Elliot and Olivia had just arrived within sight of their desks when they heard a familiar voice at an unfamiliar, loud volume. The first few words were garbled, but the last three sounded clearly.
"…watch your mouth." Munch's voice, coming from the locker room. A few seconds later, they heard the unmistakable crashing noise of someone being thrown against a locker door. Olivia and Elliot lurched into a sprint as they hurried to see what was going on. Cragen, who had heard the same commotion from farther away, followed close behind them.
The partners skidded to a stop in front of a row of lockers in time to see Munch struggling to hold Fin's right arm, which was cocked back and prepared to hit a detective from a neighboring department. The other detective was being pushed against the lockers by Fin's left arm, pinning him there even as he tried to writhe out of the planned trajectory of Fin's fist.
Olivia and Elliot rushed forward to help Munch disentangle his partner from the unfortunate detective who was the object of Fin's anger. As soon as they noticed Elliot's presence, however, little effort was required as the situation seemed to defuse itself immediately. Fin stepped away, letting the detective loose; the detective in turn shuffled away from the locker, trying unsuccessfully to appear nonchalant and unfazed.
Elliot moved closer to the man; he worked in the building and looked familiar, but Elliot didn't know his name. The detective wouldn't meet Elliot's intense gaze, but continued to stare at the floor in a guilty pose that seemed oddly similar to the way Fin and Munch were standing.
"What the hell is going on in here?" Cragen searched his detectives for an answer, but no one volunteered to explain. "Well?"
"It was nothing, Captain. Forget it." The outsider detective said, as he edged towards the exit.
"Not good enough. Somebody better tell me what this is about, and I mean right now." Cragen waited.
Finally Elliot spoke through his gritted teeth.
"It was about me, wasn't it?" He directed the question at Munch and Fin, neither of whom would look at Elliot directly. "This idiot makes some joke about me, and you guys had to lower yourselves to his level and come to my defense. I'm right, aren't I?"
"It's not like that." Fin tried. No one believed him, and Fin didn't attempt to compound his fabrication.
Cragen drooped wearily.
"Is Elliot right?"
The other detective tried to explain first.
"I didn't mean anything by it, I was just…"
"Shut up." Cragen cut the detective off. "If you leave right now, there's a slim chance I won't report you to your captain."
The detective slinked out of the locker room without another word. Now Cragen turned his full attention to his own detectives. They expected him to unload at least ten minutes' worth of fury, but instead he dismissively expelled the air from his lungs and struggled to find words.
"You guys… I can't, we can't, work this way. You have to be more professional." With this light scolding, Cragen turned to leave. Elliot stopped him.
"That's it? Your detectives almost get into a knock-down, drag-out fight and that's all you have to say?"
"Elliot, please. Let it go."
"No, I'm not going to let it go. For the last time, I'm fine. I don't need anybody getting into fights for me. I don't need defenders." Elliot directed this comment to Munch and Fin. "And I don't need protectors." This comment he directed at Olivia. "I'm not a child." Elliot pointed this statement back at Munch and Fin, then turned again to Olivia. "And I'm not some wounded, stray dog you have to take care of."
Olivia gaped, searching for words.
"I never…" She didn't have a chance to finish forming her thought before Elliot stalked out of the locker room, leaving his friends and co-workers behind.
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Dr. Huang opened his door, somewhat surprised to find a disheveled Elliot standing at the threshold. He knew Elliot hated his therapy, so his appearance on a day when he wasn't scheduled to be there was unexpected, to say the least.
"Can I talk to you? Just for a minute?"
"Of course." Huang closed the door after Elliot.
Coming back around to his desk, Huang sat across from his visitor.
"So, how'd the first day back on active duty go?"
Elliot did not appreciate the doctor's coy question.
"It's been terrible, but you knew that."
"Any residual health problems?"
"No," Elliot lied, "it's just that, I could always count on my job to be something I could do. I'm good at my job. Now, all of a sudden, it's so different."
"Well, what did you expect, Elliot? That you would catch a case and everything would go immediately go back to the way it was?"
"No… Okay, yes, maybe I did. Olivia and I, we were a team. We were totally in sync, but today, I don't know."
"Did something feel off about your relationship from the beginning?"
"No. At first, it really was like old times."
"And then something happened, yeah?"
Elliot thought back to the room where the dead man in the red satin underwear had been discovered.
"These two cops. They were standing behind me and I knew what they were thinking about me. I confronted them, and then nothing seemed to go right for the rest of the day."
"But that's not new, is it? You've talked about the feeling that others are looking at you in a strange way, talking about you. What was different this time?"
Elliot knew the answer but didn't want to say it. Finally Dr. Huang filled in the gap.
"Olivia was there this time, wasn't she? She hasn't been around much over the last month, and then today she saw how some others react to you since your abduction."
"And then it seemed like the rest of the day, she was this other person." Elliot clutched his hands in front of him. "Sometimes I don't think I'm ever going to be able to move past this. That people are never going to allow me to move past it."
Huang decided to come at this problem by confronting another issue he had been meaning to talk to Elliot about.
"Let me ask you something. Do you resent Olivia for rescuing you?"
Elliot snapped out of the fog of reflection he had slipped into while talking and focused his full attention to Huang again.
"What? Of course not. What kind of person would be mad at someone for getting them out of a dangerous, potentially fatal, situation? I thank God every day for Olivia and that she found me. It's just that…" Elliot hesitated.
"It's all right. You can say it." Huang nodded encouragingly.
"I never had a chance. I could have gotten out of there and saved myself, and those boys, if I'd just had a chance. One chance." He curled his hands into fists and pulled his arms against himself as though he had suddenly caught a chill. "I couldn't catch a break. The one time I came close to escaping, I couldn't finish it. I was too slow. I wasn't smart enough. Something, I don't know. What's wrong with me that I couldn't get out of there and that I had to wait for my partner to save the day? And what was it about me that I got into that position in the first place?"
Huang frowned at Elliot's posture; he was leaning forward, hugging himself, and he was rocking back and forth slightly. A childlike gesture of self-comfort.
"Elliot, you just answered your own question about why you couldn't help yourself or those boys. You were never given a chance. You're smart, strong and resourceful. If anybody could have escaped, it was you. So if you couldn't do it, no one could have." This apparently obvious fact had to be pointed out to Elliot before the weight of the guilt began to lift. But the removal of this concern only seemed to make Elliot's other, unanswered question bore deeper into him.
Without further prelude, Elliot said, "I want to go see Janine."
Janine had been Elliot's primary kidnapper and tormentor while he was missing. Huang paused while he crossed his arms loosely and tipped forward a little in an attempt to subtly identify with Elliot.
"I think that's a bad idea."
"Why? I can handle it."
"Sure. But she's not going to give you what you want."
"And what is it you think I want from her?"
"To see her suffer, which is a normal impulse. She's in prison, probably for the rest of her life. Trust me, she's suffering. But she's never going to give you the satisfaction of seeing her unhappy or defeated. In fact, if given the chance, she'll have you believing there is no other place she'd rather be. She'll say anything to inflict more pain on you. You have enough pain to deal with; you don't need to volunteer for more."
Elliot stared at the floor for a while to give Huang the impression he was carefully mulling the doctor's words.
"What if that's not my reason for wanting to see her?"
"Then what is your reason?"
"I want to ask her something. And I don't want to discuss it here. Not yet, anyway. Is that okay?"
Huang couldn't suppress a smile. He knew that Elliot didn't really care whether he gave his approval or not.
"Just remember one thing. She'll say anything if she thinks it will cause you agony. Above all else, she's a sadist."