Olivia got the email at noon. She sat and stared at the perfunctory notification for a long time. She couldn't feel anything. It was too bland and impersonal. Just another meaningless event in a meaningless world. There was no one she could tell, no one who could respond, empathize, and remind her that people could care, that it wasn't a crime to care. No one knew she kept tabs on the kids, electronic tagging that she had learned in her stint with cyber crime. She had mentioned something about it to Elliot once and he had looked at her as if he were inches away from shouting for Huang. It wasn't that obsessive.

It didn't feel that strange either. If she had been a normal person, a real person, not just a worthless shell, she would have had friends; she would have been invited to graduations and weddings, funerals too. But she wasn't a normal person, and the people she knew weren't normal either. This was all she had. Sometimes it was enough to make a rotten day great, when she got news of one of the kids' successes. A teenage boy who had been raped and abused by his step dad had just graduated from med-school as a surgeon. It had launched her to the moon with happiness. She had given a toast out with the guys and she had made up something about the kid being a friend's progeny when none of the guys remembered the name. Then Elliot had asked if she was going to the ceremony. Now that would have been obsessive.

Today was just the opposite. She brought it up in the pen indirectly.

"Do you remember Maria?"

"Huh?" Elliot looked blank.

"Maria, kidnapped on her birthday, porn, buried alive."

"Oh, vaguely."

Olivia just nodded. He didn't care. But how could he know that that girl, who had just died of an infection picked up at the group home, was one she had considered adopting. She had seriously considered it, but had talked herself out of it with arguments like "my Spanish is terrible," and "I work too much, and I couldn't change that." They sounded so frail to her now. It made her wonder sometimes, if all these kids that they 'saved' weren't worse off for their interference, for their indifference. The system failed them. It didn't protect them when they needed protection. It didn't rescue them when they needed rescuing. It didn't give them the basic amount of safety they needed to grow up.

But that was crazy talk. Even if it didn't always work, the system was better than nothing. It was just hard to tell herself that. And there was no one to talk her out of her funk.

Casey walked into the bullpen, her shoes making too large a clatter for her tiny frame. Olivia winced. She still hadn't gotten to know the new DA even though she had been there for almost a year. Somehow she couldn't forgive her for something that was entirely Olivia's fault. Olivia had started the fight. Olivia had blamed Alex for getting that fed killed. Alex had nearly died. A little boy's family had been murdered. And Olivia had come into work one day, seen the innocent face of Casey Novak and realized that she had blown it. Their relationship was ruined for good.

Even after she came back, Alex wouldn't return her calls. That was too far gone to salvage. But she should probably try to make an effort to get to know Casey before that ship sailed too and Olivia became known as the bitch of the 1-6. Casey looked irritated though. Maybe she'd make an effort tomorrow.

***

Casey was irritated. Lucy had called her no less than six times already today making sure she'd show up for the party tonight. She didn't even want to know what Lucy had promised her friends if she was that invested in Casey being there. Casey was totally not in the mood to go to the party. She had been fighting with a defense attorney for most of the week over a plea bargain that she didn't even want to take and just wanted to go home and sleep. It was Friday night; she deserved rest. Even getting fucked wasn't much of a lure. Particularly because parties meant Lucy made sure all of her friends got a good helping of Casey's talented mouth before she was distracted enough to let someone (anyone) get Casey off. Usually it was a guy, and Casey had left all interest in that behind her long ago. That was the reason she had a girlfriend, even if said girlfriend had a tendency to forget her entirely when faced by a delightful variety of untried sexual partners.

Casey was so busy grumbling to herself that she didn't even notice she was in the bullpen until she nearly tripped and fell face first onto Olivia's desk. She caught her balance and blushed fiercely, noticing Olivia's bemused expression. She hated to admit it, but she was kind of scared of Olivia. There was just something about her that read, "I am a paragon of virtue! I can see your sins as if they were written in ink upon your face!" And Casey couldn't help feeling mildly guilty even if she didn't have anything to feel guilty about.

It reminded her of how she used to feel around Father Leo, the priest at the church her family had gone to when she was young. He was one of those round-faced smiling old men, who always shook your hand, even if you were four and covered in chocolate. He radiated goodness and forgiveness and generosity, and Casey had nearly blurted out all her darkest fantasies to him many times. Some of them had been very intimately involved with items of religious paraphernalia. But she had managed to keep her mouth shut. Even when she had to go to confession before being confirmed she had just hummed and managed to mutter something about coveting her sister's clothes, taste in clothing was probably more accurate, but it was better than admitting that sitting in the confessional booth made her horny.

Luckily the erotic associations she had with Catholicism were not also connected to police work, so she didn't have the exact same problems around Olivia. And sex parties with consenting adults weren't technically illegal, so she really had no reason to confess herself at all. Although…

Every once in a while she wondered what it would be like to have one of the parties busted up by the SVU, and have Olivia and Elliot storm in, guns waving, and catch her handcuffed with her head between some stranger's legs. That one definitely bordered on erotic fantasy associated with her job, but it was most definitely a fantasy. Humiliation was a lot sexier in the imagination than in real life.

***

Jen lay in the dark room listening to the breathing of the other kids whom she would never consider her siblings. She was waiting. She had been waiting for three years. She wondered what she was waiting for. She didn't wish for it to come; she never felt anything hard enough to wish anymore.

Her stomach hurt. One of the kids was crying. She thought about beating the shit out of it, but it was being quiet. It was at least smart enough to know that being noticed would only make it worse.

The door slammed. Heavy footsteps pounded up the stairs. The sound of breathing inside the room stopped. Even Jen held her breath, and she wasn't scared of him anymore, not like the little brats were. He wasn't that bad really, not like some of the freaks she'd been with. He was just in it for the money.

The door opened.

"Jen, you've got a job. Uniform." He threw a bundle of clothes at her, and she grabbed them as she slid off the bed.

"Whatever." She was naked. She usually slept naked. It saved time. She pulled on the short pleated skirt and blouse with a coat of arms sewn on, and looked askance at the knee socks before she pulled them on. Sleazy. No bra or underwear was par for the course. "Braids or pigtails?"

He laughed. "Surprise me."

Pigtails were less work. She slid into her shoes and followed him out the door. He led her down the street, his arm around her shoulders as if they were on a date. They took the subway to Manhattan. Alphabet City, probably yuppie swingers who wanted some new 'friends.' Uptown was worse. There you got the really kinky jerks. When it was slow she'd just hang out in the Bronx. That was usually fast and straightforward, no mind games. Jen could handle mind games. Sometimes she wanted to try them, fuck someone up with just a look and a word, but she only could risk it with the brats and the yuppie scum and they were boring. Anyone else was too dangerous. Even if her life was shit it was better than being a wet spot on the pavement.

The buyer was waiting on the street corner. He looked twitchy. Cocaine addict, she could spot it a mile away. "You're late."

He shrugged. "You got the cash?"

"Don't you get it? The party's already started."

"All the better, then no one will ask where a dipshit like you picked up such a hot piece of ass."

This was boring. Jen glanced around. There was a woman, dark hair, maybe red? She couldn't tell in this light. She was stalking along the pavement, looking pretty pissed, and snapping into her cell phone. What the fuck was she doing out here at this time of night? Unless she was heading to the party. That would be cool. Fucking that ass wouldn't be a chore.

"Hey!" His hand jerked her shoulder. She had missed the end of the deal. "I told you to go with him, you stupid bitch!"

***

"I told you to go with him, you stupid bitch!"

Casey froze as she saw the big man slap the girl across the face. The sound echoed on the brick.

"Munch," she said quietly. "I need help, police help. B and 21st, okay?"

Then she closed her phone and started running. The girl had said something and the man shoved her down.

"Hey!"

The group of three all turned their heads at the sound. The big man laughed. "Who are you?"

"I'm with the police."

Absently she noticed the girl's eyes widen in surprise. The big man laughed again, but the other guy tensed up. "Really? And you and your imaginary police friends are going to tell me how to treat my own daughter?"

"I'm not your daughter," the girl muttered.

He smacked her absently in the head and then jerked her to her feet, pushing her towards the other guy. "And my daughter has some business to take care of. So maybe you and I could take a little walk," he glanced around, "down that alley."

He was a talker; that was good. If she could just think of something to say. But suddenly she was starting to regret her interference. She wasn't a cop. She wasn't carrying a gun. Was she going to threaten them with a legal pad? The other guy was moving, reaching for something, and smiling in a way she didn't like. He looked unstable.

"I don't know. Pick's over, and I think that one's cuter." Casey tensed up. He had pulled a Swiss Army knife out of his pocket and flicked open the largest blade.

"Don't be drastic," the big man stepped in. "I'm not giving you your money back. Take the brat and I'll deal with the nosy bitch."

"I like to watch. I'll hold her for you if you give me second go."

Casey's eyes searched, hoping for lights and sirens, but all she saw was the girl. She looked hard and indifferent, but their eyes met, and Casey thought she saw something else; something like confusion, but it was probably her imagination.

He stepped forward and grabbed for Casey's throat. She grabbed his shoulders and nailed him in the balls. He yelled and lashed out with his fist, the knife an afterthought to the blow, pressing into cheek and lip almost incidentally, not sharp enough to do more than scrape.

She doesn't feel it. Everything goes strange, monochrome and jerking, happening.

He throws down his knife and lunges for her, shoving Casey against the rough brick of the wall. Her head snaps back and connects with his sudden force. She's stunned. Her grabs her shirt collar and jerks it down. He breathes in with a hiss, her breasts out. His hand is on her leg, trying to get under her tight skirt. Casey's head is foggy. The pain makes it hard to think. She makes her knees go limp and slides down the wall. He straddles her as he fumbles with the top of her skirt, obviously unused to women's clothes. She sees the girl again. She's watching. She looks disappointed, like she expected better. Casey fumbles on the ground behind her. Her hand closes on a half brick. The catch of her skirt comes undone. He leans forward eagerly. The half brick connects with his head. She feels the crunch and blood spatter her hand. He falls limp, his head on her bare stomach.

The big man looks up. "Hey!" He takes a step towards her, and the girl is leaping for him, scrabbling at his eyes.

A blue light, sirens, and unmarked car wails around the corner. Olivia and Elliot jump out, their guns out. "Hands up!"

The man curled like a lover into her lap isn't going to put his hands up any time soon.

***