References: Through the end of Season 15.
A/N: This is a short one-shot futurefic, set sometime season 16-17ish. (A fluffy futurefic?! Who am I, even?!)
And the disclaimer: these characters are so not mine.
"Dreams Revisited"
"Have you ever considered what you'd be if you weren't a cop?" she asks one lazy afternoon.
"I'm not a cop, remember?" is his reply.
She rolls her eyes. "I mean if you hadn't become a cop."
"A Marine," he says simply.
"Wasn't there anything else you wanted to be when you were growing up?"
"Not with my dad in the house—"
"Or if something had happened, early on. If one little thing had been different..."
He shrugs. "A firefighter? I dunno," he says quickly, sheepishly, like he's embarrassed that she's asking him to think outside his comfortable thin-blue-lined box.
"That's basically the same thing, El!"
He huffs, frustrated that he was trying and it still wasn't what she wanted.
"I think about it sometimes," she volunteers quietly.
"Yeah? Where do you see yourself?" he asks skeptically, wondering whether she now has doubts or regrets about the years she has given to the squad. He imagines that she once had higher ambitions, worries that she feels like she settled for being a cop.
"I don't know," she murmurs. "I've never been able to see it clearly. But I keep thinking... if my mother hadn't been a professor—if she'd just been some woman—I'm not sure I would have gone to college. I mean, even with all the problems she had..." she trails off and sighs. He wants to reassure her somehow but he can't, so he just gives her the time she needs, and he hopes that's enough. "If something had been different... maybe a secretary. And by now I'd be the office manager."
"Office manager?" he repeats, surprised. There's nothing wrong with it whatsoever, but it's such a mundane dream for someone as capable as she. But before she can even speak again, he realizes what she'd been trying to say: that being a cop wasn't "settling," that she felt she had achieved something because of—and in spite of—her mother and her upbringing.
Olivia shrugs. "It's been so long that I don't even remember if I had a skill set before I learned how to be a cop." She stretches a little, repositions herself. "But I like doing things for people. I've always liked it."
He inhales deeply, thinking. "Construction worker," he muses. "I'd be a construction worker."
She smiles slyly, tries to direct it at him. "You're built for it," she mumbles.
He hears her and smiles in response. "I am," he says softly. "Or maybe a handyman. I like making things—fixing things." He pauses. "With the right degree, maybe an architect."
She closes her eyes, leans back a little. "I could see that," she tells him.
Just then, Eli comes tearing through the room on his way to the kitchen. They hear him rifling through packages in the freezer, and then he runs back through. "Commercial break!" he explains, panting for emphasis, brandishing a popsicle, before bolting back to the bedroom where he'd been watching a movie on TV.
Elliot and Olivia exchange amused smiles and, just as quickly as it came, the interruption is over, and they're back in their own world again.
"Where's all this coming from?" he asks softly, out of pure curiosity.
She shrugs and then stills. "Sometimes I wonder if we would have met otherwise."
His breath catches slightly.
"If we weren't cops and you weren't my partner, would I have even met you?"
It is so silent that they can hear strains of Eli's movie playing down the hall, even with the door closed.
He loves what she says next, but he hates how timid she sounds: "I don't know what I'd do if I hadn't."
He scowls a little. "Hey," he says too gruffly. "What good is it to fixate on something bad that never happened? Huh?"
"I know," she mumbles weakly. She's not Badass Benson anymore. Hasn't been for a few months. She's weepy now for no good reason, and she hates that she can't seem to control her emotions these days.
"Besides," he adds with a playful glint in his eye, "I'd be an architect, and I'd hire you as my office manager, obviously."
She laughs, and two silver bands clink against each other as his grip on her hand tightens for a moment. He breathes deeply, content and at peace, and she shifts against him, pressing her face into his neck. She can feel his pulse, slow and steady, against her forehead.
Noah is down for his nap. Eli is still engrossed in his movie in the other room. For a moment, it's just them. Elliot presses a lingering kiss to Olivia's hairline and slides their joined hands over the gentle swell of her belly.