Elliot stood in the kitchen opening random cabinets. He had to feed this kid. What the hell did Olivia feed him? There was nothing but coffee, tea, and Captain Crunch.

"Mom hasn't put a grocery order in this week," Noah said as he dropped onto one of the stools pushed up to the counter.

Elliot continued to stare at the cabinets, but when food didn't magically appear he reached for his keys that hung on the hook in the kitchen. "Get your shoes on. We are going to find lunch, and then we are going to get some groceries."

"Yes!" Noah jumped off the barstool excitedly. They needed to get out of the apartment and get some air. And food. They really needed to get some food.

-

The entire squad, except Velasco, hovered over Churlish's screen, anxiously waiting as she pulled up the results.

"Looks like we have a match…" Churlish began.

"To the out of state couple…" Bruno finished.

"Damn." Fin patted Churlish on the shoulder. "Good work."

"Okay. Turns out Lucas is a missing child by the name of Ethan Campbell." Churlish read the information out loud. "He was two years old when he went missing. He was abducted from a Walmart in Indiana while visiting the Grandparents." She skimmed through a little bit more. "Nothing unusual was ever found on security cameras. One minute he was in the cart and the next he was just gone."

Olivia was suddenly hit with the memory of Noah getting kidnapped. It was staged, but the situation was still horrifyingly similar. Kid was with his grandma and suddenly vanished. Why did every part of this case need to stab her in the gut?

Churlish's voice continued somewhere in Liv's periphery. "There were two other child abductions in the area at the time, but the kids were much older. Eleven and twelve years old. They have it as a note on the file, but they didn't seem to think they were related because of the vastly different age."

"But if Marcus was already trafficking…" Fin suggested.

"Then he picked up those kids for "work" and he picked up Ethan for some other reason." Churlish finished the thought.

"We need to get Marcus back in here." Olivia pointed out Bruno, "Call Velasco and tell him to bring Marcus in for questioning."

"You got it boss," he immediately pulled out his phone and stepped away from the huddle of people that formed around Churlish's des

"Churlish, email me the NCMEC profile and whatever case files you can access." She gave Churlish a genuine smile, "And you get to call those parents to tell them that after ten years, we found their son." There was a light hearted feeling at the prospect of telling parents their kid wasn't dead, but was alive and perfectly healthy. But it ultimately felt tainted by a looming murder or manslaughter investigation.

She was really starting to hate this case. Olivia turned to Fin. "And I'll inform the in-state parents that their child is still missing," she sighed at the heart wrenching assignment.

Fin patted her back, "Well I gotta go deal with a twelve year old jackass in the making…" he winced. "Prolly a little harsh huh."

"Considering the kid was kidnapped? Maybe," Olivia replied. "But I sympathize with the feeling."

Olivia stepped towards her office, "I'll make this call and then I think I'll sit in with you until they bring Abby in again."

"Damn. Do you get a cold shiver when you think of that girl?"

Olivia shuddered internally. "Every damn time."

-000-

Elliot and Noah grabbed some lunch at a deli down the street from Olivia's apartment. It was good, but he liked the deli closer to the precinct better. They dropped in to the closest grocery to get cereal, snacks, and ingredients for dinners over the next week. Noah seemed surprised that Elliot could cook, but Elliot assured him that he could make at least a couple edible dishes.

Once they were back in Elliot's car he realized he probably needed to drop by his place if he was going to have anything to wear over the next few days. "Hey Noh. You okay if we stop at my place for a minute? I need to grab a couple things."

"Yeah!" Noah had seemed a little more deflated than normal, but for some reason the idea of checking out Elliot's apartment excited him. He hoped he still had that ice cream in his freezer…

-000-

Before checking in on Fin Olivia decided she wanted to call Noah. She knew he was fine, but sometimes, when things hit too close to home, she needed to hear his voice.

She hit his contact info. Sometimes it astounded her that her child was old enough to own a phone.

"Mom!"

She almost cried at the sound of his voice. This case was murdering her emotions. "Hi baby," she responded. "What are you two guys up to?"

"Well Elliot said we were gonna starve to death if we stayed in our apartment…"

She heard Elliot in the background, "That's not what I said!"

She chuckled at their antics. Noah wasn't wrong. They would probably starve in her apartment. "Where are you guys?"

"Elliot's place. We grabbed some food and groceries and stuff. He says he can cook mom." His voice sounded completely unbelieving.

"You know, I have never had Elliot cook for me so I can't tell you if he can or not."

"Well he says he can, and that I can help so when you get home later we will see if it's something you can stand to eat."

"I'm sure it will be fine. What are you doing at Elliot's?" She knew when they woke up Elliot didn't have a plan for the day so she was curious how they wound up there.

"He said he needed some clothes and stuff if he was gonna stay with us for a few days." He paused, and she immediately recognized the cheeky tone in his voice, "He also said he needed to get his own coffee because yours kind of sucks."

She laughed out loud. It was no secret that Elliot turned into a bit of a coffee snob when he returned from Europe.

She heard Elliot I'm the background, "Give me that phone. Your mom is never going to leave me alone with you again." His voice was suddenly clear on the line. She could hear the smile in his voice. He and Noah were having a good time. Her heart ached a little knowing when she got home the world would be turned on it's head. "I think you need to have a little chat with your son about exaggeration." She could hear Noah's laugh in the background. "He wasn't wrong though…your coffee selection sucked."

She laughed, but it wasn't a full body laugh that she normally allowed. Her dampened mood precluded joy.

She heard him step further away from Noah and shut the door. He must have ducked into his bedroom. "What's going on?"

Sometimes she hated how well he knew her. He could read her so well, even over the phone.

"Nothing really," she really couldn't go into the complex nature of her feelings right now. "This case is just exhausting."

"Mmmhmm. Why'd you need to call Noah though? I've done the same thing hundreds of times when things hit too close to home."

"It's too much to go into right now El." She sighed. It really was a long story.

"Maybe, but you'll never get around to telling about it otherwise. What happened?"

"El," she complained.

"Come on Liv. Quick summary. You'll feel better once you talk about it and you know it."

He wasn't wrong. "Um, when Noah was little his biological grandmother abducted him." She heard Elliot pull in a sharp breath. "She staged it so it looked like someone else took him while they were at the mall." Tears stung her eyes at the memory.

"Jesus Liv," was all he could mutter.

She quickly controlled the rising emotions. "We got a hit on Lucas' DNA. He was abducted from a Walmart while his grandma was watching him."

"Damn. That's tough. Do you need to see him? I mean we can swing by when we head back to the apartment," he suggested.

"No no. It's fine." She sighed. "I'd love to see him, but there's just…there's a lot going on over here and I don't think…it's better if he just stays with you and has a fun day."

"You sure? We don't have to even come in. You could come out and see us." He tried.

Truth was, she wouldn't be able to look either of them in the face without crying right now, and she couldn't do that until she was at home and ready to talk about Clem.

"Thanks El. But I'll be okay. I'm already supposed to be observing Lucas' interview right now. I just needed to talk to Noh for a minute."

"Okay…" he still sounded like he wanted to push, but thankfully he backed off. "We should only be here for a little bit longer and then we plan on going back to your place. Wanna text me or something when you get a chance to head home? We'll make sure there's something edible here for you to eat."

"Okay," she could feel this smile growing across her lips. "I'll let you know." She bit back a little emotion, "thanks for taking care of him El. I know he's safe with you."

"My pleasure, Liv. Really, he's so much fun. Just focus on work. I got him and we will have a good day."

"Bye El."

"Bye Liv."

Olivia hung up the phone and gathered herself together before leaving her office. Just before entering the observation room she felt her phone buzz with a text.

E : I meant it when I said that I loved you. Get through today. See you when you get home.

Who was this emotionally communicative person?! She wasn't sure what to say back so she stuffed her phone in her pocket, reasoning she'd text him later.

She finally made it to where Fin was interviewing Lucas. Ethan. She was going with Lucas because he didn't even know that he was Ethan yet. She focused in on Fin.

Fin paced with his arms crossed. The interview had been pretty painful up to this point. They were all tired, and "Alright Lucas, I'm tired of going round and round. You friend Abby will be here soon, and I'm pretty sure she'll have no problem tossing you under the bus. She seems like the kind of kid who will save her own ass without looking back so if you're gonna say anything it's gotta be now."

Lucas didn't flinch, and Fin returned to his seat. "Imma gonna lay it all out for ya. You're just a kid. That means hard time isn't even in the cards for you. And the story we got from our witness was that you were there, but it wasn't you who hurt Clem….at least not on purpose. They will probably just give you some sort of court orders therapy and you can be on your way. Just tell us what happened so you can go home"

Fin was being generous with that assertion. There was no way in hell Abby threw Clem down the mountain on her own. Lucas was just as culpable as Abby in this.

The wheels in Lucas's head appeared to be turning. "Fine." He muttered.

Olivia had to do a double take. Did he just agree to talk about it? She leaned in closer to the glass.

"Come on man, what happened that night?" Fin pressed.

Lucas ground his teeth a little, seeming to consider his options. He leaned back in his chair before answering. "Clem wasn't even supposed to be there." He spoke like he was giving them a massive favor by even talking with them.

"Why? What were you doin out of the tent that early in the mornin?"

Lucas shrugged. "Nothin really. Abby thought it would be fun to check out the cliff edge everyone kept warning us about. It sounded cool so we woke up early to go see it."

"Okayyyy," Fin dragged out the last syllable. "How did Clem get mixed up in it."

"I don't know. She was just doing what she always does. She followed Abby out, and told her she was going to wake up their chaperone." Lucas rolled his eyes. "She said it was too dangerous to go to the hill edge."

"I told her to go cry her way back to bed because we would do whatever the hell we wanted to." He shook his head, "she started crying because she is seriously the biggest baby. I just wanted to ditch her, but Abby said she couldn't get in trouble again because of something that happened at her last school. I told her she was being dramatic because she totally was."

"Why'd you guys take her to the creek?" Fin prodded.

"Abby was freaking out and telling me I had yelled too loud at Clem and she was crying. so Abby said we needed to take her down by the creek because no one would hear us, and we wouldn't get in trouble."

When Olivia held Lucas' account next to Colton's she felt sick. She had to find a way to work this case without it destroying her. She needed to take the "personal" out of the equation if she planned on working this case effectively. She'd done it hundreds of times before, and she could find a way to do it now.

"What happened at the creek?" Fin pressed.

He shrugged. "The girls just got all dramatic. Abby started yelling crap at her. Which I get it. The girl's pretty annoying, but I figured we were only gonna get in more trouble if we kept bugging her." His eyes drifted up to Fin's. "Plus I already got in trouble with Noah's not-dad guy so I was pretty sure we wouldn't get away with pestering Clem."

"How did Clem get hurt?"

He gave another nonchalant shrug. "It was all Abby." He was deliberately minimizing his role. They'd have to come back to that. "I was just there. Clem tried to run away and Abby pulled her hair which made her fall over."

"What did you guys do next?"

"I don't know. I heard something and saw that Colton followed us over there. I ran after him to talk to him," Olivia was pretty sure Lucas wasn't just going to talk to him. "It was dark so I didn't go far. I figured he'd just go back to camp. That's what I did after that. I didn't go back the creek. I didn't want to get caught once Colton got back and told everyone."

"How did Clem end up down the hill then?"

Lucas shrugged. "Hell if I know. I hauled back to my tent before anyone would notice I was gone."

"So you're telling me Abby got her down the hill by herself?" Fin was as skeptical as Olivia.

"I don't know. That girl is pretty, but God, she's kinda a lot." He said it like a joke. Like it wasn't the biggest understatement ever.

Fin clicked his pen a couple times. He kept his eyes trained on Lucas. The kid was good. She couldn't imagine what kind of shit he would get away with down the road. He was believable, and just as manipulative as Abby. The story he told coincided pretty well with Colton's account, but there was no way Abby dragged Clem that far. No way. It seemed unlikely that anyone helped her, and Lucas was a pathological liar…problem with liars is you never quite know when they're telling the truth.