Thanks for coming back for "For the World Pt 2" of Rearray. We're going to go ahead and migrate back into the case now.

In the quiet of her office, Olivia took a short break from emails and department news. She let her back rest flush against the back of her leather office chair and the pads of her fingers stationed on the edge of her desk in front of her. She garnished a desk photograph of a younger Noah and herself. The photo captured a sunny day, Olivia watching over Noah while exchanging something by hand with a woman on a bench. Noah was tossing feed to pigeons. Instead of flinging them out and away from his body, he threw them up into the air like wedding rice.

Tucker wasn't in the frame, because he was behind the camera. A sad, tight-lipped grin that remembered peace stretched across her face. If I'd known what I know now, she thought. Her phone started ringing- her cell phone instead of her desk phone. A smile of normalcy broken her grin when she read the caller ID.

"Ayanna," she answered with a pleasant familiarity. "Good morning."

"Good morning, Captain Benson. Hope I'm not interrupting your day-"

"No, never," she laughed, shedding the creeping morose. "How's Narcotics?"

"I got to really stretch my legs, but I'm going different places with my new rank."

"Ah, yeah. I kept meaning to take you for drinks, Sarge," she teased.

"Oh, don't worry," Ayanna chuckled. "I'm gonna call in that drink eventually. I'm gonna be heading up the Organized Crime task force."

"That so?"

"Yes. Lieutenant Moennig had been eyeing Det. Stabler for a while."

"And you're looking for a read," Olivia concluded.

"He was your old partner, right?"

Memories bombarded her in flashes of all his bullheadedness but also his loyalty and dedication. His delicate moments. The moments he was so fragile he could be broken with a whisper. They shared an eagerness to get justice for survivors. It was never the same justice every time, though. "Yeah," she said, quieted by the volume of her continuing thoughts. "For about twelve years."

"Is there anything I should know," asked Ayanna, not unaware of Olivia's reminiscent tone.

"Well, you may have to be his 'handler' at times. I trust you've already done your research. What you won't find in black and white," she continued, referring to his jacket, "is how loyal and trusting he can be. The job- it takes a different toll on all of us. Detective Stabler is the kind of partner you want walking beside you through the fire."

"I hope all that's true," Ayanna said. "Look, I've got some intel on the case he's collaborating on with y'all. Lieutenant Moennig is gonna inform Stabler of our team changes today. When can I swing by?"

Olivia reminded her the precinct is her second home and that Ayanna is always welcome, and they shared a laugh over the fact that Ayanna's wife calls the job 'the other woman.' When the call ended she swiped her cell phone to the contact Stabler. She thought about calling. She remembered he wasn't her partner anymore.

A ringing cut through the silence of the late morning. There was a rustling of the sheets and comforter and sighs and groans of interrupted sleep. Elliot untangled himself from Kathy and answered the phone in a groggy, husky, morning voice. "Stabler... Uh-huh... What?" He began to awaken. "No, that's not a problem... Yup. Thanks." He tried to refrain from slamming his cell phone down onto the nightstand and was able to hold back about fifty percent.

"What's the matter?" Kathy asked, her blonde tresses strewn about her head as she drew closer again to Elliot. Instead of gravitating into her like before, he stiffened. "Work," he said. Kathy paused and looked up at him from her place on his chest. "What about work?"

"Just- nothing."

"Why are you being so short," she beckoned, sleep still in her voice.

"It's really nothing," he insisted.

Kathy raised up onto her elbow and twisted her body so that she was half on the bed and half on Elliot's torso. Her pale, delicate hands cupped both Elliot's cheeks, stroking his face. "Don't do that," she said. Her words floated on an understanding affection.

"Do what?" he said. He was suppressing his arritability, and however subtly, Kathy could tell.

"What you used to do. Be distant. Lock me out. You weren't like this in Italy."

He swallowed. His eyes turned down to meet hers, falling almost shut to make the connection. Both their eyes slanted sleepily, romantically. It was like where the Pacific and Atlantic ocean meets, the way both their blues dared the other. He knew she was right and he was wrong. He didn't want to do that to her again after all this time. "I'm sorry," he offered. He turned his eyes back to the ceiling. "Moennig added someone to the team. Above me- a sergeant."

"And that bothers you?" she encouraged, rubbing light circles around his peach-colored aereola.

"No, I," he interrupted himself with a sigh. "Just makes me nervous."

"Change makes you nervous." She chuckled sleepily. "You keep your heart in the right place. They'll love you," she said with an assuring peck to his arm.

The muscles of his chest and abdomen moved under his skin as he sat up on the side of the bed. He took a deep breath, held it for a beat, and exhaled. "I gotta head back to the City, Kath." She didn't sigh, but her chest deflated. She turned onto her back. "What about lazy Tuesday mornings? I thought we'd have you until at least lunchtime," she lamented. She was beginning to suppress an irritability at this point. He rubbed his knee. "I know. It's the case. And with the new sergeant. Time is everything," he said, rising to his feet and heading to the bathroom. Kathy watched him in his black boxers disappear behind the bathroom door.

She whispered, a little annoyed and plainly a little sad, "It is."

Ayanna Bell was entering the doors of the 1-6 when she heard her name called. Holding the door, she turned to find an older white man with very short hair. He had a strong face that was at the same time pitiful, and blue eyes with a world of humanity behind them. He walked toward her with his knees bending slightly outward, like a cowboy. "Stabler?" she asked, knowingly. She was still formulating her read on him. With his history - six shootings, IAB interviews with notes on his agitated nature and reluctanct cooperation, as well his high case closure rate, which could point to overzealousness and corner-cutting as easily as it could point to dedication and professionalism - she was inclined to examine him with a critical eye but also take him as he comes. She wanted to think, if Olivia trusts him then I can too, but she also thought, Olivia isn't me.

"Yeah," he answered, extending his hand. She shook it firmly. He took hold of the door so she could walk through. He walked through behind her then was beside her. "Moennig told me you have a uh bit of a head start in the case, huh?" he stated, scratching the side of his nose nostril.

"Yeah, actually. I have some intel that will give our taskforce a leg up in a case I've been building."

"And my current case?"

Ayanna stopped. She turned to Elliot and with her feet planted she looked him up and down, just in case she'd missed something in her previous examination. Because she'd have to have missed something to not know what gave him the nerve and the agency as a detective rank to presume lead. "Technically, Detective, there is no current case. Only a collaborative effort in an investigation that, if the correct dots are connected, gives us a case," she stated.

Elliot placed a hand on his hip and rubbed his brow. He was slightly irritated at the rank-pulling, and he knew he was under her scrutiny. Everywhere he knows he's being judged by his jacket by people who'd never investigated a crime alongside him, never interviewed a special victim, never interrogated a suspect for answers to the vilest questions. "Right," he conceded, fighting a fire in his veins. "Look, Sarge. I dunno what you think you know about me, but- how's about a little benefit of the doubt?"

"Detective, I have no interest in judging your character beyond what's necessary to guage risk," she said, squinting. She gestured with her head for him to walk with her. He followed her onto an elevator, and when it dinged shut they continued their conversation alone.

"Risk, huh?"

"You're a gifted detective, I can tell. You also have a lot of baggage."

"Everybody has baggage," he said, eyes forward.

"No, because not everybody can afford it. The price is different for different people. That's how someone like you is chosen for OC. Others have to be co-opted."

"You sayin I got the job because I'm white?"

"Nope," Ayanna answered plainly. "You said that."

Elliot cleared his throat. He didn't want to scoff. To seem arrogant.

"I'm sayin even with your baggage you're easier on the pallate," she continued, "Thirteen."

"Thirteen?"

"Thirteen letters of recommendation. A clean nose and a record that shows how driven I am. Thirteen letters of recommendation for Moennig to throw me a bone."

The elevator dinged open. "I'll fill you in with Benson and her squad," Ayanna said, practically leading him with her stride into the squad room. Fin was the first to see her. He stood with an open stance. "Sergeant Bell finally making her way to SVU," he grinned. Her demeanor eased. "Not so fast," she laughed, "Not in this lifetime." Fin introduced her to Kat and Amanda. The two were pleased to meet her, and Amanda's eyes had a glint of admiration. Another woman in NYPD, before her eyes and in the flesh, pushing forward and making rank.

She asked Fin how he knew Ayanna. He said, "Every so often I like to see what kinda rookies are walkin in my shadows at Narcotics." He laughed, and he and Ayanna shared a knowing look with each other. Amanda reached out to shake hands with Ayanna. "Well, I'd like to keep in touch," Amanda said. Kat followed suit with the handshake and agreed. Ayanna nodded and smiled. "You know what they say about friends and enemies," Ayanna said with a polite smile.

"I guess you're poaching my mentees now," Olivia joked, emerging from her office.

"The student always becomes the teacher-"

"Otherwise, the teacher didn't do her job," Olivia said, completing Ayanna's sentence. They shared a two-handed handshake, covering each other's hands. "Whaddya got for us, Sergeant Bell?"

As Ayanna spoke, Elliot's eyes wandered Olivia, trying to catch her attention. "Because this is more of a peripheral investigation, Organized Crime is going to assist, but the collar belongs to SVU unless there's something more expansive at play."

"We appreciate the extra hands," Olivia nodded.

"I was just telling Sergeant Bell," Elliot joined in, "we could use advanced tech assistance finding out more about our skiddish suspect internationally."

She followed his lead. Impressive, she thought of him taking the initiative to paint the impression of unity despite subliminal friction.

"I know of a very sophisticated hacker. Name's Slootmaekers. She's young and, well, a little different, and she's a civilian, but if there's anybody I could have as a dedicated tech, it's her."

Elliot cleared his throat and glanced down at his black dress shoes. As his gaze returned to eye-level with his peers he offered, "I won't have any problem co-opting that choice." A slight? Was he mocking her? Was it just a little pointed joke, just between the two of them, to acknowledge her concerns in a lighter way and forge a connection? There's no easier way to cut tension, and hardly a more painless way to create a pocket for a bond, than through humor. Ayanna smirked at him. She figured she'd decide later whether she should be offended at his remark or take it as a a light-hearted offering of an olive branch.

Fin made the same to suggestion to Ayanna as he'd made to Elliot at the diner. "It's not unusual for a suspect to turn out to be another victim, who'll bring us one degree closer to the real perpetrators," he said. He said in Narcotics there were perps, addicts, and collateral damage, and in homicide a dead body and a murderer. "But at SVU," he said, "the lines can blur between victim and perp. Those are the worst cases."

"I understand men are trafficked too," Ayanna responded.

"There've been cases where male victims of sex trafficking were also used to enforce rules. So they double as victim and perp," Olivia added.

"The overseer of the trafficked," Fin puffed. "A traitor."

"Or a victim of Stockholm's," Kat spoke up.

She had a theory of her own. "My gut is telling me he's just as much a victim as she is. I mean, when I see him dump the body, it looks more like he's carrying out a command, out of fear, instead of covering up his own crime," she said. She looked around at the pensive faces around her, someo nodding. She wanted to discern whether they found credibility in her theory before they began to speak. That'd make it easier to control her reaction, even just the automatic signals of her own face, and prepare a retort.

"Seems plausible enough to me," Ayanna said, looking over at the Captain. Olivia also agreed. "Okay," Olivia said. "That's going to be our working theory- good job, Kat." Kat and Fin made eye contact, both grinning proudly. He winked his approval at the credit she was getting. He'd told her previously, theories should change as the facts come in, and the evolution of her developing theory was paying off. It was making sense not only to her but to the different minds in the room with different levels of experience.

Elliot smiled on Kat. She reminded him of Olivia when they were young. The ambition and the promise of her logic, as well as her ability to sympathize in a way that opened new possibilities in ways to perceive the players in a case. There was an openness. Kat caught him looking at her with a stare that seemed misplaced. He was more looking through her. When he realized her attention was on him he didn't even have the wherewithall to feel embarassed. He'd felt transposed into a day twenty years ago when Olivia was young with her shoulder length black hair. And he was young.

He played it off anyway. He smiled more presently and said, "You're a quick one." The other squad members were puzzled, but Kat had to fight to keep from beaming. She just wanted to know she was learning what she needed to and that her skills, which were only sharpening and expanding, were valued. Olivia's "good job" was going to be enough to get her to the next "good job," maybe with the occasional setback such as being dismissed from the room as the tenured detectives discussed something too sensitive for her officer status. But Elliot's comment warmed her. She wondered how he knew exactly what to say. He'd become a surrogate, if only for a moment, for the mentor relationship she craved with Olivia, who seemed to hold back on validation. Kat thought maybe she'd lost someone, or someone had deeply disappointed her. She didn't know she'd become a surrogate for an innocent sort of tenderness he missed having with Olivia. Before things were complicated. Before separations and Gitanos and hugs in hallways.

Ayanna stepped out of the driver's seat of her car. Elliot was by her side, all the way from the passenger side, before she knew it. It could easily be eagerness and determination. She couldn't help but also wonder, is it overzealousness? They walked quietly to Jet Slootmaekers' door. The silence wasn't awkward, thankfully. It was just intense, like their search for answers-for justice. Ayanna used her knuckles to give the door three decent knocks. Nothing. "Maybe she's not home," Elliot said. Though she spoke nonchalantly, confidence carried her voice. "These types, they don't leave their nests." She banged the side of his fist three times, and just as her hand was coming down a third time Jet opened the door a crack. She spoke in a monotonous voice, half of her pale face obstructed by the door and the deadlock chain.

"Who are you?"

"Slootmaekers. I'm Sgt. Bell. We spoke on the phone," she said, returning her badge to her hip.

"Who's this?" she asked, her eyes turning to Elliot.

"I'm Detective Stabler. I'm hoping your purported technological genius can crack the case of a dead woman and baby."

"My technological genius can do a lot of things," Slootmaekers said. Then she turned to Ayanna. "Incentives and limitations?"

"Let's talk more about that inside."

The door shut, and the chain rustled.

Jet lived in a converted warehouse. The ceiling was high, as were the windows, and the warehouse style of the exterior walls added to the sense of productivity on the helm. She seemed to move like a mouse, fast and low so as to avoid predators. The predators, in her case, would be any human seeking social interaction.

"So... international facial recognition?" Slootmaekers asked as she lowered into her gaming chair.

"Yeah. We're looking for a match on this obscured face," Bell said, presenting her phone screen to Slootmaekers.

Over the clacking of her computer keys, Slootmaekers responded, without turning her eyes to the phone, "Just send it to me."

Bell and Elliot shared a look. The kind of "excuse us, I guess" look. Elliot nodded and started looking around the space. "Nice place you got here," he said. Slootmaekers did not give him the comfort of changing pace. Her computer pinged, and the photo filled a window on one of her monitors. With quickness and ease, she edited the photo to take back shadows, clear some pixels, and brighten the face. Bell looked on, studying-and admiringi-her savant.

"It's cleaned up significantly," Bell announced.

"Now, where do you think he's from?"

"We're unsure, but let's start with Europe. What can you do?"

She still has not looked back at anyone. By this time, Bell has accepted it as an odd quirk, a tendency not meant to be offensive. Elliot looks on from a couple feet back, still being the cop and subtly investigating his surroundings in order to investigate this new person.

A rectangular window on one of the computer monitors fills with falling 0's and 1's. Bell asks what's happening. "I'm re-introducing a program. I'll need it for this," Slootmaekers said. Bell looks at the side of Slootmaekers' face, since that's all she's offering, and reminds her, "Nothing illegal."

"Noted... Are you well acquainted yet?"

Bell stands up straight, her face tightening. "Excuse me?"

Slootmaekers swings her chair forty-five degrees and connects eyes with Elliot. "Are you well acquainted yet?"

"With your bachelorette pad?"

"With me. I know you're interrogating my living space as a surrogate for me, which I do prefer not to be asked many questions, but... are you done?"

He smiles innocently to dispel his guilt and says, "You're an artist and a hacker."

"The two are not mutually exclusive. I don't accept a zero-sum world. It's why I hack."

Elliot and Bell look at each other. She can't help him now. She raises an eyebrow as if to nudge him and say get back in the ring. He does, with his usual self-important grace.

"Neither do I. This piece. What's it called?"

Slootmaekers swings back around in her chair and runs her fingers over the keyboard with melodic strikes like a painist. "We Have Nothing But Thoughts and Memories Between Us," she answers. Elliot nods and joins Bell behind her. "Enter your credentials?" Slootmaekers requests. Elliot nods at Bell, who asks the hacker why.

"You said nothing illegal, right?"

"Right."

Slootmaekers stares blankly. Bell concedes and bends to type her credentials into a law enforcement platform. When she finishes typing she stands upright, a hand on her hip. "What now?" she asks. Slootmaekers taps the Enter key to submit Bell's credentials. "Now," Slootmaekers replies, "I write a program to cross reference and analyze descriptions and facial recognition of suspects, victims, and wards of European government interests."

"Waitwaitwait- how did you get the access?"

Photos, some mugshots and others not, flash on one monitor an intense speed, and on another monitor, falling 0's and 1's.

"A friend... Don't worry," she says, rolling her eyes so inconspicuously Bell almost didn't catch it. "You're covered. Details were uploaded to this official U.S. government website, which you have access to."

"Legally?"

Slootmaekers looks up at her. Her face says do you really want to know?

"We didn't do anything illegal, and there's a trail to prove that, but that's only if it's needed. It can always be scrubbed."

"Don't do that again," Bell says, equal parts shocked, agitated, and impressed.

Elliot leans over Slootmaekers on the opposite side of Bell. "You got a hit," he says intently. He reads, "'Possible ID?'" Slootmaekers explains that since the photo had to be altered as much as it did, certain technological aspects were degraded, but a match was still made. A match which Bell found too striking to be coincidental or mistake. "Malachi Obga. It lists country of origin as Sierra Leone."

"He was reported to Immigration in Kuwait," Bell read, "as a minor- fifteen years old."

"Yeah, but then he disappeared..." Slootmaekers said. "Until he was arrested in France for theft... then disappeared again."

"How old was he then?" Elliot asked.

She answered that he was eightheen at the time. The year had been 2019. Bell slapped a hand onto Slootmaekers' shoulder. Slootmaekers jumped, either from alarm, disgust, or both. Bell leans down, smirking, very pleased with the progress they've made in the case and with Slootmaekers' work. She said, "Now... the incentives."