Please note, I originally wrote this story for the SVU-Summer Love Challenge on Twitter. The story is mine, but was originally posted by Special Fanfic Unit as part of the challenge.

Prompt: As Noah graduates elementary school (is getting older/growing up), Liv is struggling with the guilt of missing out on so much and worrying she has failed as a mother. Elliot is there to calm her insecurities and remind her that Noah is healthy, happy, and "thriving" thanks to her

Elliot finished buttoning his vest and went in search of Olivia. Noah was graduating elementary school today, and they needed to leave soon to make it on time, and Olivia was nowhere to be found in the hustle and bustle of getting the whole family ready to walk out the door.

"Liv!" He called as he rounded the corner into their bedroom, "are you ready to go we don't want to be late." He stopped and looked up as he heard her sniffle. She was sitting on the edge of the bed with what he knew to be Noah's scrapbook on her lap. She was running her fingers over the current end of year picture she had put in the front cover the night before. He approached slowly and sat down next to her, "Olivia?" He ran his hand across her back soothingly as she looked up at him with tears streaming down her cheeks.

"He's growing up, El," her fingers continued tracing the photo album as she leaned into his side.

He pulled her in close, "I know baby. That's the thing about kids, they tend to do that mostly in a blink of an eye when you least expect it."

"I've missed it all. I've failed." She hiccupped as the tears fell harder, "maybe they were right. I'm not qualified to be a mother."

"No, Liv," he slid down in front of her and took her hands into his, "they were wrong then, and they would still be wrong today." He cupped her face into his hands and wiped the tears away from her eyes, "you are, and always have been, a highly qualified mother. Noah adores you."

"But have I been enough?" She finally flipped open the album, "I look through these pictures and all I see is my little boy growing up," she quickly flipped through the pages, fanning through the moments of Noah's life, "and I all I can think about is the moments I've missed because of work. Moments where I've had to call Lucy and leave because of a case or a meeting. Moments where I've not been there, and I've had, or chosen, to put work first. How does that make me a qualified mother? How does that make me enough?"

Elliot stayed silent for a moment, collecting his thoughts before responding. Before he could speak, his eye caught the first picture in the album that was still open on her lap. He pulled himself up next to her on the bed, and pulled the album closer to him, "tell me about this picture." He pointed to a picture of baby Noah laying across Olivia's chest asleep.

Olivia looked at the picture and smiled through the tears, "That was his first night at home. Right before I took that picture, he had just woken up screaming and crying." She traced Noah's little face with her finger, "I remember whispering to him, 'It's okay Sweet Boy, you're home now.' He looked up at me with those big eyes and sighed. He took his little hand and wrapped it around my fearlessness necklace, and fell back asleep. It was like he knew, even then, I was his mom and he was really home for good." She smiled as she relived the memory.

"And this one?" He pointed to the next picture of Noah sitting in his crib smiling up at the camera and reaching his little hands out.

"That was the day we met Lucy for the first time. I had just finished interviewing her when he woke up. I went in to get him, and he was sitting up in his crib babbling away to himself. He started bouncing when I went to pick him up, he was so happy to see me. She surprised me taking that photo."

"Keep going." Elliot smiled as he pointed to the next two photos. Both of them showed Noah in his high chair covered in food with a big grin on his face. She grinned as she looked down at the two photos. In one of them he was covered head to toe in spaghetti sauce and in the other he was gleefully clapping his hands together as pancakes lay smashed all around his tray, "he still loves his pancakes for breakfast and spaghetti for dinner."

"Yeah," she laughed softly and then turned the page, "this is one of my favorites." She pointed to the photo of Noah curled tightly in her arms as she kissed the top of his head, "I had just returned home from meeting Barba about one of our toughest cases. When I walked through the door, Noah started crawling as fast as he could to get to me. I picked him up, and he smiled and started saying, 'Ma-Ma Ma-Ma,' as fast as he could. Lucy took this one."

"Olivia, Noah was always meant to be yours." He kissed the top of her head, "look at all these pictures you have shown me. He looks so happy and healthy because you were there. You showed up for him. You chose him. You loved him." Even with all the reassurances he could sense there was something still bothering her.

"All you see though are the good pictures." She started crying again, "I almost lost him that first year, more than once. He got so sick and was hospitalized, and I-I chose work over him. I chose to go into work because I had a new boss and I felt like I had to prove myself as someone capable to run the unit. In doing that though, Noah's social worker threatened to take him away from me. Those were the longest months of my life. I was so terrified I was going to lose him. I spent months thinking, knowing that I wasn't fit to be a mother." She stopped and cried, and Elliot held her to him offering comfort.

"Liv," he rubbed her back with his one hand, "you were still learning to be a parent. No one knows what they're doing right out of the gate. Most people have at least nine months to get used to the idea of being a parent, and if my memory serves correct, you had less than an hour from the moment Judge Linden asked you to be Noah's foster mother."

"There for a while I wondered if she had made a mistake." She cried harder, "What was it that she could see that those before couldn't. Why did she think I was prime parent material when the system couldn't see it before?" She spit those words out with revulsion, easily remembering the words that had echoed in her head for months, for years, and on the hard days, she still thought of those three words. Three words to prove how unfit she really was as a mother. Maybe they were right. Maybe she really wasn't prime parent material. Here her son was going to middle school, and she had continued putting work before him. She had missed so much of the light and joy that was her son because of the darkness in the world that was her job. Noah, he understood, he always did, but she could see it in his eyes every time she had to end their mother and son days early or miss a performance, a movie night, spaghetti night, or holidays. Maybe she really had failed and she's still failing.

"I can hear you thinking, Olivia, and you're wrong."

She turned in his arms to look at him, "how do you know? How can you be so sure?"

He pulled her face closer to his, "because I know you. I know you, and I know Noah. I see how much he loves and adores you and how much you love and adore him." He brushed more tears from her face, "Those people were always wrong about you and your ability to be a mother, and maybe in that moment you weren't meant to be a mother—."

She turned sharply to look at him; she started to open her mouth to protest when he silenced her with a kiss, "because you were meant for Noah and Noah was meant for you. You just hadn't met him yet. You were too early, and fate intervened."

She sniffled, "he really is the best thing that's ever happened in my life." She turned back to the scrapbook in her lap, and laughed as she looked down at a photo from Noah's first birthday.

Elliot could see her starting to relax again; he discreetly looked at his watch deciding they still had time before they absolutely had to leave. "Tell me about it." He laughed at the blue cake icing smeared all over Noah's face.

"Instead of a party, Noah and I celebrated his first birthday just the two of us. He was feeling a little under the weather cutting a new tooth, so I left work early the day before and bought him a little cake, balloons, streamers, and a little hat. The morning of his birthday, I snuck in and decorated as much as I could with the streamers without waking him. I filled up the floor with balloons, and when he woke up, he had his bottle and some pancakes for breakfast. He was so excited because his high chair was covered in streamers and balloons; he would take a bite of pancake and then kick one of the balloons and start squealing with laughter. When he finished, I put him in this shirt," she paused to point out the shirt in the picture, which Elliot could see had an elephant on it with the words My First Birthday and Noah's named printed on the front. "And we went to Build A Bear where he picked out his gray stuffed elephant."

"Eddie?"

Olivia laughed, "one and the same. We spent all morning in the park, and then we came back for lunch, and after he ate, that's when I brought out the cake. Giving my toddler a bunch of sugar before nap time probably wasn't the best idea, but he enjoyed it so much that it was all worth it." She pointed at the picture again, "he smeared cake all over himself and then when I picked him up, he smeared it all over my face and nose trying to give me eskimo kisses." She pointed to the next picture which was a selfie of her and Noah both covered in blue cake icing. "It was the best day."

He watched as she continued flipping through the pictures in the scrapbook reminiscing about Noah's first two years. She would occasionally stop and point out something she saw in a few of the pictures. "He's so happy in all of these Liv. Look at him."

She flipped the page and then paused as she landed on the spread of his adoption day, "May 20th, Noah Benson day as he likes to call it now." She smiled through the new set of happy tears that flowed down her face, "the day he officially became mine."

He looked down at a picture of her with Judge Linden, Trevor Langan, and Noah, "look how happy you look."

She smiled as she studied the picture and the one next to it that was just her and Noah, "Leading up to the day, I was so nervous because I just knew that something was going to happen, and it would fall through and they would take him from me. Even without the official adoption record, I knew he was supposed to be my son. Honestly, I think I knew the moment I picked him up from that dresser drawer that he was supposed to be mine. That the universe aligned at just the right time, and I was meant to find that little boy."

"Life tends to work out when we least expect it."

"Ain't that the truth," she smiled as she fanned the pages of the scrapbook again, "Carisi took this picture." She pointed to a picture of an older Noah holding on to the carousel with Olivia standing directly behind him holding him tight so he wouldn't fall. "That was one of Jesse and Noah's first playdates."

She flipped the pages again, "His first day of kindergarten!" She exclaimed as she looked at the picture of Noah and his little backpack, "Do you know that boy looked me right in the eye and said, 'I'm okay Mama. I got this.' before giving me a quick hug and running off to play with the magnet tiles in the classroom? He just left me standing there with his teacher as I cried." She laughed, "I had court that day, and Rafael wasn't too pleased I showed up looking like a hot mess. I'm pretty sure his assistant, Carmen, had to help me fix my makeup in his office."

"Badass Benson on the outside and Mama Bear Benson on the inside?" He questioned which pulled a laugh from her as she shook her head in agreement.

She flipped the pages again, "His first dance performance. He played the rabbit in Alice in Wonderland." She studied the picture of Noah in his red suit with an oversized pocket watch hanging from his neck. "We went from baseball to dance all in one week."

"He's really good at dance." He smiled at her, "has he heard back from the play he tried out for?"

"Not yet," she shook her head, "the list is supposed to be posted tomorrow." She laughed as she flipped the page again as Noah beamed up at her in his cop uniform. "He stole Fin's badge off his desk to take this picture. Fin almost had a panic attack thinking he had lost his credentials; luckily, I noticed before we went Trick-or-Treating that night. Noah apologized with a jelly donut and all was forgiven."

They both laughed, "Olivia?" She turned to face him once more, "you know what I see when I look at these pictures?"

"What?"

He took her hands into his, "I see a boy who has grown up to be happy, healthy, and absolutely thriving because you are his mother. Olivia Margaret Benson, the universe always knew and had aligned for you to be Noah Porter Benson's mom. Through you, he has grown up to know that he is wanted, he is cared for, he matters, and most of all that he is so loved by you and so many other people. That boy has a family who loves him because of you."

"Elliot," she squeezed his hand.

"Listen," he squeezed her hands back, "Do you remember years ago when you asked me if I ever wondered what my kids would be like before I had them?"

She shook her head letting him know she remembered.

"It's still true. All you can do is love your kids, and you have proven that every day with Noah."

"I love you." She wrapped her arms tightly around him, "thank you. Thank you for believing in me all those years ago. I still remember you telling me they were wrong when they said I wasn't prime parent material. Those words replay in my head so much, and the only thing that stops them is my memory of you telling me how wrong they were. That, and the curly haired, blue-eyed boy I get to call my son."

He kissed her, "I will always be here to remind you. You're a good, no great mother Olivia Benson. You always have been. I see it with Noah, I saw it with all the children we encountered, and now I get to see it with Maureen, Katie, Richard, Lizzie, and Eli. Kieran and Seamus absolutely adore you, and what about the little Rollins-Carisi brood? Jesse, Billie, and Luca absolutely love their Aunt Livia. You have always been prime parent material Olivia Margaret Benson, and I love you so much."

Noah came running into the room, "Mom! Are you—?" He looked at her and noticed the tears still falling down her face, "Why are you crying?"

Elliot watched the exchange between mother and son as Olivia got up and pulled Noah in for a tight hug, "because I am so lucky that you are my son." She kissed the top of his head, "and I love you more than you know Sweet Boy."

Noah's sparkling blue eyes looked up at her, "I love you. I'm the lucky one Mama. I have you." Noah wrapped his arms tightly around Olivia and buried his face into her hold as she squeezed him tight.

Elliot looked at the two people standing in front of him: the woman who was wrongfully told she wasn't prime parent material by people who didn't know her, and the boy who was left in a dresser drawer to unknown certainties by people who didn't truly love him. But now here they stood as mother and son, happy, healthy, thriving, and loved beyond measure because they had each other, and he knew just how lucky he was, that in this universe, he got to love them both in all the ways they deserved.

"It's not all about the genes, Liv. All you can do is love your kids." - Elliot Stabler