Signs of Life, a law and order fanfic

Staten Island Homicide Detective Mike Logan leaned into the bitter east wind, closing his eyes against the stinging salt spray. He wrapped his worn leather coat tighter and sighed at the sensory memory of the toasty bed and even warmer lady he'd left when the tweedling cell phone pried him away from a rare sweet dream just as the hall clock struck four. Yellow crime scene tape threaded among sea oats, both swaying in the rising gale of a nor'easter. Beyond the oats he could hear, rather than see, the ocean lapping at the packed sand of the beach of Crookes Point. He stooped beneath the tape searching vainly for the traditional white chalk outlining the corpse.

"Hey, Sarge!" Feet sinking in the sand, he stumbled alongside a bear-like officer. "Where'd you find the body?"

"What body?" Arching eyebrows lifted the uniformed officer's beefy jowls. "Oh," the face relaxed, "you mean the victim?"

"Victim?"

"Yeah. White, female, brown and brown, early to mid-thirties. Took her to Our Lady Hospital."

"But you called for a Homicide cop!" Logan shouted.

"Give it time," the officer answered wryly. "EMTs said she probably wouldn't make it until dawn."

* * *

Mike Logan's mouth soured at the sight of the mustard yellow tile walls in the Intensive Care Unit of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Hospital. Not that he had anything against the color, particularly, but it seemed to be the color of bad news for him: the morgue walls after Max Greevey was killed, the waiting room of the hospital after Phil was shot. And now, again, bad news for this unfortunate Jane Doe, obviously quite beautiful yesterday, but ruined today. There were stitches at the corner of her mouth, above them steri-strips suturing the gash on her left cheek. A white bandage peeked out from behind her right ear and a cast bound the left wrist. The swollen face hung limply, lolling like an ill-used rag doll.

"Damn," he muttered.

"May I help you, sir?" The voice was soft, but firm, and emanated from a blonde, very-pregnant, pink-scrub-clad nurse with water-blue eyes.

He pulled back his unbuttoned coat, revealing the gold shield clipped to his belt beside his weapon. "Yeah, how's she doing?"

"Still hasn't regained consciousness." She waddled into the victim's room. "He really worked her over, didn't he?"

Logan nodded, eyes fixed on the blackening marks that mottled most of the smooth olive skin that wasn't covered by the over-washed cotton hospital gown. "Do you still have the rape kit?"

She padded back to the nurse's station and pulled a file from a locked drawer. "Specimens have already gone to the lab, but everything else is here- pictures, examiner's notes, the works."

Logan plopped the folder on the counter, scattering Polaroids. He flipped open the folder and laid the photographs in head-to-toe order. His eyes flitted back and forth between the narrative and the photos. Rising bile burned his throat as he catalogued the injuries. "She gonna live?"

"Sure," the nurse waved her hand over the photographs like a showroom model, "nothing a psychiatrist and three or four doctors can't fix."

The detective responded by walking to the patient's bedside and grabbing her right hand, turning over several times, then peering at the left hand that peeked out of the cast.

"What are you looking for?"

"Defensive wounds," the detective answered. "If she'd fought him her hands should be covered with bruises." He gently held out the right hand. "They're not."

"Which means?"

"Any of several things." Gently he rolled her head, exposing the bandage behind the ear. "What's this?"

"Skull fracture. That's why she's unconscious."

He nodded then laid the hand down with a comforting pat. "Recent hair cut, fingernails neatly trimmed, somebody's gonna be looking for her."

"Let's hope so," the nurse ushered him back to the desk. "She's gonna need all the help she can get before this is through."

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Chapter 2

Special Victims Unit Detective Elliot Stabler froze, telephone receiver in his ear and finger poised over the keypad.

"Eight-fifteen. She's only fifteen minutes late, he told himself. She's a grown woman and a cop; she can take care of herself. He slammed the receiver into the cradle.

"She's a big girl," Detective John Munch consoled. "She can take care of herself."

"Damn straight," Stabler barked while rolling up his sleeves. I sure hope so.

Eight phone calls later, Stabler and Munch fidgeted while the aged building superintendent tried keys in the door.

"You don't have a master key?" Stabler chided.

"Are you kidding?" The man's accent dripped Alabama and he moved at a snail's pace. After several bouts of key-rattling and grunting, he paused. "Are you sure you don't need a warrant or something?"

Stabler fought the itching in his fists. "I told you, we're not here to arrest her. She's my partner and she's late for work. We're afraid she might be sick in there."

The old man's yellowed eyes squinted at them both before he rattled the keys again and the door swung open.

"Benson?" Stabler bullied his way past the old man. "Olivia?"

Glass crunched beneath his feet and a torn NYPD gray tee shirt lay in a wad on the floor beside a scarlet smear.

"Oh, God," Stabler strangled. "Olivia?" He bolted for the bedroom but emerged shaking his head.

"Elliot." Munch pointed to blood and medium-length dark hair on the edge of the coffee table.

From his haunches, Stabler squinched at the bloody patch then buried his face in his hands. "God, why didn't I come an hour ago?"

"I'll call it in," Munch replied.

* * *

The NYPD forensics lab, downright spooky at night, was merely eerie by day. Despite the fact that the morgue only took up one-fourth of the gargantuan facility, the odor of formalin wafted through even the most distant of offices. And, as the elevator descended from ground level, it was worsened, if possible, by the overlay of a floral scent, giving off a sickly, funereal smell that made Logan think of that Faulkner story about ( who was it? ) Emily. Despite sensible rubber soles his footsteps fell heavily on the floor, echoes bouncing off that damned yellow tile. He darted into the door marked, "Pathology," thankful he wasn't proceeding down to the autopsy bays. Yet.

"Logan?" A shocked grin split the face of Pathologist Marvin Narita. "I didn't know you were back downtown."

Logan shook the outstretched hand. "I'm not. Sometimes they let me out on a day pass. I came to see if you have anything on Jane Doe 9376, found at Crookes Point at the Great Kill Park on Staten Island."

Narita's brow crinkled as he rifled through files, "I don't remember . . . wait." He pulled out a folder. "Night shift ran it." He ran a finger down the page. "Sent the prints, vic's as well as a partial palm pulled from her left thumbnail, to be indexed. Serology came up with two types: O-positive from her belly and AB-negative from the swab."

Logan smacked his lips distastefully before popping a mint from the basket on the counter. "So one had the fun and the other watched?"

"Looks like it."

"What about the fingernail scrapings?"

Narita flipped the page. "Too soon for DNA, but blood type was AB-negative. We'll know in a couple of days if we're talking about two suspects or three." He closed the folder.

"How's she doing?"

"Unconscious. Beat to hell." Logan crunched the peppermint. "Thanks, Narita." He offered his hand. "Good to see you again."

"You, too, Logan." He single-pumped the offered hand before snatching up the bleeping phone. "Hey, Logan!"

The departing detective poked his head through the nearly-closed door. "Yeah?"

"Print index came up with a match for your Jane Doe." He held out the phone.

Logan growled into the phone then scribbled madly. "Jesus," he mumbled, handing the phone back to Narita.

"What?"

"She's a cop." His footsteps were halfway down the hall before the door swung shut.

* * *

Elliot Stabler ground the heels of his hands into his temples, vainly trying to still the din raging inside his head. Unbidden images flashed through his mind, visions of broken and battered bodies of women, ravaged, all with Olivia Benson's face. He pressed harder and sound was added to the horror picture in his head, cries and moans and screams in her throaty alto, all seeking his help.

"I'm sorry," he moaned, not even bothering to wipe away the hot tears. He realized he was on the floor, leaned back against the front door facing. He must have slid down sometime during his little daymare.

"Elliot?" Captain Don Cragen's moon-pie-face hovered above him. "Did you hear me? Did Benson talk about any plans she might have had for last night?"

Stiffly, Stabler pushed himself to his feet, shaking his head. "Just a quiet night at home alone, that's all she said."

"No sign of forced entry." John Munch stood. "That means her attacker had a key, or she knew him."

Stabler turned ashy gray and bolted for the bathroom, sounds of dry retching evident through the closed door.

"Poor bastard," Munch observed. "He's racking his brain, trying to figure out how he could have prevented this."

"Or how to find her." The voice emanated from the doorway.

"Mikey?" Don Cragen fumbled before offering his hand. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Same thing you are."

Cragen turned white. "What's that?"

Elliot Stabler staggered beside his captain.

"Trying to find out who raped Olivia Benson."

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Chapter 3

The drive to Staten Island had not taken long at mid-morning, but Elliot Stabler's patience had long worn thin. Logan's had, as well, so, after Stabler's fifth request, he'd finally turned the case folder over to the victim's partner. Stabler had fallen silent, only the sound of rifling paper indicating his presence. In the hospital he'd stopped by the restroom, emerging with a freshly-washed face, combed hair, straightened tie and a false smile. The heart monitor had trilled an extra beep when he took her hand but she remained motionless. He smoothed her matted hair with his free hand, then leaned over and whispered to her.

He shrugged out of his suit coat, folded it and laid it over the back of the chair he'd dragged next to the bed.

"Sir, you can't stay here," a nurse in green floral scrubs sputtered.

Stabler rolled up his sleeves. "Someone needs to call her mother." He collapsed into the chair, gently folding her hand in his.

"I'll take care of it," Cragen said gently. "Tell me you have witnesses, Mike; tell me you have suspects."

"All I have are the lovestruck teenagers who found her in the sea oats at Crookes Point, the forensics and whatever's in her head."

"Judging by the bandage, I don't think you should count on her memory," Cragen opined. "What about the forensics?"

Logan opened his mouth, but pulled Cragen into the hall before speaking. "We're looking for two suspects, Donnie. A strawberry blonde actually did the deed and a white-hair who watched. Who enjoyed watching. Then they tried to do as much damage as possible. She'll never be the same."

"What about the DNA?"

Logan shrugged. "They'll run it through the index but you know the odds."

Cragen nodded absently.

"We'll continue the door-to-door of her building," Logan continued. "Maybe we'll get lucky. In the meantime I think we should check out anybody who might have had a grudge against her: old cases, parolees, the works."

"You think he knew her?"

"This much damage? Yeah, I think he knew her. This was way more than control; this was torture."

* * *

"Why can't she live in a building with an elevator?" he muttered, pausing at the top of the stairs so he wouldn't appear breathless when he just showed up at her door bearing her favorite Chinese take-out. Even though it was much earlier than his usual arrival time-his watch said just after six-maybe tonight would be the night she asked him to stay. Maybe tonight they'd talk before- maybe even talk instead of- then fall asleep, contented, in each others' arms.

Schmuck, he chided himself. You're just a convenience to her-- sex-on-demand-delivered even. Why would she-

Coated paper sloshed and now-slimy vegetables glopped on the greasy hall carpet but he couldn't hear it over the pounding of his heart. Green tea burned his legs but he couldn't feel it for the shaking of his hands as he fumbled with his purloined key in the lock. His eyes lost focus at the sight of the banner taped across the door and opening, CRIME SCENE-DO NOT DISTURB-NYPD. It made a sickening flutter of paint chips as he flung open the door, but he couldn't taste them for the bile rising in revolt. Inside seemed smoky, a gray haze hung in the air, coated the furniture.

"Olivia?" He laughed at his own foolishness; she wouldn't still be at a crime scene. He picked his way through the shattered lamp, the strewn papers and books and-oh, God-the blood stain beside the coffee table. "Olivia?" he shouted to chase away the silent din of panic and bolted for the bed they had shared four of the last seven nights.

"Olivia . . ." he moaned, slumping against the door facing. A cold draft made his neck bristle and he whirled, staring through his gunsight at an intruder who was staring through his gunsight at him.

"Freeze!" they said in unison. "NYPD!" A gold shield glittered from the intruder's belt.

"Where is she?" he growled.

"Who are you?" the dark timbre of the intruder's voice matched his countenance.

"Where is she?" he shrilled.

"Not until you tell me what you're doing at my crime scene."

A ticking clock metered the icy silence until he slowly removed his left hand from the pistol butt and tugged at the ball chain inside his collar until a gold shield plopped onto his chest. "Brian Cassidy, Narcotics."

The dark intruder relaxed his stance. "Mike Logan, Staten Island Homicide."

Cassidy's weapon slowly found its holster. "Is she dead?" he whispered.

Logan's weapon found its holster. "No."

"How bad?"

"Bad," he replied, his eyes remaining, hawk-like, on Cassidy.

"Where is she?" the young officer soughed.

"Where did you leave her?"

The younger man closed his blue eyes and swayed. "Here," his voice was flat, resigned.

"When?" Logan circled, but remained in the door's path.

"A little after two. I, uh," he swallowed hard. "I had a meet at three down in the village."

"Anybody confirm that?"

"Yeah, my sergeant. Look, man," his eyes measured the door, "I know you like me as a suspect for this but I swear didn't hurt her. I couldn't."

"Because you love her, right?" Logan asked acidly.

"Just tell me where she is!"

Logan's stare burned into the younger man. "Staten Island," he said quietly. "Our Lady of Perpetual Help."

At the sight of Cassidy's inability to still his shaking hand long enough to fit his car key into the lock, Logan had stuffed the younger cop into his car.

The Narcotics detective slumped against the passenger door. Fog shrouded the Narrows Bridge as he spoke. "Are you the primary?"

"Lucky me."

"Tell me. Tell me what happened to her."

"Look, Cassidy, you really need to talk to the docs."

"Cop to cop, Logan." Tears shone on the young man's face. "Tell me what they did to my lady."

Logan swallowed hard. "She was found, naked and unconscious, in a patch of sea oats at Crookes Point on Staten Island about four this morning."

"Has she been able to tell you anything?"

"She's still in a coma."

Cassidy ran his tongue slowly across his lips. "Was she raped?"

Logan flicked the turn signal and twisted the steering wheel before sliding into a parking place. "Serology indicated there were two assailants. They left her with a chipped pelvis, busted ribs, a broken arm, a skull fracture and internal injuries."

They watched a pair of bundled up figures pick their way down the sidewalk backlit by the hospital entrance. "Were there any injuries consistent with forcible rape? Um, abrasions, cuts, bruising, um," Cassidy swallowed, "nearly a year in SVU and I can't even say the words." He soughed loudly. "Abrasions, cuts, bruising on the, um, down there?"

Logan looked hard at his passenger. "You were with her last night." His voice was soft, measured.

An almost imperceptible nod. "Yeah."

"You use protection?"

A slow, hesitant head shake prompted a disapproving snort from the questioner.

"According to the calendar it was, uh, safe. For at least another three days." Even in the halogen lamps, he could see the young man color.

"You know what they call people who use the rhythm method, Cassidy?"

Another silent head shake.

"Parents."

A small smile lifted the younger man's face before something else, something wishful and melancholy, turned his head toward the misty window.

"But that's what you wanted, wasn't it?"

"We see so much," he dragged his fingertips across the foggy glass, "so much that sometimes I think we're the guardians of death. It would be nice to know," his drawing began to take the shape of a woman's face, "before we die, that we have enough of life left in us to create another life. I guess that's why Stabler has so many kids." He wiped the window clean. "Can I see her?"

Logan nodded, reached for the door handle. "One more thing," he stopped. "What's your blood type?"

"My mom prays every day I don't get shot." Cassidy pulled out his badge and flipped the wallet part open, revealing his ID with a medical alert sticker. "AB-negative."

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Chapter 4

Don Cragen dragged a hand down his Charlie Brown face. "So, we're looking for one suspect with white hair and type O-positive blood."

"Maybe." Mike Logan slipped his hand inside his half-open collar and rubbed roughly at the back of his neck.

Unconsciously, Stabler mimicked Logan as he plodded past the nurses' station.

"You've eliminated Cassidy, right, Mike?" Furrows creased Cragen's forehead.

"It's not that simple . . ."

Stabler's voice was sharp. "Logan, don't tell me you suspect Brian . . ."

"Look," Logan growled, "I didn't say I suspect Cassidy. But I'm not gonna eliminate him as a suspect on the strength of one unsubstantiated profession of undying love."

"You son of a . . ." Stabler lunged for Logan.

"Stabler!" Cragen caught his officer by the lapels.

"You wouldn't dismiss him, either, if you're half the cop Cragen says you are," Logan hissed.

"Mike!" Cragen upbraided. Stabler backed away two steps, panting hard.

Cragen stood between them, arms outstretched like a boxing referee. "Gentlemen, it's been a long and trying day. I suggest," he eyed them both, "we all go home and try to get a good night's rest.

Both men nodded wearily.

"G'night."

Logan lumbered to his car and, after a drive he did not remember, found himself knocking on a door he remembered well.

"Who is it?"

"It's me, Thadea."

"Michael?" Sleep had roughened the melodious alto that called through the closed door.

"Yeah."

Emerald eyes bejeweled a regal mahogany face that seemed to fill the opening door. "Why didn't you use your key?" Long fingers wrapped around his lapel and gently pulled him inside the warm house.

"It was late." The hall clock sounded midnight. "I didn't want to scare you."

"Thank you." She hung the battered leather coat on an open hook on a magnificent mirrored hall tree. "Did you eat?"

"I'm not hungry . . ."

She smiled a knowing smile, turned him around and pushed him gently up the stairs. He trudged on obediently, mindlessly, consciousness finally returning under the scalding barrage of the shower. He leaned heavily on arms propped against adjoining walls, hot water peppering his head like brimstone, until the fog of fatigue finally burned away. A towel had appeared on the sink's edge and he buried his face in the clean softness. On the back of the door another hook had appeared since the morning and from that he donned sweat pants and a tee shirt, grabbing a pair of white socks from the selection that had migrated from the rumpled gym bag he'd left in the corner to a comfortable quoin of her sock drawer.

"You look much more comfortable." She sat beside him at the foot of the bed.

He tugged on the second sock. "I feel almost human again."

She smiled and poked a steaming bowl into his hands. "Eat."

"What's this?" he scooted it around with the spoon.

"Does it matter?"

She smiled, and he returned it, stuffing noodles into his mouth with an appreciative, "Um."

"How was your day?" Her eyes were wide, warm, open.

"How was yours?"

She thumbed away an errant slurp on his chin. "Just another day in third grade."

Logan colored when he realized the bowl was empty and he'd been scraping the spoon against the bottom to get the last drops.

"More?"

He shook his head with a sheepish grin.

"Tired?"

He nodded with a weariness born of more than just this day.

She set the bowl on the bedside table and beckoned. He joined her eagerly, his haste fueled by more than a desire to find warmth in the iciness of the snowy sheets. He enfolded himself around her, praying her warmth would thaw the ever-present iciness in his soul. She pulled his face to hers and kissed him, demurely at first, but, after a short taste, demanding more. Her ardor swept him up, taking him higher and faster until . . .

"I can't," he panted. "I'm sorry, 'Dea. Not after today."

"What about today, Michael?"

He closed his eyes, drew a ragged breath, then fixed his gaze on hers. "It was a kidnaping/assault. The assailant dumped her, nude, at Crookes Point."

"Is she okay?" Her fingers stroked his now-wet cheek.

"She'll survive." He swallowed. "But she'll never be okay."

She kissed his wet eyes.

Suddenly, he was still, eyes searching out hers. "May I stay," his voice was a rough whisper, "even if we don't . . ."

She saw in the man before her the face of a child, long unloved, fearful. Silently, she turned away, taking from the night stand a crystal rosary. With a reverent kiss, she draped it over the holstered gun and gold shield that lay on the open Bible.

Wrapping her arms, again, around the rough, shaking body that carried such a tender, broken heart, she pulled him close. She hummed soft prayers, hoping they would be a balm to the pain caused by his life's scars--scars buried too deeply to show, wounds cut too deeply to heal.

The shaking quelled. "'Dea?"

"Hm?"

"She's a cop." The shaking began again, stopping only with the coming of sleep.

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Chapter 5

"I thought I'd find you here." Elliot Stabler said quietly from the doorway to Olivia Benson's apartment.

"Why did you think that?" Dust motes danced in the early morning sun that streaked cheerily across the somber scene.

"Because that's where I'd be." Stabler eased further into the ruined living room. "How'd you get in?"

Logan rattled a key ring. "Benson's. How'd you get in?"

"Cassidy gave me his key."

"How is she?"

"The same."

Logan nodded. "Do you think Cassidy had anything to do with it?"

Stabler shook his head. "But I'm ready to eliminate him and move on." He followed Logan and found him pawing through dresser drawers. "You looking for anything in particular?"

"What would you look for?"

Stabler stepped up to a chest-on-chest. "Anything that would substantiate his claims about their relationship." He closed one drawer, tugged on the next. "Like," he held up neatly folded men's briefs and a ladies' slip, "his underwear mixed in with hers."

Logan stepped to the closet. "How about spare sneakers and," he held out several pairs of jeans and shirts, "spare changes of clothes?"

Stabler nodded. "CSU bag the linens?" He sat on the edge of the bare mattress. His hand hovered over the drawer knob.

"You won't find what you're looking for," Logan admonished from the bathroom. "Cassidy told me they did their 'flying' without a 'parachute'."

Stabler shook his head.

"There's men's pajama bottoms on the back of the door and a man's electric razor and aftershave in the medicine cabinet. Somebody was spending an awful lot of time here." Logan emerged from the bathroom to find Elliot Stabler with his head in his hands.

"You didn't know about this, did you?"

"I knew," Stabler rested his chin in his tented fingers, "that they had a one-night-stand several months ago. She told me she didn't want to continue it."

"Maybe she changed her mind."

Stabler studied his hands. "Cop to cop, Logan. Do you think he did it?"

"She's your partner."

"Fat lot of good it's done her." Stabler paced. "As a partner, I'm pretty well useless."

Logan stared out the window. "Useless is being on the other end of the telephone when your partner is blown away in front of his wife and family. Useless is being holed up in a closet while some whacked-out gun dealer puts a few rounds into your partner." His voice hardened.

Stabler's eyes widened, "You're . . ."

"Yeah, it's me," Logan replied icily, "the Black Cat himself." He stood straight up. "She's alive, you moron; you have the chance to be useful to her. Did Cassidy do it?"

Stabler stepped back, shaking his head. "He has the temper, but not the heart. He couldn't do it."

"I agree." Logan leaned against the bedroom door jamb. "Now that that's done with, we can go about finding a white-haired suspect that nobody saw either here or at the beach, who left only the barest of trace evidence."

"We might as well be chasing a ghost," Stabler said glumly, grinding his hands into his eyes.

Logan nodded, then snatched up his twirping cell phone. "She's waking up."

* * *

After fifteen silent hours of feeling he'd been punished by God for the sin of loving her, Olivia Benson's eyelids fluttered like angels' wings. Brian Cassidy's heart fluttered, too, and sang and jumped and . . .

"Brian," she rasped, her dark eyes searching his.

"Hi, baby." His mouth smiled but she could see worry in the spidery red eyes set in blackened sockets. "Good morning."

"Morning." She tried to sit up but was pushed down by a maelstrom of crushing chest pain and spinning head. She fell back with a moan.

"Hey, lie still," Cassidy placed a gentle, but firm, hand against her shoulder.

"Hurts," she gasped. "What happened?"

"You don't remember?"

She started to shake her head but stopped with an "Umf."

A nurse stepped in, crammed a thermometer in her ear, then made her do unspeakably painful things like lifting each arm and leg, wiggling each finger and toe, breathing deeply. Sweat beaded on her forehead before the torturer muttered approvingly and injected the clear tubing with something that made her feel cold but sent the pain far away.

"So?" she asked, alone again with him.

"It can wait 'Livia. The primary will tell you all about it."

"Primary?" She choked. "Was I shot?"

"No, no, nothing like that." He soothed.

She grabbed him. "Is Elliot okay?"

"I'm fine," Elliot Stabler's voice answered from the door and she stilled at his touch.

"Brian won't tell me what happened."

"We were hoping you could do that, Miss Benson." The new voice belonged to a stranger. "Mike Logan, Staten Island Major Crimes." He mentally kicked himself for nearly saying Homicide.

"Me? What happened? Brian? Elliott?" She searched their faces, tears glistening against the blackened fist-marks on her cheeks.

Brian Cassidy gently brushed the tears away. "What's the last thing you remember?"

Her eyes searched back and forth. An angry scarlet eight-ball hemorrhage flashed beside her right iris. She swallowed and closed her eyes.

Cassidy leaned over, his face beside hers, and whispered, "It's okay. You can do this." He stood again, his fingers lightly brushing against the swollen, mottled cheek.

"Brian. In my apartment," she began hesitantly, her eyes meeting his.

"What time did he arrive?" Logan prodded from the foot of the bed.

"The news had just started," her brow furrowed. "On channel 9."

"Eleven, good," Logan encouraged. "Then what?"

"We, um," she colored.

Cassidy stroked the unbruised part of the back of her hand, a small smile brightening the worry that had clouded his face.

"He left around two."

"Around?" Stabler prompted.

"Just after," she corrected. "I rolled onto his side of the bed and tried to go to sleep."

Cassidy smoothed her hair.

Logan scribbled on his pad. "And then?"

Benson blinked rapidly. "It's hard to think."

Stabler's hands rested on her arm above the cast. "Try, Olivia."

"There was a knock at the door."

"When?" Logan asked.

"About five minutes after Brian left. I thought he'd left something. I, uh, oh God," she fidgeted.

Cassidy leaned next to her face, whispering soothingly.

Tears streamed down her face. "I didn't even look; I just opened the door and there he was."

"Who, Miss Benson?"

"A man, dressed in black with a black mask. He punched me and started calling me names."

Cassidy moved closer and his grip tightened.

"What names?"

"Slut, whore; he wasn't screaming. He was hitting me but his voice was quiet, asking me what kind of woman has a man in her apartment at that hour. I tried to run away, but he grabbed me," she choked, "pushed me down. I felt my head hit something, then everything went black," she sobbed.

"It's okay, baby," Cassidy soothed. "You're safe now."

"What did he look like?" Logan asked but she did not answer until her sobs had stilled.

"Male, Caucasian," she recited. "Medium height, medium build, brown eyes, dark complexion, heavy gray eyebrows." She was still now, eerily detached from her surroundings.

Her eyes , for the first time, swung to meet her questioner's. "Was I raped?"

He broke her gaze. "We're still processing . . ."

"Oh, God," she moaned, turning her head to the side, her chest heaving violently.

"Nurse!" Brian Cassidy screamed, reaching for a basin on the nearby table. "Get the nurse, Logan!" he ordered. "Elliott, you watch those IVs."

The nurse pushed Logan aside and satisfied herself that all the machines reported normal vital signs. Benson stiffened again but her retching remained dry. The nurse disappeared for an instant then returned with something she injected into the clear tubing. After a minute that seemed like an hour, Olivia Benson's body relaxed, her eyes glassy but no longer panicked. It was only then that Mike Logan understood what Cassidy had been chanting through the whole incident.

"I love you, baby. No matter what. We can deal with this." Cassidy framed her face with his hands. "I love you. We can deal with this."

Her eyes met his, rigidly, then she melted into his careful embrace, tears again coursing down her cheeks.

"I love you, 'Livia," he whispered again and again.

Mike Logan stepped back, away, leaving them to rebuild their world again, together, without the crass intruder he knew himself to be.

Elliot Stabler stood beside him, blinking away tears.

"They'll be okay," Logan reassured then lumbered toward the door.

Stabler watched a moment more then followed. "Yes, they will."

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Chapter 6

"So, where are we?" Elliot Stabler plopped into the ragged chair beside Mike Logan's desk in the Staten Island detective bureau. He'd remained silent during the short drive from the hospital.

"We, Stabler?" Logan sifted through a stack of pink notes. "We are nowhere."

Elliot Stabler leaned forward menacingly. "There's no way you're gonna keep me off this case."

Logan leaned back with a smirk. "There's no way they're gonna let you on it." He reached in his IN basket and opened an Interoffice Envelope. "I've walked this road before. You've got no business within a hundred miles of this case."

"I wanna talk to your captain."

"Let's talk to yours first." Logan punched the numbers.

"Donnie, Mike Logan . . . Yeah, her waking up was really good news. . . Look, I've got a problem. Stabler wants to work the case with me . . . No, I don't have a problem with an assist from SVU . . . Yeah, here he is." Logan handed the receiver to Stabler.

"Yeah, captain . . ." Stabler squinted. "Is there any room for discussion on this? . . . Yes, sir." Stabler banged down the handset, stood and shrugged on his suit coat. "Well, you got your way," he said acidly.

Logan grabbed his arm and Stabler wheeled, fists clenched.

"Look, Stabler, you and I both know you are a mistrial waiting to happen. If we're lucky enough to develop a suspect, I don't want it messed up because the victim's guilt-ridden partner went gung-ho Rambo on us and tainted the case."

"There's no way I'd . . ."Stabler growled.

"Of course there is," Logan snapped. "Right now you'd sell your soul to catch the scum who did this to your partner."

"You need me."

"The hell I do. You didn't even know about Cassidy. What else is there you don't know?"

Stabler hung his head. "You're right." He turned away.

"Look, man," Logan hesitated. "You and I both know that we've got enough right now to convict if we catch the guy. If we catch the guy. And you and I both know that, unless we get really lucky or he gets really stupid, the chances of catching the guy are somewhere in the neighborhood of slim and none." He bowed his head to match Stabler's defeated posture. "When she looks at you for the next twenty years," he whispered. "You want her to see the partner who took care of a partner, not the cop who failed to find the guy who hurt her."

Stabler's eyes met his with a reluctant nod. "Munch," he cleared his throat. "Munch will be over this afternoon. He's been running checks on our case files."

"Great," Logan groused, good-naturedly. "The Bad-Karma Man."

Stabler chortled. "At least he'll make it interesting."

"If you call that interesting, I'll take boring." Logan offered his hand.

Stabler shook once then held firm. "Do your best, okay? She deserves nothing less."

"All of them do. Take care, man." He offered a curt wave in response to Stabler's parting gesture before snatching a pink message slip he'd shuffled to the top of the stack and jabbing at the telephone keypad. "Thadea Akili, please," he nearly whispered into the mouthpiece. "Oh, hello, Sister George. It's nice to speak to you again, too." He scrunched his eyes shut and propped the handset between his ear and his shoulder. "No, m'am. Just tell her Michael returned her call confirming dinner tonight at Phil's at eight." He tapped his thumb on the desk. "Yes, m'am. You have a nice day, too, Sister." He leaned back in his chair, but jabbed his hand into his newly-bulging coat pocket, dragging out a crystal chaplet. Thadea. She'd sneaked it into his pocket before he'd left this morning. He smiled for just an instant before dropping the strand into an inside coat pocket that kept it near to his heart.

* * *

"So, this is NYPD hell, huh, Logan?" John Munch sauntered over to Mike Logan's desk. Logan motioned for him to sit.

"Purgatory at least. Instead of fire they send you to die of boredom."

"Well, this ought to keep you busy." The laconic detective deposited a pasteboard box full of files on the desk.

"Me?" Logan picked through the files. "I thought you were here to help on this case."

"Now, Logan, help is such an imprecise term." Munch stretched out with his hands clasped across his belly. "It could mean anything from full-partner to unappreciated lackey. I prefer the former."

"You may want to reconsider getting involved in this case," Logan warned around a mouthful of a now-stale sandwich.

"Whatsa matter, Logan? Afraid I might discover that you really do have a charming disposition despite your prickly reputation?"

Logan smirked and choked. "No," he coughed. "Afraid we might discover this was a random act by a transient wacko ."

Munch leaned forward. "You put it out on VICAP yet?"

"Yesterday," Logan nodded. "Nada." He crammed the last bite into his mouth. "Which is why," he gulped from the crazed coffee cup, "I hope we'll find our suspect in the case files in this box."

"You know, Logan, most of these felons are currently residing at the pleasure of the state . . ."

"And they were all friendless orphans?"

"No . . ."

Logan continued leafing through the file box. "So, who's at the top of the hit parade?"

"Richard White," Munch proffered the folder. "Realtor, date-rapist, stalker, murderer. A real control freak."

"Benson worked the case?"

"Oh, yeah. When we tossed his apartment we found a profile he'd begun on Benson: where she lived, grocer, dry cleaner, gym, the works."

"Lovely." Logan leafed through the pages.

"Oh, and it gets better. In the interrogation room he looked straight at the mirror and asked Stabler about his family. Called his wife by name."

"And where is this model citizen?"

"Rikers."

"Verified?"

Munch shrugged. "According to the commandant."

Logan snapped the file shut. "Who's next on the list?"

"Now that depends," Munch grinned. "Do you want your list alphabetically, chronologically or in order of descending depravity?"

Logan grimaced. "Just give me a damn file."

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Chapter 7

"Alone at last," Cassidy sighed as the door whooshed shut.

"What time is it?" Olivia Benson grimaced as the bed whirred her to a near-sitting position.

"Almost eight."

"Morning?"

"Night." He stepped into the circle of light at the head of the bed. "I don't know about you but I'm glad to be out of that ICU fish bowl."

She nodded and he tenderly brushed away a wisp of hair that had fallen on her forehead. "I think I know how the freaks at the freak show must feel."

"Don't say that."

"Why not? I'm too stupid to even know if I were raped or not; how freakish is that?"

"You had a fractured skull and were unconscious, Olivia. You're not stupid."

"Well, how smart was it to open up the door without looking, Brian? How smart . . ."

"We're not having this fight, Olivia. The medicine is making you sick and depressed and . . ."

She blanched and rolled onto her right side, drawing her knees up sharply.

"Cramps?" He'd leaned down until his face was even with hers, his right hand resting gently on her hip and his left arm cradling her head.

He felt rather than saw her nod. "It's from the medicine, baby, just ride it out," he whispered.

"I can't . . ."

He splayed his hand across her abdomen which felt like quivering gelatin. Cautiously he kneaded it, whispering, "Ride it out, baby, just a little more."

"I can't," tears rolled down her swollen face. "I can't."

"It's okay," he soothed, planting angel-feather kisses on her dampened brow. "It's okay," he whispered again and stabbed at the call button. "Can she have something for pain?" he replied to the disembodied voice. "Now."

* * *

"You have a lovely home, Mrs. Cerretta," Theodore Akili said as he draped his coat over Elaine Cerretta's outstretched arm. "Welcome and inviting."

"Thank you," Elaine Cerretta beamed. "Please call me Elaine."

"Thank you, Elaine, for inviting us," he replied.

Thadea Akili took the coats from Elaine and draped them over hangers in the front coat closet.

"Thadea's told us so much about you both, Dr. and Mrs. Akili, we just couldn't wait to meet you."

"Please call me Hope, Elaine." She towered nearly half a foot taller than her hostess. "Thadea's told us so much we just had to meet you." Her voice was as melodious as her name.

"We're so glad you're here." She led them through an arch into a tiny, homey sitting room. "Phil . . ."

Phil Cerretta pushed himself out of his chair, steadied himself with his cane and extended his bear-like paw. "Phil Cerretta."

It was grasped by the branch-like hand of the burnished mahogany tree that stood

before him. "Theodore Akili and my wife, Hope."

Hope Akili's hand was warm, unlike her husband's wooden handshake.

Pleasantries aside, silence swung clumsily between them.

"Oh, Mikey called," Cerretta began.

"And how late is he going to be?" Elaine and Thadea asked, nearly in unison, then cast a knowing glance at each other.

"Just a few minutes," Cerretta replied. "He's caught in traffic on the LIE."

"Well," Elaine sighed. "Can I get you something? We have a nice Bordeaux . . ."

"Nothing, thank you," Theodore Akili replied woodenly.

Silence ticked away.

"Elaine," Thadea stood quickly. "Isn't there something I can help you with in the kitchen?"

"No, Thadea, I . . ." she stopped short at Thadea Akili's panicked look. "Um, yes, I think there's something I do need your help with . . ." Thadea inclined her head toward her mother. "Um, both of you . . ."

All three women scurried toward the kitchen.

"I understand you teach Greek at Bremerhill," Phil Cerretta solicited.

"I know why we're here," Theodore Akili intoned. "Logan wants you to convince us what a fine person he is."

"Do you need convincing?"

Akili snorted. "I had him checked out, as you say."

"And?"

"He is violent."

"Mikey does have an Irish temper," Cerretta acknowledged.

"He is promiscuous."

"In the past," Cerretta admitted. "But he's different with her, with Thadea."

"Maybe," Akili said doubtfully.

"Look," Phil waved his hand. "Mikey would be the first one to admit he's not perfect, but he's a good man . . ."

"Good enough for your own daughters?" Akili waved at a photograph on the mantle.

"I should be so lucky," Cerretta joked. "But, yeah, if they were closer in age."

Akili studied the mantle for a moment. "But that thing with the priest . . . Things like that can cause dissociative disorders that would prevent . . ."

"Stop," Cerretta leaned forward in his chair. "I can't believe this. Mike Logan had the kind of childhood that generally produces serial killers. But that's not how he turned out. Somewhere deep inside he found the strength or goodness or whatever to become a cop instead. And you want to punish him for it."

"I don't want to punish him, Cerretta; I just think . . ."

"Intellectualize it all you want, Dr. Akili. But, in the end, all that matters is what they want."

"Anybody home?" Mike Logan's voice called from the front door, which he'd entered with neither ring nor knock. The front coat closet creaked open, then shut. Thadea Akili walked slowly to the closet, then returned, tugging slightly, then pushing the new arrival toward her father. He looked like he was meeting the grim reaper as he extended his hand.

"Father, you remember Michael."

Top

Chapter 8

She was, finally, blessedly, asleep. The medicine the nurse had injected into the IV had done its work and her eyes drifted shut, her breathing deep and regular. Brian Cassidy stood silently, stretching like a cat, body yearning for rest. His eyes drifted to the cot the orderly had brought earlier and he pulled it next to the bed, arranging the linens and pancake-flat pillows haphazardly, but adequately for the sleep he knew he wouldn't be getting. He'd dozed off earlier, sitting in the chair in ICU, but had been terrorized with dreams of what her attack could have been like, replayed over and over, each ending with her in the morgue. He slipped off his outer shirt and shoes, laid his weapon and holster on top of the shoes. He walked toward the door and Benson's breathing hitched, became irregular. Immediately he drew closer and her respirations became even again. Gently grasping her hand he lay down, in the cot next to her bed, hand never leaving her. Every time he closed his eyes he saw her attack, again, so he stared into the darkness, concentrating on her breathing and the voices in the hall.

He'd begun to feel heavy and drowsy when light slashed through the room. Instinctively he grabbed his weapon with this left hand, shielding his eyes with his right. A silhouette appeared in the doorway, topped with a shining pate and elfin ears.

"Olivia?" the silhouette called softly.

"Elliott?" Cassidy stood slowly and walked, blinking, into the light.

"How is she?" He peered at the seemingly tiny form curled in the bed.

Cassidy stared at her for a moment then nodded toward the hall, sinking backwards against the wall in the bright corridor.

"Is everything okay?" Stabler leaned closer.

"Yeah, man. Peachy." Cassidy raked his hand through his straw-like hair.

"What is it? What's wrong?"

Cassidy blinked back tears welling in his dark-rimmed eyes. "All of these cases I worked in SVU, I thought I had some idea what the victim was going through. It was horrible, but, once they were in the hospital, they were okay, right? Yeah, right," he spat bitterly. "When they get to the hospital, they're treated like a crime scene rather than a victim. They're not a person at all. Once we have all the evidence we need from the crime scene, they become a patient. Which is better, right?" Cassidy slid down the wall an inch or so.

"Don't do this, Brian . . ." Stabler pulled the younger man upward.

"Once she becomes a patient, they examine her. They invade her in ways that . . ."

"They're just doing their job, Brian."

Cassidy snorted. "I know. She knows, but she still feels violated every time they check on her 'injuries.' I can see it in her eyes. "Thank God she was unconscious for the worst of it."

Stabler met his gaze.

"They draw blood for tests: pregnancy, HIV, STDs, hepatitis. Then there's the drugs. Two for preventing pregnancy. Two antibiotics to prevent infections and STDs. The first two cause cramps that double her over. All of them cause nausea and depression. So, at a time when they're needing something to pick them up, they make them feel worse."

"Brian, they're just doing that as a precaution. There's no real evidence she was raped, if that's what's worrying you . . ."

"It doesn't matter what's worrying me. It doesn't matter what I think, or what the evidence tells us. What matters is what's in her heart. And her heart knows that, whether the bastard actually did it or not, she's been violated." The tears overcome his restraint. "And I don't know what to do about it."

Elliot Stabler drew in a ragged breath. "I know what you mean. As her partner," he licked his bottom lip, "I'm supposed to watch out for her. I failed. Miserably."

"No, man," Cassidy straightened. "There's no way you could have known; nothing you could have done."

"Neither could you," Stabler pointed out.

"Maybe so," Cassidy acknowledged, "but what kind of man leaves his lady alone at two in the morning?"

"One who wears a badge? One who's sworn to 'protect and to serve'?"

"Protect everyone else's family," Cassidy observed ruefully.

Stabler nodded. "I didn't know that. That you and she were family, I mean."

Cassidy scrubbed away his tears with the heels of his palms. "Yeah, well," he stared off down the hall. "We're not, I guess. I don't really know what I am to her. I do know she means everything to me."

"Her past, with her mom's rape and everything, makes it complicated."

"I know," Cassidy nodded. "I don't know if she'll ever be able to completely trust a man. But I'm gonna do everything I can to be the man she can trust."

"Good." Elliot Stabler stared up the hall, while Cassidy stared down the hall. "Well, I guess I'll just look in on her before I go . . ."

"Stabler," Cassidy whispered sharply, jerking his head down the hall.

Stabler turned his head and didn't even need to focus to recognize the danger. "Shit. That's Richard White," he hissed, reaching for his weapon and following Cassidy at a dead run down the corridor behind the fleeing suspect.

* * *

Theodore Akili set his water glass in the table hard. "You're ten years younger than he is. I know you think you love him, Thadea, but when you look at it in the cold light of day . . ."

"Theodore!" Hope Akili admonished.

"Father!" Thadea Akili rebuked. "I love Michael and you're not going to . . ."

"Thadea," Mike Logan's voice was calm and measured. "He's your father and he only wants the best for you. Don't say something you'll spend the rest of your life regretting."

"Listen to him, Thadea," Akili advised.

"Not another word, Theodore," Hope Akili warned.

Phil and Elaine Cerretta merely sat in horrified silence. They both knew how Logan had hoped this would be a happy occasion. It was disheartening to see the pain on his face.

Thadea Akili's face was flushed. "I don't understand you, Michael. My father spends the evening insulting you and you take his side?"

"Not here, Thadea. In private, please?" He stood, then pulled her chair out for her. He'd just nestled his hand in the small of her back when a beeper trilled. Cerretta reached for his own pager, but Logan could feel the tell-tale vibration. He sighed and strode through an arch to the telephone in the sitting room, clutching Thadea's hand in his. He punched in numbers, carried on a hurried and hushed conversation over the telephone before setting the handset in its cradle. He pressed an apologetic kiss on her forehead then whispered to her. She nodded and followed him back to the dining room.

"I have to go," Logan explained. "Someone tried to kill the victim in this case I'm working on and, well . . ."

"We understand, Mike," Phil Cerretta soothed while his wife disappeared, then reappeared and draped his coat over Thadea's shoulder.

Logan held out his hand to her father. "It was an honor to meet you, sir." He turned to her mother. "I'm sorry this evening wasn't as pleasant as I'd hoped."

Instead of shaking his outstretched hand, Hope Akili stood. "It was so nice to meet you, Michael. I look forward to seeing a great deal of you in the future." To his surprise, and relief, her arms circled him in a warm embrace.

He stepped under the arch. "Will you see that Thadea gets home, Dr. Akili?"

"I can take care of my daughter, sir."

"Yes, sir, you can." He pulled Thadea close. "Later?" he whispered to his love and she nodded, then turned her back to the door.

* * *

"I thought you said that he was at Riker's!" Mike Logan exploded outside of Olivia Benson's hospital room door.

"So they said," John Munch replied sardonically.

"Then how did he end up here?" Elliot Stabler plodded into the conversation, gingerly rolling his shirt sleeve above a bandage on his forearm.

"What happened to you?" Logan asked.

"Richard White had a scalpel in his hand, which he'd apparently planned to use on Olivia."

"I thought a pistol was his weapon of choice," Munch winced sympathetically.

"That was in his coat pocket," Brian Cassidy removed the tape and bandages swathing a two-inch string of stitches on the left side of his neck. "Olivia'll notice the bandages before she notices the stitches," he explained.

"Where's White?" Logan asked.

"Back at Rikers' under maximum security," Don Cragen emerged from the room. "She's asking for you, Brian."

"Thanks, man," Cassidy punched Stabler gratefully, then disappeared through the door.

"Is Benson okay?" Logan asked.

"White never made it to the room," Cragen explained. "Thanks to Elliot and Brian."

"It was Brian," Stabler corrected. "How did White escape?"

"He had an accomplice," Cragen explained. "A female guard who helped him escape this morning, then apparently signed him as present this afternoon."

"Apparently?" Logan sighed wearily.

"She was found, shot to death, in her apartment about an hour ago." Cragen smoothed loosened his necktie. "White admits she helped him escape but is tap-dancing around the shooting."

"Surprise, surprise," Stabler said drily. "Are they sure he only escaped this morning?"

Cragen nodded. "Supervisor saw him at breakfast, but not after."

"Welcome back to Square One," Munch observed. "Go directly to dead end, do not pass Go, do not collect $200."

"Damn," Logan breathed.

* * *

Thadea Akili woke to the creak of a bed spring and the warmth of a familiar hand circling her waist. "Hey," she greeted, snuggling back into her visitor.

"Hey, yourself," Logan replied.

"Is she okay?"

"Yeah; they caught the guy before he could get to her."

She lifted her head and he slipped an arm underneath, joining it with the arm draped across her waist. "I'm sorry about tonight, Michael." She rubbed her cheek against his coarse arm. "I had no idea my father would be that way."

He wrapped himself around her. "It's okay. I'd be suspicious of me, too." His little laugh ruffled her hair.

"What time is it?" she murmured sleepily.

"Time for sleep." He entwined his legs with hers. "'Dea?"

"Hm?"

"I love you," he breathed, and she hummed contentedly in response.

Top

Chapter 9

"So, tell me, Logan. Do you always look this bad in the morning?'

Logan growled a suggestion for an anatomically impossible recreational activity. Munch smirked then scowled at his coffee cup after swallowing a mouthful. "You guys don't get real coffee out here on the Island, Logan?"

"Like you've gotten used to French Roast working SVU."

"Ooh, grouchy . . ." Munch jibed.

Logan glowered. "I get that way when a suspect who's supposedly incarcerated escapes and tries to murder the victim." He slurped from his cup again. "Makes me wonder what else we missed."

"There's only one way to find out."

"Go back to the beginning," Logan replied distastefully. "What can you tell me about Benson?"

* * *

"Your STD panels came back negative. Same for HIV and hepatitis." The doctor rifled through a sheaf of papers. "If you continue making the same progress, you should be able to go home in a few days."

"Then what?" Benson grimaced, cheek still swollen and pulpy. "How long before I can go back to work?"

"Well, unless complications ensue, you should be able to go back part-time after a few weeks. Full-time a few weeks after that."

"What am I supposed to do until then?"

"Rest, Olivia," Cassidy tried to soothe her sneer.

"He's right, Ms. Benson. Your injuries will take longer to heal than you realize." The doctor closed the chart and wrapped his arms around it. "Rest is the ticket." He nodded at Cassidy from the door. "For both of you, it would seem."

Cassidy followed the doctor to the door. "Thanks." He leaned back heavily against the closed door. "That was good news, the test results, I mean." He plodded to the bedside.

"You look like hell."

He stepped back half a step. "Gee, 'Livia, I . . ."

"How long since you had a good meal and a good night's sleep?"

"There'll be plenty of time for that when you're home, baby."

"Don't call me that," she yanked on his shirt and he grimaced. The collar splayed, revealing a neat row of stitches four inches below the ear. "What are these?" she accused.

"Nothing."

She tugged the collar further open. "Nothing? Brian, you must have twenty stitches. What happened?"

He pulled her hand away from the collar. "It's just a little cut. White caught me wrong and . . ."

"White?" her voice rose. "Richard White? Where did you see him? Was he here?" She scooted up in the bed.

"Yes, no," Cassidy stuttered. "He was in the hospital, but he never made it, we, Elliott, that is, caught him in the hall and he's back at Riker's in maximum security."

"When did this happen?" her efforts to sit up left her breathless.

"Last night." He sat on the bed, heavily. "You need some sleep."

"That's all I do," she argued.

"It's what you need," he replied, the circles under his eyes black and sunken.

"What about you?" She gently rubbed a thumb under his eye then peered at the sutured gash. "Are you alright?"

"Sure," he replied. "Nothing that about a week in bed with my lady wouldn't fix." She tensed and he colored immediately. "Oh, God, Olivia. I didn't mean that the way it. . . Oh, God, I just meant sleeping, resting, someplace where I could take care of you." She rolled her eyes and he stammered, "Oh, not that; oh, screw it."

"I think that's off the list for a while, Brian," she smiled wanly.

He opened his mouth as if to speak, but, instead, merely shook his head.

"You know the odds are one in five hundred that I'm infected with HIV."

"No," he corrected. "I know the odds are four-hundred-ninety-nine in five hundred that you're not."

"Maybe. But are you willing to stake your life on those odds?"

"Olivia," he said curtly. "We'll just use protection until your six-month recheck when they will give you a clean bill of health."

"And if they don't?"

"We'll deal with it. Us. Together." Tenderness had creeped back into his voice.

"There is no us, Cassidy," she hissed, then rolled away, curling into a tight ball with a moan.

"Cramp?" he whispered and she nodded. He slipped his hand under her gown and kneaded her tender belly while the other hand stroked her bared, bruised back. The strength and warmth of his touch was so soothing, so calming, so . . .

"Get your hands off me."

"Olivia . . ."

"I mean it, Cassidy, keep your hands off of me." She shoved his hands away.

Confusion, sadness and fatigue shadowed across his face and he pulled his hands away, as if from flame. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean . . ."

"Go away, Brian. Find yourself some nice girl who deserves a nice guy like you and make a family." She pulled the sheets around her chin.

"I've already found a nice girl . . ."

"No, you haven't. You've found . . ."

"Olivia, you awake?" Elliot Stabler's voice, then face, followed a knock at the door.

"Go away, Brian. There's nothing for you here."

Brian Cassidy held his hands up, helplessly, while Elliot Stabler stood stone-faced at the foot of the bed. "I'll be back," he promised with a kiss intended for her forehead, but he had to settle for her ear when she turned away. "She's feeling better," he explained to Stabler on his way out the door.

"So I see, and hear." Stabler approached his partner. "How are you, Olivia?"

"I'm fine."

Elliot Stabler placed a single finger under her chin and gently turned her face until their eyes met. "How are you, Olivia?"

She smiled weakly.

"Brian taking good care of you?"

"Yeah," she replied acidly. "For now."

"He hasn't left since he got here, Olivia. I don't think he's had an hour's sleep the whole time."

"He'll have plenty of time for that when he's gone." She twisted the sheet in her good hand.

"I don't think he's going anywhere . . ."

"Sure he is, Elliot. Who'll want to stay around after something like this? He'll be gone in six months just like Harper Anderson's boyfriend."

Stabler cupped his hand around her bruised cheek. "Wait, wait, wait. Harper Anderson broke up with her boyfriend, not the other way around. She was alone because she'd pushed everyone away, Olivia. You know that. And you're doing the same damn thing."

"At least then I'm in control."

He sat on the edge of the bed. "Is that what this is about? Control?"

"Maybe . . ."

"That's why you pulled that cock-and-bull story about not dating people you work with, because you were afraid with Brian you could lose control?"

"No."

"Liar."

Lightning-quick her hand sped toward his cheek, but he was quicker. Capturing it in his paw, he folded his other hand over hers. "Contrary to what your mother may have taught you, Olivia, there are some men you can trust."

"Like you?" she jabbed, "and Brian?"

He nodded.

"My head already knows that, Elliot. It may take a little longer to convince my heart."

"Make the time."

"Can I come in?" Cassidy's voice emanated from a large vase of roses that had walked through the doorway.

"Who died?" Elliot Stabler's eyebrows arched.

Cassidy's pallid but smiling face popped up from behind the vase and he set the flowers on the bedside table. "Nobody. This old man stopped me in the hall, said his wife was going home and asked if I knew someone who would enjoy the flowers. Then he jammed them into my hand and here they are."

Benson plucked the card from the vase. "And I suppose his name was Brian and hers was Olivia?" She waved the card at him.

"Well, uh," Cassidy stammered.

Stabler chuckled at the younger man's discomfort. "Well," he brought Benson's hand to his lips and planted a gentle kiss on it. "Briscoe is waiting on me. Cassidy?" He held out a hand. "Get some rest, okay?"

"Yeah," the younger officer returned the handshake.

"Yellow roses?" Benson brushed her fingertips across the golden petals after the door closed.

"Yeah, well," he stared at his feet. "I couldn't remember if it was red for love and white for passion, or white for love and red for passion . . ."

"Yellow means friendship."

"Good," he sighed, relief brightening his haggard face. His hands hovered hesitantly over hers before he finally captured them. "Good," he whispered hoarsely.

* * *

The late afternoon sun washed the drab squad room a fiery bronze. Mike Logan scowled at his empty coffee cup and at the empty chair just abandoned by John Munch in favor of an evening at home with his visiting wife. A glance at his watch brought forth an elaborate Celtic oath which was stopped short by the appearance of the immutable Theodore Akili.

"Mr. Logan," Akili forced a greeting.

"Dr. Akili," Mike Logan stood, temporarily immobilized before offering his hand, then waving at the empty chair. "Is everything okay? Thadea?"

"Yes," Akili confirmed. "She's fine - at least as far as her health is concerned."

"Good," Logan replied warily, unconsciously fingering the chaplet that now hid in his pants pocket as the seconds ticked by.

"I want you to stop seeing my daughter." Akili's face was cold and impassive as he spoke.

Logan's face flushed red, but he managed to control his voice. "Why?"

Akili surveilled the tawdry surroundings. "I should think it would be obvious," he said quietly. "You're beneath her."

Top

Chapter 10

"Are you going to the hospital today?" Cathy Stabler sampled her husband's coffee before handing him the mug.

"No," he answered, sipping while his wife adjusted his necktie. "She's going home."

"Back to her apartment?" She smoothed the tie. "Even though her attacker is on the loose?"

"That's what she says - and you know how stubborn she is," he said around a bite of dry toast.

"That's the pot calling the kettle black."

Stabler choked back a laugh but his face darkened. "I don't think I've ever seen a case go this cold this fast. Everywhere Logan turns is a dead end."

"I'd feel a lot better if you were handling the case."

"No," he wrapped his arms around his wife. "Cragen says Logan's one of the best. Sometimes cases just go cold."

"I'd feel a lot better if she'd find somewhere else to stay."

"So would I," he pecked his wife on the lips. "So would I."

* * *

"I don't understand why you're being so stubborn about this," Brian Cassidy hiked her travel bag higher on his shoulder. "You should stay at my place until you're stronger."

"Nobody is going to run me out of my home, Brian." Olivia Benson gasped as she crumpled against the elevator wall.

Cassidy dropped her bag and slid his arm around her waist, supporting her by her elbows while leading her down the hall to her door. Fresh, unfaded paint covered the spot where the abandoned Chinese take-out must have landed what seemed like years but was only seven days ago.

She leaned against the door facing. "Nobody's going to have that power over me."

He flipped over a few keys on his ring. "It's not a matter of power, Olivia." He turned the knob and the scent of pine cleaner and new carpet rushed out the opening.

She leaned heavily against him while plodding through the door. The cleaner smells were pleasant enough, the room more spotless than she'd ever left it. It was too spotless, as if sanitized, but the job wasn't thorough enough to cleanse her mind of the images washing over her in an endless loop- the black-hooded man at her door, his fist raised to strike, the white pain when he hit her cheek, the hot terror as she flew backwards from the impact and the cold darkness when her head cracked against the coffee table.

"Olivia?" Brian Cassidy groaned when he caught her as her legs gave way.

"It's nothing," she resisted, sinking closer to the floor.

"The hell it is," he chided and scooped her into his arms, into the elevator, into his car. Silently she granted him control, limply leaning against the passenger door until the car crunched on a gravel driveway beside a neat, but modest, Long Island bungalow. He tried to scoop her up from the car but she forced her feet to the ground, still leaning heavily on him while slowly ascending the stone steps.

"Brian Cassidy, I am not some helpless female who needs your protection," she protested as forcefully as her battered ribs would allow.

"I know, baby," he replied quietly, leading her through a worn, but tidy, living room to a bedroom so small that the king-size bed left only a walkway's width around it.

"Don't call me that." She sat defiantly on the edge of his bed, her eyes cold and hard, tears welling in the fatigue-shadowed orbits.

"You're wasting your time with me, Brian." Her voice was sharp, cutting, but her eyes looked away and her hands shook.

"Don't say that," he warned, kneeling before her and slipping off her shoes.

She allowed him, still kneeling, to push her back into the soft pile of pillows until her face looked up into his. Her eyes were still unusually dark but a deep emptiness had replaced the flint. "Please," she whimpered. "Please don't leave me."

"Why would I leave you?" His voice mirrored the confusion etched into his face.

She shook her head.

He cradled her face between his hands. "Olivia, why would I leave you?"

"There's no reason for you to stay if I can't . . ." she shrugged.

"Can't what?"

She licked her lips, looking toward the window. "You know . . ."

His raised eyebrows prodded her on.

She took a deep breath. "Sex," she shuddered. "I don't know when," she shook, "or even if I can . . ."

Cassidy kneeled close and clutched her hands in his. "Don't you see it?" he whispered. "It's not just sex for me. Every time, every time, we're together I'm making love to you. And somewhere in my foolish heart I hope that if I'm good enough, or smart enough, or tender enough that someday, someday you'll finally make love to me." He cast his eyes to their conjoined hands. "I love you, Olivia. I have since the first morning I woke up beside you. I just lay there for an hour, watching you, amazed that such intellect and strength could come in such an amazingly beautiful package." A tear coursed down his cheek. "I know you don't love me. But maybe someday you will. I can wait."

Mutely she watched as he stood and toed off his shoes, then kicked them beneath a chair next to a timeworn highboy. He grasped the hem of his sweatshirt and tugged it over his head, tossing it onto the chair. Padding around to the far side, he loosened the crew shirt stuffed into his jeans. Though the days without food and sleep had loosened them, he unbuttoned the waist of his jeans. Despite her fearful gasp, he lifted the bedcovers and slid beneath, resting as far away from her as possible while remaining in the bed. He rolled onto his side to face her, adjusted the pillow to avoid the stitches in his neck. She stiffly rolled to face him, her casted wrist sliding slowly across the mattress to rest in his free hand. The clock ticked loudly in the hall, ticked so long he lost count before, her eyes signaling her consent, she tugged gently and scooted nearer and nearer until her head burrowed into shoulder, her drawn-up knees pressing lightly into his abdomen. He buried his face in her hair, his hands entwined with hers. And they cried. Sobs of rage, fear and loss tossed them about like a tiny ship on an angry sea until, exhausted, sleep finally calmed them. But the sentinel in the hall continued to tick, tick, tick, counting closer and closer to a time of healing.

* * *

Mike Logan bounded toward the floor housing the Special Victims Unit, taking the stairs in pairs, just as he had so many years ago at the two-seven. The object of his haste, Elliot Stabler, startled at the sight of him, but abandoned his sandwich to follow the visitor into an empty interrogation room. It was like walking in front of a claymore.

"You should have told me," Logan tossed a well-worn case folder onto the table, then leaned against the mirror window, arms folded in front of him.

Elliot Stabler swallowed hard, then walked over to the table, looking only at the label on the tab despite already knowing what it said. "How'd you find out?" He ran his index finger down the access list on the front of the folder.

With measured steps, Logan lay another folder in the table. Stabler swallowed again, then flipped silently through the contents.

"I got a call from the lab this morning, dragging me from my warm bed. Seems there were some weird results on the differentials from the fluid sample taken from Benson's abdomen."

Stabler leaned closer to the folder. "You included me in the differential list," he said pointedly, stepping up to Logan's face. "You think I could do something like this to my partner?"

"No, I don't," Logan replied, standing firm. "But the defense could try to sell it as a diversion. Eliminating you on the front end leaves them one less avenue of escape."

Stabler stepped back, sheepishly.

"You'd do the same thing, Stabler."

Elliot closed his eyes. "I know. It's just hard to think like a cop when it concerns your partner."

"Yeah, I know. This," Logan's finger rested under another name, "is why the lab called. According to the DNA test, the assailant is a 93% match with the DNA of the victim. That kind of correlation is only found with a sibling, or a parent."

Stabler squinted at then entry, then lips his lips, nervously. His complexion turned greenish and he swallowed hard, fighting the rising bile.

"Then it's true?" Logan asked.

Stabler nodded affirmation.

"I spent the rest of the morning," Logan continued after Stabler sank into a chair, "chasing down family information, her birth certificate, and, finally, her mother's case file." He sat in the other chair. "Serena Benson, raped by an unknown assailant. They never caught the guy?"

Stabler shook his head. "Olivia's been following it off and on for a couple of years, too, but . . ."

"We need to talk to her," Logan said, quietly.

Stabler nodded, then held open the door.

* * *

"You can't tell her." Brian Cassidy planted his sock-feet firmly on the hardwood floor of the living room. His hair was as wild as the look in his eyes.

"The hell I can't," Logan bristled. "This may jog her memory, help her remember something more . . ."

"She's not ready for it, Logan." Cassidy buttoned his jeans and ran his hands through his hair.

"She's strong," Stabler placated. "She can take it."

"Not right now, Elliot," Cassidy insisted.

"She's stronger than you think, Brian," Stabler cajoled.

"Maybe," the younger man conceded. "But what would you do if you were me, Elliot, and that was Cathy in there?"

Stabler pinned the younger detective with a glare that softened immediately at the sight of the desperation on Cassidy's face. The young man's shoulders were rounded, as if he were trying to bear the weight of the week's events.

"We start therapy tomorrow morning," the young man whispered hoarsely. "I'll tell her before we go. You can," he choked, "you can come by tomorrow afternoon."

Stabler nodded slowly.

"Brian?" the same spare strawberry-blonde woman who'd let the detectives into the house appeared in the doorway. "Olivia's hurting again; she's calling for you."

Without turning, the younger man squinched his eyes shut and responded with a weary sigh. "I'll be right there, Mom."

Cassidy swayed slightly and Stabler steadied his elbow. When they opened, the young man's eyes were brimming. "Tomorrow?" he asked huskily.

"Tomorrow," Stabler replied, nodding back tears as the young man plodded from the room.

Mike Logan turned toward the door, breathing a silent prayer for the safety of his lovely Thadea.

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Chapter 11

"Officer Mike, Officer Mike!" A phalanx of waist-high, rainbow-hued third graders rushed toward him, spearing him with a volley of questions as soon as they closed to speaking distance.

"Are you gonna come speak to our class again?

"Are you here to arrest somebody?"

"Are you here to see Miss Akili?"

"Are you here for the spaghetti dinner?"

"Are you and Miss Akili going to get married?"

"Are you looking for Miss Akili?"

Seemingly a thousand fingers tugged at him and, instinctively, he reached to secure his weapon in its holster to protect any little hands whose curiosity outweighed their common sense.

"Hey, guys," he greeted, ignoring the questions. "See you at the dinner." He passed through the throng, up the stairs and leaned in the door of a very familiar class room. "Hi."

The room's sole occupant jumped slightly before turning, walking toward him and sliding her arms around his waist, carefully avoiding the weapon clipped to his belt. "Hi, yourself." She leaned heavily into him.

"Rough day?" He murmured into her ear.

She leaned her head back. "No more than any others. You?"

He smiled wanly. "I, uh," he stepped over to the window, "I don't know how they do this-the SVU cops, I mean." He leaned against a desk and pulled her close. "When you work Homicide, you, you, it's easier because you know, for the victim, the pain is over. What's left for you is to find justice for them. But this," he wrapped his arms around her, resting his forehead on hers. "The victims have so much pain and nothing I do will ever make it go away. Ever, 'Dea."

His head dropped to her shoulder and his ragged soughs shook them both.

"Only time can ease that pain, Michael," she stroked the back of his neck, "and love. You know that."

He lifted his head slightly. "Yeah, I do."

She cupped her hands around his face and wiped away his tears.

"Thank you," he whispered, punctuating the sentence with a kiss.

"Um, Miss Akili?" a tiny voice interrupted from the doorway. "Father Seymour says it's time to come down to dinner." The messenger grabbed the closest hand of each adult and dragged them into the laughing crowd.

* * *

Olivia Benson leaned heavily on the metal-and-formica dinette table, absently stirring scrambled eggs with her fork while her mind wandered toward a cold, gray, scary place.

"Would you rather have something else?" Grace Cassidy solicited, early-morning sun rays striping her face. "I could fix some oatmeal or . . ."

"No!" Olivia said sharply, then colored. "No, thank you," her voice moderated. "I'm just not very hungry."

"You should try to eat something . . ."

"I can take care of myself, Brian."

She staggered into the bedroom, leaving him with his head bowed, hands interlaced at the back of his neck, sighing away a weary sob. At his mother's touch on his arm he smiled a haggard smile and staggered, too, into the bedroom. She wasn't there, but sound of water running in the adjoining bathroom led him to her. She was sitting on the lid of the stool, fumbling with her clothes, tub steaming like a boiling pot. He dipped his hand into the tub with a grimace, then fine-tuned the water's temperature. Reaching into the linen closet, he pulled out an ancient child's step stool and placed it, and himself on it, in front of her. Her bowed head forced her hair forward, veiling her face like a battered funeral curtain. Her knees were pressed tightly together, her arms crossed protectively in front of her. Mutely he sat before her, blue-jeanned knees splayed wide apart but white-socked feet almost brushing hers, eyes seeking, and receiving, assent. He leaned back and retrieved a plastic bag and rubber band from the linen closet, which he wrapped around her cast. Then he peeled the socks from her feet, wincing at the purplish-green blotches. He stood and pulled her gently up until her face was buried in the shoulder of his soft cotton crew shirt. He could feel the tears soaking through the shirt as he removed her clothing--first his pajama bottoms then his tee shirt. Gently he guided her to the tub and helped her slide into the soothing bath. Her face colored and she pulled her knees up under her chin, locking her arms around her shins.

"It's okay," he whispered, soaping and rinsing her mottled back and arms. He finger-combed her hair from her face. "You're in control."

She measured his words for a long moment, then relaxed her posture, allowing him to lave her. His eyes stayed locked on hers, searching for, and quelling, any fear he saw. Finally he squeezed the water from the rag and draped it over the end of the tub. She gripped the sides, trying to stand, but he guided her back into the water, laying her head on the rag while he dipped water onto her hair. Then he massaged a baby-scented shampoo into the gritty mop, carefully avoiding the stitches at the crown.

She cooed, ever-so-slightly, and he thought he would die of joy at giving her this moment's peace amidst the mayhem. After a gentle rinse he tugged and she stood shakily, stepping onto the fluffy mat and into the full-length reflection of herself on the back of the door. She gasped, as did he. He'd read the reports, had seen her injuries section-by-section, but this, the total picture of bruised debasement, overwhelmed them both. He wrapped a soft bath sheet around her, flung the door and its vision open and helped her burrow into the still-unmade bed. He enfolded her into his arms, protecting, until both of their sobs stilled. Then he arose, never leaving her sight, and helped her dress in soft drawstring pants and one of his own cotton shirts. Scooting behind her, he gently drew her brush through her hair, basking in the fact that she no longer seemed to flinch at his touch. In fact, she leaned closer and turned her head slightly.

"Did I hear Logan and Elliot last night?"

"You were supposed to be asleep," he chided.

Her swollen cheek lifted in a small smile. "What did they want?"

He froze . . . then resumed the strokes, albeit more slowly. "Some of the DNA results came back."

"The PCR?"

"Yeah."

"What about it?"

He continued brushing.

"Bri?"

He sighed long before scooting around to face her while turning her to face him. "Something showed up when they compared the suspect's DNA against the elimination samples." He licked his lips. "There was a match -- ninety-three percent."

She slid her hand across the rumpled bedclothes, half the distance between them. "Who?"

He twined his fingers with hers and squeezed. His voice cracked but his eyes buoyed her up. "You."

* * *

Dr. Theodore Akili was chair of the Department of Greek Studies at Bremerhill College. Bremerhill was an upscale liberal-arts college- all ancient oaks and burnished walnut paneling. Mike Logan, CCNY class of 1982, didn't have to be told he was distinctly out of his element. So he stood before the door, feeling slightly like he was going to the principal's office. He peered through the crack in the half-opened door and spied Dr. Akili, walled by what appeared to be a stack of doctoral dissertations. The academician spied him, as well, and waved him in with a confused scowl.

"I thought we'd said it all when I visited you." He waved his hand at the empty chair.

Logan stood, hands stuffed into the leather coat pocket. "As I remember, sir, you did all the talking. Now it's my turn."

"What could you possibly say that . . ."

"I love her and she loves me."

"Oh, that explains it all," the professor returned sarcastically, propped against his desk. "What could you possibly know about love? By all accounts you're more attached to that coat than you've ever been to any human being, especially women. And there has been an extraordinary number of them. Why should I think that Thadea is more to you than your most recent conquest?"

Logan leaned against the window frame and gazed across the rain-dampened campus. "When I was seven I got a bike for Christmas," he spoke distantly, as if describing a dream. "It was just the one I wanted, red, shiny. But my getting that bike meant that my mother hadn't gotten the fur-collared coat she wanted for Christmas. She said it was okay, that she'd rather I had the bike." He chewed on his bottom lip. "The day after Christmas, while my dad was walking his beat, I broke my arm when my mom 'accidentally' closed the fire escape window on my it. The next day the bike went back and the coat came home." He smiled wanly. "I was forty-one years old before I finally found a woman I could trust with my heart."

The rising wind rattled the window panes.

"So, Mr. Logan," the older man crossed his arms, "what are your intentions?"

"My intentions?" Logan chuckled as he crossed and opened the door. "My intentions are to love your daughter for the rest of my life." He walked into the hall.

"And marriage?"

"That would be up to your daughter."

"I guess," the professor's voice preceded him into the hall, "that will have to do."

Logan turned to face him, face cast in somber stone.

"Well," the older man said with mock cheeriness, "I guess I'd better get accustomed to you hadn't I," he shook the younger man's hand and a small smile split his face, "Michael?"

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Chapter 12

Not quite five o'clock, the rain-darkened sky bathed the normally cheery living room in gray. Brian Cassidy's expression, usually sunny, matched the weather.

"So, how did it go?" Grace Cassidy stood in the kitchen door wiping her hands on a dishtowel.

"Complete waste of time," Olivia Benson whispered, pointedly, stumbling to the sofa, leaning heavily on Brian's arm.

"The counselors can't help you if you won't talk to them." He helped her shrug stiffly out of her coat.

"I can't talk to them because I have nothing to say, Brian." She shivered and he draped her with an afghan from the back of the sofa. "I opened the door and was hit and the next thing I remember was waking up in the hospital. End of story." She pulled the afghan closer.

Brian Cassidy's mouth opened, but nothing came out and he ground his palms into sunken eyes.

"Are you hungry?" Grace Cassidy asked quietly.

"No," Benson pulled her feet under the afghan.

"You should eat something," Brian admonished.

Olivia's face reddened and she bolted to her feet. "I can take care of myself, Brian," she snarled, then paled immediately, hand flailing in his direction.

He grasped her hand and lowered her swaying form back onto the couch, stretching her to its length. "Dizzy?" he asked and she nodded. "Any pain?" he continued and she shook her head.

"Damn." She angrily wiped away a tell-tale tear. "I hate being helpless."

He perched carefully at the edge of the couch. "You're not helpless." His fingers brushed her hair from her forehead. "You're sick."

"You're the one who's sick," she said with thinned lips, "for putting up with me."

His head jerked sharply, as if stung, but his reply was supplanted by insistent buzzing from the door. Grace Cassidy silently admitted the visitors then slipped out of sight.

"How're you doing?" Elliot Stabler asked, voice conveying cheer, but his face radiating concern. His expression was mirrored by Mike Logan and John Munch who flanked him.

"Are you working the case, too, Elliot?" Olivia's voice conveyed a note of hope.

Mike Logan stepped forward, shaking his head. "It's better for the case if Stabler maintains some distance."

"Don't worry, Olivia," Stabler stepped near her head and she turned her face to him like a flower toward the sun. "Munch will keep an eye on him." He settled down on his haunches, his eyes level with hers. "So, how are you?"

She ducked her head. "Fine."

"Like hell," Brian Cassidy muttered and stalked into the kitchen. The three detectives shared glances and nods before Munch followed the younger man while Stabler took his place on the sofa.

John Munch found Cassidy in the kitchen, trying to pour a mug of coffee. "I've seen drunks with the DT's shake less." He reached around his former partner, grabbed the pot and topped off the mug. "You look tired, Brian."

Cassidy glanced sidelong. "I'm okay," he said into his cup.

"Well," Munch leaned against the counter, crossing his arms. "To quote a recent utterance by a great philosopher, 'Like hell.'"

Cassidy smiled thinly, then sat, very carefully, at the table, staring into his mug. "She's not okay."

Munch poured himself a cup then joined the young man at the table.

"She doesn't sleep," Cassidy continued. "The sleeping pills the docs gave her last a couple of hours then she wakes up, screaming and fighting."

Munch peered over the rim of his cup. "What does she scream?"

Cassidy rubbed his thumb on the handle of the mug.

Munch looked over his glasses. "Brian?"

The younger man swallowed hard, head hung so that his chin nearly touched his chest. His eyes closed, wetly, and when he spoke, it was barely more than a whisper. "'Brian, help me.'" He took a deep breath but his voice still trembled. "Over and over she screams, 'Brian, help me.'"

* * *

"Make him leave me alone, Elliot. I've already told you everything I remember." Olivia Benson pulled her knees toward her chest, carefully settling the afghan so that it covered her completely.

"Olivia . . ." Stabler upbraided.

"Humor me, Benson," Logan scooted to the edge of the chair he'd pulled near the sofa. "I don't have to tell you that victims quite often remember new details for days after an assault."

"Just do it," Stabler advised. "You know it won't be the first, or the last, time."

Defiantly she sat back, looking from Logan to Stabler back to Logan again. She sighed bitterly then, when she spoke, it was as if she were reciting some odious ode in English class. "Brian brought dinner around eleven. We ate and he left around two."

"Can you be more specific about the time?" Logan interrupted.

Benson shook her head. "I was dozing. I remember him kissing me after he was dressed but I didn't look at the clock."

Cassidy quietly slipped into the room, leaning silently against the kitchen door frame. Munch perched in the chair opposite Logan.

"Go on," Stabler placed his hand on hers which were folded in her lap.

"Shortly after Brian left," she worried her cast with her right thumb, "before I was really asleep again, there was a knock at the door." She chewed on her bruised lip.

Cassidy moved to the door facing next to the sofa. Stabler signaled and Cassidy reclaimed his perch on the sofa while Stabler held up the door facing.

"I thought it was Brian, that he'd forgotten something, so I opened the door." She picked at her cast and Cassidy stilled her hand with his. "He," her voice hitched, "was wearing a ski mask, shirt, pea coat, trousers, gloves, all black. He was a male, white, medium height, medium to stocky build. Brown eyes, heavy gray eyebrows. He hit me."

"How?" Logan prodded.

She glanced toward Cassidy. "With his fist. He punched me then called me a whore."

"Then what?" Munch leaned in.

She closed her eyes. "He back-handed me so hard it threw me back against the coffee table. The last thing I remember was him leaning over me saying only a slut would have a man coming and going from her apartment at all hours. Then I passed out." She searched their faces, puzzled at the excited expressions.

"Are you sure that's what he said? 'Coming and going at all hours?'" Munch asked while Logan scribbled furiously.

"Yeah. What is it?" Her faced registered more confusion.

"Oh, God," Cassidy breathed.

"I'll get the door-to-door going around again," Logan dialed his cell phone.

"Brian," Munch stood, "how frequently did you and Olivia see each other?"

Cassidy searched his memory. "Three, no four out of the previous seven nights. That night was the third in a row."

"Did you see anything when you left?" Stabler asked.

Cassidy's eyes lost focus while his mind focused on that night. "No," he said slowly, shaking his head. "I don't remember seeing anybody outside when I left."

"What about inside?" Munch asked.

Cassidy held his hands palms up. "Nobody."

"Well, somebody buzzed him in," Stabler surmised. "It's a secure building."

"Yeah, secure, right." Cassidy chortled. "Old Mrs. Barzini by the stairs will buzz in anybody, anytime."

Olivia Benson looked sharply at him.

"Sometimes I'd forget my keys," Cassidy explained sheepishly.

"I don't remember a Barzini being interviewed during the neighborhood canvas," Munch pondered.

"That's because there wasn't." Logan snapped his cell phone closed. "She was never home."

Olivia sat up. "That's impossible."

"Yeah," Cassidy agreed, covering the hand she'd placed on his arm with his own. "She couldn't walk very well. Even had groceries delivered."

"She's got to be there; you've got to go check on her." Olivia's voice rose urgently. "You've got to hurry."

Logan shook his head. "It's too late. The super found her body late yesterday. Suffocated in her own bed."

"When?" Cassidy asked.

"Six or seven days ago," Logan replied. "Probably the night Olivia was attacked."

"And nobody thought to call us?" Stabler wondered.

"Surprise, surprise," Munch interjected.

"It's all my fault," Olivia Benson moaned, tears streaming while squall lines of emotion passed over her face. First was sorrow, then anger, then, as the men uttered hollow but earnest placations, embarrassment. She turned bright red and, ignoring Cassidy's comfort, turned her face away from them all. Despite continued comfort and questions she maintained her stony silence until the visitors left shaking their heads in frustration.

"You weren't very helpful," Cassidy chided as he steadied her elbow while she made her way back to the bedroom.

She panted lightly while lowering herself onto the bed. "I don't have anything to be helpful with."

He looked at her hard for a moment then muttered, "Yeah," before slamming the bathroom door between them.

Olivia Benson remained on the bed, face set in stone. "Just like Harper's boyfriend . . ."

* * *

"How is she?" Cathy Stabler murmured sleepily in her husband's ear.

He worried with the sheet and comforter.

"El?" Cathy propped her head on her arm.

He continued tugging at the covers, finally surrendering. "Drowning in a river in Egypt."

"Huh?"

He smiled ruefully, then reached over and pulled his wife so close her breath tickled his cheek. "Denial."

* * *

"How is she?" Thadea Akili asked dreamily, rolling over and wrapping herself around her freshly-showered bedmate before he could even pull the covers over himself.

Mike Logan wrapped his arms around his lady. "Denial's a great thing. Make you think you have it together until, without any warning, you just come unglued."

"Does she have people who love her?" Her hand slipped beneath his soft cotton crew shirt.

"Yeah. Boyfriend, partner, people in her unit-all trying to help." His lips curled up at her touch which was, at once, both soothing and exciting.

"Then she'll be okay." She deposited a soft, wet kiss beneath his ear which elicited a soulful moan from him.

Cat-quick he wrapped himself around her, whispering, "Don't start something you don't want me to finish."

She burrowed even closer, if that were possible, eyes burning brightly, voice smoky and smoldering as she breathed her response, "Finish it."

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Chapter 13

"I haven't been to church since Max Greevey's funeral," Mike Logan paused, squinting, on the windswept steps, pulling his coat tighter. "Before that, probably not since I was a kid." He jammed his hands into his pockets. "Think the man upstairs holds a grudge?"

Thadea Akili threaded her arm through his. The frost on the grass glinted like a carpet of diamonds as they climbed the steps. "He knows where you've been. And why."

"That's what I'm afraid of," the lapsed Catholic replied. He lingered for a moment at the font, wondering if the water would burn him in retribution for all of his unconfessed sins. The organ boomed judgement as he dipped his fingers into the font but it did not burn him. It felt soothing, strangely, running into his palm as he touched his forehead, heart and shoulders. His footsteps echoed despite the crowd and, genuflecting before entering the pew with Thadea's parents, his knee popped loudly during an unfortunate pause in the music. He grinned hotly, feeling much like a bull in a china shop. His eyes roamed all about, searching for the nearest avenue of escape, until slender fingers stilled his trembling hand. His eyes met hers, finding refuge.

"Peace be with you," the priest greeted.

"And also with you." He responded with the others, but was speaking only to the person next to, joined to, him. He knew then, if there were a God, He was to be found in Thadea's smile.

* * *

"Where are you going?" Olivia Benson propped her pillow against the headboard and watched Brian Cassidy adjust his shoulder holster.

"I have to go back to work." He slid his weapon into its place and snapped the strap, then inserted two spare clips into their slots. His voice was flat, lifeless, as were his eyes.

"Are you sure you're up to it?" Olivia scooted up until she was sitting. "You hardly slept last night."

"Neither did you."

"Well, I'm not running off to work today," she rebuffed.

"Running off?" his voice rose.

"Yeah, running off," she challenged.

He shook his head wearily. "Olivia, I have to go to work. I've used up all the days I could piece together just to stay home this long."

"But you're still leaving me." She pulled her knees up against her chest.

Cassidy sat on the bed at her feet. "I'm just going to work; I'll be back."

"When?" she challenged him.

He sighed, chafed the angry red welt on his neck. "It's hard to say. Around two, maybe."

"This afternoon?"

He shook his head. "I have to work a double." He reached over to the bedside table. "But you've got a deck of cards," he brandished his hand toward the corner, "a television and VCR with remote, my entire collection of Madonna movies, oh yeah, and a few Mel Gibson flicks. What more could you want?" His smile was forced, thin.

"What more?" she responded acidly.

He swallowed, hard, before the Cheshire-cat smile returned. "Get some rest." He motioned for her to scoot back down into the bed.

"It's all I do," she whined, turning her back to him.

"It's what you need, Olivia," he hesitated, then carefully wrapped one palm across her hip. He brushed the hair from her face, his thumb gently stroking the now-yellowing bruise on her cheek.

She swatted his hand away.

"Don't do this, baby," he said in a shaky whisper. "Don't push me away."

She rolled onto her back. "Then don't go," she challenged.

"I have to."

"You mean you want to," she glared defiantly and he met her glare, matching it in temperature and intensity.

"Believe what you want." He squeezed her hand then said from the doorway, "But I will be back."

* * *

"I tell you, Phil, I have never seen a case go this cold this fast." Necktie askew, Mike Logan sat, sock feet propped on an ottoman, in the corner of his former partner's sofa, wolfing down the last of a gigantic bowl of popcorn. "No eyewitnesses, plenty of forensics for a conviction if only we could find the guy."

"What about the victim?" Phil Cerretta's eyes only briefly left the basketball game on the television. "She's a cop, isn't she?"

"Fat lot of good it does," Logan complained. "He knocked her out almost immediately."

His companion's only reply was a nodding hum. Mike Logan smiled warmly, then turned his attention back to the ball game.

"How do you deal with it, Elaine?" Thadea Akili sipped her steaming tea in the relative silence of the kitchen.

"With what?" Elaine Cerretta stalled, knowing full well what 'it' was.

Thadea stirred her tea. "The hours, the danger, the whole cop thing."

"Well," Elaine smiled knowingly, "you put up with a lot, you pray a lot and hang on until retirement."

"Did Phil ever get," Thadea's eyes wandered about, "obsessed with cases?"

Elaine choked on a giggle. "What cases didn't he obsess about?" She lay her hand on the younger woman's. "Sometimes you feel like the job comes first for them. Sometimes it does."

"How do you live with that?"

"Some women can't," Elaine admitted. "I wasn't very good at it until I realized that being a cop was pretty much a calling for Phil. There's no way he could stop and be the man I loved."

"What about," Thadea ran her finger around the rim of her cup, "when he was shot?"

Elaine grasped her cup in both hands. "Nothing prepares you for that." She tilted her head toward the living room. "It's awfully quiet in there."

Silently she stepped behind the sofa, followed by Thadea. Both barely managed to stifle laughs at the sight of their men, tough NYPD detectives, chins on chests, snoring their way through a ballgame. Elaine stacked another log on the fire while Thadea spread afghans over each.

"All we can do is make the most of every minute," Elaine whispered, pushing the younger woman back into the kitchen, "and put the rest in God's hands."

* * *

"Can I get you anything before I go to bed?" Grace Cassidy paused at her son's bedroom door for the, seemingly, thousandth time.

Olivia Benson shifted her pillow uncomfortably. "No, thank you, um . . ."

"Grace," the older woman answered, gently sitting on the edge of the bed. "Call me Grace."

"You're very kind to let me stay here, like this. I mean, not many mothers would let their sons bring . . ."

"Brian didn't ask my permission, Olivia." Grace Cassidy's face was, as always, cryptic. "I probably wouldn't have allowed it, given a choice."

Olivia's face cheeks burned hotly. "I'm sorry. I'll get out . . ."

"No," Mrs. Cassidy's hand gently held her down. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that the way it sounded."

"You're right," Olivia Benson argued, "Most mothers wouldn't approve . . ."

"I don't approve," Grace Cassidy continued, "at least I didn't. But that was before."

Olivia studied her trembling hands. "Before what?"

"Before I knew that my son's relationship with you was more than physical, for him at least. Before I knew how much he loved you. I just wish you loved him as much as he loves you."

Tears were flowing down Olivia Benson's face before Grace Cassidy had finished speaking. "I wish I knew how." She scrubbed her tears away with her uncasted palm. "But he can do better than me. Much better, believe me."

"Stop it," Grace Cassidy ordered. "Stop belittling yourself."

Tears again stained Olivia's face. "Damn it, it's true. You don't know . . ."

"Yes, I do." Grace Cassidy took the younger woman's hands in hers. "I know you're smart, you're beautiful. All the rest-all that about your mother and that man who attacked her-are history. The sooner you realize that, the better."

"I wish I could. I truly do."

"I know you do," Mrs. Cassidy said gently then held up a pill bottle. "Will you need these to sleep?"

Shamefully, Olivia Benson nodded, then downed the prescribed dosage. She slid down in the bed and Mrs. Cassidy pulled the comforter over her shoulders.

"Rest well, Olivia," Brian's mother said with (dare she think it?) fondness.

She stroked her slender fingers along the stricken woman's brow. It felt warm and cool and soothing and . . . "Thank you," Olivia murmured.

"You're safe and loved here," the older woman cooed with a mother's voice.

Olivia Benson drifted off to a place that was, for a time, bright and warm and homey but turned dark and cold and scary. She heard a banging at the door and saw her hand on the knob. The door seemed to fly off its hinges and a black shadow, eyes burning, descended upon her, fists swinging in time with the insults. She heard herself calling for help then felt herself falling back, back, back, hitting her head against something hard and painful then everything went cold and wet and black.

"Olivia?"

She felt herself being shaken and moaned.

"Olivia!"

"Brian!" She screamed, sitting bolt upright, sweat dripping from her hair, despite the chill deep inside her.

"I'm here, baby." Arms surrounded her, pulled her close to a warm, strong body that she knew by the comforting scent to be her Brian.

She burrowed as far as possible into his embrace, falling back into the bed that smelled of him. He pulled her even closer, if that were possible, murmuring soothing sounds into her ear, delicately stroking her bruised cheek, warm and solid and safe until her tremors of terror subsided.

"It's okay, Olivia. You're safe," he whispered and she realized he'd been chanting it like a mantra since she'd waked.

She nodded mutely, rubbing her forehead against his bare chest, realizing for the first time that her pelvis rested against his. She tried to pull her knees up, to scoot her hips to a "safe" distance but his hand wrapped around her, gently, but insistently, returning her to her original position. Another tremor overtook her and he gently tilted her head back and fixed his eyes on hers. She expected to see danger, fire, passion but what she saw burned deeper with a flame nearly impossible to extinguish.

"You're safe," he whispered, eyes full of tenderness, strength, love.

She darted her tongue nervously over her still-swollen lip, swallowing hard, eyes still fearful.

"You're safe," he repeated, relaxing his embrace.

For a moment she skittered back from him, like a terrified animal retreating to a safe place. But he held out his arms, invitingly, and she, trepidation in every move, inched her way back to him. He rolled onto his back and, reluctantly at first, she lay her head against his shoulder, draped her leg across his, snaked her hand across his warm chest. She felt his arms encircle her, firmly, yet lightly and she relaxed into his embrace. Warm tears spilled onto his shoulder but he didn't wipe them away; he held her until her well of sorrow ran dry. Then, caressing her swollen, but relieved, face he whispered again, earnestly, soulfully, "You're safe."

She smiled and pressed a tentative kiss lightly against his lips feeling, for the first time since that night, maybe for the first time in her entire life, safe.

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Chapter 14

"What time is she supposed to be here?" John Munch slurped on his third cup of coffee.

"Nine o'clock," Elliot Stabler answered. "Brian had a late case." He continued dividing his attention between the computer screen and the empty staircase.

"I thought the doctor had released her," Jeffries joined the conversation.

"He did," Stabler glanced at Benson's still-empty desk and punched his keyboard. "For half-days on desk duty. It's only been a month."

"Still no leads, Munch?" Jeffries said from her desk.

Munch shook his head. "The trail is as cold as a witch's heart."

"I thought Logan was supposed to be some real detective," Jeffries observed.

"Well, Jeffries," Don Cragen stood beside Benson's desk, "even Rumpelstiltskin needed straw to spin into gold."

"And Benson's case has nary a straw, much less a haystack in which to search for the proverbial needle." Munch turned a page on his latest copy of the Post.

The sound of footsteps on the stairs postponed any riposte and attracted the attention of the conversationalists. The dark hair of Olivia Benson appeared first, followed by Brian Cassidy's blonde mop. Her head was tilted downward, as if she were watching the steps as she carefully mounted each, and her hair, now longer than they'd ever seen it, veiled her face. She mounted the top step, flashing a timid grin at her companion. He, his face grown angular and hollow-eyed, returned to her a beaming smile. Her arrival had, to her hot-faced embarrassment, prompted a standing ovation. She moved through the crowd like a returning royal, sidestepping hugs but shaking hands, Brian guarding her from a discreet arm's length. Though only a few feet from the stairs, she finally reached her desk and carefully lowered herself into her chair. One of her well-wishers, coltish Briscoe of course, bumped the chair and she blanched, weakly accepting the offered apology, while Brian and Elliot darted to her. The crowd dispersed quickly and the celebration stopped as abruptly as it had started. Brian whispered in her ear, prompting her to nod, then he slipped quietly to her locker.

"Welcome back, partner," Elliot greeted, still kneeling in front of her.

"Thanks." Her right hand roamed restlessly on her desk.

"You're looking great."

"It only took me two hours," she snorted. "I had to stop and rest every ten minutes."

"It was well worth it," Stabler smiled cheerfully, gently, tenderly holding out his hand.

She studied it for a moment, chewing on her lip, before, hesitantly, allowing him to take her casted hand. "Everybody knows, Elliot."

"What do you mean?"

"They know. Everything." Tears welled at the corner of her eyes and she blinked them back angrily.

"No, they don't."

"Yes, they do. And I hate it."

He sandwiched her hand between his. "Olivia, they know enough to be glad you're alive. That's all."

"That's all?"

He nodded. Relief washed over her face and her hand snaked around his arm, pulling him into a lightning-quick, but definite, embrace.

"Good," Brian Cassidy murmured from his vantage point at the lockers.

"Huh?" John Munch queried and Cassidy nodded toward Benson and Stabler.

"I was afraid she'd be, I don't know . . ."

"Distant?" Munch supplied.

"Yeah, distant with Elliot."

"Is she distant with you?" Munch asked quietly.

Cassidy straightened Benson's locker. "She's always been distant with me."

Munch crooked an eyebrow at him and Cassidy grinned, then his face darkened. "In the only way that really matters."

Cassidy cast a glance at Olivia, who was shuffling papers on her desk, and returned to his task.

"Has she called? Her mother, has she called?" Munch leaned against the lockers.

"Couple of times. Made some excuses about how busy she was." Cassidy shook his head then gazed at Olivia. "Between that bastard-I don't even know what to call that animal who sired her- and her mother, I don't think she'll ever let anyone get close."

Benson, who'd been poring over a file, lifted her head, her eyes casting, nearly desperately, about the room. At the sight of Cassidy, she stopped her search, apprehension in her eyes gave way to confidence and she smiled, just for him, before returning to her file. With a nod to his former partner, Cassidy stepped to her desk, whispered to her, then waved as he descended the stairs. Munch paused, and with a rare smile murmured, "She already has, Brian. She already has."

* * *

"Damn," Mike Logan cursed the scalding steam rising from the spaghetti pot. Wielding a wooden spoon as clumsily as if it were a boat oar, he squished a noodle against the side of the boiling pot. "Aah," he breathed and jammed the lid back on the pot, considering the humor in the fact that the only thing this Mick knew how to cook well was Italian- spaghetti with canned sauce, nonetheless. He switched boat oars, um, spoons, and stirred the red sauce that was sending boiling red splotches all over the stove like tiny artillery barrages. Angrily he twisted a knob and the fire died beneath the sauce pot, quelling the marinara storm.

He pulled open the oven door and heat blasted his face. As soon as he could breath again, he smelled the oven-brown bread loaf browning nicely. He peeked in the refrigerator where the salad, freed from its vacuum-fresh store bag, was only slightly wilted. He'd rifled through the drawers and found two Chinese-looking flower-print placemats and matching cloth napkins, smiling at the "international" flavor this dinner was taking on. The flatware and wineglasses were sleek and elegant, just like Thadea.

He battled with the stubborn cork on what the insufferable clerk had assured him was a thrifty, but drinkable, Chianti. He seemed to be gaining the upper hand when . . .

"What are you doing home so early?" His dinner companion appeared in the doorway.

The cork took advantage of the distraction and released its grip on the bottle so that the resultant spillage on Logan's shirt made the detective look like a victim of a mob hit. He stared at it, with the same disbelieving expression as Phil Cerretta had worn when he was shot, seeing himself, in his mind's eye, clutching at the center of a spreading crimson stain and sliding to the floor.

"That was graceful," Thadea giggled and daubed at his shirt with a dishtowel.

The sound of her voice roused him out of his reverie. "Yeah," he smiled wanly. "I fought the wine and the wine won."

"I think this shirt is ruined," her fingers manipulated the buttons. He shivered as she peeled the sleeves down his arms. "Are you cold?"

"No." He peeled off the sopping undershirt, too, and she plopped them into the washing machine while he drained the pasta and poured it and the red sauce into a large casserole. He slid the dish into the oven then tugged her wrist. "Appetizer," his leering nod upstairs answered her quizzical expression. Mounting but a token protest, she followed him, led actually, her bright eyes driving away the pall of his phantasm.

* * *

"Hey," a familiar voice half-roused Olivia Benson from her slumber.

"Mmm, hey, yourself," she savored his distinctive aroma of soap and sandalwood and spice. "What time is it?"

His hand settled tentatively on her hip. "After midnight," he murmured.

She eased into his embrace. "Everything okay?" her fingers slid gently over the cicatrix on his neck.

"Yeah." He grasped her hand away from the still-tender scar. "How was your first day back?"

"Busy," she murmured, her eyes fluttering open for just a moment. "Okay."

"Good," Brian Cassidy murmured, following her into slumber.

"No!" The scream that roused him came from beside him. Pummeling fists followed.

"Olivia!" he whispered urgently, grabbing her wrist and her cast. "Wake up, Olivia!" The clock glowed 3:27.

"No!" The scream was more urgent, more fierce.

He pushed her arms back onto the pillow on either side of her head, then caged her thrashing legs with his own, his weight pinning her. "It's only a dream, baby. Wake up!"

Her eyes bulged open. "What are you doing?"

Hope Cassidy appeared in the door.

"You were having a nightmare," he explained. "It's okay, Mom," he said over his shoulder and the visitor disappeared silently.

"Get off me," Benson growled and Cassidy rolled to his side while she scuttled to the opposite edge of the bed.

The longhorn tatoo on his upper arm bulged as he propped himself on his elbow. "That was worse than usual."

She rocked, curled into a tight ball.

"Maybe you're not ready to go back to work." Absently, he drew figures on the sheet. "Maybe the cases there are too close to what happened to you."

"I'm fine."

"Waking up screaming and kicking every night is not 'fine,' Olivia."

"I can handle it." Her eyes burned through the darkness. "If you can't," she challenged, "I can find somewhere else to stay."

His shoulders slumped. "Don't go," he whispered. Resignedly he held up the bedclothes and she, slowly and hesitantly, crawled back under them, not resisting the tug of his embrace. Both shivered, but not from the cold. Sleep finally came again, but 'rest' was nowhere to be found.

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Chapter 15

"I don't know what more I can tell you, Detective, Logan, is it?" Serena Benson forward in her chair, ample cleavage not-quite-discreetly displayed.

Mike Logan swallowed back the pity and disgust he felt for this victim. "I'm looking for any thing that would help us find out who hurt your daughter, Mrs. Benson."

"It's Ms.," she barked. "There is no Mr. Benson." Her voice was deep, earthy, seduction dripping from every word.

"Excuse me, Ms. Benson," he corrected. "Would you tell me, again, about that night?" He turned the microphone end of a microcassette recorder toward her.

As the clock struck four, she tucked her knees underneath her, then reached for a stemmed glass on the end table. She ran her scarlet-clawed index finger around the rim of the wine glass. "I'd been to the library," she said and gulped half of the red wine in the large glass. "I was walking home. I heard footsteps, then was hit on the head. When I woke up, he was doing it." She gulped more of her drink.

"Did he say anything during the attack?"

Her dark eyes searched for the sunlit window. "He kept on saying how I'd thank him for this, later." A single tear coursed a path through her makeup mask.

Logan fixed his eyes on his notebook page, which remained snow-white. "And then?"

She drained her glass. "And then he left me. Alone. But not before he said one more thing."

"What?"

She paused until her gaze finally met his. Her deep voice colored with regret and resentment. "He said, 'You're welcome.'"

* * *

A desk chair creaked loudly. "Olivia, I think you're being too hard on the victim."

"She is not telling us everything, Elliot." A drawer slam punctuated the statement.

Captain Donald Cragen's inquisitive face appeared in his office doorway. A head-tilt summoned the dissentious officers. "Is there trouble in paradise?" He closed the door behind Stabler and Benson.

"No, sir," they lied in unison.

He crooked an eyebrow at them. "Then why are sounds of discord disturbing my late evening meditation time?"

A torrent of words flowed from both. "He thinks," she said, "she's being," he argued at the same time, "I'm being too hard-assed since I was . . . too hard-assed since she was . . ." they finished together, "attacked."

Cragen held up his hands. "Wait a minute. Elliot, you first."

"She thinks Jean Layton is lying to us- that she knows her attacker- and she's busting her chops to find out."

"Well, at least I'm not fawning all over her . . ." Benson shot back.

"I am not fawning," Stabler retorted. "And if you hadn't spent the month since you've been back trying to show us all how tough you are you'd know it!"

Benson stepped toe-to-toe with her partner. "If you weren't so busy being all sympathetic you'd know she's taking us for a ride!"

"This is not about me," Stabler hissed.

"The hell it isn't," Benson snarled. "I'm fine."

"Time out," Cragen ordered. "Benson, have a seat. Stabler, why don't you fix us all some coffee?"

Olivia Benson plopped in a sagging desk chair, pushing it back against the cot in the corner. Elliot Stabler rolled up his sleeves then mutely, roughly, poured three cups from the Captain's machine, handing the first to his superior. Taking the other two mugs, he extended the one in his right hand to his smoldering partner.

She reached for it, then, somehow, time slowed, it must have, the succeeding action taking place in between the pounding pumps of Elliot Stabler's heartbeat. She reached for the cup, with a grudging nod, then, strangely, grasped his wrist, turning it to see the forearm, coffee dribbling onto the carpet. In the next instant the cup followed the coffee and she dropped his wrist and found her feet and her own weapon which, as if by sorcerer's curse, appeared at the end of her outstretched arms, grasped in her hands, hammer cocked and death grinning from the barrel. In her eyes was fear, terror, so feral and foreign to her that her warm brown eyes now seemed stone-cold and black. Stabler's own cup followed hers and, instinctively he raised his hands, palms toward her.

"Olivia," he heard himself say over the hammering of his heart, "it's me, Elliot."

At the sound of his voice the terror in her eyes warmed to horror and she stumbled backwards, choking, "Oh, God . . ."

"It's okay, Olivia," Stabler stepped closer and she toppled back onto the cot as Cragen pulled the gun from her hand. "It's okay."

"I could have killed you," she rasped, pulling herself into a tight ball in the corner of the small bed.

"But you didn't," Stabler's eyes met hers, briefly, before she averted them to the blanket. Behind him Stabler could hear Cragen on the telephone summoning Brian Cassidy. "We're both safe." He reached out to her and, spying his arm again, she cringed further into the corner. "What is it?"

She nodded at his forearm. "He had a tatoo," she soughed. "On his forearm," she coughed and a fresh mug appeared before her. She wrapped her hands around it. "Like that." She sipped the warm liquid.

"Marines?" Cragen asked gently.

She nodded.

Stabler could hear Cragen on the phone again, this time summoning Mike Logan.

"Better?" Stabler asked, extending his left hand to her.

Timidly, she joined her hand to his and nodded. Time changed again for, in the next instant, Brian Cassidy sat quietly on the cot beside her.

"Hey," he murmured. "You alright?"

He brushed her hair from her lowered eyes then gingerly tilted her chin upward until her gaze met his. Tears welled and she shook her head, slowly. "I almost killed Elliot," she sobbed.

Brian cupped her scarred cheek. "What happened?" His face was calm, placid.

With barely a creak of the hinge Mike Logan slipped into the room, nodding at Cragen.

"Oh, God," she groaned at the crowd.

"She had a flashback," Elliot rubbed his thumb across the back her hand.

"What was it?" Cassidy stroked her hair.

"Elliot's tatoo." She licked her lips. "On his arm." She took a few quavering breaths. "When he pulled his arm across his body to slap me, his sleeve pulled up and I could see it." Her voice cracked. "Just like Elliot's."

"Go on," Cassidy prodded.

"When I saw Elliot's tatoo it was just like it was happening all over again. Like he was here but this time I could protect myself and I pulled my weapon and . . ." She shuddered and Cassidy folded his arms around her, dismissing them with a nod.

"You okay?" Logan turned to Stabler as the door snicked shut.

"Yeah," Stabler replied. "She couldn't hurt me."

"She came damn close," Cragen said. "One twitch and . . ."

For the first time, Elliot Stabler shuddered. "I know."

"Do you think this is for real?" Logan asked.

"Oh, yeah," Stabler confirmed.

"So," Cragen asked, "what good does it do us until we find a suspect?"

"I don't know, Donnie," Logan retorted. "I just know it's more than we had, which can't help but help."

"She's asking for you, Elliot," Brian Cassidy held open the office door.

Stabler nodded and exchanged places with the younger man.

"I'm taking her home." Cassidy strode to her desk and gathered her bag, gloves and coat.

"You don't seem surprised at this, Cassidy," Logan observed.

"I'm not." Cassidy looked into her purse, then her desk drawers. "Do you have her gun?" he asked.

Cragen nodded. "Why aren't you surprised, Brian?"

Cassidy smiled ruefully. "She's spent the last two months telling everyone how 'fine' she is, but she can't close her eyes without reliving it all over again."

Cragen rubbed his jaw. "I thought she was seeing a counselor."

"A counselor can't help someone who doesn't know they need it." Cassidy threw her coat over his shoulder. "Now she knows." He walked back to the office, but stopped short of the door and turned. "I guess there's no way to keep this out of her jacket . . ."

"I always take care of my people, Brian," Cragen said reassuringly.

Cassidy nodded and returned to the office, gently pulling her coat over her slack form while Stabler supported her. They staggered out of the office, toward the stairs, with her between them, Stabler supporting her by her elbow and Cassidy at her waist. She stopped at Cragen. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

"Don't be," he replied. "Just get well."

She smiled wanly and took a step, then stumbled. Before she fell, Cassidy cradled her in his arms and whisked her down the steps. Stabler preceded them, clearing a path.

"Is she gonna make it?" Logan asked.

"Yeah," Cragen answered. "I think, now, she will." He tugged Logan toward his office. "How did you get here so quickly? You haven't developed angel wings, have you?"

"If I have, it's because of Thadea," Logan smiled.

"Oh, yeah, Phil said something about you finding a nice Catholic girl . . ."

"She is, nice, I mean. Nicer than I deserve, Donnie."

"Don't sell yourself short, Mike. You've earned a little 'nice.'"

"Maybe," Logan nodded and pulled over a chair. "I interviewed Serena Benson today."

Cragen leaned forward in his leather chair, "And?"

"She remembered something her attacker said."

"Mike, the statute of limitations expired on that crime twenty-five years ago."

"I know, Donnie," Logan shook his head. "But if I solve one, I solve them both. I'm stalled on Olivia's case. Maybe this new stuff on Serena's case will pan out."

"What new stuff on Serena's case?" Stabler puffed as he sat in the remaining chair.

"Something she remembered," Logan explained. "It may mean something, it may not. It can't hurt to follow it up. My captain already wants me to dead-file both cases."

"Then there's only one more thing I want to know," Elliot Stabler leaned toward the Staten Island detective. "What can I do to help?"

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Chapter 16

"Where the hell?" Mike Logan grumbled as he tilted another cardboard box to read its label. "'Dea," he called, "are there any more of my boxes any where?" Sock-footed, sweat pants hanging loosely and t-shirt proclaiming "NYPD," he planted his hands on his hips.

"What are you looking for?" Thadea Akili's face appeared in the doorway of the spare bedroom of her Staten Island house that had become the repository of Mike Logan's life's accumulation until it could be amalgamated with hers.

"A book," he turned over another box and snarled.

"Is it one I'd have?"

"Abnormal psychology?" he said hopefully.

"Sorry," she smiled. "Just 'Child Development.'"

"There's a difference?" he grinned and held out his hand to her. She allowed him to pull her close, her gown tickling their ankles as they swayed, arms circling her chest. "Not much to show for a lifetime, is it?"

"Possessions are not the measure of a man's life," she twined her fingers in his.

"Well, if it's money or job title, I'm in trouble, too," he smirked and she swatted his cheek affectionately while he resumed his search.

"You make the world safer, Michael," she plopped on a small bed and leaned against the headboard. "You make a difference in peoples' lives. That's more important than money or possessions or success."

He paused for a moment, back to her, then, with a "Yes!" plucked a book from a box in the corner. He joined her on the bed and flipped through the well-worn, scribbled-on pages before pressing it open. He glanced at the uncharacteristically unblemished page, then closed his eyes and swallowed hard, as if he knew he was about to open Pandora's box. "I hate this section," he confessed sheepishly.

She peered over his shoulder. "'The Etiology of Rape'?" she read aloud. "What's up?"

"It's for the Benson case." His hand shook over the page.

"I thought you weren't supposed to be working that case anymore."

He replied with a smirk and she sighed.

His face darkened. "Benson will never be able to put this behind her until I find the guy who hurt her." He glanced at her shyly. "Believe me."

"Did it really make that big of a difference for you? Convicting Krolinsky?"

"Yes."

She stretched and pecked him on the cheek, twining her hand in his. She nestled her head against his shoulder and, soon, her respirations became even, her form slack against him as sleep overtook her. He kissed the top of her head and continued his studies. Soon, though, his own breathing shallowed and his muscles relaxed and the book fell to the floor, unnoticed by its slumbering reader.

* * *

Elliot Stabler sunk deep into his well-worn couch savoring the Saturday-morning silence and his steaming cup of coffee before . . .

"Hey, Dad!" A tiny dynamo vaulted into his lap just has he set down his coffee cup.

"Dickie!" He wrapped his arms around his only son who settled down next to his father.

Tiny hands proffered the newspaper and bigger hands folded the comics pages open. "You first, Dad." His tiny finger tapped the newsprint.

"Let's see," Elliot Stabler drawled. "How about Peanuts?"

"Is it a Snoopy one?"

"Yeah," Dickie's father replied, then began, "'The daring World War One flying ace takes to the sky in his Sopwith Camel . . .'"

"What's a Sopwith Camel?"

"An airplane," Stabler explained through a gulp of his coffee, "an old one."

"Oh," the boy replied, listening with rapt attention to the exploits of the daring beagle. Even after he tired of the comics, the child remained in his father's lap, snuggled close and safe while the detective tossed the sheaf to the floor. An inner page slipped out and Stabler seized it then, with a gasp, scrambled for the telephone.

* * *

Brian Cassidy checked his watch again, chuffing when he realized it had been nearly an hour since Olivia Benson had followed Dr. Elizabeth Olivet into her office. He stood stiffly then, again, circumnavigated the small waiting room, stopping to peer absently at the smiling people in the photographs ornamenting the light-blue walls. He was on his second ambit when he nearly ran into Olivia at the office door.

"I'll see you Monday," Olivet said quietly, but it was more of an order than an invitation.

Benson nodded then trudged to the car, riding in silence.

"So, how did it go?" the false cheer tasted bitter.

Olivia turned her face toward the window. "Okay," she said acidly.

"Good," he said, "Good."

Only the sound of the tires on the slushy pavement broke the silence until the graveled driveway crunched beneath them. She shrugged off his steadying hand on the icy steps and ignored him when he reached for her coat.

"So," he followed her into the bedroom, newspaper rattling in his hand. "What do you want to do today?"

"Do?"

"Yeah, it's time you got out," he leaned against the bureau, reading the folded page. "Wanna go to the mall? See a movie?"

"You're kidding," she wheeled around. "Yesterday I tried to kill my partner and you're asking me if I want to go see a movie?"

"Yeah," his back stiffened. "It's time you started getting back to normal."

"Normal?" she stepped closer. "I'll never be normal again. Don't you understand?" Her palm left a red print on his cheek. He grabbed her wrists, newspaper fluttering to the carpet with a rustle.

"Yes, you will," he promised.

But she flailed against him, rage burning in her long-dulled eyes. "No. Never." She struggled against him. "I hate feeling like a freak."

"You're not . . ."

"Stop being so nice," she croaked. "I hate you for every kind thing you do."

She shoved him backward, the bureau preventing his fall, supporting his gradual slide to the floor. Blood welled from where he bit his lip, tears spilling from his sunken eyes. Angrily, he wiped them away. "I'm sorry," his voice was sharp, cutting.

He pulled his knees up, propping his arms on them, then buried his head behind fingers interlaced on the back of his neck. He shook, like a spring wound too tightly, the whitening scar on his neck scarlet again. She looked at his hands, always thin but now claw-like. Her heart tightened at the way his shirt hung off his shoulders. She chewed on her lip, remembering how he was now fastening his belt two holes tighter than before.

She kneeled before him "Do you know what I hate most of all?"

"There's more?" his face was craven.

She brushed away the tears, cupping his cheeks, studying him as if she'd never seen him before. "I hate what it's done to you."

"I'm fine," he shook his head.

"That's my line," she smiled. "We both know it's a lie." She rested her hands gently on his arms.

Gently he pulled her around, inside the circle of his embrace, her head resting back against his shoulder. "Not for long," he promised.

She scooted back against his chest, her legs tangled between his, her fingers circling his arms that criss-crossed her shoulders. She twisted her face to his. "Not for long."

He leaned forward and sealed her vow with the lightest of kisses before settling back into each other. The clock in the hall metered the rhythm of their heartbeats, the counter point of their sighs, punctuated occasionally by the rattling of the newspaper that lay, unread, beneath their feet.

* * *

Mike Logan bumbled stiffly down the stairs, socked-feet padding heavily on the entry-hall tile. Tugging the waistband of his sweat pants up and the hem of his rumpled shirt down, he inhaled, bracing himself for the cold blast. With a clicking of locks and a rattle of chains he flung open the front door and leaned down to scoop up the newspaper just as a movement across the street caught his eye. He froze until he realized the object in motion to be a slat in the venetian blinds that covered the front window of the house belonging to widowed school-clerk Isabel Kingman. And, although the bright sun prevented his eyes from focusing properly, he knew that, if he looked hard enough, he would see Mrs. Kingman's mole-like gaze in the gap in the blinds. He settled, instead, for a leisurely stretch and a pointed wave in the direction of the observer. The resultant shaking of the slats sculpted a smile on the Irishman's craggy face which lasted all the way into the kitchen.

"Aggravating Mrs. Kingman again?" Thadea handed him a cup of coffee.

He blew gently on the cup then took a sip. "It's too much fun to pass up," he explained, sprawling in the closest kitchen chair.

"Troublemaker," she chided, sitting in the other chair and propping her feet in his lap while fanning a section of the newspaper before her.

"Guilty," he leered, then peered at the exposed page of her folded section of newspaper. He grabbed the section and pulled it closer, lips moving slightly while he squinted at the cutline under a photograph.

"What is it, Michael?" She tugged at the paper, eyes following his.

"Oh, my God," he breathed, tapping at the picture. "Looks enough like her to be her twin."

Thadea smoothed the paper, staring at the depicted face with dark hair, full lips and exotic dark eyes. "Who?" she asked, but Logan was already bounding to answer the telephone.

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Chapter 17

"And you're sure you don't know this woman, Olivia?" Elliot Stabler held up the newspaper photo. "She's not a cousin, or some distant relative?"

"For the third time, no, Elliot."

Cassidy peered at the photo. "Man, the resemblance is spooky."

"Yeah," Stabler agreed.

"Okay," Logan snapped his cell phone to his belt. "Dr. Diane Weeden disappeared from her home thirty-one days ago. There were signs of a struggle at her apartment. She was last seen by her boyfriend, who left her place around four a.m.. A citizen reported seeing a man carrying a rolled-up rug from Dr. Weeden's building just before five. A reproduction Oriental rug is missing from the good doctor's apartment."

"Any description on the suspect?" Stabler leaned forward.

"Dark hair, medium build, medium height, wearing dark clothing."

Olivia stiffened and Cassidy slid his arm around her waist. "What about her mother?" she asked quietly.

"Suicide," Logan said carefully. "One month after Diane was born. Ten months," Logan's eyes met hers, "after being raped by an unknown assailant. The general description matches the man who assaulted your mother."

Olivia blanched, then grayed, then bolted for the bathroom, Cassidy following a few steps behind her.

"Am I hearing you right?" Stabler asked incredulously. "Do you know what you're saying?"

Leaning forward, elbows resting on knees, right hand clasped over his mouth as if to prevent his speaking the unspeakable, Logan nodded gravely.

"Oh, man." Stabler's fingers chafed his forehead, head propped up by his arm.

"How did he know?" Cassidy leaned against the door jamb, exhaustion evident in his expression, his voice, his posture. "How did he know when to . . ."

"I think you're confusing me with The Amazing Kreskin," Logan replied.

"He would have to observe them over a period of time . . ." Stabler began.

"Intimately . . ." Logan pointed out. "And without detection."

"Then, resurfaces thirty years later to kill the children of his victims?" Cassidy turned his hands up in confusion.

"His children, Brian." Olivia Benson pulled Cassidy along as she returned to the sofa, bolstered more by her seat mate than the cushions. Her face was ashen, haggard but her eyes lit up briefly when she glanced at her companion. "You said that the Atlantic City victim . . ."

"Diane Weeden," Logan supplied.

"Diane . . ." Benson paused, pensively, then continued, "Diane's boyfriend left her apartment around four."

"Okay . . ." Stabler prodded.

"Brian left around two," she continued. "One of the things he said, while he was calling me names . . ."

Cassidy scooted around to look at her. "He asked you what kind of woman has a man in her apartment at that hour!"

Benson nodded. "He's judging us. Then killing us if we don't measure up."

The clock ticked as the four exchanged incredulous glances.

Logan shook his head, disbelieving. "Let me get this straight: we're saying that the suspect raped women with objective of getting them pregnant, disappeared for thirty years, then tracked down and killed the children-his children-- who didn't measure up to his moral standards?"

* * *

"That's what we're saying," Mike Logan confirmed for Atlantic City detective Shandra Nbukwe.

The detective's round, ebony face broadcast incredulity. "And you're saying your victim . . ."

"Benson."

"Benson, and my victim, Weeden, are, um," she faltered, "offspring of this monster?" She propped her sneaker-clad foot on an open desk drawer.

Logan nodded while Nbukwe rocked thoughtfully. "She's dead, isn't she?"

"Probably."

A telephone bleated in the back of the squad room, but Nbukwe ignored it. "And you think we'll find her body at the shore?"

"That's where he dumped Benson."

"But she wasn't dead." She readjusted her sweatshirt, pulled the leg of her sweatpants down over thick, white socks.

"Lucky her."

The wary detective wearily eyed this interloper who'd interrupted her first day off since Weeden had disappeared. His well-worn black suit was perennially rumpled, the plaid tie just beginning to fray. The hazel eyes, which sat in orbits that now looked permanently bruised, tracked outside the door to the regal-looking woman waiting in an abused wooden chair, her mahogany complexion rendered ashy by the harsh fluorescent lighting.

Nbukwe's mouth turned up but it wasn't a smile. "Great way to stick the NYPD for a trip to Atlantic City."

Logan's gaze returned to the New Jersey detective, now burning with intensity. "My captain told me to dead-file this case a month ago, detective. I'm here on my own nickel."

Nbukwe cocked an approving eyebrow. "So what do you want?"

Logan leaned forward. "I want to interview the witness who saw the rug being taken out of the building. I want to speak to the boyfriend."

"He was gone by the time the attacker arrived." Nbukwe dissented. "Besides, he's so broken up he's been of little use."

"Maybe," Logan agreed, "but maybe he and the aunt can tell me more about the rape of Norma Weeden. Find out if the suspect is the same as my case."

"And if it is?"

Logan leaned back, head resting on tented fingers. "If they are the same, then somewhere, south of us probably, another woman died in the last week simply because she was unfortunate enough to have been sired by a serial rapist."

"You really think these are related?" She grimaced over her unfortunate word choice.

"There's only one way to find out."

"I get to be there, at all interviews," she demanded.

"Absolutely," Logan nodded.

"And we get first crack at prosecution."

"I can't make a deal for the DA," Logan shook his head. "But all I have is attempted murder, so it would make sense for you to get him first."

Nbukwe leaned toward Logan. "You know anything get from the aunt or the boyfriend about Norma Weeden's rape is hearsay. It won't connect the two for you."

Logan leaned in closer. "The DNA will make the connection. The others are just giving us background information."

"I hope you're right," the Jersey detective responded.

Mike Logan dragged his hand down his already-weary face. "So do I."

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Chapter 18

Brian Cassidy twisted the key in the ignition and the engine fell silent. "I'm not sure this is such a good idea."

Waves crashed against the rocky shore. "I'm not either," Olivia Benson replied, glancing demurely at him through a veil of dark brown hair. "But I don't know what else to do." The car rocked slightly as the wind buffeted it. "The only way I know to get through this is to face it head-on, Brian." She studied her left hand still-slightly-pruny from the cast.

He slid his right hand under her left and threaded their fingers with a gentle squeeze. Despite the pall of the cloudy day, she could feel the warmth of his gaze and allowed herself to bask in it for a moment.

"We could do this another time . . ."

She opened her mouth, assent perched at the tip of her tongue, but her face clouded, then hardened. "No," she shook her head. "If I don't do this now I may never do it."

Cassidy nodded and, in an instant, had scurried around to the passenger door and was giving her a hand up from the seat. One gentle tug and she was standing. One blink and she was picking her way across the rocky sand, two or three steps ahead, hands jammed in her coat pockets. He followed, maintaining the interval she had established until her foot slid on a spray-dampened rock and she teetered, windmilling her arms while the near-gale knotted her long coat around her legs, until a hand wrapped itself around hers. Steadied, once again, by her Anchor she tried to wrest herself free but he resisted, pulling her hand to his lips for a soft, promise-laden kiss before releasing her. He stood still while she pushed on ahead a step or two before she wheeled and retraced her stops until, standing before him she took his hand in hers, fingers lacing together loosely enough to be comfortable but tightly enough to provide the strength they both needed. Her brown eyes met his and drew their conjoined hands to her lips, her own kiss imbued with hope. She turned again to her original path, her link to her companion a tether rather than a fetter, until she stood before a dry, grassy, clump just like many others in sight.

"He left me here?" she asked and he nodded. She circled the patch in stations, looking all around at each pause. He followed, ostensibly mimicking her actions, but his attention was focused on her expression which grew more frustrated with each stop. She turned her face to the spray and stared out to the gray water that seemed to blend into the gray sky. "I don't remember anything."

"Did you expect to?" his free hand smoothed back her swirling hair then settled at the small of her back.

"Hoped, maybe."

She studied the horizon until she felt herself being pulled backward. Ceding control, she followed, soon finding herself seated on his knees on a rocky shelf. She burrowed into his embrace, seeking refuge from the biting wind. Burying her face into his neck, he flinched as her cheek rubbed against his still-tender scar. Her hot tears soaked his collar, her shudders shook his soul, but he held on until the quaking stopped and she lay her head against his shoulder, eyes once again scanning the sea. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

"Don't be."

She turned her attention to him. "How many times have you been here?"

His face burned scarlet and he shook his head, "I honestly don't know. Some nights I'd be on my way home and, the next thing I knew I'd be here, sitting on this damn rock, wondering."

"Wondering what was going through his head?" The tide had turned and the waves were crashing more loudly against the shore.

He chuffed. "Sometimes. Not much. I guess I'm not much of a cop."

"Brian," she chastised.

"I, uh," he paused, "I spent most of my time wondering how I could help you get through this."

She lifted her head, straightening her back and turning until her eyes were locked with his. Framing his pale cheeks with her hands, she pulled them together, her lips meeting his in an inquisitive kiss.

He answered by cinching his arms around her waist Her lips were sweet, tender, but soon grew hard, demanding, generating heat enough to re-ignite the long-smoldering fire in his belly. His conscience protested, but his passion prevailed until he felt and tasted bitter desperation on her lips. Panting, he pulled away, running his tongue over his lips, eyes focused on the horizon.

"What's wrong?"

"Not here." He glanced sidelong at her. "Not now."

"Why not?" she demanded. "What better way to defy him than to make love here?"

"You've never made love in your life." Eyes now an icy blue, he lifted her to her feet and stumbled to the edge of the waves.

"Excuse me?" she followed.

He shook his head vigorously. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything."

"Well, you did say something," her eyes darkened. "And you better explain it."

"Please, Olivia," he begged, "let's just go."

"Not until you've explained what you meant."

"Not here, Olivia. Not now." He turned toward the car.

She grabbed his arm. "Yes, Brian, here and now."

"No," he wrested his arm free, footsteps heavy in the sand.

She watched his back grow more distant. "You're just like him," she keened. "You're just like all of them." She fell to her knees. "It was always about sex for you."

He pivoted in time to see her wrap her arms across her stomach while the waves lapped at her feet. In an instant he was beside her, pulling her up, but she turned on him like a tigress, arms flailing.

"You never stayed, you bastard. You took what you wanted and you walked away, every time."

He caught her wrists. "You never asked me to stay," he said forlornly. "Maybe, if you had," tears rolled down his face, "this wouldn't have happened."

"This was not my fault, Brian." She jerked free of his grasp. "It wasn't my fault." She rocked back and forth, chanting, conviction weakening with every iteration, "It wasn't my fault."

"It was never your fault, Olivia." When he folded his arms around her she offered no resistance. "What he did to your mother, what he did to you-none of it was your fault."

"Yes, it was," she said in a small, child-like voice, her eyes searching his. "She never said so, but I knew it was."

"He's the one to blame," Cassidy lifted her chin, "for all of it."

Wave-foam bubbled around their knees and he pulled her to her feet again, silently leading her back to the car. They sat for an awkward moment, waiting for the engine to stop clattering.

"You were right."

"About what?" Cassidy responded carefully.

Olivia ran her tongue over her wind-parched lips. "I've never made love."

"Olivia . . ."

She cut him off with a wave. "Sex has always been about power. My mother wielded like a club, using it to take what she wanted from men. I do the same thing." She glanced at his face, expecting to see disgust but finding understanding. "I use men to fill the little emotional potholes that crop up in my life."

"What emotional potholes?" he prodded gently, his hand lightly brushing hers.

"Passion," she confessed. "Loneliness."

"Did it work?" he asked earnestly.

"Never for very long," she grinned, but didn't smile. "But it didn't matter; there was always another man to take the previous one's place."

"That sounds cold-hearted."

"It was," she bowed her head. "Then you came along."

He sat mutely, expectantly.

"You gave me," she stopped. "You showed me," she corrected. "You . . ." She slipped her little finger under his. "You terrified me."

"I didn't mean to." He covered her ring finger with his.

"I know." She burrowed her hand further until it was buried under his to their middle fingers. "I was afraid if I asked you to stay, I'd never be able to let you go."

A smile lit up his face, both giggling as they each sighed in relief. He covered her hand with his, using the other to pull them together. This time the kiss was so tender and sweet that they lingered, unhurriedly savoring each other. Time was counted by the crashing of the waves and the beating of their hearts. "Are you through here?"

She nodded and whispered, "Take me home."

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Chapter 19

"Take your time, Mr. Russell."

Nbukwe had been right, Logan mused. Hank Russell was too distraught to be of any help. Weeden's aunt, Sally Jessup, had been just the opposite. She'd recounted myriad details of her sister's rape, tidbits about her niece's life. Logan could have danced at her response to his final question. "When he was done, Ms. Jessup, did your sister's rapist make any parting remark to her?"

Jessup's expression turned quizzical. "Yes, now that you mention it, he did." She rubbed her thumbs together absently. "It haunted my sister until she killed herself."

"What did he say, Ms. Jessup?" Nbukwe leaned closer.

"He said," the aunt paused, "he said, 'You're welcome.'"

Mike Logan managed to delay his reaction until he was seated in the car with the Atlantic City detective. "Finally," he sighed, kneading the base of his rapidly-stiffening neck. "A lead."

"Easy for you to say," Nbukwe replied and he snorted.

"I wish it were," Logan replied ruefully. "It means I have to go home and inform my captain, who told me to drop this case a month ago that, not only have I been working the case, but it is part of a serial murder that is linked to a series of unsolved rapes over thirty years ago. I wonder if they're hiring at McDonald's?"

Nbukwe smiled. "Did you register your case with VICAP?"

"Oh, yeah," Logan replied."You?" prompted a nod from Nbukwe. "I wonder why the bright boys at Quantico haven't made the connection yet?"

"Let's not go there," she grinned conspiratorially, then her face darkened. "I've asked for salvage teams and rescue squads to comb the shoreline, like you said, but they won't get started until in the morning. You ready to go back to your hotel?"

"Yeah." Logan kneaded his neck wearily. "Oh, yeah."

* * *

Thadea Akili reread little Johnny Smith's math essay for the third time, then marked a bright purple happy face at the top. With a self-satisfied sigh she placed it, the last paper, face-down, on the "finished" stack of the papers she'd been grading. She scanned the hotel room yet again. It was clean, scrupulously so, and as comfortable as a hostelry could be expected to be, but she longed to be home where, on a lazy Saturday, Michael would doze through a basketball game on the couch while she graded papers and wrote lesson plans at her desk. Late in the afternoon they'd change and drive out to Long Island for mass and supper with Phil and Elaine Cerretta. It was a surprisingly normal existence. The snicking of the door unlocking startled her and she jumped to her feet, eyes round.

"Sorry," Logan mumbled sheepishly then snaked his arms around her waist, the weight from his finger-laced hands pulling her against him.

Her forehead rested in the hollow of his neck and she locked her arms around him. "Did you find what you were looking for?"

Wordlessly, he disengaged himself and walked to the bathroom where she found him staring into a glass of water.

"Michael?"

"Yeah," he nodded slowly but did not turn his face toward her. "I found it." He drained the glass then cast his face downward.

She stepped behind him, burying her face between his shoulder blades, locking her arms around the front of his. He crossed his arms over his heart and covered her hands with his rough paws.

"Hungry?" she murmured.

"Um-hm," he hummed through another glass of water. "What do you want?"

"Seafood?" She kneaded his shoulders. "Do you know any places?"

"Nbukwe mentioned one on the Boardwalk. We could walk from here."

She planted a kiss in the center of his back. "Do you want to rest first?"

He shook his head. "If I slow down, I'll stop."

She smiled and tugged at his belt. "Then let's go."

He returned her smile and followed her into the brisk March night.

After a satisfying meal of soft-shell crab they were, again, walking through the night, the ocean wind reddening their cheeks. They strolled, arm in arm, in amiable silence, until he ushered her onto a bench beneath a gaslight.

"This is nice," she burrowed into his side.

He hummed and kissed the top of her head, his arm sliding around her shoulders. It was dark, but still early, and the Boardwalk was about half-filled with couples strolling casually along. They watched silently, pointing out interesting characters with hand gestures and head-tilts. Across the promenade from them, beneath a gaslight, a couple paused at a bench. They looked young in the gaslight, and both grinned as the man tenderly lowered his tumescent companion onto the bench.

"He's gonna need a winch to get her up," Logan cracked, then winced merrily at the elbow that jabbed itself into his side.

"It's the least he could do," Thadea jibed. "It's probably his fault anyway." She stroked her hand up and down his arm. "She looks beautiful."

"She looks tired."

"You would be, too, if you had to carry around an extra thirty pounds or so for several months."

"I guess so," he acknowledged. Waves crashed in the night and they drew in the freshening air.

She turned her face to him. "Michael?"

"Hm?"

"Do you," Thadea hesitated, "do you want children?"

Mike Logan fought the urge to bolt and, instead, turned his face to his lady. "For a long time, I was afraid of it-me, as a father."

"Why?" she asked.

"I didn't have the greatest role models," he said wryly, "besides, I have a habit," he looked down, "I have a habit of screwing things up," he explained. "Kids deserve better than that." He cast her a sidelong glance.

She cupped his cheek. "Do you know what I think?"

He chewed on his lip again.

"I think you'd be a great father."

He shook his head. "I had the chance once. But the mother didn't think I was 'father material.' She had an abortion."

He looked into her eyes, defying the disapproval he knew he'd find. But her eyes held only sorrow, sympathy. "I'm sorry," she said soothingly, wiping away the tear coursing down his cheek.

Across the way, the man tugged his companion to her feet and, arm in arm, they waddled toward the parking lot.

"I think that's our cue," Logan stood and tugged his companion to her feet, where she mock-waddled, stance widened and belly poked out, hand supporting the small of her back. He snorted, then choked back a laugh.

"You think this is funny?" she said with mock ire, poking her belly even further.

"No, m'am," he said quickly, a rare smile splitting his face. Mirth danced in his usually-lifeless eyes, but, in a moment changed to awe.

In a heartbeat she was beside him, splaying his hand across her flat tummy. "Soon?" she exhaled.

His breath caught, not because he was afraid but, because, for one of the very few times in his life, he wasn't. He dared a small sigh then enfolded her in his embrace. "Soon."

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Chapter 20

The clock in the hall outside Brian Cassidy's bedroom had stood witness to the important events of his life. It had tolled the time faithfully through chicken pox and measles, through first love and inevitable disappointment and now Brian Cassidy listened as it tolled, joyously it seemed to him, one, two and three times as Olivia Benson dozed contentedly beside him. Her head was tucked into his right shoulder, her arm draped across his waist and her leg tangled in his. His left hand spanned her waist and his right hand stroked her hair. He felt himself drifting off to a warm, quiet place until she flinched. His eyes shot open, his breath caught, energy focused on a silent pleading to any Almighty who might listen. She moaned, then cringed again before sitting bolt upright in the bed. Fearfully she scanned the room then, feeling his warm hand on her back, she threw herself into his embrace.

"What's wrong, 'Livia?"

"I don't know," she answered breathlessly. "I just feel like something terrible is about to happen."

"Did you hear something?"

She shook her head, but they both listened for a moment, hearing nothing but the ticking of the clock.

* * *

Mike Logan snored contentedly, Thadea's arm and leg thrown carelessly across him. She did not sleep at first for she was troubled by the insecurity that seemed to permeate her lover. Though his strength was her favorite trait, he was, in many ways, still a child seeking approval. Just the thought of all the horrors he'd endured brought tears to her eyes. But, here he was, beside her, sleeping peacefully at last. When he'd first come to her bed those months ago he'd refused to stay and sleep, even when fatigue nearly overwhelmed him. She'd been puzzled and but kept her curiosity to herself until, one late, late evening, she discovered the truth. He'd fallen asleep in her bed, exhausted, and she'd just crawled in beside him expecting him to sleep like the dead. Instead of peaceful slumber, horror had invaded his dreams in waves until, around four, he'd awakened, sweat-soaked and terrified, and had fled. But his dreams had seemed to lessen in the last few weeks. Gently she caressed the graying temples, marveling at how young he looked when slumber relieved him of the ghosts of his past. Finally she drifted away, only to be jarred awake by the ringing telephone. He'd rolled over, almost by instinct, and scooped up the handset, scribbling on the pad provided by the hotel while responding monosyllabically. With a stiff groan he swung his feet to the floor.

"What is it?" Thadea asked, voice coated with sleep.

"They found her," he said simply, then stalked off to the bathroom. She drifted off again when she heard the shower running but awakened to find him leaning over her, dressed and poised for a kiss. She obliged so earnestly that he finally groaned and pulled away with a grin. "Later," he promised and she smiled. He stroked her forehead. "I don't know how long I'll be so if I'm not back by noon, take the train." He pointed to a credit card on the bedside table. "On me," he said apologetically.

He started to pull up but she caught his tie. "Is this what it's like, Michael, being on a major case?"

"No," he shook his head, "most times it's worse."

* * *

Olivia Benson arched her back lazily like a cat waking from a satisfying nap. She lifted her face to Brian's and found his eyes, clear and blue, staring at her.

"Good morning." He smiled and stroked her arm strewn across his abs.

She smiled back. "Good morning." She propped her head on her elbow and cocked an eyebrow. "Sleep well?"

"Best night of my life," he drawled and pulled her face to his. "You?"

She nodded demurely, then pressed her lips to his. His breath quickened and he pulled her on top, draped over him like a soft, warm blanket. Her moan and fluttering pulse encouraged him to explore every accessible inch of her. She cradled his face in her hands, fingers raking his scalp until he moaned in response.

"Your mother will hear us," she admonished.

"Like she didn't last night?" he reminded and she grimaced scarlet, burying her hot face in his chest. "Hey," he lifted her face to his. "I don't care if the whole damn neighborhood hears us."

He lifted his head to kiss her again but the telephone disrupted his plan. He growled a greeting into the mouthpiece, grunted a few acknowledgments, slammed the receiver back into the cradle, then, disengaging himself from her, swung his feet to the floor, head cradled in his hands.

Benson scooted around to face him. "What's wrong?"

He swallowed hard. "They found Diane Weeden's body under the Boardwalk about two this morning." He searched her face for her reaction. "Logan said she'd been dead for some time-probably since she was kidnapped."

A myriad of emotions crossed her face, but only a single tear trickled. "Is she a match?" she asked slowly.

"Blood types are compatible; DNA won't be back for a couple of weeks."

She swayed and he scooped her into his lap.

"I'm sorry," he whispered into her hair.

She folded her hands in her lap. "I'm not sure what I'm supposed to feel."

"Why?"

"Because," tears spilled over onto her cheeks, "she was my sister."

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Chapter 21

March, which had come in like a lion, was going out that way, too. Mike Logan turned his collar up against the swirling fat snowflakes that filled the warming air. Once inside the squadroom, he stopped for a cup of coffee to start his week. He lumbered more than walked, stiffness from the long, late drive back from Atlantic City taking its toll. He groaned as he caught sight of his desk, a fax and a pink message slip littering its surface.

"Great," he muttered and sat heavily, chair protesting as much as his aching joints. Squinting to real the small type, the banner on the fax revealed its origin as the Wilmington, North Carolina, Police Department. Underneath he recognized the beginning page of a case file, a rape, from nearly thirty years ago. It was a typical power rape, victim assaulted on the way home from school, but an entry on the last page sent Logan's fingers tapping on the keypad.

"Grehan." The voice on the other end growled, years of too little sleep and too much coffee and cigarettes having taken their toll.

"I'm looking for Detective Art Grehan."

"You found him, or at least what's left of him."

Logan rifled through the sheaf of papers. "This is Detective Mike Logan, NYPD. You sent me a fax?"

"Yeah," the other detective confirmed. "Had my buddy do it this morning. Thought you might find it interesting."

"What made you think that?"

"I saw your VICAP alert in the Federal Law Enforcement Bulletin. Made me think of this old case."

Logan rummaged madly through his incoming mail, finally plucking the periodical from the stack and turned the pages, scanning rapidly until he found the right page.

"Logan, you die, or what?"

"Or what," Logan said absently, then returned his attention to the phone call. "What made you think of my case when you read this, Grehan?"

There was a little chuckle at the other end of the line. "I can't say. Something about the victim, her description, about her mother's rape. I don't know why, but it caught my attention."

Logan responded with a knowing chuckle, "Cop's intuition?" as he leafed through the slick-paper copy of the case file.

"Maybe. Or maybe desperation. Thirty years is a long time to go without a lead."

"Un-hunh," Logan grunted but his attention was focused on the ancient rape victim's interview. "Grehan, was there anything you held back-something that the suspect may have said just before he left the victim . . ."

Logan heard a muffled, "Oh, God," on the other end then Grehan barked, "Hold on."

The Staten Island detective jammed the handset between his ear and his shoulder and continued shuffling through the fax, every additional detail corresponding with the attacks on Serena Benson and Norma Weeden.

"Logan," Grehan's voice returned, "I've got detective Irv Cross of the Norfolk, Virginia, PD on the line."

"You don't return your calls, Logan?" the new voice asked.

"One at a time," Logan said sharply. "What about what the suspect said?"

"I told you this was a serial, Art," the new voice said.

"What do you mean, Cross?" Logan asked.

Cross made an impatient noise. "Grehan and I had each worked these rape cases, separately, for a couple of years not knowing about the other. About ten years ago we had the occasion to work together on another case . . ."

"Interstate drug murders," Grehan explained.

"Anyway, after we wrapped the case we got together and started sharing war stories," Cross continued.

"You know," Grehan said, "the 'one-that-got-away' stories."

"Yeah, right, anyway, turns out the one that got away was the same story for both of us."

Logan listened with increasing agitation then barked, "Hold on," tapping telephone buttons until he was able to say, "Detective Cross of Norfolk and Detective Grehan of Wilmington, Detective Shandra Nbukwe of Atlantic City is on the line. Now tell them what you were about to tell me."

"Gentlemen, what was the last thing the rapist said to his victim?" Nbukwe asked.

In concert the older detectives replied, "'You're welcome.'"

For several seconds nothing but static sounded on the line.

"Two months ago Olivia Benson, who was conceived during a rape, was nearly beaten to death by an unknown attacker just moments after her boyfriend left her apartment in the middle of the night. She was found near the shore later that morning."

"Did she survive?" Grehan asked.

Cross interrupted. "Did she see anything?"

"She survived," Logan continued, "but her description is very general. Serum evidence left at the dump site indicates that her attacker was her father."

"And Atlantic City?" Cross asked.

"Diane Weeden wasn't so lucky," Nbukwe explained. "She was kidnapped and beaten one month ago, but just found her body yesterday, under the Boardwalk."

"Damn," Grehan cursed.

"Each of our victims bore a child, as well," Cross explained. "Mary Catherine Fears was a novitiate in the Order of the Blessed Virgin when she was attacked. She gave her daughter up to the care of the order and the daughter, Mary Magdalen Fears, followed her into the order. She runs a rape crisis center at the cathedral here."

"What about the mother?" Nbukwe asked.

"Died in Afghanistan about ten years ago."

"Juanita Stark," Grehan said, "also bore a daughter. Stark died of a heart attack last year, but the daughter became a photographer and moved to the big city."

"New York?" Logan asked.

"Oh, yeah," Grehan confirmed.

"You got a name?" Logan scrambled for a pen.

"Deirdre Stark," Grehan replied, then spelled the name. "Last known address," Logan recognized the address as a fashionable 'loft' building in Manhattan.

"Do you think he's on a lunar cycle?" Nbukwe asked.

"Approximately," Logan replied after a moment. "Benson and Weeden were attacked thirty days apart."

"That means that Fears could be in danger right now!" Grehan said sharply.

"Wait, Art," Cross soothed. "Sister Mary called me about three weeks ago. Said some man had approached her in the church, telling her how proud he was of her."

"That must happen all the time, Irv," Grehan contradicted.

"Some," Cross agreed, "but the way this guy acted, so father-like and all, just gave her the creeps. She called me about a week ago."

"Did she give you a description?" Excitement raised the timbre of Logan's voice.

"Better than that," Cross replied. "I've got a video from the church. Got the bastard's face on tape."

"Good copy?" Nbukwe asked.

"So-so," Cross replied. "The camera was about seventy-five feet away."

"That's okay," Logan reassured, "my lab guys can enhance it."

"True enough," Cross agreed. "You've got almost a month to do it."

"Maybe not," Grehan growled. "What if the bastard didn't reset the clock when he found the sister 'worthy?' What if he just moved on to the next target?"

"Let me get this straight, Grehan," Nbukwe began. "You're saying this creep, who raped to father all these children, is killing the ones whose life styles are not to his liking?"

"That's the only explanation for Sister Magdalen still being alive," Cross opined.

"Yeah, but Weeden was a doctor," Nbukwe rebutted.

"And Benson was a cop," Logan debated.

"Each of whom had boyfriends leaving their apartments at an hour that would indicate they were doing more than folding laundry," Cross growled.

"He's judging them," Grehan spat. "And Deirdre Stark is next."

Statie popped over the line then, "I'll fax you the shit copy of the suspect's photo we printed from the video tape," Cross offered.

"Put a copy of the tape on a plane and I'll get it to the lab ASAP," Logan began writing madly.

"I'll put a rush on my lab guys for the DNA so we can put this bastard away if we catch him," Nbukwe said.

"Logan, can you find Deirdre Stark?" Grehan implored.

Mike Logan crossed his fingers, "Sure, Grehan. We'll find her."

"The clock's running," Grehan warned.

Logan glanced at the clock on the wall and swallowed hard. "You're not kidding," he joked then dismissed the others with a curt growl. Carefully, shakily replacing the handset in the cradle he glanced toward his captain's office, knowing how his request for manpower to work on a case he'd been ordered to close would be received. "It's only a job," he gulped and dialed a familiar number. "Don Cragen, please."

Top

Chapter 22

It was dark and the hackles on the back of Mike Logan's neck bristled. "Munch, you see anything?" he spoke into walkie-talkie, eyes scanning the mouth of the alley in which he was watching the fire escape to Deirdre Stark's loft.

"Quiet as a cemetery around front," John Munch replied wryly.

"No activity in the north alley," Elliot Stabler reported. "When are Stark and her boyfriend expected to return?"

"Tonight," Logan scanned the alley again, watching the occupants of a car parked on the street, "the boyfriend walks a beat in the three-three and he's scheduled to report tomorrow." He could see the occupants of the car talking. He considered running them off, but he knew it wouldn't do any good. He could almost hear their conversation.

"We shouldn't be here, Olivia," Brian Cassidy warned.

"I can't be anywhere else, Brian," Olivia Benson replied. "Ever since Logan called about her, I knew I couldn't be anywhere else."

"I never should have told you, at least not until after."

"Yes, you should," she warned. "I have to be here. I have to see this."

"Then stay in the car."

She nodded reluctantly.

Mike Logan again scanned the alley, eyes searching the dark recesses for movement. They were covered; he'd spent the entire day making sure of it. It had taken the morning to actually locate Stark, then part of the afternoon to determine she was out of town on a camping trip rather than dead. He'd spent the better part of the early evening with the Special Victims Unit setting up this stakeout in the hopes of catching the slime whose grainy picture he now held in his hand. His captain had finally tracked him down about an hour ago and had been, to his surprise, almost pleased at the prospect of his precinct being able to take the credit for catching an interstate serial rapist-murderer that the FBI hadn't even identified yet. Maybe he'd be able to keep his job after all. Maybe he'd finally be in a position to ask Thadea something that had been in his heart for a while.

"See anything, Logan?" Stabler's voice crackled.

"Nothing," Logan replied, then something glinted in the corner of his eye. He reached for his weapon and keyed the radio, but nothing but a gurgling sound came from him. Pain sliced across neck and a face appeared before him, slamming him against the grimy brick wall.

"Where is she?" the face growled. "Where is the slut?"

Logan keyed the radio several times while fumbling with his weapon, but the world had begun to soften. From a distance, seemingly, he heard a voice call, "Drop your weapon!" and the face disappeared from his view. He heard other voices shouting then he recognized the voice, then the face of Olivia Benson.

"Stay with us, Logan," she ordered, wrapping her hand around his neck.

He tried to reply, but the breath rattled in his throat. He looked down and his white shirt appeared black. Silently, he mouthed "Thadea," before the world, too, turned black.

* * *

He waked to a familiar metallic taste of blood in his mouth. He'd done it many times in his childhood, when he'd cried himself to sleep after his mother had rained the rage of her disappointment on him. But he'd not tasted it in a while, since he'd been a man, a cop, a . . .

Hospital. The smell hit him. He was in a hospital. His eyelids were leaden but he lifted them enough to see the spartan fixtures in the darkened room. He felt a hand in his and a soft voice soothed his mounting fear.

"Hey," Thadea cooed. Her voice was reassuring but her eyes were reddened with tears.

He tried to reply, but a strange rasp came out.

"Don't talk. You're okay, but your vocal cords were damaged when he cut your throat," she explained.

His hand shot to his neck, feeling thick bandages and an odd round thing sticking out.

"Careful," she gently pulled his hand away. "They put in a tracheotomy tube until the swelling goes down."

A tear slid down his cheek. "Sorry," he mouthed.

"Don't be," she wiped his tear away.

"Did we get him?" his lips formed.

She nodded. "Once they got him into interrogation he confessed to the whole thing."

"Benson?"

"She's fine."

He breathed deeply, eyes spying a red bag hanging on the IV pole.

"You lost a lot of blood," she explained and he nodded with a grimace.

"Tired."

"You should rest," she stroked her thumbs across his.

He tried to focus on her bronzed face. "Love you."

She smiled and planted a kiss on his ashy lips. "Love you."

His eyes fell closed and he drifted off, tasting only her sweetness on his lips.

* * *

The newspapers had dubbed him the "Father Knows Best" murderer. They had recounted his past: he'd been born in Florida, an unwed father at fourteen until the girl's parents had forced her to have an abortion. Then he'd traveled up the Eastern Seaboard, a sanitation worker who used his job to surveil his intended rape victims. While stalking an intended victim in upstate New York he'd killed two convenience store clerks and had received a thirty-year sentence in Ossining effectively ending his spree. He'd been paroled only a few months before the first attack, Benson, and had followed his earlier trail in reverse, pronouncing judgement on his unworthy children.

The media had reveled in the sordid tale of rape and judgement, intruding into the victims'-and potential victims'-- lives in every way imaginable. The progeny of the monster that had now been identified as Abraham Desmond had, at first, denied their agnation but, as the occasions for their acquaintanceship had increased, had come to accept the kinship, the bond, and came to take some comfort in the fact that each was no longer a solitary, unholy freak. And so it came to this day when they all sat in an Atlantic City courtroom, waiting for the judge to pronounce the sentence of their progenitor so they could continue with their lives. Olivia Benson entwined her fingers with Brian Cassidy's as her "father" allocuted the past and current events. Her other hand was wound in her sister Mary Fears' hand with identical crystal rosaries draped over each. Deirdre Stark, safe and sound, sat between Brian and her boyfriend. The other siblings, six in all, sat silent as stone while listening to the twisted homily of the convicted. The courtroom door opened and Benson glanced over her shoulder to see Mike Logan and his lady slip into a back bench. The angry red cicatrix above his collar matched one of the colors in his plaid tie. He was still pale, but his eyes held a light she'd not noticed previously.

"Abraham Desmond," the judge's imperious tones brought her attention back to the proceedings. "You have confessed to the murder of Diane Weeden."

Olivia felt her sister Mary's grasp tighten.

"You murdered her," the judge continued, "under the most heinous of circumstances, with premeditation and rancor. Were it not for the plea agreement entered into by the District Attorney it would be my pleasure to sentence you to die for the misery you've caused."

Brian covered their conjoined hands with his other hand.

"I am bound by that plea agreement. I can, however, make sure that you never, ever, walk the streets again. I sentence you, Abraham Desmond, to life imprisonment without parole. Sentence to be served at a facility to be determined by the Department of Corrections."

Desmond remained stone-faced.

"This court is adjourned."

Nine sets of eyes followed the convicted as he was led away by the bailiffs. The closing of the door precipitated a collective sigh on their part. With tears of relief they clung to each other, spouses and significant others close at hand, with promises to keep in touch. For nearly an hour they communed, then parted fondly, one by one, until only Olivia Benson was left.

Brian Cassidy slid an arm around her waist. "It's over, baby," he whispered.

"Finally," she breathed, leaning into him, then extricating herself. "Just a minute," she promised and followed another couple to the elevator.

"Logan," she called and the detective turned to face her with a smile while his companion moved closed to the elevator.

"Hey," he rasped, "how are you doing?"

She winced. His voice was weak, scratchy, not strong like before. "I'm fine," she held out her hand and he grasped it. "Thanks to you and a lot of other people."

"Just doing my job."

"More than that," she contradicted. "Between sending me to Olivet and catching Desmond, I think you may have given me my life back."

He shook his head. "You're the one who did all that." He coughed drily.

"It looks like you're in for some changes," she tilted her head toward his companion, whose formerly slim figure bore a noticeable tummy bulge.

"Yeah," he smiled. "She makes me feel like I'm alive, finally."

"That's good."

He nodded toward Cassidy. "That could be you, too."

"Maybe," she said coyly. "Maybe now I'm ready."

"I think maybe you are." He offered his hand. "See you around?"

She took his hand in both of hers. "Yeah."

The elevator door opened and he boarded the car with Thadea, waving as the door closed.

She rejoined her own partner, walking arm-in-arm down the stone stairs.

"Is Logan's lady pregnant?" he asked.

She smiled, "Yeah."

"He seems better, somehow, even than he was before he got hurt."

"He's found someone who helps him see beyond the past into the future."

He squinted as they stepped into the sunlight.

"You know what?" she paused, catching his hands and pulling him close.

"What?" he wrapped his arms around her, hope lifting his voice.

"So have I."

The sun sparkled on the granite, but it was dulled by the light in their eyes.

End "Signs of Life"