John Munch stood staring out the window in the SVU squad room. He'd spent almost an hour on the phone with different administrative offices at NYU trying to track down 'Les,' and every office that hadn't been closed due to the weather had given him the same infuriating response. They needed a full name to do any kind of search. They obviously didn't appreciate his position. If he didn't have a full name to work with, why should they?

Standing at the window, watching the snow fall, John tried to crush down the cynicism that seemed to be plaguing him more than usual. There was something about the case that made him believe the worst about everything. It felt exactly like the last time they'd dealt with Paige. They hadn't come up with any real leads that time either. They had a new note from Paige, but that just meant another body.

John was a little disappointed that Cragen had sent the note directly to the crime lab without opening it, but he understood his reasons. Still, if it were anything like the last one they'd received by courier, it would be full of clues just waiting to be deciphered. Paige was consistent with his riddles, but the notes he'd sent to SVU the first time around were slightly less complex than the one John had figured out the previous day. As much as he knew the rest of the squad was dreading this new note, John had to admit that he was almost looking forward to it. He liked being the one who figured out what they were looking for, what Paige wanted them to find.

Making sense of Paige's notes also gave John the one thing he needed to maintain above all else – the intellectual edge in the squad. As much as he hated to admit it, he was starting to feel older every day. There were some things he just couldn't do anymore. A detective that couldn't chase a fleeing perp or interrogate the hell out of somebody on a daily basis had to have something else going for him. John had plenty of experience, but each member of the squad had seen enough to match him in that department. His only advantage was his sharp intelligence. He relished his role as the brain of the group.

John smiled to himself at the comparison, turning back to his desk as he heard the approaching voices of his co-workers. As a warm-up for the thinking he would have to do once the note came back, he constructed a cheesy metaphor. If he were the brain, Elliot and Fin were the muscle and Olivia was the heart, although that was technically a muscle too. Eckerson and Healey were just zits, temporary annoyances that would be gone soon. Having the feds around made him nervous.

He sat down just as the Fin, Elliot, Olivia and Eckerson walked into the room. "I hope you all thought of me cooped up inside while you were playing in the snow."

"Shut up, John or you're not gettin' the burger we brought back for you."

"Ah, thank you. You know, I'm eating so many of these things lately that I fear they're doing harm to my wit." John waited for someone to get his allusion; he was thoroughly satisfied when no one did.

Fin gave him a surly, "Whatever," as he took off his coat.

As Elliot sat down with his own burger, he gestured to the board. "I thought there was a new note."

"It's at the crime lab. They should be faxing a copy over to us sometime soon." John scowled as he removed the top bun of his burger and saw red. No one ever bothered to remember that he didn't like ketchup.

Elliot must have assumed he was scowling about the fact that they didn't have the note. "Why didn't you just open it here and make a copy?"

"Because we're looking for an accomplice and I'd hate to think we destroyed his fingerprints when we tore the envelope open." John hadn't meant his tone to be so harsh, but he thought the reason should have been obvious. He was about to apologize, but saw that Elliot had been distracted, staring dangerously across his desk at Olivia and Eckerson, who were eating at her desk. John decided it must be partner-envy; personally, he envied anyone who didn't have Healey as a partner. At least she hadn't darkened the doorway today.

Elliot suddenly stood and strode into Cragen's office without knocking. John looked over his desk at Fin, saying, "I guess he wants to find out what's taking the crime lab so long." Fin didn't reply, but merely shook his head. There was obviously something going on that John wasn't privy to.

Five minutes later, Cragen suddenly emerged from his office, followed by a sullen Elliot. "Sorry to interrupt your lunch, but the crime lab just faxed Paige's note back to us. No new prints, but they found Paige's on it." Everyone's food was forgotten as they read the note he taped to the board.

Mes Cygnes,

I hope you got my last note. Right now there are five positions and all are correct, though one has yet to be technically filled.

Bon chance et Dosvedanya,

T.

John read the note four times before realizing that it wasn't about to yield the easy answers the first one had. If he were honest with himself, he'd gotten lucky with that one, even if it had taken some intellectual maneuvering to put the clues together. This note just looked like a collection of gibberish. He reasoned through what he was getting from it. The changing languages bothered him most. 'Mes cygnes' and 'bon chance' were French. 'Dosvedanya' was Russian. He stared at the floor, trying to decide what it could mean. A conversation had already started around him.

"'Dosvedanya' is good-bye, right?" Fin asked.

"Yeah," Olivia said. "'Bon chance' is good luck. And I know 'mes' is my, but what's 'cygnes'?"

"Swans." John, along with everyone else, turned to look at Eckerson.

"So you speak French now?" Elliot was still scowling at the Marshal.

"No. But I know a baby swan is a cygnet, so it stands to reason that 'cygnes' is French for swan. Or swans."

Elliot didn't let it go. "How come you know that?"

Eckerson looked down at the floor, mumbling something unintelligible.

Elliot pushed further. "Huh? I didn't quite catch that."

"I said my niece has this book about baby animals that she had me read to her when I was over at my sister's last weekend. All right?"

As amusing as the Marshal's uneasiness was to watch, John found his attention drawn to Olivia. She was watching Eckerson intently, with a strange, almost sad expression. Elliot looked as if he were about to say something more, but suddenly stopped. There was definitely something going on with the three of them. From the little John had heard about Olivia and Eckerson's relationship, it had been all physical and she had ended it. John decided there had to be a lot of tension building up, and Elliot was just the first of them to show it. The case certainly couldn't be helping matters.

Cragen either didn't see the problem or was ignoring it. He had already moved on. "Right, so this time instead of stars we're swans. But, there, at the bottom, why is 'good luck' in French and 'goodbye' in Russian?"

John had a sudden revelation. "Imperial Russia was Francophilic. Maybe this is like the library clue and he's pointing us toward another exhibit."

"So you're hittin' every literary and historic thing in the city this month?"

"No, I'm merely suggesting that there might be some connection." John didn't let his partner's dig affect him. He was sure he was right.

Cragen seemed to agree. "Check around." Everyone turned to the computers. After half an hour of finding nothing, John felt a hell of a lot less confident in his assessment of the note. He noticed that Olivia and Fin had already gone back to staring at it. Elliot was still at his computer, using the pretense of staring at his screen to stare at Eckerson, who, in turn, appeared to be staring at Olivia's ass. Cragen was staring into his coffee cup. John was bothered by all the staring going on in the squad room. There was no action, just blank stares. He continued his fruitless Internet searches, trying not to give in to the temptation to join them, thereby admitting he had been wrong.

"The last note!" Olivia murmured almost inaudibly. She walked to the board, stabbing her finger into it. "The clue is in the last note. Look." She pointed at Paige's previous communiqué. "He says 'it's time for us to dance.' Put that together with five positions. He's talking about ballet."

Still sitting behind his computer, John hit a few keys and waited for the screen to come up. "New York City Ballet, performing Swan Lake through the end of February. I guess that's our Russian connection."

Cragen jumped on the theory. "Right, I want all of you at Lincoln Center ASAP. I'll give a heads up to the precinct cops and call Warner to have her meet you there."

"Don't you think that's a little premature, Cap? I mean, we don't even know if that's the right answer, much less is we're gonna find a body."

"All right, Elliot. You stay here and sort through the calls from the tip-line, Munch, you go to Lincoln Center."

"Cap, that's not what I…"

"You have your assignments. Go." Cragen went into his office without another word. Elliot ignored everybody as they walked out.

As John waited for the elevator, he was glad he was alone. Olivia and Eckerson had already gone down to the car and he had barely heard Fin as he said, "I'm gonna stop in the bathroom. I'll meet you in the car." He felt an odd combination of relief and frustration. They'd solved the clues, and he was sure they had, despite Elliot's misgivings, but he, John, hadn't contributed anything. He hadn't done his job, hadn't filled his role. The lonely prospect of actual retirement loomed like a shadow over him as he stepped into the elevator, pulling down his hat as far as it would go.

The lobby appeared deserted, but just as John was about to go out to Eckerson's car, he heard Olivia's voice. He moved toward the door and spotted her, standing in the foyer, awfully close to Eckerson.

"We were right there. We were across the fucking street from Lincoln Center and we could've seen the drop. We could've seen the accomplice. We…I don't even know what we could have done."

"Liv, it's not your fault. We didn't know about the note until after we'd left Fordham, and we didn't even figure it out until just now. The vic was dead long before Paige or his crony dropped her. Hell, we don't even know where the body's gonna be. Lincoln Center's a big place."

"Yeah."

He lifted her chin and looked her in the eye. "Hey, don't be mad about this. Be mad that I'm thinking about what you'd look like in a tutu."

John coughed as he tried to hide a laugh, drawing Olivia and Eckerson's attention. She immediately flushed, asking, "How long have you been standing there?"

"Just got here. Fin had to stop in the little boys' room, but he should be down momentarily." The three stood in an uncomfortable silence for a moment. John decided to break it. "So, Olivia, nice pick up on the ballet clue."

"Yeah, and I thought those lessons my mother forced me to take would never pay off."

"What, you never wanted to be a prima ballerina?"

"No."

"You probably never asked for a pony for Christmas either."

Fin arrived before Olivia could respond, and the four walked out of the precinct into the snow. John was just able to hear Olivia's warning to Eckerson over the noise of the wind. "If you don't stop imagining me in a tutu, you're walking to Lincoln Center."