A/N: I just want to say that you guys are seriously the absolute best. Long story, but last night I came home from work and sat down in my trusty lounger and started writing (over the sounds of my favorite SVU season, of course) and about 4 hours later I had a wonderful monster of a chapter containing about 4300 words. I tried to upload it, and had problems uploading the entire document, so then I broke it into 3 parts. I must have formatted something incorrectly because when I went to check on the chapters, there were a ton of special characters intermingled with the actual text of the story. So, I deleted the chapters and, like a MORON, I didn't save the original file because I expected it to upload without a problem. I was utterly devastated. So, by about 1:15AM, after an hour of trying to recover the file, I gave up. I rewrote the chapter, and maybe this time it will be better. I have had to accept the 'if it was meant to be, it was meant to be' mentality that I am not accustomed to. Because of the same concerns I have from last night, I will be updating this one whole chapter of almost 5,000 words into multiple chapters, so I apologize in advance if it doesn't seem to flow as well as it normally does. Thank you all for your concern through messages and comments. Enjoy!

Chapter 51

Sense

Olivia took her seat between Elliot and Kathy on the couch, occupying the front half of the cushion so they had room behind her. Moments later, Alex emerged from the hallway, taking a seat next to Casey on the love seat. Olivia noticed that Alex's cheeks were flushed: it wasn't exactly something anyone else would have noticed, but it was that pale pink color that Olivia was accustomed to seeing after they had made love. Olivia couldn't bring herself to look into Alex's eyes, but she just couldn't stop looking at other parts of the attorney.

She looked Alex over: from her flowing blonde hair to the flare of her 60's inspired jeans, Olivia couldn't keep her eyes off her body. She looked from her slender neck down into the small area of cleavage, spying the outline of her bra through her sheer Yankees shirt. The detective's eyes moved even further south, noting Alex's flat stomach and muscular thighs, leading down to her perfect calves. Olivia blinked as a memory of Alex's legs wrapped around her body overcame her. Before she could finish the memory, though, she felt Elliot tapping her on the shoulder.

Olivia looked toward Elliot as he motioned toward Cragen, who must have said something before that she didn't hear. Just as he was about to repeat it, however, Fin's door opened and Melinda Warner appeared. Quickly Fin laughed at her entrance. "Jeeze Mel, just walk in here like you own the place!" Everyone chuckled at this, and eagerly awaited a flat-toned, smartass, Melinda Warner response. Sure enough, they didn't have to wait long.

"You seem to forget that I have a key." She displayed her keys in the air, holding onto a solitary black-plated house key. Melinda and Fin both laughed at one another for a second before they looked at each other and realized everyone in the room was staring between the both of them. It took a second but Melinda realized just a second before Fin what everyone was so shocked about. "Guys! We're neighbors!"

A wave of understanding swept over the room, as Fin caught on to what everyone must have been thinking. "She feeds my fish!" Fin pointed to his fish tank and Olivia smiled when she remembered Fin's son, Ken, giving him those fish as a housewarming gift when he moved into this new apartment last year. Ken thought it would help Fin get a little more structure to his life, and no one in SVU is home enough to have a dog or cat, so Ken bought his dad two small fish, which Fin promptly named 'Busta' and 'Rhymes' after his favorite rapper.

Olivia snapped back to reality when she heard Fin begin speaking again. "Jesus guys. Just cuz Liv and Alex are-." He stopped himself, but the damage had already been done. He quickly doubled back to the fish subject. "Mel always takes care of these guys when I'm gone. She lives downstairs. Y'all know we don't have time for dogs and shit." Everyone else had jumped on the quick shift in conversation, and no one seemed to notice or hold onto Fin's faux pas. No one except Olivia and Alex, that is.

They made eye contact right when Fin had said it, and they both quickly looked away from each other. Alex noticed that Olivia didn't seem to want to hold any contact with her, so she looked away when Olivia did. Shortly after, however, her blue eyes were drawn back to the detective. Seated in the middle of the couch, she shifted to let Melinda pass in between the couch and the table, and when she did so her sweatshirt rose up and exposed the lower part of her stomach. Alex's stomach twisted in desire—even that small morsel of bare skin drove her crazy. She watched as Olivia readjusted herself a little on the couch and saw the small patch of tanned skin disappear beneath her shirt. Alex tried to memorize Olivia's body: she felt like she could draw every inch of it with her eyes closed, but at the same time it seemed like she hadn't seen Olivia in years.

Conversation went on around Alex-mostly Cragen, Elliot, Munch, Fin and Olivia discussing the Yankees game that was playing softly in front of them. The beautiful brunette detective was quiet, not nearly as intense or interested in the game as she normally would be, Alex noticed. After a few moments, Captain Cragen and Munch got up to leave. As they approached Olivia, Alex lent her ear to the previously tuned-out conversation.

"Feel better. It was good to see you, Liv." Captain Cragen grasped Olivia's shoulder and leaned down to give her a hug. She thanked him for coming over as John Munch leaned in and lowered his voice.

"Listen, this was worth it," he motioned to her hand. "I saw Conrad at Sing Sing today—he definitely got the worse end of the deal." He paused and Elliot chuckled behind Olivia, listening to every word John was saying. "Good job, kid." Munch playfully jabbed at her and pulled her in for a hug. "Feel better, ok?"

"Thanks for coming guys." Olivia waved to the two as they walked towards the kitchen table for Munch to retrieve his hat.

"See you Monday, Benson." Olivia sighed and smiled when she heard Cragen say this—it really felt like she was ready to be back, and hopefully nothing else like this would happen soon after. Munch and Cragen filtered into the hallway as Melinda took Cragen's empty seat next to Fin.