He watched the sun come up with Carisi.

They didn't talk much, through the still dark hours of the night; there didn't seem to be much to say. Liv was in some OR down the hall, fighting for her life, and Elliot was trapped here, with some ADA he barely knew, and no way to get to Liv, to touch her, to beg her to stay with him, nothing to do but sit, and wait, and Jesus, he couldn't help but remember the way it had been, those first few hours with Kathy after the car exploded, him stuck, sitting, waiting, covid protocols keeping him and the kids away from her, away from each other. The helplessness of that moment, and the knowledge of what had come after, the memories of Kathy, talking, awake and coherent and present, and gone such a short time later, out of the blue; it tore at him, the memories, the sense of having walked this road before, the terror at the thought that he knew already what the outcome was to be.

They were standing together by the small window in the waiting room as dawn broke slowly over Mercy, and then Carisi cracked a yawn, muttered something about coffee, and shuffled away, left Elliot alone, contemplating the orange glow spreading slowly across the sky outside. The night had passed, and brought with a new day. We won't know anything until tomorrow, that's what Fin had said. It was tomorrow now, and Elliot still didn't know a goddamn thing. No one had come in to see him, and he had no idea how the surgery was going, whether it was finished already - how long did it take, really, to put pins in her leg, to pull out her spleen? He genuinely didn't know - whether she was resting or coding, coming back to him or halfway gone already. It was unnerving, the not-knowing, and it left him twitchy and restless, shifting on his feet, running his hand over the back of his head over and over again.

Probably he should've called Lizzie, but he hadn't done it, yet. Part of him was afraid to call her, to tell her how close he'd come to calamity, to confess the monumental burden he'd signed her up for. He didn't want to scare her, and he wasn't sure how she'd take him volunteering her to look after Noah. He wanted to believe she'd want to help. He wanted to believe that she remembered Olivia from the old days, that she might still care for Olivia, in some fashion, that she might think Olivia was family, the same way he did, but he didn't know. Kathleen and Mo knew Liv best; Liv had been there for Kathleen during what the Stabler family referred to as her "rough patch" and had stayed a strong presence in her life, and Mo was the oldest, and so remembered the old days better than any of them. Dickie and Lizzie were a different story. Dickie was never gonna forget the day he sat faced off with Olivia in the interview room, but they'd never been exactly close, and Lizzie…Lizzie was a goddamn question mark, even to him. As a child she'd been brainy and dramatic, competing desperately for attention with her older sisters, warring near constantly with her twin brother, but by the time she graduated high school she'd gone quiet on him. She'd taken out more student loans than he thought was wise just to go get a degree in English from some small private liberal arts college he'd never heard of, and she never came back for the summers and never told her folks where she was going or who she was going with. Hell, Elliot hadn't even known she was gay until she showed up at his door a week ago, suddenly unemployed and homeless. He never knew what she was thinking, and he had no idea what she'd think about this. About Olivia, about Noah, about her dad signing her up for babysitting duty. He'd done it, though, and he figured there was no sense in waiting too long to tell her.

He'd wait until 8, he decided. It was still early, probably she was still sleeping. Let her rest, he told himself. Before you ruin her damn life.

"Coffee," Carisi's voice called softly from somewhere over his shoulder, and he turned, accepted the paper cup the man held out to him with a quiet thanks. It was black, and bitter, and burned, but he drank it gratefully.

"This is the worst part, right?" Carisi said, bouncing a little on his heels. "The waiting. Just sitting around, waiting."

"Yeah." Thanks for pointing that out, Counselor.

"The Captain's a tough old bird -"

"She's not fucking old."

Carisi's face assumed an expression that could best be described as crestfallen, and he promptly rushed to explain himself.

"No, I know, you know what I mean, I'm just saying, she - she's tough. Bones of steel. She's been through so much and she's always come out the other side. She'll get through this, too."

"She ever get shot?"

The question had been bothering Elliot for a while, now. The question of what had happened to Olivia, while he was away. The question of everything she'd been through - she's been through so much, what the fuck did that mean? - and everything she'd hidden from him. Carisi was a cop before he was a lawyer, had worked for Liv, and Elliot figured Carisi probably knew enough to fill in the blanks for him.

"What? No," Carisi said. "There were…other things but no, not shot."

"What's that mean, other things?"

At that question Carisi physically stepped back from him, put some space between them and stared at him with wild eyes, looking this way and that, refusing to meet Elliot's gaze.

"I - uh," he said.

"You don't wanna tell me," Elliot said. It wasn't a question.

"Look, man, I don't know what you know and I don't know what the Cap wants you to know but I do know I'm not gonna be the one who tells you something she don't want you to hear. You ask her yourself when she wakes up."

If she wakes up, Elliot thought. What if she didn't, though? What if she didn't wake up, and he never asked her, and he found out the truth too late, from someone else, and never got the chance to apologize to her for not being there when she needed him?

I never should've left, he thought. If he hadn't left, maybe Kathy would still be alive and maybe Liv wouldn't have been crushed in the rubble and maybe whatever other things she'd been through never would've happened, because he would've been there to protect her. Maybe it was all his fault.

"Detective Stabler," he heard a voice call from the waiting room doorway, and he and Carisi turned together, and found the same doctor who'd spoken to Fin the night before - looking a bit more haggard now than he had done then - walking towards them.

"Doc," Elliot said. "How is-"

"I can't discuss any medical information with either of you," the doctor cut him off quickly. "The paperwork says Mr. Tutuola is the only one we can talk to. But I can tell you we've got her stable and in her own room. She hasn't woken up yet, but you can go in and see her. It's our preference to only have one person in the room at a time. If you want to go in together, we're going to ask you to limit your visit to ten minutes. Then one of you has to leave."

" 's fine," Carisi said. "I need to see her, and then I gotta go see my family. Stabler, you gonna -"

"I'm gonna stay here with her," Elliot said, as if there was any doubt. He'd promised Liv he'd be there for her when she came out, and he wanted to make damn sure that his face was the first thing she saw when she woke up. He'd sit by her bed for weeks, for months, for years if that's what it took. Anything for her.

"You really can't tell us anything else?" he added to the doctor.

"No," the man said shortly. "But I'm about to call Mr. Tutuola, and I'm sure he'll fill you in as soon as we hang up."

Like playing fucking telephone, Elliot thought.

"I'll take you to her," the doctor said, and then he was walking away, Elliot and Carisi following behind him like little ducklings.

They weaved their way through a warren of corridors, walking by an endless parade of rooms, and Elliot tried his best to map the route they took; he got the feeling he'd be spending a lot of time here, over the next few days, and he'd need to know his way around.

Oh shit, he thought as he walked; he hadn't talked to Ayanna. He'd lost his phone in the rubble, and he hadn't spoken to anyone. The fuck was he gonna do without a phone, without his wallet? He had to call Bell, had to let her know he was alive but that he wasn't coming in to work - probably she wouldn't want him to, anyway - and maybe when he talked to her she could help him work out the rest. She had a good head on her shoulders.

"Here we are," the doctor said, gesturing towards the open door of private room. "Voices down, gentlemen. Remember, ten minutes. Then one of you has to go."

"Yeah, thanks, doc," Carisi said. He hung back, just a little, like he was waiting for Elliot to go first, like he knew Elliot would want to.

He did.

The lights were dimmed, the room quiet save for the hum of the machines. And Jesus, the machines; there were so fucking many of them. The bed in the center of the room was bristling with equipment; IV line run to the back of Liv's hand, cords running from her chest to the machine monitoring her heart rate, the pulse oximeter on her finger, her left leg in a cast up to her hip and held in traction by a cage of metal bars and pulleys, her wrist in a cast. She was wearing a paper hospital gown and a pair of plain white socks he was certain she hadn't come in with. There was a plastic bag on the table beside her bed with her badge and belt in it; as Elliot drew near to her he could see blood dried brown and terrible on the edge of her gold shield.

They'd cleaned her up pretty good. Washed the dust off her face, out of her hair, put a little butterfly bandage over the cut at her brow. There was a bruise blooming across one of her cheeks, but apart from that she just looked like Liv, beautiful and peaceful now, at rest. If he didn't look at the rest of it, didn't look at the machines or or her leg or the cast on her wrist, if he just looked at her face, he felt like he'd be ok. That face anchored him, guided him; the rest of it was just a distraction. It was her face that mattered; it was Liv that mattered. And underneath all this pain and uncertainty she was still there, her heart still beating, lungs still expanding with every breath she took. Liv was there, and he went to her at once, took her right hand in both of his, and held on tight.

For his part Carisi didn't get too close; he didn't like hospitals, Elliot remembered him saying that, remembered him saying sick people freaked him out. Elliot kinda got the feeling it wasn't hypochondria that made him stay away, though; Carisi was looking at Elliot like he was afraid of what he saw, like he was maybe scared that if he got too close Elliot would snap and push him away, and maybe he was right about that, and maybe it was for the best that Carisi decided not to test that theory.

"Hang in there, Liv," he said softly. "We're praying for you."

And then he closed his eyes and crossed himself, his lips moving for a moment in wordless prayer, and when he was done he began at once to retreat.

"Hang on a second," Elliot said. "Can you do me a favor?"

"Yeah, whatever you need," Carisi said reflexively.

"I need to call my Sergeant but I don't have a phone. Can I use yours?"

"Yeah, 'course." He was already fishing it out of his pocket. "You wanna call your daughter, too, while you're at it?"

"One thing at a time," he said. "Once I talk to Bell she can help me figure out the rest. Thanks, man," he added as Carisi handed him the phone. "Not just for the phone. Thanks for staying for her."

"She's one of the best people I've ever known in my life," Carisi told him somberly, his eyes lingering on Liv's face. "I love her like family. And family takes care of each other."

It was what Liv always wanted, Elliot knew. She'd always wanted to be part of a family. He was glad to know she was.