Title: Welcome Home

Author: ZombieJazz

Fandom: Law & Order: SVU

Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack and Benji have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.

Summary: Olivia continues to work at establishing her family and learning how to navigate motherhood while still serving with SVU. There's lots of challenges for her ahead as she adjusts to the changes in her life, surmounts new situations and legal troubles for her and her adopted children, and tries to find some time and space for herself in it all too. This is the sequel to Hello, Goodbye.

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. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 15 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.

Alex glanced around the apartment as she came into the living room space. It looked like a full-blown tornado had gone through it. She was used to seeing Olivia's apartment in a state of disarray anymore. But she'd never seen it quite this bad.

She glanced back over her shoulder and gave Liv a look and the other woman sighed.

"I know," she said. "There's just too much going on lately."

Alex gave her another small look but resisted making a comment. In a way she did agree – there was far too much going on. If anything, Alex had pretty much felt like Liv had been in a perpetual state of motion since Jack had left for his summer camp placement. She knew part of that was to keep Ben engaged and distracted from the fact his uncle was on the other side of the country. Another part of it had been that SVU had managed to catch several cases that involved children that summer and those cases invariably meant that Olivia threw herself head first into them. If anything, Alex felt like the woman needed a vacation before this vacation she was going on – and she was even more likely to need one after she got back.

Alex just moved over to the couch, though, restraining herself from saying anything about that. But there wasn't anywhere to sit down. She gestured at it.

"Is there a reason your couch looks like an aisle at Staples?"

"Sorry," Olivia sighed again and bent and managed to scoop it all up in one go, walking to the dining room table and letting it all clatter into a bigger mess there. "It's Benji's standard supply list. I was just making sure I had everything."

Alex raised her eyebrow at that comment. "He needs that much stuff for kindergarten?" she asked as she managed to get to take a seat on the couch.

Olivia shrugged. "Apparently," she said with a tone that indicated she felt about the same away about it. "And, that's not even everything. They want all sorts of toiletries that I haven't had the chance to go and get yet."

"Toiletries?" Alex said. "Aren't these kids barely potty trained?"

Olivia shook her head and bent and grabbed a piece of paper off the coffee table and handed it to her. "Every size Ziploc bag imaginable."

Alex examined the list. "I don't recall every needing Ziploc bags in kindergarten or the rest of my rather lengthy academic career. To pack my lunch, yes. To learn, no."

Olivia allowed her a small smile at that. "Kleenex, paper towels, band-aids, soap …"

"Soap? Toilet paper?" Alex said in some disbelief. "There's a bigger problem if our schools than I thought if children now have to bring in their own soap and toilet paper." She looked at the list again. "What exactly is the difference between disinfectant wipes and baby wipes?"

"Ahh …" Olivia said and looked over her school at the paper. "I think one is to wipe the kids and the other one is to wipe tables. Maybe…"

Alex shook her head. "This is ridiculous," she said and put the paper back on the table in some disbelief.

"Yeah, I know," Olivia muttered. "I'm going to have to get a cab … or a wagon … to drag all this crap in on his first day."

"You should've done private school," Alex said flatly. "You'd be paying enough that you wouldn't be paying of this stuff too."

"I don't know about that," Olivia shook her head. "Besides, I can't afford private school."

Alex gave her a look. She had an idea what NYPD wages were and knew Olivia had received a notable raise with her new rank.

Olivia just returned the look, though. "We'd be living way too hand-to-mouth if I had to pay those fees – or I'd be draining his college fund."

"He has a college fund?" Alex put back to her.

Olivia snorted. "Yeah. It's called my savings account."

Alex gave her a small smile at that. She knew that right now Olivia was just plain old Mommy to Ben but she hoped that one day when he was older he'd realize just how much he'd lucked up with where he'd landed. He was going to have a nice childhood and every opportunity afforded to him that his mother could manage. He'd be cared for and loved and a little spoiled. Lots of sacrifices and adjustments would be made for him to make sure he got all the things he needed – and likely most of the things he wanted too to a point. He was a lucky little boy.

"You might want to set up something a little more official than that," Alex suggested a little jokingly but with an underlying seriousness. "Get some real interest generated."

Olivia nodded. "Yeah. I'm going to meet with my financial advisor in September and reassess some things given the new developments in my life. Need to look at Jack too. He wants to do his masters. Or needs to do it for what he wants to do. … Or something."

Alex gave her another look. "You're going to pay for Jack's education too?"

Olivia sighed from where she'd started folding a basket of laundry. "I don't know. I might help. Maybe. It's still a few years away. He'll probably be able to get some financial support and even another scholarship. Or he may even decide he doesn't want to do the masters. Who knows. I just want to get a more realistic perspective of what I can and can't think about doing with my money now that things are starting to settle down."

Alex gave another glance around the chaotic apartment. "Things look real settled," she commented drily.

Olivia gave her an annoyed look but just said, "Packing has been a nightmare."

"Did I miss some memo that you're actually moving to California?"

Olivia snorted at her. "I just don't know what to take," she said.

Alex raised her eyebrow and leaned and snagged some of the clothes out of the basket her friend was working on to fold herself now. "You're going to California, Olivia, not the Sahara Desert. I'm pretty sure you'll be able to get anything you don't bring but suddenly need there."

Olivia rolled her eyes.

Alex ignored it and instead held up the tshirt she had. It was plastered with the Rescue Bots. She gave Liv a smile. Benji was beyond doted on and spoiled.

She nodded. "Yeah, that one's a take," she said and pointed at a pile on the far side of the table. Alex finished folding it and placed it on top.

"Little boy clothes can be pretty cute," she commented as she shook out the next item from the pile and worked at folding it.

"They get a lot less cute when you're doing laundry every second day – if you're lucky – and it all ends up in the same scrunched up ball in his drawer or on the floor no matter how nicely you fold it for him," Olivia said without even looking up from what she was doing. She seemed to have developed a technique for folding that barely even looked like folding. It was more she held it in the air and by the time she shook it out and let it drop to the table it'd managed to have meshed into a perfect square. Alex would like to know that trick. Though, she wasn't sure if she wanted to know it if it meant that she needed to invest in having two boys and endless loads of laundry to do.

"Have you done his back-to-school clothes shopping yet?" she asked casually.

Olivia looked up at that and gave a small shake of her head. "I had wanted to get it done before we left. It just didn't happen. We'll still have some time when we get back."

Alex eyed her for a moment. "You know you need to at least have him a new outfit for his first day," she said. "It's like a right of passage – and think about your photos of his first day of school. Do you really want him wearing this?" She held up a Mets tshirt.

Olivia glanced at her and just smiled. "I kind of like that one. Take," she said and pointed at the pile.

"You're setting him up for teasing. Cheering for the Mets," Alex teased her and put it where requested.

"Cragen bought it for him," Olivia said flatly.

Alex looked up at her again. "Cragen's buying him clothes now?"

Olivia shrugged. "You buy clothes for him all the time."

"Because in the limited amount of free time I have, I've been known to shop."

Olivia raised her eyebrow. "In the toddler boys' section?" Alex offered no comment to that. "I'm sure Cragen just picked it up when he was out at a game."

"In other words he spent an arm and a leg on it," Alex told her.

Olivia shrugged. "It's his way of trying to show interest in the boys and be supportive."

Alex just offered a nod. She wasn't going to argue that point. She knew that Olivia had been appreciating just how supportive her squad had been being since Benji had become a part of her life – but particularly that summer when everyone knew her extra set of hands was away. Alex was glad for that too. And, she was even gladder that Olivia (for the most part) seemed to be accepting the help and support. She wasn't sure how Liv would manage to be doing any of this – her job, being a single mom – without letting herself take the help.

"Do you want to leave me a list?" Alex offered. "I can go and pick up some of the clothes for him so you don't have to when you get back."

Even though Olivia was trying to make it sound like she had a lot of time when she got back from her holiday, the reality was that she didn't. There'd be barely a week before the boys were back in school. She'd be trying to catch up on work, trying to get Jack moved back into the dorms, trying to calm Ben's anxieties about starting school. She wasn't exactly going to have a lot of time to be battling the crowds for back-to-school shopping.

The detective looked up like she was actually considering it but then shook her head with another sigh. "No but thank you. I just haven't decided how I want to approach it yet. It might make more sense to get him some stuff that's a little bigger and just let him grow into it. Hopefully that way whatever I buy him at least makes it through the school year. But I'll need him with me to do that."

Alex nodded. "Because Ben's very co-operative about trying things on," she said with some sarcasm.

Olivia sighed. "That's part of the reason I've been putting it off."

"You realize you could just buy multiple sizes and bring them home to have a stand-off with him here?" Alex suggested.

She nodded. "I thought of that but then I went into a store on my lunch break and decided there was no way I was going to deal with those lines at every store I shop at twice. You think in here looks bad – you should see what moms on a back-to-school shopping mission do to the children's clothing department."

Alex gave her a small smile. "Worse than a sample sale?"

"It was chaos, Alex," she said. "I might as well have been on riot duty."

Alex allowed a small laugh at that and shook her head.

"Nick keeps telling me about all these sales. Go here for this. Go there for that. This is $5 today and this is $20 and this brand and that brand. It's driving me crazy," she said. "I don't know how he manages to keep track of it or get out to any of it."

"Well, he's got a daughter who's name literally means princess – so I'm imagining the first day of school outfit is pretty important," Alex said.

Olivia gave her a look. "She's going into Grade One."

"Have you met Zara?" Alex put back to her and Olivia did laugh.

Alex had met Nick's daughter just once that summer while she'd taken up an invitation to meet up with Olivia and Ben. It'd turned out that the meet-up was actually a playdate that Liv had arranged with Nick and his daughter. Even with not having to do anything beyond sitting and talking with the other adults while they monitored the little boy and little girl bicker and fight with each other far more than play – Alex had known without a doubt that Nick was in trouble. He thought he had his hands full with a daughter now – just wait until she hit her tweens and teens and truly became a little diva.

"And he's got his mom to send out on those kinds of missions," Alex suggested.

Olivia nodded and agreed, "Yeah," a little too softly, like she might be far too aware that she didn't have family to help. Or her mother wasn't around to see the family she'd managed to create. Though, from the little Alex did know about Olivia's mother she wasn't sure how helpful the woman would've been.

"You could just order online," Alex suggested. "Avoid the chaos."

Liv nodded again. "I'd still end up having to go in to return what doesn't fit or looks like shit – unless I wanted to pay shipping fees."

"Or you could leave me a list," Alex said again. "I can get you multiple sizes of everything."

Olivia gave her a small smile. "Even though I hate the chaos, I had been sort of looking forward to it. Little boy clothes are kind of cute, you know?"

Alex gave her a laugh for her effort to put that statement back to her. But she just reached and pulled the supply list closer to her. "Well, then at least let me go and pick up the rest of this nonsense so you don't have to worry about that."

Olivia nodded. "I'd appreciate that."

Alex gave the apartment another cursory glance. "I think you should let me come over while you're gone too and do some clean-up in here. You're going to hate walking back into a disaster zone after a holiday and with Jack in tow."

"It's not that bad," Olivia protested.

Alex gave her a look. "It's pretty bad."

Olivia sighed and looked around. "I was going to sort of clean it up as I went with finishing up the packing."

"That doesn't look like it's going so well," Alex said bluntly.

Olivia rolled her eyes. "Two hands," she said.

Alex held up her own. "Four right now." As she dropped them, though, her eyes fell on something else in the corner. "Did you buy a car seat?"

Olivia glanced behind her to where her eyes had fallen. "No specifically for this trip. But yes."

Alex raised an eyebrow.

Olivia rubbed at hers and looked away. "I'd bought it for when we went up to the Catskills."

"You mean to Brian's cabin," Alex said.

She really got a look for mentioning that name. It was off territory. Alex wasn't allowed to ask what was going on there – and Olivia hadn't said. Though, something was clearly going on. Olivia and Ben had twice gone up to Brian's cabin that summer and she knew that they'd been spending more time together than that. Alex had gone out to one of Ben's supposed 'soccer games' and Brian Cassidy had also shown up. It had been a little awkward – only because Olivia was clearly giving her looks that said not to comment on it. But it was also abundantly clear with how Ben interacted with the man it was someone he was used to seeing.

Alex, though, wasn't entirely sure what was going on though. There were no public displays of affection between the two to suggest that they were anything other than friends. That he was just another person who'd decided to support Olivia that summer and in managing her newfound motherhood and family. Still, Alex couldn't help but wonder if they were friends with benefits or even something a little more. Part of her sort of wished there was a bit more up-front clarity about what exactly it was because she knew that Jack was definitely going to want and need that when he arrived back in the city.

"With how much it was going to cost to rent one," Olivia added, now clearly pushing to change topics, "I might as well buy another one. It's really going to be cheaper just to pay the baggage fee to take it out there with us."

Alex allowed a small nod at that logic. "So how are you going to the airport?" she asked, though. "Is Brian going to give you a lift? It looks like you're going to have a lot of stuff."

Olivia shot her another look. "No that much. Two suitcases and the car seat. A carry-on with his junk in it to feed and entertain him on the plane."

Alex shrugged. "Still a lot for one person to handle."

Olivia shook her head and stood from her place on the floor where she'd been folding and disappeared down the hall only to return with one of the said suitcases and starting to work at piling some of Ben's clothes into it.

"We'll likely just take a cab," she said without looking at her.

"Brian hasn't offered?"

Those daggers came again.

"It'd just likely be easier and cheaper if he drove you," Alex offered but she sighed and conceded. "OK, dropping it."

She'd been invited over to help pack and for a bit of a visit before they left. She would've preferred she got in a visit before Ben had gone to bed. But if that had happened, getting Ben to bed would've been a chore for Olivia and it definitely didn't look like she needed any more of those. It was best no to piss off the detective before she went away. She didn't exactly appear excited or calm about the pending vacation.

"So how are you doing?" Alex asked instead. "You don't seem that excited?"

Olivia let out another small sigh and gave her a look. "Nick's just been doing an Elliot lately."

Alex laughed out loud at that. "Have you expressed it to him on those terms?"

"He'd find that grossly insulting," Olivia put flatly.

Alex snorted. "He'd likely have reason to. What's he been doing?"

"Holier than thou," Olivia said. "Telling me how much of a disaster this trip is going to be."

Alex looked at her. She actually seemed genuinely hurt and concerned about whatever her partner had been spouting at her. Olivia met her eyes, though.

"You don't think this is going to be a disaster, do you?"

Alex examined her and considered that. She wasn't sure it would be a disaster. But she did think Olivia was brave. She could tell that the detective was tired from the summer and she wasn't sure how much of a break this trip was really going to be for her. Beyond that, though, Alex had been invited by Olivia to take a trip out to Montauk in the summer – so she'd gotten a bit of a first-hand look at what travelling with Ben actually looked like. In a single word: Exhausting.

It'd been a strange weekend. And it had been long. Alex had initially envisioned a weekend in the Hamptons. Sure, a very touristy area in a region that used to argue it wasn't even part of the Hamptons. But the Hamptons. She hadn't really considered how much having a little boy with them would fundamentally change what previous weekends she'd taken out on the beach had looked like. But it was definitely different.

Ben had hardly sat still the whole train ride and he just never shut up. That in itself was exhausting. Alex knew he did that. She knew how much restless energy he had and what a chatterbox he could be. But dealing with it for three hours versus three days were two very different things. She'd been amazed at how Olivia seemed to manage to carry on something that remotely resembled a conversation with her while still interacting with Ben's ramblings. Though, she suspected that Liv might've felt more like they were having more of a conversation than she'd actually had. There were so many interruptions that Alex had pretty much given up trying to talk.

It'd only gotten worse when they'd actually gotten to their hotel. The first night it had seemed like it had taken hours for Olivia to actually get Ben to sleep. The detective had seemed like she was still ready to go when that was done. She'd come out to their balcony with a bottle of wine, apparently ready to spend what was left of the evening sitting in the summer breeze drinking and chatting. But Alex had been so exhausted from even just listening to Ben and trying to keep up with him and Liv that she'd barely gotten through a glass before she excused herself to fall into bed. Olivia had seemed surprised but all Alex could think about was that she didn't know how she did this every day.

The trip too looked nothing like what 40-something single women should be doing on a weekend away. There hadn't bee shopping or sitting on a patio with wine or sangria, there wasn't laying on the beach reading, enjoying a meal that was far too over priced, or any social gathering of any kind. They'd gone to a petting zoo (A PETTING ZOO!) and played mini putt. They'd spent time at the beach but they'd also spent time at the playground and a skate park. Rather than enjoying sitting and doing nothing – they'd gone on a 'hike' that was supposedly suppose to yield seal sightings. When there hadn't been seal sightings there had been tears instead.

Then that didn't even get into the fact that Ben seemed constantly hungry. Of course it was hungry in the way that he wanted one grape or one cracker or one sip of water – every 10 minutes. But that was better when they actually sat down at the restaurants. There were no fancy restaurants that week. Their prime spot eating had been in a place called the Crabby Cowboy. Alex didn't need to see the menu to know that it wasn't going to be a meal to remember. Only it had turned out to be a meal to remember because after her and Olivia had settled on a steam pot to share – she'd decided to give her son a crab leg to gnaw on. Listening to Ben crunch and suck on the thing had been enough to turn Alex off the rest of her meal. Not that she'd been that excited about eating food with her hands in public in the first place – even if it was at a place called the Crabby Cowboy.

In essence, it really hadn't seemed like much of a holiday. She certainly didn't think it seemed very relaxing for Olivia. Not that Olivia had said anything to indicate that she was feeling exhausted or overwhelmed. If anything, she seemed to have things as under control as she always did. But it still left the idea of spending a holiday that would predominantly entail spending time in a car with Ben seem entirely unappealing to Alex.

"Well, you're in a car," Alex said, "if it's that bad …"

Olivia interrupted. "That's what I keep telling Nick. There's lots of pull-offs and towns and tourist sites."

"I was going to say hurl yourself off a cliff," Alex amended.

Olivia snorted at that and shook her head.

"I'm sure it will be fine," Alex said. "You'll have Jack to help."

"Hopefully," Olivia said.

"Have you told him about the trip yet?"

Olivia nodded but then shook her head and shrugged. "Yes and no. It's sort of a surprise. He knows we're driving down the coast back to L.A. but he doesn't know that we're going all the way down. That I've got the beach house rented."

Alex looked at her. "Don't think he'll be excited about that?"

She nodded. "I think he will be. But I think he'll be more excited if he doesn't have time to think about it and stew about it. If we just do it."

Alex allowed a small nod of acknowledgement at that. Jack could be a strange kid. But Olivia was likely right. He'd be in a stew about school and work and getting back to the city. She sort of hoped, though, that not giving Jack notice wouldn't blow up in her face. She trusted, though, that Olivia knew how to manage the teen. And, hopefully after the summer away how he handled some things would be approached a little more maturely.

"Does he know you're doing the Disney thing?"

Olivia shook her head. "I don't know if we're doing the Disney thing."

Alex looked at her. "You have to do the Disney thing. Ben's been telling me all summer how he's going to meet Buzz and Woody and … the red car."

"Lightening McQueen," Olivia provided.

"Lightening McQueen," Alex repeated flatly.

"I'm sure if I need to we'll be able to find people dressed as those things in front of Grauman's Theater."

"See, that just sounds gross not fun," Alex said.

Olivia sighed. "I'll just have to see how Jack's doing. Disneyland is supposed to be pretty ridiculously crowded and it will be hot. They might not be in a place where they can handle it."

"Olivia – you have to do the Disney thing," Alex said. "It will blow his little mind at this age. You won't get that chance again."

She shrugged. "We could always go back. Or to Florida."

"The Florida one is likely even more ridiculous. It's a world. Not a land."

Olivia allowed a small laugh at that and shrugged. "We'll see," she allowed.

"Olivia," Alex said, "those boys will be able to handle whatever you tell them they can handle. You've been waiting to get to do some of these things for years. Do them. Remember that it's your vacation too. Do things you want to do too. You deserve it. Even if Disneyland is on your list."

Olivia allowed a smile. "It's not Disneyland I want to see," she said. "It's Benji's face when he sees Lightening and Mater."

"So go see Lightening and Mater … whoever Mater is …"

"He's the tow truck," she said.

Alex shook her head. "You didn't need to clarify. Information I don't need to know."

"It's important information," Olivia contended.

Alex rolled her eyes. "Very."