A/N: SVU isn't mine. Muse of mine has had this idea for a while, and decided that it finally wanted to write it, so here goes nothing.

The door flew backwards, coming off the hinges as it did, the sound echoing through the house. Splinters of wood littered the floor, ignored by the group that came storming in, guns drawn. They split up as soon as they were all inside, each of them heading in a different direction.

"Clear!"

"Clear!"

The first two calls came quickly, followed by the sound of footsteps headed towards the main living room, where the first one in had gone, and where he stood now, gun at his side, staring at the walls.

"Elliot, there's no one here." Olivia Benson came out of the kitchen as footsteps took the stairs leading up from there. "Whoever was here is long gone."

"But we're close. Look." Elliot Stabler looked up and motioned to the walls with his free hand. "There are timestamps. These…they were taken today."
Olivia looked towards the wall, and bit back a gasp. Across the flat white surface were pictures that clearly illustrated what it was that had been going on in the house they'd raided. Two more calls came from the upstairs, signifying that the house was indeed empty as they'd assumed it was when they'd come in. The warrant they had was useless. Besides the pictures, there was nothing else to find.

"What the hell are we missing here?" Elliot asked, after a moment, stepping forward to start taking the pictures down off the wall. "Look at the timestamps, Liv, we just…we just barely missed them."

"I know." Olivia closed her eyes for a few seconds, as if she were trying to clear the images from her head, even though she knew it wasn't going to happen. "We're going to find them."

It was a statement that he'd heard too many times before. In the past four weeks, he had lost count of how many times he'd actually heard it, but it didn't make a difference, because in the past four weeks, there had been little progress. Every time they got a lead, it went nowhere, and the few times that it had actually gone somewhere, by the time they got to where they were supposed to be, it was already too late.

"It doesn't make any sense. We should have found something by now, anything besides these damned pictures." Elliot trailed off, a frustrated sigh escaping him as he did. "What the hell do these people want from me?"
Olivia didn't answer, but it was mostly because there wasn't any answer to give. More footsteps came, but the first one to appear out of the kitchen was John Munch.

"CSU is going to have to come through here," he said. "It's the only way we're going to be able to find anything besides whatever they left out this time."
"Pictures," said Elliot, and handed them over. "You and Fin find anything upstairs?"

"Nothing but a lot of broken glass, a couple of mattresses and this." Fin Tutuola held out what he had in his hands; Elliot looked at it for a long moment and then took it.

"It's Eli's," he said quietly, finally putting his gun back into its holster. He felt the fuzz of the little brown teddy bear and took in the chipped eye, a product of Eli's banging it against his crib. "They were definitely here. Was there anything else?"

"No. If you and Liv want to head back to the squad room, we'll stay here and wait for CSU to show up," John started, but Elliot cut him off.

"I'll stay," he said, and turned to face Olivia. "If you want to head back with these guys, go ahead. I'll call you if anything pops up."

"I don't think so," said Olivia, shaking her head at him. "I'm staying right here with you."

"We'll head back and let the captain know what's going on, then," said Fin. "Let us know if CSU finds anything."
Elliot nodded, mutely, and turned away, to go into the kitchen. None of the other three followed him.

"We might be running out of time," Olivia said, quietly enough that her voice wouldn't carry. "I found this in the kitchen."

She held out a white envelope that was addressed to her partner and continued on before John or Fin could say anything.

"There's another picture in here," she said, her voice shaking now. "There's a note, too."

John took the envelope and opened it, pulling out the note and looking over it, frowning as he did.

"If I can't have them, no one can?" he said, the words coming out more as a question than a statement. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"Look at the picture," said Olivia. "Then you'll see what it means."

But a picture of Kathy lying lifeless with an obviously screaming Eli in the arms of a distraught Kathleen made everything clear just as it made everything unclear.