Hi, so here is another chapter, this one is again another long one and one I had a lot of fun writing, I will let you read it and then I will be back with the next chapter.

Please Read and Review and let me know what you think.

Disclaimer-Nothing but Bridget is mine.

Please Read and Review.

And Significant TRIGGER WARNINGS for this chapter to do with the Season 2 SVU episode and other distressing themes.

What Lies Buried

Chapter 12-We All Go A Little Mad Sometimes

Bridget is adjusting (almost) when Jay and Erin are sent to New York to work with SVU cracking a case involving Erin's brother. Voight also comes forcing Bridget to acknowledge her feelings and make some decisions about her future. TRIGGER WARNINGS FOR THE SVU CASE IN THE NEXT CHAPTER.

June 2015.

It shouldn't have worked. But yet it did.

Jay was not going to give Voight the satisfaction of being right but the truth of the matter was that it worked. Despite his personal feelings his boss and he had managed to carve out a working relationship that almost…kind of…felt like it was before.

Give or take a hell of a lot of sympathy.

And Bridget…

Well…Bridget was Bridget.

To his bosses credit he had not asked though that didn't mean anything. Everytime Jay looked at his phone he got the impression that Voight was looking at him wondering if it was Bridget texting.

There was nothing to say. Bridget never texted him, she never spoke to him, she never did anything. Any and all of his information came from Will who only gave him the bare minimum as if he knew that it was hard sometimes for Jay not to tell his boss what was going on.

It was also the fact that his brother didn't know much either. As far as he could tell their sister was up in the morning back in at night and didn't discuss Hank Voight at all.

Oh and she seemed to be doing an extraordinary amount of shopping which Jay was just…not sure about. Bridget was never the kind of girl to spend whole days at malls and make up counters and he knew that it confused Will just as much as it confused Jay.

In the end he went to Kim about it. He would have gone to Erin but he couldn't shake the fact that he knew that if he told Erin anything she would funnel it back to Hank. She was his solider through and through and Jay couldn't find fault with that when would have done the same thing in her shoes. You were loyal to who you were loyal to. This time it created a conflict between the two of them and Jay was sure that it would not be for the first time.

Or the second, or the third.

"Kim?" he asked popping up next to her. "What does it mean if you suddenly replenish your entire make up kit?"

Kim to be fair didn't look at him like he was a complete idiot.

"Your sister?"

"Yeah?"

"Could just mean she wants to change, could mean she wants to keep control on the one thing that never changes, could be a distraction—she could just want to spend a load of money"

With Bridget Jay surmised, it could be all of those things and a hell of a lot more.

Unfortunately there was a case that blew all of it out of his mind. Three weeks ago Jay would have paid good money for something like this but when they climbed the stairs to Intelligence to see both Voight and Erin looking as if someone had died he realised he might have been wrong in that estimation. As it turned out it was a case involving kids—the worst kind of cases involving kids.

And Erin's brother was a victim.

Jay had not even known that Erin had a brother but considering he had never known his father was a career criminal he supposed it was not his place to judge.

The case took them to the doorsteps of New York, to Olivia Benson's office. There was hush in Chicago, even in Chicago when that woman's name was mentioned. Olivia Benson had been in SVU longer than most of Intelligence had been in the job put together. She had a reputation for getting justice for the victim that was almost unparalleled to anyone else and she did not let corruption get in her way—hell she had almost single handed took down the previous New York Police Commissioner and she had decimated several cartel trafficking rings.

Not to mention she had pioneered a department that in the 1990s was considered a bit of a joke and was a woman to boot. She was one of the most famous female cops around and Jay knew an inspiration to most of them coming up in the Academy despite the fact that she was several states over.

The woman was nothing short of a living legend and Jay couldn't help but feel a terrible sense of excitement and terror that he was going to go with Erin to New York.

Voight was staying here.

That was…odd.

They had developed a nice little cold war around the subject of his sister over the last three weeks and though Jay was loathe to break it he needed to…well…he needed to make sure that his boss was not going to do something stupid—like take Bridget to see another gravestone.

So it was that, that had him being the last to leave and then knocking on the door.

Sometimes he wished he was rather going to the gallows. Sometimes it felt like it too.

"Jay"

"Boss er…do you wanna go with Erin instead? Might be a bit easier if you go, you know this Teddy kid pretty well—"

"Yeah believe me that's why it's best I don't go Teddy and I…we didn't have the best relationship and it didn't end well"

Jay pondered on that for a second and then ploughed on regardless.

"Look boss it might be good for you to go not just for Erin but—"

"Jay I am not going to New York unless I have to"

"Boss"

"She won't want me there Jay"

"You don't know that"

His boss put down his file.

"Jay did she ask for me?"

"No"

"Does she even know that your coming?"

"No"

"Is there a chance if she knows that I'm gonna be in New York that she won't be"

Jay calculated in his head.

"Honestly it's hard to tell. It's not like Bridget was predictable before this"

"Jay if she's in New York then I know where she is. If I know where she is then I can sleep at night. If you or Erin or SVU need me I will come but try not to need me"

Jay left.

He was not sure after that what more he could say.

And he didn't have the heart to tell his boss that his sister wasn't speaking to him so perhaps everything he thought was a lie.

It wasn't a complete lie.

Not really.

It was easier to sleep if he knew where she was.

Not that he was doing much sleep really.

It had been…difficult.

Actually that was a bad word for it, it had been hell which was just unfair because Hank had always thought that finding his daughter meant that the pain and the misery and the soul crushing guilt would stop and it clearly hadn't.

Bridget was in New York. He knew that much from Jay but he knew Bridget—both before and afterwards and he knew that if she wanted to go she could go. The speed in which she had chosen to get away from him was staggering and he was not going to do anything that made her run again because this time he was quite sure that she would disappear and there would be no brother for her to run too.

And…and he didn't want to deal with Erin's family either. Teddy was a ghost that he had never wanted exorcised. Teddy who had never looked at him with anything but annoyance who had always believed that Bunny was doing her best who had thought that foster care was the worst thing in the world. Teddy who was now being sold for kicks to the worst people imaginable.

He'd imagined Bridget in that position time and time again on nights that kept him up reaching the whiskey bottle instead of his gun. That one day he would find a stack of photos on his desk and there his dark haired girl would be and he would just know.

Turns out he had not just known.

He had never known.

He was still trying to do this at her pace and as he stared down at the paperwork that he was not seeing he thought that her pace was taking ages. It was an unfair thought he knew. Between Pat Halstead and himself her world had been blown into pieces. Now when the dust was beginning to settle he could see that it had been terribly stupid to take her to Camille's grave and hope that it would end well but…

But she had been alive.

And he had not really cared beyond that.

He theorised that she had to come back at some point. Bridget's life was in Chicago. Her life was here and even if all he got was just the odd look across a squad room well—it had been better than what he had got the last sixteen years.

Bridget walked off the subway, down the street and into the prescient with her head held high and her confidence at rock bottom.

Will had told her Jay was coming. He had briefly gone into detail about the case and then he'd been called in. Bridget hadn't minded. Will was wonderful but living with him was very different than living with Jay. Will wanted to talk and while Bridget did want to talk it was hard for her to explain to her brother that she did not want to talk to him. Also Will had a wonderful way of turning a conversation so that they were eating—he was even worse than Will—into a discussion of when she was going back to school.

It was easier to not speak about Pat. Will had an even lower appreciation of him than Jay did and it was easy to not talk about Voight because Will had never met him.

Instead Will fussed over her injuries (he had been in a state of shock when he had seen her) and had insisted she go to PT with a gleam in his eye not totally out of place in the gaze of a training officer honing in on the weakest recruit.

And she missed Jay. She loved Will she did but they didn't have the relationship that she and Jay had, they had always been the closer pair and she also found she missed her home.

The problem was what to do about it.

As the days turned into weeks she found that she was thinking about going home. It had been her home as well and if Hank Voight had a problem with it then that was his mess and not hers.

And the reality was that she wanted to…well…get a few things straight. She wanted to know what he wanted because Al had implied he wanted custody and then afterwards…well he had barely even looked at her even when her leg had given out on her.

Or had that been because she had barely wanted to look at him?

Fatherly concern was not something that she was overtly used to.

Fatherly love was even less so.

And she imagined that Hank was the kind of guy who would love her.

And that was…odd.

But he wasn't going to be here and that gave her enough time to figure out just where things lay with Jay. After all her brother might not want her back.

So she walked into Special Victims Unit, New York with no idea what to expect and suddenly wishing she was in more than jeans and a dark jumper that she was sure her foundation had rubbed on occasionally when she had been getting dressed this morning.

In all honesty it was not much better than Intelligence except for the fact there were way more cops and a man in high heels and eyeliner that had been applied badly was speaking to Erin.

Jay caught her eye.

"Bridget?"

"Hey"

"Oh hey hi, err…

"Wait—do my ears deceive? Could it be my sister has told me the truth for once?" drunk heeled guy said suddenly. Erin looked like she had been smacked across the face. "This is…little Bridget…Voight's little Bridget? The one that Erin and I tried to replace? The one he nearly bwoke his own heart over trying to find?"

Christ she hated baby talk.

"Fuck off" she said and Jay grabbed her arm and pushed her away as some brunette with an incredible taste in shoes frowned at her as if she was being unsympathetic.

"Don't start—"

"Who the fuck is—"

"That's Erin's brother and were having trouble with him"

Bridget blinked and then the story that Will had half told her over breakfast came flooding back.

"Wait the brother that was sold up here by the gang?"

"Yeah and not that I'm not glad to see you but why are you?"

"I wanted to…see…you"

It was not after all a complete lie.

"And…"

"He's not here" Jay said as if reading her mind. Bridget shot him a look though something inside her twisted a little.

"Did I ask about him?"

"You didn't have too it was written all over your face. I can get him here if you want to talk to him"

"No"

"Okay—"

Jay was looking at her as if she was insane. Bridget couldn't blame him.

She was beginning to feel a bit like that herself.

There was a delicate pause.

"Listen I'm gonna be busy all day here so why don't you wait with Will and I'll—"

"Yeah sure"

And she left feeling oddly deflated.

She didn't know what it was but there was something about the fact that he hadn't come here. That when the opportunity presented itself he hadn't bothered to come and find her that made her feel if possible even worse about this complete and utter shit show of a mess that they were in.

And she hated that she thought that.

Voight was here. Voight was here, Erin was hurt, his sister was knocking around, Teddy hated everyone and everything and Jay was achingly aware that Olivia Benson would pick up on what was going on within minutes and would no doubt have answers in less than half an hour.

He flipped open his phone and stared at it. Will he knew would come down here if only to get a look at Voight and that was the last thing that Jay needed. Will might look like a choir boy but he could wield a scalpel with deadly purpose and was not afraid to do it either. Bridget on the other hand…

He was not sure if she wanted to know.

In the end he figured that it was her choice. So much of this wasn't and there had been a moment where he had been looking at Josselyn and he had seen his sister reflected back in her. Trying desperately to keep her head above water as things she was desperately trying to forget kept coming back and dragging her back down.

So he pulled out his phone and told his sister that her father was here.

Christ it still felt odd to think. Jay supposed there was a reason he had never said it out loud.

"Sympathise? You want me to sympathise with this piece of garbage?"

Clearly Olivia Benson was mad. Hank had heard some stories—it wouldn't surprise him.

"Yes" Olivia Benson said as if it was perfectly normal. "And if you pull that crap again I will arrest you"

She just didn't understand did she? It was more than just the boy who looked at him as if he was scum, more than Erin who was bleeding from wounds so deep that they would never heal and more than the kids who were missing. This was the nightmare playing out. That he would have to sit across from one of these pieces of crap and pretend that he wasn't effected while he learnt that his daughter had been sold and beaten and raped.

It had been one of the worst things to imagine but ultimately it had been the scenario he had gone back to time and time again. The fact that it was a man who had taken Bridget had meant that they had stupidly (and oh it was so stupid!) not though of birth trauma as a motive. Crimes like that were usually a woman's crime and he had fallen into the trap of believing the stereotypes that came with thinking you had enough experience at this job to be able to predict what happened next.

Being sympathetic to these bastards was not something that he was able to do with ease. Find him someone who could.

"It's hard for me"

"Evidently" she said tartly. "And can I ask why the girl that Rollins said apparently works for turned up here looking for you?"

"Girl?"

"Dark hair, big eyes, sixteenish?"

"Bridget?"

"You tell me Hank"

She had come looking for him?

"Looking for me or looking for Jay?"

"Well she spoke to him" Olivia said looking confused. "But if you want my humble opinion she was really looking for you"

It was probably nothing good. Probably just to tell him to go to hell and stay out of her life while she was there but the more that he thought about it the more that he couldn't help but feel a little bit of warmth spread out through him. It was pointless not to mention painful but Hank was so far past the point of no return when it came to pain that he didn't really care.

And he wanted to talk about with someone who hadn't been there. Al was his best friend and had on more than one occasion saved his life but the truth of the matter was that Al was loyal to him to a fault.

And he wanted to talk.

"I assume" he said carefully. "That when you looked up my file you looked up everything"

She nodded. It was one of the things he liked about Olivia Benson she didn't beat around the bush.

"I assume you looked into my personal life"

She nodded again.

"I assume then that you know that my daughter went missing sixteen years ago?"

And he could see the moment that she understood.

And so he opened his mouth and began to talk.

Bridget had been waiting outside and then like before she had come inside. The officer at the desk had not been there so she slipped past and walked straight to Olivia Benson's office. She figured perhaps stupidly that if he was going to be anywhere it was in the bosses office.

She did not expect it to be empty however it as much like an interrogation room. There was a man sat in the cell like room with the one way glass window and she watched perching on the desk. As she sat something fell off.

It was Voight's wallet.

She knew it was his, nobody else had something that looked that old.

She picked it up but it flipped open anyway and that was when she saw it.

It was a photo.

Well it wasn't just a photo.

It was her.

She must have been five when it was taken and she and Jay and Will had been painting in the garden. Jay and Will had descended into an argument and they had all ended up flinging paint at each other screaming and laughing and giggling with each other until their mother almost speechless with a combination of laughter and rage had made them stop. She had been told to sit there on the ground paint covering her hair and her clothes and the biggest smile on her face because it had been so much fun. She didn't even remember who took that picture.

And yet somehow it had gotten here.

She didn't need to ask how.

She knew.

Jay.

She dropped the wallet back on the desk and then sat down on the couch feeling utterly wiped out.

She had not expected this…when she had thought about her biological parents it had always been about her Mom and she had hated her with such a passion she had never had time to dwell on it.

Her biological father though…she had never given a second thought to him. When she had thought about her birth parents all of it had been directed at her mother. She had never even thought about…

Fuck.

"You know he told me everything" said a voice from the door and she turned to see Olivia Benson (she was assuming) in the flesh by the door.

"Figured" she muttered. "Everyone knows everything about everyone and everybody. I'll let you have your office back"

"Jay's out on assignment and your Dad and I are going out too" she said as if it was normal. "We need to convince a victim to talk"

Bridget thought about Voight and some of his tactics and couldn't stop herself from laughing out loud.

"Good luck with that"

"Were going to be undercover. Parents to the missing child, explain our hopes and what we did wrong and what we could do better. Course for Hank it's not an act it's a reality he's been living for sixteen years but—"

"Seriously? Are you seriously—?"

She couldn't believe it. She had never met Olivia Benson but she could not believe that this was really her life right now. That the woman was really judging her for not being nicer to Hank Voight.

"I get it. He came in and completely messed your life apart. But before you life was messed up his was worse—just something to think about. You know, something other than yourself"

She stood up. Bridget was Halstead—and also now a Voight which was a terribly strange thought and either way she was not going to take this.

"Do me a favour? Whoever you are? Save the kids who need it. Not me"

"You don't think you need saving?"

She had opened the door and had stepped out which was unfortunate as at that exact moment Hank came out of a side room.

And he was apparently back to being Hank again.

Terrific.

"Don't talk about me to other people" she snapped at him before he could even being to say anything and then she was off outside before she realised it and she hid like a damn coward against the wall breathing hard before she realised that she had left her phone in Olivia Benson's office.

"Seriously?" she said tilting her head back and staring up at the dark sky. "Seriously have I not done enough, given enough? WHAT MORE DO YOU PEOPLE WANT FROM ME—FUCK!"

Several people looked at her but Bridget ignored them. This was New York, if people had problems with people doing strange things then there was no point in living here.

Climbing back into the precinct she grabbed her phone but she realised that there was meaning behind that photograph. She was tired and she was broken almost and she felt like was breaking into pieces. She sat down on the stone steps and though she didn't want to think about anyone or anything other than herself she had to admit that Olivia Benson had been right when she had all but told her to think about something or someone other than herself.

Because at the same time that this was happening to herself it was also happening to other people.

It was written in Jay and Will's faces how much they were struggling. Erin who she had been close to was now a stranger. She had not yet had the balls to go back and face intelligence and the rest of the cops out of the 21st because she was not sure what to say.

She had ran to protect herself and yet she had never really thought about what Jay left behind and yet the more she thought about what Olivia Benson had said—the bitch—she realised that perhaps Hank did look at her like she was one of those victims. It was so achingly real what could have happened to her when Pat had taken her. She had known that she had, had a good life but what had Hank known…nothing.

Ignorance might be bliss for her but…

She thought perhaps sitting their on the steps with her ass getting cold she might understand it a bit more.

But it didn't change anything for her. She had been Bridget Halstead her whole life. She didn't want to become someone else no matter how bitchy that made her. And the more she tried not to think about it the more that she tried to run away from it and the more that she tried to hide from it she also wanted to know that why after she had been shot, beaten and terrified he had not bothered to hug her.

She'd done the whole disinterested daddy figure she was not going to do it again. Christ he'd been warmer with her when she had been the Detective's sister doing some filling than when he had found out she was his daughter.

If this was going to be a repeat of Pat Halstead then she was going to walk away now (she might be hurt beyond measure—but she was going to walk away now).

She tucked her chin on her knees and wondered how long she was going to have to sit here and try to pick up the pieces of her life again and again. It had been six years since her mother had died and she had only just gotten herself back to the point where she could breathe easily after that and now…

What was going to be the next thing?

But was that selfish? She wasn't completely heartless but the sight of a picture in a wallet had thrown her completely. She thought that she was going mad almost. If he cared enough about her to have a damn picture in his wallet—but still wouldn't so much as hug her? She just…she just didn't understand.

"Err you ok?"

She pulled her head from her knees and stared blearily. It was Rollins who was watching her with an uneasy expression. Bridget shrugged. There was a girl there with a neat fringe who looked as if she wanted to be anywhere other than here and Amaro who was looking as if he was on pins and needles and…

Voight and Olivia Benson.

Shit.

She'd move but she was not in the mood. She was cold now and tired and so she shrugged and Rollins perhaps sensing the storm on its way ushed the girl up the stairs. Olivia Benson went too and that just left the two of them her and Hank who was dressed differently than usual and had his hands in his pocket.

"You want me to go and get Jay?"

She shook her head. The last thing she needed right now was Jay.

And then suddenly she started crying and she was not sure when she was going to stop. It was humiliating but it was a mess. She had only cried once when the reality of Pat's crime had caught up with her but now she was crying for something else.

All of it that was lost.

He sat down next to her and she couldn't stop herself from reaching out. It was like that night at his house where he had hugged her and she had cried out of fear not of Stillwell (though he had been utterly terrifying) but out of the fact that she did not know weather the words he had thrown back at her were true.

And just like before he hugged her only this time it seemed as if he was holding on just as tight as she was.

"I'm sorry" she said finally once she was done.

"You don't have to apologise for crying"

"Not for that, for all of it. For running away, for being a bitch—Olivia Benson—"

"Olivia Benson called you a bitch?"

"Not in so many words. She just…she told me to think about someone other than myself—"

"She had no right to do that" he looked furious "I told her that in confidence not so she could throw it back in your face!"

"It's not that Hank it's just…I saw the picture in your wallet, you left it on her desk and I…

"So? Jay brought them round, he said I could keep them. I have some around the house"

Oh Christ she was going to start crying again she was sure of it.

It was just the way he said it, as if it was perfectly normal for him to have pictures of his children around the house. Pat had never been like that—and it was jarring emotionally, to go from a father who didn't care to one who cared and who cared so deeply.

"Bridget what's…kid talk to me ok? That's all I ever wanted to do. Talk. And look I admit I went about it in the wrong way, I should have told Jay first and then the two of us could have told you together, I should have made sure that Pat's confession was on the record and I certainly shouldn't have put you in that situation and…"

"You didn't look at me"

"What?"

"After…after what went down at your house. You didn't look at me or hug me or anything."

He looked completely confused. His hand was still on her back and Bridget couldn't blame him for the confusion. This whole thing was such a fucking mess.

"Did you want me too?"

"I don't…I just…I don't know"

"Yeah well…I don't know either. I am many things Bridget mind reader is not one of them. I know I fucked it up so I wanted to do it at your pace. To be honest I was just so fucking glad you were alive"

"Yeah?"

She didn't mean to phrase it as a question but somehow it did.

Hank gave a laugh that had no laughter in it. It was just bitter and grating.

"I thought you were dead. Camille held out hope but I thought you were dead. I thought you were dead the second that you had been taken and it never occurred to me that you were…I fell into the view that only a woman would take a baby to keep one, it was the worst stereotype in the police handbook and I played right into it. It never occurred to me that a man would take you to raise you. And then I found you and I…and then I saw you standing at the top of the stairs walking into chaos and carnage and I nearly had a heart attack. All I heard was screaming and clashing and then someone shot something and they were so calm…I thought for sure it was because they knew that they hadn't left a witness behind. That I had found you and then lost you all over again. And then suddenly there you were. It was like I could breathe again. I wanted to hug you. But the reality was if I had hugged you then I didn't think I would be able to stop—and I thought you didn't want that"

"I did" she said finally. "I did it's just…I don't know how to do this…" she gestured between them, "This whole father and daughter relationship thing. I never had one before. I never had someone who wanted to spend time with or wanted to hug me or…"

"Jesus what a bastard"

She laughed wiping her eyes on the back of her hand and smearing them with mascara—waterproof her backside—Hank said nothing. He was still watching her in that way he had that made her aware of nothing else but the fact he was watching her. It was a bizarre combination of utterly unnerving and rather nice.

"Yeah he was wasn't he?"

Hank said nothing but Bridget found that she wanted to say more even if he didn't.

"I'm sorry" she said finally. "I'm not sure how to do this…I'm not sure if I'm what you expected"

"Oh believe me sweetheart you are exactly what I expected. You've got the sarcasm of your Mom and the temper from me. And…and you are…your alive"

Shit. He needed to stop saying things like that as if they were the most easiest things to say in the world because otherwise she was going to cry all over again.

"Are you sure? Because…it's not like I've ever been…enough exactly. Pat never made a secret—"

"Pat Halstead is an utter bastard and if it wasn't for the fact that I love you and I need Jay—also I rather like him—I'd have chucked him into the docks without a second thought."

He turned then and like he had done in his house his hands found her face framing them so that she was forced to look at him.

"I love you. Your my daughter and that is enough and even if it takes time I don't care. Because you are enough, more than enough, better than enough. Because your Bridget. And I need you to believe that."

And for once she had the sense to believe him.

She nodded.

"Good" Hank said releasing her face.

"I'm not ready to live with you yet"

He shot her a look.

"Who said that was on the cards?"

"Al did didn't he? When he made that comment about custody"

"Oh. He didn't…he was thinking in the moment trying to get Jay to stay…It didn't…I didn't expect you to pack up and come home with me and…in all honestly, I'm not sure I'm ready for you to move in with me either"

That was honest, and if she was telling the truth it was a great, great, relief.

"So what happens now?"

He shrugged. "We find the bastards behind this ring, I get Teddy home…though I doubt he'll stay and I'd really like it if you'd come home with me. I know you love your brother but—"

"No" she said shaking her head. "I mean yes I love them both but you have no idea what living with Will is like, the PT's been murder"

He smiled at that one of those rare genuine smiles that she knew deep down Hank Voight had and that he bestowed upon the people he cared about. She found that she rather liked the idea that she was one of them.

"How are you then? I mean…"

"Knees fucked but it's been fucked for years to be honest. Ribs don't hurt anymore, and Will keeps a lock on the drugs cabinet like it's Fort Knox. Everything else healed nicely. Just bruises"

"How did you—"

"Hockey injury when I was fourteen, I fell badly and Pat—a lot of our health insurance went on Mom—"

She stopped. Shit she had never even thought—but Hank seemed to understand what she was thinking about…

"And your Mom?"

She carried on relieved that he seemed to understand it. She was not sure what she would have done if he hadn't got that her relationship with Mary was the best and that to her, she was still her mother.

"Mom got sick so the health insurance went on her—breast cancer you know?"

"Yeah Camille had cervical so yeah I know"

"Oh"

Filing that one away for another day she carried on.

"Well we were kinda out with insurance so Pat told me to deal with it. Jay was in the Army and Will in school so I did. It was painful but it was survivable with whatever pills we had not that I didn't know that was a dangerous game. It wasn't until Will came home for spring break that he realised I had torn the muscle. He was furious with Pat for not taking me, I haven't needed surgery or anything it's just hurts…but Ian Marks banging it made it a whole lot worse, now I'm back to the drawing board"

Hank said nothing but stared into the distance. Bridget wondered if maybe he was planning to kill Pat through the power of his mind. If there was someone out there that could do that she was pretty sure that it was Hank Voight.

"I want to come home" she said finally.

"I want you to come home too" he said just as quietly.

"And…and do I have a job? Because I really burnt through cash while I was up here—do you know the price of a Starbucks in New York?"

Hank laughed.

Bridget couldn't help it, feeling lighter than she had done in weeks she laughed back.

It wasn't perfect.

But it was something.

It was supposed to be simple.

Those he supposed were famous last words.

They'd caught the…bastard…that was selling these kids, Teddy was asleep as if he had never slept before, Josselyn was there and then gone with clear instructions that she never wanted to see any of them again—and for that Hank really couldn't blame her and the thing that he was most pleased about was that Bridget was coming into the precinct a couple of bags with her and was telling Jay that she was coming home.

Jay still in his bullet proof vest had looked from Hank to Bridget in quick succession but Bridget had shrugged. "It's alright, Hank and I have talked some of it out"

Jay shot him another look but Hank deflected. The conversation was private. And he supposed (he thought wryly) he had gone back to Hank now, that had to be a start.

But then the dominos had started to fall. And when they fell, they fell in a quick, brutal and devastating succession.

First the security guard shanked in the middle of the showers at Rikers, then the man that they had caught dead in his cell—suicide attempt, and then Erin had called with the news, the man that 51 had rescued that had started them down this journey and the cop that was guarding him who came out of Hank's prescient was dead too.

It was plain for all to see.

Someone was cleaning up the mess.

He caught Jay's eye and his officer still in his bullet proof vest stopped talking to his sister who turned her dark hair over her shoulder. Jay listened and went white around the mouth his face grim. Bridget's eyes flickered from the two of them—she might not understand the depths of what had happened but she understood that it was bad, very, very bad.

But he found that he was also watching Olivia Benson who was watching him. Her comments to Bridget he had not forgotten but they were both professionals and this was neither the time nor the place because she understood exactly what had happened and she understood exactly what it meant.

"The head of your snake" she said quietly. "It's in Chicago"

Yeah, it was.

"Were on our way back" he snapped to Erin and then he put down the phone and went to work.

Everything else could wait.

And there you go, let me know what you think and I will do my best to get you the next chapter sooner rather than later.

Next Chapter-As Bridget adjusts to life back in Chicago, Olivia Benson comes to town to help find the head of the snake, Roman and Kim get caught in a deadly situation (well Roman does twice) and Erin leaves and then comes back (multiple episodes covered in this chapter)