-----

Olivia Benson’s eyes were filled with sympathy as she watched Casey Novak murmur quietly into the cell phone that was pressed tightly against her ear. She was speaking so softly that from her seat on the easy chair, Olivia could only hear Casey’s voice and not what she was saying. After drawing in a shaky breath, Casey brought her free hand to her forehead and shut her eyes. Olivia wordlessly vacated her seat and nestled in next to the young attorney on the sofa.

Casey immediately welcomed the comfort, turning sideways on the couch so that she could lean back against the detective. She gave a soft half-smile when Olivia’s hand found her free one. For a long while, Casey was quiet, listening intently to the person on the other end of the line. When she was finally able to get a word in, her voice was hushed, gentle. “Sweetie, we’ve been through this before. They won’t--”

Interrupted, she again fell silent. When Olivia felt Casey’s hand begin to tremble in hers, she tightened her grip. Casey squeezed back and from the way she slowly let out a breath through her nose, Olivia could tell that she was attempting to keep tears at bay. “I can’t. It’s not that I don’t want to, you know that. I want it more than anything in the world, but I can’t.”

This time Olivia could hear sobbing through the phone as the tiny voice rose in hysteria.

“Shh,” Casey whispered into the phone. “Maddie, you need to calm down. Take a deep breath … good girl. That’s it.”

Casey continued her quiet and soothing murmuring until the girl calmed. Soon Olivia could no longer hear the small voice. The outburst had exhausted the people on either end of the phone. “It’s getting close to bedtime, honey,” Casey said once the little girl had stopping crying. “Did you say good night to George and Beverly?”

She must have received a satisfactory answer because she nodded her head slightly. “You know you can call me again if you need to, right?” Another beat of silence. “Absolutely. Good night, sweetie.”

After waiting for the click on the other end of the line, Casey snapped her phone shut with a shaking hand. Olivia used the hand that was not entwined with Casey’s to slip the cell phone from the ADA’s grip. She reached behind her back to deposit the phone on the end table and then she began absentmindedly twirling a lock of Casey’s red hair around her finger. “Is everything all right?” she asked although it was obvious from Casey’s body language that things were nowhere near all right.

It was a few seconds before Casey replied and when she did, the helplessness in her voice made Olivia’s breath hitch in her throat. “She’s so sad, Liv. She’s not settling in with the Archers at all.”

“Well, it has only been a month,” Olivia said comfortingly.

“It’s been thirty-seven days.” The ADA didn’t even have to look back to know that a shadow of disbelief and incredulity had crossed the detective’s eyes. “I’ve been keeping track,” she explained weakly.

“Apparently.” The detective sighed softly as she frowned down at Casey in concern.

Ninety-five percent of the time, Olivia was extremely proud of Casey and what she had done, but there was that pesky little five percent in which Olivia cursed--somewhat selfishly--Casey’s involvement in this case. And right now, seeing how all of it was affecting the ADA, this moment was part of that five percent. “All I’m saying is that it hasn’t been that long, in the grand scheme of things. It’s going to take time for a little girl to form a bond with foster parents.”

“But she’s not bonding with them at all.” To anyone else, it would have sounded like Casey was whining. But there was a hint of hopelessness, of failure, of complete desperation that only Olivia could hear. “She’s not letting them in.”

No words were going to be any comfort to the young attorney, Olivia realized. Instead of offering more hollow words, empty comforts, she settled for simply tightening her hand around Casey’s.

Seven weeks earlier, Casey had scared the hell out of the entire sixteenth precinct when Elliot and Olivia wound up having to rush her to the emergency room with a severe case of pneumonia. During her stay in the hospital, Casey met eight-year-old Madelyn Donovan, who was a frequent guest in the pediatric unit while awaiting heart surgery. The ADA and the little girl had formed a fast and extremely close bond, and over the course of conversation, Casey had discovered Kim Donovan’s neglect of her young daughter.

It was a month ago--well, thirty-seven days, going by Casey’s count--that little Maddie was removed from her mother’s care. Or, Olivia supposed, the lack thereof.

Unfortunately for both Casey and Maddie, ACS would not allow Casey to take Maddie in herself, due to both her irregular hours and the nature of her work. Instead Maddie’s social worker, a young woman by the name of Jennifer Lowe who coincidentally was a college acquaintance of Casey’s, had placed the little girl with Beverly and George Archer. They were a pleasant, middle-aged couple who had looked into foster parenting and adoption after learning that they were unable to have children of their own.

A soft and weary voice startled Olivia back to reality. “What happens if the Archers simply give up?”

“Do you really think that they will?” She supposed that answering Casey’s question with one of her own was a little unfair. But she knew how deeply involved Casey was with this case and she wanted to gauge how much of Casey’s concern was her own reaction and not some conclusion she had arrived at based on anything the Archers had told her in confidence.

“The human heart can only take so much rejection, Liv. Sooner or later, they’re going to have to wonder if this is really a good match.”

So it was Casey’s own reaction. Olivia wasn’t quite sure how she felt about that. Obviously it was better for everyone involved that the Archers themselves hadn’t said they were ready to give up, but she hated that Casey was so distraught over the whole thing.

She let out a soft sigh and lightly rested her chin on the top of Casey’s head. She stopped twirling the lock of hair and instead began running her fingers through it, brushing wispy strands out of the ADA’s eyes. “Do you think it’s a good match?”

The ADA was quiet for a long while, so long in fact that Olivia was beginning to wonder if she’d dropped off to sleep. She’d certainly sounded worn out and exhausted after that phone call. “I think it could be a good match if she’d just let them in. I don’t understand why she’s being so guarded.”

“Casey, you knew this was going to be a hard adjustment for her,” Olivia murmured softly.

“I know,” Casey answered with a sigh. “I just didn’t realize that it was going to be this hard.”

Olivia shut her eyes and sighed quietly. The past thirty-seven days had not been easy for anybody involved with the Donovan case. Maddie had to deal with the fact that her whole life had been tossed into a state of upheaval on top of having to recover from open-heart surgery. She had built tall and strong walls around herself and she adamantly refused to let them down. George and Beverly Archer had been warned ahead of time that they were in for a long and emotionally trying road and they were trying their hardest not to take Maddie’s resistance personally.

And poor Casey was stuck in the middle. She tried to comfort the Archers and assure them that Maddie was just going through an understandably difficult time and that she’d come around eventually. On top of that, she had sort of become Maddie’s unofficial therapist. She was the only one Maddie would really talk to, and every evening the ADA received a phone call from the little girl.

They talked about everything and nothing: Maddie’s day at school, what she did with her friends, the activities in her after-school art program. Casey had told her more than once that all these topics were things that she should have been discussing with the Archers, but she didn’t mind allowing the girl to talk her ear off.

At least when the phone calls had gone well, Casey was still putting her faith in the system and herself, sure that she had done the right thing. But over the past few nights, the calls were ending with Maddie in tears and begging Casey to let her live with her and Casey close to tears, regretfully reminding her that she couldn’t.

After another long stretch of silence, Olivia again squeezed Casey’s hand. It was probably a futile attempt at comfort, but it was the only thing she could do. “Just give it a little more time, Casey. It’ll work itself out.”

Casey let out a heavy breath through her nose. “I’m glad you think so,” she mumbled wearily, “because I’m not so sure.”

-----

Elliot Stabler was able to instantly tell from the way that Olivia expertly dialed without even looking at the phone that she was calling their ADA. He smirked; that was so … cute. Though, Olivia would kill him if he ever expressed that opinion out loud.

As Olivia waited for the call to connect, she pressed the receiver between her ear and her shoulder and shuffled through the piles of paper on her desk. With a wary eye on his partner, Elliot returned his attention to his own paperwork. When he heard her hang up the phone with a barely audible groan, he raised his eyes to meet hers. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” she answered with a shake of her head. “Got kicked to voice mail.”

Elliot frowned, his brow wrinkling. It was unlike Casey not to answer her phone. But before he could even get one questioning word out, John Munch decided to insert himself into the conversation. “Hey, did you just call Novak?” he asked on his way back to his desk after a coffee refill. “Did she happen to say when she was going to bring me my warrant? ‘Cause Fin and I are stuck here until she does.”

Olivia gave a slight eye-roll in Elliot’s direction. It was never a good thing when Munch and Fin were waiting on something. Neither of them had an abundance of patience, and their bickering tended to escalate. “I did just call Novak,” she said, giving Munch an apologetic smile, “but she didn't answer.” Maybe that’s why, she thought. Maybe she was in the middle of getting a judge to sign off on the warrant.

Munch mumbled something under his breath, but it was too quiet for either Elliot or Olivia to hear properly.

Olivia laid out the financial statements she was poring over side by side. To anyone else, it would have appeared as if she was studying the papers intently, but Elliot wasn’t a detective for nothing. Her eyes were too still for her to be reading something, and he knew that her mind was miles elsewhere. He leaned forward in his chair, rested his elbows on his desk, and addressed his partner in a quiet voice. No way for Munch or Fin to eavesdrop on this conversation. “You seem worried.”

As Olivia’s gaze focused on him, a flicker of a frown crossed her face. Elliot understood; she was concerned that he was concerned. Then she put on a small smile, one that he could tell was purely for his benefit. “I’m not. Not really. The call didn’t go well last night and I just wanted to see how she was doing.” She shrugged dismissively. “Doesn’t matter. I’m sure I’ll get to talk to her later on today.”

Elliot gave her a slight nod, not quite believing that her inability to reach Casey didn’t matter. But he knew better than to force the issue. Time to go through his own stack of paperwork. “Is Maddie settling in at all?” he asked. Not prying, merely curious.

“Not according to Casey,” Olivia mumbled with a sad shake of her head. “She won’t admit it, but the guilt is eating her alive.”

“Still?” Elliot asked. It was no secret that Casey blamed herself for the hardships Maddie was facing. In her way of thinking, since she was the one who had brought Maddie’s case to the attention of ACS, it made her solely responsible. But he could have sworn that Casey had forgiven herself a bit and had finally been able to see that she had helped Maddie more than she could ever imagine.

Olivia nodded, sighing heavily. She searched her partner’s eyes. “Everything that she was afraid would happen is happening, Elliot. She’s beside herself.”

“Transition is never easy,” Elliot said gently. “She had to know that this wasn’t going to be a cakewalk.”

“Oh, she knew this was going to be hard,” Olivia agreed, “but I don’t think she could have ever anticipated Maddie being so unhappy that she would call her every night, crying and pleading to live with her. It hurt her enough having to tell Maddie once that she couldn’t take her. But every night? She’s breaking the kid’s heart over and over again, and each time she does, she’s breaking her own.”

Surprise lit the male detective’s eyes. He’d had no idea that Maddie’s melancholy was so strong. He had known that she and the Archers were having trouble connecting, but it hadn’t reached a breaking point last he knew. Since he was sure that the sick feeling he felt in the pit of his stomach at the mere thought of having a conversation like that with a little kid was a mere fraction of what Casey was feeling, he could understand why she’d be blaming herself all the more. “How long has that been going on?”

“Few days,” Olivia replied, shrugging. “It’s killing her, Elliot.”

“Yeah, I can see why.”

No amount of reminding Olivia that both Casey and Maddie were strong and that the Archers seemed to be in it for the long haul was going to reassure her. Elliot simply nodded and allowed a comfortable silence to fall between them.

A surprisingly quiet hour passed with only the occasional interruption from Fin and Munch. Their impatience had turned to boredom and they had begun quizzing each other on the names of characters in old television shows. A few times, Elliot and Olivia met each other’s eyes and snickered at their colleagues, and during one particularly loud argument, Don Cragen had come out of his office to inform his detectives that in fact they were both correct because both Agent 13 and Agent 44 hid in random and ridiculous places on Get Smart.

Just as Munch began gloating over the fact that Fin was drawing a blank on the names of Rob and Laura Petrie’s next-door neighbors on The Dick Van Dyke Show, Casey stepped through the doors of the squad room. “Jerry and Millie Helper,” she answered for Fin. “I can hear the two of you out in the hallway.”

“Ugh! I knew that, too,” Fin said, shaking his head at himself. “Damn.”

Munch turned in his seat, intending to give the ADA a hard time about taking her sweet time with his warrant, but as soon as he saw the look on her face, he gave her a half-smile. “You’re grinnin’ like a four-year-old on Christmas, Novak,” he said, appraising her over the top of his glasses.

“I am?” she asked with a slight giggle. “I suppose I should stop that.”

“Don’t you dare,” Olivia spoke up, smiling warmly. “It looks good on you.”

A touch of pink colored Casey’s cheeks. Munch just smirked. Despite the ribbing he gave the ADA and the detective over their budding relationship, he was secretly quite happy for them. At first they’d been afraid to say anything to anyone, afraid that it would have been too much of a surprise. But when they finally did come clean, Munch told them that it was about damn time they admitted to themselves that they had feelings for each other.

Casey cleared her throat--her trademark indication that she was slipping into business mode--and presented Munch with the warrant he and Fin had been waiting for. “Gets you in the apartment and the storage facility.”

Munch was out of his seat in an instant. “You’re a lifesaver, Casey,” he said as he took the papers from her hand. He meant it, too. Getting into the storage unit as well was certainly a happy surprise. As he passed by his partner’s desk, he kicked Fin's foot. Fin gave an exaggerated roll of his eyes at John’s back but wordlessly followed him out the double-door.

With the two of them gone, a blissful hush fell over the precinct. Casey perched on the corner of Olivia’s desk and glanced at the paperwork the detective was rifling through. “Ah, bank statements,” she said with feigned nostalgia. “Add credit card statements and multiple accounting ledgers and you’ve got my days in White Collar.”

Olivia looked up at the ADA with a raised eyebrow. “What’s the deal with the perma-smile?” she asked, returning Casey’s wide grin in spite of herself.

The ADA’s green eyes sparkled, and it was obvious that she had been just dying for someone to ask her was what going on. “I’m going to have company this weekend!”

“Company?” Olivia asked with a frown. “It can’t be your parents. You’re nowhere near stressed out enough for that.”

“Not my parents.” Impossibly, Casey’s smile widened and the story came out in a huge rush. “I guess months ago the Archers RSVPed to an out-of-town wedding and it’s too late now to bring Maddie with them. So Jen’s arranged to have her come stay with me! I get her Saturday afternoon and she leaves Sunday afternoon.”

The detectives immediately glanced at each other with concerned eyes. Considering Maddie’s current insistence on living with Casey, that didn’t sound like the wisest decision. Elliot gave his partner an almost imperceptible nod, silently telling her that he would gently broach the subject first. “Won’t that ... confuse things a little?”

The bright smile immediately dropped from Casey’s face. “Oh, please don’t do this.”

“We’re not ‘doing’ anything, Casey,” Olivia said softly. Obviously she was hoping that if she were calm, Casey would remain so as well. “We’re just worried, is all. About all of you.”

“But you don’t need to be worried,” Casey argued, frowning down at Olivia.

“Just ... think about it,” Olivia insisted, exchanging another glance with Elliot. “Are you sure you’re going to be all right with letting her go on Sunday? Are you sure she’s going to be all right with letting you go?”

“We did think about it,” Casey said, her tone bordering on indignant. “Jen actually thinks I might be able to get her to open up a little, maybe enough to tell me why she’s being so resistant to George and Beverly.” She sighed quietly, sadly, and lowered her voice. “She’s wondering if it’s a personality conflict and she’s considering moving Maddie if she doesn’t ... if things don’t ...”

Instinctively, Olivia rested her hand on Casey’s knee, and when Casey finally looked up, the green eyes that had just moments before been shining brightly were now clouded with brimming tears. “I can’t let that happen. The Archers love her, and even though she doesn’t show it, I’m sure she loves them. Just for some reason, she doesn’t want to let them in. This has to work, Olivia. I don’t want her getting lost in the system.”

Olivia met her partner’s eyes and he gave her a sad shrug. Both of them knew that Casey was too wound up now to be easily comforted. “Casey, look,” she said, clearing her throat, “things not working out once doesn’t mean she’s going to get lost in the system. Sometimes it really is just trial and error. Maybe the Archers just aren’t the parents for Maddie.”

The ADA adamantly shook her head. “No. You haven’t really seen them with her, Liv. They adore her, and I know she could love them back if she just tried.” She sighed and looked from Olivia to Elliot and back again. “Look, I know you two think that this an awful idea, but ... just be happy for me about Saturday? Please?”

After moment’s pause to exchange another glance with Elliot, Olivia smiled at Casey and gripped one of her hands. “Of course we’re happy for you. You and Maddie are going to have a great time together.”

Despite the fact that she knew the detective’s words were mostly hollow, the easy smile returned to Casey’s face. “Thank you.” She stood from her spot on Olivia’s desk and smoothed the wrinkles out of her suit. “I should go. I have a meeting in chambers with Prindle’s defense in forty-five minutes.”

“What’s that scumbag trying to pull now?” Elliot asked in disgust. He had seen a lot of sick and twisted individuals in his years with the SVU, but Joseph Prindle was easily the worst.

“Motion to dismiss, but don’t worry about it,” she answered with a small shrug. “Petrovsky’s going to have no choice but to toss it. The logic is crap.”

Olivia snorted in amusement. “I trust your argument is worded a bit more eloquently.”

“Always is!” Casey grinned. She turned and headed for the door, calling over her shoulder, “Bye, guys. I’ll give you a call to let you know how the meeting went.”

Elliot waited until the doors closed behind the ADA to fix a frown on his partner. “You’re sure she and Maddie will have a great time together?”

Olivia just shrugged. “It’s not a lie. I’m sure they will.” She sighed before standing and snatching her coffee mug off the corner of her desk. She poured more of the dark liquid into her cup. “What happens on Sunday when the Archers come to pick Maddie up, though. That’s a different story.”

“And what you’re worried about,” Elliot said.

Olivia gave her partner a rueful smile. “Bingo.”

-----

Casey Novak placed her hands on her hips and blew an annoying stray lock of hair out of her eyes. She quickly scanned her surroundings and bit her lower lip before turning to Olivia, who was watching from the sofa with an amused expression on her face. “Does everything look clean enough?” she nervously asked the detective. “I mean, I’ve Febrezed and Endusted and vacuumed, but I don’t know--”

“Would you calm down?” Olivia chuckled. “Your apartment is absolutely spotless, but even if it wasn’t? She’s eight. It’s not like she’s going to care.”

“I know, but I still want things to be clean.” She glanced down at the dust cloth and the can of furniture polish, both of which she’d left on the right-hand end table. No, she’d dusted plenty, so much so that the lemony scent of the furniture polish was beginning to overpower the fruity aroma of the candle she’d lit.

As her gaze alit on the sofa, she inhaled sharply. She snatched up the afghan that was draped over the back of the couch and began unfolding it.

There was an amused sparkle in Olivia’s eyes even as she frowned at the ADA. “What are you doing?”

“The folds aren’t straight,” Casey answered, the “duh” implied in her tone.

With an indulgent smirk that betrayed the slight roll of her eyes, the detective stood and rested her hands on the ADA’s shoulders. “Seriously, you need to relax. Maddie isn’t going to give a damn if the folds in the blanket are straight. All she cares about is being able to spend time with you.”

She’s right, of course, Casey thought as she held a deep breath before letting it out through her nose. It didn’t matter how clean her apartment was, although she always cleaned for company. All that truly mattered was that Maddie have a good time.

Ever since learning on Thursday that Maddie was going to stay with her for the weekend, Casey had been in Extreme Planning Overload. Thursday night, she’d tamed the piles of paperwork and copies of crime scene photos that had taken over her kitchen table, organized them, and filed everything away. For the first time she actually used the lock on the small file cabinet next to her computer desk so that there was no way Maddie could get into it. Then she’d reorganized the medicine cabinet in her bathroom, placing the more dangerous items on the top shelves. Maddie was old enough to know better than to take anything from the medicine cabinet without asking, but still. Better to be safe than sorry.

However, making her apartment child-friendly was only a small part of it. She’d gone out last night to buy extra food; snacks and soda, mostly. Though Casey had plenty of food in the apartment, her refrigerator always tended to look like a bachelor’s fridge: practically empty. A dozen half-liter bottles of water, a quart of milk, and a couple of half-empty two-liters of ginger ale and iced tea lined the top shelf, her bread and sandwich meats were on the middle shelf, and leftovers and take-out containers lined the bottom.

An unopened bottle of orange soda was now chilling in the fridge, and two bags of chips, a jar of ranch dip, and a box of microwave popcorn were sitting on her counter, all awaiting Maddie’s arrival. And she had bought all the fixings for ice cream sundaes. Casey drew in another calming breath and nodded at Olivia. “I’m going overboard, aren’t I?”

Olivia smiled as she tugged the afghan out of Casey’s hands. “Overboard” was putting it mildly. “You are going a bit overboard, but it’s cute.” She refolded the blanket and replaced it in its rightful spot on the sofa. Then she slid her hand into Casey’s and gently pulled her down so that they both sank into the couch’s fluffy cushions. “So what’s your plan for tonight?” Olivia asked, wrapping her arm around the ADA’s shoulders.

“Well, I’m making her spaghetti and meatballs for dinner,” she said as she relaxed into Olivia’s embrace. “It’s her favorite.”

Olivia raised an eyebrow at her. “You never told me that you can cook.”

“I can’t,” Casey said with a laugh. “But how hard can it be to boil some pasta and heat up some Prego and frozen meatballs?”

Olivia laughed. “Fair point. What else?”

“She wants to show me a movie, so I bought popcorn for that. Then I figure we can play games or something. I bought Clue because she said it’s her favorite and Munch gave me that deck of cards when I was in the hospital. And I found my mancala set from when I was a kid. I can teach her that if she doesn’t already know it.”

“You are planning to, you know, sleep tonight, aren’t you?” Olivia asked with a soft chuckle.

Casey smiled and dropped her gaze down to her hands, blushing slightly in embarrassment. Yeah, she had definitely gone way overboard. “Yes. I just don’t want her to be bored, so I have options.”

“She won’t be bored,” Olivia assured her. “When are Beverly and George dropping her off?”

The ADA lifted her eyes to the clock on her cable box and gasped. “Whoa, any minute now!” She shot up from the sofa, startling Olivia.

The detective snickered at Casey before standing from the couch herself. “Relax,” she said, drawing out each syllable so that it was its own word.

In the past few weeks, Olivia had learned that high on the list of Things To Do To Keep Casey Calm was to get her talking about something else to take her mind off of what was upsetting her. Or, in this case, stressing her out. “What are you doing for breakfast tomorrow?”

Unfortunately, that was the wrong question to ask. Casey’s eyes widened further. “Oh, God, I don’t know! I was so concerned with tonight that I never stopped to think about tomorrow!”

Olivia couldn’t help giggling in amusement. “Well, it’s not like there’s no place to get food in this city. That diner around the corner has good waffles. She likes waffles, doesn’t she?”

“She’s more of a pancake kind of kid,” Casey mumbled. Crap. Now what?

Suddenly Casey’s eyes lit up. She knew someone who made fantastic pancakes! She turned to the detective with a wide, brown-nosing grin. “You know you want to come over tomorrow morning and make us pancakes.”

Regardless of the fact that Olivia knew she was being played, she gave Casey a touched smile. She felt horrible about it, especially considering how much both Maddie and Casey needed it, but Olivia had to admit to being the tiniest bit jealous when she’d first found out about the plans for the weekend. The little girl’s visit was going to seriously cut into the time that Olivia normally spent with Casey. And now that she was being included, she felt even more foolish for being jealous. “You’re sure I won't be intruding? I don’t want to get in the way.”

“Liv, you’re never in the way.”

The detective smiled at that, too. “I’ll be happy to make pancakes for you and Maddie. And myself, of course.”

Casey’s shoulder muscles visibly relaxed in relief. “Thank you.”

Before Olivia had a chance to assure Casey that it was no big deal, there was a soft knock on the front door. Casey’s excited eyes met Olivia’s for a moment and the detective grinned at her. Casey hurried up to the door and wrapped her hand around the knob. She gave a cursory glance through the peephole--a mere formality since she knew who was on the other side.

Casey barely had the door open an inch before a grinning Madelyn Donovan dashed inside and wrapped her arms around Casey’s waist, squealing in excitement. “Whoa!” Casey exclaimed, laughing as she returned the girl’s embrace. “Hiya, Maddie!”

“Hi hi hi!” the little girl answered back. She looked up and met Casey’s eyes as the ADA ruffled her dark curls. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever!”

“It’s only been a week and a half,” Casey smiled. She wished she could visit Maddie a bit more often than she did, but Jennifer Lowe had told Casey not to make too much of a habit of stopping in to see her. Not until she settled down a little bit.

“I know,” Maddie said through a sigh, “but it feels like a lot longer.”

After holding Maddie in the hug for another few seconds, Casey let go and turned her attention to the Archers, greeting them in turn. As the ADA closed the door behind her visitors, Olivia said her hellos.

With the pleasantries exchanged, Beverly shifted the slightly heavy canvas bag filled with Maddie’s clothes, the movie she wanted to show Casey, a couple of stuffed animals, and other necessities. “Good luck tonight,” she said to the ADA, chuckling. “She’s been off the wall since she got up this morning.”

Maddie beamed and reached out to take the bag from Beverly’s hand. “Thank you for carrying my stuff, Beverly.”

“You’re quite welcome, sweetheart,” Beverly replied with a gentle smile.

Sensing that the Archers and Casey wanted a moment to talk alone, Olivia rested a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Come on, Maddie. Let’s get your things dropped off in Casey's room.” The statement was met with three grateful smiles.

Once he was sure that Maddie and Olivia were far enough away, George turned to Casey, his voice hushed. “This is the most animated we’ve ever seen her.” He pulled his glasses off and began polishing the lenses, a nervous habit.

Casey did not mistake the pain in his tone. Oh, how hard it must be to try to be a foster parent to a little girl who’d shown the most excitement when going to stay with someone else. “Part of the reason Jen wanted me to take her is to see if maybe I can get her to open up a little. It’s obvious that the two of you love her, and I know that deep down, she loves you, too. I don’t know why she’s being so difficult.”

“She’s not being difficult,” Beverly insisted. She met her husband’s eyes as she ran her fingers through her shoulder-length dirty blond hair. “I mean, not on purpose. She’s a pleasant, well-behaved child but she’s also very independent. She’s never had anyone truly take care of her and she’s just … adjusting.”

George wrapped his arm around his wife’s shoulders, an unconscious gesture of comfort. “I can’t imagine how hard this all is for her,” he said, nodding towards the empty space where Maddie had been standing. “I just wish we knew what we could do to make it easier.”

Casey reached out and touched George’s arm in sympathy. “I’ll do my best to figure out what’s going on.”

Beverly nodded, sniffling, but she quickly wiped her eyes to cover her tears when she saw Olivia and Maddie emerge from the small hallway on their return from dropping off Maddie’s overnight bag. The little girl broke away from the detective and sidled up to Casey, slipping her hand into the ADA’s.

The wounded look passed between husband and wife did not escape Casey. Her heart was breaking for the couple, and in some ways she felt responsible for their heartache. She didn’t understand why Maddie was so readily at ease with her and not the couple, and she knew that they didn’t understand it, either. At least Casey was on the receiving end. She couldn’t imagine how much it must hurt to be on the Archers’ end.

“We have to get going, kiddo,” George said, clearing his throat before fixing a smile on the little girl. “You be good for Casey, okay?”

“I will,” Maddie replied, matching his smile.

“That’s my girl,” George said, soft and fatherly. He bent down and gave Maddie a kiss on the top of her head.

Beverly leaned down to do the same. “Good night, baby,” she said around a lump that was beginning to form in her throat. She looked up for a moment at Casey, who was instantly able to tell that the woman hadn’t expected that it would hurt so much to leave Maddie. Her eyes quickly fell back to the girl. “I love you.”

“Good night, Beverly,” Maddie replied, giving her foster mother a warm smile. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Casey exchanged a glance with Olivia; Maddie hadn’t returned the affection, just the good night wishes. George tapped his wife’s shoulder, a silent indication that they really needed to get on the road if they were going to make it to the wedding ceremony on time.

The Archers walked down the hallway, hand in hand, and Casey waited until they disappeared from her view to close the apartment door. Then she faced Olivia and Maddie and turned a grin on both of them. “Okay! I have like, seven thousand and one things planned. What do you want to do first?”

-----

A serious conversation with an eight-year-old turned out to be something that was not all that easy to schedule. Casey had been waiting all afternoon for the proverbial right time--a quiet moment when Maddie would be both calm and amenable to answering difficult questions--but the right time never seemed to arise.

After the Archers left, Casey had poured drinks for everyone--orange soda for Maddie and iced tea for Olivia and herself. The first thing Maddie had insisted on was getting Clue set up on the kitchen table. The three of them played two games, both of which Olivia won. After her second win, Casey jokingly refused to play another game with her since she was sort of cheating, what with being a detective and all. Both Olivia and Maddie had laughed but they agreed to the Clue moratorium.

They began playing cards instead. Maddie not only knew how to play draw poker but she was also surprisingly good at it. Soon the little girl had the largest pile of potato chips--Casey’s version of poker chips--of the three of them! Of course, they all kept nibbling on their spoils so none of them knew who really had won, but consensus was that Maddie was the victor.

After a game of Concentration, the detective excused herself and left Casey and Maddie on their own. By the time the they finished one game of War and two games of Go Fish, it was time for Casey to start dinner.

Maddie had followed Casey around the kitchen, alternating between chattering on and on excitedly about this and that and watching Casey intently and asking what she was doing. “Oh, sweetie, you really don’t want me teaching you how to cook,” the ADA had laughed, but when Maddie pouted, Casey smiled and pushed up her sleeves to prepare for a bit of instruction.

She had explained each step of the process while impressing upon Maddie the importance of asking for supervision before attempting to cook anything by herself. In turn, Maddie had reminded Casey that she used to make macaroni and cheese for herself all the time, and boiling spaghetti didn’t look all that different.

“Regardless,” Casey had insisted, “ask first.”

There was no time between narrating the cooking of dinner and actually getting it on the table to begin a serious discussion, and the one thing Casey had promised herself was that she would not start it over dinner. Every time her parents had wanted to have a big talk with her, they chose to do so over dinner. And every single time, she’d lost her appetite by the time the conversation was finished. There was no way she wanted to do that Maddie, especially over her favorite meal!

But now it finally seemed like the right time. The movie Maddie had wanted to show Casey--a cute little story about two teenage girls searching for a lost treasure--was already over and the television was tuned to some cartoon channel that Casey hadn’t even been aware was included in her cable package.

Not that Casey was paying that much attention to it. At Maddie’s request, she was seated behind the little girl on the sofa, playing with her hair. She ran the brush through Maddie’s long, dark curls until they bounced, completely tangle-free, and started a French braid. As good a time as any, she thought as she drew in a deep breath. “Maddie, can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” Maddie replied with a shrug. Her attention was mostly on the cartoon.

“Do you like the Archers?”

Maddie was quiet for a long beat, but Casey was unable to tell whether it was because she was distracted by the television or because she was considering her answer. “They’re really nice to me.”

Way to dodge the question. Casey gave a soft groan; as if this conversation wasn’t going to be difficult enough. “That’s good that they’re nice to you. Do you like them?”

The little girl shrugged again, her voice non-committal. “I guess. They take good care of me.”

“They take good care of you because they love you.”

Maddie simply nodded and took a handful of now-cold popcorn out of the bowl. A stalling tactic if Casey ever saw one.

The ADA let the conversation drop as she continued to fiddle with Maddie’s hair. Obviously she was going to have to dig a little deeper but she didn’t want Maddie to glom onto the fact that this talk had been planned. “You do know that they love you, right?” she asked a few moments later, injecting her voice with a casual lilt.

“I know,” Maddie replied. Her voice was softer now, serious. “I know that you love me, too.”

“Yes, I do,” Casey said, smiling in spite of herself.

“And now I know that my mom doesn’t.”

That was something Casey hadn’t been expecting in the slightest. She immediately dropped the French braid with a gasp and gently placed her hands on Maddie’s shoulders. “What makes you say that?”

The little girl shifted on the sofa so that she was looking Casey in the eye. “Well … you love me and you take care of me, and the Archers love me and they take care of me.” Maddie sniffled. “My mom never really took care of me. She left me by myself a lot. And she never said she loved me the way you do or the way Beverly does and George does. She never did love me, did she?”

Oh, shit, Casey thought. Maddie’s dark eyes clouded with tears as they searched Casey’s green ones. The girl bit her trembling lower lip to keep herself from crying, and Casey pulled her into a tight hug.

To say that Casey had absolutely no idea what to say would have been a gross understatement. Her belief was indeed that Kim Donovan never truly loved her daughter but there was no way in hell she actually wanted to tell Maddie that. On the other hand, she didn’t want to lie to the poor kid, either. “I don’t think she loved you in the same way that the Archers love you or the same way that I love you,” she said instead.

Instantly she hated herself. As a child, she’d always hated when adults gave her roundabout non-answers as a way of sugarcoating the truth, and she’d just done the same damn thing to Maddie.

“No!” Maddie cried, and at first Casey thought she was upset by what she had just been told. What she said next changed the ADA’s mind. “Tell me the truth.”

Casey inhaled deeply and tightened her grip on Maddie. No, this was entirely too cruel. But if that was what Maddie wanted … “Are you absolutely, positively sure that you want the truth?” She felt Maddie nod. “No, Maddie. I don’t think she did.”

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Casey wished she could take them back. Nausea churned in her stomach and her mouth started to water. She’d had to deliver plenty of hard truths before but never one as difficult as that. Maddie’s embrace grew stronger as she buried her face in the ADA’s shoulder.

“But you know what?” Casey whispered, gently rocking the little girl. “That’s her damn loss. You are an amazing little girl, Maddie. You’re strong and you’re full of life and love and giggles and kindness. I feel extremely lucky to have you in my life.”

Maddie pulled away and sniffled. She sat back on her heels so that she was looking up at Casey. “You really, really mean that?”

“I really, really do,” Casey answered, cupping the little girl’s cheek with the palm of her hand and smiling. “Everybody who knows you feels the same way. You’re a fantastic kid, Maddie.”

Fresh tears fell from Maddie’s eyes as she again wrapped her arms around Casey in a tight hug. Casey could only hold her until she calmed. After coughing and running her hands over her face to dry her eyes, Maddie pulled out of the hug. “I’m really, really, really mad at my mom right now. That’s not mean, is it?”

“Not at all, honey,” Casey assured her. “In fact, it’s perfectly normal.”

Maddie gave a sniffling nod and dropped her gaze to her hands. “Can I ask you something else?”

“Absolutely.”

“It’s okay with George, I guess, since I haven’t seen my dad since I was really little. But with Beverly ... if I do like her, will my mom be mad at me?”

“Oh, Maddie,” Casey whispered. It was suddenly clear to her why Maddie had been so distant with the Archers: she’d been afraid of somehow betraying her mother. “Of course not. Your mom would want you to be happy, sweetheart. If being with Beverly and George makes you happy, then she would never be mad at you for that.”

Truthfully, Casey wondered whether Kim Donovan even thought about her daughter anymore, never mind cared enough about her to feel betrayed when the girl gave someone else love and affection. But all she said to Maddie was, “I’m sure your mom will understand that there’s room enough in your heart for her and the Archers at the same time.”

Maddie shifted on Casey’s lap, leaning back against her without saying a word. Casey was content to just hold her, giving the girl as much comfort as she possibly could. When Maddie finally spoke up again, she sounded exhausted. “Casey? I love you.”

“I love you, too, sweetheart,” Casey whispered back, planting a kiss on the top of the little girl’s head.

A few minutes later, Maddie gave a final sniffle and climbed off Casey’s lap so that the ADA could once again style her hair. Casey allowed a half-smile as she ran the brush through Maddie's curls to re-prep them for the French braid.

Though Casey never wanted to live through another conversation like that again--it had exhausted the both of them--she had to admit that it had been extremely productive. Now that Maddie knew that she was not being disloyal to her mother by allowing the Archers in, Casey had a funny feeling she’d start settling in a whole lot better. Oh, I can’t wait to tell Beverly and George! she thought excitedly.

-----

Hugging Jonathan tightly usually calmed Maddie down, but he was not helping her very much tonight. The fluffy brown teddy bear was a present from Casey just after Maddie had her surgery, and he looked just like the bear that Casey’s friend Elliot had given her when she was sick in the hospital. Maddie had named Casey’s bear Charlie, and the two of them had come to the quick conclusion that Jonathan and Charlie were brothers.

A brilliant flicker of light illuminated Casey’s living room, and Maddie whimpered, cowering under the covers. It was bad enough waking from a nightmare in an unfamiliar place. Poor Maddie had awoken from a nightmare in an unfamiliar place only to discover that a thunderstorm was pushing its way through the area. And from the sound of it, the storm must have decided to come to a dead stop directly above Casey’s building.

Maddie turned over, tugged the blanket over her head, and pressed her thumbs into her ears, but it didn’t matter. She could still see the bright flashes of light through the covers and she could still hear the deep roar of thunder.

A deafening boom finally drove Maddie out from under the covers of the pullout sofa. She kept a firm hold on Jonathan as she tiptoed down the short hall to Casey’s room. Suddenly nervous, she paused in the doorway. “Casey?” Unfortunately, another low rumbling muffled her voice.

Casey remained still, curled on her side, even as the rumbling crescendoed into a loud clap that shook the apartment walls. Maddie jumped and let out a frightened cry. Her fear far outweighing her nerves, she darted into the room and up to the side of the bed. She tearfully called out again for Casey, louder this time.

At the sound of the terrified voice, the ADA started and blearily pushed herself up onto her elbow. “Maddie?” she asked, her own voice thick with sleep. “What’s the matter?”

As if in answer to Casey’s question, another flash of lightning lit the dark bedroom, followed by an immediate whip-crack of thunder. “Holy crap,” Casey muttered. It sounded like the storm was directly above her ceiling! Suddenly understanding why Maddie had woken her, she said, “You’re afraid of thunderstorms.”

Maddie vigorously nodded her head. “And I had a bad dream.”

“Uh oh, double trouble.”

Again Maddie nodded, tightening her grip on the teddy bear. “Can I stay in here with you?” Anticipating Casey’s hesitation, she hastily added, “Just until the storm’s over? Please?”

Allowing Maddie to stay in her room would only confuse things more than they already were, but it was obvious that the little girl was not going to be easily calmed and Casey could already feel herself falling back to sleep. “Of course, hon,” she said as she forced herself to climb out of bed.

“What are you doing?” Maddie asked, frowning up at the ADA.

“Tucking you in,” Casey answered with a gentle smile.

A grin spread across Maddie’s face. Casey held the covers up as Maddie climbed in and made herself comfortable on her back, holding Jonathan tightly against her side. Once the little girl was settled, Casey draped the sheet and blanket over her and tugged the comforter around her shoulders.

After telling Maddie to close her eyes and relax, Casey glanced at the clock. Five-freaking-thirty, she thought with a barely audible whimper. Olivia would be over in … three and a half hours to start making breakfast. Or was it two and a half? Math at five-thirty in the morning was not her strong suit.

Sighing, she rounded the bed and settled down on top of the covers facing Maddie. The girl still hadn’t shut her eyes and, from what little Casey could see in the lightning, seemed to be pouting. “Don’t even think about it, sweetie,” Casey whispered as her own eyes slid closed.

“But it’s loud,” Maddie whined before crying out as another loud clap of thunder tore through the night sky.

“Shh.” To calm the girl, Casey began humming softly and reached out to brush a wispy lock of hair off the girl’s forehead.

“That song’s pretty,” Maddie mumbled sleepily, turning onto her side. “Does it have words?”

Casey snickered. “You don’t want me singing to you.”

“Please?” Maddie asked, pouting. If she thought Casey could see her expression in the dark, she would have batted her eyelashes at her.

Casey sighed, teasingly rolling her eyes. “All right, just for you. But if I do this for you, you have to close your eyes for me.”

Maddie nodded; she supposed that was a fair trade-off. She shut her eyes and snuggled under the covers, tucking her hands under the pillows while simultaneously hugging Jonathan against her chest. Though she was trying to focus on the lyrics of Casey’s song--something about candles and water or in water--the roaring thunder kept forcing her to open her eyes.

“Where’d you learn that song?” Maddie asked after a moment. Maybe Casey wouldn’t realize that she was stalling.

“My mom used to sing it to me when I had trouble sleeping at night,” she answered. “Seriously, Maddie, close your eyes.”

Maddie did as she was told and focused her attention solely on Casey’s soft lullaby. Moments later, she finally drifted off to sleep.

-----

A loud, insistent rapping sound pulled Maddie out of her slumber. As she opened her eyes, she groaned softly. Bright sunlight filtered into the room around the edges and through the slits of the window blinds. From the look of it now, the previous night’s thunderstorm was nothing but a bad memory.

She groggily pushed herself up into a sitting position, but her eyes widened when she glanced at the clock on Casey’s nightstand. How in the world was it already nine in the morning? She never slept this late! Being awake for so long in the middle of the night must have exhausted her more than she’d realized.

Maddie jumped when the knocking started back up again. It sounded like someone was at the front door. She glanced over her shoulder at Casey, who was still sound asleep, before climbing out of bed and creeping into the living room.

Working up the courage to approach the front door took a little longer than she’d expected. She paused with her hand on the knob. “Hello?” she hesitantly called, as if afraid of who might answer.

“Maddie?” a female voice responded. Before it could register with the little girl that the voice belonged to Olivia, the detective identified herself. “It’s Olivia, hon. Can you let me in?”

“Uh huh,” Maddie answered, frowning up at the door. She was way too little to see out the peephole, and she knew that she shouldn’t open the door without making sure that the person on the other side really was who she said she was. Instead, she pulled the door open until it caught on the chain lock to confirm that it was indeed Olivia.

After giving the detective a wide smile, Maddie shut the door, slid the chain out of place, and whipped it open again. Her brow wrinkled in confusion when she saw for the first time that Olivia was holding a paper grocery sack in her hands.

Olivia smiled. “I’m making the two of you pancakes for breakfast.”

“Pancakes?” Maddie asked, her eyes instantly brightening. This is so totally and officially the best weekend ever! “Really?”

“I even got chocolate chips, just for you,” Olivia said as she closed the door and locked it.

“Yes!” The little girl was seconds away from jumping up and down in excitement. “Did Casey tell you that those are my absolute favorite?”

“Yes, she did,” the detective replied, ruffling Maddie’s messy curls. “Where is Casey, anyway?”

“Being a sleepyhead,” she answered with a dismissive gesture towards the bedroom. She didn’t mean to neglect to mention that Olivia’s arrival was what had woken her in the first place. It didn’t matter, anyway, because she was going to have pancakes!

Olivia looked in the direction of the bedroom before turning back to Maddie with a grin. “I have an idea. You can help me with the pancake batter and then the two of us will go in there and tag-team her. What do you say?”

Maddie giggled. “I like that idea!”

Chuckling, Olivia made her way into the kitchen with Maddie at her heels. She set the grocery bag down on Casey’s small kitchen table and began pulling necessities out of the cabinets. Maddie stood next to her, watching intently as she mixed the pancake batter--two separate batches, one plain and one with chocolate chips--and narrated what she was doing for Maddie’s benefit. “You think you got all that?” Olivia asked when she was finished.

Maddie looked up at the detective, a small bit of panic in her eyes. No way she was going to be able to remember all that!

But Olivia just laughed and ran her finger down Maddie’s nose, a tiny bit of flour switching surfaces as she did so. “I was just kidding, silly. You’ll learn it in time.”

The little girl giggled, wrinkling her nose as she brushed the flour from it.

Olivia put a finger to her lips before pointing towards the open bedroom door. Maddie grinned mischievously as she nodded to let Olivia know she understood; Operation: Wake Up Casey was a go!

They tiptoed into the bedroom, both of them pausing just inside the door. Casey was still curled up in the same position as when Maddie left her, one arm resting on her side, her hand draped across her stomach, and the other bent and tucked underneath her head. The detective crept up to the left side of the bed while Maddie covered the right. They met each other’s eyes as Olivia counted down with her fingers: three … two … one.

They both flounced onto the bed at the same time, each loudly yelling Casey’s name. As expected the ADA jumped a mile. When her startled eyes focused on the grinning faces of Maddie and Olivia, she just rolled her eyes. “You two think you’re funny, don’t you?” she muttered as she fixed a frown on her face in an attempt to look angry.

“Oh, we don’t think we’re funny,” Maddie said, her tone completely serious. “We know we’re funny.”

Casey laughed and pulled Maddie onto her lap before tickling her sides. The little girl squealed with laughter as she pushed at Casey’s hands in an effort to make her stop. “No!” she cried through hysterical giggles. “No, I don’t like being tickled!”

“Why are you laughing if you don’t like it?” Casey asked, laughing herself. She delighted in Maddie’s giggles for a few seconds longer before stopping and allowing her to catch her breath. She was still hesitant to get Maddie too worked up, physically. It had only been a couple of months since the girl had had open-heart surgery, after all.

“Okay, I’m up,” Casey said once Maddie calmed. “Now what?”

“‘Now what?’” Maddie asked, her eyes wide in amazement. Was she kidding? “Pancakes now, silly!”

Maddie hopped off the bed and ran back towards the kitchen. She paused in the doorway to wave impatiently at the detective and the ADA. What was taking them so long? Did they not understand that they were keeping her from her chocolate chip pancakes? “Come on, I’m starving!”

The adults grinned indulgently at each other and then their smiles softened. Seriously, what the heck?! Maddie thought. She frowned and stomped her foot. “All right, all right, we’re coming,” Casey said as she scooted off the bed, chuckling. “Hold your horses already.”

-----

It was around one in the afternoon that Maddie began to get extremely quiet. At first Casey couldn’t figure out what was wrong. Only after glancing at the clock did she realize that the Archers would be over in about two hours to take Maddie home. Instantly and with a pang of sadness, she understood.

“Maddie, come here for a minute,” Casey said, patting the empty space on the sofa next to her. She turned off the television, which had been left on more for background noise than anything.

The little girl looked up from the deck of cards she was fiddling with--she hadn’t been playing anything, merely half-heartedly shuffling them--and frowned at Casey. Without a word she picked herself up off the floor, leaving the cards in her place, and settled on the couch next to the ADA. “What’s the matter?” she asked in a flat voice. She nervously tugged a lock of hair from behind her ear and twirled it around her finger.

“I was just about to ask you the same question,” Casey murmured as she turned sideways on the couch. She rested her elbow against the back cushion and propped her head against her hand. “You’re all frowny-faced all of a sudden. What’s up?”

Maddie just shrugged, dropping the lock of hair. Instead she gave her undivided attention to the tiny hole in the toe of her sock. “Nothing’s up.”

“Yeah, sure, that’s why you won’t look at me.”

The little girl busied herself with poking her finger into the hole, stretching it until her big toe was able to stick up through it. “I don’t want to go back to the Archers’,” she mumbled after a beat.

Casey gave a soft sigh of disappointment. She had been afraid that that would be the girl’s answer. She reached out and brushed a few dark curls out of Maddie’s eyes. “Why not?”

“Because I’m having fun here with you,” Maddie replied, pouting up at Casey. “I don’t want to leave.”

“I don’t want you to leave, either, sweetheart,” Casey admitted.

“Then why do I have to?” she whined.

Casey cleared her throat and shook her head slightly to ward off her tears. She couldn’t lose control in front of Maddie, not unless she wanted the little girl to lose control, too. “You know why you have to.”

Maddie drew her legs to her chest and rested her chin on her knees. “Doesn’t mean I have to like it,” she muttered as she wrapped her arms around her legs.

“No, it doesn’t,” Casey agreed. She ran her hand in circles over the girl’s back, something else she remembered her mother doing to calm her when she was younger. “You can always come back, you know.”

Maddie sniffled before looking up at Casey, her eyes shining. “I can?! Really? You mean it?”

“Of course, goofball,” Casey laughed, grinning down at Maddie. “What did you think, that I was going to kick you out and never let you come back?”

Maddie shrugged again but this time she had a smile on her face. “Can we play some more mancala before Beverly and George come? I really like that game.”

“Sure thing.” Casey stood up from her seat on the sofa and crossed the living room to snatch the wooden rack and bag of glass stones from the top of the television where she had left them the night before. Then she plopped back down on the couch and set the game board on the middle cushion between her and Maddie. As she began setting up the game, she kept a wary eye on the little girl. Maddie was a little bit perkier than she had been five minutes before, but not by much.

It really bothered Casey that Maddie had referred to the apartment not as “home” but as “the Archers’.” Until she was willing to accept that the Archers’ residence was now also her residence, she’d never settle down.

On the other hand, maybe Olivia was right and Casey really was being too impatient. It would take a bit of time for anyone to consider a new apartment home, never mind a young child who hadn’t exactly asked to be moved into a new home in the first place.

All of Casey’s musings were pushed aside, however, as she and Maddie began getting drawn into the game. To make it easier on Maddie, Casey had been only playing halfway. After all, the kid had only learned how to play the game yesterday.

But when Maddie noticed that Casey missed a chance to swipe an overflowing cup of her stones, she became indignant and told the ADA to stop letting her win while dropping the handful of stones in Casey’s home bin. Casey sheepishly apologized for going soft on Maddie and from that moment on, she played in earnest.

Maddie and Casey were tied with four wins each when a rap on Casey’s door signaled the arrival of the Archers. The wide grin that Maddie had been wearing since she’d won her first game immediately dropped from her face. Casey gave her a sympathetic smile as she stood to open the door for George and Beverly.

She invited the couple inside and eased the door closed behind them. “How was the wedding?” she asked after greetings had been exchanged.

“It was a lovely ceremony,” Beverly answered, smiling warmly. “Even better reception.”

“We sorely missed Maddie, though,” George said, nodding in the little girl’s direction. “I wish we could have brought you with us.”

Maddie smiled almost shyly and dropped her gaze to her hands.

“Oh, mancala!” Beverly exclaimed when she saw the wooden game board resting on Casey’s sofa. “I haven’t even thought about that game in years!”

“Casey taught me how to play last night,” Maddie spoke up. “Do you know how to play?”

“I sure do! Learned when I was about your age. We should stop off at the toy store and pick up a set before going back home.”

Maddie’s smile widened, which was something Casey was overjoyed to see.

“Okay, sweetie, are you all packed up?” Casey asked, begging Maddie with her eyes not to cause a scene over having to leave.

To her immense relief, Maddie obeyed the silent command. “I think so,” she said, finally rising from the sofa. She opened her overnight bag for a second look and after shuffling through her belongings, she gasped. “No, wait! I don’t have Jonathan!”

Casey wrinkled her brow in thought. “Did you leave him in the bedroom this morning?”

“Maybe,” she answered, frowning herself. “I’ll go see.”

Maddie left the room in a run. George smiled after her but as soon as she was out of earshot, his smile turned into a serious, concerned frown. “How was she?”

“Perfectly fine,” Casey assured him. “I did get her to admit to me that she’s been afraid of betraying her mother somehow by letting herself become attached to you. We had a long talk, though, and I told her that her mother would understand and wouldn’t be angry. I think she’s okay now.”

Beverly let out a huge sigh, equal parts relief and sympathy. “Oh, the poor little thing. Casey, we can’t thank you enough for this.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” Casey said, her tone cautionary. “Let’s just see if she settles first.”

Still, a smile lit Beverly’s face and grew wider when Maddie charged out of Casey’s room, waving Jonathan in her hand. “Got him! He was all the way under your bed, Casey.”

“Silly bear,” George said with a smile. He picked up the canvas overnight bag from the floor and hooked the straps over his shoulder. Then he reached down and ruffled Maddie’s hair. “You ready, kiddo?”

The girl’s lower lip began to tremble. “Wait a second.” She dashed towards Casey, wrapped her arms around her stomach, and squeezed. “You really, really mean it that I can come back to stay?”

“Absolutely, honey,” Casey answered, grinning down at the little girl as she returned the hug. “I’d love to have you stay with me again.”

Maddie smiled up at Casey and held the embrace a moment longer before letting go and turning to the Archers. “Okay, I’m ready to go now.”

Beverly gave her foster daughter a warm smile and put her hands on Maddie’s shoulders to usher her towards the door. “Thank you again, Casey. For everything.”

“It was my pleasure,” Casey assured her with a polite smile.

She watched as the Archers shuffled Maddie out the door and down the corridor. Maddie looked over her shoulder and back at Casey just once, giving her a small wave, before the three of them disappeared from Casey’s line of vision.

After Casey eased the apartment door closed, she leaned back against it and closed her eyes against rapidly forming tears. After coughing to keep her emotions in check, she crossed the room to begin picking up the remnants of the weekend: stray playing cards, dropped glass stones, the rumpled afghan. As she methodically straightened up, she tried not to notice how quiet her apartment was now that the little girl was gone.

-----

“I’m telling you, Liv, it’s like she’s a completely different kid,” Casey said before lifting her glass from the table and taking a quick sip of water. “She’s that bouncy little girl that I met in the hospital again.”

According to Beverly Archer, the change in the girl’s demeanor over the week and a half since Maddie’s visit with Casey was like night and day. Maddie had finally begun talking to her and George, real conversation and not the superficial small talk they’d been having before. She didn’t spend as much time alone in her room, she smiled a lot more, and she seemed more comfortable, at ease, and at home in general.

“She actually babbles at them now,” Casey continued after she had set the glass back down on the starched tablecloth. “The things she used to call me to babble about, she’s telling them! It’s great.”

“I’m glad things are going so well,” Olivia said, giving the ADA a warm smile.

And she meant it. With the change in Maddie’s attitude also came a change in Casey’s. She was no longer as melancholy as before and her guilt was disappearing with each passing day. Now that it appeared as if Maddie was letting down her guard, Casey was finally able to see the good in the situation. The good she had done.

Plus, Casey was smiling so much more now, and Olivia adored her smile. “Is she still calling you every night?” Olivia asked as she tore a hunk of bread off the thick slice in her hand and dipped it into seasoned olive oil.

“Yeah, but she’s so much happier,” Casey answered. “I know she needs to wean off the phone calls and I’m sure she will eventually, but for right now, I guess it’s fine. She’s not begging to live with me anymore, anyway.”

“Well, that’s a relief!”

“You can say that again.”

Before Olivia could repeat herself for the pun--sure to make Casey groan from the dad-jokeness of it--their waiter, a nice young man named Andrew, arrived with their meals. He set a plate of four-cheese ravioli in front of Casey and a dish of chicken marsala in front of Olivia. As they dug into their meals, the topic of conversation shifted frequently, from Maddie to Olivia’s current investigation to Casey’s current trial.

Throughout the meal, the two women joked and laughed and teased, greatly enjoying each other’s company. After agreeing to splurge and spring for dessert as well, Olivia began poring over the seemingly endless menu of decadent pastries and indulgent cakes.

“You know you want to split a dish of gelato with me,” Casey said, using her best convincing-lawyer voice. She loved gelato but it was much too rich for her to be able to finish an entire order on her own.

“How come you don’t want to split a cannoli with me?” Olivia asked with a pout.

Casey wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Because I don’t like cannoli?”

The detective let out a gasp and fixed a stare on Casey that would not have been out of place if Casey had said she’d never heard of Central Park. “How can you not like cannoli?”

“How can you not want gelato?”

At the slightest hint of a pout from the ADA, Olivia chuckled and shook her head. “Chocolate gelato or no deal.”

“Chocolate it is!” Casey agreed. She gave the detective a wide, shit-eating grin to let Olivia know that she was being adorable on purpose.

“Whatever,” Olivia said, teasingly refusing to give into any more of Casey’s ploys. “You’re lucky I like you, Novak. Not liking cannoli is typically a deal-breaker.”

When Andrew returned a few minutes later with an enormous dish of thick brown ice cream, Casey’s eyes brightened. She looked like a little kid being handed her first ice cream cone--unintentionally adorable this time, Olivia thought.

As Olivia picked up one of the long spoons and stabbed it into the ice cream, she gave the ADA a sad shake of her head. “I can’t believe you don’t like cannoli.”

“Let it go, Liv,” Casey said with a snicker and a faux-annoyed roll of her eyes.

“No, really, I don’t understand it. You obviously like ricotta cheese if you just had some ravioli.”

Casey shook her head. “It’s not the cheese I don’t like. It’s the texture.”

“The texture?”

“Yeah,” Casey said, digging her own spoon into the ice cream. “It’s something about the combination of the soft cheese and the crunchy pastry shell. I can’t really explain it, but there you go.”

The detective raised a disbelieving eyebrow. “You’re so bizarre.”

“Oh, whatever. You love it,” Casey teased.

Olivia merely smirked. She had just opened her mouth to give a comeback when they both heard a tinny ringing come from under the table.

Casey recognized the ringtone as her own. She pulled her cell phone from her briefcase and checked the caller ID. “It’s the Archers’ number. Probably Maddie.” She tucked her phone away and set her briefcase back down at her feet before smiling at Olivia. “I’ll call her back when I get home.”

Just as she was going in for another bite of gelato, the phone rang again. She rolled her eyes and screwed up her nose in a “Now what?” gesture, but concern flooded her features when she again glanced down at the caller ID. “Take it,” Olivia immediately told her. Maddie normally had no problem leaving a message for Casey to call her back. If that was the Archers’ number again, then something was wrong.

“Hello?” Casey answered, her voice wavering slightly in concern. “Of course not, I would have told you if … what? Wait, Beverly, calm down.”

Olivia eyed Casey intently, wishing she could hear the other side of the conversation. Whatever it was, it did not sound good.

“What’s … no.” Casey was quiet as she listened to Beverly’s frantic pleas. Soon she lifted her eyes to meet Olivia’s, the color draining from her face. “No, stay where you are. Olivia and I will be over as soon as we can. Are you sure she didn’t … yeah. Yes, I’m on my way. Just try and stay calm, all right? Okay, bye.”

As soon as Casey brought the phone down from her ear, her hands began shaking. “What’s the matter?” Olivia asked, becoming more and more concerned with each passing second.

“Maddie never got off the bus from her after-school program,” Casey managed to murmur softly.

Olivia’s heart skipped a beat. Maddie’s not getting off the bus could mean any number of things, ranging from the girl being completely safe at a friend’s house to Maddie being taken by someone and experiencing God only knows what. Of course, the Archers and now Casey were automatically assuming the worst.

But first things first. Olivia knew she had to keep her cool because Casey was seconds away from losing hers. She slipped the phone from Casey’s hand and dialed the precinct. “We have to get her description out on the wire. I’ll have Elliot do that and meet us at the Archers’, okay?”

Through her swirling thoughts, Casey could only nod in response to Olivia’s voice, which, to be honest, she barely heard.

Olivia reached across the table for Casey’s hand. The ADA obliged, stretching out her arm and allowing the detective to tighten her hand around her own. When Olivia squeezed, Casey gave her a small smile. “Everything’s going to be fine, Casey, I promise.”

Casey nodded again, but Olivia could tell that she hadn’t truly heard her and that her mind was miles elsewhere. Undoubtedly she was mentally thinking back to each and every one of their cases involving children and inserting Maddie into them. As she waited for her call to go through to the precinct, Olivia tried her hardest not to do the same.

-----

There was not a single inch of empty space on the outside of the Archers’ refrigerator. The entire surface was covered with Maddie’s drawings, and when all the magnets were used, Beverly had begun hanging the papers with Scotch tape. Casey recognized a sketch of a vase of flowers; it almost matched the one on her own refrigerator that Maddie had drawn for her when they were both in hospital. Other scenes included a big red barn, a small log cabin in a dark forest, and a pink and orange sunset over a pale purple mountain.

Shirley Miller, Maddie’s next-door neighbor when she lived her with mother and an elementary school art teacher before retirement, had begun teaching the little girl how to draw almost as soon as Maddie was old enough to grip a crayon. Up to now Maddie had only been drawing the scenes Mrs. Miller had shown her how to do, but due to her after-school art program, she’d been branching out and trying other things. A colored pencil sketch of a tiny orange kitten and a still life of Jonathan settled on his place of honor on her pillow were evidence of that.

“Her art class meets on Mondays and Wednesdays,” Beverly Archer confirmed through her tears. She knew she should stop clenching and unclenching her fists, but she needed to keep her hands busy. Otherwise, they’d be shaking. God, this was absolute torture. “The bus usually drops her off around four, but sometimes it runs a little late. When she hadn’t come home by four-thirty, I called the school.”

Beverly choked up and dropped her gaze to her feet. After taking a silent moment to compose herself, she again looked up at Casey and Olivia. “God only knows why someone was still there … must have been the custodian. He told me he’d radio the bus and see what was going on. A minute or so later, he got back on the phone and told me that the bus had actually pulled away from the school a little early and it was already back in the yard for the night.”

“The art teacher remembers seeing her get into line with the rest of the kids about five minutes before the bus pulled up,” Elliot said as he snapped his cell phone shut. That particular piece of intel came courtesy of Munch and Fin, who had been charged with tracking down anyone who might have come into contact with Maddie during the course of the day. “But the bus driver knows he didn’t let her off anywhere.”

“So she never got on the bus,” Casey muttered, more to herself than anyone else. The hell?

School policy dictated that the children did not leave the building until the bus pulled up, ready for boarding. She knew that for a fact. That did not create a lot of opportunity for someone to snatch her. Plus, if she had been taken from the line, Casey was positive that the other kids and the bus driver would have created a scene trying to prevent the abduction. Or, at the very least, called the police or otherwise said something to someone.

“Munch and Fin are going to the kids’ houses now,” Elliot assured her. Casey clearly understood the procedure for a search like this, but it was also obvious that she was not thinking as an ADA at the moment. He darted his eyes between Casey and Beverly. “Between them and the unis combing the streets, we’ll find her.”

“I know,” Casey mumbled. Beverly could only nod.

The tense hush that had fallen over the room was soon broken when George Archer emerged from what had once been a small home office and was now Maddie’s bedroom. “I can’t find Jonathan,” he said with a confused frown. “Her hairbrush, either.”

Casey exchanged a puzzled frown with Olivia. “Is anything else missing?” the detective asked.

He shook his head. “Not as far as I can tell.”

Beverly sniffled and cleared her throat so that she wouldn’t sound so close to tears. “When Maddie first moved in, she took Jonathan to school with her, but she stopped that about three weeks ago. I can’t imagine why she would have started bringing him again.”

“What about the hairbrush?” Casey asked.

The woman gave a small shrug. “She and her friend Janey have been playing hair salon at recess, I think. All I know is I send her to school in a half-ponytail and she comes home in pigtails.”

Casey allowed a small smile at that. She remembered playing hair salon at recess with her own friends when she was about Maddie’s age. Casey had learned how to French braid then; one of the fourth-graders taught her. By the next year, though, she was more interested in playing Nerf football with the boys than hair salon with the girls.

Olivia met Elliot’s eyes and he gave a subtle nod. Casey caught the silent exchange and scowled. Sometimes she was really damn jealous of the way they were able to conduct entire conversations without ever uttering a word.

“We’re going to help Munch and Fin with the canvass,” Olivia said, placing a hand on Casey’s arm, a small but welcome gesture of comfort.

Casey longed to protest, to tell Olivia that she needed her to stay, but she knew that the detectives were correct in their thinking. Finding Maddie was infinitely more important than Casey’s state of mind. There wasn’t much more information the Archers could give, and they were wasting precious time by just hanging around. “Yeah. Okay.”

“We’ll call you when we know something,” Elliot said. “Don’t worry.”

Easy for him to say, Casey thought bitterly. She resisted her urge to snap at him--after all, it wasn’t as if he had meant to upset her--and simply touched Olivia’s hand to let her know that she understood.

As she watched Elliot and Olivia leave the apartment, Casey’s emotions swirled. The mere thought of what Maddie could be going through at this very moment was enough to start the nausea roiling in her stomach. No, Casey, calm down, she instructed herself. She needed to be strong for George and Beverly. The two of them were terrified enough as it was. They didn’t need her fears on top of their own.

“I’m sure she’s fine,” Casey said to Beverly instead as she fixed a small but hopefully not hollow smile on her face.

Again, Beverly just nodded.

George polished his glasses for what was probably the hundredth time and appraised his wife with troubled eyes. Her tears were so close but he could tell that she was afraid to let them fall. Afraid that once she started, she wouldn’t be able to stop. He walked up behind her, rested his hands on her shoulders, and began pressing his thumbs into her shoulder blades. She welcomed the consolation and leaned back against him.

As George gently guided his wife to the sofa, Casey sank into an armchair. Over the past couple of years, she had seen a myriad of unspeakable things happen to the children in this city. The notion that Maddie was out there somewhere, all alone among all the disturbed and twisted pedophiles that they simply hadn’t found yet? Oh God, she was going to throw up.

Casey just barely heard George ask Beverly if she wanted some aspirin and she just barely heard Beverly answer with a small, vulnerable voice in the affirmative. “What about you, Casey?” he asked, startling her.

Shit. Casey shook her head. “No, thank you.” She obviously looked more worried than she thought she did. With that one simple question from George, she realized that being strong for the Archers had just gone out the window.

George gave both women a wan smile before disappearing into the hallway on his way to the bathroom. Once he was out of sight, Beverly looked up, meeting Casey’s eyes, and sniffled. “He’ll never admit it, but he’s a complete wreck,” she said in a whisper. “His babying of me--and you--is how he deals. Casey, we adore that little girl. I can’t even imagine life without her now--”

Immediately, the ADA vacated her seat and settled next to Beverly on the sofa. “Don’t think like that,” she said as she gripped Beverly’s hands. “If anyone can find her, it’s my detectives.”

Beverly nodded, visibly choking back tears, and was about to respond when George’s confused voice carried down the hallway. “Hey, honey?” He stepped back into the living room, his brow furrowed. “You didn’t move Maddie’s toothbrush, did you?”

“Why would I move Maddie’s toothbrush?” she asked.

“I don’t know, but it’s not in the medicine cabinet.”

Beverly rose from her seat on the couch and Casey swiftly followed her lead. The women exchanged a perplexed glance, but before either of them could say a word, Casey’s cell phone rang. She excused herself and pulled the phone from her briefcase. A cursory glance at the caller ID told her that it was Fin. “Hello?”

“Hey, Novak, you didn’t get any messages from Maddie at all today, did you?”

“No,” she said with a frown. Um, don’t you think I would have, oh I don’t know, maybe mentioned that by now if I had? Again, she held her tongue. “Why?”

“Because a girl named Stacey just told me that Maddie was going on and on about how she was going to stay with you.”

The ADA wrinkled her nose in confusion. The only time she and Maddie had discussed her staying over again was that Sunday before the Archers returned from the wedding. Before she could even formulate another thought, the beep from her call waiting rang in her ear. “Fin, can you hang on a second?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Casey brought the phone down from her ear long enough to switch over to the other line. “Hello?”

“You need to go home right now.”

It was Olivia. “What? Why?” Casey asked, completely lost.

“I have a boy here who claims that Maddie left the bus line while the art teacher’s back was turned and snuck out the side door,” she frantically explained. “She left on purpose, Casey. She’s running.”

“And she’s running to me,” Casey finished.

Of course! Now everything made perfect sense. Jonathan, the missing toothbrush and hairbrush; Maddie must have packed an overnight bag before leaving for school that morning. One outfit and one pair of pajamas would not be missed out of an eight-year-old’s wardrobe, especially considering how frazzled Beverly and George were at the moment.

“Casey?” Olivia asked, startling Casey back to attentiveness. “You still there?”

“Yeah,” she answered, giving a slight shake of her head to clear it. She needed to get moving. Now. “I’m on my way home.”

-----

For as long as she lived, Casey would never forget the look on Beverly Archer’s face when she was brought up to speed on the developments in the search for Maddie. A mixture of grief, guilt, and failure clouded her eyes, and as she glanced sideways at her husband, it was obvious that she was questioning her entire approach with the little girl. Wondering where she went wrong. “I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding,” Casey had assured her. Though how Maddie could have arrived at such a misunderstanding, Casey had no idea.

Luckily she had hailed a cab just outside the Archers’ building. At least now she wouldn’t have to waste even more time walking to the subway. Once inside the cab with nothing to do but wait, she mentally traced the route Maddie would have taken from the school.

Had she walked? No. It was too far a walk for an eight-year-old laden with a backpack stuffed with a couple of textbooks and who knew what else for clothes and necessities. At least, she assumed that Maddie’s backpack was doubling as her overnight bag. Beverly obviously hadn’t noticed that the girl was carrying any extra baggage with her before she put her on the school bus that morning.

She fervently hoped that Maddie hadn’t thought to get on the subway. Casey herself was a touch nervous on the subway sometimes, never mind an eight-year-old girl. Best case scenario, Maddie had hopped a bus, though how she would have known how to figure out the route was beyond Casey. Going by city blockage, Maddie would have had to transfer buses twice.

The thought of Maddie all by herself in the middle of the city was turning Casey’s stomach. She hoped that the little girl had the street smarts not to talk to anyone or otherwise make it obvious that she was traveling alone.

Oh God, Casey thought as something new occurred to her.

What if something happened to Maddie while she was en route? What if someone realized that she was by herself and thus completely vulnerable? Someone … unsavory, to put it politely. God, working Special Victims had seriously screwed with Casey’s head if she was now automatically assuming that potential child molesters were lurking in every corner.

By the time the taxi finally pulled up to her building, her hands were trembling and the knots in her stomach had twisted and tightened. For some reason, she had been expecting to see Maddie waiting in the lobby for her, but she could see through the glass doors that the lobby was empty.

And then another new thought occurred to her. What if Maddie had already been here and Casey missed her? Would she have gone somewhere else if she didn’t get an answer at the apartment? Casey didn’t think Maddie knew where her office was, but she supposed that all the kid would have had to do was get on another bus and ask the driver how to get to the DA’s office.

Panicking now, she pulled out her cell phone and dialed Olivia. “She’s not here,” she cried as soon as the detective answered. “I mean, she’s not downstairs. I haven’t gotten all the way upstairs yet.”

“Regardless, you need to stay at home, Casey.”

Casey rolled her eyes as she began climbing the stairs. Not only would she have dropped the call if she had taken the elevator, she didn’t want to take the chance of missing Maddie if she was indeed already here. “I know that, Olivia. I’m not an idiot.”

Mid-step, she realized that she was being needlessly snippy. “I’m sorry, Liv, I didn’t mean to snap at you. What I’m saying is, what if she’s already been here and went somewhere else looking for me?”

Olivia inhaled sharply. Clearly they’d been working under the assumption that Maddie was still en route to Casey’s apartment. “Cap’s still at the station, so we’ll be all set if she shows up there. I’ll have someone sent out to cover your office. Do you think she’d go to the courthouse?”

“No,” Casey said, panting slightly from her dash up the stairs. She was on her own floor now but as her frantic eyes swept the corridor, her heart dropped into the stomach. There was no sign of the little girl at all. “She knows I’d be out of court by now.”

“Okay. Let me get the reinforcements out on the road. I promise you, Casey, we’ll find her.”

Casey nodded, though she was aware that Olivia couldn’t see her do so. “I know you will,” she said, her voice trembling with emotion.

“Just … try to stay calm okay?”

“Yeah,” Casey replied, her voice barely above a whisper. “Bye, Liv.”

She flipped her phone closed with one hand while turning the key in the deadbolt with the other. Once inside her apartment, she leaned back against her door and let out a heavy breath. She was home and now there was nothing she could do but wait.

Fifteen minutes passed. Casey lost count of the number of times she’d paced the perimeter of her apartment. She turned on music only to turn it off a minute or so later. Then she repeated the process with the television.

What the hell am I thinking? she asked herself disgustedly. It wasn’t as if she was home to relax. She was home in the thin hope that an eight-year-old girl would just walk up to her door and knock on it, announcing her arrival like a drum roll.

Half an hour. Forty-five minutes. The longest hour of Casey’s life passed without incident and by now, her nerves were completely shot. Every single sound in the hallway sent her running to the peephole, but the little girl never appeared in her line of vision. She couldn’t believe that Maddie was out there somewhere and that she was just pacing the length of her apartment and not doing a goddamn thing to help look for her. Finally she sank into her easy chair, if only because hovering at the door was only making her more nervous.

After another tense and seemingly endless fifteen minutes, she heard another sound in the hallway. She jumped up from her seat, dashed to the door, and peeked through the peephole. A strong wave of relief washed over her as she saw Maddie jogging up to her door, an overstuffed backpack hooked over her shoulders. “Oh, thank God,” Casey whispered, resting her forehead against the cool wood.

When she heard the quiet but insistent knock on the door, she waited a moment before opening it. Maybe then it wouldn’t be as obvious that she had been anxiously awaiting the girl’s arrival. She longed to pull Maddie into a tight hug, but she managed to control herself and simply smile down at her. “Hey, Maddie!”

“Hi, Casey!” she said with a wide grin, her dark eyes shining.

“Come on in,” Casey said, pulling the door open further. Once Maddie was inside, she dropped her backpack onto the floor and wrapped her arms tightly around Casey’s stomach. Casey crouched down and hugged the girl back, inhaling the sweet scent of her strawberry shampoo, then held her at arm’s length.

A thousand things were tumbling through her head, all at once. Thank God you’re safe but what the hell were you thinking and don’t you ever disappear like that again but come here and I’ll make it all better.

“I bet you’re thirsty,” was all she actually said aloud. Maddie nodded with a tiny smile but held tightly onto the ADA’s hand as Casey led her to the sofa. “Sit tight and I’ll get you something to drink, okay?”

Maddie nodded again, reluctantly letting go of Casey's hand. The ADA handed Maddie the remote control so that she could pick something to watch on the television and surreptitiously pocketed her cell phone from the end table on her way into the kitchen.

Once Casey heard the television turn on, she flipped her phone open and again dialed Olivia’s number. Luckily for her, it was the first one on her speed dial. “She just got here,” she said breathlessly when she heard Olivia’s greeting. “She’s perfectly fine.”

“Oh, thank God,” Olivia whispered, letting out a huge sigh of relief. “We’ll be right down--”

“No, wait,” Casey interrupted. “Can I talk to her first? I want to get to the bottom of this once and for all.”

Olivia hesitated, then Casey heard muffled whispering. She gave a slight roll of her eyes as she realized that Olivia was conferring with Elliot. “Are you sure, Casey? We could have Huang come--”

“No. She won’t talk to Huang,” Casey insisted. “She won’t open up to him, not enough to really figure this out. But she will with me, I know it.” She sighed. “Just … give me an hour? Please?”

Another long pause. Finally Olivia said, “Yeah, all right. Elliot’s already on the phone with the Archers, letting them know she’s safe. You’ve got sixty minutes before we come pick the two of you up.”

“Thank you,” Casey whispered. This was not in any way, shape, or form protocol, and she knew that if things didn’t go smoothly, everyone involved could be in a heap of trouble. Everyone was taking a chance on her.

“Good luck, Case.”

“Thanks,” Casey repeated. She disconnected the call, filled her tea kettle with water, and returned it to the stove, turning on the burner underneath it. Then she took a deep breath before heading back into the living room. She was going to need every bit of the luck that Olivia had wished her, she could tell.

-----

The loud whistle from Casey’s teapot was her cue to vacate her seat on the sofa next to Maddie. The little girl was happily settled in front of a cartoon, a relaxation Casey had agreed to only until the water for their hot chocolate heated.

She had offered to make cocoa under the guise of Maddie needing it after her travels. The girl had indeed jumped on a bus after sneaking out of school, and the bus driver had been more than happy to tell her which routes she needed to transfer to in order to complete the trip to the address she had given him.

But the hot chocolate was in reality a way to make Maddie comfortable enough to talk. Though she’d always opened up to Casey more than anyone else, Casey also knew that questioning her outright would put her on the defensive.

Casey swiftly tore open two packets of Swiss Miss cocoa powder--the variety with the tiny marshmallows included in the pouch--and poured the contents of each into a mug. After filling each cup with the steaming water and then stirring the mix and water together, she splashed a little bit of milk into the mugs, simultaneously cooling the cocoa and making it creamier.

She returned to the living room and handed one of the mugs to the little girl. “Be careful, sweetie. It’s still very hot.”

“Thank you, Casey,” Maddie replied, smiling widely. She blew on the hot liquid before gingerly taking a sip. The creamy chocolate tasted sweet in her mouth, and she grinned. “So what do you want to do now? I’m up for Go Fish if you are. Or maybe War again?”

“Before we play anything, I want to have a little talk with you,” Casey said, settling back on the sofa next to Maddie. She picked up the remote control and switched off the television.

Maddie frowned. She knew Casey well enough by now to know that when she said she wanted to talk and she turned off the TV, things were serious. “Okay, sure, I guess,” she said somewhat hesitantly. She gave Casey a half-hearted shrug.

Casey smiled at the girl, hoping to put her more at ease. She set her mug down on the end table and Maddie quickly followed suit, reaching across Casey to place her mug right next to the ADA’s. Then Casey turned on the sofa so that she was sitting sideways, facing Maddie. “Why did you come where tonight?”

“Because I’m going to stay here now,” Maddie answered with a puzzled frown. “Remember? You said I could.”

As Casey inhaled through her nose, she hoped her face didn’t give away how confused she was. What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate. The quote rang through her head, unbidden. She didn’t even remember what the hell movie it was from, but it seemed to fit. “Sweetie, we never talked about you coming to visit me again.”

“No, not to visit, silly. To stay!”

Okay, I know we never talked about that. “We’ve been over this so many times, Maddie. ACS will not let you come live with me.”

“Right, but that’s because you work late and you get called in the middle of the night and stuff,” Maddie reminded her. “But when I was here before, you didn’t have to work late and nobody called you!”

Casey gave another quiet sigh and reached out to take the little girl’s hands in her own. “I didn’t have to work late because it was a Saturday. I didn’t have to work at all. And nobody called me because they knew that I had special company.”

The smile quickly faded from Maddie’s face, and Casey felt the girl’s hands begin to tremble as she began to fully process what Casey was telling her. “But if they left you alone that once, can’t they leave you alone all the time?”

Casey tightened her grip on Maddie’s hands. “If they leave me alone all the time, I can’t do my job right.”

Maddie’s lower lip began to tremble. It was very important for Casey to be able to do her job right. She helped to put really, really mean people in jail, and Casey had told her that people don’t always break the law during regular business hours. And that meant that Casey’s work hours were crazy and all over the place and that she wouldn’t be home any more than Maddie’s mom was.

Maddie wrenched out of Casey’s grasp and slumped back against the sofa. Her gaze was directed at her hands as she began nervously pulling at her fingers. “Maddie, you need to stop this,” Casey said, her tone gentle. “You can’t stay here. It doesn’t matter how much you want to and it doesn’t matter how much I want you to. You can’t.”

“But you said I could!” Maddie cried, tears springing into her eyes. “Before George and Beverly picked me up that day, you said I could stay with you!”

Now Casey knew her confusion was written all over her face. When the hell did she ever give Maddie the impression that she could stay with her?

Oh, damn it, she thought as she replayed their last conversation that day in her head. She should have figured from Maddie’s phrasing--“Do you promise I can come back to stay?”--that the little girl thought that Casey was telling her that she could live with her. And of course Maddie had been so happy and comfortable this past week and a half. She had just been excitedly biding her time until she could finally get what she wanted.

“I meant that you could come for a visit like before,” Casey explained around the scratching in her throat because she could not break down in front of Maddie. “I didn’t mean that you could stay forever. I’m so sorry, honey.”

“But you said!” Maddie whined as the tears spilled over and trickled down her cheeks.

Casey inhaled deeply and pulled the little girl onto her lap. She dried Maddie’s cheeks with her thumbs before lightly wrapping an arm around the girl’s tiny shoulders. There had to be a reason that Maddie was so adamantly refusing to let this go. “What’s the matter, Maddie? I mean, what’s really the matter?”

The little girl was quiet for a long moment. “I don’t like George and Beverly.”

After seeing the girl with the couple, Casey didn’t believe that Maddie truly didn’t like them. However, she also knew that if she was ever going to get to root of the problem, she couldn’t discount anything Maddie said. “Why don’t you like them?” she asked, indulging the little girl.

Maddie just shrugged.

“Are they mean to you?” Casey asked.

Maddie shook her head, her voice barely audible. “No.”

“Do they hurt you?”

This time, Maddie abruptly shot her head up to look Casey in the eye. “No! They would never hurt me.”

Casey gave a half-smile. An extremely good sign, she thought. At least Maddie cared enough about the couple that she didn’t want Casey believing that they’d done anything wrong. “Then what’s the matter?”

Maddie sniffled and bit her lip, but she couldn’t stop the tears. She turned on Casey’s lap and threw her arms around the ADA’s neck while burying her face in her shoulder. “I want to live with you! That day at the hospital when you told me that I wasn’t going to be living with my mom anymore, you said that I didn’t have to live with the new family if I didn’t like them. You said you’d figure something out. So I thought that maybe if I didn’t like Beverly and George, Ms. Lowe would let me live with you instead. Because I don’t want to live with them anymore, Casey, I want to live with you!”

Casey closed her eyes against her own tears as she tightened her embrace on the girl and stroked her dark curls. She waited a few moments before addressing her, wanting her voice to be controlled and gentle. “Maddie, Ms. Lowe’s not going to change her mind. All that’s going to happen if you say you don’t like Beverly and George is that Ms. Lowe’s going to take you away from them and place you with another new family. You’ll be starting all over again from scratch. You don’t really want that, do you?”

She felt Maddie shake her head. After taking a minute or so to compose herself, the little girl released her hold on Casey and wiped her hands over her face to dry her tears. “No. I don’t want that.”

Casey gave the little girl a small, approving smile. “Now, do you really not like the Archers or were you just saying that?”

“I was just saying that,” Maddie quietly admitted, looking down in shame. She’d never told a lie like that before. “George and Beverly are really, really nice to me and they take really good care of me. But I’m kind of afraid to like them.”

“Because you thought that if you let yourself like them, you wouldn’t get to live with me.”

Maddie nodded, sniffling in an attempt to keep more tears at bay.

The ADA pulled Maddie into another tight hug. “I wish so hard that you could live with me, sweetie, but you can’t. It’s not fair, but those are the rules and they’re not going to change just because we want them to. But you know what?”

She felt Maddie shake her head.

“You have foster parents who adore you and want to protect you and can’t remember what their life was like before you were sent to live with them. You belong with Beverly and George, Maddie. They love you so much and I know that deep down, you love them, too.”

“I do,” Maddie said, again sobbing into Casey’s shoulder. “I really do.”

Oh, that was one of the best things Casey had ever heard! “They’ll be so glad to hear that.”

Maddie pulled out of Casey’s grip and met her eyes hopefully. “Will they really?”

“Absolutely,” Casey nodded, giving the girl a gentle smile. “Elliot and Olivia are coming over soon to bring you back to them. But we have one more serious thing to talk about first.”

Maddie frowned and gave a slight wrinkle of her nose. Another serious thing? Sometimes it felt like all she’d done for the past two months was have serious talks with people. “What’s that?”

“You have to one-hundred-percent promise me that you will never take off on your own like this again. This city is way too dangerous for you to be out there all alone, Maddie. Besides, nobody knew where you were and we all thought you were missing. We had the police looking for you and everything!”

Maddie’s eyes widened. It was obvious that she hadn’t at all realized what she had inadvertently put all the adults in her life through. “Really?”

“Really,” Casey confirmed.

“I’m really sorry, Casey. I didn’t mean to make everyone worry.”

“I know,” the ADA assured her with a smile. “It’s all right. You’re safe and that’s all that matters now. You should finish your cocoa. Elliot and Olivia will be here soon.”

Maddie nodded as she slid off Casey’s lap. She snatched up her mug from the end table and leaned against back the ADA as she sipped her hot chocolate, which was now finally cool enough for her to drink more than a sip at a time.

Casey reached around the little girl’s shoulders, holding her close, and absentmindedly began twirling one of her dark curls around her finger. With the comfort of having Maddie nestled perfectly safe and sound next to her, the adrenaline that had been keeping Casey going for the past couple of hours began melting away. As she was again left with nothing to do but wait, she found herself completely exhausted, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that Maddie was safe.

-----

Beverly Archer eased the door to Maddie’s bedroom closed, allowing the knob to quietly click into place. After pausing for a moment outside the door and making sure that there were no sounds coming from the bedroom, she crept down the hall to the kitchen, where her husband, Olivia, and Casey were sitting around the table over a cup of coffee. “She’s finally out,” she said as she sank into the only empty chair at the table.

Elliot had declined to go along with Olivia when she went to pick up Maddie and the ADA, saying that he was sure that Olivia and Casey were going to want to talk privately after bringing the little girl home. Secretly grateful that her partner was able to read her so well, Olivia had smiled at him and promised to give him a call after everyone was settled.

She and Casey hadn’t intended to stay quite so long at the Archers’ apartment, especially when it was decided that George, Beverly, and Maddie were going to have a talk in Maddie’s room about … well, everything. But Beverly had started a pot of coffee and insisted they stay. The two of them had taken seats in the kitchen to give the small family as much privacy as possible.

George had emerged from the room before his wife and settled at the table to fill the ADA and the detective in on the discussion. No holds were barred this time; an agreement had been made among all three of them to tell the complete truth.

As it turned out, what Maddie had told Casey the night she had stayed with her wasn’t a lie. She had in some ways felt as if she would be betraying her mother if she became too close to the couple, Beverly in particular. But what she hadn’t told Casey that night was that she had been afraid that Ms. Lowe would have been able to tell if she had become attached to the Archers. Then she’d know that Maddie was lying when she told her she didn’t like them and <i>then</i> Maddie wouldn’t get to live with Casey. So she walled herself off instead. If she didn’t allow herself to like the couple, then she wouldn’t be lying to her social worker.

The Archers could not have been more understanding. The two of them assured Maddie that they did love her and wanted her to stay with them, to make a home with them, but they also said that they wouldn’t push her. They would wait for her to come to them in her own time, when she was ready. After a tight hug and a few more tears, between her day at school, her adventures alone in the city, and all the crying she had done, Maddie began getting sleepy. George had left then but Beverly remained in the room at Maddie’s insistence. She’d wanted someone with her until she fell asleep.

“Is it real this time, you think?” Olivia asked. The question came out a bit more harshly than she’d intended and she cringed. She hadn’t meant to suggest that previous breakthroughs weren’t real. She just didn’t want anyone, Casey included and in some ways especially, holding out false hope.

“Oh, it’s real,” Beverly said after a moment of reflection. “It was different this time. More … open, maybe? I can’t really explain it, but I know.”

George nodded in agreement with his wife and held out his hand to her. She complied and rested her hand in his, giving him a loving smile. “It was the first <i>real</i> conversation we’ve ever had with her,” he said. “The first time it felt like she wasn’t holding anything back.”

The detective grin and a quick glance out of the corner of her eye told her that Casey had a smile on her face as well. “I’m so glad this is working out for you,” Casey said before clearing her throat.

Instantly, Olivia frowned. That wasn’t Casey’s Getting Down to Business clearing of the throat; it was her Trying Not to Cry clearing of the throat. She tried to catch Casey’s eye, but the ADA was too focused on the Archers. “It’s like the three of you were just waiting for each other,” Casey continued softly.

Beverly and George met each other’s eyes and grinned. “We’re going to be really happy now,” Beverly said. “I can feel it.”

George squeezed his wife’s hand. “Yes, we are.”

Olivia returned the couple's warm smile before gently tapping Casey’s knee under the table. “We should let you three get back to being a family. Come on, Case.”

The ADA and the detective stood at the same time, and the Archers walked the two women to the door. “Thank you both,” Beverly said, an emotional tremor in her voice. “For all your help today. Hell, for all your help over the past two months.”

Casey modestly told Beverly that it was nothing at the same time that Olivia said, “It was our pleasure.”

Casey gripped Beverly’s hands for a moment and squeezed. A look that spoke volumes passed between the women, Beverly’s eyes expressing an ocean of gratitude and Casey’s telling the woman to take good care of her baby. Then she turned and walked with Olivia out the door.

The entire trip down the corridor and onto the elevator, Casey was silent. Olivia kept a wary eye on her. It wasn’t until the elevator doors opened on the first floor that Olivia rested a hand on her shoulder and asked her, “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Casey answered after a long beat.

Olivia fixed a kind, gentle smile on the ADA. “No, you’re not.”

Casey stopped walking and looked the detective in the eye before returning Olivia’s smile with a rueful one of her own. “I should be happy for them.”

“It’s okay if you’re not.” Olivia reached out and brushed a stray lock of Casey’s hair behind her ear. “It’s normal to feel like you’re losing something.”

“But she could never be with me in the first place,” Casey argued as she slowly began walking towards the front door of the building. “That’s what I had to get through her head.”

“And now it’s time for you to get it through your own,” Olivia said. She wrapped her arm around the ADA’s shoulders and tightened in a gentle hug. “You will be happy for them. Eventually. But it’s perfectly fine that it’s not right now.”

Casey could only give her a weary nod.

The two of them exited the building and crossed the parking lot to Olivia’s car. Casey wordlessly settled in the passenger seat as Olivia slid in behind the wheel. As Olivia turned the key in the ignition, she watched Casey put her seat belt on and lean her head back against the seat, all seemingly in slow-motion. When Casey turned her head to look out the window, Olivia knew that she had done so to hide the tears in her eyes. “Oh, there’s no way in hell I’m leaving you alone tonight. My place or your place?”

Casey sniffled before turning her head again to meet Olivia’s gaze. She allowed a half-smile at the impish sparkle in the detective’s eyes. “Mine.”

“Perfectly fine with me.”

“Oh, whatever. You’re just lucky I like you, Benson.”

Olivia’s grin widened. “Yes, I am.”

-----

A quiet and lazy Sunday afternoon in Central Park was a luxury Olivia very rarely got to experience. She watched with a soft smile as Casey and Maddie tossed a softball back and forth. The girl’s cardiologist had finally given her the go-ahead to resume strenuous physical activity, thereby removing all her post-operative restrictions. To celebrate, the Archers had invited both Casey and Olivia to a picnic in the park.

Almost a month had gone by since the night that Maddie disappeared on everyone, and Olivia had to admit that the change in the little girl was absolutely incredible. Of course, the biggest shift was the girl’s attitude towards her foster parents. She was loving, affectionate, and completely relaxed around them. And since she was no longer holding her emotions back, she was much more at ease and much happier in general.

“She really is wonderful with her,” Beverly said, startling Olivia back to reality. She nodded towards Casey as she shifted position on the picnic blanket.

Olivia tore her eyes off of the ADA and the little girl and smiled at Beverly. “She loves that little kid.”

“You know, I’m ashamed to admit this, but I was jealous of her at first,” Beverly said, her voice barely above a whisper. She traced the checkerboard pattern on the blanket with her fingers. “I didn’t understand why she could get through to Maddie and I couldn’t.”

“Yeah, that was tearing her up, too,” Olivia said gently. “If it’s any consolation, she didn’t understand it, either.”

Beverly didn’t have a chance to respond. Casey and Maddie came running back to the blanket then, both slightly out of breath. The ADA plopped down next to Olivia as the little girl settled herself on her foster mother’s lap.

She was only seated for a second, however. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted George on his way back to their picnic spot with a couple bottles of water in one hand and a wrapped ice cream Chipwich in the other. “Yes! He found the ice cream man!” Maddie exclaimed, jumping up and running forward to meet George halfway.

The three women laughed after her. “She’s settled so well,” Casey said, squinting against the afternoon sunlight as she looked at Beverly.

“She really has,” Beverly nodded. She first met Olivia’s eyes and then Casey’s. “While we were watching TV last night, she asked us about adoption. We all know that it’s still really early, but … she said she wants us to be her parents for real, Casey.”

Casey gasped excitedly and reached over to wrap Beverly in a hug. “Oh, that’s the best news I’ve ever heard!”

Beverly returned the embrace and then let go, but before she could get another word out, Maddie’s giggling voice tore through the park. “Beverly! George won’t let me have my ice cream!”

“Excuse me,” Beverly said with a teasing roll of her eyes. She stood from her seat on the blanket and chased after her husband and her foster daughter.

Casey watched the small family with a the hint of a smile on her face. Olivia, on the other hand, was watching Casey. She held her gaze on the ADA for a long moment, but it wasn’t until she heard Casey sniffle that she wrapped her arm around the younger woman’s shoulders. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Casey whispered without tearing her gaze from the Archers.

Olivia frowned in concern. She certainly didn’t sound okay. “You sure?”

The ADA finally turned her head to look the detective in the eye. “I’m sure. I’m happy for them, Liv. I mean, look at how happy they all are. Each of them is finally getting the family they deserve.”

The detective smiled as she brushed a windblown wisp of hair out of Casey’s eyes. “And it’s all thanks to you, Casey. How’s it feel to be the one that set this all in motion?”

“Honestly?” Casey asked.

She returned her attention to the Archers and their soon-to-be adopted daughter. Maddie had finally wrestled the Chipwich out of George’s grasp, had pulled the wrapper off, and was now taking a large bite. George and Beverly were walking hand in hand a few paces behind her, both gazing lovingly down at the little girl.

Casey again turned her head to meet Olivia’s eyes and gave the detective a wide smile. “Pretty damn good.”