Chapter 27
Olivia came out of her room rubbing her eyes. She blearily stared at the clock on her wall, which read 5:30am. Groaning she made her way to the couch where Ed was perched with Noah drinking milk and watching old Bugs Bunny reruns while curled up in his lap.
"Hey," she whispered, rubbing his neck and sliding in next to her boys. "I didn't hear him wake up?"
"Ah," Ed said. "I was comin' out of the bathroom and heard him. Figured we could let ya sleep but," he looked at the time on his phone and chuckled. "That plan failed."
Olivia rested her head on Ed's shoulder. "Early breakfast?"
Ed let out a hearty laugh, startling Noah slightly. "Sorry bud," he reassured him, before turning to Olivia. "You realize you have no food here?"
Indignant, Olivia was ready to argue. "I have cereal, milk…well, maybe no eggs."
"You have half a box of Cheerios," Ed said. "And Noah drank the rest of the milk just now."
Olivia groaned playfully. "You'd think with being a mother now I'd keep my fridge stocked better."
"Old habits die hard."
"True words, Captain," she said. "I can run out? Order in?"
"Nah," Ed said, looking down at Noah and seeing he was almost done with his milk. "I have stuff at my place. Why don't we all go there. Big breakfast? The five of us, if mine are even awake, before we have to go in."
Olivia's smile grew and Ed could see the delight in her eyes. "Five of us," she murmured, her eyes scanning over his face. "Sounds perfect."
The couple dressed, packed a bag for Noah in case Lucy needed to pick him up from Ed's, and piled into an Uber. The sun hadn't even come up yet, so it took no time before they were in the elevator up to Ed's floor.
"Did you text the kids?" Olivia asked. She reached over to rub Noah's back, as he slept peacefully in Ed's arms. "I don't wanna scare them."
"I sent something to both," he stated. "Didn't hear anything. Ever hear back from Emma last night?"
"No."
"Good," Ed said with a relieved breath."Hopefully they are sleeping, finally."
The elevator doors opened and Olivia went out first, quietly unlocking the door and moving into Ed's apartment ahead of the two boys. She placed Noah's bag down in the foyer and flipped the kitchen light on.
"Emma," she gasped, beelining for where the girl was still curled up against the cabinets, eyes closed. "Emma?" Olivia dropped to her knees and moved quickly to check for a pulse, but much to her relief, Emma flinched and her eyes shot open.
"What's going on?" Ed asked, his voice slightly elevated with concern as he made his way into the kitchen, careful not to wake up Noah. "What's wrong?"
One of her hands clutched Emma's as Olivia snaked another arm around her back to help her sit up slightly.
"I'm fine," Emma croaked, looking around and blinking rapidly. She finally let her eyes settle on Olivia. "I just…why am I in the kitchen? Did I sleep here?"
"Liv?" Ed's eyes darted between Olivia and Emma. When Emma didn't attempt to move away from Olivia, she turned to Ed.
"You wanna lay Noah down in your bed?" Olivia's voice was soft and calm. Worried about his daughter, but hopeful that she would open up a little to Olivia, Ed nodded.
"Yeah," he said. "Em, I'll be in the back if you need me?"
Emma nodded but gripped Olivia's hand tighter in her own. Noticing the slight move, Ed was reassured that his daughter was in good hands for the moment and quietly moved down the hall with Noah who continued to snooze away, oblivious to the turmoil around him.
Olivia immediately turned her attention back to Emma and took note of her ghostly, pale complexion and the dark, puffy circles under her glazed eyes. First and foremost, she needed to make sure they didn't need a doctor. "Emma, did you take anything?"
"No," Emma whispered. "I…I didn't take anything."
"Xanax? Sleeping pills?"
"I don't…I took a Xanax last night, but just one, right after Nate went to sleep. I think…"
"Okay," Olivia said softly. Trusting for now that Emma was physically okay, she moved so she was sitting right next to her on the tiled floor and leaned back against the counter. "Okay, you're okay," she whispered, pulling Emma into her side and resting her chin on top of her head.
"Why am I in the kitchen?"
"I don't know," Olivia answered honestly. "Do you remember anything about last night?"
Emma bit her lip and looked around slightly before closing her eyes. Her body tensed up and she unknowingly scooted closer to Olivia. "I hate kitchens," she whispered.
Olivia felt her heart crack, momentarily glossing over the fact that Emma ignored the actual question. "I know, sweetheart," she whispered. "Come on. Can I help you to the couch?"
Emma nodded and allowed Olivia to pull her up. Though wobbly, she let Olivia lead her out of the kitchen and to the couch where she collapsed onto the cushions. Olivia handed her a blanket and reached out to brush the hair of Emma's face as she sat next to her.
"Better?"
"Much," Emma said hoarsely. Finally coming firmly back into the present, she swallowed hard and looked up at Olivia. "Thanks, Liv."
"I'm right here, Emma," she assured her. "Take all the time you need. I'm not going anywhere."
Ed, finally unable to stand it, came padding back down the hallway. He stopped briefly to admire the two women on the couch. Emma was curled up close to Olivia, not fully against her, but they were hand in hand as they stared off towards the fireplace.
"Hey," he whispered, careful not to startle Emma, and made his way over to the coffee table. He perched in front of them and eyed his daughter. "Ya alright?"
"Yeah," she said, her voice still hoarse but less so than earlier. "I still don't really know what happened."
Ed nodded and glanced worriedly towards Olivia. She seemed concerned but calm, so he allowed himself room to breathe. There was no one in the world he trusted more with his daughter right now than Olivia Benson.
Yawning, Emma stretched and emerged out from under the blanket. "I think I'm gonna take a shower," she said. "See if I can clear the cobwebs."
"Sure you're okay?" Ed asked, his eyes following Emma as she stood.
"I think so," she responded. "But…you're not leaving, right?"
Olivia assumed she meant Ed, but when she glanced up at Emma she was looking pointedly at her.
"I'll be right here," she assured her with a smile. "Your dad has to feed Noah and I breakfast because I'm bad at keeping groceries in my apartment."
Emma finally cracked a smile and let out a laugh. "We may be better off ordering in," she quipped, smirking at her father.
"Hey!"
They all shared a laugh and Emma made her way down the hallway and into the bathroom, closing the door. Ed moved to sit on the couch and pulled Olivia into his arms.
"She seems…well…more with it than when we first got here," Ed said, trying to find the positives. Olivia just let out a slow breath.
"She does," she finally said, looking up into his worried eyes. "I'm…concerned. But she's trying. I think that counts."
"I know," he said, rubbing at his face. "I just…I'm at a loss. I can't read her. I really thought she was fine last night."
Olivia contemplated her next words, but she was drawing a blank. It was an excruciatingly difficult situation.
"It's just gonna take time," she finally said. "A new normal for all of us."
"I just can't believe I didn't see it…"
"Ed."
"I'm outta my wheelhouse here, Liv."
"Hey," she said, making sure she had his attention. "When I said 'us'…I meant all of us. We're in it together."
"Speaking of," Ed said, rubbing his hands on his pants before looking back over at Olivia. "I wanna go with Nate when he heads back to Stanford next week. But I'm worried about Emma, especially after last night."
"Want me to stay with her?" Olivia offered, correctly reading his mind.
"Would you?"
"Of course," she said. "As long as she's okay with it?"
"I'll talk to her, but I'm sure it'll be fine," Ed said. "Thank you…"
"You don't have to thank me," she said simply. "But…you do still owe me breakfast."
Ed smiled and leaned over to kiss her lips. "Comin' right up."
The following week found Olivia sitting at her desk. She had tossed her glasses aside, half closed her laptop, and rubbed at her temples. Exhausted and overwhelmed, she tried to organize her thoughts. Rollins had announced her pregnancy weeks ago, yet Olivia had little time to let it sink in until recently. Her detective seemed both excited and nervous, which seemed understandable, and while Olivia wanted to be completely supportive, she was already questioning how this would affect the squad. Rollins stilled showed signs of questioning victims or validity of cases and had not quite earned her way back into Olivia's good graces. Dodds was still green and experiencing the learning curve of SVU cases. Olivia also still hadn't quite let her guard down with how the chief had slid his son right into a commanding position within her squad. She still suspected ulterior motives, but Olivia had a job to do and couldn't spend any of her already limited time coming up with scenarios. Luckily, Sonny had been growing on her more and more as time went on. She found him a little quirky at times, but reliable and enthusiastic.
"Thank god for Fin," Olivia mumbled to herself. She sat back up, grabbed her glasses, and began to make a list of tasks she could complete and things she could control enough to get in order to help the other chaos settle in her mind. Olivia kicked herself for allowing Amanda's pregnancy fall to the back burner with her promotion and personal life, but there just weren't enough hours in the day for Olivia to give every single thing the time and attention it deserved. But with an invitation to a baby shower sitting on her desk, it was time to face the reality in her squad room.
A knock at the door once again broke her focus on making a plan. Glasses perched down on her nose, Olivia called the person in and looked up.
"Hey, Lieu." Mike Dodds stood in the doorway, hands in his pockets. At first, Olivia wanted to roll her eyes as she interpreted Dodds' body language as arrogant.
"Come on in," she finally said, gesturing to the chair in front of her desk. As Mike made his way in, she realized it wasn't necessarily arrogance. It was more of a forced confidence, which made her soften slightly to her new addition. "What's up?"
"I, uh," he stammered, running a hand through his hair as he searched for words to say to his boss.
Olivia noticed the struggle. She took her glasses off and leaned forward, resting her elbows on her desk, and looked at him intently.
"That woman," he finally said, eyes darting upwards. "I just can't get her out of my head. The look on her face…"
"Yeah," Olivia breathed out. This particular victim was haunting her as well. The young woman had such little faith in the justice system, and with so much complexity and power surrounding her case, Olivia couldn't blame her jaded mindset. But while Olivia focused her worry on finding some kind of loophole to help their victim, Dodds seemed to be stewing.
"I guess I expected kids would be hard. Ya know, the cases…with little kids…but…"
"They are all hard," Olivia finished for him. "They are. Some cases, some victims, are harder than others. But the viciousness, the invasiveness, the sheer…violation…involved with our cases? It's all hard, Dodds."
"Right," he said softly. "I just thought I prepared myself…"
Olivia smiled sadly at the young sergeant. "Mike, I've been doing this for, what, eighteen? Nineteen years? You'd be surprised how many times I'm not prepared for these stories. The day I don't find it hard…that's the day I need to walk away."
Mike let out a little grunt, but shot Olivia an appreciative smile. "You just might be the most admired person in the NYPD, Lieutenant Benson."
"That's kind of you to say."
Dodds shrugged and stood up. "It's the truth," he said. "I'll, uh, be at my desk."
"Go get some fresh air first, Sergeant," Olivia advised. "Clear your head. Then be at your desk."
"Hey," Olivia said, as she rushed into the designated coffee shop and sauntered up to Ed. She kissed him on the cheek before sliding into the booth and catching her breath.
"Hey yourself," Ed said with a tiny smirk. "I ordered ya the usual…hope that was okay."
"More than okay," she said, setting her phone face up on the little table top yet still giving Ed her undivided attention. "Thank you."
"Of course," he responded simply.
They sat in silence for a few moments before Olivia's eyes narrowed as she observed Ed. He was fidgety. He would clip and unclip his watch, wiggle a little and adjust his tie and the collar of his shirt, then move to rearrange the condiments that sat up against the wall on the end of their table.
"Ed," Olivia finally said, reaching across and grasping his hands. "What is it?"
Ed stilled and flipped his hands upwards so he could grasp Olivia's fingers back. "Just nervous," he finally admitted. "I want a short conversation. No questions. And for us to get the hell out of there."
Letting out a little chuckle, Olivia moved to respond but was interrupted by Ed's name being called up at the counter.
"I got it," he said quickly, hopping up and grabbing their drinks. He gently set the saucers and mugs down and ran back up to grab a couple of extra napkins. "Here."
"Thank you," Olivia said softly, ignoring the drink in front of her and instead staring at her boyfriend. "It'll be okay, Ed."
He grunted. "You sound so confident."
"I'm not," Olivia admitted with a shrug, looking down at her drink as she asked her next question. "But…are you planning on ending this relationship if things go south in that office?"
Ed almost choked on his drink. "What?" His blue eyes were wide and his tone was incredulous. "What the hell, Liv?"
"Unless you're planning to leave me if something goes wrong in a few minutes," Olivia began, with a slightly wavering voice but a confident tone, "then, no. I'm not confident how it will go, but at least I know I'll still have you."
"I'm never leaving you," Ed growled, moving their drinks and grasping her hands once again. "Ever." He paused and clicked his tongue a few times, but didn't take his eyes off of Olivia. There mere thought of leaving her, losing her, made him want to vomit. "I just hope…I hope they go easy on us, that's all. I want this, us, our relationship, to be the one easy thing in your life."
Olivia went to respond but her phone buzzed on the table. She quickly picked up and after a few words, hung up. "They are ready for us," she said, gathering her bag and taking a few quick sips of her drink. "Wasted coffee…"
"Ah," Ed said, brushing it off and putting his hand on her lower back as they exited. "The coffee was merely a formality. Like something we were just supposed to do while waiting."
Olivia laughed as they ambled down the sidewalk. They paused before crossing the street and entering the NYPD building, and Olivia kissed his lips softly. "I love you, Captain Tucker."
Ed smiled and twirled a strand of her hair. "Love you too," he said. "Come on. Let's go tell them that."
Twenty minutes later, Ed and Olivia were seated on hard, black plastic chairs as they looked across the table at the Chief of Detectives. After Chief Muldrew retired, there had been an interim candidate before finally James Sciano was named into the role. Olivia hadn't had much contact with him, as Chief Dodds served as a middle man, but it was clear that Ed knew him a little bit.
"Well," the man said, rubbing his bald head and readjusting his glasses. "Can't say I'm surprised. There's been chatter."
Olivia had to fight not to reach over to grip Ed's hands, as she saw him tense up at the mention of the NYPD rumor mill.
"We wanted to…wait," she said, choosing her words carefully. "But it was time."
Sciano looked over to Ed, seemingly ignoring Olivia's presence for the moment. "Captain Tucker, you sure about this?"
Ed's face scrunched up in confused. "Excuse me?"
Glancing at Olivia then setting his sights back on Ed, the chief tapped his pen a bit before continuing. "There's room for this to be conflict of interest," he explained. "Not at the moment, of course, but down the road…IAB and SVU have clashed on more than one occasion."
"I'd recuse myself," Ed said simply. "Step aside. Let Draper handle it."
"Lieutenant, can you give us a second?" Sciano nodded towards the door as Olivia's jaw dropped.
"No," Ed said, answering for her and grasping her fingers. "There's no reason this conversation should not include Olivia. Say what you have to say, Chief."
"Fine," he said. "I know that I'm new here, but I'm well aware of the lieutenant's history of dating those she works with…"
"Excuse me?" Olivia butted in, shocked and incredulous that the chief brought her personal life into this conversation. But before she could launch into a tirade, Ed squeezed her hand.
"All due respect, Chief Sciano," Ed began, leaning forward and giving him the classic Ed Tucker IAB stare. "Her past is none of your business. It is not only irrelevant to this conversation, but it's incredibly inappropriate for you to bring it up." Ed's voice kept getting louder and more firm as he words came out. "You don't want this conversation leaving this room, do ya?"
Chief Sciano stared down Ed before sitting back and shrugging. "Fine," he said, glancing over at Olivia who was seething. "Like I said, this could bring trouble down the road. But now that we know what's going on, we can navigate. It would be easier if both of you could be in units that don't typically clash, but for now," he wrote a couple of notes down and closed his leather bound notebook. "You two are in the clear. Good luck to you both."
Nodding at the couple, Sciano stood and exited quickly, leaving an irate Ed Tucker and a stunned Olivia Benson behind. They were silent for a few minutes before they quickly gathered their things and left the building, still not saying a word. Ed held tightly to Olivia's hand as he led her out of the building, down the stairs, and into a cab that conveniently passed by right as he threw his hand up.
As soon as they were settled in the back seat, Ed threw his head back. "That bastard," he seethed. "I can't…how dare he…"
"Ed," Olivia said, reaching out for his arm and trying to still his movements. "It's…just let it go. It's not worth it."
Ed looked over at Olivia and she saw a myriad of emotions pouring from his face. "I don't," he said, breathing deeply to try and calm down. "I hate thinking of you with…them," he began. "But for Sciano to use that…in an official conversation…"
"I know…" Olivia said, her voice low. Ed could detect a hint of embarrassment and it about killed him.
"Don't," he said. "Don't go there. Fuck Sciano."
Olivia gave him a small smile, appreciative of his effort.
"And," Ed finally said, allowing his smirk to return. "We. Have. The. Green. Light."
That did it. Olivia finally loosened up and gave him a smile that light up her entire face as she pulled him over to her by his tie and planted her lips firmly to his.
"Do you have to go back in," he asked, though his words came out more as mumbled sounds because Olivia was still attacking his lips.
She shook her head before pulling back briefly for air. "Noah's at daycare…"
"Oh hell yes," Ed said, encouraging the taxi driver to hit the gas before pulling Olivia back into his arms to continue their midday, back of a cab make out session.
