After every case, Olivia Benson swears that's it. That's the end. That's all the hurt and pain and emotion she can take before a desk job in a nice, well-lit office with a comfortable, faux-leather chair calls her name. She makes this declaration of quittance each time, but every day she straps on her gun, pockets her badge, and reports for the day at the Manhattan 16th Precinct.
Usually, as much as her job often cripples her internally, Olivia can go home, recover, and show up the following day ready to face whatever may plague the city at any given hour having no one be the wiser to the struggle she regularly battles. Elliot, Fin, Munch…they're just the guys at work. They get it, and they deal in their own way. They always had each other's' backs but that didn't mean they had to talk about everything that had happened, especially the emotions that occasionally seem to come right along with everything else whether they were wanted or not.
On this particular Friday afternoon, Olivia had already dealt with much more than any person should be handed. Closing the day on an arraignment which had not been finalized with a remanded defendant that was a very obvious flight risk, Olivia now sat at her desk and contemplated two options to finish off her work week. One, she could head home, settle on her old-but-comfortable sofa (that was really more of a futon left over from her very first apartment; she was making it work) or roam off for a drink or two to clear her mind. Absentmindedly deciding on the latter, she also opts to avoid the normal dive for somewhere in the upper east side, maybe somewhere she wouldn't have to worry about being around people she knew and would be expected to hold a conversation with. Hitting the switch on her desk lamp, she grabbed her leather jacket off the back of her metal chair and hustled out the door without a word.
Olivia wasn't drunk. Wasn't drunk yet, but was still relatively sober nonetheless. About halfway through her second NYC Craft, she realized that maybe drinking tonight would be a bad idea. When she drank, she thought of all the things she spent the entire day pushing into the back recesses of her mind. Alex.
Alex had been with SVU for a few months now; about the same about of time that Alex had also, unknowingly, had Olivia's heart. But that was neither here nor there. Olivia had a strict try-not-to rule about dating coworkers, especially ones who were likely straight, not attracted to her, and not anywhere close to in her league.
It was then that she saw yet another Craft appear in front of her, alongside a fishbowl glass filled halfway with a deep red merlot. Glancing up at the bartender ready to inquire where the unrequested bottle had appeared from, Olivia spotted long, alabaster fingers wrap around the globe-like merlot and retreat.