Little Girl Lost

Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it's not mine. This story is on an AU track.

Chapter 13: Scattered Pieces Coming Together

"What's the status at the house?" Olivia asked as she walked into the squad room.

"Fire's out, but FDNY's still clearing the scene," Fin reported. "They say another hour, maybe two, before they can be sure it's safe for us to go in and look for evidence. Good news is that while the basement was pretty much incinerated, they kept it pretty well-contained and a lot of stuff survived on the first and second floor. Might have some water damage from the hoses but at least it still exists. What's the news from the hospital?"

"Nick and Serena were incredibly lucky," she said grimly. "They've both been admitted for smoke inhalation and moderate burns, but they'll be fine. A lot of the victims, though, they're in a lot worse shape."

Captain Hannah grimaced. "How bad?"

"Two are still extremely questionable," she said softly. "A third in serious condition, expected to survive but she'll have a long and painful recovery ahead of her. Several more are permanently disfigured, one is likely to lose one of her feet. Not one of them escaped unscathed physically, to say nothing of what they went through before today."

"At least we got all seven of the guys," Fin commented. "I have no idea how they thought they were going to get out through our perimeter."

"Got?" Only then did Olivia realize she hadn't heard the full report from the scene. "You mean arrested, or..."

"Six arrested," Hannah replied. "One tried to shoot his way through the perimeter. SWAT took him down before he could get off more than a couple shots." He pinched his lips slightly. "I'm honestly not sure if he actually thought he could shoot his way out or if he intended for things to happen exactly the way they did."

Fin frowned. "Suicide by cop, you mean?"

"That type isn't going to fare well in prison," the Captain remarked. "He might've thought death was preferable."

"Whoa." A new voice joined those that had been speaking. "What the hell happened here?"

"Lieutenant!" Olivia turned, startled, to face her supervisor. "I thought you weren't due back until tomorrow morning."

As Murphy's face pulled into a puzzled frown, Rollins spoke up behind her. "Liv, it's six a.m. already. It is tomorrow morning."

"It's what?" Her head snapped back around to look at the blonde.

"It's six o'clock in the morning on the exact day I said I'd be back," Murphy said, his voice a mixture of amusement and exasperation."You've been up all night?"

"And then some," she admitted.

"I can see why." Again, he glanced around the bullpen. "It looks like in the less than a week I've been gone, this went from an ordinary squad room to police central headquarters."

"Well, it's not quite that simple," she objected. "We caught a big one, so I called everyone in."

"So I see," he said with a raised eyebrow. "You want to come fill me in, or are you going to make me guess?"

"I'll fill you in," she said, blushing a bit. "Rollins, have the fire department keep you posted and let me know as soon as they say it's safe for us to go in."

"Copy that, Sergeant," she replied immediately.

"So," Murphy asked, sitting down behind his desk, "what exactly did happen while I was gone?"

"Well, Lieutenant." She sat down across from him. "That first night after you left, we got a call..."

xxxxxxxxx

Serena woke suddenly in a fit of coughing, sitting up abruptly in a desperate attempt to get her breath. It was only when she was finally able to draw air into her lungs that she realized she wasn't alone. A pair of hands was gently supporting her.

"Charlotte?" she gasped out when she was finally able to speak. "What are you doing here?"

"Making sure you're okay." She held a cup out to Serena. "That cough sounds nasty."

"I've had worse." She laid back against the pillows, taking a mouthful of the cool liquid. "Zach asked you to look in on me?"

"It was my idea. Though he is worried about you," she added. "He mentioned you'd been hurt. He said he wanted to come see you himself, but he can't leave Andrea and she's still too afraid to leave the house. When he mentioned you didn't have family in the area, I told him I'd come pay you a visit."

"It's no big deal, really. I'll be back to work in a week. But I appreciate the gesture." A fond smile crossed her face. "Zach's one hell of a father, isn't he?"

She nodded, smiling. "If I had a single doubt that he was on the right path, it was gone the first time I saw him with that little girl. But tell me, Serena, how did you get hurt? I know enough about standard line of duty injuries to know this wasn't one."

"Standard, no. Line of duty, yes." She coughed again, once, and was relieved when it wasn't more than that. "I ran into a burning house to save some kids."

The older woman shook her head. "I'm not even going to ask. But you're going to be okay?"

"Yeah. Like I said, back to work in a week. You really didn't have to come."

"No one should be left alone in the hospital, regardless of how serious it is. Besides," she added with a smile, "hopefully, this will stop my son from worrying so much,"

"Well," Serena replied, smiling too, "there is that."

xxxxxxxxx

There had been a few times during his childhood when Zach had managed to play the piano passably with one hand. The first time had been because of a broken wrist he'd gotten when he'd fallen climbing a tree, and every time after that had been just because he could. It had really been a form of showing off; some kids did wheelies on their bicycle, he could play the piano with one hand. It had never seemed nearly as important as it did in this moment, as he sat on the bench with his right hand coaxing a tune from the piano as his left ran through Andrea's hair, holding her close to his side. I never want to be without her again.

He felt her head starting to droop and let the piano fall silent. "Tired, baby?"

"Uh-huh," she mumbled.

"Come on, then." He turned, gathering her up in his arms. "Let's get you to bed."

Andrea tensed a bit, passively resisting his attempt to pick her up. "It's - it's okay. I can walk."

"Your feet are cut," he said gently. "It'll hurt if you walk."

"It doesn't hurt that much."

Zach saw the way she involuntarily glanced to her left; a clear tell that she was lying. "Andrea, what's wrong, sweetheart?"

"I'm sorry," she whimpered.

"Oh, baby, you don't have anything to be sorry for."

She nodded, a little stubbornly. "I'm sorry that I'm nine but you have to take care of me like I was a baby. I'm sorry it can't be like it was. I'm sorry I'm so scared of everything." She was crying now, silent tears slipping down her face. "I'm sorry I'm not normal anymore."

Zach pulled the sobbing girl into his lap, cradling her head tightly against his chest. "Oh, my Andrea -" He broke off, too choked up himself to speak for a moment. "Let me tell you something," he said finally. "It doesn't bother me a bit to carry you around. In fact, sometimes I wish I could carry you around all day and never put you down. Do you want to know why?"

"Yes." There was a note of hope, even wonder, in her voice.

"Because I'm scared too," he admitted. "I'm scared that I'm going to wake up and you'll be gone again. When I have you here, in my arms, then I know you're safe with me. I missed you so, so much. I never want to feel that way again." He pressed a kiss to the crown of her head. "I wish things could be like they were before too, because it makes me sad that so many bad things happened to you. I wish I could have protected you. But Andrea, this isn't forever, okay? It's like - it's like these." He carefully took one of her bandaged hands in his. "I know you know that your hands won't stay cut forever. A little bit at a time, the cuts heal, and maybe you'll have a few scars, but most of the time you won't even think about it. It'll be the same way with the hurt inside you. It's not always going to be this bad."

"But...it hurts a lot more inside than my hands do." Andrea buried her head deeper into his chest.

He tightened his grip on her, tears now flowing freely down his own face. "I know it does, baby girl. I know it does. It's probably going to take longer to heal than your hands and feet will. And you might need to see a special doctor to help you with that. But it's going to get better. And in the meantime, I'm here to take care of you as much as you need, and there's nothing in the world I'd rather be doing."

"Really?"

"I promise." He kissed her head again. "Now, are you ready to go to bed?"

"Can I - can I stay with you? Just for one more night?"

"Of course." He stood, lifting her into his arms; she didn't resist this time. "For as many nights as you want."

xxxxxxxxx

"What's all that?" Olivia asked as Fin and Rollins stepped out of the elevator, trying to navigate a dolly that was piled high with boxes.

"Evidence from the house," the senior detective replied, leaping sideways to prevent catastrophe as the top box threatened to topple off the tower. "I think we're gonna need an incident room."

"We can take Conference Room One," she offered. "All this is from the house?"

"That's not even all of it," Rollins said wryly. "Lab took the physical evidence, and TARU's got the laptops and cameras. This is just the photos and videos."

"What?" The Sergeant came to a dead stop, staring at the pile. "All this is..."

"Yep," Fin confirmed. "Liv, from the dates on some of those videos, these people have been at this for over a decade. There's got to be thousands of hours of video, and I don't want to try and guess how many photographs. We thought we should run them against open cases. Missing persons, child porn, you know the drill."

"Good. But don't expect much from the missing persons angle," Olivia added. "Missing persons is coming up empty on the girls from the house. It's looking more and more like Andrea may have been the only girl in that basement who was actually reported missing."

"That might be intentional."

Three heads turned to look at the newcomer. Olivia sighed out loud. "Bobby, I'm sorry. I forgot you were coming in today. We're kind of swamped on another case right now, I don't know if we can spare any time."

"I know. Captain Hannah is an old friend of mine, I ran into him in the lobby and he told me what you caught. Figured as long as I was here, I might be able to help. On me," he added. "I can afford to take a case pro bono, as it were, every so often, and this case...if there was ever a case I wanted to take just on principle, this would be it."

"Okay." For the first time since the case had broken, Olivia had a real, if exhausted, smile on her face. "What were saying about things being intentional?"

"Specifically, their choice of victims. I heard Fin say they've been at it for years?" Several nods followed that statement. "They've figured out ways to get their hands on children that no one will miss or look for. It reduces the chances that they'll be caught. Even if someone sees one of the kids, there's no missing child poster for them to recognize a face from."

Olivia was nodding slowly. "Street kids, black market adoptions, buying kids from junkies and other parents selfish or desperate enough to sell their own kids...I can see it."

"But not Andrea," Rollins pointed out. "She was grabbed off a playground, reported missing right away."

"Now that's strange." Bobby's brow furrowed. "They've kept their operation profitable for years without raising a single alarm. Why would they suddenly take such a jump in risk?"

"Because they didn't know they did," Olivia said after a moment. "They didn't kidnap Andrea, that was Linda. As far as the ring knew, they were just buying one more girl from a parent who valued cash over their kid's life; they had no idea that someone might actually be looking for her. And based on what I got from Munch, Linda wouldn't give a second thought about the risk to anyone but herself. She knew she had an alibi, the rest of the world could burn for all she cared."

"Okay, now it's starting to make sense," Bobby said after a moment. "Although, this Linda, what she did...does that have anything to do with the reason they were caught?"

"I guess that depends how you look at it," Olivia said thoughtfully. "The missing persons report didn't get us anywhere near them, but it was Andrea who put us onto the ring in the first place, and her information did indirectly lead us to the location."

"Yeah, and I think that's significant."

Fin turned his attention to his partner, considering her words. "How do you mean?"

"It's something Nick said when I was with him in the ambulance - in one of the few moments he wasn't coughing his lungs out. He mentioned that the girls seemed almost as scared of him and Serena as they were of the fire. They've either been taught to be afraid of the police or strangers in general."

"But not Andrea." Olivia was catching on now. "She was generally afraid, like a lot of victims, but not on that level. After being around the other victims...she's just different. Even after everything she's been through, she still has that spark - the same spark that gave her the strength to escape when she had the chance. If it had been any other girl in the apartment when that guy passed out, I'm not sure we'd even know this ring existed."

"Which means they could easily hold both Andrea and Linda responsible for everything falling apart," Bobby said grimly. "If you don't have some kind of protection on them already, you probably should."

"Andrea's protected." Olivia's reply was immediate; she knew that Zach would die before he'd let anything else happen to the little girl, and he had the skills to protect her. "We haven't been able to find Linda yet. Woman's a drifter and a scam artist, her last known is no good. Believe me, we've been trying. We want her as badly as anyone does."

"Do you have a file on her? Maybe I can help."

"Right...here." She spotted the file and pulled it from her desk, handing it to Bobby. "Knock yourself out."

So, this is starting to wind to a close. Maybe 4-5 more chapters left, and then it's sequel time.

Sorry for the delay...writing just hasn't been coming together for me recently. It's finally starting to so hopefully this will be the last major delay for awhile.

I hadn't initially intended to bring Bobby and the Eyes Wide Open storyline into this story at all, but it seemed too unrealistically convenient to me that he would just not be there for days on end while he was working on an active case, and yet be there every time something major happens on said active case. It also gave me a good way to give the team a boost in putting a few pieces together. For reference's sake, Andrea is kidnapped earlier in the timeline than the start of Eyes Wide Open and this part of the story (from Andrea being found onwards) takes place in the between chapters 4 and 5 of Eyes Wide Open (there's a 2 1/2 month timeline gap there). Chapter 6 of this story is roughly parallel to the earlier chapters of Eyes Wide Open.

Please review!