A/N - Thank you everyone for the lovely response to this fic so far. I hope that you enjoy this next part - it gets a little more personal and a lot of things come up from the past... and not the past you're probably thinking! Please forgive any stupid mistakes.

This fic is born of a mix of requests I received regarding the BX9 hit from Ep s24x10 and her having Trevor around as her husband or partner.

/

After Trevor's knuckles had been seen to they were left alone to wait for someone to talk to Liv about an x-ray.

He got up and closed the door to the room and turned back to his wife. "Baby, why don't you lay back and just relax?," he suggested.

She grimaced. "I can't…"

"Why not? I think you should just take it easy, tonight's been … a lot."

"No, I mean, I can't… I don't think I can move, I'm just in a lot of pain right now," she admitted, letting out a very slow sigh of pain.

"Oh, no, why didn't you say something to the doctor?," he asked, "you could get some pain relief." He sidled close to the bed and gently tucked an arm beneath her knees that hung off the side of the bed. "I'll help, just… let me know if I'm hurting you," he said.

He circled another arm around her and slowly shimmied her around. She reached across her body and pressed her hand firmly against her ribs where it hurt the most. She took a few short laboured breaths as he lifted her and moved her up the bed. "There, is that okay? I'm so sorry," he put his hand over hers at her rib, "is this where it hurts?"

She nodded.

"Liv, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry this happened to you and I didn't get there fast enough."

She shook her head, "please don't… don't blame yourself. I don't want to go through that again."

He kissed the crown of her head. He moved down to the foot and unzipped the side of her heeled boots and pulled them off one by one and then pulled the hospital blanket over her. She had discarded her coat and was now in her black jeans and the tank she wore beneath her work blouse. "Can you do me a favour and just try your best to relax. You should definitely get that x-ray, you might have some broken ribs."

"I don't want to have an x-ray, I just want to go home to Noah," she tried again. She knew Trevor would be against her leaving the hospital without getting full battery of tests.

He went back up to the head end of the bed and gave her a little smile.

"Noah is fine, Amanda is still with him, he went to sleep watching TV with Emily on his lap."

"Good, I'm glad he's okay. He was so scared... I don't think I can even move to stand for an x-ray on my chest," she added, angling for a way out of it.

"He was fine, I don't think he saw anything, Steve kept him away from the door, but he heard the gun go off, that scared him but Steve assured him you were fine... And, as for the x-ray, if you're in pain they'll figure out a way, they're medical professionals, you're not leaving without it."

He took a seat on the edge of the bed and took Olivia's hand and held on to it. "So, are we gonna dance around this for a little longer or are you going to really talk to me?," he wondered. He wasn't one for trivial conversation with his wife and it wasn't the way their relationship worked.

"I can't…" she replied, "I don't want to talk about it, not here… you were right before, it's a lot. A lot to unpack right now."

"Okay," he always acknowledged her need to process. Sometimes it bothered him because he was ready to talk faster than she was, but he understood that this was especially delicate for her. "Have you had something else to eat or drink?"

"No, I barfed up my dinner, I don't think I am ready to let anything pass through my lips any time soon except a toothbrush."

The door opened and a nurse let herself in. She smiled at Trevor and looked at Olivia, "Hi Captain Benson, how are you feeling? Any dizziness or issues with vision?"

"No, I think I'm okay."

The nurse turned to Trevor, "So, Dr Bilson has written a form for you to go and have an x-ray of your cheek and your ribs to see if there's any fractures. So I'm just going to go through a few things with you,"

"Okay," Olivia agreed, having a lingering feeling that she hadn't wanted to address until her time off.

"I just want to confirm your name?," she asked, glancing at her form despite knowing the answers.

"Olivia Margaret Langan .. or Benson, legally speaking I'm Langan but for work, Benson," she babbled, wondering why she bothered to share useless information.

"Yep, we've got you down as Olivia Langan, thank you," the nurse confirmed. She went through a couple more verifying questions with her. She checked her wrist band that had been put on her when she arrived with a patient number and checked it off the form.

"Okay and do you have any conditions that I should know about?"

"Like what?" Olivia asked. "My allergies and conditions are in the chart, someone else asked me when we came in, I think."

The nurse nodded. "Is there any chance that you could be pregnant?"

It was the look on her face that made Trevor's stomach lurch. He looked to his wife, something shifted within her.

"Uh…" she chuckled but reached up to the side of her face, wincing again. "I don't know that I'm not pregnant…"

The nurse looked uncomfortable as Liv's eyes darted to Trevor. "What do you mean, you don't know that you're not?" He almost laughed the way she had, confused by her statement.

"Well I mean, anything is possible, right? I could be and maybe I don't know it…"

Her voice was weird, a little shrill and unlike her. "Wait," he thought about the last time they slept together, well, he thought, it wouldn't have been from that, it was the night before after they'd put their son to bed. She was right, it was possible.

"Could I ask in another way?" The nurse shifted from one foot to another almost impatient, "do you have reason to believe you could be pregnant?"

"I mean, maybe."

"Birth control?" Trevor rose an eyebrow, always having to remind her to take it, setting reminders on their shared calendar. "Its effective, right?" But in a flicker of a moment it hit him hard — she had been very emotional in the more recent weeks. She was sensitive, and the fucking aversion to dairy that had been driving him crazy.

"Olivia is there something you're not saying?," he pushed.

"Yeee-ah," the nurse knew that perhaps the answer to her question was already given, "I am going to give you both a few minutes and come back." Olivia murmured a quiet apology as the nurse turned her heel and left the way she came, closing the door behind her.

Neither of them said a word. Olivia looked sheepish. "I don't think I'm pregnant, but … I have felt a bit off and a lot of nausea," she admitted, "so, can I answer the question definitively? No."

"And emotional and sensitive to the touch," he added. They were things that she hadn't taken in to consideration, but she realised as he pointed it out that he was right.

"That could be my period," she replied.

"Which was when? It hasn't been for a little while, honey…" he said gently, knowing pregnancy was such a sensitive subject for both of them. "Right?"

"Mmm, I had a very light period last month…" she replied. She knew from the first time that they carried life inside of her for whatever brief period that was, that mild spotting or what seemed like a very light period could have, in fact, been the beginning of pregnancy.

"Okay, so maybe what you need is a pregnancy test before you go and do an x-ray, just to be on the safe side."

She made eye contact with him, the gravity of what it could mean for them and whether or not she had the heart to go there all over again. He had a tiny hint of a smile; one of hope and it broke her heart just as she knew it would and perhaps that was why she had kept her head in the sand.

"Liv, you've also had an aversion to dairy just like when you were pr-" he paused.

It had been almost 7 years and it still hurt as much as it did when it happened.

The tiny life inside of her bloomed steadily for 14 whole weeks before all of those possibilities were shattered. It was all she wanted after actively trying for too long to mention. The false hopes, the disappointment every single time she got her period, it was shattering and bordered on obsessive and in order to save their very new marriage, they decided to stop trying, to adopt.

And like a miracle, Noah came along before they had the opportunity to look further in to it.

It was both enough and everything at the same time. It wasn't how she had imagined it, nor for Trevor either, but it was the way the cards fell and both of them were eternally thankful for how right it was. They were given their miracle child in a different way than what they had expected, but it was right and it was meant to be.

"Olivia?," he prompted her.

Her eyes filled with tears. "I know… I think, I just…" she wiped her healthy eye, too scared to touch her swollen side. "I don't know if I can handle it."

"You've known for a little while, that's why you didn't want to have the X-ray," he made the remark seem like it was a question, but it was more of a realisation. "You could have talked to me about it," he told her, "you could talk to me about it now…"

He wasn't angry with her, he was concerned and suddenly full of worry over how she had been brutally kicked to the stomach earlier with his potential child growing inside of her.

"I don't know what to say," she replied sadly. "I don't know about it, I thought that door was closed and I don't know if I can do it."

"Remember when we got pregnant with Maisy, we got told to take it day by day, sometimes hour by hour.. that's all we can do. If you're pregnant, Olivia, we will just have to remember to do that."

"But I can't lose another pregnancy," she whispered, she didn't want to say it out loud. "I don't think I'll get through it. I barely got through losing Maisy…"

"We're getting ahead of ourselves," he told her clearing his throat so that he didn't become emotional. "Let's go and ask for a test and then if you are, we'll go from there."

"Okay," she agreed, nodding, trying her best not to cry. "And what if I am, what if something happened to it when I took that kick?"

It was a healthy fear and any tiny bit of remorse he felt about splitting his knuckles on the guy who attacked her fell away. In fact, it renewed his anger. "This is the moment where we take it breath by breath," he said with a smile, trying his best to comfort her.

He got up and headed for the door.

"Where are you going?," she wondered.

"I'm going to speak to the nurse and let her know that maybe we need a pregnancy test," he informed her. "I'll only be a minute, promise."

"Okay," she replied and watched him open the door and leave the room. She felt a little cold so she gingerly raised the blanket up over her shoulders. She was tired too, but that wasn't something new. She felt like she was constantly exhausted.

She placed her hand over her stomach, trying to console herself that if there was a new life forming inside of her, that it would be safe; that she could keep it safe this time. That she wouldn't fail again.

She wiped tears that fell down her face with the overwhelming feelings that took up shelter within her heart whenever Maisy was brought up.

It was how the expressions of everyone changed when she had to tell them she was no longer pregnant, when she came back to work before the full term was up. It was the sheer awkwardness of other people who clearly didn't know how to handle the news. It was the grief that was all-too-consuming and the complete and utter failure she felt like and the way she wanted to push Trevor away because he deserved better, someone who would be able to successfully grow a baby.

The crying; the awful, fucking crying, she thought, just the way she was doing in present; the way she couldn't control her feelings. How nice and how gentle with her her husband had been.

It was all too much. It was like screaming in to the abyss only no sound would come out— like trying to breathe underwater. How had everyone's world continued to spin on the axis but hers had come to a complete stand still?

So they tried again at Trevor's urging. They consulted fertility specialists and at the time were financially limited in how much they could spend trying IVF with no results. Around the clock they monitored Olivia's ovulation, took body temperatures and followed all the advice of just about anyone who would offer it and yet each month her period turned up and her depression grew.

Her obsession with new treatments and crazy diets started causing fights with Trevor. He wanted so badly to give her everything she wanted but not at the cost of what they had between them. He could feel her drifting away from him. She no longer wanted to spend time around family who had children, she couldn't bare to hear about anyone else's pregnancy without being consumed again by grief.

It was too much for Trevor - the obsessing, the tears, the fights, the wedge it put between them. He pushed Olivia in to couples therapy and they both came to the decision that they needed to stop actively trying. Neither of them had properly grieved their losses together or individually and so that became their focus.

After some time the therapist suggested different ways of becoming parents and they both decided that perhaps adoption was an avenue they would explore. No more trying to get pregnant, no more obsessing or feeling unresolved aggression which had become just as consuming as the grief itself.

And now almost 7 years later, after being lax with birth control, Olivia found herself back in square one unsure of how she would cope.

/

Trevor spoke with the nurse briefly, she promised to come back as soon as she had a second with a urine test before sending Olivia for an x-ray. As he turned to go back in, he came face-to-face with Elliot Stabler.

"Langan, you okay? You look a little rattled, how's the patient?," he asked.

"I'm fine, Olivia is okay, she's just upset and processing," Trevor answered. "I know you need a statement, but I don't know that she is the right frame of mind to be giving one,"

"How about we come by in the morning?"

Trevor nodded slowly. "Yeah, I don't know if she'll still be here or not… she's in a bit of a bad way," he told her old partner.

"Shit," Elliot cursed. "Is it okay if I see her?"

He didn't want to seem like he was being jealous but he appreciated the respectful way that the detective was treating him. "Uh, I think maybe I should ask her, I think she's a little …" he paused, looking for the right word, "well, you know Liv, she's trying to be strong."

"Gotcha," Elliot replied. "I'll just come back in the morning when she's had time to calm down and process. Thanks Langan and I'm sorry Duarte tried to pull you over the coals. You did what any husband would do and the fact that you caught up with that gang banger means that we now have some leverage, so thanks."

Trevor shrugged, "he's lucky the police arrived when they did, because I don't know that I would have stopped."

"Well, lucky for us all." Elliot gave him a smile but as with Elliot Stabler and the terse relationship between him and Olivia's husband, it always seemed more like a grimace.

"I guess we'll see you tomorrow," Trevor replied. "Thanks again for making them let me go, I know that wasn't on Nick."

"I've got eyes on Duarte, don't worry about that," Elliot replied and Trevor wondered what he meant. He wasn't that interested, he just gave Olivia's ex partner a wave and went back disappeared back in to her room.

/

Trevor held Olivia's hand tightly as they watched the nurse standing to the side of the room. She was testing a urine sample with a PH stick, waiting for the doctor to confirm the results either way.

Olivia glanced at her husband who was trying to get a feel for the nurses expression, trying to figure out what the result would be. A few minutes later, the doctor came through the door and greeted them calmly. He stood by the nurse and took another PH stick out and tested. They spoke in hushed voices before the doctor left her with the sample and the PH.

"So, you were concerned that there was a possibility you were pregnant," Dr Bilson told them and immediately Trevor felt as though it was a negative result.

Olivia nodded, her heart beat seemed to quicken.

"Well, I'm here to hopefully congratulate you both, you are indeed pregnant."

"Oh," Olivia murmured. She glanced to Trevor for his support and reaction. She saw the unmistakable tears fill his eyes before he blinked them back quickly. He squeezed her hand tightly. He got up and kissed Olivia's temple.

"Its okay to be happy, Liv," he told her gently.

She just nodded stoically. "I mean… how am I going to be able to find out if the baby is okay after what happened?"

"I think we're going to avoiding the x-ray after all, but what I really think we should do instead is get you up for an sonogram, we can check on all of your organs while we're there, we can find out how far along you are and go from there."

"And her ribs?" Trevor prompted, "what if they're broken? She's breathing very shallowly because it hurts her to take deep breaths."

"I'm going to get someone from respiratory care to come down, they have other ways of figuring out any damage to the chest area, we will want to be very careful as patients with broken ribs can sometimes develop pleurisy and that will create some risks for both Olivia and the baby."

"Okay," Trevor nodded, "we don't want that. How soon can we do the sonogram?"

"I'll write a referral and we'll get Olivia down there as soon as possible."

"Thank you," Trevor said again.

They were left alone again and Olivia looked heartbroken and had barely spoken a word. Trevor took a seat next to her on the bed and gave her a smile. "Put away all of your fears, all of that shittiness and tell me how you feel? How do you feel about an in fact in your arms that we made together?"

The tears ran down her face as she tried to smile. "It feels … impossible," she replied, "I don't want to let myself feel happy or excited or even hopeful, because this is not…" she sniffed and wiped her healthy eye.

"It's not impossible, sweetheart, it's not impossible at all. Maybe now we're a little older and there was no pressure or stress related to wanting to get pregnant, maybe that's allowed your body to do what its supposed to do."

"I can't lose another child," she murmured. "I won't survive it. I don't want to fail you or Noah—"

"Love," he murmured, sidling up beside her the best he could as a tall man, "you never failed me, it's never been your fault and I wish you would stop beating yourself up over it, you never failed me, you hear me?"

She avoided his eyes.

"If the baby is okay, I have to take leave, I have to stay away from work, I don't want to take any risks, I want to be able to say I did my best to have a healthy baby."

"That's okay, if that's what you feel you'll have to do to feel okay about this, then we'll work it out," Trevor replied, "but I want you to know this for sure, none of this was ever you failing me or us or anyone else. Sometimes bad shit happens and I know you know that, that's all it was. And we'll do our very best, Liv, and hopefully that will be enough."

She nodded again. "I love you," she said softly.

"I love you too, I want you to get some rest while we wait, okay?"

She nodded again. He got up and turned the main light off and turned the little lamp by her bed on. He sat back down and watched her close her eyes and began to caress her hair

/

It was everything Olivia could do not to break down with tears of relief and joy when she heard the whooshing of the baby's heart beat on the ultrasound. She was overcome with feelings of hope and also a little fear, but still - the hope was the most important part.

"How long do you think you might have been feeling pregnancy symptoms for?" The technician asked her.

Trevor stared at the screen, awe crossing the strong angles of his face. He blinked slowly before turning back to Olivia.

"I don't know," she murmured, "I didn't think they were symptoms of pregnancy until maybe a week ago but… it was mostly just an aversion to dairy and some cramps which… makes sense, I thought I'd developed an intolerance to lactose and I guess tired a lot but I'm a shift worker, tired is the only thing I know."

"Well, do you want the good news or the bad news?" The tech asked with a little smile, not realising the history of the couple before her.

"Bad news," Olivia replied without flinching, her entire body tensing up.

"The bad news is you're already pretty far along," she smiled, "so you won't be enjoying that new pregnancy glow for as long-"

"How far along?" Trevor interjected.

"At a guess, I'd say 16-17 weeks and everything looks fine, heart beat is strong, its moving around a little, it's a wonder you haven't felt it," she smiled at Olivia, "but I guess when its not on your radar, its not really anything you'd pay close attention to."

"So wait… how risky is this pregnancy? For the baby, I mean? What are the risks of miscarriage or …" she wanted to know, she had to know what the odds were that this pregnancy could end like the last one.

"We've lost a baby in the past," Trevor told the tech who stared at Olivia, confused by her urgency.

"Well," she replied, looking at Liv and placing a hand on her arm, statistically speaking, between 15-20 weeks the chance of miscarriage is less than 1%, I hope that gives you some peace."

"Thank you," Olivia replied. "It does, actually… can you tell what sex the baby is right now?," she wanted to know.

"Do you want to know?," she asked.

Olivia looked to Trevor who smiled at his wife and gave her a little nod. "If you want to know, baby, its fine with me." He wanted her to have something tangible, to have hope.

The tech went back to the screen, placing the wand over her belly, she rolled it around for a few seconds and began to point out things to the married couple. The length of the baby- almost 5inches long and the baby's arms - one held up, suspended. "Would you like me to take some photos?"

"Please," Olivia nodded with tears flooding her face again.

Trevor stood up to comfort his wife, kissing her cheek. "I am going to make an educated guess, which can be confirmed at your 20 week ultrasound, but your ultrasound is quite clear so I'm okay with telling you that you're going to be having a baby girl."

Finally, Olivia let out a sob. She felt the technician's hand on her arm. "Its so overwhelming, I know," she said softly, "let me get you some tissues."

Trevor embraced her as best as he could without hurting her. "Its okay, sweetheart, let yourself have the moment and we'll take it day by day and we'll be okay — whatever happens, we'll be totally okay."

She nodded, staring in to her husband's eyes. He always centred her. She trusted him with her life and knew that he would do his best to protect her and their son at all costs, that he would be preparing her for the worst if he truly thought the worst could come from their current pregnancy.

The technician handed her a few tissues and Olivia gently patted down her swollen eye. Trevor kissed his wife and smiled at the tech. She excused herself to give them a moment.

"Do I look pregnant?," she asked him a little vulnerably. "I mean, have you noticed that my stomach is bigger?"

"No," he laughed, "but maybe I don't sit there really taking stock of the size of your stomach, honey, you think I'm there each time I see you naked, monitoring you?"

She managed to find his teasing a little funny, "You know what I mean…"

"No, I hadn't noticed, but now that you're laying here with your stomach peeping out," he smiled and placed his hand over her tummy, still a little cold from the freshly wiped goo that the technician had just gotten rid of, "now I can see there's a slight little bump…"

"How did I not notice?" She asked, covering his hand with hers.

"I think you weren't looking out for it and maybe when you started having an inkling, you didn't want to notice."

"Maybe," she agreed. "Trev we can't tell Noah, okay?" She told him seriously, "I don't want him to know, just in case."

"He needs time to adjust and get used to the idea baby," Trevor reasoned with her, "you can't just spring it on him a few weeks before you're ready to pop out—"

Olivia drew in a deep breath, "can we at least hold off a little longer? I need to process…"

He nodded. "Yeah, that's fair, let's just keep this to ourselves for a week and when it feels right we can tell Noah."

"Thanks," she murmured.

/

"Okay baby, easy, easy, easy…" Trevor tried as delicately as possible to place his wife down on the mattress. She made a sound that made him wince; it was pain and he felt so sorry for all of her injuries. "I'm so sorry," He kissed her face softly.

"Its okay," she whispered, breathing through the pain. "Can you help me get this stupid shirt off?," she asked.

"Yeah, give me a second, I'm just gonna go check in on Noah and see Amanda out,"

"Thanks baby," she replied, "thank you for being my rock," she added, reaching to grab for his arm. Her hand slipped in to his, large, strong hand.

"You never have to thank me for that," he replied, leaning over kissing her lips, trying his hardest not to make her wince or grimace.

"Still…"

"I'll be back in a few minutes baby," he kissed her forehead, "I love you."

"I love you,"

/

"How's she doing?" Amanda asked Trevor as he met her in the living-room. "She looks pretty banged up."

"Yeah, she's got a couple broken ribs, gotta keep our eye on her face, if the bruising and swelling doesn't go down I need to take her back so see someone, they're unsure about a fracture."

"Oh, why didn't they do an x-ray?" Amanda pressed, looking a little confused.

"Olivia really was in too much pain to move," he fibbed, "so we just had to improvise, they had a guy from respiratory come to check out her ribs," he told her, "but I think tomorrow she's barely going to be able to move."

"Yeah, running on pure adrenalin at the moment, wait til the actual pain starts setting in," Amanda agreed. "I'll drop in tomorrow if its okay?"

"Of course. If Liv doesn't feel up to it, I'll text you. Was Noah okay?"

"Yeah," she smiled, "he was a bit sad but we put the TV on and Emily came and jumped in his lap as she does and they both went to sleep pretty quickly."

"Thanks Amanda…"

They said their goodbyes and he got Olivia a drink to have with her pills and went to check in on Noah. He opened his door and Emily lifted her head from beside his son. He wasn't overly happy that he had somehow allowed them both to let the brow, fluffy labradoodle sleep in the same bed as him, but both seemed fairly happy with the arrangement.

He watched the dog slump back down and he went back to check in on Olivia.

She was sitting up, slowly shimmying out of her work pants.

"Olivia, what are you doing?!," he asked, quickly putting the drink down. "I told you'd help."

"You still have to work, baby," she replied, "I need to be able to go to the bathroom and move a little."

"Not right now you don't, you're going to be sore for a few days… as far as I'm concerned, you're not getting out of bed unless it's for the bathroom," he told her firmly, helping her with her clothes.

"Okay, I need to brush my teeth and use the bathroom, if you can help me there I can do the rest."

Once she was back in bed, he went to get changed and pulled the sonogram photos out of the envelope he put down in their room. He turned his lamp on and got in to bed. Olivia was facing him, laying comfortably on her healthy ribs after taking some strong pain relief drugs. "Are you feeling a little calmer?"

She nodded, watching him hold the photos, his eyes sweeping over the blurry shape of their baby in awe. "It could just be the drugs," she added. She gently took one of the images from his hand and studied it with a little smile.

He glanced at her and could tell the oxycodone was starting to work. Her pupils were dilated and she did seem instantly more relaxed. "Isn't this the most beautiful picture?"

"It is… it's kind of mind-blowing to me that this is happening," he remarked, "but I'm all in and I'm trying to be cautiously happy, but I really just want to lose myself in the moment."

"We can't prevent anything bad happening on any day of the week, right?" She asked thoughtfully, "like what happened tonight with BX9… I would never have planned for that, but it was awful and I was mostly scared about keeping Noah safe… and yet here we are."

"Through a scary, terrifying ordeal for all of us, something wonderful came from it, and I am so happy about that Olivia, I know you are too but I understand your reasons for not wanting to experience the joy in it just yet. But I know you, you don't live life in fear, maybe you should apply it to this situation as well."

She nodded slowly. She smiled at the picture before handing it back to him. He took them and put them in his bedside drawer.

"I love you so much," he told her.

"I love you too," she replied. "Can you turn the light off and get close to me. I need you."

He gave her a smile. "Of Course. He rolled over and turned the bedside lamp off. He got close and allowed her to snuggle in to him as best as she could. Trevor stroked her hair softly and thoughtfully while he thought about what a huge night it had been for the both of them.