Noah has become amazing at two things during the pandemic. Eating and arguing. Anything was up for grabs whether it was wanting to overeat the same foods over and over or wanting to go head to head with her on his take on determining what qualifies as factual information.
"You can't live off pizza alone, so please don't think for a second that Kathleen didn't already tell me you guys had it after school twice this week and one of the days you had it for lunch too. C'mon Noah."
Debating about the dietary value in the garbage he ate behind her back was also another highlight of his potential skills as a lawyer his Uncle Sonny had proudly quipped when he overheard Olivia telling Rollins about the latest argument she had to battle with her child.
"Eli said in Italy they eat pizza everyday if they wanted to, you could actually eat pizza for breakfast there and if it's dinner time in Italy then it's really breakfast here so I could eat it anytime actually."
He takes a frozen pack of pizzas and puts back in cart after his mother takes it out. "There's veggies on it! What the hell?" While she finds herself impressed at best and at the very least amused with his debating nature he's growing into, she isn't a fan of the defiance or his tone. She yanks the pizzas out of the cart and throws them back in the large freezer where they came from.
"Noah Benson. I don't care what Eli or the Stabler's ate in Italy. We are here in New York. We will never ever live in Italy or visit there, okay? We eat breakfast in New York. So I'm not arguing about what people eat in Italy!"
She has to walk away and go look for the box of rice she was initially turning down this aisle for and just so that she can swallow down the bubble of tears in her throat.
She's good at pretending, at trying her best and doing what she can but there's so much her son doesn't know about their history.
There's so much resentment around her that she feels in waves over how he left. While she does forgive him and understand why they both did what they thought was best given the circumstances, that she hasn't totally forgotten either. It was a long day and she aches that she took it out on her son. She needs to make this right.
"Noah. Listen…" the words are cracking out of her and so is her chest with the weight of this all leaving her.
She is crying in the grocery store at this tiny man in front of her unaware of what's going on. A subject and time period she's always glossed over or just sidetracked him on. But he's so caring and mature beyond his years that she snapped instead of explaining, neither of which he deserved.
"Noah. I'm so sorry for snapping on you about Italy, it's just…"
She's carefully trying to find the words best suited for this scenario. For this very delicate and also dark situation in the past. Luckily her son doesn't share her wordless state and saves her while unwillingly destroying her.
"Mom, I'm sorry it hurt you when he left." His maturity and concern blows her mind but fills her with so much love and pride. That she did this, she is raising a caring loving human.
"I'm okay, you have nothing to worry about I promise, I'm okay. Everything is okay."
In all that she's done in this world it's her son that is her greatest accomplishment. She prayed for him and wished for him in the small places tucked away in her heart saved for miracles and moonlit skies. The sole star she sought out in a black Manhattan sky long after the city takes its quick and quiet slumber was where she knows he was conceived in her mind and heart.
A child of my own to love and to guide, to protect and provide…
She used to say those words to herself when the clock would read 11:11 or when she would spot a single star in the sky. It was part of a wishful superstition a friend had passed on to her at soccer camp when she was just a teenager.
It never left her and not a single soul but Noah knew she did that. When she was teaching him how to tell time she brought it up and wondered if it stuck with him the way it did her.
"See there's only one star in the sky right now so it's lucky we make a wish and the only other time we can do that all day is when we see 11:11 on the…."
"Clock" he would say sweetly in a tiny little voice.
"Yes papa the time on the clock, so you can make whatever wish you want okay?"
It didn't matter regardless if he did it or understood the silly good luck tactic from her childhood because she prayed and wished enough for the both of them.
He stops pushing the cart and looks at her stopping her train of thought and the tears that were threatening to spill over. He's serious and contemplating whether or not he should tell her whatever it is he is about to say to her, it's all over his face in the crinkle or his brow and the turn of his top lip.
"Can I tell you something that someone told me but you can't say I told you or else I'll look really lame?"
Hello teenager what have you done with my baby boy, is all she can think of looking at him lately.
"Always and if you are lame what am I then?"
She makes him smile and he grabs at her arm and pinches at it softly back and forth, a gentle way he has done since he was a baby when she would read him to sleep with his one hand holding his bottle and the other rubbing her arm the exact same way. She's glad she still has those parts of him there before he drives her to her retirement party in what seems a matter of weeks away.
"Eli says Elliot is in love with you and talks about you like you are his wife"
There it is.
"Noah, why would Eli say that? I'm not his wife. We are just very close and.."
"Eli said that he heard dad telling Maureen that you would slap him for getting you a ring but it doesn't matter anyways."
Her heart is in her fucking stomach. It's sunk deep along with everything else inside her. She knows when her son is lying and this isn't one of those times, he's oblivious to what this means to her.
"What doesn't matter?"
"That you are a married couple anyways to him and that you'll be together forever," he shrugs carefree and has no idea as the magnitude of his truly harmless confession.
Elliot telling his daughter that he perhaps wanted to marry her one day and that his game plan includes forever. Whether he was joking or not he was telling his family that they are like a married couple now. The thing is he isn't lying either but it doesn't make it any less shocking hearing it from her son.
"How does that make you feel?" She whispers out, letting her hands rest on his shoulders. He stops looking down at his phone and looks up at her so honest and calmly.
"I'm glad it's like this because I really don't want to wear a suit, and this way he's still my dad, right?"
"Of course, buddy," is all she can manage to say as she softly holds back her tears and smiles at her son now distracted with his phone and thankfully not his mother crying in-front of the granola bars and hot cereal.
"How does it make you feel, ma?" He says as he texts away on his phone, not looking up at her but wanting answers to his questions as per usual she smirks to herself.
"I feel okay about it," is all she can muster out.
In her mind and heart he is Noah's protector now too. She knows if something happened to her that Elliot and his family would without a doubt love and take care of her son. That's what matters and it truly does account for so much. It's just that in another sense, one that is essential for other types of unions and partnerships is the physical component. That she has never even done more than quickly share a kiss with him in passing, a longing look but not much else. She loves him now but also in an attainable and very touchable way but she's never crossed any major lines and neither has he. There were continents between them but now it seems less about the past and more about the moment in the present . There hasn't been one and he hasn't initiated one.
That is the only aspect of this partnership that is nothing like a marriage or a romantic union of any sort, she thinks to herself and tries to pay attention to everything her son is throwing in the cart but she's in a daze now.
Noah is FaceTiming with his friend from school and tossing things in as she pushes and all she can think about is the day when they do consume all they need to physically.
She wonders if he's into her in that way or if he's just treading lightly because like her he is taking this seriously, cautiously and is consumed with so many other aspects of this.
The grief, the healing, the rebuilding and now the love. She feels it with him and knows he's into her, she does. But the idea of finding out what Elliot likes sexually, what gets him going in his bedroom in his most private moments and if he wants her to be the one to fulfill those urges for him is something she can't wrap her head around, especially not now. She wants to know what parts of her physical presence attract him, if he has things in mind that he's always wanted to do her or with her and it's all so fucking much.
It shouldn't surprise her when she gets to check out and her bill is nearly three hundred dollars thanks her sons eyes that are bigger than his belly that took advantage of her lack of attention.
They are constantly finding a new grove because of how the Benson family dynamic has changed so much. It includes the Stabler's now in a lot of ways. Noah has managed to adjust to it all with ease and a gentle maturity that never fails to surprise her. For the past few nights she's had Sammy he's gotten up when he's heard the baby cry and while it's sweet it isn't great the next day when he's yawning at his rehearsals and grumpy all morning. But she knows he is taking his role as an uncle of sorts and designated big brother seriously. She also knows he isn't used to his mom being home so much and that he loves the super late nights when the TV is on low, she's been watching a Netflix series about a dog and raccoon crime fighting duo of sorts that keeps her awake, with the baby sleeping in the bean shaped padded rocker on one side and Noah resting on her lap as she plays with his hair as he fights sleep too.
Technically he should be in his bed fast asleep and not here in the wee hours of the morning watching this horrible movie. But the truth is she wishes she did this more with him but can't go back and change anything so she tries to swallow that guilt even though it never goes away ever she's discovered. Wanting to be more present, wanting to not be so consumed with all her obligations outside of motherhood but all she can do is love her son and try her best so that's what she does.
She plays with his hair and smiles at him fighting sleep. He keeps blinking and she looks at his long curled lashes and perfect little nose and traces it with her finger before bending down to kiss his forehead.
"I think you are really doing great you know that right?"
She whispers not even sure if he's awake. Sam is fast asleep his tiny lips puckering and is smiling within his dreams.
"You too, mom…doing great" he whispers back half asleep before his eyes close.
—
Noah now has to share his mom but now it comes with siblings and a family neither of them ever had.
Every Saturday this is life now. The highlight of her week. The saving grace that saves her from going insane mid week. The idea of the one night of the week they are all usually together.
Elliot joins them this week with nachos and Noah picks a movie in which he lasts twenty minutes through before sleeping. Olivia carries the baby to its bassinet beside her bed but before she does she gets spit up milk on her shoulder and a bit in her hair. She finished rubbing the babies back and changing him before excusing herself to the shower leaving Elliot to watch tv quietly in her dark room with his grandson fast asleep across the room in his tiny cradled bed.
He hears her call his name out quietly and if the tv wasn't already so low and that he wasn't already listening to the sound of the water hitting her body before landing on the shower floor he may have no even noticed.
He goes in bathroom slowly and sees her turned to the side with a hand on her breast the other covering up in between her legs.
He looks away but not before catching a quick and involuntarily look at her side profile; he had to open the door after all.
She was the one that called him.
The waters off and the steam is fading but he could still make out the shape of her body. The generous slope of her ass, the rise of her breasts, her soft tummy and those smooth thick thighs and endless legs all soaking wet.
She may be someone's nana now but she sure as shit doesn't look like it he thinks wickedly.
"I forgot a towel can you leave one on the counter please there is one on my dresser..sorry.."
He looks away quickly and goes to grab it and places it on the sink and closes the door quickly behind him not wanting to intrude anymore or invade her privacy by looking at her body because he couldn't help it.
She comes out minutes later with her hair up in a towel on top of her head in a t shirt on without any pants. She walks towards the sweats she must have forgot to bring in along with the towel and slips them on discreetly before walking back to bed. Both top and bottom grey and worn out and have seen finer days so they are favourite naturally, his too if he was being honest.
She doesn't bother with a bra and he's thankful for that as he looks quickly before looking back at the tv.
"Sorry…I wasn't sure what I was thinking " she's talking about bathroom mix up and the towel and how he had to have seen her in the glass wall.
He just nods politely and doesn't say anything at first but then he looks at her and sees the insecurity and fear on her face - both rare emotions he doesn't ever really see in her . He didn't want to comment, he really didn't want to make her uncomfortable but she has to know.
"You're….stunning …." He groans out quietly but just loud enough so she can
hear him and there's no mistaken his voice and choice of words after nearly seeing her naked body.
"Your body is beautiful…"
He's trying to be friendly and cordial about this but he can't stop replaying the image of her in shower in his mind.
"You are gorgeous," he says looking at her blushing face and drops his gaze to her bust.
Olivia's body like his has changed over the course of a decade like anyone's would but he never factored in how it would change so beautifully in his absence. She was always stunning, always such a rare and delicate beauty but now he sees things that his imagination could never provide in those details.
How womanly and sensual she looks with the soft curves filling out her body with age and time. He wishes he could tell her how attracted he is to everything about her and how he swore it wasn't always like this with them, at least not with him. He worked alongside her for years as sure he looked, sure her beauty and body was thrown in his face by others as some sort of bargaining tactic for temptation but it was never like this. He was never single and she was never available to him like this.
"I didn't mean to look, well I've looked over the years but…now…Christ."
She goes red. Her ears first then her cheeks at Elliot commenting on her naked body. That he is choosing to not let this be one of those things they ignore and communicate an understanding through via silence and glances bottles up.
"El…" she warns, just because she's out of excuses doesn't mean she's out of denial left to give.
Thankfully he drops it.
"Come here…" he lays back on her bed and props his head up on a stack of pillows.
She joins him and without any further invitation she lays against the crook or his arm as he curls it around her the minute she settles in.
He is hugging her and rubbing his hands down her sides imaging how it must feel to touch under the preview he seen under her clothes but Sammy. The angel sleeping perfectly but still here in same room so Elliot settles on playing with her hair til she falls asleep.
He wakes before her and gets everyone's breakfast started before Kathleen arrives to pick up the baby and drop Noah off at school before they both head off to work separately.
She is running late and would love to find out why he didn't wake her up she is too happy to be mad. The sleep she had last night and the way he held her had left her feeling refreshed and even giddy. She has to run out of there to work late as she says hi to Kathleen quickly as she feeds her son at the breakfast table and there is Elliot sitting eating cereal reading the paper.
She hugs Kathleen, goes around to kiss Sammy and then Noah at the top of his head of curls. She keeps going and leans down and kisses Elliot softly on the cheek not thinking twice until he sees it register on her face in the milliseconds after.
And he thought he was bold telling her he loved her in front of his family.
Everyone there at breakfast oblivious to the soft and sweet kiss he plants back on her mouth quickly in response on his smiling lips before leaving for work.
Kathleen either doesn't see it or chooses to ignore it when their lips pull away and she continues feeding the baby. Regardless Olivia is thankful but it doesn't stop her from thinking about the quick surprise first kiss between them at 7:45am over oatmeal and melon.