Alex had managed to avoid Olivia for the next few weeks, dealing solely with Elliot. Her luck ran out when she got word of a case that was going to be a nightmare. SVU were currently investigating the rape of a Wall Street broker who had been beaten half to death. There were a lot of witness statements to deal with and obtaining warrants was going to be tricky when the firm were entirely uncooperative.

She was a proffesion however and would work closely with the SVU team to get a conviction. Looking back on it, her outburst at Olivia had probably done her a favour. She was much more relaxed going into this. There was some apprehension obviously but that was mainly because she had no idea how Olivia was going to act around her, hopefully she would act like the professional Alex knew she was.

She arrived at the precinct to find Elliot and Olivia busy on the phones. Alex went straight to see cragan she might need his influence to get the warrants she needed. Alex didn't look back when she passed close to Olivia's desk.

Cragan discussed business quickly, she was about to head to judges chambers when he stopped her.

"I haven't had chance to talk to you about other things yet Alex. Is there going to be a problem with you and Olivia working together?", this surprised her; she wasn't aware cragan knew of the rift between them. But after everything that had happened it wasn't hard to put two and two together.

"There is no problem with our working relationship. I have no intention of letting anything get in the way of the job we have to do", he seemed satisfied with her answer and simply nodded. She left without another word and made her way over to Elliot. He was finished on the phone and was waiting for her.

"I am on my way to get you search warrants for the offices and security cameras. Ill give you a ring when I get petrovsky to sign off on them", Olivia finished up on the phone as she spoke and she could see her listening out the corner of her eye. Elliot smiled in thanks and was interrupted as his phone rang again. Alex finally acknowledged Olivia giving her a tight nod. She went to leave but heard Olivia pushing her chair back to follow. She felt a hand on her shoulder when she turned to find Olivia standing before her.

"Why don't you come with us to execute the warrant? These Wall Street types can be a pain to deal with", Olivia was being professional at least and Alex admired her attempt to build bridges between them.

"If you think it would make things easier ill come along to serve the warrant but I haven't got time to stand around whilst you search the place", Alex decided to be reasonable.

"That would be great thank you", Olivia smiled and let Alex carry on out of the building.

It had been easy to persuade the judge to sign off on the warrants, thankfully she understood the difficulties big financial firms presented.

By early afternoon she was outside the firm, waiting for Alex and Olivia to join her with their team. She wasn't waiting long and they headed in without exchanging pleasantries. As she expected there was heavy opposition from the CEO of the business but no one can argue with a warrant. She hung around for a bit longer than she said as she supervised the team making sure they didn't violate any restrictions of the warrant.

She walked round casually and suddenly found herself in the victims office that appeared to be empty. She began to flick through files and wander over to the woman's desk where there were photos of her with friends and family. She picked up a particular photo that looked like her and her sister. Alex had seen photos after she was attacked and the truly barbaric nature of the crime was evident now. She was unable to see through swollen eyes and her face was riddled with lacerations and deep purple bruising.

She was interrupted by a noise from inside the closet. She slowly placed the photo down and went to investigate. She rounded the corner slowly and walked straight into Olivia who dropped a box of files all over the floor. The two stared at each other for a moment before Olivia bent down to retrieve the papers. Alex joined her and they silently went about picking everything up.

"I'm sorry I didn't know anyone else was in here", Alex apologised it was her fault for sneaking around after all.

"Don't worry about it I should have been watching where I was going", Olivia stood and carried the box back into the office whilst Alex herself followed. They began reading through documents and it felt a bit like old times. Alex reached down for another paper when her hand met Olivia's by accident. The electricity was palpable and Alex couldn't bring herself to pull away immediately. Olivia remained still also and Alex looked up at her. Olivia was regarding her in a very analytical way clearly trying to gauge what Alex was feeling at that moment. The atmosphere changed again when Alex felt herself moving closer to Olivia, her free hand reaching up to brush a stray hair out of her face. Olivia began to lean in and Alex could guess where this was going and she knew it was wrong but didn't have the strength to stop. They were now just inches from each other and the inevitable was about to happen when Elliot barged in with a sense of purpose. He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw the scene before him and seemingly forgot what he was going to say.

Alex realised what she was doing and quickly stepped back. Olivia was still in shock and hadn't yet acknowledged Elliot's presence, her sights were still firmly set on Alex.

"I better go, I have things to do at the office", Alex quickly made for the door and Olivia must have snapped out of her trance.

"Alex wait", she heard her going to follow but Alex needed to get out of this whole situation.

"No, you're needed here besides we were done", she didn't want to sound too abrupt but she had to get her message across. Olivia subtly nodded and watched Alex leave. She was nearly hyperventilating when Alex made it out to the street, she took several deep breaths and calmed down. She shouldn't have let that happen, Olivia had hurt her and there was no way she would let her get away with it that quickly. What would George say if he knew about all this? Alex had just revealed that she still had feelings for Olivia, she hadn't planned on doing that. She was going to have to rethink this whole situation she had put herself in. Even if she wanted to avoid it,it might come down to a choice; Olivia or George?

Wow. Olivia couldn't even think. Alex was definitely just going to kiss her. Damn Elliot for interrupting them. He was still stood there in stunned silence now she had to say something.

"What's up Elliot?", she tried to get the focus back off her and Elliot finally came back into the room.

"Err I was going over security tapes and I think we've got a suspect. Why just happened?", he gestured towards the door where Alex had left. Olivia wasn't getting out of this one easily. She followed Elliot out of the room and tried to come up with a reasonable excuse for their compromising position.

"Nothing happened she was helping me go through documents", it was the best Olivia could do on short notice.

"Okay well here's the security office come watch this tape", they entered the cramped room and gathered round one of the monitors. Elliot signalled the officer to play the tape and they watched in silence.

First it was the usual comings and goings of staff so the officer pushed fast forward. But then the offices emptied signalling the end of the worki g day and approaching the time their victim was attacked.

A man appeared on the screen he was dressed in a dark suit and didn't come into full view of the camera until he was a few feet away, giving a perfect shot of his face as Elliot paused.

"I think that's our guy", Elliot looked over at Olivia but she was too shocked to speak. She recognised the man immediately, she had seen him before.

He was Alex's boyfriend.

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