"Please don't change, please don't break

Cause the only thing that seems to work at all is you"

-Real World, Matchbox 20

Thursday, June 8, 2023

Afternoon

He really is confused by consciousness. He remembers clearly that he was dying, swears he can still feel the weight of Whelan's body crushing his chest, but it's not quite as bright anymore and there's so fucking much noise and he feels his body being pulled apart and beaten and stabbed and there is nothing but terror and he still can't move or speak or do anything at all about the tears that pour out of his eyes from the excruciating pain everywhere in his body.

He tries to turn his thoughts away from the agony because it's unbearable and he's trying to remember anything besides pain and he's coming up blank. There are people here, shouting and moving and he doesn't know them and he just wants them to leave him alone but he can't remember how to speak and he thinks maybe these people are responsible for the pain and so he doesn't want them to notice that he's awake. He closes his eyes and tries to will sleep to come back to him.

But he's being jostled side to side and his feet are lifting up and he feels like he's about to fall on his head and he's scared to death of falling for some reason even though he can't fathom hurting worse than he already is and then he's flat again except for the sideways rocking and it's more noises he doesn't understand and he's so fucking cold and he blinks his eyes open as he feels himself sliding and then it's actually dark and he realizes he'd been in shadows before but now he's in a room and he's thankful for the ceiling that has finally shaded him from the damn sun. But the noises are still there and they're talking frantically and those voices seem connected to the random increases in the pain he feels and he finally thinks he has to scream from the pain only to realize there's something over his mouth and he can't breathe deep enough to make a sound.

The shaking intensifies and there's more sound and it drowns out the voices mercifully except it's so loud he can't see and he vaguely recognizes the thumping as a helicopter and that recognition confuses him so thoroughly that he doesn't hurt for a few moments. There's no reason for him to be in a helicopter that he can recall. Then again, there's no reason for him to be being tortured to death either, and yet, he apparently is.

He opens his eyes again, looking around, trying to get his bearings, trying to figure out what the fuck is going on, because the not knowing is as frightening as the pain. This time, however, someone takes note, a flight suit clad man with a headset and microphone catches his glance. The man leans down and moves the mic away from his mouth, his shout against Elliot's ear barely registering over the thumping. There are probably more words, but only a few pass through the intense noise.

"Shot… airlift… pain…sir."

His mind feels like it fractures then at the use of the title, half of his brain telling him he's a career NYPD detective and the other half, the one that appears to know what's going on, telling him he's a Marine who's being medevaced out of combat after he was called up from the reserves. He's reeling as he feels like reality has splintered and he can see two different realities and he doesn't know which one is real and he's desperate to hold onto his thoughts and he's remembering the bright sun and the miserable heat in the desert and he remembers being pinned down and watching his friends being shot and he thought another friend had saved him and there's this whole other life with Kathy and Olivia that he remembers but maybe he made it all up because he's in a chopper and being called sir and he doesn't understand. There's a strong pull to embrace what he sees and hears, to accept that he's fighting for his life and he needs to live because he's got Kathy and Maureen and Kathleen to support and dammit his little girls need a father and he has these plans to get the hell out of the Marines before he dies and go back to being a detective because it's a good, steady job and he gets enough overtime that he doesn't need the income from the reserves anymore and he'll be home in New York and he and Kathy can make it work and he can be the father he never had to his beautiful daughters and the husband Joseph Stabler certainly never was to Bernie.

But he still has these other memories, fantasies maybe, of having already lived - and failed at - that life, that there are five kids, that Maureen has a husband and children, that Kathy is gone, that he did leave the Corps, that he knows and loves Olivia. His heart clenches in his chest at the thought of giving her up, at the idea that he'd imagined everything while he lay dying in the desert and he's clinging to the idea that Olivia is real, but he can't seem to remember anything specific, and he thinks he's known her for years but he can't remember a single conversation or any details about her and it's just this vague feeling of love and it terrifies him that he's hallucinated this angel who gave him a reason to live and if she's not real, then he doesn't have a reason to live anymore, and he sees the men around him scrambling and moving faster and he closes his eyes, deciding he'd rather die than lose Olivia. But he feels like he has to make a choice here, that he has to give up Kathy, his high school sweetheart and the mother of his children and the woman to whom he was married for forty years, if he wants to keep Olivia. If he chooses Kathy and the girls, then Olivia - oh fuck - he can't betray Olivia again, but how can he let Kathy be murdered the terrible way she was and why the hell is it even up to him and he wonders if this is the temptation Father Hogan had cautioned him about.

He's in absolute agony and he's truly not sure if his mind or body hurt more and he's trying to force his eyes open again because he's certain when he closes them the next time all of these memories will be erased and he'll lose not just Olivia, but the twins and Eli and his grandsons and having made peace with his mother and even accepted his father's legacy and he doesn't want to admit it, but he already made his choice and he wants this life he imagined more than he wants the real one and he's watching as the man who'd spoken pulls a syringe out of a vial and the syringe is shoved into an IV line Elliot hasn't even noticed until now and he knows, he knows, whatever it is will make his eyes close and he'll lose her and them and he doesn't want to be in his twenties and do it all over again. He's made his choice to walk willingly into temptation and fuck anyone who tells him it's wrong and he'll happily rot in hell if she's just real because right now, in this purgatory, he can admit that she is his reason for everything and the reason he was born and he needs the thought of her more than he needs the pain to stop. He doesn't want to forget. He tries to reach out, to grab the IV, to signal his distress, to stop history from being erased, but his arms won't move and his voice won't work and there's nothing he can do as the tingling works its way up his arm and into his chest and his whole body is heavy again and it's pulling his mind under and he swears this time, he doesn't want to wake up, not if he has to lose her and maybe this is judgement day and he's turning away from heaven, but he doesn't care because Olivia.

He does wake up though and his first thought is spent on the absolutely immense amount of pain he feels. It's enough to take his breath away, but holding his breath and hoping the pain fades isn't an option, not with the tube that's taped against his lips forcing air into his lungs and once he notices the tube it's suddenly all he can feel and he tries to pull it out except his arms still don't move and even thinking about moving hurts and he's afraid his entire life is now going to be split between horrific pain and crying in frustration about the horrific pain.

It takes a moment for him to notice anything besides himself, but he does, his ears picking up a sound that's not a beeping monitor, his brain finally realizing there's another person there with him only when he pries his eyes open the slightest bit and they fall on the outline of the woman who's facing away from him, staring out the window into that goddamn bright sunshine. He sees the halo of blonde hair and the petite frame and he swears his heart breaks as he realizes that it wasn't his choice at all, that the universe made it for him and it isn't the one he wanted.

There are more tears, of course there are, that's all his life is now, he knows only pain and tears, but as he's squeezing his eyes closed and hoping this time to lose consciousness and stay that way, he realizes reality is now even worse. Because he's stuck here, living this life he didn't choose, but he still has his memories of the other one and he can picture her face once again even though she's not real and he clings to that as the fatigue overtakes him again. He doesn't want to give her up, not even if she was only in his imagination. He lets the memories of her fill his mind, wishing he could hallucinate her some more, fantasize that she's standing here next to his hospital bed.

He feels it then, the lightest touch of fingers against his temple, and he knows it's her, his angel, because he's willed her to exist for just a few more moments and he struggles to open his eyes because he wants to see her, he needs to see her face, to refresh his memory in case she disappears again, in case she's really gone next time he wakes up. But the pain is choking any voluntary response and he wants to scream because her palm is on his cheek and it's so different from the last time, when she'd slapped him, and he can't manage to pull his eyes open again to look at her and he knows it's not real anyway, but he's glad he can cling to this memory instead of the other one where she was angry and he realizes she was leaving him then too and he hopes like hell that this tiny bit of comfort he finds in the warmth of her skin against his is enough to drown out the pain.