"You could drive an eighteen wheeler clear through the middle of these medical records..." mused Olivia, drumming her desk with her fingertips and narrowing her eyes at the wad of documents laid out before her, "... it makes no sense."

"How'd you mean?" asked Fin, opening a can of soda and scooting his chair across to join her.

"February 9thth through March 2nd there are three entries at the same hospital and then nothing for months and until we hit mid October and she's checked into the ER at a different hospital twice in a three week period. Did the grandparents just hold back in the mean time? Were there no injuries or Zara just hide them better?"

"That is funky."

"What's even more off is that it happened the same way the previous year. Different months but the same pattern..." shaking her hand and pinching at tired eyes Olivia sighed, "... when have we ever known abusers to take recess breaks?"

"What was happening or not happening in between?" asked Munch, pin pointing the exact question they all realised they needed to be asking. "What makes those months different from the others?"

"Well Zara is sure as hell not gonna tell us..." said Olivia, experienced enough to know when a child was far from ready to aid a quest for justice on her own behalf, "... she's clammed up tight as a drum. If she won't talk for Rollins then we don't stand a chance. We need more before we can go to her again."

"I don't see the grandparents as abusers. It's like they just couldn't cope."

"That doesn't mean they're not abusers..." noted Olivia, but she understood Fin's point.

"I'm not naive, Liv. I know cute old people can be mean as hell but not those two. It's like they just got caught in the crossfire. Like they didn't know how to handle it all and they lashed out..." then, saying that which he could only verbalise in front of his two most trusted colleagues Fin shrugged, "... maybe because Zara pushed them to it?"

"If that's true then why?" replied Olivia quickly, forcing a gut reply from her detectives.

"A cry for help." Said Munch without pausing for thought.

"Now we're getting somewhere..." nodding slowly Olivia re-examined the papers in front of her while tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. Sliding forward in her chair and crosschecking dates and locations worked quietly for several minutes as Fin and Munch bandied about their own theories.

"Did I just see a light bulb there Sergeant?" smiled Fin, able to read Olivia with remarkable ease.

"They're tour dates."

"Britney's latest comeback I hope?" quipped Munch with a wicked smile.

"Liv?" asked Fin, sensing they were on the brink of their first real break since this truly gruelling case had opened.

"All these dates, all the blocks of time where Zara was being admitted to hospital with cuts, bruises and breaks..." unable to believe she hadn't spotted the pattern sooner Olivia sat back in her chair and exhaled, "... they all fall during Maria's tours overseas."

"While mom's away..." sighed Fin grimly.

"We need to talk to the grandparents again."

"We can do that..." volunteered Munch, gathering himself up from his seat and tilting his head in Fin's direction, "... can't we partner?"

"Sure..." nodded Fin, wandering around the back of Benson's chair and giving her shoulder's a massaging squeeze, "...on one condition, cap?"

"What have I told you about calling me that?" warned Olivia, relaxing slightly as his fingers worked knots from her back.

"Call Stabler... " pushed Fin, his shifted role now not as her shoulder to lean on but as the one who forced her to admit limitation and call the man who was, "... have him pick you up early tonight."

"I'm fine."

"I don't care."

"See you tomorrow Odafin..." smiled Olivia, thanking him with her eyes as Fin gave her shoulder's one final squeeze and followed Munch to the elevator, "... call me later to debrief?"

"You got it, cheekbones."


"Are you really ready for this?"

"Yes."

"Okay then..." nodded Olivia, wearing the same dark circles that had stubbornly defied exhaustion the day before, but sporting a change of blouse and a renewed determination.

"I'm more help to Zara here than I am at Nick's place. I can't do anything more for him. I'm done. I crossed a line. I went someplace I shouldn't have. I don't know at what point I lost my head but..." swallowing hard against the knotted ball of emotion in her stomach Rollins remembered her vow to move forward and put her unrequited feelings for Nick Amaro behind her once and for all, "... well it won't happen again Olivia. You have my word."

"We have a lead."

"Yeah?" intensely relieved at the ease with which Benson allowed her respite Amanda flashed a dogged smile. "What's going on?"

"Fin and Munch went to speak with the grandparents last night and we think we've found a pattern in Zara's hospital visits."

"Great, that's good, that's..."

"I have a contact up at Fort Drum. She has a kid about Zara's age and when I told her about Maria's parents arrest and Zara's situation she said she'd be willing to sit down with us. She sounds like she has something she wants to get off her chest."

"You want me down there?" asked Amanda, her hands in her jeans pockets and her shoulders hunched forward with hopeful deference.

"Fin is gonna pick you up around noon..." nodded Olivia steadily, knowing for the first time what it was not only to be a key player in an operation, but to orchestrate it, "... that okay with you?"

"Sure, sure I'm good..." moving beyond her own awkward discomfort for a moment Amanda saw past the badge and weapon and watched Benson wince as she reached forward for a pen, "... you okay?"

"Fine." Replied Olivia sharply.

"I hear we'll soon be calling you Lieutenant Benson..." though Rollins' smile was warm and the moment tender between the two women Olivia rolled her eyes with a dismissive rebuff.

"Not likely."

"I..."

"You should skim through these before you head to the post..." instructed Olivia, shifting in her seat in an attempt to subtly find a more comfortable position, "... in case we've missed something."

"Liv are you sure you're okay?" it was though, just for a moment, the two women found a common ground. A shared vulnerability glimmered in the air between them and they mutually acknowledged that in order to survive, they had both had to admit weakness. The kindling, however, was not strong enough to sustain any lasting flame of friendship and Olivia soon closed down the conversation and the chink in her armour.

"Nothing a new bed wouldn't fix..." not unkind, but not overly giving of herself Olivia held her back and flashed a guarded smile, "... call me tonight when you've talked to Colonel Jasper?"

"Yes m'am."


"We always planned to have a sibling for Zara. After I got out of narcotics, after the next tour, when we pull out of Iraq, when they put a man on mars. Always tomorrow. There was just never a right time and so we waited. We waited and then she was gone. I guess what I know now..." sighing with all the weight of the world Nick shrugged, "... is that there never is a right time. There's no such thing."

"I hear that." Laughed Elliot, as the two man sat with their legs stretched out and an air of the relaxed about as they watched their daughters play.

"How is Liv?" asked Nick, his face warming at the mention of her name.

"Exhausted, pushing herself too hard but insisting she's fine."

"Nothing new there then." Laughed Nick, watching how good Zara was with Eve and how despite the impressive age gap between the two of them they played so well together in the playground a few feet away.

"No, no but seriously she's great, she's good."

"I've been thinking a lot lately..." though it was true of everything, with a distant look in his eyes Nick added, "... about SVU."

"You think you're ready to start thinking about coming back?" asked Elliot, terrified Nick might answer to the affirmative and already mentally preparing to support Sergeant Benson through the fall out.

"No..." said Nick, surprising his friend, "... no actually just the opposite."

"Yeah?"

"The more time passes the more I'm not sure I will ever be ready to go back."

"Wow, that's..."

"I gotta stay clean. I gotta pay back all the time i've taken from Zara and given to pills and the badge. I look back at photos of her when she was tiny and I'm not in enough of them. I see Maria between tours, I see her grandparents, her aunts and cousins. I was at work. For all of it. One minute she's that age..." gesturing across the playground to where Zara was pushing Eve on a swing Nick sighed, "... and the next I don't even know her anymore."

"Kids grow up too fast." Sighed Elliot, wondering how many family photos he appeared in over the years and suspecting it wasn't as many as it ought to have been.

"I had no clue what she was going through Stabler."

"Nick no one could've seen that coming..." shaking his head with grim reassurance Elliot avowed, "... no one."

"But I wasn't even looking..." shrugging his shoulders and feeling his eyes sting lightly Nick looked away and swallowed the refrain, "... I wasn't even fucking looking."

"Daddy imma star! Imma star!" standing on top of the lowest climbing frame, with Zara hanging tightly onto her ankles lest she fall, Eve open and closed her hands and twinkled her stars at Elliot with a wide eyed smile. "Daddy look-a-me!"

"I see you, baby girl. I see you and your stars are awesome..." reaching out and patting Nick's jacket shoulder emphatically Elliot sighed, "... we're all blind to what's right in front of us sometimes, buddy. We're all guilt of it."

"I've got some good things going for me Elliot. I've got some great things going for me..." resting his chin on his hands Nick nodded slowly and vowed, "... and I'm done taking them for granted. I've messed up big time but from here on out things are gonna be different."

"Sounds like you found your fight, Amaro."

"I had a little help..." smiled ink dark eyes filled with a rediscovered life, as Zara ran over in a jacket Rollins had helped her pick out one afternoon at Macy's.


"Cocktail?"

"Vodka martini."

"Coffee?"

"Strong, black and bitter."

"Like your men?" grinned Fin, punching the keys of his phone and sending the text message reply as he waited with Rollins for their second appointment at Fort Drum.

"Who the hell got you to crack a smile that wide?" asked Rollins, leaning slightly in an attempt to catch a glimpse at the sender's identity. Moving his hand away Fin locked his phone, sliding it back into his pocket and shrugging mysteriously.

"No one."

"She makes you happier than I've ever seen you whoever she is..." noted Rollins, twisting her fingers around a fray in her purse tassel and shrugging with a sighing smile, "... and that's a real good thing, Tutuola."

"How about you, Blondie?" asked Fin, with less intimacy but a nonetheless profound affection for Amanda Rollins. She was one of his girls the same way Warner and Benson were, and though they hadn't yet grown as close he wasn't about to let loneliness cripple her while they were all too busy being distracted by their own lives. "You holding up okay in all of this?"

"I..."

"You're not being overly convincing right now." Noted Fin, his concern growing on seeing the misty eyed gratitude falling about her suddenly.

"Sorry, sorry it's just..." swallowing hard and hating how close to the border of saccharine self pity she was wandering Rollins attempted to shrug off the words as she spoke them, "... well you're just the first person who's asked me that in a long time."

"Benson cares, she really does she just..."

"Cares more about whether I can keep my head and not screw up her first shot at playing captain?"

"That isn't fair, Rollins."

"I didn't mean it..." whether she did or not she knew he needed to hear she was sorry for saying it, "... just ignore me."

"Oh you meant it and maybe you're not so very far off the truth. She can be cold when she wants to be. I know how she was with you and Amaro when you first joined SVU..." offering a warm smile, and seeing her relief to realise she had not been imagining it Fin added, "... we all saw it."

"Cold?" scoffed Rollins with a weary laugh. "I thought we'd never thaw her out."

"You think you're in love with Nick Amaro after two years?"

"No! No I..."

"He was her partner, her best friend, her soul mate. She didn't know how to breathe without him there and then you two showed up and she had to make like nothing had changed. Cragen had her clearing out his desk like he'd crossed over and training you two up like she wasn't dying inside."

"So what you're saying is icy was an impressive feat really?" said Rollins with a wash of sadness. She had never known loss on anywhere near that level, she realised, because she had never known a love that cut that deep.

"You think Cragen would hold your hand through all of this crap if he was running this show? You think he'd bring you lemon tea and talk about your bruised ego and broken heart when there's a job to be done and a little girl with problems we can't even begin to imagine?" closing his argument with the kind of casual, and yet deeply profound rounding of his shoulders that made Fin who he was he added. "She's not being cold because she enjoys it; she's doing it because she has to. She's being captain."

"Jeez it's almost four, we've been sat in this office for a half hour waiting for this dude..." bracing her elbows against her knees and sighing tiredly Rollins asked, "... do we think he forgot?"

"The lady at the front desk said he had time to see us before his last patient..." pondered Fin, scanning the army doctor's office, "... it's not as if the military are known for their shabby timekeeping."

"I thought I heard my ears burning..." came a voice from behind them as a figure dressed entirely in eggplant satin breezed through the doorway in a cloud of heady incense and trailed by a ginger cat, "... we do apologise for our tardiness, don't we Basil?"


"Mama, mama, mama, mama!"

"Careful baby, don't..." predictably, as all children do when their eagerness to arrive is greater than their capacity to hold their own balance Eve landed on all fours several feet short of Olivia's desk, "... fall."

"Uh-oh..." through her vocabulary was increasing every day, there were still several firm favourite utterances and gathering up chubby limbs Eve examined herself and asked, "... imma gotta boo-boo?"

"I don't think so sweetie, you look just fine to me..." holding out her hands and lifting Eve up onto her lap with a visible wince Olivia murmured, "... you look good enough to eat my love."

"You're back bothering you?" asked Elliot, not missing a trick and watching her massage away the earlier twinge when she thought he wasn't watching.

"No, no I'm good..." brushing off the suggestion Olivia flashed a heartened smile, "... but I'm glad to see you two, that's for sure."

"You no closer to finding your guy I take it?"

"I've sent Fin and Rollins up to Fort Drum chasing our best lead yet. It's just wait and see time now, they said they'd call later and check in."

"Brrrr..." folding her arms around herself Eve wiggled from side to side and spoke through pursed lips, "... s'cold!"

"You are cold, baby..." noted Olivia, reaching down and feeling Eve's chilly arms, "... where's your sweater?"

"She gave it to a little girl on the subway, didn't you Mouse?" explained Elliot, somewhere between a laugh and a groan.

"Imma good girl, mama!" nodded Eve with a strangely unassuming pride.

"She also shared her crayons at Josie's place, her lunch with a homeless guy in Washington Square..." arching his eyebrow with wry smile Elliot, "... and her subway ticket with a nice lady on the one train."

"We really nailed that lesson, huh babe?" unable to hold back a laugh Olivia shook her head adoringly at Eve and drew her in close for cuddles.

"I think there's a little fine tuning to be done."

"Oh! Was-at?" leaning away from Olivia's body so she might dig in the front pocket of her little dress Eve's face lit up at the retrieval of a half eaten cookie she had stored for later. "Issa cookie..." bringing it to her lips and then pausing Eve lifted her eyes to Olivia and batted her lashes thoughtfully before announcing, "... imma share with mama."

"Oh baby, baby, baby..." sighed Olivia, burying her face in the soft, sweet smelling skin of Eve's neck and gave her adoring kisses, "... you are the best thing I ever did Evie Grace."

"Our girl gave her peach yoghurt to a meth head, Liv..." marvelled Elliot, as Eve scooted down from Olivia's lap and toddled off to press the buttons of the vending machine, as was now tradition on her visits to the 16th precinct.

"I'm not sure what the hell kind of reaction to go for on that one." Shrugged Olivia, somewhere between horror and tired amusement.

"You know when she handed over her sandwiches I thought she was just doing the same thing I did with the 'real food' in my lunchbox but then she sacrificed the banana and I started to really pay attention."

"Are we really having this conversation?" fearing she had slipped into some weird alternative universe Olivia wondered whether it wasn't time Elliot returned to work full time.

"Liv that kid wouldn't have given you her peach yoghurt a few weeks ago..."

"You really think we've dodged the bullet?" she asked, realising the relief of a parent whose child has weathered an unfortunate growing pain. "She's not gonna be some pouty little pageant queen horror show after all?"

"She's a good kid..." assured Elliot with a warm smile, "... and she's gonna be just fine."

"El..." arching her aching back and closing her eyes Olivia pressed a hand against her lightly cramping stomach and yawning, "... take me home?"

"Yeah?" not really asking he reached for her hand, helping her up from her chair and sliding his arm around her waist. "You okay?"

"I'm fine..."

"Don't you dare lie to me..." he warned, pausing a moment in their exit and staring her down, "... Liv?"

"I'm just tired. I've had enough for today..." knowing her limits and able to recognize more easily now when her body was telling her to slow down Olivia sighed, "... and I can debrief Fin and Rollins from home."

"Mouse, come on baby, come hold my hand in the elevator..." surprised at how quickly she responded and came to heel Elliot squeezed Eve's hand gratefully, "... good girl."

"What's for dinner Mr Mom?" asked Olivia, blissfully grateful of how willing Elliot had been to grab a more domesticated role with both hands while she stepped up at the precinct on the Amaro case.

"Chicken, that cool?"

"That depends..." she sighed with a dramatic pause as they boarded the elevator and Eve pressed the button as usual, "... are we talking your mom's chicken parmesan?"

"We might be."

"My hero..." she murmured, leaning in and kissing him softly.

"You know we've been living together a while now..." mused Elliot, tilting his head sideways and leaning his temple against Olivia's hair, "... have you not realised yet that my mom's chicken parmesan is pretty much the only real food I can make?"

"I had." She confessed, and though he couldn't see it he could feel her smile.

"Humph..." he deliberated, "... it's that good, huh?"

"Honestly I don't care what we're eating..." glancing down and stroking her fingertips through Eve's hair Olivia sighed contentedly as she lifted her hand to his chest and patted it lovingly, "... as long as we're all eating it together."

"And you didn't have to cook it?" he teased, knowing she could only tolerate to verbalise anything that poignant because she could rely on his tempering it with humour.

"Yeah, yeah okay you got me." She yawned, as they exited the elevator and he casually took her hand in his left and Eve's in his right.


"Liv?"

"Something's wrong."

"You said you were feeling better after we ate? That the cramps were gone and..."

"No, no not with me..." she sighed, standing at their bedroom window in one of us old Marine issue t-shirts so old it was barely readable, so old he remembered holding Maureen as a baby in it, and murmured, "... they never called, Elliot."

"Maybe the day really took it out of them and they just crashed. Or they got a real lead up at the post and decided to follow it and check in first thing tomorrow?"

"He always calls..." she insisted, turning her iPhone over and over in her right hand and holding her left lightly on her stomach, "... even when he hasn't said he will."

"I'm sure there's an explanation, babe..." wandering over to stand behind her Elliot slid his arms around her waist, his bare chest warm as it enveloped her like a warm coat of reassurance, "... come back to bed?"

"El don't ever leave me?" she asked suddenly, almost frantically as her hands reached to his arms and held them in place around her.

"Don't be an idiot..."

"Don't be an ass..." she countered quickly, her forehead deeply furrowed and her eyes laced with a fragile fear, "... just promise me?"

"I promise, I..."

"I don't remember how I did this without you..." she confessed, almost under her breath as her eyes danced on his in the moonlight, "... any of it."

"I'm not going anywhere, Liv..." he said, and would say again and again as many times as she needed to hear it, "... you won't ever be without me."