A/N: I have not forgotten about this story or Upside Down Pineapples. I just have to go with the muse who was focused on memorizing a new set of SOP's and can now get back to the important things, like writing again. Since the muse has really kicked in hopefully the updates won't be so sporadic. I can't promise anything though. Just know that I will finish every story that I write no matter how long it takes.

From here on out there will be chapters written in each woman's point of view not just Alex's like I started with.

I feel as if I have been hit by a semi as I start to wake up. I lie there and try to recall who the perp that I fought was but I can't. Getting frustrated and annoyed with the constant beeping that I hear I start to sit up when I hear a soothing voice trying to keep me still. It is the voice that has haunted my dreams for the last year and a half but this time its filled with pain.

I relax and let Alex's voice sooth me as I start to remember the last time I had heard so much pain in a voice that was always angelic to me. It was the night she sat in our living room and told me about her affair. I wouldn't really call it an affair, it was more a one night stand with a woman whose name she doesn't know and never knew. I won't lie and say it didn't hurt me to know she had been with some else because it did. It shattered my heart in a way I never knew was possible. What really hurt me was when I sat there and watched her lie to me.

I had asked why did she sleep with a stranger and she tells me that she was too drunk to know what she was doing. She knew what she was doing and why she was doing it the same as I did. I was never home enough and when I was I could be distant. She wanted me home more but would never ask it of me so she spent more nights than any woman should alone. The saddest of that is that some of those nights that she felt so alone I was with in arms reach or was holding.

It was a hazard of the job and a trait I learned years earlier to deal with my lonely nights and ghosts. I'm a detective with the New York Police Department in a unit that is called the Special Victims Unit. Only a daily basis I hear and see the trauma of sexual sadists and child molesters. Sometimes the victims are lucky enough to be killed by their attacker and other times they are not. To see their pain filled eyes day in and day out is what tears me up. Those were the ones, the live victims that would keep me up at night. They were why I was distant at home.

I tried my best to change when I started dating Alex and I could see that it was truly going somewhere but I couldn't. Years of shutting myself off or just lying and saying everything was ok was engrained in me. Even though in the beginning Alex was our ADA and saw what I saw I still had the urge to protect her from my world. It was that urge that ultimately destroyed what I know was and will always be the love of my life.

Realizing that no matter how much I lay there and reminisce about the past I had to get my day started. I go to yawn and realize I can't. The more I try to open my jaw the more pain I am in and I cry out without realizing.

"Liv relax" I hear Alex say again as I feel her gently run her fingers through my hair.

I open my eyes slowly and quickly shut them to the blinding light and groan.

"Turn the lights off" I hear her order someone and within seconds I hear the click of the light switch.

I once again go to open my eyes and I am thankful that the lights are off. The first thing I realize is that the ceiling I am looking at is not the cribs or Rebecca's, the woman I have been seeing. Instead it reminds me of a hospital ceilings. It is then that I realize the steady beeping that I was thinking was my alarm was actually machines registering my heartrate, BP, and breathing. Whoever attacked me had managed to place me in the hospital and it was obviously bad enough to notify Alex.

"Hey partner" I hear and look to my left and see my partner and best friend, Elliot Stabler.

That tells me that whatever has happened to me was close to death. I say that because not only are Alex and Stabler within reach and being civil but because he has notified Alex.

I go to open my mouth and cry out in pain once again.

"Your mouth is wired shut" Alex tells me as I turn to look at her and see the tears forming in her eyes. Even though she has hurt me in the worst imaginable way it destroys me to see her cry. I reach for her and she quickly takes my hand and place it back by my side. I should have known better than to reach for her. She no longer wants me or desires my touch. We have divorce papers drawn up and have discussed how to dissolve our marriage but neither one of us has signed them.

I don't want her to see the pain of her rejection so I look away and stare at a spot on the wall.

"I'm not refusing your touch" she whispers to me as she tries to coax me into looking at her but I refuse

It hurts me even more that she can still read me like a book. Hell she reads me even better than Rebecca and I've been sharing a bed with her for the last few months. Then again something tells me that she will always read me better than anyone else and that thought hurts me more than it should. I guess mainly because I know she is my soulmate.

"You have broken ribs and the doctor wants you to remain as still as possible." She informs me "You have also had reconstructive surgery on your face as well. They had to completely rebuild your sinus cavity, place a plate at the bottom of your left eye and place some mesh along with a plate on the bottom of your right eye. We won't know for a few days if there is any damage to the vision in your right eye. We have to wait for the swelling to go down."

My eyes dart around the room in search of a mirror but I don't see one.

"Here" Alex states as she reaches in her purse and pulls out her little hand held mirror.

I take it from her and hold it up to see what she is talking about. I drop the mirror and sob when I see my face. There are cuts on my face that required stitching, my right eye is so swollen and bruised I think I have fought Mike Tyson.

"We'll get through this." She tells me as she places a kiss on my hand.

Her words and actions shock me so much that I jerk in response. It's not that I don't want her touch. God do I want her touch. There are times that I imagine its her touching me when it's really Rebecca just so I can get off during sex.

That's when it hits me. Rebecca isn't in the room and there are no traces of her ever being here. She isn't standing by my bedside in crumpled clothes and with exhausted eyes. It's not her overnight bag that I see over by the window.

It's Alex's.

Alex is the one standing by my side in my darkest hour. It's Alex shinning the light so that I can see when I think everything is over. It's Alex who, despite being separated from me for so long, has said 'we'll get through this'. I know without a doubt it will be Alex by my side through every painful step of recovery.

The question that is going through my mind as I lay back and close my eyes is will she stay afterwards or will she leave once I am healed. I don't know and I'm not sure which one of those I want.