A/N: Sigh, well, I knew this one had to end at some point, but I'm still super sad for it to be over. I can't be too bummed, though, since it ends on such a joyous note. :) Some of you might have caught on already as to why I waited until today to post this part... and if not, you'll see. Also, I forgot to mention last time that 13 & 14 were originally one chapter. Not a big deal, just thought I'd clarify. Okay, I think that about wraps it up. Thanks again to everyone who stuck this one out with me, cheered on the Rolivia baby, and left encouraging comments. I'd include a bunch of heart emojis if this site would let me.


CHAPTER 14: Hush Little Baby

. . .

Giving it a second thought, she lifted the blanket and addressed her daughter again: "Don't go anywhere."

Samantha obeyed, and it wasn't until a nurse shuffled in at 7 AM to check the fetal monitor and replenish Amanda's ice chip supply that Olivia awakened to a pair of blue eyes gazing up from her shoulder. "Mornin', beautiful," Amanda said with a hint of irony, though her voice was still clogged by sleep, too. "Thought you decided to make me deliver this watermelon baby on my own."

"Better not. I'll make you put her back in and start over if you do." Olivia smiled drowsily, about to peck her wife on the tip of the nose. She got halfway there, then drew back abruptly, wide awake. "Wait, is it time?"

Amanda squinted one eye and twitched her hips beneath the blanket, squirming as if she were trying to free a wedgie. "Yeah, she's crownin' as we speak. You better get down there and get ready for my hike."

"Smartass," Olivia said, with a sniff of laughter and an obligatory roll of the eyes. This time the kiss made it all the way to Amanda's lips—even those were fuller and poutier with the pregnancy weight, a feature Olivia would sorely miss very soon—then she extracted herself from the sliver of mattress where she'd dozed, suppressing the urge to groan like a grandmother, instead of the new mother she was about to be. She did, however, flex both arms and stretch them wide, yawning, and rolling her neck till it cracked.

Oh yeah, she was ready to be mommy to a newborn and a toddler. And a first- and third-grader.

Bring it.

She ate her sarcastic and inwardly directed words a few moments later, when the nurse checked Amanda's cervix and announced the detective was at seven centimeters. The transition stage, said to be the most difficult part of labor. Luckily it was also the shortest, and with the epidural deadening the pain, it shouldn't be nearly as horrendous as some of the birth videos Olivia had watched on YouTube in preparation. Those would scare even the toughest, most seasoned captain on the force.

"Well, darlin'," Amanda said, after the nurse flitted off to inform the doctor his services would be required in the next hour or so, "looks like we made it to the homestretch. Sure you still wanna do this?"

Olivia glanced up from the ice chips she was spooning into Amanda's mouth from a crinkly plastic cup. She hitched an eyebrow at her wife, who accepted the mouthful and winked at her over the spoon. "I wasn't aware there was another option," she said in a dry tone. At the last moment, she withdrew the next spoonful, leaving Amanda straining like a baby bird awaiting its beak to be filled. But only for a second. "I'm kind of invested at this point, to be perfectly honest."

"Good. I had a feelin'." Amanda spoke around a cheekful of slush and energetic munching, her eyes bright, impish. She was as excited to meet their new baby as Olivia was, no doubt about it. "But if you were planning on runnin' off with Daphne to some tropical island while I'm stuck at home being a human milk dispenser to a squalling, bald gargoyle, now's your chance. Daph'll be thrilled."

"Did you just call our child a gargoyle?" Olivia asked, a bemused quirk to her lips and probably the eyebrows too.

"You saw Jesse the first week. She looked like that thing from the freak show episode of X-Files you made me watch." Amanda's eyes were comically wide and sincere as she scrunched her shoulders and clawed her hands like a hideous, shrunken creature. "We turn out pretty, but Rollins women ain't exactly known for our attractive newborns."

"Amanda." Olivia gave a scoffing little laugh and shook her head. The part about Jesse was an exaggeration—mostly. She had been awfully scrawny and covered in red splotches those first few days, and Amanda's own newborn photo did sort of resemble a featherless baby bird, but neither of their ugly duckling phases had lasted long. A week or two at most, and then Olivia's beautiful swans emerged. "I don't care if she looks like Gollum, I'm not going anywhere. Besides that, Daphne's three feet tall. We would look ridiculous trying to walk hand-in-hand on the beach."

Amanda's laugh cut short and she grimaced at the baby bump, hands domed to both sides. "Mm," she hummed, contemplatively.

"What? What's wrong?" Olivia was already reaching for the call button to summon a nurse, but Amanda put out a hand and stopped her.

"I'm okay. Just some pressure. Think the contractions are getting stronger. I'd probably be cussin' you out right now, if not for the drugs." The detective winked and pulled Olivia's hand over to rest on her belly. She held it there, her palm against the back, their fingers interlocked. It would probably be the last time they could do that, at least while their daughter was still on the inside. "You know what a filthy mouth I got on me."

"Very true," Olivia said, and leaned in once more to kiss the filthy mouth in question.

There was a sly expression on Amanda's face when they parted, and Olivia knew she was in for it now, whatever that look was about.

"You know . . . I have heard there are certain ways to help labor along," Amanda purred.

"Oh? What might those be, pray tell?"

"Orgasms." Amanda gave a matter-of-fact nod. "Big fat orgasms. It opens things up and kinda . . . greases the wheels. Then the baby can sorta just—" She made a sliding gesture and whistled through her teeth, indicating a luge-like effect. "Glide on out."

It was quite the mental image, and Olivia had to stifle a chuckle at the thought of their baby shooting out of Amanda's vagina on a sled, dressed in a rubberized race suit. "Well, my love, even if you weren't too numb down there to feel it, I am not giving you a handjob in front of the doctor and nurses, our child, and God probably."

"Who said anything 'bout a handjob?" Amanda tugged on Olivia's elbow. "We're sixty-ninin', baby, hop on up here."

They were still giggling fifteen minutes later, when the nurse arrived for the checkups she performed at twenty-minute intervals, until Amanda reached nine centimeters and the doctor was officially called on. He appeared within moments, like a genie summoned out of thin air, and within a few moments more, Amanda was dilated to ten and it was time to push.

Olivia instantly forgot every single breathing technique she had learned—from therapy, from yoga, from the app she had on her phone, and from the Lamaze classes. Fortunately, the brain glitch passed almost at once, and she kept herself and Amanda from hyperventilating or flagging with a guided breathing technique to relieve some of the strain of pushing.

"Haven't been . . . this winded since hi-high school track," Amanda puffed, her face a brilliant shade of pink that turned her hair platinum. She grunted with effort, occasionally flopping back against the pillow to pant and loll her head side to side. "Is sh-she out yet?" asked the detective, a whiny undertone to her voice. Her patience and stamina were rapidly waning with each of the doctor's prompts to push.

"Not yet, baby." Olivia squeezed her wife's hand, dutifully rubbing between the blonde's shoulder blades every time they arched forward from the raised bed. Standing at Amanda's side, she had a clear view of the progress below if she peered over Amanda's thigh. It was a mesmerizing sight—and one that made Olivia's stomach flip. Nearly fifteen years had passed since she assisted in the emergency delivery of Eli Stabler, and even that hadn't been this graphic. "You're so close, though. And you're doing amazing. My brave, sweet girl. I'm so proud of you, Amanda Jo."

It was just enough incentive to keep Amanda going, despite her obvious exhaustion, and she threw herself into the next round of pushes with so much resolve, she resembled a teakettle about to give forth a piercing whistle and a long plume of steam. "Lordy," she groaned weakly, beads of sweat glimmering on her brow. "Stings. It s'posed to feel like that?"

Olivia looked anxiously to the doctor. She knew about the "ring of fire" delivering mothers were said to feel when the labia and perineum stretched to capacity around the baby's head. That was what all the perineal massages had been for—to prepare the area for stretching and to minimize tearing, if possible. But the fact that Amanda could feel it, even with the epidural, was vaguely alarming.

"Yes, that's not usual," Dr. Sharma replied, and though he didn't emerge from his hunkered position between Amanda's akimbo knees, a smile was detectable in his voice. "Especially when a baby is crowning like yours is. Take a look, Captain."

Leaning in, Olivia glanced at the skin the doctor was probing aside with his fingers, carefully separating it around a widening dark spot. She did a double-take when she realized the dark spot was hair, and she'd been staring at the top of her baby's head the whole time. "Oh my God," she gasped, unable to contain the wonderment (and a little of the horror at seeing her wife quite literally split open) at what lay before her. "Oh my God, Amanda, there's— she's got hair! She's not a bald gargoyle."

One of the nurses passed Olivia a handheld mirror to slant towards Amanda, providing her with a glimpse of the head, before the final few exertions pushed it out. "Good Lord," Amanda said, breathless, her gaze swimming in and out of focus a bit drunkenly, "it's thick. 'N so dark. Like yours."

So different, so dark. The thought flashed through Olivia's mind and was expelled just as quickly. Those memories would never be associated with this child. This child was pure love, pure light. And more wanted than any baby had ever been.

"Oh gahdamn, I gotta push," Amanda grunted. She grasped her shin in one hand and clutched Olivia's hand in the other, roping their arms together and preparing to bear down.

"Just a small one this time," the doctor instructed, his fingers tented around the top of the baby's head. "Let's ease her on out."

Amanda barked a single, harsh laugh: Ha! "Let's shove a bowlin' ball out your keister and see if you can ease through it, bucko."

"Sweetheart . . . " Olivia splayed her palm on Amanda's forehead like a faith healer about to cast out demons. There was certainly a demonic glint in those pretty blue eyes when the blonde snarled bucko. Olivia had never heard her wife use that term in their entire eleven-year acquaintanceship.

But the doctor gave a good-natured chuckle and nodded in agreement. "That would be a real pain in the ass. And you're not the first to suggest I try it, believe me. But you're doing great, and I know you can handle this last part like a pro. Small push, Mrs. Benson."

"It's— ugh, never mind." Amanda heaved a sigh and sat forward as if she were wobbling through the final reps of an intense sit-up routine.

Olivia's eyes boggled at the result, her daughter's head appearing suddenly and in all its deep brunette glory. She was already taken with the child's beauty, and a face wasn't even visible yet. "Oh. Oh, we have a head," she said, unaware of what was coming out of her mouth in her overexcited state. Right then, bucko made perfect sense.

"She better have a head," Amanda huffed, and flumped back onto her pillow. "I ain't doing all this work for no headless baby."

Once the doctor had suctioned the newborn's nostrils and mouth with a nasal aspirator and checked that the umbilical cord was not around her neck, he glanced up at Olivia. "Ready to play catch, Captain?"

That had been an eleventh-hour surprise, introduced by Amanda when Dr. Sharma entered the room—she wanted Olivia to catch the baby. "You should be the first to hold her," Amanda had said, overriding Olivia's initial hesitation. "She'll be safer in your hands than anybody else's, m'darlin'."

And now, love shining through the weariness in her hazy blue eyes, Amanda jutted her chin in that direction and released Olivia's hand. "Go on and get her, you big silly. I don't wanna give birth to a sixteen-year-old."

The first glimpse of Samantha's face, during external rotation of the head, took Olivia's breath away, and it didn't return to her until the baby's shoulders—and all at once, the rest of the tiny, squishy body—gave forth into her waiting hands with a sweet weightlessness, as of something feathered and fluffed. Samantha's first cries like the high, thin bleating of a lamb, mingled with Olivia's tearful laughter as she scooped the newborn up for a quick appraisal.

Ten fingers, ten toes, two big brown eyes, and yep—definitely a girl!

"Oh my God, Amanda, she's so beautiful," Olivia said, vacillating between more giddy laughter and tears of joy as she instinctively brought the baby to her chest. She didn't care about the goop, just that oh-so-important skin-on-skin contact, which Samantha found immediately at Olivia's neck and the V of her collar.

The newborn hushed at once, and that was when Olivia wept in earnest, because then she knew for certain: this truly was her baby, and she needn't do anything to win the child's love. She already had it. She had all the love in the world.

"Aw, darlin', don't cry," Amanda said, without an ounce of conviction. There were tears streaming freely down her cheeks, and she opened her arms to Olivia, pulling her into a hug with their daughter—squawking again at the interruption—nestled between them.

They wept together, the three of them, until Olivia eased back and gently shifted the baby onto Amanda's chest, to snuggle against the skin exposed by her draped hospital gown. Olivia intercepted the towel a nurse brought forth ("No, no," she scolded lightly, captain's instincts kicking in before she could stop herself) and used it to dab some of the blood from her daughter's downy little body. She avoided wiping away the cream-cheese-like substance that coated Samantha's skin—she'd read extensively about the benefits of vernix for a newborn, and it was in the birth plan, laid out weeks earlier with the doctor, that Samantha wouldn't receive her first bath until twenty-four hours after birth. Olivia would have to go over that plan with the nurses again, it seemed.

But right now.

"Look at her teeny tiny little bum," she said, practically squealing with delight as she cupped her hand to the baby's bottom. It was scrunched out like an inching caterpillar and fit perfectly into Olivia's palm. She massaged the vernix gently into Samantha's delicate skin, glad for the excuse to caress every inch of super-soft, flawless baby-flesh. "It's just like yours."

"Oh my Lord, this face." Amanda giggled at Samantha's upturned face, which was equally as scrunched as her backside, and mirrored Olivia's movements, rubbing the protein-rich coating into the newborn's crinkled chin, cheeks, and forehead with her fingertips. "Darlin', she looks exactly like you. And her hair. She's got more than me."

"Her feet, though. They're so . . . tiny! These toes. Why do I want to nibble them?"

"Seriously, she has your little cat nose. Look. Her eyes are shaped like yours too, I think. Well, if she would leave them open long enough for me to . . . "

"She's got that newborn hair—oh, what's it called? Lanugo. Feel her back. Our little werewolf baby."

"Did you see her birthmark? It looks like lipstick prints. You up in there kissin' on her while I was asleep, or somethin'?"

"Is that a dimple I see? Oh God, I'm done for."

They marveled over and massaged their little girl for several moments more, warming and soothing her naturally, until the doctor asked if Olivia was ready to cut the umbilical cord. That had been a stipulation of the birth plan, too—the cord wouldn't be clamped or cut for the first few minutes postpartum, allowing Samantha to receive more of the placental blood that aided in her healthy development.

"Go ahead, we're not going anywhere," Amanda urged, smiling tiredly as Olivia fussed over the blanket she'd tucked around her wife and daughter. The detective had seen right through the stall tactic, and she sent Olivia off with a kiss on the lips. The next, she deposited on baby Sammie's forehead.

"Ugh, I'm jealous," said Olivia, who had just spent at least a full minute kissing Samantha's hands and feet. She gazed longingly after Amanda and the baby, as if they were separated from her by miles, when, in reality, she was just stepping around to the other side of the bed where the cord could be accessed without disturbing mother and child.

In theory, anyway. The moment Olivia left their side, Samantha gave a mighty yawp of displeasure, surprisingly vociferous for one so small. Oh boy, she had inherited her mama's lungs, no doubt about it.

"Uh-oh, she misses you, Mommy," Amanda said, grinning overtop the newborn's head, where she'd laid her cheek. Actually, it was probably the nurses shifting blankets and putting a cold stethoscope to Sammie's frail chest that caused the ruckus, but Olivia beamed nonetheless—her baby wanted her, needed her—and flushed with pride at Amanda's knowing wink.

Even with surgical scissors, cutting the cord was like cutting through an especially tough manicotti noodle, or an especially spongy television cable. Olivia pulled a face, both fascinated and repulsed by the sensation, and earned a snicker from Amanda; her feral Little Pretty, who thought a trip to the morgue was a fun break from the daily grind of police work.

"What, you don't think I make cute placentas?" Amanda teased, once the snipped end of the cord had been cleaned and Olivia, perhaps a bit paler than before, was back at her side.

"No. Not even a little bit." Olivia cupped the back of her wife's head and brought it in for a kiss on the forehead. She leaned down and did the same to their sweet, snoozing baby girl. "But you sure do make beautiful babies, I'll give you that."

"She is, isn't she? Beautiful." Amanda rested her head against Olivia's breast, the two mommies gazing down at the infant contentedly. "I mean, I know I'm biased here, but this is one pretty baby."

"She's perfect."

Before they could go into raptures over the soft, pink bundle in Amanda's arms again, a smiling nurse stepped forward with an electronic tablet she held like a hymnal. "Just a few quick questions for the new moms," she prefaced sunnily, though her tone was hushed to nursery level. "So we can get started on the birth certificate for what I agree is a very pretty baby."

"Right? Don't you think she looks like her?" Amanda asked, pointing emphatically at Olivia. "Tell 'er."

"I definitely see the resemblance," said the nurse, and though she snuck a small wink at Olivia, she sounded sincere.

Personally, Olivia thought Samantha far lovelier than any of her own color-distorted baby pictures, but then again, she didn't have many to compare with. Before kindergarten and yearly school photos added to the collection, there were only a handful of snapshots of Olivia under age five—and those were mostly birthdays. She made sure to take pictures of her own children as often as possible. So often, in fact, Jesse groaned every time Olivia pulled out her cell phone and started clicking away. Mom-meee.

"All right, we've got date and time of birth," the nurse was saying, scrolling down the screen with her fingertip and reading aloud to herself: "February 3rd, 2022, at 8:06 AM . . . "

"It's February 3rd?" Olivia asked abruptly, before she could censor her reaction. With all the excitement and nerves of welcoming her daughter into the world—not to mention a severely disrupted sleep schedule—she hadn't registered the significance of the date, until hearing it out loud.

Samantha had been born on Serena's birthday.

"Yep, all day." The nurse didn't seem to notice Olivia's surprise, her eyes never leaving the tablet.

But just as Olivia was about to give in to overthinking and fretting about what it might mean (Was it an omen? And if so, was it a good or a bad one? A message from Serena? Her blessing . . . or curse?), Amanda caught her by the hand and placed it palm-down on their sleeping child, smoothing out the back. Ever so gently leading her away from the edge.

"Guess she inherited my subtlety, huh?" Amanda murmured, as if she knew: the importance of the date, every thought in Olivia's head, every solution to every possible doubt Olivia could possess. She knew, because it was right there in her arms, the sum of Olivia's life and the truth that set her free.

Grace my fears relieved, Olivia thought, still unable to place the melody that had filtered up from her subconscious time and again the past few months. No matter. She had all the grace she needed right here.

And when the nurse inquired if moms had decided on a name for Baby Girl Rollins-Benson yet, Olivia felt nothing but love, acceptance, and absolute certainty as Amanda gazed up at her and said, "Think we're goin' with Samantha Grace. Right, darlin'?"

"Yeah, love. That sounds perfect to me."

Samantha Grace Rollins-Benson, seven pounds and twenty inches of perfection, born on her grandmother's birthday and four days before her mommy turned fifty-four ("I'm never topping this birthday present, am I?" Amanda asked, awaking the following Monday to find Olivia and Sammie snuggling in bed), slept peacefully in her mothers' arms for a solid hour after delivery.

Thank you, Olivia silently prayed the entire time, to God, Amanda, Serena, little Sammie, or anyone else listening—she really didn't care who.

Just thank you.

. . .

THE END