Your Star
"You're doing it again," Kaitlyn said, looking up at her mother. They were sitting at the kitchen table, Kaitlyn doing her homework as Olivia tried to concentrate on some paperwork.
"What?"
"Spacing out. What happened?" she asked.
"Casey introduced you to Alexis, right?" Olivia asked. Kaitlyn nodded. "Alexis is a friend's younger sister."
"Okay… so what's the big deal?"
"Alexandra Cabot died a few years ago. She was our ADA, before Casey. She tried to prosecute a man who worked for Cesar Velez, and Velez had her shot," Olivia replied. "Alexis and Alexandra could be twins."
"I didn't know… I saw it in the paper and all, but I didn't realize…"
"You couldn't have known, Kaity. I never told you." Olivia went back to the paperwork. Kaitlyn continued to watch her mother. It was only a few minutes before Olivia gave up on her paperwork and closed the folder, pushing it back into her bag. "What do you want for supper? Elliot's coming over, and I'm really not in the mood to cook."
"Chinese," Kaitlyn suggested.
"Think again. I have to be able to eat this, and Chinese is really bad coming back up," Olivia told her.
"Thanks for the info," Kaitlyn said, thoroughly disgusted.
"It's my job."
"It's your job to make me want to puke?"
"Don't say puke," Olivia reprimanded, pushing herself away from the table and going into the bathroom. Kaitlyn turned on the television to drown out the sound.
"Sorry," Kaitlyn said, as her mother returned to the room.
"It's okay. Just don't say that word around me again. What about pizza?" Olivia asked.
"Pineapple," Kaitlyn replied, turning off the TV.
"And mushroom," her mother replied. Kaitlyn wrinkled her nose.
"On your side, maybe. That doesn't sound like an appealing combination."
"Pineapple pizza sounds nasty to begin with. Which is why you're getting a medium pineapple to yourself and I'm having mushroom," Olivia told her.
"What about Elliot? He doesn't like mushrooms."
"He can deal. I'm pregnant."
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Elliot looked up at Olivia and shook his head. He'd been doing that all morning. "Stabler, what the hell do you want?" she asked. She was very bitchy without her morning cup of coffee anyway, but it had been three weeks so she was really pissed off.
"I just can't figure it out," he said.
"Figure what out?"
"How you can be so mad and still look gorgeous," he replied. Olivia started to make a smart remark, but couldn't think of anything. Finally she sighed.
"Shut up, Stabler," she said, the edge gone from her voice. A moment later, Elliot could see her begin to smile.
"Hey, it worked, didn't it? I got you to smile."
"Only because I can't stay mad at you. You won't let me," she replied, putting down her pen. She looked up at him. "Why?"
"Because I hate seeing you in a bad mood."
"Or because you just like being a smartass," she added.
"That too. But you're even prettier when you smile," he said.
"You make this entirely too hard, Stabler," she told him, picking her pen back up.
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Olivia smiled as she opened the door. Elliot didn't even bother to take off his coat before he leaned over to kiss her. "Where's Kaitlyn?" he asked, pulling away after a moment.
"Prepping for tomorrow with Alexis," she replied. "I'm supposed to go get her in an hour." Elliot nodded and wrapped his arms around her.
"Are you ready?" he asked. She sighed.
"As ready as I'll ever be. It's different, coming from this side of it all," she told him. He pulled her closer to him and kissed the top of her head.
"You'll do fine. You're telling the truth. That's all that matters," Elliot told her.
"What matters is getting the bastard who stole three years of my life off of the streets. Making him pay for taking my daughter away from me. Making him pay for what he did to her, and to me." She was quickly becoming hysterical. The pressure from the past few weeks had finally begun to catch up with her.
"He'll pay, Olivia. This case is airtight. Foolproof, even. Alexis knows what she's doing, and he's going to go down. But right now, you need to calm down. You getting upset isn't going to help anything," he reminded her. She nodded and took a few deep breaths, leaning her head against his chest.
"It's just too much, El. It's too much. I've got a sixteen year old, a wedding to plan, work, and with the babies on the way…"
"Babies?" he asked.
"What?"
"You said babies, as in plural," he told her. She shut her eyes.
"A baby on the way, and not enough sleep," she replied, finally finishing the tirade she had begun. Elliot smiled.
"You know, they say a woman can some times sense if she's having multiples," he said. Olivia rolled her eyes.
"Don't say it, El. Not until after this nightmare of a trial is over. I've already got too much going on as it is, and I don't need that idea popping into my head every few minutes," she said.
A/n: Hmm… and that is true: some women actually know they're having twins before the doctor figures it out. They also often know the sex before it can actually be determined.