Disclaimer: Dick Wolf owns Law and Order SVU and the characters. I only own this idea for the story and the new characters.

Chapter 2: Hotdog

Elliot and Olivia were walking through Hell's Kitchen, a rather poor neighbourhood in Manhattan. They were on their way back from interviewing a suspect in a murder and rape case.

Olivia was pissed. She just knew he was their guy, but he was smart. No proof, no blood, no DNA, nothing. He even had an alibi. So how did she know? She had seen that cocky twinkle in his eye a thousand times before...

Then it started to rain as well.

'O F—Great, that's just great! Just what I need...' Olivia yelled up at the sky, as she turned up her collar.

Elliot slowly turned to her. 'Are you okay? I mean, really?'

'Yeah, I'm just perfect', she snapped.

'Liv, will you just calm down... We can't arrest the guy just because you think he looks shady, okay? I'm sorry, but the law doesn't cover your female intuitions.'

'What? El...', Olivia started to protest in anger.

'... Even though I would trust them in a heartbeat!' he said, quickly.

She smirked to herself, and he nudged her gently with his elbow.

'Nice save,' she mumbled.

They stopped in the streets and faced each other.

'So, where do we go from here?' Olivia wanted to know

Elliot sighed deeply. 'I honestly don't know... We should go back and pray that our perp messed up somehow and left some forensic evidence.'

Olivia nodded and said, 'You just wanna get a hotdog or something? I'm starving.'

They sat down on some stone steps facing a large gritty-looking building. While eating their food, they edged back under the shelter of their building, as it started to rain harder.

A little kid came out of the building opposite. Olivia watched as he sat down on the stone steps across the street. A black hoody was drawn over his eyes. He became soaking wet in seconds but it didn't seem to affect him.

He just sat there.

Olivia put her hotdog down, waiting for the child to do something, anything!

'What do you think he's waiting for?' Olivia asked her partner.

'Hmm.. who?'

Elliot looked up and looked around a bit vaguely.

'O, you mean the kid? Hardly saw him in the rain, and huddled like that in the corner... Dunno, his mother maybe...'

All of a sudden there was a loud crashing noise of glass left of them. Both detectives jumped up and saw a woman hanging out of the window, screaming and cursing in Italian at a man on the streets. He raised a fist and dared to reply. Then all hell broke loose. She threw clothes, books and even a chair at his head. He dodged it all calmly.

Elliot was already running up the stairs and Olivia was right behind him. The right apartment was easily found: follow the shouting. Elliot quickly restrained the woman, as Olivia tried to calm her down with the little Italian she knew.

A few minutes later they walked downstairs again. Marital problems, or so they were told. At least the woman had calmed down and she'd let her husband back in again.

As she pushed through the door, Olivia nearly tripped over the tiny hooded figure, who had apparently crossed the street and was now rapidly eating her hotdog.

'Will you look at that.' Elliot whispered next to her.

She sat down beside the kid, 'Enjoying that?'

He almost jumped out of his skin. After the shock, which was pretty fast, he cocked his little head to one side and eyed her curiously. He didn't seem nervous at all for eating their food.

It was hard to make out a face in that oversized hoody, but Olivia could see a few things quite clearly, sitting next to him: He was absolutely soaked, looked at them with cautious, but gorgeous, almost black eyes and his lip was split open and bloody.

Then a smile spread across the young face, but it didn't reach the eyes.

'You're cops.'

'Yeah, buddy,'Elliot said, who could now also see the bruises around his eye, 'wanna see my badge?'

'Why would I?' the kid replied, audaciously, 'Got my own.'

With that he reached into his pockets and produced a badge, identical to the one Elliot was holding.

Too suprised to do anything, they just looked at the kid for a second. Then, realising what had happened, Olivia felt inside her pocket: Her badge was gone.

But the kid had already jumped up, dodged Elliot's grip and ran down the steps.

'Gotta be faster, old man!' he said to Elliot, with a wink, and quickly threw Olivia her badge.

Before they could react, the kid had already vanished.

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