Emily wakes at 7:30am, half-expecting a phone call from Elizabeth Cabot nine minutes later that never comes. At work, there are no balloons or even goofy polka-dotted hats, as there had been for Jeremy, the intern, a week ago.
Not that she wants balloons and hats...
She glances at the pile of cancellations on her desk, checks the date: December 3.
Her birthday. Alex's birthday.
Emily was born on the cusp of autumn, just as summer dies.
"Everything okay, Emily?"
She looks up at Tom, a claims adjuster from down the hall. "Yeah." She smiles.
Today she silently turns thirty-six.
When she sleeps, she wakes unable to breathe, suffocating, clawing at the smooth white of the inside of a cooler. In reality, the cooler is a blue pillow with a penchant for molding to her.
As she sits awake, Casey wonders if the ADA who came before her ever held a dying child in her arms. It didn't feel heroic. It felt humbling, disheartening. As important as people's money was, it wasn't the same as their children, spouses, friends... She was dealing in lives now. Lives expendable to some.
She contemplates calling Elliot. She's heard he never sleeps well either.
He sits with his back to her on the couch in the middle of their living room. His head rests in his hands, his elbows on his knees. If she didn't know better, she would have thought he was crying. Elliot didn't cry.
"Come to bed." She says, gently. "You've been up for over two days."
His voice is thick. "I'm not tired."
"Did something else happen?"
He can't tell her Alex is alive, but gone. "No." He lies, his eyes stinging with tears. 'You were supposed to protect her!' "I just need to be alone."
"Okay," she whispers, defeated.
He doesn't touch her; he stares. It's not her. Her blood pools around Olivia's hand, between fingers. Alex is pallid. He imagines she's cold to the touch.
Olivia looks at him. He's pale too and it's the first time she realizes that Alex and Elliot were ever more than just friends.
Alex's eyes drift over him, flutter shut. "Look at me... Look at me, Alex!" They open once more, spread over Olivia. Chill her.
She can feel Alex's slowing heartbeat against her fingertips. She can hear his thumping in her ear.
Olivia wonders when they began to beat as one.
She is lying on the sidewalk, staring up at a hazy darkness above. Night never falls on the city that doesn't sleep. She closes her eyes, re-opens them. Olivia comes before her, lips moving, murmuring in static noise. Blink. Where's Elliot? He'd been there. He'd offered to take her home. No, she was going to walk...
He steps into view, eyes wide, mouth agape. She wants to reach for him - he'll save her! - but her arms feel weighed down; in her throat, she gurgles blood.
She looks at Olivia because it hurts less. Blink. And then she lets go.