1

Alex Cabot had waltzed back into Olivia's life - escorted by triumphant US Marshalls, no less. If ever a return called for such heralding, it was hers. The immediate aftermath was a whirlwind that involved Alex being bombarded by family, friends, the politically powerful, and co-workers all biding their time for a handshake or hug.

Olivia waited and bided her time through the hoards of admirers and well wishers. She waited, eerily calm, collected and filled with an awed contentment- and watched. She kept Alex in her line of sight at all times, and finally, when the celebration calmed, simply walked over and took her hand. Music might as well have swelled up around them as she very clearly and bodily felt the rightness of the gesture. It felt like she were the one coming home.

She had seen past the brilliant smile to the guarded vulnerability behind her eyes that was somehow, miraculously, still open to her. In that moment, she very clearly realized that from then on, there would be few circumstances in which she would be able to deny Alex anything.

Have dinner with me… Come to the press conference Branch is throwing for me… Move in with me…

She had known, right then in that moment, that she wouldn't be able to say no to to her.

Nor did she particularly want to.

Life had proven to turn on them far to quickly.

In all honestly, everything since that moment had been nestled into a hazy honeymoon period with a nearly endless "yes"-es from Olivia.

That is until, after one particularly long day at work, Olivia found herself saying what she thought she'd never thought she'd say.

"No."

However, as effective as it was, it might as well have been shouted into the void.

"No," Olivia tried again.

She was pleased at the definite tone in her voice, she nodded at herself a little, determined to hold her ground. "Alex, I really mean it. No."

Alex laughed at her. It was a single, happy little sound. She had actually laughed and otherwise ignored Olivia as she walked into the closet.

"Under no circumstances will you do this," Olivia tried. "Again."

Alex slowly undressed in the closet, smiling to herself as she hung up her suit jacket. She looked over her shoulder at Olivia who was now unceremoniously slumped over on the bed. She laughed again, amused at the disheveled sight, and then smiled a slow, predatory, glowing smile.

Olivia looked at her and then cleared her throat and tried to summon all of her tried and true authority into her voice.

"No." she said again. She knew she might be losing her ground, but maybe an attempt at nicety could at least halt the topic at hand. "Alex, please."

"Why do you assume to know where I was going with this?"

"Alex," Olivia said in a long, extended groan.

Alex laughed louder this time and continued on as if there had been no objection. "I can present evidence."

"No, no, no, no, no." Olivia sat up and shook her head.

When Alex stopped laughing she said, "It's a crush. An obvious, and kind of adorable, crush."

Olivia held a hand up and said, "She has never said one word about the woman to me."

Alex smiled deviously again. "I was an eye witness."

"You know that eye witness accounts are notoriously unreliable," Olivia tried again. Her reply met with only silence. She sat up and looked around for an avenue of retreat. Noticing the determined, if amused look on Alex's face, she gave up and rubbed at her forehead to ward off a headache. "I am still dealing with the fallout from Munch and Angela-from-the-lab."

Alex gave a short nod of acceptance. "I'll give you that they made more sense on paper," she held up her hands as if to say what can you do? "They had plenty in common and they did get a long quite well for a while."

"Yes, and then their conspiracy-theory-based relationship turned into world war three and started an endless feud with her entire CSU shift. I'm pretty sure they poisoned his desk plant. And, last week I had to bribe them with food to get our evidence processed before Homicide's."

"This situation is entirely different. This is not a blind set-up. They know each other, they have the same job, same hours - they would be well suited for one another, and," she added brightly, "we already know that one party is interested in the other."

"You're so much busier now. You can't possibly have time for this."

"Time for what? Just what is it that you think I'd be doing?"

Olivia closed her eyes, counted to ten and tried again.

"Casey could get a date any time she wanted," Olivia tried.

"Yes, she could," Alex said in that thank you for proving my point for me tone of hers. "So why then, has she been so very single lately."

"She's fine and besides I think she's still dating that woman from her building."

"You don't date people living in your building. Everybody knows that. And, if they were seriously involved, you'd have heard a lot more by now."

"Alex," Olivia nearly whined, but change the inflection in her voice once she heard herself. She sighed and turned to face her. "Tell me what it is that you think you saw."

"She almost impaled Serena with a pen today."

A laugh finally broke Olivia's dour countenance. "You call that evidence? For Casey, that's a Monday."

"No, she wasn't distracted or messing around." Alex said. "We were simply catching up in her office while I was waiting for Serena. She was signing off on some paperwork. When Serena showed up, Casey's pen went flying."

Olivia wanted to laugh, but didn't want to encourage Alex any. "And it hit her?"

"No. It hit the door behind her and broke into pieces that scattered down the hall."

"That doesn't mean anything," she tried to reason. "That's just Casey being Casey. She is occasionally… uncoordinated."

"Serena saying Hello to the woman struck her dumb. She could barely say Hi back." Alex said. "Have you ever seen - Casey - speechless?"

"She was probably just embarrassed."

She favored Olivia with a simultaneously fond and condescending look. "Has it ever occurred to you that Casey doesn't get embarrassed about any of the clumsy or awkward things she does?" Alex smiled triumphantly. "She usually takes them in stride and moves on."

"Well," Olivia mocked back, "I'd say you're reaching."

"I really don't know what you're working yourself up about anyway. All I did was tell you about my day. It's not like I'm planning anything." She kissed Olivia on the cheek and then turned toward her nightstand to reach for her phone.

"Yet," Olivia muttered under her breath, and went in search of headache pills. She picked up the bottle from the medicine cabinet and shook out a couple, still amused and thankful that Alex was here, even if she was determined to cause little fires for her to put out just to amuse herself.