A/N: This chapter is dedicated to Jackie. Hang in there, love.
By the time you reach Elliot's room, your lungs are about to burst. Captain Cragen waits in the hall, hands shoved into his pockets, back pressed against the wall next to Elliot's door.
"What's going on?" you choke out as you reach him. "Elliot…?"
A smile full of relief spreads across the captain's face. "I was just talking with him ten minutes ago," he murmurs. "He's awake, Liv."
The lump in your throat turns into a sob that you can't prevent. Your knees give out from under you and you collapse against Cragen's chest, tears overflowing your eyes and streaming down your cheeks.
"He's awake."
He's awake. He's going to be okay.
Thank God he's going to be okay. He'll get to see his kids again. Hold them in his arms, tell them that everything will be okay. See the next play Lizzie stars in. Kathleen graduate from college. Dickie become just as good a man as he is. Maureen fall in love and get married. He'll get up out of that hospital bed and go home. And you won't have to go on knowing that you caused something that you could never fix. You won't know what it feels like to lose him forever.
You wipe your eyes and peer through the window on the door of his room, where he sits up with Doctor Lima.
"What's going on in there?"
The captain frowns as you look back at him. "Doctor Lima is running some tests with him. Before you go in there… there's something wrong, Liv. In his head."
The relief that has built up in your chest immediately falls. "W-what is it?"
"We don't know yet. When I first spoke with him this morning, he was… having trouble coming up with words. They think he has brain damage."
"Brain damage?" you repeat. There's a brick in your throat. Your knees are weak, you can barely stay standing. Brain damage. Will he even recognize you if you walk into his hospital room? If he does, will he remember everything the two of you have been through? Anything you two have been through?
Will he blame you for what happened to him, just like he should?
"He knows who he is. He recognized me, he even asked about you," Cragen says. "The doctor's trying to figure out exactly what's missing."
He remembers you. He asked for you. You don't know whether that's a blessing or a curse. Maybe it would have been better if he didn't remember you. If he never knows you exist… at least then, one of the two of you could walk away without a broken heart.
"Hey. Look at me." You raise your gaze from the cold, white tile floor. The captain's face is blurred by your tears. "He's going to be okay, Liv. Whatever's going on, he'll get through it. We'll help him get through it together. Okay?"
You take a deep breath, but before you can answer one way or the other, the door to Elliot's room slides open and Doctor Lima steps out.
"So what's the damage?" the captain asks as Lima closes the door softly behind her.
"Well, there's good news and bad news," she begins gently. "The good news is that for the most part, his memory seems to be intact. He knows who he is and vaguely what happened. But beyond that… there was damage done to the frontal and temporal lobes of his brain."
"So what does that mean?"
"His brain is having some trouble signaling his muscles, causing sluggish movement. He's also having some trouble processing speech- thinking of certain words, putting sentences together and understanding complex sentences," Lima pauses, drawing her bottom lip between her teeth. Here it comes- something devastating, that has broken his world, and as a result, yours as well. God, you just want to turn around and run. Before you get a chance, she finishes, "The left part of his frontal lobe was damaged enough to affect his ability to read, write, and do basic mathematics. When I asked him to read off of a sheet of paper, he wasn't able to."
Cragen's arm wraps around your shoulders and you allow yourself to fall against him. Somehow, you don't even understand the words that came out of her mouth. He can't read. He can't read.
"What can we do to help him?" Cragen rasps.
"He'll start to recover when he's ready. Right now, the best thing you can do is be there to support him." Lima glances over her shoulder at the door that is now closed. "And try not to let him push himself too hard. Stress will make things worse, and…"
"And?" you ask. Dear God, can something else really be wrong with? You don't know if you can survive another blow right now.
"Well, the frontal lobe also controls mood and emotion. We're not sure exactly how much of his brain was damaged, but you might find that his control of emotion has changed, as well. The important thing is to just try to help him stay calm."
If she knew Elliot the same way you do, she'd know what an impossible task that is. You take a shuttering breath, and nod slowly. Keep him calm… keep him calm. That's how he'll get better. Time and even emotion. He has his work cut out for him… and you do, as well.
"Thanks, Doc."
Cragen squeezes your shoulders as Doctor Lima disappears down the hallway towards another room.
"Ready?" he asks, guiding you towards the door.
Your heart slowly begins to pound as Lima's words repeat in your head. His control of emotion has changed. When I asked him to read, he couldn't. His brain is having trouble signaling his muscles.
Stress will make things worse.
Help him stay calm.
The last time you were near him when he was awake, he was anything but calm.
"I can't," you whisper. He'll be better off without you. He'll recover quicker without you.
You can't walk in there and see him like he is.
Cragen freezes. His eyes bore into yours and you have to turn from his gaze. "What do you mean, you can't? Elliot needs you, Olivia."
"He's in there because of me."
You rub your hands over your eyes and blindly make your way down the hallway towards the elevator. You can't do this… you've got to get out of here.
You find yourself pointing your car towards Brooklyn instead of your own apartment. Your muscles guide you down the quiet streets, to the building that you've spent so many nights in, and before you know it, you're twisting your brass key into the lock and the door is creaking open.
The apartment is dark, chilly and silent. You walk down the hall towards the bedroom, flip the light on, and stand frozen in the doorway as you stare at the bed. The covers are thrown back. The sheet is wrinkled. A rumpled t-shirt hangs halfway out of the hamper that sits next to the closet.
This place is like a capsule from the past- it is exactly the same as it was seven weeks ago, when he threw the covers of his bed back, wiped the sleep from his eyes and padded into the bathroom to take a shower before work. He was wearing his dark blue dress shirt and charcoal jacket that day. Your favorite shirt. Did he do that on purpose? To try to get you back, to change your mind?
You scoff. It's not like it matters now. If he doesn't hate you, he should.
You wipe the wetness from your eyes and carefully close the door before walking back into the living room. A stack of mail and the newspaper is thrown carelessly on one side of the coffee table. A case file is open on the other. You almost smile. Workaholic.
Just like you.
It's your day off. You have nowhere else to go, so you sit on the couch and snuggle up with the afghan he keeps hanging over the cushion. If you close your eyes for a moment, maybe you can pretend that the past seven weeks haven't happened. Maybe you can pretend that he's okay, that you two hadn't fought, and most important, that he was never on that rooftop.
/
Cragen has called you three times since this morning. It's nearing midnight and you still lay on Elliot's couch, the television blaring an episode of House. The last time you two were together, you two had watched it.
"Not my fault you take all of my energy."
"We can't have that. Let me see what I can scrounge up."
You can almost taste the strawberries he held out for you. You can almost feel him pull you into his lap to make love to you.
Shivers wrack your body. You need to see him. Dear God, you just need to see him.
It takes you almost an hour to get to the hospital. The hallways are empty except for nurses, but with one quick flash of your badge, you're walking towards his room.
Your fingers wrap slowly around the cold metal handle, frozen for a moment. It's almost one o'clock in the morning, he must be asleep by now. Holding your breath, you slowly slide open the door.
The room is pitch black and silent- his heart monitor beats strongly, the mechanical ventilator whirring is finally gone, replaced with the soft sound of his even breaths. In the moonlight, you can see him in bed, on his back, blanket wrapped loosely around his waist as he sleeps peacefully. His hands still rest by his sides, tube winding to the I.V. in the crux of his arm. The tube that once protruded from the corner of his mouth, however, is gone, replaced with a much smaller, less threatening nasal cannula, wrapping from his ears over his cheeks and under his nose. He looks better- so much better than the last time you saw him.
"Hey, El," you whisper, voice softer than a whisper of a breeze as you sit down next to him. He's going to be okay. He's actually going to be okay. Your hands ache to reach out and envelope his own, but you can't wake him. He needs to rest- he needs to get better. He'll never know you're here. "You're gonna be okay."
Tears stream slowly down your cheeks. Just a week ago, he was on death's doorstep. Just a week ago, you were mourning the loss of him. But now… you get to keep your best friend- your partner. You don't feel like half of your soul has been shattered.
His eyes slowly flutter and his lips part. He's waking up- you should leave. You never wanted him to see you here. But your muscles are frozen in place and as much as you know that you should get out of here, for him, you just can't. The thought of seeing his beautiful eyes and hearing his deep voice is too much to resist.
Through the darkness, you can see his irises sparkle as they move around the room, then slowly settle on you. Your heart jumps into your throat and you want to reach up to wipe away the tears, jump out of your seat and flee, and lean forward to kiss him all at the same time.
The muscles in his face twitch. He stares at you, eyes cracked open just enough to see you. Even in the darkness, you see the lines of exhaustion etched into his features. How can he look so damn tired after sleeping so long?
His mouth opens to speak. You lean forward and hold your breath in anticipation, waiting to hear his voice for the first time in over a month, and one word stutters past his lips. "L-Liv?"
Your tears turn into a waterfall. You can't stop your hand from reaching forward and covering his cheek. You can't stop your breath from shuddering as your palm feels the stubble on his skin. And you can't stop your whole body from scooting forward and leaning down, forehead pressing lightly against his.
He's warm. His skin smells like rubbing alcohol and his body is completely lax, like if he even wanted to move, he wouldn't have the strength. "Liv," he murmurs again, lips barely moving. His lips... you know they've got to be dry and chapped, like sandpaper, but why doesn't that stop the need to cover them with yours? You could do it. You could kiss him. Just one little kiss, one more second to memorize the way his mouth feels against yours. He's so out of it, he probably won't even remember. In the morning, he'll probably forget you were even here.
But you'll remember. You'll remember seeing his vulnerability, the one quality that scares you to death seeing in him.
"Shh," you whisper, letting your eyes slowly slide closed. Your hand moves behind his head as you hold him to you, for just one more moment. You'll give in to the comfort of his body for just one last moment. "Go back to sleep."
"Don't... don't leave."
You pull back, ever so slightly, and stare at his face. Your control breaks... you can't hold back anymore. Your lips descend on him slowly. Just once, just this one last time, you need to feel him against you.
But once your mouth is against his, you're frozen. God, you missed this. You missed it so much it almost hurts.
Finally, you pull away from him. There's a smile on his face, the first smile you've seen outside your dreams in a very long time. And slowly, his eyes close.
"G'night, El," you whisper. Goodbye.
A/N: Please let me know what you think!
