Author's Note: I'm sorry that this is reading like an SVU episode in story form. Don't worry. The Winchesters will soon arrive and fuck up everyone's lives!


Morning arrived and Olivia went into the precinct. The rest of the night passed by in a haze, a series of disjointed thoughts and half-remembered dreams. The result was a headache that rendered everything in sharp angles and harsh lights, so she chased some extra strength headache medicine down with her first cup of coffee.

The alleyway where the victim had been found was between two restaurants, one of which had a camera at an angle that could have caught the person dumping the baby; across the street was a convenience store with a security camera which also had a view of the street. TARU had ordered the data from the cameras from the past 36 hours, since Warner hadn't yet been able to determine the exact time of death. Both cameras captured a woman staggering up to the alley, carrying a plastic grocery bag; the camera at the convenience store across the street recorded her bracing herself against a wall before burying the bag under some of the other garbage that was already in the alley. The restaurant's camera captured several seconds in which her face was in full view. Olivia ordered some printouts of the woman's face and posted them on the board and had the images sent to area hospitals, still hoping that she would seek some medical help for her own sake.

In those few seconds, the woman looked terrified. Olivia couldn't bear to look at her for long.

Soon after Elliot arrived, finished with his court appearance, the results on the baby's DNA came in, with a match. The girl's mother was a woman named Emily Saunders. She matched the description for the woman caught on the store and restaurant's security cameras.

"What's she in the system for?" Elliot asked after Olivia shared the results.

Olivia's heart sank. "She was a victim. Three years ago, she was assaulted outside a party at a friend's apartment."

"They catch the perp?"

"I don't know. It wasn't one of ours, it happened in Buffalo."

"Well, let's see if we can pay her a visit."

"Maybe she checked into a hospital since last night," Olivia said. "See if you can track down her address, and I'll call around."


Emily Saunders had not checked into a hospital last night, but they were able to find the brownstone she lived in. Elliot rapped briskly on the door to apartment 6D and looked over at Olivia. "Think she's home? She could be at work."

"She just gave birth last night," Olivia replied. "She could barely walk when she left the baby in that alley. I don't think she could go to work if she wanted to."

Elliot's hardened facial expression didn't soften at all, and Olivia couldn't summon up the energy to remind him that they might have two victims here. They could - and probably would, she realized - argue about the girl's motives later, after they found her and interviewed her.

"Emily Saunders!" Elliot called, rapping on the door a little louder this time. "Police! We just need to talk to you!"

The doors and walls in the brownstone were thin; a man from the apartment next to Emily's emerged, concerned. "What's going on?"

"We're looking for Emily Saunders," Olivia told him. "Have you seen her recently?"

"Yeah, saw her last night, we were both coming in at the same time," the man replied. "She didn't look good. I asked her if she was okay, she said she was fine."

"Didn't look good? Did she look hurt?" Elliot asked.

"I don't know." He started to look uncomfortable and upset. "Did something happen to her?"

"That's what we're trying to find out, so if you know something, you need to tell us so we can get her some help," Olivia said.

He hesitated for a moment. "Our bedrooms share a wall. I heard her moaning and crying in the middle of the night. I figured it was just a nightmare but ..."

"But?" Olivia prompted him.

"She's been having a lot of those lately. She sounded different this time."

"She might need help," Olivia said, turning to Elliot. "We've got to get inside."

Elliot nodded and called out to Emily one more time before stepping back and kicking the door in. It gave way easily, cheap and weakened with age. "Emily?" Olivia called. "We're coming in." The two officers swept through the small apartment; Olivia noted several bloodstains on the hardwood floor and drew her weapon. "Elliot," she said, gesturing at the blood. He nodded; his weapon was also in his hand.

The bedroom door was closed but unlocked, and Emily was sprawled on the bed, face down. Elliot entered the room first, called her name again and turned her onto her back gently but urgently.

"She breathing?" Olivia asked as she reached the girl's bedside.

"Yeah," Elliot replied. "Shallow. Her pulse is weak."

"Is she okay?" the man from next door called into the apartment as Elliot began calling for EMS and CSU. Olivia kept the man, whose name was Ben, calm as they waited for help to arrive.

They were on the way to St. Catherine's when Warner called them, finished with her examination of the baby. Elliot dropped Olivia off at the hospital and went into Warner's office. He steeled himself, knowing that he could never be exactly prepared to look at a dead child. Melinda led him into the exam room and said, "Your victim never took a breath outside her mother's body."

"You called me in to tell me that?"

"Well, no," Melinda replied, stepping up to the exam table. "There's something odd about this one. Stillbirth means that the fetus is dead in utero, sometimes weeks before delivery. Blood flow stops and the blood that's in the body seeps down to the lowest points in the body because of gravity." Elliot wondered why she would be telling him all of this. Rookie cops knew this kind of stuff. Melinda pulled back the blue sheet covering the baby and Elliot's teeth clenched. She turned the baby onto her side, her back turned to Elliot. "There's no hypostasis. The victim was found supine, on an incline. The blood should have settled in the backs of her legs and feet." Elliot frowned. There were none of the usual purple discolorations anywhere on the girl's body.

"You're sure she never took a breath?" Elliot asked.

"The hydrostatic test on her lungs confirmed it. Twice. This girl bled out when that dog found her."


Olivia needed to distract herself from all her thoughts of finding an empty hospital bed and sleeping off her headache. She had been chewing on pain medicine on and off all day and so far nothing was working. She bought a cappuccino from one of the coffee machines in the hospital's cafeteria while she waited, and tried to get comfortable in the waiting room chairs which Olivia was certain were built specifically so that no human being could ever be comfortable in them.

"Detective?" Dr. Wils, the attending physician, was standing in front of her.

"Oh. How is she, Dr. Wils?" Olivia asked. She frowned. She felt a little groggy and wondered if somehow she had fallen asleep.

"She's conscious now. We have her on a fluid drip and her blood pressure has stabilized. We had to sedate her when she woke up. She became upset when we told her what happened and she tried to escape."

"What's her diagnosis?"

"Exhaustion and complications from birth."

Emily was in tears when Olivia went in to speak to her.

"Emily, my name's Olivia Benson. I'm a detective with the NYPD. How are you feeling?"

Emily took one look at Olivia and buried her face in her hands. She took a breath and choked out a sob. "I'm ... I feel awful. Were you the one who found me?"

"Yes. Your neighbor told us he'd heard you crying last night. You sounded like you were in pain."

"Why were you looking for me anyway?"

It was probably for the best that Elliot wasn't here at the moment. He was unpredictable when it came to distraught suspects, even ones who might be victims themselves. She cleared her throat and said, "We found your baby."

Emily's jaw dropped. Her eyes were wide when she shook her head and replied, "I don't. I don't have a baby."

"We have you on two security cameras dropping the baby in a garbage heap and leaving her there. Her DNA shows that she's related to you. I just need to know what happened." Emily wouldn't say anything, only covered her face with her hands again and sobbed. Though it seemed useless, Olivia pressed on a bit more. "Can you tell us who the baby's father is?" The question only seemed to make Emily shut down completely. Her sobs were so violent now that she began to hyperventilate a bit. A nurse came into the room and asked Olivia to leave.

"We'll give you a call when she's ready to talk again," the nurse said, and Olivia left the room. Elliot was in the waiting room, and when she rounded the corner he stood up.

"We have another victim," he said. "And some weird shit's going on with the first one."