A/N: A new one, from the start, that takes things slow and slightly different from my "norm." No Eli, Maureen - 10, Kathleen - 8, Twins - 6, and Olivia? She's new here. ;)

DISCLAIMER: I do not own the characters as written on the TV show, but this version of them? All mine.

"Pisces," a pretty dark-skinned woman in a tan and brown suit mumbled, bringing a foam cup to her lips.

An older man, thin and drawn, shook his head as he peered over at someone across the room over his thin-framed glasses. "Capricorn," he whispered, staring as a young brunette typed something into her computer.

"No way," the woman replied, shaking her head. Tight auburn curls swung around her face as she moved, and she sipped her coffee again. "She's got all the classic characteristics of a water sign."

The brunette, smirking, popped her head up and brushed her hair out of her eyes with one finger. "I'm an Aquarius," she told the two people who'd been debating her zodiac, and she leaned back and crossed her arms over her thin, blue sweater. "It's an air sign, but thanks for playing."

Monique Jeffries let out a small snort, and said, "Distinguishing traits are helping others, fighting for strong causes, a penchant for intellectual conversation, and...running from emotional situations." She sipped her coffee with a darker smirk and a more narrow gaze. "That true? We find your weakness, Benson?"

Olivia Benson, that was her name, squinted a bit. Yeah, she had a crippling fear of commitment, and a habit of running from relationships when they got too serious. It's one of the reasons she became a cop, volunteering with a unit that never stopped running. But that was something she never told anyone, and she was certainly not going to give that kind of ammunition to people she'd only met a few hours ago. "No," she lied stone-faced, making the denial truth. "You buy into all of that?"

"My horoscope is always right," Jeffries stated, throwing her empty cup into a trash can by her metal desk. "So's Stabler's."

Olivia furrowed her brow. "Who?"

The older, more weathered man, chuckled. "Your partner, Elliot Stabler. He'll be here in about five minutes or so, always fashionably late."

Jeffries chuckled. "If that's what you want to call it, Munch," she rolled her eyes and plopped into the rolling chair behind her desk. She picked up a pen and a stapled stack of papers, leaned back, and tried to get some of her paperwork done.

"Stabler, huh? That name...sounds familiar," Olivia hummed and bit her lip.

"Maybe you read it in the paper, or saw him on the news," Munch told her as he, too, sat down and rolled his computer mouse around, waking up the machine. "He's the face of this unit, gets all of the high-profile shit." He gave Olivia a smile. "Cragen doesn't think I'm pretty enough for that gig."

Olivia laughed, resuming her typing, and cleared her throat. "What, um...what happened to his partner? The guy I'm...I guess, I'm replacing?"

Jeffries scoffed and shot her a look. "He was a waste of space, and trust me, I'm sure you're gonna be a better cop and a better partner than he was, even if you suck."

"Well, uh, thanks," Olivia said dryly. She raised an eyebrow but let the subject drop, and turned back to the monitor. "How the hell long is this thing? I feel like I'm taking the fucking SATs."

Munch tugged on his suit jacket and told her, "They need to know everything about you, even shit you don't know about yourself."

"Yeah," Olivia whispered, staring up at the form, wincing at the blank spaces. Father's name, father's date of birth, and a slew of other personal information that she couldn't fill in, because she really didn't know. "I got that."

Loud and heavy footsteps echoed from the hall, then, and a tall, well built man in a black suit ran into the room. He pulled on his blue tie, wheezing slightly, and shot an apologetic glance in Munch's direction. "Sorry, I'm sorry," he panted. "Had a little trouble getting Lizzie and Dickie on the bus this morning, and Kathleen wouldn't go to school without her red sweater, which was stained, so I spent fifteen minutes…" he stopped talking as his head turned, his eyes flickered with something that hadn't arisen in him in over a decade, and he licked his lips. "Who the fuck are you?"

Taken aback, Olivia shot him a surprised galre. She held out a hand. "Olivia Benson, your new partner, apparently."

"Elliot," he intoned with a single nod, but he felt her hand in his, letting his thumb run along the side of her pinky finger as he tightened his grip. He let his eyes make the journey from her eyes to her chest and he hid the grin well, licking his lips again. He scraped his teeth over his bottom lip, then, and winced as he felt the ring on his hand press into the flesh of his finger, and slowly let her hand fall away from his. "Nice to, uh, meet you."

"Yeah," she said, looking at him curiously. "You need a minute to get…"

"No, no, I'm good,' he interrupted, unable to turn his head away from her. There was something about her, something he felt drawn to, and that was an incredible problem. He cleared his throat and told her, "You're picking up where Devlin left off, I guess." He sat on the edge of her desk and leaned over. "What'd you say your name was?"

"Benson," she repeated, blinking up and trying not to get lost in his piercing blue eyes. "Olivia Benson."

"I know you from somewhere," he said softly, his eyes closing just slightly as his head tilted.

She raised and lowered her eyebrows, giving him a curved smile and shake of her head. "Don't know," she shrugged. "What were you and...Devlin, was his name?" She watched him nod. "What were you working on?"

"Cragen didn't fill you in?" Elliot asked, suddenly a bit irritated.

Olivia's jaw dropped a bit as she flinched at his suddenly apparent temper. "Oh, uh, well he wanted...he wanted me to take care of all of this HR stuff, and I had to go down and take a drug test, but I…"

"Right, sorry," he cut her off and crossed his arms, sliding closer to her. "We were in the middle of a, uh…" he stared at her again, biting the inside of his cheek. "You know this unit is...tough."

"I know what I signed up for, I can handle it," she told him, annoyed at his assumption that she couldn't.

He nodded. "Six year old boy, prime suspect is his soccer coach." He scratched his chin, feeling stubble already poking through his skin, even though he'd shaved the night before, and he sighed. "We just got another complaint when…" his hands dropped, they curled, gripping the side of Olivia's desk. "Devlin fucking took off, son of a bitch," he spat harshly. "I'll be right back."

Olivia followed his body as he moved, pushing himself off of her desk and storming off toward the captain's door. He turned the knob and walked in without knocking, slamming it behind him. "He always that friendly?" she asked, directing the question to anyone who was listening.

Munch gave her an answer. "Nah, sometimes he's moody." He looked over at her. "Don't be offended, kid. He keeps everyone around here at arm's length."

Olivia nodded as she gnawed on the inside of her lip, her eyes still on Captain Cragen's door. With a resigned sigh, she went back to typing, entering what information she could and hitting the 'submit' button at the end of the page. She ran a hand through her short hair as she reached for the stack of files placed perilously in between her desk and Elliot's, on the joining seam. "Does anyone know which one of these is the case he said…"

"McCarter," Jeffries said before Olivia finished asking the question.

Olivia flipped through the folders, finding the name she needed, and sat back as she flipped it open. She scanned the file, the evidence log, the witness and victim statements, and in the back, an interview with another child, a potential second victim. She flipped the pages back and forth, sitting up straight, something hitting her as her eyes narrowed. "Son of a bitch," she said, and she got up fast, letting the folder drop to her desk. She walked fast, heading over to the captain's office, and she had the good sense to knock as she opened the door, not batting an eyelash at the loud, almost violent yelling the two men were doing.

"Oh, now you?" Cragen yelled. "You two are a match made in Heaven, neither of you has any fucking concept of what a closed fucking door means."

Olivia didn't even blink. "If you're done in here, we need to go pick up this soccer coach." She had one hand still on the knob, the other wrapped around the edge of the door.

Elliot snorted. "We don't have enough evidence to bring him in, we need to talk to the…"

"Both kids described his tattoo," Olivia interrupted. "I never played soccer, but I'm pretty damn sure seeing the coach's ass is not a standard rule of the game."

"How did you…" Elliot stared, stunned. "I read that entire file, three times, and didn't…"

"Well, the first vic said it looked like a butterfly, the second said it was an owl's face. But they both said it was brown and black, and depending on the quality and detail the tat artist put into it, if it's a Caligo butterfly, it does look like an…" she stopped. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

Cragen looked at Elliot's amazed expression, and then smirked with folded arms, his white shirt wrinkling. "Yeah," he chuckled, "I hired a twenty-eight year old incompetent rookie, like you said." He jerked his head and jutted his chin toward the door. "Thank me later."

Elliot glared at his captain, tugged on his shirt, and then moved toward the door. "Nice one," he said, nodding at her as he held the door.

"Not bad for a...what did you call me?" Her eyes narrowed but her smirk crooked evilly. "An incompetent rookie?"

"I didn't," he stopped, lowered his voice. "I didn't call you that, I was asking him about you, my exact words were, 'Please, don't tell me you hired a kid, some twenty-eight year old…"

"Don't," she shot up a hand and shook her head, pulling her jacket off of the hook near her desk. "I'm used to it. I've been called worse, by more people than I can count." She turned sharply, looking into his eyes. "And I alway prove them wrong."

"I'll bet you do," he said to her, their eyes still locked. "But I wasn't insulting you, I swear I…"

"Can we just go get this bastard?" She rolled her eyes, pulling down her jacket and heading for the door. "You can apologize by buying me a beer when we nail the asshole."

He smiled at her, seeing her eyes glint and her lips curl slightly, taking in how truly beautiful and sexy she was, tough with a soft edge. He nodded and he felt some part of him break as another part of him swelled. "After you," he held out a hand gesturing to the doorway leading into the hall. He watched her go and the man in him forced his eyes to focus on her ass as she moved. His smile turned into a troubled flat line, he scrubbed a hand down his face. He was in so much fucking trouble, and he wasn't entirely sure he could handle it.

A/N: Maybe...do you want that beer? It comes with a lot of intense and interesting conversation. (And no...not yet, you smutty ones…this one takes its sweet time. But there's a fantasy or two..;)