A/N: Thanks for the reviews, I honestly can't believe you guys like it so much... LoL. Hope you like the next chapter... I mean this chapter, this one, that I'm posting right now... CHAPTER TWO, OKAY?! lol. I frusterate myself sometimes... Read and Review, perdy pwease!!

Chapter Two

Olivia's POV

I had sat in that hospital room for hours and had become so used to the white sterile walls that when I left, everything seemed dark. Natalie had insisted that I sit with her until her parents flew in from Florida, where they were looking at real estate. It took them two hours to find a flight, and almost eight hours to fly up. Through all that time, I didn't sleep.

Natalie did. She fell asleep at ten thirty four. I know, I was looking at the clock the hospital has on the walls. Before she fell asleep, she asked me again why she was staying at the hospital. All I could tell her was, "We want to make sure your not hurt."

That, and I just didn't want to take her home.

If her parents left a thriteen-year-old girl alone to look at real estate in Florida, I didn't want to take her back to that house. No wonder she worked so hard on her grades. She was thriving for their attentention. Don't ask me how I know that. It's my intuition talking.

Her parents came rushing in at four in the morning, and they didn't seem tired at all. Just worried. As the mother wrapped her arms around her daughter, weeping, the father pulled me aside.

"Hello, I'm Tom Derranger," he introduced, holding out his hand. I shook it.

"I'm Detective Benson, my partner, Detective Stabler, and I will be working on your daughter's case," I told him, as was procedure. He nodded.

"I just wanted you to know that anything we can do to help you, you've got it. Here and now," he promised and I nodded.

"Thank you, that's very helpful," I said, but inside I was thinking, Oh, sure, now you're going to pay attention to her. Great timing, buddy.

"Are there any questions you need to ask me? Anything at all?"

"Actually, yes," I said. I wanted to get some background information on Natalie, to find out what type of girl she was. "Natalie said she was an A student. Was she?"

"I'm, uh, not sure," he said, shifting uncomfortably. "She never showed us her report cards."

"Oh, I see," I said, my voice remaining neutral, but inside, I was disapproving. I knew I shouldn't have been. I had no idea what it was like to raise a child, but still, shouldn't you at least know what her grades were? To me that was a given. "Was she helpful around the house?"

"Yes, very," he agreed. "Often without our prompting.

Why am I not surprised, I thought, but didn't say it out loud. "Did she stay after school often?"

"Yes," he said, but then thought about it. "I mean, no. I'm not exactly sure."

"Did she have any problems with certain teachers?" I asked.

"I wouldn't know," he said, beginning to sound disgruntled. "I'd never met any of them."

"What about friends? Does she have any close friends?"

"Yes," he said, sounding relieved that he could finally give a straight answer. "She mentioned a girl... Annie Prescott. I think they're close."

"Good, thank you," I said, closing up my notebook. "That's very helpful."

I began walking out of the room, but Tom caught my arm. "Are you going to catch this guy?"

"We're working on it."

I walked into the waiting room and I was surprised to see Elliot still there. I walked over to him.

"Aren't you going home?" I asked. He shook his head, groggily, like he was having a hard time staying awake, and stood up.

"I can't go home... not right now..."

And I understood. He didn't want to see Lizzie. He didn't want to have to wonder about her, about whether or not this guy, this monster, had hurt her, too. The attack had taken place outside of a school. Who knew how many girls he had hurt?

Elliot yawned and stretched his arms up above his head. "You get anything?"

"Notta," I said, and we began to walk out of hte hospital. "Those parents don't know a thing about this girl. They didn't even know what her grades were. I did, however, get the name of a friend. Annie Prescott."

"If Natalie was having problems with anybody, this girl's gonna know," Elliot said, opening the door for me. I stepped into the cold, November air and shivered, realizing that I had left my coat in the car. But I soon forgot about it as I opened the passenger door and slipped inside. There was a tiny slip of paper sitting on my jacket. I looked around, wondering who had put it there, and then looked at the window. It was open a crack. I must have accidentally rolled it down. As I opened the paper, Elliot started the car.

"What's that?" he asked, leaning over to read over my shoulder.

"A note," I said, "from another girl."

"Dear Cops,
I saw you take Natalie to the hospital, and followed you on the bus. I hope that's not stalking, cause if it is, I sure am sorry. See, I was at the school, standing outside the door, cause I needed to talk to Wurst bout an assignment, and I heard what was goin on. I heard bout Natalie, and I sure am sorry that she had to go through that. And it makes me kinda sorry I stole her lunch every day in the third grade. But my point is, it happened to me, too. I just ain't been brave enough to come forward till now. I think you cops can help me. Thanks.
- Miss Annie Prescott, 8th grader."

"Annie Prescott?" Elliot said in my ear. "Isn't that..."

"Her dad said he thought Annie was her friend," I said. "He said Natalie talked about her a lot. She wasn't talking about her because she was her friend..."

"She was a bully," Elliot said. "And another vic."

I sighed as Elliot started moving the car forward. "Which means," I informed him, as if he didn't already know, "that we've got a serial child molester on our hands."

When Elliot and I returned to the squad room, we were shocked to see John Munch still there. He wasn't really doing anything, just staring off into space, like he was thinking. When he saw us approach, he looked up.

"Did you take my advice, Elliot?" he asked, but Elliot ignored him. I gave him an apologetic smile.

"Sorry, John, we had a rough night," I said, sitting down at my desk. "Is Cragen in?"

"Is he ever not?" Munch asked, rhetorically, and I smiled again. Elliot, however, just walked over to Cragen's office.

"I'll tell him, Liv," he said, and I was thankful for it. I didn't want to relive the night to my boss. Of course, I should have known that by staying with Munch, I would have had to relay it either way.

"Tell him what?" John asked me, after the office door closed behind Elliot. I sighed and launched into an explanation. After I was done, all John could do was curse over and over again.

"What about Lizzie?" he asked me after his river of profanity had run dry. "Who's going to tell her?"

"None of us," I said, authoritatively. "She doesn't need to know."

"There's a serial child molester who attacks kids outside of her school, Liv," John pointed out, as if I had skipped over that fact in the investigation. "I think she has a right to know what's going on."

"I think she has a right to her own innocence for a little while longer," I argued, trying desperately to get through to him. He sighed and leaned back in his chair.

"You have a point," he said. "I hate it when you do that."

I gave him a half-hearted smile. "Yeah... sometimes I do, too."

"Well, just so you know, Fin and I would be happy to talk to this Prescott girl in the morning, so you and El can get some rest, okay?" he offered, and I gratefully took him up on it. Elliot, however, was not pleased.

"No way," he said, firmly, when John repeated the idea to him. "My daughter, my case."

"She's not your daughter, El," I pointed out. "Annie Prescott is a girl we don't even know."

"A girl who came to us, Liv," he countered. "Not to John and Fin."

"Just because you guys were there," John pointed out. "What, you think I can't handle a teenager? Lizzie likes me."

"Lizzie is a strange child," Elliot noted, and John had to nod in agreement.

"True, but how do you know this kid isn't going to like me, too?"

"Because you don't like kids," Elliot said. John opened his mouth to argue, but Elliot hastily added, "Except Lizzie."

"Look, Elliot, I want a rest this morning," I said, jumping back into the argument. "I'm tired, I'm hungry, and I just need some time to work stuff out, okay? Please, let him talk to Annie. For my sake."

"Fine," Elliot consented, reluctantly. "Fine. But don't scare her, okay, John?"

John narrowed his eyes. "Am I really that scary?"

"Yes!" Elliot and I said at the same time. John just rolled his eyes, and I made my way up to the crib, for what I felt would be the last time until this case was over.