The porcelain sink was cold and hard against her flattened palms, but it was just the perfect sensation she needed to keep her feet on the ground. Cold. Hard. A dark chuckle escaped her raw lips at the small analytical connection in her brain. Those two words actually seemed to sum up the past year pretty accurately.
Cold—like the residue of a particularly hideous nightmare, waking to a fit of convulsions so intense they seemed to last for hours, no matter how many loving attempts at solace he whispered into your hair. Cold like the ice inside a beast's eyes that pierced your heart in the beach house, the courtroom, the innermost workings of your mind. The granary.
Hard—Like the feel of unforgiving metal against your temple as the light in the world goes down around you, maybe this time it will be for good. Hard like the callous around your heart that prohibited you from letting anyone—not even just this one time, no matter how badly you wanted it—completely in.
A spear of pain in her left wrist jolted Olivia from her thoughts and back to the equally horrific present. She didn't notice until then that her knuckles had faded to a ghostly white from her tight grip on the hospital sink. As she loosened her fingers from the smooth edges, the pain in her wrist subsided once again to a dull ache, almost disappearing altogether in the vast sea of her stimulus overload.
Running a hand through her matted hair, she finally forced herself to face her reflection in the small, rectangular mirror above the sink. When her gaze met that of the trembling woman before her, Olivia couldn't help but cringe. Despite having already scrubbed off every residual drop of the horrendous blood, she could still see searing stains in her memory. Absently, she wondered how long it would take before she could look in a mirror without tasting iron.
This entire scenario felt sickeningly familiar to her. The desolation, the fear. The sense of hopelessness she felt as she stared at the crumbling woman in her reflection, desperately fighting back burning tears. Instantly, her mind replayed a memory from almost a year ago. Scissors in hand, she had tried to take the initiative to heal, to tangibly rid herself of a trigger, of a symbol, or a reminder of something beautiful had been taken from her and desecrated.
In the back of her mind, long-ago spoken words of a past victim echoed to her forefronts.
"I cut my hair, I lit a candle. I'm over it."
Olivia suspected that some part of herself had been desperately trying to achieve that unattainable horizon of "over it" when all she felt was trapped. Stuck. Forever in the prison that Lewis had created for her. But just as she had replied to Harper Anderson all those years ago, she'd been slapped in the face by the cold, harsh reality: That closure was a myth.
Cynicism. Chuck that one under the "cold" category.
As her gaze lingered on her broken reflection, she suddenly became hyper-aware of the defeating silence in the small, isolated room. Each beat that passed in the eerie quietness was another shot to the heart, a reemphasis of the painful reality that this time around, she was truly and entirely alone.
She closed her eyes as she recalled how Brian had stepped through the doorway mere moments following her pivotal haircut crisis. How he'd taken her in with his wide eyes full of shock and sadness and what may have even looked to be a hint of adoration. How he'd stroked her face when her tears had finally spilled over, and he promised her with a kiss of the cheek that she was beautiful and strong and that she was going to be okay. And she'd melted into him because he knew just what to say. Somehow, he always knew just what to say.
And now…
She would have given anything for Brian to barge through the hospital bathroom door at that very moment and pull her into his arms the way that only he knew how to do; the way that somehow—if even just for a moment—seemed to silence the fear. Now more than ever she needed his faith, his courage, his optimism. Because she was fresh out of all of it herself, she was so incredibly done, and he had always been the one to pick her up when that happened.
"We found each other at the darkest, lowest point of our lives."
She didn't even try to combat the tears that brimmed in her reddened eyes. The pain of her aloneness was suddenly overwhelming. Folding her arms around her middle in an attempt to physically hold herself together, she felt the first of the sobs begin wrack her body. Within seconds, her entire frame was heaving with the weight of her cries. In another blink, she found herself sunken to the white tiles of the floor.
"You got shot, demoted. I got hurt… You got me through that."
The fresh flashbacks were vicious, unforgiving. One right after another, they swarmed over her huddled body and kicked at her while she was down. Her trembling hands fisted the thick material of her sweater as she relived the memories of Lewis's hands groping her body, her hips shoved roughly against the metal edge of the table, his hot breath melting into her cheek as he ravaged her neck. As she squeezed her eyes shut, she could feel herself back in the granary, that silver revolver pressed against her own head. She remembered how images of Brian's face had flooded her mind as she pulled the trigger once, twice. Snippets of their life together, of what they could have had in the future had the fates not so persistently demanded their painful separation.
So desperately, she wanted to scream. She wanted to fill the sad, sorry room with another sound besides her own pitiful cries. How could this happen to her again? How was this fair? Surely even her life couldn't be this grimly fated. How would she start all over after all the progress? Redo all the nightmares, the therapy visits, the PTSD episodes that ended with the tip of her gun poised toward the head of the man she loved.
The truth and reality hit her over and over again like a ton of bricks with every sob that shook her core. She couldn't get through this again. She wouldn't. Not without him.
Without even thinking, her hand reached for her back pocket to retrieve her cell phone; that was it, her strength was gone. She'd promised herself that she'd let him go smoothly, that she wouldn't drag things out and make it harder on both of them. But she was weak. At least, right now, that's exactly how she felt. But grave disappointment sunk inside her like a heavy stone as her hand met with flat denim. Of course. Her phone. Lewis.
Instead of flying over the edge as she had fully anticipated, her own body shocked her by suddenly stilling beneath the weight of her despair. All at once, the tears stopped rolling, the sobs stopped heaving. Leaving only what could be described as a blank mask. An empty shell.
She sat completely still for what felt like an eternity, staring at the grey wall in front of her with empty eyes. How fitting it was, that even when she was finally ready to show a sign of vulnerability, of a desire to open up, fate had once again mocked her to her face.
Suddenly, a soft rap on the door startled her from her revere. But even then, the emptiness inside her gut prevented her any further movement. She simply didn't have the will. The knock came again, a little louder this time, but her empty gaze remained stoic. It wasn't until the knob turned and the hinges creaked open that she finally forced herself to look upward to her visitor.
When she did, her heart stopped in her chest.
"Brian," she whispered, a sweet relief flooding through her at the very feel of his name on her lips. It didn't matter how he knew she was here or who told him. None of that seemed to phase her as their eyes locked in a surreal reunion.
Unshaven, disheveled, and exhausted, he met her glassy expression with a look of his own. His chest seemed to deflate to half its size at the sight of her. His eyes were red. Had he been crying?
"Liv," he sighed in return.
And without another second lost, Brian dropped to his knees beside her huddled body. He was just as unable as her to resist her touch as she was his.
"Liv, babe, I'm so sorry," he panted into her hair as he automatically drew her into a soft embrace.
She accepted without resistance, more than willing to oblige to his comfort that she had mourned for only a few moments prior. She physically shivered as his scent washed over her.
"I'm so sorry," he whispered once more, his voice breaking off completely this time.
She could no longer see his face from her burrowed position in his chest, but she could hear the tears in his voice and she knew he was crying now—a phenomenon she had witnessed a total of one time in all of two years.
The two of them seemed to sit there on the cold, hard ground for a long time, either unable or unwilling to break the silence that had fallen over them. Because the silence didn't ache quite so badly when she shared it with him.
He was the one to cut through the quiet after a few minutes, answering her unspoken questions.
"I was UC. Longer term," he explained, his voice gruff with underlying emotion, "I packed my bags and headed out on the first mission the day after we... you know."
She nodded into the soft material of his black hoodie. She did know.
"I was deep under," he felt the urgency to explain, "I didn't even have access to TV, Liv, I swear. I had no idea about any of this. Had I known that he had broken out of prison, had I known that he was going after you again…"
His voice trailed off again, leaving his promises to silent implications that they both understood.
"It's okay," her hoarse throat whispered.
"Tucker called me just this morning, told me you were okay, but that you were at the hospital. I got here as fast as I could, told him he could explain everything on the way."
"It's okay," she repeated. And it was. Because he was here now.
Olivia knew she was being stupid and irresponsible by allowing herself to bask in his glorious comfort. She knew that it was going to sting worse than any slap across the face Lewis could have offered her when Brian turned to walk out. He was bound to leave sometime. This wasn't permanent. They had broken up. But that didn't, and couldn't, stop her from reveling in the moment.
He paused as he pulled away from her and held her face between his palms. For a few seconds, his eyes simply explored her face, roaming eventually back to her eyes.
"Olivia, if I would have lost you…"
He didn't finish his sentence. He didn't need to. She'd experienced the same grief as she'd stood with a gun to her temple, contemplating the reality that she may never see Brian Cassidy again.
Tears welling up in her eyes once again, she offered the slightest smile that she could manage.
"I'm right here."
A smile broke out over his lips as a half laugh/half sob escaped him.
"Yeah. Yeah, you're here. And so am I. I'm not going anywhere."
He stared for another moment longer before leaning cautiously forward and planting one of his famous lingering kisses on her forehead.
"Let's get you off this floor," he said.
Slowly, he pulled her body up with his and looped an arm around her waist as he carried the both of them together to her hospital bed.
She could tell by the teary expression in his eyes that he was full of questions, plagued with concern about what had happened in this terrible sequence of events, but she couldn't bring herself to talk about it. Not now, not when all she wanted to do was melt into his soft presence while it was still around.
When she was finally settled onto the hard-surfaced examination bed, her eyes flittered down to herself and her heart skipped a beat. In the initial shock of his appearance, she hadn't given a second thought to her physical attributes, perhaps the most scarring of which being the flaring splatters of blood that stood out against the soft beige of her sweater. Out of her peripheral vision, she could see stains of mascara staining her face from her recent outburst of tears.
True to Olivia Benson nature, she felt the urgent need to apologize for this.
"I'm sorry about…" she stuttered, gesturing to her disheveled frame, "about this."
He swallowed hard and shook his head, a small, sad smile breaking out at the ridiculous nature of her claim.
"You're insane," he whispered, sitting gently down beside her on the bed and tucking a lock of hair behind her ear, "And you're beautiful."
If she had then energy, she would have rolled her eyes at him and smacked him playfully at his own absurdity. Instead, she just leaned into the touch of his palm against her face, unwilling to take one moment of his presence for granted.
"If that's what you think," she sighed, the heavy need for sleep threatening to pull at her eyelids, "then I think you're the insane one."
He looked at her for a long time, his weary eyes admiring her—all of her. Her strength, her endurance. In one single glance, he saw everything. And he loved her for it.
"I guess there's just something about a woman in a hospital bed."