A/N: Once again we have reached the penultimate chapter. I'll be extra sad to see this one end. I hope it's as enjoyable to read as it was to write. I'll probably post the last part on Wednesday, for reasons.
CHAPTER 13: Pop Goes the Weasel
. . .
Olivia had a long and complicated history with house slippers. Somehow, she always seemed to ruin her favorite pair, after only a few weeks—months, if she was lucky—of wear. The typical method of destruction was inundation in liquid: milk, blood, mountain stream water, an unfortunate incident involving Frannie and a delayed potty break.
As problems went, this slipper mortality rate was not high on the scale of life-shattering events, but she still stared down at her drenched moccasins in utter chagrin for at least ten full seconds. And another one bites the dust, she thought, fanning out her toes inside the soggy shearling that encased her bare feet. One month and nine days was a valiant run, in any case.
The captain had been present for a good many surprise onsets of labor, and she'd seen women's water break in multiple ways, from the more probable trickle to the tidal wave splash depicted in movies and television. She had helped deliver a baby with her own two hands (and a lot of coaching from EMTs) and she'd talked Amanda into Lamaze classes ("Babe, I already know how to breathe, and this ain't my first rodeo," the blonde initially stated, then relented a second later when Olivia pointed out that it was her first rodeo) to prepare for this moment. She had provided her wife with a perineal massage—and massages of another sort, when Amanda felt up to it—every other day for the past few weeks, and she already had a hospital bag packed and waiting by the front door.
In other words, Olivia Rollins-Benson was loaded for bear.
And still, all she could do was stand there gaping at the amniotic fluid that had doused her moccasins, Amanda's matching pair, and the kitchen's hardwood flooring. Every single preparation she'd made in advance simply up and left her, and it occurred to her that she had yet to secure the new baby's car seat in the back of her SUV, believing she had several more days until it would be needed. Oh God, she was already the worst mother of a newborn ever. She might as well have driven away from the hospital with her daughter in the car seat on the roof, like a forgotten cup of coffee.
Her one consolation was that Amanda was also gaping at the floor as if she couldn't reconcile herself to the idea that the mess had come from her own body. The detective turned a swollen, slippered foot inward and wrinkled her nose, looking as though she had just stepped in a pile of dog dookie. "Shit," she muttered, reinforcing the illusion.
"At least it wasn't on the carpet?" Olivia ventured, and gave a scratchy little giggle. It was possible she was panicking.
When she had offered to make Amanda her famous peanut butter and jelly sandwich—the blonde claimed they were the best PB&Js she'd ever eaten, and they had become the mainstay of her pregnancy diet—as a late-night snack, she had expected to slather twice the normal amount of crunchy peanut butter and a generous glob of strawberry jelly (the secret ingredients) onto some bread, and call it a night. She had not expected to hand the sandwich over to Amanda with a kiss and end up inducing labor.
The baby wasn't even due for twelve more days.
"What the hell, she's not even due for twelve more days," Amanda said, then addressed the bump directly, sandwich held safely aloft. "You're not even due for twelve more days!"
See?
"Okay. Okay, let's not freak out." Olivia gently led her wife away from the puddle, and after giving it a second thought, whipped a dish towel from the stove handle and tossed it over the fluid. So Frannie didn't get any wise ideas. When Olivia tried to rescue the PB&J sandwich next, she found herself losing an arm-wrestling match with one very indignant and stout little blonde. "Sweetheart," she said coaxingly, "come on, let's at least get you into some pants."
Amanda cast a forlorn glance from the sandwich to her legs, bare beneath Olivia's old NYPD sweatshirt. The detective had forsaken pants—underwear included—almost entirely in the past week or two, complaining that even the maternity sizes were too constrictive and uncomfortable. Olivia was getting accustomed to waking with an adorably plump pink backside sticking out at her like an impish tongue. But it was February, and she wasn't taking her wife and child out in the cold without proper attire.
"But I wanna eat my sandwich," Amanda griped, biting off a hearty chunk of Wonder Bread. The resemblance to Frannie, gobbling up whatever food fell on the floor at mealtime before it could be snatched away by human hands, was uncanny. "Ther jus' gunnuf make me turk muh unnerwear off, neeway."
"Well, as much as I love it when you turk your unnerwear off, I am not letting my wife go to the hospital commando. They'll think I can't provide for you, and I'll probably lose my badge and my pension and have to leave the NYPD as a total disgrace. Is that how you want me to go out? The former SVU captain who couldn't keep her pregnant wife in pants?"
Taking advantage of Amanda's riveted expression—although some of it might have been deep concentration, as the detective plied with her tongue at a glob of PB&J stuck to the roof of her mouth—Olivia led her back towards their bedroom, accompanied by the sandwich. Captain Benson knew when to pick her battles.
"They won't fire you just for being a cheapskate," Amanda said with a wet lisp, sounding as if she were impersonating Sylvester the Cat from the Looney Tunes animated series. Thufferin' thuccotash! "And we've got plenty of time. I'm not having contractions yet. Let's wait a few more hours before we go— oh." She halted abruptly, the bread halfway to her lips, a quizzical frown upon her face.
Sufferin' succotash is right.
"Amanda. Did you just have a contraction?" Olivia fixed the blonde with the same look she used on the children and dogs when she suspected them of being less than truthful. It helped that she had just seated her wife on the edge of their bed and could gaze down sternly, hands on her hips.
"Uh, maybe a little one?" Amanda nibbled at the crust of her sandwich, all big blue eyes and innocence. "They've kinda been coming and going since we put the kids to bed . . . "
"Amanda! That was three hours ago." Springing into action like a switch had been flicked, Olivia cleared the room in three long strides and began tearing through Amanda's underwear drawer until she found a pair of voluminous white panties. Parachutes, Amanda had dubbed the maternity briefs, cracking them both up when she opened the pack and aired the billowing cotton overhead.
"I thought it was Braxton Hicks again! I didn't wanna scare you with another false alarm," the detective cried indignantly, tearing off another hunk of peanut butter and jelly. She chomped with her mouth wide open, defiant as a kid who had stuffed too many gumballs into her gob. "Oh Lord, no. Not the Underwear That Ate Manhattan. Liv, you know I hate those."
Olivia snatched a pair of striped drawstrings from the armchair where Amanda habitually discarded her clothes, clean and dirty alike. These pants were freshly laundered, if somewhat wrinkled, and probably wouldn't bring too much shame on the Rollins-Benson family name. "Sweetie, I love you, but you cannot wear a thong to the birth of our child. She'll come out swinging on a tiny little stripper's pole."
That drew a laugh from Amanda, though Olivia quickly shushed it when the blonde made a slightly strangled noise on the peanut butter. Amid further—but weakening—protests, she helped her wife on with the big undies and the baggy pants, dropping apologetic kisses onto Amanda's pale head throughout the exercise. They were both out of breath when it was over, and it took two tries to get Daphne on the phone, after the sleepy clerk mistook the first call for a heavy breather and hung up before Olivia could pant, "Daph, it's time," while simultaneously pouring a glass of milk. She spilled half the jug on the counter and swore under her breath, the phone still pinched to her ear.
"Wow, Captain B, I'm flattered you finally asked, but isn't it kind of inappropriate, what with the little missus in labor and all?"
"Daphne . . . "
"I'm on my way," Daphne sang out on speakerphone, a flurry of tossed clothing and slamming drawers in the background. She barked a shin or some other lower extremity against a piece of furniture, yelped, and kept going. "Tell her to hold it in until I get there. How is she having it already? I canceled all my Valentine's plans for this."
By the time Olivia ended the call and presented Amanda with the requested milk, Daphne was off on a tangent about finding a last minute date for Valentine's Day. Olivia considered telling the clerk that Kat Tamin was still available and still sulking, after their very public falling out at the one-six New Year's Eve party in the morgue. ("Damn," Fin could be overheard commenting to Warner. "Me and my ex don't have nothing on these all lesbians.") But playing matchmaker would have to wait—as would reminding Daphne not to refer to her goddaughter as it—until some other time, when a baby wasn't coming out of Olivia's wife's uterus.
"Does everything feel normal?" she asked, nearly prancing with anxiousness as she watched Amanda polish off her sandwich and drain the last drop of milk in the glass. There had been no convincing the bullheaded blonde not to finish her snack.
Amanda gave a sated sigh and dried her milk mustache on the sleeve of her sweatshirt. "Yeah, I reckon. Kinda didn't get a 'normal' with Jess, but it doesn't feel like that, so quit your worryin'. It's gonna be a piece of cake this time, you'll see."
Half an hour later, while Olivia whipped in and out of traffic like she was driving a sleek sports car rather than an SUV the size of a small tank, Amanda's attitude wasn't quite so laissez-faire. She didn't object when Olivia flipped on the light bar on the dash and sailed into the hospital parking lot without stopping for one traffic light along the way. And an hour after that, as she held her belly and groaned through another very real—not Braxton Hicks—contraction, she gazed up forlornly from the hospital bed, demanding of Olivia, "Why did you let me eat that damn sandwich and all that dairy?"
"I'm so sorry, my love," Olivia cooed indulgently, smoothing down Amanda's hair on either side of her head and dabbing her brow with the cool, damp cloth provided by one of the nurses. Best not to mention that there had been no stopping Amanda from inhaling the food and drink like she had a pneumatic tube where her esophagus should be; Olivia had feared losing a hand in there. "Next time, I will body slam you like a cage fighter and force-feed you nothing but ice chips, I promise."
"Okay." Amanda gave a pouty little nod, then seemed to realize what she was hearing, her eyes going almost as wide as her cervix.
According to the doctor, she was making fast, steady progress and would soon be in the "active stage" of labor, as if the last two hours had been uneventful. Obviously he hadn't been present for the peanut butter showdown and Daphne's last-minute panic about sitting three sleeping children and three large dogs (she was accompanied by Hammie the goldendoodle). I'm just one tiny woman! she'd wailed, as Olivia shut the front door, took a deep breath, and bustled Amanda to the car.
"Wait. Next time?" Amanda pointed an accusatory finger at Olivia, at her own distended belly, and back again. "If you think you're ever getting near me with that turkey baster glove thing again, you are crazier'n a June bug, y'hear?"
"Figure of speech, figure of speech," Olivia said hastily, patting her wife's shoulder and exchanging a surreptitious smile with the nurse who buzzed around the room, checking monitors and adjusting the bedding and equipment for Amanda's comfort.
The cheerful little RN was no bigger than Daphne and plenty capable for one tiny woman, but her confidence only assuaged Olivia so much. Amanda's placental abruption while in labor with Jesse had come on suddenly and without the least bit of warning, and Olivia had never forgotten the distress and intense pain in her detective's wan, frightened face. It was similar to how Amanda looked when she got shot—both times. As much as Olivia wanted this to be a joyful and momentous occasion, she couldn't help fretting just a bit.
"Does everything look okay?" she asked the nurse, seeking out her wife's hand among the bedclothes and holding it to her chest. Try as she might to keep her worry in check, her voice was still several octaves higher than usual. "There were complications with her first delivery. And she's not due for twelve— wait, it's past midnight, so eleven. She's not due for eleven more days, and the baby is only watermelon-sized right now. She's supposed to be a pumpkin. Is that safe?"
Amanda made a sound that was part chuckle, part whimper. "Babe, you already asked near 'bout fifteen people that same question. You sound like a deranged Disney princess talking about pumpkins at midnight. I'm fine. Wallowing in misery and bloody show, but fine. And so's the baby. Right?"
The nurse smiled as two sets of anxious eyes looked to her for an answer. "Everything looks great. Mommy's blood pressure is slightly elevated, but that's to be expected under this type of physical stress. Baby is doing fine. She's right at the cusp of full term. If she was going to come early, she picked a good time to do it. I think you've just got an impatient little lady on your hands, Captain Rollins."
That last part was directed at Olivia, who opted not to correct the oversight on her last name. She kind of liked the sound of Captain Rollins, and judging by the dimple in her wife's cheek, even more pronounced with the baby weight, Amanda approved as well. "Oh no," Olivia said fondly, cupping the pudgy, flushed cheek in her hand, "not another one."
"You love it," Amanda murmured, kissing the heel of Olivia's palm.
"Yeah, I kinda do."
"Mind if I take a look?" the nurse asked after a moment. She stood at the foot of the bed, Amanda's blanket poised for lifting.
"Might as well. Everybody else has been snooping around down there." Amanda lolled her head on the pillow, offering the nurse a wan smile. "I'm gonna start chargin' admission."
Olivia clucked her tongue. "Amanda."
"I'll make a note of that in your chart," said the nurse, laughing lightly as she peered under the blanket. She sobered as she reached out a gloved hand, concentrating on Amanda's softening, widening cervix. "Okay, girls, we better up the price on those tickets. Feels like you're at five centimeters, and counting. Contractions are more frequent, I'm guessing?"
"About every five or six minutes," Olivia confirmed, glancing at her watch for approximately the hundredth time in the past hour. She could have kept track without her faithful Breitling, though. Her own abdomen, back, and legs were clenching at roughly the same rate, the cramps severe enough to double-up someone with a weaker constitution—a man, for instance.
Olivia Rollins-Benson was no man, and she'd be damned if she let some imaginary pain detract from the very real contractions her wife was experiencing. But the deep breathing exercises were as beneficial to her as they were to Amanda, and whenever she massaged the blonde's tensed, quivering muscles, she also let herself be soothed by the touch. At least that was the theory.
Then Nurse Judy, who, in that moment, backlit by a decorative sconce on the wall—an attempt at mood-lighting for expectant mothers—looked like an angel sent down by God himself, said the magic words: "Were we wanting to do an epidural then, or are we going all natural?"
"Ha!" Amanda practically shouted the interjection, and propped up on both elbows, only making it that far with Olivia's help. She leaned towards the nurse like she was negotiating a rather shady deal in a back alley somewhere, her canted head the only thing that moved. "Give me the drugs. All of them."
Nurse Judy raised a questioning eyebrow at Olivia, as if she didn't quite trust the word of the bedraggled, sweaty blonde who appeared to be devolving into a feral state with each passing minute. Amanda was somewhere around Biblical wench, and quickly headed for prehistoric woman before their very eyes.
"All of them," Olivia echoed, and resumed mopping the perspiration from her wife's forehead. Epidurals were not without their share of risks, and it made her uneasy considering everything that might go wrong; but Amanda was in pain, that much was certain. If she wanted the drugs, she was getting the drugs.
"I'll let the anesthesiologist know right away," said the nurse. "Sit tight."
"Poor choice of words to use on someone whose hoo-ha is as wide open as an outhouse shittin' hole." Amanda had waited until the nurse stepped out before making the observation, thank goodness. But in spite of the uncouth simile, there was a tinge of humor in her voice. That was a good sign—as long she could still crack a joke, they were doing okay. "Probably have all kinds of weird, flabby stuff hangin' out down there by the time this kid's through with me."
"Wow, I have never wanted you more," Olivia said, dryly.
Fifteen minutes later, when the anesthesiologist still hadn't arrived, the humor had abated, but the contractions had not. Amanda gritted and huffed through the longest one yet—forty seconds—and refused every offer Olivia extended at bringing her comfort, from plumping her pillows to spooning ice chips into her grimacing mouth.
"Only if the chips are made of whiskey," the detective had grunted, kicking fitfully at the bedding and flumping her head back onto the pillows. "Oh Lord, no, here comes another one. Oh shit. Liv, why'd you do this to me? Was this your evil plan all along, to marry and inseminate me so you could inflict this torture? I thought you loved me! Devil woman!"
The pregnancy books and blogs recommended going along with whatever the partner in labor said, and not to take offense if they seemed angry. None of the literature had suggested what to do when your wife accused you of being a supervillain who impregnated women just to be a big meanie.
Olivia pressed her lips together tightly, trying not to laugh. She hated to see Amanda in pain, and her own lower back felt as though a knife was sticking out of it, but the histrionics and Amanda's conviction that she'd wed an evil mastermind were kind of adorable. "I do, sweetie. I love you so much and I'd trade places with you if I could. I'm sorry it hurts so badly. You want me to yell at the nurses? Go all Shirley MacLaine in Terms of Endearment on them? Give my wife the epidural!" She beat her fist at the air, as if she were on a rampage.
That at least got a laugh, albeit a small, pained one, from Amanda. "Yeah," she said weakly, nodding with the sincerity of one of their children requesting that, yes, they check the closet and under the bed for monsters one more time. But she grabbed Olivia's hand before it retreated, preventing her from stepping away from the bed. "Wait, no, don't leave me. Can't do this without you. Just . . . distract me or somethin'."
"Distract you?" Olivia nibbled her bottom lip, dubious. "You want me to sing?"
"Lord, no. This kid'll never come outta me if she hears that. Just tell me something. Tell me a good cop story I haven't heard before, you've gotta have lots of those."
"Because of my significantly advanced years, is that what you're saying?" Olivia smirked, but brought Amanda's hand to her lips and pressed a firm kiss on the back. She did have a huge store of Tall Tales of the NYPD to choose from, so why this one should be the first she lit upon, she couldn't say. She went with it, anyway:
"Have I ever told you about the time I went undercover as a prostitute? With the sex hair and fuck-me boots, the mini dress and push-up bra? I thought Cragen was gonna blow a gasket . . . "
When the nurse and anesthesiologist arrived ten minutes later, Olivia was slow dancing next to the bed with Amanda, relying on gravity to help the baby descend into the birth canal naturally, and regaling the detective with a tale of inadvertently inhaled toxic mushrooms and accusations that a suspect had stabbed Captain Cragen with a pickle. Amanda alternated between laughter and tears at the punchline, her head tucked under Olivia's chin, and her exact words at first sighting the woman with the ultrasound device and a very large needle were, "Thank fuck."
Olivia listened patiently as the nurse explained that it was hospital policy for family members to leave the room while epidurals were administered. Yeah, to cover your asses in case you screw it up, she added to herself. Out loud she stated simply, and in no uncertain terms, "I'm staying."
She got no arguments, although her confidence wavered somewhat when she caught a better glimpse of the needle—approximately the size of the one on top the Chrysler Building—being used to insert the catheter alongside her wife's spinal cord. She felt a little lightheaded watching the anesthesiologist maneuver it into Amanda's small, arched back, using only the guidelines supplied by a device that looked like an iPad, instinct, and her fingertips.
Luckily Amanda was bent forward, arms looped behind Olivia's neck, head cushioned at her breast, and didn't see the fleeting look of horror that crossed Olivia's face. Nurse Judy, however, had a front row view and circled around the bed to stand at Olivia's side, presumably to catch her if she passed out. The woman didn't know her very well. She wasn't going anywhere. Not while Amanda relied on her to stay steady and strong.
"You're doing so good, love," she murmured, averting her eyes from the catheter's progress and focusing on the peach tattoo farther down her wife's back. That had been a good day. Amanda's forty-first birthday, and the day she had taken Olivia completely by surprise, offering her bites of cupcake—and another child.
It was one of the happiest days of Olivia's life, to be honest. And now she could add today to the list. Except for that big damn needle.
"Almost done," said the anesthesiologist, retracting the needle and securing the slender tubing to Amanda with enough medical tape to wrap about ten Christmas gifts.
Olivia stroked Amanda's sides and continued the warm affirmations, now infused with a hint of pride. For someone as antsy and impatient as the detective tended to be—even when she wasn't in active labor—she had held perfectly still through the entire procedure and didn't complain a bit as the other two women fitted her into the fetal monitoring belt and started an IV line.
For Olivia, who had last seen her wife hooked up to that many wires and machines after Amanda had gotten shot a little over a year ago, it brought back some terrible memories. She sent up a silent prayer that this time she would be left with only the good kind, and forced the bad aside, reclaiming Amanda's hand and wrapping an arm around her shoulders to help guide her back against the bed.
"Good girl," she said softly, kissing the side of Amanda's head, not caring in the least that her hair was plastered down with sweat. Somehow it tasted sweeter than after one of the detective's workout runs, when Olivia would squirm and squawk—mostly for show—if Amanda got frisky before showering. Then again, maybe Olivia was just getting a vicarious hit from that epidural. "How's it feel, baby? You doing okay?"
"Mm-hmm. I don't feel any—" Amanda paused in the middle of smacking her lips thickly, as if she had discovered some leftover peanut butter hidden in a back molar, and cocked her head, an odd contemplative expression on her face. She looked like she was about to sneeze. "Whew. Head rush. Damn, Doc, you gave me the good stuff."
The anesthesiologist chuckled and responded to Olivia's questioning gaze with a nod of assent—yes, this was normal. Everything was still okay. "How about we get that adjusted for you? Can't have you in here floating on the ceiling. Doctor Sharma will have to catch the baby in a net."
Once the dosage had been worked out and Amanda was not floating on the ceiling, but very much confined to the bed, numb from the waist down, and more Zen than Olivia had ever seen her, they were left alone again. The menstrual-like cramps in Olivia's lower back and abdomen had mysteriously subsided as well, a lovely, warm sense of calm stealing over her, now that Amanda's pain had been alleviated.
For a while, they merely exchanged adoring gazes, Olivia seated on the edge of the bed, piecing coarse strands of hair from Amanda's forehead and preening her like a fastidious mother-bird. The urge to touch was irresistible, and fortunately, Amanda appeared to revel in it, a dreamy smile on her lips, her eyes heavy-lidded and fluttery whenever Olivia grazed her cheek.
"Sleepy, my love?" Olivia asked, her voice as gentle as the strokes she applied to her wife's baby-soft skin with the backs of her fingers.
"A little." Amanda hummed her approval, allowing her eyes to drift fully closed. She almost did seem to have fallen asleep, until she tugged on Olivia's sleeve—only then did Olivia realize she'd never changed out of her pajama top before leaving the apartment—urging her forward. "Don't wanna sleep, though. Can you just hold me for a bit? Need your arms around me."
If Olivia's heart hadn't already been filled to bursting, it was now.
"Of course, sweetheart. Can you scootch that cute little tushy, or do you need me to—" Olivia didn't so much help her wife slide over in the bed as find herself hauled onto it and wedged into the narrow space between Amanda's hip and the bed rail. Good thing she hadn't gained any sympathy weight in the past nine months.
She made do with the awkward position, happy as long as Amanda was comfortable, and gathered the detective into a snug embrace, blonde head tucked securely under her chin. "This okay?" she asked, rubbing Amanda's arm beneath the sleeve of her hospital gown, warming the skin it exposed with her palm.
"Mm."
The detective was asleep within seconds, leaving Olivia's follow-up questions ("Are you chilly, love?" And then, barely above a whisper, "'Manda baby?) unanswered. Not surprising, really. It was four in the morning and neither of them had slept at all the night before—not after their daughter decided to liven up an otherwise uneventful Wednesday evening by arriving early. Olivia was feeling a little drowsy herself, the tranquil lighting in the room, dimmed to an unobtrusive setting for baby's entry into a loud, bright world, lulling her almost as much as Amanda's warm body and steady breathing.
"How about you let your mamas rest a little before you break out of there," Olivia said, resting her hand on top of the baby bump and tucking the covers around it and Amanda, as best she could. Giving it a second thought, she lifted the blanket and addressed her daughter again: "Don't go anywhere."
. . .