Author's Note: Set spring of next year sometime, after the undercover operation is complete, and Elliot is home to stay.

Thank you, Alex, for helping me tweak some of the finer details of this. And for listening to my insanity in the first place. I'm pretty sure me brainstorming this idea in the first place can be traced back to one of our conversations.

Title comes from "Closing Time" by Semisonic.

Olivia eases back on one of the terrace chairs, cradling a freshly-brewed cup of coffee and breathing in its aroma.

She's not sure if it's the fancy Lavazza coffee beans or the moka pot Elliot insisted on using, or maybe some of both, but it's quite possibly the very best cup of coffee she's ever had in her life.

These quiet moments – these ones where she can sit back on a lazy Saturday morning, sip at her delectable coffee, and watch Noah run around the terrace playing catch with Elliot – are what sustain her during the rest of her week.

Bernie sits next to her in the other chair; she clutches an identical cup to the one Olivia holds, but she sees that the other woman is drinking tea. "Looks like they're having fun," Bernie says, smiling at Olivia.

And they are. Noah's got a decent throw for a kid who prefers to use his feet, and the silly grin on Elliot's face when he almost misses Noah's throws before catching them at the last possible second makes Olivia feel more at ease than she quite possibly has ever been.

The autumn of changes in all of their lives brought them to the winter of resolutions and promises of a brighter tomorrow, and now, as the first flowers of spring are beginning to poke out of the ground, that promise is blooming, in more ways than one.

The first time she'd seen this terrace, it was in desperate need of some care and attention, but now – there's a vegetable garden tucked in the corner that seems to be doted on, the overgrowth has been cleared aside, and there's a few chairs scattered around to sit back and watch the world go by. Like what they're doing now.

"He's such a good boy, isn't he?" Bernie asks. "He takes after his mom."

Olivia sadly shrugs. There's not much use in hiding his parentage, not when she secretly hopes the woman sitting next to her might be her future mother-in-law. "In all the ways that matter, he's my son, but I'm not his birth mother."

There's silence between the two of them, and Olivia bites the corner of her lip. Hard. She'd had the conversation with Elliot, but Elliot had been all genes don't make a family, love does and some people are meant to be in your life, regardless of how they get there and it hadn't changed a thing. But she sometimes wonders how lucid Bernie is – the woman's as sharp as a box of tacks on a good day, and that's what today seems to be.

"Dear girl, I always knew your heart had too much love to restrict itself to silly things like blood," Bernie says, and she lays her hand over Olivia's. "Do you know anything about his birth parents? Are they a part of his life? He's a lovely boy; I'm sure they'd be very proud."

She blows out a breath and watches as it catches a loose hair. "They're both dead. His mom, Ellie, was a prostitute, and her pimp was Noah's father." When she thinks back on it, she can still picture seeing tiny, scared little Noah in the drawer, not realizing how much this little boy would change everything about her life.

"No other family?"

Olivia's mildly annoyed at the probing line of questioning, but she knows Bernie means well. Plus, with her own maternal influence not always being the most positive, maybe this is closer to what a typical parent-child relationship looks like.

Plus, Noah has been begging for stories about Serena, ever since they did that damn family tree project in school and he had to turn in an almost-blank one. And once she's sanitized it of all the drunken rampages and broken promises originally made with good intentions, there's not a whole lot left. It's not that his biological relatives have escaped her thoughts lately.

It may not be all about the genes, but that doesn't mean she isn't the tiniest bit curious about his.

"His grandma – Ellie's mom – tried to contest the custody arrangement I had, and then when that failed, tried to kidnap him. Sheila was," Olivia pauses, trying to collect her words. Sheila was never one of her favorite people, and maybe if she wasn't a kidnapper, they could have worked out an arrangement to have her in his life. But. Such as it was. "She was difficult."

Bernie is silent, and she's not sure if she's ever seen the woman not talking about something or another. "You said her name was Sheila? And Ellie was her daughter?"

"Yeah?"

"Elliot! Come here for a minute, why don't you? You can put the ball down and answer a question for me."

He tosses it in a perfect arc to Noah, who catches it easily, and lopes over toward them with a grin. "Yeah?"

"Larry's second wife. The psycho. Not the cheater."

He scratches the top of his head, where his hair is starting to grow back in slightly after keeping it shorn for the undercover gig. "Yeah? What 'bout her? Haven't thought of her in over 30 years."

"What was her name again?"

"Cindy, wasn't it? No, that's wrong. Sharon? No. Let me think," he says, stroking his stubble with one hand, before snapping his fingers. "Sheila. That's right. Her name was Sheila. Why? What's making you ask about her?"

"They had a little girl while you were in Kuwait."

"Yeah, little Ellie. Larry was so proud of me being over there, he wanted to name his little girl after me."

Olivia looks between Bernie and Elliot with a degree of shock registering on her face. "What happened to Sheila and Ellie?" she asks, unsure of what answer might come.

"She left Larry and took Ellie with her! That's what she did!" Bernie says, her eyes brimming with tears, thinking of the granddaughter she never got to know. "Ellie was the sweetest little baby, always so happy. I hoped she'd get her mom's looks and her dad's personality."

"Larry was never the same after she left," Elliot says, turning to Olivia. "Last I heard from him was shortly after Kathy died, he sent me a sympathy postcard postmarked way out in Needles, California."

Where Noah's family tree was almost-blank and filled in with the few scant precious details they knew, along with a notation about what Olivia knew of her own tree, the Stabler family tree would probably take up an entire wall. She's always envied that in a way, a place to belong even when no one else would have you.

"I still don't see why you're bringing up Ellie and Sheila now, Ma," he continues. "Larry tried looking for years. That's what destroyed his third marriage, remember?"

"I remember, I remember," Bernie says, her voice distant, as if she's in a daze or a trance. "Ellie, so precious, so tiny. Sheila, so disruptive, always speaking over me, like I wasn't even there." She tucks one arm over the other and begins rocking back and forth, as if a tiny baby is cradled in her arms. "Hush little Ellie, don't say a word, Grandma Bernie's gonna buy you a mockingbird," she croons, slightly off-key.

Olivia mouths to Elliot, "is she okay?"

"Yeah. Give her a moment," he mouths back.

And so, they do, watching as all of the thoughts and hopes and dreams and fears Bernie ever had for the granddaughter that she never truly got to know cascade through her mind and reveal themselves through her facial expressions. She finally looks up at them, her eyes wet with tears, and extends her index finger toward the door. "Go, Elliot, go get my photo album. The red one. It should be by my bed."

"Ma – " Elliot attempts to warn her. "We don't need to do this."

"Yes, we do. Don't be daft, my boy, it'll take only a moment." She clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth and sighs. "If you're not going to do it, then I will."

Elliot snorts. "Okay, fine, I'll go get it, if that's what's going to make you happy."

"It is." Bernie beams at Olivia, as Elliot walks back into the apartment. "Do you know much about what happened to Ellie? Do you know if she's buried anywhere? I'd love to go pay my respects."

"I – honestly, I don't know." Olivia isn't sure how much to say about Ellie's short, tragic life. The bits she knows are mostly unhappy: a fractured childhood, a tormented adulthood on the streets, cut short by the circumstances she'd found herself in. "She was pretty, though." Would have been, anyway, if it wasn't for the rough lifestyle she was in. It definitely took a toll.

"Like her mom," Bernie says, scoffing slightly as she sips at her tea again. "Poor Larry was so broken after he caught his first wife screwing his best friend in their bed, and Sheila comes along with her pretty face and all these promises, blah, blah, and my Larry, he has such a good heart, so much like my Elliot. You're much better for him than Kathy ever was. But Sheila broke his heart too, taking little Ellie away when she was only a few months old."

"Did you ever hear from them again?" She's not convinced the Sheila and Ellie she knows are the same ones Bernie is referring to. "Even a Christmas card?"

"They just – disappeared. Said they were going to the park to feed the ducks. He spent years looking for them, my boy, and when he never could, he left to go find himself. I hope he's found something, at least." She gazes off into the distance, watching as Noah tosses the ball up in the air and practices catching it in different angles. "I never forgot about my little Ellie. I always hoped she'd have a good life, turn out happy and loved and successful."

Olivia hesitates. She knows the details of Ellie's gruesome death; she doesn't necessarily want to recount those horrors. To think that Ellie had been born into a family with such a boundless capacity for love, though, and been ripped from it at such a tender age – she never truly had a chance.

"She was 23 when she died," Olivia says, choosing her words carefully. "She loved Noah; Noah was her name for him. We'd called him Baby Boy Doe before that."

"What kind of a name is that?" Bernie scoffs. "You could have at least called him Michael or John, something normal. Not a silly fake name, and he'd have never known the difference."

She's not going to mention that John, or Johnny D, rather, as she knew him, is Noah's biological father's name, and the less she thinks about Johnny D, the better they all are. Glad Amaro took care of that. "It worked, and he's been Noah a lot longer than he hasn't."

"You know, Noah saved all of humanity when he brought the animals on the ark," Bernie says. Olivia seems to remember the story from the times she tagged along with friends to church. "Maybe this Noah saved you too."

You have no idea, Bernie.

The subject of her life after Elliot left but before Noah entered has never really come up, and she doesn't like thinking about that time of her life, for obvious reasons. But it's true, her Noah really did save her. He gave her what she'd always wanted: a child of her own, someone to call her family. And she'd been his peace and tranquility in what could have otherwise been a rocky and stormy world for him to be brought up in – a metaphorical olive branch delivered to him, Olivia.

He is her miracle; she is his peace.

Finally, Elliot returns, a red pleather photo album in his hands. "I hope I grabbed the right one," he says, "you have a lot more photo albums than I realized."

"You did just fine, my boy," Bernie says, cupping his chin and giving him a kiss on the cheek, before he moves to stand behind Olivia's chair, his hand resting delicately on her shoulder. "Now, let me see here." She licks the tip of her finger with the tip of her tongue and begins turning the pages.

Olivia peeks over her shoulder. Elliot's never talked much about his childhood before – though, in fairness, neither has she – and she loves these little glimpses into what a rambunctious Irish Catholic family growing up in Queens in the 1970s-80s looked like. She sees Elliot in a Little League uniform, and then a football jersey for one of the local Catholic high schools, one she seems to remember him mentioning attending. She sees two girls who must be his two sisters she's heard about but never met, mugging it up in front of a vanity mirror with matching grins as well as identical cans of hairspray.

"That's Larry and Elliot when they were boys," Bernie says, tapping her finger against a photo of a younger boy sprawled out on the couch next to an older one – Elliot, from the looks of it – sitting next to him, both in pajamas. Their eyes are wide, and they're looking at something that's out of the frame. "They were inseparable, for a time. I think this was a Saturday morning, when they were watching their cartoons."

She thinks it's absolutely precious that young Elliot wore Superman pajamas.

Bernie continues rifling, before she stops. "A-ha! There it is," she says. "This is the only picture I think I still have of Ellie." It shows a small baby girl, wearing a pink dress with applique yellow ducklings on it, being held by a very good-looking woman. The woman has a pained expression, but the little girl seems happy as can be. "That's Ellie and Sheila, a week or two before she took off."

Olivia looks at the picture. Ellie closely resembles Noah when she met him, but a lot of babies can look alike. But the woman in the picture is a dead ringer for a younger version of the same woman who caused her so much anguish and grief some time before: gorgeous, could have been a model if things were different, but with a deep look of discontent in her eyes.

"That's her. That's Noah's grandma," Olivia says, covering her mouth with her hands. "At home, somewhere, I have a few pictures of her. Enough to show Noah, anyway." She begins to make the connections in her head. "If Noah's Grandma Sheila and your son Larry's ex-wife Sheila are the same Sheila –"

"And they had a precious little bundle of joy named Ellie, which you said was Noah's mom's name," Bernie continues. "And I can see it in his eyes when I look at him, Noah has his grandpa Larry's eyes."

It's always unnerved Olivia, slightly, especially when Elliot wasn't around, to look into Noah's sweet face and see eyes so similar to Elliot's looking back at her. And now – now, there's an explanation. "Noah, sweetie, can you come over here for a minute?" Olivia calls out.

He comes running over, dropping his ball on the ground as he does so. "Yeah, Mom?" He looks anxiously between the three adults; his face reflecting uncertainty and anxiety about why he was beckoned, which only increases as they all look at each other in stunned silence. "What's going on?"

Bernie's the one to break the silence, because of course she is. "I should have known he was one of mine from the moment I first saw him," she says, reaching out her hand and attempting to trace the curve of Noah's face.

"It's okay, Noah," Olivia says. "She's not going to hurt you."

Noah moves in closer, and Bernie's hand smooths over his cheek. "You look just like your grandpa when he was your age," Bernie says. "Oh, you have his eyes, and his smile. His curls were a little darker, but that's okay."

"Grandpa?" Noah asks. His confusion is becoming more evident. "I don't have a grandpa, just a grandma, and she's in jail because she tried to take me away." He pouts. "All my friends have grandparents and talk about how awesome they are."

"Yes, but your grandma was married to a man once, and he's your grandpa. But he's also my son." Bernie's smile reaches her eyes. "That makes you my family, Noah."

"Our family," Elliot amends, still reeling from the revelation himself. "I don't think there's a fancy term for what you'd call me."

Noah tilts his head slightly, as if he's examining Elliot from a different perspective. "I don't know, but you make Mom really happy, and you're cool to play catch with. I guess that means you're the closest thing to a dad I've ever had. That work?"

Olivia's heart could almost burst from the swell of emotions she's feeling, as she watches Bernie embrace Noah, her great-grandson, for the first time. And then Noah tugs her by the hand to join the hug, and Elliot joins them, and the four of them are hugging – as a family – and she can feel the tears coming before she has a chance to stop them.

It takes a moment before she realizes she's not the only one who's crying.

Later that evening, as the adults sit on the couch inside and watch as Noah attempts to show Bernie the solo he's been practicing for the upcoming dance recital, Olivia leans back against Elliot and smiles up at him. "You ever think Noah had Stabler blood before today?" she asks, stroking her fingertips lightly along the top of his arm.

"Never crossed my mind," he says, tenderly kissing her and pulling her closer, teasing his fingers through her long, luscious waves. "Once I knew he existed, though, because he's your kid? He became my family, no matter what."

She hums to herself slightly and tucks her knees against his thigh. "You've never been one for the gene thing, have you?"

"Of course not. Family is about love, not duty," he says. "Some people are meant to be in your life, no matter what. You and me, for example."

"I like that," she says, and she settles against him and watches Noah show off for his family – in all the senses of the word – and the laughter that echoes through the room soothes her.

Noah is her miracle; she is his peace. But the Stablers have provided the two of them stability to build a foundation on, one that will take them through the rotation of the seasons. Summer will be there before they know it, and they can bask in the glory of its rays – together.

-fini-