A/N: TW for mentions of Lewis, and rape.
The first result was a link to her profile on the NYPD's website, a small picture of her in uniform and a paragraph about her position as Captain of Manhattan SVU. There wasn't much information there, and what there was he had no way to fact check; he didn't know when his Liv had become a Captain, what year or under what circumstances. Another question never asked, never answered, and guilt churned in his gut.
The next few hits were all fairly recent, news articles the Captain had been interviewed for, talking about her squad's cases. He didn't know if his Liv had worked the same cases; except for the few collaborations between OCCB and SVU he and Liv hadn't talked about work at all, and he didn't know any of the specifics. Maybe some of it had been the same. If it was, he should've heard about it from Liv, shouldn't have read about it on a computer after she died.
I wasted so much time, he thought, scrolling through the articles. He'd been back for going on two years and he and Liv only ever seemed to talk when everything was going to shit. Maybe he should've taken her out for coffee, checked in on her more, but she'd turned down his invitations to lunch and he'd had so much on his plate, learning a new job, a new squad, trying to help his kids navigate the world without their mother. At the time, all those distractions had seemed necessary, important, and maybe they were but he'd let it all keep him away from Liv, had just been waiting for life to settle down. It never did, and he'd waited too long, and now there was only silence where her voice should've been.
He went back to the search page, thinking about changing the parameters of his search. "Captain Olivia Benson" would only return hits from the last few years; if he wanted to go further back he'd have to broaden his search. He was just about to do that when a link near the bottom of the page caught his eye.
NYPD lays Captain to Rest, it read, and he clicked on it at once, curious. The article was a profile in the Times, and it couldn't be about Olivia, since this Olivia was still alive and kicking, but her name had to have been in it somewhere. Maybe the dead Captain was one of her friends; Jesus, maybe it was Cragen. He had to know. The page loaded in a second, and he almost choked on his own tongue; there was a big photo splashed beneath the headline, a photo of a grey haired man with a familiar grizzled, grumpy face.
It was fucking Tucker. That asshole from IAB, the one who'd had it out for Elliot, the one who'd tried so many times to take Elliot's badge and finally got his wish after Jenna. Elliot began to read the article, wondering what the fuck Olivia had to do with Tucker, and he got his answer in a moment, though he was in no way prepared to hear it.
Captain Edward James "Eddie" Tucker of the NYPD took his own life Sunday, the article began. His death comes just days after a former officer committed suicide in a car parked outside Captain Tucker's retirement party. The two deaths have left the NYPD reeling, as a Department notorious for its lax approach to mental health services struggles with the all-too-common reality of police suicides.
Captain Tucker was a lifelong officer, joining the uniformed ranks fresh out of high school and working his way through the labyrinthine hierarchy of the Department to reach the rank of Captain. Described by his colleagues as a serious and dedicated officer, Captain Tucker spent most of his tenure with the NYPD working in the Internal Affairs Bureau, tasked with investigating fellow officers accused of corruption and misconduct. It was a position that earned him much respect, but few friends. He had no children, but is survived by his wife of two years, fellow NYPD Captain Olivia Benson.
The article went on, no doubt rambling about the accolades Tucker had earned and the intense pressure borne by police officers, but Elliot didn't keep reading. His eyes remained fixed on the last sentence of the second paragraph.
Survived by his wife of two years, fellow NYPD Captain Olivia Benson.
Olivia had married him. Married fucking Tucker. The article called him Eddie but Liv and Olivia, they'd both called him Ed. It was the same guy, though. It had to be, Elliot thought, because Liv had been so cagey with the details, told him her man's name was Ed but offered no surname, told him Ed died but offered no details. Olivia had been forthcoming, told him her husband had killed himself, and the article backed her up. Things were different here, some things, but some things were the same, and this, he felt certain, was one of them. Liv's Ed was Tucker.
How the fuck did that happen? He thought faintly. Tucker was, to his mind, a mean, ugly old son of a bitch. They'd fought like hell, Tucker and Liv; the bastard had nearly put her away for murder. What had changed her mind? What had made her let him touch her, made her want him to? It made Elliot feel like throwing up, the thought of Tucker's hands on her. She'd hated the prick, just as much as he did.
Didn't she?
Most of the time it was Elliot Tucker was investigating, and not Liv. And yeah, Tucker had put her in jail, but he did have her DNA on the murder weapon, was only responding to the evidence in front of him. If Elliot hadn't been there, if Tucker hadn't been gunning for him, would Tucker's relationship with Liv have been half so sour? She was a straight shooter - most of the time - and kept herself out of his sights; without Elliot beside her would she have been less reckless? Would she have been someone Tucker liked?
Maybe that's what happened, he thought grimly. Maybe back home, in the world he'd left behind, Tucker and Liv had found common ground without Elliot to fight over. Maybe in this world, where Olivia had never met him, maybe she'd never hated Tucker at all. Maybe Elliot had spoiled that for Liv, stolen her chance at happiness away; then again maybe not, because it had taken Olivia long enough to marry Tucker, and he'd died here just like he'd died back home. Maybe it wasn't all his fault, her unhappiness.
The photo of Tucker was giving him heartburn so he closed that tab, and re-ran his search, this time for just "Olivia Benson".
He was right; without the word "Captain" there were older results. He scrolled through the headlines about her daring deeds until he came to one that made his blood run cold.
Grand Jury Convened in Case of NYPD Sergeant Accused of Murder.
There was an order to things; Olivia wouldn't have gone straight from Detective to Captain. She'd have to been a Sergeant first, then a Lieutenant. What if the Sergeant in the headline was her? When had she made Sergeant, anyway? He'd missed it all - goddamn it - the anxiety of the tests and the excitement when she passed and the pride when she got her stripes, the ceremonies and the toasts. What had she been like, as a Sergeant? What had made her decide to sit for the exam in the first place, when she'd never expressed a desire to advance in all the time that they were partners? How long had it taken, he wondered; how long after he left had Liv waited before seeking promotion?
I was just holding her back, he thought, because in thirteen years she never moved up even once, and she was promoted three times in the ten years he was away.
Maybe I never should've come back at all. If it hadn't been for him, maybe she'd never have gone to Ohio. Maybe if he'd stayed away from the force, turned down the liaison job and kept working in the private security sector, maybe they'd both be alive, Kathy and Liv, and maybe those six kids wouldn't all be motherless, on account of him. When the brass offered him the job, when he took it, he'd been thinking of Liv, though. It felt like a chance, maybe, to work his way back into the fold; start off as liaison, maybe swing himself a job back home, maybe convince Kathy to go back to New York so she'd be closer to their grandsons, maybe see Liv again. Truth was it was Liv he wanted, most of all. Maybe he'd been selfish.
It was a tense scene inside the courthouse as the grand jury heard evidence regarding the shooting death of accused serial rapist William Lewis. This paper first reported on Mr. Lewis in the spring of last year, when he was tried and convicted of the kidnap and rape of NYPD Detective Olivia Benson.
The kidnap and rape of Detective Olivia Benson.
The kidnap and rape of Detective Olivia Benson.
The words rang through his head like the echo of gunfire, loud, too loud, shredding his heart to pieces.
No, he thought, no.
It was a nightmare the likes of which he'd never imagined, a possibility even his guilty conscience had not conjured to torture him with. Oh, he'd known that Liv might have gotten hurt, while he was away, that something might have happened to make her so much quieter, so much more reticent, so much more closed off from him, but he'd thought it was no more than a broken heart, grief for her lover who had died or anger for him, for leaving her. That she had been attacked, assaulted, violated; no, he'd never imagined it. Maybe it was stupid, but he'd always kinda thought he'd just know if something like that happened to Liv. They were so closely bound, him and her, and she meant so much to him, and something this horrific, this devastating; surely he should've felt the echo of her pain in his very bones. If he had, he would've dropped everything and come running to her. But he'd never suspected, and he'd stayed away, and she'd been…
Jesus. She'd been raped. Liv would have rather died than go through that, and he knew it. But Olivia was still alive, still breathing, still dedicated to her job, all these years later; it had been about ten, since the article was written. Only two years after he left her, or no, that wasn't right.
Olivia had been attacked, and Elliot had never left her at all, having never met her, and he couldn't measure time using the same milestones, not for her. Was it possible, he wondered, that the horror Olivia had endured had never come to Liv? Two years after he left, she'd have had a new partner by then, and he'd always prayed that whoever they saddled her with next would look after her. Maybe her new partner had taken care of her. Maybe Liv had never met Lewis at all.
But he didn't know. Because he'd never asked, because he'd never looked her up, he didn't know what had happened to his Liv. His Liv who was dead now, and was never gonna be able to tell him the truth. If he could make his way home somehow he could ask Fin about it, but how the fuck was he ever gonna do that? What if he never knew for sure?
Part of him wanted to shut down the computer and go find a quiet corner of the library to sit alone and weep, but he was a cop, and he loved her, and he had to know.
So he read on. The article started by explaining Lewis's past crimes. How he'd been in the NYPD's sights due to a string of sexual assaults and murders, all sadistic in nature. How he'd kidnapped and tortured his victims, drugged them, burned them, abused them in every possible way. How he had taken Olivia, and held her hostage in a beach house in Jersey for days. How the jury had returned a guilty verdict in his trial in less than half an hour, some of them moved to tears by the pictures of Olivia's injuries.
But that wasn't the story; the story was that Lewis had escaped from prison, somehow, and kidnapped a girl, and Olivia had raced headlong into danger to stop him. How the police had arrived on scene just in time to hear gunshots, found Lewis dead and Olivia bound, how there were whispers she'd killed him herself, how she was adamant that she hadn't. The grand jury would hear the evidence and determine whether or not to proceed to trial; Elliot figured they'd decided not to, given that Olivia had retained her position with the force.
The question remained, though. Did she kill him, the man who had burned her, tortured her, raped her? Even if the grand jury hadn't voted to send her to trial that didn't necessarily mean they thought she hadn't killed him; it might just mean they thought she was justified. If he wanted the truth he'd have to keep looking, see if he could find more articles, details from the first assault, the results of the grand jury's deliberations. He'd have to keep reading, about how Olivia had been violated, and if the things this guy Lewis had done to other people were any indication of his capacity for violence, what he'd done to her must have been vile.
And it's all my fault, Elliot thought.
In the next breath he vaulted up from his chair, raced across the library and straight into the bathroom, and vomited his coffee and bagel straight into the nearest toilet. When his stomach was finally empty he sank to the floor, leaned back against the stall door and drew his knees up to his chest, and wept.
There was no way to know with any certainty whether his Liv had suffered the same fate, not while he was trapped here, but something in him told him she must have. Things were different here, but not that different. The year Olivia was attacked, without her Elliot to watch her back, Liv would've been alone, too, Elliot long gone. Alone, without his protection. Alone, because he'd left her, because he thought she'd be better off without him.
What a fucking fool he'd been.