Fall to Pieces

Chapter Twenty-Two

Disclaimer: The show and the main characters do not belong to me. Cassie and Becca, as well as the other characters with small parts, do. You can't have them- they're all I've got.

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2 Months Later:

"Momma!" Cassie called out, knocking on Olivia's bedroom door. "Telephone!"

Olivia glanced over at the alarm clock and scowled, it was only half after seven and it was a weekend... she should be sleeping still. As she slid out from under the warm covers of her bed she vaguely wondered why her daughter was up so early and why Elliot wasn't still asleep in her bed. Rubbing the sleep out of her eyes she padded across the hard-wood floor and opened the door to her bedroom. "Who is it?"

Cassie shrugged and handed her the phone, "It's a guy."

"Well, that narrows things down about halfway," Olivia said with a grin, taking the phone from her eldest daughter's hand. "Benson," she greeted the unknown male at the other end.

"Morning, partner." It was Fin.

A groan escaped her lips, she knew what was coming next. "Where and when?"

"Just meet me at the station in ten minutes... I'm on my way there know."

"Alright, I'm on my way."

"Listen, Liv. I'm really sorry about this... I know you've not had a weekend off in a while." his voice was genuine and she smiled because of it.

"You're not the problem here, Fin." she assured him. "Too many perverts are.... I'll see you in a bit."

He said goodbye and hung up the phone and Olivia went back into her room and threw some clothes on, grabbing her gun and badge from the night stand. When she entered the living room she saw Elliot lying on the couch, Becca cuddled up next to him asleep. Further examination showed that Elliot, too, was asleep... peacefully so. Putting two and two together Olivia figured Becca had woken up early from one of the nightmares she had been having recently and made her way into Olivia's bedroom. And, rather than waking her up Elliot took Becca into the living room, turned on the TV (which was still going, but on mute), and laid with the little girl until she fell asleep... then fell asleep as well.

Cassie walked into the living room and frowned at her mother, "Are you leaving?"

Olivia nodded, "Yeah. I've got to go to work. When Elliot wakes up tell him where I went and have him call me, OK?"

"Alright." Cassie stood on her tip-toes and kissed her mother on the cheek. "Bye."

"Bye, sweetheart." she ruffled the girls hair before heading out the door, glancing behind her briefly to sneak one last peek of Elliot and her daughter asleep on the living room sofa.

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When he woke up an hour after that Cassandra was sitting on the floor with her back resting against the couch, watching with a curious attentiveness, one glance at the TV explained everything- she was watching Spongebob. In the previous months he had come to understand that when Cassie was watching Spongebob she was dead to the world, or at least to those in her immediate vicinity. A small, warm body pressed against his chest confused him for a split-second, until he remembered why he had been sleeping on the couch in the first place.

For the previous few nights Becca had been having mild nightmares. Not enough to wake her in a cold-sweat or screaming bloody-murder, but enough to where she had trouble falling back asleep. All the other nights the little girl had woken her mother and Olivia had willingly climbed out of the bed and taken her daughter into the living room, laid down on the couch with her, covered up in blankets and turned on the TV. It never took long for the soft sounds coming from the television to lure the girl back to sleep, when Olivia was sure that Becca was once again asleep she allowed herself to drift back off. The night before, however, Becca had woken Elliot up. He was fairly certain the girl had not meant to do so, since he had been sleeping on the side of bed that Olivia normally slept on. Nonetheless, Becca had woken him up and she was scared. He carried her into the living room, grabbed the blanket off of the back of the sofa, turned on the TV, and waited for the three year old to fall asleep once more.

She was still asleep- which didn't surprise him. It had been early when she had stumbled into her mother's bedroom and it had taken her nearly a full hour to sleep again once she was lying on the couch. Glancing at the clock on the Cable Box he was surprised to find that it was already after 9 o'clock. He figured Olivia would be awake by then, maybe she was more tired that he had thought.

"Cass...." he whispered, praying that it wouldn't wake Becca up. The girl either couldn't hear him because she was so engrossed in her show or ignored him for the same reason. "Cassandra." he called out again, a little louder than before.

Still no response from the seven year old. So, he waited. Within a few minutes a commercial came on and he very carefully leaned over Becca and tapped the girl on the shoulder. She whirled around to look at him, "Oh... morning."

"Good morning. Where's your mother?"

Her head cocked to one side. "She's at work." she informed him as if it was ludicrous that he hadn't already known so.

"Since when?"

Cassie shrugged, "Awhile now.... She wants you to call her."

He nodded, "I will when your sister wakes up. Have you had anything to eat?"

She nodded, "Cereal."

The TV show came back on, "Alright... go back to what you were doing."

Cassie didn't need to be told twice, she turned around and focused all of her attention to Spongebob.

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It was almost ten o'clock by the time her cell-phone rang. She glanced over at Fin, who was talking with the victim's next-door-neighbor and wordlessly excused herself. When she was a safe distance away she answered it, "Benson."

"Hey, it's me."

"Took you long enough to call," she chided, jokingly. "Listen... I'm going to be here for awhile so if you could make the girls lunch at around noon, and if I'm not home by six order out pizza or something. I'm really sorry."

"Don't be," he told her. "It's not your fault."

"Right... listen, I'm in the middle of an interview. I'll talk to you later?"

"Of course, call me when you're on your way home."

"Ok," she replied. "I love you."

"You too," he hung up and she haded back to talk with their witness.

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It was almost eight o'clock before she finally got home, she was greeted by the smell of Chinese food when she opened the door to her apartment and smiled. Elliot hated Chinese food....

"I'm home," she called out, walking towards the kitchen. She pushed open the door to the kitchen and entered the room, Cassie and Becca were sitting at the table and Elliot was looking for something in the fridge. As casually as she could she walked past him and, making sure that the girls weren't paying attention to her, smacked him on his backside. He jumped slightly and turned around to look at her, grinning wildly. Winking she kept walking past him and grabbed a plate, then proceeded in getting her dinner.

Half an hour later the four of them were sitting in the living room, flipping through the TV channels. Since the girls were still too young to watch the cop dramas that Elliot would normally pick or the horror and suspense movies that Olivia loved they turned to The Cartoon Network, where the Powerpuff Girls was on. Becca squealed happily and Cassie grinned, they loved the show. So for the next half hour, until 8, that was what they watched. Then, at 8 o'clock Olivia tucked Becca in and sent Cassie off to finish her homework, then off to bed at 8:30- when the girl normally fell asleep.

At nine o'clock, when both girls were sound asleep in their room, Elliot and Olivia stretched out on the sofa in the living room and fought over what to watch on TV. They finally agreed to watching American Idol. Neither particularly liked the show, but it was in its very beginning stages, where "America" tries out for the show, and they enjoyed laughing at all the horrible singers who turned out.

When that had become too overwhelmingly annoying they started to flip through the stations once more- nothing on NBC, Jay wouldn't be on until 10:30, nothing on USA, nothing on ABC, Olivia even tried Lifetime or Oxygen and Elliot attempted to persuade her to watch whatever was on Spike TV, but neither would allow a show that catered to one gender so they ended up watching Miracle Pet's on Animal Planet.

Then, finally at 10:30 they flipped the TV back to NBC to watch Jay Leno, Olivia's favorite late-night TV program. Elliot was partial to Late Night with Conan O'Brien, but Jay Leno was alright. They watched Jay until 11:30, whereupon they retired for the night.... In a manner of speaking, that was.

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One month later:

"Move in with me," she said one night as they lay in bed. Catching him off-guard.

"What?" he asked, turning so that he could look at her. Did she really just ask him that?

"Move in with me." she repeated, nonchalantly.

Ok- so he had heard her correctly the first time. "You're serious about this?"

"Of course I'm serious about it... why wouldn't I be?" she gave him a strange look. "Elliot, you basically live here anyway... why not just get it over with, move in here, and not have to pay for an apartment you're only at maybe once a week."

He nodded, it made sense. He hardly ever stayed at home anymore. But... wow, moving in with Olivia. He wasn't sure how he would do living with somebody... he had been a bachelor basically his whole life. "Are you sure? This is a really big step."

"I know," she replied. "I think we're ready for it. Don't you?"

"Of course I do," he answered quickly. "It's just... I've never actually lived with somebody before... unless you count boot camp. That doesn't matter, though. I don't know how good at it I'd be."

"Elliot," she began, "you basically live here already. You're great at it. You're wonderful with the girls and you help me around the apartment.... Besides, I'm trying to be greedy here and have you all the time instead of only most of the time." She pouted playfully, "I get lonely when you're gone."

"I'll bet you do," he said with a grin. "...Let me think about this, ok?"

"That's fine. I figured you'd need some time to think first... take all the time you need. As long as you decided to move in when you're done with all that thinking." She smiled and kissed him briefly, "Now, go to bed, it's late."

"Yes Ma'am." he barked, kissing her back before allowing her to cuddle up next to him and drifting off to sleep.

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Two days later:

"I've thought about it," Elliot told her cryptically as they sat down at their separate desks at work.

"About what?" she asked, giving him a strange look. The only thing she could think of that he would need to think about were the living situations and he wouldn't bring that up at work... would he?

"What you asked the other night." he replied, ignoring the looks that his partner was giving him.

Alright, so maybe he would bring that up at work. "Oh? ...And, what do you think?"

"I think it's a good idea," he said. She smiled and that was the end of the conversation... at least at that time. They would pick up where they left off at home. Home, it sounded so... final now. She got chills thinking about it.

"What's going on here?" Munch postulated, always able to butt his way into something he had no business butting into.

"Nothing that concerns you, Munch." Elliot explained before starting on his paperwork. Munch gave him an expecting look, that wasn't enough information for his conspiracy finding brain.

"And...?"

"And, it doesn't concern you." Elliot repeated.

That was the end of that conversation. Elliot looked over at Olivia and smiled, she smiled back. Fin and Munch were left to look at each other and shrug.... Whatever it was, it was a secret between the two of them and they wouldn't tell anybody about it until they needed to know about it. And, they obviously didn't need to know.

But Munch would figure it out.... There wasn't a secret that he couldn't crack.

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A/N: I think this one is coming to an end sometime soon. Not sure though... but who knows. Anyway, leave me something sweet! I wanna know what you guys think... even if it's kind of bad. If it's really bad then... please keep it to yourself, only constructive critisism will do ;) (of course, nice reviews are always welcomed!)