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Alex Cabot was quite sure she was slowly going insane. It had been obvious to her for quite a while—months, at least, despite a change of scenery from Africa to New York—and she didn't even allow herself the luxury of wondering if perhaps only sane people thought they were losing it.

No, she'd seen far too many people on the witness stand, defendants & victims alike, who had known they were sliding into the murk and were powerless to stop it. Knowing might be half the battle, but Alex did nothing by halves. She knew this slide into La-La Land would be all or nothing, and nothing seemed to have been passed several exits back on this turnpike.

She didn't need to be a doctor to know she wasn't clinically crazy. Depressed, maybe. Anxious? Most certainly, and she'd concede that any medical diagnosis beyond that was above her level of expertise. Now, legally insane? That, she understood. Ding ding ding, we have a winner! Charlie, why don't you tell Ms. Cabot what she's won?

She wasn't sure, really, if her particular problem was that she couldn't distinguish fantasy from reality, or if she knew and simply couldn't control herself. But either way, she was not a happy camper. She'd been out of control before. She didn't like it, she'd never forget it, and she sure as hell didn't want to repeat it.

So, then, what to do about Olivia Benson, the conductor on this particular crazy train? Alex had known her for 12 years, give or take, and had been under her spell for most of that time. It wasn't like Alex to float along in some nebulous state of unrequited love. She most generally did what she wanted—where, with whom, and how she wanted. But it did take her time to work up to things. And for things that really mattered, she was okay with that—if it isn't worth waiting for, she reasoned, it usually isn't worth having.

Knowing what she wanted, but having no idea how to get it, was not something she understood. But her whole life, especially those parts of it that were entwined with Olivia's, were such a stop-and-start clusterfuck that all she'd managed to work up to was the unenviable state of affairs in which she found herself now: frustration beyond any she'd ever known, maddening, endless and horrifyingly real.

Changing clothes in her office, she stashed her suit and briefcase in the car in the parking garage at 180 Park Row, and stretched a bit on the sidewalk before taking off in the direction of Columbus Park, vowing that a run to clear her head would be the beginning of the end of what she'd begun to think of as The Benson Conundrum.

Something would happen. Soon.

Olivia's phone rang just as she shut her locker and turned toward the squad room door, heading home at 5:30 to start a long-overdue weekend off. The new detectives were, finally, settling in, and Olivia felt herself relaxing back into the job, and making her way in this new, post-Elliott world. She hit the ANSWER button with her left thumb, waving at Fin & Rollins on her way out into the hall.

"Benson."

"Hey there, hot stuff. I know my name pops up on your screen, so why the formal greeting?" Julie's sweet voice, a light and playful soprano, carried Olivia through the hall and down the steps, into her Friday night.

"Sorry, hon, force of habit. How's your day?"

"Better now. Slow night and no patients in labor, so I'm heading home now. That's at least two-and-a half hours before I expected to start our weekend together, and I'm not complaining."

Olivia could see her smile, rising up from the edges of her heart-shaped mouth into the corners of her green eyes. It hadn't been long since they'd met, just a little over a month, but Olivia would chance a guess that Julie's right hand was twirling around in her loose curls while they talked."

"Glad to hear it," Olivia smiled, too. She wasn't giddy, really, but pheromones did do fun things to one's mood.

"Just glad? Or very glad?" Julie asked, in a voice that was half-teasing and half in need of just a bit of reassurance.

"Very, very glad," Olivia responded with a laugh as she unlocked the car.

"That makes two of us, then. How about your day, Sugar?"

Olivia loved that. Sugar. It got her every time. Julie's family was from New Orleans, so even though she had been born and raised in Poughkeepsie, and had no real accent to speak of, her speech was peppered with these little bits of southern comfort. Sugar was the sweetest, at least so far. Olivia slid in the driver's seat and started the engine.

"My day?" she asked. "Well, let's just say it's looking up."

Julie heard the low growl of the Mustang's engine, and felt her own throttle ratcheting up with it. "Why don't you head my way now, Officer, and let's kick things off a little early?"

"I think I can make that happen. See you in a bit."

Olivia eased out into traffic, smiling as she thought of Julie calling her officer. She spent her days in a hospital, not a precinct,so the distinction between an officer and a detective didn't mean to her what it meant in Olivia's world. But the feeling of power and invincibility that radiated off of the tough cop was not lost on her. Olivia didn't mind having that effect on people, as long as it was a healthy interest rather than an unhealthy fascination. Julie didn't ask lots of questions, didn't seem to want any real details about how Olivia spent her work hours, all good signs tipping Olivia's internal scale to the "not a creep" side.

Navigating the Friday afternoon traffic heading up the Hudson Parkway, Olivia recalled her first meeting with Julie, in mid-August at New York Presbyterian Hospital. She and Amaro had caught a case—a relatively easy one to stomach, though even those were beyond the capability of any rational person to understand—and they were cooling their heels waiting to interview the victim in the ER. The doctor had briefed them: 20 year old female, Fordham student, assaulted, raped and brought in by her roommate. Family upstate in Rochester.

The doctor told them it would be at least 20 minutes to finish cleaning and stitching some cuts on her head, so Olivia headed down the hall to the cafeteria for something passing itself off as a chai tea latte. As she noticed the wall clock nearing 6 pm, and knowing this would be at least a few more hours of work tonight, she grabbed a granola bar, too.

"Chai and granola. Is that the new 'coffee and a donut' these days, officer?"

Olivia turned to the voice, and found it belonged to a doctor with auburn hair, green eyes and a 1,000-watt smile that quickly subsided into a suddenly shy grin.

"Sorry," the would-be comedienne began, "I shouldn't say everything that pops into my head, I guess. No offense."

"Oh, none taken,"Olivia offered, with a slight grin of her own. "Cops do like donuts, right?"

"Well, when I saw your badge and gun, my mind took me back to the cops my uncle worked with in Biloxi. They surely didn't have any as beautiful as you, though."

"$3.72. Lady, it's $3.72." The cashier's voice called Olivia back to the matter at hand.

"Sorry," she murmured, and paid the kid with a five, throwing the dollar and change into the tip jar. Her surprise was a little unsettling, but it had been a while since anyone had flirted with Olivia Benson. She took her time grabbing a java jacket, stalling on her way out the cafeteria door to see if her admirer would follow. And she did.

Olivia turned to her in the hall, as they neared the elevators, and juggled the granola bar into her jacket pocket to free up a hand. Offering it, she introduced herself. "Olivia Benson."

"Nice to meet you, Olivia Benson. I'm Julie Landry, and these elevators are my ticket to the 6th floor and an evening of delivering babies. I've got two laboring patients up there, so I'd better head back. It was a pleasure, though."

Olivia hesitated, but gathered her wits just a bit as the closest elevator descended from 3 to 2, its imminent arrival threatening to take away any opportunity for a second meeting. "Can I call you sometime?" She blurted it out—God, she was off her game—but Julie didn't seem to notice the note of panic in her voice.

"Tell you what, I'll call you. What's your number?"

As Olivia rattled it off, Julie punched it into her phone. A second later, Olivia felt her own phone vibrate in her pocket and reached for it, about to excuse herself when she saw Julie's wink. "There, I called you. And now that you have my number, and won't lose it or leave it or run it through the wash, you have no excuse for not calling me back."

With that, she stepped into the waiting elevator as Olivia turned to head back toward the ER. Just then, she noticed Amaro. He'd been walking toward her, but had stopped about 40 feet up the hall, and waited. Had he taken all of that in? She continued toward him, her brisk, no-crap demeanor quickly returning. As she reached his side, she said, "Sorry, just got waylaid a minute by a member of staff. Didn't mean to keep you waiting."

"No problem, Olivia. Can't say I blame you. If I weren't the dutiful husband, I'd be glad to be waylaid by a hot doctor anytime."

Red crept up Olivia's neck, and she stammered. She actually fucking stammered. "Oh, no, it's not what it looked..."

"Hey, I'm not trying to give you shit, Benson. My sister met her partner in a hospital cafeteria, too, and they're together 6 years now. Must be a magical place."

"She's not my...we don't...I just..." she started, stopped. Why in hell was she so flustered? Nick waved her off.

"Hey, none of my business, if she's not the one, then love the one you're with, right?" He shrugged, tipping his head to the ER. "Anyway, doc says we can go in now, but they're finishing the rape kit. Thought you might me a more welcome sight to the vic than I would."

"Yeah, yeah, right. Thanks Amaro." Olivia headed in to do the initial interview. This guy...she didn't know yet, really, if this would work. He's no Stabler, Olivia thought. And I might be okay with that...

She dumped the coffee in a trash can just before pushing through the ER door, and the granola bar, eventually pulverized, lay forgotten in her pocket. But she didn't forget what Amaro had said. And she didn't forget to return that call, either.

A car horn interrupted her reverie, and she moved forward, leaving one interminable red light behind, heading slowly and surely toward another. She never understood people's rage in traffic. What the hell was the point? Five minutes is nothing. As she reached the next red, her phone beeped its text notification, and she laughed to see a message from Julie. Someone else needs a lesson in patience, she thought.

Hurry up or I'm starting w/o u officer

Olivia laughed, and reflexively thought, Detective. It's Detective.

But she thought it in Alex's voice, heard Alex calling her "Detective," the word a double-edged sword. Sometimes a caress—-Alex could make that one word, those three syllables, sound like pillow talk. Sometimes, though, it was a slap in the face, a wedge between them.

Just a few weeks before, an argument had left them both so mad that it was all the stubborn attorney could concede in terms of civility, her willingness to use Olivia's name a casualty of a fight between two ethical people about who could be more ethical. They'd fought in Cutter's office, Olivia inexplicably finding herself agreeing with Mike that the accusations against the Italian diplomat were too compromised by the victim's lies, leaving them with a case they couldn't win.

Alex was all righteous anger and indignation, and quite clearly felt ganged up on. She'd given Olivia a withering glare on her way out the door, looking at her as if she were a heartless stranger. Who was this person in Olivia's body, and what the hell was she playing at? Neither of them knew the answers to those questions. Alex's call the next morning, about another report she needed, was brusque and utterly without warmth.

"Benson."

"Cabot. I need that report on the Wilson case."

"Sure, I'll get it for you. Got a minute to talk?"

"No, not really. When can I expect the report?"

"Alex, I know you disagreed with me about Miriam, just let me..."

"We disagree about a lot of things. I'm over the shock."

"Oh, come on, just give me thirty seconds. I owe you an explanation."

"You don't owe me anything but that damn DD5. Please have it on my desk by three o'clock, Detective."

That was the last thing she'd said, and the fact that she'd even said please was more a sign of her impeccable manners than of any desire to be kind. Hanging up without a goodbye, Alex left Olivia's head buzzing, and not just because of the dial tone in her ear. Alex had fired a shot across the bow, turning Olivia's title into a weapon.

Storm warnings ahead.

Olivia decided not to enlighten Julie further on the use of titles in the NYPD, and why officer was something so much different from detective. Not yet, anyway. Maybe being called officer was okay for now. She drummed her left hand on the wheel, ran the right through her hair.

Damn it, Alex. Get the fuck out of my head.

Alex started her third lap, skirting the park and a couple of surrounding blocks, determined to pound out a little frustration before the remote but very welcome possibility of a relaxing Friday night. The last couple of months since she'd returned from the Congo had been a much bigger adjustment than she'd expected. After all, it wasn't like coming back from the dead, and she was certainly among the few who'd know: suddenly awakened coma patients, prodigal WITSEC graduates, and Jesus Christ.

The Congo had done just what she'd expected—revived her, stoked her fire, put her head back on straight in all ways but one. And damned if that one hadn't reared her beautiful head, front and center as usual.

She noticed a couple settling in on a bench, facing Baxter Street, and the rear entrance to the Criminal Courts building, with its engraved portico. JUSTICE IS THE FIRM AND CONTINUOUS DESIRE TO RENDER TO EVERY MAN HIS DUE. She was reminded of lunches here with Liv, when they were friends. Giving a little shudder, shaking off the memory to bring her focus back to her own two feet, Alex heard someone say "No" and took a second to realize it was her own voice. Talking to yourself, Cabot. What a fine, slippery slope lying before us. Shall we?

She ran faster. If she couldn't shut that voice up, she'd wear it out. She'd come home to New York to find all kinds of disarray, not least of which was the new faces in the SVU; Stabler gone, and filling out his retirement papers; and Benson in a foul, ugly place way beyond Alex's reach. She'd known something was up by the monosyllabic replies to her two texts, letting Liv know her travel dates, then announcing her return to the land of the living after vanquishing an unexpectedly wicked case of jetlag.

She'd hoped for an invitation to get together, any opening for an evening to catch up, but it was not to be. No "how was it," no "glad you're home." No anything, really. Then a quick visit into her office the week before she started back to work had finally suggested some reasons for the brush-off. She'd heard about the events at the 1-6, but Novak had filled her in over lunch, detailing the aftermath of a shooting in the precinct that ended with Stabler being forced to kill a teenage girl. she could only imagine how traumatized the entire squad must be.

The first day back on the job had come with a call to the precinct to deal with a rape charge against an Italian diplomat. As eager as she'd been to see everyone, Casey's news update inspired dread rather than anticipation. They'd seemed okay, though, Cragen, Munch and Fin all the same—-welcoming, if a bit morose. Benson, though, was locked down and on high alert. She ignored Alex at first, and in Cutter's office she'd gone so far as to support Mike's order not to prosecute DiStasio because of inconsistencies in the victim's background. Alex was mortified that Olivia, of all people, would be so skeptical of the woman's story, and she made no effort to hide her disgust as she left the room.

Benson just seemed, well...defeated. She was beaten down in a way Alex couldn't have imagined—all her usual swagger and sass replaced by cynicism and distrust. Confirmation of Stabler's retirement—and his decision to let Olivia hear it from Cragen through the grapevine—was a kick in the head that she didn't need. Alex tried to make plans, meet for drinks apart from the squad, anything to reach out and be some kind of support, but she couldn't get Liv to commit.

Things between them at work had grown more and more tense in the weeks since, finally erupting in a showdown during the Jake Stanton trial. Alex had felt, frankly, more than a little betrayed by Olivia, and told her as much.

It seemed like since Alex had walked back into her role with the SVU after her leave of absence, Olivia had less than nothing to say to her: every word an argument being brandished, a confrontation foreshadowed. And God knows the relationship between them, such as it was, had been a struggle for most of the time they'd known one another. Two strong women, hell-bent on being invincible and hiding any vulnerabilities as an act of self-preservation.

Theirs wasn't just a man's world—it was a world of ugliness, and stomach-churning cruelty. It was hard to let your guard down, even to take comfort in a friend who traveled the same road you were on. Alex thought they'd established a separate peace over all these years, an understanding and a relationship that wasn't quite all she'd wanted from the detective, but which was nonetheless one of the only things that helped them both hold it together emotionally.

But now...now, Olivia's walls were not only up, but heavily fortified. Losing a partner of 12 years would do that, especially when he couldn't even bother to tell you himself. But Olivia was wary, angry, hard & brittle. It worried Alex, and what frightened her even more was Olivia's recklessness—calling Ellis to come and represent Stanton was a stunt she'd never expected Benson to pull, and had Alex chosen to report it to Cragen, Olivia would've had some unwanted vacation to think it over. But she also would've never forgiven Alex, and that was a chance Alex wouldn't take.

Winding down her run, Alex considered one more worry currently plaguing her at the moment: Why did she spend so much goddamn time thinking about Olivia Benson?