He had to be dreaming. He felt the nudge of a boot against his upper arm. A moan escaped his lungs. "Hey! He's not lookin' good."

He recognized the sound of shuffling footsteps. "Damn it." The boot pressed into his shoulder.

"Should we drop him at a hospital or somethin'?"

"Yeah. If we want to be caught on security cameras."

"We are so not getting paid for this job."

"Ya think? Why the hell did I bring you along? You always f-ck everything up." There was a frustrated groan before Elliot felt a swift kick to his spine. "Let's dump him and get out of here. That guy was just going to kill him anyway. Maybe we just did him a favor."

"I don't think he'll see it that way."

-000-

He felt himself float in and out of consciousness. At least he thought that's what was happening. Maybe he was dreaming. Maybe he was already dead. But he thought he would be welcomed by some warm bright light when he died. All he felt was cold.

He felt the commotion bustling around him, but he couldn't open his eyes to make sense of any of it. Voices yelled, and hands pulled him in what felt like ten different directions. Someone pulled his eyelids open and shined a light directly into his pupils, and he wanted to scream, "What the Hell?!" But really all he wanted was sleep, and he wasn't sure his lungs had the capability to scream anyway.

-000-

Olivia's head jerked up when Sergeant Bell bursted from her office, phone held to her ear. She snapped her fingers in an attempt to get everyone's attention. She offered a curt, "Thank you," before ending the call. "They have him at Mercy."

Olivia immediately stood, grabbed her phone and bag and followed Ayanna out of the office.

-000-

The drive to the hospital felt painfully long. Olivia kept her eyes focused out the window, a million scenarios flying through her mind. No one gave them any information about Elliot's condition when he was admitted to the hospital so she felt like they were flying blind. Their investigation hadn't turned up much. They flagged a few files, but they needed to narrow the scope before they could zero in on anyone.

Olivia felt like she was coming apart at the seams. It didn't help that Ayanna kept glancing in her direction and back to the road. It was becoming unnerving. After about the fifth time she glanced over, Olivia had enough. Her nerves were shot, and her patience left the building hours ago. "What?" Olivia asked.

Ayanna looked a little flustered, but regained composure quickly. "Nothing. It's none of my business," Ayanna suddenly seemed intensely interested in the road.

Olivia sighed and sat deeper into the seat. She knew exactly what Ayanna wanted to ask about. "We are in the middle of working some stuff out right now."

Ayanna nodded, but said nothing. Obviously she had something else to ask. "Something else?" Olivia asked, her voice was heavy with exhaustion.

"When I came to work this morning he had a bunch of files spread across his desk. I gathered them up before anyone else could snoop…"

"William Lewis." The name still left a bad taste in her mouth and she really didn't want to talk about this right now. Her anxiety was already running the show, and William Lewis might raise her blood pressure to dangerous levels.

"Yeah." Ayanna drew out the word long and slow. She gritted her teeth. "He didn't know?"

"No. He was out of the country working private security, and no one bothered telling him." The words came out a little more bitter than she intended, but Ayanna was poking a sore spot.

"Okay." Ayanna seemed to get the hint and her eyes refocused on the road. They spent the rest of the ride in silence.

Olivia flung the door open the minute Ayanna put her car in park. She rushed ahead with Ayanna following in step directly behind her. They entered through the automatic doors and nearly plowed into the front desk. "We are here for Elliot Stabler. How is he?"

"Um," the receptionist started, and began clicking through screens. Usually Elliot flew into an impatient tantrum and she was the one who nicely requested information. However, this receptionist slowly clicked through charts, and Olivia began to see the appeal of yelling like Elliot might.

Olivia's stomach sank when she watched the receptionist's face fall into a concerned frown. "I need to get the nurse assigned to this. Just a sec." She stood and hurried to another desk further down the hall.

Olivia turned and nearly bumped into Ayanna. She almost forgot she was there. She wanted to say something comforting, but she couldn't find words. Instead, she turned and watched the receptionist talk with the assigned nurse. After what felt like an inordinate amount of time the receptionist brought the nurse to her desk.

"I'm Cara." She waved for them to follow. "Let's get you to a waiting room."

Olivia wanted to scream. She just wanted to know what the hell was going on! She had no idea what happened to Elliot during the last twenty four hours, and she didn't know how serious his injury actually was. She didn't want to go to the waiting room. She wanted to see Elliot, or at the very least, know how he was doing.

The nurse finally sat them in a couple of padded chairs in the family waiting room, and pulled up his chart. "Names?"

"I'm his sergeant and emergency contact, Ayanna Bell." The words rushed out of her mouth in a constant stream.

The nurse scrolled down until she found what she was looking for. "Okay, I see you on the medical release." Nurse Cara lifted her brown eyes away from the tablet screen, and Olivia couldn't breathe. The nurse's brow furrowed. "Looks like he's in surgery. Liver lac. Blood loss was significant before they found him; they estimate a loss of one and half liters to two liters." She glanced back at the chart. "It's touch and go right now. The injury itself wasn't fatal but the delayed medical attention allowed for a significant loss of blood volume."

Guilt began to eat her alive. She should have got to him sooner. She should have known he wasn't blowing her off, but was missing. She knew him, and she should have done better.

Nurse Cara continued, "They still have him in surgery, but I'll check for updates." She gave them a sad smile, "We're doing our best with him, but this is very serious. The paramedics charted a cardiac event en route, and was unconscious when he was found, and never regained consciousness on the way to the hospital."

Olivia felt sick. Truly physically nauseous.

"Do you have information on where he was found? I'd like to get my detectives out to investigate the scene."

Thankfully Ayanna thought of that because regardless of the prognosis for Elliot, they needed to get to the bottom of this.

"I don't have it available right here, but I can find out." Cara looked up from the chart, "do you have any other questions?"

Olivia looked at Ayanna and they both shook their heads.

"Alright then," the nurse headed for the door.

"Thank you," Bell said quietly.

-000-

Ayanna watched Benson pace back and forth in the waiting room. She had only sat for about a minute before she started the pacing. Back and forth. Back and forth. How was she not dizzy? Ayanna felt like she should make conversation, but about what? She stupidly brought up William Lewis in the car, which was pretty insensitive in retrospect. Maybe they could talk about Elliot's case? That seemed like a safe-ish topic. They both wanted it solved and it could keep them busy through this waiting period.

"Did you find anything interesting in his notes?" Ayanna asked.

Olivia stopped pacing and looked up. "What?"

"Elliot's notes. Did you find anything?"

She understood this time and pulled out her phone. "I took a couple pictures of notes about a few people that may be interesting." Olivia handed her phone over.

Ayanna zoomed in on a couple and swiped through the other pictures. She could barely decode any of this, but they looked like his notes on the biker gang case and the China town case. "Do you have anyone that you like for it?" She handed the phone back to Olivia.

Olivia scrolled to a picture she took of one of the pages. "I'm not sure I like anyone for it yet. It feels…" Olivia paused to find the word, "sloppy. Your higher order crime organizations wouldn't have left things so messy, and they would have just killed him…" Olivia gulped back her emotions and regained some composure. "They wouldn't have dumped him while he was still alive."

"I agree, but most of our cases are with the big players in organized crime. The narcotics and gang units cover most of the lower level organizations."

"Have you worked with any lower level gangs in pursuit of a larger organization lately?"

"Our Chinatown case covered some lower level gang members, but the bigger players who could order a hit, are in prison. I realize it's still possible, but no one made any real threats. At least not that I know of." As she wracked her brain, none of the recent cases seemed relevant. Murphy maybe? But this didn't feel like his style either. It would have been cleaner, better executed, and he would have no problem with owning the deed. It didn't feel like him.

"It would help if Elliot didn't threaten half these people.." Olivia observed.

"Well that won't ever change." Ayanna almost laughed. Stabler and reckless were synonyms in her book.

"Probably not." Olivia sat and leaned her head back. "He's been like that for more than two decades, I don't think he'll grow out of it"

Ayanna nodded. While Olivia stared at the ceiling, lost in thought, Ayanna took a minute to observe her. She was beautiful, had a nearly perfect reputation, and the respect of the brass. The woman was a force of nature, that was for damn sure. It was impossible to imagine her as Elliot's partner, young and following his lead. Rumor had it she puppy dogged behind him, but based on what she knew about her, it seemed unlikely.

Part of her didn't quite understand their relationship. Not their professional one. anytime Benson and Stabler worked together it was magic. They closed cases thirteen years ago and they did now. Really, she questioned the personal one.

Early on she cautioned Elliot not to pursue Liv, but he tossed that advice out the window. She realized that sometimes opposites attract, but opposites can also explode. Benson was a cautious guarded person, and Stabler was a ticking time bomb of reckless behavior. If they pursued a relationship, it would stain that pearly reputation Benson had worked so hard to achieve. It was frustrating that Benson's career could be damaged because of the men in her life,but unfortunately that's how things worked. The higher ups at 1-p-p looked for any excuse to cut women out of leadership, and dating a loose cannon like Elliot could put a dent in that spotless rep.

She shook herself out of the thought spiral and tried to refocus her thoughts on potential suspects for Elliot's abduction and attempted murder. Their relationship status was frivolous in comparison. She was startled when Olivia suddenly stood up. Ayanna followed her gaze to the door, as two surgeons entered the room.