A/N: Five people are roped into a unique Christmas tradition. It leads to a few very unexpected presents.
DISCLAIMER: SVU and all related plot/characters originally belong to Dick Wolf. This story, words, and dialogue are mine. © TStabler
The White Elephant wasn't awful. All of the presents were useful and practical, and no one fought over them.
The gingerbread house contest was more fun than expected; Elliot and Olivia won with their incredibly accurate to-scale replica of the Sixteenth Precinct.
The game of Holiday Pictionary was amusing. Munch turned everything into an alien and Elliot's brother Connor simply wrote the word because "I have the artistic ability of a blind octopus."
But this...this tradition that Bernie Stabler had just explained...was not in the usual Yuletide spirit and something that no one outside the family had ever even heard of, really.
Bernie Stabler had asked each guest to write down a secret, a confession, and they were now folding up the red and green slips of paper and tossing them into a glass bowl. She went around the room, collecting them from Elliot and Olivia, Captain Cragen, John Munch, Casey Novak, and two of her other kids.
"What, um," Olivia began, making an anxiously hesitant face at the older woman as she tossed her folded secret into the bowl. "I mean, isn't this something that people usually do on New Year's…"
"No, uh," Elliot cut her off, shaking his head as he sipped his heavily spiked eggnog. "They're not resolutions, they're secrets. Things you've been holding onto for too long, that you don't want to take with you into the next year. Christmas Eve at our house, growing up, was always about letting go of a lot of things so that Christmas Day would be...lighter. Better." He sipped his nog again and sighed. "This is...gonna fucking be awkward, but…" he shrugged. "Tradition."
"This is anonymous, right?" she asked, leaning a bit closer to him so she could whisper.
He chuckled as he swallowed his mouthful of eggnog, nodded at her, and said, "Yeah. No one will know which one's yours." He grinned at her. "Except me," he said with a wink.
Olivia narrowed her eyes at him. "What makes you think you'll know which one's mine?"
"I know everything about you," he whispered to her, something new and dark in his eyes. But then he smirked almost wickedly. "Don't I?"
She didn't know what his expression meant, but she did know he was moving closer to her, he licked his lips, he was going to kiss her and she was going to let him.
"All right!" Bernie Stabler clapped her hands together once, unknowingly breaking her son and Olivia apart and giving them mutual heart-attacks. She chuckled as she swirled the bowl around, shaking up the slips of secrets. She cleared her throat and reached one hand into the wide mouth of the bowl. She grabbed a green slip of paper and unfolded it as she looked around at the faces in the room. Unfolding it slowly, she inhaled deeply and then read it out loud. "I got tired of hearing the complaints, so I've been filling the pot at work with coffee from the cart outside."
Elliot glanced at Munch, knowing the secret was his. He chuckled along with everyone else in the room, silently thanking his mother for letting his friends from work celebrate with them this year. It made him practically forget that it was the first Christmas without Kathy. The first holiday since officially signing divorce papers and moving out of the house he'd shared with his wife and kids for nearly thirteen years.
He looked up, ignoring his mother reading his sister's secret and the fight that ensued, as he thought of his kids, sleeping upstairs. His face fell, landing on Olivia, and he smiled, though she was focused on Bernie and Becky still yelling at each other. He reached out and brushed her hair behind her ear, and when she looked at him, he said, "I don't think I thanked you for letting me stay with you."
"You don't have to thank me," she told him, returning his smile. "You know I'm the only person who could put up with you," she joked with a wink.
He laughed and then sighed, took another swig of his eggnog, and looked back at his mom.
Bernie cleared her throat again, preparing to read another hidden secret. "Let's see," she said, uncurling a slip of green paper. "Oh, now…" she clicked her tongue and looked annoyed, glaring at Connor, her youngest son. "You all aren't taking this seriously," she complained, and then she read in a mocking tone, "When I fart, I blame the dog." She rolled her eyes as the group in the room laughed and Connor guiltily took ownership of the secret.
Elliot dropped his glass to the coffee table as he leaned back, looping his arm around Olivia's shoulders, hoping it was a smooth enough move that she wouldn't notice and hit him. To his surprise and delight, she shifted a bit closer to him. He smirked as his mother pulled a folded red paper out of the bowl.
"Oh, at least one of you is taking this to heart," Bernie declared, and then she read the secret. "Most people in my line of work drink to forget about it, but it's my job that is keeping me sober."
Olivia looked toward her boss, a man who'd become family. Cragen was sitting in a comfy chair, holding a mug of hot chocolate, looking almost reverent now that his secret was out. When he turned, catching Olivia's eyes, they shared a smile and then both gave attention back to Bernie.
Bernie pulled a green piece of paper out of the bowl. She read the secret to herself before reading it out loud, and she stayed solemnly silent for a moment. "Well, um," she began, and she looked around the room. "This is...quite a bit more serious now." She inhaled sharply, and then she read the words, "I'm pregnant."
Elliot's eyes immediately shot to Olivia, but relief flooded him when he saw her stunned and worried expression. "Who…"
"Not me," she whispered to him, "I would have told you that." She bit her lip and said, "We know it's not your mother, and your sister's secret was that she signed your mom up for Christian Singles dot com."
Elliot choked a bit, stifling his laughter, but then let his gaze wander, and he saw everyone else looking around the room, wondering the same thing. His stare finally landed on the only other woman in the room, the only person not concerned with whose secret it was. "Casey," he whispered, his left hand squeezing Olivia's shoulder. He heard her gasp and he opened his mouth to speak, but he was cut off when his mother dug into the bowl and pulled out a curl of green paper. He spoke quickly, "Mom, I think this is getting too…"
Bernie held up a hand. "Elliot, you were all told that these would be read aloud, so…" she blinked twice at her son and then unfolded the secret. She smiled, having a feeling she knew who wrote it, and she read it almost proudly. "I'm in love with my best friend, but even though now that I could, I have no intention of making a move. I know there's no way…" Bernie's face fell, her voice softened. "No way anyone could ever love someone like me."
The silence filling the room was intense. Bernie cleared her throat and said, "Maybe Elliot's right, maybe we need to go back to Pictionary. Why don't we all…"
"Mom," Elliot barked, his heart hammering in his chest, "There's one more secret in there, one you...I think you really need to read." His wide eyes met his mother's worried face, and he said, "Now, please?" He gripped Olivia's shoulder harder and felt his lungs burning in his chest. He knew that the last secret was Olivia's and he prayed to God that he was the friend she was talking about.
Bernie nodded placatingly, reached in, and pulled out the last bit of red paper. "This isn't a secret, not really. I think everyone already knows. I'm in love with my partner. My best friend. My...Liv."
Olivia inhaled softly, her head shooting toward Elliot. "You...sorry, what?"
He laughed, sliding his hand from her shoulder to her hip and pulling her closer. "You said the same thing," he whispered to her. "So that was the only secret we had...the only thing we kept from each other...until now." He searched her eyes, looking for any sign or indication that he was wrong, that it wasn't him she'd been secretly in love with, but when he saw her cheeks turn pink and her eyes shift away from him, he knew.
"Yeah," she whispered back. "You don't have to do this, I get it, you…" she blinked. Turning back to him, she tilted her head. It finally hit her. "You're in love with me?"
He nodded, his lip caught between his teeth. "You're in love with me," he shrugged and he moved closer. "Liv, it's...incredibly easy to fall in love with someone like you. You are the most compassionate, daring, funny…" he swallowed hard. "Beautiful, sexy…" he wasn't even aware that he was moving closer to her until his lips brushed against hers as he spoke. "I love everything about you, I have...for a long time. I guess… used this stupid tradition to finally admit it. Because maybe now we can…"
"Do something about it," she whispered, feeling her mouth move against his. "El?" Her eyes looked deeply into his and she mentally willed him to put her out of her misery by either backing up and forgetting about it or closing in that last little bit and kissing her.
He nodded at her and then pressed his lips to hers, momentarily forgetting that his brother and three of his closest friends, including his boss, were watching it happen. He moaned softly as he pulled back, resting his forehead against hers. "Damn," he breathed, panting, his hand pressing into the small of her back. He chuckled with her, easing some of the tension, and then he asked, "You, uh, you know I'm gonna do that again, don't you?"
Still laughing softly, she nodded, her hands clasped together around his neck. "Maybe it's not such a stupid tradition, after all." She grinned as she met him for another kiss, this one deeper and longer than the first.
Cragen, looking on, smiled as he sipped his cocoa. He turned to Bernie and asked, "How did you know?"
"He's my son," she chuckled. "And I knew that was the only thing she'd never tell him on her own. They needed a little push, Don. They deserve to be happy." She narrowed her eyes at him. "Which is why I hope you won't do anything about this, work-wise?" She raised an eyebrow.
Cragen laughed and said, "Not unless it gets them into trouble, you know that. Why do you think I went along with this little plan of yours?"
Bernie moved closer to him and sat on the arm of his chair. "So, now that their little secret is out, when do you think we can tell them ours?"
Cragen exhaled, his lip curled, and he said, "What are you doing on New Year's Eve, Bern?"
Bernie grinned, and then looked over at her son, still lost in a sweet kiss with the only woman he'd ever truly, deeply, loved. "Merry Christmas," she said to everyone in the room, and she felt that, for the first time in a while, it was.
A/N: Next: A very cold day leads to a HOT night.