A/N- First Cabenson fic, this is five times Alex doesn't know what she's doing.
"I don't know what we're doing here – you and me … I don't know what we are or what we can be, but this doesn't have to be about that. This can just be about … a chance. Taking a chance."
― Dianna Hardy, Broken Lights
She has absolutely no idea what she's doing, but hell if she's going to let on to that. She pushes her hair back, sets her shoulders, and strides into the coffee shop as though she were a General going into battle.
Today is the day.
It's a Tuesday which means Hugh's has pumpkin bread and apple turnovers oven fresh. The teenager working the register is the same acne ridden kid she's seen every other morning for the past three years. They had bonded the first week in her first year of law school when he had asked for a name on her cup and realized it was his own.
He smiles, going to make her order before she's even made it to the counter, "The usual?" he asks, already filling a to go cup.
"You know me too well, Alex." She laughs, leaning against the counter and taking a sweeping glance of the coffee shop, her eyes land on an empty table in the corner. Her smile falters, it's a Tuesday, so that table should be occupied, there should be the top of a striking face and a full head of brunette hair poking out over the top of the daily copy of the Times.
Alex follows her gaze and suppresses a smirk, "She's running late."
Alex considers chastising him for how forward he is, but she knows he would just laugh at her.
Instead, she sighs in frustration, "I was going to do it today."
"Bullshit." He laughs, snapping a lid on the cup, knowing that Alex doesn't add cream or sugar, "You've been saying that for the last three months."
"Yeah, but today I meant it."
Alex smiles and rings up her order, she is pulling out the cash she knows it will take to cover the drink before he even tells her the total, "Prove it." He says, raising his eyebrows at her.
The blonde hears the bell above the door ring, and she nearly gets whiplash with how quickly she turns to see who's come in. Sure enough, it's the same brunette she's seen every Tuesday and Thursday morning for the past three months.
The woman beelines for the table in the corner, and Alex feels her cheeks heat up in embarassment.
"Well?" The boy smirks, holding out the to go cup.
Alex runs a hand through her hair, "How the hell do you ask out a woman?"
"Haven't you ever done it before?"
"No." Alex admits sheepishly, "They ask me."
The teenager rolls his eyes, "How difficult your life must be. Have you ever even been in a relationship with one?"
She grits her teeth in agitation, "I'm not really the relationship type."
"Knew you were a player." Alex laughs at the poor woman who keeps glancing over at the table to the brunette.
"Help me."
He turns back to the coffee bar, filling a cup with the brunette's usual order, and handing it to Alex, "Give this to her, and ask her out."
The law student visually blanches, "Just say the words?"
"Go." He commands.
Alex juggles her bag and the two cups and strides as purposefully as she can manage over to the table in the corner. She feels the brunette's eyes on her when she's still a few paces away, and she tries not to trip under the weight of the gaze.
When she reaches the table, she places the second cup down at the brunette's elbow, "Hello." She smiles.
"Hey." The woman smiles back, though it looks more like a smirk.
"I got you a uhm, well I'm not quite sure what it is, but Alex said it's what you normally order." She tries very hard not to blush.
"I see, thank you." The woman is playing with Alex, and she knows it.
"You're welcome." She stalls out for a second, trying to remember what she was going to say next, "Do you want to get dinner sometime?" She forces the question out with as much false confidence as she can muster, before tacking on, "With me, on a date." In case it hadn't been clear.
"Yeah, I would."
A grin splits the blonde's face, "Great."
The brunette scrawls something on the corner of a page of the newspaper, tearing it off and handing it to Alex, "Call me."
Alex checks the slip, seeing a phone number and 'Olivia Benson' written in nearly illegible chicken scratch, "I will."
…
Alex has absolutely no idea what she's doing, but there's no way she can admit to that now. It's been three weeks, three weeks since she asked Olivia out on a date and she said yes. In those three weeks they've been on nine dates.
Alex asked (adorably) for them to be exclusive on date number four. It was brunch on a Sunday. They had spent the night together in Alex's shoebox of an apartment, and went to eat at the cute cafe down the road.
They sat outside at a table where they could people watch, and it just sort of slipped out. Alex was watching an adorable family, a young man and woman with a small girl between them holding onto one of each of her parents' hands. They were walking down the road to the church on the corner.
Alex hadn't been to church in years, and it was with the thought of beautiful stained glass in mind that she let it slip out, "I want you to be with me."
Olivia had laughed, reaching over to hold Alex's hand over the table, "I am with you babe, I was with you all last night too."
Alex blushed because she still wasn't comfortable talking about things like that, even in the most vague terms.
"No, I mean like only with me." She looked down at their intertwined fingers, playing with Olivia's, "I want us to be exclusive."
The brunette had retracted her hands, and Alex immediately felt her walls springing back up until those hands were lightly grasping Alex's chin and encouraging her to make eye contact, "Alexandra Cabot, are you asking me to be your girlfriend?"
She felt her face flushing deeper red than it ever had before, "Yeah."
Olivia smiled widely at how the normally steely faced blonde was caving in on herself, "I would love to be your girlfriend."
That was five dates ago.
Now, Alex is utterly clueless. They're in Olivia's apartment this time, and her roommate is gone for the weekend ensuring they have total privacy, which explains their current situation. That situation being completely naked, on Olivia's bed, the brunette flat on her back and Alex between her legs.
She is eye level with Olivia's sex, and she has absolutely no idea what to do. In her eighteen months of sleeping with women (she was late coming out of the closet) and three weeks of dating Olivia, she has never gone down on a girl. Not that she's going to stop to tell Olivia this.
She had made the decision, pulling her hand away when Olivia was moments away from orgasm, kissing her way down the brunette's body, until she was here. Olivia's hands are fisted in her hair, and she can see the needy way her hips are jumping up off the bed.
What the hell is she supposed to do? What if she doesn't like the way Olivia tastes? What if she does it wrong? What does she do with her hands? Her mind is running wild on her, and she knows she's moments away from talking herself out of this. But then Olivia lets out this needy little whimper followed with a quiet 'Al, please', and Alex knows she wants to do this.
So she dives in, taking a hesitant swipe with her tongue, Olivia's hips jerking into the contact makes her heart jump and a triumphant smirk to break across her face. She continues going with growing confidence, and quicker than she thought possible, Olivia is arching off the bed, her eyes screwed shut, mouth open in a silent cry of release.
…
She has absolutely no idea what she's doing, well that's a lie. She knows exactly what she's doing, she just doesn't know why the hell she's doing it. She's been with Olivia for nearly two months (she's gotten much better at the whole oral sex thing- Olivia was all too eager to let her practice whenever she wanted), and she's nearly finished her final year of law school.
She's been taking night classes in Spanish- she took French through high school and then learned German in college, now she's realizing that Spanish would probably have been the most useful in her plans to become a public prosecutor.
Olivia is on track to become a detective for the NYPD, and she's already fluent in Spanish. Olivia takes great joy in Alex's clumsy attempts at the language, and Alex bullies her into helping her with homework.
The class is mainly comprised of older adults, and college aged students, the teacher is this adorable old grandmother with coke bottle glasses who wears necklaces with massive beads. They're just finishing a unit on holidays when the teacher instructs them all to write what they're thankful for. Alex twirls her pen around her fingers twice, chews on the inside of her cheek, and furrows her brows.
She's never discussed her sexuality in an academic setting, avoiding pronouns when talking about her dates in class, just glossing over it entirely, it was just simpler that way.
Now, she took one last steadying breath before writing very clearly and definitively, 'Estoy agradecido por mi novia.' (I am thankful for my girlfriend.)
At the end of class when the teacher calls for them to turn in the papers they've been writing for the past hour, Alex almost second guesses herself. She very nearly doesn't give the paper in until the old woman gives her that soft smile and says, "Gracias bonita."
Alex smiles and hands over the paper because the teacher calls everyone 'bonita' (even the men), and maybe she won't care that Alex is thankful for her girlfriend.
She obsesses over that one sentence for the next week until she gets the paper back. In red ink next to the sentence is a small smiley face. Alex goes to Olivia's apartment that night, arms laden down with the weight of chinese take out from the brunette's favorite place.
She sweeps in, hardly waiting for Olivia to move from the doorway and puts the food down on the small kitchen table. When she turns to face an amused Olivia, she doesn't say anything, just smiles widely and steps into her girlfriend's space. She backs Olivia into the wall and kisses her deeply before pulling back with a wide grin.
"What's that for?"
"Nothing." Alex laughs, "I'm just thankful that I have you."
…
Alex has no idea what she's doing. She's been with Olivia for something like eight months and they've been living together ever since Alex finally graduated and they bought a place close enough to the precinct for Olivia, and the DA's office for Alex.
They're laying in bed early one Saturday morning, Olivia has the day off work after a particularly long shift, and Alex has no cases pending so they've got the whole day to themselves. Even so, Alex has woken up with the sun and she's watching the light creep across Olivia's body.
The brunette is entirely bare beneath the sheet which she fell asleep tangled in, so her back is completely exposed to Alex's appreciative gaze. Olivia's head is resting on Alex's chest and her hair is tickling the blone's skin.
Alex traces idle patterns into her girlfriend's tan skin, smirking when Olivia shivers and nestles in closer to her. She would have never guessed it when she first met the intense brunette, but Olivia is a secret massive cuddler. She burrows her head more snugly between Alex's breasts and tightens her hold on the taller woman's waist.
Alex tries her very best to prevent herself from rolling her eyes. Even unconcious, her girlfriend cannot be pushed away from her chest.
She continues her tracing patterns into Olivia's back, her idle doodles eventually turning into words. The same three words over and over again until Olivia's eyes flutter open. As she slowly comes to fully wake up, Olivia smirks in the memory of their night.
Olivia pulls herself up and presses a soft kiss to the side of Alex's mouth, "Good morning."
Alex laughs at her girlfriend's yawn, "Good morning, Sleeping Beauty."
"I knew you thought I was beautiful." Olivia jokes.
Alex rolls her eyes, "You're the most beautiful girl I've ever met."
Olivia smiles at her, and it's that smile. The one that shows all of her teeth, the one with her eyes shining. The smile like Alex has absolutely hung the moon. And maybe she has, because Alex doesn't know what she's doing and she can't hold it back when the three words she had been tracing on the brunette's back come tumbling out of her mouth.
"I love you."
Olivia's eyes widen in surprise for a moment. Neither of them are particularly good with the whole feelings thing, and they both grew up wanting for affection, so they had both been extremely cautious in regulating their emotions. This is the first time either of them has said those three words.
"I love you too, Alex." The brunette smiles.
Even though Alex doesn't know what she's doing, she knows she can do it with Olivia.
…
It's been years since Alex didn't know what she was doing. She's an amazing prosecutor, never being clueless in her job, she married Olivia without a second thought, but now for the first time in nearly seven years, Alex has no idea what she's doing.
She's in the hospital (hasn't been in the hospital since last year when Olivia broke her arm tripping down a flight of stairs after chasing a perp) and she's just sort of twiddling her thumbs. She's in the corner of the room watching Elliot fuss over her baby girl.
It's not exactly a new sight- Elliot fussing over babies that is- he's got two small ones of his own and Alex has seen how great the detective is with children. But it is a new sight because this is only the fifth time she's seeing her daughter.
Olivia is sitting cross legged in the bed, watching Elliot with a soft grin while Munch teases her because her hair is even worse than the baby's. When Elliot hands the small girl back, Olivia turns to her wife, "Come're." Olivia says.
Alex smiles because how can she resist when Olivia's hair really is a mess, and she's wearing a ridiculous hospital gowns with small ducks printed on it (they ran out of adult ones when they arrived, so Olivia had been stuck wearing children's large gowns her entire stay).
"Hold her?" Olivia asks.
Alex nods a little bit because their girl has stopped fussing finally, and she doesn't want to run the risk of waking her up. Olivia hands over the well wrapped child, and Alex has no idea what she's doing. she knows you're supposed to cradle the head, support the neck, or something like that, but she's never done this before.
She's held children before sure- namely Elliot's when he suckers her into babysitting for him- but she's never held her daughter. The girl opens her mouth and the corners turn down in the beginning of an all out break down.
"Liv, she's about to cry, what do I do?"
"Don't drop her."
"Shut up, Munch." Alex growls, sending a glare at the man.
"She's hungry, but I just nursed her. Let her suck on your pinky." Olivia instructs.
Alex raises her eyebrow in confusion, but does as her wife says. She marvels in amazement when the little girl clamps her gummy jaws around the digit and sucks on it insistently.
"She's amazing."
"She's stubborn as hell." Olivia laughs, "She's going to be just like you."
A/N- I saw something somewhere that Cabenson was like the Grandma of modern femslash pairings, while I didn't particularly ship Alex and Olivia way back when I watched Law and Order SVU on tv, it was probably because I was like 12. But Stephanie March was definitely my first major woman crush :)