Case Closed

Title: Case Closed (2/?)

Author: Master F&M

Fandom: Law and Order: SVU

Rating: Mature Audience

Summary: Captains Tutuola and Stabler join forces, and departments, to close a case that affects
Fin personally. Runs within the timeline of Infinity.

Disclaimer: Law and Order: SVU and all its characters belong to Dick Wolf. I just get to play
with them.

Author’s Note: Sam is a character that does not exist on the show.

Feedback: Please give some. For entertainment purposes only.

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CHAPTER 2

            Elliot entered his kitchen through the back door and plopped his keys down on the
counter. He was tired. He hung his head forward onto his chest, trying to relieve the tension
between his shoulder blades, then rotated his neck in an attempt to release the stress in his
muscles there, too.

            “Well,” Kathy came up behind him and began massaging his back and shoulders. “I take
it you had a rough day today?” She balled one of her hands into a fist and dug it into his lower
back. She knew that was where he usually felt the most strain.

            “Yeah.” His voice was muffled as he bent over to allow her to work the soreness out.
“I’m really starting to hate this case.”

            “I thought you already hated it?”

            “I did. But now I’m really starting to hate it.” He straightened up and stretched. “The
guy I’m dealing with is a real piece of work.”

            “Tell you what, then,” Kathy headed for the fridge. “Why don’t you go get settled in the
living room while I fix you a quick bite? Then we’ll talk. It might help to get some of it off your
chest.”

            “Sounds good.”

            Elliot stretched his back once more before falling onto the sofa. It felt good to be home,
even if it did seem a little too quiet and way too big with all of the kids long gone. More
importantly, it felt good to be home with his wife. Never again, he had vowed, would he ever
make the same mistake he’d made nine years ago.

                        Kathy had been a more than understanding spouse. Goodness knows she’d put up
with years of him not being there for all the little, and some of the big, moments in hers and their
children’s lives. But she had reached her limit when Elliot had first accepted his promotion to
head of SVU. She, better than anyone, knew just what toll his cases took on him, and just how
much time and energy he spent on them. Yet, as always, he had been determined to keep his
work away from her. As a result, they had begun to lose touch with one another. Kathy knew
the situation would only get worse, and had refused to watch it happen. She’d waited until he’d
gotten settled into his new position and, incidentally, the twins were packed off for college,
before telling him that she was leaving. Six months had passed before she came back.

            At first Elliot had been resigned to let her go. If Kathy wanted to leave him, then he
wouldn’t try to convince her to stay. But after coming home to his empty house night after night,
he had finally been forced to see what he should have known all along; that not only did he still
love his wife, but he needed her as well. That despite his unwillingness to share the details of his

work with her, he had come to depend on her to be able to live with what he saw every day and
still find the strength to go out there again. She was his steady rock in the midst of all the chaos
that surrounded his life. It had been her support, comfort, and reassurances over the years that
had enabled him to continue to do his job in a unit long after most other cops had had to call it
quits.

            Once Elliot had realized just how important Kathy really still was to him, he had jumped
through hoops to convince her of that as well. He’d gone along with everything she suggested
they needed to do, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to live with the alternative. In the end, it
had boiled down to one single fact: If they were to continue to have a life together, then he
would need to allow her some access into what had become a large part of his – his work.

            It had been difficult for him to do at first, but eventually Elliot had to admit that sharing
his thoughts and feelings about a case with Kathy, without going into any specifics, unburdened
him in a way it never did talking to his partner. Unlike Olivia, Kathy was familiar with all his
weaknesses, and allowed him to indulge in them while soothing away some of his worries. The
new order of their lives had worked out so well that he often joked now that Kathy leaving him
had been the best thing that had ever happened to their marriage.

            “Here you go.” Kathy joined him on the sofa, handing him the sandwich she’d made and
placing a glass of lemonade on the table in front of them. “Do you need anything else?”

            Elliot turned to look at her, then shook his head. “Nope.” He laid a hand on her knee
before going into sketchy details about the vileness of the Gemstone case.

            “I have everything I need right here.”

.............................................

            Fin turned the key in the door to the penthouse expecting to find his home, like every
other Friday night, invaded by teenage boys. Despite the fact that he was a cop, which he thought
would have been enough to keep his sons’ friends away, the penthouse had become the hangout
of choice for the weekends. Usually he could find a group of at least seven, including his own
four, sprawled out in front of the TV in the den watching a movie, or, more likely, tearing up the
NBA in some video game; all the while going through what seemed to Fin like a ton of food.

             He knew it was Sam’s doing. She had, over the years, and probably because of the boys’
heightened propensity for getting into mischief, quietly and unintrusively created an open door
policy for their friends. She preferred, she’d explained to him one night when he complained
about the noise level, that it be noisy with their boys at home where she could keep an eye on
them, than it be quiet at home with the boys out and her having no idea of what they were
actually up to. He had to admit she was right, and thought, not for the first time, that she and
Nanna would have gotten along really well.

            Fin opened the door and was briefly caught off-guard by the silence. For a fleeting
moment, he relived the nightmare of coming home to an abandoned apartment, before coming to
himself again. That was a long time ago. Still, it was a buried fear that had refused to leave him,
despite the number of years he’d happily spent with his family and the certainty that Sam would
never take his children from him.

            He made his way down the hall toward his kids’ room, stopping at the twins’ door, and
only felt completely at ease again when he saw them safely tucked into their beds. He smiled.
Their basketball game tonight must have really worn them out. They’d spent hours practicing
over the past week in the hopes of making the finals, so he was glad he’d gotten the chance to see
most of their victory game before getting called away to another case.

            Fin walked past the room Deon shared with Johnathon without stopping, and headed for
the nursery. He knew his youngest son was spending the weekend at Dorian’s, while Munch’s
namesake was staying the night with him and Tori.

            He continued to his daughter’s room, still unconsciously checking the apartment for
signs of an intrusion, and poked his head through the door. Although he told himself he would
only take a peek to make sure she was okay, he couldn’t stop himself from entering the room and
standing over the crib to look at her. She’s so beautiful. Although he fiercely loved his boys, he
had to admit that he felt something a little different with this baby. Something that made him
want to smack the crap out of anyone who even breathed on her wrong.

            He froze when Terry stirred in her sleep. The last thing he wanted to do was to wake her.
She may have been tiny, but she had a wail that was loud enough to wake the dead. He waited
until she was settled again before gently stoking her cheek, then backing away from the crib. He
was nearly out the door when he turned around again, and tucked in her blankets a little more
securely before leaving.

            Fin made his way toward his own bedroom. All he wanted now was to make love to his
wife to help him forget what he’d had to remember today because of Elliot’s case.

            He entered the room, making out Sam’s sleeping form in bed, and quickly stripped off his
clothes. He slipped under the covers, and gave a soft groan as he spooned himself against her
warm body. She so rarely slept in the nude these days that it always felt sinfully decadent to him
whenever she did.

            He pressed his groin against her backside, and reached an arm around her to rest a hand in
the warm space between her breasts. Smiling, Sam stopped pretending she was still asleep.

            “Hey.”

            “Hey, baby.” He leaned down and kissed her shoulder, then her neck.

            “Everything okay?” she asked.

            “Yeah.”

             He traced a finger over the added roundness of her breasts, knowing, since she was still
breast-feeding, that they weren’t his to enjoy. Reluctantly, he pulled his arm back to rest on her
hip when she turned to face him.

            “You sure?”

            “Yeah,” he climbed over her and kissed her. “Everything’s fine.”

            Sam returned his kiss, but without her usual enthusiasm. Fin pulled back to find her
studying him.

            “You don’t want this?” When it came to sex, rarely were they not in agreement with
enjoying it as much as possible.

            “No, that’s not it. It’s just . . . You were so upset earlier tonight. Now you seem almost .
. . cheerful.”

            “You don’t want me to be happy?”

            “Of course I do. It just seems a little out of character for you right now, that’s all.”

            Fin sighed, then rolled off her onto his own side of the bed. “You’ve been hanging out
with Huang too much again.”

            Sam smiled at him. “You want to talk about it?”

            “Not really, Sam.” He was quiet for a few moments, staring up at the ceiling, then told
her anyway.

            “The last time I went after Vega, the case got far more personal than it should have. He
played us every chance he got, so when we couldn’t nail him, I went after one of his girls.” His
voice was heavy with regret.

            “Right after I locked her up, though, Vega had her killed so she wouldn’t talk.” He shook
his head.

             “He must have had somebody on the inside. In any case, he came after me because he
figured I’d taken something from him. That’s when he got Giles instead.”

            Markus Giles and Fin had gone through the Academy together. Both had set their paths
toward different careers, only to change it later on in life to what they really wanted to do: police
work. After a few years as beat cops, first Fin, then Giles had made Detective and had requested
to be assigned to the Narcotics division, where they became partners and the premier team for
undercover work.

            “He laid low for a while after news about Giles spread, but it didn’t matter to me
anymore. I got out.”

            “His death wasn’t your fault.” Sam got to what she knew had been eating away at Fin
every since Vega’s name had resurfaced. “You aren’t responsible for him dying.”

            Fin clenched his jaw. “If I hadn’t gone after Vega’s girlfriend, he would still be alive.”

            “You didn’t pull the trigger, give the order for the hit, or make Markus step in front of
that bullet.” Sam leaned over him, her expression a mixture of determination and concern.

            “If you want to put Vega away, then do it because he’s scum and breaking the law, not
because you think you owe your old partner.” She paused. “Giles’ death isn’t something you can
repay.” Fin continued staring at the ceiling.

            “Fin?”

            He sighed. “Yeah, Sam. I know.”

            She ventured one last admonishment. “And we agreed years ago that you wouldn’t try to
keep this stuff bottled up.” She stroked his chest and stomach to soften the blow.

            “Or try to wall it behind a scowl, or anything else.”

            Fin turned to look at her. How the hell did she always know what was in his head?

            “You scare me sometimes. You know that, right?”

            Sam gave a small laugh then pulled herself up, straddling him. Fin’s eyes roamed over
her face and body, lingering at her enlarged breasts, before he brought his hands to her hips. His
right hand reached back and caressed the spot over her buttock where he knew the tattoo she’d
gotten two years ago was. He couldn’t see it, but it was enough to know it was there.

            Fin had practically melted when she’d shown it to him. The small fin sticking out of the
waves that looped over themselves so that they resembled the symbol for infinity may have
seemed like an odd choice to the artist who’d drawn it, but he’d known exactly what Sam had
meant when she designed it: Fin Forever. It hadn’t been lost on him, either, where she’d chosen
to put it. He’d walked around with a perpetual hard-on for a week afterwards just thinking about
it, and couldn’t stop himself from asking if her luscious derriere was now his because it had his
name on it.

            Fin grinned as he felt his erection come to life again. “I like you up there.”

            Sam smiled down on him. “Yeah? Well, I like being here. And as far as being scary
goes, I’m just trying to do for you what you always do for me. Besides,” she leaned forward and
kissed him, “it’ll be a lot better this way. With your mind free and clear.”

            Rather than the annoyance he would have at one time felt at being manipulated, he
instead felt a rush of gratitude for her. She somehow always managed to keep him straight. Fin
returned her smile, his eyes full of love.

            “You’re my Queen, baby.”

            Sam firmly grasped his hardened penis, and slid it into her. She moaned softly at the
sensation and slowly began rocking her body over him.

            “And you, Fin, are the King.”