A.N. Not sure what to say about this. Just something I thought up after watching the episode. Takes place towards the end of the episode, where Olivia spends the night with Alex before the trial. Don't mind the bad . And for giving this story a chance, thank you. :) Disclaimer: I don't own SVU.

Updated A.N: I redid this chapter…finally.

Ghost: An Addendum

"You didn't see this file."

It couldn't be.

Alex took the manila folder, catching the unease on Olivia's face. Once again, the detective put her career in jeopardy. Alex opened it, smirking at the ammunition in Liam Connors's file. She never went to court unprepared, prosecutor or witness, and now she wouldn't have to. "Thank you, Liv."

Olivia smiled. "I'm glad you're back."

A moment of silence hung between them. Olivia turned to the window, her eyes scanning over the cityscape she'd seen many times. Intrigued, Alex couldn't help but watch her and smile. Closing the file, she put it on the windowsill and took a chance, pulling Olivia into a hug. It only took a moment for her to realize her mistake as Olivia stiffened, hesitating before she returned the embrace.

Alex furrowed her brow at how her heart beat against her chest at their closeness. Olivia still felt the same, had a warm aura that melted her in their embrace and relaxed the world around them. Her eyes closed in peace.

Searing hot agony pierced through her faster than she could react, knocking every ounce of air from her lungs. Pain radiating throughout her body, stinging with every pulse as ice cold chills flooded her.

She never thought the feeling of life leaving her body would be so calm. Then there was that familiar warmth over her, keeping her tethered to the real world. Brown eyes darted about her wildly, Olivia speaking words she barely heard through the pounding in her ears.

Alex's grip tensed around the woman in her grasp, but she tried not to cling too desperately. From over Olivia's shoulder, her eyes burned as memories from that awful night surfaced. She never thanked her, but without Liv she would've bled out long before the paramedics arrived.

Hands pressed to her shoulders and forced her back as Olivia backed out of the hug, wiping a tear from her eye as she walked away and took a seat on the couch.

Longer hair and a softer gaze. Things had changed about Liv, yet the familiarity between them lasted, as they picked up right where they left off almost two years ago.

"Alex, it's okay Alex, Alex look at me…"

Alex, that was her name, not Emily. No matter how hard she tried to assume her new role, it wasn't her. The suburbs? No, not for her. While it was peaceful, it was too stilted and—dare she say—fake; a peace too good to be true. And the insurance agency? God no, she was a prosecutor who belonged between the stuffy walls of the courthouse, testing the blood in the water before striking.

Sadness crept into her eyes as she watched the detective hang her head. "I heard you."

Olivia looked up, their eyes connecting. "Heard me say what?"

"My mind was going haywire..." Alex turned to the window, speaking soft with her arms hugged across her chest. "It felt like someone stabbed a white-hot fire poker into me with every ounce of their strength." She breathed out the recollection of agony, her eyes watering at the horrid memory. "If I think about it long enough, I start to feel it all over again." Alex said and grimaced slightly, closing her eyes with a squeeze as she remembered the hand that pressed unforgivingly into the wound. She opened her eyes, swiping a stray tear that fell down her cheek. "The harder you pressed, the more it hurt."

Alex turned to Olivia; the detective's mouth slightly agape and her brown eyes wide, horrified at hearing the admission. "You were doing your job."

Heaviness seeped into the room and Alex smiled acquiescently, realizing she'd soured the mood. "And it wasn't like I could protest." She continued anyway. It felt good, releasing the weight she'd carried on her shoulders for too long.

"Alex…"

The guilt in Olivia's voice pulled at her heartstrings. All she wanted was to hug her again, hold her again. She needed that easing comfort once more…but so did Olivia. She shouldn't have weighed Olivia down with her struggles.

"Do you know what it's like to feel paralyzed?"

Olivia's jaw clenched and she looked to her folded hands resting idly in her lap, not bothering to fill the silence.

"It's terrifying…to know that something's happening to your body, and you can't do anything about it."

The detective's brow lifted at the inward corners, but Alex continued.

"I saw you but...I couldn't respond." Alex paused. "And then...nothing. No pain…just…" She shrugged. "Nothing. The next memory I have is of Hammond standing over me in the hospital, talking to me about witness protection."

Just doing her job. Right, that's all it was. Alex was another victim to save, another case to solve.

"…Stay with me, stay with me Alex…Alex it's okay, look at me…"

Nothing. Alex said the word with such nonchalance, not at all aware of the living nightmare that ensued after she lost consciousness, flashing lights and wailing sirens all running together outside the ambulance windows during that chaotic ride to the hospital. Cardio machines beeping endless warnings as time froze.

She never forgot that night, or the void consuming the life in Alex's eyes with each passing moment.

'Come on Alex...hold on...please.'

Olivia bit the inside of her lip to contain the quiver she felt starting as snapshots of her frantic thoughts and their riling emotions returned. Dealing with death was a normal, if not, expected part of the job. Cragen put the team through mandatory counselling every time he felt his detectives were getting too detached. He said something about not wanting them to end up like him, plus, on paper counselling was an easy way to make I.A.B happy.

Seeing Alex with that same hollow gaze terrified her. She couldn't push that into the back of her mind, though she tried. Forced by Cragen, she ended up sitting across from the department psychologist the week after Alex's "death", but divulged little of her true feelings. That night haunted her, and she let it.

She squeezed Alex's hand all the way to the hospital, until the paramedics took it from her.

'Keep it together.' Elliot's words were barely more than a blur in the waiting room. She paced in front of the team and Elliot stood with her, keeping his voice at a level only she could hear.

A week of pure hell, long enough for the paper to run Alex's story—Slain Manhattan A.D.A.; their cases stalled while the D.A. scrambled to recover.

Alex stared out the window, as lost in thought as her, and Olivia walked over. Alex flinched at her touch, presumably out of surprise, but she still took Alex's arm gingerly and guided her to the couch. "You couldn't move because you were in shock." Olivia gently confessed with a sigh as they sat side by side. "The heart siphons blood from the rest of the body to keep your vital organs from failing."

"Is that what it was…"

"Mhm." Olivia acknowledged softly and leaned forward, her elbows at her knees as she kept her gaze trained on the coffee table. "We didn't have much time to get you to the hospital." Her lips pressed together, and her jaw clenched behind them. Alex was fine after all, no need to drum up emotions that had no use being shown. "They told Elliot and I that you died in surgery."

Necessary or not, that deception was the cruelest when her tears and the blood on her hands were very real.

Alex leaned into her, and Olivia watched stagnantly as Alex's hand took hers but didn't expect the arm that came around her back, or the other hand that rubbed consoling ups and downs along her arm. "Liv…"

"If not for you, we wouldn't have known the truth."

"…until now."

"…and what a surprise that would've been." Her heart thumped a little harder as Alex's touch slowed to a ruminating stroke. It calmed, aroused, and made her long for more at the same time. "Hammond said you were a pain in his ass."

"I was." Alex's chin rested on her shoulder and Olivia tensed for a second as their faces touched. "After everything you did, I couldn't leave you thinking the worst, that you failed."

Olivia bit her lip and turned her gaze in the opposite direction of Alex, blinking a few times to contain the sting welling behind her eyes.

"Thank you…"

Olivia relaxed at Alex's soft gratitude, hunching slightly in their embrace. Then, to her own surprise, she chuckled. "You owe me a hundred and fifty bucks."

Alex pulled away. "For what?"

Olivia felt Alex's gaze burning into the side of her face. "For dry cleaning."

Alex rolled her eyes and scoffed a grin. "I was dying."

"And you made a big mess of it." Olivia smiled.

With a sigh Alex found her place on the detective's shoulder once again. This time the gesture was less tentative and stiff, as though they'd sat like this many times before. As though it wasn't the first. Maybe the pacifying country fields, and hospitality of Wisconsin had softened her. Without the publicity surrounding the D.A.'s office, Alex didn't have to be constantly mindful or careful of how much of herself she allowed to show.

This Alex felt real, warm, and open. Not impervious as so many thought her to be.

"You left a pretty ungodly stain on the sidewalk."

Deep crimson, nearly black, she'd gotten a lengthy stare at the terrible puddle the moment paramedics transferred Alex into the ambulance.

"Do I owe them too?" The playful smile in Alex's voice lifted her spirits.

"Who?"

"The people who cleaned it up."

Olivia gave a wry chuckle. "Knowing this city, it's probably still there."

"We should—"

"No, I'm not taking you to see it." Olivia held a gentle smile, but her words were stern as she looked at her watch. "It's after 9." She pulled her hand from Alex's and gave the woman's thigh a quick squeeze. "You should prep for tomorrow." She let go and readied herself to stand, but Alex reclaimed her hand once more.

"I'm sorry Liv."

Olivia settled to the couch with an inward sigh. One for Alex's guilt, another for her own. She couldn't take much more of the conversation, but she'd try. Alex needed her now more than ever. "Sorry for what?"

"I don't know, everything…"

This time she took Alex's hand, suppressing a fleeting thought to entwine their fingers as she captured the memory of its warmth to replace the memory of its chill that night.

"If I'd stepped off the case—"

"Alex…"

"If I'd listened to you, instead of being so stubborn."

That might've been true. The ordeal of that night might've been avoided if Alex hadn't pushed to try the case herself. Or, it could've been worse. An assassin breaking into her house to shoot her in her sleep. Alex ending up like Antonio's parents. They couldn't predict what fate had in store.

"You're here now. That's what matters." Olivia said, clearing a catch in her throat and slipping from Alex's embrace all together to head to the bathroom. "I'll be back."

She closed the bathroom door and rested her forehead against the solid wood, letting a ragged breath escape from between her lips as her hand clutched the door handle. She survived, held her emotions back just long enough. In and out she breathed, trying to stay as quiet as possible as tears pooled in her eyes and her jaw clenched at the lump souring her throat.

After two years the physical memory of Alex's touch had just begun to fade. Now…

She braced the countertop and stared into the sink, turning the water on to mask the sobs she felt threatening to break.

'Keep it together.'

Her lip quivered but she continued to breathe slow and even, trying to blink back her tears, but they fell one after the other into the sink. After everything—witnessing Alex's shooting, the blood on her hands, Alex's return from the dead, the story about the claims adjuster, their long overdue hug, and Alex's embrace—she could only translate the onslaught of mixed emotions into tears.