A/N: This story is a sequel to Defenseless. The idea started out as a small epilogue and quickly became a more complex story. Right now I have about ten chapters in mind. This chapter has references to 'Loophole' (8x13) and 'Florida' (8x19). Baby fics aren't everyone's cup of tea but I plan on putting some spins in this one. I've always been of the belief that while babies bring joy, they also can bring more conflicts. I also spent a lot of time on the pregnancy date details to keep it as accurate as I could in a fictional world. Keep in mind that '3 weeks pregnant' means 3 weeks from the start date of her last period (these details will mean more when you get reading!) I hope this brings some relief after a gloomy day. Lastly, a thanks to Liv and Em for beta reading and indulging all my EO baby fantasies.

Days of Daisies

Chapter 1- Pleas

Tuesday, April 17th, 2007 / 10:36 p.m. / Olivia's Apartment

"You're pregnant?" Dean asked as his fingers skimmed the swell of her lower abdomen. They were on her couch, their clothes shed. The pictures and safe keepings sent by Simon were long forgotten on her coffee table. Dean was staying the night at her apartment so that they could go to Moorepark in the morning to track down her brother, who had tried to run her over just hours before. When she'd fallen into the trash bags in the alley, relief washed over her that she hadn't fallen on the baby she felt obligated to protect. Dean had pulled her up and had been none the wiser that it wasn't only her life that had almost been compromised.

She looked up at Dean, feeling her pulse quicken that her denials on this pregnancy weren't strong enough to keep another man from noticing its reality. Her bump was barely there, but the truth loomed between their bodies regardless. Dean's observation sent sheer panic through her veins. If he could tell, it was only a matter of time before the secret pregnancy grew apparent through her clothing. It didn't help that the weather was changing against her favor. Soon everyone would know. Soon she'd have to accept it herself.

"A little bit."

"You can't be a little bit pregnant, Olivia," he laughed, but his eyes were holding steady on her small and ever-present bump. Having the reality of her and Elliot's child between her and Dean's naked bodies was making her chest pound. What was she doing? What was she thinking? Dean's hand covered her lower belly, and she knew that the action would enrage Elliot if he could see it happening.

"I didn't think you'd notice, when I agreed…" she trailed off, agreed to sleep with you, lingering between them. It was as if she could make her state less of an actuality by being intimate with someone other than Elliot.

"Who's the father?" he asked as he kept touching, seemingly unbothered by the fact that she was carrying another man's child. She took in a deep breath.

"No one," she decided. Dean rolled his eyes.

"That's not how it works," he teased her, but she was struggling to find the humor in this situation. She stayed silent, praying he'd decide it didn't matter and continue providing her the relief she'd decided she could get from him when she'd leaned across the couch and kissed him. The last time she'd kissed Dean Porter, she and Elliot hadn't crossed all the lines between them. She had been unattached. As soon as her lips met Dean's tonight, she knew that was no longer the case. But she'd had a stressful week. Between being busted by Dean himself, for paying Simon's bail, and trying to reconcile the fact that her only thread of living family was another rapist, she needed an outlet for her mounting stress. And besides that, the changes to her body were becoming more than she could control. Her hormones had caused her to lose all rationality.

Her silence wasn't effective; the dreaded question came, "Is it his?"

"Whose?" she almost whispered. They both knew whom.

"Stabler's?" he said. The impersonal and removed way he said her partner's last name made her feel like she'd allowed herself to get impregnated by a stranger, rather than her best friend.

We're best friends.

"What would make you think that?" she swallowed. Dean hoisted himself up on his arm, leaning on his side to assess her.

"Who else would it be?" The words made her arms flush in a wave of chills. Who else would it be. They rang like a reminder that no matter how many other men she'd tried to envision having this with, it had always been him. When she didn't answer, Dean nodded. "So that's a yes."

"No."

"Olivia…" Dean pushed, and she closed her eyes in attempts to hide.

"Yes," she confirmed, realizing there was no way around the truth. The truth would be forced out of her with each passing day. Dean retracted his hand from her skin as soon as she uttered the small word. He sat up, and she panicked at his sudden shift. "We're not together," she clarified.

"He'd kill me," he stated simply.

"What?" she questioned as she sat up.

"He'd kill me if he knew I was with you right now. I can't do this with you if that's his child," Dean said, his eyes flicking to her stomach.

"He doesn't know," she sighed, and Dean's eyes darkened with the knowledge.

"Olivia...you have to tell him. He'd want to know. If it was me, I'd want to know," he admitted, and she imagined an alternate world where she was pregnant with Dean's child instead of Elliot's. The thought made her grateful for the baby that was with her— the baby she'd spent too much time ignoring and denying. She was already becoming Serena.

"Not yet..." she sighed as she leaned towards him and tried to draw him back down to the couch, but he shook his head, his hands denying her.

"Believe me I want to, but I don't need Stabler ruining my life for touching you," he gulped, and so did she. He was right. Elliot would end him if he could see what was happening right now. It wasn't only about protecting her anymore. Elliot would go ballistic if he knew she'd let Dean be intimate with her, with his child between them. He'd be protective of their baby. His baby.

"He doesn't need to know," she said, but Dean shook his head slowly.

"You're his," he shrugged, like it was an unfortunate fact. "You always have been."

"That's not true," she insisted, but he shook his head again, and then he glanced once more to the evidence that refuted all her pitiful claims of detachment from Elliot Stabler. Dean's eyes darkened as he said,

"Stop running from him. It's what you've been doing since I met you."

3 Months Prior/ January 9th, 2007 / Mercy General Hospital

"Your blood work shows that you have half the normal amount of cholinesterase," the doctor said as she came to stand in front of the bed where Olivia was sitting.

"What is that?"

"It's an enzyme that helps regulate the nervous system. The levels drop when you've been exposed to organophosphates."

"So will it get better?"

"I'm gonna give you a shot of atropine. It's an antidote. Unless you've been exposed long term, you should be okay in about 24 hours."

"So I can go now?"

"No. I'm gonna have to keep you here overnight," the doctor said, and Olivia huffed in frustration. The last thing she needed was to be bed-bound to a hospital for the night. "Also there is something else, Detective" the doctor said. Olivia arched her eyebrows and waited for the doctor to expound. "Your blood work showed increased RCG levels," the doctor revealed. Olivia squinted her eyes, in efforts to process the reality of what that meant.

"Pregnancy hormone?" she asked.

"Yes."

"That's not possible. I got my period yesterday."

"It's likely that it was implantation spotting. When is your period due?" Olivia felt the blood rush pounding in her ears.

"The sixteenth, but I've been irregular," she gulped, her mind working hard to calculate whether or not the medical tests were telling an accurate truth. The last time she and Elliot had slept together was the first of the year — the same day their relationship raveled into pieces that neither of them had the strength to reassemble once more. They'd ended all they could have been for good. They'd promised not to lose each other at work too. They'd been working seamlessly, the dissolution of their intimacy improving their work flow. Their dedication to the job allowed them to stifle their pain. Eight days of cases and acting like nothing had happened seemed to be a great way of dealing with how they'd burned each other to ash.

"Your pregnancy has been detected extremely early due to the blood test. You're only three weeks."

"I... I'm...will the exposure to whatever it was we came in contact with... harm the…," but she trailed off, her mouth unable to speak the word — baby. She'd known of this potential child for all of a minute, and already her veins coursed with the need to know that her baby would be okay.

"It's possible that the distress your body has undergone could lead to an early miscarriage. Re-test in a week," the doctor said so matter-of-factly, as if three weeks meant Olivia shouldn't have any emotions towards the potential life force within her. She swallowed as she realized that this opportunity at motherhood could vanish because of risks she'd taken for the job.

The distress your body has undergone could lead to an early miscarriage. The doctor's words lingered in the background of her thoughts as they admitted her for the night and attached her to oxygen that she didn't feel she needed.

As she laid in the sterile hospital bed sheets her mind drifted to the fight. The momentary bliss she and Elliot had lived in from the twenty-fifth of December to the first of the year was nothing more than memories, because of one senseless fight. A part of herself that she didn't care to recognize wished that Elliot would come to visit her. But he was home on leave because of the man who had thrown him through a window, and she had to be alone because that's what she deserved after she'd pushed him away for good. She'd yelled at him for telling Maureen. She'd been hurt that he'd told his daughter, in so many words, when he'd promised her that he wouldn't. She'd been so mad, and at the time she felt her anger had been justified. Now she only felt empty — wishing she could take back the resentment she'd unleashed on her best friend. All he'd wanted was to take steps forward, and she'd set them back, beyond repair, with her refusals.

Her mind was plagued by thoughts of him.

She thought about his cut arm, and how she'd sat on the hospital cot just days before as he was stitched up. She thought about how he only looked at her now when they had a case to discuss. She thought about how he'd pushed into her slowly as they laid across his couch, the New Year's Day mix of rain and snow humming against the living room window in cadence to their rhythm. She thought about how his mouth was dutiful and loving on her throat, his heavy frame pushing her into the cushions, his fingertips knowing all the grooves of her body. He'd learned her so innately, his lips smiling into her, his hands secured on her inner thighs, as he held her open, his thrusts eliciting the moans of his name. She thought about how he'd whispered,

"You like that?" his tone a playful taunt as he traced her all over. She'd loved how he'd come to tease her, their unions no longer only intensity, but midday sleet storm past-times. They had been at ease with each other. He'd cover her body with his like a blanket that she'd always wanted to be wrapped in. She wished she would have known that their afternoon tryst would be the last time his hands would find her curves —touching her like she belonged under his palms.

Her own palm fell to her stomach. She rested her hand on the potential, only allowing herself the curiosity in the dead silence of the hospital nightfall. The distress your body has undergone could lead to an early miscarriage.

She thought about how Elliot had kissed her on that spot before descending to her parted legs, his mouth none the wiser to the words of hate that would flow only hours later. She prayed this baby had come to undo the mistake they'd made on New Year's Day — she prayed this baby would stay.

But she feared her prayer would fall on deaf ears. She feared Elliot had shut off all avenues to his heart and told his God not to answer any more of her calls.

It would be easier to pretend this baby had never come at all. It would make the leaving easier. Everyone always left. She pulled her hand back from her abdomen and forced herself to fall asleep with thoughts of the worst case scenario. She couldn't invest in dreams because the misfortunes of her nightmares always seemed to illuminate in her daybreak.

January 10th, 2007 / The Next Day

She left the hospital. She returned to the precinct, still dressed in the hospital smocks as she went to the locker room. She opened her locker and wrapped herself in the grey hoodie. She'd decided she wouldn't tell him. She'd couldn't lean on him when she'd been the one to cut him down. The hoodie was the only support she'd allow herself. She buried herself in the case. There was no sense worrying about something that was only three weeks. She wasn't even supposed to know this early. It made the forgetting easier.

January 11th, 2007 / Midnight / 1-6th Precinct

"I thought the joint would be empty," Elliot said as he strolled to their desks. Her eyes shot up to him, her heart not ready to see him since the news she'd gotten at the hospital.

"I thought the doctor said you had to be on house arrest for two weeks."

"I can't stay away," he grinned, and she tried to not think about how strong the tug within her was to tell him. He deserved to know. It alarmed her that he still talked to her as if everything was fine. His forgiveness was too cordial. They shouldn't be able to still work together. They shouldn't be able to still talk as partners in the quiet hours of the night. He should have labeled her as damaged and gone on the rest of his life hating her. Instead, he was still walking beside her, taking the little she could give him, still allowing those small moments with her to make the brights of his eyes shine.

"It's almost midnight," she remarked.

"I didn't want Cragen to see me."

"Yeah, I know the feeling."

"He rip you for your visit to Danforth?"

"Ah, I see word travels fast," she replied with the arch of her eyebrows.

"Well, you know me. I got spies everywhere," he smiled. It was the kind of smile that made her feel like he was looking right through her. She wondered if he could see the newfound information written across her face. "Are you sure you want to do this to yourself?"

"So you think that I should give up too?"

"No, I think what you're doing is great. And it's wonderful to be passionate about…"

"Well, it's easy to be passionate when you're one of the victims," she said as she thought about how she could lose this pregnancy because of this case. Only three weeks. She hated herself for living her whole life unattached, but as soon as that news hit her ears, something had flipped within her.

"Well, at least you've got the guts to admit it." If next week came and she awoke to blood, Elliot would never know. She'd cry about it alone. His words haunted her because she didn't have the guts to admit anything. "But what do you tell victims? Get help. But the problem is, you're not following your own advice right now."

"What do you mean, "get help"? You want me to hire a lawyer? If I sue this chemical company, they will bury me in paperwork for the next ten years. The kid could be dead by then. Elliot, I don't even know what made us sick. It's proprietary information."

"Ways to find out."

"What does that mean?"

"It means sometimes the only way to beat someone in a dirty fight is to get right down into the gutter with them."

Ten days since she'd lost him, but he hadn't stopped being her partner. His advice soothed her. He'd always provided her with routes when she didn't know where to turn next.

Early February 2007

She illegally ran her DNA. She had a brother. She turned forty. She was still pregnant. It was still a secret.

Late February 2007

Tell me about Detective Stabler.

He's the best. He's straight with me; I'm straight with him.

But she knew she was lying. She was over a month pregnant with his baby, and she was lying to him about it. She assured Rebecca Hendrix that they worked well together — no conflicts.

The evaluation had become necessary because she'd been on a quest to know Simon, and Elliot decided he'd had a right to intervene. She'd driven to Jersey and had a gun pulled on her; it was aimed at her belly. Elliot emerged and backed her up. He was walking a thin line by following her, and she wanted to curse him for jeopardizing the denial they'd mastered over the last month.

She went to Jersey because she needed to pull on the one thread of family she had. She needed to know she was someone, connected to someone. She needed to know that she had other ties in this world beyond Elliot Stabler. She needed to know what she could be passing onto the baby that hadn't yet left.

Family is everything.

She'd started taking prenatals, but she told herself, each morning as she swallowed the pills, that it was only insurance — likely unnecessary.

Family always left.

Monday, April 16th, 2007 / 1-6th Precinct / 3 Months

"Munch said you left with some suit," Elliot said as he looked at her, his eyes sweeping her in a way that made her pulse strain. Would today be the day he could tell?

"Munch should mind his own business," she shot back, thinking about how Munch had been side eyeing her due to the frequency she'd excused herself to throw up in the department bathroom, and how she'd developed some strange eating habits. Somehow Munch seemed to be more observant than her partner. Luckily, the morning sickness had been decreasing since her first trimester was ending. Only three weeks. Now, it had been three months, and she didn't believe it anymore than she did that day in the hospital.

"Okay…" Elliot tested, waiting for her to give it up.

"Just my case agent from the undercover gig needed some information," she gulped, watching Elliot process the information before he decided to ignore it. Now she was lying to him about two huge things — the list kept growing. She could be delivering their child in jail for how reckless she'd been, giving Simon money to skip town because he was her only flesh and blood. It occurred to her that that wouldn't be true for long, but then she repressed the thought: it was too much to process.

"Well I went at 'macho man' for two hours, and, uh, he wouldn't spill the beans. He'd uh...only speak with you."

She beat the hell out of Michael Thatcher. Cragen had to pry her off the sorry excuse of a human. She could blame her actions on being busted for Simon, or the secret she was keeping, or the hormones, but the truth was it was her. She had too much outside of her control, and she was spiraling.

Cragen had wrapped his arms around her midsection as he tore her from the brink of destroying her career. She caught the sight of Elliot's alarmed eyes as he watched their captain try to reel her back in.

"I have had it with your crap! We are not finished," Cragen spat at her as they made their way into the hallway, leaving Thatcher in a wallowing fetal position. Her kicks to his spleen held no mercy. She was so sick of rapists. Her brother included.

"You get your hands off of me!" she screamed at Cragen as she realized that her commanding officer likely felt her secret as he pulled her off the suspect. Her heart fell to her feet. It was all going to come out.

"You go home. Now."

She stalked to the locker room, Elliot tailing her. He cornered her against the lockers, breathing down on her as he demanded to know what had gotten into her.

Liv, what's going on?

She told him about Simon, because she knew he wouldn't forgive her for the other secret.

Wednesday, April 18th, 2007 / 8:00 a.m.

Dean Porter had slept on her couch after refusing her. They drove to Moorepark the next morning. Moorepark led them to Simon's mother.

He said it was his little girl. She looks just like you.

She was so many steps closer to filling in her missing pieces, and she'd never felt more empty.

"Stay out of trouble," Dean warned as he left her to go to Florida to apprehend her rapist brother, and she left to go find closure with the man who fathered her.

Wednesday, April 18th, 2007 / Later That Day / Orange County Coroner's Office

Joseph Hollister.

After forty years of not knowing, she had a name. She also had a sonogram. She kept it in her nightstand drawer. She had three actually, but she had no one to give the others to. In little white print on the black picture, the line with the measurements and the date read,

Benson.

The three by four-inch shiny piece of paper kept her awake at night. She tried to pretend that the picture didn't reveal the shape of something that was beginning to look more and more like a baby — a baby that would need a name.

Benson? The sight of her own surname on the sonogram felt like a denial to her child. It was half of who this baby could be. Olivia had a second last name that she'd never been wiser to as well —Hollister.

Maybe never knowing would be easier for her baby too.

But Elliot Stabler was not Joseph Hollister — not even close. Elliot would want his name on that sonogram: the sonogram which existed only because of love, not pain. Her baby deserved his name.

Wednesday, April 18th, 2007 / Dr. Huang's Office

My mother lied to me, about so many things, what if this was one of them? She couldn't ask her; she was dead. Her mother was dead, and her mother was a liar, and she hadn't lived to see Olivia become a mother herself. For the first time since she'd been told of her mother's passing, she wished that Serena hadn't fallen down those stairs.

She could use a mother right now. The closest she could get was listening to her mother's statement. The closest she could get to a father was the thin belief that maybe he wasn't a rapist.

The next day, speaking to Ms. Willet would prove that he was. She never needed a father anyways.

Friday, April 20th, 2007

Elliot spoke to O'Halloran. He told him that Olivia had come to his office at nearly midnight, asking about forensics. His partner was still trying to prove that her brother was innocent.

He tapped a pencil as he considered what to do. He knew she'd been off for awhile. He was worried for her. She never lost composure the way she had with Thatcher. Cragen sent her home, and now he'd found out she'd been working her brother's case under the radar. He needed to talk some sense into her, but she'd retracted his privileges to intervene into her personal life.

He missed her.

He wanted to go find her, hold her, tell her that Simon Marsden didn't matter because she had him. But she'd insisted that she didn't want him. He'd left her alone for three months. The distance hadn't given him clarity: all he wanted was to have her back — to go back to New Year's Day.

His mouth missed her skin. His body missed sleeping in her apartment. His mind missed trying to read hers. His heart missed the most. But he didn't let it show. She'd decided to deny him, so he'd packed up his confessions, cut down all his dreams, and returned to only being her partner.

It was almost too easy. They were skilled at that charade.

The ring of his phone pulled him from his memories of what he used to be to Olivia.

"Stabler," he answered into the phone.

"Stabler...good, this is Dean Porter. I was Olivia's case agent in Oregon," a man's voice said into the phone, and Elliot dropped his pencil.

"What do you want?" he said. He knew nothing about this man, aside from the fact that Olivia always avoided answering questions about him — the same way he'd avoided answering questions about Dani Beck.

"I just got back from Florida. I don't know how much Olivia has told you, but Simon Marsden wasn't there. Your partner's in a bad way about this guy. I was hoping you knew where she was to prevent her from doing something stupid." Dean's words, combined with the information from O'Halloran, confirmed that he needed to get up from this desk and go find Olivia. He wanted to hate the fed, but he couldn't fully hate anyone who worried for Olivia.

"My bet is she went to find Julia Millfield. She's the Captain at River Park P.D. in Jersey, whaddya say I meet you there?" Elliot said, sucking in a breath as he waited for the other man's response.

"Sure thing. I look forward to meeting Olivia's infamous partner," Dean said, and the hint of bitterness in his tone raised the hairs on the back of Elliot's neck.

"I look forward to meeting the case agent who couldn't return a call about a UC's whereabouts," he barked into the phone, knowing his words were petty when the man on the other line was only trying to help.

"I didn't want to return her, she was solving cases for me," Dean laughed, and Elliot felt his blood boil. He wondered what else she had done for this cocky fed. He knew his partner. He knew how she coped.

"I'll see you in Jersey," Elliot said, in an attempt to end the awkward exchange, but Dean cleared his throat.

"You need to talk to her when we find her," Dean said, and it irritated him that this stranger was trying to tell him how to handle his partner.

"Oh, I will be."

"Not about Simon. You need to talk to her."

"Excuse me?" Elliot said, his fingers almost crushing the phone as he held it against his reddening face.

"I'll see you in Jersey," Dean said, and then the line disconnected.

A/N: Thank you for reading. This chapter was a lot of 'setting up.' I've already written the second chapter and I'm very excited about it. Leave me a review if you'd like more! One more note: this story is EO despite the Dean complications in this first chapter.