For Kassidygean- it's not quite the making amends you asked for, but hopefully it might go some way towards explaining why Olivia reacted the way she did.

Olivia and Lollie's Spanish/Russian conversation from the last chapter:

O: I don't want you to have to go through that! I thought you realised that! I don't want you to go through what I did, I've done my best to make sure you don't, but I can't help but screw things up for yourself until you have to ...

L: It's not my fault, that your mom was...

O: Don't play that game with me

L: I don't understand [your Spanish]

O: you understood me perfectly, or you wouldn't have made it about...

L: But this is about your mom, so...

O:My mom didn't give a damn! My mom let it happen to me while she wasted everyone's time in rehab because she didn't give a damn what happened to me in the care system. I'm trying to make sure that doesn't happen to you, and you throw it back in my face like this ... "

L: I'm sorry...

O: (In Russian) Don't apologise to me until you've apologised to Elliot and Kathy! They're the only reason you aren't...

L: I know.

O: Act like it, then!

The Spanish is from Google Translate, all Russian mistakes are mine.

Thank you so much everyone who took the time to review the last chapter. I can't promise updates will be this regular, but if you have any concepts in particular you want me to write for this story, please do feel free to let me know and I'll do my best. I have Lollie's birth and Elliot's return on the list!

-IseultLaBelle x

Chapter 18

Three Days Later

"Hey, Liv," Elliot tries casually as he answers her call over the hands-free. "Do you mind if I call you back in a bit? Only I'm just on my way to…"

"Brighton Beach," Olivia finishes for him. "I know. Kathy just filled me in…"

"Oh, she did, did she…"

"You weren't going to tell me?"

"Of course I was going to tell you," Elliot counteracts, calm, trying to calm her, too. "I just… I thought Kathy and I agreed we were going to hold off on telling you until I'd picked Lollie up, that's all. Until we actually knew what the situation was…"

"You've already got a pretty good idea of the situation, from what Kathy told me."

She's furious, Elliot realises grimly.

She's absolutely furious, and he wishes she wouldn't be.

"What did Kathy tell you?"

Olivia sighs, irate. "That Penelope's gone and gotten herself kicked out of Russian class…"

"She didn't get herself kicked out of Russian class," Elliot corrects her. "Is that what Kathy said…"

"Yeah…"

"Okay." He's going to have to tackle that one when they get home, Elliot realises grimly.

Although how he's going to manage to get Kathy on her own to talk her out of calling up the District Attorney Office and telling them they'll have to make alternative arrangements for Lollie until the trial is over with Lollie herself in the house is anyone's guess.

"Okay… I think Kathy must have gotten the wrong end of the stick, then," he covers. "Lollie didn't get herself kicked out, that's not what Sister Vasilisa said…"

"She's playing up for Sister Vasilisa too, then…"

"… Yeah. That made me feel a bit better, actually…"

"How exactly did you work that one out…"

"Because she's clearly not discriminating, is she?" Elliot reasons. "Not if Sister Vasilisa's on the receiving end of it, too. Anyway. Sister Vasilisa said she's spoken to Lollie's Russian teacher, and she said Lollie just… I don't know. Shut down, in her class. Didn't look right. She wondered if she'd had a panic attack…"

Olivia inhales sharply on the other end of the phone. "Okay. Okay, that's… but then she went and…"

"Her Russian teacher tried to get her to open up," Elliot continues hastily, keen to change the subject. "Apparently she wasn't paying attention- she wasn't acting up, she was just staring into space, I think. Absent. She asked her if she wanted to talk, and Lollie said she didn't. Offered to call her shrink in, Lollie made it very clear she didn't want that. But her teacher thought she was upset, so she sent her off to see if the dance room was free, told her to go take the rest of the period and get it out her system in there if she could…"

"Since when were they trying dance therapy with her…"

"I don't think they are, I think that's the problem. From what Sister Vasilisa said, it sounds like one of the Phys Ed teachers came in and took issue with it…"

"And she kicked off with them?"

"Yeah, I think so…"

"Do they not know…"

"Substitute, apparently. So no, they didn't. So Lollie talked back at them, they weren't taking it, and it just got a bit out of hand, I think. She threatened to walk out of…"

"She knows she can't do that before the trial…"

"I know. And so does her school," Elliot reassures her gently. "That's why they called me. So I'm on my way to get her now, I'm a couple blocks away…"

Olivia sighs wearily. "Thank you. I'm so sorry, El…"

"Don't mention it," Elliot insists. "Not a problem, Liv. You stepped in with my kids enough times when they were…"

"This is different," Olivia cuts him off, anger building in her voice again. "This is completely different- it's not even comparable to…"

"Why isn't it comparable?"

"Because you never had to ask if I'd have your kids move in with me…"

"Are you saying you would have said no…"

"You know I wouldn't have…"

"Then it's exactly the same situation, isn't it?" Elliot protests. "You'd have done the same thing. Kathy and I just never had to ask, that's all…"

"You wouldn't have had to ask me, though," Olivia argues. "That's my whole point. That's what I've been trying to drill into her since this all kicked off…"

"What, like you were trying to drill into her the other night that…"

Olivia laughs bitterly; she's angry with him, now, Elliot knows she is, can hear it in her voice. "I knew you thought I'd handled that all wrong, I could see it in your face…"

"You don't think you were a little hard on her…"

"She brought LSD into your home, Elliot!"

"I know. I know. But she didn't realise the significance of that, did she?" Elliot treads carefully. "She didn't know… he… what he made you…"

He can't say it out loud.

It's been seven years since the son-of-a-bitch has been in Lollie's life, and still Elliot struggles to speak his name out loud.

"No," says Olivia quietly. "No, she didn't. But she does know how you lost Kathleen…"

"Please don't tell me that's what you told her on the doorstep before you left the other night." All of a sudden, Elliot feels sick.

She'd ordered Lollie back down from her room, when she'd calmed down a little.

She'd ordered Lollie downstairs, had her walk her to the front door and lectured her in fierce, uncompromising Russian, and then she'd gone, wiping away tears Elliot knows he wasn't supposed to see.

"Are you seriously telling me you aren't as disgusted with her as I am?" Olivia challenges. "Because I'm furious…"

"Because of Kathleen?"

"Yes, because of Kathleen! She knows better than that! I've taught her better than that- or I thought I had, anyway! I didn't raise her to have so little respect for you and Kathy that she thinks it's perfectly fine to be bringing drugs into your house! She knows damned well the memories her stunt the other night must have brought up for you and Kathy…"

"You're taking this harder for us than we are ourselves," Elliot tries to calm her. "It's alright, Liv. It's alright. We know Lollie didn't do it to hurt us…"

"You're missing the point."

"Am I?"

"She should have thought, El! She should have stopped and engaged her brain for all of half a second, and she might have realised how difficult her getting off her face in your care would be for…"

"She's a kid, Liv. She's a kid, and she's been through hell and back…"

"You think I don't know that?"

"Of course I don't. But she's testing the boundaries, isn't she? She's been taken away from her mom without warning because that lying piece of shit…"

"Realised the best way to get back at me for exposing his… his… his using his own daughter for por… p… I can't say it…"

"Liv…"

"Was to accuse me of worse…"

"I know. I know, and that's why she's testing me and Kathy. She just needs to realise that whatever she does, whatever it turns out he… made her do, Kathy and I aren't going to give up on her," Elliot reasons. "That's all. She's just testing us …"

"She can't afford to just test you, El. That's what I need her to understand. She can't afford to…"

"Why not?"

"Because…" Olivia's voice trembles with emotion.

"Because what?"

"Because you can test out your family," Olivia offers quietly at last. "And… she's not that. She's got me. That's it. She gets all the chances she needs with me- I'm not telling her that. But she does. But I'm all the family she's got…"

"We're her godparents, Liv…"

"Exactly. I don't expect you to still want her around if she keeps on…"

"You know what godparents are, right…"

"I know you don't have to put up with her, El," Olivia insists quietly. "I… if you hadn't agreed to…"

"I wasn't about to let her be taken into care until all this gets sorted out at the…"

"Kathy's running out of patience with her, Elliot," she despairs. "I know she is, I could hear it in her voice, when she called. Kathy's just about done with her…"

"No, she's not…"

"She is, Elliot. She is, and I don't blame her. I'm pretty sick of her behaving like this now, too…"

"Liv…"

"And this is what I've been trying to get through to her. She can't expect you and Kathy to put up with her when she's…"

"She can…"

"She could if it was just down to you," Olivia corrects him. "And I can't tell you how grateful I am for that. But it's not just down to you, is it? It's down to you and Kathy. Kathy's understandably out of patience with her, Penelope needs to understand that when… when…"

"When?"

"That when you rely on friends to make up for the family you don't have, you can't afford to put a foot out of line," Olivia blurts out. "I've been telling her that for…"

"You haven't, have you?" Elliot interrupts, incredulous. "Please don't tell me you've been drilling into her that she's not famil…"

"Well, she's not, is she…"

"Is this why she still asks permission to do her homework on the dining table, or put the hot water booster on, or get herself a goddamned glass of water at my place after sixteen years? Because she doesn't have to, Liv. Shit, I…"

His mind is racing.

Elliot's mind is racing, because he hadn't put it together before.

Well, he had.

He'd been on the right lines, he supposes, but he's never realised the extent of it until now, not even come close.

But he should have.

He knows Olivia well enough that he should have realised a long time ago, should certainly have never needed her to spell it out to him.

"Liv, Lollie doesn't have to be a perfect angel whenever she's at my place for us to keep having her back," he explains gently. "I mean, I'd prefer it if she wasn't bringing LSD into the house, sure…"

"I can't tell you how embarrassed I am..."

"Don't be. She's a teenager. Teenagers do stupid things sometimes- Kathy and I know that…"

"It's not that si-"

"Yes, it is, Liv. It is that simple. Kathy and I don't expect Lollie to be on her best behaviour all the time, when she's at ours," he tries to convince her, cursing himself furiously that he didn't realise it before, didn't stop and think, waited sixteen years to finally confirm his suspicions that she didn't do this herself growing up- not playdates, not close friends whose family become your own, not any of it. "Especially… you know. At the moment. Just while we've got her for you. We want our place to be Lollie's second home, alright? Just the same as it was for our kids' friends- I think Eli spent more time at his best friend's house than ours, through high school. That's pretty normal. It takes a village, and all that. And I… I know that might not be the experience you had, growing up…"

"I've got to go," Olivia forces out, breath comes in short, sharp gasps, as though she's been crying. "I've got to go, I'll… I'll catch up with you later. Tell… Pia I love her for me?"

"I always do," Elliot promises. "I always do, Liv."

But the line has already gone dead.

"Are you mad at me?" Lollie asks quietly, as she climbs into the passenger seat.

It's been almost an hour since he got off the phone to Olivia.

They spent the best part of forty-five minutes in Sister Vasilisa's office, and then he had to sign her off of campus- because security has been heightened, just until the trial is over.

Walking back out through the gates at last, Elliot feels exhausted.

He never really did this, with his own kids.

It was always Kathy who dealt with the principal's office encounters- he was always working.

Absentmindedly, he wonders if experience of it all with his own kids would make this any easier.

"I'm not mad at you, honey," Elliot tells her sincerely. "Get in, then. Come on. You want to go straight home…"

"I'm grounded."

She won't look at him.

She won't look at him, but even if she did…

Her eyes are dull, defeated.

She looks like her mom did.

She looks exactly like her mom did when they finally got her back seventeen years ago, when they pulled Olivia from the wreckage of the same beach house the piece of fucking shit would go on to steal her innocence from ten years later.

She needs her mom, Elliot sighs to himself.

That's nothing new.

He must have had that thought a thousand times a day since Lewis made his accusations against Olivia.

"Well… what you mom doesn't know can't hurt her, can it?" Elliot reasons, turns the key in the ignition. "You want to go get Chipotle? Because you didn't make it to lunch, did you…"

"I'm not hungry."

"Okay."

Lollie pulls her knees up to her chest on the passenger seat, buries her face between them, and Elliot decides now isn't the time to drill her about road safety.

"You want to talk about it?"

"About what?"

"I don't know. Anything…"

"Not really."

"Okay. I spoke to your mom earlier…"

"Is she mad at me?"

"No," Elliot promises. "No, she's not, Lollie. She's not mad at you. She told me to tell you she loves you… I know," he sighs. "I know, I'm sure she wishes she could tell you that herself, too."

"You've stopped saying it won't be for long."

"Have I?" Elliot's heart sinks.

"… Yeah. Can I connect my phone?"

"You want your music on?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah, alright, then."

The song she picks is one he half-recognises, just can't quite place.

They fall into silence again.

It's only when they're stopped at a red light that he can glance across at her properly, take in the way she's moving her hands, swaying, eyes closed, hypnotic.

"This your new project?"

She stops, shrugs. "Maybe?"

Her hand moves absentmindedly to her chest, and then she seems to stop as though she's hit an invisible forcefield, wraps her arms around herself again.

"You were working on this… earlier, though?"

"Uh huh."

She sings along softly to the chorus, self-soothing, desperately fighting him to let her retreat back into her own world again.

"You choreograph it? Or is it one you…"

"Why are you so interested?"

"Because I care about you."

"Yeah."

"Yeah, you choreographed it?"

"I started to."

"You want me to call Miss Shannon, and see if she'll let you have a studio for the afternoon?"

"You can't drive to Manhattan just for…"

"I can."

"I'm grounded…"

"Says your mom…"

"So I'm grounded."

"Okay. Can I ask you something?"

She tenses, and she's so like her mother. "Sure."

"You know you're supposed to be keeping a journal…"

"It doesn't help…"

"Yeah, I know. But does this help?"

"Dance?"

"Yeah."

"Kind of."

"But you still don't want to go back?"

"No."

"Alright."

She's not set foot back in her dance studio since it all fell apart.

Hell, getting her to school has been enough of a struggle.

"You sure you're alright?" Elliot tries again carefully. "Lollie?"

"I'm fine."

"You keep moving your hand to your chest like…"

"Like what?"

"I don't know. Like you're in pain…"

"I'm not in pain."

"You sure?"

"Yeah." Lollie bites her lip. "I just keep forgetting."

"Huh?"

She tenses.

She tenses, and for several long moments, Elliot doesn't think she's going to open up to him.

And then it comes.

"Mom took my necklace back," she whispers at last.

Her voice is laced in shame.

He stiffens protectively. "The other day? When she came over, after…"

"Yeah."

Fuck.

He should have noticed.

She's been wearing Olivia's lotus necklace since she was six years old- he remembers because he used to tell her she was insane, that no daughter of his would have been allowed to wear jewellery at that age, and certainly not something so expensive, so precious to him or to Kathy.

He used to warn her that Lollie would inevitably lose it, that she'd wear it into school one day and come home without it.

To his surprise, she never did.

"Did… did she give you a reason?" Elliot tries.

Lollie cringes. "She said I didn't deserve it."

"Because of what you did the other night?"

She nods.

"She'll calm down, Lollie…"

"She might not."

"She will. You want me to ask her if you can have it back?"

"That'll make it worse."

"Okay. You want me to see if we've still got one of Kathleen's necklaces at home?" he offers instead. "Yeah? I know it's not the same…"

"I didn't know it was LSD that Kathleen…"

"I know you didn't…"

"I never would have done it if…"

"I know. I know, it's okay."

"And I didn't know Mom… that it was LSD she… that… he…"

It's all such a mess.

"I know you didn't, honey. I know you didn't. It's alright. You just miss her, don't you?" Elliot sighs, despairing. "I know. I know, it's alright. You just miss your mom."

I wanna laugh, I don't wanna cry
Don't want these tears inside my eyes, yeah
Don't wanna wake up and feel insecure
I wanna sing, I wanna dance
I wanna feel love inside my hands again
I just wanna feel beautiful

-Beautiful, Jess Glynne