"Can we have a minute?" Olivia asked quietly as she stood in the foyer of her new home, Noah perched on her hip and a weight heavy as lead settling in her chest.

"Of course," the Marshal closest to her answered, shooting her a sympathetic look that made her fingers itch to throw a punch. She'd always hated being on the receiving end of other people's pity, always resented it, and she damn sure didn't appreciate it now, coming from the very same people who'd orchestrated her pitiful circumstances in the first place. They left her alone, though, the two Marshals peeling off to do a perimeter sweep of the yard so Olivia could take a moment and catch her breath.

The house was a strange and not altogether welcoming sight, not to a girl who'd lived her whole life in midtown. The walls were white and the floors were an awful grey wood-look laminate, and the furniture and decor looked like they'd been chosen by an especially uninspired realtor desperately staging a house that wouldn't sell. When she looked through the curtain-less windows she saw only trees and bushes, scraggly things that looked freshly planted, intended to carefully shield her home from the view of her neighbors. It was close quarters in the subdivision, though; if she screamed, they'd probably hear her.

Christ, she wanted to scream.

Pack light, that's what the Marshals told her, and they damn sure didn't give her much time to do it. No photographs, they'd told her, and nothing with her real name on it, no keepsakes that might be tied back to her life in the city. They took her phone and watched in silence while she threw clothes and as much of Noah's things as she could fit into two big suitcases. Eddie the elephant, his favorite picture books - but not the ones with inscriptions from his loving aunts and uncles, not the ones with her dearest friends' names written inside - enough supplies to get him through a few days on the road. Her leather jacket and heavy black boots, blouses and a few of her mother's favorite books, all these things she packed, but she left so much more behind. It went into storage, would be kept safe until the day she was finally allowed to return to her home.

If they ever let her come home.

No photographs, they'd told her, but she'd cheated, just a little. The old pictures of her with her mother, a few snaps from Noah's early days, a polaroid of her and Elliot that Munch took in her first year at SVU, these things she secreted away in her books, and the Marshals never even noticed, and maybe she should have felt uneasy about their lack of diligence, but mostly she was grateful for it. What would be left of her, if she let them strip of her everything, of every memory, every connection that made her who she was?

Who was she, anyway?

A shrink had asked the question once, back when she was young and just starting out at SVU. What would you do if you couldn't do this? She'd had no answer, then. It was impossible to imagine a life where she wasn't an SVU detective, and that was year two. It had been seventeen years now, and the work had become a part of her. The badge, the gun at her hip, the holy fucking calling, that sense of duty and righteousness; she was the job. And it was gone, now.

She wasn't Olivia Benson, wasn't a Sergeant, wasn't a cop, wasn't anything, not anymore. She was just…she just was, a woman on her own, with no one to hold her, nothing to guide her, nothing to hope for, really, except for a return to normal that was probably never gonna come. She was breathing, but what for? What was the point of it all, in the end, if she let fear tear her away from everything that ever mattered to her?

Noah's mommy, that's what she was. She'd traded her life for his. It wasn't like she wanted to die, or anything, but it had always been easier to risk her own life than someone else's, and if anything happened to Noah she wouldn't have survived it herself. The guilt, the horror, would've eaten her alive. The day the adoption was finalized - really, the day Judge Linden first let her take him home - she made a vow to Noah that she would protect him and love him, always. That he would be safe, in her care. She'd promised Ellie, promised the girl that her boy would be loved, the way Ellie always hoped he would be. And so this was love, this god awful house so far away from the bustle and noise of home, this new life so devoid of justice or purpose, this city that felt so foreign to her; this was love.

In her arms Noah was wriggling, ready to move after so long spent cooped up in the car, and so she set him on his feet, trailed along after him as he waddled through the house on unsteady legs, taking in his new surroundings with a cautious sort of curiosity. He wasn't really talking, yet; before her world came to an end Olivia had been looking for a speech therapist for him in the city even though the pediatrician said it was still a little early to be worried. She was his mother, of course she was worried. Maybe she could find someone here to work with him, to help him.

First she'd need to find a pediatrician, though, and a daycare for the day when she went back to work. That had been a fight, with the Marshals; they wanted her to get a job as soon as she arrived in Nebraska, had offered all sorts of services to get her employment, but she'd been determined that she wasn't ready to send Noah to daycare yet. What if the cartel already knew where she was? The whole point of coming here was to keep Noah safe; how could she let him out of her sight, turn him over to the care of strangers so she could go work as a secretary or something? No fucking way, that's what she'd told them, and the Marshals had eventually agreed to give her a month or so to get settled before they started the process of finding employment for her. WitSec didn't have an unlimited budget and she knew that, knew they couldn't just endlessly support every witness in the program, but their finances were less important to her than her son's safety.

Besides, what could she even do? She was a cop, and they had been adamant that she would not be allowed to work in law enforcement. Apart from a few waitressing gigs in college she'd never had any other job, had no other experience to lean on; hell, she had a goddamn sociology degree from Siena, and for the first time in thirty years she could hear her mother's voice ringing in her ears, telling her what a pointless major that was. Bit rich coming from a woman who held three separate literature degrees, but maybe Serena'd had a point. Olivia had spent her whole life working towards one goal, and now that it had been ripped away from her she had no idea where to turn next.

That was a problem for another day, though, and so she sighed, and continued to explore the house with Noah. It was two storeys, the first floor given over to the living areas, the second floor for the bedrooms. She carried him up there, and wandered through the rooms. A master suite for her, an austere and uninviting guest room, a second - really third, there was a half bath on the first floor - bathroom for Noah, and the nursery. Whoever had decorated the house had gone all out in the nursery; they chosen a natural theme, painted the walls a pale green and picked art with trees and animals, put a sweet little toddler bed in the corner, its blankets patterned with giraffes and zebras. He had a closet and a dresser with a few clothes already in them - in his size, to her surprise - and a wooden chest full of toys, Legos and stuffed animals and bouncy balls and things. It was nice, but the sight of it brought tears to her eyes, because it was a perfectly good nursery, on the whole, but it wasn't his. It wasn't full of the things she'd lovingly chosen for her son, the things he'd remember, feel comfortable with. Wooden letters on the wall behind the bed spelled out his name, but they didn't spell Noah.

The letters said Gabe. Not the name his mother had chosen for him, the name Olivia had chosen to keep so he would have a connection to his past, but a strange new name, picked for him by strangers. He was still so little, still learning who he was and where he belonged, and she realized as she stood there she was going to have to call him Gabe all the time, now. It would be too confusing for him if she called him one name at home and another out in the world; what if he tried to tell the people at his daycare that he was Noah, not Gabe? His safety depended on a lie, but she hadn't really grasped before now just how deep that lie would need to run. To keep him safe, to make sure he didn't innocently slip in conversation with a stranger and place them both in danger, she would have to lie to him. Would have to tell him that his name was Gabe, that her name was Lindsey, that this was where they belonged. How long, she wondered, how long would it be before she could tell her son the truth of himself? Would she ever be able to?

At least he looks like me, she thought miserably. Everybody always said that, how much he looked like her, and no one would bat an eye at it now when she introduced him as her son. She'd know, though. No matter how many lies she told, no matter how many people she fooled, she would know the truth, always. A truth that could not be spoken was a terrible burden to bear, and she wasn't sure how she'd survive it.

It wasn't like she had any other choice.


"So, how does this go?" Elliot asked as they drove along. He had no idea where they were headed; Jackie didn't seem to need GPS, just directed the car as if she knew precisely where they were going, which he supposed she did. He'd only been in town a few days, but Jackie had been here for years, and she'd made all the arrangements for their new witness herself.

"Today's just introductions," Jackie said. "We'll relieve the other Marshals, and they'll go crash at some hotel and try to rest before they drive back to wherever it is they came from. You and I will meet our new witness, we'll sweep the house for bugs, and then we'll have a long talk with her about what's expected."

Keep your head down, don't do anything to draw attention to yourself, don't contact anyone, don't tell anyone your real name, call us if there's a problem. That was what they expected of their new witness, and Elliot didn't think that conversation was likely to last too long.

"But then what?" he asked. "I mean, she's here. We tell her the rules. Then what happens?"

"We're gonna stick around. Keep an eye on her house for the first few days, we'll work in shifts with other Marshals. We'll work with the DEA to monitor communication from the cartel in case there's a whisper about tracking her down. She'll get a job, she'll send her kid to daycare, she'll live a normal life. Well. Normal-ish."

"She's got a kid?" Somehow that made the whole thing feel so much more brutal to Elliot; it was bad enough, that woman having to walk away from her life, but having to tear her kid away from their home? To uproot them, to raise them in fear in isolation, seemed a terrible thing.

It's what you did to Eli, an accusatory voice whispered in the back of his mind, but he chose to ignore it. There was no point second guessing himself now; what was done could not be undone.

"Yeah. Good news is he's not even two so he's not likely to blow her cover. As long as she sticks to the script she'll be fine."

A woman alone with a toddler to raise and no one to help her. The part of Elliot that was a father, the part of him that believed in a man's duty to care for his family, was incensed on her behalf.

"What about his dad?" he asked.

"Dead," Jackie answered cheerily. "So that solves that problem. No chance a dead man is gonna come looking for his kid."

It might have made things easier for Jackie, but this revelation only made Elliot's heart ache that much more for his witness. A cop, like he had been a cop, widowed with a young child to raise, hunted to the point she was forced into protection; what had this poor woman done to deserve such grief, such pain?

What a world, he thought.

"We're here," Jackie said, pulling the car to a stop in front of an unassuming house on a boring little street.

Here goes nothing, Elliot thought. It was time to get to work.