In August, Carver came back and ready to resume his position with Major Case. Donnelly transferred Alex back to SVU to split cases with Casey as she had the biggest caseload. Alex took Fin and Munch's cases while Casey took Elliot and Olivia's.

This arrangement started off pretty well. Alex and Casey developed a good report working together and it was always nice to have someone to talk to about a case not the s.o. Alex tried not to bring work home because she thought it would mean just bringing arguments home too.

"I can't believe they're four months old," Olivia said as she held Lorelei.

"I can't believe they can almost sleep through the night," Alex retorted as she got Ollie ready for daycare.

The twins were starting to be able to stabilize their heads and grab onto things.

Now that both women were at SVU again, their schedules lined up pretty well. In the mornings, Olivia would go straight to the precinct while Alex would drop of the kids at daycare. The ADA would pick them up on the way home, and Olivia was usually back home in time for dinner.

Alex had gotten used to not having her little monsters minute of every day. The first two weeks were hard, but once she got a new case under her belt, she got used to being an ADA once more. She also knew her babies were in good hands.

Olivia kissed her wife before leaving for work. "Love you Babe."

"I love you too, Sexy." Alex pinched her butt before sending her on her way.

"And it's time for you two devils to get to daycare."

Alex got them in their double stroller and headed for the car.

When Alex got to work, she went into her office and started pulling her notes for her upcoming trial. She was trying a woman for murdering her husband and then marrying her stepson, so she could try and get the husbands riches.

The stubborn woman had backed out of her plea deal, fired her lawyer, and now wanted to go to trial.

With both her (now ex) husband and her former lover, who had physically committed the murders both ready to testify, the case was pretty cut and dry.

She was working on her opening statement when there was a knock on her door.

"Come in."

It was Jim Steele. "Are you busy right now?"

"I am working, but it's not urgent. What is it?"

"I was wondering if you had any tips for interviewing with Donnelly, since she's practically your aunt."

Cabot rolled her eyes. She hated it when people considered it nepotism. Donnelly rode her ass harder than anyone else's.

"You already have the job."

"Oh I'm mean for the EADA position since Cutter is taking a tenured faculty position at NYU."

Cabot didn't know about this. She knew Steele was rubbing it in her face, but she refused to show it. "She hates it when people make excuses. If she calls you out during the interview, and she will, take your licks and move on."

He made some more idle chitchat and then he left.

"Fucking kiss ass," Alex muttered as she went back to her statement.

While she was working on her trial, Olivia was struggling with a murder that had been staged to look like a suicide. She and Elliot were suspicious of one of the penthouse owners and his grandmother. Who gets affidavits from the victim's boyfriends to bring to the police station? It sounded like they were already mounting a defense?

"You liking the ex for this?" Stabler questioned.

"Yeah," Olivia told her, "and he probably has a pattern of violence. I think it's time we start looking at his former flames." She hated it when people thought they could just buy their way out of trouble and she wanted to get under his skin.

"You don't have enough for a warrant," Novak told her.

"But he did this."

"I'm not surprised, but he will have a fancy lawyer who will just get the evidence tossed if we show up with a crappy warrant. If he attacks girlfriends we have time before he strikes again. Let's get him good. I don't want this half-assed." Casey was starting to come into her own as an ADA. She realized that if she didn't assert herself more, she would be walked on all the time.

Of course, Olivia was not happy, and she let Alex know when she came home.

"Why can't things ever go smoothly? You and Casey love the word no."

Alex raised a brow. "It's better to get no from us then to get a no from the judge. If we show up with insufficient warrant requests all the time, then we won't get the benefit of the doubt when it is a borderline case. I know that's no consolation to you in this moment, but think of all of the other moments we will have to go to bat for you."

"Damn you and your insidious logic!"

"I'm sorry … do you think I'd make a good EADA?"

"What?"

"Apparently, there's a new position opening up and Steele was boasting about his interview. Donnelly hasn't broached the subject with me yet."

"Are you sure he has the interview? It's not like it would be beneath him to tell you he had it just to see if you confront Donnelly."

Alex shrugged. "That does sound like him."

"And didn't you tell her that you were unsure of how far you were going to go politically. If you want your name to be on the table, you should let her know that you're ready to play with the big boys."

"Is that okay with you?"

Olivia kissed her hand. "You know I'll follow you anywhere. When I changed my name, I did it for two reasons. One, you were the first person to make me feel like I really had a family. The guys are like family, but it's a like with them. You're the real thing. The other reason was that I knew the Cabot name calls louder than the Benson one, and if entering the arena was what you wanted to do, then it made more sense for me to take your name than for you to take mine."

"I would have …"

"I know you would have, but you didn't need to. I'm very happy as a Cabot. I have a lovely wife who loves to spoil me."

"Thanks Love."

Alex's trial opened on Wednesday. She didn't want to talk to Donnelly about it on Tuesday lest her boss think she wasn't ready. Instead, she made an appointment with her boss for Friday morning, 8AM.

Eventually, Olivia and Elliot did get into the pretty boy's house and they were able to determine that there had been a struggle. Sure, the cleaning crew came and wiped up any blood, but they could not remove the damaged flooring and walls from the physical fight that preceded their victim's murder.

The killer was dumb enough to agree with an interview with Dr. Huang where he admitted to being violent against women, but he claimed that his father forced him to be this way by hiring prostitutes and forcing him to do certain things to them. He was trying to mount an insanity defense.

Novak was fine with that because she knew no one would buy it, and he would have to admit to the acts in order to raise the defense.

He was arrested and charged with aggravated rape and murder. Elliot and Olivia were trying to see if they could chase down these other prostitutes; maybe they could bury him in legal cases and rack up too many lawyers fees for him.

When Olivia was about to go home, she got a surprising phone call.

"Mom?"

"Hey Livvy how are you?"

"I'm fine. How's the center?"

"I'm not in it anymore."

"What?"

"They gave me my exit papers last week." Serena Benson was now in outpatient therapy.

"How great, why didn't you call before?"

"It sounded too good to be true, and I wanted to make sure that I picked out a psychiatrist that I liked for my outpatient treatment."

"Where are you now?"

"In my apartment, hardly feels like my apartment I haven't been here in ages."

"Did you want to come over for dinner, meet the twins?"

"Yes!"

Of course, Olivia forgot to communicate this to Alex until she got home, after Alex had started cooking

"I only have two pork chops," Alex told her wife.

"She's my mother."

"I didn't mean don't invite her, but you could have called, so I could have made something else."

Olivia frowned. "My bad. I could just eat something else."

Alex pursed her lips. "They are big pork shops. If I cut them in half, there should still be enough."

"I was hoping for a whole one," Olivia pouted.

Alex raised a brow, but Olivia got a whole one anyway. Alex and Serena each had a half.

Olivia's mother was sure to tease her about it.

"Aren't you a fatty?"

"I have an active job."

"And she's a couch potato at home," Alex teased.

"What do you do at home?"

"I started running again," Alex told her. She was only at two miles a day three days a week, but her doctor told her to start easy and build her way back up to five.

"Not everyone can get up at 5:30 just to run before work."

"I know that's why you're the couch potato!"

Serena went right back to the twins after dinner. "They are so precious. I can't believe I'm a grandmother."

Olivia couldn't believe it either. Her relationship with her mother had a lot of ups and downs. This was the highest she had ever seen it.

Alex gave the women a chance to talk. "I'll be in the guest room reading if you need anything."

She kissed her wife's nose.

They started with basic topics, how's motherhood and what are your Thanksgiving plans, until Serena had the courage to work up to the reason she had called her daughter.

"My therapist wants to meet you."

"Did she say why?"

"My memory of my darkest drinking phases is really suspect. I know I did a lot of bad things, but I don't remember what I did or what the circumstances were." It was like waking up in a maze of glass and vomit like aliens had dropped you down into it.

Olivia hated talking about her past. It had been hard for her to tell her wife, and she tells Alex everything.

"I know it's not something you want to relive, but I need to know the cost of my drinking." She knew she didn't bear the brunt of it.

"Leave me her card. I'll find a time." Olivia relented.

When Alex opened her trial on Wednesday, she spoke with passion. She was angry, that a woman had the audacity to murder her husband, marry his son to try and hide behind spousal privilege, use her ex to help frame her new husband, and when that didn't work, she framed her ex for rape. To top it all off, she had this smug grin on her face like nothing could touch her. She would answer to the People of the State of New York. Alex Cabot was going to make sure of it.

"The defendant promised her boyfriend a new life together if he murdered her husband for her. She then had him frame the victim's son to try and cover up her tracks. She spun web after web of deceit to try and get her way. This is a story of sex, lies, murder, and money, and she is in the center of all of it."

She started with the housekeeper who found the body. She then went on to the dispatcher who heard the call and played the 9-11 tape. The housekeeper's screaming rang into the jury's ears. From there, she went on to Dr. Warner who detailed how the victim died after being beaten to death with a baseball bat and Alex entered the bloody bat into evidence for all to see.

By the time it was lunch, the jury was thoroughly disgusted by what happened to the victim. Alex decided to use a more emotive tactic than she usually did. She wanted them to hate the defendant before she had a chance to mount a defense.

Elizabeth Donnelly had been watching Alex's trial, her first SVU trial since she had the twins. She had assigned Alex to Major Case to see if she was still in it to win it. Alex was always a good prosecutor, that was no doubt, but it was her inner fire that would allow her to really go places. She came across as cold, ice blue like her eyes, but Liz knew that blue fire was the hottest of all, and behind the ice, there was an inferno.

Alex was a bulldog in court today and Liz was happy for it. Some prosecutors were too detached. If they didn't care, the jury wouldn't either. Others were too emotional, allowing it to cloud their judgment. Alex was both emotive and flawless. Every question had a purpose. She had an answer for every objection. She managed to channel her emotions while keeping her wits about her. She came back a stronger prosecutor than she had been when she left. Liz was damn proud, not that she would just tell Alex. It was not the time for her to get soft.

Olivia was furious. Their perp wanted to plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter and get sentenced to probation, for raping and murdering his girlfriend.

"I hate rich people and their lawyers," Olivia scowled as she stormed through her door.

Alex pulled her wife into a hug. "Surely, you don't mean us."

Olivia didn't consider herself rich although her new clothes and swanky apartment would suggest otherwise.

"I mean this bastard killer." Olivia explained his lawyer's ludicrous offer.

Alex kissed her forehead. "He will get his."

"Why are you in such a good mood?"

"I took out all my rage on the defendant. I'm going to nail her ass to the wall."

"I love it when you get all aggressive." Olivia kissed her lips.

"Do you now? We have time before dinner." Alex grabbed her collar and dragged her to bed.

Alex was glad that she made braised lamb shanks for dinner. They could stay in the oven for a while.

The ADA was surging. Her babies were healthy and happy. Her wife hadn't been in the field since they had made their arrest and with her family safe and sound, she was ready to pour it all into her trial work and it showed.

She presented her case masterfully, choosing to have Munch and Fin walk the jury through the case before having her star witnesses testify. This way, she could introduce the ex-boyfriend's confession and play it for the jury. She wanted them to hear his words shortly after the murder in case he tried to sugar coat things for her now. You never knew with fools in love.

She also played the video of the victim's son to the jury, wanting them to see his vulnerability.

After that she put on the ex-boyfriend to close her case. She knew that the defense would come the hardest at him since he was the physical killer but she bolstered his testimony with everything leading up to it. They saw the physical evidence, the police investigation, and the son.

Alex closed her case on Thursday. The defense would likely only take on day. They only had a few witnesses. The defendant chose not to testify.

That morning, Alex went to her boss's office.

"I know you have a trial to finish, so let's make this quick. What do you want and why should I give it to you?"

"Last month you asked me what I was doing with my career and I didn't know. Honestly, I still don't know but I do know that I'm going to go as far as I can. Maybe that means judgeship, maybe it means a political path, but I'm not ready to become a stay at home mother or even to be a part time prosecutor for the rest of my days.

The rest of me has made an appearance, and I can do this. I want to do this."

"And what does Olivia have to say about it?"

"She's right at my side."

"And what should I do with this information?"

"I hope you keep it in mind when you are considering people to promote or recommendations to make."

"And what makes you think I'd want to recommend you to anything. You've managed to cause a lot of trouble in your time here."

"I know I was a cocky little shit when I got here. I had never faced failure before and I was too headstrong to know when to back down, but I'm wiser, more mature, and I'm a damn good prosecutor."

Donnelly raised a brow and then gave Alex a smirk. "I'll tell you what, you get a conviction in your trial and I'll think about giving you a recommendation." She had already recommended Alex become the next Bureau Chief when Donnelly replaced Cutter, but she didn't bother to mention it yet.

The defense's case only took one morning. They called two character witnesses, her former coworker and some country judge from Baltimore who was her godfather, although he hadn't seen her in a decade.

The defense closed by arguing that there was no real evidence of their client's involvement in the murder. They had her ex-boyfriend who was jealous that she had moved on to someone else and her ex-husband who was mad that he wasn't the father of her baby, which had been stillborn.

Alex had an easy counter. "This is a simple story. All you have to do is follow the money. The victim had a lot of money and when he learned his wife was cheating on him, he was going to divorce her, leaving her penniless because of the fidelity clause in their prenuptial agreement. Days later, he was murdered and a couple of days after that, she married his son, the heir to the fortune if her claim was denied.

She tried to frame her new husband for the murder by stashing the bloody bat under the bed, so she could get his share of the inheritance, and when that failed, she framed her ex-boyfriend of rape, using sperm she had previously harvested, so that the murder would fall on his shoulders alone.

Every move she made was deliberate, with malice, and was an attempt to line her own pocket while she played everyone else like chess pieces.

Don't let her play the smoke and mirrors game that she played on her deceased husband, her ex-husband, and her ex-boyfriend. Her last game ruined three lives. Don't let her ruin any more."

They were done by lunch.

Now it was in the jury's hands.