A/N: So, yeah. This is what happens when I'm stuck watching s1 and s2 of H:LOTS all day...


It's a never-ending cycle that we're stuck in. We get a case, and every bit of our efforts goes into it. We spend every waking hour investigating, talking to families, friends, going through everything we have. And then we go back, ten, twenty, maybe as far as even thirty years back, looking for something, anything, that might help us. Sometimes it doesn't. But sometimes it doesn't.

And if it does, we take what we've gotten and use that to help us. Sometimes the one who committed the first crime has done it again. And if not, then we look for a copycat. Once we find him, it all changes gears.

The interrogation room is where all the confessions are made, where we play good cop or bad cop and we get people to tell us what they know. Sometimes they tell us. And sometimes they ask for a lawyer. Once they do, we don't have any choice but to leave them alone until they get one. And then the District Attorney's office comes into play.

Sometimes the case goes to trial. We wait, silently hoping for a conviction. But it doesn't always come. Sometimes it's an acquittal or the guy we've spent all our time looking for pleads out to a lesser charge. Sure, he's still being punished, but the blood is still on the streets and though some might think justice has been served, it really hasn't been. People who kill don't change. And the minute they get out, they might just do it again. And we're left with a feeling of disappointment, and sometimes even guilt, as if we've let our victims down.

The victim's name will go down in black once we've arrested the person. It doesn't matter whether or not the guy who did it is actually prosecuted or even convicted. As far as we're concerned, the case is closed. But we still think about it, just like we do the current cases, the names in red, and the ones that have been open for longer than we'd like to think about…the names in blue.

And when the shift is over and we go our separate ways, we go home, change our clothes and go to sleep, thinking that what we've just gone through is all a dream. But when we wake up, it starts all over again, because we're not dreaming. All of it's real, and no matter what we do, it's never going to stop.