-----

Rare were the days that Olivia Benson could actually leave the precinct for a full hour-long lunch break. Usually her meals were eaten in the car or at her desk--sometimes even walking down the street--and those were just the days she was able to have her afternoon meal at all. Today, though, her investigations were at a standstill. The hour break was a luxury she could afford.

There was one person outside the precinct whose eating habits were worse then her own: Casey Novak. The days she was in court weren’t so bad because they usually recessed for lunch. It was the days she spent in her office, researching or working on her paperwork that killed her. Deep in her work, she developed a kind of tunnel-vision. All was forgotten, including stopping for a sandwich.

As Olivia made her way down the corridor, she saw light spilling out from Casey’s open office door. Good, so she was in. The ADA was seated at her desk, her fingers flying over the keyboard of a laptop that Olivia hadn’t even been aware she owned. As absorbed as Casey was in her work, it wouldn’t matter how gently Olivia tried to announce her presence. Any interruption of Casey’s concentration was sure to startle her.

Sure enough the ADA jumped in her chair when Olivia knocked softly on the door. “Sorry,” she said through a cringe. “I was just wondering if you had time for a quick lunch. I’m buying.”

The small adrenaline rush that had accompanied the startle was already dwindling as Casey raised a single eyebrow. “What do you need?”

“I’m hurt!” Olivia invited herself into Casey’s office since the ADA had failed to extend the courtesy and plopped down on the small leather couch underneath the window. “I don’t only offer to buy you food when I need something.”

“No, but you frequently offer to buy me food when you need something.” A smirk tugged at the corners of Casey’s mouth. “What is it today? No, don’t answer that. I want to guess. You need … some ridiculously impossible warrant even though you have no probable cause, and you need it like, oh my God, four hours ago?”

Unsure whether she was amused or offended, Olivia inhaled through her nose and fixed a mildly exasperated stare on the young attorney. “I swear to you, I don’t need a single thing.”

The slight narrowing of the ADA’s eyes made her suspicion apparent. “So you’re just offering to buy me lunch out of the goodness of your heart?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.” Olivia raised her hands in mock surrender before pushing herself to her feet. “If you don’t want a free lunch, by all means, let me know. I’ll happily go buy someone else food.”

The smirk on Casey’s face widened into a full-blown smile. “A hot dog with mustard and relish?”

“Whatever floats your boat,” the detective answered with a shrug.

“You’ve got a deal.”

Oh, boy. Was Casey even aware she said things like that in her everyday vocabulary? Olivia shook her head and heaved a faux-annoyed sigh. “Lawyers. Everything’s always a deal with you people.”

Although she wrinkled her nose at the detective in an attempt to blow off her comment, the flush of pink coloring Casey’s cheeks was all Olivia needed to see; she hadn’t been aware she did that.

The detective watched as Casey tapped a couple of keys on the laptop’s keyboard, undoubtedly saving whatever document she’d been working on, and pushed the top down. Just as Casey stood and grasped the handle of her briefcase, her office phone rang. She gave a sigh, glaring daggers at the offending mound of molded plastic.

The sheer aggravation on Casey’s face made Olivia snicker. “Ignore it,” she advised, waving her hand in a “whatever” motion. “They’ll leave a message and you can get back to them on a full stomach.”

Green eyes darted back and forth between the phone and Olivia as Casey played a mental version of Eeny Meeny Miny Moe. Just as the detective knew it would, the ADA’s work ethic won out. She raised her index finger to Olivia--the universal hand signal for “hang on a second”--and picked up the receiver from its cradle. “Casey Novak.”

“Ms. Novak,” said a woman whose voice Casey did not recognize, “this is Sharon Kelleher at Glendale Elementary. I have Lynn down in the nurse’s office with a headache and a slight fever. Is it possible for you to come down to the school and pick her up?”

Casey met Olivia’s eyes and gave a regretful shake of her head. Ordinarily the detective was rather good at interpreting body language and silent signals, but she didn’t know Casey well enough yet and the only thing she was able to gather from the gesture was that she was going to be eating lunch by herself. “I’m leaving now,” Casey said into the phone. “I should be there in about fifteen minutes.”

“Thank you. I’ll let both Lynn and her teacher now that you’re coming for her.”

A sigh that was equal parts concern for little Lynn and apology for Olivia escaped Casey’s lips as she hung up the phone. “Looks like I’m going to have to take a rain check on lunch. I have to go down to Glendale and pick up my niece.”

The calm smile on Olivia’s face indicated that she understood one hundred percent. Family came first, after all, especially when the family member in need was a sick first-grader. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah. She’s got a headache and a low-grade fever.” Her voice grew soft, and she was now more thinking out loud than she was talking to the detective. “I’ll have to bring her back here, though. I have too much work to do to stay at home with her.”

Though the younger woman was attempting to pretend that everything was business as usual, the concern swimming in her eyes betrayed her. I can’t let her take a cab down there alone, Olivia thought, frowning. “Do you want a ride to the school? I can bring you down and get the both of you back here before my lunch hour’s up.”

As was typical when someone offered to do her a favor, Casey’s suspicion was aroused. “Why would you want to give up your lunch hour to play chauffeur for me?” she asked, a frown causing creases in her forehead.

God, she needs to work on the whole trust thing. Rather than attempt to explain that most friends did nice things for other friends because they wanted to, Olivia just shrugged. “Why not?”

The muscles in the younger woman’s shoulders visibly relaxed and she shot the detective a grateful smile. “You’re a lifesaver! Lynnie never gets sick. Figures that she’d pick the one week out of the year that my brother’s out of town to get sick at school.”

“Well, I don’t think Lynn exactly planned on getting sick, Case,” Olivia teased. Although the friendship between the two of them was still in a tentative, formative stage, it hadn’t escaped her notice that she was one of about three or four people who were allowed to call the ADA by that nickname. Most people who tried were given a sharp enough glare that they never attempted it again.

“Ha ha.” The urge to stick her tongue out at the detective was overwhelming, but Casey managed to resist it. She allowed Olivia to exit the office first and then pulled the door closed behind the two of them, twisting the knob in her hand to ensure that the lock was set.

Jeff Novak was usually the emergency contact for his daughters; it was easier for him to leave work in the middle of the day than it was for his wife, Sarah. But this week Jeff was in Chicago for his once-a-year business trip and the primary emergency responsibilities shifted to Casey with the understanding that if she was in court and thus unable to leave, whichever school was calling was to call Sarah. Even though these plans had been in place for a few years now, this was the first time Casey actually had to perform any of the responsibilities of an emergency contact, and she was surprised to find that she was a little nervous.

On the walk to the elevator, Casey pulled her phone from her briefcase and flipped it open with one hand. She glanced at the display for the time, hit a number on her speed dial, and pressed the send button. At this point in the day, she’d have to leave a message for her sister-in-law. “Hi, Sarah, it’s Casey. I’m picking Lynn up at school with a headache and a slight temp and I’m bringing her back to my office until you get out of work. I’ll also leave a message at the house so Steph doesn’t worry.”

Casey’s other niece, Stephanie, was in the seventh grade and was usually charged with keeping an eye on her younger sister for the two or so hours between their arrival home from school and their parents’ return home at the end of their work day.

By the time Casey placed the call to her brother’s house, left the promised message for Stephanie, and tucked her cell phone into the pocket of her suit jacket, the two women had arrived at Olivia’s car. “I wonder if Lynn will be too out of it to be impressed that she’s getting picked up in a cruiser,” Casey mused as she opened the passenger side door.

Olivia grinned. “It’s not as impressive to a little kid as if I had a patrol car, though.”

The drive to Glendale Elementary was a rather easy one by New York standards; a few blocks down from the DA’s office, a left turn, and then another five blocks. Olivia eased the car to a stop in front of the open gate of the iron fence surrounding the school’s playground. “Do you want me to come in with you or do you think Lynn would freak out a little?”

Casey glanced out the window at the brick building, frowning. Her niece, though young, wasn’t shy. As such, she didn’t think the girl would be too concerned with the presence of a stranger, but the school might. After all, they were expecting Casey, not Casey and company. “Do you mind waiting out here? I’ll be two seconds.”

“That’s perfectly fine,” Olivia assured her.

Casey smiled a thank you, climbed out of the car, and shut the door behind her. She passed through the gate and made her way down the concrete walk, up the stairs, and through the front doors.

Once the set of double doors closed and Casey disappeared from her view, Olivia let out a soft breath through her nose and leaned her head against the back of the seat to wait. Sudden movement outside, reflected in the rearview mirror, caught her eye and she turned slightly in the seat to glance out the back window. A tall man in his early thirties was hurrying down the sidewalk.

He wore tattered jeans and a threadbare polo shirt, and his light brown hair stuck out in odd places, as if he hadn’t combed it after getting out of bed that morning. Olivia frowned and faced forward in her seat, using the rearview to keep a wary and watchful eye on the man. She couldn’t put her finger on what, exactly, about him was making her uneasy but something certainly was.

Her eyes remained trained on him as he passed the car, turned the corner at the open gate, and started up the same walkway Casey had just taken. A sudden gust of wind swirled through the playground, causing the swings to sway slightly, and the man pressed his hand against his unzipped light jacket.

Olivia sat up straighter. He hadn’t, as it appeared at first blush, been keeping his jacket from blowing backwards in the unexpected wind. He had gripped something. It was a light touch, almost as if to unconsciously remind himself of the presence of something in the inside pocket of his coat.

Oh, God. Something was wrong, something was very wrong. Olivia had learned long ago that she should always pay attention to this particular churning in her stomach, this specific pounding of her heart.

She got out of the car, her suspicions forcing her to follow the man. She was halfway up the walk when she heard the gunshot.

-----

The loud bang was so sudden that Lynn Novak clapped her hands over her ears more out of reflex than anything. Luckily her hands were still in place to protect her ears from the following boom.

What the heck is going on? Lynn thought as she gingerly dropped her hands back down to her sides. The only time she’d ever heard sounds like that was when an old car backfired near her house. But these sounds, they had come from the hallway, and there was no way a car--old or new--could fit inside her school. When the color drained from her aunt’s face, though, when the ringing in her ears stopped and she heard the kids in the classroom next door screaming, she understood. Oh God, she understood.

It was a gun. Someone had brought a gun into her school. Someone had fired a gun in her school! But who? And why? More importantly, was anyone hurt? All her friends, the kids in her class, her teacher? Mrs. Mackenzie, her favorite playground aide? Were they all okay?

Another shot rang out and something new occurred to Lynn. What if the person firing the gun came into the nurse’s office and shot her or her aunt Casey? At the thought, she burst into loud, terrified sobs.

Over the sound of her own tears, she just barely heard her aunt telling her to be quiet. Then she felt gentle but still firm hands on her shoulders, pushing down, forcing her to her knees. Her breath caught in her throat and she coughed as Casey maneuvered her backwards until she was sitting against the wall underneath the cot furthest from the nurse’s office door. “Stay down,” her aunt instructed, her voice soft but insistent.

Lynn could feel the hysteria the air, the charged energy thick and rapidly building. She wanted nothing more than to curl up into a little ball, anywhere other than where she was, and cry her eyes out. Able to see that the little girl was quickly tailspinning, Casey knelt down in front of the cot and took her niece’s hands in her own. “I know you’re scared, Lynnie, but I need you to calm down and be really quiet for me, okay?”

After taking a shuddering breath, Lynn finally forced herself to stop crying. Her aunt’s grip on her hands gave her not only strength but a teensy amount of courage as well. “It’s really a gun, isn’t it, Auntie Casey?” she asked through a sniffle, lowering her voice to match Casey’s soft whisper.

Casey’s stomach flip-flopped. How in the hell could she look her seven-year-old niece in the eye and completely destroy her innocence? Too many children in this damn city were no longer children anymore. How could she add to that?

But as she cast a glance over her shoulder, at the door and the uncertainty beyond the threshold, she realized that Lynn’s innocence, along with the innocence of every other child in the building, was shattered the second that person walked through the front doors of the school. The only thing any of them could do now was deal with it. Swallowing hard, she tightened her grip on Lynn’s hands and nodded.

Fresh tears brimmed in Lynn’s eyes at the confirmation but she bit her bottom lip to keep from crying out loud. If there really was someone with a gun out there, Auntie Casey was right. She needed to be quiet. Right now the intruder didn’t know they were hiding in the nurse’s office but Lynn’s crying would easily give away their hiding place.

Once satisfied that her niece was as calm as she could be considering the circumstances, Casey pushed herself to her feet and took a step toward the door. “No!” the little girl cried, the sudden panic causing her to forget her resolution to stay quiet. “Don’t leave me!”

Apparently Lynn wasn’t as calm as Casey had thought. Not that she could really blame the kid; Casey herself was terrified but there was too much to do for her to lose control, give into her fear. She again grasped her niece’s hands and held them firmly, waiting for Lynn to meet her gaze. “I’m not going to leave you, Lynnie, I promise. But I need to call the police and I want to try to see what’s going on so I can let them know.”

Lynn’s lower lip trembled and tears again clouded her green eyes. She didn’t want her aunt going anywhere, even if it was just to the door. Even still, Auntie Casey needed her to be really brave right now and she was determined not to let her aunt down. Her heart pounded in her chest as she gave Casey a nod and settled back against the wall. Casey stepped away, and Lynn hugged her knees to her chest, rested her chin on her knees, and allowed herself to cry. It was okay to cry if she did so quietly. The tears in her eyes finally spilled over, trickling down her cheeks and making small, dark wet spots on her jeans.

Casey pulled her cell phone from the pocket of her suit jacket as she tiptoed to the door. “I’m reporting a shooting at Glendale Elementary School,” she murmured into the phone when the emergency dispatcher answered her call.

The hallway was disturbingly still. After standing motionless at the doorjamb for a few seconds, trying to work up her courage, she took a quick peek out to the left and then to the right. Unfortunately--or fortunately, depending on how one looked at it--she couldn’t see a goddamn thing. “I don’t know,” she said in response to the dispatcher’s question. “I’m hiding in the nurse’s office with my niece. There were three shots and then screaming … okay, thank you.”

Help was already on its way, small relief, but relief nonetheless. The dispatcher told her that they had received a few calls from the surrounding buildings but none from inside the school itself until Casey’s. The fact that she was the only one so far who had managed to call 911 didn’t exactly fill her with hope.

After tucking the phone back into her pocket, she turned her attention to the door. Leave it open? Try to close it? She glanced out into the hallway one final time before deciding to ease the door shut and snap off the lights. With any luck, the gunman--or gunwoman … oh hell, gunperson--would think that the room was unoccupied.

She backed away from the door and the window caught her eye. The nurse’s office was on the second floor, so they were only ten or so feet above the ground. Maybe … As she got closer, though, she almost cursed out loud. Only the bottom pane of the large window opened, swinging inwards. The opening wouldn’t even be wide enough for Lynn to climb out.

While at the window, she craned her neck and tried to catch a glimpse of Olivia’s car. It was pretty much an impossibility that Olivia was still sitting in the cruiser after hearing shots fired in an elementary school but the ADA hoped that she hadn’t charged into the building and had remained safely outside.

The detective was nowhere within Casey’s line of vision. Damn it, Olivia, where the hell did you go? She reached for her phone to call the detective but stopped with her hand over her pocket. What if Olivia was in the school somewhere, hiding in some random room just as she and Lynn were? Her ringtone would reveal her hiding place.

“Damn it,” Casey murmured, smacking her palm against the sill. Stay calm, Novak. Lynn needs you to stay calm. A couple deep breaths quieted her nerves and she stepped away from the window, walking over to the cot where her young niece was hiding.

“What’s the matter?” Lynn whispered. A quiet sniffle escaped in her attempt to keep even more tears at bay.

The ADA’s heart broke for the child, who was trying so very hard to be courageous. Casey dropped to her knees and crawled underneath the cot to join her niece. As soon as her back was against the wall, Lynn scurried onto her lap and hugged her tightly.

The poor little kid shook with fright. Casey hugged her back and hoped that Lynn wouldn’t realize that she needed the girl’s embrace just as much as Lynn needed hers. “My friend Olivia was waiting for us. I’m worried about her but I don’t want to call her. I don’t where she is and I don’t want her phone to ring.”

“So text her.” A half-hearted shrug, along with the girl’s tone, made it clear that Lynn believed that was the most obvious solution in the world. “Steph’s phone ring is a song and it’s loud, but her text message ring is only like, a couple of beeps.”

Casey’s lips curled into an amazed smile. The kid was a genius! So wise beyond her years. Well, she thought. Not wise beyond her years, exactly, but definitely more technologically advanced than her aunt. The ADA pulled out her cell phone, managed by a stroke of luck to stumble across the text messaging option in the phone’s menu, and went about the excruciatingly slow process of typing a message to Olivia. One freaking keystroke at a time.

After watching her aunt struggle through a word or two, Lynn swiped the phone from Casey’s hand. “Give me it. What do you want to say to her?”

“Ask her if she’s okay, then tell her that you and I are in the nurse’s office and that we’re okay.”

Lynn set to work, her thumbs flying across the little number keys faster than Casey’s ever could have. Must have been because Lynn’s fingers were smaller. Yeah, sure, that’s it, she thought, giving a swift roll of her eyes at her own excuse. Before she knew it, her niece flipped the phone closed and handed it back to her. “Sent.”

Before Casey could ask the child just how she’d become such a texting expert--because she and Jeff were going to have to have a serious discussion he’d given his seven-year-old a cell phone--the wail of the sirens from the approaching police cruisers and other emergency vehicles filled the air. “Oh, thank God,” Casey whispered.

It was apparent, though, that a certain someone didn’t share the sentiment. “Goddamn it!” a male voice yelled from the hallway, the first sound in the school in what seemed like ages. “Who the fuck called the cops?!”

So, Casey thought, the psycho is no longer gender-anonymous. Gunman it was. But was he honestly surprised that the police had been called? What the hell else did the guy expect when he fired a gun in a school?

Lynn slapped her hands over her ears again. “Auntie Casey, he shouldn’t have said that word. Stephanie said it once and Mommy grounded her for a whole entire week!”

Despite the gunhots and the hiding and the tension, Casey laughed. She ruffled her niece’s red hair before running her index finger down Lynn’s nose. “Using a swear word is at the bottom of a very long list of things he shouldn’t have done, Peanut.”

The sudden slamming of a door down the hall startled both Casey and Lynn back to reality. The sounds of children, all much too young to be going through this, screaming and crying mingled with another slammed door.

Dread began rumbling in the pit of Casey’s stomach. She silently prayed that she was wrong but she knew she wasn’t: the arrival of the emergency personnel had forced the gunman’s hand. Now he was going from room to room, wrangling everyone, getting them all in one place so he could face down the police with an entire school full of hostages.

Lynn’s muscles tensed and she drew in a sharp breath. She, too, had figured out what the man was doing. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you, Lynn,” Casey whispered as she tightened her arms around the little girl. Lynn could only nod.

The wall behind them shook from the force of the door to the classroom on the other side being slammed closed. The terrified second-graders screamed and sobbed, and Casey’s heart ached for them. “Someone shut these kids up!” the man hollered.

Shaky adult voices immediately began murmuring soothing comforts to the frightened children. The sounds of sniffling and soft weeping drifted down the hallway and soon the corridor was again filled with an unnerving silence.

The stillness didn’t last very long. The man’s heavy footsteps were now outside the nurse’s office door. For a fleeting moment, Casey thought that maybe the closed door and the extinguished lights would make him bypass the room altogether. Of course, she and Lynn didn’t have that kind of luck. The door slowly creaked open, and Casey shifted her niece off her lap, inching forward. If Mr. Crazy Gunman wanted Lynn, he was going to have to go through Casey first.

The barrel of the small black handgun was the first thing that peeked out from around the corner. The fact that the guy wasn’t packing some ridiculously huge hunter-quality rifle did nothing to make it any less terrifying. Casey shifted again so that she was in front of Lynn completely, hoping to block her from his view.

Unfortunately her actions weren’t swift enough. As the man came around the corner, he saw Lynn cowering behind Casey. “Did you two really think you could hide in here?” he asked, his voice raspy.

Well, it was working pretty well for a while there, Casey grumbled silently. She remained still, defiant, glaring at the gunman as she took in his tattered clothing and his unkempt appearance.

Curiosity finally got the better of Lynn and she peeked over her aunt’s shoulder. The second she caught sight of the black pistol in the man’s hand, her soft whimpering turned into full-blown sobs. “Shut her up,” the man ordered, gesturing towards Lynn with the gun.

Turning slightly, Casey wrapped her arm around Lynn’s shoulders and squeezed in an effort to quiet the child. “I think you’d find the kids would be a lot quieter if you’d quit waving that thing in their faces.”

It took all of a second and a half for it to sink in that Casey had actually said those words out loud. Oh, shit, she thought. Shit, shit, shit! She could mentally backpedal all she wanted, but it wouldn’t change a damn thing. The words were out of her mouth and now she could only deal with the fallout.

A surprised look flitted across the man’s features for an instant but then the shock vanished and he just looked angry. Angry and nuts, Casey thought, but the nuts part goes without saying. His dark eyes burned as he leveled the gun at Casey. “You really think now is the best time for sarcasm?”

Her heart skipped a beat, her breath caught in her throat, but there was no way in hell that she was going to give him the satisfaction of knowing that she was afraid. Guys like this lived off the fear they created; lesson number seventy-two she’d learned in the last couple of years. Even though she refused to show her fear, she did know that she needed to be more careful, if not for herself at least for Lynnie.

“Get up,” the man instructed, the gun still aimed at Casey’s chest.

The cot had provided precious little protection but now that Casey was being forced to vacate the space underneath, she felt completely vulnerable, exposed and out in the open. She pushed herself to her feet before helping Lynn up off the floor. The little girl still trembled with fright but she had finally stopped crying. “It’s going to be okay,” Casey whispered, looking her niece in the eye, giving her a tiny and hopefully not hollow smile.

The only thing Lynn could do was nod. The three of them formed a line, Lynn in front, the man in back, and Casey in the middle, keeping as much distance as she could between the guy and her niece. They walked down the hall, the destination being the cafeteria at the end of the corridor. Lynn kept her eyes focused on the cafeteria doors. Maybe if she didn’t look at the man with the gun, she could pretend he wasn’t there at all.

“Don’t even think about trying to escape out the doors or the windows,” the man hissed into Casey’s ear. The small party had just passed the set of double doors at the front entrance of the school. “I’m counting every single one of you and if anyone is missing, there will be a lot more deaths today.”

The words sent deep shivers down Casey’s spine, not because of the threat but because of the phrasing. His promise of a lot more deaths meant that there was already at least one. As the nausea churned in her stomach and made her mouth water, she could only pray that it wasn’t a child.

-----

Despite the steady stream of children and adults walking through the double doors of the cafeteria, the large room was eerily quiet. Most of the students, especially the younger ones, cried softly. The teachers alternately tried to calm them and tried to gather any information they could from each other in voices just above a whisper. Not one of them knew who the man was. No one knew what he wanted. Sharon Kelleher had been shot. Killed. A beloved colleague was dead, and no one could make any damn sense out of it.

The one thing going Olivia Benson’s way was that she had managed to successfully blend in with all the other adults working in the school. A couple teachers, concerned with the presence of yet another stranger in their midst, had asked who she was. She told them the truth, that she had been with a friend picking up a sick student. She did not, however, reveal her occupation. Her position on the inside was sure to give her counterparts on the outside a distinct advantage, but only if she was allowed to wait for the opportune moment to reveal herself.

First on her agenda was placing a quick call to her captain. As she pressed her phone to her ear, waiting for the call to connect, Casey Novak stepped through the cafeteria doors. The small girl in blue jeans and a pale purple T-shirt keeping a death grip on Casey’s hand had to be Lynn Novak. From the bright green eyes to the dark red hair, the kid was Casey’s spitting image.

Though she’d received Casey’s text, it was quite an enormous relief to see with her own eyes that they were fine. Shaken, obviously, but fine. Olivia waved but at that moment, Captain Cragen answered the phone. From the tone of his voice, she could tell he would be none too pleased to learn that he had a detective and an ADA in the middle of the chaos. “Where the hell are you?” he asked.

There was no time to snidely call attention to his lack of a greeting. “In the thick of things at Glendale Elementary.”

He was silent for a moment. “You better mean that you’re outside, working with the teams.”

“Unfortunately, I’m on the inside. Casey’s here, too. I don’t have time to explain but we’re both okay. I just wish I could say the same for the poor secretary.”

“So there has been a fatality?”

She gave a nod; it hit her a mere second later that he could not see her do so. “She’s the only one as far as I know. So far he doesn’t know that I’m a cop. I don’t think he’s aware that Casey’s an ADA, and I don’t intend on letting him know about either of us until it’s absolutely necessary. I’ll check in again if it’s possible.”

She snapped her phone shut without waiting for a goodbye, an action that struck her afterwards as a mite rude. Oops. The captain would understand, she was sure. By the time she tucked her phone back into the pocket of her slacks, Casey and a clearly shell-shocked Lynn had made their way across the large room and up to the detective.

Casey’s relief was palpable. “Thank God you’re all right,” she whispered, wrapping Olivia in a quick hug, surprising her. She pulled away, resting her hands on the detective’s shoulders, and held her at arm’s length. “Are you freaking crazy? Please tell me you didn’t run in here after you heard the shots.”

“Yes and no,” Olivia answered, her voice just as soft. “I saw him outside. I started following him because he was making me nervous, but I was too late.”

“Did you …” A quick glance down at Lynn forced Casey to rephrase her question slightly. The big rumor flying among the adults was that the guy had shot Sharon Kelleher. “Did you see it?”

Olivia, too, flicked her gaze to the little girl. Luckily she had not yet begun paying attention to the adults’ conversation. Her eyes were traveling around the cafeteria as she tried to pick out her friends and her teacher. “No,” the detective answered. “I just heard about it.”

A tiny flicker of hope brightened Casey’s face. “Then you don’t know for sure.”

Olivia winced. Never fond of delivering bad news, she especially hated having to deliver bad news during a crisis. “Casey, the principal knows for sure.”

The hope vanished in a flurry of emotion. Oh, how fast someone’s entire world could change! Up until roughly half an hour ago, the day had been completely unremarkable. But now, Casey was trapped in a school cafeteria, Olivia and Lynn alongside her. Suddenly, Sharon Kelleher’s husband had arrangements to make, people to call, a gigantic loss to attempt to deal with. Did the Kellehers have any children? Was there a young boy or girl out there somewhere who had just lost his or her mother?

As Casey looked around at the children and the other adults, she wondered how many more of them would be hurt or even killed by the time this thing was over. The gunman hadn’t been mincing words earlier with his threat. She now had no doubt in her mind that he would turn the gun on her or Olivia or anyone else just as easily as he had poor Mrs. Kelleher.

A light tug at her sleeve brought her back to reality. “Mrs. Downey knows what for sure, Auntie Casey?”

Oh, crap. “Nothing, Peanut,” Casey said, cringing inwardly. The lie was necessary, however. Lynn was quite fond of Mrs. Kelleher and discovering that the woman had been killed would understandably send the child into a panic. The atmosphere in the room was tense at best. If one kid started to panic, the rest of them would surely follow.

Instead, Casey took the opportunity to introduce her niece to Olivia. The detective smiled down at the little girl. “Nice to meet you, Lynn. If I didn’t know better, I’d say Casey was your mother and not your aunt. You two look so much alike!”

A rush of pink colored Lynn’s cheeks as she gave Olivia a bashful smile. Casey’s brow wrinkled, her concern obvious--Lynn wasn’t usually shy at all--but she didn’t have a chance to dwell on it. The man walked in then with the final group of hostages. Once everyone was inside, he closed the doors and faced the makeshift assembly. “All right. Everybody sit down.”

The adults pulled out folding chairs at tables entirely too small for them while most of the children found seats on the floor. As soon as Casey settled herself on a small chair, Lynn climbed onto her lap. The child was still shaking. Casey wrapped her arms around her niece’s shoulders, holding her close, trying to comfort her in any way she could.

“This is how it’s going to go,” the man continued. The careless way he was handling the gun as he paced the length of the room made Olivia want to snap at him the way a parent would a disobedient child: put that away before you hurt yourself. “Someone is going to tell me where my daughter is and I’m going to take her out of here.”

“What’s your daughter’s name?” a woman in a business suit asked. Everything about the woman, from her clothing to her understated jewelry to her no-nonsense manner screamed “school principal.” Making her Mrs. Downey, Casey thought.

Before the man could answer, the shrill ringing of a telephone in the kitchen tore through the room, echoing a little in the relative silence. The man glared in the direction of the sound. The only person who would be calling into the school now was a hostage negotiator, and he had nothing to negotiate. He decided to answer the principal’s question instead. “Carrie Anne Bradley.”

A soft gasp escaped Lynn’s lips and her hands searched for her aunt’s, seeking comfort. Though they’d just met at the beginning of the school year, Carrie Anne had quickly become Lynn’s best friend.

“Carrie Anne’s not in school today,” the principal replied, her voice hesitant.

The man clenched his free hand into a fist while raising the gun with the other, pointing it directly at Mrs. Downey. “Don’t tell me that! That was what that secretary told me! I know you’re hiding her somewhere. Bring her out now before someone else gets hurt.”

Many of the already petrified children gave into their tears at the outburst. The kids that hadn’t started crying sat stock still, fixing their gazes on the windows, the walls, the floor, their friends, their shoes … everywhere but the man and his gun. They’re attempting to disassociate, Olivia realized, her heart breaking for them. Self-defense mechanism.

A young woman at the back of the room stood from her seat, her hands trembling as she brushed short blonde hair off her forehead. Her voice shook despite her attempt to sound unafraid. “Mr. Bradley, the principal is telling you the truth. I marked Carrie Anne absent myself this morning.”

The wild, frenzied glint in Bradley’s eyes was replaced with a seething anger, a hatred. “So you’re her teacher. You’re the bitch who helped Melissa in the first place.”

No one had a chance to react. In one swift motion, Bradley raised the pistol and fired at the woman. Even the children attempting to ignore the situation screamed as the young teacher crumpled to the floor, dark crimson quickly staining her gray blazer. She clamped her left hand over her bloody right shoulder. Bradley’s anger had caused him to line up the shot improperly and the bullet had, luckily, entered the woman’s shoulder instead of her heart.

Olivia scrambled to her side. Moments later, an older woman knelt down next to the detective, a clean dish rag from the kitchen in her hand. Olivia guessed from the woman’s quick action and the ease at which she tied off the homemade tourniquet that she was the school nurse.

Casey was drawn from her haze of shock when Lynn jumped off her lap, crying, “Miss Thompson!” The ADA reacted in an instant, holding the little girl back before she could run towards the woman. Lynn struggled against her grip but surrendered quickly and allowed her aunt to pull her back onto her lap. Tears rolled down Lynn’s cheeks. Casey planted a kiss on the top of the little girl’s head, understanding now that Miss Thompson was the girl’s teacher.

“Shut the kids up!” Bradley hollered, ineptly trying to restore a little order to the room. Although he was a father, it was quite apparent that he was not a dad. He was wound too tightly to handle small children, and his attempts to regain control were spectacularly amateur. The adults not preoccupied with Catherine Thompson’s injury bailed him out, bustling around, speaking to the young ones in soothing tones, giving hugs where necessary.

“Mr. Bradley, you have to let us take her out to an ambulance,” Olivia spoke up, gently running her hand over the teacher’s hair. Small comfort, but it was the only solace she could give.

“No. Not until someone tells me where my daughter is.”

The principal stood on shaky legs. It was time to plead with Bradley, to make him understand. “Sir, we do not know where your daughter is. We’re not hiding her anywhere. As I’ve already told you, Carrie Anne is absent from school today.”

“You do know,” Bradley insisted, raising his gun again.

“She’s not here!”

The tiny voice startled everyone, including the gunman. Before Casey could stop her, Lynn had once again jumped to her feet and now addressed the man in a voice stronger than anyone could have imagined. “She’s my desk partner. Mrs. Downey and Miss Thompson are telling you the truth. She’s not here today.”

Casey grabbed Lynn’s arms and pulled her back down, hissing in the girl’s ear for her to shut up. Was her niece insane? Talking back to a man--with a gun--who quite clearly did not like people talking back to him? As if to prove that point, Bradley smirked and aimed the pistol directly at Lynn’s little chest. “You and your mother both need to learn when to shut up, kid.”

Before Lynn could even think of explaining that Casey was her aunt and not her mother, the ADA was on her feet, yanking Lynn behind her and out of the line of fire. “She’s sorry. She’ll be quiet from now on. Just … please. Please.”

Panicked green eyes and angry brown eyes met across the room and stared into each other for a long, seemingly endless beat. Neither one seemed ready to back down. Eventually Bradley lowered his weapon. “You’re just lucky I don’t feel like listening to the crying and the whining of the rest of these brats.”

Swallowing hard, Casey nodded her thanks. Her knees buckled as she sank back down into the tiny chair and pulled a trembling Lynn back onto her lap. Lynn turned, wrapped her arms around Casey’s neck, and cried into her shoulder.

“Now,” Bradley said, setting his shoulders, acting as if he hadn’t just shot a young woman or aimed his gun at a seven-year-old. He addressed the adults, getting back down to business. “I don’t care what it takes or how long we have to sit here. Someone is going to bring my daughter to me or someone else is going to be having the same kind of day as that secretary.”

-----

“He’s ignoring the goddamn phone!” the hostage negotiator hollered to no one in particular. He slammed the portable phone down, disconnecting the call, and continued to mutter under his breath. It was exceedingly more difficult to try to bring such a situation to a relatively peaceful end when the asshole refused to answer the freaking phone.

Swarms of officers, tons of cruisers, a couple ambulances, and scads of vans--both police-issue and those of the media variety--teemed outside Glendale Elementary School. Amid the tense and solemn bustle stood Captain Donald Cragen and Detective Elliot Stabler, both drawn into the unfolding drama by the presence of two of their colleagues on the inside.

What the hell were they doing here in the first place? Elliot wondered for about the fiftieth time. Last he knew, his partner had gone to see if Casey could go to lunch. What the hell kind of lunch included a side trip to an elementary school?

As if he had read Elliot’s mind, John Munch approached his captain and fellow detective with an answer. “Casey’s niece is a student here. Lynn Novak, in Catherine Thompson’s first-grade class.” He and Fin had been given the task of tracking down any connection, no matter how tenuous, between one or both of their coworkers and anyone at the school. “Can’t tell you why Casey was here at the time or why Olivia was with her, but there you go.”

Why indeed? Had Casey been attending some sort of program or play or something? And even if she had, why the hell had Olivia gone with her? As he tried to come up with a reason that made any kind of sense, he felt his cell phone vibrate in his pocket. His brow wrinkled; he hadn’t set the phone to vibrate. It was supposed to ring. Actually, it was supposed to play “Ode to Joy,” Lizzie’s choice.

When he frowned down at the phone’s display, the creases in his forehead deepened. He had a text message? Seriously, what the hell? He wasn’t even aware that his phone could receive text messages. He flipped open the phone and followed the on-screen prompts to retrieve the text, which read:

Now one hundred percent confused, Elliot scrolled down to the end of the message. Upon realization that the text was from Casey, everything made perfect sense. “Cap, so far there’s still the one dead inside and one injured. Apparently the guy wants his daughter, name’s Carrie Anne Bradley.”

Before the captain could even think to ask how Elliot knew any of that information, the detective handed over his phone. Cragen’s eyes widened. “See what other information you can get from her,” he said, giving the phone back to Elliot. “I’ll be right back.” He turned on his heels and took off to speak with the negotiator.

“Liv or Casey?” Munch asked, trying to read the tiny screen over Elliot’s shoulder.

“Casey.” Elliot hit the reply option and began typing a message back to Casey, asking about casualties, how the children were, and where they were all being held. He found the process ridiculously slow. How the hell his kids and their friends traded messages back and forth so fast, he’d never know. Once the question was finally typed out, he pressed the send button and waited for confirmation that the message had indeed gone through to Casey’s phone.

“Smart idea,” Munch murmured, smiling at the ADA’s ingenuity. “He’ll never even see her doing it if she’s careful. Wonder how she knew you were here.”

Elliot shrugged. “Probably just assumed. Figured that even if I wasn’t here, I’d at least know what was going on and could forward the information to the proper person.”

“Munch, I want you and Fin to try to track down Carrie Anne Bradley and, obviously, Carrie Anne’s mother.” The captain had returned from his conference with the negotiator ready to farm out assignments. “Elliot, you’re to stay on that phone with Casey and get everything out of her that you can.”

“Got it,” Munch said, already hurrying off to meet his partner.

Since he had nothing to do now but wait on Casey, Elliot turned to watch the commotion. More media vans had arrived since he’d last looked. All the major broadcast networks were represented, along with some of the cable channels. A moment later, he felt his phone vibrate again. He turned his back to the reporters, not wanting any of them to figure out that he was communicating with someone on the inside. His actions successfully concealed, he withdrew his phone and retrieved the message.

“Damn it, Casey, punctuate,” Elliot muttered, although he did understand that commas and periods were the furthest things from the ADA’s mind.

“What’d she say?” Cragen asked.

Elliot hesitated before answering, making sure he was interpreting the message correctly. “None of the kids are hurt, physically. They’re just scared, though she thinks some of them are in shock. The dead and injured are the secretary and a teacher, but she didn’t tell me which was which.”

“Secretary was killed. Olivia told me that.”

“Well, that answers that. She and Liv are fine and he has everyone holed up in the cafeteria.”

As the captain walked off to report the new information, Elliot began work on another message to the ADA. This time he asked about Bradley’s firepower and ammunition and whether the children were quiet or in chaos.

Although the timestamps proved the three-minute stretch, it seemed as if it took forever for Casey’s reply to come through:

The squealing of another van’s tires screeching to a stop caused Elliot to look up. Sharpshooters leaped from the back and began scrambling into place behind vans and cars and into the surrounding buildings, undoubtedly heading for the roof.

Elliot exchanged a glance with his captain, who had managed to figure out his silent question and nodded in response. The next message he sent to Casey asked how far back the children were sitting and if the gunman was standing anywhere near the front windows.

-----

A tense, seemingly endless hour and a half had passed since the cafeteria had become the one and only center of activity in the school. A few children were still sniffling, but by now most had cried all the tears they had in them. Whether out of nerves or a sense of protection or perhaps even just an anxious boredom, some of the older children had gathered the young ones into smallish circles of quiet games: Wonder Ball here, Telephone over there, Button Button in the corner.

At first the adults had been hesitant to allow the children to play games, but James Bradley--the gunman had finally given his first name--didn’t seem to mind. The activity kept the kids occupied and therefore quiet. And he was less trigger-happy when the kids were quiet.

A fourth-grade girl finally succeeded in her attempt to engage a still-crying second-grade boy in a game of Rock Paper Scissors, and Olivia smiled. She then returned her attention to Catherine Thompson. Though Olivia and nurse Marian Longwood had managed to control the bleeding, the teacher had still lost a lot of blood and now struggled to remain conscious. When Mrs. Longwood gave Olivia a barely perceptible shake of her head, a stone sank in the detective’s stomach.

With a quiet sigh, she picked herself up from the seat she had taken on the floor next to Miss Thompson, walked ten feet to a tiny lunch table, and sat down next to Casey. Lynn was cradled on her aunt’s lap while Casey hummed softly to her. As far as Olivia was aware, Lynn hadn’t even opened her mouth since Bradley aimed the gun at her.

Olivia didn’t say anything and instead listened to Casey’s quiet humming. The song was familiar to her, and after a few moments, she placed it: “Feed the Birds” from Mary Poppins. A small smile broke out on the detective’s face; this was the first time she’d truly seen the maternal side of Casey Novak.

Casey stopped humming once she reached the end of the song, but she continued to gently run her hand over the girl’s hair. The detective remained quiet for a moment, allowing the soothing sight of a child being cradled to comfort her before leaning close to Casey. “You still texting Elliot?”

“When I can, yes,” Casey replied, matching Olivia’s whisper. “It’s harder now that he’s not focused on trying to keep the kids quiet. I texted Sarah, too, to let her know that Lynn’s okay.”

The telephone in the kitchen rang just then, just as it had been for the last ninety or so minutes. Bradley groaned but to everyone’s surprise, this time he hurried over to pick up the receiver. “Listen,” he hissed into the phone, not even pausing to listen to whomever was speaking on the other end. “I am not interested in bargaining. I want my daughter. Her name is Carrie Anne Bradley and no one is leaving this building until she’s brought to me.” He slammed the receiver back down onto the base and stalked out of the kitchen.

The phone instantly rang again and Bradley rolled his eyes. “What don’t they get?” he murmured under his breath.

Olivia again flicked her gaze to Marian Longwood. The despair in the nurse’s eyes made her suck in her breath. This obviously wasn’t the best time for Olivia to try to assert herself, but it was necessary. “Mr. Bradley,” she said, using her best manners so as not to further anger the volatile man, “may we please bring Miss Thompson outside? She really needs medical attention.”

“Did you not just hear me tell them that no one is leaving?” he hollered, gesturing towards the kitchen with the gun.

The detective held up her hands in a mea culpa gesture and groaned quietly, leaning back in the chair. Trying to talk sense into Bradley was like talking to a brick wall! Catherine Thompson was going to die on the cafeteria floor in front of all these children if they didn’t get her out of there, soon. Olivia stood, clenching her hands into fists in order to calm herself, and knelt back down next to the teacher.

“Auntie Casey?” Lynn whispered, her first words in a little over an hour.

“What is it, sweetheart?” Casey asked.

“My head really hurts and I’m really cold and I don’t want to be here anymore. I just want to go home.”

“I know, Peanut,” Casey said in apology. She ran her thumb down her niece’s cheek to soothe her and instantly frowned. The little girl’s skin was warm to the touch, warmer than it had been earlier. The heat in her niece’s cheeks despite her assertion that she was cold could only mean one thing: the kid’s fever was on the rise.

Casey began digging into the pockets of her suit jacket in search of an Advil tablet. She knew she had some; she’d had the beginnings of a headache before she left for work and wanted to be prepared in case it worsened. “Lynnie, can you swallow pills?”

Lynn gave a weak nod. “The little ones.”

A-ha! Casey thought as her fingers finally found the tablets. She drew them from her pocket and realized that she had a bigger problem. If Lynn could only swallow pills when they were small, she would definitely need a chaser to help wash them down. And the only way to get the child something to drink would be to ask Bradley for permission to take her to the bubbler.

After taking a deep breath and setting her shoulders to prepare herself, she maneuvered Lynn off her lap and stood. “Mr. Bradley?”

Bradley stopped his systematic pacing and fixed an icy glare on her, sending deep shivers down her back. “What now?”

“May I take her to the water fountain in the corner over there? She’s sick and I need to give her some medicine.”

He scowled, clearly not in a mood to grant anyone any favors. But to her surprise, he gave a curt nod. “I suppose. She’s been quiet for a while. Just make it quick.”

“Thank you,” she said before herding her sick niece to the water bubbler.

It took three gulps of water and a cough for Lynn to force one of the brown tablets down her throat. “You okay?” Casey asked after Lynn coughed again.

The little girl just shrugged and rubbed her eyes with weak hands. “I’m sleepy.”

Seeing that Lynn was in no condition to walk back to the tables, Casey lifted the child off the ground and settled her on her hip. “Come on, sweetie.” Lynn nestled her head on Casey’s shoulder.

Once the ADA was seated in her chair, Lynn curled herself into as much of a ball as she could on her aunt’s lap and shut her eyes. With any luck, the little girl would be able to fall asleep. The less she remembered of this, the better.

Because her soft humming of “Feed the Birds” had calmed Lynn before, Casey decided a repeat performance was in order. Halfway through the song, her cell phone vibrated in her pocket. She raised her eyes to see where Bradley was and if he was paying any attention to her before reaching down to retrieve it. Elliot’s new message asked about Miss Thompson’s condition and if there were any other people that needed medical attention.

Casey gave a quick glance around the room. All of the children were terrified, to be sure, and were going to need to be checked out by medical personnel when they were finally released--yes, when, because Casey refused to think in terms of “if”--but the only person aside from Catherine Thompson who needed a doctor right away was Lynn. Letter by letter, she answered him.

She had to give Elliot credit; he was doing a wonderful job deciphering her messages. Not only did she have the disadvantage of not texting very often--or, let’s face it, she thought, ever--she also had to try to answer complicated questions within a rather small amount of characters. And that was on top of having to hide was she was doing from a crazed gunman who had already shown no hesitance to shoot when he deemed necessary. Casey had a funny feeling that communicating with the police via text message would be a capital offense in Bradley’s eyes.

Her nerves were so shot that when someone knelt down in front of her, her entire life flashed before her eyes. Her breath released in a sharp but relieved gasp when she realized that it was not Bradley in front of her but Olivia. “Sorry,” the detective whispered, lightly touching Lynn’s cheek to feel for her fever, “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“Jesus,” was the only thing Casey could force out in response.

In an instant the detective understood that Casey had thought, for the tiniest of seconds, that Bradley had caught her. “Shit, Casey, I’m so sorry. I wasn’t thinking--”

“No, it’s okay. It’s just going to take a minute to get my heart out of my throat.”

Typical Casey; sarcasm knew no bounds. Olivia gave her an apologetic smile as she waited for the ADA’s breathing to return to normal. “What did Elliot say?”

“Asked about people needing medical attention. How’s Catherine doing?”

The detective gave a glance down at Lynn, who had indeed managed to drift off into a light sleep. The poor kid was so sick that she was completely worn out, despite the fear and intensity around her. “Truthfully, not well. She’s lost a lot of blood, Casey. She needs to get to a hospital.”

Casey nodded, swallowing hard and coughing to dislodge the lump that had suddenly formed in her throat. The kids needed all of the adults to be strong, to not show their fear. Luckily, before she could dwell any longer on the direness of the situation, her phone vibrated, signaling the arrival of another message from Elliot. She surreptitiously pulled out her phone and read the waiting message:

“They’ve found Carrie Anne!” she murmured excitedly to Olivia. “Her mother’s bringing her down to try to bargain with Bradley. Apparently Catherine helped the mother take a restraining order out on him a few months ago. They’re about fifteen minutes out.”

“Oh, thank God,” Olivia breathed, the tension in her shoulders releasing a bit. “Maybe we’re only an hour or so from getting out of here.”

Casey nodded, her eyes never leaving James Bradley. For all his instability, he was smart. He’d pulled the shades on the wide front windows and had been doing his damnedest to stay away from them all afternoon. Apparently he’d watched enough movies to know that large windows were the Bullet Train to Hell for hostage takers.

Instead he’d been pacing the length of the cafeteria, from door to wall and back again. It was clear from the pensive look on his face that his mind was not focused on the cafeteria but on his reunion with his daughter. “Do you think he’s realized yet that there’s no getting out of this for him?” the ADA murmured to Olivia.

The detective observed the man a moment before answering. “I don’t think so, and I really hope he doesn’t before the guys outside can get this situation under control. I have a funny feeling that when he does realize he’s going down, he’ll have no qualms about taking us all with him.”

-----

The standoff at Glendale Elementary had officially entered its third hour. The hostage team had long ago decided not to bust into the school. James Bradley was extremely volatile, and there was no telling how he would react if he heard them coming before they were able to get everything contained. It was much easier--and safer--to try to bargain first, and their bargaining chip was finally on its way. Melissa Connors, Bradley’s ex-wife, had agreed to bring her daughter Carrie Anne down to the school in an effort to talk him down.

“Of all the things I thought him capable of,” Melissa had murmured in disbelief on the phone with the hostage negotiator, “taking an entire elementary school hostage was nowhere on the list.”

By now, though, the teams had figured out that James Bradley had not walked into the school intending to take hostages. His original mission had been simple: dismiss his daughter and take off with her to parts unknown. Because of the restraining order, he assumed that Sharon Kelleher was lying to him when she said that Carrie Anne was absent. The moment he fired the gun he’d brought with him for courage at the secretary out of anger was the moment that everything caved in on him; the best laid plans and all that.

The real tragedy was that, of course, Sharon Kelleher had not been lying. Melissa Connors confirmed that she had called the office that morning to let them know she was keeping Carrie Anne home with an upset stomach and a sore throat.

When a dark green SUV screeched to a stop behind a news van, the negotiator rushed to the yellow-tape barricade. A brunette woman in her mid-thirties stepped out of the vehicle and hurried around the car to assist a small girl with dark brown curls that just brushed the tops of her shoulders. “But I don’t want to go with Daddy,” the little girl argued, her voice uncertain. Her mother held her hand as she jumped down from the high back seat.

“You’re not going to have to go with Daddy, honey,” Melissa assured her daughter. “You just might have to talk to him for a couple of minutes. You can do that, right?”

Carrie Anne nodded, causing her Shirley Temple curls to bounce up and down. “I guess so.”

Her mother’s hand tightened around her own as they got closer to the chaos. When her gaze settled on the scene in front of her, Carrie Anne gasped. Why were there all kinds of vans and police cars and ambulances and so many people outside her school? “Mommy, what are all these people doing here?”

“Uhh …” Melissa ran her eyes over the crowd, scrambling to think of an explanation that wouldn’t frighten her young daughter. “Someone inside is hurt and needs an ambulance.”

“Oh.” Carrie Anne frowned but she seemed to accept the explanation, no questions asked. Melissa swiftly raised her eyes to the heavens, thankful for small miracles. Her ex-husband was a very disturbed individual--a character trait she discovered much too late--but he was still her little girl’s father. Discovering that her dad was inside, holding her teacher and her friends at gunpoint would crush her.

An older man identifying himself as the hostage negotiator lifted the crime scene tape, inviting both mother and daughter into the thick of the commotion. “We’ve been calling inside almost constantly for the last couple of hours,” he explained, “but he’s only answered once. Refused to even negotiate until we found Carrie Anne.”

Melissa nodded; he’d explained that over the phone. Inside the barricade, she was able to fully take in the sheer amount of people at the scene: the police officers, the medical personnel, Emergency Services, and oh God, sharpshooters, their precision rifles aimed at the cafeteria’s front windows. “I just … can’t believe this.”

Dialing into the school again without explanation would have been useless, so Captain Cragen took up the megaphone. “We found your wife and daughter, sir. We will let you speak with them, but you have to show us a little good faith. Would you consider letting any injured people or some of the children out?”

A tense minute and a half passed before Elliot Stabler’s cell phone vibrated in his pocket, signaling the arrival of a new message from Casey. Elliot eagerly flipped open his phone to read the text:

“He’s releasing the teacher,” Elliot said, just loudly enough for the necessary people to hear. The paramedics in the ambulance closest to the gate began rushing to get their equipment prepped and waiting for a gunshot victim with heavy blood loss. It was a miracle the poor teacher hadn’t bled out already, considering how long ago she’d been shot.

Carrie Anne watched with wide and confused eyes as the front door of the school opened and Mrs. Mackenzie, who was quite possibly the best recess aide ever, walked Miss Thompson, her teacher, out to the top of the steps. Mrs. Mackenzie was crying. Miss Thompson had blood all over her shirt and she looked very, very sick. Her face was almost white, like she was wearing Halloween makeup, and there were deep, dark circles under her eyes.

Then Carrie Anne spotted her father, hiding in the shadows created by the door. His eyes were glittering in anger, cold. She’d seen that look on his face plenty of times before, and she’d come to fear it. And then, giving a soft gasp, she realized that he was holding a gun. A real gun, not the plastic kind she filled with water in the summertime, and he had it pressed against Mrs. Mackenzie’s back.

She turned around to ask her mom why her father had a gun but stopped short. The cars and the policemen and the people with the cameras … this looked like something she had seen in a movie once, one she had snuck out of bed to watch. In the movie, a man with a gun made a whole bunch of people stay in one room and he wouldn’t let any of them leave until he got what he wanted.

Carrie Anne had forgotten by now what the man had wanted, but she supposed it didn’t really matter. Was that what her father was doing? Making people stay with him until he got something? But what did he want? And what would happen if he didn’t get it?

-----

Despite the fact that James Bradley had the barrel of his pistol pressed into her back, Carolyn Mackenzie had somehow managed to compose herself by the time she stepped back into the cafeteria. Hopefully the kids wouldn’t realize she had been crying, though she knew her red eyes and the tear stains on her cheeks would make it obvious to the adults. She was certain they would understand.

She inhaled deeply and took a seat next to Mrs. Downey at one of the tiny lunch tables. As the principal wrapped a comforting arm around her shoulders, a little boy ran up to her and asked to sit on her lap. Mrs. Mackenzie gave the first-grader a smile and lifted him onto her legs while murmuring in his ear that everything was going to be okay. The boy nodded, leaned back against her, and promptly stuck his thumb in his mouth.

This time when the phone rang, all activity in the cafeteria stopped. Every single person, Casey Novak and Olivia Benson included, waited on pins and needles as Bradley picked up the phone. He listened for all of two seconds before erupting in anger. “No! I showed good faith by letting the teacher out. You put my daughter on the phone like you promised. Now.”

After another few moments of tense silence, Bradley’s demeanor changed completely. Gone was the madman holding an elementary school hostage and in his place was a doting father. “Oh, Carrie Anne, it’s so good to hear your voice,” he murmured, his relief apparent. The ease at which he changed personality types sent a deep shudder down Casey’s spine.

He chatted with the little girl for a minute or so, asking about her schoolwork and if her tummy felt better. Suddenly he did another personality one-eighty, the rage making his voice gruff. “Send her in here.” A pause. “No. I told you, I want my daughter. Until someone sends her in here, none of these other little kids are going to see their mommies or daddies.” Bradley slammed the phone down onto the base and stalked out of the kitchen.

Oh, there is no way they’re sending that kid in here, Casey thought. The threat that he was going to disappear with the girl was completely empty because there was no way James Bradley was walking out of the school a free man. Whether the police took control or Bradley surrendered, he had still killed a woman in cold blood, attempted to murder another, and terrorized a couple hundred children and some thirty or so adults. But there was still a chance that Bradley was desperate enough, especially once he realized that no matter what he did, he was going to end up walking right into the hands of the NYPD, to kill himself and take his daughter or who knew how many other people out with him.

Bradley resumed his pacing and a soft hum picked back up in the cafeteria as the children went back to their games. Casey glanced down at Lynn, who was sound asleep in her lap, and then eyed Bradley to ensure that he was paying no attention to her whatsoever. She pulled her cell phone from her pocket. Elliot had sent her a text a while ago, a few minutes before Carrie Anne’s phone call, but she hadn’t had the chance to read it, much less answer him.

The message asked how receptive she thought Bradley would be to letting some of the children out of the school. The point now moot, she sent a quick reply:

As she tucked the cell phone back in her pocket, she saw nurse Marian Longwood approaching her. She knew in an instant that she was coming for Lynn, who had begun shivering in her sleep. The nurse sat down in the chair next to Casey, a frown on her face, and pressed the backs of her fingers against Lynn’s cheeks.

Casey did not like the concern in the other woman’s eyes at all. “What’s the matter?”

“Maybe nothing,” the nurse answered. “I don’t like her coloring, but these fluorescent lights aren’t helping a damn thing.” She rested her hand on Lynn’s shoulder and gently squeezed in an effort to rouse her. “Lynn, honey?”

Lynn whimpered and stirred a little but her eyes remained closed. Casey shifted the girl in her lap, sitting her up. “Lynnie? Can you open your eyes for me, Peanut?”

“M’sleepy, Auntie Casey,” Lynn mumbled, her voice a notch above a whisper.

“She still have the headache?” Mrs. Longwood asked as she rested the back of her hand against Lynn’s forehead.

Casey nodded. “It’s actually gotten worse. I gave her an Advil tablet earlier, but it didn’t really do anything.”

When Lynn gave a deep shudder, the nurse brought her hand down and stood, her voice shaky. “We need to get her out of here. She needs to see a doctor.”

Casey’s heart skipped a beat when she glanced up and took in the creases of worry around the nurse’s mouth. Her gaze shifted to Bradley and she groaned softly. Suddenly mouthing off to the guy with the gun wasn’t simply a stupid idea; it was quite possibly a life-threatening one.

Of all the people in the cafeteria, Lynn and Casey were the last people he’d let out. It was a miracle that he’d let her take Lynn to the bubbler for the drink of water she’d needed! Even though Casey could not stand having to grovel, she was willing to literally get down on her knees and beg if that was what it took to get Lynn outside.

Luckily the nurse spoke up for her before Casey even had a chance to plan her grovel. “Mr. Bradley, we have a very sick child over here. She needs to be taken out to the ambulances.”

Bradley stopped pacing and turned his attention to Mrs. Longwood and Casey, who was still holding a pale and shivering Lynn in her arms. A scowl crossed his face. “What’s wrong with her?”

“I’m not sure,” the nurse admitted. “Could be any number of things, but she does have a fever and it’s spiking.”

He inhaled deeply and cast a quick glance to the shaded windows. Letting someone else out, especially a sick child, would be another gesture of good faith. But what had the cops done for him lately? “Make her a compress, find her something to keep the fever down until they send Carrie Anne in.”

Casey felt her blood begin to boil. God-freaking-damn it! The police were not going to send Carrie Anne into the building. Bradley was never going to see his daughter again and keeping a school full of hostages was not going to change that! Just as she was about to jump from her seat to tell Bradley exactly what was going to happen when all was said and done--from a prosecutor’s perspective--Olivia rested her hands on the ADA’s shoulders. Her grip was both strong and gentle, and though she hadn’t said a word, Casey could almost hear Olivia’s soft voice telling her to calm down. Don’t say anything that’s going make this any worse.

“Mr. Bradley, please let her go,” Olivia implored in a calmer tone than Casey ever would have been able to muster. “The child very obviously needs a doctor.”

Bradley ran his eyes over Lynn and then cast another glare at the windows before shaking his head. “No one leaves.”

Casey slumped back in her seat, looking and feeling very much like a balloon that had lost its helium. A disappointed Marian met the ADA’s eyes and forced a smile. “It’ll be fine. I’ll go make her a compress and then I’ll see if I can scrounge up some more Advil or Tylenol or something from the teachers. Someone will have something. We’ll just have to try to keep her fever down until we can get out of here.”

The ADA nodded and blinked against the sudden tears that were brimming in her eyes, tears of frustration and rage and apprehension and panic. Olivia sat down at the ADA’s left and slung her arm around Casey’s shoulders, holding her tightly. “She’ll be okay.”

The ADA’s lower lip trembled as she nodded again. She couldn’t open her mouth to respond, not right now. She planted a light kiss on Lynn’s forehead and silently begged her niece to hold on just a little while longer. It was one of those times that she wished she believed in telepathy.

-----

Elliot Stabler had certainly been in plenty of stressful situations during his career, and as such, he was quite good at keeping calm when the things around him were in turmoil. But he was finding it a lot more difficult to maintain his composure when two people whom he cared for deeply were in the thick of a crisis while he was outside, merely watching and waiting.

Adding to his nerves was the fact that the standoff had been going on entirely too long. James Bradley was a stubborn ass, and it was clear by now that he was not going to compromise in any way, shape, or form. He was the worst kind of hostage taker, the kind who wanted exactly what he wanted and didn’t care who the hell he had to hurt in order to get it. And Elliot knew that it was only a matter of time before Bradley realized that there was only one way this could end and that was with him in handcuffs.

The son of a bitch was smart, too. He’d drawn the shades on the large front windows so there was no way for the sharpshooters to get a clear read on him. Understandably, no one in charge felt comfortable ordering them to fire blindly into a cafeteria full of children. He’d also had the foresight to have someone--Elliot assumed the custodian--link heavy chains through handles of all the doors, barricading them from the inside. They were afraid to break windows for fear that he’d hear the shattering glass. There was effectively no way in, and it didn’t appear that those inside would be coming out anytime soon.

Elliot glanced at his watch with a pensive frown. Each second that passed was one more second those children were being terrorized. Also beginning to worry him was the fact that he hadn’t heard from Casey in a while. As impossible as it seemed for concern to transfer over the limited characters of a text message, Casey’s had in her last one. Lynn was getting sicker seemingly by the minute, and Casey was practically beside herself.

Staring at the building was only making him frustrated, so he turned his back to the school. Carrie Anne Bradley, the little girl who through no fault of her own was at the center of the drama, had seemingly gotten lost in the shuffle. While her mother was discussing her father with the officers in charge, Carrie Anne was attempting to occupy her time by ignoring the situation and walking in a circle, as if playing a game of Ring Around the Rosies by herself. The poor little thing looked like she was on the verge of tears.

Elliot knelt down in front of her and gave her a gentle smile. “You doing okay, sweetie?”

Carrie Anne frowned at Elliot before it dawned on her that he was a policeman and thus one of the good guys. “I guess,” she answered with a shrug. She flicked her gaze to the building and sighed softly. “This is all my daddy’s fault, isn’t it?”

The detective took a deep breath in and let it out through his nose. Having conversations like this with small children was never easy. “Your dad loves you very much, Carrie Anne. He just wanted to spend some time with you, which is why he came to your school today.”

“But he brought a gun.” Sensing that Elliot was scrambling to come up with either an excuse or a denial, Carrie Anne shook her head. “I saw it. He was pointing it at Mrs. Mackenzie when they came to the door. If he just wanted to see me, why did he bring a gun?”

Elliot bit his lower lip, torn. He had no idea how much, if anything, Melissa Connors had explained to her daughter about the divorce and the restraining order, but Carrie Anne was looking for an answer. He had to give her one. “Did your mom tell you why she and your dad have to live in separate houses?”

The little girl nodded. “She said it was because she and my daddy were always mad at each other, but I know the truth.”

“What’s the truth?”

“My daddy can be really mean sometimes,” she whispered, as if telling the detective a secret. “He used to get mad at me for no reason and sometimes he even hit me! My mommy thinks I was sad when my daddy moved to his new house, but I was really happy.” She frowned. “Well, not happy, but …”

“Relieved?” Elliot supplied for the little girl.

She nodded again, smiling her thank you.

“When your mom and your dad decided to live in separate houses, the court gave your mom what’s called a restraining order.” No assignation of blame, no mention that her mother had asked for the restraining order because of her father’s anger issues, no mention that her own teacher had offered her support. “That means that your dad can’t see you unless your mom says it’s okay.”

“And he brought the gun today because my mom didn’t say it was okay?” she asked, frowning.

Elliot gave her a nod. A simplistic explanation, perhaps, but understandable enough for a seven-year-old.

“Did he hurt anyone with the gun?” As soon as the question was out of her mouth, her eyes widened. “Miss Thompson! He hurt Miss Thompson!”

“Yes, sweetie, he did.”

Carrie Anne wanted to cry. Miss Thompson was so nice and she didn’t deserve to be hurt with anything, never mind a gun. Her dad needed to stop what he was doing. Someone needed to tell him to stop, someone needed to make him listen. She blinked quickly and swallowed her tears. “Can I talk to him again?”

Elliot wrinkled his brow at the little girl. “Why do you want to talk to him again?”

“Maybe I can tell him to stop,” she said, imploring him, begging to be allowed this request. “Maybe I can make him let everyone go.”

The girl’s bravery and sacrifice made Elliot smile. He wasn’t sure how convincing Carrie Anne would be nor did he think that Bradley was calm enough to let everyone go just because his daughter said so. Even still, Carrie Anne’s idea was the best he’d heard in the last hour or so. “Wait here a second, hon,” Elliot said before walking up to his captain and outlining the girl’s plan.

-----

It turned out that trying to keep a very sick and feverish seven-year-old awake was a surprisingly difficult task. Nurse Marian Longwood had insisted that Lynn needed to remain responsive in order to monitor both the progression of her symptoms and the rise of her fever. Though the nurse wouldn’t tell Casey what she thought was wrong with Lynn--she didn’t want to panic her unncessarily if she was wrong--the tension on her face said enough. Whatever illness the little girl had was quite serious.

The symptoms were puzzling Casey. Lynn’s headache had worsened despite the two doses of ibuprofen she’d been given and she’d begun complaining that the lights were too bright and making her headache worse. Every time she closed her eyes in an attempt to block out the light, she’d start to fall into an exhausted sleep, and Casey would have to nudge her awake.

The excruciating headache and the sensitivity to light sounded to Casey like a migraine, but that admittedly amateur diagnosis didn’t explain Lynn’s fever or Mrs. Longwood’s concern. Plus, as far as Casey was aware, Lynn didn’t normally suffer from migraines.

Casey felt Lynn’s muscles twitch and relax, and she raised her knees to lightly jostle her niece. “Lynnie, you have to stay awake for me.”

“I don’t want to, Auntie Casey,” Lynn mumbled.

“I know, Peanut, but you need to.”

The little girl groaned and shifted uncomfortably on her aunt’s lap until she was sitting up a little straighter. She gave a wrinkle of her nose and forced her eyes open. “I want my mommy,” she whispered, nuzzling her cheek against Casey’s shoulder.

“I know you do, sweetheart.”

“Auntie Casey?”

The quiet, plaintive tone of the little voice forced Casey to look down, meeting her niece’s eyes. She brushed fine wisps of hair off the girl’s pale and sweaty forehead. “What is it?”

“I’m glad you’re here with me.”

The loving sentiment, in combination with Casey’s already frayed nerves, sent fresh tears to her eyes. She reacted quickly and managed to blink them back before they could fall. “I’m glad you’re here with me, too, Lynnie,” she murmured, tightening her arms around the sick child.

Lynn let out a soft whimper and as she snuggled into her aunt’s embrace, she allowed her eyelids to flutter closed. Casey lightly ran a finger down the girl’s cheek. “You need to keep your eyes open for me, okay?”

The pained look on Lynn’s face said it all: No, it’s not okay, Auntie Casey. “The lights are hurting my eyes.”

Able to see that Casey was in desperate need of some help, Olivia knelt down in front of the ADA, drew her sunglasses from the pocket of her jacket, and slid them over Lynn’s eyes. “Is that better, hon?”

Lynn gave a weak nod, one hand absently rubbing the back of her neck. “Thank you.”

The detective smiled as she sat down in a folding chair next to Casey. “That’s your expensive pair,” Casey whispered, her surprise and gratitude apparent.

“Lynn will take good care of them for me, won’t you, sweetie?”

The little girl nodded again. She would definitely take good care of Olivia’s sunglasses. Olivia was very nice to let her borrow them in the first place! The frames were too big for her face, but that was okay. The dark lenses blocked the light a little bit, which made her eyes feel a little better. She could always pretend that she was playing dress-up, wearing glasses that didn’t fit her.

The sunglasses couldn’t make her head stop throbbing, though. This was the worst headache she’d ever had in her life, and that was including that time she fell in her living room and slammed her head against the brick hearth. Her head was pounding so bad she felt like she was going to throw up! She wanted to cry but after crying so much already over the last couple of hours, she had no tears left. Instead she let out a quiet whimper as she rested her head on her aunt’s shoulder.

Casey kissed the top of Lynn’s head and tensely twirled a lock of her niece’s red hair around her finger. Suddenly a booming voice from outside--the man wielding the megaphone was not Captain Cragen this time--announced that Carrie Anne was being allowed to return to the phone.

James Bradley, who had taken a seat at the front of the cafeteria, jumped to his feet and dashed to the kitchen. He picked up the extension before the first ring had a chance to finish. “Carrie Anne?”

He was quiet for a long moment, listening to what his daughter had to say. When he spoke again, he did so in a calm, soothing voice. “I never meant to hurt anyone, Carrie Anne, you have to know that. It just happened.”

Casey exchanged a glance with Olivia. From the sound of it, the negotiator had put Carrie Anne on the phone to try to talk the man down. Though Casey’s expression was wary, Olivia gave her a slight shrug, trusting that the hostage team knew what they were doing.

“I can’t let anyone go,” Bradley was saying into the phone, “not until the police let you come in here with me.”

Another long beat of silence. The hand keeping a tight grip on the gun started to tremble, though Casey was unable to tell whether Bradley was upset or angry. “Carrie Anne, I’m sorry. This is the only way they’re going to let you come with me.”

He inhaled sharply and let out the breath through his nose. “Who the hell told you about the restraining order?” He shook his head and managed to reel in his anger. “No, honey, I’m sorry. I can’t. I just can’t.” Bradley slammed the receiver down, stalked out of the kitchen, and resumed pacing the length of the cafeteria, his steps shorter and quicker than before.

Every single bit of activity in the cafeteria stopped and an eerie hush fell over the room. The only person who would have been able to get through to Bradley was his daughter. With that option shot to hell, that one iota of hope that every person had been clinging to burst and drifted away.

Three of the youngest students started crying, their despair and terror and tension finally coming to a head. Their cries set off other children and within seconds the entire room was filled with the sounds of heaving sobs and sniffling.

The adults and some of the older students who hadn’t broken down bustled around, trying to calm the frightened children, but James Bradley was quicker than any of them. His method of silencing the room was to fire a shot into the ceiling. It shut the kids up, all right, because they were scared to death.

Lynn clung tightly to her aunt, too surprised to cry, too afraid to make a sound. The only thing Casey could do was hold her niece close and murmur in her ear in an effort to calm her.

“All of you are going to sit there quietly until I think of what to do, got it?” Bradley hollered. His burning anger was written across his features. “That means no stupid little games, no crying, not even breathing loudly. Just sit there and shut up.”

Olivia instinctively reached for her gun but Casey coughed in an effort to distract her. Pulling her weapon right now would accomplish nothing. Bradley was too worked up; if he caught sight of Olivia’s gun before she had a chance to fire at him, there was no telling what he would do.

The detective glanced to the side, catching the ADA’s eye. When Casey gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head, Olivia dropped her hand back on her lap and nodded, the warning acknowledged.

The only sounds in the room were the low hum of the wall clock and the drone of the industrial refrigerators. And as was Casey’s luck, her phone chose that moment to vibrate. She jumped slightly, startled, and muttered a curse under her breath as her eyes immediately shot to Bradley. The sound of the vibration seemed deafening in the silence.

Luckily Bradley was too busy attempting to plan his next move to hear a cell phone vibrating from across the room. With one eye still on the gunman, Casey yanked the phone from her pocket and checked the message from Elliot:

She started working on a reply, informing Elliot that the shot was fired into the ceiling and that no one else had been hurt. Her hands were trembling from nerves and tension, and it was taking her longer than normal to spell out her message.

Casey was so focused on finishing quickly that she didn’t even realize anyone had approached her. She gasped out loud when the phone was ripped from her hand. “You are far more trouble than you’re worth. I knew I should have gotten rid of you back in the nurse’s office,” Bradley grumbled, snapping the phone closed with one hand and holding the barrel of his gun to Casey’s forehead with the other.

-----

In James Bradley’s view of the world, treason apparently still warranted a death sentence. Never mind the fact that none of the hostages had ever verbally sworn any loyalty to the man. But he was the one holding the gun and thus calling the shots, and communicating with the outside was the ultimate betrayal.

Unlike when Olivia surprised her earlier, though, Casey’s entire life did not flash before her eyes. This time she found herself praying that Bradley would take her somewhere relatively concealed to kill her so Lynn wouldn’t have to watch. As it was, Lynn had scrambled off her lap practically in hysterics and run into the waiting arms of Marian Longwood. “Just don’t hurt her,” Casey heard herself plead, her fear not for her own mortality but for Lynn’s.

However, before Bradley could even twitch a finger, Olivia was on her feet, weapon drawn and trained on the gunman. “Police! Drop it, Bradley.”

He blinked in surprise at the sudden turn of events. Olivia’s lips curled into a barely noticeable smirk; he had assumed what she’d wanted him to assume, that she was simply on staff at the school. Despite his shock, he remained still in defiance of Olivia’s command.

Olivia stared Bradley directly in the eye, showing him that she was not in the mood for games. “Unless you want to leave here with the murder of a school secretary and an assistant district attorney under your belt, drop it. Now.”

A shadow crossed Bradley’s face, his eyes darkening. It was a quick, fleeting darkness, but Casey knew in that instant, he’d figured it all out. He knew there was no way out, knew that he was never going to see Carrie Anne again. Knew he was going to jail for the rest of his life, no getting out early on good behavior, no chance of parole. And he also knew that since he was already going down for one murder, adding another one wouldn’t change the outcome all that much. Casey kept a defiant glare on Bradley until he used his thumb to pull back the hammer of his gun. Then she squeezed her eyes shut and silently willed Lynn to do the same.

A shot rang out and Casey held her breath, wondering if she would even feel any pain. But after a second passed, she still felt perfectly fine. Then another passed and another after that. A frown of confusion turned down the corners of her mouth, and she chanced opening her eyes.

Surprisingly, she didn’t see a bright white light or fluffy clouds or the Pearly Gates. She just saw Glendale Elementary School’s cafeteria. At first she didn’t understand. Why the hell did the afterlife look just like regular life? It wasn’t until Lynn climbed onto her lap and threw her arms around her neck that she realized that she was alive and unhurt. She squeezed back, clinging to her little niece just as much as Lynn was clinging to her.

Now that Casey knew she was alive, it was time to figure out how. The gun had definitely fired; there was no mistaking that sound, close enough to make her ears ring. When she finally looked to where Bradley had been standing, she realized that the shot was fired from Olivia’s gun. The detective had shot Bradley in the leg, forcing him to drop his weapon as he crumpled to the floor. She’d kicked the gun out of his reach and was now cuffing his hands behind his back while reading him his rights.

All around them the children were sobbing, their fear and tension and sweet relief all combining into one long-awaited release. The sound of shattering glass pealed over the commotion and soon the room was teeming with police officers, their guns drawn. Once they saw that the suspect was disarmed and cuffed, the situation thus successfully contained, the officers began a sort of triage, looking over the children for anyone who was hurt. After determining that the children were scared but uninjured, they started the process of bringing them out to their terrified parents, younger ones first.

As the first group of kids were being escorted outside, paramedics wheeled two stretchers into the cafeteria, one for Bradley and one for Lynn. Bradley was hollering, yelling nonsense and arguing with the officers, saying that he hadn’t meant for any of this to happen and all he wanted was his daughter. For her own sanity, Casey needed to tune him out. She focused instead on prying Lynn off her lap and getting her settled on the waiting gurney. The poor child was visibly shaking now, both from fear and her rising fever, and her teeth were chattering.

The paramedics had a hard time getting Lynn to lie down. She complained that her neck hurt and she yelled and screamed and cried for her aunt Casey to come with her. One of the EMTs tried to gently explain that her friends needed time to check Casey out, too, but Casey shook her head in argument and rose on shaky legs that weren’t quite ready to support her weight. Her knees were like jelly, but she caught herself on the stretcher before she could even stumble. Her hand found Lynn’s and she grasped it tightly, allowing the girl’s presence and need to give her strength. “I’m fine,” she said, looking the paramedic in the eye. “I’m riding with her.”

The two EMTs exchanged a glance between them and decided that there was no way in hell they were going to argue with her.

Casey had all of three and a half seconds before Lynn was wheeled out of the cafeteria, but she managed to catch Olivia’s eye. Her extreme gratitude to the detective was something that she’d never be able to fully express, in words or gestures or looks, even all three combined. After all, she literally owed Olivia her life. There was no doubt in her mind that Bradley would have killed her if Olivia hadn’t reacted first.

But when their eyes locked, Olivia somehow was able to tell. She just knew, knew that she’d saved Casey’s life, knew that Casey would be forever grateful. She simply gave the ADA a calm smile, letting her know that it had been her pleasure, before following Bradley’s stretcher out to the ambulance.

-----

Olivia Benson spent the next few hours answering questions, giving her statement, and having a thorough checkup in the emergency room at Hudson Medical. By the time she was finally given the go-ahead to leave, it was almost ten o’clock at night. She’d had by far the longest lunch break in the history of the one-six, and she knew the guys were going to give her one hell of a teasing for it. Now her unexpected adventure was finally over and she was not ashamed to admit that she was absolutely exhausted.

So, apparently, was her partner. When she stepped into the waiting room of the ER on her way out of the hospital, she spied Elliot slumped in one of the chairs, his head resting on a propped-up arm and his eyes closed. A half-smile curled onto her lips when she realized that he had been waiting for her.

She sat down in the chair next to his, rested a hand on the knee closest to her, and shook in an effort to gently rouse him. He started awake and his cheeks colored in slight embarrassment when he realized that he had fallen asleep in the middle of the ER. “Hey,” Olivia said by way of a greeting.

“Hi,” he replied, clearing his throat. After running his hand over his face to wake himself up a little bit, he turned his head to look his partner in the eye. “Scare the hell out of us, why don’t you? You and Novak.”

She snorted in amusement and dropped her gaze to her hands. “Hey, this isn’t exactly how I envisioned my day going when I woke up this morning.”

“I can see why this wouldn’t exactly be at the top of your list of possibilities,” he said, giving Olivia a rueful smile. “Most people drop some of their lunch on their pants and call it a bad day. In your version of a bad day, you and our ADA get yourselves wrapped up in a frickin’ hostage crisis.”

“Hey, you have to admit, we keep life interesting.”

“That you do.” He met her gaze again, the easy banter giving way to his concern. “You all right?”

Olivia hesitated. Was she all right? She supposed that in the grand scheme of things, she was fine. Better than, say, Catherine Thompson, who she’d been told was in the ICU but was expected to pull through. And it wasn’t like she’d never been held at gunpoint before. But still, there were sure to be nightmares and all kinds of emotions--anger, fear, relief, to name just a few--to work through. “Yeah,” she answered eventually. “I mean, I’m shaken, but I’m fine otherwise. More than ready to get the hell out of here and go home.”

She stood from her seat to indicate just how ready she was but after a quick look around, it finally dawned on her that someone was missing. “Where’s Casey? They have to have let her out by now. Is she up with Lynn?”

“Um, actually …” Elliot cleared his throat again. Oh, his partner was not going to like what had developed in the time she had been in the examination room, not at all. “They’re admitting her for observation and they’ve started her on a course of antibiotics. It’s all preventative, of course--”

Olivia interrupted her partner with a wave of her hands, the universal gesture for back-on-up-a-second. “What?” she asked, her eyes wide. “Why?”

“Because of her contact with Lynn,” he answered, squirming a little under her gaze. “Liv, she has bacterial meningitis. That child is sicker than any of us realized.”

-----

Casey Novak had been given a single room on the fifth floor, not because of any stroke of luck but because her doctors had decided to err on the side of caution. Through the window of her room, Elliot Stabler and Olivia Benson were able to see her lying on her side facing the door, her eyes shut. The detectives met each other’s eyes, both on the same page; they were not about to disturb her if she’d somehow managed to drop off to sleep. “We’ll come back tomorrow,” Olivia whispered to Elliot and turned to leave.

A soft, plaintive voice stopped her in her tracks. “Liv?”

Olivia turned to see Casey pushing herself into a sitting position on the hospital bed while giving the detectives a sleepy and confused frown. Olivia entered the room with Elliot at her heels. She claimed the visitor’s chair while he sat down on the foot of the bed. “We thought you were sleeping,” Olivia said, her voice soft.

Casey scoffed and rolled her eyes. “Yeah, like I’m going to be able to go to sleep tonight,” she mumbled despite her obvious exhaustion.

“Hey, don’t say that too loudly around here,” Elliot teased, gently nudging her foot with his knee. “They’ll give you something to knock you out.”

The ADA smirked and pressed the button on the bed’s rail to raise the head enough to comfortably lean back against it. “What are you two still doing here?”

“Believe it or not, I was just released,” Olivia explained, giving Casey a tiny smile. “Elliot told me they admitted you and we wanted to see you before we went home. How’re you doing? Have you heard anything about Lynn?”

“I’m okay. Bored. Tired.” Casey shrugged. “The paramedics knew, Liv. The second she said her neck hurt when they were trying to get her to lie down on the stretcher, they knew. When the doctors told me she had meningitis … I mean, God, if we had been in that cafeteria even an hour longer--”

“But we weren’t.” Olivia reached forward and grasped Casey’s shaking hands. “We weren’t in there any longer and we got her to the hospital in time. You just have to focus on that.”

Casey nodded, swallowing hard to dislodge the lump in her throat. “This is all just a precaution, obviously.” She pulled her hands from Olivia’s to wave at the IV stand next to her bed. “The type of meningitis she has is contagious but not highly so. Everyone in that cafeteria will still need to be notified, but … if we shared a drink or something, the doctors would be more worried. It’s just because we were in such close contact for so long.”

The detectives both gave her a nod, indicating that they understood and agreed with the doctors that the precaution was necessary. “But you haven’t heard anything else?” Elliot asked. “Do you want us to go upstairs to try to get you an update?”

“There’s no need for that,” said a tearful woman’s voice from the doorway.

All three of them turned to see who was at the door, though Casey had to lean forward in the bed in order to see past Olivia. A woman with shoulder-length, straight dark hair who appeared to be in her mid-thirties stepped through the door and up to the bed. Her brown eyes were rimmed in red from her tears and she was sniffling. “Sarah?” Casey asked. She was surprised her sister-in-law had left Lynn’s side. “What are you doing down here?”

“Lynn’s asleep and Stephanie’s sitting with her, so ... I thought I’d come see how you were doing.”

Casey smiled before remembering her manners. “Sarah, this is Elliot and Olivia, two of the detectives I work with. Guys, this is Sarah, my sister-in-law.”

After pleasantries were exchanged, Olivia nudged Elliot. It was painfully obvious that the Novaks needed to talk, and they needed to do so in private. “We’re going to go find some coffee,” she said, smiling. “Does anyone want us to bring back something?”

Neither of the Novaks wanted anything. As the detectives tiptoed from the room, Olivia caught Casey’s eye and managed to give her a tiny smile. The ADA smiled back to let Olivia know that she’d understood her silent message: we’ll be back after you and Sarah talk.

With the detectives gone, Sarah allowed her façade to crack just a little. She sank down in the visitor’s chair and ran a hand through her hair. “How’re you holding up?” Casey asked, wincing at the sheer exhaustion on her sister-in-law’s face.

“All right, I guess” Sarah answered with a half-hearted shrug. “I’m trying to stay strong for Steph. She knows this is serious, but I don’t think she knows exactly how serious. Trying to downplay it for her is actually helping me. Making me deal with it on a more subtle level, anyway.”

Casey coughed. That damned lump in her throat had come back. “Sarah, I am so sorry.”

“Why are you apologizing?” Sarah asked, her brow wrinkling in confusion. She brushed wisps of hair out of her eyes and reached for Casey’s hand. “You have absolutely nothing to apologize for, Casey. You kept my baby alive in there.”

Finally, the tears that Casey had been trying to keep at bay spilled over. She’d been working hard to control her emotions all afternoon--for the sake of every single child in the cafeteria, for Lynn’s sake, for Olivia’s sake, and those emotions could no longer remain bottled. In an instant, Sarah stood from the chair, relocated to the bed, and wrapped Casey in a tight hug.

After a minute or so, Casey managed to regain her composure and pulled out of her sister-in-law’s embrace. She gave a final sniffle and dried her eyes. “Okay. I think I’m good now. Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” Sarah said with a gentle smile.

Casey returned the other woman’s smile. Enough talk about her. It was time to get down to the real reason for Sarah’s visit. “How’s Lynnie doing?”

“Better than expected, actually. Her color’s come back and she’s feeling a little better now that they’ve gotten some medicine into her. Handled the spinal tap like a pro, that little girl of mine.”

“I wouldn’t have expected any less,” Casey said with a smirk. “The child is certainly a trouper. Does Jeff know what’s been going on?”

“Jeff’s on his way home,” Sarah answered. “His boss caught the newscast, called him, and told him he’d booked him a flight home.”

“Wow.” Casey raised her eyebrows slightly in surprise. “That was a nice gesture.”

“Yeah, it was. Jeff was extremely grateful.” With another soft smile, Sarah stood and smoothed the wrinkles out of her clothes. “I should get back upstairs in case Lynn wakes up. I just wanted to check up on you.”

“Thank you,” Casey replied, matching her sister-in-law’s smile. “When Lynn wakes up, will you tell her I love her?”

“Absolutely.” Sarah took Casey’s hand and squeezed. “Thank you again.”

Sarah walked out of the room and Casey was once again left alone. But not for long. No more than a minute or so later, the detectives returned and reclaimed their seats. “You all right?” Olivia asked, noting Casey’s red eyes and tear-stained cheeks.

“Yeah,” Casey murmured. “She thanked me, Liv.”

“And rightfully so,” Elliot said. “You stayed calm and focused enough to give us all that information, all under his nose.”

“Yeah, until that last text,” Casey grumbled, rolling her eyes at herself. “He caught me. I got nervous and I was rushing and he caught me. I feel like the hugest moron.”

Olivia rested her hand over Casey’s, taking care not to put pressure down on the IV. “You are in no way a moron, Casey. Because of you, the team outside was informed and prepared and knew what to expect. You have no idea how much you helped them.”

“Oh, by the way,” Elliot interrupted, turning a smile on the ADA. “Munch wanted me to tell you that texting was a great idea.”

Casey grinned, a blush coloring her cheeks. “I can’t really take the credit for that, though. The idea was Lynn’s. Well, sort of.”

“Sort of?” Olivia asked, raising a single eyebrow.

“She told me to text you when we first heard the gunshots to let you know that we were okay and to ask how you were without calling you and making your phone ring. I just figured that if I could text you, I could text Elliot.” The ADA hid a yawn behind her hand.

“Casey, you’re exhausted,” Elliot said softly. “You should try to get some sleep.”

“Do I have to sing ‘Feed the Birds’ to you?” Olivia teasingly asked. Casey wrinkled her nose at the detective, an action just this side of sticking her tongue out at her.

Elliot looked from the ADA to his partner and back again. “No fair inside jokes.”

“Casey was humming ‘Feed the Birds’ to Lynn to keep her calm,” Olivia said, thinking that would be explanation enough.

“That kid eats, sleeps, and breathes Mary Poppins,” Casey explained further when the confused look refused to budge from Elliot’s face. “Seemed liked a natural choice.” She tiredly rubbed her eyes, looking for a moment like a small child trying to stay awake on Christmas Eve.

“Seriously, Casey, lie down and try to go to sleep,” Olivia said, a small smile on her face in an effort to put her friend at ease. “I know you think you’re not going to be able to sleep, but I think you’ll surprise yourself.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Casey murmured. She leaned her head back against the bed and she had to admit that it felt wonderful to close her eyes for a few seconds. Maybe she would be able to sleep tonight after all. But first, she had to be a gracious hospital patient. She forced her eyes open and smiled at the detectives. “Thanks for checking up on me, guys.”

“Of course,” Elliot said, returning her smile. “You go to sleep and we’ll give you a call in the morning to see how you and Lynn are doing.”

“Sounds like a plan,” the ADA mumbled, her eyes sliding closed again. “G’night, Liv. Night, Elliot.”

“Good night, Casey,” Olivia whispered. Nodding to Elliot to let him know to follow her, she eased herself up from the chair and tiptoed to the door, flipping the light switch on the way out of the room.

-----

Casey Novak was a guest of Hudson Medical for twenty-eight hours on the nose. She’d been on the IV antibiotics for a full day and had shown no sign at all of developing meningitis herself. Her doctor felt comfortable releasing her with a prescription to finish out the course of antibiotics--just in case--and the explicit instruction to get back to the ER immediately if she felt at all sick within the next week or two.

Once she had her walking papers, however, Casey did not go home. She instead took the elevator up two floors to find her niece’s room in the pediatric unit. Once there, she didn’t even have to ask which room was Lynn’s; she just followed her brother’s teasing voice and the sound of Lynn’s weak giggles. Her face was sporting a wide smile as she knocked on the door.

“Auntie Casey!” Lynn exclaimed. As Casey took a seat on the edge of the hospital bed, Lynn pushed off the sheet and light blanket and threw herself at her aunt.

“Well, hello there,” Casey said, laughing as she braced herself against the force of the little girl’s hug. “I take it you’re feeling better.”

“Uh huh!”

She held the girl in a hug for another few seconds, giving her a kiss on the top of her head before letting her go. Then she stood and opened her arms to her brother for a hug. “Hi, Jeff.”

“Hey, Casey,” Jeff said, his embrace considerably stronger than his usual. “Oh God, it’s so good to see you.”

“Oh, whoa,” Casey replied, greeting his concern and relief with her usual brand of sarcasm. She pulled out of the hug and waved her hands in front of her. “Way too mushy in here for me. I think I might have to leave--”

“No no no!” Lynn cried, giggling. “You can’t go, Auntie Casey.”

“I can’t?”

“No! You have to stay here with me. You have to!”

“Well, I guess if I have to,” Casey teased. Lynn gave her a wide grin.

Thankfully, Lynn looked much, much better than she did the day before. The color had returned to her cheeks, and her eyes were bright and shiny. She was still a little weak and sluggish, but nowhere near to the extent that she was before. “How’re you feeling, Peanut?”

“Really, really bored,” she answered with a pout.

Both Casey and Jeff laughed. “She won’t be bored much longer,” Jeff assured his sister. “Sarah and Steph went downstairs to get her a coloring book and some crayons.”

“Actually, we’re upstairs, bearing gifts!” Sarah gave her family a smile as she entered the room holding a Hello Kitty coloring book in one hand a sixteen-color pack of crayons in the other.

Casey greeted her sister-in-law and older niece with tight hugs. As she pulled back to meet Stephanie’s dark eyes, she was surprised to see them glistening with unshed tears. “It’s all okay now, Steph,” she whispered, again pulling her close.

“I know,” Stephanie whispered back, sniffling. She pulled away and wiped her eyes. “But you guys almost weren’t okay.”

“Well, we are,” Casey said, again meeting her niece’s eyes. She found herself echoing Olivia’s sentiment from the previous night. “We’re all okay and that’s what you have to focus on.”

Stephanie nodded, biting her lip as she swallowed her tears. Casey gave her a kiss on the forehead and smiled at her. Finally, Stephanie smiled back.

Just as Casey was about to reclaim her seat on Lynn’s bed, Jeff asked if he could talk to her outside. Lynn protested rather vehemently for such a sick little kid but when Jeff promised that they’d only be out in the hallway a minute or two--and Lynn could even count if she wanted--she relented. She made it clear she wasn’t thrilled but she gave in nonetheless.

“How’s she doing?” Casey asked as soon as she and Jeff were out of earshot.

Jeff glanced into the room through the large window before answering. “Much better on the physical front. Not so sure about the emotional front. She has nightmares every time she falls asleep, and she absolutely refuses to talk about it.”

“Jeff, nightmares are perfectly normal,” Casey assured him. “I had my share of nightmares last night, too.”

“Are you going to refuse to talk about it?”

Casey met her brother’s eyes and gave him a sad half-smile. “There’s really not much to say about it. I’m not going to lie, I was freaking terrified. More than I’ve ever been, and that’s including when I climbed into Corinne Lacey’s treehouse when I was five and refused to climb down.”

Jeff laughed. Typical Casey, attempting to diffuse the situation with humor. “I can’t even imagine how you all held it together.”

“We had to,” she said with a shrug, “for the kids. We couldn’t afford to lose it because we couldn’t afford for them to lose it. If they lost it, he would have lost it.”

“I hope that bastard rots in hell,” Jeff muttered, anger creasing his features

“Well, I have it on good authority that he’s not getting out of jail anytime in the next couple of decades. He wasn’t granted bail. He’s got to answer to charges of murder and attempted murder on top of a couple hundred and change charges of kidnapping and aggravated assault.”

He gave his sister a rueful smile. “Good authority?”

Casey answered his smile with a gentle one of her own. “My detectives. And me. Olivia and I are both testifying and I promise you, there is no way in hell he’s getting away with this.”

Casey’s brother nodded, his eyes again focusing on the window. “Good.” As he watched his daughter get to work on her coloring book, her tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth the way it always did when she concentrated, he sighed. “Now all that’s left is to pick up the pieces.”

The ADA followed his gaze to Lynn. “Honestly? If there’s one silver lining in this whole meningitis mess, it’s that she slept through a good chunk of it and was more than likely too out of it to truly process much of the rest.”

Jeff nodded again, blinking quickly as his lower lip began trembling ever so slightly. Casey groaned, rolling her eyes. “Oh, God. Don’t you start on me, too.”

That got Jeff to laugh and he wrapped his arm around his little sister’s shoulders. “We should get back in there before Lynn climbs out of bed to get us, IV and all.”

After taking a moment to shake off the last of the outward signs of their emotions, Casey and Jeff stepped back into the room. Jeff stood behind his wife, who was seated in the visitor’s chair, and Casey took a seat next to Stephanie at the foot of the bed. Despite the easy conversation and the teasing, at the back of everyone’s mind was how close they came to having their happy little family torn apart.

A quiet knock on the door startled all five of them. In the doorway stood a woman and a little girl Casey recognized from the newscasts are Melissa Connors and Carrie Anne Bradley. Dark circles and splotches of red rimmed their eyes, making it quite obvious that much of their night had been spent crying. “Carrie Anne?” Lynn asked as she shifted a little bit under the covers. “What are you doing here?”

Carrie Anne nervously switched her weight from one foot to the other before her mother ushered her into the room. When a few moments passed and the girl hadn’t yet mustered the courage to say anything, Melissa smiled apologetically at Lynn’s surprised and confused family. “I’m sorry for just dropping in on you like this, but--”

“I-I asked her to bring me here,” Carrie Anne finally spoke up. She was twisting a lock of her dark hair around her finger, a nervous habit. “I just wanted to say that … I’m sorry.”

“For what, sweetie?” Sarah asked. She exchanged a nervous glance with her husband. In all the times Carrie Anne had been at the Novaks’ house, Sarah had never seen her so anxious.

“For what my daddy did.” She looked to Lynn. “I won’t be mad if you don’t want to be my friend anymore.”

The expression on Lynn’s face was one of complete confusion. “Why would I want to stop being your friend?”

“Because of my daddy … and what he did.”

“But you didn’t do anything,” Lynn replied, still frowning. “You’re my best friend, Carrie Anne. I’m not mad at you, and I don’t want to stop being friends with you.”

A wide, relieved grin broke out on Carrie Anne’s face as she dashed up to the bed and wrapped Lynn in a tight hug. “I’m so glad you still like me!” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “We saw Miss Thompson and she’s not mad at me, either!”

“How can she be mad at you?” Lynn asked. “You didn’t do anything. I don’t think anyone’s mad at you.”

“And how is Miss Thompson doing?” Casey asked Melissa.

“Very well, actually,” Carrie Anne’s mother answered. “She’s out of the ICU, and they should be releasing her within the next day or so.”

After holding Lynn in the hug for a moment longer, Carrie Anne pulled away, a grin still on her face. “Hang on. I have something for you.”

The little girl raced back to her mother. “I didn’t think she’d be mad,” Melissa whispered as she drew a small white plush rabbit out from behind her back.

Carrie Anne blushed, took the bunny from her mother’s hand, and ran back to Lynn. She offered her friend the rabbit. “This is to help you get better.”

The adults all met each other’s eyes over the children’s heads. “Thank you,” Melissa mouthed to Sarah, who gave her a wide smile and a nod in return.

As Casey watched the parents and the children--the most innocent victims in the hostage crisis--comfort each other, she felt hot tears begin to brim in her eyes. Apparently she hadn’t gotten all of her emotions out last night with Sarah, as she had thought. Not wanting to break down in front of her family, she quickly excused herself and hurried out of the room before her tears could fall.

It was just luck that Olivia Benson and Elliot Stabler were on their way down the corridor at that moment, searching for Casey. They’d known each other long enough for the detectives to know that Casey would be visiting with Lynn instead of at home where she belonged. As soon as Elliot saw the ADA’s glistening eyes, he pulled Casey into a hug and held on tight, allowing her to cry.

Casey managed to compose herself within a minute or so and finally pulled away from the detective, sniffling. “Sorry.”

Elliot gave her a tiny smile as Olivia reached out to brush a lock of hair out of Casey’s eyes. “Totally fine.”

“And--”

“We can totally pretend it never happened,” he assured her before she could even get the words out.

“Oh, God,” said a male voice from behind them. The three of them turned to find Jeff standing in the doorway, an indulgent and teasing smirk on his face. “You’re starting the waterworks now?”

That got Casey to laugh. She wiped her eyes and swallowed the rest of her tears. “Shut up, brat. Olivia, Elliot, Jeff,” she said, making the hasty introduction. “Jeff, Olivia and Elliot.”

“So you’re my sister’s hostage buddy,” Jeff said, smiling as he extended his hand to Olivia.

It was Olivia’s turn to laugh as she took Jeff’s offered hand. “I see the sarcasm is a Novak family trait.”

“You better believe it.” Casey gave an emphatic nod. The Novak sarcasm was a source of pride. She was about to say as much when she heard Lynn whining for her from the hospital room. “I’m apparently being paged.” She turned to the detectives. “You feel up to joining the chaos?”

“Oh, so chaos is a Novak family trait, too?” Olivia teased as she stepped past Casey into the room.

Casey grinned, locking eyes with Elliot, and then watched as Olivia said hello to Lynn and Sarah and introduced herself to Stephanie, Melissa, and Carrie Anne. Elliot followed and more introductions were made. Lynn was quite clearly having a field day; all these people here to see her! Casey was actually rather surprised that the nurses hadn’t come to kick people out, scolding them about fire hazards or something.

Before walking back into the overcrowded room herself, she took and held a deep, cleansing breath. Their collective nightmare was indeed over. Olivia was safe, Lynn was safe and on her way to being perfectly healthy. Casey herself was safe. Sure, there was a long road to be traveled, with the emotional effects of yesterday’s events still to be dealt with and the trial still ahead of them. But after all she, Lynn, and Olivia had already survived, there was nothing the three of them couldn’t handle.