Hello! Once again, I have a 'one-shot' that is...uh, multichaptered. So to everyone who told me so- you were right. And no, this isn't the last chapter. I'm thinking this may be a five-part thing, but I give up trying to guess.

Thank you to everyone who read and enjoyed the first chapter- I had fun hearing who you pictured The Boyfriend to be and everyone's various theories :)

A/N: warning for reference to a past sexual assault and a minor 'spoiler' for a chapter of Those Graces that hasn't been written yet. Quotes from a sorta fairytale by tori amos, these are days by 10,000 Maniacs, and your fire, your soul by dar williams.

{a sorta fairytale with you}

You never expected that being pregnant would involve announcing it so often.

After all, in a few months it'll pretty much be obvious without you having to say a word. But for now, your delicate condition remains invisible (although you feel wider already, and you woke up to your boobs feeling about three times heavier than they were last night).

"So you're going to be a big brother," you say to Noah as you sit on the couch after breakfast, watching him build a tower with a set of big plastic blocks. He has no idea what this entails, of course, but it can't hurt to start introducing the concept. You don't want him to grow up surrounded by lies and half-truths and 'we don't talk about that' the way you did, which is why you talk openly about his birth mother and read books about adoption even if he's too young to truly understand. "Does that sound fun? Having a baby brother or sister to play with?"

"Baby."

"That's right, a baby! Do you think it's a boy or girl?"

"QUE?" he asks, eyes wide and mouth open in a surprised 'O'. He's gaining new vocabulary words by the hour, which is a relief to you because his language skills were a little weak for his age when you first brought him home, but it also means that anything and everything he hears is liable to come out of his mouth. This includes words he's picked up from Uncle Nick's telenovelas, complete with the overdramatic inflection and facial expressions. It was cute. The first 300 times.

The Boyfriend laughs, so obviously the joke is still fresh to him. "Hey Liv? You seen my orange juice?"

"Um. Yes, actually, I have." Noah decides his tower's now tall enough and picks up a baby doll, roaring before charging at the tower and sending the doll flying into it headfirst. "Noah...you're supposed to be nice to your baby. Did you see that, hon? What if he's already angry because he feels replaced? I don't want them to fight..."

"They will. That's what siblings do. Nothing's gonna change that."

Suddenly you're questioning the wisdom of having more than one kid. "Wow. That was encouraging."

"It was honest." He comes over to you and stands behind the couch, rubbing your shoulder. "We were talking about the juice."

"Oh. Yeah. I saw it...when I drank it all." You're not usually fond of orange juice, but you'll get a craving for it once or twice a year and then that's that. Until last night, when out of nowhere it seemed like a great idea to drink three glasses of it right in a row. And it was great- until you had to get up and pee about 14 times throughout the night.

"But you don't even like it."

"Is this where I get to use the excuse that the baby wanted it? I'm sorry, I'll go to the store and get you another carton. Noah and I could use the fresh air anyway." You get off the couch and kneel down on the floor, waiting for him to come toward you for a hug. "Wanna go for a walk with me?"

He thinks about this for a second. "QUE?"

{these are days you'll remember
never before and never since, I promise
will the whole world be warm as this}

The next announcement you made came first thing Monday morning.

If you had the choice, you would've rather waited until you were a bit more secure in the knowledge that this baby was going to make it. But after talking it over with The Boyfriend, you decided it would be less stressful to let your squad know up front than to try and hide it, especially since you were starting your self-imposed desk duty right away.

Besides, they weren't just your squad. They were your family. As Nick had said- if something does go wrong, you're gonna need someone to lean on. (And if you didn't hurry up and tell them, you knew he would).

So with all this in mind, you stood in the doorway of your office and tapped on the wall to get their attention. "You three. In here."

"I told you not to. I said, don't do it," you hear Fin telling Amanda and Carisi, and you decide you're not even going to ask, because you'd probably rather not know.

"You can sit down," you say, shutting the door behind you and closing the blinds for good measure. Even Fin's starting to sweat now. "I've got something I need to tell you all but before I do, I need you to promise it doesn't leave this room."

Amanda's getting pale, but Carisi's literally on the edge of his seat with anticipation. "Got it, Sarge."

"Yeah. Well...it's still very early on but...I'm pregnant." While the men look shocked, Amanda looks like a death row inmate who got a last-second pardon, and you're definitely going to have to grill Nick about this.

Carisi is the first to speak. "Wow! That's...how did that happen?" When he sees the looks everyone's giving him, he corrects himself (or tries to). "I mean, I know how it happened. Not, like, the specifics- well, I know those, but I don't know how exactly you-"

"God, Carisi, shut it," Amanda complains. "Liv, I'm sure what he's trying to say is, congratulations."

"Yeah, that's what I wanted to say."

You nod. "Fin?" you ask when you notice the skeptical look on his face.

"Your boyfriend know about this? And he's okay with having another kid runnin' around?"

"He is. We'd actually been thinking about adopting again and then this...it was a complete surprise. But a good one."

"Cause you're kinda old for that, aren't you?" Carisi asks. "Like, my grandma was 50-something when I was born. Just sayin'."

"How old do you think she is?" Amanda asks, shaking her head.

You and Fin look at each other and smile- oh, the days when 50 still seemed so...old. "Anyway, Carisi does have a point in that I'm...not young. There's a lot of things that could go wrong and I'm trying to be as cautious as I can, which was why I wanted to tell you three right away."

"Anything you need, Liv, you got it," Fin assures you. "Don't worry. Take it easy and we'll pick up the slack."

"I knew I could count on you guys. And once I'm...once I know more, I'll start telling everyone else, but for now if you could keep it quiet-"

Someone knocks on the door, and it makes you a little nervous considering that the squad's all with you and the unis know better than to bother you when the blinds are closed. The last thing you need right now is to have something huge dumped on you by the higher-ups...

It turns out to be Barba, who tries hard not to seem particularly crushed after he glances around the room and sees you all sitting together, acting much more relaxed than you would had you been discussing a case. "Well, I can see I'm interrupting something here."

"Not at all," you assure him, but he still looks like the only kid on the block who didn't get invited to a birthday party and is now watching longingly from his front yard while everyone else is jumping in the bouncy castle and eating ice cream. "Want to come in?"

"I don't have time to socialize," he says, still pretending not to care.

"You want to hear this, trust me. I was going to call you later but now that you're here...stay? Please?"

The corner of his mouth turns up a millimeter as he walks through your office doorway. "I suppose I have a few minutes to spare."

{and they say they want your story
but they get confused by all those words you use
a year ago your car went off a cliff
and you saw an angel in midair who said you'd live
well that's a story you can give}

The third announcement came later that day. Being clueless about this whole pregnancy thing, along with not even knowing for sure how far along you were, you used your lunch break to find out from Dr. Google when you were supposed to schedule your first OB appointment.

This search landed you on a forum full of hysterical women using poor grammar and abbreviations you didn't understand. You did, however, notice that most of these women had known they were pregnant before the sex was even over and had finished decorating the nursery by the time they got a positive pregnancy test. Now you feel very, very behind schedule. You close the laptop and call your doctor's number, hoping you won't be yelled at for not already having a 'birth plan' (whatever that was. Isn't the plan just supposed to be 'give birth to baby in the safest and least painful way possible'? Because that's kinda what your plan consisted of...)

"Dr. Michaels' office, Erica speaking," a young-sounding voice says.

"Hi. I'm a patient of Dr. Michaels' and-" You briefly explain the situation, only to be met with silence. "Hello?"

"Yeah. How old did you say you were?"

"47." More silence.

"Yeah. And you think you're pregnant. Did you take a test?"

"Actually, I took three."

"Yeah. And they were positive?"

Would you be calling if they weren't? "Yes. They were."

"Yeah. But did you check to make sure they weren't expired?"

"Could you maybe just put me through to the nurse's voicemail and I can leave a message for her?"

A long sigh. "Yeah. I guess. Hang on."

You were relieved when the nurse called back and actually took your word for it, that you were pregnant and not just a delusional woman in early menopause. She did, however, give you a referral to a practice that also had high-risk specialists "because of your...advanced age."

Later that night, after you put Noah to bed, you were looking through all the new patient forms you were supposed to complete when The Boyfriend came out of the bathroom. He was still shirtless after having showered and you tried not to let out an audible whine. Goddamn hormones. You wondered if it would seem too eager to ask the doctor if you were allowed to have sex before you even introduced yourself. Probably. "So you felt alright at work today?"

"Yeah, fine. Which scares me a little. Other than being kinda achy and tired- I really don't feel nauseous or anything. And everyone says the sicker you are, the less likely it is that you'll lose the baby..."

"Sssh. We're not thinking like that, remember what we decided? Everything's fine until we know for sure that it's not."

"I know, I know...you're right." Stress is bad for Little Bean, you remind yourself, taking a deep breath. Trying not to dwell on your worries, you point toward the screen of your iPad. "You've gotta fill this out before our appointment. Family medical history."

He nods and sits down next to you (but not before putting a shirt on, you're grateful to notice). "Got it. And you...you're doing okay with all this?"

"With how half of my part basically just says 'unknown'? Well...I knew it was coming, so."

"That, yeah, but I meant-"

You hold up your hand to stop him, the other hand rubbing at your eyes. "I know what you mean."

"But you don't wanna talk about it?" he asks, and he shifts toward you but he's careful to make sure that you're not touching, letting you be the one to decide if you want him any closer.

"I...I don't know what the fuck to say," you admit. You'd managed to keep it pushed aside all day by focusing on one step at a time. And now all you want to do is fill out this goddamn paperwork, but now that you've gotten past the basic initial info, every question is a fucking landmine. "How am I even- if I can't even do this...this is supposed to be the easy part."

"You don't have to do it all tonight, hon. You've got a couple days. Why not take a break for now and come back to it tomorrow?"

"Like it'll be any easier then?" You turn and lean back against his chest, allowing him to wrap his arm around your waist. "I should be able to do this. It shouldn't be this hard. Not like..."

"The actual appointment," he says gently. The last time you were around any sort of doctor, you still had someone else's blood spattered all over your face. They checked you for a concussion, gave you some sort of sedative, and when they asked pointedly if you had any injuries other than those visible scrapes and bruises, you said no.

The next morning you took a taxi halfway across town to some hole in the wall pharmacy, sunglasses on and hair pulled back. You kept your head down and went straight to the aisle you were looking for, paid in cash, and as soon as you were back outside you dry swallowed the pills before dumping the packaging in a nearby trash can. Then you got into another cab as quickly as you could and went back home, taking some small comfort in knowing that you'd never have to tell a soul.

Ever since then you've been even more nervous about close contact with strangers than you were after your previous assault. You can deal with handshakes or bumping into others on the street, but even someone touching your arm or shoulder during casual conversation makes your stomach clench. And while you're much more relaxed around the people you're closest to, there's still moments when it gets to you, like the day not too long after you brought Noah home when he was cranky from teething and would scream uncontrollably if you weren't holding him. This went on for hours and hours until you couldn't breathe because you were so panicked by having someone constantly clinging to you. By then you had no choice but to put him in his crib and let him wail- although you're not sure which one of you was crying harder.

It was one of many, many moments where you seriously doubted whether you were cut out to be a mother. And now here you are again, wondering how the hell you're going to be able to get through this next hurdle. You will, of course, you'll grit your teeth and find a way to endure it for the sake of your baby. "It'll be fine. I'm okay."

"Are you? Honestly."

Honestly? Just the thought of that fucking blood pressure cuff squeezing your wrist is enough to make you nauseous if you think about it long enough, never mind the...more invasive shit that you can't even think about. But looming larger than any of that, of course, is the fear of admitting that you're scared. You can't give him any reason to doubt you can handle this and everything else coming your way, not when you need his faith in you to make up for the faith you don't have in yourself. "I'll live."

"I know you will, hon...but I also know you've been stalling on your department physical, because you've canceled at the last minute four times now."

"I told you, things keep coming up. But I'm not gonna cancel this, okay, so don't worry."

"I'm not." He leans in, dropping a kiss to your bare shoulder. "I know you'd crawl through broken glass for this baby. Our baby. Because you're an amazing mother to him already."

You duck your head, letting your hair fall forward to hide your face because you feel yourself blushing. It's been two whole days and he's already figured out what makes your hormone-addled heart melt into a big disgusting puddle. "You don't know it's a boy."

"And you don't know it's not."

"Do you want it to be?" you ask, jumping on the chance to change the subject.

"I'm not sure. Maybe we need another girl around here so you won't be outnumbered anymore, huh?" He's quiet for a moment, idly rubbing your non-existent baby bump. "Y'know...no one's judging you if you are nervous."

"Oh for Christ's sake, what do you want me to say? If I tell you I am, will you quit asking?"

You try to stand up, but he tightens his hold on you slightly- enough to get your attention, but not enough that you couldn't still escape if you wanted to. "Liv. Stop."

"Son of a bitch," you mutter, but without any heat behind it. He's learned not to let you goad him into an argument, but he won't always walk away either, and it pisses you off but at the same time there's that part of you that wants someone else to take control and call you out on your shit. You twist away from him halfheartedly and when he still doesn't let you go, you sigh and eventually relent. "I just get so damn sick of it, how everything has to be such a fucking struggle. It felt like...it's like I get to this point where I think wow, I'm really moving on with my life, this is good. Like sometimes it'll be late at night before I notice that I actually haven't thought about it all day- I remember a long time ago, thinking that would never happen. That I'd never get that far."

"But you did."

"Yeah. I did. And then oh, wait, here comes something else that brings it all back up again. But- godfuckingdamnit!" you swear, your voice finally breaking, hand scrubbing over your face as if that would do anything to muffle the sound of your tears. "I hate him, I fucking hate him, the bastard piece of shit can't just die and stay dead and I shouldn't. I shouldn't still feel this way. It's over. I need to get over it."

"It's okay, it's okay. Let it out, I've got you." He doesn't say anything else at first, just takes his free hand in yours and waits until your breathing starts to even out. "We talked about this before, back when we were going to meet with the fertility specialist- remember? That it wouldn't be easy for you because of this sort of shit...but I knew you could do it."

"I can, I'm fine," you insist, forcing yourself to sit up straighter and pull it together as if your momentary breakdown hadn't happened. You remembered every word of that late night conversation back at the old apartment, how you went back and forth in your own head because as much as you wanted another baby, you were never going to be able to trust yourself enough to say yes, let's do this. But he didn't have the same doubts, and in the end...if you can trust me, I can too, you told him.

"Even if you weren't fine, I still trust you. One hundred percent. Think of everything you've been through with Noah...we've sure as hell had our share of times like this before, haven't we? But you've dealt with it and you've kept going, and that's why I trust you. I do, and our baby does."

"I don't want her to feel like I resent her. They say babies can pick up on emotions early on and...I don't want her feeling like she's a burden before she's even born," you admit, fighting to keep yourself from tearing up again.

"She doesn't. I promise you, she- or he- knows how much they're loved already."

You bite your lip and smile at that, wiping under your eyes with your fingers. "I never thought I'd love someone this much when I haven't even met them yet."

"Just think, in a couple days we'll get a look at him for the first time."

"And we'll get to hear the heartbeat. I already had to tell Nick I'm not going to call and put him on speaker so he can hear it."

"God, that guy needs a job bad," he says with a little chuckle. He moves to lie down and you let him pull you down on top of him. "You're gonna be okay. And I'll be there with you the entire time...but you know who you should talk to? You should give Alice a call."

Alice was the nurse who'd come by every day after your kidnapping to help you change your bandages and check on how your injuries were healing. You had lost touch with her after that until you happened to run into each other eight or nine months later, and you'd stayed in contact ever since then. "You think so?"

"Yeah. I mean, she knows you, knows your history...you'd probably feel a lot better after you talked to her. If nothing else, she'll be excited to hear about the baby."

He did have a point- you didn't exactly have a lot of female friends, let alone ones with pregnancy experience, and you knew she was someone who wouldn't give you bullshit answers to your questions just to make you feel better. "Maybe I will. I've been meaning to send her some of Noah's new pictures anyway."

"Yeah, what's it been, a week since you've posted a new album online? Everyone's missed so much."

"Hey, who's the one who actually takes them all in the first place?" It's no secret that the camera roll on his phone is almost always completely full of pictures of Noah. You tilt your head up, giving him a smile, but then you wince as you feel a twinge in your lower back.

"Where's it hurt?" he asks, and you gesture toward the base of your spine. "Want me to rub it?"

"I don't know, is that all you're offering?" He laughs, which irritates you a little because it wasn't a joke. What you really want right now is for him to fuck you until you can't remember your name, let alone anything else that's weighing on your mind, but you'll take what you can get.

Now you're lying flat on your stomach and his hands are moving downward, getting dangerously close to your ass, and then all of a sudden his palm skims over the back of your thigh and you arch toward him in response. "Ohh, so that's what you wanted."

"Mmmyeah," you mumble, and his hand keeps traveling higher until he's touching you through the thin cotton of your pajama pants and there's no way he can't feel how much you want this. You've been trying to get better at communicating, at taking your therapist's advice about not using sex as a way to avoid dealing with your emotions, but jesus christ...you're only human. And a hormonal pregnant human at that.

He pulls his hand back and you instantly voice your displeasure, but he doesn't give in. "Not tonight."

"And why the hell not?" He's infuriatingly good at teasing you like this, and normally it's kinda fun and a definite turn on. Tonight, though, you're mostly just annoyed.

That is, until he leans forward and whispers into your ear that if you're patient until the doctor gives you the all clear, he'll make it worth the wait. "Got it?"

"Mmm, but you could still-" Your seduction attempt is cut short by the sound of Noah coughing in the next room. His asthma had stayed pretty much under control all summer, thank God, but he still had this nighttime cough that reared its ugly head once a week or so. "I'll go get his inhaler. Will you pour some water in his sippy cup and bring it to me?"

"I'm on it," he says, looking a bit uncomfortable as he reaches for his sweats.

"We're never going to have sex again, are we? Once we have two kids."

"Probably not. But hey, it was fun while it lasted."

You shake your head and smile because sometimes, despite all the demons you still battle every day, you can't help but feel ridiculously lucky to have the life you're living now.

{these days you might feel a shaft of light
make its way across your face...}

And the final announcement...well, that one was addressed directly to you.

The next morning you woke up before your alarm went off, when the sun was just starting to peek out from over the horizon. You're not even sure why you bothered with an alarm in the first place, not when your bladder did a much more effective job of getting your attention every few hours- and unlike your phone, it didn't come with a snooze button.

You sit up slowly, your achy muscles already screaming at you, and it doesn't take more than one step toward the bathroom before you're hit with the feeling of being on a ship that's riding a tidal wave.

"Liv? Shit, you okay?" you hear The Boyfriend call out from the other side of the closed door, your sudden scramble for the toilet having woken him up.

The dry heaves barely last more than a minute, but once they subside you stay sitting on the tile floor, leaning against the tub and grinning stupidly to yourself because suddenly it's real. This is really happening and you've never been so fucking elated to feel so shitty before. "Yeah. I'm...I'm good. Everything's good."

{...and when you do
you'll know how it was meant to be
see the signs and know they're speaking to you}