Hello my stunningly beautiful amazing wonderful readers, fans and flat out fab people!
I hope you all caught the newest episode of SVU last night - don't want to spoil it for you but it's SOOO hard not to! All I will say is that I can't believe Cragen was being such a jerk! He's such a sweetheart normally - oh well, I guess El's leaving has been tough on everybody. Esp. Liv!
Anyway, feel free to msg me if you want to rant - I am MORE than willing to sit there and agree with you about how unfair the whole situation is!
So - ten reviews till next update! Always want to know what you think!
It took Elliot and Fin another ten minutes to calm Alice Hastings down. Munch had gotten the husband out the kitchen and El could only assume Liv had left with the kids – Fin had said he had seen her put them in the car, but it wasn't like Liv not to radio in with official confirmation.
Elliot dragged the resisting drunk out of the house and into the third squad car that had shown up that was going to take her to Bellevue for a 72 hour hold.
As he watched the car drive off on the icy streets, he noticed Olivia's car still parked on the street. Had she not found the kids?
He thought he could count what looked like 3 small huddled figures in the backseat wrapped in what looked like Olivia's new winter maternity coat they had bought only last week, but he couldn't be sure.
And something about the situation was nagging him as he headed towards her car after handing off Ms. Hastings.
Cold…why was she so cold? Olivia tried to open her eyes but as she did a sharp pain exploded behind her eyes, setting her ears ringing and her head spinning, and she quickly closed them again.
She shifted slightly on the cold hard cement ground, hoping to find something she could use to pull herself up, but as she did, she became aware of a warm wetness seep between her legs. She was bleeding.
She didn't need to open her eyes to know what was happening, or what colour she would see staining the snow.
"Help – somebody" she tried to yell and bang against the metal cans with her hands so someone would hear her. But her voice was hoarse with fear and pain and it was whipped away by the howling winds – she was scared to move too much in case she started to bleed more heavily.
She called out one more time before the blackness took over again; consuming everything and leaving nothing but the cold black silence to swallow her whole.
Elliot could swear he heard his name being called out – but the sound was swallowed by the howling winds.
The children in the car had said Olivia had walked back around the house, but that she hadn't come back yet. And judging by the empty fortune cookie wrappers littering the backseat, she'd been gone longer than the 5 minutes it should have taken her to get back.
As Elliot went around the back of the house to the small alleyway at the side, he saw a familiar flash of brown hair just ahead – on the ground near the garbage cans.
He started to run; "Olivia!"
The icy wet flakes of snow bit against his skin and clouded his vision, but as he got closer there was no mistaking the limp sprawled body that came into view in a still, scarily silent heap.
He dropped to his knees, the cold cement tearing through the fabric of his jeans. "I got an officer down, Lydon and fourteenth. She's seventeen weeks pregnant with twins. I need a bus here now" he roared into the radio.
He took off his coat and lay it over her, removing his scarf and mittens as well and put them on her hands and underneath her head, which he realized with horror was matted with a dark sticky viscous substance, that he knew would show up as red were it not for his black gloves.
A sinister trickle of blood ran down from a nasty gash on her forehead, marking the white ground with hurt.
He didn't want to move her in case she had any back or neck injuries, but it took every ounce of his strength and self control not to gather her into his arms.
"It's gonna be okay Liv" he whispered fiercely as he smoothed her hair back from her face; "everything's gonna be okay"; adding silently "it has to be".
Finally, after what seemed like hours but was probably only twenty minutes or so he could hear the approaching sirens of the paramedics.
As the medics lifted Olivia's body onto the stretcher Elliot's blood ran cold – and it wasn't just because of the stormy weather. There was a growing red stain beneath her – and it wasn't coming from her head.
"Come on baby, wake up for me. Open your eyes Liv, please, please" Elliot jogged alongside the stretcher and climbed into the ambulance after shouting for another officer on the scene to take the Hastings children to the precinct.
Olivia's eyes fluttered open, but everything was dark for a moment until her vision adjusted to the dark inside of the ambulance.
Elliot heard a whimper and looked down at Olivia whose eyes were opening.
"Babies" she whispered, turning anguished eyes to Elliot; "El I'm bleeding, please, tell them to save our babies – ooh!" her eyes squeezed shut as she stiffened, trying to curl up but unable to with the straps restraining her.
A pain shot through her lower abdomen, doubling her over breathless. She barely had time to catch her breath before another cramp ripped across her belly.
"Oh God, El…I'm so scared".
Elliot grabbed her hand in his, pressing it to his lips as he sat hunched over her in the tiny bench seat as the ambulance battled the icy streets through to the hospital.
He felt so helpless, so impotent watching his wife, his Olivia so terrified and in so much pain with nothing he could do to assuage her fears – because they were his own.
Elliot stayed crouched awkwardly over her head as the paramedics worked furiously to put in an IV. He gently swept her hair out of the foam neck brace they put around her neck in case she had a concussion, and brushed away her tears that ran down her cheeks as she sobbed out.
"Elliot" Olivia choked out, eyes and nose running – hair disheveled with patches of drying blood. "Don't let them take my babies away from me; don't let them take my babies. Just save our babies" she pleaded growing hysterical.
"It's my fault, it's my fault – I can't lose them. They're too little to come out right now, Elliot, Elliot, you have to do something- oow" she cried out again, her hands fisted as they were held in the restraints.
Elliot had had enough, he undid the restraints. He couldn't bear to see Olivia forced to be immobile while she was in agony. She wouldn't do anything that would jeopardize the babies' health – she'd restrain herself if she thought she would or could do anything to hurt them.
One of the paramedics shot Elliot a dirty look, but they were pulling up to the hospital – so the point was moot to argue with him.
Moving with her as she was carried into the hospital, Elliot never let go of her hand and never moved his gaze from hers as she looked up at him fearfully as the doctors crowded around her, suggesting different courses of action.
"Sir we're going to have to ask you to leave" one of the nurses tried to guide him to the swinging doors by the arm, but he heard Olivia calling for him and he wrenched his arm away.
"Like hell, I'm not leaving her like this".
"Sir, we'll be able to help your wife more if you just stay in the waiting room"
Elliot closed his eyes briefly, trying to think of a good reason not to charge the infuriating woman with something just so she would leave him the hell alone and look after Olivia. This was taking too much fucking time, time they didn't necessarily have to waste.
He went over to Olivia, who looked so small and fragile on the large gurney. Her lips trembled as she tried to stop her tears, listening to the doctor's brusque warning that she had to calm down or else her blood pressure would affect the babies.
"Don't you dare threaten her – I don't care if you are the surgeon to the fucking president you treat this woman like she is gold – and with respect. Got it? If I so much as hear you bullying her or scaring her I will have your license" Elliot growled into the man's face quietly, not wanting Olivia to hear him.
"Olivia, I'm going to be right outside. I love you no matter what, do you understand me? None of this is your fault, if it's anyone's fault it's mine. I should have insisted you stay back at the precinct.
Olivia shook her head sadly; "it wouldn't have helped Elliot, maybe my body's just telling me I wasn't cut out to be a mother".
"Don't think that Liv. Think of holding our babies in your arms – think of me holding you. I love you so much".
The doctor in charge nodded brusquely at Elliot before pushing her gurney through the doors marked 'medical personnel only'.
Eyes blurring, Elliot turned on his heel and ran - and didn't stop running until he was out of the hospital, outside of the emergency doors.
Then he broke down. Elliot Stabler didn't cry, but at that moment he rested his head back against the brick wall of the exterior and sobbed. Great, gasping sobs that tore out of his chest without any control. God, what would he do if he lost Olivia? He'd gotten a look at the electronic monitoring chart the doctor had set up on her before he had left and it hadn't looked good.
Her blood pressure was through the roof and her pulse was thready and weak. He could tell she was in shock, the way she was shaking and trembling told him enough to know that much.
It would destroy her if something happened to the babies. She beat herself up enough when she couldn't save a victim, but knowing she hadn't been able to save her children, even if it wasn't her fault, would break her.
Not a lot could break the unfazable Olivia Benson, but miscarrying the babies she had prayed for for so long would. And Elliot would do anything to keep the light from going out in her eyes.
She was his life; his heart didn't belong to him anymore. Hell, it had never been his to give. Ever since he'd laid eyes on her, Olivia Benson had owned him, owned his heart; lock, stock and handcuff.
Finally, Elliot realized he needed to go back inside, even if it meant others seeing the frozen tear tracks on his face so Olivia's doctors could find him – because there would be hell to pay if they waited even a second more than was necessary to give him news on Olivia and their unborn children.
Instead of sitting in the waiting room, Elliot found himself wandering into the hospital chapel – knowing they could page him on the loudspeaker inside if necessary, and kneeling down at the front of the small church on the hard wooden floor.
He crossed himself as he rested his elbows on the rail, face buried in his hands as he prayed; pleading with God to please - just let Olivia be okay.
"God; she has to be okay. You can't take her from me, please. God I will do anything if you spare their lives, please, I'll do anything" he swore, his voice catching and breaking with the raw emotion that far out-spilled his veins and now ran down his face.
He had seen too many tiny coffins, seen too many lives ended so cruelly short. His kids were mostly grown up now, Eli staying with Kathy; and Elliot getting him every other weekend.
But now there were two more tiny lives in his possession – two tiny precious lives that depended on him to keep them safe. And he would do it. He would do anything to keep them safe.
He spent the next two hours there, on his knees praying, offering anything that when the priest gently touched his shoulder he nearly jumped out of his skin.
The kindly looking older man nodded towards the chapel doors where outside there was a doctor waiting.
"Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me – Psalm 23:4".
"Thank you father" Elliot got to his feet and shook the man's hand before going to meet the doctor at the doors.
"How is she?" the words were out of Elliot's mouth before they had walked two steps.
The man nodded grimly, as if choosing his words carefully. "You wife is alright – she's resting and we're still picking up two fetal heartbeats. But there's something else you need to know…"
Haha. Sorry for the cliffhanger - just a little tactic I'm trying out. *smiles innocently and adorably*
Anyways, there won't be an update tomorrow because after my lectures are over I'm going downtown to my best friend since I was 3's apartment and going to have a flat out fucking amazing time because we all work too hard and need to live a little bit.
ALSO! If any of you are on facebook, SUBSCRIBE to Joyful Heart's updates (Mariska's charity for victims of sexual abuse) and VOTE VOTE VOTE for them to receive a $2M grant from Chase giving.
Lots of love!
