"Law and Order: SVU" belongs to Dick Wolf and Universal Television. No profit is being made from this story.
She got Noah up and dressed earlier than normal and he was confused when she told him that they had to go pick up Elliot from the doctor. But then she told him that, since they would be out anyway, they would go get breakfast before he went to school and that was enough to satisfy him.
The director hadn't been messing around. When Olivia pulled into the hospital parking lot, she saw Elliot sitting on a bench outside the main doors with a security officer standing beside him. He was apparently not even allowed back inside the building.
She pulled up in the drop-off zone by the entrance and put the car into park.
"Stay here, honey," she told Noah, taking off her seat belt.
Olivia over to the bench, keeping the car in her line of sight even though it was no more than ten feet away. Both Elliot and the security guard watched her approach.
She looked at Elliot first. He met her eyes with a chagrined expression and then looked away. She regarded him with a scrutinizing gaze that he didn't see and turned toward the officer.
"Is anyone pressing charges?" she asked coolly. Her voice held a hint of authority.
"Not as long as he doesn't try to go back inside the facility," the man told her. "I assume you're here to pick him up?"
"Yes," she replied.
She said nothing else. The security officer looked at Elliot and then at her before walking back inside the doors.
Elliot looked up at her once the guard left. She just raised her eyebrows silently.
He looked away uncomfortably.
"I didn't assault anyone," he mumbled bitterly. "A nurse came barging into my room this morning while I was having a nightmare. He did it last night, too, and scared the shit out of me. I told him not to do it again."
Olivia grimaced sympathetically. He swallowed, unable to meet her eyes.
"I panicked," he muttered quietly. "I saw someone standing next to my bed, reaching for me, and I just started swinging. I wasn't purposely trying to hurt anyone."
He seemed to be waiting for her to scold him. Her heart hurt for him.
Sitting there in that moment, he looked like he was being crushed by the weight of the entire unfair situation he had found himself in and she couldn't stand it.
She reached out and cupped his cheek, making him look up at her meekly.
"Come on," she said matter-of-factly. "We're going to get some breakfast."
Fin paused the video feed and added the clip number to the list he was compiling on a notepad next to his elbow. He had started in as soon as he had arrived that morning, noting each one that appeared to feature a different child performing a sex act on an adult man.
He would be sending it to the computer crimes unit to review. From there, the facial features of the kids could be searched against the National Registry for Missing and Exploited Children and then against the database for the Department of Child and Family Services.
The goal was to try and identify someone in the videos who may be in the foster care system or picked up as a runaway. They needed more victims to corroborate what Melissa Miller had claimed in order to try and find a perpetrator.
Because as of that moment, she had clammed up. Rollins and Tamin had gone over to DCFS three times since her initial identification of Elliot to question her further, but she had been reticent to talk about what had happened to her.
She seemed scared to relive it, not that they could blame her. They didn't want to push and traumatize her further. He couldn't imagine dealing with that as a grown man, let alone at 11 years old.
And that made Fin think of Elliot and become even more desperate to get a lead.
Elliot had yet to say a word about anything other than saying that he had been abducted at some unknown point. He wasn't sure if Olivia had told him about seeing his likeness in a photo with the girl or about the horrific discovery made by the doctor in Bridgeport. Until Elliot confirmed it, there was no way of proving anything.
They were sensing that their window of opportunity was slipping away the longer it took to find a suspect. That was worrisome enough. But he was also concerned about Olivia.
She had a tendency to envelope herself in cases that she took personally, even now that she was in charge. But since this case involved her former partner, he worried she might become more emotionally involved than strictly necessary and end up feeling the brunt of it.
He knew that she could handle herself just fine. But she was still his friend. And so was Elliot, if he was honest. He didn't want to see this destroy either of them.
He clicked on the next video. After watching for a few seconds, his stomach suddenly dropped.
He paused it fast.
"Shit," he muttered. "Oh, shit."
Elliot was silent as they drove across town to the diner she and Noah liked to frequent. She eyed him furtively, trying to gauge his physical condition without prying.
He definitely seemed calmer than when she had left him and he didn't have that frenzied manner about him anymore that made it look like he couldn't keep still. But he also seemed quieter and more subdued. He was turned almost completely away from her, making it nearly impossible to study him.
The restaurant was crowded and bustling when they got out of the car. Elliot walked slowly, almost like he wasn't lifting his feet, and trailed behind her and Noah slid into the opposite side of the booth from them once they were seated and didn't say anything.
The waitress appeared out of nowhere suddenly and Olivia cringed when he jumped.
Elliot didn't speak, so Olivia ordered drinks for herself and Noah. The waitress looked confused when he looked away instead of ordering. Olivia glanced at him. He looked like he was zoning out.
"You want anything?" she asked him softly.
He shook his head slightly. The waitress looked at him oddly and then moved away.
He slid stiffly out of the booth.
"Be right back," he muttered.
He headed for the bathroom. Olivia watched him walking away and began feeling a stirring of apprehension in her gut.
It deepened when the waitress came back twice and he still hadn't returned. She finally went ahead and ordered breakfast, seeing that Noah was hungry and knowing they didn't have long until he would need to be dropped off at school.
Once their breakfast had arrived and there was still no sign of Elliot, she sent Noah to check the men's room. Her son returned almost immediately, telling her no one was in there.
Confusion and worry gnawed at her as she looked around the restaurant. Then she looked out the window and saw Elliot outside, leaning against her car with his head down and his hands shoved in his pockets.
"Go ahead and eat," she said to her son. "I'm going to step outside for one second. I'll just be right there." She pointed out the window to show Noah. "Don't go anywhere."
Noah just nodded, already squirting a huge glob of jelly onto his toast.
Olivia left the booth and strode to the door. A gust of freezing air whipped into her face as she pushed it open.
She walked briskly across the parking lot to her car.
"Hey," she said as she approached Elliot. He looked over at her, his shoulders hunched up by his ears in an effort to keep warm, but didn't move from where he was slumped against the passenger side. "You alright?"
Elliot shrugged. She tried to look into his face but he seemed to deliberately be keeping his eyes averted.
"What are you doing out here?" she asked in concern.
He swallowed and finally looked at her. The expression of exhausted defeat he wore was painful to see and put a lump in her throat.
"I'm tired," he murmured. "Not really that hungry."
She looked at him sympathetically.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I should have asked if you felt up to coming. You want to go back to my place and get some rest? We can get our breakfast to go."
Elliot flushed, looking embarrassed, but not before she saw an expression of longing cross his face.
"You don't have to," he murmured, rubbing his face. Even his voice sounded fatigued. She kicked herself for not recognizing what was going on sooner. "I don't mind waiting out here."
He went on, very softly.
"I just...kind of can't breathe in there. Too many people."
She wanted to touch him, to reassure him somehow, but he seemed so tense that Olivia worried it might have the opposite effect. So she just hit the remote start on her key fob so that the heat would kick on inside and unlocked the doors.
"When Noah is done, we'll leave," she said. "We can't stay long anyway. He's got to get to school. I'll be going to work, so you'll have plenty of quiet to get some sleep."
"Are you sure it's okay if I stay?" he asked quietly.
Olivia looked at him strangely.
"Of course it is."
Her tone suggested that she couldn't believe he had even questioned it. Taking the chance, Olivia squeezed his shoulder and was relieved when he seemed to welcome the contact.
"You're always welcome at my place, Elliot," she said. "You never have to ask."
He didn't respond, but she saw him blinking rapidly.
"The heat's on in there," she said, gesturing to the car. "We'll be out in a minute."
He opened the car door and got in almost immediately.
Olivia went back inside. As her son finished eating, she added a second order of her own breakfast to her check and asked for it in a takeaway container.
She took Noah to school and then headed back to her apartment. Next to her, Elliot's head had sunk against the window and he looked like he couldn't hold it up.
She pulled up behind her building without him having to say it and left the engine running.
"Noah's babysitter brings him home at 3:30," she asked, turning to face him. "I'll let her know you're here so she won't disturb you coming in. Are you ok with that?"
Elliot turned his head and for a minute just blinked at her, like he wasn't hearing what she was saying. His eyes were practically wobbling and it almost scared her.
"Did you get any sleep at this place, Elliot?" she asked, appalled at the state he was in.
His eyelids drooped for a moment and he just shrugged.
"I'm ok," he said unconvincingly.
She had planned to give him her key and drop him off before heading to work. Now she was second-guessing if he could be trusted to safely navigate the stairs. He looked about to crash right there in the seat.
"I just need a few hours of shut-eye, Liv," he insisted, as if reading her mind. "I'm fine. Really."
She looked at him as if she didn't believe him as she removed her apartment key from the fob.
"Do you need help getting inside?" she asked cautiously. Not wanting to sound patronizing, she quickly added, "I'd rather not have to take you back to the E.R. with a broken nose from passing out going upstairs, is all I'm saying."
His attempt to look insulted only made him look dopey and she had to stifle a laugh.
"Fine," she said, handing over her key. "The code to open the door is 7-8-2-7." She also gave him the takeout bag. "I got you breakfast if you want it."
He took it and opened the car door.
"I'll be back around six, earlier if I can. Call me if you need anything."
He just nodded with a look that told her he didn't plan on doing so.
"Thank you," he said quietly.
She nodded and he went toward the service entrance. She waited until he had punched in the code and stepped inside before reluctantly driving away.
Elliot wasn't sure how he was even walking, but somehow he made it inside Olivia's apartment without registering having unlocked the door.
He wasn't fine, despite what he had told her. He was more tired than he had ever remembered feeling before, even more than when he had been out living in the street.
Out there he had been weary, but the drugs and constant adrenaline had made it nearly impossible to really feel sleepy. Once he finally did crash, he sank hard for a very short time and then started all over again.
This was different and much, much worse.
The craving for sleep had started the third night at the treatment center. He hadn't managed more than two hours a night there between the nightmares, constant distrust of the staff, and the abrupt feelings of intense terror that plagued him whenever the lights were out.
He took three steps toward Olivia's bedroom and then decided he couldn't make it another. He veered over to the couch instead.
He sank into the cushions, stretched out across the length, and pulled the blanket folded over the top onto himself. He closed his eyes with a sigh of relief and let the quiet of the empty apartment carry him into oblivion.
Except...it didn't.
The more he desperately tried to float into unconsciousness, the more his body refused to relax. Everything from the feeling of the blanket fibers against the flesh of his arms to the sporadic honking he could hear from outside was amplified in his overtired brain and sent pulses of nervous energy shooting through him.
He tossed and turned, trying as hard as he could, and then had to sit up when it became too much to withstand.
Elliot pushed his legs over the side and sat up straight, burying his face in his hands. He was almost about to weep, he wanted to sleep so badly.
His eyes traveled over to the bag on the counter that had he apparently placed there after coming in at some point. He didn't remember doing it.
He got up and robotically went toward it. He opened the takeout container and began eating what was inside without tasting it.
After a second, a thought came into his head and he reached into the jacket pocket.
He pulled out the bottle that Dr. Pearson had given him before telling him he had to leave that morning.
Wellbutrin, Extended-Release
300 mg
Take 1x a day with food.
Sighing, he shook a pill out into his palm and opened the fridge. He scanned the various cans and bottles inside but nothing particularly interested him. He turned to grab a handful of water from the kitchen sink and suddenly froze, his eyes falling on what was sitting on the counter beside it.
A container of ground coffee.
The thrill that shot through him was instinctual and strong as he reached for it eagerly.
Fin turned his head when he saw movement out of the corner of his eye and saw Olivia walking into the bullpen.
"Morning," he said.
She nodded at him without smiling.
"Hey," she said heavily.
He raised his eyebrows.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
Seeing that Amanda and Kat were currently away, she stopped rather than direct him to her office to talk.
"The detox unit made Elliot leave," she said. "They called early this morning and told me he had assaulted a staff member."
She was clearly upset. He looked at her sympathetically.
"Apparently, a male nurse came into his room this morning and scared him enough to try and defend himself," she went on heatedly. "They treated him like a criminal. They made him sit outside the damn building with a security guard until I got there, for God's sake."
"Shit," Fin murmured. "Where did he go?"
She shook her head.
"I dropped him at my apartment," she said. She sighed. "I don't even know if being there did anything for him. He hardly said a word other than that he was tired."
She saw Fin look at her with slight trepidation.
"So he still hasn't told you anything about what happened to him?" he asked.
Olivia shook her head, then noticed his expression change.
"What?" she asked.
He stood up, surprising her, and looked at her seriously.
"We should go into your office, Olivia," he said grimly. "There's something you need to see."
Rollins had just walked out from a meeting with the assistant district attorney and was heading back to the precinct when her phone rang. It took her a minute to recognize the number.
"Hi, Murph," she said, somewhat awkwardly.
She had been wondering if he would call since the morning that Olivia had asked for his number. She hadn't spoken to him in almost five years, despite his previous offer that she never took to help her financially support Jesse.
"How are you doing?" Declan asked.
"Fine," she answered. She didn't elaborate.
"How's Jesse?" he went on.
She didn't like talking to him about her daughter. It was decent of him to offer to support her, but Amanda had purposely moved on rather than let him have any contact.
"She's fine," she said.
Murphy got the hint and quickly changed the subject.
"Benson asked me for a favor," he said. "I'm going to need you to help because I can't risk sending it directly to her, not now that she's captain. She'll have brass all over the place and your squad will be in shit. Can you do that?"
She was confused but agreed anyway.
"You'll be getting a file sent to your personal email account," he continued. "Download it onto a flash drive. Once you do that, delete it from your server and give it to her. Make sure to tell her not to open it on a government computer."
"Ok," she answered.
"Amanda."
His tone hardened suddenly.
"We never talked," he said. "Do you understand? This conversation never happened."
Olivia went into the office and Fin followed her.
He had a look of absolute dread on his face that she immediately didn't like.
"Go to the website," he said quietly. "Fun4Everyone."
She opened her laptop and glanced at him while it loaded. He looked positively ashen.
The site appeared and asked for the password. He told it to her and she watched as dozens of video clips appeared once she was in.
He took a steadying breath.
"Go to the tenth row down," he continued. "Eighth video from the left."
She began scrolling.
"Olivia."
He spoke suddenly before she could click.
"Just...prepare yourself," he said softly.
When she looked back at him, something in his face told her exactly what she was about to see.
She suddenly wanted to throw up. She froze with her finger over the ENTER key, not wanting to press it.
She took a deep breath and clicked.
Unable to bear seeing it a second time, Fin averted his eyes as the clip began to play.
The lens focusing on the still form of a naked man laying unconscious on a mattress. She felt the blood drain from her face so fast that she became dizzy when she realized that the man was Elliot.
The person behind the camera zoomed in on his genitals for a moment. She looked away, swallowing hard in shame and hurt on his behalf and feeling rage coursing through her.
That's when another man entered the frame, too.
She felt herself stop breathing for a moment as she watched, horrified. The man undressed, keeping his back to the camera. He turned Elliot over and she watched her partner flop around like he had no bones at all.
"No."
She didn't even realize the desperate whisper had left her lips when she saw the man begin to straddle his backside. She wanted to close her eyes, but she couldn't.
Fin bit his lip, watching her painfully as her face began to twist in anguish.
The breaking point came for her when she suddenly heard agonized noises as the man began moving and recognized Elliot's voice.
He hadn't been unconscious after all.
Olivia abruptly swiveled her chair around so she didn't have to face Fin. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut against the tears threatening to burst out.
Fin listened to her breathing heavily through her nose like she was trying to keep from gagging. Her shoulders were shaking.
"I'm sorry," Fin said. "I wish I didn't have to show it to you."
She couldn't answer him for a minute. She took some hitching breaths until she was able to breathe normally and slowly turned back around.
"How many more of these videos do you have left to go through?" she finally asked unsteadily.
He shook his head.
"Every day, a new one gets added," he said. "We've probably watched over a hundred."
He paused.
"Olivia," he said carefully. "There's a bigger problem."
She blew out a breath.
"What?' she asked dreadfully.
He came around the desk and stood beside her.
"Even as new ones are being added, the previous ones stay the same," he said. He gestured to the files beside the one currently open. "They are in chronological order. The first one was uploaded all the way back in 2010."
Fin closed the file they had been watching and scrolled up to the very top row.
"This one is the only one we've seen of the girl so far, " he said, clicking on a file. He paused it when it opened so they didn't have to view it and pointed to the corner. "It's date stamped. It was uploaded in October of last year."
He closed it and then scrolled back down to the one with Elliot in it. He opened and then paused it.
"Look at the date stamp," he said quietly.
Olivia looked.
Then she paled.
"2015?" she whispered in shock.
He looked at her regretfully.
"This video of Elliot," he said, "was taken four years before hers was." He swallowed hard. "There aren't any older videos with any girls that look less than maybe nine, at the youngest."
She followed his train of thought, her stomach twisting.
"If we just go by these videos," Fin went on, "she looks to be the same age in them that she was in the photo we saw with Elliot. So if he was in a video from 2015 and a picture from 2019-"
"He had to have been with whoever took them that entire time," she finally said weakly. "Oh, God."
Overcome with anguish, she pressed her fist against her closed eyes.
"Oh, God."
For a long few moments, the office was silent.
Finally, she spoke in a choked voice.
"Get that girl talking, Fin," she said. "I don't care what it takes. We need to find out who is doing this. Today."
She looked at Fin with fire in her eyes.
"Get Rollins back to DCFS. Ask her more questions," she said. "Talk to the doctor in Bridgeport and get copies of every single record taken that night the victims came in. Find out names of every person involved in the rescue. If he won't do it, we'll get a court order. There has to be someone who knows details that we don't have."
Fin nearly took a step back out of self-preservation. She looked like she was about to throw something.
"Got it," he said.
But he didn't move. Olivia raised her eyebrows and he tilted his head. He spoke frankly yet gently.
"You know that girl is not the one we need to get talking, Olivia," he said delicately.
She took a shuddering breath and looked away.
"Yeah," she said painfully. "I know."
Rollins came into the bullpen and headed immediately for her desk. She switched the computer on.
"Amanda," Fin said, walking over to her. She looked toward him. "Cap wants you to go to DCFS and question the girl again. Try and get some specifics from her about people she remembers, if you can."
She nodded.
"Just give me one second," she said.
She waited for him to leave and then logged onto her personal email account. The usual flood of messages popped up, but none from a sender that she recognized.
She searched through them and then stopped at one that simply read "urgent" in the subject line.
Normally, she would have ignored it as spam, except for the sender name. It had been sent from "Baird."
"Baird" was Declan Murphy's middle name. He had told her one night when they had met for drinks years ago.
That was the night that Jesse had ended up being conceived.
She glanced around to be sure no one was looking and then opened the message. It contained a file. She clicked on it, looked it over for a minute, and then slid the flash drive into the monitor.
Once the file transferred, she deleted the message and pushed away from the desk. She walked over to Olivia's office and knocked.
Olivia took a minute to scrub the tears lingering dangerously in her eyes and put on a hard face.
"Come in," she said.
Amanda stepped inside.
"I'm on my way to talk to Melissa Miller," she said. She came closer to the desk and lowered her voice. "Murphy said to give you this. Open it on a personal computer. "
She put the flash drive in the middle of the desk and walked back out without another word.
Olivia swallowed as she took it.
When she got home that evening, Elliot wasn't there.
Olivia was taken by surprise when Noah's babysitter told her that the apartment had been empty when they had arrived after school and and for the the four hours since then.
It made no sense. He had been practically asleep on his feet when she had left that morning. On top of that, he had still been wearing the sweatpants and house slippers that he had been given at the treatment center and she could see Fin's coat draped over a kitchen chair.
He wasn't exactly dressed for a jaunt around the city in the middle of the winter. So where was he?
She tried not to let her imagination run wild. But as it got later and it started getting close to Noah's bedtime, Olivia started becoming frantic.
She couldn't take her son out at that time of night. She tried not to show her anxiety as she kissed Noah goodnight and closed his bedroom door. But her heart thudded with panic anyway as she walked to the living room window and looked worriedly out the window to the sidewalk below.
She thought about calling Fin, or maybe getting a squad car out looking for him. It didn't seem right that he would just leave like this.
Just then heard a key in the front door lock. The relief that flooded her made her dizzy.
She quickly strode to the door as it slowly opened.
It took a long minute before Elliot actually stepped through. He looked to be concentrating hard to put one foot in front of the other.
He nearly ran into her. She watched him jump in surprise as if he hadn't expected her to be standing there.
"Hey," she said, looking perplexed. "Where did you go?"
He looked at her with his eyes wide, like he was struggling to keep them focused on her.
"For a walk," he replied.
His words seemed deliberately slow. He took a step past her, wobbling slightly, and her eyebrows shot up in disbelief when the strong scent of alcohol hit her.
"Are you drunk?" she asked incredulously.
He turned to face her and had to hold onto a kitchen chair to keep his balance.
"Maybe...a little bit," he said. A lopsided grin came over his face that seemed both horrible and foreign. "I only had one." He huffed out a chuckle. "A big one."
Olivia felt despair rising inside of her. After what she had found out that day, seeing him like this now was getting her close to breaking.
"How did you get it?" she asked.
He shrugged lazily.
"Not..like it's hard," he replied. He chuckled again and blinked owlishly, obviously inebriated. "Just gotta know...who to ask."
She shook her head in frustration, struggling to control her emotions and not wake up Noah.
"A heads up next time might be nice, Elliot," she said. "I was worried. I almost sent a uniform out after you."
Elliot lowered himself sloppily into a chair and dropped his forehead right against the table.
"Sorry," he said dully. He didn't lift his head. "Didn't mean to make you worry."
His words were slurred and muffled by the table. He sounded disturbingly similar to how Noah did whenever she caught him doing something she didn't allow.
She hooked her hands over the back of the chair opposite him, softening her voice. She didn't want him to think she was trying to fight with him.
"What's going on, Elliot?" she asked "Why are you drunk?"
He lifted his head and she could see uncertainty in his eyes. She raised her eyebrows slightly, trying to encourage him to talk to her.
He swallowed hard, looking anguished.
"I broke your coffee maker."
She thought at first she had misheard. She furrowed her brow, seeing he was watching her for her reaction, and then shook her head.
"Oh," she said in confusion.
She glanced over at the french press and noticed the top was bent and no longer fit over the carafe. She shrugged, not understanding his point.
"Well...that's okay," she went on. "Don't worry about it."
Elliot shook his head.
"They wouldn't let me have coffee at the treatment center," he said. "And I saw yours and suddenly couldn't remember the last time I tasted it."
Tears sprang to his eyes.
"But when I tried to make it, I couldn't figure out how to use the machine. " He sounded almost heartbroken. "I've never seen it before."
He looked at her with a sadness on his face that made her want to cry.
"Nothing is the way I remember. Everything is different. It feels like my life stopped but everything else moved on." He paused and then continued quietly. "Even you."
His words were like a punch to the gut. She could see him fighting back tears.
"I left when I saw Noah coming from school today," he said shakily. He looked at her anxiously. "I can't...I'm scared to be near him. Every time I look at him, I think about-"
He gagged suddenly and leaped to his feet. He rushed over to the sink.
Olivia's heart ached as she listened to him vomit. She swallowed tearfully, coming over slowly and laying a hand on his back. She felt his muscles spasming with each heave as he threw up the beer he'd drank.
He groaned and spit, shivering hard. He clutched the sink with white knuckles and looked up at her miserably.
"I didn't intend to drink," he said. "I thought if I didn't, I might...I might go looking for drugs again."
He sobbed suddenly.
"I tried to sleep today and I couldn't. I'm so tired...I haven't slept in nearly a week."
He gulped tearfully and his words became a desperate whimper.
"I just want to sleep, Olivia. I don't want to think about it anymore. I can't handle it."
She drew in a pained breath and gently pulled on his shoulders until he turned slightly. She drew him into a tight embrace. He resisted for a minute and then suddenly buried his face against her, giving up.
"Let me help you," she murmured, stroking his hair. "Please, Elliot. Tell me what happened to you. I can help you."
He gasped out a breath and lifted his face to look at her.
"No," he said sorrowfully, shaking his head. He moved away abruptly. "No, you can't, Olivia. Not anymore."
She looked at him desperately.
"What do you mean?" she insisted. "I'm your partner, Elliot-"
"No, you're NOT! "
He said it so voraciously that she was struck speechless. He swallowed hard, shaking.
"You're not my partner anymore, Olivia," he said weakly. "You're the captain of SVU."
He shook his head.
"If I were to tell you everything that happened," he went on, sounding hopeless, "you would have to arrest me."
He suddenly looked terrified.
"You wouldn't have a choice."