TW: character death

One month later…

It wouldn't have been so bad, really, except for Olivia.

A Tuesday night like any other, and he'd told her Cassidy had him closing again, and normally that would've meant she'd go home without him. Normally, he wouldn't be standing there with his back against the bar staring at the door, praying she wouldn't come through it. Normally he wouldn't be this goddamn scared.

There was nothing normal about tonight, though.

She'd texted him around 6:00, told him she had something to tell him, something that couldn't wait until he got off work. I want to tell you in person, that's what she'd told him. I'll meet you at the Waterfront. I'll tell you when we have the place to ourselves.

He figured it had something to do with Noah. Since that night, that night when she'd called him my partner for the first time, that night they danced to a sad, slow song in the dark, she'd been trying to track the kid down. Sorting through the old cases - and Jesus, there were a lot of those - looking for any sign of a boy who'd be about Noah's age now. There wasn't a lot to go on - Elliot didn't know when Liv first encountered Noah, didn't even know if his name was Noah, to begin with, he could add that to the list of things he'd never asked her, the list of things he felt guilty for - but all this time Elliot had never doubted the kid would turn up. He's out there, that was what Elliot kept telling himself. If Olivia had big news, something that couldn't wait, it must have been Noah. She must have been excited about it. It must have made her happy, because if it were bad news she'd have kept it to herself.

It wasn't fair, really, because Olivia was so rarely happy. She deserved just one night of joy, surely, but even that would be denied her.

Because tonight it wasn't Olivia who came walking through the door of the bar after closing time, the door he'd left unlocked just for her; it was some jackass in a ski mask, pointing a gun at Elliot.

And Cassidy didn't keep a gun behind the bar.

"Just take it easy, man," Elliot said, standing in the middle of the room and raising his hands to show he meant no harm. "Take whatever's in the till, you can have it."

It must have been the guy, the one everyone had been talking about, the one who had been breaking into businesses all around this neighborhood for months now. Most of the time he hit while the places were closed; probably he hadn't counted on finding Elliot here, and now he was rattled.

The guy was rattled, and armed, and Elliot didn't have so much as a baseball bat to protect himself with, and all that wouldn't have been so bad, really, would maybe have even felt a little bit like a punishment he deserved for all the mistakes he'd made, except for Olivia. Olivia, who was on her way to the bar right now. Olivia who had something to tell him, Olivia who was happy, for once.

"You playing some kinda game?" the guy demanded, brandishing the gun at him, and Elliot flinched. It sounded like this thief was young, and stupid; if he kept waving that thing around like that he might end up firing it by accident.

"No," Elliot said earnestly. "Just don't feel like dying to protect somebody else's money. Just take it."

Please, just fucking take it, and get out of here.

The money didn't matter. Olivia mattered, and if she walked through that door right now, as spooked as this kid was, he might shoot her before she ever even saw him.

I can't lose her, Elliot thought. I can't lose her again.

"Yeah, right," the kid sneered. "I go behind the bar and you shoot me in the back."

"With what?" Elliot snapped, exasperated, raising his empty hands that much higher in the air. Jesus, hadn't anybody ever told this kid not to look a gift horse in the mouth? "Please, just take it, just -"

He froze, horror flooding through him as he heard the tinkling of the bell above the door as it opened. The kid heard it, too, spun around, and -

Shit.

"Elliot - shit."

Olivia was quick on the draw, he had to give her that. She'd come breezing through the door like nothing was amiss, locked eyes on the kid, and the next second she had her gun drawn.

"NYPD!" she barked, authoritative, responding just like she'd been trained to do. Just like he knew she would, throwing herself headfirst into danger, never stopping to think about the risk. That recklessness; he loved her for it, really he did. Even though it might cost them both everything.

Fast, it happened fast; she identified herself, and the kid twitched, and his gun fired, and hers did, too, and they went down together, Olivia and the kid, and Elliot screamed her name, and ran.

Ran, from one end of the bar to the other, jumped over the kid's lifeless body and crashed to his knees at Olivia's side, cradling her head in his hands.

"I'm hit," she moaned, dazed.

"Ok, you're gonna be ok," Elliot lied; he could already see the red seeping through her blouse, fast, too fast, dark and terrible and familiar in a way that made him want to weep.

There was a radio clipped to her belt so he grabbed it, screamed 10-13, 10-13 into it, demanded a bus and gave their location and then pressed both his hands, hard, to the wound in her belly. She groaned in pain when he touched her, and a little trickle of blood dribbled out of her mouth.

That, he knew, was a very, very bad sign.

"Talk to me, Olivia," he demanded, his fingers slippery with her blood, while beneath him she heaved, trying to breathe.

"Hurts," she gasped.

"I know," he said, "I know, baby. You're ok, you're gonna be ok."

She had to be ok.

It would kill him if she wasn't.

The whole world had turned upside down and he'd rebuilt his entire life from scratch and he'd survived with his soul intact because he had her, still. Because she was with him, as she always should have been. His love of her had saved his life, not for the first time, and if he lost her now he might well go mad. It was more than one heart could bear, losing her twice. The first time Liv had died in his arms right when they seemed to be on the cusp of coming together; to lose Olivia now in much the same way, on the grimy floor of the bar with her blood on his hands, right when she'd been on the verge of finding her son, the child she'd always longed for…it would shatter him like glass.

"I have to - I have to -" she struggled with it, her hands clumsy from blood loss, but she managed it. Managed to reach into her pocket, and pull out a glossy photograph, her fingers trailing streaks of red across the surface as she showed it to Elliot.

It was a picture of Noah, clutched tight in her hand. She'd found him, after all.

Hail Mary, full of grace -

"Promise," she choked out. The bullet must have knicked her lung. Liv had gone down the same way.

Dying, he thought, she was dying, dying right now, in his arms, for the second time, and using what little breath she had left to make him promise he'd find her boy.

"I promise, Olivia, I promise, we'll do it together." He told her, tears burning at her eyes.

Together. They always should have been together, Elliot and Olivia. They were a pair, a team, and they never should have been parted, and it was his fault, his fault, his heart kept screaming at him, his fault that he could not save them. Because he was not good enough, strong enough, brave enough to let the bullets take him first, Olivia was dying, and he would be alone, again, and Noah without a mother, again, and it was too much, too much grief, too much pain, for him to hold it in, and a ragged cry tore itself from his chest.

Maybe he'd died in Ohio. Maybe this was hell, his own personal hell, loving her and watching her die over and over again for all eternity.

"Sorry," Olivia gasped, one last word surging out of her. "Sorry."

That was the last word Liv ever said. Sorry. She had apologized to him, and Olivia was apologizing now, both of them sorry for leaving him too soon, when it was him who should have been sorry. None of this was her fault, not Olivia's, and not Liv's either.

"Don't be," he barked, reaching out with one hand to cradle her face, trying not to scream at the sight of her blood painting her soft skin. "I love you, Olivia. I love you."

A smile, sad and painful, tugged at her lips, and then she released one last, rattling breath, and then she went still.

He saw it happen, saw the light leave her eyes, felt her soul depart her body, and him left with nothing to hold on to but a shell of what she used to be. That photo of Noah, bloodied and wrinkled, was still clutched tight in her hand, resting against her chest, near her heart. Her face, that beautiful face he loved more than any other, was still and calm; those lips would never smile again, those eyes would never narrow at him again, never, she would never...she would never be, never again.

He wept, then, his whole body shaking with it, leaned over her and rested his forehead against hers while the tears fell from his cheeks to run like rivers down her soft, expressionless face.

Gone, she was gone, again, and it was too late, too goddamn late. Sometimes it felt like he'd been too late for everything, late for everything that mattered, too late for the life he wanted, the life he should have had. The life she should have had, if only fate were kinder, if only he were a better man.

There was nothing he could do, no way to bring her back, no way to fill the howling void of grief that had opened up within his chest. The medics would be here soon - too goddamn late - and they'd take her from him and then what was he gonna do? He wasn't her husband, wasn't anything, not on paper; would they ever let him see her again? What if this was it, the end, his very last chance to say goodbye?

He had to act, had to do something, had to find some way to show her, one last time, how much she meant to him, and so he did the only thing he could.

There was something in his pocket, something meant for Liv, something he'd never been able to give to her, something he'd wanted to. For months he'd been carrying it with him everywhere he went, and he pulled it out now, and held it in his blood-soaked hands. The compass, glittering on its fine golden chain, mocking him. With trembling fingers he fastened it around Olivia's neck, and laid his palm over the pendant, pressing it gently into her skin.

"I hope you find your way home," he told her, a final benediction for the woman he loved. It was all she'd ever wanted, he knew. A home, a family, a place to belong. Maybe one day, in some other parallel universe, she'd find it. He prayed she'd find it.

And then, quite suddenly, a feeling like fainting overcame him, and he toppled slowly to the floor at her side, and the world went dark, and he knew no more.