Disclaimers: All characters are belong to Dick Wolf. This is just for fun, not profit.

A/N: The 30 Rock episode I'm referring to is called "Blind Date," S1E3 and Stephanie March plays a lesbian who gets set up with (straight) Liz Lemon by Alec Baldwin's character. I recently discovered it during my quest to watch all things SM, and it's amazing.

Also, I FINALLY got them to figure out their feelings, so yay! And while the story about Anna is fictional, the concept is slightly autobiographical. My own best friend died of complications from a heart condition when I was just turning 14, and it took me 13 years (until now) to realize that my feelings for her were probably more than friendship.

I like reviews :-)

"She looks like you," Olivia commented as they started episode 3 of their 30 Rock marathon. After a quick celebratory cupcake with Liz, Casey, and Munch and Fin, they had decided to get takeout and call it an early night. "Not as pretty as you, but the hair and glasses are similar."

"Because she's a lesbian?" Alex grumbled, taking another bite of her pad thai.

"Um, no, that's not what I meant. I was commenting on the physical resemblance. And the character's a lesbian, but I don't think the actress is. I'm pretty sure she's married to some TV chef."

Alex sighed. "I'm sorry, Liv. I'm just touchy right now. Long day."

"Of course. Don't worry about it. I'm sorry I wasn't clear." Olivia continued eating, not wanting to push Alex into talking if she didn't want to. "Do you want to talk about today?"

"Not really. I'm relieved, mostly. Especially that I've only been humiliated in front of some of my coworkers, not all of them." Alex pushed her half-empty dish into the middle of the table, sighed deeply, and leaned back on the couch.

"Alex, you have nothing to be ashamed of. Nobody - not a single one of us - thinks you were humiliated today. We've all heard stories just as bad as yours before, and we've never let the details of the crime impact our opinion of the victim. I'm glad Moredock sealed the records so the details are private, but everyone except Robert knows he's the only one who has anything to be embarrassed about." Olivia nudged Alex to lean her head down onto a pillow in her lap, and stroked her hair gently. "In fact, I think you should be really proud of how you handled yourself today. You shut him down and you told him off. He didn't have any power over you; you took it back from him."

Alex nodded. "I don't feel any better, though."

"I think that's still going to take some time, sweetie. We know survivors don't feel some sudden sense of closure once their rapists are convicted. And even more so because this happened so quickly compared to most of the cases we investigate and try." Olivia brushed back Alex's hair from her face and noticed tears forming under closed eyes. "Is there anything I can do to help?" she asked softly.

Alex shook her head and pulled her knees up tighter into fetal position facing towards the back of the couch. "Just let me stay like this for a while?" she whispered.

Olivia nodded and pulled a blanket on top of her from the back of the couch, wrapping it around Alex, and took her glasses. She placed a hand gently on Alex's upper arm, and stoked Alex's hair with the other. "As long as you want, Lex. I'm not going anywhere."

Alex dozed off, and woke up a while later feeling very aware that Olivia's hands were still touching her gently. Intimately, even. Her face was practically nestled against Olivia's stomach, and the curve of Olivia's breast was just in her peripheral vision. She stiffened and sat up abruptly.

"You okay, Lex?" Olivia asked, looking away from the TV show she hadn't really been watching.

"Liv, is this weird?" Alex asked tentatively.

"Is what weird? Cuddling?" Alex nodded. "I don't think so; we've been cuddling all week. Why? Are you uncomfortable?"

Alex shrugged.

"Okay, well, if you're uncomfortable, we'll stop."

"I just don't want you to be uncomfortable," Alex said quietly.

Olivia looked confused. "Why wouldn't I be comfortable? I don't mind cuddling with you. I kind of like it, actually. If you want cuddles, we'll cuddle. If you don't…" Suddenly, she understood. "Alex, what is this really about?"

"Nothing. Nevermind. Just, it's nothing."

Olivia reached out and nudged Alex back down into her lap, facing outwards this time. "Lex, nothing changes between us, okay? You're still the same person you were three days ago. I'm not uncomfortable with you, and I'm certainly not worried I'm going to catch lesbian cooties or something. I've got them already, remember?"

Alex giggled. "You're right. I'm sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry about. Just relax, okay?" Olivia paused, running her fingers through Alex's hair again. "Are you worried about what people are going to think?"

"Not really. The guys are all supportive of you, so there's no reason they wouldn't be supportive of me. Liz and my brother won't care. Hell, my brother will probably get a rainbow flag and sign us up to walk in the gay pride parade. My father might object a bit, but he's the one who encouraged me to date Robert, so I'm thinking he doesn't really get a vote. And at work, I'm the boss, so what are they going to do?"

"And politically?"

Alex shrugged. "Gay marriage is legal in 3 states. New York is the first state in the country to recognize same-sex marriages performed out of state, and I bet we won't be that far behind in legalizing it. I give it 3 years. Aside from that, I think the more people who are 'out', the more it's normalized, the less people object over time. If I were ever to run for office, I'd hope that other parts of my story would be more… compelling than being a lesbian. And if you can't be a lesbian public figure in Manhattan, then where?"

"And you're okay with it? Just the other day you were insisting that your book didn't mean you were gay."

"You saw the summation. You tell me."

"What's the standard?" Olivia asked.

"Preponderance of evidence. 'Beyond a reasonable doubt' seems too high."

"Well, counselor, all your evidence is circumstantial. What's your gut telling you?"

"That I was an idiot not to realize it before. Once I started reviewing the evidence… I couldn't unsee it."

"You don't have to label yourself, you know. You could just decide you're open to a relationship with a woman and see what happens." Olivia said.

"Honestly? It's a relief. I thought there was something wrong with me. Dating felt like a chore. Sex felt like a chore, and not just with Robert. On Monday, when I was talking to Laura, she told me that she slept with a guy to prove to herself that she wasn't gay, and it was awful, and then she slept with her girlfriend and she knew. And she said, 'You're supposed to like it, right? Isn't that the point?' I started thinking about it on the way home, and I guess you could say I had an epiphany."

"You realized, at age 33, that the point of sex is to like it?" Olivia asked, raising an eyebrow. "What did you think the point was?"

"Well, according to my mother, the point is to make babies, satisfy my husband, and keep him from cheating on me. In that order."

"That's very… 1950s of her." Olivia commented.

"I think she thought I was a virgin when I died."

"At 29, in Manhattan, working sex crimes?"

"Well, to be honest, I wasn't having sex when I was working sex crimes. I couldn't get past it, and I can count the number of dates I went on in those years on one hand. It was just Alan in law school, then my coworker in Wisconsin, then Robert."

"What happened with Alan?"

"We started dating my last year at Columbia, and then we both went to Harvard together. We had been friends for two years first. After I got back from my semester abroad, he asked me out. I was 21 and embarrassed about still being a virgin. He was actually really sweet, and we always went on really fun dates, to museums, concerts, historical sites, political events. But the longer we were together, the more he wanted sexually. He never pressured me, and it's not even like he wanted anything kinky or weird, he just thought I was inhibited. It eventually broke us up, but there was no bad blood between us. My mother kept inviting him to Thanksgiving and other family events, though. She thought we were going to get married."

Olivia nodded. "Can I ask who Anna was?" she asked gently. "There was something about an Anna on your list."

Alex got up and went to her purse, where she pulled a worn photo out of her wallet and handed it to Olivia. It was two teenage girls, a tall, lanky blonde with blue eyes and braces that had to be Alex, and a shorter brunette with curly hair and green eyes. Both girls were wearing bikinis and were hugging each other on the beach, making funny faces and giggling. The photo was creased and the ink was fading on the edges, and Olivia guessed that it had been in Alex's wallet for years. She sat back down next to Olivia, turning to face her, studying her eyes before she opened up about one of the most painful parts of her past.

"They wouldn't let me have this when I was in witness protection." Alex swallowed. "Anna was my best friend from kindergarten. She lived down the street, and we played together after school almost every day, and we slept over each other's houses on the weekend. Our parents basically considered us sisters. When we were 15, she was hit by a drunk driver walking home from school in the middle of the afternoon. I would have been with her, except that I had stayed after school for a few minutes to ask a question about an assignment, and I hadn't quite caught up to her yet. I got there about the same time as the ambulance did and saw them loading her in. I knew it was her because I recognized the keychains she had hanging on her backpack. We went to Boston Latin, so we were right around the corner from the best hospitals in the world, but there was only so much they could do for her. The driver got a slap on the wrist, and she was in a coma for six months before her parents pulled life support. That's why the Sam Cavanaugh case hit me so hard…"

Alex sniffled and wiped a tear from her eye, and Olivia reached out to hold her hand. "I was devastated. I didn't eat or sleep. I went to the hospital every chance I got. I went to church and prayed for a miracle. I wondered why it was her instead of me, and why I hadn't been with her. If she hadn't waited for me at my locker, she would've already crossed the street. If we'd been together, we might've stopped to get coffee on the way home or gone a different way. I wanted to take it from her, to stop her suffering… A few months after she died, my other friends basically told me that I was 'too sad' to hang out with because I couldn't just 'get over it,' and I couldn't understand how they could.

"I told her I loved her, even before she got hit, and then all the time when she was in the coma, and she said it to me too, but it's not like we thought of each other as girlfriends or anything. But I was thinking about her the other day when I went to go visit my mother, and it makes sense. I grieved so much longer and harder than any of our other friends, even the close ones. I wanted to die for two years. After she died, I was very… cold, closed off. I didn't want to get hurt again. That's when I learned how to hide my emotions, which, oddly enough, has made me a good lawyer. I had trouble making friends, and I thought that the pain was part of why I never opened up more to Alan. I think… I realized that my feelings for her were probably more than just friendship."

"Oh, sweetie," Olivia murmured, pulling Alex into a hug and holding her tight. "I'm so sorry that happened to you. I can't imagine how painful that must have been for you."

"Nobody understood. Everyone just wanted me to 'get over it,' including my parents," Alex said bitterly.

"I don't think you ever 'get over' losing someone you love," Olivia murmured, still holding Alex and rubbing her back. "You're my best friend, and the two days I thought you were dead were the worst of my life," she admitted. "I can't imagine how awful it would have been if we'd lost you for real, or if we hadn't known you were being kept safe."

"That's why I couldn't let them take me away without seeing you. I knew you would feel responsible, like I felt responsible for Anna."

"It wasn't your fault, Lex. Sometimes those things just happen."

"I know. It took me a long time to accept that I couldn't have done anything, and that even if I had been there, it would have been both of us in the hospital instead of just her."

"Tell me about her," Olivia said.

Alex pulled out of the hug and took the photo back in her hands. "She was an amazing person. So smart. Probably smarter than me. And kind, and funny, with a huge heart, and all this energy. She always had a project. I mean, I did some charity work with my mom, and took music lessons, but Anna… She pulled me into all these different schemes. She… we organized gift drives for Children's Hospital, put on concerts there where she would sing and I'd play the piano, go do art projects with the kids. She'd always be writing stories or plays or poems, and we'd record radio shows about current events or politics on the tape recorder. She would always do things like have a lemonade stand or sell her art projects and give all the money to some cause. Totally selfless. You remind me a bit of her in that way."

"Sounds like she was pretty special."

"She was. She didn't have a lot of friends because most kids our age were playing sports, or hanging out and going to the mall or the movies, and she had no interest in stuff like that. She wanted to create. And make a difference."

"She was lucky to have you, then." Olivia said gently.

Alex shrugged. "I was lucky to have her. You know my parents. How… exacting they can be. I just… I never felt like I had to pretend with her. I never had to be anyone I wasn't, or pretend to care about things I didn't. I never had to explain myself to her. She just got me. She just accepted me, unconditionally, without ever judging me." Alex paused. "Liv, the only other person to do that - to just accept me - is you."

Olivia smiled. "Well, you're pretty special yourself."

Alex put the photo back in her wallet. "Thanks, Liv," Alex said quietly. "Thanks for letting me talk about her. For not making it awkward. People usually get really uncomfortable when you talk about dead people. I don't usually share this with anyone."

"Lex, you know you can talk to me about anything," Olivia said. "I'm sorry people don't get it. I can see that it's still very painful for you even all these years later."

"18," Alex said, nodding. "Almost 18 years later. That's twice as long as we were friends. More than half my life. And I'm just figuring this all out now."

"You can't put a timeline on grief, Alex. Especially if you were in love with her."

"I wonder if we would've figured it out back then if she hadn't died," Alex said quietly.

"There's no way to know that, sweetie. But at least it sounds like she died knowing how you felt about her. Knowing how important she was to you."

Alex nodded. "I hope so. It - Anna, and then Witsec - made me realize how important it is to tell people how you feel about them."

Olivia reached out to touch her arm. "Lex, you know how I feel about you, right?"

Alex looked up, her eyes searching Olivia's for permission to say it. "You love me. You're in love with me."

Olivia smiled, her eyes not leaving Alex's. "What makes you say that?" she asked gently, not ready to divulge that Alex's answer was not at all what she'd been expecting.

Alex looked away. "I figured that out this week, too. Liv, I feel safe when I'm with you. I trust you. I tell you things I can't tell anyone else, and you don't judge me. I can cry in front of you. I don't mind - in fact, I like it when you touch me or hug me or kiss me, even after - especially after what Robert did. I missed you so much when I was gone; I thought about you all the time when I was away. I was afraid to call you when I got back because I thought you'd be disappointed in me, in how broken I was. When I talked to victims, or their families, or my students in Portland, I asked myself what you would do, how you would show compassion, because you make me want to be like you. You make me want to be a better person when I'm around you."

Alex exhaled and looked back up at Olivia, expecting her to deny or downplay everything she'd just said. Instead, all she saw was warm brown eyes and an enigmatic smile.

"I'd review your evidence again, counselor. It sounds to me like those are all the ways you know you're in love with me." Olivia smirked.

Alex opened her mouth to argue, but found she had nothing to refute Olivia's analysis. "Liv, I…"

"Shh, Lex, it's okay. It's more than okay. Come here," she offered, pulling Alex onto her lap, until the blonde was straddling her. She looked into uncertain blue eyes, and ran her fingers lightly up and down Alex's arms to reassure her. "Is this alright? I'm not hurting you?" Olivia was aware that even though the stitches were supposed to have dissolved, Alex may still be in a bit of pain.

Alex nodded, and Olivia pressed their foreheads together and spoke softly. "You know that nothing I've done for you has been with any strings attached, right? That regardless of whether or not you're straight, or of whom you choose to be with, or of your feelings for me, I would still open my home to you, and take care of you when you're not feeling well, and talk, and hold you after a nightmare, and be your friend when you need one?"

"Yes," Alex said quietly.

"And you know that up until two days ago, I would never have allowed myself to think about you romantically because I thought you were hopelessly straight."

"Liv, up until about five days ago I thought I was hopelessly straight."

"Then you understand why we have to take it really slow if anything's going to happen between us," Olivia whispered. "I would hate to take it too fast and scare you off or hurt you, and lose you as a friend, too. I care about you a lot, Alex, probably more than I've cared about anyone before. And the last thing I want is to screw this up. If we do this, I want to do it right. I want it to last forever."

"Me too, Liv. We're both healing from some stuff, and I'm still getting used to my sexuality…"

"I don't want to be an experiment, Lex, or a secret."

"You won't be. I promise."

"And you have to promise that you'll talk to me about things, especially once we get physical, and tell me if I ever go too fast, or do something that makes you uncomfortable. I know you said you weren't used to talking about sex, and that may be a while off for us, we're going to have to talk about it when the time comes."

Alex held her breath at the thought of sex with the kind, gentle, compassionate woman who was holding her, and nodded in agreement. "I promise," she whispered.

"Okay. You've had a long, hard day, so why don't we get ready for bed, okay?" Olivia asked. "Can I cuddle with you before we go to sleep, or is that too fast?"

"We've been cuddling all week, Liv, and we cuddled before. We don't have to take a step backwards, you know," Alex replied, pushing herself off of Olivia and heading towards the bathroom.

Olivia smiled as she put on her pyjamas and brushed her teeth. She had never imagined that Alex felt anything beyond friendship for her, but finding out that she did only confirmed Olivia's deep feelings for her friend.

They got into Olivia's bed facing each other, and Olivia pressed a gentle kiss to Alex's forehead and wrapping her arms around her. When Alex leaned in for a kiss on the mouth, she pressed a finger to Alex's lips, stopping her.

"Not yet, sweetie. I want it to be perfect," she whispered, tucking some hair behind Alex's ear. "And Lex?" she said quietly, waiting for blue eyes to meet hers. "I love you, too."

They slept soundly, in each other's arms, and Alex didn't have a single nightmare.