Just a warning before you read: the very end of this chapter does contain moderate discussion of disordered eating. I've put a line break in right before it starts so you can skip that part if you want to, and if you want to discuss it with me before you read please please do- you can DM me on here, on twitter (IseultLaBelle) or on Instagram (chloeggodard), or if you want to stay anonymous you can leave a review on this story and I'll reply to it on twitter.
I've had a few people ask whether it's realistic that Lewis could gain shared custody of Lollie- scarily it's completely possible. There are laws in New York state which prevent rapists from gaining custody of their children conceived by rape, but only if rape can be proven, and we all know what Lewis is like on the show. This will be covered properly in later chapters, but yes, it's realistic.
I'm really nervous to post this one, so as ever, your feedback would be so so appreciated. I THINK the next chapter is going to be Lollie calling Elliot while Olivia is struggling with Lewis-related PTSD, but if you would prefer something different just let me know!
-IseultLaBelle x
Chapter 11
September, 2028
"You're wearing my sweatshirt."
"No, I'm not." Lollie blinks at him, genuine confusion in her eyes at his statement, hurries down the steps of the period building that houses her dance studio to greet him. "What are you doing here? Mom didn't say you were coming to get me, she told me to take the subway to…"
"It was a bit of a last-minute thing," he agrees, taking in her attire now, more than a little horrified. "How was dance?"
"It was good."
"Yeah? What did you have tonight?"
"Ballet and conditioning. And then contemporary."
"You do ballet in that?"
She's wearing a hugely oversized, years-out-of-date NYPD issue sweatshirt that swamps her so completely it might as well be a dress, so big on her that it entirely conceals whatever horrendously revealing dancewear she has on underneath (Christ, Elliot wishes Olivia would buy her some goddamned leggings and a gym shirt), the sneakers he and Kathy bought her for her birthday, hair scraped back into a messy bun and far more mascara and eyebrow gel than any fourteen year old of his would ever be allowed out in.
"I got changed for contemporary." She turns distracted, shouts goodbye to a group of her friends heading out onto the street.
"And you were going to ride the subway dressed like that?" His heart is racing, suddenly fixated on every case of sexual assault on a packed train he recalls working in all his time at SVU, allows himself just for a moment to imagine it being Lollie and instantly wants to throw up.
"It's, like, ten minutes on the subway," Lollie argues. "And then it's only a couple of blocks. I can take the subway by myself, Uncle Elliot…"
"Not dressed like that, you can't. You're fourteen," Elliot protests, tries not to even think about how the scum he encounters on a daily basis on the job might eyeball her with so much leg showing. "You're fourteen, and it looks like you haven't got anything on under that…"
"I have shorts on."
"I'm glad to hear it, but it doesn't look like it. I don't want you walking around dressed like that. Alright? Let alone on the subway by yourself. There are some awful sadistic predators in Manhattan, Lollie, you put pants on under sweaters like that when you're out on the streets. You promise?"
"Everyone else wears…"
"I don't care if everyone else is doing it. You don't. You going to promise?"
She sighs. "Okay. I promise."
"Good. And if you're going to be taking the subway, you can always drop me a message first and check if I'm free to come get you instead," he tells her sincerely. "Because I always will if I can. Will you remember that for me?"
"Thanks. Giving me a lift is totally the wrong direction from SVU back to your place, though," Lollie points out. "You don't have to drive all the way back up Manhattan for me, I can look after myself…"
"Yeah, well. I was just passing through tonight, it must be your lucky day. I've got plenty of time, your mom let me off earlier than I thought she would tonight. Auntie Kathy isn't expecting me for a little while yet. And I don't like the thought of you on the subway with all your stuff from the weekend, the subway's every pickpocket's paradise. The car's this way."
It's not just about the pickpocketing, though.
Hell, it's not even just about the fact that Olivia is apparently totally fine with letting her out following the latest god-awful teenage fashion trend.
She's so much more… developed, than his own daughters were at fourteen- Elliot doesn't know quite how else to put it besides that.
(That probably sounds horribly wrong for him to have even noticed, but he works in sex crimes, after all, and he's been coming up with reasons to worry about her excessively ever since the day she was born.)
She looks older than fourteen; that's what he means. His own girls were still built like the children they were at fourteen, but Lollie already has Olivia's figure- and that's not exactly a surprise, given she's been the spitting image of her mother her entire life, her double. But she's still a baby.
She's still a baby, but she's not all that far off Olivia's height now, has Olivia's physique, Olivia's curves, Olivia's striking beauty.
It would be so easy.
Elliot should know; how many times has he seen it at work?
It would be all-too easy for some vile piece of shit to do the unthinkable to her and turn around and claim he thought she was seventeen.
He knows it because he's seen it so many times before, and it scares the hell out of him.
He doesn't know how the hell Olivia can let her roam the streets of Manhattan by herself, let alone at night.
"I don't actually havethat much stuff with me. I just packed everything I took to my dad's in my dance bag." Lollie gestures to the holdall slung over one shoulder, counterbalancing her school backpack on the other. "See? So it all fits in my locker. That way Mom doesn't have to come and get my stuff from me at school when I go there from my dad's house."
"You know your mom doesn't mind coming to get your bag off you from school, right? I think she quite likes having the excuse to come and see you when you've been at his place overnight, actually. I know I do."
That's the understatement of the year, and Elliot knows it.
He hates the anticipation.
He hates having to wait the weekend out or the midweek overnight and then the next morning through until Olivia finds an excuse to slip out and run over to Brighton Beach in the name of collecting Lollie's paraphernalia from staying at Lewis's before he knows she's survived the visitation unscathed, and he knows just how much Olivia hates it too.
"It's a total waste of her time though, isn't it?" Lollie argues, dumps her bags into the trunk of his car. "Driving all the way over to school, I mean. Mom doesn't get enough downtime as it is."
"You said it, not me," he laughs, though he's watching her carefully, on-edge, ready to jump into protective mode if necessary. "You okay?"
She's… vulnerable, somehow, a little tense, but Elliot can't for the life of him pin it down to anything more specific than that.
"Why wouldn't I be?"
"Well, I haven't spoken to you since you've been back from Long Island, have I?" Elliot brushes her aside. "Make sure you check the traffic properly before you come and jump in, Lolliebug, alright? This road's dangerous."
"I go to my dad's every other weekend," Lollie points out, though there's something in her eyes now that Elliot can't quite place. "And every Wednesday night."
"So?" They climb into the car in sync, and he pushes the key into the ignition as she kicks off her sneakers, pulls her knees up to her chest.
"So I'm fine." She shoots him her best mock-exasperated look, just a little too defensive for it to be entirely true. "I go to my dad's all the time, it's no big deal."
Elliot's heart aches for her and Olivia unbearably.
"You remind me so much of your mother when you look at me like that," he tells her, rolls his eyes. "Always fine, your mom."
"Even when she isn't."
"Exactly. That's why I always ask. Put your seatbelt on for me."
She obliges, unscrews the lid of her water bottle, fidgets. "I'm fine."
"Finefine or your mom's fine?"
"Finefine."
"Alright. If you're sure. Where am I taking you tonight, then?" He checks the rear-view mirror, pulls out, and she's on edge and he can't work out why.
"Do you remember where Broadway Dance Center is?"
"West 45thStreet?"
"Uh huh."
"So you've just finished dance… and now you want me to take you to more dance?"
"You didn't have to come and get me, Uncle Elliot," Lollie reminds him. "I was going to take the subway, until you…"
"We've been through this already. I'm not as brave as your mom is, I don't like the idea of you on the subway by yourself at night."
"My dad lets me take the subway alone, too," she points out casually. "He wanted to just put me on the subway back to Mom's when he took me to see Famelast month…"
"Yeah, well." Elliot shudders. "He just wanted to see where you needed the destination to be when he bought you the ticket. You did the right thing, Lollie. Calling Uncle Fin was definitely the best thing you could have done in that situation, I think."
His goddaughter shrugs. "I know my Dad thinks Mom moved after they met, and it has to stay that way."
"To be fair, she did for a while."
"Hmm?"
"She moved in with Brian, right after… right after she was with your dad." God, he hates having to tell her this lie, having to dance around the true circumstances of her conception but then Olivia is right, what else can they do? "Your mom rented her place out- your place you live in now- and she moved in with Brian for a while. She went back after they split up, when you were a baby." He stops now, panic building inside him. "You know it's really, really important you never tell him that?"
"Course I do."
"Good. So, more dance, then?"
"Uh huh. Just another hour and a half."
"That one of those masterclass things?"
"Yeah."
"Your mom spoils you."
"It's Hamiltonchoreography." Lollie pouts at him. "Like, from the actual show. The Broadway choreographer's teaching it."
"Well, that explains everything, then. I've never known anyone take a musical as seriously as you and your mom take Hamilton." Elliot pulls on the handbrake at the lights, glances across at her, takes her in properly. "How many times you seen that now?"
"Fifteen."
"That's insane."
"You said you enjoyed it!"
"I did- once! I don't get what's so special about it you have to see it fifteen times."
She looks at him as though the answer is the most obvious thing in the world. "Because it's about belonging, isn't it?"
"How do you mean?"
"Well, Hamilton was born in the Caribbean, wasn't he? And he lost his family as a kid, when he came to New York, he had nobody. But then he reinvented himself, he worked really hard and he became an American because he wanted to be. He never let where he came from and who his parents were stop him from achieving anything. He's, like, the ultimate example of how in New York you can be anything you want to be. And he's not perfect, he makes mistakes. But he never lets tragedy define him. That, and we just really like musicals."
He's silent for several moments, digesting her words, not for the first time floored by Olivia's daughter and her powers of perception.
"You know something, Lollie?" Elliot drums his fingers against the steering wheel pensively. "I think I've learnt more about your mom through our car rides, just you and me, than I have in the twenty years I've spent with her. That's… wow. That's observant."
He forgets, sometimes.
So strong are his own family ties, his sense of his own Irish-American heritage, the sense of belonging his Catholic faith provides, that sometimes he fails to consider just how little Olivia has through which to construct a sense of shared identity, solidarity, for herself in comparison.
He doesn't consider nearly enough how lonely that must be for her- for Lollie, too, come to that.
"You won't tell her I said that?" Lollie bites her lip, catches his eyes in the rear-view mirror, clearly afraid she's said too much.
"Not a word, I promise." His phone chimes loudly in the cup holder.
"That's your mom," he tells her by the text alert. "You want to look at that for me?"
"Uh huh." She's silent for a moment, unlocks his phone, reading. "Mom says thanks for giving me a lift and she's going to buy you coffee tomorrow."
"Alright. Can you message her back for me and tell her any time, and I'll see her tomorrow?"
"Sure."
'Thanks." He glances across at her as she pulls her sleeves over her hands, self-conscious, almost, curling into herself, and he doesn't understand why. "That's definitely my sweatshirt."
"No, it's not."
"It is!"
"It's not! It's Mom's."
"Oh, that what she told you?" Elliot laughs. "I promise you, that's my sweatshirt. Or it used to be, anyway."
"How do you know?" Lollie asks. "It's just a standard NYPD one."
"Trust me, that's not your mom's. It looks like a men's XL to me, that's definitely not your mom's size. I lost that about three years before you were born, I'd recognise those frayed sleeve cuffs anywhere."
His goddaughter shoots him a look he can't quite place. "She stole it from you?"
"It certainly looks like it, doesn't it? How come you're wearing it?"
She tenses, shrugs, clams up.
"You been wearing that this weekend? Around your dad?" Elliot presses. "You know how he feels about cops…"
"He didn't see it."
"He didn't?"
"Nuh uh. I just wore it to sleep in when I was at his place."
"Even so. Your mom seriously let you borrow that this weekend?"
She glances down awkwardly, turns her hands around themselves, grabs her wrists, trying to occupy herself. "Mom doesn't know I have it."
She's embarrassed, Elliot realises.
"… Okay." He tries a new tactic. "You been wearing that all day?"
"How do you know?" She still won't look at him, stares firmly at the floor, cheeks flush, and suddenly she looks so much younger, so much more fragile than just a few moments before.
"Because you're so like your mother. You going to tell me why?" Elliot asks gently. "Lollie?"
She pauses, suddenly shaky, and when he looks over at her one last time before the lights turn and he pulls away, she's rotating the Claddagh ring that once belonged to his own daughter around her finger methodically, classic self-distraction technique.
"You'll think it's stupid," she confesses, so quietly that he has to strain to hear her.
"Try me."
"You will."
"No, I won't. I've got three daughters, I've seen it all before. You going to tell me?"
She pauses again, and the silence is so long that for several awful, long moments, Elliot doesn't think she's going to open up to him.
"It smells like Momma," says Lollie at last.
Elliot doesn't know what to dissect first: the fact that he hasn't heard Lollie call Olivia that in years, or that she's just as good as told him that his partner wears his sweatshirt all the time.
"Okay…"
"Are you going to tell her?"
"That you've stolen her sweatshirt she stole off me about sixteen years ago? I don't think that one's going to end too well for me, is it? I can't tell you how many times she swore blind she hadn't seen that thing anywhere."
She laughs quietly, and Elliot catches the faintest trace of a smile in the rear-view mirror.
"You want to tell me why you want something that smells like your mom with you when you're in Long Island all of a sudden?"
"… Because."
He contemplates, takes a deep breath. "I'm going to go out on a limb here…"
"Okay…"
"It make you feel safe?"
There's a long pause.
"I guess so." Her cheeks burn with teenage embarrassment, but there's more to it than that; Elliot is sure of it.
"You not feel safe over there right now?" he presses gently, heart in his mouth as he waits for her response. "Lollie?"
"Do we have to talk about it?" Lollie asks weakly.
Her lower lip trembles, and her voice is but a whisper.
She's been like this ever since she came out of dance studio number one for the night, Elliot realises now, curses himself.
She's been like this the whole time; she's just been fighting so, so hard to hide it.
"We do if you're upset. Is there something…"
"I'm not upset." She cuts him off, agitated, bounces her leg.
"That was a bit too fast for my liking."
"So?"
Elliot sighs. "You know you can talk to me, don't you? Me, your mom, Auntie Kathy, Uncle Fin, Auntie Amanda, Sister Vasilisa… If you're… if you're not feeling safe at… at your dad's place, if you're upset, even if you're just feeling sad. You can talk to us. It's not disloyal, or selling him out, or anything else you might think. Alright? I know it must be difficult, the way things are between him and your mom. But the most important thing in all of it is you. Okay? That you're happy. If there's something wrong…"
"There's nothing wrong," Lollie insists, firmer, now, and Elliot knows better than to keep pushing.
"Alright," he tells her gently. "As long as you know, honey. What time are you starting your Hamilton thing?"
"Seven thirty."
"We're going to be early, then. You eaten?"
She nods. "Mom uber-eatsed sushi to dance for me, when I was on my break before contemporary."
"The joys of modern parenting. That a verb now?"
"What, uber-eatsed?"
"Yeah."
"I guess so."
"You make me feel old. Alright. What do you want to do, West 45th is just around the corner from here. You can wait in the car with me…"
"It's okay. I have homework, I can do it in the changing room."
"You sure? I'm pretty good at high school math…"
"I have Spanish and Biology. So I'll probably do the Biology, and then save the Spanish for when Mom can help me."
"I've heard your Spanish. You don't need your mom's help..."
"I do. Her grammar is better."
"Nah, I don't think you're far off. You okay if I drop you here?"
"You're literally right outside the entrance, why wouldn't I be?"
"Hilarious. Alright, then. Will you do me a favour?"
"Yeah?"
"When your mom comes to pick you up, will you pleaseput some proper clothes on?"
Lollie rolls her eyes at him, though Elliot knows she'll do as he tells her, that Olivia has her too well-trained to defy him. "See you, Uncle Elliot!"
He waits, watches protectively until she's safely in through the building doors because like hell is he letting anything happen to her on his watch, reaches for his phone, pulls up his message thread with her mother, only once she's vanished from sight.
You need to talk to Lollie about this weekend, he types out carefully. She's rattled about something but she's doing your 'I'm fine' routine.
His thumb is hovering over the send button when he notices his partner's last message, the one he had Lollie read out and reply to for him.
Or he thought he did, at least.
It's there, plain as day, right above his dictated reply typed out by his goddaughter.
Can you grab P some dinner before you drop her? Think there's a Taco Bell and a Subway on 45thor whatever, just get her to eat it. Going to text her now and tell her I'll come and get her later. I'll get the coffees in tomorrow.
He's hitting call before he's stopped to think it through and consider whether launching straight into this is really the best idea, can't help it, running on pure protective instinct.
In fourteen years, he's never known Lollie lie to him.
He's known her cover for Olivia and her lingering PTSD and her bouts of insecurity he hadn't even known about before she was born and became his window into his partner's private world, sure.
But he's never known her look him right in the eyes and outright lie.
He's suddenly reminded of Maureen and her awful phase of extreme dieting bordering on starvation, shudders at the realisation that she couldn't have been all that much older than Lollie is now.
"Hey, El." His partner picks up on the third ring. "Is…"
"Your kid's just done something really weird." He cuts her off, blurts it out before he can help himself.
"Probably because she's spent too much time around you," she teases, apparently missed the worry in his tone completely.
"Liv…" Elliot tries.
"What is it?" She seems to have caught on now, whole demeanour changed, even over the phone, and in his mind, he pictures her frowning, momentarily thrown, feels horribly guilty over the bombshell he's about to drop.
"That text you sent me about getting her food before I dropped her?" He begins.
"Yeah…" She sounds distracted, perhaps a little tired; Elliot recalls the dark circles under her eyes when she insisted he go home to Kathy.
"I got her to read it out for me and reply to you…"
"Yeah, I do that all the time…"
"She normally tell you exactly what the message said?"
"Of course." Olivia hesitates. "What's she done?"
"She totally left out the part about you wanting me to pick her up some dinner. Glossed over it completely- I actually asked her if she'd eaten right before I dropped her, she told me you'd got her food earlier. 'Uber-eatsed' is a verb now, apparently."
"She what?"
"She deliberately left out the part about you wanting me to feed her, and she looked me right in the eye and told me she'd had dinner already, and that you knew. I've only found out because I've just looked at my phone to message you something else."
Olivia sighs. "Right, okay."
"You don't sound surprised."
She hesitates, torn, agonising. "Not completely. I didn't think she'd take it that far, but no, I'm not completely surprised. She with you now?"
"No, she's just gone in to do another, what, hour and a half of exercise on a calorie deficit. You want me to go in there and grab her and take her to get…"
"Absolutely not, that'll make it ten times worse. Leave her be, El. Alright. Alright… I think we might have reached the teen girls and food issues rite of passage," Olivia admits, groans loudly at the other end of the phone.
"What do you mean, rite of passage? It's not a rite of passage!" Elliot protests; his own girls are grown now, of course, but he has his granddaughters to worry about. "The anorexic in training routine isn't a rite of passage…"
"I was a teenage girl once, you know, Elliot. I think she's entering that phase. She's tried skipping breakfast more times than I can count in the last couple of weeks, that's why I've been bringing her into work with me first thing. She had a massive meltdown over the Chinese takeout I tried to put in front of her on Thursday night and I've just been onto parent portal to top up her school lunch card thing. Turns out she hardly spent any of it last week, the receipts on there read like she's joining me on the 5:2…"
"You don't think that's part of the problem?"
"Absolutely not, I haven't told her I'm doing it. She'll be fine, El…"
"She's just done a weekend with her waste of space of a father, you really think he's been making sure she eats…"
"No, probably not. But she looked okay when you had her in the car with you, right?"
"She didn't look like she was about to pass out, if that's what you mean…"
"Then she's fine for now, and I'll get some food into her later. I'm not pushing it, El," his partner tells him firmly. "Pushing it is only going to make it worse, trust me."
"But you can't just do nothing…"
"When did I say I'm going to do nothing? I'm going to monitor it. But laying down the law with her now is just going to make her more secretive, I'm not going there. Not if she's just lied to you about food. She's fourteen, fourteen's a seriously crappy age for teenage girls. We've had to have the body image talk a couple of times this month- did I mention how much I hate Instagram culture and goddamned photoshop? I think it's probably just all just built up until she's…"
"You didn't tell me she'd been…"
"I don't tell you everything we talk about, Elliot. Especially not when it's girl stuff. Look, thanks for telling me, okay? I'll have a word with her tonight, she'll be fine."
"I hate to break it to you…"
"Oh god…"
"I don't think that's the only thing you need to talk to her about," Elliot confesses, heart sinking.
"Lewis?"
"Yep. Something's happened," he sighs. "Something's happened over there this weekend, she's worked up about something…"
"But she won't say what?"
"You got it."
"Okay." Olivia exhales heavily, as though she's exhausted of it all, not sure how much more of it she can take. "Okay. Thanks, El. I'll try and get some sense out of her later."