Olivia looked out the window of her apartment, tracing the skyline with her gaze. The sun was nearly completely set across the horizon, and the streetlights had begun to flicker on, illuminating the streets below. Leaning against the windowsill, she felt something in her pocket and pulled it out. The crumpled card, adorned with the logo of a fist and the title “LesBeStrong” weighed heavy in her hands.
She heard her lock click and the handle of her door turn unexpectedly, and her anxiety spiked. She grabbed her gun from where it had been discarded on her coffee table and spun, training it on the door.
There stood Alexandra Cabot, hands up and looking surprised behind her oval glasses.
Olivia softened, her arms sagging. She set the weapon down on the table and cocked her head.
“You know, knocking would have been appropriate.” She sunk onto the couch and looked up at Alex questioningly. What was she doing here? They had just closed the case tonight, and Cragen had sent the squad home to rest. In the past, at least, Alex had called ahead if she was coming. It wasn’t normally completely unprompted. But that was then. This was now.
“I did,” She responded, closing the door behind her and hanging her overcoat on the hooks by the door. “You obviously didn’t hear it.”
“I guess I’ve got a lot on my mind.”
Alex crossed the room, heels clacking on the wooden floor, and sat in an armchair across from her, legs immediately crossed at the knee. She kept talking, “Nice work today in interrogation, you played the part spectacularly well. Had me convinced, at least.”
“Yeah, well, I guess I have experience.” She said bitterly, curling her legs up next to her on the couch. Her statement hung there in silence, and she watched Alex studying her face. The tone had shifted somehow, Alex catching on to the energy in the room.
“What’s wrong, Liv?” she asked, “Cat got your tongue?”
Olivia shifted. “You know, it’s funny you say that, actually.” She paused, looking away from Alex to study the cracking paint above the curtains. She sighed, looking back to the blonde A.D.A before continuing. “Do you remember two nights ago, when I was assigned to stay with Babs for the first night shift?”
“Yeah,” Alex mused, “That was the night Luft was collared and Sharon beat the crap out of him.”
“That night, Babs tried to kiss me,” Olivia finally admitted, averting her eyes from Alex yet again. It felt good to finally say it on her own volition, instead of having it wormed out of her by Elliot.
“Oh,” Alex responded carefully. Olivia could hear her tone shift into something detached and professional. “What did you do?”
“I pushed her away. Told her I was straight. The standard.”
“Then, why are you so shaken up about it?” Alex asked. Straight to the heart of the matter. Olivia never trusted lawyers all that much. Too precise and exact. She took another breath before standing up and walking towards her kitchen.
“Would you like a glass of wine?”
“Answer my question.”
Ouch. Olivia had forgotten there was no evading Alex when she wanted an answer. The talent for working the truth out of someone wasn't just for the courtroom. Olivia pulled two glasses out of a cabinet and set them down her cabinet with a clink. “I’m not on the stand, Miss Cabot. Red or white?”
Alex straightened in her chair and pushed her eyebrows together, assessing the woman across the room from her. Olivia could see her weighing whether or not to keep pushing. “Red,” she answered simply.
There was silence as Olivia crossed the small kitchen for the bottle before turning back and uncorking it. As she poured the wine, she finally broke the silence.
“It wasn’t so much the action as what she said afterward.” Olivia set the bottle down. Anxiety churned in her gut, and over what she wasn’t so sure. “Something about repression -- the heart wants what the heart wants.”
Alex stood, walking over to the counter where Olivia was. “And, what does the heart want?”
Olivia took her in, still in court attire from earlier that day. She had shed her heels and blazer by the chair, but she still managed to stand taller than her, walking with sophisticated ease. The top three buttons of her shirt were undone, her hair curling loosely around her shoulders. Olivia traced the graceful sweep of Alex's collarbone. They couldn’t keep doing this.
Well, that was an over-exaggeration. Obviously, in some sense of the word, they currently were doing it. But there was an inevitability that it would end, just like it did last time. But, enjoying it while it lasted wasn’t a crime, right?
“You already know the answer to that,” Olivia replied, looking up into her deep blue eyes. It was intoxicating, almost.
And suddenly they were kissing, and it was so familiar that Olivia had to grab on to the side of the counter for leverage. It had been so long since they’d last kissed like this. Alex cupped the side of her face, and Olivia leaned into the kiss, realizing just so much she had missed this.
Kissing Alex was an intoxicating experience every time it happened, and it took Olivia a few moments to regain her breath. With Alex suddenly being back, Olivia had no idea of what it meant of their relationship before. Everything felt different now. And, surprisingly, it still hurt. It hurt so much more than she thought it would, having Alex disappear and reappear in her life. She pulled away quickly, refusing to meet the blonde’s eyes.
“Alex-”
Alex’s eyes widened, taking in what she had just done.
“I-- I know. Let’s worry about it later.“ She took one of the glasses for herself and was looking down at Olivia.
“What really upset you?” She asked, walking back towards the couch, Olivia followed lamely, wine glass cradled in both hands. She sat back down in her spot on the couch, and was surprised when Alex joined her there, taking a lazy sip of her drink and setting the glass on a side table.
Olivia looked at Alex Cabot and then down at her lap.
“It was just how quickly she made me for a dyke,” Olivia cradled her glass, still curled up on her side of the couch.
Alex shifted forward, concerned but still calculating. “A woman in your position, I’m sure that’s not the first time you’ve heard that one.”
“From insecure men, sure. But it was different coming from a woman. Especially a woman who… is,” Olivia mused, “And…”
“And?”
“I even asked Elliot if I gave off a gay vibe,” Olivia took a sip of her wine. “He wouldn’t give me a straight answer.”
“He’s your partner, Liv, surely he knows-”
“No, he doesn’t, Alex. No one does.”
“I do.”
“Yeah, but you’re… different,” She swung her legs over the front of the couch, slouching with her feet on the ground. Her anxiety and frustration boiled in her gut. “Is it really that easy to tell?”
“Well, I’m biased-” Alex began.
“Still,” Olivia insisted.
“I don’t know, Liv. No matter what, people are going to speculate. A woman in power -- you, me -- is bound to get questions. It’s just up to you how you handle them.”
“You know I can’t just come out. Can you imagine the backlash? It would be a publicity nightmare, Alex.” Olivia could just imagine the look on Elliot’s face. If he was upset when she hid any prospective male partners from him, how would he feel when he found out even that was a sham?
“Huang did it, though,” Alex mused into her glass.
“But Huang’s different. He’s a psychiatrist, not a decorated officer. There’s a lot more leniency in his line of work as opposed to mine. And, he’s not sleeping with the Special Victims Unit A.D.A.” Olivia tacked that last line on, looking to Alex to gauge her response. Surprisingly, the blonde and a small smile tugging at her lips playfully.
“So, that’s what I am, huh? A sexual partner?” Alex asked smile draped loosely across her lips. She took a sip and the expression fell cooler, more precise, “It’s been years, Olivia.”
Olivia remembered, clear as day, exactly when the last time was. Right before they caught the Zapata case, she and Alex had finally followed each other home for the first time in weeks. It was always casual, with no promise of future fulfillment and decidedly no discussion of labels. Strictly business, excluding the rare moments when Alex threw her head back with an electrifying moan and arched her back into Olivia.
Olivia shook her head, pulling herself back into the present. “Well, extenuating circumstances prevented that one,” Olivia rebutted, looking at Alex carefully. The attorney shifted, leaning into the couch.
“We were so young,” Alex mused, twirling the wine in her glass.
There was a pregnant pause.
“Why are you here, Alex?” Olivia asked, “Why the barging into my apartment? Why the questioning?” And why the kiss? She thought, but didn’t include. It wasn’t an attack, really. More of an inquiry. A desperate plea.
Alex regarded Olivia carefully.
“Do you remember the year I joined the squad?”
“That was ten years ago,” Olivia replied, not following the blonde’s logic.
“You had that short haircut and Fin said you looked like a bull-dyke.”
Olivia laughed suddenly. She remembered it like it was yesterday.
She had kept awkwardly touching her neck that entire day. Her skin felt barren, and she was missing the dark brown hair that dramatically framed her face only a few days prior. She kept reaching to push a lingering strand of hair behind her ear, only for her fingers to be confronted with nothing but air.
The haircut had actually been an accident due to an exuberant hairdresser, but she had been too stubborn to admit that.
Change is good, she had reminded herself in the mirror that morning. Change is good.
Change seemed to be the motto of the week, between the Morris Commission crawling up everyone’s asses and threatening Monique and Elliot’s jobs. With Abbie Carmichael’s departure and the supposed arrival of a new A.D.A., the department seemed to be spinning on its heels trying to recuperate.
Munch had been the first to comment. A simple raised eyebrow and tilt of his head was enough to let her know that she had been spotted. She gave him a tight-lipped, self-conscious smile as Elliot stormed into the precinct in a loud Hawaiian shirt and tennis shoes.
“Jimmy Buffet in town?” Munch asked.
And just like that, her haircut was forgotten.
Later that week, following the successful indictment of a young boy’s molester, the squad had met for drinks. The energy was different, with Monique gone and Fin her replacement, but there was nothing that could be done about that. Elliot had just raised his glass (“to new beginnings”) when she heard the familiar clack of heels against tile that she had learned to recognize as A.D.A. Alexandra Cabot.
Olivia had been skeptical of Ms. Cabot -- or Alex, as Cragen had insisted they call her -- the moment she appeared investigating the Morris Commission's review. Strikingly tall and alluringly blonde, she had clacked her heels against the precinct’s floor and taken a seat on the edge of Olivia’s desk like she owned it.
(The action irked Olivia on principle more than anything else).
But now, a cold hand clasped her shoulder as Alex Cabot joined them at the table. The touch was inconsequential, a mere form of greeting, but it left a burning mark on her arm, and she shook her head to clear it of any thoughts as Alex took a seat between her and Elliot.
“Congratulations, detectives. This case will be an easy decision for the jury.” Cool and professional, she gave a curt nod. Olivia suddenly couldn’t take her eyes away.
“Cheers to that,” Elliot had responded, raising his glass.
“Man, do you guys talk about anything other than the job?” The newcomer, Fin, asked.
“Alright, cowboy, what is it that ails you?” Munch inquired playfully.
“Olivia,” Fin began, “does your hair always make you look like a bull-dyke?”
The raucous laughter that erupted from the table was intertwined with the tinkling laughter of the blonde beside her, and Olivia’s embarrassment was almost erased just by the sound of it. She ran a hand through her hair and shook her head.
“The haircut was an accident,” she said then, and she repeated now to the same blonde who was now sitting across from her in her living room.
“Even if it was, Fin’s assumption wasn’t,” Alex noted.
“I guess it’s just something I can’t escape.”
“For the record, I always liked your short hair.”
Olivia smiled, cradling her glass between her two hands, and looked up at the woman across from her. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Alex affirmed, setting her glass down on the coffee table. She stretched, and Olivia followed the sharp angle of her jaw and it’s graceful curvature into her neck. She couldn’t tear her eyes away.
“Olivia, we don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to,” Alex said, breaking Olivia’s concentration. Aware that she had been caught looking, she averted her gaze and again stared at the cracking paint above her curtains. She sighed.
“No, Alex, we have to. This -- whatever this is now -- isn’t going to work like it did in the past.”
Alex looked thoughtfully across the couch at her. She nodded.
“Okay, Olivia. So talk.”
There was a pause as Olivia gathered her thoughts. How to explain this whirlwind of emotions that was threatening to consume her?
“The year you joined the squad, your predecessor, Abbie Carmichael? She helped me figure out… things.”
“Oh my god, did you sleep with Abbie Carmichael?” Alex laughed bemusedly, and Olivia scrambled to recover.
“No, no! It wasn’t like that. She.. she was the first openly gay woman I had ever met. It was… eye-opening, to say the least, hearing her talk about being with women as casually as Elliot talked about being with his wife. She helped me come to terms with my own…” She couldn’t say it but made a vague gesture instead. Alex nodded sympathetically. Olivia allowed her gaze to linger for an additional moment before cleared her throat and continued.
“She also told me her basic rule for sleeping with people in my department -- only do it once.”
At that, Alex laughed but remained wordless. She nodded, allowing Olivia to continue.
“And then you came along, all high and mighty, and through all your attractively insufferable righteousness I kept telling myself I would only let it happen once -- whatever ‘it’ meant.”
Olivia remembered exactly how it had happened. It had been a late, brutal night in the courtroom. The defense attorney was vicious, all redirects and objections, but Alex had taken each blow calmly before retaliating with her own carefully crafted web of words. It was incredible to watch.
Munch and Fin were never the types to attend court if they didn’t have to, and Elliot had bailed on her earlier in the evening, citing the twin’s science project as the reasons for his absence and thus leaving Olivia alone to spectate Alex Cabot as she danced about the well of the courtroom.
“Objection, your honor!” Alex broke in as the defense attorney stood, a new piece of evidence in her hand, “This is highly prejudicial to the jury.”
Opposing counsel cast a glance over to Alex. “It goes to show my client’s state of mind at the time of his alleged attack. Taking in the context of this rhetoric that he grew up in and was submerged in, it paints a different picture on what instigated the incident.”
“So we have excuses for brutally mutilating women, now?” Alex shot back derisively.
“Miss Cabot,” the judge looked over his spectacles with a warning glance. He shifted under his robes and straightened. “Counselors, approach.”
The murmurs from the bench didn’t quite reach into the gallery, so Olivia took this as a moment to look around the courtroom. The defense attorney’s desk was a stack of folders knocked askew, a whirlwind approach that was attempting to steamroller the prosecution. Alex’s desk was immaculate, water glass half full on the edge of the table and pen laid askew across the legal pad. The only hint of untidiness was only visible as Olivia squinted, the looping handwriting of her colleague scribbled in all corners of the page. Her gaze wandered past the desks and to the back of Alex Cabot’s carefully tailored suit, a skirt that sat professionally right above the knee and clung to her lithe frame.
The wall the two attorneys formed broke as the judge motioned across the courtroom.
“Well, folks, it is very late. Let’s call it a night. This court will reconvene tomorrow at 9 am.”
With a bang of the gavel, the court shifted, jurors gathering handbags and hats as onlookers stretched and made their way towards the large double doors.
The night was warm, Olivia remembered. She had stood on the steps of the courtroom, looking out at the cloudless night. Alex Cabot had appeared beside her, briefcase tucked under one arm and eyes also set to the stars.
Olivia had been the first to speak, she remembered.
“Tough case.”
Alex dropped her gaze from the sky and cocked her head at the detective. “The jury will pull through. Defense can only plug so many holes before the whole dam bursts.”
“You sound confident,” Olivia remarked, watching as the corner of Alex’s mouth quirked up into a half-smile.
“I’ve found my smoking gun, that’s all.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Alex replied, a smile curling playfully at the corners of her lips. Olivia felt herself smiling back for no good reason at all.
“Well,” Olivia rocked on her heels nervously. She felt like there was some bigger picture that she was missing, missing a piece of the puzzle that would put the whole image in perspective. “I have faith in you, Counselor.”
“Yeah?” Alex asked.
“Yeah,” Olivia replied, mirroring the affirmation from before.
The smile that had been threatening to crack her usual icy demeanor finally overtook Alex’s features, her eyes crinkling warmly. Olivia felt something stir deep in her chest, and as she went to push it down, it slid between her fingers and caught in her throat.
“Are you taking a cab home?” Alex asked.
Olivia nodded. “I was just about to call one when you walked out.”
“I’ll drive you.”
Olivia blinked. The feeling caught in her throat, and when she opened her mouth to speak, no words came. She cleared her throat and tried again.
“You don’t have to do that, Cabot. I’ll be fine.”
“It’ll save you the cab fare. Driving clears my head, I don’t mind,” Alex replied. Olivia looked at her, taking in the street lights reflecting in her blue eyes. She made a decision.
“I would be stupid to refuse a ride from Manhattan’s finest A.D.A.”
Alex smiled again, and it took all of Olivia’s self-control not to beam back at her.
Sitting in the passenger seat of Alex’s not-quite expensive but decidedly comfortable car, Olivia figured she always knew something was different about her.
It was something different in the way that her jeans were always ripped from wear, the way she refused to wear a ribbon in her hair even when her mother insisted. Something different in the way that she used to look at the girls in the skating rink, all electric blue eyeshadow and sinfully tight pants, cigarettes hanging from their baby pink lips. The way she’d felt when her freshman year roommate used to run her fingers through Olivia’s hair when they’d sit and watch sitcoms in their dorm room. It was in the way that she didn’t actually remember anything about those shows, just the feelings of gentle fingers against her scalp and the rhythmic breaths of another woman beside her.
All of these feelings and she had no idea what they meant until Abbie Carmichael asked over coffee one slow morning when she had first known she was a lesbian. Olivia had looked at her dumbfounded, her mouth gaping and eyes wide.
And suddenly, the lens on her life shifted into focus
Just as it was shifting now as she directed Alex Cabot through the restless streets of New York City.
“Left,” she instructed as Alex signaled. The blonde’s long fingers gripped the steering wheel with ease and Olivia let her gaze trace the delicate knuckles and pearly skin that practically glowed under the slanting beams of streetlights.
“My building is up here on the right. You can pull into the parking garage at the crosswalk.”
“Here?” Alex asked, signaling as Olivia nodded confirmation. She pulled into a spot and shifted the car into park, letting the headlights bounce off of the concrete wall. Looking across the car at the side profile, Olivia decided that Alex could very well have been a greek goddess, immortalized forever in flawless marble.
“Thank you for the ride, Counselor,” Olivia said softly.
“Alex,” she corrected. “Call me Alex. And it’s no problem, Detective.”
“Olivia,” she corrected a giddy feeling in her gut. “Call me Olivia.”
“Olivia,” Alex repeated, and the warm feeling in Olivia’s chest erupted again. At that moment, she made a decision, Abbie Carmichael’s warning bouncing around the back of her mind.
“Come up for a drink? You’ve earned it.”
Olivia watched as Alex pursed her lips. “I really shouldn’t. You heard the judge. 9 A.M. sharp.”
“One drink. I won’t keep you long, I promise.”
Alex looked over to Olivia, her face half dark with shadow. Cold blue met warm brown, and Olivia felt an electric shock run through her entire body. She was almost certain that Alex felt it too.
“Just one,” Alex confirmed, and Olivia smiled.
Surprisingly, it wasn’t Olivia who made the first move.
Alex had stood to leave after just one drink -- she had been serious about that, setting her glass down on the table and stretching as she stood. Olivia had wanted to ask for another glass, indulge even more of her time, but she stayed silent. She followed Alex to the door, picking up her briefcase from where it had been left carefully on the floor. She outstretched her arm to the blonde, who looked down at the briefcase and back up at her.
“Thank you, Olivia,” Alex murmured, reaching for her briefcase. Their fingers grazed each other, and Olivia’s heart leaped, beating loudly in her throat.
The moment seemed to last forever. She stared at Alex, unabashedly stared as she memorized each gentle curve and sharp turn of her face. And, to her surprise, Alex stared back
“Anytime, Alex,” She said, “I mean it.”
She saw Alex’s eyes soften, and Olivia noticed just how close together they were standing. It was unintentional, but as she looked up at the taller woman, she couldn’t bring herself to pull away.
They locked eyes again, and suddenly Alex leaned down, closing the distance between them.
Olivia froze. She had never actually kissed a woman before. Sure, she had thought about it, daydreamed idyllically about what it would be like to feel soft lips against hers. She had kissed men, of course, with their rough cheeks and chapped lips, but nothing could compare to the bliss that suddenly consumed her. She leaned into the kiss, reaching up to cup Alex’s jaw.
Alex gasped softly, and Olivia used her slightly open mouth as an invitation to run her tongue along Alex’s lower lip. Alex obliged her, opening her mouth and allowing her tongue to slip inside.
Alex let out a low moan, her hands finding the edge of Olivia’s shirt, untucking it with one swift tug and tracing her fingers against Olivia’s bare skin. An electric shock went through her entire body as she backed Alex towards the couch. Her knees hit the back of it, and she allowed herself to sink into the sofa.
Alex broke the kiss, hands braced on either side of her head against the couch. It was the sexiest image Olivia had ever seen, the blonde hair falling towards her, brushing against her cheek as Alex panted above her.
“Olivia…” Alex began, breathing heavily.
“Alex,” she rebutted, snaking her fingers up as she carefully started to undo the buttons of Alex’s dress shirt. “Please, don’t stop.”
And stop she did not.
The next morning, at some ungodly hour, she sleepily watched Alex’s naked form pull herself out of bed and begin to collect herself. She reveled in the graceful curve of her hips and the subtle rounding shape of her breasts. She let out a noise of disappointment when Alex began to slide her skirt up her legs and button her dress shirt. The A.D.A. turned, realized she had been being watched.
“You heard the judge, 9 A.M. sharp,” She said, pulling on one heel, and then the other. She paused at the door frame, casting a final look at her. “And, for a detective? You have terrible taste in mystery novels.”
With that, she was gone, a click of the lock at the front door a minute later confirming her departure.
It was only later that Olivia discovered that the book she kept out of habit on her bedside table had been carefully dog eared halfway through the volume.
“‘It,’ as you very well know, decidedly happened more than once,” Olivia said, sitting on the same couch that she and Alex had first kissed on years ago. Alex looked at her and nodded knowingly. It turned into a habit of theirs. Every other week or so, they’d dance around each other in the precinct, hidden looks, and discreet gestures. The pair would find themselves the last at the bar, or the only two in court that day. And later that night, they’d always find each other in bed, graceful fingers exploring lower and lower.
“I never made anything of it,” Olivia explained, “and neither did you.”
“I was scared, Olivia,” Alex admitted.
“And I wasn’t?” If there was malice in that accusation, there was no heat behind it. Olivia paused, regaining her composure, before continuing, “You know, you were the first woman I had ever kissed.”
Alex looked at her, processing that information.
“Olivia…”
“Did you know that you broke my heart?” Olivia asked. She felt tears prick in the corners of her eyes and she shook her head. "Never before in my life had I felt so -- so real. Do you know how hard it was to attend your funeral? To talk about you like you were already dead, even though I knew damn well you were alive? I thought I would never see you again -- I didn’t know if I would ever be able to love again.”
Alex, usually so impenetrably neutral in expression, had the audacity to look surprised, hurt even.
“You loved me?” She asked quietly.
Olivia had to look away. Her outburst had been largely unplanned, a haphazard arrangement of accusations and emotions that she had been holding in her chest for years, she realized. She sat in the silence that Alex had created, refusing to look at the ADA. She again studied the cracking paint above the curtains, wondering how she should go about fixing that as a way to occupy herself so she wouldn’t think about how to fix the growing chasm between her and the blonde.
The terrifying thing was that everything she said had been true. She had loved her, longed for the sweet caress of the blonde long after her absence, spent nights praying to a god she only half believed in that Alex would come home. She had spent so many nights alone in her bed, or in bed with a man, only thinking of Alex Cabot beside her, long pale arms looping around her warm body in the dark.
It was even more terrifying when Olivia realized that she still loved her, and in the fight between her dignity, her self-righteous anger, and her desire to be held again, the latter was beginning to win out.
She felt a cold hand on her warm shoulder and shivered slightly, both at the touch and the sudden difference in temperature.
“Olivia,” Alex murmured, her voice barely above a whisper. Olivia sighed and turned to look at her. In the minute she has spent alone with her thoughts, Alex had soundlessly moved closer, nearly closing the distance between them. Olivia’s heart felt so full of something that she couldn’t even begin to fathom -- Guilt? Love? Sadness?
She took another minute to collect her words, her gaze tracing Alex’s jaw, her cheekbones, and her delicate brow.
“I think I still do.”
The hand on Olivia’s shoulder moved down to encircle her waist, and Olivia leaned into the touch, turned fully to bury her face in Alex’s shoulder, breathing in the sweet scent of Alex’s floral perfume and another scent that was so unmistakably hers.
A dam burst inside Olivia, and suddenly she was sobbing.
If Alex had been surprised by her actions, she didn’t show it, another long arm curling around the detective’s waist. She simply held Olivia while she cried, one hand reaching up to lazily play with the detective’s hair.
Olivia found herself comforted by the arms of the attorney, curled up against her. When she regained dignity, she raised her head out of the dark cocoon of Alex’s shoulder to find that the ADA was also crying, light tear tracks tracing curved lines down her elegant face. It seemed so wrong to see Alex cry. She had only seen it once before -- the night they spent together in the hotel room pending trial, where Olivia was embarrassed to admit that she was quite a bit more than simply a security detail for Alex that night. That night, Alex had cried in the dark and the reality of her fate -- the loneliness and isolation of becoming someone entirely new, the pending trial that could determine if she stayed here, in New York, or had to be shipped off elsewhere for her own safety. In the end, the outcome of the trial hadn’t mattered, but Olivia would think about that night for months -- Alex nestled so close to her, Olivia tracing the scar on Alex’s abdomen. Gentle, salty kisses as she assured Alex she was right there, and that was all that mattered in the moment.
Alex interrupted her backward reminiscing by asking, “What was it like?”
“What?” Olivia asked, pulled out of her own head.
“My funeral.”
“Oh, Alex,” Olivia said, curling into her side, “It was gorgeous. So many people spoke for you. I spoke for you. Talked about how wonderful an ADA you were, and how wonderful of a -- of a friend you were to not only me but the entire squad.”
The irony hits her that, in that moment, their relationship died without anyone ever knowing of it, despite the attorney being very much alive.
“When they lowered the casket in the ground I had to keep reminding myself that it was empty, that you weren’t actually dead, but I still cried. Elliot was the only one that even knew you were still alive, and nobody, not even him, knew what you meant to me.”
Alex was looking at her now, tears still glistening in her blue eyes.
“I loved you, too, Olivia,” Alex said softly, and Olivia felt warm inside, her heart beating loudly in her chest.
“Loved?” She couldn’t help but ask. Alex averted her eyes, and Olivia suddenly missed the contact.
“When I left the first time, it was so hard. I thought this would be my chance to finally date women and be unafraid of the political consequences, but they all just reminded me of you. It was too personal to have another woman know me like that. You were the only one I ever wanted to know.”
She paused, hand resting on the back of Olivia’s neck.
“So I dated men. And let them fall in love with me, as they do, because I couldn’t even think of what it would be to be without you forever. I kept telling myself that this is my life now, that Alexandra Cabot is dead and Emily has taken her place. I became acquainted with the idea that this would have to be the rest of my life. And then, when the trial happened and I came back from dead, I figured this was my chance to start over, to be someone else. I was so ready, Olivia. Everything I said to you that night, I meant. I had no idea I would have to leave again, and when I finally got out, I felt so guilty. I didn’t know how to face you. I hid from you.”
“Alex,” Olivia murmured, sitting up so she was essentially in the blonde’s lap. She braced her hands against Alex’s shoulders, letting the long blonde hair brush against her fingers.
“There’s no excuse for what I did,” She said, refusing to meet Olivia’s eye.
“That’s okay,” Olivia said softly, and Alex slowly began to turn her face to meet Olivia’s.
Then, Olivia made a decision, one that she hadn’t been able to make for years, one that she had dreamed of and longed for.
She leaned forward and softly pressed a kiss to Alex’s lips.
The effect was instantaneous. A fresh stream of tears sprung from Alex’s eyes as Olivia softly shut her eyes and leaned into it, letting her mouth fall slowly open. Alex’s hands grounded themselves firmly in her side and at the nape of her neck, and while Olivia would have loved for Alex to take charge, she knew this really wasn’t the time. She pulled back softly and waited for Alex to open her eyes.
“I still love you, Alex,” Olivia said softly. “I don’t know what that means now, same as I didn’t know what it meant the last time I said it. But I can’t lose you again.”
Alex looked up at her, and Olivia drank in her beauty. Her watery eyes crinkled and Alex smiled softly.
“I love you too, Olivia.”