Part Four

He was going to kill the bastard who had the audacity to wake him up. It was a little after two in the morning and the fucker obviously had the wrong number. Rather than getting up to point that out, he lay there, figuring his voice mail would take care of it. Finally, the ringing stopped, blanketing the house in blissful silence.

Two seconds after his cell quieted, the land line started up.

Damn it, not a wrong number. Clearly, just someone with a death wish.

Or really bad news.

He grabbed the receiver, his anger at being disturbed fading as the worry set in. "Yeah?"

"Captain Cragen?" There was a pause, not long enough for him to dispute the fact that he was no longer a captain. "This is Melanie from dispatch. We've got word from Mercy that one of your detectives was just brought into the ER with a gunshot wound." The woman's cheerful voice stopped as though she were reading a script that told her to pause, her tone making it seem that she had no comprehension of what she was reporting.

And in that pause, he thought his heart stopped. "Who? When? What happened?"

Fuck that he didn't have any detectives anymore. Fuck that he wasn't a captain any longer. Fuck anyone who thought those detectives from Special Victims weren't like his children.

He was already half dressed by the time Melanie came up with the name Stabler. Of course it was Stabler. The man was always accident-prone when Olivia wasn't at his side.

It was only after Melanie indicated she had no further information that Don corrected the department's mistake. The paperwork was lagging, as usual. He informed her that she had a few more calls to make – the find the new captain of the unit, to find which unit Elliot had moved to, to actually contact Elliot's current captain. Melanie's voice was disappointed at the notion that she had additional work to complete. But Don didn't care. He was simply thankful for the glitch, for once, that allowed him to stay involved.

Don was in his car, barreling down the streets, before he thought about her. Melanie would eventually track down the information she needed and contact Elliot's boss. The new captain would undoubtedly contact Kathy since Elliot's personnel file was probably still sitting on his desk. The new partner would get word in a few hours when he reported to work.

No one would call Olivia.

No one would know to call Olivia.

And Don was the only one who knew Olivia was the first person Elliot would want to see when he woke up. If he woke up. Shit, he still didn't know how badly Elliot was injured. And that was information Olivia would demand when he called her. She'd be pissed off if he didn't call her right away too.

He didn't need to weigh the options. He just dialed her number.

"Huh?"

He'd been expecting the same sharp voice he'd always known. He'd been expecting her to still remember his phone number because it hadn't been three weeks since he was her boss. He actually pulled the phone from his ear to check that he'd dialed the right number.

"Olivia?"

"Hey, cap!" She paused for a moment like she was confused. "Guess I can't call you that anymore."

"Olivia, I don't give a shit what you call me. Are you ok?" He wasn't sure if she was drunk or asleep, but he'd never heard her sound quite so awful in all the years he'd known her.

She answered with a snicker that wasn't the least bit amused. "Oh, yeah, I'm fucking great. How are you?" She snickered again, telling him exactly how drunk she was. "Elliot's great too. Just saw him. Said he was here to celebrate. Probably getting rid of me once and for all."

He wished he'd waited to call her. She was too drunk to understand.

But then her words sunk in. Elliot had been there. She was upset. They'd probably had a fight. Shit. And then Elliot had gone and gotten shot. Stupid fucking rotten timing. Unfuckingbelievable timing.

"Olivia, I need you to sober up. Where are you? Are you at home?"

"I'm in a bar."

He hadn't had such a ridiculous conversation since that god damned fuck up of a night.

* * * * *

When he got his hands on the two of them, he was going to wring their necks. He was the fucking captain. Even if Munch and Fin's repeated radio calls into Elliot's earpiece were ok to be ignored, the fucking boss' was not. What the fuck were they doing in there, ignoring the fact that the op had been called off?

He already had a fifth victim, a damn kid too, the last thing he needed was his fucking detectives blowing him off.

"Hey, cap," Fin hadn't gotten any further.

Don was looking to kill someone and Fin had just volunteered. "What the hell is the matter now?" He did not want to hear that there was some technical problem that got Elliot and Olivia off the hook. Even if it was just Elliot who was ignoring him since Olivia's outfit didn't consist of enough fabric to conceal a wire, he knew full well they were never far enough apart that she wouldn't have been able to hear the shouts coming through Elliot's radio. Definitely not with the way Elliot had been glued to her side since she'd come out of the locker room in that get-up. He'd been pretending to be protecting her from things that went bump in the bullpen, but Don was well aware that one of his detectives was feeling up another. And that she wasn't doing a damn thing to dissuade him.

Not that he could blame Elliot for trying. Don wasn't blind and even twenty years her senior, he might have tried something himself if he wasn't her boss. And if Elliot wouldn't have fucking killed him for it.

Unwilling to bring any more attention to himself than necessary, Fin just nodded toward the screen showing the front door of the club. The screen that revealed the unresponsive Elliot, storming down the sidewalk with a furious expression on his face.

Don snarled. If Elliot thought he was having a bad night already, just wait till he found out his boss was about to rip him a new one.

But before he could get to the door, to meet the detective on the street if only to start yelling sooner, Munch let out a wolf whistle, calling his attention back to the screen. There was Olivia, still wearing a tiny, clingy skirt, spiky heels that put her eye-to-eye with her partner, and something closely resembling a handkerchief around her chest in a total flip-off to the notion of modesty. Her makeup was still heavily over done, just like most of the club goers, but her lipstick had worn off. Her hair was considerably more mussed than if had been when she'd climbed out of the van a few hours earlier.

Munch had been right to whistle.

The woman was the embodiment of wanton sex. She looked like something off the cover of a trashy novel.

And she was chasing after Elliot as fast as those ridiculous shoes would carry her, tripping and tottering, her face confused and distraught, her voice desperate.

"Elliot!"

The sound seemed distorted as it found its way through Elliot's wire. Not distorted enough that he shouldn't have understood it. Not distorted enough that he shouldn't have turned around.

But he didn't. Though he was out of the range of the camera by then, it was clear from her subsequent attempts to get his attention, each slightly more frantic than the last, that he was still walking away from her.

A moment later, the back door of the van was flung open. "Are we fucking done here?" The three men inside were stunned into silence, unprepared for Elliot's pure rage.

Nor were they prepared for the way Olivia appeared immediately behind him, her uncoordinated staggering and slurred speech impossible to blame on her shoes. "El? What happened? What's wrong?"

Apparently completely unconcerned with the audience, he turned back to her, shouting at her in a way Don had never witnessed from his detective. "What the fuck is the matter with you? Have you lost you fucking mind?" He leaned into her, his balance obviously as hard-earned as hers, grabbing her roughly, shaking her while he yelled, only letting go when it became clear that they were both about to fall. And then he shoved her away and practically collapsed half into the van and half onto the street.

Don had never seen Elliot exhibit such violence toward a woman, would never have imagined he'd act that way toward Olivia. And he never would have expected the way Olivia recoiled, her shoulders hunching forward as she wrapped her arms around her bare midsection, tears drawing black streaks of makeup down her cheeks.

"I'm sorry, El."

She sounded so small and weak and unlike herself that it prompted the three observers to look among themselves. Something seemed to click, the odd behavior, the ignored radio calls, the rape victim's drugged eyes, wide as saucers as she'd been loaded into the bus.

Don climbed out of the van, reaching back to grab a flashlight. He went for Olivia first since she tended to be the more compliant of the two. "Look at me." He shone the light at her eyes, watching her wince as her pupils failed to respond to the influx of light.

"Can you stand up?" He watched as she stared at him, seeming far too confused by the question.

"Where's Elliot?" She remained where she was, leaning against the door, letting it do all the work of holding her up. "Let me talk to Elliot." As though she wasn't standing, leaning, right next to him. "I'll be fine if I can just talk to El."

Furious, Don turned to Elliot. "Where the fuck were you while someone was drugging your partner?"

Elliot stood up, rather he tried to, surging forward, losing his balance, and then crumbling onto the ground. "Nobody touched her." He glanced toward her. "She's just gone fucking psycho."

"Jesus, you're no better off than her." He tried to catch Elliot's eyes with the light, but the younger man's anger extended beyond just his partner and he knocked the light out of Don's hand.

"Fuck off, both of you."

Before Elliot had a chance to figure out what was happening, he and his partner were scooped into the van and driven to the hospital.

* * * * *

Don took a deep breath, thanking god that he'd sworn off alcohol years earlier. He knew how shitty she was going to feel in the morning and he didn't envy that she'd be spending her hangover in the waiting room at Mercy, worrying about Elliot, with whom she'd been fighting when last they spoke.

"Which bar?"

"Uh…" There was quiet while she tried to figure it out. "It's the one by the precinct."

"I'll be right there." He shook his head as he hung up on her. There were about a hundred bars "by the precinct" provided the precinct she was talking about was the one-six. He'd heard a rumor that she'd been reassigned and he hoped that he wasn't about to spend the night trying every bar in Manhattan.

There was one place near the one-six that had been somewhat of a hangout, when the squad had been so inclined to hang out. It was somewhere they both felt comfortable. Which would explain how they'd run into each other.

Although it was rather strange for them to still be arguing after so long. More than likely, he determined, they'd gone there together and wound up fighting. And that made even less sense because she should have noticed if her companion for the evening disappeared. Though not necessarily if they were fighting. When Elliot and Olivia were fighting, they wouldn't notice if the world came to an end.

Luckily, the bar wasn't too far out of his way. He expected her to be outside, waiting for him. He expected her to at least be near the door, checking for him, since it was the first time he'd ever called her for a non-work related reason and declared he was picking her up. But as the minutes ticked by and he couldn't even be certain he was in the right place, he realized he was going to have to go in and look for her. He turned on his flashers and left the car double-parked.

The last place he wanted to be was a dark, dismal cop bar. It was hard enough to fight the urge to drink every day. It was even harder since his forced retirement when the anger and frustration longed to be drowned in a bottle of whiskey. Part of him wanted to take a seat in one of the well-worn stools along the bar, down a couple of shots, and find someone to listen to all the stories he had to tell.

Instead, he turned toward the small booths against the back wall and spotted the reason he was there. She was nearly asleep on the table, her head cradled in her arm. He didn't even need to see her face to know she looked like shit. He'd been there enough times to know. He'd never known her to be much of a drinker, ever mindful of her mother's habit, and he'd certainly never seen her passed out face-down in a bar.

"Olivia, let's go." He stood at the side of the booth next to her, unwilling to take the time to sit down across from her. Time was of the essence.

Her head lifted up slowly, her dulled reflexes still identifying his voice as a superior. "Hey, Don!" She motioned at the seat across from her. "Sit down, have a drink with me."

"Time to go." He used his captain voice, the one that usually meant whoever he was talking to was in a great deal of trouble. He hoped it would get through to her.

She lifted her hand, pointing at him for a moment like she was trying to remind herself. "That's right, you don't drink. Oops."

Giving up on communicating with her, at least while one of her hands was still wrapped around a shot glass, he reached for her arm. "On your feet. Now." It felt strange, having his hands on her, discovering that his hand nearly wrapped round her small arm. It was only the second time in fifteen years that he'd touched her and he'd gotten the same reaction from her then.

She yanked her arm out of his grasp. "Don't touch me!"

He didn't want to do it, but he wasn't sure anything else would get through to her. He bent over, one hand resting on the table, the other on the booth, leaning closer to the far side where she'd crouched to get away from him. "Olivia, listen to me. Elliot was shot tonight. He's at Mercy. We need to go now."

Her eyes held his for a long moment, disbelief fighting with inebriation. Then she shook her head. "No, he was here tonight." She waved her hand at nothing in particular. "He was fine." She snarled and reached for the glass Don promptly pushed away. "Bastard. Son of a bitch. I fucking hate him."

"Uh huh, sure you do." He grabbed for her arm again, hoping no one was going to notice that he was trying to drag an unwilling drunk woman out of a bar in the middle of the night. Especially when he had no credentials to flash at them to let them know he had any sort of a right to do so. He shook her hard, hoping the surge of anger would help bring her around. "I don't know what condition he's in, Olivia. Mercy called dispatch, so he's not conscious. Do you get me? Elliot was shot."

Her eyes widened and she swallowed hard. "Elliot?" Her chin started to tremble. "Shot?"

"Yes, let's go." He took her arm again, finding her considerably more agreeable, though entirely uncoordinated, and led her to his car.

She sniffled to herself as he drove and Don found himself growing more and more pissed that Elliot would leave her in such a condition. He slowed down a bit to blow through a red light, catching sight of her terrified face as he checked to make sure it was clear.

"I don't hate him."

"I know that." He pressed his foot a little harder down on the accelerator, knowing nothing was going to get them there fast enough to avoid what was coming.

"I love him."

"I know that." It wasn't as awful hearing it as he'd feared; it hadn't been the least bit surprising. There was very little besides heartbreak that could make someone crawl inside a bottle like she had.

"He doesn't love me."

That was the surprising part. That was the part that hurt. Because although he was sure she was wrong, he knew something had led her to the state she was in. And he knew Elliot had done his damnedest to convince of her that.