MERCY GENERAL HOSPITAL

INTENSIVE CARE UNIT

365 WEST 32nd STREET


Normally, Doctor Jane Larom was very forthcoming with Olivia and the squad because she'd been associated with them, testifying in court for them, or else helping them through various quandaries for the last nineteen years. There was also the part where she was the first doctor to treat Sophia, on the day she'd shown up in Olivia's life again.

The good doctor also knew more about the lives of the members of the Manhattan Special Victims Unit than she cared to admit, but she didn't mind because they made her own life quite interesting.

Today was no exception.

Today, she'd encountered Harper Bailey outside of the emergency room, and had then taken her straight to a private area the intensive care unit. The girl was in really bad shape.

There was a reason she described having 'gut feeling' about the SVU needing to come see Harper—other than the young woman's adamance—but she didn't disclose it over the phone. This wasn't the kind of thing you were told that way.

Just short of Harper's room, Larom stopped and turned to Olivia and Amanda.

"Look," she said. "I'm not going to begin to overlook how interwoven the lives of your squad members are. You two alone are linked for life because of Sophia."

Amanda nodded. "She's even an aunt to my children."

Olivia arched an eyebrow at the doctor. "Cough it up."

Larom stuck her hands in the pockets of her lab coat. "Do you have any other adult children, in addition to Sophia?"

"No."

"Siblings?"

"Just a younger half-brother, but I haven't seen him in a few years because he's in jail." Olivia made a horizontal slashing motion with her hands. "Quit beating around the bush, Jane."

She went at it like a freight train. "I found Harper Bailey today when she walked into the emergency room, off the street, but there's a specific reason I used the phrase 'gut feeling' when I called you."

"And this 'gut feeling' is what, exactly?"

"Olivia, Harper looks like you. I wouldn't say 'dead ringer' because I don't have any wood to knock on, but spooky is the word."

"Oh, my God."

Olivia immediately began flashing back to when and how she'd first learned about Simon, and then, years later, to when she thought Calvin's mother could have been her sister.

Now, this.

"I-is there any way to prove it?" she said after a moment. "That Harper and I could be related, I mean?"

Larom nodded. "Yes, but you need to see her first, and talk to her about what's happened. She's behaving like she was abducted."

Olivia sighed. "She was."

Amanda chimed in. "Harper, and a handful of other pregnant women were all taken from the area in the past two-and-a-half weeks. It's believed that for reasons that are currently unknown, that Bella Carisi—baby Aria's mother—is amongst those that Harper has left behind."

"Wow." the physician remarked. "As always, I'll help however you need, but why don't we start with just going in to see her first, alright?"

"Okay."

Harper Bailey was hurt, and in all kinds of pain.

Back at the warehouse, she'd overheard the kidnappers planning to hurt Bella and Dana. When she'd spoken in defense of Bella and Dana, the main guard, Bishop, decided to use her for practice.

After, she was to have been taken and killed by Bishop's main girl, Nikita Rogov, but apparently, Nikita still had a soul. While she didn't bring Harper straight to the hospital, she dropped her off close enough so that she would be able to walk to the emergency room. Nikita drove off somewhere else, but Harper didn't know or care.

She had herself, and her baby to worry about.

Harper was feeling miserable, and had almost collapsed when Doctor Larom spotted her. She believed that the doctor had good intentions, but still, Harper panicked at the thought of being touched by strangers. At least she'd remembered a certain set of initials that Dana had impressed upon her that morning.

Remembering this, and shouting, "SVU!" had led to her being left alone by the doctors, but now, she was becoming weepy. The baby was awake and kicking her, but she didn't have any food to pacify them with. It made her feel bad.

Harper couldn't even get cleaned yet because that fell under the column of the whole rape kit thing.

This day was going to suck.

"Harper?"

Doctor Larom had knocked on her door and opened it, but was now standing in the doorway.

Harper fell back on the bed. "Are the detectives here, doc? From SVU?"

Larom bobbed her head. "Yes. Are you up for visitors?"

"Yeah, but I'm so hungry."

"Remember what I said, though?"

Harper sighed like a drama queen. "We can check on the baby after the examination, and all that, but I can't eat or shower before then because my body is evidence."

"Correct, and if you let them, the detectives will help you through that; it's their job, and they do it every day."

"Really?"

"Really. Think you can be reasonable now?"

Harper sat up straighter and nodded. "Yes. Let them in, please."

Harper noticed Amanda first because of her crutches, but when she saw Olivia, the instruments that were monitoring her heart beeped dangerously. Shock had ripped through Harper's body and mind, and she didn't know how to handle it.

The other three didn't, either, and none of them dared make a move.

Zeroing in Olivia, she cried, "You! You look the mother who dumped me in foster care, and then left me!"

"Harper—"

"Then when I was NINE, she said she was ready to bring me home because she was better and she wanted me to meet my sister, but guess what? The next day, I find out that she died by falling down the subway stairs because she'd had a drink!"

Now Olivia wanted to vomit. Very few people had known how Serena Benson died, and a perfect stranger—old enough to be her daughter—had given the details, cause, and circumstance.

How could she have known?

"Who the hell are you?"

Seized by panic and confusion, Harper grabbed her water cup and threw it. Doctor Larom and Amanda both managed to duck or move out of the way in time, but it clipped Olivia on the side of the forehead. She'd been too distracted to notice Harper arming herself. But because she'd taken much worse—especially since Noah had come into her life—this didn't hurt too much.

All the same, she excused herself out into the hallway.

Larom followed her.

"What can I do?" she asked her. "She didn't bean you too hard, did she?"

Olivia rubbed the spot, but shook her head. "I have a toddler son, and a toddler-aged granddaughter, who can be rambunctious when riled up. That cup was nothing."

"Your family and your squad never do anything small…"

"That's us in a nutshell." Olivia shrugged. "For the sake of Harper's rationality and my own, I'll stay out of the way while the rape kit happens, but is there any way that we can do a DNA test? Because of… You know…?"

Olivia couldn't bring herself to say the word 'sister,' even though the resemblance was very clear. The last time she'd thought she'd had a sister, her heart and her hopes had been dashed. She didn't want to jinx this.

"Yes," the doctor told her. "And I can even expedite it, but it won't happen unless Harper wants to play ball, too."

"I understand."

Larom beckoned for Olivia to follow her. "This way, please, lieutenant."


Olivia was left to her own devices after doing a DNA swab, and she was glad, because she was beginning to feel overwhelmed, so she dialed a familiar number.

"Olivia, you've got me and Casey on speaker!" the ADA chirped when she answered.

Relief coursed through Olivia immediately: besides being her best friends, one of these women was going to her wife, and the other was going to be her daughter-in-law. They were truly her family, and they could more than handle her at a time like this.

"Oh, thank God."

Hearing that Olivia sounded like she was going to cry, Casey spoke up.

"What's on your mind. Olivia? We're all ears."

"Is the door shut?"

"Yes."

"Are you two sitting down?"

"Yes." the attorneys both answered in unison.

Olivia took a deep breath. "I think I have a sister."

Casey and Alex listened in rapt silence as Olivia told them everything that had transpired.

"I mean, she even talked about how, where, and why my mother died!" Olivia said when she was finished. "What do I about that?"

"Via," Alex's voice was very calm. "How about we do a little math? Your mother died in 2000, right?"

"Right."

"And you say that Harper looks like you?"

Olivia coughed. "Almost more than Sophia does."

"Let's just say, for good measure, that Harper was born before 1998, okay? How old would you clock Harper at?"

"Late teens, to mid twenties, but she also looks like she hasn't eaten well in awhile."

Casey chimed in. "On account of being a street kid?"

"Yes." Olivia confirmed. "She's also been through the wringer, and on top of that, she's pregnant, so that has to be doing a number on her, too. Her physical appearance must be drastically different from what it regularly is…"

"That sounds about right." Alex agreed. "How old was your mother when she died?"

"Sixty-one." Olivia blanched, trying not to feel her own age. "We didn't speak for awhile in the early nineties, because she wasn't pleased about me being pregnant with Sophia, or being so involved with law enforcement."

"Then it stands to reason that Serena could have had a baby, and covered it up. At least from you."

"But why? And who was the father? What if my father found my mother again? If Harper is who we think she is, then she was a late-in-life baby!"

Still, Alex remained calm and soothing. "I'm sure we can figure it out later. Who's with Harper at the moment?"

"Amanda is."

A scraping sound could be heard on the other line, and then Casey's voice.

"Olivia," she said. "I'm coming down there to see you, and to see Harper for myself. Can you kept together, and wait for me?"

"Yes."

"Good. See you soon."

Casey could be heard leaving Alex's office, and when she was gone, Olivia heard her fiancée's voice. It was now softer, and filled with more concern.

"Seriously, Via, are you okay?"

That was all it took for Olivia's heart to fill with emotion again. "I don't know, baby. For everything my mother put me through, I do have certain fond memories of her, but we didn't really become friends until I joined the SVU in about 1998. I just don't get why she wouldn't tell me about having a little sibling."

"Serena had the secrets she felt she was entitled to, I guess."

"Yeah." Olivia found a bench in the hospital hallway and sat on it. "She wouldn't have known about Simon, but we were still close enough that she would have told me at some point about having another kid, especially because Harper and Sophia are probably about the same age. The doctor guessed that Harper is a teenager, but now that I've been able to process it, I'd say she's in her twenties."

"Then things will sort themselves out because they always do. We might even get to put out an extra table setting on Christmas." Alex told her. "Are you going to have Casey wait out the results of the DNA test?"

"Alexandra, that hasn't even happened yet!"

"But we both know it will."

"You're not wrong." admitted Olivia. "There's also the part where we made a connection to Brighton Beach… and a dead prostitute who's been seen around there before, but just bought in Brooklyn…"

Alex rubbed her temples. "What the hell? The Russian mob and Brooklyn?"

"Yes, and Harper Bailey is the key. We just have to take care of her first."

"Which you and the squad will, because you're so good at it."

Things grew quiet, and then Alex gave a soft groan of discomfort.

"And that's my cue to leave." Alex laughed as she stood. "Your kid is parked on my bladder, and pressing down."

This drew a laugh out of Olivia. Alex tended to refer specifically to baby Diana as Olivia's when the little one was being extra obnoxious.

"Go on and go." she laughed. "Casey or I will call you later."

"Sounds like a good plan. I love you."

"I love you, too." Alex replied.

When Olivia hung up and put her phone away, she leaned against the wall behind her.

The day had started with her feeling miserable about most of the things that were happening, Sophia's and Casey's engagement being her only respite.

Now here was Harper.

She was mysterious, but also looked just like her. There was no way in hell that Harper wasn't her sister. She was a mystery, waiting to be untangled… and she was also another touch of relief in the midst the madness.

But all Olivia really wanted to know was who Harper's father was (or if he was even in the picture), and also why her mother had never said a word.

It wasn't even midday yet, but it suddenly felt like her day had gotten longer.