A/N: Would just like to thank everyone for their amazing feedback on the last chapter. I meant to get this up sooner, but unfortunately life and writer's block got in the way. But here it is, Chapter 4 of Blackout! Enjoy.


As you stride down the hallway, heart in your throat, eyes already prickling with something you refuse to call tears, Fin and the captain come into view, both standing against the wall, shoulders slumped, clothing rumpled. It's serious, Olivia. It's serious. You pass a family huddling together and run towards the two of them. There's blood covering the sleeve of Fin's jacket- Elliot's blood. The picture of Elliot laying on the ground, slowly bleeding out as Fin tries to keep him alive, burns into your mind and you nearly miss a step. Stop, stop, stop.

It could be nothing. That's what all of his other injuries have been- busted ribs, gunshot wound in the elbow, concussions. None of them have been fatal. This one is going to be no different. He's going to look at you with fire in his eyes and ask you what the hell your problem was during your argument in the squad room in no time. You're going to call him an asshole and storm out, relieved to find him okay. That's it. That's all.

It's serious, Olivia.

Cragen squeezes Fin's shoulder and approaches you. The wrinkles surrounding the corners of his mouth look deeper and heavier than you've ever seen them and his brow is furrowed and your knees instantly go weak. Water pools in the old captain's eyes- why is there water there? Why are his eyes bloodshot, why does he look closer to crying than you've ever seen him before?

"What happened?" You don't even recognize the sound of your own voice as it squeaks past your lips.

The captain takes your arm and guides you the short distance to a quiet spot against the wall. His hand remains on your shoulder as he takes a deep breath and says, "He was shot."

He's been shot before. The last time he was shot, it was in the arm- he'd asked to go home almost immediately. You sat at his bedside, snuck him food he shouldn't have been eating, brought him copies of the Ledger because you knew he hated daytime television and flipping through the newspaper was about the only thing that kept him sane.

"Where?" you whisper.

"It was a small caliber. Just a .22. And it was long distance." Cragen's hand is squeezing your shoulder. Your hands ache to reach out and shake him, just to get a straight answer out of him. Why won't he just tell you?

"Where?"

He chews on his lip for a moment, staring at you with his soft eyes. The tears fill his eyes nearly to the brim now, forcing more nausea to rise in the pit of your stomach. You're going to be sick. You're actually going to be sick if he doesn't just fucking tell you. But finally, his mouth opens, and he croaks out an answer, the first time his voice loses it's pseudo calmness since you got his phone call. "In the head."

Your legs instantly give out from underneath you. You collapse into the captain's waiting arms, air locked from your lungs. You're going to be sick. The world is spinning around you and you can't breathe and your chest hurts. You're not going to walk into his hospital room and see him sitting in a bed, arm wrapped in a sling or chest bandaged. He's not going to call you out for the horrible things you said to him the last time you were face to face. You're not going to call him asshole, relieved to see him alive and mostly well.

He's not coming back. The next time you'll see him, he'll be in a coffin.

"No."

Tears sting your eyes. Bile rises in your throat as you slam your eyelids shut, struggling and failing to get air pumping through your lungs. Oh, God. You can't breathe. Your muscles lock in place as the world tilts around you, and you're dangerously close to falling backwards into nothing.

He's gone.

"Liv... Olivia!"

Shot through the head. The head. A strangled sob finally makes it past your lips. You reach for the arms of the chair- when did you sit down?- as if your grip on them will keep a grip on the storm inside. But it doesn't. Each attempt for a breath dies before it reaches your throat and your lungs need oxygen but you can't get it.

In the god damned head.

"Hey. I know what you're thinking, just stop for a minute." Cragen's hands have a strong grip on your shoulders as he crouches in front of you. "He's still alive, Liv. He was still breathing when they brought him in, there's still a chance. You hear me? There's a chance."

He's still breathing. There's still a chance.

What chance? Every time you've heard of someone shot in the head…

Fin sidles up to you and Cragen. Your eyes are glued to the blood that seeps into the material of his jacket... You just want to rip it off his shoulders. You can't stand seeing Elliot's blood on him. The blood from his head. His fucking head.

"I'm sorry, Liv," he says. "I tried, everything happened so fast."

"The perp," you whisper. "What happened…"

"Bastard's in the morgue. I fired a second after he did."

You nod, only mildly horrified by the sense of relief that you feel. Serves him right.

You lean back against the wall, closing your heavy eyelids. Through the head... Through the damn head. Your breath hitches and you bring your hand to your mouth, chest shaking. They're working on him right now... the doctors are digging around his head, trying to get the bullet out. Who knows what kind of damage it's done?

It's only a matter of time before you lose him. One of the doctors will come out, body heavy with defeat, and give you the news. I'm so sorry. He didn't make it. And you'll walk into that room, cleaned up from the hours of rushed, desperate surgery, to see his body, completely still, covered with a sheet, face pale, skin slowly beginning to cool. His eyes will be closed and he'll look peaceful, just like he's sleeping… but you'll know. His chest won't rise and fall evenly. His breath won't hitch every few minutes just like you know it does when he sleeps. And his eyes won't flutter open with a simple touch to his chest or shoulder. You'll sit beside him and the tears will win out… you'll forget all the horrible things you've said to one another, you'll forget that all you could have been was partners, you'll forget about slamming doors in his face and avoiding him- avoiding him like the plague. All you'll remember is how good it felt to be in his arms… how amazing your lovemaking had been… how he made you feel so complete.

And, despite how much you know that all you could have been was partners, the knowledge that you'll never be able to be with him the way your heart desperately needs to will break you.

Cragen sets a hand on your shoulder. Your eyes shoot up to his face as he stands in front of you. "It's gonna be a long wait," he says gently. "Let me get you a cup of coffee."

A long wait... You feel sick. Your stomach hurts. Your head spins. You can't sit in this chair anymore, but you legs are locked in place and you can't move. Each moment could bring his last breath with it. He's probably bleeding slowly from the foreign metal that fired through the perp's gun, broke through his skin, cracked through his skull…

Your hand instantly covers your mouth as you nearly vomit.

You're going to have to be stronger than this. Any second, the doctor could come out and confirm your greatest fear, the only ending this could possibly have, and you'll have to see his body for real. You'll have to see the shell of him… all of the spirit gone from him.

You're almost surprised when Cragen reappears in front of your chair and holds out a paper cup filled with piping hot coffee to you. For a moment, you're almost not sure what to do with it, but your hands mechanically stretch out to take it, and you hold it between both your palms. You don't want to drink it. You don't want to be awake and think about what's happening to your partner just a short distance away.

What's he thinking about? Does he know that he's dying? Is his life flashing before his eyes? Or has his brain completely shut down, just like the rest of his body soon will?

Maybe he thinks he's just asleep. Maybe the bullet hit his brain just right so that he has absolutely no idea what's going on and what will happen to him. Not that he'd be afraid of it, anyway. He's never afraid- not like you've been. Even standing in a warehouse with a gun digging into his cheek and the promise of impending death, he'd been stronger than you.

That's probably only wishful thinking. He probably knows exactly what's happening. He's probably fighting for his life, trying not to give in to the darkness that's swallowing him. He's thinking about his kids. About holding them, taking care of them, seeing them grow up, move out, live lives of their own. He's wondering who will care for them when he goes. And he's thinking about his wife- his ex-wife. The only woman that he ever really loved and the one that he's been with since he was a kid.

Air catches in your lungs. You're suffocating. You need to get out. Each time a doctor steps through the double doors with a clipboard in hand, your heart leaps into your throat and you're sure that it's for Elliot. Each time, it's not.

Cragen sits beside you and Fin stands against the opposite wall, arms crossed, staring at the tiled floor. All three of you are silent- the only noise that occasionally breaks it is the ringing of Cragen's cellphone. Each time, he steps away, quietly tells whoever is on the other end to 'handle it,' and sits back down. The clock against the wall is barely moving- it can't still be before two.

It's past five o'clock in the morning when another doctor steps through the doors, shoulders slumped, clipboard hanging loosely by her side. Her dark, straight hair is pulled back into a messy bun, scrubs rumpled and messy. You jump to your feet, heart pounding in your throat as you watch her slowly make her way towards you. "Olivia Benson? For Detective Stabler."

"Yes?" you ask breathlessly. Cragen stands next to you, grasping your arm lightly. Here it comes… the moment you've been dreading all night. The moment you've had nightmares about ever since that day in the warehouse when you almost pulled the trigger of your gun and ended his life yourself. Why did you want a doctor for him to come out so desperately? You'd give anything for just one more second of ignorance before this moment… the moment that will break you forever.

"I'm Doctor Lima," she says. "I'm one of the doctors that worked on Detective Stabler."

"What's the damage?" Cragen asks, because you can't work a single word past your lips. You're waiting for those two sentences… I'm so sorry. He didn't make it.

But they don't come. Instead, very different words come from the young doctor's lips.

"We were able to extract the bullet, but some very severe damage was done. He scored a four on the Glasgow Coma Scale… which means that he's currently in a coma. Unfortunately… there's a very small chance that he'll wake up." The world freezes around you. Your knees weaken once more and you almost need Cragen to hold you up again. Coma. He's in a coma, not gone… not yet. There's a very small chance he'll wake up. "The bullet made impact…" Her words become nothing more than a jumbled mess of sounds as you stand next to Cragen, desperately needing to lean on him. You can barely stand on your own. "... frontal lobe…" He's laying in a bed, a shell of himself. Trapped in limbo between life and death. "... severe brain damage."

"What's the chance?" Cragen asks as your attention snaps back to the present. Focus. This is important. "Put a number on it."

"Gunshot injuries to the brain like the one Detective Stabler suffered are almost always fatal. But the paramedics told me that he and Detective Tutuola," Doctor Lima nods slowly towards Fin, "was speaking to him right after the shooting."

"S right," Fin answers.

"Well, that's a good sign. Patient who are awake and cognizant of their surroundings are more likely to recover. I'm so sorry… I wish I had better news for you. But right now, that's what we know."

"Can we see him?"

"Absolutely. Right this way."

He's in a private room. As soon as you step over the threshold, you have to choke back a sob. There's a white bandage taped to the side of his head and a tube in the corner of his mouth. His eyes are closed, body still, his arms rest uselessly by his side over the blanket that covers his lower half and various other tubes and wires wind around his body to machines surrounding his bed.

Tears blur your vision. You sink down into the chair next to him and reach for his hand with your two shaking ones. This isn't the man you've kissed, made love to, woken up in bed with. He isn't your partner, the one you've worked cases with, had lunch with, crammed into the sedan with for hours and hours during stakeouts. He's a shell. A body that needs a machine to breathe for him- oh, God.

Acid burns your throat as you jump to your feet and stumble to the trashcan in the corner of the room. You barely make it before your stomach empties itself. Your eyes sting, your throat stings- tears blur your vision as you fall backwards onto the cold tile floor. You can't do this. You can't sit here and see him like this.

But you don't even have the strength to move.

"Liv." Cragen's kneeling in front of you, and if your vision wasn't still blurred, you'd be able to see the tears that break free from the old captain's eyes. He wraps your arm around him and lifts you off of the floor gently. "C'mon."

"I can't. I can't," you mumble.

"I know."

And he guides you back out of the room- the room that will hold the death of the one man that had meant everything to you.


A/N: ... Please don't hurt me.

Also, please review!

Have a great morning/afternoon/evening.

-Stabson