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.

He was sitting in the bed, bare-chested, with his computer on his lap when she came out of the bathroom from her evening shower, in her sleep shorts and a tank. It kind of pissed her off. They had an agreement about not bringing work – or their laptops – to bed. But she figured they'd both been doing a lot of things the last few days that were rubbing each other the wrong way. So she bit her tongue and tried to ignore it.

Things hadn't been going so well the last few days. They weren't fighting but they hadn't exactly made up either. There was tension in the house. They were giving each other lots of space. And, though they'd been speaking to each other, they hadn't really been talking. It'd been really awkward. She thought they were both wishing they had their own condos to retreat to until they were both just over it. It was a bit harder when they were sharing the same space – let alone the same bed.

She sat on her side of the bed and took out her moisturizer from her bedside table drawer and started working it into her legs. Her back was to him but she could feel him watching her. She glanced back at him and he pulled his eyes away and went back to examining whatever was on his computer screen.

"Do you want some?" She asked, holding out the bottle to him. They'd spent the last months basically lathering moisturizing creams and lotions on Noah's dry flakey and cracking skin. The IV chemo treatments made it bad enough – the winter months had made it even worse. During it all, Will had gotten over his apparent fear that even touching moisturizing lotion might make him queer – or worse, in his view, metro-sexual. She'd seen him actually pop the cap off her bottle and rub it into his hands and elbows on his own accord a few times.

He just shook his head so she turned her attention back to what she was doing.

"A guy at work has some Knicks tickets for tomorrow's game he's trying to get rid of," she heard him say behind her. "I'd like to take Noah."

She glanced at him again. He was still looking at his computer.

"Are you asking me or telling me?"

He glared at her. "Do I need to ask?" She didn't answer. "Olivia, may I take Noah to the Knicks game tomorrow night?" There was annoyance in his voice.

"Can I come?" She asked.

"I didn't think that'd be something you'd be interested in," he said from behind her.

She turned a bit to look at him. "Why wouldn't I be interested in going? I watch all the games with you here, don't I?"

He shrugged. "You've just never expressed any interest in doing something like that before."

"You've never invited me," she said, feeling like the conversation was quickly dissolving but almost unable to stop herself. "It's always something you do with your brothers anyways."

He almost glared at her but then shook his head. "Whatever. OK. I'll see if he has three tickets."

"Nevermind. Just take Noah," she said and turned away again.

"I said I'd try to get three tickets. Relax." His tone had changed into pissed mode.

She snapped the cap back onto her bottle. She put it back in the drawer and then stood from the bed, pulling back the covers on her side, and got in. She reached over and turned off the light on her side and then stayed on her side, making sure her back was to him and that she was huddled as close to the edge of the bed, and as far away from him, as possible.

She could feel him watching her again but tried to ignore it, closing her eyes and telling herself to just try to go to sleep.

She heard him sigh.

"Liv, we've got to stop this. We can't live like this."

She didn't respond.

She heard him close the top of his computer and lean over to put it on his bedside table and turn out his light as well. She felt him shifting his weight in the bed as he lay right down.

"At least move to closer to the centre of the bed," he said. "You're going to roll onto the floor in your sleep like that."

"I'm fine," she mumbled.

His arm came around her waist and pulled her a couple inches away from the edge of the bed. "No you aren't," he said. She didn't resist him doing it. She figured if she did, she only increased her chances of ending up on the floor.

After he'd pulled her away from the edge, he scooted closer to her and spooned her. It was the first real touching they'd done since their argument. He gave her a single kiss at her jaw-line.

"Com'on Liv," he said. "I don't like us fighting. I'm sorry I yelled. I'm sorry that I made you cry. I'm sorry that it was hard for you to hear. But I'm not sorry for what I said. We need to talk – especially with all this crap going on. We can't just let stuff fester."

He moved her hair with his free hand and kissed her earlobe and then just under her ear and on neck before resting his chin on the back of her shoulder. She could still feel his nose at her neck and his soft exhales there.

"I love you," he told her softly.

She didn't respond. But she took his hand that was around her waist and gripped it in hers, bringing it up more to rest just at the bottom of her ribcage. She allowed herself to relax against him, adjusting her legs to allow theirs both to tangle together a bit more comfortably.

"You smell good," he mumbled against her after a couple minutes of just holding her.

"It's just whatever the shampoo is in there," she said.

"Well, it smells good on you then," he said. "Your legs are super soft right now too."

"Because I just moisturized," she said.

"Mmm, I know. I saw."

"Don't get any ideas," she told him, pulling her ass away from his crotch a bit – as much as she really could in that position, which wasn't much. But she didn't want to help encourage any ideas. She wasn't sure she was done being upset with him yet or that she wanted make-up sex that night.

But he just nuzzled her neck a bit more and held her – not making a move to initiate anything else. She supposed he got her vibe – or that he wasn't entirely done being upset with her yet either.

"So tell me stuff," he said after another bout of silence. "Your day."

She was just gazing into the dark of the room at that point, feeling his breathing against her back, as his chest moved in and out. Some light was creeping in through the blind and creating little slants of almost a navy blue across the floor.

"I got in the paperwork for the imposed vacation," she told him finally. "Cragen made me submit two weeks."

"Yeah. What weeks?" He asked.

"I put in for your Reading Week and the one after," she said. She felt him nod against her. "If you think you can get any of it off, I can call P-Fam tomorrow and see if anything in the timeshare might be available."

"Mmm, yeah," he said. "If you don't mind me bringing the computer and logging on once a day, the Reading Week won't be a problem. I'd have to ask and make some arrangements to get the other week cleared, though."

"OK," she said. "I'll ask about the first week first then."

"We don't have to go anywhere," he told her. "If you want, it's OK to just hang around here. Catch up on life. Probably need to talk to Noah's doctors to make sure that's an OK week for him to be out of the city anyways too."

"Yeah, I looked at the calendar already. It's not an IV week. Should likely be OK."

"OK," he said. "Well let me put out some inquiries tomorrow and see if I can clear out part or all of the second week too. I can probably get some of my TAs to run my classes that week – or my PhD student. I need to look at my schedule – see if I've got any meetings or anything. But two weeks would be nice."

She shifted and rolled towards him so she was facing him. He rested his arm back on her waist as she settled, his hand just touching her ass. She rubbed his cheek with her upper hand. He was always so scratchy by the evening. She leaned in and kissed his lips. He opened his mouth for a deeper kiss and she returned it, breaking off after several minutes.

"I love you too," she told him – finally and much delayed.

He gave her a small smile and rested his forehead against hers. His hand came up and rubbed her hair, putting a lock of it behind her ear for her.

"Go to sleep, Liv. You're way overtired. Everything is OK. We're OK. Rest."

She nodded. "OK." She shut her eyes again. Her forehead still resting against his and his fingers now gently massaging into her shoulder. It felt nice – and safe.