Author's notes: please read me- Hello! First off, if you're wondering about Those Graces, expect an update maybe early next week. Now with that out of the way...this is not TG- but it's set in TGverse and it can be read as an epilogue. However, you don't have to have read TG to understand this...and if you *have* read TG but think this really sucks, just consider it an AU :D

This fic is a bit weird because in order not to spoil the end of TG, Olivia's significant other is known only as The Boyfriend. This is on purpose. For one thing, while I've had an endgame for TG in my head since the beginning, I'm not 100% certain that I won't change my mind. Also, I promised a few people on twitter that I would do this in Choose Your Own Adventure style. So if you ship EO, I want you to picture elliot. If you ship bensidy, I want you to picture Brian. Basically I want everyone to be happy. I pictured both of them at different times while I was writing this so…

Warning for violent references in a dream (the dream is set in italics). Text messages are displayed [like this]. This is set post-Surrendering Noah, but there will still be plenty of hipster!Nick and bensaro friendship for all. Title and quotes from after all by Dar Williams. Other quotes from walk on and beautiful day by U2, farewell to the old me and your fire, your soul by dar williams, putting the damage on by tori amos, and almost home by mary chapin you to everyone who pushed me to write this- you know who you are!

I'd love to hear what you think, either here or you can find me on twitter at lucythespencer. New friends are fun!

{and love is not the easy thing
the only baggage you can bring is
all that you can't leave behind}

Like most things in your life, you never expected it to happen. (At least, not the way it did.)

After all, it'd barely been eight weeks since you and The Boyfriend officially moved into your new apartment together. At the time, your main reason for moving had been that the old place just didn't have enough room for two adults and a toddler who seemed to be accumulating new toys by the minute. You put it off for as long as humanly possible, scared to acknowledge that while The Boyfriend technically still had his own apartment- for all intents and purposes, there were three people living there. Moving somewhere new with him meant letting go of the safety net; meant not being able to kick him out in the middle of the night when things got rough, as few and far between as those nights had been lately. You had learned the hard way before about the difficulty in making a clean break with someone when their name was still next to yours on the lease, but this time there was even less room for you to fuck things up. Now you had Noah to think about.

And maybe it was Noah who gave you the final push you needed to do it, to blurt it out in between failed attempts to keep your active toddler from getting Chinese noodles stuck in his hair. "So, uh. I was thinking about moving to a bigger place and...I guess Noah and I were hoping you'd come with us?"

He said yes. No hesitation.

(Noah celebrated by throwing his sippy cup across the room.)

You didn't think you'd break down in tears as you took one last look around the empty apartment on moving day, but you did. (In retrospect, you were just getting a preview of pregnancy hormones to come). So much had happened in such a tiny space over the last 22 months. You moved in hoping that things would change for you, and they sure as hell did, albeit not always in the way you would've liked them to. As you walked out the door for the last time, you weren't thinking about how you wouldn't change a thing or how it was all worth it to get to this point, because none of those bullshit cliches were true. There's a million and one things you'd change and honestly, a lot of things you didn't have to or shouldn't have had to go through, but you brought them on yourself.

"I can't expect anyone else to give me a chance until they've seen I can let go of the past," you told Amanda once, and letting go isn't something you've been entirely successful at. But you're lucky, luckier than you deserve, to have someone willing to give you a(nother) chance in the meanwhile.

Your eyes meet The Boyfriend's and he gives you a little smile of understanding, graciously paying no mind to the tears running down your cheeks. "We're getting restless, Mom," he says instead, scooping up a laughing Noah as he runs past and hoisting him onto his shoulders. "You ready?"

Yes. No. "That's a big question."

He leans over and kisses your forehead, pulling back just in time to keep Noah from grabbing your glasses right off your face. "We've got better things ahead of us," he promises, and you joke that you're going to hold him to that, and the door clicks shut behind you for the last time.

{and I used to think that things were meant to be}

You never expected it to happen. (At least, not right then.)

After all, you were 47 (and a half) years old. You and The Boyfriend had talked about a sibling for Noah, and even just a vague conversation about having another baby made you both feel very, very tired, but you knew time wasn't on your side and so you went ahead and made an appointment with a fertility specialist. An appointment which you had to cancel in favor of an urgent visit to the pediatrician when Noah got bronchitis. You rescheduled two weeks later, only to have Noah run headfirst into the corner of the kitchen counter just as you were about to leave. Needless to say, you didn't make it to that appointment either.

"Maybe it's a sign," you mused aloud that night once you were home from the ER, cradling a bandaged and stitched up little boy on your lap. You both had started to have doubts about if you were doing the right thing, if you should take the adoption route again instead of expending so much time, money, and energy on a biological child that might never come to be. As much as you used to want the full pregnancy 'experience' and as romantic of a notion as it was to imagine a child whose features were equal parts yours and his, it wasn't something you felt like you'd be incomplete without anymore. In any case, it'd been an exhausting day topping off an exhausting week, and neither of you were in the mindset to make any major decisions that night.

"Let me take Noah out for the day tomorrow," The Boyfriend suggested as you laid side by side in your new bed. You'd taken almost all of the furniture from your old apartment with you, seeing as how it was vastly superior to the junk he'd accumulated in his bachelor pad, but the bed- well, it just symbolized too much of that past that you're trying so hard to let go of. "We'll go to that indoor play place where everything's padded and we won't come back until he's worn out. You can sleep the whole time we're gone."

"I'm not that tired," you lie, knowing you could easily close your eyes right now and not wake up until this same time tomorrow night. It'd been two months and yet you still felt like you were recovering from the stress of the move. Add to that a toddler, a full time job as CO of a shorthanded squad, and an indian summer heatwave that just wouldn't let up, and all the coffee in the world wasn't enough to keep you going some days.

He smiles, resting his hand on the pillow next to your cheek and waiting for you to entwine your fingers with his. "I'll take that as a yes."

You were too tired to argue.

{I think your darkest day should have some light this year}

You never expected to jump out of bed as soon as you heard the front door shut the next morning.

After all, it was only a few minutes past nine and you hadn't slept at all that night. You couldn't, not until you knew for certain.

You're not really sure why you were so convinced that you were pregnant even before you had a row of tests with tiny red plus signs staring back at you. Yeah, you'd been tired, and you might have put on a few pounds, but nothing that really stood out. That is, until you were drifting off to sleep the night before and heard the little voice in the back of your head announce loudly and clearly that you needed to go and pee on a stick.

(It felt so real that you expected both 'your boys' to wake up. Neither of them did. Some help they were.)

You'd known it was a possibility, seeing as how you hadn't exactly been doing anything to prevent it from happening. You never bothered refilling your prescription for the pill when it ran out after your second encounter with Lewis because, quite frankly, it wasn't necessary. For a while, you were pretty sure you'd never need it again. But when the time finally came that you were ready to give it a try, you and The Boyfriend decided that you being 46 was all the birth control you needed. Beyond that, you'd let nature take its course.

Which it apparently did. You felt like a cartoon character whose eyes had popped out of their head as you stared at the collection of sticks lined up on the bathroom counter, trying to figure out what to do next. When nothing came to mind, you picked up the phone.

"Liv? Liv, what is it? Noah? Is he okay? Did something happen?"

(Nick obviously never expected to get a call from you on a Saturday morning for anything short of a life or death emergency. After all, it was barely after 6 AM California time).

"No! I mean, yes, something happened, but Noah's fine, we're all fine. We're-" You paused, taking a mental snapshot of this moment because you never wanted to forget it, the first time you got to say "I'm. Uh. I'm pregnant."

{you're on the road but you've got no destination
you're in the mud, in the maze of her imagination}

You never expected that it'd take almost two days before you were able to say those words again.

After all, it felt so good when you told Nick- so good, in fact, that you started laughing hysterically until you could barely breathe. Nick tried to calm you down but it was too contagious, and pretty soon he gave into his own fit of laughter even as he admitted that he didn't know what was so funny (but he knew better than to disagree with a pregnant woman). When you finally decided to say goodbye and let him go back to sleep, you went and laid down on your bed, cheeks hurting from smiling so much as you rested your palm on your stomach.

You remembered how he joked that you couldn't really be pregnant because you hadn't fainted- fainting was always the first pregnancy symptom for women in novelas. If a female of childbearing age passed out, you could safely guess that next week's major plotline would involve some sort of controversy over who the real baby daddy was.

Thank God that wasn't an issue for you this time, you thought, remembering your false alarm from two winters ago. You'd been devastated when the test came up negative but in retrospect, it was nothing short of a minor miracle. Lewis had escaped less than three months later, and although you might've handled it much differently if you'd been pregnant, you know deep down that you were fated to meet one last time. Losing a baby had been traumatic enough as an oblivious, unprepared 20 year old, but to have it happen again...

No. He's dead. He can't get to you anymore and he'll never be able to hurt your little bean, the one whose tiny heart is already beating somewhere inside you. You know this. And you know that Little Bean isn't even a bean yet, more like a seedling, but that doesn't stop your lungs from feeling heavier and heavier as you think of all the other dangers out there waiting to strike. This isn't anything new, you've been through the whole rational vs. irrational fear thing with your therapist dozens of times in the last year because you don't want Noah inheriting your anxieties and distrust. But yet, this is also uncharted territory. Little Bean is a part of you, literally; you're the only one who can protect it and if you fail at that, you're the only one to blame. Taking care of it, in turn, means taking care of yourself and you're not always good at that. Other people, yes. You can do that. But when it comes to yourself...all you can see are your failures.

You roll onto your side and draw your knees up toward your chest, eyes squeezed shut and focused solely on the way your chest rises and falls as you breathe. Don't stop, you think to yourself. Don't stop.

{I'm trying not to move
it's just your ghost passing through}

You didn't expect that you'd ever return to this place.

After all, he was dead. That part of your life was over...or so you thought. But here you were again in that abandoned grainery, your legs tightly bound to the legs of the chair you were sitting in. There was a loaded gun in your right hand and cradled in your left arm- a baby. Your baby.

"Pull the trigger, Olivia, or I will." You look up to see him standing in front of you, alive if not well, his gun trained steadily on your newborn's head.

"No. Not her. Please, not her." He raises his arm slightly until he's aiming straight between your eyes, and you let out a sob as you realize that if he kills you there's no one to stop him from taking her. You need a new strategy. "Whatever it is you want, I'll do it, God please. Just please don't."

He laughs, shakes his head. "You think I still wanna fuck you? Nah, I'm done with that. I guess you could say the thrill is gone...I'm just here for my kid. She's coming back with me."

"She's not yours!" You struggle furiously with your restraints, trying to break free while holding onto your baby- who's stayed remarkably quiet and still this whole time. *Too* quiet. You jiggle your arm gently and she opens her eyes, looks up at you, and then closes them again. She has her daddy's eyes. He won't forgive you for this, for not being able to protect his daughter. "I won't let you have her."

"How many times do I have to tell you? You're not the one in charge here. I let you live, sweetheart, that means I own you now. Whether this baby lives or dies, it's up to me."

"No. You don't...she's mine. Mine," you repeat, stroking the little girl's tiny cheek to try and wake her up once more. When she doesn't respond, you start to get frantic. "What did you do?!"

"I didn't do anything, Olivia. Maybe she made her own choice. You think she really wants you as a mother? Knowing she'll probably grow up to be just like you, just like her grandma? Who wants that kind of legacy? At least Noah's not really yours. It'll make it easier on him to just walk away someday when he finally learns the truth about you- but this poor little girl's fucked already."

"Wake up, baby, we gotta get out of here," you whisper urgently. "Your daddy's gonna be so angry if I let something bad happen to you-"

*Click*. You hear an unmistakable sound and you know without looking that he's pointing the gun at her again. "Game's over, sweetheart, it's time for her to go now. Do it or I will. Last chance-"

"Wai-"

*Bang.*

You sit straight up in bed, disoriented and confused by the wails you hear coming from somewhere you can't quite locate. "Where. You shot her, where is she?!"

"Liv. Hey. It's just a dream, alright? I got you." You hear The Boyfriend's voice, feel a cautious hand on your shoulder, but you abruptly jerk away from him. He says nothing in reply, just turns away from you and gets up out of bed. "Gonna go check on Noah."

"Yeah." This is when you feel like the absolute worst mother alive, these nights when you wake your son up with your screaming or shouting- no matter how sporadic they may be. Even one is too many, and it's only going to get worse when he's old enough to start asking questions that you're not sure if you'll ever know how to answer.

Normally this is how it works; The Boyfriend will go calm him down and give you a few minutes of privacy to recoup, and then once you're ready you'll go join them to prove to Noah that Momma's okay. You usually end up rocking him back to sleep, just you and him snuggled together underneath the moonlight, and you don't know what you'll do when he decides he's too big for such things because truth is, it's probably more for you than him.

But tonight is different, tonight you're running for the bathroom just in time to avoid throwing up the remnants of yesterday's dinner all over the floor and something is very wrong here, you knew those noodles tasted funny but you forced yourself to choke them down for Little Bean's sake and now what have you done, you poisoned your baby and-

"Liv? You alright in there?"

The Boyfriend's voice interrupts your momentary panic and you swallow hard. "Fine."

"Oookay...Noah's just hanging out in his crib waiting for you whenever you're up to it."

You pause while half-standing, half-crouching because shit, he'll want you to pick him up and you shouldn't be lifting things, and you can't just put him in bed with you because he might try to crawl on top of you and that would put pressure on your stomach, plus he kicks in his sleep and..."No! I mean, I can't. I just can't, I think I'm getting sick and I- can you please just stay with him for a while?"

There's no response except the sound of footsteps walking away, but when you make it back to bed you can hear The Boyfriend humming quietly to Noah from inside the nursery. Several minutes go by until the footsteps return.

"He's out like a light," he says, and the mattress dips beside you. "Liv...honestly. What's going on?"

"I'm fine. Must've been something I ate." You know he doesn't believe you, that he's getting frustrated and trying not to show it, but you don't know how to tell him that he just needs to give you a little more time. You need a chance to sort everything out in your head and figure out how you're going to give him the news. Not because you're worried that he'll react badly- in fact, it's the exact opposite. To your surprise, he'd been the first one to bring up the idea of a little sibling for Noah. They had this incredible bond despite not being related biologically or legally (well, at least they did once Noah got over his initial skepticism), but you were still a bit shocked that he genuinely wanted one more. Not only for the obvious reasons of parenthood being time consuming and expensive and neither of you are exactly in your prime childrearing years, but also because it's a commitment, a way of saying I know we'll have this connecting us for the rest of our lives, for better or worse, and I am okay with that.

And what's bigger than any of those things put together is that he trusts you, which is really quite amazing considering that he knows you, he's seen you break down and break yourself into pieces and break his own heart more than once. He knows you're not a perfect mother- that some days you're not even a good one- and he still wants a baby with you anyway. Which is why you're hesitant to tell him, because he'll be so happy and he has so much faith in you and it'd break his heart (again) if you let him down. He's forgiven you plenty of times, but you don't think he'd ever really forgive you for not being able to protect his own child.

"We don't keep secrets from each other, Liv," he reminds you gruffly, and you know he's hurt, know he wants to say more, but he leaves it at that.

You'll have to tell him eventually, of course, but not now.

You just need time.

{what the hell were all the reasons
for holding on for such dear life?
here's where I let go}

[Liv, you're killing me here, how'd baby daddy take the news?]

[don't know, Nick. Haven't told him yet]

[what. Why not? Pls don't tell me you're gonna break it to him by putting a literal bun in the oven or some shit like that]

[that's actually a thing people do?]

[on pinterest, yes.]

[...]

[I'm retired, Liv, I've got so much free time]

The phone rings and you quickly silence it, not wanting the boys to hear that you're awake. "Pinterest? Really?"

"I just wanted garden ideas, okay? The weather here's perfect, I'm gonna have this awesome garden...I just wish Gil and Zara didn't think they were too cool for it." You admit Nick has more parenting experience than you do, but you doubt that any kid would describe planting organic heirloom non-GMO vegetables with their dad as 'cool'. "So why haven't you told him? And did you remember your vitamins?"

"I haven't even gotten out of bed, Nick..."

"And it's what, noon your time? You need to eat something, you can't-"

"You're not helping me!" you interrupt sharply before he can lecture you on the virtues of locally grown free range gluten free meat or whatever the hell else. Because stupid food fads aside, you're all too aware of everything out there (and inside yourself) that could potentially harm your vulnerable Little Bean. As mind numbingly horrifying as your dream the night before had been, murderous sexual sadists were the least of your worries when you knew there's only a one in five chance that this baby would even survive the first trimester.

He listens to your long list of dread-inducing statistics, and thank God he doesn't laugh or try to reason with you or just say that you're flat out insane and have no business gestating another human being. "And I'm. I just don't. What happened before...I can't go through that again."

"I know, I know. You shouldn't have to, and I hope you don't," he murmurs sympathetically, and again you offer him a silent thanks for not attempting to placate you with bullshit promises of 'it'll all be okay' when you both know that realistically, it might not be, "but Liv, can I be brutally honest here?"

See? No bullshit. "Sure, but if I hang up on you, you'll know you've gone too far."

"You don't actually have to make everything so hard on yourself, y'know. Whatever happens...back then, you pretty much had to deal with it all on your own. You don't have to do that now, right? You're lucky cause...well. You know how I feel about your baby daddy, I'm never gonna be his biggest fan but he loves you. You're not alone this time."

"But if something goes wrong..."

"Hey. He's an asshole, but not that much. Trust me- he wants to be a part of this, no matter what, and if something does go wrong, you're gonna need each other to lean on. And it'll just get harder to tell him, the longer you wait."

You nod even though he can't see it, listening to the sound of Noah playing with his blocks in the next room. "I really miss you sometimes. Almost makes me wish you were still sleeping on my couch."

"Hey, I'll be out there pretty soon for Thanksgiving. But if you need me before then, you just say the word." Much to your embarrassment, Nick had used his goodbye party to publicly threaten The Boyfriend, reminding him that 'planes fly pretty fast these days' and that 'if you hurt her, I won't kill you. That'd be too merciful. I will make your life hell.'

"I think I'll be okay," you say, and you're surprised when you realize that for once you actually kinda sorta believe it.

{the whole truth is like the story of a wave unfurled}

"He's asleep," The Boyfriend reports, looking at you a bit warily as you sit cross-legged at the head of the bed. "Didn't even fight it. He was out as soon as he laid down."

"I figured he'd be tired after all that excitement and no nap yesterday." When it came to Noah, you've tried to be a stickler for routines since the day you brought him home. His life up until then had been so chaotic and you wanted him to have some comfort in familiarity. Some days are total failures when it comes to following said routine, but you're hoping that today he'll cooperate and sleep soundly for a couple hours so you can get this over with before you think yourself into a black hole of anxiety once again.

"Uh, so. You wanted to talk?"

'Wanted' might be putting it a bit too optimistically. 'Needed' is probably more accurate. "Yeah. Because I owe you an apology for yesterday but...there's something I've never told you. Never told anyone until last year, actually. And it's something that happened a long time ago but I...I just think you should know."

So you told him the whole story, and you cried a little even though you swore to yourself that you wouldn't, but by the end you were mostly just relieved to have gotten it out in the open without him being dismissive or judgemental or mad that you never mentioned it before. Although- now it was time for the really tough part. You swipe at your eyes with the back of one hand, looking down at the other as your fingers trace circles across his palm. "Um. You're probably wondering why I'm telling you all this now."

"Oh. I guess, yeah." He looked a little surprised, like he had gotten so caught up in what you were saying that he had forgotten there might be a larger point.

You finally glance up at him through your lashes, wanting to see his reaction but too scared to face him eye to eye. "Well, it's. I...uh, I'm pregnant."

He's saying something, you think, but you're not sure what, because you're busy adding all these qualifiers onto your announcement as if he doesn't already know all the same gloomy statistics that you do.

"Hey, hey. Sssh." He reaches out, brushes your cheek with his fingertips to get your attention. "So this is...you're really pregnant."

He's smiling and for the first time, you give him a tentative smile in return. "Yeah. I really am. But I-"

He doesn't even let you finish your sentence before his mouth is on yours.

{but now I'm sleeping fine
sometimes the truth is like a second chance}

You never expected the conversation to end with the two of you half-dressed and snuggled together, his hand splayed out on your still-mostly flat stomach.

After all, you had no idea that pregnancy announcements were such an aphrodisiac. Maybe it was just the surge of relief you felt about finally getting it out in the open but, whatever it was, you suddenly couldn't keep your hands off of him. And even though you weren't going to risk actually having sex until you got the okay from your doctor, that certainly didn't stop you from fooling around a little.

"I, uh, got distracted before I could ask if you knew how far along you are," he says with a wry smile.

"I'm guessing about six or eight weeks, but it's hard to tell."

"So around the time we moved." He chuckles softly. "You think it was here or there?"

Fuck, you hadn't thought of that. "I hope it was here...god, I was lifting all that shit and- I can't believe I didn't figure this out sooner. I think of all the stuff I probably shouldn't have been doing and..."

"No, hon, stop. It's okay," he says, palm smoothing over your abdomen. "You haven't been bullfighting, you haven't been shooting up heroin...so you had a couple drinks, and maybe you would've taken it easier if you'd known, but it's not a big deal. Look at Noah. People do a lot worse when they're pregnant and everything turns out fine."

"Noah's mom was a lot younger, though, the odds of something going wrong were lower to begin with."

"And you think our baby knows that?" You raise an eyebrow at him. "Look, what were the odds of this happening in the first place? One in a hundred? He's obviously a stubborn little thing already. Like his mother."

"Me? I was gonna say he gets it from his father...but why do you assume it's a boy?"

"Just a feeling, I guess," and now that makes two votes for a boy against your premonition of it being a girl, but you're going to keep that to yourself for a while. "But I'm serious. He, or she- but it's definitely a he- doesn't know that statistically he's not 'supposed' to make it. Babies are tougher than you think, and anyway...even if eighty percent don't make it, that means twenty percent that do. So what's to say he's not one of those?"

You give him a skeptical look, hand reaching out for his. "When has anything in my life ever gone the way it's supposed to?"

"That's my point. You're not supposed to get pregnant at 47...but here we are. It wouldn't be our kid if it followed all the rules, would it?"

He finally coaxes a laugh out of you with that because, well, it's true. "I just...I want this so badly," you admit with uncharacteristic honesty. "It scares me."

"I know, Liv. Me too. But I love you," and that's still not something you say to one another very often, so when he does say it, you know this is important, "and I trust you, and whatever happens isn't going to change that."

And once again, you're surprised because you actually kinda sorta believe it.

{go ahead, push your luck
find out how much love the world can hold}