First off, thank you so much to the guest that reviewed. I'm so happy you like it! This update is dedicated to you; I hope you like it. Second, thanks so much for the new follows and favourites. Third, this is my take on "Granting Immunity". As usual, let me know what you think? - N

Chapter 10- Motherhood & Measles

Annabelle sat in Rafael's office, lost in her thoughts and absently staring at the man sitting across the room in his salmon colored shirt, jumping when he spoke, "Quit staring at me, Cariño."

She dropped the pen she had been doodling with and walked from the couch to stand in front of him, her knees touching the inside of his thighs as he sat in his office chair. "But you're just so pretty." Ignoring the unimpressed look he shot her, she moved so that she was straddling his lap, "Want me to prove just how pretty I think you are?" As she spoke, she moved so that her hands were loosening his maroon tie and unbuttoning the top of his shirt, before allowing the pink painted nails to come to a rest at the back of his neck.

"This is highly inappropriate." His hands gripped her hips loosely as her lips found his neck.

"Want me to stop?" There was a teasing glint in her eyes as she pulled away, smiling against his lips when he pulled their mouths together for the beginning of a heavy make out session that would end up leaving them both wanting more.

Two hours later, the couple was sitting on opposite sides of the table in his office, as Carisi and Rollins discussed the latest case with the ADA, although she offered to leave all three told her she could stay, so she ignored them for the most part, furiously working on an essay that was due at the beginning of the next week, once spring break was over. "Nine teenagers alone in a ten million dollar loft in Tribeca. What could possibly go wrong?"

"They got drunk and high. Stripped down and had an oral sex competition," Carisi pointed out a random photo on the board, "They used different shades of lipstick—"

"I- I get it."

Annabelle couldn't stop the snort of laughter that escaped, causing the three people to look at her, "I'm sorry. I just didn't think people still had rainbow parties."

"What do you know about rain—you know what? I don't wanna know right now." She shot the man a wink and resumed her typing about the pros and cons of an utilitarian government. She barely noticed as the group sat down as their conversation continued. "How viral has this gone?"

"In the school, pretty far." Annabelle did her best not to roll her eyes at the obvious answer given by Rollins. That wasn't what he was asking.

"Email? Text? Social Media?"

"We're not sure."

Annabelle over at the group, before closing out her paper and pulling up an icon that would allow her to log into the Attention Inc databases, only momentarily thinking about whether or not if it was a breach in her job title to use the app for personal searches. "Gimme their names and ten minutes, I'll find out." She was wrong; it only took seven minutes for to find that four of the people from the party had been stupid enough to post some of the photos to their twitters or instagrams. They were still discussing the case when her alarm went off from inside her bag. "That's my cue." She stood and packed her stuff up before moving to give Rafael a kiss to the cheek, "I'll see you at dinner." Giving a nod to the two detectives, she grabbed her bag on the way out and made her way to the airport.

At 1pm, Rafael received a text message that made him grin, unable to hide it from his mother who had shown up for a late lunch. Upon her questions, he turned the phone around for her to see the photo of Louise and Noah both feeding a baby goat. "Her niece came in for a couple of days, since they're both on spring break, and she offered to watch Noah for Liv."

Lucia was silent for a few minutes, before she finally admitted, "she's good for you."

At Central Park, Annabelle was standing between the two children, hand on Noah's back as they went up and down while the carousel moved in a circle. Olivia warned her that the toddler may be a little cranky as he had received his MMR vaccine, but after a quick lunch, which included ice cream, at the café in the zoo, he was a happy kid. The woman watched as the two children ran along the glass wall in sync with a playful sea lions, their giggles filling her phone screen with obvious happiness as she filmed. It was nearing 4pm, and knowing the park would be closing within an hour, she allowed the kids to play for a little bit longer before the trio headed towards the exit, Noah kicking his feet as he rode in the stroller and Louise babbling on about how cool the animals were and how she wished the sea lion pool was that cool at home. They ended their zoo adventure by spending twenty minutes in the gift shop, where Louise obviously got a stuffed sea lion and Noah took mere seconds before snatching a snow leopard from the stack, making Annabelle smirk at his adorable expression as he squeezed the animal, knowing that she would have never been able to refuse him the toy. "Are you gonna get one, Aunt Anna?"

Smiling at the five year, she looked at the long wall of stuffed animals, "How about you pick out one for your little sister, and for the new baby." Annabelle had to call her back as she took off before the sentence was even completed, "And then pick out two others. Noah can give one to his mom and I'll keep one, deal?"

"Four?" After receiving a nod she started to dart off, before stopping herself and turning around, "Can I get Rafi one, too?"

Unable to fight the grin off, she gave her a nod, "You can get Rafael one, too." Keeping an eye on the excited child, she squatted to speak to Noah, "You gonna get momma a present?" Listening to his babbling reply she gave a mock gasp, "Really? You think she'll like that?" More babbling was what she received, causing her to softly rub his dark hair, "Let's see was Louise came up with," as she noticed the girl coming back with her arms full. "You find enough?"

"Uh-huh." She let a lioness flop onto Noah's lap, "That is for Miss Livia. Cause Noah got a cat. She needed a cat." She dropped a panda next, "For sissy." A grizzly bear fell next, "For baby." She then held out a penguin and an elephant, "I got the elephant for you…and the penguin for Rafi because he dresses like one. Do you think he'll like it?"

Annabelle gave her niece a large grin, doing all she could to stop the laughter from bubbling out of her mouth, "I think he'll love it."

Louise gave a single, sharp nod of her head, ponytail bouncing as she did, "Okay. Good." Her eyes caught sight of something behind Annabelle, "Can we take a picture in the box? Oh, please Aunt Anna, please!"

Giving a small laugh, she nodded her consent before pushing Noah's stroller towards the register, "Let's pay for the animals and then we'll do it on our way out, okay?"

"Okay, but hurry. I'm dyyyyying here."

Annabelle gave a slight roll of her eyes, wondering if she was that dramatic as a child before realizing she probably was. As they stood in line at the register, a tower caught her eye where she asked Louise to go grab one of the items hung up, for her.

-xXx-

"Are you sure you don't wanna come with us today?"

Rafael watched as Annabelle slid a stud into her ear, before looking at her body in a pair of jean shorts and a navy blue tank top, "Cariño, I would like nothing more than to call off work and go with you…"

"But you can't. I know. I just figured I'd try to tempt you a little bit."

His lips pressed lightly against the cleavage showcased by the tank top, exactly where her heart furiously pumped in her chest, "You always tempt me. One day," he paused to clear his throat as her finger grazed his upper thigh, "One day, I may just break."

She giggled quietly, pulling his head up to give him a deep kiss, "I look forward to that day. I'm ready, Rafael. I love you," she let him think about her words while she gave him another brief kiss, "I trust you. Please, break."

He groaned the sound going straight through her body, "Cariño. We both have too much to do today, to even start this." Rafael moved their positions so that she was lying on her back, with his body just hovering over hers, his slight hardness pressed against her heat, "When my willpower goes, you will not leave this bed all day, entiendes?" The last word was spoken in her ear, before he slowly moved down to gently bite and then kiss her neck, as she took a deep, shuddering breath. The pitter-patter sound of Louise's quick steps resulted in him quickly getting up and walking to the closet, mentally cursing himself for forgetting that they were not alone. In the bedroom, he heard his girlfriend speaking to the five year old about getting dressed and the voices faded away, allowing him to think of other things in order to calm his body down.

After showering and getting dressed, he followed other voices into kitchen where Annabelle and Louise had been joined by Olivia and Noah and the four were sharing a breakfast consisting of eggs, sausage, biscuits, and gravy. He winced as food splattered onto Noah's clothing as the toddler slammed his hands into the plate and shoved a fistful of eggs into his mouth. Laughing, Annabelle handed the Cuban a steaming cup of coffee and motioned for him to sit down. "We have to change his shirt either way. Louise decided that the three of us would be wearing Disney outfits."

"Yeah! I'm a—" she stopped at the look that Annabelle gave her, taking the time to finish chewing and swallowing the bite she had just taken before starting up again, "I'm a mermaid," and Rafael finally noticed that she was wearing a sea foam green shirt that said 'Cutest Mermaid Ever' is purple cursive writing and fringe all around the bottom. "Aunt Anna is Dory! I love Dory." With that statement he vaguely remembered watching the movie and there being some song about swimming involved, which made the writing on her shirt make sense. "And Noah is gonna be Squirt!" He nodded at Louise with a smile, pretending he knew what a Squirt was, and desperately trying to ignore the look Olivia was sending him.

Less than an hour later, the two SVU workers had left together for their offices and the children were safely buckled into the backseat of Rafael's SUV as they made their way to the New York aquarium, a CD filling the car with songs from 'The Little Mermaid' and 'Finding Nemo'. As the day progressed Louise became more and more cranky, even catching an attitude when she found out the underwater viewing location of the sea lions was closed thanks to the damage created by Hurricane Sandy. By lunch time, Annabelle was more than ready to meet up with Rafael for Louise's going away treat, although Olivia taking Noah back to the doctor did put a slight damper on Annabelle's mood. When they arrived at Alice's tea cup, Louise's eyes widened in awe, as the fact that she was having a Disney tea party before leaving made her squeal with happiness and hug Annabelle in joy. The crankiness was gone, due to the short nap she had during the drive back from Brooklyn to the tea shop, where they had met with Rafael and Olivia briefly before the couple had woken up the five year old to spend their last moments with her before her plane ride back to Arkansas.

Once seated they seated, it wasn't long before their waitress came by and Rafael ordered for the group since Louise had to go to the restroom almost as soon as they had sat down, only because both Annabelle and Rafael knew they probably wouldn't be coming here often as they didn't usually have tea parties and Rafael wanted to go all out for Louise, not only because she deserved it but to help make up for the fact that he'd had to work almost the entire time that she was visiting. Louise, the ever questioning, was quick to ask about what they had ordered. "You get a pot of tea, a scone, a sandwich, and then dessert."

"What did you get? Did we get the same things?"

Annabelle grinned at Louise's never ending excitement before telling her what they had ordered, "We got a different kind of tea, some scones, cookies, and dessert. And Rafi and I get a sandwich, too."

"Can I have some of your cookies?"

Rafael gave her a wink, "you can have anything you want. This is your lunch, princesa." It wasn't long before the tea pots were brought out and the sandwich orders were taken, since Rafael wasn't sure about what Louise would actually want on a sandwich. Louise was able to order her grilled cheese sandwich on her own, afterwards giving both Rafael and Annabelle proud smiles as they ordered.

A few days later, Annabelle was sitting in Olivia's living room as the two women discussed random tidbits of their lives as Noah was asleep in his bedroom. They had found out when Noah was taken back to the doctor that he had been exposed to measles, everyone assuming it came from the brother of one of the teenagers at the high school they had originally began investigating due to the rainbow party. When the detectives showed up to discuss business, Annabelle took her leave to check on Noah, who was awake and wanting attention. They had only been playing for about five minutes when he started having problems breathing, thinking the worst, she instantly called out to Olivia and everyone went into action, in order to get him to the hospital. Annabelle going to tell Rafael, knowing that this new development would be massively important and influential to the current case, before stopping at a Starbucks to grab Olivia coffee and joining her at the hospital to await, hopefully, good news.

-xXx-

Annabelle wanted nothing more than to punch Trudy Malko in the face, as hard as she possibly could. The more the woman spoke, the tighter her fist curled, just aching to shut her up. Even through her anger, she couldn't help but smile when she noticed the penguin themed tie Rafael was wearing while he interviewed Olivia on the stand, knowing that she needed to call and check on Louise. Less than two days after she returned home, she was sick…with the measles. After threatening bodily harm on her brother for not giving the child the vaccine, even though he swore up and down that he thought she had received in when she was supposed to (the records showed she was not vaccinated). She had just gotten off the phone with her brother when she overheard part of the conversation between Olivia and Trudy Malko.

"overexposure to antibiotics may be why his immune system is so weak. That's another thing you should think about."

Olivia turned around, eyes blaring, "my son wouldn't have pneumonia if it weren't for you."

Annabelle was finally even with Olivia when Malko opened her mouth to start again, before pausing when the redhead stepped closer to her, "You may wanna think about shutting your mouth, before I do it for you."

She looked a bit taken back and Annabelle stared her down, until Rafael touched her arm, "Liv – Liv, is everything alright?"

The elevator doors opened and Olivia started speaking before she even got in, "No. His fever is spiking and if it doesn't come down, they might have to give him a spinal tap." The doors slid shut, as if giving the statement an exclamation mark, before anyone could say anything to comfort her. They both forgot about Trudy standing behind them, as they were consumed with worry for the adopted toddler, worry that only intensified when Rafael remembered Louise was sick as well.

"How's Louise doing?"

"She's in misery. Jake's had to basically move to a hotel with her, until she gets better. Doesn't want to risk Mandy getting sick while pregnant." She leaned her head against the wall, "I hate the fact that she would've never gotten sick if she hadn't visited us. Poor Noah."

The next day brought the first set of witnesses for the defense, after a woman sat on the stand, proclaiming how unfair it was that she wasn't allowed to decide what chemicals went into her child's body and how vaccines were so harmful, Annabelle was ready to leave, and if it wasn't for the fact that she was excited to see Rafael tear Malko apart, she would have. Once that woman was gone, Malko's lawyer was quiet for a few moments before speaking a name that had Rafael shooting to his feet in objection, "The defense calls Annabelle Stevens to the stand."

After brother attorneys approached the bench, Annabelle was told to take the stand. Shooting a look of confusion towards Rafael, she stood pulling her off the shoulder purple dress down to go a little longer than mid-thigh, hyper aware of the fact that almost every eye was placed on her. After a few invasive questions about Louise being sick and the fact that she had been with Noah for two day prior to him becoming sick, her frustration grew over how they even knew that Louise had the measles, and she regretted not smacking Malko yesterday in front of the elevator. It dawned on her that the vile woman must have stuck around and listened to her and Rafael's conversation yesterday, and now they were trying to pin the entire measles epidemic on her niece. That son of a –

"Annabelle." She was jerked out of her thoughts by Rafael's voice, and she noticed that he was standing in front of her, a determined look on his face, "when did your niece become sick?"

"She first started showing signs on Wednesday, the day after she returned home."

"Objection! The witness cannot testify to what she has not seen."

Upon the judge's agreement, she could tell the tension was increasing as Rafael's form became more tense. "How did she act during her visit with you?"

"She was fine. I mean, a bit cranky Tuesday morning, but I just assumed she was tired from the day before." She turned slightly, to face the jury, "We had spent the day at the zoo with Noah and then the morning at the aquarium," looking back towards Rafael she continued as if she hasn't turned her head at all, "After an early dinner, we took her to the airport where she went back home. My brother called me the next day, and asked about what she had eaten. He thought she might have gotten food poisoning."

"We've heard that the vaccine isn't 100% effective and Mrs. Malko believes that it can cause adverse effects. Have you ever witnessed any unusual actions by your niece?"

She shrugged, "No. She's bright and active; sassy. But, we did find out that she never received the MMR vaccine. There was a mistake at the doctor's office and my brother was told that it had been given, although all the paperwork shows that it had not."

"Objection! Hearsay."

Rafael looked at the judge, "It goes to show a continued pattern of those who have not been vaccinated contracting the disease."

"I'll allow."

Rafael was smug, "Nothing further." Annabelle had to keep her grin contained as she was dismissed, but as she met Trudy Malko's gaze she couldn't resist the wink that she paired with a mocking smile. The next day, Malko was found guilty of one of the charges and given three months in jail.

Noah was doing better, and Annabelle couldn't wait for Louise to get older, so she could tell the story of how a woman was sentenced to jail after giving the princess measles. All was well…at least until Annabelle got dragged into another case.