Hi, so here is another chapter and I hope you enjoy it. Again Massive TRIGGER WARNINGS for this chapter.

Also I know like many of you, you have heard the devastating news that Jesse Lee Soffer is leaving at the end of Season 10. He has been amazing as Jay Halstead and I for one honestly don't know how the show will carry on without him. However for this fanfic he is alive, always alive and will never leave Intelligence. I have a feeling I will have to cling to this statement whenever his last episode ends because instinct tells me that it is not going to be pretty, especially as Tracey is not going to leave with him for the Upstead happy ending and Sophia is not coming back for the Linstead happy ending.

But also very happy about Dante Torres because he was a great character.

Disclaimer-Nothing is mine just the character of Bridget.

And some SVU characters will be arriving soon so please keep that in mind if you notice a distinct lack of the Chicago PD ones.

Please Read and Review.

Stand And Unfold Yourself

Chapter 4-Heartbreak (Before My Very Eyes)

Hank on his blackest day gets the shock of his life and there is finally a flaw in the Bridget Voight case. Potentially a slightly smaller chapter.

12th November 2014.

Al took him out for drinks.

Why Hank didn't know because it was drinking that had started this whole thing in the first place and as he sat staring at his Manhattan watching the liquid with hazy eyes he knew it as well.

She was fifteen today.

Fifteen.

Fifteen was a lifetime. Four years and yet somehow it still felt like yesterday, like his insides were being gutted outwards and being tugged out of his stomach and there was nothing that he could do about it. Somehow between the last four years his baby girl had become fifteen. A teenager.

Of course that was assuming she was alive and at this point there wasn't much of a choice when it came to that. Bridget being alive for four years was a pipe dream and even if that dream came true Bridget being alive for four years and being the same kid that he had known back then was more than a pipe dream it was a natural, magical miracle.

And Hank had stopped believing in miracles a long time ago.

And it had not helped that it had been a shit day with a shit case.

It had been one of Intelligence's quieter days when a call had come through from Firehouse 51. For some reason they seemed to be under the impression that Intelligence was their own private call within the department and Hank would have put a stop to it but admittedly with Matt Casey he only had so much leg in the room to stand on. And to be honest this was also kinda the case he wanted. He might hate the idea of it but it was the case that he wanted because it meant that he got some time with the perp.

And he hated perps like that.

So when he got the phone call to say that there had been a box full of photographs of kids he was sure that he wanted the case if only for the sheer rush of…well not joy but adrenaline that he would get when he got an opportunity to put the cuffs on the bastard. But Al in his infinite wisdom had not let it get that far and had in his absence told his team to go home for the night and then had told him they were going for a drink.

"No"

"Yes Hank. You think I'm gonna let you go home tonight until I know your good? You've been running on empty all day. Erin wants to stay and do the photos and I've got Jay with her just in case. She doesn't want to think about it either but you and me…were gonna go for a beer and you just…feel what you gotta feel. Like last time"

Last time.

Like he even remembered last time.

And that was how he ended up at a bar near the district staring at his drink until his eyes blurred.

"You know" Al said quietly. "I tell you this every year but—"

"Al I swear to God if you tell me that this was not my fault one more time—"

"It wasn't."

"Yes it was. She was my baby and I let her down and now she's—"

He took a drink then. He couldn't say the word. It made his insides cramp so painful that he thought he was going to vomit. Today should have been the day where they celebrated Bridget's birthday, cake and presents and everything that they had done before. Her last birthday with Camille she had insisted they celebrate even though she had been close to death. The birthday before that he didn't even remember…so much fucking time that had been lost and his girl…

"Hank when did you start talking about her as if she was dead?"

It was only Al that could ask him though when he had been here the last time he knew that Justin had picked up on it. Erin certainly had noticed it and he knew she wanted to call him out on it but it was only ever Al that could do that.

And in truth he didn't know if he could answer the question.

But he tried anyway.

"Because she's dead isn't she?"

"You don't know that"

"Oh but I do"

"Jesus Hank"

"What Al? You…what? Please just…just give me proof that she's alive and I'll work with that but it has been four years and I all I got was a crappy little picture of her heading towards the bridge and…and I keep waiting for this phone call that tells me they've found her in the river or in a dumpster or in some crappy little holding house where girls are kept and It's…it's killing me. And I deserve this I know because it is all my fault but she's, dead Al, she has to be dead because the hoping is the thing that's gonna put me in my grave"

At that point it had all been too much. Al who had known that had tucked them in a booth far away from prying eyes which was good because it allowed Hank time to get himself under control.

"What do you want to do now?" Al said finally once Hank was sure he was not going to start breaking down like some hormonal teenager whose boyfriend had just dumped her. "You want to carry on drinking, cause Meredith is out for the night—she won't be back tonight she knows how it goes and she's took Lexie with her—"

"I want to go back to work"

"Hank"

"Al, Erin is just looking at pictures, this Llewellyn guy is still unconscious but I might be able to give Benson a ring and see if the New York connection is good."

"At ten o clock at night?"

"It's called the City that Never Sleeps for a reason Al"

"You don't wanna go and see Camille's grave—"

"Why so she can rise up from the ground and tell me what a shit Dad I was? No thanks Alvin I don't need Cam to hate me over this I hate myself already"

And wasn't that the truth. He didn't think that hatred was enough of a strong word to describe what he felt about himself that night, about his actions, about what it had cost him. About the fact that as much as he wished with every fibre of his being that his girl was alive out there the reality was she was probably dead. At least by telling himself that he didn't have the hope gnawing at his stomach like so many others in his situation did. Hank had been doing this a long time—long enough to know what the odds were of Bridget's survival and the odds were not good.

And if that wasn't a thought to make him want to die himself then he didn't know what would be.

"You wanna go back to the district?"

"Yes"

"Alright then. But just for the record I think your better off going home and trying to sleep"

Sleep. Jesus, he loved Al like a brother but sometimes he didn't get it, he really didn't get it. Hank hadn't slept in nearly four years and he didn't think he was going to start now.

There was no point even asking him to imagine what it would be like if it was Lexie because you couldn't imagine this unless you lived it day in and day out. And also because Al would never been as bad as he was when it came to parenting. And Al…Al had Meredith. And Meredith was above all things a stellar parent. Maybe if he'd just let Meredith raise his kid she'd still be here.

Coulda, woulda, shoudla.

So many things he should have done differently. Could have done differently. Should have done differently. So many things and it was twisting him inside out and in knots. And honestly if it wasn't for Justin, Erin, the unit, the job, the fact that she was out there somewhere and the fact that Camille would eviscerate him he knew a long time ago that he would have ate his gun.

God how had it only been four years? It felt sometimes like it was yesterday and other times it felt like four decades had passed.

Heaving himself out of his chair though he went back to his job. If there was a parent out there missing their kid as much as he missed his then he was going to do his best to get them reunited. God knows if it was him he wouldn't care…it wouldn't matter what state Bridget was in if he could have her back. He'd take her any way that he could get her.

Jay wasn't there when he got in, neither was Erin. Her chair was pushed back and there were photos scattered on the floor as well as the glove they had to wear for chain of evidence but nothing else. Switches between shifts had happened and it was now the night shift but Erin and Jay were still supposed to be there. And even if they had gone home there was no way that Erin and Jay…the two consummate professionals that they were (even if they sometimes struggled to act like it when they were around each other) would have left evidence out like that. Especially not evidence of this importance.

"What the hell?" Al said into the empty room. "You don't think there screwing do you?"

"ALVIN"

"What? I have eyes"

"Alvin, she is like my—no she is my daughter and he—is not a terrible Detective—and what using photo's like this as a turn on?"

"Oh alright I admit it's unlikely but you got a better idea for where they'd both be right now?"

Admittedly it was odd.

He shifted a little and in doing so he knocked a photo of the edge of the desk.

"Jesus. Look don't touch more than you have to and let's get this thing put back together. There had better be a spectacular reason for this shit because—"

But he never got to finish that sentence.

Because he had looked down at what he was holding in his hand and it was like the air had been knocked out of him.

Because he knew that girl.

He knew her.

The girl in the photo staring at him had once been the baby that he had held in his arms. The toddler who had started walking before anyone else simply out of determination, the girl who had read books well beyond her advanced age, who had sat with her Mom as the chemo had wrecked her even though she didn't understand what was happening, the girl who had stood next to Erin at the funeral with a confused expression and the girl who had cleaned up after him, been more of a parent to him than he had ever been to her and who had wanted nothing more than a normal a Christmas as she could get and even now after four years he still saw the look on her face burned between his eyelids if he was having a really, really bad night.

This was his girl. His baby, his daughter staring up at him with that defiant look in her eyes that she had never lost from whomever she was glaring at to when she was glaring at him.

Bridget.

"Bridget" he said flatly. He heard Al's quick gasp but he didn't think he could let go of this picture, the first real, tangible proof that she was alive—or had been past that cut off on the bridge. He took in the other signs that he really didn't want to see, the emancipation, the…whatever the hell it was that she was wearing…the handprints around her neck and the yellowing bruises and the split lip.

And the handprints around her fucking neck, the marks from where she had been held down and everything else that he knew had come with a photo like this—when he got this bastard he was going to rip him apart limb from fucking limb until there was nothing left.

Bridget.

His baby.

He was aware that Al was gripping his shoulder with an intensity that hurt and it brought him back to the present though he didn't take his eyes off the picture. He was drinking in all the differences, over the years her resemblance to her mother had become all the more real though he would take full credit for the set of her jaw and that look in her eyes because that was all him.

There was a sound to the right and he knew who it was.

Erin would have said something and so slowly he turned.

Jay Halstead looking for all the world like a rabbit caught between headlights was watching him with wide eyes. Clearly he knew it was written all over his face and there was no sign of Erin. Jay to his credit looked him dead in the eyes though that was Jay all over. Boy didn't have a bone of self-preservation in his body that was clear after the whole 'getting in a car with a hitman who has retired' thing.

"Erin's in the locker room" Jay said finally when it was clear that he was going to have to break the silence. "She saw…she needed a minute, I was going to get coffee for her and then she was going to call you and—"

"She told you"

It wasn't a question. They both knew that she had and to be honest at this point Hank didn't care. It was going to have to come out eventually and at this point he was just glad that he could speak.

"Yeah. She told me all of it"

Jay to his credit kept the defence in his tone to a limit and didn't look at him as if he was a perp which was something. Hank knew he came out of the story as the villain. It wasn't something he debated, he knew he was the villain in the story. He knew it had been his fault, even Jay couldn't judge him more than he judged himself for it.

"Get her. And then call everyone in."

Jay nodded. "What do you want them to do Sarge?"

What did he want them to do?

Al spoke before he could.

"Get someone on the door to Llewellyn, get us a secure line to Olivia Benson in New York and get in touch with Sex Crimes to see if they can ID any of the children in these photos, cross reference them in the database…some might have aged out and be living nearby."

Jay looked pathetically relieved to have an order to follow.

"I'll get Erin" was all he said and then he turned on his heel and disappeared in a flash.

"Hank I—"

"I need a minute"

"Hank"

"I need a minute Al. I just…get Trudy, Burgess, Roman…get our people here and tell them, tell them all of it I don't care just…I just need a minute"

Al to his credit didn't ask for his gun but simply let Hank go into his office, close the door and the blinds until he was totally safe from prying eyes where upon he very carefully put the photo of his daughter on his desk and promptly broke down into tears brought on by a mixture of emotions that he could not name.

And now were into the main body of this so stay tuned and I hope that you have enjoyed what I have written, I will update with the next chapter hopefully sooner rather than later.

We are slowly getting into the SVU side of this story so please be aware that for the next couple of chapters Chicago PD characters might be few and far between.

Next Chapter-Time flies since that cup of hot chocolate and Bridget Voight is broken and re-born. Until one day she doesn't think she can take it anymore and something happens.