Casey woke to the blaring sound of her alarm. She blindly reached for the off switch, and ended up hitting every button except the one she wanted in the process. Finally, however, she silenced the alarm, and, groaning softly, laid back down. She hated having to be at work this early in the morning. It was draining, and it was frustrating having to be up and ready before the sun every morning.
Hearing her phone vibrate, reminding her that she had a voicemail, Casey reached for it, retrieving it from the dresser. She dialed speed dial one, typed in the password to access her messages, and listened to the monotonous voice tell her she had one new message. As it played and Casey heard her wife's message, Casey's worries increased sharply. She hoped that nothing had gone wrong with the undercover operation, and that everyone was okay, including Olivia and any potential victims. Sighing as the message finished playing, Casey dialed her wife's number and listened to the phone inform her that her call had been forwarded to an automatic voice messaging system, which was no less than what she had expected. "Olivia, it's me," Casey murmured, her sleepiness very evident in her voice. "I just listened to your message. I'm worried, babe. What the hell is going on? Did something happen to place the operation in danger? I am really stressed right now. Please call me when you get this. I love you." Casey hit the little red end button and turned her head to look at the clock on the nightstand. She sighed softly. It was five thirty three. Time to be ready for the world. Whether she wanted or not.
After dropping the twins off at the babysitter's, Casey drove to the office, knowing that getting there at the crack of dawn, before court, was going to be the only way she would be able to get any work done. At home was proving impossible. Since Olivia had been gone, the girls had been glued to Casey's side, and researching things she didn't want her daughters to see was impossible when, nine times out of ten, they were in her lap begging her to play. And by the time they went to bed at night, she was too exhausted to do much of anything. This was her only option.
Casey yawned, turning her computer on. As it booted up, she poured a cup of coffee, too full without meaning to. She carefully stirred in three sugars and a dash of powdered creamer, and carried it back to her desk, sitting down once more. A quick glance at her computer revealed that it was updating. Casey sighed, crossing her legs and focusing her attention at nothing in particular as her mind wandered, trying to come up with any possible thing that could have gone wrong with Olivia's operation in California. Thoughts streamed through Casey's head at a rate that made her dizzy. What if she's hurt? What if someone kidnapped her? What if her partner is hurt? What if a victim was killed? What if she was outed? The one thought that never crossed Casey's mind, however, was What if there is someone else? Casey sighed, pulling out of her thoughts when she heard her computer beeping, announcing that it was ready for logging into She quickly typed her password and had just started to stand up when her phone rang, piercing the silence with Olivia's signature ring tone. She grabbed it and quickly answered it. "Okay, so you're not dead," she answered, feeling an immediate sense of relief wash over her. "Babe, what's going on?" she asked, not wasting any time.
Olivia sighed. "I need to talk to you," the older woman answered quietly.
"Yeah, I gathered that from your urgent voice mail. Is everything okay with the undercover thing?" Casey asked. "I mean, no one is hurt, right?"
"No. None of us here are hurt. Casey, I need to tell you something, but I am not sure how to do so, without making you hate me."
"Olivia, I could never hate you, babe, you know that," Casey replied, meaning every word of it.
Olivia was silent for several moments. Just when Casey began to think they had lost the call, the brunette spoke. "I met this girl last night. She was beautiful, and charming, and very playful."
"Was she a potential victim?" Casey asked, not grasping the significance of her wife's choice of words.
"No. She was just a girl who went to the club looking for someone to have a one night stand with..." Olivia trailed off, took a deep breath, and continued. "...And I gave it to her. I slept with her...I'm so sorry, baby. I hope you can forgive me. No matter what happens, it is you I love, and it is you I want. I always have and I always will."
It took several moments for the confession to sink in. Casey sat at her desk, stunned as the information collided with her. "Oh my god," she murmured. "I...oh my god."
"Casey, I'm sorry. I didn't mean for it to happen. It was only one night, and I promise that is all it will ever be. You have to know how awful I feel. I understand if you hate me, but all I know is that if I had a chance to do it over, I wouldn't have done it. Can you forgive me?"
"I don't know," Casey answered quietly, nearly dropping her phone. Tears stung her emerald eyes, fighting to escape, but she refused to let them. "I kept thinking about all of the things that could have gone wrong with this undercover thing...you betraying me with another woman never even crossed my mind." Casey paused, wiping a tear that had stubbornly fallen despite her efforts to stop it. Her voice trembled as she spoke. "How old is she?"
Olivia sighed deeply. "She's twenty one," the detective admitted.
Casey choked on her tears. "Since you like younger women so much, and since I'm apparently too old for you, I'll save you the problem of dealing with me anymore. Expect divorce papers on your desk when you get back, by which time me and our daughters will be long gone."
"Casey-" Olivia tried to protest, but Casey cut her off by hanging up, tossing her phone onto the desk, where it landed with a clatter.
She buried her head in her arms on top of the desk, and dissolved into quiet sobbing. She knew she was thinking with her heart instead of her brain in even thinking about divorce, but at the moment, all she knew was that the woman she loved had betrayed her with another girl. A younger girl. And a barely legal one at that.
Casey's crying lasted for another hour, by which time she just laid limply at her desk, too emotionally exhausted to do much of anything. She couldn't believe this was happening. It was like a dream had suddenly turned into a nightmare, one that was impossible to wake up from and be assured that it was all a dream.
Court was another piece of the nightmare. Casey, whose mind kept wandering to the conversation she and Olivia had earlier that morning, was so upset that she forgot a large chunk of her opening argument, and a considerable amount of questions she had planned to ask the defense witnesses were never asked. After a stern lecture from Judge Petrovsky (just another highlight to her day), the attorney gathered her things and rushed out of the courthouse, nearly tripping down the front steps on her way to the car.
Her first stop was the office where Trevor Langan worked. She dropped off the research that she had gathered that could be of potential help to the defense, then drove home, which was, thankfully, about half the distance away from the courthouse as the office. Upon arriving, Casey parked the car in the front, which she rarely did, and made her way inside. Tossing everything onto the couch, including her briefcase, purse, and jacket, she curled up on the love seat and resumed crying once more, though the tears did little to ease her pain.
Her phone rang four times, and four times she ignored it, until finally, she turned it off. Finally, when she could cry no more, Casey laid still on the loveseat, trying to figure out what she needed to do. Part of her wanted to leave Olivia, since it seemed clear that Olivia didn't love her enough to stay true. But then there was also the typical piece of her, the chunk that loved Olivia with everything she had, despite the pain. Casey sighed and reached for the picture on the table next to the loveseat, and looked down at it. It had been taken on their wedding day. Casey gently brushed her fingertips across her wife's picture and sighed. "What do I do?" she whispered. "How could you do this? How could you hurt me so badly?"
Casey laid down once more, still holding the photograph. She didn't want to leave, but she didn't know if she could stay. And she especially knew that another several months was going to be too long without Olivia. All she could hope for now was that Olivia would catch the creep early, and come home, so that they could talk. Meanwhile, Casey reached for the house phone, lifting it from its cradle. She dialed the number of a company a friend had suggested to her years ago, surprised that she even remembered the number. Hearing a woman pick up and ask how she could help, Casey took a deep breath and said "This is ADA Casey Novak. I want to obtain a divorce."