The Course of True Love: Chapter 45, Part 2
Title: The Course of True Love
Pairing: Alex/Olivia
Fandom: Conviction/Law and Order SVU
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: All characters are the property of Dick Wolf and NBC (except for the few I created).
Author's Notes: This story is meant to fill in the gaps for what wasn't shown on Conviction but very well could have happened; however, it begins before Conviction premiered in 2006 and will end after the finale.
Summary: Alex has returned to New York City and been promoted to Bureau Chief. Will she keep her promises to Olivia or will she decide that her career is more important?
“I wasn’t sure you were coming back tonight,” Robert commented. He tried to pass it off as a joke, but Alex could detect the annoyance in his voice. “I almost told our waiter to take the main courses back.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m not in the mood for this, Robert.”
Robert put down his fork and sighed. “I just wish you’d open up to me about this stuff.”
Alex rubbed her temples with one hand. “Robert, please.”
“I’m not trying to upset you, sweetheart. I love you and it just hurts to know that you allow your friends into a part of your life that you shut me out of.”
Alex sighed. “Liv was there when I was shot.” She refused to discuss it with him any further. “Now can we please just get back to our meal?”
Flashing a smile, Robert reached across the table to rub her hand with his thumb. “You got it, dear.”
Several minutes into their meal, one of the investment bankers at Neumann-Riggs came up to Robert and slapped him lightly on the back. “Shelton! Making quite a good impression both on and off Wall Street, huh?”
Robert turned around and grinned as he gave him a hearty handshake. “Well, if it isn’t Bradley Hayes!”
Bradley went over to exchange kisses on the cheek with Alex before returning to Robert’s side. “How are you two tonight?”
Robert chuckled and answered, “We’re great.”
Alex was a little irked that he had answered for her, but she just decided to ignore it. After all, she had enough on her mind. She just smiled politely at Bradley and asked, “How have you been?”
“Excellent. Keeping Robert on his toes?”
Alex laughed. “I try.”
“Almost done with that merger model you’ve been working on?” Robert asked.
“Pretty much. I need to look over it once more before I run my analysis by my associate, and then hopefully I can be in bed before 3 AM.”
“Hey now, you know money never sleeps,” Robert commented.
As Robert continued to talk to his colleague, Alex couldn’t stop herself from looking over at Olivia and Zoe’s table. She saw Olivia throwing her head back in laughter at something Zoe said and her envy only deepened. It wasn’t that long ago that Olivia had done the same with her.
When Olivia stopped laughing and turned her head, she saw Alex gazing at her. Their eyes locked in a moment of longing and regret as time seemed to stand still. Will fate always keep bringing us together and then ripping us apart again? she wondered. She didn’t know how much longer they would be lost in this dance with each other.
Before she became rapt any longer by the sea of Alex’s deep blue, Olivia tore her eyes away and focused on Zoe again.
Zoe had seen the gaze she and Alex exchanged. “You guys ok?”
Olivia could see that Zoe felt awkward. So with a tight smile she just answered, “Peachy.” Luckily, their waiter arrived to place their dessert courses on the table and that was the end of it.
Or so she thought.
**************
Jim walked into Alex’s office the next day and said, “Hey, do me a favor.” Alex turned to him. He continued, “Let me know if we’re gonna have separate policies on drug cases depending upon how much money they have.”
Smirking, she replied, “What are you talking about?”
Looking at the file, Jim read, “Luke Taylor…pled out to two years probation.”
Her smirk spreading, Alex informed him, “That was Desmond’s call. I backed it.” She walked over to her desk.
“I thought we weren’t breaking down drug cases.”
“Five grams of coke, no priors, no intent to distribute, do we really even need to have this talk?” Alex shot back.
With a dismissive wave of his hand and a tone dripping with sarcasm, Jim responded, “Fine. If we’re gonna make deals, just let me know.” He started to leave Alex’s office.
As if last night’s events weren’t enough, now Alex had to contend with Jim once again challenging how she ran her bureau. She was not in the mood to deal with his petulance today and was not going to take it. “All this hand-wringing over a minor drug bust and meanwhile a mother who kills her kid just walks out the door,” she retorted, gesturing toward the door.
Jim turned back around. “Please. You-you’re gonna turn this around on me?”
“Did you even read this girl’s diary, Jim?” Alex said, pointing to it and then picking it up. She opened it and said, “Right here. ‘Today my mom told me we weren’t going shopping for new school clothes because she didn’t think I would ever be able to use them.’”
Jim interrupted, “What’s your point, Alex?”
Glaring at him, she responded, “My point, Jim, is that sometimes you have to push the envelope-even if you lose.”
“We prosecute on the basis of fact.”
With a sardonic laugh, Alex stepped around her desk to confront him and exclaimed, “Larceny? Child endangerment? God forbid you take a stand!”
“I’ll share that with the assistants-the importance of grandstanding,” he retorted, leaving her office.
Muttering a slur towards him under her breath, she shot him one final glare and then returned to her spot behind her desk. She knew that the charges Jim had proposed to Christina were insulting and inappropriate to the case at hand and that if anyone was going to get justice for the little girl, she would have to take charge of the case herself.
Knocking on Christina’s door, she said, “Christina, can you pull that case you found for the Copeland investigation?”
Christina replied, “Oh…yeah. Jim didn’t think it applied.”
“Well, I would like to take a look at it. And call the defense and see if the mother will testify in front of the grand jury-as soon as possible.” With a supportive smile, she added, “I would like for you to be there.”
With a big smile and nod, Christina responded, “You got it.” Alex nodded and walked off. Christina felt thankful and victorious that even though Jim hadn’t believed in her, Alex did.
*************
After Alex had ripped the mother apart during the grand jury proceedings, she, Christina, the mother and her lawyer all met in the conference room. “The grand jury will return an indictment on manslaughter in less than an hour,” Christina said, standing in front of the window. Alex leaned back comfortably in her chair across from Robert Schwartz.
“Who are we kidding here?” Robert asked. “You can bully your way to an indictment but you’ll never get a conviction.”
“Oh, you haven’t seen me in action, Rob, I’m good!” Alex announced brazenly, springing forward and challenging him with a smug, daunting grin as she crossed her arms on the table. “They didn’t make me Bureau Chief for nothing, you know what I mean?” She threw a glance at the mother before turning back to Robert and continuing, “I’m going to be trying this one myself. And I’m going to use every resource available to this office to make sure this twisted, heartless wretch” - she glared at the mother - “goes down for man two.” She returned her cold, steely gaze to Robert.
Afraid that Alex would make her threats a harsh reality for his client, Robert tried to bargain, “Child endangerment. One year probation.”
“Get out,” Alex demanded, jerking her head toward the door. Robert looked at her in disbelief while Victoria looked scared out of her wits. “I’m serious! Get the hell out!”
The mother and her lawyer stood up. Victoria insisted, “I loved my daughter-very much. No matter what you think.”
Alex looked up at her with a smirk. “Tell that to the jury. I’m sure they’ll be moved,” she stated sarcastically. She leaned back in her chair satisfactorily as they exited the room.
“You really think we can prove manslaughter at trial?” Christina asked.
Alex shook her head. “Not a shot in hell.” But true to her nature, she had been determined not to show anything less than confidence that they would. After all, she knew that you could never let them see you sweat. With a silent snort, she got up from the table and prepared to leave.
As they walked down the hall together, Christina wondered, “So…if we can’t win at trial and we won’t consider a plea-”
“We wait,” Alex stated matter-of-factly, throwing up a hand and glancing at her.
“How long?”
Looking at her again, Alex asked, “Do you date much, Christina?”
“Huh?” Christina asked in confusion.
“The phone will ring,” Alex clarified. She gave her one last glance and added, “Trust me.” She continued into her office without breaking her step.
“Right. Got it,” Christina said.
Sure enough, it did just that. Several minutes later, Christina knocked on Alex’s doorframe. Alex stopped writing and looked up. “Robert Schwartz just called me,” Christina announced. “They’re willing to plead to negligent homicide and take three to six.”
Alex instructed, “Make it 4 to 12.”
With a smile and a nod, Christina said, “Great.” She turned to leave.
“Oh, Christina?” Christina turned back toward her. Giving her an encouraging smile, she said, “I appreciate all your hard work.”
Christina couldn’t have been happier to hear it. It gave her newfound confidence since she’d much rather have Alex’s approval than Jim’s. With a grin and thankful nod, she told her, “Good night.”
Alex’s smile widened. “Good night,” she responded softly.
Alex was pleased with how things had turned out. Ashley Copeland would get justice and that’s really all that mattered. She had scared them into taking a plea, insuring that the mother would serve time for faking her daughter’s cancer and driving her to suicide.
Now if only the pieces of her personal life would fall so smoothly into place…
Pairing: Alex/Olivia
Fandom: Conviction/Law and Order SVU
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: All characters are the property of Dick Wolf and NBC (except for the few I created).
Author's Notes: This story is meant to fill in the gaps for what wasn't shown on Conviction but very well could have happened; however, it begins before Conviction premiered in 2006 and will end after the finale.
Summary: Alex has returned to New York City and been promoted to Bureau Chief. Will she keep her promises to Olivia or will she decide that her career is more important?
“I wasn’t sure you were coming back tonight,” Robert commented. He tried to pass it off as a joke, but Alex could detect the annoyance in his voice. “I almost told our waiter to take the main courses back.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m not in the mood for this, Robert.”
Robert put down his fork and sighed. “I just wish you’d open up to me about this stuff.”
Alex rubbed her temples with one hand. “Robert, please.”
“I’m not trying to upset you, sweetheart. I love you and it just hurts to know that you allow your friends into a part of your life that you shut me out of.”
Alex sighed. “Liv was there when I was shot.” She refused to discuss it with him any further. “Now can we please just get back to our meal?”
Flashing a smile, Robert reached across the table to rub her hand with his thumb. “You got it, dear.”
Several minutes into their meal, one of the investment bankers at Neumann-Riggs came up to Robert and slapped him lightly on the back. “Shelton! Making quite a good impression both on and off Wall Street, huh?”
Robert turned around and grinned as he gave him a hearty handshake. “Well, if it isn’t Bradley Hayes!”
Bradley went over to exchange kisses on the cheek with Alex before returning to Robert’s side. “How are you two tonight?”
Robert chuckled and answered, “We’re great.”
Alex was a little irked that he had answered for her, but she just decided to ignore it. After all, she had enough on her mind. She just smiled politely at Bradley and asked, “How have you been?”
“Excellent. Keeping Robert on his toes?”
Alex laughed. “I try.”
“Almost done with that merger model you’ve been working on?” Robert asked.
“Pretty much. I need to look over it once more before I run my analysis by my associate, and then hopefully I can be in bed before 3 AM.”
“Hey now, you know money never sleeps,” Robert commented.
As Robert continued to talk to his colleague, Alex couldn’t stop herself from looking over at Olivia and Zoe’s table. She saw Olivia throwing her head back in laughter at something Zoe said and her envy only deepened. It wasn’t that long ago that Olivia had done the same with her.
When Olivia stopped laughing and turned her head, she saw Alex gazing at her. Their eyes locked in a moment of longing and regret as time seemed to stand still. Will fate always keep bringing us together and then ripping us apart again? she wondered. She didn’t know how much longer they would be lost in this dance with each other.
Before she became rapt any longer by the sea of Alex’s deep blue, Olivia tore her eyes away and focused on Zoe again.
Zoe had seen the gaze she and Alex exchanged. “You guys ok?”
Olivia could see that Zoe felt awkward. So with a tight smile she just answered, “Peachy.” Luckily, their waiter arrived to place their dessert courses on the table and that was the end of it.
Or so she thought.
**************
Jim walked into Alex’s office the next day and said, “Hey, do me a favor.” Alex turned to him. He continued, “Let me know if we’re gonna have separate policies on drug cases depending upon how much money they have.”
Smirking, she replied, “What are you talking about?”
Looking at the file, Jim read, “Luke Taylor…pled out to two years probation.”
Her smirk spreading, Alex informed him, “That was Desmond’s call. I backed it.” She walked over to her desk.
“I thought we weren’t breaking down drug cases.”
“Five grams of coke, no priors, no intent to distribute, do we really even need to have this talk?” Alex shot back.
With a dismissive wave of his hand and a tone dripping with sarcasm, Jim responded, “Fine. If we’re gonna make deals, just let me know.” He started to leave Alex’s office.
As if last night’s events weren’t enough, now Alex had to contend with Jim once again challenging how she ran her bureau. She was not in the mood to deal with his petulance today and was not going to take it. “All this hand-wringing over a minor drug bust and meanwhile a mother who kills her kid just walks out the door,” she retorted, gesturing toward the door.
Jim turned back around. “Please. You-you’re gonna turn this around on me?”
“Did you even read this girl’s diary, Jim?” Alex said, pointing to it and then picking it up. She opened it and said, “Right here. ‘Today my mom told me we weren’t going shopping for new school clothes because she didn’t think I would ever be able to use them.’”
Jim interrupted, “What’s your point, Alex?”
Glaring at him, she responded, “My point, Jim, is that sometimes you have to push the envelope-even if you lose.”
“We prosecute on the basis of fact.”
With a sardonic laugh, Alex stepped around her desk to confront him and exclaimed, “Larceny? Child endangerment? God forbid you take a stand!”
“I’ll share that with the assistants-the importance of grandstanding,” he retorted, leaving her office.
Muttering a slur towards him under her breath, she shot him one final glare and then returned to her spot behind her desk. She knew that the charges Jim had proposed to Christina were insulting and inappropriate to the case at hand and that if anyone was going to get justice for the little girl, she would have to take charge of the case herself.
Knocking on Christina’s door, she said, “Christina, can you pull that case you found for the Copeland investigation?”
Christina replied, “Oh…yeah. Jim didn’t think it applied.”
“Well, I would like to take a look at it. And call the defense and see if the mother will testify in front of the grand jury-as soon as possible.” With a supportive smile, she added, “I would like for you to be there.”
With a big smile and nod, Christina responded, “You got it.” Alex nodded and walked off. Christina felt thankful and victorious that even though Jim hadn’t believed in her, Alex did.
*************
After Alex had ripped the mother apart during the grand jury proceedings, she, Christina, the mother and her lawyer all met in the conference room. “The grand jury will return an indictment on manslaughter in less than an hour,” Christina said, standing in front of the window. Alex leaned back comfortably in her chair across from Robert Schwartz.
“Who are we kidding here?” Robert asked. “You can bully your way to an indictment but you’ll never get a conviction.”
“Oh, you haven’t seen me in action, Rob, I’m good!” Alex announced brazenly, springing forward and challenging him with a smug, daunting grin as she crossed her arms on the table. “They didn’t make me Bureau Chief for nothing, you know what I mean?” She threw a glance at the mother before turning back to Robert and continuing, “I’m going to be trying this one myself. And I’m going to use every resource available to this office to make sure this twisted, heartless wretch” - she glared at the mother - “goes down for man two.” She returned her cold, steely gaze to Robert.
Afraid that Alex would make her threats a harsh reality for his client, Robert tried to bargain, “Child endangerment. One year probation.”
“Get out,” Alex demanded, jerking her head toward the door. Robert looked at her in disbelief while Victoria looked scared out of her wits. “I’m serious! Get the hell out!”
The mother and her lawyer stood up. Victoria insisted, “I loved my daughter-very much. No matter what you think.”
Alex looked up at her with a smirk. “Tell that to the jury. I’m sure they’ll be moved,” she stated sarcastically. She leaned back in her chair satisfactorily as they exited the room.
“You really think we can prove manslaughter at trial?” Christina asked.
Alex shook her head. “Not a shot in hell.” But true to her nature, she had been determined not to show anything less than confidence that they would. After all, she knew that you could never let them see you sweat. With a silent snort, she got up from the table and prepared to leave.
As they walked down the hall together, Christina wondered, “So…if we can’t win at trial and we won’t consider a plea-”
“We wait,” Alex stated matter-of-factly, throwing up a hand and glancing at her.
“How long?”
Looking at her again, Alex asked, “Do you date much, Christina?”
“Huh?” Christina asked in confusion.
“The phone will ring,” Alex clarified. She gave her one last glance and added, “Trust me.” She continued into her office without breaking her step.
“Right. Got it,” Christina said.
Sure enough, it did just that. Several minutes later, Christina knocked on Alex’s doorframe. Alex stopped writing and looked up. “Robert Schwartz just called me,” Christina announced. “They’re willing to plead to negligent homicide and take three to six.”
Alex instructed, “Make it 4 to 12.”
With a smile and a nod, Christina said, “Great.” She turned to leave.
“Oh, Christina?” Christina turned back toward her. Giving her an encouraging smile, she said, “I appreciate all your hard work.”
Christina couldn’t have been happier to hear it. It gave her newfound confidence since she’d much rather have Alex’s approval than Jim’s. With a grin and thankful nod, she told her, “Good night.”
Alex’s smile widened. “Good night,” she responded softly.
Alex was pleased with how things had turned out. Ashley Copeland would get justice and that’s really all that mattered. She had scared them into taking a plea, insuring that the mother would serve time for faking her daughter’s cancer and driving her to suicide.
Now if only the pieces of her personal life would fall so smoothly into place…