He used to think he had a purpose.
But that was back in Baltimore. Back when there was more to do than sit in the squad room looking stuff up for everyone else, because apparently, that's all he's useful for now. The funny thing about this is that he knows he's getting old, but he's still a cop. Granted, he probably should have just stayed retire, but the lure of the streets has always been an irresistible one, at least to him. He has been a cop for most of his life, and leaving now would seem almost wrong. It isn't what he wants to do.
He finds himself going to the precinct rooftop before he knows that he's moving.
The sun is barely starting to rise. They've all been in the squad room and out on the streets for a few hours now. The worst cases always come in the middle of the night. Every now and then, they come during the day. But mostly at night. He'd been at the crime scene, at first, with Olivia, and then Elliot had come around.
He hears the roof access door open and doesn't turn to see who it is.
"Y'know, you could have just told him to come back to the squad room," Olivia remarks, and John looks over at her.
"Believe it or not, I wasn't in the mood to piss him off," he replies.
Olivia snorts and comes to stand where he is, leaning against the guardrail.
"He pisses himself off, but I think it's getting better," she says. "Now that he's home, anyway."
The funny thing about being torn apart is that the little things put you together.
"I find it somewhat ironic that being pulled apart like we all were somehow managed to make us all somewhat stronger," says John, and Olivia offers up a half-hearted smile.
"One squad, one heartbeat," she says. "Guess you could call it our unofficial motto."
He laughs. "When did that happen?"
She shrugs. "I don't know."
Silence. The truth is that neither of them have any real answer as to when it happened. It just did.
"Do you ever wonder if you ever really had a purpose?" John asks finally, and Olivia stares at him.
"Yeah," she says, after a while. "Sometimes I do."
This revelation, for some reason, makes him feel a lot better than it should, and he feels almost guilty because of it. But it is nice to know that he is not the only one that wonders about it.
"Y'know, I used to think my purpose in life was to be a homicide detective," he says. "My little brother and I had this whole discussion about it once. Got to the point where I was so convinced that was what I was meant for that I wouldn't consider anything else."
"When did it change to being an SVU detective?" Olivia asks, and John sighs.
"After the last divorce," he tells her. "Came up here looking for a change, but I didn't want to quit being a cop, so I ended up here."
She mulls this over for a moment, and turns, so that her back is against the guardrails. "I knew I wanted to be a cop when I was a kid," she admits. "I just didn't think I'd end up investigating the same thing that happened to my mom. And then I heard about this unit and I couldn't help but feel like it was where I should be."
"All-volunteer," says John. "Everyone's got their own reasons for being here."
"What were yours? Other than the obvious?"
Again, silence. It isn't a question that he's ever had to answer before. But he knows that other than the obvious, other than wanting to get away from himself and from Baltimore, there is another reason.
"You remember the Charm Bracelets case, don't you?" he asks, and Olivia nods.
"Hard to forget," she says. "You, two Baltimore cops, me, Elliot, Fin…Casey and a Baltimore prosecutor…hell of a mess."
John has to laugh at this, because she has a point. It was a mess. "First time around," he says. "Early eighties. You had me as a rookie and you had Abby playing Homicide ADA…well, ASA down there, but there you have it. It was one of her first cases, and the guy got off on a technicality."
Olivia raises her eyebrows at this, because she knows it wasn't really a technicality that got Brandon Collins to walk on all charges, but she says nothing. After a moment, John goes on.
"Anyway, long story short, after that happened, Abby kinda had a meltdown," he says. "Didn't talk to anyone for a while, buried herself in work, that sort of thing, and no one but me and her sister knew why."
Realization dawns on Olivia, then, and she looks at him. "You're here because of them," she says, and he nods.
"Figured when they told me the only place they had for me was here, I'd take it," he says. "Maybe it was just so I'd still have a purpose, I don't know."
"I think you'd have a purpose whether or not you were here," says Olivia. "Everyone does in one way or another."
"Well, yeah, but what happens when every day is the same, day in and day out?" John asks. "Like this. When it gets to the point where you're just going through the motions, what happens to your purpose then?"
She doesn't have an answer. He isn't surprised, because he doesn't have one either. And so they both turn, to look at the city below them, the question lingering in between them.
He does have a point though. With every day the same, sometimes it's hard for them to know exactly what their purpose is.