Influenza


Chapter Eighteen

Disclaimer: Not my show, not my characters. Maybe next time, though...


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"Well," Elliot said with a sigh, after all was quiet for a few seconds. "Kids..." might as well just come right out and say it, "Olivia and I are dating."

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There was a complete, uncomfortable silence hovering over the table and its those sitting at it after he dropped the bomb. Kathleen was smiling smugly, as if to say "I knew it the whole time", Elizabeth was staring at her father with her jaw dropped slightly, and Dickey's eyes were darting from his father to Olivia to his sisters, wondering when and how this and happened and why he hadn't noticed some sort of change. Olivia simply sat in the silence and waited for the other shoe to drop.

And, then, it did exactly that. Elizabeth, coming out of her stupor, pushed her chair back forcefully and ran for the bedroom that she and her sister shared, slamming the door behind her with such an intensity that the others could hear the pictures on the walls around it rattle. Olivia winced, having expected such a reaction from at least one of them, but not feeling any better from the knowledge. Then, Dickey, instantly switching from his previous "annoying brother" mode to "protector" mode, pushed back his chair with less haste than his twin, ready to chase after her. His father stopped him before he could get up from the table, however. "Stay in your seat Dickey," he told his only son. "I'll talk to her later."

"But dad," he began in protest, before Elliot cut him off.

"Don't worry about it, Dickey. Let her sulk for a few minutes, it won't hurt her any." He looked over at Olivia with a sympathetic smile and sighed, "She still thinks that her mother and I can get back together." Then looking back at Dickey, he continued. "Are you mad at me, too?"

"How long has this been going on?" he questioned. As long as his father hadn't been cheating on his mother, there really wasn't a thing he could do about any of it. Except whine and complain and throw a fit like his sister was doing, and his father didn't deserve that. If he hadn't been cheating, that was.

"Not even a week," Elliot explained to his son. "Our first date was this last Monday."

The younger male shrugged his shoulders, "Then no."

Elliot turned to his middle child, "Kathleen?" he questioned in a hopeful voice.

"I'm not mad," she assured him with a shake of her head. "Does mom know?"

"Your mother knew before anything ever happened."

Kathleen nodded, "You'd better go talk to Liz now..."

Dickey sighed, he knew his sister better than anyone, and he knew that the last person she would want to talk with at the moment was her father. "Let me go, dad," he asked. "At least for a few minutes. I can calm her down."

"Finish your dinner Dickey," Elliot said. "I can handle your sister." She was only his thirteen year old daughter, after all. How hard could it be?

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Elliot got up from the table a few moments after that, leaving Olivia very alone with his two other children. She fidgeted nervously in her seat, pretending to focus on her dinner and trying to ignore the amused stares she was receiving. The two caught on to what she was doing and decided to change her sudden shy attitude towards them.

"So," Dickey said, starting up a conversation, "you and my father, huh?"

Olivia smiled briefly, "...Yeah..."

"You kiss and stuff?"

"Dickey," Kathleen warned. But Olivia only smiled.

"We kiss." Olivia clarified. "We only started dating the other day..."

"Yeah," Dickey replied. "Dad said that."

"It's the truth."

"What does mom think about it? Do you know?" Kathleen was leaning over the table, anxious to hear how her mother was dealing with the fact that her father was dating another woman. The same woman that Kathy had confessed to Maureen and Kathleen that she was afraid would end up stealing their father's heart, even if it was unintentional. It looked like her mother had been dead on.

"From what your father told me, she's not completely thrilled about the idea, but she doesn't hate him for it, either. Or me for that matter."

"Liz is really mad..." Dickey said with a sigh. "The other night she was trying to figure out how to get mom and dad back together."

"Your parents have already come to the conclusion that they just don't love each other enough to stay married anymore... It's nothing they did in specific and there isn't anything that they can do to change it."

"Not to mention," Kathleen added, "the fact that he loves you now."

Olivia couldn't hide her blush, "I wouldn't go that far..."

Kathleen gave her a look that plainly said she begged to differ, but she didn't press the issue further. "What do you think he's saying to her in there?" she questioned, nodding her head towards the hall that led to the bedroom Liz had run off to.

"I have no clue," Olivia confessed, looking a bit worried. "I hope it works though. I would hate for her to be mad at her father because of me."

"It wouldn't be your fault, you know, if she did," Dickey assured her. "She's old enough to understand the concept of divorce and both mom and dad have explained things to her countless times. She just won't accept it."

"For thirteen years she's come home to this... perfect life, sort of perfect, at least. She had parents who loved each other, despite their hectic work schedules, and all the things they went through while working. It's hard to accept what you've known all your life as a lie. That's probably how she feels right now. She just doesn't want to believe that what she thought was true was just a nicely put together facade. And, even though for a long time it wasn't, and your parents truly still loved each other... it still didn't end up that way and she's refusing to see things the way they are now, and instead is living back in the days where your mother and father were happy. She just wants that security again."

Dickey and Kathleen stared at her for a moment, wide eyed. "Where in the world did that come from?" The bolder of the two, Dickey, questioned.

"I've been spending way too much time around Huang..."

"I'll bet," Kathleen muttered, with a smile. "You know what? I'm done eating. What about you two?"

Both nodded.

"We should get the dishes done Dickey, come on..."

"Kathleen--"

"Uh uh, let's go. Listen to your elders."

The boy looked at Olivia, as if to say, "you're older than her, overrule her," but Olivia just shook her head. "You should probably listen to your sister. She can tell all of the girls at your school your biggest secrets..."

His face dropped and he got out of the chair, muttering something about "women sticking together" and "estrogen bonds". Kathleen and Olivia shared a smile before the girl headed off to the kitchen. Before she entered she turned around, "Does Maureen know yet?"

"I don't think so..."

"Is dad going to call her?"

She shrugged, "That's my best guess."

"Well... you don't have to worry about her being upset about this. She idolizes you." Kathleen stated as a matter-of-factly. "She'll love it."

Olivia couldn't help but blush once more, "Really?"

Kathleen nodded, "Yeah. Really."

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"Liz?" Elliot called out, knocking lightly on the bedroom door, seconds before pushing it open. "Elizabeth...?"

"Go away!" the girl called out, her voice muffled by what Elliot could only guess was a pillow. When he was fully in the room he saw her sprawled out on her bed, stomach lying on the comforter, head face down in the pillow. Oh yeah. Classic sulk mode. Females... Teenage females. He still didn't understand them.

"Lizzie," he said, sitting on the edge of the bed, resting his hand on her back. "We need to talk about this."

"What's to talk about?" she asked, her face still hidden in the pillow. "You've already forgotten all about mom. I understand."

"That's not how it is, Liz." Elliot assured her. "I still love your mother-- in some ways, I always will. But, we both decided that our feelings for each other just aren't strong enough anymore. This thing that Olivia and I have... I don't think I ever even felt it during the entire time your mother and I were married. You only find somebody like her once in your lifetime... I'm not about to let her slip away just because I just got divorced. Towards the end, your mother and I weren't really married anymore."

"So you never loved mom like you love Olivia?" she questioned. "That's great. Really dad. I'm happy for you." Her tone was sarcastic and Elliot was getting frustrated at having to explain the way he felt to her.

"You're still young, Elizabeth. You don't know love yet. Not really. Yeah, maybe you tell this boy that you love him when you hang up or when you sign off of the computer-- and ok, maybe you do "love" him. Being "in love" is completely different than feeling love for somebody. I love Munch like a brother, a much older brother... but that doesn't mean I'm in love with him. You understand?"

"Yeah..." she sat up, "how does that have anything to do with this?"

"Liz... I haven't told this to anybody, so I'd appreciate it if you kept it to yourself for awhile. Don't even tell Dickey. Ok?"

"Ok."

"I'm in love with Olivia. Looking back, I have been for awhile. But, I was married to your mother, so I made myself ignore the way I felt. Because I still loved your mother. What I didn't realize at the time, was that I wasn't in love with your mother anymore. You understand?"

She nodded.

"Ok. So, after knowing all of that, you can't be happy for me?"

"I don't know," she confessed. "I want to be... But, it feels like I'm betraying mom if I accept anything other than you and her together."

"Your mother is going to find somebody else. Her Olivia. She's not going to live out her life being a bitter, divorced woman. She'll date again and she'll fall in love. What are you going to do then?"

The girl sighed, "I don't know."

"You're old enough to understand this, Liz. I'm not going to continue explaining myself and my feelings to you, because you're being stubborn and don't want to accept the fact that your mother and I are through with."

She looked away, "Did you cheat?"

Elliot shook his head, "I would never disrespect your mother that way. I would never disrespect God that way."

"Catholics aren't supposed to get divorced..."

"Yeah, and nobody is supposed to lie... But we still do."

"You're really in love with her?" she questioned, looking back at him.

A smile tugged at the corners of his lips and he ran a hand over her hair, "Yeah baby. I am."

"There's no chance of you and mom getting back together? None at all?"

"No," he confirmed. "I wish I could tell you that I was sorry for it. But, your mother and I have already gone our separate ways. There's no going back."

"If you guys get married... will I have to call her mom?"

"Not unless you want to."

Elizabeth sighed and scooted over into her father's arms, holding on to him tightly. "I'm sorry that I was such a brat, dad. I wasn't thinking..."

"That's fine, honey. I understand."

"I bet she hates me now."

He shook his head, kissing the top of her hair, "She would never hate you, Liz. She wants you to like her just as much as you want her to like you. Maybe even more."

His youngest daughter pulled out of his arms, "You're not upset with me about the boyfriend thing?"

"I'll talk to your mother and then get back to you on that one. In the meantime, I want to meet him."

Liz grimaced, "Fine. I guess I deserve that."

"Good... at least we agree." He grinned and stood up from the bed, holding out his hand to her. "Come on, let's go get some desert."

With a sigh, the young girl got off of the bed, taking her father's hand and looking up at him with curiosity. All her life she had just seen him as exactly that, her dad, the man who contributed to her birth (ignoring the way how he did so, of course) and who was married to her mother. Now, she was forced to see him as a person. Somebody with feelings and fears and hopes and that was weird. Who knew being a teen was so hard?

Giving her dad's hand a gentle squeeze the two left the bedroom and went into the living room, surprised to see that it was empty, along with the dining room. There was laughter coming from the kitchen, however, so the two went to investigate, and what they found truly shocked her thirteen year old mind.

The three others in the apartment were huddled around the kitchen sink, soaking wet and covered in soap. Next to them stood a large stack of dirty dishes. They looked at the two sheepishly, knowing they had been caught making a mess, before the two women spoke up, both pointing at her twin brother.

"Dickey started it." they claimed in unison, before settling into a fit of laughter. Dickey just frowned, not at all surprised that he was the scape goat, then grabbed a handful of bubbles and covered his older sisters face with it, before running past the two clean ones in the beginning of the kitchen, leaving Kathleen to chase after him.

Olivia stood by the sink, smiling faintly and holding her arms over her chest nervously. Elizabeth smiled at her, and the nervous look on the older females face washed away. Before Elliot and Liz knew it, Dickey ran back into the kitchen, and hid behind the same woman, who started laughing once more and did her best to keep the boy safe from his older sister when she ran back into the kitchen, shrieking her revenge.

Ok... so maybe this dad dating Olivia thing wasn't so bad. But she would not call her mom when they got married.

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A/N: Time to review :)