A/N: To answer your burning questions: Tucker will be here until the end. No, Olivia is not going to cheat on Elliot with him.
Ed hated to admit to himself that he'd become a regular at this trendy little coffee shop in the last four months, ever since he and Olivia stopped in for iced tea her first day back on the job. Such a regular that the girl behind the counter would smirk at him every time he browsed the menu on the blackboard and then ordered the same thing: black coffee, one sugar.
The place was all decked out for Christmas, which he couldn't believe was at the end of the week. He was thinking about how he wasn't thrilled about the ride he'd have to take up to Connecticut to his sister's house. But his niece Stephanie was 8 months pregnant and he did have a baby gift he wanted to deliver. Yet, the thought of making the trek was exhausting.
He was mulling over how much it would cost to just ship the damn stroller he bought her (that the lady at the baby store said was perfect for first-time parents, but Ed didn't know if she was just bullshitting him to make a sale) when Olivia walked through the door looking frazzled, a Duane Reade bag dangling off her wrist.
Ed waited until she placed her order ("just a bottle of water and the restroom key, please.") before he walked over to her.
"Iced tea isn't on your radar in 20-degree weather, Sergeant," he said, smiling, using her new rank.
She'd only been a Sergeant for about three weeks. He'd gone to the ceremony and stood in the back. Stabler and his kids were front and center, along with her squad. The youngest boy cheered and clapped for her louder than anyone in the room, and even Ed had to admit, it was cute to watch how Olivia tried to stay professional but cracked a small smile when she heard the kid yelling her name.
But instead of coming back at him with a quippy retort, Olivia looked shocked to see him.
"Oh, Ed, of course you're here right now," she said, accepting the water and key from the girl at the counter.
"Yeah, I come here quite a bit now," he said. "Guess you do too."
"Hmm?" she hummed. "Oh, um no, I just stopped in to hit the restroom before heading back to the precinct."
"What's in the bag?" Ed asked.
Olivia froze.
"Oh uh… Munch needed some... Pepto Bismol," she said. "Fin dared him to try some new spicy Indian thing at lunch. Asked if I could pick him up some on the way back."
She was lying, and rambling. And they both knew it.
"C'mere," Ed said, leading her by the elbow to one of the tables against the back wall. "We both know that's a lie. What's going on?"
"Nothing," she said. "Just running errands, heading back to work after therapy. Keeping up with it so I can keep my job."
"Olivia, I think you forget I was a detective like you before I moved to IAB," he said.
With that, she slumped down into the metal chair and dropped the bag, water, and key on the table. Ed sat down across from her.
"Last week I thought I might be pregnant," Olivia said.
Ed looked at her, wide-eyed. It'd been about seven months since her encounter with Lewis. And based on the pictures he'd seen of Stephanie, Olivia should be a lot bigger if she was that far along. But every woman was different, and that made him sick to his stomach. How could the hospital have missed that on all her checkups and things so far?
"I took a test and it was negative," Olivia said, her face falling.
"Isn't that good though?" Ed asked.
"What?" Olivia said. "Why would that be a good thing?"
"I mean, I didn't think you'd want to…" Ed said, fumbling for words, surprised at her reaction. "I mean, maybe you want to be a mother but not with him."
"Not with him?" Olivia said. "God, you two are cut from the same damn jealousy cloth. I know you hate him, Tucker. But I didn't think you hated him so much that you'd be happy I wasn't pregnant with his child when all I really want is to be a mother."
Ed had to wonder what in the hell she was talking about. Damn right he hated William Lewis. He thought she hated him too.
"You want to have Lewis' baby?" Ed asked.
"What?" Olivia asked again, bringing a hand up to rub over her face. "Oh my God, you're an idiot."
How was he the idiot in this situation?
"It wouldn't be Lewis' baby, Ed," Olivia said. "I'd be as big as a house right now. Elliot and I have been seeing each other since I've been back on the job. I know I didn't exactly give you play-by-play details but I thought you knew that."
How was he supposed to know that? She'd been living with Stabler since the incident, sure. But the two of them had always been abnormally close. And he never really saw them together anymore because Stabler wasn't on the job.
"I'm sorry," Ed said. "I didn't mean what you thought I meant, I guess. Although that does make a lot more sense. But what do you mean we're both jealous?"
Olivia waved her hand in the air, waving away his question.
"Anyway, so I took a test and it was negative," she said. "And I just… I can't shake the feeling that I had when I thought this might finally be happening for me. I thought the door might not be closed. And I talked about it with my therapist today and I wanted to take one more test, just to be sure. I thought I could slip in here and do it and nobody would know. But then of course you have to be here ordering, what, black coffee with one sugar?"
"Lucky guess," Ed muttered.
"You're predictable," she said.
Her words hung in the air between them. He wasn't quite sure what to say.
"So, are you going to go take it or not?" Ed asked.
"Well not now," Olivia said. "Not with you here knowing what I'll be doing in there."
He doesn't point out that thinking about her peeing on a stick is nothing compared to what he busted in on at her apartment.
"You really want to be alone when you get the results back, either way?" he asked.
Olivia picked at the label on her water bottle.
"You know, Elliot doesn't get Eli overnight very often," Olivia said. "His apartment is small, but we had him for four whole days at the end of last week because his school started Christmas break. And, I don't know. Seeing Elliot and Eli together, having a child in the house. It made me want this even more. And I know the test was negative, but there are such things as false negatives, right?"
"I'm sure there are," Ed said, although he didn't know. None of the tests his ex took were ever false negatives because she'd been on birth control and didn't tell him.
"It's not like we were trying," Olivia said. "And I'll be 46 in two months. It's silly, right? It's silly to hope that I still have a shot at motherhood. To be able to raise a baby of my own. Not just be Dad's girlfriend who Eli sees a few times a year."
"It's not silly," Ed said, sincerely.
"Easy for you to say," Olivia said. "Men can have kids way up into their 70s. You've got, what, 20-some more years ahead of you."
"And I've been waiting 30-some for a woman to want to have my kid," he said.
Olivia stared back at him, dumbfounded.
"I was married once, my high school sweetheart," Ed said. "We tried for years and it never happened for us. I found out it was because she never went off birth control and was sleeping around on me. As far as I know she has three kids now. Guess she finally decided she wanted them. Just not with me."
Olivia's face fell, and she reached across the table to put her hand over his.
"I looked into adoption about five years ago," Olivia said. "They told me I wasn't 'prime parent material.'"
"They were wrong," Ed said.
"That's what Elliot said, too," Olivia said. "I thought that was the end for me, until I met a pre-teen named Calvin on a case. His mother was a drug addict and she left him in my custody. But eventually we found his father through a DNA test, and the father petitioned for his parents to get full custody of Calvin. And the court took him away from me."
Ed's heart ached for her. He knew she'd be a wonderful mother. Why had the world been so cruel to her?
"Go take the test," Ed said. "But no matter what it says, your window isn't closed. You're meant to be a mother, Olivia. It will happen for you. I know it."
Olivia sucked in a deep breath, grabbed the bag and the bathroom key, and disappeared behind the door.
She was gone about four minutes, and Ed felt like they were some of the longest of his life. He never thought he'd see the day where he was hoping there would be another Stabler entering the world. But here he was, praying to a God he'd likely forsaken long ago to not rip this chance from Olivia. Not when she'd already had to deal with so much.
Eventually, the bathroom door cracked open. He noticed first that her hands were empty except for the bathroom key, which she returned to the counter. Next, he noticed her red rimmed eyes.
Neither of them had to say a word. Olivia shook her head no, and then he was meeting her halfway between the counter and their table, catching her before she could collapse. He got her out to his car and didn't say a word, but silently drove back to Stabler's building, letting her soft, hiccuping sobs fill the car.
When he double parked at the building's front door, he pulled out his cell phone and dialed a number he'd used more in the last year than he cared to think about.
"Stabler," the voice on the other line said.
"It's Tucker," he said into the phone.
"What's wrong," Stabler said, his voice immediately shifting to panic.
"Meet me outside your building," Ed said.
"Where's Olivia?" Stabler asked. "Is she hurt?"
"She's with me," Tucker said. "Not hurt like you think, but she needs you."
The line clicked dead and less than a minute later, Stabler was on the sidewalk outside the building, no coat over his t-shirt, no shoes over his socks.
"What the hell?" Stabler yelled as Tucker got out of the driver's side, and Olivia slowly made her way out of the passenger door.
The second Stabler saw Olivia, it was like Tucker didn't exist.
"Hey," Stabler almost cooed at her. "What's wrong? Something happened in therapy? I thought you were going back to work?"
"I'm sorry, El," Tucker heard her whisper. "It's stupid."
"It's not stupid if it has you this upset," he said. "It's freezing out here. Why don't we go inside and get some of that cider Maureen sent over?"
"Okay," Olivia whispered.
Stabler began to lead her inside, but turned around and looked over his shoulder at Tucker before mouthing "Thank You."
All Ed could do was give a half-hearted wave and watch as Stabler led her inside.
There were many things in this world Ed felt were unfair. But Olivia Benson having to go without a baby of her own was one of the biggest injustices he'd ever seen. And he wished there was something, anything, he could do to change it.