Evocations: XXVI
It isn't until a bewildered Carisi asks, Who? that Olivia recalls she is the only one left from the world Alex came from. The SVU that was Cassidy and Munch, Cabot and Huang - all gone, gone for years now. How could he have known that five years had fallen out from under his Lieutenant when she laid eyes on the tall blonde that was, to Carisi, a stranger?
Her lips are numb when she replies, "She used to work for us."
"Who's she workin' for now?"
Of course she has no idea, but Olivia has to move before their opportunity is lost. She exits the SUV and as her feet hit the asphalt, the five years that have gone by without Alex begin a creaking carousel in her mind, beginning with the kiss she gave Brian in the hospital after Ganzel.
"Something about a man in a hospital bed."
Liv had reached for anything to stay afloat in the riptide of loss and change. Brian had been a lifesaver to her drowning and for a short while, they had buoyed each other. Next William Lewis. Her mind dredged up the nightmare, the sweat and blood and smell of alcohol, the metallic tang of fear in her mouth as she thought of dying. Thought not of Cassidy, but of Alexandra's soft skin, of Elliot's long absence and his strong hands breaking Lewis's neck.
The door at SVU had become a revolving one: she considered Amaro's leaving, all the changes in the faces that had been so long-familiar. Then of Noah's sweet face, and how becoming a mother had filled up such a huge emptiness in her life. There had been Rafa, another love that had fought to bloom before withering in the motions of departure. Death, motherhood, retirement - was there anything untouched from the passage of time? Was nothing left intact from when she loved Alex through all the lives she had chased in her late thirties?
When Alex stopped looking everywhere but at her, the answer was there, unchanged. They were two hurricanes colliding - always had been.
"The law can't protect these women!"
"Yes, and nobody knows that better than I do. I live there!"
Alex swallowed over the lump in her throat, fighting the dizzying urge to take flight from the pavement into the cold Spring air. She had always been in control of how she left and returned to Liv's life - but this was unplanned. Life had ripped open a locked door, and now all the anger, fear, sadness, loneliness, guilt, damaged pride were spilling between them like an untended wound. They were talking about Julia Hunter, but it easily could have been about anything at all, because the only real conversation was the one passing between their locked gazes.
Alex hates that she left, but loves the work she does - it's tangible, driven by her sense of injustice, and filled with different dangers every time she meets someone new. She has kept too busy to be restless, has stopped feeling like what she contributes will never be enough. She wants to crack open her chest and share with Liv everything that her rescues mean, share how she has missed her every day for half a decade, that she still loves her but how could they ever meet in the middle?
"Are you gonna arrest me?"
They both know she won't - there is too much between them for the first time they touch to be around the cold steel of handcuffs. Still, Olivia is confounded by the complete rejection of the law that her old lover is touting. Her heart is pounding at the familiarity of her face, her voice, her anger, as rage rises at the idea that the Alexandra Cabot had given in to taking shortcuts to what was right. Her Alex. Still.
She agrees to take only Olivia to the safehouse, and Liv tells Carisi they'll meet him afterward.
.
.
Poor Carisi is pinned between the intensity of the two women as they stare one another down across the diner booth. As a Catholic, he is well-trained in when to talk and when to shut the fuck up - and he was keeping absolutely silent.
"Betty Bluestone. It was a case I had about five years ago. Her husband Mitch used her face like a leg of lamb in a Rocky movie. I filed charges, and Betty fell apart on the stand."
Five years of nights alone had given Liv plenty of opportunity to ponder what had manifested the nesting dolls left in Alexandra's wake. Now she rewound to 2013 and thought of those months, with Cragen locked up, about how distant Alex had grown.
Olivia had missed all the signs of the breaking point Cabot had been racing toward ... or had she known? Somewhere deep down, had she recognized that the wall Alex was hitting in 2012 was more than they could scale? Choosing Cragen had perhaps been about ensuring she lost only one of the two of them.
"How many women have you disappeared?"
"Hundreds. It's not just me; you wouldn't believe how deep and far this network goes."
The pride in the blonde's eyes squeezes Liv's heart, the fierceness in it the same as was once there on the side of lawful good, and in the bedroom whispering Liv's name. How could she convince her that law and order were still the right path?
"Alex, this is cruel. These women, their - their families, their friends think that they've been murdered."
But Alex had answers for everything, and Olivia could already feel the grip on her incredulity slipping. She wanted to believe that by helping somehow, Alex might come to her senses.
That Alex might stay.
" ... If you're uncomfortable holding him for murder, reduce the charges. By the time he files a motion to dismiss, Jules and Ruby will have disappeared. You're not breaking the law, Olivia. You're using it to save Jules' life."
Carisi's gaze flitted from one side of the table to the other. Law and Order. Chaos and Desperation. He couldn't at all imagine the blonde as ever having been SVU's ADA - how could this whirlwind of a woman ever have handled rape victims with propriety? If this woman and his Lieutenant were at war, Carisi wasn't sure what casualties would lie once the smoke cleared, but as he drove Liv back to the precinct he prayed he wouldn't be one of them.
.
.
The safehouse's smell of sweaty desperation and sticky kids in tow makes the churning in Liv's guts worse; all of it covered over with the perfumey smell of flowers in vases that are too clean. The other thing churning Olivia's stomach is the enraged blonde that, if she blinks just quickly enough, she could swear she once knew.
"You could have lied, Liv!"
Olivia winces at the words, physically and mentally. Even when Alex is pissed as hell, she calls her Liv in a way that draws her in.
"No I couldn't have! I was under oath."
"And what? You thought God would smite you?! It is a fiction, Olivia," Alex seethes, saying the word 'fiction' like Olivia has seen broken women talk about parts of their bodies after assault. "This entire 'tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth' is a load of crap that we tell people so that they think the criminal justice system gives a damn about them. Who did what, who did what to whom."
"What happened to you?" Liv breathed, blinking back tears that threatened to clot her throat. The only woman she had ever fallen in love with was supposed to be upstanding, a pillar for justice and all things lawful. Who was this blonde who had usurped her, raging against the machine, speaking about justice with a venom normally reserved for killers and rapists?
"I opened my eyes. I opened them wide, and I saw that for 12 years, I was a cog in a holier-than-thou wheel, and the wheel just keeps spinning and tossing off bodies as it goes. Some remain standing, some fall. Nobody cares. Nobody gives a damn, as long as the wheel keeps turning."
I care, Olivia thought defiantly. I give a damn. "And we keep going. It's what we do."
"What is the point?!"
Liv pushed down the urge to grab Alex and shake her. "It's all we have, and if we don't, then we're just like they are."
"When you throw a wife-beater on that wheel, you pray for a little bit of justice, but more often than not, he walks." Now it was Alex's voice on the verge of breaking. "They're a little wobbly, but they go away free. I prefer to avoid the wheel altogether. That way, I ensure it is the victim who walks away.
"I know you, Olivia. I know you want to do the right thing. Sometimes, doing the right thing means not pawning a woman's future off on 12 indifferent citizens and a gray hair in a robe."
The blonde and the brunette each took a breath on the sides of their moral standoff. Jules, all-too-used to throwing herself on emotional grenades, appeared meekly in the room with them.
"Is something wrong?"
Alex stiffened. "No, everything's fine, Jules. Pack your bag; we're going."
Olivia matched the blonde's tight posture. "You know that I cannot let that happen."
Julia's gaze had the exhausted recognition of being fought over. Almost imperceptibly she slumps, letting the back-and-forth come that she knows is about to start.
Push. "Jules? Jules, Nick knows that you're here, okay? He's - he's probably on his way right now."
Pull. "If Nick knows that she's here - "
Push. "Jules is leaving," Alex cut Liv off.
"We all need to leave," Julia pleaded.
"If you leave, you're gonna lose Ruby." Pull.
"Nick will never find you," Alex stated flatly.
Liv scoffed softly. "He will have the FBI looking for you. Private Investigators. Me, Jules. I've already found you once." Pull.
"I don't know ... Nick will never - "
"So you're gonna fight him in court," Liv cut in again. "You're gonna serve him with divorce papers asking for sole custody of Ruby. Your defense attorney - " here she looks at Alexandra purposefully, "is gonna write you one hell of a complaint, and when you win, you will be free to go anywhere you want, Jules. And I'm gonna help you."
It was Alex's turn to slump. She saw the hope light in Julia's eyes at the word free, and knew immediately that Liv had won the battle - if not the war.
.
.
Before they're even out of court the following day, Olivia's cell vibrates with a text.
Meet me for drinks.
It doesn't say where, or even when - doesn't need to. Both women already know. .
The Cabot she finds waiting for her outside their spot seems to be the one she remembers: smug, confident, put together, three steps ahead. Liv feels almost safe enough to breathe again, having finally gotten Alex back into a courtroom.
Hands deep in her coat pockets, Olivia watches the blonde for a silent moment from the opposite sidewalk. She is smoking in the dusk, the light catching her hair just right. Her heart swells against her ribcage and for a second she is galled at how inescapable Alexandra still is.
Liv crosses to meet her, where Alex offers a hit of the joint she has between her fingers. The brunette politely declines.
"You know," Alex begins as she exhales smoke slowly, "I was like Jules, once. I used to light up like that when you talked about justice ... about being free. I really believed that law and order maintained some kind of balance in this world."
Liv watched as she crushed the tip of the joint against the building's concrete wall. "Then I grew up."
"Is that what you call giving up on everything you believe in?" There is a heavy beat of silence, then, "Is that why you left?"
Alexandra has the grace to meet her ex-lover's gaze. "I left because there were things I could never give you."
The brunette says nothing, follows her inside the mumbling darkness of the restaurant. By the time they have a table, Alex is back to her pleasant self. She pulls out Liv's chair, casually commenting that the brunette is fashionably late.
"Mm, I had to find a babysitter," Liv confesses quietly, keeping her eyes locked on the drink menu.
A ripple of pleased, aching surprise rushes through the blonde. "Good for you, Liv," she nods.
She takes the drink menu from Liv's hands and lays it on the table, signaling to order both of them a glass of expensive red Bordeaux.
"It's not as bad as you think," she began, "I know Judge Martinez from the Women's Legal Momentum Fund - she's smart, she's fair. I guarantee you she's not gonna fall for Biegel's nonsense.
"And more importantly, tomorrow, I'm going to put Dr. Young - who is the best family therapist in the city, by the way - on the stand. She is going to testify how abused women suffer in silence. How their egos, their self-esteem, their general sense of worth is completely eroded over time."
The satisfaction on Alex's face was obvious as she sucked an olive from a twizzle stick. Fire lit in Olivia's groin at the sight of it, helpless at the rewinding of her memory.
"You like being back in court, don't you?" Liv asked, her eyes sharp with her own pleasure, hoping she had been right all along.
Cabot glanced away, then into her wine and ignored the question.
"Dr. Young will also testify that after talking to Ruby - " the vibration of Olivia's cell interrupts her, "Jules should receive full custody."
"Sorry." Liv picked up the call. "What?What is it?"
"It's Jules," Rollins answered.
"Where? ... I'm on my way."
"Sounds like bad news," Alex commented, trying and failing to meet the brunette's eyes.
"Yeah. I've uh ... I've had better. I - "
"Go, go. I've got this," the blonde urges. Something deep inside Liv twinges as Alex calls after her, "But it's on you when we win!"
But winning had never been in the cards for them, and life enjoyed reminding them at every turn.
.
.
In the deafening silence of her office, Olivia was confronting demons. She wished desperately that the Hunter case had been anyone else's. Wished that she had finished her drink. Wished she hadn't caught Alex in the middle of -
No. Even with the foundation of her moral compass shaking loose, Liv still couldn't make that wish.
What she couldn't admit, to herself or anyone else, was that the worldview Alex had come back touting was her greatest fear. Justice held the world together - or Liv's, at least. Admitting anything less was anarchy. She had seen too many good cops and lawyers flirt with vigilantism only to come away scorched: Lake, Novak ... Barba. There were wounds still too fresh to bend to Alexandra's path to justice. Liv had lost so much, the law was the only steady thing left. Even for Cabot, she couldn't throw it away. If Cabot was right, then 20 years of work had been wrong.
Her office door blew open and there was the hurricane. Breathless with rage and grief, Alex shouted, "We never should have brought her back!"
Liv dug her heels in and faced the storm. "For God's sake, Alex, I followed the law!"
"And it got her killed!"
"You cannot be serious."
"That man belonged in prison."
"This is America. You can't lock someone up without proof."
"You saw her burns, Olivia! He brutalized her!"
"Right! And he made bail on the assault charges. That is his right. But maybe with your new mission, you're too busy to keep up with the Eighth Amendment."
Alex's eyes flashed as she shifted gears to anger. "I can't believe you're even starting - "
The office door opened again, and Olivia heaved a frustrated breath. "Not now- "
But Rollins threw herself between them like a puppy between arguing owners. "I didn't want to interrupt, but the AIS report came back. There's no skid marks whatsoever. They estimate that the other SUV was moving faster than 55 miles per hour.
"Your gut may have been right Might have been a hit."
Alex rolled her eyes in frustration and paced a tight circle, looking at Rollins with disdain and suspicion.
"So I want to know everything that Nick Hunter has done since Jules came back to the city. Credit cards, phone calls, his conversations on the street," Olivia told Amanda firmly.
"Put this prick away, Liv," Alexandra pleaded, and the sound of its defeat was like a punch to Olivia's stomach.
The fight they had been ramping up to had been the next best thing to fucking. Now, as Liv watched Alex stalk out of her office in an emotional huff, her adrenaline was still rushing. Impotently, she wondered if there was any justice she could serve.
.
.
Steam rose from Olivia's skin as she lifted out of the tub where she had been soaking. The fringes of her hair were wet, plastered to her neck where they had escaped the messy tail she had brushed them up into. She began to cool rapidly as she pulled her towel around her, listening to make sure Noah was still sleeping soundly on the monitor.
With methodical patience, Liv dried herself and then slipped into a pair of blue silk pyjama pants, and a soft white tank. As she padded from the bathroom to the kitchen with the monitor in her hand, a knock came at the front door.
Liv tipped her head curiously, looking toward the entryway, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth.
"I can go," Alexandra said defeatedly when the brunette opened the door.
"How did you -?" Olivia began, then sighed. If Alex could disappear women for a living, surely getting her address wouldn't have posed a challenge. She shook her head. "Why bother? You're already here. Easier to come in than it is to leave."
The blonde seemed to accept this as invitation and followed up the hall.
"Nicer than your old place." Her gaze surveyed the room, landing on the baby monitor sitting on the coffee table. A dizzying ache swallowed her chest.
"He's asleep," Liv said quietly. "Try not to wake him."
Alexandra shifted her gaze to the sofa table, where a picture of a grinning, dark-haired baby was framed. "What's his name?"
"Noah." There was a beat, then Liv followed up with, "Alex - what are you doing here?"
The blonde put two fingers to one of her temples. "I - " Instead of finishing, she dropped heavily onto the sofa.
Liv sighed. "Are you drunk?"
"Not very."
"Mm. Sobered up some on the way here to blame me some more, is that it?"
Alex looked up from under her lashes, but Olivia couldn't tell if the look was defiant or sheepish.
"I didn't come to fight," she finally said softly.
"Could've fooled me," Liv replied, hands on her hips. "It's all we've done since I found you in that parking lot."
"Then maybe you should have let me go."
"If I had, I'd be no better than Nick Hunter right now."
"You think I'm a murderer?" Alex raised an eyebrow.
Liv sighed and looked away. "Based on what you've been spouting, Al, what I think is that you're lawless."
"Not everyone can sit by for decades waiting for scraps of justice to fall from the table!"
"You don't get it, do you?!" Liv bit the words off one at a time, controlling the volume of her voice. She threw herself down onto the sofa next to the blonde and peered hard into her blue eyes. "I have a son, Alex ... " her tone was agonized, "I won't raise him with a set of morals that can be tossed out for the next best thing when he gets angry!"
Alexandra searched the older woman's face, heart pounding, painful with the same old dealbreaker they could never surmount. She cupped Olivia's face with both hands and smiled sadly.
"And I wouldn't raise one without them understanding that vigilantism has a place in a world gone mad."
Understanding dawned on Liv's face. She opened her mouth - to say what, she wasn't exactly sure: we can work on that? Let's talk about it? It had been so many years, and she was still grasping at the same straws. Before she could embarrass herself further, they were interrupted by the little boy in question.
"Mom? Mom!"
He was still having nightmares off and on, related to the entire Sheila fiasco, and Liv was still a little paranoid - hence why the monitor had made a reappearance.
Liv was off the couch and walking before Alex could react. "What's the matter, love?" She asked the question into the doorway of Noah's room. He was still laying down, clutching his elephant the way only a child can. "Did you have a nightmare?"
"Who is that, Mama?" he responded.
Olivia turned to find Alex hovering behind her, arms over her chest, looking into the shadows of the bedroom with curious blues. Striding to Noah's side she told him, "Just a friend of Mama's from work." Alex was a storm she couldn't afford to have Noah caught in; she leaned over him as if shielding him from what she had been tangled up in for 19 years.
"Alex," the blonde said quietly.
"That's a boy's name," Noah told her, crinkling his nose then yawning.
"Sometimes," Alex nodded. "You're right."
Tucking him back in, Liv kissed his head and crossed back.
"He looks like you," Alexandra whispered. A pause, then, "But he has Stabler's eyes."
Liv didn't confirm or deny what everyone seemed to assume; she turned back to her son and let the sight of him fill her heart. Then she pulled the door partially shut and urged Alex back from the doorway. The smell of her perfume was all around them, her fingertips twitching with invisible electricity, begging for any excuse to touch her.
Time drew thin when Alex took a step forward, easing into Liv's bubble wordlessly. She gave her plenty of time to push her away, even knowing it wouldn't come. Their lips touched after 1,825 days and Olivia burst into flame.
When it ended, she gripped Alexandra by the upper arms, her head hanging as she fought for air. "Alex ... no ..."
"Why not?" Alex grinned slyly in the dark. Then a thought occurred to her. "Is it because of that blonde in your oftice?" She racked her brain for a name. "Rollins. Are you two sleeping together?"
Liv scoffed. "Don't be absurd!"
"It's not absurd," Alex protested, her voice rising a little, "You didn't see the way she looked at you?"
Olivia hushed her and pulled her further down the hallway. "You've always thought every woman wants me."
"Most of them, if they have half a brain."
Liv briefly considered the idea that Rollins could possibly want her and Alex, as if she could read the brunette's mind, smirked. She leaned in, mouth just above her shoulder, whispering, "I can make you forget all about her."
Groaning in defeat, Olivia fisted the front of Alex's shirt and yanked her into a second kiss. It continued down the end of the hall and into Liv's room, where they came apart breathlessly, tugging at one another's clothes. It was Liv who walked away momentarily, returning from her dresser with a harnessed strap-on.
Alexandra stepped into it and let herself be harnessed without comment or question. When it was securely in place, Liv stood back up and looked seriously into her blue eyes.
"I want to forget," she said quietly.
Alex pulled her back into an embrace, pushing a hand down to the cock that now bobbed between them. Making things disappear was Alex's specialty. "Touch my cock, Liv," the blonde breathed. Fingers wrapped tight, Liv stroked as their mouths met again, tongues tangled.
Like clouds that rolled to sound thunder, their bodies found the bed instinctually. Alex's body pinned Olivia's, the cock between them heavy against her pelvis where her clit was pounding. The brunette squirmed, trying to get more contact but Alex simply absorbed the twisting and turning, the touch of skin on skin like salve to her wounds.
"You never did have any patience," the blonde chuckled as she kissed and licked her way down Liv's neck and onto her chest. Suckling her nipples to points, Alex groaned. "I suppose we can start with dessert this one time."
She reached low, dragging two fingers between Olivia's lips and let out a grunt upon finding her absolutely soaked. The fingers spread her open, then the head of the cock was at her entrance. Alex sank the fingers of her other hand into Liv's messy ponytail and pulled, nipping her earlobe as she bit out, "So pink and hot."
A tip of her hips, and Alex sank all the way inside.
Olivia keened at the feeling of it, that temporary safety and sense of return that came along with Alex. Another rise and sink of her hips, fucking in earnest, intending to pull an orgasm from the brunette so then she could take her time.
In the last ten years or so, there was both healing and destruction in their coming together. Liv felt like she was coming apart at the seams if they didn't fuck, and if they did. She burrowed her fingertips into Alex's shoulders and matched her thrusts, pelvis twisting with the want of it, chasing down her pleasure until she shivered in the blonde's arms.
Chuckling, Alexandra slid downward until she was settled between Liv's legs and spread open her swollen sex. Her tongue sank in without hesitation, flicking and curling in the satin heat for a taste before settling around her clit and sucking softly. Olivia arched into the blonde's mouth, a hand finding the back of her head on instinct.
"Oh God," she cried shakily, "oh, Alex ..."
Alex groaned against Liv, dizzy with desire and the sense of claim over the older woman. Her tongue swirled and lapped, noisy in the dim room. There were things she wanted to forget, too. With a deep breath she pulled away, long fingers taking the place of her mouth.
"C'mon, Liv," she husked, "I wanna hear you." Fingers filled the quaking brunette, seeking the ridge of her G-spot. Liv grunted and half-sat forward when it was discovered, and Alex immediately dropped her mouth back onto her clit.
Wringing the bedclothes into her fists, short hot panting breaths were all Olivia could manage. The tall blonde sucked and stroked an earth-moving orgasm from her as if it was her life's purpose; Liv shook as she came on Alex's fingers and into her mouth.
Smug with pride, Alex collapsed beside Liv and caught her breath, the strap-on still standing proud at her pelvis. Moments later, a rolling shuffle on Liv's side of the bed got Alex's eyes to snap open. The brunette was up on her hands and knees, repositioning so that she was atop the head of the bed. Alex rolled over to the sight of Liv spread before her on all fours, gripping the headboard, glistening with come.
"Please," Olivia said firmly.
Alex joined her on her knees, reaching for the crease of the brunette's hips. Lining up, she drove the entire length into Liv's swollen pussy until the balls nestled up against her slit. She drew back, then slammed back inside.
Olivia cried out and pulsed around her cock, wishing not for the first time that Alex could come inside as aftershocks of a second orgasm warmed her pelvis. And she began to forget - the fight they kept having, the failure to get justice, the fact that she felt like Alex had been right all along. It all began to fade in trade of a reunion of their bodies.
Perhaps this was all they could ever be; a respite from a moral ideal they could never hold onto.
Completely fucked out and aching pleasantly, Olivia yanked the harness open and off, popping the dildo free. She urged the blonde's legs open, then settled on the rise of her thigh. Teasingly, she ran the head of the cock, still wet with her own come, over Alex's slick center and hard clit.
Alex arched and sighed. "Tease."
"Yes," Liv said simply. She used a hand to spread her open even more, then pushed the cock low against where Alex was soaked. On a deep breath Liv pushed the toy all the way in.
"Oh, fuck!" Alex gasped.
Olivia interpreted this literally, drawing back and then sliding home again. And again. She picked up speed until the sound of her rapid fucking was just as loud as Alex's stuttered encouragement.
"I'm - " the blonde licked her lips, "I'm gonna ... "
That was all Liv needed to hear. She dropped her head forward and sucked Alex's clit into her mouth, her hand never slowing down. She was rewarded with the throb and twitch of her orgasm as Alex bore down on the cock filling her.
Eventually Alex drags up the blanket that is at the foot of the bed and covers up the tangle of their limbs. The motion is wordless and gentle, and the two women drift off to sleep.
Hours later, Liv wakes alone. She shouldn't be surprised, but some part of her still insists on it. The blanket is folded neatly again, and Olivia herself is tucked tenderly under the blankets on her side of the bed.
Reaching in the dim, she pats around for her cell on the bedside table. There is no text from Alex when she finds it, so she sends one:
Meet me tonight, in the city.
She drifts back to sleep.
.
.
"Thanks for agreeing to meet me out here."
There is no sign left of the Alex she met for drinks two days prior. This time, it's only vigilante Alex, and Olivia has no debate left.
"I have to pick up another woman," Alex confesses.
"I don't want to know."
Pointedly, Alex tells her, "Judge Martinez granted Nick custody of Ruby."
"You're kidding." Liv's gut does a disgusted somersault.
"He's still her father."
Liv sighed. "And the wheel goes round."
"That's what I've been saying." Alex tips her head, considering. Then, "Sherry, Jules' sister, is fighting for custody of Ruby."
"Does she have a chance?" Liv finds the hope in her own voice pathetic.
"Do you want to know the truth?"
The brunette takes a deep breath, looks away and back again. She doesn't want them to leave on just this, not this time.
"You know, today, on the ... I was on the subway platform, and I saw these two cockroaches, and they were pulling at different ends of a crust of bread. And then the bread tore, and it fell onto the tracks, and ... and neither bug got their dinner."
Who were the roaches? Was the bread their relationship? Was it Jules? Had they pulled a woman apart like bugs in a ditch?
Olivia wasn't entirely sure. Perhaps all she was saying is that sometimes, despite there being food, adversaries of the same species go hungry.
"Are you proposing we work together?" Alex asked.
"I could never do what you do, Alex."
"And I can't stop."
Liv held out her hand, and when the blonde took it, pulled her into a hug. She kissed Alex's lips softly, wondering when they would see each other again.
"Take care."
"Okay."
Then they were strangers again, going in opposite directions on the busy streets of Manhattan. No one would ever guess there were 19 years between them - a roller coaster of years that had brought joy, pain, and evocations.
