Authors Notes - This is a little tale of 'what happened next', being as it is a sequel to my fic Coffee. Its got El, and Liv… and… well some lovely dovey angst. Who'd have guessed! Please R&R!
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Champagne (a sequel to Coffee - .net/s/5986837/1/Coffee)
By Fic Fairy
The champagne was flowing. And with good reason. For once in their lives the Special Victims Unit had something to celebrate. There were all there. Fin, Cragen, Munch, even Alex had turned up, plus of course Elliot and Olivia. They were, of course, the couple of the hour.
It was nice, Elliot thought, as he watched Olivia pour the champagne. He hadn't realised how much he'd missed the whole gang being together until that moment. Not that it wasn't a sacrifice worth making. He glanced over at Alex, who was nursing his daughter. It was completely, totally and utterly worth the sacrifice.
"You doing ok over there aunty Alex?" He asked, as his beautiful - fairly recent - wife came over to him with a tray of champagne. He took a glass and then smiled up at her, "She's doing pretty good huh?"
Olivia smiled, "Yeah. She's a natural." Her words hung in the air between the two of them, just for a second, slightly awkwardly but it was so brief that Elliot hoped, hoped desperately, that no one else would notice. Certainly, as far as he could see from watching Olivia as she breezed round the room handing out champagne to Munch, Fin and Alex and an orange juice to Cragen, she'd recovered quickly enough and returned to playing the social butterfly. The dedicated hostess.
"She adorable." Alex said to Elliot and Olivia, once the latter had stopped fussing over their guests and sat down, "You must be unbelievably proud."
Elliot waited, as he had done so often over the last 4 days for Olivia to answer and when she didn't, wrapped his arm around her shoulder and did so himself, "Well of course she's adorable, she takes after her mother. Her beautiful mother." At his side he felt Olivia stiffen, and chalked down another mental note, another item on his list of things he needed to deal with once their guests were gone. Her complete inability to cope with compliments.
Not that their guests were aware of that fact, so saw no reason not to pile them on.
"She is looking pretty damn good." Munch commented, right on cue, "No one would guess you've been shelling babies like peas to look at you."
Olivia smiled, but Elliot could tell it was forced, "Baby. Pea. Singular."
"She's a sizeable pea." Fin said, peering over Alex's shoulder to where the baby was laying contentedly, "I'd assume that would hurt but you're looking pretty perky."
Olivia sipped her champagne, "There's no point feeling sorry for yourself. The hard part is over, its time to move on."
"It must be hard though?" Alex chipped in, "With all the night feeds and I dunno… the responsibility. Does it feel stressy?"
He was intrigued what her answer would be to that, whether she'd tell the truth or go for out and out denial.
Denial it was.
"Its not so bad. And Elliot helps out with the night feeds. Its not as bad as people think…"
'Elliot helps out with the night feeds' - Christ she was a cool customer. He loved her, he loved her dearly, and he knew that nothing came without an explanation but she had the cheek of a dozen, that was for sure.
It wasn't that he minded. Not in the slightest. He loved her, wanted to help her, and he was going to do whatever he could. But he was worried about her too, genuinely felt that they had a serious problem.
And so, once their guests were gone, shown out by her, while he was left holding the baby - so no change there - he took little Millie out to the kitchen, where her mommy was busy loading the dishwasher.
"Let me do that." He said, moving beside her, all ready to put the baby into her arms, "You should go and settle this little one."
She shook her head, no surprises there, and carried on her task, "You do it. She settles better for you."
It was a familiar pattern from the last four days. He encouraged her to take care of their daughter, tried to show her what she should be doing, and she backed away, said he knew better. Stepped away from them both. It was tough because he knew she was new to being a parent, and still - inspite of what she'd said to Munch - tired from the birth, and he also knew that he was the more experienced of the two of them but at the same time, he didn't want her to miss out on crucial bonding time with her daughter.
"Liv." Cradling the baby in one arm, he reached out to touch her shoulder with the hand of the other, "Come on, you're tired. Why don't you go lay on the bed with her. If you both fall asleep I can move her when I come in."
She didn't argue a second time, but she still looked far from comfortable and confident as he placed Millie in her arms. In fact, she looked just plain uncomfortable which must have registered with the baby because she instantly started to wail.
"El…" his partner, his wife, held the baby out to him like it was a bomb that was about to blow, "… please… I don't know how to make her stop…"
It was a revelation to him, after Kathy, who had been born to be a mother, and also after 3 years of working with Olivia herself. When they'd come up against child vics and witnesses in the course of their work, Olivia had been spectacular, displaying maternal instincts at every turn, and yet now…
"Please El…" There were tears in her eyes as she shoved the crying baby back into his arms, before fleeing, sobbing near hysterically herself, in the direction of the bedroom as the baby's screams resonated around the apartment.
Elliot groaned. It was going to be a long night.
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Olivia lay on her bed, her and Elliot's bed, crying almost in unison with the crying baby she could hear from the other side of the door. It was too much, she didn't want to hear it, so she yanked open the drawer of her bedside table, pulling out her IPOD, jamming the headphones into her ears and pushing the play button, not caring what she was listening to as long as it wasn't a baby crying.
It was Alanis Morrisette. And she was singing an angry song full of angry lyrics. Well that suited Olivia down to the ground. Because she was angry. Her apartment had been taken over by a screaming baby, Elliot was… was… like… the perfect fucking parent and she had breasts like two bowling balls.
She could out angry Alanis Morrisette any time she liked.
She didn't bother listening to the lyrics, just broke down as she suddenly became aware of said rock hard breasts leaking all over her shirt. Great, like being uncomfortable wasn't enough, now she had to be wet and uncomfortable. She got up from the bed and stripped off, before throwing an old T-shirt of Elliot's and then curling up on the bed again.
That was better. She could smell him, sense him there with her. Like she used to, in the early days when they were a proper couple. Before she went off with the 'other woman'. Before he loved Millie more than he loved her.
The tears came again with that thought, as she hated herself for thinking of her own baby in that way. Their baby. Its was insane, Millie was everything she ever wanted and now she was here she hated her, resented her and was scared stupid of her in equal parts.
A pretty lousy way for a mother to feel.
'A mother'… ha, like she could ever be one of those. How could she? She didn't even know what the word meant.
Just as she was pondering that the phone rang. She reached for the one beside the bed reluctantly, "Stabler…"
"Livvy, its Kathleen."
Great. Like it wasn't hard enough having a daughter, now she had to play step mom too. She fudged it. Tried to sound sickly sweet and pleased to hear from her. Not that it mattered, she only wanted her dad. So THAT clearly ran in the family.
She got to her feet and went into the living room where Elliot was sat, cradling the baby in his arms. The non crying, almost sleeping baby - so no fucking surprises there. She shoved the phone into his hands and then went back to her bed.
Time passed. She could hear Elliot, talking in hushed tones to Child 2 of 5. If she'd have had the energy she'd have been interested as to what they were discussing, but as it was, she couldn't have given a toss.
Later, much later came into their room. He placed Millie down into her crib and then lay down on the bed beside her, She felt her body tense up, and hated herself for it, not like it was anything new.
And then, his hand was on her neck, gently caressing it, making her wish she could run screaming from him, although even she would never be that tactless. She rolled over, look at him.
"What?"
He smiled. Weakly. The smile he'd been giving her for three years, whenever he thought her behaviour was giving him cause for concern. "Liv. Talk to me."
"And say what?" she decided deliberately evasive was the right idea, "Munch has lost weight, Fin has put it on, the Captain clearly misses me and Alex is blatantly broody as a bitch on heat."
He pulled her closer and stroked her hair which was an indicator trouble was on the horizon, "We could talk about that. Or we could talk about you and Millie."
Unbelievably it wasn't the first time in the four short days that made up Millie's life that Elliot had tried to talk to Olivia about her relationship with her daughter, but it was the first time she acquiesced to his suggestion, probably a result of the ¾ of the bottle of champagne she'd downed while the squad was with them.
"She doesn't like me."
He pulled her closer then, clucking like a chicken, "Sweetheart, she's a baby, she doesn't know who she likes. Not really."
"Then why does she always cry at me?"
Olivia knew how pathetic it sounded. But she couldn't help herself. In her four days as a mother she'd found it to be absolutely hell and nothing like she'd expected it to be. She was just useless. And she also expected Elliot to laugh at her. But he didn't.
"Maybe its just because your nervous honey." He did his 'thing' rubbing her back and kissing her hair, all the things he did so well and yet, at the end of it, he still couldn't reassure her, in spite of her assurances to the contrary.
"Liv, I'm sure you're going to be an amazing mother."
Yeah. That was likely given her track record. Her family's track record.
She was going to be a lousy mother.
Just like her own.
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