An Honest Choice

Title: An Honest Choice
Author: Rosie Cruz
Pairing: Casey/Olivia
Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: This is a work of fan fiction. The characters belong to Dick Wolf and NBC. I just like to play with them. The story however is purely a creation of my imagination.

2007 © ROBC. The characters of Olivia Benson, Casey Novak, Elliot Stabler, John Munch, Fin, Cragen and Kathy Stabler belong to Dick Wolf and NBC. The story however is mine. All rights reserved. Copies of this may be printed for personal use only. No part of this story may be reproduced or reused for any other purpose without prior written permission.

Chapter 9

Kate Hart made it to New York late Saturday night and was bowled over by the hurt emanating from Casey. Outwardly, she was getting good at showing very few signs of heartache. She wasn't a blithering mess. She wasn't lying in bed nursing her emotional wounds and she wasn't dissolving into tears every 5 minutes. That wasn't Casey's style. No, she had pulled herself together after that difficult trip to Olivia's apartment to get her things. According to Jordan, it had been a quick jaunt. In fact, Jordan was sure Casey had left some things behind since she was in and out of rooms so quickly. Casey had dutifully picked Kate up at the airport, insisting on it even after Jordan offered to do it on her own. She even managed to engage in social niceties like awkwardly making introductions with a quick, "I'm sure you gals remember each other." The introduction was hardly necessary, but Casey didn't know that yet and her and Jordan had decided not to tell her. Things were hard enough for Casey without them announcing their own newfound bliss. No, Casey didn't need more difficulties. Even though she was being stoic and strong and all that other crap, Kate could feel the hurt. It made Kate hurt for her, which in turn made it difficult for Kate not to reach out to Jordan for the comfort she knew she would find. Jordan was having the same problem.

More than once she caught Jordan unconsciously reaching for her before curling her hands into fists and shoving them deep in her pockets. That made Kate smile that goofy smile that had given her up to her brother the first time she saw him, after her and Jordan had finally given up on that unrequited love thing and just made out. She had been planning on telling him as soon as she saw him, but he guessed it before she got a complete sentence out. She hoped Casey wasn't as astute, at least for now. He told her later that it was the smile she couldn't seem to contain that had given her away. At the time she hadn't care. She was in love. But she wanted to be there for Casey and while she did not like having to hide her relationship with Jordan, this seemed necessary right now, so the goofy smile had to go. This week was about Casey not her and Jordan. It was, however, incredibly frustrating, especially given all the time they were spending together. At least they had the nights. Jordan had wisely booked a hotel room for them. She told Casey that it would be too crowded if everyone stayed with her and that it was convenient for them to stay in the same hotel. Casey didn't really need to know they were sharing a room.

For Casey, the weekend turned out better than she could have hoped given how it started. Having her friends around really helped and when both Kate and Jordan decided to stay through the following Saturday, she could not contain the tears that readily came to her eyes. It was a godsend having them. The weekend had been tough, but a full week of working with Alex and Olivia would have been impossible without Kate and Jordan. It was like walking on a bed of nails to be at work. Luckily her friends were there to hold her hand, cry occasionally and even curse with her.

They were being weird though. Casey was starting to suspect that she was missing something. They hadn't particularly hit it off when they first met. Casey and Kate were friends as well as roommates for all fours years of college, but Kate would all but disappear when Jordan visited Casey. Once they were out of college, things seemed to relax between the two of them on the few occasions they found themselves together. There weren't too many of those, but time and circumstance sometimes conspired to make it happen. She thought about the last time they had all been together. It was more than a year ago when on a whim her and Kate decided to meet up in Vegas. A chance phone call from Jordan revealed that she would be in Vegas as well so it was only natural that they hang out. Kate had been all awkward gestures and shy smiles for a lot of that trip.

For a while after that, Casey thought Kate might have a tiny crush on Jordan, but since Kate never vocalized it, Casey figured it wasn't that serious. It was too bad, really. They would make a cute couple. In fact, she had been surprised that they didn't hit it off from the start. She had even asked Jordan about the possibility once on one of Jordan's many weekend visits to her and Kate's campus, but while Jordan admitted that Kate was cute, she always claimed that she did not do long-distance relationships and besides, Kate obviously didn't like her.

And now they were both acting weird. They seemed to gravitate toward each other and then, like two magnets, abruptly separate. They were almost skittish. It was starting to weird Casey out. That and the knowing smiles they were sharing when they thought she wasn't looking had her suspicious.

Was it possible that they were crushing on each other? Whatever, it was, it didn't matter. Jordan was not a fan of long-distance relationships and with Kate pretty permanently ensconced in California and Jordan in and out of the country most of the time, she didn't think it was very likely. Still, they were staying at the same hotel. Where they sharing a room? She never really bothered to ask, too caught up in her own issues. Well, her first order of business tonight was going to be finding out what the hell the deal was with those two.

That Friday night was Kate and Jordan's last night in New York and thus a farewell celebration was in order. They were having Thai, which reminded her of Olivia, well, a lot of things reminded Casey of Olivia. Kate and Jordan were doing that skittish thing again and frankly it was getting on Casey's nerves.

"You know, the two of you are cute together. In fact, if I didn't know better, I would think you're a couple," Casey commented as she dipped chicken satay in peanut sauce.

She didn't know what she was expecting as a response, but she thought she'd throw the idea out there. When she heard nothing but her own chewing Casey guessed she'd hit a nerve. She looked at the two of them. They were staring at their food, refusing to look up.

"What?" she asked. "Have I freaked you out? It's not that weird you know."

"Um, well…" she heard Jordan start to speak and then blow out a breath as she finally raised her head, still avoiding Casey's eyes.

Maybe Jordan was tired of the facade, maybe Casey's comment had rattled her, but for some reason her arm went almost automatically around Kate's chair as she struggled with a response. Casey tried not to react openly to what was clearly a more intimate gesture than most casual acquaintances share. When Kate put her fork down and leaned back in her chair to land perfectly in the crook of Jordan's arm, Casey couldn't help but react.

Oh my god, she thought. They're freaking together! She shook her head.

"Wait a minute. I was kidding. Are you guys together as in together-together?"

Jordan spoke first.

"Yeah, look, we wanted to tell you…"

"A long time ago," interrupted Kate, "but well we wanted to be sure that this was the real thing before we told you. I mean if it didn't work out, we didn't want to put you in the middle of anything."

"The real thing?" Jordan asked looking momentarily confounded at the statement before a full out grin crept onto her face.

Kate went momentarily shy. "Well for me, yes, this is the real thing," she said as a blush colored her face.

"For me too," said Jordan taking a hold of Kate's hand and smiling like an idiot.

Casey smiled at the two of them. She remembered what it felt like to be falling hopelessly in love. It all made sense now. The smiles, the looks, and the closeness between them that Casey had definitely not remembered being there before.

"I think it's great," she said her eyes twinkling.

Kate and Jordan looked at each other and then at her as if they couldn't believe how well she was taking the news. Kate spoke first.

"Casey we're sorry, we just didn't want to…you know…"

"Flaunt your happiness in front of me?" she asked her face contorting momentarily before she forced it into a smile.

"I'm happy for you, really happy."

She reached for their joined hands now resting on the table. She wanted to smile, to laugh, to ask them how they got together and a million other questions. She wanted to tease them mercilessly and be happy. She tried. She really tried to go to that place where she could be so happy for them that everything else was inconsequential. But she couldn't. Not yet. She squeezed their joined hands, but she had to look away lest she lose it right there.

"I'm really happy for you guys, really," she said in a shaky voice.

She breathed deeply and then turned back to them, another forced smile on her face.

"My emotions are a bit jumbled; otherwise you would know exactly how happy I am for you."

It was their turn to smile. Kate leaned over and kissed Casey on the cheek. "Thank you," she said. "I know how hard all of this is for you."

Casey waved her off. "No, it's not. Not really."

She was starting to get her composure back. That was good.

"I am happy for you. And I want to hear all about…," she hesitated, "this," she finished, pointing at the two women with her chopsticks.

"My sadness is not about you, never about you. My emotions are just…imbalanced right now, so it isn't always easy for me to produce the right one."

She was smiling again. Her friends looked happy. They were happy and she would be happy for them. She had to be.

"So tell me all about it."

"Yes please do tell this fascinating story for the hundredth time."

Casey looked up as a handsome young man made himself at home, pulling up a chair, plopping into it, and picking food off of Kate's plate. He looked around at the shocked faces.

"What?"

"Rude. He has always been so rude. Hope Sarah can fix that," said Kate as she tried to remove her food from his reach.

She needn't have worried; a glare from Jordan halted him in his tracks, so he turned his attention to Casey.

"Hey Casey, how's it going?"

Casey burst out laughing. Kate's brother certainly knew how to make an entrance.

The evening was a success. The interactions between Kate and her brother kept Casey laughing. She realized as they were finally walking out of the restaurant that she had not thought about Olivia in two hours. Oh the pain was still there. She doubted that would go away and as soon as she relaxed, there would be Olivia again in her thoughts, but she was grateful for the two hours in which she did not concentrate on her pain. She was beat and ready to go home, but since it was the last night Kate and Jordan would be in town, Josh thought some dancing was in order and he knew just the place. A buddy of his had told him about a bar in Manhattan.

Although Josh was generally short on free time, he had been happy to spend whatever time he did have with Kate, Jordan and Casey over the past week. With his fiancé still finishing her internship in Chicago, a guy got lonely. Jordan was a blast and since her and Kate had finally given in to their mutual attraction, his sister had also become way more fun - not that she wasn't usually, but somehow she was different now; more carefree, like she had finally found her place in the world.

He liked Casey too and had been just as angry as his sister when she gave him the condensed version of the Cabot/Benson/Novak triangle or CBN as he referred to it. Even though she looked fine to him, he knew his sister was worried that Casey was holding too much in.

He was enjoying the walk, especially with the dose of warm weather they seemed to be getting. The whole story reminded him of his first love and the horrible lump that seemed to permanently set up residence in his stomach when she had told him that she had met someone else. They had been in different cities, so the long distance thing was difficult, but he never expected it to end. He thought she was the one. When she broke the news, he felt like such a failure. He always knew he would find true love. He never once doubted that, always assuming he would have what his parents had. He thought he had found that with Eileen, but he was dead wrong and at the time it seemed like such a harsh lesson to learn.

He remembered too that he felt so undesirable after being dumped unceremoniously. He didn't know how Casey felt, but he imagined that at least part of her felt undesirable too. He knew exactly how to get over that.

"So where we going?" asked Jordan her hand casually draped over Kate.

"This buddy of mine told me about a bar. Lots of his coworkers hang out there, but it seems that there's no dancing. He likes it, says it's a great place, has music and a very small dance floor, but no one ever dances. I think he just wants an excuse to be able to… you know touch a girl." He grinned like he was twelve years old and continued walking. "Anyway, I thought it might be good place to go shake things up."

Casey was barely listening to their conversation, heck she was barely paying attention to where they were going. She had promised to come out with them on their last night, but she wouldn't stay long. She was so immersed in her own thoughts that she walked into O'Malley's before realizing that she had been there countless times.

Her senses were overloaded as soon as the hazy smoke hit her and she realized exactly where she was. She looked around panicked and considered running out the door. Her friends were busy scoping out the place, looking for an empty table. Josh located his buddy and they all moved in that direction. Once again she considered walking out, but that would be cowardly. She didn't have much time to ponder, so she just went with the flow and followed her friends.

She did not dare glance at the table she knew was most probably populated with the squad, people she had once thought of as friends. She had stayed away from the station as much as possible in the last week, preferring to communicate by telephone or email. Elliot became her main contact. When she did venture to the station, usually to talk to Cragen, she kept her head down, not wanting to really talk to Olivia or face the pitying looks she thought she might get from the squad.

They were taking their seats now with Josh's buddy, she supposed. She couldn't tell as her head was still down. Kate's face materialized seemingly under her.

"Hey, you okay?" she asked her head bent awkwardly so she could look up at Casey.

Casey lifted her head. She ran her hands through her hair as if that would cleanse her of all the panic and fear that had replaced the small semblance of calm she had been able to achieve earlier.

"Fine," she said not really looking at Kate.

"This is a cop bar," she said in an accusatory tone, her comment directed at Josh.

"I know," he said his smile never wavering.

"Hey, let's dance," he held his hand out to her.

"What?" she practically screamed.

She hunched her shoulders and placed both hands on the table, leering at him from across it trying to whisper in the din of noise. "This is a cop bar!"

He just kept smiling. "I know. Let's go."

And with that he had her by the hand and up on the small dingy dance floor near the bar. She didn't recognize the song, but she was too dumbstruck to resist him and before she could even think about what she was doing, she was indeed dancing with him. She could hear cheering coming from their table. She was so mortified that she thought this was a perfect time to have an out of body experience. So she did. She imagined herself elsewhere and let her body follow his lead.

At the front of the barroom a shocked SVU unit watched with their mouths hanging open as they saw their ADA, the nice one, the one they thought was in so much pain, dancing with a guy! But none followed the movements of the unlikely couple more than the owner of the chocolate brown eyes and chestnut hair. Those eyes followed the redhead from the moment that flash of red hair materialized in the door. And it seemed that the owner of those brown eyes found the sight of Casey in the middle of the bar dancing with some guy infuriating.

The first person to recover at the SVU table was Munch, who uncharacteristically chimed in with the rest of the cheering that had now spread to the other bar patrons. That snapped Fin out of his stupor and he started hoofing it up with everyone else. Other people joined the dancing duo on the floor and the noise level was raised another notch.

Elliot chuckled. He couldn't believe what he was witnessing; cops dancing. It was insane. He looked over at Munch who was smiling and laughed again. His gaze then went to the one member of their table who did not seem to be appreciating the humor of the whole situation.

Liv had both hands wrapped around her beer glass. The tips of her fingers were white from the force with which she was seemingly trying to strangle the glass. Elliot reached out to touch her and was relieved to see the tension in her fingers ease just a bit.

"You okay?"

She spared him a tiny glance before focusing her attention back on the couple still on the dance floor. He really didn't understand her these days. She'd had such a good thing with Casey but somehow that was ruin and now everything was wrong.

He had felt it the minute Alex breezed through the station last Friday. She wanted everything to be the same as it had been before she left, and she was trying really hard to make that happen, but as a result more than a few feathers had been ruffled. He knew it was no use pretending nothing had changed and he told her so earlier in the week. He had not been unkind; he just politely told her that it might help if she didn't assume that time had stood still in the three years she'd been gone. Alex did not appreciate hearing that and in true Alex Cabot fashion, she informed him that there was nothing wrong with the way she was acting and that maybe he should look at his own behavior. He didn't doubt that part of what she said was true. He had changed. They had all changed. They had forged a new relationship with the ADA that replaced Alex. They hadn't liked it at first. In fact they hated it and unfortunately at the beginning they even blamed Casey. But slowly things changed and they started seeing her for who she was and not for whom she was not. And to their utter surprise they discovered that Casey was willing to alter and adapt her style to mix with theirs in a way that he knew and the rest of the squad knew - Alex had not and would not.

They formed a bond with Casey – different than the one they had with Alex. It was borne more of compromise and mutual affection as well as respect and loyalty. And while they had long dispensed with making comparisons between their former ADA and their current ADA – as they still thought of Casey - Alex's return forced a comparison and to everyone's surprise they found Alex lacking in areas that had become important to them.

It had been a rough week at the SVU unit as the squad tried to figure out who had what case, which ADA they should be talking to, and how they were supposed to navigate the emotional land mines in this whole situation. Casey to no one's surprise made it easy for them by limiting her contact, effectively not making them choose sides. But they missed her.

Elliot had asked Olivia earlier if Alex planned to stop by tonight knowing the answer even before she shook her head no, never once looking up from the file she was reading. He wondered briefly how many nights she had slept at home this week. He had a sneaking suspicion that number was zero, but he hadn't asked. He still couldn't figure out if he should try and help his best friend get through this or kick the shit out of her for breaking Casey's heart. He was confused and as a result he remained silent.

But seeing her strangling the beer glass as she watched Casey dance, he hoped she was finally beginning to understand what the squad had known from the get go. She had made a very big mistake.

Later that night…

The dancing had been fun, Casey thought as she made her way to her apartment that night. Softball was starting soon which always lifted her spirits and the complete dread she had been feeling since Alex's return started to seem…well not so dreadful. She would survive. She knew that now.

She let herself in, stripping the light jacket she wore, depositing her keys and plopping down on the sofa. She wondered if she could do it tonight. She hadn't told Kate and Jordan that she had yet to sleep in her own bed. Somehow it always seemed more comfortable out on the couch. But she knew she couldn't do that forever and tonight had given her so much confidence. She would try it. She had to stop being such a coward, stop backing away from everything that reminded her of Olivia. She needed to get her life back.

It was hard walking up to the SVU table tonight to greet the people she had been ignoring all week. But she caught Fin's booming voice among the shouts and cheers and she knew she had to talk them, no matter how hard it was. It was a relief to discover that Alex wasn't there. It surprised her, shocked her really. She spent the entire walk between their table and hers putting up walls, preparing herself to see Alex sitting next to Olivia in the spot that used to be hers. But she wasn't there and that somehow made her relax. She could barely look at Olivia, but that was to be expected, she told herself. Baby steps Casey, small tiny baby steps.

So she sat down with them for a few minutes drinking in their smiles, the laughter, their light teasing, and the friendliness of the group. She was saying her goodbyes after a few minutes spent talking about anything but the big white elephant sitting on the table, when Elliot grabbed her arm. He held her hand for a few moments and looked at her. She stared back reading the sadness in his eyes and she almost lost it then. He must have seen it because he let go, but not before she heard his soft "Don't be a stranger." She smiled.

"I won't."

She knew that she probably should not have pushed them away. It wasn't their fault. All of the events leading up to this moment had been the result of her choices, not theirs. They shouldn't suffer. But she did not have the energy to figure out how to have them in her life when they were so much a part of Olivia too. She still had no clue how she would do it in the end, but she would. Softball would make it easier. Fin was on the team along with Elliot, and Munch usually found the time to come to the games.

"Everything will work out," she told herself as she stared at the empty place where the framed photo Kate had given her once stood.

She had considered asking Kate for another one, but even after prodding from Jordan, she decided, it would just be another sad reminder of what she had lost. As she sat on the couch thinking of the picture, trying to recall details of the image, her eyes started to droop. She knew she should get up, brush her teeth and try to sleep in her bed, but she was so tired.