Chapter 77

"Please tell me you've heard from Liv,"

"I have and she's safe" Fin told Elliot as he entered the house, and Elliot shut the door behind him looking so relieved but still worried. "I just dropped her off at a hotel. I tried to get her to come home, but she needs time to let this all sink in."

"I need to talk to her. I can-"

"El, stop. She's not in the mood to talk, and you have to give her some space. I just came to let you know that she's safe so you wouldn't worry."

"She hasn't called me. And all of my calls to her have gone straight to voi-" Elliot cut himself short when he saw Serena making her way down the stairs, in her pajamas.

"Hi Uncle Fin!" She smiled brightly. Fin couldn't help but melt whenever he saw her, and immediately picked her up.

"Who do we have here?" He grinned as she hugged him tight, then pulled back, laughing.

"It's me, Serena!" She smiled brightly, looking so much like her mother.

"Oh, that's right!"

"And Serena should be in bed," Elliot interjected.

"I tried to go to sleep, but I couldn't. Daddy, I want mommy,"

Elliot and Fin looked at each other before Fin spoke,

"You know what, baby girl? I bet if you tried really hard to go to sleep, the sleep fairy would leave you a nice present."

Serena was intrigued.

"The sleep fairy??" she asked excitingly. She needed info on this fairy that uncle Fin just revealed to her.

"Yep. 'comes when kids are having a hard time getting to sleep,"

"What does she do? What does she look like?"

" Heee looks just like uncle Fin, handsome and fly…"

…

With the way he drove back to his farmhouse, calm and collected, nobody would have ever thought he'd just murdered two people. Listening to his scanner, waiting for a mention of the two bodies found in the alley, it was all he could do to not burst into laughter at the absolute joy he felt as he patted his coat pocket where both Kathleen and Richards' identification lay. He'd already taken the sim cards from both their phones, broken them and dumped them in a drain on his way out of the city.

"...should slow down the cops a little. My secret stays safe, and Stabler; ohhhh-sweet-Mary's-pussy, to see his face when he finds out that his precious daughter is dead…just the beginning for you, fucker. Just the beginning!"

…

In an alley where she cut through to get to the other side of the block faster in the rain, holding her umbrella, Haru Abara ran through the narrow space when she tripped, almost falling over a woman's high-heeled boot. A boot that when she looked down, her eyes slowly traveled the ground and she saw the leg that that boot was attached to, and the sickening scene that lay around it. So much blood! Even with the rain, you couldn't escape it.

Immediately, Haru began to scream at the top of her lungs, before her senses came back to her and she pulled out her phone, dialing nine-one-one as she looked at the massacre in front of her, the man lying there against the dumpster and obviously dead with his throat slit ear-to-ear… was that a knife in his hand?

"9-1-1, what's your emergency?"

Just as she was about to beg for help, a hand reached out and touched her leg letting a frightened Haru know that the woman was still alive, barely, but alive as she spoke weakly:

"Help me…"

…

Hey, Katie, it's dad. Give me a call when you can." Elliot said into the phone before ending the call and putting the phone down on the counter. He had to call someone- anyone else besides Olivia. She obviously didn't want to talk to him right now and he paused a second before he grabbed the notepad from the fridge and started to write a small message, just to let her know that he was sorry; he could ask Fin to give it to her, and she'd know that he meant it…but then, what if it upset her even more? He quickly crumpled the sheet from the top of the notepad and threw the balled-up paper into the trash as Fin entered the kitchen after coming from upstairs.

"Baby girl must have told me ten or so stories before she dozed off. She's a talker!" Fin said as he took a seat in one of the island chairs.

Elliot laughed as he handed him a cup of coffee. "She's definitely got the gift of gab."

"Thanks man."Fin said graciously and took a hearty sip" …that she does," He laughed. "I had to make sure she was actually sleeping before I ducked out,"

"What did the sleep fairy leave her?"

"Didn't have a gift so I left her a fifty," and he turned up his mug while Elliot nearly choked on his coffee.

"Dollars?"

Fin shook his head, grinning while he sipped his coffee. "I better get going, but you gonna be okay?"

"I'd be better if you told me exactly where she was,"

"El, get some sleep. She'll be back tomorrow and you guys will talk; She's hurting but at the end of the day, she loves you, and she knows how much you love her. I just don't understand how you managed to keep this a secret from me."

With a saddened tone, Elliot looked at Fin, "I knew that you guys can't keep anything from her, so I held it… but I only thought I was protecting her."

"Deep down, she knows."

…

She couldn't do it. No matter how much she wanted to go to that house, her house…their home, she couldn't do it. Not tonight. She needed time and space to process everything that had happened today.

Sitting on the edge of the running bathtub in a hotel room, she looked at a picture of her babies on her phone, quickly getting emotional, she slipped the phone into the pocket of her sweater she wore.

Olivia missed the kids so much, and knew that Serena must be wondering where she was…they both must be. Fin, he hates the bottle, and as much as she'd like to be home and feeding him, she knew that she was no good to be around either of them right now. Not to mention the way she felt about Elliot, she was likely to go into a rage and that wouldn't be good for either of the children to witness.

"Alone in a hotel…" she cried, wiping away the tears on her cheeks. She put a lock of loose hair back behind her ear and turned to get up when she saw another of her selves, this one was her after she'd been rescued from Harlan, in Pennsylvania. She looked downright scary. So beaten and thin and in her hospital gown. She stared at this apparition for a long moment, taking in her appearance and growing uncomfortable in her skin at the memories of that time.

"She can't hurt you, you know. We got through it." Pennsylvania said, still holding the scalpel with which she'd cut Harlan's penis off. But all Olivia could remember was how he'd raped her before she did. How he'd forced her to her knees and…

"We got through it for six months before they got us again,"

"And we still won! Harlan's dead this time, and Bronwyn-"

"Is still alive!" Olivia said angrily, spilling tears. "She's still alive…"

"-and she'll only win this time if you let her. Trust that this time, she'll get what's coming to her."

Before Olivia could answer, she looked away and when she looked back, Pennsylvania had disappeared, and there was a knock at the door. Olivia, after shaking it off and turning off the water in the now-full tub, walked out of the bathroom and through the bedroom to look through the peephole. Seeing it was Fin, she quickly undid the lock and latch to allow him in.

"Fin, I appreciate it, but you don't have to keep checking up on me."

"I know, just wanted to make sure you're okay,"

"I'm fine, but thank you." She said, adding a happy inflection to her voice to signal that she was okay, but she wasn't and Fin knew it. He smiled as she looked at him disbelievingly, a small smile plastering on her face to mirror his. She didn't want to be here, but she couldn't go home. Not yet.

""You sure? I could stay-"

"It's a fancy hotel, I think I'll be alright."

He didn't tell her that he'd stopped by her house and seen what a mess Elliot was because of the condition he'd put her in, or that Serena had been asking for her. That would make her feel even worse.

"Liv, you sure you don't wanna go-"

"Not tonight," she said hastily, cutting him off but quickly apologized. "I'm sorry. I just…not tonight. My mind is a mess. I'm just gonna have a bath and try to get some sleep if I can."

"I get it. As much as I don't want to, I do. You call if you need me?"

"I will. And thanks again, Fin."

"It's nothing. Anyway, I'd better get to Nick's."

"Nick!" she said, suddenly remembering. "my god, I-"

"Liv, he'll understand."

"Tell him again how sorry I am." She felt horrible forgetting about him when he was going through so much.

"Will do. Lock up." He said, then hugged her. Liv held on tight, like she didn't want to let go as more tears filled her eyes.

…

Stanley. He was so full of himself. So proud of himself. Even in this moment where he'd basically failed at achieving his mission of getting a new Stabler guest in his lair, he was pumped off the fact that hours ago, he'd murdered two people.

"Serves them right!" He said out loud, but to no one as he stepped into the shower, letting the water come down over his head, but when the water reached his neck, it stung terribly! His hand went to his neck as he turned off the water and got out of the shower, walking hastily to the mirrors across the room and wiping one of them of the steam that had gathered before he checked his neck.

He froze.

"No no no no no!!" There had to be some explanation, he thought as he wracked his brain trying to find when he scratched himself. HE had to have, because if he didn't, that would mean… The color drained from him and he felt sick to his stomach as he stared, blank-faced at his neck.

They were deep, about three inches long and had bled.

"Right onto your black clothes!" He screamed as he angrily sent his fist into the mirror, shattering it and cutting up his knuckles in the process. He ran his hands through his wet hair as he began frantically pacing.

"Okay, Stanley, if the bitch did scratch you, it was raining, there's no way your DNA stayed under her nails…" Unless it did!

"I have to get back to that alley!"

…

In Bronwyn's hospital room, nurse Vickie was removing the blood pressure cuff from Bronwyn's arm after checking her pressure.

"Nurse Vickie, is it?" She asked timidly.

"That's right,"

"Earlier, there was a woman here, tall, brunette. She was outside my window… who was she?"

"Uh," she thought if she should tell her then decided there was no harm. "Olivia Benson." she said quietly and kept working.

"Do I know her?"

Vickie paused. "You don't remember?"

Bronwyn was hesitant. "Not really…I see her in my dreams- so many dreams, but never a name. I don't know if I should say…"

"Say what, honey?"

Bronwyn looked up at her with sad eyes and said, embarrassed and oh-so quietly, as if she were frightened at the mere thought. "In my dreams…she's being; violated; over and over again."

"Violated?"

"Raped." Bronwyn uttered timidly, still barely above a whisper. She was so ashamed at even the word and Vickie was uncomfortable. She knew the alleged history of why Bronwyn was there, and she knew all-too-well who Olivia Benson was, but if Bronwyn couldn't remember, then she wouldn't be the one to slam her with the news. The FBI would do it all in time.

"You know what?" Vickie started her lie, "let me ask around and I'll try to find out. You comfortable?"

"Yes, thank you."

"Okay. I'm off after this so I'll see you tomorrow. Goodnight Bronwyn." and she left the room, wheeling out the sphygmomanometer with her.

Olivia Benson. Bronwyn thought to herself. Who are you and why are you haunting my dreams?

…

A couple more squeezes, and Olivia was done expressing milk into the bath she sat in, soaking away. Now, she noticed the water had grown tepid, her skin pruning, so sighing, she reached for the stopper, pulling it out of the drain before she got up and grabbed the towel that was on the rack beside the tub and wrapped herself in it, stepping out of the water.

She looked down, her hand going to her still prominent belly, and she thought of Elliot. She remembered two years ago, the day she gave birth to Serena, when she learned that she'd finally killed Harlan after he raped and beat her that final time. Ten bullets and a knife wound and she had never felt more justified of anything in her life. Not even when she thought that he had died the previous summer from his penis being severed! Bronwyn, Elliot had later told her, was dead. Ironically, she had died by Harlan's hand. The wounds she'd seen when she escaped that room, Elliot told her that Bronwyn had succumbed to them.

She couldn't express it then, but Olivia had never felt such a sense of thankfulness. She thought it was over. She didn't care about Bronwyn's upcoming trial, she thought the bitch had died, right along with her demonic husband/father only to find out two years later that she was very much alive.

When she saw Bronwyn sitting up in that hospital bed, it was like the very air had been sucked from Olivia's lungs. Bronwyn was not only alive, but she was here; in this place; in front of Olivia. Yes, Bronwyn looked like an abomination, but there she was; here she is. Olivia has never admitted to being frightened of anyone or thing, but Bronwyn, she scared the hell out of her. And that…thing, that monster who has more money that God and can buy her freedom and threaten Olivia's life and her children's lives even more, is in the present, and alive and Elliot knew…

"YOU FUCKING KNEW!!" She screamed as she threw the closest thing to her; a shampoo bottle that bounced hard from the floor in the bathroom, to the bedroom and under the bed as Olivia stood seething as tears flowed.

Almost as if on cue, he phone began ringing and it took Olivia a minute to collect herself before she grabbed it from the vanity and stared at the display. It was Joanie.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me!" She said angrily and answered the phone, and feeling bolder that she even knew, she yelled into it: "the answer is no!"

Joanie was taken aback. "Hello to you too, Olivia. No to what, may I ask?"

"To everything." She decided finally to just get it off her chest. "No to my time, and my patience with you and my sympathyfor you. No to my feeling sorry because Brian was your only child and he's gone, so despite me vowing that you would never come near my daughter, I gave you access. I let you in her life because I thought you deserved to know her and that if she couldn't heal what was so broken between you and I, she could at best be an olive branch; but you, you never changed!"

"I don't know what you're-"

"Talking about. Your Harlan look alike said you'd say that. I am done feeling sorry for you. So the answer is an unequivocal NO! No to my daughter; ever again. You've lost that right. Now lose my number!"

"Olivia wait a minute- Olivia??" That's when she realized that the call had been terminated.

Olivia picked up the landline, dialing the front desk. "Yes, Hi, this is Olivia Benson in room 504, I know it's late but I need a bigger suite…"

…

At Nick's…

"I got here as fast as I could," Fin said as he walked in, "what do we…" that's when he noticed there were people there. "Oh, I'm sorry. Hello." He spoke to the two men in the living room.

"Fin Tutuola, these are Carolyn's brothers, this is Mateo, and Benjamin Jeris."

"Hi again," Fin said as he extended his hand and shook each of theirs.

"Please, call me Matt," Mateo said. "I'm sorry we couldn't meet under better circumstances."

"I'm sorry it had to be Carolyn; your sister is a remarkable woman, and we'll do everything we can to find her.

"I appreciate that Fin,"

"We've actually taken the liberty of hiring a private team to search for her," Ben interrupted as Fin and Nick both turned to him with questioning eyes. "No offense to either of you, but NYPD fucked up on Sgt. Benson, and she was one of their own. So excuse me if I don't have the most faith in them,"

"Trust me, no offense taken."

"We found her car…" Nick said, as he sat down down. "It's been in an impound lot since the day I got that message from her; the message that I was so mad about. The message that she most likely didn't even write,"

"Nick-" Fin called to him sympathetically, seeing that Nick was wading in dangerous mental territory.

"It's gonna be okay," Mateo assured him. "We didn't know if anything had happened to her, and if God is as good and merciful as we've believed their whole lives, she'll be found safe. You have to believe that."

Nick looked up, his eyes filled with tears. "There's something that I should tell you guys. Caro wanted to keep it a secret until we came down for your Dad's birthday in a couple weeks, but then…" he wiped the tears that had begun to trail down his face. "Tuvimos un aborto espontáneo el domingo pasado y Carolyn no se ha portado bien."

…

Late at night and Elliot was startled awake by a noise. Quickly, he sat up in bed that he had been lying on, fully clothed with one foot on the floor, and he immediately grabbed his gun from the lock-box in the nightstand, after entering the code.

Making sure to be quiet, he eased out of bed, and after checking the kids' rooms, he headed downstairs, creeping through the living room when he noticed a light on in the kitchen. That's when he rushed in, pointing the gun only to see Olivia putting her breast pump and bottles into a bag."Jesus, I almost shot you..." he said, so happy that they were in the same place. They desperately needed to talk. She froze for a moment, nearly melting at hearing his voice. God this would be harder than she thought. "you're home!" He initiated a hug but she quickly let him know that it wasn't happening.She held back tears. "Yeah, well, not for long." She said and continued packing. She didn't even turn to look at him."What does that mean, and why are you packing?"

"Because I need a few days away from this house." she left the kitchen with her full bag and began loading it into the suitcase that sat open in the chair by the window.

"Liv, this is ridiculous. Let's just talk about it-"

"There is nothing to talk about."

"So that's it- you just come here like a thief at night while I'm sleeping?"

"Don't go there,"

"I was gonna wake you,"

"How convenient." He said, sarcastically.

"You know what Elliot-" And she forced a grin. She was fighting with everything in her not to argue. "...I'm not gonna do this. Not with my babies-"

"-our babies,"

"Whatever. I'll get them, and-"

"Waitwaitwait, what do you mean 'get them'? You are not taking our kids"

"Like hell I'm not… unless you are physically prepared to stop me-"

"Liv, don't do this, let's work this out like adults,"

"We can't do that, because one of us "adults" doesn't fully understand how egregious it is, what he's done and I don't have the mental energy to explain it to him. Now please, I am asking you, I'll beg if you need me to; I'm staying at 6 Columbus, it's nearby. Can you move out of my way, let me get my babies and go?"

…

When Stanley finally got back to the alley, he was shocked to see police tape, cops and crime scene investigators everywhere. Not to mention a small crowd gathered there in front.

"FUUUUCK!"

But he kept his composure, and coolly, slipped in with the crowd, pretending to be an onlooker. From there, he could see partway into the alley, and could see a makeshift canopy and a body, with a sheet covering it up. A man's body. But there were so many people that he couldn't see Kathleen's body… yet.

"My god, what's happening here?" He asked, feigning concern.

"Two people…" a woman said. "They found them dead in that alley,"

"They found one of them dead, baby," a man corrected as he kissed her hand to comfort her.

"One?!"

"Yeah," another man added, "some girl found them both but miraculously the other one, a woman, was still alive. They rushed her to the hospital… the guy's done though!"

Stanley's world went dark.

…

Tbc…