Title: Frailty
Author: ZombieJazz
Fandom: Law & Order: SVU
Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Will (and his family) and Noah have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.
Summary: As Olivia adjusts to her new squad, her family life is again shaken. She must struggle to find a way to balance her past and questions about her own lineage and her son's paternity while trying to find answers that her child's life are dependant on. Through it she's forced to re-examine the meaning of family, marriage, motherhood, and the significance her job plays in her life. This story takes place about a year after the conclusion of Undeserved in my AU series of stories and is a direct continuation of where Rollercoaster was headed.
Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. My stories are not EO and never will be. You may want to read some of my other ones for context on the characters in this AU first - though, it's likely fairly self-explanatory on its own too.
WARNING: THIS STORY MIGHT KIND OF BE A SPOILER FOR READERS OF UNDESERVED AND A DEFINITE SPOILER FOR ROLLERCOASTER.
THIS STORY IS A CONTINUATION OF WHERE ROLLERCOASTER WAS HEADED. AS THAT STORY IS CURRENTLY AT A STANDSTILL BUT I GET SEVERAL REGULAR REQUESTS ABOUT THE STATUS OF THE LIV/WILL/NOAH STORIES, I DECIDED TO PROVIDE THIS GLIMPSE OF WHERE IT WAS/IS HEADED. THIS STORY MAY EXIST AS A STANDALONE OR MAY EVENTUALLY BE ABSORBED INTO ROLLERCOASTER AT SOME POINT IN THE FUTURE.
Olivia slowly thread her fingers through Noah's fine hair. Tracing them from the bridge of his nose, across his forehead and up past his widow's peak in gentle, soothing strokes.
It seemed like his hair had just barely come back. Not that it had ever really grown back to the full head of hair that her little boy had had in his toddler and preschooler years – before he'd been sick. Those thick, brown, long shaggy locks were gone. His hair was so much finer than it had been when he was younger – and it had come back in thin splotches across his scalp. Some areas were permanent bald spots while before any boy should have to realize he might have baldness in his future. And it wasn't her dark hair that was on his head anymore either. It was lighter. Far lighter. Almost a straw color – that sometimes just reminded her of the brittleness that had settled in before it'd all fallen out. She tried to think of it as more like her husband's coloring, though. That it was the universe's way of putting a little more of Will into her son. So he could have Daddy's blondness even though he didn't have Daddy's genes. Just like she tried to see the waves that had developed in Noah's hair as reminiscent of Will's curls – not an indication of all the chemicals and poisons that were coursing through her son's body.
It didn't much matter now, though. All the hair that had struggled to come back. That had grown and receded and fallen and regrown over and over again – becoming finer and finer and thinner and thinner and blonder and blonder each and every time – depending on where he was in his treatment cycle. It would all be gone again soon. For how long this time? And would it even come back? She knew that some children, after transplants and the devastating breakdown their body had to be forced into in an attempt to get it to accept the foreign stem cells, didn't ever truly grow their hair back. Not much more than a baby fuzz of cobwebs on the top of their heads.
Not that any of that mattered in the grand scheme of things. It was only hair. But as her fingers ran through it again and again, her mind drifted more and more to that contemplation. Maybe focusing on that single element of all of this was easier than trying to process the rest of it. At least for now.
Noah's watery eyes had long since passed. Will had long since left them be. And, the sounds of him talking in hushed voices with his parents had long since died. The front door clicking shut and locking behind them. She'd heard Will moving around in the kitchen – leaving them alone. She couldn't hear him anymore. A part of her feared that he was sitting on the couch with his own watery eyes or laying up in their bed actually crying – out of her earshot. She didn't want him to be alone. But she also just wanted to be left alone with her son.
Noah had cuddled into her. Leaning against her in a loose hug. His head resting more on her one breast – his ear near her heart – than her shoulder. He was quiet. Stoic. That was her little boy. Always fighting to be so strong in the face of everything. Stronger than her and Will most of the time, she thought. But she also feared that some of it wasn't so much strength as it was that this had become normalcy for him. That he could no longer remember what it looked like to not be sick. That he hadn't known much of a childhood without illness. Without doctors and treatment and pain and possible death hanging over him. Not that they expressed any of it to him on those terms. But it was what it amounted to it – and even if Noah didn't often use those words to describe what he was going through or to express how he was feeling or to question his future – Olivia knew that deep down he must know. He must feel it too. Even if he didn't know how to verbalize it in a vocabulary of an adult. He only had the vocabulary of a little boy. And he should only have the life experiences of a little boy. But instead he had all of this.
"Mommy, how come you aren't saying?" asked quietly after so long in silence had passed between them.
Olivia had started to think she might just be able to hold him – to stroke at his hair and his little bicep and his boney spine – until he eventually fell asleep. That they didn't need to talk. That there was nothing they could say. Because she didn't know what she could say to him – not matter how hard she tried to find words to comfort him and express to him a mother's love, worry, care and concern. Her drive to still do right for him. To fix this for him. To find a way out of this maze – with him still intact. That she wouldn't be exiting it alone. She didn't think she could manage having to find her way out on her own. She didn't think she'd ever leave it if she lost her son. She just couldn't.
She'd thought if he slept she might be able to lay there all night with him in her arms. That she could use that time to try to find some answers. To try to come up with some sort of revelation. Or maybe just to leech some of Noah's strength to try to get her through what was coming. But that wasn't fair either. He needed his strength to carry him through. She couldn't derive that from a little boy.
"Aren't saying what, sweets?" she put back to him.
She thought he must meant not talking. But she didn't think they had much to talk about. At least not what they usually talked about – Star Wars, Lego, Batman, Ninja Turtles, the Yankees, the Knicks, his longing for the next trip to the swimming pool and the next outing to the museum. And, she had no interest in chastising him about his dinner table manners or trying to urge him to think about eating something now. In a way she was grateful for his temper at the table. She hadn't really wanted to eat or visit either. She hadn't wanted to be the one to talk to Ted and May. Though, she felt guilty about leaving that task to Will. But they were his parents. She tried to tell herself that – but it didn't help. She'd have to face them eventually. Just not tonight. She hadn't had the strength that she thought she would. She hadn't with Cragen either.
"Saying what's going on," Noah said flatly.
Her fingers stopped mid-stroke – just at the top of the bridge of his nose. The pause seemed to sit there for an eternity. It knocked her in the gut but then she forced the fingers to continue to rise. Though, as they stroked through his hair, she moved her hand to grip around him and pull him closer to her, rubbing at his arm even more.
"Nothing's going on yet, Noah," she half-lied. But it was true. Nothing was going on yet. Not really. Nothing but talk. Horrible, soul crushing talk that was forever changing her life again and devastating her child's future in a way she had prayed they'd never have to deal with. But it seemed like God rarely heard her prayers. He never really had. Likely because she'd never really believed in Him. And, really, how could she now?
"Yes there is," he protested in a whisper.
Olivia let out a small sigh. She couldn't really expect her son not know something was going on. They'd had appointments two days in a row. That was abnormal. He'd been in the room for much of the talk with the doctor – even if he'd been taken out of the room briefly by the nurse for the worst of the news and that the rest of the talk while he'd been in the room had been done in a way to try to keep it above his true comprehension and without getting into over-specifics. But even if that hadn't been clue enough for him, he would've sensed that her and Will were upset. And, he likely knew himself that something was wrong. He knew he hadn't been feeling well lately. He knew the bruises were back. He knew his fevers were ragging and that his abdomen was tender. He'd complained of all those things.
Her little boy wasn't stupid. She shouldn't have been trying to pretend he was. It was just that she didn't want it to be real yet. She didn't want to have to figure out how to talk about this with him. Because she just didn't know how. You'd think she would at this point. But it just didn't get easier. This was harder. It was worse. So much worse than before.
"Well, tomorrow we're going to go see Maggie," Olivia said carefully, "and Dr. Covens is going to be there too and Nurse Judy and we're all going to talk about what's going on."
Noah gazed up at her. Those deeply intelligent eyes that were just so full of hurt and sadness right now. There was something about them that seemed so muted anymore. There wasn't that sparkle in them. She missed his sparkle. Dancing eyes like Daddy's.
"We go see Maggie for bad stuff," he said.
Olivia gave him a thin, sad smile. It was weak. "That's not true, sweets. Maggie just likes to check in with us to make sure we're all OK."
"But we aren't OK, are we, Mom?"
Him saying it was like another punch to the chest – knocking even more air out of her lungs. The weak smile pulled even more heavily into a frown that she knew she wasn't remotely hiding.
"Is it going to be like last time?" he asked even more quietly.
"No, sweets," she allowed. "It's not going to be like last time."
It so wasn't going to look anything like last time. It didn't matter it was the same doctors and the same hospital. It didn't matter that she had some idea of what to expect and what the future held. That she knew the process and the resources and could envision and prepare herself for what happened next. Because there was no way she could envision and prepare herself for what was going to happen next. Even after everything they'd been through – everything her little boy had been put through – this was incomprehensible.
"Is it going to be badder?" Noah asked meekly.
Her eyes stung with tears at that question. Tears she'd been fighting so hard to keep in that night. That hold day. Tears that had been screaming to be released since they'd been in the doctor's office. That were fighting more and more vigorously as each hour of the never-ending day went on. But they were tears she refused to shed any where near Noah. Not where he could see or hear them. Her brave little boy wasn't crying – and neither would she. She'd put on her brave face too. She'd buck up and figure out how to deal with this. How to blaze a trail. How to protect her child. As best she could – but how she never-endingly seemed to fail at over-and-over-and-over again.
"It's just going to be different this time, Noah," she said and she felt and heard the crack in her voice. She so wished that hadn't been audible.
"Will I need to be in the hospital real long?"
She let a little sigh out. "I don't know, sweets," she said. "Dr. Covens still has to explain it all to us. But we'll all be having some hospital sleepovers again."
"They aren't real sleepovers, Mom," he said and gave her a sad look. "You just call them that to make them sound fun. But they aren't fun."
She gave him a sad smile and reached to stroke at the back of his head again. "I know they aren't fun but we'll try to make them special, Noah. Daddy will put some movies on the iPad and we'll go pick out a new game for your DS. Maybe we'll even be able to find a new card game and coloring book. And I bet Unkie Munchie will bring us a new story to read together."
He buried his face further into her breast. She could feel his hot breath through the fabric of her shirt. The panting of held back tears. She just held him tighter.
"Dr. Covens said 'transplant'," Noah mumbled against her. "Kids who need transplants go in the special rooms."
She rubbed at his shoulder and stared at the ceiling through the dim light of the room. "They do," she agreed. "But remember how the nurses decorate the doors of the rooms of those kids on Transplant Day?"
"No all the kids get Transplant Day," Noah said quietly. "Bradley died."
The tears won their battle at that and she felt a lone tear press out and start its trail down her cheek. Her hand instantly smacked up and feverishly wiped it away.
"Bradley was very, very sick, honey," she said.
"Tabitha died too," Noah whispered.
"She was very, very sick too," Olivia whispered back.
"Am I very, very sick?" Noah asked.
"No," Olivia whispered. "You're just sick, sweets."
She felt like she was lying to him. But maybe it was more that she was lying to herself.
"I don't want to die," Noah said and that time it was his turn for his voice to crack and his sobs started shaking against her. Ravaging his body in tremors that reverberated through her own body. Her body began to tremble too – joining the rumble of his as her own tears and struggled breathing pressed furiously out.
Olivia gathered him even closer to her. Pulling him until his whole body was on top of hers and held in a full hug. Her one hand cupped around the back of his head and her other rested against the small of his back. Her mouth pressing firm kissed against his hair and his temple and his damp cheek. She tried to take in his scent. She tried to calm him. She tried to calm herself.
"You're not going to die," she pressed out firmly. A promise. A covenant. One that she couldn't break. Not for him. Not for herself. "We're going to find you a donor. You're going to get that transplant. And we're all going to see and laugh about what a great poster you get for your door on Transplant Day, Noah. That's what's going to happen."
"Promise, Mom?" he sobbed.
"I promise, sweets. Mommy promises," she sobbed and pressed another kiss into his temple and then rested her cheekbone against his head. Praying and hoping and mediating on just how she was going to make this promise stay true.