A/N, Please read: This story takes place during the events of the episode 5x05 "Serendipity", focusing on Casey and Olivia's interactions, but mainly on Casey - since Olivia was actively working on the case, on the field and all. A lot of the dialogue is taken directly from the episode, as you will all notice. If you don't have it fresh on your mind I'd recommend a rewatch, because this story doesn't tell the details of the case they were working on - but the case is an important part of the story, since the action takes place during it.

P.s.:Due to the ff image format the header image for the fic had to be cut in that awkward way, but if you'd like to get it full size let me know, I can always find a way to provide it to you.

Please send me feedback, I'd really like to know your thoughts on this story!

ser·en·dip·i·ty

1. The faculty of making fortunate discoveries by accident.

2. The fact or occurrence of such discoveries.

3. An instance of making such a discovery.

Chapter 1

"Look like pharmaceuticals to me. It's in the warrant, bag it", the redhaired woman that had popped out of nowhere commanded, with her deep voice in a hurried and extremely excited tone.

Before she could barely process anything irritation took over her body and she could almost feel her skin crawling, as if a raw nerved had been poked. She wasn't used to strangers just appearing during evidence collection like that, let alone ones that had their plump coral red lips filled with orders as if they were the local authorities - not to mention the fact she looked exceedingly young to even be someone who worked there.

"Who the hell are you?", Olivia said, irritated and astonished, eyes searching for an explanation, suddenly widening as her partner - to her absolute dismay - was actually able to give her one.

"That's our new A.D.A.. Casey Novak, Olivia Benson. Olivia, this is Casey Novak", he said in an introductory tone, pointing each woman to the other.

"Hello", Olivia said without much interest in the pretty new girl. "She sure won't last long", she thought casually, trying to push away how irritated she felt about the disturbance and about the fact Elliot knew her - and seemed to be glad to see her.

"Do I know you?", Casey Novak asked Elliot, sounding as confused as Olivia did before, despite her enthusiastic tone.

Elliot quickly glanced at his partner not failing to notice her heavy annoyance at the whole situation and, trying to prevent it from turning into something embarrassing and uncomfortable, he promtly moved forward to the new A.D.A., quickly guiding her further from where he and Olivia stood previously.

"Yeah, shortstop, cop's team. Come here", he said rapidly, hand on her back, already on the move.

"Oh, right. Didn't recognize you when you weren't covered in my dust", she replied with a teasing smile, sounding very proud of herself.

"That's very good", he commented, clearly uninterested over talking about softball, "What are you doing here?", he said hastily.

Despite his efforts of driving Casey away from Olivia, he noticed that his parter stood toe to toe with him, listening to everything, and as he well knew, ready to speak her mind to the newcomer.

"It's my case", she put out simply and flatly.

"It's not you're job. We're the detectives", Olivia answered back in a low, almost patronizing voice, as if implying a "You know that, right?" behind it.

"I can't believe this. Just what I needed. Alex gets shot and sent away and we get this girl who thinks it's her job to show up at the suspect's house like this", she thought to herself.

"And I'm very hands-on, I like to see my cases through from beginning to end", Casey stated, staring directly at Olivia - not blinking for a second and not moving her eyes away from the detective's widened brown eyes.

She mentally tried to read into Olivia Benson, wondering if the woman's irritation towards her came only from feeling that she was barging into a place where she wasn't supposed to be or if the detective was actually threatened by her presence. Casey had read their files and she had also read Alex Cabot's files, and she knew the way she worked was very different from the way how their previous A.D.A. handled things - not that she found Cabot incompetent, much on the contrary, she admired the woman and was deeply saddened that a law worker had to give up her practise because of criminals' pressures - which made her almost certain that there would be some conflicts between them, but she didn't expect them to happen so soon and specially over something so petty as in her showing up at the suspect's house during evidence collection of her own case. "To the hell with this shortstop and his hot feisty partner. I have every right to be here and if they feel threatened or angered at my mere presence then they're the ones who'll have to handle it", she thought.

"Well, things are being handled just fine here", Elliot replied dryly.

"Great", Casey's tone was ironic and angry, her face curled up in a sarcastic smile, "Tell you what? Let me take a quick sweep, then we can go to the crime scene together", she continued, eyes fixed on Elliot's, making them realize she wasn't one to give up just like that, because they wanted her to.

"It's already been processed", Olivia replied, her smooth voice trying to conceal the fact she was abashed and beyond pissed off with the A.D.A.'s insistence on barging into their work.

"What else could she possibly say right now?", the detective wondered, wishing the girl would just disappear, let them do their job and stick to her part which was assuring that the perps they captured didn't walk freely because of a convincing well-payed bastard of an attorney.

"Not by me", she said in a fiery tone, her eyes almost taunting Olivia. Then as quickly as she spoke those three words she walked away leaving the two detectives dismayed and still, almost as if a hurricane had passed by them.