The minutes turned into hours incredibly slowly and incredibly quickly all at the same time. Nurses and doctors passed by him repeatedly as he found himself again in the waiting room, wringing his hands, and surviving off the little bit of hope he had. But Rafael Barba was dwindling fast as he hadn't been home, or anywhere else but the hospital, in nearly twenty four hours.

"Sir, can I get you anything?" A nurse, who had been watching the man come and go from the waiting room all day during her shift, quietly approached the DA.

Rafael gave her a small smile, a gesture of his appreciation for her concern. "Unless you can tell me anything new, I'm fine. Thank you."

The young women nodded, not admitting out loud that she knew nothing more of Olivia's condition and walked away. The attorney watched her disappear again behind the nurses' station, as he leaned back in his chair, resting his head against the wall behind him, and letting an exhausted, worry filled sigh escape him. He felt so surrounded by all the people and medical staff that roamed the halls, yet he was all alone at the same time, as he was the only person so overwrought about the woman he never realized he cared so much about.

However, he was soon joined by the company of Nick and Amanda, who came bolting into the intensive care unit waiting room, looking like they were on a mission to locate what they needed.

"Barba." Amanda swiftly stood in front of where the man sat in his chair. "We have to talk to Liv."

Barba looked up and laughed at her. It wasn't that he thought the reason she couldn't talk to Liv was funny, but that Amanda just assumed that she could talk to her sergeant, she hadn't seen any of the horrors that were Liv's condition. "I wish you the best of luck talking to her any time soon."

"What are you talking about? You texted me and said that the doctor was working on waking her up." Nick sounded almost mad.

"Yeah, but I texted you almost three hours ago." Barba reminded him. "A lot changes in that amount of time when someone has a seizure and is rushed into the OR."

'Wait, what?" Amanda had a wide eyed look on her face.

"She woke up and started talking to me and all she could remember was Noah being gone and then… she just… it all happened so fast." Rafael could feel himself getting worked up. "I haven't heard anything yet about what's happening, but I can tell you that she probably won't be recognizing anyone from any pictures or anything else any time soon."

Nick and Amanda both fell into seats next to Barba. The defeat they felt was evident in their faces and the way they slumped over in their chairs. All they had to go on for basically their whole investigation was the hope that Olivia would have a better recall of the case than Fin had and that she would be able to identify who the faces on the sketches belonged to.

"I'm guessing this means you haven't found anything else?" Barba asked the question, even though he had a pretty good idea of what the answer must have been.

"Absolutely nothing." Amanda answered because Nick had gotten up from his seat to answer a phone call. "I just don't understand how they got away with what they did without leaving some kind of evidence. It's dumb business going after a cop and her child, how were they smart enough to leave no prints or hairs or anything that would put them at the scene?"

"Well they obviously can't be that dumb." Barba pointed out.

Nick approached them brusquely. "Amanda we have to go. Now."

"Why? What's wrong?" The blonde detective stood up from the chair she had been occupying.

"That was Fin I was talking to. He said they had a hit in facial recognition for the sketch. The same woman had been reported stealing diapers and bottles from a store. Carisi tracked her down and got her address."

Without any more than a "we'll call you later" the two detectives left the hospital quicker than they had arrived, off to search for the people that had given them a reason to be at the hospital in the first place.

The sirens blared as Nick drove nearly twice as fast as the speed limit allowed; Amanda sat in the passenger seat. Both of them, although focused on the task at hand, were distracted with their own thoughts of what they may be getting themselves into. It was bad enough for them to know that their sergeant was helplessly lying in a hospital bed unconscious, but to also know that there was a chance that her son would be harmed as well had them worried of what may be hiding behind the walls of the home they were about to invade.

When Nick came to a screeching halt in front of the modest home, he turned to look at Amanda. "Whatever we see in here, no matter what she asks, we don't tell Liv right away. I know she'll find out eventually, but she doesn't need to know where her son was while she laid in a bed somewhere else."

"I know, Nick, okay? I'm not going to be the one to tell her what happened." Amanda knew that Nick was more scared of what the outcome would be for Liv and Noah than he was willing to show.

The two said nothing more and they both got out of the car retrieved their Kevlar vests, and made their way to where Fin stood with the swat team.

"There are cars in the driveway and a light on in the living room." Fin told them knowing that they would know that meant there was a chance that the couple wasn't as smart as they had thought and had made the mistake of simply returning home.

"Alright. Let's get some of you at the back, covering any exits there may be and the rest of you follow us in through the front." Nick directed the swat team as he had done times before.

But as soon as Nick took his place behind Fin, who was ready to break the door down, his phone began to ring.

Barba paced the waiting room floor, his phone against his ear, listening to the continuous ringing as he hoped for an answer. He knew that the team was probably in the middle of trying to take care of whatever or whomever they were going to find, but he had to talk to someone.

In the time after Amanda and Nick had left, Olivia's doctor had come to find and talk to the DA. With an update as to what was happening with Liv, Rafael found himself in desperate need of talking to Nick or one of the team members.

Yet, as the phone rang and rang he got no answer and he knew that he probably wouldn't catch them in time before they had done their job in invading the house that supposedly belonged to the suspect. After finally getting the voice message from Nick's phone, Barba hung up and left the waiting room, knowing that there probably wouldn't be an answer from anyone else either.

He soon found himself standing again in front of Olivia's room, the door separating him from where he stood in the hallway and the all-white room on the other side. "You can do this Rafael. Just walk in there." He told himself this, but couldn't seem to make himself also believe it. What was on the other side of that door could be good or it could be horribly bad. It was hard for him to predict what would happen when he crossed over into the room that he previously been the site of Liv's and his own falling apart. "You have to do this. She needs you to do this." He grabbed the door knob and slowly turned it.

Nick waited until the ringing of his phone ceased before he brought himself back into the task of overtaking the home they sat so quietly in front of.

Fin looked back at his fellow detectives and the other men who were his back up. He held up three fingers, then two, and finally one, signaling to himself and everyone else that he was moving in.

Nick and Amanda watched, almost like it was happening in slow motion. They hadn't had any way of discovering who had taken Noah just a few hours before and now they were forcing their way into the house of the people that were possibly responsible for the kidnapping of a little boy and the beating of his mother.

"NYPD, we're coming in!" Fin yelled the all too familiar phrase and his foot met the door so hard that it exploded open, stray pieces of wood flying onto the front porch and into the now exposed entryway of the home.

Fin, as he was in the front of the group, was the first to enter. He swung his gun around in front of him as he made sure there was no one lurking in the front of the house. When he was sure that it was clear, he gestured for Nick and Amanda to follow him in, along with all the other armed men.

All three of them kept close to each other as they walked through the entryway. The kept in the same pace, one right after the other into the first room they came to.

And that's when they all felt the air leave the room and the silence that had been so quiet now seemed louder than ever as their eyes met the horrors of that small living room.

The three shocked detectives looked at each other. No one said a word as they took in their surroundings, all of them too stunned to react.

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