XLV:

"Hi," came a soft voice from the doorway. "Officer Tamin said I could come in. You probably don't remember me – I'm…"

"Kathleen Stabler," Olivia said with a smile, gesturing for her to come in and sit down. "It's been a while," she acknowledged.

"Yeah," Kathleen said, settling into a guest chair and fiddling with the nameplate on the desk. "Captain Benson, eh? Things change a lot I guess –"

"Ten years," Liv said pointedly.

"Dad and Eli are at the funeral home," Kathleen said. "He wants you to be there but he doesn't know how to ask. So I… came to ask. Even though it's not a good idea."

Liv sighed and said, "I don't think that that's a good idea. It would disrupt your family's –"

"Let's just cut the crap, okay?" Kathleen finally said. "You were pregnant when dad initially put in his papers. He told mom and she accused him of sleeping with you."

Liv barked out a bitter laugh. "I'm so tired of this already," she said. "I have never slept with Elliot Stabler. I have no desire to. I am content where I am, thank you very much."

"Captain Benson of SVU?" Kathleen asked, raising a brow.

"My new nameplate isn't here yet," Liv scoffed. "HR is a nightmare when you change your name, which is part of why I wanted to leave it alone, but… my husband puts up with a lot of shit and there's no point in me not sharing this part of him, too."

"You're married?"

"Yeah, for thirteen years," Liv said, her voice involuntarily softening. "To someone who is my everything. We have children, a house, a car, thinking about a cat… but with the kids, I'm afraid someone's going to get hurt. Not necessarily the kids."

Kathleen stifled a chuckle. "Your husband – what does he –"

"He was a prosecutor, but now he's a family court judge," she said softly. "He has helped me stand on my feet through the worst storms of my life, and I would never do anything – anything – to jeopardize the life we have together. Our family, this life… it's all that I've ever wanted, and he's given it to me, Kathleen. I love him so much. Even if we didn't have the kids, I wouldn't do anything to hurt him. I couldn't. He means too much."

"You said you've been married for –"

"Thirteen years," Liv said. "And we saw each other for a while before that. But your father was very vocal in his disapproval of the man who was taking me out and it didn't matter who he was, so I wasn't inclined to share details with him."

Kathleen paused, then said, "You knew though… about the affair."

Liv hesitated for a long moment, then sighed. "I know a lot of things that I wish I didn't," she said quietly. "Things that I bartered silence for in flesh and pieces of my soul. Things that you don't need to know. The past is the past and there's no point in dragging it back over the coals again, Kath."

Kathleen frowned. "Will you come to the funeral?"

Liv shrugged. "If I do, I'm bringing my family."

The funeral was the next day and Liv still hadn't decided if she was going to go. The early chill of winter had settled in and she wasn't sure how much the kids could stand before they would whine about their cold weather gear being too much. And they were too young to understand proper funeral etiquette: but like hell she was going to do the thing without her family.

Finally, in the end, she sent Elliot a text saying that she would be unable to make it.

Surprisingly, she didn't feel guilty at all. She wasn't beholden to her ex-partner or his family, despite the years she had spent practically at his beck and call. Her family was her priority now, and as she watched Annie dance around the living room in the leftover bits of her fairy costume from Halloween, a sparkly wand in her hand and a giggle on her lips, she knew that she was doing the right thing.

"Hey," Rafael said as he came home. "You're home early –"

"Yeah," she agreed. "I finished up early and got the heck out of there. Not soon enough to pick Noah up, mind you – Lucy's getting him to and from his drama class – but early enough to be here when Annie woke up from her nap."

"We had muffies," Annie announced, "an' juicies."

Rafael chuckled. "Mami does love muffins and juice," he acknowledged. "Do I need to order dinner, mi amor?"

"We've got leftovers."

"That wasn't the question." He came over and wrapped his arms around her, letting her relax against him, surrendering her strength for a while. "Do I need to order dinner? Will it make things easier? Will it make you happy?"

"We have plenty of food in the fridge already –"

"Olivia Margaret Benson, so help me –"

"All right, maybe pizza," she sighed. "Or the good ramen."

"Pizza tonight and the good ramen tomorrow?" he suggested.

"I love you," she confessed softly. "Do you even know how much?"

"Oh, I'm pretty sure I have a clue –"

"No, Rafa, I mean it," Liv murmured. "You know me better than I know myself, always, and you're so quick to anticipate our needs as a family –"

"That's just practice," he dismissed. "I'm pretty crap as a husband and dad. I can't clean up a skinned knee and nearly fainted when Noah wiped out on his scooter, remember?"

"Yes, but you ran him right into the ER," she pointed out softly. "And you made sure he was all right before you did throw up."

"And I'm pretty terrified of what's going to happen with the new baby," he admitted.

"You and me both," she agreed.

"But we're going to get through it," Rafael promised. "All of it. Because that's what we do, Olivia: we take care of each other and our family and we get through it." He kissed the side of her neck and hummed. "Te amo, mi amor." The words were soft, full of reverence, almost like a benediction or a prayer, breathed against her skin, and she reveled in them, took joy and strength from them, wished that she could believe in herself just as much as he believed in her.

But she always felt like she fell short of the mark.

"What if getting through it just isn't enough?" Liv asked.

"Then we pull up our big girl panties and try again," he growled, nipping at her neck. "You know the drill."

"You and Noah have boxers."

"Semantics." He paused. "Are you worried about Stabler retaliating because you didn't go to Kathy's funeral today?"

"Honey, I'm worried he's going to go back to your office," she said very quietly.

He pulled away from her, studied her. "How did you know about that?"

"You might not have thought it was a big deal but Carmen was clearly alarmed enough to call Fin and ask him to make sure that Elliot knew that you might not be willing to press charges but she was going to speak to his superior officer about his conduct." She leveled her gaze at him. "You're lucky your clerk wasn't in the room. It would've been a non-negotiable as far as filing harassment charges at that point."

Rafael shrugged. "Carmen is more reasonable than Bruce is. I really don't care for Stabler. He thinks he's a bigger man just because… he's a bigger man. And brute force –" He hesitated for a long moment, clearly thinking about what he wanted to say before he seemed to deflate. "Brute force doesn't win the heart of my fair lady, does it?"

"Rafi… you don't have to compete with him to win me," Liv said softly. "You had me from the moment you took me upstairs to your apartment that smelled like coffee and gave me that goofy little smile of yours and casually knocked my heart out of my chest." She took a step forward and so did he, meeting in the middle for a deeply tender kiss that brought tears to her eyes.

Especially when Annie tugged on her pant leg and giggled. "You guys kissin' a-gin." Her little face was turned up, up, up at them, her neck at an unnatural angle as she watched, her curly hair bouncing.

Rafael laughed. "Yes, we are, mija – mami and papi like kissing each other. Because we love each other very much."

"I don' like kissying Noah," Annie said. "He smewws wike poopies." She cackled as she said that, as if it was the funniest joke ever on the face of the earth.

"Constance! That isn't funny at all: saying that will hurt Noah's feelings," Liv scolded.

"Noah says I smell like poots," Annie replied.

"And we're having a third," Rafael said with a deep chuckle that he tried to hold back.

"Nobody in this house smells like excrement or –"

"Wha'sat?" Annie said.

"Poopies," Rafael replied.

"Oh, 'kay."

"And I don't want to hear anyone say that anymore," Liv said softly, getting down on her daughter's level. "It's not funny to make fun of people, sweetheart. And saying things like that can really hurt."

"Do papi say fings dat huwt you?" Annie asked, concerned.

"Sometimes," Liv said gently. "He doesn't mean to, but it happens. And sometimes I say things that hurt him and I don't mean to. And sometimes, we're angry with each other and we do mean to say things that hurt – that's when we fight."

"Me no wike dat."

"Neither do we," she whispered, giving Annie a kiss. "You need to be nicer to Noah. And you better be nice to your little sister when she gets here or there will be consequences."

Annie's eyes got wide. "Not comiqueences, momma."

Olivia nearly laughed at her daughter's comical horror. "Well, if you're good…"

"I'll be good!"

Rafael was desperately trying to keep a straight face. "Mija, what kind of pizza do you want?" he asked.

"Gamma swice!" Annie squealed, her threat of punishment forgotten in the shiny, glittery pursuit of food and a change of subject. A grandma slice was her favorite since Carisi had introduced her to it on an outing to the Brooklyn Zoo with Billie and her father rarely refused to indulge her.

"You spoil her rotten," Liv accused.

"I spoil you all rotten," he pointed out with a grin. "You want the usual?"

"Sounds good. No use reinventing the wheel," she replied. "Annie, you've got glitter in your hair –"

"I know, momma," Annie sighed.

"Let's go upstairs and get it out," Liv insisted. "And by the time you're done with your bath, daddy will have supper here."

She ushered the little girl upstairs and got her into the tub, then let her play in the water for a while. Then she got her hair sudsed up and rinsed off. All the while, Annie was happily babbling nonsense to her mother. "Momma?"

"Yes?"

"Gonna love us when baby sisser comes?" Annie asked, suddenly concerned.

"Of course I am," Liv replied, leaning down and giving her a kiss. "You're my only Annie. I love you to the moon and back, baby girl."

"To da moom," Annie agreed solemnly. "Dat's a whow wot. It's eleventy thousands millionty."

"It is," Liv responded with equal solemnity, though she struggled to keep a straight face. "I love you and Noah more than all the stars in the sky. Can you count them all?"

"Nuh-uh. Nobody can."

"Because there are soooo many." Liv finally smiled and pressed a kiss to her daughter's forehead. "You ready to get dry now?"

"Uh-huh," Annie said, nodding her head vigorously like a bobblehead doll on a dashboard jerking down the highway. "Pizza noms."

Liv grabbed a towel and shook it out, then pulled the plug in the tub and watched the whirlpool suck down the dirty, soapy water. "Okay, little miss trouble," she said, "get over here." She scooped Annie up in the towel and hefted her high in the air, then clutched her to her breast for a long moment. "I love you so much, baby girl," she whispered. "Always and forever, you're mama's baby girl – even when you get big as I am."

"I never gonna be dat big!" Annie scoffed.

"Aren't you?" Liv questioned, setting about drying her daughter off and getting her hair combed out and braided. "Someday, you might be taller than daddy and mommy – or even Noah."

"Dat's siwwy," Annie said, shaking her head.

"You never know," Liv countered gently, getting her into her clean jammies and slippers. She patted the little girl on the bottom and said, "Right, now, out to the kitchen with you – daddy's going to get your pizza ready."

"Pizza!" Annie shrieked. "Papi!" She tore out of the room, slipping and sliding on the tile until her little feet found purchase on the carpet in the hallway, then she was on her way. Liv followed her at a much more sedate pace into the kitchen where Rafael had already set out paper plates with slices of pizza for them.

I love you, Liv mouthed so he could read her lips. He smiled back in reply, winking at the same time as he was busy strapping their toddler into her high chair. There was very little as sexy as a good father who knew how to dote on his family, and he knew how to work that angle very well.

Liv was three bites into her pepperoni and pepperoncini with buffalo mozzarella when the doorbell rang. She was faintly annoyed by it, but gestured for Rafael to stay with the kids, their pizza, and his enormous salad, while she got up and went to answer it.

She wiped her mouth with her napkin as she opened the door, unimpressed to find Elliot Stabler standing there. "El," Liv greeted cautiously. "We're in the middle of dinner."

"I – you didn't come," he began, running his hand over his head nervously.

"It was too cold for the kids," she said.

"I needed you there."

She exhaled roughly and shut the door, leaning against the jamb in the cold. "You think I didn't hear you went to Rafael's office?" Liv said very quietly.

"Oh come on," he scoffed. "I had to make sure he was good enough for you –"

"You don't get to make that choice, Elliot, and I made it a long ass time ago – well before you left," she said, her tone as icy as the wind. "So don't think for one second you can get away with fucking with Rafa now because I will cut your dick and balls off and hand them back to you." She was glaring at him then, her anger only held in check by the fact that she didn't actually have the money for bail just hanging around in the bank. "I didn't go to Kathy's funeral because we aren't those people. You think you need me, but I don't need this. I have my own shit to deal with, and most of it is wrapped up in a cute little package with pigtails and what's supposed to be a three-year-old's innocence. But don't let that fool you: she is her father's devil demon child." Liv rolled her eyes and sighed. "Elliot… ten years is a long time."

He watched her for a long moment, then hesitated before he pulled an envelope out of his puffer jacket's pocket. "Olivia… I've made a lot of mistakes in my life," he said. "Read this, don't read it, burn it, whatever brings you peace. But eventually, we have to talk about everything."

She wanted to laugh until she was crying, but that would be a futile gesture. "Does that mean you're staying?" she asked.

"Someone has to take care of my mother," he said with a sigh. "We were coming back to New York anyway because of Ma –"

Liv felt a stab of fury in her gut, but she breathed through it. Why did he get to come back and get away scot-free from what he had done? Because she had vouched for him. Because she had made it all possible. Because she had set it all in motion by covering for his affair and the little lies to IAB and sleeping with Tucker and –

"I need to go." Her fingers fumbled with the doorknob, barely finding a grip on the handle as she yanked on it desperately. Once she was inside and the door locked safely behind her, she didn't feel any better; the barrier was only temporary, only physically between him and her. The painful memories just continued to swirl torturously around her head, and she couldn't get a fix on reality.

The foyer light flicked on and Rafael stood at the other end of the corridor, bathed in shadows, but she could see how worried he was. "Mi vida?" he questioned.

"It was Stabler," she said, her voice unsteady though she tried to remain calm. "He wanted to know why I wasn't at the funeral. He needed me."

"Fuck him," Rafael spat. "Come here, mi amor," he added on a whisper.

All he did was hold her, but it was enough. It was always enough.

TBC...