I hear my breathing getting shallower with every thought of her. I feel the adrenaline pumping through my veins. I wish desperately for some aspirin as my head pounds.
I am shivering and realize why. In my rush to get here, I left my coat at the station. In the thirty degree New York weather, at night no less, I should have been smarter.
The ground beneath me is hard and soggy. It doesn't matter. As I gaze into her bedroom window, she looks like an angel. If it weren't for the blood surrounding her helpless body, I would think she had just turned in for the night.
People, policemen and SCU, mill about her and I am part sick, part jealous. I was long ago ordered away from the scene. I just can't bring myself to leave her, and so I sit here, as though I was some sort of peeping tom.
She needed me, and I failed her. I was too busy to answer the phone when she called; too busy taking care of my daughter's teenage crisis. I will never forgive myself.
She was fighting off some sick bastard while I was trying some futile father-daughter bonding. Why did I have to start trying this night? Why?
There's nothing I can do now. There isn't anything that will make this right. She's stood by me through thick and thin for the last seven years, and I couldn't be bothered to repay her. She was my partner, my support. I should have been hers.
Sounds of footsteps invade my quiet little hiding spot, and I know it won't be long before they find me. I take one last look at her fragile features, her ruffled brown hair, and the odd angle of her neck. I suck in cold air, and push all my self-loathing and negative feelings to the recesses of my mind. But, I know they will always be in my heart where I can call them up at a moment's notice. I don't do this for myself; I know I don't deserve any peace. But at the very least, I will carry on her mission. I will help the victims that she now can't. I will live to see another day, and she won't.
There's a lump in my throat as I fight back tears. As much as I want to; the grief is too fresh to push away like the other feelings. I will have to deal with that as punishment. This is only the beginning. I don't know how I will face my kids. They'll be devastated when Olivia's on the front page of the paper tomorrow.
Stealthily, I emerge from the bushes and blend into the black of night. Cragen and the others will never know. I, Elliot Stabler, murdered my best friend, simply by doing nothing.