Welcome to San Francisco
Title: Welcome to San Francisco
Rating: PG-13-for this section ;)
Disclaimer: Since slavery was banned in the U.S. approximately 150 years ago, no, I don’t own them. And I have no plans on getting sued anytime soon, so I won’t be owning them (unless Dick Wolf and James Patterson decide to bless me forever)
Crossover: Women’s Murder Club/Law and Order SVU
Pairing: A/O
A/N: Alex never went into WPP, but she did hand Zapata over to the Feds, which is where the case had ended for her. SVU timeline is around season…five? Six? Women’s Murder Club timeline: right now. Sorry it took so long to update. Oh, and I’m in severe need of a beta. Anyone?
Alex tore her eyes away from Lindsay, and smiled at the other ADA. “Assistant District Attorney Alexandra…”
“Cabot,” Lindsay finished. She was looking really worried now.
“Excuse me, do I know you?” asked Alex.
“I think you do, Alex. Investigator Lindsay…”
“Boxer,” breathed Alex. Lindsay and Alex kept staring at each other.
“Um, I’ll just give you two a moment,” said Tom, waving at the group. Elliot and Melinda walked off to join them, both shooting Alex curious glances. Olivia, however, being the good girlfriend she was, stayed right by Alex.
“Sweetheart, what’s going on?” Olivia asked. Lindsay averted her eyes, and stared at the suddenly fascinating ground. Alex shook her head, as if waving away an unwanted thought. Then she did something that surprised everyone in the bullpen, even Olivia. Everyone except Lindsay.
Alex pulled her hand back and slapped Lindsay as hard as she could.
---
The smack echoed in the dead silence of the precinct. Lindsay slowly brought a hand up to her cheek. Alex was breathing hard, her pants clear and distinct in the bullpen. Olivia stared at her girlfriend, who had been, as far as she knew, extremely nonviolent. Alex looked at Lindsay for a reaction, and getting none, pulled her arm back to hit her again. Before her palm could make contact with Lindsay’s cheek, her arm was pulled back by a strong hand. Lindsay’s hand.
“I think one smack conveyed your meaning well enough, Ms. Cabot,” Lindsay growled, her voice growing deeper with rage.
As if the words had broken a spell over the room, everybody spun into action. Olivia pulled her girlfriend away protectively as Elliot rushed over to stand in front of them. Melinda and Claire hurried over to Lindsay to examine her face more closely, checking for damage. Tom was furiously punching numbers into his cell phone while Jill and Cindy started whispering in the corner.
Lindsay waved the ME’s off, insisting that she was perfectly fine. Melinda retreated to Elliot’s side, successfully closing off a barricade around Alex. Lindsay was also surrounded by her friends. Jacobi had his head cocked to one side, staring at the New York ADA curiously, trying to figure out if he respected her for making Lindsay shut up or hated her for hitting his partner. Cindy was scribbling away, and Jill grabbed her cellphone to snap a quick picture of Lindsay’s shocked face. Claire was glaring at Tom to put down the phone, which he readily complied after taking a look at the ME’s face.
Alex had managed to compose her face enough to glare at Lindsay, her defiant stare flashing fire. Lindsay’s smoky eyes were clouded with rage and…sorrow? Alex shook her head, a subconscious move to try and clear away the immediate pain she felt, the pain she had always felt, when Lindsay’s eyes held so much anguish in them.
“Alex, you can’t go around slapping investigators, just because I’m not from New York,” Lindsay snarled, trying to cover up the grief she felt welling up inside her.
Alex softened slightly, reacting, in spite of herself, to the signs of Lindsay trying to cover her agony with fake bravado.
“Come on, Alex, you always had a sharp wit. If anyone has a right to be mad, it should be you.”
Alex felt her temper flare up again. “You know what, Lindsay? Maybe I’m trying to be mature and emotionally grown-up.” The emphasized words seem to hit close to home with Lindsay. Another uncomfortable silence fell over the room.
Tom cleared his throat nervously. “Well, it’s been great, but I have a meeting with Heather, so I’ll just…” He quickly retreated to the stairs, towards the safety of his office.
Claire strode forward, grabbing Lindsay’s hand and dragging her towards the exit. “Let’s take a walk,” she murmured.
“I don’t wanna walk!” whined Lindsay.
“Yes you do.”
---
Back inside the precinct, Jill was desperately trying to pretend nothing happened. “So, Miss Cabot, I hadn’t realized that the world had more than one smart blond.” Her attempt at breaking the ice was feeble, but most everybody was glad for the distraction.
Alex smiled. ”And I thought God made a mistake with me. Please, call me Alex.” The tension left her shoulders as she clasped her hand around Olivia's, entangling her fingers with her lover’s. Olivia’s eyes softened.
“Well, Elliot, how’s San Francisco treating you?” asked Jacobi.
Elliot grinned boyishly. “Well enough, thanks. Any good bars or hot spots?”
“Besides the clichés?”
“You mean the Golden Gate Bridge? Nah. I got a daughter that’d drive me nuts if we did anything with heights,” Elliot beamed proudly despite what he just said.
Jacobi couldn’t help but like this proud father/cop. He nodded towards the back room. “C’mon. Gotta get you some guns and stuff.”
Elliot laughed. “Ain’t that the truth.” He followed his new friend out the back door.
Jill was still staring at Olivia and Alex, unsure of what to do next. Luckily for her, Cindy’s journalist instincts kicked into high gear when she noticed the New Yorkers clasping hands. “So, are you two like, going out or something?” Cindy seemed hesitant, yet cheerful enough. Olivia decided that it was safe enough to answer.
“Yep. And I don’t want to see that in print.”
Cindy’s cheerfulness went up a notch, and turned into exuberance. “Oh, don’t worry about it. Everything you say is off record until you say so. Is…is that a cop thing? Or just you and Lindsay?” Olivia raised her eyebrow. Was she really that similar to Lindsay?
Jill quickly jumped into the conversation to cover for Cindy’s mistake for comparing the two cops. “So, Alex, why don’t I show you your temporary office? We just remodeled, so chances are it’s a lot better than what the New York taxpayers provide you with. After all, there’s a reason why the tax in this state is so damn high.”
“Sure. Lead the way.” The two blondes walked off together in the direction of the DA’s offices, leaving a very suspicious detective and a very curious reporter behind.
“So, how long…” Olivia started.
Cindy cut her off. “I haven’t known Lindsay very long, so asking me won’t do any good. Try Claire. Or maybe Jill. Or Jacobi. Or even Tom. Or…sorry. I tend to blab when I get nervous.”
“What are you nervous about?”
Cindy chewed her lip, and peeked upward with her large puppy-dog eyes. “Could I get an one-on-one interview?” she blurted, motioning to the interview room behind them. Olivia blushed.
---
“It’ll turn out all right, Lindsay,” hummed Claire, patting her friend’s arm after a quick stroll around the entire city block. “It always does with you.”
“Yeah right. If that were true, I’d still be married to Tom.”
Claire patted Lindsay again, hoping to reassure her, and opened the doors to the precinct. “It would go even better if you told me what happened between you two instead of just saying that you lived in the same city.”
Lindsay muttered something along the lines of, “Crap. You noticed.”
---
FIVE HOURS LATER…
The New Yorkers had finally begun to relax around the SFPD, after the team had convinced them that they weren’t completely useless (except for Tom, of course). The incident in the morning wasn’t spoken of, and everybody was having drinks in Alex’s temporary office.
“So I had about fifteen unis at my back, and I yell at the guy to put down his gun. And then Lindsay sneaks around the back and sees that…”
Lindsay cut in. “It’s a video game gun. And Jacobi was all ‘Why didn’t you put down the gun?’ And the guy was like…”
“I’ve already paid my twenty-five cents!” Jacobi finished with a laugh. Melinda chuckled and went back to her conversation with Claire about the best ways to go about an autopsy. The two MEs had really hit it off, both finding many similarities between their lifestyles.
Alex laughed along with the squad, and glanced down at her empty beer bottle. “I’m going to go use the bathroom.”
Lindsay glanced up from her beer, a worried look in her eyes. Alex shook her head imperceptibly in her direction, an unspoken warning. Olivia, oblivious to the silent communication between the two, stood up, and laid a gentle hand on the small of Alex’s back.
“Bathroom’s down there,” Lindsay said, her whiskey-soaked voice a low hum.
Alex let Olivia lead her to the bathroom, and watched as Olivia locked the door behind them. She steeled herself for the conversation that she knew was coming. “Talk to me, Alex.”
The blond sighed. “What do you want to hear?”
“Who is she to you?”
Alex smiled sadly. “Ex-lover.”
Olivia snorted. “I figured as much, but…”
“She was my first. Not just first girl, but very first.” Alex murmured, keeping her eyes glued to the ground. A sharp gasp was the only indication that Olivia had heard what Alex just said. “I actually tried to come out of the closet in high school. My parents didn’t approve, so they sent me to live with my uncle down in Texas, thinking it would ‘cool me off.’” She snorted. “I was only a freshman…”
---
Alex walked down the long halls of her new high school nervously. Sure, a Cabot was a Cabot, even here in Texas, but she didn’t know anybody, even though everybody knew her. She’d already gotten lost twice, and she was going to be late for her first class. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a brunette struggling with her car door in the junior corner of the parking lot.
“Umm…excuse me, but do you know where N-1 is?”
The brunette glanced up, noticing, for the first time, the freshman. Ugh. She hated freshman. Especially blond ones. “Yeah. Up your a…” Sky-blue eyes locked onto her own, and for the first time in her entire life, Lindsay Boxer was struck speechless.
---