Work Text:
The raid is a success. They are able to apprehend several key players in the trafficking ring. In the aftermath, the squadroom of the 1-6 is a flurry of activity, with people swarming in every direction like bees from a hive.
“Are… are those the girls from the van?” The madam Fin is grasping by the arm struggles to break away from him. Her eyes are trained into the room, and there is a frantic energy emanating from her as she scans the features of the teenage girls they captured today.
“I’m guessing you already know the answer to that question,” Amanda says as she looks at the woman with disdain. The beginnings of a snarl grace the edges of her lips as she turns from the madam in disgust.
“Wait!” the woman cries out. Her voice is imbued with desperation, and she stutters as she tries to make herself heard. “Uh… c-can… wh-who… who is in charge? I need to talk to someone. Please. We’re losing time.”
Amanda rolls her eyes at the woman as she calls out to her CO. “Liv?”
Olivia turns and walks toward Amanda. “You got something?” Her stride is confident and powerful, and she stretches to her full height as she glares down with intimidation at the woman dangling from Fin’s grasp, straining for her attention. “This better be good,” she says, with hands on her hips and ice in her stare.
The madam looks up at Olivia, her brown eyes wet with emotion. Her magenta covered lips are in stark contrast to her sallow complexion, her features long and drawn on a face that looks like it has weathered a thousand storms. She moves towards Olivia, and states, almost in a whisper, “I’m undercover.”
Olivia’s eyebrows raise. “For who?”
“I’ve been tracking this ring for a year.”
“For who?” Olivia repeats, more forcefully this time.
“They have my daughter.”
Olivia looks at the woman in disbelief, and then starts walking towards her office, indicating with her head for her to follow. “You better hope this checks out.”
As they pass the threshold of the office, the woman charges towards the window to the interrogation room, where the girls recovered from the raid are being held. “I need to talk to those girls you picked up,” she says.
Amanda pokes her head into the office and she passes a knowing glance between Olivia and the woman. “Uh, vice doesn’t know you. You’re not UC.”
The woman turns from the window, her arms pushed out from her body in a look of almost surrender. “I’m not a cop,” she explains urgently. “My name is Martha Thornhill. I’m from Calgary. My daughter Ariel was kidnapped three years ago.”
“And you think she was taken by traffickers,” Olivia leads.
“I know she was. I’ve been tracking her from Toronto to Minneapolis to Buffalo… I’ve seen her picture in backstage sex ads,” her voice hitches with emotion. “They took her to New York six months ago.”
Amanda makes eyes with Olivia, both of them wary of the information Martha is relaying to them. “Did you contact NYPD?”
“No.” Martha shakes her head.
“Why not?” Olivia questions.
“Toronto police didn’t believe me. Ariel was thirteen, we were on vacation in Toronto, we were having lunch at a cafe. I went to pay at the register, was gone two minutes tops,” she pauses, a huff escaping her lips before she continues. “The police thought my boyfriend and I had something to do with her disappearance.”
“Did you?” Olivia looks at the woman, her eyebrows furrowed in concern.
“No!” Martha insists. “The three days they spent grilling us, that’s when we lost her.”
Olivia again makes eyes with Amanda, trying to gauge the detective’s reaction to Martha’s story. “Why should we believe you? We just caught you red handed trafficking.”
“Let me show you.” Martha looks beseechingly between Olivia and Amanda. “Please.”
~oOo~
A trip to Martha’s apartment in Flushing, Queens reveals an elaborate evidence board constructed by the woman in an effort to track down her missing child. On a wall scattered with photos, newspaper clippings, and post-it notes scrawled with bits of information lies keys to cracking a human trafficking ring whose scope is even larger than SVU could possibly have anticipated. Now firmly convinced of the madam’s true intentions, Olivia turns to her ADA for help.
“Local precincts just blew her off,” she says, pacing in front of the evidence scattered on presentation boards across the front of the squad room, compiled using the fruits of Martha’s labor. “So she goes deeper into the life, right? Completely putting herself at risk, and pretending to be a madam so she could get closer to these girls.”
“Touching story,” Barba says, not even feigning compassion as he rests, partially seated on the edge of Amanda’s desk. “Tell me how posing as a criminal and engaging in criminal activity doesn’t make you a,” he pauses for effect, eyes lighting up in mock sudden realization, “criminal.”
Olivia rolls her eyes in frustration. “She’s recorded every single job that she’s ever done, every single pimp who’s ever supplied girls to the houses she’s worked for. She’s better than any UC we’ve seen.”
“Because she wasn’t undercover,” Barba explains, rising to his feet, “she’s an actual trafficker. And she’s done.”
“Hold on,” Olivia counters, empathy oozing from her pores as her eyes implore him to have compassion, “she’s been searching for her daughter.”
“I understand. And assuming that she hands over all her records and turns state’s evidence, I might take that into consideration…”
“Oh you might?” Olivia cuts him off.
“Yeah.”
“It’s taken her three years to get this far. She’s not going to work with us unless we help her get her daughter back.”
“She’s not going back in,” Barba states firmly, pausing between each word for emphasis.
Olivia lets out a frustrated breath, and averts her attention to the ceiling as she shakes her head before returning her laser focus back to Barba. “Well then maybe we go in for her.”
~oOo~
Martha is reluctant to hand over direct contact information that she has gained throughout her investigation. The justice system has failed her time and time again, and only in going off and infiltrating on her own has she made any progress in moving closer to rescuing her daughter. She fears that turning over all of her intel will blow her cover, and destroy her years of reconnaissance. When Barba threatens legal action against her for her participation in running a brothel, however, she is forced to relent. She explains how she has had dealings with pimp after pimp before finally locating the one, known as Timmer, who owns Ariel. Throughout her six months in New York, Martha had inserted herself into Timmer’s network, where girls are trafficked until they are no longer of use. The ones who cause trouble are beaten and disposed of, sold off as damaged goods to the highest bidder. Martha reveals that she has personally purchased and sent home six girls. On the night of the raid, she had made plans to buy Ariel before the run-in with SVU brought her mission to an abrupt and unexpected halt.
The detectives work the information they are given, and are led to a party house used frequently by Timmer. It is Super Bowl Sunday, and a large party has been planned that Olivia’s team has now taken over. The madam of the house has put in a call to Timmer that a big spender, or in actuality, Carisi undercover, has made a special request for Ariel’s services. If all goes according to plan, by the time Katy Perry has finished the halftime show, they will have arrested Timmer, the madam, Tracy, and a group of johns who prey on underage girls. They also will be able to save Ariel and whatever other girls are with her.
Olivia makes her way through the party house keeping a watchful eye on the gathering transpiring before her. She is dressed in a teal and black animal print blouse, black leather pants, and spiked leather boots. Gold hoops the size of saucers adorn her ears, while a long, thick gold knotted chain drapes down from her neck. Her blown out wavy hair and overdone makeup highlighted with shiny fuschia lipstick complete the picture of her undercover persona, Bethany, a madam friend of Tracy’s who was brought in to assist because they were expecting a big turn out. Playing the part of her pimp is Fin, whose supplied working girls are young looking undercover vice officers.
It’s been two hours since people started arriving, and still there is no sign of Ariel. Carisi, as the whale, storms up to Olivia to express his discontent. “Hey, where’s my blonde? Huh? The skinny one with the nice rack?”
Olivia looks to Timmer, who is standing beside her. “She’ll be here, but while you’re waiting…”
“Why don’t you let my girl, Nina take care of you?” Timmer speaks on top of her.
Carisi looks over at Nina, and saunters in her direction. As he moves out of earshot, Olivia turns to Timmer. “He has money,” she says, “Is Ariel actually coming?”
“She’ll be here,” Timmer insists. “Let me make another phone call.” He pushes past her, moving with urgency, his phone in hand.
As Olivia turns back around to rejoin the party, she is approached by Fin. “A mystery pimp just pulled up in the driveway,” he says, and shows her his phone, which shows surveillance images from the camera outside the building. A large black SUV with dark tinted windows has appeared in the frame. Olivia looks closely at the screen, where the grainy image reveals a man exiting the driver’s door of the vehicle. He is dressed in black jeans and a black leather jacket with a black hat that obscures his face from the camera. From the information the team had been given, Timmer was the last of the pimps expected this evening to arrive.
“Hey,” Olivia says as she walks towards Tracy, “who just arrived in the black Escalade?”
“Bishop,” she answers, “His ass crazy. Timmer musta called him ‘bout Ariel.”
“But he’s alone.” Olivia responds to no one, because Tracy is quickly moving away from her.
“Timmer!” A loud voice booms from the doorway as the mystery pimp makes his presence known. “Who are these trespassers? I don’t know them.”
Olivia looks toward the wall of intimidation that has just entered the room, his presence and demeanor demanding attention with just one glance at him. As she looks over towards the surprise guest, her stomach drops as though she just jumped out of a plane. Her pulse pounds in her ears, fast as a jackrabbit’s, and her breaths become shallow as she struggles to control the tremor that threatens to shake her body. It draws her attention when he tightens his fist, and her eyes travel up the solid mass of his chiseled form. She watches as he clenches his jaw before fixing his ice blue gaze upon her. Although he tempers his reaction, her familiarity with every nuance of his face betrays the momentary panic that probably only she is aware he feels. This is what it must be like to see a ghost , she thinks as she hardens her expression and glares at none other than Elliot Stabler.
When she recovers enough from the shock to speak, Olivia steps forward. “I’m with Tracy,” she says with a composure she doesn’t feel. “We’re all friends here.”
“You’re no friend of mine,” he answers, his voice deep and chilling, “ma’am.”
Olivia stares at the apparition who used to be her partner, the sound of his voice and his words stabbing her like a knife and paralyzing her in an instant.
When she fails to respond, Carisi jumps into action. He rises swiftly from the couch, pushing Nina off his lap as he stands.
“Aah,” she yelps as she lands with a thud on the floor. “What the…”
“Shut up, bitch,” Carisi leers at the girl as he moves towards Olivia.
In less than a second, Elliot is on the move. “Hey,” he shouts, charging past Olivia and pointing his finger in Carisi’s face. “You! Never speak to a woman like that. You’re done.”
“The game hasn’t even started yet. Back off,” Carisi says, pushing Elliot a half step back with two hands against his chest.
“Yours is over,” Elliot responds, turning away from him.
“Hey,” Carisi argues back, throwing his arms up in the air. “Who are you? I don’t know you!”
In one swift movement, Elliot turns around and pulls a gun from the interior of his jacket, swinging the butt of it at Carisi’s head, knocking him instantly to the ground. “Now you do!” he spits out, yelling down at Carisi who lies on the floor with his hands up to guard his face.
There is a buzz of electricity that simmers in the air, as the party guests collectively startle in reaction to what is happening before them. Fin steps forward, pushing his way towards Elliot, arms in front of him with palms forward saying don’t shoot. “Hey,” he says, trying to de-escalate the situation. “Take it easy man.”
“I don’t know you either, Superfly,” Elliot says, pointing his gun in Fin’s direction. “That’s it, this party’s over,” he shouts.
“Drop your gun,” Olivia states loudly, pulling her own gun and pointing it straight at Elliot.
Elliot looks at Olivia, then turns his head to speak menacingly at Timmer. “For your sake, boy, hope you didn’t invite a pig to the party.”
“I didn’t,” Timmer cries.
“Drop the gun,” Olivia repeats, her gun held steady aimed at Elliot’s chest.
“Alright, darlin’.” Elliot puts his left hand up in Olivia’s direction. “Just take it easy.”
“I said drop the gun.”
“Tracy,” Elliot says, “tell your bitch here to take a step back.” His words are calm, but calculated and intense.
Before Olivia can respond, the door bursts open, as Nick leads a charge of officers into the room. “NYPD,” he shouts.
“Drop your weapons,” Amanda yells from behind him.
Turning towards Timmer again, Elliot shouts, “You sold me out. You’re dead. You’re dead!”
“I didn’t man, I didn’t!” Timmer protests as his hands are being handcuffed behind his back.
“Everybody here is under arrest,” Amanda shouts as she pulls Elliot’s hands behind his back to cuff him.
Nick comes behind Olivia, making a show of pulling her hands behind her back, but gently putting his cuffs loosely around her wrists. As they are led to the door, Olivia’s eyes meet Elliot’s once again, asking a million questions he won’t immediately be able to answer.
~oOo~
Back at the station, Nick discreetly brings Olivia to her office while everyone else they arrested is placed in holdup. Olivia’s hands move to circle her wrists as the cuffs come off of her. “Are you alright, Liv? I’m sorry, but I had to make it look convincing. Did I hurt you?”
“No,” she responds, “I’m fine.” She wanders slowly towards her desk, her legs moving as though walking through waist deep water, each step forced and full of effort.
“You’re clearly not fine. Wanna tell me what’s going on?”
Olivia lets out a heavy breath, her shoulders dropping as she looks to the ground. “The man we arrested tonight… the pimp who showed up to the party unannounced? I know him.”
“You know him?” Nick walks closer to her. “Was it from an old case?”
She shakes her head, “No. He’s my old partner.” Although she tries to keep her voice steady, her emotions get the best of her, and it quivers in her response.
“Liv.” Nick positions himself in front of her, reaching both hands up to rub her upper arms in a gesture of comfort. “That hit man looking guy we took down today was your partner? What the hell is he doing in the middle of a sex trafficking ring?”
Olivia pulls herself from his touch, “I don’t fucking know , Nick!” she shouts. “I haven’t heard a word from him in almost four years.”
“Okay. So what’s the plan here?”
“You’re going to pull him from the cage. And grab Fin out of there too. I want you to bring him to me in interrogation room 1.”
Nick turns immediately on his heels to fulfill her request. Olivia makes her way to the interrogation room. As she closes the door, she lets her full weight rest against it. She turns to her side, arms coming up as if to wrap herself in a protective hug. Tears spring to her eyes, and an almost silent choking sound gets stuck in the back of her throat. She breathes deeply, in through her nose and out through her mouth, and initiates war with her body, holding off the sobs that threaten to overtake her by sheer willpower alone. Four years ago, in this very spot, she cried for Elliot Stabler. She was not doing that today. Pulling herself erect and forcing her hands to her sides, she stares at her reflection in the one way glass that separates her from her office. She pushes her fears and insecurities down deep inside of her, swallowing them like a shot of tequila, channeling the burn enough to ignite a fire within her. The eyes that stare back at her are not lost and hopeless, they are angry. And anger is an animal she knows how to tame.
The door slams open and her attention is immediately focused on the cyclone of activity pushing into the room. Fin is raging as he follows Elliot into interrogation. The door shuts behind them, and he launches himself toward him. “What the hell are you doin’ man? You put a gun to my face and then you pistol whipped one of our guys?”
“That asshat was one of yours?”
Olivia pushes herself between the two men, her arms raised to separate them. “We’ll get to the introductions later. You want to tell me what the hell you were doing in there?”
“I should be asking the same thing about you!” Elliot shouts back at her. “Almost a year imbedding myself into this trafficking ring, and you want to blow it on a Super Bowl vice bust? That was dumb. And dangerous.”
“Hey,” Olivia says defensively, “we were looking for a trafficked girl!”
“Just one? I’m tracking hundreds. I’m working with Johnny D.”
“Who’s Johnny D?” Fin asks, “We don’t know him.”
“Of course you don’t. It took me this long under just to scratch the surface. And now, I’m gonna have to spend a week at Rikers waiting for the gun charge to clear. Who the fuck’s in charge around here, or has Cragen finally lost his mind approving a raid like that?”
“I am.” Olivia squares her shoulders and stands tall.
“What?”
“I’m in charge around here. The raid was my call.” Olivia places her hands on her hips, the gold of her badge catching the light as her blazer is brushed behind her.
Elliot’s gaze shifts downward, and then back up to meet hers. “Well congratulations, Sergeant ,” he says, sarcasm dripping from every word, “you’re doin’ a bang up job.”
“Fuck you, Elliot.” She takes out her phone, pulling up a picture and shoving it into his view. “We’re looking for this girl.”
Elliot studies the picture and then turns his head, his voice lowering to an almost inaudible level when he speaks. “Ariel,” he says softly.
“She alive?” Fin asks.
“In a sense.” He walks to the wall of the interrogation room, placing one forearm against the cement, bracing himself against it. “She’s damaged goods. Your friend Timmer did a number on her before he sold her to Johnny D. 800 bucks is all he got for her.”
“Where does Johnny D keep her?” Olivia moves toward him.
“He tried to buy girls from me, he’s never taken me to his lair.”
Olivia can’t stop the sharp exhalation that escapes her lips. “ Buying ?” she questions. “Wow, so now you’re trafficking…”
Elliot pushes away from the wall, turning to face Olivia once again. “I said he tried! I would never send a girl to be with that monster,” he shouts emphatically.
“Yeah?” Olivia moves into Elliot’s space, her eyes boring into him as if she could burn a hole straight through him. “Well right now, the only monster I’m looking at is you.” Her voice is almost a growl and she spews venom at him with each syllable. Without looking back at him, she heads to the interrogation room door, slamming it shut behind her.
The clap from the force of the door being shut reverberates through the room, its echo piercing the silence like a dagger. Elliot tenses, his shoulders shrugging as he turns his head towards Fin.
“Don’t look at me,” Fin warns, “I’d shoot you myself, but I’d prefer your death to be slow and painful.” He lets out a humph as he leaves the room, leaving Elliot alone with his thoughts.
~oOo~
When Fin enters the office, Olivia is seated behind her desk. Her elbows are resting on her blotter, her hands placed, one on each temple with her fingers spread across her forehead, her eyes pinched tightly closed. If he had walked in on her looking like this at any other time, he would have assumed she had a migraine, with her face contorted in pain. He walks towards his friend, making sure to make noise as he approaches her so as not to startle her.
“Liv?” he asks quietly. “You okay?” He knows as the words come out of his mouth that it is a stupid question, but for perhaps the first time in his life, he’s not sure what to say.
Olivia, while not moving her hands, starts shaking her head. Like a metronome, Fin watches it sway back and forth, keeping an almost steady rhythm. He begins to think that she is never going to answer, when he hears a soft laugh escape from her. “Liv?” he asks again.
Olivia drops her hands from her face and opens her eyes. They are red as though she has been crying, but no tears fall from her lids. She goes to speak, but then stops and purses her lips. She takes a deep breath, and looks up at him. “I’m not okay,” she begins. She shakes her head again, and pauses, trying to collect her thoughts before they spill from her mouth unfiltered. “I’m not okay… and I don’t even know how to begin processing it all. I made a promise to Martha that we would find her daughter, Fin. Not only are we no closer to finding Ariel than we were before the whole showdown with Timmer, it turns out that the person I trusted to have my back for more than a decade has taken to trafficking teenage girls in his retirement.”
“Come on, Liv, you know that’s not true.”
“You heard what he said!”
“Yes I did. And I heard him specifically say that he would never do something like that.” Fin walked toward the window to the interrogation room, his finger pointed at Elliot. “That man in there may be an asshole, but there’s no way in hell he would do anything to endanger the life of a child.”
There is a knock, and Nick pokes his head into the doorway. “Sorry to bother you, Sarge, but Amanda’s got something on Timmer.”
“I’ll be there in a minute,” Olivia responds.
“No,” Fin counters. “You stay. Take a few. I’ll go check this out and I’ll report back.”
Before Olivia can even say a word, Fin turns and hightails it out of her office, grabbing Amaro in his wake.
Alone once again, Olivia stands and walks to the window. The sight of Elliot is just as shocking to her now as it was the first time she laid eyes on him at the party house. She closes her eyes and opens them again, and just as before, he is there. When he first left, she used to see him all the time, crossing the street at a busy intersection, buying a newspaper at the corner bodega, sitting at his desk in the squadroom. Back then, every time she saw him, she would blink, and he would disappear.
Olivia walks all the way up to the window, so close that her nose almost touches the glass. He is sitting in the tiny metal chair behind the interrogation table. He seems bigger now than he was the last time she saw him. Not bigger really, but more defined. Muscular. He is no longer wearing the hat from earlier, and she can see now that his head is bald, shaved. His face looks relatively the same, just more worn. The worry lines on his forehead are deeper, as if the weight of the world has been set upon his shoulders. His gaze is focused on his hands, which are resting on the table, four fingers on each interlaced while his thumbs circle around each other like a spinning propeller. He continues fidgeting in silence for several moments before suddenly, he looks up. Olivia’s eyes widen and she stumbles over her next breath. While she knows that he is only seeing his own reflection, it feels as if he is staring straight at her.
“I know you’re there.” His voice sounds almost mechanical coming through the speaker beside her head. Olivia quickly takes a step back from the window as if he had thrown something at her.
“I don’t know how to explain it,” he continues, “but I can feel you, ya know?”
She does know. As much as she wants to run away from his proximity and never return, there is an invisible chain that shackles her to him. It’s a riptide, a rolling undercurrent that lets you take one step towards safety, but then pulls you under until you are drowning.
“Liv, I’m sorry,” he calls out, his voice strained, strangled. “I wish you would talk to me. Please?”
Heat floods her face, and she is angry again. I wish you would talk to me? This from the man who walked out of her life without even a backwards glance. Rage fills her, and the sudden urge to smack him across the face consumes her. “You wish I would talk to you,” she says aloud. “Be careful what you wish for, Stabler.”
~oOo~
It is her intention to walk right into the interrogation room and shred him to pieces. To tell him exactly what she thinks about him, about his apologies . To tell him that she’s better off without him in her life, and that he really did her a favor the day he walked out the door. She wants to tell him that she wishes she’d never met him, that she regrets the day that he came into her life. She wants to cut him with words, to rip his heart from his chest while it’s still beating and toss it away like a dollar store greeting card. She wants to scar him, so that every time he sees it he’ll think of her and remember how much it hurts. She wants to do all of these things and more — but she doesn’t.
She strides purposefully into interrogation full of fire and indignation and malicious intention. But the moment she is in the room, he looks at her, and all is lost. It’s an indescribable feeling when someone that your brain tells you to despise has an impenetrable hold on your heart. The essence of him is wound so tightly around every fiber of her being that even in his absence, there are ligature marks.
She doesn’t trust herself to walk further than the door. In order for her to think properly and get out everything she needs to say, it is important that she keep a physical distance from him. Once the door clicks shut behind her, she backs against it. She wants to appear casual, nonchalant, so she crosses one ankle over the other as she settles her weight backwards. Her hands move to her waist, tucking each of her thumbs into a belt buckle and letting them dangle there.
“You wanted to talk?” she asks as insignificantly as if she had asked him if he wanted coffee. While she knows she’ll never truly hate him, it doesn’t change the fact that she is undeniably angry with him.
Immediately, he rises to his feet. She thinks that he is going to move towards her, but the death glare she is focusing in his direction must work, because he remains rooted to the floor. Instead, he fixes his eyes on her, pools of blue with depths unknown. They tell a story of pain, of bitterness, of loss. “I’m sorry.”
It’s those words that push her over the edge. She feels the fury build from the pit of her, a white hot poker pulled directly from the flame. “Sorry?!” she is yelling, but she doesn’t care. “You’re sorry ?” She pulls herself off the wall, and like a thoroughbred from the gate, she is off. She paces the perimeter of the room, glancing in his direction with each turn of a corner. “You’re sorry for what, Elliot? For leaving? For not having the decency of telling me? For ignoring my texts, my phone calls?”
“All of it. I’m sorry for all of it.”
“And what am I supposed to do with that? Huh? You think that one five letter word is going to just fix it all?”
“Olivia, I…”
She stops, turns, and pushes towards the center of the room. She bangs her fist on the metal table, so hard that the vibrations pulse all the way up her arm. The shock of her sudden movement silences him in an instant. The air around them is noiseless, but the volume of all that remains unsaid screams like a wake of vultures circling prey. She leans onto the table, hands shoulder width apart. “You were the most… single most important person in my life, and you just… disappeared.” She gestures her fingers in the air as if throwing dust.
“I know… I was afraid.” He is trying to compose himself, but tears are streaming uncontrolled down his face. “I think that if I heard your voice, I wouldn’t have been able to leave.”
“I understand how this job had taken its toll on you, I do. It beats you down and destroys your faith in the inherent righteousness of humanity. I know why you had to leave the job, Elliot, but why did you have to leave me?”
“You don’t understand. It wasn’t the job I had to leave…” His lips quiver and he licks them before continuing. “It was you.”
Olivia is thankful to have been leaning against the table, because if she weren’t, she is certain she would have been on the ground. She looks at him, utter shock taking over every inch of her face. She lifts her hands from the table and starts shifting backwards, one incremental step at a time. The need to separate herself from him is greater than the demand from her body for air. She loses track of her steps, and suddenly she finds her back against the wall. The cold stone presses the length of her body and sucks the heat from her core. She feels empty, but in the emptiness there is pain, as if someone had reached inside of her and removed her organs one at a time. Not just someone, but Elliot, and somehow that makes it even worse.
She loses the ability to control her body. As if on ice, her feet begin to shift underneath her, and she melts towards the floor. She is not even aware that he has moved until she feels his arm around her ribcage. His other arm comes to rest under her knees, and like a ragdoll, he lifts her effortlessly into his arms. He places her gently into the chair where he once sat, and places his hands on either side of her face, begging her to look at him. “Liv, no. That’s not what I meant. Olivia… please look at me.”
She hears him speaking to her, but it’s almost as if her ears have been stuffed with cotton. Everything is muffled, muted. Without conscious effort on her part, her eyes shift to him, and she sees as emotion filters over him.
“Hey,” he says softly, “where’d you go just now?”
She doesn’t respond.
“That didn’t come out right. Let me try this again.” He shifts his body so that he is kneeling before her, his hands resting on her knees as if to steady her. “You’re not wrong when you say this job beat me down. But at the end of the day, it’s still just a job. I shot a teenage girl. She was a victim herself.”
“You had no choice,” Olivia, suddenly fully present, counters.
“But I did ! I did have a choice. She was pointing her gun in your direction. I chose to end the life of a young girl, because I couldn’t imagine a world where you weren’t alive.”
“That doesn’t make sense. You can’t imagine the world without me, so you figure you’ll just never see me again?”
“Gitano… I chose you over my job. I said then that that could never happen again, and it did.”
“It’s not the same thing!”
“It is! After Jenna, I went home, and I started to evaluate my life. And I realized that no matter what, whatever the circumstances, I was always going to choose you…”
Olivia tsks in an attempt to interrupt, but Elliot stops her by lifting a single finger. “It’s not just the job,” he begins. “It was everything. I was married. I had obligations. Responsibilities. And no matter what, I put you first. You were everything to me. The… the single most important person in my life. You were my partner at my job, or at least you were supposed to be. But somewhere along the way, you became my world. I realized then that I loved you.”
“Elliot… no.”
“I loved you so much, and for so much longer than I was even willing to admit.”
Olivia stands from the chair, pushing his hands from her knees as she rises. “That’s bullshit, Elliot. You don’t just up and leave someone you claim to love. You didn’t even say goodbye. For all I knew, you were dead.”
“You were better off that way!”
“How dare you tell me what’s better for me? You have no idea what has happened to me since you left!”
“No, I don’t. But I do know that you are thriving. Look at you! You’re a sergeant. You are in charge of the squad. That never would have happened had I stayed. You were stuck in an endless loop of what we were. You could have found love… started a family… climbed the ranks at the job… but you didn’t.”
“Stop…”
“You made being my partner who you were. And you would rather have chopped off pieces of yourself than deviate from that. Before me, you wanted more. You wanted to leave your broken little home and change the world ! I was holding you back, and I couldn’t give you more. I wanted you to have everything. And the only way for that to happen was for me to leave.”
Olivia shakes her head. She can’t listen to this anymore. “It’s not up to you to decide who I am.” She walks towards him, her finger pointed into her chest. “That’s up to me. I decide !”
Elliot is about to respond when the door opens. Fin enters the room, and he is practically running. “I’m sorry to bother you, Liv, but we gotta go. Amanda and I broke Timmer. He gave us the location to Johnny D’s headquarters.”
Olivia and Elliot both start heading towards the door. Olivia stops abruptly, Elliot bumping into her. She turns. “You stay here.”
“The hell I will! This is my case too. I’ve spent almost a year of my life trying to bring this bastard down. I’m coming with you.”
“Fine,” she says with a huff, “you can come, but you’re staying in the car.”
~oOo~
Johnny D has set up camp in the basement of an abandoned hospital in Queens.
“NYPD,” Fin calls out as they make their way down a run down hallway. Doors run down each side, and the squad separates into smaller groups to clear each room. Breaking down the first door, Fin, Olivia, and Elliot find a girl in a dark room with just a mattress on the floor. She doesn’t look to be more than 15 years old, and the only distinguishing feature on her face is the look of complete terror.
“No, no.” She crawls backwards in an attempt to get as far away from them as she can. Tears stream down her face, and her voice quivers with fear. “Please don’t. Please,” she pleads.
“It’s okay,” Olivia says as she moves to be closer to the girl. “You’re safe now, we’ve got you. We are police. We won’t let anyone hurt you.”
Room by room, they find more girls, all in similar states of malnourishment and panic. Carisi finds a girl who is barely conscious, her eyes rolling back into her head. “I need an ambulance!” he shouts.
Nick comes up behind Olivia to report what they have found. “So far, four girls, all in bad shape.”
“No sign of Ariel?” she asks.
He shakes his head in response.
A sudden shriek alerts their attention further down the hall. “Heeeellllp!” It’s a female voice. “Let go of me!”
They follow the sound of the scream to a doorway. Nick kicks it in, and there, they find Ariel. A hulking presence of a man has her pulled tightly to his body. She is using her as a shield, with his left arm around her waist and the right around her neck. Gripped firmly in his hand is a long shard of glass, which he is using as a knife.
“Hey,” Nick calls out, “put your hands up.”
“Let her go!” Olivia orders.
“Drop the glass,” Elliot hollers. “Drop it now!”
“Johnny D, it’s over,” Nick says.
“Hey,” Olivia calls out. She points her gun at him. “Let her go.”
Johnny D looks frantically about at the group of officers surrounding him. “This the girl you want?” he sneers, his brown eyes void of feeling, “Say goodbye!”
“You kill her, you die too,” Olivia promises. “She really worth it?”
Johnny D looks at each officer, as though weighing his options for escape.
“Let her go,” Olivia commands.
For a few moments more, the room is charged, but no one speaks another word. Johnny D once again looks around the room. “I want my lawyer,” he says, throwing Ariel to the side.
Olivia rushes to scoop the girl into her arms before she falls to the floor. Elliot and Nick secure Johnny D and cuff him.
“Johnny D,” Elliot begins, “You are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say…”
~oOo~
Olivia sits at her desk, basking in the momentary joy of having just reunited Martha and Ariel. She is lost in thought and doesn’t notice that he has entered her office.
“You did great today, found your guy,” Elliot says, walking towards her. He gestures to the chair that rests across from her. “May I?”
Olivia nods for him to sit. “Seems he was your guy too. Working the same case, from different ends.”
“Partners even when we’re not partners,” he says with a smirk.
“Elliot,” she pauses, not quite sure how to proceed. “You were under a long time. You ready to come to the light?”
He lets out a deep breath. “I think I need to go back in.”
“What? Why? We arrested your target. He’s going to jail for life.”
“Yeah, but with Timmer and Johnny D both out, that makes me the person in charge. Traffickers will be crawling out of the woodwork to try and impress me.”
“Elliot,” Olivia scolds. “You can’t possibly think you can go back undercover! You went with us on the raid. Everyone will know you’re a cop. You need to go home. To your family.”
“Don’t have one of those anymore.” Olivia shoots him a look of confusion, so he continues. “Kathy left me. Divorce became final about 18 months ago.”
“Elliot, I’m so sorry.”
He lets out a bitter laugh. “Ironic, ain’t it? I leave to save my family, and then my family leaves me?”
“What about your kids?”
“They visit every now and then, or they did. But not since I’ve been under as the Bishop.”
“I never asked who you were working for,” Olivia suddenly remembers.
“NYPD. Organized Crime.”
“Well I’m sure there is plenty of other crime to organize. Assignments that let you be Elliot Stabler, and not a sex trafficker.”
“You know what’s crazy? Being the Bishop might actually have been easier. I don’t even know who Elliot Stabler is anymore.”
Olivia rises from her chair, and walks around to the front of her desk. She sits on the edge of it, her feet resting toe to toe with Elliot’s. “Well,” she says, “I heard that he was in love with his partner…”
“Olivia,” he warns, “please don’t mock me.”
“I’m not mocking you,” she insists. “Listen, it took a lot of guts for you to tell me everything that you did in there. And if you can be honest, then so can I.”
“Liv…”
“When you left, it felt like a part of me had died. I mourned for you, and for the piece of my heart that you stole from me. I honestly don’t know that I will ever get over that.”
“Olivia, I’m…”
“Elliot, if you apologize again, I swear I might kill you.” She waits to make sure he has stopped talking before she continues. “While I know that I might not ever get over you leaving, I also know that, now that you are here, I would never survive it if you left again.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Elliot says emphatically. “The only way you’ll get rid of me is if you ask me to leave.”
“Well that’s not going to happen.”
“I don’t really know where to begin from here.”
Olivia reaches down to grasp Elliot’s hand. “Why don’t we start by rebuilding a friendship? How’s that for a beginning?”
“You seeing anyone?”
“Seriously?”
“I’m just askin’ to see if I’ve got a shot here.”
“Well,” Olivia begins, “I should tell you that there is a man in my life. And honestly, there’s no one that I will ever love more than him.”
Elliot clears his throat. He is obviously surprised. “Oh,” he says with difficulty. It’s as if someone has glued his tongue to the top of his mouth. “I’m really happy for you, Liv. I’m just glad you have someone.”
“I’d really like it if you could meet him.”
“I don’t know… I don’t want to ruin anything for you.”
Olivia rises and walks back behind her desk. She grabs a framed photo and makes her way back towards Elliot. She reaches out to hand it to him, a smile lighting up her face.
Elliot is hesitant to reach out and take the frame from her, but she is so insistent that he has no choice but to grab it. He holds his breath as his hands brush the velvety surface of the back of the frame. Exhaling slowly, he turns the frame over. His eyebrows furrow in confusion when he sees that the photo is of a baby. Blue eyes and pudgy cheeks stare back at him as he holds the frame in his hands.
“Elliot, this is Noah, my son.”
Elliot looks up at Olivia with pure adoration in his eyes, and sees the joy that just the mention of her son’s name has brought to her face. He thinks to himself that it might not be such a bad thing to meet the man in Olivia’s life after all.