"So how'd you're big date with Casey go?" Fin asked John on Monday morning.
"It was fine," John answered without looking up from doctoring his morning tea.
"Fine! Fine! I happen to know you shelled out a small fortune for the tickets to Spamalot. Where were your seats, like center orchestra or something?" Munch nodded, sipped his tea and headed for his desk. "And I bet you took her some place fancy for dinner too, didn't you?" Again Munch just nodded. "Well?" Fin said exasperated.
"And we went to a nice place for dessert and coffee afterwards," Munch answered.
"You're killing him with the suspense," Elliot said with a laugh.
"Yeah man, get to it. What happened after dessert?" Fin asked.
"Grow up!" John said, tossed the file he'd just opened up down on his desk and left the squad room.
"What's eating him?" Elliot asked.
"I don't know. Maybe the date didn't go all that well. Man, and here I thought he and Casey were really getting serious," Fin said.
Just then Olivia came in, not looking at all chipper.
"What did you guys do to Munch?" she asked, like a mother scolding two siblings for having bullied a third.
"Nothing, just asked him how his big date with Casey went," Fin said defensively.
"Oh great, no wonder he had such a sour expression when I passed him stomping out of the squad just now," she said.
"Wait, do you know something about his date with Casey?" Elliot asked.
"More than I want to," Olivia said with a sigh and sat down at her desk.
"Well, give," Fin said.
"No," Olivia said emphasizing what she said by shaking her head. "If Munch wanted you to know the details of his personal life, he'd have already told you," this time she unconsciously emphasized her point by slamming the desk drawer she'd just opened.
"Looks like you and me are going to have a wonderful day, both our partners are in pissy moods," Fin said to Stabler.
"Let's switch, let them work together today," Elliot suggested.
"Good idea," Fin agreed, "Let's tell Cragen about the swap," he suggested.
Olivia sighed, "Great just what I need, to really be put in the middle of this mess."
Much later in the day, as she and Munch were driving to an address where they were to start the first shift of a stake out for a suspect, she decided she might as well get the inevitable over with, "So you want to talk about it?" she ventured.
"About what?" he asked, dodging the question.
She sighed. "Don't be that way with me, John. We've known each other far too long and helped each other through too much for you to treat me like I'm a prying stranger. Besides I'm already in the middle of this whether I want to be or not."
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"Alex came to see me the other night, and Casey dropped by this morning," she informed him.
"Well then you don't need me to tell you anything, I'm sure they've filled you in just fine," he said bitterly.
Yeah, well I'd like to hear your side of things," she said hoping that would pry the details out of him from his side of this little melodrama.
"Fine," he said in that way of his that said he was well and truly pissed off, but would comply. "You want my side of things? I was already to take Casey out on a very romantic date, in fact I was planning on giving her this," Munch pulled a jewelry box out of his pocket and deftly opened it with one hand.
"Oh my God John, it's beautiful," Olivia said as she stared at the engagement ring in his hand, and then quickly added. "Why didn't you give it to her? She knew you had it on you, and she was devastated that you didn't give it to her."
"What, how do you know that?" he asked sharply.
"I told you, Casey came by my place this morning. She told me that she felt the ring case in your coat pocket, but then you left without giving it to her and she couldn't figure out what she'd done wrong," Liv explained.
"Oh great," Munch said and hung his head back, before he could say more on the subject, he snapped his head back up, "There's our guy," he said and headed off after the perp.
'Great,' thought Olivia, 'Now I'll never know what's going on with him.'