Dark Grey

My first 24-hour-post-episode fic. Set after the episode "Loss" (season 5 episode 4). This fic contains major, major spoilers for the episode and for the exit of actress Stephanie March. The only real pairing is implied Alex/Olivia, though since I'm a slashaholic you could also read Munch/Fin and Alex/Abbie Carmichael. Rated PG-13.

I had to write this, but I can't believe it. I think denial might be a better place to be.

Dedicated very, very much so to Ali, who enjoyed my last fic so much.

* * *

Olivia Benson knows that eyes are watching her when she walks up to the grave and kneels slowly, the toes of her low black leather boots sinking into the wind-softened ground. Her right knee hits the grass and instantly she feels a set stain spread through the dark fabric. She sets the bouquet of autumn colours beside the flat gray headstone. Alexandra Windsor Cabot, the carved-in letters burn, but Olivia knows it's not real, none of this is real. The neat black six-foot hole with its square corners and crumbling sides is ready for the simply mahogany casket, and she flashes back to the Andrea Brown case for a moment. She knows that there has never been a body between layers of white satin.

Olivia rests her fingers lightly on top of the polished gray marble. Around her back, cameras flash and crackle, and she knows that the journalists are very lasciviously capturing her silent gesture of goodbye. It isn't goodbye, and she knows it. Goodbyes will have to come later, in the privacy of her apartment, with pictures and replayed answering-machine messages and a glass or a bottle of vodka. But last night, and right now, she doesn't know what to say. She's glad that the newspapers will print their own captions, glad that Cragen is the one to deliver the press releases, glad that it's appropriate for her to keep her head down as she joins her partner in his dark coat.

A flashbulb pops right in her face as she leans into Elliot's shoulder, and she hopes that every single last member of the drug cartel, the ones whose names they don't know and will never know, sees it.

Elliot puts his arm around her, and the Kevlar is hard under her cheek.

* * *

He's watching his partner carefully, making sure she's okay, but she seems steady on her feet, even when she sinks to one knee. They talked about it earlier, but he's still surprised to see her look so shaky as she reaches out to touch the letters of Alex's name. She looks appropriately in mourning, and the hairs prickle at the back of his coat collar when he realizes that she'd better look like she's in mourning, because he's quite certain they're being watched.

Anyway, Elliot supposes that in a way she is. It's hard to think about mourning someone who's not dead, but then Alex Cabot might as well be. She'll likely never walk the streets of New York City again. Depending on where they send her, she'll never need her soft winter scarf or her long gray coat again. She'll never know that Olivia collapsed on him, screaming and shaking, as the long funereal procession of black cars took her away last night, to wherever she will be going and whoever she will become.

Judging by the look on Alex's face, she knew all that too.

He reaches for Olivia as the shutters click and the windy autumn sky lifts her hair harshly off her cheekbones. It's hard to get a grip on her because they're both bound in heavy Kevlar, throat to abdomen, but he can feel the heat of her face, the rattling breath in her ribcage. She looks like hell and he hears the cameras document that too.

Elliot's hand tightens on her shoulder, and her listens to her breathe in sharply as Cragen stands up, hands folded awkwardly, and gives a short speech about A.D.A Cabot's contributions to the unit over the past three years. He wants to kill them all.

* * *

Captain Donald Cragen is pretty sure there's something going on with Benson and Stabler, but he doesn't know what. He caught that odd look in Benson's eyes when she placed her hand on the headstone, and the way Stabler's looking at her as she walks back, with that odd mix of tenderness and fear – well hell, he doesn't know. Maybe it's because Benson and Stabler are close, because they were both close to Cabot. Maybe it's something else.

Cragen feels awkward when he stands up to give his speech. What should he be saying, he wonders, about a young and determined A.D.A. who went down too soon? Sometimes Cragen thought Cabot was a little _too_ determined, especially when that determination was blasted on the squad instead of the perps, but he respected her for it. Actually, sometimes when she was screaming at the squad to get her evidence that she could _use_, it was the _only_ thing he respected about her.

He catches himself as he straightens his red-and-black striped tie. That's not the kind of thing he can say in a speech about someone who's dead. He feels uncomfortable suddenly – the Kevlar, maybe; it's pressing right against his belly – or maybe the uncommon weight of his black suit. The Feds, and One Police Plaza, have insisted that until this dies down (but _when_, Cragen wonders), they're all to wear the Kevlar at any time they leave the precinct or a federal building. It's a good idea but it makes Cragen feel like he's in a straightjacket.

He wants a drink and he can feel it. It's a sick feeling, shame and fear, and he wonders how Cabot felt when the bullet splintered through muscle and bone.

He watches the black-garbed crowd as he speaks about Alex Cabot's schooling, her success rate in her cases, her passion for seeing justice for the victims. Benson is watching him with blank dark eyes. A trail of something shiny is embedded in the wrinkles and cracks on Munch's cheek. Stabler's hand is pressed against Benson's head, like a parent.

He wonders if Benson and Stabler will tell him what's going on. Then he decides there's a reason he doesn't know. He never asks.

* * *

Fin's hand is at the base of his back, although Munch wouldn't know it if he hadn't felt him touch his shoulder, lightly, first. He can't feel a blasted thing, between the Kevlar and plain old being exhausted. He's too old for this. In his younger days in Baltimore, the fear of being shot would have been laced with a strange twinge of excitement. Today he feels his age.

Of course, it could have to do with the two people who are now dead. He eyes the dark wooden casket and can't imagine Alex Cabot, who was always so vocal, sometimes to the point of being irritatingly righteous, being shoved in the ground.

Munch is sorry he never got to know her better, but isn't that what everyone says when someone dies? He means it, but he doesn't know how to explain that he means it. All those years of case files, murders and clues, talking everything out with a string of different partners and medical examiners over the years, and suddenly know all his experience isn't helping him.

He shrugs away from the weight of Fin's hand as Cragen begins to speak. They're being televised. He doesn't need to look like a kid in need of support on television.

* * *

Kathy Stabler wanted to go to the funeral, and for a second, she thought Elliot would let her. The corners of his mouth folded and his brows crashed together and he looked liked he might say yes – but no. "It's too dangerous, Kath," he said quietly, pressing his chin against the top of her head. "I don't even know how to tell you how dangerous."

That's his problem, she knows, and it irritates her no end. He refuses to draw them into that part of his life, and then something like this happens, and he has to, and because he's never told them anything, it comes out sounding even worse. At least to the kids. Kathy knows pretty much of it, and what she doesn't know for certain she fills in with her imagination, so that when it happens – well, it's not quite as bad.

But this – this she isn't sure. She knows that, once again, there is so much more that Elliot isn't telling her, and this time maybe it's more than she can imagine. There are things that she won't be able to find out from the papers and the Internet and the little things he says when he isn't thinking.

She just hopes the kids aren't in danger.

The funeral of Alexandra W. Cabot is being televised, and Kathy turns it on low while she finishes the dishes. Dick and Liz are almost eleven now and she's under no illusions that she's fooling them, but she likes to keep up the charade. It makes her feel safer, insulating her kids in the same way that Elliot tries – and fails – to do for her.

She picks out Don Cragen in the crowd right away, and it only takes her another minute to spot Elliot and Olivia in the cluster of people wearing long coats and heavy suits. He's holding her, and they both look indescribably sad. It's occurred to Kathy, once in a while, to be jealous of the relationship that they have, the late-night phone calls that she and Elliot haven't shared since they were dating, buying coffee for eachother on the way to work. Today, though, the look on her husband's face is one of lined, aged sadness, and she knows that jealousy has nothing to do with anything right now.

The twins come bounding into the kitchen, and she switches off the TV hastily while she digs out the makings for peanut-butter-and-cheese sandwiches and passes them across the counter. They don't need to see that. She can't stand to see Elliot's sorrow from so far away.

* * *

Liz doesn't know who her mother thinks she's fooling, but it's not Dick and it's certainly not her. She and Dick talk about this sometimes, when they're both piled like puppies in one or the other of their beds and Dad's out on a case and Mom's sitting in the living room pretending to read but really waiting for him to come home. Sometimes she thinks that she and her twin brother understand their father better than their mother does. They know that what he does is dangerous, but he'll never admit it. He wants to protect them. They also know that what he does is more important than they are, but he'll never admit that either. She guesses he's also protecting them.

Anyway, she's already read _The New York Times _today and clipped out the article about the funeral of Assistant District Attorney Alexandra Cabot. Liz doesn't really remember Ms. Cabot, since they only met once or twice, and not usually on purpose, because Dad likes to keep them as far away from work as possible. But the article also mentioned Dad and his partner Olivia, and Liz likes to keep those. She and Dick share an entire three-ring binder full of pasted-in clippings that mention all the things Dad has done. Mom started it with them when they were small because she told them Daddy was a hero. Now that she's a little smarter, Liz suspects she did it to prove that Daddy has a good reason for being gone all the time.

Dick hands her a sandwich and together they scoot out of the kitchen. She finishes her lunch and a glass of milk sitting at her desk in her bedroom, rereading the newspaper article.

* * *

_The New York Times_ circulates all the way down to Washington, D.C., and Abbie Carmichael picks up a copy on her way to lunch when she gets out of court. Federal Major Crimes today went in for an indictment on a guy who was building his own biological weapons in the laboratory in the basement of his Georgetown brownstone. Sometimes she's not sure if she actually got a better deal leaving New York.

She buys a cup of coffee and a sandwich at a small sidewalk café down the street from the mall and sits down, smoothing the edges of her gray tweed skirt. She's halfway through the crust on the second half of her sandwich when she flips the page to A9 and the article stares up at her.

Abbie pulls out her cell phone and dials the New York precinct number that used to be so familiar to her, then asks if they can connect her to the SVU office. The only person she reaches is Don Cragen's answering machine, and slowly she hits the End button before it can ask her to leave a message.

* * *

Olivia punches the button on her answering machine when she gets home, but there is nothing of consequence: some calls from the other cops around the precinct, letting her know that they've heard and they're sorry; a short message from Elliot, checking up on her. She hits the delete button four times, and the light finally stops its frantic blinking.

The dark corners of her apartment blink up at her accusingly, and for a moment the normally warm living room seems very empty. It's not, of course, and as the lights come on and her eyes blur she can see pillows on her couch and jackets on the coat rack, cups of pens and pencils on her desk, post-its stuck to the wall. In the kitchen the mugs from the last morning Alex was over are still sitting in the sink. Olivia touches the green ceramic handle where Alex's fingerprints were.

She heads into her bedroom and strips out of her black clothing, tossing her slacks and sweater onto the carpet along wit her boots. She stares for a long moment at the small pile of clothes on the floor: Olivia's usual fleece pants and t-shirt, Alex's royal blue blouse that she'd left here the other night. She'd meant to send it home with Alex, but they'd both forgotten and it hadn't seemed to matter. Olivia picks it up now and digs her fingers into the soft washed cotton, and a hint of flowers and shampoo jabs at her nostrils.

The cupboards are full of coffee that Olivia doesn't drink, and Herbal Essences shampoo that she doesn't use is still sitting on the ledge in the shower. The apartment seems very quiet.

Olivia makes the instant coffee anyway, letting it steep for a long time in a clean white mug, and curls up with a blanket on the couch. She makes a face as the first gulp of dark liquid slides over her tongue, hot and sour. She wonders how Alex could possibly go through four cups of this stuff every day. But it tastes bitter, and she as she curls up and sleeps like a small boulder on her couch, she figures that's about the same way her brain feels right now.

* * *

The coffee tastes stale. Alex Cabot makes a face as she forces a sip down her throat and taps her fingers impatiently on the molded plastic handle of the curved seat, watching a large silver jet roar down the runway. The nose lifts up and the flaps come out, and then the plane takes flight, wheels tucking up like a gigantic bird of prey that sounds silent all the way across the airstrip.

Across the waiting room, one of the federal marshals lifts his eyebrow at her, diverting his attention momentarily from the _People_ magazine that he's pretending to read. Alex nods back imperceptibly. The jet just pulled out of terminal B12, and in a minute she'll begin boarding her own plane. She hurries to finish her supposedly-hazelnut-flavored coffee, but it's too sour, and she ends up tossing it in the trash can next to the row of stuck-together chairs.

She's carrying a book by an author that she's never heard of, and a spiraled notebook so extravagant that she would never have bought it herself, in addition to her purse and carry-on. The Feds managed to get into Alex's apartment long enough to sling some of her clothes into the expensive black rolling Samsonite suitcase that her mother gave her last Christmas, and that's been checked under her flight name. She hasn't opened the book or the carry-on, which she knows contains a pile of paperwork documenting her new name and birth date, as well as a sealed envelope containing a stack of crisp cash. The spiral notebook is open on her lap, but she can't think of anything to write, besides "I'm sorry" in a letter that will never be mailed.

"May I have your attention please. We will now begin boarding for U.S. Airways Flight 5674 to Northfield, Minnesota. That's Flight 5674 to Northfield, Minnesota. First-class and any passengers who require assistance please form a line at gate B12. Thank you."

She stands up, looking one last time around the busy terminal and gigantic wall-length windows of LaGuardia. They've told her that this is just until they round up all the participants, or at least until the active threats stop – "The squad had to wear Kevlar to your funeral, Ms. Cabot. Is this what you want?" they asked her – but even if that's true, she won't be back for a long time. If she does, the odds are pretty good that it will be just her body, flown in on a small, noisy commuter plane to the place where it says her body is now.

Her marshal salutes her, barely, fingers brushing the rim of his receding hairline.

Alex takes a deep breath and steps up to the checkpoint at the edge of the ramp, where a smiling brown-haired woman greets her, inspects her paperwork, and tears off the right half. "Your boarding pass, Ms. Gordon. Have a nice flight."

The woman who used to be Alexandra Cabot nods and walks down the accordion hallway.

_finis_


End file.
