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.
"Hey, I'm home," she called as she came in the door.
Her son didn't answer back – but she hadn't really expected him to. He was still getting over whatever exactly it was he was getting over. And, she imagined he wasn't all that pleased with her after getting to spend his first day home of his three-day suspension.
She'd made clear to him that he wasn't on vacation – that he was to be using the time to work on the class work that she'd picked up at the school for him, his book report and his social studies project. She usually knew her son to listen when rules were laid down. But with his attitude lately and his latest stunt, she'd decided she wasn't taking any risks.
She'd unplugged the modem and router and hidden them away in her bedroom. There'd actually been a brief moment where she even considered taking them with her for the day. She'd also sat in front of the TV in the living room and basement and fiddled around until she got the parental pass code programmed so he couldn't flop down in front of there. She'd hidden away the controllers for his Xbox too – and had had to call Will as he was barely getting up overseas to walk her through how to put in restriction codes on that too.
She still had his phone and had left him with just one of their disposable pre-paid cells that they kept around for emergencies. He was deeply unimpressed with that in the morning. But she figured giving him his phone back – he might as well not have even been grounded. All he got left with was the family laptop to work away on. She didn't think they had much on that in ways of entertainment beyond music. All the other games her son would go looking for would've been on the family iPad and Will had taken that with him on his trip.
She wandered passed his home as she came down the hall and poked her head in the open door. He wasn't in there – but there was some evidence that he'd done some schoolwork during the day. Papers and textbooks were spread out on his desk and the laptop was in there. Though she noted that his bed was unmade and dirty clothes were on the floor. He didn't score bonus points for that, that's for sure.
She founded him in the kitchen. She'd told him that he was responsible for making them dinner – since he was going to be home the next few days. He'd sighed heavily at that too, like she was being totalitarian in her punishments for him.
"I'm home," she told him again and he glanced up from stirring at a pot.
"Good, we can finally eat," was all he said. It was hardly after 6 p.m. – she knew he couldn't be starving and she was actually a little earlier than what she'd told him to expect her.
"Hi Mom," she said for him – but he ignored her and took the pot over to the sink and dumped it into a strainer. "Hi, Noah."
She watched him as he shook off the pasta and then ran cold water of it and then shook it some more. Then he pulled a plate out of the cupboard and a serving spoon out of the drawer and started piling some of the carbs on his plate.
She sighed. She knew that was likely it. Noah's definition of pasta was still – literally – just pasta. He'd eat it plain. A habit he picked up while in chemo as a little boy. He went through a period where elbow pastas was about the only thing he'd eat – but only if it was plain and out of a box – not a bag, and not with mac-and-cheese powder on it, not even a dab of margarine on it.
The whole experience had still left her son as a picky eater, who she still fretted about if he was getting enough calories, protein, fats and nutrients for a boy his age and going through his growth and development. His growth and development had been stunted enough as it was. He was still behind most kids his age. She knew it frustrated him – even though he understood why, and had heard the 'everyone develops and grows at their own rate' adage repeatedly. Still, it all still seemed to make him angry; like it was some additional injustice he was having to endure.
"Is that all there is for dinner Noah?" She asked.
He opened the fridge door a little too forcibly and pulled out the bin of mixed greens and dropped it on the counter. "Salad," he said, nudging it at her.
She rolled her eyes but went and got a plate for herself, since he wasn't offering one and clearly didn't plan to serve her.
"I had kind of hoped you'd put a bit more effort into it than this, Noah," she told him as she put some pasta on her plate.
"You said to make dinner, I made dinner," he responded, pulling some of the spring mix out of the bin with his bare hand.
"I meant cook dinner," she said.
"I did," he spat back and glared at her.
"You boiled water," she told him sternly.
He just shrugged – and exited the kitchen to loudly pull out a chair at the dining room table and plop down.
She moved stuff around in their pantry cupboard and managed to find a jar of store-bought pasta sauce and opened it to spoon a bit onto her noodles and mixed it in in the hopes that it would be lukewarm, at least. She also grabbed a tomato, a cucumber, a bottle of vinaigrette and a knife – resources to bulk up her salad - before joining him at the table.
"I put chicken breasts in the fridge – and there's all those nice vegetables," she told him as she sat down. "Tomorrow – you can make a stir fry for us. Please – and thank you."
He glared at her from his side of the table. She knew he hated any cooking that involved much prep work and for Noah the chopping involved in a stir fry was about the worst kind of prep work. But she'd put the chicken breasts down for him that morning –hoping that he might take the hint and show some effort and creativity. That hadn't happened – so he was going to get to make what she said instead.
"So what did you accomplish today?" She asked as she started her meal.
"New jack-off record," he spat at her. "Since you had to go and take away everything, I had to make my own entertainment."
She didn't even look up from her plate – but rubbed her eyebrow. She knew he was fishing for a reaction – she wasn't going to give it to him. Though she did kind of want to laugh at him.
"So did you make much progress on your social science project?" She asked instead.
He crossed his arms and glared at her. "Didn't you hear me?"
She glanced at him from her meal – and gave him a small smile. He looked ridiculous sitting there and trying to be defiant – worse trying to upset her or shock her in someway by announcing his alleged masturbation.
"I heard you, Noah," she offered. "You want me to chastise you for masturbating? I won't. I don't care. Do I think if you really spent your whole day doing that, it was the best use of your time? No. I don't. You must be feeling a little chafed."
He went red, perhaps suddenly realizing what he'd just said and admitted to his mother, and huffed at her calling his bluff - and looked back to his plate. So she looked back to hers too.
"So did you make much progress on your social studies project?" She asked again.
"It's kind of hard to do when someone took away the Internet," he mumbled.
She gazed at him. "Have you picked a topic? We can find some websites tonight for you – and we'll give you access to them so you can work on your research tomorrow."
He shrugged.
"You'll pick a topic before you leave the table," she told him, getting to look at the top of his head. He made no response. "Did you pick a book from the book list? It looked like we have a lot of them already."
He shrugged again.
"Do we need to go over to the book store?"
He looked up at her – his eyes lighting up a bit. "We can go to the book store?"
"If you can tell me some of the books you are interested in – and why you're more interested in them then what we have here – then, yes, we can go to the book store."
He pushed the pasta around on his plate but put some of the field greens into his mouth and chewed in silence. She let it sit with him for a moment.
"Ender's Game is on the list," he said quietly. "Dad got me the graphic novels. I liked them."
She nodded. "And that's the book you want to read?"
He gave a little head bob.
"Did you go upstairs and check Dad's self?"
He shook his head.
"Do that after dinner. If he doesn't have it – we'll go to the store and pick it up."
His head shot up with a smile – but he quickly looked back to his plate to hide it.
"After you clean up the kitchen and dishes," she added, to make sure he didn't get too excited about getting some time out of the house.
"So if you didn't work on your project or your book report today – I hope a lot of your class work got done," she said.
He nodded a little bit more.
"What did you work on?"
"Math and Spanish," he said softly.
She nodded. "OK. I want to take a quick look before we go out."
Noah was just poking at his dinner again. "Put some of that in your belly, please, Noah," she reminded him again – and he – for once – obediently put another forkful in his mouth.
She watched him. "Are you ready to talk about what's going on?"
He shrugged – and she audibly sighed.
"Is Dad still going to bring me home a soccer jersey?" He asked quietly.
"Do you think you still deserve a soccer jersey?"
He shrugged again. "I guess not."
"Likely not," she agreed.
His head hung again. "I told some people already," he said almost at a whisper.
"Well, I guess you'll just have to explain to them that your little stunt lost you some privileges, won't you?"
He nodded. "They're going to make fun of me," he said quietly again and hung his head a bit lower. He lifted his one hand up to his face.
She tilted her head a bit more – trying to get him to make eye contact with her. "Are some kids giving you a hard time at school, Noah?"
He just shrugged. "Can I be excused?" He finally asked quietly – despite her steady gaze on him.
"Your social studies project topic," she said.
"The Bill of Rights, I guess," he said.
She nodded. "OK, clear the table," she told him gently.
He stood up and tried to keep his face turned from her but she could see it was flushed the way it did when he was trying to hold back tears – and she sighed.
She stood too and grabbed his elbow as he tried to go by her. She took the plate from him and put it back onto the table and pulled him to her. He pulled a way a bit at first but then let her wrap her arms around him – though he didn't bring his arms up to her to return the hug. She felt him stiffly looking over her shoulder and keeping his back and shoulders rigid - and his body away from her as much as he could. She rubbed his back and put a kiss on the top of his head – and then let go of him.
"I'm worried about you, sweets," she told him seriously, placing her hands on his cheeks and trying to gently tilt his eyes to look up at her. He still diverted them. "I wish you'd talk to me."
But he just shrugged and picked up his plate back from where she'd set it and trudged with it into the kitchen to rinse it off at the sink.