Title: Love You Forever
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: Olivia's continued adventures in motherhood - as she balances raising her son with her career. This story is set in my AU series. It would take place several years after Undeserved.
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. The timeframe would have it outside of the TV series' current timeline and would likely have Olivia into her early 50s. 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.
He'd come to loiter in the kitchen doorway so quietly that she hadn't even heard him. But she could feel him looking at her now – while she stood at the counter seeping her tea with her back turned to him.
"Are you done?" She asked without looking at him.
He didn't respond right away and a long silence hung in the air until he finally said, "Yeah", quietly.
She opened the fridge door and pulled out a plate of chicken, mushroom risotto and steamed zucchini that was covered in saran wrap.
"Do you want it warmed up?" She asked – looking at him for the first time. He was hanging his head and not making eye contact – but he allowed a nod so small that it was hardly noticeably.
She pealed off the plastic and put the plate in the microwave, punching a couple numbers and hitting start.
"Bring the print out to the table and sit down," she told him.
He disappeared back down the hall without saying a thing and several minutes later re-appeared with his small stack of papers and sat down. She brought his dinner out to him and set it in front of him, handing him utensils before taking her tea and sitting kitty-corner to him. It was almost 10 p.m. – she knew he'd be hungry. But he sat staring at his meal.
"Eat, Noah," she told him softly. She always had to tell her son to eat.
He picked up the fork and slowly started picking away at the risotto, putting small tastes into his mouth. She watched him for a moment before she spun his essay around so it was facing her and started reading it over.
"Have you told Dad yet?" He asked quietly when she wasn't more than a paragraph in.
She looked at him – but his head was still hanging and she only got to see the top of his head. Will was at a conference in London. She'd only been able to speak with him briefly so far that day with his commitments over there and dealing with the time difference.
"Yes," told her son.
"What'd he say?"
"He's disappointed," she said. "We both are."
Her son's head bobbed a bit.
She watched him as he continued to poke away at his plate – hunched over it.
"This is good, Noah," she said, tapping her finger against the essay. "Why wasn't this what got handed in in the first place?"
He shrugged.
"You're going to need to give me a better answer then that before we get this resolved," she said.
He gave her a small glance from his downcast gaze.
"Am I grounded?" He asked.
"Yes, you are."
"How?"
"I haven't decided yet. You telling me what the hell is going on will help me make a better decision."
He just shrugged again.
She sighed and put a hand to her temple. "Noah, you've got to do better than that. Talk to me. Please, sweetheart. Is something going on at school?"
"All you and Will care about are my marks," he said.
"You know that's not true."
He stabbed at his chicken with his fork.
"You're feeling a lot of pressure with the high school applications," she said, more as a statement than a question. But either way he didn't answer.
"Pulling a stunt like you did today, isn't going to make the process any easier," she told him.
He shrugged.
She shook her head. "I don't know what's going on with you lately," she said.
"Nothing," he spat out – still not looking at her.
"Well, it sure doesn't seem like nothing."
She stared at him for several minutes but he made no comment and continued to poke away at his plate. So she looked back to his essay and circled a couple grammatical errors for him – and then flipped over to the second page and started to read down it.
He knew how to write an essay – at least for a kid his grade level. And, it was clear he knew the material. And, he should. They went up to Massachusetts on a family road trip nearly every summer. They'd been to lots of historical sites up there and done the walking tours around Boston. Her son had got to experience Revolutionary history outside of the history books already. Beyond that, her son and Will sat watching enough of the History Channel, that she could only assume some of it was sinking it. He may not be as interested in his history lessons as much as he liked math or science and he might not dive into those books as much as he could bury himself in a novel – but it wasn't a topic he hated. She knew that. The comments in the short paper were coherent and she also suspected it wasn't just from what he'd been forced to read in the textbook in the afternoon. He'd been listening in class and she even thought he had likely done some research previously before handing in the atrocity of that morning. What she was looking at compared to what she'd been handed in the principal's office that morning were beyond light and day. It was about as diatonically opposite as things could get.
She sighed as she finished reading the paper and looked at him again.
"Noah, I can't help if you don't talk to me."
"How come Dad didn't want to talk to me tonight?" he asked instead of commenting on her statement.
"Because he didn't want to have an argument with you over the telephone – and because I told him you were working on your paper."
"Well, can I call him now?" He looked up at her with hopeful eyes briefly but then quickly pulled them away when he realized he'd made the eye contact.
"No, Noah, you can't. It's 3 a.m. there. He'll be sleeping."
He sighed loudly.
"What do you need to talk to your father about?"
"Nothing," Noah said.
"OK," she rubbed at her eyebrow. "You said some pretty awful things about Ms. Hermann. Did something happen that made you call her those things?"
"No."
"You seemed pretty upset with her and with that class, Noah," she pushed.
"Mom, nothing happened. Nothing is wrong. There's nothing to talk about," he blurted and slammed his fork down onto the table.
She looked at him. The defiance and anger in him from earlier in the day was gone – but the tension was still there. She knew her son well enough to know something was bothering him – eating away at him, that something made him do what he'd done. But she needed him to tell her what it was. Still, she'd concluded that wasn't going to happen that night.
"OK," she said and pushed the paper back towards him. "I want you to fix those spelling and grammar errors and I want you to look at your last paragraph. I think you can do better there. I also want you to write your hand-written apology to Ms. Hermann before you go to bed – and I want to see it at the breakfast table in the morning. It better be sincere, Noah."
His head hung again.
"Are you done eating?"
He shrugged.
"Then go to back to your room, please. I want to see your lights out by 11 p.m. It's past your lights out as it is."
He pushed his chair out and got up and started to trudge back towards his bedroom.
"Noah," she called to him and he stopped and gave her a small glance over his shoulder. "I love you," she said.
She saw another small bobbed of his head and he started to walk again.
"I love you too, Mom," she echoed back for him.
"I love you too, Mom," he mumbled just loudly enough that she could barely catch it.