When Liv faced a loss that would rewrite her entire life, she stepped away from her work. A year and a half later, she returns to the BAU in search of normalcy; so she can finally move on. On a new team, Liv is immediately thrown into the game of ca...
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Liv knew she was dreaming before she could even absorb where she was. She pondered how strange it was to be waking up on cold rubber flooring, pushing herself off the ground to catch a glimpse of the white, sterile walls. The empty nurses station. The low buzz of the AC that kept the building feeling so cold
Her head was pounding and it felt like she had been asleep for years, opening her eyes groggily. She must've been right under an air duct too, cause her limbs were shaking and she nearly couldn't feel her nose.
She looked around her, noting how creepy an empty hospital was. Before she could even build the strength to push herself off the freezing floor, she felt a set of eyes on her, snapping her head around to the nearest bend in the hallway. A full head of hair ducked back behind the other side of the wall, out of sight. Bronzed and Ember. She knew that hair.
"Ben?" Her voice echoed through the vacancy. She was responded to by nothing but the slapping of feet on the hard ground.
Now she was standing, no, she was running, chasing the sound of pattering steps and a huffing breath. "Ben?"
Her chest heaved as her feet carried her, quick but not quick enough. Flashes of blond, the squeaking of his old sneakers, the slamming of doors she immediately pushed open. "Ben, stop! Please, just slow down-"
She went to swing open another door that he had run through, right as it had clicked shut. Only this time, the lock had clicked too, and she meet the surface at a velocity that only left her entire body aching as it made contact. Her curled fist slammed against it in frustration, banging a few more times in a growing desperation. "Ben... please. Please open the door." She tried to twist the handle with as much force as possible, hoping it would give way under her pressure. "Damn it Ben! Open the door!" She slammed her first again.
Finally, she took a few steps back before preparing to through her whole frame against the door, running, running...
In the moment of expecting to finally break through the torturous subconscious barrier her mind had conjured, Liv was instead met with a different kind of pain. Instead, it was the floor of her hotel room, having rolled out of bed in the midst of her mindless thrashing, only to fall straight on her face. She was covered in a layer of sweat, and she could feel the saltiness on her cheeks from tears the were only now multiplying as she took in the pain, and the reality.
Her face had hit the floor just as equally as the rest of her body had, and the large gash on her nose from the case they only just finished had split back open at the contact. It stung in a way that brought tears to her eyes, more tears than were already there, because every moment in that dark, empty hotel room sitting in blood and tears only made her body rack harder with sobs.
