It had all happened so fast. A masked man burst into the diner with a shotgun. The barrel had swung in his direction and out of sheer instinct, he ducked. That's when two shots rang out. One from the shotgun and one from behind him.
Liv.
The deafening ringing in his ears began to give way to the chaos unfolding around him. Everyone was jumping into action, everyone except for one person.
Liv.
That's when he found her on the ground behind him. She was on her back. Her face scrunched in, her bloody hands trembling at her side. "I'm hit", she whimpered in between tiny, gasping breaths.
Nothing could've made Elliot scramble to his knees and to her side faster. Her hands were stained crimson but her stark white shirt was free of any blemish. "Where Liv? Tell me where!" He pleaded, his frantic blue eyes searching her body for the injury. He recognized that look on her face, she was going into shock.
Unable to wait any longer, he took matters into his own hands and yanked her shirt from where it was tucked into her pants to begin look for the entry wound. As soon as he did, a burgundy flood cascaded over her flat quivering stomach. His large hands tried to swipe away the blood in his search but only found razed lines across her skin, a past trauma.
That's when he noticed the front of her dark dress slacks were wet. His dexterous hands made quick work of unbuckling her belt and unclasping her pants. He had always envisioned the first time he would do this, but never like this.
Yanking her pants passed her hips in one swift moment, his blood ran cold. Right there in the dip of her pelvis was the hole, no bigger than a dime, the source of the crimson river running down the crease between her leg and pubic bone. Along the line of her panties.
Without another thought he pressed one palm against the gushing wound, scarlet streams following the veins at the back of his hand. His head swam and his stomach lurched.
Blood had never bothered him, but the fact that it was Olivia's blood. The life source that kept the woman he loved alive. The thought could've made his pass out if he wasn't the one plugging her massive, possibly arterial, bleed. "Officer hit, get a medic here now!" He roared, his voice booming above the chaotic scene.
Spotting a cloth napkin nearby, he snatched it and shook any debris from it before pressing it to the hemorrhaging injury. Hard. His head whipped around as he searched for any help that may be coming, a flush spreading from under his shirt collar, deepening with every pump of his heart.
"El", she called weakly, drawing his wild eyes in her direction. Red stained hands gripped his sweater, marring the soft gray material she had admired him in just minutes earlier. "Noah", she gasped through the pain. "I can't leave him."
With one hand still pressed firmly against her groin, the only thing stopping her from losing her entire blood volume, he brought the other to push the hair back from her forehead. The comfort of the gesture was lost as soon as he saw the smudge of red that transferred from his hand to her skin. "You're not going anywhere, okay?" He tried his best to sound convincing but he could feel the terror shining in his eyes and the urgency bleeding into his voice. His head whipped around. "Where's the fucking bus?!"
And that's when everything went black.
The deja vu that washed over him paralyzed him where he sat in the captain's chair by the head of the stretcher. This wasn't the first time Elliot found himself speeding in an ambulance, hoping the woman he loved would pull through. By some miracle.
That's what it would take. A miracle.
When he hung his head, his eyes landed on her still, lifeless face and when they closed fat tears fell against her still face.
He prayed.
He prayed for her, he prayed for Noah. He prayed he would be able to make up for every single day he was gone. He prayed he would never have to know a life without her again.
He touched his forehead, the center of his chest, his left shoulder then his right in the sign of the cross before opening his eyes back up to the nightmare around him. He gripped the thin mattress between Olivia's mangled body and the stretcher, his knuckles white, as he watched the medic work.
She was bare from the waist down and he was torn between being respectful and looking away and making sure the medic did everything he could to help her. The latter won out in the end. Her long legs, usually tanned now streaked with dark red, convulsed continuously against the starchy sheet covering the stretcher.
A shudder of guilt ran through him at where he had conjured this image before. Except, in his mind, her legs shook from the pleasure he brought her and he had ripped her pants off in the heat of passion not in a wave of panic. Late at night, alone in his bed, his only company his overactive imagination as he gripped his hard arousal.
Before the crippling shame could crush him completely, a small voice shaping his name brought him back to reality. "El…", she was barely audible behind the oxygen mask as her bleary eyes blinked open.
"Shh, I'm here." He answered, his voice deep and strangled in the back of his throat. He brought his shaking hands to frame her face, hoping the gesture brought her just the slightest bit of comfort.
As her eyes came into focus, she blinked up at him in a longing gaze. The intrusive thought that invaded his mind would haunt him always. What a shame it would be if the last time he got to see her beautiful face alive, it would be ashen, obscured by an oxygen mask and from this upside down perspective.
As if she heard his thought, her weak, blood stained hand came up to move the mask away from her face. He attempted to stop her but he didn't try too hard because he did want to hear what she was trying to say. "Th-thank you for coming back to me." She breathed shakily, tears collecting in the corner of his favorite brown eyes. "I thought I would n-never see your face again." She said around a sob. "I'm glad I was wrong."
"Liv…", he tried to cut her off but she ignored him almost as if she would lose momentum if she stopped.
"You need to take care of Noah. H-he trusts you." Her face crumbled under the intense emotion of never seeing her son again. "He can't lose anyone else."
Elliot only realized he was crying when he realized his tears were dropping on her face, mixing with hers. "You have so many of my memories. Tell him. Make sure he knows about me, knows about us."
Choking on a sob, he leaned forward and pressed his trembling lips to her forehead. "We'll tell him together, you hear me? We'll tell him together."
"Together." She parroted, the word slurred as her consciousness was slipping. The image of the three of them, happy invaded her mind one last time before the darkness overtook her.