Olivia spent her entire career priding herself in remaining calm under pressure, but as the pair of surgeons entered the room her hands shook nervously. She was pretty sure she had forgotten how to breathe. Ayanna stood slightly behind her, looking just as apprehensive as she felt.

"Family of Elliot Stabler?" One surgeon clarified.

Both Olivia and Ayanna nodded.

"Good, Mr. Stabler made it through surgery well." Olivia was encompassed by a wave of relief. The surgeon continued, glancing at the notes on his tablet. "He sustained a sizable laceration to his liver. The liver itself is a vascular organ so it's prone to prolonged bleeding. Our repair was pretty simple. Our biggest concern was blood loss," guilt overwhelmed Olivia, but she tried to push it away so she could concentrate on the report. "He experienced a cardiac event on the way to the hospital, but it was mild, and a normal complication of massive blood loss." The surgeon glanced up, making sure they understood the information he relayed. "His blood pressure improved after we transfused him, and he is doing as well as we can expect."

She heard Ayanna let out an audible sigh behind her. "What will recovery look like?"

"We will keep him here a couple of days to make sure his body bounces back with his own platelet production. I don't anticipate the need for another transfusion, but it might be needed to supplement his body's own production of blood cells." Olivia nodded, assuring the doctor she understood. "At this point, our biggest concern is infection. We flushed everything out the best we could, and we started him on a broad spectrum antibiotic as a preventative measure."

The other surgeon piped in, "Controlling infection with knife wounds is netoriously tricky. Odds are, the knife was dripping with bacteria, and it punctured an organ that filters and distributes blood throughout the body." The grim appearance of the surgeons face wiped out any relief she had once felt. "We have no idea where he spent his time after being stabbed, and he was found in a dirty alley so we assume the open wound had been exposed to an infinite number of bacterial strains."

Olivia felt her head spinning from all the information. She tried to focus on the positive. He was alive, and they would take everything else one step at a time.

"Do you have any other questions?" The surgeon dropped the tablet to his side.

Olivia shook her head, and Ayanna spoke a verbal, "no,"

"We are cautiously optimistic that he'll make full recovery. He should be moving out of recovery now. We can allow one individual into the ICU at a time. Visitation rules relax once he's moved out of the ICU."

Olivia flipped around towards Ayanna, hoping it would be obvious which of them was going in first. "You go in first Liv, I'll contact the kids and let them know what's going on."

Honestly, the should have called his kids sooner, but Ayanna hadn't brought it up, and she wanted to spare the kids the agony of their surviving parent's brush with death. Maybe she should have called, but she stood by her decision to wait. "Thank you," Olivia said simply.

The surgeons led her from the room, where she was greeted by Nurse Cara. "I'm going to stick with you until your," she must of realized she didn't know Olivia's relationship to her patient.

Olivia went straight to their default answer, "partner."

"Okay, yeah.'I'll be with your partner until he's moved out of the ICU."

Olivia nodded. Her brain felt too stuffed to make any sort of small talk while they made their way down the hall.

-000-

Ayanna called the oldest of Elliot's brood of children. She took the news well, probably because this wasn't Elliot's first emergency hospital visit. Maureen assured her she'd call her siblings, saving Ayanna four more painful phone calls.

She stepped out of the waiting room, and wandered outside. Knowing she needed to touch base with her detectives, she placed a call to Jet.

She picked up on the first ring. Jet played her emotions close to the vest, but it was no secret that she cared for Elliot immensely. There was a father/daughter dynamic there, and they tended to be fiercely protective of each other.

"Hey Sarge," she answered. "How is he?"

"He made it through surgery. He sustained a lot of blood loss, but they are cautiously optimistic right now." She heard Jet let out an audible sigh of relief on the other end of the line. "I'm texting you some information the hospital provided me. Have Reyes and Whelan check out the area, and canvas. We need a crime scene team out there. It's a public area so I'm sure it's already pretty contaminated but let's see what we can find."

"Copy that Sarge."

"Thanks Jet."

She ended the call and wandered over to a nearby bench. Her body seemed stuck in fight or flight mode and she was having trouble calming her physiological response right now.

He was okay. She reminded herself. He was alive and now they could shift their focus on investigating the crime. She hated that they were still floundering, unable to find a solid lead. Hopefully Reyes and Whelan would find something useful at the dump site. They needed something, anything, to go on.

-000-

Olivia paused for a moment before following the nurse into Elliot's room. She dropped her hand to her stomach, and applied light pressure, trying to quell the nervous churning residing there. Nurse Cara glanced back at her quizzically, and Olivia finally fell into step behind her.

The sound of the door clicking shut behind her seemed overly loud for a room so quiet. She shuffled over to Elliot's bedside. His complexion was excessively pale, and if she didn't know any better, she would think he died. She understood everything the surgeon told her, but the reality was crushing.

She reached her hand out for his, and the light drumming of his pulse acted as a reassurance, a sort of proof of life.

"He's going to be pretty groggy. Replenishing blood is taxing on the body. He might sleep a lot over the next few days."

She gave Nurse Cara a soft smile, but returned her attention to the rough hand in hers. She let her thumb rub across the dry skin of his knuckles. The constant fear plaguing her all day began to ebb now that she knew he was alive. That he was okay.

To her surprise, he opened his eyes with a light moan. When his blue eyes focused on hers, she couldn't stop the sob that escaped her lips. Her hand flew to her mouth in an attempt to quell the sound, but she couldn't stop her shoulders from shaking.

His hand lightly tugged on hers, and she leaned in closer. "Hey," his voice sounded dry and cracked.

After everything, that's what he could come up with? The absurdity made her smile. She brought her free hand to his cheek. "Hey," she said back. Her eyes felt dewy and wet.

"I'm sorry," he started, and she knew where this was going.

"No." She shook her head. "You don't get to apologize for getting stabbed. That's not how things work."

He laughed, but then groaned. "Okay okay. But I am sorry." He pulled her fingers to his lips. "I didn't mean to scare the shit out of you. And I was really worried you might think I bailed on you again."

She felt a blush rise to her cheeks. "I worried about it," she admitted.

"I knew you would," he lightly squeezed her fingers, "this was pretty crappy timing."

She chuckled lightly, "Yeah. Not like there is a good time to be stabbed, but this was exceptionally bad timing."

He gave her a pained smile, and patted the space next to him on the bed.

"No, El. I don't want to hurt you."

"What's hurting me, is you standing over there. Come on." He gave her his best mischievous grin.

"Fine." She carefully climbed up next to him. "And that was the worst line I have ever heard."

"Hey. I almost died today. It might take me a couple days to get my game back." He meant it as a joke, but the reality of how close she was to losing him hit her hard. She must have been staring because after a moment he cocked an eyebrow, "What?"

She impulsively kissed his lips, slow and soft. "I love you." She whispered.

This time, he pulled her face to his and kissed her with meaning. "I love you too, and nothing will ever change that."

-000-

Ayanna wasn't positive how much time Olivia wanted or needed with Elliot, but she decided to give them some space for a bit. With Elliot stable, she felt comfortable heading back to the office to get updated on the case.

She pulled into the office just as Reyes and Whelan made it back. "Come on up and show me what you found. We need to fill Jet in."

They hurried up the stairs together, and found Jet sitting at her desk clicking through some computer screens. Jamie jogged up to her desk and asked, "Did you get the photos I sent?"

"Yeah I was just pulling them up."

Ayanna and Reyes joined Whelan standing behind Jet's office chair. Jet opened the attachments and asked, "What am I looking at here?"

Jamie pointed out where they found Stabler. "A passerby found Stabler here, and called 911. We canvassed, and no one saw anything unusual. It looked like a pretty clean dump, but no drag marks or anything so they would have had to back a vehicle into the alley."

"And surveillance cameras?" Jet asked, before clicking to the next photo.

"Yes. You should have access soon. There was a camera at the neighboring bodega, and a neighboring business. Neither was a direct view, but something's better than nothing." Jamie flipped through his phone looking for some notes.

Reyes pointed out the locations of the cameras and their views. "Crime scene techs picked up as much as they could at the scene, but it was so public it was hard to nail down what might be relevant."

"If it was so public, why don't we have any witnesses?"

"Well," Reyes side-eyed. "This isn't exactly the best neighborhood. I'm thinkin' it willful blindness at this point. People don't wanna talk."

Ayanna nodded. Non cooperative witnesses were a significant impediment to most investigations.

"The footage just came in!"

All eyes were back on Jet's screen as she scanned the footage. "Stop." Ayanna pointed at the screen. "The van. Enhance it?"

Jet ran the software, and sure enough there was a van parked near the alley for a few minutes. "Zoom in on the logo." Ayanna pointed to the blob of color on the side of the van.

"Really though? They couldn't find a better ride? That's a total serial killer van…" Jamie observed.

Ayanna rolled her eyes. "It's a stereotype for a reason." Jet enhanced the logo.

"Pest Control." Jet affirmed.

"Got a plate number?" Ayanna asked.

"Yeah just a sec," Jet found a different angle on the other camera that gave them a clear shot of the plates.

Ayanna wrote down the number and handed it to Reyes. "Track down the info on this."

"Sure thing Sarge." He snagged the paper and hurried back to his desk.

"This does not look like a professional hit," Whelan observed.

"Not at all," Ayanna agreed. Like Benson said earlier, it felt way too messy. It had to be someone from the private sector who wouldn't know a good hit man from a bad one. Now they just had to figure out who, in Elliot's everyday life, hated him enough to hire someone to kill him.