Disclaimer: I do not own L&O: SVU.
A/N: Hey guys, sorry for the delay. Been crazy busy with the end of school. All is well now, so here you go...
"Sam and Melissa both attended Hudson University after graduating. Sam seemed to get herself situated right away, she made new friends, was doing great in her courses." Ellen explained. She lowered her eyes, staring down at the photo of her two little girls, "Melissa though, she struggled. The workload was proving difficult, she started getting involved in the wrong crowd…"
"When we brought it up with her, she got defensive. I told her if she didn't smarten up, we wouldn't pay her tuition." William said. His voice that had started off strained with anger suddenly softened, "I don't know why I thought a threat would steer her back on track. It wasn't like we could ground her anymore."
William sighed. The lines on his face weren't so much for getting older, they were for all the times he had been stricken with worry about his daughter. "Melissa didn't go back to Hudson the following semester. She moved in with some friends, she cut us off, saying that if we wouldn't support her, she didn't need us." William scoffed.
"Sam talked with her every now and then, but they would just fight. Sam couldn't understand why Melissa was being the way she was. By the time summer had come, we had lost complete touch with her. The last Sam had heard, she'd moved out of state with her boyfriend. We didn't hear from her again for awhile. Until last year." William explained, looking to the detectives.
"Is that when Melissa passed away?" Olivia asked.
"We were having Sunday dinner, Sam had come home for the weekend with some girls from school. A police officer came to the door." Ellen explained.
"Those years she was gone, she never changed the address on her license. Can you imagine if she had? We would have never known." William said quietly, his eyes lost in a daze. "She died in a car accident, about a twenty minute drive away from our home."
Olivia reached over and placed a hand on top of the Martin's intertwined hands, "I'm so sorry." She whispered softly.
"We were going to be grandparents. When we spoke to the person who… who examined Melissa after the accident, that's what she told us. We were going to have a grandson." Ellen added. The heartache Olivia and Munch could see in her eyes was almost too much to make contact. Munch dropped his head, his heart filled with sorrow for the family.
William gently patted Ellen's back, then wiped a tear away from his eye. He looked over to Munch. "You find that baby. The pain of losing a daughter is not something I would wish on anyone."
"No kidding…" Cragen said, shocked at the story that Olivia and Munch had told the guys at 1-6 after returning from the hospital. Casey had headed home earlier, wanting to get some work done for Thomas Davidson's impending trial.
"Is Sam going to be alright?" Cragen asked, concerned about the young lady's afternoon ordeal.
"She should be fine. The doctor just said to leave the stressful stuff for a few more days until she's had a bit more recovery time." Olivia answered. She still felt horrible about the ordeal Sam had gone through. She felt even worse for triggering a seizure in the poor girl.
"There's still some Chinese upstairs if you're hungry." Elliot offered Olivia. She looked up from her desk and nodded, grateful that Elliot had saved her some food. Her stomach had been rumbling since had gotten to the hospital, and after hearing Ellen and William's story of their daughter, she felt weird asking Munch to stop for a burger.
Olivia got up from her seat and followed Elliot up the stairs, while Cragen went and discussed an idea of his with Fin and Munch.
"What's on your mind?" Elliot asked once he and Olivia had seated themselves upstairs. Olivia looked up from her box of chow mein, and shrugged. She set the take-out box on the table and Elliot put his chair closer to her.
"I just feel like we're failing. We're running in circles trying to find a lead, or something that will give us our next clue in finding Ava. And at the same time, I'm worried sick about whether or not Sam is going to be okay, and how her parents are going to handle everything." She said with a sigh.
"You should've seen how upset they were Elliot, and I mean, they had every right- one daughter dies, and they're forever left wondering if she was really coming home that night. Then they have to go through waiting for Sam to wake up, and then I go and trigger a seizure!"
"Liv!" Elliot said, placing his hands on her knees. "That wasn't your fault. And Sam is going to be fine, you said so yourself."
Elliot could tell Olivia was getting more frustrated than usual. It didn't help that she hadn't been sleeping very well at night, and Elliot knew it was going to cause her more grief to now have Sam's story replaying in her head.
"What about Fin and Munch?" Olivia asked quietly.
"What do you mean?"
"El, we have them running around here trying to find our daughter, Cap's too terrified to let us out of here unless he's sending us home. I doubt they've gotten any more sleep than we have. What if they can't find her? What if… what if we can't find her?" Olivia said, a small sniffle escaping her. She stared into Elliot's eyes, terrified that the idea she had just suggested might actually be a possibility. Elliot took her face in his hands, and leaned into her.
"Liv, we're going to find her. I promise." He smiled and gave her a small kiss. Olivia smiled back. "I'll talk to Cap and see what he thinks we should do. Have some more food, I bet they can hear your stomach downstairs." Elliot grinned.
"Liv?" Fin called up the stairs. "Can you come here for a minute?"
Olivia took one last bite of her food before she and Elliot headed down the stairs.
"What's up?" She asked, walking over to the display monitors where Fin, Munch, and Cragen were standing.
"When were you pregnant with Ava?" Munch asked.
"She was born in July last year. Why? What'd you find?" Olivia asked, looking over the monitor.
"She was born in July, which means in April, this time last year, you were six months pregnant?" Munch asked.
"Yeah."
"How do you not remember that? Liv was eating the doughnuts before we even set the box down in the morning." Fin said, smacking Munch's shoulder. "I had to bring a private stash." Fin smiled, looking to Olivia. She gave him a small smile, then looked back to Munch.
"Well, Melissa Martin's autopsy showed that she was approximately six months pregnant at the time of death- April of last year." Munch said, pointing to the notes displayed in Melissa Martin's file.
"We were pregnant at the same time." Olivia said, looking at the screen.
"Did the Martin's ever meet Melissa's boyfriend?" Cragen asked. Olivia shook her head.
"They would've had no way of getting in contact with him. There was no funeral, just a memorial with family and close friends of theirs." Olivia replied. She could feel her adrenaline starting to kick in. There was a piece of the puzzle that was starting to come together.
"So this guy's girlfriend gets pregnant, and then one night she disappears. Then she just happens to reappear almost a year later with a baby, acting like nothing's happened." Munch suggested. He looked around to the others. "I'd be pretty mad."
"Mad enough to kidnap your own daughter and have the girlfriend assaulted?" Cragen asked.
"Well, we won't know until we find Melissa's ex-boyfriend." Fin shrugged.
"Melissa Martin was having a boy though. What if he knew the sex?" Olivia asked.
"Not everyone wants to know as soon as they can know." Elliot smiled, leaning into her, "Let's not knock the lead until the guys look into it." Olivia smiled back and nodded her head. Elliot was right. She had a chance to be optimistic about the case, and already she was pushing it away, scorned by everything else that had happened.
"Alright, well this is going to be a needle in a haystack, let's get to work." Cragen announced.
Olivia looked over to Elliot. He nodded and pulled Cragen off to the side while Fin and Munch went to their computers. "Cap, can I talk to you in your office?"
What's Elliot going to ask Cragen? You'll find out in the next chapter (if you haven't figured it out already). Thanks for your reviews, your words of awesome mean a lot =)