CHAPTER TITLE: "The Trailing Edge"

PAIRINGS: None specified

SEASON: Late Season Four. Alex Cabot is still around and the Stabler marriage is still, well, stable-ish.
RATING: M
WARNINGS: Language. Angst. Lots of angst. Big frakkin angst fest. (Like the rest hasn't been one, lol)

SUMMARY: Vengeance reigned, life was disrupted, and now faith in a legal system they'd given everything for is being shredded in the wake..

DISCLAIMERS: See Chapter 1

AUTHOR'S NOTES: I am so sorry that this took so long to update. Multiple deaths in the family and a job layoff in the last 3 months delayed my muses. Thank you SO so much to those of you who emailed asking over me/the story. It really means a lot to know you're still interested. Now let's get on with the show.

"The Trailing Edge"

(Two days later)
Thursday Jan 23rd
1:35 pm
Fairview Cemetery, Fairview

Donald Cragen hated winter.

He hated the snow. He hated the cold. He hated the way the sun would shine on clear days, but offer absolutely no heat through its rays. It was insulting, really. Cruel. If a season was going to make life cold for five months solid, the damn sun shouldn't shine at all.

Certainly not on days like this.

The captain heaved a quiet sigh as he looked around him. The service was over. The throng of people was starting to thin out as the friends and family who had come to honour and mourn Jay Wheylan started to leave. Dress shoes crunched over dead grass as their respective owners sidestepped mounds of snow that, now the storm had passed, was being given an opportunity to melt. Quiet murmurings filled the air, soft conversation mingled with smatterings of sniffs and cleared throats.

Jay had passed away Tuesday night. The damage had been too severe, the extent of it too overwhelming. Infection had set in late that afternoon and as the clocks had reached nine o'clock, his heart finally failed. Don got the call at a quarter after. He'd known it would come...but that knowledge had not prepared him for what the eventuality would do to him when it happened.

He'd been told countless time since by people who thought they knew best that it wasn't his fault. He'd heard it all - he'd had no choice, his call that morning had saved lives, him or them, and on and on. Regardless of how it was said, the fact remained a cold weight in his chest...

He had gotten one of his officers killed that day.

Cragen shifted his posture. He felt uncomfortable in his strictly proper dress uniform and the cap felt as if it weighed a ton. He took it off and rubbed a hand over his head. He was getting a headache; he did not want to be dressed like this. Not for this reason. A sideways glace at the departing crowd made him wish he'd thought to bring his sunglasses. Something to hide behind as he stared at the polished mahogany casket before him, the spray of gladiolas and stargazer lilies on its lid twitching slightly in the faint breeze. The flag was gone. It had been given to Jay's mother, and Don could not meet her eyes again. The look in them as he'd presented her with that flag not ten minutes earlier was enough to sour him from letting his eyes wander at all, lest they fall on someone else who harboured the same expression she had.

"Cap."

Don turned. Elliot was standing next to him, hands in the pockets of his coat. He didn't say anything else, but the captain took his approach to mean that the others were ready to go now as well. He looked past Stabler a couple of yards. Alex stood off by herself a few feet, waiting patiently. Munch stood next to Fin, who was standing next to Olivia. Benson's long coat was just resting draped over her shoulders. His eyes flicked down a bit - between folds of the coat, Fin's left hand discreetly held her right.

He was surprised his two detectives had come. Olivia was still on pain meds three times a day and the dark bruising around Fin's eye hadn't yet started to fade, but they each had insisted they attend the funeral. Maybe he shouldn't have been surprised at all, considering how well he knew the both of them. He'd spoken briefly with them just a few hours ago; there had been many things in each's eyes, but blame in any fashion had not been among them.

Cragen wished he could say the same of himself.

Elliot watched his captain closely and could see by the look in his eyes where his thoughts were taking him. Elliot had been down that road. He glanced briefly at Olivia, who was walking back to Alex's car. He sighed and looked away. He was still at the dead end of it. "We should go," he said quietly to Cragen. His eyes tracked the funeral home workers as they milled about somewhat restlessly across the small road that ran through the cemetery. "Think the home wants to finish closing the site."

There was a moment absent of reaction, and then Don nodded. "Yeah." He slid his cap back on and then turned his back on the gravesite and followed his detective to the road, his own shoes folding blades of yellow dead grass beneath their soles.

He hated winter.

4:30 pm
Precinct

Soft 'clinks' sounded through the squad room. Elliot had dumped his pen mug out on his desk and was absently tossing the pens back into it. This would be round five. He was trying to ignore the fact that Olivia wasn't looking at him, and hadn't the entire day thus far. He looked away.

John, ever the obsessive compulsive, was straightening up what was left of the mess the crisis team had made of the squad room and though Cragen had given both Fin and Olivia till at least Sunday off, Tutuola too had wanted to come in for a few hours after the service just to square away some of his days-old work.

They were all waiting for Cragen's door to open. Andrew Hedges' trial was today. Considering the fact he'd confessed and pleaded guilty, all they were really waiting for was the sentencing to finish. As soon as that verdict was in, they could close at least one case this month and go home.

'Clink'. Last pen for round five. Elliot grabbed the mug and upended it. Time for round six. "How's the eye?" He directed at Fin after a moment.

"S'good," the other man replied from his desk after a second. "Prolly get the stitches out by Saturday."

'Clink.' "Good."

Silence.

'Clink'. He debated for a second over whether or not conversation was wise, then threw caution to the wind and looked across his desk to his partner as she wrote something on hers. "How's your arm?" 'Clink.'

Olivia kept writing. Didn't look up. "It's fine," was the short, quiet reply.

Elliot cheered mentally. 'Clink.' It wasn't much but at least, if she had to, she was speaking to him. It still didn't matter what she said, just hearing her voice while being able to see her right in front of him at the same time was enough.

'Clink.'

Cragen watched from the window of his office as Elliot looked around the squad room for someone else to try to make conversation with. The precinct as a whole had been giving the Special Victims Unit a wide berth since Tuesday morning. None of the other officers came in unless they had to, and when they did they didn't say anything more than was necessary to get their job done and then they were gone again. It was as if this unspoken announcement had been made through the precinct that the unit required solitude to recover from this.

The captain, personally, thought that the exact opposite was probably more accurate with regards to some things. In fact, as he watched two of his people he was sure of it. They didn't need solitude to heal.

They needed help.

All four detectives looked up from what they were doing as he opened his door, blinds on the window rattling as they swung, and stepped out. He met their expectant gazes with a short nod. "Jury only took ten minutes," he reported. "Thirty-five with the possibility of parole after thirty." He paused. "Go home people."

It didn't take any of them long to acquiesce his suggestion, and they each stood grabbing their coats. A frown creased the already furrowed lines in his forehead as he watched Olivia leave the squad room first and fastest, not speaking to any of them as she pulled her coat over her shoulders. Munch and Fin were not far behind her leaving just as hastily, but something about Benson's exit worried him. Her posture, her face...several things were at work there and piece by piece Cragen could tell whatever it all added up to was destroying his detective if they hadn't already. He decided to try and fix at least one of those forces where he could.

"Elliot." Cragen stopped Stabler before he could make his own getaway.

Elliot pulled his coat on. He rubbed at the corner of one eye as he closed the desk drawer he'd gotten his keys from. "Yeah."

Don put his hands in his pockets. His dress cap lay abandoned on his desk behind him. "This has to stop."

"Sorry?"

Cragen looked at him pointedly. "Have you talked to her?"

Elliot's posture sagged and after a moment he shook his head. "No."

"Elliot--"

"I can't, Cap. Not yet."

"You're going to have to face her eventually."

"I don't deserve it."

"You do." There was a pause. Cragen's next words made him look up. "So does she."

Elliot stared. He didn't respond. Didn't know how, or with what. Cragen was right, but Elliot didn't know how to make it right by Olivia. Wasn't sure he could.

Don nodded at him when he didn't get a reaction that signaled he was about to argue. "Go home, Elliot. I don't want to see you back in this building until you and Olivia can look each other in the eye as partners again."

Elliot didn't reply other than to sigh heavily. God he hated it when Cragen did things like this. He wanted simple. Simple was synonymous with avoidant right now. After a few more seconds, Don won the stare-off and Elliot looked away. Without a word he turned and left the squad room, flipping his lamp off as he passed his desk.

Don's eyes followed him until he rounded the squad room doors. With a sigh of his own he turned and went back into his office.

He didn't think he'd be seeing the other man again until well after Sunday.

xxx
4:40 pm

"Alex it's okay, really." Pause. "Yeah I'm sure. A cab is not a big deal." Another pause. A small smile. "Yes, I'm really sure. I'll be fine." Pause. "You bet. See you tomorrow."

Olivia closed her phone, her new phone, and stood on the sidewalk staring at cars without seeing them. Distant sirens were reverberating off the city around her. She couldn't go out the back doors like usual. The back doors led to the parking terrace. Across the parking terrace lay the charred remains of Warner's building. And she couldn't bring herself to face that devastation just yet. She had too much other wreckage to clear first.

She was frustrated and angry. More at the position she now found herself in, though, than at any one person in particular and certainly not at Alex. Heaving a puff of air up her forehead she opened her phone again to call a cab in case she was unsuccessful in flagging one down on the spot. She didn't put an outstanding amount of effort into it though; she was feeling lazy and totally unmotivated. She was seriously considering just walking.

"Olivia!"

She turned as Fin came trotting down the front steps. She closed the flip. "Hey."

"Thought you was riding with Cabot."

"Yeah." Benson offered a thin smile. "Something's come up. She just called. Probably won't be leaving until at least seven."

Fin's dark face creased. "Something bad?"

"She wouldn't say." She opened her phone again.

"Wanna ride?"

"It's okay."

"Really s'no trouble."

She shook her head. "It's out of your way, Fin," she said absently, her attention half on the ringing phone, half somewhere else entirely. "I'm fine."

Fin processed that for a second then came to a quick decision. She wasn't 'fine'. She looked distracted, out of sorts. Off. "Tell you what." He reached out and took her phone from her, closing it gently and disregarding the look she shot him. "How 'bout I don't make it question. I drive you home. I still owe you that coffee. We go somewhere halfway, that way when we're done it's not out of my way."

Olivia stared at him silently while she considered this new option. It was either this, a cab, or... Well shit. Once again, Tutuola had presented her with a way out of dealing with her par... with Elliot, her mind solemnly corrected itself. She couldn't be sure the word 'partner' applied to them anymore. She relented with a tired smile. "Deal."

"Good." Fin smiled, petulantly triumphant in his victory over a woman that he knew precious few could say they'd ever won an argument with. He handed her phone back as he led them across the street to his car. His locks clicked open. "Know anywhere that's halfway?"

Her chuckle was lost against the muffled 'whump whump' of his car doors being pulled closed.

8:47 pm
Office of Elizabeth Donnelly

"Alex, I'm sorry." Elizabeth Donnelly held up her hands. This was the second time in two months she'd had the other woman in her office about this case, and both were very tired of being here.

"You have to do something," Alex protested. "Anything." She was not above begging, and after nearly five hours of legal banter, yelling, and the tossing about of mutually vindictive obscenities, was getting very close to doing just that. "This can't end like this. Not for them."

"There's nothing I can do, counselor. I can't rewrite the law nor the way we uphold it."

"You've got strings for God's sake, Elizabeth, pull some!"

"I want to see justice done with our cases as much as you, Alex," the older woman said as calmly as a woman about to lose her temper could. "He's already been put away for twenty-five to life.."

"For shooting a police officer," Alex interrupted hotly, still unable to believe what was going down. "Not for murder. You're telling me that I have to go back to that precinct and tell four detectives that the law's just walked all over them, stomped their efforts into the ground..."

"You can word it however you like, Alex." Donnelly crossed her hands over her desk. "But I suggest you tell them the truth, and that you do it before they have to hear it through the proverbial grapevine."

"But we have bodies.."

"Bodies that only prove they were murdered, not by whom."

"This is unbelievable..." Cabot shook her head, hands at her hair, and tried to control herself. "How is this fair?" She dropped her hands and rested them on her hips, an almost accusatory look on her face. "Tell me how this is fair."

Donnelly sighed and stood. "No one said this job was fair, Alex. What happened, happened. We can't change it. We take it as it comes and now we just have to deal with it the best we can."

"That's a fabulous consolation to the two women buried upstate," Alex snapped.

"Their problems are over," Elizabeth said with the cold finality she was so famous for. A finality that signaled this conversation was over. She pulled her coat from the rack standing in the corner. "Ours are just beginning, counselor, and the whole department, not just SVU, is going to feel it. I suggest we focus on that." She nodded at the door.

Alex stared at her agape for several seconds. Unable to think of something suitable to say to keep this argument going in the hopes she might win, she spun on her heel and stormed out of the office.

God she hated her job sometimes. The heat propelling her steps didn't abate even after she'd gotten out of the courthouse, doors slamming.

Friday Jan 24th
7:15 am
Precinct

Olivia avoided eye contact with everyone she could as she made through the halls towards headquarters. She dreaded the moment she stepped in the squad room because she knew the second she walked in she'd get...

"I thought I gave both of you the week off."

That.

Benson fought a sigh as she moved to the wall to hang her coat and stow her gloves. She offered Cragen a totally unfeeling smile as she went to her desk. Fin was already sitting at his. "I ahh.." She shrugged her one shoulder. "I just wanted to come in today," she supplied.

It was a blatant lie. She didn't want to be here. But stronger than her wish to be at home was her need to be surrounded by her squad. If let alone, she would think, and thinking only got her into trouble in recent days.

Don lifted an eyebrow and she smiled again to appease his concern, stating, "I'll take it easy. I just need something to do."

That seemed to be enough and he didn't press the issue any further. "How's Doc Warner?"

"I called before I left," she answered, glad to be moving away from the previous train of conversation. "The service starts at nine. She seems to be holding up okay."

"Dante?" John asked, watching both her and Fin discreetly but closely.

"Yeah." Olivia nodded. "Private service. Family only. But his parents knew how highly he spoke of Warner so..." she trailed off. "Couple other techs will be there as well."

"Good. Tangent incoming," Cragen started. "Any of you heard from Cabot lately?"

Fin made a face. "What?" Where'd that come from?

"Alex?" Olivia puzzled. "I talked to her last night around four-thirty," she offered. "Why?" Her chest hitched with a sense of dread that had been tightening steadily since Tuesday night.

"I got a phone call from her at about ten o'clock last night, said there was a problem."

"She say what?" Asked Fin.

Don shook his head. "Didn't want to talk about it over the phone. I tried calling her at home this morning but she's already left and she's not picking up her mobile.."

He cut off, glancing out the squad room into the hall as a Coke machine vendor clattered along the tile with his stock. Ordinarily the captain wouldn't have paid a woman there in that hall any mind, except for the fact that this one pulled a passing officer aside and he faintly head his name leave her lips. He did not recognize her.

The officer she'd flagged down nodded and then looked into the squad room and gestured right at Don. He frowned as the woman smiled a thanks and approached, the heels of her dress shoes clicking on the barren floor. She ignored the other detectives at their desks as she weaved through them right up to the captain.

"There something I can help you with, ma'am?" He inquired as she'd clearly come here with a purpose that involved him.

"You're Captain Donald Cragen?"

"I am."

She reached out and handed him a stack of papers, folded in thirds. "Best of luck to you, sir," she said kindly and professionally as he took them with a quizzical look on his face. She turned around and left the squad room, leaving him bewildered and nervous. He felt like he'd just been served...

Well aware that his officers were watching him, Cragen unfolded the papers and turned them to read what had been typed on the legal paper. After a few seconds he blinked and his arms dropped to his sides. A dark look filled his eyes as they darted to the doors. "You've got to be kidding." Son of a bitch...now he knew what Alex wanted him for.

Three pairs of eyes followed his in watching her, waiting. When it was clear the mystery woman had fully cleared the squad room and was well out of earshot, those eyes turned on him.

"The hell was that about?" Fin wondered aloud for all three of them.

"Jay's family is suing the department for damages." Cragen slapped the papers down on Elliot's empty desk, his eyes tracking Fin and Olivia - this would affect them in ways it wouldn't the rest of the precinct.

Stunned silence reigned for several seconds before the words registered and anger sunk in. Fin's expression was the first to harden. "The hell for!" He exclaimed.

Olivia reached out and snatched up the stack of papers, something that scared her swelling hot and fast. She read quickly and then shook her head in disbelief. "They're citing us for negligence in not catching Jay's "..state of mental health prior to his apparent psychotic break.."," she quoted from the papers she held. "They're saying we could have prevented it." She set the papers down and looked up. "They can't possibly think they have a case here..." She couldn't believe what she'd just read and she was surprised at what it was doing to her.

"Captain." No one got the chance to answer as George Huang came striding into the squad room. He saw the looks on their faces and knew. "Don, I'm so sorry," he began in a rush. "They caught me as I was leaving this morning, I tried to get here before them.."

"They deal you this crap too?" Cragen pulled the papers from Benson's hand.

The profiler nodded. "They don't have any kind of case," he assured them..or tried to. "I evaluated Jay myself less than a month ago. There was nothing to suggest that he was at all mentally unstable or otherwise psychologically unfit for duty. They're digging. They're angry and they're hurt, we just happen to be the largest outlet for that grief."

"This is ludicrous," Olivia piped up, unable to contain it any longer. "We were down there, Cap, the only reason any of it happened in the first place was because of Ryan."

"I know."

"Makes perfect sense then right? Your nephew gets your son killed, so go ahead and blame the cops they held at gunpoint for eighteen hours."

"I'm not saying we just let this go to a hearing," Don said strongly. There was a fire in her eyes Cragen was not accustomed to seeing there and it actually scared him.

"The fact we even have to fight something like this is insulting...I mean, this is what we get for what we do now? A lawsuit?"

"Olivia.." Cragen started to get stern.

"Just...don't," she snapped and stood up. She knew the drill; leave now, come back when you were cool. She pulled a wad of change off her desk and without a word left the squad room.

"Think she's got a little Stabler in her," John quipped somewhat darkly.

Cragen looked at Huang.

"I'll address it," the profiler said quickly, for he had been selected to be the one to talk with both Tutuola and Benson regarding their experience and was set to sit down with Olivia on Monday.

"Buncha bull crap," Fin muttered with an angry shake of his head as Cragen went into his office to begin his list of phone calls.

xxx
2:23 pm

Cragen watched his detectives from his office. John was telling some story or another and Fin wasn't paying any attention. Olivia was rolling her neck and popping what, he suspected, was probably a painkiller. Her temper had cooled somewhat in the last few hours, but he still got the impression that at the smallest spark the scale would tip again and he'd lose her to a dark side he'd never witnessed in her before. Obviously things had not yet been resolved between her and Elliot because Stabler hadn't come in today.

He was glad that so far nothing more than paperwork was being done today. No cases had come through. Even if one had, he would have had to sign it off to another department; as things stood right now, his people couldn't handle it. He wouldn't even let them try what with Fin and Olivia still recovering physically, Elliot unwilling to bend to his pride, and now the legal mess with...

"Alex."

Cragen looked up as he heard Olivia speak the name. The A.D.A. was coming into the squad room looking harried.

"Captain's been looking for you."

Don was striding out of his office as Cabot was approaching it. "This is horseshit, Alex," he began.

She nodded and looked at everyone. Damn, so they'd heard it from other sources first anyway. "I know, Captain, and I'm so sorry. Believe me, I'm just as angry. I've been in meetings with Donnelly all day trying to find a way through it."

"Donnelly?" Olivia had a puzzled look on her face. What did she have to do with the lawsuit?

"I've been trying to get her to..." Cabot let her thoughts trail as she looked around the room. A nervous smile crept onto her face. "Why do I get the feeling that we're not angry about the same thing?"

"You've not heard?" Olivia asked her.

"Heard what?" She was feeling desperate now.

Cragen handed her the papers and she slid her glasses on. A moment passed while she read and then she looked up with a shocked expression. "This can't be serious."

"Huang got slapped with the same thing."

"Good God," Cabot rubbed her eyes and handed the suit notice back.

"What good news'd you wake up to?" Fin asked with a jerk of his head her direction.

Alex felt ill. So they got landed with this lawsuit this morning and now she had to break her news of last night to them? She closed her eyes and shook her head. Unable to find a way to say it gently, she finally just stated limply, "I can't put Daniel Fenyak away for the murders of Nance Stewart and Stacy Morin." She kept her eyes closed and waited for it.

Cragen was the first to break the silence. "You've had tough cases before, Alex We knew it wasn't going to be easy."

She shook her head and her eyes opened. "This isn't tough, Captain. This is impossible. Legally. I can't do it."

"But you have the evidence, Alex," Olivia said, confused. "You just have to make the case."

"Had the evidence," Cabot corrected. "Had. Past tense. As of Tuesday morning, I have nothing."

There was a pause and then Fin clenched a fist, crumpling the piece of paper he'd had on his desk at the moment. "Shit."

"The fire," Benson deduced a second later. Alex inclined her head once. Olivia slapped her pen down on her desk. "Jesus."

"All the evidence from that case should have been moved from the morgue weeks ago," Don stated.

"Oh it was," Alex confirmed. "At least all the paper. Photos, prints...The only problem is that Monday morning a file clerk from Donnelly's office took that documentation down to Warner to have her clarify some of her dictations on the autopsy photos and the shots taken of the tread mark print Daniel left in the mud at Nance's house were in that box." She looked at the detectives, her fury at this file clerk still clear in her tone. "Warner's techs never took it down to her. File clerk ran another errand, forgot, left the box there overnight. It was upstairs. Plaster made of the same footprint was in imaging."

"Christ," Don muttered savagely and rubbed a hand over his face.

"But the bodies," John began.

"Only prove they were murdered," Alex, to her disgust, found she could do nothing but mirror her superior's words. "Not who was responsible. Even if I can convince a judge to sign an excavation order, it's been weeks. Daniel's defense lawyer will rip me a new one if I try to present a murder case with that kind of flawed evidence. It'd never hold. It'd never make it past the courtroom doors."

"What about prints?" Fin questioned. "We gotta have copies a them somewhere..."

"We do," Alex nodded. "From the attempted murder charge," she added with a look at Olivia.

"What about his confession?" Don dug.

"He only confessed to pulling the trigger on Olivia," she countered right back. "Look, I don't like this any more than you do. Less probably. But unless we find the murder weapon and it's got Daniel's prints on it, I have no case."

They'd all known that this was a possibility, that the fire had ruined more than just the building across the parking lot. Narcotics had informed Fin privately a couple of nights ago that the case Warner had been posting the night of the standoff had had to be scrapped. Every tox screen, DNA test, fiber analysis...all of the cases being formed were gone. But to have one that affected their own squad so personally tossed like this was a blow none of them had prepared for because the evidence of the case wasn't supposed to have been actively processed anymore. Murphy had struck again.

"So that's it then." Eyes turned to Benson. She shrugged, a harsh, bitter gesture. "Just like this. Daniel walks."

Don was shaking a hand. "Not necessarily. Now we still have him for twenty-five for the shooting.."

But she was not to be placated. This was the straw, her back was broken. "Oh now there's a consolation," she shot out before she could stop herself. "Why don't we leave a note on Nance and Stacy's graves with that on it."

"Liv--" Fin tried.

She was standing now, shoving papers into her boxes. "Or better still, how about we go talk to their parents."

"Olivia," Alex began, anguished.

"What kind of message has just been sent here?" Olivia went on. "New York's just shown every perp with an agenda how to get out of conviction." She snatched her keys from her drawer. "Killed your girlfriend? No big deal, just torch the morgue."

"Olivia.."

"No." She pointed a finger at her captain. She trembled all over. "This is it. I've had enough." She stormed past where Alex stood and yanked her coat off its hook. She was blinking hard and fast, an emotion she'd never dealt with on this kind of level surging through her.

Rage.

"We have spent our lives busting our asses for this city and the moment we need its help the most, it turns its back." She thought of the lawsuit. "Shoves a knife in ours before tossing us out to fend for ourselves. I'm done."

"Olivia I want--"

"What, me to go home?" Benson shook her head as she walked backwards through the squad room. "Don't bother. I'll save you the trouble of sending me. I quit. New York City can go to hell. I'll see it there." She turned around and then in a flurry of wool coat was gone, leaving a thunderstruck squad room staring after her.

xxx
3:09 pm

John stood for a long time not saying a word. He found Olivia outside, sitting on a crate next to the Dumpster behind the station. It was somewhat warmer than the last time he'd been out here, but he could still see her breath when she exhaled.

"You going for the slow peaceful death?" He walked carefully towards her and sat on a crate to her right. "I hear with hypothermia you just get tired first. Doze off, close your eyes... Next thing, you're singing to St. Nicholas."

"Peter," Benson corrected him automatically in a dull voice.

"Jewish," Much returned. "What d'you do."

Olivia sighed but didn't look at him. "There a point to this?"

"Not really," John shrugged. "But I couldn't think of anything clever to say myself, so I just copied something some idiot said to me the other day."

The two sat silent for a minute or two. "Cragen can send as many people after me as he likes," she stated flatly. Didn't matter how many, or who. She no longer cared.

"Cragen doesn't know I'm here." John's voice had lost its sarcastic wit, the humour gone.

"Why are you?"

"I don't really know," Munch said quietly and with another shrug. "But I'm sure whenever that's revealed to me, I'll be glad I came looking."

Silence fell again, spanning several more minutes than the last time, Olivia not appearing to want to talk at all, John not knowing how to say whatever needed to be said to help.

"I'm really going to lose my job, aren't I," she said miserably as she stared at nothing.

"Nah." John watched cars pass by, staring at the street through the alley. "But you're going to get to be real good friends with the department shrink."

"Heh. Yeah."

Whatever else he'd been expecting never came, and Olivia heaved a breath and stood from her crate. He stood with her. "Home the next port of call?"

"Good a place as any," was her short reply as she sniffed.

He spoke again before he had time to think about what words were leaving his mouth. "It's got to come eventually, Olivia."

She wouldn't look at him as she made a deliberate effort not to while doing up the buttons of her coat. "What," she asked lamely.

"You're not fooling anyone, least of all me. Just you, me, and the walls out here."

"I'm fine, John," she declared, voice shaking.

"Uh huh.." With one hand John stilled hers as she tried to finish buttoning her coat one-handed. His other touched her chin and lifted gently until she had no choice but to look at him. Her lips started to waver the second her eyes met with what was in his. Tears threatened to fall and she hung her head. John's hand moved to cup the side of her face.

"I can't do this anymore," she whispered. "I just.." She couldn't finish whatever it was she'd been about to say. John's touch had evaporated what walls were left, the damn had finally broken, and Olivia started to cry quietly.

Very gently John pulled her close, keeping his one hand on her neck and moving the other (mindful of her shoulder) to wrap carefully around her back. She resisted neither gesture and a second later her forehead was resting against his chest. Quiet tears were gradually coaxed into a full release until after only a minute or so Olivia was weeping without restraint. Munch folded her in a little tighter.

"Let it go, Olivia," he whispered into her hair as he supported her slender frame while it shook. He didn't care if she heard a lick of what he was saying. His purpose in coming after her had been revealed and he knew it wasn't his words but his presence that would carry the weight as he lifted hers from her shoulders for a little while.

He did not care how long it took and his own words could not have rung more true.

He was glad he had come looking.


End Part 11

A/N - I promise I'll have Chapter 12 up by tomorrow night. Thank you all for waiting so patiently on me! You're a writer's dream.