A short one-shot mostly focused on Olivia with a few mention of Elliot, although they are indirect. Takes place after Smoked with a few slight spoilers.
Refuse To Fall
When she hears a gunshot she can't move. It keeps her feet glued to their spot and her vision becomes blurry. She closes her eyes tightly and fights off the same image that wants to enter her mind. Blood and scared eyes burning into hers. It's not a sense of fear that grabs her, more like a bad case of deja-vu.
Screams normally follow it and sometimes the smell of blood. It makes her dizzy and her stomach churns. Instinctively her fingers wrap around her own weapon but each time it takes her back to that place.
She's seen what it can do to people. She's experienced the loss that comes with the ultimate decision to pull the trigger. Grieving families, guilt and sleepless nights normally follow. But it's all offset by a grateful victim they saved or civilians that are happy they took another predator off the street.
But it still feels bad when she can't control herself and tears cling to her lashes, blurring her vision as her eyes lock with their desperate ones. She swallows the lump in her throat and hopes begging will help them see the light as their hands wrap tightly around the cool metal, their finger hovering above the trigger while their eyes give away the fear their words don't show.
She begs some more until she realizes it won't work. The first shot goes off and she screams, pulling her own weapon and firing two precise shots of her own. The perp falls to the ground, sometimes still breathing sometimes already gone. She watches the life leave their eyes and they glass over, staring somewhere off in the distance.
It's like she's in the squad room again and time is standing still. He's hunched over her body with blood staining his light blue shirt. He looks so scared and when their eyes meet they say more in that moment than they have in their entire partnership.
She assures him it's ok and he starts to believe her, just to make her feel better. But when she leaves and it's just him and the boss he breaks down. He's weak because he can't do it anymore. Captain looks relieved he's willing for time off but his face starts to fall when he realizes he's never coming back.
She thinks it's a vacation whether mandatory or personal. Either way she never thought he would leave her like that. There were no words or warnings. Just a pitying look from her captain and hollow stares every time she approached a crime scene alone.
So now, as she holds her gun with trained hands and a numb heart it doesn't even hurt when she fires that first shot and she's standing over a lifeless body. Their own weapon falls to the ground and blood pools around their body.
She doesn't cry, and it might be from the shock. She just watches and keeps a firm grip on her gun. Fin will ask her if she's alright until she finally answers yes, even if that's not the truth. The captain will order her to talk to IAB and she'll sit down in the creaky cold chair in the damp dark room, repeating her name and story until she wants to scream. She'll keep her cool until they slide her badge and gun back to her and she'll clip them carefully to her waistband and it's as if their isn't an extra body in the morgue that night.
Nights will be spent sleeping because she's numb and can't feel anything, neither guilt nor pain. The next day she gets dressed and does it all again. It's nothing you can be prepared for, sometimes it sneaks up on you and sometimes you just ignore it. But Olivia never forgets what it feels like and every time she hears the shot go off it doesn't bother her when the air stills and she's left with the deathly silence and a new body lying at her feet, because she's willed herself to finally forget.
She's stronger than Elliot and she refuses to lose herself the same way. Time can stand still but she refuses to fall, she'll prove herself until the end of time if she has too, even of that means forgetting him and the fear of that moment for the rest of her life.