Chapter Text
60 seconds.
“Liv, get out.”
Elliot’s voice shatters the silence between them. They’re alone, face to face in a dim room, and he’s standing on a goddamn bomb hidden somewhere beneath the floor. They didn’t see the monitor in the corner until it lit up with the timer when he stepped on it, and now its dim glow fills the room with the countdown until the bomb detonates.
His eyes dart to the open door behind Olivia. If she moves, maybe she’ll make it out. It’s a chance he wants her to take, because there’s no reason they both need to die tonight.
55 seconds.
She looks back at him, her eyes fierce. Her eyes are terrified, soft, and furious that he’d even suggest that all at once. Her body makes the slightest of motions as she fights the urge to grab his hand, to pull him off the trigger plate.
But she doesn’t move, because for all they know, pulling him off the trigger could detonate the bomb early, and if this is their last minute alive, she wants to keep every second of it.
“Elliot, I’m not going anywhere,” she snaps, a tremor slipping through her voice. “The bomb squad’s hunting down the device now. They might be able to shut it down before it goes off.”
Might.
The word is laced with uncertainty, and she prays to a god she doesn’t believe in that she’s right, that the bomb squad is able to find the bomb and disengage it, that tonight they’ll be home with their families after a round of beers with their units.
They’re supposed to have dinner tonight. He’s asked her out twice and she said no both times, said she wasn’t ready. She’s not sure what changed her mind, but this time she asked him to have dinner with her.
And right now, all she can think about is the way his face lit up when she asked him, how readily he said yes. It was the same grin from twenty some years ago when they’d sit across from each other in the squadroom, working late nights and bitching about the paperwork.
Tears prick her eyes and she blinks them back, barely holding back a sharp breath as she meets his eyes again.
41 seconds.
The only sound slipping through the silence that follows her words is the steady, sharp beeping of the timer. A short chirp for each second that ticks down, each moment making his heart sink more.
“Olivia.” Her name passes his lips as a growl, desperate and angry. “Get out. Go home to Noah. He needs his mom to come home tonight.”
“What about your kids?” she echoes without a moment’s hesitation. Even if Eli’s a teenager and the rest are grown adults in their twenties and thirties, they still need him and if by some chance she survives this, she can’t bring herself to face them and tell them he’s gone.
Elliot’s vision blurs with unshed tears. She doesn’t say the next part, but he knows what she’s thinking.
What about me?
With each second passing on the clock, his mind races with regrets that he doesn’t have time to voice, explanations he should have given her the moment he came back. But most of all he wants to tell her again he’s sorry, and if he could take back the last eleven years and change that day he walked out, he would.
But he can’t and with time counting down, all he can do is try to protect her one last time in the seconds passing.
“Olivia,” he repeats, his voice softer this time, more afraid than she’s ever heard him before. “Olivia, I’m-”
30 seconds.
“Don’t.” Olivia cuts him off with a shake of her head. Their time is halfway out and she’s not letting him waste it on apologies. Her hands clench into fists as she fights the urge to grab his hand in her own. “Elliot, I love you.”
They both fall into silence, the gravity of her words weighing in the air.
“I love you, too.” Elliot tries to find some hope that this isn’t the only time they’ll say it to each other. He likes to think that the bomb squad will stop the detonation with seconds to spare and that they’ll get to go on that dinner date tonight, any place Olivia wants to go.
Olivia’s throat clenches as she opens her mouth to speak again. Her voice fails her when she can’t find the right words to say. “If I’d known this was going to happen, I would have accepted your first offer,” she tries to joke, her voice falling flat.
They’re moments away from detonation and she’s fucking joking. She knows they can’t have a real conversation, not with the seconds they have left.
But Elliot lets out a short chuckle, even if there’s nothing funny about it. “If we get out of this,” he begins. “You and me, dinner tonight. And if that works out-”
“We’ll have lunch with Noah this weekend,” Olivia finishes. “He loves pizza, just so you know.”
“I’ll remember that.”
19 seconds.
Olivia imagines the three of them in a hole in the wall pizza place, laughing at some goofy dad joke Elliot makes. Noah would tell Elliot all about school and dance, and something tells her that Elliot would have that supportive grin on his face the entire conversation.
Her eyes shift to the open door behind her. She doesn’t want to leave him, but at the same time she wonders if fifteen seconds is enough that if she makes a move right now, she can be home with her son tonight.
Elliot’s expression softens, his eyes glistening. “Liv, go,” he urges, this time gently. “Please go home and be with Noah. It’s okay…”
It’s not okay and they both know it. There’s absolutely nothing okay about this, nothing okay about dying right here, but his eyes are pleading, begging her to get herself to safety.
Ten seconds.
“Go!” Elliot pushes her back toward the door, hoping it’s enough to at least give her a chance of making it. A commotion rumbles down the hall as athe bomb squad swarms in, and one of them pulls Olivia from the room.
“Elliot!” Her voice rings over the din and as she’s all but dragged away from the room, she tries to keep him in her sights, but she loses focus on him as she’s shoved to the ground when the floor trembles under her feet.
Zero.