A/N: This chapter's a little on the shorter side because I split the original chapter in two; so the next update will be a continuance of this one. If that makes sense, ha ha. Also, I wrote this before (CANON SPOILER ALERT) Fin got engaged and did exactly what I wrote that he would never do, lol. Oops. I thought it was funny, though, so I'm keeping it. Also, AO3 is effed up right now, so I can't update there, but I will as soon as it lets me. Thank you for reading and commenting. :)
CHAPTER 6: Twinkle, Twinkle
. . .
"Uh, boss?"
Olivia's eyes had strayed to her laptop screen again, the background of which was too dark for her liking—made the desktop icons harder to distinguish without her glasses—but she couldn't bear to change the picture.
At sixteen weeks, the baby had been the size of an avocado (a description that saw Olivia, in her pajamas, doing a late-night bodega run for guacamole, because Amanda had to have it or die) and, according to the sonogram image commemorated on Olivia's Macbook, most definitely female. Now, week eighteen, the fetus had graduated to a sweet potato, and though they had already locked in Samantha as first name, Amanda kept referring to their unborn child as Tater.
As in: "Okay, Tater, Mama can't button her jeans anymore, give it a rest." Or "Tater tot, that is my bladder, not a basketball." Olivia's personal favorite was, "I'm gonna send Mommy in there with some brown sugar and a bag of mini marshmallows if you don't straighten up, Tatergirl."
In fact, it was becoming increasingly difficult to concentrate on anything but the little spud sprouting in Amanda's belly. Olivia could focus on her work; had trained herself to do so countless years ago, in spite of whatever else was happening in her personal life, good or bad (usually bad). But when Kat had knocked on her office door and apprehensively dangled the bracelet in front of her, Olivia completely tuned the officer out. She'd been daydreaming of Samantha at that age, coming to her for relationship advice.
Assuming Olivia was still around and of sound enough mind to give it. She had sustained a number of concussions over the years . . .
"I'm sorry, what?" She closed her laptop and rested her hand over the Apple logo, fixing a steady, boss-lady gaze on Officer Tamin. Not distracted at all, no sir.
"You really think she'll like it? It's not too . . . I dunno, obscene or whatever?" Kat swayed the gold medallion back and forth like a hypnotist with a pocket watch. Eagerly, she placed it in Olivia's outstretched palm, when a second look was requested.
Actually, the dime-sized medallion, centered on the bracelet's delicate gold chain, was quite pretty. And to tell the truth, Olivia had thought the symbol in the middle was an all-seeing eye hieroglyph at first glance. Only when Kat rushed to explain that the vulva etched into the coin-like charm represented Lilith, the mythical sex goddess, did Olivia realize the rays that shone from the sacred design were not eyelashes; the tiny nub at the top was a clitoris, not a tear duct; and the concentric ovals were labia, not eyelids.
Olivia didn't have the heart to tell Kat that Lilith was also depicted as a demon and a bit of a succubus in most literature, religious and non. Besides, the bracelet was a gift for Daphne, and knowing the little clerk, she would probably be thrilled with those details. "Obscene? No. Maybe a tad suggestive, but that suits Daph perfectly. I think she'll love it."
She had never intended to become the relationship guru of her squad, or even to get involved with their personal lives. But somehow she'd always gotten pulled into the middle of Elliot Stabler's marital woes, later becoming a similar go-between for Nick Amaro and his wife. Now she was married to one of her detectives and advising her youngest officer on birthday gifts for a girlfriend of four months. The only person who didn't consult her about their love life was Fin, and it would be a cold day in hell before that ever happened.
Kat beamed at the bracelet when Olivia handed it back with her stamp of approval. She looked mighty pleased with herself, carefully dunking the slender band into a little velvet jewelry pouch that sealed by pull-tie. Something in her eagerness reminded Olivia of last Christmas and Amanda's giddy expression when she presented Olivia's repaired Breitling. She thought of the earrings that Alex Cabot had sent as a wedding gift—partially responsible for the diamond and sapphire ring that now resided on Olivia's finger—and how much trouble a few bits of lovely, shiny frippery could cause.
"How are you guys doing?" she asked, surprising even herself with the question. As a boss, it wasn't her place to ask, but as a friend to Daphne and a mentor to Kat, she couldn't help feeling invested in their fledgling romance. "You and Daph, I mean."
"Pretty good. I think." Kat folded her lips into a smile too tight to be convincing. She gazed askance at Olivia for a moment, bouncing the jewelry pouch up and down in her palm as though measuring its heft. "I mean, we're not ready to settle down and get married or anything, but we have fun together. Why . . . she say something to you?"
"No, no. Not all." Olivia sliced her hands in opposite directions, cutting that line of inquiry off at once. "I just, uh . . . I know Daphne's the life of the party and it can seem like nothing ever gets her down, but she's— she's had a rough couple of years. Go easy on her, huh Tamin?"
How much the officer knew—if anything—about the Catskills attack that had left Daphne with a permanent limp, Olivia couldn't say. Neither she nor Amanda had ever discussed that harrowing trip with Kat, and it was doubtful the younger woman had ever heard the name Meredith Ashton mentioned at all. Daphne rarely spoke of her murdered girlfriend anymore.
Poor Mere. None of them did.
"Copy that, Captain." On her way to the door, Kat turned back with a hopeful look. "You guys are coming to the party tonight, right? Rollins isn't, like, gonna hatch a baby when we yell surprise?"
For someone with younger siblings and a couple of nieces and nephews under her belt, Officer Tamin knew precious little about childbirth. She spoke of pregnancy and its attributes as if it were a rabid animal she held at arm's length, attempting not to get bitten. "Amanda's not 'hatching' anything until February," Olivia said, chuckling. "We'll be there. We owe Daph a good party, after all the energy she put into the wedding hoopla. Of course, we still owe you for those lap dances at the bachelorette party too . . . "
Before Kat had time to respond, or even blush very brightly at the mention of the strippers she'd sent over to grind in her boss and colleague's laps one drunken evening back in March, the office door flew open and Amanda barreled in at top speed, a hand on her swollen belly.
"What is it? What's wrong?" Olivia asked, on her feet at once, the glasses she'd been fiddling with—folding and unfolding, dangling from the crook of one finger—clattering onto her desk. She got a head rush from standing too fast, her heart leaping into her throat as if by the same momentum.
"Nothing's wrong. Just put your hand here." Amanda took Olivia by the fingers that were already outstretched in concern, pressing them to her lower abdomen and guiding them along the bottom curve like she was maneuvering a cursor via computer mouse. She paused at a spot just above the rubber band she had fashioned into a waistband extender by looping it around the button of her jeans. (Olivia was taking her shopping for maternity clothes soon, whether she liked it or not.)
"Right there!" The detective practically flounced with excitement, her blue eyes bright and limitless as the ocean. "Feel 'at?"
"No? What am I supposed to be feeling?" Olivia studied her wife's rosy complexion, the feverish delight on the upturned, pretty face, and cupped her free hand to Amanda's forehead. She tested both cheeks with the backs of her fingers.
"I'm fine," Amanda said, shooing the hand away and drawing it down to join the other on her belly. "Seriously, you can't feel that? Here, darlin'. She's kicking."
Olivia wished she had a second pair of glasses to fling aside dramatically. Instead, she gasped and splayed her palms open on the bump like she was holding a large bowl made of delicate crystal. She leaned forward slightly, inclining an ear as if she might hear the faint pitter-patter of tiny feet from inside Amanda's uterus. All she heard was her watch ticking, her wife panting after that sprint from the squad room, and Kat internally screaming at getting caught in the vicinity of an animate fetus.
"I don't feel anything," she whispered, hands slowly rotating around the bump, searching for the little flutter she had read about.
It was called quickening, when the baby started to move inside the womb—she loved that. This child, little Samantha fill-in-the-blank Rollins-Benson, would be Olivia's very first quickening. She'd never had a family member whose pregnancy she could experience vicariously; her niece (now her only living blood relative) had already been a year old by the time Olivia found out about her. And though she'd touched a pregnant belly or two throughout her career, it was always as a protector, an advisor, never as someone who got to share in the joy of the life that was forming, quickening, inside. She hadn't even felt it when Kathy Stabler was pregnant, or when Amanda was carrying Jesse, not wanting to overstep her bounds by asking for something so personal.
As much as Noah and Matilda were a part of her—bone of her bone and flesh of her flesh—she had missed their earliest signs of life as well: the sonograms and heartbeats, the first kicks and first cries. She wasn't going to miss a single moment of it with her youngest child, that she had vowed the very second the pregnancy test read positive.
Unless, of course, the child decided not to cooperate. "Nope, nothing," Olivia sighed when Amanda directed her fingers to several different spots on the belly, gazing up expectantly each time. "It's probably still too early for me to pick up on it, love. Maybe in a couple more weeks."
"Damn." Amanda echoed the sigh, her shoulders sagging beneath the blouse she'd recently stolen from Olivia's side of the closet. ("What, it's roomier in the boobs," was the blonde's innocent response when she saw Olivia eyeing the black button-down with the confetti-trail pattern of white hearts.) "She was doing gymnastics in there a minute ago. Thought for sure you'd be able to feel it. Sorry, babe."
The detective reached up to stroke a thumb along Olivia's cheek, probably still pale from the brief scare she'd just received. She had been trying not to let on how anxious she was about Amanda's and the baby's health, not wanting to create any undue stress during such a critical time, but she'd been treating her wife as if she were breakable since the pregnancy began to show. Oddly enough, Amanda was handling her with almost as much care.
"Didn't mean to freak you out," Amanda said apologetically. "Guess I got a little excited. Pro'ly what set her off in the first place."
"Hm?" Olivia was fussing again, first with the bump, then with her former blouse, which was adorably outsized on the blonde's slight shoulders, and finally with the wispy strands of Amanda's hair. She wouldn't dare be so demonstrative outside her office, but in here, she made the rules—or broke them, on occasion.
"Oh, I's just thinking about you in that skimpy see-through thing with the straps." Amanda sidled closer, a coquettish smile on her lips as she demonstrated, tracing the outline of Olivia's bra straps beneath her striped crepe blouse. Most likely she was plotting when to steal that top next, the little thief. "You know, the purple one with the matching—"
Kat cleared her throat, loudly and off-key. "I'm . . . I'm just gonna go back to my desk now," she announced, her voice cracking like a thirteen-year-old boy's. As fast as Amanda had entered the room, that was how fast the officer scuttled for the exit. "See you at the party," she mumbled, closing the door without making eye contact.
"Was she here the whole time?" Amanda gazed after the younger woman in surprise, like she'd just noticed a landmark she passed every day on her way to work. She gave a small, dismissive shrug and cinched her arms around Olivia's waist, bringing them belly to bump. "So, whadda you say, Cap'n? Think that little purple number could make another appearance tonight, after the shindig? Might could get the Tater wound up again . . . "
"I say you two are going to get me fired for conduct unbecoming," Olivia burred in her wife's ear, stealing a warm nuzzle, a quick kiss. "But if that's what my sweet potatoes want, that's what my sweet potatoes get. I'll just be a stay-at-home wife who parades around the apartment in skimpy lingerie all day, hm?"
"Yeah, baby!"
. . .
