Screening
Elliot called Olivia early the next morning. His voice sounded weary and discouraged.
"We're going to talk to the kids this weekend." He informed her without preamble. "I'm going to the hospital this morning to get tested myself, and I'll pick up some of the kits you told us about."
The first step in identifying potential donors was a simple swab of the cheek, a test that he and Olivia had witnessed countless times on the job for DNA sampling. If that test showed matching antigens, the donor would be further screened with blood work and other tests.
"Thank you, Elliot," Olivia said in a voice hoarse with emotion. "I know how hard this will be; I know you never wanted to tell them."
"No, I didn't." Elliot gave a heavy sigh. He and Kathy had been up most of the night, deciding how to proceed. In the end, there really wasn't much of a choice. They couldn't deny August a chance, however small, for a full recovery. The next question had been how to handle it. Elliot was mortified at the thought of having to have this conversation with his young adult children; Kathy was sure they would take it better than he anticipated. There was no need for them to know the details; all that they needed to know was that he had donated sperm so that Olivia could have a baby. That was going to be hard enough to explain.
"How is August doing?" he asked her, not wanting to get into a discussion about his children's reactions. He was determined to enjoy these last hours of being the father his they'd always known before irrevocably shaking up their worlds.
"She's a little perkier today." Olivia replied. "Mariclair comes home tonight and she can't wait to see her." Olivia wasn't looking forward to tell the au pair about Augusts' condition; she'd been with them for over two years and was very close to her child. August and Mariclair had a mutual adoration that sometimes caused Olivia to feel jealous, but at the moment she wasn't thinking about that; she was grateful for anything that provided her daughter some happiness and distraction.
"Good," said Elliot. "Hopefully we can identify a match for her soon and put all of this behind her."
Olivia picked up on the pronoun use but didn't comment. It had already crossed her mind that by pulling the Stablers into the mix, there was a risk that Elliot was going to start feeling a closer connection to August again. There was no avoiding it, however. If one of his children could provide her daughter with what she needed to get better, she'd live with the complications. All that mattered was that August did get better.
On his way to work, Elliot stopped at the hospital and made his way to the Pediatric Oncology Unit. Even at this early hour, the waiting room was packed with parents accompanying children, many wearing baseball caps to cover the absence of hair. Kathy had told him how hard it had been to be there the day before and now he understood what she meant.
The receptionist directed him to the lab around the corner. As he was identifying himself to the nurse as needing to be tested as a possible match for August Benson-O'Reilly, a tall man in a white lab coat paused on his way out of the room. He extended his hand to Elliot.
"I'm Dr. Simon," he introduced himself. "You must be Augusts' biological father?" His voice was low and there was no one but the nurse to over hear him, but Elliot felt a blush of heat stain his cheeks. He wasn't ashamed to be Augusts' father, but he hated that the whole world was learning about what was meant to be his private business.
"Yes," he said tersely, accepting the handshake. "I'm here to get tested and pick up kits for my children."
The doctor put his hand on Elliot's shoulder and ushered him into an adjoining room. "I'll draw the blood and we can talk."
The nurse looked surprised but quickly laid out the needed equipment and left the room. It had been decided that the adults—Olivia, Elliot, even Olivia's half-brother Simon, would all go directly to the blood testing stage to expedite the matching process. Although the chances weren't good that any of them, especially Marsden, would be a match, if they were it would prevent the need for further searching.
Elliot rolled up his sleeve as the doctor washed his hands and donned gloves.
"How many children do you have?" Dr. Simon asked as he probed the inside of Elliot's elbow for a vein.
"Five," Elliot told him. "The youngest is six and the oldest is 25."
Dr. Simon raised his eyebrows and smiled at the range in ages and Elliot could practically hear this thoughts: Good Catholic family!
"How do they feel about being tested?" He asked as he found applied the rubber strap of a tourniquet.
"They don't know yet," Elliot told him. This man was a complete stranger yet something about his demeanor made him feel comfortable. Olivia had said that he'd been wonderful when delivering the diagnosis and explaining their options and he could see what she meant. "They don't…know…yet…that August is their sister."
To Dr. Simon's credit, his expression didn't change. "Situations like this call for people to make tough decisions." He said quietly, deftly inserting the needle and pulling back on the plunger. Elliot watched as he filled several vials with his blood, then withdrew the needle and handed Elliot a cotton ball to hold over the spot. "You're not the first family to be in this kind of predicament."
"Doc, I can guarantee our "situation" is not what you think," Elliot said, his voice coming off more heated than he had intended. He was sure Simon assumed that he and Olivia had had a torrid love affair and that August was their secret love child.
Simon gave him a curious look. "I'm not making any assumptions—or judgments—about your situation." He said calmly. "I applaud you for doing what you can to help out, especially when it appears to be putting you in a difficult situation."
"What did Olivia tell you?" Elliot asked, rolling down his sleeve.
"Only that August had half-siblings from her biological father," said Dr. Simon. He removed his gloves and stepped on a trash can to dispose of them. "I don't need to know anything more than that."
Elliot felt the need to explain anyway. It was ridiculous to be worrying about what this man thought of him, but he didn't want him under the impression that he'd fathered a child and just walked away to let another man raise her. "Olivia needed a sperm donor to become pregnant," he said, his tone a bit defensive. "We work together and she trusted me. My wife supported the idea, but we never told our own children—didn't see a need for them to know. And now…" His voice trailed off as he thought ahead to the weekend and the explanations to come.
"Well, the end result was a beautiful little girl," said Dr. Simon, extending his hand to Elliot to shake in farewell. "And we'll do our best to get her healthy again as soon as possible. We should have your results back later today; when do you think you can get me the samples from your children?"
Elliot promised to drop them off Monday morning and left, feeling sheepish and relieved; sheepish because had assumed the doctor would judge him for their unusual situation and relieved to know that Augusts' case was in such good hands. For the first time since hearing Augusts' diagnosis, he felt some optimism.
He went to work and did his best to lose himself in the details of the case he was currently investigating, a vendor who promised needed medical supply equipment to veterans at discount prices, then disappeared after receiving payment without delivering the goods. As busy as he tried to keep himself, his mind kept wandering back to August. He knew it was unrealistic, but he found himself hoping that the blood work he'd had that morning would show that he was a perfect match for her. Then he would be able to give her the help she needed without disrupting the lives of his other children.
His hopes were dashed when Olivia called him late that afternoon, just before he was leaving to go home for the day.
"None of us are a match," she told him sadly. When he heard the pain in her voice, he realized that she'd probably had the same hopes as he had—that one of them, as Augusts' parents, would have been able to supply the needed bone marrow.
"Kathy and I will talk to the kids on Sunday," Elliot promised her. "I told Dr. Simon that I'd drop off the samples first thing Monday morning. I can't force them to be tested, Liv, but I can't imagine that they won't want to help August in any way that they can. They love her too."
"In the meantime, the hospital is checking the National Registry," Olivia said. It was more likely that a complete stranger would be a match for August before one of her half-siblings, but the problem, as with any type of organ or tissue donation, was that there were never enough donors to be screened. Unlike many other types of medical donations, bone marrow transplants could be taken from a living donor. All that was needed to become part of the National Registry was for individuals to fill out a medical history and submit a sample swabbed from the inside of a cheek.
"Something will turn up," Elliot assured her, hoping that he sounded more confident than he felt. "It has to."
Kathy came out of the bathroom from brushing her teeth to find Elliot stripped down to his briefs and lying on top of the bed, one arm folded across his face and covering his eyes. She crossed the room and sat down gently next to him, thinking he was falling asleep and wanting to get him under the covers before he was totally out.
"Hey, babe," she said softly, putting her hand on his chest. He lowered his arm and to her great surprise, saw that he his eyes were full of unshed tears. Expressing emotion was not Elliot's strong suite; in all the years they'd been together, she'd rarely seen him cry. His bastard of a father had pounded it in to him from an early age that men never cry. Never.
"Elliot," she said helplessly, not sure how to offer comfort. This was such uncharted territory for them all.
He reached for her, pulling her up by the shoulders until her head lay on his chest and his arms were around her. She began to stroke his broad chest softly in a circular motion, the way she would do for the kids when they were little and complaining of a stomach ache. Under her palm she could feel the muscles in his chest constricting as he fought back tears.
"It's okay, babe, just let it out," she murmured. "It's okay."
"I feel like such a fuck-up," he said into her hair, his voice hoarse. She raised her face to see his cheeks wet with tears and moved up so that her face was over his. She kissed the wetness.
"You're not," she said fiercely. "Why would you even say such a thing, Elliot?"
"This family has been through so much already, and now, because of me, it's all going to be a mess again. The kids are going to hate me when they find out I lied to them. It's going to throw their lives into turmoil to know they have a sister and we kept it from them."
She stroked her hand down the side of his cheek, and looked him in the eye as she spoke in a soft but firm voice. "Our children will never hate you. They're going to be upset at first, but eventually they'll understand why we did what we did. We, Elliot, not just you. We're in this together. They love Olivia and August; they'll realize it was a good thing that we did."
He looked at her, his blue eyes dark and wet. "I hope you're right. I can't live with the thought of having our children think I'm a liar…" He turned his face away then and she felt his chest tighten again under her.
"Elliot, you're nothing like your father," she interrupted, taking his chin in her hand and turning his face so that his eyes couldn't escape hers. "Nothing at all like him. What you did was an act of kindness, done out of love for a friend. They know you, Elliot. They know you're a good man."
She held him while he cried, knowing that the tears were about so much more than August and her illness, or even the need to tell their children of the biological connection between Olivia's daughter and themselves. It was also about his need to be more than his father had been; to be more than the patriarch who threw his weight around and put his own needs before those of his family. All of his adult life Elliot had set impossibly high standards for himself as a father, and now he was confronted with failing his own expectations.
After awhile, his tears began to subside and his hands began to roam her body, caressing her roughly through her clothes, as if grounding himself in her familiar curves and planes. He slid his large hand up under her sleep shirt to knead her breasts and buried his face in her neck, covering her with wide, wet kisses. She moaned as he moved over her, grinding his erection into her through their clothing. She slid his briefs down over his hips, grasping him by the buttocks as he continued to writhe against her.
He reached down to slip a finger inside the band of her panties, and finding her wet and ready, pulled the flimsy garment roughly aside so he could enter. He let out in incoherent groan of satisfaction as he filled her, causing her to gasp at the sudden heat of the full length of him. She realized somewhere in the back of her mind that they hadn't stopped for a condom, but it was way, way too late for that, there was no stopping now as he pounded away his fears and frustrations and feelings of failure. He held on to her shoulders and lay with his full weight on her, repeatedly thrusting deep and hard until he could feel her start to undulate beneath him in the waves of a climax that left her gasping for breath. Still he continued pounding away at a grueling pace; as if his own release was something he had to earn, to earn with his sweat and tears. She slid her hands around to his buttocks and held him tightly, raising her hips to meet his, forcing him over the edge along with her. He uttered a loud, wordless groan of defeat and collapsed, shuddering, on top of her. They lay together in a jumble of partially removed clothing and sweaty limbs, panting as they slowly regained composure.
"It will all be okay," she told him again, running her hands up and down the length of his back. "We'll all be okay."