Author's Note; The lyrics used at the end, are, again, from When You Love Someone – Bryan Adams. That's it, really, enjoy!
For All of This;
Four.
"Casey Novak?" He knocks softly on her office door before pushing it open, his brown eyes looking to her in question.
"Detective Daniels," she notices him immediately, and for a minute she has to wonder why he is there, "is there something I can help you with?"
"Uh, yeah, maybe," his voice is thick, and it matches his rugged look, five o'clock shadow, messed up hair. If anything he is the opposite of Elliot. "Detective Benson hasn't shown up yet today, she's two hours late, and we called the phone number we have for her, but she didn't answer. I remember her saying that she was going to dinner with you and some other detectives in your unit last nite, so I was just wondering if you maybe knew where she was? Or another way to get in touch with her? We only just started together, and I thought&"
"She didn't show up to work?" Casey was walking out from behind her desk, immediately becoming worried at how out of character that was for Olivia, and after the scene last nite, with her chasing a red and angered Elliot out of the pub, she could only imagine all that could have happened.
"No, and from what my Captain and I&"
"I'll go talk to her old partner, maybe he knows what's up," Casey cut him off, suddenly every scenario that she didn't know threatened her and she pushed out of her office, Detective Daniels, a sad replacement for Elliot, following behind. "I'll let you know if I find anything out." She gave him parting words, he nodded his thanks, and then headed back upstairs while Casey headed down to Special Victims, where she found Elliot sitting at his desk, his head resting in his hands.
There was no one across from him, they hadn't found anyone willing to join SVU yet, and as a consequence Elliot had mainly been riding the desk, save the few times Munch had been in court and he got the chance to go out with Fin.
"Elliot," she started walking faster when she saw him, having to remind herself not to ask too many questions.
"Casey, hey," he blinked his eyes, stretching them open, and she could immediately tell that he was aggravated.
"Elliot, where's Olivia?" She didn't think that him not knowing was even an option.
"I don't know, did you check domestic?" He ran his hand over his face, trying to remember the last time he really slept, but all he could recall were the nights of a restless insomniac's dream.
"She didn't show up to work, she's not answering her phone," Casey informed him, and he looked her over slowly, not wanting to feel the panic that was starting to settle within him.
He felt them going down again, after last nite, after looking at her lies, after throwing them at her, shattering them on the ground, he walked away and for the first time he honestly didn't know when the next time that he would talk to her would be.
"Elliot, this isn't like her – you don't know where she is?" Casey pressed, and Elliot let out a deep breath.
"Can't say that I do, Casey." He wished that he could not care about this. He wished that he could slow down his heart as it began to beat a little faster.
"And you're not worried?" His behavior, she couldn't tell if he was trying to be cool, or if he really was this apathetic. His hands, though, she noted, they slid together, sweating, and she could tell that he was fighting with himself over whether or not to panic.
She was scared. Elliot knew Olivia, Elliot thought for and with and beside Olivia and the way they worked, the way they fell into place together, Casey wanted to be stupid enough to believe that it was right.
"Olivia's a big girl," he wished he could believe himself, "I'm sure she's just fine."
Casey looked around the room quickly before closing in on Elliot, "look, Elliot, I don't know what the hell is going on here, but this isn't like her, and you know it. Something's up."
The tone of Casey's voice, the way the words rise and fall, the way they lack consistency, it gets Elliot moving.
"We could go check her place, I guess," he shrugs, but Casey can see that he's shaking, can see that he's worried, and in his mind are all the bottles. The half filled bottles he'd pulled from places unknown, the shattered bottles that cut into her as she collected their pieces. The blood she'd lost, the ground she'd lost, the life they'd lost.
"Elliot!" She ran after him, catching the doors as they came swinging back at her, running down the stairs behind him. "Elliot,"
"Don't talk." He needed her to come with him because he needed something to keep him from losing it, and when he looked back at her for an instant, tossing her the keys to the car and telling her to drive, she saw in his eyes an intensity, fierce and thick, and she imagined this to be what the victims saw, what he looked like when he was, for an instant, there with them, empathizing with them, feeling for them.
She had been to Olivia's a few times for a drink and some take out, and with a few directions from Elliot she found her way in a relatively short time, and as soon as the car got close enough to the curb Elliot was out and running.
His heart was pounding as he took the stairs two at a time, his blood pressure rising. His sympathetic nervous system was preparing him for a fight, getting him ready for what he was about to find, the neurons firing, his blood rushing to his heart.
And if only for a minute he felt like turning back, felt like he didn't want to find anything, that Olivia had gotten herself into this and she should get herself out, but, in every corner of his mind, there she was buried, and he knew, no matter what, he would always go find her.
It was his job.
Detective Stabler, after years of service, was about to experience his first real victim. His first real taste of fear.
"Elliot?" Casey found him standing in front of Olivia's door, the key in the lock, and he looked to Casey, remembering the events of last night, knowing that right now he was about to fall into the deepest bottom of another valley.
"It's not like her," his voice trembled, referencing her actions, and Casey nodded.
"If you want me to call someone," the clicking of the lock stopped her thoughts, and Elliot crossed over the threshold, into the uncertainty.
"Liv? Olivia?" He found his voice, calling out through the apartment, and when he saw the counter, two empty bottles of vodka, his voice became more urgent, but he didn't move. He screamed her name, but he didn't make any effort to move.
"Elliot!" Casey screamed from the down the hall, and without realizing it, Elliot was sprinting down the hall, but in his haze, he felt like he was crawling, taking baby steps until he found her at the end, in the doorway of the bathroom, Olivia on the floor behind her.
"Oh, oh…Jesus, oh, fuck," his voice was cracking and he couldn't make out her figure, her form, her, through the tears that started. "Liv," he didn't scream, the name fell like a prayer from his lips, riding on a soft breath, and he fell to the floor beside her, pressing his fingers to her neck, bending down by her nose to see if he could feel her breath.
i "Breath on Me" /i he remembers telling her the other nite, but tonite the words are more of a prayer than anything else.
"C'mon sweetheart," his hands are running over her face, running through her hair, his tears, his trails of life, they are rolling from him and onto her, one lands on her cheek and he wipes it away. "Jesus Christ, Olivia, what did you do?"
Guilt, what's rising in him, the nausea, the panic, the fear. Guilt, he let her go last nite in pieces and he pushed her here and for all of this, he didn't care why this had started by he knew that he had to end it.
"Elliot, the ambulance is on its way." Casey is standing in the hallway, but Elliot doesn't notice, doesn't care.
"Olivia, hey, stay with me, Olivia, stay with me." It is a second, one sixtieth of a minute, a fraction of time, an insignificant piece of life on the scale of things, but in this second he sees her, the first day they met, she is young and green and she has a dream to save someone. A single life, that's all she wants changed.
And now, with death and life on her, this is what she has become. This is who she is.
A single second, another one, and he thinks about stupid questions on the ride to crime scenes, the way she wouldn't let him fall too deep into anything.
He was so far down now, he couldn't claw his way back out. He couldn't see the top.
Another second, and she is heaving. He is swatting the tears away from his face because he needs to see her. Her body is curling up, she is gasping for air.
Another second and he grabs her, takes her life into his arms and he picks her up, holds her lifeless body over the toilet as she vomits, heaves the bile and blood and he wishes that he could be stronger for her, that he could do this for her.
When he was six years old he was going to be a cowboy and he was going to save everyone. Unlike Olivia in the beginning, he wanted to save the world, but now, holding her, pushing her to him, trying to feel the air, the breath, the life, in her, he wants just this life.
For all of this, he just wants her to breath.
"Okay, Okay sweetheart, I'm here," there is rage under his fear, rage that she went back to this, that her promises to him were made to be broken, but right now, he can't think about that.
"Elliot, do you want me –"
"No! No, she just needs, she needs," he can't finish his own sentence, and he is taking deep breaths, frantically reaching for air to fill his lungs, he is choking on his tears, they fall to his tongue like fire. "God Damn it, Olivia! What were you thinking!" He screams to her lifeless form, her shallow breaths, her only proof of life. "Where the hell is the ambulance?" He turns to Casey and sees the paramedics standing next to her with a gurney, and they come in and take her from him, pushing him aside and taking her vitals.
One is giving her oxygen, the other is asking about what she drank, and Elliot falls back against the wall, thankful that Casey is explaining everything to them, and in the next second they are gone.
"They're going to Mt. Sinai," Casey steps towards him, but he moves so that she cannot touch him. He is sensitive to everything at the moment, and he knows it will hurt. "Are you okay?"
He is grasping for air. He is embarrassed. He is out of control. His eyes are red, burning, his cheeks are stiff, painted with patterns of tears.
"How long?" She is uncomfortable, slightly, because this is going places she's yet to be, and yet, as Elliot slides down the wall, his legs coming up towards him, his head falling to the solace of his hands, she knows that this isn't about her comfort.
"I can't do it."
Defeat. He didn't like conceding power or control to anyone, and he took the next second to think that maybe he pushed her to this by thinking that he could save her.
Ever since he met her, he saw the pieces of confusion in her eyes, and all he'd ever wanted to do was save her.
"Elliot, c'mon, let's get to the hospital," Casey urges him, but he doesn't respond.
For all the moments he punched the walls until his knuckles bled, for all the moments he lifted weights until his arms were useless, for all the moments he yelled and ran, he let himself actually break down, and he started heaving, Casey watched his back rise and fall and if he was aware that she was watching him, he may have been bothered, but he wasn't even here anymore.
He was lost in the ashes that his life had burnt to become, but he felt like he was still on fire, still burning.
When Casey tentatively touches him, he feels his children, feels their hands and their hearts and he misses them, and feels Olivia, he feels himself pushing her away, he sees her body, asking in it's lifelessness for help, and he feels as if they are all drowning, they are all going under, and he can only save one.
He can't do this.
He raises his head, the pictures around him, they are blurry and swirled in the dust and sparkles of the different streams of light, and he moves to the sink, the cabinet overtop, and growling he rips the door from it's hinges, throwing it across the room to shatter as it hits the wall of the shower.
"Jesus, Elliot," Casey jumps back, caught off guard as Elliot rips at the tie around his neck, rips the top few buttons of his shirt open, and as he heads out of the bathroom he says quietly, whispers to no one besides himself,
"She's not allowed to do this to me."
&&&&&&
"Is there someone you should call?" Casey offers Elliot a cup of coffee, watery and brown, in a tiny paper cup with pictures of playing cards as decoration.
"I'm her next of kin." He wonders when he will stop shaking.
Casey responds with silence, she has never seen someone fall apart as she has seen Elliot in the past hour. She never knew, until she saw it in his eyes, that that range of emotion was even possible. She had assumed that it was something a director would push an actor to do to win an Oscar – but she didn't believe that, unscripted, someone could experience that.
"Maybe I should go," it was awkward, they both knew, but Elliot needed something to keep him from exploding in the middle of the waiting room.
"If you have to," he didn't get to finish his statement before a doctor approached him, young with blonde hair, green eyes, and he looked to Elliot with question.
"Are you here with Olivia Benson?"
"How is she?" Elliot forced himself to stand.
"I'm Dr. Owens," he takes a minute to introduce himself, "she's going to be fine. Her blood alcohol content was .28," he stopped to let it sink in, and Elliot closed his eyes for a minute, not wanting to think of what she had done. "But, we're giving her some fluids, she was pretty badly dehydrated. We're monitoring her breathing, her airway is fine, she's vomited a few times, but there doesn't appear to be any more blood."
"Uh, thanks. Thank you," Elliot extends his hand and shakes the doctor's in a quick, fast motion.
"Would you like to see her?"
He has to think for a minute, because he doesn't know what he's about to see.
"Yes." He chokes the three letters out and follows the doctor down the hall, leaving Casey behind.
"She's conscious, everything's going to be fine, but she's still a little out of it." He shows Elliot into her room. "We'll be in periodically to check on her, she'll need to stay for a few hours so that we can observe her." His voice is fading as Elliot walks into her room, his jaw locked, and he pushes his hands into his pockets.
Olivia is laying, white against the sheets, her eyes closed, IV's running into her veins, a little heart monitor clipped to her finger.
He wants to talk to her, but he can't. He has nothing to say to her, no words to help her or comfort her or make this all okay.
He looks around the room, a chill running over his spine, and he remembers his fear of hospitals, his fear of all that comes in and never comes out, and he is instantly overcome with the need to touch her.
Slowly his feet are moving, carrying him over to her bed, and he looks like a child, scared with wide eyes, investigating a stranger, as he hesitantly sits down on the bed next to her.
His hands are on his lap now, clenched together, and he swallows his emotion hard, and this is how he sits, for two hours, afraid to touch her, until her eyes flutter open with what he knows of her eyes shown behind the curtain of their lids.
There is silence as she realizes now, the medicines and liquids pulling her out of her haze, she sees where she is, and who is with her.
For a minute, she wants to ask if she still has a heartbeat, because when the last thing in her life walked out on her, she could have sworn it had stopped, but now he is back again, sitting up against her, looking like a scared child, and in his eyes, she can feel the blue of home.
"El," her throat is dry, horse, and he looks away for a minute before getting up off of the bed.
"I was stupid to think that I could do anything for you," his words ride on waves of defeat. There is no anger, but destruction.
"Elliot." Her voice breaks with the rest of her.
"I missed time with my children, I have lost things, too, Olivia. I go into work, I sacrifice,"
"Being with me." She finishes for him, and the words, the reality of them that she speaks out loud, they catch him off guard.
He had never considered her being a sacrifice.
"You say you want help, and then…" He throws his hands in the air, and she can see that he is desperate, because she is too.
For the first time, when he looks at her, he doesn't see her. He saw her mother once, maybe twice, but he imagined that this is what she looked like.
"I don't know how to do it. My mother never taught me that." He wants to tell her to stop with the excuses, but he is trying to make himself realize that this disease is larger, bigger, grander, than they will ever be.
"I can't," he starts, but his breath hitches in his throat, and he starts pacing in short, tiny paths back and forth.
She can see what this is doing to him, she can see that this is not hers, and in all his pain, she wants to tell him that she loves him for loving her enough to take this on with her with everything that he already has.
"I can't keep doing this," she lets out a cry, and it stops Elliot in his tracks, stops him from moving, stops him from breathing, stops his heart from beating, stops him from living.
i When you love someone, you'll do anything /i
"Elliot I can't – I can't be…" she trails off because she sees herself, 7 years old, sitting in the corner of a hospital room, her mother in the same bed in which she now lies.
"You need to go to AA, maybe see someone, you need –" he turns to see her staring, the tears, they are falling without effort, as if it is their place, and he breaks for her.
"Jesus Christ, Olivia, you scared the shit out of me," he walks over next to her, and Olivia wants to tell him that she knows, because she's been there. He looks her over, checking for cracks and seams and she knows this, but she doesn't care, because he is the first person to ever take the time to look.
i You risk it all, no matter what may come, when you love someone /i
His fingers go to her, he presses the tips of his fingers to her cheeks, runs them over her forehead, her eyes, and then they go down her neck, her arms, down to her hands.
"Elliot,"
"Yeah, I'm gonna sit with you." He finishes her thought for her, and he sits himself on the bed next to her, beside her, as her equal, her partner, her best friend.
He takes her hand and runs his finger along hers, runs it over her palm, over the back of her hand, making tiny patterns on her wrist.
"Do you want me to stay, Olivia?" He whispers, because anything more would hurt.
Her hands go for him again, they reach for him, and she grabs him, weak and on the brink of falling into yesterday and pulling herself back into tomorrow, and at the end of her rope, she holds onto him to pull her up.
"Okay," he clears the tears from his throat, and she presses her head to his chest, to hear his heart beating.
"Tell me a story." Where she is laying is warm, and Elliot's head falls back against the bed.
Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water, Jill fell and rolled all the way down, and Jack threw himself down after.
"What kind of story?" One of his arms falls around her, and the other takes her hand.
"I don't want to be here, El, just… a story. Any story." Her voice breaks with each word, and when he pulls her into his arms, he whispers to her, soft and gentle, each word laced with fear& he tells to her a fairytale.
&&&&&&
tbc.