Friends.

"You have no idea, how badly I needed this." Alex Cabot said wiping a tear from her eyes. She couldn't remember the last time she had laughed so hard.

"You and me both, these last couple of weeks, these last few cases…" Olivia trailed off and found herself no longer living in the moment she had been having such a good time in.

Alex took a sip from her drink, not sure if she should try to get her to talk about it or just let it go. There was such a thin line with Olivia she never had gotten very good read on her, one thing was sure she identified with the victims better than any other detective she had ever seen. She got people who trusted no one to trust her, Alex always thought that there was more to it than just being good at her job but was always afraid to ask. Was Olivia her friend, or just her co-worker? Alex was never good at figuring out where she stood with people, at least not outside of the clear lines of a courtroom. In court it was easy, everyone has their title and thus they have their place in her life and within the situation. She was the ADA, the person over to her left was the defense attorney and the person next to them the defendant, the judge, the bailiffs, the jurors, they all had their place and their function in her life. What was Olivias?

Finally once the silence grew uncomfortable Alex decided she had to ask.

"Liv, are you ok?" She decided to try calling her by her nick name for the first time, always thinking like a lawyer she thought that by using a term of endearment she would realize she was asking not as ADA Cabot, but as Alex her friend.

Olivia drew in a breath and sighed, careful to avoid eye contact with Alex. She could always keep it together until she made eye contact with someone, anyone. As she looked around the room she realized that they were practically the only ones left in the whole place, in the corner booth near the back, now was as good a time as any to vent and she felt like she could trust Alex. Olivia looked up from her beer and finally spoke.

"How long have you been our ADA Alex?" She said looking up, allowing the burning behind her eyes to finally give way to a tear.

"I'm not sure almost a year, ten months something like that." Alex shifted in her seat; she was not used to seeing Olivia like this she never thought of the detective as vulnerable always more like a superhero, unshakable, strong, and steady.

"And no one has let it slip about me, about my past? My mother? My father?" Olivia watched the lawyer closely, the way she would watch a suspect during questioning in order to see if they were lying to her.

Alex shook her head, she found herself saddened by the fact that she couldn't think of much she really did know about Olivia outside of work, the kind of detective she was, how she took her coffee sure but she couldn't think of a single personal detail about the woman sitting across from her.

"No. I mean, nothing other than your mother passing." Alex said hoping that bringing up her mother wouldn't upset her.

Olivia cleared her throat. "Cragen wanted to take me off this last case. Said I he didn't want to see me questioning myself." She took a slug off her long neck allowing Alex time to interject confused, but listening to her colleague.

"Questioning your work? Why would he think you wouldn't be able to handle this case it wasn't all that different from a few we've worked before."

Olivia carefully considered her answer to the question.

"He wasn't speaking about my police work. Cap didn't want me questioning myself. My existence in the world, my conception, my mother life…my life." She looked at Alex and could tell that while she was speaking to one of the smartest people she knew, she wasn't exactly following what she was saying.

"I'm sorry Olivia I guess I don't understand. The victim was 23, college student, raped during spring break and failed to report for months…" Olivia interrupted Alex mid sentence.

"Failed to report the rape until after she found out she was 10 weeks pregnant…" It was clear Olivia was going to have to spell it out for the attorney. "My father raped my mother, and I am a product of that." Olivia confessed looking past the blonde towards the door at nothing, and everything so long as it wasn't the person she was speaking to.

Alex was stuck, words were normally her thing but at the moment she was at a loss for them, how do you respond when someone tells you that their existence on this earth is a result of a brutal attack. The exact kind of brutal attack that she investigates every day, and the kind that you put people away for, the kind that you sentence people to die for, how do you respond?

"My God, Olivia, I don't know what to say." Alex figured admitting her lack of words would be the best way to handle things.

"Its ok, you don't have to, I don't know that I really want you to say anything. I just." She paused. "I don't have a lot of friends, this job doesn't really allow for it. And after a case like this as much as laughing a pretending like everything is ok is great…" Olivia wiped a tear from her eye and cleared her throat. "As great as having drinks with you and laughing and carrying on is, I know I will go home and all I will be able to think about is that 23 year old girl somewhere in this city battling not only against the memories of her attack, but also against herself and her beliefs. You heard her Alex, she is Catholic, abortion is not an option, and the thought of adoption breaks her heart but not as much as the thought of raising a child who will, no matter how much she may love it, remind her of the worst night of her life and the brutal crime committed against her."

"Olivia I am sure your mother didn't think of you like that." Alex said reassuring her friend by touching her softly on her hand. Olivia pulled it away, not because she didn't welcome the encouragement but because she knew that if Alex continued to make her feel safe she would continue to fall apart before her.

"I'm sorry." Alex said taking back her hand.

"No, no don't be, I'm sorry. You're fine, I just…" Olivia stopped. "I don't want you to see me differently; I don't want to fall apart in front of your eyes."

"This isn't going to make me look at you differently and everyone falls apart sometimes, it is a hazard of being a human, and must certainly be a hazard of this job. I have to ask you though, how do you do it? How can you see these crimes everyday and not see yourself, your mother in the victims?"

"Who says I don't." Olivias voice cracked with her confession.

"You have to apply to be an SVU detective why would you do that to yourself?" Alex wondered out loud.

"For me its more like how could I not? My father was a rapist, my mother a victim, who better than their child to be able to identify the perps, and relate to the victims. You hear what they say about me, with the victims, they say I'm the best. They say I'm the one who can get anyone to talk. If they only knew why I was so good at it." Olivia shook her head.

"Who does know?"

"The Captain of course, and Elliot, oh and Munch thanks to El and his ever present need to protect me since finding out."

"So this last case, brought up all the things you question about yourself." Alex said getting them back to the conversation at hand.

"Since I can remember I have known what happened to my mother, I didn't really understand it until I was older fourteen or fifteen I guess. And it wasn't until after my first sexual encounter that I found myself really aware of how my mother must have felt." Olivias voice shook as she fought to keep her composure.

"You were raped?" Asked Alex confused.

"No, I wasn't raped. I was seventeen, he was nineteen we drank cheap wine and parked in a spot over by the Brooklyn Bridge. I didn't do anything I didn't want to but it was my first time, we were in a car in a parking lot. It was nerve wracking and scary but no I wasn't raped I was just a teenager afraid of getting caught, and in the back of my mind hearing the story about my father attacking my mother. Thinking to myself the whole time how if I felt this scared having sex willingly, with someone I thought I was in love with how awful it must have been for her. And then I realized that if it was that awful for her, how completely miserable it must have been seeing me every day. She always said she never saw his face, but I looked nothing like my mother so she saw him, she saw him every day, every time she looked at me. And the thing about it is, I am still pissed off at her for drinking the way she did, for treating me the way she did. I know my mother loved me because I was her child, but she loathed me because I was his." Tears were streaming down her face, mascara smudged on her check. Olivia stood up, and walked out of the bar.

"Liv." Alex called after her but she didn't seem to hear her, or she didn't care.

Alex stood threw a twenty on the table and walked out behind her. At first she didn't see her. She looked left, then right and didn't see her. Then she turned around and there she was behind her sitting on a bench right in front of the bar, smoking a cigarette.

"Sorry." Olivia said taking a drag off the cigarette.

"It's ok." Alex paused. "You smoke?"

"No, not since I was in college at least. I just got a little overwhelmed, I've never told anyone that story before, a nice man obliged my request to bum one as he walked past, I guess I look like I need it." Olivia said flicking the cigarette.

"Well, your secrets safe with me." Alex said.

"The smoke?"

"Lets just call this whole evening privileged information." Alex said sitting next to her.

"I'm your client now counselor?" Olivia joked.

"Client, no, friend yes." Alex said with a smile.

"So, tomorrow at the office…"

"Detective Benson is still one of the best Detectives I have ever seen." Alex said patting her firmly on the back and standing up.

"You bet your ass I am." Olivia said with a smile. "Hey Alex…"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks. For everything."

"I don't know that I really did much detective."

"There are millions of people in this city, millions. Sometimes you just need one to listen to you, to be your friend." Olivia smiled.

"I've heard it's good to have friends in the NYPD." Alex said with a wink.

Olivia smiled. "It can't hurt."