A/N: It's been a while since I've written or read Bensidy fanfics, so I have no idea if this story has been done. It, like many of my stories, is based off a dream that I had.

Tears welled in Olivia Benson's eyes as she stared intently at the faint plus sign. She exhaled slowly as she sat on the toilet seat. It couldn't be happening. Not now. She was forty-five years old, and she had given up on having children years ago. She had sold her soul to her job. Work was her life, as it had been for more than twenty years.

It wasn't that she didn't love children. She did. She loved them very much. In fact, she had applied to adopt about five years ago. They turned her down. Why wouldn't they? She was a single woman who was committed to her job. She didn't have time to raise a child. Who would be responsible for her child when she was at work? A babysitter. That was no life to force upon a child. A child needed a mother to read to her goodnight stories; a child needed a father to take him to basketball games. It wasn't fair to bring a child into a world knowing you couldn't provide to him or her two loving parents.

Olivia's head collapsed in her hands. She had never had any of that. Her mother was a teacher by day and a drunk by night. The pit of her stomach tightened as she thought of the bottle of wine sitting on her living room end table. She felt nauseous.

She dashed out of the bathroom and grabbed the half-finished bottle of wine and poured it down the kitchen sink. Her salty tears fell behind the wine. She swung open the refrigerator and pulled out a newly purchased bottle of wine that hadn't even been opened. She opened the bottle and emptied the bottle as well.

Her throat burned. She smashed the bottles, watching them break, and tossed them into the trash can. Her head was spinning.

Where the fuck was Brian?

Brian Cassidy. Her boyfriend, though she thought she was much too old to use the term. She preferred to think of him as her companion. She hadn't seen Brian in a week. He was, or so he claimed, undercover—again. It was the third time this month he had been undercover. The first time was three days. Then five. Now an entire fucking week?

Just when she thought their relationship was moving in the right direction, Brian started working for Internal Affairs. And of course, it was the only way he could get his detective shield back. Deep down, Olivia knew that Tucker had devised it as a plan to mess with her life. He couldn't just let her be happy.

Now, it was like her and Brian's relationship was spiraling downward. Olivia didn't even know if he wanted a baby. He was never around, and when he was, it wasn't like they talked. They couldn't if they wanted to, since their entire days were off limits. Brian couldn't talk about his work, and Olivia didn't want to risk saying something to Brian that could get back to Internal Affairs.

Their relationship now consisted purely of sex. Sex didn't require them to talk, and it was relaxing. But even the sex wasn't as mind-blowing as it was in the early days of their relationship. Olivia could feel them drifting apart, and she was scared. She was scared of being alone. She was afraid that Brian would get bored of her and just leave her. She was afraid that he was lying about being undercover, and in reality, he was already seeing someone else. She was afraid that she'd wasted the last year and a half of her life.

So much had happened, yet Brian had stayed by her side. He didn't have to move in with her after her attack, but he did. In fact, it had been in his idea that they get a place together. She, of course, was resilient. She hadn't shared a place with someone else since college. The idea was truly terrifying. Plus, moving in with a guy was a big step. It was like the next step. Commitment. It terrified her more than Brian leaving her. Because if she did trust Brian. If she did commit to him. If she allowed herself to love him, then the heart break could kill her if he left. She'd been there and done that. And the idea of feeling that kind of pain again was truly devastating. She couldn't imagine it.

She poured a glass of water and took a seat on the couch as she drowned in her tears. She sipped slowly on the water.

Pregnant, Olivia thought. I'm pregnant. Her head spun. It couldn't be so. Then again, pregnancy tests did give off false positive. Though, she was aware that false negatives were far more common than false negatives. She was two weeks late. She'd never been two weeks late in her late. Her first thought had been menopause. She was at that age. The age women stopped ovulating. But a piece of her still held onto hope. Hope that her body could still naturally produce a child. She'd always wanted a little one of her own.

She found herself watching the little ones in the park. Or in the grocery store. She watched the young mothers who pushed their young'uns in their strollers on the sidewalk. She'd worked with hundreds of kids over the years. Kids would always have a special place in her heart. She rested her palm on her flat stomach and imagined that a baby could be growing inside her own womb. It all seemed so surreal.

Then she thought of Brian.

What if she didn't want a baby? What if he ditched? They'd never talked about children. How could they when they were always working? He teased her that her job would always come before him; that he had been right fifteen years ago when he said that her job would always be an affair.

They weren't even married. On the contrary, what if he wanted to get married? She tried to picture herself in a white gown, her belly swollen, as she walked down the aisle. She felt like a pregnant teenager, whose parents forced her to get married because she was pregnant.

She didn't want that. She didn't want to get married just because she was pregnant. That wouldn't be fair to her baby. She wanted to get married because she was in love and loved back. At this point, she didn't even know if Brian truly loved her. She didn't know what to think.

She flinched when she heard a key in the door. Her heart pounded as she slowly reached for her gun, just in case.

The door creaked open.

"Afternoon, Sunshine," Brian said. He chuckled when he saw Olivia holding her gun. "I don't know why you grab your gun every time I come home. The door's locked, and that you and I are the only ones with keys." He held up his shiny silver key.

"I know," Olivia replied tartly, adding, "but you never know."

He shrugged. "Anyway, I was hoping you'd be home." His eyes focused on her glass of water. "Let me pour you a glass of wine. There's something I need to talk to you about."

She bit her lip. "Actually, that's funny, because there's something I need to talk to you about, too." She watched as Brian went into the kitchen and opened the alcohol-free refrigerator.

So what do you think Brian's secret is? Couple things: This story is 1000000% Bensidy. Elliot DOES NOT and WILL NOT return, and Nick and Olivia are just friends. I'm also going to try to portray Olivia and Brian's relationship as realistic as possible, so no, it won't be all sunshine and daisies.