It was the first time that she had stood less than a few inches away from him in what felt like an eternity. His eyes were just as red and swollen from the tears as hers were. She wanted to crumble. Her open jaw shivered from the threat of another sob breaking free.
"You lied to me," he bit out the venom-laced words slowly and carefully.
"I didn't lie to you," her voice was weak, barely above a whisper. She tried to fight back but within a second, he was inside of her apartment, his voice already louder than the moments previous.
"You lied to me, Olivia!" he cried out. His hand lifted as if he were going to run it through his buzzed hair, but then fell back down to his side. "You said —" he stopped, biting his lip and closing his eyes to fight off the oncoming tears. His hand rose again, pointing an accusatory finger at her. "You said you were fine,"
She could hear the drop of an octave in his cracking voice. All she could do was stand and watch the hurt rain over him. It broke her, hearing how he was practically pleading with her. She'd lied, she knew it. The guilt wasn't absent, not this time.
"Like you haven't lied to me before,"
It was a low blow, and she knew it.
His eyes shot open wide, staring at her in disbelief. "Are you fucking kidding me? Not with something as serious as this! You told me you were fine and I believed you!"
"This isn't about you, Elliot." she warned. Even in her own tone, she could hear the way her pitch rose. It was like lightning striking the air before the rain even hit the ground; this was the tip of her iceberg.
"How could you not tell me, Olivia!" he roared. "We've been partners for ten fucking years! How could you keep something like this from me? What is it? Do you just not trust me? You can tell everyone except for me?"
"You know it isn't like that!" she shot back.
"Then what is it then?!" his voice boomed as he took an angry step towards her. She stood her ground, her chest rising and falling with harder breaths. Stepping back meant letting him win, and this wasn't a fight she wanted to lose. "Huh? What is it?"
She bit her lip as the tears fell down her cheeks. She knew he wasn't as angry as he was hurt. His hurt came out as anger, it wasn't a surprise to her. Deep down, she had known this was going to happen. The longer she prolonged telling him, the harder the outcome would be.
But it broke her heart to see him just as shattered as she was.
So, she stood. She took the verbal lashing that she knew was coming. She wasn't afraid of him, and he had never given her a reason to be. He'd yell circles around her and that's as far as he'd go, so she had no choice but to let him.
"Say the words, Olivia." he stepped closer, his volume dropping once again. There was a numbness, she could hear it. He was bracing himself for the downfall.
She stayed as still as a statue, trying to hold back the shutter she felt as he moved another step. She kept every muscle in her body as taut and defensive as could be.
"Say. The. Words." he ground out, his voice lethally quiet. He was toe to toe with her, barely an inch between the two of them. She could feel the heat of his anger radiating from him, filling the air with painful electricity.
In hospitals, doctors were required to explicitly tell the loved ones if a patient died. They had to say the words, making sure there was no confusion. The person they loved was gone, they weren't coming back.
He was forcing her to not only admit it to him, but to herself as well.
"Cancer," she whispered, her regret-ridden eyes finally looking up to meet his. "I have cancer."
He turned away, running both of his hands against his head. Was that it? Was that what he wanted to hear so damn badly? It wasn't supposed to be this way.
She wants to fall to her knees but she can no longer feel her feet planted on the ground. Maybe it was the room or maybe it was the coldness of his words, she isn't sure. All she knows is that she's shivering, chilled to the bone. But it doesn't make sense because she can feel the sweat collecting on her brow.
Her hands reach behind her, carefully feeling for the wall to brace herself against. Once her fingertips reach the drywall she's able to shift some of the weight off of her lower body.
His silence is paralyzing. She knows he isn't speaking because as he stands facing away from her, he is crying. Silent sobs into his hands that if she didn't know him well enough, she wouldn't have even recognized that it was actual crying.
She knows that he cried the entire way over to her apartment, just barely pulling himself together as he reached her door. She knows how hard he fought it off until the dam broke and it was out of his control.
Elliot Stabler did not cry in front of her.
But partners didn't lie to each other and friends weren't supposed to become potentially terminally ill either. So, there was no saying what could happen next.
She knew that if he was angry about this, he'd be even angrier if she told him the entire truth. The second wave, cresting above him without his knowledge. If he was cracking now, then she wasn't done. She still had to break him.
Her punishment brought on herself.
The room spun faster, her breathing coming in shallow puffs. The pain in her arm was non-existent compared to the pain in her chest. The agonizing weight of grief and regret that sat like bricks on her sternum.
She had to do what she had failed to do the first time. She had to rip the band-aid off.
So, she stared at the back of him for a moment, memorizing every aspect of how he stood and sounded and smelled and looked like. She would lose him. Rarely did she ever know beforehand to ingrain a moment into her mind. But she knew she would lose him and she wanted one last glance.
"I'm not doing chemo yet." she broke the silence, her voice just barely audible above the ringing in both of their ears.
He stopped. The pacing, the sobbing into his palms, the breaths that escaped his chest. He stopped entirely. The world had stopped.
She closed her eyes. The calm before the storm.
Her face was just as numb as her legs and the shaking continued despite the heated air of the apartment.
The moment was too strong for her to handle.
He turned carefully on his heel, the force of his movement sending a burst of cold air in her direction. The eyes staring back at her were more lifeless than they had been even just a few moments previous. "What?" he breathed out, the word sounding soft and stunned.
Her glazed eyes met his, lifeless meeting lifeless. Her arms were folded over her chest, her only defense against the shivers that were quickly becoming stronger. "I postponed treatment. Sixty days or less."
She could read nothing off of him except the fact that he was purely baffled. His jaw had fallen slightly, his brows furrowing with confusion. She could see that he was trying to run all of the possibilities through his mind as to why she would do such a thing, and he was coming up empty.
She knew that he wouldn't be able to ask her why without becoming angry or falling apart entirely. He was waiting, wordlessly, for her to explain.
Her tongue gently ran over her lower lip, a surefire way to buy herself at least three more seconds to come up with an explanation. She tried to speak but all but an empty puff of air came out.
"I need —" she hesitated. No. That wasn't right. "I thought about it... and I've decided that I've waited too long to do the things I've wanted to do for a while. My time is up, this is my last chance."
That only left him more confused. "Wh-what does that even mean? What good could possibly come from you waiting?" the anger was coming back, not as strongly though. It was quietly waiting for her to say one wrong word before it could come back again.
"I'm doing IVF first. One round, an egg retrieval." she'd managed to get the words out as calmly as possible. Maybe it was because she was so suddenly exhausted from the room spinning that she just wanted this to be over with. "The minute I do chemo, I lose my chance at having a family of my own. I've waited long enough."
She saw him as he took in an infuriated breath. His jaw fell and his head shook but only sputters of words came out. She waited, quietly and numb for his retaliation. He wouldn't change her mind, not even if he tried. And he would, if she knew him. He'd never understand. Ten years in their unit and his mind had changed about a lot of things, but his privilege of having a family always shined brighter than the facts around him.
"This— this is a mistake," he grit out, pointing angrily between the two of them. His accent always came out thicker in his anger and she could hear it. Even in the midst of an argument, she couldn't help but wonder if it was a trait he had inherited from his father. All that rage.
"You don't get to make that decisi—"
"This is a mistake!" he interrupted, louder than before. She felt so small under the echoes of his voice that reverberated between the walls. He paced around again, and all she could do was hold herself as she fought back the next round of tears. He'd regret this, she knew him. He'd go home, replay the words he said in his head and then realize he acted in the moment. That's what he does.
But something inside of her was so fucking exhausted from that. Standing, taking his anger-fueled words and trying not to let them hit her like bullets. Two and a half weeks and suddenly a lot of regrets were becoming clear. She didn't want to stand there and regret speaking up for herself.
"You have no fucking clue what it's like," she laughed under her breath, her teeth chattering from the chills in her body. He spun around as soon as he heard her chuckle. His glare fed straight into her eyes, blazing with anger and hurt.
The dizziness washed over her again, and with a gulp she tried to battle it off. "You... have no clue." she took a weak step forward, trying her best to intimidate him. "You have never had to lay in bed at night and wonder if you're going to wake up in the morning. You have never had to hear someone tell you that you may not live to see your next birthday. You have never had to want for anything, Elliot. How dare you stand in front of me and tell me how to dictate my life.
He stared at her in disbelief. Even beneath the paler skin and weaker stature, she was still the spitfire who wasn't going to back down — no matter how terrified he was at the thought of her killing herself over a lost dream.
She managed to take a few more steps closer, once again standing toe to toe with him. "I am sorry that I didn't tell you sooner, but seeing how you're reacting, maybe it was for the best. Clearly you're aren't the friend I thought you were since you can't support me when I need you the most."
He kept his eyes glued to hers, feeling the crackle in the atmosphere around them. His heart was breaking just as fast as hers was. He watched her breathing come faster, as if just her few words had exhausted her lungs like a five mile run.
His voice came shallow and empty. "You're killing yourself."
"GET OUT!" she roared, using every ounce of strength she was fighting to maintain. "Go! Get the hell out!" she sobbed, weakly pounding her fists into his chest. He tried to grab her wrists as he lost the battle against his own sobs. She managed to break away from his hold and pushed him as close to the door as possible. The tears rained down her cheeks as her screams turned into weak and silent cries.
In a blur of motions, the door slammed and she fell against it, allowing the weakness to seep in as she slid down to the floor. The struggle for oxygen only got harder as the cries came on more vigorously. Her fists pounded against the floor before her muscles were physically incapable of moving.
Every physical pain she had tried to ignore came on with the force of a wildfire. The shivering tremors raked through her body, her skin burned one moment and froze the next. She could feel the sweat from her forehead coalescing with the remainder of her tears. The grief of the moment had dulled out the last of Doctor Keller's warnings and as soon as she felt herself losing the battle of exhaustion, she'd realized her phone was across the room.
Fighting it off wasn't an option.
For once, it wasn't hard to give into it.
She just wanted to sleep.