The seasons are changing again. And as usual, no one notices. The city runs as it always does: people bustling up and down the sidewalks with no thoughts of anyone but themselves and where they're going. The schoolchildren are balking about having to return to their classrooms in a week's time. And soon, the crime rate will begin to go down.
He sits at his desk in relative silence, listening to the others talking. Casey is there in the squad room with them; they're all talking about her latest victory in court. But for once, he decides not to add his two cents to the conversation. Instead, he stares at the phone, waiting for it to ring.
And sure enough, a few seconds after Olivia falls silent, it does. He picks it up, almost automatically, listening for a few minutes to the voice on the other side before hanging it up. He reaches for his coat, and motions to his partner, who'd been waiting to hear whether there was a new case or not. Seconds later, the two of them are making their way out of the squad room.
What seems like an eternity later, they're standing in a park. A sheet-covered body lies on a bed of leaves. The medical examiner hasn't arrived yet, but CSU is there, looking for anything that might help them later on. An ID is handed to him. He examines it for a moment before handing it over to his partner.
Voices drift around him as he looks at their surroundings. This is the first crime of the new season, and as he stands there, he muses that he is probably the only one around here who even knows that the season is starting to change. His partner eyes him for a moment before relaying what a CSU tech has just said to him. He nods, enough to acknowledge that he heard and enough to convince his companion that he's really paying attention to what's going on, when really, his thoughts are running a mile a minute.
The body is moved soon after the medical examiner arrives, and he looks down at where it was, shaking his head in disgust. Dark red blood has dried on the leaves where their guy left his victim. Leaves that were once shades of gold, red and orange are now tainted with it. CSU techs pick up a few of them in their latex-gloved hands, stowing them in plastic bags to take to the lab for analysis.
Before he realizes it, he and his partner are walking up the front steps of a brownstone on Staten Island, ringing a doorbell and waiting for the door to open. Leaves on the trees nearby them fall with the blowing wind, and he watches as they swirl towards the ground.
Summer is fading into fall. The temperatures are dropping in New York City, and once it starts getting noticeably colder, the crime rate will start going temporarily down as well.
But for now, all he and his partner can do is go about their jobs.
A/N: I seem to get bored a lot these days, don't I? Ah, well. Just so you guys know, SVU's not mine, even though I've probably said that before.