A/N: Thank you so very much for the kind comments received on the last chapter. Amilyn, what you said really meant a great deal to me. As for this chapter – hooboy, the ANGST is coming, folx! ANGGGGGST. Hold onto yer butts.

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Rating: T, this chapter

Spoilers: None

Trigger warnings: Alcohol, tense environment, confrontation

Circumstance

It's dangerous, to fall in love, but

I Wanna burn with you tonight

Hurt me

There's two of us, we're certain with desire

The pleasure's pain and fire

Burn me – Fire Meet Gasoline, Sia

Olivia was gazing out the window, at snow falling as softly and silently as if it was feathers instead of snow, when the knock came at the door adjoining her room to Amanda's. Liv rose from her seat on the foot of the bed, but Amanda opened the door and ducked inside sheepishly before Liv could cross to meet her.

In her hand, she had a bottle of red wine. Her smile seemed shy. "Hey," she said quietly.

"Hi."

They were still in Michigan, helping the Adrian PD with the long interrogation hours of Rhoda, any witnesses, and cross-checking victim cases. Carisi and Fin had also taken up residence at the hotel, on the floor above the girls. Liv didn't want to admit it, but she was finally missing New York; it was noisy, crowded and easier to forget the cases that bothered her there, than in the Midwest where the snow seemed to keep things so quiet and still.

"I thought maybe you might like some company," Rollins confessed, then looked away and added, "if not company, than at least the wine."

Too tired to be harsh with her, Liv motioned to the room at large. "Come in, Amanda."

She shut the door behind her and crossed to the desk, where complimentary wine stems and highballs were trayed and stuffed with stiff white linen napkins emblazoned with the hotel insignia. "It's a Malbec," Amanda announced as she passed off Liv's glass.

Olivia hummed throatily with appreciation as she tasted it, pleased that Rollins had picked something intensely-bodied. It went well with her pensive mood and the never-ending snow. "Thank you," she smiled.

Amanda took a seat on the rather inflexible loveseat across from the end of the bed. "How're you doin'?"

"I'm fine, just anxious to get back to Manhattan. I don't take well to anyone else running my squad." She turned back to the window. "I've also been wondering if this snow ever lets up."

"I'll never complain about a New York winter ever again, that's for sure," Amanda nodded, calculating Liv's gaze. "Been getting any sleep?"

She didn't want to lie to her. "Some," she murmured. "You?"

"Some," Rollins echoed. She drank from her glass, then asked, "Do you think you'll see Lindstrom when we get back?"

Taken aback, Olivia broke her stand-off with the snow and met the blonde's gaze. "That's . . . a strange question, coming from you. Considering how I know you feel about therapy."

"Doesn't mean it doesn't work for some people," she grinned, looking from over the rim of her wine glass.

Liv huffed out an attempt at a chuckle and sipped her drink. "I haven't decided yet, to be completely honest. I may not be able to get around it; One PP could just as easily order me – or both of us."

Rollins raised an eyebrow in sarcasm and shrugged. "Rhoda gave us the names of the women she could remember, along with as many approximate dates."

"Are they bringing in a team to look for the three bodies?"

"They're workin' on it, according to the department Captain, but it's gonna take time. The ground is frozen solid, and as we know, the snow is – well, deep," she explained. "It'll happen, we just might be long gone by then."

"Then we'll just have to come back," Liv said firmly. Amanda gazed into the deep red Malbec and chose not to say anything. "So what's the plan in the morning?"

"The DA here is going to speak with Rhoda's attorney and see where to go from here. I imagine they'll float some kind of deal, considering Rhoda's cooperation." A sour look crossed Liv's face and was gone, so Amanda mumbled, "I'm sure though, you'd rather they throw away the key on her."

"Amanda – " Liv sighed, then cut herself off and took a breath. "I just, I don't know how you do it, is all. Nearly five years on this job . . . everything that's happened to you, including and after Patton, and somehow you still see certain predators through this unimpeachable lens."

"Rhoda isn't a predator," Amanda replied calmly.

"She isn't a victim!" Liv snapped back.

"And that's just it, isn't it? You live in this world where the only people we deal with are predators, or victims. Seventeen years on this job has closed you off, Liv; you've got no middle ground left! People are good, bad – and sometimes both, at the same time. Our job isn't to hand out redemption to some and vilify the rest. Most people still deserve to be treated like people – and that's what I've tried to do with Rhoda."

The stormy-eyed brunette drained her glass and stalked to the bottle at the desk. "For someone who hates therapy, you sure sound like you've sat through some."

"Yeah, well, for someone who wants everyone to believe she's got everything figured out, you sure seem uncertain lately."

Olivia bristled, pushed her palms against the dark wood of the desktop. "Is this why you came over, Rollins?" she asked, her eyes closed, head dipped toward the table, "To give me another lecture on victims of circumstance?"

"I came over – " Amanda sighed, thought because I miss being snowed in just the two of us. "Because I'm worried about you," she finished aloud.

"I told you, I'm fine." Olivia could already feel herself deflating, but tried to appear impersonal. She felt tired, and guilty, and worse than that, still aroused when they were alone.

"Right. Fine," Amanda echoed, rising from the sofa. She took a few steps toward the desk. "Olivia Benson doesn't need anyone to be worried about her, right?"

"I prefer it that way," the brunette admitted, her fingertips flexing against the polished wood as her heartrate rose.

"I suppose now you're going to lie and say you also prefer not to need anyone," Rollins guessed. She closed the space between them, stood right behind the older woman with scant inches between them. Her wine stem slid onto the desk beside Liv's rigid hand with a low scrape. When she spoke again, her breath was close enough to gently move Liv's hair. "You don't need anything, or anyone – is that right?"

The blonde punctuated the word 'need' with a fingertip, brushed down Liv's extended forearm, and watched as a shiver trembled through her in response.

Olivia licked her lips. "I – I don't." She remained utterly still, then, as Rollins moved aside the curtain of auburn hair that hid her neck from view and exhaled warmly over the nape. Liv willed her knees not to buckle.

The exhale was followed by the press of the blonde's form, tighter into the space Olivia was trying to occupy. The curve of her pelvis fit Liv's ass as though they had been made to spoon that way. Warm lips touched the line of Liv's neck then, making a mockery of all her denials as the apex of her thighs throbbed and flooded, needing plenty. Amanda's hand moved to the front of Liv's throat, carefully pulling her back even further into her embrace, her kisses nipping and biting as much skin as she could reach. The other hand somehow found the feverish millimeter of skin between pants and shirt that granted access to the taut muscles of Olivia's belly, and she flattened her palm there, greedy for simply the feel of them touching.

Liv struggled to turn around in Amanda's arms, frantic to have her lips on her mouth. The wine glasses tipped in the fray of elbows and hands, scarlet liquor spilling over the desk and onto the carpet below them. The kiss was rapacious, severe, filled with the fear of loneliness as much as with carnal desire. In four fast years, the younger-by-a-dozen-years blonde had continuously fought her way into the secret space that Olivia tried to hide her weaknesses and forced her to keep picking up broken pieces to look at. She hated her for it.

She loved her for it, too.

All-consuming, their kiss was a life breath that they warred over, panting and gasping for air. Olivia wondered, vaguely, if just kissing could bring someone to orgasm, as the heaviness of arousal in her groin thundered.

Suddenly, like shards of ice in all that heat, Amanda's words from outside the interrogation room came back to Olivia: Then somebody comes along – anybody . . . who told me I was going to be fine. Who took me as I was.

It was as if someone had turned a hose of cold water on Olivia, who stopped abruptly, bringing her hands up between them. "Amanda. Stop."

Dazed, the blonde pulled back, her pupils blown wide with adrenaline and desire. "What is it? What's wrong?"

"I can't do this," Liv told her, stepping backwards out of the clutch of their arms.

"I – " Dumbfounded, Amanda stared and fought to breathe normally.

"Go to your room, Amanda. Please," Liv urged, then turned to pick up the wine glasses.

"Liv, what – what's wrong?" Rollins tried.

"Amanda." There it was – her self-protective tone was back. Her don't-argue-with-me tone. "I want you to leave."

She turned heel and walked away then, to the bathroom, where she pulled out a clean washcloth and ran cold water over it from the sink. When she returned, Amanda was still bewildered, now standing in front of the adjoining door. Her eyes, full to quivering with unshed tears, followed Olivia to the desk, where she grabbed a bottle of soda water from the glasses tray and knelt to the spilled wine on the carpet.

When it was clear she wasn't going to speak again, Amanda opened the door and went silently back to her own room. For long minutes, Olivia scrubbed soda water into the wine stain, ignoring the angry pulse of want in her centre.

"I can't be your square peg," she finally whispered.

TBC