August

Casey was about to go into her office when Cutter intercepted her. "A word Ms. Novak."

Casey felt like she was being sent to the principal's office. Well Crap.

Unsure of what she had done wrong, she quietly followed Cutter to his office. When she got there, she was surprised to see an unknown man in a suit waiting.

"Casey this is Michael Mukasey," the current attorney general for the United States.

"A pleasure Casey."

What the heck does he want with me? "Of course sir. How may I be of service?"

"President Bush has authorized me to start a task force to improve our country's prosecution of sex offenders." Past efforts of the federal government to prosecute these deviants had been declared unconstitutional. "Since our previous efforts failed, he wants to find a way to support local law enforcement directly."

"What exactly is the task force's charge?"

"The charge is to determine why it is more difficult to arrest and convict sex offenders than it is those who commit other types of crimes, what can be done to remedy the problems with arresting and prosecuting the offenders, and on what level do these actions need to be taken?

We are looking for the best and the brightest, both officers and attorneys (prosecutors, defense attorneys, victims' advocates) from our country's major cities to help us make this project a success."

"You have the highest conviction rate in SVU," Cutter reminded her. "We think your expertise would be invaluable."

"And this task force would operate out of Washington?"

"Correct. I understand if you are reluctant to move, but this would likely be for only two years or so."

"You could be back in New York in no time."

"A move to DC is sounding pretty good."

Casey had two weeks to make a decision.

Two days later, Casey had no idea what she wanted. It was a great honor, but Casey had no political experience. What if they hated her? What if she said the wrong things?

The young attorney already had her own ideas about how the system screwed over victims and discouraged cooperation with law enforcement. What if they were too radical?

She was sitting on her couch, wondering what she should tell Abbie when her doorbell rang.

She got up and it was, "Liz? What brings you here?"

"A little birdie told me that someone has a big opportunity coming … one in the nation's capital."

"Word travels fast," Casey let Liz inside.

"It does if you're married to the EADA."

Somehow Casey kept forgetting Liz and Jack were married. They didn't act any differently around each other.

"I don't know if I should take it."

Liz gave her a bitch don't be dumb look. "It's a great opportunity. Your girlfriend's already established in D.C. What's the problem?"

"They think I'd be good for the job, but what if I'm not?"

Liz scoffed. "Don't go chicken shit on me. I've been in the business a long time, and no one ever wanted me on his task force." It was a different time back then, but Liz's prickly personality didn't help. Sometimes, however, she did use a softer approach

"Casey, not every city is as lucky as this one. A lot of places have ADA's that are either incapable or unwilling to do the work it requires to put rapists behind bars. Your work can revolutionize the way this country addresses sex crimes. That's of extraordinary value. It's one thing if you're unsure of what you want to do with your time. It's another if you think you're not good enough. That's just bullshit!"

Of course, Abbie only had words of encouragement. "This is huge Casey. This could put you on the map and change the course of your whole career."

"That's what I'm afraid of."

Casey was a good prosecutor. She knew how to square off against the likes of Langan and Kessler. It was the unknown that had her panicked.

"You're afraid of not prosecuting cases."

"I'm not sure I know how to do anything else."

Abbie kissed her forehead. "I didn't get to prosecute a case until a year and a half after I got my new job. I thought I had made the wrong decision, that I would be a lackey forever, but one day, I was going through our case file and I realized that there was a connection between two of our defendants that we hadn't explored."

As it turned out, the defendants had gone to the same college together, and they had been selling drugs together since then. With the new information, Abbie's boss was able to pressure one of them into taking a deal and then he testified against the other.

"Did you get to prosecute a case after that?"

Abbie laughed. "No. My boss took all the credit, and I was still a lackey until I threatened to quit. My point is that opportunities are rarely given. Usually you have to take them by force with a hunting knife in hand, but right now, you have a gift right in front of you. You gotta take it."

Casey was still scared of the idea, terrified even, but with Abbie's hand in hers, she knew she could do anything.

September

It was time for Cassie's first day of first grade. She had a new jumper and a new box of pencils with one big eraser.

Alex took a new picture to put alongside her picture from the same day last year.

"Mama, we're gonna be late!"

"I'm coming." Alex grabbed her purse, and they were ready to go.

When they got to the school, there was a gaggle of parents there all ready to send off their children.

"Have fun Cassie." Alex managed to get a hug before she ran inside to find her friends.

Olivia was already at work. They had gotten a new case at 5AM and were waiting on Dr. Warner to finish her autopsy.

"The neighbors saw nothing." Their Jane Doe had been dumped in an alley in a commercial area. None of the storeowners were in their shops at the time. The garbage man had found her. "We have no ID. Her prints aren't in the system and missing persons hasn't turned up anything." Elliot was already tired. Why are people so fucked up?

"No one may realize she's missing yet," Olivia pointed out. Their victim hadn't looked homeless or like a prostitute, so it was likely that someone in the city knew who she was and would miss her absence.

Olivia compared NYPD's traffic cameras with the scene where the body had been found. Maybe one of them picked up something.

Two hours later, Melinda called to say she had her results ready for them.

Elliot hated autopsies. No matter how long you were a cop, dead bodies were creepy.

They made it downstairs where Dr. Warner had an array of fibers set in glass containers.

"I found 7 distinct fibers on the victim." She would need to send them to a lab to have them analyzed, but hopefully they would give some insight into where she had died.

"I can tell you now that three of the fibers are natural and the rest are synthetic, but I won't know anything more than that until the results come back.

Our Jane Doe was killed between 11PM and midnight. It appears that she was sexually assaulted after she died, but before rigor mortis set in."

"We're dealing with a …" Elliot couldn't say it.

"A necrophilia, looks like it."

"I'm gonna be sick," Olivia told her. This wouldn't be the first time in her career, but it was just so gross!

"The victim died of asphyxiation. There was, however, no sign of a struggle, so I'm sending her blood to toxicology to see if she was either drunk or drugged." If not, she may have been sleeping when she was killed.

Benson and Stabler made their way back upstairs to see Casey waiting for them.

"This is a gross one," Elliot warned her.

"Actually, I came to give you all a heads up." She explained that there was a new task force forming in DC and she had been invited to join it.

"You're leaving for brighter pastures," Elliot didn't blame her.

"Cutter is still working out who my replacement will be. Hopefully, I'll be able to help him or her transition."

"Take me with you," Munch begged.

Casey rolled her eyes, but then she smiled. "Sorry, maybe Fin will keep you company in my absence."

"Hell no!"

Olivia couldn't wait to get home and take a shower; I need to wash this case off me!

When she got there, Alex was in the kitchen working on dinner. Cassie was in her room doing her homework.

"Hey Sexy," Olivia greeted her wife with a kiss. "I'm going to take a shower and then I want to hear about your day."

"We could do both at the same time."

"Then we'll never get to dinner and I'm starving."

Alex pinched her butt before the brunette made it to the shower.

Twenty minutes later, the detective came back downstairs with towel-dried hair.

"What are you making for dinner?" It smelled amazing.

"Pork belly stuffed with figs and goat cheese stuffing. I also have crispy Brussels sprouts for the side."

Olivia's mouth went wide. "I've never heard of anything so glorious before."

Alex laughed. "They had a sale on pork belly at the butcher's."

Olivia kissed her once more.

"Yucky!" Cassie teased.

They broke the kiss. "Did you finish your homework?"

"Yes."

"She has homework already?" It's only the first day. "How was school Cassie?"

"It was good! We're in the big school now." Kindergarten was in a little schoolhouse in front of the main building.

"What's your favorite class?"

"Recess!"

"She takes after me," Olivia laughed.

Two days later, they got an ID on their Jane Doe.

"Her name is Sasha Wilcox." She was 27 years old and from Rhode Island.

Her boss called the police when she was a no call no show for Monday and Tuesday.

"That was so unlike her," he told the officers over the phone. "I went to her apartment and the doorman said he hadn't seen her in days. I knew something happened to her."

"What was she doing in New York?" Elliot questioned aloud.

"Maybe her laptop will tell us." Providence PD had recovered her laptop from her apartment and was sending it to New York.

She had a cellphone, but it had not been used since Sunday evening.

They tried social media, but could not access her social media as the page was private.

"We need a warrant for it." They didn't want to wait for her laptop to arrive.

When they called Casey's phone, however, they got a different ADA.

"Sonya Paxton."

"Where's Casey?"

Sonya had gotten this like five times. "She got called into a meeting with her new boss. Who is this?" she snapped.

"Detective Benson, we need a warrant for Sasha Wilcox's Facebook page."

Of course you do. "What did she do?"

Olivia could feel her fist clenching. "She got herself murdered."

Oh. "I'll call the judge."

When Olivia got off the phone, she looked exasperated.

"What's with you?" Stabler stared.

"I just got off the phone with our new ADA. She sounds like a peach."

"You called Alex a peach when you first met her."

Olivia shook her head. "Don't even go there!"

Casey got called away to DC faster than she thought she would be. The lawyer thought she would have two weeks to wrap up work in New York, but they wanted her now.

"I have a meeting with President Bush." She wasn't a republican by any stretch of the imagination, but she was meeting the president, personally, and not as some intern or something boring like that. "Oh crap! I have nothing to wear." Her clothes would not do.

She knew just who to call. "Serena! I need to go shopping with you."

It was music to the blonde's ears. "I'll hook you up!"

While Casey saw just how well Serena could abuse a credit card, the 1-6 got well acquainted Sonya Paxton.

As it turned out, the victim had an expressed interest in cannibalism. She had been chatting away with another user on this website about it.

"We need to find out who he is," i.e. we need a warrant.

"Based on what? They were talking about cannibalism not necrophilia."

"We need more to get a warrant. What can we get without a warrant?"

"Not my problem. Call me when you have something."

"God I hate her," Olivia hissed once she was out earshot.

"Who knows? You married Alex. Casey is with Abbie. Maybe she'll become Mrs. Munch #5."

Even Olivia had to laugh at that. "If so, he'll need all the beer in the world."

Almost a week after they caught the case, there was finally a breakthrough. They were able use Sasha's cellphone GPS data to put her in a café the afternoon that she died.

There was a bodega across the street that had put up cameras due to theft of their newspapers.

The camera caught her with a man, and the image was good enough to get an ID.

"Joshua Kerns, 33, a self-employed computer engineer." Apparently, he had applied for a job with SID but had been denied. "He failed a mental health check."

"Sounds like a winner," Stabler rolled his eyes.

When they got to his house, he asked them what they wanted.

"We just wanted to ask you a couple of questions about Sasha Wilcox."

"Never heard of her," he squeaked. He tried to shut the door, but in the corner of his eye, Elliot saw a rug. It looked like the kind of rug that Dr. Warner had told them was the source of the fibers on the victim's body.

"I think you have," Elliot held the door open.

He kicked Olivia, trying to run out the front door, but Elliot grabbed his collar. "Well, now you're under arrest for assaulting an officer."

They seized his rug and once Dr. Warner called it a match, they seized his laptop, phone, anything that could help explain his relationship with Sasha.

It was a sick story. Apparently, she was obsessed with the idea of being killed and then eaten. She had come to his apartment to die.

"Doesn't make any difference why she came to New York," Sonya said. "Murder is murder," and you cannot consent to murder, not in New York anyway.

Joshua was a weird son of a bitch, but his father was very wealthy and hired the best to defend him.

"Look what the cat dragged in."

Right away, Trevor filed for a motion to exclude everything they found in his client's apartment.

"Ooh! I hate him!" Paxton shrieked.

Olivia had said that many a time, but right now, he was very entertaining.

Sonya may be an angry bitch, but she's a competent one. She defeated Langan's motion to exclude and she had plenty to lecture Elliot about.

"Next time, ask me about the warrant before you go over there."

"So you can say no."

"Yes!" She liked to be able to anticipate trouble before it happened.

What?

They didn't have a lot of time to throw Casey a going away party. Luckily, Alex's friends owned another bar in town, Olivia still refused to return to Have a Drink.

They threw Miss. Novak a party at Brick and Mortar.

Fin whistled when they got in. "This place is nice." The outside just looked like an ordinary brick building, but inside they had new lights, tables, and chairs. It had this industrial chic vibe to it.

"Our table is in the back," Munch pointed out. It had a reserved sign on it.

Elliot and Olivia had gotten there first, sharing a pitcher of beer.

"Where's the lady of the hour?"

"I think she's still scrambling to pack."

Ten minutes later, the redhead finally showed. "Sorry I'm late. My suitcase did not want to close."

"Did you stick 80lbs of clothes in it?"

"I don't have … shut up Liv!"

They started off with a round of French 75s.

"To our good friend Casey Novak," John started. "When she becomes rich and famous, may she remember the peons that helped her become number 1."

Fin smacked him. "You're such a dope."

Casey couldn't help but laugh. "I could never forget you guys."

Brick and Mortar specialized in small plates made to be shared, spicy chicken lollipops with crushed peanuts on top, bacon wrapped dates that had been stuffed with goat cheese, deep fried macaroni and cheese balls, to name a few.

The group shared six different plates and ordered another pitcher of beer.

It wasn't long until the redhead was drunk. "You know Abbie does this great thing with her tongue when she …"

Elliot was shocked. Fin shook his head. Munch wanted to know about this patented tongue move, and Olivia tried to get Casey to change the subject, for her own good.

"They don't' need to know about Abbie's magic tongue."

"Are you jelly?" Casey questioned.

"No!"

"You are!"

"Fine, I'm jealous." Olivia thought that might get her to be quiet

"Hah!"

Later that night, Olivia got a text.

If you get home within the next 30 minutes, I'll let you do whatever you want with me.

Olivia had to bite. "I wish you the best Casey," she said before hugging her.

"You're leaving already?"

"Sorry. I have to see about Alex's magic tongue. Good night!"

The guys couldn't stop laughing.

Casey just got more beer.