A/N: Thank you all for your wonderful reviews and I'm glad that you are all loving the way this is going. I promise that there will be more sweet times ahead for our favourite couple but there will be drama too and oh boy, the drama is coming again, the worst is not over. But i suppose the one good thing to come out of this worst situation with the self-isolations, social distancing and everything, I've found myself finding more time to write and edit, so hopefully i can keep chapters coming out relatively quickly.

31. Bernie Stabler

If you thought that taking two young children who were beyond excited to see their grandmother, to the airport to collect that grandmother, would be easy – you'd be wrong. If you thought that they would be calm and under control and Elliot wouldn't feel like everyone was judging him, you'd be wrong again. It was like Elizabeth and Richard had eaten sugar for breakfast and that they were high off that sugar. Elliot simply couldn't get them to sit down long enough for anything. They would take turns asking him almost every minute 'how much longer daddy?', 'Daddy where's the plane?', 'Daddy where's nanny?' etc. The morning coffee that Elliot had grabbed before they left, had barely kicked in yet and he was already having to try control his children. He loved their excitement to see their grandmother though. He had to admit he'd missed his mother but clearly not as much as the twins had, and this excitement was very cute.

"Daddy, why haven't they got off the plane yet?" Richard asked as Elliot stood by the twins at the gate, waiting for people to start disembarking the plane.
"Well, they have to make sure everything is safe and ready before they can let people leave the plane" Elliot tried to explain.
"Why would it not be safe?" Elizabeth asked, following up on what her father had just said.
"Well, maybe the doors haven't opened yet or the platform hasn't come over to the plane yet and so if people got off the plane without the platform, they would fall and hurt themselves" Elliot continued to explain.
"But why?" Richard asked
"Well they wouldn't have anything to stand on, they can't stand on air" Elliot continued to try and explain, hoping this wouldn't be the situation where everything was 'but why' from the twins. He really didn't quite have the energy for that today. He honestly didn't know how long it was going to take for his mother to appear from the plane but he hoped that it wouldn't take too long as the kids would probably lose it. He had a car waiting in private parking, ready to take them all home. He just didn't know how much luggage his mother would be bringing, so Elliot had made sure to get his driver to bring the bigger SUV type car rather than his town car. Elliot just hoped the wait would be over soon.


The ride home from the airport had been really sweet, with both Richard and Elizabeth trying to tell their grandmother everything that had happened in their lives since they'd last seen her – in the space of 5 minutes. Elliot on the other hand had been texting with Olivia, joking about Chloe and what the mother and daughter pair would be getting up to today. Elliot knew that his mother would likely be suspicious with his consistent attention to the phone and occasional laughs to himself, but he didn't want to end this conversation with Olivia. However, it was Olivia herself that told him to stop talking with her and enjoy this time with his mother. He obviously declined and only when she stopped responding to his messages, did he know she was being serious. He would enjoy the time with his mother here, but he was going to try and talk to her again later today as he couldn't physically see her today, despite how much he may want to.

"What is so important on your phone right now that you won't talk to your mother?" Bernie asked as she stood next to Elliot in the elevator up to the penthouse.
"Nothing" Elliot lied, Bernie just raised an eyebrow, questioning his remark.
"Elliot Stabler, I know when your lying" Bernie replied.
"Mom, really it's nothing, it's just work related" Elliot lied again, he wasn't going to tell his mother that he was texting with a woman whom he was seeing. He wasn't going to tell her about Olivia.
"And I'm not getting any younger my boy. Put your phone away and be involved" Bernie reprimanded her son. Elliot knew there was no way to get out of this so he placed his phone in his picked and directed everyone out of the lift to the living room.

"Now, how is the business going?" Bernie asked, once she had her son's attention.
"It's good, the Florida hotel is almost ready to start being built. I'm flying out there the week after next for the ground breaking ceremony and then I have to attend a conference in Toronto. All the other chains of the hotel are going well though, making serious profit and the Honolulu branch is looking to expand" Elliot explained to which his mother was very impressed to hear of it all going well.

"Daddy, you're leaving?' Elizabeth spoke up. It was obvious that she was listening into this conversation.
"Not yet sweetheart, I have to go away in a little while but not just yet" Elliot tried to soothe the girls worries.
"Not before your birthday though, right?" Richard asked
"No, not till after my birthday" Elliot confirmed.
"Can Miss Benson look after us again when you go away daddy?" Richard asked which took Elliot by complete surprise. He didn't expect Richard to ask for Miss Benson, he had expected that type of question from Elizabeth.
"Yes please daddy…I want to stay with Miss Benson" Elizabeth chimed in. Elliot looked up and saw his mother was giving him the same look she'd given him earlier, with one raised eyebrow. Clearly she had questions and Elliot hadn't been wanting to touch this topic just yet but looked like the children had thrown him right into it.

"Nanny has come all the way out here to visit us and spend some good time with you two yet already you want to replace her? That's not very nice. I know you two had fun when Miss Benson was here and she hasn't looked after you in a while but Nanny is here to stay with you instead" Elliot explained, wanting desperately to end this conversation. He was glad to hear that his children had such a good time with Olivia and he hoped if things continued to progress with him and Olivia, then in the future they would spend more time all together but now was not that time.
"Ok…I still want to see more of Miss Benson. Lizzie has her as a teacher and it's not fair, I don't get to see her lots" Richard remarked as he made his way upstairs to his bedroom, he was on a mission to play with his Lego for a while. Elliot knew that Richard had been less than keen for Olivia to look after him and Elizabeth to begin with, so it was surprising now that he was so keen to spend time with Olivia now. But he placed that all down to the incident and wanting in a way, to be protective of Olivia, which Elliot admired in his son.


Elliot sat in his home office, Bernie was entertaining the twins for now and Elliot had come into his office for a while to work on a few things. But his thoughts had been purely on Olivia. This week had been rather intense in a variety of ways for them, but they'd shared some special times too. Elliot had finally taken Olivia on their first date which Elliot thought was a success and he simply hadn't stopped thinking about her since. He enjoyed their text conversation this morning, and heard all about how they were out early shopping for Chloe but part of him still wanted to talk properly with Olivia. He decided to seize the moment he had by himself for now and just call her. Olivia seemed to take a while to answer the call, not in the usual 2-3 rings but Elliot put it down to himself feeling impatient to speak with her.

"I was just thinking about you" Olivia greeted when she answered the call.
"Funnily enough, I was thinking about you too" Elliot teased a little.
"How did this morning go? Did your mother arrive alright?" Olivia asked.
"She did thank you, the twins could hardly wait to see her, they were desperate before she even got off the plane"
"That doesn't surprise me, Elizabeth has been talking about her visit for a while"
"Apparently though they aren't too excited with my mother here to stop them from asking if you can look after them when I go away" Elliot explained, remembering the excitement the twins had earlier when asking if Olivia could look after them and how awkward he felt in front of his mother.
"Cute. Well I'll see them every day at school and I'm sure we can arrange to spend some time together outside of school when you return" Olivia replied which Elliot liked the sound of, he always liked the idea of spending more time with her.
"Well yes, you realise though you are going to see them more than I will over the next couple of weeks. So I'm going to be relying on you to make sure they are ok and tell me"
"Don't I always?" Olivia teased.


Whilst Elliot was on the phone with Olivia, he had no idea that his mother was outside his office and had been listening to her son's conversation. She didn't know who exactly he was talking to but she knew it had to be important because he seemed to be having a lovely conversation. It had been a while since she'd heard him laughing over the phone like this and genuinely sounding like he was enjoying the conversation, so this mystery person was significant. Bernie would get to the bottom of this.
Ever since Kathy had walked out, Bernie had been especially cautious around who her son was spending time with, based purely on the concern that he would get close to another woman either too soon or she wouldn't be right. Bernie didn't want her grandchildren, getting attached to another woman who was purely only interested in Elliot's money. She liked to hope though whoever Elliot was talking with now, wasn't like that though. It wasn't that she didn't want her son to find happiness again, to find another woman who could fill the void that was made when Kathy left. Bernie just wanted to know the intentions were right and that she could trust her son and grandchildren were going to be loved as much as they deserved.

Bernie remembered the conversation earlier today, where the children had mentioned a 'Miss Benson' and they seemed to be awfully fond of her. Bernie wondered if this was the same person on the phone right now and what the intentions were. Was this woman actually caring for her grandchildren and son or was this a woman who knew how rich Elliot was and a successful businessman, perfect to get her claws into. She had to give her son some credit though, she knew she brought him up right and she knew that he would surely never be so silly to fall for someone like that. But then again, on the other hand – he had fallen for Kathy, got married and had children before that woman just up and left, right when Elliot needed her the most. It was evident there was some scaring on this children from this and Bernie was extra protective now because of that.

"Nanny, what are you doing?" Elizabeth asked as she came over to where her grandmother was standing by the door.
"Nothing honey, I was just wondering where your dad had got to but sounds like he is in here, on the phone" Bernie replied.
"Who is he talking to?" Elizabeth asked, Bernie had been hoping the little girl could answer that, but apparently not.
"I don't know honey, but I'm sure he'll come and tell us later if we need to know" Bernie said knowing she'd really been found out now and trying to redirect the little girl's attention away from the door before Elliot came out.
"It could be Miss Benson, daddy talks to her a lot. But I want to talk to Miss Benson too!" Elizabeth stated, trying to go for the handle to open the door, Bernie was quick to stop this.
"Come on now, we'll go see if there are some afternoon tea snacks ready" Bernie said, guiding Elizabeth away from the door to the study and towards the dining room. She would have to leave this further investigation to another time – she would definitely get to the bottom though.

A/N: Well, Bernie has arrived and it looks like she's out to cause a few issues but will these have a good or bad result. Next Chapter; Elliot's time away and what happens when he returns?
Let me know what you thought of this chapter and how you're finding the story, by leaving a review? I love reading them and they really help me out. Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy, please stay safe with everything going on in the world right now and remember to wash your hands.
Until Next Time ;D