disc. I don't own these characters.

a/n: sorry I've been slacking on the updates, I was going through a tough time and wasn't in the mood to update or write. I usually have a few chapters pre-written and I don't like to update unless I have at least three more chapters written. this time I'm making an exception because I've been waiting too long. but, I'll make it up to you soon. If you go to my twitter (alrightabigail) you'll see some fun new stuff planned for an upcoming fic!


Chapter Twenty One – Desolation II

'Patiently awaiting' was not how she would word it.

Struggling to breathe while the crushing reality of a life or death situation was sitting on her chest was a much, much better explanation.

She'd done what she could for the time being — her own definitions of waiting patiently. She'd stared at the blank screen of her phone for hours, waiting for the call. She'd gone to work, managing to make a dent in her pile of paperwork, and everyone else's for that matter. Desk duty left her antsy, but not nearly as much as the wait did. She'd paced back and forth through the hallway of her building, sometimes managing to go for a walk around the corner when her body would allow for it.

The exhaustion, she could feel it becoming stronger. She didn't want to admit it, but she knew that it was her body's way of growing tired of fighting; the fight hadn't even started yet.

It was only a matter of time before she took the situation into her own hands. Doctor Keller had been the one who had said that having a family history would make life, and her diagnosis, much easier.

The light is shining through her apartment, and once again, it feels inappropriate.

Her world was becoming dark again. Every day that she inched closer to the end of her IVF round, she felt the reality seeping further. Though, she'd had a good run, a solid few weeks of something less than misery.

She suspected that it would be the last good run she'd have for a long time.

Even in the light, she feels the darkness.

As much as she wanted to avoid the reality of her future, the feeling of anticipation outweighed the fear. Waiting another minute before receiving the test results of her genetic screening felt like wasting valuable time. Taking control was something she had the ability to do, so why not?

There was one more person she'd need to tell. She'd made the plans, she'd carefully mapped out every word, despite already knowing she would veer off the tracks. She always did. These conversations didn't come with an instruction booklet. She'd get emotional and so would he and it would feel like the end of the world even though the Earth kept turning.

But answers were more important than secrets, and her life depended on those answers.

She checked the clock and checked again, almost certain that time was simply not moving forward. Every few minutes when the anxiety would rise again, she'd glance at the glass bottles on her counter and feel just the slightest bit of relief.

Elliot had offered to stay with her for this and she had declined. She couldn't bring herself to tell him that she didn't trust him to not escalate this further than it needed to be. He didn't mind, he had expected her to say no. Benson, always the one who could do it on her own.

That didn't cease his worries though.

He knew she was pacing, he knew she was shivering with worry. You don't have to be alone, Liv. He'd meant it. He'd meant it with his entire soul when he'd said it. He'd wasted time being angry, valuable time that they were clinging to, wasted by being angry and petty and selfish.

She'd told him not to worry, she could handle this. He believed her, he just didn't believe himself. She could handle this, but maybe he couldn't.

So, he waited. He watched, and he waited. Just in case.

She didn't need to know.

"Simon," she breathed, a ghost of a smile forming on her lips as her brother stood on near the threshold of her door. She thought she was done with the smiles. Those goddamn smiles on their faces that she knew she'd need to break apart eventually. They always smiled when they greeted her, completely unaware of any pain she was harboring.

She blamed herself. She should've told him sooner.

"It's been a long time, Liv." he chuckled, running his hands anxiously down the front of his jeans. "Can I give you a hug?" he asked, apprehensive of the unspoken boundaries of their messy, entangled relationship.

Without hesitation, she opened her arms and welcomed him in. It wasn't the familiarity she had been searching for, but it was always a strange sensation when she hugged him. Nine long years since her mother had taken her final breath. Yet, there she was, hugging a blood relative.

"Oh, it's been too long, Big Sis." he says against her shoulder as he embraces her. She sniffs in an attempt to laugh, the nickname drives her insane but yet it still stirs something endearing within her. But she doesn't have the energy to laugh. For a brief, wandering moment, she wonders if she'll ever have the energy to laugh again.

"You look good, Si." she grins, examining every line on his face, trying to memorize them while she still has the time. "C'mon in," she steps aside and motions towards the living room. She can sense how antsy he is, he always is.

She can hear the thunder cracking in the distance as he walks in. The light of the sun setting still bled through the curtains but she knew it wouldn't be long before it was filtered by the fog that would blanket the city. The clouds would turn grey soon and she would welcome them with open arms. A storm felt more appropriate. Less guilt about ruining a beautiful evening.

She stared at the back of him as she closed the door behind herself. He looked around the apartment, taking in the scene. She just wanted a moment to watch him, to examine him. The way he stood with his hands in his pockets. The curly cowlicks in the back of his hair.

She didn't want to hurt him.

Hurting him felt… different. It shouldn't, but it did. At this rate, her job was just as much of her family as he was, if not more. But there was a difference in the pain this time. Maybe because someday, everyone in the precinct could pack up and leave as if none of it ever happened. Simon was blood. Even if they didn't want to be, they were stuck together.

Two fucked up childhoods that split and grew in different directions. Hurting him felt like hurting herself.

"Can I get you anything? A drink?" she offered, trying to fill the awkward silence between them. She turned towards the kitchen, seeing the suddenly missing station of IVF injectables that had taken up residence on her countertop. She'd stuffed the bottles in the cabinet drawers a few minutes before he was expected to show up.

"No, no I'm all set, thank you," he waved his hands theatrically, taking a seat on the couch as she followed in suit.

Why don't you go talk to Marsden?

And say what? "Hi, I'm Olivia. Your dad raped my mom." And, "Oh, I found you because I illegally ran my DNA."

Things could never be simple, could they?

What are you gonna tell Simon when you see him?

How do I even say it? "Long time no see. By the way, I have cancer and I need to dig up some old wounds of yours and ask if anyone in your family has had it too?"

She couldn't sit on the couch next to him. Too personal. Although, sitting in the chair next to him felt like it wasn't personal enough.

She just couldn't sit next to him on the same couch where they'd last been laughing to the point of tears.

'Strawberry or chocolate ice cream?'

"Strawberry."

'Cap'n Crunch or Cocoa Puffs?'

"Oh, Cap'n Crunch."

'Dukes of Hazzard or Little House on the Prairie?"

"Dukes!"

'Quarters or Anchorman?'

It felt like a sin. Barely a few years later and this is where they were.

'3 out of 3, it's in the blood.'

"Liv?" he pulled her out of her reverie. "You were about to say something and you just stopped."

"Oh, sorry," she exhaled, scraping her fingernails against the chair, snagging loose strands of the fabric with each tug. "I uh — How have you been?" her voice shivered as she spoke and she hated this more than she hated the days she had spent alone while under the covers crying.

"I'm good." he grinned, finally leaning back and allowing himself to loosen up a bit. "Yeah, I've got my old job back at the pharmacy. Lucy and I are doing good. Life has been better since…" he trailed off and she couldn't blame him.

Maybe she didn't have to tell him. Maybe she could just pretend like everything was fine and she wasn't in failing health. He didn't really need to know, did he? His life was good. Things were looking up for him. And it wasn't like they were all that close. Maybe she could run, just once, maybe she could run.

The pit in her stomach said otherwise.

"How about you?" he asked, staring through the long lashes that cradled his piercing aquamarine eyes. He didn't know yet, but he was knee-deep in a watershed moment, and she was the reason. "Things going okay for you?"

She stared at him with a bated breath, and she wondered if the floor was really swaying beneath her or if it was the onset vertigo of fear. Her bottom lip rests against the top row of her teeth and she can't push the words out, but she remembers that she doesn't need words. Not yet. All she has to do is shake her head and the rest would come naturally.

Right?

Granules of sand are falling through the hourglass and she's watching the decline in his face. He's catching on, as if her silence wasn't loud enough already. She sees it in him, the brace for impact. He knows now. He knows and the world is burning at her fingertips. Everything about the moment makes her feel as if she's in a warzone. How long until everything explodes? It can't be long until she's not looking at the smoke and ash in the air but she'll be looking at the pair of burnt boots in the middle of the road. Just another path of gasoline with a match thrown on it, another person scarred.

"I need to ask you something, Simon." she hears it, the hitch in her voice, the twitch in her diaphragm. She's becoming familiar with the feeling of being unable to breathe now, but each time still has her convinced she'll never breathe again.

He leans forward, another brace for impact and the mood has shifted within seconds. He can feel her fear, it's radiating off of her like embers of a wildfire. "What is it? What's wrong?" just from looking at him, she feels like he's ready to leap towards her and hold her. Once a little brother, always a little brother.

She forces herself to feel the inhalation of air, she needs to know that it's in her lungs and that she's not suffocating. She promised herself she would do this, despite whatever answer he gave. She'd have a 50% chance of hearing what she wanted to hear, even if it worked out differently in the end. The other 50% being used as a preparation for what was to come. "I need to know if any women on your dad's side of the family have had breast or ovarian cancer." she whispers because she can't raise her voice any louder without feeling as if she were choking.

The shift in his eyes is one she'll remember until her dying day. The light inside of them has turned off and they're looking more grey than blue now. His shoulders sink and she sees his knuckles turn white as he grips the couch cushions. He's doing what they all do, he's starting to shake his head. Slowly, and then all at once.

The thunder cracks again and the storm is moving closer. The setting sunlight was quickly replaced with the sparks of lightning that filled the sky.

She's back to wondering if it would be rude to close her eyes, but she can't. She forces herself to watch him, to witness what she was doing to him. She wanted the bruise on her soul, or at least she felt like she deserved it.

He sighs as he lifts his head to take a deep breath. "Not again. Please, not again." he whispers.

Her body turns as stiff as stone when his silenced prayer reaches her ears. "Again?" she grits out, her eyes blowing wide as she looks at him from her peripheral vision. "What do you mean 'again'?"

When he looks back at her, it's as if he expected her to already know. It was so easy for them to forget how different their lives were. Her heart is racing now and her eyes are glued to him like her life depends on it. He wasn't supposed to say this. He was supposed to shake his head and reassure her.

He wasn't supposed to say 'again'.

"My grandma, uh, on my dad's side, my dad's mom," his voice shuttered as if the memory had hit him in a wave. She could practically see the past fluttering through his eyes, stirring up the long since settled dust. "She had breast cancer. God, it was so many years ago, I was just a kid. Her and I, we... we were really close."

Her eyes close and she simply succumbs to the feeling of drowning. If there was a thought to consider, she wasn't thinking it. Blank and emptiness had wiped her mind clean for the moment. She wasn't sure how long it would last, maybe forever, but there was nothing. A forever of nothingness didn't seem so bad when she compared it to a forever of suffering.

If she were thinking logically, or thinking at all, she would know it was a response to shock. She received her answer, layers of it, in fact. Shock was normal. The ability to feel nothing… was normal. But she wasn't thinking. Not about the feeling of water in her lungs. Not about the fact that her little brother may have just slapped a death sentence on her. Nothing.

Her own little personal limbo.

But if she were thinking, though she wasn't, she would think about the fact that the shock wouldn't last forever. Maybe it would fade, maybe it would plunge her downward as if the rug had just been pulled from beneath her feet. But it wouldn't last. Not even long enough for her to decide whether or not she liked the numbness.

"Liv," Simon's voice broke through like shattered glass, and her limbo was intruded upon.

'It helps us in the long run, especially when we aren't very familiar with a... patient's family history.'

She can feel his question hanging in the air. Everybody is asking her questions that she doesn't know the answers to and why the hell does this have to hurt so damn bad?

Two roads diverged in a wood,

and this isn't what she fucking signed up for.

"Simon, don't ask me," she winces, pinching the bridge of her nose. Her eyes close almost instinctively as her head shakes. Her breaths come in shivering waves and all she wants is for him to leave. For everybody to just leave. Please, please leave. Her breathing turns from shakes to sobs and she's fighting to keep the oxygen in long enough. Tears fall through closed eyes, dragging her mascara down with them. "Don't ask because I don't think I can physically say the words one more time." and she realizes once again just how badly a single word can hurt her soul.

It hits her that this was a mistake. She shouldn't have told him or even called him. She should've been ignorant, allowing herself the benefit of the doubt. Have her odds just increased dramatically? Is this it? Is this the answer she couldn't have waited for? She knew somewhere inside of herself that there was still a sliver of a chance that she'd be okay, but listening to the voice that was telling her that felt near impossible.

"Just tell me you're gonna be okay," he urges, gripping at his throat as if someone else's hand was already choking him. He isn't looking at her, but it doesn't matter because she isn't looking at him either. They're more like siblings than they thought, constantly battling with the inability to handle their own pain. If she looked at him now, it would be like looking in the mirror. She was positively sure that if she saw her reflection, especially through his eyes, the rest of her that was still intact would fall apart. Looking at him right now would just mean another way of facing the truth and all she wanted to do was be face down in a pillow.

"I don't know," comes her answer. She doesn't know; her confidence is shot. After that, after his revelation by proxy, how could she ever know?

His departure is a whirlwind to her. Stiff hugs but a tight grip as if it could very well be the last time. He doesn't look at her, she doesn't look at him, and any of the words spoken after her answer had refused to embed themselves into either of their memories. Maybe he told her to call him with an update, she isn't sure. The ringing in her ears was louder than her voice anyway.

She hears the thunder and the rain violently hitting her window, and she realizes the sun is gone for the evening. The street lights reflect off of the puddles, glaring in every angle as she looks out the window. Her hands brace against the frame of the window and she's desperately heaving for air. Tears falling down her cheeks at the same speed as rain, why is she alone? Why does this disease make her so alone?

She doesn't want to, and she hates herself for it, but she swipes her phone off of the counter while she still has enough consciousness to do so. She doesn't want to call him, but for once she wants to win something from this. Her freedom? Her ability to not be so damn alone for once?

Her road less traveled.

Even with her eyes shut and swollen from the tears, she knows exactly where his contact is in her phone. She'd know it with her hands tied behind her back if she needed to. She fights off another wave of sobs while listening to the line trill. Two rings, it's always two rings before he picks up and hearing his voice feels like an ounce of heaven among multitudes of hell.

"Liv?"

"I know it's late and I know you're probably already at your apartment but Simon just left and I feel like I can't fucking breathe, Elliot. I just, I re—"

He cuts off her hysterics with his soft-spoken words. "Liv, look out your window."

She sniffles, keeping the phone pressed to her ear as she runs back over to the window. Through the blurry droplets on the glass, she can see him outside, drenched in rain as he leans against the outside of his car. "I never left."

She hears his voice in her ear but she sees his mouth moving from four flights down and it makes her dizzy with relief.

He's arrogant and cocky and sometimes he goes off half cocked, and she hates when he knows that he's right. He can be insufferable and pesky and even a little overprotective, but she knows that even from as far away as he is, he can see that she needs him. For once, the world doesn't make her spell it out. For once, the person she needs is already waiting.

He'd waited. He'd seen Simon leave, clearly on his own wrecked ship as he'd left Olivia's apartment. He'd waited, he'd watched as Simon came and went, and he waited for the inevitable.

She watches as he hangs up the phone and in a blur, she's buzzing him in and waiting for him to knock on the door. Only, he doesn't knock on the door this time. He knows it's open and he stands there for a moment that seems to bleed into an eternity. When he sees her, she's standing in the middle of the room with her phone pressed to her chest. Her face contorts into pure grief one last time before he's running across the room towards her.

Her phone drops to the floor in the collision and she lets out an uninhibited bawl as her head hits his chest. Her arms don't wrap around him, instead, they rest against his chest as she cocoons herself into his grasp. She can feel the wetness of the raindrops that had fallen on his jacket and they cool her burning hot cheeks. With each cry she's unable to hold back, he holds her tighter.

"I never left," he reiterates almost silently through his own shaky inhale. His chin rests on her head, bringing her almost impossibly closer. Her hands grip the fabric of his jacket, holding on as if her life depended on it. He's nearly swaying as he supports her weight against him, but the world itself has stopped spinning. The thunder continues to break through the sky and the rain keeps falling. But it's okay, because he didn't leave.