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 grateful that that appointment had gone so quickly. They'd ended up just meeting with the young resident that Noah seemed to really like. Dr. Evans was smiley, friendly and silly with the kids and they just seemed to gravitate to him, even if they weren't on his rounds on a particular day. But even better for the parents, he had a different way about him when it came to explaining where things were at. He was more simplistic in his language and just to the point – while still having that sympathetic edge to him. The system hadn't quite jaded him yet. Olivia appreciated that.

It was only scheduled to be a short appointment anyways. But still – when they really did end up being short, that was all the better. It was the last appointment before Noah would be going in for what would hopefully be his last intensification round and last treatment via spinal tap. It would mean at least a week in the hospital again – likely more based on how it went last time. Noah wasn't exactly happy about it – but why would he be? But if everything went well with it, they'd finally be fully settling into their maintenance routine. Finally. There'd be no more hospitalizations, unless he took a turn for the worse. She'd convinced herself that that wasn't going to happen. It just wasn't an option. Her son would be OK.

She'd needed the short and sweetness of how that chat with the doctor had gone. It had been a crazy week for her. There'd been some messy cases going on at work. She'd been trying to not get sucked into things happening at the precinct but then it was one of her previous victims – victimized again. When she got the call in the middle of the night – she'd got dressed and hurried out. She didn't much leave the office until the perp was in custody. She thought Cragen, Elliot and Will might lose their minds because of that. But it was her choice.

Will had told her that her not being home at night was really throwing Noah off. She was calling him to say good night, even regurgitating the stories they'd read so many times she could recite them by memorization over the phone. But it wasn't enough for him. He was up and waking Will wondering when she'd be home – apparently nearly on the hour. His behaviour had reached the point that he so wanted his mom, that Will ended up bringing him down to the station house while she was working a line on a phone bank taking tips. Noah had ended up sitting on her lap for 20 minutes, just clinging to her neck, while she kept on taking calls and making notes.

She remembered often thinking over the years when other detectives had their kids into the building – that they were crazy. She even wondered if it border-lined on child endangerment. Who wanted their kids to see or hear the kinds of things that walked through their building or were up on display on their case boards? There were more than a few occasions when Kathy had brought the kids in to see Elliot – even for just a couple minutes – when he wasn't able to pull himself away from the case. She'd made some comments to him about it over the years – sometimes half-ways joking, other times seriously – but he'd always just brushed it off. He'd say that getting to see them, even for a few seconds, helped him get the focus he needed to keep on working. It also made him feel a little less guilty for how much time he missed having with them. She'd understood, but she'd also never quite understood – not until she had Noah. And, now, she figured there were detectives looking at her, thinking she was the crazy one – at work, with the sickly kid. Cragen had told her to pack it in and take Noah home – but she'd managed to fend him off. She'd been doing that on almost every other case – she hadn't been willing to do it on this one.

She was taking time out now, though. She'd had her time burying herself in work and Will being stuck with the brunt of dealing with Noah's stuff - now the tables had turned.

It was the lead in to mid-terms at NYU. Will had been stuck with all freshman classes that term. In previous years, he often liked his first-year classes – the kids are younger, he got to mold them a bit and get them excited about the math program. He prided himself on teaching in a way that some of the kids who were just forced to take a 101-type course as a requirement for whatever the degree they were working towards, would enjoy his courses so much that they'd switch into the math program or at least show up in some of the electives he taught.

But the first-year kids were also the neediest and to be stuck with three groups of them was a little much – especially with everything he had going on outside of work these days. The class sizes were bigger to begin with and it was really in the lead up to mid-terms that a lot of kids finally realized that they were actually at university and not just a never-ending kegger. It meant that they were jamming into his office hours – to the point he was having to host more and would likely continue to until the week after their mid-term exams were returned. Then there was all the prep work for the reviews and writing the exams themselves, while also trying to juggle his TAs to get them on task in the way he wanted, to supposedly be lightening the workload for him.

The situation wasn't helped in that he'd agreed to supervise the work of two grad students and he'd also been commissioned to write a chapter on the applications of game theory for some sort of economics textbook. Then he had a paper that was slated to be published. There'd been some sort of back-and-forth with the peer review that resulted in him having to beat the crunch to get it re-worked to go for the next publication date of the academic journal.

He was slated to have his work and contributions to the university reviewed in January. If it went well, there was a good chance that he'd finally get bumped up to full professor. With the minor change in job title would come a rather significant wage increase, which they both acknowledged they could use at that point. Will seemed to feel if he didn't get the paper published before then – and if its first-year students landed on the wrong side of the bell curve, his chances of getting the promotion was slim. The whole thing had sent him into a bit of a tizzy. So that week he was spending more time on campus than he had in months and they hadn't seen much of him.

In some ways she didn't mind. She wasn't getting as much one-on-one time alone with Noah anymore – at least time that wasn't in a medical environment. So it was kind of nice to get a bit of time to hang out with him on her own terms. He'd been having a fairly good week, so they'd been enjoying some play time and crafts and reading together and watching movies.

He seemed to be doing well that day too, so she'd decided rather than take the cross-town bus back to the west side from the hospital, they'd take the long-way home and wander down the park before hopping onto the subway.

"So what do you think you want to do this afternoon, Noah?" She'd asked him as they got out front of the hospital and started walking south, hand in hand.

He shrugged.

"Hmm," she said. "Well, I was thinking we could go into the park and go to that playground you like?" No response. "Or maybe we could go to the museum?" Nothing. "The zoo?" Nope, no reaction. "The toy store?" Just another shrug.

She looked at him. "Something is up if you aren't on board with the toy store," she teased him. She didn't take him to FAO Schwarz often – probably only about three or four times in his life, the last couple years in the lead up to Christmas. But when they did go, well, he was like a kid in a toy store, basically.

Still, he just shrugged again.

"OK, why don't you think about it for a few minutes," she said, glancing at him as they walked.

"Mommy, maybe I should just go to school," he finally said quietly.

She looked at him a little surprised. Noah's introduction to school wasn't going very well. Beyond him missing school, he was struggling with fitting in with the other kids, making friends and developing any sort of real routine. Most mornings it was a minor battle to get him to even go in – and now on a day off, he was suggesting he actually wanted to go?

"Well, sweets, remember we talked about this? We decided that on days you have doctor's appointments, we aren't going to go in – even when it is just a short one."

He nodded but then added, "But maybe I should."

She looked at him harder. "Why's that, sweets?"

"Jason says I'm a freak," he said quietly again.

She stopped and looked at him again. She wanted to tell him, "Jason is a fucking idiot" but instead managed to ask, "Why would anyone say something like that?"

She knew the answer, though. Getting small children to understand what was going on with Noah was next to impossible. Even when they could understand that he was sick – the concept of just how and why he was sick was too big for their little minds. The only thing they really knew was that Noah was different – he looked different, he was treated differently to an extent, and he missed a lot of school.

Noah tugged at her arm to make her keep walking and she did. He didn't let go of her hand.

"He says I look funny," he told her then.

He wasn't making eye contact with her – he was examining his feet. But she made sure to watch him – hoping that he could at least feel her eyes were on him.

"You don't look funny," she told him. "You're beautiful."

He scuffed his foot, pretending to kick something down the sidewalk, and he shook his head no.

"Yes, you are," she told him a bit more sternly but sincerely.

"Jason says I'm going to make everyone else sick," he said again in that soft, little voice.

At that she stopped again and crouched down, turning his shoulders so he would look at her. He was still keeping his eyes down cast. She kept her hands on his arms, rubbing them.

"Sweetie, we've talked about this too. You can't give people cancer. It's not contagious. It's not like the stomach flu."

"Then how come we have to wear masks?" He asked.

She shook her head. "Sweets, you know that's not so you don't make us sick. That's so we don't make you sick. It's because we have all kinds of germs and your body is working so, so, so hard to fight all those cancer cells that it doesn't have time to fight germs too. So we wear masks to help keep our germs from getting on you."

He nodded. She knew it was something he'd heard multiple times before but she got the impression he didn't believe it today.

"Noah, we haven't had to wear masks for a while, either – only when you're in the hospital or when your counts are not good. It's to protect you from us. It's not because you can give me, or Will, or anyone else cancer. Do you understand? It doesn't work that way."

He nodded again – still not looking at her.

"Sweetie," she said, hanging her head. Some days she hated his interactions with these so-called 'normal' kids. It just seemed to make things harder for her son – not more 'normal' or routine. He just ended up getting hurt and confused so often – and it broke her heart. It made her want to pull him out of that school.

"Jason says I must've done something very bad," Noah said even quieter now. "But I don't know what."

She felt tears coming to her eyes with that comment and pulled him to her, choking them back. She was sure that people walking around them on Fifth Avenue wondered what the hell was going on.

"Noah, you didn't do anything wrong," she told him, holding him tight against her. "You don't get cancer because you misbehaved. It's not a punishment."

"Then why?" Now he sounded like he was crying.

She held him out from her and wiped at the tears coming down his cheek. Her's weren't staying in her eyes so well now either and she had to swat at them too.

"No one knows, Noah. Some times it just happens. It's not fair – but it just happens."

"I don't want it anymore, Mommy," he told her, tears now streaming down his face.

She pulled him back to her again, holding his head at her shoulder and rubbing his back as he sobbed. She was trying her best to hold it together – but it was getting harder, with each rattled sob shaking his little body against her's.

"I know, sweetie. I don't want you to have it anymore, either. But we're all working really hard to make it so you don't. Really, really hard – and, you're being so brave and you're doing so well and we're all so proud of you, Noah. I'm so, so proud of you. You're my beautiful, smart, strong little boy – and I'm so incredibly proud of you."