apologies to everyone weirded out by the last little chappie. recall: liv was drunk, exhausted, and having an orgasm. so it only figures she'd be all wiggedy-wack when someone started shooting at them. yeah, that's what happened. someone shot at them. and there might have been blood, though that could have been her imagination, so you don't really know what happened, do you? only I do, wahahahahahaha. (pwns the power)
okay, so you all deserve some decent chapter-ness. some decent drama. I mean, I watched last week's episode. it was fairly good, except for that last scene. I mean yes, I was singing happily when Olivia came back. but did anyone else hear the OEness bawling in the corner? I was waiting for them to jump across the desk at one another and start ripping the clothes off but NOOOOOOOO, Dickie has to go and spoil my fun. I swear to god, that man just KNOWS when I want something just so he can go and NOT give it to me.
anywhoo, here comes some drama. some love. some stretching-of-the-love-lines. because I think that even after all this attacking and sort-of-breaking-up and general chaos the relationship needs to be tested further, don't you?
and of course Maureen goes to Barnard. that's my dream school, and where I'll be going (hopefully) in two years.
happy reading, my darlings!
(this chapter is officially dedicated to Katherine, who deserves a decent chapter after the confuzzlement of the last one.)
…
It was three in the morning when she'd gotten the call.
She'd been dreaming about playing hopscotch with her younger sisters, smiling at the sun shining down on the colored chalk they'd scratched across the asphalt surface, hopping on one foot up and down their street. But then she'd been awoken by the urgent shaking of her shoulders. She found Donna, her roommate, standing over her, cordless phone in one hand while the other rested on her hip.
"Maureen. It's for you."
She blinked, rubbing her left eye with a weary fist. The internship at the firm found her home a little after eleven during the week, but Donna had just aced an Advanced Trigonometry midterm and wanted to celebrate with a bottle of champagne. She'd only been in bed for an hour, yet it felt like she'd slept for days. Donna never slept anyway- the European Lit major ran on black coffee and Altoids- but Maureen needed her rest. The internship was running her down, and today had been especially draining.
Yet there was the call.
"Hello?" She wheezed into the receiver, rubbing her eye again and suppressing a yawn.
"Maureen Stabler?"
"Yes, that's me."
"This is the Emergency Room at Mercy Hospital. Your father gave us your number as an emergency contact."
"My father?" She felt her stomach flip. "What's wrong?"
But in less than a minute she knew. And she was flying towards the door.
"I'll drive you." Donna said, throwing a sweatshirt on over her sports bra and handing Maureen her Barnard shirt. "Jesus, where are my keys?"
The car ride seemed hours long. Yet she was out of the parking garage and into the elevator in less than a second, Donna following behind.
Things were flying through her head that she'd never even considered before. Things like funeral costs and how many black dresses she owned and life insurance policies. Oh Christ, what if she was too late? What if…what if…what if it was over?
The stale smell of the hospital hit her like a slap in the face as the doors to the elevator opened. She hated hospitals. Hated them with a passion.
The signs to the ER were marked in bright blue, and she was beginning to lose her breath as she staggered past the doors, weaving between the gurney carts and the nurses. But then she was at the front desk, hands clenched into tight fists as they rested on the counter.
"My name is Maureen Stabler. I'm here to see my father, Elliot Stabler."
The woman looked down at a selection of files in her drawer, and then back up at Maureen. She gave her a good look-over before replying, taking in the mismatched socks and dirty sweats with a sad smile.
"They moved him upstairs, honey. Third floor, room…" She checked her file again. "Room 3B. Take the elevator on the left, and then it should be four rooms past the reception desk." She smiled at her again. "He has the window, honey."
"Thank you," She breathed, following the woman's directions upstairs.
His room was cold, dark. The occupant of the bed beside the door was sleeping, snoring as his television continued to drone softly in the darkness of his cloth-contained cubicle. She pushed aside the curtains surrounding the window bed, holding her breath.
But there was no one there. The bed was empty.
Her breath caught in her throat, and then died.
She was too…
Too late.
No, she had to be reasonable here. There was a logical explanation for this. He was being operated on. Or they were taking him somewhere for an examination. Or she had the wrong room altogether. But there was his name on the patient information file behind the bed. There was his watch lying on the bedside table.
The nurse at the reception desk looked up at her when she approached, setting aside the file in his hands. "May I help you?"
"Yes," Maureen cleared her throat, trying to regain her composure. Donna had gone to find coffee. Figured. "I'm Maureen Stabler; my father Elliot Stabler is here. He doesn't seem to be in his room, though."
"Oh," The man smiled softly, pointing to the right. "Try Room 9B."
"Oh, uh… thank you." She backed away from the desk, frowning. Donna reappeared with two coffees in hand, smiling sleepily.
"Found the coffee machine." She blinked at the room they were passing. "Isn't that the one the nurse was talking about?"
"Yeah, he…he moved or something." She stopped, turning to her roommate, blinking beneath the blonde hair hanging into her grey eyes. "Donna, can you just wait for me in there?"
"3B, you mean?"
"Yeah, that'd be great. I'll only be a minute, I think."
"Uh, sure." Donna nodded, retreating to the room behind them.
Maureen stepped into room 9, eyeing the woman who smiled at her from the nearest bed, flipping through the channels while the man beside her, presumably her husband, slept in his chair.
A woman's room?
But then she heard his voice, soft, gentle, rising from behind the mauve curtains. His silhouette was framed from the light streaming from the lamp above the window bed, and she let out a tiny sigh, seeing his strong nose, his sloping forehead familiar in her plane of view.
"Dad!" She pulled back the curtains and gasped, falling to where he sat in the chair and wrapping her arms around his neck. "Oh my god, I was so worried…"
"Maureen," He whispered, bringing his hands to her back and pulling her in tightly. In his arms, she still felt his strength, yet when she pulled back and met his eyes, there was…weariness in them. He kissed the top of her head, breathing into her hair. "Jesus, I'm glad to see you."
Maureen turned to the occupant of the bed, blinking at the familiar figure who was smiling wearily back.
"Olivia?"
"Hey Maureen," Olivia gave a small wave, revealing the bandage enveloping her right side. "Hope we didn't' wake you up."
"No, I never sleep." She said, trying to laugh. But she was too confused, too shocked. What had happened? What the hell had happened? "Are you…are you going to be alright?"
"I'll manage." She smiled warmly, giving a tug at the IV line running from her wrist. "As soon as they cut these things, we can be out of here."
"I don't understand." Maureen turned to her father, who was now taking a seat at the end of the bed. "What happened?"
"Well, we're not entirely sure ourselves." She noticed the hand he was resting on the sheets that covered Olivia's thigh, the fingers that were kneading small circles. "But you don't have to worry about me, hon. Nothing but a sprained wrist and a few sore fingers to mend here."
"Where were you?"
"My apartment." Olivia said quietly, her eyes flashing to meet Elliot's before falling back onto Maureen.
"Oh," Maureen blinked. Something is definitely going on here that needs to be addressed. "But who did this to you two?"
"We were…someone…" Elliot leaned forward, looking into his daughter's face with bright blue eyes identical to her own. "Listen to me, Kathleen. The cops are already working on this, so you have nothing to worry about. We are all perfectly safe."
"Dad, just tell me."
Elliot let out a small sigh, a weary and ancient air escaping from his lips.
"Someone shot at us. One of the shots hit the wall. The other grazed Liv's shoulder. They were on the fire escape and I jumped for them, but they were past me and into the room. They were kicking Olivia before I got my hands on them, and then they pushed me down and got out the window. I was a little bruised, but Liv was unconscious, so I called the ambulance and we ended up over here."
"Jesus…" She breathed in, feeling the stale air of the room dry up her already parched throat. Her mind was suddenly quieted with fear, her heart beginning to slow with shock. "And why…why did they do this?"
"We have a feeling it's probably connected with the case we're working on, but…we don't really know." His fingers wrapped around Olivia's limp hand, squeezing her palm gently. She smiled back, her eyes sad and faraway.
So what was he doing at her apartment at two in the morning anyway?
And why did no one tell me something like this was going on?
Another nurse was standing in the doorway, giving the scene a quiet examination.
"Another visitor, Ms. Benson?" The woman asked, smiling warmly and fingering the edge of a large file in her hands. "Mr. Stabler, you know you should be back in your own room, giving this poor woman a chance to rest, don't you?"
"Of course." Her father stood up, Maureen locking her arm around his elbow. He seemed unsteady all of a sudden, though she didn't think it was from physical weakness. Instead, his eyes were on the dark eyed woman still lying in bed, giving him a sad smile. "Get some sleep, Liv." He released her hand from his fingers, watching silently as they fell to the sheets and lay motionless on her middle.
"You too, El." Her eyes narrowed in pain, and then closed, the aggrieved smile still on her face. "You too…"
They walked into the hallway, the nurse standing beside them.
"She'll be fine soon enough, won't she?" Her father's voice was strained, tense.
"We can't really know for sure at this point, Mr. Stabler." The nurse was still fingering the file under her arm. "I have the ultrasounds on the broken ribs and on the abdomen, but we may be looking at some internal bleeding here."
"And then what? How can you treat that?" His voice was louder. Maureen took her father's arm in both her hands, pulling him towards the room. He was exhausted and desperate, and he didn't need to think about any of this right now. Not until he'd had some sleep at least.
"Let's not burn any bridges until we come to them, Mr. Stabler." The nurse patted his shoulder, smiling again. "Get some rest, and we can discuss more of this when you've allowed yourself some sleep."
"But I'd rather be in there in case anything happens, or at least awake if she-"
"If anything happens, our staff will be more than competent in giving Ms. Benson the best possible treatment, I assure you. But right now, my main concern is your shut-eye, do you understand?" She gave him a matronly tap on the arm. "To bed, Mr. Stabler, and let's not hear another word of it until you're ready."
He nodded and finally caved; following his daughter's lead, he returned to his room.
Maureen found Donna asleep in the chair outside the room, two coffees still clenched tight in her fingers. She smiled and led her father inside, sitting across from him as he settled into the sheets.
"I hate this, you know." He grumbled, dimming the lights above him. "They won't even let me stay with her, and-"
"Dad," Maureen grinned at him, taking a sip of the coffee she'd pried from Donna's right hand. "You need to rest. How many times does everyone need to say it?"
"And what if something happens?" His voice was raised, his eyes suddenly wet and large. Desperation had taken him. "What if she…what if I'm not there, and…." He sighed in frustration, his hand covering his forehead. "Jesus, what if I lose her?"
"Dad," Maureen leaned forward, resting a hand on his shoulder. "Dad, she's going to be fine. Don't worry."
"Don't' tell me not to worry!" He said, his eyes flashing as he took a sharp breath, turning on her. "Did you see her? Did you see her eyes? She's so weak right now…the bastard…the bastard was just beating the hell out of her and I…I couldn't get my hands on him…too damn slow…just too fucking slow to even stop him for one minute…not until he got sick of it and turned on me instead."
He was crying at this point, long and lonely tears running down his cheeks. Maureen stared and blinked back tears of her own, amazed at the passion in the voice of a man she'd never seen weep.
"It's going to be alright." She whispered, laying her head onto his shoulder. "It's going to be alright, Dad…"
"I can't lose her, Maureen. I can't."
"I know."
She clung to his arm with the fierce strength she could not find in him alone. She clung to this man, the father she'd thought could never cry, could never be anything but impossibly strong, and felt the fear in his eyes.