Clarity
Jezyk
Spoilers: Big huge ones for Paternity.
Disclaimer: You've got to be kidding, right? I wouldn't have been so mean to have all that 'Kathy I love you' crap. Of course, I'd love to take credit for … sigh… I guess that's a spoiler.
Chapter One
A blur.
The whole day was a blur.
Vague pieces of it slipped into her mind as she tried to sleep.
A little boy.
The beautiful sight of Elliot cradling him.
A case going from bad to worse, just as it seemed they were really getting their stride back.
And then… it seemed like silence. A long, long silence. Like nothing. Nothing at all.
The type of nothing that can only come after a terribly loud something.
The adrenaline rush had wiped a lot of the day from her short term memory before it made it into long term storage. She couldn't remember the boy's name. She couldn't remember a damn thing about the case. She couldn't remember where Elliot was. She wasn't even sure why she was in the car with Kathy.
She did recall waking up, knowing that she wasn't supposed to be asleep in a mangled car in the middle of an intersection and that her body wasn't supposed to feel like Michael Flatley and his troupe had gone to town on it.
As bad as her recollection of the early part of the day was, the afternoon was worse. She only had snippets and she didn't know if she should be thankful or worried.
There had been fear, an all-consuming fear, one that she knew had something to do with Elliot, but she wasn't sure how. She decided it was because whatever had gone on with the crumpled car and Kathy, she'd been terrified that it would kill him.
Some part of her knew she didn't want to remember everything, the part that recognized a defense mechanism when she saw one. But the rest of her was pissed off, like something had been stolen from her that should have been hers. It was like that one time she'd had far too much tequila and woke up naked on the floor of a grimy apartment presumably belonging to the slimy, greasy, hairy Sasquatch next to her. All she remembered from that night was getting dumped by someone she'd thought below her and then opening her eyes to the glorious sight that was a bevy of roaches investigating her panties. Even though she knew she'd hate the memories, she felt like they should have been hers, like she should have at least known what had happened.
She could almost hear the noise of metal bending, but she couldn't be sure if it was the crash or the fire department.
She knew there'd been a very calm voice that she'd been glad to hear.
There'd been a baby in her arms.
There'd been Elliot, scared as she'd ever seen him.
There'd been someone forcing her to sign something.
She'd been alone.
And then she'd been in his arms.
That was the one distinct memory in the jumble of nonsense in her brain.
She assumed the papers she'd signed had been to refuse medical treatment. She suspected she'd neglected to mention that she'd lost consciousness since it wasn't something she'd ever admit to anyway. And there was a sting in her heart that told her no one would have really cared.
Except maybe Elliot.
Although, as vivid and strong as the memory of his muscular arms closing tightly around her was, she didn't have the faintest clue how it had happened. That, she thought, was the one memory out of all of them that she would have liked to have.
Just in case she ever wanted to make him do it again.
Of course, it was probably better than she didn't or, she strongly suspected, she'd be making him do an awful lot of it.
After that, after he'd walked out with her, hailed her a cab and paid the driver in advance to take her home, things had started to form a semi-coherent narrative once again. She knew he must have realized she didn't have any money or a car. She wondered why he hadn't offered her a ride, but they'd been at the hospital and many times being at the hospital meant an ambulance and thus no car. She wanted to know why Elliot had felt responsible for paying for her ride home.
Of course, she'd been home, trying to figure out how to pay the driver when she had no money, listening to the driver remind her that the gentleman had already taken care of it when it had occurred to her that it was at all strange.
She remembered deciding on the elevator even though she normally took the stairs because her legs hurt. She remembered her arm aching as she lifted her hand to put her key in the lock. She remembered noticing that she was holding a single key, one with a small piece of tape with Elliot's precise handwriting declaring that it was "Liv's," rather than her key ring. She remembered deciding she didn't care where her keys or her car or her coat or her phone were. All she cared about at that moment had been where her aspirin was.
She taken way too many of them and gulped them down with handfuls of water from the bathroom tap, too weak and too stiff to get to the kitchen for a bottle of water.
She fell into bed, on top of the covers, still fully dressed. She knew she should be thankful that a body full of tired muscles and a killer headache were all she'd suffered, but something was bugging her. There was something not quite right and she wouldn't be able to sleep, to get some relief, until she figured it out.
Unfortunately, figuring it out would involve getting her disconnected thoughts to stop racing around in an unpredictable loop long enough to determine what was making her upset.
Oh, yes, it was the hug. The Hug. It hadn't been just a hug. It had been a Hug. Because it was from Elliot. Because she had no idea what had possessed him to do something so stupid as to put his hands on her. Because they both knew, and had agreed in an unspoken promise, that touching each other except by accident was a bad idea.
Or maybe it had simply been her idea, one that Elliot hadn't had anything to do with.
He must not have. Because, despite her best intentions to never be in a position where she might know the warmth of his embrace, he had hugged her. He had reached for her, wrapped his arms around her, squeezed her tight and held her.
Yeah.
He hadn't simply hugged her.
He'd held her.
Out of all the crazy shit rolling through her head in the form of memories, that one was absolutely crystal clear.
She'd been held close by Elliot Stabler.
She could die a happy woman.
She fell asleep with a smile on her face.
Part Two should be up tomorrow. Reviews welcome!