-You lied to Petrovsky and now you're lying to me. The lab reports were dated and stamped! We are all civil servants, Casey! No one is falling on their sword for you! What I want to know is why.

-Because the bad guys can't always win. He deserved to pay.

-And so do you.

Judge Elizabeth Donnelly and ADA Casey Novak "Cold"

It Was Supposed To Be Me

An SVU Fanfiction Story

Author's Note: As we never got to hear much about Casey or what happened to her after the finale of the ninth season so I decided to write this and if you miss Novak as much as I do press the little thought bubble button. Any future pairing is undecided I was originally planning to keep it straight but now I don't know. Make a strong case either way and you might be able to sway me.

To all who reviewed on Family Portrait thanks so much and keep em coming. To all of you who alerted favorited or plan to do so in the future please take time to review on both stories. It'll only take a second. And now the good stuff,

Chapter One Fallen From Grace

"Ladies and gentlemen this is your pilot speaking. Please put your trays in their upright and locked positions as we will be touching down in our destination, Jacksonville Florida in approximately five minutes time. On behalf of my co-pilot and all the crew we'd like to thank you for flying GIA Airways flight 317 and hope you enjoy your trip."

Casey Novak groaned as she buried her head into the mesh material of her carry on bag.

Just snap out of it Case," Novak snapped at herself. "This is really surreal dream but nothing more than that and it's not like you haven't had weirder… Any minute now the alarm will go off and you'll get ready for work…

The alarm didn't go off, the alarm didn't go off because as much as Casey hated to admit it this was real life. It wasn't the first shitty situation she'd gotten herself into (far from it) but it was one of the first shitty situations she couldn't get herself out of.

"Guess that's where the term 'rude awakening' comes from", the strawberry blonde muttered force herself to walk on leaden feet as passengers disembarked around her. Of course Liz was right. It was her fault. All of it. It was her fault that McCoy now had to find an interim ADA for Special Victims until there was someone to permanently fill the position. It was her fault that El, Liv, Munch, and Finn refused to speak to her (although last time she checked Finn was also refusing to speak to Elliot). But the thing she felt most guilty for was that she was the reason her boyfriend of three months was sitting in prison for the rest of his life.

She hadn't wanted to tell people yet. Chester had wanted to tell Finn but Casey had made him promise to wait until after the case. She wanted another conviction under her belt and they both would do whatever they had to do for her to get it. That had worked out brilliantly.

"Get moving lady," hollered a man behind her. "What are ya waiting for, the grass to grow?"

Casey gave him the finger. Not the classiest thing to do but she was not in the mood to deal with idiots at the moment. "What kind of place hits seventy-five degrees in the middle of February," she grumbled tying her sweatshirt around her waist.

"Not from around here are you?" a woman laughed. Casey turned around to see who had spoken and a lady pushing a baby stroller sidled up to her, keeping pace.

Casey laughed too. "Actually I'm from New York. The sun is hotter here too but then again we have huge skyscrapers to block in out.

"No wonder you not used to Florida weather. Well it's a nice place to vacation. Or do you have family here?"

"Sort of," Casey shrugged grabbing her bags of the carousel. "Can you uh… tell me where one could get a taxi around here?" The woman pointed and Casey nodded her thanks. "I should have downsized," Casey thought as a particularly heavy bag of shoes almost tipped her over. She never realized how many clothes she had in her closet until she tried to heft her bags into the back seat of a taxi but then again no weeklong vacation she had ever taken required a whole apartment worth of clothes.

"Let me help you." The thin cabbie circled the car and came to her aid, lifting the bags with considerable ease for someone of his stature.

"Where exactly are you taking all this stuff," he laughed holding the door open for her slide in.

"Here." Casey scribbled in address on a piece of scrap paper and handed it to him. "Can you take me?"

"Sure thing."

For the next fifteen minutes the taxi raced down the interstate, scenery swirling past the taxicab window on both sides. Casey might have actually found time to enjoy the view had she not spent the entire ride trying not to upchuck her nerves all over the cab's back seat. The bumpy unpaved parts in the road did the ex-ADA's already churning stomach any favors.

"Here we are," announced the cab driver cheerily and sure enough they in front of a two-story brownstone, its olive green shutters open to the breeze. Casey sat silently making no move to exit the cab.

"Are you sure this is the right address?" she inquired.

The cabbie looked confused. "It's the address you gave me ma'am. Do you have something you could check it against? An old envelope maybe?"

Now that she was here there was no more putting this off. She contemplated asking the driver to circle around the block once or twice but didn't want to come off as crazy.

"'No I'm—I'm sure this is the right house," Casey replied. "Thanks—thank you for the ride." She opened the door and moved all of her luggage onto to the curb. The cabbie rolled down his window expectantly.

"Uh…ma'am that'll be six-fifty," he pointed out

Casey blushed. "Right," she whispered pulling the bills out of her wallet. "Sorry, well have a nice day."

"You too."

As Casey watched him leave she wanted nothing more than to curl up in the back seat and beg the nice man to drive her back to New York, but the fare would be astronomical.

When she had run out of stalling techniques she found she had no other choice but to ring the doorbell. The chime rang out and it seemed like forever before Casey heard footsteps.

"Well, well, well! If it isn't the golden child herself," someone smirked at her from behind the screen door.

"Can I come in?"