Her feet collapsed, she hit the cool bathroom floor, and the last thing she heard was the bathroom door being kicked in.
And then everything went dark.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"Liv, don't leave me! Stay with me, please!"
"Severe head injury, needs immediate hospital treatment."
"Do you hear me?"
"Not responding."
"Let's take room 1."
"Please, help her!"
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
The lights dazzled Olivia's eyes mercilessly when she sighed and slowly opened them. She blinked for a moment in the bright light and looked around.
This is… Hospital. How am I…
Oh. Great.
She groaned in frustration as she remembered what had happened and adjusted her posture in her bed. Glancing out the window, she realized that morning had already dawned, and that made her irritation grow even more. She should be at the farm right now trying to find out the identity of the murderer, but instead she had gotten this brilliant idea to wander off into an unknown region alone in the middle of the darkest night. And Elliot…
But then her eyes fell on a character sitting on a chair next to her bed. Elliot had fallen asleep, he was sitting with his arms crossed in a very uncomfortable looking position, and warmth immediately spread to Olivia's heart. How many times had she waited for her former partner in the hospital, her heart in her throat, only to find that Kathy had come to him, and her presence had no longer been important.
Elliot had been her partner, her whole world, but she had only been his friend, his work partner, a small part of his life.
But now…
"El?" Her voice was soft, hoarse. She cleared her throat, thinking Elliot hadn't heard her, but to her surprise, he woke up with a flinch, and for a moment his eyes searched for the source of the voice, looking scared. But then he set his eyes on Olivia and jumped to his feet in a second.
"A-are you okay?" His gaze wildly scanned her body, and Olivia sighed.
"I don't know, what happened?"
"You don't remember?"
"I remember that I hit my head in the warehouse, I lost my lamp, but somehow I managed to get back to your apartment. It's a little hazy after that, was I in the bathroom?"
Elliot sighed and sat down on the edge of her bed.
"You went to the bathroom, locked the door, and didn't answer anything again. I kicked the door open, I must have done it before because it felt so familiar, and you were lying on the floor. I called an ambulance and they brought you here. What on earth made you go checking that warehouse alone in the middle of the night?" His voice began to strain, and Olivia frowned.
"I woke up in the night, and I remembered the warehouse we hadn't checked."
"Why didn't you wake me up?"
"You were sleeping so contentedly, and I thought..."
"You thought?! No, Olivia, you thought nothing!" He snapped and stood up. Anger flared up inside Olivia as well, and she sat up straighter.
"And what does that mean?!"
"Oh, what does that mean? Well, let me tell you. First of all…"
"First of all," Olivia interrupted, anger sparking in her eyes. "I'm not here on vacation, I'm at work, and my job is to find out who is responsible for the children's deaths. It means that if I have to go out in the middle of the night to check some building, then I go too. And let me tell you this, if my job requires me to do something, then no one, including you, can stop me from doing it because…"
"Does your job require you to be suicidal?"
The words got stuck in Olivia's throat, and she fell silent. Elliot had moved to the window and was looking out. His hands were clenched into fists, and his whole being was tense, defiant, but also somehow exhausted, helpless.
"Excuse me?" She frowned.
"Does your job require you to make decisions that put your life in danger? To face situations that could easily have been avoided if you had thought a little further?"
"Don't tell me how to do my job! I…"
"I may not remember our job or our boss, but I don't think any case is worth your death."
Olivia fell silent as the words sank into her. Elliot was right. If Cragen knew what she had done, what had happened to her, he would probably order her back home. She swallowed and looked down at her hands as shame began to gnaw her body.
"Do you have any idea how worried I was?"
Elliot's question made Olivia lift her gaze in surprise. She did know that Elliot had been worried about her before, many times. But things like this were things they hadn't said out loud when they'd been partners. They had been able to read each other, to be aware of each other's thoughts, even if they hadn't said it out loud, but that they'd have actually spoken to each other, that they'd have said how they had felt... It had been as if an invisible, unspoken agreement had prevented them from doing so.
They had been too close anyway.
"El…"
"Do you have any idea how much you scared me when I realized you were gone, not to mention when you opened the door half-conscious with your face covered with blood?" He turned to look at her, eyes glittering with tears, and a lump rose in Olivia's throat.
The guilt over Oliver's death hadn't subsided, but it began to change its shape when she looked at her former partner. The guilt over her own actions.
"I'm… Sorry," she said quietly, looked down at her lap, and Elliot stepped next to her bed. Maybe it was the guilt, maybe it was the remains of adrenaline, but tears clouded her eyes.
That's when Elliot sat down on the edge of her bed again, but this time right next to her, and she felt his hand on the back of her head. Her gaze turned automatically to Elliot, whose blue eyes were filled with tears, which gave them a whole new depth.
"You're… All I have," Elliot's voice shattered. "I can't lose you, do you understand?"
Olivia nodded barely perceptibly, and for a moment they just looked at each other. But then Elliot pulled her into his arms, buried his face into her hair, and squeezed her so tightly that Olivia could only bury her face in the crook of his neck and take a deep breath. She let her arms wrap around him, and that's when she realized what she had lost when Elliot had "died".
It was the feeling of safety. Here, in his arms, she felt that no evil in the world could reach her. In all their past years together, that same security had carried her forward. Even though Elliot had had Kathy and his family, she had known that if she needed him, no matter what the situation or time, he would be there, supporting, protecting, grounding her.
They stayed entwined to each other for a while, but then Elliot pressed a kiss to the top of her head, causing butterflies to flutter in Olivia's stomach, cleared his throat, wiped his eyes, and looked at her with a small smirk.
"Did you even find anything?"
"No," Olivia bit her lip to keep a smile from spreading across her face. Elliot frowned.
"So all this… For nothing?"
"Not really, now we know that the warehouse lock was rusted because it opened without a key."
Elliot snorted and shook his head, but the previous anger was gone from his eyes, and they were filled with warmth that reached into Olivia's heart.
"Have you always been like this?"
Olivia shrugged. "Yeah... But I learned from the best."
"Which is…?"
"You."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
And so they were in the car again on their way to the farm. Olivia's injuries had been less serious than expected: she had four stitches in her forehead, and she had also suffered a concussion. However, the unconsciousness had probably only been caused by pain and extreme physical and mental exertion, and she had been allowed to go home on the condition that someone would keep an eye on her the following night. Elliot glanced at Olivia sitting next to him; she was looking out the window, clearly lost in thought, and the sight made him smile lightly. When they had first sat in this car a couple of days ago, she had looked like she had seen a ghost.
Which was actually true.
He himself had only been confused, as their first meeting had been anything but what he had expected. In the car, the confusion had only begun to deepen, because the longer they had driven, the stronger the strange feeling inside him had begun to become.
A feeling that there was something familiar about the situation.
He hadn't been supposed to know the woman sitting next to him, but still her presence had made a little bell to jingle in the back of his head, a bell that tried to tell him that she wasn't just anyone.
Because she was Olivia.
His best friend, his former partner.
His Liv.
And now, sitting in the car, he knew that there really was something familiar about the situation. It was all familiar. Only the environment was different, otherwise the situation was so familiar that the feeling of it squeezed his chest.
"Why are you smiling?" A voice beside him interrupted his thoughts, and he turned to look at Olivia.
"Just… I know I've been in this situation before. You know, just me, you and our car."
"Yeah," Olivia smiled, but there was something sad in her smile. And then, completely out of the blue, she reached out and took his hand in hers.
"And you have no idea how much I've missed this."
But even without his memories, the flame of warmth playing in his heart told him she wasn't the only one who had missed this. And squeezing Olivia's hand he whispered:
"I have a hunch."
