Four motorcycles, their turning signals blinking, led the motorcade down the dirty Manhattan streets. Winding its way through the city's labyrinth of streets, past the dirty shop windows and the overcrowded sidewalks until it reached the wrought iron gates of it's destination. Blue and red lights flashed across the landscape as the caretaker unlocked the heavy double gates. A low moan grounded out as the weather beaten man pried the gates apart. A sharp creak echoed into the depressing day as the gates swung slowly back against their posts, opening the way for the funeral procession into the city of the dead.
The stream of seemingly endless limousines and squad cars trickled along the narrow lanes, past rows of tombstones rising out from the immaculately manicured lawns. Some had small flags stuck in the ground nest to them or flowers placed in the in-ground vase. Each tombstone blended together until they seemingly merged, essentially becoming one. As their limousine crawled past, Olivia's eyes stayed rooted to the same spot. Tears fell freely down her cheeks as she watched the concrete angel slip from view.
Manhattan's own Precious Doe was what he'd called her from the start. The one case he'd wanted more then anything to solve. A sadistic rape-murder that had been casually dropped on his desk one day years before. A homeless man had called it after he'd dug halfway through a Denny's dumpster looking for his breakfast. The medical examiner had been able to determine she'd been repeatedly raped postmortem. When they moved her, that's when they found it. Diamond shaped patches of flesh had been cut away on her back side. Later, she was able to add that the child's heart and liver where missing, surgically removed. It was a couple of days later, that they were informed that they weren't the only organs the perp had taken. The child's brain was missing also.
They had watched as he worked the case with a fever, as if she had been born of his own flesh and blood. How many nights had they gone home to their apartments while he worked late into the night on her case or came into the squad room to find him there already working on the same case, his clothes rumpled, dirty from sleeping in them and a hint of a stubble growing on usually groomed, hairless face? Clear signs that what little sleep he managed to get the night before had been upstairs in the bunkhouse.
After months of working endlessly, being constantly side tracked with a stream of endless fresh cases and a little thing people on the job like to call 'sleep,'he'd finally cracked the case and arrested the perpetrator. They'd watched him go from emotional and physical 'not even running on fumes' exhaustion back to the man that they all knew and loved as the handcuffs locked with a soft, soothing 'click.' That night he was the first one to call it a day and go home for a well-earned good night's sleep and in the morning, he was the last to arrive.
Later he had told them that it still bothered him that they still didn't even know her name and that she didn't deserve a pauper's grave either. A little advice from his brother later and Manhattan's Precious Doe was well on her way to a proper funeral. Most of the cops in Manhattan and surrounding districts attended the funeral services for the little girl no one seemed to have wanted or loved in life, but everyone loved and mourned now in death. The public display of emotions gave physical form to the detective's own feelings. It was the first and last time they ever seen him cry.
The motorcade came to a stop near the freshly dug grave beneath the pale green tent a few feet away. The Manhattan's Officers' Pipers and Drummers slowly began to play the old traditionally melody Coming Home. The sound of the bagpipes lifted into the gray heavens and into the hearts of the mourners' assembling on the lawn. The men and women assigned to Manhattan's Special Victims Unit carried the plain oak casket from the hearse and up the low hill to the waiting grave.
Elliot Stabler helped his partner out of the limousine before walking alongside their somber captain, up to the simple casket now draped in the flags of his homelands. Taking their seats, Elliot chanced a glanced at the grieving detective to his partner's right. Deep, dark rings wound under his eyes testifying to the lack of sleep. Elliot knew that the man hadn't slept since they'd got the call, he'd spent the last two days watching over the remains of his partner.
After everyone had taken their seats, Cragen walked to the other side of the casket and cleared his throat. "This is one of the worst duties that command thrusts upon a person's shoulders. To stand here, before all of you and seeing the absence made by the loss of one of our own. To stand here and try to summerize, what took a lifetime to achieve, the life of our fallen.
"This was the worst way possible to have lost a member of our family, killed on the job. We all had our reasons for getting into this, but we all have one in common. The desire to protect the innocents, the victims, and make our small corner of the world just a little bit safer knowing that there's one less perp out on the streets." As he spoke, Cragen glanced at the faces of the mourners. Looking down at the coffin, "good bye my friend." Cragen whispered before taking his seat alongside Elliot..
A chorus of sniffles accompanied Olivia as she took Cragen's place beside the casket. Gently laying a white rose bud on the touching flag seams an unshed tear fell down her cheeks as a man's face haunted the empty air before her. "This man was a damn good cop, sympathetic to the victims and meaner then pissed snake with the perps. This man was my colleague, a brother that I never had. I always thought that there would be a enough time to tell him that I-I-I......" Her voice cracked with emotion as she strained to finish the sentence, a second tear fell.
Wiping the tear away, "sorry." Olivia sobbed into her handkerchief, "I promised myself earlier that I wouldn't do this." Her voice strained, choking with emotion and was barely audible through the bunched material in front of her mouth. Elliot quickly rose from his seat and started towards his partner. Olivia raised her free hand, "its okay. I want, I NEED, to finish this." Elliot nodded his head and returned to his chair, Kathy squeezed his hand.
Composing herself, "this man lying here was my friend. He would make me smile and laugh no matter what day I was having, what I was feeling, or whatever else was going on. He gave me an ear when I needed to talk, a shoulder when I needed to cry and a hand to help me back on my feet when I got knocked down. I never told him how much I loved him for just being him. I'm sorry," Olivia said kissing the soft material of the flag, her finger tracing the lone star. Sniffling and forcing back more tears brimming in her eyes, Olivia retreated to the hollow comfort of her chair.
Cragen rubbed soothing circles on Olivia's shoulder as Elliot moved to the casket. Clearing his throat, "as cops we accept the day to day risks that come with the job and we force our families to accept it on our behalf. Every day, we risks the hazards that are as intimate to us as a lover's touch and oblivious as the shifting of the clouds is to everyone else. Everything that we do out there on the street is for the safety of ourselves, our families and the strangers God-willing we'll never met. But in the end, after everything is said and done, its worth it. To see a child who lives day to day with the reality and knowledge that their mother or father could suddenly, in a fit of drunken or drug induced rage, literally beat them to death for the simple crime of breathing. To see a child no more older then four years of age who has NO soul and to be that person to see the return of the faintest spark of hope in that child's eyes. As a cop myself, I can honestly tell you the euphoria from that is greatest feeling in the world. The risks that go hand in hand with the job are easily under weighed when they are up against those faint sparks."
A tear trickled down his cheek, "as a wise man once said and I believe it better sums this man up better then any fancy speech could. 'I shalt look upon his kind again, for here lies a giant amongst men.'" Elliot's hand trailed over the casket lightly as he made his way back to his seat. Elliot glanced at he last detective to speak and gave him a supportive nod before seating back down next to his wife.
The detective slowly approached his partner's casket. He glanced down at the simple casket and quietly wept. Sniffling, he wiped away the tears running down his face. "I'm sorry. I thought that I could do this. I thought that I was strong enough, but I can't." As fresh tears poured down his face, leaving wet and salty trails in their wake, he fled back to his seat amongst the whispered words of comfort coming from total strangers brought together by the man lying before them all.
His body shook almost violently with his sobs, he buried his face in his hands. Olivia rubbed his back as she whispered something in his ear. He nodded mutely before suddenly attaching himself to her as though she were a proverbial life-line between the world of the living and that of the unknown. She rubbed his back as they rocked back and forth. Tears streaked from her swollen red eyes and down her face as a thin black man spoke fondly of the deceased. The surviving members of the Special Victims Unit huddled together, drowning out the man's words as they lost themselves in their grief.
One by one, former colleagues, old friends, family and old flames each took turn, standing up and speaking about the man that they had all lost. Fondest memories were recalled, amusing stories were retold, and tales of lost love were shared as the sun above the dreary world made its rounds. Sad smiles crossed the mourners' faces as soft ripples of laughter lightened their shared misery.
The last mourner stood behind the simple casket and faced the crowd as the sun began to sink from its celestial perch. "We had our differences he and I. When we would talk, it would usually end in a fight. Petty stuff really, neither of us really accepted the other truly. I never fully accepted the choices he made in his personal life and accepted the job so much. And he did love his job. He spoke quite often, usually fondly of everyone of you he'd worked with over the years. How often he would speak of things, say things that, knowing him as well as I do, he'd never said to you directly."
He wiped his eyes, eyes that were almost eerily familiar. "Through it all, I always thought that there would be plenty of time. Time to tell him how much I loved him, time to tell make amends and put the past once and for all behind us. I should've known though that he could've been taken from us at any time, that he knew no price too high when it came to choosing between living and being a cop. The man laying here was one of the most dedicated members of the Brotherhood of the Badge that I ever knew. Not that you need me to tell you that, do you."
The begrieved mourners chuckled lightly, "sorry, he always told me that I had a morbid sense of humor. Guess even in death he's right, again." He smiled, earning a few more chuckles. Looking down at the casket, "I'm sorry." He whispered softly as a tear fell down his cheek. His legs gave way and he collapsed on the ground, resting his head on the casket's side.