Obligatory Disclaimer: I don't own these characters or anything in the SVU universe. It's Dick Wolf's playground and I'm just playing in it.

A/N: I'm just venturing back into FanFiction after a looooooong time and I'm a little rusty, so bear with me, please. This story has run through my head every night for a couple weeks so I decided to write it all down. I forgot how pages and pages of handwritten text end up quite short when typed out, so I apologize for the length of the first few chapters I have already written. I promise to try and do better. With that said, on with the show!

Chapter Two: The Phone Call

NYPD 16th Precinct, Manhattan SVU squad room

Captain Donald Cragen walked into the squad room and surveyed the scene. The overnight crew were finishing up their work and the day shift was gearing up. Detectives Fin and Munch were exchanging their usual banter about one of John's conspiracy theories, over Munch's famous burnt coffee. Detectives Rollins and Amaro were by Nick's desk with their heads bent together over something. 'Just another typical SVU morning," he thought to himself.

He headed into his office to gather everything he needed for their morning case rundown. Just as he was about to walk out of his office, the phone on his desk rang. Sighing, he put his files and coffee down on the desk and picked up the handset.

"Manhattan SVU, this is Captain Cragen. How can I help you?"

"Captain, this is Celia Porter. I'm a trauma nurse in the ER at Mercy General. We've had an unidentifiable patient come in who is in extremely critical condition at this time. We need to notify her family and/or her emergency contact. We're calling you because we have made a tentative identification but we need someone from your unit to make a formal identification and hopefully help fill in the patient's past medical history."

"Okay, I understand, but how does this pertain to my unit? Was the patient a victim of a sexual assault that we need to investigate?"

"No sir," came the voice on the other end. "The patient has been tentatively identified as a detective in your unit..."

As the nurse was speaking, Cragen's eyes snapped up and he once again surveyed the scene outside his office. Fin, Munch, Rollins, Amaro, ... His eyes darted to an empty desk—no jacket on the chair, no mug of tea sitting next to the computer. Monitor dark. Papers stacked neatly and not spread across the desk... His many years as a detective catching all this in a second, and he processed that information almost as quickly, so when the nurse said, "Olivia Benson," he murmured her name at the same time. With shaking hands, thumping heart, and what could only be described as a queasy feeling in his stomach, he quickly gathered information on her current status (critical in the OR) and promised to immediately come down and make the formal identification, as well as notifying whomever Olivia had authorized in her file. He knew that if they needed a formal identification that Olivia had been unconscious since EMS picked her up. What had happened to the detective he looked upon as the daughter he never had?

He ducked his head out of his doorway and shouted, "Fin, Munch, I need you in here, now!" The two detectives looked at each other, wondering what they had done now. Amaro and Rollins jibed them good-naturedly as they walked into the office.

When the two men entered, they observed the Captain rifling through his file cabinet, muttering something unintelligible under his breath. John noticed that the normally unflappable Captain's hands were shaking. Both detectives could sense that Captain Cragen was very distressed about something.

Cragen found the file he was looking for. He opened it up and quickly looked to the form detailing emergency contact and next of kin information. In their line of work, this was an unfortunate necessity to keep immediately at hand. Olivia had evidently never updated her NOK after connecting with her half-brother, so that section was blank. But her emergency contact...it was just as Cragen expected it would be.

He looked up at his two veteran detectives, men he knew would do anything and everything possible to help Olivia. He cleared his throat and told them, "Olivia has been injured in some sort of manner. I didn't get all of the details from the trauma nurse. She is in very critical condition at Mercy. They don't know if she's going to make it. They need a formal identification because for some reason she didn't have any ID on her and she's been unconscious since EMS picked her up. A nurse in the ER happened to recognize her, but they need an official identification from somebody who actually knows her. I'm going down to Mercy right now to make that ID. So, I need you two to find and notify her emergency contact.

He handed the open file over to Munch, while Fin looked over his partner's shoulder. They looked up at the same time.

"How?" asked Fin. "He hasn't returned any of our calls. Liv says the family doesn't even live in the house in Queens anymore. He's completely off the grid to us."

"Try Hudson University. A birdie told me that he had taken on an adjunct professorship there, teaching Criminal Justice and Victimology. Don't try and call; there's no time for that, especially if he's in class at the moment. Go there. Find him. Track him down. If he's not at the school, find out from someone there where he lives. Then all three of you haul ass to Mercy, using lights and sirens. Handcuff and drag him if you have to, but I think when you tell him what's going on, that he will be the one dragging you two."

Fin and Munch nodded, accepting their mission and understanding that time was extremely critical. "Let's go collect Stabler," John said.

Captain Cragen watched the two men gather their jackets and the squad car keys. He would follow them out the door as soon as he made a quick call to 1PP to apprise them of the situation.

Phone call completed, he gathered his things and locked his office. He met the confused eyes of his two junior detectives, who were extremely curious as to what was happening. Fin and Munch had been called in to the office and then quickly rushed out looking like the hounds of hell were chasing them; now the Captain was clearly about to leave and the day had just barely started. They hadn't even had their morning briefing.

Cragen announced there had been a 'family emergency' and that he was leaving to take care of it. He put Amaro in charge and left the precinct.

Amanda and Nick looked at each other. "Family emergency?" Amanda asked. "He doesn't have any family...does he?"

"I don't think so. And that definitely doesn't address whatever is going on with Munch and Fin."

They looked over to see what Olivia thought, also wondering why the Captain hadn't left her in charge—she was the most senior detective after the Captain and Munch. It was then that they noticed Olivia was not there and by the looks of things, hadn't been all morning.

The two junior detectives began to draw lines between Liv's absence, Fin and Munch's abrupt departure, and the Captain's 'family emergency'. Something was up with Olivia Benson but for the life of them, they couldn't figure out what it was.

Two unies walked in and headed to the coffee bar, chatting about their morning so far. "Hey, do you know anyone who worked that MVA this morning? I've been watching the news, with those crazy eyewitness videos, waiting to see if they'll release any information about the occupants in that cab. That thing was absolutely demolished."

His partner replied, "A buddy of mine in FDNY says that he heard they though the passenger in the cab was an MOS. The driver was DOA..." The two men moved on, continuing their conversation as they strolled out the squad room.

Nick and Amanda both moved to switch the squad room's television to the local news. They weren't positive, but they had a sinking feeling that the fourth piece of their puzzle had just been handed to them.

A/N Pt. 2: Please review and keep my muse's flame burning, even if it does keep me up at night! The next chapter is going to be really short, I'm sorry, but the one after that promises to be a doozy. It's already eleven handwritten pages long and I'm not even halfway done with it. For comparison, this chapter is seven handwritten pages.