Disclaimer: I don't own 'em…

A/N: I was feeling particularly playful with this one.

"Liv."

I felt myself being gently shaken and rolled over. "A few more minutes of sleep and then I promise I got one more in me, baby."

"Dammit, Liv. You better be imagining you're talking about somebody other than my daughter since you're in her apartment."

As the realization that it was Elliot trying to wake me dawned on me, my eyes flew open and I slid up to a sitting position on the bed I was in. My eyes darted around the room. My jeans, jacket and what looked like the rest of my clothes were tossed over a chair in the corner of the room. I pulled the sheet up tighter over me.

"Oh, now you're gonna be modest? You're almost naked in my daughter's apartment…in her bed. Liv, what the hell are you doing? And it better not be my daughter, 'cause if it is, I swear no one will ever find your body."

I blinked rapidly, trying to piece together the events since I had climbed out of that taxi and walked into that bar.

"Dad," Maureen said as she plopped down on the bed beside me, "Liv sleeps here a couple of nights a week after she's tied one on at the bar around the corner."

"So you two aren't…?" he motioned between us.

Maureen turned and leered at me. I swear, if I was twenty, no, make that ten, years younger and she looked at me like that she'd have been screaming my name all night long. I shake my head to clear that thought from it.

"Don't look at her like that! She's practically family!" He yelled at Maureen as he waved his hand in front of her face. He grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her up, pushing her out of the room.

"You," he pointed at me. "Get up and get dressed. NOW!"

The door being shut as the two left the room didn't keep me from hearing every word of their conversation. Maureen told him this had been going on for a couple of years now and that once or twice a week I'd get totally shit-faced and come buzzing for her to ring me up. Guilt and nausea were overtaking me. I'd been using Maureen. She probably knew more about what I'd been feeling the last couple of years than anyone else did—even her dad.

As I pulled my socks on, I fought the dark recesses of my drunken to make sure I hadn't done anything that would result in my untimely demise at the hands of my partner.

The door flew open and Elliot came back in. "Liv, seriously, I love you, but she's my kids. If you…"

"I didn't, El," I stood up and grabbed my jacket. "How'd you know I was here?"

"Mo answered your phone. And then tried to play dumb. Like I wouldn't recognize my own kid's voice. You hear that, Maureen? I'm a cop! I'm not stupid."

"I'm sure even my neighbors hear you, Dad."

The young blonde leaned against the doorframe in her bedroom.

"Don't you have a class to go to or a job or something?" Elliot asked angrily.

Maureen rolled her eyes and tossed my phone to me. "Call me the next time you're in the neighborhood, Liv."

"No you don't," he said as he pointed at me before turning to her, "No she won't. She won't call you again."

"Chill, Dad. You can't control who I see."

Whoa! Who she sees? I cleared my throat and tucked my phone into my pocket, "Yeah, El. No problem."

I pulled my jacket on and brushed past Elliot and Maureen to step into the living room.

"Hey, Livvy, don't forget your handcuffs," Maureen came out after me and handed them to me. "You, uh," she turned to look at her dad, "left them on the headboard."

Elliot turned purple as he stormed past both of us and flung the door open.

"You're gonna give your dad a coronary, Mo. What the hell are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking that me answering your phone when Dad called is the least of your problems today," she said innocently.

I got one of those knots in my stomach accompanied by my blood turning to ice. "Maureen, what did you do?"

"Please don't be mad. But she called not too long after you passed out. And I answered the phone."

"She?" I knew who Mo was referring to. I was supposed to show up at Alex's apartment last night and never did.

"Yeah, 'she'. Alex."

"Fuck."

"Hey, it's not as bad as you think. I told her who I was. Surely she knows you wouldn't fuck your partner's kid, right?"

The honking from the street brought me back to the present.

"I, uh, gotta go, Mo. Your dad is already gonna have my ass."

As I walked out the door, she called after me.

"Liv, you know if you were anybody but my dad's partner…"

I blushed and looked down at my shoes, and before I could respond she went on, "I know I still wouldn't stand a chance though since I'm not Alex." She paused before continuing, "Doesn't mean that I don't like to scare the shit out of the old man every now and then, though."

I took the three flights of stairs down to the street and climbed into the car with Elliot.

"El," I needed to explain myself to him.

"Liv, don't worry about it. I'm not pissed with you. She's just trying to get under my skin. The whole daddy I like boys and girls thing didn't piss me off bad enough, so now she's pushing every other button I got. I swear, she's worse than a teenager again. I've got fewer problems out of Dickie and Lizzie than out of her. As if things weren't bad enough with Kathleen she wants to play games and get you into 'em, too. Damn, kids."

"So you're not mad? We're cool?" This was way too easy and not the fight I had expected.

"Yeah, we're cool, but if I ever find out you laid a finger on her…"

XXXX

I had Elliot drop me off at my apartment. I needed to shower and change. Showing up for work in what I had worn the day before would not be a good move, especially when I was bound to run into Alex. I was already going to have enough explaining and back-pedaling to do.

Two hours later I had joined El at the station and was in the observation area watching him interrogate a suspect when Alex walked in with Cragen.

"Any particular reason you're not in there with El, Liv?"

"The guy seems to have a problem with women. Thought I'd let El handle him," I offered Cragen.

"Alex, Liv. If there's anything either of you need, I'll be in my office. No sense in all three of us sharing air, right?"

Once Cragen left the room, the temperature and the tension increased exponentially. Alex reached over and turned the volume down on the interview room so that we couldn't hear what was being said, but we kept our eyes on the scene in front of us the entire time.

"You know, I expected you last night. You said you'd come over. Did something happen to keep you away? Perhaps someone?" Her tone wasn't angry, but her body was stiff. She had always possessed the ability to keep her voice neutral, but anyone who really knew her could tell from her body language that she was upset.

"Al," I put my hand on the small of her back as I moved closer to her. If it was possible for her to stiffen even more, she did and I pulled my hand back, not wanting to make her uncomfortable. "Yesterday was just too much for me to deal with. I know I said I'd come over, but…"

"But you went out and got drunk and then crawled over to your partner's daughter's apartment. She answered your phone, Olivia. Are you," she lowered her voice and looked suspiciously around the room that we were alone in before continuing, "sleeping with her? Does Elliot know? I have to tell you, if someone I was working with ever even looked at my kids like they wanted them I'd have their balls as toys for my cat."

"I'm not sleeping with her. I haven't slept with anyone…in a very long time, Al."

There was a mixture of sadness and relief in her blue eyes at my revelation. Questions that she wanted to ask would have to go unanswered for now as Elliot picked that moment to swing the door open and come out. He paused, looking from Alex to me and then back to Alex, a Cheshire grin plastered across his face.

"Am I interrupting something here, ladies?"

Alex chose to ignore the question he asked, opting to bring the conversation back to the case at hand.

"Did he confess?" she asked coolly as she walked back into the interrogation room with Elliot.

XXXX

Darkness had descended on the city and snow had begun to flutter down and coat everything in a thin layer of white. By morning, the pristine white would be replaced by grimy grey and black sludge and people who were wonderstruck with awe at the unexpected spring snow tonight would curse its inconvenience.

I pulled open the door to the lobby and walked in.

"Detective Benson, it's been a while. What? Three? Four Months since your last visit? You actually planning on going up this time or are you going to stand here and thaw out before chickening out again?" Harry, as he had insisted I call him, had been friendly every time I worked up the nerve to show up at the apartment building.

"Actually, it's been six months, Harry. How's your wife?"

The older man shook his head as he put his hand on my shoulder and gently squeezed, guiding me toward the elevator. "The missus isn't as spry as she used to be, Detective. She's had to cut back to only three games of racquetball a week at the senior's center. I keep insisting she act her age and take up Bridge or bake cookies with the grandkids, but she still thinks she's, well, your age."

We both laughed.

When the elevator dinged and the doors opened, he gently pushed me inside and reached in to push the button for the correct floor.

I put my hand out and held the doors open. "Does she know?"

He pulled his hat off and straightened the few remaining hairs on his head and smiled, "Does she know what?"

I ducked my head and smiled sheepishly. "How many times I've come here and never worked up the nerve to actually go up?"

He gently pushed my hand off the door and as they started to close he said, "Huh? You've been here before? Never saw you before tonight, Detective."