Title: Undeserved

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: The bad hand Olivia's been dealt continues - this time with real implications for her son. She and Will, along with the help of her work colleagues, work at navigating the devastating news and the new developments it brings to their lives.

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. Her relationship with Elliot is that of partner and protective older brother and colleague. It won't devolve from that - they aren't ever going to get together in this series. If you're an E/O shipper, you likely won't enjoy these stories. The timeline is a little loose and since most of the stories ultimately takes place outside of the work environment, there aren't too many references to cases from the show. But this series would generally be starting in about Season 12/13 of the show. It assumes Elliot hasn't left SVU yet. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.

Olivia was nursing a beer and chatting with some other cops that had shown up to the McTeague's end of summer extravaganza.

Her and Will had been reluctant to even attend. Will hated going to any of his big family events, which seemed to happy all to regularly. But this time it reached the point that his parents had had to come into the city and basically drag them out to Staten Island.

Even after all three of them taking a nap, Will had complained about having to head back downstairs. He plotted a plan to use Noah has a bail-out so they could leave within an hour of putting an appearance. But after they'd managed to drag themselves into the backyard and people began to arrive, they'd all settled into it and seemed to be enjoying themselves – or at least she was. The sun was out, though the start of that autumn chill was lingering in the air. The atmosphere was nice and people were smiling and chatty.

More than two hours had passed since they'd come out the back door to make their appearance so they could then head home – but Will hadn't yet indicated to her that he was ready to throw in the towel and get the hell out of there. In fact, he'd wandered across the yard with Noah to supervise him playing with a group of other kids who were scribbling with sidewalk chalks on the patio, kicking soccer balls around and running around creating general chaos with water guns. He seemed to have got involved in a conversation with some of the other parents who were making sure there wasn't too much roughhousing going on.

She could see that he was smiling and even occasionally laughing. Every once and a while people were walking up to him and patting him on the shoulder or shaking his hand to offer him congratulations on his race. She knew he was enjoying the attention that he often felt he didn't get from his family or his community. At one point, he'd also come back over to her and showed her a cheque. Some people were still giving him donations for his racing charity and he was pretty ecstatic about that.

So with her two boys apparently happy and preoccupied, she'd allowed herself to wander over to come of the cops she half-ways knew – at least knew of – and had been chatting. It all seemed very normal and casual – not something she was entirely used to, especially anymore – and, she was liking it.

"Benson," Tom had hollered at her from where he was standing on the elevated porch, manning the barbeque in that yard.

Olivia hadn't had as much interaction with Tom as she had Will's other brother, Rob, but she tended to find him a little obnoxious. They'd known it other for almost three years at that point and she didn't think he'd ever called her by her first name. It rubbed her the wrong way.

Her and Will had gotten together with Tom's family a bit more regularly than they had with Rob and Karen, because his kids were closer in age to Noah. But on those outings, it was usually his wife, Becky, that ended up hanging out with them alone manning their three extremely high-energy kids. Though she felt bad for Becky when that happened, Olivia was often more annoyed when Tom was around when they had the kids out somewhere.

Tom would just holler at his kids constantly. It just wasn't how she raised her son or how she would ever talk to him. And, she really didn't think it was effective. The more he screamed at them, the less they seemed to hear and/or the worse and more attention seeking their behaviour became.

She figured that watching Tom's parenting abilities and his there-but-absentee fatherly role was a pretty good glimpse at what it had been like for Will growing up. Will got along with his dad well enough but never had much to say about him, especially in terms of what it was like growing up with him as a father. Her interactions with Ted and watching how he talked to Will now as an adult was enough to tell her that he was gruff and that Will still was slightly intimidated by him, even though he was now pushing 70.

She was grateful that Will wasn't like that with her son. He was always extremely soft spoken and even-toned with Noah. She knew he likely followed her lead when it came to disciplining and controling Noah but she appreciated that as well. Getting Noah to listen or change his behaviour was more directed at physically stopping the behaviour, using it as an eye-to-eye contact educational moment and having him repeat to them what he'd just been told. There wasn't yelling and screaming involved. If he still didn't listen, she was a big fan of timeouts and mini-groundings – not screaming louder. She supposed she didn't have three kids to wrangle. But she also knew she wouldn't tolerate the kind of behaviour she saw in Tom's kids in her son. Though, Noah was extremely far from perfect and he his share of tantrums, talk-backs and general misbehaving, he also wasn't a bad kid and would generally rectify his behaviour after he was told it was unacceptable or he had to experience some sort of consequence for his actions.

She had a feeling, though, Tom thought she was about as crappy of parent as she thought his shortfalls were. He had a bit of that macho streak to him and didn't seem to much believe in women in law enforcement, especially when she had a child at home – and, was a single mother. She some times got a bit of the impression that he might feel that she was using his younger brother. Becky nor any of the rest of the family made her feel that way. It was just certain things Tom said or the way he'd look at her.

"We got some of yours," he bellowed again, motioning to a group coming out the sliding patio door.

She smiled. She really hadn't expected Elliot to come when she'd mentioned to him that Will's parents would be having the barbeque and he was welcome to stop by. It had actually almost been mentioned in passing. But there he was with Kathy and Eli trailing behind him. He looked a little confused, like he thought he might be in the wrong place, and he'd clearly been asking around looking for her.

She excused herself from the conversation she was having and walked up the steps.

"Hey," she smiled. "You came."

He was looking across the backyards still. "When you said come to a barbeque, this wasn't exactly what I was envisioning," he said.

She glanced around the yard again. It had filled up. She estimated that there were likely about 200 people there right now – but people had been coming and going all afternoon. Will had told her that they'd continue to rotate through until after dinner and even then it would take until well into the evening before they managed to clear the place out.

His parents and brothers had their houses all in a row. Olivia couldn't imagine ever wanting that kind of proximity to people she was related to. But she also didn't have family. Will, however, clearly felt the same way as her about the matter and had spent his adult life escaping. Though it seemed like an odd arrangement to her – beyond having help to raise the kids – it did make for a great party space.

They'd rigged up the fencing between their yards so the side fences were like gates that opened. It meant that the party was now spanning three yards with people mingling everywhere – backyards, between the houses, out front.

"Yeah, it's a little crazy isn't it," she agreed.

"You want to see crazy, you'll finally come out to our Christmas Eve open house," Tom commented from where he was still flipping burgers. She didn't say anything but she was definitely trying to put off taking part in their Christmas festivities as long as possible. She'd been invited before and had thus far always had excuses. Those few days around Christmas, and the lead up to them, just about gave Will an anxiety attack every year. She didn't feel the need to take on more anymore of that stress. In fact, she'd done her best to try to convince Will in previous years that getting so worked up about it wasn't healthy. He'd insisted that she just didn't understand.

"So this is all firefighters?" Elliot still seemed dumbfounded by it.

"Umm, no. Firefighters, cops, EMS, their neighbours."

"The whole of Staten Island," he said somewhat sarcastically. "I'd hate to see what happens if a call comes in."

"Mass exodus," she said.

People had actually been getting called in to various emergencies and whatnot all afternoon – dealing with the busy long-weekend before people officially accepted that it was the end of summer and settled back into work routines and getting their kids to school. There'd been several points where she'd seen multiple people checking their phones at nearly the same time and then excusing themselves and rushing off. She'd periodically heard little dashboard sirens flick on out front as people tried to maneuver their vehicles around the gridlock and get on their way. Rather than there be music at this party, there was a scanner crackling away on the back patio at Will's parents' house.

She smiled at Eli. "Hey, Eli, there's a bunch of kids playing at the far end of the yard, if you want. Will and Noah are over there."

Eli seemed a little shy about all the people but stood up a bit on his toes to try to see where she was pointing.

She called out to Will but he didn't hear her. So Tom took it upon himself to try to get Will's attention. He whistled the same way he did at his kids that made her feel like he was calling his dog – and then he bellowed at the top of his lungs, "Hey, Little Willie."

She could feel Will cringing from where she stood but it got his attention – and the attention of about half of the people there. He looked slightly pissed off but glanced over his shoulder. Liv waved and that made him gaze long enough to realize who she was standing with. He smiled and waved back – noticing that she was pointing at Eli, he motioned for the boy to come over.

"I'll take him over," Kathy offered and took her son by the hand to navigate him through the throngs of people.

"So what's your poison … what was your name again?" Tom said.

"Elliot," he nodded towards him.

"No, no. Your name."

"Stabler," Olivia filled in for him, since Elliot was giving Tom a look like he was considering trying to break his neck like he would a pencil.

"Stabler, what's your poison?" Elliot just stared at him harder. "We've got beer. Otherwise you can head on over to the kiddie yard for the cola and juice."

"Beer's fine."

Tom nodded and disappeared back into the house for a minute.

"Charming," Elliot said to Liv. "That's Will's brother?"

She nodded. "One of them. The whole family is charming, really."

He made a "whoa" expression like he felt a little sorry for her. But Tom was back and handed him an open bottle.

"OK, Stabler, here I'll sort you out since this one won't," he jabbed a finger towards Olivia in such a way that Elliot looked like he was now considering snapping it too.

"So that far yard – that there is the kiddie and lady yard. Not to worry – just the wives and kiddos, not anything you two need to be running off and investigating." At that point, Elliot made an extremely unimpressed sound and crossed his arms. She nudged him a bit, as an assurance that Tom would be done his spiel in a few more seconds and they could move on to enjoying the barbeque. "There you got all the salads, chips, pretzels, you know. Rob's working on some beer can chicken if that's your thing. The middle yard there, that's my parents. Dad's got the ribs on the go. That's the firemen yard, though – so you may want to steer clear. Leave the real food to the real men. And here I've got your standard burgers and dogs on the go. And what has this yard become this year, there Benson?"

"The cop yard, Tom," she humoured him.

"The cop pen," he corrected her, wagging his finger again. He looked at Elliot. "My yard is the fucking cop pen this year. I don't know how that happened. Best I can figure you add one," he gestured at Olivia again, "and they just all come swarming."

Olivia could tell in the approximately three minutes since Elliot had meet Tom, he was now about as big of fan of him as she was.

"Anyways, you head out there. Eat, drink, be merry. Let me know if you want a burger or need another beer."

Olivia just nodded her head for him to follow her and they got off the porch and started to wander back through the people.

"Well that was something," he said to her after he felt they were out of earshot.

She just nodded.

"I didn't realize Will's family was so … connected into the community," he said, still gaping at the party.

"Yeah, well, my understanding is this all just kind of evolved over the years."

"It's just so …" he didn't know what to say.

"Not SVU," she offered.

He nodded in agreement. "Not SVU."

Though the people in their unit were close and treated each other like family at work – and she knew that they'd really do anything for each other outside of work too – they weren't ones to get-together and socialized after work hours. It wasn't uncommon for homicide detectives to have a bar they frequented to share battle scars. For vice, they had their favourite breakfast or lunch spots, to the point that their asses might has well have been molded into certain seats. But in SVU, the detectives often had to pull themselves away from their cases and the victims who they felt so desperately needed them. When they finally did pull themselves away – they all just wanted to go back to their families or their lives and try to forget or drowned out what they saw by whatever means they knew how to use. Olivia could count on her two hands the number of times she'd gone out with the guys for a drink or a game of pool in her almost 13 years of being in SVU.

"Do they need permits for this?" He asked.

She held up her hands. "Hey, not my house, not bylaw, not working, not my problem," she said. "But I'd hate to be the guy they sent over to deal with this."

He nodded. "No kidding. Hey, so how'd Will do with his triathlon?" he asked. He'd noticed that Kathy hadn't returned and he thought he could see her talking with the other man.

"He finished," she said, "but ankled over on his one foot as he was trying to get out of the clamp on his bike. So he had a pretty rough run there at the end. It's pretty bruised looking right now. He's putting weight on it but I have a feeling we might be at the hospital getting xrays later. The medics at the race suggested it – but he seems to think ibuprofen and ice is enough at the moment. We'll see. He's standing," she gestured in his direction.

"Ouch," Elliot said. "But he finished? How'd he do with his time?"

"He's not happy about it. He was off pace on the cycling leg and then with the foot ... So he came in around three hours, 31 minutes."

"Wow," Elliot said impressed.

"I agree, but it's about 40 minutes slower than what he was shooting for."

"Still a hell over a lot better then what the rest of us could do," he said.

"No kidding. He's officially made me feel as lazy as fuck."

"I'll have to go over and congratulate him," he offered.

She nodded. "He'd appreciate that." She knew that Will kind of thought her partner hated him. She knew that wasn't true. Elliot just didn't know him – beyond anything she said.

"But anyways, first come over here. There's a bunch of people from the Bronx and Brooklyn SVUs."

"No shit?"

"Free food, free beer," she shrugged. "Makes people come out of the woodwork."

"This thing is an annual to-do? How did I never hear about this barbeque before?" He half-ways joked.

"Tell me about it," she agreed. "City's best kept secret, apparently. Or we just weren't invited."

"Guess you have to be sleeping with the right people to know," he commented.

She shot him a look but he thought he saw a small smile and she didn't disagree.