Disclaimer: Law & Order SVU/OC and its characters don't belong to me. This story has been written for fun only, not for money.
Spoilers: SVU & OC, near future (hopefully).
Summary: It's Christmas time again. Spoilers 23x09 & 2x09 and 23x20 deleted scene.
Notes: Because it's been a year since the Christmas gathering invitation and EO haven't progressed that much…
Enjoy and please review!
New Beginnings
By musical-Aven
The moment of déjà-vu is both bittersweet and ironic. Olivia and her son are stopped on the sidewalk, surrounded by the Christmas-decorated stores and holiday music. Standing in front of them is Elliot Stabler, a few holiday bags in hands. Out of the blue, they bump into each other, again, a little more than 6 months later. But this time, Olivia is less nervous about her old partner meeting her son.
"Hi." Stabler is the first to find his voice. He smiles at the mother-son duo.
"Hey." Olivia responds, somewhat uncomfortable.
"Hi Elliot!" Noah enthusiastically greets. "Are you doing your Christmas shopping too?"
Elliot looks down at his bags.
"Yeah, I'm trying to follow the list one of my kids gave me, at least." He jokes. "How about you two?"
Olivia lets her son answer, keeping a hand on his shoulder as he speaks.
"We're almost done getting presents for Billie and Jessie!"
Elliot smiles and looks up at Benson who answers his unspoken questions.
"Rollins' girls."
"Ah." He pauses and hesitates before addressing the subject. "I heard she put her papers in?"
Olivia isn't sure how he knows, but she's glad. She wanted to tell him, but they haven't had the chance to talk much lately. It was mainly her fault, not answering his texts or returning his calls.
"Yeah. She's leaving at the end of this week. We're doing a small Christmas / goodbye party Friday."
Elliot nods.
"How are you doing with that?" he tentatively asks.
Olivia is taken aback a little by the shift of conversation.
"With the party?" she tries to deflect, but they both smile at the lame attempt. She rubs Noah's back in search of comfort, before continuing. "It's for the best, for her, Sonny and the girls." She shrugs and they both notice she's not answering his question.
But Elliot lets it go, sensing she's not going to open up on the street like this, in front of her son.
"And after the party we're doing presents, right mom?" her son brings them out of the sensitive subject.
Olivia laughs looking down at him.
"Not on Friday, but on Sunday we will!"
Elliot smiles at the scene.
"Opening presents on the 24th, I still don't get it, Benson." He teases.
It's a long-lasting friendly argument between them. The Stabler family always opened their presents on the 25th, but the Bensons always opened them on the night of the 24th. Different families, different traditions. Elliot and Olivia amicably argued about it each year of their partnership. Eventually, the last few years together, they had agreed to meet late on the 24th, where Olivia would open his present and they waited midnight for Elliot to open hers. It was their own ritual, back then.
"Hey it's a Benson tradition, deal with it." She teases back.
Their gazes connect longer than necessary, both brought back to that simpler time in their friendship. Eventually, Noah gets their attention.
"Are you spending Christmas with your family, Elliot?"
Elliot feels Olivia inhale at that.
"I am. My five kids, my mom and my two grandchildren." He smiles, proudly.
"Wow that's a lot of people! For us it's just my mom and I. It's nice, but I always wondered how it would be with a lots of people and kids." Noah says so innocently.
The adults force themselves not to react. Olivia is still looking at her son, wondering how long he has been feeling this way about their Christmas. She's also very aware of the door Noah's comment has opened and of Elliot's eyes on her.
"Yeah, " Stabler laughs. "It's mostly chaos all day, but it's the good kind of chaos." He tries to alleviate the boy's excitement.
He sees Olivia take a breath, but he also sees her expression change. Was that disappointment? He doesn't have the chance to analyse it as Noah speaks.
"Could we come?"
"Noah!" the mom in her has to intervene. Since when does her son invites himself to someone's house?! She notices Noah has some not-so innocent look too. What was happening?
Stabler laughs at the boy's gutsy request and at his embarrassed mom.
Elliot shoots a glance at Olivia, trying to assess her. When she shifts her eyes to his, it's quick and hard to read. He's trying to decipher if the door is opened for him to reiterate his invitation or if it would put her in a difficult situation in front of her son.
On her end, Olivia feels her heart fasten at the unspoken question she knows he wants to ask. She's afraid. Afraid he's going to invite them. Afraid he won't. That second option would totally be her doing though, because she's been pushing him away lately.
Stabler decides to push the door open a little more.
"Your mom and you are always welcomed in my family, Noah." He says softly, vague on purpose.
Olivia feels the warmth invade her chest at that. Her eyes are full of gratitude too.
"Mom could we go, please?" her son is more excited by this than by his presents, and that makes her panic a little bit.
"We'll see, honey." She rubs his back once more.
"Please mom, say yes!"
Olivia's eyebrows rise in front of her boy pleading to go to the Stabler's party. He hasn't acted this way in a while, what was up with him?
"Yeah, Liv, say yes…" Elliot lets himself tease her, only because she's uncomfortable by her son's insistence.
She sends him a warning look, but when her eyes meet his, she's stuck there. She's thrown back to last December, when Elliot had extended the same invitation a year ago. His blue eyes pleading, just like her son's. She freezes under his gaze.
Thankfully, she's saved by her phone buzzing in her coat. Looking at the screen, she sighs.
"Let's talk about it later, okay?" she tells Noah. "Yes Fin?" she takes the call as she steps to the side of the sidewalk.
Noah is visibly disappointed.
"That usually means no…" he says mostly to himself and Elliot is surprised of how much the boy knows his mother.
Noah takes the opportunity to grab Stabler's attention.
"You knew my mom pretty well back in the days, right?" he speaks quietly, aware of his mom a few feet away.
"Yes.." Elliot answers, not sure where this is going.
"Any tips on how to convince her, that I don't know about?"
Elliot laughs again. Son, if you only knew, I've spent all my bag of tricks in the last year, he thinks. He bends his legs to be at Noah's level, well aware that Olivia is half listening to her call and half listening to them.
"Don't push her." He confides. "Let her think it over. If she wants to come, she will."
It was simple enough, and respectful of Liv's decision. Noah takes in his suggestion.
"I know she wants to go. She's just afraid…" Noah admits candidly, surprising him again.
Elliot's eyes flicker towards Olivia, still on her call. She's looking back at him, silently telling him to be careful with whatever he was discussing with her son. He knows why she's reluctant to involve the child in their friendship. Noah gets easily attached. She wants to protect him, because she doesn't trust her former partner enough not to leave again. He understands that and he had been working on rebuilding their trust in the past year. But clearly, they had a long way to go still.
Turning back to the boy, Elliot tries to reassure him.
"She's thinking about what's best for the both of you, you know that right?"
Noah sighs and nods.
"I know…but just once, I'd like for her to do something for herself."
Elliot's heart melts. This was definitely Olivia Benson's son. He doesn't have time to verbalize his agreement because Olivia is hanging up.
"Alright, crisis averted."
She returns to her boy and Elliot stands up again.
"Come on, Noah, let's finish this list before grabbing dinner, ok?"
She turns to Stabler.
"It was nice seeing you, El." She says sincerely, tenderly.
"You too." He makes sure she understands that he's not pressuring her to come to the party.
The invitation still stands, Liv.
I know. Thank you. I'll consider it.
"Have fun shopping." Elliot smiles.
"Bye Elliot!" Noah says, refraining from calling out something about "seeing him at Christmas", following the Detective's advice.
They cross path to continue walking in divergent directions, for now.
The end! Hope you enjoyed!
Please review!
musical-Aven
December 2022