Another slow day that's dragging on and on. I feel like a kid again, stuck in a classroom, when it's bright and sunny outside. I just want to be out of here. I've worked through a mountain of paperwork, rearranged things on my desk at least five times and, now, I'm reading through the notebook that I carry with me.
I go through about two of these a month. Because I got into the habit of writing a damned book on each case. It helps me, later on, when I have to testify or make a formal report, but it still annoys me. Why the hell do I feel a need to write so much about one case?
"Gonna publish that book eventually?" Elliot teases me, lightly.
I kick him, underneath our desks. "You don't mind the fact that I take decent notes when you have to look at 'em," I reply. "So I'd shut up."
"She's got you there," Munch puts in, on his way back from the coffee pot. "When they have you cornered like that, the best thing to do is shut up."
"Ah, the expert speaks," I reply to John's input into our conversation. I've learned how to trade jabs with him, over the years. "If you know so much, why'd you go through so many wives?"
"At least I know what doesn't work," he replies.
I shake my head. "You do, huh? Hate to break it to you, Munch, but we're not as complicated as you like to think. Figure that out and you'll make things easier on yourself."
"A person that can cry one minute, scream the next, and smile three seconds after?" John questions. "That's complicated."
"You know what? If you had to go through what a woman goes through - just once - you'd wanna do that, too."
"If only we could have the babies, right?" Elliot jumps in. "That's what my sisters were telling me, after the twins were born. That I had no idea what a woman goes through."
"I don't know. I'm no mother. So I can't speak for 'em," I reply. "And I'm not about to. But, seriously - if you had to go through it, just once, you'd get it."
"If she does anything, it's your fault," Elliot informs our ever-sarcastic, conspiracy-theorist colleague. "You got her started."
I tune out the banter and focus on the clock on the squad room wall. The minute hand is crawling forward at a slower pace than usual. And it usually moves pretty slow. It's worse than the clock that was in my high school history classroom.
And it's only Wednesday. Crap. If the clock's moving this slow now, what's it gonna be like on Friday? Friday's the day when the clocks move so slow that if they went any slower, they'd be moving backwards.
Munch once came up with a theory that the bosses set the clocks back on Fridays, to purposely torture us. The one paranoid theory from the mind of Munch that I agreed with. Cragen happened to overhear us discussing it, and the next Friday, he actually did set the clocks back on us.
It made a good joke, when we figured out what was going on, but now we know that some things shouldn't be said in earshot of a boss like ours.
"Liv?" Elliot catches my attention, coat in one hand, keys in the other, toward the end of the day. "I gotta go pick up the twins - they just wanna come over and hang out for a while. You wanna come or are you gonna go home?"
I stretch. "I've got a couple of things to finish - I'll be home by the time you get there," I promise, trying to find a way to sit that eases the kink in my back.
"Okay," he leans down and kisses my cheek, softly. We promised Cragen we'd keep it off the job, but the occasional peck on the cheek doesn't seem to bother anyone.
I finish up a couple of reports and neaten up a couple of case files, so they can be filed away. But my mind's on other things.
I knew dating would cause problems for us. In our careers. I knew I probably wouldn't get picked for a promotion, if it came out, but I didn't think it was serious. I didn't think it could get me fired. But there's some obscure rule about dating a partner that could have gotten both of us fired. I didn't even know it existed, until Elliot decided to point it out to me.
We kind of suspected Cragen was on to us, so we decided to tell him. It was only the most nerve-wracking ten minutes of my life, but we told him. I think we finally shocked him, that day.
He wasn't pissed. I expected him to be pissed off at us, for putting our jobs on the line. He just told us to keep it off the job and told us he'd take care of things. He's letting us work cases together. We got a better reaction from him than I expected.
I have to get out of here. I put my pen down and shove back my chair. I'm going to go home and hang out with him and the kids. They'll be disappointed if I stay late to work
Everybody's settled on the couch, in front of a DVD, when I step into the apartment. I see Elliot watching me. I promised him I'd be home before he got here with the kids. "Sorry," I apologize, quietly, kissing him on the cheek. "Traffic was a nightmare. I didn't think it was gonna be that bad. I thought I might have missed rush hour."
He shakes his head and I take the empty space between the two kids.
"You two not talking to each other?" I ask, leaning back against the couch. Twin pairs of blue eyes that look uncannily like their father's glance at me. Two heads - one blonde, with a ponytail, the other light brown, with a short haircut - shake.
They're twins, but they can fight. And it takes a while to break them up, when they do fight. "Aww, c'mon," I tease, lightly. "You guys can't go long without talking to each other, huh?"
"Liv, the last time they fought, they didn't say a word to each other for two days," Elliot puts in.
"It wasn't as bad as you and Mom," Lizzie jumps in, nearly cutting off her father.
Poor kids. They know what's going on, to a point, but it's still gotta be scary to have your family spilt up. But they seem to be okay. Elliot told me he and Kathy sat down and talked to them.
"Yeah, I know." Elliot gently pulls on his daughter's short ponytail.
"Still not talking?" I glance in Dickie's direction. "You guys couldn't have had that bad of a fight. Because you're still sitting in the same room."
By the end of the second movie, they're talking to each other, again. It took me a while, but I got them talking to each other. They're bickering and teasing each other, like usual, when Kathy comes by to pick them up.
The first time she came here, I'll admit, I was nervous. I didn't know how she'd respond to me. I've seen divorced couples that are forced to interact because of the kids and, sometimes, it can get nasty. Especially if there's someone new.
But she and Elliot aren't hostile. They're not angry at each other. I think they ended it on good terms. She's even friendly with me. It kind of surprised me, when she asked me how I was doing, when she came by to pick up Kathleen, one day. If I was in her shoes, seeing the man I'd been married to for twenty years with a new girlfriend, I'd be mad.
I don't understand what's going on between the two of them, but I think that they just want to see each other happy. And it's none of my business, anyway. If he wants to be friends with his ex-wife, why the hell should I worry about it? Not all divorced couples are at each other's throats.
"C'mere, Liv," Elliot murmurs, reaching out a hand to me. He's sitting on the couch. I walk across the living room and sit next to him. He kisses the top of my head, making me move until I'm stretched out on the couch, my head in his lap.
He likes to sit like this. In the middle of a case, we've come home and had brainstorming sessions, like this. He managed to knock me out for a good two hours once, by running his fingers through my hair, over and over.
I think he likes me with long hair, because he won't let me cut my hair. It needs to be cut so badly, but he won't let me do it.
"Liv?"
"Mm?" I shift, slightly, to make this a little easier on my neck. "What?"
He runs his hand through my hair, lightly. "You ever think about having kids? How many you might want?"
I blink. Where's this coming from? "I don't know. Why?"
"You've never thought about it?"
"I have. When my friends were having their kids, I thought about it. But there was no guy in my life that I'd want to be a father to my kids, then," I murmur, glancing up at him, confused. I really don't understand where this is coming from.
"What about now?"
He's talking about us bringing a kid into this world. I really need to wake up. "I don't know, El. You've already got four of 'em and two of 'em are almost grown - do you really want more?"
"I'd be open to it," he replies, quietly.
"And give your poor brothers and sisters another niece or nephew to try and remember? How many kids do you guys have, all together?"
"Between all six of us? Nineteen," he replies, amused.
"God," I shake my head. "But I really don't know. How the hell could we be parents, with these hours? No babysitter's gonna get out of bed at two in the morning."
"We'd find a way, Liv. You have friends who are parents, don't you? Friends that are stay-at-home moms?"
"Un-hm," I reply, nodding. Most of my friends are parents. The odd few have given up their careers to be mothers.
"They'd probably be more than happy to babysit," he replies.
"But would we be able to be parents to a kid? Or would we just be handing them off to a babysitter at every turn?" That's always been a worry. That if I had a child, he or she would be raised by a babysitter. I'd still be Mom, but they'd be closer to their babysitter.
"We'd be able to be parents to them, Liv. You know that. You're great with kids that aren't even yours," he replies. "I've seen you. Why do you think you usually get sent in to talk to the kids?"
"Because you scare people?" I suggest, jokingly.
He sighs. "Olivia, I'm serious."
"I know," I tell him, looking up at him to let him know that I'm taking this as seriously as he is. "I never had a childhood, remember? How can I give a kid what I never had? No kid should have to grow up as fast as I did."
"So you don't let them. It's simple, Liv. You let them be kids. You'd make a good mother. I know you would," he murmurs, his fingers lightly brushing my scalp.
"You think so?" He's usually hard on parents. For him to think that I'd make a good mother, he must see something.
"I know. You've got the twins wrapped around your little finger. They adore you," he replies.
"But they're not my kids. I don't know what I'd do if I had to be the parent. You know, you hear stories of the kids of rich people, being raised by their nannies. Their babysitters are more like their parents. I don't want that. I want to a mother, but with these hours, I don't think I could pull it off," I sigh.
"That's because their 'parents' are too busy with their money to give a damn about their kids. They can just hire someone and do whatever they want. You'd care enough to make sure you were a parent. I know you," he murmurs, reaching for my hand.
"I don't know, El. I wanted to be a mother when my friends were pregnant and having babies, but I don't know. I don't know if I could be a parent, with this job and not turn out to be paranoid. Convinced that if I let 'em go on their own that they'd get hurt."
"You'd learn to let 'em go. You can protect 'em, Liv, but you can't shelter them forever. They gotta learn some things away from Mom and Dad."
"I know that," I protest. "But knowing that and being able to do that are two different things. How many times have we seen a mother look away for two seconds and her kid's gone?"
"Think about it," he says, leaning down to kiss me on the forehead. "There's no rush. I just thought"-
"I don't know. I always dreamed of getting married and then having kids. Bringing them into something stable. A situation where they knew what they were gonna come home to, when they walked in the door. You have no idea what that feels like - coming home, never knowing what you're gonna walk into, when you open that door. Especially as a kid. I wanted something solid, before I thought about having kids."
"What about us? Huh? It's been a year."
I sigh. "I really don't know if I can be the kind of mother I want to be and still do the job." Damn. He just gave me a hell of a lot more to think about! I look up at him. "Maybe. I need to think about it."
He nods. "I know it'd be a big decision for you. Sleep on it. Think about it. I know I just gave you a lot to think about."
"Yeah. You've got that right."