Thank you for the reviews. I'm so glad you're still on board. For the curious ones who asked about what I have planned for this story... Not saying anything, except I really think you'll enjoy the ride. ;)

Thank you to Mariah, who despite a busy schedule keeps the edits and the kind words coming!

Olivia's eyes were burning when she got to the master bedroom. She sat on the edge of the bed and hugged her little girl.

"Mommy," Ella cried again.

"It's okay, baby. It's okay. You're at your dad's, we went there after the amusement park. You fell asleep in the car. It's okay, Ella. You're safe."

"I heard shouts," the little girl explained.

"It's okay, Ella. It's just your dad, and… your brothers and sisters. They're downstairs, they're just talking. They talk loud in that family," she joked, lightly tapping a finger on her daughter's nose.

The girl giggled before furrowing her brow.

"Everyone is down?" she asked, nibbling on her lip.

"Yes, they are. Do you want to go meet them?"

She nodded with a smile. Olivia returned the smile and picked her up. She walked out of the room and into the hallway. The first door she tried seemed to be Eli's room. She found the bathroom behind the second. She set her daughter down next to the sink and with a washcloth she had found in a cupboard, she lightly freshened up her daughter.

"Are they nice?" Ella asked her.

"They are. But remember that they only just found out about you, baby. So they're still a little bit surprised. You have to give them a little bit of time to get to know you, okay?"

"Okay."

Olivia used her fingers to brush her daughter's hair before pulling them up again in a ponytail.

"You want the bow?" she asked the girl.

When the girl said yes, she wrapped the bow that had fallen off during her nap around the elastic of the ponytail.

"Ok. Let's go?" Olivia asked Ella.

Ella reached her arms out to her mother. Olivia smiled and carried her back to the bedroom. She picked up the white tennis shoes Elliot had set next to the bed and slipped them on over the girl's white stockings. Olivia then handed Ella her blue cardigan to put on. She carried her daughter down the stairs, before putting her down. She straightened the girl's white and blue striped dress and took her hand to walk to the living-room.

She crossed Elliot's eyes and he nodded at her, so she walked further into the room before stopping. She looked down to see Ella half hiding behind her leg. The girl slipped an arm between her mother's legs and grabbed at the light blue jeans.

Maureen was standing in front of the window, her arms crossed on her chest. This only thing Olivia could read on her closed face was a new found curiosity. Richard was sitting forward on the couch, his chin resting on his closed fists, his head turned to them. Elizabeth was right next to him, on the armrest. Kathleen was by her father's side, her arms around her little brother. They all looked at the mother and daughter, each showing a different expression across their face.

The room was silent for a minute that seemed never-ending. Then Liz got up and walked up to them. Olivia held her breath. The young girl barely looked at Olivia but squatted down in front of her half-sister.

"Hi Ella," she smiled at the girl. "I'm Elizabeth, but you can call me Lizzie. Everybody does. I'm very happy to meet you."

She felt her daughter's grip on her relax.

"Hi," the little girl finally breathed out. "I'm happy too."

Liz smiled a bit wider.

"That is my twin brother, Richard. You can call him Rick," she said pointing at the glaring young man. "You already know Kathleen, and this is Eli, my baby brother. He's six. And over there, this is Maureen. She's our oldest sister."

Ella looked around at her siblings. She took a step from behind her mother but kept a hand on her leg.

"Hi," she said softly to the room.

"Hi kid," Kathleen answered with a smile.

And then Eli walked up to her, looking curiously at the girl. He extended a hand out to her.

"Hi, I'm Eli," he told her.

"I'm Ella," she answered and lightly shook his hand.

Olivia looked at the scene in amazement. She looked at Elliot and smiled at him.

"Eli, why don't you go to show Ella your room?" Elliot suggested.

The two kids both looked at their respective parent before nodding. Olivia brushed a hand on her daughter's head as they both left the room. Olivia then took a few steps in the room and came to stand next to Elliot.

"She's adorable," Liz told them quietly.

"Liz wants to be a teacher. Kids make her melt," Elliot explained with a small grin.

Richard snorted and Maureen rolled her eyes. They both shot dark look in the direction of the hallway.

"Ella's not the enemy, guys. Give her a chance," Kathleen told her siblings.

Olivia flinched at the word enemy. That's you, she thought. Once again, she felt the urge to reach for Elliot. Richard got up and took a few steps toward them. She felt it coming. She saw it coming as big as a train wreck. She held her breath.

"So, daddy," he started, his voice laced with sarcasm, "now that you've introduced us to your whore and your little bastard, we're supposed to what, bond or something?"

She did reach for Elliot this time. She grabbed his wrist to keep him from jumping on his son. Then she quickly walked out of the room and out of the house.

Only outside did she let the tears come. She went to lean against the trunk of his car, her back to the house. She pressed both her hands against her mouth as each sob shook her whole body painfully.

She cried. Hard.

She heard Elliot call her name close to her. He squeezed her shoulder and repeated her name softly. She shook him off and walked away. She went to stand before the metal gate, grabbed the bars and rested her head in the crook of her elbow. She forced herself to breathe in and out calmly.

"Olivia," he said again.

She turned to him and he froze. He had always been a bit helpless when she cried.

"That's what I didn't want. That's why I left," she told him harshly, pointing at the house. The tears kept coming and she chocked up a bit. "I don't care what name I'm being called, I'm used to that. But I swear to God Elliot. I may not believe in hitting children but he calls her a bastard again and I'll slap him across the face so hard he'll be seeing stars for days!"

"I know. He won't," he assured her.

"Elliot, I don't want… I don't want her to ever feel like a mistake, like she shouldn't even be here. Like her mere existence is a wound to… to others. I don't want her getting bullied, getting called white trash because of her mother. I don't want…"

The tears, the sobs only got stronger until she couldn't even talk. Elliot took her in his arms. With one hand, he slipped his fingers in her hair and cradled her head. The other stroked her back soothingly. She sunk into his embrace and held onto him for dear life. She was remotely aware that she was soaking his shirt with her tears. But she couldn't stop the crying.

"She's not you Olivia," he said quietly.

He had seen right through her and she wasn't surprised. His voice was low in her ear. His breath was tickling her skin. The comfort was so strong and so foreign and so good and she felt herself cry even harder. She thought about the kids that only let themselves cry once in the warm embrace of their parent. Of their loved one.

"She's not you," he told her again. "Ella has two loving parents who think the world of her, and who would never let anyone hurt her. They'll come around, Olivia. But it's a lot for them to take in right now. They'll come around. And even if they don't, well then it's their loss, isn't it."

"She's not a mistake, Elliot," she whispered in his neck. "We were a mistake, she isn't."

He hugged her tighter and she finally felt herself relax.

"She's not a mistake," Elliot confirmed. "And neither were we. We had awful timing. But we're not a mistake, Liv."

That calmed her right down.

oooooooooo

Kathleen walked to her sister in the dining room. Maureen was standing next to the window, holding the curtain slightly open with a finger. Kathleen went to stand behind her, looking out at the same scene her sister was watching.

Her father was holding Olivia in his arms as the woman was visibly crying, her shoulders shaking with each sob.

"They're just good people who did a bad thing Maureen," Kathleen said quietly.

Maureen kept glaring at the adults outside, but her brow furrowed slightly and that was enough to tell Kathleen her sister had heard her. She put a hand on Maureen's arm and rested her head on the young woman's shoulder.

"I wish you had told me when you found out, Kath."

"You know I couldn't."

Maureen sighed but didn't make a move against her sister.

oooooooooo

Elizabeth went out to the backyard after her brother. She sat down in a chair and watched him kick a ball around.

"Come on Richard, don't be a prick about this," she told him.

"I can't believe you're actually defending them, Liz," he replied, pointing an accusing finger at her.

"I'm not! I'm not condoning what they did. I feel awful for what they did to mom. But what's done is done and nothing is going to change the past."

"Oh spare me your Miss Sunshine optimism, will you?"

"Go to hell, Rick. Now I'm going to go see my baby brother and sister bond, and get to know Ella. Whether you like it or not, she is our baby sister. And she didn't ask to be put in the middle of this."

"I wish they had just stayed the hell away," he muttered.

"Well Kathleen didn't feel that way, and neither does dad. Or me for that matter," she told him. "Get over it or get out of here, Richard. For that little girl's sake."

"Well I was here way before her, so why doesn't she get the hell out of our life?"

"Oh my God, what are you five? Dad cheated on mom, okay? Not on you. And mom may be even more hurt and mad than us, but she's obviously okay with Ella being in our life. Or she wouldn't have left Eli come tonight."

She glared at her twin brother and went back inside. It wasn't the angry, dark glare his father had given him. But it still made him uncomfortable. Richard ran his hand through his hair and cursed.

oooooooooo

We're not a mistake, Liv. The words kept replaying in her mind as she stepped away from him. She wiped her cheeks and tried to forget his words. We're not a mistake, Liv. She didn't want to agree. She didn't want to feel that way.

"I'm okay," she finally said.

Her voice was hoarse from crying.

"Come on," he told her.

He put his hand on the small of her back and led her back to the house. She went to the powder room to try and hide the evidence of her crying. When she came out after a few minutes, she was stunned to see Elliot's four oldest children setting the dinner table. She stared at them, her mouth half open, her eyes watering again. One after one, they stopped what they were doing until they were all looking at her.

She played with her necklaces with a shaky hand.

"You're both staying for dinner, right?" Liz asked her coolly.

"If it's okay with you," she breathed out.

"Well you look like you're here to stay anyway, whether we like it or not," Richard replied.

"Rick," his twin muttered.

Olivia took a step toward him.

"You may not like it, you may not like me. That's fine. I get it. Insult me all you want, Richard. You won't be the first, you won't be the last. But you attack my daughter again, and you'll be lying on the floor, my knee in your back in a second," she glared at him menacingly. She took a step back to look at the four of them. "I apologize for what your father and I did. It was wrong and we shouldn't have let it happen. But we did. And I apologize for you only finding out about Ella now. But you're right, we're here now. So let's just try to get along, or at least pretend to."

She turned and saw Elliot standing against the doorframe, eyeing her. He gave her a brief nod before she left to go upstairs. She went to Eli's bedroom where she found him and Ella playing with construction blocks.

"Hi," she told the two siblings.

"Hi mommy!" Ella answered with a smile.

"Hi Olivia," Eli added more quietly.

"Are you okay?" she asked both of the kids.

They just nodded, their attention back on their game.

"Ella, baby? Why don't you come down with me, help your brother and sisters set the table?"

"Do I have to?" the girl answered.

"You do if you want to eat," Olivia told her with a small amused smile.

Eli took the little girl's hand and stood up.

"I'll come too," he told her.

She followed the two children downstairs. Things will be okay, she thought. Maybe not tonight. Maybe tonight would be the dinner from hell. But things would be okay sooner or later. Sooner rather than later she dared think.

Ella was waiting for her on the bottom of the stairs, asking to be picked up. She knew the little girl was still uncomfortable around her older siblings. Not that she could blame her. She placed her daughter on her hip and went to the kitchen through the dining-room. She stayed in the doorway, the revolving door half open against her back, and out of the very crowded room occupied by the five Stabler children. Maureen handed Ella two glasses and a bottle of wine to Olivia. She thanked her and went back to the living-room, putting the objects on the table.

"Where's Elliot?" she asked Liz when she went back to the kitchen.

"Backyard, grilling steaks," she answered.

"Do you mind if…" Olivia started.

"Want me to take Ella?" Liz asked.

"Do you mind?"

Elizabeth shook her head and handed her arms out to Ella.

"Come here, little sis," she told the little girl.

Olivia dropped a kiss on the girl's hair and handed her over to Liz, thanking the young woman. Then she left to find Elliot, walked in the backyard and over to him.

"Are you okay?" she asked him.

He turned around and took her in a hug again. She realized this one was more for his sake than for hers and hugged him back.

"I'm sorry," he told her.

"What?" she pulled away from him, confused.

"About leaving, about ignoring you, about dragging you into an affair in the first place," he answered.

She breathed out a soft, sad laugh and lowered her head.

"Well it's not like you seduced me, Elliot," she told him. "I don't know what I hated more: when you left or when you came back…" she whispered. "But I could have stopped it, should have stopped it. Except I didn't really want to, I guess."

He looked at her and nodded slightly. He took a step toward her.

"I'm still sorry about leaving without talking to you."

"Thank you," she whispered.

"It doesn't mean I've forgiven you quite yet," he said, narrowing his eyes at her.

"I know," she answered. "Will you? Forgive me I mean?"

"You fucking left, Liv. You took my kid. It might take a while. But I want to forgive you. I want to… I want you… I mean… I don't want us to fight, Olivia, not after four years of missing you, of wishing I had done things differently."

She stared at him in silence, taking in his words. She licked her lips and nodded slightly. She saw his eyes darken as they fell to her mouth and she swallowed hard. The corners of her lips twitched with a smile and she looked down between them.

"The steaks, El. They're going to burn," she told him.

"Oh shit," he cursed, turning back to the grill.

She watched him as he hurriedly flipped over the well-cooked steaks, dropping the spatula in the process. He bent to get it back and her eyes drifted down.

"You're staring at my ass," he guessed.

She heard the smile in his voice and laughed softly.

"Don't flatter yourself, Stabler."

She left and went back into the house where she was ambushed by Maureen.

"Are you and dad together, now?" she asked, more calmly than Olivia would have expected.

"No, we're not, Maureen. But it's not…"

"It might happen, right?"

Olivia didn't answer. It might happen. She didn't know if it might. She didn't know if she wanted it to. But in any case, the thought didn't make her panic quite so much. She just looked at the woman who nodded and left back to the kitchen. She went to the dining-room where her daughter spotted her and ran to her. She picked her up and sat down on a chair, the girl in her lap telling her about the salad she had helped Liz prepare and about Eli's cool remote controlled dinosaur.

"So you like it here, baby?" Olivia asked her daughter and held her breath for the answer.

"Yes. I like Eli, and Kathleen, and Liz," the girl said. "Eli said… Eli said I should call Elliot daddy, like him."

"Do you want to?"

"Kind of," she whispered.

"Then I think you should. I think Elliot would like that very much too."

Ella agreed and sunk back in her mother's embrace. The both of them enjoyed the quiet of the moment, unused to the turmoil of such a large family.

oooooooooo

Dinner had been awkward, to say the least. The silences had been heavy and tense, the conversations filled with pregnant pauses. Fortunately, the three year old and the six year old at the table had seemed good at lightning up the mood a bit. After their conversation, Olivia had spent the whole dinner waiting for the word "daddy" to cross Ella's lips. It hadn't. She hadn't pushed.

At one point, Liz had asked about their lives in San Francisco and she had felt Elliot tense up beside her. Elliot had seen the pictures of her life on the west coast. She knew it had only made it all the more real to him. She really had a life over there. Not just a lair where she had been hiding and licking her wounds.

Olivia had tried not to go on and on about San Francisco, but Ella hadn't felt the same. Elliot had been mostly silent, so had she. Maureen had only spoken when asked a question and Richard had just glared. Kathleen and Liz had tried to start up conversations but had soon grown tired of it.

By dessert, the table had been silent, Eli had been yawning and Ella had fallen asleep in her mother's lap.

Now the little girl was sleeping on the couch and Maureen had already left to drop Eli back at his mother's. Olivia was hastily cleaning up the now empty table. She was determined to leave before the rest of his children, not wanting to give them any wrong ideas about her and Elliot.

Richard came in and sat on the table right next to her. She ignored him until he spoke up.

"You lied to me, didn't you?" he told her.

"About making you eat the carpet? No," she answered.

"You know what I'm talking about. Years ago, when you were interrogating me at the police station, I asked you if you were sleeping with dad," he explained.

Not that he really had to. She remembered the day as well as he did.

"Yes, I did, Richard. I'm sorry about that," she admitted, still not looking at him.

"Let me guess, you wanted to protect dad and me, right?"

"Yes actually. That and I knew my captain was behind the two way glass," she explained with a chuckle.

"Is Dad planning on making an honest woman out of you?"

She did look at him this time. She stopped what she was doing and looked right at him.

"No, Richard, we're definitely not getting married," she stated forcefully.

"Ok, I was just wondering. You know, since Dad married Mom because of Maureen," he muttered.

"Well don't worry about that. You won't ever have to call me your step-mom."

"Good," he glared at her.

She glared right back and left for the kitchen, rinsing out the sponge and leaving it next to the sink. She turned and almost walked straight in Richard.

"What now, Rick?" she asked, clearly getting annoyed.

"Look, I'm sorry ok. 'Bout what I said about you and Ella. She's a sweet enough kid and like Liz said, she didn't ask to be put in the middle of our messed up family," he apologized running a hand in his hair.

"Thank you," she said softly.

"That being said," he told her looking right at her with narrowed eyes, "we have every right to be pissed at you. And you have absolutely no right to act rightful with us, Olivia. You gave up that right the first time you spread your legs for a married man."

She felt an immature urge to go slip her tongue down Elliot's throat just to piss Richard off. Instead she raised her chin and stared at him dead in the eyes.

"Go to hell, Richard."

She glared at him coldly and left for the living-room. She took her cell and called for a cab. She then went outside to the backyard where Elliot was cleaning the grill while Kathleen and Liz where sitting down, enjoying one last beer.

"Hey," she said quietly.

"Hey Olivia," Kathleen replied. "You're okay?"

"Fine. Look I just called a cab. It should be there in about fifteen minutes."

"I could have given you a ride to the city," Kathleen told her.

"Thank you, sweetie but that's okay."

"You should spend the night here, Liv," Elliot told her, not looking at her.

"No, that's okay, really."

"Hum, Olivia," Liz hesitated. "I was going to take Eli to the movies tomorrow evening. Maybe Ella could come too."

Olivia agreed with a small smile. Even if Liz had taken up to Ella immediately, she was still very weary towards Olivia. She said goodbye to the two young women and took a step towards Elliot. But the man turned and walked back into the house. She followed him.

He picked up the sleeping little girl from the couch, wrapped up the plaid around her and walked out of the room. For a second, she thought he was going to ignore her and put Ella to bed upstairs. Instead he walked out of the house and sat down on the step after the door, his daughter curled up against him. She sat down beside him in silence.

"I'm going to have dinner with Gavin tomorrow night," she told him quietly. "I'm only telling you that because I don't want you throwing a fit when you find out I'm going out with an old friend."

"Do what you want. You always do anyway," he muttered.

She sighed and rubbed her eyes. She saw the yellow cab pull up and stood up. She picked up her daughter from Elliot and looked at him.

"I'm tired, Elliot. I'll see you later," she told him before turning and walking over to the cab.

When the car drove off, she glanced back to see Elliot watching them leave, his arms limp at his sides. She closed her eyes briefly and looked away.

I said I'm not above begging and I'm really not: please please please review. Please... :)