"Everything falls apart then I get to try to put it back together."
- Everything Falls Apart, Dog's Eye View

Saturday, June 17, 2023

Morning

She's a frazzled mess when a knock on the door wakes her. It was pure exhaustion that knocked her out finally in the wee hours, her body too tired to even pull the chair out into the bed before she closed her eyes. The evening before, the doctor had determined that Noah was breathing better and had finally decided Noah didn't need additional oxygen and transferred Noah out of the PICU and into a regular room. The woman even said she's anticipating discharging Noah on Monday if everything continues to go well. The doctor was happy and Noah was beside himself to get the mask off his face and the nurses were excited, but Olivia spent the whole night absolutely terrified that he was going to stop breathing or start wheezing or something would go horribly wrong and that Noah would wind up back in intensive care, but she was also convinced he needed that careful oversight from the attentive PICU staff.

But Noah was fine and his breathing was fine and somewhere around three in the morning, Olivia sat down and finally got some sleep.

Only to be woken up by the tap on the door that scares her back to full consciousness and she immediately thinks it's Noah that woke her in some sort of distress but he's still sound asleep, curled on his side in the hospital bed with his whole body wrapped around the enormous stuffed tiger Fin had delivered from the gift shop and she's frantically scanning the screen of the single monitor that is still attached to her son for some reason why she's awake and there's nothing wrong that she can tell, but what does she know.

The knock sounds again and this time she realizes it's a visitor and not a medical alert and she pulls open the door to find an older woman she doesn't recognize. "Can I help you?"

The woman smiles and holds up a gift bag. "Mrs. Benson? I'm Victoria Reynolds, I'm one of Noah's teachers."

Olivia nods and remembers the way Noah goes on and on about her, knowing she's one of his favorites, and runs her fingers through her hair and straightens the clothes she's been in since Amanda brought them two days ago. "It's Olivia, yes, Noah talks about you all the time. You're behind that life skills project he's been on since Christmas."

Victoria nods and Olivia recognizes the nervousness in her suddenly fidgeting hands. "It's called Project Based Learning."

Perhaps she should feel guilty, but Olivia doesn't often get roped into helping with his homework so if Victoria needs to be nervous, it would be around Noah's babysitters. "Noah seems to love it and I have no problems with him learning something more helpful than how to measure the volume of a sphere." Because at least Olivia can help him with "life skills" easier than she can with math. She steps back and pulls the door open, motioning Victoria into the room.

While Victoria is arranging the gift bag and a pile of homemade cards on the rolling table, Olivia wakes Noah. He's grumpy, but he's always grumpy when he wakes up and he's clinging to his tiger and whining about wanting to sleep, but Olivia points out that he has a visitor and he's absolutely mortified in front of Victoria because he's in his pjs and his hair is unbrushed and she saw me sleeping, mom and the women try not to laugh at his nervousness. He goes for the gift bag first and he hides his dismay pretty well for a kid when he finds an array of school supplies - pens and markers and erasers shaped like animals - and he's a little interested in the book on designing paper airplanes which Olivia is fairly certain he has never attempted and then he's looking at the cards from his classmates and he's smiling and reading some of the jokes his friends wrote and Victoria is explaining to Olivia that the school will send a detailed list of assignments he's missed and he'll be able to make them up and if he's not able to catch up by the end of the school year in a few weeks, she'll be able to mentor him to finish everything without needing to attend summer school because there's just over a week left of the school year so most of his work for the year is already done.

Olivia notices a big change in Noah after the visit and she sees him rereading his cards and he's no longer whining about being sick, even though he still sounds like he's trying to cough up a lung, but he's whining about wanting to go home and he's actually asking for paper to try those paper airplanes and for some reason, an image of Noah and Elliot hard at work building them at her dining room table springs to mind and then she wants to cry because she hasn't seen Elliot and she knows he's alive and awake, but she really needs to see it with her own eyes.

The doctor is thoroughly pleased to see Noah trying to make one of those airplanes out of a card from a classmate he's not particularly fond of and Olivia takes the book away and makes him listen to the daily lecture about taking his asthma medicine and Olivia adds in a warning about lying to her about taking his medicine because it took two days of being in the hospital before the boy admitted he didn't want to need medicine like he was sick or something and so had stopped taking the pills that prevented his asthma from flaring up and open his airways and allow him to not get sick or something. After the doctor leaves, Olivia again reminds him there's still a chance he'll outgrow it and not need the medicine forever and when she starts to cry telling him how scared she was, he reaches for a tight hug and promises her he'll never do it again.

She gets a text from Fin, telling her that he saw Elliot, that Elliot is indeed awake and as Elliot as ever and she's curious about Fin's reference to Elliot asking questions, but he refuses to elaborate and says he'll tell her about it in person if she ever comes back to work. She wants to push, to demand he explain himself, but she knows Fin and she knows he'll refuse to answer and there's probably a reason he's not telling her now. And then he reminds her again that he had to retrieve her car from Elliot's apartment and that she's going to have to give him more details on that at some point.

The McCanns surprise Noah with a visit later in the afternoon, the visit from Mrs. Reynolds apparently informing Noah that he's allowed non-family visits now and Olivia wants to be annoyed at Noah once again planning social activities before he checks with her, but honestly, she's glad for the break because while she's still nervous, he really does seem a lot better and while it's scary, she takes the opportunity to run home, take a shower, eat a meal that doesn't come from a vending machine and make sure Noah's room is clean and ready for him to return on Monday. She contemplates calling McGrath and saying she'll probably be back to work this week, she decides against it because she doesn't know what day, and she figures she should leave it until she knows what day to promise him.

She's in her car, heading back to the hospital, when she thinks about Elliot again. She wants to see him. She wants to talk to him. She wants to apologize for the way she acted that night and clear the air and see if they can get back on the same page, but she knows that's going to be a very long conversation and he's probably too tired while he's still recovering and his family is probably there and shit Bernie's funeral is tomorrow and she doesn't think it's possible for her to go and she can't face Elliot knowing neither of them is able to attend his mother's funeral.

She chickens out of a visit, deciding that he's going to be mad - at her for good reason, at the universe for good reason too - and tells herself that maybe she can rope Amanda into staying with Noah long enough for her to stand in Elliot's place once again at a funeral.

By the time she's back in Noah's room, this time fully stocked with her laptop and Noah's tablet and a change of clothes and toiletries to make grooming possible and healthy snacks, she's gotten Amanda's promise that she'll be there with the whole family to make sure Noah is fine while she's gone.

Olivia is excited to see Noah sitting up on the side of his bed and playing a video game with Connor, his coughing still loud but not as frequent, and for some reason, seeing the boys together reminds her of Elliot and how his had been the first name to spring to mind when she was too tired to drive Noah home that night and then she's thinking about how worried Elliot would have been about Noah if he wasn't sick himself and she can imagine the way he'd hover in the room and be overbearing and aggressive with the medical staff if he didn't trust them and she thinks about texting Elliot to let him know that Noah is sick but he's getting better and she remembers Elliot probably doesn't have his phone because fuck he likely hasn't seen it since before he was shot and it's either in the trash with the clothes they cut off him in the operating room or Bell has it along with his badge and gun. Her fingers hover over the group chat on her phone, thinking about asking the kids to explain her continued absence, but they're getting ready for a funeral and she doesn't want to bother them. And she thinks maybe he'll understand by her actions, her presence at his bedside and standing in his place at the funerals and trying to take care of his family when he couldn't, that she's working on forgiving him and opening up and taking him up on his repeated attempts to be more than friends.

She knows Fin saw him and she's sure Fin told him why she wasn't there and she's watching Noah say goodbye to his brother and she's hugging the McCanns and then she tells Noah that Amanda is coming to see him tomorrow and she doesn't want to, but she finds herself telling him about Bernie, about where she's going to be while Amanda is here and Noah comes out of nowhere and asks if Elliot is going to die too because he's been in the hospital a long time and Olivia has gone to a lot of funerals lately and the question just reminds her of how very close Elliot came and she never told Noah about that part because she was trying to shield him and she assures Noah that Elliot will be fine and she hopes the universe hears her and doesn't make her a liar because she won't believe her own words until she sees him in person.