Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters... none of the episodes I'm playing off of... etc. If Dick Wolf or NBC owns it, I don't. Don't sue me please, as all I have is the fruits of a summer job at slightly over minimum wage.

A/N: They're back!!!!! This is basically exactly the same idea as Feel the Silence, except the new season gets a new song. (By Moonbabies, incidentally, and found on the Grey's Anatomy soundtrack. I don't own those either.) To recap: these post-eps are not related to anything except the episode in question unless I specifically say otherwise. They especially are not related to each other. Also: as many of you know, I don't ship EO. I do, however, try my best to stay true to the show, which is delightfully ambiguous. If you choose to get something from any of these chapters that isn't exactly what I had in mind... well then I think I did something right.

So enjoy!

This time, when Elliot goes to break the news to Victor Tate, she goes with him. She comes up with a work-related stop they can make on the way back, as an excuse, and she thinks it even fools him. He's caught up in his mistakes.

Some may say this is a Catholic thing but she knows otherwise. It's a function of making mistakes big enough to wrap around yourself, round and round until you are mummified. Until you become someone entirely different.

She drives. This makes her feel strangely maternal, as though she has a sullen child in the passenger seat where really there is a grown-up, brooding man. Run along now and apologize, honey. She keeps this thought to herself because it doesn't help even in her head.

At some point Elliot tries half-heartedly to start a conversation, but she raises an eyebrow, Really? Is this what you really want to do? and he goes back to staring out the window.

Good boy, she thinks, and almost laughs.

She follows him inside, past security and through the maze of bars, but hangs back out of earshot of the conversation. She can catch yelling, no words, but that's all right. After all, she didn't tag along to babysit.

Cragen trusts her to keep her partner in line, but she doesn't think he realizes that half the job is knowing when no-one has to do it.

The yelling is all in unfamiliar tones. Tate. While she knows what it is to be innocent in prison, she cannot conceive of a life sentence. She imagines Elliot, helpless, with nothing to say except I'm sorry.

Privately, she thinks ADA Paxton isn't trying hard enough, but no way in hell will she confide this opinion to Elliot. She'll have a chat with Sonya later. Woman to woman. Try to be welcoming. She isn't sure but she doesn't think she's entirely on Paxton's bad side yet so that's a step up from Elliot at least. She has to give it a shot. If Victor Tate has no-one to speak up for him besides her and her partner – well, in any case he'll have both of them.

It is an utterly defeated Elliot who finally appears and drags his feet toward her. He won't meet her eyes so she just watches him all the way, matches his slow pace. "Hey."

He grunts in response and she waits until they're back in the car to try again.

"El, you can't change – "

"I know."

So she does what they do best: change the subject. "I have a bone to pick with you," she announces, and when she gets no response she just continues, "Why the hell did you tell me to get back?"

"What?" he says blankly.

"With Foster." She starts the ignition, for all the world as though this is just any conversation. Maybe it is. Maybe they've been over this sort of thing so many times that it's as natural as an interrogation routine, a dance to which they've both learned the steps long ago. He does something and she gets offended and he tries feebly to defend himself and eventually he forgets the whole thing and she pretends to. She's not even sure that she's offended anymore, but she always remembers.

"Oh," Elliot says, then sits for a moment in thought, watching the fence of the prison pass by. "How about this," he says slowly.

She almost forgets to watch the road; she only meant to distract him. Certainly she wasn't expecting an actual answer.

"I beat you to it. How's that?"

"Wow," she says, meaning it. "That's actually pretty good."

He doesn't quite crack a smile. "I am good for something, you know."

"El."

"Let's not."

After all, this is how they tend to operate together, and they've been doing it so well lately that she lets it be.

Don't worry, she says silently. You're not the only one trying to figure this out.

Not sure I'm really back in my groove...

Pleeeeease R&R! Comments are greatly appreciated.