"Did you get your pony?"

"You know what, I did. He was the tallest, most handsome pony I ever saw and I loved him. I loved him when I was angry and when I was sad, when I was so mad at the world I couldn't talk to anyone else he would just stand there and listen to me. Sometimes I really needed someone to just stop asking me what was wrong all the time because I didn't know how to answer them. I didn't know how to make it so they understood."

"Sometimes I talk to the cat." Came the small voice lying beside Amanda Rollins, staring up at the stars from the Amaro's back yard.

"You had a cat at your grandparents place?" asked Rollins, focusing on Orion's belt and knowing Nick had no pets.

"No, they don't have a cat. He's so furry. He has big green eyes and he lets me pet him and snuggle him on my knee..." falling quiet for a moment, and finding it easier staring at the stars and knowing Amanda was staring at them too and not at her Zara confessed, "... and knows my secrets."

"Yeah?" said Rollins, afraid to push too hard and scare the already audibly terrified child away any further.

"Yeah."

"What's his name? This cat?" asked Rollins, feeling the grass shift slightly as Zara relaxed her taught body language and loosened up.

"His name is Basil."

"Basil?" smiled Rollins, curious. "That's a funny name for a cat."

"No it isn't."

"I just meant..."

"My mom used to cook with basil."

"What did she used to cook you?"

"Pasta."

"It's okay to miss your mom Zara..." turning her head slowly Rollins eyes were wide and giving, lightly misted with emotion as she murmured, "... it's okay to feel upset about all the bad things that have happened."

"Mandy?" pausing for a reply Zara waited patiently for Rollins to speak.

"What is it honey?"

"If I tell, will my Daddy stop being so sad?" feeling her heart cracking, shattering and breaking inside her chest to see the exquisite agony in the little girl's face as she stared at her in the hope of honesty Rollins slowly began to shake her head. "If I tell Fin and Olivia what they want me to tell them will he be like he was before my mum died again? Will it fix him?"

"No." Said Amanda, physically unable to lie despite everything in her professional mind knowing she could utilise the moment to her advantage without technically having to. "No, honey, it won't. You can tell any one of us anything you want to but I can't make you that promise. Your Dad is going through a really rough time right now, just like you are, and he is really, really sad. He wants to help you, he wants to help you so badly Zara..." holding her breath just long enough to stop her lip from quivering Rollins exhaled, "... but him being so sad has nothing to do with the person who has been hurting you or what happened at your grandparents."

"It doesn't?" asked Zara, barely audibly.

"It is not your fault, Zara. None of this is your fault. None of it, okay?"

"Mandy?" it was as if her voice was getting smaller, as if the world were swallowing whole the sad little eyes staring across at an increasingly disillusioned Detective Rollins.

"Yeah?"

"I don't want to stay here..." feeling cold fingers slide into her palm and grip tight Rollins felt a shiver coarse her spine as Zara asked, "... can I come home with you?"

"Zara, honey, you're dad..."

"Please?" hearing a hiccoughing choke punctuate Zara's request Rollins swallowed hard against her own tears as the child asked again. "Please take me with you? Please?"

"I can't..." hauling herself up from the grass and shaking her thin blonde hair with devastation Rollins whispered huskily, "... I'm sorry honey but I..."

"I don't want to watch the stars anymore!" declared Zara, holding herself together long enough to make it back through the patio doors before scattering sobs up every step to her bedroom and leaving Rollins broken hearted in her wake.

"What the hell did you say to her?" asked Nick, shaking his head in confused bewilderment as he wandered out into the yard, recently woken from a long nap.

"I can't do this anymore Nick."

"What?" he asked, now fully aware of his surroundings and of the tears in her eyes.

"I don't even know what I'm doing here."

"You came to see Zara."

"I shouldn't have."

"I don't understand."

"I know you don't..." swallowed Amanda, closing her eyes and realising the truth depths she had sunk to and knowing this was the moment in which she found the strength to start climbing her way back up, "... I know you don't."

"I thought you wanted to help her."

"I do."

"Then..."

"I want to help both of you but being here isn't helping anyone. I'm confusing Zara, enabling your dependence and..."

"Enabling my dependence?" scoffed Nick, shaking his dark eyes with a brooding distain. "What did you swallow a psyche textbook or something? You been hanging out with Huang too much lately?"

"Zara asked me to take her home with me tonight, Nick." Rounding her shoulders and shrugging heavily Rollins sighed, "What the hell are we doing? The last thing she needs right now is another person with one foot in her life and the other halfway out the door."

"So what? You're just gonna leave her? You make her trust you and then you just go? You let her get used to you being here and learn to need you and then just like that you're gone?"

"Nick..." shaken by the strange intimacy of his words Amanda shook her head slowly, afraid of what he might say next.

"Do you have any idea what it took for her to love you after everything she's lost?"

"I..."

"Just go, go, get out and leave us alone..." He commanded, eyes once filled with tears of grief now welling with a darker emotion. A passionate, intensity, a brooding cocktail of desire and familiarity as background became foreground and Nick Amaro realised that he could not remember a time Amanda Rollins was not a part of his shattered world.


"No, no sweetie you're other left..." instructed Olivia, gently teasing Eli's leg through the opposite leg of his jeans, "... there you go, good boy."

"You look like Princess Jasmine..." daydreaming in his own little world Eli was far from task focused as he traced Olivia's high cheekbones with his fingertips, "... can I be Abu? He's my favourite."

"Right leg now sweetheart, let's get a move on..." she coaxed with a little more urgency and a eye rolling smile over her shoulder at Elliot, "... or it'll be dark by the time we get there."

"No!" came the theatrical declaration as Eve emerged from her bedroom fully suited up in her little red t-bar shoes and toting Eli's giant Toy Story backpack. "My mama!" with almost frenzied panic the little girl ran directly into Olivia, throwing her off balance in her crouched position and hung around her neck like a clinging monkey, "Mama mine Li-Li!"

"It's E-li..." protested her half sibling, growing tired off correcting her and ever closer to just accepting his moniker fate.

"No!" protested Eve again, pushing Eli away with a firmly outstretched hand as he attempted to push his foot into the jean leg Olivia held out for him.

"Oh no, no, no, no Mouse..." intervening with a determined, authoritative voice Elliot moved quickly across the room and seized Eve swiftly with two hands scooped under her arms, "... this stops right now little lady."

"Daddy no!" kicking her legs and squealing in frustration Eve wriggled determinedly as Olivia watched curiously to see this scene play out. She admired many qualities in Elliot, but from his parenting skills especially she knew she could learn a lot.

"Can you sit down and listen to me like a big girl, please Eve?"

"E-vee?" her father rarely addressed her by her given name, and anything short of Mouse or Evie surely spelled trouble.

"No, no you don't get to cute your way out of this Evie Grace so you can stop that lip right now."

"Uh-oh."

"Yeah, yeah uh-oh is right. Evie, baby, who is your daddy?"

"You..." extending a sausage like finger she wiggled it at Elliot, holding her ice blue eyes steady on his clearly very serious face, "... you."

"That's right. I am your daddy. Do you know who Eli's daddy is?"

"No."

"That's me too, Evie. I'm his Dad as well. You are very, very special to me Mouse..." holding her pinned against his chest Elliot looked across at where Eli and Olivia were equally rapt by the conversation, "... but so is Eli."

"S'my mama..." ventured Eve hopefully, not having been given any real reason why she ought not stake her claim there, "... s'my mama."

"Yes, yes that's your mom but she's also gonna be the new baby's mom too."

"Li-li's momma?" finally, shone the bright eyed realisation in Eve. She understood. At least she thought she did.

"Well..."

"Should we just call Huang now or..." groaned Olivia, shaking her head and dropping her face into her hands defeated.

"Mouse, you see this backpack?"

"My backpack."

"No, no that's Eli's backpack. See his name right here?" pointing to the sharpie letters on the strap Elliot tried a different approach. "It's his. Not yours. But because he loves you he's gonna let you wear it because he knows you like it and it's a kind thing to do. Being a big kid means you gotta start thinking about sharing your stuff. So if Eli lets you wear his backpack sometimes..." wondering just how much of this Eve's little mind was able to wrap itself around Elliot ventured hopefully, "... do you think you could share your mom with other kids sometimes too, like a big girl?"

"Mama." Said Eve, staring over at Olivia with all consuming, unconditional love and marking her territory just one more time before turning a blind eye and distracting herself with Elliot's shirt collar.

"There's my big girl..." sighed Elliot with relief. He realised it was going to take time, and he was far from naive of that fact. Eve had been born to a first time mother with more love and affection to give than anyone he had ever known, and for the first few months it had been just the two of them. Now her little heart was being asked to share her mama not only with him, but with an entire family of half siblings and a future brother or sister she had not bargained for. Knowing exactly what it was to have your entire world revolve around Olivia Benson, he was empathetic to her needing a gradual process and a little patience.

"Kathleen..." interrupting his daydream Olivia held up his cell, having read his message without even pausing to realise whose phone she was holding, "... they'll be with us in ten."

"Awesome." Nodded Elliot, setting Eve back down on the carpet to hunt for his jacket.

"Do we have everything?" asked Olivia, scanning the room as she scraped her misshapen crop of hair into a tiny ponytail. Having cut it short while pregnant with Evie she since couldn't remember the last time she had time to give it any kind of attention past a quick trim of side bangs. In truth, standing in well fitting but painfully old blue maternity jeans and a simple t-shirt she couldn't remember the last time she had time to give her everyday appearance any attention at all.

"Livia can I sit with Evie in the car?" came the voice of a small boy as he tugged on her pant leg and stared up at her with Kathy Stabler's meek little smile. Clearly Eve's earlier tantrum had done nothing to dent Eli's fondness for her.

"Of course you can, sweetie..." wincing slightly as Eli held his hand out to Eve, who stared at him as though to silently question what on earth he was doing, Olivia held her breath, "... can't he baby girl? Eli can sit beside you in Daddy's car, right?"

"Okay..." said Eve with a slight hesitation, her turquoise eyes popping as they danced between the boy who had made his way into her life and the tone in her mother's voice that urged her to embrace his presence there, "... imma good girl?"

"You're a very good girl, baby." Beamed Olivia, ruffling Eve's hair as the little girl reached out a chubby hand of friendship and shoved it into Eli's waiting palm.

"Come on Evie, you can share my snacks." Announced Eli, as they wandered dawdlingly toward the door and Elliot and Olivia shared a poignant glance.

"Imma like na-nas." Volunteered Eve, extending an olive branch in her new found spirit of sharing and itching her diaper with no grace at all. Then, countering it with an eyelash batting simper that could've won her a sash title she flashed her half brother her mother's heart melting smile.

"Bananas are my favourite too."

"There's hope for the little madam yet." Flashing Elliot a wry smile Olivia grabbed a collection of essentials for the road and handing them to him to put in his backpack.

"She just realised some very important things."

"She did?" asked Olivia, unconvinced Eve had made it past the offer of banana.

"She just realised she's never gonna get picked on by the older kids, she's gonna get invited to boy/girl parties and if anyone there ever breaks her heart he's gonna get his ass kicked..."

"Yeah, yeah he is." Shot back Olivia between heartbeats.

"Okay, then he's gonna get his ass kicked twice..." smirked Elliot, adoring Olivia's fire, "... she just realised she has a big brother."

"She has a family." Were the poignant words that made Elliot's world pause on his axis for a moment. Suddenly Olivia was Eve, a little girl again but so terribly lost. Where Eve was bright eyed and infuriatingly opinionated he saw Olivia's lonely, broken pain and it hurt him more deeply than he could stand. Whatever life threw at Eve she would never be on her own, and the comfort that brought Olivia was palpable.

"You driving or am I?" he asked, knowing what she needed from him right then was a rapid distraction.

"You are..." tossing him the car keys without pausing for a reaction Olivia gathered up the diaper bag and her own purse and declared, "... right kids, let's roll."


"I wish I could say I had good news."

"No match on the DNA?" sighed Fin, pushing back his chair from Munch's desk where he had perched for just a few moments several hours before.

"I mean it's very possible we're following a red herring on the STD. That could be circumstantial but, if it isn't, then whoever's sample you sent me isn't our guy."

"Well thanks for..." twisting one thumb around the other and avoiding her eyes Fin found his words stalling, as his pulse quickened and his body temperature rose to an uncomfortable flush, "... so the other night."

"You left in kind of a hurry." Noted Warner with a calm tolerance of his quite disarming behaviour after their kiss at the lab a few days earlier. "In fact I'd probably go as far as to say you couldn't have gotten out of their fast enough."

"You pretty much told me to leave."

"I did not."

"You did so."

"I'm not going to argue with you like we're pre-schoolers Fin..." her pretty face was deceptive of wounds that cut deeper than anyone would have ever been able to imagine as she threw up defensive walls and took a physical step away from him, "... so let's just call this a lesson learned."

"I kissed you. You kissed me. We both freaked out. This isn't complicated Melinda..." he shrugged, a spade never more a spade than in Odafin Tutuola's presence, "... it isn't rocket science."

"I just got out of a long marriage, Fin. I have a child. It might not be rocket science but it isn't as simple as you might think either so..."

"You're marriage was over years ago and your child is older than Ken so how about you just have the balls to tell me you're just not interested..." twisting his face with a broken bitterness he attempted in vain to conceal Fin shrugged, attempting indifference, "... and we'll forget the other night ever happened."

"I really like you."

"What?" he asked, not able to believe either her candour or sentiment.

"I mean obviously there was always an attraction. We flirted, we were a pain in each others asses and there was always this awkward possibility that neither one of us was willing to acknowledge. I showed you my ugly baby toe. You used my shampoo. I watched you watching Eve and I saw how much you adore that little girl and it changed things. It changed everything. We weren't just trading insults over lab results and flirting inappropriately over dead bodies..."

"Shit got real." Said Fin, offering a bitingly accurate summary of events.

"I didn't mean for this to happen. I didn't want it. It isn't practical."

"No."

"It's distracting and inconvenient and the biggest risk I've taken in a long time."

"What are you saying Warner?" asked Fin, not understanding the words but simply listening to the fear in her eyes.

"I like certainties."

"Okay."

"If I'd wanted vague, touchy feely grey areas I would've gone into psychiatry not forensics."

"So what you're saying is you're chicken?" asked Fin, flashing her a teasing grin.

"If this is you giving me a reason to do this crazy thing then..."

"Were you looking for one?" he tested, rising slowly from his chair and tilting his head with a suggestive inquisitiveness.

"No." She lied.

"Because I'm not gonna talk you into anything. I'm not gonna tell you what you should or shouldn't do. You're your own person. You do whatever the hell it is you want."

"I want you..." she heard herself say, the words tripping from her tongue in an uncharacteristically unfettered moment of vulnerability in the middle of the 16th precinct, "... oh my God I'm officially ridiculous..."

"You're not ridiculous..." grinned Fin, wandering over to her and reaching for her hands, "... you're a little kooky, sure, but I kinda dig it."

"Yeah?" she tested, realising that there was little point in attempting to deceive herself and even less in attempting to fool him. She had fallen hard, and denial was futile.

"What if we don't tell anyone?" shrugged Fin, his rough hands warm as they held hers. "What if this is just our thing for a while?"

"I think that would help." She managed quietly.

"Cool."

"Cool..." she nodded, then adding carefully, "... but you should know I'm not like her."

"Who?"

"Benson."

"What's she got to do with anything?"

"Everything."

"Mel..."

"I'm not some brooding, tortured, doe eyed, gun toting doll you can play Tarzan and Jane with. I'm not in her league. I'm very plain, I'm vanilla. I like baking and British period dramas that are historically accurate. I run in the park to Springsteen and I think bubble baths are a waste of time."

"You're not plain."

"I've been the geek as long as I can remember. I was the kid whose homework you copied not the one you took to prom and what's more I didn't care. I didn't want to wear a dress anyway. I am completely comfortable with who I am and the hand I've been dealt in life and..."

"You're not vanilla..." repeated Fin, dropping her hands and grabbing roughly at her waist, dragging her close enough to land an uneven kiss on her still talking mouth, "... you're a lady."


"So Dad is officially past it..." teased Lizzie Stabler, squinting against the late afternoon sun and flashing a challenging smile, "... how about you Olivia?"

"Hey, hey come on! In my defence there was definitely something up with this gun..." defended Elliot, examining the fairground play gun scrupulously, "... it locked when I took aim and..."

"Excuses, excuses!" laughed Dickie, slapping his father on the shoulder and rolling his eyes before taking a gulp from his soda bottle.

"Again, again!" chimed in Eve, waving her arms furiously and willing Elliot to make some more loud banging noises. Everything had been exciting since the moment they had gotten out of the car that morning, and she had no intention of allowing a change in pace.

"Okay, okay angel we're gonna play again..." hushed Kathleen, whose hip the over stimulated toddler had been propped on most of the day, "... your mom's up next, aren't you Olivia?"

"Oh I don't think..."

"You chicken?" challenged Dickie, knowing her just well enough to be able to gauge the right button to push.

"Hand me that..." instructed Olivia, smoothing her t-shirt over her stomach and squaring her shoulders to the multicoloured targets on the stall wall in front of her, "... so I'm aiming for the blue ones first, right?"

"No one hits the blues..." always a keen follower of rules and instructions Lizzie re-read the painted guidelines behind the stall holder and informed, "... but the red and green ones win small prizes and the black ones get you a piece of candy."

"She adores you Katie..." smiled Elliot, stroking lightly at Eve's calf and speaking quietly to his once wayward daughter, "... you know that, right?"

"The feeling is mutual." Replied Kathleen, shifting Eve a little further up her hip and genuinely finding herself able to forget how she came to have a half sibling, only that she wouldn't be without her now she did.

"Jeez Olivia!" whooped Dickie, circling his first in air pumps as Olivia fired through two red and three blue targets much to the stall holders horror.

"You military?" asked the disgruntled face as he took back the gun and begrudgingly acknowledged Olivia victorious at his game.

"Wow, you've got some serious skills..." grinned Dickie, turning to his father and declaring, "... sorry dad, but you just got schooled by a pregnant chick!"

"Dickie you can't call her a..."

"He's fine..." laughed Olivia casually, feeling more relaxed than she had in a long time and knowing there were far names Dickie could call her given their recent history, "... okay kids, pick a prize?"

"Eli? Evie? You pick..." offered Lizzie, as Kathleen wandered closer to the stall with Eve to get a closer look at their soft toy options, "... which one do you want?"

"Mooooooo!" came the comical sound from Eve, as she pointed at the pink elephant and made repeated cow noises.

"I want the tiger."

"Mooooo!"

"I like the monkey too, he's funny..." pondered Eli, sensing he would need to compromise with his vivacious little half sister, "... can we pick this one Evie?"

"Ooh-ooh, aah-aah!"

"Wow, you really know your animal sounds kid!" laughed Kathleen, jostling Eve amusedly and realising she was not only blessed with her mother's looks but with a sharp mind too.

"You haven't lost your touch, sergeant..." breathed Elliot, his words hot on Olivia's neck as he hugged his body into hers from behind and encircled her rounded waistline with a strong armed grip, "... that was pretty impressive."

"I owned your ass..." she murmured, turning her head and feeling her skin flush as his lips landed warm against her jaw line, "... that's for sure."

"Hey, hey come here..." wheedled Elliot softly, attempting to twist her around and steal a proper kiss.

"Not in front of your kids..." she insisted, patting his stomach with a loving rejection and pushing him away.

"Yes m'am." He nodded, loving her all the more for the forethought.


"Hey."

"Kathleen, hey..." smiled Olivia, the wind tickling her face with wisps of grown out bangs as she looked up at Elliot's daughter from her seat on a washed up piece of driftwood, "... you okay?"

"Yeah, yeah I'm great..." replied Kathleen, digging her toes in and out of the sand and dragging a cardigan around her shoulders as the evening chill began to set in, "... and you can call me Katie, you know. Most everyone else does."

"Sure, sure, Katie it is." Nodded Olivia, stroking with preoccupied repetition at Eve's back as the exhausted toddler lay across her lap fast asleep.

"You know you looked a million miles away just now..."

"I think I might have been." Confessed Olivia with a quiet laugh, not even really sure herself where she had allowed her mind to wander.

"There's some pretty intense cake cutting action happening over there..." gesturing to their picnic spot a few feet away where Lizzie, Dickie and Eli were helping Elliot slice up his birthday sponge Kathleen laughed fondly, "... but I thought I'd leave those guys to it."

"You really doing okay?" asked Olivia, reaching for Eve's blanket and tucking it around her daughter's sleeping form.

"Yeah, yeah I'm fine..." nodded Kathleen, leaning forward and stroking the back of Eve's lightly clutched little fist lovingly, "... she's perfect, isn't she?"

"No."

"What?" came the thrown response from Kathleen as she choked an awkward laugh. "Look I know you're kind of new at this mom gig and all, but I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to say that."

"No one is perfect." Said Olivia, unchanged in her feeling.

"I guess so."

"I know so." Smiled Olivia with an accepting, unwavering calm, "Evie will be smart and strong and awesome..." there was a strange, almost mystic feeling in the air as Olivia mused, "... but she won't ever be perfect: and I won't ever hold her to being. She'll make mistakes, she'll screw up and do dumbass stuff she probably shouldn't have and then suffer the consequences. That's life. No one ever helped anyone by expecting perfection."

"I'm in a mess." Confessed Kathleen, feeling a sudden freedom fill her lungs allowing her to breathe more easily.

"With whoever it is you've been texting all day?" asked Olivia with a relaxed but genuine concern.

"Dickie was right..." noted Kathleen with a wry smile, "... you do have serious skills."

"You're really not fine at all..." reaching out and laying her hand on Kathleen's arm Olivia spoke softly, "... are you sweetheart?"

"How does this work?" asked Kathleen cautiously, knowing they were charting new territory and feeling unsure of the boundaries that defined their relationship. "If I tell you?"

"How do you mean?"

"I don't talk to my mom about this stuff. I don't talk to my mom at all really. Maureen's her golden girl, she always has been. Lizzie is a real people pleaser so she does it because she knows mom needs to feel like they're closer than they are. I love my mom but..."

"Don't put me between you and her." Said Olivia, knowing she had to speak before she lost her nerve.

"Okay."

"I want you to be able to trust me and talk to me about whatever you want but I can't get between you and Kathy and I won't get between you and your dad. We need to be very clear about that.." realising that perhaps this was easier than she might have initially feared, and that without the awkward step family politics she was in fact in her everyday comfort zone of providing a judgement free shoulder, "... but so long as we are? Hit me."

"You ever let a guy tie you up?"

"No..." a little thrown but expert at not showing it Olivia continued steadily, "... but I know a lot of people who have."

"Right."

"I don't judge it either; if it's consensual then to each his own I guess. It's just not my thing."

"Turns out... " realising she had been holding her breath Kathleen let out a raspy hiccough, "... it isn't mine either."

"Did he hurt you?" asked Olivia, knowing she needed the answer to that if nothing else.

"No, no not really..." lied Kathleen, swallowing hard, "... but I sure as hell don't ever want to see him again."

"Then you don't ever have to."

"I just feel so..." turning away and holding her eyes closed a moment Kathleen winced, "... cheap."

"Sweetie..."

"I feel dirty and cheap and I only did it because I was scared he'd dump me if I didn't and I hate that I was that girl..."

"We've all been that girl, Katie." Said Olivia with a heavily loaded sigh.

"Yeah?" came the curious response, as Kathleen found herself fascinated by the woman she had once seen as simply a beautiful enigma. Once the distant, formidable figure she had respected as her father's partner and then felt betrayed by as his lover was now a whole person. A fleshed out character, and one to whom she felt intrinsically drawn.

"Yeah."

"Okay so this is the part where you share something crappy you did to make me feel better..." smiled Kathleen, watching Olivia curl into her familiar tortoise shell, "... that's how this sharing thing works."

"You want to know a crappy thing I did, huh?" tested Olivia, as if pushing lightly against the strength of this fledgling connection they were fostering and testing it's resilience to brutal honesty and harsh reality.

"We're bonding." Smirked Kathleen, a little tongue in cheek but nonetheless sincere.

"I fell in love." Replied Olivia, trusting in her young confidant's ability to handle her truth.

"I tell you I let a guy tie me up and beat the crap out of me with a riding crop and that's all you got?" came the disappointed scoff in reply.

"You did not mention the riding crop." Noted Olivia, slanting her right brow upward and shooting Kathleen a protective scowl at the disclosure.

"So what was so crappy about you falling in love?" asked Kathleen, dodging the conversation taking a different direction by persisting in her own line of questioning. "Was the guy secretly an assassin or something? Did you fall for a bounty hunter?"

"No, no he was a husband..." replied Olivia with a calm, composed delivery betrayed only by the fear in her chocolate eyes as she settled them on Kathleen and added quietly, "... I fell for someone else's husband."

"Oh, I..."

"I fell in love with someone I had no right to. Someone who had a wife who didn't deserve the betrayal and a family who didn't deserve to be broken apart. I'm not proud of it but I don't deny it either. I did a crappy thing and people got hurt. I hate that I'm the other woman."

"Wow."

"Like I said, we've all been that girl at some time or other..." sighing heavily Olivia waited for her stomach to rotate on itself and confessed softly, "...and it sure as hell isn't the start I would've wanted for Evie. Heaven help the poor kid if she turns out like me."

"You're not the other woman Olivia."

"Katie you don't have to..."

"You never were." Said Kathleen with a steady determination that spoke volumes of just how long she had felt this way, and how they were able to reach this profound depth of conversation after seemingly so little time. "From the moment my Dad first came home from work saying he had a new partner..." shrugging as though it were simply written in the runes the young woman smiled acceptingly, "... you were the only woman. I know that now."

"I shouldn't have started this conversation with you I'm sorry..."

"Do you know how many birthday trips to Coney Island we had to grin and bear when my mom and dad were pretending to be happy?" asked Kathleen, undaunted in her boldness. "Because I do and I remember them all. Every single one. Every awkward smile in every staged photograph, every forced laugh and hard work conversation. See this?"

"I wish I didn't..." cringed Olivia, glancing at Kathleen's cell phone photo truly horrified by the sight of her digging with Elliot and the little ones in the sand and realising she would never see her single girl figure again, "... remind me not to turn sideways ever."

"I hate that my mom got hurt in all this but I can't remember the last time dad laughed like he has today. I'm not gonna lie and say I'm not sad that my parents have gotten a divorce or that Eli won't get the same childhood we all did..." brushing a curtain of blonde hair back from her face and tucking it behind her ear Kathleen smiled with unusual coy and added, "...but don't ever think that your crappy thing wasn't the best thing that could've ever happened to my dad."

"Do two things for me?" asked Olivia after a few moments of brooding quiet sat between the pair.

"Sure?" breezed Kathleen with a shrug.

"Keep hanging out with Evie..." said Olivia, her eyes locked with warm admiration on Elliot's middle daughter, "... she hangs off your every word and I'm all for that."

"Well that's an easy one..." smiled Kathleen warmly, "... what's the second thing?"

"I take back what I said earlier..." confessed Olivia, realising on the first of many occasions where the line between police officer and mom would blur, "... the next guy who tries to tie you up and beat you like an animal will get his ass handed to him."

"Usually when people say that it's an empty threat but with you I actually think..."

"Don't ever let a guy treat you like a piece of meat Katie?" asked Olivia, unable to restrain the surging maternal hormones imploring her to defend Elliot's child as though she were her own. "Promise me?"

"Okay, okay I won't I swear."

"Okay, then."

"And for what it's worth I don't think you need to worry too much about Evie..." flashing a grin and then softening the sides of her mouth to a kind smile Kathleen shrugged, "... she's already turning out like you and it seems to be working out pretty good for her so far."