Olivia reached across the table and stabbed her fork into the hash browns on Elliot's plate. They had both been awake since 4AM, and decided it was probably a good idea to get out of the apartment before temptation reared its' ugly head again.

"Hey." He pretended to protest. Olivia had been stealing food off his plate for years. She wouldn't order fries or other fatty food for herself, but she counted on the fact that he would, and always stole a bite.

"I'm still hungry." Olivia said. "And I thought what's yours is mine."

"Not yet." Elliot said with a grin.

Olivia was so embarrassed. She hadn't meant it like that, and she wanted to kick herself. Elliot probably thought she already had him walking down the aisle. "I…I didn't mean…"

Elliot grinned. "I know." He pushed his plate across the table towards her. "And you know I'll give you anything you want." He winked at her, and smiled when he saw a pink tinge in her cheeks. Olivia as his partner was one thing, but this other side of Olivia…it was intriguing. So far, he'd seen a blushing, shy, woman, a flirt, and an outright temptress. She had kept all those parts of herself hidden well over the years.

Olivia pushed the plate back towards him, recovering from her embarrassment. "You know I never steal more than a bite." She said. "Have to watch my figure."

"I'm been doing that for you, and you have nothing to worry about." Elliot said.

Olivia felt her cheeks flush again, but she had to admit that this flirting was fun. She didn't normally enjoy flirting with guys, or appreciate comments about her body, but coming from Elliot, it felt good. "In that case…" She pulled the plate back towards her and stabbed another forkful of potatoes.

"Of course, if you get fat…" Elliot teased, leaning back against the bench of the booth.

Olivia rolled her eyes. "You don't want to finish that sentence." She said with a small laugh.

Elliot leaned forward. "I'd still love you."

Olivia took another bite and smiled mischievously. "In that case…"

Elliot laughed again and watched her finish off the hash browns. He was just happy to see her eating, and it seemed like she was feeling better. He hadn't seen her wince while she was eating, and didn't seem to have a headache. There was no way she was going back to work today, so he knew she could rest again during the day while he was at work.

Olivia pushed the plate back before she could start in on the last piece of sausage on his plate. This was fun, and even though they'd eaten hundreds of meals together, this felt different. It was almost like a morning after kind of breakfast, even though they didn't have sex.

She would remedy that soon enough.

Elliot followed her gaze as her eyes swept around the diner. "Seems like everyone here is either coming home from the bar or eating breakfast after a late-night romp." He grinned when he saw her expression, knowing he'd just voiced what had been going on in her head. "I know you Benson."

Olivia raised her eyebrows and pressed her lips together, tilting her head slightly. "Oh yeah? You think so." She challenged, even though she knew he was right. Sometimes he knew her better than she knew herself. "What am I thinking right now?"

Elliot leaned forward and put his elbows on the table. He looked around and then turned back to face her. He dropped his voice slightly and gave her a small grin. "You're thinking that you wished we were here for the same reason."

Olivia felt herself blush again.

He had her there.

EOEOEOEOEO

Olivia leaned forward in her chair, listening to Amy, who sat across from her on the couch on Chloe's apartment. Amy hadn't slept well, and Olivia was questioning her decision to go back to Boston today.

"I've already missed one day of work. How long am I supposed to sit here in New York City?"

"Until we get something to put Jason behind bars." Olivia urged.

"I don't even remember what happened." Amy said.

"They looked through the tape at the hotel and found that Jason brought you back around 10 yesterday morning. After the police had left. He had to know they were gone. That couldn't have been a coincidence. So, he had to have you somewhere close by. Fin and Munch have been tracking down video from the area around the hotel to try to track where he came from."

Amy shook her head. "They already did that."

"No, they pulled security footage from the club and the street where we…" she wanted to choose her words carefully. "Where we ran into Jason. They lost his trail there, but now that we know he went back to the hotel, we need to check footage from that area."

"I don't care. It doesn't matter. He's smart. He's not going to stop."

"That's the point." Olivia said.

"He hasn't hurt me." Amy said. "And I don't think he will."

"He hit me." Olivia said. "We know he's capable of physical violence." She wasn't looking for sympathy. She just wanted her friend to understand what they were dealing with.

"He thought he was protecting me."

"You're defending him?" Olivia asked incredulously.

"I'm not." Amy choked out with a sob. "I just don't know what else to do." Chloe was sitting next to her on the couch and she wrapped an arm around her and pulled her into her body, shooting Olivia a dirty look.

Olivia sat back in her chair and let out a sigh. She hadn't meant to be so hard on her friend. Maybe she was just too used to interrogating suspects. "I know." She said quietly. "Just give us one more day. Let us see what we can find and hopefully, we'll have enough to put him away."

Amy looked up from where her face had been buried in Chloe's shoulder. "Do you really think you can?"

Olivia didn't want to make any empty promises, but she saw the look of hope on Amy's face. "If anyone can find something, it's my squad."

EOEOEOEOEO

"Where's your partner?"

Elliot looked up and saw Tucker standing by Olivia's desk. He narrowed his eyes as Tucker rifled through the message slips on her desk.

"You know damn well she's on medical leave."

"Hmph." Tucker grunted. "She didn't look that bad to me."

Elliot gritted his teeth together, trying hard not to tell Tucker to go fuck himself. "She has a concussion. Jason Logan beat the hell out of her."

Tucker grunted again without saying a word. "So she says." He walked over to stand next to Elliot's desk and Elliot saw Fin stand up, as if ready for trouble. "I need to talk to her."

"About what?"

"You her commanding officer?" Tucker said in a snide tone. When Elliot didn't say anything, he added gave him a snarling grin. "I didn't think so."

"Just leave her alone. You know she didn't attack Logan." Elliot said, pushing himself out of his chair and standing tall. He glanced over at Fin and saw Fin was shaking his head, warning him not to get into it with Tucker.

"I don't know any such thing. Maybe she picked up some of your bad habits." Tucker said, not flinching at Elliot's posture or tone of voice…or his clenched fists at his sides.

"Olivia's a good cop." Elliot snapped. He couldn't stand anyone disparaging her character. Especially because she was nothing like him. She didn't resolve things with her fists. "And you know it."

Cragen picked that moment to walk back into the squad room, and it didn't take him long to spot Tucker and Elliot standing nearly toe to toe. He had as much disdain for Tucker as the rest of the squad, and he especially didn't like him going after Olivia.

"What the hell is going on here?" Cragen said, coming up to stand to the side of both men, facing them from the side.

Tucker and Elliot didn't break eye contact, despite Cragen's question.

Cragen put a hand on Elliot's shoulder. "Stand down."

Elliot didn't move for a few seconds. He wanted to force Tucker to look away, and he almost wanted to smile when he finally did. A small victory.

Tucker turned towards Cragen. "I need to talk to Detective Benson." He said, following as Cragen headed towards his office.

Elliot resisted the urge to follow him. He knew neither Tucker or the Captain would let him be a part of the conversation. He trusted Cragen to protect Olivia. He had a soft spot for Olivia…they all did.

He turned and saw Fin wave him over. He wasn't in the mood to hear some kind of lecture about not engaging Tucker from his fellow detectives, but he saw Munch stand up too, which peaked his interest.

"What's up?" He'd gotten an update from Cragen the night before, and knew Fin and Munch and a few others were looking through hours of video. He assumed that if they had something, they would have told him when he came into the squad room. But he had only been there a few minutes when Tucker had shown up, and Fin and Munch had come in almost right behind him.

"We've managed to get footage from several security cameras in the vicinity of the hotel." Fin said.

"That's great!" said Elliot. Maybe they could get something on Logan after all. "Let me see it."

"Hold on." Said Munch. "There's bad news with the good news."

Elliot grumbled. "What?" He asked impatiently.

"We have him half walking, half carrying Amy about two blocks from the hotel."

"OK." Elliot said, nodding.

"And we have a tape from about 2 blocks down for the same time period."

Elliot kept nodding. "So?"

"So…Amy and Jason Logan aren't on that tape."

Elliot took that in for a moment. "So, they parked somewhere in that two-block area."

Munch nodded. "Yeah."

"So, we do we have the tapes from that two-block area?"

"Were working on it." Fin said with a sigh.

"They could have come from any side street. There are parking ramps and other hotels. We don't know which direction he came from. The only thing we know is when they showed up, and it was about halfway down the block."

"It's a lot of area to cover."

Elliot scrubbed his hand over his face with frustration. But he knew they were doing the best they could. "I appreciate it. What can I do to help?"

Munch was about to speak when the door to Cragen's office opened and Tucker came out with Cragen right behind him. He stared at Elliot, but didn't say a word as he walked out of the squad room.

"Elliot, my office." Cragen said as he turned and walked back into his office.

Elliot watched Tucker leave, and then walked over to Cragen's office and closed the door behind him.

EOEOEOEOEO

Olivia had felt her phone buzzing, but she was trying to focus her attention on Amy. She and Chloe has been talking to her, and Amy had finally agreed to take a few extra days off and stay in New York City, if her boss didn't have an issue with it. They had both listened in while Amy explained that she'd been attacked, and it didn't seem her boss had any issue with giving her a few days. Especially since she had been in the city for work.

Once they had that settled, Olivia excused herself and went to the bathroom. She pulled out her phone, expecting to see messages from Elliot or updates from Fin or Munch, but instead she saw several missed calls from an unknown number. She was just about to listen to the two voicemails when a text from Elliot did come through. She opened that first.

"Don't answer your phone. Fucker is looking for you." Olivia didn't like the contents of the message, but she couldn't help smiling at the intentional misspelling on Elliot's part. Olivia finished using the bathroom, but texted him back before she left the small sanctuary.

"Got it."

When she walked back into the living room, she saw that lunch had been delivered and Amy and Chloe were settled at the table. She saw that Amy looked a little better. She had some color in her cheeks and was talking to Chloe. She even gave Olivia a small smile when she pulled out a chair. Obviously, the decision to stay had made her feel a little better, and Olivia hoped her squad could provide the resolution her friend needed.

"We made a pact." Amy said, resting her hand on Olivia's arm.

"Oh?" Olivia asked.

"Yes." Amy said, a small smile gracing her face. "We're not going to talk about Jason, or anything that happened, for the rest of the afternoon." She said.

Olivia smiled. This was the Amy she knew. Miss Optimistic. Miss Glass Half Full. She could make the best out of any situation, mostly by pretending it didn't exist. But Olivia was fine with that. She was tired of the whole mess, and agreed it would be nice to not think about it for a few hours.

"Let's talk about your partner." Chloe said.

"What?" Olivia asked, finding she hadn't been paying attention.

"I asked what we should talk about." Chloe said, and it reminded me of our conversation about your partner on Saturday night." Chloe looked at her expectantly. "You remember. At the club."

"Elliot?" Olivia asked. Of course, they were talking about Elliot, but she was playing dumb as she tried to think of some way out of this conversation. It was barely 2-1/2 days since she'd been out with Amy and the squad, and had vehemently denied any type of relationship between her and her partner. And now, she'd had his tongue in her mouth and his hands on her breasts.

Amy was looking at her with a sly smile on her face. "You're blushing."

Olivia clapped her hands to her cheeks, and immediately knew that was the wrong move.

"You are!" Amy said enthusiastically.

"I'm not blushing." Olivia said, dropping her hands quickly. "It's just warm in here."

"Un-huh." Chloe said with a smile on her face. "Spill the beans."

"I already told Amy. Elliot is my partner, and nothing else."

"You're full of shit." Amy challenged her. "I told you that the other day."

They spent the next several minutes trying to pump her for information, but Olivia had regained her composure and managed to deflect any questions. They finally gave up and talk turned to other matters, mostly Chloe's on again, off again relationship with a midtown lawyer. When they had run out of conversation, they had moved into the living room, and lost themselves in a movie.

A few hours had passed and Olivia couldn't stifle her yawns any more. She had only slept intermittently on the couch with Elliot, and they had finally given up and gone to breakfast. "I have to go home." She said. "I can't stay awake." She looked at her watch and saw it was 3 in the afternoon. If she was lucky, she'd be able to get home and take a nap before Elliot got home.

Home.

Maybe she was walking them down the aisle; making presumptions she had no business making. She had no reason to believe Elliot would come to her place after work.

Well…maybe she did. She honestly couldn't imagine that he wouldn't. He was overprotective before he had any real right to be. And now…

"Olivia?"

Olivia turned to face Amy.

"Are you OK?" Amy asked. "You zoned out."

Olivia gave her a smile. "See how tired I am?" She leaned in and gave Amy a hug.

Chloe chimed in. "I have to go to work tomorrow." She said. "Can you…?"

"Sure, we can hang out tomorrow." Olivia said. She knew Chloe worried about Amy being alone, and Olivia knew she didn't have any plans of her own. "I'll call you in the morning."

Olivia said her last goodbyes and headed down the elevator of the apartment building. She checked her messages, and was thankful she didn't have any more missed calls from Tucker. But she was a little disappointed that she didn't have any texts from Elliot.

Olivia was so intent on looking down at her phone as she moved through the lobby, that she crashed into a flower delivery man. She practically bounced off him, and she let out a small cry. She was usually so aware of her surroundings, that it totally caught her by surprise.

"I'm so sorry…" she started to say as the young man reached down to grab the spilled bouquet from the floor.

But as he stood up, she saw that she was face to face with Jason Logan.