Title: Lost
Pairing: Alex Cabot/Olivia Benson
Rating: K+
Author's Note: As always, these characters aren't mine. They belong to Dick Wolf and NBC.
Author's Note 2: Present-day AU. Alex is 22, Olivia is 25.
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Night is falling.
Night is falling and it's getting dark and you are lost. You are lost and shivering and, god, was that noise a bear or just a branch falling?
The trees around you stand tall like silent sentinels guarding the secrets of the forest, and the bushes hide animals you don't even want to think about never mind encounter.
"Stop," she says, but you are too focused on the noises surrounding you to hear her. She sighs, physically removing herself from your grip, and stands in front of you, her hands gripping your biceps. "You need to relax, Alex."
But you can't relax, not here in these quickly-darkening woods. So you frown instead. "We're lost."
"We're not lost," she says.
But you are. You've been lost for hours. Every time she thinks she's found the way out, she's been wrong.
"We're lost," you say.
"You're right," she sighs, "we are."
Her confession does not make you feel any better. "So what do we do now?"
Her hands slide down your arms, linking your fingers. "Well," she says, "we can't stay here. We have to keep moving."
She moves a couple feet to the right and the moonlight streaming down through the trees illuminates her face, highlighting the worry in her eyes and the freckles on her nose. "I love you," you say, and you suddenly know it to be true with every fiber of your being.
She grins and you hope she will kiss you. But she just squeezes your hand and pulls you through the forest.
Another two hours of hiking through underbrush and over hills and through streams brings you to a clearing, and just on the other side of that clearing is the parking lot.
She turns to you and grins cheekily, but all you can do is scowl. "Aw c'mon, Alex," she says. "I got you outta there just like I said I would, didn't I?"
You let go of her hand and fold your arms over your chest. "You got us lost, Olivia Benson."
She's still grinning when she says, "Whose bright idea was it to have sex in the woods, Alex?"
You blush from the tips of your ears all the way down to your toes. "That's completely beside the point!"
She just laughs and shakes her head, walking back toward the car, because no it's definitely not beside the point.
(In the morning, you will wake up sore and exhausted, but the second you look at her with her sleepy smile and the way the sun streams in through the window and shines in her brown eyes, you will realize that you would gladly get lost in the woods for the rest of your life if it meant waking up to her every day.)
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End