Fighting through writers block x( . Please enjoy.
Ghostly Words
"Ma'am."
"Ma'am please." A soft voice echoed.
Olivia was lost. Somewhere between the tides of shock and consciousness. There was some stability in the abeyance. The world seemed to be spinning without her, the bustling ER was filled with rushing nurses, doctors, assistants, incoming trauma. She wasn't sure when she had gotten here, or how, for that matter. Everything was shattering, breaking. She had no concept of her surroundings, only succinct flashes of reality. She was trapped in a glass cage of her mind, trapped with no tether to weather to raging storm.
"How long has she been like this?" It was the presumptuous fake voice that she knows all too well. It's the voice that builds up hope, flickers the light at the end of the darkest tunnel, pulls and pulls. Just enough so you fall for it. Just enough you to taste it, believe that you can get through it. Then it pulls the ground from your feet just like was so warm, gentle, soft. It was infuriating, slithering underneath her skin, ripping away the stability she managed to muster. The whisper was anchoring her back from the sea of sounds she was so transfixed on. The drone of the indistinct conversations, the barking of paramedics and doctors, the shuffling of nurses as they rushed to tend to the next emergency.
Olivia closed her yes. Praying that she would just go away. She squeezed her eyes, hoping to lose herself in the drone again. This was a futile battle. Her chest heaved to suppress the silent cries swallowing her body, she breathed out in vain, struggling to block out the pain, clinging to the semblance of control, searching for the emptiness. She sucked another shaky breath as the whirlwind hit her dead on like an eighteen -wheeler ramming into her brain. There was no running form this.
Olivia clenched her teeth, her head fell into the palms of her hands, using them to support herself on her shaking knees. Flashes of memories, conversations flooded her mind like a tsunami,
The law isn't always about justice. You told me this, and being naive I didn't believe you . Zapata will go to prison with a reduced sentence and resume whatever he was doing before. What about me, us. Craigen, El, Munch, Fin.
At the bar I should've taken you home with me, I should've known. I should've known that they wouldn't end it there. I knew something was wrong too. In my gut. I couldn't put a finger on it. When you said "When we win, we don't" were you planning to break my heart?
How do you always see these things before me?
The tears wouldn't stop, she wiped at them bitterly, in a forlorn attempt to hide the weakness. She stiffened as a delicate hand landed lightly on her back.
"Let's get you cleaned up miss." Another voice said, this one was different. It had a British inflection, London, maybe a hint of Sussex. The delicate hand clutched Olivia's shoulder tighter, before beginning to pull away.
"Alex." Olivia mumbled.
"What?"
"Alex." Burned out chocolate eyes peered towards the source of her headache. Olivia peered into sympathetic at the same time calculating green orbs, who glared defiantly back at her.
The doctor sighed, crouching down to Olivia's level, "Just as soon as we get you cleaned up, love." Green eyes scanned the detective, subtly cringing from the stench of dried blood.
Olivia stared incredulously at the unexpected gentleness of the stranger. But the doctor only nodded reassuringly, pulling Olivia to her feet. She stood up shakily, leaning onto the doctor for support. Elliot tries to help her, but the doctor cuts in just the second , "I got it, detective."
"I've got you." The Brit whispered into Olivia's ear.
An hour ago.
Tonight's the night he thought. Tonight was the night he was going to propose. He had been waiting for this day for months. A wide smile colored his features, he couldn't stop himself. His heart hammered in his chest. He could hear the it thunder in his ears despite the deafening clamor of the subway. Jitters ran down his spine, he couldn't stop his fingers from fumbling with the black box in his hands. He bit his lip, but the urge was too strong. He had to - needed to open the box again.
It took his breath away. He had never seen a ring so beautiful, so elegant. It was a platinum ring, with a two carat diamond perched in the center, surrounded by a bouquet of smaller diamonds, entwined by branches of yellow god, the ring itself was encrusted with the words "You are aren't what I want, you are what I need." The ring illuminated his world, just like the woman who's finger he imagined it on. Butterflies fluttered in his stomach ceaselessly, he went over the plan thousands of times in his mind. Just the way that he would tell her.
He remembered the time when he was drowning, the world seemed submerged in an endless sea of regrets. The weight of his decision constricted his throat, chocking the last hope for happiness, ripping his lover away from his arms forever it seemed. He remembered making a living from deception. He remembered an ashen haired strident, stubborn, annoyingly right, lawyer teaching him the difference between living and being alive.
Drunk on the exhilarating high of this complete intoxicating joy, he pressed his back to the wall of the subway cart. He sighed, shutting the box, putting it in his pocket for safe keeping. He took another deep breath to calm the swelling eagerness, so he popped headphones into his ears, hoping the music would take his mind off her.
A ring resounded through his ears.
Damn, that was my favorite song. He thought, frustrated at the sudden change of tune. He shuffled through his back pocked picking up his raging phone.
No caller ID, weird. His interest was peaked.
"Neal Cassidy speaking." Neal answered monotonously.
"Hello, Mr. Cassidy this is Nurse Jakie Peyton from All Saint's Hospital. Do you know an Alexandra Cabot?"
The smile that brightened his face faded suddenly, along with the color on his face. The ominous call knocked the breath from his lungs. His mouth moved, desperately, to form a response, a sound, anything.
"Mr. Cassidy are you there?"
"Yeah - yes, I know her, she's my fiance."Neal stammered, through shaking teeth, his insides twisted violently inside him, the dream of his perfect life shattering right before his eyes. His mind raced through the possibilities, all seemed to grow darker as the gravid pause dragged on.
There was a sigh on the other side of the line. A surged through his chest as his heart skipped a beat,
"I'm sorry to inform you, but Miss Cabot has been in shot. She's in critical condition. Sir, you need to get to All Saint's as soon as possible."
All the shock, despair madness hit Neal all at once like a freight train. His hands shook, breathing uneven. He looked like a he was about to shatter right then and there. "What?" He breathed still reeling, his eyes wild and dismayed as his instinctual need to run took over."Fuck. What - what are you talking about- I just- fuck!"
Present time
"Let me show you something."
"No!"
A smack resounded through the emptiness, echoing through the soundless realm. Regina's arm stung like a million hot irons had been pressed to her skin at once. It wasn't from the impact, no. She looked down briefly at her arm, blinking away the bewilderment from her expression before looking up the equally puzzled lawyer. Their eyes in unison turned to the throbbing wound marking Regina's olive skin. She looked at Alex's agonized blue eyes, her own brimming with the same sheltered tears.
It wasn't like she was a stranger to pain, but this, it just seemed to hurt just a little bit more. It was so brutal and vicious, to a point even nostalgic. There wasn't even a shred of doubt in her mind. Such rage, indiscriminate violence. It's genetic. Regina thought darkly, as she looked at Alex, suddenly the burn didn't hurt so much.
Alex stood there frozen, gazing at their hands, her eyes distant. What the fuck she thought. She could feel a tingle twinkling on her finger tips. This feeling, this strange surge was warm, overflowing with despair and pain, anger, scarred with agony and twinges of remorse. A faint ember danced in her palm, the darkest of black. Alex couldn't help but get lost in Regina's ember eyes for a moment too long.
Alex had hurt her.
"Don't " Alex snapped, backing up, establishing the space she needed at the moment, "Don't touch me." She shouted, angry at her for this. For being here, for saying all these things.
Regina hurt her too.
Her anger grew every second, oozing from the breaking barriers, her broken voice embracing it completely. "Don't you see how crazy this is -" She clenched her hands, extinguishing the black ember, motioning to their surroundings, "- and now, you, a woman who I've never seen before. Ever. Say's shes my mother! Holy fuck, wait, you're the Evil Queen too, like the Snow White and the Seven fucking Dwarves -" She raged, her voice quaking with frustration, confusion "- And you expect me to just believe you. Just like that! -"
"Alexandra Danielle Cabot..." A low growl escaped her lips. Soft, piercing and positively lethal, cutting through Alex's fit like a sizzling knife through butter. Regina's gaze hardened into her natural glare. She could feel her heart shattering at the words, she needed to try to comfort her, but she didn't move a muscle to touch her again.
"What did you just say?" Alex murmured under her breath, she could feel the high burn out and the anger slipped away in one swoop. She could feel the turmoil inside quelling, dissipating as Regina's tormented voice echoed within her. The truth washed over her in a cool cascade, those words. Such ghostly words.
"I know this is hard to believe but -"
"But what?"
"It's true." The composure in her voice was lost, the guilt and sadness gripping her tongue in a tight deadlock. Regina sighed woefully, knowing that the time for words was over now. She let a light flicker of jade wash over her palm as she ran it over her gaping burn. As suddenly as it marred her skin it disappeared, leaving her olive skin untouched. "All of it, I'm telling you the truth."
Alex shook her head, still spinning from from what she just told her. It was easy to deny it, deny the truth staring her right in the face. Maybe this was all just a dream, a sick twisted delusion of a dying woman. But that would be too easy. She breathed a shaky breath trying to desperately steel herself and gather waning strength back again, to deal somehow with this madness. She was trying, as best as she could to understand the reality unfurling before her eyes. But this wasn't something that they teach you. She knew how tell when somebody was lying. She knew how to exploit somebody's weaknesses. She knew how to squeeze a confession out of a hostile perp. But now her eyes shone with an utter helplessness, at how utterly lost she was in a world she thought she knew.
"It has to be a dream." She whispered to nobody.
"Come here." The words sounded as though it physically hurt Regina to say them as she extended her hand towards Alex. Weary blood shot eyes glided up the figure, Regina's broken black heart burned with a chilling remorse, her own breakdown being one of pure, self directed agony.
There was a pull, it was always there she could feel it since she first saw Regina. There was something magnetizing her toward this woman. Alex wanted to protest but her throat tightened as she took a cautious step forward. Her mind had lost this battle, her body moved on it's own. Before she could string together another thought she sent her arms forward, not even noticing how they shook and trembled as they connected to Regina's. It felt like the most natural thing in the world.
There were no lies, schemes, masks.
Regina could feel it, what was nothing more that a distant sensation that lingered in, faded and hazy memories, that drifted within her for decades, the feeling of her daughters warm, gentle skin coming in contact with her own. Her body was overflown with a happiness that she had all but forgotten in the sea of bitterness, as she grasped Alex's hand ever tighter, as if she was all that was tethering her here.
Alex could feel Regina pulling her somewhere, she couldn't bring herself to resist, so like a sleep walker she followed the raven haired woman. Finally it felt like she could breathe, unlike the hours before where she woke up in this strange place, with this strange woman. This time it all felt so lucid, so real.
Regina brought them to a fountain that was in the center of the garden, she stood there for a moment, tracing her finger over the rough stone before angling her face towards Alex. "I know this seems crazy, insane, and like a nightmare that you just can't wake up from. But everything I told you thus far is true. I am the Evil Queen from the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, because all these stories that you think are just bedtime stories, are true, and we do exist. In a different realm with magic. But most importantly," Regina paused, turning to Alex as she placed another hand over-top the lawyers, "I am your mother, and there is a reason why you had to grow up like this, here, without me. So look as I tell you my story the best way I know how."
"I've got you." The Brit whispered into Olivia's ear.
Just a few more steps. Olivia begged, For Alex. The effects of the shock still crippling her legs, they became heavy and aching at her command, albeit yearning to see Alex. She tried to lean into the doctors touch, since she knew that her legs would not move on their own. She could melt into the support more as she thought of the prospect of seeing Alex. She glanced fleetingly at Elliot, hating herself for being so weak in front of her partner, but at the same time powerless against it. Olivia was thankful that the doctor didn't let him touch her, she hated needing help like this, breaking down.
"Let's you straightened out, love. The loo is just around the corner."
The doctors words resound in her head, blocking out the rest of the ER, the thick British accent gave her something to focus on rather than the piercing stares of her team. She could feel the adrenaline weaning out of her system, as the worlds began to come into focus, and the sting from her nose dive into the concrete began to crawl up her body.
Each step was torturous but necessary. She bit her lip focusing on anything but the act itself, her mind drifted to the pleasant perfume emanating from the doctor, to the worried glances of the passing by nurses.
"You're helping me." Olivia breathed. "And I don't even know your name."
The doctor jolted slightly, from the unexpected cold ominous hue in Olivia's voice haunted by a dangerous, unstable temper. The doctor tensed when Olivia's distrustful eyes narrowed, and expression that must have brought countless detainees to their knees.
"That's the name of the game, you do what you can, for whomever you can." The doctor chimed softly, minty eyes squinted for the briefest moment, yet they remained as blank as they they were troubled, "The name's Eleanor O'Hara by the way."
"You're familiar. Do I know-"
"We're here." O'Hara said shortly, pushing through the door of the ladies room.
Olivia's eyebrow twerked at the quite unexpected reaction. She had cut her off all to quickly, she was hiding something. So there is something off about the good British doc. There was something about her face, she's seen her before. It was a gnaw Olivia couldn't shake it was one of those things she could smell. It was her spidey-sense as Elliot loves to put it.
Their gazes locked for the umpteenth time tonight, but this one was different. There was an uncertainty growing behind those minty green enigmatic eyes. She had a sudden yearning to ask the woman again. But she couldn't quite get a read on this woman besides her uncanny philanthropic tendencies. So Olivia quickly decided against it, she liked to have at least some vague idea as to what somebody was going to say.
O'Hara coughed curtly.
Olivia knew the signal to well, and continued to stumble into the restroom. The harsh florescent lighting blinded her for a moment, as she slithered toward the sink. She clung to the stone counter for support, trying to support herself once again. Her eyes found the mirror she glared at the broken visage that reflected the same deadpan back at her. An expression of disgust crept over her face as she stared at the scratches and bruises that lined her face, the rough dirt burrowed into her skin, fresh shadows under her eyes from the sleepless night.
O'Hara leaned back against the door preventing anybody else from entering, she watched the detective carefully, she could see it. There was that raging guilt eating away at the woman, she could see it through the blackness of her stare, through the trembles that shook her arms, even in her knuckles that turned bone white from having such a grip on the sink.
"It's not your fault. You did what you could." O'Hara assured softly unable to take the oppressive silence any longer, the sudden voice burrowed through the thick silence that had settled between them.
"It wasn't enough." Olivia seethed, turning the faucet shattering the beginnings of another tense silence with the quiet hiss of the cascading faucet. "It's never enough."
Olivia let the the scalding water run across her hands, painting the clear liquid a nauseating crimson, washing away the remnants of blood. Alex's blood. She scrubbed her hands until her skin burned a vibrant swollen pink. She scrubbed until there was no blood left on her hands, but she knew all to well that they would never be clean again.
"Olivia." O'Hara's voice seemed close, too close. Like it was right beside...Olivia glanced to the side, and immediately shifted her gaze back to her hands. Eleanor had taken it upon herself to close the water and invade her space. "Stop. You're good. It's off." Her fingers crept up her hand, examining what was the beginning of a first degree burn.
"Let go," Olivia said stubbornly, shrugging off the doctors tentative touch, "Just tell me about Alex already."
O'Hara said nothing. There was some rustling echoing off the cavernous restroom. Olivia wondered cynically if the Brit was going to give up that easily. She hung her head looming over the sink again, fading into the silence. She wanted to clear her head, just for a moment breathe. She wanted anything that could dull this cancerous feeling. It all felt like her fault.
I wasn't fast enough.
Maybe if I pushed for her to stay in tonight.
Maybe if El and I ran the perimeter like he wanted to.
A sudden sting jolted Olivia from her dark musings, her eyes flared for a moment, she was speechless and helpless to resist, as Eleanor grasped her hands, pressing a wed cold paper towel to them. Dabbing the cloth tenderly against her scalded flesh.
"You don't-" Olivia stammered.
"This guilt that you're holding on to love, it's eating you alive." There was no pity in these words, just a statement of fact. And for some reason it made her blood boil hotter than it would if she had sensed pity. Luminous greens examined the hand again, pausing. Eleanor pressed another colder towel on the swollen skin, eliciting a pained hiss from the detective.
"I know. " Olivia muttered clenching her hand into a tight fist, "But I promised him, I would keep her safe." She spat as her disappointment crawled into a pit in her stomach once again, "I promised Neal."
" And you did the best you could." Eleanor replied firmly, as she tossed another towel into the trash.
Olivia slammed her first onto the stone counter petulantly, " Stop saying that damn it." She shouted releasing some of the festering anger, "I just - I can't stand it anymore! I'm so powerless- in all this. I - don't do sitting back...There was no reason for her to die for this case."
"I know." Eleanor admitted refocusing her catlike gaze back on the burn, "that's just it sometimes. You know in Med School, you have this vision, that you're going to save every bloody soul that winds up in your ER," she chuckled sardonically, as she told her, hoping this didn't sound like a lecture. Because it wasn't, "And sooner or later you get this case that is beyond saving, and you work until you collapse, you play god, you think that you can save her, but in reality somewhere you already know that there is nothing more you can do. But, at this point this patient has crawled into your heart and thrown your objectivity out bloody door. At some point you began to see the human being, the mother of three, or the bright eyed kid with his whole life ahead of him/her." There was another pause, her hands stilled, searching for conformation in Olivia's stoic guise, "And so you watch, and do what you can to quell the pain; and then you move on to the next patient, and the one after that."
She finally let Olivia's hand go, taking a small step back, but the unspoken was still hanging in the room like the steam from the scalding water. "Alex wouldn't want you to feel like this. You saved her life. A few centimeters lower and -"
There it was again, she spoke as if, as if she knew Alex, how could she, "How exactly do you know what Alex might think? What she might do."
O'Hara folded her hands defensively around herself, settling against the wall as she considered her words carefully, " I know her, she saved me once. She helped me out of a dark place. " She explained, explaining nothing at all.
It was so obvious now, the glint she saw int those catty greens was vulnerability. This mask that she wears so effortlessly, this strength that she exudes. Was she a victim? Olivia thought sadly. Or how could she-
"Liv! Are you in there."
Suddenly her thoughts were interrupted by a thunderous knock on the restroom door.
"Neal..." She breathed.
Who expected Neal to show up like this?
Please continue to review if you're enjoying the story or if you aren't so sorry about the slow chapter but I just want to set up the next huge chapter the best I can stay tuned for the next chapter "Who We Are"