Alex Cabot was awoken from her dream by the obnoxious ringing from the alarm clock on her nightstand. She was tempted to hit the snooze button, but she knew no matter how much she tried, she would never be able to return to the dream about her girlfriend. While still half asleep, she tried to remember why she had set her alarm for 6 o'clock. She glanced at the calendar hanging on the wall and saw that today's date was circled in red ink.

"No, not the first day of school," she groaned and then closed her eyes again.

"Alexandra," her mom said as she knocked on the door half an hour later. "You're going to be late."

Alex slowly made her way out of bed and glanced at the un-ironed outfit she had laid out last night. She had every intention of ironing it before she went to bed but instead she spent nearly the whole night on the phone with her girlfriend. There was so much she had to do to prepare for the first day of her senior year, but she could never resist Casey. Their phone conversation wasn't important, but Alex didn't care. She willingly stayed on the phone with Casey for five hours as they talked about the new school year and argued over who was cuter.

Alex grabbed a pair of underwear from her drawer, kissed a picture of Casey, and finally made her way to the shower. She knew she wouldn't have time to iron her outfit so she planned to just toss on a t-shirt and jeans and throw her hair back in a ponytail. It was a far cry from how she had wanted to look on the first day of her senior year, but she knew last night's phone conversation with Casey was worth it.

Olivia Benson glances at her watch and notices that her best friend Alex was ten minutes late. It wasn't like Alex to be late, but Olivia knows there was a certain redhead occupying Alex's time.

"You look…nice," Olivia says hesitantly as she gets into the passenger seat of Alex's car and sees that her best friend looks half asleep and doesn't have a stitch of make-up on.

"No, I don't," Alex says as she tried not to yawn.

"Casey keep you up all night?" Olivia asks even though she already knows the answer.

Alex gives her a half smile and Olivia starts looking for something decent to listen to on the radio. She quickly changes all the love songs and settled on Nirvana.

"Casey loves Nirvana," Alex says to Olivia.

"You say that every time we hear one of their songs," Olivia teases. "I'm just glad we don't have to listen to Amy Grant again."

"Oh, and MC Hammer is so much better?" Alex says sarcastically. "For the record, Olivia, it will never be Hammertime in this car."

Olivia and Alex look at each other and start laughing. It had been six months since Casey told Alex she was in love with her and ever since then Alex has been listening to nothing but sappy love songs, many of which contain the words "babe" or "baby." Olivia missed Alex's old taste in music, but she couldn't help but be happy for her best friend. She only wished that she could find a girlfriend of her own, or at least a girl to date. Her girlfriend of ten months had broken up with her at the beginning of summer and although many people thought Olivia was beautiful, she knew that her high school didn't exactly have the largest lesbian dating pool. Every girl she knows was either straight or had a girlfriend. She was reminded of this when Alex stopped the car and her other best friend Abbie hopped in with Serena, her new girl toy.

Abbie Carmichael couldn't contain her excitement when she and Serena got into the backseat of Alex's car.

"It's senior year!" she says. "We've been waiting forever for this moment! Why are you both acting like someone died?"

"Olivia is still heartbroken," Alex told Abbie glumly.

"And Alex was up all night talking to Casey," Olivia informed her.

"Oh," Abbie says and gets ready for the inevitable awkward silence. She starts to hold Serena's hand and Serena pulls her in for a kiss.

"Consider yourself lucky," Olivia tells Serena once she has pried her lips away from Abbie's.

"Why?" Serena asks.

"You're a junior and you're riding to school with us," Alex teases. "My girlfriend is a junior and she couldn't even get a ride with us."

"Alex, Casey lives right across the street from our school. She doesn't need a ride," Abbie tells her. "And we've known Serena since we were in junior high. Stop talking to her like she's some random girl."

Serena smiles at Abbie and pulls her in for another kiss. The two of them continue kissing until Alex and Olivia tell them they are approaching the school. Abbie reluctantly stops kissing Serena and starts gathering her stuff together so she could get out as soon as Alex parks the car. She had hoped to hang out in the parking lot like they did their first day of junior year, but they were running late and they still had to pick up their class schedules.

When she was sure that nobody other than Alex and Olivia was in sight, she kissed Serena one more time.

"This is it," Abbie says as they leave the parking lot and make their way over to the quad. "It's senior year. I think this is the year I finally come out to my family."

"This is the year I finally find a girl worth dating," Olivia tells them.

Alex starts blushing. "And this is the year I'm finally going to make love to Casey."

"This is the third year you've said that, Alex," Olivia teases.

"And she still hasn't let you make it past first base," Abbie adds.

"I know," Alex says. "I was wrong about sophomore year being the year and junior year being the year, but senior year is definitely the year."

Abbie has a feeling Alex won't make it past second base this school year, but she doesn't have the heart to tell her. Instead, she looks at Serena and starts to feel grateful that she's with a girl who let her get to third base on the first date.

Once they get to the quad, Serena heads over to the table designated for the juniors to pick up their schedules and Abbie, Olivia, and Alex head over to the seniors' table. Above the table, there is a banner that reads, "Welcome back, seniors. Class of 1992."

Class of 1992; the sight of those words brings a chill to Abbie. She looks at Alex and Olivia standing in line with her to pick up their class schedules for the last time. Suddenly, it no longer matters to her how unrealistic their goals may be; this is definitely going to be their year.