Disclaimer - Maria Frank is created by me. John Munch belongs to Law and Order: SVU.

Stretching her arms over her head and yawning, Maria Frank scratched the side of her neck as she scanned over her D-D5s. Over the past few days, nothing new had come up with the case, but John had left the file on the top in his case drawer in case anything new came along. Adva's body had been released to her foster parents for burial and Abigail hadn't said a word when they saw her once more. The look in the little girl's eyes told them something was wrong, but they couldn't have done anything based on her expressions.

Maria was getting frustrated the more she thought about it. Fuck it. She tossed the D-D5s on her desk and stood up, fishing a few bucks from her pocket and heading towards the soda machine. Not only did Frank need a break, but she also needed something to drink besides water. She loved water, but constantly drinking and looking at it drove her crazy. Hitting a button for her choice and pulling out the can, she popped it without thought and slide to the floor to ponder. Don had told them put the case on ice until they got more information, but the tone in his voice said differently. He didn't want to put it on ice, either.

Like they had another other choice, right?

"Maria!" Munch's rushed voice grabbed her attention and she lifted her head. "We got a call. Another little girl found dead and the same way Adva was." He handed her his quickly jotted notes and looked over what he got in the call. "What to go or shall I get Fin?"

Quickly shaking her head and hoisting herself to her feet, Maria handed him back his notes and grabbed her coat he held in his hand. "As if I would let anyone else go with you with a case like this. Same age as Adva?"

"Same age, body type, looks." John quickly noticed her expression change, as if she saw something terrifying. "Mar?"

Oh, my God. Please, don't let it be her. Please.

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Pulling the car up to the crime scene and getting out of the car, both John and Maria made they're way over to the scene and the covered body behind them. "Did you figure out a name yet?"

The uni nodded his head and sadly said, "Abigail Feinburg. Found by a hiker twenty minutes ago." He watched the detective and Sergent nod in unison, as one stepped forward to the body.

Kneeling down and slowly lifting the white fabric, Maria clenched her jaw very tightly as she scanned over the body. Unlike her sister, Abigail's eyes were closed, as if she was sleeping. Her white skin was stained with blood and fresh lacerations, her hands showing defensive wounds from being assaulted over and over again. A gash on her cheek was dried from the morning chill and the blood stained and splattered her face, which was turned towards Maria. Like her sister, she was also stripped of her clothes and showed signs of being raped repeatedly. In her clamped right hand was something that caught her attention. "Hey, John? Can you bring me an evidence bag, please?" Pulling on her gloves, she began to gently pry her tiny fingers apart. "C'mon, sweetie. What do you have for me," She whispered, slowly pulling the small thick paper from the stiff and cold fingers. It was Maria's business card she had slipped to her after they first talked. On the back was a scribbled note that said, 'Help me.'

To their horror, it wasn't written in pen, but in her own blood. "Fuck," John muttered bitterly, exhaling a sharp breath as his eyes scanned over the little girl's body. "All of these look fresh," he noticed, motioning his hand over Abigail's arms, legs and waist. "And look at these defensive wounds."

Balling her fists up tightly, Frank noticed the familiar marks on the dead child's arms and knew instantly what they were. Whips. "Fucker's at it again," She muttered softly, resisting the urge to reach a hand out and gently touch the girl's face. "I'm so sorry, Abigail."

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Olivia Benson and Elliot Stabler both turned when they saw Munch and Frank walk back in with expressionless faces. "Another little girl?" Liv asked, having a terrible feeling in her gut. When Maria nodded her head, Benson shook her head sadly and went back to looking at the board.

"Do we have a clue who it is yet?" Stabler softly asked, treading carefully with how he spoke to either of them.

"I personally know who's doing this, but I have no legal evidence to prove it," Frank answered as she slumped down into her desk chair with a sigh. "I know it's them, but we need physical evidence to fucking catch them." Resting her head against her hand and closing her eyes for a moment, she could still see the whip lashes on Abigail's body. She knew what pain she had endured and could feel her anger rising the more she kept thinking about it. The smell of a hot coffee reached her nostrils and she slowly opened her eyes to see Don placing a mug down on her desk. "Are you going to ask me if I'm behaving or not?"

Cragen carefully sat down on her desk and shook his head slightly. "No, I'm just checking to see if you're hanging on. After all, you are the one who talked to her a few days ago."

Maria huffed softly and shook her head, fighting off her tears of helplessness. "I offered to help her and I got shit in return. This is just giving me more reasons to find those fuckers who fucked me over years ago and are still going at it."

"Are you going to tell me these people did the same abuse to you as they did two these children?" Cragen asked carefully, but he didn't get an answer. Instead, Maria grabbed for her coffee, took a small sip and turned back to her notes about the case until Warner was done with her task. "You have to talk to me, Maria or should I bring in Huang to-"

"No, you don't need to bring him into this just yet." She finally spoke up softly, still keeping her eyes on her notes. "Personally, I think I need to work it over by myself and find a way to deal with it. We have people keeping their eyes out for the foster parents and, until they come in, I'll just focus on what we have."

Cragen looked over in John's direction and they shared a look.


Munch observed Maria carefully that evening. After taking Zev out and feeding him his dinner, Maria was going about her daily evening duties of getting some dinner ready for them. Since they left the precinct, she hadn't said a word. Sitting down at the dining table and folding his hands loosely on the table, he softly cleared his throat and waited for her to turn in his direction. "I think we need to talk."

"Oh?"

"Yes, 'Oh'. What's going on with you? Normally, when something's really troubling you or something comes up that affects your past, you talk to me. Why are you not doing that?"

"It's complicated."

Munch exhaled a steady breath and asked gently, "Why is it complicated? You've told me about your parents death, the rape and torture you had to endure from Kevin and you even opened up to me about never even being touched before until we met. How can it be more troubling then all of that?" He stood up and walked over, placing his hands on her shoulders. "Just talk to me. Please?"

Maria shook her head and closed her eyes. "There's so much more involved then what's been mentioned before. I have repressed all of it until this case came along and now two little girls are now dead. Possibly by the hands of those people." She pulled away from John's hands and slowly made her way towards the bedroom, suddenly feeling sick to her stomach. Flopping down on the bed and curling up in a fetal position, she closed her eyes and willed the terrible flashbacks to disappear once more.

John wasn't amused. He wanted to help her during this rather dark and troubling moment in Maria's life, but she wasn't letting him in. She opened up to him the first time they were together and shared very intimate and personal information about themselves, but she was blocking him out now. He was the first to tell her he loved her after their first night together and she loved him in return. Furrowing his brows, something began to bug him as pondered what was causing her to block him out. He headed in the direction of the bedroom and slowly opened the door to faintly see her body on the bed. "Mar?"

"Go away."

He shut the door gently and very slowly made his way towards the foot of the bed. "I can't now. I can't leave you alone like this. Remember back to when we were first together? I wanted to comfort you after you closed that case for us in Baltimore. I wanted us to make love because it's what you needed." Munch carefully sat down on the bed and reached a hand out to just touch her. "Remember that?"

"I remember." Her tone of voice was troubling and she folded up more into herself. "I remember us being together... and the sex." Her voice began to crack and she wished he would just leave at that moment.

"I was in love with you before we even moved to that step," He whispered gently, tucking a strand of hair behind her hair and saw the tears threatening to fall in her eyes. "What's the matter?"

She shook her head and attempted to pull away. "I don't want to talk about that night, John."

"Why not? You knew I loved you, right?" Munch could feel his heart beginning to pound in his chest with fear. Part of him wanted to know what she was hiding and another part didn't.

Tears beginning to stream down her face and no long able to control her troubling emotions, Maria softly cried where she laid with a hand pressed against her face. "I-I am so sorry, J-John." A comforting hand touched her hand and felt him pull it away to look at her. Glancing in John's direction, she could see the disappointment beginning to appear in his features. "In the s-state I was i-in, I believed it w-was only s-sympathy sex. I-I didn't have any f-feelings for y-you at that t-time."

John Munch didn't move. Being in shock of this heart-breaking information from someone he loved and heavily trusted with his life, he was in complete shock. Inhaling a very slow breath and closing his eyes for a moment, he removed his hand from her's and tried his best to gather his thoughts. "You...you didn't feel anything towards me? You believe what we had was sympathy sex? A mercy fuck for my sake to not hurt my feelings?" He kept his tone level and carefully worded his sentences. Maria was already in a troubled state and didn't need him flipping out on her. "Did it change you're mind when I told you I loved you the next morning? Or have you just been humoring me for all these years?"

"No, I haven't been humoring you." She sat up slightly and attempted to dry her tears. "I really, truly love you more then anything in my life."

"Yeah. Now you do," He shot back bitterly and stood up. Staying calm was suddenly not important to him anymore. "God, I can't believe I thought I had the one thing I wanted! I can't fucking believe you, Mar. After all of these years, you drop this on me when I'm trying to help you?" He placed his hands on his hips and scolded in her direction, not being able to control the emotional pain in his voice. Maria started to feel feeble and small as he stood over her, tears stained her face as she attempted to make eye contact with him. "I can't believe you." His voice came out in a soft, but bitter tone. When she didn't say anything to him, Munch turned and walked out.

Fearing he was going to leave, Frank jumped up from where she was and moved quickly to see him leaning against the wall near the door, his coat in his hand. The closer she got to him, the more she could see tears slowly streaming down his cheeks. He was truly hurting and it broke her heart more then anything. "I-I told you that because I wanted you to know the truth. We rarely ever keep secrets from each other, but I couldn't tell you that one for the longest time."

He slowly turned his head in her direction and, softly crying, asked, "Why?"

"Because it goes back to them. My foster parents. They abused me; emotionally, physically, mentally, and verbally. I fought every night to survive." She moved closer to him until she was able to reach down and take a hold of his hand. It was shaking slightly from his anger and emotional pain. "They...had a whip they would use on me if I didn't behave in their eyes. There was a room that had boarded up windows so no one would be able to see what was going on and so I wouldn't be able to yell for help." She paused for a moment to move just a little more closer to him until she was able to see the pain and anger in his dark eyes. "You really want to know what happened, don't you?"

John finally nodded after a few minutes, but didn't move from where he was. Instead, he slide down the wall slowly until he was sitting against it, waiting for her to join him. When she sat down, he finally asked, "Do you love me?"

"Of course, I do. That night...I just wanted to feel something. I wanted to feel something other then disappointment and pain. All I have ever felt is pain the moment my mother killed my father and herself. When I was placed into foster care, I didn't expect much at all. I wanted nothing to do with this couple who were going to take me in. The second I was placed into their care, I was royally fucked. I can't even say their names just because of what happened for two years."

"These are the white supremacist couple, right?"

She nodded and wiped her face with the back of her hand. "Right. They didn't do anything to be for the first week, but the abuse began soon after once they were able to find out I was really a Jew. The husband kept saying he was going to beat the Jew out of me, make me forget who I am and, the night I was turning eighteen, he was going to rape me." She closed her eyes for a moment and took in a deep breath. "I was beaten with the home made whip three times a week, depending on what I did wrong and was called various racist names. His wife would hold my head back by my hair and whisper to me what they were going to do to me when I was eighteen. I would fight through every beating I got until I couldn't fight them anymore and...would let them continue until they were done. They attempted to kill me once with an overdose of pain killers and instead rushed me to the ER to get my stomach pumped. I couldn't tell the doctors what really happened, so I told them a lie that I had accidentally overdosed. When the lacerations I would get from the beatings would be too deep to heal on their own, they had a doctor friend come over and stitch me up." Maria's face remained hard as stone as she finally recalled her terrible abuse.

Tears began to emerge in John's eyes again as he listened in horror. "What about the system? Why couldn't they-"

"We know how the system works, remember? They would send someone over once every few months and I would be ordered to say nice things about them, while wearing a long sleeve shirt to cover the bruises and healed scars. I had no support system, no friends and no one to trust. I had to escape."

"So, you ran away that night," He started softly, his anger subsiding as he began to understand.

"Yes. Took what money I had and ran away that night as I turned of age. Took a bus ticket to Boston and my life began there. Lived in a shelter for a few weeks until I was able to land a job busting tables, got enough money to rent a small shack in the city and began trying to find a real career for myself." She turned her head towards John and softly whispered, "That's why I didn't love you that night we were together. I couldn't because I didn't know how to, no matter how much I wanted to. But, when you told me you loved me the next morning, I-I was overwhelmed and finally began to understand what love really was and I just wanted to be with you from then on. I needed to feel something besides pain that night and you provided the real thing I needed; physical pleasure. If I didn't care about you, I wouldn't have kept Scott after he was born. I would have placed him up for adoption instead. I would never stick around you out of pity, ever. To understand my foster parents, you have to understand what I was dealing with that night."

John sat in silence for a while, not being able to remove his gaze from her. She had always seemed so strong, but in the inside, she was a fragile soul that was fighting endless demons, trying to drag her back down. He finally understood her explosion at work, what she had just told him and her behavior since the case began. "You just wanted to feel something other then pain..."

"And you gave that to me. If I didn't love you, you would know. I do love you, John. Every single part of me loves you and I would do anything to protect you." Maria reached a hand out and gently touched his face, seeing slight uncertainly spark in his brown eyes. But she didn't falter as her whole hand finally caressed him and he finally leaned into it. "I wouldn't harm you like that. Now do you understand?"

He nodded slightly and sighed softly. "I'm sorry for loosing my temper. It honestly hurt when you said that and...I feared our relationship was over." He closed his eyes and fought back the tears that threatened to fall once more. "I-I so sorry."

"I'm sorry for giving you that idea I didn't love you," She whispered, pulling him in for a tight hug. "I didn't mean to do that to you." Taking his hands in her's, Maria slowly stood up and pulled him to his feet so they could really look at each other. Lowering her eyes and seeing their hands together, she asked carefully, "Do you want to stay the night?"

Feeling his heart pounding heavily from what had been happening, John knew he couldn't let it end there. "Mar, we can't just hang it up like that."

"What do you mean?"

Inhaling a slow breath and wrapping an arm around her shoulder, he turned her towards the dining area and carefully sat her down at the dining table. "What I mean is that," he paused for a moment and got down to her eye level, grasping her hands firmly in his. "I need for you to tell me everything from your experience with those people." When her face went pale and her hands began to shake in his, Munch moved closer and instantly grabbed her attention. "Stay with me here, baby. This will help you more then you think it will. I will be here for everything you say and it has to be every single detail."

"Everything?" Her voice cracked slightly from what he said and her eyes widened slightly.

"Everything, Mar. This is going to help you a lot. I promise." He managed to keep eye contact with Maria as she struggled with his request. "I know this is a lot for you and overwhelming in such sort time, but I need for you do to this for me...and for yourself."

Frank wanted to pull her hands free from his hands and hide in the nearest closet, but to compassion in his eyes told her it was the right thing. "This is going to be really hard for me, John."

"That's why I'm going to be right here with you and, in return, I'll tell you what you want to know about my deepest memories." He reached a hand up and gently touched her face. "For me, please?"

Biting her bottom lip and inhaling a very deep breath, Maria exhaled it slowly as she nodded. "Okay. It's not going to be pretty, though."

"I know it's not going to be. That's why I'm here to support and help you." He pulled a chair over and sat down, folding his hands on the table and leaned in as she began.

To be continued...
There will be a disclaimer note in the next chapter about the upcoming content. What will be described will not be pleasant and will be in graphic detail.