Author: Regency

Title: Picking Up the Girl

Category: slight crossover with Criminal Minds

Pairing: Casey/JJ Jareau, Casey/Liv

Word count: 2,272

Summary: SVU has a late night and Casey has to come in to rustle up an emergency warrant, but she’s in the middle of a date and she has on the wrong clothes. It’s going to be a longer night than expected.

Disclaimer: I don’t own either the character of Jennifer “JJ” Jareau from Criminal Minds or any characters recognizable as being from Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. They are the property of their respective producers, writers, and studios, not me.  No copyright infringement was intended and no money was made in the writing or distribution of this story. It was good, clean fun.

~!~

                Liv blew her hair out of her eyes and kept on typing.  The screen had grown fuzzy an hour ago but she was still three case files behind, so, on she went.   She was killing time till they got another tip on the kidnapping of Rebecca Gilson.  The girl had been missing since morning—yesterday morning, now.  None of them could bring themselves to leave yet. The fourth girl in a string of disappearances, none of which had ended well so far, usually ended around this time of night. It was just a matter of discovery and a call. They needed a tip, that girl needed a prayer.

                Everyone got lucky at the same time.  The phone on Elliot’s desk began to ring, Liv’s eyesight sharpened like she’d had a full night’s rest and Munch looked like a man who’d started to believe in miracles.  Liv couldn’t believe it and held her breath as her partner took the call. He nodded and murmured. He took notes. He looked at her and she knew.  They’d found this guy.

                Now they had to get to him.

                “Get a warrant,” Cragen ordered. “I don’t want this guy to walk.”

                “We don’t have time to wait for a warrant. We have to act now,” Liv countered.

                “Is this probable cause? If we weren’t already investigating this case, would you believe based on that tip alone that this guy was the guy?” Munch looked nauseated at even asking, but he had a point.

                She sighed.  “We need a warrant, but until then we’ve got to keep an eye on him.  If he cops to the fact that we’re on to him, he’ll either kill her or take her and run. Either way, she’s on borrowed time.”

                Elliot tapped the paper with the perp’s address.  “I’m already there.”

                Fin piped up, “I’m right behind you.”

                Munch: “Me three.”

                Liv groaned and slouched in her chair. “And I guess I’m waiting for Novak.”

                Cragen shrugged, “Looks like it. Give her a call and have her come in. It might do her some good to know she isn’t the only one cancelling dinner plans tonight.”

                “Sure.”  Liv whipped out her cell and queued up the ADA’s number.  She hadn’t wanted to call—in fact, she’d been hoping there wouldn’t be a reason to—but she didn’t have a choice anymore.  This girl needed all the people batting for her that she could get.  That included four exhausted detectives and a reluctant Assistant District Attorney.

                The phone rang a handful of times before she got a terse, “Novak” for her efforts.  The woman in question sounded out of breath and more than a little annoyed.  Liv was familiar with that feeling.

                “Casey, it’s Liv.  We think we’ve got the guy who snatched Becca Gilson, but we don’t quite have probable cause. We need you to get us a warrant to search his townhouse before he has a chance to move her.”

                The silence that followed was filled with sounds of Casey’s carefully controlled breathing.  Liv was an eye roll away from a sigh. “Hello to you too, Liv. Look, if you don’t have probable cause, I don’t know how I’m supposed to get a judge to okay a warrant. You need to give me a tangible connection to the girl, otherwise I can’t help you.”

                “You can’t—“

                “I can’t,” Casey answered for her.  “I can’t bend the rules on this or he’ll walk and we’ll spend a lot more nights the exact same way.”

                Liv rubbed the sleep from her eyes.  “Yeah.  But Rebecca Gilson won’t have any more nights, Casey. She’ll be dead.  I don’t think that’ll be any easier to live with.” She had enough sweet dead girls in her dreams already.  She didn’t even know why she missed sleep when they were always there, waiting.

                “You have your work cut out for you, Liv. Give me something, anything, and the warrant’s good as yours.” Liv took some comfort in Casey’s sincerity.

                “Okay.”

                “Okay.”

                Then, the silence came again.  Liv took comfort in that, too.  She could almost hear Casey shifting on her feet.  She imagined her standing in a discreet corner at a nice restaurant, smiling apologetically at her date and smoothing creases out of the dress she wore that Liv couldn’t afford on two-months’ of her own salary.  She imagined that Casey’s life away from SVU was nothing like Liv’s, that it was a dozen times superior to her own.  She didn’t envy her, but there were times when she wished she could be there.

                “Liv,” she heard her say in that way she had.

                “Yeah.”

                “Take care of yourself tonight.” Liv could only smile softly to herself.  They had gone from adversaries to friends somewhere along the way, she wondered if one day they might even go farther.

                “I will,” Liv affirmed.

                “Okay.”

~!~

                “Okay,” Casey heard Liv confirm before she ended the call.

                “Okay,” she said to herself now.  The corner she’d sequestered herself in was peaceful, but then again, so was the entire restaurant. That was why they’d chosen it.  Both of their jobs were hectic on the best of days: too much running, too much urgency, so much death.  When they’d decided to get together tonight, they’d wanted somewhere quiet and romantic, where they could catch up without all the distractions. Unfortunately, neither of them had the foresight to leave behind their chief distractions and both had been pulled away for pressing phone calls at various times tonight.

                Apologetic smiles were becoming their new kind of seduction.

                Jennifer, or JJ as she preferred, was a beautiful sight to return to.  She was sipping white wine and watching the other patrons with the trained eye of an experienced investigator, of an experience PR woman.  She knew the look of threats, and the sounds.  Even on a date, she couldn’t leave work at home.  Casey scoffed at herself.  Pot and kettle, you look very much alike.

                Still, she liked JJ.  They’d met years ago on a serial murder case Casey’d worked before she started with Special Victims.  It had been brutal, her first real taste of what man could and would do to man.  She hadn’t handled it as well as she would have liked and JJ had been on hand to put her discomfort to rest.  A very long walk through the heart of Manhattan and a couple of Old-Fashioneds later, Casey had learned how to couch her work in practical terms, or at least how not to break down at every crime. For all the bad in the world, there was good somewhere.  JJ had taught her that when she most desperately needed to learn it; the lesson hadn’t failed her yet.

                “Excuse me, miss,” she teased.  “I’ve been watching you from across the room and I’ve gotta say you look amazing tonight.”

                JJ stifled a grin.  “Well, I’ve been watching you, too. I can’t wait to get to know you better. Please, have a seat.”

                Casey re-took her seat across from JJ and grabbed her hand.  “Thank you for being so patient tonight.  Things are crazy at the office. It’s like there’s a full moon tonight.”

                “There doesn’t need to be, you know that. That’s just an excuse criminals give for acting out their fantasies on innocent bystanders.  Every night’s a full moon.”

                Casey picked up her recently-refreshed glass and raised it.  “Then, we should toast to a night without a moon of any kind. To a moonless night,” she offered.

                JJ nodded in assent. “To a moonless night.” They clicked their glasses and drank.

                JJ’s phone rang first. Casey’s afterwards.  They both began to reconsider how this night was going to end.

                “I need to call the air strip,” JJ muttered with a sigh.

                “I need to call a cab.”  She didn’t bother with a sigh.

                “Next time,” they both started, then, laughed, wistfully.  It was always next time with the two of them.

                Casey took her hand again and kissed it.  “Next time, we leave the phones in the fish tank.”

                “Oh, yeah,” JJ nodded.  “Definitely next time.”

                They grinned at each other again.  Next time sounded suspiciously like never.

                They really were too much alike.

~!~

                Liv was already standing when Casey burst through the doors.  “We need that warrant yesterday, Casey.”

                “I’ve been on the phone since you contacted me. I’m about to make a house call. Get me a jacket; this could be a longer night than expected.”

                It was at this point that Liv noted Casey’s dress: indigo blue and a plunging v-neck. She had dressed to impress and not for the judges. The detective had just enough presence of mind to shrug out of the jacket she’d donned in expectation of executing a warrant and give it to the ADA, who stood talking fast with an ear attached to her cell.

                “Judge Petrovsky? Good evening, this ADA Novak.  I need a favor, specifically a warrant.”  Casey was nodding to the jurist as though she could be seen. “I realize it’s late, but it’s of the utmost importance. Yes, I know I always say that but I mean it this time—as always. This isn’t a mere rapist planning his next attack. Remember Rebecca Gilson, the woman who went missing three days ago? This is about her and with re-election right around the corner—” She paused.  “You’ll sign the warrant?”

                She slowly began to smile and it was exactly the expression Liv needed to see.

                “Thank you, your honor. I’ll be by in half an hour to get your signature. Thank you. You’ve saved a young woman’s life tonight.”  Casey hung up and gave Liv the most amazing grin.  “You’ve got your guy.  Get me to the judge and he’s all yours.”

                Liv momentarily forgot herself and clasped Casey’s hand affectionately.  “I knew you could do it.”

                Casey didn’t seem to mind because she squeezed Liv’s hand right back.  “Good thing one of us believed.  Don’t think for a second that the judge is doing this out of the kindness of her heart. She isn’t.  It’s an election year and she can’t afford to have a dead girl and a runaway serial killer on her docket.” The out-of-dress ADA rolled her eyes, seemingly at things she’d never understand.

                “Doesn’t matter.” Liv pulled out her phone with her free hand.  “I’m calling El and we’re getting this bastard.” She began to pull Casey out of the bullpen.  “Come on, it’s time for your house call.”

                “I don’t have on the right clothes.  Petrovsky’ll—” Liv cut her off.

                “Petrovsky will think that you have a life to get back to, just like she does and she’ll keep the lectures to a minimum. That’s exactly what we want.  Keep the dress,” her detective strongly suggested.  She paused for a moment to thoroughly look Casey over.  “Lose the jacket though.  Doesn’t hurt to make her jealous; you’re clearly having a better time than she is.”

                Casey smirked, then, chuckled as she followed behind Olivia, their fingers still laced together. “The company’s better, too.”

                Liv grinned but didn’t respond; she was catching Elliot up on the latest.  He was still staked out with Munch and Fin in front of the suspect’s home.  They were getting antsy but it was paying off.  He hadn’t set foot outside all night.  Liv hoped like hell that was a good sign.  Once the call was over and she was left with Casey Novak at her beck and call, she could hardly think of anything else.

She liked the weight of Casey’s hand in hers and that her usually straight-laced ADA was in no rush to pull away.  She liked that dress that tempted and the beautiful body it clothed, though she’d like it more if it didn’t clothe at all.  When it came to Casey, she had a bit of a one-track mind and it always led her to the road never traveled, the one she desired to travel most.  Oddly enough, Casey’s actions never seemed to differ much from Olivia’s thoughts.

                Once they stepped onto the elevator, Casey was right there close and pressed against her.  She smelt like lemongrass and citrus fruit, unexpectedly intoxicating.

~!~

                Liv smelt like dust and cold coffee, infinitely more delicious than the meal Casey had just walked away from.  And she hadn’t let go of her hand. She was absently stroking inside of Casey’s wrist as she thought, seemingly lost in her own world.

                “You think we’ll save her life tonight,” Liv asked, breaking the silence.

                Casey might have put her arms around her in other circumstances.  “I think you’ll try your best and whatever else happens will be what’s supposed to happen.”  Not a hug, but the reassurance was something, she hoped.

                By then, they were descending and counting the floors. The lights were blinking off and on, and they were still close.  Casey had on the wrong shoes and the wrong clothes, but: “You look beautiful tonight,” her detective said and circumstances were immediately improved.

JJ was still on a plane for Quantico or wherever the latest psychopath had wandered to sew his destruction. A woman might well lose her life in the next few hours if they moved too slowly and the warrant came too late.  Liv could wake up from whatever spell she was under and remember that Casey wasn’t Alex and would never be.  Just as they had improved, circumstances could vastly deteriorate.

For the time being, however, the buttons were flashing, the ground floor was coming, and Petrovsky was waiting.  Through all this, Liv just kept holding her hand.