AN: I'll just remind everyone that I know little about crime and official law business. So pardon my made up rules. I try to make them as real as possible. Secondly, you're reviews are just all very lovely. You make my smile. And you make me want to write more! Thanks for the inspiration! Enjoy!

A Dirty Job

"Of course, I took the victim to the children's home. That's part of my job," Olivia yelled with fire in her eyes.

A stone-faced man with a comb over and a bad mohair suit sat with Olivia in an interrogation room. "How did you transport the girl?"

"In a unit car that I checked out and in. Which you would know if you looked at your records," she scoffed in annoyance.

"Yes, and it says that you checked the car in at 12:05pm, but Catherine wasn't taken to the home until 1:30pm. How do you explain that?"

"I brought Catherine to our offices because she was scheduled to meet with the ADA. After Casey Novak went over her story we waited in the children's room on the third floor for a social worker to show up. When that didn't happen, I made a few phone calls and had the Catherine placed in the Manhattan Facility."

"And that's when you took her there?"

Olivia was livid. She took in a deep breath to control her anger and seethed the answers from her clenched teeth. "Yes."

"And so you didn't use a unit vehicle?"

"No. It was only four blocks down. We walked."

"Why would you walk," the man said as he lifted a brow in her direction.

"Why wouldn't we? The girl was starting to feel comfortable. She was talking to me. The walk was good for her. The sun was out. Global Warming. Gas prices. I mean, where should I stop?"

"How about you stop on line 176 in your hand book under safety regulations."

Olivia grabbed the thick manual from the man's grasp and scanned the pages. "This is ridiculous. How is driving the victim and walking the victim any safer? We could have just as easily been followed in a unit car. And that walk doesn't even prove that we were followed-"

"Ms. Benson, you broke the rules. There is now a child in jeopardy, not to mention a ruined facility caused by a fire due to your mistake. If you have a problem with the rules take it up with a judge."

Olivia tried to stay calm and reasonable. The heat from her temper and her fresh head wound penetrated her skull like a slow ice pick. "Listen, I will fully take responsibility for walking my victim to her destination and I have no problem doing everything in my power to keep my victims safe, but I think that you're wasting your time interrogating me about a technicality when you should be scanning your video tapes for the perp."

"So you do have a problem with rules?"

Olivia snapped. "No, that's not what I said."

"That's funny because your track record begs to differ."

Slamming her hand on the table in front of her she looked into the man's eyes and exploded with fury ", my files were broken into! This has nothing to do with my record and you know it."

She pushed the hair out of her eyes and held the side of her head. After the long night she'd already had this was the straw that broke her patience.

The man scribbled silently into his notebook and Olivia knew that what ever he was writing was full of fiction and outrageous allegations. When he was finished he placed a piece of paper with a cell phone number on it in front of her. "Do you recognize this number?"

She looked at it and shook her head. "No."

She stood up from the table and a wave of black rolled in the back of her eyes. She turned her back on the man and wiped the sweat from her brow.

"Lying will only make this worse, so if you know whose number that is, cough it up."

Olivia paced the floor with her hand on her back and her belly swaying out in front of her. She was growing extremely uncomfortable and irritated. The longer he prodded her the angrier she grew. "I told you I don't know the number."

"Did you talk to anyone between the hours of ten and eleven tonight?"

"Yes, my brother, and that's not his cell phone number."

"Boy, your brother likes to get into trouble doesn't he?"

Olivia leaned on the table. A bead of sweat dripped from her face. "What do you mean by that?"

"You tell me."

"If you're saying that he had something to do with this, you'd better take another look at your evidence. He was out with a good friend of mine, who happens to be an FBI agent, so if you are insinuating what I think you are, why don't you go take it up with them, because I have no idea how this happened?!"

"Ms. Benson, have you ever had problems controlling your temper?"

The man's voice drowned out almost inaudibly as Olivia staggered and slumped back into her chair.

"Ms. Benson, are you all right?"

She blinked back the nausea and exhaustion. The questions were like daggers. "I want a lawyer."

"You're only going to delay the process," he said in agitation.

"Aw, boo hoo," Olivia replied with a dark tone as she squinted through her bleary vision.

She could feel herself getting weak. She took in slow deep breaths of air and tried to keep herself together.

"Have you taken any kind of drug in the last forty-eight hours?"

Her eyes focused on the man like he had five heads and no brain. " I'm six months pregnant, does it look like I'm on drugs. Uh, I'm done. I'm not saying another word without my lawyer. This interrogation is over."

She placed both of her hands onto the warm metal table. The sweat from her palms stuck to the top like a sticky imprint. With her head turned away from the inspector she pushed herself to a stand and took one step. Her world started spinning in slow motion. Thankfully Cragen opened the door and held onto Olivia's arm.

Roberts followed her lead and stood up behind her. "Benson, I'm the only one that ends this interrogation."

Cragen pulled Olivia out of the room. His wrinkled red face glared at the man as he fought for control over his interrogation room. "Roberts, it's over. No lawyer, no interview. You got it."

SCENE

"When was the last time you saw Catherine," Chester Lake asked.

The dark skinned man sat in the precinct hallway with a crowd of children and several other foster care workers from the Manhattan Facility. The room was buzzing with noise and movement from the group of children brought from the Home for questioning.

"I did a head count as we filed out of their sleeping corridors. They each had a partner and we walked in a line from there to the street. She could have fallen behind at any point from there. I honestly, did not realize she was missing until I got them situated in the street."

Elliot sat with a little girl in pink pajamas. Her hair was a mess. It was half braided in cornrows with pieces of the hair frizzing from the lose folds. "Tamara, Catherine was your safety buddy correct?"

"Yes," she mumbled.

"When did Catherine drop your hand?"

"When we got out of the building."

"Did you see anyone take Catherine?"

"No."

"So Catherine just walked away from your group?"

"Yes. No. I don't remember."

Chester was now talking to a dopey ten-year-old boy. "So you did see strangers next to your group? Did you see any of them with Catherine?"

"Yeah. Yeah, a man walked her to the other side of the street with the rest of us."

"What was he wearing?"

"A black hat, with big pants and a blue t-shirt, and boots."

"Can you describe his face for me?"

"He was white. Oh and he had red suspenders."

Chester paused in mid sentence and looked up at the boy. "Evan, was this man a fireman."

Evan scratched his head. "Ah, maybe. I guess he was. Yeah. Yeah, he was a fireman."

SCENE

Cragen held open the door for Olivia and guided her into his office. "Liv, you look awful."

"I…I think I'm gonna pass out."

"Do you need me to call a bus?"

"No! Please, no. I just need to sit." Olivia sat on Don's office couch and curled up in a ball.

"How about some water," Cragen asked.

"Maybe just some …" she trailed off.

Don watched her eyes close as she fell into a deep sleep. He touched her neck to make sure her pulse was at a normal rate. Forty years on the job made him a little paranoid.

Her stomach moved up and down as an immediate line of drool formed on the leather couch under her cheek.

Cragen smiled. He missed her being around.

SCENE

Munch and Fin pushed through the crowd of parentless children, while trying to maneuver a box over the sleeping, giggling, eight to ten-year-olds.

"Wow this is a regular slumber party," Munch said under his breath.

"Yeah, let's hope nobody pulls out the warm bucket of water," Fin added.

Elliot stretched to a stand from a crotched position and looked at the two clown faced detectives slither towards him. "Munch. Fin. What do you got?"

"Fun for the whole family," Munch said directing his attention to the box of videotape in his hands.

"Let me know when you find anything."

"Will do, "Fin answered.

Elliot started to turn then stopped himself, balancing over several rambunctious kids hitting each other. "Oh, guys, did you get the tapes from our building?"

"Why would we need to do that," Fin asked with a wrinkled brow.

"Because I told you to," Elliot yelled.

"Calm down Romeo, we got'em," Munch said before hitting Fin and pulling him towards the upstairs television room.

"Fin, don't mess with me," Elliot said in a serious tone, his angry voice waking a scared little girl next to him.

SCENE

The night ticked by. Finally the hallway was cleared of children and uninformative adults. Munch and Fin had still found nothing in their video searches and Elliot opened Cragen's door to get some orders on their next plan of action.

"Captain."

The lights were turned off and the yellow glow from the desks in the office space behind him flooded over the floor and into the corner where Olivia slept. He walked over to her and caressed the side of her face. She was a little warm. He checked his watch. 4:30am. In another hour the sun would be peaking through the window. He gently bent over and lifted her limp tired body from the couch.

"What…Elliot," she whispered still mostly asleep.

"Shh, I'm taking you home."

She wrapped her arm around his neck and buried her head into his shoulder. It was an act that she never would have allowed in a normal state of mind.

Elliot walked her past the crew still working hard in the office. Chester looked up from the video board and blew Elliot a kiss. "Kiss her good night for me," he whispered.

"I will. Hey, you seen the cap?"

"Yeah, he went out with that Roberts guy from internal affairs about an hour ago. They were headed-"

"Where are you taking her?" said a voice from the hallway.

The man investigating Olivia's case, Allen Roberts, blocked the doors and neatly pushed his reading glasses up the bridge of his nose.

"Home. She's under no condition to be here," Elliot said pushing himself around the prick with the clipboard.

"Well, she can't go home. She's being held here until proven otherwise."

"Held here on what charges," Elliot glared. His voice moved up a level.

Olivia jolted in his arms. She held up her head and grabbed at Elliot's body. "What's going on?"

Allen pointed his pencil at her. "Your Magnum P. I. is violating procedures, is what's going on?"

"Alright, that's it," Elliot said while placing Olivia on the ground. "What's your problem, jerk off?"

Elliot pushed Roberts into the doorframe. "You show me one procedure she's breaking. Tell me, Huh? Huh?!"

"Detective Stabler, I suggest you back off or you'll be spending time in the bullpen on harassment charges and tampering with an investigation."

"Elliot, calm down," Olivia cried as she grabbed the arm on his shirt.

Elliot backed away from Allan and spun in a circle trying to blow off steam. "Can't you see that she's pregnant and recovering from a concussion?"

Allan took off his glasses and wiped the spittle from Elliot's rant off of the frames. "That's a sad case, detective, but until you prove she didn't steal those files and hand them off to our perp, she's to be in the states custody."

"Are you trying to kill my baby?," Elliot argued.

Chester Lake was headed over to the argument. He pulled Elliot to the side and guided Olivia to a chair, while Allan Roberts wormed his way into the office a little further.

"I've already given her special treatment by allowing her to stay in this office. I don't know what else you want me to do."

Elliot was about to punch Roberts in the face. His neck bulged out and the vein in his forehead pulsed with rage. Chester pulled him back. "Elliot, my man, don't do it. Walk it off. It isn't worth it."

Elliot backed away and Chester calmly handed Allan a tissue for his glasses. He smiled and tried to dissipate the heated disagreement. "Allan, ahem, Inspector Roberts, I realize the steaks on this case are fragile, but what happened to every man is innocent until proven guilty. I mean, just because Olivia touched the files, doesn't mean she sold them to the perp. If that were how this place worked we'd all be guilty. Am I right?"

"Olivia Benson is our only suspect at this point. She had access to all of the information and her cell phone number was found in a phone that was retrieved on site. She's not going home until you all find me a better reason to let her off the hook."

Elliot was still angry but he kept himself together for Olivia's sake. "Did you ever think that that cell phone belonged to the children's home? How do you know Catherine wasn't the one calling her?"

"Do you think I'm daft, Detective? We've done every background check that one can do to a cell phone and there are only two calls that were made from this phone. One of them was to Olivia Benson and the other one was to her office. All of the cell phones in the home were accounted for. This one came from the outside. Take her to a bed, get her some water, do whatever you need to do, but she stays here and that's final.

Elliot briefly hunched over in a chair and held his hands around the base of his neck. He shook his head in total disgust. "I can't believe you're actually going to treat us this way."

Olivia slowly stood up. "Elliot it's ok. I'll go to the crib."

He followed behind her as she made her way to the back of the office. Before he turned completely towards the door he pointed a finger at Allan and grumbled angrily ", you're an asshole Roberts. A real asshole."

"I'm just doing my job, Stabler."