Chapter Ten – Answers

"Officers. What happened?"

"She fell from an apartment building. Landed on someone else, on a heap of trash and boxes, but it was still a fall." Said Elliot. Olivia heard none of it, her ears ringing, the room bouncing in and out of focus every time she blinked.

"What's the damage?" Asked Fin, frowning at the doctor.

"Broken ribs and limbs, and we need to take a look inside. Excuse me." He began to walk away. Hospital. They were in a hospital – Olivia didn't know which one. Alex was here, somewhere. How high was Olivia's apartment? Not very. But high enough maybe. She had never looked at it from the ground up. There had been a smash. A smash, and then? And then a scream, a scream as Alex fell. Maybe. No, she didn't scream. There wasn't time. There was light. Torches from below, from above. Beams of light piercing through the moment. Cutting through and slicing into her brain through her eyes and

Olivia snapped out of it. Launched forward. "Why do you need to look inside her? Will she be ok?" she demanded, walking after the doctor.

"Do you have a warrant?"

"What? Fuck no! Will she be alright?"

"I'm sorry, I can only release information like that to family. Excuse me."

"I'm her girlfriend asshole!" Screamed Olivia, grabbing onto the doctors arm. The doctor looked up and down at her, unblinking. There was barely a trace of pity in his eyes as he looked into Olivia's tear filled ones.

"I'm sorry. You're not family."

It was the shock more than anything that made Olivia let go. She spun on her feet, looking desperately up and down the corridor. Elliot and Fin were six feet away, their hypothetical wondering sentences like 'broken rib... internal bleeding... pressure on the lungs...' floated towards her, through her. Olivia sank to the floor, Elliot and Fin immediately crouching down beside her.

"Liv, you need to get looked at, come on" Said Elliot, holding her arm.

"I'm fine" She mumbled, trying and failing to wave them away.

"Olivia you've been cut all over, you're still bleeding, you need to get stitched up" Fin hushed her as he sent a searching glance over the cuts on her arm. They were mostly small nicks from the falling glass, some were deeper, still making bright red round drops of blood form at the corners. There was a bruise above her right eye, she had no idea where that had come from, and one of her ankles kept buckling under her. It was all insignificant, all just white noise at the peripherals of her conscience.

They helped her up, gently tugging at her limbs, supporting her. She could barely bring herself to lift her legs, thoughts of Alex swinging round and round in her brain, the white noise humming and buzzing louder and louder so she couldn't concentrate on anything else. Then, for the second time that night, everything faded out to black.

---

As life in the hospital continues, the little monotonous monologue we call 'every day' that ticks away in the background, there are the bubbles that separate themselves away. As nurses administer medicine, as interns run after the residents, as doctors see to patients, there are those who are apart. They are the families of those patients, they are the ones who do know what is going on (for more often than not the patients are unconscious or under anaesthetic in the A&E of this particular hospital), and yet they can only know a very limited scrap of information, for they are away and removed from the outside world. From life. Time has no place in a hospital waiting room.

"I'm sorry. We did everything we could but there were complications..."

"The procedure was a success, you can see him in a little while..."

"We're going to have to keep her under observation for one more night..."

"Olivia. Olivia." Olivia jumped awake, startled and bleary-eyed. Elliot was standing over her, she was in a hospital waiting room chair, and she felt stiff. Her mouth felt fuzzy.

"Did I..."

"You passed out. Then... I think you fell asleep. It's been a long night-"

"Where's Alex? How long has it been?" Asked Olivia, cutting off the inevitable 'you should go home' that was coming.

Elliot paused. He sighed. He had been asking questions, and it seemed Alex was just battered and bruised – no lasting damage except a few scars maybe. She had been lucky. Very lucky. Bersack, Bickman – whoever he was – was lying in the hospital morgue so bent and twisted he barely looked human. All the same, Elliot didn't want Olivia seeing Alex all hurt. He didn't want her blaming herself for what happened – if anything it was his fault for letting Alex say yes.

He had approached Alex after she had said yes to the 'mission', the plan. Olivia didn't know this, but he had told Alex that she could back out. Alex had asked whether she would have any reason to, what was the danger involved? He had told her what he thought – what they all thought. That this was just to make him sniff around. That Olivia would know what she was doing.

Alex had shrugged and said she would do it, she wanted to. It was an action with a purpose.

He had let her.

"Where's Alex." Repeated Olivia – not as a question but as an order. Take me to her, her eyes were crying out. Please.

Elliot helped his partner up, led her down the hall. He flashed his badge at the most inexperienced looking nurse on duty there, didn't wait to see her reaction and strided straight into the room, Olivia marching behind him, trying not to wince as her ankle kept shooting pain up her leg.

"I'll leave you here. You want some coffee?"

"No... can you get me some bandage and split? I need to wrap up my ankle." Mumbled Olivia, unable to take away her eyes from Alex's peaceful figure on the bed, unable to move any closer to her.

"You want to get it looked at?"

"It's just sprained. I can do it."

Elliot made a non-committal 'shrug-nod', and moved a chair next to the bed for Olivia, then left the room. He came back two minutes later with the bandages and the little flat wooden sticks. Olivia still hadn't moved. He lead her to the chair, sat her down, put the bandages in her lap and patted her on the shoulder.

Then he left her to it.