Reemergence

I've had this idea on my mind for awhile and when Chris Meloni liked a tweet saying it was the only logical explanation for Elliot never contacting her, I had to run with it. If you're not sure what he liked, just read to find out. All the details are mine, not what is to be expected on the show. Please let me know what you think by clicking 'review" below. Thank you.

Part I.

He's been briefed a half of dozen times over the years on similar cases.

His skin prickles with that awareness because this one wasn't like any of the other cases in his life. Each new case that had come across his desk had added another line to his forehead but this one, this is something he might never recover from.

When he closes his eyes, he can still smell the sweat, can still feel the heat, the dirt under his nails, the vibrating ground as another truck pulls in with a new load.

His skin now, is taught, darkened by the sun, dry, and the hair that brushes across his skin is a bit thicker than he's ever worn it before. The gray represents a little more evil that he's faced each year he's been on this journey.

He licks the part of his lips that are free from the immense jungle that stretches across his jaw and glances at his watch.

Even though it hasn't been more than five minutes since he sat down in the small conference room, his knee begins to bob up and down nervously.

He is in a tiny room inside the FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. and he curses them under his breath for not allowing him a little time to clean up before this meeting.

A debriefing. In his world now, this is the new normal, and the second debriefing he's been a part of in the last eight years.

The first time, it'd been a quick bust, a few months, closing a cocaine trafficking case the FBI had drawn him into about six months after he... retired from the NYPD. He'd been approached by a familiar face when he'd gone down to One Police Plaza for the last time and had taken the job.

He had thought it was something he could handle. Something familiar, yet different until he could get his bearings and something to distract himself from the fact he killed... again. A job that he could get used to, instead of the constant plethora of darkness that began to swirl steadily around the 1-6.

But it was the rigor and constant disappointment in whom he had to become that he wasn't used to. At first.

He twists his neck and it cracks, loudly, and then he wrings his hands in his lap. He's popping his knuckles when the door behind him opens.

"Stabler," the gruff voice rumbles from behind him.

He jerks his head up, and twists his neck to glance at the other man standing to his right, just inside the small room. "Is that what they're calling me now? I'd almost forgotten," he murmurs numbly.

The other man lets out a light hearted breath, and walks around the small wooden table in the middle of the room. After sitting his jacket on one of the chairs, he shuffles into one of the metal chairs on the other side.

Elliot doesn't know the man but doesn't speak, let's the air between them linger until the silence added to the sound of the other man's suit pants shuffling across the metal chair, becomes almost too much to bear.

Clearing his throat, Elliot stands up and paces slowly between the table and door in which he'd come through nearly fifteen minutes before.

"Stabler," the other man interjects calmly. "I know you've been in the ring for ...a while, but you won. There's nothing left to go back to. You're getting out."

Elliot sighs, and rubs his hand down his face. "I want out."

"Montgomery has every intention of giving you that."

"Then what the hell is taking him so long?"

The other man swallows and looks down at his clasped hands nonchalantly. "He, uh, he has another case on the table."

Elliot's head jerks up. "What? I thought you just said I was free."

The other man laughs full on this time, "You are. This is as much of a debriefing as it is an open opportunity."

"For what?"

"Man, just let Agent Montgomery tell you. Then I'll answer any other questions."

"Just tell me about what? Undercover work?"

Sighing, the other man stands up, and walks around the table and glances out the glass pane on the conference room door.

"No worries, Stabler. It ain't undercover with sex trafficking again if that's what you're wondering."

Elliot closes his eyes and sighs deeply. Thank God. He'd thought he'd paid his dues until he went undercover and met face to face with some of the lowest pieces of vermin on the earth.

Mankind.

He not only lost a part of himself over the last eight years, but he's lost his semi-normal livelihood. His kids. His…. marriage.

He'd never told them where he was going. He couldn't let them in on the darkness about to drape itself over his being like torrential downpour in the middle of the busiest metropolis in the world. What he saw… what he experienced…. what he did. Who he encountered. It all blends into one monstrous entity behind his lids and he shivers when the memories overtake him like a hurricane.

Men. Women. Innocent children.

He'd been stuck in the eye for seven, 365 day cycles. He refuses to call them years, because he's already lost so much time.

His fist clenches at the most recent memory from only days ago. He'd clung to a little boy and girl in one arm, aiming his gun around every corner with his other shielding them with his body as he yanked them out of a warehouse in the heat of the Texas and Mexico border.

He snaps out of his recollection when the heavy wooden door whooshes open again and the formerly faceless Montgomery stands before him for the first time. He has a familiar gate and stature, and his face reminds him of his own without the years' toll on his features.

"Elliot…. You're officially debriefed on this case. You helped the FBI take down one of the biggest trafficking rings in modern U.S. history. This will make headlines. You deserve commendations. However, with the current global crisis, we'll have to wait for any ceremonies from headquarters. You'll be notified of any changes. Now go home, clean up and take a look at this case file the FBI picked up from Special Victims last night. You were in that unit for sixteen years, they'll need your expertise on this one… Everyone will. Welcome back to the mainstream world, Stabler."

With that, he turns his back on the now confused Elliot and whooshes out of the room as fast as he came in. Elliot glances at the folder in his hands before shaking his head.

He looks toward the other man, "That it? Almost eight years under and "You're officially debriefed?"

"The world has changed considerably since you went under. There's a global pandemic the trafficking fucks didn't quite get the memo on."

Elliot huffs, and starts packing up the files he'd carried in with the new ones from FBI on a new case with SVU. He sighs, he's trying hard to process that piece of information when he turns his head to the other man who'd never quite introduced himself. "Where does that leave you in all of this?"

"Yeah, about that. I was told to wait so I could see your face. Name's Amaro. I worked with your old partner after you left. Four years. I've been asked to escort you home and pick you up in the morning."

Home.

Where exactly is that these days?

He clears his throat and stands to leave the tiny conference room. Before moving far, he looks at the younger man named Amaro, and licks his chapped bottom lip. "You FBI?"

"Yeah, about a year. Came back from Cali so my daughter could go to school. She wants to go to a good college in four years. You? Kids? Wife?"

Elliot grins tiredly and opens the door. "Yeah, it's a long story," he offers before walking out and leaving Amaro watching him closely with curiosity. Amaro knows more about the man than he's willing to offer, for right now at least, so he stays silent.

He grabs his car keys out of his pocket and follows Elliot down the hall and out of the FBI building into the crisp mid April evening.

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"Fin's on suspension?"

"Temporarily. It was a good shot. He'll be cleared. Until then, we're going to need help. That's if the FBI doesn't try to take over the case entirely."

"Liv, we need some men in here. Not that I don't think you, Kat and I are capable, but there's a bit of an imbalance going on if you haven't noticed."

Olivia sighs, and blows her hair out of her eyes, "I know. I was sent a memo yesterday from the Chief that I'd be getting some help from the FBI. They're sending in two guys. I don't like it , especially when they get territorial but with this big trafficking bust down south, there were bound to be connections to New York City. So we'll be conducting interviews."

"Sounds exhausting."

Olivia shuffles around Rollins and talks over her shoulder as she enters into her office, "You don't know the half of it,"she says, before closing her door behind her.

Olivia walks over to the window in her office and puffs out a breath of air. She watches her reflection as she pushes back her hair from off her forehead. Nobody but her really feels the eerie sense of deja vu emanating from the halls of the precinct. Fin's been out of the office since the previous week after shooting a father in front of his son and his mother.

It was justified, but since the 1-6 has been put under scrutiny more than one over the last twenty years, she knows it won't be cut and dry for him either.

A sad realization had hit her when a member of IAB that she and her squad had become accustomed to seeing when shit tended to hit the fan, wouldn't be showing up this time and hadn't for quite a while. Things were changing again and she felt truly alone.

Still she tried to focus on the job at hand, some of the New York victims would be flying in all week and with them would come the insurmountable pain that was going to be flooding the air all around her. She was no stranger to darkness, but this is something bigger than she's ever experienced while in this position.

She's never been captain in the face of a global crisis. And on top of that, while everyone is inside escaping an invisible foe, the underground still prospers in their unending desire to create chaos and pain.

She's beginning to feel dread forming in the pit of her stomach, and she looks down at a picture of Noah on the cabinet. It's enmeshed with other pictures she'd framed years ago: Ruth Bader Ginsberg, She and her mother.

When she'd moved from her desk in the squad room to her place in Cragen's old office, she'd made sure to do what he said. Do something with the place.

She'd tried to.

A file folder catches her attention atop a stack of papers on her desk and she narrows her eyes at the unfamiliar item. She reaches for the folder and flips it open quickly to a missing persons poster on the inside.

Missing

Have You Seen This Girl?

Carleigh Tamerson

Age: 8

Height: 4'3"

Weight: 50lbs

Last seen wearing blue jean shorts, a flower pattern t-shirt and sandals

Last seen on August 8, 2017 in Brooklyn, New York

Underneath the poster is a form with FOUND stamped atop it and her breath hitches at the newfound knowledge that this will be her reality in a few days, hours, minutes - she'll have to come face to face with a child who had no doubt seen and experienced hell for three years.

She's about to close the folder until later, when another sheet comes loose from behind the sheet she'd just had in her hand. The paper gently floats to the surface of her desk and her head begins to throb.

Harrison Silva

Age: 7

Height: 4'1

Weight 45Ibs

Last seen wearing blue shorts and a red/white striped t-shirt.

Last seen in the Bronx, NY on July 19, 2018 at age 5

Under that, there is, once more, a sheet stamped FOUND and she shakes her head in silent horror of what their parents had to endure while their children had been missing.

These bastards are always organized, she thinks to herself as she realizes these poor children had gone missing more than likely just playing outside in the summer sun. She's gone through infinite case files like that over the years. This time, while she'd been sitting at her desk, these children had been swept away and no one had been the wiser.

She catches the chatter of the squad room in her peripheral hearing and the sound of ringing phones. But it's the muffled cacophony of it all through her closed door that makes her feel guilty for not saving them all. For not knowing, while silently secure within four walls in her captain's office and not out on the streets like she used to be as a detective. She'd known the brief horror of losing a child when Noah had been kidnapped by his grandmother.

But this… this was a horror she still hasn't quite grasped in the twenty years working in a sex crimes unit in New York City, the hub of the world in most things. She'd only been involved in a handful of trafficking cases, and nothing near this big.

She drops the whole folder this time and it comes to a halt after sliding against the slick surface of her wood desk. Before she has time to sit down and think through any more of what needs to be done, there's a soft knock on her office door. Rollins pops her head through the door frame, eyes wide and mouth slightly agape.

"What?" Olivia asks, feeling the hairs stand up on her neck as Rollins looks over her shoulder briefly before stepping fully inside. Clearing her throat she wrings her hands nervously.

"I uh, you're not going to believe this."

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Elliot stands in the elevator and anxiously waits for the numbers to wind upward to the Special Victims Unit's floor. He'd been able to shower and change into clean clothes before he left D.C. but he hadn't been able to find a razor for the overgrowth on his face. He was up way earlier than most stores were currently opening up, and had gotten home after most had closed the night before. It'll be the first thing he does once he finds a place to stay here in New York City.

He'd wanted to make sure he was presentable by the time he'd made it to New York, but his plans were skewered when it wasn't Amaro who had shown up at his hotel door at the Hyatt, courtesy of the FBI, at approximately 5:15 am, much earlier than he'd anticipated.

But he guesses he should know her by now, it's been twenty years of working off and on with the woman, and usually ending up in the ER. But that's beside the point.

Her voice interrupts his thoughts but he doesn't look away from the numbers above.

"Sorry for the early drive. When I get the news I'm coming to New York, I just can't wait. I thought you might feel the same."

He grunts, and shakes his head with a sad smile. "You knock Amaro out his job already?"

"Nah, he got called to assist OC. They'll be working their tail ends off too with the trafficking case. He'll be stuck in D.C. for a few more days."

He nods, and turns his focus back to the numbers above them. These elevators were always so damn slow. But he counts it as a plus considering the mirage of emotions starting to infiltrate through him. He thinks about what Amaro said. He'd worked with Olivia for four years. He can't believe he hasn't seen her in nine.

He wonders what she'll look like. Is her hair the same?

Has she gotten more sun? Does she take more vacation time?

He wonders if she's settled down yet. As much as he's kept from her, he's equally as helpless when it comes to information about the Olivia Benson he would have died for.

"Are you nervous? Hell I'm sweating like a pregnant nun in a church meeting right now. My ass is grass if she's pissed at me too. I didn't leave on exactly the best terms either."

"Yeah, but she thinks you went to prison. I didn't even get the chance for a made up goodbye."

"She didn't have a clue."

"And I will never be able to make up that time."

"Elliot," the woman says softly, her southern twang still as pronounced as it had been the very first time she had come into contact with the former detective next to her. "I suppose some of this is my fault as well. I know I was the one to approach you about the sex trafficking group out in Laredo, but I knew if she was good at infiltrating an eco group, you could infiltrate those scumbags to get to the core. I could read you both like books. I just... I didn't know you'd be tied down for seven years, Stabler."

He huffs softly at the use of his name. He'd been Stabler all his life until seven years ago.

He'd become someone else the day he'd agreed to a second round of undercover that would change his life forever.

He'd been Lance Sorrato. He'd become him in every way and maybe deep down he'd always been the trash pile Lance was. After all, he'd had to sacrifice everything good in his life to amend his wrongs. The other man had been dead for four years when Elliot assumed his identity the FBI had so delicately procured. He had nothing else to prove, but Elliot did. Does.

"How was she?" he inquires without turning his head but glancing at the FBI agent next to him from the corner of his eye.

Dana clears her throat, before turning her attention to the numbers above them as well.

"She uh, she seemed good. To me at least. Spitfire as usual."

"I mean… did she… did she look okay?"

Dana hesitates for a moment as if trying to decipher any hidden meanings in his question before she answers.

"She was okay," she reaffirms. "She was on top of her game."

Elliot grunts and, then, finally, lifts a hand and rubs his fingers across his eyes. Even if she wasn't, she wouldn't let anyone know. If he had hurt her beyond repair, no one would know but her and that's what scares and scars him.

"You care about her?"

Elliot drops his hand and glances at the other woman, his blue eyes not as bright as they once were in the dingy lighting of this precinct, he can tell that by the dim sadness that spreads across Dana's face.

If only she knew the extent of his feelings for the one partner he could unequivocally see himself dying for. Hell she probably already knew just by the look on his face.

The doors slide open to the hallway leading to the Special Victims Unit before he gets a chance to answer. All he does is lift his brows and walk out into the atmosphere he hasn't been apart of in nearly a decade.

Care for? Those weren't strong enough words to describe them by a mile. He isn't sure he's strong enough to face her in a few moments, but he's going to and their tether will be stretched to its limit once again.

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"Hi, I'm Dana Lewis. I believe we've met before?"

Rollins stops in her tracks when the FBI agent approaches her at her desk. She narrows her eyes briefly, scrounging around her brain for how she knows this woman before something clicks. The blonde pushes back her chair and stands to shake the other woman's hand.

"Yeah? Old case?"

"Ehh I guess you can say that. I was going to prison?"

Amanda's eyes widen with realization and she leans back with her mouth slightly agape. "You're kiddin'? You escape or something?" she jokes.

Dana's eyes lighten as she glances over her shoulder at Elliot leaning against a cabinet right inside the squadroom, watching his surroundings. "Nah, just a little business I had to attend to and now I'm out," she whispers seriously.

Rollins nods slowly before she laughs softly, "Oh… I get it," she raises her hand. "Part of the job. Is there anything I can do? You need Captain Benson?" she changes the subject.

"Well actually I do. You see, we're the FBI agents here to assist with the sex trafficking bust, that will be tracking back to Manhattan uh, pretty soon. I believe Benson has the case file? Oh, uh, this is…," she waves over Elliot, "my partner Agent Stabler."

Elliot walks over in his gray long sleeved t-shirt, dark blue track pants and black and white tennis shoes. If it wasn't for the badge on a chain around his neck, he'd look like any person of New York City. And with the unkept beard, possibly homeless.

As he walks over, he notices the change in the younger blondes demeanor and he already knows that she knows who he is. They've never met before but he knows that he isn't exactly a hidden figure in the realm of SVU history. She seems on top of things, astute, and very aware and he smiles internally that Olivia has someone with that sort of skill on her team.

He walks over and quietly offers his hand, and surprisingly the other woman raises hers and gives him a firm shake while never taking her eyes off of him. She scans him, learns him and he understands. She's making a profile of him while staying humble.

"I'll let the cap know you're here," she murmurs as she pulls her hand away and glances at Dana, who just smiles knowingly.

Elliot glances down and realizes he's gripping the folder he'd received the day before with the posters of the two children he'd led out of a warehouse only days ago. He knows time is of the essence and that Child Protective Services will be involved since no family has come for the small girl yet. But once in New York State they'll be able to ask questions.

Time is precious and, yet, patience is important, for them, the case and for these kids. He's never known this to be the case as deeply as he does now. Time.

It'll take time for these children to talk.

It'll take time to find the rest of these scumbags.

It'll take time before it feels real that he's this close to Olivia again.

It'll take time for her to understand.

It'll take time for him to feel like himself again.

It'll take time to accept that this was all somehow worth it.

tbc

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