"History is a set of lies agreed upon."

- Napoleon Bonaparte -

"In 1961, Richard Abernethy, on vacation in Dublin with his family and a few close friends, raped and murdered Mary Carter. She was a companion on the trip and had lived two doors down from the Abernethy family since birth. She was Richard's best friend and confidant according to the neighborhood kids.

"Because of the murder, the family sent the grandparents and children home early while the investigation was conducted. He returned to the local governmental offices were he worked as file clerk during the summer and when suspicion for her death turned to the travelers that October, Richard stole the identity of Peter McDuff, a local man who'd died of a heart attack earlier in the year.

"He went on the run, getting to Canada and from there, England. Where he was headed is unknown, but evidence indicates he was trying to get to Russia. Only he never made it there – a marriage license was filed in Czechoslavakia in February of 1968. Peter John McDuff and Zora Novak. In November the following year, their first child, Dobrila, was born.

"Before she was even a month old, everything changed."

"Being there at the moment is everything."

- Anon -

Monday, December 23

Two days to Christmas and George Huang was staring at the file they'd mostly ignored during the search for Eliska. It was heavily censored, some of it in Czech, and most of it hardily worth keeping in a government sealed file in the first place.

But being an agent of the FBI, he knew there had to be more than met the eye. He reached behind the paper-clipped and mostly blacked out packet on Zora to withdraw pictures of the Novak children, photos taken from the hospital by the then-communist government.

Dobrila was a sweet looking baby, a tuft of dark hair on her head in stark contrast to the fair skin she'd had. Idly, George wondered if she'd remained pale as her younger sister as she aged.

"I'll never understand," Olivia commented. She'd come up behind him in his office, immediately seeing what he was so studiously hunched over. "There are so many beautiful children that are used and thrown away like garbage."

"We're not meant to understand." He sat up a little straighter and gestured toward the chair opposite him, waiting to continue until she'd settled. "I can give you psychological reasons and behavioral ones, but we both know that there's nothing that will justify what's happened."

She sighed, nodding her head in agreement. "I still wish we'd noticed. Casey was two months pregnant when she was fired. How could we not have seen that? She'd always been outspoken and she was constantly riding the line of being fired, but looking back now..."

"Looking back, you can see the signs and make sense of things that didn't before. But you can't let it consume you. You, Elliot, John, Fin – no one is guilty of purposely ignoring abuse," he told her. Huang knew that the unit had been blaming themselves, that they were putting in so much overtime as a way to atone for what they perceived as their fault.

"I'm trying, George." Benson picked up the picture of Casey – Marochka – from the table and after flopping it back down, spoke again, "I can't imagine how alone she must have felt."

He took the picture from her, putting it beside the one of Eliska and said, "She may have felt alone but she had a reason to not give up."

That was something else Olivia couldn't imagine: Casey had sacrificed her teenage years to raise a child, leaving the only city she'd ever known in the only country she'd ever known with no money and no suitcase. She had taken Eliska and traveled through four nations, managing to get into England where she worked full-time off the books while she obtained a college degree and kept an apartment. She'd homeschooled Eliska on top of all that and done a damn good job of it.

"Did you find anything?" She asked finally, after a few moments of silence had passed.

"No. Unfortunately, my expertise is not going to help." He hated to admit it; he was an FBI agent as well as a psychologist, and his training should have offered some insight, but so much had been blacked out.

"We appreciate the effort," Olivia told him. "Translation Services is working on the pages for us. I'll let you know if there's anything in it of use." She started to gather the papers together, carefully hiding the photo of Casey, big eyes on a skinny baby, beneath the one of Eliska and then placing Dobrila and Milana on top.

She wouldn't say it aloud and George didn't need to ask to know that Olivia couldn't bring herself to look at the hopeful eyes of the newborns who had grown into the disenchanted Novak girls. She didn't know either of the elder siblings though. Their eyes didn't threaten to break her heart.

"When is McDuff being arraigned?"

"Tomorrow. Would have been today, but his lawyer pulled some footwork. Nicole is going to ask for him to be held until trial since he's a flight risk."

His expression turned serious and he said, "Don't allow Eliska in the court room. He won't need to speak to her to cause emotional distress and she needs to focus on healing from the damage he's already inflicted."

"I'll warn the court officers and ask for Munch to be called if she shows up." She hoped her face looked more assuring than she felt, uneasy at the thought of Eliska trying to see the man who'd actively tried to break and Casey's spirit and her own.

Walking back to the squad room minutes later, Olivia thought of Munch who had gone to Staten Island to pick Eliska up from her friend's home. His relationship with Eliska had started to take on a more fatherly tone though no one dared mention it, simply not wanting to point it out for the sake of the girl's emotional state. She had become so closed off that no one was sure of the boundaries or how she'd react to such comments.

She dropped the file on her desk, popping open the drawer and fishing through for an old photo that had once sat prominently on the desk.

They'd gone drinking, the detectives and their young ADA, at a local bar after one of their tougher cases. Over empty beer bottles and full mugs of coffee, Casey had shared jokes and Elliot had talked about his kids while Munch had remarked on a theory he had regarding cell phones. Novak's digital camera had made an appearance right before a round of complimentary shots hit the table and amid the ensuing foolishness brought on by lack of sleep, one decent picture of the group had been taken by their server.

When Casey was fired, Olivia had shoved it into the drawer, effectively ignoring it although she wasn't sure which of her emotions had fueled the behavior: anger, sadness, or bitterness. Either way, it had been a permanent resident until that moment.

Looking at it, she sighed. How different could things have been if she'd picked up a phone? Stopped by the apartment? Sent a letter? If she had reached out, Alexandr would still have existed but would the pregnancy have gone longer?

"Stop," Elliot called from across the desks. "I know that look."

Rather than comment, she set the photo in it's simple frame back with the rest near her computer and said, "TARU found the rest of Casey's medical records. Three different clinics in different parts of Manhattan. She saw an OB-GYN on 72nd for three months, one at NYU Downtown, and a sliding fee on 47th randomly over the course of a year and a half."

"Did she use a different name?"

"Her primary physician had her name as Casey Lynn Novak, the OB-GYN as Cashel McDuff, NYU as Casey M. McDuff, and the clinic as Marochka Novak." She handed over the legal pad she'd written out the information on.

"Well, she could have been trying..."

Eliska broke into the conversation, telling them, "She was trying to make sure no one could take Alexa from her once he was born. Father always swore that Alexa would be taken away if she said anything about what he did to her." She shrugged there and waited, sure that they would ask her what she'd been expecting since she saw the manila envelope from the embassy on Benson's desk.

But it didn't come, instead Cragen called the girl into his office and she quietly went, smiling when she saw the unit's ADA.

"Good people do not need laws to

tell them how to act responsibly,

while bad people will

find a way around the laws."

- Plato -

Nicole Leona Carthing was a woman of great intellect and equally warm personality when dealing with others. Of course, when it was needed, many times against perps and coworkers, she could weld words like weapons and make more scathing remarks than anyone would expect. She would not bend under the weight of her position, glad to find some small way to make someone's life better.

She, however, had never expected one of the lives she would touch would be Casey Novak, legendary ADA for SVU. No one's reputation had ever been so controversial in the DA's office in the history of the department; either Casey was considered honorable for her tireless efforts or she was seen as a zealot. The issue with Judge Taft often being cited for the latter despite the outcome.

They'd met in Law school, sharing a class and, due to financial straights, a textbook. She was one of the few who had met Eliska, a sweet little thing at eight years old. Even then the girl's disposition had been outgoing and outspoken, so much like her sister that Nicole had often wondered if they were mother and daughter instead of sisters.

Reading the file she'd been handed that fateful November day, she'd problems believing it really was Casey and Eliska she would represent in court after an arrest was made. It had only been after she'd seen the photos and talked to Olivia and Munch that she had allowed herself to truly accept it and within hours, she was summoned by McCoy to have a private sit down.

Now, six weeks later, she was sitting in her office with the overhead on and the shades pulled open, staring out the window at the people leaving for the night. Trenchcoats, overcoats, jackets with briefcases and metrocards at the ready, everyone was headed home to sleep and prepare for their appearances before a judge.

"Nicole?" Warner called from the door, not moving for a moment while the other woman faced her. "It was open."

"Always has been," Carthing responded. She walked over from the table and settled down in front of her desk, leaning onto the top and crossing her arms over her chest. "What's up?"

"My final report. I thought it might help you during trial." She handed over the covered file, sitting down in a chair and telling Nicole, "Alexandr's DNA test was exactly as expected – match to Casey and to McDuff. I also reviewed the autopsy reports from the Czech Republic for Dobrila and Zora. Dobrila's cause of death is listed as internal bleeding from an unknown cause, but that poor girl was beaten over the head repeatedly. Her skull was broken in multiple places and the forehead had actually impacted on her brain."

"And the mother?" She asked, staring at Melinda as she set the file on top of her other papers relating to the case.

"The nature and variety of her broken bones is more like someone being pushed down a flight of stairs and then kicked rather than someone who threw themselves down them. Her cause of death is considered suicide, but the photos in the file show boot imprints on her back and a bruise on her arm in the shape of a hand. It's assault in the very least."

The sigh came on involuntarily. "Well, that'll be three governments wanting to prosecute him then."

"Three?"

"Peter McDuff is also known as Richard Abernethy. He raped and murdered a woman in Dublin in '61. They've been looking for him for forty years over it. If your information reopens the case, we'll be facing an extradition order from the Czech government as well the Irish." She walked over the opposite chair and sat down, trying to decide what she should do.

For the murder in Ireland, he would, at some point, face sentencing though she wasn't familiar with his laws enough to know what the punishment would be in terms of years. The same for the Republic. In America, they could charge him with the death of Dobrila who, like her siblings, had dual citizenship and as such was protected in part by US Law.

At least his arraignment in the morning would proceed. The court wasn't going to stop his indictment though his trial would be delayed while the details of the law were worked out. She personally hoped that the extradition would be struck down, leaving the US to decide his fate. For incest, sexual assault, murder, and attempted murder, he wouldn't set foot near Casey or Eliska again in his lifetime.

They each brooded for a moment, digesting the reality and enormity of what was about to be undertaken. This was not going to be a simple case with so many lines to walk and red tape to navigate. Lord knew, they'd have to deal with officials from all levels of the judicial system.

Quietly, Melinda admitted, "It doesn't really matter where he gets locked up. It matters that Casey and Eliska don't have to think about him as a threat."

"No, it matters that they see him paying for the crimes that matter to them. And that may mean losing the US' right to prosecution, so he can be charged with the murder of their mother," she explained, recalling the things Eliska had told her in the sanctity of Cragen's office. Her voice had been confident as she admitted Casey often missed their mother, often mentioned how much she wished Zora had been there to see Eliska grow up.

McDuff had stolen the innocence of three children, raised his hand to the fourth, and taken away the one person who had ever tried to protect them. Casey would never put herself before that loss, Nicole knew, although things had changed. Who knew what she would say when she discovered what the sixty-four year old Peter had done to the teenager.

She was so lost in thought, she never heard the medical examiner leave, but when she fell back to reality the chair was long vacated.

Nicole returned to her desk and pulled out the McDuff/Novak file from the stacks. She could probably recite verbatim the facts recorded within, but she wanted to be prepared and it couldn't hurt to read it again.

It certainly had nothing to do with the need to see Peter McDuff suffer for what he'd done.

"Whoever is in distress can call on me.

I will come running wherever they are."

- Princess Diana -

CSU released the apartment three days after Christmas, telling SVU that Eliska was free to return whenever she wanted but, "it'd be best to let clean up come through first. That area rug in the living room is trashed."

Yet, despite the warning, Eliska went back to the home as soon as she was able that afternoon.

The furniture had been left as it was when she'd last been there almost a month earlier – couch against a wall, coffee table flipped back. Her eyes jumped from paper to paper on the floor, immediately stooping down to collect them in case they were something important in them even as her logical side pointed out that such items had already been taken for evidence.

She carefully tapped the short edge against the kitchen counter as she walked in to the room, setting down the stack before taking stock of the area and noting that she'd have to clean out the refrigerator as well as go grocery shopping. Her sister's room needed a full on attack with the vacuum and laundry bags.

Only her room remained unscathed, bed made and clothing neat in drawers. Her most prized possession, a glitter globe with a dancer inside that Casey had bought her at the start of college for a considerable sum of money, sat sparkling in the bright sun.

It was like day and night, and without a word, Eliska handed John and Olivia a garbage bag and a hamper respectively.

For the two detectives, it was a lesson in trust as the girl left them alone in the living room while she tackled Casey's bedroom after telling them, "I know we'll probably move out once my sister is better. Rent is pretty high for what we can afford anyway, but I don't want her first thought when she walks in here to be about what happened. She still has to sleep at night."

She had shut the door behind her, another explicit display of trust – not keeping them in her sight and allowing them free run of her home – which gave both detectives the chance to converse though it was kept to hushed tones.

"I haven't been able to see Casey's son yet," Munch remarked after they'd grown quiet, his hand sitting on a date book. In pen, made bold by repeated writing of the same words over themselves, was an appointment for May: Results of pregnancy test due. "How's he doing?"

"The bronchitis meds have helped, but they still don't want to release him until he's stronger." She picked up a magazine CSU had left behind, opening it to a random page and noting the crib Casey had circled and then crossed out for a cheap playpen on the other side of the page.

"And how's she?" He asked without looking up, the date book pushed to the side and a sealed letter to Jack McCoy now in his sight. In all his time with Eliska, sitting with her at the hospital and talking with her about her sister, he'd never asked about her condition. It was hard enough knowing the Casey Novak who'd fought in court and faced down molesters, murderers, was the same Casey Novak who'd been living in hell for a year and a half, now laid out in a hospital.

He would admit to no one that he'd refused to listen to any information on her health – he didn't think he could handle it, not when his image of her had already been revised tenfold.

"Better, but she's not woken up yet. They're keeping her pretty heavily sedated," Benson said. "She doesn't have any severe neurological damage that they've seen on scans, but the doctor said the amount of pain she'd consciously be aware of awake, it was better to continue to let her body heal." She added, "They'll start bringing off the sedation in a few days," as she reached for some towels that had fallen from the linen closet in the fray.

She was standing in the kitchen when the next words slipped from Munch's lips, the hamper shoved into the bathroom across the hall. He was never one for being so serious unless absolutely necessary and it seemed it was one of those necessary times.

"Casey won't be the same," he stated.

"She doesn't have any brain damage, John..." She'd played dumb for a minute, a tactic she'd always used to pull more information from a suspect, but the look he gave her ended it. "Are the lives of any of our victims ever the same?"

He only shook his head and walked away.

"Out of difficulties grow miracles."

- Jean de la Bruyere -