Casey had fallen asleep in the sadistically uncomfortable waiting room chairs. Four hours. He'd watched the clock for four grueling hours with no updates. He'd watched the third hand on the clock, ticking every second that passed. Each time, his heart sank lower. By now, he was certain that it didn't even exist inside of him anymore.
"Case... I'm gonna go get some coffee," he whispered as she stirred. He couldn't watch the clock anymore, if he did, he'd go insane. He was going insane, there was no point in pretending he still had a shred of control.
Instead of going to the cafeteria, he decided to wander the halls. He'd called Cragen, let him know that he was taking the rest of the day off. He almost insisted on coming down himself, but Elliot had convinced him otherwise. He didn't want anyone else to have to sit around and watch the clock.
Lost in one of the hallways, he stumbled upon the chapel. Every hospital had one. It was a place he had never dreamed of walking into, but he made his way inside of the empty room without realizing.
It dawned on him... he felt so far away from God. He had for a while.
When had he strayed? He couldn't pinpoint it. He never could. It was always so gradual, and just like that, he was too far gone before he even realized. There was never just one moment that caused the downfall, but instead, too many moments.
He took a deep breath, sitting down in one of the pews. Unsure of what exactly he was doing, he did the one thing that came natural. He bowed his head, clasped his hands, and quietly whispered under his breath.
"Dear God... I don't usually pray this way. Actually, I haven't prayed at all in a while. I guess I've been too afraid of being reamed out by Father Denis for avoiding confessional. I'm used to the big cathedral ceilings, not the small hospital chapels. Maybe a change of scenery will help, I'm not sure. I haven't been looking to you with help for my problems, maybe that's my biggest sin. But this isn't about my sins, so please forgive me for cutting to the chase."
"Betadine." Doctor Keller's voice filled the O.R.
"I'm not praying for myself, per se. Or maybe I am, that's up for you to decide. My partner is up there. I don't know what they're doing to her, nobody will tell me anything. Sorry, maybe that seemed passive aggressive, I don't know. But in a literal sense, I have no clue what is going on. I didn't even know until earlier."
"Scalpel."
His tears fall down the wooden pew in front of him.
This isn't working. It doesn't feel right.
"Making an incision in the left axilla."
"I'm angry at you, God."
He hates himself for the bluntness but it's the first time something felt right in oh so long.
"Maybe I'll burn for admitting that, maybe not. But my faith is weakening and I'm angry. I'm angry that this has happened to her, and I'm angry that you let it happen. Hasn't she been through enough? I mean, why her? From the very start, she's never had a break. She's never had it easy. Not for a minute. Now this? I'm supposed to trust you and yet I can't, for a single moment, figure out why the hell this is happening. What greater purpose is there? What greater reasoning that surpasses all pain is there for her to be exactly where she is? Can you please just answer that for me? Please? I have seen so many soulless, broken people come across my path who have suffered much less and somehow she still has a light in her eyes. Why? Why can't she ever catch a freaking break? I'm angry. I'm livid. I'm infuriated. I've done a lot of things in my life that have probably earned me a one-way ticket to Hell, so I sure as shit am not afraid to burn here first for admitting that I am so fucking angry."
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.
"I— I hate myself for it but I'm still angry, Casey." he whispered, as if it were a sin to admit it in the middle of a chapel. "I'm mad about all of it."
"Go talk to her, Elliot. You both fight with such ferocity that you barely even get your points across. I'm sure you didn't get the whole story when you two were hashing it out in her apartment."
"What's left to tell?" he looked at her with hopelessness filling his baby blue eyes. "She already told me, she isn't doing chemo yet. It's a dumb decision and I can't help but be angry about it."
"Go talk to her, room 205" Casey patted his shoulder, walking away before she would need to answer any more questions.
A slight rise of anger started to fill him. Another secret. Another lie. Another gut-wrenching piece of information that he was last to hear about.
He made his way out of the chapel, leaving his quiet prayers behind, hoping they had been heard somewhere other than between the four walls.
The hospital was a maze to him, but after asking about six different nurses, he'd finally found the door with her name tag on it. He stared at it for a moment, tracing each letter with his eyes.
Benson, Olivia M.
Once again, it was nothing but a door between the two of them. He remembered the night she had finally spoken to him. As short lived as the moment was, he'd remember it forever. The silky touch of her fingers on his; a message of hope. The only difference this time was that he had the ability to open the door.
When he walked in, he saw a sight he had never seen before. She was pale, an oxygen cannula was snug under her nose and her bandaged arm was against her chest in a sling.
He'd never forget the look in her weary brown eyes. She looked down at her lap as soon as she realized it was he who had walked in. He knew it would be awkward, but the shame and the tension in the air was electric enough to nearly push each other away. "Hey," she whispered.
"Hey," he carefully pulled up the seat next to her. He tiredly gazed up and down at the bandages covering her skin. He gulped at the sight of them, a painful lump growing in his throat. They shouldn't be there. This shouldn't be her. He wasn't sure who it should be, if anybody, but not her.
"Can we talk?" she asked quietly, finally allowing herself to make eye contact with him. She could easily make out the red bags under his eyes. She assumed he had probably cried just as hard as she remembered herself crying.
It wasn't supposed to be like this. She never meant to hurt him.
"Yeah... yeah we should probably talk."
She took a deep breath, allowing herself the will to finally say what she had meant to say back at the apartment. "Your opinion is probably the only opinion I value."
He smiled softly "I value your-"
"Don't..." she stuck her free hand up, closing her eyes to hide away from his grin. "Don't say it. Don't smile because what I'm about to say is not a compliment..." she stopped, taking in another deep breath in an attempt to slow the rapid fraying of her nerves. "I value your opinion. Probably more than anyone else. But that doesn't mean I believe that you know what's best for me. We've been through a lot in the past ten years, El. We really have. So when it's something about work, I do value your opinion and even then, I might consider what you think is for the best. But very rarely have we experienced problems outside of our work lives that we have both been through. That makes it difficult to expect you to understand my problems."
"All I'm saying is that—"
"I know what you're saying, Elliot. I do." She huffed out something between a deep breath and a laugh in protest. "I know because I've asked myself if I'm making the right decision about a hundred times. But for once, I am doing what's best for me, and that's because I do know what's best for me. Right now, you don't agree what's best for me and I'm not going to apologize for the fact that I'm not going to follow your wishes, requests, or opinions in this situation. My situation."
He leaned back in his seat, his eyes going empty and cold as the words ran over him. She watched with apprehension as his mouth opened and closed. He wasn't sure of what to say, but it wasn't like she really knew either. "You're risking your life. You expect me to sit back and just watch that happen?"
"Yes." she nodded firmly. "Yes, I do, because despite what you may think or want to believe, you have absolutely no clue what I am going through." She could hear herself starting to choke up. The impending fall of tears blurred her vision, but maybe that was for the best because she couldn't stand to see the look on his face.
"This..." he vaguely pointed in front of himself, struggling to get the words out in a coherent string. "This is a midlife crisis."
The words burned on her skin.
Midlife crisis.
She blinked a few times, replacing the tears of sadness with anger. "Excuse you?"
He refused to relent, his eyes warping from rigidly cold to blazing anger. "And you are letting a midlife crisis become an end of life crisis."
"That's a big statement coming from you." She bit her lip, laughing from the rich anger that came with his hypocrisy.
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
She laughed harder. "Dear God, Elliot. How jaded are you? Have you looked at your youngest child lately? He's living, breathing proof of your own midlife crisis." she spat back, her words releasing the pent up aggression that she wasn't even aware had existed.
His jaw tightened as he glared at her "Don't you dare go there."
"Why not?" her sardonic smile died down and transformed into a bluntness he rarely saw in her. "I mean, come on, let's make things fair, right? You wanna throw knives at me, I've got just as good of a throwing arm!"
"No, you don't!" he screamed back, "Your 'throwing arm' is currently wrapped in gauze to cover a surgical wound! If that isn't enough for you to realize what you're doing is a mistake, I don't know what is!"
"For christ's sake, Elliot! I'm not leaving the force to go join a heist crew! I'm suspending treatment for a few weeks to try to save the one scrap of a chance I have left at a life outside of being a fucking cop! Do you not realize that, super-dad family man? You have no goddamn clue! Even when you go home to an empty apartment at night, you have a family. You have a family to hold onto. You have something to look forward to, even if it's just weekends and every Wednesday! You're always gonna have someone. Several someones. I have nothing!" Her voice raised, shouting the last word loud enough for the entire hospital to hear. The tears that finally broke through the strength of holding them back burned as they dripped down her cheeks.
The ache that had long-lived inside of her chest was more apparent to her now, rather than the stitches that were supposed to hurt worse. Her heart was breaking with every word that came crashing down upon them like acid rain. She wasn't really sure if she cared anymore. If this is what it was to pour gasoline on their friendship and partnership, she was ready to throw the match. She hated herself for it but being held back wasn't in the cards anymore.
"You're not thinking this through!"
"It's not up to you!" she cried back. "When's the last time I ever did something to better my life, Elliot? Name one thing in the past ten years I've done! Yeah, I've had a few relationships, some which could've probably worked out. I've had chances, but no, I always sacrifice them for everyone else. Name one fucking thing I've done for me!"
May the bridges I burn light the way.
"Are you blaming me?" he retorted, trying feebly to maintain his non-existent innocence.
He knew. Deep down. He knew.
"Well you've made it oh so easy for me, haven't you?" she laughed again, quickly shooting back at him just as fast as he shot at her.
He stood up from the chair beside her bed, pointing an accusatory finger at her. "Your failed relationships aren't my fault, Olivia."
"You sure about that?"
"There are different ways to become a mother, Olivia!" he raised his voice again as he started to pace around the room. "I-I mean, adoption, or foster care, or even adopting an embryo! But you're killing yourself in the process and you're too damn naïve to see it! It- it's selfish!"
"I had kids the old fashioned way" she mocked. "You have no fucking clue, Elliot. You have been blessed with five beautiful children and you even had a wife for a while. Yeah, you had a shitty childhood but you came out stronger on the other end. So don't sit here on the high horse of your privilege and tell me how to live my life! Better yet, don't you even think about telling me what's selfish because this might be the first selfish thing I've done since I met you!"
It wasn't vicious, the way the oxygen left his lungs. It was subtle. Unsettling subtle. He looked down to make sure she wasn't really sticking her hand in his chest to rip his heart out, because it sure as hell felt like it.
"Hey!" a voice from the door caught both of their attentions. She saw Doctor Keller standing there, holding her chart in his arm. Olivia fell back against the bed without realizing she had even sat up. Her free arm came up to run her hand through her hair, wiping away her tears with the side of her hand. "Now, I don't know who the hell you are, but I know that this is my patient who happens to be fresh out of an extremely invasive surgery. I don't care how you both fight outside of here, but in my hospital, it's not gonna fly. I'm trying to keep my patient alive and as calm as possible, so I'm going to ask you really politely to leave."
Elliot sputtered for a moment, trying to realize what had just happened. He ripped his jacket off the back of the chair and darted out the door, leaving Olivia in a sobbing mess.
"Breathe. Deep breaths," Doctor Keller spoke quietly, sitting in the now unoccupied guest chair. She was hyperventilating, each rapid breath blistering where the intubation tube had scratched her throat. He gently patted her shaking hand. "It's gonna be okay,"
"I don't care anymore." she sobbed in a broken voice. "Just... fuck it. Do the chemo, do the radiation. I'm done, I don't care."
A near silence fell over the room, all except for the breathy cries that came from her trembling body. He stared at her for a moment. She had pushed and pushed, all against his advice, so much so that she nearly died in the process. Now she wanted to quit?
"No," he whispered.
He knew what he was doing was wrong, in fact it was pretty much unethical too. But she had done the job she had set out to do; she had gotten under his skin. She had evolved the mindset he had with her, and in some ways, he was beginning to understand her a little bit more. From the two and a half weeks he had gotten to know her, he could already tell this was a blip. She wasn't a quitter. He was just the one who was witnessing the off-chance that she was feeling weak and then giving in to it.
"What?" she sniffled.
"No," he shook his head. "You were right. You have a chance. I mean, it's pretty much my job to give people the best chance they can possibly have. Normally, that would pertain only to their diagnosis but maybe I'm absolutely insane for this, but I think giving you a different type of chance might be even better. I don't think you wanna quit. In fact, I think it's safe to say I know you don't want to quit."
She finally managed to look up at him through her swollen eyes.
"Olivia, I've read about you. I don't normally do that with patients. Actually, it's kind of a rookie move..." he let go of a deep breath. "You save everyone. You're kinda like me, you try to give people another chance. But nobody is ever there to give you a chance, or let you allow yourself to have a chance. And I know my job is to be on the scientific side of it all, but I'm a firm believer that attitude is half the battle. From what I've read and come to understand, you aren't a quitter. You're a survivor. And my opinion as a person, not your doctor, is that you're gonna survive this too. So, no. No, I'm not gonna give up on your IVF plans because I know that its something you want to do. It's something you deserve to do. Give yourself the chance."
"Are you sure?" she whispered, wiping away the rest of the tears from her skin.
"Look, if you come to me in a few days and say you wanna skip IVF, then I'm on board. But for now, I don't want you to make a decision that you're going to regret just because you've had a hell of a bad day. It might be the stupidest thing I've ever done as a doctor, but my gut tells me that this is gonna be worth it for you." he smiled, patting her hand once more before standing from the chair. "Try to get some rest."
"Wait," she reached out to stop him. "I forgot to ask, how'd the surgery go?"
The subtle smile returned to his face as he cocked his head to the side. "We were able to clear most of the infection. We also were able to remove what looks like all of the lymphatic tumors in your arm, which buys us a little bit of time. We'll have to check again after the swelling goes down and we'll have to keep an eye on it to make sure they don't grow back. But, you just became a little less malignant, Olivia Benson."
Even with the streaks of dried tears staining her face, and swollen eyes from crying, she managed to smile just a little bit.
Less malignant was better than nothing.