Title: Hello, Goodbye

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

Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in.

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. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.

"It be lots faster if we skated 'Livia," Benji informed her from where he was gripping her hand as they walked down the street.

She glanced at him and gave him a big, almost involuntary smile and shook her head.

"You might be right there Benji, but there's lots of problems with that statement too," she told him.

He looked at her questioningly. "Wha problems?"

She snorted a little laugh. "Well, I can think of three off the top of my head," she told him. "One, you really shouldn't be skateboarding on the sidewalk like this where so many people are walking, sweetheart. It's kinda rude." He looked at her like he was considering that. "Two, you aren't supposed to be skateboarding right now – because you've got a broken arm and a broken head."

"My head not broken," he protested.

She nodded. "It's broken, Benj. You hit it hard and it's hurt on the inside so it needs time to get better just like your arm and your stitches. That's why you're resting and there's no TV."

He thought about that some more.

"And, Benji, most importantly," she looked at him, "I don't know how to skateboard," she told him with a seriousness.

He considered that some more and stopped suddenly, dropping her hand almost as though in near shock. "It's easy, 'Livia," he told her. "You just go like this." He stood in a quasi-skate stance and then pushed his foot on the ground.

She smiled and shook her headand grabbed his hand back. "Maybe it's easy for you – but not for me and you can't skateboard until the doctors say you're all better anyways."

"We can pretend," he suggested.

She looked down at him. "How do you pretend to skateboard?"

He thought about it. "Like this," he told her and jumped up off the ground, pulling up both of his knees and then landing hard on his feet. "Then you run and then you jump on something and then you jump off. Then you run. You practice all your tricks and you have to go really fast and jump really high."

"Mmm," she nodded. "Well, maybe we can find a playground for you to pretend to skateboard on after we do our errands. But I don't think we should pretend to skateboard in the middle of Fifth Avenue."

"Why not?"

She smiled at him again. "Because there's lots of people trying to walk, Benji."

"So?"

"How would you like it if someone ran into you while they were pretending to skateboard?"

He thought about that. "They pretending a real hard trick?"

She laughed out loud at that and shook her head at him. "No pretending to skateboard," she said seriously. "We'll go to a playground after errands."

"What are errands?" he asked as they finally started to walk again.

She glanced at him. "They're when you have to go out and buy something."

He looked at her. "What we have to buy?"

"Well, we're going to get you a winter coat and some mittens and boots because the weather is supposed to start getting colder next week."

"But I have a coat," he told her and looked at his fleece she'd just got him the other day.

She nodded. "But not a winter coat."

"Is it a skater coat?"

She gave him another smile and shrugged. "I don't know. You'll have to help pick so we can make sure it's a skater coat."

"Skater boots?"

She snorted at him and looked at him again and shook her head. "Are there such a thing Benj?"

He nodded vigourously.

She shrugged. "Then I guess you'll have to help pick to make sure they're skater boots too."

"So then I won't be a grom, right, 'Livia?"

She snorted again. "I have no idea what a grom is, Benji."

"Jee-Peedg says I'm a grom."

She shrugged. "Well, then I guess he'll have to judge if you're still a grom or not in your new winter gear."

He thought about that and swung her arm a bit.

"We're going to the book store first anyways," she said, "so you can think about what a skater coat and boots might look like. Maybe like a snowboarder coat and boots?" she suggested, starting to think he might be slightly too fashion conscious for a four-year-old, seeing as she was thinking more along the lines of practicality and economy.

"A book store?" Benji said and looked at her again like the concept was a foreign idea to him.

She nodded and then again nodded her chin up the street. "There's a great big book store in a couple more blocks."

"Why we goin' to a book store?"

She gave him another little smile and half laugh. "To get some books. For you," she added, hoping to make it sound more appealing.

He examined her at that.

"Don't you think it's a little boring at my apartment?" she tried.

He seemed to think about that and then shook his head.

She snorted. "No?"

He shook his head again.

She smiled. "Well, that's good. But I think that's likely just because your pills are making you sleep lots right now, Benj. I think next week when you're done your pills, you're going to think it's pretty boring."

"Why?"

"Because you still going to be allowed to watch television and you still aren't going to be allowed to go to daycare and you still aren't going to be allowed to skate."

"NOT ALLOWED?" he gaped at her.

She shook her head. "Not allowed. Because you aren't better yet."

"When I be better?"

"When the doctor says your better," she told him.

"I can play though, right?"

She nodded. "You can play. Carefully. So we're going to get a couple storybooks to read and maybe some colouring books and markers so you can draw or something."

"You don't have very good markers, 'Livia."

She snorted at him. "Because I have highlighters, Benji."

"You just have yellow and pink. Girl colours."

"Mmm," she agreed. "Well, I am a girl."

He examined her. "A grown-up girl."

She nodded. "Yep."

He swung her arm again. "How come Jee-Peedg didn't come on errands?"

"Because, like he told you Benji, he has to go to work today, so we get to hang out together until he comes home."

She almost stopped herself and considered the use of the word home. The apartment was her home. It was going home to her. But it seemed almost like a strange word to use with the little boy in reference to the place. He was far to small to notice or think anything of it. Still, it caught her.

She sort of liked the sound of it – or even the concept that someone would consider the place that she avoided so much anymore 'home'. That it could be a home that someone would actually go home to.

"Some time I go to work with Jee-Peedg," he told her.

She nodded and gave him another little smile. "He told me. But not today."

"I a good worker, though, 'Livia. Gecko says so."

"Gecko?"

"He's da boss."

She snorted and rolled her eyes. The skateboard shop sounded like a high-class place with a boss named Gecko. She was interested to see the place. Or to get a greater perspective on what exactly Jack did. But she likely should've staked out there before she'd waded into the whole Jack-and-Benji situation. She didn't think Jack would take too kindly to her appearing at his workplace now. Not that she much cared, though.

Benji stopped then, though, and tugged her hand to look at a window with him. She did, briefly, but glanced ahead then. They were little less than half-a-block to the completely old-school, raggedy Barnes & Noble she was dragging him to. She could see it just ahead of them. It was one of the chain's oldest and smack on Fifth Avenue, now almost smack in the midst of tourist and shopping mania. She'd seen more than a few tourists wander into it expecting to get their Starbucks and to lounge around for a break from the city in a typical 'burbs box store, only to be confused by its dinginess and it's maze of shelving and coloured lines taped to the floor directing you to each section, or more likely to stacks of university textbooks and law books rather than the piles of boardgames and puzzles and CDs that she saw in most supposed book stores anymore.

She wasn't much for Fifth Avenue – or for the tourists – but she still frequented the store. It was her bookstore – one she'd grown up with and one of the only mainstream ones her mother had taken her to. She now hoped she might find something age-appropriate to read to Benji that wasn't just a picture book.

Honestly, she thought the purchase was going to be more for herself than him in a way. So far he seemed happy to play with the couple toys Jack had brought for him from their apartment and the few of Calvin's she'd dug out. But, really, he had kept asking her to play with him, and imaginary play – especially when it apparently involved skateboarding robot-transformers shooting off laser blasters to save the world – was not something she particularly excelled at.

She thought if she had a novel to sit down and read to him – maybe that would keep him still and quiet for a bit, stop the endless questions for a few minutes. Harry Potter or something. Though, she kind of thought that might make her want to gouge her eyes out too. Her mother would be rolling in her grave to even know she was considering reading Harry Potter. Oh well, she thought, it was for good reason. Still, she kind of hoped after she got in there she might see some other title that piqued her interest and might pique Benji's as well.

"Is it a toy store, 'Livia?" he asked, still gazing through the windows.

She looked a bit more carefully at what had caught the little boy's attention in the storefront, as he again tossed a question at her. A giant plastic teddy bear was sitting a top of a spool in a window-display that was splashed with bright colours. It was designed to capture anyone's eyes – but definitely designed to lure in a child.

"Mmm, I don't think it's really a toy store, Benj," she told him, but he seemed transfixed.

"It has toys," he said and stuck a finger against the window.

She nodded. "Sort of," she agreed and gazed in a bit more. The flagship Build-A-Bear Workshop was already jammed-packed with tourists. It was barely after 10 a.m. – but apparently they were already out and overrunning the city. Yet another reason she avoided this area of town when she got a Saturday off. It was ridiculous. She didn't really get the appeal.

She wondered how many of the millions that visited the city actually ever saw the real New York versus the Disneyification that had happened around much of the place in its clean-up. She supposed there were pluses-and-minuses to the softening of the city. As a New Yorker, she liked to think she was sort of better than this sort of thing – ramming into some sort of commercialized Mecca on a Saturday morning when more real parts of the city where waiting for them literally just down the street.

But, she looked at Benji again – and the way he was examining the on-goings inside the store. So she looked too. She didn't really know what it was. She got the concept – you built a bear. But it was never anything she'd gotten to do before. She supposed it was never anything she'd really thought she'd get to do. She hadn't really had reason to think about it.

Though, she supposed she had had some flashes of potentially getting to do something like this when Simon had introduced her to her niece and nephew – especially her niece. She'd thought about getting to play dolls and maybe have tea parties before sitting down to the monthly Sunday dinner that her half-brother had suggested. She'd thought about getting to take those two little children to the park or to one of the city's zoos and spotting animals with them. She'd even thought about maybe getting t dress them up and have them for an afternoon to take them to the Radio City Christmas Spectacular. She thought maybe it could even become a tradition – something she could get to do for them, and with them, each year.

But, of course, she'd had to let her daydreams of ever having something normal get ahead of her reality. Of course, she should've known better than to trust that Simon wouldn't fuck things up. He hadn't talked to her in almost five years and she trusted that she might actual get something that resembled a family out of his reappearance. She should've known better than that. He'd fucked it up. She'd bailed his ass out of hot water as best she could given the circumstances. And, as usual, she'd ended up being the one hurt and holding the bag.

"What is it 'Livia?" Benji asked, looking up at her with those big eyes that were just eating into her soul and it'd only been a few days.

So she pulled her eyes away from him and looked back inside, rubbing at her eyebrow. "Ah, I think you make a stuffed animal," she told him.

He glanced at her. "Like Leo?" he asked of the badly battered-looking stuffed-toy lion that Jack had retrieved for the little boy from the apartment in Harlem.

She shrugged. "I think it's more bears than lions. I'm not sure." There was a giant plastic dog sitting in the window too – so maybe it was anything that could be stuffed. She didn't know.

She looked down at the little boy again, though, and wondered how many more times – if ever – would she have the opportunity to open that door and go in and see what it was all about. Benji looked so curious. And, she knew, even though part of her was just seeing the commercialism and the tourists – that wouldn't be what the little boy would see. He saw a giant bear and a giant dog and soft, fluffy things and bright colours and lots of other little children in there smiling and with their parents. She knew it didn't matter what the hell it was in there – that this little four-year-old with his good hand pressed against the window, would fucking eating it up and love every second of it. She had this opportunity to make it happen for him. And not just that, she could take part, she could watch it, she could see him be happy about something and get to interact with a situation that a four-year-old should be interacting with. It was something else she could do for him. It was something normal she could do for him.

"You want to go in and see what it's all about, Benj?" she asked him.

He glanced back up at her again and seemed to consider that. She'd expected a bit more of an immediate answer that didn't involve thought. But she was already learning that even the simplest things, when they were put to Benji, he seemed to weigh them in a way she wouldn't expect a four-year-old to. Though, even after he gave his thoughtful pauses – his answers and reactions were pretty pre-schooler-esque. In some instances, it'd actually be kind of funny already. Such deep contemplation on his little face and then him agreeing that, yeah, he did have to take a wee before they left the apartment.

He looked back inside the window. "Duhz it costs money, 'Livia?"

She nodded. "Well, it's a store, Benj, so it likely costs money to do it."

He shook his head vigourously at that. "No. We don't do it."

She looked at him. "Why not?"

"Becuz we don't have money. So we do free stuff like the park. It's free."

She didn't think it was bad that kids have some concept of money – but Benji having a concept that just existed around 'we don't have money' did not seem like a positive to her. She sighed and rubbed at her eyebrow some more.

"Well, I have money, Benji, and I think I want to do it. So what do you say?"

He looked at her and scrunched his face a bit. "You rich 'Livia?"

She allowed a small laugh at that. "No, Ben, I'm definitely not rich. But I work really hard and get paid for it. So I get to decide what I want to spend my money on. And, today, I think I should spend it on this. So you going to come in with me or not?"

She held out her hand to him again – and he considered it a moment but then took it.

"You sure it not for rich kids?" he asked quietly.

She shook her head and looked at him hard. "No, Benji, this is for all kids and you deserve to do it just like the rest of them. So let's go see what this place is all about."

She gave a small yank on his hesitant arm and then held the door open for him. He considered it still.

"Jee-Peedg might say no," he told her.

She shrugged. "Jack is at work – and it's my money anyways. We can make one for me, OK? If you don't think you should make one."

Benji looked at her. "Then it yours?"

She nodded. "Sure. But you can play with it all you want."

"He can play with Leo?"

She nodded. "I think Leo needs a friend."

Benji gave a little nod in agreement and slowly inched inside the door. She followed after him and let the door drift shut behind them.