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The waiting room is beige.
Like, a lot of beige.
The walls, the paintings that appear glued to the walls, the pale wood of the tables, the plastic-y leather chair he’s sitting in. The coffee cup he’s holding, which came from a questionable looking vending machine, is also beige.
And also not very good.
He’s counted the rips in the seat, the stains on the carpet, and the number of times doctors have come in, but not for him.
(Six. He’s seen six harrowed surgeons with specks of blood on their scrubs, but none of them have had an update for him. Not one fucking update.)
Sergeant Bell is sitting across from him on an equally uncomfortable couch that’s seen better days. Sometimes her phone buzzes, and she disappears into the hall to answer. They play the same game every time she comes back.
“Any word?”
“Not yet.” And her brows furrow and she glances back down at her phone, over her shoulder, back at the phone, then sits down with a sigh.
The last update they got was an hour and twenty-seven minutes ago, and it was just to say Elliot hadn’t died in surgery yet. So he must still be alive, or he’s dead and his boss doesn’t know how to tell him.
It sucks he hasn’t met Sergeant Bell under better circumstances either time. Even with the scowl on her face and the very obnoxious habit of her excessive foot tapping, she’s still hot. A little severe, maybe, but he’s always liked his women bossy.
The guy with the tiny car comes and goes, and they nod at each other each time. He’s not really sure why, but he doesn’t know what else to do, or what to say. A girl who looks young enough to be his daughter has sat silently in the corner this entire time. The only things she’s said are to the guy who sits next to her, and even then, just one word answers. Bell’s the only one who’s gotten anything substantial out of her.
They’re the only ones left at this hour, this little ragtag group he definitely isn’t a part of. But it’s his brother on the table, and Sergeant Bell had called him, so he’s here, and he’s going to stay here in case he has to make the call he’s never wanted to. He can’t put that on Mama or one of the kids. Not after Kathy.
So he sits in the beige waiting room and sips his shitty coffee until it’s lukewarm, then replaces it with another just as shitty coffee, watching the wrinkles on Sergeant Bell’s forehead deepen with each passing minute.
It’s close to 1am when the doors open again, but the woman who breezes in looks nothing like a doctor. Everything about her screams police, and the way Bell immediately gets to her feet and meets her halfway across the room before leading her out into the hall confirms his suspicion. She doesn’t even have time to speak before the doors swing shut behind her, but not before their eyes lock for half a second.
Holy hell.
Forget Elliot’s boss. This woman is something else entirely. And if he survives, introductions will need to be made.
The coffee he’s holding is still hot, but he dumps it and moves toward the vending machine. It’s next to the door, and he can’t make out much, but he catches snippets of their hushed conversation.
“...rushed over as soon as…”
“...emergency contact…”
“...should really update that.”
“...intentional…update 1PP…”
Randall has to quickly shift his weight to the right as the door swings open again, and the dark-haired woman marches back in. Out of the corner of his eye, he watches her quickly scan the room, nod at the others who are no longer slouched in their chairs but sitting ramrod straight.
Weird.
When she speaks, it’s aimed at the barely-an-adult girl who looks like something out of an Edgar Allan Poe novel.
“Jet, do you think you could run over to the cafeteria? Noah’s still probably debating between a burger or pizza, but he insisted on coming.” She passes the girl a credit card, which she quickly takes and disappears. The guy who was sitting next to her – Ronaldo? – gets up, too, mumbling something about missed phonecalls.
Tiny Car Guy is still MIA.
That leaves just the two of them. He turns and holds out the coffee.
“It’s not good,” he tells her, “but it’s better than nothing.”
She glances over at him, looks down at the cup, then down at her hand. Which is clutching a blue and white paper cup of steaming coffee she must’ve picked up on the way in.
Idiot.
“I’m good, thanks,” she tells him, squaring off so they’re facing each other directly. Brown eyes give him a quick once-over, and he instinctively sucks in his gut, as if it’ll erase 20 years of backyard barbeques. He can feel her eyes linger on the top of his head, and he runs a hand over it to try and hide the baldness that crept up on him in his 30s. He doesn’t mind it, actually. In fact, he thinks he looks better – tougher – bald. But maybe she prefers hair?
“Have we met?” she eventually asks, taking a step closer.
“I think I’d remember meeting someone like you,” he says with as much confidence as he can muster, and holds out his hand. “Randall.”
“O–” she starts, but is cut off by Sergeant Bell.
“Captain? A word?”
Mystery Woman is already turning before Elliot’s boss finishes speaking. She doesn’t give him the rest of her name, doesn’t even apologize for walking away mid-conversation (if you could even call it that). Just scurries off without a second thought. Through the door’s tiny window, he watches as the two women talk to someone in scrubs, and he wonders if he should be out there, too. If somehow they forgot he’s here. He’s his brother’s emergency contact, afterall. If a decision needs to be made, he should be out there making it.
His feet start to move toward the door, but before he’s made it more than two steps, Sergeant Bell is making her way back to the waiting room, while the mystery woman (Captain?) follows the doctor down the hall. Whatever decision’s been made, it looks like she’s now the one in charge. And maybe that’s a good thing, because Bell seems a little less tense when she sits back down. At the very least, her leg isn’t shaking anymore. A few minutes later, Ronaldo and the woman-child bring back an actual child, who’s got a plate of food wrapped in tinfoil. By the looks of it, he got both things he wanted and then some.
While he eats in silence, Randall has time to observe. He’s pretty sure Mystery Woman wasn’t wearing a ring, but he hadn’t had much time to look, he could’ve missed it. Or maybe she took it off for work so she didn’t lose it at a crime scene. But she’s got a kid, so maybe she’s married. Or maybe she’s divorced, too. The kid looks like he could be a teenager, plenty of time for a marriage to sour. She did bring him to a hospital in the middle of the night, so odds are there’s no one at home to watch him.
But aside from freakishly blue eyes, that kid is the spitting image of his mother. And he’s got an enviable head of hair Randall wishes he still had.
It’s close to 2am when the doors open again. Mystery Woman is back, this time with her coat slung over one arm and the telltale bandage from a blood draw wrapped around the other. Her eyes immediately look for the boy, softening at the edges when she spots him safely tucked against the side of Poe’s mistress.
“Hey honey,” she says, dropping into the seat next to him.
He shifts to lean his head against her shoulder, and for a few minutes the two of them just watch whatever’s on his phone. The volume is low, but it sounds like classical music. What teenager listens to classical music? Christ.
Bell eventually perks up and asks, “Donation go okay?”
Mystery Woman holds out her arm and nods. “Good thing we have the same blood type.”
Jeez. This woman’s a better friend to his brother than he is. He offered to donate the second he got here, but upon startling review, turns out he’s B+ and his brother is not.
“Thank you,” he says then, making sure he makes eye contact with the woman so she knows exactly who he’s talking to. “For doing that. You didn’t have to.”
“Yes, I did,” is all she says. And it sounds like she means it.
The waiting room goes quiet again. The clock ticks on, his coffee goes cold, and the boy falls asleep. Bell’s phone doesn’t buzz anymore. Tiny Car Guy comes back and claims a seat, and a disgruntled looking Black man also shows up closer to 3. He nods at the mystery woman and Bell, nudges the sleeping kid, and eventually leads him away amidst a sea of yawns.
When a doctor finally comes to give them an update, he scans the room and says, “I’m looking for Olivia Benson?”
The dark-haired woman immediately stands, and Randall’s stomach drops to the floor.
Suddenly, it all makes sense.