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The initial feeling of hurt that flowed through her veins, was overcome by her instinctual need to protect her vulnerable side. So instead of asking him to stay, she said, "Fine, go right ahead. But don't think you're crawling back into bed with me in the middle of the night." He didn't respond to her, just continued his journey out the door with his pillow in hand. Only when it shut behind him, did she allow herself to bury her face in her hands and take a couple deep breaths.
She hadn't meant to offend him. She was only stating the facts that surrounded their lives at that moment. As much as she trusted Elliot, once again, with her and Noah's lives, that didn't necessarily mean she completely trusted him to be Noah's father. Of course, she wanted him to be Noah's father. When she had told him yes at the house earlier that day, she meant it. If Noah wanted to call him dad, she would be more than happy to allow it. But that didn't stop her fears of the unknown.
Allowing Elliot to be Noah's father was way different than him being a father figure to him. Since she hadn't grown up with a father, she wasn't one hundred percent certain what role a father played in the raising of a child. Nor did she know how to coparent. However, she did know that being his father meant Elliot had a say of what the boy could and could not do. He would no longer have to look up at her for reassurance. And that alone, scared her.
She glanced up at the closed door one more time and at the empty space beside her, before reaching over to turn off the lamp. Laying down, she turned her body away from Elliot's side of the bed and opted to stare at the wall instead. It only took about a minute for her to realize that she had become addicted to Elliot's arms wrapped around her at night and sighed heavily when she also realized that sleep was probably not going to come to her. Turning on her back, she looked up at the ceiling with tear filled eyes.
They had been successfully co parenting ever since she and Noah moved in with them. She had voluntarily stepped in to be Eli's mother figure, while Elliot had voluntarily stepped in to be Noah's father. Although Eli's situation was different than Noah's, Eli had a biological mother who was very involved in his raising up until only a few weeks ago, she still loved the boy as her own. Just like she loved Noah as her own, the minute she found him. If it was possible for her, it was also possible for Elliot as well.
However, as she sat up in bed and draped her feet over the edge, the start off frustration began. He should have known her well enough to know that she needed to be reassured on everything. Her need for reassurance wasn't something that came out of nowhere. With her years of abandonment issues, by him as well, she would have thought he would have been the last one to walk out of the room on her. With how much he had changed, she thought he would have sat next to her and draped his arm around her shoulders. Not wasting any time reassuring her over and over again that he wanted to be Noah's father. The fact that he didn't caused her, once again, to lay back down on the bed with a huff.
Elliot was on his back, with his hands crossed over him staring at the living room ceiling. The boiling of his blood had long cooled off and he was now stuck going over the whole night without the original cloud of anger.
He had come such a long way throughout his life when it came to his temper. He went from a man who would connect his fist to anyone who looked at him to a man who could more than handle being forcibly shoved in a public courthouse. The time it took him to get to a happier mentality in his life was something that he always believed had taken too long. Instead of choosing things that would have made him less angry, he choose things that made him more angry. His years of marriage with Kathy and his years of partnership with Olivia, more than proved that to him.
However, no matter how much he prided himself in, he was still Elliot Stabler. Sure he wouldn't just up and punch someone now, but that didn't mean he wouldn't if he needed to. One could only change so much about themselves.
Opting to sleep on the couch, and essentially abandoning Olivia in the room by herself, was a perfect example of the old Elliot Stabler that still lived inside the new. Rather than trying to understand her point of view better, he walked away because, at that point, he didn't care about what her point of view was.
He wanted to be Noah's father and she had just got done telling him at their, soon to be, house that she wanted him to be his father as well. The look she had given him when she said yes, was one full of sincerity. So, he wasn't quite sure when she had changed her mind, if she had even changed it at all.
The hardest thing about the woman, that he was so desperately in love with, was that she had never seen her own worth. She had always prided herself by the things she accomplished for other people, the lives she protected on a day to day basis. However, she had never prided herself in being an all around beautiful human being.
In the beginning of their partnership, he was quick to chalk it up to the family that she was born in. Her father was a rapist, while her mother was a drunk because of him. However, it stemmed much further than that. Other than Noah, Olivia had never been given anything good in life. She had been abandoned since day one, tried to fill that abandonment with doing good in the world, only to be consistently abandoned by men she had physically given herself to and by the one man who she never thought would ever leave her, himself. And the worst of all of it, was that he didn't just leave her, he abandoned her as well. Without even so much as a goodbye.
Without her job, and now without Noah, she would see herself as nothing, while he saw her as everything the moment he laid eyes on her.
Sitting up from the couch, he scrubbed his hands down his face and stood up. Fine, go right ahead. But don't think you're crawling back in bed with me in the middle of the night. Even if she refused to let him back into bed, he at least owed her an apology for walking out on her.
The slow opening of the bedroom had her peering her eyes towards the man entering. He didn't quite step all the way in the bedroom, more choosing to stay in the threshold. The way he drew his bottom lip between his teeth accompanied with the look of regret on his face, had her sighing, "I told you not to expect to be able to crawl back into bed with me Elliot."
He nodded his head gently, "I know… I… I just wanted to tell you that I was sorry. I shouldn't have left like that. Leaving doesn't solve anything and I should know that more than anyone. But I…" He stepped enough into the bedroom to be able to close the door behind him, before continuing, "I may not be his actual father Liv, but I want to be his father. And I'll spend the rest of my life proving that not only to you, but to him as well."
The emotions that flowed through her at that moment left her speechless, in the fear that if she opened her mouth a sob would escape her. So instead of saying anything, she gave him a slight nod of her head.
He gave her a gentle smile and said, "I love you," before turning around and reaching for the door handle.
"El…" escaped her mouth before she even had time to think about it. When he turned around to look at her, she asked, "Do you want to come back to bed?"
"Of course I do honey. But can I?" With a nod of her head, he didn't waste any time walking to his side of the bed and crawling underneath the covers next to her.
A few seconds of silence passed between them, before she turned her body toward his. He was, of course, already on his side facing in her direction. When their eyes met, she whispered, "I'm so scared." His arms were instant to pull her in, and her sobs escaped her as soon as her face buried in his neck, "I'm so scared Elliot."
As his hands took a soothing pattern up and down her back, he said, "I know Liv."
She tried to speak between her sobs, "W… why? Why am… am I… I…"
"Shh Olivia." He weaved his hands in her hair and kissed her gently on the lips. "You have every right to be scared baby. After all you've been through in this life, you have every right to protect yourself and every right to protect Noah. But you, Olivia Benson, deserve to be happy. You deserve everything. And I want to give it to you." He kissed her once more, "Whether you believe it or not Liv, I know it. I've always known it. Let me prove it to you."
She nodded through her tears. Once she got her breathing under control, she said, "Kind of hard to prove it with you sleeping on the couch El."
"I know, I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry too. I want you to be Noah's father Elliot but my fears will never go away. And sometimes they take more of a forefront in my mind. But regardless of being his father or not, Noah does need to be explained to him that girls have a choice too, that's not something I'm budging on. And you of all people should know the importance of that."
He nodded his head in understanding, "I will talk to him about it, I promise."
She connected their lips once more, however briefly, "I love you."
"I love you too." His lips trailed kisses along her eyes, over her nose and down to her lips. "Sleep baby. I'm not going anywhere."
Instead of waking up the next morning to her alarm clock, she was awoken by a slight shake of her body, the sound of her name and the smell of coffee and pancakes. When she opened her eyes, she was met with Elliot, who was sitting next to her on her side of the bed, with a smile on his face.
"Good morning." As her eyes peered at the clock next to her, which read five in the morning, he reached for the cup of coffee he had placed on the nightstand, "I know it's an hour earlier than you usually wake up, but I thought I would make the new Captain breakfast in bed."
"Thank you," she said with a smile on her face.
When she sat up to retrieve her coffee out of his hand, he reached behind her to sit her pillow against the headboard. So when she sat back, she had a cushion for her back. "Is this your way of buttering me up because of last night?"
He chuckled and sat her plate of pancakes down on her lap, "No, I already apologized for that last night. Which I have no problem doing again, I'm sorry for walking away from you, when that's the last thing either one of us needs and for not understanding why you were upset."
She nodded, "I'm sorry for saying you weren't actually Noah's father."
He leaned in to kiss her lips gently, "This is because you deserve breakfast in bed, just like you deserve everything else."
The impact of his words had her eyes filling with tears once more. To stop them from escaping, she looked down at her plate of pancakes. There was nothing spectacular about them, just a simple stack of pancakes with strawberries and syrup on top, the way she had always liked them.
Setting her coffee on the nightstand, she sliced a piece and took a bite. Something that she had never known about Elliot and had learned since they started dating, was that the man could cook. He could cook just about anything, from a pancake breakfast to deep fried jalapeño poppers, and it would taste like it had come out of a restaurant. With a small loan of approval, she asked, "Were you always good at cooking?"
Not expecting that question, he had to register what she had asked him before he smiled, "What do you mean, always?"
"Like is it something you were always able to do or something that you learned throughout the years?" When they were partners, she knew many things about him. So much, that she felt as if she knew him better than he knew himself sometimes. But it was simple things, like Elliot's cooking or bathroom habits, that she had no clue about.
He shrugged, "Um, I guess something that I've always known how to do. Probably have gotten better since I started doing it more. But was never, younger Olivia Benson, bad at it." The last sentence ended with a chuckle.
She shot her eyes at him and glared at him playfully. With his shit eating grin at her, she laughed. "So, you were just bad at it?"
They both welcomed the fit of laughter they fell into at that moment. The past was something they never spoke about anymore. Something they had both silently chosen to remember as being there, but not as existing. Their combination of chuckles and giggles, ultimately ended with the remembrance of it.
Younger Olivia not being able to cook, was something that he had enjoyed many laughs about. The amount of take out receipts the lady had in the top drawer of her desk was embarrassing. And the fact that she more than knew her cooking sucked, made it even more funny. She would sit there with her third tub of Chinese food of the day and would take pride in her lack of ability to boil an egg. They both knew by the look of sadness and humor in their eyes that they were recalling the exact same thing.
With his eyes softly on hers, he leaned his body slowly forward. When his were within inches of her face, with his hands on either side of her hips, he gazed at her. The emotions that flew through their eyes at that moment were enough to forgive all the wrong that had happened in the past, "I loved you then and I love you now."
She did nothing to stop the tears from falling as she leaned the rest of the way towards him to connect their lips gently, "Me too El, me too."