First of all, thanks so much to everyone who reviewed my Fun at the Fair fic. It was really appreciated.
This idea came to me randomly the other day and I had to try to do something with it. I'll be very interested to know what you guys think so keep those reviews coming!
This was originally going to be a one-shot but then it got very long so there's going to be another chapter after this one.
For Vikki- a belated Christmas present- you really are awesome.
"Hey Dad!"
Elliot looked up from the newspaper he had been pretending to read to see his twin son and daughter come through the front door. They had just got in from school and Elliot had endured an extremely rare day off. The Captain had insisted him and Olivia take a vacation day and try as they had to persuade him otherwise, neither of them had been at work that day. Elliot knew most people loved taking a day or two break from the stress of their job, especially if their job was as horrific as Elliot's usually was, but Elliot had hated being stuck at home. Maybe if it had been a weekend and he could have spent time with his children he would have felt differently, but with them at school he had wandered aimlessly around his empty house; bored out of his mind. He had resisted the temptation to call Olivia and ask her round. He was almost certain she would have been as bored as him but just in case she was enjoying the time away from him and the job, he didn't call. He hated to admit it to himself, but the thing he had missed most about going into work that day wasn't catching perps or saving victims (although those things were hugely important to him), it was seeing Olivia. In the years they had worked together, they had grown incredibly close. He couldn't imagine his life without her and he didn't want to. She knew him better than anyone and he prided himself on knowing everything about her. Since Kathy had left him and the children Olivia had saved him from falling apart. She had been his rock and he was sure his family wouldn't be as happy and secure as it was now without her.
"Dad!" Elliot shook his head and concentrated on Dickie and Lizzie standing before him.
"Hey guys, how was school?" He asked.
"Boring, obviously." Dickie said, dropping his oversized school bag on the floor and falling back into one of the chairs.
"It was okay." Lizzie said dismissively.
"You guys want something to eat?" Elliot said, rising from the couch and walking toward the kitchen.
"Yes please!" The twins shouted as he left the room.
When Elliot came back with sandwiches, biscuits and lemonade Lizzie passed him a piece of paper.
"We got these today." She said, her mouth full of chocolate biscuit.
It was a letter from the school.
"Parents' Consultation Evening." He sighed.
"Yeah," Lizzie said, "you've gotta meet with all my teachers and they talk about my grades and stuff."
"I know what Parents' Evening is Lizzie." Elliot said with a smirk.
Dickie reached into his bag and pulled out a rumpled piece of paper which he passed to Elliot. Elliot looked at the identical letter and was about to set them down on the coffee table when he realised the writing on the back.
"What's all this?" He asked, confused.
Lizzie looked up from her sandwich. "Oh, that's the times we need to meet our teachers."
Elliot studied Dickie's times and then Lizzie's and sighed.
"What's wrong Dad?" Dickie asked.
"There's no way I can make all the meetings with both of your teachers." He said. "When your mum was around," both twins winced at the mention of their estranged mother, "I'd go with Dickie and your mum would go with Lizzie. Now it's just me, I don't know what to do."
"Well you can't miss Parents' Evening Dad!" Lizzie exclaimed. She wouldn't admit it to her brother but she had been working extra hard at school in the last year and she wanted her father to listen to her teachers praise her grades.
"You can miss mine." Dickie mumbled. He wasn't all that enthusiastic about school and it showed in his average grades. He was quite content for his dad to miss his teachers' "can do better" mantra.
"I'm not missing anyone's consultations." Elliot said forcefully, with a reassuring smile at Lizzie and a glare at his son. "I'll just have to figure it out."
Elliot stood from the couch and left the room to start dinner, leaving Dickie and Lizzie in the lounge.
Dickie was staring into space but Lizzie had a thoughtful look on her face. Suddenly, a huge grin came over her features and her brother looked at her suspiciously.
"What?" She smiled.
"You're planning something, I can tell." He narrowed his eyes. "What are you up to?"
Lizzie faked an expression of angelic innocence. "Nothing." She grinned.
The next day Elliot arrived at work after dropping the kids at school, and the Parents' Evening issue was weighing heavily on his mind. He had called the school and they had said that they were completely unable to move any of the twins' appointments. He thought about send Maureen with Lizzie, but she wasn't old enough to act as guardian of Lizzie. He had run out of options.
As he sat down at his desk, Olivia smiled at him from behind her coffee cup, before passing him one of his own. He took a grateful sip of the rich beverage and smiled at Olivia.
"Thanks Liv, I really needed that."
"No worries. I thought you would. Apparently you have a problem with the twins' Parents' Evening?" Olivia replied.
"Yeah. How do you know that?" Elliot said, very confused.
"Lizzie rang me last night." Olivia said calmly. Since Kathy had left and Olivia had spent more time with the Stabler kids, Lizzie had grown very fond of her father's partner and had called Olivia a few times before when she had had problems that she didn't want to talk to her dad about. Elliot liked that Lizzie had Olivia to talk to when she needed a woman's advice and he was glad it was someone he trusted as much as Olivia.
"Oh right, yeah, Dickie and Lizzie have appointments with different teachers at the same time and I don't know how I'm going to make all of them. Before, y'know with Kathy, she went with Lizzie and I went with Dickie but now…" Elliot's voice trailed off and Olivia smiled sympathetically. She knew how hard it had been for Elliot to get used to being a single father.
"Well, that's why Lizzie called." Olivia said. Elliot just looked at her, confused again. He thought Lizzie had called Olivia about something else and the Parents' Evening issue had just come up in conversation. Apparently not. Olivia continued.
"I thought she would have told you, but I guess she didn't. Lizzie asked me to go to Parents' Evening with her, while you went with Dickie." Olivia took another sip of her coffee.
Elliot's mouth opened in shock.
"I can't believe she asked that of you!" He exclaimed. "I'm sorry Liv, I'll talk to her when I get home. I mean, God, that's so… inappropriate."
Olivia seemed taken aback by his outburst.
"I said yes, Elliot." She said simply.
"What?" Elliot was sure he hadn't understood her right.
"I told her I'd go with her." Olivia said. "She was so funny; she had it all worked out. She said we'd tell her teachers that I was her Dad's partner. Then they'd just assume I was your girlfriend but we wouldn't have lied about my relation to Lizzie." Olivia chuckled when she remembered how animated Lizzie had been on the phone because she had worked out a genius plan to solve the problem.
Elliot was astounded. He couldn't believe that his daughter had come up with that little plan. He couldn't believe that she had asked Olivia without checking with him. And most of all, he couldn't believe that Olivia had agreed.
"Elliot? Are you okay?" Olivia asked when Elliot hadn't spoke for a while.
"What? Yeah, I'm fine." Elliot stuttered. "Look Liv, I appreciate you trying to help, I really do, but it's not fair to ask you to do something like that."
"Oh, don't be ridiculous Elliot." Olivia countered immediately. "We both know that this is the only way you're going to be able to do this. I'll go to Lizzie's appointments and fill you in afterwards."
Elliot opened his mouth to argue but saw the look on Olivia's face and promptly closed it again. There was no arguing with Olivia Benson when she made up her mind. He nodded and she smiled before returning to her coffee and opening up a file.
A week later
Elliot and Olivia entered the squad room and sank into their respective desk chairs. It had been a difficult- and long- day. A recently paroled rapist, Richard Simms, had launched an attack on his neighbour, a twenty-three year old school teacher, holding her at knife point. The poor woman had been terrified and it had taken SVU all day to negotiate with Simms and get him to release her. The day had taken its toll on the detectives and Elliot and Olivia traded weary smiles across their desks. They had done their job; Simms was in custody and had broken down, giving a full confession of everything.
They looked up as Captain Cragen emerged from his office.
"Good result today people. I just spoke to Casey: Simms is pleading guilty and the defence has agreed that there's no point in a trial. He'll be sentenced next week, Casey thinks he'll get at least twenty." Cragen spoke to Elliot, Olivia, Munch and Fin. All detectives nodded and smiled; glad that justice would be served.
"Now, it's been a long day, so you guys get out of here. We'll deal with the paperwork tomorrow." Cragen said, before heading back to his office.
Olivia turned off her computer and started to pack her personal belongings into her handbag. Elliot saw her rise from her chair and reached for their coats.
"Last chance to back out of this Liv…" Elliot said. It was Dickie and Lizzie's Parents' Consultation Evening that night and Elliot wanted to be sure that Olivia didn't mind going.
"Elliot, stop being ridiculous. I'm still going." Olivia's words were abrupt but Elliot could hear the subtle smile in her voice. He shrugged on his coat and opened out Olivia's for her to put on.
Olivia slipped her arms into the sleeves of her long black coat and Elliot smoothed it down on her shoulders. She could feel her hair stuck in the neck of the coat and reached to free it but Elliot beat her to it. His strong hands swept her hair out of her coat in a smooth, fluid motion. Olivia felt a tingling shiver run down her spine when his fingertips brushed the tender skin of her neck and Elliot delighted in her response. His hands rested a moment too long on her shoulders before his touch left her and he stepped away. Olivia's heart screamed out for his contact until her brain effectively slapped her heart into common sense and she gathered herself enough to start walking.
"Right," Olivia began, her voice sounding strained even to her ears, "what time do I need to be at your's?"
"Well their first meetings are at six, so I suppose half five? But, I can pick you up on the way there."
"Are you sure you don't mind?" Olivia asked.
"Of course not Liv." Elliot smiled.
"Okay, I'll see you at half five then." She shot Elliot a parting smile as she left the squad room. After he had finished admiring the sway of her hips as she walked, he too left the squad room and headed home.
"Dad!" Lizzie shouted from the lounge. "We need to go!"
"Alright, alright. I'll be there in a minute!" Elliot yelled back from his bedroom.
When he entered the room a few minutes later, Lizzie's eyebrows rose into her fringe.
"What?" Elliot asked self-consciously. "Do I look okay?"
"Yeah, more than okay actually." Lizzie replied. "Do you want to look okay?" She smirked at her father's confused face.
"I don't understand Lizzie." He said.
"Yes, you do. You know, same as I do, that it's not a coincidence that you have never made any effort with what you wear to Parents' Evening before today, and that Liv happens to be coming with us this time…" Lizzie winked before running out of the room to find her brother- and escape her father.
Elliot's mouth hung in shock. Not because of the idea of him dressing up for Olivia (as much as he tried to dismiss it, he knew that was all too true) but the fact that Lizzie had caught onto it. Then a sudden, horrible, thought hit him; if Lizzie had realised he had dressed up for Olivia, then wouldn't Olivia realise it too? He had wanted her to notice that he looked nice, that was the whole point, but he certainly didn't want her to realise that he had done it to impress her. And that thought only lead to him having to examine why exactly he wanted to impress her- which was an internal battle he couldn't deal with just now.
He shook his head, in a vain attempt to clear his head, just as his son and youngest daughter entered the room. Time to go.
'Oh God, what am I going to do? Or rather, what am I going to wear?'
Olivia Benson was having a crisis moment: a proper, undignified, hysterical and wholly un-Olivia crisis moment. She was actually stressing out about what to wear. She hadn't done that since High School, not even for dates. So why was she worrying about it now? She was going to school Parents' Evening with her partner- who she absolutely, definitely did not have feelings for- and two of his children.
Rationally, she knew she should just wear a pair of jeans and simple top but something was stopping her. She tried to convince herself it was the fact that she hadn't actually been to one of these things since she was the child and had no idea what the appropriate clothing was. She didn't want to look underdressed, or worse; overdressed. If she was truthful to herself for a moment she knew it was really because she wanted to look… different. For Elliot. He always saw her in either plain boring clothes for work or shapeless casual clothes when she looked after the kids. He never saw her in anything nice.
After a few more minutes of frantic thinking, she settled on the idea that it would probably be a smart/casual kind of affair. That meant she could get away with a skirt, she realised with a smile. And a nicer one than the ones she wore for court. She flicked through her wardrobe and found a black, slightly-shorter-than-knee-length skirt that clung to her curves in all the right places. She smiled as she pulled it on. Her eyes widened when she glanced at her watch; Elliot would be there soon. She grabbed a royal blue satin shirt which showed a little more cleavage than her work tops usually did. Examining her reflection in the mirror, she nodded her approval, before quickly chiding herself for acting more like a hormonal teenage girl than a sensible grown woman.
As the buzzer sounded Elliot's arrival she had just finished her hair and she quickly pulled on a pair of black heels and ran down the stairs to the car waiting for her.
Elliot's heart leapt when he saw coming out of the building. Her skirt showed off her gloriously long, slim legs and the bright colour of her top complemented her eyes. She walked gracefully in heels and her now long hair fell in beautiful waves around her face. She had never looked more beautiful to him.
Olivia flashed a warm smile at Elliot as she slipped into the passenger seat of the car.
"Hey Liv." Elliot returned the smile. "You look nice." He said, his voice low because of the children sitting behind them.
Olivia's smile widened, glad that he had noticed the effort. "Thanks. So do you." He was wearing a crisp striped blue shirt that looked, to Olivia, very expensive and the top few buttons were left open, teasing her with a glimpse of his chest.
"Hey Lizzie, Dickie." Olivia said, turning in her seat to smile at the youngest Stablers. Lizzie just smiled back but Olivia could see that she was trying to communicate something telepathically. Lizzie nodded her head in the direction of her father, who was too busy concentrating on the road to notice anything else, and winked. Olivia crinkled her brow in confusion.
"What?" she mouthed at Lizzie.
Lizzie glanced at her father to make sure he wasn't looking. She pointed at Liv and at her father and then drew the shape of a heart in the air. Olivia glared at Lizzie but the young girl knew it was in good humour. She stuck her tongue out at Olivia who mimicked her action before turning back to the front of the car. They rode the rest of the journey to the school in comfortable silence.
They four of them walked through the front entrance of the school; Dickie and Lizzie ahead, bickering about something or other, and Elliot and Olivia behind, him with his hand resting softly on her back. Elliot had been worried about how Olivia would react when he touched her but he remembered her response to his touch when he had helped her with her coat and placed his hand on her back when they had left the car. She had been surprised at first; physical contact was still rather new for them, but found she enjoyed how protected she felt.
They followed Dickie and Lizzie into a huge sports hall where tables were set out around the edge and seats in the centre.
"We need to sign in Dad." Lizzie said.
"Well go sign in then." He smirked at his daughter. She shot him an evil look before taking off toward a table in the far corner with her brother.
"You're mean sometimes, you know that?" Olivia joked, as she and Elliot tried to find somewhere to sit.
"Yep." Elliot grinned. "And you love me for it."
Olivia's heart did an involuntary somersault at the mention of the word 'love'. She brushed the feeling aside.
"That's what you think…" She smirked.
"Hey!" Elliot exclaimed with mock-indignation.
Olivia laughed and Elliot revelled in the glorious sound he heard so rarely these days.
They finally found a spare couple of seats and sat down to wait for Lizzie and Dickie's first appointment. Opposite them two single dads chatted as their sons were engrossed in their handheld games consoles. One of them glanced up and caught sight of Olivia. He nudged the other man and nodded towards her. The second guy looked at Olivia and grinned at his friend. Elliot felt his anger rise as they blatantly checked her out while he sat right next to her. Sure, she was only his colleague and friend, but they didn't know that; she could be his wife.
Elliot put an arm round Olivia's shoulders and pulled her closer to him. Olivia looked up at him, her face a picture of confusion mixed with… panic? Elliot moved his lips closer to her ear and whispered.
"Those guys over there are checking you out." Elliot said, simply.
Olivia looked even more confused. "So?" she whispered back.
"So, you could be my wife for all they know!"
Olivia grinned: he was jealous. What a great feeling, she thought. She had made Elliot Stabler jealous. She looked up at the two men opposite them and decided to play along with Elliot's charade. She moved closer to him and placed her hand on his knee. She was sure she heard him gasp. She looked up at him and smiled innocently. Suddenly, Olivia retracted her hand and moved away. He didn't know whether to be annoyed or grateful that Dickie and Lizzie chose that moment to return. On the one hand, his skin burned in yearning for her touch and on the other, he really couldn't get turned on at his kids' school.
"Time for our first meeting Dad." Dickie said unenthusiastically.
"Okay, let's go." Elliot stood up. "You guys know where you're going?" He said to Olivia and Lizzie.
"Yes, Dad." Lizzie rolled her eyes.
"See you later then." He smiled and left with Dickie.
Lizzie smiled up at her father's partner. "Right then Liv, ready to play parent?"
Thanks for reading, please review. Xx