Law and Order: SVU is the intellectual property of Dick Wolf. The use of characters plotlines, and settings is not malicious. This is a work of fiction.
"This is not…" Olivia let out a shaky breath, her closed eyes twitching and burning behind her lids. "This is not how this should have happened," she whispered to no one, a tear leaking out from her right eye. She squeezed them shut harder as she sniffled, her hands curls around the bathroom sink. She tried to breathe evenly, but her body had other plans. "This wasn't supposed to happen," she sobbed, and she swiveled her body just in time to plop down on the lidded toilet seat; her knees had buckled and she would've fallen to the floor.
The last month replayed itself like a montage in her mind. Moments of her and Elliot in bed, things he said to her, things he made her feel, the way he touched her, loved her. Moments in Cragen's office where he'd yelled at her for letting this go on too long, telling her she needed to tell him the truth because the cost of lying to him would be far too great now. She recalled their heavy workload, cases that put strain on them as usual but how much easier it was to overcome the horrors with each other, how much more open they were, how much more comfort they were able to give each other.
Scenes of Sunday breakfasts and family movie nights forced a smile, she could hear the kids all calling her "mom" with no hint of pretense or sarcasm, Nathan pitching in around the house and acting less like a jerk and more like a brother-in-law, even applying for jobs so he could help with the bills. She shook her head, not sure how or why this was playing out the way it was, why his memory still hadn't come back even though countless tests and check-ups had proved there was no sign of injury or bruising, not anymore.
With a deep breath, she shook away the memories, the overheard phone calls that didn't make sense, the evens from the past that Elliot spoke about that never actually happened, and she pulled herself back into the moment, into the present, into the world of trouble she lived in now.
Her hands caught her head as it lolled forward, tears coming in heavy streams as harsh cries seemed ripped from her throat. She shook her head and wondered what would happen in a week, in a month, in three months, in nine. What would happen when he remembered everything? Now, it wasn't just her that would be tossed aside, discarded, discounted. She turned her red and still-teeming eyes toward the clear plastic cup on the soapdish, the long thermometer-like device staring back at her, a ridiculously dark and clear, blue plus sign on its face.
She'd dreamt of this moment for so long, wrote about it in journals and letters to Elliot she'd never sent, and now, here it was, her dream come true, wrapped in a nightmare so terrifying it gave her a rash and a migraine. "What have I done?" she asked herself silently, and she drew her hands down to cover her stomach, swearing it felt rounder and swollen already. "I'm...I'm so sorry," she spoke to the tiny being beneath, already regretting letting it down.
A soft knock on the door made her head pop up and her hands move away, stunned into silence and stillness, she blinked, letting the last of her tears fall. The knock grew a bit louder, and she wiped her eyes with her hands, then swiped her hands down the front of her NYPD t-shirt. She cleared her throat and rose off of the toilet seat, her hand and arms shaking terribly as she debated throwing the test into the trash. She couldn't, and, sighing, she reached to unlock the door.
As soon as it clicked, it swung open, and a panic-stricken Elliot stared back at her from the archway. "Baby," he said, "Is everything okay? You've been in here for…"
She shook her head, tears springing back to life, and she hurled herself into his arms, mumbling "I'm sorry," over and over again, as if it was the only thing she knew how to say.
He pushed her away softly, gently, and bent his knees enough to look into her strained eyes. "What on earth are you sorry for? What happened?" He went white, a look of pure fear in his eyes. "You...oh, God, you...you're leaving me, aren't you?"
"No!" she sobbed, her head shaking wildly. "God, no, no! I just...well, you're...you're leaving me." Her voice wavered as her body quivered, and her head dropped again. "Eventually." She tried to swallow her cries, closed her eyes to stop her tears once more, and she took a very slow, very deep breath.
"I am never," he said firmly, "Ever...leaving you. You are my entire world, Liv," he sounded desperate now. Desperate to say it, to make her believe it, to understand that it wasn't hyperbole or metaphor, but honest truth. He kissed her forehead, the pads of his thumbs moving without prodding to sweep under her eyes and down the tracks of her tears along her cheeks. "I am never...how could you even think…you were crying in the bathroom for an hour because you think I'm leaving you? Honey, whatever I did to make you think..."
"Elliot," she breathed, stopping him, her breath undulating as she sank into resignation and the acceptance of whatever consequence came her way after she told him, because she had to tell him. She'd already kept too much from him. As though she was indicating a dead body at one of their crime scenes, she turned her head away from him and curled all but one finger, pointing directly at the cup and stick on the sink.
He turned to see what she was pointing at, his hands still on her. And as the weight of what it was settled over him, his grip on her tightened, his body tensed up.
She readied herself for the explosion, the anger that would spew forth, knowing this moment would indeed trigger some metaphysical reaction that would force his brain to rewire itself and hand him back the truth of his life on a silver platter, along with the refusal to have anything to do with this baby.
What she was ready for and what she got couldn't have been more vastly different.
Her eyes opened wide in shocked reaction to his loud, whooping holler, and the room blurred before her eyes as he lifted her and spun her around so fast it felt like a carnival ride. She sniffled again, but stared at his face as he set her down, and she had never, in the years she'd known him, seen that particular expression. She tilted her head, confused, as tears freely rolled down his cheeks and got caught in the dimples of the purest smile she'd ever seen on his face.
"Baby," he said though his happy cry. "We're having a baby." He pulled her into his arms, wrapped himself around her tightly, and ran his fingers through her hair as he laughed such a perfect laugh. "My baby is having my baby," he whispered, and he rocked her in his arms as he struggled to keep his own balance. He pulled back to look at her, and blinked only once before crashing into her again, this time his lips finding their home on hers.
His tongue swept over the slight seam of her mouth, taking entrance when she gasped and moaned. His hands roamed her body, down her back, up her thighs, around her waist, linking together at the nape of her neck as he goaded her into the bathroom wall for stability, not trusting himself to keep them standing in his current state.
"El," she breathed into his mouth. "Hon...honey," she attempted, still feeling somehow wrong in calling him by pet names. She pressed her hands into his chest, urging him to back away. Her pained eyes looked up into his, and once she saw the unadulterated love and bright sparkle in the blue eyes gazing back at her, she finally let herself smile. "You're...you're not…"
"God, baby, this is what I fucking wanted," he told her. "What we wanted. I thought it would take a while, a month or two, but...we...I mean, yeah we're working for some kind of world record lately, but...when...I mean, how late are you, when do you think…"
"The, uh, our...first time," she interrupted, and catching herself, she licked her lips. "The first time...since the accident."
He blinked, his smile somehow grew, not only brighter, but more victorious. "So, you...that's, um, six...six weeks?"
She nodded, biting her lip, a thousand questions flooding her mind, a million memories hitting her at once, and so many questions asking themselves, though she wasn't sure she wanted the answers.
His lips curled, the grin growing smug now, and he bent his head again. Before he kissed her, he whispered, "Bullseye." He winked at her and pressed his lips to hers again.
She sank into him, giving into the emotions, his happiness finally pulling hers to the surface, and she laughed into his partly opened mouth.
They kissed, pressed against the wall, for a long while, taking it all in, until Elliot pulled back to breathe. "Honey," he panted, "This is what we wanted, we talked about this, why would you think I...how could you possibly think, after everything we went through to get where we are, that I would ever leave you and our kids?"
Scraping her teeth across her lip, she shrugged. "Hormones," she lied, knowing it was a plausible excuse, one that he'd accept.
"My beautiful girl," he chuckled, "I worked too fucking hard to make sure we have this life, the life we deserve, we both...we have both sacrificed and fought and through it all, held onto each other. I'm never letting you go," he told her, and he kissed her again.
She returned his kiss with eagerness and the heat and love filled the room, almost stifling them now. "Before we…" she gnawed on her lip a bit, her eyes glinting. She chuckled when he wagged his brows and nodded, eager to celebrate. "Before we tell the kids, which...God, I don't know what they're going to say," she rolled her eyes and exhaled. "We need to decide...what we're telling Cragen."
Elliot looked at her, confused. "We...shit, I…" he looked into her eyes, for once a grave and serious expression on his face. "I think we...we've proven we can do the job, right? I mean, the last five years, we haven't so much as kissed at work." He smirked. "Well, that anyone knows about." He chuckled and took a breath. "Well, Tucker knows, we should...we should tell Cragen. Everything." He didn't see her face fall into a pained grimace because he had slid down her body to nuzzle her stomach. "Hi, little one," he cooed, his palms slipping under Olivia's shirt to cup her body. "Daddy loves you, so much."
She stared down at him, amazed, touched beyond words, and now, deliriously happy. She brushed her fingers through his hair and smiled when he looked up at her, both of them crying new, slowly trickling tears. "Okay," she nodded. "Tomorrow, we…" she gulped, but the look on his face quieted the fear and gave her assurance. "We'll tell Cragen."
He pushed himself up and dragged his palms up her sides to cup her face. "He's going to feel so stupid, all those times he threatened to fire us if we got too close, when he had us in his office threatening reprimands for fraternization." He laughed and kissed her sweetly. "When he finds out we were married when he hired you, his entire perception of how we work is going to change." He kissed her again and then opened the door, pulling her out of the bathroom.
She heard him yell for the kids, but she was still stuck on what he'd said about Cragen. It was true. His perception of how they do their jobs was definitely going to change. It's exactly what she was afraid of.
Peace and Love
Jo
