I didn't forget about you guys! Thanks to the internship and the job, life says I don't get to write as much. But I still love Alex and Olivia too much to give up on them.

Thanks for reading!

Finally reached Alexandra Cabot. Patient says she's experiencing a family emergency and will return tomorrow. Seems agitated, upset.

"Oh," Olivia said, dejectedly. "Does she know what happened?"

"Yes," Elliot replied.

"And?"

"You worried the hell out of her, Benson."

"That wasn't the intention."

"But you knew it was going to happen."

"Alex knows that our job is dangerous, Elliot! She's seen enough of it firsthand to realize it," Olivia growled.

"Yes she has. So you, in all your pigheaded glory, decided the best route to take was to make her see more of it. You know what, Olivia? You didn't have to do this."

"Yes, I did! Thanks to what I did, your assassin is under arrest and your mastermind is dead! You didn't even know who the hell that guy was, but I killed him!"

"We did know who he was, Liv," Elliot murmured. "After you left with Alex, we followed Rodriguez and identified the man lying in the morgue right now. We took pictures for facial recognition and put out a BOLO. At max, we would've had him by tonight."

Olivia looked at him incredulously. "Why the hell didn't you tell me?"

"Because you were off the case! You were a target. No one expected you to run off. We never thought you could be that insane."

"I had the right to know!"

"You were off the case. You didn't need to know anything. What you needed was to let us do our job. And instead, you practically got yourself killed. If I were Alex, I wouldn't want to face you right now either."

"She's being overly sensitive."

"Overly sensitive? You're worse than the average man, I swear. Look, Liv, think of it this way. You have loved Alex a very, very long time, right?"

"Yes," she rolled her eyes.

"Since before she was shot, right?"

"What the hell would make you say that?"

"You're my partner. I know more about you than you know about yourself. Answer the question."

Olivia sighed. "Yes. I didn't know it or want to know it but I loved her then."

Elliot sat in the chair next to Olivia's bed and put his chin in his hands. Olivia stared back at him and looked at him half irritated, half expectantly. "Then tell me this, hot shot. How did it feel when you saw her bleeding on the ground? How about when you were pacing the hospital room floor, not knowing whether she was dead or alive?" Olivia's eyes filled with fury, and she shuddered, but Elliot continued. "Let's not forget how you must've felt when that surgeon came out and told you that he was so very sorry, but they did all they could do and Alex didn't make it."

"Shut up, Elliot!" she spouted angrily, and sat up quickly, sending shooting pains through her body. She shrieked in pain, and Elliot quickly put his arm around her back and lay her back down gently. He let out a deep breath as the fuming woman relaxed.

"Everything you're remembering right now; the panic, the worry, the confusion, the shock, the anger…Alex went through all of that today. Even after we knew you were probably going to make it, she was still a mess. You did that, Olivia, and you didn't have to."

"I did have to," Olivia whimpered, but even she wasn't too sure of it anymore.

"All you had to do was stay in bed, stay with Alex, so we could keep the both of you safe."

"You don't understand, I just needed to get justice for Hardwicke, to protect myself, to protect you, Casey, and Alex!" Her voice broke as the sobs started to wrack her body. "If something happened to any of you…well I figured I'd rather die than see that happen!"

"Shh…you need to calm down Olivia…" Elliot took Olivia into his arms as she cried herself dry. "Listen to me, okay? I can only speak for myself, but I don't think Alex or Casey would be able to live with themselves if you died in their names, and I certainly couldn't. As for Hardwicke, you owed her your best police work and protection for her family, but you never did, and never will owe her your life."

Olivia nodded into his shoulder as her sobs began to subside. "I need Alex," she said quietly.

"I'm not going to leave you here alone," Elliot replied firmly.

"Please, Elliot! You don't know how much, but I just need her, alright? You have to get her back to me, please!"

Elliot sighed and let Olivia go, placing her back into her supine position on the bed. "Give me a minute," he said, and with a quick pat on her shoulder, he dug into his pocket and quickly walked just outside of the room.

"Hello?" the voice on the other side of the line answered.

"Hi Casey."

"Elliot, is Olivia okay? No one will tell me anything, please tell me she's alright…"

"She's going to be just fine, Case. You can come see her later, and I'm sure she'll be very happy to have you, but there's something I need you to do for me first."

"Come on Stabler, this is hardly the time to be asking for a warrant."

"I'm not asking for a warrant," he sighed. "I need you to find your partner for me."

"Alex isn't there? Why?"

"I think this whole thing was a little more than she could handle."

"She didn't come to the office at all today. She must be at her apartment. Don't worry, I'll take care of it."

"Thanks. And you need to bring her to the hospital with you. Olivia…she really needs her right now."

"I'll take care of it, Elliot, I promise."

"Alex?" Casey rapped and rapped at the apartment door repeatedly, each time to no answer. "Come on, I know you're in there Cabot, I saw your car downstairs!" To make her point more profound, she went to twist the doorknob around and found it was unlocked.

Casey opened the door slowly, her heart beating rapidly. Alex Cabot was an intelligent woman who knew she was living in a major city. Why would she even think about leaving her door unlocked? Granted, she had a doorman with a gun, but criminals were getting smarter these days. The redhead scanned the apartment as she tentatively stepped inside, heart still pounding against her chest.

She exhaled deeply when the silence in the apartment held and she found no sign of someone in there who didn't belong.

"Alex!" she yelled out again, still receiving no response. Casey did her best to remember where Olivia had gone in for her nap yesterday to find Alex's bedroom, where the door was indeed slammed shut. "Come on Alex, it's just Casey, please talk to me."

"This is none of your business, Novak," the small, low voice finally said from the other side of the closed door.

"You are my business, Cabot. You're my partner."

"But my relationship with Olivia is not your business."

"I will not stand by when two of my friends are miserable."

Alex scoffed. "You're not my friend, Casey. You're my colleague."

"Yeah? Well I guess I misjudged things then. Because I don't think I'd want someone who was just my colleague to be a bridesmaid at my wedding. But fine. If that's how you feel, I'll leave." Casey shook her head and started to walk away, hoping Olivia didn't feel the way Alex apparently did.

A small hiccup came from the bedroom, followed by a cough. Casey turned around, finding herself unable to run away from her coworker, but she didn't say anything.

"Casey, I know you're still there."

"Yes. Because you're in distress and I hope you haven't been meaning the things you've been saying, and I came here to make things better. But unless you open this door in the next ten seconds, I'm really out of here."

Nine seconds passed with no movement, but on the tenth, the door seemingly opened on its own. Casey couldn't see Alex, so she hesitantly peered into the bedroom, where the blonde sat on her bed.

"Can I come in, Alex?"

She nodded slowly.

The redhead padded in and sat down next to her partner on the bed. She wasn't sure what to say right now that wouldn't get her kicked out just as fast. She wondered why she actually volunteered to do this. Her partnership with Alexandra Cabot had been…interesting. They usually got along fine, but each of them was as stubborn and volatile as the other, and arguments tended to abound. Casey didn't want that right now. She wanted to make the blonde see sense, and she knew this time that she could show her that sense.

"What are you feeling right now, Alex?" she started, hoping that letting Alex dictate the conversation would make it last longer.

"I'm tired."

"You're always tired."

"Not just sleepy, Casey."

"What, then?"

Alex ran a hand through her messy hair, trying to detangle the persistent knots that came from running around all day without one gaze in the mirror or a brush stroke through her head. "I'm tired…of the lives we live."

"What do you mean?"

"After I was shot, I lived in constant fear. I didn't know when someone was going to recognize that this was the dead prosecutor from Manhattan and report it to the local cops who would put out the word so quickly that Velez and his men would be after me in two minutes. I didn't know when the man in the sunglasses across the street might be some sort of Colombian assassin. I mean, I know that any of us could die at any moment even now, but it felt so much more real of a possibility. When I came back here, and especially after I became involved with Olivia, I thought I wouldn't have to live with these fears anymore. But today…it all came back."

Casey timidly placed her hand on Alex's knee as the blonde continued in the same low voice. "I know it's in her nature as a cop to want to protect people. She puts everyone else in the world above herself, above her own safety. And I always loved that about her, until I couldn't imagine my life without her."

"She's a good cop, Alex. She can protect herself."

"Not always, Casey. Good cops still die. And they die in situations they couldn't control. That's hard enough for me to accept. How can I possibly accept that Olivia thinks it's okay to go looking for trouble?"

"We have to learn to live with a lot of things for the ones we love. God knows Mark and I have made sacrifices for each other. No, before you start," Casey continued, interrupting the opening of Alex's mouth, "neither one of us goes walking into dangerous situations, but it's the same idea."

"But it's not! Casey, I can't stay with someone that doesn't think twice about whether they'll be alive to be with me the next day."

"Are you saying you want to break up with Olivia? You can't do that, don't you love her?"

"Yes. I love her beyond the love I've ever felt for anyone else. I love her more than life. I really do. That's why I can't stay with her, get it? When a situation like this gets so out of hand that she doesn't wake up in the hospital a few hours later, it will kill me."

"And it won't kill you if you're not together? You're not going to just stop loving her."

Alex exhaled and blinked back a few tears. "I'm certainly not if I stay with her."

"Alex, please think about this…"

"Casey, you know I was lying when I said you weren't my friend, right?"

Casey shrugged. "I was hoping you were."

"I really was…" Alex leaned her head on Casey's shoulder, and the redhead began running her fingers through the blonde's hair awkwardly. "As my friend, I hope you'll support me, okay?"

Casey shook her head and responded quietly, "I can't do that, Olivia is my friend too. I came here to fix things, and all that's happened is that things have gotten even worse. Elliot sounded so worried on the phone…she's in really bad shape, Alex! I can't go back there and have to tell her that her girlfriend wants to leave her."

"You won't have to."

"Really?"

"Nope. That's not your responsibility. I'll do it myself. All I would ask you to do is help her keep from hating me too much."

Casey bit her lip and stood up, pushing Alex off of her gently. "If you do this, I can't say I won't hate you a little bit myself," she replied. With that, Casey left the room and a few seconds later, Alex heard the front door to the apartment slam shut.

Alex sighed and lay back on the bed. She rolled her head to the left and suddenly was hit with the first time Olivia had lay in this bed with her, not holding her and barely touching her, but just surrounding her with the brunette's comforting presence. Just knowing that the detective was right there and would be all night had chased all the demonic thoughts of violent African militia out of her mind. She had felt safer than she had since the rape that night. And she remembered the small but meaningful promise Olivia had made to her just before they both fell asleep:

"Liv?"

"Hmm?" Olivia answered with the beginnings of sleep in her voice.

"Thank you," Alex said in the smallest of voices.

"Always, Alex."

Always. Olivia had promised to be there for her forever that night, before they had even started dating. And now, Alex wanted to break that promise for her? To leave the woman who had held her through dozens of nightmares? To break the heart of a cop in a hospital bed?

She would have to go to the hospital herself later to tell Olivia. Alex hated it. She hated herself for it.

Alex smiled at the ceiling. She knew it had to be for the best. To kick Olivia's ass when she got home for scaring her so much, that is.

:)