Title: Rollercoaster

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: Elliot has left SVU - and it hits Olivia hard. His departure has some implications for her work life and her personal life. She tries to figure out what it means for her own identity, her new marriage, and her work situation. In the midst of it all, she's also having to navigate new squad members at work and still deal with being the mother of a sick child. This story takes place just several months after the conclusion of Undeserved in my AU series of stories.

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. My stories are not EO and never will be. You may want to read some of my other ones for context on the characters in this AU first - though, it's likely fairly self-explanatory on its own too.

WARNING: THIS STORY MIGHT KIND OF BE A SPOILER FOR READERS OF UNDESERVED.

Olivia glanced up from the iPad as Will emerged from the bathroom, still toweling at his hair.

"Hey, hon, you realize that they aren't actually sending you to Toronto, right?"

He let the towel fall away from his face enough so that he could make some eye contact with her.

"Yeah, it's just outside of Toronto," he said.

Olivia shook her head. "Have you actually looked at a map?"

Will moved over to the dresser and shrugged. "Nah, but the flight is booked into Toronto. Pat said we'll just grab a cab out to the university. Said it's like going from Newark into Manhattan."

Olivia made a noise at that and pulled up Google Maps on the machine and started keying in the locations. "It's going to be a long cab ride," she said.

Will pulled open his drawer of sleepwear and shook out a folded pair of new pajamas from the top of the pile.

"Liv, I'm really not sure about these," he said and held the pair of men's cropped yoga knicker pants at her.

She glanced away from her efforts on the iPad and saw the look he was giving her purchase. "You're always so cold at night," she commented passively.

"Yeah," Will agreed, "but I like wearing boxers when I sleep. I like …" he waved at his crotch like his hand flapping there was enough of an explanation that he preferred to flop around in his sleep too.

"So? I don't care if you wear them commando," she said.

He sighed and looked at them. "I could just wear sleep pants," he suggested. "If me being cold is bugging you that much."

"You never wear sleep pants to bed," she muttered.

"I'm going to feel a little European wearing these things," Will said and cast her another look.

She shrugged. "I think you'll look good in them. And no one is going to see you in them but me and Noah."

He sighed and looked at the pants again but moved to put them on. "Just because I'm wearing these to bed, doesn't mean you're going to talk me into going to a yoga class with you," he said as he pulled up the waist.

She snorted and shot him a smile. "Some day you'll realize what you're missing out on," she said.

He came over to the bed and pulled back the covers, getting in. "Yeah, the same day you realize what you're missing out on by not training with me for a triathlon," he said and leaned into her, brushing her hair to the side and putting a light kiss against her neck.

She looked at him. "You realize there's a whole yoga for runners program at my yoga studio," she said and found his mouth to return the kiss.

"Hmm," he muttered into it and broke away. "So you take up running seriously and I'll take up yoga for runners with you seriously. New date night tradition."

She shook her head at him. "You don't get out of date night planning that easily. Sweating and sore muscles are not my idea of a date."

He wagged at eyebrow at her. "Or does it depend on what kind of sweating and sore muscles?"

She smacked him lightly in the chest but gave him a smile. She shifted the iPad so he could see it. "Are they flying you into the City Center airport or Toronto Pearson?"

Will shrugged. "I don't know. I'd have to check my work email."

"It's almost a two hour drive from the City Center and an hour and a half from the other one," she said.

Will gazed at the map. "OK. Well, he must've meant we'll grab a town car or a limo or something."

"Will, it's as far as driving from hear out to East Hampton," she said to him. "You're nowhere near Toronto."

He just shrugged at her, though. "Liv, it's Stephen Hawking. When else am I ever going to get to see Stephen Hawking speak live?"

She sighed at him. "I don't know. Maybe somewhere more interesting than the Canadian wilderness?"

"It's not the Canadian wilderness. It must be a suburb," he said.

"Oh, no," she said and flipped into Safari. "You see that Will? That is a Amish horse and carriage. That's what this town is known for. You definitely are not in a city."

He took the iPad from her and looked at the tourist site she had up. "I don't think they are called Amish there. And farmland still isn't my definition of the Canadian wilderness."

"What is?"

"I don't know. Something that looks more like Colorado."

"Have you ever been to Colorado?"

"Likely. We'd have to go through my parents' endless collection of road trip pictures to make that confirmation," he said.

"Sounds like it must've been a memorable trip," Olivia said.

"Spending days, if not weeks, on end in the backseat with my brother and camping in a tent with my parents always was memorable," Will provided. "But likely not for the right reasons."

"And yet you still make us go camping with them every summer," Olivia put back to him.

Will shot her a look. "For a weekend," he contended. "And, either way, Hawking doesn't do many speaking engagements. NYU selected me – asked me – to go. I can't turn this down, Liv."

She examined him. He was gazing at her steadily. He was clearly looking for permission – for her OK – for him to be away for a few days to go to this thing. It was funny. Olivia still thought of herself as a grossly independent woman. She knew that she could manage being a single parent for a few days. That she could juggle her work schedule and her son's schedule. That she could care for her son on her own. It was just that she'd grown so used to having Will around to lean on. To be able to divide the duties and responsibilities of parenthood and childcare with him. Not to mention housekeeping and daily chores and errands. It just seemed odd to know that he'd be gone for a few days and she'd officially have to shoulder the load on her own. And it really had been quite a while since she'd done that. Maybe it'd been too long. Maybe it would be good for her to have a reality check about just how good and comfortable her family actually was.

"You really want to go?" she put back to him. "To Amish country Canada?"

Will rolled his eyes and leaned in to place another kiss against her temple. "I really want to go. To the University of Waterloo. To see Stephen Hawking speak."

She sighed and ran her thumb down his cheek. He gave her a smile and looked at her with those eyes of his. Will could get too much of what he wanted with those eyes. He always had. They'd won her over way too much.

"Why are they doing it in a backwater and not at MIT? Or Harvard? Or even Cornell or Columbia?" she put to him.

Will shrugged. "Waterloo is pretty well known in the math and physics world, Liv," he said. "It's a bit of a technology hotbed. It's where your Blackberry comes from."

She smiled at that. "I hated my Blackberry and I am thrilled we no longer use Canadian technology in the NYPD."

Will smiled at that. "Oh, yes, I'm so glad the NYPD introduced you to the miracle of the iPhone. Now if only they invested in that solvent product that dislodges the device from your ear."

She let out a small laugh and pushed him away from how close he was sitting to her. He pretended to let her – like her force was actually enough to budge him.

"How long will you be gone?" she asked a bit more bluntly.

"Three days," Will said. "Not even full days. Leave on Wednesday night, back by Friday afternoon."

She allowed a little nod. That's what she figured.

"You going to miss me?" Will teased a little but his hand had landed on her bicep and his thumb rubbed gently there as he looked at her a bit more tenderly.

She shook her head a little. "Yes, Will, I will miss you," she allowed.

It was a stupid question. She knew they missed each other when they were apart even though they were both very independent people, they were best friends. She missed when she didn't get her best friend to talk to and vent at and hug and hold. He was a part of her day.

If anything, Elliot leaving had just reaffirmed to her how much Will really was her best friend. She'd known it before – he was her husband. But that sudden departure – the near abandonment of her partner retiring – had driven it home too. In a lot of ways she felt that loneliness and that drift in her life now more than she had in quite a while. It was like an anchor had been pulled unexpectedly up – and really, throughout the summer she'd been leaning on Will a lot. He helped her re-establish and re-frame her new reality at work. To find that stability again. Or as much as she could amid all the changes that were still happening at work and that she was still adjusting too.

It was her struggle to deal with and accept those changes that was making her be a little selfish. To not want to let him go away – even for just a few days and for this opportunity that was clearly significant he'd been selected for and even more significant that he wanted to go. Will usually came up with excuses to avoid various academic trips and conferences. He usually only accepted ones in the city. There'd been a couple occasions that he'd taken the opportunity to have a weekend up in Boston in friends or to just have a really long day trip to D.C. for a meeting. And there'd been that conference down in Atlanta in the summer – but he'd only agreed to go to that when she'd expressed some interest in making it a family trip so they could take Noah to the aquarium and the giant Lego store. The fact that he was willing to go this far away – and on a place alone, something he also usually avoided – was telling about how much he actually wanted to go. She couldn't deny him that. No matter how selfishly she really just wanted her husband to stay home.

But it was the new year. Or at least the new school year. They were all having to adjust to new changes and routines. This might as well be part of that. It would be good practice for all of them to get back into the mode of juggling everything and doing their usual family balance act. Will wasn't on summer term anymore. He had a full course load and workload to take care of. He couldn't be carrying her wallowing about Elliot and her wallowing about her new co-workers too.

"You know, you could come," he said.

She snorted at that and gave him a smile. "I have no interested in Stephen Hawking or Amish, Will," she said.

He shifted the iPad for her to see again. "It says they're called Mennonites there."

"They look Amish to me," she put back to him.

He just smiled and looked back at the screen and swished his finger around. "Really, though," he said. "Why don't I push back my flight? You can come down Friday after work? We could have a weekend away. I could ask Mom and Dad to watch Noah."

Olivia sighed. "Will, you know I don't like leaving him. Even if it is with your Mom and Dad."

He leaned in again and put a kiss under that spot near her ear that he knew was another way to get what he wanted a lot of the time. It was a dirty play – and she again pushed him away. And he again gave her an innocent look accompanied by a coy smile that said he knew exactly what he was doing.

"He's fine, Liv," he said. "He'd have fun staying with Nana and Popa for a couple days – and we could have a weekend to ourselves. Get a nice hotel."

"In Amish country?"

"Mennonite country," Will corrected.

"I really have no interest in seeing farms and horse carriages," Olivia said.

"Who said we'd see farms and horse carriages," Will asked. "I said I'd book us a nice hotel room. We could just see a nice hotel room."

She rolled her eyes at that.

"I could get us a room in Toronto," he suggested instead.

"How is Toronto any different than New York?" Olivia asked.

"By being Toronto," Will suggested.

She smiled at that, which made him smile back at her. He liked when he got the better of her with one of his little comebacks. "What is there to do in Toronto that we can't do here?" she rephrased.

Will shrugged and keyed something into the iPad and read for a moment. "I don't know. They have a castle."

"I didn't realize Canada was Medieval," Olivia deadpanned.

He glanced at her and smiled. "Ah … they have the CN Tower," he suggested.

"You mean the giant phallic symbol in their cityscape?"

Will let out a small laugh at that and glanced at the iPad again. "OK. They have the Hockey Hall of Fame."

"Well, that sounds like a must see," she said.

"For Canadians it likely is," Will said. "Bet you they sell Rangers stuff."

"Bet you they don't," she contended.

Will shrugged. "OK … well … they've got parks and museums and art galleries and flagship store and restaurants and theaters and ferries out to islands," he said.

"You mean like here?" Olivia put to him.

He allowed a little nod. "Like here. But I would book you a nice hotel room and take you out to a nice dinner and go and endure whatever you wanted to do during the day – even if it involved shopping."

Olivia smiled a bit at that but shook her head. "I don't want to leave Noah, Will. Not right now with school just starting. He's going to be tired as he adjusts to it. You've seen what he's energy has been like lately. I'm afraid he's coming down with something."

Will allowed a little nod. "His last counts were OK," he said.

Olivia shrugged. "But if his immune system is struggling right now and he's back in school and around so many kids again, he's likely to catch a cold or something. I just don't want him to get too run down right at the start of the school year."

Will nodded again and looked down at the iPad but then closed it. "OK," he allowed and gave her a thin smile. "It will only be a couple days. We can manage."

She nodded. "We can manage," she agreed.

He allowed a little nod again, though, she could tell he was a little disappointed that she hadn't agreed to take the weekend away with him. There was part of her that really yearned to have a weekend away with her husband. They'd never had that. She wasn't really sure when they ever would. Likely not until they got the official word that Noah was officially going to be labeled 'cancer free' or a 'survivor'. That wasn't going to be for a while. So her and Will would just have to deal with date nights or Noah having an afternoon with Nana and Popa or trying to be quiet enough so they wouldn't wake their sleeping son and prepared to stop if they did hear him stirring.

Will leaned and put the iPad on the nightstand and flipped off the light on his side of the bed, so Olivia reached and did the same with hers. It wasn't that often they were both going to bed at the same time. It likely showed what a busy day the start of the school year was proving for both of them.

As she switched off the light, she shifted her position and settled first into the mattress and then against Will. As she did, he lifted his arm and wrapped it around her as she lay against his chest.

"So Noah made it sound like his first day went well," Will said quietly as they now lay in the dark. "But what was your take?"

Olivia shrugged a little against him. "His class is a bit bigger than I'd like. That Wallace Sounderland is in his class."

Will groaned at that. "That kid's a bit of an asshole."

"Hopefully he'll be less of an asshole now that Noah isn't visibly sick. Hopefully his stupid questions and comments won't be as frequent," Olivia sighed a little.

He reached and stroked at her hair. "Yeah," he allowed quietly. "Some of his friends are in his class, though, right? He said Alex and Levi?"

She nodded. "Yea. So that's good. If you can call them friends."

"It's a start," Will said. "This year is going to be different. Better. He's almost there, Liv."

"I know," she said. "Almost. Still seems so far away, though. And even when he gets out of LTM …" she shook her head against him. "It's a lifetime of worry."

"We're all at the risk of getting cancer, Liv," Will said softly. "It's just part of the human existence and fact of life in today's society."

"It's just most of us don't have to start worrying about it when we're four years old," she said quietly. Always talking about it on those terms made her sad – if not a little teary. They both fell quiet.

She knew it was hard for Will too. He'd watched Noah go through it all too. Even with them being within a few months of him being done treatment it still felt like they could lose their child at any moment. There was still the constant worry and fear. That ache within them. It still felt like it would take them an eternity to get to the end of Noah's LTM – no matter how within reach that moment seemed.

So Olivia shifted the topic. She didn't want to dwell on the negative. She didn't want to project negative worry or energy about her son's health. She wanted to focus on how close they were to the end. She wanted to be optimistic that this was likely going to be Noah's first school year where he was actually going to be in class for most of the year – where he wouldn't likely be missing days and weeks and months at a time to deal with his leukemia. That he was going to be a more normal little boy. That he was going to start forming some friendships and relationships with his classmates. That he'd start getting invited on playdates and to birthday parties. That they'd be able to sign him up for more activities and sports. That they could start having more exciting family activities on weekends and even plan things like weekend getaways or holidays and not worry about things like labs and energy levels and testing and hospitals and doctors. They were soon going to be moving into that realm of normalcy that had alluded them for so much of Noah's childhood thus far – and all of their marriage. She wanted to focus on that.

"Do you know Ari Holowitz's mom? Sara?" Olivia asked.

"Mmm …" Will thought about that for a moment. "Ah … yeah … he was in Noah's kindergarten class, right? And she was … the grey haired mom?"

Olivia smiled against his chest a bit at that. "Yea, that's her," she agreed. "She was dropping Ari off this morning."

"Ari's in Noah's class again?"

"Yea," Olivia allowed.

Will gave a little nod. "He seemed like a nice kid. That's good."

"Yea," Olivia agreed again but got back to her point. "but, Sara, his mom. She was really visibly pregnant."

Will lifted his head a bit to look down at her. "Really?" he asked, clearly surprised. Olivia was sure the woman was getting a lot of that. Olivia had tried not to let her surprise – or to stare – in the brief exchange she'd had with the woman. Sara hadn't mentioned anything about it so Olivia also hadn't broached the topic – even though the woman looked like she was likely due within the next three to five weeks.

"Yea," Olivia nodded.

"You sure she didn't just put on a bunch of weight since the last time you saw her?" Will asked clearly having trouble wrapping his head around the concept.

"I think I know what a pregnant woman looks like," Olivia put back to him and cast him a look.

"Wow," Will said and settled his head back into his pillow. "She must be like … 50 years old."

"She might've just gone prematurely grey," Olivia suggested. "Having a kid will do that to you."

"It's not just her hair," Will said. "She just … her face looked old. Tired. How old do you think she is?"

Olivia shrugged. "Probably late-40s."

"And she has a seven year old and a baby on the way?" Will said and shook his head.

"We have a seven year old," Olivia said and cast him another look, trying to examine his face through the darkness. The light from through the window was putting streaks across his face.

"But we aren't in our late-40s," Will said, "and we aren't trying to have another baby."

Olivia looked at him a bit more at that. Something about how he said it hit her. It was such a statement of fact. They weren't trying to have another baby. That was a fact. It was a truth. But they'd never said they wouldn't try to have a child together. They'd just said they were going to wait until Noah was 'better'. But Noah was almost as 'better' as he was going to get. And, they might not be in their late-40s but they were both in their 40s now. The clock was ticking – and some how seeing Sara that morning had just been a reminder of how much.

But Olivia just nodded and settled back against him, her eyes finding the banister to the staircase that lead to the main floor and the bedroom of their little boy. That's where her focus and thought should be – not on some other woman's swollen belly and anything it had stirred in her own internal clock.

"Yea," she agreed quietly. "We aren't trying to have another baby."