Just wanted to leave a quick note thanking everyone for the reviews. I now have a smile on my face, so on with the story :-)
By the time all four Stabler kids were getting ready to have spring break, they had settled into the new house. Kathy wasn't particularly thrilled with the situation, but had the sense to keep her mouth shut around the kids. Kathleen, Dickie, and Elizabeth were spending more time with their mother; they alternated weeks and sometimes the kids were split between the two houses, depending upon scheduling conflicts. Things were kinda hectic, but they made them work.
As Elliot and Olivia came into the house one night after work, the first thing they heard was a yelling match of "is not," "is, too," coming from upstairs. The next was something that sounded suspiciously like glass breaking in the living room.
"Gee, and I thought we had punched out for the night," Elliot muttered. Olivia smiled.
"I'll get Dickie, you get the girls. And be nice."
"Me?" Elliot asked. Olivia pointed to him with a knowing look as she went into the living room. Dickie was desperately trying to pick up the pieces of what he'd broken – a photo of the SVU unit from a Christmas party a few years back. A baseball and his glove were lying next to him on the floor.
"I'm sorry, Olivia," he told her as she joined him on the floor. "I didn't mean to."
"I thought you weren't supposed to be throwing baseballs in the house?"
"I know," Dickie responded dejectedly. "But Kathleen said I couldn't go outside because it was too close to dinner." Olivia frowned.
"I don't smell food."
Kathleen and Lizzie jumped when the door to Lizzie's room slammed open. "Great," Kathleen told her sister. "Dad and Olivia are already home."
"It's not my turn!" Lizzie yelled.
"Is, too!"
"Is not!"
"All right, can it, both of you," Elliot yelled over them. They both fell silent. "What is going on?!?"
"It was Lizzie's turn to make dinner," Kathleen told him.
"Kathleen makes dinner, Dickie and I do dishes," Lizzie countered.
"I'm sick of always having to take care of them!" Kathleen told her father.
"I'm sorry, but it comes with the territory of being the oldest," Elliot told her. "If you want to shift around who does what and when, we can work on that this weekend, but we need all of you guys to help us out, okay?" Silence. "Okay?" Elliot tried again.
"Fine," they both grumbled.
"All right. Now, I'm going to order pizza and check on Dickie. Can both of you stay up here, in your own rooms, without fighting, until the food gets here?" He got two nods, and Kathleen headed for her room. Everyone on the block probably heard her door slam, but Elliot let it go.
Olivia was in the kitchen, trying to pull together food for dinner, when Elliot got downstairs. "Don't bother," he told her, taking a menu out of the folder on the counter.
"Everything okay upstairs?" she asked.
"I think we have our first major meltdown on our hands."
Since Kathy was going to Canada to see her parents for Easter, and Maureen wasn't staying on campus during break, Elliot had all four kids for a week and a half. Maureen was bunking with Kathleen, and it was like a slumber party every night, or so Elliot grumbled to Olivia. She just smiled, seeing straight through him. In truth, they both knew that he loved having all of the kids around. The house was loud, happy, and alive.
Elliot had gotten an extra day after Easter off of work, but Olivia had to head into the precinct on Monday morning. Dinner the night before had been spectacular, and since Olivia had done most of the cooking, Elliot had promised that he and the kids would get the house back in order before she came home. This of course meant that they all waited until five o'clock to start cleaning. Elliot wound up getting all of the trash together while Maureen and Kathleen unloaded the dishwasher, Dickie put away all of the placemats and napkins, and Lizzie started working on the mound of clothes that they all needed to tackle.
Elliot swallowed a swear as the bag in the bathroom trashcan broke as he picked it up. He started picking up the contents, but stopped when he noticed the little cardboard box on the floor. Oh, my God…
Elizabeth looked up when her father stormed into the living room. "Go up to your room," he told her.
"I thought I was – "
"Go!" Lizzie dropped the shirt she'd been folding.
"Fine by me," she said as she left.
"Maureen, Kathleen, front and center!" Elliot yelled. Both girls appeared from the kitchen.
"What's going on?" the older of the two asked. Elliot held up what he'd found: a pregnancy test box.
"I found this upstairs in the trash," he told them. "Whose is it? And who's the father?" Maureen and Kathleen stared at each other, wide eyed. "No, don't look at each other; look at me. I want an answer." However, silence reigned. "Maureen?"
"What?" she cried. "Dad – "
"You've been seeing someone, haven't you?"
"Yeah, but Dad…" She was getting redder by the minute. "It hasn't gone that far. I swear," she added for good measure. "And if it had, a.) I would not have taken a pregnancy test in this house, and b.) I would have told you if I had gotten pregnant. And helped Olivia peel you off the ceiling afterward."
"Cute," Elliot told her as he looked to his other daughter. "Well then, how come I didn't know you were dating someone?" he asked Kathleen. Her eyes bugged.
"Because I'm not!" she protested.
Olivia nearly tripped over Lizzie and Dickie as she came in the door. "Hey, guys, what's going on?" she asked them, seeing that they had been worriedly waiting for her.
"Dad's going super cop on Kathleen and Maureen," Lizzie told her.
"Why?"
"I dunno. All we were doing was cleaning."
"Yeah," Dickie said. "Kathleen and Maureen had the dishes, I was cleaning up the dining room, Lizzie was folding clothes, and Dad was getting the garbage." Then it clicked. Olivia headed into the living room.
"Elliot, wait," she told him.
"Olivia!" both girls cried. "Please, make him stop," Maureen begged her. "He's totally lost it."
"I have not lost it," Elliot countered. He showed Olivia the box. "I found this upstairs in the trash." Olivia smiled at the girls.
"Go on upstairs. I've got it." They both shot Elliot looks before heading up to their room.
"Liv, neither of them were telling me anything – "
"That's because there's nothing for them to tell," she replied. "When you decided upon holding this little questioning session, you forgot a suspect – the most obvious one, I'd think. You're either losing your touch, Stabler, or your memory. Or both." Elliot just stared at her.
"You mean…"
"Uh-huh."
"And?"
"And…you better be nice to me, 'cause you know how much I hate desk duty." Elliot was frozen, and Olivia started to get worried. "El? This is a good thing, right? I mean, I know we definitely weren't planning for it, but I'm happy, and I thought you would be, too. El? Say something, you're scaring me." Instead of saying something, he pulled her into his arms. He could instantly feel her relax.
"How far along are you?"
"About six weeks."
"You're on desk duty starting tomorrow." Olivia raised an eyebrow, shooting him a look she usually reserved for suspects.
"No, actually, Elliot, I'm not, but we can talk about that later. Right now, I think you have two daughters to do some serious apologizing to, don't you?" Elliot groaned.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Olivia mocked him as she pushed him towards the stairs.
Olivia looked up from the ingredients of the summer-morning breakfast she was making when she heard the front door open. Elliot joined her in the kitchen moments later. "Morning," he told her.
"Morning. How was your run?"
"Good. The kids still asleep?" Olivia looked down, and then gave him a wry smile.
"Three out of the four." Elliot laughed, wrapping his arms around her from behind and putting a hand over the just-barely-noticeable bump of her stomach.
"Are you giving your mother a hard time?" he asked the baby.
"He takes after his father," Olivia told him as she beat the eggs.
"Ouch. And it could be a she taking after her father. So there."
"You know, you could just find out if it it's a boy or a girl," Kathleen said as she joined them in the kitchen, grabbing a nectarine out of the bowl on the counter. "Then you can stop arguing."
"What would be the fun in that?" Elliot asked as he kissed her forehead. "Morning."
"Morning," Kathleen replied. "Oh, Dad! The shower's got your name on it. Go." Olivia tried not to laugh out loud at the expression on Elliot's face.
"Well!" he said. "I know where I'm not wanted." He headed for the staircase.
"What are your plans for today?" Olivia asked Kathleen.
"I dunno. Some of my friends wanted to have a movie marathon in honor of school finally being out, but one movie ticket is expensive enough, let alone two or three." Olivia smiled.
"Well, if you want to invite a couple friends over here to watch DVDs, you're welcome." She shrugged.
"Nah. Lizzie would want to watch, too, and then we'd have to stick to PG-13 movies."
"With her puppy-dog eyes, she could probably get your father to let her watch, but I can understand if you're looking for a sibling free day." Kathleen nodded, chewing thoughtfully on her fruit.
"Are you and Dad going to get married?" she asked Olivia, who nearly dropped the spoon she was holding.
"What? Where did that come from?"
"It's a valid question, considering the circumstances."
"Considering what circumstances?" Olivia asked. "It's not the 1950s; the fact that your dad and I are having a child doesn't automatically mean that we're getting married."
"Do you love him?"
"Elliot is my best friend in the whole world. We've been there for each other through a lot of things."
"But do you love him, Olivia?" She stopped messing around with the waffle iron.
"Yes," she finally said. "But…I don't think your dad is ready to get married again, and to tell you the truth, I'm not willing to risk our friendship on that. So for right now, the answer to your original question is no."
Elliot glanced away from his own reflection to look at his son. By the time he'd gotten out of the shower, Dickie was up and about, and Elliot had invited his son to come shave with him. Of course, the razor Dickie was holding didn't have a blade in it, but they had some of their best conversations during the alone time.
"You missed a spot," Elliot told his son.
"Where?" Elliot splattered shaving crème on his nose.
"There." Dickie laughed.
"Hey, Dad? Will we still get to hang out when the baby's born?"
"Of course we will. You are always going to be my best guy."
"Even if I get a little brother?"
"Even if."
"Hey, Dad? How come Olivia doesn't have a ring like Mom's?" Elliot frowned.
"You mean a wedding ring?"
"Yeah."
"Cause Olivia and I aren't married."
"Why not? We're family now, aren't we?" Elliot smiled down at his son.
"Yeah, bud. We are all family."
"Miss Rachel says we're lucky, 'cause we have two families."
"Well, Miss Rachel is a very good psychiatrist and she's right. You and you sisters have two families that love you very much."
"So does that mean you're gonna give Olivia a ring?" Elliot just smiled.
"I'll get back to you on that, Mr. Nosey."
"Okay. Hey, Dad?"
"Yeah?" Dickie wiped shaving cream on his father's nose.
"Missed a spot."
Elliot frowned at the sight of Olivia's empty desk as he came into the squad room after spending one July morning in court. "Where is she?" he asked Fin. After Cragen had found out about the baby, he'd repaired his detectives. Sometimes Elliot felt like knocking Munch out, but it was still a better arrangement than he or Olivia getting transferred out of SVU.
"Bathroom," Fin replied without looking up from his paperwork.
"Is she okay?"
"Yeah, she's just putting makeup over…um, nevermind." Elliot stormed over to the bathroom and banged on the door.
"Liv, get out here!" he yelled. When she appeared, Elliot could see that she'd only gotten halfway through covering up her quickly forming black eye. "What the hell happened?"
"It's nothing, Elliot."
"Who hit you?"
"El – "
"Who hit you?!?"
"Suspect," she finally relented. "Huang suggested that a female detective would get through to him better."
"And you just couldn't wait for someone else to get back in? What were you thinking?"
"I'm fine, Elliot. It's just a bruise."
"This time," was all he said before turning away. Olivia gave up on the makeup and sighed as she sat back down across from Fin.
"Don't say it," she told her partner.
"Say what? I told you so? I wasn't going to." She shot him a look.
Elliot was working late on a case that night, so Olivia had dinner with the kids, packed lunches for Lizzie and Dickie's next day of summer camp, settled a few arguments over TV channels, and got them all to bed. It had been a while since Elliot hadn't been home by the time the kids were going to bed, and Olivia tried not to wonder if that was her fault.
By the time Elliot finally did come in, it was past midnight. He was surprised to see Olivia on the couch, wrapped up in a blanket, waiting for him. "Everything went okay?" she quietly asked.
"Yeah, just a long night."
"Elliot? I'm sorry about today. Really, I am. Before I went in the interrogation room, I wasn't thinking that anything was going to happen, I just…I'm sorry."
"I know you are. I just…the thought of something happening to you, to either of you…I don't know what I'd do." Olivia nodded. "Come on, let's go to bed." Olivia got up from the couch, but Elliot had to grab her arm to keep her from falling. "You okay?"
"Yeah. I've just been a little…off all night. I'm probably just tired."
"Why don't you take tomorrow off?" Olivia shook her head.
"I'm fine. I'll be out on leave soon enough."
"I told you I could handle it," Olivia told Elliot as they walked out of a brownstone that was the scene of their latest case. "If in moderation, I can actually do my job."
"I'd still prefer you don't," Elliot told her. They weren't in the greatest of neighborhoods, and this little voice in the back of his head wouldn't stop nagging him. Olivia kissed him.
"I know," she replied. "So, you wanna buy me a soda and a hot dog?"
"Sure." He loved to see her smile. He knew it was cliché, but she really was glowing.
She stepped ahead of him towards the vendor a quarter-block away, and when the unmistakable sound of a gunshot rang out, Elliot was too far to reach for her hand to pull her to the sidewalk along with him. He saw her drop to the ground, though, and then noticed that she wasn't moving.
"Liv?" he cried as she scrambled over to her. As he turned her over, he saw the wound in her chest. Her lips were crimson, though not just from her lipstick anymore, and were desperately trying to form his name. "Shh, shh, shh," he told her, pulling her into his arms after he called for a bus. "Hang on, baby, please. Hang on."
"Elliot," she finally managed to choke out, but that was all she said before her eyes slid shut.
"Elliot? Elliot!" He finally opened his eyes and looked around in confusion. He finally realized that he was in his dark bedroom, and Olivia had been the one calling his name. Oh, my God, it was just a dream…
"What is it?" he asked when he saw the look on her face. "Are you okay?" Olivia shook her head.
"Something's wrong."