Title: A Complicated State of Happiness

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 Will (and his family) and Noah have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.

Summary: With her son now two, Olivia moves into a new condo where she has a friendly but geeky neighbour. She continues to navigate being a single mom and her work - while now also trying to find her place in a new neighbourhood and figure out what she thinks of and wants from this Will guy.

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. Her relationship with Elliot is that of partner and protective older brother and colleague. It won't devolve from that - they aren't ever going to get together in this series. If you're an E/O shipper, you likely won't enjoy these stories. The timeline is a little loose and since most of the stories ultimately takes place outside of the work environment, there aren't too many references to cases from the show. But this series would generally be starting in about Season 10/11 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.

"You know, when I introduced you to my coffee shop, I didn't think it'd mean you'd be claiming my spot in here as your own too," she heard and glanced up.

Her neighbour was standing over her with a large coffee and what looked like some sort of pretending-to-be-health conscious muffin. He had a newspaper tucked under his arm and he was giving her a ridiculously friendly smile.

"I must've missed the seating chart when I came in," she retorted.

He snorted – and didn't wait any longer for an invitation to join them. Pulling out one of the extra chairs at hers and Noah's table and settling himself down. She gave him a bit of a look as he invaded their space and her few moments of peace and quiet. She actually had managed to get Noah interested in at least mashing between his fingers the chocolate chip muffin pieces she'd broken up to a plate for him. When he wasn't doing that he was busy examining his dinosaurs that they'd brought with them – or using them to further mash up the muffin. She was trying to ignore that disgusting, unhygienic mess – and enjoy being out of the apartment on a Saturday morning and getting to sit and work on her crossword puzzle. At least that had been the plan. Now Will was sitting there – stirring at his coffee and breaking his muffin in half – like they were best friends in the world and they didn't even need to chat at all. She didn't really want to do a comfortable silence, or share space with him at all – so she continued to look at him hard. He finally glanced at her – apparently feeling himself under her stare.

"Ah, is it OK if I sit here?" he asked. "There weren't really any other tables free right now."

She glanced around. There were lots of stools along the window free. But she supposed she couldn't be that rude to him. After all, she was still trying to make amends with him for being so rude before – and he had watched her son for her one night earlier in the week. Though, she had kind of thought that might've officially scared him off. She hadn't seen hide-nor-hair of him since she'd left him babysitting Noah until the wee hours of the morning, when he'd likely been under the impression it was just a couple hour gig.

"Hey Noah," Will greeted the little boy and gave him a wave. "Dinos again, eh?"

"'Ill," her son responded, apparently already able to recognize the man.

"Dinos for the kiddo and … the Times for Mom? That's pretty heavy reading for this time of day on a Saturday," he offered.

"I'm just doing the crossword," she told him, looking back to her paper.

"Oh, you're one of them," he snorted and pulled a copy of the Ledger from under his arm.

"Says a man reading the rattiest rag in the city," she commented, glancing at him.

He looked at the front page of the paper for a minute – it had one of the cases she was working on leading, but he didn't need to know that – then he glanced at her.

"I think about 80 per cent of the city reads the Ledger," he said.

She snorted. "That says a lot about the intelligence of this city then."

"Whoa, Ms. Hoity-Toity New York Times Saturday Crossword Puzzle," he said and put up his hands. "What do you think, Noah? Am I allowed to read the sports section of the newspaper with the best sports section in the city?"

Noah giggled at him and mashed the feet of a brontosaurus into his muffin more.

"Well, thank you, for your approval, there buddy," he said and glanced at Olivia, purposefully opening the paper and paging to the sports section.

She watched him as he started to read – glancing over his latest attire. The guy still looked like he'd rolled out of a university longue. At least he didn't smell like it, she thought.

"You read the sports section?" she snorted.

She supposed she kind of knew that from having inspected his bio on the university's website – and she'd seen him wearing his ball caps. Still, nothing about the guy said sports nut at all. Looking at him, he still mostly looked like he'd been pulled out of an episode of the Big Bang Theory. She felt a little bad thinking that – because the guy clearly had some depth to him from their conversations so far. But she still just didn't know that they had anything in common beyond living next to each other to base even just a friendship on.

She wasn't even sure she wanted just a friendship – even though he seemed nice enough, genuine enough. She just wasn't really used to having people around in her life. It just seemed like extra baggage. She had enough on the go with trying to juggle work and Noah.

He glanced up at her from his reading. "Mmm," was all he grunted at her.

"The Knicks won," she said. She guessed maybe they had that in common. Maybe.

His head shot up at her. "You know – there's only one home opener a season. You shouldn't go ruining things like that for people."

"You aren't a real fan, if you didn't already know that."

He seemed to think about that. "Maybe I'm more interested in the numbers than I am the actual outcome."

"Very math professor of you," she nodded back at him and turned back to her puzzle.

The guy was so fucking weird, she thought. He said the randomness things. She'd spent a little bit of time with him now and she still couldn't help feeling like half the things he said were some sort of inside joke or allusion to something grander that was just going over her head. And now she was stuck sitting with him on her Saturday morning. She thought it was partially her fault – after all she'd tried to make nice after sticking her foot in her mouth about his death wife. But she didn't need a BFF now because of it. She was just trying to be a little more human – compassionate, outside of work. It was something she needed to work on a bit – at least outside of the office.

She could feel him watching her for several beats, before she saw him put his eyes back on his own paper. There'd been quiet for several minutes then. He just sat there reading the commentary on the game from the night before and occasionally taking a sip of his coffee and breaking off a piece of his muffin. Noah fussed a little bit and reached towards him, saying 'Ill' again and the man had glanced at him and handed him a piece of his muffin, which Noah accepted and actually put in his mouth. She'd watched it - her son taste-testing the Morning-Glory Crunchy-Granola Explosion that was on the other man's plate and apparently much more interesting than his chocolate chip banana that she'd bought for him.

"You like that, Noah?" she asked him.

"Yeeees," he responded with enough vocal enthusiasm that some other people in the shop turned to take a look. She thought that if they knew her son, they'd know that that recommendation meant that they should get their asses back to the counter and change their orders to get whatever the hell it was that Will was eating. It sure didn't look like her definition of a muffin. If you were going to ingest all the calories and fat of a muffin, at least pick something that didn't look like trail mix, she thought.

"What about this one?" she asked again, tapping Noah's own plate on the table a bit.

"Yick," he told her.

She shook her head at him and rolled her eyes. "Why yick?"

His only response was to mash his dinosaur's feet into it some more.

"That's disgusting, Noah," she told him and pulled the plate away from him a bit. But he fussed and pulled it back, only to mash the toy into it some more.

"I think that tells you all you need to know about your muffin choices," Will commented drily. "Four dollar well spent."

She glanced at him. She almost wanted to smile at the comment – but didn't really want to encourage him. "Usually he likes it."

But as she looked at Will, she saw that he was clearly trying not to laugh as her little boy continued to more vigourously mash the dinosaur's feet into the foot. It was to the point that the muffin was hardly distinguishable as that, though the toy's feet were clearly caked with it. Thank God it was plastic and she'd be able to throw it into the sink as soon as they got home. Though, with her luck, Noah would actually decide he wanted to eat it and but gumming at the thing's feet before they even made it that far.

She pulled the plate away again. "OK, Noah, enough."

He fussed some more letting out a bit of an "Eeek" and she felt her quiet time with her morning coffee and crossword puzzle quickly fading away.

"OK, sweets, you ready to get moving, is that it?"

"Mommmmmmeeeeee," he whined at her.

"OK," she said and glanced at Will, as she stood and started to work at getting her son's fall jacket back into him. She was doing her best to avoid his messy hands, which she did a quick wipe down of with a napkin. He'd need a better hand wash, though, to get the sticky, caked mess truly off him.

"You're leaving?" Will asked with some clear disappointment in his voice.

She nodded. "We've been here a while. He's restless."

"He just doesn't like his breakfast," Will commented and she shot him a dirty look. "Hey, buddy, you want to give Mom a break and eat some of mine?"

Noah reached towards Will's pro-offered muffin as she continued to struggle to get the jacket down his pudgy and squirming arms. But she shook her head at Will.

"No, it's time for us to get going," she said.

"Oh, com'on. We haven't even had a chance to discuss the Knicks' prospects this season," Will protested at her.

She offered him a small smile for his efforts, though she was also a little annoyed by them. How did she end up with the Nosiest Neighbour in Manhattan? He'd clearly missed the memo about keeping to yourself – don't look at anyone, don't smile at anyone and really don't talk to anyone.

She lifted her struggling son out of his seat and worked at re-arranging him into his stroller. Noah wasn't impressed at all and was making it known to the whole shop. She wanted to get out of there before it really disintegrated from vocal fussing to an all-out tantrum. She really hated being in public for his Terrible-Two Tantrums. It made her feel like about the crappiest mother on the planet, even though she knew it was semi-normal behaviour for a child his age.

"Another time," she told Will, as she pulled her own jacket on and throw Noah's messy toys and her crossword back into the bag she had over the handles of the stroller – and then started working at getting the thing out from the corner, as Noah continued to express his distaste with the whole situation.

Will stood and pulled some of the chairs away for her – giving her more space to get the thing turned around and out of the area. She gave him a small nod of thanks.

"Ah, I'll hold you to that," he called after her as she started to make her way for the door.

She glanced behind her shoulder. "To what?"

"The Knicks. Talking," he said.

She raised an eyebrow at him. The guy just didn't give up. "Ah, OK," she said and kept on going.