Amanda, Nick, and Fin stood rooted to the spot in the darkened room as they stared into the unreadable face of the doctor.
"Olivia suffered a collapsed lung that we had to repair."
The rush of relief washed through them in waves of cold shivers. He hadn't told them she hadn't made it, so she had to be alive.
"We were able to repair it, but are having difficulties keeping it inflated. As of now, we're hoping the lung does not collapse again. If it does, cardiac arrest is a very real possibility."
The relief they'd felt was short-lived. The pain of the unknown still sounded its existence. Before, they needed to know what was happening behind the doors of the operating room. Now, even after receiving more information, Fin, Amanda, and Nick felt even more lost than they had before.
Fin opened his mouth with all the power he had left. "How long until we know?"
Amanda and Nick didn't even hear the question. The doctor, however, did. He answered slowly, carefully. "It could be days before we know if she's out of the woods. As of now, we plan to keep her sedated so we can monitor her breathing."
Nick swallowed the emotional ball pushing against the inside of his throat. It didn't get rid of the awful feeling he had within him. "Can we see her?"
Despite the obstruction in his airway, Nick managed to ask the question they all wished to know the answer to. She was alive. She was still with them, even if she didn't know it.
"I'll give you some time today. Starting tomorrow you can stay as long as you'd like. We just want to make sure she pulls through the night." He answered them.
Their faces were blotted with absolute terror. He noted the blood on Amanda's coat, Nick's as well. "Room 220."
The doctor put a hand on Nick's shoulder, finding him stepping over the line into another realm. It was enough to briefly bring him back. The reassurance given was small, but enough.
"We're doing everything we can." And then he was gone, leaving them with the array of thoughts their minds had begun to spin.
Amanda felt like she was going to throw up. Fearing her stomach would throw itself into the room, she put a trembling hand to her mouth. None of them looked into each other's eyes.
"I - um -" Amanda was having trouble creating words that made sense together. She'd been speaking since age three and that one moment and everything in it took the ability away.
"I'll get Brian and Munch." That was it. She had made a sentence. It drained almost everything she had left as she exited the room, stepping into the hallway that seemed so much darker, colder now.
Brian was sitting in front of Munch, unspeaking when the door opened ever so slowly. When they saw Amanda entering, both got to their feet in a millisecond.
"What?" Brian heard the desperation in his own voice, but he couldn't even attempt to hide it. Hiding his true emotions from the people who he knew were fighting the same battles was pointless. It had taken him so long to realize it, but he finally had.
Amanda found that she was crying again. At least that's what it felt like, a droplet of salty solution coating her cheek. She reached her hand up to wipe it.
"No." Munch heard Brian's reaction to Amanda's tear as he felt the truth stab him in the heart.
"She's alive." Amanda's voice was even dripping with the tears left unshed. "We're going up to see her." She finished.
Brian's legs disappeared from beneath him. Suddenly he was floating by someone else's power. Munch put his hand upon Brian's shoulder, seeing the unbalance of his friend's body. Amanda didn't say anything else. Even if she had been able to, she wouldn't have. There was nothing else for her to say. Both men followed her out of the room.
Fin and Nick didn't wait for Amanda to come back. She'd only just left when they looked into one another's eyes. Without exchanging a word they had a conversation. Their decision was made, and they left to seek the room 220.
The elevator ride up was agonizing. Nick wasn't sure what he was feeling, if he was feeling at all. As he stared at the metallic inside of the small, moving room, he felt the apprehension within him mount. He was sure that he wasn't ready to see what Olivia looked like. He was sure he would have trouble admitting to himself that it really was her lying in whatever state she was in.
Fin was doing the same thing when the elevator doors opened. He had been mentally preparing himself to see Olivia's weak shell since he'd left the waiting room with his two colleagues. The hallway opened to a desk, permitting access to the ICU. Nick could hardly fight his badge off of his belt when they arrived at the desk.
"Olivia Benson." He gave up when the shaking of his hands became so violent that the very muscles in his jaw clenched.
"Five minutes, guys." The woman at the desk had no idea - about any of it. She waved the men past her without thinking for a second how precious the woman was that they were about to see.
Nick's feet slowed involuntarily as they reached door 220. Then they stopped right outside of the entrance. The door was open, the only thing obstructing their view of Olivia a curtain, suspended completely still from the ceiling. With another two steps, her paled body came into sight. Both stopped.
From his ears to his toes and every nerve in between, Nick could feel the haunting feeling manifesting within him. It was like walking into a tomb, a dark cemetery. Olivia was alive, but she wasn't. She was breathing, but she wasn't looking at them. The breathing tube expanding her tattered lungs filtered into her mouth as her eyes remained closed. Her body was so still that it was eerie. Even with the rising and falling of her chest, it seemed that all other life had become extinct.
Fin, standing next to Nick, couldn't remember how to blink. He wanted more than anything to be able to look away, but each fiber vibrating within him instructed him to keep his gaze steady. The sounds that echoed in the hollow chamber created a dome of unsettled air, swirling in odd tranquility. A steady beeping monitored the heart rate Olivia's body maintained. The whirring of another machine failed to comfort them, making it easy to hear when the next life-giving breath was delivered.
Nick picked up his feet after freeing them from the invisible ropes binding him. He made it to the side of the bed before he let it hit him hard. Fin, however, was unable to get his feet to move.
Nick cautiously looked over Olivia again. Every sound of the machine, every ounce of light reflected off of Olivia's drawn face drove the stake further into his heart. He realized he could could not stop the tears from falling from his eyes. They were pent up, ready to flow out easily. He couldn't see anything as he sat down on the bed beside her. Her finger had a monitor on it, but that wasn't why he took her hand. Olivia looked as if she'd left forever. Her body was vacant of any sign of the woman they both knew.
Fin watched Nick's reaction as he saw the stitched slice below her eye, the bandage of white over top of another wound below her opposite eye. Even her hand was cold.
Fin stood, helpless to move. His feet had sunk deep into a solid muck that seemed to be moving backwards. The two people got farther and farther away as he looked. After Nick took her hand, Fin was seeing the pair from the opposite side of binoculars.
Footsteps sounded in the hallway as Munch, Amanda, and Brian turned to enter the room. As Nick sat with his partner, he whispered the words he knew were not his to say.
"I'm sorry." His voice broke more than once. There were so many things he was sorry for.
"I'm so sorry." Then his whisper almost died. "Come back. We're not ready to say - goodbye."
And then the lump swelling within him cut off his air. He could say no more. A voice behind him caused him to get up.
It was like falling backwards into a coffin when Amanda led Munch and Brian into the desolate room. It felt so cold, and Olivia lay motionless, eyes closed. Her arms were at her side like she had already passed away, only countered by her breathing. She stopped right next to Fin, feeling the same sensation he was.
Nick stood up as Brian rounded the corner. He felt like he'd been shot. He got a few steps more than Fin and Amanda before grabbing the wall for a support. Was it really Olivia lying there? It couldn't be. She hadn't smiled a lot lately, but she sure possessed more emotion than what her body showed now.
Munch took a sharp breath in. There was silence in the room. Nick took Fin's arm gently and led him out, both still dazed. It left the other three to see it all for themselves.
Amanda went forward with Munch to make sure Brian stayed upright. They approached the bed so very cautiously. Amanda saw the lifelessness in her leader, the best woman she had ever known. She reached out and touch her hair, the dark brown seemingly black against the pillow. And when her fingers were aware of the actual contact, it was real. It was so real she couldn't stay. So she left Munch and Brian, giving them both a squeeze on the shoulder before leaving, wiping a tear from her face. Then she wiped another. It was difficult to see as she joined Fin and Nick outside the room.
"I'm glad you killed him." She suddenly felt a flicker of anger within her.
Nick nodded. "Me too. It just wasn't soon enough."
They all felt that everything concerning Lewis hadn't been done soon enough. He deserved to have not survived the first trial he was brought to. He definitely didn't deserve a third chance to get what he wanted from Olivia.
"I can get us hotel rooms around here. Just so we - stay close." Amanda's voice dropped when she trailed off.
They all knew what she meant, and they nodded together.
"Cragen and Eileen are on their way back. Get them one too." Nick replied as Amanda began to walk away. She halted, looking at Fin and then back to Nick.
"Right now?" Fin asked immediately.
"They're on their way from Spain. I hope they get here in case -" his mind was spitting out all sorts of scenarios for him to chew on. One of them had switched over to already thinking Olivia was gone. Amanda already knew. She picked up her phone and paced in the opposite direction.
Brian sat down where Nick had been. Munch watched his best friend grab Olivia's hand tenderly. He set it in his lap. Just a week before he'd been thinking about telling her that it wasn't working. He had almost left her. Then all of what had happened would have happened when he was gone. Those thoughts sunk in as he stared into her face.
The skin, usually a glowing color of bronze, had mellowed eerily to a shade of ghostly white. Her eyebrows were dark against her forehead's skin. Her face was littered with terrible gashes and fresh bruises that hurt Brian as he looked at them. And her neck - he swallowed hard. Her neck had clear impressions of bruising finger marks around them. No doubt Lewis had tried to gain obedience, or possibly even kill her with his inhumane maneuver.
He had caused it all. He had sent Olivia on a different course. They were all living in an alternate universe because of this, one darker than the one they'd known long before.
Munch was hearing nothing but a high pitched ringing in his right ear. Not a thing in the world could touch him. It was the other side of the world that could. Hands from hell grabbed his heart and broke pieces off, assisting in its disintegration from the outside. Olivia had given up her life to save so many from Lewis' pain. Munch knew she was a hero.
He remembered back to the years before. She'd been so young, so different. Again a piece was broken from his soul as it hit him. That young Olivia hadn't known what atrocities life would throw at her. She couldn't have known that it could get worse than it had been. At least she had still been breathing on her own. At least her blood had still been inside of her.
Munch's eyes clouded with mist. She would come back. There was no other life he knew without Olivia, one of his closest friends, his family.