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Published:
2023-02-07
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2023-02-08
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2/2
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fear fades

Summary:

She’d spent years on the outskirts of the hospital rooms while Elliot was recovering, years spent on the outskirts of a rocky marriage between two people, trying her best to hold the two of them together sometimes. She spent years on the outside looking in as Kathy would hold his hands, waiting for him to wake up. Waiting to be let in on the news if he’d make it through the night, if her partner would be coming home.

For forty-one hours, seven minutes and thirty three, thirty four, thirty five seconds she sits by his bedside silently, listening to each beep, each beat of his heartbeat the whirring of the machines pumping oxygen through his body. If she focuses really closely she can hear the drip, drip, drip of saline in his IV.

Notes:

i want to thank turnthepage11 and withbarethings so much for all your help and the listening to me whine and bitch about this fic and absolutely obliterating you with feels ily both sm

anyway here’s the “elliot gets shot and it pushes liv over the edge” fic we all want bc we know the show isn’t going to give it to us🙃

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

Her hands shake nervously as she watches on. First, one of the paramedics has to pry her hands off of his bloodied chest, pulling her back as her throat grows raw from screaming to him, at him, she’s mad, she’s angry, she’s scared.

 

At him.

 

For him. 

 

She’s fucking terrified. 

 

The bullet hit him in the chest, and ripped straight through him, and she’d tackled him, trying to put as much pressure on the open wound as she could. 

 

“Stay with me, El.” She had begged. “El, stay with me. You can't leave me again, I love you, you have to stay with me. Please stay with me.” She remembers the words that left her lips as his eyes fought to stay open and consciousness was fought for. 

 

She’s not sure if he heard her, if he’d even remember, if he would even wake up, but she needed to say it. 

 

She needed to tell him.

 

Because he’d taken a bullet. 

 

He’d taken a bullet for her.  

 

Stupid, stupid man. 

 

Her stupid former partner. 

 

Her idiot partner, who she was in love with.

 

Who she’s been in love with for far too long. 

 

Her partner who was here . Who she told she wasn’t ready. Who had been waiting right there for her to be ready. 

 

Who might not be around much longer. 

 

It makes her chest heavy as she thinks about the possibility of losing him before things could ever even get started. And nothing matters now, except him. Except needing him to live because she’s realizing she may never be ready, but she needed him. 

 

She watched in a daze as a paramedic tried to check her over. They loaded him onto a backboard and then onto a gurney into the ambulance. 

 

The sirens ringing in her ears as she loaded in behind him. 

 

“I’m not leaving him.” Her throat was raw and scratchy from yelling to him, at him, for him, she’s not sure which. She just climbs up into the rig behind his loaded up body and prays.  

 

They have him bagged and pumping as much oxygen into his lungs that he could handle but she’s pretty sure the bullet tore through one of them. 

 

He can't breathe. 

 

She can’t breathe either.

 

She watches as he starts coughing and choking. 

 

Blood starts slipping past his lips and they work fast trying to shield her eyes from the situation. 

 

He’d taken a bullet for her.

 

Because he was her partner. 

 

For better or for worse . 






She wipes her bloodied hands on her jeans. They’re bound for the trash after tonight anyway, and manages to pull her phone from her pocket, pulling up a group text message she was a part of. 

 

Mercy Medical your dad was shot

 

She can barely see the tiny text on her phone and prays to any gods that will listen that he’ll be alright. 

 

She hears his phone chime with the incoming text she sent and then feels the buzzing of replies but she can't seem to even read them, her vision blurring and her hands becoming too shaky. 

 

She tries focusing on his chest in front of her, tries to watch him try to breathe, but he fails, and the team of paramedics start performing chest compressions on him, breathing for him, and her resolve breaks. 

 

She lets out a sob, bringing her hand up to cover her mouth as they pull up to the ambulance bay and unload him, rushing him into the automatic doors and one of the EMT’s helps her stumble out of the rig. 

 

She feels like a baby deer, on unstable, shaking legs for the first time. 

 

He leads her to the waiting area, and sets her in a chair. 

 

She lets her head fall to her hands in her lap and she breaks as she lets out another heart wrenching sob. 







The chapel is cold. 

 

Or maybe it's just her, feeling icy for being in here. 

 

Hell freezing over as Olivia Benson enters a chapel to pray. 

 

She shakily lights a candle, shaking out the match before sitting down in a pew in the second row. 

 

She feels the cracking inside her chest and it feels as if her heart is going to fall right out in front of her, inside the middle of the chapel as she tries to pray. 

 

She’s not religious. She’s not even sure she believes in a god, because what cruel higher power would do this to her? Would rip away the man she–– he can’t die. 

 

She takes a deep, shuddering breath and sets her hands on the pew in front of her, crying out for him. For the man who holds her heart in the palm of his hands, afraid for her life that he won’t make it. 

 

Afraid for his children that they’ll lose another parent. 

 

Afraid for his mother that will lose her son. 

 

Afraid for herself and her one chance at life with him. 

 

The phone in her pocket starts buzzing, and she can barely swipe to unlock it before pulling it up to her ear and answering the call. 

 

“Is this Olivia Benson?”

 

She swallows the lump in her throat, choking out a harshed “Yes?”

 

“I’m Nadia a nurse at Mercy Medical Center. I’m calling on behalf of Elliot Stabler. You’re listed as his emergency contact—”

 

Her ears start ringing inside her head as the weight of the words hit her. 

 

She’d spent years on the outskirts of the hospital rooms while Elliot was recovering, years spent on the outskirts of a rocky marriage between two people, trying her best to hold the two of them together sometimes. She spent years on the outside looking in as Kathy would hold his hands, waiting for him to wake up. Waiting to be let in on the news if he’d make it through the night, if her partner would be coming home. 

 

For years she stood on the outskirts of his and Kathy’s marriage. On the outskirts of their family. On the outskirts of hospital rooms watching and waiting as he fought for his life. And now? Now she’s front and center and she wishes she wasn’t. Because who’s going to stand there with her while she watches him fight for his life? Who’s going to hold her like she held his wife and told her that he’d be okay that he’s a fighter.  Who would help her fight? 

 

Today she sat in the driver’s seat for the first time, getting to hear the news of he’s been shot and they’re taking him up for surgery and please call his loved ones. It's touch and go at the moment. And she could feel the way her chest felt like shattering in half. 

 

It heaves with tears as her heart feels like it’s breaking inside her. 

 

The call ends and she doesn’t remember much being said after. She doesn’t remember if she spoke at all, even. She just prays that he’s going to be okay. 






She manages to make it back to the waiting room on autopilot waiting for updates on his status. If he was dead or alive. It makes her whole body shake with sobs as she thinks about the what ifs of him not surviving this. The what ifs of their life that could have been if he makes it through. 

 

She’s sat for hours. His kids have all filtered through, minus Eli who’s still away but they’ve updated him and he’s due to fly in soon. She doesn’t know how much time has passed but Fin had come for her, forcing her to change at least and drink some water in fear that she’d dehydrate herself from crying. 

 

He sits with her, holding her hand, holding her up as she sobs into his shoulder. The what ifs lying at the edge of her tongue. Because what if he doesn’t make it through this? What was she going to do? 

 

“I cant lose him, Fin.” 

 

He knows. “You won’t.” 

 

“What will I do without him?” Her voice is so raw from all the crying. 

 

“You survived without him for ten years, Baby girl.” He tells her, a hand in her hand as she continues to cry out for him. 

 

“But I just got him back. I cant–I cant do this again. Not when we’re—” she can’t even finish her thought when a doctor finally shows up to update them again. 

 

She looks up at her with bloodshot eyes. Like she’s cried for a thousand days and it feels like it. She feels the exhaustion down into her bones as she stands up and lets Fin wrap and arm around her waist, holding her up steady and not letting her go. 

 

She forces herself to tune into what the doctor is saying. Can see her lips moving but the words barely make it to her ears. 

 

“It’s critical, the next forty-eight hours. If he makes it—”

 

It makes her audibly sob again as Fin catches her. 

 

“Your husband’s strong. He’s a fighter he should pull through.” The doctor reassures her. “If you follow me you can see him in ICU recovery.” 

 

And somehow it hurts even more. 

 

“Can you make sure Noah is fine at Rollins? I cant–I cant leave him. I need to go—” She barely makes out the words and Fin nods, reassuring her he’s got her boy all taken care of. 

 

“I got him.” Fin promises before she’s off on her own, following the doctor down the corridors. 






The elevator ride is awkward and silent as she waits in the metal box with the fellow doctor who she can barely make out through the blur of tears in her eyes. 

 

“He’s not my husband.” She starts, breaking the silence. “Before, you said my husband’s strong he’s not my husband.” 

 

“Oh, my apologies.”

 

“He means everything to me though.” She let’s slip. 

 

“For what it’s worth, it seems like there’s something worth fighting for, and if he knows that he won’t let go.” The doctor tells her and she swallows hard. 

 

“I hope so.” She whispers as the elevator doors open up. 

 

She follows the doctor down the hall and around the corner once more before stopping at a patient door and she can see him, tubes and wires all holding him together as she fights back another round of tears. 

 

“It’s going to be scary, seeing him like this, but everything attached to him is helping him. Like I said before, the next forty-eight hours are critical and if he can make it through the night he’ll be okay. You’re welcome to stay as his emergency contact but visiting hours for the rest of the family end at eight.” And with that, she’s all alone in the room with him, listening to the machines beep and whir, pumping life into him. 







For forty-one hours she sits, and waits, and waits, and cries silently. His family comes and brings food for her. They shower her with hugs and try to force her to go home and check on her own son but he’s fine and safe with Amanda and Sonny. She FaceTimes with him though, and he asks how Elliot’s doing. Worried for his mom and newfound friend in the man. Asks if he makes it through if he could invite him to the spring dance recital he’s been practicing all winter for. 

 

For forty-one hours, seven minutes and thirty three, thirty four, thirty five seconds she sits by his bedside silently, listening to each beep, each beat of his heartbeat the whirring of the machines pumping oxygen through his body. If she focuses really closely she can hear the drip, drip, drip of saline in his IV. 

 

For forty-one hours, eight minutes and two seconds, she sits by his bedside, holding his hand before all hell breaks loose and her world collapses in on itself. 

 

His heart rate spikes. The machines beep frantically. Alarms blare and doctors and nurses and the whole team all file into the room and subsequently push her out of it with a Ma’am we need to assess his condition. 

 

Her breathing staggers as she’s ushered out of the room and her vision blurs. She stumbles back against a wall, clutching, clawing at her chest to breathe. 

 

It’s been fifty-six, fifty-seven, fifty-eight seconds since her world shifted on its axis. Since her world seemingly collapsed around her, shattering beneath her feet. 

 

She watches in a blur from a few feet away as Fin drops the two coffees in his hands and they paint the white hospital floors tan as he reaches around her, meeting her in the hall and holding her up as she collapses into his embrace. 

 

She breaks, finally, a pillar of steadfast endurance, running on the pure adrenaline of the last two days, and sheer strength alone, she breaks. 

 

“He–He’s––” she can't even get the words out but he can put it together by the sounds of the machines blaring from inside the room and the staff of the hospital working about that it wasn’t good. 

 

It’s been one minute and twenty-two seconds since her heart broke in half for the man she loves–– loved most.



Chapter 2

Notes:

seeeeee? I wasn’t *really* going to do that to y’all (this time anyway).

anyway, hope you enjoyed!!

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

The he’s asking for you rings in her ears as she tries to process what the hell had just happened. 

 

His heart rate had spiked as he was coming into consciousness and more things she didn’t quite understand, but he was alive and awake and asking for her, and she could finally feel the air returning to her lungs as she breathed again, albeit unsteady. 

 

She holds a hand up to Fin to give her a minute, trying to calm her racing heart as she continues processing everything, waiting for reality to kick in and wake her from the dream that he was okay. That he was alive.  

 

“Go, Liv, go see him.” Fin urges her, but she can’t. 

 

She wants to. 

 

But her feet are glued to the floor, weighted down by a thousand pounds and leaving her stuck in place. She can’t move. Frozen as time stands still around her. 

 

He was alive.  

 

He was asking for her. 

 

He scared the living shit out of her. 

 

Finally coming unglued, she turns on her heel and barrels through the doorway. 

 

“You scared the shit out of me!” she yells at him, walking straight up to his bedside and giving his shoulder a shove, steering clear of the bandages across his lower chest. “What the fuck is wrong with you, huh? I had to find out from the fucking hospital that I’m your emergency contact.” 

 

He laughs and it sends her further over the edge, feeling the rage building up inside her. 

 

“You think this is funny? You got shot and almost died and you think this is funny?”

 

Her whole body shakes with hot angry tears as she continues to punch at his shoulder and he tries grabbing at her arms fighting her back to steady her, console her. 

 

“Liv, ‘m sorry you had to find out that way. I meant to tell you. Meant to ask.” he tries, but she stills, pulling back from him and creating a tiny space between the two of them. 

 

“You’re sorry? That’s it? You almost died, El. Do you know how scared I was? That we’d never–we’d never get––” she can’t even finish the words before the tears are spilling back out and wracking her body with sobs. 

 

He grabs her hands, pulling her down towards him and shifting in his bed to give her room to slide onto the bed with him into his arms. He wraps his arm around her, running fingers through her hair and pressing his nose against her cheek, holding her close. “I’m here, Baby. I’m alive.”

 

“I’m so mad at you.” she whispers, feeling his breath on her cheek, warming her and sending chills through her entire body. 

 

She feels like she’s on fire as his tone softens and he rubs circles with his thumb on her upper arm, comforting her. 

 

She’s still so fucking mad at him, but he’s alive and he’s holding her like this. 

 

“I’m sorry, Baby.” he whispers back, peppering her jawline with soft, barely there kisses. 

 

She shifts, turning into him and burying her face into the crook of his neck, stretching her arm across his chest ever so gently, wary of his injuries. He groans and she lifts her arm up to take it back when his hand on her arm stops her and she lies it back down, letting it stay. 

 

“You can’t do that anymore.” she cries softly into his skin. “You can’t. Not if we’re going to give this a chance.” 

 

He has the audacity to laugh again and she hopes it hurts him because of how scared this whole thing made her feel. 

 

“So that’s all it took, was me getting shot?” 

 

“Fuck you.” she practically growls at him. 

 

“Wouldn’t you like to?” he’s getting under her skin, creating a lighter atmosphere for them and she can’t help but groan. 

 

“You got jokes now?” she quips back. “I hate you so much.” she says, but there’s no heat behind any of the words and they practically melt away as he laughs again.

“No you don’t.” he tells her softly, in the same tone that he used when they’d stood nose to nose in her kitchen and she almost let him kiss her then. 

 

And he’s right. Because she doesn’t hate him. 

 

She never could. 

 

Even after he left her, and she tried, god had she tried to hate him. But she couldn’t. And she turns her head, looking up at him before pressing her lips against his and sinking into the feeling of his lips on her own. 

 

She sinks into the kiss, feeling safe and comforted and blissful and everything she imagined their first kiss was not going to be. She’d imagined it would be fire and flames and teeth and tongues battling for dominance but she’s sinking into his embrace as he cradles her body against his own and she feels light.  

 

He scares her. 

 

She’s never felt like this towards anyone before and it scares the shit out of her, because what if it didn’t work out? They had so much to lose. And she couldn’t lose that––can’t lose him again. She knows she won't survive it. 

 

“I can’t lose you.” She finally says, pulling back from the kiss. 

 

“You won’t––”

 

“You don’t know that, El.” 

 

“I do, Baby.” He says, intertwining their hands. “I won’t let you. I know you’re scared that this won’t work out but we’ll make it work, Liv. I won’t let you lose me.” He promises her. 

 

She leans back in his embrace, settling back against the bed and letting the adrenaline of the last few days fade around the edges of her as she sinks into his side feeling his heart beating underneath her palm. 

 

He’s alive.  

 

“I love you. I’ve loved you for far too long.” She lets the words tumble from her lips. “I needed to say it.”

 

“I know Liv. I know you did.” He tells her softly. “I love you too.” 

 

And finally, as the words wash over her, the fear fades just a little.



Notes:

yes wbk elliot is a dick he’s trying to lighten the mood when shes so mad and angry at him he has the audacity to laugh bc he’s a shitstarter thats just how he be…

follow me on twitter if ya want @dandelion4015

Notes:

“nah girl im not going to do it I was just thinking about it”
come follow me on twitter @dandelion4015 :)