I'm not all that great at ending my chapters...but you can still expect that the next chapter will be good! :)

"You want the window seat?" Olivia asked.

"Sure. We can switch in a while," Elliot replied, sitting down in the seat by the window.

Olivia sat down beside him, stuffing her snack bag in the pouch on the back of the seat in front of her. Elliot, seeing her good idea, did the same.

About ten minutes passed and people were still boarding the plane. "It's going to be so cold," Olivia said, a bit of anticipation in her voice, but more dread in it than anything.

"Yeah, no kidding. Let's just hope we can catch this guy soon so we can leave," he replied.

"It won't be that bad. I had a Russian penpal one time. She said that everybody there learns English in school. And I speak some Russian. So it shouldn't be too hard to get around," Olivia said, yawning the last few words. They were both tired from having worked two days straight without sleep. They'd had a case of rape and kidnap of the victim's daughter. They'd finally caught the guy a few hours before Cragen had told them about their little trip to Russia and they had saved the victim's daughter.

"You speak Russian?"

"Yeah. Not a whole lot, but some, yeah," she answered.

"Hm. Didn't know that," he said right as the plane began to move. The plane started out slowly, then increased speed and finally took off. This was Olivia's favorite part. Although it was childish to get excited, she still enjoyed it some. Then they were finally in the air. And they both immediately went to sleep. Olivia passed out first, her head falling onto Elliot's shoulder as she slept. Elliot, smiling at her, fell asleep soon after.

When Olivia woke up, she saw that Elliot was already awake. The plane was dark, with none of the lights on. Most everbody else was still sleeping. Olivia leaned over Elliot and looked out the window and saw nothing but dark fog, and if she looked really hard she could see that they were over the ocean.

"How long you been awake?" she asked very quietly, careful not to disturb other sleeping passengers.

"Quite some time, Sleeping Beauty," he replied, pulling out a Dr. Pepper and taking a swig.

She chuckled. "I haven't been out that long, have I?"

"Yeah, it's been that long. I think I've still got some slobber on my shirt," he joked, looking over at the shoulder of his shirt.

"I don't slobber," she laughed quietly.

"Kidding."

They were quiet for a minute as Olivia pulled out her Sprite, also feeling thirsty. She didn't want to admit it to herself, but she was happy to have Elliot alone for a while. They spent a lot of time together, but they never really got to talk about anything that didn't have to do with work. They were good friends, of course, but they were always talking about a perp or victim. Never anything else.

"When did you and Kathy split?" she blurted out of the blue. She instantly regretted her question because she thought Elliot might get mad, but it had just kind of come out.

Luckily, Elliot didn't seem to mind the question. She thought he'd be hurting right now, but he seemed completely open to talk about it. "About four months ago we started having problems...we decided to divorce about three months ago."

Olivia nodded and looked away. To Elliot, she seemed a little...upset. Not too badly upset, but she looked like something was wrong. He decided not to ask about it. Really, though, he didn't have to.

"I wish you'd told me," she said quietly, so quietly that she began to think Elliot may not have heard her. She looked away from Elliot, towards the people across from them.

He did kind of feel bad for not telling her. She was his partner and best friend, after all. And every time she had a boyfriend, if she didn't tell him about it, he usually got upset. Why would this be any different? He should have told her.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I just thought that if I talked about it I'd get upset, and I needed to keep it out of work," he explained.

She nodded.

Was she still upset? He didn't want to pry too much. It wasn't their thing. They didn't usually elaborate on their emotions. But he had to know if she was still mad.

"Are you mad?"

She looked back at him. She smiled lightly and furrowed her brows. "Hm? No, I'm not mad," she said.

He loved her so much sometimes. He smiled back. Olivia twisted her body towards him and layed her head against the seat. They held the smile for a minute until Olivia laughed a little.

"What?" he asked, grinning, amused at her behavior.

She twisted back around and pulled her Sprite out of the pouch. "Nothing," she said, pulling the cap off and taking a drink.

He stared at her. "What?" he demanded, curious at what she was laughing about.

She brought the bottle down from her lips and swallowed. "It's just..." she took one last swallow and put the cap on. "This is the most we've talked in years about something other than work, and we're doing it on the way to Russia to catch a serial rapist." She chuckled, shaking her head as she stuck the Sprite back into the pouch.

Elliot had to think a minute about what to say to that. He sighed. "I miss it," he confessed.

Again Olivia laughed quietly. "Miss what? We never did it in the first place."

He nodded. "We did it more than we do now, though."

"Yeah, I guess," Olivia said.

They were quiet for a minute, and Olivia fell back asleep. This time she wasn't on Elliot's shoulder. Elliot kind of wanted her there. He liked it. As risky as it was, Elliot knew they were good friends, so he figured Olivia wouldn't care if he just...assisted her head onto his shoulder. She wouldn't, right? Nah.

He reached behind her neck and put his hand on her cheek gently, careful not to wake her. He pushed her face toward his shoulder. He realized what he'd done. He'd put his arm around her. He hadn't meant to. Olivia breathed in loudly. He was waking her. Crap! He couldn't remove his arm now, or else he would wake her up. Olivia breathed out and Elliot felt the air on his chest. She wouldn't be mad, right? Just a friendly gesture, no more. He relaxed. This was his friend. Of course she wouldn't mind.

So Elliot put his hand on Olivia's arm and pulled her close. She sighed again, and turned her face in so her nose was on his neck. Elliot fell asleep.

Olivia awoke to see that she was asleep...with a sleeping Elliot's arm around her...? Weird. Very comforting, very enjoyable, very weird. She smiled. Had he done that on purpose? No big deal, Olivia, she told herself. She yawned and pushed her face off of Elliot's shoulder with her hand. Olivia looked down at Elliot's shirt. She realized that she had gotten a smudge of make-up on it. Damn it. She licked her finger and rubbed the spot of the shirt until it was faded and Elliot wouldn't know what it was. Olivia looked down at her clothes. She was wearing a typical outfit that she wore to work-a red blouse, black pants, black boots, a dressy black jacket, and she had her big black coat behind her in her seat. She glanced at Elliot. He, too, looked like usual. He was wearing a dark blue button-down dress shirt, a black tie, black pants, a black dress jacket, and he also had a big black coat like hers in his seat. They were so alike.

Olivia pulled out her sprite and took a drink as Elliot's eyes fluttered open. His arm was still kind of around her. It just wasn't around her shoulder anymore. She had sat up straight, so now his arm was around her torso. As Elliot realized this, he looked a little embarrassed. But he was too tough to show that for long, of course. He pulled his hand back slowly, running his hand across her back and then finally into his lap.

Olivia laughed. "Who's the sleeper now, huh?"

He laughed and sat up. He immediately reached out to his pouch and pulled out his drink. He took a swig and then put it back down.

Olivia noticed that nobody in the plane had kept their windows up. They'd all pulled the plastic cover over it. It was dark in the plane. Olivia wondered if it was light outside by now. She reached over Elliot, her arm against his chest, and pushed open the window slightly. A slit of bright light stabbed through the window. Now Olivia and Elliot both understood why nobody had their windows open. The ray of light made its way to a guy across from them and woke him up. Olivia didn't care, though. She opened it wider to see what was there, but she didn't see anything but fog, so she closed it back.

"How long have we been on this plane?" she asked, obviously sick of it. She'd gotten plenty of sleep by now. Now she was ready to get out of there.

Elliot looked down at his watch. "It's 5:00. We should land in about thirty minutes. The flight was nine and a half hours," he answered.

Olivia sighed. "Thank God."

"You don't like getting to drool and snore on my shoulder for nine hours?" he asked, grinning and looking down at her.

"I don't drool, and I sure as hell don't snore," she said, dropping her voice on the last four words.

He laughed at her irritation. "Nah. Kidding. You're a beautiful sleeper," he said, pulling out a package of trail mix and munching on a few peanuts.

Olivia, as flattered as she was by the comment, decided to ignore it and get back to professionalism. Or somewhat professionalism. "Where are we staying?"

"His last attack was in Omsk, Siberia, so I guess we're staying somewhere there," he said.

"You read the case file?"

"Yeah, while Cragen and I were waiting for you to get to the precinct."

"I wasn't late."

"I know."

"I thought that he hadn't raped anybody in Russia yet...?" Olivia said.

"Yesterday right after we left work he raped a girl in Omsk," he replied.

"I tought Russian police didn't take rape seriously. How'd she have a case file?" Olivia asked.

"They didn't take her seriously. It pissed her off enough that she went to Kazakhstan to report it. It got back to us because Cragen had already told them about our profile. Kazakhstan authorities said that what happened to the other girls in Staten Island is exactly what happened to Katya."

"Oh. So Omsk it is," Olivia sighed.

"Yeah," he said. He paused for a minute. "Are we staying in separate rooms?"

Olivia chuckled. "No."

Elliot almost looked relieved.

"It'll be cheaper to stay in one room. Not that money's a big problem, but..." Olivia began. "And you're supposed to have my back, remember?" she teased.

"I always have your back," he said, not understanding that she was joking.

"Elliot, I'm just kidding," she assured him, patting his arm as she pulled out her Sprite and drank the last bit.

The plane suddenly turned to its side. Olivia, as surprised by this sudden action as all the passengers that were waking up, fell against Elliot and began choking on her Sprite. It must have gone down the wrong tube or something. Olivia coughed loudly, patting her chest.

"Liv? Liv, you okay?" Elliot asked, also putting one of his hands on her chest and one on her back. He patted her back like he was trying to burp a baby.

"Fine," she choked out. Elliot didn't remove his hands from where they were. Thinking he hadn't heard her, she repeated, "Fine, El," but he still didn't remove his hands. "Lift up that window, will you?" she requested.

Elliot lifted up the window and Olivia looked out into the bright sunlight. She saw whiteness. A snowy ground. A very snowy ground. All she could see was snow. It really was going to be freezing here. She felt the plane beginning to descend. Things became clearer and she saw a few snow-covered buildings. Olivia saw that other than the tons of snow, Siberia looked kind of normal. But not like Manhattan. Not at all like Manhattan.

"It's going to be freezing," Olivia said, sitting back in her seat.

"Did you bring clothes for weather this cold?" Elliot asked.

"Um...I've never been in weather this cold. But I brought a hat, gloves, scarves...what I didn't bring is a parka," Olivia replied.

"Me neither."

"That's because I don't own a parka."

"Me neither," Elliot said. "I brought a hat and gloves..."

"Should we stop at a thrift store or something and get a cheap parka?" Olivia suggested.

"Yeah. We can stop somewhere that sells them cheap. Cap'n gave us way too much money anyway."

A voice came on the intercom. Olivia listened. The voice told them that there was usually little precipitation in Siberia, but that a very extreme blizzard had occured just a day before. She assured them that "the blizzard that occured yesterday is a very rare one," and that "although it is always in the negative-degree weather in Russia, there usually is not enough precipitation to form this much snow. The temperature right now is -26 degrees Farenheit. Tonight it will drop to -42 degrees."

They were quiet for a minute and then they landed. They got off the plane, Olivia carrying her carry-on suitcase and her purse, Elliot carrying his carry-on. When they got out, they immediately stepped into snow that had to have been at least a foot deep. Olivia and Elliot both sunk into the ground. Olivia regretted wearing good boots. She shivered. Elliot did too. They trudged through the snow, their teeth chattering, until reached the building that had seemed miles away.