Undying gratitude and appreciation to Mousie; her unparalleled beta skills and subsequent feedback left me with suspiciously watery eyes (because of happiness, don't worry). She's the wind beneath my wings… you might not be reading these chapters if it wasn't for her encouragement!

So, all together, everyone say, "Thank you, Mousie."

[waits patiently.]

Good. I love this chapter, and I hope you will, too.

War in the Family

*

Some breaths are re-births.

Her chest is full and still; she is speechless, caught in the beauty of her daughter.

Her daughter -- the world changes, she can feel it happening, its focal point shrinking, shrinking to exclude the doctor, the nurses, Elliot… until it's just her and the baby.

Olivia looks and looks and looks.

Puckered brow.

Open mouth.

Dark hair.

Pink skin.

Her daughter has pink skin.

And then Olivia's chest deflates, and every bit of air she's ever inhaled comes rushing out of her lungs; she is limp and frightened and flying... her eyes cannot take in enough detail.

"Look at her-- she knows her momma," Tia says with a smile as the squalling begins to quiet. Breathless still, Olivia pulls her daughter even closer.

Warm.

Soft.

Sweet.

With a hesitant, trembling finger, she reaches down to the small pucker in between the miniature eyebrows. With a gentle brush, she tries to smooth it out.

Her daughter is having none of it. The frown remains.

Perfect.

Olivia holds her, cradling her gently on her thighs and forearms, marveling at the infinite perfection of her face. The feathery brush of her eyelashes, the cupid bow lips, the button nose…

Mine, something inside of her whispers fiercely.

After several moments, she realizes that there is a voice that has been speaking in the background, and it penetrates Olivia's consciousness enough to elicit a blink.

"What did you say?"

"I've got a third ID band," Tia repeats. "Do you want him to have it?"

"Yes," Olivia states decisively. "Elliot?"

The lines on his face furrow deep, his frown more pronounced. He seems to be choosing his words. "Don't look at me like that, Liv. I—what about Kurt?"

"What about Kurt?" she asks with no small amount of hostility.

He levels a steady gaze at her. "Did you know he's been in the waiting room this whole time."

No, she didn't know that. Shit. Unbidden, a twinge of guilt tugs at her conscience… but just a twinge.

Elliot notices her resolve. "You don't think he should be able to see his own daughter?" he asks quietly.

She bristles.

His daughter? Kurt's daughter?

Her daughter's small body squirms gently in her arms, the yowling pink face, the folded, wiry limbs burning something in her, something bright. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful—

Hers. Her daughter. Weeks and weeks of waiting, of talking and planning and thinking and dreaming… of life stirring within her, of nocturnal soliloquies spoken for the benefit of tiny, unformed ears.

All this time, and now here she is – Olivia's family. And if there's one thing Olivia's learned about herself from her years with Elliot, it's that she's not fond of sharing.

When she finally speaks, her words are ironclad.

"I've seen him eleven times since he found out I was pregnant," she states through clenched teeth.

"He's here now. He's been asking the nurses for updates all night."

"He sure has," Tia mutters.

Olivia scowls. "Even she thinks he's annoying."

"He's her father," Elliot rejoins, his voice slow and still and even. She hates it, Really Fucking Hates It, when he talks to her like this, like he knows that the truth is on his side and therefore refuses to exert any additional effort into arguing because of course, of course he's always right.

"I don't need a biology lesson, Elliot."

"Do you want to just let me know later?" Tia asks.

"No," Olivia says sharply.

At the same time Elliot says, "Yeah, thanks."

Her jaw clenches. "Take the bracelet."

"I don't—"

"Elliot, take the damn bracelet!"

He stares at her defiantly, resistant and silent and infuriating and dammit, why is he choosing now to prove a point?

"Is this where you want an out?" she hisses. "Because if now is when you decide you're not up for this—" she waves her free hand between them. "—whatever this is, then fine. Go."

His eyes narrow. "The hell—?"

"But don't sit here and lecture me about that man's parental rights. If you're staying," she continues. "Then shut up and take. the. damn. bracelet."

He glares at her.

She glares back.

Tia stands to the side, shifting impatiently.

After several seconds and without breaking eye contact, Elliot slowly unfurls his arm, and Tia hurries to fasten the ID band like he's about to strike.

His jaw is still set as he stares at his newly-adorned wrist, a thoughtful frown on his face.

"There," Olivia says, her smile tinged with honey and venom. "That wasn't so hard, now, was it?"

"We'll talk about this later," he says quietly.

Olivia ignores him; the bundle in her arms squirms and Tia – no doubt in an attempt to regain familiar ground – directs their attention to something new. "She's hungry," she notes approvingly. "You ready to feed her?"

Olivia hesitates. "Yeah. But… um, I'm not sure. Do I just--?"

"Here, I'll help you." Tia glances at Elliot. "You can step out, if you're uncomfortable."

She and Olivia both jump as Elliot barks out a sharp laugh.

"I'd like to see me try," he says dryly, holding up his newly-adorned wrist.

Tia chuckles. "Oh, I think you're in it, now."

He huffs a laugh, but he's not looking at Tia anymore. Olivia feels his gaze before meeting it with her own, and what she sees there causes her head to spin, adrift in terror and relief.

"Do you have a name?" Tia asks. "We gotta have something to call that beautiful baby."

'Beautiful' doesn't do this flawless child justice, but Olivia lets that one slip.

"Yeah," she murmurs, her eyes on that tiny, perfect frown. "I'm naming her Sophia."

Tia nods. "I love it. What about a middle name?"

Olivia smiles, and her cheeks are damp and cracking from her grin but she just can't find it within herself to care. Something is stirring, standing, rippling and rising through her, drenching her bones and slipping through her skin – her heart has unfurled and the something—the burning something has a name.

"Joy."

*

Sophia Joy, she thinks. Joy, joy, joy.

After two awkward attempts at nursing, Olivia is basking in the discovery that her breasts are no longer merely ornamental. This discovery bodes well for her confidence – maybe she can do this, after all.

Sophia is sleeping quietly on Olivia's chest as Elliot bends over them both, one long, calloused finger tracing the peach-pink curve of Sophia's face. He's close enough for Olivia to feel his breath on her cheek, for her to breathe in the heady, comforting scent of him; that scent, when combined with the clean, soft smells of the baby, is the best thing she's ever smelled.

For the first time in years, she is safe.

"She's gorgeous," Elliot says quietly. Murmuring her agreement, Olivia turns her head—

-- and finds herself mere inches away from Elliot's face. She stares into bloodshot blue eyes, noting the way his stubble-laden jaw tightens in her periphery.

They haven't touched each other in weeks, and of course she'd noticed, but there was always too much between them, too many things undecided or unspoken, and she's past the point of fooling around with her partner. She's pretty sure he is, too.

And maybe that's the reason for the platonic companionship, the innocent dates, the separate sleeping arrangements, she muses, noting the thick fringe of lashes around the blue of her mother's ocean. Want is no longer the core of it all, of the rapid thumping of her heart as his breath washes over her now-parted lips—it's there, though, waiting. But something else has happened, and if she just leans forward… just the slightest bit…

Then this will be permanent, for her.

The thought slams into her like a wrecking ball and she blinks rapidly, losing focus. She knows the exact moment Elliot notices; he sighs and straightens.

"I'm going back to the apartment for a few minutes," he rasps. "I smell like pool water."

Still dazed by her revelation, she nods slowly.

"Do you want me to bring anything back?" he asks.

"No… um. I don't know. John brought my bag—" she clears her throat nervously. "No. Thanks."

"I'll be back soon," he says. "Call me if you need anything."

She nods, wondering if she'll ever be okay with the way he disappears through doorways.

*

"'Sophia Joy?'" Kurt repeats incredulously.

Olivia scowls over her paperwork, wishing for the seventh time that Kurt would shut up, hunker down and help her with the damn hospital forms. What was this man good for, anyway? "Yes," she replies shortly. She will not murder him on her daughter's birthday. She won't.

She Won't.

He nods. "Oh."

Her eyebrow cocks as she continues filling in the line marked 'social security number.' "'Oh?' The hell does that mean?"

"Nothing." His throat clears repetitively, shot-guns and staccato notes; the sound is annoying. "Were you… was I going to—"

Maybe she will.

His pause hangs suspended in the air like a mobile of thwarted assumptions. She puts down her pen and turns to him. "'Were you going to'…? What, you don't like it?"

Kurt looks at her thoughtfully, a small frown deepening the small lines between his eyebrows as he scrutinizes her face. After several seconds, he sighs.

"What?" she asks shortly.

"I love the name. It's just-- you… wow. You really don't want me here, do you?"

Kurt's hesitation and obvious discomfort make her remember Elliot's words; she hears his lecture echo in her mind and sighs.

He's her father, Elliot had reminded her pointedly, but 'father' hasn't ever been a very valuable or relevant concept to her and she's managed just fine without one, thank you very much. And her daughter… well, her daughter doesn't need this dumbass hanging around.

There are many ways to make a family, she tells herself again.

"I don't know," she says plainly. "At this point I don't know if I want you as involved—"

"That's bullshit, Olivia," he says quietly, his face tense with frustration. "Look, when you told me? I reacted badly, I know that. I wasn't there for you, and I know that too, but—but—Jesus, Olivia. You can't just—you can't just make some kind of unilateral decision about raising our daught—"

She will murder him, birthday or no. What Sophia doesn't know…

"Our daughter?" She can feel her temper rising, quicksilver and hot, burning up her nerves as it touches her skin. "What do you want, Kurt?" she hisses. "You want me to feel bad for you?"

"I want you to just—shit, you didn't get pregnant by yourself," he rejoins. "She isn't just yours—"

"The hell she isn't! I was pregnant by myself. Who do you think—"

"Yeah, Olivia, I get it. I get that you're a poor, longsuffering saint and I'm the asshole who knocked you up and bolted. I get that you think I'm an ass, and I'm pretty sure you wish Sophia had a different dad." He gestures to Elliot's empty hospital chair. "That's fine. But I'm here now, and I'm trying, and that's gotta count for something. All I'm asking is for you to consider letting me help you. Being a parent isn't easy—"

"Don't lecture me. I know being a parent isn't easy. But I've seen women who manage just fine, even after cutting off the father's parental rights. I'm perfectly capable--"

"Those guys are murderers. Child molesters. Rapists. Guys who actually did something worse than not knowing how to take the news that the woman he'd been seeing for eight weeks—"

"You asked me for a paternity test!" she yells, mentally willing Elliot to crash through the door and kick Kurt's ass. She'd do it herself if the whole damn lower half of her body wasn't so fucking sore.

"We barely knew each other. I still don't know you, but guess whose fault that is?" he yells back before stepping closer, his voice dropping to a low rumble. "I've tried, Olivia. I'm still trying. I'm trying to make sure this kid isn't going to grow up thinking I don't give a shit, and you're too worried about playing house—"

"What?"

"—to even give me a chance."

Fuck.

"What's going on in here?"

Kurt and Olivia both start, their heads swiveling to stare at the perturbed-looking nurse in the doorway.

"Uh… we were talking…" Kurt mumbles.

"No more yelling," she says sharply. "Or I'll ask you to leave."

Kurt nods. "Of course… of course."

Olivia narrows her eyes at him. Ass.

The door closes, and he looks back at her.

Her chest is still heaving with fury, keeping cadence with the clock as they glare at each other from across her hospital room; after several long moments, Kurt is the first to look away.

"I'm not doing this with you," he mutters. "You're not getting rid of me that easily." With a sigh, he reaches into his pocket, withdrawing a folded piece of paper. He lays it on the table by her bed. "Here's my info; I wrote it out for you while I was waiting this morning." He runs his hand through his hair and opens his mouth before heaving a sigh. "I'm going for a walk."

And then he does.

*

Sophia Joy.

The name echoes in her brain like the tolling of a light bell.

Moonlight streams in through the open blinds, a shaft of silver falling across Elliot's sleeping forms, her own legs, and the hospital bassinet beside her. Her exhausted, beleaguered partner has crammed his long form onto the two-cushion hospital couch, limbs akimbo as he unconsciously fits himself to the cramped space. He'd spent most of the day by her side, leaving only once in some fucked-up deference to Kurt's right to privately meet Baby Sophia. Fresh from a shave and shower, Elliot had smirked through the awkwardness that was John and Fin Attempting to Fawn Over A Newborn, remained silent as Dr. Patel talked her through her post-natal care, and had finally collapsed onto his makeshift bed at the first sign of nightfall.

"Are you okay to sleep on that thing?" she'd asked, frowning.

"Can sleep anywhere," he'd mumbled into the hospital pillow. "Marine…" And he was gone.

His snoring now fills the room in a rumbling cadence, a soothing backdrop to her thoughts as she rolls to her side to face the bassinet. She stares, fascinated, at the rapid rise and fall of her daughter's tiny chest, at the scrawny limbs encased in cotton… and her mind wanders into a fuzzy sort of darkness.

At the sound of waves, she opens her eyes.

Serena smiles at her. "Hello."

"I had a baby," Olivia blurts. "A girl."

"Congratulations," her mother says, her expression benign. "And what did you name her?"

"Sophia Joy."

"'With wisdom's joy and reason's care,'" Serena quotes in reply. "Joanna Baillie."

Olivia nods, appreciating both the quote and the effect of the breeze as it lifts the ends of her mother's hair, pulling it away and back from Serena's face. "'Sophia' is Greek. It means wisdom. I'll probably shorten it to Sophie."

"It's a strong name," Serena sighs. "And it gives her good goals, I think."

"To be wise? I think so. It's better than mine, anyway. No offense."

"Oh?" Serena asks, arching a delicate brow. "And what, pray tell, is wrong with your name?"

"'Olivia' means 'olive tree,' Ma. Not a whole lot to work with."

"Shakespeare didn't think so," Serena retorts.

"Don't hide behind Twelfth Night."

"The olive tree is a symbol of beauty, dignity and fruitfulness."

Olivia shrugs. "Well, I wanted my fruit to have a less-obscure meaning behind her name."

Her mother hums absently. "It's a beautiful name. 'May she be granted beauty and yet not

Beauty to make a stranger's eye distraught…"

The day before, Olivia could have sat with her mother for hours, quoting old poems and reveling in the way her good memories washed over her, bathing her mind in a warm, golden haze. She could have been still, been content. She could have enjoyed this version of her mother. She could have pretended.

The problem is, now her body is filled with echoes, shadows and ghosts of her daughter's presence within her – here, those echoes that can't be assuaged by holding Sophia in her arms. Olivia had no concept of how much she would miss that little body, growing and stretching inside, but now she is empty, and no amount of poetry or azure, cloudless skies will tamp down the sudden, urgent ache she has to hold her baby girl.

"Why have we only talked about poetry?" she asks suddenly.

Unperturbed, her mother shrugs. "I told you already."

"'Because it's lovely?' Is that it? Why else?"

"Do you really need another reason? Or would you like to talk about something else?" Serena asks with a small smile.

"What else can we talk about?"

"We can talk about whatever you'd like."

"Oh."

Well… that was easier than she'd expected.

"Do you remember," Serena murmurs, "when you went next door to sleep at Ms. Flannigan's? You were, let me think, you were only six or seven at the time, I believe."

Clouds appear overhead with the memory, grey and distant, and she feels a sudden chill as it brushes goosebumps along her arms. "I remember," Olivia replies flatly.

"I woke up in the kitchen," her mother continues. "It was almost five in the morning, and there I was, sleeping on the kitchen table, and I—" she starts to laugh. "And I had no idea where my daughter was."

"I burnt my hand that night," Olivia says after a moment. "You left the skillet on."

"Yes," her mother says, her expression wistful as she tilts her elegant neck, her face upturned towards a darkening sky. The breeze continues to play in her hair, dancing merrily, erratically around her head. "Storm's coming," she announces softly.

Olivia frowns. "Why did you ask if I remembered that?"

"Because you were tired of poetry," Serena sighs. "And I'm afraid, my dear, that poetry is the only lovely thing I have. Do you remember now?"

"Do I remember what?" Olivia asks, biting back her frustration.

Her mother sighs again; the wind picks up in sympathy as rolling, angry clouds gather above. Santorini blue is now silvers, whites and greys. "Our poetry, Libby."

Libby scowls; a clap of thunder sounds overhead. The waves are higher, rougher, whiter; there is water in the boat. "Yes, I read to you from your Anthology. It helped your headaches."

"Libby," Serena laughs. A spray of water splashes her, saltwater soaking her side. "The sound of a child struggling with the meters of classical poetry is not what many consider to be a soothing hangover remedy."

"What?" A flash of lightening, another thunderous boom. Their rowboat balances precariously on the edges of a hundred waves, its planks saturated in the froth of an angry sea.

Her mother sits, relaxed and smiling, still facing the sky. The wind whips her wet hair in angry lashes around her peaceful face. In the midst of the storm, Serena is living up to her name.

"You'll remember, I suppose," she sighs. "In the meantime—"

"I'll remember what?"

"--I think it's time I crossed the bar."

Vague echoes of Tennyson bubble up through the froth of swelling waves as Olivia's fingers clutch the sides of the rocking boat. Serena's hands remain in her own lap.

But such a tide as moving seems asleep, too full for sound and foam…

The world begins to tip on its side--

"Mom—"

When that which drew from out the boundless deep turns again home….

Serena's whisper is all she can hear above the rush of waves and the almost-silent rolling of a capsizing boat.

"Do you remember?"

*

"Olivia?"

Her eyes open slowly, slowly to the silence and silver-white of moonbeams through a hospital window. Her limbs feel disjointed and heavy.

"Liv?"

She turns her head on the pillow, and her bleary gaze meets Elliot's. "Hey," she whispers.

"You're talking in your sleep."

"Sorry."

"Don't be," he yawns, lying back down. He's asleep within seconds.

Olivia turns back to Sophie's bassinet. Serena's words are still echoing in her head.

Do you remember?

Remember what? she thinks again.

Their poetry, Serena had told her.

Dream Serena, her mind cautions. Her mother had loved poetry, true—but it's highly unlikely she appeared in a beyond-the-grave dinghy just to discuss the merits of Tennyson versus his contemporaries.

But, dream or not, something is there, pushing and prodding, awakening the details of long-dormant memories. Saturday mornings and old book smell of the worn Anthology… the crinkle of Serena's eyes during a rare burst of laughter… the last lines of a lullaby, whispered into the dark.

She tries to remember more, clinging to the bones of past happiness; Elliot's snores eventually lull her into slumber. She does not dream.

*

A/N:

I read each and every one of your reviews, and I've been better about replying to them. Your thoughts and comments are really, truly appreciated as this story begins to wind down…

You guys are the best. Thank you for reading!

Poems referenced in this chapter:

Hope and Memory, Joanna Baillie

A Prayer For My Daughter, William Butler Yeats

Crossing the Bar, Alfred, Lord Tennyson