Thanks for the reviews everybody! Katydidit-You just can't get over that last line huh? You're just going to beat it like a dead horse aren't you? After I was all nice and wrote that Munch chapter for you. Fine, just keep making fun of me then. –Evil glare- Since you have absolutely diminished my self-esteem and any confidence I once had in my writing skills, I'm just going to go hide in a dark corner and stay there, refusing to update ever again. Seriously, I was heavily medicated on cold and allergy medicine when I wrote that. Leave me alone! And see if I ever update again.:( Humph! … Just kidding, kind of… ;) AglaiaWar-Allergies are horrible, aren't they? I hope you stay lucky and yours don't kick in. nem-Glad you approve of the chapter. ;) Gotta keep up the tension. Anyway, sorry about your cold, that totally sucks. I know, let's call AglaiaWar and have a pity party! I'll bring the tissues!

Now I'm posting two chapters, and you all better worship me for it. I just spent three straight hours writing this. And believe me, it's definately worth it. Oh, and if you want to make me reallyhappy check out the Song-fic I just wrote called "He Oughta Know That By Now." It's about Kathy and it's really good, I promise!

By the way, I had these two strange ideas, one for this chapter and one for the next. They should be pretty apparent (The time-out and handcuffs). Once I come up with an idea, I can't help but go with it, strange or not.

Silent Treatments and Time Outs, How Mature

A group of immature eight-year-old friends fighting with each other. That's the first thing that popped into Cragen's mind as he gazed out the window of his office and watched his detectives in the squad room. Each were sitting at their respective desks with their eyes glued to computer screens and files. Olivia, Elliot, and John acted as if everything was normal, aside from the cold wars going on. Fin seemed to be the only neutral party, glancing up awkwardly every now and then to see if anything had changed.

No one elaborated on what happened between Elliot and John, or on Olivia's outburst. But it wasn't hard to see where the grudges lay. Elliot and John hadn't even looked at each other all day, Olivia seemed to be miffed at both of them, especially Elliot, all of which left Fin to be the middleman. He'd spent the whole morning passing messages and cases back and forth between each of them.

Don just sighed and shook his head, pacing away from the window and towards his door. If they expected to make any developments on their cases, all these cold shoulders and silent treatments had to end. Even so, Cragen couldn't help but feel like a baby-sitter trying to solve a fight between siblings.

"All right, I wanna know what's going on with the three of you!" He demanded harshly, moving his glance from Elliot, to Olivia, to John, and back around as he waited for someone to speak. Elliot looked up at Don, then inverted his eyes towards a wall. Olivia indiscreetly shot a glare to her partner, before turning to Cragen with a blank expression. John watched Elliot from the corner of his eye and his face twisted into anger as he spoke first.

"Why don't you ask the self-righteous hypocrite over there?"

Elliot snapped his head back around to reveal the fire in his eyes at John's remark. "I'm not the one who's been divorced four times and criticizes somebody else because their wife left them!"

"Why in the hell do I even talk to you!" Munch threw his hands up in incredulity. "Oh right, because Olivia wanted me to."

"Hey!" Olivia shouted in sudden defense. "Don't bring me into this!" She held her hand up to her collar. "I told you to talk to him, not get in some huge fight!"

"Please! You knew damn well he'd never tell me anything!"

"You recruited Munch to dissect my personal life!" His eyes widened and he turned to Olivia.

"What the hell was I supposed to do! All you've done lately is push me away!" She smacked her hands against the desk and pulled herself to her feet so that she was looking down at Elliot.

"Because it's none of your business!" Elliot stood as well and leaned threateningly closer towards his partner.

"That's it!" Cragen stood at the side of their adjoined desks and held his arms between them like a bouncer breaking up a fist-fight. "All of you. In my office now!"

--XXX--

"Are any of you going to tell me what's going on or are you all going to give me the silent treatment like a bunch of little kids?" Cragen impatiently tapped his pencil against the top of his wooden desk as he studied the three feuding detectives. Each had shoved themselves into a separate corner of the office and had refused to make eye contact with anyone. When no one took advantage of the silence to explain anything, Cragen sighed and rubbed his forehead with his forefinger and thumb. "Fine. Then I'll treat you like little kids," he declared as he rose to his feet. "Everybody, stay where you are." Don walked around the edge of his desk to the door. "You're all in time out. I'm locking the door behind me and none of you are leaving until you work things out."

As the three stunned detectives opened their mouths to protest, Cragen slammed the door behind him. Sure enough, they heard the metal clicking of the lock engaging. The six eyes just stared at the door as they tried to comprehend what had just happened. It took only a minute for the reality to sink in and for the confusion to turn into frustration and hostility.

"This is all your guy's fault." John took a seat on the left-hand side of the room on top of an empty table.

"Our fault?" Elliot and Olivia repeated in unison as they stared at Munch.

"You're the ones with some huge, unresolved issue with each other. I was just forcefully dragged into it."

"Right, you're so innocent," Elliot shot back and stepped out of his corner on the other side of the room.

"Would both of you shut up?" Olivia's request came out as more of a demand as she fell back into an unsteady wooden chair. "At least act like you can stand to be in the same room for five seconds." She rubbed the bridge of her nose, right between her eyes to try and soothe the throbbing headache that she felt coming on.

Elliot turned his back to John and shook his head as he paced around. "I can't believe Cragen locked us in here." Just to be absolutely certain of their imprisonment, he grabbed the doorknob and twisted it left to right. Jiggling it a final time, he let his hand drop down to his side. "This is ridiculous."

Sighing, Olivia's eyes scanned over the room for some means of escape. There was no way she could stay cooped up in this room with Elliot and John and listen to them bicker and argue. A soft, irritated moan escaped her as she saw that the only way out was through the office door. "I don't have the energy to stay in here all day with you two." She cupped her forehead in her left palm and leaned forward in the chair.

"But you somehow manage to muster up the energy to butt into my life," Elliot muttered under his breath, leaning against the door with his arms folded.

"Which I wouldn't have done if you'd just get over yourself and tell me what's up with you!" Olivia's voice steadily rose as she jumped to her feet and faced her partner. The two stubborn detectives locked eyes, about a foot away from each other. John shifted on the table as he cautiously watched on. The two looked like they were both seconds away from physically attacking each other.

"What part of 'none of your business' is too hard for you to understand?" He slightly leaned forward, trying to intimidate Olivia into backing off. She merely mirrored his actions, too headstrong to give up.

"John's right," she declared, surprising the detective that had been silently minding his own business in the corner of the office. "You are a hypocrite." Olivia brought her finger and jabbed it into his chest, hard enough to draw him backwards. "When I say it's none of your business, you stalk me and wind up asleep in front of my apartment door."

"Because I was concerned," he tried to defend himself, softening up at her true accusations.

"Well maybe I'm concerned!" Olivia screeched and slammed her fist against Cragen's desk, causing Elliot and John to jump. Her cheeks were flustered in a rosy red color as the shell she'd formed around her repressed fury finally shattered. "Damnit Elliot!" Olivia took a deep breath, allowing her anger to melt away, leaving behind only hurt. She locked stares with Elliot and studied his eyes while tears glistened in hers. Her voice was quiet in betrayal. "When did you stop being able to trust me?"

"Liv…" Her words knocked the very breath from Elliot as she began to back away from him, shaking her head. The last thing she wanted to hear from him was more excuses. Her heart couldn't handle any more.

"I never…" Elliot's eyes remorsefully scanned her face as he desperately searched for something to take back his words. He couldn't believe he'd hurt her again. His intent had only been to push her away, not bring any more tears to her beautiful chocolate eyes. How did he always manage to cause the people he loved so much pain?

"Don't." Olivia turned her back, protectively wrapping her arms around her shoulders as she hid her face from sight. It was an attempt to hide the tears that both men had already seen. She wasn't the emotional one, so why did every little thing Elliot say cause her such grief? Because you're realizing that he doesn't care for you the same way you care about him.

A clicking noise suddenly brought the group's attention to the front of the office. The door opened to reveal a frowning Cragen. "What's going-?" He was cut off as Olivia pushed by him, running out of the room.

"Wonderful idea, Cap, locking us in here." John commented sarcastically, patting Cragen on the shoulder.

--XXX--

"I just don't get it! Why won't he talk to me?" Olivia threw her hands in the air and increased the speed of her pacing as she bounced from one wall of the room to another.

"'Cause he's Elliot," Fin shrugged and braced himself against the back of a chair, becoming dizzy from his eyes following Olivia. He'd followed her into an interrogation room after she had fled from the Captain's office.

"But I'm his partner! We're supposed to be able to talk to each other," she insisted, running both her hands through her hair. "I have to do something."

"Whoa." As she strode by Fin, he seized the chance to step in front of her and force her to stand still. "Baby, first you gotta stop running around in circles before you make my eyes roll into the back of my head." He rested his hands on her shoulders and successively blinked his eyes to straighten out his vision.

"Sorry." She pulled uncomfortably out of his grip and sat against the edge of the table. She folded her arms and stared at her feet. "It's just, I know something is off lately with him." No matter how many times she asserted that and came up with the same answer, Olivia somehow expected it to change. Isn't that the definition of insanity? Her own mind mocked her. "Why can't he just talk to me?" She pleaded to herself.

"Like I said, he's Elliot." Fin copied Olivia's stature against the table right next to her, searching her helpless face. When his repeated answer bore no reaction from Olivia, he decided to give an example of what he meant. "How'd you find out he and Kathy split up?"

"Through the lawyer of a victim who claimed Elliot sexually harassed her. But what's that got to do with anything?" She stared back at Fin with puzzlement in her eyes.

"It means that he didn't tell you. Elliot wants to keep his work life and his personal life totally unconnected, like everyone else in this kinda work."

"I know he does, but he used to be able to tell me things, even if I had to ride his ass for days about it." She threw in the last part jokingly, getting a chuckle from Fin, but barely pulling a meek smile onto her own face. Olivia's face quickly fell as she moved her gaze to the linoleum floor.

"Liv, it's probably something personal that he just doesn't want to involve you in." To lighten up her mood, he threw a sly grin on his face as he added something. "Or that he doesn't want the whole squad to know."

"What's that supposed to mean?" She bent her head against her shoulder and studied his face, unsure what she was supposed to interpret that as.

"Remember I said something to one of the MEs about my son? It wasn't a day after when John started asking me about it." Olivia slightly blushed as she recalled the incident. She'd never heard any mention of a 'little Tutuola running around,' so she asked Munch if he knew anything.

"How's your son doing?" She wondered with genuine interest.

Fin bit his lip and shrugged in a 'so-so' fashion. "He can still hold a grudge like his old man, but it's better." He waited a few moments before speaking again. "Olivia, if you think whatever he's not telling you is important, then just try talking to him, without snapping his head off."

"He won't talk to me, that's the problem."

"Girl, this is you we're talking about. If anyone can get him to open up, it'd be you." He playfully shoved her shoulder, finally managing to bring a real smile to her face, followed by a roll of her eyes and a comment about 'acting your age'. "And if he doesn't want to listen, give 'em hell and make 'em."

"Only if you carve that into my headstone after Elliot kills me for grilling him again," Olivia joked, receiving a throaty laugh from Fin as a plan starting unfolding in her mind.