It was only the sensation of movement that finally startled Alex from her exhausted sleep. Forgetting where she was, she jerked upright, grabbing her neck when her cramped muscles cried out in protest. Taking a moment to gather her thoughts and rub at the knots in her shoulders, Alex slowly registered the sunlight outside the curtained windows and Anita's familiar presence at Olivia's bedside. It was morning. Noticing the nurse's eyes upon her, Alex looked up and smiled weakly. "Morning," she rasped, clearing her throat.

Anita's expression was warm and comforting as she returned Alex's greeting. "Ms. Cabot, I'm here to change Ms. Benson's bandages. Sarah told me that you'll be Ms. Benson's caregiver once she is discharged and that she introduced you to how we care for the wounds. Would you like to stay while I work this morning?"

Slowly, Alex nodded. Her mind was still clouded by sleep and emotional exhaustion, but she steeled herself. Despite the vivid and visceral memories of her last glimpse at Olivia's injuries, Alex forced herself to be ready. She had to, for Olivia's sake.

At Anita's beckoning, Alex rose on shaky legs to better observe the nurse's deft movements. For the blonde's benefit, Anita worked slowly and talked patiently through her actions. These women had already suffered enough trauma; Anita was loathe to cause them any more unnecessary pain. Gently, the nurse folded the blankets down to Olivia's waist. She moved slowly, keeping her touch light so as not to disturb the injured woman. The valium still kept Olivia in a deep but fitful sleep for which Anita and Alex were both silently grateful.

As Anita carefully undid the top of Olivia's blue hospital gown and let it bunch over her abdomen, Alex took a steadying breath. Her lover's body was splotched with dark bruises and partially hidden by thick gauze pads taped over hidden wounds. With extensively practiced motions, the nurse peeled away the strips of medical tape and white pads and revealed the mangled, healing remains of Olivia's once beautiful breasts. Alex gasped reflexively, struggling against an invisible chokehold around her throat, and struggled to remain standing. Suddenly, her knees were no longer simply shaky but seemingly useless. If not for Anita's strong grasp under her arms, Alex would have collapsed.

"Ms. Cabot, I understand," she said calmly. "Just try to take long, slow breaths. That's right." Under the hypnotizing spell of the nurse's steadying voice and the horrifying vision of her girlfriend's body, Alex felt as it she were floating high in the room. Unconsciously, her legs regained the strength to hold her body and Anita released her, though Alex hardly noticed. Olivia was all she saw, all she sensed, and she reeled in sympathetic pain as she involuntarily imagined the torture the brunette had suffered.

As she watched, jaw clenched, Anita resumed her work and her soft litany of explanations. "The trauma to Ms. Benson's body is quite severe but, barring any complications, a plastic surgeon will be able to repair much of the damage. Right now, we are changing the bandages every day and we'll keep this schedule until the wounds are closed by scabs. The frequency and the application of this antibacterial ointment will help prevent infection." As she spoke, she held up the ointment, showed Alex the new bandages and demonstrated how to reapply them without irritating Olivia's skin. She frequently glanced at the blonde; she was unresponsive but her blue eyes carefully followed every motion of Anita's hands they moved over the prone woman's body. Anita sighed inwardly. She had seen this look in loved one's eyes before. Alex was overwhelmed, bewildered and shocked, but learning. There was hope that these two women would survive this.

Alex pulled into the Mercy General parking lot and threw her rented sedan carelessly into park. Only after enduring Elliot's and Fin's long heartfelt coaxing had Alex agreed to leave the hospital for a few hours to pick up some extra clothes and toiletries and a breath of fresh air. But she had no intention of wasting any precious moments with Olivia unnecessarily. So she had sped off to do her shopping, leaving Stabler hovering at her girlfriend's beside, and returned without so much as a minute spared.

She entered the hospital room quietly, setting her shopping bags on an open chair and moving to stand at Elliot's side. "Elliot," she murmured. "Thanks. How is she?"

"She was awake a little while ago. She asked for you but she was pretty out of it. Get everything you need?"

Alex nodded with a vague gesture towards the plastic bags and Elliot grunted softly. "Well, if you two'll be alright, I guess I'll head home. Call if you need anything." Alex nodded again and, with a gentle touch to her shoulder, Elliot turned and left her alone with Olivia.

Loathe to return to her painfully familiar seat by the bed, Alex moved slowly around the room. She folded her new clothes, lined up her toiletries along the rim of the tiny bathroom's sink, and arranged the flowers she brought on the windowsill. As she paused to admire the lines of sunlight against the bright white and yellow petals, a soft sigh startled her. Gracefully, she turned and her tired expression melted when she caught Olivia's eye. She smiled tenderly and sank onto her customary stool.

"Hi, darling," she murmured. Alex ached to touch the brunette, to comfort them both. Olivia looked so thin, so sad. Alex could hardly stand the intense flood of emotions that shook her as Olivia fixed her with that unbearably sorrowful gaze. They sat still and in silence for a few breaths, each simply taking the time to feel the other's presence. It had been a long lonely time for both since they had last spent real time together.

"I want to sit up," Olivia whispered softly, her voice hardly audible. Conscientious of her injured lover's skittishness, Alex moved to pick up the bed's controls gingerly, without even brushing against the brunette. The head of the narrow hospital bed began to rise slowly. Olivia winced in pain under Alex's watchful eye but made no sound. Finally she waved her fingers feebly and Alex set the controls back onto the edge of the mattress. For a moment, Olivia let her eyes flutter shut as she adjusted to the new aches and pains caused by her changed position before again meeting Alex's worried gaze. She shivered.

Alex leapt carefully to her feet. "I almost forgot. I brought you a present." She snatched a stack of items from a chair and quickly returned, a sad but triumphant grin brightening her face. Settling back onto her stool, she set the items on her girlfriend's bed before holding the first up for Olivia's appraisal.

"You're always cold so I thought I'd bring you this. Can I …" she trailed off, watching Olivia uncertainly as she spoke. Slowly, biting her lip, the brunette nodded and Alex's smile widened. With exceeding tenderness, Alex eased the stocking cap onto Olivia's head, tugging it gently over the tops of her ears. Leaning back, she smiled softly. The cap was a sweet-looking brown, woolen and lined with soft flannel. Under the folded edge, Olivia's eyes looked darker and the olive tones in her skin were pronounced, alleviating some of her grey pallor. "It looks good, darling," Alex murmured.

Though her expression was wan and tinged by pain, Olivia smiled a small smile and Alex's heart rose. For a moment, she caught a brief glimpse of the woman who had haunted her dreams for all of her lonely years. But too soon, Olivia's smile faded, the pain and exhaustion too much for her, and Alex held up her second gift.

With Olivia's weakly nodded permission, Alex looped the scarf around her girlfriend's neck and folded it neatly under her chin. She ran her long fingers along the soft, dark knit before draping the ends over Olivia's slack hands. To her gratification, Olivia's bony, brutalized fingers folded over the fringe and rubbed the threads reflexively. "I thought, maybe, you could hold it instead … I mean, if you…" Olivia sighed and let her cheek loll against the pillow.

"I understand," she rasped gently. "I'm … Alex, I'm sorry I can't…" Her expression creased with gentleness, Alex hushed her.

"Liv, don't. You don't have to. I won't touch you without your permission and I won't leave you. Now, you still have more presents." She smiled and lifted a tiny box for Olivia to see. "You remember that scent of mine you always liked?" Olivia smiled softly, the memory clear in her dark eyes.

"You didn't," she whispered.

"Well, it's only a drugstore knockoff. I didn't have time to get the real thing. Now, hold out your wrist." Olivia weakly turned her hand over and Alex spritzed the perfume onto her pale wrist. She grinned as the subtle scent of jasmine filled the tiny room, lessening the overpowering odor of hospital antiseptic. Olivia closed her eyes and inhaled, peace easing the tense edges of her expression. "Now you're just as beautiful as I remember," Alex murmured tenderly. Olivia chuckled feebly, her laugh like a sad sigh, and continued to breathe the familiar scent.

Finally, she sighed again. "I'm so tired, Alex," she whispered.

"Go to sleep, Liv," Alex said quietly. "I'll be here when you wake up." But before she finished her gentle assurance, Olivia's face grew slack and her breathing regular. Moving slowly and carefully, Alex settled into a more comfortable chair and flipped open one of the magazines she had purchased. She was glad she had bought such a tall stack of reading material; she had the feeling that she would need it.

Alex did not even realize that she had dropped off to sleep when she was woken by the rasping sound of frantic breathing. She heaved herself jerkily from her seat, scattering magazines onto the tile floor and gasping as her spine cracked loudly. Blindly, Alex scrabbled to find the light switch and flipped on the dim lamp over the head of Olivia's bed. She hissed in shock at the imaged that greeted her.

Olivia's eyes were creased in pain as she wheezed laboriously and clawed weakly at her chest. Instincts kicking in, Alex lunged for the call button and mashed it violently, as if doing so would move the nurses more quickly. Returning her attention to the struggling brunette, Alex reached out to grasp Olivia's hands before stopping short, her hands wavering above her girlfriend's shuddering body. Though her heart screamed for her to comfort Olivia, Alex's rational mind forced her to stop. She was afraid that the physical contact might frighten the brunette further and worsen her strained breath.

Finally, after a few moments that felt like an eternity to the frightened blonde, the room's door cracked open, flooding the room with the bright fluorescent lighting from the hall. Alex whipped around to face the nurse, her panicked expression conveying the situation before she even managed to speak. "Nurse," she rushed breathlessly. "She's having trouble breathing."

The nurse, an unfamiliar plump redhead, quickly crossed the small room and bent to check Olivia's vitals before punching the call button again. Within seconds, a second nurse appeared silhouetted in the doorway. "Jeannine," barked the redhead. "I need oxygen and nitroglycerin now." The second nurse quickly turned to obey and the redhead returned her attention to her patient. "Ms. Benson," she said briskly. "My name is Amanda. Do you feel pressure in your chest?" Olivia nodded feebly.

"Alright, I need you to try to take slow deep breaths and calm down." Olivia's eyes were wide and her brow deeply creased but she nodded again as Amanda adjusted the IV needle that had come loose in her struggle for breath. Soon, the second nurse reappeared. She passed a small oxygen tank to Amanda and shook a tiny pill into the palm of her gloved hand.

"I need to put this under your tongue, Ms. Benson," Jeannine said calmly. "It'll help with the pressure in your chest." Trembling violently, Olivia complied and the nurse slipped the pill into her mouth. Amanda placed a plastic mask over Olivia's nose and mouth before twisting the knob at the top of the gas bottle.

"Deep breaths, Ms. Benson," coaxed the redhead encouragingly, nodding her head slowly in time with the gradually easing rise and fall of her patient's chest. The four women remained in tense silence for a few minutes as Olivia's breaths increased in regularity and the frightened set of her shoulders relaxed. Finally, Amanda nodded. "Alright Ms. Benson, Ms. Cabot. If any of the symptoms come back, call us again. Otherwise, we'll be back to check on you in thirty minutes. Until then, keep the mask on and try to breathe normally." Glancing quickly at Alex for understanding, Amanda beckoned for Alex to follow her into the hall.

Out of Olivia's hearing, Amanda turned to Alex. "Ms. Cabot, Ms. Benson suffered some damage to the muscles of her heart due to the methamphetamine she was forced to take. That's what's causing her breathing difficulty and the sensation of pressure in her chest. The doctor says it's too early to know if the damage is permanent, but she needs to be watched carefully. Tonight, we'll monitor her closely and in the morning we'll have another EEG done." Alex nodded in blind acceptance, her only thoughts of returning to Olivia's side. Satisfied that the blonde understood, Amanda touched her gently on the shoulder before beckoning for Jeannine to follow. She turned and walked back towards the nurses' station, Jeannine close behind, and Alex returned to the hospital room.

Once she was again alone with her girlfriend, Alex flexed her fingers gingerly. Until that moment, she hadn't even registered the pain radiating through her knuckles from the desperate grip she had maintained on the hospital bed's railing during the entire tense situation. She stepped on numb legs towards her stool and sank down, bracing herself as she looked at her suffering girlfriend.

Olivia's expression and posture signaled only extreme exhaustion. She still wore the woolen cap and under its hem her eyes were heavy-lidded and ringed by black circles. Her complexion was worryingly grey and new lines were carved along the edges of her forehead and across her cheeks. Suddenly she looked far older than her age.

Alex's stoic façade melted under Olivia's sorrowful, steady gaze. She had never seen such a sad expression and it cut her deeply. With excruciatingly slow motions, Alex raised her hands and reached towards Olivia. "May I?" Alex whispered gently. Olivia granted her permission with the smallest of nods and Alex leaned forward. Tenderly, she lifted the edges of the scarf she had given Olivia for warmth and comfort and tucked them under her girlfriend's chin, careful not to physically touch the brunette. Hesitantly, she withdrew her hands and folded them back in her lap.

Weakly, Olivia dragged her hands across the blankets to rest her fingers among the scarf's soft fringe. Blinking slowly and continuing to breathe with relative ease, she kept her tiredly anguished gaze fixed on the blonde at her side. Finally, and with painful effort, she spoke, her whisper hardly audible from behind the plastic oxygen mask. "Alex, tell me about…" Closing her eyes briefly, she trailed off.

With slowly growing relief, Alex sighed and smiled palely at her girlfriend. "Alright, Liv. Let me think." She fell quiet for a moment before taking a deep breath and beginning.

"They took me to a hotel where I met a group of Feds. They briefed me on my new identity, handed me an envelope containing all of the documents making me a new person. They told me my name was Emily Swanson, from Chicago. They told me Alex Cabot was dead, buried and forgotten. After a few days, they drove me to Wisconsin. I just remember it was cold, like I've never felt before, and windy." She paused in her story to let her eyes flicker to meet Olivia's. She noticed that the brunette was gently rubbing the pads of her fingers along the comforting softness of her scarf.

"My house was nice. It was blue and had a yard full of tall oak trees. I liked it. It was quiet and shady and the sunlight used to come in through the windows when the sun went down every night. You would have liked it.

My job was a different story. I was an insurance claims adjuster in a cubicle, typing numbers into a calculator eight hours a day. It was duller than I could have imagined. But I did have a friend there. Her name was Harriet. We went out for drinks a few times and she came back to my house but I never could forget you, Liv. She didn't understand and I couldn't tell her. Eventually, she found someone else but we stayed friends." Alex let her voice fade and she lapsed into silence. While she had been speaking, Olivia's eyelids had grown heavier and heavier, eventually fluttering closed. Alex smiled sadly down at her.

Gently, Alex tugged at the hem of the blankets, pulling them towards Olivia's shoulders. She was glad the brunette was asleep. More than anything, Alex longed to climb under the warm blankets with her lover and hold her securely in her arms. It was the image that had most often surfaced in her mind's eye while she was separated from Olivia. But, Alex resigned herself to yet another night's sleep in the chair by Olivia's bedside. She would hold her soon enough.

Wearily, Alex shuffled quietly to the room's tiny bathroom. A shower and fresh clothes would be the next best thing and she was desperate for any measure of comfort. She closed the door softly and flicked on the stream of water. Achingly, she began to strip off her wrinkled clothes and finger-comb her tangled hair. Just a quick one, she thought to herself, and then time for bed. She needed to catch some sleep while she could, while Olivia was safe and oblivious. When she woke, Alex was determined to be fresh and alert. Short of turning back time, it would be the best she could do for her injured lover.