A/N: Sorry, but I've just been very busy.

For once, Olivia couldn't wait to arrive at a crime scene. She jumped from Andy's car so quickly the moment they arrived at the Cathedral that she collided with a man standing in the crowd on the sidewalk. "Hey, watch it lady," he growled, his lip curled in an affronted sneer.

She didn't bother saying anything, but simply shoved her badge under his nose. He immediately backed off. Performing the same magic trick with a dozen other people, she fought her way to the front of the crowd. Without turning, she knew that Andy was directly behind her. There was no way she could really escape from him here. Or anywhere. Nothing she did seemed to put him off.

Her own tactics were the most likely source of blame for that, though. As she stepped past two whispering, pointing women, she performed a quick catalogue of the things she'd done to discourage him in the past day. For every kick, slap and insult, she found a kiss, smile or nostalgic moment. It was almost like she was taking one step forward and two steps back for every hour she spent with him. If things progressed at their current rate, they'd be engaged again by the time they caught Paige.

Paige. They were pushing their way through an alley behind St. Patrick's on a cold Friday evening because they were trying to catch a serial killer. She gathered herself by pulling her scarf tighter around her neck and nodded to Fin, who was waiting behind the tape. "We got some problems."

As Olivia ducked under the tape, she decided that she already knew what they were. The location was different, but everything else was the same – crime lab techs, precinct cops, Warner and her assistant – not Davis but some other guy who looked too young to be working in the ME's office – SVU detectives, US Marshals. And a naked, mutilated dead girl.

Fin continued speaking but she found herself unable to pay attention, her thoughts wandering back to the conversation she and Andy had had in the car, despite the equally grim scene in front of her. Why did he keep wanting to talk things through? It didn't make sense for him to try so hard now when he'd always given up so easily before. Or had he been telling the truth when he'd claimed that he'd just been trying to give her what she wanted? She found it hard to believe that someone as bull-headed as Andy Eckerson would repeatedly give in to her demands, without so much as a word of argument.

It was a weak defense, at best. He couldn't honestly expect her to believe that she possessed that much power over him. If he were telling the truth though….

She allowed her gaze to linger on his face for a moment, reminding herself of the expression he'd had when she'd told him he scared her. It was a lie, of course. It wasn't Andy that frightened her, exactly; it was the lack of control over her own feelings that she experienced every time she got too close to him. It hadn't been a problem when they'd first been together, had been exciting even, but now it was unwelcome. Working at SVU had always been her goal, but she hadn't expected the continual strain on her emotional control to be so intense. Adding Andy to the mix was out of the question. She told herself she was right in telling him she couldn't be with him. He was overly attentive and demanding of constant assurance and considerate and… she didn't want to think any more about all the things that Andy was and wasn't and could be.

She nodded mechanically as Fin spoke, still not listening to him. What she really wanted was a few days away from it all - a few days of shopping and eating out with friends she never saw anymore and not having to think about work. Maybe even a date.

She glanced at Andy again, but Dr. Warner's approach and greeting caused Olivia to refocus her attention on the scene.

"You finish your assessment, Doc?" Fin asked, indicating the coroner's attendants, who were now lifting the body onto a stretcher.

"I'll conduct the autopsy as soon as they deliver the body," Warner replied. "Sorry, but it doesn't look like I'm going to be able to tell you anything helpful. There's a considerable amount of vaginal bleeding, more than I noted on the other victims, but that could just be an indication of increased violence during the rape. I'm sure that's not the kind of lead you're looking for."

"She looked like she'd been cut up a little more than the first two, too," Fin continued.

Warner gently lifted the sheet covering the girl's face. "It's the same cut pattern. He may just have let her bleed longer. Or she might have a clotting condition that caused her to bleed more profusely. That could explain the excessive vaginal bleeding, but I'll have to run some tests before I can tell you."

As Olivia looked at the girl's mutilated face, her stomach seemed to drop by degrees until it lay on the cold ground.

Fin, who had already seen the body, did not sound affected as he said, "We'll probably be back at the precinct by the time you're ready for us. Thanks, Doc."

Olivia swallowed hard, watching the coroner's attendants shut the doors of their black van before turning to Fin and Andy. "That wasn't Sarah Obertello," she stated bluntly.

Both looked at her quizzically. Fin spoke slowly as he replied, "No. Vanessa Southern. Senior at BC."

She realized that Fin must have been filling them in about the identity of the victim as she had tuned out. She glared at Andy for a moment, as if he'd actively been distracting her from her job, before saying, "BC? As in Boston College?"

"Well, it's not British Columbia," Munch said, approaching with Healey and standing next to them.

Healey added, "It's just as well because the RCMP was incredibly uncooperative when we were forced to work with them last month and while I don't have any personal experience working with Boston PD, I've heard from a number of sources that they're much more reliable than other…"

Munch interrupted, "Cragen's already putting in a some calls to track her down." He paused, adjusting his hat in the wind. "You realize what this means?"

Even Healey was silent as Olivia said, "Jesus, Paige could have any number of girls from…from anywhere stashed." She stared down, preferring to contemplate the frozen blacktop instead of the hopeless expressions of her colleagues. They were going to have to start pulling missing persons reports from the entire East Coast. She suddenly felt incredibly selfish. How could she be so focused on herself when innocent girls were dying? Willing herself back to the moment, she asked, "Where's Elliot?"

"Turns out a nun found the body," Fin supplied. "We figured the altar boy could take care of the questioning. Aw, there he is."

Elliot emerged from a nondescript door of the church and walked over to the group. He acknowledged Olivia with a nod before recapping his interview with the nun. "Sister Catherine never saw the person who left the body. When she came out at 5:30 to put some trash in the dumpster, she saw it and called it in." He glanced down at his notebook. "I also spoke with a secretary who said she was out here taking a cigarette break just before 5. She didn't see the vic, but she did see the same car pass the entrance to the alley at least three times in the ten minutes she was out here."

Fin scowled. "Lemme guess…blue Jeep with wood paneling."

"No." Elliot checked his notes again. "Old Volvo station wagon, white, driver only, no passengers."

"I hope none of you used to drive a Volvo," Munch said, only half-joking.

The four detectives and two Marshals stood in the cold alley, not one of them willing to admit defeat. Fin abruptly spoke up, "The precinct cops have asked around, and they haven't found any witnesses to the drop, but they don't know about the station wagon. Maybe Elliot and I could go through the block with them again, see if someone saw somethin'."

"Right," Olivia said, eager to take some action. "So, the rest of us can head back to the precinct and start looking for white Volvo wagons while we wait on the crime lab."

They parted company and Olivia once again felt Andy on her heels as she pushed through the crowd to his car. She gave a terse, "No comment," to a knot of reporters that had collected behind the pack of oglers and jumped into the car almost as quickly as she'd gotten out of it. Andy joined her a moment later, starting the engine and navigating the cluster of news vans double-parked on the curb.

As soon as they were free of the spectacle at the scene, he asked, "You okay?"

"Yeah. You?"

"I'm not the one who spaced at the crime scene." In spite of his slightly teasing tone, he was looking at her with concern. "You're really okay?"

"I'm just…I'm tired. I want this to be over."

"The case?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah," he repeated.

As they stopped at a red light, she was at a loss over what to say next. Admitting her fatigue had been a mistake. She yawned in an effort to overcome it. Her thoughts clouded. She was speaking again before she realized it. "I'm sorry I hit you. It was stupid and I shouldn't have done it."

He glanced at her, bewildered. "I…okay."

She smiled to reassure him. "Answer a question?"

"Uh, sure." He still seemed confused.

"Why aren't you mad at me?"

"I've been trying."

She was surprised by how good the honesty felt. Her head felt clearer, lighter. She continued, "You're a better man than I've ever given you credit for. I'm sorry for that, too. And I'm not really scared of you."

He was looking at her as if seeing her for the first time. "Where is all this coming from?"

"The light's green." She ran her hand through her hair, allowing her thoughts to flow from her new clarity. "I couldn't focus at the scene today because I was thinking about you, about the conversation we had in the car. I can't be effective in my job if I'm busy thinking about…other things."

"So, your internal efficiency inspector made you say all this?" He paused. "I shouldn't make jokes when you're finally being honest with me."

She smiled again. "Look, I just can't fight this anymore. At the very least, you're taking me out for a nice dinner after this case is over and I've had a nice long sleep and a shower at home. So we can stop talking about us now?"

"All right. One date. We don't discuss this while we're at work and then we take it from there."

"Right." She was starting to feel almost giddy by the time they arrived at the precinct.