Chapter 42 – Stabler

Just a little note here, this is the last chapter I'm going to post tonight. And just a warning, I start school on Wednesday, so I might not be able to update tomorrow night because my mom might actually make me go to bed... early! Ahh! So, just thought I'd let you know. ;)

Lyrics by Simple Plan - Jump

I don't wanna wake up today
'Cuz everyday's the same
And I've been waiting so long
For things to change
I'm sick of this town, sick of my job
Sick of my friends cause everyone's jaded
Sick of this place, I wanna break free
I'm so frustrated
I just wanna jump
Don't wanna think about tomorrow
I just don't care tonight
I just wanna jump
Don't wanna think about my sorrow
Let's go
Forget your problems
I just wanna jump
I don't wanna wake up one day
And find out it's too late
To do all the things I wanna do
So I'm gonna pack up my bags
I'm never coming back
'Cuz the years are passing by
And I'm wasting all my time
I'm sick of this house, sick of being broke,
Sick of this town that's bringing me down,
I'm sick of this place, I wanna break free,
I'm so frustrated
I just wanna jump
Don't wanna think about tomorrow
I just don't care tonight
I just wanna jump
Don't wanna think about my sorrow
Let's go
Forget about your problems
I just wanna jump
I just wanna jump
I can't take it anymore
I can't take it anymore
Forget tomorrow
I just wanna jump
Don't wanna think about tomorrow
I just don't care tonight
I just wanna jump
Don't wanna think about my sorrow
Let's go
Forget your problems
It's time to let them go
Forget tomorrow
I just want to jump…

Stabler

Ooo… Is that, bacon? The first thing I awoke to was the smell of bacon cooking. As I opened my eyes, I also heard it sizzling. Wait, where am I? I looked around, the room unfamiliar at first. My location suddenly hit me. I was sleeping on Olivia's couch.

I sat up and my mouth opened in a silent yawn. Stretching my arms out in front of me, I got to my feet.

"So you cook breakfast too?" I commented, seeing Olivia standing in front of her stove.

"What?" She turned around, letting her vision leave the pan as it made various popping and snapping noises. "You're up," she pointed out.

"You too," I grinned.

"Coffee?" She leaned over to the counter and picked a mug up. Turning back to the stove, she held it out to me.

"Thanks." I accepted it graciously. Tilting the ceramic mug to my lip, I let the warm liquid travel down my throat with a welcome greeting. Suddenly, I heard a faint ringing noise. "What's that?" I asked Olivia, tilting my head around to see if I could hear where it was coming from.

"What's what?" She reached up and turned the stove off, moving the pan from the hot burner.

"That ringing noise." I leaned forward, thinking I could hear where it was coming from. I walked towards my coat, hearing it become louder and clearer. I finally recognized it. "My phone!" I rushed over to the chair I'd thrown my jacket on the previous night. Shuffling through the pockets, I quickly found it. "Stabler," I answered.

"Elliot, where are you?" I was met with a warm greeting from my Captain. "You should have been at work an hour and a half ago and this is the first time I've been able to get a hold of you all morning."

I quickly pushed my shirtsleeve up so that I could see my watch. It was about nine-thirty. Damnit! "I'm sorry Cap. I just got up and I didn't notice the time."

"I'll grill you later. Right now, you need to go over to Emma's apartment."

"What? Why?"

"Munch and Fin are already on their way. Go. Now." And with that, I heard the line click and go dead. Flipping my phone shut, I stuffed it back into my pocket as I grabbed my coat.

"Who was that?" Olivia asked, moving the cooked bacon onto a plate and paper towel.

"Cragen. He told me to go over to Emma's apartment. He said Munch and Fin were already on their way."

"What happened?" Shock covered her face as she waited for an explanation.

"I don't know." I shook my head and stuffed my arms into my coat.

"I'll go with you." Olivia grabbed her coat and followed me out the door.

--XXX--

By the time we arrived, CSU was already buzzing around, uniforms blocking the apartment off.

"Stabler, Benson, sex crimes." I showed the guy at the door my badge. He moved out of the way and let us past. "Fin!" I caught the attention of the other detective. "What happened?" He made his way past everyone and finally got to us.

"Mother called 911 an hour ago," he started, leading us towards the back of the apartment into another room. "Paramedics got here, but there was nothing they could do." He stopped in front of a doorway and pointed inside the room, signaling for Olivia and me to go in first. From the pink walls and stuffed animals in the room, I knew it had to be Emma's.

"El." I felt Olivia's hand grab at my side, trying to get my attention. There was an anxious tone in her voice. "Look." Her face went pale as she motioned to the bed. Lying on her back was the still body of Emma's.

She was wearing pajamas and her hair fell around her face. Her eyes were closed and her hands were folded on her stomach, like she was sleeping. But by her ghost-white skin and bluish lips, I knew she was dead.

"How'd it happen?" I heard Olivia's shaky voice ask someone. Glancing up, I saw ME Warner standing up from the side of the bed, her kit in her hands.

She looked down at the body, then back to us. "I didn't find any signs of a struggle, any bruising, or any other signs of how she died. But I did find this on the floor next to her bed." She handed me a pill bottle. I took it and held it forward so Olivia could see it too. "They're sleeping pills," Warner explained. "They're prescribed to the mother."

"So you think she over-dosed on these?" I held the bottle up and clarified.

"Yeah."

"Suicide?" Olivia suddenly spoke up.

Warner slowly nodded. "Judging by the date that the prescription was filled, I say the bottle contained about twenty pills or so."

"And now it's empty," I finished.

"That, and this was on her night stand." She picked up a piece of paper placed inside an evidence bag and handed it to Olivia.

"'Mom,'" Olivia read aloud. "'I'm so sorry. I love you so much, but I can't take it anymore.'" Olivia's voice caught in her throat. She cleared it and read on. "'Tell everyone I love them and that I'll miss them, but I'm in a better place now. I'm with Daddy. I love you and I'm so sorry to put you through this, but I can't handle it. I love you, Emma.'" Resting her gaze on the bed, she heedlessly tossed the bag into my hands.

The note was shakily written in pen, teardrops staining the lines and causing the ink to run. I caught the attention of one of the CSU detectives and I handed it to them. My eyes professionally scanned the room, looking for anything that might be out of place. Everything seemed normal until I saw an open book scattered among the sheets of Emma's bed. Being careful not to disturb her, I picked it up, holding the place it was open to.

Looking it over, I recognized it as a yearbook. The page was open to the section for juniors. The date on the cover was this year and the book looked brand new.

"Olivia, wasn't she a freshman?"

"What?" Olivia looked up at me. "Um, yeah. Fifteen, freshman." She didn't even bother asking why as she studied the pill bottle in her hands.

If she was a freshman, why was she looking at the junior pictures? I quickly scanned them over, just to see if anyone seemed familiar or out of place. One picture jumped right out at me. It was the picture of Greg Reid. Staring at it, I ran my hand over it. I frowned, noticing that there seemed to be some wet spots on it where the paper was wrinkled. They were teardrops, just like on the suicide note, and they were all on the page with Reid's picture. That can't be some sick coincidence.

"Olivia, look." I pushed the book in front of her. "She must have been looking at this right before she took the pills."

"The yearbook?" Olivia gave me a strange look. "So?"

"So look at whose picture's on this page." I pointed to Reid.

"Reid?" Her brows scrunched together as she studied it. "You don't think…?"

"That she knew?" I finished. I thought about that for a moment. "Wait. Yesterday, when you asked her if she knew of anyone who had any grudges against her, do you think she could have thought of Reid later on?" If she had, then it was really likely that she knew, or at least thought that it was Reid.

"His eyes…" Olivia suddenly whispered.

"What?" I asked, slightly confused.

"Yesterday, when I asked Emma if she could remember anything about her attacker, she said he had light blue eyes, like ice…" Thinking back to the interview, I remembered Reid's striking blue eyes. I couldn't believe I hadn't put two and two together.

"So she remembers Reid, looks in the book and realizes it was him…" I trailed off and let Olivia finish.

"And she can't handle knowing, so she kills herself," Olivia whispered in a wavering voice. I leaned forward and looked at her eyes, for the first time noticing the tears glittering in them. "I can't believe I didn't see this coming." She shook her head and looked from the body to the pill bottle in her hands. "I should have realized…"

"Realized what Olivia?" I put my hand on her shoulder and pushed her back so that she was facing me while her head hung towards the floor. "You can't see the future. You had no idea this was going to happen."

Olivia picked her head up and looked at Emma. "But I knew what she was feeling. After talking to her, and everything… I could have talked to her…"

"Liv, don't say that. There was nothing you could have done to stop this from happening. So what if you had talked to her? You know it wouldn't have changed what happened to her. Emma did what she wanted to do and all the talking in the world couldn't have prevented it."

Olivia opened her mouth to answer, but nothing came out. At a loss for words, she just shook her head and walked away, leaving me standing alone amongst the chaos of CSU and uniforms.

--XXX--

As I walked into the station house, I knew my words had been lost on Olivia. She had gotten too involved in the case, like Cragen feared she would. And she was stubborn. If she thought she could have prevented Emma's death, than it would take more than a few well-spoken sentences to convince her otherwise. And that was what scared me about her sometimes.

"Olivia?" As I walked into the squad room, I started calling out her name, by now having thoroughly distressed myself. "Hey!" I snapped at a young detective doing some paperwork at his desk. Startled, he lifted his nose from the piles and stared at me. "Have you seen Olivia Benson?"

"I think she went back into one of the interrogation rooms," he shrugged and pointed.

"Thanks," I nodded and followed the direction he'd been pointing in. "Olivia!" I walked down the hallway and called for her. At each one way mirror I passed by, I peered in, finding no trace of Olivia until the fourth one. I saw her sitting on a table in one of the nicer rooms, her back to the mirror and her head in her hands as her legs hung off the edge. Going to the door, I knocked my knuckles against it. Not to ask if I could come in, but to make sure that I wouldn't startle her.

"Go away," she moaned, not moving from her position.

"It's Elliot," I offered stupidly as I heard her next response.

"I know, go away," she repeated, covering the pain in her voice with an empty coldness.

"Liv-" I started, fully ready to launch into another speech about how it wasn't her fault.

"Don't!" She snapped, picking her head up and looking bitterly at me from the corner of her eye. "Don't 'Liv' me! And don't waste your breath!"

"Olivia," I corrected myself and ignored her instructions. "What happened to Emma wasn't your fault!"

"What 'happened?' " She shrieked, turning around to face me. "She wasn't in a car accident or something Elliot! She killed herself! She took a whole bottle of sleeping pills and killed herself!"

"I know," I informed her, feeling my anger rising. "But blaming yourself isn't going to change that!"

Olivia turned back around, an angry, bitter laugh escaping from her as she slid to her feet. "Of course it isn't," she agreed, the sarcasm dripping from each word that left her mouth. She whipped around and faced me, fire in her eyes. "Because after all, I didn't force her to relive her attack over and over again. I didn't ask her the question that made her figure it out. And I didn't get so wrapped up in myself that I couldn't see that she couldn't handle this!"

"Olivia, you are not responsible for other people's actions! Why can't you see that!" I begged and yelled, trying to get through to her.

"You don't get it!" She screamed right back.

"What don't I get?"

Her face was bright red as she took a deep breath and lowered her voice. "I do blame myself, because it is my fault." Before I could object again, she continued. "I don't know why I even do this anymore. All I do is hurt people." Her enraged expression suddenly softened and her eyes revealed the tears welling up in them. I instantly berated myself for screaming at her. That's not what she needed right now.

"No, you don't hurt people." I shook my head and tried to take back whatever I said to make her think that.

"Don't patronize me, Elliot." She ran her hands over her face, streaking the tears along the side of her cheeks. "Yes I do."

"No…" I started walking towards her, but she just backed up, matching each of my steps.

"What about those three people that were killed, only because I'd investigated them?" She asked me accusingly. "What about the seven women that were kidnapped and held in a dungeon because all I saw when that woman came in was a drunk, just like my mother?"

"You can't blame yourselves for other people's actions, Liv," I desperately repeated.

"I'm just so sick of this!" She shrieked, slapping her hands against her thighs. "I can't take it anymore. I can't handle this!" Suddenly, I watched as she jumped at her holster and whipped her gun out.

--XXX--

Cliff hanger! I couldn't resist! And I know you just love me for it, right? ;)