Hello! It's been a while since this was updated, so thank you for your patience!
As before, the identity of The Boyfriend remains a mystery in this chapter. But if you want some EO-themed domestic goodness in this universe, you may want to check out Almost Home (a two shot, maybe more at some point in the future) or As The Sun Does Set (a one shot, definitely NSFW)
A/N: This is a very PG-rated chapter and I can't think of any necessary warnings. All quotes from don't panic by coldplay.
In the next chapter- deep bensaro conversations, sexytimes, and the big party. Should be posted by the end of the week. In the meanwhile, enjoy this and please feel free to let me know what you think!
{all that I know is
there's nothing here to run from}
"Maaaaa!"
It's the best sound in the world- your son's excited voice as he rushes to the door to welcome you home every evening. You'd love to scoop him into your arms, but you know you're not supposed to be lifting him unless it's absolutely necessary, so you settle for crouching down to give him a hug. "Hello there, little man! Did you have a good day today?"
"Good day," he confirms before babbling away about something only he understands.
You look up at The Boyfriend, then over at the kitchen, which seems conspicuously clean. It's not that you expect dinner to be on the table the moment you walk in like some sort of 50s TV husband, but you're pregnant and tired and starving and...yeah, okay, you expect dinner to be on the table the moment you walk in. "We're, ah, running a little behind schedule. But don't worry, pizza should be here any second now."
"Meat Lovers?" you ask hopefully, Little Bean having turned you into some sort of raving bloodthirsty carnivore.
"A large. All yours."
You let out a nearly orgasmic groan of pleasure at the thought. "What did I ever do to deserve you?"
"Hey, anything for Momma. Right, Noah?"
"Noah two," he reminds you before running off in search of his Legos as soon as you stand up.
Noah two, indeed. His second birthday had been two days ago, and he had already celebrated twice. There had been a little party with hats and singing and cookies on his actual birthday, attended by two of his daycare friends, and to your complete surprise, Grandma (aka The Boyfriend's mom) had asked if she could do something for Noah last weekend. She ended up having the three of you and some other assorted members of The Boyfriend's family over for dinner and bought Noah a stack of presents that was taller than your son himself. It was the first overt gesture she'd made as far as including him as a part of the family, and the gift mountain wasn't really necessary, but perhaps it was her way of trying to make up for lost time. In any case, you had been incredibly touched and it took everything you had to keep your hormonal self from sobbing on her shoulder out of gratitude. (Instead you went out to the car and sobbed until you were fit to interact with other humans again).
But the festivities weren't over yet. On Sunday, you were having your side of the family- aka current and former squad members- over to eat brunch and shower Noah with attention. (At this point in his life, a captive audience is about the greatest gift he could receive). You have three days remaining to prepare for this event and you haven't even really started, you haven't-
"Hey," The Boyfriend says softly, coming up behind you in the doorway of your bedroom. "I called your office this afternoon and Carisi said you were out."
You should've known this was coming. "What the hell was he doing answering my phone?"
"Where did you go?" he asks in return. He's not angry, not accusatory, but he's still not going to let you dodge the question.
"Hospital." When he sighs, you turn around so you can look straight at him, hands resting on his forearms. "Hon, I had no choice. Our witness would only talk to a woman, and with Amanda out on vacation- what else was I supposed to do? I knew that if I didn't get her statement now...the second this woman's discharged, we're never gonna see her again."
"And that's all you did?"
"Yes. I promise. What, you don't trust me?"
"I do. Of course I do," he assures you, reaching for your shoulders and pulling the sleeves of your blazer down your arms. "More than anyone, you know that. But I worry. Can you blame me? I've got two of the most important people in the world to me, right here."
"Yeah, yeah," you say with a little smile. He knows that, if anything, you've been overcautious at work ever since you got that positive pregnancy test. Being sergeant means you spend most of your days behind a desk as it is, so it wasn't that huge of an adjustment to make. Fin has taken on the role of being in charge when the squad's out in the field, Rollins deals with most of the vics, and Carisi sets his alarm to make sure you take the time to drink water and walk around a little every hour ("It's important for your circulation and helps keep your ankles from swelling," he explained). You know it makes The Boyfriend feel better, that you're surrounded by people who're watching out for you and Little Bean- but he still calls a couple of times a day just to make sure they're doing their job.
He tosses your jacket onto the bed and starts undoing the buttons on your shirt while you rest your forehead on his shoulder. It's become your favorite daily ritual, shedding your Sergeant Benson attire and reverting back to being 'just Olivia', and it's hard to believe there was a time when you thought that Benson-the-cop was all you'd ever be. You're not yet ready to give up your other identity, but in your heart you know that every day it's becoming less and less of a priority. There's so much else to your life now.
You pull on leggings and a tank top once you're finally undressed, pretending not to notice the way The Boyfriend's looking at you. This may well be his favorite part of the day too, even if it's more of a practical gesture than it is some sort of foreplay when you have a toddler who's liable to come rushing into the bedroom at any moment...like right now. "S'prise!"
"Surprise? What's the surprise?" you ask, letting Noah climb up on the bed and into your lap.
"S'prise!"
"Alright then!" You laugh, pointing toward your stomach. "Do you want to say hi to the baby?"
"Hi baby," he repeats, poking at your side a few times before he hears a knock at the door and takes off toward the living room at full speed.
"Must be the pizza. You wanna get that, Liv?"
You frown at The Boyfriend. "Dressed like this?"
"Here," he says, tossing you a sweatshirt as an afterthought. "Just go."
You zip up the hoodie, confused as to why he's so insistent that you be the one to go to the door and why he's so unconcerned that the pizza guy might get an eyeful of your cleavage. Noah's doing jumping jacks as he waits for you in the entryway. "S'prise!"
"No, that's our food," you tell him, gently shooing him away so that you can open the door. You're so busy trying to keep him from rushing into the hall that you don't even get a look at the delivery guy until you hear an unexpected voice.
"Someone here order a pizza?"
You gasp, one hand clapped over your mouth and the other one flying out to grip the doorframe as you recognize the face of the person in front of you. "Nick?!"
"S'prise!" Noah yells again, collapsing into a giggling heap on the rug. "S'prise Mom!"
{homes places we've grown}
"Don't worry about it, I'll take care of the dishes. You two go on and put Noah to bed."
"You sure, Nick?" you ask. "I don't want to keep you if you have...plans."
"Nah, we're good. And I need to talk to you guys about the P-A-R-T-Y."
You roll your eyes as you herd Noah toward the bathroom, pulling clean pajamas out of the closet and trying to decide if you could get away with just giving him a quick sponge bath. It was already past his bedtime, and even though he was in a cheerful mood now after getting to play with Tio Nick, you knew he would be a real pain in the ass for his preschool teachers to deal with tomorrow morning if he didn't get to sleep soon.
"But...But...no!" he howled when you knelt down to help him get dressed, knowing that this meant playtime was over for the night.
"Tio will be back tomorrow," you promise him. "He's gonna be here all weekend."
"S'prise?"
"Yes, it was a very good surprise. Go let Dad help you brush your teeth and then we'll read a story."
The surprise, of course, had been Nick (who did have an actual pizza with him, much to your relief). Once you saw him, it all made sense- Amanda's sudden request for vacation days, The Boyfriend 'ordering pizza' and making sure you were the one at the door, Noah's random outbursts of 's'prise'.
"We worked on that one all afternoon," The Boyfriend admitted. "But he wasn't gonna cooperate. Then you get home and he starts saying it and I thought shi- shoot, he'll give it away...alright, break it up," he grumbles when you won't let go of the hold you have on Nick. "He's not going anywhere. You can cuddle later when the neighbors aren't watching."
"It's just been...so long since I've seen him!" you explain tearfully. (You've never understood people who cry out of happiness- at least, until you got pregnant. Earlier that morning, for instance, you had gotten a little lump in your throat when Carisi found your missing stapler).
It actually hadn't been that long- about ten weeks, give or take, since you said your goodbyes at his farewell party. You were already about a week pregnant at that point, but of course you didn't realize it yet and blamed your sour mood on him leaving. Now, though, there was no mistaking it. "Can I...I'm not trying to feel up your girlfriend, man, I promise."
"I'm watching you," The Boyfriend warns, taking the pizza boxes into the kitchen as Noah follows along beside him.
Nick appraises your bump carefully. "It looks bigger than it does on Skype."
"There. Now are you convinced that I'm eating?" He texts you several times a day to make sure you're getting enough fruits and vegetables ("Fiber, Liv.") and taking all your vitamins.
"It's not just about eating. It's about eating the right things. Good nutrition is-"
"Please just shut up and let me enjoy my pizza."
And he did, but not without noting that he got a vegetarian pizza for himself because the girl at the counter didn't know if the beef came from 'free range' cows. There wasn't much room for conversation over dinner, anyway, in between you stuffing your face and Noah clowning around to impress your guest. He had been going nonstop ever since Nick walked through the door, so you weren't surprised now when he dozed off midway through your reading of Snuggle The Baby (one of several new books he had gotten for his birthday, all with the same theme). The Boyfriend is careful not to wake Noah as he picks him up off your lap and lays him down in the crib, which is now missing a side railing after you discovered that he could climb out on his own. "Amaro, if you really want to make yourself useful, there's a toddler bed that needs to be put together."
"This party is my priority," Nick tells The Boyfriend, scribbling furiously on a notepad. "I flew all the way across the country just to make sure your son's birthday doesn't suck. You're welcome."
"Uh-huh. It had nothing to do with Amanda?" he asks.
Nick doesn't look up from what he's writing. "There's...a lot of people here that I miss. Now c'mon, I need to know what party theme you decided on."
"Uh, birthday themed?" Nick had been incredibly disappointed when you told him that Noah's 'friend party' didn't have any one of the dozens of themes he had suggested. You chose a color scheme- blue, Noah's favorite- and bought hats and balloons and streamers all in that color instead. Despite what Nick had predicted, none of the toddlers seemed disappointed by the lack of a theme with coordinated decorations and food and activities. As it was, they spent most of the time running back and forth under the streamers hanging in the doorway, and when that got boring they just yanked them all down.
"So does that mean I can do whatever I want?"
You look over at The Boyfriend, silently gauging his opinion with your eyes. Although you know that whatever Nick comes up with will likely be cringe-inducingly over the top, you do want Noah to have the kind of birthday bash you never had growing up. He won't remember any of the parties he's had this week, of course, but at least someday he can look back and see just how much he was always loved by all the adults in his life. And when he's a teenager making fun of how tacky it all looked, you can tell him to blame Nick. "Please don't make me regret this."
"You won't, I guarantee it. So I'm thinking about decorating, and I know where I want to take this, but for starters...how would you feel about me painting your living room walls green?"
{we live in a beautiful world}
Noah's birthday wasn't the only party Nick had on his mind.
A few weeks earlier, when you had a battery of tests done at your OB's office, she had mentioned that you would be able to find out Little Bean's gender once your bloodwork came back from the lab. Deciding that you wanted to know if your bean was a boy or girl as soon as possible was a no brainer for you and The Boyfriend. You both were eager to know as much about this little person as you could, to start calling him or her by name and 'introducing' her to others. It would also potentially save the two of you from six more months of the Daniel vs Julian argument that had been going on for weeks now. If it was a girl- Lillian. You had agreed on that one right away. But for whatever reason, picking a boy's name had been trickier. You didn't really have anything against Daniel; you just liked Julian better, and you thought that your status as the one who actually has to give birth to this baby meant that the decision should ultimately be yours.
In any case, you thought this would be a simple process. Test results come back, you talk with your doctor, she says 'it's a girl/boy' and everyone's happy. Easy as that. At least, until you mentioned it to Nick over the phone one evening.
"You're just going to have the doctor tell you?" he had asked, unimpressed. "And then what? How are you going to announce it to everyone?"
"Uh, I figured I'd just say 'hey, we're having a boy. Or girl'."
"That's it?"
"Am I supposed to do something more? Maybe I could have Noah holding the ultrasound picture and post a photo of it with a caption saying 'It's A...whatever'?"
"Is that really the best you can come up with?"
According to him, and Pinterest, you were supposed to find out the gender by way of colored pops/silly string/fireworks/etc. at some sort of themed party. Not just supposed to- it was practically required. Failure to comply could doom your child's life before it had even begun.
"For chrissakes, Nick, why don't I just have my OB email you when she finds out and then you can surprise us with it however you want?"
It came out much less sarcastically than you had intended.
"Really?!"
When you brought it up with The Boyfriend, his automatic reaction was "No. Absolutely not. Did I mention no?" He wanted to have the gender reveal be a private thing between you, not a party, and you tended to agree with him. However, you were able to come up with a compromise that made everyone happy. Your doctor agreed to mail that part of the test results to Nick without letting you see it first, and then Nick could give you and The Boyfriend the news however he wanted when he was back in New York for Thanksgiving (with one condition- no fireworks). Then you would tell the rest of your friends and family via phone or email or whatever "boring" way you chose.
Thanksgiving was still over a month away. But now that he had made this surprise trip east, he had hinted that maybe you wouldn't have to remain in suspense for that long.
As promised, he came back for dinner the next night. The Boyfriend was only too happy to give him free reign over your kitchen, and by the time you got home from work you had a full meal ready and waiting- just the way you like it. Nick may not be much of an artist, but he does know his way around the kitchen.
"Oookay sir, I think you're done," you say to Noah, who has become more interested in licking his noodles than actually eating them. Nonetheless, he still whines when you take his bowl away from him. "Sssh, help Momma clean your hands off and then you can go play."
"Wait, we still have dessert whenever you're ready," Nick chimes in. "Noah'll want to see this."
"No clue...he brought it with him," The Boyfriend says as you look over at him skeptically, wondering what this dessert might be.
"So you know I like making cakes," Nick says, coming back to the table with a covered tray. "And rainbow cakes are my specialty."
"Have you ever actually made one that turned out right?" you ask.
He ignores you and continues. "Which is why I thought I should do something similar for the baby! So I saw online how people made cakes where you cut into it and the inside is either pink or blue for a girl or boy, and this is what I came up with…"
When he motions for you to do the honors, you lift the lid off the tray to find a cake smothered in chocolate frosting with "congrats on the sex" written on top, complete with an obscene hand gesture.
"Nick," you sigh, feeling like you should cover Noah's eyes even though he obviously has no idea what he's looking at. You suppose you should just be grateful Nick didn't bake it in the shape of a dick or something equally embarrassing. When you consider the possibilities, this was relatively mild.
"Let's sing Happy Birthday to Noah and then you can cut it," he promises.
So you sing, much to Noah's delight, and you can't help but feel the tingle of nervous anticipation in your stomach because this is it! This is a huge, life-changing moment and for the rest of your days, you're going to remember this obnoxious cake and the moment you found out whether you were having a son or daughter.
"Who's gonna cut it?" Nick asks, clearly loving every second of this.
You tell The Boyfriend that he can, because you're too excited to keep a steady hand. Noah continues with his song, oblivious to what's going on around him or even that the adults have stopped singing, and you try to direct his attention toward the cake as you wait for the big reveal.
The Boyfriend cuts a piece, pulls it away from the rest of the cake so you can see the middle, and it's...
some sort of strange orangey-yellow.
"It's pink. That's gotta be pink," he decides.
You disagree. "Look, it's blue around the edges. That's definitely blue!"
"You're both wrong," Nick says, grinning like a cat who's just picked the lock on a cage full of canaries. "It's a rainbow cake! Because this baby doesn't need to be limited to one stereotypical color- it can have them all."
Blank stares all around. Even Noah looks confused. Finally The Boyfriend speaks. "So uh, is it a boy or girl or what?"
"Oh come on," Nick cackles. "You didn't really think I'd tell you before Thanksgiving, did you?"
You grit your teeth, trying to tell yourself that it would be in very bad form to kill a man while your son is watching. The Boyfriend looks like he may not be able to resist the temptation. Meanwhile, Noah has finally realized there's a cake within his reach.
"S'prise!" he squeals, mashing his palm in the frosting.
{everyone here's got somebody to lean on}