Chapter Text
The rhythmic tap, tap, tap on the window isn’t alarming.
It’s not even unusual. Not at this time of year when the leaves are changing, getting ready to take flight as the winds pick up on every street corner across the five boroughs.
No, Captain Olivia Benson is used to the wind. She even prefers it compared to the dog days of summer. Those tough days, when she and her squad bake under the sun on a sidewalk as they try to work around the smell of a particularly gruesome crime scene.
It doesn’t matter that her squad room is equipped with a modern HVAC system. On those days, Olivia is transported back in time to when she was a green detective trying to prove herself with the boys. When locker doors slamming or cardstock bearing surnames felt more like the sounds and sights of home than a single-bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side waiting pitifully for its occasional occupant.
Wind means change is coming, and Olivia is nothing if not someone who seeks change. She even chases after it. It motivates her. It keeps her up at night.
Except for tonight.
The wind isn’t the reason Olivia woke up and, at first, it’s unclear why she did. Her confusion is short-lived, because her body shoots up on reflex. In pain.
Excruciating pain, actually, as she reaches for her neck. It’s hard to breathe, like what she would imagine from an asthma attack. Except Olivia isn’t, and never was, asthmatic. She tries clearing her throat, but the effort has tears springing to her eyes.
Come on, she begs internally. You’re fine. Come on.
A block — it’s the only way that she can think to describe it — pushes against her throat. Olivia’s chest tightens when it doesn’t get easier for her to breathe, and that’s undoubtedly her mounting anxiety about the situation.
Olivia reaches in the dark for her phone, fumbling as she does, and accidentally knocks over a book. It lands on the floor with a heavy thud. After finally grabbing the phone, she manages to turn on a light. Her bedroom door suddenly creaks open. Olivia looks up with wide eyes.
“Mom?” Noah says, sleepily. He rubs his eyes with his fingers and right thumb. “What’s going on? I heard a noise.”
“I’m … fine.”
Olivia barely manages to get past the first word without crying out in pain. Her agony is clearly written across her face, because she sees the look of panic spread across her son’s face. He rushes over to her.
“What’s going on?” Noah rushes out. “Are you hurt?”
Olivia tries — she really tries — to brace herself before she speaks again. She holds up a hand to tell Noah to wait. She squeezes her eyes shut, feeling them burn when he takes her hand in his own. She squeezes his — Not much smaller than mine, Olivia thinks — and draws comfort from his presence.
You can’t scare him, the voice in her head cuts through the panic.
“Allergies …” Olivia finally manages with a slight whimper. Damnit. “Need to call …”
“I’m calling an ambulance,” Noah says, immediately.
He reaches for her phone, but she holds it tighter.
“Listen,” she forces out. Noah stares at her in shock. “I’ll … call … to say … who I am.” Noah nods quickly in understanding. “You call …” Olivia feels like she might be sick. “Amanda.”
“No,” Noah says, immediately. “I’m going with you.”
Her son. Her intelligent, kind-hearted, and entirely-too-stubborn-for-his-own-good son. Tonight isn’t the night for that admonishment.
You could die, the voice says. He needs you.
“Noah,” Olivia grits out. “For me.”
So much for not scaring him. Noah turns quickly to run and get his phone, but not before she sees his eyes fill with tears. Olivia wants to comfort him, but she needs to call the paramedics.
She needs to make sure that she’s around for the happy days.
***
Olivia isn’t sure that she wants to know how many traffic laws Amanda broke, cop or not, to arrive almost as quickly as the paramedics.
“Liv. Hey, Liv. I’m here,” Amanda says.
Olivia is sitting on a chair, having stubbornly refused to lie on a stretcher until her colleague arrived. The paramedics are fed up with her. One of them handed her an oxygen mask that doesn’t seem to be helping, and she now proceeds to remove it.
“Noah,” she rasps.
“I’m right here, Mom,” Noah says, voice cracking.
But Amanda understands.
Reassure him, Olivia silently begs. Keep him calm.
“We’ll be fine,” Amanda says, steadily. So will you. “Get back here soon, got it?”
Olivia reaches out and squeezes Amanda’s hand in thanks.
“Time to go, Captain,” one of the paramedics insists.
Olivia dismisses help with getting to her feet. The room promptly spins.
Don’t throw up. Don’t scare Noah.
Olivia realizes that she is gripping the table and that more than one person is trying to get her attention. She momentarily squeezes her eyes shut.
“I’m — okay,” she rasps.
It’s meant for her son. After she opens her eyes and lies down on the gurney, she sees how his eyes are still shimmering.
“Sleep.”
Noah scoffs in disbelief.
“No fucking way.”
Olivia gives him a hard look, but she cannot get the words out to scold him. It doesn’t matter in the end, because they start rolling her out of the apartment. Several heads pop out from others as they roll her through the corridor and to the elevator. Once the doors close behind them and they begin their descent, Olivia’s world tilts again.
She leans to her left and vomits.
***
The ride to the ER is less eventful than Olivia’s elevator experience. Then, it’s a waiting game.
Her first round of tests include an X-Ray and an EKG. They also draw blood from her and say that someone will bring her for a CAT scan of her throat.
Olivia wants to tell them that she is fine now, but she realizes it is likely more to do with the pain medication that she was given than real improvement. She has found herself in plenty of painful situations — far worse ones than right now — but Olivia cannot shake her uneasiness.
So, in the end, she bites her tongue and lets them run their tests.
You can’t put Noah through this again, she thinks.
Olivia has kept Amanda updated, knowing that the sergeant will relay updates to Noah. There is no way that he is asleep after everything that happened tonight. It’s nearly midnight now, and it’s honestly hilarious that she was ever asleep. Olivia is rarely in bed before ten o’clock, but she felt run-down about a week and a half ago and still didn’t feel quite like herself.
That, coupled with her having the night off, meant that she went to sleep when her son did. Now it’s nearing midnight and she’s certain that she has an excruciatingly long night ahead of her.
Her phone dinging pulls Olivia from her thoughts. She squints at it, having forgotten to take her glasses when she grabbed her purse. God knows they’re sitting on the counter, totally useless.
El – 2 min ago
Are perps getting more stupid, or is it everyone?
A second text message comes through.
El – now
Just finished a counterfeit case. Perp’s defense? The dog ate his $$$ + the ATM was closed.
Olivia would laugh if it didn’t still ache. As it is, she is fighting back one hell of a smile. The smile fades almost as quickly as her former partner made it appear.
You have to tell him, Olivia thinks. You’d be upset if the roles were reversed.
Olivia wars with herself for another ten or so minutes. Elliot doesn’t necessarily expect her to respond. They send each other these types of messages sometimes with the knowledge that the other is more than likely still awake.
She eventually acquiesces when she thinks of the first time that Elliot went undercover after he returned to New York. The city that he called home and Olivia never realized he left in the first place all those years prior.
“So, what’s going on, Elliot? Radio silence for three months?”
“Yeah, my sergeant’s orders.”
Fast-forward to that day in OCCB’s unit, he had swaggered in with an update on her case from the angle that he was working it. Olivia could have spit nails, but mostly she felt hurt and like a damn fool. Embarrassed to admit even to herself that it felt like she had lost Elliot yet again.
Text him.
That voice doesn’t sound at all like the one in her head. No, this order comes from higher up. From the only person who truly saw the depth of Olivia’s grief, no matter how much she tried masking it in his office.
Her old captain. Another one that she owes a call.
Looking down at her phone, Olivia holds it at a distance so that she can see as she types.
Can’t talk right now, but wanted to let you know that I’m in the ER. Had some issues breathing.
She sends that first message, then she continues.
Might have been allergies or anxiety
Another whoosh. Then:
Not sure
Olivia plans on ending it there. But the last message on her mind feels more important than any of the others preceding it. Heart hammering in her throat for an entirely new reason, she types it out and hits send.
But wanted to at least let you know