Olivia's sleep was interrupted by a phone call from Elliot.

"We caught a case."

"Where are we headed?"

"Mercy Hospital. Should I pick you up?"

Not from here. "No, I'll meet you there."

"Sure?"

"Yeah."

Olivia had to leave her ladies and took a quick shower before getting dressed. She had put her badge and her gun in Alex's safe the night before. She always brought them with her after a fiasco last month where she had to go downtown to get them and then go back uptown to get to the crime scene.

She got to the hospital and expected their victim to be the patient. This was not the case.

"El, what's happening?"

"Our victim is 13. Her name is Hope Winters. Yesterday morning, she told her mother that her uncle (father's sister's husband) had been molesting her for the past two years. Hope's mother told her husband who violently confronted the uncle during dinner.

He started pummeling the guy and his sister pulled out a knife to defend her husband, so now the father and the husband are both hospitalized. The sister was detained, although it was likely defense of a scumbag."

"Where's our victim?"

"She and her mother are in the waiting room."

What a fucking mess?

"Happy Thanksgiving," Olivia grumbled.

"I'm sure yours was better than mine."

I don't doubt that at all!

They got to the room and the detectives introduced themselves. Right away, Hope got defensive and started to step back. Elliot got the hint and asked the mother to explain to him what happened. They stepped aside and Olivia sat down, so she would be less imposing.

"I'm here to help you. I know this is hard, but I need you to tell me about your uncle."

Hope was a small girl, and she was quiet. Olivia seemed trustworthy, so she started to talk.

"He used to be really nice. He would bring me chocolates and tell me funny stories, but when I turned 10, he started to change."

"How?"

"He would tell dirty jokes, like really dirty jokes and then he'd say, don't tell Mom I told you that or this is our little secret. It was embarrassing, so I never said anything. Then he'd invite me over to sleep at his house, and I said yes because I thought my aunt would be there too, but then she was out on some spa weekend and it was just the two of us.

He'd make me play weird games."

"What kind of games?"

She explained his version of doctor and it was perverse.

Olivia had to get into the devilish details. When they played, how often, did she ever bleed, did she ever tell anyone? The worst part was, she knew the girl would have to tell her story over and over again. This was just the beginning

Elliot was getting the low down on the fight.

"My brother in law had suggested that Hope spend the weekend with them and since it was the break, I thought it would be fun for them.

She, however, started crying when I told her and begged me not to let them take her. I asked her why and she told me …" the mother started crying. "How did I not know?"

Elliot gave her a tissue, but he stayed back. He had women in this situation get a bit clingy with him before, and he could not risk that.

"People like Carl groom their victims to stay silent, so that their parents don't know what's going on. This isn't your fault."

The mother nodded before explaining what happened at dinner. "I told my husband not to let Carl into the house. He asked me why and I told him. When Carl and his sister got there, he let them in, but then he went off on them. He just started screaming and punching and then Nicole got that knife and … OH THERE WAS SO MUCH BLOOD!"

With the father and the uncle both unconscious, there wasn't too much for the detectives to do at the moment.

The hospital said they'd call when one of them woke up and a guard was posted outside each door, so they didn't run.

The aunt was in custody, mainly so she wouldn't flee as well. They had forty-eight hours to book her or release her and right now, she wasn't talking.

"Back to the squad room?"

Elliot and Olivia rode back together.

"So how was your Thanksgiving?"

"It was very nice," Olivia told her. "We didn't have a traditional meal, but it was delicious."

"Lizzie wondered what you two would eat since neither of you two can cook."

"I can cook," Olivia insisted. "I helped make the appetizer and the dessert."

"Did you have a multi-course meal? Fancy!" he teased.

Olivia rolled her eyes. "For your information, we had Oysters Rockefeller, steak frites, and apple pie with ice cream."

Elliot made a face. "Who made all of that?"

"Alex did most of the cooking, but we were good sous chefs."

"You had Thanksgiving dinner with Alex?" How weird.

"She was supposed to go to Boston, but then her father came to New York, so she invited us to come over as well."

"I can't imagine having Thanksgiving dinner with my ex-girlfriend and her father."

"Have you ever had an ex-girlfriend?"

"Haha."

"Anyway, the food and the wine were both excellent. How was your Thanksgiving?"

Elliot groaned.

"That bad?"

"Kathy made me sleep on the couch after it."

"Ouch."

"My back feels like shit!"

"Well, I slept in a nice comfortable bed … well I was in a nice comfortable bed."

"Bitch!"

"Sorry El. Maybe you'll have better luck next year."

He growled.

They didn't have to go to the victim's house, since the crime scene had already been processed. When Hope's mother called 911, they thought it was a simple fight case. It wasn't until later that they realized SVU needed to be involved.

"Right now, TARU is working on a digital reconstruction of the fight based on the crime scene and the injuries. We should be able to compare that with the witnesses' statements."

According to the simulation, the father shoved his brother in law to the ground and started punching and kicking him. His sister stabbed him once from behind, striking his midsection.

When they called Casey in she said to let the sister go.

"But she might skip town," Elliot argued

"She didn't commit a crime. She had no way of knowing if the allegations against her husband were true, and even if she did, she had reason to fear his life was in danger." Her husband was in a coma. Her fears were warranted.

The police cautioned Nicole to stay away from her niece, but they had no basis to give her any legal restrictions. She was free to go, not that she wanted to go back to Chicago without her husband.

Olivia was about to go home when they got a call from the hospital. "The father just woke up."

They went out to get his statement.

Olivia was texting Alex on the way there. "Will be late for dinner."

A few minutes later, Alex responded, "Tell me when you're 15 minutes out and I'll have something warm for you."

Elliot thought it was odd that Olivia was texting Casey. We just saw her. "Can't get enough of your girlfriend?"

"You know it."

They got to the hospital and the father demanded to know what they were going to do to Carl.

"Right now, he's in a coma," Elliot told him. "We can't do anything to him if he doesn't wake up."

"He better not wake up, or I'll put him back in a coma!"

"Can you tell us what happened from your point of view?"

He started to tell his story and he just to the pummeling part when they heard a scream.

Olivia and Elliot ran out to see Nicole in a brawl with her sister in law. The officers separated them immediately and they got pulled into separate corners.

"We told you to stay away from the family."

"That bitch attacked me. I went to the vending machine to get a candy bar and she came out screaming about how my husband was a pedophile. She's fucking crazy. Carl's innocent!"

Of course, the wife claimed that she started it. "She tried to kill my husband, her own brother, and then she attacked me too!"

Nicole definitely won the fight. She was small, but she was scrappy as fuck.

Olivia told the hospital that they would need a guard to keep the wives separated. "We can't stay here all day and night because of them."

Eventually, the detectives got out of there. It was unclear what would happen with this case. If Carl didn't wake up, then he'd never be charged. If he died, his brother in law could be facing manslaughter charges. There were no winners in this case, only losers.

"Do you want me to drop you off at home?" Elliot questioned.

"No, I'm staying at Casey's tonight."

"Why don't you just move in with her?"

"I am at the end of next month. My lease is expiring."

"Finally, you're getting rid of that grungy apartment."

"Hey, that is a cheap, grungy apartment thank you."

"I think it's a good thing that you two are getting serious." Enjoy it while you can.

Olivia got into Casey's apartment, and Alex had a chicken curry for her.

"It smells amazing."

"I must admit, I bought curry sauce since I don't know how to make it."

"Alex? Cooking from a jar."

"Oh hush. I can always give this to Casey instead."

Olivia pouted.

Alex kissed her cheek. "I won't let you go hungry."

"What was that? You won't let me go horny."

"Guilty."

"Where's Case?"

"Working on a motion." She had her laptop and was in the bedroom.

"Fun."

Alex sat down and Olivia explained the ridiculous case they had today.

"I can't believe our perp is now a possible victim, and the victim's father might go to prison."

"Maybe this will work out," Alex said. "A grand jury might refuse to indict the father, in which case you can just go after the perverted uncle."

"If this were Texas, that father would have a medal."

"I like New York just fine."

When Elliot got home, he thought he'd have a snack and then go to bed. He did not expect Kathy to be in the kitchen or for her to be sporting such an angry look.

"Where have you been?"

"The hospital. We caught a case."

"And you couldn't call."

"I had my phone on vibrate. If something was wrong, you could have called me."

She always had to call him. Didn't he want to talk to her?

"It's always on me to call you. I have enough to do all day than try to track you down. Is it so hard to text I won't be home for dinner?"

This fight, again? "I'm sorry. You don't know what these cases are like."

"I don't know because you never tell me anything."

What am I supposed to tell you, a man molested his teenage niece? Her father tried to kill him. The father's sister stabbed him. The family has been ripped to shreds and Liv and I get to sift through the pieces. "I have to keep my home life away from my work life."

"You spend so much time at work, I wonder if there's a home Elliot at all anymore."

Elliot saw defeat when he looked into his wife's eyes. He wondered how things got so bad.

The detective didn't get much time to figure it out. While he was lying on the couch, not sleeping, he got a call from Cragen. "Carl's dead."

"From his injuries?"

"No, someone disconnected his life support."

Elliot shot up. "I'm on my way."

He called Liv to let her know they had to go into work.

The brunette had to reach over Alex to get her phone.

"Benson."

"Liv, it's Elliot. Someone murdered Carl."

She said she'd be on her way.

"Come back to bed!"

Elliot knew that throaty voice. "Is that Cabot?"

Olivia didn't realize that her phone was still on. She hung up instead of answering.

Thirty minutes later, he was waiting for Olivia at the hospital.

"What the hell?"

"Not now, Elliot. What happened to Carl?"

"Someone unplugged his life support."

"It couldn't have fallen out?"

The medical assistant showed them the machine. "It's especially designed, so it doesn't just fall out. If it does somehow, an alarm goes off, so we know. Someone unplugged the machine and then locked the door, so we couldn't get inside until the guards broke it down. By then, it was too late."

The doctor came in to see him. "His vitals were looking pretty good. I thought he would wake up in the next day or two, but now well …"

Visiting hours were long over.

"No one other than the staff was here."

Either someone on the staff was a killer or "Someone was hiding in the hospital."

They pulled the security tapes and had the door dusted for prints.

"There are so many prints that this might be a needle in a haystack, but we could get lucky."

"Let's get to the squad room and watch these tapes. Maybe we'll get lucky."

"Like you did," Elliot hissed.

"I don't know what you're talking about." She quickly walked out of the hospital.

Elliot resumed the conversation in the car. "Don't give me that Liv. You dated Alex for over a year. I know what she sounds like when she's calling you to come back to bed. How could you do that to Casey?"

"I didn't do anything to Casey," she snapped.

"So Casey knows that you were in Alex's bed when I called you."

"We were all in Casey's bed, so I think she would know."

"You were all in … WHAT?"

She may as well tell him now. Why the fuck not? "Alex, Casey, and I are all involved with each other."

Elliot almost crashed the car. "Alex is your sex friend?"

"Maybe we shouldn't talk about this while you're driving …" or ever.

"You want to wait until we're in the squad room? I'm sure Munch and Fin will love to hear about it."

Olivia could smack him, although he was right. "Coffee break. We need it."

Elliot stopped at a 24-hour diner.

"So what's the deal?"

"I never got over Alex when she left. I tried to. I thought I had, but when I saw her, she fucking turned me into jelly just like she always had. The problem was that I love Casey too. She wasn't just a substitute. What we had was just as real, so I couldn't decide. It was killing Alex and Casey, and finally Alex suggested that I didn't have to choose. Maybe the three of us could be together.

At first, I thought it was nuts, but it made sense. Alex can take care of Casey at the office. Casey can take care of me when I work too hard and don't leave the squad room, and I know how to get Alex out of her ruts when she holes herself in her office and is going bonkers. We all balance each other out. "

Olivia is with Casey and Alex? How? "How long …"

"Since September. We did a trial run first, and after that we decided to take our time telling people."

"Who all knows?"

"Other than you, Alex's brother and her father. They both came to visit, albeit at different times."

"Her father knows? And you're still alive?"

"He's fine with it. He actually wondered why we were wasting money with three different apartments."

"So when you said you and Casey were moving in together …"

"We are … moving in with Alex."

"All three of you share a bed?"

"Yes. We're not men. We don't take up that much space, and it helps that they're both cuddlers."

Elliot started panting. He could only imagine the three women, scantily clad, "cuddling" in bed together.

"El … are you alright?"

"NO! You're telling me that while I'm sleeping on the couch ruining my back, you're in a big bed with two sexy ADAs. This is such bullshit!"

Olivia snorted. "Well, if you need a bed, I'm never in mine."

"You're a bitch."

"You know you love me El."

"Unfortunately. Let's get to work before Cragen kills us."

"Oh yeah, that."

They got back to the precinct and looked through the security tapes. Unfortunately, they didn't show the room itself, but there was footage in the stairwells and the elevators.

They had to go through everything, tapes, and phone records, interviews with the staff.

"I want background checks on everyone."

This was going to be a long day.

The day got even longer. There was another blow up at the hospital.

"Stabler, Benson, I want you there yesterday."

"Yes Captain."

They raced to the hospital. Nicole had attacked her sister in law, claiming that the woman had murdered her husband.

"You came and finished the job, you fucking bitch."

"I'm innocent! I was at home."

The detectives took both women down to the station, sick of their antics and not wanting either of them in the hospital at this point.

"I had nothing to do with any of this. My daughter and I went home after visiting hours and stayed there all night. I didn't know anything was wrong until I heard the message on the machine this morning."

Nicole insisted she did it. "That bitch unplugged the machine. Who else would have done it?"

"I thought we told the doctor not to reveal Carl's cause of death," Elliot told Olivia.

"We did. Let's call him now."

The doctor confirmed that neither he nor his staff said how Carl died. They just said that someone killed him in his sleep.

They had her fingerprints from the Thanksgiving brawl. All they had to do was compare it to the prints lifted off the machine and hopefully; they'd find a match.

"What's the motive?" Cragen questioned.

"Maybe she knew he was guilty and when she heard he'd wake up, didn't want him to," Elliot suggested.

"Or maybe there's life insurance and she thought she could pin the murder on her sister in law."

"I want you to tear through their financials, find everything."

They found out that Nicole was to get $250,000 in life insurance if Carl died. If, however, he woke up, then there would be no $250,000 and she would be at risk for a civil suit from the niece. With him dead, she didn't have to worry about a suit. She could just leave his assets behind and take off with the life insurance money.

"The only problem is, we don't see her in the hospital at the time of the murder," Elliot grumbled.

"We'd only see her on the tape if she left the hospital," Olivia pointed out. "What if she stayed overnight, killed him, hid in the hospital and then pretended to just get there this morning."

"How would we prove that?"

"If she never left the hospital, then she won't be on the tape arriving this morning."

Just as Olivia suspected, Nicole didn't arrive that morning. She stayed all night and changed her top.

When confronted with the evidence, she insisted she did it to spare her niece.

"I thought he was innocent, but when I realized what he had done …"

"She can try to sell that story to the jury," Casey wasn't buying it.

The case was finally over.