Slap Chapter 13

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.

"She okay? What'd it show?" Elliot asked as they approached the gurney.

"We're still waiting on the results. We'll let you know as soon as we here. We had to sedate her to keep her still enough for the scan; she wouldn't cooperate very well. She's a tough one, had to give her enough benzos to knock out a prizefighter on PCP. She'll be knocked out for a while. We'll move her upstairs as soon as there's a spot available."

The doctor gave them a quick smile and nod and then was gone, leaving them staring at Olivia, looking small under the sheet. Elliot went over and shook her arm gently a few times, calling her name. She didn't move a muscle. It made him nervous, but the machine she was connected to was beeping at a steady, comforting rate. The man that had pushed the gurney back with the doctor, some sort of hospital tech, watched them looking at her and said, "She's not going to wake up for a while, guys. They completely snowed her to get her to lie still. Just leave her for now, she'll wake up in a few hours..."

Elliot pulled up a chair and sat down next to the gurney, looking at the clock: 8:45pm. Olvetti pulled out his phone, looked at Elliot and said "I'm gonna call my wife." He stepped out into the hallway. Casey looked at her friend and gave her hand one last squeeze. "I'm going to get some coffee and sandwiches. Call me if anything changes." She walked down the hall, leaving Elliot alone, staring at the pale face of his former partner.

Olvetti came back a few minutes later, then Casey bearing coffee and sandwiches. Elliot stepped out to call back to the 1-6 and give an update. Another doctor had come by and given them preliminary results that the MRI was okay, there was no bleeding or dangerous swelling. They were hopeful that in the morning, if she was feeling better, she'd be able to go home. They moved her upstairs to a private room on the 5th floor at about midnight. The nurses upstairs were sympathetic, but not sympathetic enough to let them stay overnight. They'd been allowed to stay until she was settled and then were unceremoniously told to leave; they could come back at 8am.

As they efficiently moved her sleeping form around in the bed, hooking her up to new wires and tubes, one of them kindly encouraged them to go, saying she'd be asleep all night anyway and wouldn't know if they were here or not. As if on cue, Olivia stirred, letting out a slight moan as she shifted in the bed. She didn't open her eyes, not even to her name or to the repetitive squeezing of the blood pressure cuff. They left reluctantly as the nurse shooed them from the room.

Olvetti arrived at the hospital at 730am and talked his way up to the nurse's station on the 5th floor. There he found Elliot Stabler arguing furiously with one of the nurses, holding two coffees in his hands. Eventually, one of the nurses from the previous night walked by. Recognizing the two men she'd said "No way. I remember you two. I said 8am. The waiting room is down the hall. Go on, it's only 20 minutes."

Fifteen minutes later they were allowed into her room. Approaching together, Elliot hung back and said "You go on in first, I'll wait here." Olvetti nodded and knocked softly on the door as he cracked it and stuck his head in. Olivia was lying in the bed with her eyes closed, with the head of the bed tilted up towards a sitting position. She didn't respond to the knock, but he entered quietly anyway and walked over to the side of the bed.

"Benson?" he called softly.

Without moving her head, she opened her eyes and looked at him, turning slightly when she recognized him. "Hey, Olvetti," she said with a little smile.

"Welcome back to the land of the living. They drugged the hell out of you last night."

"No kidding."

"How much do you remember?" he asked.

"I remember you throwing me into a brick wall," she said, raising one eyebrow.

"Ah, Olivia, I am so sorry, I didn't mean..I mean..It was an accident..." he stammered.

She smiled at him. "Ah, come Olvetti, I know. Hey, I'll take a brick wall over a Lincoln anyday..."

He chuckled at her in relief. "Do you remember the rest of they day?"

"You mean with the Lassley's?" He nodded and she shifted in the bed and looked down at her hands, becoming very interested in the tape holding her IV. "Yeah, I remember. They're okay? Colin and his mother?"

"Yeah. They're fine. Are you?" He looked at her with discerning eyes. He looked back at him. She felt that he knew something, but was too tired to try and navigate that route.

"Yeah, I will be."

"Benson, it was a good shooting, a clean one. You know that."

"I know."

"You didn't have any other choice. Hell, I wouldv'e done the same thing 3 seconds later, except I wouldn't have shot to disarm. "

"I know."

"You did what you needed to do, drunk mother or not."

She stared at him after that. "I know."

"Do you?"

She didn't answer, but became very interested in the IV again.

He saved them from the silence. "Did they say when they were going to let you out of here?"

She shook her head slowly no, they hadn't told her. "They said they'd come by this morning, but…." She made a face explaining what she thought of waiting…

"So, ah, Stabler's outside, want me to send him in?" Olvetti asked, figuring she'd want to see him.

Her eyebrows creased at that. "He is? How long has he been there?" She remembered asking him to call Cragen and Elliot, but didn't remember him ever showing up. She figured it had all been in her head.

"He was here last night, you don't remember?"

She started to shake her head, then changed her mind and said "No."

"You asked me to call him...Sorry if you didn't want me too, maybe the confusion..." Olvetti was backpedelling, remembering the fight he'd witnessed yesterday. 'Man, that was only yesterday...' he thought.

"No, I remember asking you to. It's okay. I just don't remember him being here." She wrinkled her eyebrows. Why had she asked for him? It must have been the concussion. She pushed her fingers into her eyes. Deep down she knew why she had asked for him: because after everything, he was still her friend, the one person she knew she could depend on. And that fact was killing her from the inside out.

Olvetti just sat beside her for a minute, giving her the time she needed.

Finally he spoke up, "Look, I can tell that you guys were close, maybe still are, I dunno, but…That guy was a wreck last night, man. What'd the hell ju do to him?"

"What the hell did I do to him?" That guy got everything that he had coming." Olvetti noticed a familiar jut to her jaw. He tilted his head, 'still pissed off about something.'

"Well," he said, "I'm just saying he was a wreck. Obviously he cares about you. Now, you're a knock-out, I know, but he's a married guy and I don't think he's stressed out 'cause he's got the hots for you, though I could see why….Anyway, why are you so pissed at him anyway?"

"It's a long story, Gary…" she went back to rubbing her eyes, the pressure made the rest of her head hurt a little less.

"Hey," he leaned back in the chair, putting his hands behind his head, legs stretched out. "I got time."

"We were partners for a long time," she started. "And then…Look, it's like….There was this…" She sighed a heavy sigh. "I just don't want to tell you all of that right now."

"Yeah, okay, no prob. But look, he's standing outside that door looking like a puppy left outside while it's owner gets some groceries. You gotta decide what you're going to say to him."

"Yeah, okay," she replied, shifting in the bed trying to get comfortable, suddenly realizing that she was just in a flimsy hospital gown and nothing else.

"I'll go distract the Captain and try to find the doctor to spring you from this joint, you talk to Stabler…" He gave her a quick smiled and headed out, while she shifted again and tried to get the blankets around her. Every movement hurt, she was so sore…

Olvetti walked out of the room and nodded to Stabler, who was leaning against the wall still holding two coffee cups, sipping out of one.

Elliot entered the room quietly, feeling relief when he saw her awake and moving with purpose. "Hey there, he said quietly. She looked up as he walked over to the chair next to the bed and sat down, offering her the second cup of coffee, which she took gladly.

"Thanks. Thank you for coming, I…." she meant to go on, to explain that she didn't need him there, that she shouldn't have called him and that he could go, but she was interrupted.

"I figured the only reason you asked for me was because your new guy didn't know how to get your coffee right," he said, and was rewarded with a smile.

"He's alright, just still learning. Um…Gary said you were here yesterday?"

"Yeah, you don't remember?"

She shook her head. "I don't remember anything after the spinal tap." She shuddered a little at the memory.

"Yeah, apparently you scared your partner, mumbling a bunch of nonsense..."

She grimaced at that. Elliot watched her, trying to discern exactly what was going on. He couldn't tell. Even after 10 years, as well as he knew her, she could still hide things when she wanted to. He moved to sit on the bed and took the coffee from her hands, setting on the side table.

"Olivia, what happened yesterday?" he asked.

"I almost got run over, El. Come on!" she replied, exasperated.

"No, Liv, I mean what happened with that case yesterday, and I don't mean the logistics of the case, I mean with the drunk mother." He laid it out on the table.

She took a deep breath before she spoke and when she did her voice was trembling, she avoided looking at him with tears in her eyes. He could still tell. "God, El, it was so horrible. She was so drunk, you could smell her from across the room. She reeked of booze, and the boy was yelling, she was yelling. It was like shooting my own mother."

He reached out to pull her into a hug and all of a sudden something happened that he hadn't seen in over 10 years of partnership.

Olivia Benson fell apart.

He held her as she cried, her sobs making her shoulders shake. Ever quiet, even in her distress she didn't make a lot of noise. After about 5 minutes, her sobs slowing, she lifted her head.

"Oh my god, Elliot. I'm so sorry." She looked down again at her lap and wiped her eyes with her hands.

He gave her a quick squeeze on her shoulder. "Hey, don't be sorry. You're probably due for a breakdown. After all, you did almost get run over. Plus your former partner's a jackass and your current partner threw you into a wall."

She gave him a crooked smile, wiping the tears away again. "God, I don't know what's wrong with me."

"Liv, you have gone through a hundred things in the last 24 hours, any one of which would make a normal person want to cry. Give yourself a break."

She took a deep, shaky breath as she looked away from him, out the window, wanting to avoid eye contact.

"Look, Liv, you should know..." he paused and she looked back at him. This time he looked away, not wanting it to be worse for her. "Yesterday, you weren't making a lot of sense, you were confused, you..."

Olivia could see where this was heading. "What did I say, El, just tell me..."

"You were going on and on about how drunk this lady was, and then you started in about a broken bottle and how she was going to cut you..."

Olivia looked out the window again and shook her head, "I must've been really confused. She didn't have any glass bottle..." She refused to look at him, inwardly willing him to drop it, to chalk it up to getting knocked on the head.

"Olivia, Casey told us. About Carrie Eldridge and Simone Bryce. And your mother."

"Why did she do that?" she asked quietly, not bothering to deny any of it.

"Because we were worried, we thought you'd lost your marbles. Casey...Casey knew and she told us."

"Us...you mean you and Olvetti?" she asked, her voice low. Elliot nodded.

She pursed her lips and nodded, staring out the window again. She still wouldn't make eye contact with him. Elliot was staring at her and all he could see were her big brown eyes and the giant bruise on the side of her head.

"Liv, I'm sorry..."

She shook her head, interrupting him "It's okay, Elliot, don't be sorry. I'm okay."

"No, I mean I'm REALLY sorry. For everything."

She sighed heavily. What was he expecting from her? To say everything was fine, okay, say let's go back to how things were a month ago, a year ago. Things weren't okay and they couldn't go back to how things were.

"I know you're sorry, El. It's just I'm not sure if sorry is going to be enough."

She went on, "I can't go backwards, can't undue things, and neither can you. I shouldn't have asked for you yesterday, that was a mistake." She said it defiantly, yet sadly.

Elliot felt his heart sink at those words. "I'm not asking to undue things, I'm asking…I don't know, Liv. What they hell is going on here?"

"I don't know either, Elliot. What I do know is that I can't be your partner any more; You're NOT my partner anymore, you don't need to be running around, checking on me, fixing me."

"I'm not…I mean…I know…" He paused, then "Yeah….I think you were right. We were starting to not work as partners. I mean, we were good, damn good, the best, but the other stuff, it got to be too much. Liv, I've sat through a lot of therapy in the past month."

He could see her tensing up, shutting down. He knew she did this before getting bad news, it was a way of protecting herself…

"Look, I know I'm not your partner anymore. That guy out there is probably better for you anyway after the things I've done, but look, we can't just throw 10 years away, Liv. We gave up so much for each other…"

"Yeah, things that we shouldn't have. It's over, Stabler. Over. Just go." He glanced over at her. She had her eyes closed, he eyed the giant bruise and scrape on her temple.

His shoulders dropped. "Why did you ask Olvetti to call me?"

She looked at him one last time before looking down again. "Because I was scared and…and I'm alone and I knew you would come." She said it quietly, as if she was ashamed. "I shouldn't have asked you, I'm sorry. Just go, Stabler. I'll be okay." She closed her eyes and laid back on the bed. She barely heard him when he spoke.

"Maybe it's not just you I'm worried about this time." She heard his footsteps slowly fading away.