A/N: Yes, I found time to update in the middle of all the busy-busy-busy-ness... I was watching them film today for about three hours, so I sat and wrote this sitting on a bench on Brighton Beach boardwalk. It was awesome... though not as awesome as the fact I can say stuff like that. God, I need residency.

Anyway, please read and review, and inspirationimagination: if you're reading this one too, thank you so so much for your awesome review on Heritage, and I'm working my ass off to get the next chapter out for you.

Enjoy!

'So, are you going to tell me what happened?' To her credit, Alex had kept quiet until they were out of the hospital and sitting in her car.

'I, uh...' Olivia looked at her knees and rubbed the back her neck awkwardly. 'I just had a bit of a funny turn in the bathroom at the precinct. Nothing important.'

'What kind of a funny turn?'

'I just went a little dizzy for a minute and lost my balance.'

'And that big cut on your head?'

'I must have hit it on the edge of the counter or on the floor when I fell.'

'But you don't remember which one?'

Olivia sighed. She hated it when Alex got into ADA mode. 'No, I don't. I must have fainted or something. But I'm fine now, really, it's nothing.'

Alex rolled her eyes and finally turned on the ignition. 'Olivia, it is not nothing if you passed out for no reason.'

'Oh for God's sake, Alex, you sound just like Elliot.' Olivia was getting more and more irritated with her. 'Can't you just shut up and take me home?'

Alex frowned and shot her a look. 'Olivia, is it just me or have you been a little agitated lately?'

'What the hell is that meant to mean?'

'Well, for one thing, you're in a permanently bad mood, and for another, you're barely able to sit still. Olivia, that's not normal. I know that you can be a bit of a bitch sometimes, but never like this.'

Olivia rolled her eyes. 'Yes, Alex, it's called caffeine withdrawal.'

'After nearly three months?' Alex raised her eyebrows at her. 'Olivia, what with that and the fainting... I think you need to go back to your doctor and tell him about this.'

Olivia snorted. 'Come on, Alex, I'm not going to get any pregnancy complications, you know how fit I am.'

'Fitness has nothing to do with it. You're 48 years old, Olivia. That's very old to be having another baby. If I'd known you were planning it then I honestly would have advised you against it.'

'What do you mean, if you'd known I was planning it, it was unplanned, I told you...'

Alex looked at her. 'I know what you told me, Olivia.'

Olivia felt her stomach turn over. 'What do you mean?'

Alex sighed. 'Just because you never discussed it with Elliot, Olivia, does not make it unplanned.'

Shit. Olivia looked at the floor and began picking at her fingernails. 'I don't know what you mean...'

'You do, but that's not the point. Olivia, a pregnancy this late in life is unavoidably high-risk, and you need to take this slowly. How many hours have you been working lately?'

'Oh, please,' snapped Olivia. 'You were 45 when you had Kimmie, and you stayed at work so long that your waters broke on the courtroom floor in the middle of trying a case!'

'Yes, and that was incredibly irresponsible of me.' Alex had just run the second red light in a row. Somehow, she didn't seem to have noticed. 'Don't you remember all the problems I had? Do you remember the pre-eclampsia? Because maybe that's something you ought to be looking into.'

Olivia shifted uncomfortably in her seat. She wasn't sure what was worse, having to listen to Alex lecturing her or the risk of being T-boned by a semi. Right now, the semi won out in terms of undesirability. 'Uh, maybe we should talk about this later when you're not driving-'

'No, Olivia, we're talking now.' Alex was not about to let this go.

'Jesus Christ, I would have just called Elliot to pick me up if I knew I was going to get this from you.'

'Why, has Elliot mentioned this?'

'He won't shut up about it. It's all about we need to move house, you need to work less, you're getting older, you need to stop working in the field, you need to slow down...'

'He has a point, Olivia. Don't push yourself too hard. You don't have to prove anything.'

'Now this is why I didn't want to call him, because if he heard about this he would be such a pain to be around-'

'He's going to ask about that cut, Olivia.'

Olivia sighed. 'I know he will.'

'What are you going to tell him?'

'I...' Olivia chewed on her lower lip. 'I don't know.'

'Well, how about the truth?'

'I don't want him to worry...'

'Olivia. He'd want to know. He worries about you because he loves you. You should try and listen to what he says sometimes. He's only thinking of you, you know that.'

Her shoulders sagged. 'I know.'

'And more to the point, if you don't tell him what happened, then someone else will. You know what a bunch of gossips they are in that precinct.'

'It's true.' She'd learned that when she had Natalie. 'I don't know, Alex... it's just... I'm scared that...' She took a deep breath and went for it. 'I'm scared that if I change then he won't want me any more.'

Alex burst out laughing before she could stop herself. 'What? Olivia, the man worships you! He has for years, starting long before you ever conceived Natalie, and anyone who has ever seen you together could tell you that. There is no way that he is suddenly going to lose interest in you.'

I knew that you wouldn't understand. 'No, I mean... when I first met him, I was, you know, independent and strong-willed and so on-'

'You were a badass.'

'Yes, OK, I was a badass.' Olivia smiled. 'But, Alex, he was married to Kathy. She's like the model of the perfect wife. She was calm, she was forgiving, she cooked and cleaned the house, she conceived, bore, and raised his five children without any problems... if that was what he wanted me to be, then why would he marry me, unless... unless...' Unless it wasn't really me that he wanted at all.

Alex stared at her. 'Olivia, are you saying that you're jealous of Kathy?'

'She was perfect! She never argued with him, or complained, or... or... he said it himself just the other day, Alex! Kathy always used to stay at home with their kids, and he said it like... like... like it was just one more way that I could never measure up to her.' Olivia swallowed awkwardly, trying not to cry again. 'He's always mentioning her, Alex, 'Kathy used to do this, Kathy used to do that'. What if... what if as soon as I try and do the whole homemaker thing, he realises that I'm just a poor imitation of the original and that he's made a terrible mistake?'

'Olivia, are you really afraid that he might leave you and go back to Kathy if you don't do as he says?'

'No, but... Alex, it's only a matter of time before he realises that, while I was fine for a drunken one-off, he never should have married me!'

Alex raised her eyebrows at her. 'So your solution is to be surly and hostile?'

'Well, no, but... Alex, right now he still thinks that I'm perfect. It's like you said, he worships me. I look at him and I can see exactly what he sees in me, and there's no way that I can ever be that person, and... it's terrifying. I feel like I'm competing with a version of myself that never existed and that could never exist, and that just makes me hate myself, and when he keeps going on about all these things he wants me to do it reminds me of how useless I am.' Olivia chewed her lip. 'I mean, it's not like I don't know that he's right about some of it, but...'

Alex glanced over. 'Like what?'

'Well... working in the field, it is getting to me more, and I do wish I could be home with Natalie more, but... he's so unbearable when he wins, and I know if I give in even a little bit he'll take it all.' And then when I still can't measure up he'll leave and I'll never see him again.

Alex sighed. 'You know, Olivia, one of the things people generally work on in a marriage is the art of compromise.'

Olivia laughed bitterly. 'Try telling that to Mr Elliot I'm-Always-Right Stabler. It's his way or no way.'

'Well, I think we both know that you're a little bit guilty of that yourself...'

She did have a point. 'But Alex, he never listens to me or thinks about what I want. I'd barely found even out I was pregnant before he was making all these grand plans for us, and he never even asked me my opinion. He just told me what we'd be doing and assumed I'd go along with it.'

'Well, maybe he was just excited and got carried away.'

'No, Alex, he had to have been thinking about it for a while already. There's no way he came up with all that in the three hours it took between leaving the hospital and his first mentioning it. We left the hospital, drove home, went upstairs, talked for a bit, and had sex. And then literally five minutes afterwards he was telling me what we'd both be doing in ten years!'

'OK, I can see how that could be a problem.'

'I know! Alex, I love him, so , so much, and I want him to be happy, but... I want him to think about me and ask me about important things like that. I need him to listen to me and about what I want, what I want to do, what I think is good, you know?'

'Well, maybe if you want him to include you more in decisions like that, you ought to trust him enough to finally put your assets in both your names. At the moment you hold all the power, Olivia, because you have the apartment in your name, and he has nothing. Kathy took his house in the divorce, remember? How do you think he feels knowing that he's only got a roof over his head because you're letting him live with you?'

I hadn't really thought about it like that. Olivia sighed again. 'It's not about power, Alex, it's about... well...'

Alex cut her off. 'It's about relying on someone. I know you, Olivia. You don't want to lose your independence completely.'

Olivia snorted. 'Bullshit.'

'OK, Olivia, but you need to think about it.' Alex finally pulled into a spot outside her building. 'And think about going back to the doctor. You're right, it is probably nothing, but you should have a check-up just to make sure.' She turned off the ignition and pocketed the car keys. 'Right, I'm coming up to your apartment with you while you tell Elliot what happened.' She raised an eyebrow at Olivia and shot her a stern look. 'No buts.'

A/N: So, what do you think?