Continued…
She couldn't breathe and her vision went blurry. Her knees hit the cold, hard tile of the hospital waiting room as she registered two sets of arms grasping her from both sides. Her head was spinning but she couldn't cry, she wouldn't, not here.
Olivia closed her eyes together tightly while covering her face with both hands, willing herself not to fucking cry. Not here, not now.
The doctor looked down at her in sorrow and sadness. There was no telling how many times she'd said those very words to the parents of her patients.
Olivia sat on her heels and leaned down towards her lap, cradling her head and running both hands through her hair.
"I've got you…" Fin leaned down and whispered in her right ear. He was trying his best to comfort her.
She couldn't believe this was happening.
"You're going to be okay, Olivia." Came the female voice that belonged to the pair of arms grasping her from the left.
Olivia shook her head, indicating that she would not be okay, that none of this would be okay.
"It will be… you have to give it time." Kathy told her gently as she tightened her arm over Olivia's back and tightened her grip on Olivia's shoulder.
The brunette was already having a hard enough time letting Kathy Stabler comfort her. It's not something that she had wanted or requested but Kathy just happened to be working tonight and heard through the grape vine at the hospital that a female detective had been given custody of the child that Kathy knew Elliot was keeping up with due to an ongoing case.
The blonde had ventured down to the NICU during her break to see if she'd known the woman that her husband probably worked with and had come face-to-face with her his partner mere seconds before the doctor told Olivia that the infant girl hadn't made it through surgery.
Kathy gave Fin a sympathetic look, not knowing what exactly was the best way to comfort Olivia but when she'd seen the woman hit the ground, she wasn't just going to stand by and do nothing. They'd never been super close aside from Olivia saving her life and helping Eli come into the world. Most of their conversations centered around Elliot or Eli.
"I'll help you plan everything. We'll go back over the paperwork and see if Gladys left any plans or requests…." He told her, hoping that if they had a plan of action, it would help her calm down.
But it didn't.
And Olivia broke.
The sobs came as she was hunched over with her hands now only covering her face and not threading through her hair anymore.
"Oh god!" Olivia gasped as her tears flowed down her face and she slowly started rocking her body back and forth unconsciously. "I can't!" She exclaimed as reality hit her. "I can't bury another child… I can't bury two children… I can't!" She sobbed as she started breathing irregularly, going into full panic mode.
Fin's eyes widened instantly. He'd heard her loud and clear. He'd heard that she said 'another child' and that she can't bury 'two children'. He was clued in immediately. Olivia had had a child previously that had obviously not made it.
Kathy seemed to register it as well, but was able to hide her shock better than Fin. It didn't really matter though because Olivia couldn't see either one of them. She was in such a panic that she was barely registering what she was babbling about in between sobs.
"Baby girl, you gotta breathe…. Breathe for me…" Fin cooed, trying to sooth her. He put his left hand on the back of her neck, massaging her tense muscles under her curtain of hair. "That's it… just take a moment and find your bearings…. Just breathe." He coaxed as her breathing began to even out.
"We'll help you figure this out, Olivia." Kathy said calmly, no doubt a trait that she'd picked up from being a nurse for so long. "I can help you plan a funeral if you want one. Elliot will help too, I'm sure of it."
Hearing Kathy's words made Olivia's eyes shoot wide open. She leaned up quickly and shrugged both sets of arms off of herself while wiping her eyes quickly.
She wanted Elliot to have no part in this. She didn't want to be here and she hated herself for revealing to Kathy something so personal and precious, something that had to do with the blonde's husband and she didn't even know it.
"No!" Olivia said quickly as she grabbed a nearby chair, adamant on standing up. Fin was at her side to help.
Upon standing, Olivia ran her right hand through her hair as the tears continued to leak out of her eyes against her will. "I have to go. I can't be here anymore." She said quickly as she rushed out of the waiting room and towards the exit.
Kathy pressed her lips tightly together and looked to Fin, not quite knowing what to do. She'd never seen Olivia in a state like this. The brunette had always been so strong and independent.
Fin turned to the doctor who had been awaiting orders from Olivia.
"What happens now?" Fin asked quickly, wondering what the next step was supposed to be.
"We were supposed to get the name of a funeral home that Detective Benson wanted the baby to be sent to. She doesn't have to have a funeral but the body will need to be prepped for proper burial or cremation." She explained.
Fin nodded and thought for a second. He was wracking his brain trying to think of where to tell the doctor to send this child. It couldn't be somewhere close to Olivia's home. It'd be a bad reminder of what had happened if she had to see the place constantly. It couldn't be a funeral home that she'd pass on a regular basis when she was going to work either.
"Send her to Memory Chapel." He stated, deciding upon a funeral home that was a bit out of the way. It wasn't far enough to cause extra stress but it wasn't close enough to where she'd encounter the building often.
The doctor looked hesitant, she really needed Olivia's okay on this.
Fin flashed his badge even though the doctor had figured out he was a fellow detective.
"Send her there. If anyone tries to give you any crap, tell them it was police orders and refer them to me, but trust me, Olivia wouldn't mind." He said, knowing the doctor just needed something to fall back on in case she got into trouble for taking the word of someone else other than the child's now legal mother.
Nodding, the doctor turned on her heels and headed to fill out the paperwork.
Kathy was still standing there, not sure what to do or say.
"Thank you for your help." Fin told her sincerely. Then he jogged off, heading in the direction that Olivia went.
When he got outside, she was nowhere to be seen. He'd had the keys to the squad car so she hadn't taken that. Technically, he wasn't even supposed to be using it when they weren't on duty but he could chalk it up to the fact that he might get called in on a case.
Hoping that Olivia had headed to her apartment, he hopped in the car and drove in that direction.
…
Olivia shut her apartment door behind her, locking the handle but not bothering to lock the dead bold. She wanted to be in bed, that was her destination.
As she passed by the kitchen, she stopped and turned to stare at the small cabinet above her fridge. There was a large, glass bottle of Grey Goose vodka stashed there. She'd bought it about a year ago and hadn't had any clue as to why.
Maybe she wanted to prove to herself that she had the temptation there in her own home and could overcome it, was better than it, than what her mother way. Since that one drunken night after Sealview when Elliot found her, she'd never really had the urge for vodka.
Olivia went over and reached up on her tippy toes, opening the small door and getting the vodka. Then she headed to her room. She didn't even make it to her bed before the sobs started.
…
Fin walked up to Olivia's door and knocked.
He waited a beat before knocking again and added "Baby girl, it's Fin."
After several seconds without a reply, he said loudly, "I'm coming in, Liv." As he fished for the apartment key that she'd given him for emergencies. This definitely classified as an emergency.
Upon opening the door, he took in his surroundings. Her shoes had been toed off beside the door so he knew she was there. Nothing in the kitchen or living room looked out of order or showed any sign that she'd been there once she'd gotten home.
He looked towards the bedroom, seeing the door open.
Fin slowly made his was over, hoping that she'd heard him come in because he didn't want to startle her.
"Liv?" He called gently, not wanting to scare her or wake her up if she'd gone to be but he could see the light on from the lap beside her bed.
As he made his way to the threshold, he was met with a sight that made his heart nearly stop.
Olivia Benson sat against the wall by the closed bathroom door. She was barefoot but had her jeans and tank top on accompanied by her grey cardigan. It was what she'd had on at the hospital.
Her bedroom door, along with Fin was to her left and there was a large bottle of vodka sitting on the floor beside her. Her knees were drawn up towards her chest and she was holding her gun with her right hand as her left hand rested on her right wrist. They both rested on top of her knees, though the gun was pointed towards the floor and her finger wasn't on the trigger.
Fin swallowed hard as he eyed her, trying to assess the situation.
His police instinct kicked in immediately and his eyes scanned the room for more clues or any more dangers. He saw her clip sitting on her dresser. Her gun wasn't loaded, at least not with a clip.
He took a deep breath.
"Liv…" He said softly, staying rooted in place. She continued to stare straight ahead at her bed. There were clearly tear streaks on her face but he couldn't see any visible tears coming out of her eyes at the moment.
"The chamber's empty." She whispered as she turned to look at him briefly before returning to staring at her bed.
Fin swallowed hard and again and nodded his head.
"It okay if I take this bottle of vodka and put it in the kitchen?" He asked gently.
Olivia let out a dark laugh.
"Funny… I thought you'd ask for my gun." She said.
She looked tired but then again, she'd had one hell of a day and it was past one in the morning.
Fin licked his lips. "I believe you. I believe your gun is empty, so I'm trying to get rid of the second threat… let me remove that bottle of vodka from your side." He said tenderly.
Olivia pressed her lips together tightly.
"Take it." She said, giving him permission.
Fin slowly walked forward, bent down and swooped up the vodka, careful not to touch her. Then he walked back to the bedroom door and set it outside of the door frame and out of her sight. He'd originally wanted to put it in the kitchen but he'd decided quickly that he wasn't going to leave her alone until he figured out where her head was at.
Now, he stood at the door looking at her.
"It okay if I come sit beside you?" He asked, trying desperately not to treat this like a negotiation or suicidal situation.
Olivia nodded instantly, which let him know that she might actually want him by her side. So, he slowly made his way over, sitting at her left side, stretching his legs out and crossing his ankles. She readjusted her gun so that it wasn't pointed towards his legs even though it was empty.
"Liv, why you holding your gun?" He asked gently, turning his head towards the right to gage her facial expression. He was being a cop on some level and still accessing the situation.
"Because it makes me feel safe." She whispered.
Fin was instantly relieved. He knew that was a legit reason, it was real and something he could relate to at times. Olivia Benson wasn't suicidal, she was just scared, stressed, and everything but okay right now.
He nodded in understanding.
"If I go out late at night walking somewhere, sometimes I clip my gun on even if I'm not on duty because it's like a safety blanket." He explained, hoping that she'd be comforted in the fact that sometimes they felt the same way.
She nodded.
"Liv, you don't need it to feel safe anymore. I'm here. I'll keep you safe. You're not alone in any of this shit that's going down, I promise." He told her tenderly. Fin loved her so fucking much. He'd never been as close to someone in his life as he was to Olivia and Munch. They were like family to him.
"You want me to give you my gun." It was more of a statement than a question in the way she said it.
Fin nodded. "Yeah… yeah I'd like that. But if you wanna sit here and hold it for a while, you can. I'm not gonna take it from you. I'm just gonna sit here and be supportive of whatever you need right now."
"I'm not… I…" She started but stumbled on her words a bit. "I knew one of you would show. You or El. Someone would come because I was a mess at the hospital. The clip… I took it out… I didn't want either one of you to think that… that I…"
Fin exhaled.
"I know you're not suicidal." He said in a light tone. "You're stressed, you've had a hell of a day but…" Fin tried his best to comfort her. "You're okay, your gonna make it through this."
He heard her take a deep breath and he looked over to see tears were flooding her face once more. She was looking straight ahead and doing her best not to look at him.
"I'm not gonna lie though…" Fin said. "It scared the shit outta me when I first saw you sittin' on the floor with that gun."
She sniffled.
"I'm sorry…" Olivia whispered hoarsely. "That wasn't my intent."
Fin nodded.
"I know." He said.
Olivia swallowed hard. "Here…" She said. "Take it." She commanded lightly as she handed him her gun.
"You sure?" He asked and waited for her to nod before taking the weapon from her grasp.
Fin wanted so badly to check the chamber. It was his cop instincts. It's what he was supposed to do but he knew that if he did it, she'd think he didn't trust her and that would break her even more than she'd been broken already today. So, he gently leaned over and pushed the gun as far away from them as possible with it pointing towards the wall behind them.
Olivia was openly crying now but it was silent tears, unlike the sobbing that happened at the hospital.
"Fin…" She said in a strangled cry as she tilted her head towards the ground.
His right arm moved behind her and her knees moved sideways onto the floor as his left arm encircled around her front. She leaned into him and he held her tightly as she cried on his right shoulder.
"It's gonna be okay, Liv." He told her lovingly as his left hand reached up to stroke her hair. "Everything will be okay. You'll survive this. You've already survived so much."
"I'm the worst mother on the planet." She whispered while sniffling. Her arms were wrapped around his neck tightly.
"Nah." He disagreed. "You're already a better mother than your own." He told her gently.
Olivia scoffed.
"She didn't kill me, Fin."
"It wasn't for lack of trying…" He said truthfully. Fin knew about Serena's physical abuse towards Olivia. He resented the woman for it too, even though she was dead. "And you didn't kill this child… and… I'm pretty sure you didn't kill the other one either." He said tenderly, touching on what he'd heard her say at the hospital.
Olivia began to shake.
"We don't have to talk about it…. We never have to, you know that. I'm not pushing you, I'm just being supportive here." Fin said, trying to ease her worry.
She was quiet for a long time. Olivia had so many things on her brain, so many things had happened in the past three days, terrible things, stressful things.
When she'd finally calmed down to what she thought would be the calmest state that she'd reach tonight, she pulled away from him and braced her back against the wall again.
Fin retracted his arms from her and laced his fingers together in his lap.
"It was a girl." She whispered lightly as she leaned her head against the wall too. "I had a miscarriage and I never told anyone except my old boss." Olivia began to explain. "It was over three years ago." She said. "I lost her May 25th of 2006."
Fin looked at her with a slightly confused look.
"Liv, Cragen would have been your boss then." He said, all the sudden wondering if she had some other job that he hadn't known about.
Olivia shook her head.
"It was when I transferred to computer crimes for about four months or so." She explained.
"Oh." Fin said, remembering her brief absence but he'd still kept in contact with her here and there during that time.
"You moved to computer crimes because you had a miscarriage?" He questioned, wondering just how many questions she'd let him ask.
"No… I moved to take a break from SVU. The Gitano case nearly killed us all."
Fin nodded in understanding. He wanted to ask more questions but he didn't want to push her or overwhelm her.
"I never named her, I never got to hold her or hear her laugh or cry…" Olivia's tears flowed. "I never even got to see what she looked like, if she had my eyes or her dad's…"
Fin could gather that she must have miscarried early on in the pregnancy.
Olivia wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and Fin removed some tissues that he had in his pocket and gave them to her. She blotted her face and pushed her hair behind her ears.
Fin stared at her intently and she looked back at him.
There was tension in the room but it wasn't thick. Olivia trusted Fin with her life.
"Ask." She told him, she could see the question in his eyes.
"I don't know if I want to." He replied honestly.
"If you ask me, I'm going to tell you the truth, but what's said in this room, stays in this room." Olivia said strongly.
"You know me better than that, Liv." He said, almost getting on to her for implying that they already didn't have an unspoken rule about keeping each other's secrets.
Olivia nodded almost apologetically.
Fin swallowed hard and glanced around the room. He wanted to ask. He needed to.
"Who was the father?" he said and her ears started ringing. This wasn't something she had expected, after all, she'd given him permission to ask.
Olivia shook her head lightly, trying to calm herself and stop her ears from picking up a sound that wasn't really there.
Then she looked Fin dead in the eyes.
"Elliot." She said.
Fin closed his eyes tightly and took a deep breath. It took all of his will to not get up and search for the man just so he could put his fist through Elliot's face.
Obviously, something had happened. Something had to have happened because Elliot was very muchly married to Kathy at the moment. Which meant that he left Olivia and went back to Kathy. Fin had done the math in his head. Eli would be younger than Olivia's child. That had to have meant that Elliot got Kathy pregnant after he'd gotten Olivia pregnant.
Son-of-a-bitch. He wanted to kill the man.
Olivia could see the anger begin to radiate off Fin and his fists were clinched.
"Fin…" Olivia said lightly as she closed her hand over one of his fists. "He didn't know." She said. "He still doesn't…. I didn't even know until the miscarriage happened." Olivia explained.
His facial features changed immediately.
"Why didn't you tell him?" Fin asked.
"Why aren't you surprised?" She shot back.
Fin huffed.
"You think I can't see the tension between you two… the chemistry?" He replied. "We can all see it, Olivia."
She huffed. Great. Now, apparently the entire squad could apparently see the sexual tension between her and Elliot.
"Why didn't you tell him?" Fin asked. "I think he woulda been there… he woulda supported you and his child, even in death. He may not be a great husband or boyfriend, but he's always been a decent father…"
Olivia shook her head and reached up to wipe more tears away with her tissue.
"What was I supposed to tell him, Fin? 'Oh hey, by the way, that one time we fucked while you were going through your divorce, you knocked me up but my body thought I wouldn't make a good mother so it terminated our love child?' Somehow I don't think he would have took it that well…" Olivia explained.
Fin rolled his eyes at her.
"You know damn well that bullshit isn't true. Your body just malfunctioned. It happens to a lot of women…" He said. "And it doesn't sound like you're handling it so well yourself right now…" Fin stated, eyeing her.
"I know it wasn't my fault. I know it doesn't make me a bad mother and that I didn't kill my… my daughter…. But that doesn't mean I don't feel those things and I can't control how I feel." She said, giving him sad eyes.
"That sounds like therapy talk…" He observed.
Olivia nodded.
"I saw a therapist for a couple months afterwards… I'm gonna make an appointment tomorrow to go back to her."
"Good. You know I got your back but I can't help you get your head straight. I'll do my damnest to try though." He promised her. "And she wasn't a 'love child' Liv. You slept with a man that you had feelings for when he was about to be divorced. It wasn't some full blown affair…" Fin told her.
Olivia looked down at the carpet guiltily. She was ashamed all the sudden. Usually, she was able to rationalize what her and Elliot did. When a case was too tough or they had too much stress but lately, it'd turned into a full blown affair without the sex part, which was still an affair either way.
"Olivia…" Fin said in a warning tone, noticing that she wasn't making eye contact anymore. He took a deep breath and shook his head before glancing around the room again. "When was the last time you and Elliot were… together intimately?" He asked carefully as he settled his eyes back on her, wondering if his question was out of line but at the same time he really didn't care right now.
Olivia looked down at her watch briefly before looking back at Fin.
"A few hours ago…" She whispered as tears filled her eyes.
Fin sighed. "Oh baby girl…" He said as he wrapped his right arm back around her. "You're playing with fire…"
She sniffed as she laid her head on his right shoulder.
"Yeah, I know…"
Fin took another deep breath.
"You do realize you confessed a miscarriage today to Kathy Stabler. A miscarriage of a baby that her husband fathered…." He said.
Olivia's eyes widened and she shot up quickly, looking to Fin.
"Oh god! Do you think she'll tell him?" Olivia asked frantically. Kathy hadn't known who the father was or when the miscarriage happened so technically, Elliot would be getting as little info as possible from his wife.
Fin looked at her with loving eyes.
"I don't know, but I think you should tell him."
Olivia shook her head quickly.
"I can't." She said honestly. "It'll break me. It'll break him. It'll kill us both. I won't have a job, he'll transfer out if I don't and… I don't know if I could do my job without him…" Olivia stated.
Fin rubbed her back lightly.
"Fin… he thinks he loves me."
"I love you." He replied with a small smile. Now it was Olivia's turn to roll her eyes.
"Not the kind of love I'm talking about." She said.
Fin let out a small laugh. "Yeah, I know… Why you say he 'thinks' that?" He asked. "You don't think he really loves you?"
Olivia shook her head slightly.
"I think he's in love with the idea of 'us'. He's attached to me in a way that he shouldn't be." She explained, leaving off the part where she practically needs him to survive because she loves him so fucking much but refuses to admit it.
"Is it that? Or is it that you don't think you deserve to be loved?" Fin asked, hitting the nail on the head. He knew Olivia well enough to know what her feelings were and where her head was when it came to love.
"Stop." She commanded a bit too harshly. This wasn't something she wanted to talk about now. She had other things to worry about besides her on going affair with a married man. There was a child that she had been the mother of for all of two hours before she'd lost her.
Fin nodded, understanding her warning. The Elliot subject was off the table for now.
"I had the baby girl sent to Memory Chapel." Fin told Olivia. "You left the papers in the car." He said, leaning away from her momentarily to get the folded up papers out of his jacket pocket and handing them to her. "I glanced through them. There's no directions for burial or funeral. There is one request though, and I hate to tell you what it is."
Olivia sighed as she looked through the papers, her eyes scanning for the request Fin was referring to. Of course, there had to be more complications.
"I can't give her Gladys' last name?" Olivia looked astonished, glancing between Fin and the papers in her hands. "She has to be a Benson?"
"As far as I can tell, she doesn't have to be a Benson, she just can't have Gladys' last name. You can give her whatever last name you want." Fin said.
"Fuck…" Olivia said lowly, leaning her head back against the wall again. "She was… is… legally my daughter. I am her mother now…. So, she'll be a Benson. I just wish… I wish Gladys had named her already."
The baby having to be a Benson hurt in so many ways. Now there was going to be two 'Baby Girl Benson's" at the grave yard. Gosh, she'd have to be buried next to her first daughter, or either on the other side of Serena. Olivia had envisioned herself being buried next to her first daughter, so the child would be in between her and Serena.
"Do I have a funeral?" Olivia asked, turning her head to look at Fin.
"If you want to. The squad will come. Probably some of the nurses too. I'm sure Kathy would show up as well." He explained, trying to show her what that option would look like.
Olivia took a deep breath. "I don't want to have a funeral…" She said. "But what if she deserved one? What if she would have wanted one? Doesn't her life deserve to be celebrated even though it was so short?"
Fin shook his head at that.
"Liv, that little girl is somewhere not hurting, not in pain anymore, probably happy and peaceful." He said. "I don't think she'd care what you do, as long as you're okay with the decision."
Olivia sniffed and wiped more tears away that had come at the thought of the child being an angel.
She huffed again and looked down at her lap.
"I know what I'm doing is wrong, Fin… I mean, Elliot and I don't actually have sex, it happened the one time but we're still intimate and-"
Fin held his hand up quickly to stop her.
"I don't need no detail, baby girl." He said quickly.
She halfway smiled at him and nodded even though she wasn't truly going to give him details.
"What I'm saying is…" She continued but paused to take another breath. "I know it's wrong, I know I'm in the wrong. I'm fucking up royally and I will take full responsibility for any shit that goes down but… you still… um…" Olivia was struggling with her words.
As soon as Fin realized where she was going with the conversation, he jumped in.
"I've got your back. I've got your six, Liv." He promised her, leaning over and halfway hugging her as she leaned up off the wall slightly. "What you're doing is wrong, it's not right in any way but you're not a murderer or a rapist. You still have me… and to be honest, if you did murder someone, they'd probably deserve it and I'd probably help you so you'd still have me anyways." He said, smiling as he kissed her on the temple.
She gave him a watery smile.
"I love you and I'll keep you from self-destructing if shit goes down." He promised.
Those three little words always affected her so much, even coming from him, even though it was getting easier to hear them from his mouth because she believed it, she knew they were real and he was being honest.
They talked for a little while longer about how Olivia was going to handle the burial and where it would be. She was glad to have someone to talk about it with.
Finally, she decided it was time to go to bed since it was almost three in the morning. Cragen had given her the next day off, that much she knew.
She took a small bottle of pills out of her pocket and showed them to Fin.
"They're legit." She assured him, showing him the label. "They're sleeping pills that my therapist prescribed me after I lost my… my baby." Olivia explained. "I'm going to take one now but I… I just didn't want you to think that I was popping pills or abusing drugs."
Fin gave her a sad smile.
"Okay… Let's get you into bed…" He said and began to stand up.
"No…" Olivia said quickly, stopping him from moving. He looked at her in question as she quickly got up and grabbed a couple of pillows from her bed, handing him one and sitting back down beside him.
"This better not smell like Stabler…" He said with an unimpressed look and Olivia lightly hit him on the arm for the jab at her but they both smiled.
"It's for your back." She explained. "I like sitting here… it's close to the ground but right beside the bathroom and I can see my bedroom and the living room through my door…" Olivia huffed. "I can't explain it."
Fin leaned up and pushed the pillow behind his back.
"You can leave after I'm asleep… These pills knock me out. I won't know if you even move a muscle." She said.
"We'll see…" He replied, but he had no intention of leaving her.
…
Elliot Stabler walked up to Olivia's apartment door, well aware that it was nearly four thirty in the morning, but after all the shit that had happened, he knew she couldn't possibly be asleep. He knocked on the door and already had his key out, anticipating that she wouldn't answer. So, after a few seconds of silence, he let himself in.
Gazing around, the apartment looked okay, so he made his way to the bedroom where he was met with a bottle of vodka on the floor outside.
"Shit…" He mumbled as he reached down to pick it up, shaking his head. Elliot wished she'd have called him.
Walking through her bedroom door, he looked up from the bottle in his hands and saw Fin sitting up against the wall, staring at him. Olivia looked to be asleep with her head on a pillow in his lap and a blanket covering her body.
Fin's phone was in his left hand like he'd been texting someone or playing a game.
Elliot's eyes immediately went to the gun that was just a few inches from his feet and he began to look panicked.
"It's not what you think." Fin told him lightly and Elliot gave him a questioning look.
Fin gestured to Olivia's sleeping figure.
"She took a sleeping pill. She's out cold." He said, letting the other detective know that he didn't need to whisper.
"What happened?" Elliot asked as he made his way over to sit down on Olivia's bed with the vodka bottle still in his hands.
"She crashed… hard." Fin explained. "How much did Kathy tell you?"
Elliot looked around and rubbed the back of his head with his right hand.
"Enough to make me rush over here." He responded but knew that Fin wanted more info than that so he huffed and continued. "She said Liv got custody of the baby, the baby passed, and Liv lost it at the hospital."
Fin nodded.
"That's about right."
Elliot cleared his throat. "What happened with this and that?" He asked, gesturing to the bottle and then the gun.
"Nothing major…" Fin said, not willing to give Elliot the full story. "It wasn't a suicidal thing, that's all you need to know." He said lightly and Elliot had no choice but to accept his answer.
"Okay." He replied, understanding that Fin was protecting Olivia's privacy. "Does she need any help with anything? Funeral or wake or whatever she's planning?" Elliot asked, wanting to be helpful.
"There's gonna be neither. She's gonna pick out a small casket and set a date for them to meet her at the graveyard. I think she wants a preacher to pray over the baby and say a few words then they'll bury her and that's it." Fin explained.
Elliot nodded.
"She doing this alone?" He asked, looking at Fin.
"Nah," He said. "She asked me to go with her…"
Elliot nodded again and looked at her sleeping form. She looked so peaceful but she'd clearly been crying before her slumber.
"I don't know if she'll want you there or not…" Fin said. "If she mentions it to you and tells you the date, then she probably wants you to show… if not…." Fin shrugged.
"Yeah, I got it." Elliot said with a small smile. "She called you tonight?" He asked, trying not to let on how hurt he was that she'd called Fin instead of him.
"Nah," Fin shook his head. "I was over here for drinks when Cragen showed up with the news. I drove her to the hospital…"
Elliot nodded again. He seemed to be having problems forming words.
"I was wondering if you'd switch shifts with me tomorrow… well, today?" Fin asked lightly, glancing at his watch.
Elliot's eyebrows shot up.
"You want me to be partnered with much?" He asked.
"Cap gave her the day off and I haven't been to sleep yet. I also don't plan on leaving her alone anytime soon…" Fin said.
Elliot rubbed his stubble with his right hand as he looked down at the vodka bottle in his left.
"I think she just doesn't want you to see her like this, man." Fin explained, trying to ease Elliot's worry, knowing Elliot was probably dying to be him at the moment.
"Yeah… yeah, I'll switch with you. I'll tell Cragen when I get in. I'm sure he'll understand." Elliot responded, looking back up at Fin and standing up from the bed.
He crouched down and pushed Olivia's hair out of her face before pulling up the blanket to her shoulders, ensuring that she was warm and comfortable.
Then he stood back up and made his way to the door.
Just by that one little gesture, Fin could tell the man truly loved her.
"I'm taking this with me." Elliot said, holding up the bottle of vodka. Fin nodded. "And I'm gonna do a sweep of her kitchen before I leave and confiscate anymore that I find."
"Aight." Fin said. He didn't have a problem with it and he wasn't sure Olivia would either.
Y'all grad school started and I basically missed the first week because I was in the hospital! And now I have to have surgery and am going to miss at least another day or two ~rolls eyes~ I'll try to update at a decent rate but with everything going on, it might be a while.
Reviews definitely help inspire me though….