Officers had already begun flooding the hospital's blood bank by the time Olivia led Molly down to give blood. While people with AB negative blood are able to accept donor types of A-, B-, O- and AB-, the closer the match the better. Thus, Molly was hustled to the front of the line.

Still, by the time she and Olivia made it back to the surgical waiting room, all hell had broken loose. Specifically, Kathy had arrived, none too happy to have been informed by an officer that Elliot was at the hospital

"The news said someone was critically injured, Eliot! And of course, you couldn't deign to give me a call or answer your phone! Do you have any idea how worried I was…."

From the sound of things, and the looks of intense discomfort on the faces of Cragen, Warner and Huang, she'd been going on like this for a while. Elliot couldn't seem to get a word in and was looking more and more frustrated.

"…What would I tell the kids?" Kathy continued, "Eli's too young to worry, of course, but the others are all upset and I got the call that you'd been hurt and rushed over and here you are…a few little cuts! You had us all completely distraught because some other officer couldn't get out of the way of a bullet or whatever and you couldn't…."

"Shut the hell up." Olivia was quite impressed by the way Molly's quiet, but very obviously angry, snarl carried across the room and how effectively it made Kathy shut her mouth.

Stalking across the room, Molly jabbed a finger at Kathy. "What is your trauma? My brother's in there fighting for his life. Just be glad your husband isn't. If you're gonna keep on bitching, get the fuck out!"

Kathy blinked down at the smaller woman, who was practically vibrating with fury but still not the most intimidating figure ever. Olivia thought her attempt to be terrifying might have been hindered by the panda T-shirt that had been revealed when Molly had shucked her long sleeved tunic to donate blood.

It seemed as though the room was collectively holding their breaths until Kathy almost visibly deflated. "I know. I'm sorry about your brother, but you must understand then, what it's like to worry about someone you love being out on the streets, doing what they do," she tried to offer a justification for her behavior along with the apology.

"No," Molly said. "Ryan's in forensics. He always told me he didn't deal with the bad guys, that his job was safe…Then Olivia called me today and…."

The younger O'Halloran sniffed and turned, walking away from Kathy, who at least had the grace to look contrite. She looked first to Olivia, who was in her line of sight, but Olivia's nerves were shot, she was worried about Ryan and kind of pissed that Kathy had dismissed some serious knife wounds as a few cuts. Shaking her head, the SVU detective made her way over to where Huang had joined Molly on a bench.

"Kathy," Elliot said quietly, but with a clear tone of displeasure, "I'm sorry you and the kids were worried, but it's been a hell of a day. Go home. I'll call the kids, but I have to stay here."

Though she restrained herself from any of her previous hysterics, Kathy was not happy. "Why? You're okay. You can come home…."

"My friend is in surgery," he interrupted. "I'll call you later."

Over Kathy's protests, Elliot ushered his wife out of the surgical waiting room.

Quiet once again descended over the room as they all found themselves doing little things to soothe themselves and, in some cases, each other. Huang placed a hand on Molly's back and offered the occasional supportive murmur. Warner got up and made her way over to the charge desk and grilled any staff member dumb enough to pass within visual range. Cragen got up, disappeared for a moment, then came back with bottles of water for them all. Molly simply popped contacts out of her tear reddened eyes and fished a pair of glasses out of her large, messenger style purse.

Olivia though, wasn't comforted by her own internal musings. Instead, she was reviewing all of their interactions with Stuckey, wondering if there was anything they could have done to prevent this from happening. Logically, she knew that since Stuckey had it in him to do what he had done than it was probably only a matter of time, but still, they were trained detectives. You'd think they'd notice when one of their techs went all kill-spree on them.

"Is there anyone else I can call for you?" Olivia finally offered Molly, who startled and looked over at her.

After a brief pause, she shook her head. "No. I got a friend to pick up Sean…and Danny's overseas. Our older brother. Marine Corps."

"Sean is….?" Huang probed gently, knowing that between the stress and blood loss from her donation (she was small enough to feel it), she was probably more than a little shocky. Keeping her talking was healthy.

"Danny's son. He's 9. His mom's gone, so when Danny's deployed, he stays with me. Ryan spends a lot of time with him. We're all each other has, really." She spoke in a soft, slow tone, eyes drifting to the side before she gave herself a little shake, then fished a Blackberry out of her bag. "We went to see the Yankee's last weekend. Sean loves them. So does Ryan."

Scrolling through some photos of what looked like beautiful wedding cakes, Molly stopped and smiled at the little phone. Then she handed it to Olivia who looked down at the display and swallowed back the lump in her throat.

The image showed Ryan and a small boy, obviously Sean, and, like Molly, obviously an O'Halloran, sitting in the bleachers at the new stadium. Both wore broad, sunny grins and pinstripe shirts to support their team. Each had a ball cap on, turned backwards and a half eaten hot dog was visible in the boys hand. It was clear they were content and carefree…hard to believe such a short time later, Ryan would be fighting to live.

And Olivia didn't doubt he'd continue to fight.

TBC……