She'd like to say she doesn't question it, day in and day out. But she does, she knows she does. Because quite frankly, how could she not?
How could she not question how she could have been so blind, so naive? She believed it, she really did. She really believed that she was just important enough for him not to do something like that to her. For him not to just drop off the face of the God damn earth like that. But she's now aware, she was wrong.
She questions too, why he did such a thing. Why he left.
She knows the bases, he couldn't take it, couldn't handle what he had done. It all got too much. But she knows too, there is much more to it than that. There has to be. This she knows for sure, because she knows him just that well.
Knew him just that well, she corrects herself. She can still just barely bring herself to refer to him in past tense. It breaks her heart. It hurts like hell. And it probably always will, she accepts.
Heartbreak is a bitch. A conclusion she came to many years ago.
Today is different though, she can feel it. Something has changed, is going to change.
The balance is off, something just isn't right. It feels like Gitano. She had this feeling then too. She knew that case would be different, life changing even. Her gut told her then, and it's telling her now.
But today she feels, it's not the case that's different, it's something else that's changing. Or, she thinks, maybe she's just crazy.
She tends to have thoughts that fall along those lines; from time to time now that he's gone. How ironic, she realizes, he drove her crazy when he was here, and he's still driving her crazy even now that he's gone. The bastard. She chuckles lightly to herself, over the years that became a common nick name for him. Still is. It describes him well, that she can't argue with. That she knows for sure, whether she knows him now or not.
He's foreign to her now. That she can no longer deny. It's the truth, plain and uncovered, open and willing. She hates him just a little bit more for that. It shouldn't be the truth. He should still be her partner, her best friend. He should still be at SVU, in her life. But he's not. And she knows this feeling all too well.
She never gets what she wants, not for long anyway. That's just how her life works. She had come to accept that, but she knows that somewhere deep inside of her, she always held him to a different standard. She expected him to be different, for him to be the exception. He was the one that was never supposed to walk away. Not after 12 years.
She knows now that was foolish of her to think. But it's not like she did so voluntarily. She never meant to hold him so high, it just happened. And it got all too comfortable before she could take notice, or doing anything about it. She doesn't like to change comfortable. Matter a fact; she doesn't like change at all. When she is set in her ways, she is set in her ways. The winds aren't supposed to change.
But here she is again, faced with that feeling of change. Coming right on the heels of his leaving, a year doesn't provide much repair. It's almost like all of the change is running together now. No Elliot, new detectives, David Hayden then no David Hayden, and now whatever the hell this is.
So now as she saunters into the squad room, she begins mentally preparing herself for what this day may hold. She knows it'll be big, but how big is still left to be determined. And that scares the hell out of her. Detective or not.