A.D.A Alex Cabot's Office
Wens. December 19th
"Alex? Do you have a minute?" Olivia said simultaneously opening the door and knocking on the hardwood. "Yeah?" The A.D.A. said looking up from her files. Her bright eyes shone out from her squared glasses. Her desk was cluttered with half open files and manila folders. The desk light glowed with a faint yellow that made her blonde hair shine brighter.
"Yeah?" She repeated tilting her head to the side. She played with the pen left in her hand, twirling it around before letting it drop to the yellow legal pad below.
"I, I would like to think that after all these years we could consider each other, call friends?" Olivia stated waiting for a contradiction from Cabot. Olivia's heart was on her sleeve with this one, ever since Alex had left her she felt an emptiness in her heart. Alex had been there for her in any case, taken the pressure off her, and most of all she had been her friend. But then she got shot, Olivia remembered the blood seeping through her fingers, and she held back tears, she thought that she had lost her best friend that day, and in some ways she had. Though Alex was now back Olivia still felt the ache in her heart, what if she leaves again She thought consistently before knocking on her wooden office door.
Alexandria just nodded and sent a smile to the hard ass detective. Even throughout the years and the cases where they disagreed Alex held a certain respect to the officer. She gestured her to the luxurious brown leather chair, in her stereotypical law yet effeminate office. She had missed this office, the worn leather, the smell of old books, the coffee brought to her late at night by a friend who worked just as hard and just as late.
Liv smiled and graciously took the seat but Alex could still see the anxiety in Benson's green eyes. Benson tried to push away the thoughts of the shooting, and of the protection program, she wanted to open up to Alex, to her favorite A.D.A and her best friend.
"If…" Olivia stumbled over her words uncommitted, to whether or not she wanted to go down this road. "If I told you something…. could you keep it in confidence? as a friend?" Olivia looked down at her nails rubbing the smooth surface of the lacquer shell.
Alex blinked once, twice, then cleared her throat, a lump slowly growing where her vocal chords sat.
"Well as a prosecutor I have to tell you that, if any of this comes up in court, I can't promise that I can lie for you." Cabot looked across the dark surface of her desk, which had been cluttered by a ridiculous amount of paper work. A small smile crept across Olivia's face.
"But as friend… Do you want to go out for a cup of coffee?" Alex laughed, and Olivia joined in, knowing that Alex knew every law, and their loop hole inside and out.
They walked silently down the hall to the elevator, and silent still down that. Alex was curious beyond belief about what Olivia had to tell her. Olivia was a closed of person, walls built long ago covering her bruised and battered heart.
Ever since the Alex had left though, things had gotten a little tense and Alex knew how lonely it felt. Wanting to call up her best friend, to tell her everything about her new life. Sometimes she had dialed Olivia's number, finger hovering over the call button but every time she stopped short of ringing.
She wanted to make it up to Olivia but didn't quite know how. So being given this, this opportunity to listen and to be a shoulder for whatever Olivia needed, she jumped at her needs, whatever they may be.
They made their way across the street and in line of the coffee shop, talking finally. They fell into the pattern of small talk and polite conversation about the case's they were both working on.
Olivia handed the cashier the money for their drinks leaving Alex to protest. "Are you sure?" She asked the usual edge in her voice gone.
"Absolutely." Olivia reassured her handing over the steaming latte to the tall blonde, both of their cups holding the now routinely spoken "Happy to serve you." It was a running joke through all of their team, the lawyers, captains and detectives alike all spoke it on the way out on of coffee run.
They sipped tentatively at their boiling hot lava of a drink, cups of coffee trying their best not to burn their sensitive lips. Stepping out into the cold night, steam rolled off their cups chilling it to a reasonably survivable temperature. Alex had just taken a draft of the dark bitter liquid, when Olivia let out in a rush the secret she had bottled up.
"I'm in love with Elliot!" Her outburst high pitched and so sudden that Alex took a spit take on the fresh and newly white snow. Turning the snow into a brown-black slush at her feet. She wiped the remnants of her coffee off her lips and took a good hard look at Olivia.
"What?" She said hesitantly, her stomach dropping ten feet past the subway tracks.
"I…. I love him Alex." Olivia said find her voice, saying it outloud had made her more sure than ever and she felt elated and depressed, and head over heels and drowning all at the same time.
"But he-" Alex started still standing still in the middle of the street looking at her, her blonde hair hanging awkwardly from her head in its current position of being cocked to the side.
"I know." Olivia said then she grabbed her friends arm, "Can we talk about this inside?" She asked the bone chilling cold of the winter night nipping at her fingers.