Because people have been asking for this forever, I've put a link to my Cabot family tree on my profile page. Enjoy!
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CHAPTER 23
When Elliot walked through Adam's front door the next day around eleven o'clock, he expected to find everybody in various stages of hung-over. From Olivia's stories of the Cabots, he knew that they loved to party, and with Abbie added into the mix… yeah. He was just hoping that nobody had alcohol poisoning.
What he found, however, was anything but what he was expecting.
Instead of the house being silent as a tomb (and as dark as one, too), all the drapes and blinds were wide open and there was music playing at a decent level filtering through the house. He dropped his duffel in the living room as he passed by, and made his way down the hall toward the kitchen where he could hear the sounds of food being prepared. Voices became more distinct the closer he got to the back of the house, and he grinned as he recognized two of them.
"We did not 'sneak off to the house' last night," Alex was arguing defiantly.
"Yeah, Alex got hurt and we needed a first aid kit," Olivia added.
Elliot walked into the kitchen just in time to see Abbie throw a doughnut at Olivia and say, "Yeah, right. You two just wanted to get your freak on in a big ol' bed."
Wanting to break up the fight before it really got going, Elliot cleared his throat and said, "Hey, guys."
"Ellie-Bell!" Abbie crowed, turning to grin at him and completely forgetting that she was in the middle of pestering Alex. "You made it!"
"Well, yeah," Elliot said, smiling. "Like I would ever miss Liv's big send-off." He turned his attention to Alex. "You got hurt?"
"Just a scratch." Alex rolled her eyes. "Not a big deal."
"Yet it was enough of a big deal that you two spent the night in my guestroom, instead of out on the beach with everybody else," Adam said, laughing as he walked into the kitchen from the deck. "Hey Elliot."
Elliot smiled and tipped his head in greeting. "Hi."
"So, sis, where is this oh-so-mysterious owie, anyways?" Adam pressed.
"Wouldn't you rather know why it is that Abbie has a bag of frozen peas strapped to her inner thigh?" Alex argued, getting back to her original question that prompted the Texan's offensive. "I mean… seriously. What's up with that?"
"She has a point, Abs," Adam said, turning to Abbie. "That is wicked intriguing. I mean, our tent was right next to yours so I know you and Serena got back there okay last night." He smirked as Abbie glared at him. "You're a bit of a screamer, aren't you? What happened?"
"Not usually," Abbie argued. "She was just… never mind. And, I'm not telling you."
"Go get Serena," Alex told her brother. "She'll fill us in."
"No! I don't want her to feel guilty about this," Abbie said, huffing dramatically as she crossed her arms over her chest. "Fine. We were… well… you know…"
"Fucking?" Adam guessed.
"Yeah," Abbie muttered, rolling her eyes. "Anyways, let's just say that I'm apparently not as limber as I used to be because I think I may have pulled a muscle."
"You pulled a muscle having sex?" Adam repeated disbelievingly. And then he grinned and held a hand out to give Abbie a high five. "Excellent job there, Ms. Carmichael."
Abbie laughed and shook her head as she slapped his hand. "Yeah. Whatever. It looks like I wasn't the only one who got hurt doing it last night though," she said, trying to deflect the attention on her to Alex and Olivia.
"I got hurt before we had sex," Alex told her with a triumphant smirk that clearly said, So there.
"Gee thanks, babe," Olivia drawled. "El, you want some coffee? I know you've been up for a while, but things here are just getting going."
"Fuck that shit. What he needs is a beer," Abbie said, eagerly grabbing onto any topic of conversation that didn't revolve around her sex injury.
"Coffee would be great, thanks," Elliot said.
"You will be getting hammered with us later, Stabler," Abbie warned him. She shot a glance at Alex and added, "And I need to know where this mysterious scratch is."
"Fine," Alex groaned, rolling her eyes because she knew that Abbie wasn't going to let the matter drop until she found out. "It's on my ass, okay? I got a cut on my ass."
Abbie let out a bark of laughter and clapped her hands gleefully. "Did Benson kiss it all better?"
"As a matter of fact, she did," Alex told her. "And it was amazing. Three hours of amazing, to be exact. Now, can we stop talking about injuries?"
"Oooh, not yet," Adam chortled. "Not that it's a real injury like your two, but Jill is rocking the HUGEST fucking hickey I have ever seen!"
"Oh my god, do you all turn into sex-crazed monkeys when you drink?" Elliot asked Alex.
"Pretty much," the ADA confirmed with a nod.
"Anyways," Adam said loudly, "Abs, you going to be okay for later? Our reservation is at what, three?"
"Yeah. The bus will be here to pick us up at one," Abbie said.
Olivia handed a cup of coffee to Elliot and asked, "Are you guys going to tell us where we're going yet?"
"Nope," Abbie replied, popping the P sound loudly. She smirked at the way Olivia turned to Elliot, no doubt preparing to press him for answers. "And he doesn't know either, so leave him alone."
"Damn," Olivia muttered.
"She did tell me to bring a cup, though," Elliot offered, looking mildly apprehensive about that particular wardrobe instruction.
"You know what? I don't even want to know," Alex drawled, shaking her head. Abbie's plans, while generally immature and reckless, rarely ended up with anyone getting seriously hurt, so she figured that this was one of those times where it was better to just go with the flow and take things as they came. She picked up her coffee cup with her right hand and a chocolate croissant with her left. "I'm going back outside by Jill and Lindsay."
"Me too," Olivia said, grabbing two Boston Cream doughnuts and her coffee. "El, you coming?"
Elliot grabbed three doughnuts and his coffee and nodded. "Right behind ya, Liv."
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Five hours later, the Cousins and company were sneaking through the woods wearing padded vests, gloves, helmets, and goggles as they carried their lookalike assault rifles at the ready to take down anyone who crossed their path.
They were playing paintball.
To make things interesting, teams had been assigned by family with Abbie and Serena on the B-Team (Bryan, Bryn, and their significant others) because the A-Team (Alex, Adam, Andy, and company) and the J-Team (the triplets and their partners) were up numbers. Elliot was also loaned to the B-Team because the other two teams had cops on them already. Bryn wasn't the best shot anyways, so he basically made the teams even. And, because the Cabots can't do anything even vaguely competitive without making a wager on it, everybody had thrown twenty bucks into a pot that the winning team would split.
There was no official for the match, everybody would be calling their own "kills" into little radio headsets that every member of their group was wearing.
A little more than thirty minutes into the match found things already getting interesting as each squad was down at least one man. The A-Team had lost Andy; the B-Team had lost Bryn and Serena; and the J-Team was down Kim, Jill, and Jake.
The southeastern area of the playing field had been assigned to Alex for the match, and she was painstakingly tracking Abbie – who she briefly caught sight of a few minutes ago. The playing field was a wooded section of land with bunkers hidden every so often in random locations, as well as strategically placed tree stands that one could use to take out opponents from above.
At the moment, Alex stood behind a paint-splattered red oak tree, cradling her gun to her chest as she listened for any sound of her target. She knew she was close to Abbie, but the Texan had stopped moving and she suspected that it was because she had been spotted. For as much as it killed her to admit it, Abbie was extremely good at this game.
A twig on Alex's six snapped and the blonde stiffened, her grip tightening on her gun as she slowly turned to look to see who had made the noise, fully expecting it to be Abbie.
It wasn't.
She grinned as she spied Lindsay creeping by, her head on a continuous swivel as she made her way slowly through the woods. Unwilling to let this opportunity pass her by, Alex crept slowly out from behind her cover and lifted her gun to her shoulder, leveling her sight on the middle of Lindsay's back that was covered by the inspector's padded vest. Just as she began to pull her trigger, a paintball hit her squarely on her wounded ass cheek, directly on her band-aid, sending a shooting pain rocketing through her as her cut from the night before was no-doubt torn open again by the impact.
While she'd been distracted by Lindsay, Abbie had snuck up behind her.
"FUCKING HELL!" she screamed as she looked down at the bright yellow spot on the back pocket of her jeans. "Goddamn it, Carmichael! Out of all the places you could shoot me, you had to shoot me in the fucking ass?!"
"ALEX IS OUT!" Abbie yelled into her radio, announcing the ADA's demise in the game as she gave her a little finger wave. "Liv'll kiss it all better for you later, sweet cheeks!" she yelled, before she scampered merrily with only the slightest visible limp off into the woods so that Lindsay couldn't get her. Ice and more than the recommended dosage of Aleve meant that the muscle strain she'd been feeling earlier in the day wasn't bothering her nearly as much as it had been.
Alex shook her head and lifted her gun up over her head (the universally accepted sign that she was out of the game) as she trudged through the underbrush to the centralized bunker that the group had agreed would serve as the assembling location for everybody who was knocked out of the game.
The woods around her became a firestorm of activity with people running by at full speed as she neared the bunker, and she groaned as she climbed over the three-foot tall wall of sandbags. She smiled wryly at the other players who had been knocked out as she gingerly sat down and said, "So… any bets on who wins this thing?"
"Lindsay," Jill said, grinning.
"You're just saying that because she's your woman," Jake muttered. "I'm going to say Olivia or Elliot."
"Adam won last time we did this," Bryn pointed out.
"ADAM'S OUT!" Elliot called into the radio.
"But not this time, apparently," Bryn chuckled.
"Huey and Dewey, Louie is on his way in," Abbie announced over the radio.
"Well, there goes John, then," Jill said, shaking her head.
Olivia's voice came over the radio next. "Boxer is down for the count. TKO, Benson," she announced chuckling.
Alex chuckled in spite of herself as she shook her head and rolled her eyes at her fiancée's quip. "That was bad, Liv."
The game continued on for another twenty minutes with everybody except Olivia, Paul, Elliot, Abbie, and Lindsay getting knocked out of the competition, and everybody assembled in the bunker was busy placing bets on who would be the next person knocked out.
"The Redcoat is down," Abbie announced. "Go have a cuppa and get out of my motherfuckin' house, bitch!"
"Fuck," Adam muttered. He looked up at Alex and added, "Looks like it's up to your girl, sis."
"She's got this," Alex assured him, even though she was mildly concerned that the B-Team still had Abbie and Elliot out on the field. Lindsay and Olivia were good, but if Abbie and Elliot started working together, they would be done-for.
A few minutes later, an echoing scream tore through the woods and, as the group in the bunker popped up to try and see what was going on, Lindsay's voice came over the radio. "GAME OFF! GAME OFF! Jill, go get the guy at the front to call for an ambulance. The rest of you, get out here now. We're in the northwest corner by the tree stand."
Alex's heart swept up into her throat at the professionally distant tone in Lindsay's voice and she wasted no time vaulting over the side of the bunker and taking off in the direction Boxer had instructed. Adam ran with her stride for stride and Jake wasn't far behind, and she was thankful for their presence as she tried to both run as fast as she could and try and figure out what had happened.
"Dear lord, just please let all their bones still be inside their bodies," she muttered as she wove her way through a particularly thick copse of trees.
A few minutes later, they arrived on scene, as it were, breathing hard and actively scanning the area for Olivia, Abbie, and Elliot. Alex's heart was in her throat as she hurried to Lindsay's side. The inspector's hands and jeans were muddied, and it was obvious that she had just crawled back up to wait for them. "Where are they?"
Lindsay waved a hand at the small gully that she was standing beside. "They're down there. Elliot landed on his arm weird and dislocated his shoulder. Olivia sprained her ankle pretty bad, and Abbie has what looks like a broken wrist."
"How in the hell…?" Adam murmured.
"I was sitting in the tree stand up there-" she waved a hand over her shoulder "-waiting for Elliot to walk into my line when Abbie jumped out of a tree and started shooting at him from a range of about twenty yards. It was like a bad outtake from Platoon or something. Anyways, Elliot was quick and jumped into the ditch to try and get away from her because she hadn't hit him yet, slipped on a rock, and landed hard on his shoulder. It's definitely dislocated. Olivia heard the scuffle and came running, shooting at Abbie – she's a really good shot, by the way," she told Alex, "hit her five times, center mass. Abbie slipped on the edge of the ravine and fell in. She's the one who screamed. Olivia leapt in after her to try and check on both Abbie and Elliot's injuries but rolled her ankle on her landing."
Alex shook her head and started for the edge of the ravine. Leave it to her family and friends to end up getting seriously injured playing paintball. "A month before our goddamn wedding. Perfect. I'm going down there," she said.
"Go easy on them, sis," Andy said, smiling. "Wait until they get their injuries fixed before you lay into them."
The ADA grinned over her shoulder at her sister. "Yeah, yeah, yeah," she muttered as she slipped over the edge of the ravine and made her way slowly down the steep, muddy, rock-littered slope.
"Damn. Jill won," Jake muttered as he walked off after Alex to assess the injuries. He was an attending physician at Boston General so, while his specialty was cardiology, he was technically the most qualified to help on-scene out of the Cousins.
"Fucking hell," Adam groaned. "I had plans for that money."
"Do I want to know?" Lindsay asked.
"We were betting on the outcome," Bryan explained.
Boxer shook her head. "Yeah. Should have known that one."
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In what turned out to be a fortuitous turn of events, all things considered, Jake managed to talk the EMTs that came out to the paintball range into taking Abbie and Elliot to Boston General where he was able to get them rushed through the ER much more quickly than they might have otherwise been. It also didn't hurt that he had called his friend who was an orthopedic attending at the hospital when they were on the way in so that she was there and waiting for them when they arrived.
Doctor Christina Sims was a petite woman, standing at just over five feet, with wild red hair and bright green eyes, and she chuckled softly as Jake relayed what had happened out on the field. "So, just another typical Cabot family get-together, then," she surmised as she quickly triaged Elliot, Abbie, and Olivia.
"Pretty much," Alex muttered from her position beside Olivia.
Doctor Sims nodded and smiled. "Well, then. Since I know you guys are celebrating this weekend – and, congratulations, by the way," she added, looking at Olivia and Alex, "let's get these three patched up and back to the party."
"Perfect. Thank you," Jake said, as the orthopedist waved a trio of residents over to them.
Sims cleared her throat as the group approached. "I want x-rays on all three patients. Start with Mr. Stabler, because I'm pretty sure it's just an acute anterior dislocation and the sooner I can reset it, the sooner he'll start feeling better. Then do Ms. Carmichael. I want films of the hand, wrist, forearm, and elbow, just to be safe. Save Ms. Benson for last, as she is in the least amount of distress. Shoot them through as quickly as you can and bring them back here with their films. We'll move forward from there once we know what we're dealing with."
The residents jumped into motion quickly – Doctor Sims was a demanding attending who expected perfection from each of the residents assigned to her – and Christina grinned at Jake as she followed them out the door. "I'd like to see your residents respond that quickly."
"Mine do," Jake retorted grinning. "I get the brains, remember? You gotta be a fucking God to do Cardio. You just get the brawn."
"Fuck you, Bernhardt," Sims chuckled. She smiled at Alex and Serena and added, "We should have those films back shortly and then we can get everybody patched up. Just sit tight. I'll whip my residents through this call like their lives depend on it."
"I like her," Alex said as she leaned back in her chair. She winced as her injured cheek protested the pressure she put on it and groaned when she noticed that Jake saw it. "No."
"It might need stitches," Jake said. "Do you want me to look, or would you rather I get somebody else in here?"
"I am not flashing my ass at you, Jake Robert Bernhardt."
"Somebody else it is, then," Jake said, grinning as he disappeared out into the hall to see if his buddy Mitchell Jones, a plastic surgeon, was around to take care of Alex.
Two hours later, everybody was a good as they were going to get for a while. Alex had six new stitches in her behind, Elliot's shoulder had been reset and he was kitted out with a new sling to immobilize the joint, and Abbie was in a half-cast for her broken wrist as well as her radius that also ended up to have a hairline fracture. Olivia had a second degree sprain and was put in an air cast for support with her foot wrapped in an Ace bandage until the initial swelling went down, and was sporting a shiny new pair of crutches.
As Dr. Sims finished signing the release paperwork for her three latest patients, Jake looked at Alex and asked, "Can we break the rules just this once and take a picture of this?"
"Sure," Alex chuckled, nodding. While she appreciated the 'no visual evidence' rule, this was certainly an exception that needed to be captured on film.
"Hey, Chris, can you take a picture for us?"
Sims scribbled her name on the bottom of the final chart and handed it off to a resident who was standing nearby. "Sure thing, Jake. What do you have in mind?"
Five minutes later, they were assembled in the ambulance bay of Boston General, a messy, paint-splattered, battered bunch, and they all laughingly smiled for the camera as Christina Sims took their picture.
"That is so going up at the wedding," Jill announced as she looked at her brother's phone. "And I want a copy of that."
"Me too," Serena said as she glanced at the picture.
"I'll send it to everybody," Jake said as he slipped his phone back into his pocket. "So, Carmichael, what's next?"
Abbie shrugged and looked at Serena's watch. It was just after seven o'clock. "There's no way we're going to get cleaned up in time to make our reservation, so let's go back to Adam's place, get everybody cleaned up, and then we can figure out what we're going to do for dinner before we gotta head out again."
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AN: One chapter left here, and then this thing is jumping to the wedding.
Hope you all liked this bit.