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"Did you mean it?" Olivia questioned, looking in to Elliot's eyes, taking off the oxygen mask.
"Mean what?" Elliot asked to clarify and gently put the mask back on her.
Sighing, Olivia shook her head. "I guess not," she said and took the mask off again.
Elliot took her hands in his. "You asking if I meant it when I yelled out that I love you?"
Olivia nodded. "Yeah. Did you?"
"Yes, I did. And I do," he assured her.
"Why didn't you tell me before I started to date Andrew?" she cried, "you had plenty of time. Did you do it to ruin my relationship with him?" She snatched her hands away.
Elliot groaned. "Of course not, Liv... I just... I just didn't have the courage to tell you before."
The door opened and Olivia looked away.
"Elliot, what did you say?" Casey asked, walking in with a doctor.
Sighing, Elliot stood up. "Nothing. See you later, Liv... I love you," he whispered the last sentence and headed out.
Olivia sniffled, realizing her mistake but she was not about to admit it.
"Liv, what happened?"
"Nothing," she replied and turned to the doctor. "When can I go home?"
"I'm Dr. Heidke, Olivia, and I would like to keep you in overnight. You were unconscious for several hours."
"I want to go. I'm fine," she insisted and lifted up her arm with the IV. "Take it out, please."
"Olivia..." Casey tried to persuade her.
Olivia shook her head. "Don't, Casey. You know that I can't stand to be in the hospital."
Dr. Heidke sighed and grabbed out a prescription pad and pen out of her white doctors coat. "Okay, fine, but to let you go home, I want you to stay with someone for at least tonight. Even tomorrow night would be nice too."
"I'm fine," Olivia stressed, irritated with the doctor already.
"It's either that or you stay here tonight unless, of course, you want me to call your captain..."
Groaning in defeat and frustration, Olivia nodded and took the prescription. "Fine then."
"Who are you going to stay with, Olivia?"
"Liv, you can stay with me," Casey offered.
"Thanks, Case," Olivia said with a small smile.
"Well, there's the prescription for pain. You managed to have yourself knocked around a bit, so you have quite a few bruises."
"Bruises? From in water?" Olivia asked, confused.
"There must have been things in the water. Things that people might have dumped in there," Dr. Heidke tried to explain.
Olivia nodded.
"So you very well could be in pain when the morphine wears off," the kind doctor informed her. "I'll just go get you the discharge forms," she said and walked out.
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Sitting on her couch about two hours later, Olivia watched Casey, walking around her apartment, cleaning up. It was actually making her kind of dizzy.
"Casey, you don't need to clean up my apartment. It's fine. I can do it later," she groaned. There was nothing on the television and it was driving her insane, just as much as Casey cleaning her apartment was.
"It looks like a tornado ran through it, Liv. It's a pigsty. You were home most of the weekend, why didn't you clean it?" Casey scolded and leaned over to pick something up but upon noticing what it was, she stopped and stood up. "Eww! Yuck!" she laughed.
"What?" Olivia asked, looking over.
"I'm guessing that those," she said, pointing at the clothing item on the floor, "are Andrew's boxer briefs."
Looking at the pointed out item, Olivia laughed as the blush crept up on her cheeks. "Yeah, they are."
Casey shook her head to get the imagine of Olivia and Andrew doing the ol' nasty and laughed. "So that's why you didn't clean. You were too busy."
"Yeah, something like that."
"Now you're making me jealous," Casey said and sat on the arm of the couch. "Has he got a brother?"
Olivia smiled. "Yeah, he's actually got three of them. He is one of seven kids."
"Really?" Casey sounded very interested.
"Yep, he is. One is about two years older you actually. His name is Gregory."
"Ooohhh, I'll have to meet him. He's not taken, is he?"
Olivia laughed. "No, not the last I heard. I could ask Andy when he gets back," she offered.
"Oh yes please."
"Okay, I will," Olivia promised through a laugh.
"What do you want for dinner?" Casey asked and got up.
Shaking her head, Olivia sighed. "I'm not hungry. I need to see Elliot."
Casey furrowed her eyebrows in confusion. "Why? He upset you in the hospital, remember?" she told her, like it was obvious.
"No, actually he didn't," Olivia confessed.
"What?"
Olivia sighed. "He didn't upset me," she repeated slower.
"Then what happened?" Casey asked. She was completely and utterly confused. "Tell me, Olivia."
"While... While I was being dragged out by the current... Elliot yelled out to me. His confession of love," she explained.
"He's had so much time to confess and he does it now when you finally find someone who loves you for you."
Olivia sat up and scrubbed a hand down her face in frustration. "I love him though, Case. And I need to tell him that," she whispered.
"Do you want me to call him to come here?" Casey offered, "but you aren't going out. You're on bed-rest for a couple of days."
Olivia had to think for a moment but then she nodded. "Yes, please."
Nodding, Casey patted Olivia's back. "Okay, I'll do that right now and then I'll order us some take out. Anything you want in particular?"
"Um... Just some Chinese please. You know what I like," Olivia replied, simply uninterested.
"Okay," Casey replied and headed in to the kitchen with one of Olivia's cordless phone handsets.
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Sitting in the armchair in the living room of his lonely apartment, Elliot was drowning his sorrows with alcohol, thinking for sure that he'd lost his chance with Olivia. The woman that he loved with everything in him. He emptied the glass in his hand, in one big gulp before leaning over to the glass coffee table in front of him and refilled his glass with more whiskey.
"Oh, how I fucked up," he groaned and chugged back the glass of brown liquid.
The phone started to ring from its spot on the sofa, where it had be chucked after he last used it. Unhappy with the disturbance, Elliot grumbled a few choice curse words under his breath and got up to answer it.
He looked at the caller ID and groaned. 'Liv home,' it alerted him as it rang and flashed. Not ready to talk to anyone especially Olivia, Elliot pressed the ignore button and disconnected the phone. He just wanted to be left alone to drown his sorrows.
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Casey was confusion as to why Elliot would have ignored her call and then disconnected the phone. She rang his cell phone only to discover that it was turned off, instead of leaving a voicemail message, she just hung up and rang Olivia's favorite Chinese take-out place to order dinner for them both.
With dinner order, Casey headed back in to the living room and could not help but smile. It seemed Olivia had fallen asleep on the couch. She was curled up facing the back of the couch, her hands loosely clasped together in front of her as she softly snored.
Casey tip-toed over to her and grabbed the blanket, which was folded on the top of the couch before unfolding it and placing it over Olivia, who stirred and shifted a little but did not wake luckily.
Since delivery would take more an hour due to popularity and them being short-staffed tonight, Casey told them that she'd be there to pick up their order, so she quickly left Olivia a note and headed out with her purse and keys.
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As soon as Olivia heard the door close, she got up and went in to the bedroom. She'd faked sleeping when she heard that Casey would be picking up their food, so she could hopefully get out when Casey left.
Now with Casey gone, Olivia quickly got changed in to something decent enough to go out in.
She still loved Andrew but she had to admit that she loved Elliot more. He had the key to her heart and soul.
Olivia decided that she would see Elliot now and see how it went before she would say anything to Andrew. What he didn't know wouldn't hurt him.
She dressed in jeans, a black long sleeved top and some sneakers before grabbing her keys and purse and rushing out.
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Casey returned about half an hour later and thinking that Olivia was still napping on the couch, she tip-toed in to the kitchen and placed the take-out on the counter before heading over to the couch to wake Olivia up to eat.
Seeing the couch empty, Casey groaned. "Liv?" she called out, heading to the bedroom, only to find it empty, the same with the bathroom.
"Damn it," she groaned and bumped her head against the wall in frustration.
Casey knew exactly where Olivia had sneaked off to, even after she was told that she was on bed rest. But when did Olivia Benson ever listen?
Casey knew she had to head over to Elliot's apartment.