DAY TWO, CONT.

The Jets are on Thursday night football. They're getting their asses handed to them by the Jaguars, 20 to nothing. Less than a week ago, Elliot was excited for this game. Now, halfway through the second quarter with two interceptions already thrown and no points on the board, he can't find it within himself to care. He should be cursing at the TV set like he always does during a game. Yelling at the refs that can't hear him for the shitty calls they've made, groaning and slumping in his chair as Pennington overthrows a pass or gets sacked behind the line for a loss.

Instead, he takes small sips of his beer and nibbles at the remaining pizza crust on his plate, more invested in the growing pain in his abdomen than the train wreck playing out before him on the TV screen. Olivia's eyes bore holes straight through him as he leans back against the couch cushions. God, he wishes this pain would just go away for a little while. The longer it goes on, the harder it is to forget what led him here in the first place. He just wants to sit next to his best friend and watch a football game. He wants his biggest worry to be whether his favorite team will be able to score before the half ends.

Instead, all he can think about is the way his partner sits, perched on the edge of the couch, picking at the label on her beer bottle. She wants to say something to him. They haven't talked much since they left the squad- just enough to know what kind of pizza and brew they'd share and what to put on TV. Olivia's always been ambivalent towards sports, but she knows how much he enjoys them. He appreciates the gesture. Tries to forget the reason behind it- there are only so many more football games that he'll be around for.

The Jaguars score again on a pass play. The extra point is good and Olivia's TV fades to another commercial.

"There are so many treatments out there." Her voice jars him out of the Bud commercial they've both seen a thousand times, and immediately, his chest begins to burn. It's a familiar feeling, and he hates the way it swallows him up.

"Radiation… chemo…" Her voice trails off. He doesn't want to look at her. He knew this question was coming, if not from her, then from his ex-wife, from one of his kids, or from Cragen. He won't ever be able to articulate what was inside his head two days ago, when his doctor sat across from him and tried, tactfully, to let him know that his life was ending and asked which useless treatment he'd rather put his rapidly failing body through. He just remembered thinking, none of them. The side effects, the sickness, the bullshit… he's already dying. The last thing he wants is to make everything even more complicated.

He's so sick of everything being so complicated. Is it too much to ask to just get a little break from it all?

Soon it will all be over, anyway, he thinks ruefully. It won't matter. He'll be dead and gone and all the complications will go along with him.

Olivia's still staring at him. With a jolt, he reaches for the remote and stabs the power button with his thumb. The apartment falls silent. His hands continue to fumble with the remote as he avoids Olivia's gaze. He wishes that he hadn't hit that button. The silence suffocates him and it's getting harder to breathe. He swallows, lets his eyes fall closed, and tries to formulate a response with the mess inside of his head. Tries to wrap up a neat little package to hand to her that will explain this thing, that will at least help her make sense of it all. Just like everything else in their partnership, in their friendship, it's not that simple.

When he opens his eyes back up and looks at her, he almost loses his will to answer altogether. He's the one that's supposed to protect her, but at this moment, he's the cause of the pain that floods her face. He fucking hates himself for hurting her.

Maybe he should just take the damn chemo. Maybe then he might not have to see the devastation that stares at him through Olivia's eyes. He won't feel this guilt, this feeling of powerlessness that makes him sick.

He's going to have to see the same look in the eyes of his four children.

Bile rises in his throat and it takes everything in him not to be sick. He grabs the back of the couch to steady himself, but the room spins around him at a sickening pace. He has to tell his kids that he's dying. That the coming holiday season will in all likelihood be the last that they share. That he won't see Kathleen graduate college. He won't even see the twins graduate high school.

Fuck. Fuck, he wishes he hadn't thought about that.

"El." Her hands squeeze his shoulders. She must have seen the nausea on his face because worry clouds her eyes as she sits next to him, trying to bring him back from the burning hole he just thrust himself in.

And it hits him again.

It needs to be this way. Hope will only hurt them more in the end.

With a hard swallow and a deep breath, he tries to remember what sent him down this path, to begin with. What had she asked?

"There are so many treatments out there."

Right. Right. He swallows. His lips stick together as he tries to answer her. "I made up my mind. I don't want to do that."

It's barely an answer. It's definitely not what she needs. He knows that, but it's the only thing he can force through his lips while keeping some semblance of control.

"What about your kids? You're just going to give up on them?"

His fist tightens around the back of the couch and he wills himself to stay away from that dangerous path. He knows he doesn't have the strength to pull himself back a second time.

"Of course not," he rasps. His throat clenches. He breathes through it and continues. He needs her to know- he needs to say this out loud. "I'd give them everything if I could, Olivia. But I can't cheat this."

"You don't know that," she answers. "We've come a long way… with treatment…"

For a moment, he allows himself to really look at her. Her eyes are wet and wide, and he's stuck immediately by how small she is. On the streets, in the squad room, she's always so capable that sometimes he forgets her limitations. He wants to reach out and hold her until that look- and the feeling in his chest- both disappear.

"I might get a few more months. But that doctor looked me in the eyes and told me that I'm gonna die. No matter what I try, this thing is gonna…" A violent shiver takes him. He's not cold, but he's shivering anyway and he can't make it stop. It's getting harder and harder to keep from snatching her into his arms and never letting go.

"In the end, it's not gonna matter," he finishes finally. "I'm not gonna make my kids watch me go through that. I want them to remember me… just like this. Not sick, and weak, and…"

He pauses again. His voice is locked. He breathes deeply, prays for God to give him enough strength to just get through what he has to tell her. Remembers that he's still got to do this again and almost dies just at that thought. This is hard enough. The thought of sitting his kids down rips him to shreds. It was never supposed to be like this.

/

"In the end, it's not going to matter."

Olivia is terrified to her core. Her partner won't look at her anymore- his jaw is locked, shoulders slumped, head hung low, but she can still see his glistening eyes. Tears haven't fallen yet, but she can see them threaten to break away and she doesn't know how she'll be able to handle it if they do. He's never, ever cried in front of her. Not even during the divorce.

"I'm gonna die."

She can't tear her eyes away from him. His words burn the inside of her head.

"No matter what I try, this thing is gonna…" Gonna kill me.

There is no perp with a gun to talk down. No bloodied limb to put pressure on.

He's dying.

No chemotherapy will help. No radiation will save him. There won't be a miraculous recovery like in the movies.

He's dying.

She's going to lose her partner and there's nothing she can do to stop it. She can't breathe.

"If… if I've only got a year…"

His whisper cuts through the blackness that threatens to swallow her. She clings to his soft rumble. "I don't want it to be miserable, 'Livia."

The plea, wrapped in a broken whisper that she has a hard time reconciling with the unbreakable man she knows, breaks her. She cries. Hot tears blind her and she can't breathe through the knot in her throat.

"I-I… just wanna have a good year."

Just listening to that one statement, her pain doesn't matter so much anymore. The man sitting beside her has given to everyone. His wife. His kids. The victims. Her. He even gives them his death. I'm not gonna make my kids watch me go through that. He's doing this because he thinks it will be easier for them. And all he asks for is a good year. A good final year.

She's going to give that to him. If she has to work every second to every day of the next three hundred and sixty five, she will. She won't sleep until she's sure that, when he closes his eyes for the last time, he'll be the happiest goddamn man on the face of the Earth.

Olivia lays a hand on his shoulder. "Okay, El."

Hidden within that single word is her promise.