Title: This Changes Everything
Author: ZombieJazz
Fandom: Law & Order: SVU
Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf.
Summary: Elliot is suspicious that is Olivia is pregnant. She's not happy about him nosing into her business.
Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Her relationship with Elliot is that of partner and protective older brother and colleague. It won't devolve from that - they aren't ever going to get together in this series. If you're an E/O shipper, you likely won't enjoy these stories. The timeline is a little loose but this is generally set in about Season 8/9. This story is meant as a background piece to kind of set up my other series of stories, A Complicated State of Happiness. I haven't decided if I will continue this series through Olivia's pregnancy. Let me know if you want more for this one - or if hopping from here right into the A Complicated State of Happiness universe is enough. Feedback is great and advise if you're going to distribute elsewhere.
He walked over to her with a bottle of water in hand.
"Here," he tapped her on the shoulder with it. She was still partially hunched over – coughing up whatever she'd eaten at breakfast. It looked like oatmeal and orange juice – more or less – but certainly didn't smell like it anymore.
It was a grisly scene in there – but he'd never known his partner to have to excuse herself to vomit before. That was something that was left up to green vice – not special victims detectives, especially ones that had been on the job for more than eight years.
"Thanks," she said and took a swig, rinsed her mouth and spit it out onto the concrete.
He started to walk away from the building and back towards where they'd left the sedan. She followed after him.
"Sorry about that. I think I've got a touch of a bug."
He just nodded. "Bug? Hopefully that's short lived," he glanced back at her.
She stopped and glared at the back of his head. "You implying something there, El?"
He shrugged. "You seem to be spending a lot of time in the restroom the last while," he told her. "And you aren't drinking coffee anymore," he pointed out.
She shook her head and fished the keys out of her pocket, clicking the button to unlock the doors and got behind the wheel. "I didn't know you were policing my bathroom breaks and caffeine intake," she spat at him.
He just shrugged again and got into the passenger side.
"Look, I've seen Cathy go through it five times …" he let it sink it. "The specifics aren't my business – but, you know, you're going to have to make it official eventually. Might be nice if you let me know before that - and Cragen. We can watch your back for the next while – until you figure out how you want to deal with it and all the system BS. You need to talk to HR."
She looked at him. "I think you're being kind of presumptuous here," she told him.
"Am I?" He raised an eyebrow. "Liv, look. It's a safety issue too. For you and for everyone around you – cops and civilians."
She glared at him some more, pulling her eyes away from the road. The traffic was already at a New York crawl.
"Well, I haven't decided what I'm doing yet so I'm not making anything official."
"Yeah, right …"
She slammed her foot on the brake harder than she needed to, considering they'd only inched forward. They both shot forward and back into their seats. He put his hand out to brace himself against the dashboard.
"Fuck," he said, "now that is a safety issue. You shouldn't do that."
"Yeah, right? What's that supposed to mean? No, wait, don't say anything. This really is none of your business." She held up her hand.
"You're keeping it," he told her.
"Elliot, seriously," she snapped at him.
"Com'on Liv," he said. "You've made pretty clear over the years you want kids."
She didn't argue with him. Though, she wasn't sure that when she thought about wanting a kids it included being single and pregnant at 37 – with the father being a casual ex-boyfriend on what she assumed was the night his condom had slipped off when he pulled out, resulting in two adults freaking out in a way she hadn't done since she was about 21. Her vision of a family more included being married to some sort of strapping, educated lawyer or Wall St. type and having a condo and two kids in one of the nicer residential neighbourhoods and becoming one of those annoying New York stereotypical upper-upper-middle-class families. This situation – this wasn't part of what she had long known was a daydream about her future life.
"You just have a lot to think about right now – this changes everything," he told her.
She didn't need a lecture from him.
"You think I don't know that?"
"Is there a father?" He knew it was a stupid question but also knew half-ways-sideways that she'd considered in vitro – or at least he'd gotten that impression.
"Is it Moss?" He knew it was dangerous territory – that the IAB had quashed that enough and made her intensely private personal life rather public in the force, or at least at in the bullpen.
"El," she snapped. "We aren't talking about this right now. It's really none of your business."
They sat quiet for a few blocks until she hit another light. She looked at the GPS in the dash. They were still about 20 long blocks away from the precinct.
"You going to tell him?" Elliot asked.
"Seriously?" She demanded. She really felt he was beyond pushing the boundaries here. He just went back to looking out the window, leaning forward to play with the knob on the radio, which was hissing static rather than command, for a second.
"He knows." She glared at the side of his head and then started to move forward again as the taxi driver behind her pushed on his horn.
"Jesus Christ," she swore, looking in her rear view mirror and flicking the siren switch briefly just so the cabbie knew who he was pissing off but then she glanced at her partner again.
"Anything else you feel you need to know there, El? Time and place of conception maybe?"
"He going to be involved?"
He wasn't looking at her. He could see his partner slipping away. He knew the demands of being a parent and trying to do this job. It destroyed a person – ripped at your soul and pulled you away from your family in more ways than he cared to admit. He couldn't imagine her trying to do it as a single mother with a new baby. He couldn't even imagine any single mother still working with the NYPD at all, though he knew there were a handful of them in the system. He didn't want that for his partner, though, his friend.
He looked at the time he'd missed with his first four children and saw his toddler son now and wasn't sure how much longer he could even stay on the job. He'd missed so much with his oldest kids – there were so many problems, things he thought if he'd just been there more he could've made better, or at least had a better relationship with his wife. He didn't want Eli's childhood to look like what his other kids had endured. He wanted to be there for more sports matches and music recitals and parent-teacher meetings and Saturday outings. Olivia should want the same for her's, he thought.
He'd been so involved in his own thoughts and processing the situation that he wasn't sure if she'd even answered – or just ignored him. She turned down the street to start going south.
"I doubt it," she finally spat. "We broke up. He was pretty clear about what our relationship was and wasn't and what he did and didn't want. Long-term and kids was not on either list.
"He's off on assignment in Iraq or something right now anyways. Don't you look at the Ledger ever? He's now their one of their new foreign affairs guys. He's not around."
She saw him nod a bit out of the corner of her eye.
"You need to tell Cragen – maybe talk to one of the union guys. Figure out how to manage this in your career," he told her.
She didn't say anything.
He touched her hand briefly on the steering wheel but then looked out the window.
"Congratulations, Liv," he said.
He was the first person who'd said it to her – and she wasn't in a position to say thanks or to feel any sense or joy or excitement about it. He clearly wasn't feeling that happy for her anyways.
"Yeah, whatever."
That's all I have planned for this storyline now. But if you liked it and would like to see a continuation looking at the pregnancy, give feedback.
