Authors Note:

I fell in love with this show again. I fell in love with them again. I fell in love with this amazing fandom again, and all the wild theories we throw around on Twitter. I may have run with one of them, but changed the villain. So I'm trying this writing again, and with the help of my insanely wonderful and talented guardian writing angel Mousie, Amy's daily encouragement, and the wise words of JessicaR_NY, I've found the guts to post this after years away from writing in general. They are not mine, but I wish they were. Please bear with me, I have a few chapters already done and there's a story in me to tell.

-o0o-

The horror is blooming inside of her.

She knows it's coming, and that at some point – like an avalanche – she will no longer be able to outrun it. She knows it will swallow her up, bury her. Suffocate her.

Everyone has a breaking point. Until now she had always somehow come back from the brink. She'd clawed her way back into normalcy more than a few times, scraping for every inch of safety until she could breathe again.

But this is more than she can comprehend.

Her long coat is still wet, because despite the umbrella someone had tried to cover her with the rain had still found her. It had found her as colleagues had spoken about him, as his wife had. It found her as she had stood there and silently tried to say goodbye, as she'd laid a flower on his casket, as the sound of the bagpipes had replaced the blood in her veins.

Even the clouds had bowed low today, grieving.

She'd been drowning at his funeral, but now she's starting to burn from the inside out. The white flower arrangement sits wrapped in cellophane on her desk, a grotesque taunt that had been waiting for her after a brutal week and a debilitating day.

She holds the card in her hands, staring at the words through blurred eyes.

My dearest Olivia,

To lose two men you loved to their own hands is terrible.

You must wonder what you did to cause the loss, do you not?

Life is unexpected, and death is the only thing promised.

It must leave you concerned about which man will leave you next?

Condolences,

Sir Tobias Moore

Despite the unimaginable way the walls feel like they are closing in, she cannot crack.

She knew that losing the case against Moore would come back to haunt them. Haunt her. She just hadn't expected this even in the darkest scenario.

Keeping Moore behind bars should have been a given, but he'd had access to the best defense money could buy. During the long days in the courtroom, she'd watched disbelievingly as their case against him unraveled. He had convinced the jury that he had legitimately auditioned Kat for the role of a hooker by producing a backdated PicFlix movie script to that effect and he'd won an acquittal.

She'd immediately gone to Hadid with half a dozen more accusers. She'd pleaded with the ADA to at least review the victim statements. But the woman had refused, citing the lack of physical evidence and an unwillingness to make the NYPD and DA's office look incompetent once again.

Moore had laughed as he'd been released, asking her to join him in the Caymans for a much-needed vacation.

I make everyone a star, Olivia, he'd said outside of the courtroom. I even made you a Captain.

She'd known she couldn't chase him out of the country. It would be up to the FBI to get him next. Even One PP had made her a promise that they'd push for the Bureau to actively monitor him.

She stares at the small card now, the words jumbling and unraveling everything she's believed up until this moment.

I've been clean for five years, Olivia. You're my only family and I want to get to know my nephew.

Her brother had sworn he had stayed off the drugs, that he was making a new life for himself.

The chemotherapy, the new house, the new marriage.

Ed had been fighting for every minute he had left; he wouldn't have wasted a day by ending his life early. Her gut has known that all along, and that's why she hasn't been able to accept his choice even when his wife had found peace with it. Even when he'd left a note and used his own .38. Even when everyone said he was choosing to go out on his own terms.

Suicide wasn't in character for the man she'd known.

None of it had made sense. Until now.

The card falls out of her hand and onto her desk. The magnitude of the words on it slamming into her as the pieces fall into place.

Noah.

Oh God, Noah.

The fear is sudden, the implications crushing. She hasn't seen her son in hours.

"Fin!" Her yell is too loud and her voice cracks, but she does it again anyway. "Fin!"

She grabs her cell phone and dials even as she hears the scrape of his chair and the rush of footsteps into her office. Her call connects on the second ring and she can't even think beyond the slamming of her pulse.

"Hi Mom! When are you going to be home?"

Every inch of her is shaking as her son cheerfully answers Lucy's phone. She pinches the bridge of her nose to ward off the throbbing, knowing Fin is waiting for a response.

Her whole life is on the other end of the line. She cannot let him know she's terrified.

"Baby, I'm going to be here a while so I'm going to have some police officers bring you here, ok? Can you get your schoolbag together quickly while I talk to Lucy?" Olivia's voice is breaking, and it's enough that Fin locks his concerned eyes on her and nods, immediately heading back into the bullpen to make arrangements.

"Okay, Mom. Can I bring the iPad too? Lucy found this new app for drawing and I'm making something for you. But it's a surprise, so I can't tell you what it is until-"

"I'd love that Noah, now put Lucy on the phone. I need to talk to her right away." Her mind is racing, and she has to keep it together for her child. He deserves for her to keep her goddamned shit together.

No crying. No damned crying.

She's needs her son safe now. She needs him in her arms. In this office, surrounded by protection. Only it will take her too long to get him, patrol can get to him faster.

It's a blur then. The instructions she thinks she gives to Lucy. The seconds that tick by. The paralyzing fear that floods every pore of her skin and chills her to her core.

You really are a stupid bitch. Do you know who you're dealing with?

Moore had said that once, and she'd ignored him.

Her brother had not overdosed. A man she had cared deeply about had not committed suicide. She knows that in her gut. She knows how sadistic men taunt, the games they play.

They'd both been killed.

Because of her.

And Sir Tobias Moore, the billionaire with every resource in the world to make her life an utter, living hell – he is taunting her about who he's going after next.

-o0o-

"Rollins is on her way to your place. Uniforms are already there and Lucy is packing. Should be back here in under thirty minutes." Fin's voice is low and carefully controlled as he walks into her office. "I reached Cassidy, Munch and Amaro."

Olivia nods, afraid that if she says anything her voice will waver. She knows her face is a mess, her eyes burn. The grief and panic are at war within her, and she needs to get everything under control fast or One PP will strip her of any authority at all until this is over. "Barba?"

"Workin' on it."

As it is, she doesn't know who to trust within the department. Beyond her own squad, everyone is suspect. She'd hand selected the patrol she'd sent for Noah, and she isn't going to exhale until he is safely in her office.

It's her job to command this unit. They have a manhunt on their hands and she has sheer minutes before the chaos of the investigation descends upon her office. She hunches over her desk, dropping her forehead into her palms.

Moore had told her she would be sorry. He'd asked her if she had hated all men. He'd warned her that she didn't know what she was doing.

She had taken all of the threats as posturing and she hadn't looked back. She exhales hard, trying to slow the racing of her pulse.

Just breathe.

At least she has the full backing of the department now. No one had questioned the veracity of the threat, even if Moore hadn't been explicit in his note. It was only when she'd called Deputy Chief Garland that she'd learned the truth behind their instant support.

One PP already had reason to believe Ed's death was not a suicide. An hour before his body had been discovered, he'd been on the phone with his doctor who had reported the call cut short by a confrontational commotion.

Someone had forced Ed to do what he had done. Now they know why.

The nausea swirls in stomach again. She knows what it's like to hold a gun to a head and pull the trigger. She'd had to do it to herself. More than once.

Only she'd been lucky.

"Liv." Fin's tone is somber. The apologies for what he's about to say are evident just in the way he says her name. In the way he doesn't call her Captain.

She lifts her face then. "It's already done." She can't admit to him that just after she'd taken care of Noah, she'd immediately sent two uniforms she trusted there, too. It had been Noah, then him. His wife. His kids.

Then the rest. Cassidy. Carisi. Munch. Amaro. Barba. Stone. Dodds.

She's got a detail heading for Simon's kids and Tracy already. Too little, too late.

Olivia presses her lips together, willing herself not to cry.

"Blame yourself and you're done before you start, Liv." Fin has taken over where she has faltered in the last half hour. "You gotta fight first and deal with the fallout later or they're gonna take you off this."

"I need to know everyone is safe right now." Her voice cracks and she clears it, trying for some semblance of control. "Then we start with his financials. This isn't happening without a lot of money changing hands. But first I need everyone…safe."

Her hands are shaking where they now rest on her desk. She clasps one in the other, hoping he hasn't noticed. She knows how to deal with a single enemy, but Moore has unprecedented reach. Months ago she had watched half of the department brass, the Southern District and the DA's office walk into Moore's building right after the heat had come down on him.

Absolutely anyone could be in on this. Moore had unbelievably beaten the odds at trial, and he hadn't done that without help. Now he's operating unchecked and from God knows where.

When she makes eye contact with Fin again, she realizes he's staring at her hands. "I'm okay, Fin. I am. You have to trust me—"

"Captain?"

Olivia turns to her doorway where Kat is leaning in. "Tell me you got to everyone."

"Getting there. I only got a Kathy Stabler at the Stabler residence in Queens. She said her ex-husband doesn't live there anymore but she gave me his cell. She hasn't heard from him since yesterday. The uniforms are taking her and her son to a hotel and will sit on it as you asked. I've texted that number she gave me but nothing back yet."

She can't even process the extended implications of what her officer is telling her. She should have called Kathy herself but she's had to run command so far and there hasn't been time to even call her son again let alone anyone else.

Elliot.

The fear is so constricting that it threatens to choke her. "Does she know where he might be? Address? He's got grown kids, too. I need…I need to make sure that we've covered this. Fin…"

"Like you said, he's targeting the men, Liv. We'll get someone on the kids, but this is Stabler we're talking about. He can take care of himself."

"Not if he doesn't know!" Olivia stands suddenly and braces herself on her desk because the vertigo is making her dizzy. Not since yesterday. "Find him, Fin. Just find him. Please."

She stops herself from asking Kat for the number. She cannot – cannot – call him herself.

The sound of his voicemail will cut right now more so than ever.

She locks eyes with Fin, and his concern for her clouds his expression. She doesn't need anyone to worry about her. This is a game of human dominoes. Moore wants every man she's ever cared about to fall, and he wants her left standing only long enough that she will crumble in the aftermath.

Bile swirls in her stomach. Her son is okay for now, but they have no idea where Elliot is.

Not him.

Not.

Him.

Fin finally nods. "We'll find him," he says quietly.

Within seconds, he and Kat have left her office.

Olivia slumps back into her chair and squeezes her eyes shut. Nine years she'd managed to stay away from him. She'd kept this unit – her chaos – away from him and his life. She'd fought through every single nightmare alone, willing herself to stay away from his doorstep because it was clear he wanted nothing to do with anyone or anything associated with the department anymore.

He had been protecting himself and his family by walking away.

She too had finally learned to stay away from him, telling herself that distance was the only way she could protect him from a life that had almost cost him everything. It was the only way she could rationalize away the devastating feeling of abandonment. It was how she had reasoned with herself after Lewis – on nights when she had ruthlessly isolated herself because the shaking wouldn't stop.

It was for his protection.

Only she hadn't protected him at all.

Kathy hadn't heard from him since yesterday.

Olivia tells herself that might be normal. If they're divorced that could be normal. She can't assume the worst. He might be out there, safe. As yet unaware of what she'd caused.

It was either that or Moore figured out how to completely destroy her after all.

-o0o-