Part 1: You've Been Served

Law and Order: SVU is the intellectual property of Dick Wolf. The use of the characters, settings, and plotlines is not malicious. This is a work of fiction.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Olivia questioned, brandishing the interoffice memo in her hand. "Tell me this is a joke." She crossed her arms and stared at the aging man behind the desk.

He raised both greying brows and folded his weathered hands, and he sarcastically intoned, "Good morning to you, too, Detective Benson."

"Captain Cragen," she huffed, "Honestly?" She waved the crumpled sheet of paper at him. "We are probably the only team in this entire precinct that doesn't need to go to this thing!"

Cragen rolled his eyes and leaned back in his chair. "You have to," he told her flatly. "You're both up for review in less than a month, your jackets look like they could be manuscripts for the next two Stephen King novels, and you've got personal baggage that even Louis Vuitton wouldn't take credit for, so you have to fucking go."

She narrowed her brown eyes. "You know who Louis Vuitton is?"

"Benson," Cragen snapped, "It's three days out of your life, you need to go, play a few rounds of twenty questions, help each other climb a mountain...I'm not asking you to give him a kidney!"

She balked, straightening up, then smiled briefly as a memory fluttered across her mind. The smile was short lived, though. "Why us? Why now?" she asked, biting the inside of her cheek.

"Because, eventually, every team needs to go through this, or they can't be a team, understand?" he told her, and then he saw the look in her eyes. "Is there a reason you don't want to go? Something...you're afraid of, Benson?"

"Don't be ridiculous," she scoffed. She flailed the memo at him one more time. "Fine," she spat, tossing her head back in defiance. "But is the department at least springing for separate rooms?"

Cragen snorted. "Now you're the one that's joking," he chuckled. "One room, uh...one...one bed." He saw something flash in her eyes. "But there's a couch."

"Wonderful," she moaned sarcastically, then turned on her heels and left his office. She stormed over to her desk, ignoring the questioning looks she was getting from the other detectives, and she plopped in her chair with a dry curse. She ran her fingers through her dark hair, then pulled on the sleeves of her red turtleneck. "We have to go."

Her partner looked at her for a moment. "Couldn't charm your way out of it, huh?"

"No, El," she said, her brown eyes venomous. "I couldn't. Three days in a scuzzy motel in the middle of fucking nowhere...with you," she prattled. "One bed, by the way."

"Oh," Elliot said, stunned, his brows turned up. "Really? He said that?" He leaned over his desk and lowered his voice. "He's, like, giving us permission, here! He must trust the shit out of us...or...does he know?" There was a gleam in his blue eyes and something wicked in his grin.

"I certainly didn't tell him," she laughed, giving him a smile that reached her ears and made the corners of her eyes crinkled. Genuine. "And I doubt you had that conversation with him, so no, he doesn't. One-P-P is fucking cheap, end of story."

Elliot took the memo off of her desk and read it again. "Well, maybe it won't be so bad." He tossed it back to her. "We make nice with the psych guy, we do some team building bullshit, we get to spend some quality time alone together, which..."

"Psych guy," she interrupted, throwing the letter back to his side of the desk. "Look who it is, and then tell me it won't be so bad."

Elliot's eyes scanned the notice, and then they widened, then closed. "Fucking hell," he griped.

"Can't make nice with him, can we?" she questioned with a smirk. "Unless we lie through our teeth."

"Skoda," he mumbled. "Bastard can read us like comic books. Well, hey, it's a partnership seminar for work. He can't get personal, and if he catches you staring at my ass..." he was stopped from finishing his sentence. A pencil hit him in the head. He turned to her, trying not to laugh, and he raised one eyebrow. "Ow," he said.

She challenged his look with a crooked smile of her own and a small tilt of her head. "I called down to HR, and, uh...I'm the only woman on the roster. Prepare to get possessive."

"I don't have to prepare for that," he quipped. "Besides, I know I don't have anything to worry about." He smoothed out his tie and licked his lips, his ego glowing. "You know, that means we're gonna be the hottest couple there."

"Couple?" a voice from the next desk over called.

Elliot cleared his throat. "You know what I mean, Fin. Pair. Team. Whatever."

Fin shook his head in annoyance, then looked at Olivia. "I had to go to that thing last year with Skeletor over here," he jutted his chin toward his partner. "Almost got mandatory sensitivity training because he told the doctor I keep calling him names."

"You do," Elliot said, matter-of-factly.

Fin rolled his eyes. "Yeah, but he wasn't supposed to tell the shrink that!" he laughed. "You remember what he did to us, Munch?"

Munch looked up for a moment, thinking. He pushed his glasses up, then nodded in remembrance. "He made us list the things that annoyed us about each other, and we had these foam bats...had to hit each other every time we felt genuinely insulted." He looked at Olivia, then at Elliot. "Two minutes in, he excused himself, came back with a bottle of vodka, and sent us back to our rooms."

Elliot laughed, then frowned. "Wait, you got two rooms?"

"Budget cuts," Cragen said, appearing behind them. He handed a yellow slip of paper to Fin, and then a pink one to Elliot. "Go. Now."

"I hate the pink ones," Olivia sighed, getting out of her chair. She grabbed her jacket then followed Elliot through the open doors of the squad room. "What is it?" she asked as they stood waiting for the elevator.

He looked at her, sighed, and said, "Fifteen year old Jane Doe, found on the steps of the courthouse." He stepped aside when the metal doors slid open, letting Olivia in first. "I won't miss dealing with this shit for the next three days."

She hummed in agreement, but deep down, she would rather have to deal with two cases at once than have to talk about how she really felt about her partner, especially in front of Doctor Skoda.

Reviews are appreciated :)

Peace and Love

Jo