Disclaimer: None of it is mine, unless I specifically say so. That won't happen often.

A/N: So this is going to be quite a bit longer than anything I've written before, an idea which scares me a bit. I'm also simultaneously writing and posting for the first time; right now I'm about five chapters ahead of myself. Please bear with me. Set in the not-so-distant future.

Prologue: Testimonials

The best partners are the ones who can communicate without speaking. Benson and Stabler take it a step farther: they can talk to each other without technically being on speaking terms. The hell of it all is that it doesn't get in the way of their job, but still makes the squad room a miserable place to be. After all these years I can tell, with a glance at just one of them, that something is wrong. Figuring out who's mad at whom and why is more difficult.

Except for the cold war that followed the Micelli case. That we all understood, except Elliot and Olivia themselves.

Like I said, it doesn't get in the way of the job. Only in the way of what makes those two better at their job than anyone else.

-Don Cragen

I hate evaluating my coworkers. Okay, so I do think about it sometimes. Occupational hazard. But having to actually sit down with them and take that mental step away – it's distinctly uncomfortable.

Of course, they don't like it much either.

-George Huang

It was good, really, that Olivia came to the questioning. Captain's still giving us both hell for it, but even he knows that I, picked specifically as the most removed, could never have done it. No-one could have, except Olivia and probably Kathy, but Kathy isn't a cop.

We might have figured it out without that information. We were close. But still. You see a lot, in a Sex Crimes unit, and that was one of the best things I have ever seen. You know. Discounting the possible tragedy and all.

-Chester Lake

When things get too personal the squad room gets tense. When people are mad at each other the squad room gets tense. Usually neither lasts long: we work harder on the personal cases. And on this job, even Benson and Stabler have figured out that it just ain't worth it to stay mad.

At least, that's what I thought.

-Odafin Tutuola

I come in at the second act. Mostly I'm okay with that – I get to put perps away for life. Except for, you know, the perps who get acquitted, but that's not the point here. I couldn't be a cop. I know that. But sometimes it might be nice to have an excuse to shove someone around. There are a couple of bastards, just from the past few months, that I'd love to have arrested myself.

It might not have happened if I had indicted him straight. I wouldn't have been able to get an indictment if it hadn't happened.

-Casey Novak

When Kathy and I split up, I thought I understood better how it is for Olivia. To live alone, to have nothing but a job and a partner. Even as I thought this I knew it was stupid. I have parents and brothers and sisters, and Olivia reminded me every day that my kids were still my kids. But I figured maybe I got it, just a little.

I didn't. More than nine years as partners, eight she's had no family, and I still have to be hit over the head with it before it sinks in. That there's my partner and she's almost alone in the world and I need to make sure she knows she's not. I'm not very good at that.

-Elliot Stabler

You know people for a long time, you think you've seen it all with them. Stupid, really. You haven't seen it all until you work with a guy who wants so badly to get to somewhere that he'll blame it all on you. You haven't seen it all until you realize that his wife hasn't seen him in far too long, even though they're no longer separated. You haven't seen it all until even the workaholics among us make excuses to get away from the cold war in the squad room. You can't ever see what's coming, even from the people you know best.

-John Munch

I used to like having those two come in, Olivia and Elliot. I have a disheartening job, to say the least, and they have a way of giving heart back to a person. Or maybe it's just me. For me it's in the easy way they work together, as though each knows the other's mind. I don't know. Maybe I spend so much time by myself that I'm hypersensitive to actual people. The problem with this is that I can tell when they'd really rather not be within ten blocks of each other. On those days I stand and stare after them and think, maybe the world really is going to shit. If a friendship like that can fail.

It had been like that for so long that I was glad when one came alone. Within ten minutes, of course, I got to give the scary news. I got to feel immensely guilty for being glad.

-Melinda Warner

Once, years ago, Elliot talked at career day for the twins' second grade class. I was dragged along since we weren't technically supposed to be there – we were supposed to be working. (That little detail was not included in the presentation.) I sat in the corner and chatted with the teacher. I watched Elizabeth, her eyes glowing as she told every kid who would listen that that was her dad. I listened to my partner boil down our job to its simplest components: find out what happened. Follow the clues. Catch the bad guy. And always, always watch your partner's back. As he said this he pointed at me. Yeah, I told the class, that's the part of the job he's too good at.

Elliot did not take my words to heart.

-Olivia Benson

TBC . . . .

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