A/N: Here we are and here we go.

I will add a final and kind of lengthy A/N after this chapter. Reading that is absolutely optional.

TW: mentions of ED and PTSD

Jose Gonzalez – Stay Alive

Tom Odell - Heal

LEON – I Believe In Us

CHAPTER 37 - SEPTEMBER 2022

It's weird, she thinks, how a piece of paper can feel so heavy in her hands. How something that weighs nothing, can force her hands to fall down in her lap, like she's holding a big bag of rocks.

Except, it's not the paper that's pulling at her hands. It's the words written on it. Words that she herself wrote a year ago. A lifetime ago. So much pain ago.

"Loving you isn't always healthy, and it definitely isn't easy."

She reads that line repeatedly. Locking her eyes to it, trying to find the truth hidden behind it. To somehow justify why she would've used those particular words. But instead of any sense of justification, or even a simple excuse, her mind is flooded by images of what came after this letter was written. After surviving.

Images of Olivia holding her in that hospital bed, not leaving her side unless absolutely necessary. Olivia holding her hair back while she puked her guts out after a nightmare, or when a simple lunch became too much to handle. Olivia crying at the airport, while being abandoned, again, by someone who was supposed to love her. The fights, the hours spent FaceTiming each other, Olivia staying on the phone until she fell asleep on the other end, nine hundred miles away. The patience, the pain that woman had endured.

"Loving you isn't always healthy, and it definitely isn't easy."

It doesn't matter that the words were written before all of this, because hadn't Olivia always been there in one capacity or another? Letting her know over and over again, that whatever happened between them and around them, she would always be a safe haven?

There was no denying that it had been trying at times, like tiptoeing through a minefield of emotions. But unhealthy? Had she really implied that Olivia was partly to blame for her being sick?

It feels like reading words that belongs to someone else entirely. And sitting here now she gets the urge to rip the paper apart, set it on fire, anything to get rid of it, to pretend that she never said those things to the one person who had loved her so unconditionally for so long.

"Babe, dinner's almost ready, you in here?" Olivia peers through the crack in the door, initially smiling, but the smile fades quickly when her eyes fall on the woman sitting cross-legged in the middle of the bed. "What's wrong?"

When Amanda doesn't respond, she walks over and joins her on the bed. "Honey, what-" But that's when she notices what the other woman is holding in her hands.

"I wanted to clean out the last couple of boxes. I mean, they've just been taking up space and it's been two months. I just… wasn't expecting to find this."

"Amanda…"

"I can't believe I said what I said. That loving you wasn't easy… healthy. What the fuck."

"It wasn't." The brunette says matter of factly. "What we were doing before… before everything. It wasn't easy, and it wasn't healthy. You were right."

"Liv, it's a terrible thing to say to someone."

"The truth, honey. It was the truth."

"No, but-"

"Listen." Olivia says while gently removing the letter from Amanda's hands. "The first few times I read this, it hurt. I can't say it didn't. But I kept reading it, kept thinking about how things had been, for years, and I realized just how right you were. If it makes you feel any better, it worked both ways."

"You felt the same way?"

"Sometimes, yeah."

It's strangely comforting, knowing that they were somehow in sync, even when they weren't. "God, we were a mess." Amanda says then, followed by a short scoff. She reaches for the letter, to retrieve it from Olivia's grip. "We should just burn this, really."

"No." The captain moves the letter out of reach, causing a confused look to take form on the other woman's face. "If… If it's ok with you, I'd like to keep it."

"Why?"

"Because it reminds me of how hard we've worked to get here. Burning it or throwing it away… It feels like forgetting about all that. And I don't want to. I don't ever want to take this for granted."

"I guess you have a point." Amanda shrugs, albeit a little begrudgingly. She bites down on her lip while eyeing the letter. "Promise me one thing, though."

"What?"

"Don't ever use those words against me. If we fight, I mean."

"I won't." Olivia says while leaning in for a kiss. "I promise." She gives her girlfriend a gentle pat on her knee before lifting herself up from the bed. "Come on, let's go convince our kids that carrots and peas are not the work of the devil."

"They're not wrong about the peas, though." The blonde mumbles on their way out of the bedroom, leaving the letter securely placed in the top drawer of the nightstand.

On Olivia's side of the bed.

"Are you having a baby?" Jesse asks from the other side of the table after Amanda's announcement about how there's something important they need to talk about.

"What?" Olivia laughs. "No, sweetie, no baby."

"No more babies." Amanda adds, and her high-pitched voice gives away just how much the thought of another baby freaks her out. She had actually made it perfectly clear to Olivia just a few weeks ago.

"I love our children more than anything, but I am not doing that again. No more semen inside this body, as much fun as we had the last time we visited a sperm bank together."

"I think we're all set, babe. No more kids."

"Are you getting married?" Noah shoots in, and suddenly the blonde isn't the only one who is panicking. The two women lock eyes immediately, waiting for the other to respond, trying to read each other's expressions. Eventually a string of words tumbles out of them at the same time.

"No."

"Well-"

"Not now."

"Maybe?"

"Someday?"

"That's not what we wanted to talk about." Olivia finally says, frantically trying to get them back on track before this conversations turns into something else entirely.

"Then what?" The nine year old asks, clearly getting impatient.

Amanda is still holding her breath, finding that the talk of a potential wedding got her heart beating just a little too fast, for reasons she's not interested in dwelling on tonight. "I'm going back to work."

"Meaning, Lucy and Sienna will be around more." The captain adds. "Are you guys ok with that?" She asks, looking around the table to make sure she has the attention of all three kids.

When the response is a collective cheer, both women fall back on their chairs accompanied by two audible sighs. "It's nice to feel appreciated." Amanda's voice is thick with sarcasm when she turns to the woman next to her.

"Feels good." Olivia responds dryly.

"Ok, what good thing happened today?" The brunette says when Amanda starts cleaning the table. A tradition that had started during their second family dinner in their new home, meant as a one-time thing, has somehow turned into a daily happening on the kids request.

With a proud look on his face, Noah repeats the news that his dance teacher had promised him a solo come Christmas. Jesse is beaming when she talks about how several of her classmates had been jealous of her new backpack, and Billie's good thing was, bless her pure heart, Jesse's new backpack.

"What about you, babe?" She says when Amanda reaches for the empty plates. "What good thing happened today?"

The blonde stops what she's doing then and smiles before she leans down to place a kiss at the top of Olivia's head. "I found something that reminded me of how lucky I am."

The captain hums softly before leaning her head back to smile at the woman now standing behind her.

"What about you, mom?" Noah asks.

"This." Olivia says without looking away from Amanda. "This is the best thing that happened today."

"I know, I know, I'll hurry up." She says from inside the shower when the detective enters the bathroom. "My hair is getting too long. Takes forever to get the conditioner ou-"

"Don't hurry." Amanda interrupts with a murmur as she steps inside to join her. "We have fifteen minutes."

Before she can wrap her arms around the other woman like she had planned, Olivia turns around to look at her. "Fifteen minutes, huh?"

"Mhm." The blonde nods, looking just a little mischievous. Enough to make the captain know exactly what she has in mind.

"I can work with that."

It doesn't take long before she has her back against the wall, letting out a short shriek when her skin makes contact with the cold tiles. But Olivia is quick to make up for it by warming her up in no time with the way she deepens the kiss and palms her breasts. She whimpers against her lips when her nipples gets the attention she'd been craving since waking up that morning.

The whimper turns into a full-blown moan however, when the woman in front of her makes it clear what she intends to do.

"Keep it down." The brunette mumbles while she works her way down Amanda's stomach by placing open mouthed kisses against wet skin. "Don't wake the kids."

"Copy that, captain."

That's when Olivia peers up with a stern look on her face.

"What?" Amanda teases. "You're my boss again as of today, aren't you?"

"Maybe, but right now, I'm just your girlfriend."

"Copy that, boss."

"Shut up."

"Yes, ma- Oh, shit…"

The banter is forgotten as soon as Olivia's tongue starts moving against her, and not long after there's not a single coherent thought in her head when the woman between her legs sends her flying over the edge.

"I'm too old to be kneeling in a shower like this." The brunette groans while lifting herself up from the floor.

"Well, I for one am honored to be the last person who got to experience it." Amanda grins when they're face to face, her breathing still elevated after her release. "Wait, are we entering our geriatric sex era?"

Olivia's eyes widen as she gives the blonde's arm a playful slap. "Jesus."

"Because I can adapt, I prom-"

A fierce kiss and the other woman grabbing her hand effectively interrupts her. "Please stop talking," Olivia says, unable to stop her lips from curling into a smile when she moves their joint hands to just above her pelvis, "and make this senior citizen come. Please."

It doesn't take long before it's Amanda's turn to remind her girlfriend to keep it down.

While it's not her first time back at the precinct, it sure feels like that when she steps inside the elevator later in the morning. Her heart is hammering in her chest and it kind of reminds her of her very first day eleven years ago; Seemingly confident, keen and eager on the outside, while scared shitless on the inside.

Suddenly, a very specific memory materializes in her busy brain; Shaking hands with a certain brunette in the middle of the squad room.

That stuck-up bitch.

"Something funny?" Olivia asks when she notices the smirk on Amanda's face.

"Nah." The blonde shakes her head, figuring she can keep that memory to herself. At least for now.

She's ready for this. She knows that. Maybe it's because of all the years she has spent her, the safety these walls bring, the familiarity of this elevator, the faces that will greet her in less than two minutes. That weird sense of predictability in such an unpredictable job.

But more importantly, it's who she is.

Not Mandy. Amanda. Detective Amanda Rollins.

That's who you are. And you're ready for this.

You did good, kid.

And don't let anyone, yourself included, tell you otherwise.

You're ready.

Still, the flutter in her stomach intensifies by the second as the elevator brings them closer to the squad room, and her grip on Olivia's hand tightens with every floor they leave behind. When a short ding! announces that they have arrived, she briefly closes her eyes and takes a deep breath.

"Don't let go." She whispers without turning to look at the woman next to her, worried that tears might start pouring out if their eyes meet. Not from being nervous, but solely because she's grateful. Grateful to finally be back, back here with her.

Olivia's response is simple.

Simple, confident, and oh, so deeply profound.

"Never."

The end.