Author Notes: I tried to find some light in Olivia's lonely past.

Disclaimer: Dick Wolf owns the show. I own these words that come from the often creative psycho mess that is my brain. Have a nice day.

Two days before Christmas, Olivia recollects on the lonelier Christmases of her past.

December 23, 2017

Noah had already gone to bed for the night. The lights in the apartment were either already turned off or dimmed and a piano playing Christmas music came from the media player. She had stayed in his doorway for longer than usual, just watching him fall asleep safely in his own bed.

It was a habit Olivia had picked up since she got him back from Sheila and, though she no longer stayed most of the night holding him or nearly passing out from exhaustion while standing there and watching him, she still felt the need to make sure he was safe and protected.

She left the doorway and closed the door and moved into the living room, grabbing her tablet and glass of wine on the way to the Christmas tree standing by her window. She placed the tablet on the coffee table and turned it on so she could monitor her son, and she took a sip of the dark red liquid in her glass.

It wasn't her usual fare, but it had a tinge of extra cinnamon to give it a festive flavor during the holidays. The cinnamon wasn't strong and it wasn't that bad. It was a shame it was only available during the holiday season; she could get used to a wine like that.

Liv reached out to touch the twinkling colorful lights that she'd put on the tree that she'd put up a couple weeks ago. After the situation with Sheila, she needed to look forward to Christmas and to hear her son's joy and excitement over his presents from his mom and her family and from Santa. His happiness was all that mattered to her now and she was going to make sure it stayed that way.

She picked up a box of leftover ornaments she'd found in the back of the closet and opened the lid. The first one she'd picked up was an old homemade one. It was round but it was supposed to look like an angel with a paper halo. The halo had gone missing years ago, but she had fixed a golden pipe cleaner to the old wiring to recreate that adornment.

The ornament was a small hollow plastic sphere and it had been a craft project she had made when she was Noah's age. The teacher had given the kids a ball and they had to make a Christmas ornament out of it with stuff in the arts & crafts boxes before them. Since she had attended a Catholic school at the time, most of the kids just made angels or stars or something to do with Jesus and His birth. Other kids just added as much color to the ball as possible. The teacher said they could present it to their parents when it was done and it would be on their Christmas trees for years and years, even when they were all grown up.

Little Olivia had watched, at first, every kid reaching for supplies to use and she couldn't think of anything to make. Most of the art projects she had made ended up in the trash or hidden away somewhere, out of sight. She had already learned, at such a young age, that her mother didn't really care about what she made in school. But, since the teacher said they had to make something, she ended up making an angel like Meghan Hunter, the red-headed girl who sat across from her. The two girls worked quietly on their angels while the rest of the class was noisy.

Olivia smiled at the memory and placed the ornament on the tree, next to a very colorful angel ornament Noah had just made in school. The two of them together brought tears to her eyes and made her cherish, even more, her life with him. She thought back to her childhood and how she never gave it to her mother when she got home. She put it on the tree herself and didn't even think Serena even noticed. And, yet, she realized now, that her mother had noticed and kept it until she died.

Christmases were acknowledged in the Benson apartment throughout Liv's childhood, but they weren't the exciting affairs most people had. There was a tree and presents and a Christmas parade on TV and music, but it was often a lonely one for both of them. Serena would make cereal or a simple breakfast and let Olivia open her presents. By the time the parade was happening, her mother had cracked open the egg nog and was probably halfway through it. They'd have a normal lunch and dinner – nothing really festive – and there'd be some sort of Christmas fare on TV or radio or her mother would put on records. Until it was time for Olivia to go to bed or her mother passed out, whichever came first.

It had been that way from the beginning until she graduated and moved out. The next few Christmases, she'd stop by to see her mother, but she'd beg off toward the end of the day because she had friends or a party. Serena didn't offer much beyond a goodbye and a warning to be careful. By that point, Olivia knew what happened to her mother and promised her she would.

Olivia removed the next two ornaments and placed them on her tree and admired them. Both of them had belonged to her mother. One was a light golden glass star her mother said someone had made it for her. Olivia had been maybe four or five at the time – she couldn't remember – and she had gone to touch it and Serena had stormed over and smacked her hands and said she was never allowed to touch that. Serena placed the ornament on a higher limb and Olivia had run to her room to stay away from her mom. While that memory wasn't a happy one to reflect on, it was the memory of how her mother handled and looked at that ornament. Not once, did she ever say who made it for her, but she cherished it. The other ornament was a white sphere with Serena and Olivia's names printed in elegant writing, Serena's name in red and Olivia's in green. Serena's mother had given it to her after Olivia was born. Despite her conception and her feelings about the pregnancy and raising her rapist's baby, she still kept that and hung it up every year.

Looking at those ornaments, Olivia realized that that was what made Christmases with her mother bearable. Those keepsakes were a reminder that somewhere under the pain and alcohol, Serena cared about her daughter and tried her best, at least during the holidays.

She stepped back and looked at the entire tree before her. It didn't look like a tree out of some magazine, with elegant ornaments and gold lights, or color-coordinated lights and ornaments. The tree she shared with Noah had colorful and gold lights and the ornaments were mismatched between old and elegant and eclectic and childlike. There were ornaments shaped like cartoon and Disney characters, NYPD or New York-themed ornaments, some from her squad over the years, ones with photos imprinted on them and small framed ornaments. A lot of those pictures featured Noah from the moment she got him until a picture from the past summer. A few were ornaments or little craft things he'd made while in daycare or in preschool or with Lucy. She'd attached a hook thing on them to hang them up.

Unlike little Olivia's artwork, Mama Olivia kept everything her son made. Even if they were out of sight, they were safe in a box that was carefully stored in her closet. Since someone of the pictures were birthday or holiday-themed, she opened the box often to take out pictures to decorate the apartment. Even if Noah thought something he'd made when he was two looked dumb, she still kept it.

Liv set the box down and turned back to the coffee table. She glanced at the tablet screen and saw that Noah had rolled over his sleep and Eddie the elephant was now hanging off the bed. She smiled and picked her glass and took another sip of the delicious liquid.

She turned around and moved toward the windows to glance around the skyline and her neighborhood. Much like her windows, families in buildings across the street and beyond had decorated theirs in holiday lights in gold, white, solid colors or multiple colors. She could see some Christmas trees in windows.

In that moment, she felt connected to all these people celebrating the holidays together; people she would probably never meet. All of them living their lives separately but celebrating all the same.

It made her think of other Christmases past. The ones she'd spent alone while on the job. When she first got to SVU, she was living in a studio that didn't even have a separate bedroom. She didn't really have anyone to hang out with on Christmas and didn't really feel like celebrating much. Especially after her mother's death. The small space was never decorated, except for a strand of lights around the windows and a pathetic, Charlie Brown-like tree on an end table. If she was home on Christmas, it was holiday TV fanfare and day-old Chinese. More often than not, she chose to work on Christmas so another cop could spend the holiday with their family.

Someone like Stabler. During their entire partnership, he'd been one of those that left early on Christmas Eve and didn't show up until the day after Christmas … unless he took a vacation and spent the week with his family. She felt lonely, but Elliot left gifts for her from him, Kathy, and the kids. It was usually a book or some candles, or some practical items. One year, when Dickie was little, he had insisted that Elliot give her socks for Christmas, so that's what Elliot did.

But, it was always him going home to his family. Early on, she was alone and okay with that. But, as time went on, she wanted something, someone. So, she went to a bar on either Christmas Eve or Christmas night. She did meet a couple people here and there, but it was casual or nothing came of it. Eventually, she reached a point where the bar scene no longer appealed to her and she wanted something else; something to come home to instead of takeout and It's a Wonderful Life.

Then Stabler left and she was still trying to figure out her partnership with Nick Amaro and she didn't meet David Haden until after the new year began. That Christmas felt a little lonelier than she'd ever experienced. It was the first year that she didn't get any gifts from the Stabler family, and she and Nick weren't at that place where they could exchange or give each other a present.

And, she had off that Christmas. She tried to give herself something; a little indulgence. She decorated her place a little and listened to Christmas music and watched Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas. She bought a nice, expensive dinner, an extravagant bottle of wine, some aroma therapy bath supplies and candles and some body massagers. It didn't replace friends or a family or a romantic partner, but it made her feel less shitty about her life.

Looking out in the night, she laughed. That Christmas was a world away from her life now. Hell, it was a world away from the Christmas that came a year later.

She took a healthier gulp of her wine and the sting of the cinnamon made her throat feel like it was on fire. She quietly coughed and gasped in an attempt to soothe her throat without waking her son.

She blamed the memories of that next Christmas.