Author's Comments: It's not pretty, but realistically this is about what would happen.
I think I sensed some sarcasm in that last comment, lol. But we do care, Guest, and you will see that if you keep reading. Or don't, if it bothers you. That's why I labeled this story as "angst" and not "romance." And let's face it—relationships in real life aren't all fairy tales and rainbows after the first few months, and Elliot does have a problem with his anger. So I guess this story isn't for everyone, but I still think it's believable, nevertheless.
Too Close
Chapter Seven
Part 1.
A team of medical uniforms met Amanda and Elliot with Olivia slung over his shoulder just outside the sliding emergency room doors. Once Elliot placed her on the gurney, the experts crowded him out and took over. "BP's falling, get a crash cart ready," said one man wearing a white jacket. He turned to Elliot and said, "What did she have?"
Amanda answered for him, saying, "A handful of ten milligram hydro and enough liquor to do some serious damage."
Once the team had her inside a room, a nurse threaded an IV into Olivia's vein, cursing when it took her two or three tries before a satisfying bubble of red appeared. Elliot couldn't move his eyes off Olivia, glancing away from her only long enough to read the numbers on the monitors. Every time the rhythm slowed, Elliot held his breath, silently begging for each peak not to be the last one.
The nurse injected something into the tube, and a few seconds later, Olivia sat straight up with a gasp. She looked over to her right and gulped three deep breaths, her eyes scanning the room. She saw a bedpan held next to her by a nurse just in time to lean her head over and hurl into it. Elliot closed his eyes, not because he couldn't stand the sight of her throwing up, but because her awakening brought so much relief.
A nurse noticed him standing there for the first time and gently said, "Sir, are you family?"
"I'm—" he said, glancing at Amanda. "We're co-workers."
"Okay, I'm going to have to ask you to step outside the room for a few minutes."
His attempts to glimpse Olivia one last time were blocked by a wall of scrubs. He stepped out with Amanda and began to pace. "She'll be okay now, Elliot," said Amanda, but he knew she had no way of knowing that for sure.
A doctor came out in the hallway within a few minutes. "Do you have any information about her family?" he said.
"She doesn't have any," said Elliot, wanting to add that he was the closest thing she had, but not wanting to get into the details of their relationship.
"Are you close to her?"
"Yeah," he said. "I used to be her partner."
"We both work with her," added Amanda.
"Well maybe you can answer some questions for me then, while she recovers," said the doctor, glancing down at his clipboard.
Recovers. Elliot let the reassuring word roll around in his head, and then said, "Is she gonna be okay?"
The doctor wore a poker face, saying, "I think she will. She's out of immediate danger. But the alcohol combined with the acetaminophen in the hydrocodone could have damaged her liver, so we'll have to run some tests, and then it's wait and see."
Elliot let out a lungful of air and brought his hand to his head, wiping away sweat. The doctor studied the paperwork on his clipboard carefully and said, "Does she have a history of mental illness?"
"No," said Elliot. "Absolutely not."
"Any mental illness in her family?"
Amanda stared at Elliot blankly and allowed him to answer the question. "Um . . . her mother was an alcoholic, and all she knows about her father is that he was a rapist, so . . . does that count?"
The doctor did not answer, instead skipping to the next question. "Has she had any prior suicide attempts?"
Elliot paused, remembering how she ran out into a crowd of armed police with her gun drawn right after trying to permanently maim the man who raped her. "Yeah, she had something really traumatic happen a few months ago, and . . . yeah. She did try, but she was also under a lot of stress."
"She probably still has PTSD," added Amanda.
The doctor's eyebrows shot up, betraying his growing interest. "And has she had anything stressful happen within the past few days that might have triggered her?"
Elliot kept his demeanor steady, but his insides turned jittery as he thought of how to phrase his answer. "She and I had a fight on Friday," he said, his words lurching to a halt at the end of the sentence.
The doctor looked up from his note-taking and said, "You had a fight?" He let the arm holding the clipboard drop to his side and said, "Are you two . . . involved?"
Elliot's lips pinched together, and then he said, "We . . . we're—yeah."
A nurse appeared from the room, sparing Elliot from having to decide whether to reveal the secret of his assault against her. "Doctor," she said, "she's ready to talk to you."
Part 2.
"Elliot, please stop with the pacing," Amanda said curtly.
He looked at her glaring at him, and he didn't blame her. He must seem like a monster after seeing the distinct markings on her neck and face. In fact, he expected any moment for a uniformed officer to appear and arrest him for domestic assault. If it weren't for the fact that it would cause him to be somewhere else while her fate was uncertain, he would have wished to be sent to Central Booking, so that he could at least begin to alleviate some of the guilt.
The doctor surprised Elliot when he came back out in the hallway and said, "She's awake and doing much better. We have her stabilized, but I'm going to let her rest before I bombard her with questions." He glanced from Elliot's face to Amanda's and back again, and Elliot anticipated that the moment of judgment was before him. The doctor said, "She did say that she wants to see you both, though. But keep it short."
Elliot's insides twinged, and he stepped past the doctor, trying not to knock the man off balance in his haste. He paused to catch his breath as he entered the room, scanning her figure lying supine on the bed. She turned her head toward him, their eyes meeting. Drying sweat plastered her hair against her head, and dark hollow spots underlined her eye sockets, but he didn't care as long as she was breathing.
He approached her with hesitation, trying to read her face, but all he could tell was that she looked like she might lose her lunch again at any moment. He took the absence of anger in her expression as a sign that he could approach her, and he came within a foot of her bed, not wanting to risk getting too close. "Hey," he said softly, not knowing where to start.
"Elliot," she said, her eyelids drooping as she laid her head back on the pillow. And then she looked beyond him and said, "Hey, Amanda."
He watched the women exchange looks, and then Olivia said, "Can you give us a minute alone, Amanda?"
The blonde nodded, and left them to their fates. "I—" he began weakly. "I want you to know that, no matter what happens, I'm going to get help. I don't know how to convince you how sorry I am that I did this to you." He lifted a finger to touch the red skin on her neck, and she astonished him when she didn't flinch.
"Elliot—" she croaked.
"I don't know what got into me that night—I shouldn't have been drinking so much—"
"Elliot—" she said, closing her eyes.
"I've been a real asshole lately, and I can't believe I hurt you—"
"Elliot, stop," she said. "I appreciate your apologies—I do. But if you keep it up, I'm going to puke all over you."
She put a hand to her forehead and said, "My head hurts too much to talk about this. It's not what I want from you." She opened her eyes and touched his hand, and her next words cracked from the tears in her throat. "All I want right now is this."
Her hand slipped into his, and he tightened his fingers around it. Watching her face crumple, he sat down on the bed and pulled her into him so she could sob into his shoulder. He kept his mouth shut, respecting her wishes, and squeezed her tight as her tears soaked through his shirt. He ran his hand over her hair, separating the tangled strands with his fingers.
When she was finished with her crying spell, she pulled away, and he brushed his fingers lightly over her bruised cheek. "I'm going to let you rest now," he said. "Can I come back in the morning?"
"Yeah," she said, nodding.
Then he voiced one more thought, saying, "Didn't you tell the doctor what I did?"
"No," she said, lying back in the bed. "I told them I got into it with a suspect."
Their eyes exchanged a thousand words, until he nodded and got up, leaning down to kiss the top of her head. "Please remember there are people who love you and want you to live," he said. "Especially me," he wanted to add, but held his tongue, thinking he had lost his right to an opinion on the matter.
She brushed another tear from her cheek and nodded up at him, and he could feel her staring at his back as he exited the room.
Part 3.
Olivia did the only thing she could manage to do after Elliot left—she slept. It less than a half-hour before the doctor came in and woke her up. "Olivia," he said, "I'm Dr. Akins. I need to ask you some questions."
She groaned and said, "Can't this wait?"
"We really need to do it now, so I can complete your evaluation and determine your disposition."
"Disposition?"
He ignored her, saying, "Do you have a history of mental illness?"
"No, not really," she said weakly.
"But you have PTSD from a recent trauma, correct?"
"Yeah, but how did you . . .?" And then she realized—of course he would have talked to the people closest to her.
"Let me ask you, Olivia, did you intend to take your own life?"
She ran her fingers through her hair. "No, not really," she said, shame burning her cheeks. "I mean, I guess in that moment, I knew that's what would happen, but I hadn't planned it out."
"Uh-huh," he said, scribbling down notes as she talked. "And this was your second suicide attempt, correct?"
She wrinkled her forehead in thought, and then said, "Yeah, I guess it was."
The doctor set his clipboard down on his knee and said, "Olivia, do you have any family at all, or another support system?"
"Not really," she said, her voice softer with each answer. "I have a brother, but he's . . . unavailable."
"Kids?" he asked.
"No."
He jotted down more notes and said, "If you do well tonight, and your liver levels turn out okay, the plan is to transfer you to Kings County Psychiatric Facility first thing in the morning, for a seventy-two hour hold."
"Kings County?" she said, remembering recent investigations into abuses at the facility. "That's in Brooklyn. Why there?"
The doctor stood to leave, and said, "All the other psych wards are full right now. That's the closest one that can take on new patients."
Too tired to protest, she rolled over on her side and blocked out all thoughts as sleep saved her from more nausea.