DISCLAIMER: Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and all characters are property of NBC and Dick Wolf.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Do NOT read if you're a Casey fan, as I was in a bad mood and Ms Novak paid for it.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.

Casey Close the Door
By ralst

Liz straightened out her suit and squinted her eyes in a 'don't fuck with me' stare. She was going to ream the stupid bitch a new one and it wasn't going to be pretty.

"Novak!" She screamed, as the oddly dressed woman lurched past her office. "Get in here!"

Casey stopped, turned, and tried to work out where the voice had come from.

"In here, you dip-shit!"

Following the screech, the young ADA made her way to Donnelley's office, before smiling at her new boss and closing the door.

"Did I tell you to close the door!"

"Excuse me?"

Squinting harder, Liz leant forward against her desk to stare daggers in Casey's direction. "I said, did I tell you to close the door!"

The former redhead thought for a moment, slowly replaying the last two minutes in her head, very slowly. "No?" She guessed.

"Then why did you shut it?!"

That one stumped Casey. "I don't know," she tried to think of what Judge Mary would say in a similar situation but came up blank "because of a draft?"

"What!"

"A draft," Casey explained, although she wondered why her boss was talking as if there were exclamation marks after her every sentence - she hadn't twigged to the fact that she was potentially in a shit-load of trouble.

Liz reined in her glare, "Are you stupid or just playing with me?"

Casey's brow scrunched, she hated pop quizzes. "B?"

Donnelley stood motionless, her mind working through the potential consequences of her strangling one of her ADAs. Half the judges in the district had been exposed to Novak by that time, so if she was lucky her case would be assigned to one of them and they'd rule it justifiable homicide before the prosecution could even unpack their briefcase.

"Liz?"

The older woman blinked and in that second she dismissed her murder plans, hating to ruin her chances at being the next DA when Branch's little extracurricular activities with the Belgium Ambassador's poodle came to light in next week's Globe. "Sit down."

Casey sat, her knees together and hands placed primly in her lap, just as her mother had taught her. "Was there something you wanted, Liz?"

"Yes," Donnelley's teeth ground together, she hated when wet behind the ears lawyers used her first name without permission. "I wanted to discuss your win loss ration, or should that be loss loss ratio?"

Casey pondered the question, she wasn't sure but she didn't think the second option was grammatically correct. "I won my last case," she said proudly.

"Elliot Stabler beat a confession out of the suspect."

"Yes," Casey smiled, "and I won the case."

"It doesn't count."

Casey pouted. "What about the Mitchell trial, I won that."

Liz sighed, "Detective Benson cross examined Mitchell from the gallery and got him to recant his testimony and admit he'd been in the house at the time of the murder."

"I know, but..."

"Then Detectives Munch and Tutuola walked into the courtroom carrying placards depicting the suspect in the act of murder, which you'd forgotten to show to the jury."

"A slight oversight..."

"All of which Judge Petrovsky allowed, before she instructed the jury that if they didn't find the man guilty they were as stupid as counsel for the prosecution."

"It doesn't count?" Casey guessed.

"It doesn't count."

Casey wished she was back in the batting cage, life always seemed so much simpler when she was swinging her trusty slugger, Mabel, and dreaming of nights spent in the arms of a rugged Irish-American police officer. "What about Mendelson? I won that without any help from anyone."

"True," Liz conceded, "but jaywalkers don't count."

Casey pouted but remained silent.

"I'm sorry, Casey, but I'm going to have to let you go."

"Go where?"

"Anywhere that doesn't have a courthouse." Liz rose and handed Casey a sealed white envelope. "I hear that McDonalds is hiring."

Having taken the letter Casey lurched, dejectedly, out of the office.

Liz sighed in relief before picking up the phone and making a quick call, "Hello, is that Witness Protection? I wonder if you could help me, I'm looking for a blonde about yay tall..."

The End

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