A/N: Okay, I do not own L&O SVU in any way. I've only seen a couple episodes, so a lot of things are gonna be wrong. And just to warn you, there are a few things that are definitely AU. Enjoy!

Don Cragen sighed deeply and put his head in his hands. His detectives were not going to like the news he was about to give them.

The phone call he had received that morning had dredged up twenty - year old memories of the sort that no one wants to be reminded of. There was no doubt about it, this case was not going to be pleasant.

He opened the door of his office and strode out into the bullpen. He rolled his eyes at the sight that greeted him, and fought back a chuckle.

"Oh! And Stabler gets another three pointer! Can Munch take the heat? I don't think – "

Olivia stopped commentating abruptly and blushed sheepishly when she caught sight of the captain standing there. Elliot kicked the garbage can, now half full of wadded up scraps of paper, under his desk surreptitiously. Munch, who hadn't noticed his former partner - now boss - standing behind his desk, continued to make little paper basketballs. That is, until Cassidy kicked him.

"Ow! What was that for?"

Cragen cleared his throat. John turned around.

"Oops. Sorry."

Don waited until all of Munch's basketballs were in the trash before speaking.

"Well, now that I have your attention, we have a new case. Missing boy. He helped the NYPD with a kidnapping case, and then he disappeared. We've been assigned to search for him."

Cassidy raised a finger and said, "Question. Why is this our case? Shouldn't it be Homicide's or something?"

"That's a good point, Cassidy," the captain replied, stuffing his hands in his pockets. "But I'm connected to this boy's situation in more ways than one. And so is Munch."

"What? I don't know any missing kid."

Cragen sighed, and dropped the bombshell.

"That's because he went missing almost twenty years ago."

There was complete silence. Realization dawned on John's face. Elliot and Olivia exchanged skeptical glances. And Cassidy burst out laughing.

"You've got to be joking. How the hell are we supposed to find a kid who's been gone for that long?"

Ignoring his partner, Munch leaned forward and said quietly, "Is it… the boy? Is that who we're talking about here?"

Cragen nodded.

"But – but he was declared dead!" John stammered. "We searched everywhere for him! And the circumstances under which he was taken did not bode well for his chances."

Elliot, Olivia, and Cassidy looked at each other in confusion.

"Excuse me," interjected Elliot impatiently. "But the rest of us have absolutely no idea what you're talking about."

"This kid was a member of a vicious street gang that kidnapped and held four young women for ransom," Cragen explained. "He was a good kid, a little misled maybe, but he was only fourteen and had a good heart. Anyway, when he found out what his buddies were going to do to those women, even if they got the ransom, he came to us. Munch and I were in Homicide then, and were fronting the effort to retrieve the women. He told us where they were being held, how many people were guarding them, everything. The only problem was that it was extremely likely the women would be killed at the first sign of a police operation."

Cragen paused, a far – away look on his face, and swallowed as if remembering something very unpleasant. Munch was staring at his cold cup of coffee with subdued eyes.

"So he realized that the only way we could get the women out alive was if he went in there and got them himself. And he knew we would never allow it. So he didn't tell us he was going. He just went. The next thing we know, the four women are at the station, falling apart and screaming about the 'poor, brave boy' who saved them."

Don's voice faltered, and he stared down at his feet. Munch picked up where he left off.

"Turns out that he got in there, freed the women, and got them out the back door without any trouble. And then one of the guards saw them and started shooting. The women told us that the boy was hit in the leg and back, and that he screamed at them to keep running when they turned back to get him."

"We went to the warehouse where the women were held and searched for signs of him. All we found was a bloodstain in the alley and one of his sneakers," Cragen said mournfully. "We looked everywhere, for months, and found nothing. Finally, we had to have him declared dead. We didn't even know his name."

No one spoke for several moments, paying their respects to the heroic young boy who had risked everything to save four people he didn't even know. And then Elliot spoke up.

"So why are they opening up the case again? If you couldn't find anything then, we're sure as hell not gonna find anything now."

"I got a call this morning from one of the vics," Cragen said. "Turns out one of the toughs who kidnapped her was arrested in Queens for breaking and entering last week. She saw his picture in the paper and recognized him instantly. She went down to Reichers and talked to him."

"Brave woman," Olivia muttered.

"You can say that again," said Don. "Anyway, she says he dropped a few hints about what happened to the boy, and she wants them investigated."

"Why?" Cassidy asked. "I mean, if the kid hasn't turned up in twenty years, there's no way he's still alive. Finding his bones along some highway isn't going to make things any better."

Munch shook his head. "No, but it will offer the victims some closure. He saved their lives, and they probably want to thank him in every way that they can. Give him a proper burial, for one thing."

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves here, Munch. We don't even know if this guy's information is reliable." Cragen turned to Elliot.

"Stabler, you've still got a crapload of paperwork from that assault case, so you're day's shot…"

Elliot made a face. Olivia giggled and he stuck his tongue out at her.

"Don't bother him Olivia, you've got your own mountain of forms to fill out."

She shot her captain a dirty look.

"So that leaves you two," Don said, pointing to Munch and Cassidy. "Go down to Reichers and get all the information you can out of one…" He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and scanned it.

"… Robert Chrichton. The vic says he's quite a jerk, so you might have your work cut out for you."

"Don't worry," said Munch as he pulled his coat on. "I'll just sic Cassidy on him. He won't be able to resist the old detective charm."

"Watch who you're calling old, you geezer…" Brian said as the pair left the bullpen.

Cragen had been right. Robert Chrichton was a number one A – hole. He sat on the hard chair in the interrogation room, a smirk crossing his squashed face as he toyed with the detective's nerves.

"If you want information, I'm afraid you're gonna have to pay for it."

Cassidy slammed his fist down on the table.

"We don't bargain with criminals. Tell us what we want to know, or we might contribute to that ugly face of yours. Capisce?"

Munch put a calming hand on the younger man's shoulder.

"Calm down Brian, calm down. Look, why don't you go out and get a cup of coffee or something. I'll talk to him for a while."

After a moment, the young man nodded shortly, then turned and stormed from the room. Munch sighed deeply, and sat down calmly in the seat across from Robert.

"Sorry about that. He's a little… temperamental," John said with a vague wave of his hand. "Look, all we want is some information on what happened to the boy. Just give us a few leads, and I'll do my best to help you out of this mess. What do you say?"

Chrichton grinned. "Well, one thing's for sure, you've got the 'good cop bad cop' routine down pretty well."

Munch didn't say anything. The convict chuckled and leaned his forearms on the table.

"Alright. I'll tell you what I know. But I want parole."

"Sorry. Even I can't pull that."

"Then I want my jail time reduced."

"I'll see what I can do."

"You'd better, because I'm not tellin' you nothin' until I get what I want."

"How'd it go?"

Cassidy accosted his partner the second he closed the door of the interrogation room. Munch sighed in frustration and pretended to wring an imaginary person's neck.

"He won't tell us anything until his jail time is reduced."

"So do you want me to go in there and carry out my threat?" The young man began rolling up his sleeves.

"No, that'll just make things worse."

"You'd like it though, wouldn't you?"

"I see what you're trying to do. You're trying to make me say something inappropriate so I'll be fired and you won't have to put up with me anymore. I see how it is."

"You caught me," Cassidy said, sounding falsely dejected.

"I always catch the conspiracy theories. No, as much as I'd like to beat the ever – living snot out of that guy, I'm afraid we'll have to be slightly more political. Let's go talk to Alex and see what she can do about reducing his time."

"Well, Chrichton. You're in luck."

Munch and Cassidy sauntered confidently through the door and confronted the troublesome convict.

"We've got a few friends in high places, and they've managed to cut your sentencing down from three years to one."

"How do I know you're not lying?" the man inquired suspiciously.

"Because…" Munch said, reaching a hand into the folds of his jacket. "… I've got the form right here for you to sign. There you go."

He slid the paper across the table and slapped a pen down on top of it. Chrichton examined it, a triumphant gleam in his eyes. After a minute, he looked up at the two detectives and said, "Alright. I'll tell you what I know about dear little Matt the Rat. He was quite a favorite of the Boss, a right little suck – up. He was a runaway, had real bad parents, so no one ever came looking for him. Did errands and carried messages and shit like that. He was perfect for pushing drugs and stuff too, 'cause no one ever suspected him. He was 'too cute'."

Chrichton made a face.

"Anyway, I never did like him. He was too soft, did shit like giving his money to beggars in subways and helping little old ladies cross the street. I knew he was trouble from the start. And then he up and betrayed us, helping those broads get away…"

The convict slammed his fist into his palm menacingly.

"Needless to say, we were all pretty pissed about that. But the Boss was the maddest. He didn't even say anything, just tied the kid up and threw him in his van. They went off somewhere, and when the Boss came back…"

He spread his arms wide and shrugged nonchalantly.

"No Matt."

"Just who is this 'Boss' person he was talking about?" Cragen asked them back at the station. John and Brian had returned and had spent the past ten minutes recounting their interview with Robert Chrichton. Elliot and Olivia sat at their desks, paperwork momentarily forgotten.

"His real name is Alek Starson. He's being held in Reichers too," Cassidy explained. "Only he's on death row."

"Well that certainly makes things easier," Cragen said. He pointed to Munch and Cassidy. "I want you two to go down there again and see if he'll talk. Use that whole 'alleviating your sins before you die' crap if you have to."

After the two left, Elliot threw his pen down with a contented sigh and said gloatingly, "Well, my dear partner, it seems that I have finished my work before you."

Olivia gave him a death glare and shot a rubber band at him, which he easily avoided. Chuckling, he stood up and put his coat on.

"I'm heading home. You need a ride? I could stick around."

She waved him away. "No, I'm alright. Go badger your kids about their table manners."

"More likely it'll be the other way around. I've spent way too much time here, eating out of plastic containers and having to put up with you talking with food in your mouth."

Another rubber band hit him between the shoulder blades as he walked out the door.

Brian Cassidy hated visiting convicts on death row. It made him feel all… weird inside, knowing that in not very long, the person he was talking to would be dead. Not to mention the fact that they were almost always complete creeps.

Alek Starson was no exception. His unkempt grey hair and stubble, accentuated by a long white scar running down the length of his face, gave him an air of destitution. His grey eyes were cold, and unfeeling. He didn't look at all disturbed by the fact that his execution date was in a week's time. And he had absolutely no interest in giving them any information whatsoever.

"What am I gonna get out of it?" he demanded. "Huh? Another crime on my record?"

"That won't exactly make your situation any worse, pal," said Munch, leaning his palms on the table. "All we're looking for is some closure."

"Well I don't care about your frickin' closure. I'm not gonna get pinned with another murder."

"We already know you killed the kid!" shouted Cassidy, his eyes sparking in anger. "Your buddy said enough for us to figure it out on our own! All we want to do is give him a proper burial. You're gonna die anyway, at least show some compassion for once in your miserable life."

Starson glared up at them. At one point, his steely gaze must have instilled real fear among his followers, but now, with his eyes dulled from age and confinement in a room he would not leave until he walked down that hallway to his death, it was pitiful.

"I've done nothing but bad things with my life," he said softly, enunciating each word perfectly. "I've killed people. Stolen. Ruined people's lives. I know I'm not going to heaven, but if telling you where I dumped that boy's body will make things even the slightest bit better, I might as well do it."

He looked down at his clasped hands and took a deep breath.

"I put him in the woods by Route 91, going east. Right past Exit 47."

The sun rose the next day around six to find the search team already working. Detectives Benson, Munch, and Cassidy were helping with the operation. Elliot was at the hospital with Kathleen, who had had to get her appendix removed.

They looked… and looked… and just for a change, they looked some more. But after eight hours, they still hadn't found anything. Finally, Olivia stated the obvious.

"He's not here."

The entire team was taking a much needed lunch break. The three detectives sprawled on the grass, passing around a two – liter bottle of Coke like a jug of beer.

"Where else could he be?" Cassidy grumbled irritably.

"Well, Mr. Mob Boss isn't the most reliable of sources, is he? He could just be pulling our chains, for all we know," Olivia said reasonably.

"That's true, but he didn't look like he was lying."

"Alright, so where's the kid then?"

She received no answer. They sat there for another twenty minutes, until they were drinking the dregs of their Coke. And suddenly, Olivia had an idea.

"Did Al Capone tell you what he did to the kid?"

John looked at her sharply. "What do you mean?"

"Did he shoot him outright, or just hit him over the head or something?"

"Why does it matter?"

"Because, my dear Munch, our Matt might not have been truly dead when Starson threw him in here. He might have gotten up and walked away."

"That speaks very loudly of 'Attack of the Zombies', or something."

Olivia hit the older man with the empty plastic bottle. "I'm being serious! We should check all the hospitals around here, see if he managed to get to any of them."

Cassidy scoffed. "Oh yeah, like anyone's gonna remember some beat up kid they treated twenty years ago."

"It never hurts to check." And with that, Olivia stood up, brushed off the seat of her pants, and walked off towards her car. Munch and Cassidy looked at each other and raised their eyebrows.

"What the hell." Cassidy shrugged, and they got up to follow her.

Their search through the hospitals was going about as well as their search through the woods. Three clinics in, and the only responses so far to their questions were "No" "Sorry, no" and "How the hell should I know?" Even the solitary picture of Matt that they had pilfered from the case record was no help.

That is, until they held it up in front of an elderly nurse with wispy white hair and kind eyes who worked at the fourth hospital they visited. She took one look at the picture and broke into a reminiscent smile.

"Oh! That's Elliot!"

This exclamation of recognition broke the bored stupor the three detectives had been in for the past two hours.

"Wait a minute," Olivia said excitedly. "You know this boy?"

"Of course I know him!" the old woman said, busily putting new sheets on a hospital bed. "He came in here – oh it must be getting close to twenty years ago now – hurt something awful. Blood all over him, barely able to stand, with no idea who he was, where he was, or how he got in such a state. It looked to me like he'd been hit in the head with a baseball bat. Made him look very different from the way he looks in that picture. But I'd recognize those eyes anywhere."

Olivia grinned and looked at her companions triumphantly.

"Do you know what happened to him?" she asked the old nurse.

"He stayed here for a while, waiting to see if his memory came back. We put his picture in the paper, but like I said, it looked completely different from the one you've got there. Finally, when no one came to get him, we had to send him to an orphanage. St. John's, I believe."

"So you're saying Matt is alive?"

The three detectives had returned to the station to find the four women who Matt had saved sitting in the bullpen, talking to the captain. He had introduced them as Angela, a fortyish lawyer with graying brown hair, Victoria, a stay – at – home mom with three kids, Katie, a part time waitress and journalist for the New York Times, and Alison, a small – time talk show host. All four of them now sat in the SVU stationhouse with their mouths hanging open in disbelief.

"Yes, we believe he survived," Olivia said. "But he walked into that hospital with absolutely no memories. The staff there named him Elliot and sent him to an orphanage."

"Well that certainly changes things," commented Angela, who was the one who had first called Don about the investigation. She and her companions looked very happy that the boy had not been killed, but then she brought up another issue. "What do we do now? Find him and tell him who he really is, or leave him alone?"

"Good question," said Cragen. "We might do him more harm than good by telling him about all this after twenty years of ignorance."

"But he's probably gone his whole life wondering who he really is," interjected Olivia. "He deserves to know."

No one spoke for several moments, mulling it over in their minds. And then Cragen picked up the only picture they had of Matt – now Elliot – and tacked it onto the bulletin board.

"I think we should get to know him a little bit before we make this decision. You three." He pointed to Munch, Cassidy, and Olivia. "I want you to go down to St. John's and find out where Ma – Elliot is now."

"Why do you need to go down to St. John's? I'm right here."

Elliot had entered the room, looking a little haggard from spending the entire night in the hospital with Kathleen. His dress pants and shirt were wrinkled, the sleeves rolled up, and his short brown hair stuck up in odd places. He obviously needed coffee, and badly, for he made a beeline for the machine. John rolled his eyes at his comment.

"Not you, smart one. The kid's name is Elliot. Turns out he's still alive, and he went to St. John's orphanage after he got out of the hospital."

"That's weird," Elliot said, drinking deeply from his cup and leaning against the bulletin board. "I lived at St. John's for a while."

Munch and Cassidy gaped at him. He cocked an eyebrow and lowered his coffee.

"You didn't know that?"

Their expressions were answer enough. Only Olivia and Don, who already knew, looked unsurprised by the news.

"Why were you in an orphanage?" Cassidy asked stupidly. Elliot rolled his eyes.

"Because I'm an orphan, dumbass. Or at least I think I am. I don't really remember." He looked uncomfortable.

Suddenly, everyone was alert and staring at him as though they had seen a ghost.

"What do you mean, you don't remember?" asked Cragen quickly. Confused by the sudden attention, Elliot said uncertainly, "Exactly that. I don't remember."

He lifted the coffee cup to his lips and said quietly before he took a swig out of it, "I can't remember anything until I was fifteen or so."

Don dropped his pen. Olivia fell off her chair. Katie and Victoria looked like they were about to faint. Munch and Cassidy gaped as always.

"What?" Elliot looked at them in utter bewilderment.

Don just mouthed wordlessly at the man he had come to love like a son, his eyes darting between the thirty – four year old Elliot with the short hair, scarred but still handsome face, and half – smile, and the fourteen year old Matt in the picture tacked to the board, with the scruffy hair and icy blue eyes that spoke of things no child should have to endure. And suddenly, miraculously, everything made sense.

The feeling of déjà vu when he first shook hands with the young man who had been newly assigned to the SVU. The way he always avoided questions about his childhood. How even Elliot couldn't explain why he was so passionate about bringing criminals to justice. The way he truly connected with the victims, truly felt their pain.

Elliot might have changed. His features might have been permanently altered by Starson's beating. He might not have the slightest idea that he was the boy they had been looking for all this time. But he was still Matt on the inside.

Elliot was beginning to feel acutely uncomfortable. Why was everyone staring at him like that? Had he missed something? When several moments passed, and nobody spoke, he decided to end this foolishness.

"Ummm… are we gonna go find this guy, or what? The nuns at St. John's keep pretty thorough records, I doubt it'll be very hard to find him…"

No one was listening to him, and he trailed off pathetically. And finally, at long last, Olivia came to his rescue. She walked forward, took him by the arm, and turned him around so he was facing the bulletin board. Pointing to the picture of a blue – eyed boy pinned there, she said quietly, "Elliot, who does that remind you of?"

He squinted at it. Truth be told, it didn't really remind him of anyone. And then something jumped out at him.

"He kinda looks like Dickie."

He didn't see Olivia look over her shoulder at the other occupants of the room. He was still studying the picture, trying to figure out why everyone was acting so weird. He put his coffee down and folded his arms across his chest. Olivia turned back and looked at him for a moment, then:

"That's you, Elliot."

He looked at her sharply. "Don't be ridiculous, Liv. I've never looked like that in my entire life."

"But you don't remember your entire life, do you?"

"Amnesia doesn't explain the fact that someone would have had to take a baseball bat to this kid's face to make him look like me."

He heard her sharp intake of breath, and turned to her.

"What made you think that's me?"

"Because that kid is Matt, the one we've been searching for for the past few days." Cragen spoke up behind them, and they both turned. "We just found out that he walked into a hospital on the outskirts of the city twenty years ago, covered in blood and with no memories."

He looked at Elliot sadly, and said, "One of the nurses there said it looked as though someone had taken a baseball bat to his face."

Elliot stared at him, dumbstruck. And then he shook his head defiantly.

"It can't be me. I don't remember any hospital. The first memory I have is of St. John's."

"Your mind was recovering," Munch said. "Sometimes, after a very traumatic experience, the brain resets itself. It takes a while, and you were probably in the hospital while it was happening…"

Munch's voice faded into the background. Something very strange was going on inside Elliot's head. Unfamiliar images flashed before his eyes, unfamiliar people, unfamiliar places. He shut his eyes tightly, trying to keep them out, but they kept coming. A middle – aged man with unkempt black hair and a white scar running down his unshaven face screaming at him. A woman tugging desperately at his hand as he lay on his stomach in a filthy alley. The dark insides of a run – down van that smelled faintly of blood. Blows raining down on his unprotected body. A pipe held in the hands of the same angry man. And then darkness.

His eyes snapped open, and he stumbled backward, shaking Olivia's concerned hand off his arm. His back collided with the wall, and his heart pounded so hard he was sure everyone could hear it.

For a long time after he woke up in that orphanage, with no memory of who he was, or what he was, Elliot had spent hours sitting on his bed, trying to break down the barrier that cut him off from the first part of his life. It had taken many years before he finally came to accept that those things would never come back to him. And now, twenty years later, he barely ever thought about it. His ignorance was a part of him by now, a part he had thought would never go away. And now, just like that, after only a slight nudge in the right direction, the wall had fallen down.

He remembered everything. Every horrid, painful minute of his first fourteen years of existence. And he found himself wondering why he had ever wanted to know.

"Elliot?"

Olivia's voice broke through the fog of his mind, and he returned to the present. He stared at his partner through eyes that swam with tears.

"You remember, don't you."

It was not a question. But he answered it anyway.

"Every second of it."

And he stumbled from the room.

No one spoke. The sound of the clock ticking echoed loudly throughout the room. And then Cragen asked softly, "Well. Did you find your closure?"

Nobody answered for several moments. And then Alison said sadly, "Yes. I've gotten closure. But at what cost?"

Olivia turned and followed her partner out the door.

A/N: So… did you like it? Hate it? Think it was utterly and completely pointless? I completely agree with you on that last thing. It was quite a good idea when it was in my head, but it didn't translate so well onto paper. Well PLEASE REVIEW and tell me what you think. I'm trying to get up the courage to write a sequel, so if you did like it, please tell me. Thanks for reading.