Chapter Nine:

"No, turn to your other left!" Serena grumbled sarcastically at the television. "Honestly, I don't know what you see in NASCAR, Abbie," she said, offering the federal prosecutor the warm mug that she held in her hands before sitting down beside her.

Still gazing, transfixed, at her laptop, Abbie took a sip from the mug, eyebrows raising in surprise and delight. "Mmm, hot chocolate with marshmallows! Thanks, Serena. You're the best." Reluctantly setting down the mug and turning away from the screen of her laptop, she dropped a soft, lingering kiss on the blonde attorney's cheek.

Serena smiled softly, leaning over to look at what Abbie was working on. She expected it to be work, some kind of research or at least an e-mail inbox cleaning, but instead, she found herself staring at the web page for Texas A&M. "Abbie, what are you doing?"

Abbie grinned. "Watchin' NASCAR, drinking hot chocolate, reading the latest Aggie basketball scores, and sitting with my best girl. Why?"

"Basketball?" Serena looked confused. "I mean, NASCAR I knew about before, but why are you looking up basketball scores?"

"Because Football season's over!" Abbie announced mournfully, as though that was the most logical explanation in the world. "And because they're playing the Longhorns."

Serena immediately understood. "Ah, I see." Even though Abbie was mostly uninterested in basketball, her Aggie pride (and thus, her hatred of the Longhorns) would not let her rest without at least checking the scores. With a mischievous gleam in her eye, Serena let one hand slide up Abbie's denim-clad thigh, passing over the material with her thumb to stroke the skin beneath. "I don't suppose you could be distracted for a few minutes, hmm?"

Even though Serena's touch made her shiver, Abbie pretended to be unaffected by the breathy voice in her ear. She was slowly getting used to ignoring her body's urges, but the going was difficult. Most times, just seeing Serena was enough to send her head spinning and her heart pounding as she struggled not to tackle her to the floor and tear her clothes off in a fit of violent passion. Serena knew just how hard she was trying to be good, but she still delighted in pushing Abbie to the edge of her limits.

Abbie swallowed conspicuously as Serena began kneading her thigh just above the knee. "Um, maybe," she squeaked, her voice completely different from the low, husky southern drawl that all of her friends were used to. Trying to distract herself, she took another sip of her hot chocolate.

Her companion took the opportunity to rest her head on Abbie's shoulder, not really interested in the 'drama' playing out on the screen as a new NASCAR driver moved into first place. She had never seen the appeal of the sport, and suspected Abbie only watched it because she liked being an amusing stereotype – before shattering people's assumptions with her perverted lesbian ways.

Feeling the weight of Serena's head on her shoulder, Abbie almost dropped her cup. Hands shaking, she set it back down on the table so that she wouldn't spill. "Howdy there," she said, unable to resist leaning over and kissing Serena's fair hair. Serena responded by brushing a soft, wet kiss over Abbie's pulse-point, which was hammering double speed underneath her skin.

"This is nice," she purred, snuggling up against Abbie's side and tucking her knees up onto the couch. "We never got to do this before..."

"Do what before?"

"Just cuddle."

"Aw, that ain't cuddling. This here is cuddling." Abbie wrapped both arms around Serena, not caring that the blonde's arm was cutting some of the blood circulation off from one hand. Holding the slender woman in her arms was more than worth the slight discomfort. Leaning back into a comfortable position, she tried to ignore the dramatic effect that holding Serena close had on her body.

"Do you know what I like even better than cuddling?" Serena asked, tilting her head up and gazing into soft brown eyes.

"What?" Abbie murmured.

"Kissing." Serena whispered the single word against the tall Texan's lips before bringing their mouths together in a soft peck. Abbie felt her face flush with heat. Serena's lips, Serena's taste, Serena's warmth, they were the most wonderful sensations in the entire world, and she would never be able to get enough. She just hoped that the ACLU lawyer would give her a chance to prove she was worthy of keeping her heart safe.

"Know what?" Abbie asked, nuzzling Serena's nose with her own.

"What?"

"NASCAR's not that interesting anyway," she said, casually muting the volume with the remote and pulling Serena in for another, deeper kiss.

...

Olivia sighed, brushing her bangs off of her face as she went through the pile of letters that Casey had diligently collected for her, writing down pertinent information on her notepad before sealing them in bags and shipping them off to the lab for evaluation. Maybe they would get lucky and find some DNA samples, perhaps even a hit in the system. She took another sip of her coffee, blinking away the tired blurriness that threatened to creep in around the edges of her vision.

The detective still felt guilty for leaving Casey with Abbie the other afternoon, and so she had called their former ADA in the morning to check in. Casey claimed that she was doing fine, and assured her that Abbie had been a total gentlewoman. Olivia figured that being shot at had earned her a pass for the social faux pas she had committed. To make up for it, she was reviewing all of Casey's evidence, partially to alleviate her guilt and partially because Cragen had suspended her from Samantha and Gambel's case until she went to a psych evaluation. It was SOP after a shooting, but that didn't mean Olivia had to like it.

"Hey, what's all this?" Elliot Stabler put a comforting hand on her shoulder, peering down at the desk full of papers and packages. "This has nothing to do with finding Samantha's killer."

"God, don't remind me about that case, please," Olivia groaned. "I'm not supposed to be working on it anyway." She was still bothered by the memory of the woman found dead in the laundry cart. So far, Jason Gambel had left them with nothing to go on but a box of strange trophies from his alleged victims. "I'm doing something else to put off my psych eval. Then I'll probably help Fin and Munch go through Gambel's trophies and track down the other victims."

"Hey, the meeting with Huang might not be so bad," Elliot said, ignoring his own reluctance to meet with the psychologist.

"Yeah right. Why don't you go see him, then?"

Elliot rolled his eyes. "Because I'm a stubborn jarhead, not an intelligent lady like yourself. We overbearing masculine types are supposed to hide our feelings at the expense of our emotional health while you actually deal with your problems and move on."

That made Olivia snort. "If you think I enjoy dealing with my problems, you obviously don't know me that well after ten years of partnership."

"I didn't say you enjoyed it," Elliot said, his expression sober. "I said you would deal with it. It's part of the job. But you never answered the question, what is all this stuff?"

"A pleasant distraction," Olivia told him, using a glove to move one of the letters into a visible position on her desk. "Don't touch without protection."

Elliot smirked at her and waggled his eyebrows. "That's what she said..."

"Shut up, dumbass. Just read it."

Dutifully, Elliot scanned the few lines of loopy cursive. It was very neat, and almost artistic, written in real ink. "Calligraphy?"

"Yeah, I know it looks pretty, but read what it says."

The detective frowned, leaning closer. "One day soon you will be mine? Olivia, who do these belong to?"

"Would you believe Casey Novak?"

Whatever Elliot had been expecting, hearing their former ADA's name clearly took him by surprise. "Really?"

"Yeah, really. She came by Alex's apartment the other day asking for my help. It seems like Casey's got a secret admirer and hoped I'd agree to look in to it."

Elliot frowned. "Why not call in the police?"

"I asked her the same question. She said we were the police, and she trusted us more than some hump at a desk that would take her statement and then do absolutely nothing about it. You know how these creeps work, El. The law can't do anything until they strike, and then it's usually too late."

Unfortunately, Elliot knew just how accurate Olivia's assessment was. "You're right. So, what have we got?"

Olivia's lips twitched up in a smile as Elliot – faithful, reliable Elliot – took a seat beside her, ready to help and back her play. He had always been there for her. "I miss Alex," she said in a burst of emotional vulnerability, hoping that the tough marine would be able to handle a little more sentimentality without getting uncomfortable.

Elliot gave her shoulder another squeeze. "Yeah, I know." He had noticed the empty, sad, lonely look in Olivia's brown eyes, and as much as he wanted to make it go away, he knew that he couldn't. The light would only return when Alex came back from her Safari adventure. "How is she?"

"Doing a lot of paperwork and collecting a lot of witness statements to make sure that a guy named Mani Japhet never sees sunlight again. He ordered guerilla troops to rape hundreds of women and enslave them in compounds... burned children alive, destroyed homes and local agriculture, butchered the men like animals." Olivia shuddered. "How can people do that to each other?"

"Hey, I dunno. I ask myself the same question every day. I guess people in New York aren't as different from people in third world countries as we'd like to believe."

Olivia took off her glove, snapping the stretchy plastic with a loud crack. "Yeah. One death is a tragedy, a million is just a statistic... I guess that kind of large-scale evil is too much for people to comprehend, so they don't sense the urgency to fix it."

"Well, for now, let's take a look at these letters and see if we can find any kind of identifying thread. We can't save the world, but maybe we can help Casey find out who is bothering her. Tell her to come in and see us, would you? I know Munch and Fin would love to see a pretty face in here again."

"Hardwicke's not pretty enough for you?"

"Eh. Not bad, but she's no Alex," said Elliot, referring to their new ADA. So far, Olivia was handling her all right, but her relationship with Elliot was frosty at the best of times.

Olivia aimed a punch at Elliot's head. "Hey! That's my girl you're talking about."

"Y'know, Benson, I should be jealous. You seduced the hottest of our ADA's." Olivia did not bother to correct him and explain that Alex had practically been the one to seduce her.

"You should be grateful, Stabler. If you tried to seduce any of our ADA's, I'd tell Kathy, and then she'd chop off your balls and shove them down your throat. I wouldn't even be able to investigate without IAB breathing down my neck."