Chapter Text
There was a moment - mid-bite of the roast chicken, the tang of red wine still on her lips, the eyes of their guest thankfully not on her - when the absurdity of the situation settled in. This was really happening. And if, in any way, their guest realised just how crazy the situation really was, well, she dreaded to think what might happen.
Her face must have registered her momentary concern because she felt a hand smooth across her leg and squeeze, which didn’t exactly help the absurdity of it all. She looked down to the long, callused fingers wrapped around her knee and then up at the hand’s owner and the blue eyes glancing to her with disguised concern.
Silently, Elliot asked if she was okay, his fingers sliding along the silken pleats of her skirt and she tipped her lips into a small smile just for him before it grew back into that of the perfect host. The beloved wife and caring mother, seemingly oblivious to her husband's burgeoning nefarious activities within the finance industry. The wife who had cooked the fabulous meal before them so her husband could schmooze the new boss. The new boss who may or may not have been sizing Elliot up for a role in the off-the-books multimillion dollar side hustle that all of the OCCB's intelligence suggested he headed up.
The apartment - their apartment - had been simply dressed. Warm, cosy, but modern. Olivia had grabbed a few photos of her and Elliot through the years as she tossed clothes and toiletries in a bag. They were now dotted around the place, some with a photoshop addition of their college-age kid. That had been a trip when she noticed. The kid, of course, being Jet, which was one of the reasons why Olivia had been called in; their targets had already had a run-in with Sergeant Bell, and Jet being the wife would have opened up far too many other questions and allusions. Not to mention their profile of who the boss would have wanted for the job wasn't an older man/trophy wife scenario; they wanted the family man with the Suzy homemaker wife.
(They wanted normal .)
They had local officers they could have called in but they needed someone closer, someone Elliot could trust, someone Elliot could talk to and with without a word being said.
Olivia. Obviously.
Jet as their kid could open up avenues down the line, but, for the short term - for the meet-and-greet dinner, the happy families, the surreptitious sizing up - Liv got a call. And Liv called in overnight babysitters, and caught a flight, and was met at basically the Canadian border by Elliot and Bell some twelve hours later. “Good to see you, partner. Or should I say ‘wife’?”
“Husband,” Olivia greeted with a smirk, eyes raking over his face to get the lay of the land. It had been two months since she’d last seen him, last had any kind of contact with him or the OCCB. His eyes were darker, the lines around them more pronounced (but that could still be Jamie’s death, that would have hit him harder than he had been letting on before he left). She gestured to the greying whiskers on his chin again, “Beard.”
His eyes fell to her neck and he said simply, “Compass.”
Ayanna looked between them, suddenly worrying about her case but also comforted that she’d obviously made the right call in bringing Benson in. “...Car?”
Elliot chuckled as he pushed off from the bonnet and took the handle of Olivia’s case. A few hours later - a full debrief of the case, its major players, and their characters - and Olivia and Elliot were in the kitchen transferring the take-out chicken into a roasting tray and keeping it warm in the oven for the big reveal to their guest.
Elliot laughed loudly, heartily, un-Elliot-like at some joke of MacNamara’s. Olivia hadn’t fully heard the punchline, her mind still unhelpfully focused on the warmth of the hand still on her knee. She finished chewing with a token chortle, placing her cutlery on the plate and taking another sip of wine.
“This was really lovely, Joyce, thank you,” MacNamara smiled. He was attractive - brown eyes, blonde hair, tanned skin - and knew it, thinking he could win her over with a twinkled eye and good-natured flirt. “It’s been a long time since I had a good, home-cooked meal; longer since one made by a beautiful woman.”
“Oh, we’re happy to have you, Charles,” she smiled back, glancing at Elliot whose arm was now casually draped across the back of her chair. “Danny and I were just saying- oh, is that my phone?” Her new cell phone was ringing on the side table. “I’m so sorry!”
“It’ll be Jude,” Elliot said, helping to pull her chair from under the table as she got up, telling MacNamara, “Our daughter. She’ll be out of beer money, no doubt.”
“Oh, honey,” Olivia scolded, but in a way that suggested she agreed. Their imaginary daughter always called for beer money. “I’ll just take it in the other room, I’m so sorry, Charles.”
“Please! Go! Family first, right?”
Olivia nodded, her cheeks colouring at the embarrassment Joyce would have felt. She answered the phone as she twisted the handle to the door closest to them. “Hello, sweetie! How are you?”
“Are you clear?” Jet asked.
“Oh, we’re just fine,” Olivia continued, closing the door behind her. She sat down on the bed and lowered her voice, “What’s up?”
“We think MacNamara’s planted his own device in the apartment. I’m getting a cloaked reading of another frequency but I can’t isolate it down yet.”
“What does that mean?” Olivia asked quietly, looking at the door as laughter erupted on the other side.
“He’s either listening or watching, I don’t know which, and I don’t know for how long. We also don’t know the range on the device so it may stretch throughout the apartment, even… even to the bedroom. We think he’s doing his own covert spying to check you guys are who you say you are.”
“I see…”
“We’re going to have to ask you guys to play along for the night. Until I can hack this new frequency at least. Can you do that?”
Olivia made her voice a little louder, “Of course, honey, no problem.”
“Thanks, Captain. We owe you.”
“You call me whenever you need me, okay?”
“Thanks, Mom .”
Olivia could hear the mirth in Jet’s voice and couldn’t help her own smile as she opened the door back to the dining table. “Bye, Jude, honey.” She hung up and put the phone back on the side, near the family photograph so MacNamara could see Joyce, Danny and Jude; the nice little family who had the nice little kid in college, who could use the money, who would be a safe bet for the laundering, smuggling, general racket proposed by MacNamara.
“Is she okay?” Elliot asked.
“She’s fine, she hasn’t had her pay packet yet so needed some grocery money…”
Elliot winked at MacNamara, “Groceries… right…”
Olivia narrowed her eyes at her husband’s accusation of their angel daughter in front of company. “Who’s up for some apple pie? Danny, can you help me a minute in the kitchen?”
Elliot and Olivia gathered up the plates - the fancy china crockery that Joyce would have saved just for guests or the major holidays. The kitchen area was separated by just a short walk, a counter and an awkwardly placed set of cabinets from above; they could still be seen, and heard, so Olivia had to get creative in how she relayed the new information.
They put the piles of plates and cutlery on the side near the sink, Olivia handing Elliot a towel to get the pie from the oven while she got the ice cream from the freezer. Elliot sensed the meaning of the moment and improvised, taking hold of her hips to spin her into a him, a visual of the happy family to MacNamara. It would also give him the image to store away of Joyce enjoying the slight manhandling - considering he had been eyeing her up quite blatantly all night - and that Danny was dominant, charming, ‘the man’.
Olivia wrapped her arms around Elliot’s neck, knowing the counter and cabinet would leave just their torsos visible. She leaned up as if to kiss him, dodging subtly to his cheek to say quietly, “Jet’s picking up another camera or listening device in the apartment. Thinks he’s planted it. Got to play along all night or we might be blown.”
“You’re okay with that?” he whispered, his hands sliding to the small of her back. He tried to remain in that precipice place of the character - the husband holding his wife - but he couldn’t help going back to her kitchen all those months ago when he had last held her so closely. There was a difference now though; whereas, then, she had looked at him with trepidation and worry and exhaustion, now she was looking at him openly, with sparkling eyes and smiles and excitement. He used to be able to tell the difference between the Olivia playing a part and the ‘true’ Olivia, but… maybe time and distance had dulled his abilities, or maybe she was okay at being held so closely.
She swallowed, her cheek nuzzling against his, pressing herself closer to tell him, “Whatever we need to do to get this sleazeball.”
Elliot slid his hand down and lightly tapped Olivia’s backside, garnering an affronted yet amused gasp and push from his wife, “Danny!” She called, “Get back to our guest.”
Elliot winked at her before his mask fell back over and he became Danny again, swinging around the counter to take back his seat at the dining table.
When Olivia brought three plates of a la mode apple pie to the table a few minutes later, whatever conversation that was happening between Elliot and Charles - Danny and Charles - was quickly stopped and Elliot pulled out her chair for her.
There was another moment, as she handed the plate of apple pie over to Charles, where her brain glitched; she imagined herself like that Wreck It Ralph movie that Noah had once loved, where she flashed into a Donna Reed version of herself.
She was no longer Police Captain Olivia Benson, of the dark clothes and dark mood and dark subject matter, punching perpetrators and sending rapists to prison.
She was Joyce Frank; wife, mother, wearer of sunshine yellow sweaters and silken, golden pleated skirts with slingback heels. She who cooked roast dinners and apple pies and cared for her husband and wild child daughter. Whose closest entanglement to the life Olivia lived was in the novels she’d read on their annual vacation to the coast. Despite the backstory they had devised for her (which they had yet to divulge for MacNamara’s benefit), Joyce was happy with life, happy in marriage.
And, as she felt Elliot’s thumb smooth across her shoulder, she wondered if there was a part of her who wanted Joyce’s life. Previously she would have baulked at it, screamed that she needed the excitement and the puzzles of her life in the police- hell, she remembered with abject embarrassment that she once cried at the insinuation of a life without SVU. Elliot had even himself told her she was allergic to normalcy - you didn't get much more normal than Joyce Frank.
Was it the normalcy she was enjoying as Joyce? Was it actually the underlying deceit and heightened heart rate of the undercover assignment running concurrently? Or, as she quietly suspected, was it him? Elliot. Danny. Joyce’s husband, her partner, her plus-one for dinner parties, sharer of evening meals. Her quiet supporter with knee squeezes and silent looks; her cheeky lover with stolen kisses and mild, flirty manhandling.
Olivia - Joyce - took a large mouthful of wine as she sat back down, shooing away Charles’ thanks and feeling Elliot's arm draped around her. There were definitely going to be more evaluations after this UC stint than just the professional conclusions…
“So,” Charles asked, after an exaggerated mime about how good the pie was, “how long have you been together?”
“Oh, wow,” she said, a demure hand to cover her mouth as she swallowed a spoonful of ice cream, “Um, twenty five years now?” She looked at Elliot and, oh, that was a bad idea because it was twenty five years, wasn't it? That was their life, not just Joyce and Danny's.
Elliot didn't seem fazed by the maths, “Twenty five together but it took me two years to be able to tie her down.”
The seedy underside of Charles peeked out as he smirked, “Well, I didn’t ask that…”
Joyce swatted her husband's arm, Olivia trying to keep the eye roll she wanted to do from actuality.
“Oh that didn't take me that long…!” he laughed, garnering another swat to his arm.
“Danny!”
“No, no, sorry, babe. Twenty five together, twenty three married.”
“Happily?”
Joyce looked to Danny, who answered affectionately, “Very.”
“So I can't steal her off you?”
“Oh you’d have a fight on your hands, pal!”
Charles acquiesced, though there was an edge to his look; a tilt to his lips that almost made the smirk into a sneer. He took a drink of wine and changed the subject, “Jude… that’s an unusual name for a girl.”
Olivia took that question, “Oh, she’s a Judith. After Danny’s Mom.”
“But ‘Judith’ is a ‘mom’s name’ apparently so she declared herself Jude pretty early on.”
“Strong minded,” Charles nodded.
“Like his mom, funnily enough!”
Charles smiled, though it didn't hit his eyes. Like it was customary to smile at the little joke, though his mind was whirring on to the next information he needed. “And she’s in college?”
“And drinking us out of house and home.”
Joyce swatted her husband’s arm again.
“Party girl?”
“ No ,” Joyce defended, “She just… likes to unwind. She’s on a stressful course.”
“Yeah. I mean there was-”
“-Honey, he doesn't need to know-”
“-No, I know- it-” Danny turned to their guest, an apologetic, slightly embarrassed look on his face. “She got in a little trouble last year.”
“But she’s a good girl,” Joyce added quickly; heaven forbid the wrong impression be given out about their darling daughter.
“She is,” Danny nodded, squeezing Joyce’s shoulder in agreement. He then waved his hand dismissively, “It was a little DUI, nothing too serious. I, er, sorted it.”
Well that piqued MacNamara's interest, a spoonful of pie hovering in the air. “You sorted it?”
“I have a coupla golf buddies in the police, you know… called in a couple of favours.”
“Really…” There we go; Mission successful.
“But she’s knuckling down now. It won't happen again.”
Danny nodded to Joyce, however shared a look with Charles that suggested there was more than his wife knew about, more than he had let on. “No, and we're keeping an eye on her… with everything.”
“Everything?”
Joyce’s face turned downcast, she even lost a little of the colour in her cheeks and it took Elliot a second to recover from wondering how the hell she had done that on cue. “... Oh you don't need to know about all that.”
Danny’s arm came from around her shoulders and squeezed her knee again, Joyce's fingers entwining with them, “Joyce's mom's sick right now. Cancer. So she reduced her hours at the pharmacy so she can care for her.”
“It's made things a little… tough… financially. We basically live off of Danny's salary but it means I can spend time with mom so…” Joyce's voice broke with the emotion of a heartsick daughter, Danny kissing her hair and squeezing her knee.
“So it's worth it, babe,” he told her. “We'll make it work.”
Joyce tearfully nodded before flapping hands to dispel the moment, “Anyway, I don't wanna be a Debbie downer.”
“I'm very sorry about that, Joyce. It's never easy when a parent gets sick.”
The twitch of Elliot's fingers around hers at Charles’ words didn't go unnoticed, Olivia bringing her other hand over to squeeze at his forearm, giving Elliot the comfort that Danny was supposed to be giving to Joyce. “No, no it isn't.”
Charles gave a solemn, single nod before scooping up the last of his pie and declaring, “Well, this was really great, I can't thank you enough, Joyce. Danny, any chance I can steal you away for a quick chat. I think you might be able to help me out with a little job I have soon…”
“Oh,” Danny said, surprised, “Sure, um-”
“-Go, go, I’ll start the dishes. Why don't you break out that brandy Amanda gave us for Christmas, hon?”
“Great idea,” he smiled, sliding another kiss into her hair before gesturing for Charles to head to the seating area on the other side of the room.
Olivia waited for Elliot to pass before edging her chair out from under the table, glancing to the men from her trips to the kitchen with the bowls, cutlery, leftover condiments, general detriment left behind from a dinner party. She kept herself scarce from their conversation, figuring no further calls from Jude/Jet meant no issues with the recording devices secreted around the apartment and their persons.
Of course, there was another device now. MacNamara's. Where was it? What was he hoping to record? What lengths would she and Elliot have to go to to satiate whatever he was expecting?
She filled the dishwasher and let her mind wander. She hoped Jet would be able to crack the frequency so they knew what they were dealing with - she’d been secretly filmed before, she had hoped not to be in that situation again…
Audio was one thing, but video… How far would they need to go to convince MacNamara they were a couple? And not just a couple, a married couple of twenty five years. Would they… kiss? If there was video recording? She and Elliot had been UC plenty of times over their partnership, plenty of lines being crossed but, strangely, miraculously, never that one.
Even at the sex club, after they had (oh so awkwardly) discussed with Cragen how far they could go, and then had a talk between themselves of how far they would actually go to solve the case, they hadn't gone much further than a hand-hold or a slightly grope-y hug for the audience’s benefit.
They had been married then, too. But as Elliot and Olivia. Hearing him introduce her as ‘ my wife Olivia ’... God, the way her belly had tightened at his voice, those words. The way he would glance at her and his bravado would falter, his confident facade slipping when he’d try to not look at her lips or her cleavage or her hips. And seeing him flirting with Cassandra, being led by the hand to the other room, imagining him sitting wide-legged on a couch, Cassandra on his lap, the naked couples writhing either side with sexual wanton…
She sucked in a breath on a shaky exhale… she was screwed.
A ringing phone had her head snapping up and looking over to where Joyce's cell sat on the sideboard, but Charles seemed to be reaching into his pocket for his own. He answered with clipped words, sentences that bordered on anger and Elliot found her eyes, silently agreeing that something was happening that hopefully Bell and the team would be all over.
Charles ended his call and stood, Elliot standing also, “You gotta go?”
Charles sighed; he was pissed about something. “Yeah. I'm sorry to cut tonight short, but, er, we'll finish this conversation soon.”
“Absolutely.”
They shook hands before Charles turned to Joyce, “Thank you so much for your hospitality tonight, Joyce. Long time since I had a meal that good.”
“Oh you're welcome any time, Charles. It's been nice to put a face to the name, finally.”
“Likewise. And what a lovely face to remember…” that sneer-y smirk was back but Olivia just smiled as sweetly as she could, looking forward to hearing when the case had been closed, when Charles MacNamara had been arrested and charged, and when the drug and people trafficking empire had been razed to the ground.
He left, and Elliot sat down on the arm of the couch, a degree of tension leaving him however still very aware of the other recording devices in the room.
Olivia wasn't entirely sure if it was Danny or Elliot who had grabbed her hips and spun her into him, holding his hands at the base of her back and looking up at her. She was standing between his legs and, God, his face was so close. She could see whiskers growing on his chin and she suddenly wanted to smooth her hand across his cheeks and feel the scratch of the hair on her palms. She wanted to hold onto his cheeks and pull him in for a kiss.
He jostled his arms around her waist, an eyebrow quirking in silent question at her slight hesitation. It helpfully pulled her from her thoughts and she draped her arms over his shoulders as casually as she could, “How do you think tonight went?”
“Yeah…” he breathed the word, thankful that she'd come back to him and still in character. “I think it went well. Charles liked you.”
“Oh yeah?” Elliot’s eyes suggested Charles liked Joyce a little too much. He gave a small nod of his head to tell her to ask the questions Joyce would have asked. “What was the job he was talking to you about?”
“Oh, nothing much,” Danny lied, and it gave Olivia hope that they had moved onto the next step of the case.
Olivia stepped a little further away and decided Joyce wouldn't have been placated by the lack of information. “It seemed like something…”
“No, it…” Danny sighed, choosing his words carefully. “It looks like one of the guys is going to get his marching orders, so Charles just wanted to see if I would have any issue in taking on the extra work. In the meantime, you know. Nothing much.”
“Oh. Okay. Will you get more money?”
“Enough to help out…”
“Thank you, babe,” Joyce said. “You do so much for us.”
Elliot’s lips bit together, his cheeks rising in unbridled amusement. He’d never heard something like that come from her lips without an edge of sarcasm. Olivia’s eyes narrowed at his mirth, which didn't help his delight at all, so he tugged her a little closer, trying to bring himself back to his character. “Anything for you, babe.”
Her lips pouted as she too tried to keep her amusement at bay from his words. “You smell like brandy.”
“I don't know who she is,” he sassed, garnering a flick of a hand to the back of his head. He laughed, “C’mon, you set me up for that one.”
“Mmhmm. I love when you joke about other women.”
“Twenty five years and you still think there’s other women?”
Olivia swallowed, her eyes blinked. It was the kind of thing a husband would say to his wife, but to hear it in Elliot’s voice while he clung onto her, while she could feel the warmth of his arms and the breadth of his chest. While his eyes looked up at her and she could count the different colours of blue.
She really tried to stop her mind from spiralling on it, wondering if he had actually said those words to Kathy.
His strong thighs tightened around hers, squeezing her just a slight. “You’re the only one for me, L-Love” Elliot said, Danny but a distant memory.
His voice was quiet, so quiet she wondered whether any of the recording devices in the room would have picked it up.
Her breath caught. She really felt like he meant it, she knew he meant it and she knew he was waiting on her for anything to happen. God , she wanted it to happen. And two months of him away after everything in Ohio had just edged her that bit closer to being ready. And this? Now? Her fingers trailing across the skin of his neck, his hands now splayed along the small of her back, warm and large…
Her heart was suddenly hammering because she realised she was leaning forward, his eyes were on her lips and they were getting closer and closer… and then the phone rang.
Elliot's voice was low as he scrabbled a hand onto the unit at his side. “It's Je-Jude…” he was still staring at Liv when he pulled it to his ear, “Hey honey, What's up?”
Olivia stepped away, taking a hand through her hair as she grabbed the glass of wine from the table.
“Hey dad,” Jet said. “Sarge and Bobby are following MacNamara. I've broken MacNamara’s cloak on the feeds and they are audio and video, but the range is only a couple of metres so neither will stretch outside of the room you're in.”
He swiped a hand over his head, sighing as he acknowledged the lost moment and the job still at hand. “Okay.”
“But the Sarge wants you to continue as normal, let him add recording without consent to the list of charges we can get him on.”
“Right, that's fine.”
“That is, if you two can keep your hands off each other…”
He sighed again, catching Olivia's eye as he said, “We’ve managed so far…”
“Euw,” Jet replied, garnering a slight grin and huffed-out laugh from him. “Well, check in if you need us. We'll still be parked down the street so we have eyes on you. Well, the building. But I'll call in the morning for how we extract Captain Benson.”
“Yep, no problem. Talk to you tomorrow, honey. Be good.”
“You t-”
He cut her off.
“Everything okay?” Joyce asked, taking her empty glass into the kitchen.
“Yeah, she-she thinks her car is making a weird noise. She's going to call tomorrow about it.”
“Right. Are you… calling it a night?” She asked, checking they were still staying there. She assumed from his talk about their imaginary daughter's imaginary car that they were.
“Yeah, I'm beat.”
She nodded, she was too but her heart was also hammering even harder than before as Elliot opened the bedroom door.