Olivia sat at her desk, head in her hands. The squad room was empty, everyone but herself having opted for sleep. She couldn't possibly sleep, not with the threat of Terry Paige hanging over three innocent girls. She tore her eyes from the new pictures on the board and, forcing herself to concentrate, focused on the Missing Persons report in front of her.

Half an hour later, after reading the same blurry line for the fifth time, she finally gave in to her need for rest, reluctantly closing the file. Before she could stand, a pair of hands settled on her shoulders. If the touch hadn't told her who was behind her, the cologne she inhaled with her next breath removed all doubt. She turned awkwardly in her chair and looked up at Andy, staring into his eyes. "What are you doing?"

His smile was kind, patient. "It's not a come on, Olivia, it's a back rub. You'll be pissed off in the morning if you're sitting here with a sore neck all night, so I'm really doing it to save myself grief."

She wanted to ask him to stop, but the pressure of his fingers kneading her neck and shoulders felt too good. Knots that had been bothering her since the previous day seemed to dissolve under his touch. She started to relax and found herself leaning her head against his stomach. She hoped her smile wasn't too obvious.

Ten minutes later, she was completely relaxed. Sighing contentedly, she said, "Thank you. I think I might actually be able to sleep now." She stood, but before she could move from behind her desk, she felt a gentle kiss at the nape of her neck. Turning, she found he had pushed her chair aside, removing the barrier between them. He was close, almost pinning her between his body and her desk. She started to get very nervous. "What if someone sees?"

Rather than replying, he kissed her, long and intensely. She tasted coffee and cola, but underneath she could taste him, his flavor as unique as his scent. It was too much to resist. She slid her hand around his head, encouraging him to continue the kiss. In the back of her mind, she knew she was in the squad room and should have been controlling her impulses, but she was too tired to care. She moved closer to him, bringing herself into full contact with his body and feeling him begin to harden through his clothes as she rubbed her hips against him.

He pulled back for a moment to look at her. His voice was deep and almost gruff as he said, "I want you. Now." She could only nod.

He swept his arm across her desk, clearing it of its odds and ends. Glass shattered as one of her framed photos hit the floor, but she couldn't have cared less. He pushed her back onto the desk, and she pulled him with her. The weight of his warm body on top of her created strange pressure points as her back pressed against the hard surface of her desk, but the thought of what was coming made her forget her discomfort.

He managed to unbutton her shirt and slide her pants and panties to her knees before she could even loosen his tie. Not bothering to lift her to unclasp her bra, he simply rolled it up, exposing her breasts. His teeth tugged at her nipples. He was being rougher than she usually liked, but she decided he was just nervous. He probably screwed on desks in police precincts about as often as she did.

"Andy..." She moaned as he caressed one of the strange sensitive spots on her body that only he seemed to be able to find. Having given up on his tie, she fumbled with the buckle of his belt, wondering why she should have such trouble removing his clothes when he had stripped her so easily. She finally got his pants undone, pushed them down, spread her legs and waited for the amazing...

"Liv?" Someone's hand was on her shoulder, making her jump.

Olivia sat up as her eyes shot open and found herself on a cot in the crib. Andy was sitting on the cot next to her, his hand hanging in the air where he had withdrawn it from her shoulder a moment before. She blinked hard to clear her vision of the image of him on top of her in the squad room. "Uh, W-what time is it?"

"About 7. I was just getting up and I thought you said my name."

"I must have been dreaming."

She didn't like the way he smirked. "Must have been a pretty good dream."

"What, I say your name so I'm automatically having some great dream?" She winced inwardly at her defensiveness and tried to play it off. "You've got an even bigger ego than you used to."

"Actually, it was the way you moaned after you said my name." His grin widened. "You were having a sex dream about me."

"I was not." She stood, running her hands through her hair to smooth it, and suddenly felt a wave of nausea. She didn't mind the occasional sex dream at home in her own bed, but in the precinct in front of the man she was dreaming about was enough to make her queasy. The middle of an investigation that centered on a serial rapist and murderer was quite possibly the worst time her subconscious could have selected to drop its none-too-subtle hint about Andy. She started as she realized the last time she'd associated sex with vomit she'd been pregnant. The unexpected reminder of her miscarriage made her want to get away from Andy even faster. She headed for the door.

He followed, apparently mistaking her haste for embarrassment. As they reached the door, he spoke again. "Was I good?"

Wanting nothing more than to wipe the smile off his face, she said, "No. You couldn't even get it up."

Rather than removing his smile, her comment added to it. "So you admit that you were dreaming about me."

Realizing her mistake, she resorted to an all-purpose comeback. "Shut up, Andy." She practically ran down the hall, eager to surround herself with people in the squad room. Being alone with him was getting more and more difficult. It was impossible to deny her attraction to him and she wasn't going to be able to restrain her need to talk about their relationship much longer. With the investigation going so poorly, she didn't know if she'd be able to deal with her own pain and memories along with everything building up around her.

As she walked into the squad room, she saw that Munch and Fin were already sitting at their desks, discussing something vague. "So you think it's gonna stop some time today?"

"Please, this isn't going to end any time soon."

Olivia was about to ask if something had happened in the case when she noticed that Munch was gesturing toward the window. She let out a shaky breath as she realized they were talking about the snow and not Paige. Walking to the window, she was shocked to see that New York had turned white overnight. The snow looked like it was a least a foot deep and showed no sign of letting up.

From across the room, she heard Fin say, "Anyway, looks like we won't be doin' any background on these girls today."

"Hey, and maybe Paige will see how bad the weather is and decide he should hold off on the torture, rape and murder so he can go out and build a snowman." Olivia would have smiled at Munch's sarcastic comment if it hadn't been so dishearteningly apt. They were going to be stuck doing nothing while Paige had total access to his victims.

"You don't gotta be so negative." Fin sounded exasperated, like he hadn't slept much. "We don't even know for sure if Paige has these girls. This is all just guess-work cuz we can't find any other leads."

"So it's just coincidence that one of four girls who disappeared over the weekend has turned up dead a few hours after Paige escaped?"

"That doesn't mean it's gotta be a conspiracy either. Nothin' like keepin' a positive attitude, John. Mornin' Olivia."

She nodded in greeting to Fin, sitting down at her desk. "Where's Elliot?"

"He's braving the elements to bring us much-needed sustenance," Munch said. "And to answer your next question, I believe this 'sustenance' will be coming in circular, frosted and hot, caffeinated forms."

She could hold back a smile. "Good. I'd hate to think we weren't behaving like stereotypical cops." The conversation ended as the phone on Munch's desk rang.

The prospect of donuts made Olivia think back to one of her first arrests. It had been an intoxicated college kid collared for drunk and disorderly. He probably would have gotten off with a warning instead of a misdemeanor if he'd chosen a different outfit when getting ready to go out; her partner had decided to arrest after seeing the slogan on the kid's T-shirt – 'Bad cop. No donut.' She and Andy had laughed over that one for a good while when she'd gotten home.

She immediately halted her wandering mind. Every time she had let her thoughts drift in the past day, they had always gone straight to memories Andy. Her total loss of control was beginning to scare her. What frightened her even more was what she might do to get it back. The last time she'd lost control of her relationship with Andy she'd willingly given up the happily-ever-after she'd thought she always wanted.

She had sat at her desk for almost an hour the previous night thinking about their breakup, something she had always avoided thinking about. For two months after her miscarriage she'd been living in terror that losing her baby was just the beginning. She had never known that losing anything could hurt so much and every day she started expecting a call telling her that Andy was gone too. After seeing him on the news, involved in a shooting no less, she had decided the only way to save herself more pain was to give him up on her own terms.

He'd ended up giving her the perfect excuse. She was surprised by the unprovoked attack in which he'd blamed her for having a miscarriage, but it saved her the trouble of explaining her real motivation for wanting to leave him. How could she ever have told him that she was so afraid of losing him that she could no longer be with him? Looking back, she couldn't understand her own logic. She wondered why she hadn't taken a friend's advice to talk to a psychiatrist or a counselor back then; she'd seen enough women battling depression during her tenure at Special Victims to finally understand that talking to a professional could have saved her a lot of loneliness.

She watched as Andy crossed the room, trying to reconcile what she felt for him now with what they'd shared before. She could still feel the old sparks, but she'd also spent ten years convincing herself that all they had left was that amazing sexual chemistry. Her emotions were jumbled, but what she did know for sure was that she still loved him. It was going to take a hell of a lot more willpower to dodge his advances, at least until she figured out if she loved him like she loved, say, Elliot, or if it were something more.

She steeled herself as he sat down in the chair next to her desk, saying quietly, "Sorry I pushed it upstairs. I just got...I don't know, a little excited that you were dreaming about me. I didn't mean to piss you off."

"It's fine." She took a deep breath. "I was just embarrassed."

His self-assured smile returned. "Embarrassed that you were dreaming about me or that I caught you?"

"Both."

He lowered his voice even more. "You, uh, never actually answered my question from earlier."

"What question?"

"Was I good?"

"You actually woke me up right before we got to that."

"Oh." He looked down at the floor, shaking his head. "So even dream-Andy's striking out."

She thought for a moment before answering, "It was really more of a rain delay."

"At the risk of sounding incredibly corny, would you give me the chance to make your dream come true?"

Drawing back for a moment, she wondered if she should take his bait. She had no doubt that he was masking a serious proposal under his facile come-on. Taking another deep breath, she said, "Look, I'm not gonna sit here and tell you I'm not interested, but I can't think about us right now, not with this case going on. Can we just put off discussing this until we've caught Paige?"

"Put off discussing what exactly?"

"The increasing national debt, Andy." She could tell he wanted a confession of her feelings; he was lucky he was getting a guarantee that they would talk. She needed more time to figure out how she really felt.

"Okay, I get it. Not the time or place. But you promise we'll talk once we catch Paige? And I mean a real conversation about our...about us."

"Yeah." She smiled as she realized she now had two reasons to look forward to the end of the case.