Author's Note: Found out that a chapter for a different story had been uploaded in place of this one. Sorry for the mix-up. Hope you enjoy.

"It can't be possible that Tony's still alive," Elliot said as he looked at the man, unconscious and confined to a hospital bed, "I saw him fall, he was dead."

As soon as Elliot had gotten Warner's call, he rushed to the hospital where Tony was being treated in. He'd hurried to the hospital room they said he was in and found Melinda Warner already there waiting for him.

"I've heard before of people who were declared dead and then awoke just prior to the autopsy beginning, but I've never seen it for myself until now," Warner said, "When he fell, the impact of hitting the ground stopped his heart."

"So how'd it start again?" Elliot asked.

"Nobody knows, but his injuries sustained from the fall proved to be more superficial than they looked."

"But what about the blood?"

"Tony Keller's had ulcers for several years which were not properly treated in prison…it seems they ruptured when he hit the floor. Considering the height he fell and the sudden stop he made, it's a wonder he's not more seriously injured than he is."

"But then why all this?" Elliot gestured to the machines Tony was hooked up to, monitors, oxygen, lots of lights and noise and tubes.

"He hasn't regained consciousness yet but the doctors suspect he will…until then it's mostly a precaution," Warner explained, "They've never seen a case quite like this before."

"Will he be able to walk?" Elliot asked.

"Yes, he's very fortunate in that nothing was broken."

Elliot looked down at this man who for so long had been a living terror, and now he no more looked like a threat to anybody than anything. On his way to the hospital he'd contacted Casey and told her what he'd found out about Tony. She couldn't believe it but said there was new ground for his old case.

"The D.A.'s going to look into his story…if they think he was telling the truth in that letter to Toni, they're going to vindicate him. I just don't get it, he went through all this trouble to protect his daughter…but she never was protected," Elliot said.

"Hindsight's 20/20," Melinda told him, "I mean can you imagine going to prison on a life sentence that you didn't have to, because you think it means protecting your daughter, who you'll never see again?"

"And she never hated him, never blamed him for anything that's happened to her," Elliot realized, "How could he have known that?"

"Who says he did know it?" Warner asked, "Lots of people do things for people who hate them…now being his daughter, he couldn't hate her but if he blamed himself for everything she's been put through, he probably figured so did she…and he was still willing to go through with it all, for her."

"So this is hell," Tony said when he awoke and found Elliot hovering over him, "Worse than I thought."

"You didn't get that lucky," Elliot said, "You survived."

"Great, so what're you doing here?" Keller asked.

"As soon as you can get on your feet again," Elliot told him, "You need to go down to the mental ward and pay your daughter a visit. They've got her strapped to the bed where she's been for days, and since she found out you jumped and she thought you were dead…it's just about killed her."

Tony tried to shift around in the bed and found it too painful for the time being; he grabbed at the oxygen tubes and tried to disconnect them, commenting, "Get these damn tubes out of my nose, I can breathe on my own."

He looked up at the ceiling and said in a low, tired voice, "I love my daughter, detective…I honestly thought she'd be better off without me."

"I think you're the only thing that's kept her alive these past eight years," Elliot said.

Keller took in a long breath and noisily let it out and rubbed at his eyes and said, "Boy oh boy…I sure screwed things up for her."

Elliot wanted to say something to the man but he wasn't sure what. Finally he decided to let his paternal side break through and he told Tony, "Look, Keller, I've got four kids myself, I think I understand why you did what you did…I honestly don't know if I wouldn't have done the same if I was in your position."

"That's comforting," Tony dryly remarked as he pulled the blankets up higher.

"The D.A.'s going to look into your case based on the new evidence provided in your letter to Toni, see if she can't get your sentence revoked."

"What evidence?"

"They're going to have you examined by psychiatrists to determine if you were suffering from an extreme emotional disturbance at the time you killed those men."

"Eight years later?"

"Everybody knows you're disturbed, but nobody ever caught this…never diagnosed it…I think they'll find exactly what they're looking for," Elliot said.

"And then what?" Tony asked, "I've spent eight years in lockup, they're going to let me go just like that?"

"Probably, especially considering that your daughter is still a minor who hasn't been registered in the children's services system for years and she still needs a guardian to watch over her."

Tony laughed and said, "Given everything she's already been through I don't suppose I could screw up her life much more than it already is."

When Tony was declared well enough to make a trip over to the other side of the hospital, he and Elliot went back to Toni's room but were surprised when they walked in and saw an orderly changing a set of bloody sheets.

"What happened?" Elliot asked, "Where's Toni?"

The woman looked up and saw the two men, pausing a minute noting how much like one another they looked, and pointed to the bathroom door, "Taking a shower."

"You took the cuffs off her?" Elliot asked, "She must be making an improvement."

"Not really…we had to get her off the bed to take off the sheets."

"What happened, did her stitches open up?" Elliot asked.

"No."

"Oh," Elliot, having a wife and three daughters, could very easily imagine what the problem had been then, "Will you tell her we're here?"

The orderly went over to the door, pounded on it once and bellowed, "Miss Keller, there are some people here to see you."

"I'll be out in a minute," came her reply over the sound of rushing water.

The orderly put a clean set of sheets on the bed and pushed a laundry cart past the two men and left the room. Tony turned to Elliot and said, "So tell me how bad she looks these days so I won't be too surprised."

"Well let's see, she got her face cut up, she impaled herself on a knife, she hasn't eaten in over a week…but she's still about the same as she was."

"That's easy for you to say, detective, I haven't seen her since she was a little girl."

Elliot went over to the bathroom door and listened, he didn't hear the water anymore. "Hey Toni," he called in.

"Elliot?"

"How're you doing, Toni?"

"Alright, Elliot."

"Can I come in?"

"I guess so."

Elliot turned the knob and entered the bathroom. Toni was sitting on the floor beside the shower, wrapped up in a couple of towels, looking about dead with exhaustion.

"How're you feeling?" he asked as he crouched down to look her in the eyes.

"Tired…can you believe it, Elliot? All the nuts they have shut up in this madhouse, all the medical and hygienic supplies they have to have on hand, and there's not a single pad in the whole damn hospital that fits me."

"Uh," Elliot looked back at the door and then back at Toni, "There's someone outside to see you."

"I'm not talking to anymore psychiatrists, all they do is get me into trouble," she said.

"It's not a psychiatrist," Elliot told her as he got up and went over to the door.

"Who then?" she asked.

"Don't get up," Elliot grabbed the doorknob and opened the door slightly, "Come in."

Toni heard the person come in; opening her eyes she first saw a pair of big sneakers, looking up she saw a pair of long legs in blue jeans, and looking up even further she saw…

"Hello, Toni."

Her eyes widened and her jaw fell. "Daddy?"

She tried to stand up but fell back on the floor. Tony knelt down by her and locked his big, strong arms around her, "Baby," he kissed her near the crown of her head, "I'm so sorry, about everything."

Toni looked up at her father in amazement and shock and she said to him as she brought her arms up around his back, "They told me you were dead."

"You want to know something? I think I was," he replied, "I don't remember much but I saw a bright light," confidentially he told her, "But I think they were getting the bonfire ready for me."

"Are you alright now?" Toni asked.

"Yeah," he nodded, "I think so…" he looked her up and down and added, "Just look at you, you look like your mother when I met her."

Weak and tired though she was, Toni managed to slap her father in the face and said to him, "You going on about bright lights and fire, you should know better than to lie to me, it's a sin."

He laughed weakly and responded, "God, I've missed you, Toni."

"I guess I missed you too," she replied, then added, uncertainty in her voice, "But what's going to happen now?"

"The money checks out," Munch told Elliot when he returned to the station one night, "All the numbers were checked and none of them trace back to any robberies…so we know in that much that he got his hands on it legally, maybe not honestly but legally."

"So Toni gets the money now?" Olivia asked, "$60,000 at 17 years old, not too bad."

"Well, given the hell she's been put through, it's hardly a consolation," Elliot said.

"Well, at least whatever she has to go through now, she won't have to go alone."

"Tony's been vindicated, Toni's been released, now they're both staying in a room in a motel off near the highway," Elliot said, "They're waiting for the money to clear so they can get the hell out."

"And go where?" Fin asked.

"Well Toni called me earlier, she said that as soon as they get the money, they're going to hop a Greyhound getting out of the state…she didn't say where they're going but they plan to stay gone for a long time…and she told me, with that money her father put away, she's going to try and find a doctor who can work on her cheek."

Elliot looked and saw Olivia at her desk, looking like a cat who swallowed a canary.

"What?" he asked.

She looked up at him and remarked, "You did it, Elliot, you did just what you said you would."

"What do you mean?"

"You promised Toni you'd help her and you did, and now she has a family again."

"That was dumb luck," he told her, "There's no way I could've made this happen on purpose."

"Well, whatever it was, it worked," she said, "I'm sure Toni's very grateful for everything you've done to help her."

"Yeah, I suppose so," Elliot replied, not sounding too sure about that.

It was six A.M. and as pitch dark out as midnight still. Toni and her father were standing around the bus terminal waiting for their bus to come up for departure. They weren't easy to find but they were easy to spot given that they were both dressed in all the clothes that they owned, and that was mainly blue jeans and matching jean jackets, and they carried one small suitcase each. Toni turned around and spotted him before he had a chance to say anything.

"You just about missed us, Elliot," she said, "The bus takes off in about 10 minutes."

"I know," he said as he came up to them, "I just came to say goodbye."

"Goodbye," Tony bluntly said.

"Elliot, I want to thank you for helping us," Toni said, "We couldn't have done this without you."

"Well," he said as he looked at the two of them, "I hope you two will be happy."

"We'll be back, Elliot," Toni told him, "This isn't the end…we're just going down south to somewhere warm and then we'll come back in the summer, I'll come and see you again."

"I'll look forward to it," he said, "I hope you two have a good time wherever you're going."

Toni reached up and wrapped her arms around Elliot and squeezed him for a second as she said, quietly so just he would hear, "Thanks, Elliot."

"You inherited your father's grip, I see," Elliot said when she pulled away.

"Come on, Toni," Tony told her, "We don't want to miss the bus."

Toni picked up her suitcase and waved to Elliot, "Bye, Elliot."

He watched them walk away but after a couple seconds, he went after them.

"Toni," he said, "Have you thought about what you want to do with your life yet?"

She turned and looked at him, "Not particularly, why?"

"Well," he leaned into her and told her, "The D.A. says he thinks you'd make a good lawyer someday."

Toni smiled at him knowingly and commented, "Your D.A.'s Catholic, isn't he? He's going to catch purgatory for that one." With a laugh she turned around and walked off with her father.

Elliot watched them get on the bus and after a few minutes watched the bus pull away and disappear down the road. He had no doubt that the two of them would return to New York someday, but he personally hoped that he wouldn't see either of them for a long time. Two people had just been given back their lives, it was time they got to spend them with each other.