A/N - trigger warning for self harm, pregnancy scares/prevention.
Thanks for reading! Ya'll make this a fun process and encourage me to continue writing, so again . . . thank you.
(Thursday june 6)
"Good morning, Ms. Cabot," a cheerful voice calls out from the doorway. Alex opens her eyes. She's been snoozing, sitting halfway up in the bed while she waits to be released. Dr. Berdinez only wanted to keep her two nights for observations and to monitor her healing. Her IV is out and the heart monitor has been pushed up against the wall. She feels much better after pushing fluids all of yesterday and this morning and eating a little of the tasteless hospital cafeteria food.
"Morning," Alex says as she reaches down for the bed remote. It buzzes and vibrates gently as the bed's back inclines steeper and she's able to see the doctor comfortably. She flips open Alex's chart, eyes scanning the words and numbers and read outs behind opaque reading glasses.
"How's it looking?" Alex asks hesitantly, wanting desperately to get out of the hospital bed for good, for something other than walking with cold feet on colder tile to the coldest bathroom she's ever been in. But at the same time, she has nowhere to go. Her house is a wreck, she's sure, not to mention the fact that it's still a crime scene. And then there's Cesar.
The doctor's eyes meet her own over the glasses and she smiles. "It looks good. Your temperature is perfect, no sign of fever or infection."
She reaches down and Alex only flinches slightly as the doctor's hand makes contact with her hospital gown, moving it to the side to check beneath the bandages. "Entry wound is healing nicely already."
Nodding, Alex looks off to the side for a moment. This is the embarrassing part. But, she has to know.
"And what about . . ." Alex hesitates, even though she knows what she wants to ask and knows that it shouldn't be hard because this woman is a medical professional, but she can't help it.
"The STDs?" Dr. Berdinez finishes for her. Alex nods gratefully.
"Your initial pelvic exam was normal, but all the swabs we took, the urine test and your blood sample will all be back in a couple of days for your initial HIV test and all the usual STDs. And as for the next HIV test, we won't know for sure for a while. You'll come back in two weeks on the 19th for an antibody test, and then again in a month or so. Sometimes it takes a while to show up."
Alex nods, eyes wide and threatening to fill up with tears again. She's sick of crying but can't seem to help it. The tears just want to keep coming out.
"And what about the plan B or the IUD?"
Dr. Berdinez smiles uncomfortably.
"You said the first unprotected assault took place a week ago. And the window for plan B is 72 hours before it really starts losing its effectiveness. There is a chance, however, if one of your eggs has been fertilized already, it will stop the egg from attaching to your uterus. But if implantation already took place, it will be a different story. The emergency coil, however, has a better window of about five days so it's likely that we stopped any unwanted pregnancy."
A deep breath of air fills her lungs. God, she doesn't know what she'll do if he's made her pregnant from the rape.
"Okay," Alex says and looks up, meeting the doctor's kind eyes. "Thanks. I appreciate everything."
"You're very welcome. But there's really no need to thank me. It's my job, you know."
"I know. But you could have been cold and clinical and uncaring. You weren't any of those things. So thank you."
Dr. Berdinez can only smile. She takes one last look through Alex's charts.
"Okay, if you don't have any more questions you're cleared to leave. But I want you to keep that sling on for a week. Take your antibiotics and be wary of any discomfort or swelling or redness around the entry wound and also sores or anything like that in other places." She raises her eyebrows meaningfully and Alex nods her understanding.
"I'll be on the lookout."
"Great. See you in two weeks then. Let me know if anything turns up."
"Okay," Alex says. She means the potential little Velez cells multiplying inside her. The thought makes her want to vomit.
"Oh, and someone is here to see you," the doctor says as she turns to go.
Her stomach does a strange flip as Alex pictures a particular dark-eyed trooper walking through that door to say good morning. It's similar to the strange feeling she had yesterday morning when her eyes opened and Olivia was no longer at her bedside. She went all day yesterday only seeing the trooper once and wishing for more. But the person who walks through the door is not Olivia, and again her disappointment befuddles her.
It's Elliot, and he has a familiar-looking duffle bag in hand.
"Hello, Ms. Cabot," Elliot says brightly, eyes shining in the sun streaming through her window. She rolls her eyes immediately. Anyone but him, she thinks.
"What are you doing here?" Her voice drips with malice. And just a hint of jest. Perhaps he's not all that bad.
His eyebrows raise indignantly. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, where is Olivia? Because all you want to do is lock me up."
He smiles and looks down, expression unreadable and Alex stares at him, wishing to the moon and back she could read his thoughts.
"She's waiting for you, actually. She received a threat to her life this morning."
Alex's hands go to her face, and she rubs over it tiredly. "Velez knows who she is."
It is a statement, a known fact rather than a question and Elliot nods in silent agreement.
"Right. The state has you both under protective custody while we hunt down Cesar. And that means a free stay at one of the most mediocre hotels in San Antonio."
"Great," Alex groans as she scratches the side of her head. Her greasy hair could use a wash, badly. At the moment, it doesn't bother her in the slightest what Elliot might think of her appearance. All she wants is a shower.
"The doc says you're cleared to go?"
"Yes," Alex looks around, mentally inventorying everything she came in with. It's not much. "What's in the bag?"
He holds it up. "Liv threw some stuff together from your house once CSU got out of there. She thought you'd need a couple changes of clothes."
She stares at him for a moment. One, Elliot called her 'Liv' which all at once flips her stomach and pisses her off. He hasn't known Olivia much longer than she has and already he's calling her by a nickname. A cute nickname, if she is being honest with herself. She shakes her head. That's an inappropriate thought. What the hell is wrong with me?
"Okay, I'll change and be right out," she says as she throws the covers back and swings her legs out over the side. Elliot watches as she gathers herself slowly and sets her weight gingerly on her feet, supporting herself with her good arm.
"You need any help?" He says with a comically hopeful look and wide eyes. Her head whips over towards Elliot and she shoots him her most fierce, get-the-fuck-outta-here expression she can manage.
"If I do, send in a nurse," Alex grumbles, taking slow steps towards him to grab the bag and head into the bathroom. The door clicks loudly behind her in the stark bathroom. She sits down on the closed toilet seat and unzips the duffle awkwardly with one hand. This is going to take some getting used to.
Inside the bag, she spots four or five changes of clothes, all folded neatly and organized into sections. Pants and shorts over here, then shirts, and in the far corner are a hastily thrown in pile of underwear and bras.
So the trooper had been in her house and in her drawers and seen her entire bedroom and bathroom too by the looks of her full cosmetic and toiletries case. Alex is unsure how to feel about that. Granted, she told Olivia where to find her soiled clothes, but the thought of her actually in there without Alex present makes her feel uneasy. Grateful, certainly, to have a clean change of clothes and a toothbrush, but also strangely shy and nervous that Olivia was there in the first place.
After shimmying her hospital gown off and onto the tiles, she struggles with the bra and the shirt, eventually deciding to hell with it and unclipping her sling for a moment. It's much easier, without it, to put her clothes on. But when Alex has to reach up to pull on a t-shirt, an old San Antonio Spurs basketball shirt she doesn't remember buying she's had it so long, her entry wound screams in protest.
"Unghh," she groans, gritting her teeth and pulling the shirt the rest of the way on. The sweatpants are easier, and she does her best not to look at the still-present, yellow-green bruises all over her thighs.
But finally she's fully dressed with the sling back on and looks at herself for a moment in the mirror. Her eyes are gaunt with dark circles and her skin is far too pale for someone living in heat like this during the summer. But Alex does look better than the day before when she had to support her weight on the IV stand just to get to the bathroom. She'd almost screamed when she looked in the mirror that time and thought a ghost was staring back at her.
When she's ready, she picks up the duffle and slowly makes her way out of the bathroom and over to Elliot, where a wheelchair waits for her. She's both resentful and thankful for it.
Elliot takes the bag from her and crams in the extra stuff she points out to him around the room as she sits gingerly in the chair. "Okay, got it," he says, straightening up and looking around.
"Ready?"
She nods and the morning nurse hands her a clipboard with discharge forms and instructions for care of her wound and warnings for her pain meds. Alex's hand shakes only a little as she signs it and hands it back, keeping the pamphlet for her wound and affords a tight smile to the nurse who steps behind the chair and pushes her slowly next to Elliot down the hall and towards the exit.
It's still unbearably hot when Alex steps out of the car before Elliot can hustle around the side and open the door for her. She laughs inwardly at his attempt to do so. It's fun to watch him jog around and have to stand back and wait as she's already out and shutting the door. But he does helpfully grab the duffle bag from the back seat and locks the door behind him.
They're around the back and Alex glances around towards the front of the hotel. Elliot looks back at her as they begin to walk towards the door. He catches the confused look on her face.
"We can't go through the front. There are cameras and a desk clerk up there. Besides, we've already got the room and Liv's waiting up there for you."
"Oh," Alex mouths. She falls into a slow pace beside him; the door opens with a click after he slides the key card through the slot. There are three flights of stairs to walk up and it takes her a while because her energy levels aren't what they were over a week ago. A couple of times, she has to pause at the railing, not sure if she's going to pass out or not, but eventually makes it to the top without so much as a teasing word from Elliot.
She doesn't quite know what to expect when Elliot slides the key into the door for room 316, but when the door swings inside, the first things she sees are the two beds and Olivia seated at the small desk near the window. Adjoining rooms would have made this easier at least, she can't help but think.
Papers and files and photographs that were previously spread out along the desk are now being shuffled unceremoniously together and stuffed into a large folder. Olivia straightens up and smiles at her as she looks around the small room. Elliot, behind her, tosses the duffle bag onto the far bed and it lands with a little bounce.
"Hey," Olivia says simply, following the blonde's gaze around the room and Alex returns the smile as best she can. "Sorry about the tight living quarters. Apparently the state thinks the best and cheapest way to protect you is to keep us both in here."
Alex nods understandingly and can't help but feel incredibly awkward standing there with nothing really substantial to say in return. She settles for a question. "I hear I'm not the only one who needs protection though, right?"
The bed closest to the door depresses when Elliot sits on the edge of it. Her feet tingle and her legs have started trembling as Alex continues to stand in the small path between the beds and desks. Finally, she gives in and moves to the opposite bed, sitting close to the bedside table, as far from both of them as she can get. Olivia's knowing brown eyes watch her every movement.
"Yeah, there was an inside tip from the DEA about Velez's part of the cartel. Apparently some of his cousins in Mexico are talking about what's happened up here. And Cesar knows about a female cop who's trying to help out the woman responsible for one of his brother's deaths."
At the mention of Cesar's brother, even the mention of Cesar would have been enough, Alex shivers involuntarily. It's not a pleasant thing to think about. She nods and folds her hands over in her lap, staring down at them and wondering what she should say next.
Elliot slaps his knees lightly as he stands and Alex looks up to follow his movements.
"Luckily for me," he says brightly. "The cartel guys either don't know who I am, or haven't talked about me yet to our inside source. So I'm going to get you two some food and scope out the area. Any requests?"
Olivia shrugs and looks over at Alex, who doesn't care much either way. It's not like she's going to eat much of anything. The thought of food makes her queasy.
"No? Okay, then," Elliot says as he heads for the door. "My choice. Can't guarantee you'll love it though."
When the door closes gently behind him, Olivia gets up from her swiveling chair, strides to the door and deadbolts it, turning back to Alex with a hesitant grin.
"You never can be too careful."
Alex raises an eyebrow. "The door wasn't deadbolted when Elliot let us in a minute ago."
Tilting her head, Olivia meets her gaze. "Well, it was just me in here before. Now you're here."
"But you've been threatened too. Aren't you afraid the cartel is going to bust the door down and take you out?" They are bold words for someone who has been recently kidnapped and tortured by the very people she is making a poorly timed and probably not funny remark about. Olivia pats her right side reassuringly.
"I'm not afraid of anything."
Alex eyes her skeptically because everyone's afraid of something.
"That's not so hard to believe," Alex counters, looking her up and down, making an attempt at least not to make it overly sultry. "But what if you didn't have your gun?"
Olivia looks at the ceiling thoughtfully and purses her lips. "Well that changes things a bit. For example, I would be afraid of someone else's gun if I only had a knife to defend myself with. But in most situations, I think I can take care of myself."
"But what about the big picture? I'm terrified something's going to happen to my family. It's always been my worst fear."
Olivia doesn't meet her eyes, and for the first time with the trooper, Alex thinks she may have found a weak spot. She ignores the feelings that surface from her admission, that her own worst fears have come true over the past several months.
"I don't have any family to be terrified for."
And judging by Olivia's tone, it's obvious she doesn't want to speak any more about it, so Alex keeps her mouth shut, now thoroughly admonished. She sits for a moment more on the bed and the silence grows between them.
Someday, she'll ask what happened with Olivia's family. But right now doesn't seem like the right time. Right now, all she can really focus on is getting clean. The clean clothes help a bit, but her hair is starting to itch from having not washed it in so long.
She stands up, grabs for the duffle in her strong hand and rummages through it, gathering together another change of clothes and her toiletries. When she turns towards the bathroom, Olivia steps out of her way.
"You need any help?" She's looking at Alex's slinged arm, but the blonde shakes her head. It sounds much nicer coming from Olivia's mouth than Elliot's.
"I've got it. And thanks by the way for getting all this for me."
"You're welcome."
The bathroom door closes behind her and she depresses the lock, pausing for a moment after it clicks, wondering if she ought to leave it unlocked just in case she slips and falls and breaks her back. She rolls her eyes.
A little old locked door isn't nearly enough to stop the force that is Trooper Benson, that's for damn sure. And with that reassuring thought, she strips off her still-decent smelling clothes, pausing again when she has to take off her shirt and wincing at the tearing sensation along her wound.
The bandages are still intact, and she'll have to change them out and reapply some antibiotic ointment to the area a little later in the evening. But for now, the bandages need to stay dry, so her only option is a bath. She runs the water, as hot as it will go, and waits along the tub for it to fill up.
The water bubbles and steams as it floods through the faucet and the sound of it is soothing against her chaotic, scrambling mind. She gets in when the water is halfway up, leaving the drain open as her body protests greatly against the harsh temperature change. It's far too hot to be enjoyable, but she descends until her lower half is sitting backwards in the tub, her back to the faucet.
It's soothing, almost, the pain the searing water paints onto her skin, and when she tilts her head back, minding her shoulder, it burns like fire over her face and through her hair. The hot water isn't good for the hair, Alex knows that, but for some reason, the pain makes her feel alive. She'd never really understood people who self-harmed, why they did it, how hurting themselves could somehow ease the pain they were already feeling. But now it seems to make perfect sense.
It's about feeling something, feeling something she's completely in control of and using it to feel alive.
After a while, she leans up and reaches gingerly for the shampoo, struggling to open it with and pour it in one hand. Eventually she resigns herself to squirting it out directly onto her head. With her good arm, she works the lather through most of her hair, doing the best she can with one arm. Once she has it all rinsed out under the faucet, she says to hell with the conditioner, and lets the shampoo water drain from the tub.
When it's clear, she closes the drain and flips slowly around so that she's facing the faucet now and leans back, careful to keep her shoulders out of the water. Finally, after it's all filled up again, she relaxes, breathing in the steam and letting her mind untangle itself for just a brief few minutes. Her hands, floating ghost-like in the clear water, feel weightless and foreign, like they don't belong to her. She can't bear to look at the rest of her body.
Closing her eyes, Alex pictures for a moment what her life would be like if none of this had happened, if she'd never been assigned to the Velez cousin's case. But her mind can't come up with a mental picture, it stubbornly refuses.
Instead, it summons unwanted images of her sisters all lined up and wearing black at her parent's funeral, both dead before they'd turned completely grey. She sees images of a menacing-looking Cesar chasing after her sisters in his big black truck with the grill guard and the over large tires. And then she pictures Cesar and his brothers, taking turns touching her body, tied up and helpless, watching that fucking ceiling fan uselessly turning around and around.
She gasps as she sits up in the water, wincing immediately at the pain it causes in her shoulder. Realizing she's fallen asleep, Alex looks around for what woke her up. She hears it again.
It's a light knocking at the bathroom door.
"Alex, you okay in there?" It's Olivia, Alex thinks while closing her eyes and breathing out her held air.
"I'm fine. Just finishing up now." Alex wonders briefly how long she slept; it's long enough for the water to turn cold, but she doesn't linger any more in the bath. After she finishes washing and rinsing the necessary parts of her body, Alex stands up and shivers in the chilly bathroom air, reaching for one of the scratchy hotel towels neatly folded over the toilet.
She pulls on her clothes slowly, being more careful this time not to further injure herself and gathers up her things to leave the bathroom.