Disclaimer: If you've seen them on the show, they're Dick Wolf's, not mine.
This a oneshot based on how I imagine Casey might have felt during Ghost. No flames, please!
I can't help but feel intimidated, even jealous, by Alex Cabot's return from the dead. Selfishly, I wonder why she had to come back, why we had to catch this case, why she had to have survived. Don't get me wrong; it's not that I wish pain on anyone, especially Alex. I don't know her so I have no ill feeling toward her. But timing is truly everything.
Just when I thought the detectives at SVU had finally started to accept me, she had to come back and ruin it all. In the beginning, when I was first assigned to the Special Victims Unit, even when they treated me with civility I could see the resentment in their eyes. They hated me because I wasn't Alex, and I spent the first four weeks of work miserable, trying – and failing – to fill Alex's boots.
But eventually, I gave up the fight, realizing how futile it really was. And soon, they seemed to accept that their old friend was gone for good, and with that realization, they began to accept me. They invited me out with them for drinks after we'd won a case and we teased each other, laughed together, and it felt so good. Olivia told me about her mother and I told her some things about Charlie. We grew close – not as close as she and Alex had been, but close all the same.
But today, Alex Cabot walked into my office – her old office – and time began to blur. Elliot and Olivia were so happy to see her that I realized in that moment where my place really was, and it wasn't with them. They loved Alex best and they didn't love me. It sounds childish, but it's true. So I was cruel and interrupted the moment, but inside, the flame that they'd kindled in me over the past week was snuffed out. Alex is back. She is everything and I am nothing.
It's just another fact of life.
Review if you enjoyed!