Disclaimer: Everything Law & Order related belongs to Dick Wolf and company, as in the show idea and known characters. But I do own the abstract created characters and plot line.
A/N: Thanks to those who take the time to review, ya'll are very motivating. So, as for everyone else…the other 52 of ya'll that are just reading…how about some reviews! I've seen the all hits and favorites for this sucker…come on ya'll. Give me a bone here!
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"Check Hebel!" Elliot yelled to Olivia who cut sideways headed toward the cells. No point in arguing about it, Elliot was quicker then she and he'd have Cate in custody in no time.
Olivia's flat heels pounded the floor echoing off the walls as she reached lock-up, finding the guard station empty.
"Ah shit." She had a quick vision in her mind's eye of finding two dead guards any minute. She didn't put that pass Cate, She already evolved with Garcia. Why not move up the chain and kill cops too?
She started jogging again, Glock in hand and skidded to a halt at David Hebel's cell.
"ITS JUST BUSINESS"
That was the first thing she saw written over David Hebel's body. She swiftly moved back to the guard station and retrieved the extra key, keyed the lock, then stepped into the cell inhaling the usual smells at a murder scene, especially one of Cate Monty's murder scenes.
Have to be sure, Olivia knelt down and pressed two fingers into his neck, feeling for just a moment, To late, he's dead.
She yanked her cell phone from her slacks and re-holstered her Glock calling Cragen, within minutes the entire area was swarming with professional personnel.
"Where's Elliot?" He demanded when Olivia was done briefing him about the situation.
She looked startled, "He went after Cate. He hasn't come back yet has he?"
"No. Not that I know of. I want to know right now, who was on shift!" Cragen yelled turning away from Olivia, he went from pale to a dark shade of red, fury spewing from his pours.
He started shouting out orders for a K-9 unit to track Cate's trail and for someone to call the rest of his Squad. In all the chaos no one noticed Andrew Gage slip away or even being present at the scene.
Quickly, quietly and stealthy.
Just as he was taught to do.
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In the orange glaze and slowing rain Elliot saw Cate run out on the nearest pier, then slide on the slick planks and scream while crashing through the recently rain rotted pier.
Out of reflex he pulled shoes off, wrapped his Glock, cell and radio in his jacket, discarding them on the concrete bank.
He carefully walked toward the awkward gaping hole in the planks, hearing the river water rush and the pier creak with warning.
Elliot didn't realize how much pressure he placed on the pier. He didn't know the concrete anchors had corroded due to the days of rain and started snapping from Cate's run.
He partially fell through the pier and became pinned as the planks started to fold around him. The next thing he knew he was underwater, immobilized against the thick mud of the river floor and heavy water logged planks.
Shit.
Holding stale breath, he tried to lift the planks off his waist and legs. Terrible visions of death started running though his mind, they changed to thoughts of his children and only of his children.
Gripping the heavily planks, digging nails into the soft wood and pushed again, nothing.
He started to loose air.
Not like this, he pleaded, Not this way.
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Darkness.
Fluidity and thick.
Rushing and condensed.
Cold.
So cold.
But silent.
Silent to the point of deafening.
Cate kicked hard in the twisting uniform, pushing through the water, searching for Elliot.
The water pressed against her slit eyes until avail, she saw the almost glowing white button shirt, bounce against the silent liquid.
Elliot struggled against the crushing weight, withering and causing tuffs of earth to rise around him.
Cate pushed harder and appeared at his side, grabbing the slick planks, still holding her breath and lifted.
Elliot was surprised, Why didn't she keep going?
For the moment they both forgot who they were on the surface; an officer of the law and a wanted killer.
Here, under the grippingly wicked and silence realm of water they were humans, trying to survive.
An eternity seemed to pass for Elliot. A new darkness filled his eyes and a depressing burden wrapped around his mind, I'm drowning…so this is death…
He stopped pushing against the planks and working with Cate.
No! God no! Cate mentally screamed as Elliot started to float lifelessly with the water currents.
A new found self-contempt filled her dead soul, This is my fault!
Adrenaline fueled by rage is what finally lifted the planks enough for her to press a palm to his chest and push him out from under the wood.
Cate kicked hard feeling her own oxygen start to run thin, one arm wrapped around his waist, gripping his belt.
So close. Come on! You can do this!
Cate found herself looking up at the surface, seeing the orange glow of the dock light and perfect circles of rain drops patter on the watery glaze; the boundary between life and death.
Their breach was magnificent; a burst of crashing water, inhuman cries and entangled limbs.
Cate inhaled hard and gasped for air. The tiny veins in her nasal passages burst giving her a terrible nosebleed.
She paddled with one hand toward the concrete bank, jerking Elliot's lifeless body, knowing she only had minutes it revive him.
After treacherous seconds and destroyed fingernails she managed to pull Elliot up the crumbling concrete beneath the slumping pier light.
Laid him on his back, forcefully spread his tie around his neck, cleared his mouth with two fingers and pressed her ear against his chest listening for his heart beat over the rain drops.
Nothing.
Cate wiped her own gushing blood away from her mouth and nose and started to perform CPR.
Over and over again, clamp his nose, breath into his mouth and interlace her fingers across his chest and press three times.
The outlook looked beak.
No. Come on!
Again and again.
Panic gripped her dark soul.
No change.
She refused to take a life that had done nothing to her.
Cate forced more oxygen into his mouth, pinching his nose and heard a wet gasp.
At first she thought it was her own, then coughing followed.
She sat back and turned Elliot on his side when he started to spew water and the vomit that followed. Euphoric relief washed over her.
Elliot felt shaky as he propped himself up on his arm, retching still.
Slowly the memories of what happed filled his mind, then the undeniable fact of what transpired under the water and on the bank became realized.
The woman he had been pursing for so many days, the woman who took the law into her hands and the woman he marked as a psychotic homicidal killer, This woman… that woman…saved my life.
After the last bitter, burning torrent of vomit escaped his mouth and the tears stopped flooding his eyes, he allowed Cate to pull him back and gently help him sit up.
Before either one could speak gunfire filled the air.
Elliot felt the hot lead strike his chest and the saw the brilliant starburst explosion of his blood crash and mingle with the diamond rain drops.
He didn't hear himself scream, but was sure he did.
Cate was shot next and screamed inhumanly.
The multiple sounds of gunfire filled the air as Cate crawled to Elliot's crumbled jacket, praying his gun was still there.
It was.
She gripped it, leveled it and pulled the trigger in fast repetition in the direction of the unknown assailant.
"I hate guns!" Cate cried with bloody passion on her knees.
The assailant stepped forward and for a moment Cate saw his face and she thought recognized him.
She unloaded the entire clip and heard the male cry, then the assailant rushed away.
Nothing happened for several seconds, she didn't hear him reload, but knew she had shot him.
Discarding the gun and gathering up Elliot's jacket, Cate crawled back to his bleeding and unconscious body.
She sobbed loudly upon seeing him again, "No! This wasn't supposed to happen!"
Threads of split escaped her mouth, "Not like this! Fuck!"
Cate wrapped Elliot's jacket into a tight wad, allowing his cell and radio to fall at her busted knees.
She pressed the jacket against the chest wound, crying hard, feeling and tasting the salty tears and stringy, bloody snot.
It was never supposed to be like this, it was just supposed to be her, her selfish vengeance and her way.
Only certain people were supposed to die and Elliot Stabler was not one of them.
This is all my fault.
Why am I doing this?
Look what I've done!
Cate pressed harder watching his shirt turn from white to red and then pinkish from the pouring rain.
Her eyes drew upward to the cascading heavens filling with more hot tears, looking for answers, only to blame herself again.
Help.
The voice of that dead field medic brought her back to earth.
Call for help, now.
Cate continued to press against the gushing wound, ignoring her own injuries; the gunshot wounds she hadn't noticed yet and the rushing blood from her nostrils.
She clicked his radio first shouting that an officer was shot, but couldn't give a location other then the East River piers.
Next she called 9-1-1 on his cell and ordered them to trace the call and ignored their request to stay on the line, but left the phone on and stopped talking to the operator.
Cate stayed with Elliot the entire time, holding his chest. Even when she heard the sirens in the distance she stayed.
As they become louder, she stayed.
As they multiplied, she stayed.
When the lights started to flash and bounce on the nearby abounded buildings, she stayed.
And when the ambulances and police cars rushed upon them, she stayed.
Cate bounced on the balls of her sock covered feet as officers and paramedics ran toward her, then let go of Elliot's chest at the absolute last second and jumped into the river.
Engulfed in the cold darkness and shot at by the officers on the bank.
Bleeding still and half dead.
Didn't look back and thought about the male assailant who attacked them both, I know his face.
…I've seen you before.
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"Ah shit." Andrew hissed holding his bleeding leg while pressed up against a small engine repair building a few blocks away from Elliot and Cate.
He hadn't expected Cate to fire back at him, Had a chance and fucked it all up.
Andrew pulled his belt off and used it as a tourniquet for his leg; he couldn't go to a hospital, he knew that.
He continued to stumble toward his apartment in the rain, ignoring the other darkly humans sulking around the city that time of night.
They didn't look at him twice, limping and soaked in a trench coat. His face covered by his hair and he emitted the overall sign of 'Stay away'.
The rain kept falling even as he reached his apartment. He knew he would have to explain his absence to Cragen during Elliot and Cate's frantic dash through the city, he started to formulate another lie.
The two had been difficult to find, it was the solitary gunshot that called him to the piers.
Elliot must have shot her or shot at her.
He shrugged heading to the elevator, then his door, fumbling for his cold, slick keys, dripping on the floor.
His apartment was quiet as he removed his sopping trench coat and walked with sopping steps to his bathroom, leering into his bedroom on the way.
The bed was empty and the sheets tossed the same way had had left them this morning. He was thankful that Elettra Acardi hadn't showed up unannounced, nude and practically spread-eagle out on his bed, as she had before.
Not that he was complaining about her surprise visits and the hours of bliss and pleasure that followed, he just couldn't deal with that right now.
Slipping into his bathroom and taking a seat on the slick toilet lid, he slung his bleeding leg into his bathtub, groaning heavily with pain.
Andrew fumbled for his personal cell phone, making the quick call to The Doctor; he knew he wouldn't be able to remove the bullet himself.
I wonder how bad I hit her.
He knew he had shot Cate, but didn't know he shot Elliot.
Just one of those things.
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It was 10:28 p.m. in St. Marks hospital as Kathy and Maureen Stabler rushed in, bearing worry and confusion.
God, what's happened! Kathy demanded in her mind.
Captain Donald Cragen hadn't been specific when he called her, merely saying Elliot had been hurt and she needed to get to the hospital.
"Elliot Stabler, he's a cop! Where is he?" Kathy asked in near hysterics to the front lobby desk clerk.
"Ma'am, please calm down." The clerk said soothingly.
"I—I need to know!" She wailed.
"Ms. Stabler."
The voice was soothing and calm on her ears, as she turned to see Cragen and Fin, both trying to look as calm and composed as possible.
"Is he?" She asked narrowing her eyes with fragile scorn, prepared to explode and fade into sorrow if her ex-husband and the father of her children was dead.
"He's fine, he just came out of surgery." Cragen assured her.
The relief was obvious on Kathy's face and body. It was mirrored by Maureen.
"What happened?" She asked civilly.
"He was shot," Kathy faltered at Cragen's words. "We don't have the complete story yet, but he's fine."
"Do you know who shot him?"
"No, it's too early to say."
She nodded, "Can I see him?"
"Yeah. Come with me."
The four made the short journey to the recovery level and after a quick briefing from Elliot's Doctor, Kathy was allowed to see him, alone.
Her hands were shaking as she stepped into his room. Elliot was lying on the hospital bed, wearing a thin hospital gown and cover by the scratchy, infertile blankets up to his chest.
An IV protruded from his inner arm, tubes to help his breathing were situated in his nostrils and a heart monitor was hooked to his chest.
Kathy made a quick assessment of his injuries—the ones she could see—nicks on his face with slight bruising and his gauzed knuckles.
You've been fighting.
"Oh, Elliot." She whispered to the silence and moved closer to her unconscious ex-husband's body, timidly slipping her fingers into his gauzed wrapped hand.
She still loved him, but wasn't in love with him.
She loved him because he was the father of their children.
And Kathy prayed he'd wake up soon and in good health.
He had too, not for her, but for their children.
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"Where is your partner?" John questioned to Nadia as she fluttered around the crime scene at the East River Pier sixteen.
It had stopped raining, but the roaring clouds threaten to burst above them again at any second.
"I don't have a clue. I keep getting his voice mail." Nadia replied as she squatted next to the blood stain and chunky vomit steaks were Elliot was lying only a few hours ago, carefully piecing the scene together.
"Hard to believe he chased her nine blocks in the rain." Nadia murmured glancing over that Elliot's gun surrounded by bright orange CSU markers.
"Well, that's Stabler. Likes to take things to the limit." John replied under the hot CSU lights planted in various spots around the crime scene.
"What's your theory, little Nadia?" John asked crossing his arms as she stood back up.
"When our guys and the paramedics showed up they said Monty stayed with Elliot, keeping pressure on the gunshot. Then the vomit suggests that Elliot nearly drowned and Cate revived him. I'm sure it involved the pier." She pointed at the mass of twisted wood sitting in the river.
John nodded.
"Then the fact that Elliot's gun was emptied into that brick wall over there suggest that…well, hell I'm not sure yet. The slugs from the wall and Elliot's chest are still at Ballistics." Nadia fluffed her at humid hair, trying to stop it from tickling her neck.
"The dive team found Elliot's handcuffs in the river, along with a police uniform belt with a gun, handcuffs and baton, and a shoe." John added.
"Monty's?"
"Looks like it. CSU also found blood on the brick wall over there. Analysis will be back in an hour or so. I'm about as lost as you on this, were just going to have to wait for Elliot to fill us in." John replied.
"Yeah," she shrugged and decided to call Andrew again, this time he picked up.
She was suspired and couldn't stop the hostile words that came out of her mouth, "Were in the fuck have you been!"
"Nice to hear from you too. Sleeping. Why?" He asked over the bad connection.
She gawked at his words, "Is your radio not on?"
"No. I like to have it off when I sleep."
"Shit, man. Monty killed Hebel, yadda, yadda, Elliot chased her and was shot as a result. He's in the hospital right now. Get your ass to St. Marks, I'll meet you there." Nadia shut the phone off.
Not taking the time to notice Andrew's reaction during the connection.
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It was 11:43 p.m. in St. Marks hospital when Nadia and John walked down the recovery level's hall, greeted by Fin, Olivia and Cragen.
"How is he?" John asked immediately.
"Fine, but not awake, yet." Cragen answered, "Anything at the scene?"
"Nothing conclusive. Hopefully Elliot will fill us in." Nadia replied Cragen nodded.
"Was Monty's gun found?" Cragen shifted subjects.
"Yeah, along with Elliot's cuffs." John crossed his arms.
"What caliber?" Fin jumped in.
John paused, "Nine mil."
"Oh shit." Olivia murmured backing away, Fin and Cragen reacted much of the same way.
"What?" Nadia and John asked in unison.
"Elliot carries a .three fifty-seven. He was shot with a .thirty-eight." Olivia rubbed her fingers through her hair.
"He was shot by someone else." Nadia breathed.
Just then Andrew walked up, trying his best to conceal the limp, he was convincing enough.
"What happened?" He asked coming to a stop.
"Were have you been?" Olivia, Cragen and Fin asked all at the same time.
Andrew lied and played it off.
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The Thirty-Eighth Day
September 9, 2005 Friday
8:09 a.m. the next day was around the time Elliot woke up in the recovery room, groggy, disoriented and alone.
He tried to set up and thought his head would explode. The searing throb rippled in his skull, absolute ache.
Carefully he leaned back, desperately trying to remember what happened.
The docks.
Gunfire. Not mine…someone else's…
Water…
I was shot…
What about Cate?
She saved me…
The sound of the room's door being pushed open pulled him back to the present, "Oh, your wife will hate that she missed you. She left not twenty minutes ago." The young nursed smiled.
Kathy? She was here?
"My ex-wife was here."
The nurse bit back, "Sorry, I didn't know you two were divorced."
He shrugged, "Don't worry about it. What happened?"
"You don't remember?"
"I was shot. What about the woman?"
The nurse looked confused, "Mr. Stabler, you were the only one brought in. I need to call your surgeon and Captain."
Before he could ask anything more she rushed out and was replaced moments later by the surgeon who operated on him.
"Detective, I'm Miguel Gonzales." The surgeon shook his hand and hovered over to the end of his bed flipping his blankets up revealing his bare feet.
He pulled his pen from his breast pocket, "After I removed the bullet from your chest, one of my nurses noticed you had extensive bruising and tissue damage to your legs. Can you feel this?" He ran the pen along the sole of his foot.
He could and had to stifle the urge to laugh, "Yes, I can feel that."
"Do you know what happened to your legs?" He asked covering his feet back up.
"I was pinned to the bottom of East River by waterlogged pier planks." Elliot answered solemnly, as if it happened to everyone at on time or another.
Miguel fought to hide his shock, "That would explain the mud in your hair when you first came in."
Elliot nodded.
"The bullet was lodged six centimeters from your heart. I'm very pleased with the operation and how little blood you lost. You'll have a complete recovery in few days, but I want to keep you here a few more days." Miguel concluded coming to a stop next to his bed again, clasping his hands together.
But Elliot sensed he was hiding something or at least avoiding.
"Your Captain will be in at any moment, I'll leave you to wait for him." Miguel added heading for the door.
"Doc,"
Miguel looked back at him, "Yes?"
"How close to death was I?" Elliot asked seriously.
Miguel held back then dropped his head some, tousling his dark, glazed hair, "I was told someone was keeping pressure on your chest wound when the paramedics arrived. If one no had…" He trailed off searching for the appropriate and most un-upsetting words.
"It was just enough to determine between life and death, Mr. Stabler. I'm a lapsed Catholic myself, but I would definitely say you'd had an angel with you." Miguel added using Elliot's stunned silence as an escape, leaving him to contemplate his words.
An angel…Cate Monty?
He searched his foggy memories, She stayed with me. Even came back for me while I was drowning.
Elliot was so confused.
The door to the room opened again revealing Cragen and Olivia.
Both looking exhausted and lined with worry.
"Hey," Olivia purred moving timidly to his side, unsure of whether or not to even approach him.
"…Is for horses." He replied reaching out of her hand, giving the permission for touch, not caring that Cragen was in the room, he knew what it meant.
"Hebel's dead isn't he?" Elliot said jumping directly to business.
Olivia nodded, "Strangled."
"And Cate got away." Elliot inferred narrowing his eyes.
"Yeah. Elliot, how much do you remember?" Cragen stepped in dragging a nearby chair from across the room.
"Enough," he started, "I chased her all the way to the piers. It was pitch-black, save for the lighting. We fought over my gun and I discharged a shot." His eyes glazed and his grip with Olivia loosened.
She took it as a sign to have her own seat.
"I've never seen anyone move that fast. She has some kind of martial art under her belt. It's more extensive then just basic Army training too. I managed to cuff her and was about to call for back up when…" He trailed off and felt his temple whisper the ache but didn't reach to touch the purple hued bump.
"Next the thing I know I'm on the ground with at face full of grit. She took off toward the piers and I went after her again. She ran onto the first pier, slid on the slick wood, and fell through. Still cuffed." He paused taking in a soft breath.
He eyed his peer's reactions so far, Olivia seemed placid and Cragen absorbent, yet Elliot sensed that they knew something he didn't.
"I took off my jacket and shoes. Wrapped my gun, radio and cell up and headed out cautiously on the pier. My leg fell through first, then the pier folded around me and I fell into the darkness." Elliot unwilling recalled the terrible feeling of being enveloped in the clutches of the cold river.
He had never felt so useless.
His peers kept their emotions in check; it didn't go unnoticed by Elliot.
"I don't know how long I was down there, pinned to the river bottom by the planks before Monty appeared without the cuffs and started helping me lift the planks…I drowned. Everything went black, next thing I know I'm choking and vomiting on the bank. And Monty is there sitting next to me in rain, holding my shoulders while my blowing chunks." He cast a look out the only window in the room.
"I leaned back and someone started shooting at us…I was hit…it gets pretty fuzzy after that." He concluded looking back at them.
Cragen nodded, "We have several eye-witnesses saying Monty stayed with you keeping pressure on the wound, then escaped last second into the river. She had been shot too. We found someone else's blood on distant brick wall. And according to your account of events Monty must have unloaded your gun into the guy."
Elliot looked taken aback, "Confirmed id on the shooter?"
"No, he escaped, but we know it's male. There's not trace of him in any American system and Interpol drew a blank too." Coincided Olivia.
"How did Monty get in the building?" Elliot questioned, it had been nagging at him for sometime.
Cragen sighed, "Front door."
"The lobby?"
"Yep, disguised as one of our own. Upon closer inspection, the techs noticed she was wearing what they thought was thick make-up. Then CSU found evidenced of your first struggle and foam latex was rubbed into the brick wall, hers." Cragen replied.
"Did she kill someone for the uniform?"
"If she did we haven't found the body, but an officer in the twenty-third precinct reported one of her uniforms and radio's missing. Strong coincidence if you ask me." Answered Cragen.
"I hope so and the officers on duty?"
"Baker and Forge have been severally reprimanded for publicly fraternizing—"
"Those heathen fornicators."
Cragen and Olivia both spilt into smiles, "Yeah, as for Denton and Cerro, their under investigation for leaving Hebel. It's an Internal Affairs case now." Cragen finished.
"Has she gone after anyone else yet?" Elliot asked with throaty depression.
"No, there's speculation that she dead. No one knows how many times she was shot and even if she made it out of the river. Personally, I won't believe that until I see her on a slab." Olivia voiced.
A short silence followed, then Olivia shattered it knowing she and Cragen had to get back, "The doc says you can leave in four days and everyone at the station sends their love."
"Aw, makes me feel all squishy and special on the inside." Elliot said with a soft leer, feeling a fresh release of morphine from the drip.
"Four days." Cragen assured him standing up and adjusting his jacket, "Get better soon."
Olivia smiled nicely, standing with her superior.
"I will. Thanks for coming out." Elliot said genuinely.
Cragen and Olivia slipped toward the door and then Elliot recalled the 'dinner date' they had sit-up last night.
"Say, Olivia," Elliot called to her; the two paused at the door, "I can I talk with you a minute?"
Cragen didn't say a word, spoke only with his eyes and moved out into the hallway.
Olivia walked back to his side, eyes wide with concern and opened to anything he would want talk to her about.
With her undivided attention he spoke carefully, choosing his words with caution, "Our date was interrupted. What were you going to tell me?"
She hesitated and dropped her head some with, What is that? Embarrassment?
"Elliot, this really isn't the place—"
"Olivia, just tell me. Nothing volatile is happening right now and no one is shooting at us or throwing darts." Elliot gently persuaded, she huffed at the mention of darts and glanced to the side some.
"I haven't told anyone in the Squad yet or Cragen…I can't believe I'm going tell you this, ugh," Olivia suddenly found it hard to look him in the eye. "You're my partner, Elliot and I trust you with my life, so I trust you to keep this to yourself."
Olivia shuttered and slurred some, twisting her fingers into knots.
He noticed her apprehensiveness and tried to decipher what on Earth could be so troubling and torrid for her, then carefully reached for her hand, grasping it with calloused fingers.
She looked down at their interlaced fingers and found the confidence to speak, "I'm pregnant."
(End Chapter Sixteen)
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