He feels strangely comfortable as he walks through the corridors, absorbing the chill coming from bleak walls and sparse areas wrapped in steel. He is even more at ease as he sits in a room and waits for Hartman to arrive, the air dank with the smell of fear and tragedy. There is light but it is weak, sadder even than the waning, listless sun of the winter day outside, and Elliot imagines he can almost taste the sheen of regret coating every surface. He knows what it feels like.

When the tread of feet announces Hartman's arrival, Elliot doesn't react, just listens until he can feel the man's presence behind him, hear his breath. He stays as still as stone, waiting for Hartman to make the first move and finally he does, walking round and sitting in the chair opposite without saying a thing.

He is in the obligatory orange jumpsuit, hands cuffed in front of him, and the colour washes him out so he looks grey and barely human. Even so, Elliot is surprised all over again how normal, how small Hartman is, though he seems to have bulked up in his time there and is sporting a scar on his forehead Elliot doesn't remember from before. And he should know, he has memorised every inch of this man.

They sit and look at each other, a stand-off of sorts, and Elliot is forced to contain the increasing urge to pace, to move, to fidget and scream at the man. It builds within him, making him tense each muscle in order to stay still, and he thinks it will win. But Hartman breaks first, in a languid way as he leans back and stretches his shoulders, arms arching overhead before speaking, and Elliot can release a breath.

"You asked to see me, what can I do for you?" His voice is low and quiet, polite and non-threatening, and Elliot knows that he hasn't got an answer, even as he looks at him. How can he say he needed to make sure the monster he carried with him in his head was still real and not a figment or a ghost. To check that this world is a reality, and not simply a vicious dream.

"Do you remember me?" Elliot sounds curious but in a strangely light-hearted way, with none of the intimidation or underground threat he usually allows to surface when he's confronting a suspect. With the question comes an increase in the feeling that has taken over since the previous day, that this is searingly raw and razor sharp, but also that he is watching from a far away distance as it cuts. It's heady, and dizzying, and wonderfully intoxicating in its power.

"How could I forget?" Hartman looks down at his cuffed hands, picking at the skin by his fingernails and it is a familiar movement from the interrogation that has been replayed over and over again in Elliot's mind. It is another reassurance, that this is still the same man, the one that binds him still to Liv. "Least you don't look like you're about to kill me now."

For a second Elliot wants to tense his muscles and suggest that his observation is wrong, that he will dive across the desk and slam his head back so hard against the wall his brain will smear downwards with him as he falls. But somehow, he doesn't have it in him to engage in the tedious, pointless play. The truth, is he doesn't want to kill the man, not yet, and they both know it.

Still, he cannot resist the habit of years and asks, "Should I want to kill you?". The question, so cop like, tastes artificial in his mouth and he regrets it almost as soon as it leaves him. A game of cat and mouse is pointless when the prey is already caught. Hartman seems to feel it as well, but instead of calling Elliot's bluff he just smiles and shakes his head, giving nothing away.

"How are you?" There is a bizarre note to Elliot's question, the words everyday and polite in such a surreal, damaged place, and Hartman eyes him before answering, searching for an ulterior motive. There isn't one, Elliot feels out of control in his own mind, dictated in this scene by puppet strings with no known master. An unknown force has guided him here and left him to fend for himself, sitting in front of his nemesis and having a chat that wouldn't be out of place at a dinner table, with wives gossiping around them.

"I'm okay. I keep quiet, to myself." Hartman looks subdued and vulnerable as he answers, not a violent rapist at all, and Elliot forces himself to think of the girls broken expressions when they recounted their rapes in order to ground himself in reality. It doesn't seem to work, and edgy compassion is winning the fight despite his head.

"You not getting bothered?"

"I hold my own when I have to." The man is reticent, bewildered, and Elliot can't blame him. He's in a twisting dream and he knows it must be worse for Hartman, who doesn't have confusion and conflict running wild in his mind.

"The guard said I'm the first visitor you've had. Is there anyone I could get in touch with for you?" Thoughts of his loneliness run through his head, how he would feel locked up with no visits, no letters, no contact with an outside world. He imagines it simply as an accentuated feeling of his own existence, walls shielding them both from reality, and even as he does he knows he's spiralling out of his own control.

"I don't really have any family. Just a grandmother. But she won't come." A child-like sadness is evident now.

"Have you asked her?"

"I called her, once. She hung up. I don't blame her," And for the first time he meets Elliot's eye, daring him to argue that a family member should always be loyal, should disregard such events as a conviction for rape. Elliot won't dispute it though, he can see all too easily how a rapist grandson would be hard to stomach.

As a sharp silence reigns he tenses again, to avoid the fidget that would show weakness. He is asking questions that have more to do with concern that with trying to find out Olivia's whereabouts, and he can't bring himself to ask what he wants to know, to shatter the strange illusion they are creating between them. This is between the two men and it is a battle to be fought, with twisted rules of engagement both seem to understand.

"If you need anything, I could help." He doesn't know what he thinks he can do but

it's an offer he realises he means as he says it. However, Hartman has had enough and gives him a scathing look that burns the air of the illusion created.

"What do you want from me?"

"I don't know. I just wanted to see you." Elliot flinches at the admission he makes, at his inability to lie, to bluff, to employ his mask that years of being a detective have created. If it weren't in this context it would sound like someone trying to impress a girl, someone who falls hard but who's feelings aren't reciprocated. Its a strange truth, he has thought more about Hartman over the last months than any lovesick boy could over his first crush, and it grates. He has no script and, while in the back of his mind there is still Olivia and the bitter, aching need for answers, he knows now that he will have to venture further into the unknown wilderness with this man to get them.

Hartman doesn't seem surprised by either Elliot's answer or the silence that falls afterwards, just gestures to the guard and says he's ready to go. As he walks past Elliot with head bowed, he states,

"I'll see you again then," And Elliot knows he will. He won't let go now, however crazy he feels to be sitting having polite conversation with a rapist, the man who stole his partner.

As he leaves the prison and hears the metal resound shut behind him, his chest tightens when he sees the light, the day still existing out there. The walk to his car feels excruciating, his defences flayed open and the weak sunshine scalding like acid.

He sits for a while in the car, not looking at his surroundings but replaying the conversation in his head, matching the answers with the things he knows about the man. Finally he takes his cell phone out and calls Kathy, a strange freedom rushing through him.

"I'm not going to make the parent/teacher thing tonight. The car's broken down, I'm going get it looked at."

It's an easy, simple lie and he neither knows nor cares whether she believes him, though he thinks she will. It's been a long time since he has missed something important or failed his parental duties in such a way, and there was no anger in her voice when he cancelled. Not like so many times in the past. When he hangs up, the drunk feeling is still there, as if he were on a rooftop, ready to jump and believing he will fly.

Instead of heading back to Queens, to where he belongs now, he calls a friend to search an address for him. He could do it himself, he's still a cop of sorts, but it's easier like this; he doesn't want to draw too much attention to himself yet. When he has scrawled the information on a napkin in his car he starts to drive, and there is something soothing to have a purpose in his day, a clear goal that is achievable and gives him purpose.

The house he pulls up at is so unremarkable it could hold a million different lives or secrets, but he is only after one. Even now, before he has stepped over the threshold, he knows she won't know anything, even if he had an idea what he was looking for. All he can think is that he has to get further into this man's life.

The garden is covered with tired, fallen leaves that crackle under his feet as he approaches, and his noise wakes a cat curled asleep on a chair beside the front door. It opens one eye and glares reproachfully at him, but jumps up when he rings the bell and darts inside as soon as the door opens. He hears her before he sees her, greeting the cat with fondness, and then she is there, looking unconcerned at the strange man before her.

"Yes?" She asks, and her voice is surprisingly clear and strong, not a hint of an old lady behind it. If he hadn't been there in person, seen her grey hair and her slightly stooped figure leaning on a walking stick, he wouldn't have been able to place her age.

"Mrs Johnston?" He asks, and she nods. "I'm Elliot Stabler. I'm here about your grandson, Daniel." She runs her eyes down him and then back to meet him, clear and open.

"Are you a policeman?" There is no venom or suspicion as she asks, just a faint trace of familiarity that tells she has been here too many times before, with a cop on her doorstep.

"Yes," he admits, "but that's not why I'm here. I..." he doesn't know what to say to her, at a loss for words yet again, "I visited Daniel today." Something vaguely resembling hope flashes across her face, tinged with sorrow and confusion, but it is gone as quickly as it had been there, replaced with a neat facade.

"You'd better come in. please." And she gestures for him to enter, closing the door against the cold behind him.

There is a quiet warmth to the house, a blanket wrapping itself around him against the stinging cold of the day, and faces smile at him from walls and surfaces. A cup of tea rests on a side table beside what is clearly her chair in the front room, but the cat has stolen the seat. She pushes it to one side as she sits down, which causes it to jump down and supervise Elliot taking a seat across from her, still glaring. He resists the urge to try and out-stare it, the action seeming strangely rude in such a clearly polite house.

"How is my grandson?" The question seems light-hearted as she asks it but he can see the effort such easiness takes, the faint strain to her voice and the tremble of her hand as she takes a sip of the tea.

"He seemed fine. Well." He doesn't know whether that is the truth, how he could possibly tell whether Hartman had been his normal self, but he wants to reassure her.

"Good." She seems at as much of a loss as he feels but goes to stand up, asking "can I get you anything?"

"No, thank you," and with his decline she sinks back down, seeming almost defeated at the lack of task he has left her with. Silence falls again and he feels awkward and out of place as he gazes around the room, taking in no details but clearly sensing her eyes on him, until his unease gets so much that he feels he needs to say something, anything. It's the same as it had been with Hartman, a welling of anxiety, but this time he cannot control it.

"I was hoping you can help me," and as he speaks he automatically leans closer to her, resting his elbows on his legs. She raises her eyebrows slightly, nodding for him to continue, and he takes a breath, preparing to bring Olivia into the conversation, but as he does so he is hit with an image of her, so vivid he has to freeze.

She is sitting in a chair next to him, leaning towards the woman with gentle inquiry and concern, and he rests back, letting her take the lead because she's quieter and more trustworthy as a woman and this is what they do. This is how they get answers. The scene is so strong he wants to flash her a look, a smile, anything, but she isn't looking at him and he cannot get her to meet his eyes, however hard he stares.

By the time he blinks and remembers where he is, she's fading again and he cannot hold her, so he speaks in a rush born of confusion. "Did you know Daniel was linked to another case?"

Mrs Johnston creases her wrinkles as she thinks before nodding slowly, "You mean the missing woman? The cop?" Elliot confirms it, "some other detectives came and asked, when he got caught. I told them I don't know anything."

"I know," and he does, although he hadn't had anything to do with the investigation that kicked into gear after Hartman had been charged. Instead, he had exploited his position as Liv's partner to get hold of everything they dredged up about him, and sat reading it for hours at a time, "but I was just hoping you could tell me a little about Daniel. Anything might be helpful."

She sits back with a sigh and closes her eyes for a moment, absently stroking the cat that has returned to her lap and spread across it in elegant relaxation, so large it makes her look frail. "I don't know what to tell you really. Daniel was always a quiet boy."

"So there were no problems when he was a child?" and what he is really asking for is whether there had been any hint of what was to come, or any weakness or abnormality he can use to burrow his way into the man's mind.

"He wasn't always the most settled of children, but nothing that would explain what he did."

"What do you mean, unsettled?" It's easy to slip into gentle questioning but he also feels uncomfortable, like he's a fake or a fraud in letting the detective within him to come to the fore and take over. This feels too personal, too complicated to detach himself in that way.

"Well, when his parents split up, he stopped speaking at school for a while. And he'd bite his fingernails a lot, right down so they would bleed. But he grew out of it, like all kids do." She shrugs as she finishes.

"How old was he when they split?"

"Nine. He stayed with his father. My daughter left. She was never meant to be a mother." And there is a sigh of sorrow in her voice at that.

"How so?"

"She was always so independent, even as a child. She would never let me or her father do anything for her, it always had to be her doing it, even if it ended in disaster. She would never back down. She used to get up early to dress herself, even when things like buttons were beyond her." Traces of long ago exasperation and frustration come back as she reminisces, but also distinct pride at the strength of her child. "We never thought she'd have a long term boyfriend, much less get married and have a child."

"Did he have much contact with her after she left?" Elliot knows he is going over information he has already read, but that doesn't matter. What does is that he is here, to this woman who is connected to Hartman, and he is feeding off that.

"None of us did. She'd send Christmas cards, a birthday present from whatever part of the world she was in, but nothing more. It didn't come as a surprise when we stopped hearing from her. We were contacted about a year after her last card, saying she had died in India. She was drunk, and high, and went for a swim. Her body was found a couple of days after it happened, but it took them a few months to trace us."

With the telling of tragedy comes no distinct or obvious grief, just a wistful air and a taste of regret that shows Elliot she has come to terms with her daughter's death long ago, perhaps even before it happened.

"What about Daniel's relationship with his father?"

"It was fine. Normal father and son."

Elliot wonders what that means, normal. Whether either Dickie or Eli would describe their relationships with him as such. Both distant in different ways, both boys containing so much of him it scared him more often than he cared to admit. His temper, his introspection, his ability to shut himself down. Eli's tantrums have become notorious, although beginning to lessen as he learns and grows, and he hopes his sons will not have his rage.

"How did he seem when his own marriage broke up?"

"I didn't find out it had for a while after it had happened. He came to see me, said that things hadn't gone his way, that he and his wife had split but that he was okay with it, he was getting things straightened up again." There is complete openness in all the answers she is giving, and he knows from memory that they are the same as she had given before, that there are no slips caused by secrets or lies.

"Did he say why they had split up?" She shakes her head.

"Did you know she had run off with another man?"

"Not till the detectives came asking questions, after he got arrested. That's the first I heard of it. I wasn't surprised he hadn't told me."

Elliot is about to ask about this, her grandson's lack of honesty with her, but startles as the cat jumps off her lap and immediately up onto his, settling immediately with a firmness that indicates who is really in charge, and that little will make it move. He is tense and finds he doesn't know how to react, cats aren't really his thing, but he finally rests one hand on its back and it closes its eyes in approval. When he looks up, Mrs Johnston has a small smile on her face at the behaviour of both him and her pet.

"You haven't got a cat."

"No," and he wants to add that he has never wanted one, that he had never understood their balance of independence and neediness, but now there is a weight settled on him, he finds it strangely calming, to have an animal asleep on him and be unable to move. It's easier, not being in charge, to be pinned in one place. He finds himself relaxing slightly, before continuing.

"What else did he say, when he came to see you?"

She shakes her head minutely as she thinks, "Not much really. Just that he was fine, and getting settled again. He brought me flowers. That was the only odd thing."

"He wouldn't normally do something like that?" He's interested in Hartman's seeming lack of attachment to his grandmother previously, given his lack of a mother figure in so many years of childhood, and he wonders what Huang would say.

"No. He was never a giving child, not the kind that went in for displays of affection. He took after his mother in that way," and another shy smile of memory comes at that.

"Was there anything else odd about that visit?"

"No. Only that he kept looking at everything, walking round and staring at photos, but I just thought it had been so long since he'd come to visit that he was thinking of the past."

Elliot can feel his own experiences nagging at the back of his head, at his own actions in Olivia's apartment, the way he always feels the need to touch and remember, but he cannot let that overtake him now. There will be time for losing himself later.

"But he didn't say anything that hinted to what he'd done?"

"No. I'm sorry." And there seems to be real regret in her words, that she cannot give him whatever he is looking for, or illuminate her grandson for him. An echo of her apology resounds around them and they sit for long moments, during which he finds himself stroking the cat, feeling it begin to vibrate beneath his hand, a purr that increases with each touch and breaks the silence. When he tears his gaze from the nothingness he has been lost in, he finds her also gone from the room, her eyes glazed with the past.

Finally she looks up again and gives a small smile, though he isn't completely sure whether it is intended for him or the cat. As she stands, signalling the end of the conversation and preparing to show him out of the house, he cannot help himself blurting out,

"I was her partner."

She freezes, one hand already reaching for her walking stick, and this time there is nothing but sympathy in her look as she asks,

"The missing woman's?"

"Yes." And it is a comfort to him that she doesn't ask what kind, whether they were a couple or not. It doesn't matter at all, now.

"I'm very sorry for your loss." It's a standard condolence but, as he feels her understanding wash over him, he knows she really means it. That she knows all to well what grief and uncertainty mean within a person, what they do.

"I think Daniel would like to see you."

He's out of control again, and he has no idea why he had said it, only that he knows it to be the truth, and there is something so dignified about the grey-haired woman before him that he wants to see what her reaction will be. That, and the voice whispering to him that if he does this for Hartman, the man will owe him.

"I'm an old woman detective. My life has had enough within it, without needing to see my grandson locked up. I love him, and he knows that. I can do nothing more than that." And when he looks at her, he thinks she must understand some of what he feels, and why he has sought her out. Some of what true sorrow really means, how it aches inside.

And then the cat has jumped down, he's being shown out and when he glances back into the room, the cat is settling in the warm spot he had been sitting. So quick to take advantage. He thinks for a second that it must be cleverer than he is.

When he gets back into the car, he doesn't leave immediately, although it's cold enough to clearly see each breath he releases. Instead he thinks of the old woman, alone and warm within her house, and the leaves fading into nothing on the grass outside, still tinged with a frost in the shadows, where the weak sunlight has not reached. And even as he prepares to drive away, her words keep going through his head. 'Do nothing more. Nothing more. Nothing more.'

He wishes to be able to do nothing more.