Eyes Wide Open
Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it's not mine. This story is on an AU track.
Chapter 10: The Promise
"Hi!"
"Well, hello there," Bobby replied, looking down to the source of the voice: a little brunette girl who barely came up to his waist. He couldn't help the thought that a police station, especially this one with the kind of pictures that might be lying around, was not the place a child should be running free. "What are you doing here?"
"I'm with my mommy," she told him.
"And does she know where you are?" Bobby pressed. He toned down his normal methods considering this stranger was just a child, but it was still enough to let her know that he would know if she lied.
"N-no," the girl admitted. "She told me to sit and wait, but my daddy works here and I wanted to find him."
He couldn't help smiling. I'd bet anything that this is what Alex was like when she was little. That particular topic had been on his mind for the past several days, ever since an ultrasound technician had told the two of them that they would be having a daughter.
By sheer coincidence, it had been one month to the day after the attack in the stairwell that Alex had had the momentous appointment. Bobby would in all likelihood have gone with her anyway, every bit as anxious as she was to see their child on the ultrasound screen, but under the circumstances there had been no question he would accompany her. She had needed his hand to hold onto as she navigated the complex maelstrom of emotion that surrounded that day. Her excitement had been tempered, as he had known it would be, by the fact that she had to be touched and examined as part of this appointment. At one point she had panicked, freezing up so completely that she hadn't even been able to speak. It had been Bobby who'd stepped in to stop the doctor before she could traumatize Alex further by continuing the exam while she was paralyzed with fear. He'd held her until she was calm enough to resume the exam, and it had been just a few minutes later that they'd gotten the latest news.
He pulled himself out of his memories, returning his focus to the girl. "Look, I'm sure you want to see him, but running off like that isn't really a good idea. This is a big building, it's easy to get lost. Now where did she tell you to wait?"
"Outside the big room with all the desks."
"Okay, then let's go."
She followed him trustingly back to the squad room. Rollins looked up briefly, noticing his companion. "Hey, Nick!"
The other junior detective was still unloading files from his bag, having apparently just come in. Apparently he'd been quite focused on them, because at the sound of his name, he jumped, letting several files fall to the desk. "What?"
The blonde just nodded her head towards Bobby and the girl, whose face lit up at the sight of the detective. "Daddy!"
"Zara?" he asked in amazement, easily catching the child flying at him. "What are you doing here?"
"It was supposed to be a surprise," another voice said, and everyone in the squad room turned to look at the woman who had just walked in.
Goren could tell by the looks on the SVU detectives' faces that they recognized this woman even before Olivia stood up to greet her. "Maria."
"I had to come up here anyway," she explained. "I finally managed to secure you those files Nick said you needed - don't do anything stupid with them, please, or I'm the one in trouble. Zara's on spring break next week anyway and she was supposed to spend it here, so I just signed her out a few days early. How much is a second-grader going to miss, right?"
Nick's eyes were shining. "Thank you." Then, a moment later, it seemed like reality crashed down on him. "Wait. I have to work today. I can't keep her here with me."
Maria smiled again. "You really think I wouldn't think this through? I gave your mom a heads-up as soon as I started planning this. I'm taking Zara over to her house before I head back to DC. Your mom suggested I take her straight there but I wanted to see your face when you found out."
Bobby had known there was something in this woman's words that was important, and as it finally clicked, he forgot completely about the couple's last exchange. "You brought the files? The military records?"
She looked back at him, trying to size up this stranger who apparently knew a lot more about her than she did about him. "Yes, those files. Do I know you?"
"No." His reply was as blunt and without preamble as her question had been. "Thank you."
xxxxxxxxx
"Well, they almost did what we needed," Olivia commented, "but what happened to flagging anyone with a violent record?"
"She said they wouldn't do it," Murphy replied. "They don't want to implicate a soldier, even a former soldier. Apparently, it took a lot of pulling strings just to get us this much without waiting for the normal channels. She did say the information would be in the files, but we have to find it."
"Does it come before or after the food service orders?" Fin asked, reaching for a box.
Olivia couldn't help a small laugh, but Amaro, Rollins, Murphy, and Goren just stared at him like he was losing his mind. The unit Sergeant finally decided to cut her colleague a break. "About eight years ago, we had a case where we had to try to get some information from the military that they didn't want to give. When Novak subpoenaed them, they sent her the information along with so much clutter that it would've taken years to find what we were looking for."
"Typical Army." Nick was laughing now too, despite the seriousness of the situation. "They're masters at stonewalling. But this doesn't look that bad, does it?" he added. "I can't believe Maria would play along with that kind of stunt."
"It's not that bad," Murphy assured them. "It's a lot of files, but they're all the relevant files, guys who fit our parameters. We're just going to have to sort through them to find the ones who might be good for the murders."
"Timeline says we've got two months," Olivia added. "We can get some unis to help us do the preliminary searches, rule out anyone who absolutely couldn't be it. People who've died, that sort of thing."
"Add to that anyone whose DNA is in the system for any reason," Nick put in. "If it were someone who's been in the system, the DNA would've flagged when we ran the samples from the recent cases at the very least."
Murphy was nodding. "Agreed. Once we've eliminated the impossibilities, then we sit down and go through all the rest of the files with a fine-tooth comb. All of this is now part of an active investigation, with all the priority that implies. I'm not expecting you to work through scheduled vacations - yet," he admitted. "But if you're on the clock and you're not on another active investigation or something equally important, you're working on these files."
"Copy that," the four detectives replied.
"Goren," Murphy added, turning to him. "You're an SVU consultant on this case only, and you're the trained profiler. Are you able to coordinate the unis on the preliminaries?"
"Yes, sir," Goren replied immediately, and not just out of habit. He was eager to finally get moving on this case again, to finally bring down the man who had caused so much destruction.
"Good. And I'll want you in the thick of it once we've whittled down the pile."
"I understand," he replied, and then decided that wasn't good enough. "I will be," he promised, but in his mind, he wasn't promising it to Murphy or any of the others who stood around them. In his mind, the promise was made to his Alex. I will get justice for what was done to you.
Shortish chapter, I know, but this really felt like a good place to break it.
In case you can't tell, Zara Amaro's appearance in this chapter is pretty much entirely a plot device to reveal that Bobby and Alex are having a girl. She won't actually be an important part of the story.
The reference to the Army sending Novak important information buried in unimportant information is from the SVU episode Goliath. When I was thinking about SVU requesting information from the military, I couldn't get the image of her office stacked to the ceiling with boxes out of my head, so I decided to use it.
Please review.