On the fourteenth day of their captivity, nobody shows up to take Olivia away. Nor do the two captives even receive their candy bar ration.
Elliot and Olivia are both perplexed and discuss what this means. Olivia believes the kidnappers are trying to mess with them. Elliot doesn't know what to think. He doesn't tell her this, but he's utterly relieved. He would rather starve than spend another hour worrying she's spending that hour being assaulted.
But then twenty-four more hours go by and they've still seen nothing of their captors.
Elliot knows it's been this long because this time he's paid attention to the angle of the sunrays that manage to penetrate the small window up near the ceiling.
And so they've now gone thirty-six hours without a bite of food. Thankfully there's still the faucet, so they won't die of dehydration, but it doesn't bode well.
Elliot is hungry, but he knows he can manage without food; he's an ex-marine and he's hardy that way. But Olivia is another story. Normally this development would not be so worrisome, as he knows his partner is also tough, but there's now no denying that she's sick.
She's clearly got a fever and she's been hacking out a lung since last night.
He feels helpless.
x-x-x-x-x-x
The team has been understandably deflated ever since the high school turned up nothing. Well, not nothing per se; Duchess County is now minus about two thousand kilos of heroin, thanks to the so-called rescue operation.
Cragen couldn't care less about this. He is shocked at their miscalculation. All the pieces fit, he keeps thinking. How could all the evidence have pointed to this one place, only for a forensics sweep of the building to find no evidence whatsoever that Elliot and Olivia ever stepped foot inside?
Porter, meanwhile, has been utterly defensive of his team's work since the raid, even as he receives accolades from his superiors for such a monumental drug bust. He has redoubled his efforts to find Olivia, wanting, Cragen believes, to save face with the lowly NYPD.
It's just as well, Cragen figures, because yesterday Porter was off somewhere following up on a lead personally, which meant he was out of everyone's hair for the day. He came back, confident he was onto something, and today he's sequestered himself away in a conference room, reviewing the details and talking to his team.
Cragen is thankful for small favors.
x-x-x-x-x-x
It's been another half-day without food and Olivia's not doing well. Her fever doesn't appear to be breaking and it's obvious she's achy and tired. Of course, she's denying it all vociferously.
As Elliot looks across the room at her huddled form on the bed, he's upset they didn't attempt an escape sooner. Now he wonders if she'd be able to make it.
x-x-x-x-x-x
Sixty hours after they last saw their captors, Elliot is convinced that they've been abandoned. On the one hand he's thrilled because he no longer has to go through agonizing hours wondering what's happening to Olivia every time they take her away. But he's extremely worried, now, for a different reason: her condition has deteriorated markedly since last night, and she now appears to have a full-blown flu.
Neither of them has eaten anything in two and a half days and it's clear to him that Olivia is feeling weak. She's curled up on the mattress in the fetal position, shivering and shaking, and her face is flushed with fever. She's coughing and coughing. He's been trying to coax her to the faucet to drink some water – he's got no container in which to bring it to her – but she refuses to budge from the mattress. He's not sure she'd keep it down anyway.
He sits down next to her on the mattress and feels her forehead. He grimaces at how hot her skin is.
She reads his mind. "I-I-I'm okay," she manages, but the words are betrayed by the chattering of her teeth. She can't seem to stop shaking.
He wishes there was something he could do for her. It's torture, feeling this helpless. He lies down on the mattress behind her, spooning her, and puts his arm around her waist, trying to provide a cocoon of warmth.
Though they've slept side-by-side on the tiny cot together each night, it's the first time he's lain with her like this, so intimately close. She loves having him this close and the gush of heat she feels from his body is a godsend, but instantly she's worried he's going to notice her slightly distended abdomen. She has spent her time in captivity being paranoid about this, forcing herself not to freeze every time his eyes wander to a place other than her face. She has come to figure out, through this series of false alarms, that his eyes simply tend to wander her body. She wonders if this has always been the case or if it's been going on since they had sex, or if it's a function of their current predicament.
Presently she does her best to subtly nudge his arm higher, so that he's clutching her just below her breasts. She knows that the worst possible way for him to find out about her pregnancy would be by accident like this.
"Look, there's something I have to tell you," he says huskily from behind her, holding her close.
"Me too," she says impulsively, her voice a hoarse whisper. Enough is enough, she thinks.
He's surprised. "Really?"
"Yeah. But you first."
"Okay." He takes a deep breath and pulls her closer against him. The heat radiates off her. "I'm in love with you."
She inhales sharply and tries to move her neck to look back at him. But she's aching all over and the effort is too much for her. "Oh… oh, Elliot… I don't… I didn't expect…"
"I just had to tell you. Having your life threatened, it makes you realize what's important."
"Oh, don't say that. Come on, your life is threatened every other week," she teases, trying to deflect. When he's silent and she sees how serious he is, she adds, "We're gonna get out of here. We have to."
He lays a palm on her temple. "I know. I know we will. But I… I'm worried about you, Liv."
"Elliot, I'll be okay. I'm a fighter."
"You're sick."
She's touched by his concern; it's not like he knows she's also carrying what might be his child. "It's just a flu. I'll be fine." The truth is, she's never felt this physically weak, this drained, this achy. It wouldn't be such a big deal if she weren't pregnant, but she's profoundly worried about the baby. She feels helpless and guilty and scared not knowing how such illness and starvation are affecting her child.
"We're locked up in a basement with no food and no medicine," he reminds her.
His words cause tears to well up in her eyes. She has learned through a series of close calls that her hormones have a tendency to wreak havoc on her emotions and that if she dwells too deeply on the danger she's in, she's liable to spontaneously start to cry. She doesn't want to upset Elliot with such a display and so she forces herself through sheer will power to remain stoic. "You don't know that they're not coming back," she says.
"I can't just sit here and let us starve."
She sees where he's going with this. "You want to try climbing the bed?" she asks, a little horrified by the prospect.
He hesitates. "Ordinarily, with you being this sick, I'd say no way. But I… don't think we should risk going another day without food. I think we should try for it."
She processes his argument. The idea of moving from this bed is unthinkable at the moment; she's not sure she could even stand up without keeling over from dizziness. But she knows he's right. It's the only way. "Okay," she says hesitantly.
"But Liv, we might have to trek for a bit. I have to know you can make it."
"They'll track our footprints in the snow," she points out, then loses herself in a fit of coughs.
He frowns. That's the least of our worries, he thinks, as he waits for her to catch her breath. "We'll have to take that chance." He pauses and pulls her closer, his chin in her hair. "How're you feeling?"
It's a throwaway question because the answer is rather obvious, but he asks anyway, wanting to hear her reassure him, even if her answer is a boldfaced lie.
Predictably, she replies, "I'm okay, Elliot. I can do this."
He props himself up on an elbow and leans over her from behind, studying her. He slides his palm across her forehead and winces. "Jesus, you're really burning up."
She covers his hand with hers, then pries it away from her forehead. "I'm okay."
"You're shivering," he protests. He pulls her closer so that her back is flush against his chest. He regrets waiting this long to tell her how he's felt for years. He can't believe he's gone this long without holding her.
"Like you said, we don't have much of a choice."
"What was it you wanted to tell me?" he suddenly thinks to ask.
"It's okay… it was nothing."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah, I'm sure."
"All right…" he says skeptically.
"Oh, but Elliot?"
"Yeah?"
"I love you too."
And I hope to God this baby is yours.