A/N: Thank you for all the support so far! I'm so sorry for the huge delay on posting this chapter, but my life has gotten SO busy plus a few health issues also kept me from posting it.
That said, here goes chapter 3 - a bit longer than the previous ones. This is a little bit embarrassing to ask, but if you guys have any thoughts you'd like to share on this story, please do. I've been getting very few feedback and it kinda makes me unmotivated (I'm not ignoring the feedback I am getting, I see all of you and I appreciate you so much!), I hope you understand what I mean. Anything counts! Thank you so much for even taking the time to read this story and the notes. Kisses, hope you enjoy this one!
Chapter 3
Casey Novak carelessly threw the paper file with the info on the Brianna case on top of the pile with the previous SVU cases she had been reviewing before taking a bite of an apple that had been laying on the table for almost half an hour. Holding the apple on her left hand, she used the right one to brush away an invisible speck of dust from her black fitted pencil skirt, then tossing the fruit back to her dominant hand and uncrossing her long, pale legs which rested casually on top of her work desk. Her face was crunched up in a pensive expression, almost as if she had been thinking about the cases for the last twenty minutes, when in fact nothing could have been further from her mind - despite the mass of gruesome pictures and detailed lab reports plastered all over the files she had held on her hands for the last hours. But somewhere along the blood and mystery her mind managed to roll elsewhere, like a derailed train - and like one it would take time and effort to get it back to its tracks, and for now she decided to just let it follow the derailed path. Her thoughts slowly drifted to the detective she had met earlier that afternoon and soon enough she decided it was pointless to keep staring at the same page if she wasn't gonna get past "Victim's wounds include lacerations to the [insert body part she had no knowledge of the scientific name until that very moment]", and so she decided to toss the papers to the side and finally take a bite of the luscious apple she had unwrapped minutes before while dedicating the moment to contemplate her intrusive thoughts and try to make sense of them.
She caught herself once again questioning Olivia Benson's reasons to have acted so irritated towards her, but despite her best efforts to analyze it from various angles she got nothing concrete out of it. "Unless the rumors about her and Cabot were true", she pondered, complementing the thought, "Either that or she is really protective about her work with Elliot" - aware of her purposeful misuse of the word "protective". Both scenarios left her with an uncomfortable feeling in her gut as her mind recollected Olivia's watchful face observing all the details in the crime scene. She didn't dare believe the source of her discomfort was something as shallow as pity, but it did remarkably mimic that feeling, for all she knew. Casey felt sympathetic for Olivia although recognizing she had never been in a position remotely like any of the ones she imagined the detective had been into. Various romantic complications aside, she was never one to nurture feelings for people that didn't respond to them in a mirrowed way and she couldn't begin to imagine what it would be like to work on a daily basis with someone who had this grip on her but who wouldn't - and couldn't - be with her, or who wouldn't even be aware of the look in her eye and the meaning behind it. Her expression suddenly became dark and her mood swifted brusquely as she took the last bite on the apple and tapped the inedible remains on the desk, shaking her head as if 'trying to brush that line of thought aside. "Why the hell am I even thinking of all this? It really doesn't concern me".
Casey allowed her mind to slip away once more, but this time it didn't choose any focal point to deflect to, it rather parked on a void, as if to rest a bit from all the thinking it had made during the last forty eight hours since she had been pointed out to work at the sixteenth precinct and started reading paper work on anything SVU related she could get her hands into. Already not unusual to that point, - and it would become absurdly common in a closer future - after a few moments of accommodation her thoughts slowly and furtively found their way into the subject of Olivia Benson again, this time abstaining from elaborating any theories about the woman's romantic life but rather settling with scrutinizing her appearance and personality, and before Casey could fully be aware of how it had started she found herself visualizing again the back of the detective's head and how it abruptly tilted towards her when she had made the comment about the pharmaceuticals, almost as if Olivia lived in a constant state of watchfulness. "I wonder if that's how it is working for SVU", she worriedly thought, remembering how her predecessor was dismissed: a single gunshot to the chest and no words left to say. She inquired how much strength it had taken for Olivia, with her traumatic background related to sexual crimes, to join the force and dedicate herself to working on something that demanded for her to revisit such heavy emotional content day after day - as if all of it wasn't already heavy enough for one to handle without any history with it. She set onto the idea that behind those insidious and understanding brown eyes, along with that firm statuesque chin and the well lined lips was a woman stronger and more complex than it appeared at first contact, although she wasn't sure she should attribute that conclusion to her own observations and divagations or to the fact she had had access to Olivia's files and therefore had been able to see further beyond she would probably have seen without it.
What remained unknown to her was what precisely - and, not less importantly, the why of it - had drawn her so intensely to Olivia Benson. It wasn't a sense of identification because the two women couldn't possibly be more different nor was it a case of instant connection - they had barely exchanged more than the necessary words and even those were said bitterly or, at its best, politely. "She couldn't wait enough to get rid of me", she bluntly thought to herself, pursing her lips tightly together and sighing harshly. Resolute, but less coherently than before, the detective persisted to occupy her contemplations, little glimpses of her features being highlighted as if Casey was searching for a sign, a clue, a direction - just to what exactly she didn't know. Far from where the tracks once stood, she decided that her line of thought was not a derailed train but rather a massive train wreck. Before she could proceed on scolding herself for allowing the intrusive ideas to take a tsunami like dimension and overflowing all over her work hours a bang on her door caused her to hastily remove her feet off the work desk and button up her suit, smoothing it softly with her long fingers.
"A.D.A. Novak, here is the rest of the files you requested", a young man announced shyly while pointing up a stash of files with the NYPD logo stamped on them.
"Thank you, James", she replied while organizing them on an empty corner alongside the other ones she was analyzing before her mind started circling around Olivia Benson.
"I've heard that there was a break in your new case, a new suspect who was probably the baby's father", he commented curiously, clearly trying to get new information on the subject.
"Oh, yes. Our new suspect. The lab will run the tests soon enough and everything will become clear", she replied plainly, almost grinding her teeth in anger but trying to conceal any expressions of it.
As agilely as the man had arrived he left, his departure suddenly stirring up on her a sensation of something being dislocated or misplaced. As a method of preventing herself to returning to the anterior thoughts, she assured herself action was the best path to follow, she then rose up and reached for her coat and hand bag, pacing hurriedly towards the office's door and resuming her moves as she reached for the knob. Casey looked down on her languid hand and noticed she still gripped onto the remainings of her afternoon snack, the rotten apple resting on her palm.