Trials and Tribulations - [Bensler EO]

Part Fifteen - Prayer

His fists curl into an angry ball without his knowledge, startling him with the sound of hitting against the pew.

"Cauterizer."

"I have spent my life trusting you. I have preached your greatness to others, but I feel it fading. I feel myself withdrawing from you and I hate it. I always thought my faith was unwavering, but I'm only human. Maybe I just don't understand. So make me understand, because I feel my faith shattering from not being able to wrap my head around why this is happening."

"Clamps"

"I was an ass to her, God. I'm sorry. So please, take it out on me. Not her. She doesn't deserve this. She is a good person. The best person I've ever met. I don't know why she even puts up with me. I got scared and I got mad and I freaked out. I won't be able to live with myself if that was the last conversation I ever have with her. I need her. I need more years of laughing and arguing and stakeouts and night shifts."

"We gotta get her pressure up,"

"Please, God. Please."

"Thought I'd find you here," Casey's quiet voice startled Elliot. He wasn't sure if it was from crying or emotional exhaustion, but he had nodded off with his head lying on the pew in front of him.

"Sorry," he mumbled, pushing himself out from the seat. "Any updates?"

Casey crossed her arms over her chest, her expression falling with a deep sadness. "It was a close call. She had an infection and she wasn't responding to antibiotics. The infection made it into her blood and she started to go into shock. But... she's out of surgery and awake. I just saw her for a little bit."

Elliot clamped his eyes shut, trying with all of his might not to cry. "How long have you known?"

Casey didn't want to answer. She had witnessed both sides. She went to work every day, seeing Elliot hurting and practically lost without Olivia. Then, she would go visit Olivia and see the same. Stuck in the middle between a war with no right side. "I've known for a while..."

He gulped, taking the punch to the gut. He glanced down at the floor and then up at the ceiling, as if the answer was somehow magically between both. "I don't even know what kind of cancer she has..."

She took a deep breath, stepping forward. She knew she shouldn't be the one to tell him, but her conscience argued that Olivia had been through enough already. "Invasive ductal carcinoma... it spread to her lymph nodes. They told me that's where the infection started."

They both stood in silence, letting the heartache rain over them. There was no point in stopping it, it was a force to be reckoned with. Their friend, their partner, was lying in a hospital bed in the middle of a cancer institute. They had to at least be entitled to some grief.