Part Thirty-Seven
Although the sleeping pill Elliot had slipped her was long gone, Olivia could have sworn that she was still feeling its effects. Or perhaps she was simply suffering from not sleeping for two solid nights, granted the lack of sleep the first night had been due to activities far more pleasurable than both sleeping and searching a crime scene. But even if she had been given the choice, as the sky began to lighten into morning, Olivia would have infinitely preferred sleep. Though she had to admit sleeping snuggled soundly in Elliot's arms would certainly have been welcome too.
It seemed her body no longer trusted her judgment, staging a coup and abandoning consciousness while Cragen was driving the group back to the precinct. She didn't even remember closing her eyes - she was watching the scenery one moment, and the next, Cragen's hand was on her shoulder, shaking her awake. The short nap did nothing to relieve her need for sleep. Instead, it was intensified, leaving Olivia unable to stifle her yawns.
Cragen glanced at her, offering a weak smile. "I'd send you home for some rest..."
She nodded. "But I wouldn't go anyway."
"Not to mention that you probably won't ever go back there again."
Until she heard his reference, she hadn't really given the state of her apartment much thought. In all the confusion between Elliot getting back from the hospital, Dickie's confession, and the discovery of White's little house of horrors, she'd forgotten about how and where Kimberly had actually been murdered.
While Olivia had been at the cabin, White had destroyed her home. It wasn't an invasion that would be easily erased, wiped clean with a new mattress and sheets. After she'd been attacked there, even when she'd feared it had been Elliot who'd ruined the sanctity of her bedroom, it had ceased to be the calming, comforting retreat from her job it had once been.
Knowing that White had been there, that he'd murdered Kimberly there, Olivia wasn't sure how she'd find the strength to be there long enough to retrieve her things. The idea alone sent chills through her, but she was far from financially secure enough to find a new apartment and replace everything she owned. Besides, she rationalized, White had already taken enough from her. She wasn't about to let him steal everything she had left. She knew she'd just have to drag Elliot with her, not that he was likely to stay behind anyway, and draw strength from him while she packed up what she could salvage.
She nodded at Cragen, afraid she might actually fall asleep on her feet in front of him. "I'm going to lie down in the crib." She only got as far as lifting her foot to take a step before she turned back. "Greyleck said she got Elliot moved up to first thing."
"Don't worry, I won't let you miss it." Cragen's eyes moved over to Fin. "Go upstairs. Keep an eye on her."
"I don't need a baby-sitter." But as she spoke the words, she remembered how White had managed to somehow get all the way into the locker room without detection, steal her keys from her locker, and return them, having the balls to leave them on her desk in the bullpen while Elliot was there. Olivia knew she couldn't swear to her own safety, not when she was asleep. As disturbing as it would be, she'd have to put up with someone there, watching her while she slept.
Cragen shook his head to stave off any additional protest she might think of making. "No, absolutely not. I don't need Elliot ringing my neck because I let you out of my sight and something happened to you. It's easier for everyone this way."
She rolled her eyes at him, force of habit telling her she had to make a show of disliking Elliot's overprotective nature. Walking to the crib with Fin at her heels, though, she allowed a small smile to cross her lips at the thought of how much Elliot cared for her. Too much, apparently, to fool anyone at all. Thinking of Elliot helped calm her, relieving the stress of the current situation long enough for her to get to sleep, knowing that she'd be able to see him and touch him and simply be near him when she awoke.
It felt like no time at all before she heard her name, Fin's voice sounding almost annoyed. She sat up with a groan, rubbing one eye while glaring at him with the other. "I couldn't possibly have done anything to piss you off while I was asleep." Even as she said it, she was filled with terror that her occasional habit of talking while she slept had reared its ugly head, regaling Fin with bits of information about her and Elliot that he absolutely did not need. The familiar guilty feeling surrounded her, choking her as she yawned.
"Never took you for a heavy sleeper." He nodded at the clock. "I've been calling you for ten minutes."
Silenced by another yawn, she glanced at the windows, dismayed to see the bright sky through the panes of glass. "It can't possibly be time to get up. I don't feel like I slept at all."
With a shrug, Fin pushed open the door and waited for a still slightly groggy Olivia to join him. "You only got about an hour of sleep, Liv. It's probably worse than not sleeping at all."
Her legs felt like lead and her feet uncoordinated as she tried to keep in step with Fin. "Tell me there's coffee."
"I've been up here watching you sleep, Elliot's in lock-up, and Cragen's sworn the shit off for the week."
Olivia rolled her eyes and concentrated on not tripping down the steps. "Which means Munch made the coffee."
Fin was already pouring her a cup when she made it to his side. "Good thing about Munch's coffee is that it should keep you awake."
"Unless it eats through my mug before I swallow it." She dumped in double her normal amount of sugar and cream, hoping to at least get it down her throat. Munch's coffee usually made her gag and she didn't want to think about the effect it would have on her empty stomach. But she didn't want to fall asleep in the courtroom. And it wasn't like she could grab any sleep after that either. White was still out there somewhere, still fixated on her. His threat and his twisted smile locked in her memory as though she was watching the tape continuously.
Rolling her head to each side in an attempt to work out the kinks that sleeping in the crib's beds, even for just an hour, invariably caused, Olivia looked around the bullpen for an indication that anything had changed. There was always that ridiculous hope that the case had been cracked and the perp thrown behind bars while she was sleeping. Unfortunately, like all the other times she'd woken from an exhaustion-induced sleep at the precinct, little had changed. Some detectives who'd managed to get out the night before were back for the day, freshly pressed and clean shaven. Some detectives who'd stayed the night at their desks or chasing down leads sported wrinkled, half un-tucked shirts, blazers long abandoned, ties loosened. Everyone looked busy, buried in work, as they usually were. And sadly, no one had that short-lived triumphant look at having successfully accomplished anything at all.
She held her breath and poured back the rest of her mug, figuring it was better in the long run to get the caffeine into her system as quickly as possible. Cragen was heading for the door of his office, his eyes locked on her. His clothes looked as bad as the others', his once perfectly pressed suit as mangled as if it had been balled up on the floor for weeks. Guiltily, Olivia glanced down at her own clothing, knowing the jeans she'd been wearing for several days were starting to reveal their desperate need for a trip through the washer. Her sweater would have hidden wrinkles well, had it not spent two days wadded up in her backpack first, the by-product of packing at gunpoint. Deciding to take heart in the fact that at least she hadn't been wearing any makeup that could possibly have wound up consolidated in thick black semi-circles under her eyes, she offered her boss a small smile as she met him at her desk.
He glanced at his watch before looking back at her. "We should get going. You ready?"
Another poke by her friend guilt told her she should at least attempt to appear presentable, if not out of respect for Judge Petrovsky, then for Elliot, who would take one look at her bedraggled clothes and tangled hair, forget entirely about the reasons she hadn't been home since she'd left his side, and have a stroke for fear that she'd been attacked while he'd been unable to protect her. Instead she nodded, left her mug on her desk and patted at her hair as though that would help anything. "Uh huh."
Because she was, really, absolutely ready to wrap Elliot in a bear hug from which he might never be able to extricate himself.
Waiting became the name of the game. She waited while Cragen had a brief chat with Fin, Munch, and a few other detectives, demanding that they call him the minute they heard anything, should they hear anything while he was out. She waited while Cragen battled the miserable morning traffic to the courthouse. She waited while the various players for the morning docket took their places. She waited for Petrovsky to finally appear.
And then, though she was still waiting, she was perched at the very edge of her seat, shaking from nerves and apprehension, desperate for that side door to open. It eventually did, and Olivia waited some more with her heart in her throat, for Elliot to appear. When he did, accompanied by two officers flanking him, his eyes immediately searched the room, locking on Olivia's. The relief on his face was almost palpable.
Olivia was taking a mental inventory, watching her partner carefully for any signs of injury. The butterfly bandages were still on his cheek from his hospital visit and his upper body moved stiffly, due, she was sure, to a combination of day-old bruised ribs having had just enough time to swell or contract or whatever it was they did that made Elliot move like he was ninety the day after he got hit and a night of not sleeping on a cot in lock-up. He was even more rumpled than the rest of the people she'd surveyed, but she didn't care in the least. He didn't look any worse for wear after the night and she was glad that something had finally gone right. Elliot was too, apparently, because even as people began speaking and going through the motions of freeing him, he was staring back at Olivia, smiling the whole time.
Cragen's elbow poked her in the ribs. "He's fine. You can breathe now, you know."
She acknowledged the friendly teasing with a quirk of her lips, refusing to believe that she was a bit lightheaded. Whether because she'd been holding her breath the whole time or because she was simply too tired to remember to breathe, she didn't want to admit it. The last thing she needed was to be sent to the hospital or even just home, wherever that might happen to be, because she wanted to be with Elliot and she knew Elliot would be out busting heads until he found White. She needed to have her partner's back. God knew she'd already done enough damage to their relationship by not trusting him; she didn't need to compound it further by taking some time off while Elliot put himself in danger. White had been gunning for both of them, after all. And she intended to remind Elliot of that.
After a curt, somewhat abashed apology to both the court and Elliot, Greyleck stopped talking. Petrovsky looked annoyed with the ADA and Olivia was tempted to tell her to join the club. The judge turned toward Elliot, a stern look plastered on her face while she admonished him for not obeying the restraining order. Then the anger faded, a warm smile appearing, admitting she was glad Greyleck had been wrong and acknowledging that a restraining order certainly didn't seem important when compared to protecting a crime victim. And though Olivia didn't appreciate being referred to as a crime victim, she shared the smug grin on Elliot's face when the gavel slammed down.
She shoved past Cragen before he even managed to get to his feet, covering the short distance between herself and her partner, who hadn't taken a moment to even shake Carlisle's hand. She threw her arms around his shoulders, squeezing him tight, feeling the warmth and pressure of his arms sliding around her waist.
"You're ok. You're safe." His voice was soft, his breath warm against her ear.
She couldn't think of anything to say in response, couldn't verbalize how he'd been in danger too, in lock-up with all sorts of types who could have recognized him or just gone after him for something to do. She only nodded, enjoying her piece of heaven in his arms, wishing she could stay just like that forever.
Unfortunately the business of the court was far from finished and there remained a psycho killer stalking her, so far too soon for her liking, she felt Elliot pulling away, and her own arms followed suit. Turning back to face her boss, she winced at the frown she saw. But even as she hung her head, waiting for the reprimand he was sure to issue, she realized he was talking to someone, someone that wasn't her or her partner. Sure enough, she saw his phone to his ear when she lifted her eyes. She was so glad that he'd been too distracted by the phone to notice or comment on her unprofessional welcome back that she nearly hugged him too.
Except his grimace didn't fade as he slipped the phone back into his pocket. He inclined his head toward the doors of the courtroom, indicating they should follow. "Munch and Fin are outside. They got a hit on one of the Claytons' credit cards in a hotel." He paused for a moment, pulling his jacket back to reveal a second gun and badge, which he offered to Elliot. "I'd say welcome back, but I'm just going to ignore the fact that you violated a restraining order and kidnapped your partner at gunpoint, which I figure about squares us up."
Elliot was grinning as he nodded and attached his gun and badge back where they belonged. "Should I ask who the Claytons are?"
Olivia was yawning, so Cragen responded to the question. "Extremely unlucky bastards who inadvertently crossed paths with White."
"Just like the rest of us." Olivia fought back another yawn, hoping to keep Elliot from noticing how tired she was. She didn't want him to demand she sleep, not until she could curl up beside him, and since she wasn't yet ready to proclaim such a thing in front of her boss, she thought it would be best to keep the whole discussion from happening. She couldn't be sure, though, whether the way she kept bumping into Elliot's arm as she walked was due to lack of coordination from sleep deprivation or just a desire to reassure herself that he was there.
It didn't matter, she decided, because touching him served to keep her on her feet and remind her that Elliot was there and huggable at any time she deemed necessary. The thought made her smile, a bright, wide, happy smile she was too tired to hide.
As promised, Munch and Fin met them at the top of the courthouse steps. Munch flagged them down, waving a piece of paper. "Someone using Fred Clayton's Visa spent last night at The Big, Juicy, Red Apple Hotel."
Elliot grabbed the paper, looking over what Olivia determined to be the address from what she could see over his shoulder. "Sounds like a lovely establishment."
Fin smirked. "Let's put it this way, according to the front desk clerk, he was all too happy to accept the pseudo-Mr. Clayton because they rarely have any guests willing to pay for the entire night."
Olivia rolled her eyes. Fleabag motels always creeped her out, but it seemed appropriate enough. Creeps like Richard White belonged in creepy places. She was about to voice as much, but she didn't get the chance.
She didn't know what was happening. She couldn't even tell what order it was happening in. The world just started spinning around her. Gravity let go of her momentarily, only to remember her with a vengeance. Voices. Shouts. Bangs. A crushing weight crashing in front of her while she kept tumbling, working together with the unyielding weight behind her to rob her of her breath.
She couldn't see. She couldn't hear. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't think. But at least it seemed she'd stopped spinning.
After a moment, one clear shout rang out in the silence, Fin's unmistakable voice calling out 'clear.'
Only then did she have time to process what else she'd heard. Elliot. He'd been saying something just as she'd fallen, shouting it, she thought, but she hadn't quite understood at the time that he'd been yelling 'gun.' She hadn't understood, she realized, because he'd chosen the same moment to hit her, the palm of his hand connecting directly with her breastbone, his fingers tapping her collar bone as he sent her flying. The other sounds, shouts and screams and guns firing, were mixed up in the haze of falling, tumbling down the cement steps of the courthouse. Elliot had gone with her, either losing his balance when he shoved her or choosing to protect her again.
Finally able to identify the cold steps as the crushing weight atop her and Elliot as the unyielding weight behind her, she felt reasonably sure of which direction was up. She tried to shift, every muscle and bone in her body protesting the movement, blinding pain stealing her vision once again.
When she was able to open her eyes, she found most of the pain was concentrated around her right hip and arm. Careful not to jar them, she turned her head and used her left hand to grasp Elliot's.
"I think you missed your calling as a linebacker, El." She expected a chuckle at best, a groan at worst. Silence, however, she didn't know what to do with, not with her so recently scrambled brain. Fear motivated her to ignore the pain as she pulled herself free of Elliot's bulk. Fear that grew even more pronounced when Elliot didn't object or respond. As she shoved at his shoulders, turning him onto his back, she realized that one of her fingers was bent in an altogether unhealthy direction. But she couldn't quite feel the pain anymore and she wasn't entirely sure what good a pinkie finger was anyway.
A much more pressing concern was the red stain that was rapidly spreading across Elliot's shirt. She'd thought her brain wasn't working before; she didn't know the half of it.
"Elliot!" She leaned over him, gripping the top of his sweatshirt and shaking him. "Elliot!" She looked up, only vaguely noticing that the rest of the world seemed to be moving as slowly as she was. All eyes were still locked on something at the top of the stairs, a good fifteen feet from where Olivia needed them to be looking. "Call a bus!"
Her frantic shout drew the attention of others, people who moved in to surround her. Someone was checking over Elliot, putting pressure on the side of his chest from where the blood seemed to be stemming. Someone else was poking at her. She figured they were trying to figure out if she was bleeding or if it was all Elliot's, but she didn't say anything. She didn't actually know if she was bleeding, so she didn't think talking would be of any use. Besides, she was conscious and Elliot wasn't. That told her all she needed to know.
It was an eternity later when the ambulance crew finally appeared, loading her onto a stretcher despite her protests. One of the EMTs was a young woman, her sweet smile and soft voice promising Olivia that someone was taking care of Elliot. Olivia wanted to see it for herself, but the world was getting progressively foggier and she suspected that it had something to do with the warm, fuzzy feeling flowing into her from where the IV had been connected without her knowledge.
They were trying to kill her. Really. She already felt like she'd been hit by a truck masquerading around as Elliot. And she was already desperate enough to cry for want of seeing Elliot or even getting any news on him. Instead, all she got were sadistic nurses who assured her that everything was just fine while poking and prodding her and bending her uncooperative body in all sort of directions while they took x-rays. The doctor, another sadist she was sure, was telling her something about needing to stay overnight, blah, blah, policy, unconscious. She tried, in a voice that sounded like she'd been out drinking for a couple hours, to say she hadn't lost consciousness, but instead confessed that she didn't remember losing consciousness. It seemed like the same thing to her, but the doctor gleefully informed her that her memory loss might well indicate that she had lost consciousness. And off he went, scribbling on a tablet something that moments later wound up with her being wheeled to another room, quite a bit bigger than the x-ray room. A group of nurses and orderlies surrounded her, heaving her painfully onto a different bed. The nurse, a new member of her torture team, reminded her to stay as still as possible.
Olivia really wanted to bitch back that she wasn't about to fucking move, not with the amount of pain she was in. But she didn't manage to form the words before she felt the warm fuzzies start again in her arm. And like every time she tried, the world disappeared into blackness long before she could ask about Elliot.
The next time she awoke she decided without even opening her eyes that she was yanking the damn IV before they could knock her out again. But her right arm didn't respond to her mental command to move it towards the IV tubes and she was out of options. She winced as looked, temporarily blinded by the overhead lights which told her that her head had taken the same trip down the steps as the rest of her. Her right arm was in a cast, a particularly awkward one that reached from her wrist to her shoulder with a ninety-degree bend at the elbow. For the moment, all she could think about was exactly how impossible it was going to be for her to dress herself until it came off. Conveniently, the thought of getting dressed reminded her of getting undressed and thus someone she knew who was very good at helping her get undressed.
With Elliot once again at the forefront of her mind, she quickly assessed herself. Despite the fairly ludicrous amount of pain she was in, the only thing that seemed well and truly out of commission was her right arm, as well as the hand, which sported three fingers splinted together. Her hip hurt a whole hell of a lot, but she wasn't immobilized. It seemed like an invitation to her. Her left hand wrapped around the IV pole, the one she was stuck dragging with her until she found someone willing to pull it for her, which she knew wasn't likely to happen any time soon, and she used it as a crutch to lean on as she slipped off the bed. Her hip and leg started to throb as soon as she put weight on it, but pain aside, she seemed to be in working order. She would have liked to have a free right hand to close the back of the paper-thin white gown someone had put on her, but she decided she didn't care so much who caught site of her underwear as long as she got to see Elliot.
The fact that she was dressed much like and rather resembled, with the fresh purple bruise on half her face that she hadn't yet discovered and yellowed old bruises on her chin from her fall in the snow as well as the one from White's attack, a mental patient escaped her notice. The wobbly, groaning, half-conscious woman dragging a sheet with her IV pole, however, did not escape the attention of the nursing staff.
A very large, very tall, very thick man who Olivia could only assume was Elliot's co-linebacker stepped into her path. "Do you need help, ma'am?"
The tone of his voice indicated that she did need help and he would be happy to provide it by way of her IV bag. But when she snapped her eyes toward his to yell at him, the room swam traitorously around, leaving her with nothing to do besides abandon the IV pole and cling to his clean white uniform for support. Luckily, the man, Dennis according to his nametag, had no trouble supporting her. She would have laid money on him having no trouble supporting a bus in each hand.
"Let's get you back to bed."
"Elliot." Although she'd been aiming for a sentence, the act of speaking turned out to be far more complicated than walking.
"I'm Dennis, ma'am, but I'll help you out anyway."
She wanted to slug him for the condescending way he was talking to her, but she thought better of it since he was holding her up. "Wanna see El."
"Uh huh." He nodded as he more or less carried her back to her room. "Visiting hours are over for tonight, so you'll have to wait until tomorrow morning." Dennis tucked the unhappy patient back in her bed and left.
Exhaustion was creeping in, telling her that she wanted to sleep as much as everyone else wanted her to sleep, but she wasn't listening. Dennis had said it was evening. The last thing she remembered, it had been morning. She'd be damned if she was going to curl up and take a nap before she found out who and what had caused her missing time. And she'd kill if someone didn't take her to Elliot. She clearly remembered him bleeding and unconscious and that wasn't the good sort of mental image she wanted of her partner in her head as she went to sleep.
She groggily pushed herself back to her feet and took a moment to peek out her door for Dennis before she committed to a direction. She saw him, leaning on the nurses' desk, and so headed the other way. Following a loop in the tile with a diameter of maybe twenty feet, she stopped to lean on a wall to catch her breath. Her eyes were closed and Olivia wanted very much in that moment to take a little nap right there in the hallway.
A familiar snicker woke her from her short stupor. "Nice outfit."
Another familiar voice joined in the laughter. "I see London, I see France."
She snapped her head up to yell at the familiar voices that weren't making any sense. Instead of the faces that her head expected to connect with those voices, Dennis loomed before her, so tall she nearly lost her balance craning her head up to see him. "El."
Dennis shook his head. "Didn't I just put you back in bed? I can tell you're not going to be the cooperative sort." He reached out one of his behemoth paws and grasped her elbow.
She whimpered, partly because it was sore, partly because it might kill her to have to climb out of bed again, mostly because she felt like she'd never get to see Elliot. Dennis started to turn her around to face her room, but she caught the two faces she'd expected initially. Fin and Munch. Fin was holding a steaming Styrofoam cup; Munch had a bag of pretzels he was making faces at. She tried to twist her thoughts into a sentence, knowing her friends would help her if she could only convey her wishes.
"El!" It was all she could get out, but luckily, the weak, whiny way it came out got their attention.
And finally, they were moving forward, Fin wrapping his arm around her supportively while Munch flashed his badge at Dennis. "We'll take care of her," he promised.
Rather than telling her how Elliot was, or even better taking her to Elliot, they helped her back to her room. She couldn't even manage a syllable in her frustration, but she was still capable of being embarrassed for the tears that slid down her face. She stared helplessly as Munch while Fin disappeared behind the curtain dividing the room in half.
Munch smiled at her, reached out to pat her shoulder, but thought better of it and let his hand drop to his side. "It's ok, Liv. You don't have to be afraid." The man was clearly uncomfortable offering comfort, but he kept trying. "He's dead, Liv. He can't hurt you anymore."
She probably woke half the patients on the floor with the shriek that came out of her mouth. She started trembling, shaking her head as though it might make the news go away.
Fin reappeared and looked out the door in a distinctly paranoid fashion before he closed it. "Way to scare the shit out of her, man." He cuffed his partner on the back of the head and turned to Liv, nodding at the wheelchair he'd stolen from her roommate. "White is dead is what my brilliant partner meant to say. He tried to kill you, we killed him. Elliot's going to be fine."
Olivia was still shaking, unsure if she was actually hearing words Fin was speaking or if she was simply making them up because they were easier to accept. She checked back with Munch.
Munch nodded, offering a hand to help her back off the bed and into the chair. "Elliot is ok. He's up two floors. Took a bullet through the side, messed up his lung a bit and probably disintegrated what was left of his ribs, but he'll recover. I'd send a thank you note if I were you, saving your life and all." His previous words seemed to strike him suddenly, and his face contorted as he tried to take them back. "Oh, you thought I meant Elliot was dead. No, I thought you were afraid of White coming after you-"
Fin shoved Munch out of the way. "Shut your mouth before you manage to shove the other foot in there." He leaned down to wink at Olivia. "We figured you'd want to see Elliot before the doctors wanted you to see Elliot, so we stashed this chair in here while you were sleeping."
Thankful beyond words, she smiled her appreciation. Too tired to do anything besides clutch the blanket Munch threw over her lap, Olivia rode along quietly, half asleep, as Munch and Fin created what might have been a comical production, had she been awake, of sneaking her to Elliot's room. She yawned the whole time, hoping Elliot would be sleep so he wouldn't see her in her current condition. Munch had mentioned him saving her life and she wanted to ask him about that, particularly what had happened that prompted him to toss her down the stairs, but she knew there was no hope of making any sense in her current state. She just wanted, needed, to see him. Then she could make an attempt, short-lived though she knew it would be, to cooperate with the doctors.
Olivia had never been one to believe in god or a higher power or anything of the sort, not really, but she had to believe someone or something had been looking for her, for them, that day. She was sitting there, in pain but technically fine as far as she could tell, staring up at Elliot, grasping his warm hand in hers, knowing he was going to recover. He was awake and in no better shape to talk than she was, but she didn't need to hear his voice to read the happiness, the relief, on his face when Fin pushed her through the door.
She'd only smiled back, reached for his hand, and relaxed. He'd protected her, just like she'd known he would. He'd saved her. She didn't know exactly what had happened, but she knew he'd put himself in jeopardy to take care of her. As much as it cemented the love she felt for him, she was going to strangle him for it, once they were both healed.
Fin, who'd had the decency to leave them some privacy, rushed into the room and pulled at Olivia's chair. "Somebody's coming. We've got to go!"
She didn't bother to protest. No amount of time would be enough of a reprieve. She smiled at Elliot and nodded, expecting Elliot would release her hand. But with his eyes heavy and pupils pain-killer wide, he had other ideas. It obviously took all of his strength to speak, but he forced out words in a thin, raspy voice.
"I love you."
The guilt and embarrassment that had been following her around since their return faded away entirely. She didn't care that Fin was right there. She didn't care that she didn't have nearly the same amount of drugs in her system. She could have lost Elliot that morning without even knowing what was happening. She could have died just as easily. She wasn't about to take anything for granted.
So she leaned forward, squeezing his hand tightly in hers. "I love you too."
"All right, we really have to go before you break out the violins."
Olivia didn't argue as Fin wheeled her away, but she did look back, holding Elliot's eyes until the door closed between them.