So for any of you that guessed what's happening next, who she met, bravo. Any of you that guessed the pretty much only other obvious direction this could have went, don't worry, that's what I had originally intended. But then I ended the last chapter and that just didn't feel right, so this did. This was always intended anyway, just not right this second, at the begging of this chapter. Maybe by the next one, I don't know, just not this soon. But I just scrapped that original idea and decided this is what I wanted the story to be anyhow, so here ya go. Enjoy, baes.
Oh, and one more thing. So I noticed I seem to updating this about once a month, like literally almost to the day, and that's totally not how it was intended. School has just been one giant pain in the you know what, so I've literally either been preoccupied with mounds of work and crap, or too tired to even tell you my ABCs, let alone write. Or I'll get it written without passing out face first and crushing my laptop, and then I'll forget about posting it and then, oh look it's like 6 days later and it's almost been a month since the last chapter I've gotta post it. But our last day is June 3rd (which if you're a Gilmore Girls fan you'd understand why that is completely painful), and I graduate June 7th. So from then after I should have literally no reason to be preoccupied, so updates should get closer together.
Disclaimer: In my friggin dreams.
R&R Cheries, always appreciated.
She met her little girl.
Sweet, wonderful, everything she's ever imagined. Everything she's ever wanted. And everything, that she long ago, save for her dreams, convinced herself she'd never have.
She found out after she left, about three weeks after she left, thought about calling him, didn't. Felt like, will always feel like, the worst person in the world for not. She knew, knows, that if she had, he would've tracked her down, told Cap. where he was going, and been on the next plane to her before she could take off for anywhere. Biggest regret that takes telling him to leave that mornings spot? Not telling him, literally the day she found out.
She told Cap. Three weeks after she found out. He yelled at her, middle named her, told her she was in hot ass water for waiting three damn weeks to tell him. Six weeks in was just too long for him to be in the dark about what was practically his own flesh and blood, damn it, he'd told her. She cried, he asked her if she wanted him to come out, because he would. Fly out on the next plane he could get, just tell IAB it was a family emergency, let them deal with the fact that they knew he had no family. Make an excuse and not tell Elliot, because of course, he knew. He always knew. And he'd never tell him if she didn't want him to. Which of course, because he knew her like nothing else, she wouldn't. She told him not to, of course. She doesn't know why, why she really wouldn't let him come. She knew it would raise too many suspicions, that there was no way El would let him get out of there without telling him, and quite frankly probably making him take him with him. Fin would be immediately concerned, which would set off Munch's alarms, questions upon questions would just keep coming in, she'd wake up one morning to not just have her support system standing on her doorstep, but to have half of that support system be the father of the baby who she'd purposely neglected to call. Too dramatic, she didn't want to trouble him, wasn't worth it she'd be alright. She knows that there's a deeper reason, deeper reasons, though. But that's for another day.
That wasn't the reason she felt like she couldn't give all of herself to the victims anymore though. She felt like, always felt like when she dreamt about it happening, that she could still give enough. But she was just too tired. Too worn down, too overworked, too done, especially without her partner. Which or course, carrying her partners baby only made more prominent in her mind.
So she did what she did and moved to Utah and stopped being a cop and decided to be as relatively normal as possible. Of course, she wasn't born to be normal, so she never will. But she thinks she's come pretty close.
She was born on a Saturday morning, 6:15 a.m on the dot. Early bird, just like her Momma. Still is, too. Which was just fantastic in those early months where she was up every 2 and half hours to feed her, essentially making her a walking zombie. Sleep depravation; thought she knew it like the back of her hand, being a cop and all, but boy was she wrong.
It was a sunny morning, sun high and bright in the clouds, and the only thing she kept thinking was maybe the fact that her little girl was being brought into the world on such a bright day, meant that she'd get to have a bright, happy life. Unlike her Mother's, up until that point, grey, dreary, awful. It gave her hope, optimism.
She was 6 pounds, 5 ounces. Tiny. So, so tiny. And perfect. Perfect brown hair, beautiful long limbs, 21 inches long, she was. Tall, like her Momma, a nurse had said. Long fingers and toes, ten of each, Liv had counted, twice. The nurses just smiled at her, told her she looked like a new Mom in love and she doesn't know if she's ever heard anything more true. Up until her birth, she'd felt distant from her. Wondered here and there if she should be feeling more connected than she was, all through out her pregnancy. Now don't get her wrong, she felt connected at times. So connected to this tiny little thing sometimes, that she thought she might burst. But she just felt like she should feel more. This sweet, perfect, perfect thing was part her and part El. She was all she ever wanted and believed she might never get. She was what she'd waited on for so many years, why didn't she feel more in touch? She was terrified that this little girl would come out of her, and nothing would change. She'd feel the same. She wonders now though, if that maybe she was just still terrified, that if she had just waited so long, had it taken from her so many times, that maybe it just didn't feel real until she was here. That she still felt just out of reach all along, until she was cradling this beautiful thing on her chest, and giving the nurses a name. Nora Eloise Benson.
She considered Stabler. She really, really did. But she didn't know when she'd tell El, how she'd tell El, if she'd ever tell El. She didn't know if Nora would ever know El, and vise versa. She didn't know what life would hold 5 minutes from now, let alone ten years. So she stuck with the safe option. And besides, she's Olivia Benson, she doesn't believe in all that crap about it being morally wrong for a child not to have a Fathers name, and it being dishonoring to the Father for them not to. Besides, she clearly wasn't too good at moral reasoning. After all, she had a kid with her partner, and then didn't tell him. So she decided to be her strong willed, independent self, and name her child after herself. They're Bensons damn it, and that's the way she wanted it. She had to admit though, when picking her name, she did consider, heavily, what El would think of it. And she remembered one day, and she'll never know why it sticks out in her mind so much, a Vic's sister's name being Eloise, and El making some half assed while flipping trough a file and scarfing down Chinese food upstairs on that old, disgusting, gross couch, how pretty of a name it was. Apparently her brain cataloged and recessed it for the very moment when naming her and Elliot's daughter would come. But besides, she thinks it's pretty too, so to hell with her brain, she can name her that for her own reasons. Damn it.
Cap. flew out when she was born. The day she was born, matter a fact. Got to the hospital at three p.m. Met his granddaughter at 3:11, precisely. Olivia checked, documented it in her brain, cataloged it and stored it for later, to write it in the ridiculous, pink, obscene with little baby duckies baby book she had bought her randomly one day after work. The damn thing just kept mocking her every time she walked by it in the store. She felt stupid buying it, ducked her head the entire time at the register. But she wanted to remember everything, or at least everything she remembered to write down. She heard those things can kinda end up being useless and end up being half filled out and you don't realize it or care until the kids 15. And she realized too, once she left the store, that she had the golden ticket, that beautiful little girl hanging out in her stomach. She had the right now, it wasn't weird. A mind set that took her a long time to get used to.
He walked in, took off his sunglasses like he was hot shit, and demanded she give him that little girl. So she handed her over, sat back on her bed, and was fine. For like, five seconds. Until Don called her his granddaughter and that he, and her mommy, had waited a long time to meet her. She lost it then, out right sobbed. Don look up for about three seconds, long enough to just glance, cause apparently she took him off guard, but then he looked back down. Apparently its perfectly normal for new moms to randomly and openly sob. Crazy hormones, or something. She experienced that when she was pregnant, the day she both the baby book actually. Went home, sat down in the one peirce of furniture in the unpainted nursery. An old, gorgeous, surprisingly comfortable rocking chair she had come across one day, one block over at a garage sale, on her cool down walk from her run, asked them if they could hold for 5 minutes, went home, got the money, then convinced one of the neighbor guys to carry it home for her, cause you know, she was pregnant and all and that was literally all she had to say and his wife smacked him on the arm and told him not to be an ass, got him to carry upstairs, too, and cried. She wasn't prepared for it to keep happening after the baby was here though. Even though she'd read every article, blog, book, watched every video and show possible to know as much as possible about pregnancy, life after baby, and baby. She was just a mess, she guesses. Hormones, blaming it all on hormones.
He stayed for three days, stayed at her place for the two days she was in the hospital, told her he wasn't forking over money for a hotel now that she had this big fancy house, and stayed the first night with her. Which was nice, she had assumed she would be alone. Most people have their spouses with them, and at the least their parents come to stay a few days. None of which she had. Until Don showed up, and imparted his wisdom on her. Hogged her daughter, too. She didn't mind though, not one damn bit. Reveled in it, actually.
He went back to New York on Tuesday morning, but not before he made sure to tell her how fucked up it was that Elliot didn't know. And that he'd always be there to defend her, go to bat for her, but not to forget that Elliot was practically his kid too, and that he couldn't just see one side in this. He told her to call him, to call Elliot, when she felt like she was ready. She argued she might never be ready, he told her that was bull. That one day she was gonna wake up and see just how much that little girl's face looked like her father's, and ache for him to see her. To know her, to experience her wonder, her beauty, just how incredible she was. And she was gonna miss him too, even more than before the baby, even more than now. One day she'd want him to know his little girl, his little girl that was part the one he loved, but could never catch. She told him he was too damn sentimental, and that she'd call him to make sure his plane didn't drop over Kansas somewhere.
But Cap. was right, of course. And one day, she did miss him, one day she did wake up and realize just how much her daughter looked like Elliot, and one day, she did call him.
So, I know Cap is a little more, I don't know, eccentric, in this story than he ever was on the show. And I know I seem to be focusing more on Liv and Cap and their relationship than anyone else or her relationship with anyone else, but I promise that's gonna change soon. That's just kinda how it came out, since I'm not planning these out beforehand. And I know that their relationship seems to be a little more intense and abrasive than we ever got to actually see on the show, but that's just how it worked out. And hey, it's fanfiction, right? Meaning I get to write it and see it how ever I want. And I know I'm emphasizing the father daughter relationship a lot, but then again it was mentioned, at least in the sense of El and Liv practically being his kids, that Liv was his daughter, more than once over the years. And come on, you cant watch the show and not get assaulted with that feeling. I mean, look how many damn times poor Don willingly risked his career for these two idiots. But anyhow, just wanted to get that out of the way before someone noticed and had a cow. So, yeah. Once again per my usual self, way too long AN over now.
Next up: Elliot.