Jet couldn't stop laughing, Reyes looked at her confused as Vargas murmured at him "Stabler is going to be grounded".
Now Reyes looked even more confused as he saw Ayanna at her office's door:
"Stabler, I need to talk to you NOW".
Elliot took his eyes from his phone for the first time since he arrived at work.
He got up and sprinted to the stairs, but before he asked Jet:
"What did I do now?"
Jet could barely hold her laugh as Reyes and Vargas smiled with mischief.
Taking a deep breath, he greeted Ayanna.
"Sarge, what's up?"
"Close the door." she said as she looked at a mountain of papers.
"Ayanna, you're scaring me" he said cautiously.
"Oh you should be scared. Look at all this Elliot. How am I supposed to explain this huge amount of calls from your work phone to another NYPD work phone that's not involved in any of our cases while you were undercover?" she said angrily. "Just one of these calls lasted 3 hours and 57 minutes! Look!" she gave him the page she was holding and sitting, she drank a cup of water before lashing out on him again "I can't even deal with the VPN shit you were using to send text messages because Jet told me you sent so many texts and so many data that she had to buy the most expensive plan of the most secure service with the not so great NYPD budget!"
Elliot sat down and breathed "Ayanna, I can explain."
"Do it now or you're going to explain this at 1PP".
He gulped, didn't know where to start or how to tell this to his boss without breaking his promise.
"I promised her that no one knew about our..." he trailed off.
"She who? Captain Benson? I know it's her number Elliot. You two dating?"
He looked so caught like a deer in the light that she couldn't hide a little smile at the man's discomfort. Here she had an experienced senior detective squirming because he was caught dating his former partner online.
"No, I mean... I... I promised her that I would never ghost her again and before I went to this uc job, I made sure she had my number and we talked everyday we could and when I was at the apartment I called her and we would talk for hours. She needed it, she wasn't in a good place after Ohio, I wasn't in a better place too but I had to be there for her in any capacity I could and we texted night and day, I know its..." he took a deep breath "but I needed to hear her voice and know how she was doing and..." he was rambling, making it all funnier than it already was.
"Ok ok, enough! Spare me with the details of this texting fest."
He remembered instantly Cragen "stroke fest" remark ages ago and thought about how much time Ayanna spent talking to his old captain.
"So you and Benson are dating online but not in real life yet? None of my business if you never use your work phone for Tinder again."
"We weren't sexting, Ayanna".
"But you didn't deny dating her."
"I'm not there yet, we're not there yet."
"But you want it?" she was growing more and more curious. He was nervous and the tension between the captain and the detective was something she only saw in romantic movies or, in this case right now, rom-coms.
He looked at her with doe eyes and choked out.
"There's nothing that I want more in my life."
His raw emotional admission took her aback. The man is down bad, real bad.
"Wow, then go for it."
"I'm trying to, but she's..."
"Not there yet?" she offered using his own words.
"No, but she's talking to me about everything and nothing at all and it's very important to me. I swear we're not sending nudes to each other. We're both SVU cops, I mean..." he started to stumble over his words again and she took him out of his misery.
"I hope not because if they had to investigate these calls and texts the last thing you both needed was your intimacy exposed for the rats at the IAB and her boss."
"Ok. I understand. Can I go now?"
"Yeah. If they ask I'll tell them it was about the Santos case because you're lucky ADA Carisi is involved." she prayed it worked with her bosses too.
"Thank you, Ayanna. It means a lot, she means the world to me and I want to be her best friend again." he was really trying to make Olivia see how sorry he was for all the shit he brought to her life when he explosively entered again.
"Elliot. Be more than her best friend because everybody knows that you and her are what the teenagers call endgame."
She smiled and he laughed softly.
"Yeah, thanks boss!" he said, phone in hand and already texting again.
She waited for him to leave before sending a text to another sargeant.
"U gonna be a rich man soon and will have to share with me :P"
"Tell me everything" came the reply.
"Lol, man! You're quick." she laughed to herself.
"Waiting for this money since 2000."
"I need more details."
"Let's grab a beer at my place, my treat. I'm gonna be rich soon anyway, lol"
"Ok rich man, see you at 7?"
"Deal. I'll send you the address. Phoebe will be happy seeing you."
"Lol, ok. See ya later"
":D"
Part 2? R&R