September 6, 2015
"I can't believe you let him talk you into this," Maureen said, smiling.
"He didn't have to try that hard," Olivia confessed.
It had in fact taken almost no convincing on Elliot's part; he'd suggested it once, quietly, carefully, while they lay together in the bed in Olivia's little white house, the bed that had been hers once but was theirs now, had been theirs in spirit since he fucked her in it back in March but had become theirs in actual fact in June, when he'd sold the apartment in Long Island City and moved in with her for good. He'd suggested it, once, gently, carefully, lying in bed with her, his fingers trailing lightly over the swell of her belly, and she'd thought about it. Thought about what it would mean, thought words like community, and love, and family, thought about the old saying about a whore in church. She'd thought about it, thought how foreign his faith was to her and how it comforted him, thought about the future, thought about their children, all six of them, and what might lay in store for those children as they grew. She thought about it, and she said yes.
And now she was standing here, in the backyard of Maureen's home on a warm summer afternoon, watching Elliot giving Carl pointers on the grill, watching his children and their partners sipping beers in the sunshine, Dickie playing some sort of incomprehensible game with Noah, watching with her own baby nestled in a sling around her chest. The scene felt like something from a dream, a Norman fucking Rockwell postcard of familial conviviality, a piece of normalcy she'd never known before she met Elliot, a way of life she'd never imagined possible. They'd spent the morning in church, and now they were at home - after a fashion, for the home that Elliot and Olivia had made was a few hours' drive away from this place - with their family, having a barbeque. If someone had told Olivia a year before where she'd be this September she would have laughed in their face, and she would have been wrong.
"He's been on me about the boys," Maureen admitted. "He thinks now that you've had Bella christened I'll do the same for the twins but until today I hadn't set foot in a church since my wedding and I don't think I can get up there and promise to raise my kids in the church."
Olivia understood Maureen's conflict all too well, for she'd shared it herself. Elliot was the one who went to church on Sundays, had found a quiet little chapel in town he liked and never pressured Olivia to go with him. He never made a production out of it, never said that since they were living together, since they were raising Noah and now little Bella together they ought to get the kids to church; he just went, and sometimes asked her if she'd like to go along and sometimes didn't, and never made her feel like he was disappointed if she said no. Which she did, most days; as her pregnancy progressed she only got more tired, more swollen, more out of sorts, and wasn't particularly inclined to spend her Sunday mornings at church when she could be in bed cuddling with Noah, and if she'd thought she was tired before Bella was born it was nothing compared to how she'd felt after, and Elliot had missed a fair number of Sundays himself, choosing to look after his girls instead.
But he'd asked Olivia if she'd like to christen their daughter, and Olivia had said yes. There were a good number of things Isabella Benson Stabler was going to have that her mother had not enjoyed as a child; a father who loved her, for a start. A house, with a big backyard and a swingset, a home filled with joy and laughter. A big brother who adored her already; two big brothers, really, and three big sisters, because as strange as it had been for everyone when Elliot first introduced Olivia to his children the theatrics had passed, and everyone was on the same team, now.
There were other things Olivia wanted for Bella, too. And this, the christening, was one of them. Olivia wasn't sure she believed in God, and she was damn sure she didn't agree with the Catholic church on a number of important matters, but she wanted Bella to have roots. Traditions to ground her, maybe something to rebel against when she was older. And the christening wasn't just about the promises Elliot and Olivia made to the church; the christening was about welcoming a new life to the family, was about hope and joy, and those things Olivia wanted for her daughter, more than anything.
They'd named Maureen and Carl as Bella's godparents; Olivia had made a few friends in town, mostly mothers she'd met when she finally caved and started Noah in daycare, but she didn't know them well, and she had cut ties with everyone from her old life. Everyone but Brian, who sent her a postcard now and then; he'd moved to Florida and was spending his days golfing and getting sunburned, and he seemed happy, for once. Olivia was grateful for that; Brian had had a hard road, and he deserved a little happiness, too. If she'd asked he'd have stood up with her today, she knew, would have accepted the mantle of godfather, but she'd asked so much from him already, and she didn't want him to spend too much time feeling nostalgic for the way things used to be. Oak House was behind them now, that chapter of their lives ended, and she thought it was best for both of them that it stay that way.
"I don't blame you," Olivia told Maureen honestly. "I think that's why your dad wanted to have the ceremony here in the city, instead of back home. I think he knows we won't be the most observant Catholics."
"And the priest here has no idea you're not one of us," Maureen said with a grin.
For a moment, just one brief second, Olivia felt a flash of something like fear.
They had been honest with Elliot's children to a certain extent; he'd admitted that he'd met Olivia while he was undercover, that she'd been involved in one of the cases he was working, that she'd fled the city for her own safety. He'd been unable to hide the fact that she was already pregnant with his child by the time his kids first learned of her existence, but the explanation that she'd been involved in his work seemed to mollify them; they seemed to understand why he couldn't have told them sooner, and - after Kathleen got over her initial fit of apoplexy when she learned her newest little sister would be born just a few weeks before her nephews - they seemed to have forgiven him.
What Elliot had not told them was the truth of Olivia's life before they met her. The kids didn't know that she had been a prostitute, that less than a year before she'd still been selling her body for cash. It's not my story to tell, Elliot had told Olivia when she asked him what they ought to do about it. What they know and how they learn it, that's up to you. He had given her the choice, allowed her to decide how much of the truth ought to be revealed and when, and she had, for now, elected to keep her past private. Oak House, and everything that went with it, that was in the past, and she wanted, very much, to focus on her future.
But much like the phoenix tattooed on her back she carried it with her still, and always would. In her heart she did not want to forget, did not want to forget the pain and the precious occasional joy of the first forty-some-odd years of her life, did not want to forget the friends she had made, however briefly, and the love they had given her, did not want to forget her struggles because she was proud of having overcome them, because those struggles had made her who she was. She did not want to forget, and she did not want to lie, and the day was coming, she thought, the day was coming when she would be ready to tell Elliot's children the truth. She could only hope they would be ready to hear it.
When Maureen said you're not one of us, then, she had not been talking about Olivia's past, had not been ostracizing Olivia from the family. She only meant that Olivia wasn't Catholic, and she was right on that score, and so Olivia forced herself to smile, and tried to let the sunshine thaw some of the chill from her heart.
"Bella will be, though," she said. Bella would be Catholic, after a fashion, and she was a Stabler by name, and she had been welcomed into this family. Noah had, too; the kids all loved him, and Elliot treated him like his own flesh and blood, and just the other day Noah had called Elliot dada - a word he had picked up from the other kids at daycare - and Olivia had watched Elliot tear up when he heard it, watched him bend down and scoop Noah into his arms and hold him tight. The question of marriage had not yet been raised - it would be soon, Olivia thought, because she knew her man, and she knew what he wanted, and she knew he was just waiting until he thought she was ready - but Elliot had very delicately broached the topic of adopting Noah himself. The request had caught her off guard and she'd asked for time to consider it, some part of her balking at the idea of sharing Noah with anyone when he had been hers and hers alone from the moment she first brought him home, but she was warming to the idea. If something happened to her she wanted to know her son was taken care of, wanted him to have a family, still, and there was no one who would love him more than Elliot.
Across the yard Elliot broke away from Carl, left his son-in-law to man the grill and made a beeline for the place where Olivia and Maureen stood together holding their babies - Maureen had Seamus in a sling around her chest just like the one Olivia wore, and Lizzie was fussing over Kieran - and as he approached she saw that he was smiling. Beaming, really, grinning fit to burst.
"Something about this makes me nervous," he said to them, waving his hand back and forth between them. "Feels like you're plotting something."
"Maybe we are," Maureen said archly. "Maybe we're trying to decide how we're going to hide your body if you don't hurry up and ask Olivia to marry you."
Elliot had been in the very act of taking a sip of his beer, and he promptly choked on it, his face turning an alarming shade of red while Olivia's own heart gave a great leap. She and Maureen had of course not been discussing the prospect of Elliot and Olivia getting married, and the question of whether they would - whether he would even ask - was so fraught Olivia didn't even know where to begin trying to unpick it, and it involved rather a lot details Maureen was of necessity not privy to. She had no idea how to salvage this moment and save Elliot the embarrassment of trying to respond, but Maureen continued smoothly, as if she hadn't expected him to say anything at all.
"I just want you to know we won't be mad if you do," she said. "We all talked about it last night. We're grownups, Dad. We aren't going to throw a tantrum if you get remarried."
To tell the truth, Olivia had been a little worried about that. It had been a long time since Elliot's wife had died, since his children had lost their mother, but Kathy was still their mother, and Olivia still was not, and she'd wondered if they'd resent her for being with their father, if they'd think she was trying to take their mother's place. Evidently the kids had had a little conference amongst themselves and she had no reason not to believe Maureen now, but still. It felt soon, somehow, too soon, maybe; Bella was barely two months old, and the four of them, Elliot and Olivia and Noah and Bella, were still in many ways just getting used to each other. But one day, maybe. One day they would be ready, and when that day came they had Elliot's children's blessing - or Maureen's at least, and as the oldest she often kept the others in line - and that thought was a comfort to her.
"Thanks, Mo," Elliot said, winding his arm around Olivia's face, glancing down into the face of their daughter, sleeping peacefully against her mother's chest. "That means a lot."
"It really does," Olivia said earnestly.
"Someone bring me a plate!" Carl bellowed from across the yard. "Food's ready!"
Kathleen scuttled off to do as he asked, and Dickie scooped Noah up and settled the boy on his shoulders and fell into step beside Lizzie, still carrying little Kieran, and Elliot and Olivia watched them troop over to the picnic table Maureen had set up where the rest of the food was already waiting, covered to protect it from the flies and ready for them to dig in. It was a beautiful day, and the food was ready, and all of Olivia's family was gathered in one place.
"Come on," Elliot said, kissing her temple gently. "Let's eat."
And so they did, all of them together, and in the warm sunshine of that Sunday afternoon Olivia's heart found peace, surrounded by those she loved most, surrounded by comfort, and joy, and the welcoming warmth of family.