A/N - Again, I own nothing etc etc. And thank you for reading, and reviewing if you feel so inclined.

Chapter 2 - Missing

Elliot couldn't stop himself. Sitting down, he pulled the file towards him, his thumb touching her face for a second and resting by the corner of her mouth.

He wanted to look at her forever, hold her in his mind, and yet the Olivia he kept in his thoughts and memories seemed to have little resemblance to the picture that he had seen so often since that day.

There was no reason to go through this, or even to want to. To see the words in black and white, yet the sudden urge to read every detail of the case again was intense and suffocating. Despite an inner knowledge that this would do no good to his mental state, his eyes were drawn to the pages.

Flicking through, the tightening of his chest only got worse, his heartbeat resonating loud as drumbeats within his ears, and the blood rushing throughout his body. Almost without meaning too, the word escaped from his mouth, forced out by the emotions and ache building within.

"Liv."

And then he was there. That morning.

He wakes early despite his exhaustion, his body complaining at having slept on the hard bed in the crib. Staring at the springs of the bunk above his head for a few minutes, he clears his head of dreams and sleep and then swings his legs out, stretching and yawning.

Glancing at his watch, he sees that it's just past 7.30am and while he'd rather have another half hour, he knows that he'd never get back to sleep. Pulling on his shirt, he walks downstairs and finds Fin already in, standing in front of the board.

It's another day, another case, except this one they seem to be going nowhere with. There is a picture of a body, a Caucasian boy of about twelve who was found in a dumpster down an alley by a homeless woman. They have no ID, no name, no parents, just the signs of sexual and physical abuse that scatter his skin. Elliot looks for a minute, reabsorbing the facts before speaking.

"You come up with any bright ideas overnight?"

Fin shakes his head, and Elliot walks over to the coffee machine. Thankfully Fin has already started a new pot and he pours the dark liquid out for both of them. Fin walks to his desk and sits down, still staring at the board, and after a few sips of the life-giving drink, Elliot does the same.

Pulling out his phone, he writes a text.

"To: Olivia

Bring breakfast when you come in. We're wasting away here."

A smile flits across his face for a spilt second at the thought of her expression when she reads it, the roll of her eyes at the idea of either he or Fin becoming remotely skeletal, then he puts it back in his pocket and starts throwing ideas back and forward about the boy.

Slowly everyone else filters in, Munch espousing loudly about the unfairness of the latest political scandal as he drops the morning paper on his desk and Cragen stepping out of his office to fill his own mug up before turning to them all.

"Where's Liv?" he asks, aiming his question at Elliot, but everyone glances at her desk. Elliot looks at his watch and sees it has been over an hour since he sent the text. It's now 8.45am and past the time she would usually be in, even when there isn't an ongoing child murder case.

"Maybe she stopped for coffee and breakfast?" He shrugs, and Fin snorts loudly.

"Yeah, you know what she's like if she suspects my partner might have had anything to do with the coffee." Munch looks suitably indignant and raises his hands in innocence.

"I haven't touched that machine for three days. Not since she threw the jar at my head. I'm worried her aim will start getting better."

They all smile wryly before Cragen starts giving out tasks for the day.

"Elliot, give her a call and pick her up wherever she is. Warner called, she wants you to meet her at the lab. Fin, Munch, start re-canvassing the area with this boy's photo. I want a name by lunchtime."

All three men nod, Elliot picking his jacket up from the back of his chair and pulling it on before speed dialling Olivia's number. Walking out, he waits to hear her voice at the end of the line but frowns slightly as her voicemail kicks in. Dialling again, he gets the same result.

Twenty minutes, six unanswered calls to her cell and three to her home later, he stands in front of her building, pressing the buzzer to her apartment. So far, no one has come out to let him in, and he's just considering buzzing the super when his phone rings. Hoping its her, he's disappointed to see it's Cragen.

"Hey."

"You get hold of Liv yet?"

"No. I'm outside her building now. No answer on either her home or cell." As he speaks he looks up and down the block as if willing her to walk round the corner.

"Think she's sick?"

"She seemed fine when she left last night," he says, as behind him he hears someone coming out of the building. Diving for the door, the woman holds it open for him to enter. "Hang on, I'm in. I'm going up now."

"OK. Call me when you get hold of her." Cragen says before hanging up.

Elliot walks up the stairs and down the hall to her door, thinking of what excuse he will give for worrying and harassing her phones and now her apartment. Knocking, he hears no movement on the other side and, after a minute, knocks again.

"Liv? It's me. You in there?" He waits for another few seconds but there is nothing. Taking his cell out, he calls hers again, leaning in against the door to listen. He can definitely hear the faint sound of it ringing somewhere inside. He knocks harder, the worry growing.

"Liv? Open up will you?" Still no response. Reaching out and trying the door, he is surprised when he feels it open.

"It's me. You here?" He calls as he pushes it open and takes one step inside. There is silence, but his heart leaps to his throat as if he had heard her scream. The scene in front of him is one he has seen before, but out of place in his partner's apartment.

The kitchen table lies on its side, a lamp smashed on the floor by the sofa and cushions scattered everywhere.

He moves through the room and now not only is his heart in his throat but it is beating faster and faster as if he is sprinting, in the middle of a chase. He calls her name again before pushing the door to her bedroom open and stepping in. The bed is made and there is no sign of anything wrong here. The bathroom door is closed and, even though he knows in his heart that the place is deserted and he won't hear her call out to come in or go away, he knocks before opening it.

It's empty, and the faint hope that it would turn out she had been puking all night and couldn't even leave the bathroom is gone.

Stepping back into the living area, he pulls out his cell phone and calls Cragen.

"Captain? She's not here. But......." and as he's speaking, his gaze sees something in the kitchen that almost causes him to drop the phone. Stepping closer, he can faintly hear Cragen calling his name but ignores it, all his attention focused on one spot on the edge of the kitchen surface.

There's blood.

Looking down, he sees a small patch on the floor directly beneath the first, and he finds himself stepping backwards in horror, away from the dark red stain, away from the sickening truth that until now he has been pushing to the back of his mind. Something is wrong. Very wrong.

Cragen is almost shouting his name now and he blinks, raising the phone back to his ear.

"Something's...... there's.......there's......," he can barely speak and yet the logical part of his brain is beginning to take control, "there's blood here. And the place is a mess. Get a unit and CSU here. Now."

With the last statement, he swallows his emotions and his cop brain steps into the breach, although he's not sure that this isn't just a bad dream. He hears Cragen confirm he is on his way, and is calling in the troops, and he knows he should start to do something, look for more evidence, call around hospitals, anything, but he can't.

He is still staring in disbelief at the scene before him when he catches sight of her cell phone, half hidden by the fallen table. Reaching for it, he finds that he has pulled a glove out of his pocket subconsciously, and the thought that he is treating Olivia's apartment as a crime scene would derail him if he dared to think about it.

Instead he acts on instinct and makes sure he doesn't let his skin touch its surface as he flips it open. The screen shows his text and his missed calls and, scrolling through its call log, he sees there has been no activity since the previous day.

It seems only a few seconds since he raised the alarm before he looks up and sees two uniforms standing at the door, waiting for instructions. He gruffly tells them to start canvassing the building, but when they ask for a photo to take round, he can't bring himself to remove the picture of her and her mother from the frame on the side table in the living area. It's too old anyway. Instead, he tells them to call their precinct and get copies of the photo from her NYPD file.

They step away, and he hears them begin the arduous task of knocking on doors. The world feels more and more surreal and now time has stopped, turning the minutes into hours before the Captain finally appears a few feet away.

"Elliot."

There is an unknown quality to his voice as he walks in and looks around. Elliot shakes his head slightly as if to clear it from this nightmare that he's trapped in, and his 'cop' voice takes over before he can think.

"This is how it was when I got here. The door was unlocked. And her cell phone was on the floor, down there," he gestures, and then takes one step towards the corner of the surface where the dark stain is. Without speaking, Cragen looks for a second before they both turn away.

"CSU team are on their way," the Captain says, "and the alert of a missing police officer has gone out to all units." The words sound calm and normal and yet Elliot can tell he too is struggling to comprehend these phrases within the context of Olivia. "What about her gun, her badge, her wallet?"

"I haven't seen her gun or badge but...." Elliot glances toward the bookcase where he knows she puts her bag as she walks in and, sure enough, it is there. Putting on the glove he is still holding, he unzips it carefully and pulls out her wallet. "There's $30, two credit cards....doesn't look like anything is missing."

"So, no burglary," Cragen says simply.

"No."

And now Munch and Fin are at the door and this is becoming scarily real. They aren't often all at a crime scene together but something's missing and he takes him a second to realise that that thing is Olivia. She's not here, and she's missing and now they're going to be searching for her, and there is blood and destruction and it's all too much.

Faintly he hears Cragen telling the other two detectives to start calling hospitals and, god forbid, the morgue, for Jane Does. It's that word, the morgue, that finally undoes him.

"Elliot. Elliot, sit down," There is a voice nearby, and a hand on his shoulder, pushing him down onto a chair and shaking him slightly. "You ok?" It's his Captain and yet it's not. There is too much worry in his tone and a gentleness, as if he's scared that Elliot will break. He might.

He has no idea how long he sits there before he opens his eyes and sees the CSU team walking in. He cannot bear it. To be here while they do their thing. Standing and pushing blindly through everyone, he almost runs down the stairs and out onto the street, stepping past the cop on the door and leaning on the wall to one side. He presses his hands against the coolness of it, trying to swallow the sickness that is threatening to take over, and he's saying her name under his breath with every beat of his heart.

"Liv. Liv. Where are you?"

Elliot jerked back to reality with the echo of her name still in his mind, and took a deep breath, letting the present world filter in. His hand was wrapped round the half drunk coffee and he was surprised to find it still warm beneath his skin. It felt as if the whole day must have passed already while he was trapped in his memories.

Glancing at his watch, he saw that the coffee told no lies, and not much time had gone by at all. It would still be a few hours before the nemesis he had never even put name or face too would arrive, and he knew that for his own sanity, or insanity, he would have to go through the rest of Olivia's file, but his mind was still spinning from the intensity of his flashback and he needed a few minutes.

Putting it to one side, he saw that there were three other files underneath and he knew what they would be. The other, scant pieces to the puzzle they had never solved. The three women that were now inextricably linked to Olivia, and had been for the last five years. The three women that the DNA said had been raped in their apartments by the man Fin was bringing in now.

Thank you for reading if you've made it this far. Much appreciated.