Chapter 9 – Shadows' Waiting
Buffy caught him before he reached Harper, and he had firsthand evidence as to how strong a Slayer really was. He couldn't budge when she restrained him. Harper watched him from inside his circle, no longer quite so scared of him, smiling a little against the magical restraints that bound him. Stabler struggled against Buffy's hands, amazed, even through his rage, at just how strong she was.
"No!" she yelled at him. "Elliot, no! We don't kill humans."
"Human?" he grated. "That's no human. He can't be arrested. He can't be tried or put in jail."
If he could only put his hand on his service revolver, he would put an end to that smirking sociopath. Cragen put a hand on his chest, pushing him back.
"She's right, Elliot," his boss said, speaking to him, not Captain to Detective, but man to man. "We don't kill. Not like this."
"You can't kill him," Giles said, stepping between Stabler and Harper.
"Goddamn it, Rupert!" Elliot yelled. "You, of all people, should understand. You'd kill to protect your Slayer. How many has he killed? Why is it okay for Liv to die?"
"You can't kill him," Giles repeated, "because then we'll have no way to save Olivia."
Stabler stopped fighting.
"What? How?"
"Willow and I are talking about it now. Come on."
They sat around Olivia, Stabler at her side, holding her hand between his.
"Now," Giles said, sitting beside Willow. The others sat, close enough to hear, not so close they crowded. "Olivia's injuries are not physical, not exactly. It looks as though Harper did perform the draining spell, but since Olivia did not trigger it by using the dagger on herself, it wasn't successful. He still did quite a bit of damage and gained an enormous amount of power."
"We have to figure out how to heal Olivia and how to put a stop to Harper, make sure that as soon as we're done he doesn't start going after Slayers again. Or anyone, really," Willow added.
"Can you take the power back from him?" Fin asked.
"In a manner of speaking," Giles responded, taking his glasses off. "But we have to be very careful. It could kill him. If we don't do it correctly, when we return it to Olivia, it could taint her. That also doesn't stop Harper from doing it again. He was never naturally gifted with power. He stole it from others, beginning with his sister."
"This is a disaster," Cragen said, scrubbing his face. "We've been gone for the better part of an hour. The squadroom is going to be nuts. IAB is already on my case, and they know about Elliot and Liv."
Elliot looked up at him. "IAB is the least of my worries."
"I understand that, Detective," Cragen answered, "but I have an entire squad to worry about, not just one detective's love life."
Elliot looked away.
Willow and Giles exchanged a long look.
"What?" Stabler asked.
"There's something we could do," Willow began. "A spell, but it's major."
"Major how?" Munch asked. "You've been slinging magic around like you run a sorcerial hash stand."
Willow gave him a tiny, flattered smile. "It's major like, normally I'd prep for it for at least a week."
"We haven't got that time," Stabler said.
"I know," she sobered, "so we'll have to do it on raw power, like the protection charm, let the spell work itself out."
"I still have no idea what you're saying here," Cragen said.
"It's a kind of translative/transference spell," Giles explained. "It will alter certain key aspects of the last few days' reality. Right now, you could rush Olivia to the best hospital in the city, and they would do everything in their power, but she would still die. This spell would translate her psychic injuries into physical ones – ones that could still kill her, but are treatable with conventional medicine."
"Here's how it would go," Willow said, "we start with removing the power Harper stole from Olivia, Kennedy, and the other Slayers. Olivia gets hers back after we've cleansed it. The rest of the power we use to translate things – Olivia's injuries are physical, and Harper was never a mage, but just a deluded sociopath."
"So, the murder investigation never went off the rails?" Fin asked.
Willow nodded. "We can't, and we shouldn't try to figure out every detail of the translation. The spell will do that for us, better than we could."
"I hear a very large 'BUT' coming up," Munch said.
Willow nodded. "There's always a price. With the exception of one anchor from each of us, everyone's memories of the last several days will be altered."
"How far back?" Elliot asked.
"Sunday morning," she answered. "When Kennedy's body was found."
He felt his stomach drop through the floor.
"Sunday," Cragen repeated, looking directly at him. "That was when you and Liv-"
Stabler nodded, cutting him off.
Cragen took a deep breath. "Elliot, it might be for the b-"
"Don't you say that!" Elliot snarled. "There is no 'best' here."
There was a long awkward silence.
"Elliot," Willow said softly, "you said, during the protection spell we cast, that you'd pay any price to get Liv back."
He nodded, aware that he'd never said it aloud, and that certainly didn't matter with Willow.
"Who're the anchors?" Munch asked.
"I'll be one," Giles said. "Normally, the spell caster takes that burden on, but Willow is too worn. She shouldn't have to carry the burden."
"The other?" Fin asked.
"I'll do it," Stabler said.
"Elliot, you don't have to," Giles said.
Elliot looked directly at him. "I do, and I think you know why."
"Okay," Cragen sighed, "Willow casts the spell, Liv goes to the hospital, Harper goes to Bellvue, IAB goes away. What about Liv's memories?"
"They'll change with the rest of everybody," Willow said. "She'll remember differently from Sunday on, up to when the spell is cast. Elliot, you and Giles will remember both."
"Let's do this," Cragen said.
"Everyone must agree," Giles warned. "With the exception of Harper. He does not get a say in this."
"I'm in," Fin said.
"Me, too," Munch answered.
"I say yes," Cragen replied.
Elliot looked down at Liv's face, pale, still, bruised, and bloody. I promised you I'd make it right, he thought to himself. I just didn't imagine the price would be this steep.
"Yeah," he finally said. "I'm in."
"You got me." It was Faith.
"And me," Buffy added.
"I'm there," Xander said.
"Yes," Wood added.
"I say 'yes'," Giles spoke.
"And me," Willow finished.
They all stood and looked at each other.
"Hey," Xander offered his hand, "I'd like to meet you again, on the other side. With no dead bodies around."
Stabler took it and gave it a firm shake. "Same here. You're a good man with a stake."
That started it, soon every person, SVU, Slayer, Watcher and other, was saying hello and goodbye. It took several minutes for every permutation to be made.
"I swear to god," Cragen said, shaking Giles' hand, "you probably have an even harder time running herd on your group than I do mine."
Giles smiled. "I do believe you have me there. In the worst circumstances, I find that baking cookies often pulls them into the kitchen for a quick conference."
Faith, knowing all the detectives knew about her criminal record, hung back a little. Stabler saw her and nodded at her.
"Faith," he said when he got her attention. "Far as I'm concerned, you used to be a killer. You're not anymore."
She smiled. It was the first relaxed, genuine smile he'd ever seen on her face. "Hope your partner makes it through okay."
"Me too," he replied.
"Elliot," Giles called. "I need you to pick up Olivia. We're setting up."
Someone was snoring. It was the full, vibrating range of a person drowned in sleep, and it was bugging her. She twitched, starting to wake up from the annoyance and brought her hand up to her face to push her hair out of her eyes. There was something on her hand, and that made her even more annoyed.
"Liv," a man said, stepping towards her.
The snoring was still going, so that put the count of people in her room at three, which was somehow wrong. She turned her head towards the voice, recognizing but unable to place it. She should have been completely awake by now, but her mind just wasn't focusing. Her mouth was incredibly dry and horrible tasting. What had she been doing?
Two hands closed around hers, cupping them gently, and she felt the whatever-it-was taped in place on the back of her hand. She frowned, pushing and shoving things in her mind so she could open her eyes properly. It took a moment to manage, and even then, things just wouldn't fit together properly.
She wasn't at home; the bed was too small, the lights were too bright, the room was too bare. The snoring came from Elliot, sprawled on what had to be the most uncomfortable chair ever made. The man who'd spoken was her captain, Cragen. He was watching her with worried, fatherly eyes, his hands folded around hers.
"Cap...," she still couldn't reach her face, because her other hand, the left one, was bound up in a sling, secured to her chest. "Wha hap'nd?"
"We...almost lost you," he said, pitching his voice low and soft, the better to let Elliot sleep.
It didn't make any sense. "I was," she tilted her head, as if she expected thought and memory to run like water from one corner to the other, "I was at the squad room, looking at the pattern..."
He swallowed. "You took a blow to the head, so you've probably lost some time. You and Elliot went out to a place to canvas the family of a suspect. You checked out the sub-basement, and he was there. He jumped you, Liv."
She still couldn't figure it out or make it fit. "I don't...Elliot's okay?"
"Yeah," Cragen nodded. "Though for a while there, I thought we were going to lose him too. You spent three hours in surgery."
"What..." She grimaced. Her brain just wouldn't work.
"The perp, Harper," Cragen explained, "had a knife. Elliot got ahead of you in the dark, and the perp went for you. Huang says you matched the profile of his victim pretty well. We don't know exactly what happened. Elliot says you didn't yell. He only heard the tiles break when Harper threw you into a wall. That's where the head injury came from."
"He didn't..." It was every SVU detective's worst nightmare, to be the vic of the very crime they investigated.
"Didn't have a chance. Elliot put two bullets in him as soon as he saw what was going on. Perp came out of surgery half an hour ago missing his spleen, a chunk of liver, and about ten feet of small intestine."
"I'm okay?" she asked, taking a deep breath. She realized she'd closed her hand tightly on Cragen's, hard enough to hurt, but he hadn't even noticed.
"You're okay," he nodded. "It was pretty close. Surgeon said if the knife had hit your shoulder half an inch further in, it would have cut your subclavian artery. You'd have bled out in less than a minute. As it was, they dumped about eight units of blood into you."
"Elliot," she struggled to sit up further and see him better.
Cragen put a hand behind her good shoulder and helped her. Elliot was there, in the chair, rattling the accoustic tiles above him. He looked even more tired than she felt – pale, grubby, and sporting at least a day's worth of stubble.
"When did it happen?" she asked.
"This morning," Cragen answered, and then checked his watch. "Yesterday morning, actually. It's almost two. I sent the others home, but I couldn't have pried Elliot out with C4."
"The case?"
"CSU's been in that sub-basement since Elliot called the attack in. They've had to change teams twice because of all the crap they're finding. Yeah, we got our guy."
He helped her lie back down, pulled a blanket up to her shoulders, and smiled at her.
"I've got some calls to make, now that you're awake. Try to get some sleep, okay?"
"Sure, cap."
"And you don't even think of getting out of that bed until a doctor says you can," he wagged a finger at her.
He stepped over to Elliot, who had hit the lower frequencies the human ear could register, and gave him a shake. The snore cut off, mid-vibrato, and Elliot jerked awake, sitting up before he was really conscious.
"Easy," Cragen put a hand on his shoulder, restraining him. "It's okay, Detective. Liv's awake. Don't keep her up for long."
Elliot was on his feet, scrubbing his face with his hand. The two men put their heads together for a moment and consulted over something in a whisper, which Olivia patiently waited through. Then Cragen clapped Stabler on the back and made his way out.
"I'll see you later today, Liv," he waved.
"See you," she answered, completely disgusted by how weak her voice was.
Elliot stood beside her, regarding her with fatigue-reddened eyes. There was the smallest smile playing at the corners of his mouth.
"Still having a hard time believing I got you out of there," he murmured.
"Wha' dya mean?" she asked, feeling sleep begin to roll over her.
He opened his mouth and stopped himself. "You need anything?" he asked.
"Water," she said. She wanted to joke about how something had crawled into her mouth and died, but couldn't seem to find the energy.
He checked the nightstand and found a cup of water that had once held ice, hours ago. It was tepid and probably tasted of 200 year old pipes. He found a straw, put them together, and brought it to her mouth. It was the most wonderful thing she'd tasted in years. Four swallows, though, and she was exhausted. She watched him as he set the cup back down.
"You okay?" she asked. Neither of them had ever been really hurt on the job before.
He turned back to her, watching her with those same calm, tired eyes. If anything, she thought, he'd gone through crazy grief and come out on the other side, some place new and quiet.
"Yeah," he finally answered. "I'm okay. You better understand, though, that was your one shot. You never get to pull that on me again."
"Understood, partner," she murmured.
He took her hand, just like Cragen had. "Think you can get some sleep?"
She nodded, aware that it was more a case of sleep getting her. "Go home, Elliot. Get some rest. You look like hell."
"Been there and back today," he agreed. "Didn't care for it."
She smiled, and her eyes closed. Sleep rolled in like a storm surge, pulling her into its depths. She still felt, though, when Elliot leaned over and kissed the very top of her forehead, felt it enough to turn her face towards him and squeeze his hand. He put her hand down, pulled the covers over it so she wouldn't get chilled, watched her for a few minutes as her breathing slowed down and evened out, and then glanced down thoughtfully and left the room as quietly as he could.
