DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything you even remotely recognize.

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Elliot's POV

"Elliot, we ready to take these cumbersome bandages off?" Stacy asks as she and Dr. Murray approach my bed.

It's been two days since my surgery. Three days total that Olivia's been here with me pretty much the whole time. I think she's only left to shower. All four kids have been to see me each day too. That has made my stay so much more bearable. The moment of truth is here though. It's time to finally find out if the surgery worked.

Olivia gets up to leave the room and I grab her arm.

"Don't you dare leave. I want you right here with me for this." I tell her.

"Okay Elliot, here we go." Dr. Murray says.

He pulls the tape off the bandages at the back of my head and slowly starts unwrapping. Once that is off he removes the bandages from each eye.

"Tell me what you see Elliot."

It's fuzzy. I close my eyes for a brief moment before opening them again. It's still blurry some, but turning to my left I can see Olivia standing there.

"Livvie."

"Yeah, Sweetheart, I'm right here. Tell Dr. Murray what you see." She says to me.

"You. Baby, I see you." I smile. "You're a bit blurry, but I can see you."

"That's excellent. Now things will remain blurry until the swelling is gone. As it gets better your vision will get better. I see no problem with discharging you early if you'd like." Dr. Murray says.

"Today?" I ask excitedly.

"I can get the papers ready and we'll have you out of here by the afternoon."

This is the best news. I'm going to be able to go home today. I'll get to see my kids before they go back to school tomorrow.

"Sounds great!"

Stacy and Dr. Murray leave and I'm left in the room with Olivia. The woman I was scared as hell I'd never see again. The woman who means the world to me. Remind me again why I'm having a baby with my soon to be ex-wife? That's right. Brief moment of insanity when I honestly thought that I needed that comfort zone back.

"El. There's something I need to tell you before you leave." Olivia says, nervously.

"Baby, what's wrong?" She's really making me nervous now too.

"Swear you won't get mad?"

"Benson, just tell me."

"No. Swear first." She demands, and I know this is huge.

"Okay. I swear I won't get mad at you." I tell her. I just want to know what it is.

"Okay. Well, umm…Friday when you were in surgery your phone rang." She begins.

"And?"

"And I answered it." I have never seen her panic like this.

"That's fine Liv. I'm not mad about that." I try and reassure her.

"It gets worse. It was your lawyer calling. God, El, I shouldn't have answered it in the first place."

She's crying. Olivia Benson is actually standing here in front of me crying. Suddenly it occurs to me why she's so nervous. My lawyer was calling with the paternity test results and he must have accidentally told her the results.

"She's not mine, is she?" I ask. Not that I need confirmation.

I know that's the truth because why would Olivia be nervous about telling me the baby is mine.

"Elliot, I'm so sorry." She pulls me into her arms.

"Livvie, it's okay. I'm not mad you found out. You know I would have told you as soon as I knew."

I make a bold move and kiss her on the forehead.

"I can leave you alone once I get you home so you can deal with this." She suggests.

"Not a chance. I've done a lot of thinking this week about the possibility of her not being mine. Honestly, I'm okay with it. Angry as hell at Kathy for leading me on for months, sure. But overall I'm okay."

I smile at her, hoping she realizes it's a genuine smile. I'm not lying to her. I really have spent the past week running this scenario through my head. At first the thought upset me. Then I realized that if she wasn't my baby there really was nothing I could do about it. Kathy and I are in the process of divorcing and were separated back then. If she was mine, the circumstances surrounding her conception were less than ideal. That night was a mistake. I know that.

"You're really okay?" Olivia asks me.

"More than. I'm actually thankful that Kathy and I aren't bringing a baby into this world with our current situation." This is so true.

She hugs me a smiles.

"I guess we'd better get you ready to leave then." She says, as she gets up and goes to grab me some clothes.

"Yep. Let's go."

I take the clothes from her and walk into the bathroom to get dressed. I have no problem with Olivia seeing me changing. I put on clean boxers earlier, it'd just be a shirt and jeans. But, I'm not in the mood for others walking in. While I'm in the bathroom I hear her on the phone.

"Case? He can see! We're headed home in a little bit."

'We're headed home.' I love the sound of that. Baby steps there Stabler. We've just gotten to the point where she's hugging me and not running when I express my feelings for her. Asking her to move in would send her running. I'm not losing my partner again. No way!

I come out of the bathroom dressed and I can see someone standing next to Olivia.

"Stacy?" I ask, since I've never actually seen my nurse.

"Yes sir." She says.

"Wow! It's good to finally see you. So does this mean I'm ready to go?"

"You sure are. I just need you to sign some paperwork and you're on your way."

She hands me the paperwork and goes over it with me before I sign it all. Before I know it, Jesse, the orderly who took me down to the gym before, is wheeling me out and we're on our way to leaving.

Olivia goes ahead and gets her SUV and pulls up in front of the entrance. She hops out of the truck and comes over to help me in. She then gets back in and we drive off.

"So, Tuesday morning. I was thinking, I'll stop by and pick you up for breakfast before your appointment." She tells me.

"Or…never mind." No, I can't ask that. I'm not going to rush things.

"El. If you don't want to, that's fine. I'll just come pick you up for the appointment." She says, disappointment evident even as she tries to hide it.

"No. That's not it. Actually Livvie I was going to suggest you staying over Monday night." I'm blushing. What the fuck?

She reaches her right hand over and starts running it up my left thigh. Just as she's about to feel exactly what she's doing to me she speaks.

"We'll see." She whispers.

A little while later we're pulling into the parking garage at my building. Her hand hasn't moved yet. Only when it's necessary so that we can get up does she remove it. We get out of the SUV and walk inside and up to my apartment.

"DADDY!" My girls call out as I walk in the living room.

"Did it work, can you see us?" Maureen asks.

"Yes." I smile. "It's still a little blurry, but that will go away in the next day or so." I say, hugging each of my girls.

"Don't ever scare us like that again Dad." Kathleen whispers to me.

"I promise to try not to." I chuckle. "Is your brother in his room? I've got something important to tell you all."

"Yeah, I'll go get him." Lizzie tells us before leaving the room.

"On that note, I think I'd better head home." Olivia says.

I walk over to where she's still standing by the door.

"Stay. Please. I could really use you here while I do this." I beg.

She relents and just then Lizzie and Dickie walk back in the room. The kids all sit on the couch while Olivia and I are in the two chairs in the living room. I hate having to tell them this.

"I need everyone to listen to what I have to say. No interruptions. Okay?"

"Okay."

Olivia squeezes my arm encouraging me.

"Your mother and I are getting divorced. It's absolutely no fault of any of you. We just thought we could work things out but can't." I begin.

I don't know how to tell them the rest. Even if they are sitting there smiling. I really wish I had a large drink right now. The toughest part of this right now I think is even just telling them how I found out. Not even what I found out. But how. Any lie about why the test was run will not slip past them. They're all too old for that. Well, here goes.

"After your mom and I decided to get divorced I requested to have a test done to make sure whether or not your baby sister is mine or not. Well, the test results came back. She's not my daughter."

Alright, that was horrible. Just sitting there watching their faces. I'm sure they're sitting there thinking horrible things about Kathy now. Whether or not she lied to me they shouldn't think badly about her because of this. Kathleen raises her hand, and I feel like I'm in school again.

"Umm…tell me to shut up if it's none of our business. But, before that night, you and Mom were separated, right? I mean you were splitting up before, right?" She asks.

I know exactly what she's getting at here. I know just why she asked that. She's trying to figure out if Kathy cheated on me.

"You're right. We were. Never would I say your mom cheated on me. I'm sure you're all thinking about that. Please don't think she did." I tell them, hoping to help what they're thinking.

"Did she know?" Lizzie asks me.

"Honestly, I don't know. I just found out. I haven't gotten a chance to talk to her yet."

"What's going to happen to us?" Dickie wants to know.

Knowing the worst part is over, Olivia gets up and goes into the kitchen. I hear her fumbling around in there. I have no clue what she's up to, but I need to talk to my kids now.

"Maureen is old enough now that she's free to do whatever she wants. Kathleen, you'll be 18 soon, so I'm sure the same will apply. As for Dickie and Lizzie, if it's okay with the both of you I'd like to petition for custody of you." I tell them, hoping the twins say yes.

The kids hold one finger up asking me for a moment and they all get into a huddle. I swear I'm so fucking nervous here. After about a minute and a half they all turn back towards me.

"Would we live her? Like all the time?" Lizzie asks.

"That could be up to you. If I file for an am granted custody with this being your primary residence then you would live here the majority of time. I want to know what you guys think before I do anything."

"I want to live here." Dickie says almost immediately.

"Me too." Lizzie agrees.

I breathe a sigh of relief. I will have to call my lawyer tomorrow though. We'll have to alter the paperwork from before to request primary residence be with me.

"Daddy?"

"Yeah Maur?"

"So now that you and Mom are getting divorced are you finally going to admit you're in love with Olivia?" She asks, smirking at me.

Shit! Okay, so they know about that, huh? Here I thought I'd been good about hiding that around them.

"Umm…uhh…" Yes, ladies and gentlemen my children have me speechless.

As if she head them, and really she probably did, Olivia comes walking in then.

"I'm going to run out and grab some things at the store to finish up lunch." She says as she walks in.

I wonder if the kids caught that blush on her face. She definitely heard Maureen's question. We both know I've done that already. I've told her twice now that I love her. However, we haven't discussed her feelings. She said she loves me and since Friday Olivia has definitely been more touchy feely, teasing, and all that. So that's a plus, but we need to talk before I go spilling things to my kids.

"Why don't I walk you down to the truck?" I tell Olivia and all but run out the door with her.

"El?"

"Let's talk first. Okay? Tonight?"

She nods and I shock the hell out of both of us with my next move. I turn her towards me and attack her lips with my own. I know it's cruel but after the kiss I say nothing. I just turn and leave. Leaving her there shocked and stunned I'm sure. Hopefully I'm also leaving her thinking about us. Considering something between us.