Author's Note: Seems about three-quarters of the readership wants Casey and Olivia to get together, while the other one quarter doesn't. This is hard for me because I don't want to disappoint people, but at the same time, I want to please people. To the ones I'm disappointing, I'm truly sorry. But as a consolation, this is about as graphic as it will get, because it's just not within me to do smut. ;)

Casey gasped and awoke to pitch-black. Confused, disoriented, and thinking that it was entirely too dark in the hospital, she pushed herself up onto her elbows. After a second or two, she realized that she was at home in her living room and that a dream, the details of which had already slipped her mind, had woken her from a sound sleep. The clock on her cable box told her that it was just after three in the morning, entirely too early to get out of bed. With a slight groan, she settled back under the covers and closed her eyes, willing herself to go back to sleep.

She was just drifting off again when she felt an arm snake over her hip. Starting awake, she turned over and found herself face-to-face with Olivia Benson. Before Casey could even begin to remember just what had caused this turn of events, Olivia scrunched her nose and opened her eyes for a moment, disturbed by the sudden movement. "You all right?" she whispered sleepily.

"Yeah," Casey whispered back. "Go back to sleep."

Olivia turned over, facing away from the ADA, and tugged the blankets tighter around her shoulders. Casey smiled and now that the moment of panic had subsided, she was able to remember falling asleep on poor Olivia. The detective must have nodded off not long after, because although Casey just barely remembered asking Olivia to stay, she had figured she would sleep in the bedroom.

Once she was sure Olivia had gone back to sleep, she climbed out of bed, walked over to her desk, and turned on her laptop. Since she was wide awake, she figured she might as well research a couple of details about foster parenting and adoption. She looked over her shoulder only once to make sure the dim light from the laptop wasn't disturbing Olivia.

She had been at the computer for about half an hour and had nearly two full pages of handwritten notes when a voice spoke up from behind. "Adoption?" Olivia asked, squinting at the computer.

Startled, Casey slammed the cover of the laptop down and whirled the chair around to face the detective. "Jesus! I-I'm just doing a little research."

"Research at three-thirty in the morning? On adoption? Casey--"

"You know something? I really don't want to have this conversation at three-thirty in the morning." Casey stood up from the desk chair and started to walk towards the kitchen to get a drink of water.

"But we've had this conversation already. Twice."

The ADA abruptly turned on her heels, her eyes glittering with anger. "No! You've told me that ACS won't let me take her, and I've said, 'Yeah, maybe you're right.' But you know what? Let ACS tell me that themselves." Spying the surprise on Olivia's face, Casey softened and lowered her voice. "Look, I get that you're just trying to protect me, but do you really think that I think that her first night here is going to be spent painting each other's nails and braiding each other's hair and watching movies? She's going to be sick. She's going to be hurt and confused and pissed off. It's going to be hard and it's going to take time. I know that."

"I just don't want you getting hurt," Olivia said softly.

"I appreciate that, Olivia, truly, but someone needs to think of Maddie. She's eight years old and she has no one. They're not going to let Shirley Miller take her, are they?"

Olivia hesitated before answering, not wanting to further Casey's determination. "Shirley Miller's living on Social Security and can barely afford to take care of herself, never mind an eight-year-old."

Casey bit her lip in disappointment and then set her shoulders. As Olivia had expected, Casey's determination had risen with that news. "See? No one. She doesn't know what love is, Liv."

"And that's extremely sad," Olivia replied, "but why do you think you have to be the one that fixes everything?"

"You said yourself that the two of us connected for some reason. Maybe this is the reason. She needs to know that going home to an empty apartment and fixing herself dinner and putting herself to bed at eight years old isn't normal. She needs to be with someone who'll love her."

The detective put her hand to her head in confusion. "I understand that she needs to be with someone who loves her, but why is that someone you? A foster family will love her."

"A foster family won't know her."

"Casey, you don't know her!" Olivia knew she sounded exasperated, but she didn't care. She didn't understand why Casey was so unwavering in her decision to adopt Maddie, despite the impracticality of it. "You've spent, what, six hours with her total? Why are you trying so hard to do this?"

Casey paused, took a deep breath, then cleared her throat before speaking up softly. "Because I know how the system works and I know that it doesn't always. Come on, Olivia, you see latchkey kids are in the squad room every single day for one reason or another. Victim, perp, doesn't matter. I just don't want to be prosecuting this kid ten years from now and thinking that I could have prevented it."

Olivia instantly softened at Casey's admission, and she knew that with Casey's conviction and urge to help, there would be no way that Olivia could change her mind. So rather than continue to argue with her, she relented. "It's late. Let's go back to bed and then in the morning I'll take you to the hospital so you can see Maddie and then we'll go down and talk to ACS."

Casey smiled widely in gratitude. "Thank you."

"But if ACS tells you point blank that you can't take her--"

"I'll drop it," Casey promised. She headed back towards the sofa, yawning. She crawled into bed and pulled the covers tight around her shoulders.

Olivia climbed onto the sofabed next to her, settling on top of the covers, and ran her hand over Casey's arm. "Just get some rest, hon." The ADA nodded and closed her eyes, a stray lock of hair falling across her cheek. Olivia pushed the hair behind Casey's ear and frowned; her cheek felt hot against the tips of Olivia's fingers . "You feel okay?" she asked softly, pressing the back of her hand against Casey's forehead.

"I'm sleepy," Casey replied, shrugging slightly.

"It feels like your fever's coming back. They sent you home with some Tylenol, right?"

"Mmm-hmm."

"Where is it?"

Casey shrugged again and sighed softly. Olivia could tell that the ADA was dropping off to sleep, but she also knew that she needed to get the medicine into her before her fever could spike. She slipped off the bed and headed to the bathroom, figuring that even if Casey hadn't put away the Tylenol the hospital had given her, she could find something to control the fever.

After poking around the medicine cabinet, she grabbed a bottle of Advil and fished out two of the pills, then poured a glass of water. She carried both back out into the living room and set the water on the endtable as she sat down on the bed. Gently, she nudged the ADA. "Casey, you need to take some medicine."

"Mmm, later."

"No, now. Please? For me?" Casey gave a half-smile and sleepily opened her eyes, holding out her hand. Olivia dropped the pills into her open palm. "Sit up a little; you need to take a drink of water."

Reluctantly, Casey pushed herself up onto her elbow, popping the pills into her mouth, and took the water from Olivia's hand. After downing a sip, she handed the cup back to the detective and laid back down. "Can I go to sleep now?"

"Yes," Olivia chuckled. "Sleep tight."

"You coming back to bed?"

"I will," the detective assured her. Olivia smiled and once again brushed Casey's hair behind her ear. She then walked around to the other side of the bed and settled down on top of the covers, tugging one of the unused pillows under her head. After a few minutes, Casey turned over with a small sigh and snuggled closer to the detective, resting her head on Olivia's shoulder. Olivia opened her eyes. "Casey?"

The ADA was already asleep; she didn't respond. Olivia smiled, curled her arm around Casey's shoulders to run her fingers through her hair, and closed her eyes, allowing the steady rhythm of Casey's breathing to lull her to sleep.

-----

The bright mid-morning sunshine rudely pulled Casey out of her slumber. Groaning tiredly and muttering choice curse words under her breath, she pulled the sheet over her head in an effort to block out the light. After a moment, she opened her eyes and she was surprised to discover that she was snuggled next to Olivia and that the detective's shoulder had been doubling as her pillow. She quickly scooted over, hoping that Olivia hadn't noticed their close proximity.

Her hopes were dashed at the sound of Olivia's chuckling. "Good morning, sleepyhead."

"Good morning," Casey replied, her cheeks flushed. "How long have you been up?"

"About an hour." Olivia sat up and massaged her shoulder, which had gotten stiff from the hours of Casey lying on it.

"You should have woken me."

"I tried. You sleep like the dead, Counselor." She climbed off the bed with a yawn. "We have to get going, though. It's already ten past ten and we've got a busy day ahead of us."

Casey threw the covers off her legs and started to get up, then hesitated. Though she was sure they didn't have time for serious conversation, she had to figure out just what had been happening over the past week. Most of the things that Olivia had done for her over the past week could have been easily explained as a friend taking care of another friend, but some of the things that had gone on between the two of them were beyond friendship. "Olivia?"

"What?" The detective turned her attention to Casey.

"Last night, when you said you didn't want me getting hurt … why?"

"Why?" Olivia shot the ADA a perplexed look, as if the answer to that question should be obvious. "Why would I want any of my friends to get hurt?"

"But this is different … isn't it?"

"Jesus, Novak, you're not going to start freaking out on me because we shared a bed, are you?"

Casey bit her lip; maybe she had been reading too much into Olivia's words and actions. Though, as she looked the detective over and found Olivia unwilling to meet her eyes, it became clear to her that Olivia was as nervous as she was. "It's not just last night, Liv. It's everything. You can't tell me that if it had been Munch in the hospital, you would have been taking care of him the way you were taking care of me. You can't tell me you would have stayed the night in his apartment."

Olivia inhaled nervously as she sat back down on the edge of the bed. "I was terrified when you got sick. It kind of surprised me how scared I was. And I kept telling myself that I was just scared because you're a friend and you were really sick, and even though I didn't want to, I started thinking about what would happen if we lost you. And it was beyond that the squad couldn't handle losing another ADA. It was that I was scared of losing you."

Casey took a deep breath in and gave the detective a half-smile. "I was afraid I was going to lose you, too. As much as I kept saying I was fine and that it was nothing … I was terrified. But I was most afraid of leaving you."

"So … what does this mean?"

"I don't know," Casey answered hesitantly. "What do you want it to mean?" Please oh please don't let this backfire on me, she thought.

"I-I don't … I mean, I'm not--"

"Forget it," Casey said sadly. Backfire. Duck and cover. She turned her back to the detective and started to climb out of bed.

"No, Case, wait." Olivia reached out and grabbed the ADA's hand, stopping her in her tracks. "It's not what you think. It's just I'm nervous … I'm scared that I'm going to screw this up somehow. And I don't want you getting hurt; I care too much about you."

"I'm terrified, too, Liv. I don't want you getting hurt any more than you want me getting hurt. But if we let our fears run this into the ground before it even gets airborne …"

Olivia tightened her grip on Casey's hand, smiling timidly. "You really think we should try it?"

The ADA gave Olivia a smirk. "Well, you're the only one who's ever called me 'Case' and lived to tell the tale."

"You don't like it?" Olivia asked, frowning. "I didn't know--"

"I typically don't like it. For you, I can make an exception."

The detective grinned, then leaned forward and planted a soft kiss on Casey's cheek. "Come on. We have to get going," she whispered before pulling away.

Casey's breath caught in her throat, then she smiled back and climbed off the bed. Her mind was swirling with possibilities and she felt like she could accomplish anything. Now, it was time to focus her attention on preparing her argument to ACS. Who knows? she thought. Maybe I can make it two for two today. She had taken a chance on Olivia, and Olivia had come through for her. Hopefully, ACS would come through for her as well.