AN: The title comes from my new favorite song, We Are Golden by Mika. If you haven't heard it, it's worth a listen, as is all of his other fantastic music. The song itself doesn't really pertain to the story, I just love it. I was just thinking one day that Maureen is no longer a little girl (although Elliot would certainly like to keep her that way) and how absolutely adorable it would be to see Elliot in a tux, all in daddy mode as his eldest daughter gets married. I suppose it's just the hopeless romantic in me. ;)

We are not what you think we are, we are golden, we are golden.

After countless hours of mind boggling rummaging through stacks of paper memories, which only seemed to result in a cough from a cloud of dust rising up and nesting in his lungs, he had found the menace of a picture that he'd been searching for. Wedged between a photo of him receiving his detective rank from his captain when he still had hair and a photo of Kathy and her parents who leered at him from behind the camera, was a picture of Maureen, his oldest child, dressed in a white dress as she participated in a mock wedding at the tender age of only five, grinning at the camera with her infamous toothless grin.

Back then it was just a cliche all the children were curious about, one that held the promises of life that were to come. Little did she know, at the age where all she cared about was her Barbies and hanging out with Daddy, was that marriage was not all it was cracked up to be. One minute you're having a hasty wedding because you knocked up your girlfriend in high school and the next thing you know you're stuck in a loveless marriage. But now a childhood fantasy was no longer a memory but very much a reality.

A reailty that was fast approaching. He checked his watch; only two hours from now. He cursed under his breath at how absentminded he had become and went to put the photo away, but paused for a few seconds. He cracked a small smile and ran his fingertips over the film, savoring what was once daddy's little girl, an image that had become lost amongst time.

Trouble was, she was daddy's big girl now, a woman who was about to make the greatest leap a person ever could. It coarsed through his mind at a rapid pace, knowing soon enough he would walk her down the aisle and give her away to another man. As reluctant as he may have been to do so, he couldn't very well hold her back just to curb his own desire. He had always been one to hold on but know he was forced to let go. It was not a feeling Elliot Stabler particularly liked.

Losing control were two of the most foreign words to him.

He shook his head in dismay and tucked the picture neatly into its previous hiding place where it would probably stay to collect even more particles for someone else to discover one day in the future.

He had always despised rented tuxes. He'd never professed to being a germophobe but just the thought of someone else having worn it previously made his insides churn. He buttoned the last few buttons on his dress shirt and slung an undone tie over his collar that he would attend to later. He looped his fingers around his keys and slipped his badge over the belt at his waist as he surveyed the room one last time.

He gulped heavily as a thought crossed his mind.

He had a date.

He had a date to pick up.

He had a date who was his partner.

This wedding was beginning to make his head spin.