Repeat

Olivia Benson opened her eyes. She felt the pounding pain, still present in her body, but this time, she remembered where she was. She was in a hospital. They had told her that before. She felt like they had told her a lot of things before, but some of them were fuzzy. She tried to look around. There was the ceiling she had seen a million times before. Last time she woke up, Alex had been there. She hoped…

She tried to turn her head to look. Her neck was stiff, it was strange. She felt like she had been hit by a train. Maybe she had. She was in the hospital. She reached out for Alex. Maybe she was here. In a moment, she felt a hand in hers. It was soft and warm. Olivia's fingers felt cold and the warm hand brought life back to them. Alex, she thought. At the thought of Alex, she wanted to smile.

"Hi, sweetheart," Alex said, with a smile, leaning over the bed. Olivia looked over to see her. She smiled at the bright blue eyes and the blonde hair leaning over the bed. Alex looked tired, her eyes had dark circles under them. Olivia frowned. "How are you feeling sweetie?"

Olivia looked at her, her eyes blinking as she tried to evaluate what Alex had said to her. Her brain was processing so slowly, she knew that she wasn't doing it right, but she couldn't put a finger on what was quite wrong. "Alex." She whispered.

Alex leaned against the bed. "That's right, sweetheart." She said. "I'm Alex. Do you know where you are?" She asked

"Hospital," she whispered.

"That's right, Liv," she cooed.

"What happened?" Olivia whispered quietly.

Alex tried to maintain her smile. This was the part Olivia never remembered. They had this same conversation every time her eyes flickered open. The doctor had told her that between the morphine they were giving her for her pain, and the general confusion of waking up after an accident it was common to have some short term memory loss.

It was frightening for her; scary that Olivia could ask the same questions over and over, and each time be entirely surprised by the same answers. As much as she had wanted to believe that Olivia would open her eyes and be normal, she had to slowly start to admit that it wasn't going to work that way. At the same time, looking around the ICU unit, Alex was thankful that it wasn't more that Olivia had lost.

"You were in a car accident, Liv." Alex explained patiently.

"Was anyone else hurt?" Olivia asked quickly. Alex stared at the floor. It was the same question Olivia asked every single time they had this talk. It showed her selflessness and her big heart, but Alex hated the cosmic truth of the situation—that no, no, Olivia was the only one who had crawled away broken.

"No baby." Alex says quietly. She squeezed Olivia's hand and gave her a brave smile. Olivia closed her eyes for a moment, evaluating her body. She could feel pain; she could feel things that weren't right. She opened her eyes.

"What happened to me?" She asked quietly.

Alex sat down on Olivia's bed. She leaned into her so she was sure Olivia could see her eyes. "You got hurt." Alex said, slowly. "You had surgery on your leg. It was, broken, um, and they had to fix it." Alex stuttered. "And you have some broken ribs."

"I can feel that," Olivia said. Olivia tried to adjust herself, and Alex could see the pain flash in her eyes.

"One of them punctured your lung, they had to put a tube into your side, and you, lacerated your kidney. They thought they would have to remove it, but they managed to save it. You got lucky. " Alex said.

"God," Olivia mumbled. "No wonder I feel like shit."

"You, you also hit your head. Pretty hard. You, you really scared me Liv." Alex said.

"Why?" Olivia asked.

"We didn't know what was going to happen. You could've…" Alex let the words die on her tongue too afraid to speak them out loud.

Olivia saved her. "But I didn't."

"I'm glad." Alex said, leaning over her, putting a light kiss on her cheek. "I love you, Olivia."

"I love you too, silly." Olivia said, blushing at the sentiment.

"How does it feel to know you're stuck with me?"

"Amazing." Alex squeezed her hand.

Sweeter words had never been spoken.

To Be Continued…