A/N: Thank you thank you thank you to everyone for putting up with large gaps and allowing me to take you down trails you never considered traveling down with our two favorite ladies. I do love to push the line in real life and in Fan Fiction. I am happy to say that the brother in blue this story is based off of is doing exceptionally well. He has had his last surgery (minor outpatient one), back to full duty at work, and still trying to work things out with his wife. Here's to hoping they can make it.

I stand here and stare at myself in the bathroom mirror and I'm disgusted by what I see. My abs are no longer as defined as they once were. My collarbone is now visible along with my hip bones. My face looks sunken in and my eyes seemed almost hollow. I am literally the shell of the person I used to be. I have never been over weight or had an issue with my weight, I've just always maintained a nicely sculpted body. It's something that I have done not only for my career but for myself and Alex.

She had on more than one occasion mentioned how much she liked my body. How she enjoyed running her hands up and down my muscular back especially when I was making love to her. The look on her face whenever I wore shorts around the house and she could see my defined legs was something for the record books. Let's not even get started on how she acted when I flexed my arms. There were times I would lift her up and take her against a wall only so she would grab my biceps. I'm not sure who reaped the benefits more when I did that me or her.

I smile as the memories of happier times flash through my mind. Those were the times that I was so in tuned with her that I could tell what she needed and when. Then as time went on, like any other couple, I began to take her for granted. In my mind I knew that she would always be there to hold me in my darkest hour no matter what I put her through. Learning that she had cheated was an instant wake-up call and a reminder that if you want a rose to blossom you have to give it sun light.

"Liv, Elliot is here." I hear her call through the closed door pulling me from my thoughts.

"OK" I struggle to say. I have yet to figure out how to talk with my jaw wired shut and some words are more difficult to say than others. The other thing that gets to me is how harsh sounding I am when I talk to her. I wince each time I speak to her and it sounds so harsh yet she lights up with the largest smile. I have a feeling that she does it to keep from upsetting me or from berating myself.

I use the wall to steady myself as I walk into the living room and I can't help but breathe a sigh of relief when I see the two people who mean the most to me engaged in a civil conversation. I know they both have the capabilities of being civil to each other but I still fear that he may say something.

"If it isn't sleeping beauty" Elliot calls out with laughter in his voice.

I throw the tissue I have in my hand at him and miss by a mile. He has started calling me that since my stay in the hospital. I was and still am on so much medication that I slept the majority of my hospitalization away. I have little memory of the first few days after surgery and remember asking him why he never bothered to visit me. That was when he had said he had but I slept the entire time and started calling me sleeping beauty.

"I have to run some errands" Alex says as she grabs her purse and coat before turning to face me "If you need anything while I'm out just message me." She turns to face Elliot "She will need her pain meds again in about thirty minutes. No matter what she says she is to receive the whole dosage. Everything you need to make her protein shakes are in the kitchen and the soups are in the cabinet to the left of the stove. She has to eat in about twenty minutes. If not the pain meds make her very ill."

"Yes Ma'am" Elliot answers with a wink and a salute as if she's a commanding officer from his days in the Marines.

"Be careful" I whisper as I pull her to me and kiss her on the cheek. "I love you.'

"I love you too" She chokes out as her eyes become misty. She clears her throat and smiles one last time as she heads out the door.

"So?" Elliot says with raised eyebrows as I move around him to my recliner.

"We're working on it." I answer him as I pull the legs out. "It's a slow and painful process."

"Liv, I don't want to see you hurt."

"I know but I think it would hurt worse in the end if I looked back and realized I never gave it a shot." I toss my blanket around my legs and tuck it into the cushions "Hell El, she didn't have to do what she's done for me so far. She could have easily walked away from me at the hospital and allowed Rebecca to make all the decisions or you. She also could have been a bigger bitch and took me down the most painful road of recovery but she hasn't. She's done everything she could do to make it the easiest for me."

"I have always stayed out of what has happened between you and Alex." Elliot tells me as he leans back "I was happy to see you happy again with Rebecca but it wasn't the same kind of happiness that you have with Alex. I can't tell you how many times you have told me that if Alex called you to work things out you would toss Rebecca to the side without blinking."

I nod remembering all the conversations we've had sitting in the car on a stake out.

"I will tell you like I told her the night we were waiting on you to come out of surgery." He slides forward and makes sure that I am not only looking at him but listening as well "Use this accident as an eye opener, take it as a sign from God for the two of you to work everything out. As bad as this is but maybe, just maybe, this is what the two of you needed to fix what is broken."

"We are" I tell him "The other day we discussed why she cheated on me. I think it was an eye opener for the both of us. I know I solely blamed her for it for the longest but that's not right. It takes two to make a relationship and it take two to destroy it. I shouldn't have shut her out and taken her for granted."

Elliot smiles as he nods in understanding. There's no way I could count how many times I have shown up at his house drunk and crying wanting to know why I wasn't enough. Asking him if he thought it was because of my conception or was I just someone to warm her on lonely nights. Why did she use me like she did? Shocking enough though he would always defend Alex and encouraged me to talk to her, advice I always ignored.

"I wish I had listened to you sooner" I finally admit to him as he begins flipping through the channels on the TV "Who knows if I had we probably would have skipped all this."

"Maybe, maybe not. Who knows?" Elliot says as he finally finds a game and settles back against the couch "Sometimes two people have to fall apart to fall back together again."

A laugh escapes me as I lay back and close my eyes. I remember seeing that somewhere and thinking how well that seemed to fit Alex and I. As a couple, we were falling apart and my hopes were that we could fall back together again. I didn't realize that we needed to fall apart as individuals as well before we could fall back together again. For the first time ever I am so thankful that I have finally reached bottom. Because now that I have I know the only way is up and to Alex.