Olivia

Tuesday, February 20

"George," I called, seeing him pass in my peripheral vision. He had his jacket tucked neatly under one arm, his briefcase held at his side. I knew it wasn't fair to be chasing after him after his day was over, but I hadn't been able to track him down for the past two days. "You spoke with Christine yesterday?"

He nodded. "She came in for a counselling session."

"How's she doing?"

He put both his jacket and briefcase down beside my desk. "She's got a long way to go."

"Is she receptive?"

"There are some issues that need to be addressed before we can even start. Normally I'd refer her to a victim's services counsellor, but she appears to need more help than they can generally give."

"So you're going to keep seeing her?"

"For now."

"She's doing okay though?"

"She's eating a little, sleeping a little, and sober. I'd say she's doing incredibly well at this point."

"What was the cause of that?"

"From what I understood from Christine's records, she had never sought counselling after the death of her parents. There are a lot of questions around just how psychologically balanced teenagers are to begin with, so having that kind of trauma would likely have likely caused problems that were never addressed. Then she was attacked twice in a very short period of time which anyone would have reacted badly to. What looked like bulimia to the doctors was likely just a symptom of the post-traumatic stress. You know how common nightmares are among victims. And the drinking was a way of suppressing her thoughts to a point where she was able to concentrate on something else. When you put those three together, she was a time bomb waiting to explode."

"Do you think she was attempting suicide?"

He shook his head. "I haven't seen anything that would make me believe that. She doesn't seem to have any tendency towards harming herself. All she keeps saying is that she wants to move on with her life."

"She's going to be okay?"

"It's going to be long, it's going to be hard, and it's going to be extremely painful, but she can recover."

I smiled. "Thanks, George."

"Anytime." He picked up his things and said good night, then headed towards the elevator.

"Ready to go?" Elliot asked me, coming over after he saw George leave.

"Yeah," I told him softly. We were going to go out for dinner. Was it a date? I didn't really know. We hadn't made it any further since Christmas in understanding what was happening. Things had been insanely busy, and neither of us were pushing particularly hard. On my end, it was mostly fear. I didn't know what would happen or if it would be okay. I didn't know what he wanted, or really what I wanted. I was happier believing that we had sorted things out and just leaving us in limbo. Finally, at the beginning of the month, he had suggested dinner. Between all the work and interruptions, it had taken three weeks for us to finally find a time when we could make it out together. It was strange to me, that we couldn't find time to go to dinner together, a proper, sit-down meal, but we had managed to end up in bed together on more than one occasion. I glanced up at him, shuffling through the papers on his desk. He had been in court all day and was still in his suit. I saw where his jaw was clenched, still tense from the cross examination that he felt had damaged Casey's case. I didn't know how I was supposed to walk away from this building and leave Elliot, my co-worker, behind, and be with Elliot, my romantic interest. Or maybe I wasn't supposed to. I didn't know. "Just give me a minute."

I quickly walked over to the washroom to inspect myself. I hated myself for doing what I was about to do. I quickly pulled out the bobby pins I had used in the morning to secure my hair in place instead of my usual elastic to that it would fall into the waves that I had come to love when I took them out. I cared, and it was a problem. Elliot, who had seen me when we worked around the clock on cases and didn't shower for three days, who had seen me at my worst, who woke me up countless mornings before I had a chance to brush my hair, was going to go out for dinner with me and I cared about what I looked like. Somehow, the concept of it being a real date and him walking me to my door and kissing me goodnight seemed much scarier than been rejected. It seemed much scarier than going for my weapon re-certification. It was damn well scarier than my job. I sighed and ran my fingers through my hair, then headed back towards the squad room. Elliot was still standing by his desk, but Cragen was standing beside him, speaking too softly for me to make anything out. He looked deadly serious, and Elliot leaned his head in to listen. Elliot nodded, and Cragen left.

"Everything okay?" I asked him.

He closed the files on his desk and pulled on his jacket in silence.

"Elliot, what's going on?"

"Come on," he told me. "I'll explain on the way."

"How's she doing?" I pressed the doctor as soon as he came out of the trauma room that Christine was in. It was the same doctor who had been there to examine her the night everything had started. Doctor MacDonald.

"She was stabbed. It narrowly missed any of her vital organs. She has an intracranial hemorrhage that needs to be operated on before she strokes out. She has at least two broken ribs, sprained wrist, a broken ankle, a collapsed lung, multiple open wounds and bruises across her body. She's a real mess."

"But she going to be okay, right?"

For once, he didn't have the right answer at his disposal. "The first concern," he replied softly, "is getting her through the night. Anything after that is gravy."

"So what are you waiting for?"

"We're waiting for an OR to free up."

"Is she conscious?"

"No. She was responding to stimulus when she first came in, but she isn't anymore."

"Who brought her in?"

"A friend. He's over there."

I looked over to find Rick sitting with his head in his hands. "Okay, I'll be somewhere around here, can you let me know of anything changes?"

He nodded. "Not a problem."

I thanked him, then made my way over to Rick. The obvious question- why were you the one that found her again weighed on my mind. Three times felt like too much. But we had found a legitimate reason for him finding her the first time, the second time he couldn't have had anything to do with.

"Rick?" I asked, completely forgetting about Elliot behind me. He looked up at me. His eyes were wide, his face pale, and his shirt covered in blood. "What happened?"

"I was going to take her out for dinner. I went to pick her up and she wasn't there. I tried to go into the building to check for her, but security's tight, they wouldn't let me in. I finally convinced a couple of the guards to check for her, and they found her dumped at the side of the building. I thought she was dead."

"This was at her apartment building?"

"No, at the Madison building. Where Senator Martin has his office. She had gone in to talk to them about cutting back her hours. I doubt she even made it up there."

"What time did you find her?"

"Seven-twenty five, maybe seven thirty. We were supposed to meet at seven. And you've met her; you know how organized she is. To her, being on time is late."

"What time did you alert security?"

"Seven ten, I guess?"

"Did you see anything? Did she say anything?"

"She was unconscious. I thought she was dead at first."

"Okay," I told him. "Give me a couple of minutes, I'll have more questions." I cleared my throat and pulled Elliot aside. "She was in the Madison building. That means lots of security cameras and visitors logs. I'll call Fin and get him over there with CSU. Then we'll need to get Casey to wake up a judge for a subpoena for all the video cameras that may have seen anything, and a search warrant for Senator Martin's office."

"Okay, are you coming?"

I shook my head. "I'm going to wait for her."

"She's going into surgery, Liv. It's going to be hours before you know anything."

"I don't care, I want to wait. I'll call you if I hear anything."

Elliot

"You look like hell," Fin informed me, meeting me in front of the building.

I rolled my eyes. "I hear insomnia is very in this season. What have you found?"

"Nothing much here. The snow was cleared away days ago so there's no hope for footprints, and it looks like she was carried out here, since there's no blood other than where she was found."

"Have you been in to talk to security yet?"

"They've got everything ready for us, they just need the judge's signature first."

"Okay, I'll see if I can get something from them now. Where's Munch?"

"Didn't answer his page. Did you see her?"

"Christine?"

I shook my head. "She not doing well though. They're taking her into surgery."

He shook his head but didn't say anything. I looked up to find Cragen coming over with papers in his hands.

"Hand delivery?" I asked in mock surprise.

"One PP wants me in on the search. Lots of politicians in this building, they don't want anything going wrong. It's a public relations nightmare. The chief of detectives is going to tell the senator in person that his office is being searched." He didn't slow down to talk to me, so I quickly followed him in. The security guards glanced at the search warrant and then up at him. "We record all our security footage onto hard drives. After a week, they're erased. We're burning the footage for the times your victim was in the building onto disks."

"Do you have a main log for who comes in and out?" I asked.

He nodded, and pulled out a couple of stapled sheets. "This is all the activity for today. If you need any others, let me know."

"Do you have maintenance service in the building?" Cragen asked him.

"We provide the services, but many of the offices prefer to contract outside companies."

"What about Senator Martin's office?"

"He uses our services, but we're on strict orders to keep his office last. One of his staff members always leaves late."

"Who's that?" I asked.

The security guard looked over at his computer. "Nicholas Mooney."

"Is he still in the building?"

"He hasn't swiped out. There is one back exit, but most people use the front desk to swipe out. It makes it easier when they're doing payroll to be able to prove that they were here late."

"Okay, Fin," Cragen called, motioning for him to come in. "I want you to go over the security tapes for the past two hours to see if there's anything out of place." He looked over at the security guard. "Can you get us into the Senator's office?"

He nodded. He headed out towards the office, and we followed. The door to the office was locked, and there was no light coming from inside.

"Doesn't look like there's anyone here," I told Cragen.

He nodded. "Open it."

As predicted, the light was off. I reached for the light switch and found papers scattered across the room, blood stains on the wall and carpet, and a purse with its contents strewn across the floor.

"We've got to get CSU in here," Cragen said, pulling out his phone. I went over to the purse and pulled out the wallet inside to check the ID. Christine. I looked over at the other items that had fallen out- a cell phone, nail file, lipstick, mini bottle of Advil. Seeing these items made it easy to believe that at times she really was a teenager. I put the purse back down where I had found it.

"Fin's got something."

"What?"

"Everything but a smoking gun."

"Elliot, you need to calm down," Fin warned me once we had stormed into Nicholas' building.

"I'll calm down when he's convicted. The bastard sat in front of me and pretended to care about her. He offered to help. And because I didn't see through that, she might die." We got to his apartment and I started pounding on his door. I was waiting for an excuse to break it down. To have him fight me so I would be justified in throwing his head through a window. There was no response, and I pounded harder. Finally I heard footsteps coming towards the door. Slowly, he opened it. He had only thrown a bathrobe around himself, and the apartment appeared dark.

"Can I help you?" he asked, squinting at Fin. I looked closer, and noticed he was flushed. He looked over at me. "Detective. Is everything okay? Is Christine alright?"

I clenched my jaw and willed myself to stay calm. "No, she's not. Actually, we might be able to use your help."

"Anything."

"I'm sorry, my night vision's terrible, do you mind talking in the hall? I can't see anything." Slow, steady breaths. That was all I had to remember. Calm. Just for a couple of seconds.

He shifted uncomfortably. "Sure, anything I can do to help." He knotted his robe and quietly pulled the door shut behind him. "What happened?"

He was out in the hall. Fair game. Legal arrest. I grabbed him by his robe and shoved him into the wall. There was a loud thud, then a groan. "What happened? What happened is that you slipped up. We got you on tape. Nicholas Mooney, you're under arrest-"

"What's going on out here?" a male voice boomed from his doorway. Another man of the same height came out, also wearing just a robe.

"Who the hell are you?" Fin asked.

"I'm his husband."

I walked back into the hospital with less of a sense of accomplishment that I had hoped. I had finally found him, he was in booking, he was caught on tape. It was going to be over. My shoulders ached from the tension that had been building for hours, and at 2 in the morning, I was starting to feel exhausted.

I asked at the main desk, and they gave me the room number for where she would be when she was out of surgery. I swung by the emergency room, but Liv was long gone. Instead of the elevator, I took the stairs. I wanted to tell her that we had found him, that we had arrested him, but I was afraid to find out what I was going to find out when I got to the room.

When I got to the ninth floor, I stopped by one of those awful coffee vending machines and bought two cups. Sleep sounded good, but I knew Liv wouldn't leave, and there was no way that I was going to leave her. I found Christine's room only to find a bed that still lay unoccupied. Liv was sleeping in a chair beside the bed, her jacket awkwardly folded under her head. I put down the coffees on the table, then took off my own jacket placed it over her arms. I had planned to sit in the hall to give her some quiet, but she stirred and opened her eyes.

"What time is it?" she asked groggily.

"Ten after two. Go back to sleep."

She shook her head and rubbed her eyes. "I'm fine." She took the coffee that I extended towards her.

"Have you heard anything?"

She shook her head. "I'm taking that as a good sign for now. Did you find anything at the crime scene?"

"Yeah. We got him."

"Someone in the building?"

"Nicholas Mooney."

"The senior legislative assistant?"

"Yeah."

"But, we talked to him. He. . . I didn't see it."

"Neither of us did." She put her coffee down and for the first time noticed my jacket lying on top of her. She picked it up slowly and stared at it.

"Elliot, tonight. . . what was it?"

"What do you mind?" I asked, pretending I didn't know exactly what she was talking about.

"The dinner?"

I looked over at her. I had no idea how to reply. I brought my chair right up to hers, hoping that somehow she could see what I was thinking. She looked up at me through her thick eyelashes. When it came to analyzing what someone said, I could understand the underlying message. When it came to saying the right things on the stand, the words came easily. When I filled out paperwork or I defended my actions, I could say what needed to be said. But when it came to me as a person, not a police officer, words didn't come easily. I didn't know what to say, and I couldn't seem to say the right thing. So I knew when I couldn't think of the right thing to say, it wouldn't eventually come to me. And that's why, without saying a word, I took my hand and put it over hers. She looked surprised, but never broke her gaze from me. She slowly turned her hand over, palm up, and snaked her fingers towards mine. I followed and laced my fingers through hers.

No words were needed. None at all.

"Detectives?"

We both looked up and snatched our hands back. The emergency doctor was standing at the door. I quickly stood up, Liv following closely.

"What happened?" she asked.

"She made it through the surgery. The damage was a little more extensive than we had originally thought, but we managed to repair it. Her lung has been re-inflated and while she was under, we managed to put a plate in her foot."

"This sounds good," I said.

"It is good. But the realities of Christine's condition haven't changed."

"Meaning what?" Liv asked.

"She alive. That should be considered a win. But it's likely that she'll never wake up. I'm sorry, Detectives."