AN: Well, here it is!

Note to garrettelliot: you make me quiver!

Thanks for the reviews, y'all, you guys are the best! Note from the start, this has Stabler-Catholicism included. One of these days I'm gonna write Stabler without Catholicism involved. One day. But not today. And probably not tomorrow, either!

Elliot sat on the couch in his apartment late Sunday night. He had dropped the kids back off at their mother's a couple hours ago. It had been a good weekend, and he felt ready to face the horrors of his job again.

It was for his children.

He would do anything for them.

Elliot smiled as he thought of his children.

Maureen; his eldest, his first-born. She'd always be his baby. Kathleen…it seemed like it was last year that she was twelve; now she was a senior in high school. And then there were the twins…they were still so innocent. He wished he could keep them that way forever.

Maureen had came to mass with him and her siblings earlier that day. She'd been carrying linguistics homework, and told him that she had a project due the next day in Psychology; taking the family name and seeing how it fit everyone.

Elliot smiled as he remembered Elizabeth asking what their name meant. Stabler. Stable. Able to stand.

Did it fit him? No. Would he let his children know that? Would he let anyone know that? Again, no. To the world, he would force himself to be what he wasn't.

Self-hatred filled him again. He sighed, knowing what he had to do.

"Bless me Father, for I have sinned. It's been two weeks since my last confession." Elliot sighed out the standard comment, preferring face-to-face confession to the confessional.

"What is this sin, my child?"

"I am feeling…self-hatred. I want to die. I feel tempted to kill some of the suspects I work with. I feel…like I'm too close to becoming one of the worst criminals in this city."

"But you don't break the law; you uphold it." Father Daniel offered.

"Yeah, but that doesn't cover upholding the perverts I arrest against walls in my moments of rage."

"Have you tried praying?"

"I don't see myself as worthy enough to take this one to God," Elliot said, honestly. "I feel like nothing; why should God care about nothing?"

"God doesn't regard something he created as nothing. Go pray, Elliot. And then if you still feel self-hatred, come back here."

Elliot pushed up the kneeler, and stood when he was finished praying. He'd forgotten the peace that prayer had always given him.

Stable…Stabler…able to stand.

Coincidence?

Maybe.

But he'd never believed in coincidences.

AN: Aaaaand that's my post-ep for 'Rage'. Please review. Thanks!