A/N: So this is an old one that I just finished. It's 4 parts...takes place around Season 14, he's been gone about a year. Songs are critical. First chapter is All We Do, by Oh Wonder. Nikki, thank you for reminding me this existed.
I stand here, and I don't feel the rain.
It's coming down so heavily that it's almost blinding sometimes, but I don't feel my cotton dress stick to my thighs. I don't feel the water seep between my toes and into my flat sandals. I don't shiver, and I don't shake. But I watch.
I watch and she simply doesn't move.
The woman I am staring at lays before me, her body sprawled grotesquely on the black tar concrete of the alley. I don't yet know how it happened; how she was so abruptly stopped mid-motion. But her body has obviously fallen to the ground and there is nothing graceful about how she is laid out. The woman's slender body is contorted, and it is soaked with thick blood that is immediately washed away as it slips onto the pavement. She looks like someone has thrown paint all over her. Her face, her hands, her neck – all darkened into deep, chilling crimson.
I shiver. I should have worn a jacket, but like my mama tells me, sometimes I am just a stupid, foolish girl.
The woman's dark hair is matted wetly to her forehead, and her leather jacket has fallen open. She wears a badge clipped to her belt –a belt that has been looped through the tightest hole around her waist, as if she has recently lost weight. She is pretty, exotically so. Even beneath the blood I can tell that her skin would glow if she slept more. I don't think it matters now, though. She's dying. Or maybe she is already dead. Something inside of me twists, as if protesting that she wasn't given enough time. Of course there is another part of me that oddly thinks that time wasn't going to help her.
She had just been biding time anyway.
I know this because I'm good at reading people. I watch them and I keep my mouth shut and I can fade away into the background on a second's notice. It's amazing what I have learned because no one remembers that I exist.
There are sirens howling in the distance now, but out here they are not unusual. There is the sound of frantic shouting and a burned smell to the wet air that sits heavily on these streets. The rain is incredibly loud as it hits the chain link fence and garbage cans next to me, and it sounds like a xylophone being played by an erratic, uncontrollable child. There are two men running towards us, and both of them wear their fear in their haunted expressions, their shocked eyes. The men scream, saying a name again and again.
Liv! Olivia!
I assume they are calling for her, even if I don't remember my name. The woman on the ground doesn't move though. She doesn't emit a groan of pain, she doesn't flinch or twitch or even gurgle.
She is unnaturally still. Then again, maybe death is the most natural thing of all.
It's impossible to tell from where I stand if the woman is breathing. The men fall to their knees, their guns dropping. They're winded and desperate and of course they don't see me, standing here amongst them. I'm not afraid of them. For some reason I am glad they are here. She shouldn't die alone. Then again, even with the men here I feel like she is missing something. Someone. If I knew who she wanted, I'd help her. But I don't. So I just stand here.
Watching.
The older man is already choking a bit. The younger man calls him something odd like Munch and then more urgently by another name – John – and they both sound like they can't breathe. They are fumbling with their radios and I watch them, fascinated. The panic is everywhere.
I hate the way it feels.
The men say things again and again. They are using radios and the rain isn't cooperating. The blood is all over John, and he doesn't seem to notice. He's looking for her wounds, but they are everywhere. The blood spreads exponentially from her abdomen, her arm, her leg. It's unstoppable and it's making John pale, too pale.
The sirens are coming closer, but the thunder has started, and it's drowning out everything else.
John wants her to hang on. The other man, the one John refers to as Finn or Phin or Fin - however it goes - he just wants her to stay. To fight. They are begging her not to give up. They are promising her help, they are pleading with her to give them a few more seconds. I choose Fin as his name for some reason, and I listen as he swears at God. He takes a moment and brushes her wet hair out of her face and he is trembling. He blames God, over and over and over again, and then he changes his mind and starts to plead with him.
I watch the woman, and I feel bad for the men.
I don't know how I know this truth, but I do: the woman isn't going to fight.
Somewhere deep inside of me, I understand her. The woman is tired. She's worn out. She wants to go. She doesn't want their hands on her, saving her. She just wants some peace. She'd be okay if they just let her go. She's been hurting too much lately, and maybe this is just the easiest way to stop the pain. I watch as the woman doesn't fight for air. She doesn't push back the agony and try to open her eyes.
She's done, I think. Exhaustion can kill in a thousand ways. I know this to be true.
I'm young, but the thing is that I get tired, too.
The pitiful wail of sirens turns into the blinding flash of lights as the ambulances arrive. John vomits more than once against the fence as they carefully load the woman they are calling Liv onto a stretcher. Her body is limp as they get the board underneath her. Her head lolls until they secure her. They are clearing her airways, cutting away her clothes. They can't find a pulse and John drops to his haunches, staring. Just staring at her while the rain comes down. He is aging as I watch him and I am fascinated by the haunt of it all.
I am fascinated by how many people come to help her. No one ever comes to help me. I used to pray for someone, for anyone, but God didn't listen. I told God to go to hell one day and it made my mama laugh.
She laughs at the strangest things.
They get an IV into this woman, and then they raise the gurney and secure the wheels. There is no hope on the faces of the paramedics. I stand near her and no one sees me. I keep searching her face for a sign that she will make it through and I don't see one. I start to hope that she will come back to us, because I want to know her. I need to know her. She must be someone important to have this many people worried for her.
They are gentle with her, as if respecting a life that once was. Three GSW's, I hear. Then someone explains to another that she's been shot three times. I wonder which bullet it was that finally made her fall. Somehow I don't think it was the first one that slammed into her. She probably thought about surviving for a moment or two before she decided to give in.
They race with her towards the ambulance, and Fin is hitting redial on his cell phone every few seconds. He seems like he is in shock, mesmerized by the reflection of the hideous colored lights flashing crazily in the puddles. The police cars are stacking up but Fin doesn't notice. He can't get someone on the phone.
Fin finally jerks while gripping the cell. "Stabler. Jesus, what the fuck took you so long?" he grates.
The doors to the ambulance close shut and John flinches at the clanging sound. His bony shoulders jump and his long fingers curl into the chain link. He looks frail. As if he is suddenly too weak to be doing this job.
"It's Olivia," Fin says softly. "She's been shot."
When he says the words, he breaks down just a little bit, rubbing his rain-soaked face.
For a moment, it is as if the downpour has stopped. It becomes eerily still out here in the alley off of 17th, as if everything has slowed down. I watch in awe as everything quiets, as if Mother Nature has pulled the curtains on her show for a moment, allowing Fin the chance to speak.
From where I am standing I can hear the sound of a man yelling come through the cell phone. Fin hunches over and as if in counterpoint, John straightens, his bones creaking as he comes over and takes the phone from Fin. His clothes are sticky with the blood and he doesn't notice.
He holds the phone, and the yelling stops. It becomes sickly quiet on the other end of that line.
Then there is silence everywhere.
John swipes one hand down over his face, and a streak of her blood mars his cheek. "It's bad," he whispers into the phone.
And then the rain picks up again. It's angry, violent. It sweeps her once warm blood into the gutters and washes away the remnants of where she dropped.
I get the feeling no one expected the woman to ever fall. Even the rain had given her a moment of silence.
I wish I'd known more of her. It's too late now.
The ambulance is getting ready to pull away. I know they don't see me. They look past me, and I am never shocked by this.
In fact I'm glad. It means I can go with her.
I open the back doors to the ambulance and climb in, unnoticed. I close them then and I sit with the woman. Her shirt has been ripped away; her stomach is slathered in the blood and gauze. She has other wounds on her too, ones that seemed to have come long before tonight. I see the bruises and scars of the past in the hideously bright lights of the ambulance. The paramedic is scared. He's sweating and wet and I know innately that he is thinking he is going to lose this one before they even make the hospital.
I watch him, and I think he is right.
I sit with her, and I wait.
For some reason, I cannot leave her.
-o0o-
They have rushed her into surgery, and I think I should have probably stayed with her.
But something has kept me out here, sitting in the emergency waiting room. I think my clothes are drying, and I am not cold, so I just sit in the corner chair and watch the activity. I have pulled my legs up so that my chest can rest against my thighs. I stretch my damp dress fully over my knees, not sure why I am worried about modesty when no one will even look at me.
I feel like I am waiting for someone, yet I don't know who I am looking for. I stay with John and Fin, even though they are so quiet that they don't talk, not even to each other. They are both bent over, and I think they might be praying to a God they don't really believe in. A nurse had thrust a hot coffee towards each of them a few minutes ago. John has set his down, untouched. Fin cradles his. They both smell like copper, and people stare at them as they walk by.
John and Fin don't notice.
I feel unsettled, and I can't shake the feeling. It's as if a storm is hurtling towards me, and I am just standing still, making no move to get out of the way. It's not that I am worried about her dying – I think that is a given – it's that there is something unfinished about it. Some piece I haven't been able to place. I have confidence that they will find who did this to her, so that isn't it. Even though there is that man named Stabler who is probably on his way here, I get the feeling that she doesn't have children or family, so that isn't it either. I'm not worried about them packing up her apartment, or cleaning out her desk or giving her a proper burial.
Yet I can't get the shivers to calm as they race down my back. I can't get the feeling of impending doom out of my gut.
Something is chafing against fate, and it's making me huddle into myself as I watch. Waiting. Everything seems to be moving slowly. It reminds me of people swimming in the ocean, their arms languidly slicing through the water, their hair a swirling halo around their face. The sounds are muted around me. The looks exchanged between nurses and the parents, the children, the lovers of those who sit in this room are all graceful, despite the despair. This room is filled with the quiet understanding of shared pain.
My mama would tell me I am being dramatic, but it is like death sits in this room, as if it owns this space.
I am losing my breath. My chest is rebelling against the pending pressure. Something catastrophic is coming. It's the change in barometric pressure before the tornado rumbles in, tearing up everyone's plans. It's the slight shake of the ground before the train screams into the station. This is the definition of foreboding, and I'm equally fascinated and terrified of what it means.
It's bigger than I imagined when it comes.
The double doors slam open, and he is a whirlwind as he burns into the space. He draws all eyes; and he's instantly sucking the air out of me. His face is contorted and pale, and I know that some in this room react to his charge by recoiling. He commands fear, demands it just by his stance and his size and his muscular shape.
But I see him in a way they do not. He's scared. He is the one that is most terrified. He is the one who is shaking, and we just feel the rumbles of him.
He is falling out of himself as he sees John and Fin. His face crumples, and I think he is going to go to them.
But he doesn't.
For one, brief second, his head jerks up and he looks at the corner in which I am sitting. He flinches, as if he has been punched in the neck and he struggles to regain his focus. No one in this room has looked at me until now. None of them have paid any attention to me.
But he does. He is staring at me. Into me.
His eyebrows lift, as if heavy. As if his cloudy, reddened eyes are blurry and he's searching for clarity. His lips part, but the rest of him is frozen. He is looking at me oddly, and I wonder if he is going to say something.
I can't look away from him. His agony is magnetic because it's the deepest thing I have ever known.
No. It's magnetic because I know him.
It is as baseless an awareness as it is a basic one. It makes no sense, yet I accept it to be true.
I know him.
He knows me too, I think. I want to say something to him, to make sure he doesn't look away. The way he is focused on me, eyes narrowed like that, it feels like he believes that I am much further away than I am.
I'm right here, I want to say to him. Right here. Right here. Right here.
But Fin has gotten up and put his hand on the man's arm. Of course. The man is here for Olivia.
For a moment I am jealous of her.
But then the man starts to sink, his body falling forward just a little bit and it takes Fin and John to help him. They want him to sit, and he just shakes his head. Back and forth, back and forth. He's shaking it too fast. You'll fall, I want to tell him.
Then again, I think, just because he is still standing doesn't mean he hasn't already collapsed.
"I need to see her," he rasps. His voice sounds like it is ripping, tearing brutally across every word.
"Elliot," John says quietly, placing an authoritative hand on his friend. "She's in surgery. They're trying to stop the bleeding."
Elliot.
I roll the name across my lips, and play with the sound of his name. It's a good name. Strong. Solid.
Of course the man in front of me looks anything but solid. He's big, yes. His sport coat is pulling at the seams as it stretches across his broad back, and his neck is thick with muscle. But he's weak. He's like Achilles with an arrow in his heel. As he recoils from John's hand, it is like watching a deity descend into mortality. He isn't one of those Greek Gods who I have always been fascinated with. He isn't something easily heroic and golden and beautiful. He's more like Ares. Dark. Avenging. Riding the line.
Ares, I decide.
I've always liked mythology. People tell me to read things more appropriate to my age, but they don't understand me. I like the big words, the fancy descriptions. I like disappearing into worlds where the hero always tries as hard as he can to win.
In my world, there are no heroes.
"How bad-" Elliot starts. But his face contorts as his voice cracks. He drags his teeth over his lower lip with such force that I think it's astonishing that he doesn't draw blood. "How bad is it?" he whispers.
John's face is impassive. Elliot immediately looks to Fin, waiting for some sort of real answer.
Fin blinks. He starts to say something and then stops. His voice is almost condescending with compassion. "Sit down, Stabler," he says gently. "We don't know anything yet."
Stabler. So this is he of the yelling, of the parting rains and the hallowed silences.
I know, even before he finishes his statement, that Fin has said precisely the wrong thing. Elliot Stabler whirls on him, grabbing the man by the collar. There are seven or eight other people in this room, but no one makes a move. Some people just don't care; others recognize the familiar irrationality of grief.
"How the fuck did you let this happen?" Elliot snarls.
He reminds me of a damaged beast trapped in a steel cage. He is hurling himself against the iron rails full force without any comprehension of the consequence.
He doesn't stop. "You can't be trusted, can you? You can't be fucking trusted! How could you – how could you-" but he is too weak to fight. I can tell he wants to use his fists, but can't even remember how to close them. He deflates almost as quickly as he had exploded, sinking into the closest chair, his body slumping over as he hangs his head. His elbows rest on his knees and he looks almost fragile.
It's an odd dichotomy, watching a man that big reduced to a dusting of nothing.
Someone has to help him. For some reason, I think that person is me. He compels me, maybe even more than she does.
I get up slowly, unfurling from the uncomfortable seat. From where I had been sitting I could only see his back, and for some reason it is imperative that I watch him closely. I'm fascinated by him, drawn to him. I have this urge to soak up his every move, to move closer to where he is. I don't think John understands him. I can see the perimeter of distance that John is maintaining around him. And I don't think Fin fully trusts him. From Elliot's words, I know that is a two-way street.
There is so much history in this tiny, suffocating room. It gives me a place to be, and for some reason, I want their history to be mine as well. This history that is broken and volatile and layered and cracked.
I move closer to him and no one stops me.
"I want to see her," he says to no one in particular, his voice gutted of authority or inflection. He rubs his hand over his face, still staring at the floor. "Let me see her."
But he doesn't make a move to get up. Maybe he knows that he can't see her right now, or maybe this is finally the numbing, paralyzing manifestations of shock.
I slip into the chair next to him and he seems to recoil away from me. For a moment, I freeze. Maybe he is going to tell me to leave him alone. Maybe he will give me a look that suggests I should go to hell.
But he does neither. He lifts his head, and the whites of his eyes are scarred with fiery red streaks. He looks at me over his shoulder, or maybe he is looking past me at the double doors that lead into the trauma rooms.
For a moment, I wonder if he is looking through me. He looks lost. Absent of fight, of cognizance, of focus.
And in just the moment I think he doesn't see me, he pleads with me.
"Please don't let her die," he whispers reverently, just soft enough for the two of us to hear. His eyebrows furrow and he blinks, as if confused. "She's not ready to die."
I close my eyes. I can't look at him anymore. I can't watch the emptiness in his expression because I will try and console him with platitudes. And the truth is, all of my platitudes will be a lie.
Because I know better. For some reason I know her.
And God help this man, because he is wrong.
She is more than ready to die tonight.
-o0o-