He's sitting downstairs when she comes looking for a glass of water. The light over the stove is on, and he can just barely make out her outline. She doesn't notice him until she closes the refrigerator door, and when she does, she jumps.
"What are you doing here?" she asks, putting the cup she's holding down on the counter before she drops it.
"I live here." Elliot takes a minute to look at his oldest child and frowns. "You're dressed."
"Well, yeah," says Maureen dryly, "It's not like I'm gonna walk around here naked."
"That's not what I meant. You aren't wearing pajamas. Why?"
Maureen rolls her eyes at this question. "I fell asleep in my clothes," she replies. "Don't worry. I'm not going to sneak out. You're such a cop."
It's a comment that she has flung at him many times before, and a comment he usually ignores, but not this time.
"Yeah," he says, "I know I am, and for good reason. You ever think about that before?"
"Didn't we already have this conversation?" Maureen asks, picking up her glass and taking a sip from it.
"I'm not too sure it managed to sink in," Elliot replies dryly, and then, "You know, sometimes I really wonder what's going through your head."
"Why? Because I do stupid things that could possibly end up with me scattered across Jersey?" Maureen asks mildly, and he realizes vaguely that she's throwing his words back in his face.
"Well, yeah. That, and because that's just what parents do. They wonder about their kids, what they're doing, who they're talking to, when they're gonna come home…" He trails off, and she comes to sit down across from him at the table.
"You know, I'm not stupid," she says, and before he can tell her that he knows this, she goes on. "People talk. It's not like I don't know what you do for a living."
"What does that have to do with anything?" Elliot asks, startled by this remark, and Maureen shrugs.
"Nothing. I just know that it's why you worry so much. And I also have the feeling that whatever you're working on is why you flipped out on me."
"I did not 'flip out' on you. I grounded you because you're a sophomore in high school who doesn't need to be sneaking out at night to meet boys."
"Who said I was meeting boys?" Maureen demands, and Elliot bites back the desire to laugh at the expression on her face.
"You just did," he says. "You wouldn't have asked if you hadn't been meeting boys. Do I want to know who they are?"
"That's a stupid question. Of course you want to know, you always want to know. But don't worry, they're my age."
"Good, because I'd have to go hunt them down if they weren't. And no, that doesn't mean I'm all right with you sneaking out."
"You're not funny, and I figured as much." Maureen trails off and runs her finger along the rim of her cup. "Did you and Mom ever do any stupid stuff when you were my age?"
"I don't know about your mother, seeing as we went to the same school and somehow didn't end up knowing each other until senior year," says Elliot, "But I can tell you that I did plenty of stupid things."
"Like what?"
"Whatever schemes my friends used to talk me into, pretty much. Stuff in the locker room…you really don't want to know."
"Yeah, probably not." Maureen continues running her finger along the cup's rim. "Anything stupid like sneaking out?"
"As a matter of fact," says Elliot, and she gives him a startled look as he goes on. "I, on the other hand, never got caught."
"Gee," Maureen says dryly, "How'd that work?"
"Because the sneaking out didn't start happening until my father wasn't a cop anymore," says Elliot, and goes on before she can ask about it. "You, on the other hand, are stuck with me."
"And you're not going to give up what you do anytime soon," says Maureen. He smirks in her direction.
"Not if I can help it, kid," he tells her, and then, "You know, the world isn't always something you can look at through rose colored glasses."
Maureen rolls her eyes at him. "Here we go again," she says. "Another one of your lectures. What is it this time?"
"Something you need to listen to," says Elliot, and she falls silent as he goes on. " I know right now it might seem cool to give your parents hell and sneak out in the middle of the night, but it's really not."
"Yeah, but everyone does it," Maureen points out. He shakes his head at her.
"You're not everyone," he tells her. "You're one of the kids who knows better, and I'd rather you not find out the hard way what happens when it gets too far."
"You already know, don't you?" Maureen asks, even though she already knows that he does, because people talk, and kids talk, and her friends that have cop parents are no exception.
"I do know," Elliot says, after a while, "And that's part of the problem. The night I caught you, I went out to this college, and I saw this girl, and you know what? She was only a few years older than you are, and she was dead, because she went out, started partying, and got in over her head."
"But you found the guy who killed her, right?" Maureen asks, and Elliot nods, because they did, and the investigation is over, and he hates talking about his work in front of his kids, but figures if it can teach his oldest a lesson, then just this once…
"Yeah, we found him," he says. "But it doesn't change the fact that we can't find them all, and that there are still guys like that out there, and you out there in the middle of the night? It doesn't help any."
"I scare you, don't I?" Maureen asks, and he looks at her for a long moment before nodding, slowly.
"Sometimes you do," he says. "And I know you're not trying to, but it's just one of those things that comes along with being a parent. You can't help but be scared by some of the things your kids do."
"So, my sneaking out pretty much scared the hell out of you, because you had no idea whether or not I've done it before," says Maureen, more of a question than a statement. Elliot sighs.
"Have you done it before?" he asks, and she shakes her head. He goes on. "Good. Are you going to go and do it again?"
"Probably not," says Maureen, in that typical teenage way that drives him up the wall, because at some times, he can't tell whether she's kidding or not.
"I need a straight answer on that one, kid," he says. "Probably not isn't gonna do any good for you."
"Then no," Maureen replies. "I'm not. I didn't like it that much anyway."
"What wasn't to like?" Elliot asks, not sure that he wants to know the answer, and Maureen shrugs.
"Everything. The guys were stupid, the girls were tired, we were all way too hyped up on coffee, and none of us really wanted to do anything."
"So that was what I smelled on you. Just coffee."
"Yeah, Dad. I'm not stupid enough to go out and get drunk." Maureen trails off and smirks at him. "Don't you trust me?"
He laughs. "You still have a ways to go." He looks over at the clock and goes on, feeling suddenly tired. "You should head up to bed, you've still got school in the morning."
She makes a face, downs the rest of her water and gets up. "I hate sleeping in jeans," she says. "I'm gonna go upstairs, change and then crash."
"You do that." He gets to his feet as well, and moves to follow her up the stairs. When they reach the second floor hallway, he bends down and kisses her on the forehead. "Good night."
"Night, Dad. Love you."
She disappears into the room she shares with Kathleen, and he watches until she closes the door before heading to the end of the hallway and his own room. Pulling off the shirt he's wearing, he gets into bed, and stares up at the ceiling.
"She's growing up too fast," he says, into the darkness, and in the place beside him, he can feel Kathy stirring.
"Don't tell me you just figured that out," she says, drowsily, and he shakes his head.
"No. I figured it out a while ago, but…I think it's just starting to hit me."
"Another one of those?"
He knows what she's asking, and knows that she knows full well that in some cases, he can't help but see their children, and so he nods, but knows that she can't see him because she isn't looking at him.
"Yeah," he says, finally, quietly. "Another one of those."