Everything Changes

Safe

By the time Olivia and the others tracked Bedelia's phone to its exact location at The Lydia Motel, Bedelia and Kim were long gone.

Even still, she, Nick, Fin, and Carisi scoured the room for details.

"Kim has been here." Olivia told them after a few minutes.

"You found something?" Fin asked as they all gathered around her.

"Her bag."

"Anything useful in it?" Nick wanted to know. "I found a suitcase of hers, but it only had what you would expect it to have."

"I see odds and ends." Olivia said as she put on plastic gloves and began to rifle through it. "Bingo: found a wallet. I see a few things like discount cards, a food stamp card, and an ID card, but they all say Georgia on them."

Surmised Fin, "Which means that she must have just gotten here in the last twenty-four hours with Lily and Ruby. Do you see anything like train tickets?"

Olivia found three train ticket stubs and when she looked closer at the information on them, she let out a single-noted whistle. "The price of these tickets must have really drained her."

"Is there any cash?"

Olivia checked. "Nearly sixty dollars. That would be enough to help her get by, but not two little kids, as well."

Breaking away away from the pack, Nick pointed to the small, somewhat rickety table against one of the walls. "If Kim had any extra money coming up here, it's not much of a guess where it went."

They looked at the table and spotted an open bag of cocaine. There was also a smaller pile of the drug atop the table with a folded up notecard next to it, serving as a scoop. Someone had been taking the white powdery substance.

"Drugs, too?" Olivia sighed. "That coke could be Kim's or Odis', but either way, that really isn't good."

Carisi pointed towards the window, still open from earlier. "Whatever went down in here, Kim left through the window, and Bedelia must have gone with her because she'd still be here, otherwise."

Fin chimed in as the voice of reason. "That's all well and good, but if Bedelia and Kim are in the wind, then where is Odis? Why isn't he here?"

No sooner were the words out of his mouth when the door to the room opened and the man in question entered, arms laden with food and drinks. He had clearly been expecting his wife and child to be there, but when he spotted four strangers, he looked like a deer caught in headlights.

If the situation wasn't so bad, Olivia would have laughed because once again, they were seeing just how strong the genes in the Rollins family were: though Odis Lee was his own person, he actually looked like a masculine version of Kim.

Odis Lee froze even more when he saw them all pulling out their guns and pointing them in his direction.

"Odis Lee Rollins, I presume?" Olivia asked in a deadly sweet tone.

He dropped the food. "Yeah...?"

Olivia narrowed her eyebrows in an 'if looks could kill' fashion. "You better start running."

He did.

And they gave chase.

Much later in the night, Bedelia and Kim had finally made it back to the neighborhood with that was in the jurisdiction of Olivia's precinct, and while they were thankful for that, they were also both soaked to the bone from a sudden rain downpour that they'd gotten caught in.

Kim was also in worse shape than when they'd left the motel. She was really feeling the withdrawal symptoms, but she was also having trouble breathing.

Miraculously, they reached the emergency room entrance of Saint Vincent's Hospital just before Kim's body gave out on her and she collapsed on the ground, convulsing.

Naturally, Bedelia became hysterical, but once a doctor calmed her down and gave her dry and warm clean clothes and even a pair of disposable ballet flats to wear, it was explained to her that Kim's breathing problems were due to tension pneumothorax, also known as a collapsed lung. The seizure was a withdrawal symptom.

Adding insult to injury, Bedelia was also told that even though they deduced that Kim hadn't used any cocaine in hours, she was perilously close to an overdose. Pumping her stomach was also on the agenda.

But the last thing the doctor told Bedelia before leaving her to her thoughts, was that Kim was expected to make a full recovery.

As Bedelia's thoughts shifted from worrying over how she was going to pay for the hospital bills to figuring out how to call Olivia so she could let her know that she and Kim were still alive, she also realized that there, in the waiting room, she was experiencing an adrenaline crash. Because of that, she realized that her body was very sore all over, including her breasts, and her breasts being sore was usually a sign that it was time to nurse Leon.

Bedelia ended up taking that as a literal painful reminder that she couldn't be with him, or even the rest of her children. She just wanted to curl up in a corner somewhere and cry herself out.

The worried mother wasn't sure how long she was even in the waiting room, but after some time, she became distracted by a redheaded woman taking a seat in the empty chair next to hers.

The first thing Bedelia noticed about her, even out of the corner of her eye, was that the woman had a burgeoning baby belly and that even her maternity clothes were top-of-the-line brands, which suggested that whatever she did for a living, it made her a lot of money.

"Here you go." the woman held out an open pack of travel-sized pack of tissues and offered them to her. "You look like you could use these more than me."

Bedelia thanked her and took them, while privately startled that she hadn't noticed that she was in tears.

When she finished cleaning herself up, the woman spoke again, sounding very curious.

"Pardon me for asking, but are you related to Amanda Rollins, by chance?"

Bedelia perked up immediately and turned to face her. "Yes! I'm her mother, Bedelia; do you know Amanda well?"

"No, but I have met her a few times over the years." the redhead admitted. "I actually know Olivia Benson a lot better."

"What is your name, please?"

Bedelia's new acquaintance held out her hand for a handshake. "Acacia, but you can call me Casey. Casey Novak."