AN: Ok, here is chapter 5. This is going to be the last chapter for a while, RL is really consuming me. Univeristy is just a pain. But I promise I'll resume it ASAP! Probably at some point later this week or on the weekend. Again, thank you for the reviews guys, it means a lot!

FrostyFingers, this chapter is for you. Hope your dream is well written here haha :D

Dislaimer: I own nothing

Liz started to take notice of her surroundings as she slowly regained consciousness. She could feel something soft underneath her. 'Probably a bed,' she thought. Her head was hurting a little as a headache started to make its announcement. Slowly opening her eyes, she had to blink a couple of times to get used to the brightness in the room. The IV in her right arm made it clear to her that she was lying in a hospital bed, only that she couldn't remember what for. Looking around the room, the first thing she noticed was a hat. Not just any hat. His kind of hat. A fedora. She felt a weight pressing down her left hand and she tugged a little to get it free, not liking the confined feeling.

Red jostled awake at the sudden movement and realized that Liz had finally woken up. He immediately tried composing himself as she finally locked eyes with him. His own grey-greenish ones filled with tears as the biggest smile of relief came to his face. "Lizzie…" he whispered and his voice sounded strangled as if he could barely hold it together. "How are you feeling? Are you in pain? Do you want me to get a doctor?" Liz remained unmoving as if not believing that it really was him sitting there. At the sound of his voice, all the memories from the last four months came back to her mind as if a trigger had been pulled. He was leaving; she was crying; Cooper was suspending her; she was stopping to eat; she was starting to drink; the bar; that guy sitting down next to her; that guy and pain... just so much pain.

She started panicking as the realization of what had happened to her settled inside. She tried to free herself from all of the plugs linked to her body, but as soon as she began, Red was on his feet, gently pulling her into his arms. "Shh... sweetheart, it's okay. I'm here now, you're okay."

But she just kept fighting him, not wanting him to touch her. She felt a bile rising in her throat and she mumbled, "I'm gonna throw up." He simply reached for the trashcan beside her bed and held it for her while she emptied her already empty stomach into the plastic container. The pain from her injured stomach suddenly made itself known and she screamed out and doubled over, clutching at her tummy. At the sight of her agonizing pain, Red immediately shouted for Dembe to get help.

After only a few seconds that felt more like hours, the doctor, accompanied by a nurse entered the room followed close by Dembe to check on her. "We need to get her to relax. Haldol, five milligrams, stat!" The doctor commanded to the nurse as she pulled a syringe out of a drawer and injected it into her IV. Only moments later Liz was calm again, lying heavily against the pillows piled up on her bed.

As the doctor started making his way out of the room, he signalled to have a word with Red. "You have to calm down your wife. If she keeps hurting herself we'll have to sedate her again," he said and left Red to his own thoughts. He went back after a while and tried to approach Liz once again. Seeing him coming closer, Liz felt an uneasiness she couldn't explain.

Grabbing her head in her hands and curling up as if trying to protect herself, she started crying, "No, no, please don't! Please don't touch me! Don't hurt me! Please, please! Leave me alone!"

Red stopped in the middle of the room and looked as if someone had just ripped his heart out of his chest. Dembe took pity on his friend and grabbed him by the arm to drag him out to the corridor, making him sit in one of the chairs. Going back into the room, Dembe tried speaking to her in a soothing tone, "Liz, it's ok. It's me, Dembe. You don't have to be afraid ok?" He said carefully as if trying not to startle a frightened animal. When she turned her head towards the man and acknowledged his presence, it felt as if a big weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She somehow felt safe because she knew that she could always trust Dembe. He hadn't chosen to abandon her.

Seeing that he had managed to keep her calm, he smiled gently at her. "You can sleep now, Liz. I'm going to be right outside the room, okay? Get some rest."

As he turned to leave and opened the door, he heard a quiet, "Thank you, Dembe." And he glanced at her once again to let her know that everything was going to be okay. He walked out and took a seat next to Red, whose eyes seemed fixed on a point on the wall in front of him.

"She's resting now." Not getting any response, he decided to try to soothe his friend's pain. "Just give her time, Raymond. Everything will -" He was interrupted in the middle of his sentence as Red got up and started making his way to the elevators.

Noticing Dembe was following him, Red said over his shoulder, "Stay with her. She needs you more than me." And with that he was gone, leaving the other speechless.

As the days went by, Red had yet to return to the hospital. Dembe was left to take care of Liz and she seemed to be doing amazing progress. Her bruises weren't as prominent anymore, her wounds had healed somewhat and she was eating regularly, which made her gain back some of the weight she had unnecessarily lost. But she would still get a lot of headaches and therefore decided to try sleeping most of the time.

Dembe would sit by her side during the day and the both of them would share travel experiences and childhood memories, laughing as if nothing bad had ever happened, but he knew that she would start to cry the moment he left and closed the door to her room.

Five days after Red had left the hospital, Dembe was telling her about the time he spent in Krakow, careful enough not to mention his friend, when he noticed a sad smile on her face. "What's wrong, Liz?" He asked.

She turned her head to face him and he could see the tears threatening to fall from her eyes. "He's not coming back, is he?" At Dembe's silence, she just continued. "It's been five days now. I screwed up badly and now he won't come to see me again."

Seeing the first salty drops starting to run freely down her cheeks, Dembe squeezed her hand and with the best smile he could give her, tried to reassure her, "He will come back, Liz. You didn't do anything wrong. He's just giving you some space." Accepting his words, Lizzie simply nodded and laid her head back down on the pillows. Soon she had drifted off to sleep again.

Dembe rose from his chair and quietly made his way out of the building. He knew what he had to do, but it wouldn't be easy.

Arriving at their current safe house, Dembe walked inside and immediately spotted Red seated on the couch, staring out of a window, with a glass of Scotch in one hand and the bottle that held, at the most, five more refills inside, on the table next to him. "You need to pull yourself together, my friend. She asked for you today," he said with a smile on his lips. Red seemed to ignore him and just kept staring out of the window. "Raymond, she believes that you don't want to see her again because she may have screwed things up. She needs you, my friend. Go to her."

But the only reaction he received was Red taking another sip of his drink. 'Maybe he still needs some time.' With that in mind, Dembe decided not to push the topic any further and left for his room, in order to get some sleep before going back to the hospital in the morning.

The next morning, Dembe made his way to the hospital and decided to stop by the gift shop to buy Liz a box of chocolate so she would have something different from the horrible hospital food to eat. Just as he was about to open the door to her room, he spotted Red coming out of the elevator, carrying a single red rose in his hand. They had a silent exchange as Dembe handed him the chocolate box and then stepped back from the door. Red nodded to his friend in a way of thanks and slowly opened the door, afraid of what might expect him on the other side.

Hearing the door open, Liz' head shot up from behind the book she was reading. "Dembe, this bo -" She froze upon seeing him, not sure what to say next, but at the same time feeling relieved by his presence. Her eyes filled with tears of happiness and she chided herself for her emotional state, but the thought of never seeing him again had been on her mind for too long.

Seeing her reaction, Red felt relief settling inside him. She was not yelling at him to go away and she even seemed happy to see him. It was as if she actually wanted him to be there. He moved to sit in the chair by her bed and handed her the chocolate box and the red rose. "For you, sweetheart."

"Thank you, Red." She gave him a shy smile.

Hearing his name dropping from her sweet lips brought a big smile to his face. It meant more to him than he would have ever thought possible; the feelings inside him stronger than he was willing to admit if asked.

"How are you feeling?" He decided to start out with small talk, for which she was glad.

"A lot better actually. Nothing really hurts that much anymore," she replied while never letting her eyes leave his. They fell silent, not entirely sure how to proceed and just kept looking at each other. They were both restless as they tried to think of a way to overcome the silence until neither one of them was able to keep from touching the other anymore and both reached for the other's hands at the same time.

"Lizzie, I'm so, so sorry for leaving, sweetheart. If I'd known any of this would happen, I would never have left. You have to know that." His voice suddenly failed as a lump came to his throat.

"Why did you?" Her voice was so small that he almost missed it, had it not been for the silence in the room; as he watched the tears that were already rolling freely down her face.

"Because I was afraid of my feelings for you, Lizzie. You have to know that they are very strong and I was so afraid of losing you because of that, but it seems as if I only made things much worse. And I am sorry for that, sweetheart." He choked out. She was amazed to see tears falling from his long golden lashes.

"I went through hell, Red. When you left, it was as if someone had pulled the carpet from under my feet and I kept falling, but I never reached the ground. I didn't find the will to eat anymore, I started drinking so much there wasn't a time I was awake when I wasn't drunk." The tremble in her voice was getting worse just before she started to sob. Red kept swallowing hard to try to control his own emotions and squeezed her hand to let her know he was there to support her. "Until that night. I don't know what made me to go into that bar. I think I was so desperate for a drop of alcohol that anything was good, really. And then I just remember… him dragging me out and…" She was sobbing so hard now that she couldn't continue the story.

Red felt his heart break inside his chest. His Lizzie, so damaged and broken. He had to hold her, he just had to. Their joined hands were no longer enough. He reached for her and gently gathered her in his arms, immensely relieved when, instead of pulling away, she scooted to the side to make room for him to join her on the hospital bed and pulled him with her. He didn't waste any time and climbed in to better hold her against his chest, trying to soothe some of her pain and letting her know that he was there for her and he would never leave her side again.

She grabbed onto his suit lapels and pulled him even closer, finding comfort in his scent that she had missed so much, as she wept in both physical and emotional pain but also in happiness, knowing that he was there, holding her. That she would be well cared for now. That the future seemed a lot brighter than it had last week. With those thoughts she drifted off to what would be the first dreamless sleep she had had in months.