed reinforcements. Maybe the Sarge, she thought; Liv and Fin were old friends, good friends, and they understood each other and worked well together and surely Fin would know what had happened to Liv and surely Fin would know what to say. It gave her hope, the thought of Fin stepping in to clean this mess up, but that hope was dashed in an instant.
"I'm fine," Liv snapped.
Of course you are, Muncy thought glumly. That was something she did know about Liv, something she'd figured out over the last few months working with this woman. Liv was fiercely independent, and used to handling her own shit. She was a little lonely, and a little sad, and Muncy had always wondered why and had always known it wasn't her place to ask. She'd thought about it, though. Asked herself what had put that sorrow in Liv's eyes, what made her voice so soft, what made her hold herself at a distance from everyone around her. There had to have been something, some great tragedy that had cast a shadow over Liv's otherwise nice life - cute kid, nice apartment, stellar career, Liv was doing all right for herself, but the darkness lingered, at the edges. Even Muncy could see that.
Liv said she was fine, and she clearly wasn't, but whatever else she was she was Muncy's boss, and Muncy didn't really have any authority, any right, to call Liv out for lying. It was a little stuffy inside the elevator, and the tension coiling tight inside the Captain was palpable, and Muncy's attempts to lighten the mood had only made things worse. There was no telling how long they'd be stuck here; what if the Cap started hyperventilating, or something? What if she passed out cold? It was a terrible feeling, that helplessness, watching the Captain pace and not knowing how to fix it, how to make things better. Muncy always wanted to make things better.
There existed a good many schools of thought on the best methods for assisting someone who was caught in the midst of high anxiety or even a panic attack. Muncy knew a little bit about that, but not enough; while she'd been with Gangs they had seen so many people shattered, so many people with PTSD as a result of the horrors they'd witnessed, but Duarte's priority hadn't been helping the victims heal, or whatever, and he'd always passed them off to Muncy, and she'd done her best to help but she wasn't trained, or anything. She'd done some reading, though, and she'd talked to a doc at Mercy about it once, and maybe -
"I swear to God, Muncy, if you ask me to list five things I can see I'm gonna scream."
"Yes, ma'am."
Duarte thought Liv was soft, but Muncy knew better. Duarte mistook kindness for weakness, but Liv had a backbone made of steel and skin tough as leather, and she was unstoppable, implacable, goddamn relentless. Liv's heart was gentle but the rest of her was hard, a brick fucking wall that a semi couldn't plow through. And she could see straight through Muncy now, could see Muncy sitting there, wondering what was wrong with her, fucking diagnosing her, and it made Liv angry, and Muncy decided to just keep her mouth shut for a while.
It sucked, though. Being quiet while Liv paced, not knowing what to say, feeling like she'd just made things worse. Someone else would've known what to do, Muncy thought. Someone with more training, someone who knew Liv better, had known her longer, would know how to fix this. But it wasn't Fin stuck in that elevator with her; Liv didn't have someone who knew better. All Liv had was Muncy, and Muncy was feeling pretty shitty about that.
After about ten minutes Liv's pacing had started to make Muncy dizzy, and Muncy had closed her eyes, leaned her head back against the wall and tried to think about something, anything, that wasn't Liv and this elevator and this fucked up situation when the sudden sound of Liv's phone ringing cut through the air like a siren. Muncy's eyes flew open, and she watched as Liv fished her phone out of her pocket, watched as Liv's shoulders slumped when she saw the name on the caller ID, watched as Liv sighed, low and sad, her thumb hovering over the screen while she seemed to war with herself over whether or not to answer. All the while the phone kept ringing, grating on Muncy's already fraying nerves.
"You gonna answer that?"
Liv shot her a dark look, but she did accept the call.
"Hey," she said softly into the phone, trapping it between her ear and her shoulder, wrapping her arms around herself as if in search of comfort. The pacing stopped when the phone rang, but Liv was still swaying slightly on her feet, still kinetic, albeit in a much more subdued fashion.
The elevator wasn't all that big and Liv kept the volume turned way up on her phone, and Muncy could hear the faint rumble of a man's voice through the speakers, though she couldn't make out his words. Hey, that was all Liv had said, and she'd clearly recognized the name on her screen, so whoever she was talking to it must have been a friend, but Muncy was pretty sure it wasn't Fin. Liv's voice was never that soft when she spoke to Fin.
"I'm fine," Liv said, and despite herself Muncy smiled. The Cap was a tough old bird.
The man was talking again, and the nervous energy that had propelled Liv through the last twenty minutes was visibly dissipating; whatever this guy was saying, he was getting through to her in a way Muncy hadn't been able to, and she watched it happen, watched Liv do something Muncy had never seen her do before; she watched Liv give up.
Very slowly Liv picked her way across the elevator to the back wall where Muncy was resting. Liv slid out of her blazer and rolled it into a ball, and then set it on the floor before easing herself down on top of it. The blazer didn't offer that much cushion, but it was probably marginally better than just sitting flat on the hard, shiny surface under them, and Muncy was kinda kicking herself for not thinking of it first. Liv stretched her legs out in front of her, same as Muncy had done, and then leaned back against the wall, tilted her chin up and turned her face towards the ceiling like a sunbather, closing her eyes for a moment, while she held the phone against her ear, and listened to the man's voice though the phone.
Without those dark eyes flashing at her Muncy found herself faced with an opportunity to really look at the Captain, to observe her without feeling like some kinda spy. Liv really was a pretty woman, but she looked tired, just now. Tired, and sad, and…normal. Most of the time Liv walked around like she was ten feet tall and bulletproof, confident, proud, utterly in command of every room she entered, but just now she wasn't that woman. Wasn't the Captain, powerful and ballsy, her word unquestioned law. She was just Liv, just a person, with secrets and scars and grief in her heart. Just a person, a little bit sad, a little bit scared, being comforted by a friend.
"Gonna get you out of there," Muncy heard the man say through the phone. Now that Liv was closer to her, she could pick out the words more easily, though some of it washed right by her.
"I know," Liv answered.
" 's not forever."
"I know."
Whatever the man said next his voice was just a little too low for Muncy to make it out, but she caught the last of it.
"Gonna be there," she heard him say.
"Promise?"
It wasn't a tease, wasn't delivered in good humor, or even in bad. Liv wasn't joking with the guy; she sounded small, and tired. Like she needed him to promise, needed him to say whatever it was he'd said and fucking mean it, like it would hurt her if he didn't.
"Promise," he said.
"Ok. I gotta go, I don't know how long we'll be stuck here and I don't wanna run the battery down."
"Ok. I'll see you soon."
"See you soon."
Liv sighed again when she took the phone away from her ear, when she tucked it back in her pocket. The conversation had been brief but its impact on her was apparent, and profound. She wasn't jumpy, anymore, and her eyes weren't wild, and she didn't seem so desperate for an escape. She was calm now, quiet now, still now. Whoever that guy was he had done the impossible, and gotten through to her, and now she was steady again, though the air was still heavy with her sorrow. There was something about Liv; for someone who shared so little of herself with others she wore her heart on her sleeve, and whatever she felt the people around her could feel it, too. The sadness that dogged her steps, Muncy could feel it, had felt it the day they met and could feel it now, sitting in the elevator next to her.
"Who was that?" Muncy asked, making a stab at conversation, trying to come across light, playful. Maybe if she got Liv to talk they could be like two girls at a sleepover, gossiping and giggling and getting to know one another. It was hard to imagine Liv as a girl, though; she was what Muncy's mom would've called an old soul. Like she'd always been grown up, always been responsible and troubled. Then again, she wasn't too grown up to steal peanuts out of the vending machine; there was a part of Liv that wasn't restrained, a part of her that Muncy was certain knew how to have fun. It was a part of her Muncy hadn't seen much of, so far, a part she hoped she might be able to tease out, now that the worst of Liv's distress seemed to have passed.
But Liv didn't smile, or roll her eyes, or laugh. She didn't snap, either, didn't seem to get angry. Instead she cast her gaze down, and toyed with the hem of her blouse, and in the wake of her fear and her anger and her nervous energy it was sadness that seemed to leech from her very bones into the air around her.
"A friend," she said.
"A good friend?"
Muncy was well aware that she was on dangerous ground; it was pretty stupid, actually, to poke at Liv like this when they were trapped together and the Cap's emotions had been so tumultuous, but Muncy knew a thing or two about isolation. Muncy knew that sometimes the people who were least willing to talk about themselves were the ones who most needed to. And Muncy really, really wanted to know who that guy was, because if Liv ever flipped out like that again Muncy wanted to be able to call him. Whoever he was, he was a fucking miracle worker.
"You're like a dog with a bone, you know that?" Liv said wryly.
"I'm sorry -"
"Don't be. It's a good quality in a detective. You gotta be relentless. And you gotta be curious. You gotta ask the questions if you're ever gonna get any answers."
No one had ever praised Muncy for being nosy before, and she didn't really know what to do with it.
"So are you gonna -" She started to ask tentatively, but Liv cut her off with a gentle smile.
"That was Stabler."
It took Muncy a second to catch up, to figure out why the name sounded familiar to her. It was Duarte who'd said it, she could practically hear his voice in her head. Stabler had been Liv's partner, back when she was a detective, and he'd gotten himself into a world of shit in recent days; Muncy remembered hearing some unis calling him a rat for investigating his fellow officers and she remembered Duarte saying the guy was a loose cannon, which was pretty fucking funny, coming from Duarte. It had struck her as odd, at the time Duarte had mentioned him, that someone like Liv would have been partnered with someone Duarte said went too far. Liv was steady and reliable and she expected her people to be on their game, to color within the lines, and she and Duarte seemed to rub each other up the wrong way, and so how, Muncy had wondered, how had Liv worked with a guy like that? For a long time, if she was remembering what Duarte had said correctly; how had Liv worked with him for a long time, when she couldn't seem to get away from Duarte fast enough?
The answer, Muncy figured, was probably in that phone call. Maybe Stabler was violent and maybe he was reckless and maybe he pushed boundaries and maybe he was a prick, but when he called Liv he'd comforted her, calmed her, centered her, made her feel better. Maybe that was why they'd worked well together; maybe he took care of her. There didn't seem to be anybody else around to do that work now, didn't seem to be anybody who looked after Liv - Liv who was so busy looking after everybody else - but her old partner was there, still. Reassuring her, making his promises to her. Liv was a Captain, she'd been in command for what, a decade? It had been a long, long time since she and Stabler were partners, but the man was still taking care of her. It was a nice thought.
Muncy didn't really have a partner right now, but Velasco was close enough to one. They were both a little green, both learning the ropes, and Rollins had left and Fin was more of a mentor than anything else and Liv was their boss. It was just Muncy and Velasco at the bottom of the food chain and he'd been a good friend to her and she found herself wondering, then, if ten years from now Velasco would still be a good friend to her. She kinda hoped he would.
"He was your partner, right?" Muncy asked. "It's cool you guys are still close."
Liv turned her head slowly to the side, eyed Muncy thoughtfully, almost warily, like she was trying to work out whether there was any hidden meaning in what Muncy said. There wasn't, but now Muncy was wondering if there should have been.
"You don't know anything about him, do you?" Liv asked keenly. She was right, of course, but Muncy wasn't sure how Liv had worked it out.
"No," she allowed. "I remember Duarte talking - talking about him."
Talking shit about him, that's what she was gonna say, but she caught herself at the last minute. She didn't think Liv would like that too much.
"I bet you do," Liv said wryly. "I can imagine what Duarte had to say about him."
"Which is kinda funny, right? Like, Duarte's not one to talk about someone being reckless."
"They're nothing alike." There was something soft, something warm in Liv's voice when she said it. "Elliot has his faults and he can be a son of a bitch when he wants to be but he's good police. Everything he did, every line he ever crossed, he only did it to help people. He cares, so much. He's got a good heart."
"Sounds like you like him," Muncy said. Sounds like you love him, that's what she wanted to say, but she didn't want to get pistol whipped by her boss in an elevator she couldn't escape from.
"He's my best friend," Liv said.
Coming from a woman like Liv, that meant a hell of a lot; Liv didn't let people in easily, didn't like to open up, didn't like to share, and so the one person she trusted enough to call her best friend, the one person who could get through to her when she was struggling, the one person who could make her smile, gently, the way she was smiling now, that person had to be important to her. Everything to her, maybe. All these years later and he was still her best friend, was still the one who seemed to lighten her burdens and open her up; he must have been a hell of a guy, Muncy thought.
He probably knew all the things Muncy didn't. He probably knew what had happened to Liv, how she'd gotten locked in that trunk and how she'd gotten out of it. He probably knew the name of her grief, probably knew the shape and the making of all of her scars. The shadows that Muncy had only ever been able to glimpse, he'd probably faced them. And he'd made a promise to Liv when she needed it most. Muncy hoped he'd keep that promise.
It was another forty-five minutes before the elevator jolted to life; Muncy squeaked, a little, caught off guard when it started to move, but by the time the elevator reached the ground floor and the doors opened she and Liv were both on their feet, a little sweaty after being cooped up in there with no AC but none the worse for wear. There was a crowd of people gathered in the lobby on the other side of the door, techs and a couple fire department guys and a medic, a few unis peering curiously at them as they stepped forward. One person in particular was eager to reach them, though; a big, burly, bald guy in a grey hoodie was pushing his way through the milling bodies, and when he caught Liv's eye he called out her name.
"Olivia!" he said sharply, and her eyes darted straight to him, a soft smile breaking across her face as their gazes caught one another, and held.
"You're here," Liv said as the man reached her. He didn't embrace her, didn't clutch her to him or gently touch her face, but he did touch her; one of his hands snaked out, slipped beneath the wealth of her dark hair to rest against the nape of her neck while he ducked his head just low enough for him to look into her eyes.
"I made a promise, didn't I?" he said.
Oh, shit.
That must have been him. Elliot Stabler. The rat, the loose cannon, the grieving widower. Liv's former partner, her still best friend. The one who'd helped her when Muncy couldn't. The one who'd made her a promise, and kept it. He was handsome enough - for an old guy - but mostly what he was was fucking intimidating. With no hair or beard to soften his face, with that thick neck, those big hands, those broad shoulders, he was an imposing presence, damn near scary, but his blue eyes were warm and kind, looking at Liv. Muncy got the feeling there were parts of Liv he got to see that no one else did; maybe there were parts of him he reserved for Liv, and Liv alone.
"Hey, El," Liv said after a second, giving her head a little shake like she was coming up from a dream. "There's someone I want you to meet."
Muncy figured that was her cue, and so she stepped just a little closer, felt Stabler's blue eyes washing over her, appraising in a curious sort of way.
"This is one of my new detectives. Grace Muncy, meet Elliot Stabler."
"Nice to meet ya," Muncy said, offering him her hand. His handshake was firm and steady, and his gaze made Muncy feel like she was looking at her dad. Like he was the kind of man who protected people, like he'd already decided he was going to protect her, because she belonged to Liv, and anything that belonged to Liv belonged to him, too.
"You, too," he said. "Listen, you guys have been cooped up for a while. Wanna walk to the cart? Coffee's on me."
"Yes, please," Muncy said eagerly. She stepped forward, began to thread her way through the crowd towards the exits and the tantalizing glow of the sunshine, but even as she was moving she could see them from the corner of her eye. Could see Stabler's hand slip to the small of Liv's back, could see him bow his head towards her and say something in a voice too low for anyone else to hear, and she could see Liv smile, smile in a way that Muncy had not ever known Liv to smile.
Best friends my ass, Muncy thought. She'd have a chance to observe them more closely while they got their coffee, but she had evidence enough to draw a conclusion now. What that man had done for Liv, the way he had banished the darkness around her, that was more than just friendship. It looked, she thought, like love.