Title: Sum of All Parts: Season 1
Summary: Over a cup of lukewarm coffee, a box of stale donuts, and familiar conversation. She had decided to show him her cards. It was time.
Author:
Note: All this AU and parallel universe stuff got me thinking about some things . . .
I want to stay as close to canon as possibly, but I'm definitely taking some liberties because some shit needs to change. This is gonna be a hell of a ride! Anyway . . . Enjoy and tell me what you think. All feedback welcome.
1999
You've been my partner for half a year and I hardly know anything about you.
She had learned to play her cards close to her chest. Her childhood. It was rough. People asked questions, she never had the answers.
His request, if you wanted to call it that, had been simple enough. He had divulged so much information of his life already that it was only fair that she give him a morsel of information. If only just to appease him. Right? It wasn't like she was keeping her life a secret from him. Or anyone for that matter.
She was protecting it, and herself.
But she had decided. Over a cup of lukewarm coffee, a box of stale donuts, and familiar conversation. She had decided to show him her cards. It was time.
"Why don't you come up, Elliot? Just for a minute?"
He looked at her, slightly taken aback, question in his eye.
She sighed. ". . . You're my partner. I want you, no, I need you to trust me. So come up."
He nodded and let her lead the way. When they arrived at her door sounds of music permeated through its cracks. He made a face.
"You leave the radio on, Liv?"
Liv sighed again, this time in mild defeat, shaking her head. "No."
She turned the key and pushed the door open. It caught on the latch. "Open the door," she cried into the crack, a sliver of light creeping through.
"Sorry!" exclaimed a muffled voice. A girl's voice.
The door slammed just as Liv moved her face, then swung open half a second later revealing a lean, brown-skinned teen girl with dark curls and familiar brown eyes. She grinned at Liv, revealing a mouth full of braces, but it faltered a bit at the strange man standing next to her.
"I made spaghetti."
"I figured," Liv said, dropping a quick peck on the girl's forehead before breezing by her. "Come in, El."
Elliot stepped over the threshold, idling by the door as the teenager strolled by him as if he wasn't a stranger.
"Scarlett, the music."
"It's not even loud," she whined, and it was a sound Elliot was very well accustomed to.
Liv fixed her with her lips in a straight, firm line, a look he thought she had saved for perps. "The music, Scar."
Scarlett pursed her lips, clearly knowing better than to challenge Olivia, and turned the music down a couple notches.
"You're being rude."
"It's bath-time, Olivia," Scarlett reminded her in a tone so utterly arrogant and bold that if Elliot closed his eyes, he would've sworn he was at home.
Liv's eyes bore into Scarlett's. "What did I tell you about calling me Olivia?"
Scarlett expertly ignored her question and turned to Elliot. "Is this your partner?"
Another sigh, this time long-suffering. "Yes," she answered, choosing to push down her annoyance for a change. "Scar, Elliot Stabler, Elliot, my daughter, Scarlett."
His eyes darted quickly between Olivia and her daughter, Scarlett. "Your daughter?"
"Hi Detective," she offered as a greeting. It wasn't dry, but it wasn't friendly either.
"Hi . . . Scarlett."
Scarlett's eyebrows knitted together in concern. She glanced at her mother. "He ok?"
"Yea, he's fine."
"I—I didn't know," he stuttered.
"Because I didn't tell you."
"Scarlett! Can you come wash the shampoo out of Kori's hair! She's gonna start crying again!"
"Duty calls," Scarlett excused herself.
Elliot's head snapped in the direction of the shrill, child-like voice down the hall. "Liv."
Olivia offered him a small smile. "Come sit, Elliot. You want something to drink?"
"No, I'm ok. But what I would like is . . . maybe some insight?"
Liv sniffed. "I'm a mother."
"I got that part," he answered, plopping down on her plush, gray sofa.
One side was covered in unfolded laundry and her coffee table was a conglomeration of Teen Magazine, Vogue, Cosmopolitan, and Scholastic with cookie crumbs and juice boxes scattered here and there. Her apartment was lived-in.
"You've got kids, Olivia? Plural?"
"Scarlett's 16, Jasmine, well Jaz, she hates when you call her Jasmine," Olivia rolled her eyes. "She's almost 8. That's the loud one who sounds like a banshee. Kori is 4."
Elliot chuckled. "You've got kids, Liv. Girls."
She nodded.
"How'd you end up with a 16-year-old?"
It was Liv's turn to chuckle. "The same way you did."
"You're younger than me. You had to have been . . ." he trailed off, visibly doing the math in his head.
"I was 15, El."
"Wow!"
"Wow?"
He shrugged. "I just . . . You're good with kids, Liv, really good. I just thought it was a—"
"An instinct. Because it is. I mean . . . You don't necessarily have to be a mother to have that kind of instinct. Some mothers never get it."
"Mom, you gotta do somethin' about Kori. Her hair is all over the place," said another little girl, no taller than the sofa they were sitting on. "And she won't let Scar fix it."
Her hair was sopping wet, curls sticking to her rounded cheeks. She pushed the unruly tresses back with purple-polished hands and rounded the corner with her hands on her hips.
"This is Jaz. She's 7 going on 22," Liv declared, pulling the girl into her arms. "Say hello to Detective Stabler."
Her daughter's big, brown eyes sized him up, when she decided he was worthy, she took a cautious step toward him.
"Hello, Detective Stabler."
She was the most articulate child he'd ever met.
"Hello Jaz."
She smiled at him then, a big toothless grin, then looked over her shoulder at Liv. "You listened mommy."
"I did."
"You're my mom's partner?"
"I am."
"So you'll protect her on the job?"
Elliot peered over Jaz's head, eyes wide and amused. He stifled a laugh.
"Detective?" Jaz exclaimed, tugging on his jacket. "You'll protect her, right?"
"Absolutely."
"You pinky promise?" She held up a tiny little appendage and waved it between them.
"I promise," he replied, hooking his finger with hers.
She seemed satisfied as she turned back to Liv. "He'll protect you, mom."
"I'm glad we got that all cleared—"
"Olivia!" Scarlett cried over Kori's sudden screams of terror. "Can you come control your kid?"
"Excuse me for a sec?"
"Your daughter calls you Olivia?" Elliot asked when she re-emerged.
It had taken more than a 'sec', more like an hour, and he didn't know why he stuck around. Maybe he was fascinated. Because Olivia was a mother.
"It's just a phase," she answered, leaning against his car. "You didn't have to wait out here. You didn't have to wait at all."
He shrugged. "I had to call Kathy. And I didn't get to meet," he motioned at the child nestled in her arms.
"Kori." Liv twisted a bit so he could see her sleeping face. "Long day at Preschool. All that napping must have worn her out."
They shared a laugh.
"Your girls are beautiful."
She looked up at him, eyes shining with pride. "Thank you."
"So what's the story? If you don't mind my asking."
Liv sighed. ". . . I don't. Girl meets guy. His name was Gabriel. Fell in love, got pregnant, had a baby. Then broke up for a time and somewhere between college graduation and the Police Academy co-parenting turned into reconciliation, I got pregnant again, got married, realized we were better off as friends and separated amicably, found out I was pregnant again, and then divorced. Now, between Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Dallas, Texas, we co-parent like professionals."
He glanced at her in question.
"His parents live in Brooklyn. Without them I think I'd spiral. Gabe is in Dallas now. He remarried, has a kid, and we are very close friends."
"Wow."
Liv buried her nose in her daughter wild curls. ". . . I should have told you sooner."
"You don't owe me anything, Liv."
She shook her head. "No, but I want you to trust me, Elliot. Completely. Our lives kind of depends on it. My kids' lives . . . This job can be dangerous."
"That goes without saying."
"We don't need any more odds stacked up against us. Can't afford it. So as difficult as opening myself up might be . . . I need you to trust me completely because my girls need me here. And your kids need you here."
". . . I can't believe you have kids, Liv."
"Sometimes I can't either."