He can't help but see the face of one of his own in this girl.
He didn't go home because the house is empty, and he doesn't want to deal with himself and what he's done. So he sits at the precinct, even though he's technically not supposed to be there. Olivia and Fin have gone, both of them visibly exhausted. He has saved himself from being killed and does not know if he has taken another man's life in the process.
The thought doesn't settle well. But then, neither does seeing the face of one of his girls.
In two months, it will have been a year since she left, and he has no idea what he's going to do with himself. This presents a problem. He needs to know, in order to do his job. In order to keep something like this from happening again, though odds are, it will, because sometimes, he can't help but get personally involved. It is what led him to slip into an undercover role without thinking, it is what led him to that warehouse, and it is what finds him here now.
It is also what currently threatens to drive him mad, not that he's sure he isn't already.
There is one thing that Elliot wants to do at this point, and that thing would be to pick up the phone, but he can't for the life of him make himself do it. It's not that late. Odds are, one of the kids will answer the phone if he calls, because usually, it's for them. And if he calls now, it will be fore them, because he wants to hear them, all four of them. But the odds are against him there: it's not so late that Kathleen won't still be out, and the twins, maybe, and he knows Maureen isn't home, because it's not a weekend.
Close, yet far away, he thinks, and doesn't like it.
The funny thing about this is that they are on the opposite side of Queens from where their actual home is, which he knows, and would go there if he had the nerve, but for some reason, he doesn't. And so he remains in the precinct, knowing that if he's still there when Cragen comes back in the morning, he's going to get told off, but at the moment, he doesn't really care. A lecture is nothing compared to what might happen if he leaves the so-called safety of the squad room.
And he still sees one of his daughters' faces.
Blonde hair, blue eyes…he'd honestly thought that he was looking at one of them, and the relief that had washed over him when he'd realized that he wasn't is still completely indescribable. He thinks at this point that if there was any word to describe it, it would be a miracle. But the things he had to do to maintain the façade until he could get to a point where this girl, whose name he doesn't even know, could escape…He's done a lot of things over the course of his career in SVU, and this is one of those things that the thought of home and a hot shower won't take away.
This, of course, is because a shower never takes anything away, and no one's home.
There will be lights turned on when he gets there, because he left them on. The radio playing, because he left that on, too. It's September, and it's hardly getting cold at all yet, outside, but the heat's on, anyway, whenever he's home, because it's too cold inside without it. But he has the feeling that maybe it's just him. And maybe he's thinking too hard about it, but in the ringing silence that is home now, without everyone else, there isn't really anything he can do about that. Elliot looks at the phone on his desk again at this point, but still doesn't reach for it, because at this point, it will hurt too much to hear them, and know that they won't be around when he gets across the bridge.
After a moment, he gets up and goes to the crib, because it is his only chance of sleep.
Yeah, right, he thinks, when he gets there. He couldn't sleep now, even if he tried. There is way too much to think about, way too much to consider. Too many things he's never thought of before, because he never had a reason to, and too many reasons not to think about those things now. He lies on one of the bottom bunks, because he's never liked having to sleep on the top ones, and stares up. There are no shadows to distract him here, but there are streetlights, the sounds from down below, of other cops, and it is this that he focuses on, but after a while, it, like the shadows, starts not to work, and he is thrown back into his own thoughts once more.
And when he finally drifts off, it hits him that it is usually in the face of someone else that one sees someone they know.