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Chapter 4

Elliot watched Casey nervously- she seemed calm enough. He was holding her hand, to comfort her and- the ulterior motive- to monitor her pulse. It was holding steady and was a little high, but he knew he couldn't tell her about the risk to the baby. If he did, Casey would panic, and no one would be able to calm her down.

To make matters worse, even if Melinda had drugs that could keep her calm and if they could get to them, if they used a syringe, they would be useless. Casey still hadn't completely dealt with her kidnapping last year, and one of the long-standing hurdles had been being able to get injected with even a placebo from a syringe and not almost go into a panic attack. Elliot doubted she ever would be able to remain calm if put into that situation, which was fine... normally. But here, giving her something to keep her calm would only result in her growing more panicked.

And as if she wasn't already dealing with enough, Alex still hadn't regained consciousness. Ever since Alex's return from witness protection, she and Casey had gotten almost as close as the Casey and Olivia. Now, they were all being held hostage together, with Alex bleeding from the head. Elliot wasn't sure how much more Casey would be able to handle before something happened to the baby.

Casey cast another glare at Elliot before returning her attention to Alex. He was holding her hand in some lame attempt to cover up the fact he was taking her pulse. Ever since he crumpled up that note Melinda gave him, he had been excruciatingly careful around her, like she was a stupid kid. Casey was tempted to slap him and scream, 'I am not a kid! I am not! I am not! I am not!' But, somehow, she didn't that would go over very well with Lindsey.

"Mmm..." Olivia gasped and looked down at Alex as she moaned again, Melinda clapping a hand over the blond's mouth and glancing nervously up at Lindsey. One long moment later, Alex's eyes fluttered open and she tried to talk through Melinda's hand.

Melinda held a finger to her lips and brought her hand away, writing a message to Alex while Olivia helped her sit up, shifting so she was between her lover and Lindsey. Alex looked around in confusion, gasping when she saw Lindsey and the gun.

Casey felt the baby kick and resisted the urge to tell him it was going to be okay. She rubbed her stomach worriedly, drawing her knees up as much as she could as if to protect her son from Lindsey. If this bitch so much as strayed near him, Casey didn't care how protective Elliot was, she was going to kill Lindsey herself.

Melinda and Alex were now conversing in sign language, which left the rest of them in the dark, but saved the time of writing their messages down. How long was I out? Alex signed to Melinda.

Couple of minutes, maybe- none of us we're looking at a clock. Tell me if you feel sick to your stomach or anything else, all right?

Alex nodded, then glanced nervously at Casey before signing, Is Casey okay? You know, with the baby?

Yes, but try and keep her calm. I know, hostage situation and pregnancy hormones make this almost impossible, but if she gets too stressed out, she could lose the baby or go into labor- and don't tell her about this. It will scare the hell out of her and I doubt anything could keep her calm then.

Casey was getting sick of everybody talking about her and refusing to tell her what was wrong, but she knew it would be impossible for her to find out this great big secret right now. Once this was over, she was going to kill Elliot unless he told her, though.

"Ma'am? My name is Maria. I'm the hostage negotiator," a voice called from the other side of the door. Lindsey jumped, turning her back to the hostages and pointing her gun at the door.

"What do you want?"

"Ma'am, the police sent me to get some information, that's all. I'm not armed and I'm not going to try to get inside. You know my name; do you want to tell me yours?"

Lindsey hesitated, then shouted, "You tell your fancy police to look at Evan Clark's file! I'm his mother!"

There was silence for a long second, and Casey was about to give up on Maria completely when she called, "Lindsey Clark? Is that your name?"

"Yes! Yes, that's my name, and you bastards killed my son!"

Immediately Maria tried to sooth her. "Of course, ma'am, of course we did. But I need to talk to you about releasing some of your hostages, like the one that's injured and the one that's pregnant. They're not cops; they have no part in this."

"Oh yeah? What about all those doctors? They're not cops either, don't you care about them?"

"Ma'am, my job is to ensure everybody's safety here, not just innocent civilians. But I need you to help me out here- I'll try and give you something you want, but in return, you have to release at least Ms. Cabot and Mrs. Stabler, all right?"

Lindsey screamed, "If you can give me back my son, I'll release every single one of my hostages right now! But, otherwise, just leave me alone! I don't want any money or whatever else you have to offer."

Alex got to her feet and shouted, "Look, lady, we can't raise your son from the dead! You're holding fifteen hostages, and for what? If you start shooting, they'll kill you! You'd only hit one or two-" Lindsey shot at her, the bullet missing her head by no less than an inch, and Olivia tackled Alex to the floor.

"Maybe I'll start by killing you, bitch! You don't have any kids, you don't know what those bastards did to me! But... but you, you're pregnant- surely, you can imagine-" She pleaded desperately, and it took Casey a second to realize who she was talking to.

Shit. "Um... yeah... yeah, I can imagine, it must be horrible..."

"Yeah, like words can describe it..." Casey waited for her to go on uncertainly, and when she didn't, she gratefully kept her mouth shut and breathed a sigh of relief. Talking with a gun-wielding maniac was not high on her list of things to do.

Elliot was staring at her, his eyes full of that annoying worry again. Giving him another reassuring nod, Casey reverted her eyes to Lindsey, who had started pacing back and forth, eyeing her hostages and running a shaking finger along her gun.

SVUSVUSVU

"For the last time, just review the tape before the bullet took it out! We need to know if it hit anyone!"

"I'm trying!" O'Hallorean muttered, freezing the tape moments before they lost video and zooming in on the group of SVU protégées in the corner. "Playing frame-by-frame..."

Cragen shuddered when he saw just how close the bullet came to Alex's head, watching as it ricocheted off the back wall and flew towards the camera before the screen turned to static.

"Okay, I don't think it hit anybody, but now we've lost video! If we hear another shot, how are we gonna know if it takes somebody out?"

"You let me worry about that," he muttered crossly before heading over to Ross Kavon, captain of the SWAT team. "Sir, any progress with the hostage negotiator?"

Ross shook his head without looking up from the blueprints. "When you're lawyer decided to make it her job to get herself killed, Sanchez decided it'd be best if we wait a couple more minutes before trying to establish contact-"

"Wait a couple minutes? How the hell can she think that's a good idea? How the hell can you let her think that's a good idea? You've got a woman who's eight months pregnant, a woman who's injured, two of the cities finest, and about a dozen others who work for the city trapped in there! Just how much worse does the situation need to get before you concede it's out of hand!"

"Captain Cragen, I'm not saying it's under control, but I'm in charge here and I ordered Sanchez to go with her gut, and if that means to stand down, then we'll stand down! But right now, she's our best- and only- bet, and may I remind you that the only reason you're even still here is because I gave the okay? One word from me and you're out, Captain!"

Biting his tongue to stop a flurry of insults that would probably get him suspended, Cragen stalked back to Ryan, who was currently going over the previous tapes of the morgue. "What are you doing?" he asked curiously, repressing a surge of anger when he saw Lindsey waving the gun at his detectives.

"Trying to see if Stabler or Benson has their guns. If they-"

"Don't bother. With Stabler's temper, he would have blown her away by now, if he did. Get me a copy of those blueprints- I want to see if there's another way into that morgue..."

Coming up next: Alex pushes Lindsey too far and the situation goes from bad to crisis. And sorry, I know the chapters are short, but I didn't know how to draw the scenes out and I didn't want five thousand things happening in each chapter.

Okay, Alex is going to be unbelievably OOC in this and the next few chapters- once again, sorry. I originally wrote the scene for Casey, but when I had to make her 8 months instead of 4 months pregnant, I had to change characters. So just imagine it's Casey arguing with her- or, better yet, I'll say the head injury made Alex into a stubborn, doesn't-know-when-to-shut-up, fiery bitch. Sorry.