All she needed was just a minute. Just a minute, to wash her face, to still the trembling of her hands, to brace herself for what was to come, for all the lies she was about to tell, for all the risks she was about to take. A stream of tepid water from the station locker room wasn't as fortifying as a strong drink might have been, but it was the only avenue available to her, and so she took it.

The door to the locker room didn't lock, though, and it opened behind her, the hinges protesting loudly at the movement the way they always did, and when she looked over her shoulder she saw Fin, leaning casually back against the door, using his bulk to keep it in place, to insure that no one would enter that room and disturb them while he said whatever was on his mind.

"Hey," she said, drying her hands on one of the flimsy bullshit no ply paper towels from the dispenser on the wall.

"You ready to talk to me?" Fin asked in a tone of voice that told her plainly he would not accept no for an answer. Not that she could blame him; she'd left him all alone at the crime scene with the unis, with no car and no idea what was going on, left him behind to lie for her, and not knowing why. Fin was no fool, and neither was she; he wouldn't have done that for just anyone, just like she wouldn't have. They'd do it for each other, though. They trusted each other, and it wasn't the first time one of them had kept a secret for the other.

"Fin-"

"Cragen just got the call," he said. "Some Fed confirming they've got the girl in their custody. Fed says they're willing to let us run the case for now, but that you'll be liaising with their guy. That have something to do with your contact at the FBI?"

It had nothing at all to do with the FBI and everything to do with Marcus, who she'd called from the bathroom at Elliot's apartment while he scrambled eggs for McKenna's breakfast. She hadn't expected Marcus to move so quickly, but she was grateful for it; it would spare her having to answer too many questions about where she'd taken the girl. Oh, people were going to ask those questions, but she could spread her hands helplessly and blame it on the Feebs. They made an easy scapegoat.

"Yeah," she said.

"So you've seen this before," Fin said. "The wings."

Every damn day, she thought.

"Yeah."

"You gonna tell me what it means?"

Fin was blocking the door but this place was still too public for her to risk showing him her wings, as she'd shown Elliot, and part of her was reluctant to, anyway. Learning what she was put a person in danger; there were men out there who meant to hunt her kind, who weren't above a bit of recreational torture to get their hands on information. It would be best for Fin if he didn't know what McKenna was. Maybe that was a lie; maybe it would just be easier for her. It was hard, every time, explaining where she'd come from, what she was, and Elliot had accepted it, mostly, but Elliot's whole life was in shambles and he was Catholic, anyway. Elliot was the kind of man who believed; Fin had always been more pragmatic. She didn't want to fight with him.

"Can we just…can we just say she's special?" Olivia asked. "She's special. There aren't a lot of people like her, and that makes her valuable to the kind of people who like to make money off special things. She's in danger, Fin. You can't tell anybody what you saw."

For a moment Fin watched her, thoughtfully, warily. He wasn't a busybody, really; Fin knew a lot, heard a lot, understood a lot, but he didn't press. He didn't like talking about himself and he respected that in other people. In the past, anytime he'd brushed up against something she didn't want to talk about, he'd left it up to her to decide how much she was gonna say, didn't beg or make demands or tell her she owed him anything. Maybe this was different. Maybe it wasn't.

"Found something," he said, "at the crime scene. I managed to bag it before the unis saw it. Nobody knows I have it yet. You tell me if they should."

He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out an evidence bag, and then held it at arm's length. He wasn't gonna move, wasn't gonna step away from the door and lose his leverage over it, so Olivia had to go to him, which she did, crossing the space between them quickly and taking the bag from his hands, turning it over in her own.

Inside the bag was a single, brilliantly white feather. Not one of McKenna's; this one was nearly a foot long, maybe three inches wide, and her feathers weren't nearly that big yet, and Fin hadn't seen much of her wings, but maybe he'd seen enough to know that. Maybe he was just protecting the girl, but there was something suspicious in his eyes, like he'd figured it out already. Like he knew, already, that if a child could have wings a grownup could, too, and her mother certainly hadn't. Someone else had been in that apartment last night, though.

"That come from someone special, too?" he asked.

"Yeah," Olivia answered heavily.

The feather was light - of course it was, it was a fucking feather - and it was clean, and well tended, not torn or bent or frayed. Feathers like that, healthy feathers, didn't just fall out; angels and nephilim weren't fucking birds, they didn't molt. There was the smallest brownish stain at the base of the feather; blood, she thought. Blood, like someone had ripped it out.

"Where did you-"

"Under the vic's body. I grabbed it while they were getting her into the body bag. No one saw me."

Smart girl, Olivia thought. McKenna's mother had fought back against her attacker, and left behind a clue as to his identity. Maybe the killer had left behind DNA - though Olivia strongly suspected he had none to leave, not being of this world - but even if he had she doubted it would be in the system anywhere. That feather, that was all the evidence they had so far.

"Are we gonna log it?"

"No," Olivia said.

Chances were good, she thought, that she wasn't gonna make it out of the case with her job intact. She'd broken so many laws already, and they were only just getting started. It was over already, she thought, her time with SVU, her time as Olivia Benson, and part of her was mourning for it even now. She'd enjoyed this life. She'd been happy here, for a time.

"How are we gonna look for this guy if you won't tell me what he is and you won't log the evidence?"

"Same way we look for every perp," she said. "We pull security cams and phone logs and we track down the people in the victim's life and we build a picture. Just like always. Whatever he is, this guy is still a perp, and we'll find him."

"And then what? We turn him over to the Feds?"

It was a good question. What was she gonna do when she found this guy? Nephilim or angel it made no difference; he was dangerous. And he was powerful, and a human prison wouldn't hold him, not if he really wanted out. Arrest and booking and arraignment, all that shit would leave a paper trail, and put too many eyes on this guy, make it damn near impossible to keep the truth of his identity a secret. Human justice wouldn't work, not this time.

I think we're gonna have to kill him, she thought, her heart full of dread. Another sin, to add to the pile. Another black mark against her. Not that it mattered; she'd been locked out of heaven from the moment she was born. No sense in playing by God's rules when she'd lost the game already.

"Yeah," she lied. "Yeah, we'll turn him over to the Feds."

"Fine," Fin said. "Let's get to work."

And so they did.

Maybe I'm crazy, Elliot thought, passing a little yellow Lego to McKenna. She took it from him, her bottom lip caught between her teeth, a serious expression on her sweet little face as she considered the tower they were building, and tried to decide where to place the next brick.

He had to be crazy, didn't he, to go along with this? Had to be crazy for believing it. Had to be crazy for taking this risk, for essentially kidnapping a child, for letting Liv throw her career away. He had to be out of his goddamn mind; only a lunatic would've just accepted everything Liv had told him. Angels were real, and they'd fucked human women, and made little babies with wings and immortality, little babies who'd never be allowed into heaven. Heaven and hell were real, after all, not just a matter of faith but a practical reality, places you could go to, or not, depending on who your dad was. Who just believed that shit? How could any of it be true? How could it not?

Mama would've believed it without question. Mama loved the tragedy of the saints and the faith of the Virgin and the righteous glory of the angels. Mama would say that she'd always known it was true, had always known there was another world beyond this one, would say that she'd glimpsed it herself, a time or two. Mama thought an angel had saved them that night she lost control of the car in the snow; Mama said he had an angel to thank for him walking away from that crash with only a broken arm. Or that's what she'd said, right after it happened; she went away for a while and came back sad and never mentioned the crash again, not once over the decades that followed, but that night in the snow with the EMTs she said an angel had saved her baby.

And Elliot had always thought she was crazy, but shit.

An angel saved my baby, too, he thought, a feeling like hysteria sparking and cracking through his lungs. Olivia had saved them, Kathy and Eli, that day in the car, and Elliot felt like he was gonna puke remembering it now. An angel.

It was crazy, but he believed it, because he had seen Olivia's wings, because he believed in her more than he believed in anything else in the entire goddamn word, because he was looking at McKenna now. Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. He'd seen it, now. It wasn't just a matter of faith any more, was it?

People's eyes could fail them, though, and maybe if this had happened at any other time Elliot would've doubted his own, but it hadn't happened at any other time. Olivia's revelation had come now, at the precise moment when Elliot had nothing else to believe in, nothing else to fight for. He's always been a believer and he'd always been a fighter and every ounce of his purpose had been stripped from him; Kathy had given up their marriage for good this time, and God had abandoned him when he killed that girl, killed her for the sake of a love he wasn't even supposed to feel, and even though it wasn't official yet he was certain he'd lost his job. There would be no going back, not after one shooting too many, not with Tucker gunning for him. Elliot had only just been cleared from another IAB investigation when he killed Jenna, and he knew Tucker had had enough of him, and it would be Tucker's decision; his fate rested in the hands of a man who hated him. No, he was never gonna get the chance to carry his shield again. It was over; his life was over.

And in the instant of his life's ending, Olivia had brought to him new purpose. Had given him something to believe in, had given him something to do, had given him someone to fight for. Their plan was illegal in about eight different ways and it was risky as all hell, but what did he have to lose? Why not believe, now? Why not fight, now? For Liv, for McKenna, for himself; why not?

Not like you've got anything else to do, he thought, and handed McKenna another Lego. She smiled when she took it from him, and he smiled back; there was something about that little girl's smile that felt like sunshine, a warmth he could almost touch, like a gift he'd always be grateful for.

There were a lot of questions left to answer, and a lot of things left to do. He'd need clothes for McKenna, and more food soon, and more ways to keep her occupied and happy while they whiled away the hours in his apartment, waiting for Liv to come home. Those troubles would keep until tomorrow, though; for now he sat on the floor, building a Lego tower with an angel child, and thinking about the end of the world.