Olivia clamped down on her jaw to suppress the groan within her throat. Doctor Keller's fingers had barely touched the surface of the tender tissue when she had nearly jumped out of her seat. Her goal going in was to try to pretend it didn't hurt when really, it was agonizing. The devil on her shoulder told her that if she displayed the real pain she felt, her goal of being able to do the IVF cycle would become compromised. She was skating on thin ice as it was, she didn't want to give him any more of a reason to suggest against the procedure. But, alas, the pain outnumbered her and she caved.
"Olivia," he started, his voice already showing his disappointment.
"It's fine. Your fingers are just cold," she lied.
"My fingers aren't cold, and your infection is getting worse. We should've seen some improvement by now." he cocked his eyebrow the same damn way Elliot did when he knew he was right.
She missed Elliot. Admitting that felt like saying the Lord's name in vain. She had been the one who had pushed him as far away as possible. Either to avoid the broken look in his eyes or to protect him from the devastation of the storm, she wasn't sure yet.
She missed his mannerisms.
"Can't we just..." she stopped to close her eyes and give a deep exhale. "I don't know. Raise the dose of the antibiotics? It's only been three days, how much could the antibiotics really have done to help in three days?"
Deception and deflection weren't her strong suits. Usually, it was Elliot's voice in her head telling her to do the right thing; fueling her instincts. At this point, her instincts were far gone enough to put her own health in jeopardy.
She missed her instincts. The feeling of trusting her gut with whatever decision she made. He was the one who had instilled most trust in her potentially wild plans and actions. It took being without him for her to realize that he was her gut. He was the basis of her instincts and her faith in her choices.
He had her six. Always.
Why did it always have to be his voice in her head when she was in pain? Her conscience's voice had shifted, mimicking that of her partner's. He'd always held her when she was in danger or in pain. He caught her when she fell and picked her back up. She could hold her own hand if she truly needed to, but she couldn't stop herself from associating him with the comfort for her pain. She needed his instinct now more than ever, or better yet, for her own to return.
The battle hadn't even started and she was already losing herself.
"I really think we're pushing it here, Olivia." Keller's voice broke her out of her reverie, disappointing her with the hopeless look on his face. He was a damn doctor, wasn't he supposed to be better at hiding that? "You're on pretty strong antibiotics as it is. We have to start looking at our options."
"No," she blurted out, her bottom lip quivering in fear. "No. Can't you switch the antibiotics? Or, or just wait and see for a few more days?" her words came out in a stumble, and even she knew she was reaching. The pain was only getting worse, but she hated being backed into a corner.
"At this rate, the infection is spreading faster than we can control it and you won't have a few more days to think about it without this becoming something irreversible. I'm honestly worried, with an infection in your arm, it's very easy for it to spread to your heart. Honestly, I'd prefer to admit you right now but I'm assuming you'd refuse."
She saw the worry in his eyes, filling the atmosphere with an even thicker tension. Her own eyes began to water and burn as she pleaded with him. "Isn't there anything else we can do? Anything? If I have to have surgery, that'll push back the hormones and we'll just be prolonging chemo even further."
He took a moment, rolling back the small stool he sat on and folded his hands in his lap. She took it as a decent sign. Two weeks and she was finally starting to understand his mannerisms and what they meant. "You know I have to advise against it..."
"But?"
"But... if I send you from here straight to the lab, we can try to get a better idea of what's going on. I want to make sure you're not becoming septic before we decide whether or not to try different antibiotics or go another route."
Despite his visible apprehension, she felt just a little bit more relieved knowing that some choices were still possibly on the table. Finally, she could exhale a little bit of the crippling fear. She knew she wasn't out of the woods yet, and that it would ignorant of her to pretend otherwise. But with everything around crumbling as it was, she couldn't really bring herself to hate the fact that she was reaching for something left that she had control over.
"Thank you," she whispered weakly, her eyes following him as he went to type up the lab script. She felt bad for pushing him as hard as she was. She was fighting not just against something, but for something. And although it wasn't something most could see, it was her future. She could see it, that was all that mattered.
"You can go ahead and pick up your paperwork at the front desk, then go straight to the lab. Then, and I can not stress this enough, go home and rest, Olivia. If you start getting chills, running a fever, numbness, or start having dizzy spells, you need to come back in right away, alright?"
Somewhere deep inside of her, she wanted to smile at him. The way he looked at her over his glasses, he reminded her of Cragen and his fatherly-yet-professional wordless orders. It hadn't taken her long to understand Doctor Keller's mannerisms, and she knew that beyond the disappointment, he liked her perseverance.
She understood, in some odd way. He had worked with a lot of patients, she had worked with a lot of victims. The ones who refused to give up, the ones who fought the fight they didn't deserve, they always stuck with the soul. Although, she never thought she'd be on the other side.
Making her way out of the office had become less painful as time went on. That in itself was strangely painful. Knowing that the walls didn't haunt her as much as they once did. She remembered what life had become like after her second year in her unit. Suddenly, the cases didn't leave her to throw up in the nearest bush and attempting to cope with crippling nightmares. As soon as she had realized that, she wondered if she would always be desensitized to the horrors. Now, she was left to wonder if it would be the same with the cancer institute that she was spending more time at than her job.
Cancer institute.
The sickly sterile smell might not have bothered her anymore, but the words still did.
In some way, she wanted them to bother her. If she ever became desensitized to the idea that she was fighting this battle, she wasn't sure she'd ever be able to handle that. In her mind, this was all temporary. And, maybe it was. She didn't know yet, she wasn't on the other side of the battle, no matter how desperately she wanted to be.
She was recognizing faces faster and faster. The maze of the hallway that was once a puzzle was now a second nature.
She didn't want to look at them. She wanted to walk with her head down and refuse to accept the fact that she knew their names. They needed to be strangers. It wasn't about being unfriendly, it was about survival. If she allowed herself to drown in the new world that was swallowing her up, she'd never see the light of day again. She would slowly suffocate until there was no light at the end of the tunnel.
She'd learned not to trust that light anyway. Usually, the light at the end of the tunnel was the headlight of a train. She wasn't sure what to rely on. Uncharted waters always did scare the life out of her, and now, she was neck-deep in them.
Was she supposed to be cold? Was that the answer to surviving this? She didn't want to know any of these people. She didn't want to know that Jenny the nurse only had a rock on her finger because her baby daddy went into the military and that was the only way they could live together. She didn't want to know that Colleen the secretary had 3 grandkids, four if you count the one on the way. She didn't want to know that the man who was always the next appointment after hers was a father of five who had a cabin near the Finger Lakes.
She could only survive if she had absolutely no clue what sort of world it was that she was wandering in. No names, no faces, no words that only those from the waiting room would understand. No attachment.
God, please no attachment.
With her head still hanging low, she managed to find her way to the reception area, retrieving her script for her lab work.
Walking through the halls and down towards the lab, she felt the rise of adrenaline in her system. Too many faces, too many people lining the halls beside her. She couldn't look down without reason, her mind told her. It would be rude. She didn't look sick yet, she didn't want anyone to think badly of her given that she looked like an average healthy woman with her head down as she walked through an oncology hospital.
She quickly fished her phone out of her purse as she got closer to the lab. She didn't want to admit that she already knew where in the hospital it was located. She knew it like the back of her hand already.
Scrolling through the plethora of unanswered texts, she managed to find Casey's name. She needed a distraction; anything to stop the oncoming panic attack in its tracks.
Lunch.
Lunch would be perfect. She could easily spend the rest of the short time she had to be in the hospital thinking about where they'd go and what she would get. Distraction was the name of the game.
To Casey: Wanna grab a bite? I should be done with my appointment in a little bit. My treat.
From Casey: God, yes. I'm starving.
To her surprise, it wasn't the confirmation of plans that calmed her down. It was the needle that had punctured her skin. It sounded crazy and almost masochistic, finding relief in a needle being shoved into a wound that hadn't healed yet from the last time. It was always that way, ever since she was a kid. The sudden cut of the anxiety, the anticipated event finishing, and the surge of adrenaline that came with knowing she could finally breathe again without panicking. Without suffocating.
The needle was in, there was no more waiting, and she no longer had to face what was making her heart race to begin with.
She thanked the nurse and grabbed her bag, pressing tighter against the fresh bandaid on her arm. Silently, she thanked God that the entrance was near the lab and she didn't have to walk down the halls that horrified her anymore. She practically ran towards the front exit, yearning for the feeling of dewy fresh air.
But when her foot stepped out from the front door and her eyes scanned the street in front of her, the relief left. Her body stilled in a near shiver, her eyes blowing wide and her jaw slowly falling. The panic attack she had averted was back ten-fold.
It wasn't supposed to happen like this.
Her eyes locked with his and she knew it was over.
Her breath left in the softest whisper she could conjure.
"Elliot"