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'Night' takeoff. I love all things 'Night' related, mainly because that was another one of the episodes they Dick Wolf could have done so much more with but didn't. Don't get me wrong, it was a fantastic episode, but it was never mentioned again. No one treated her any differently- hell, her face was even better and there was no cane by the next episode and 'Day'! With Olivia's attack in 'Undercover' or 'Perverted' or whatever the hell it was, it was brought up later and became a sub-plot in at least one episode. *sighs again* whatever. Obvious spoilers for 'Night'. Also for 'Loss' and 'Ghost', but you must have been living under a rock for the past few years if you don't know what happens in those two episodes.

Love not Guilt

Olivia looked over at Casey, who was fast asleep in the passenger seat of the squad car. She took in the dark bruises, the black eye, the split lip. She took in the pained rise and fall of her chest, the defensive wounds on her knuckles, the dried blood on a strand of her hair that Casey had been picking incessantly at for two days.

With a sigh, she reached over and shook her shoulder gently. "Casey. We're here."

The ADA didn't respond for a moment, then she jerked, opening her eyes and blinking several times to clear her head. Casey sighed heavily, then opened the door and got unsteadily out of the car. Olivia rushed around to help her, but Casey was already upright and she just shook her head. "I'm fine, Liv."

Olivia hesitated, but Casey was already limping towards her apartment building. Olivia walked slowly behind her, knowing she wasn't used to the cane yet and ready to catch her if she fell, but the ADA made it inside without too much trouble.

When they were alone in the elevator, Casey looked at her and said, "Olivia, you don't have to do this. I'll be fine by myself."

Sighing, Olivia returned her stare and shook her head. "Casey, we've been through this. I'm going to be staying with you until you've completely recovered, end of story. You can either accept it or fight it all the way, whichever you want to do is fine with me."

Casey rolled her eyes and looked away. "You're a pain in the ass," she muttered under her breath before leading the way to her apartment. She tried to unlock the door, but it looked like she was having trouble getting her hands to work. Eventually, the keys fell to the floor, and Olivia stopped Casey in her attempt to pick them up. "I got it," she said quickly, unlocking the door for her.

Embarrassed, Casey took the keys back and stared at the floor as she limped into her apartment, tossing her keys and a few pill bottles onto the couch making her way to the kitchen. Olivia followed curiously, then shook her head when she saw Casey was getting out a bottle of wine. "Case, you know the doctor said not to drink with your pain medication."

"Yeah, well, too bad," she muttered and was about to open the bottle when Olivia took it from her hands.

"If you think I'm going to let you drink, you're wrong."

Casey glared at her, reaching for the bottle when Olivia jumped up and put it on shelf near the ceiling. She knew Casey wouldn't be able to jump and reach it in her condition. They stared at each other for a moment, then Casey shook her head angrily and turned around, looking at the wall rather than Olivia. "Why are you even here, Olivia?"

The detective watched her silently, then said, "Casey, there's no place I'd rather be then here right now. If it wasn't for me, you wouldn't even be like this. This is the least I can do..."

"Olivia," Casey said sharply, still without turning out, "If this is just to fulfill some bullshit sense of guilt you feel, you'd best leave now. I'd rather be alone tonight anyway. Would you mind just showing yourself out?"

Olivia hesitated, unsure if she wanted to dive right into this, then shook her head and sated simply, "No."

Casey froze, then turned around, shocked. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me. No."

The ADA stared at her for a second, and when she finally remembered how to talk she said, "It wasn't exactly a request. This is my apartment. If I don't want you here then you're trespassing. Get out."

Once again, Olivia's only response was, "No."

"Look, Olivia, I don't know why you're doing this and I don't care. To me, there are only two options for why you're staying here: you feel guilty about leaving me alone to face Zergin, or you never got the chance to take care of Alex when she was hurt, so now you're settling for her replacement- so, in some twisted sense, the whole time you're with me you'll really be with Alex. Either way, I don't care. I don't need someone to take care of me, especially someone who'll be gone the moment she's made herself feel better. So just get out."

Olivia stood and stared at her in shock for a moment, then slowly shook her head. "There's also a third option- I care about you, Casey, and I want to make sure you're okay."

The ADA scoffed and limped back to the living room. "Right."

"Casey, I'm not going to lie to you- I do feel guilty about leaving that night, and I'm sorry that I didn't stay to kill that asshole before he touched you, but Casey... this has nothing to do with Alex. Nothing. Yes, I wish I had had the chance to do this for Alex, but I didn't. But I'm not doing this for myself or Alex. I'm doing this for you."

"Even if that's true, Liv, I still not going to be very good company. I want to be alone right now."

"You want to be alone, I know, but Casey... that's probably not a good idea. You don't have to go through this alone." Casey didn't say anything for a long second, then nodded sadly.

"Thanks, Liv," she whispered so quietly Olivia could barely hear her.

Olivia smiled back. "It's nothing, sweetheart." She put a hand on the small of the ADA's back and led her back to the bedroom. "Now, come on. Let's get you lying down. The doctor told you to stay in bed or your ribs won't heal."

Casey sighed in distaste, but allowed Olivia to help her lie down on her queen-size bed. The ADA sat up so she was leaning back against the pillows, then glanced over at her bedside clock and groaned. "What's wrong?" Olivia asked, never failing to notice when her ADA was upset.

"It's only 9. Way too early to go to bed."

"Yeah," Olivia agreed, sitting on the bed next to her and pulling her knees up to her chest. She observed Casey for a moment, and the sad, hollow look in her eyes breaking Olivia's heart, and when the detective couldn't take it anymore she asked softly, "You want to talk about it?"

"What's to talk about?" she asked quietly, still not looking at her. "I still can't remember anything. You people say that I was in my office, but I still can't remember ever even leaving the precinct."

Olivia sighed, staring at her hands. She remembered when, in the hospital, just moments after she had finally woken up, Casey asking why no one had seen anything. At first, Olivia thought she meant why no one at the DA's office had heard the bangs and the sound of shattering glass coming from her office and come to investigate. But she asked, just to be sure. And Casey had revealed the last thing she remembered was the line-up in the squad room. Right at that moment, Olivia had known something was wrong, very wrong, but she hadn't wanted to leave Casey's side to go talk to the doctor. Later that night- well, more properly, early the next morning, Elliot had taken her place as a constant guard dog at Casey's side, so she had hunted down the doctor and wormed a comprehensible answer out of him- there was the chance that the memory loss was temporary, and the chance that it was permanent. Which one it was depended on a variety of factors- the exact location she hit her head and how much force was behind it, the severity of the hypoxia, how long she'd been lying on that floor bleeding... the doctor hadn't been able to make any sort of guess on whether she would remember or not.

"Case, it'll just take time," she said gently, finally looking up at the ADA. "If you can remember, then you're going to have to work at it. I'm not saying it's gonna be easy- it's going to be hard, painful- and you're going to have to work at it every day. And, if you can't remember... well, I promise I'll be with you every step of the way, whether you can remember or not."

Casey wasn't sure what to say or do- she just didn't have friends like Olivia. She never had before, either. In high school- well, kids were just about deep enough to like someone for their jeans. This wasn't the kind of thing any of them would get. In college, they were too focused on finally being out on their own, getting to go to parties and the like. Not exactly what she was looking for. Before SVU? Sure, she had great friends, but no one like Olivia. Casey just couldn't understand why the detective would help her when seeing the ADA like this clearly caused her pain.

"Look, Olivia..." Casey had to say this, no matter how much it could end up hurting her. "I don't have any experience with this kind of... thing before, but from what victims describe on my job, I'm guessing that... that I'm going to have to deal with nightmares, paranoia, flashbacks..." She swallowed hard, not looking forward to what the future was going to bring before forcing her eyes back to Olivia. "You don't have to stay here for that. If you want to leave, you can. You don't owe me anything."

Olivia stared at her, then moved over so she was sitting in front of Casey and clasped both of her hands. "Casey, listen to me, sweetie... Even if I didn't feel guilty about this, I'd still be here. I'm not helping you out of guilt, I'm helping you out of love. The two aren't synonymous, you know. I'm in this for the long haul, honey. Even if I could leave, if I had a choice in this... I wouldn't." Casey's eyes widened in shock as she stared at Olivia for one long moment, then nodded. Olivia glanced at the clock then put her hand on Casey's arm and said, "Come on. It's getting late; we should go to bed soon. I'll got get your pain medication."

"Liv, stop. I appreciate what you're trying to do, really, but I don't need any pain meds."

"Casey," Olivia admonished gently, "Let me take care of you, please. Besides, your doctor said to take two each day, preferably one with breakfast and one before you go to sleep. Trust me, it'll make you feel better." She waited for Casey to nod to get up and go grab her meds and a glass of water, but before she returned to the bedroom she called her partner.

It went straight to voicemail. "Elliot, it's Liv. Listen, I haven't talked to Cragen yet, but I'm taking the next few weeks off to take care of Casey. I think she needs me here and I need her, too. If Cragen won't give me the time off, I have some unused sick leave and I can say I have the flu. Just don't panic and think something's wrong if I don't show up for a month or something. Bye." Then she left her phone in Casey's kitchen and went to give the suffering woman her sweet relief, even though she would never admit to pain and would grit her teeth and remain silent whenever she wanted to scream.

When she handed the pills to the ADA, Casey sighed unhappily before popping into her mouth and swallowing them with a sip of water. Olivia left the glass on the nightstand, crawled into bed next to her, and watched as the medicine slowly took affect and sent Casey into a state of half-awareness. "Goodnight, Casey," she murmured.

"Night..." When Olivia was sure the ADA was asleep, she started to close her eyes as well, then frowned and opened them again. She couldn't close her eyes; then she wouldn't be able to see Casey; know she was safe.

So Olivia reached over and found Casey's hand, squeezing it tightly, and with it's warm presence assuring her of Casey's safety, she finally allowed herself to go to sleep.

Next up is kind of a post-ep for 'Night' and 'Serendipity'. I didn't want to do one for just 'Serendipity', sense there was only that one scene when Casey was crying in her office I could work with and it wouldn't be realistic to write them as friends- after all, they've known each other for five minutes and Casey's just replaced Alex and is acting as Queen Bitch. Not that I didn't love it, but I couldn't really write them as friends.