Disclaimer: Sadly, I don't own them.
Author's Note: Thanks for the reviews so far, and thanks for keeping up with my story.
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Chapter Eight: Promises, Promises
Outside the school's parking lot:
Everyone was stunned by what they had just witnessed. They couldn't believe that "Mr. Un-Stabler" himself was just punched. Nobody had ever tried to confront Elliot or try anything that would incite a violent reaction out of him. Not the toughest jock or the scrawniest nerd in school because everyone respected him. Well if not respected then feared would be a more appropriate word.
Almost everyone in school feared him that is. Fin, Melinda, Olivia, and now apparently Casey weren't among the people that feared him.
Elliot Stabler was just punched in the face, and not by a tough as nails guy who could physically match his strength or an angry ex-girlfriend. No, the shocking part was that the person who had the cajones to punch him was a thin, 5'4" blonde with a mean right hook that would do anything to defend her sister.
"Casey!" Connie gasped visibly shocked.
"Whoa," was all Melinda could come up with.
"Damn, that had to hurt," Fin said rubbing his own eye.
Meanwhile, Elliot was trying to shake off the pain from the blow Casey had landed which proved to be a little more difficult than he would have imagined.
"Enough!" Melinda yelled to get everyone's attention. "We can stand here all day and play the blame game, but this isn't helping Olivia. We need to get to the hospital now. Everyone needs to chill out, and get in the damn car," she said before climbing in the backseat with Olivia.
Melinda's car on the way to the hospital:
"You ever do anything else to harm my sister again, and it'll be worse for you," Casey seethed while rubbing her sore knuckles.
"Is cool, he gets the picture, there's no need for more threats or violence. It was an accident we saw when it happened," Fin said from the driver's seat trying to diffuse the volatile situation.
"That wasn't just about the accident by the lockers, and I wasn't making a threat; it was a promise. I can't believe he almost ran my sister and me off the road we could've been seriously injured or killed you know! Then he tried to run us down on our way into school. I was lucky that I was a couple of steps behind Olivia, and I could've easily moved out of the way, but not her because she was right in your crosshairs. Come on, what kind of shit is that?" she managed to say while trying to get keep her temper in check.
"Damn, that does sound bad," Connie said while keeping Olivia's attention focused on her.
"Hey, I already said that those were accidents! I had no idea I cut you guys off, and the part about trying to run you guys down is complete bullshit! I hit the damn brakes before coming near you; I even veered off to side to make sure I wouldn't have hit either of you. I would've gladly wrecked my bike before I caused Olivia any harm," Elliot whispered the last part, but everyone seemed to catch it anyway.
"What about landing on her, huh? Was that an "accident" too? I don't think so, I think that you were you trying to get even because of the fact that she ripped you a new asshole on the way to school," Casey screeched angry at the fact that Elliot seemed to have an answer for everything.
"Casey from what Melinda and Fin saw it did sound like an accident," Connie intervened trying to be the voice of reason.
"Whatever. If anything happens to Livvy . . ." Casey growled unable to finish her sentence.
"Sshhh, too loud," Olivia moaned.
"Sorry," was uttered by both Casey and Elliot. After that the ride to the hospital was filled with an uncomfortable silence.
ER parking lot:
"We're here," Fin announced. "I'll drop you guys off at the ER doors and then I'll meet you there after I park the car," he said as he stopped the car at the ER's entrance.
"I'll go to the front desk and try to find my mother," Melinda said as she got out.
Everyone got out of the car, and Elliot went to carefully extract Olivia from the vehicle.
"Here put your arm around my neck," he told her gently.
"Mm'kay," Olivia said as she did was she was told.
Inside the ER:
Melinda quickly entered the ER avoiding the people going in and out of the place.
"Hi, I'm looking for Dr. Warner," she told one of the nurses walking by the entrance.
"Honey, I'm on break try someone else," the nurse rudely dismissed her.
"Bitch," she muttered. Luckily, a doctor happened to be passing by when he heard her ask about his colleague.
"I'll be glad to help you," the young doctor said.
"I'm looking for my mother, Dr. Warner," Melinda said again.
"She's with a patient right now, maybe I can help you out. I'm Dr. Kyle Beresford" he told her.
"Oh well you'll do, I guess," she said moving towards where Elliot was carrying Olivia. The doctor followed her chuckling at her comment which she probably didn't even realize she made.
"Come on, my friend had an accident at school. She collided with another classmate, and took a nasty fall which may have resulted in a concussion. She also has a laceration on her left arm that will probably need stitches. Oh, and she lost a lot of blood, and I think she may have burst some blood vessels so that may be why she bled so much, but I'm not positive," Melinda rattled off her explanation trying to be as thorough as her mother had taught her.
"Are you sure you're not a doctor?" Dr. Beresford jokingly asked her.
"Where do I set her down?" Elliot asked the doctor.
"Here, come with me to an examination room in the back. Is anyone related to her that may know her medical history?" Dr. Beresford asked looking around.
"Me," Casey spoke up. "I'm her sister," she looked at the doctor.
"All right, you, and you come with me," he said pointing at Elliot who was carrying Olivia and at Casey.
"Okay," Casey said as she handed Connie her purse.
"The rest of you can wait in there," Dr. Beresford said pointing to the waiting room across from where they were standing.
Waiting room:
Fin made his way to the waiting room where he saw Connie, and Melinda sitting while talking quietly.
"Hey baby, what's goin' on?" he asked before taking a seat next to her.
"Um, the doctor took Olivia to an examination room with Elliot, and Casey," Melinda filled him in.
"Should we call her family?" Connie asked. "I'm sure if I were in the ER my parents would want to know about it," she said looking down at her hands.
"Nah, we can't. We don't know her parents' info all we know is that Casey and her are sisters," Fin said
"Right," Melinda said. "We'll have to wait for Casey to come back so she can make the appropriate calls," she lovingly squeezed Fin's hand.
"Mike's on his way, Connie," Fin said to her.
"Why? He was already in school," Connie said puzzled as to why her boyfriend would show up.
"Yeah, he called when I was parkin' the car. I told him what happened so he talked his Pops into lettin' him come. Chester has to drive him though cause his car is still in the shop," he chuckled.
Fin was remembering how Mike wrecked his car when Connie had finally agreed to go out with him. He was too excited he never saw the tire on the road he ended up swerving to avoid it, but all that did was make him crash right into a tree.
Examination room:
"Did Olivia lose consciousness at any point during the day?" Dr. Beresford asked continuing with his barrage of questions that seemed endless to Casey.
"Yes she did. It was only for a minute or two tops before Melinda told me to wake her," she said looking at Olivia.
"Is Olivia allergic to any medications?" the doctor asked while checking Olivia's pupils.
"Um, the only thing she's allergic to is penicillin," Casey answered carefully making sure she didn't miss anything vital.
"Pupils responsive," Dr. Beresford wrote down on Olivia's medical chart. 'That's fine we can just give her amoxicillin instead for the infection on her arm,' he thought.
"Has Olivia eaten or drank anything today? I want to make sure she's not malnourished or dehydrated," the doctor asked.
"All she had was a glass of orange juice this morning," Casey said remembering breakfast earlier that morning.
"Blood type?" Dr. Beresford asked going through the list of necessary questions.
"She's A-positive," she answered right away.
"Does anyone in your family have the same blood type? I need to know in case we have to do a transfusion, which seems more than likely," Dr. Beresford asked removing the makeshift bandage that Melinda had fastened. He made sure that she had not broken anything before he started disinfecting her wound in order to stitch it up.
"No," Casey whispered.
"How can that be?" he asked clearly puzzled by Casey's answer.
"We're both adopted," she reluctantly answered.
Casey wasn't ashamed that they were adopted. In fact she knew that they were lucky because so many kids out there went through the system for most of their lives. She just would rather not broadcast it to the world.
"Oh," the doctor said trying to figure out what they would do if she needed a transfusion seeing how the hospital had a shortage of blood bags.
"I'm A-positive, and I'll be more than willing to give Olivia my blood," Elliot spoke for the first time since entering the examination room.
Both the doctor and Casey looked at Elliot with looks of surprise on their faces.
"Look I know you're worried about your girlfriend, but are you sure you know the risks involved with this kind of procedure?" the doctor asked as he stitched up her arm.
"I don't care about the risks I may run. All I care about is her wellbeing," came from Elliot without hesitation. That left Dr. Beresford, Casey, and even Olivia speechless.
After a few minutes of working on Olivia's arm the doctor spoke to her, "How are you holding up?"
"Sleepy," Olivia mumbled.
"I know you are. I'm doing my best to make you feel better, and to speed things along," he smiled.
"I know," she answered almost inaudibly.
"Okay sweetheart, I'm going to push down on your abdomen you tell me if anything hurts," the doctor soothingly told her.
"'Kay," Olivia said as the doctor started applying pressure to her abdomen. She was doing fine until he pressed down under her breast which made her grunt.
'That can't be good, but at least she isn't coughing up blood; so there's probably no internal bleeding,' the doctor thought.
"What's going on?" Casey panicked when she noticed the concerned look on the doctor's face.
"Nothing it's probably just a bruised rib," he said. "Now that she's all stitched up we're going to take her up to X-rays for a full work up," Dr. Beresford told Casey and Elliot.
"Okay," Casey answered relieved that things were moving along.
"You two can go in the waiting room, and we'll come get you when we need you," the doctor told Elliot.
"Wait, I don't want to leave my sister's side," Casey argued with fresh tears in her eyes.
"I know you don't, but we can't have you up there, and you need to call your parents. I promise that I'll personally come down to keep you updated," he said gently appreciating Casey's emotional state.
"You promise?" she choked out.
"Yes, scout's honor. Oh, you might want to ask a nurse for a couple of ice bags. One for your bruised knuckle and one for Elliot's eye, and I'm not even going to try to guess what happened there," Dr. Beresford smiled softly.
Elliot turned to look at Olivia; he had to hold back the tears that were threatening to come out. It was crazy, he barely met this girl, but he felt some kind of connection to her. He reached over to gently squeeze her hand when he felt a surge of electricity run through him.
"Whoa," he whispered. That was the first time he ever felt anything like that in his life; even with his past girlfriends he never felt that spark with any of them. He knew Olivia must've felt it too because she opened her eyes at the exact moment, and gave him a nervous smile. Elliot reluctantly moved to the side in order to let Casey have a moment with her sister.
"Livvy," Casey whispered while squeezing her hand. "You're going to be fine, you'll see. You just get better quickly. I'm going to be in the waiting room with everyone. I'm going to call daddy and Uncle John so they could come and get your lazy butt out of bed because we both know that you're just doing this to skip school," she laughed a little.
"Pinky swear, princess?" Olivia squeezed her hand back.
"Pinky swear, angel," Casey sniffled because they had both used the childhood pet names that their parents had given them. She then linked their pinky fingers together.
"You're going to be fine," she choked back her sobs as she kissed her sister on the forehead before leaving to go to the waiting room with Elliot.