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Ch.15
"I don't know who's worse you or her." Olivia said to Martin as she looked over at Alex. "You both need to get some sleep… in a bed, not in a chair, not in this hospital."
"I have the distinct feeling that neither Caroline nor I are going anywhere. We're both happy to see you."
"It's your duty to stay with me isn't it?" Olivia teased.
"It may be, but I've become quite fond of you and I have no intentions of you going missing again on my watch."
Olivia rolled her eyes giving Martin a slight smile.
"The doc said I could get out of here soon."
"A couple more days." Alex spoke up, clarifying.
Olivia made a face.
"She hates hospitals." Alex said taking Olivia's hand from her chair.
"I don't know of anyone that particularly loves them, but until they're sure about that head of yours." Martin said.
"I'm fine." Olivia protested.
"You were out for two days… you need time to rest. The CIA is footing bill, so rest!"
Alex looked up at Martin, grinning. She liked that he got Olivia.
She liked that he was putting a positive spin on the truth.
That yes she needed time to recover from her head injury, yes it didn't hurt to giver her arm recuperation time…
But he didn't mention the trauma of being raped, the consequences, the aftermath.
But he knew.
"They haven't found Lucas?" Olivia asked her eyes never reaching Martin's.
"Not yet." Martin said shoving his hands in to his pockets.
"Do you think he's still in Dublin?" Olivia asked her voice weak.
"We think so, his contacts are here so he probably hasn't gone far. It's just a matter of time before we get him."
Olivia shook her head to respond.
"What about Gareth?" She asked, mind clearly wrapped up in thoughts of him.
Martin took his hands from his pockets, clearly hesitating. He looked over at Alex and then back to her.
"He's dead."
Olivia swallowed the lump in her throat and physically clinched her fists shut.
"How?"
"He had been strangled, found him in the Seine River."
"Like Celeste?" Olivia asked, putting the pieces together.
Martin sat down on the edge of Olivia's bed.
"Samantha, Celeste was Lucas' wife."
"What?" she said confused.
"We think Lucas murdered Gareth in retaliation for Gareth killing Celeste."
Martin watched as Olivia physically took a heavy breath.
Letting it sink in.
All of it.
"And the money laundering, the babies?"
Alex glared at Olivia at the questions she was asking, not knowing the details.
The details of her operation.
"After they found Gareth, it seems the operation fell apart… We arrested men in his organization, closed down the club in Paris… his number two confessed in a plea deal."
"Celeste's baby?"
Martin shook his head no, not needing to explain further.
Alex looked confused but didn't dare ask.
"Hey, you just focus on getting better ok?" Martin said leaning in, before standing once again. "You don't need to worry about Lucas, we'll get him, I promise. You just need to take care of yourself, and let Caroline take care of you."
Martin squeezed Olivia's hand and then looked to Alex.
"I'll be outside if you need me."
"Thanks Martin," Alex said sincerely before he left the room.
Alex sat beside Olivia on the bed.
"Liv?"
Olivia was biting her lip.
"Tell me what you're thinking."
Olivia looked away for a moment, tears welling in her eyes. She then looked back at Alex.
"He didn't hurt me. Gareth… He was… really good to me, kind. He did everything to make me feel like I was the most important woman in the world… And I just couldn't wrap my head around him being a bad man though all the signs were around me, though Celeste warned me."
"Maybe he felt differently about you? Maybe he cared about you?" Alex reasoned.
"That's what I told myself. I told myself that maybe I was different than the other women, and that was why he made me feel the way I did for him."
Alex sat up, her spine tightening, her jaw clinched as she listened what Olivia was saying.
"Did you fall in love with him?" Alex asked bluntly.
"No… no. I just, he wasn't a bad man to me. Celeste told me I was just another woman he would use to get pregnant and take the baby. She said I was his type, and I was. I clearly was. Even Celeste and I had oddly similar features. But still I trusted him in some weird way, I didn't think he would kill me…"
"Wouldn't kill you like he killed Celeste?" Alex said, then immediately regretting her sarcastic tone.
Olivia looked up at Alex.
She looked at the look on her face, the look of horror in her eyes.
"Alex I didn't fall in love with him. I get it, it was all a mind fuck, but…" Olivia looked away. "He's dead, it doesn't matter."
"Liv, honey it does matter. It does ok... " Alex leaned down gently kissing Olivia's hurt shoulder.
Before Alex could continue her thoughts, a nurse making the bath rounds knocked and peered through the door.
"I hope I'm not interrupting?"
"No," Alex said solemnly looking back at the nurse.
"Ms. Taylor it's time for your bath."
Olivia looked panicked at the nurse.
"No, thank you, I'm fine. I can shower myself."
"Ms. Taylor, you need another day before you're up. It's still in the orders to keep you in bed."
Alex saw the look on Olivia's face.
"If you wouldn't mind just leave everything here I will help her." Alex said now standing with authority.
The nurse shook her head ok. "But no getting out of bed."
"No ma'am," Alex said with a now gentle smile.
The nurse left the room leaving the supplies for Olivia's bath.
"Sorry, that was just to get her go away… I mean I will help if you want me to help you, but I knew you didn't want her giving you a sponge bath and…"
"Alex." Olivia said stopping her rambling. "It's ok."
"I obviously was out cold the first time Nurse Rub A Dub, Dub was here. I think I would have remembered such an intimate encounter."
Olivia's ever present humor.
Alex let out a slight laugh. "I know, not exactly the most modest of things." Alex said gathering the tub and taking it in to the adjoining bathroom.
"Ok how should we do this?" Alex said coming back with a pan fulfilled with water.
"I can probably get most get most of it done myself." Olivia said trying to sit up, and immediately feeling dizzy.
"Liv?" Alex said quickly sitting the pan down and tending to her.
"I'm ok, just a little dizzy."
"Can I just…" Alex's voice lowered, "just let me help you ok?"
Olivia looked at Alex then nodded her head ok.
Alex walked over to the door and locked it, then pushing up her sleeves.
"Can I?" Alex said alluding to the blanket that covered Olivia's lower half.
Olivia looked at Alex again, her eyes dark.
"I… I got pretty banged up."
"I know." Alex said sympathetically.
"I don't want to scare you or freak you out if it looks bad, I'm fine."
"Yeah, I know you are." Alex said giving Olivia a shy smile.
With a nod of approval, Olivia helped Alex push down the blanket, where she and Alex both looked at her bare legs.
Bruised, cut, her knees and ankles raw from the cement.
"Maybe we shouldn't. Maybe I should let the nurse…" Olivia said seeing at the look on Alex's face.
"No… it's just… I'm ok, if you're ok." Alex said letting the image sink in to her brain.
"Yeah, I'm ok." Olivia said quietly.
Alex wanted to cry.
Cry for Olivia.
Instead, she began to drag the wet cloth down Olivia's bare legs.
"Too warm?"
"Feels… just right."
Alex noticed the chipped red nail polish on her toes.
The tips of her toes were raw as well, as if she had been drug.
Alex didn't ask.
She wouldn't ask.
"Will you let me know if I'm hurting you?"
"It doesn't hurt. I can't feel it anymore."
Alex continued, though she watched Olivia's face, her expressions.
She wondered if what she had just said was more truth than she let on.
Did it not hurt anymore because she wasn't allowing herself to feel anything?
Olivia felt Alex's hands on her as she crept further above her knee and stopped, quickly and noticeably pulling away and then taking Olivia's arm in her hand to bathe.
"Alex."
"I'm hurting you?" She asked, stopping abruptly.
Olivia took hold of Alex's hand.
"No, you're not hurting me." Olivia said capturing Alex's eyes with hers.
Olivia took a noticeable deep breath.
"You've never… it's silly considering the circumstances, but you've never seem me naked, never touched me."
"But I've wanted to. Doesn't that count for something?" Alex grinned, trying for a bit of humor.
Olivia smiled, then her face turned serious again.
"And I want you to touch me, see me naked, but I don't want the image of me, the way I look right now to make you not want to see me again."
"Liv. I've wanted you for so long and a few bruises and scrapes aren't going to make me not want to touch you, want you. Liv, I know you will heal and even if you didn't I'm in love with you.
"You're really in love with me?
Alex smiled.
"Yes, I'm really in love with you." Alex said squeezing Olivia's hand in hers. "I want you to be ok, be ok with me being here, with me touching you, helping you. I know we've never, I've never touched you like this and I wish it were under different circumstances… But Liv you have to know I would do anything for you and I would never do anything that made you feel less than."
"I know you wouldn't and I trust you more than anyone. It's just not the way I envisioned you touching me for the first time."
"You envisioned me touching you?" Alex teased trying to lighten the conversation.
Olivia actually let out a small breathy laugh.
Alex leaned in giving Olivia a simple kiss.
Olivia reached up tugging at the neck of her hospital gown.
Alex helped her, pulling the gown down past her shoulders, her arms.
Her back, her chest, her breathtaking body marred by yellowing bruises.
Alex began to run the wash across Olivia's shoulders, down her chest, across her ample breasts.
"You're so insanely beautiful."
The words seeped from Alex's lips.
"How can you say that? Look at me?"
"I'm looking… you're stunning."
Tears formed in Olivia's eyes as she looked at Alex.
Alex brushed the cloth down Olivia belly and pulled gently at the hospital gown left covering her.
She didn't have on underwear.
Alex continued to bathe her.
Suddenly Olivia began to have flashes of no underwear on.
Lucan Quinn had taken them from her.
Raped her.
Tears began to stream down her cheeks
"Liv…?" Alex said quickly stopping. "Are you ok?"
"Yeah, yeah I'm fine." Olivia said unconvincingly.
"Baby we can stop. I'll stop."
"I can't… ok. I can't..." Olivia said panicking.
Alex quickly grabbed Olivia's hospital gown and covered her.
Alex sat down on the bed, pressing her cheek against Olivia's to comfort her.
In hopes to clam her.
"It's ok, it's ok." Alex said pulling back to wipe Olivia's tears from her cheeks.
"Can you get me some underwear? I, I really need to get some…. He took mine."
The look on Olivia's face.
Alex thought she was going be sick as she swallowed back the bile in her throat.