He's heard almost all the excuses that there are to hear, but he has never heard the one that he was fed during this case. He wonders what on earth could move a parent to abuse a child so severely, but as he stands there on the precinct rooftop, he realizes that there is no simple answer. The excuses come, whether they're plausible or not; a child ends up hurt, and no one wants to take the blame, so they send the detectives round and round in circles until the truth finally comes out. More often than not, it's too late. More often than not, a devastating amount of damage has been done, and more often than not, it can't be fixed.
"...kissed her on the cheek, and I told her I loved her…" It's sickening, he muses, that a parent can be so brutal one moment, and so loving the next. He thinks back on the story he just told Olivia and wishes that he had done something back then. But, like he'd said, he'd been too absorbed in his own life to even give a damn, and then before he'd known it, the little girl that was always outside when he got home was no longer there. He tries not to think that there will be a funeral service for little Emily, as there was for her, but it is a harsh reality that he will have to face, and does have to face with every case that goes by.
The sounds of Manhattan's night traffic float up from down below, but John ignores it in favor of continuing on with his own thoughts. He knows the others are inside, wondering what's taking him so long out here, but he doesn't care, nor does he want to go back inside. But it is colder than normal out here on the rooftop; sooner or later, he will have to, and then paperwork will be his only recourse to avoiding the looks from the others.
After a while, the sounds of the traffic grow annoying, and he does retreat back into the precinct, and the harsh glow of the fluorescent lights in the halls. They remind him of years spent in Homicide and years still to be spent here with this unit, and it isn't something he wants to think about. But being a cop is all he knows, and he isn't quite ready to give it up, no matter what he sees. And even so, Emily's case is enough to make him want to leave his shield on the captain's desk and walk away without looking back. Then again, his partner is still new to the unit, and leaving seems almost cold, but not to the extent that Emily's mother has just been.
No one looks at him when he walks into the squad room, and for this, he is grateful. He doesn't think that he can handle being talked to right now, even if he has just finished talking to Olivia. She glances at him for a moment after he sits at his desk, but he says nothing, and she looks away as he reaches into one of the desk drawers for the book he took from Emily's room in her father's apartment. A bookmark sticks out from between two of the pages, and the book falls open in his hands, to the exact place that Emily's father had been before she had been returned to her mother.
The text is simple enough, John thinks, for a girl of Emily's age to assist in reading. The illustrations on the pages jump up at him, colorful in their own right and interesting enough to keep a child occupied, at least for a little while. He finds it somewhat comforting that there are still some who care enough to sit and read with their children every night, no matter what else is going on in the world. And he wishes that Emily's father didn't already have the system set against him. He figures that she would be better off with him than back with her mother, a woman who only seems to care about the outward appearances, and whether or not Emily is good enough for her stepfather's affections.
He decides at that moment that he is going to leave the squad room, and he does so, ignoring the others as they look up and look after him, wondering where he is going. Emily's book remains in his hands, and he looks towards the precinct's exit, glad to be finally able to leave. He decides as he walks outside that he is going to go to the hospital to see Emily, and perhaps finish reading where her father left off. The bookmark has fallen out, but the pages it separated have committed themselves to his memory; even without it, he will know where to start.
The hospital is only a short distance from the precinct, and so he walks, affording himself more time to think, more time than he would have had if he'd driven. There is still a good amount of people on the sidewalks despite the late hour, but John walks past them, having already determined where he is going. And still the sounds of traffic go by, constant as ever. He thinks wryly that crowded streets are the only real constant that New York City has and continues to walk as the hospital comes into view.
The lights inside are dimmer than the ones inside the precinct, for reasons he doesn't care to contemplate at the moment. Emily's room is in the pediatric ICU, on one of the upper levels and as he takes the elevator, he thinks about all that has been in this case, and all that will be in other cases, though the unit has yet for another call to come. And as the elevator stops, he steps out and turns, glancing briefly at the cartoon images drawn on the walls, in an effort to boost the morale of the children in permanent residence here. John hates to think that Emily will be one of them, but the doctors have said that there is always a chance that she will not come out of the coma she's in. He pushes the thought from his mind as he opens the door to her room and walks in.
The machines that are helping to keep her alive beep ominously as he sits down next to her bed and opens the book. He muses silently that it is slightly ridiculous to be reading a book to a comatose child, but as he has no children of his own, he figures that this is better than nothing…especially since Emily seems to have so few who truly care about her. He looks down at the pictures and is surprised to find himself amused at their foolishness.
He wonders if in Emily's subconscious, she feels safer here than she ever did in her own home, and it bothers him. It is depressing to think that a child can ever think that she is safer somewhere else than with her own family, and as he starts to read aloud, he contemplates this. It is somewhat comforting, he thinks, that there are still those few who are willing to risk their lives for the benefit of those who cannot defend themselves. And as the machines continue their rhythmic beeping, he glances at Emily, his voice breaking slightly on the next line.
"…and face up to your problems, whatever they are."
A/N: and yet another one of these one-shots that keep popping up whenever I stay up too late. Hopefully you all don't think this one is too bad, and hopefully, if you're like me and you've seen Legacy like, twenty times, you'll actually get it. Anyways…SVU isn't mine and no matter what I say, it won't be.