A/N- This is the end, thanks for reading it through, hope you enjoyed. It makes me happy to know that the Cabenson fandom is alive and well despite it being years since Stephanie March was on the show.

...

Alex stood on the stoop of the house she had grown up in. She hadn't been there in four years, not since she brought Olivia home for Thanksgiving the year she was killed. The detective was standing beside her, a reassuring smile on her face, "Are you ready?"

"Yeah." Alex squared her shoulders. It was a Sunday, that meant that her sister's family should be over at their parents house for brunch after church. The blonde smiled, her family was a cliche, but it was hers.

Before she could second guess herself, she rung the doorbell.

It was a terrible few moments while she waited for the heavy wooden door to swing open. When it did, she couldn't bring herself to say anything. The man on the other side was Jake, her sister's husband. His eyes widened and his mouth opened and closed comically like a fish before he finally said, "Alex?"

"It's me."

"But you died."

"Apparently not."

"Aubrey!" He shouted over his shoulder.

"What is it, dear?" Alex could hear her sister ask from inside the house.

"Come here."

Alex and Olivia exchanged looks, the detective squeezed Alex's hand reassuringly. The older Cabot daughter appeared behind her husband and gasped, "Sweetie." Tears sprung to her eyes and before she could reply, Alex found herself wrapped in a bone crushing hug.

"Is this a dream?" Aubrey asked, her face buried in her sister's hair.

"No. I'm really here." Alex confirmed, squeezing her sister back just as hard, "I was in witness protection. But the men who tried to kill me are dead."

When eventually her sister let go, Alex was ushered into the house. Olivia and Jake followed, sharing smiles. Her reunion with her parents was just as fierce, and just as tearful. Her mother wasted no time in fussing over her, "You're so skinny, did they not feed you in witness protection?" Mrs. Cabot had Alex sat down at the table, a plate full of eggs and bacon piled in front of her in moments, "And you!" She turned on Olivia, "You look like you haven't slept in a year." She smoothed her hands over the detective's hair, "I miss seeing your face, though the flowers were lovely."

Olivia blushed under the attention, and Alex stepped in to divert it, "I ate plenty, mom."

"Where were you?" Her father asked.

"Well first I was in Arizona for three months, Seattle for five more, Georgia for four months, and then Wisconsin for the last two years." She rattled off.

"What were you doing in all that time?"

"Various jobs, a law clerk for a real estate office, I was even a professor at a local college for a while." Olivia listened with interest, Alex didn't much like to talk about the time she was gone, and she could understand why.

They were interrupted by a little girl coming out of the hallway. She was sleepy, clearly having just woken from a nap, her hair was a wild mess of blonde curls, "Hey, Lexie." Aubrey said, opening her arms and pulling the girl up onto her lap. She looked at her younger sister, a teasing smile on her face, "This is your niece."

"Lexie?" Alex quirked an eyebrow, it was the nickname Aubrey used to call her when they were young.

"It's short for Alexandra."

"You named your kid after me?" The lawyer asked in disbelief.

"You were dead." Aubrey reasoned.

"That's morbid." Alex laughed.

"It was sweet and meaningful, and you ruined it by being undead!" The sisters broke down in laughter. Alex was home. She had Olivia by her side and a niece who shared her name. It was all she could have asked for.

…

"So garbage pick up is on Wednesdays, you know how to get to the university- you'll start there next week, you have my number- if you need anything don't hesitate to call. Any questions?" Agent Riley turned, his hip leaning casually against the kitchen counter. Her kitchen counter.

"No." Alex said, it was her fourth placement in a year. The middle of nowhere Wisconsin, a small town close enough to the city to justify her driving in everyday to teach at the university, but far enough to have a mom and pop convenience store instead of a superstore. Previous to this had been Arizona, Seattle, and Georgia.

This conversation she had with the agent was reminiscent of the one she had at that first house in Arizona one week after her funeral. One week since Elliot, Olivia, Munch, Fin, Cragen, and her sister's husband had been pallbearers, lowering a casket full of gym weights into a grave before a headstone with her name on it. Needless to say she had still been in a bit of shock.

"All of your important papers are in that folder." He indicated to the surprisingly small manilla folder on the table, "Social security card, birth certificate, driver's license, diplomas for high school, college and law school."

For a second, Alex was stuck with how slim the envelope was, how an entire life could be boiled down to a few sheets of paper.

"I'll come by to check in on the third of next month. Until then, good luck. Let's try and make this one last longer than the others, yes Ms. Anderson?"

Alex did her best not to scowl at him, all the same she knew he was playing her. She knew that he was challenging her in an attempt to get her pride to fight back.

"I have a good feeling about this." Alex said, taking the agent's proffered handshake, thanking him and locking the door behind him when he left. Alone at last in her too large, empty house, Alex couldn't stand the quiet. She went cautiously upstairs, the two suitcases containing all of her personal belongings were lined up beside her bed just as she always found them.

Everything she owned could now be carefully folded into two fifty pound bags, ready to go at a moment's notice. The house itself was furnished in Ikea basics, nightstand, dresser, coffee table, pots and pans in the kitchen. It was like Alex was constantly living in a hotel.

She opened a case and pulled out running clothes, changing quickly. Alex headed out the front door, key in hand. It was something she did each time she was dropped in a new location, run. It felt like she was running away, a childish fantasy she knew, but it helped settle her nonetheless, something about the reassuring pounding of her feet against the pavement helped to ground her. At times it felt like nothing was real, she was a fake person, living in a fake house, working a fake job, making fake friends, running brought her back from the edge.

In New York she had never been one for working out, relying on occasional spin classes at the upscale gym she paid too much for and didn't go to enough to keep her in shape. That and a strict diet of working lunches and rushed dinners. It was the rare occasion that Olivia could convince her to go for a morning run or accompany her to the gym for an actual workout. But now in WITSEC, Alex had been logging miles. It was one of the few things she could do anywhere.

…

Alex was chopping vegetables in the kitchen, the window before her overlooked the back garden and she was absentmindedly making a list of the chores she wanted to finish the next day. She would have to weed the front path, vacuum the house, wash the truck if the weather looked like it would hold off on rain. It was late in the Spring semester, and she had a mountain of essays to grade.

Jen was grading at the dining room table. It was late Saturday afternoon and Alex's phone rang.

"Grab that for me?" She asked, not pausing from her lunch prep.

Jen pressed the green button and smirked, "Emily Anderson's phone, Jennifer Jareau speaking." She was quiet a moment, listening, "Yes, hold on just a second." Then, holding the phone out to Alex, "A man named Riley."

That got Alex's attention. She stepped away from the cutting board to get her phone from the other woman, "What's up, Riley?" She cradled the phone between her shoulder and her ear, picking up her knife and resuming cooking.

Riley only said two words, "He's dead."

"What?"

Alex could hear the smile in the man's voice, "It's over. Feds raided Velez's place and took him out, Zapata and all his other lieutenants have been sentenced. They're never getting out."

"You can't mean-" Alex let her question taper off, not daring to believe what she had been dreaming for the last three years might actually be real.

"You're safe. You can go home. I'll be by tomorrow to talk logistics."

The knife in Alex's hand clattered to the ground, she didn't even realize she had dropped it. A sob tore through her throat, and her free hand came up to cover her mouth, "It's really over?"

"You better believe it."

"God, thank you."

"Tonight's going to be the best damn night of sleep you've ever had."

She hung up the phone, and only then did she realize that there were tears running down her cheeks. Jen was standing nervously at the entrance of the kitchen, "Em, is everything okay?"

"Alex." The taller woman said, wiping at the tears that had inadvertently escaped, "My name is Alexandra Cabot."

Jen's lips quirked up in a confused smile, "I don't understand."

"Three years ago before I came here I wasn't a lawyer in Pittsburgh, I wasn't born in Minnesota, I didn't get the scar on my shoulder from an archery accident in high school. Hell, I've never shot a bow and arrow." Her eyes were bright.

"If this is some sort of joke, Emily I don't get it." Jennifer's face was drawn, her eyebrows knitting together.

"I grew up in Connecticut, I graduated from Yale, then Harvard Law. I moved to New York where I worked as a public prosecutor working with the Manhattan Special Victims Unit. Three years ago, I was prosecuting a man who was involved in a drug syndicate. They hired a hitman to try and kill me. I was forced to fake my own death and I've been in witness protection ever since then."

Jennifer shook her head, "This can't be real."

Grasping at straws, Alex whipped her shirt over her head. She stood in the middle of the kitchen in only her bra, she grabbed Jennifer's hand, bringing it up to the puckered scar on her shoulder, "I was shot. Most nights when I wake up from a nightmare it's because I'm reliving that moment. But the leader of this syndicate, he was killed. It's over."

Despite her best efforts, Alex couldn't control the tears that continued rushing down her face. She would later suspect that it was her uncontrollable tears that finally convinced Jennifer of the truth of her words. Alexandra Cabot didn't cry, and neither did Emily Anderson.

"Alexandra?" She whispered.

The lawyer nodded, tears beginning anew. It was the first time in three years she had heard another person say her real name.

…

Olivia and Alex were in a coffee shop, a small local place walking distance from the ADA's office and the precinct. Alex liked to take breaks there when things were getting hectic with the other attorneys. That was the case now.

Olivia was talking through a tough case that she and Stabler had just caught and Alex was nodding along considering the motion defense had filed in a case she was in the middle of litigating.

"- and the woman recanted so I really don't know what we can do." Olivia paused when she saw Alex's head lift up questioningly as though someone had called her name.

The barista repeated, "Skim milk vanilla frap for Emily."

Alex blushed, she still responded to the old name. Olivia reached across the table to cover Alex's hand with her own, "It's only been a few months. It's just an adjustment period."

"Yeah." Alex sighed, looking down into her coffee cup, "I know it's odd, but when I came back to New York it felt like the person I had been for two years in Wisconsin had died."

Alex began to normalize, a few more months passed, and with them her one year anniversary of being brought back from the dead. Eventually she stopped flinching when people called the name Emily, she stopped waking up confused in her own bed beside Olivia, she was able to sleep with the sounds of the city in the background again.

She and the brunette were walking to meet Elliot and Kathy for date night dinner on the town when someone called the name Emily and expected the blonde to respond.

"Emily Anderson?" Alex turned, her question died on her lips as she saw the woman standing before her.

"Jennifer."

Talk about a blast from the past, the two blondes just took a moment. Sizing each other up after not having seen each other for over a year, "Or I suppose it's Alexandra." Jennifer corrected.

"Alex." The lawyer offered.

"You look good." Jennifer smiled.

"As do you."

Olivia shifted beside Alex, taking entertainment in how awkward this exchange was. Alex suddenly seemed to remember that she wasn't alone, "Oh, Jennifer this is Olivia, my-" and she paused. Fiance felt wrong because yeah they had matching rings but they still didn't have concrete plans for their marriage, girlfriend definitely didn't capture the seriousness of their commitment. Partner was a term that Alex always used to cringe at, it felt so corporate, and significant other was so impersonal, "my Olivia." She finished lamely.

The detective smiled, shaking Jennifer's hand, "I knew Jennifer from Wisconsin." Alex explained, "What are you doing in New York?"

"Teacher's conference."

Alex nodded, "We should catch up, are you free for lunch tomorrow?"

"Yeah, we'll set something up."

The two blondes awkwardly nodded. Jennifer still had Alex's number from the day she left the teacher in Wisconsin, she had never used it. They parted ways, and Olivia waited a complete five steps before she teased the attorney, "I'm your Olivia?" She asked, with a smirk.

"Yup, you got a problem with that?" Alex draped her arm around the shorter woman's shoulders.

"Nope, no problems here." Olivia smiled.

…

The wind rushed out of Olivia's lungs, and she was amazed that her knees hadn't buckled.

"I'm so sorry, about all of this."

Tears rolled freely from Olivia's eyes, "Your funeral is in two days."

Elliot stood stoic beside her, and all Olivia wanted to do was gather the blonde into her arms and never let her go.

"I'm going into protective custody, and you two are the only one who know the truth." Alex whispered.

"How long?" Olivia asked.

"Until Velez and his men are killed or apprehended."

"How long?" The detective asked again, she knew that Alex wouldn't be able to give her an answer.

"We've got to roll." One of the agents said.

Alex nodded, giving Elliot a one armed hug before turning to Olivia. She hadn't cried, hadn't hardly reacted when Agent Riley told her that she was going into witness protection, she had remained stoic when she woke up from surgery and he told her 'Alexandra Cabot is dead, she was killed by a hit man hired by the drug lord Velez. She will be buried in a week, she is survived by her parents and older sister.' She would not break down now.

But Olivia was looking at her with those warm brown eyes that had made her feel safe for the last few years, and she could only keep herself together for so much longer. She stepped into the detective's strong arms, and buried her face into Olivia's neck. Inhaling deeply, she tried to memorize everything about this, the way Olivia's arms felt around her, the smell of the brunette's leather jacket and subtle perfume.

"I love you, Liv." She whispered, feeling the brunette's arms tighten around her marginally at the confession.

"I love you too." Olivia pressed a kiss to the crown of Alex's head, only loosening her hold on the younger woman when the agent interjected again.

"We really need to move."

Reluctantly she let her arms fall to her sides, feeling the absence immediately. Olivia instead wrapped her arms around her middle, holding herself together as she watched Alex get in the back of a black SUV. Elliot draped his arm around her shoulders, keeping his partner in close. The car door shut and they watched Alex Cabot disappear into the night.

"She's alive." Olivia breathed once the tail lights of the convoy carrying Alex faded in the distance.

A/N- drop a final review if you feel so inclined.