Hey people! This is the sequel to Running Away, Her flame wouldn't die. I strongly recommend reading that one first, although, technically, everything from that should be summarized here as well. And this will be romantically EC (they're already dating), and Alex and Olivia are dating too. About that last pairing by the way- I never, and I mean NEVER write Cabenson stories, but the reason it took me so long to post this was because I got sick, and the day before I started throwing up I worked Cabenson into the story. So sorry if I fail with them completely. AUish as well- Alex is back (obviously), as DA or whatever she was on Conviction, and Casey's still SVU's ADA. And I'll bring Major Case (Alex Eames and Bobby) into this later, but didn't make it a crossover because it concentrates on SVU. And I have a question- with Huang, why didn't they just spell his name W-O-N-G? Seriously! I've never seen it spelled with an H before!

Summary: Time may not heal all wounds, but at least they scar... until something rips them open.

Warning: First chapter deals with alcoholism. May trigger.

Spoilers: None

Disclaimer: doink doink owns these guys, although this time I hired Alex AND Casey and sued for the rights... guess where it got me.

Chapter 1

-The following takes place approximately one year after the events in Running Away-

"Oh, hell yeah. We nailed his ass to the wall. I am going to have so much fun with this in court! Ha, I can just see the jury now."

Olivia laughed over the phone, and Casey could almost hear the detective rolling her eyes in amusement. "So can I. Counselor, if you can pull this side-show off in court and convince the brother about his sister, I'll owe you. Hell, if our whole plan actually works, it'll be a miracle!"

Casey nodded in agreement. Right now, she was prosecuting a case of abusive parents- the afore-mentioned sister being the mother. The brother was one of those people who you knew had done the crime but you just couldn't prove it- in this case, the crime was killing abusive parents. The sister was out on bail, and SVU was actually aiming for the brother on this one, so they and Casey had devised a plan- tomorrow, she was going to reveal their most damming piece of evidence- video of the sister beating her son- while the brother was in court. SVU would then tail the sister, wait for the brother to show up and get far enough into his MO to prove he had committed the previous murders, then come rushing in to rescue the abusive bitch. If they were lucky, Casey would somehow manage to get a conviction for both the sister and the brother, but the likelihood of this whole plan actually working was slim to none.

"If- and I mean if- this succeeds... well, I better get a raise, because I hate being stuck in the courtroom while all the action happens, and you guys are buying me drinks. For a year."

Olivia chuckled again, and now Casey could hear the clinking of bottles in the background. She licked her lips, thirsting for alcohol as Olivia started bargaining with her. "Well, Case, if you're getting drinks for a year then we get at least some of the credit! Come on, promise you'll buy us all drinks once in a while, we deserve it!"

"Yeah, but I'd be buying for four! Five if Cragen came, although who knows what's up with him and his AA stuff nowadays. You guys would only be buying for one gal, although, between you and me, I could totally out drink every single one of you."

"Ooh, is that a challenge? Because that, I'd pay to see. And besides, you're a lawyer, we all know you get paid more than us lowly detectives. You can afford to buy 5 shots, can't you?"

Casey grinned, fingering her wallet and the thick wad of cash stuck inside, then pulling out her shiny Visa card and eyed it appreciatively. "If I'm buying for myself. Point taken, though. You've bought me drinks a thousand times, and I only think I've returned the favor once or twice. Hey, what's up with you and Alex these days?"

Olivia chuckled as she said, "Well, let's just say I'll never understand you straight girls. And when Alex gets mad, she gets- hey, Lexie, stop it! I wasn't going to tell her anything! Stop!" She cried amid gales of laughter. Several long seconds later, Olivia panted, "Sorry about that, Casey. Alex thought I was going to divulge one of her… eh… secrets. Alex, stop looking at me like that! Enough about me, Casey, what about you and Elliot?"

"Ah, me and Elliot," she said wistfully. The two had been dating for about six months, which had been one of the most gossiped about topics in both the precinct and the DA's office. There were those who thought it was blasphemy, that Elliot should be dating Olivia, there were those who could hardly believe that a cop was dating a lawyer, and there were those who said, 'Damn, I can't believe a divorced guy caught a fish as good-looking as her!'

"Well, last night your Detective Blue Eyes bought me dinner, got me drunk, then smiled at me all sweet and nice and, while I don't remember the rest, I think you can guess at what happened."

Olivia whistled while Casey blushed in embarrassment. "Oh, I can! No wonder he was so happy today… you sure you aren't lesbian, Case? Because, if you were-"

"Olivia!" Both Casey and Alex yelled simultaneously.

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry!"

"I'll let you deal with your girlfriend, Olivia. She sounds mad," Casey teased, her eyes widening when she thought she heard Alex purring over the phone.

"Oh, you are so going to pay for that tomorrow, Novak," Olivia threatened menacingly, seconds before the line went dead.

Casey leaned back on the couch with a chuckle, then groaned when the power suddenly shut off, leaving her in complete darkness. "Damn it," she muttered. With a sigh, Casey turned her phone off and stumbled blindly to her kitchen, retrieving her one and only bottle of wine from the cabinet. It was still too early to go to bed and now, with the power out, she really had nothing else to do but drink.

About a month after Garcia's trial, Casey had still been spending most nights at Olivia's, only living at her new apartment about one night a week. The detective was especially experienced with alcoholics, considering the events with her mother, and had pegged the stubborn ADA for one almost immediately. In truth, Casey had only started drinking in excess about a month after her attack, and since that was how she dealt with it until she told Olivia, she had rather been expecting this. Olivia had told her to only keep one bottle of wine or beer, whichever was her preference, in her house per week, and never to go to a bar without one of the detectives. They would make sure she didn't get too drunk, and if she started going every night, Olivia would put her foot down. She was getting much better at resisting the temptation, and now didn't down the whole bottle in one sitting the moment she bought her allowed alcohol for the week. Actually, Casey normally tried to hold off for five or six days, and then she would normally only drink half the bottle before storing it away in her fridge again.

She smiled as she swallowed her first gulp of wine, closing her eyes and leaning back against the wall. Wine was almost always her favorite, because of the higher alcohol concentration, but she was getting better at this, and might start leaning towards beer again. "Mmm," Casey sighed, jumping up onto the counter and crossing her legs, starting to think, as was her custom whenever she drank at home now.

Alcoholism wasn't the only thing she was getting better at. Olivia had started gradually nudging her towards a sleep schedule that didn't leave her half-dead during the day until she was able to get a full eight hours a night without remembering any nightmares, though she had still slept with her bat. Then, slowly, Casey had begun to sleep without even that. It had taken months, but now she was able to sleep like a normal person again, only having a nightmare every once and a while. But that was to be expected.

And that wasn't all. Casey still couldn't wear skirts cut more than an inch above her knee, since the scars from the events of over a year ago were still engraved onto her skin. The bullet wound had left a one inch pale line on both sides off her thigh, and the scars Garcia's initials had left in her skin were never going to fade. However, she had been working on dealing with that with Huang. At first, she hadn't wanted to get therapy at all, but Olivia had convinced her to at least try it. The first three wanted her to quit her job, and while that would certainly make it easier, Casey loved her work as an ADA. Even transferring out of SVU, though Branch had offered several times, was out of the question. The fourth had asked her out. So, despite her professional relationship with the psychiatrist, she had asked Huang and he had understood completely. As a result, their relationship had grown so they might actually get lunch or talk outside of work.

Now Casey was getting to the point where she had, at least, found closure. The only true difficulty she had was dealing with rape cases, day after day. True, maybe transferring to another department, like Homicide, would help, but she didn't want to leave SVU. They had done so much for her over this past year, Olivia in particular. They were a family, and she wasn't going to leave just because things got rough. And she was working on it. Casey had gotten to the point where she could stand to be in the same room as a rapist, where she would actually willingly use a victim as a witness, where she stopped wanting to cry every time she heard or read a victim's statement. Huang had told her it would probably get easier with time, she just had to work on it.

"Damn power," she muttered under her breath, corking the bottle when she remembered that she had to lay the ground for the detective's little plan in court tomorrow. If she couldn't use the video as evidence, then the night they had spent plotting in the squad room was going to end up being an absolute waste. Casey couldn't afford to get drunk now. Sighing, she got down and held her hands out, knowing the complete mess that her apartment was and not wanting to run into something. Despite her lame precautions, she managed to run into two walls and a law textbook sent her sprawling on her stomach. "Damn it!"

Casey grabbed the book and shoved it out of the way, somehow making it to her bedroom without killing herself. "Fuck court. Fuck the law, too," she muttered as she lay down, then groaned. It was still way too early to go to sleep. Actually, Casey hadn't gone to bed before midnight in over a month now, but that was because of her workload. "Yeah, fuck Branch, too."

If only her phone hadn't died. Because now she wasn't tired and had absolutely nothing to do for two hours. No work, no TV- she couldn't even clean her apartment, something she did only when she was truly desperate for something to keep herself occupied. Maybe she would take a shower, just to ensure she'd be ready in the morning for her court appearance. Well, it was something to pass the time...

Casey stumbled into her bathroom, managing to do so without falling, then tried to turn on the sink. It took her several seconds to realize that she hadn't grabbed the wrong thing, it was the sink that wasn't working. "Damn, no water too? What the hell?" With a heavy sigh, she trudged back to her bedroom and picked up her other phone, planning to call Elliot. Maybe she could stay at his place. "What the-" No phone lines either. What was going on? Frowning, Casey jumped up on her bed and raised her hand to the vent in the ceiling, feeling for the gentle wind caused by the heating system. Nothing.

Okay... no air, water, phone lines, or power. Last time her apartment building's AC had failed, five people had been taken to the hospital with heatstroke. Now it was winter, and with those newborn twins down on the second floor, the number of hypothermic patients was sure to exceed that, and Casey had no wish to be a part of it. She already felt like she was coming down with something, and winding up with pneumonia or whatever was not high on her list of things to do. Groaning, Casey felt around for a skirt and some high heels, wincing when a sharp piece of jewelry poked her wrist instead. This was going to take forever.

It took over half an hour for her to find a court-presentable outfit, makeup, and her briefcase. The power still wasn't back on, so she had some trouble finding her way down to the lobby. "Hey, Eric," she greeted, grinning at the doorman. That had been a condition of Olivia's- her new apartment had to have security. Her old one hadn't even had any security cameras, just a receptionist who helped out new tenets and only looked up from his online poker games to see the person coming in was someone hot or single.

"Casey, hi! Isn't it a little late to be going out?"

She shrugged, loathe to go outside into the wintry air without her coat, which she had conveniently forgotten in her office. "Hey, last time our power failed, all those god damn ambulances woke me up! And you know how little sleep I get."

They both laughed- Casey's strange work hours were an on-going joke between them. Eric was the night doorman, so he often saw her leaving at times like one or two in the morning and not returning until midnight the next day. It wasn't long before he knew about her work as an ADA, and then he started learning the detectives by name when they stopped by periodically for a late-night legal consult, seeing as her apartment building's phones almost never worked anyway. It was the one downside to living here.

"Yeah, I do. And I don't know what's up with the power, this is only my third time here for that and I've worked here for five years. Want me to drop you a call when it's back on?"

Casey hesitated, then shook her head. "Nah, I'll probably work through tomorrow night anyways. If it's not back on in two days, then I can just stay with a friend. Maybe Olivia, cause I know how you like her!"

Eric licked his lips appreciatively at the memory- last time the detective had been here, it was right after an undercover assignment... as a hooker. Her outfit left little to the imagination, and Eric had certainly enjoyed the show she had given him in the lobby. Some 'friendly flirting', as Olivia had put it later, although Casey thought the two made a cute couple. She hadn't bothered to tell Eric about Olivia's orientation- it was just a little crush, after all…

"Well, I can hardly wait, Casey. See you tomorrow night?"

"Yeah. See you then."

Coming up next: Casey and the detectives get drinks and Casey gets a surprise visitor. Feedback please!