Slap – Chapter 12

…a car went out of control and ran down the officers standing on the sidewalk. He says she's okay right now, but she was asking for you." He gave the detective a pointed look.

Elliot was already on his feet. "Where is she?" he asked, already halfway out the door.

"Mercy. Call me and let me know, Elliot!" Cragen called after him as Elliot ran.

Olvetti sat on a chair in the hallway of the ER. They had forced him to have a doctor look at his arm. They young doctor had cleaned it out and put 4 stitches in. He had a bandage wrapped around his arm, but it looked better than the torn, bloody sleeve. He sat across from the gurney his partner was lying on, being attended to by a doctor and a nurse who were messing with IV lines and wires. She was still very restless, not following instructions very well, but she wasn't as confused anymore. The doctor said something to the nurse and then waved to Olvetti. He stood up and hurried into the room. The doctor explained to both of them that the CT Scan of her brain looked fine, but they were still worried about bleeding or pressure on the brain that they weren't able to see, considering the vomiting and her agitation, which were both bad signs. Olvetti stood like a statue as the doctor went on to explain that they wanted to do a spinal tap and then an MRI. Olivia had closed her eyes as the doctor was speaking, her hands still fluttering as if she couldn't keep them still, picking up first the blanket and then the IV in her wrist. Gary picked up her hand and held it to keep her from pulling out the IV again.

"Benson," he called. She opened her eyes and struggled to focus on him. She had a giant goose egg and a cut on her head. They had cleaned off the blood, but the swelling was frightening. "Did you hear the doctor? What they want to do?"

"Yeah, I heard. Stick a needle in my back and an MRI. Okay. Just don't make me move, okay?"

"Yeah, okay. Look, do you want me to stay for the spinal tap or wait outside?" She squeezed his hand. She appreciated his support, but she didn't want him in the room for that. She said no, careful not to shake her head no as she said it.

"Okay, I'll be right outside." He gave her hand another squeeze and headed back to his chair.

The doctor pulled the curtain and Olvetti could hear the murmured instructions he was giving. He winced just thinking about what she was having to go through. About 10 minutes later, the doctor came out and approached him.

"You know, she is not really cooperating very well. The agitation, restlessness, distraction, forgetfulness. It's pretty common with head injuries. We're probably going to have to sedate her for the MRI, just wanted to give you a head's up. She'll be pretty out of it for a while."

Olvetti nodded at him and sat back down. He glanced down the hall where the driver of the car was being treated. The jerk had gotten away with barely a scratch on him. Besides Olivia, a uniformed officer had been hit and had a broken leg and one other bystander had fallen and gotten banged up a bit. He was staring again at the curtain hiding his partner when he saw Elliot Stabler hurrying down the hall. He stood and gave a wave, catching his attention. Stabler changed direction and headed for him. He stood and extended a hand, which Elliot shook distractedly.

"Where is she?" he asked. Olvetti gestured with his chin towards the curtain.

Elliot turned and headed for the curtain and then paused when Olvetti reached out and grabbed his arm, wincing as the movement put pressure on the fresh cut.

"Hey, man, she's okay, I think. Banged up and pretty confused though." He let the man go when he saw he'd slowed down a little, he didn't want the guy barging in an scaring the crap out of her.

On the gurney behind the curtain, Olivia heard familiar voices. Through the fog, she tried to place them and couldn't, grimacing with the effort. She heard the curtain being pulled back, but didn't open her eyes, her forehead creased with pain.

"Hey, Liv." She heard a familiar voice speaking the words quietly. It felt like time was moving in slow motion. She tried to place the voice and she felt someone patting her arm. Finally it dawned on her. Elliot.

She opened her eyes a crack and tilted her head the slightest amount to allow her to see him. He saw her movement and grabbed her hand.

"Hey there..."

"Elliot..." she managed to squeak out.

"How're you feeling?" he asked quietly.

"Like shit," she replied, closing her eyes again.

"Olvetti said you got hit by a car?" he asked, figuring the question would help him ascertain how confused she was.

"No," she said, her eyes still closed. "I got hit by a brick wall." Her voice was slightly groggy, as if she'd just been woken from a deep sleep. "I have bad luck with partners," she mumbled. "The first one slaps me and the second throws me into a brick wall. Well, I guess it was better than a Lincoln." She opened her eyes again and looked at her partner seriously. Elliot noticed a strange look come over her face. "You know I didn't want to, right? Hit her, I mean. The woman was drunk, El and she was coming at me with a bottle." She laid back again and closed her eyes, moving her legs and scratching at the hand with the IV. Elliot grabbed her hand and held it still as she pulled against him, eyes closed with pain still etched on her face. Well, she knew which way was up, but she wasn't talking much sense. He'd have to ask Olvetti what she was talking about. The doctor came in with another couple of people, hospital staff of some sort and started disconnecting wires and tubes.

The young doctor with the glasses put her head down near Olivia's and said quietly "Hey, we're going to take you for more pictures of your head, okay? You just lie still." She looked up at Elliot and nodded with a small smiled and then they were whisking her down the hallway, leaving him and Olvetti to stare at each other.

The two men sat in the uncomfortable plastic chairs in the hallway, staring in the direction the gurney had gone. After several minutes, Elliot asked, "So what happened?"

"Ah, man, whadda mess. It was just supposed to be a simple arrest, CPS was there to take the kid..." he drifted off, recollecting in his head all the things that had gone wrong that day.

"So we get there and this lady was drunk, man. She was totally plastered and she's got herself locked in her apartment with a gun and this poor kid." Olvetti shook his head at the memory. Just as he was about to speak again, Casey Novak strode up to them.

"Elliot! Oh my god! How is she?" she demanded, breathlessly, looking at the two men with wide eyes. Her hair was windblown and her suit rumpled. Elliot had rarely seen the competent lawyer look so frenzied.

"She's okay, we think. They took her for an MRI." Elliot grabbed her shoulder reassuringly.

She nodded and swallowed. "Mark Rufford told me. Someone called him and told him his arrest had gone bad, perp had shot at the cops and then a drunk driver ran over one of the detectives." She said it as a question, asking them for confirmation. Elliot looked at Olvetti, who then continued...

"Yeah, so this lady is totally drunk and she pulls a gun on us. She's swinging it around like it's a toy and it goes off, pointed right at this kid, who's screaming at us not to kill him mom. Benson takes the shot, great shot ya know." His Brooklyn accent was getting thicker as the night went on. "Hit the lady right in the shooting arm. I took her outside after, she was a little shook up, you know, like you get..." Elliot was giving him a blank look, the Olivia he knew didn't get shook up, certainly not for shooting a perp that was putting a kid in danger. Casey was hanging on Olvetti's every word, her mouth open in astonishment.

"So then we're standing there on the corner of 9th Avenue and Benson's giving me some story about how she didn't want to shoot the drunk and all of a sudden this car comes out of nowhere straight for us. I pulled her out of the way, but the car clipped both of us. She ends up taking a header into the building behind us." He finishes the story and rolls his shoulders back and rubs the back of his neck.

"She kills me, that one," he says of Olivia, Brooklyn voice full of emotion. "When she finally wakes up I ask her if she remembers what happened and you know what she says?" He didn't wait for an answer. "She say, 'Yeah, I remember. It was a Lincoln...'" He shook his head. "She's too much, this one! Don't know how you let her go..." he said, looking at Elliot.

Elliot mumbled something unintelligible and looked down.

Casey was still hanging on his every word. "So she's okay?"

"Yeah, I think so...I dunno...she started puking and then started not making sense. The doctors are worried that she's all confused and agitated because of bleeding or swelling in her brain. They say the MRI will tell us for sure."

He sat himself back down and hung his head, elbows on his knees. "Ah, man, she was scaring the crap out of me." The man looked distraught. Elliot sat down next to him as they waited. Olvetti started running on. "She was scaring me, man. The dry heaving and she's going on and on about how she didn't want to shoot the drunk woman, how she didn't want to, said there wasn't a gun, but that she had a broken glass bottle and was going to cut her. She kept saying 'but she was drunk, she didn't mean it' and I'm saying to her 'no, she meant it, she fired a gun at her own kid' and she keeps insisting that there wasn't a gun and that she was going to cut her with a bottle. I dunno man...she got her bell rung bad. Does any of that make sense to you? Maybe an old case or something?" He looked up at Elliot and Casey.

Elliot was just shaking his head, "Nah, no, doesn't sound familiar."

Casey was still standing with her mouth open wide eyed. Suddenly she jerked slightly and closed her mouth. Always perceptive, Olvetti pounced. "That means something to you! What was she talking about?" Casey shrugged her shoulders back, trying to gather herself. She looked at Elliot for help, but he was giving her a blank look as well. She looked back to Olvetti who was looking at her like she had the ability to fix everything.

"Ah, I, I dunno...She must be confused..." she mumbled, avoiding eye contact with either of the men.

"Come on, Casey. What's she talking about?" Elliot pushed.

The redhead didn't reply, but shifted her briefcase to her other hand and went to sit in the chair next to Elliot.

She used the movement to think about what she was going to say. She looked to Elliot. "Remember the Carrie Eldridge case?"

"The teenager who stabbed her mother to death? Yeah, I remember," he replied.

"Did Olivia ever tell you why she got a plea deal?" she questioned, purposefully vague.

"No," he replied dismissively. "I assumed that the defense worked, sympathetic jury wouldn't convict."

"No, we polled the jury. We had a conviction." Casey replied.

"So why di-" Elliot tried to reply.

Casey cut him off, "So she never told you how she knows Simone Bryce?"

"The child rights attorney? No, I figured they'd met on the job." Elliot was looking at Casey, trying to put the pieces together. Olivia'd been upset about that case, drawing strong parallels with her own mother, he thought. Maybe this case was too, from what Olvetti had been saying the woman tonight sounded like a piece of work. It still didn't explain what Liv had been saying though...

Casey sighed and shifted in her seat. She didn't know how to get out of this one.

"I pled her out because Olivia asked me to." Casey said quietly. "She'd met Simone Bryce when she was a teenager and Bryce was a law student." She paused to think again about how she was going to tell this. She trusted Elliot, but the jury was still out of Olvetti. She liked the guy, and she thought Olivia did too, but she didn't know how much she had told him about her personal life. 'Well,' she thought 'I guess he's gonna get an earful now.'

She went on "She told me, the night before the hearing, that when she was 16 she'd tried to move in with an older boyfriend. Her mom..." She looked at Olvetti, wondering how much he knew. Knowing Liv, she guessed not much.

She went on, looking at Olvetti. "Her mom was a drunk. An alcoholic and a terrible mother, neglectful...anyway. Her mom...When her mom found out, and she'd been drinking, of course, she dropped the bottle of whatever it was and went after Liv with the broken half. She told me she got away, got out of the apartment, but..."

The three sat there in silence for a moment.

"Well shit." Olvetti said suddenly. "I don't know whether to feel better or worse. At least I know she's not nuts, what she was saying makes perfect sense knowing that story, but damn, that's pretty shitty."

"Yeah, well, she probably wasn't planning on you finding out any of that, so..." Casey went on.

Olvetti looked to Elliot. "Did you know any of that?"

He shrugged. "I knew about her mother, but she never told me that. She always told me her mother never hit her, kept to ignoring her and insults, but she never said anything about that."

The three fell back into silence, waiting. Olvetti was the first to notice the gurney coming back down the hall, pushed by the doctor and another person. He jumped up, as did Elliot and then Casey. They could see her lying still, eyes closed, pale, with the bruise and scrape on her head obvious next to the white of the sheet. She didn't move a muscle as they swung the gurney back into the curtained alcove.

Tbc

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