Chapter Eighty Seven – Unwilling Admissions

Olivia took a long pull from her beer and set it back onto the table with enough force to possibly qualify the action as slamming it down. Since Amanda and Nick had the night off they'd met Olivia at a local bar for a drink. Fin would have come as well, but he'd already planned to take Ken and his fiancé out to dinner that night. Nick and Amanda's eyes flickered toward Olivia after her bottle hit the table, and they found a pinched look of annoyance on her face. Before either one of them could ask what was going on she spoke.

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure, Liv," Nick returned.

"Do you even need to ask that?" Amanda asked.

She'd been expecting at least a smile from Olivia in response, but Olivia's face remained dark and serious.

"Why wouldn't Ben tell me that he was having a hard time mentally dealing with my seizures?"

While Olivia scowled down at the table and her bottle of beer Nick and Amanda's eyes met. That hadn't been a question they'd been expecting at all, and it confused them both. Last they'd seen Ben had been doing well considering Olivia had still been unconscious. Even before her hospitalization they'd never seen any sign of Ben struggling with Olivia's seizures.

"You did just have a really bad one, Liv," Nick offered.

"It doesn't have much to do with the last one. He said this has been going on since the first one."

"Don't you think you should be talkin' to him about this?" Amanda asked.

"I did already."

"What, you didn't like his answer?" Nick laughed.

"I don't know," she mumbled.

Ben's answer had made sense, but she still wondered. If she hadn't fallen down the steps and wound up in the hospital would she have ever known something was off with him? If she hadn't seen the signs and addressed them would he have ever told her what he was feeling? He had waited so long to talk to her about it that some of his reasoning for why he'd stayed quiet didn't seem valid anymore.

"Because he's a guy," Amanda told her. "Guys don't ever share their feelin's unless they're pissed off enough."

"Can we be serious please?" Olivia asked with a sigh.

"I am bein' serious!"

"Come on, Liv. Do you really think you can be asking this question when you're the queen of keeping secrets about how you're doing and what's going on in your head?" Nick pressed.

She sighed so heavily at that, that Suvi got to his feet and rested his head on her lap. While she didn't actually need his reassurance it was nice to have him there anyway.

"I know," she told Nick as she pet Suvi's head. "I still wish he'd told me earlier though."

"He's really that scared you'll have another seizure and get hurt again?" Amanda asked.

"Yeah."

"I can see why. You knocked yourself up real good this time."

Olivia nodded. She understood his fears for her and had many of them herself. The problem was Ben's fears and his responses to them had become too extreme and nearly irrational.

"We went to a support group, and he's coping a bit better now. I had no idea it was as bad as it was though because he didn't talk to me."

"You're good at reading people," Nick told her. "Just do that with him."

"I thought I wasn't supposed to be coming to you with relationship advice," Olivia teased as a smile edged its way across her face.

She clearly remembered one of the first times they'd discussed Ben and Nick had informed her that he wouldn't have any good advice about relationships so there was no point in asking him. Despite that, he'd pulled out something good this time.

"That's probably the last piece of good advice I have."

Amanda gave Nick's shoulder a playful shove and said, "I'm surprised you even had that many."

The shove, even though it was light, made Nick wince. Olivia noticed and immediately became concerned. Something had to be off with Nick's shoulder or arm for him to be wincing like that.

"Nick, what happened?" she asked worriedly.

"A perp got a bit rough," he replied, trying to brush the incident off like it was nothing.

Amanda started laughing before Olivia could decide if the incident was worse than Nick was making it sound or not.

"More like the perp was faster on his feet and more agile," Amanda teased.

"It wasn't anything like that!" Nick sputtered.

"Yes it was," Amanda was still laughing when she turned to tell Olivia the story despite Nick's silent protest. "Nick slammed into a dumpster on the other side of a sharp corner while he was chasin' a suspect. The suspect apparently dodged around it, but poor Amaro just couldn't do what the perp did."

Nick rolled his eyes. He hadn't even had the chance to try and dodge the dumpster.

"Okay, so I hit it before I even saw it. It sucks, but I'm fine. Bet it hurts less than Olivia's ribs too."

Olivia smiled but was totally unwilling to offer any verbal salve for his wounds.

"Actually, my ribs are just fine now."

That sent Amanda off into laughter again. Nick grumbled and looked away from them both. Olivia's smile lingered for a little bit longer before it faded and fell away. The mention of her ribs had brought back the entire incident and her problems with Ben. She'd been so stunned by the level of Ben's pain that it had taken up all of her focus. Now she wondered if Ben was the only one having difficulty facing her seizures. While she hadn't considered it before, it was possible Nick and Amanda were similarly struggling. When her friends finally started pulling themselves together again Olivia met their eyes seriously.

"I need an honest answer from both of you on something."

Sensing the seriousness behind her words, Nick and Amanda sobered immediately and watched her intensely, waiting to hear what she wanted to know.

"Are you having a hard time with my seizures too?"

She'd been expecting to see worry or hesitation on their faces, a desire to hide the fact that the seizures bothered them. Instead she found amusement, which made absolutely no sense to her.

"Liv, I had to deal with Kim growin' up," Amanda laughed. "This is nothin'."

"We've seen worse than your seizures on the job too," Nick explained. "Sure it's hard sometimes seeing you dealing with all of it, but compared to the time before Suvi this is easy."

"And we've had two years to work through everything."

"But we still don't like getting calls saying you're in the hospital."

Olivia grinned in response. All of that was true, and it gave her some relief. They were both doing alright. If they were okay it meant Fin and Cragen probably were too. That realization took a weight off her mind even though it had only been there for a short time.

"Nobody likes those calls," Amanda said, drawing Olivia back into the conversation.

All three of them smiled with a mix of grimness and amusement before returning to their beers. They sat in companionable silence, each to their own thoughts, before Amanda broke the quiet.

"Ya know, it might be a good thing you're not on the force anymore. I don't think Ben could handle it if he can't stand the risk of you getting hurt from the seizures."

"Mm," Olivia mused. "That's probably true. I could see him worrying too much."

"It's not like we get hurt all that often," Nick countered.

"Says the guy with the bum shoulder."

Nick thought that was a rather low blow and gave Amanda a look that clearly told her what he thought about it. She wasn't remotely bothered and just kept smirking. Ignoring Amanda, Nick turned his full attention to his former partner.

"I look at your seizures the same way I look at the job, Liv. Stuff happens and there's only so much you can do to control it or prevent it. Maybe that same line of thinking will help Ben out because there's only so much he can do to try and keep you safe."

"Maybe…"

Ben was starting to realize that already, which was actually part of the problem. He hadn't truly accepted that there was no foolproof way to protect her completely. Full acceptance and understanding would come with time, but at least he wasn't overdoing it on the smothering factor anymore. She was definitely taking that as progress.