Law and Order: SVU is the intellectual property of Dick Wolf. The use of the characters, settings, and plotlines is not malicious. This is a work of fiction.

With a fresh cup of coffee in her hand, Olivia walked from the back of the squad room to her desk and sat down with a soft plop. She flipped over a file on her desk, opened it as she took a sip from her foam cup, and looked at Elliot, who was leaning against the side of her metal desk. "ME's report," she told him.

He picked it up with a furrowed brow. "DNA under her fingernails is match to Fin," he sighed. He kept reading and his face took on an even more confused expression. "The sample left behind didn't come from him," he said. "So, what, she got into some kind of fight with Fin, but is raped and killed later, by someone else?"

Olivia finished swallowing her mouthful of coffee, put the cup on her desk, and sat back in her chair. "According to Fin, he doesn't remember even meeting her at the party." She bit her lip and picked at the cuticles of her left hand with her fingernails. "Only one way to find out for sure."

"Make the call," he told her. "Tell them we're on the way up and to have the tapes ready to roll." He leaned over and picked up her coffee, giving her a smirk as he sipped from it.

She shot him a glare as she told someone from TARU they were heading their way. "Right, thanks," she said, and as she hung up she raised an eyebrow at Elliot. "You know better than to mess with my coffee on days like this."

He chuckled and stood up. "Let's go," he said. "I want to put this case to bed and get out of here. I'm not exactly Cragen's favorite person, right now."

"No, you wouldn't be," she said, taking her coffee back and drinking the last of it. She got up and tossed the cup in the trash, and then jutted her thumb toward the door. "Shall we?"

He walked with her toward the doorway. "I'm just doing my job," he said.

"He's confused," she told him as they stepped into the hallway. "He wanted you to come back, but not like this."

"He's mad at me because I'm not showing favoritism or turning a blind eye to a rape-homicide?" he fumed, reaching the elevator and hitting the button on the wall.

Olivia rolled her eyes as she stepped into the elevator. "I didn't say that." She exhaled. "He was trying to protect Fin, because he didn't know what happened. He's worried, and part of him is scared that Fin really..." she trailed off, not willing to voice the horrible possibility that Fin could do something so atrocious.

"He got pretty steamed up the ass when you figured out Judge Samuelson's son attacked Trevor," he whispered as other people stepped onto the stopped elevator. "You going to give me an excuse for that one, too?"

She looked at Elliot, worry in her eyes. "I don't know," she said, biting her lip. "Maybe he was being pressured from someone higher-up to put an end to the entire case. A judge was involved, and you know how those cases always have a way of evaporating into thin air." She moved closer to him when more people filed into the elevator as it made another pick-up. Her eyes took on an unsure waver as she looked over at him. "Since you've been gone, it's like he's all politics. He plays the game with the best of them, makes deals before the interrogations are even over, he hasn't had a personal conversation with any of us in..."

"Over a year," Elliot said, nodding in understanding. "That's why he didn't know about us." The elevator finally came to a stop on the eighth floor, and when the doors opened, they pushed their way out. Elliot grabbed Olivia's hand and pulled her toward the left side, rounding a narrow corner.

"Detectives," a young man chirped brightly. "That was fast." He shook Elliot's hand first, and then Olivia's, and then he made an embarrassed face and snapped his fingers. "Sorry. Sergeant Stabler and Detective Benson. Right." He waved at them to follow as he turned and headed into a cubicle. "Can I get you some coffee?"

"That'd be great, thanks," Olivia said with a smile.

The TARU specialist gestured to two chairs, set in front of a table with two large monitors and a pile of AV equipment. "On your right, the ballroom, and on your left, the hallways." He pushed a few buttons to start playing the footage, and then said, "I'll be right back."

As he left, Olivia and Elliot settled deeper into the chairs, their eyes watching the security film intently. "I got Fin," she said, pointing at the screen showing the tapes from the ballroom. "Looks like some of that wine made it into his mouth after all."

"Good," Elliot said, nodding once. "Means there's a good chance...whoa, obviously a very good chance some of those drugs got into his system." He shook his head. "What's that, his third glass in less then five minutes?"

"Why the hell was he drinking that heavily?" she asked. Her eyebrows narrowed and she bit her lip. "There's only two reasons someone drinks like that."

"Enlighten me," Elliot said, leaning a bit closer to her.

"To forget," she said raising one finger at him. She added a second finger as she said, "Or to loosen up. A lot."

"Oh, oh, Liv, look," Elliot pointed frantically at the monitor. "That's our girl."

She sat up straighter, leaned forward, and watched, focusing on the girl. She followed her to the bar, and gasped when the woman tripped and grabbed Fin's arm on the way down. "That explains how his DNA got under her nails."

"And, uh, in her mouth," Elliot said, watching as a very intoxicated young woman thanked Fin for catching her and helping her up by evidently trying to swallow him whole. "Is that what we look like?"

"No," she laughed. "We're fucking hot." She looked away from him and back toward the monitor.

Elliot turned toward the arch of the cubicle as the technician came in with two cups of black coffee and a handful of creamers and sugar packets. "Thanks, man," he said, taking the cups. He set them on the desk and started to fix them as he looked back up at one of the screens. "Where'd she go?"

"I don't know, but Fin...look," she said, tapping the screen. She and Elliot watched as Fin wobbled away from the bar with a full glass of wine, his instability causing him to drop the glass. "That's when he spilled the wine all over himself."

He handed her a cup of coffee and sipped his own as he said, "Where's he going? Okay, uh, he left the room at..." he checked the video's time stamp. "Quarter-to-eleven."

"Hey, Jameson?" She turned to look over her shoulder at the TARU officer. "Can you follow him?"

The young man nodded. "Excuse me," he said, squeezing between the two detectives. He made a few keystrokes and clicked the mouse a few times, tapped on the keyboard some more, and then backed up. "There you go."

"What about the girl?" Olivia asked. She searched both screens, each plying several camera angles. "There!" She tapped the top right block of the leftmost monitor.

The technician rolled his eyes, but got to work, running a facial recognition program that would track her movement. "Okay, on your left, you'll have footage that only follows the girl, and on your right, you'll be able to follow Detective Tutuola."

Elliot shot him a harsh but confused look.

"Yeah," the young man said. "I know who he is." He backed away slowly. "I'll leave you to it. Just yell when you're finished." He turned and left just as quickly as he'd appeared.

Elliot watched Fin's videos as Olivia watched their victim's. They both saw something that surprised them, at the same moment, and they turned to look at each other with fear and realization in their eyes.

Peace and Love

Jo