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"I don't know how Olivia is going to be this morning, Elliot." Casey and Elliot strolled side by side towards the hospital doors. It was just about seven in the morning, and visiting hours technically didn't start for another sixty five minutes. Neither of them expected any problems, however. They both had jobs to get to, and hospital staff tended to be nice to loudmouthed attorneys and badge-wielding cops.
"Why do you say that?" Elliot asked.
"Well you know I wasn't able to get Alex to come last night. But I didn't tell you everything," Casey admitted.
"So, spill."
"Um…well I think Alex may have intended to break it off with Olivia."
"You're kidding."
"Afraid not."
"She can't do that. Not now."
"I told her the same thing. But you know Alex Cabot, she doesn't listen to anyone except Alex Cabot," Casey sighed.
"So you think she's already done it?"
"It's possible. She told me she was going to go to the hospital 'later on'. I don't know how much later that was meant to be."
"Poor Liv," Elliot shook his head as they stepped off the elevator at the ICU floor.
"I know."
They approached Olivia's room, where they peered through the glass doors. Elliot had fully expected Olivia to be up by now. After all she was used to keeping a tight schedule, often beginning with a six am wakeup supported by rigid circadian rhythms. But much to his surprise, she was still asleep.
"Oh man."
"What?" Casey asked. "She's just sleeping. It's still early."
"Olivia's always up by now. The only reason she'd still be asleep would be if she'd been up all night thinking about something and she finally just passed out from exhaustion."
Casey's face fell. "Alex must've been here."
Seven hours earlier…
Elliot had promised that Casey would bring Alex back. He promised. Yet it was nearly midnight, and both of them had been there and back, neither with a blonde in tow. When Casey showed up solo, both Elliot and Olivia had stared at her with a look of shock and confusion, and she had sadly told them that she couldn't get Alex out of the room she'd locked herself inside. Casey had opted to omit the part about Alex's plan.
So Olivia just stared blankly at the public access television, too lazy to change it to a network with actual programming and too depressed to care. She'd made it clear to the nurses that she wanted to be out of the hospital as quickly as was practical, so they were already weaning her off the damned morphine and the pain pulsed at the site of the wound in her abdomen. She'd never be able to sleep, which meant there was nothing left to do but think about Alex.
"You're damn lucky Casey is so pushy, or I wouldn't be here at all right now."
The subject of Olivia's thoughts suddenly appeared in the doorway. Alex leaned against the door as Olivia's head snapped to face the soft, stern voice.
"Visiting hours have been over for a while, how did you get past the nurses?" the detective replied, lost for better words.
"That's what you care about right now, Liv?" Alex chuckled.
"No, I suppose not. I'm just glad you're here," Olivia admitted. "Come here, sit with me."
Alex sighed. "I think I'd prefer to remain standing for this."
"For what?" The increased rate of the heart monitor's beeps betrayed Olivia's sudden nervousness at the way the attorney was acting.
"We need to talk," Alex said matter-of-factly, walking in and backing up against the wall across from Olivia. The detective said nothing, and waited for Alex to continue, giving her a disbelieving look. "You put me through hell today. I hope you know that from the get-go."
"I do know that, and I'm sorry. I'm not sorry for killing that bastard, but I'm sorry for all the pain it caused you," Olivia tried.
"That's the problem. You're not sorry for putting yourself in that situation and if it weren't for me you wouldn't be sorry for anything. Which means you're just going to do this kind of thing again. Without telling me, without giving me any sort of warning. I can't handle that, Olivia."
"So I'll talk to you about things first. But you can't always say no."
"I can if I know it's dangerous. Because you don't seem to care about that," Alex replied, irritated.
"I have a job to do! If you have a problem that, then I have a problem with you!"
"Olivia, I don't have a problem with your job! I can't stress that enough, and I have trouble believing that you don't know that already. My problem is when you do things that are not your job."
Alex bit her lip and finally crossed the room to stand next to Olivia and take her hand. "I never wanted things to come to this," she said stoically, "but if you can't promise me that your safety comes first, before any victim, or even me, then I can't stay with you. I can't lose you like that, but I can leave."
Olivia gasped and looked up at the blonde. She had red eyes from crying and dark circles from worrying. Her face was serious and sad. "You don't really mean that, Alex. You don't want to break up."
"No, I don't."
"Then we won't."
"If you promise."
"I can't…"
"Then I have to go." Alex squeezed and then let go of Olivia's hand. She turned away to leave and jumped abruptly when the detective's angry voice came from behind her.
"You're being so unreasonable, Alex!"
"Unreasonable?" the blonde turned around with an enraged half smirk on her face. "You don't know the first thing about unreasonable." She laughed lightly and shook her head. "After all, you think it's reasonable to walk into the line of fire without backup. You think it's reasonable to put everyone else's life above yours. You might have noble intentions, Olivia Benson, but reasonable isn't a useful quality that's high on your list!"
"Well apparently the same goes for you!" Olivia grasped Alex's hand again and roughly pulled the attorney back to her side. "We have a good thing going here, Alex. I did this for you, don't you understand? Why do you want to walk away?"
"If you still think what you did was right, you're never going to understand. Now let me go before I call security and have you handcuffed to your bed!"
Olivia looked up at Alex in disbelief, but Alex's expression was unwavering in its sincerity. Slowly, Olivia freed Alex's hand from the grasp of her own. Alex began to walk away again.
"Alexandra, I love you." Olivia's voice had lost its anger and strength as the weakness from her injuries began to show through beyond her tough façade.
"I love you too, Liv," Alex replied, though she refused to turn back again. "I have to go," she echoed her earlier statement.
Olivia shook her head violently at Alex's back. "No, no, it can't end this way. Alex, I'm sorry!"
Then Alex stopped and her shoulders, formerly held high in unshakeable foolish pride, slumped back down. She turned around, and Olivia gasped to see the expression that had seemingly out of nowhere appeared on Alex's face. Alex grinned widely as her brunette lover stared back at her perplexedly.
"What was that?" Alex asked with a chuckle.
Olivia continued to gape. "I said I was sorry."
"Sorry for what, Olivia?"
"Sorry for scaring you. For being an idiot. For putting myself in a hospital bed. For not trusting my coworkers. For putting other people's safety before mine. And for…whatever the hell else I fucked up with," Olivia laughed sadly, clutching at her wound that had suddenly begun to throb.
Alex bit her lip, the smile still plastered on her face. "Well I'm sorry too, Olivia."
"What are you sorry for?" Olivia asked, still not sure if the attorney had lost her mind.
"Can I let you in on a little secret?"
"Okay…"
"I was never going to leave you."
Olivia raised her eyebrows. She was, for certain, relieved that the most meaningful relationship of her life was not ending. But the other half of her wanted to throttle Alex. What was she thinking, playing with her like that? "Excuse me?"
"Oh, Olivia…" Alex finally sat down. "You should know before I explain myself that I feel like a Class-A jerk for doing this, but I hope you'll see that I had to."
"Good luck with that…" Olivia murmured.
"Just hear me out for a second. Keep in mind that everything else I said to you over the past ten minutes was true. I hate your job. I hate your devotion to these victims. I hate that you're willing to sacrifice yourself for others."
"Doing well so far, Alex," Olivia remarked sarcastically.
"Shut up. But I also love that you have the personality to do your job. I love that the devotion you have for the victims is the same devotion you have for your friends. And I love that you care so much for other people that you'll do anything to keep them safe."
Alex stroked back Olivia's matted hair. "But sweetheart, you need a reality check! There's a limit to all of these things before heroism, bravery, and courage become carelessness, recklessness, and stupidity. And getting shot in the stomach crosses that line…that thin blue line," Alex chuckled.
"And what were you trying to do Alex, teach me some sort of lesson?"
"Kind of," Alex admitted. "I thought maybe if you thought you were going to lose one of the things that you believe you're protecting, you'd have a reason to cool down. Honestly, Liv, I wanted to let you think I'd broken up with you for a few days, but when you started apologizing that way, I didn't want to make you sweat it anymore."
"Alex, that's…really cold." Olivia grasped Alex's hand and forced it off her head. "You want to talk about crossing a line? That's it."
"Olivia, I was only doing it for your own good because I love you and care about you."
"You love me, so you wanted to cause me more pain? Haven't I been through enough in the last twenty-four hours?"
"I didn't really break up with you, Olivia! And believe me, I thought about it! You're not the only one who's been through the pain!"
Both women were silent as they looked at each other. A moment passed before Olivia tentatively reached her hand back out and Alex slowly moved her own arm out to grasp that hand once more.
"We suck at this," Olivia finally said.
"We do," Alex sniffled.
"I'm sorry…again."
"Me too…again. This was a terrible plan. I wanted to kick your ass, but not this hard."
Olivia laughed. "I'd kick my ass too. What I did was reckless and I knew it from the beginning. But I promise this isn't going to happen again, okay Al? I do promise, I'll promise it now."
"Don't make promises you can't keep," Alex said, a faint wink barely visible in the darkness. Olivia just shrugged her shoulders and rolled her eyes.
"All that trying to get me to promise and now you're telling me not to?"
"That's like asking to stop being Detective Benson. Although, if you find me stowed away in your back seat next time you drive off to do something stupid, don't be surprised."
"You wouldn't dare!"
"Try me, Liv. I said I couldn't lose you and that's true. If you fall I'm going down with you."
Olivia smiled adoringly at Alex, who grinned right back at her. "Who died and made you a cop?"
"Thankfully, not you." Alex leaned down to Olivia and gently kissed her, reveling in the warmth of the other woman's face, resting her hand on Olivia's neck and making sure she didn't cause the wounded detective any more pain, physical or emotional.
"I can't believe I waited twenty minutes to do that," Alex whispered.
"Hmm. Next time, leave the undercover work to me," Olivia smirked. Alex pinched her gently on her chest just hard enough to make Olivia go "Ow!" and then soothed the tiny injury with another soft kiss. She rolled over next to Olivia and pressed her lips to the brunette's again, not wanting to lose that contact ever again.
Seven hours (and very little sleep) later…
"God, I can't believe Cabot," Casey sneered.
"We shouldn't bring it up now," Elliot shushed her. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted movement from the bed inside the room. He glanced inwards. "Hey, is she waking up?"
"No, she's not moving. Wait…who's that in there…?"
A flash of yellow appeared from underneath the thin blanket and two narrow feet popped out from the other end. Alex sat up and took in her surroundings. Olivia was still peacefully sleeping next to her as the morning light brightly illuminated the white room. She smiled to herself and unconsciously stroked Olivia's cheek, careful not to stir the detective. Finally, she looked up and across the room, where Casey and Elliot stood and smiled.
"Well how about that, all of my faith in Cabot is not lost," Elliot remarked.
Alex just smiled sheepishly back and gave a small, awkward wave. Softly, she patted Olivia on the arm to wake her up gently.
When Olivia began to grunt in tired frustration, Alex just chuckled. "Liv, we have visitors."
So is all right with the world again? I hope so...