Same disclaimers apply …

A/N – So I owe a huge apology to the readers of this story for abandoning it without a proper ending. It was one of those times when life kind of got in the way and then every time I came back to the last chapter to try and finish it I felt like I'd lost the flow of the story.

Anyway, I really hope this lives up to expectations. This is the last chapter. I'm working on another multi-chapter A/O story with a bit of a twist set around the most recent series but I wanted to get this one completed first.

As always, please review - I'd love to hear what you think.

As with previous chapters the italics indicate a flashback.

Apartment of Alexandra Cabot, ADA

28 days later …

"Alex?"

I take the key out of the latch, jostling a brown paper grocery bag and the Sunday papers – knowing Alex's thirst for news from the outside world since starting her suspension, and toss the groceries onto the counter top.

"Alex?"

I swear I sense her before I hear her, tiny invisible insects tingle my spine and the hairs on my bare forearms stand up on end in spite of the warm spring weather. I can almost see her standing behind me, navy blue pyjama pants hanging from her hips and her blonde hair tousled from bed. Time away from the office has been good for her – she finally learned how to sleep in.

"You should have woken me." She purrs, slipping her arms around my waist. I don't need to turn to see the smile on her face, the soft sigh as she inhales deeply, filling herself full of my scent tells me everything I need to know.

I'm so head over heels in love with her I almost don't want her to go back to work, in the world of the DA's office and the courthouse I have to share her with others who can look and stare.

Still, for today at least she's mine.

"What are you thinking?" She chuckles, stepping away to inspect the contents of the grocery bag.

I turn and face her, marvelling at the childish delight with which she unpacks fresh croissants, ham and cheese and her favourite blend of coffee beans. She starts with those first – tossing a quarter of the packet into the grinder and turning it on.

"Thanks for this Liv."

I grin. "You're welcome baby."

The term of endearment rolls so easily from my tongue. I worry how I'll cope seeing her back in pencil skirts, suits and killer heels – will I forget the Alex Cabot who's become addicted to reruns of Jeopardy and the Golden Girls.

"So …" She takes the freshly ground coffee and pops it into the holder before tapping, flattening and screwing it in place with all the flair of a finely skilled barista. Her coffee machine is her first love. "What's with the face Liv?"

She turns and I smile. "Nothing baby, nothing at all."

"What's the matter Liv?"

A week and a half into Alex's suspension and my day had ended with a call from Liz Donnelly, telling me exactly what I didn't want to hear; Sam Cavanaugh suffered a brain haemorrhage and died. It was over.

"I trust you'll tell Alex?" Donnelly asked, with an air of compassion I'd never really heard her use before.

I nodded, not registering that she couldn't see me. "Yes …" I whispered. "I'll tell her."

Alex sat beside me on the couch, one foot balanced gingerly on the edge of the coffee table as she painted her toenails ruby red - red like her moods, volatile and passionate, unpredictable.

"Liv?"

My mind fell into a maze, each twist and turn another stumbling block on the rocky road of our two week long relationship, brought together by the dysfunctional mess that might ultimately be the thing to destroy us. The last week a bubble of harmonious bliss, coming home to Alex and dinner on the table, my laundry clean and folded and my girlfriend, starved of human contact and ready to pounce.

I hadn't realised she'd become a Stepford wife.

She swung her feet round into my lap and wiggled her toes. "You like?"

I sighed, running my fingers over the silky smooth skin of her calves. "Alex … There's something I need to tell you."

Her toenails were dry by the time she'd done crying. "I'm going to take a bath." She mumbled, getting up and leaving me alone on the couch.

The take-out arrived a few minutes later; it sat untouched on the dining table until the next morning, whereupon I ate a stone cold egg roll on my way to work and placed the rest in the trash. Alex stayed in bed all that day, and the next, her depression impenetrable to humour, food and offers of sex.

On the third day, out of fear, I called Donnelly. All the while my inner voice shouting, "This is breaking every rule."

She arrived at Alex's apartment a little after 5pm. I opened the door to let her in and we made a pretence out of the fact she'd not chewed mine and Elliot's balls off more times than I'd care to remember. She looked different, even though she arrived dressed just the same, kind of like when a child runs into their first grade teacher in the supermarket.

"She's in the bedroom." I said, gesturing. "Would you like something to drink?"

She smiled and placed her hand upon my sleeve, noticing – I suppose – that not having dared to go home in 3 days I was wearing Alex's clothes. "No thank you, I wont be staying."

With Liz gone, I nervously cleaned the kitchen, took out the trash – containing the uneaten Chinese, uneaten Thai and Italian from the various meals I'd tried to make her eat – and flicked through Alex's many cable channels, ultimately coming up cold. An hour later the door through to the bedrooms opened and Donnelly reappeared.

"I think she'll be okay now." She stated, just that, no details or explanation. "You did the right thing calling me Olivia."

And ever since then, I've been questioning whether or not she was right.

"Actually."

Shit. I could try and take it back.

But the truth is I have to know, before we go back to work and fall into the same routine as always. I have to know what Donnelly said to her, and whether a not-so-insignificant part of her is holding onto disappointment that I called Donnelly instead of handling it myself.

If roles were reversed, I doubt she would have called Elliot.

She turns to face me, just as the coffee machine starts spewing thick, rich espresso - filling the kitchen with the aroma of roasting hot Brazil. The cut on her forehead has completely healed, the bags beneath her eyes have gone and her cheeks have lost their sallow complexion. She's exceptionally beautiful, and she looks pretty irked right now.

"Liv, if you've got something to say, just say it." She clips, frostily.

I can see the serene and sublime day I have planned frantically ebbing away.

"Alex … I …"

She goes about making our coffees as if unaffected by my recent words; only her hands betray her with subtle tremors.

"Liv, don't make a meal out of it." She says resigned. "I knew this day was coming."

All of a sudden I recognise my mistake. She thinks I'm breaking up with her.

"Alex, baby …" Out of instinct I rush to her side and that's when I know it doesn't matter that her boss had the right words when I didn't. It was my arms she lay in later that night, not talking – just being silent together. Nothing she could ever do or say would keep me apart from her now, I can take it all.

She stiffens.

"I'm not breaking up with you, you fool." I whisper, burying my nose into the back of her hair. "Baby, how could you think that?"

She sinks; visibly shrinking into my body as she lets me hold her and plant kisses against the back of her unruly mane. "I thought …" Her voice trails off and I chastise myself for making her feel this way.

I grasp her upper arms and spin her in my embrace, holding her roughly against the kitchen counter. "Alex." I square up to her, making her look me in the eye, emphasising every word. "I'm not going anywhere."

With embarrassed eyes she avoids my gaze.

"I love you." I say, and for the first time in my adult life I mean every word.

"You love me?"

"Yes. Alex Cabot. *I* …" I grasp her hands and pull them into my chest, up against my heart. "Love *you* …"

"You love me …" She mumbles again softly.

I love her.

With every day that goes by I find out something else about her to reinforce that love. It's not like a fantasy of love anymore - it's real. No moonbeams or puppy dog tails but real, physical, visceral love, the kind folks spend their whole lives dreaming about. She makes me want a particular kind of future for the very first time, 'our' future – tiny brunette children with crystal blue eyes and a predilection for arguing running barefoot through the apartment.

It's been inferred already but never said.

I knew I loved her, I mean I've known it since the moment we met – but every time the words made their way towards the surface my inner voice would rush to warn me of the dangers in wearing my heart upon my sleeve.

Turns out my heart isn't mine to protect anymore, it's hers.

"But I'm scared." I admit.

I'm scared of so many things. No one ever tells you that the flip side of being in love is this overwhelming, soul-incapacitating, all-encompassing dread that one day something will happen and I'll find myself without her.

I feel the need to add another rule to our ridiculous list, this being the most important one of all – Alex can never leave Olivia.

She cups my face gently. "Scared of what sweetheart?"

Scared that tomorrow another case will come along with the potential to destroy us. Scared that we can't both do the job we do and come home at the end of the day without bringing a little bit of that evil with us. Scared that I love her too much to let this job take her from me. She doesn't need to stay anymore just to keep seeing me, but I know her better than she knows herself and I know that she wont just quit.

"Of this … of us …" I mumble. "What happens tomorrow when you go back to work, what about Donnelly? She knows, Elliot knows …"

Alex mirrors my rising panic with increasing calm, straightening up to tackle the problem head on. "Does it bother you, people knowing?"

"No." I reply sullenly. I want to pout because I feel like I'm not getting what I want, then all of a sudden it clocks that I've not yet asked for it. Maybe I'm growing up after all. "Alex, what did Donnelly say to you, that night?"

Her eyes darken for a moment, as if trying hard not to go back to that place, that's not what I want but I need to know.

"That's what's bothering you?" She asks, half amused.

I nod, and feel pathetic for my jealousy, I can't stand the thought that someone else knows more about her than I do.

"Liv …" My name leaves her lips in a sigh, coloured with relief and reticent anxiety. Her fingers trace the skin of my wrists as she chews her bottom lip, thinking. "She asked me if mourning Sam Cavanaugh was worth losing you over." She states softly. "And the answer was pretty simple, nothing is …"

"Oh Alex."

I capture her lips in a soft, tangential kiss, taking her arms and wrapping them around my waist as our bodies fall flush together. In awe of how every nerve ending in my body jumps with over-excited hyper-polarity at the feel of Alex beneath my fingertips. She's naked beneath the pyjama bottoms and worn out tee and I feel her nipples hardening through the thin shirt as my hands slip down to cup her naked ass.

"Liv …" She breaks the kiss to lean back in my embrace and stare wantonly at me.

The tiny insects are back, shooting in all directions from my spine to my shoulders before settling in the curve of my lower back, tightening deliciously. I wonder, momentarily, if she will always have this tremendous effect on me, and the thought of ever testifying for her in court again seems impossible.

I'd come in my seat.

Fuck.

She begins a trail from beneath my ear to the notch between my collarbones, swirling figures of eight with her tongue and blowing cool air over my moist, sensitive skin.

The insects join forces; pushing my pelvis towards hers in search of some much needed relief.

She chuckles, low and dirty and filled with an air of tease and torture. I'd pretend I've got the upper hand in all of this but I'd be sadly kidding myself.

"Too many clothes." She husks, slowly unzipping my unflattering grey hoodie as her lips recapture mine, filling my mouth with her tongue as the prelude for what she's got planned on her riotous journey of the rest of my body.

My mouth goes pliant and slack, replaced by the sensation of her, everywhere – in me and on me and urging me backwards. Before I know it I'm half naked on the couch, pants around my ankles and Alex's tattered Bruins shirt wrenched around my shoulders as she nibbles and nips at the swell of my breasts.

"Do you have 'any' idea what you do to me?" She mumbles, her face buried against me. The shirt hits the floor, followed seconds later by hers and then my bra as she rushes to bring our naked breasts together again, sighing at the contact.

Oh God. I've long suspected I could come from her words alone. The noise she makes just confirms this.

"Alex …" Her name escapes me in a pained squeak as her lips curl in a devilish smile, I am completely at her mercy and she knows it.

"You love me …" She ghosts across my ear and my eyes slam shut as the pain of orgasm rushes through my body, unaccompanied by any of the pleasure of release.

"Alex please …"

"You love me." She whispers again, her eyes locked into mine as her fingers slowly tease my nipples.

I need her to release me from this delicious pain I'm in. "Please … Alex … I'm gonna …"

Come.

I actually think it might happen.

Alex grinds her pelvis into me, covering my mouth again as she palms my breasts. Her tongue strokes mine - I think about all the places on me her tongue has been, and my orgasm edges ever closer.

"Fuck …" The word gets lost in her mouth.

She abandons my tormented nipples to wrap her arms around my neck, bringing her lips up to my ear again.

"I love you too." She rasps, hot breath tickling my ear. "I love making you come." My legs squeeze together in an attempt to relieve this blistering ache but with the weight of her in my lap, I can't. "I love the taste of you … the smell of you …" Her tantalising words infiltrate my subconscious, driving forth the most primal part of me. "I want you to come Liv …" She moans, wrapping her tongue around my earlobe and biting down softly. "I want you to imagine my tongue teasing you." She drags it around the soft shell of my ear. "My fingers inside you … reaching … curling …"

"Oh fuck …"

My body jerks and spasms, the most intense orgasm making its way out from my centre to the tips of my fingers and the tops of my toes – little insects returning on their journey.

Alex shifts to the side, slipping one hand inside my panties to cup my swollen flesh. Instinctively I move to grasp her wrist, needing to guide the pressure, as I've never experienced anything quite like that and I'm not sure how much I can take.

"Relax …" She coos. "I've got you."

Her fingers slide through copious moisture, circling my entrance before filling me completely.

"YESsssss."

The hiss escapes my lips, every nerve ending in my body on fire as her hand pumps slowly, in – and out, in – and out. Right when I think I can't take any more her thumb swipes my clit, opening a Pandora's Box of expletives that fall from my lips.

"Fuck … Alex … Oh shit … Oh God … Oh God … Oh … Arrrghhhhhh!"

My tense body falls, bonelessly dripping through time and space to fall meekly at my lover's feet. I am hers.

Hers.

She returns to my lap, covering my exhausted body with her own as her head rests comfortably against my chest, lulled by the sound of my frenetic heartbeat. Her fingers dance a pattern from my shoulder to my elbow and back again, unable to still when there's a part of my body she might have failed to explore.

Later, as she lies beside me on the bed - dozing from orgasm induced sleep, I think of all the things I've learnt from Alex's month long suspension …

Like how she hides her compassion beneath dark rimmed glasses and a legal pad because she's afraid of how others might use her feelings against her to trump justice. How she cries at the endings of sad movies or at talk shows where the host gives a down-on-their-luck family a new house or car or trip to Florida. That she's genuinely at her happiest wearing pyjama bottoms and a tank, curled beneath a blanket on the sofa with her current read and a glass of red - even better if her feet are in my lap whilst she's doing it. How she's known Donnelly and Branch and most of the current sitting Judges since she was a child: that she grew up wandering the halls of the courthouse and slipping unnoticed into trials whereupon she crafted her art. That she wants kids someday, but the very thought of it scares her because her parents – who lavished her with every opportunity that money could buy – were economical and parsimonious with the things that mattered, love, time and unconditional acceptance. That she loves me, and the thought of my not loving her equally in return makes her eyes darken, her lips quiver and her countenance crumble. I fear that she loves me more than life itself, because without my love she would consider living pointless.

Apartment of Alexandra Cabot, ADA

The next morning …

I wake before the alarm and slip, unnoticed, from the covers, leaving Alex splayed diagonally across the bed, cool cotton sheets covering her trim waist where she sleeps always on her front.

I tiptoe from the bedroom, pulling on Alex's pyjama pants and her Bruins t-shirt from the day before. We only made it out of bed to answer the door to the delivery guy, feeding each other slices of cold pizza whilst wrapped in bed sheets on the couch. The thought tickles me and I blush, remembering. Anyway, it's how I know there's still breakfast food in the fridge from the day before.

I fix orange juice and coffee, urging the grinder to work as quietly as can be, warming up croissants in the oven before slicing Swiss cheese and folding it with layers of thick crumbed ham in between. Delicious.

My mouth salivates as I arrange it decoratively on the tray. Feeling as though something is missing. I skip through to the living room, opening up the doors to the terrace and tenderly pluck two of Alex's bright orange star lilies. Perfect.

With tray in hand I push open the door to the bedroom with my foot, clearing my throat as I near her side of the bed.

"Alex … baby."

She moans and stretches before rolling wearily, the toll of yesterday's sexcapades evident in both our bodies. She lolls on her back, enjoying the way my mouth parts at the sight of her naked breasts.

"Is that for me?" She sits up, taking the sheet with her as I nod. "Oh Liv, thank you."

I scoot beside her on the bed, placing the tray across her lap. "It's your 'first day back at work' breakfast." I explain, blowing on her coffee before passing it to her.

She grins, her whole face alight by the most radiant and peaceful smile. Yesterday was a day for leaving all of the negativity behind, today it is Monday – and Alexandra Cabot, ADA is back.

"Whatever have I done to deserve you?" She whispers, capturing my lips in a soft morning kiss, our first of many today.

"I ask myself the very same thing." I gush, unable to keep at bay the rush of feelings I have for this amazingly beautiful and talented woman.

After breakfast she hits the shower and I allow it - knowing that if I go in there too then she'll be late for her return meeting with Branch and Donnelly. I can assault her later in her office when we're alone. By the time I'm done with my own shower, she's applying a pair of tan stockings to luscious legs. My breath halts in my chest, taking in the visage of Alex Cabot in pale mauve lace underwear as she fastens her stockings to her matching suspenders.

"I love these …" She turns, running her fingers over the lace of the expensive present I bought to mark her return to work. Why I felt the need to torture myself in this way I've really no idea.

I dress myself methodically, watching her tease her hair into shiny blonde waves before applying a navy blue blouse and grey pinstripe skirt. She volumises the lashes around her eyes, putting on a little liner and blush before turning to face me, her hands smoothing the invisible lines of her skirt.

"How do I look?"

I hold up her jacket and she steps into it, the material falls perfectly onto her shoulders and just like that she's transformed from Alex Cabot – watcher of Golden Girls, crier at movies, bedspread hog – into Alexandra Cabot, defence attorneys formidable opponent.

"You look amazing baby."

She stands in front of me as I clip on my badge and gun, ready to face the day. It's the first time in the rest of our lives that we'll leave for work together and it feels significant and mundane at the same time. She slips her hand into mine and squeezes firmly.

"You ready?"

I laugh, because I am. Ready for everything our life throws at me.

"Always."

The end.

Reviews are love …