(Disclaimer: Not mine. It all belongs to the good folks at NBC.)

(Note: Before someone asks me - I am not trying to spam ff net It might seem like I am - but I just have a backlog of fics that were never posted to this account. This one was originally a post "Informed" fic... but it was written before the episodes after that one aired, so don't mind the details.)

The phone is ringing, when I step in the door. I don't bother to rush for it. It's never her, so there's no need to rush for it.

Six months and not a word from her. Not once. She did leave a note with Don, for me - apparently, whoever she went with were impatient bastards and she couldn't wait to talk to me in person - but the note was annoyingly vague. She didn't give me an idea of where she was going, when she'd be back - nothing of the sort.

And pestering Cragen to tell me where she'd gone didn't seem a wise idea. I watched Elliot try it, for about a week after we returned to find her desk empty, without good results.

I found it hard to believe she'd just leave, special assignment or not. But, she did. Her apartment's been sublet and the building manager and the owner are both as clueless as we are.

The phone continues ringing, until the machine picks up. "John?" A familiar voice - one I know, even if I haven't heard it for six months - comes over the speaker. "Are you there? Pick up."

It's her. Shit. She sounds different. Exhausted. But it's her. Now I rush for the phone.

"Olivia?"

I hear her laugh, softly, over the sounds of a crowd of people and conversation. "It's me, John."

"Where the hell are you?" I blurt out, without thinking.

Her tired voice wobbles and rises in pitch, just slightly. "In an airport - waiting for a flight home."

Home. "Olivia, where-?"

She cuts me off, abruptly. "I can't tell you everything, John. I wish I could, but I can't. Don told you - special assignment, didn't he?"

"He was vague about it, but he did. And that note you left was no reassurance."

I hear her sigh, along with a clear thump, from her end of the line. "I know. I'm sorry. Nothing I could do about that. I'm on the next plane out of here, though."

"What time do you get in?"

"JFK at..." She pauses and I hear her having a muffled conversation with someone else. "JFK at 10," she confirms. "Meet me?"

I wonder if she knows she didn't have to ask.