She didn't even notice the man at first.
They rode up on the elevator together, but there were at least six other bodies crammed in there with them and everyone inside the carriage was politely ignoring everyone else, the way they were supposed to. If she had been asked later to describe the face of any of her fellow riders she wouldn't have been able to give a single detail about any of them; she was looking at the ground, and they were looking at their phones, and she was only on the elevator for a few seconds, anyway.
The man stepped off the elevator at SVU's floor but SVU wasn't the only unit up there and Muncy wasn't paying him any attention; he could've been going anywhere, but Muncy was going home, and her eyes were focused on the path ahead. He turned when she turned, though; whether he knew it or not, he was leading them both to the squadroom. Even when they stepped over the threshold she still wasn't particularly interested in the guy; there were a million reasons he could've been headed for SVU, and none of it was her business, not unless he was there to report a crime.
Muncy went straight to her desk, dropped her bag in her chair and turned right around, heading for the breakroom. It was still early in the day but she'd already been working for hours and she was desperate for a cup of coffee. The Sarge was on the phone and Velasco was parking the car and the lights were off in Liv's office, so she figured now was the best time to get herself caffeinated. Once everyone was gathered in the squadroom they'd hit the ground running, and she might not get another chance.
That was when she really noticed the man, when she turned to make her way towards the breakroom, because the guy was still in front of her, still moving in the same direction as her. And that was weird, because there was no reason for a stranger to go that way. If he needed a cop surely he'd have waited in the bullpen for the Sarge or Muncy to notice him instead of going wandering, and he was heading the wrong way to reach the interview rooms. He didn't seem lost, though.
It was hard to get a read on him from behind, but Muncy tried as she followed him silently towards the breakroom. He was tall, muscular, bald. He was wearing a grey shirt, long sleeved, the fabric soft and ribbed, blue jeans, heavy black boots. He had a nice ass. He was carrying something in his hands; Muncy drifted to the left a little so she could could get a better angle, and what she saw was two take-out coffee cups, one in each of his hands. His steps were heavy and certain, like he knew the way, like he'd been there before. There was a handgun holstered at his hip and there was no way he'd have made it past the desk Sergeant downstairs armed unless he was a cop, unless he had a badge to show and prove he was allowed to carry inside the precinct, and those boots were a lot like the ones Fin and Velasco wore, so Muncy wasn't too worried about his gun. Just a little worried.
The door to the breakroom was open so Muncy could clearly see Liv inside. She had her back turned towards the door, was fiddling around with the coffee maker, an old school kind with a carafe that could hold ten cups and took forever to percolate. The department wouldn't spring for a Keurig. She was wearing a black blazer and black trousers and her hair hung in loose waves down her back and she was utterly unguarded, in no position to protect herself, with her back turned and the stranger walking between her and Muncy.
And Muncy didn't like that at all.
She opened her mouth to speak, to call out to Liv, to give her a moment's warning before the stranger crossed the threshold, but he spoke before she did, and the sound of his voice gave her pause.
"Hey," the man said softly, hoarsely, and Liv's entire body went rigid. She recognized that voice. She knew this man, and Muncy couldn't see her face but she could feel the tension in her boss, even from a distance. The man was still walking, making his way across the room, and Muncy decided to wait before making her presence known.
The way she saw it there were two options here; either Liv wanted to talk to this guy - however nervous he might have made her - or she didn't. If Liv wanted to talk Muncy didn't want to interrupt them, and if Liv didn't want to talk Muncy wanted to be there to rescue her from him. To that end, then, she leaned herself up against the wall beside the door, out of sight but close enough to hear what was going on inside.
"Hey," she heard Liv say. The Captain's voice was very low, and very sad. Familiar, too; they had no need of introductions, had recognized one another automatically.
Who the fuck is this guy? Muncy wondered. Who would come here looking for Liv; who would know where to find her when her office was dark, who would with one single word make her sound so small?
"I…uh…I brought you coffee," the man said. He sounded uneasy, unsure of himself, unsure of the situation. "Oatmilk, 'cause I know you're not doing dairy anymore."
There was, as far as Muncy was concerned, only one reason a man would show up at a woman's place of work with a cup of coffee for her, and she caught her bottom lip between her teeth, wondering. Should she be happy for Liv? As far as she knew Noah's dad was out of the picture, and Liv was all on her own, raising her kid and working hellacious hours, and Liv was kind and ballsy and a little lonesome, and she deserved to get laid, deserved to have a nice man who knew how she took her coffee and surprised her at work, went out of his way to take care of her. Most of the time Liv seemed so goddamn sad, she deserved a little happy, and Muncy wanted this guy to be Liv's happy. But the way Liv reacted when she heard his voice wasn't the glowy, giggly reaction Muncy would've expected if this guy was Liv's new beau; Liv didn't seem happy at all. The guy had said you're not doing dairy anymore, which meant that he'd known Liv long enough to remember that she used to take milk in her coffee, and knew her well enough now to know she didn't anymore. That didn't seem like something a new lover might say; it seemed, she thought, like something an ex might say.
Oh, shit, she thought, wondering. What if this was him? Noah's dad? It would explain why he knew his way around the station and why he remembered how Liv used to take her coffee and why they both seemed so wary of one another. It made a certain amount of sense, Noah's dad also being a cop; where else would Liv have the chance to meet people but on the job? It would also explain why he wasn't around for Noah much, if he was working hectic hours, too. Maybe this was him, Liv's ex, the ex, the one she'd had a kid with, the one she never saw any more. There were, Muncy knew, a lot of different kinds of exes out there, and some were kind and some were mean and she didn't know yet which kind this man might be. The jury was still out, she thought, on the matter of whether or not she ought to interrupt them.
"You didn't have to do that," she heard Liv say.
"Didn't do it 'cause I had to," the man answered heavily.
He had to have done it, Muncy thought, because he wanted to. The man had stopped somewhere and bought two coffees and carried them to SVU because he wanted to give one to Liv.
"I wanted to talk to you," the man continued. "And since you're not answering your phone-"
"I really can't do this now, Elliot."
Ok, Muncy thought, all right. That decided it. The guy had been calling and Liv hadn't been answering and that meant Liv didn't want to talk to him, and after what she'd just told him Muncy was pretty confident Liv would welcome an interruption. Muncy could swoop in, give Liv a convenient excuse to leave, and the guy could wait until Liv was ready to talk to him. If she ever was.
Somehow she couldn't quite bring herself to step away from the wall, though. What if the guy really did need to talk to Liv; what if, no matter how much she didn't want to, Liv needed to hear what he had to say? What if it was something important, something about their kid? What if Liv's man just missed her, and what if all they needed to make them both happy was a chance to just talk to each other? What if Muncy screwed things up for them by cutting this conversation short now? What if she waited another minute or two, waited to see if Liv would say something that would confirm her suspicions about who Elliot was, and whether he deserved her time?
Yeah, Muncy thought. I'll just wait.
"You keep saying that," the man grumbled. "And I hear you, Liv, I do. I know what I did and I know you got every reason not to trust me."
If it turned out that this motherfucker had cheated on Liv Muncy was gonna hate him for the rest of her life.
"But I'm here. I'm right here. And I'm trying to show you that I'm not going anywhere. I'm not walking away, Liv."
They were quiet, for a minute, the weight of his words sinking in while Muncy held her breath, chewing on her lip. If she just knew, knew for certain, who this guy was, what he'd done, then she'd know how to feel, how to respond. It was her instinct to defend her Captain, without hesitation; Liv was the best goddamn boss Muncy had ever had, and exactly the kind of cop Muncy had always tried to be, and she was a nice lady with a pretty smile who deserved a big burly man to wrap her up in his arms and make her feel safe the way she made everybody else feel safe. The guy's voice was warm and dripping with longing and if only Muncy could know that he was good for Liv then she could root for him. Could cross her fingers, and hope that Liv accepted him, and breathe a sigh of relief when she did. But Muncy didn't know, didn't know if she - or Liv - could trust this man's promises, didn't know if he meant to take care of her or if he was only gonna hurt her worse. Maybe Liv didn't know, either. Maybe that's why she wasn't answering his calls.
"I know that," Liv said softly, finally. "I know you won't."
So what's the problem, then?
"What do you need?" the man asked her earnestly, desperately. "Tell me what you need, Olivia, and I swear to god I'll give it to you."
It had been apparent to Muncy from the moment they met that Olivia Benson was a strong woman. A brave woman, a proud woman, unrelenting in her pursuit of justice, unafraid of anything. A couple of bangers with machetes had tried to kill her and Liv had fought them off and walked around with a shiner for weeks afterward like a fucking badge of honor. She put her life on the line for her kid and she stood toe to toe with Duarte - Jesus, Duarte - and she'd spoken at his funeral in a steady voice that hadn't wavered for one single second, powerful and unbowed in her black uniform. It must have taken a profound determination - or a shattering terror - for Liv to hold herself back from a man who brought her coffee and told her in a voice dripping with sincerity that he would give her anything she needed. Offers like that, genuine offers like that, didn't come around every day, and Muncy didn't know a damn thing about this man but she knew now that she believed him; when he spoke she could hear it in his voice. He'd give Liv the moon, if she asked for it.
"I need you to not give up on me," Liv said finally, in a wretched voice.
"I'm standing right here, Captain."
Inside the breakroom Liv laughed, a little wetly, like she was crying or trying not to, and Muncy's heart broke, just a little, because right now Liv didn't sound like the Captain. She sounded small, and sad, and tired. She sounded afraid, and Muncy wasn't used to an Olivia Benson who was afraid.
"You don't know," Liv said after a moment, and her voice sounded a little clearer, like maybe she'd taken a sip of her coffee and dislodged the lump in the back of her throat. "What it did to me, losing you."
That must have been why the guy was making such a big deal out of being here now; he must have walked away from her, once. And now he was back and he wanted her back and she wasn't ready to let him in. Muncy had never been one to look back; every breakup she'd ever had had been a clean fucking break, and she'd never wanted to go back to any of those guys, however comfortable, however familiar they might have been, however much she might have cared for them. Maybe it was pride that stopped her, and maybe once or twice she might have been wrong to stay away, but she'd never wavered. It was hard to know what she'd do, if she was in Liv's shoes. If she'd let somebody back in after he walked out on her. If she was ever gonna do that, she figured she'd have to be in love. Really in love, in the kind of love people wrote songs about, but she'd never had that before. She wondered if Liv had. She wondered if Liv's storybook love was staring her in the face. If it was the loss of that love that had made Liv seem so isolated, so reserved from the people around her, so sad in quiet moments, if the return of that love might bring a smile back to her face, might lighten her steps.
"I got some idea," the man said gruffly. " 'cause I remember what it did to me."
"You have no right-" Liv's voice was suddenly, shockingly dripping with malice but the man - her man, Elliot - was undaunted by the furious wave of her anger.
"You think it didn't hurt me?" he cut her off sharply. "You think it didn't break my fucking heart? You think I didn't dream of your face?"
Jesus Christ. If some guy told her he dreamed about her, Muncy's knees might buckle. Actually, she might laugh in his face. It all depended, she thought, on whether he was telling the truth.
"You still had-"
"I had nothing without you, Liv."
"Don't say that." She sounded like it broke her heart, him telling her he had nothing without her. She sounded miserable. It was regret, dripping from her heavy words. It was something almost like guilt, like Liv knew it was true and didn't want it to be, though for the life of her Muncy couldn't figure out why.
"Part of me died the day I left," the man said fiercely. It would've sounded melodramatic, coming from anybody else, but somehow Muncy believed this man. "And I didn't get it back until I saw your face again. I'm not leaving, Liv. Leaving you would kill me."
"That's what I'm afraid of. I…I can't lose you again. I can't do that again, Elliot. I can't…you're back and you're here and you bring me coffee and you protect my son and you're my friend and it's almost like it was before but if we do this and I lose you…I won't make it, El. I won't."
Jesus, this was heavy. It wasn't anything Muncy had expected, anything she could have prepared for, and she felt more than a little guilty, bearing witness to this conversation. No one was supposed to know about this, she was sure; no one was supposed to know how much grief the Captain carried in her heart, how desperately she longed for something as simple, as profound, as love. How terrified she was of her own heart. The Captain was a lot of things, but scared usually wasn't one of them, and she wasn't the sort of person who let other people see her afraid. See her vulnerable, the way she was vulnerable now, bleeding from the worst kind of wound, the kind that couldn't be mended with stitches.
"Then don't let me go," Elliot said, and his voice was almost pleading. "Let me be here. Just…just let me, Liv. 'Cause if you'll just let me, I'll be here to the day I die. I'm home and I'm not fucking leaving."
In the wake of his fervent declaration there came the shuffling sound of feet moving, and Muncy dared to risk a glance inside the room. She just needed to see what was happening, just needed to make sure Liv was ok. If she'd been in Liv's shoes she was pretty sure she wouldn't have been ok, and she needed to know the Captain was safe, that she was going to survive this conversation intact.
It looked like she was, because the man had crossed the space between them, and wrapped his arms around her. Liv was clinging to him, her hands fisted in the back of his shirt, her face buried in the crook of his neck, the coffee cups forgotten on the table behind them. They were holding on to each other, tight, like neither of them ever wanted to let the other go. It was harrowing to watch, the need they felt for one another palpable, but it was mesmerizing, in its own way. What would it be like, Muncy wondered, to need someone else that goddamn bad, to love someone so much just the thought of losing them was enough to break you in half?
If that's love, she thought, I don't want it.
It looked scary as all shit.
One thing was for certain, though; Muncy wasn't gonna walk into that room now, not for anything. She'd seen too much already and she felt guilty for interrupting, and she absolutely did not want to Liv to find out that she'd been eavesdropping. So she left them there, holding on to one another, darted back down the hallway and retreated to the squadroom.
The Sarge had wrapped up his phone call, was leaning back in his chair with his hands clasped behind his head, and he nodded when he saw Muncy.
"Hey," she said to him, going to her desk and moving her bag, plopping into her own chair. "There's some guy in the breakroom with the Cap."
She expected the Sarge to ask who it was, to ask her to describe him, and she was kinda hoping the Sarge might give her a name. What she wasn't expecting was to hear the Sarge laugh, which he did then.
"Yeah, that's Stabler," he said. "I saw him come in. Don't worry about him. He's Liv's old partner. They're probably just catching up."
They were, Muncy thought, doing a hell of a lot more than catching up. The revelation of Stabler's identity sent her head spinning; all the assumptions she'd made, all the things she thought were obvious, none of it was true. Well, some of it was true. Those two were in love, there was no doubt about that. But probably he wasn't Noah's dad, and probably, since the Sarge had laughed about him, he wasn't an ex, either. But he was something, to Liv. Maybe everything.
And that was kinda nice, Muncy thought. Liv deserved everything.