A/N:

This story ties in loosely(!) with what's happening in season 10 and 11. I know this chapter pretty lopsided. I'll make it up to you, I promise. Enjoy!


FEBRUARY

8 pm and the sky is lit up by capitalism and low hanging white clouds. It's foggy and smoggy - a child of the city, she never noticed this until she became another person in a less populated state - and her breath is very visible in the cold air. She stuffs her hands deeper into the pockets of her long brown coat, her shoulders tightening in an effort to keep the body warm. Anyone who really knows her realizes that if she could wear anything it would be the bulkiest, most unflattering snow-boarding jacket to be found. However, that's not how politics work in this country.

Five years ago when Olivia had her hooked on her crusade, she didn't care about these things any more, or at least that's what she told herself - and Liv. In truth though, after all this time, the law and the politics around it are all that she has left. Without the ambition to pursue her career at some point, her real one, she wouldn't have made it out of Emily's dollhouse, wouldn't have found the courage to leave Janine's suburban bed.

Trevor arrives with a small woman on his arm. Most women are smaller than him, even Alex herself, but this one especially and she knows he likes it. He gives her a smug smile, and she chooses to ignore it. She could have gone in without him. She couldn't.

Even when she was a little girl, eyes would turn when she entered a room; not because of her but her family. After her father died they looked at her to find him there, and when they did, when she became a lawyer and chose his people as her surrogate family, they kept an eye on her for him. Do you remember little Alexandra? Well, here she is now. Getting justice for special victims, however, that was her way of telling them that they had to leave her be. Nobody was really comfortable with that, of course. Have you talked to your mom about it? Do you know how many people come back from that? What is this, Alexandra? It's me.

"Cameron," Trevor motions from one woman to the next, "this is Alex, probably the darkest person in all of Manhattan and secret star of the evening."

Alex glares into the night as he pecks her cheek, and shakes the other woman's tiny hand. Cameron looks at her curiously but doesn't ask anything, which already earns her more points than some of Trevor's other female companions she has met over the years.

"Let's go, it's freezing out here," Alex decides, and waits until she can slip in behind the couple. While she started working towards her old position quite some time ago, she has radically ignored all social events, skipped every chance to chat with familiar faces for more than a few minutes, not sure if she could handle the pressure of returning to be the DA's office's favorite child just yet.

Her heart rate increases when they lose their coats and enter a hall full of New York's finest, as they would probably describe themselves. The finest old rascals, she hears her father's voice say and it puts a smirk on her lips despite the adrenaline almost making her shake.

Maybe it's crazy that she is deliberately putting herself in the middle of all this again, maybe she has completely lost her mind. But these people are all the family she has left.

Heads turn, as was to be expected. She tries not to turn hers back, stuffs her hands as casually as possible in the side pockets of her expensive suit pants that she has put on for exactly that purpose, and sits down on one of the round tables with Trevor and his girlfriend of the month. There's booze and speeches, Alan and his wife sneak in in the middle of an especially long laudation to an especially old judge, taking up the empty chairs on their table, and Alex feels herself relax a little, enough to realize how hungry she is. For her old life. For everything this room has to offer, except maybe the clams.

When their old law professor turns up on stage, Alan shoots her a warning glance. "He's gonna say something. It's Barry."

True. Trevor raises an eyebrow and laughs. "You better run, Alex."

She sighs. "All right, let's see where the toilets are." Trevor snorts, and she hits him more or less softly on the back of his head as she gets up. Thankfully they are seated rather close to the cans, and she is by no means the only one on her feet. It's been almost an hour and a half filled with speeches, after all.

Judge Petrovsky is standing at one of the ridiculously decorated sinks when she enters the facilities. "Alexandra," she says in the same tone she has used since Alex was six, dumped in Petrovsky's office by her father when her mom was feeling too sick to watch her or even have her around at home. Indictment. How do you spell that, Alexandra?

"Your evasive tactics haven't improved much, I see? I had hoped you'd still remember the way to my chambers, but it seems I'll see you there again soon enough." Judge Petrovsky takes a good look at her in the large, framed mirror.

Alex squeezes her lips and smiles politely. "Probably," she says. "Nice dress." She means it. The judge is wearing an appropriately tight, short-sleeved black dress ending just beneath her knees. Not many women her age could pull it off, but Judge Petrovsky's has always been surrounded by a certain elegance. Oh, I'm so sorry, Nicholas, but what am I supposed to think when you spend all this time with dear Lena? Her mother wasn't a fan.

"Oh, if you want flatter me, try it again outside of the toilets," Judge Petrovksy says with an amused expression in her eyes. She focuses on her short hair for a moment, flipping back a rogue strand with one swift motion, and glances back at Alex. "Now go do your business, unless you're solely here to hide from Barry Moredock." She raises her eyebrows and Alex nods sheepishly.

When she gets back, the monologues are finally over, thank god, and Alan is the only one left at the table.

"Guess who I ran into," she says with a sigh as she sits down next to him. He shrugs. "Who?"

"Petrovsky. You remember her?"

He thinks for a moment and smiles. "Faintly, but yeah. She didn't like me."

Alex runs a finger along the rim of her glass and nods. "Right, she thought you would make me put my career on ice for marriage and motherhood and all that jazz. Where are the others?"

Alan points his head to the table row in the back of the room, loaded with people. "Fighting for food. And Amy is on the phone, checking up with the nanny. She is a terrible employer." He chuckles and looks at her with his soft dark button eyes. "Do you ever think about having kids? I mean, I'm still not really sure if you don't want kids or just didn't want mine." There is no bitterness in his voice any more, and why should there be? He is exactly where he always wanted to end up - house, wife, kids, good career, but enough time for the family. A guest in political circles, but no real part of them.

"There was somebody once, whose kids I would have had. Absolutely." She leans back in her chair, her hands in her lap. "We never talked about it, though. It was complicated."

Alan nods. "I'm glad you're back, Alex."

She shrugs. It's not a fact yet, but Alan wouldn't get that. If she was born with a golden spoon, he was born with a black and white inventory. Someone places a hand on her shoulder, a second later she can smell Trevor's aftershave as he bends down to her. "I think you should socialize, darling. Everyone is predictably happy that you're here, and look how polite they are for not clustering our table."

Alex rolls her eyes.

"If nothing else, the amount of food is rapidly decreasing," Trevor adds, and embarrassing as it is, it gets her on her feet. Alan chuckles. She ignores him as well as the nervous tingling in her suddenly cold hands and decides to skip everything else and head straight to the comfort food.

"Alex Cabot, what a happy day for the people." A very familiar, semi-serious voice behind her stops her halfway.

"Thanks, Liz," she says, turning around. "But I guess that remains to be seen."

"Don't give me that crap. Lucky for you not everyone of your old friends has retired. Show your face here and Jack'll be under pressure soon enough." Liz gives her a once over, her face softening the tiniest bit. "Congrats, Alex. You actually look like a grown-up now."

Alex snorts, shaking her head at Liz, who winks at her and turns around to talk to someone that Alex doesn't know. Unsurprisingly, there are a lot of people like that around. After some obligatory chitchat with a few of the faces she does know, she can finally smell sugar.

"Alex Cabot?" Someone says next to her at the glazed figs. She looks around.

"I'm Eric Zweig, new ADA in homicide" the man says, reaching out to shake her hand. "Heard a lot about you."

She shakes his hand and gives him a nonchalant smile, her stomach beyond empty by now. "Nice to meet you." It comes out as almost a sigh. She takes a step towards him to grab a dessert plate.

He doesn't back away. "I hear your detective has recovered," he says instead.

"Excuse me?"

"You haven't heard?" His voice is low, he throws a quick glance over her head, and looks back at her. "So at least you're not sleeping with her again."

Alex frowns, her pulse quickening. "I'm sorry, I've no idea what you're talking about."

He grabs two plates, placing one in front of her on the buffet table, loading the other one with a piece of chocolate cake.

"I'm pretty sure you do, Alex. Listen," he grabs a fig, his tone irritatingly casual, "these are critical times. The NYPD is a mess, and all of us have to watch our backs. Especially those with high aspirations."

She quirks an eyebrow, skeptical.

"It's just a warning, all right?" he continues. "Consider yourself informed. There are lists. You are on them. Don't make a mess for the rest of us." He picks up another fig, drops it on her plate. "For you. They are good."

Speechless, she tries not to glare as she watches him leave with his plate in hand.

Trevor seems concerned when she returns to their table with a single fig. "I thought you were hungry."

"Who is that guy?" she asks him, pointing her head in the direction of the tall redhead she hasn't let out of her sight.

"Who, Eric?" Alan asks. "He's a damn good squash player, I can tell you that."

Trevor smirks. "Right, everyone is better than you." He turns to Alex. "He's been here for what, four years? Damn good lawyer, DA loves him. Did he make a move?"

"Never mind," she mumbles, squinting in Eric's direction. When Alan and Amy leave half an hour later, she shares their cab, feeling uncomfortable to say the least.


Alex.

The past year has been so extraordinarily horrible, her drive to do this job probed again and again, and she has become so used to the sympathetic silence surrounding her - nobody is really sure of the balance between getting involved and leaving her be - that she can't remember it any other way, fights hard to keep at least half of her spirits up every morning. So when she sees her striding up to them, her jaw drops.

She has to remind herself repeatedly that they're at a crime scene, a rather ugly one in fact, and that the incessant smile that keeps tugging at her lips would be completely inappropriate if she allowed it to gain any further ground.

It's been a while since she was this unable to focus - after all these years in the job, putting everything else, especially her very personal life, on hold comes naturally to her, even when it's unhealthy as hell - but while people are buzzing around the house of the murdered doctor, her mind is locked on one thing. Alex standing right there next to her, alive and well. Even though she can't read those blue eyes like she used to, it's been four years since she last looked at her after all, they have this familiar spark and that's enough. Whenever they meet her gaze, she feels strangely hopeful that life is done dragging her through the mud for a while.

Even after they knew for sure that Alex was considered to be out of mortal danger and therefore out of witness protection, she was afraid for her. Not because she didn't seek contact with Olivia, but because apparently she didn't seek contact with anyone. When the detective bumped into Alex's old college friend Lucy, she didn't even know that Alex was theoretically out of hiding, and Trevor Langan just shrugged when she casually asked him if he had heard from her. "Between you and me, I hope she is working her ass off. But I don't know if I'd do it just to end up in Appeals." Now she wonders how much he really knew then. Smug bastard.

The day goes by and then a week, and working side by side with their former ADA feels almost normal again even when seeing Alex on a regular basis is absolutely not. Olivia watches silently and not without pride as Alex slowly finds back in the game, regains some of her old mojo, snaps at people and corrects experts. They don't talk, though. Not privately, not about anything other than work. It's fine, she figures, and she didn't expect an apology, isn't sure whether she expected an explanation.

Four years, well, five - they've changed both of them. Maybe it's better this way, now that all wounds are healed, or at least expired. When the case is closed even Elliot has a swollen chest, and she thinks she can see Alex's features relax a little with relief that she didn't mess up.

"You really are back, aren't you?" Olivia says with a smile, dares to believe that it's true. She knows it's a process, maybe better than anyone.

Outside of the courtroom, she hears Alex's heels behind her.

"Olivia?"

She stops and turns around, while Elliot walks on to the next column, talking into his mobile phone.

Alex clears her throat. "Um," she looks around as if to check if somebody is watching them, "maybe we should talk?"

Olivia is so surprised that she almost doesn't get it. "Sure," she says after a moment of probably staring like an idiot.

"So, lunch next week?" Back in the day Alex would have made her feel the awkwardness with a winning grin or some other superior gesture, but now she doesn't seem to have noticed, and the detective realizes that she is softly chewing on the inside of her lip. The blonde is nervous.

"I'd like that." Olivia smiles softly, wants to reach out and squeeze Alex's arm, but doesn't.

"All right," Alex nods. "I'll call you." She hesitates for a moment and then heads towards the broad stairs.

Obviously finished with his phone call, Elliot comes closer and follows Olivia's gaze. "I missed her," he sighs.

She snorts. "You're a piece of work."

"What?" he shrugs, gesturing at her face. "I like that face. You never smile like that for me, so I gotta have Alex around."

Her only comeback is feeling very sad all of a sudden. She clears her throat. "So, what was that phone call about?" she asks.

Elliot looks back at her, his eyes wearing an expression she has become insanely familiar with during the last year. Pure concern. She can't stand it, but she can't help it either. Suddenly it dawns on her that maybe Alex's return doesn't change much.