Hello! No, you're not hallucinating! I actually updated something! I'll skip all the excuses because I know you don't care about my life, and we'll dive right into the story! But I do have two things to say first:
-this was actually part of a larger chapter, which means I'll be updating this fic again sometime in the next few days. Look at me go! :D
-thank you, thank you, THANK YOU to Jaime for her endless encouragement. The only reason I actually finished a chapter is because she didn't give up on me, so I owe it all to her. And thank you to you too, dear reader, for not forgetting me!
A/N: this chapter is all good clean fun. Nothing to warn for, just babies and and a boyfriend and Nick being Nick. quotes from stand by me by ben e. king.
I'd be so appreciative if you let me know what you think, either here or on twitter! Thank you so, so much for reading.
[guess what Liv?]
[hey Nick. what is it?]
[I decided what to name my dog. are you ready for this?]
[can't wait.]
[meet...Lilly!]
"You can't do that!" you shout into the phone when Nick picks up.
"Liv! I didn't expect you to call! So what do you think about my dog's name? Pretty cool, huh?"
"No, not really. I- what happened to being gender neutral?"
"It's a kind of flower. Who said that flowers have a gender?" he asks. "If I remember high school biology right, and I'm sure I do, flowers have both male and female parts."
You think you remember learning something along those lines, but that's hardly relevant. "But it's-"
"You just assume that flowers are female based on what society has dictated to us," he continues. "Open your mind. Expand your thinking."
"Nick, I don't really give a shit. I...that's my name! We already picked that for the baby!"
"I know! And I really liked it, so that's why I chose it! It was a great idea, Liv, I owe you one." He chuckles, and you have a momentary vision of reaching through the phone and smacking the grin off of his face. "Can you believe my dog and my sobrina are going to have the same name?"
"No, I can't. Because you're not going to steal my name!"
"It's not your name. You didn't invent it out of thin air, like, by grabbing a bunch of Scrabble tiles and then lining up the letters you picked. Although that is kinda cool...maybe I'll do that to name my next dog."
"I mean, he has a point," The Boyfriend says when you angrily recount this conversation to him. "And it's not like anyone's going to get the two of them mixed up when one's a baby and one's a three-legged dog."
"Excuse me, whose side are you on?"
"The dog's side. I've gotta say, I was thinking he'd come up with a much dumber name for it."
"No, he chose a great name. He stole a great name," you add, correcting yourself.
"And what are you gonna do about it?" The Boyfriend asks in a tone that clearly signifies that he does not give a shit. "Call Barba and sue 'em?"
"You think I should?"
"Look, does this mean now we're not going to California, or what? Because that's the only part of this I really care about."
He grabs the newspaper and holds it in front of his face like he's busy reading. 'Zonkey Man Awarded Millions From City,' the headline proclaims. Unfortunately for The Boyfriend, he'll never find out why, because you pull it out of his hands. "That's the only part? You don't care about your daughter's name?"
"It's a good name, and it'll be a good name whether she's sharing it with a dog or not. What do you want me to do, anyway?"
"Talk to Nick! You know, man to man. Tell him he can't do this."
"Man to man?" he asks, holding back a chuckle. "No. I'm not getting involved."
"Yes. You know, defending your wife and child," you say, shamelessly trying to exploit his male ego.
He's not buying it. "What happened to 'gender roles are dead'? I mean, you're the one who carries a gun on your hip all day while I go to Gymboree and Kindermusic. I think you can handle this yourself."
"And I think maybe you're afraid of Nick."
"I see what you're doing, and it's not working." He watches as you start furiously pulling clothes out of the dresser drawers and tossing them into the suitcase at the foot of the bed. "So I take it we're still going?"
"Of course we are. I'm not giving up a free trip across the country."
"Is it really free if it involves you humiliating yourself on national TV?"
"It's not going to be that bad," you scoff. "And it's going to make him happy. He needs that right now."
"Ah yes, I forgot you were the Olivia Benson Make A Wish Foundation For Disabled Little Boys."
"Y'know, you've got an awful lot to say for someone who's too scared to tell Nick he can't steal our name."
"Nope, not falling for it," he says, arms crossed over his chest.
"I'm doing something nice for him because that's what friends do. And then he's going to pay me back by coming to help us out after the baby comes."
"'Help'?" he repeats. "He 'helps' like Noah does. Leaves a bigger mess than you had to start with."
"That's not true. He did an amazing job with Noah's birthday party."
"Like I said, a mess. Hell, just this morning I still found hay in my underwear drawer."
"Okay, so no hay bales next year. But Noah had so much fun, and there's no way you and I could've put that together, so-" Your phone buzzes and you stop talking as you pick it up.
[Amanda says I shouldn't steal your name. So I'm going with the random letters. And the winner is...drumroll please...]
"What is it now?" The Boyfriend asks.
[c...h...o...g. Chog?]
"Looks like Rollins has more balls than you do, hon," you say to him, sending Nick a reply with the shrugging emoji.
[Or C. Hog? like see hog?]
You look up from your phone and do a double take. "Are you...what? Trying to prove something to me about your balls?"
"No! I don't have anything to prove." The Boyfriend smirks, scratching one of his bare ass cheeks. "But I did have a goddamn piece of hay in my shorts. If you see something you like, though..."
[okay liv. then let's try this. yanny or laurel? should I try to get the dog to tell me what he hears?]
[goodnight, Nick]
{I won't be afraid
just as long as you stand by me}
"Noah, do you want to bring your red shirt or your black shirt?"
"I'd like'a solve a puzzle! E!" he shouts, humming a few bars of a congratulatory tune.
"Red it is, then," you decide. "Go bring me your jacket?"
"O! Three O's!" he says as he races into the living room to find it.
Taking the advice of Noah's speech therapist, you're trying to find every opportunity to ask him questions and let him respond. At this point, however, you're about to give up for the sake of your sanity. The last three days had been full of Christmas celebrations, both here at home and with The Boyfriend's family. You attempted to strike a balance between letting your son enjoy the festivities and keeping him from being overwhelmed, and you thought you had done a good job, but today he seems to be having a delayed reaction and is being as uncooperative as possible. Not what you wanted, especially when you're getting on a cross-country flight in less than 24 hours.
You hear a key turn in the lock, and you damn near leap for joy. "Daddy's home!"
"Hey buddy, have you been helping Mom?" The Boyfriend asks, ruffling Noah's hair after he sets down his shopping bags. He sees you roll your eyes and looks around at the collection of new toys scattered around the floor. "I was only gone for an hour..."
"Is that all?" you say dryly.
"Let me put this stuff away and then I'll entertain him so you can get packed." You had (reluctantly) sent him on a few pre-trip errands, mainly because he could walk further than a block without getting winded. "I got you a surprise..."
"A margarita?"
He leans over and kisses your cheek, handing over a box of chocolate covered cherries identical to the one you had devoured in a single sitting on Christmas day. "You wish. But maybe this'll suffice?"
"Yesss," you say, scurrying into the bedroom as quickly as you can before Noah spies your candy. God knows he doesn't need the sugar.
You sit down on Noah's race car bed and open up the box while listening to the sound of him jabbering at The Boyfriend in the other room. "Buy vow'l?"
Even though your work days no longer consisted of anything more strenuous than walking from your office to the break room, you were somehow still exhausted when you got home. So exhausted, in fact, that you didn't have the energy to do much of anything besides plop yourself in front of the TV. You started watching Wheel of Fortune every night with Noah because if you were going to be a contestant on this damn show, you should probably learn how to play the game.
You justified it to yourself as quality time with your son because it was semi-educational, what with the letters and all, and Noah found it mesmerizing. He didn't quite understand the strategy behind the game, but he knew they spun a shiny wheel and yelled out letters. What could be more entertaining to a two year old? He liked saying the letter names aloud as Vanna uncovered them, and now he could recognize close to half of the alphabet on his own. Unfortunately, he'd also memorized most of the catch phrases ("I'd like to solve the puzzle," "you just won A NEW CAR!", etc) and used them constantly whether they were appropriate for the conversation or not.
Beyond the obvious annoyance, you were sure that this was a sign of any one of a variety of disorders. And now that you'd made the decision to take him out of preschool for a few months during the height of the flu season, you were especially worried because he was missing out on opportunities to communicate with his peers, which could put him further behind when he went back to school in the spring...
"I can hear you thinking from all the way out there." You look up and see The Boyfriend standing in the doorway, nodding toward the living room. "What's wrong?"
You shove a chocolate into your mouth to give yourself a moment before you answer. "Nothing. What's Noah doing?"
"I set him down with a coloring book. He wanted to draw a picture to give to his tio's puppy."
"Of course, as soon as you're home he decides he's ready to behave."
"I have the magic touch. So really, what's up?" You shrug. "I'll have to start guessing if you don't just tell me..."
"Do you think we made a mistake in taking him out of school?"
"What? No."
"He's not going to improve his social skills, and-"
"He wouldn't be improving his social skills if he was sick in the ER every week either," The Boyfriend points out, sitting down next to you and putting a hand on your belly. "And you wouldn't be able to be there with him because we can't have you and this little girl here getting sick."
"I know, but..."
"He's still seeing his speech therapist every week, right?"
"I wouldn't know. She won't return my messages anymore." You had been afraid that she'd think you were a bad mother for having The Boyfriend bring Noah to his appointments, even if he will legally be The Father very soon, but for some reason she seemed to appreciate not having to deal with you. Hmm.
"Well, she thinks he's doing great and he's a very intelligent kid. And between Lucy and me, we're giving him the most educational environment possible. It's like a live action Sesame Street, all day every day."
"So what Muppet does that make you, then?" You know he didn't mean it as an insult, and you're grateful that he's been able to arrange his schedule so that either he or Lucy are always home with Noah. But there's also that part of you that worries about what you might be missing out on, or if Noah having a working mother is going to permanently damage his psyche and add to the latent attachment issues that you've diagnosed him with after his turbulent infancy.
"Big Bird. Obviously." When you're too distracted to even ask if that's some sort of double entendre, he pats your hand and stands up. "C'mere. I wanna show you something."
You follow him out into the hallway. "What's-"
"Sssh," he says, tapping your bottom lip with his finger. "Just watch."
Noah is sitting in front of the Christmas tree that you'll spend the next six weeks promising to take down 'tomorrow', lips pursed in deep concentration as he scribbles across the page with a blue crayon in his fist. You can hear him singing softly to himself as he colors. "Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all away..."
"He's like a broken record on the 'jingle bells' part," you whisper.
"He's happy. He's learning and growing and he's happy, and that's what's important. The rest will come."
As if on cue, he looks up at you with a grin. He runs over to you with his coloring book in hand, nearly tripping over his own two feet a few times, and proudly shows you his masterpiece.
"Buddy, that is beautiful," you say with a gasp. You attempt to crouch down to his level, but your hips and knees aren't having it, so you sit down on the couch and admire his scribbles like they're a new exhibit at the Met. "Is that Tio's doggy?"
"Atopical coose!" he cheers, clapping his hands, and you roll your eyes at The Boyfriend.
"A tropical cruise," you translate for him, turning back to Noah. "It's a doggy, see? Woof woof."
"Cash n' pyses!"
"I give up," you mouth to The Boyfriend, slumping against the backrest of the couch.
"His speech therapist is kinda impressed. She says he has a great memory for a toddler and he's using it to try and communicate. That's a good thing."
You dropped the subject because it was time to get Noah fed, bathed, and tucked in to bed to dream of all the cash and prizes his little mind can conjure up. But later on, when you're shifting around under your own covers, The Boyfriend speaks up again. "You still worrying about Noah?"
"Stress is bad for the baby," you say, giving him a non-answer as you stretch out your legs to try alleviating a cramp. "Speaking of whom, I'm gonna have to get up and pee again. I don't know how such little feet can put so much pressure on my bladder..."
When you get back to bed, after you've finished squirming around to get into the perfect sleeping position, you finally answer his question. "Yes, I'm worrying about Noah. I'll worry about him until the day I die."
"Liv..." He reaches out, arm wrapping around your stomach. "You're a good mom. To him and to Lilly."
"You're just saying that."
"No, I mean it. Even before you had kids of your own, you were a momma bear."
"So what does that make you? Papa bear? Or baby bear?" you tease.
"It means Munch is Goldilocks," he says, and you laugh softly. "But I'm absolutely not just saying that. Look at this little girl you've got here. She's healthy and she's growing every day."
"I don't know. It all feels so arbitrary. Like that's just something people tell pregnant women...'oh, you're taking such good care of the baby'...when really, the whole thing is a complete crapshoot. So what if I have a healthy baby? I mean, God, I hope I do, but look at Noah. His biomom was probably using the entire time she was pregnant, probably drinking and smoking, and I doubt she ever went to the doctor. Hell, she didn't even go to the hospital when he was born. And somehow...for the most part, he turned out okay. It could've been a lot worse."
"It could have," he agrees. "But then, what's the moral of the story? I don't see you picking up a crack habit, so you must think that what you do matters at least a little bit."
"Of course it does. I know it does."
You must not sound convincing, because he keeps pushing. "But?"
"But literally anyone female can...well, okay. That's not true. But it doesn't take some sort of special person to get pregnant and have a baby that's halfway healthy."
"Like your mom."
"I. Yeah."
"You don't think..." He stops, swallows. "Just because she didn't want to be pregnant, that doesn't mean she didn't care about you."
"I know. I guess, she must have on some level. She went to all her doctors' appointments, she stopped smoking and drinking..."
"She did the best she could," he suggests gently. "And you're right, it might not take a special person to get pregnant and have a baby. A lot of that's just up to biology. But not everyone who gives birth to a kid is a mother...someone who loves their kids unconditionally. You, though- Liv, you're a mother. Just because Noah's not your biological child, there's no way you could love him any more than you do. He knows how much you care about him and he's never had a reason to doubt that. Even when he won't answer you, or he trips over thin air, or he breaks something for the third time that day, he knows he's still loved. And you'll do the same for Lilly. Know why I'm so sure?"
"Because I worry so much about her?"
"Well yeah, that," he says, kissing the back of your head so you know he's not serious. "But because ever since you've had Noah, and now even more since you've been pregnant...you've actually started really taking care of yourself for the first time since I've known you."
"Oh...?" you hum, because you're not sure if this is a compliment, or a compliment wrapped up in an insult, or not a compliment at all.
"And like- I wish that wasn't true. Not that...I'm glad you're taking care of yourself. So glad. You stopped drinking after you became Noah's foster mom, you've kept up with going to your therapist, you've made changes at work so you're not working so many hours and you're not out there on the front lines. When you're struggling, you admit it and you ask for help. And we both know that's not easy, for you or for me."
"Of course I do all those things, Noah and Lilly deserve to have me be the best possible mom I can be. I'd do anything for them. Why's that a bad thing?"
"It isn't, not at all. But it's like you just said, you do it for them. And I know you won't want to hear me say it...but I wish it was because you knew it's what you deserved. Being happy, being healthy...I wish you loved yourself enough to take care of yourself for your own sake." You make an uncomfortable noise, a hybrid of 'yes' and 'no' and 'stop', and he puts a hand on your shoulder. "Hey, it's okay. You don't have to say anything. I know it's not easy for you, so I'm just proud of everything you've done. No matter the reasons."
You think about the person who you were, and the person you are now. How sometimes you think you've changed, but the former Olivia is still the one who you see when you look in the mirror, like the reflection of someone clothed in a garment that doesn't quite fit right anymore. But it's not like an outfit that you can easily shed and discard, not when it's your own skin that still covers you and your own eyes staring back at you.
You know that you're different, though, and not just because of the bulge in your midsection. There's no way you would've entertained the idea of having another baby for even a second if you didn't think things were getting at least a little bit better. That you were a little bit better. You've never bought into that 'everything happens for a reason' trope, because that always seemed like bullshit people spouted because it scared them to think that life might just be a series of random events. If believing that made them feel better, fine, but you weren't one of those people. You're still not; not really. And maybe it was luck, or simply chance, but maybe there was a reason that motherhood never happened for you until a year and a half ago. If there wasn't, then it was certainly a fortunate accident. Because as convenient as it would be to place the blame somewhere outside yourself, the truth is that your problems didn't all begin on May 20, 2013. You'd been not okay for a long time before that, but up until then you'd managed to keep stuffing them down, keep running away until you found yourself surrounded on all sides. So you tried to free yourself by digging downward. You thought you could avoid it all once again by tunneling underneath, but that left you trapped below ground while the walls of your escape route caved in like quicksand. Now your only choice was to climb back up to the surface and face everything standing in your way head-on. And so that's what you did.
You've still got a long way to go. But you can see where you're headed now, enough to know that you're getting closer to where you need to be. For your kids, for The Boyfriend, and yes- for yourself.
Two years ago, your old psychiatrist had asked if you thought that you were worth saving. At the time, you had said 'I don't know.'
You know it's still not the answer that everyone wants to hear. But now, you can confidently say that your answer has been upgraded to a 'maybe'.
"Liv?" The Boyfriend whispers.
You pick up the hand that he's been resting on your stomach and interlock your fingers with his, palms pressed together until you can feel the pulse in his wrist beating in rhythm with yours.
It's not enough, but it's enough for tonight.
{and darlin, darlin, stand by me}