Hello all. So to start off, this is just a ONE shot. And it's sort of AU where the episode of Wildlife is concerned. It came from a gifset I did on tumblr and my wonderful beta Cori saw it and said "Write a fic about that!" So I did! I'll link the gifset on my profile for anyone interested. Thanks and feel free to let me know what you thought as always.
Gamma Leonis
"The Star Lion or the Lion's Tail within the stars. A binary star system within the constellation of Leo."
The whisper of wind lightly whips against her skin like baby's breath, the warm and gentle sensation an ironic reminder of that night.
Seven months ago, she would have never grasped onto this reality even if it had been served to her on a silver platter with a note attached reminding her that complications from what she was contemplating doing would be no holds barred.
She's learned that there is no such thing as a catch and release program in everyday life. Nothing is without complications.
Because she adherently remembers the gold band glistening on his thick ring finger.
If only she hadn't been in a vicious cycle of trying to save something she wasn't even sure he was intent on keeping anymore.
She'd known that going to him after what his wife had told him would not be wise and that she'd potentially put them all at risk but she hadn't truly been thinking.
She rubs her eyelids gently with her middle finger and thumb as another stimulating breeze wafts through the cracked window in her spare bedroom.
The rocking chair creaks under her weight with each motion underscoring the loss of conscious effort to maintain lines that night months ago.
Since there was the barrel of a .9 millimeter staring her in the face when she made the choice she did, she guesses that maybe, just maybe he will absolve her of her misjudgement someday.
Maybe he'll realize that it was her effort to save him.
He got to go home to his two year old that night. He got to go home to his wife.
She hadn't been able to tell him what she'd gone home with that night but if she had to say, she would have told him her silent companion was the remnant of an act that she hadn't thought through quite enough.
No amount of money could have paid for the loss of her best friend.
EOEOEOEO
After work, exactly one month after Tybor and Bushido were apprehended, a simple purchase from the drugstore on the way home from work imprints itself within her being.
It's eight o'clock on that Friday evening when her world turns upside down yet again.
She leans over the waste bin and angrily tosses the plastic stick into the heap of trash collecting inside, not wanting to believe the plastic's pronouncement but knowing the signs had been there for days, if not weeks.
Both palms find a home over her eyes and her body convulses as she falls slowly onto her knees.
Next to her bathtub, she sobs over the inevitable revelation she'll have to disclose.
What she fears most isn't the implication on that small white stick, it's the look on his face when she seals the deal on what they did.
There's no pretending it was to save lives. There's no pretending it never happened. There's no pretending that it was just for show.
It happened.
The proof is in her womb.
The proof is in the fact that she is responsible for the chaos that will consume them all.
She fears Kathy's eyes as well.
EOEOEOEO
He's late to work almost everyday for the next week after she finds out.
It's probably a good thing she realizes when she doubles over the trashcan next to her desk for the third time in as many hours on the thirty-sixth day since "it" happened.
She makes a mental note to skip even the granola she tries to down every morning before work from now on.
Just as she swipes her mouth with her hand, she glances to her right and in comes Munch and Fin. Still no Elliot and she's not sure how that makes her feel.
She almost rationalizes that he must know. He must know what they had done now has inescapable consequences lingering around every crevice of their sanctuary.
Her thoughts are interrupted when Munch lays a hand on her shoulder.
She flinches slightly, but turns her head in his direction.
"Hey, Liv. You look like you could use a few more hours of sleep. Have you been here all night again?" he inquires gently, looking down at her through his tinted, thin-wired glasses.
She looks at the small clock on her desk and it says 9:30 a.m. She waves him off with a shake of her head before turning in her chair to stand. She's been here since 6:30 but she won't tell them that.
No need to get into why she couldn't sleep quite yet.
"Nah-" she trails off as she stands, immediately seeing white spots float in and out of her focus as she does so.
She knows she's going to faint before she even finds the words to rebuff Munch's claim. She loses her balance and grips the edge of her desk in an attempt to break her fall.
But it's too late. Munch grips her uppers arms, simultaneously calling to Cragen as the captain walks out of his office with a file in his hand.
"Cap, I think we need a bus! Hey, Fin, come help me," she hears him call out as his partner comes from the file room.
The last thing she hears is her own voice behind a black cloud of uncertainty.
"I'm okay, I'm okay..." she repeats softly to herself and she thinks she is but who knows. She can't even see where she is anymore.
EOEOEOEO
"Can I go now?"
"You just fainted Ms. Benson. I think you need to be checked out thoroughly before the doctor will let you leave," the young nurse in baby blue scrubs chuckles to her.
"I just.. I need to get back. My partner. He's going to wonder where I am."
"No worries. You'll be out of here in no time. The doc will be in shortly with your blood work."
She grumbles to herself and thumbs the thread endings of the hospital issued blanket laying haphazardly over her stomach.
She's still in her clothes and she's lucky.
She'd come to just as they'd began to wheel her into the exam room. She didn't even want to be here let alone changing her clothes when she's pretty sure what the issue is.
She hadn't eaten or drank anything all morning.
When the doctor walks in with a clipboard in hand and an inquisitive look on his face, she burrows down under the cover and swallows.
Yeah, that's exactly what's wrong with her she tries to convince herself halfheartedly.
EOEOEOEO
As she's wheeled down the hallway toward the hospital exit, she finally sees him.
She doesn't want him to see her like this. She doesn't want to see him at all but she knows he's concerned about her.
He'd already been late and then finding out his partner had been rushed to the ER wouldn't be something he'd brush off lightly.
She stands up in her work clothes, nodding to the nurse who smiles politely even though she's obviously irritated with Olivia's persistence.
She takes a few wobbly steps as the nurse stands with the wheelchair close by just in case.
When she glances up, her eyes immediately connect with his as he passes by the gift shop.
Biting her lower lip, she takes a deep breath and another wobbly step.
He's immediately on alert to her wobbliness she realizes, because he picks up his pace and half runs to her, and in any other case, she'd berate him for treating her like she's fragile glass.
"Liv," he pants once he reaches her. He stands only a few inches in front and before she has a choice, her palm is pressed flat against his chest as her balance tips precariously to the edge of needing the wheelchair.
"I'm fine," she blurts out before he can respond to her body language.
"Doesn't look like it."
"Well," she swallows, "Looks can be deceiving. You my ride home?"
"Yeah," he nods. "You really okay?" he asks, his thick eyebrows, lined with the faintest hint of gray, furrowed deeply as he tentatively reaches for her elbow. "Cap told me as soon as I walked in to head over to Mercy. That'd you'd fainted in the squadroom."
"Eh," she shakes her head. "I just ... my sugar got too low. I should start eating in the morning, that's all."
"I didn't know you had problems with your sugar," he says, concern now evident in his voice.
"I don't. I just haven't eaten much the past few days. Case load," she lies.
He opens his mouth to continue the conversation, when the nurse pipes in again from the sidelines, having been watching their entire interaction and doing her duty to make sure the patient's ride was there to pick up said patient.
If only this time hospital personnel could NOT do their fucking job so adequately, she grates internally when the nurse walks up to her with forms in her hand.
"Oh. Ms. Benson. These are yours. To be filled a.s.a.p.," the woman smiles before turning around and trudging toward the elevators with the wheelchair she wishes she still had when she sees Elliot's eyes stray from the young nurse to the paper in Olivia's hand.
When his grip tightens on her elbow, she realizes that it's time.
EOEOEOEO
"What the fuck?"
She closes her eyes at his tone and sits with her back toward the lockers.
"If you're going to yell, please close the door."
"Oh, I'm beyond yelling Olivia," he saunters off, latching the lock to the cribs so no one can walk in on their little secret.
"Elliot, please listen."
"Olivia," he starts then stops. He faces the wall opposite their lockers and leans his head against the hard surface. Long silence lingers between them before an agonizing emotion comes from within him.
She holds in her breath and her tears as he falls onto his haunches in front of her, his back to her.
She thinks about touching his back. About trying to comfort him but she realizes there's nothing that she'll do right now but upset him further.
He shakes his head, his hands clasped behind it, fingers digging into the skin of the opposite hand.
His grainy voice finds it way to her ears when she finally looks away from his devastated posture.
"You're pregnant?"
"Yes."
"And it's mine." It's a statement. He doesn't ask. He doesn't need to because the look on her face, the blush she knows was on her face the moment the nurse handed the prescription to her, had to have confirmed everything to him.
That she wasn't fine. She wasn't anywhere near fine. And if she wasn't fine it meant neither one of them was fucking fine and that'd been the feeling she got from him the entire way back to the precinct.
Once inside their collective home, he'd quietly urged her upstairs without a word and there they are now.
"Yes."
He takes a deep breath before standing up and sitting on the bench next to her.
"How far along?"
"Exactly as long as you think," she whispers.
He bites his lips and burrows his elbows into his knees as he leans over himself. "I don't know what to do, Liv."
"You don't have to do anything," she mutters, rubbing her sweaty palms across the tops of her knees.
"What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about, you not having to do anything."
"Oh, Jesus, Liv. Don't start this holier than thou crap. You know I'm not backing down. You know me."
"I'm not."
"I have Eli," he grates. "I'll do wha-"
She cuts him off harshly. "EXACTLY."
He sits up straight, and turns his weary eyes toward her, the edges tinted with a hint of red.
And his voice cracks as if he's realizing what he just said. "I have Eli," he repeats. "And a wife. And a home. And four other kids," he whispers as he stands.
"Yeah," she whispers.
EOEOEOEOEO
She's able to hide her bump for the first four months. Her baggy blouses never served much purpose in the back of her closet until now.
She reaches for her mug filled with coffee stains and immediately remembers that she has an appearance to uphold with everyone and it's not the hard edged detective who drinks tea every morning, at least not since just after Oregon.
She places the mug back on her desk and glances at Fin, who's trained his gaze on her more than once this morning and she can't help but feel self conscious at his effort not to stare.
She knows he's not stupid. He knows something is up but he won't hear it from her and she suspects not from Elliot either.
Her partner. Her partner who's recently un sublet his apartment in fear of the fallout that undoubtedly will occur once he gains the courage to finally tell his wife of the love child he'll be having with his partner.
She decides then and there to make use of the extra packets of hot chocolate that sit next to the coffee machine.
At this point, she doesn't care how old they are, she needs the guise of normalcy, to pretend with everyone on the outside, even if she doesn't feel anywhere close to normal on the inside.
She won't be drinking it anyways.
EOEOEOEO
He comes into the bullpen from his break and she's already sitting at her desk, having taken hers upstairs.
She'd silently slipped a pre-natal into her mouth as she'd downed a pack of crackers and a bottled water up there.
Elliot had left about ten minutes before she'd went up and he'd come back in almost ten minutes after she sat back down at her desk to start back on the missing child's report she'd last been working on.
"Hey," he grunts as he sets his keys down.
She looks up half expecting him to have turned away already before she answers. But she doesn't get that at all.
He isn't ignoring her with files already, and he isn't taking his suit jacket off yet, and he's certainly not looking angry as he's had almost every day.
What she sees takes her breath away.
His eyes are bold and glossy and they're trained on her face and the attention immediately makes her cheeks flush.
Clearing her throat, she looks away from his gaze and drops her own to the pile of papers in front of her.
"I'm sorry," he immediately apologizes. "I didn't mean to -I mean, I wasn't star-" he stutters.
Glancing up, she locks gazes with him again and gives him a small smile, amused now by his inability to form words.
"It's okay," she placates, hoping the words alleviate whatever he's feeling.
Nodding, he scratches his mouth with the short nail of his thumb before barely shrugging.
"It's just, you're glowing," he utters. His eyes lighting up once again. "I'm sorry. You probably don't want to hear that from me."
Sighing, she clicks the mouse and pulls up a file on screen before answering him.
"It's not that I don't want to hear it. It's just..."
"You don't want to hear it from me," he reiterates just below a whisper.
"No, it's that there's too many ears that don't need to hear it. At least not yet."
His neck muscles bob in consideration and after a moment, his face is stoic as he nods, taking sudden interest in the paper work on his own desk.
She's feels horribly for not accepting his attempts at tenderness. He is the father of her child. He always will be and holding all of this in isn't doing either of them much good.
She clears her throat before glancing over her shoulder just as Fin walks by with a file in his hand going toward Cragen's office.
"Uh. We good?" she asks softly, hoping Elliot understands her attempt at accepting him wholeheartedly.
Elliot glances over his own shoulder and then turns to look back at her.
With a raise of his brows, a small smirk permeates the lines of his hardened features.
"Yeah. Always."
His own vulnerability shines bright like a diamond in the rough. And it's his attempt to accept the situation at all costs that causes her to fall in love with him a little more in that moment.
EOEOEOEO
She knows.
The blonde walks into the quiet squadroom with intent and luckily it's late enough that everyone else has gone home for the night except for the Uni's downstairs.
Olivia braces herself as she sits stoic at her desk, the desk light a poor attempt at lighting the undeniable force to come.
Quickly, she leans over the desks as much as her expanding abdomen will allow and flicks on her partner's desk lamp as well.
Just as she sits back down, she glances at the time and sees that it's almost 9 p.m. Elliot had gone home at around 7:30.
He must've told her.
That bastard.
She chastises herself for hating him right now. It's not his fault. It's neither of theirs but she blames herself the most.
It's the sound of heels clicking against smooth concrete even closer to her desk that breaks her from her thoughts.
She looks up just as Kathy approaches the edge of her husband's desk. The woman stares down at it but doesn't say anything much to Olivia's surprise.
Kathy then bites the inside of her bottom lip as one of her heels click the ground incessantly with a nervous tell.
"You went to him that night," she finally utters. "You went to him after what I told you. And now you're pregnant?" she asks dubiously.
Not wanting to confirm a misguided assumption, she pushes back in her chair, and it rolls away from her desk with ease.
"Is that what Elliot told you?"
"Does it matter?"
"Depends."
"Yes then."
She sucks in a deep breath of air before glancing around the empty squadroom searching for words she knows won't soothe the woman.
"I'm sorry."
Nodding her head, Kathy walks around to the side of the desk Olivia stands and just stares.
Moments pass and it doesn't take long for Olivia to take a self conscious step back. When she does so, Kathy's eyes fall to the burgeoning of her stomach.
"You didn't do it on purpose?" Kathy barely mumbles. Her voice trembling.
Lifting her hand to her mouth, Olivia tries to keep the trembling from her own.
"No, we did not. I promise you."
"That's a shame."
"Why's that?" Olivia immediately answers back.
"You don't know how devastated I was until he explained, but that's not what hurts me now."
"I get it. I'm pregnant with your husband's child. There's nothing to be gung ho about in any of that."
"No, no you're right," Kathy agrees. "I'm still angry, don't underestimate that. I'm just sad that I was going to accept it when he doesn't want me to."
Shaking her head, Olivia searches the woman's face for clues. "I don't understand. I-I told him he didn't have to do anything. He has you. He has Eli."
Jerking her head up, Kathy steps closer, fire burning at a low cinder in her crystal blue eyes, a shade darker than Elliot's.
"See that's what angers me more than him getting you pregnant. NO, wait," she puts up her hand before Olivia can interject. "He told me it was an accident but that he wanted to raise that child," she grates out. "So where does that leave us? That's what I'm angry about."
"Kathy, I told him no."
"But he wants to! And you won't deny him will you?" Kathy inquires knowingly. Olivia assumes that Kathy knows that she will never "not" allow Elliot complete and total access to their child and she hates herself for being so transparent.
"No," she mumbles. After a beat, she turns toward her chair, needing to sit down.
Kathy continues when she does so. Her voice final and deflated. "I shouldn't be surprised. It's been over long before now. But I still hate you for taking him away when you didn't even mean to."
Shaking her head, Kathy gives her a small sad smile and walks away. The other woman's silhouette soon becomes lost in the darkness that surrounds her.
There's no going back.
It's all said and done.
Olivia takes a deep breath and clicks off their lamps.
The room is bathed in darkness and with no reason to go home to the desolate blackness that her apartment holds, she decides to drown in the city lights that bleed into the cribs at night.
EOEOEOEOEOEOEOEOEOEOEOEO
The rocking chair creeks once more and she catches a glimpse of a shooting star heading straight toward "The Lion's Tail" inside the millions of clusters of stars.
It brings a small smile to her face as she glances around the now furnished room for her daughter who will make her presence known in a few short weeks.
At seven months she hadn't quite figured out what she wanted for the room.
But another month had passed by since the night she'd sat in this room remembering all that had happened while feeling a baby's breath of a breeze on her face and now, the walls are lined with a child's version of wild life.
Her crib is white and the animals on the wallpaper are pink and yellow. Mostly lions and miniature lions adorn the surface and it's a start.
She imagines with her daughter only weeks away from arriving, she could have done worse.
The cute little animals jump out in the dark blue of dusk and silver city lights and the breeze is on point again tonight as it usually is when Olivia finds herself restless inside the nursery Elliot had set up weeks ago.
Olivia curls up in the white rocking chair and lets the gentle wind play through the strands of her shoulder length hair.
She closes her eyes and dreams of her toddler running her hands through the strands in a playful exploration of her mother.
She dreams of the child being cradled to her chest as she rocks them both to sleep.
She dreams of the one man she'd always trust implicitly with her life coming in and gently cradling their daughter before placing her in her crib.
Then gently coaxing her out of her own slumber so he can carry her to their bed only a door down from their sleeping baby old enough now to sleep in the next room.
When she opens her eyes, a feeling of contentment washes over. A coolness spreads over her as something lightweight grazes across her warm skin and the sight that greets her gaze is the most beautiful thing she's ever seen.
Elliot stands looking down into the perfectly made crib with a stuffed animal in his hand. He lifts the object to his nose and then lovingly places it onto the tiny bedding.
He looks at it a few moments before turning his body toward her. He catches her half open eyes watching him and it makes her burrow under the sheet he'd placed on her.
He swallows audibly before clearing his throat.
"I just got Eli down. He's got a fever. Elizabeth's watching him now. But I couldn't sleep. I couldn't stop thinking about Bella," he gently says in a tone at odds with the rough edges people interpret as being the cornerstone of his masculinity.
"I'm glad you came by."
He nods placing the stuffed lion against the corner so she can see it.
"I am too," he smiles, the sapphire burning brightly in a sign of contentedness. "Hope you don't mind me using my key. I assumed you were already asleep."
"It's fine." And it is. She doesn't admit it often but the nights he stops by are her favorite. She never thought she'd be able to accept his pleas to be allowed to and offers of help, but now she doesn't live in the past anymore.
His presence brings inspiration and his experience brings comfort. And his love for their unborn child brings even more passion into her heart for him.
He looks at her with glossy eyes and she suspects he "thinks" he should get going. He confirms her thoughts mere seconds later.
He steps around the crib and stands in front of her and she simply looks up at him, her arms cradled around the roundness of their baby.
She watches in mild fascination as he leans down in front of her for the first time.
She watches him watch her as his hands find hers, intertwining their fingers.
Placing the combined weight over her stomach, she assumes, using her hands as a small barrier in case she's not comfortable with him touching her so intimately, he gracefully guides their hands across the expanse of her stomach.
The sensation of their hands woven together and gliding effortless across her skin sends chills down her spine but she stays silent, watching in awe as her eyes train on his motions.
She observes the cracks in his knuckles, the hair on his hands and the way his fingers encase hers completely.
His deep voice pulls her out of her observations with sincere words whose depth courses through her veins.
"You know, she wasn't made because of a mistake in the heat of life or death. She was made out of love and I want her to always know that. To be always reminded of that. NO matter what happens between us," he whispers as his voice trembles.
Her bottom lip mimics his own as a tear escapes down her cheek. She knows this. She's loved him for longer than she can count anymore.
She's loved everything about him from his passion to his defensiveness.
So she simply utters what she's always wanted to tell him.
"I know."
He nods and starts to stand up and walk away from her when she grasps his retreating hand.
She purses her lips, her eyes blurry still and catches his gaze with her own; silently pleading for something she can't explain any further than with one word.
"Stay."
It's a small plea but it's a huge request and before another second ticks by, he's on his knees again with his arms wrapped around her frame, his head resting against her stomach.
No words are necessary and she realizes this is the first time she's allowed him to feel the baby inside of her. It's been eight months of confusion and chaos and pain.
But now, with his ear against her stomach, his whisper of gratitude erases any doubt she ever had with him.
"I love you." Another tear glides down her cheek and she places her hand gently on the side of his face as he continues to listen to the thimble kick of the baby inside. He immediately places his hand on top of hers and squeezes gently, before pulling back briefly to kiss it. "I mean it, Liv."
As he releases her hand, she immediately grasps his cheeks again, the sensation of his skin and tears all she needs to be able to close her eyes and absorb his words. It's a silent understanding she realizes as he nods under her loving caress and leans back down.
His head rests against the swell again and she hopes little Bella is willing to talk to her father tonight as well.
Finis.