Olivia started her run later than she planned. The girls had kept her out pretty late, and by some miracle she didn't get called into work before the crack of dawn, so she slept in a little. It felt heavenly, but she always felt a little antsy after sleeping in.

She made it a little more than a mile down her favorite running path when her phone began buzzing in her pocket. When she pulled her phone from her leggings' pocket, Elliot's picture and contact information flashed across the screen. Her stomach flipped. It felt a little early for Elliot to be calling. He told her he would call when they headed out, but it would most likely be in the late afternoon. It was only 10am. Something about the early, unplanned call made her nervous.

"Hey," she answered, completely out of breath.

"Hey," he returned. "Late run this morning?"

"Yeah," she huffed.

"The girls keep you out late last night?"

His small talk was killing her, but she went along.

She lifted her watch to check her heart rate. "Maureen left early. The boys had football or something. I ducked out before Lizzie and Katie, but it was still pretty late." She slowed down to a brisk walk. "It was fun though. I don't get to spend time with just the girls."

"Yeah, well, Dickie does like to suck as much attention as possible."

She laughed lightly. "True."

A heavy pause filled the air as he prepared to say what he needed to say. A heavy sense of foreboding fell over her, leaving her heart pounded mercilessly and not from her run. Something felt wrong.

"Liv," he started. The tone of his voice was enough to immediately stop her in her tracks. Her stomach sank as every worst-case scenario paraded through her mind.

"What happened?" She deliberately tried masking the nervous tone in her voice, but she wasn't successful.

Elliot hesitated, and she wanted to yell at him to get on with it. As if he read her impatience, he jumped in. "Everyone's okay. I need you to realize that, okay? I'm good; the boys are good; Noah is good."

As comforting as that was, something was wrong, and she didn't want to spend anymore time pulling it from him.

"Okay?" Her voice oozed suspicion. "Just tell me what's going on, El." She didn't bother trying to curb her agitated tone.

"Yeah, okay." She could almost see him sweating out whatever it was. He always nervously rubbed the back of his head when he was nervous. He was probably pacing.

"Um, we, uh, this morning we found a... we found a girl," he finally spit out.

That sounded interesting, but relatively benign. She waited for the shoe to drop.

"She, uh, she was in, is in pretty bad shape. I... uh...we thought she might be dead, but then we saw her breathing."

Her mind immediately conjured images of the last little girl she had searched for in the shadowy darkness of the trees. Another child, a year ago, one that didn't make it.

She already felt a buzz of adrenaline hitting her system, making her palms sweat. "You keep saying we. Who found her, El?"

Somewhere in the background of his call, she heard his footsteps stop. "Noah. Noah found her."

Her stomach dropped, and she felt herself reacting without thought.

"Send me the pin." It was an order, not a request. "I'm coming to get my son." She turned around and began speed walking in the direction of her apartment.

"Hey, wait just a second." The forcefulness of his voice startled her, and she stopped walking. "I want you up here, but I don't want you to scoop him up and fall off the grid."

She scoffed. "I'm not the one who goes off grid, Elliot."

She always knew where to level her blows, and part of her realized it was a cheap shot, but she couldn't stop herself. She told herself she had forgiven him for all the times he fell off the face of the planet, but in this heated moment she wanted to lash out at whatever grievance she could find.

"That's not fair, and that's not. God Liv! He's okay right now, but you haven't seen him with this girl! If you take him now, he's not gonna have any closure with this, and I think he's going to need it no matter which way this goes."

She felt her grip tighten on her phone. "I don't need to see him to know this is a shitty situation, and he needs to come home. I mean, why would he stay there? He doesn't know this girl, and the longer he stays, the more devastated he'll be if the worst happens!" She groaned and began walking briskly back towards her apartment. "Don't you get it? He's gotta be so triggered right now, and all you want to do is let him stew in it. He's my son, Elliot, mine, and I'm making this call. He's coming home."

Deafening silence was the only response from the other end of the call. For a moment, she wondered if he had hung up on her. Just to be sure, she pulled the phone away from her ear, but the call was still active.

As the silence dragged on, her words echoed through her mind, and remorse came rolling in like a freight train.

She pinched the bridge of her nose. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. I'm just, God, I can't believe this is happening. Again. I'm sorry."

"It's fine," he responded tersely. It clearly wasn't fine.

"El," she tried, but he cut her off.

"I'll send you the pin and make sure he's ready to go when you get here." His voice didn't sound right. His normally warm, rumbly voice had tightened into a hoarse whisper.

"Elliot," she tried again.

"It's fine, Liv," he snapped. "You made yourself pretty clear. Come get your son."

"I didn't mean," she started, but he didn't let her finish.

"It's fine. Just text me when you're close." He paused briefly. "See you soon."

Then he ended the call.

She dropped her hand to her side and resisted the urge to throw her phone against the sidewalk.

Why the hell did she say that? She knew Elliot loved Noah like he was his own child. For the past year he had been a father for Noah, and she just tossed him aside as if his efforts from the previous year meant nothing.

It was just that this whole thing felt like the worst sort of Deja vu. Another injured girl. Another life and death situation. And her son was caught in the middle once again.

She stepped into her apartment and grabbed her keys. She didn't bother with a shower. She needed to get her boy—all her boys.

-000-

Elliot tossed his phone onto the nearby bench roughly. That woman knew where to land her punches. He paced back and forth, trying to find some semblance of calm. He needed to get his shit together because the boys would feel his anger the second he stepped back into the hospital.

Her words repeated in his mind like a painful hiccup.

He's my son, and I'm making this call.

Her son. It was the truth, but the words still cut him deeply. It was a painful reminder that if she wanted, she could take Noah—and herself—out of his life, and he couldn't do anything about it.

My son.

He thought about the ring hidden under meaningless toiletries in his bathroom drawer. He wanted them to be a family, in the more traditional sense. He wanted to marry her, and down the line, he wanted to adopt Noah. That is, if it was something Noah wanted.

However, her words left him wondering if the whole thing was a pipe dream. An impossible dream. He thought they had built something during the year they'd been together, but in one conversation she reminded him how fragile everything was.

She could leave him, and there wasn't anything he could do to make her stay.

He sat on the bench. The freezing metal chilled him through his jeans. He dropped his head in his hands and tried to breathe out his frustration and fear. He reminded himself that she didn't mean what she said. She was just scared, and when Olivia got scared, she lashed out. Still, the venom of her biting words stung.

Soon enough, his slow breathing allowed his muscles to relax a little. She was on her way. He would make sure Noah was ready to go, and once things settled down—once they found the girl's family—he would go home, and things could be normal again.

He planted his hands on his knees and pushed himself off the bench. He needed to find the boys. He shook off the hurt and anger and started towards the ER doors.

The boys were exactly where he left them. Same chairs. Same positions. Same worried faces.

Just as he approached, they were met by a nurse in gray scrubs. "You're the group that brought the Jane Doe in?"

They all nodded, but none of them spoke.

"Dr. Adam's should be here shortly," she said as she looked over her shoulder. An official looking guy in scrubs came around the corner, and she pointed her pen in his direction. "Actually, that's him." She took a step back as the doctor approached the group.

Dickie leaned forward, Eli threw his phone on the vacant seat, and Noah shot up from his seat, eager for any news. Elliot waved him over, so the boy now stood next to him. Whatever direction this took, he wanted Noah close.

The doctor checked a couple notes in his tablet before tucking it under his arm. His eyes scanned the group until they fell on Elliot. He stuck his hand out, "I'm Dr. Adams. I've been working on the girl you brought in." Elliot returned his handshake, and the doctor asked. "You're law enforcement, correct? I spoke with our staff, and they said you were coordinating search efforts with our local officials?"

"Yes sir. I'm Elliot Stabler. I'm a detective with the NYPD."

The doctor nodded. "I would like to speak with you separately if possible."

Before Elliot answered, Noah spoke out. "Is she okay?" Tears gathered in his eyes. "I just want to know if she's okay."

Dr. Adams lips pulled into a half smile. "I'm sorry. I suppose there are a few things the whole group needs to hear. I apologize. She's stable, and I think her prognosis is good, but we will need to watch her closely over the next couple days. She's still under sedation, but we are hoping to wean her off of it soon." His eyes drifted to Noah. "You found her?" Elliot wasn't sure if the staff knew that information or if the doctor just intuited it himself.

"Y…yes. I did." Noah stammered. He tucked himself closer to Elliot's side in a shy display that wasn't characteristic of him.

The doctor nodded. "You saved her life." His eyes drifted across the group. "All of you. I doubt she would have made it another hour in the state she was in." His gaze fell on Noah. "Good work."

Noah nodded and fell a step or so behind Elliot. Dickie motioned for Noah. "Come sit back down, Noh. I think the doctor needs to go over some stuff with dad."

Elliot gave his oldest son a grateful look.

Noah complied easy enough, and Elliot followed the doctor to a vacant exam room. His conversation and concerns about Olivia were long gone when the doctor snapped the girls x-rays against the backlit screen.

"I'm not sure how familiar you are with this sort of thing," the doctor began. He circled a spot with his pen. "This is that obvious rib break. A rib shard clipped her liver when the bone fractured. That caused the slow bleed." He shook his head. "But that's not what I wanted to show you, not really."

Elliot leaned in so he could view the images a little closer. Suddenly, he understood why the doctor wanted to bring him in and why he wanted to know if he was law enforcement.

When he looked past the obvious rib fracture, the pattern became obvious. This wasn't this girl's first rib fracture. Or her second. Elliot knew what he was looking at, and his stomach sank. This girl hadn't been in some horrible accident. According to the x-rays, she had been—and likely still was—being abused.