Chapter Text
The tequila didn’t help.
Getting his service weapon back from his new (temporary) CO didn’t help, and neither did the warning that his friends in high places were only going to have his back long enough to stab him in it.
That alone didn’t sit well with Elliot, because he knew his real friends in higher places, Liv and Ayanna, weren’t trying to end his suspension early, if nothing else to help keep his disgruntled, old-time cop facade for the undercover op. Had to have been Donnelly who pulled the strings, and he wondered just who Frank knew up in the puzzle palace to make it happen.
Looking at his father’s Police Combat Cross didn’t help either.
To think that for over 30 years, he’d thought that his father had given him this because he was proud of the fact that he made detective, just three years after joining the force. He thought it was the old man’s way of passing on the legacy. Like he was entrusting Elliot to uphold the duty of the uniform, the safety of the city in the same way. It was the last thing the old bastard had given to him before he croaked of lung cancer in late 1990.
For all the things Elliot hated about his father–the beatings, his temper, his love of alcohol and cigarettes, the way he treated his mother–one thing was always certain in his mind: Joe Stabler had been a good cop and that medal was the proof. And now even that wasn’t true.
Elliot was sick of spiraling out but he couldn’t catch a break. He needed something, anything to cut through the chatter in his mind. He checked his watch, a little after 1 a.m. It was late but worth a shot.
He sat in the car outside of his apartment and tapped out a quick message:
“U up?”
He let the phone rest on his thigh for a few minutes. He figured if he didn’t get an answer in ten minutes he’d head inside and try to drown his thoughts in a scalding shower. It dinged a few minutes later.
“Is this a booty call?” she replied and he choked on his own spit.
“What? No!” he answered.
“Then we’ve got to get Eli to teach you a little more about text etiquette ,” she answered. “Need something?”
“It’s nothing, it’s fine, ” he replied “I probably woke you up. Goodnight Liv. ”
He was about to pull the handle and step out of the car when his phone started to ring.
“Hey,” he said as he picked up. “I’m sorry I woke you up.”
“You didn’t,” she said. “Rollins has been out this week. Her mother fell and broke her arm and she’s been taking care of her. I was trying to catch up on some case files. You need something, partner?”
“I need…” Elliot started and trailed off. “I needed to hear your voice, Liv.”
“Okay,” she said, hesitant. “And that’s… all?”
“I guess,” he mumbled.
She was silent on the other end of the phone for a few seconds.
“Elliot, why don’t you come over,” she said.
“But Noah,” he said.
“Is asleep,” Olivia said. “As long as you’re not high this time, just come. Worst case you can do some of this paperwork for me.”
He chuckled slightly.
“I can be there in 20,” he said. “Are you sure?”
“Positive,” she said. “Text me when you get here, I’ll call down to the doorman, let him know it’s okay to let you up so late.”
“Thank you,” he said.
“Anytime,” she said. “See you soon.”
He felt like he drove to her place in record time, and texted her as she requested when he arrived. The doorman gave him a pointed glance, no doubt remembering the last time he’d showed up in the middle of the night. When he got to her apartment the door was propped just slightly, so he didn’t have to knock. He let himself in, gently closing the door behind him.
The scene in front of him was so domestic, it almost made his heart ache. Olivia was sprawled on the couch in lounge pants and a sweater, hair up in a bun, glasses perched on the edge of her nose, her whole face buried in a file. The thought of what it would be like to come home to her like this every night came and went just as quickly because he saw her startle when she heard his footsteps.
“Hey,” he whispered. “Just me. Didn’t want to knock and scare Noah.”
“That’s why I propped the door,” she said, putting the files on the coffee table and sliding her glasses to the top of her head. “Come sit with me and tell me what’s really going on. Is it your case?”
She moved over to lean against the arm of the couch, patting the middle cushion as an invitation.
“Sort of,” he said. “You hear about the guy Van Aller? Shot himself right in front of me after confessing to killing that lawyer and her client.”
“I did hear,” she said. “Ayanna told me when she dropped off the files about the sex trafficking part of things. I don’t know if you remember this, but that happened to me with that federal agent Lauren Cooper many years ago. It’s shocking.”
“That wasn’t actually the worst part of it,” he said. “Van Aller was so scared of Donnelly finding out, so I didn’t tell him. But he basically called the guy a coward and said he wasn’t like us. Not like our fathers.”
“This is just an undercover op, El,” she said. “You’re playing a part. Like we used to even when we used our real names.”
“You remember the Combat Cross I used to keep in my desk drawer?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “I never found it when Cragen made me clean out your desk.”
“It was the only thing I took from there on that last day,” he said. “Guess I kinda knew I wasn’t coming back, even if I hadn’t fully made up my mind yet.”
Olivia pursed her lips and nodded.
“I ever tell you about it?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “I assumed if you wanted me to know, you would.”
“It was my Dad’s,” he started, pulling the box from his jacket pocket and handing it to her. She cracked the lid and the hinges squeaked.
“Way he told the story, he got shot in the line of duty,” Elliot said. “Took a bullet for his partner. Got the commendation for it. And I always thought he was such a tough badass for it. Cared more about his partner than he did about himself. Knew that feeling pretty well.”
He wanted to look up at her but he couldn’t force himself to do it.
“Then tonight, Donnelly tells me this story he said was a legend in his house growing up,” he started, but then his breath catches in his throat. He doesn’t want to tell it again.
They were silent for a few beats until she prompted him to continue.
“What was it about?” she asked.
Elliot sat back against the couch and crossed his arms tightly across his chest.
“They were cleaning house Donnelly said,” Elliot continued. “They ran into some unarmed kid and his partner startled, shot the kid dead. Liv, my dad searched the house, found a gun, and had his partner shoot him in the leg to make it look like self-defense. And that’s why he got the Combat Cross. He didn’t protect anybody, except his idiot partner for doing something wrong. And Donnelly thinks that’s the greatest story in the damn world.”
He could feel the pressure behind his eyes, the tears trying to fight their way out but he refused. She’d seen him cry enough in the last year.
He felt her shift on the couch until their shoulders were touching.
“El, that was definitely wrong, and I wouldn’t condone it. I don’t think you would either,” Olivia said. “But maybe they were close. Good friends, outside of the job?”
“I don’t even remember the guy’s name,” Elliot said. “They weren’t close. Not like some partners.”
He felt her begin to absentmindedly stroke his forearm.
“Well, not every partnership can be as close as…” she said. “Fin and Munch’s.”
Whether she meant to or not, she pulled a laugh from his chest and two tears did streak out.
“I told you the other day, El,” she said. “It was a different time back then. Things are even different than they were 11 years ago. We’ve grown, and we’ve learned, and things we used to think were fine aren’t anymore. You can’t judge what he did then against what you know now.”
“How can you defend him?” Elliot asked, anger bubbling in his gut.
“I’m not defending him,” Olivia said. “I’m just saying in his mind, maybe he was doing the right thing. Sticking up for a friend. You know we did it many times. The whole Simon thing when I botched that sting in the park and the perp got away. You tried to cover for me. You think that was wrong?”
“Probably,” Elliot said. “But I knew you were already beating yourself up for it. I wasn’t going to let you go down alone.”
“There’s the difference,” Olivia said. “You weren’t going to let me go down alone . If the fallout was going to happen, you weren’t going to stop it. You were just going to come with me. That’s a true partnership. Maybe your Dad just couldn’t see the difference between blind and well-placed loyalty.”
“These guys are why people hate cops, Liv,” he said. “This Brotherhood? They only look out for themselves. For people just like them. And my Dad was just like them. And maybe I really am my father’s son.”
He felt Olivia move abruptly, sliding her hand up to his chin and turning his head so he was looking right into her brown eyes.
“I said this to your mother once, and I’ll say it to you now,” she said. “You are a good man, Elliot Stabler. And I have known you long enough to know you didn’t get that from your father. You are a dedicated cop, a loving husband and father, and a good, good man. You’re not destined to become him any more than I was destined to become a drunk or a rapist. You told me time and time again it’s not all about the genes. What your father did doesn’t define you.”
She slowly slid her hand from his chin, and he immediately missed the contact. So, he wrapped his arm around her back and leaned his head into her shoulder. She turned her own to place a soft kiss against his bald head like she might do if she was comforting her own son.
“Nothing I ever did was good enough for him,” Elliot said. “And just… what if that’s how Eli and Dickie feel? Like I’m judging them all the time? Like I’m going to snap and hurt them at any moment?”
“No, no,” she whispered. “All of the kids love you. Dickie has idolized you from the time I’ve known him. Do you remember that case with his friend Shane? At the end of the day, you showed him that your biggest concern was his safety and happiness. It was hard. It was growing pains, but he still looks at you like you hang the moon and stars, and he’s almost 30 years old. How’d you feel about your Dad when you were that age?”
“He was dead by the time I was Dickie’s age,” he said. “But I wasn’t sorry he was gone.”
“And Eli,” Olivia said. “He loves you so much. It hurts him to see you hurting. He gets that from you, you know. The urge to protect. It’s an awfully large weight to carry, which I think you know. He just wants you to be happy and to know that you’re going to be okay.”
“I don’t feel okay,” Elliot said. “I haven’t for a long time.”
“You’re still grieving,” she said. “It doesn’t magically go away at the one-year mark.”
“Liv, I haven’t felt okay since I pulled the trigger that day and shot Jenna,” he said. “Nothing has ever felt right since. I shot a kid, Liv. What kind of man does that? How could a father , or a good man as you’ve said, kill a child, no matter what she did. There had to have been another way.”
He swore he heard her choke on her own breath but he didn’t look up. She began to stroke his neck and upper back.
“If she’d been an adult, say in her 30s or something, would you have thought twice?” she asked.
“But she was just a kid,” Elliot said.
“If she had been an adult who just shot three people in the middle of a police precinct with a gun aimed at you or me, would you have thought twice when her finger twitched as it did?” she asked.
“No,” he answered softly. “She could have killed you too.”
“I was unarmed, my gun was in my desk, and Sister Peg was already dead at my feet,” she said. “It didn’t matter that she was a teenager. She was an unstable threat. I’ve thought for years how if I had walked her to the bus stop, or offered to drive her home, or if I asked her to come up to the lounge to get coffee and talk if she never would have walked back in and fired. But we can’t change it, El. You did what you had to do to protect other civilians, your partner, your precinct, and yourself. It’s not the same as what your father did.”
“It feels the same,” he said.
“Only a good cop and a good man would still feel that kind of guilt 11 years later,” she said. “But you have to forgive yourself.”
She was quiet for another few seconds.
“I have,” she said.
Somehow, that’s what he’d been waiting for. All his life, he thought he needed his father’s approval, his pride. He thought those were the things that would define who he was as a man. But he’d been wrong. His father was a bastard, and he didn’t need his approval.
But Olivia? She was a warrior and a goddess. She’d had just as shitty an upbringing as he had and she came through it with grace, humility, and compassion. She was the one who made him want to be a better person. Hers was the approval he sought, and he had it.
“You know,” she whispered, her lips close to his temple. “If I could have picked anyone to be Noah’s father, it would have been you.”
Elliot felt a stab to his chest, knowing he hadn’t been there for her pregnancy, and Noah’s father was now clearly out of the picture. Perhaps even Liv’s Ed, who was now gone, too.
“And his genes aren’t the best either,” Olivia said. “His mother was raped by her pimp, his father was a sex trafficker. And I know you haven’t met him officially yet, but he is the kindest, warmest, most loving child there is. And there are days, when he sticks up for other kids on the playground, when he looks at me with his bright blue eyes like he wants to make sure I have the world, even though I’m supposed to be the one taking care of him, he reminds me of you. And I can only imagine that when you two meet, how much your influence is going to make those qualities blossom.”
Elliot’s mouth felt dry.
“You’re really going to let me meet him?” he asked.
“When you finish this operation,” she said. “He does get very attached and so many important men have left his life already.”
“I won’t, Liv,” Elliot said. “I swear to you.”
“I believe you,” she said. “But I know when you meet he’s going to want to see you, and Eli, and your mother, and all the rest of your family, all the time. And I don’t want to have to explain why you two can’t have a super soaker battle in Central Park because the Albanian Mob might kill you in broad daylight.”
“Is this your polite way of telling me to stop going undercover?” he asked, finally lifting his head to look at her with a lopsided grin.
“You’re the detective,” she said. “You figure it out.”
“I wanna come home for good,” he said. “This is all getting tiring.”
She smiled at him and leaned in to close the small space between them, capturing his lips in a chaste kiss.
“What was that for?” he asked.
“A promise, that I’ll still be here… we’ll still be here when you finish the operation,” she said. “And a reminder that when you’re doubting yourself or when you’re scared of who you are or who you’ve become, I’ll be right here to tell you who you are inside. I still know you, El. Sometimes I think better than I know myself.”
“I hope I can be the man you think I am,” he said.
“You already are,” she said. “You just get a little lost sometimes.”
“I should let you get some sleep,” he said. “It’s a school night.”
He went to stand, but she grabbed for his hand.
“Or you could stay,” she said, with a small smile.
“This a booty call, Captain?” he asked, wiggling his eyebrows.
“It’s an ‘I miss you’ proposition,” she said. “Do either of us really want to sleep alone tonight?”
“What about Noah,” he asked.
“I’ll set an alarm for you,” she said. “You can run out and get us donuts for breakfast, your treat, of course, act like you just stopped by with the treat. He’ll lose his mind and it’ll put you in his good graces immediately. One quick meeting can’t hurt. He’s already seen you at the park And maybe you could get some for my squad, too?”
“Donuts are code, Liv,” he said with a smirk.
“Code for what?” she asked.
“Code that you had sex the night before,” he said, stifling a chuckle.
“You’re joking,” she said.
He crossed his heart and bit back another laugh.
“Oh my God,” Olivia said. “That’s why Fin looked at me funny and Amanda asked if I had fun the morning after I went to that adoption gala with Langan.”
“You slept with Trevor Langan?” Elliot said, eyes bulging from his head.
“No,” she said. “I accompanied him to an adoption gala. He was the keynote speaker. He asked me to come because he referenced Noah’s case in his presentation, which he thought I’d want to see. He was a total gentleman. Walked me to the door, said goodnight, and that was it. I brought donuts the next day because I wasn’t running on fumes for once like always.”
Elliot was full-blown biting his tongue to keep from laughing now.
“I’m sorry, who needs a brush up on their etiquette, now?” he asked.
“Shut up or I’ll make you sleep on the couch,” she grumbled, grabbing for his hand, turning off the living room light, and pulling him toward her bedroom. “And cancel those donuts for the squad.”
“Oh no,” he said, closing the door to her room behind him. “I’ll get two dozen, in fact. Make sure they know who paid for them and if you can videotape Fin’s reaction that would be great.”
“You’re lucky I love you,” she muttered, before realizing what she said and he could see her eyes go wide in the dim light from the streetlamps outside.
Not giving her time to think, Elliot leaned in and kissed her again.
“‘S’okay,” he said. “I love you too. Thank you for reminding me who I am, Olivia Benson’s partner.”
Yes, as he listened to her drift to sleep beside him, that’s who he’d always be, and that moniker was enough to outweigh the stain or shame of being Joe Stabler’s son.