He is the temperamental one.
He is the one who has been in the unit for most of his career, the one who volunteered in right after he made detective. He is the one who knows how it is to be the new kid in the unit, and the one who has been a mentor. He is the one who the others call lead detective, because he's been there the longest, but he doesn't think he holds that role on his own. He is the one who sometimes laughs at the average of two years, because he's a decade and more over that.
He is the one who lost one partner to a gun, and another to retirement.
And he is the one who stood, grief-stricken, in Captain Cragen's office upon hearing news of Detective Rossetti's death. He is the one who stood beside his late partner's widow at the funeral, and the one who wears a black band over his shield sometimes for other officers when they fall. He is the one who will sit vigil at any hospital in any borough, and the one who will stand in the back at the funerals of victims who didn't make it, and remain there, unnoticed until it is over. He is the one who has the department as such a part of him that sometimes, even being on leave hurts.
He is the one that the unit calls Detective Stabler.
What this means, he isn't exactly sure of, but he does know that he is the one who too often has to answer a call in the middle of the night, and the one who sits in the precinct with a cup of coffee at all hours, so he and the others can break a case. He is the other half of the partnership between him and Detective Benson, and sometimes, he's a pain in the ass, and he knows it. He is the other one besides Sergeant Munch who has supposedly seen it all, even though he knows he hasn't, and he is the one has run a case with both Benson and Detective Tutuola, only to get in over his head, yet again.
He is the one who thinks sometimes that it's funny when this happens, and other times, doesn't.
There have been too many cases where he gets in over his head, and somehow, he is the one who can find his way out of it. He is the one who stared across the desks at his partner's empty chair while she was gone, and the one who put up with Detective Beck only because he had to, never mind one off moment. He is the one who gets in ADA Novak's face when she annoys him and the one who wants to laugh when she pushes back. He is the one who has toed the line many times before, and has sometimes crossed it, and the one who knows that if he pisses Benson off, she'll knock him a good one. He is also the one who sometimes knows when enough is enough, and if he knows what's good for him, he'll leave before he does something stupid.
He doesn't always do that, but sometimes he does, and then everything changes.
There is a big difference between being Elliot and being Detective Stabler, and it took him a while to figure it out, but at some point he did, and now it's not as complicated. The lines are there, they have been drawn, and Elliot is the one who appears whenever he's not at work, and the one who makes it so that being on leave doesn't hurt. He is the one who will answer the phone and talk for a minute to the latest of his daughters' boyfriends, just to get on their nerves, and the one who doesn't pay attention to the fact that life doesn't always go the way it's supposed to go, because most of the time, it does. He is the one who wanders around the house at night when all the lights are off to make sure that the doors are locked and the windows are closed, and the one who will sit at the old piano in the living room and play on those nights where he isn't the only one who can't fall asleep. Sometimes that tactic works, on other nights, it doesn't.
He is the one who sings when he thinks no one is listening.
What amuses him about this is that half the time, someone is listening. He is the one who used to turn on the music and let his daughters stand on his feet while he pretended to waltz around the kitchen, and would, still, if they hadn't gotten too old for it. He is the one who used to hold his son up and move down the row of monkey bars at the playground just so he could make it all the way across, and the one who will unplug the phone on weekends sometimes, just to spend a quiet moment with his wife, with no interruptions. And every now and then, he's the one who will drag the whole family out for no good reason, except for that they're all home and there's nothing else to do, so why not?
He is the one who watches his children while they sleep.
Once upon a time, he thought that maybe it was a little bit strange, but now he is the one who can stand there for quite a while, just staring. He is the one who will turn off the lights that they leave on, and replace the blankets they've kicked off, and close the windows they've left open and turn on the ceiling fans instead. He is the one who will sit on the front porch whenever he's home in the afternoon, just to watch, and the one who sometimes gets talked into whatever game the kids are playing, because he's also the one who doesn't try to give them lame excuses as to why he can't, because he's sitting right there doing nothing as it is.
He is the one that has a constant stream of kids going in and out of the house.
And he is the one who doesn't care, because he is the one who knows what it's like to be lonely. He is the one who let a stray cat into the apartment he had in Manhattan and somehow managed to talk the rest of the family into letting said cat come across the bridge with him. He is the one who tells Detective Lake that working too hard can cause you to lose everything. And then he is the one who finds out that Chester was brought up in the system and the one who helps in and Fin break their latest case.
He is the one who will always make the trip across the bridge, no matter what.
Every now and then, he is the one who will show up at Olivia's apartment with a pint of chocolate ice cream, just to make her feel better. And sometimes, he is the one to sit and talk to John about life and love and everything in between. He is the one who knew Detective Beck, but didn't really know Dani, and the one who is perfectly comfortable having a drink every now and then with Casey.
He is suits and ties and a gun and a gold shield, and hen he is a t-shirt and sandals, a watch and a wedding band. He is a detective who is in someone's face and out on the streets, and he is the father and husband who sometimes wears his heart on his sleeve and who somehow always knows how to fix everything. He is the one that can comfort victims with the promise of justice and the one that can comfort one of his kids with little more than a hug.
But that is life, and somewhere along the lines, he learned to balance it out, the same as everyone else has.
There isn't really anything else that he, or they, can do.