A/N: Kinetic energy is contagious.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own the show or the characters, but, oh, how I wish I did.
March 20th, 4:25 PM
She wriggled and stretched, making a groaning noise. Her eyes fought to open, but when they did she smiled. He was still sleeping, wrapped around her, smiling. She broke free from his grip, kissed his cheek, and slipped away from him. Tossing off the blanket, she looked around her living room and blinked a few times. "Um," she licked her lips. "Hey, guys."
"Relax," Maureen quipped, giving a wave of her hand. "We sort of, uh, already knew about...you two." She offered a low stare and slight grin. "We knew if anything happened between our parents, he'd take a shot with you." Her voice dropped as she let out an almost delicate breath. "He loves you. It's been obvious for years."
Olivia felt her cheeks warm and knew she was blushing; she rubbed her face quickly, hoping to pass it off as grogginess. "Well, I don't know about all that," she mumbled, and then she shifted to sit up straight. Leaning over to grab Lizzie's hand, she gripped it as she checked the clock on the cable box. "Four o'clock? I'm sorry! It's been...a rough couple of weeks." She sighed again. "How are you guys holding up?"
Lizzie squeezed back and exhaled. "We're okay," she said with a nod. "It's been on the news." She looked over at Maureen, then her eyes drifted toward the hallway where Olivia's bedroom lived. "Katie's in your room, we just got her to stop crying an hour ago. Told her to take a nap. She really liked Mister Trattermeyer."
"Poor thing," Olivia whispered, her focus now on the hallway, too. With a single cough, she looked back at the girls. "And your brother?"
Maureen tossed a thumb over her head, pointing to the floor behind her chair. "Playing some dumb game on his phone."
"It's not dumb," Dickie yelled back. "You're dumb!" He resumed hunting for zombies with his eyes glued to the screen.
Rolling her eyes, Maureen slumped forward a bit."I'm actually, uh, really glad you're awake." She bit her lip and wrung her hands together, unsure of whether or not she should tell Olivia something so important before telling her father. Nerves won out, her eyes widened as she smiled widely. "We saved you guys some pizza! If you want I could…"
"Mo, honey, whatever you have to tell us, it's okay," Olivia spoke knowingly. "Your father and I are detectives, remember?" she smirked at Maureen's suddenly shocked gape. "I can tell when there's something you're not telling me." Her head tilted then as fear crept in, her years on the force firing all the wrong ideas at her. "It's not something that's gonna make your father and I call John to…"
"No, no," Maureen shook her head fast and held up both hands. "Nothing...nothing like that. It's just…" she combed through her long blonde hair, wincing when her nail snagged a knot. "Mom, um," she darted her eyes toward her father and noticed something odd. "He's not actually awake, is he?"
Olivia looked over at him, then made a face as she elbowed him. "Not nice," she scolded. "If you were awake, why didn't you…"
"I woke up the second you moved," he told her, dropping his head to hers for a split second. "And I was really comfortable so I was trying to get back to sleep, I wasn't even listening until…just now," he cleared his throat, dropped his feet to the ground, and scooted over to the corner of the couch. He pulled Olivia closer to him, giving Lizzie more room to get comfortable in her spot. "So, uh, what...what's going on, Mo?" He began to twitch; he pulled Olivia even closer. "What about your mother?"
"Look, she said she tried to tell you," Maureen lifted a hand and curled her hair around her fingers as she cleared her throat. "Said you were too preoccupied with work, with…" she dropped her gaze and her voice. "What happened to Liv."
"Wait," Lizzie spoke up, wide-eyed. "What?"
Dickie had popped up off of the floor, his phone forgotten on the carpet. He curled his arms and propped his elbows on the back of Maureen's chair. "What happened to Liv?" The panic in his voice was evident
"Nothing," Liv gave them, trying to smile, and she furrowed her brow and waved her hands. "Just a work thing." She swallowed back, pulled on the collar of her purple shirt, and nodded. "So, um, your mother?"
"The hospital," Maureen began, "They want her to take over as the Chief Nursing Officer…"
"That's fantastic!" Elliot said, interrupting his daughter. He smiled and bit his lip; for everything Kathy was or wasn't in his life, he was proud of her. "Why wouldn't she tell me that? That's.."
"Not at Mercy," Maureen intruded. "They want her to head up the staff at a network hospital in Seattle." She gave her father a pointed look. "Now, I can get a room at school, no problem," she narrowed her eyes and gritted her teeth. "But Katie? Lizzie? Dick…" she cringed. "Rick…" she heard her brother whisper a small thanks and it made her smile slightly. "It's not fair to rip them away from everything they know! Katie would have to transfer now, the middle of her senior year! Ya know, instead of going to Prom with Denny or graduating with her friends, she'd spend the next five months with total strangers? We told Mom, we love her, we do, it's just that none of us want..."
"Jeez, you are horrible at this," Dickie broke off his sister's last words. He looked at his father and started speaking fast. "After we told her we didn't wanna go, she yelled at us for twenty minutes, Mo and her fought for another hour, then she gave up, said she knew it wouldn't be fair to pull us out of school and drag us across the country. She called her lawyer and dropped her custody claims." He made a sarcastically excited face. "Surprise!" He dropped the facade and looked at Olivia. "How big of a favor does Carl owe you? It might be more than a couple days."
"I'll be right back," Elliot's stiff and gravelly voice spoke as he stood up, the pride in his eyes had turned to a swirl of anger and relief. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and scratched at his face, covered in a full, short beard now.
Olivia watched him dial as he walked toward her bathroom and knew that he was either calling his lawyer or Kathy, and it was up to her to keep the kids from hearing the conversation. She clapped her hands together once and said, "You know you can stay as long as you need to," she told the kids. "But I think your father is looking for a place, anyway. It might be not that long so, uh, don't get too comfortable around here." She chuckled, then, but noticed no one else laughed.
Lizzie looked at her quizzically. "How long have you and Dad…" she tossed her hair back. "I mean, you're together, right? Kind of fast, but not...like Mo said, we expected…"
"Hey, guys, there's, uh," she felt the sting in her chest, the burn behind her nose, and she choked back a worried noise. "There's nothing really going on between me and your father. Please, don't think that he's been…"
"We know he wasn't cheating on Mom," Lizzie interjected. "But we know he would have, could have," she shrugged, her school shirt bunching at her shoulders. "Wanted to." She gestured to Olivia as she said, "The way you were all cuddled up, I thought he'd finally told you that he…"
"He told me," Olivia nodded, the corners of her lips begging to curl upward. "I just don't think it's the best time, he's going through a lot." She couldn't help but turn her head to look toward the hall, wondering if he was okay.
Maureen leaned further across the coffee table. "So are you, Liv," she whispered. "You two need each other, you keep each other grounded, keep the other from letting go, and if now isn't the time to hold on a little tighter, when is?"
With knitted brows, Olivia looked at the younger girl, wondering where the walking attitude went, and then she smiled. She had watched Maureen grow up, helped her with homework, took her shopping for her prom dress, helped her polish off a gallon of ice cream when her prom date dumped her the next day. She'd been there for so much, but never wanted to come between the kids and their parents. "I never meant for any of this…"
"No one means to fall in love," Maureen told her with a matching grin. "It happens, and we can't stop it, we can't talk it back. The only thing we can do is decide if we want to take the chance on it, let ourselves feel it, or suffer in silence and hope it goes away." She looked over her shoulder, hearing a door creak open, and then she licked her lips and looked back toward Olivia. "My dad, he was never great at hiding things from us. Sure, he kept us from knowing anything about his job, would never talk about cases, but when it came to his feelings, he wore them on his sleeve. Whenever you came over, he'd be so happy with this big, goofy grin, and then when you left, it would fade and all he'd do is talk about you."
"Bet your mother loved that," Olivia scoffed, rolling her eyes. "Probably why they're getting divorced."
"No, they're getting divorced because they just don't fit anymore," Maureen explained. "If they had anything worth saving, Daddy wouldn't have fallen in love with you, Mom wouldn't be jumping at the chance to head up a hospital in Seattle with the Meridian Medical Chief of Staff, and you wouldn't have threatened to have your landlord arrested if he didn't give you the keys to the apartment across the hall." She laughed at the befuddled look on Olivia's face. "I heard you yell at him, and I'm a psych major."
Olivia gave the girl a warm grin, then quietly said, "Thank you, sweetheart," before Elliot rounded the corner, his phone still in his hand, a scowl on his face. She felt her stomach flip, heat rise through her body and settle in her chest. Something about him always made her slightly aroused, but now it was amplified, fully developed into undeniable feelings. "You shaved," she noted as he returned to his spot right beside her.
Nodding, he tossed his phone onto the coffee table and fell backward with a hard huff. He grabbed Olivia and tugged her into him and said, "Called Kathy, she didn't pick up. Called my lawyer, then my realtor." He shook his head and scratched the back of his neck with his free hand. "I don't like being lied to, and I don't like being fucked over."
"I'm not in your head," Olivia said softly, nudging him with her elbow. "What's all that about?" She felt his thumb moving along the side of her hand, the small and likely unconscious movement sent shivers down her spine and fire everywhere else. She looked down, seeing his hand wrapped around hers, and she froze until he spoke again.
He rolled his shoulders and bent backward slightly, pops and crackles filtered through the room, and his nostrils flared a bit. Through tightly clenched teeth, he said, "According to Helkin, she already has a one-bedroom in Seattle, she's been paying the rent with the joint account, so when the hell was she planning to…"
"One bedroom?" Dickie proffered. "So all of that yelling last night, what the hell was that if we weren't even going with her anyway?"
"Hey, Bud, watch the language," Elliot said coolly, trying to reign in his own temper for the sake of his kids. "I don;'t know, okay? That's why I was trying to call your mother. Either way, I told Helkin to draw up new custody papers, and for the sole benefit of your education and stability, you're staying with me...at least until the end of the school year, then we have to go back to square one." He looked over at Lizzie, then eyes Maureen for a moment before turning his head fully toward Olivia. "Benny told me there's a great place on Eighty-Eighth street, full basement and wine cellar, six bedrooms, six bathrooms, a couple more rooms we'd never use, but it's in foreclosure so it's just a matter of paying the tax bill and being approved for a mortgage on…" he let out a frustrated groan, then, dropping his head into his free hand. "I haven't had to support my family on my own since Katie was born. The kids' tuition, that's already half of what I earn in a year, and now this…" he let go of Olivia's fingers and ground the heels of his hands into his eyes and growled softly. "It's fine, we'll be fine." He cleared his throat and squeezed his eyes shut before relaxing. Opening them, he smiled at Maureen. "You, uh, you said something about pizza?"
"On the stove," Lizzie said. "Pepperoni and extra cheese." She watched her father get up and hold out his hand, then gave a small smirk when Olivia set her hand into his. "I'm gonna go check on Katie." She got up slowly, as Elliot and Olivia moved toward the kitchen, and then she slapped her sister in the shoulder and gave her brother a knee to the back, directing them out of the room with eye-wags and chin juts.
None the wiser, Elliot led Olivia over to the stove, grabbed a slice of pizza, and handed it to her. "Thanks," he whispered, and when she took the slice from him he reached for one for himself. He bit into it, and as he chewed he looked around her small, pristine kitchen, seeing all the signs that it wasn't used as often as it should be, and he inwardly promised to cook for her and the kids for as long as they were there. "Ya know, for…" he sniffled once. "Pulling strings with Carl, letting the kids stay." His eyebrows rose and fell, his shoulders rounded over, and he leaned into her as he brought the pizza to his lips again. "Letting me stay with you."
She gnawed softly on the inside of her cheek as she peeled a slice of pepperoni off of her pizza. "There are a million things that you never have to thank me for," she popped the pepperoni into her mouth. "Taking care of you and your kids? On the list," she told him as she chewed. She smiled at him, and something in his eyes made her hyper-aware of how fast her heart was beating. She felt her pulse throb in her wrists, heard it in her ears, struggled to breathe in time with it.
He moved closer to her, gripped his pizza with one hand, her chin with the other, and bent his head to kiss her. As soon as his lips brushed over hers, a jolt of electricity coursed through him, igniting a fire he couldn't control. The pizza slipped from his hand, landed on the floor with a wet plop, and his hands hooked around her neck. His tongue plunged and devoured until finally, he pulled back, breathless. He clutched the sides of her face, rested his head against hers, and whispered, "You lied to my kids."
She looked at him, pained eyes and partly open mouth. "What? I would never…"
"You told them there was nothing going on between us," he stopped her and smiled, kissed her again, and then said, "Liar."
They shared a laugh, another kiss, as Olivia wondered how much he had heard. She didn't get a chance to ask, they pulled apart and turned just in time to see the four kids walking back into the living room. Elliot pressed his lips together, lifted his brows, and offered an overzealous smile. "You guys good?" He eyed Katie. "You okay, sweetheart?"
"Yeah," Kathleen nodded. But her bottom lip began to tremble, her eyes welled up with tears, and she shook her head quickly. "No." She ran, hopping over the tiles and rushing into her father's arms. She let out a sob and then reached for Olivia, pulling her into the hug.
Over her head, Olivia and Elliot locked eyes. Kathy could wait. Lawyers could wait. Realtors could wait. Finding out what happened to Thomas Trattermeyer and keeping the kids safe and calm were the priority, one they would be focused on together.
A/N: Next? Getting the kids settled across the hall, and getting a phone call from Tucker.
