Chapter 6
Olivia woke from a strange dream involving bunnies and a tap dancing clown in a top hat, neither of which made sense now that she was awake. In fact, nothing made sense as she found herself in an unfamiliar place, in an unfamiliar bed, with a bvery/b unfamiliar body pressed up against her back. Thinking back to the night before, she found herself scrambling to remember what had happened.
Lets see, I know I was at the precinct, I wasn't going home, or even planning on leaving the squadroom, so I wasn't drunk, which is a relief... But then where am I and how the hell did I get he-- wait, what is that picture off? Casey? What the-?
Olivia interupted her own thoughts to turn over, not wanted to disturb the body beside her but wanting to know who it was. What she found was a very pale skinned woman and a very red head of hair.
DAMN! How the hell did I end up here with Casey?
Getting up out of the bed, Olivia was relieved to find that she at least still had her clothes on, which unfortunately,
more often than not was usually not the case. She made her way to the kitchen, hoping that Casey kept her coffee in plain sight, because Olivia was in need of a serious caffine fix, and quickly.
Ten minutes and a half a cup of coffee later, Olivia still did not know what had happened the night before. She had finally remembered that she was extremely tired and had almost hit her head on the floor, saved only by Casey's quick reflexes.
But how Casey had managed to drag her from the precinct to her apartment while she was pretty much dead to the world was a mystery for the ages. Fortunately, Olivia only had to wait a few seconds for the answer as Casey padded sleepiy out from her bedroom.
"Good morning Olivia!" Casey flashed on of her signature smiles at Olivia, and for a moment, she forgot that she had forgotten how she had come to be with Casey.
"Good morning Case. Listen, what exactly happened last night?" Olivia asked, getting straight to the point.
Casey was slightly worried that Olivia couldn't remember but had still anticipated the question.
"Well, do you remember being at the precinct last night and taking a nasty spill off your chair?"
At Olivia's affirming nod, Casey looked visibly relieved.
"Well, after that, I walked you outside to the curb, and planned on hailing a cab and sending you home. But," Casey continued, with a hint of disappointment in her voice, "it became quite obvious from the fact that you were practically asleep in my arms that you are not taking care of yourself, so I decided to bring you back here and force a good night's sleep and a heathly breakfast in you." Seeing the look of relief on Olivia's face, she added quickly. "Nothing else happened, if that's what you're thinking."
Olivia, having no response to Casey's accurate accusation, smiled sheepishly and stared at her coffee, pretending to find something immensly interesting in its brown depths.
"I'll take your silence as a confirmation that you aren't taking proper care of yourself, and you know it. Jeez Olivia! I know that you want to solve this case, we all do, but you're ending up in the hospital or being half alert isn't going to help us, or any other case we work on. I swear, you drive me crazy worrying..." Casey tappered off, realizing that for the second time in less than 24 hours, she had slipped up again. She hoped that Olivia missed the comment. Casey's luck wasn't with her this time, as she soon realized, seeing the larger than life smile drift across Olivia's face.
"You worry? About me?"
Casey didn't have an immediate response for Olivia's question this time, instead her face giving her away by turning a fiery red color that almost matched her hair.
"Sure, I mean, we're friends, right? Friends worry about friends." Casey cringed inwardly at the bad cover up, and again at the look on Olivia's face. She couldn't quite place the look, and quickly shrugged it off.
Olivia, standing opposite Casey, couldn't help the wave of disappointment that had clearly washed over her face. She had hopef that this had finally been what she was looking for; a clue as to whether Casey liked her as much as she liked Casey. Dejectedly,
Olivia changed the subject.
"We started talking about those marks last night... I was looking through a site last night when you came, it appears that there's something equally as strange going on in a town in California called Sunnydale. There were tons of case logs that carried the same MO as our guy here, and the same signature bite marks and symbol."
Casey's face visably brightened at the thought of a break in the case.
"That's great Olivia!" Pondering what she had just said, it dawned on Casey what she had just said. "I mean for our case, obviously not for the victims, not good for them at all..." Being on the verge of babbling, Casey took a deep breath and continued.
"We should call the Sunnydale Police department and find out as much as we can about these cases." Casey slowly stopped speaking at the uncomfortable look on Olivia's face.
"I was thinking the same exact thing, except for one tiny problem." At Casey's weary look, Olivia grudgingly continued. "Sunnydale doesn't exist anymore. For reasons that are currently unexplainable, it collapsed into itself about a year ago."
Both woman let the information sit out in the open, not sure what to make of it. Common sense told them it was not possible, but the little nagging voice in the back of their mind told them that the events were connected. Olivia spoke first.
"I'm going to contact the LAPD. Call me crazy, but these events are connected."
Casey nodded. "I know. I can feel it."
"Come on, lets get ready, its going to be a long day."
Olivia and Casey both got ready, Olivia donning her clothes from the day before, willing to field any gutter-minded questions coming from her coworkers rather than waste time traveling to her apartment.
Casey and Olivia entered the squadroom together; they recieved some surprised looks from Munch, Fin and Elliot, but shrugged them off in favor of finding out whether they were going crazy or not. Olivia looked up the number for the chief of police in Los Angeles, but before she could dial the number, her phone rang.
"For goodness sake, what timing... Benson."
Casey was also annoyed at the apparent delay to their mission, but her annoyance turned to confusion as the conversation carried on.
"Hello, this is Detective Benson, correct?"
"Yes, may I help you?"
"My name is Willow Rosenberg, although that won't help you much with our problem or with us solving yours, but anyway-"
"Jeez Willow, get on with it!" Buffy could be heard yelling from the backround.
"Sorry!" She hissed back at Buffy. "Uh, we read about a problem in New York City that seemed similar to one that we had around here, and we'd like to help if we can."
Olivia was surprised, and looking over at Casey, she could tell that she could not only hear the conversation, but couldn't believe that they might actually have a break in the case as well.
"Where exactly is this 'here' that you are refering to?"
"Sunnydale, California."