Toni and Elliot's kids were upstairs when they heard Kathy screaming and ran downstairs to find out what was the matter. It was to Toni's relief to find that their uninvited guest was none other than her father, and she spent the next few minutes trying to get Kathy to calm down and explain the situation to them. Once Kathy was able to speak again, they moved into the living room to sit down.

"Last time a woman had that reaction to seeing me," Tony explained as he sat down on the couch beside his daughter, "Was when I walked in on my mother-in-law in the shower, she should be mortified? I was the one who had to look at her."

"I'm sorry I screamed at you, Mr. Keller," Kathy said, "Elliot had told me about you before…but he neglected to mention that you two look so much alike."

"Well yeah, that's not exactly something you brag about to people," Tony said, "Another guy walking around New York with this puss, who would?"

Kathy was momentarily left dumbstruck but finally managed to get out, "Well, if you would have called before coming over…"

"I never call anybody before coming," Tony said, "It's a bad omen."

"I beg your pardon?" Kathy asked.

"Then you know he's coming," Toni answered as if that were explanation enough.

"So where is Elliot?" Tony asked.

"He's gone," Dickie answered.

Tony turned to look at the boy, "What do you mean gone? He run away somewhere?"

"Remember that shooting case he told you about?" Toni asked, "One of the guys got away, Elliot and Fin are working with the police up in Baltimore or somewhere, trying to catch the guy and extradite him back here for the murders."

"When did he leave?" Tony asked.

"Yesterday, so he could be gone for a while," Toni answered.

"Oh…" Tony thought for a minute before saying, "Well, that's not a bright idea, go off and leave a woman and her kids here completely vulnerable like a bunch of sitting ducks, anything could happen."

"I'm here," Toni reminded him.

"Yeah," Tony replied, "And until Elliot comes home, maybe I ought to be too…they need a man around the house."

"Oh, you know one?" Toni asked him.

Kathy started to say, "I'm not so sure…" but Tony cut her off.

"Don't mind us," he said, "We're just exchanging words."

"Yeah, and we know a lot of words," Toni added.

"If it's alright with you, Mrs. Stabler," Tony said, "I'd certainly have no problem sticking around for a few days and help keep an eye on the place."

Kathy glanced around at her three kids, who had been getting along fine with Toni and wouldn't want her to go home already, and she knew that once the Kellers were gone, the sense of security they'd been holding onto since Elliot left would go with them. She hadn't appreciated the things Toni had said to her the other night, but she also knew that this girl was more capable of handling an emergency than any of the other kids might be.

"I suppose it would be okay," Kathy said, "Just until Elliot gets back."

"Naturally," Tony responded as he got up from the couch, "I'll make a run back over to our place and get a change of clothes and I'll be back."

"Dad!" Toni called after him, "How was your trip?"

Tony stopped in his steps and looked back at his daughter and her friends. "I'll tell you about it when I get back," he said, and with that he left.

"That's men for you," Toni commented as the door closed behind him, "They're in, they're out, and they don't want to talk…doesn't seem to matter what's going on, they're always like that."


"I hope Elliot gets back from Baltimore soon," Olivia said later that afternoon as she and Munch returned to the squad room.

"Not me," Munch replied, "I'm liking having you as a partner instead of Fin."

"Why's that?" Olivia asked.

"Well for one thing, when we go driving, it's not like a four hour ride on the tilt-a-whirl," he answered as he took off his jacket and sat down at his desk.

"Oh nooo," Olivia replied, "With you driving it's more like two hours of bumper cars in rush hour." She mimicked jerking a steering wheel from one side to the other while making screeching noises, "I'm gonna ram you!" She looked at John, "Sound familiar?"

"It could be worse," John insisted, "Remember that ride the Kamikaze?"

"Any problems, kids?" Cragen asked as he conveniently got in between them.

"No," they both answered.

"Good," Cragen replied, "That's what I like to hear." He dropped a piece of paper on Munch's desk and told him, "Your witness called while you were out, she says that she remembers something else from the night of the attack."

"Of course," Munch dryly remarked, "She must've known my old tuchus was just getting ready to sit down for once today."

"Still hope Fin stays in Baltimore?" Olivia asked.

"Gotta admit, the empty desks around here make me wonder," Munch said as he picked up the receiver on his phone, "First Cassidy ships out, then Monique, then Lake…which one of us is going to be next on the way to the glue factory?"

"I don't know," Olivia replied just as her phone started ringing, she picked up the receiver and answered, "Special Victims" before the entire station went dark and quiet.

"Unit," she finished as she realized the phone was dead too and put it down, and joined the other detectives who got up to find out what the hell happened.

"Alright," Munch said as he got up, "Who forgot to pay the electric bill?"


When the power went out at Elliot's house, Kathleen, Dickie and Elizabeth all about went into a panic. It was Toni who managed to shut them all up so they could hear Kathy talk.

"We might've thrown a breaker, I'll check the fuse box," she said as she got up.

Toni stayed behind with the kids and once Kathy was gone, she said to them, "Alright, you heard her, now if nobody loses their head then nobody loses their head, until she gets back, sit down and shut up!"

They did as they were told and the three of them flopped back onto the couch.

"What do you think it was?" Kathleen asked.

"Don't know," Toni replied, "Do you guys have power outages often?"

"No," was the unanimous response.

"Great," she dryly remarked.

Kathy returned in a minute with the news that there was nothing wrong with the breakers in the fuse box.

"So we're probably looking at a blackout here," Toni said, "In the middle of New York, that'll be real fun tonight, I can see it all now, riots, looting, you name it."

The kids all started groaning and moaning at the idea of going through the day and possibly the night without any power.

"Alright, everybody shut up," Toni told them, "If it didn't kill mankind for five thousand, nine hundred and some odd years having no electricity, it won't kill anybody here to go a day without TV and eating sandwiches for dinner. We've got it easy here…what if the blackout spread to the police department?"

"Oh my God," Kathy said as the thought just seemed to hit her.

"Those young cops are going to be in for a rude surprise now," Toni commented.


"Hey Captain," Munch said as he tried punching up a report on a typewriter, "How come we don't have a backup generator in this whole damn place? With all the information that we so heavily rely on with the assistance of computers, don't you think that would make sense?"

"Munch, shut up and just get back to work," Olivia told him.

"I'm only saying," Munch replied in his defense.

"You're always doing that, that's probably how we got the blackout," Olivia said, "Your mouth probably used up all the power."

"Ouch."

"Cut it out you two," Cragen warned them, "I'm not in the mood for it right now. Everything's out, lights, power, the phones, even the radios are dead."

"Maybe Klaatu decided to make an encore appearance," Munch suggested.

"Shut up," Olivia told him.

"Or maybe Maple Street has expanded to our squad," Munch added, "That'll be beautiful, everybody running around the squad room shooting each other, rambling on about monsters."

"And if anybody knows about rambling," Olivia responded.

"What're you getting on my case for?" John asked her, "I didn't do this."

"I know."

"And it's not like you're the only one now who has to type up everything the old fashioned manual way, and thumb through paper files for information," he added.

"I know," Olivia absentmindedly replied as she looked down at her files.

"I wonder how far it's spread," John said, "And it's one thing for the power to go out, but what about the phones?"

"I don't know," Olivia replied, seeming to pay even less attention to him than before.

"I sure hope Fin and Elliot are having better luck than we are right now," Munch said.


Tony returned to the Stabler home within the hour to report that the power was out as far as was the distance between the two points being their homes.

"That's just great," Toni bitterly replied, "Power out for miles…gonna have the cops out in the middle of the damn road blowing whistles and directing traffic."

"At least it'll keep them on their toes," her father cynically remarked.

"So how come you're back so early?" Toni asked, "How did it go at the doctor's?"

"How did you know I went to the doctor?" Tony replied.

"Elliot told me," Toni answered.

"I should've known better than to trust him," Tony said.

"What did the doctor say?" she asked her father.

"He said that I have the body of a 35 year old," Tony said as he sat down beside her on the couch, then added, "A dead 35 year old."

"And considering you're only 39," Toni told her father, "That's not good."

"Well it could be a lot worse too," Tony replied, "I could be dead. God knows it's not like I haven't had my fair share of opportunities."

Toni elbowed him to shut up as she saw Kathy and the kids coming back to the living room.

"Mr. Keller," Kathy said hesitatingly, making it obvious she wasn't sure what to say, "I've been trying to figure out some sort of sleeping arrangement if you're going to be staying here…but since Toni's been sleeping on the couch lately…"

"That's no problem," Tony assured her, "I can sleep anywhere."

"He can too," Toni added, "He's the only person I ever saw pass out on a pool table."

"I can just sleep on the floor," Tony told Kathy, "Anything would have to beat that God awful cot I was stuck on in Rikers for eight years."

Both Toni and her father couldn't help but notice the sudden change in how Kathy looked. It was obvious that she was still uneasy with having a convicted felon in her home.

"I'm going to guess that you haven't had the pleasure of having too many former shut-ins as houseguests," Tony said.

"As you can see, Kathy," Toni said, "We're not much on beating around the bush. If there's something you'd like to say to either of us, go ahead and say it, you can't hurt our feelings, we have none, several years of hard drinking took good care of that."

"It's not that," Kathy started to say, but it was obvious to both Kellers that it was just that.

"I bet I can guess what you're thinking," Tony said as he got up, "Your husband told you all about me, told you I was doing life in Rikers for killing three guys…and it's all true, but I don't want anybody getting the idea that I bump people off just for the hell of it. It's hardly like I can compare to...say, Jack the Ripper, or Ted Bundy, somebody who kills for the thrill of it or for their own perverted reasons. I'm like a rattlesnake, I kill when I have to, I attack when I feel threatened…but you," he shook his head, "You are no threat, not you, or any of your kids here. So you have nothing to worry about."


"Kramer ditched his brother's truck by the side of the road and is now said to be driving a hot 1990 blue Chevy pickup," Fin told Elliot as they pulled away from the police precinct, "License plate VNTAGE."

"He should know better than that," Elliot replied, "Vanity plates in the DMV system are like a bright neon arrow. Was anybody in the truck when he stole it?"

"Threw the door open as the owner was starting it up and threw her on the ground and drove off, nobody else was in it," Fin answered.

"Which way is he heading?" Elliot asked.

"Highway 55," Fin told him.

Elliot looked out the window and saw the sign that read Route 122. "Great," he dryly remarked, "I hate long chases."

"I hope the son of a bitch is about out of gas," Fin commented, "Make our jobs easier."

"Ha!" Elliot let out, "Dream on…ah, I hope we can catch this son of a bitch before he kills somebody else. At least Kathy and the kids are safe."


"You get down to the power company?" Toni asked Kathy and Tony when they came in the door that night.

With both the electricity and the phones out, Kathy had decided to go down to the electric company in person to find out what was the matter. Tony had gone with her incase the people working there decided to get smart with her since she wasn't big or intimidating. Toni had stayed behind with Dickie, Elizabeth and Kathleen, and they'd stayed there in the quiet house and waited for their parents to get home. It got dark and by the light of candles and a couple of flashlights, they made a dinner out of sandwiches, potato chips and soda. Dinner passed without more than a few words, because everybody was thinking the same thing. They were wondering when their parents were going to come home. About an hour passed, and it got even darker out, and then they finally heard Kathy pull into the driveway.

"Yeah and they don't have one damn idea what's going on," Tony said, "They're the ones working right there, and they don't know anymore than we do. They can't say when the power's going to be back on, it could be in an hour, it could be tomorrow, it could be next week for all we know!"

"Well," Toni kept her voice lower than her father, trying to maintain some kind of order in the pitch dark house, "The kids and I already ate. We cleaned the fridge out of whatever didn't need to be cooked…there're still some sandwiches left in the kitchen for you two."

"Thanks, Toni," Kathy said as she shrugged off her jacket.

Tony took the flashlight from Toni's hand and pointed it straight ahead so they could see their way to the kitchen.

"Sure gets dark early around here," he commented as they left the kids in the living room.

"Makes me wish we'd stayed in Vegas," Toni said as she sat down.

"Is it fun there?" Kathleen asked.

"It's better if you're older," Toni answered, "I can't play any of the casino games until next year…but the rest of it's pretty good, you can stay up all night and look at the lights in that damn place…and they have some good shows to go to. I'll like it better next year when I go, next year I'm taking a crap load of money to the slots and the blackjack table, and I'm going to beat the hell out of the baccarat dealers…hey Kathleen, you know how to play baccarat?"

"No," Kathleen shook her head, "My dad would kill me if he ever caught me gambling."

"Doesn't stop you from doing it anyway though, does it?" Toni asked her, and even in the dark was able to see Kathleen's face as she looked away, "Elliot doesn't approve of a lot of things but that never stopped anybody from doing them. Anyway, I bet I could teach you how to play, there's nothing to it."

"Does your dad approve of you gambling?" Dickie asked her.

"Approve, hell, he's the one who taught me in the first place," Toni answered as she got up, "Didn't Elliot teach you guys anything? Don't tell me he never even taught you how to play poker?"

In the dark, the three kids looked to one another and then back across the room to Toni and shook their heads.

"That Catholic embedment's really showing through in him these days," Toni replied, "He's getting too good and high and mighty for everything."

"How long have you known our dad?" Dickie asked her.

"Oh let me think…must be 10 or 11 years now I think," she answered, "I didn't know him too well in the beginning, and I didn't see him for about eight years after that…I'm sure he told you guys about it."

"I don't think so," Elizabeth replied.

"Oh," Toni said, "Well…"

She was cut off by a blinding light coming in through a crack in the Venetian blind at the front window. The kids put their hands up to shield their eyes from the bright light. It was at this time that Tony and Kathy were coming back into the living room with their plates and they also noticed the sudden illumination.

"What is that?" Kathy asked.

Toni went over to the front window and pulled two slats of the blind apart to look through them. "There's a car outside, somebody's coming up here."

The car headlights shut off but she saw one of the two people coming up the sidewalk was carrying a flashlight, and she noticed how the light was being carried, over the person's head instead of straight ahead of them.

"It's the cops!" she said, "Maybe something happened to Elliot."

The kids were starting to panic and they all talked over each other. Kathy had all of them get back so she could go to the door.

"You get back," Toni told Kathy, "It might be some rogue on the force thinking with no power and no phones he could have a lot of fun with you, seeing as how you're no threat to anybody. I'll go see who it is."

"You'll go?" her father laughed, and wrapping his arms around her waist, lifted her up and placed her behind him and he started towards the door. He glanced out the window and waited until both cops were up on the porch and right by the front door before he opened it up.

"Is everybody okay in here?"

Toni knew that voice. "Munch?"

She grabbed the flashlight off the table and shone it on the people at the door and saw Olivia putting her own hand up to ward off the blinding light.

"What're you guys doing here?" Tony asked.

"I was taking Olivia home when she said she needed to stop in and check on everybody," Munch explained, "How're things going here?"

"Don't tell me you guys lost the power at the station too!" Toni said.

"Yes," Munch nodded, "Which as you can imagine is making our jobs so much more fun now," he dryly added.

"How far is this blackout going?" Toni asked, "Did we go into nuclear war and the whole damn country's in EMP now?"

"We have no idea what's going on," Olivia explained.

"Nobody's telling us anything," Munch said.

"Nobody knows anything," Olivia corrected him.

"Nice to know it's not just us," Tony told them.

"Is everybody okay here?" Olivia asked as she looked around at everybody.

"Oh we're fine," Toni said.

"And you," Olivia said to Tony as she poked him in the chest, "When did you get back into town?"

"This morning before the outage hit," he answered, "Did you miss me?"

"What's to miss?" Munch asked, "She just swapped you for Elliot, it's the exact same thing looking at the two of you."

"Any idea how Elliot's doing, Munch?" Toni asked.

"No, we can't get any word into or from Baltimore," Munch shook his head.

"I never thought I'd say it," Toni said, "But I envy Elliot right about now…at least where he is, they've got their lights on and he's not blindly lost in the dark."


Elliot watched the blur that passed by their car on the road. "What was that?" he asked.

Fin's foot slammed on the gas. "That was a blue '90 Chevy."

"Catch the license plate?" Elliot asked.

"No," Fin replied as the speedometer soared up to 50 and was still climbing, "But we will."

Elliot got on the radio and announced to all the other police cars in the vicinity where they were, where they were heading, and that they had the suspect in sight and were in pursuit of him.

The case continued for eight blocks straight ahead before they ever heard the approach of sirens or saw the flashing lights of any other cars coming to assist in the chase. Kramer tried to lose them a few times but Fin managed to stay right on his ass…unfortunately they hadn't anticipated Kramer coming to a sudden halt in the middle of the road. Elliot knew there was no chance they could stop or swerve to the side in time, he put his arms up to protect his face as he slammed into the dashboard as their car smashed into the back of the truck.

Fin threw the car into park and snatched the keys out, calling over to Elliot, "You okay?"

Elliot leaned back against his seat for a second and felt along the top of his head for blood and commented, "I'm beginning to see why Munch doesn't like riding with you. Come on!"

They got out of the car and went around to the front of the truck, where they saw Arnold Kramer's body slouched against the steering wheel with his head looking over the dashboard. Fin opened the door and pulled the man out of the driver's seat. It was just then that the other squad cars pulled up, just in time to be too late.

"Arnold Kramer," Fin told him, "You're under arrest for murder."

"Great," Elliot said, "Now we can extradite this son of a bitch back to New York and we can go home."

When Olivia returned to SVU the next morning, the power was still out. The detectives tried to make due without the use of their computers, the phones or any updates from the hospitals on the updates if any on several of their victims, it was enough to drive them up the wall, especially Munch, who hadn't stopped complaining about the blackout since it started. They were met with a massive relief in the early afternoon when the lights finally came back on in the building.

"Oh thank God!" Olivia said as she let out a large sigh of relief.

Munch looked up and started saying something she didn't understand.

"What's that?" she asked.

"It's Hebrew, just a little something between me and the Big Guy upstairs," Munch said, "Getting things running around here again is a real lifesaver."

"Let's make sure the computers weren't fried," Olivia said.

"I thought that's just when they're hit by lightning," John commented.

"Still, let's not take any chances," Cragen said, "Check everything, make sure everything is running as it should be."

Munch gave a mock salute and replied, "Aye aye my captain."

Olivia's cell phone rang and she answered it, "Benson."

"Hey Olivia!"

"Elliot!" she said, "What's going on?"

"We caught Kramer," Elliot told her, "He's being shipped back to be booked and arraigned for the murders."

"Well there's a piece of good news, the whole town's been in a blackout since yesterday and things just got back up," Olivia said.

"How are Kathy and the kids?" he asked her.

"They're fine," she told him.

"Good," Elliot said, "They're finishing up some last minute details on the extradition and we should be back in a couple of hours."

"That's great!" Olivia told him, "See you then."

She shut off her cell phone and turned around, and saw Munch was watching something on the TV.

"What's that?" she asked, her heart already leaping up to her throat as she went over to the screen, "Turn up the volume."

On the screen, they saw a bus for Rikers Island turned over on its side and looking like it came through a war zone. There were police and squad cars and ambulances surrounding the area where the bus was. A young blonde reporter faced the camera as Olivia and Munch came into her narration of, "The bus driver, Edward Hicks, who has worked at Rikers prison for 15 years, was found dead this morning in the bus, along with several inmates from Rikers who were being evacuated after a suspected anthrax scare at the prison. The bus which was found outside of Brooklyn; was en route to Southport where the prisoners were to be relocated until further notice. Police now report that at least a dozen inmates who were passengers on this bus have escaped." Mug shots of the escapees came on the screen, "So far all missing inmates have been identified as members of the prison's White Brotherhood, among them, the brotherhood's apparent leader, Christopher Sankt, who was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole…"

"Oh my God!" Olivia said as a horrible thought occurred to her.

"I hate to say it," Munch said, "But I told you somebody would escape."

"Sankt's out," Olivia was trying to get a grip on what she'd just heard, "Sankt's out, and he has to know that Elliot killed his brother."

"Meaning Sankt and his boys are probably on their way to Elliot's house to pay him a little visit," Munch realized, past his dark shades his eyes could be seen growing wider, "Only Elliot's not there, Kathy and the kids are!"

"I'll call Kathy and warn her," Olivia said as she turned on her cell phone again.

"Might not be time, come on!" Munch grabbed her by the arm and they started to the door, "We've got to go and hope we get there in time!"