A/N: Not much to say here, so I'll leave you to it.

Baltimore was still familiar enough to her that if she ever got away, she could easily find her way back to the red brick police headquarters building. The problem with this was that she knew she wouldn't be able to get away. Sam had finally given the last of her children up, leaving them just outside the city lines, in Baltimore County, which left her alone with him. And true to his word, they were right back where it had all started.

"I wish I didn't have to keep your hands and feet tied," Sam was saying, when Kathy started paying attention to him again. "If I knew you wouldn't run away, it wouldn't be necessary."

"I ran when I was ten, if you ever thought I wouldn't run now that I'm forty-two, you've got another thing coming," she replied evenly. "I have no reason to stay here."

"Oh, but you do. See, I might not be up in New York myself, but I have people there who would be all too happy to do what I ask them," said Sam. "They tell me that your dear detective has taken up residence on Staten Island, with the children."

Staten Island. Kathy bit back a laugh, even though it wasn't really funny. It hadn't occurred to her that Elliot would not stay in the house in Queens. But now that she thought on it, it actually made sense that he wouldn't want to be there, and that he wouldn't want the kids to have to be there, either.

"You'll never hurt them there," she said. "There are too many cops living around where they are; you'll never get to them."

Even as she said the words, she wished she could believe them. It had been all too easy for Sam to gain access to the house in Queens; all he'd had to do was pull Kathleen's old boyfriend into the equation, and just like that, seven lives had been turned upside down. It had bothered her then, how simple it was, and it still bothered her now. But what bothered her even more was the fact that she hadn't seen Eli in almost three weeks, Kathleen and Elizabeth in nearly two, and Dickie and Maureen in four days. It had already been almost two months since this whole thing had begun.

"Why did you let them go?" she asked, finally turning away from the window and looking Sam directly in the eye. "Was it because you didn't need them, or were you just tired of them?"

"I let them go because they're of no use to me anymore, and they weren't particularly of use to anyone else anymore." Sam replied. Kathy gave him a disgusted look.

"You make me sick," she said. "You think I don't know what your lot did to them? You think I didn't hear what happened, day in and day out?"

"There are harder ways to break a person," Sam started, but Kathy cut him off, furiously.

"Don't you dare stand there and tell me that there are worse ways to break a person than forcing them to listen as their children are violated over and over again, and maybe even tortured," she said, angrily. "Don't you dare. They had nothing to do with anything or anyone, least of all you. You had no right to hurt them."

"Admirable sentiments. I'm sure your children would love to hear them. Maybe they'll even get the chance, provided you make it out alive this time around."

"The only person who needs to worry about dying is you."

"I suppose your dear detective wouldn't hesitate to burst right through that door and shoot me."

"You're right, he probably wouldn't, and it'd serve you right. I can't say I'd lose sleep over it."

Sam cast a half-exasperated look in Kathy's direction, and shook his head. "You used to be so quiet," he said. "Unassuming, even. Willing to do anything for anyone."

"Things change. There are six people in this world for whom I'd do anything, no matter what it was. You're not one of them," Kathy retorted. Sam laughed.

"No, I don't suppose I am. I wasn't before, either, but that hardly stopped me, did it?"

"What is it in you that takes pleasure in making other people's lives an absolute living hell?"

"It's all a game, Katie. I should think you'd have managed to understand it by now. You always were the smartest one in class, weren't you?" Sam got to his feet and walked over to where Kathy was sitting, reaching down to brush her hair back out of her eyes. She glared at him.

"I'd tell you not to touch me, but you'd probably just do it anyway," she said. "Just know that no matter how much you try to make me, I'm never going to belong to you."

"You already do," Sam remarked. "You have since the day I took you. Did you really think you'd ever be able to get away? I'm always going to be one step behind you, little Kit."

Kathy turned her head away from him, unable to do anything else. "Don't call me that," she said, her voice shaking now, with a barely suppressed rage. "Don't you dare call me that."

Sam laughed again, and moved away from her. "Forgive me," he said. "I seem to have forgotten. That would be your dear detective's name for you, no?"

"I'd tell you it's none of your damn business, but you already know the answer to that. I should have known you would come back to finish the job."

"Thirty-two years is enough to catch anyone off guard. It worked rather well in this case, I'd say." As Sam spoke, he bent down to untie the ropes that bound her feet. She took the opportunity and to move back, and kicked him, squarely in the face. He straightened and stumbled backward, one hand going towards his eye. Once he regained his balance, he smacked her across the face, hard enough that she gasped.

"You have a lot of nerve," he said. "After all I've done to make sure you've come to no harm..."

"Your perception on life will never fail to amaze me," Kathy shot back, glaring again. "It appears our definitions of 'harm' are quite different."

"It'll only hurt worse the more you fight," Sam told her, flatly, grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her, hard. "You should learn to cooperate."

"And you should learn that you and your boys shouldn't have touched me, or my children."

"You're only bringing a world of hurt on yourself."

"Do what you will with me and leave me the hell alone."

Silence. Sam glared at her, the intimidation factor lost somewhat by the fact that she'd made him bleed. She continued to glare back at him, still determined not to let him break her.

"I'll be coming back here, Katie," he said as he moved to leave, his voice holding a note of warning. "I would keep one eye open if I were you."

Back in New York, a bloodcurdling scream tore through the silence that had fallen over the Riordan home. Elliot was wide awake and out of bed in half a second, barely sparing a passing glance at the clock on the bedside table in the room that he and Eli had fallen asleep in. Time didn't really matter, besides how long it took him to get to the end of the downstairs hallway, and the room where Kathleen had fallen asleep, hours before anyone else had even thought of sleep.

The lights in the hallway were already on; no one had bothered to flip them off. It was enough for him to be able to see that she was sitting straight up in bed, a look of pure terror on her face, even though her eyes were closed. She twisted, suddenly, moving away from something that Elliot could not see as he stepped into the room, and her arm flew out, accidentally knocking the alarm clock off the bedside table. It hit the ground with a resounding crash. Her eyes flew open and she burst into tears.

Elliot came to sit down on the bed, and gently pulled her into his arms. She buried her face against his chest, choking back a sob.

"I'm sorry, Daddy, I'm so sorry...I didn't mean to wake you up...I'm sorry..." Her voice was muffled, but not enough that he couldn't understand what she was saying. He hugged her more tightly to him.

"It's all right, sweetheart," he told her quietly, barely noticing the slow descent of his heart rate back to where it had been mere moments before. "It's all right. Don't worry about waking me up. Are you ok?"

Kathleen shook her head, without looking up. "No," she said, her voice still muffled by the shirt Elliot was wearing. "I keep seeing them."

He knew what she meant, even if he didn't want to. In truth, it didn't surprise him that something like this would be happening. Over the years, he'd learned that not everyone who'd been hurt that way would have a reaction straight off. It was one of those things that still threw him for a loop every time he saw it, but this time...This time, it was different.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Elliot asked finally. When no answer came, he went on. "You don't have to if you don't want to."

"I don't. I mean, I do...but I just...I can't. Every time I close my eyes, I see them. And I see the rooms they kept us in, and what they did to us..." She shuddered, and trailed off.

There was silence for a long moment after that. Kathleen remained where she was, still cradled in her father's arms. She sniffled, once, and looked up. Her face was red, and streaked with tears. She rubbed the back of one hand across her eyes and picked up where she'd left off.

"We know you want us to talk to you," she said. "It's just...you're our dad. We can't tell you this stuff. I mean, you probably already know, but still..."

"I know," said Elliot, and he really did. "I know, Kat, believe me, I do. You don't have to talk about this."

But there must have been something in his voice that gave away how much he wished that she or any of the others would do exactly that, because Kathleen leaned against him again, a low sigh escaping her as she did.

"I'm not the only one having nightmares," she admitted. "Maureen and Lizzie are, too, and so is Dickie, but he'll never admit it."

"How long?" Elliot asked, startled by this and somewhat hurt that none of them had bothered to tell him. "Since you got home?"

Kathleen nodded. "Yeah," she said, quietly. "Since we got home. We didn't say anything, because we didn't want you to think you had to stay home with us all the time."

Elliot stared at her for a long moment, struck momentarily speechless by this. It took a while before he found his voice again.

"Kat...honey...That's not..." He trailed off, at a loss as to what he could possibly say, but even as he thought about it, nothing sounded right. Finally, he just picked up where he'd left off. "I have no problem staying here with you, sweetie. I wish you would have told me."

"What, and admit that there's something we can't handle?" asked a voice, and both Elliot and Kathleen looked towards the doorway. There stood Maureen, her shadow falling across the floor, stopping just before it reached the bed. She came in and sat at the foot of the bed as she went on. "We're supposed to be able to stand on our own two feet, remember?"

Her sarcasm was not at all lost on Elliot; however, he chose to ignore it, and took one arm from around Kathleen to pull his eldest child into a hug as well.

"I've been standing on someone else's feet without you lot and your mother," he said, kissing the top of her head. "I didn't have a choice. It was either that and finding you, or letting the situation put me out of commission."

"Couldn't have that, could we?" Maureen asked, reaching up with one hand to wipe at her eyes. Elliot gave her a faint smile and shook his head.

"No, we couldn't," he said. "I couldn't let the unit go looking for my own family without me, and they knew I wouldn't."

"So you've been standing on their feet instead of your own?" Elizabeth's voice joined the fray, and she, too, came to sit on the bed. Kathleen moved over slightly to make room for both her and Dickie, who came in a few seconds later, toting Eli along with him.

"Yeah, I've been standing on their feet. Sometimes they stand on mine; that's just how it works," said Elliot, reaching back to ruffle Elizabeth's hair. "I wouldn't let them give up, and they wouldn't let me."

"And now we're home," said Dickie. He trailed off for a moment, and frowned slightly. "But Mom's not."

Silence fell over them, then, as the weight of this statement hit them. It was true, though; their family was back together...except for Kathy. It was something that none of them, least of all Elliot, wanted to think about.

"Your mother," Elliot said finally, and cut himself off as he heard his voice crack. A few minutes passed before he went on. "Your mother isn't one to let anyone break her. She never has been, and she's never going to be, and she will be coming home."

Whether he was saying this to reassure them, or to reassure himself, none of the four older siblings who understood what he was saying knew, but none of them particularly cared.

"Um, Dad..." Kathleen started, finally, and cut herself off, when everyone else looked at her. She waited a moment before continuing. "You...ah...don't mind staying down here, do you?"

"No, I don't mind," Elliot replied, and looked towards the other four. They, with the exception of Eli, who had fallen asleep again, looked back at him. He sighed.

"Looks like you'll be getting all of us, Kat," he said, and then, "You guys grab a few more pillows and blankets, and we'll set up camp."

Setting up camp in Baltimore, however, was a completely different story. The apartment building where the '76 fire had been set had been rebuilt, and had quickly returned to the way it had been before the fire. Needless to say, this didn't help matters much.

"You're not really sure that this Sam Garret is going to make his way back here, are you?"

Detective Melanie Scott glanced up towards the top of the building for a brief moment before turning to look at her former partner as she continued. "What makes you think he'd bother?"

"Because the person he has now is the only person who ever managed to get away from him." Mike trailed off and motioned towards the building. "This is where it all started falling apart for him."

"You've been spending too much time with Bayliss," Melanie said dryly. "This was his idea, wasn't it?"

"Actually, no," said Mike. "It was Lt's idea. He figured if the place was still a makeshift drug house, since you were in Narcotics..."

"The more the merrier," said Melanie, shaking her head. "Captain Howard know about this?"

"Yeah, she knows. She thinks Lt. might be onto something, that's why we're sitting here at one in the morning."

"But you have no proof that this guy is even here. Baltimore is the biggest city in Maryland, Mikey. There's any number of places where he could have gone."

"It's still most likely that he'd come here. He probably wants to finish what he couldn't have finished before, with all the cops running around the place trying to figure out what the hell happened."

He had a point, whether or not Melanie wanted to admit it, either out loud or to herself. But Mike seemed to know this, anyway, because when she looked at him again, he was smirking.

"There, you see?" he asked. "It makes sense, doesn't it?"

"Yeah, it makes sense, but why the hell would he come back here if he knows that this is the place where the cops are likely to look for him?"

"He probably doesn't know we've made a connection to that fire and this whole abduction thing. You have to admit it makes sense, Mel, I mean, why wouldn't he want to bring things full circle?"

"You know, sometimes you really make me wonder about you, Mikey. Sure it makes sense for him to want to come full circle, but this guy's not an idiot. If both Lt. and Gee, and Munch and Bolander couldn't nail him, what does that tell you?"

"That sooner or later, everyone has to fall. He wasn't even a suspect in '76, and the only reason Munch and Bolander couldn't nail him was because he skipped town."

"And now he's back, and everyone wants a shot at him."

"He took a cop's family, Mel. Maybe not one of our cops, but still a cop. We can't just take that lying down."

"Well, obviously we can't do that." Melanie glanced up at the building in front of them again and sighed. "I don't see how you think we're going to be able to search the place without a warrant. We don't even know what we're looking for."

"Yeah, we do," said Mike. "We're going in there to look for someone. Fulton can put you off all he wants, but everyone from here to Manhattan knows about this case. NYPD's got departments up and down the East Coast looking out for this guy by now."

Melanie gave him an exasperated look. "First he's here in Baltimore, and now he could be as far north as Maine and as far south as Florida? You aren't exactly giving me a lot to work with, Mikey."

"So talk to one of your informants around here. See if they know anything about what's going on in that building," Mike replied. "They give you anything, we have our way in."

It was a long shot, but it was all they had. If Kathy Stabler really was anywhere in that building, getting a warrant to go in was the only thing they could do. There were at least five floors, and heaven only knew how many apartments they'd have to go through in order to find the apartment they were looking for.

"All right," she said, finally, "All right. I'll see what I can do. Maybe someone knows something; I'll talk to everyone I've got."

"There, see?" said Mike, smirking again. "I knew you weren't completely useless."

Melanie swatted at him. "Don't push your luck, Kellerman. My captain's already gonna have your ass for sending Kay after him."

"I didn't send Kay after anyone; she talked to Captain Hudson on her own. Not my fault he doesn't like her, and besides, it's a redball."

"That was your excuse last time. Sooner or later, the brass are going to catch on to you."

"That was Jen last time." Mike looked at his watch and made a face. "We should probably head back to headquarters."

"You go ahead," said Melanie, looking at her own watch. "Now's about the time where I can find everyone. I'll let you know what I get. With any luck, we'll be in that building before the end of the week."