A/N: Fits in with Charm Bracelets, and SVU isn't mine.
I could hear their voices. If it had been a matter of simply ignoring them like I ignored my partner, I'd have done it, but it wasn't. And I couldn't. Even if I'd wanted to. They lingered in the air around me, brought back to live because their cases had been reopened.
Once upon a time, their blood had run through Baltimore's streets. Child victims were always the worst. And as luck had it, a child had been my first. There I was, a rookie murder police, staring down at a little nine year old with a charm from a bracelet stuck to her lips.
I'd thought the case would kill me. Got to the point where I almost ate my gun. Would have, if Abby hadn't walked in to save me from myself. She'd been keeping a careful eye on me ever since she and Kay and Tim had dragged themselves up to New York from our dear old Charm City. But Abby was asleep now, and breathing evenly, and I was the one watching her.
I envied her. She'd never seen the bodies, hadn't been with me when I'd gone to notify families of their loss. Hadn't seen fathers, pale faced and asking questions, hadn't seen mothers, quietly sobbing, trying to cope, but unable to. No…Abby was a prosecutor, plain and simple. Her side was in the courtroom and nowhere else.
But the voices continued to sound. I had never known what any of the girls sounded like, but I could put a face to each one I heard, a smile to each face I saw. These were the voices that would haunt me until the cases were finally closed…the faces I'd see until it was over.
These were the echoes of angels that would see me through until the end.