"So now you're sleeping peaceful I lie awake and pray

That you'll be strong tomorrow and will see another day"

-Hold On, Sarah McLachlan

Thursday, June 8, 2023

Afternoon

Her hands are shaking as she waits and even though she knows it's bad, she feels worse when she sees Fin's answer is NYU because they wouldn't have transported him so far in an ambulance and that means he was airlifted and that's never a good sign, but somehow she feels better because they wouldn't have a bothered airlifting him if it was too late.

Then again, she realizes with her breath catching, whatever happened was hours ago and he might have been dead and they put him in a bus out of respect for the badge or he might have been alive to be flown but he's not now and she's clutching her hand over her heart as she staggers toward the street to hail a cab because she can't wait for Fin. If Elliot is dead… she can't finish the thought as a sob escapes her and she collapses into the taxi and flashes her badge and tells him to floor it, shit she can't face Fin because he'd try to be gentle and she'll know as soon as she looks at him so his words won't even matter.

She blacks out on the ride. She doesn't remember if there was traffic or if the cabbie was running red lights or if Fin had tried to contact her again or if McGrath had called and fired her for walking out. She has no idea if she even paid the driver. She was outside 1PP and now she's outside the doors of the ER and her sense of urgency is gone. She's terrified. She can't hear anything besides the blood rushing in her ears and she's shaking and she's vaguely aware she might fall with how hard she's shaking, but she finds she's glued to the sidewalk and can't move a step. She can't go through those doors. Elliot might be dead if she goes inside and she wants to stay where she is because as long as she's here and not there Elliot is alive.

But another thought occurs to her that spurs her to move, the idea that Elliot might still be alive, in bad shape but alive, and knowing she's there might help him, knowing she showed up might give him something to hold onto, and she won't be able to stand the guilt that she stood outside in fear when he needed her. So she steps through the doors, her expression and badge calling the attention of the triage desk, the woman not bothering with a greeting, just a nod to the right, sending Olivia down a long hallway that's crowded at the end with a sea of blue uniformed bodies, drawn faces, and quiet murmurs.

She pushes through the group, words she doesn't want to hear reaching her ears, words like DOA and bleeding out and head wound and pointless and surgery and memorials and family notifications.

She reaches the end of the hall, a pair of double doors separating the crowd from a smaller group, some of whom she actually recognizes. She pushes through those doors, not even bothering to wonder if she should be here because Bell is sitting in a chair looking absolutely devastated and there's a moment where Olivia pauses, when she thinks maybe Elliot wasn't one of the three, and the door almost hits her as it swings closed and she turns to duck out of the way and her eyes catch Jet who's sitting on the floor next to Bell's chair, heavy eyeliner smeared with her tears, and Olivia feels guilty then, for being sad that it's not Elliot sitting there instead.

Ayanna's eyes lift from her twisting fingers, her face falling somehow further when she recognizes Olivia, and she says nothing as her gaze eventually returns to the floor, but Olivia is pretty sure the woman's chin is trembling. Olivia is still shaking and she's not sure what to make of the fact that no one is saying anything and she can't blame them because if she'd lost three of her detectives she wouldn't have anything to say either.

There's a cough from the other side of the hall and Olivia turns with the desperate hope that it's Elliot, except of course it's not Elliot because if it had been Elliot he would have greeted her. It's another man Olivia doesn't recognize who's sitting in the chair opposite Bell and Olivia assumes this is the new guy Elliot had mentioned and it's visual proof that Elliot was one of the three because the rest of Bell's detectives are sitting there, unharmed, and Olivia is fighting for breath but she can't breathe at all because she's breaking. This is it. She's not coming back from this. She survived him leaving her, but she cannot survive him dying.

She doesn't know how she got there, but she's sitting in a chair and she's staring at her legs and she can't focus and she's still shaking and she hears a door opening and there's a voice addressing Bell, advising her that he's taken care of notifications for Evans and Whelan and asking if she's contacted Stabler's next of kin and Olivia's heart clenches because that should be her except no one thought to call her because she pretends Elliot means nothing to her and the only call she got was from one of her friends who knows she's a fucking liar.

She hears Bell's voice, interrupted several times by clearing her throat, obviously trying to get through the conversation without cracking, and she's saying that his daughter is on the way and Olivia thinks it's just fucking mean to drag one of his kids to the hospital to get the news that he's dead and then the man, Chief Collins she assumes, finally asks the question that Olivia can't bring herself to ask.

"How's he doing?"

The only thing she catches is the tense, the fact that Elliot is not was and her heart leaps and lodges in her throat and she wants to sob with relief but the answer.

"Doesn't look good. They said he flatlined three times in the chopper, he's been in surgery for hours, no one's given us any updates."

Olivia's head finally snaps up, thinking about how Elliot was suffering while she was wallowing in a hangover and he was dying while she was resenting her boss and there are the tears she would have expected earlier if she'd been thinking straight.

Collins nods, a heavy sigh escaping his lips. "There's going to be a press conference in an hour and I'm going to need to have some more details from you regarding what happened."

Bell's response is lost under the sound of doors opening, both sets on opposite ends of the corridor, one revealing Kathleen Stabler, the other a doctor in bloody scrubs and Olivia climbs to her feet because it feels like she needs to be standing for whatever's coming next. Olivia doesn't know where to look, but Kathleen makes the choice for her, the blonde woman running over and grabbing her shoulders, the younger woman's face crumbling as tears pour from her eyes.

"Tell me he's ok, Liv, please, tell me he's ok!"

She can't speak, can't think, can't answer, because she doesn't know anything. Her mouth opens and closes helplessly while she tries to fight back her own tears.

Kathleen tries again, her volume rising as the panic builds. "What happened? I heard something on the news about a shooting, but-"

"Family of Elliot Stabler?" The doctor's confident voice interrupts Kathleen and pulls the attention from one of the recently arrived women to the other.

Olivia doesn't know what to do. She wants to approach because he said she was family, but he only said it in private and only to her and she doesn't know if that's going to count to hospital staff. But Kathleen has no qualms with answering, her voice cracking on every word. "I'm his daughter."

The doctor's face seems to fall, as though she'd been hoping one of the less emotive people in attendance would answer her. "Let's talk in another room."

Olivia's heart skips a beat and her eyes dart to Ayanna's and she sees the fear and dread and disappointment and sadness reflected right back at her. She's ready to drop down into her chair again and she resigns herself to waiting for news until after Kathleen comes back to inform them except Kathleen's hand clutches Olivia's and she feels herself being pulled forward and she sees the way the doctor is about to object, but Kathleen shuts off any protests.

"She's family."

And then the two women are following the third into a room labeled "Family Waiting" and there's a desk with a computer and a printer and a recliner and a plush couch with soft light spilling from the lamps and Olivia feels her stomach rolling over because this isn't a family waiting room, this is a bad news delivery room and she wants to run back outside into the harsh fluorescent lights where no one cares that you're uncomfortable because you're getting good news.

The doctor motions around the room, inviting them to take a seat, but Olivia stands stoic just inside the door unwilling to bother sitting down because if this news is as bad as she fears, she's going to die anyway. Kathleen remains at her side, one hand wrapped around Olivia's, the other hand clawing at her bicep, and all Olivia can think about is the way Elliot always grabs her in the same spot to get her attention when she's walking away from him and she's cursing herself for ever walking away from him.

The doctor's voice is soft, but steady and it's a quality Olivia knows would be lacking in her tone if she could even get her mouth to work. "Mr. Stabler is in critical condition at the moment. He was very seriously wounded this morning. He wasn't breathing when paramedics arrived on the scene, but they were able to revive him. Unfortunately he lost a lot of blood before he arrived at the hospital and there's no telling how long his brain was deprived of oxygen before he was resuscitated."

It takes a moment as the words all sound like a foreign language and she doesn't want to comprehend most of what the doctor is reporting, but again, Olivia picks up on the tense, probably a throwback to her upbringing, and she finally finds her voice, weak and choked as it is. "He's alive?"

Kathleen chokes on a sob and drops her face onto Olivia's shoulder and Olivia wishes she had someone to collapse on and instead digs her nails into Kathleen's hand.

The doctor winces and that tells Olivia more than her answer. "For the moment. We're having trouble maintaining his blood pressure and temperature and his heart has stopped several times. We would normally not allow visitors, but under the circumstances, I don't think it will do any harm."

Olivia fights to hold it back, but a choked sob escapes her lips anyway. She knows what that means and the doctor confirms it with her next words.

"I recommend you contact the rest of his family. His prognosis is not good."

Kathleen isn't trying or isn't able to hold back her tears and so Olivia is left to ask the question even though she feels like she's dying too. "How long?"

"Probably before morning."