When Olivia came into the precinct that morning, she carried her duffle bag over to her desk. Without looking up from his morning coffee, Elliot greeted her with his standard and indifferent "Good morning." Instead of answering him as she did every morning, she yanked her chair out from under the desk and violently threw her bag underneath. It hit the side of the desk's legs with a loud thump that shot up Elliot's attention. She turned on her heels and walked to the coffeepot without even so much as looking at him.
The coffee that morning tasted especially pungent and she dumped the entire full carafe into the garbage can before restarting another pot, making it the way she wanted it to be made. She hovered over it like a hawk and didn't let anyone near until it was completely made and blended; and even then, no one came close to the carafe until she had made her own cup to her liking and left to sit at her desk in front of Elliot. He looked up at her apprehensively, but didn't say anything.
After such a dramatic start to a Friday morning, Olivia decided to keep to herself as much as possible. Olivia could not hide her emotions very well and usually wore them on her sleeve. She also didn't have a problem with permeating the room, or infecting everyone else around her with her mood. A bitter scowl was present on her face nearly the entire morning, warning everyone around her to back off. The only person that was able to get a word in edgewise was Elliot and only because he had been her partner for a couple of years now and knew how to tread lightly, although he knew that the escalation that Olivia's mood had reached was definitely at a new level. No one asked and she didn't offer up any information as to why she was so angry, but everyone in the precinct knew to avoid her and give her space.
Later in the afternoon, she and Elliot were on their way to re-question a suspect in their most pressing child abuse case. Elliot really wanted to ask if she was okay. He'd sat on his hands and walked on eggshells for at least 4 hours already and the tension Olivia emanated was killing him. He assumed that it probably had something to do with Anya, but didn't know how to approach the subject without offending his partner. Nevertheless, he wanted her to know that she could talk to him.
"Are you going to be okay with talking with this guy?" He asked, turning the car onto 8th Avenue.
"Why wouldn't I be?" Olivia asked, looking straight ahead.
"Well, it's pretty obvious that you're having a bad day, Liv. I could take you home and I could go on ahead and talk to him myself if you wanted." Elliot offered.
"I'm fine, Elliot." She said it, but the acidic inflection in her voice deceived her and cut through Elliot like he had expected her to do.
"Okay." He stopped at the red light. The car rumbled low and sputtering. He looked over at Olivia, who still had that horrible scowl on her face. He leaned his elbow against the window ledge in the car and took the plunge, ready without armor to be attacked. "Did something happen with Anya?"
"You could say that." Olivia said, biting the inside of her lip. She didn't look at her partner, and instead kept her eyes down towards the floor.
Elliot sat up and rubbed her shoulder lightly before looking back to the road when the light turned green. In the corner of his eye, he saw Olivia nod, accepting his gesture, before looking out the window with sadness and betrayal filling her eyes. He continued to drive uptown, trying not to look at his partner out of respect when she cleared her throat and quietly took the end of her red scarf to her eyes, dabbing them dry.
The suspect was willing to return to the precinct with them to clear up the discrepancies in his story. When the questioning was getting a little more promising, Cragen called in Alex to see if they had enough to charge the suspect with abuse or at the very least an accessory after the fact. Unfortunately, Alex didn't find that the evidence against the suspect was enough to hold him and advised the detectives to cut him loose and get better information so they could get a search warrant, which would hopefully lead to something more solid. When Olivia and Elliot opened the door to let the suspect go, Alex asked to speak with Olivia briefly about other cases on her plate that she wanted to clear up ASAP.
Olivia pulled her aside outside of Cragen's office and answered her questions, relaying to her that she and Elliot had been so focused on this one case in particular that they hadn't had the time to revisit cases that were close to going cold. Alex stressed to Olivia to try one last time with one file involving an elderly woman in particular. She told Olivia that the DA was breathing down her neck about it and thus, the pressure was being passed onto her detectives for further investigation. It was just another pain in Olivia's ass in what was turning out to be a truly stressful day. Olivia sighed and gave Alex her word that she would pursue the leads one last time before turning it cold and Alex sincerely thanked her.
Olivia turned to walk towards the file room in order to retrieve the file Alex had been talking about when Alex abruptly asked if they were still going to have dinner together in a few hours. It was a good thing that she'd brought it up. Olivia had been so self-consumed all day regarding Anya that she'd forgotten all about it.
"Um…I don't know, Alex." Olivia thought aloud, shoving her hands into her pockets, looking to the ground, and scuffing the heel of her shoe into the floor.
Alex wondered if Olivia was withdrawing her offer because she had been insensitive in some way towards the detective and the nearly cold case file. She hoped that she hadn't offended her. "I didn't mean to be so harsh about that case, Liv. I just –"
"No, it's not that." Olivia interrupted her. "I would like to see that case closed too. You know I would." She shifted her weight. "I've just kind of had a rough day, and I'm not really feeling much like myself." It was true. She'd felt a cross of sadness, anger, but most of all, she felt a sense of displacement all day and really wanted to just go home and regroup her life around her work and nothing else. She didn't want to see Anya ever again, but she also didn't want to talk to anyone about it. Least of all to Alex, who she barely knew.
"Oh." Alex said, suddenly realizing Olivia's sullen mood. She felt selfish and guilty that she hadn't noticed until just then, but as soon as Olivia brought it up, it was completely obvious to Alex that the detective was troubled about something outside of work, and it upset her.
"Can I get a rain check?" Olivia asked, not wanting to totally cancel their dinner, just knowing that it couldn't be that night.
"Sure." Alex said. "Is everything's okay?" Alex added with a little concern, leaning in a little cocking her head to the side to try and catch Olivia's eyes, which Olivia evaded.
Olivia nodded. "Thanks."
"Well, you know how to reach me." She turned on her heels and walked out the precinct.
