Title: Ghosts

Characters: Characters: Lennie Briscoe, Ed Green, Anita Van Buren, Elliot Stabler, Olivia Benson, John Munch, Odafin Tutola, Don Cragen Casey Novak, Elizabeth Rodgers, Melinda Warner, Arthur Branch, Jack McCoy, OFC. Also starring Serena Southerlyn, Abbie Carmichael with assorted guest stars and extras.

Summary: A brutal crime strikes close to home for the DA's Office – and raises ghosts. Police and prosecutors must catch and convict a monster in a case that strains professional and personal bonds, and pushes all involved to the edge. McCoy takes charge of the investigation and prosecution despite the concerns of those around him. All involved must confront the ghosts of past cases. Ultimately McCoy must find a way to lay the ghost haunting him to fulfil his promises to those who look to him for justice. Sequel to Should Have Known. X-over SVU.

Rating: M for profanity, violence, sexual references, references to sexual violence.

Disclaimer: I do not own "Law and Order", nor any of the characters therein. I am making no profit from this.

Author's note: Follows "Should Have Known" .

I am not NY native or indeed an American, as my woefully inadequate knowledge of NY geography and the American legal system makes perfectly clear! I do, however, love Law and Order. Down here in Oz, we get the episodes years late and often out of order, which has led to my long-standing confusion between who is in the show when and why and how old they are. My fannish imagination therefore has its own chronology, which differs from the show's canon in only three substantial ways: Lennie Briscoe didn't retire; Jack McCoy was snap-frozen ten years ago (since that's the age he is in the reruns that are all our free-to-air channels see fit to give us) ; and my series kicks off at the beginning of series seventeen, so it is substantially AU to everything from then on.

Reviews welcome, constructive criticism especially welcome. Flames ignored.

Thanks to mccoylover for encouragement, and to vah and Lynn for extremely helpful comments.

One need not be a chamber to be haunted;

One need not be a house;

The brain has corridors surpassing

Material place.

Emily Dickinson

Bailed
Arraignment Court

9.30 am Wednesday 25th October 2006

"Bail is set at one hundred thousand, cash or bond," Justice William Koehler said, and banged his gavel. Regan Markham gathered together her papers and headed towards the back of the court. She stopped to rifle through her files and double-check that she had just arraigned her last felon for the morning.

"Docket ending 438," the court officer called out, and a shackled defendant was led past Regan. "People v Edward Walters, charge is rape in the first degree, assault in the first degree."

"How do you plead, Mr Walters?" Koehler asked.

"I didn't do it, sir," the defendant said. Regan half turned and gave him the once-over: shaven head, prison tattoos. Maybe I'm guilty of profiling, she thought but he looks like a rapist to me.

"Do the people wish to be heard on bail?" Koehler asked.

"Yes, your honour." Although Regan struggled to remember the name of the young ADA who answered, she recognised the smooth helmet of dark blonde hair from the corridors and elevators of the DAs Office. Mary something? " Mary Firienze for the People, your honour. We ask for remand. Mr Walters brutally raped and sodomised the victim, Annie Levy, before beating her so badly she will require extensive reconstructive surgery."

"Don't try the case in arraignment, Ms Firienze," Koehler warned.

"No, your honour. But the brutal nature of the crime, the ongoing risk to other members of the community, and the fact that the victim has been able to identify the defendant - "

"That's not strictly accurate, your honour." The speaker was a well-dressed man whose prematurely white hair gave him a paradoxically youthful look. " Larry Heinlin for the defence, your honour. ADA Firienze has – I'll be polite and say she's been misinformed about the strength of the People's case. There is no forensic evidence, my client has an alibi, and the identification will not survive a Wade hearing."

"Your honour, the victim picked the Mr Walters out of a photo array conducted under normal procedures in hospital," Mary said. "There's no problem about the identification."

"Except that Annie Levy just died in surgery, your honour, so her identification is inadmissible."

Regan could tell from the way Mary Firienze's head went up that she hadn't known. Still, she recovered well. "In that case, your honour, the People will be amending the charge to add felony homicide – and since the identification will qualify under dying declaration, we see no reason our request for remand should not be granted."

"Nice try, Ms Firienze," Koehler said, "but an identification via a photo array in a hospital ward does not qualify as either a dying deposition, excited utterance, or outcry testimony."

"That's a matter to be determined at the Wade hearing, your honour," Firienze said.

"And I'm not willing to remand a defendant based on nothing more than an identification that may or may not be admissible," Koehler told her. "Bail is set at seventy thousand cash or bond. Trial date set down for – November 29th."

Firienze's shoulders slumped. Edward Walters laughed, and as he was led away he leaned across and murmured something to Mary Firienze. Even from the back of the courtroom Regan saw the other ADA flinch.

She waited until Firienze headed for the exit and then fell in step beside her. "Hey," she said. " Mary, right? Special Victims Bureau?"

"Yeah," Firienze said.

"I'm Regan. Trials. You got a bad bounce there."

" Casey Novak is going to kill me," Firienze said.

"I don't know what else I would have done," Regan said, and Firienze smiled gratefully.

"This guy, he's a bad guy," she said. "What he did to Annie Levy – the way he beat her, the torture – I can't get it out of my head. We gotta get him off the street. And I just as good as let him walk."

"You have to play it as it lays," Regan reassured her. "All you can do."

"Thanks," Firienze said. "I'll try telling that to Novak."

They turned in opposite directions at the courtroom door. Regan headed down the stairs to Trial Part 58 to see if Jack McCoy needed anything from her before she headed back to the office. He was opening in a racketeering case with no-one sitting next to him, although Regan was listed second-chair. The rest of her day was blocked out for a final prep of the People's witnesses, and she'd be in court with McCoy tomorrow.

She slipped into the back of the court and waited until McCoy caught her eye and shook his head slightly. Dismissed, Regan headed for the elevators.

As she was waiting for the elevator she felt a hand on the small of her back. Turning, she found herself face to face with Edward Walters.

"Hey, babe," he said, and licked his lips.

Regan reacted without thinking. "Get your fucking hand off me, skell," she said, dropping her voice low into her best 'bad cop' register. "Or I'll rip it off and shove it so far up your ass you'll be able to pick your teeth from the inside."

Walters hand came off her like she'd turned radioactive. "Hey, no need to over-react, sweetheart," he said.

"Fuck off," Regan said. "Right now." She moved closer to him and he backed up, then turned and walked quickly away.

"Everything all right?"

Regan turned back towards the elevators and found herself face-to-face with a big man with close cropped hair, broad-shouldered, hard-faced. Heart still pounding, she braced to deal with him.

"What the fuck do you want?" she growled.

He flashed a gold shield. " Elliot Stabler," he said. "SVU. Was he bothering you?"

Regan took a breath, forced herself to calm down. "Nothing I can't handle," she said. " ADA Markham, Trials. I see my fair share of skells."

"He's bad news, ma'am." Stabler said. "Don't get in over your head with these guys."

"I know what kind of news he is, detective," Regan said. "But thanks for the advice."

"You know he raped a woman and beat her to death?" Stabler said.

"I saw the arraignment," Regan said, refusing to let him shock her. "You the one who collared him?"

"And my partner," Stabler said. "I can't believe he's bailed. Firienze fall asleep in there?"

"She did her best," Regan said, liking this man less and less with every sentence out of his mouth.

"Our bad luck Casey Novak had to handle a pre-trial motion this morning," Stabler said. "She wouldn't have let – "

Regan cut him off. "Detective Stabler, sometimes cases just turn to shit on you, and there's nothing you can do. Don't blame Firienze. If she'd had any forensics to work with the outcome might have been different."

"Yeah," Stabler said, seeming unconvinced. "Do you know where I can find her?"

"I think she went back up to case conference." Regan said.

"Okay." Stabler said. "See you around, ADA Markham."

"Yeah, sure," Regan said to his departing back. I hope Mary's all right, she thought. That guy sure has an over-supply of macho.

Regan remembered Firienze flinching from whatever Walters had said to her and shook her head as she got into the elevator. Mary might have years of seniority on me in the DA's Office, she thought, but she's a kid, all the same.

I'll call her tomorrow. Take her to lunch or something. Give her a couple of tips about dealing with macho cops and creepy perps.

Tomorrow. Today, she had Jack McCoy's witnesses to prep. Regan was sure she could handle cops and criminals, but an EADA with under-prepared witnesses … that was an entirely different story.

A/N: I'll keep posting this as I write it, so please let me know what you think so I can re-write and improve as I go.