XII:

"Feliz navidad para mi," Lucia cackled, rubbing her hands together at her son's obvious discomfort. "I'll leave you two to sort this out while I get breakfast on the table –"

"No necesito estar aquí para esto," Catalina said gently, patting Rafael's shoulder as she followed Lucia into the kitchen. Her voice floated back, "No lo arruines."

"You're… you're pregnant?" Rafael stammered, reaching for Liv as he stepped across the room, yet he didn't touch her as if he was afraid to. "Olivia – how?"

"How do you think?" Liv shot back, though there was no malice in her tone, only a touch of irritation. "We had sex and it wasn't as if we were very careful."

"Well, no, but you said you had it handled –"

"I thought I did," she muttered darkly. "When your doctor says you're menopausal, and your cycle basically stops, you assume it's true. But, no, hey – found out in the hospital on that last round of scans before they released me to rehab that… oh yeah, you're pregnant."

"Why didn't you tell me then?" he asked, eyes wide.

"Because I needed you to take care of Ree and I wasn't going to jeopardize that by being stupid," Liv said very quietly. "You're freaking out right now. Six weeks ago, you would've shit yourself."

He ran his fingers through his hair, messing it up completely, a clear sign of his distress. "We're having another baby," Rafael said, looking at her with the intense stare that he affixed her with when she presented him with a particularly difficult challenge.

"Look, Rafael – if you don't think we can do this, there's still time…"

"No, don't say that," he interrupted, the intense stare softening. "Liv, don't… please. That's our child, and whatever else, he or she was created with love."

She hesitated a moment, then said, "You want –"

"I think what we want is irrelevant at this point," he said. "It's only what will be, because we've made decisions and done things and now we have consequences of actions. And I love you and Serenity… and I love this little one even though I didn't know about them until five minutes ago." He still looked confused and stressed and tired – hell, scared even – but he was reaching for her again, and his embrace was comforting and warm. "They're never going to let you come back now," he said.

"I've been trying not to think about that and panic for weeks," Liv admitted, burying her face in his shoulder, inhaling his scent deeply. "I've been with the NYPD for so long, I can't imagine doing anything else – I don't know what I'm going to do, Rafa."

"We're going to have breakfast," he said, rubbing her back, "and then we'll have a real party when your squad gets here at lunchtime."

"What?"

"Didn't I tell you? We're having a party," he teased. "Munch is even bringing his famous pickle dip."

"Oh lord," she groaned.

He tipped her chin up and smiled. "Hey," Rafael said.

"Hmm?"

"I love you, Olivia. And we're having a baby." He said it as if the two things weren't completely foreign concepts, as if he had thought about them in a context together before. "I… I want that with you."

"Do you?" she whispered.

"I do," he breathed, giving her a kiss. "But you have to tell me these things, not just spring them on me."

"Are you mad?"

"I'm… frustrated that you thought you couldn't tell me."

"I didn't mean to just blurt it out like that," she confessed.

"I know you didn't."

His hand came to rest gently on her abdomen, and she pressed herself more fully against him, holding on tightly. "I'm sorry – I didn't know how you would –"

"We're going to have a baby," Rafael said, his voice low and full of awe. "I… It hasn't sunk in yet."

"Merry Christmas?" she said.

"If you'd asked me six months ago what I'd be doing on Christmas, this wouldn't have even been on my radar," he said. "But I'm a father now and… and I love being with you and Serenity. I wouldn't give it up for the world."

"Your world was neat and ordered –"

"My world was small and incomplete," Rafael interjected, putting a finger against her lips. "And now I have so much. I'm a little overwhelmed, in a good way."

She paused, then smiled and cuddled into him. "As long as it's in a good way," Liv murmured.

She woke up when he came to bed. "Hey," she mumbled.

"Shh, go back to sleep," he whispered. "I just had to serve some warrants."

"On Christmas?" Liv whined.

"Well, Ree was too tired to go to sleep at first, so we had an extra long story time, then I had to go help serve the warrants… and since when do you lecture me about work?" he teased, curling around her.

"Your feet are cold!" Liv yelped.

"It's December," he reminded her with a low chuckle. "Go back to sleep."

"I'm cold now," she sighed.

"Well, then, I'll just have to work hard to warm you up," he replied, kissing the back of her neck. "I love you, Liv."

"I love you, too," she murmured.

"I mean it," he said. His hand slid down over her waist to carefully rest on her abdomen, and he added, "I hope this baby is another girl – I want another little girl that looks like you to spoil rotten."

"You're already spoiling Ree rotten," she mumbled sleepily. "Go to sleep, Rafael."

"I want to spoil you, too," he said very softly.

"You already are," she whispered, covering his wandering hand with her own. "You're too good to me, Rafael. Too good for the likes of me." She swallowed hard, trying to hold back the sudden surge of emotion that welled up inside her, threatening to drown her. "I don't want you to think that you have to be with me because we have children together –"

"Olivia," he said softly, "do you think for one actual moment that I – no, let me rephrase that. As much as I love our daughter, do you honestly think I would throw you over for her?" His hand shifted, casually moving onto her hip, then drifting down her thigh with a feather light touch. "I fell hard for the confident goddess I met in the bar that night and I didn't know what the hell to do about it. I was wrong to do nothing about it. But I'm trying to change that now: I fell in love with you, the way you walk, the way you talk, the way you take no one's shit. I love the way you love our daughter, the way you've embraced my mami and abuelita, the way you fight every day to keep getting better –"

"I can't stand you looking at me in pity," she whispered.

"It isn't pity," he said quietly. "It hurts that I can't do anything to help."

She bit back a whimper when his fingers slipped between her legs, gently teasing her through her pajamas. "You're… a good man, Rafa," Liv breathed.

"Not that good," he teased against her shoulder, breath hot as he chuckled. "I'm obsessed with you, Benson – how you taste, how you feel, how you sound when you come… whether you're happy. Dios, solo quiero que seas feliz. Es Navidad y quiero que el amor de mi vida sea feliz."

Her breath hitched when he abruptly stopped stroking her. "Rafael, soy feliz, te lo prometo. Simplemente no estoy seguro de qué va a pasar después o cómo vamos a sobrevivir," Liv stammered out in a rush, sure that she was butchering the words or the pronunciation of said, but his breath was shaky against her neck as he kissed it, a clear sign of his reception of her efforts.

"Juntos," he said, his tone low and choked with emotion, "siempre." She felt his tears before she really knew he was crying, hot splashes of liquid on her skin, and his hand had moved back up to her abdomen to more comfortable abodes. "Cásate conmigo por favor." The words were so soft she wasn't sure that her ears hadn't played tricks on her, but the gentle tensing of his fingers against her belly belied that; suspended in the darkness of five minutes of eleven on Christmas night, when the rest of the world was going about their business or sleeping, they were cocooned in their own little world where none of the rest of it mattered.

"And what happens when you wake up one day when you're 85 and I'm… older and you realize that squabbling with me isn't what you want?" she whispered as he threaded their fingers together.

"Olivia Benson," he whispered, "I hope to god we'll still be bending one another over the kitchen table at 85 and scarring our grandchildren for life. Because I sure as hell am not giving up the squabbling or fucking you any time soon."

She choked out an incredulous laugh. "Rafael!"

"I mean it," he said firmly.

Liv licked her lips and whispered, "Yeah, I know you do." She hesitated, then squeezed his hand. "Me casaré contigo, pero en cuanto miras a una de esas modelos de veinte años, estás durmiendo en el suelo."

He made an excited noise in the back of his throat, a cross between a trill and a whine, then said in a rapid fire growl as he slapped her ass, "¿Y por qué los miraría cuando tengo esto para volver a casa todo el tiempo?"

"Hey!" she yelped, giggling. "Stop it – it's bedtime, Rafa. You've got to get up in the morning."

"The most beautiful woman in the world just agreed to marry me – you think I care if I have to go into the office at the asscrack of dawn?" he shot back with a grin.

"You should," she murmured.

"I'm getting married and I'm going to be a dad –"

"You already are a dad, so put that pot on simmer and go to sleep," she warned. "I have therapy in the morning and Chief Dodds is coming by at lunchtime to talk about my options for returning to duty when I'm cleared –"

His fingers tensed across her belly again. "Please tell me you aren't going to work cases –"

"Don't be ridiculous," she said. "I'll be on desk duty for months yet. I was going to take the time to take the sergeant's exam, and maybe the lieutenant's if I pass the first one with high enough marks. Since they're only a month apart and the material isn't that different." She shrugged. "It's something to do while I'm stuck doing paperwork while I'm growing your mini-me."

He exhaled and kissed her shoulder again. "I… I don't want you to take any unnecessary risks," he said quietly.

"I won't," she promised.

For the first time in her life, she meant it when she said the words; and she knew that someone really gave a damn about whether or not she kept her oath. Maybe giving of herself to Rafael wasn't the curse that she'd worried it was or could be – maybe it was a blessing instead.

All she knew was that it was the first Christmas in a long time that she felt like maybe, just maybe, the spirit of the season wasn't just a myth perpetuated by a capitalist society to sell more shit and an overzealous religion to cram themselves down everyone's throat. It meant more than that just for a moment.

"I don't have a ring," Rafael mumbled, his voice growing heavy with sleep.

"I don't need one," she assured him.

"You do," he insisted. "Beautiful diamond – "

"Don't be silly," she whispered. "Go to sleep, Rafa."

He pulled her closer and snuggled into her back, holding her protectively as if she were precious. And, if she had to hazard a guess, if anyone asked him, he would say she was.