It's cold up on the precinct rooftop. But he doesn't care. It's the only place he has to go right now…the only place where he can get away from everything going on in the squad room. The unit's on a high-profile case and he knows he can't leave. So he comes here.
It's no use looking for complete silence, so he settles for what he and the others have started to call 'city silence'. It's quiet enough for him to think, but at the same time, sounds are drifting up from the streets and sidewalks. He leans against the railing that keeps him from falling, and stares at the city below him.
He wonders what would happen if those he's looking at could see what he sees every day. And he isn't sure he wants to know the answer. The sounds of traffic echo in his ears as he continues to look down on the city from a bird's eye point of view. Everything seems normal on the surface. But there are two sides to everything. New York City might appear wonderful and glamorous to most, but he knows better.
They all know better. They've known long before volunteering into this unit that there is a dark side to the city they love. The crime rate rises and falls with the seasons, but they go about their work as if there is no change, because that's what they do. And they know that if they don't do it, no one will…and the reason for that is because no one else can handle it like they do.
He watches the people walking up and down the sidewalks and listens to what little of their conversations he can hear. And at the same time, he wishes that the conversations he had with people could be as normal as the ones drifting up towards him. But they never are. He figures that they probably never will be.
He watches the beginnings of nighttime traffic, halted and started by red lights and green lights. He watches people walking across the street, and into nearby coffee shops and apartment buildings and convenience stores. And he wishes that his life could be that normal. But it isn't.
He decides then that he wants to go back into the precinct, but something else catches his eye before he can do so. And when he realizes what it is, he turns back to face the railing again.
This time, he watches the streetlights coming on…the lights flickering on and off in the buildings around him. And while he watches this, he watches doors opening and closing, people moving in and out of each other's lives, unaffected by what they do not see.
A/N: Meh. I get bored and think about Munch too often, no? Meh. Anyways, I'm pretty sure that you all know SVU's not mine, so there you have it and I shall go.