Disclaimer: everything you recognize belongs to Dick Wolf and NBC
"Olivia!" Melinda was trying frantically to get the detective to wake up. She looked back at Sophie. "Please, just let her go."
Sophie looked a little less uncertain, but didn't respond. Melinda looked back down.
"Come on, honey, wake up. Please," she begged. To her joy, Olivia moved her head and groaned slightly. She waited, but the detective's eyes stayed closed. She lightly tapped Olivia's cheek, still begging for her to open her eyes. Jo did nothing but grip Olivia's hand tighter, tears cascading down her face.
Even Paul was watching the detective worriedly.
Sophie was still pacing, though she glanced frequently at the fallen woman.
Olivia coughed and opened her eyes. "Can't-" she gasped, trying to speak. Trying again, she managed to rasp, "Can't breathe," so quietly it was almost a whisper.
Melinda looked down at her blood-covered hands, then at Jo again. "Jo!" she all but yelled at the ADA. She nodded to a cabinet on the far wall. "Get me some gauze and a syringe, they're in that cabinet."
Jo nodded and got up, heading to the cabinet in question.
Melinda looked back at Olivia, who was staring at her with a blank expression on her face, still gasping for air. Melinda's heart broke. This could not be happening. That woman was signing Olivia's death certificate. This needed to end now. She felt a pressure on her upper arm and looked down to see Olivia's hand lightly squeezing her bicep.
"I trust you, Mel," Olivia said quietly, in between gasps.
Melinda tried to smile at her friend, but she knew it didn't come out right. "I'm going to do everything I can, Liv," she said quietly. "But you need to hold on. It will be OK. I promise."
Olivia smiled at this. "Don't make promises you can't keep, Mel," she chastised.
Melinda felt her heart break again. How could Olivia be so OK with the thought that she might not make it out of this room? Was she really that ready to die? No. NO. Melinda would not let that happen. Olivia would be OK.
Jo hurried back to the detective's side, handing Melinda the items she had asked for. Melinda took the syringe and instructed Jo, "Hold the gauze over the wound. Keep the pressure!" Jo put the gauze down as Melinda lifted her hands. Looking Olivia in the eyes, she continued, "You've got a collapsed lung. I need to re-inflate it. This might hurt a bit, but you need to stay still."
Olivia coughed again and looked at the Medical Examiner inquisitively. "Might hurt?" she rasped out. "I'm bleeding out from a fucking hole in my abdomen, can't breathe from a collapsed lung, and you think I'm concerned with a little more pain?" She groaned again. "Just do it already."
Melinda nodded, although she'd never admit it slightly relieved that her friend's sarcasm was at least still intact, and felt Olivia's side, trying to find the right place to enter. She gripped the syringe tighter and drove it into Olivia's chest. With another gasp and cough, Olivia's breathing became less labored. Melinda breathed a sigh of relief.
"OK," she quipped. "One problem solved, but it's not getting better." She looked at Jo, who looked back up at Sophie.
"Please, Sophie," Jo tried to reason again. "I know you didn't mean to shoot Detective Benson, but right now you're killing her. I know you don't want that." She paused, and saw Sophie was listening to her, even if she hadn't stopped pacing. "You need to let her go, Sophie, so that she can get help. You don't want her to die, right?"
Jo stopped speaking, and the room was silent, save for Olivia's heavy breathing. Everyone started when a ringing sound pierced the air.
Sophie jumped and waved the gun frantically. "What is that?" She shrieked. "Turn it off!"
"It's my cell phone," Olivia groaned. "It's probably my partner, Sophie. Please let us answer."
"No!" Sophie yelled. "It's a trick!"
"No trick," Olivia whispered. "Sophie, you've been ignoring the calls to the Morgue phone, they're just going to keep trying. Please, let me talk to my partner."
Sophie looked uncertain. Finally she nodded and said, "Fine. Answer it."
Olivia nodded at Melinda, who took the phone out of Olivia's pocket and put it up to her ear. "Hello?" She answered.
"Liv? Hello?" Elliot practically shouted from the other end.
"Elliot, it's Melinda," Melinda answered.
"Mel?" Elliot stopped short, confused and getting more worried. "Where's Liv? What's going on in there? Is everything OK?"
"Elliot, calm down," Melinda tried to keep the man from going off the deep end. She looked up at Sophie, who nodded. "Olivia's been shot." She could practically hear Elliot stop breathing on the other end. "She's OK, now, but we're going to need an ambulance and paramedics down here, as soon as possible."
"That's enough!" Sophie screamed out. "You need to stop, now."
Melinda looked at their captor. Speaking into the phone, she deadpanned, "I've got to go, Elliot." She hung up the phone and placed it on the floor.
On the other side of the door, Elliot stared at his phone in disbelief. This could not be happening. Liv was shot? Melinda said she was OK, but Elliot could not block out the emphasis on the 'now' that had been tacked on to the end. Did that mean she hadn't been OK? Or that she wouldn't be OK? It couldn't be good, Melinda had answered Olivia's cell. Didn't that in itself mean that Olivia wasn't physically capable of answering the phone herself?
Sergeant Leonard tapped Elliot on the shoulder. "What's going on, Stabler?" He asked.
Elliot looked up, startled out of his own thoughts. "My partner's been shot. Other than that, they're all OK." He looked past Leonard at the uniforms who were keeping back, there as backup, just in case. Nodding to them, he ordered, "Call an ambulance, and get the medics down here as soon as they arrive." As an officer nodded and headed off to carry out the order, he looked back at the sergeant. "Doctor Warner says we're going to need them."
Leonard noticed the scared look in Elliot's eyes. He was a little worried too. He had known Detective Benson for years, and he had never met a tougher cop, or a better one. The moniker 'Bad-Ass Benson' was well deserved and well earned.
"I'm sure she'll be OK, Stabler," he tried to comfort the man. He knew there wasn't much hope in that, though. Elliot wouldn't relax until he was with Olivia, at the hospital, positive she would be OK.
Elliot nodded absentmindedly, glaring at the door, as if it would magically open if he stared long enough.
This seems like a good place to end the chapter, I'm not really sure what's going to happen next. So we'll leave off here, for now, and hopefully I'll be stricken by the muses again soon.
PS, I'm not sure if it's a good thing that this is the fourth chapter I've uploaded since I started the story last night, or if it really is just proof that I actually have no life. Well, either way, here you go! R&R please =]