Title: Collateral Damage

Author: mindy35

Rating: initially K+, ultimately M, sexual situations

Disclaimer: Characters are property of Dick Wolf, NBC et al.

Spoilers: Pretty much everything's up for grabs

Pairing(s): Elliot/Olivia, incidental Olivia/Brian and Elliot/Kathy

Summary: Olivia stumbles across Elliot whose abrupt disappearance is finally explained. Set season 16 (no particular ep though) with pre-series and early series flashbacks. Also includes post-eps for "Wrath", "Swing", "Hammered", "Rescue", "Pursuit" and "Internal Affairs". (And all of it happens because a dog ate a sock…)

Prologue

2014

She stumbles on him by chance. Or maybe it's fate. One of the two.

She wasn't even supposed visit Attica that day. She was taking the place of Rollins whose dog ate a sock and needed a vet. Later, she'll find out that he was only transferred to that prison two days prior. Growled catcalls and grabby hands reach out from behind the bars as she walks the length of corridor. She knows how to deal with it. She learnt years before and by now it's become habit.

Olivia keeps her eyes high and ahead, her footfalls brisk and unhesitant, trained to the middle of the walkway. As she approaches the gate though, her feet do hesitate. Because her eyes land on an arm, propped on a cell, a hand, grasping the steel bar. She'd know that hand anywhere. She'd know that arm anywhere. She'd know that tattoo anywhere. Her steps slow as she approaches the cell – then halt altogether. His head is shaved and his chin has grown a bushy salt and pepper goatee. He wears a prison uniform, stripped to the waist, a tight white tank covering an upper body she could identify blindfolded and half-asleep.

Her breath hitches and her eyes blink. From behind the bars, he winks at her.

"Hey there, gorgeous. What you starin' at?"

He faces her, weaving both arms through the rails of his cell, eyes glinting with well-feigned menace under which she can detect…what? Sorrow? Entreaty? Regret? Amusement, even. Affection. Her gaze falters, dropping momentarily before returning to his. The arms that breach the barrier between them are beefier than they used to be. But the eyes glaring out at her are the same. Exactly the same.

His mouth tugs up in one corner and he beckons to her with one hand. "You wanna piece of me, darlin'? Come a little closer and you'll get it..."

In the background, his cellmate drops down from his bunk and lumbers closer, hoping to get in a little harassment as well. Eyes fixed in place, she doesn't see him so much as sense him. But the other inmate breaks her focus enough that she steps back, unaware that she'd even drifted forward, away from the safety of middle ground. Olivia blinks again, shakes herself internally then turns and continues on her path. With her partner's voice adding to the cacophony of explicit howls, all ending in sweetheart and honey and baby and worse, she leaves the cell behind, she exits the long corridor. Numerous gates slam at her back, jolting each individual vertebrae of her spine as she doubles and redoubles the distance between herself and the prison that houses Elliot Stabler.

To Be Continued...