August 17, 2021

They took Mia from him, at the hospital. A wild, desperate part of him wanted to refuse, wanted to ignore the bevy of nurses who'd come to care for her, wanted to cling to her, shelter her, keep her safe until her mother woke up. That beautiful little girl, it was his job to protect her, to shield her from those who would hurt her because he loved her mother, because he knew how much her mother loved her, because she was part of Olivia and that meant she was everything, to him. Liv had passed her into his care and he'd have jumped in front of a bullet for her. But Mia was sick, and Elliot wasn't her father, and he still had her mother's blood on his hands. Her liver's bad, he'd told the nurses, watching Mia struggling in their grip, reaching for him, breaking his heart. It might not have mattered, she hadn't been in Wheatley's clutches all that long, but he wanted the doctors to know what to look for, knew Olivia would want reassurances that Mia was ok when she woke up.

If she wakes up.

The sun had sunk below the horizon while they'd still been in the warehouse, and night was coming on quick. By the time Elliot finished scrubbing his hands in the bathroom outside the trauma ward Cassidy had arrived, his son in his arms and his eyes wild. The man didn't know where to go first; Liv and Mia were in different rooms, different teams looking after them, and he was sick to death with worry for both of them, and he had Noah to account for, too, so Elliot took the boy, volunteered to keep an eye on him so Cassidy could find out what was happening with the girls. And Cassidy was so torn up he agreed without so much as a single smartass remark, just raced off for the nurses' station and left Elliot with that curly-haired little boy and his scared blue eyes.

"It's gonna be ok, buddy," Elliot said gently. "I know it's been a scary day, but everything's gonna be all right."

"Daddy's scared," Noah told him seriously, worriedly. "Daddy doesn't get scared about anything."

Privately Elliot suspected there were a lot of things that scared Brian Cassidy, but now was not the time to go into all that.

"He just wants to make sure mom and Mia are ok," Elliot said. "He'll be back soon and he can tell us what's going on."

While he waited for Cassidy to return he sat with his arm around the back of Noah's chair, watching his little legs swinging agitatedly, searching desperately for some piece of comfort to offer the boy and finding none. Liv had been shot in the belly; that shit could go bad in a hurry. Gutshot was nothing to laugh about. And Mia; she'd looked fine, but there was no way to know for sure, no way to know what impact the day's events might have on her system, if they'd have any impact at all.

As the seconds ticked by the waiting room slowly filled with people; Bell and Fin, first, then a couple of Liv's detectives, that ADA with the smart suits, some unis, the Chief. The people trickled in until there wasn't a seat left, and then they stood clustered in little groups gathered around the room, speaking quietly amongst themselves. Fin sat down on the other side of Noah, helped Elliot keep the boy shielded from the curious eyes that watched him now, but they didn't speak much. There wasn't much to say, and they were both thinking the same thing anyway. They were both wondering if Noah was ever gonna see his mother again. They were both praying that he would.

It was about half an hour before Cassidy came back, ashen-faced; he looked like he was about to puke, so Elliot caught Fin's eye, watched him nod in understanding, and then rose to his feet, caught Cassidy by the arm and pulled him out into the corridor before everyone in the room could descend on him. The blonde detective, it seemed like she didn't like that too much, but the ADA stepped in, stopped her following them as they retreated to the relative privacy of the deserted hallway.

"Just breathe," Elliot said. "Take a minute, get yourself together."

"What the fuck happened out there, man?" Cassidy demanded, ignoring Elliot's advice completely. "How could you let her get shot?"

Elliot had been asking himself the same thing since it happened, and he still didn't have a good answer.

"It was a bad situation," he said. "Tight quarters, outnumbered, we…it doesn't fucking matter. How is she?"

"She's fucking gutshot, that's what she is," Cassidy snapped. "They're patching her up. They're gonna be in surgery for a while and they're being real vague about how bad the damage is."

Vague was never a good sign.

"And Mia?" Elliot asked. He could've pressed for more details on Liv but it was obvious that Cassidy didn't have them and there was no sense in upsetting the man further. Besides, Elliot was worried sick about Mia; after all this time, surely they should've been done with her, he thought. She wasn't injured, and it shouldn't have taken them too long to see that, but where was she? Just in a room somewhere, waiting for Cassidy to come back and sign the discharge paperwork? Or something worse?"

"Jesus, Mia," Cassidy said, and he looked for all the world like he was about to cry. Elliot reached out, caught hold of Cassidy's shoulder, and squeezed tight, held him steady while Brian rubbed at his eyes. "They put her on the transplant list," he said. "They said her numbers are bad, they said she needs the transplant as soon as possible. They want…they want to keep her here, man."

Mia was supposed to go to the doctor earlier in the day, Elliot remembered; that was how this whole thing got started, was Cassidy showing up at the school to get her for an appointment and discovering she was gone. Probably she would've ended up in the hospital today anyway, with or without Wheatley's interference, but that was hardly a comforting thought.

"Do they think they can get her one?" Elliot asked urgently.

Cassidy spread his hands in a gesture of hopelessness.

"They can't use mine," he said. "I got hepatitis, picked it up years ago when…it doesn't matter. They said mine's no good. We talked about Liv maybe doing it but there's no way they're gonna take hers now, doc said her body's already going through major trauma and they're not gonna risk her."

It wasn't so much a decision that Elliot made then; it wasn't really a choice. He didn't weigh his options, or think things through, didn't consider alternatives or consequences. The solution to Cassidy's problem presented itself so clearly in his mind, with no effort at all. He didn't even have to think about it.

"Take mine," he said.

Cassidy looked at him like he'd grown a second head.

"I can't ask-"

"You're not asking," Elliot insisted. "I'm serious. I'm healthy. Me and Liv, we're the same blood type, so if Liv's was good enough for her maybe mine will be, too. She needs it, she can have it."

He'd carve out his own heart, to save that little girl. Olivia's little girl, a child precious and innocent and doomed if someone didn't stand up to help her. Why not him? If not him, who? Why waste time searching when he was already there, ready and willing?

"You really wanna do this?"

"I do."

Cassidy took a step back, ran his hand over the back of his head and looked around, like maybe he was trying to find a nurse to help him.

"I'm not gonna tell you no," he said. "That's my little girl in there." That was all he had to say; Elliot knew exactly what that meant. Elliot had daughters of his own, and he'd burn the whole world down to save them. "We gotta help her."

"We will," Elliot said.

They turned, together, started to walk towards the nurses' station, their steps finding a rhythm, two soldiers marching off to battle. Elliot was calm, as they walked. Maybe he should've been afraid. Maybe it should've scared him, the fact that he was going to let himself get cut open, have part of his own body removed, the fact that he didn't know what was going to happen next. Maybe there should've been fear, or adrenaline, or nerves, or something, but all Elliot felt, in that moment, was certainty. He wanted, desperately, to help Mia, to help Liv, and there was only way to do that, and nothing on earth could've stopped him.

"I wanted to hate you, you know," Cassidy confessed as they went. "You fucked her up when you left. I wanted to hate you for hurting her so bad and I wanted to hate you 'cause even years after you walked out she was still in love with you."

There was something earth-shattering about the casual way he said it. She was still in love with you, not an accusation or a suspicion but a calm, rational statement of fact. The way Cassidy said it, it sounded like he thought Elliot knew that already. Like he thought there was no way Elliot didn't know Olivia loved him. But the words stole the breath from Elliot's lungs. Christ, he wanted her to love him. He loved her, knew he loved her, had known for years, had known she cared for him but they'd never been in a position to allow themselves anything more than care and he'd never heard her say it and he'd never really let himself believe it, but Cassidy had known Liv, loved Liv, fucked Liv, raised children with Liv, and if anybody knew the truth of her heart Elliot figured it'd be him.

She was still in love with you.

What the fuck was he supposed to say that?

"And I still think you're a son of a bitch," Cassidy continued. "But you love her, too, don't you?"

"Yeah," Elliot said. Yeah. he loved her. He loved her so much he ached with it, and there was no reason to deny it anymore.

"I think you're both fucking crazy. Maybe that means you're made for each other."

They'd reached the desk at the nurses' station, but before they asked for assistance Cassidy turned to him, and held out his hand. Elliot took it and they shook once, solemnly.

"Thank you," Cassidy said.

"I'll do whatever it takes to keep them safe," Elliot said, and hoped that Cassidy understood. Hoped that Cassidy understood Elliot wasn't just promising to keep them safe today, wasn't just promising to offer up his body to save Mia, wasn't just promising to watch Liv's back when they were in the field. In that moment, he took responsibility for them forever, and swore, there and then, to protect them both, for all the rest of his days.

Cassidy nodded, and then turned to the nurse behind the desk.

"Hey," he said. "We need a doctor."