I wasn’t even supposed to be out that night. Fin bailed, Rollins had her hands full with the baby, and Benson—well, Benson never really goes out anymore. So I found myself alone at the bar, unwinding after a long week of the usual heartbreak and horror SVU specializes in. I wasn’t looking for anything, just needed a drink and maybe some decent music.

Then she walked in.

She didn’t belong there, not really. While the rest of the crowd blurred together in a haze of cheap cologne and overpriced cocktails, she stood out—sweet-looking, totally sober, and clearly there on someone else’s behalf. Probably the drunk friend she was trying to wrangle in heels. But it was more than that. She had this presence. Gentle, sure. But there was steel underneath, like she was the kind of girl who’d patch someone up with a Band-Aid and then turn around and fight off a guy twice her size if she had to.

I didn’t mean to flirt with her. Not really. But something about the way she smiled at me—half-amused, half-curious—knocked me sideways. We talked. Just for a few minutes. But it felt like more. Until she excused herself to drag her hammered friend into an Uber, and just like that, she was gone.

Didn’t get her number. Didn’t even get her name.

I figured that was it.

Until the next morning.

I was running late—coffee in one hand, tie still loose around my neck—when I walked into Olivia’s apartment to go over something about a case. And there she was. Standing in the middle of the living room, holding Noah’s backpack and smiling politely as Liv introduced her like it was nothing.

“This is Noah’s new nanny,” she said. “Sonny, meet—”

But I already knew.

It was her.

The girl from the bar.

And she remembered me, too.