[Trigger Warning: short William Lewis mention]
Emergency Contact
~oOo~
"I bet you can't climb as high as me!" Tom dares her, his eyes hard and challenging as he peers downward from his lofty perch on a tree branch. Olivia simply places her hands on her hips in response. She's nine years old, and already tired of boys telling her things that girls cannot apparently do – or indeed, what girls should be doing instead.
"It'll be easy to climb higher than you," she retorts, marching over to the tree and scrambling upwards, her fingers scraping on the bark as she hoists herself from branch to branch inelegantly. She's not afraid of heights, but it's the first time she's properly tried to scale a tree in a significant way, and she's smart enough to avoid glancing down at the small crowd gathered below as she aims higher and higher. Soon, her eyes are level with Tom's shoes, and then she's pulling herself onto a branch nearby to where he's clutching at the tree trunk. He looks almost impressed and then surprised as she continues on, determined to win her claim.
"You've proven your point!" he calls after her, voice now slightly nervous, and internally she's proud of herself for making him seem silly for doubting her in the first place. Of course, he's telling her to stop now – he doesn't want his friends seeing her win their challenge.
She's just reaching for the next handhold, her feet precariously balanced on a narrower branch now she's so high, when there is a sudden, loud CRACK, and then there is only air beneath her feet. She shrieks, fingers clawing at branches desperately as she tumbles towards the ground, skin tearing as she grasps and then loses her grip on a lifeline branch. Finally, the solid earth rushes towards her, and she hits it hard, tumbling over as she rolls slightly from the impact.
For a moment, she merely tries to breathe, the air entering her lungs in stuttering gasps, her ribs aching. There is a growing burn radiating from her left wrist, starting as a pain alongside the rest of her aching body, but then becoming progressively worse until she is curled up slightly, trying not to whimper in agony.
"Your wrist is probably broken," the hard-faced nurse tells her, when Olivia slinks through the door to the nurse's station a few minutes later, having refused to have any of her friends accompany her. She's clutching onto her forearm and biting her lip to keep from crying. Life has taught her the hard way that tears bring nothing helpful and indeed can make a situation worse — at least when she's dealing with someone volatile like her mother when drunk. Besides, she's nine now — surely too old to weep over a broken bone or two.
The school tries to call her mother, making her sit and wait with the nurse for half an hour before they realize there won't be any success in reaching Serena.
"What's your father's number?" the nurse demands, no doubt checking the school records and only finding the one contact detail for Olivia.
Olivia shrugs and then shakes her head grumpily. The pain is ever-present, and she's feeling a mixture of exhaustion and anger that she's failing to get medical attention because the adults can't sort themselves out.
"Don't have one," she mutters eventually.
"Uncle? Aunt? Grandparent?" the nurse presses, clearly wanting to hand over her responsibility to the closest relative she can drag up.
"It's just my mom and I," Olivia says quietly. And that's the truth, although she's never really thought about it before. Sure, she's felt sadness sometimes at how many of her classmates seem to have two loving parents, or siblings that are as close as friends, or large family gatherings to attend, all the while complaining that they have to go 'visiting their relatives'. Yet, it's never registered that not only does she lack any close family relatives at all, but in an emergency, her own mother is completely unreliable too. It's not a surprise unfortunately, she knows that sometimes Mom's own demons are too much on certain days, but it makes her feel lonelier than ever before.
Eventually, the school allows the history teacher — a rather large, scary man who has a loud voice and often shouts at the class when they're being disruptive — to take her to the hospital, where she gets an x-ray followed by a cast. He's been kinder to her than she had expected, and he sits with her in the waiting room when they finally receive confirmation that her mother is on her way to collect her and take her home.
"Are you sure you're alright?" he asks at one point, his hand hovering awkwardly in the air, as if he wants to pat her on the shoulder or do something adults assume is comforting. But Olivia simply sinks lower in her seat and nods her head.
"Fine," she says and turns her face away.
And she is fine — her wrist heals, and she learns an important lesson about being prepared to sort out any issues in life herself, without relying on other people.
The boys at school have also learned their lesson — for the rest of her time there, despite her being far from 'in' with the popular crowd, she carries a reputation of being a badass, the girl who didn't make a single noise when her wrist snapped. There's no more talk of what girls can or cannot do, at least not in front of her, because they all know that Olivia Benson will prove them otherwise.
~oOo~
She's been at SVU for five months when a suspect manages to get a jump on her, bringing her crashing to the floor of the abandoned warehouse, where her gun slips out of her fingers.
It had been a full manhunt for this perp, and she knows Elliot, Munch, and Cassidy are somewhere in the building also. She can only hope that one of them hears her yelling as she tussles with the man, flinging one arm up instinctively as he raises a knife overheard, the blade glinting in the light filtering in from the broken window as it drives downwards, slicing into her skin. Her other hand comes up, smashing into her attacker's face before she shifts her body sideways, scrambling out from underneath him and flinging her foot towards his chest, kicking him practically halfway across the room. She crawls across the floor to her weapon, pulling it on their suspect just as the sound of feet pound on the stairs nearby.
"LIV?" Elliot's voice is loud, and he skids into the room a moment later, gun already in hand as he assesses the scene with a fearful expression. "Are you alright?"
"Fine," she snaps, slowly rising to her feet, her eyes never leaving her would-be attacker. Munch and Cassidy arrive seconds later, Munch dragging Brian forwards to cuff the man roughly and read him his rights. As soon as they have the situation under control, Olivia lets out a deep breath, allowing the pain to register in her mind for the first time.
"Shit, you're bleeding," Elliot's voice wavers slightly, and he crowds closer, his full attention on her now the danger has passed. She'd heard a variety of rumors about Elliot Stabler just before she had transferred to the 1-6, but he's been nothing but a great partner to her, and she knows he'll be internally kicking himself now for failing to have her back.
"El, it's fine," she says, and it's just a nickname but not one she's used before, so it makes her pause. He doesn't appear to have noticed, too busy cradling her arm in one of his hands as the other gently peels back her sleeve.
"He cut you?" he asks, but it's not really a question, not when he can see the evidence before his eyes. "Come on, you need to go to the hospital and get stitches. This looks bad."
She finally clips her gun back on her hip, realizing that Munch and Cassidy have already left the scene, but the movement of her other arm causes another pain to flare up across her back, prompting her to gasp.
"Liv?" Elliot questions again, and she rests a bit more of her weight against his strong hands as she tries to control her reaction.
"Lower back," she manages to get out, and he leans around slightly, still holding her bleeding arm, to check her back also. From his curses, there is a genuine reason why she's in pain.
"Looks like some glass is embedded," he explains, his fingers brushing against the skin on her waist as he raises her top slightly. "Must be from the broken window. Come on then partner, let me get you to the hospital."
He supports her to the car, and once he has her settled in the passenger seat, her good hand holding a clean t-shirt from his bag against her still-bleeding wound with strict instructions to keep the pressure on it, he drives off at a higher speed than he really should.
Several hours and multiple stitches later, Olivia can't wait to be released so she can go home. The pain relief they gave her has made her mind feel slightly as if it is floating, and she's practically cheery when Elliot pokes his head into her room once the nurses have left.
"Hey, El!" she says excitedly, waving her good hand and his expression falls into something that can only be described as soft. She's surprised but pleased to see that he has stayed at the hospital with her.
"Hey," he says, coming to sit next to her. She stares at his hands, clasped together in his lap, and for some strange reason wants to reach out and grasp onto his fingers. Luckily, she refrains. "The doctor is happy to let you go home, but they've given you too many painkillers for you to be unaccompanied."
"Nah, that's fine," she shakes her head. "No one to accompany me home anyway. But I know how to look after myself."
It's not a lie — she has been doing that for a long time already in life, but by the looks of it, Elliot is not happy with her response.
"They…tried to call your mother?" he says tentatively. "But she hasn't answered all this time. We can wait for a while longer though."
Olivia makes a dismissive 'pfft' noise with her lips, her head falling back against the pillow.
"She's unreliable," she announces. She hasn't shared her past with her partner yet, but her foggy mind tells her that she probably should soon. Maybe not now though, when she's lacking her usual filter. "It's fiiine, El. Let me just go home and deal with it."
In the end, Elliot takes her back to her apartment himself, sitting on her couch for several hours until her thoughts become clearer and the pain becomes worse, indicating that the drugs are wearing off. She manages to force him to leave eventually, to go home to his family, promising all the while that she'll call her mother once he's gone. They both know it's a lie.
Two days later, Elliot drops some papers onto her desk.
"I'm not filling out your DD5s," she says good-naturedly, reaching out to push the papers aside without even reading them. Something makes her stop however, picking up the top sheet instead and reading the title.
Elliot rubs his hand on the back of his neck nervously as she reads.
"It's an emergency contact form for work," he explains as if she can't figure that out for herself. The bigger question is why he's giving it to her in the first place. "Kathy's obviously the first name on my records."
"Obviously," Olivia thinks, and the sudden vitriol in her mind is shocking. She has no issue with Kathy, and she pushes that thought deep, deep inside her, refusing to reflect on that reaction again.
Elliot continues, luckily having no idea what is going on in her head.
"However, I was thinking that it's always you and me at crime scenes, which is arguably where accidents are gonna happen. Would be good if you were also an emergency contact for me — will help at the hospital."
He shrugs as if his request is no big deal, and Olivia finds herself nodding in agreement without even thinking about it.
"I…I guess that would make sense for me too?" she checks, almost as if asking for permission, and he smiles brightly at her, waving a second pile of papers at her in his hand.
"I thought so," he says. "Got a second form right here."
She knows he's doing this all for her — that he has a family and people in his life that could be all the emergency contacts he could ever need — but she's grateful to be included in his life this way, grateful that she now has a second name on her very short list of people who could be there in case of an emergency for her. She already knows he's far more reliable than her own mother— that he will have her back. For some reason, she can't imagine a time he won't be there when she needs him to be, despite him having family priorities also, despite the fact that they are so early on in their partnership.
When her mother dies a couple of years later, she knows there is still one name on her list of emergency contacts, and it helps her feel less alone in the world.
~oOo~
After the horrors of Lewis, after those four long days that change her life forever, one of the things that ends up breaking her down for a while is not the nightmares or the pain of her injuries, but something a nurse says.
"Do you have anyone we can call for you?" the nurse asks, her voice kind. "We called your emergency contact, but there hasn't been a response yet."
There hasn't been a response, and there won't be a response, because Elliot stopped taking calls from her two years ago. She hadn't even thought to change her emergency contact, and the idea of removing his name even now is difficult to think about.
She has other people she can call — Brian, or any one of her work colleagues, but the one person she wants to contact won't be there, and that is the thought that cuts the deepest when she realizes. The sobs come loud and deep, rattling through her chest as she brings her hands up to hide her face. The nurse is still in the room somewhere, but for once, she doesn't think or feel self-conscious, allowing her emotions to take over instead.
"I'm here, Liv," there is a voice next to her, someone coming to settle on a chair next to her bed in a comforting manner. It's not the voice she wants to hear—- that she had fantasized coming to save her in those dark moments, but it's one that helps her to calm anyway.
When she raises her head, trying in vain to wipe away the tears that keep on falling, Fin is staring back at her, a steady presence by her side.
He becomes her emergency contact the next day, without any discussion passing either of their lips.
~oOo~
When Noah comes into her life, everything changes.
It's no longer Olivia Benson, alone in the world. Now it's 'Olivia and Noah Benson', the mother-son duo that she never thought she'd be able to experience in life, and it takes her a long time — beyond the actual process of adopting Noah — to believe that she can really be his mother forever, and no-one will be able to take him away from her.
She's determined to ensure he won't have the same upbringing she had, with no family and a fear of abandonment that seems to get proven correct time and time again. Instead, she wants him surrounded by love and support, and the knowledge that no matter what happens to her — on the job or in life — he will never be alone in this world.
Fin has remained her sole emergency contact, and she's content to keep it that way, regardless of the fact that she's sure there are several other people on the squad who would happily step up for her. She seems to be bad luck, cursed with the ability to drive people out of her life forever no matter how hard she tries to bind them tight, fulfilling that doomed prophecy her mother had told her — everyone leaves, eventually. She doesn't want to tempt fate anymore, trying to keep people in her orbit without pulling them in so close that they leave her once more, and it's a delicate game of push-pull.
But for Noah, that is not enough. For Noah, she knows they will always turn up, and for that she is grateful. Lewis is still fresh enough in her mind and her nightmares to remind her that nothing in this world should be taken for granted, including her own safety, so she spends a painstaking amount of time filling out paperwork to ensure that Fin and Amanda are not only his secondary emergency contacts but also his guardians should something serious befall her once again. She becomes ridiculously emotional over the damn papers, eyes blurring occasionally with tears, although she doesn't know if they're triggered by the idea of her leaving Noah behind, despite her promises to always protect him, or from pride that she's managing to break the cycle of abusive, unreliable parenting for her son.
In the end, his emergency contact list keeps growing…Cragen is added, followed by Nick, and Rafa. One evening, Olivia sits at home at the end of a long day, her son snuggled into her side as they watch television, and her mind registers for the first time that she's succeeded in creating a family for Noah. It may not be by blood, it may be some strange mix of people who probably would not have interacted with each other if their work hadn't brought them together, but it's a family nonetheless.
~oOo~
More than a year after he's returned to New York and to her life, Olivia is having a brief lunch with Elliot, perched on her office couch, and sharing boxes of Chinese takeout as if they are back in their partnership era all over again. She's using the chopsticks to expertly maneuver large quantities of food into her mouth, time extremely limited before she has to be back out discussing the case with the rest of the team, and he's just finished teasing her about her "chipmunk cheeks" full of food when her cell rings. She practically chokes as she tries to clear her mouth, shooting Elliot a glare as he stifles a snort of laughter at her behavior.
"Captain Benson," she announces, not looking at the caller ID as she tucks the phone against her ear with one hand, and tries to take a subtle sip of water with the other. There's a brief pause at the end of the line.
"Hi there Noah's mom!" a cheerful voice says. "I'm Laura, the nurse at—"
"What's wrong? Is Noah alright?" Olivia interrupts immediately, sitting forward and on alert for the first indication of trouble. Elliot senses her mood change, and sits upright too, hands on his knees and a frown on his face as he tries to overhear the conversation. She switches to speakerphone as they await a response.
"Don't worry, Noah's fine," Laura the nurse soothes. "He's just got a bad stomach and a bit of a temperature. I think he may have caught the flu that's been going around, so he's taking a nap right now in my office. But someone should collect him and take him home for the afternoon."
"Absolutely," Olivia agrees, nodding although she knows Laura can't see her. "Someone from his emergency contact list will collect him as soon as possible."
When she hangs up the phone moments later, she presses the palms of her hands hard against her eyes, elbows resting on her thighs as she tries to think of a solution.
"Fuck," she mutters. They have a missing child — hence the whirlwind lunch to begin with — and Fin and Amanda are all hands on deck the same as she. Rafa is out of town, and Cragen lives too far away to make it to the school easily. Perhaps if Carisi wasn't in court…
"I can pick him up," Elliot says so quietly, she almost thinks her mind made it up.
"Sorry?" she asks, turning her head to eye him curiously.
"I could pick Noah up," El shrugs, trying to appear nonchalant. "I don't need to be in the office this afternoon… I can easily do paperwork from my home. Or your home, even."
She's nodding before he even finishes his explanation, relieved. Noah and Elliot have been getting on like a house on fire, the last few times they've hung out together, and she's witnessed firsthand Elliot's ability to make a sick child feel better.
She calls the school in advance, adding Elliot to the 'safe' list of people who can collect her child from school, and then after a second of reflection, asks for him to be added to the top of the list for Noah's emergency contacts after herself. If Fin and Amanda are always with her on cases, it makes sense that Elliot is a good alternative, she argues with herself, but in reality, it's simply because she wants Elliot to have that position in her son's life.
She speaks to Noah over the phone when he's in the car on the way home, reassuring both him and herself that it's nothing more serious than a stomach bug, and he won't need to see a doctor. In a perfect world, she'd be taking her son back home in person, or at least able to promise to see him soon, but instead, she sends him love and has to hang up, forced to face down evil once again. Her guilt and sadness at not being there is slightly tempered by the fact she knows Elliot will take care of Noah as if he were his own.
Their case thankfully has a happy ending, reuniting a young boy with his parents, and when she arrives home many hours later, she is in good spirits. Unlocking the door, she slips into her apartment, toeing off her shoes and hanging her coat quietly. Not only is it late, but since Noah has been unwell, she fully expects him to be fast asleep. However, when she passes through the kitchen and living room, she can't find Elliot anywhere either.
It isn't until she peeks into her son's bedroom that she discovers them both. Noah's fast asleep, snoring from what sounds like blocked sinuses, a large lump under the covers with only his curly mop of hair on display. Elliot is also asleep, half propped up against the headboard of the bed, his head dropped down towards his chest and his arm tucked around the Noah-lump in bed. A book lies abandoned on his lap, pages askew from where it has fallen from his fingers.
She tiptoes in, smoothing a gentle hand on Noah's hair as she kisses the tiny bit of his temple that she can access amongst all the bedding. He doesn't stir, merely letting out another loud snore. When she raises her head, Elliot's tired eyes are watching her.
"Come on," she whispers, and he slides off the bed carefully, taking a moment to press his own kiss to the top of Noah's head before she leads him away to her own room.
~oOo~
The first thought that passes through her mind as she pulls herself from the wreckage of her SUV is not regarding the pain that hits her body, but is rather "Fuck, again?"
She's been in law enforcement for over a quarter of a century now and is fairly proud of the fact that she's avoided the classic gunshot wound through her entire career. Car accidents however are apparently another story, and she's feeling rather bitter at her luck as she wiggles through the window of her overturned vehicle, trying to ignore the memories of Kathy in labor or her ankle being broken. The worst part — or perhaps the best, her mind can't decide or think clearly at this moment — is that none of these accidents have ever been her fault. Indeed, as she peers across at the other car, and the crowd of good samaritans trying to help the man behind the wheel, she thinks this will most likely end up being another case of a drunk driver coming through the intersection on her green light.
"Ma'am, are you alright?" a man's voice asks her, someone crouching down next to her and trying to help drag her away from the wreck. As soon as their hand touches her left shoulder, a sharp pain lances through her entire body, and she can't help but swear loudly.
"Make sure they're sending another ambulance!" the person yells, but she tunes them out beyond those words, lying on the cold ground and staring up at the night sky whilst trying to ignore the waves of agony coming from her shoulder and wrist, focusing instead on her bad luck in car accidents.
"You'll need to wear this sling for a few days at least," the doctor tells her seriously, after they've reset her dislocated shoulder at the hospital. "We'll provide you instructions before you go, but in the meantime sit tight — we'll be back with your x-ray results for that wrist."
They've already informed her that her wrist is likely broken — the x-rays are merely a formality to check just how badly a breakage she's ended up experiencing. Next will be the cast, and she's dreading that moment. It's too soon after her poor ankle had been encased in its own cast and boot, and her bad mood is plummeting even further as she thinks about what will happen in the following weeks.
Not the rehabilitation and the discomfort of the healing process. No, that she's able to face without blinking. But she can already envision the eyes on her from the younger officers — the old Captain who keeps experiencing injuries, and the whispers about her age that are bound to accompany their stares. How McGrath will inevitably want her to remain on desk duty while the sling and cast are still in use, and her own doctor will most likely mention retirement yet again to her face.
Growing old sucks, she is nowhere near ready to retire yet, and she fervently wishes drunk drivers, because that is indeed who collided with her SUV tonight, would stay clear of her from this day forward.
She leans her head against the back of the chair, thankful for the private room she's been provided while she awaits the rest of the test results, yet determined not to be forced onto the bed like an invalid if at all possible. The doctor departs, having said what he needed to convey, and aware that she has simply decided to ignore the world for a while.
"We'll return to check on you in a bit," the nurse accompanying him tells her in a far-too-cheerful voice. "While you wait, we can send your visitors in."
She scurries from the room before Olivia can ask exactly what visitors she may have. Her cell is lost somewhere in the wreckage, but she's aware that word may have already spread through the law enforcement gossip channels that it was the SVU Captain's vehicle that was hit, and at the very least, she's sure Fin was called — his name is still the one listed as her emergency contact.
But the person who barges through the door seconds after the nurse leaves is not Fin, but Elliot, his face a canvas of ever-changing emotions.
"Noah?" she asks before he can say anything. She hasn't had access to any phone while she's been at the hospital, and now she's concerned her son may have heard about the accident without her being able to reassure him that she's not been seriously hurt.
"He's with Kathleen and he's fine," Elliot says, dropping down into the chair next to hers. One hand reaches out to grasp hers, whilst the other goes to her jaw, his fingers gentle as he turns her head one way and then the other, assessing the cuts and bruises on her face.
"I'm fine too," she tells him, her lips curling upwards as he raises his eyebrows in disbelief. "Alright, so my shoulder and wrist are slightly damaged, but besides that…"
"Fin has gone to arrest the other driver," he tells her, tightening his grip on her good hand as his voice becomes slightly emotional. "Liv, I…"
"Fin told you I was here?" she figures out. "Sorry, my phone must still be somewhere in the SUV."
He nods, looking away for a moment, and then back to her. She can sense he's thinking carefully about what he wants to say next.
"I don't want that to happen again," he admits after his hesitation. "I don't want to hear you've been in some medical emergency second-hand through Fin. I know he's been your emergency contact all these years, and I understand he's had your back when I failed, but…"
"You can be my emergency contact," she interrupts him, understanding what he's trying to ask, and all that it means. It's not simply about a name on a piece of paper, but an acknowledgment that she knows he won't leave her again, that he can be a part of her life that she can trust. And it may be ridiculous, because she already has El in her bed and as a partner in life, already has Fin and a whole group of people around her who love and care for her as much as they do for Noah, but the idea of having Elliot's name down once more as her emergency contact makes her feel slightly less alone in the world. She'll always have abandonment issues, but a tiny part of her heart feels complete now she has said those words.
He leans in to kiss her, being careful not to touch any of her bruises, and then they wait for her x-ray results, side by side once more.
