A/N: The idea for this story came to me during an SVU rewatch, when I discovered a few deleted scenes in my Season 2 DVDs, including a series of deleted scenes from episode 2x08, "Taken", in which Olivia's mom dies (I've filmed and posted the scenes on Twitter if you want to check them out - find me at liv_einziger there). In that deleted content, there was a whole plot involving the identity of Olivia's father, which was completely different from the plot the show actually presented afterwards. This got me thinking about how the story might have developed if that deleted plot had been chosen, as well as imagining alternate versions of several plots/scenes. So basically, the idea for this fic is to be a series of oneshots containing alternate versions of scenes that aired as well as invented scenes that didn't - hence the title "Deleted Scenes". I'm totally open to ideas should anybody ever desire to give me one!

The first installment is "The Last Moment", an alternate outcome for episode 5x04, "Loss". In that episode, Alex Cabot was shot at after SVU got involved in a drug cartel case while investigating a murder, but it's revealed that, while everyone thinks Alex died as a result of that shooting, she is actually alive and goes into the Witness Protection Program. In "The Last Moment", Olivia is the one who ends up wounded.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to let me know what you think of this deleted scene!

Season 5, episode 4: LOSS.

Deleted Scene: THE LAST MOMENT

Get down! His own voice was still ringing in his ears. He'd done his best to push her out of the way, but it all had happened so fast. They were walking out of the bar when the car turned the corner and the shots started, and the whole thing didn't last longer than a couple seconds. In a conjoined reflex, Elliot yelled for the two women to get down, held Olivia's arm and threw his body down to the ground, taking her with him. As soon as the car had moved past them and no more shots were fired, he had sprung up to his feet and started running to try and catch a glimpse of the license plate, but he couldn't see, the car disappeared too fast.

That's when he heard sobbing behind him, and when he turned, he had some trouble believing his eyes.

"Liv! Stay with me," Alex was crying, tugging at Olivia's jacket, but Elliot couldn't understand what she was still doing on the ground, when he had expected her to be right by his side, telling him she didn't get the plate either.

"W-what's going on?" he asked, but his voice barely came out, as though his body had understood the situation before his mind did and was already reacting by failing in its most basic functions. "Alex?"

Elliot wanted to walk over to where they were, but he couldn't move. He was just standing there like an idiot, trying to process why Alex was kneeling down on the floor over Olivia's body, while she lay on the ground, unmoving. Why hadn't she gotten up yet? Why was Alex crying and shaking? She turned to look at him, utter panic in her eyes.

"Elliot, call an ambulance!" she yelled. "She's losing blood!"

Blood. He saw it, black as the night with only a reddish glint to it, slowly pooling around her on the ground despite the pressure of Alex's hand, painting it red as it gushed out through her ineffective fingers. Her blood was pouring out and draining her life along with it.

"Olivia," he mumbled, but his voice didn't come out again, his lips too stupefied to work right, the connection with his vocal cords completely lost.

He took a few tentative steps towards them, afraid of approaching, afraid that it would make it true. Alex stood up and took out her cell phone, started dialing, she probably realized he was in no condition to call a bus or do anything else at all. He dropped to his knees, barely registering the pain when his kneecaps met the hard ground.

Olivia's eyes were closed, her skin was pale, and then he noticed the hole just below her shoulder. Spurting blood. His hand flew there to put pressure on it, like Alex had been trying to do, trying to keep any more blood from coming out. He shook so hard that she started to shake with him, her only movement.

"Olivia," he tried calling, and this time it came out a little louder. "Liv, talk to me."

She didn't react or respond, and Elliot watched it in slow motion as a crowd started forming around them, people who were also stunned to see Olivia on the ground, bleeding. He had never anticipated this. They had been warned to drop the case, but they didn't listen. A DEA agent who was their star witness had been killed, and specific threats had been made to Alex to keep her from prosecuting, but Elliot had never anticipated that any of this would lead to Olivia on the ground, bleeding.

They had kept the protective detail on Alex and her family just to be safe, but they knew the case had died with Agent Tim Donovan. If there was no longer a case, there was no longer a reason for Carlos Velez to order a hit on Alex or any of them, seeing as his drug cartel business would be allowed to continue, unscathed, now also free of the DEA's covert investigation. Unless, of course, Velez wanted to make a point, set an example; tell them all to never again dare go after him or his associates. Maybe Alex had been the original target, but the shots were directed at all of them tonight, and now Olivia was the one on the ground, bleeding.

He knew it was only a few minutes, but it seemed to take hours for the ambulance to arrive, and Elliot's first reflex when the paramedics tried to get past him to get to her was to try and push them away, because there was no way he was ever going to leave her side. He rode in the back of the bus while the EMTs worked on her, trying to stop the bleeding as well as they could, setting up a mask to help her breathe, hooking her up to a heart monitor that showed her heartbeat slowing down in small increments.

Elliot watched carefully, committing all details to memory, keeping track of her saturation levels, her blood pressure, the effect that everything they did had on her. He wanted to make sure no information was lost when they arrived at the hospital and she was handed over to the doctors. He needed to have her back in any way he could here, even though he had failed to do so back there in the street. He had let her get shot, and now the least he could do was to stay right there next to her while they fixed her. They had to fix her.

He sat now at the hospital, waiting, the violently white lights only making it all seem even weirder, even wronger. He saw people walking by in all kinds of moods, people dressed in scrubs having cheerful conversations, how could they? When so much tragedy surrounded them? In a place where the saddest things happened, the greatest losses occurred, the worst moments of people's lives? How could people even make it their jobs anyway? He guessed he wasn't in a position to criticize it, with the job he'd chosen – and she'd chosen. Which had brought her here, unconscious, bleeding, in a gurney, a hole in her shoulder.

He'd held her hand all the way over, he'd held her hand as they wheeled her through the halls, but they hadn't allowed him past the door to the operating rooms. She was going into fucking surgery, he needed to be there with her, hold her hand, pay attention to everything, make sure the surgeons did their job right. What if something happened because he wasn't there? What if something happened to her when there was something he could have done?

"Sir, you need to wait out here," was what the sterile, emotionless nurse said as she shoved him back.

"But she's… I need to…" he tried to get past her again, and she pushed him away more forcefully.

"Sir, I'm gonna have to call security!" she warned, finally getting him to look at her instead of trying to see where they were taking Olivia through the crack between the closing doors. "She's in very good hands, and we'll do everything that we can."

That promise didn't ease his mind, but he figured fighting was useless. If he wasn't allowed any further, he figured he needed to let the nurse go, otherwise it would be two less people looking out for Olivia beyond those doors. He stood there watching, trying to catch a glimpse of anything whenever the doors opened for someone to go in or out.

It had been almost two hours, and all he'd been told was that she was still in surgery. Fin and Munch had been there, then been replaced by Cragen, who was still there with Elliot when DEA agent Jack Hammond walked in, accompanied by four other suits that looked like well-dressed bodyguards.

"What the hell is he doing here?" Elliot asked, lunging towards Agent Hammond, held back by his captain. "This is on you! It's your fault she's here!"

"That's enough," Cragen reprimanded with a firm voice and a tight grip on his arm, pulling him to make him look into his eyes, which conveyed any assertiveness his words and actions might not have expressed.

"Maybe you should go home and get some rest, Detective," Hammond suggested with his hands in his pockets.

"Maybe you should go fuck yourself," Elliot raised his voice.

"Come with me, Detective," Cragen hissed at him, pulling him by his arm.

"What? Wh-where?" he protested, shocked that the captain would agree that he should leave, the captain of all people. "I'm not leaving her..."

Elliot's voice trailed off as he watched Hammond knocking on the door he'd been banned from walking through. As a woman in scrubs wearing a surgical mask opened it, he showed his badge and talked to her.

"What's he doing?" Elliot thought out loud, the Captain's hand still gripping at him when he initiated a motion to follow as two of the suits were allowed through the door. "Hey, they're not supposed to go in there."

"They'll be posted outside of Detective Benson's O.R.," Hammond explained, and it looked like he was trying to keep his frustration with Elliot at bay, maybe to show some kind of respect.

"It's a bit too late to protect her now, isn't it?" Elliot challenged, and the DEA agent looked down, shaking his head.

"We weren't expecting them to go after her," the man clarified. "I'm really sorry, Detective. You're right, we should have been there."

"Damn right," Elliot said, a bit uncertain, surprised by the man's admission of guilt.

"Come on, Elliot," Cragen tugged at Elliot's arm, his voice softer. "You need to get some rest."

"No way, I'm not leaving here until she's out of surgery!" he stated again, not budging at the captain's attempt to move him.

"The surgery could take all night," Hammond countered, and Elliot wanted to punch him.

"Shut up!" he commanded, his voice cracking, then turned to Cragen. "I don't care how long it takes."

"She'll need you when she wakes up," the captain said persuasively. "If you don't want to go home, at least come to the precinct, take a shower and lie down for a couple hours. Change out of these clothes."

Elliot looked down at his shirt, formerly olive-green but now repainted in dark red, soaked in her blood, her life. How could he continue to wear her blood? But also, how could he discard it? If he took that shirt off, her blood would go cold. Against his chest, it could remain warm, remain alive. It was the only thing he could do for her right now, the only piece of her that he could tend to, that he could still try and protect somehow.

"Captain…" he was pleading as he looked down at the red on him, his eyes welling up. "I can't leave her alone…"

"It's not optional, Detective," Cragen emphasized, trying to sound harsh when his voice broke too. Ultimately, that's what made Elliot's eyes rise to look at him; the man was just as terrified as he was. "She's not alone."

"We'll stay here," Hammond warranted. "I'll call you if there's any update."

Elliot was going to protest some more, but Cragen kept tugging at his arm until he started moving alongside him. He wondered if the captain was trying to focus on taking care of him since neither of them could take care of her right now.

"It's not right," he mumbled. "She wouldn't leave my side if it were me in there."

"I'd be dragging her out the same way I'm doing with you," Cragen promised. "She'll be expecting to see you in a few hours and you don't want to be wearing those bloody clothes, looking like crap. You'll scare the shit out of her."

He didn't have the energy to argue any further, so he just followed the Captain's footsteps, figuring that he had a point when he said she would be scared if she saw him like this. She had reason enough to be scared, he didn't want to be another one. Maybe if he took a quick shower at the precinct and changed into clean clothes, Cragen would let him come back to the hospital.

They walked those halls that Elliot knew so well from so many years bringing victims or coming in to interview them, but now it was as if he'd never stepped here before. In a way, that was true; this was no longer a hospital he'd been at a thousand times, this was now the hospital where Olivia was having surgery in, and that painted those floors and walls in very different colors before his eyes.

He was numb throughout the drive to the precinct, and he barely registered taking his clothes off and getting into the shower, but he felt a pang of guilt as he walked back out and saw his clothes thrown at the floor, like they didn't matter, when they contained her blood. So much blood. It made him want to squeeze the rags for every last drop of it so he could give it back to her, she might be needing it right now, every drop could make a difference.

When the captain came to check on him, he'd been standing there for a good twenty minutes, wearing only a towel around his waist, staring at those clothes on the floor.

"Elliot," he called, his voice low and deep, bringing Elliot back from his trance.

"Hear anything?" he rushed to ask, his head snapping towards the man's voice.

"She's still in surgery," Cragen pressed his lips together, and Elliot noticed the man couldn't seem to settle down either, pacing in place, wringing his hands, shoving them into his pockets only to take them right out again.

"How long can it take to remove a bullet from her shoulder?" Elliot complained, instantly regretting it; that was certainly not what was taking so long, and he wasn't sure he wanted to find out what was.

"Apparently, there were complications," was all that Cragen said, his voice choked with worry.

"What kind of complications?" Elliot barely got out, the syllables coming out on top of one another and barely comprehensible, but the captain understood him well enough. "We need to go back there right now."

Cragen didn't disagree. "Get dressed," he said simply.

Everything seemed much quieter when they walked back through those halls. It seemed like less people were walking, certainly less people having casual, cheerful conversations. Even though it was still noisy and still busy, there was some kind of heavy, thick silence hanging in the air, Elliot could feel it. Something weird that seemed to emanate from the doors that led to the surgical wing as he saw them from a distance, his feet not moving fast enough towards them.

Upon seeing them, Agent Jack Hammond's head bobbed down, like he dreaded the moment of meeting them. Without raising his eyes to them, he hoisted his body up from the chair he'd been parked in, and Elliot hated everything about his body language.

"What happened?" he asked as soon as he considered he was close enough to be heard, but Hammond didn't reply or raise his head, and that sent chills up and down Elliot's spine. "What, just say it," he hissed, picking up the pace to reach the other man sooner, but when he did, Hammond looked at Cragen, watching his last few steps, in a silent communication that he was only going to talk when both men were standing right in front of him.

Elliot hated it that he wasn't in any rush to speak. That meant whatever he had to say, devastating as it may be, wasn't urgent, couldn't be helped. There weren't many things that fit that description.

"Captain, Detective," Hammond said, looking down again, pursing his lips, his hands restless inside his pockets, only confirming Elliot's suspicions.

"No…" he breathed. "No, no, shut up…"

Hammond's face finally came up to face them. In his head, Elliot was screaming at him to deny it. Deny it, you son of a bitch!

"I'm really sorry," he whispered.

"No!" Elliot yelled, feeling it as a tear launched from his eye without ever even touching his face. "She… She can't. She didn't…! She…"

"She didn't make it," Hammond voiced the words, someone had to, but Elliot hated him for it.

"You're wrong, shut the fuck up!" he yelled again, and this time he punched Hammond square on the face. "Where the hell is she?"

"Elliot!" Cragen held his arm. "She's gone!" The captain's voice broke.

"No, she's not!" Elliot snapped around towards Cragen. "How can you believe this crap? She's not, she can't be…"

"The doctors did everything they could, but she lost too much blood, and her body went into shock," Hammond was explaining, seemingly unaffected by his own blood, coming down from his nose.

"That's not possible…" Elliot mumbled, trying to convince himself. "We put pressure on it. The bus came fast, we got here in minutes, she… She was gonna be fine."

"That's what we were all hoping for," Hammond said. "I'm really sorry for your loss."

"Shut up!" Elliot was surprised at the captain's growl. "My Detective is dead because of your operation, you don't get to say you're fucking sorry!"

Elliot saw the captain losing control, which didn't happen very often, his body shaking with anger, and when he saw actual tears rolling down the man's face, he realized that was it. This was really happening. Olivia was dead.

Dead. Gone.

Afterwards, Elliot couldn't recall this moment very accurately, or what happened afterwards, or how he had gotten home. Kathy told him later that Cragen had called her, saying he was in no condition to go home on his own or to be left alone in any way and asked her for help to drag him out of the hospital, since apparently he was making a fuss, demanding to see Olivia. He didn't remember which was the excuse but no one was allowed to see her – her body –, not even the captain. He had insisted as much as he could, because he needed to see her dead to believe it, and yet, he didn't want that image in his head, he didn't want to see her dead, it seemed like such a great offense, like such disrespect. It seemed like the last nail in his own coffin, like the very moment that would finish breaking him.

Because he was still alive, he was still moving, still breathing, still existing. Everything else was. It was as if nothing else was the same, and at the same time, it painfully was. Everywhere he looked, he saw the same things, and he was shocked at how the clocks kept ticking, the clouds kept hovering in the sky, the sun kept going down and coming up every single day. How could the world just go on like this? Like nothing had happened, nothing had changed?

Kathy forced him to eat a few times, and he didn't refuse, it wasn't intentional; it was just difficult to focus on the task, on any task. Chewing seemed to require too much energy, so he never could eat large amounts at a time. He did it for a while, then pushed the plate away, exhausted. His jaw hurt like he had been chewing steel.

Sleeping was another round of torture. He didn't want to fall asleep, but he didn't feel much like staying awake either. He would debate which was worse for hours until sleep finally claimed him, and when it did, he would invariably dream about her, about visiting her in her hospital room, how it had all been a nightmare, a misunderstanding: she was alive, she was perfect, she was pestering every single nurse and doctor saying she was ready to go home.

But then he would realize it was a dream, look at her, hold her tight and start crying, because he knew it would be over in a second, and he wouldn't be able to snatch her back out of the dream with him, undo this unfathomable mistake. Instead, he would be thrown right back into wakefulness, where she was nowhere to be found. It was like waking from a nightmare in reverse, pure dread instead of relief, the bitter, metallic taste of the truth in the back of his throat.

He couldn't even remember what had been the last thing he'd said to her before "get down", when the shots were fired. How could it be possible that the last moment spent with someone you care about was not labeled as such? There should be some sort of notification saying you needed to make the most of your last moment with the most important person in your life, the one you don't see your life without. How could it be allowed for someone to be taken like that, all of a sudden? There was so much she hadn't done yet.

She hadn't had a fair shot at life. She'd been cheated from the beginning, in the way she had been conceived, raised. She'd fought like hell to survive through the worst conditions and made a life for herself, given it some meaning, helped so many people, and God couldn't even make any of it up to her? He had to just claim her like that, decide that her time was up, before she even did something for herself, prioritized herself? Before he could… do... something for her?

He thought he was going to have more time with her, so much more time. She was such an integral part of his life, such an important weave in the fabric of his reality, how could it still be holding together without her? He lost count of how many times he instinctively grabbed his cell phone to text or call her, only to be reminded there was nobody on the other side of that number. He realized he would never again see her name flashing on that screen, would never again hear her voice. It was another punch in the gut, just one more added to thousands, one for each time he understood an ounce of what it meant to lose her.

Elliot noticed that Kathy and the kids were walking on eggshells around him, trying not to upset him, he heard them whispering, Kathy instructing, the kids wondering, but he pretended he didn't notice, because he was better left alone anyway. He was sorry that he wasn't able to give them any attention, but he was barely functioning. The only time he interfered was when he noticed the efforts to hide the newspaper from him the next day – he knew why, he knew what they were hiding, and he knew he should have let them make it disappear, but he needed to see it, he needed a confirmation, he needed some kind of proof, and more than that, he needed someone to acknowledge it when everything else in the world just kept on going like nothing much had happened.

There was a small picture of her next to the obituary, and the text mentioned she left no family members behind. She left him. How had they failed to mention it? They'd written it like it wasn't a big deal, like there wasn't anybody who was devastated beyond repair in the wake of her death. Her death. It was there. The year she had been born, and the year they were in as her last, a small cross next to it.

He kept the newspaper, he put it away in his nightstand drawer. He would look at it sometimes, torture himself with it, reading the words over and over again, running his thumb over her picture, and he started crying desperately when, in one of those times, he realized his movement had removed some of the ink off her face, his sobs making it hard for him to breathe, the tears cascading down his face. He didn't realize he was making so much noise until Kathy ran over to him and held him, and he couldn't make her understand how bad it was that he was helping erase her, what if he forgot what she looked like? Someone had to remember.

Elliot knew that Kathy was being patient with him, and he was thankful, but he knew it was going to be short-lived. She would start questioning why he was still grieving when she considered he had grieved long enough, but how long is long enough to grieve someone so important? She would start questioning that importance. She would expect him to go on with his life at some point, and he knew she was going to be disappointed, because he wasn't sure he was going to be able to ever go back to some sort of normalcy. He wasn't sure he was going to be able to go back to anything from before. How could he continue to be a cop after that? But then, what was he supposed to be?

Olivia had died and he had never even started to tell her what she meant to him. He had never even tried to assess what she meant to him, he hadn't known that he was going to run out of chances of figuring it out, chances of telling her, showing it somehow. No one had told him that he needed to stop in the middle of everyday life to give that some attention, to stop and think about how he felt about Olivia, no one had pointed out that it was important for him to do that before it was too late, that he wasn't going to get much more time.

He felt cheated. That's not how things were supposed to have turned out. He had always thought that, maybe someday… He didn't know how, he didn't even know exactly what, but he had thought that an opportunity would come somehow, for them to be something more than just partners. He realized it now. He realized that there were feelings hidden deep inside of him, feelings he had stuffed down and, whenever they had tried to emerge, he had soothed himself, told himself to be patient, saying that maybe someday there would be a chance to address that, that there would come a time, there would be an opportunity, he just needed to make sure it wasn't that day, that minute.

He had been cheated, robbed of his someday with her. Robbed of so much. Robbed even of his last moment with her. He hadn't been allowed to see her before she died, or even after. It made him think about what he would do if he'd had a chance to have a last moment with her, if he'd been warned beforehand that he was spending his last moment with her, if he was granted some sort of encounter with her before she really had to go, like in those dreams he had every night. It didn't seem fair that he didn't even have the right to that, to a last moment, but when he really thought about it, he realized he didn't know what he was going to do with it if he had one.

What was he supposed to do with a last moment? How do you select the things you want to say to someone you're about to lose? How do you elect the things that they absolutely need to hear before they go, the things they can't leave this Earth not knowing? Was he supposed to try to tell her how much he loved her? How do you even put something like that into words? And what were they supposed to do with it if he told her, what was the use of telling her if she was about to disappear forever?

It also occurred to him that telling her might be just a waste of time; she had to know, there was no way she didn't know. Whatever it was that he felt for her, he knew she felt it too, it was something shared between them that neither of them had ever tapped into consciously, but which was accessed and leveraged whenever necessary, used to convey unspoken and unacknowledged messages with each other, to communicate wordlessly. It was something they both knew was better left alone if they wanted life to continue to be what they knew it to be – but he had never suspected that her life would just end before they ever did open that Pandora's box.

It had started as the sacred bond between partners on the job, but it had grown from there, into something neither of them had ever dared look much further into, but whatever it was, it had never been one-sided. Like everything between them, it had always been shared, balanced, equally distributed. Whatever it was, it was something that both of them fed, cultivated, something that both of them relied on, counted on.

There were way too many reasons for it to never have been mentioned or analyzed any further. If it ever was, that would bring repercussions they might not be ready to face, and so they had both worked really hard on guarding it with their lives, keeping it hidden under lock and key in this shared place only they had –limited– access to. There was no way that looking into it wouldn't affect his marriage, their partnership, change everything. In a way, Elliot had always been afraid to measure it against reality, he knew that one of those things wouldn't survive the confrontation with the other, and he'd never felt ready to give up on either of them.

But now everything was shattered, everything was destroyed. Reality would never be real again, he was going to have to get used to this strange, uglier world in which Olivia didn't exist, in which he didn't have this thing with her that they shared and that, unnamed and unrecognized as it was, had so many times served as a solace, a shelter, as a place to recharge his energy, his hope. Now he had nothing to lean into, nothing to fall back to when the worst happened, and the absolute worst had happened. He was hopeless, unsalvageable, because he knew she was the only one who could help him deal with losing her.

He moved along the days, but he felt stuck, like nothing changed, and he wasn't entirely sure that he wasn't just reliving the same day over and over again, like some twisted prank. It didn't make sense to shower every day, because it seemed like time wasn't moving, and he was always showering the very next minute he had gotten out of the last shower he'd had. Kathy told him he should try and keep his routine as normal as he could, and he had laughed at her face, but still she made him continue to shower every morning, to shave, to change clothes. She said he needed to take care of himself even if he didn't want to. She thought the only thing he felt was guilty, responsible for her death, like he had failed her as a partner.

But he had failed her in so many other ways. He hadn't even been there when she died, she'd had to die alone on the operating table. Whatever happened to people as they died, she'd had to go through it alone, when he would have given everything to hold her hand, just let her know that someone cared, that he cared. But not only he hadn't been there right next to her, but he had also let the captain take him away from the hospital. How was he supposed to forgive himself?

He had been the only thing that might be remotely compared to family in her life after her mother's death, but he had never acted that way, because he already had a family, an official one. The newspaper was wrong, she did have a family, it was him, and surely Cragen, Fin, Munch, but him. He was her family. And she was his. She was his strength, his reason, his world. And now he had none of that. The newspaper might as well not have recognized his existence, because it was as if he didn't exist anymore.

Kathy would take his calls, because he couldn't be bothered to talk to anyone. She would update the captain and his colleagues on how he was doing, and he could hear the hopefulness in her voice as she tried to tell them that he was a bit better, but he also heard her crying once when she was telling her mother that she didn't know what to do with him anymore, that she was scared that he might do something stupid, that she had put his gun away in the safe and changed the combination so he wouldn't be able to get it if something like that ever even crossed his mind.

She wouldn't come to him with anything related to work, and he heard her telling someone, probably the captain, that he wasn't ready for any visitors, and it intrigued him a little that the captain would insist on that, knowing him well enough not to try to go see him before he was ready – not that anybody could try to guess when that might be. In Elliot's head, he didn't feel like he was ever going to be ready for anything ever again.

Of course, he had always known Olivia was important to him, fundamental, but he had never given much attention to how much he relied on her for everything, for his very notion of reality. Now that she was gone, it was as if a million questions appeared that he needed to ask her but couldn't, and it would be impossible to go on without answering them. He needed her for everything. If he ever got that chance of a last moment with her, should he even try to start asking her all those questions? What good could the answers do without her?

And yet, a few nights later the doorbell rang, and he heard Kathy saying she had told Cragen that Elliot didn't want to see anyone, but a deep voice said he was needed urgently about a case. He went down the stairs to check on who it was, thinking he might have recognized the voice, but not believing that the son of a bitch would have the guts to show up at his doorstep for whatever reason.

"Detective Stabler," Agent Jack Hammond said, confirming Elliot's suspicions, and before he knew it, he was flying over the last few steps towards the man, wrapping his hands around his throat.

"Son of a bitch," he hissed, meaning it as a scream but finding that he couldn't get to his voice, like he had forgotten how to use it in these last few days. And even so, he continued trying to get words out. "How do you even have the balls to show up here?"

Two men in dark suits quickly rushed into the house and grabbed him, and not a lot of effort was needed to immobilize him, weak as he was. He felt it as his hands were restrained behind his back by handcuffs.

"What are you doing?" he heard Kathy's voice, it seemed to come from far away.

"Detective Stabler, you're under arrest for assaulting a federal agent," Hammond started reciting after a simple rub of his neck, that didn't even look bruised. "You have the right to remain silent…"

"You can't take him!" Kathy yelled as the suits dragged him, and Elliot wanted to tell her that it was going to be all right, that Cragen wasn't going to let that prick press charges, but he couldn't find his voice to reassure her or anyone. In reality, he couldn't care less what happened to him; maybe in prison it would be even better, he wouldn't feel like he was letting her and the kids down with the smallest things like not being able to finish his breakfast or even seeing any reason for trying.

Elliot was shoved into the back of a black car with tinted windows, which made the already dark night disappear when the door was closed, and he let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. One of the suits sat next to him while the other took the driver's seat, sided by Hammond, who sat down and slammed the door closed.

"I hoped you would come willingly," the agent said.

Elliot wanted to spit at his face, but he didn't even seem to have enough saliva in his mouth, so he settled for looking away from the man as he felt his insides churning with anxiety about going somewhere else other than his house. It was bad there, but anything different would be just as bad, and he realized that, as much as he didn't care what happened to him, he just really, really didn't want to be there while it happened, he didn't want to wait to find out, it was too agonizing to wait for anything else anymore; when there's no hope for anything good ever happening again, life becomes this never-ending wait for the next think that's going to kill you or make you wish you were dead.

"What can you possibly need me for?" Elliot asked after some time, maybe forty minutes.

His voice was suddenly stronger, certainly fueled by adrenaline as his brain involuntarily went into cop mode; his body seemed to disagree with his mind and actually care where he was being taken and what for, but Hammond didn't answer his question, and the blackened windows didn't give him much insight on where they were heading either.

After a while, he could hear and feel that they'd moved to a dirt road, and not fifteen minutes after that, the speed decreased suddenly until the car came to a full stop. Why the hell had the DEA brought him out into a dirt road in the middle of nowhere? When the door opened, he had a glimpse of the scenery he had imagined: the darkness and the silence of the night, the road illuminated only by the white of the car's headlights.

When he was pulled out, rather less violently than he had expected, he also saw a red light, from the back of another black SUV that looked exactly like the one he'd been brought here in. A black sedan was parked in front of it as well, this one turned off, no white or red lights on, and Elliot wondered just how many people were going to come out of those cars and what they could possibly want with him.

This looked like some sort of secret encounter, but who could Hammond have brought him to see? He wondered if they had been able to catch Carlos Velez and the fed had decided he owed Elliot the chance to beat the crap out of the motherfucker who had ordered the hit on Olivia; he hoped Hammond was aware that he wouldn't stop while the son of a bitch was still breathing.

Without a word, Hammond walked to the other SUV and knocked on the glass of the backseat window. Elliot heard the sound of the car unlocking, and Hammond pulled the door open.

"He's here," he said to whoever was in there, and then held out his hand to them; whoever it was, they weren't handcuffed, but he was, so it occurred to Elliot he might be the punching bag instead of Velez.

But then he felt the wind being knocked out of him and his mouth falling open, his eyes widening of their own accord, his lips moving in that familiar shape, even though his voice failed.

"Olivia…" he mumbled as he saw her emerging from the car, her arm in a sling, but otherwise unharmed, moving, breathing.

This was one of those dreams, he was about to wake up and realize that she was still dead. But she kept approaching, and he felt the tears welling up in his eyes, warm, wondering if a dream could have such a vivid detail as the warmth of tears when they first start forming.

"Elliot," she said, walking to him, her chin quivering and her eyes shining with tears of her own, but then she paused, surprised. "Why are you in handcuffs?" she turned to Hammond, her voice shaking as it came out. "Why is he in handcuffs?"

"Release him," Hammond said with a hand movement, and Elliot felt his hands being freed from the metal restraints while he remained immobile, eyes glued to her silhouette.

She resumed walking towards him, slowly, hesitantly, like she was scared of him, or maybe like she pitied him, like she was worried, or felt guilty; there were definitely many emotions playing there, none predominant enough to outshine the others, and Elliot prayed that he would wake up sooner rather than later, because she looked too real and when he woke up it would hurt that much more to find out that she'd never really been there.

But then he realized something and changed his prayer: he was now asking for a minute before waking up. He was getting his last moment after all, and he needed to use it well: what was he supposed to do and say? He had never really decided.

"How are you?" she said, her voice cracking as a tear fell. She had never asked him that in any of the other dreams. Actually, he couldn't remember her saying anything at all. "Are you okay?"

Elliot didn't know the answer to that. He wasn't okay, because she wasn't, and nothing else was okay, and how in the world could it be possible that she was just standing there in front of him? He looked around, only seeing the tall vegetation that surrounded the thin dirt road, the cars' engines the only sound besides her voice. He looked at her again, still unable to comprehend what he saw.

"What the…" he breathed, turning to Hammond. "What's…?"

Stuttering was definitely not the best way to spend this moment, this last minute before waking up; he cursed himself.

"Your partner's stubborn, she wouldn't go under before seeing you," Hammond said, like Elliot knew what he was talking about.

"Go under…" he mumbled, and then it dawned on him. "Witness protection…"

This had to be a dream, certainly the one his subconscious had put the most effort into; before, he would simply be taken back to that hospital hall and not hear what he'd heard, just be allowed to walk through those doors to go see her, simple images undoing the scenes that had changed everything. He wondered if, with time, those vivid dreams became more elaborate, more intricate, so that he would believe them and not realize they were dreams, like leveling up in a video game; he wondered if his mind was that twisted and masochistic.

"I needed to tell you," Olivia said, her voice ringing true, even with the foreign rasp of tears, guilt, pity, worry, such a specific combination. She was removing her arm from the sling; she even winced when she needed to move it. "At least you. I know what it would do to me to think that you…"

She couldn't bring herself to finish the sentence, and Elliot took a tentative step closer to her, looking back and forth between her eyes, his mind screaming that this was real while he tried to hang on to the idea that it was a dream, because he couldn't let himself believe it, even if for a second, afraid that he might not be able to handle it when reality did set in. But what was the worst that could happen? He had handled her death. He was handling it. At least in the sense that he was still able to breathe, stand, exist. She had died, and he hadn't died as a result, he hadn't ceased to exist. How could he still be afraid of hurting? He hurt all the time.

"Olivia…" he tried calling, raising his hand towards her, afraid that touching her could be what would break the spell, end the dream.

But then he realized, as he always did, that he needed to touch her before his time was over, before this ended, one way or another. He was never able to stay asleep for much longer after wrapping his arms around her, but how could he see her right in front of him, alive, breathing, and not take the chance to hold her one last time, maybe the first time without holding anything back, knowing that this moment mattered, that he wasn't going to get any others?

The next second, she was pressed against him, and he was giving it all his strength, defying her realness, the resistance of her skin and bones, but he was flooded with the sensation of her, her arms around his neck, her smell – how could his mind conjure her smell in a dream?

"I'm sorry," she sobbed into his chest. "I'm so sorry, I didn't want any of this."

He wasn't waking up, and the engines kept humming, and the dirt kept moving in the air, drawing the path of the headlights, while Olivia was in his arms, crying, saying she was sorry for what she was putting him through, saying she had wanted to call him, that she had begged them to tell him immediately. She pulled away, but kept her arms around his neck.

"Elliot, say something…" she whispered, her fingers touching his jaw.

It hit him like a train: she wasn't dead after all.

She really was here. For the second time in just a few days, he had to reconcile a new reality, one he had never imagined, never considered possible, never prepared for.

He wasn't going to wake up. This dream was reality: she wasn't really dead, they just had to act like it. He was angry. He was furious: how could she let him think she had died? Even for a second? He would never do that to her. He wanted to yell at her, he wanted to punch Hammond. He wanted to ask her why do that to him, he wanted to be mad at her, but all he could think about was that she was alive. Alive.

He pulled her into him again, squeezing even harder this time, feeling it as tears, those warm tears, finally started to roll down, and now that he knew they were true, they seared their way down his face.

"You're…" he whimpered, then felt her squeezing him tighter.

"I'm sorry…" she said again, crying harder in response to his sobs.

He pulled away this time, framing her face with both hands, running his thumbs over her cheeks, feeling their warmth. So she was really here. What did that mean? A million brand new questions started boiling in his brain.

"What happens now?" he asked anxiously. "You're coming home? When can you come home?"

She let her head hang to the side, like she didn't want to answer it, like it was too painful, but how could anything be painful? She was alive. She didn't know what painful really was.

"Only when Carlos Velez is extradited, prosecuted, and his operation is dismantled," Hammond answered instead. "We don't know how far his reach goes, and until we can control it, she's better off dead. She was his warning to all of us, we don't want him to think we need to be warned again."

"But…" Elliot protested, looking from her to Hammond and back. "That could take years…"

Olivia held his wrists, squeezing and rubbing her thumbs against his skin. "That's why they're letting me say goodbye to you," she whispered.

Goodbye. That was something he had never even considered as a possibility, something that had never occurred to him when he imagined this moment, this last chance to see her, dream or not. That word had never even crossed his mind, that was the last thing he would want to do given the chance to be with her again, like he was now. He didn't even dare repeat the word, but his face was a question mark, and she could read it as usual.

"You need to forget about me," she replied to whatever question he'd posed unknowingly, seeming to gather up courage, reining in the tears, her voice coming out stronger. "You need to move on."

"But…" she wasn't making any sense; he wanted to shake her.

"You have a family, they need you," she went on.

"And I need you," he countered without thinking, and she squeezed her eyes shut in response. "And you need me," he added.

"Don't make this even harder," she pleaded, her voice weakening again, her eyes closed for another second.

"Where are they taking you?" Elliot asked, already aware that no one could tell him; as his question was met with silence, he went on, explaining why he could be told. "I'm coming with you."

"That's impossible!" she protested, turning to Hammond, as though hoping he would help her discourage him.

"You're alive," he smiled. The impossible had happened; nothing was impossible anymore.

"Elliot, what about your kids? You wife?" She talked like he had lost his mind. "Are you all just gonna get into witness protection?"

He hadn't considered that. But yes. Anything. He'd do anything. He was getting his second chance with her – even better than his last moment. God was so generous, he was giving him so much more than what he had been asking.

"You know you can't do that, Detective," Agent Hammond said from where he stood with his arms behind his back. "And you can't know anything about where she's going, otherwise they'll go to you to get the information. They'll get to your family to make you talk."

"But I can't…" Elliot started to respond to him, then turned to Olivia. "How am I supposed to...?"

"You have to move on, for me if not for yourself," Olivia said. "I wanted to come here so you would know that I'm okay. I'm gonna be okay, so you can go back home and go back to work and go on with your life."

Elliot looked around him at everyone; her, Hammond, the suits, the U.S. Marshal that had come out from the passenger seat of the second SUV and observed the scene from afar. It was as if he was looking for an ally, someone to help him win this argument, even though he didn't know exactly what he was trying to convince her or anyone else of.

Only when Velez is extradited, prosecuted, and his operation is dismantled, Hammond had said – that was it. That was what he needed to do. He was going to focus every single day of his life on bringing Velez to justice so that she could come back. This was temporary; he was bargaining now: maybe she couldn't come home now and he couldn't go away with her, but he could bring her back sooner than they all expected, that was in his hands. He could make it happen. He smiled.

"I'm gonna get these sons of bitches before you even get settled wherever it is they're taking you. You'll be back home before you know it."

Olivia's eyes widened, and she took his face between her hands with urgency. "Absolutely not!" she almost screamed, then controlled her voice again. "You can't do that, you need to drop the case completely!"

He shook his head. "I'm not doing that, Liv, no way…"

"If you don't, you'll be the next one they put a hit out on, or your family. El, your kids. They could try to kill them, and they might be successful next time!"

Impossible. It finally sunk in. There was no way around this. It was almost like hearing she was dead all over again, like waking up from those dreams, his heart thrown to the ground again, shattered once more when the glue hadn't even started to dry yet.

"Liv…" he pleaded; he needed her to think of something, because he was out of ideas.

"I'm sorry…" she repeated for the millionth time, and it made Elliot think that apologizing over and over again was not the best way to use their last moment.

Their last moment. That's what this was, after all. No dream, no gift from God, no second chance, just that: that chance to speak to her for the last time before she really had to go, and then he would have to go back to that terrible reality that was as good as real even if it wasn't really real – to the rest of the world, she was still dead.

"Detective Benson," Hammond called, and her head turned to him quickly without a reply before coming back to Elliot. "You should get going."

She ignored Hammond, but the urgency in her voice told Elliot she was cutting this short, she was preparing her goodbye.

"I needed to come here to tell you I'm fine," she said, pursing her lips as they restarted trembling. "And to tell you…" her voice failed, as did her resolve, visibly, as she let out a sigh that looked painful. Then, after a moment, she threw her arms around his neck once again. "To tell you…" she whispered into his ear, but still couldn't finish it.

Elliot waited, and squeezed her to urge her on, to let her know it was all right. He knew what she was going to say. She was going to go there, she was going to do what they had never dared to do, and he realized that this was the answer, this was what they were supposed to do in their last moment together: they needed to go there, to tap into it, to open Pandora's box. Hell, it was already open; all there was left to do was acknowledge it. Olivia had all the answers to his questions, even this one, only to prove that he had been right all along, that she was the only one who could help him through losing her.

"Tell you that I love you," she finally said, and Elliot was at the same time relieved and anguished, because she was turning it into a goodbye. "I'll always love you."

He couldn't let her do that. She knew the answer, but she was trying to cover it, to protect everyone from it once again. She pulled away, looking intently into his eyes, and they repeated the three words to him, over and over again. He knew he was supposed to say them too, but if he did so now, it would be a goodbye, it would agree with hers, and he couldn't do that.

Instead, he framed her face with both hands again, then leaned in and kissed her, just pressing his lips against hers for a moment. He felt her sob against him, just once, one sob, then moved his lips again, this time claiming hers more vehemently, seeking entrance as one of his arms moved to surround her waist, pulling her closer to him, as close as he could, as tight as he could, and he felt it as she let herself go, holding him too and opening her mouth to him, letting him deepen the kiss. He moved his lips slowly, kissing her thoroughly, patiently, and for a moment even the humming of the engines went silent, stuck outside of their bubble, their shared place, where they had never really allowed themselves to put both feet in, but which they were now fully inside, with the door locked.

Elliot wouldn't be able to tell how long the kiss lasted; it felt like hours but also like less than a second. It felt like a lifetime, but not near long enough. Olivia looked up at him, smiling and wiping a tear as it fell from her eye, and for a moment they just stood like that, arms around each other, in silence, eyes locked, saying so much without a single word.

Agent Hammond cleared his throat: it was his second warning.

Elliot pulled her closer. "I'll see you again," he promised.

"Elliot…" she started.

"I will…" he emphasized, interrupting her, whatever she was about to say. "I will see you again."

This was his I love you. The furthest thing from a goodbye that he could muster. He loosened his grip around her until his arms fell to his sides, losing contact altogether as she removed her arms from around him too. With her eyes still on his, she hesitated for a moment, but then nodded, and Elliot couldn't help but smile; she was accepting it, the non-goodbye. It was the only thing he would be able to live with, for however long he had to – and he knew it was the same for her.

She put her arm back in the sling and took a few steps back, as though gathering courage to turn away. When she did, quickening her pace towards the car, Elliot started to follow, but was held back by one of the suits. He knew he couldn't follow, but he couldn't find it in himself not to try. Before getting in the car, she turned to look at him one last time, smiling through tears.

"Soon," Elliot promised, smiling back at her.

His smile faded as the U.S. Marshal closed her door, then got in the passenger seat, the car starting to move immediately, leaving a thick cloud of dirt behind like it needed to hide her even more, as though to turn it into a magic trick, which it pretty much had almost been. Her death, her reappearance, what they had revealed to each other. A magic trick, a sleight of hand.

A promise.

"Detective?" Hammond called. "Let's go."

Elliot stared at the two red dots until they completely disappeared through the dust, and even though he was facing her loss all over again, he was relieved, not only because he knew she was alive, but also because he knew now he would no longer be dreaming of his last moment with her.

From now on, he would dream of the first time he saw her again; their new first moment.