A/n: I have finally updated for all of you that missed the story. Everything with school is really hectic right now. I want to thank my lovely beta Essy, and my insperation to Tim O'Brain. They have both a huge help. Thanks Essy. And I want to thank all of my reviewers, you guys rock!

Going Out With a Bang

Chapter 4

In his apartment Elliot could evaluate everything. He had to think, had to take the things he was feeling and put them into perspective.

He sat there for a few minutes, but ideas and thoughts seemed to jumble in his head. Nothing made sense anymore; at least, not since Olivia had gone into a coma, bringing in a whole new aspect: Dani.

He wasn't sure how he felt, but wasn't the silence supposed to help him? Wasn't the silence supposed to give you that haven of truth? A time when you could work though problems? Wasn't it supposed to allow you to be honest? Apparently not, because he couldn't figure out one single thing. It didn't help that he had this nagging feeling that something wasn't right. The other problem was that he couldn't identify with what was wrong: it was just there in his gut, urging him on, urging him to do something. But what? Elliot felt like yelling.

"But what?" He whispered to the empty room.

Nothing was the same anymore. He could feel the world as he had gotten used to it, after the divorce crumbling in around him. He was falling from a cliff and he had no way to catch himself. He wasn't at rock bottom yet, but Elliot knew he was getting there.

He suddenly felt like he needed to get out, do something. He couldn't just sit there. The nagging feeling in his gut got so strong that he couldn't breathe, like something heavy was weighing on his whole chest, taking the breath from his lungs.

He didn't realize he had started to move. He seemed in a daze, his movements deaf, like a car on autopilot. He grabbed a jacket and left quietly. Elliot didn't know where his feet seemed to be taking him, but he couldn't move the fog from his mind long enough to figure it out.

To people on the street, he was just another man, but to him, it didn't seem that way. Something was eating at him; the weight on his chest didn't lessen or let up at all. His chest constricted, knees buckled, and he almost lost his footing.

The only thought going through Elliot's head was to stay standing; no matter what happened, he needed to stay on his feet. He needed to get to where his feet were talking him.

They had been through thick and thin, gone through hell together, but now he was going through it alone. All alone, all by himself. She wasn't there to keep him in, to keep him from going completely off the deep end.

"Liv," he said softly, and that's when his knees gave way and he could no longer stay on his feet. He had ended up where he wanted to be. The fog had cleared from his mind and now that his mind was working correctly, he could see where his feet had taken him.

He was in Olivia's hospital room. The constant beating of the monitors around him was his only constant company, the reminder that she was still alive. She was starting to regain some of her old color, but he thought it was only because the wounds were starting to heal.

Her eyes were still closed and the constricting feeling in his chest came back full force.

"Hey, Liv. You know things aren't the same without you. I'm not sure if my new partner will do well in SVU. She isn't you, you know? She's not you." He knew he was rambling, but the weight that made it hard to breathe, was lessening every second he rambled. So he just kept going.

There was a ringing in the background that he couldn't place right away. When he figure out it was his phone, he quickly answered it.

When he hung up, he turned back to look at her.

"That was Beck," he told her softly, as thought he couldn't speak about that with her. "We have a case." He looked her over one more time, went over to her bed, kissed her forehead and left.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Sometimes Elliot learned, silence wasn't best. What a person needed, sometimes, was a drink. A cold beer after a long hard day on the job.

He wanted something that would take the edge off the case and Liv.

There was no change in her condition and he knew that the doctors didn't expect her to get better.

"Stabler?" He took his eyes from the bottle when he heard his name.

"Dani," Elliot replied, moving his eyes back to his beer.

"Been to see her lately?" she questioned him. Couldn't she see he wanted to be alone, just him and his thoughts?

"Yes," he said monotonously. The beer didn't seem to be helping. Why wasn't anything working? There was no room for any more thoughts. All he wanted was for the pain to go away.

"So you plan to drink yourself into a coma?" Dani's voice intoned. When he didn't answer, she continued. "You think that's what she would want?"

His temper flared. "You don't know what she wants!"

But Dani's temper was just as quick. "Apparently neither do you!"

He looked defeated. Nothing seemed to be right without Benson. Dani thought.

"Come on, let's go."

Elliot didn't seem to register that. "Huh?"

"Come on, we'll get something to eat."

"Nah, go ahead. I'm not hungry."

Her face was set, like nothing would sway her from getting what she wanted. He wasn't surprised. She was a person who would fully fight head-on to get what she wanted. The case before had proved that.

"Yeah, alright."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"You and Benson have been partners for how long?"

"Eight years," Elliot told her. He had only lifted his eyes from the bottle a few times and hadn't volunteered anything,

"That's pretty good."

"Yeah. I remember thinking she wouldn't last." He looked up at Dani then. "Not many do."

"So why did you stay?"

"Because I knew if I didn't, then someone else wouldn't. Because I wanted to keep the perps behind bars and put the new ones there."

"Seems like you have a superman complex?" His head and eyebrows rose at that remark.

Did he have a superman complex? Was he trying to save everyone? He voiced his thoughts. "Doesn't everyone deserve to be saved?"

She countered him quickly. "Don't you?"

He had to think about that for a few minutes. In the end he decided to put it off a little longer, something to think about in the silence of his apartment. Some other aspect of his life he could throw into question.

"Why did you transfer to SVU?"

"I felt that I could do some good. I thought that I could make changes. Plus, I needed a change."

"How did you meet your husband?" he asked, changing the subject again,

She looked away from him a moment and wouldn't meet his eyes again. "We were partners."