I've got Twenty Five Acts on the brain apparently. This falls between Harris and his big brass ego comment and when they meet in the courtroom. Based on Olivia's clothes, it's the same day. Yes, I looked. It's called research people! So that's what I'm going with.

You'd think that I could find
A true love of my own
It happens all the time to people that I know
Their wishes all come true
So I've got to believe
That there's still someone out there who
Is meant for only me

-Bryan White (Someone Else's Star)

She sat down on a bench in front of the courthouse, sipping her coffee and just people watching. She needed a moment for herself. She felt like her life was starting to slip away. After all of the Cragen mess and now this Cain accusation, it felt like she was a hamster in a wheel, running as fast as she can but getting nowhere at all.

She watched a family walk toward her – mother, father, son with dark brown hair, swinging in his arms between his parents. She smiled slightly as they walked past her, just jabbering away while his parents nodded along like he was saying the greatest things they have ever heard. She felt a twinge in her stomach looking at the little boy. She had never really thought about kids before, but recently she had found herself thinking about family, kids – but only at night or when she was alone. She never verbalized it. Brian would run for the hills.

She sighed, taking a sip of her coffee. Maybe that was OK. Was there really a future with Brian Cassidy? He was the job. More than she was the job. He always had been. He could see no further than the next case, the next bust, the next guilty verdict. She knew this when she started dating him, but was that her anymore? She wasn't sure. Maybe it was time to really think about her life and what she wanted. Moving up the ranks? That was starting to sound more and more like a good idea. A family? She looked up at the sky, at the clouds and the blue. Was there someone that might want that with her? Because Brian didn't. She didn't even have to ask him to know his answer. Elliot had moved on, fairly easily it had seemed. Maybe the life she knew wasn't going to be that hard to walk away from, to try to change. She needed to grow. The hamster on the wheel was an amazing analogy. Spinning and spinning and never getting anywhere. It was starting to make her feel old. She closed her eyes for a moment, sending up a wish, a thought… whatever she believed in at this point. She needed a sign or something. How to move forward and when – she didn't have those answers. She hoped she would get them. Soon. She thought if she wasted any more time, she might just come out of her skin. She needed to start moving forward. She wanted that. It was like that idea just bubbled up from deep in her soul and now it was stuck in her brain. Why shouldn't she be able to find that for herself? People found their lives every day. Maybe today would be her day.

"Liv" she heard. She opened her eyes and saw Amanda standing in front of her. "Harris is inside. He said this ADA has a couple more pre-trial hearings and then we can go talk to him."

Olivia nodded and pushed herself off the bench, tossing her coffee in the trash can nearby, adjusting her jacket.

"What's this guy's name again?"

"Barba."

"Sounds like a smug son of a bitch." Amanda choked a laugh out, nodding along with Olivia.

Soon they found themselves standing off to the side of the courtroom, watching the ADA take case after case and knock them down, right in a row. Each one gave him more pomp, more swagger, more confidence. Olivia rolled his eyes as she watched him pat the defense on the arm, like he was a child who needed to be redirected. She watched him catch Harris' eye and make his way over to them.

"I lied and told them you know your way around a courtroom" she heard Harris say as he took her hand. They met eyes for a long moment and suddenly, Olivia felt like that future she thought was fictional might not just be out of the realm of the possibility after all.