Alex got to the hospital as the ambulance arrived. She'd been stuck in the Atlanta airport when Olivia went missing, trapped hundreds of miles away without a clue what was happening. While Olivia was being abducted, tortured, and God knows what else, Alex sat in an airport bar bemoaning the fact that a delayed flight and resulting missed connection meant a night at the airport and a red-eye, rather than a night at home in her own bed with Olivia.
She'd spent the last two days a nervous wreck, alternating between pacing in their apartment and raising hell at the police station. Neither option made her feel any better, nor did it produce any useful results.
But then she'd gotten the call thirty minutes ago - they'd found her. Olivia was alive, Lewis in critical condition. Alex watched the ambulance screaming into the emergency bay and ran forward. The doctor stopped her. Alex couldn't hear a word she said, couldn't make sense of anything. She saw Olivia sitting in a wheelchair as they brought her through the emergency room. Olivia didn't look up, didn't look for her. That scared her as much as anything else.
"Let us take care of her," the doctor said again. The words filtered slowly into Alex's head. "We need to take care of your wife and we can't do our jobs if you're in the room."
Alex stopped. She looked down at the hand pressed against her chest, holding her back. The doctor planted herself firmly in Alex's path.
"I promise, I will come get you as soon as she's ready to see you."
Alex nodded, her eyes still blank and wide with terror, but her mouth pressed thin in determination. She took a half step backward and watched the doctor turn and walk through the wide, double doors that separated the waiting area from the exam rooms.
Cragen had ridden with Olivia in the ambulance from the crime scene. He joined Alex, standing beside her without a word.
"She's alive," Alex said, as much to reassure herself as anything else. "She's here. She's alive."
Cragen put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed. Alex took a deep breath, drawing herself upright, and patted his hand in acknowledgement of the gesture. Cragen's hand fell away. There really wasn't anything to say.
Alex didn't know how long they waited. They stood silent as a crowd slowly gathered around them. The rest of the SVU squad. Other police officers from the 1-6 and then from other precincts too. Melinda and more than a few crime scene technicians. A few people murmured words of relief or hope, but Alex couldn't find it in her to talk with anybody and eventually they gave up trying to engage her in conversation.
When the doctor - Doctor Ocampo, Alex noted, glancing at the stitching over her coat pocket - came back, she beckoned Alex forward. Alex moved alone, separating from the crowd to follow the doctor toward Olivia's room. They stopped in the hallway. "She's been asking for you," Ocampo said.
"How is she?" Alex asked. Her voice trembled. She was afraid to hear the answer. She'd seen the case files, seen what Lewis did to his victims. She steeled herself for the answer.
Ocampo ran through a list of injuries and Alex listened, caught between horror at everything Olivia had suffered and no small measure of relief that it had not been worse. She hated herself for the latter, for feeling relief not just that Olivia had been found, but that the catastrophic litany of injuries she'd suffered had been - all things considered - less severe than what it could have been. Than what Lewis had inflicted on his other victims. "We have not done the SAE yet," Ocampo said. "Ms. Benson asked to see you first."
Alex stepped into Olivia's room and two days of panic and terror melted away. Olivia looked up. Dark eyes watched Alex from behind short, ragged hair that hung in jagged clumps around her bruised face. Olivia's tongue flicked out to wet her cracked lips. "Alex," she said. Her lower lip trembled and her hand twitched against the paper sheet that covered the exam table beneath her.
Alex went to her. She took Olivia's hand in hers.
Olivia didn't move or speak. She squeezed Alex's hand, gripping tight until Alex could swear she felt her bones grinding against each other. She didn't flinch. She leaned in to press her lips to Olivia's temple. "You're safe now," she whispered. "I've got you."
Olivia let go of her hand and pushed her away. Alex stepped back immediately. Olivia turned her head, hiding her face from Alex. "I can't," she said. Alex could hear the knot in her throat as Olivia forced the words out. "Not yet." Olivia looked at the ceiling, tilting her chin up and deliberately forcing back the tears. "If I let you hold me, I'm going to fall apart. I can't… yet. Just... help me get through this? And then take me home?"
Alex nodded. "Of course." She didn't trust herself to speak any more than that. Olivia wanted to hold it together until they got home, so she had to too. Alex took a seat in the stiff, plastic chair next to the exam table and crossed her legs. Her shaking fingers curled around the arms of the chair, skin white with tension.
There was a knock at the door and then Dr. Ocampo entered, followed by a police officer. Alex watched as Olivia steeled herself. Olivia's whole body tensed, like a tight-coiled spring, and she swallowed hard. "Let's do this," she said with bravado.
A uniformed police officer drove them home. Alex left her car at the hospital; she could get it later. Right now it was more important that she hold Olivia and she couldn't do that while driving them through city traffic.
Olivia sat stiffly in the backseat. She'd started to curl into Alex's side, but her ribs hurt too much for the awkward angle. Alex slid over to the middle seat and wrapped her arm over Olivia's shoulders. She twisted toward Olivia, resting her forehead against Olivia's. Olivia took Alex's free hand in both of hers. Neither of them spoke during the drive home and, when they arrived, Olivia climbed out without a word.
"Thank you," Alex said to the officer before joining Olivia at the foot of the stairs.
Alex unlocked their apartment. The door swung open and Olivia stepped hesitantly across the threshold. Alex watched, barely breathing, as Olivia stood still and looked around.
"You were supposed to come home that night," Olivia said softly. "Lewis knew that. I don't know how, but he had your flight itinerary." Her eyes fixed on their dining room table. It had been a wedding gift from Alex's parents - a solid cherry table with six matching chairs. Now five. The last one Olivia knew was still with the crime scene techs, in a storage unit somewhere along with everything else. She'd broken the chair, tipping it over as she thrashed partly out of blind panic and partly in the hopes that she'd be able to free her hands and use the broken chair as a weapon. It hadn't worked. Lewis kept righting the chair, punishing her more violently each time, and all Olivia accomplished was a dislocated shoulder and a cracked and splintered chair.
"I should have been here," Alex said. She reached out and Olivia flinched, but then stepped into Alex's embrace. Olivia buried her face in Alex's shoulder and clung to her tightly. Not for the first time in the last 48 hours, Alex's heart broke. "I could have called the police. I could have-"
"No." Olivia's voice was cold and hard, taking Alex aback with her ferocity. "If you had, you would be dead now." Olivia had no doubt as to the truth of that statement. For six hours, Lewis had kept her tied to a chair and watching the door, waiting for Alex to get home. In between force-feeding her pills, pouring vodka down her throat, and burning her with cigarettes, Lewis had described in excruciating detail what he would do to her wife when Alex returned from her conference. When he finally gave up on waiting, worried about the vulnerability of staying in her apartment too long, Olivia had sobbed in relief. Lewis taking her to a secondary location was almost certainly a death sentence, Olivia knew, but it also meant that Alex would be safe. "I'm glad you weren't there." Olivia looked up at her now, eyes shimmering behind a wall of unshed tears. "Because I need you here now."