Thanks for the reviews. And thanks maigonokaze for the writing tips. I'm trying out the bunny ears. I had trouble with the hyphen/dash ending up on different rows and couldn't come around it so this really helped. I hope it makes it easier to read. You all make me want to post chapters quicker so I'm trying to speed up the spell checking. You'll soon reach chapter 18 which is my personal favorite cause I'm just a sucker for drama. Happy reading!

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As soon as the parents had left they quickly gathered all they could get on Eric Salinger. No one really talked about what they had just learnt about what happen to their partner. It was a subject they worked with every day but it just hit too close to home for anyone to truly digest at the moment. It was easier to just get on with the job and deal with the emotions later. They all focused on getting Eric Salinger off the streets. There wasn't much to go on when it came to Eric though. He'd managed to keep away from the law but now they might have him on some major crimes; a homicide, rape of a minor and the assault and rape of a police detective. The walls were caving in on him. Fin couldn't wait to nail his ass.

Eric had grown up with an aunt and uncle since his mother couldn't stay out of jail. The mother was a heavy drug addict and had died from an overdose when he was six years old. Father was listed as unknown. The aunt had then handed him over to the grandmother and he'd entered the system once the grandmother died when he was 15 and no one seemed to want him. He'd been in and out of foster homes until he was 18. They found a driver license photo from 2003 that they put up on the board and sent out on the street. It wouldn't take long until an arrest warrant was added to the photo. With a name attached to a more detailed photo they got some leads from Atlanta. Eric was a familiar face in the drug circuit down there and had been for many years now. He was known as a very slick addict. He managed to talk himself out of most situations and was also known to rat out others to get away. Even though Fin knew this was how narcotics worked it enraged him that Eric wasn't in the system.

They found friends and affiliations in Atlanta but none in NY. They needed to talk to Justine. Liv put in a call to the institution Amanda's sister stayed at and after been bounced around a bit she managed to get a hold of Justine's psychiatrist. Liv learnt Justine was doing well on her medication and the treatment she was getting. The BPD would not stand in the way to have a conversation with her but they weren't sure how the information about her sister's state would affect her. She was still mentally frail. The psychiatrist and a counselor went to talk to Justine and then called Liv back. It was decided that the counselor would drive with Justine to NY first thing in the morning. Justine wanted to see her sister. Since time was of the essence they had informed Justine that Eric was the one that had inflicted Amanda's head injury, nothing other than that though, and if she had any leads to where he could be hiding out in NY she should say so. Justine however had no knowledge of any friends of his in NY.

Liv felt a bit bummed that Justine didn't have anything for them but she still had hope they would get some leads when they spoke to her tomorrow. They all sat down in Cragen's office to put up a strategy. They figured Eric was probably out of the city by now. He'd always ended back up in Atlanta but if he thought he killed a cop there was no way of knowing where he was headed. The one person that may know where Eric had been staying while in the NY was Amanda. Cragen had gotten word from the hospital that they had removed her breathing tube and she was responding well physically but they still didn't know what harm her brain had taken. Fin and Liv still wanted to head over to the hospital.

When they stepped into her room they found the father asleep in the chair in the corner and the mother sitting by Amanda's side. Bonnie looked tired too but had her eyes glued on her daughter and she held on to her hand. Fin still held a grudge towards them but Liv managed to smile as they stepped over to Amanda's bed. Fin went to stand by the footboard as Liv went up to Amanda so she could place a hand on her arm. She felt warm and alive under her touch. Liv felt some relief by this. The breathing tube was gone and replaced with a thin oxygen line just underneath her nose. The heart monitor beeped peacefully. No more blood pumping in to her but she was still getting that clear liquid.

"How's she doing?" Liv whispered.
"Resting peacefully now. She's come to a couple of times but she doesn't say anything. I think she's there though," Bonnie sounded as tired as she looked.
"That's good," Liv said and looked back down on Amanda's face. She had some color back to her cheeks and Liv looked up at Fin with a smile on her face. He wasn't ready to smile yet though. Liv looked back over at the mother. "Why don't you and Jack go get something to eat?" Bonnie looked at her watch and then over at Jack who had woken up in his chair in the corner. "We'll stay with her until you get back. I promise," Liv ensured.
"Maybe we should. Thank you," Bonnie said with a tired smile on her face. When the parents had left Fin went to sit in Bonnie's chair. He let his hand sneak in underneath Amanda's and just carefully squeezed it.

"She got some color back," Liv whispered as she just barely stroke Amanda's cheek. Fin nodded and looked up on her face. Amanda had her head slightly tilted to his side and he looked at her intensely wishing she could just open her eyes if only for a brief second. He figured he would know then if she was okay or not. They just remained there for a while. Liv's phone buzzed eventually and she stepped away from the bed to see who it was. She stepped up to Fin after a while and held her phone up so he could read the screen. There had been a possible sighting of Eric in a well-known drug area in Brooklyn yesterday.
"So he might still be in the city then," Fin whispered.
"Maybe. We don't know the source though," she answered just as quietly as she went to carefully sit down on the foot of the bed. She looked over at Amanda once she'd sat down. They both sat in silence for a while. Fin couldn't take his eyes off Amanda.

"Whatcha thinking?" Liv whispered and carefully nudged his leg with the tip of her shoe. He took some time but then whispered
"Can she come back from this?" Liv wasn't sure if he meant back to the squad or just overall back from such a traumatic event. She looked back at Amanda as she took a deep breath and then answered
"Yes. She's proven she's a tough nut to crack and with the right support I'm sure she can do wonders." Fin threw Liv a quick look just to see if her face looked as secure as her voice did. She smiled at him and he tried his best to send one her way too. Fin looked back at Amanda.
"I could kill the parents," he confessed with a whisper.
"I know," Liv said with a voice that let him know she felt the same.

They sat there for a while and just watched her when the heart monitor suddenly made an irregular sound. Fin saw her eye stir underneath her eyelid. The second after he felt one of her fingers twitch in his hand. He sat up and Liv followed. Nothing happen for a while but then her eyes started stirring again and her eyelashes fluttered. Fin leaned forward and put his free hand on her bandaged head. It took great effort but then her eyelids just very slowly started to open up. He held his breath as he saw her blood spotted whites and then slowly her blues were exposed. She blinked a few times. Fin worried that the lights were to sharp for her eyes even though they were toned down now.
"Hey," he whispered as she seemed to be able to focus her eyes on him. He saw her jaw move as though she tried to swallow but she seemed unable too. He looked for any sign in her eyes that she recognized him but it scared him that he couldn't find any.

"It's Fin," he whispered. He felt her fingers move against his hand and he looked down on it. He saw her fingers try their best to squeeze his hand and when he looked back up her eyes had changed slightly and there was a hint of a smile on her lips.
"Hey boo," he whispered and was finally able to smile sincerely. He let his thumb rub against her forehead affectionately. He was disappointed when her eyes closed shut again but then he realized this was so she could swallow and then they fluttered back up again. She tried to say something but no sound came out.
"It's okay. Don't try and talk." She got that wrinkle between her eyes that she got when she was either thinking hard or got mad about something. She closed her eyes again and swallowed. She open her eyes again and then tried again. She failed but didn't give up. On the third try he could just barely make out what came out lower than a whisper.
"Hi baby."

He thought his face would crack with the smile those two tiny words produced. Boo and baby. Those were the names they used to harass each other with whenever they had to do a bit of undercover work. Amanda had mentioned once how she detested the word boo as an affectionate word. It was a word that ghost used to scare kids with and shouldn't be used in terms of endearment in her opinion. To which Fin had retorted that baby wasn't any better because that was basically calling someone an infant. So when Amanda once had used baby to call him over to her he had retorted with boo and from there it went. Whenever any one of them got a chance they used the pet name on the other one and he knew she had a harder time to not smile at it than him. It was a good way to keep some distance to their otherwise so grim work. And now it had served as the best indicator ever that she was still in there. She had come back to him and it made such an enormous weight leave his body. He even felt tears to his eyes.

"Hi Amanda," Liv whispered and Amanda managed to move her eyes just slightly downwards to meet Liv's. That faint smile appeared again just before she closed her eyes. They soon open up again though but then they were back on Fin. He came in even closer and held her gaze.
"You'll be fine," he told her. "You just rest so you can get out of here and kick some serious ass again okay?" He could see she tried to smile but he could also tell she was wearing down quickly. Her eyes were falling shut even though she tried to keep them open and soon her face rested peacefully again. Once he knew she wouldn't open up her eyes again he looked up at Liv with the biggest smile on his face. Liv raised her eyebrow with a smile and whispered
"Boo?" Fin just shook his head.
"It's a long story," he smiled.

Fin and Liv left the hospital as Amanda's parents came back. They went by the station but Cragen sent them right back out to go home and get some sleep. Cragen had asked narcotics to help them try and locate Eric and they trusted the guys to do their best for a fellow detective. Both Nick and Fin still had friends in that unit and Cragen had a good relationship with the captain there so they weren't worried. The crime scene inspectors were finished with Amanda's apartment and Cragen handed Fin her keys. They had changed the lock and fixed the door so if she wanted to go back there once she was well enough to leave the hospital she could. Fin drove by there and ended up sleeping on her couch. He figured it was closer to the hospital in case something happen and he was kind of hoping Eric might return to the crime scene for some odd reason.

They had done a good job cleaning up the place. Fin figured Cragen had put in a few calls. The door looked good with a new lock and two new chains attached to the case. There was no trace of the blood that had covered the bedroom floor and the bed was stripped clean. If she wanted to move back to this place he promised he'd help her get rid of that bed. Fin took a look in her closet that he heard so much about from Nick and Liv. He sat down at a spot that was cleared. He wondered if she'd been sitting in here from time to time. He looked around and found a stack of books by the dresser. He looked at their backs. Not his kind of literature. Who the hell was Goethe? He flipped through the pages but soon put it down again. He saw the water and the survival kit Nick had found. He pulled out the lowest drawer in the dresser and immediately spotted a gun. He picked it up and looked in the magazine. It was fully loaded. Even though he felt mostly at ease now that he'd been able to look Amanda in the eyes it angered him that she had lived like this without him knowing. He decided it would stop now. He would make sure Eric disappeared from her life for good this time. Whatever it took.