Chapter Text
News travels fast through the NYPD – especially when that news is one of the precincts falling victim to the rash of smash-and-grabs that have been happening all over the city. So Elliot isn’t surprised he hears about the 16th precinct getting smashed within two hours of it happening, he’s just a little surprised he doesn’t hear about it from his wife.
He tells himself not to be annoyed by it, tells himself she’s no doubt got her hands full dealing with the aftermath and that if she’d gotten hurt, someone would have called him. Fin would have known to call him, just like Ayanna knows to call Liv.
So he tries not to be bothered by it, but he does immediately step out into the hall to call her and check in. Olivia picks up on the second ring, doesn’t even say hello, just greets him with a frazzled, “I’m fine, everything’s—” She sucks in a breath, lets it out on a sigh, and he can almost see the way she’s probably shoving her fingers through her hair, raking the strands out of her face. “We’re alright.”
“Okay,” he tells her, keeps his voice easy, lets that little bubble of annoyance pop, because she sounds overwhelmed and irritated, and he doesn’t want to add to the pile. “Just wanted to hear your voice, make sure you were safe.”
“I am—It’s—It could have been a lot worse.” He watches the fan at the end of the hallway spin slowly as she continues, “Just a bunch of teenagers trying to prove a point—nobody got hurt, but the squad room’s a mess and McGrath is up my ass about the whole thing.”
“Gonna be a late night?” It’s not really a question; they both know the answer, and when she hums an affirmative, he asks, “Anything I can do? Bring you dinner, maybe?”
“No,” she tells him, “No, don’t do that. They tightened security at the precinct; it’ll be a hassle to get in and out. But could you—” She stops, doesn’t start again.
He drops his voice low enough that the soft whir of the fan will cover it for anyone but them. “Could I what, baby?”
“It’s—you have your hands full with your mother, I can’t ask you to—”
“Yes, you can,” he insists. “You can always ask. What do you need?”
“Noah.”
Of course. He should have thought of that, should have offered that, but he’d been so focused on Liv and her safety that his mind hadn’t quite made it that far. Before she even gets another word out, he asks, “You need me to pick him up from dance?”
“Yeah—How’d you—?”
“It’s on the calendar,” he reminds her. The shared calendar they’d set up months ago, the one with Noah’s dance classes and school conferences, his mother’s doctor appointments. Martha’s days off, and Antonia’s now, too. He hadn’t had it on his burner phone, hadn’t had access to it while he was UC, but he’s back now. Back on his own phone, back in his own life, back to starting the day by checking his calendar and seeing things like Noah - Int Tap blocking off 90 minutes of his evening.
“Right,” Liv breathes, murmuring again, quietly, “Right.” And then, “Martha’s dropping him off, but I’m supposed to pick him up at eight and there’s no way I’m gonna be out of here by then.”
“Okay,” Elliot tells her, “I’ve got him. I’ll text him and let him know; don’t worry about it.”
“El, I can’t—I can’t ask you to do that. Your mom—”
“Liv, he’s my son,” Elliot reminds her; he doesn’t miss the way her breath catches on the other end of the line. “I can pick him up; let me worry about Mama. I’m the one you call when you need someone to pick our kid up from dance.”
There’s quiet for half a second, and then her voice, softer than before, a little hesitant in a way he hates as she apologizes, telling him, “Sorry, I’m, uh… I’m not used to you being here for things like that.”
Elliot feels the pinch of guilt, but he smiles around it anyway, and tells her, “Get used to it. I’m home now.”
Not home, with her. Not yet. They’d talked about it when he came over last week—about how he needs to stay in Queens, for now. About how he needs to stay with his mother until they’ve got everything worked out for her long term care, about how they have a little more time to figure out the logistics of being Elliot and Olivia, married and cohabitating. But that doesn’t mean he can’t take a night off – can’t call in help every now and then so he can be there for his new family just as much as for his flesh and blood.
He knows it’s the right call when Olivia’s voice comes over the line, sweet and soft in that way he’s missed so damn much. That way that feels like it’s just for him. She tells him, “I love you,” whispers it like a secret, even though he can tell from the lack of background noise that sometime during the course of their conversation she’d wandered somewhere private and quiet.
“Love you, too,” he murmurs. “Let me know when you’re on your way? I’ll save you some dinner.”
“Will you be in Queens or—?”
“Nah,” Elliot answers. “Noah should be at home. I’ll call Randall to stay with Mama.”
“I’m sure he’ll love that,” Liv drawls, and Elliot huffs a soft chuckle.
“He’ll be alright. I hear she has him watching Chopped.”
He hears noise in the background again, hears Olivia say, “One minute” to someone who isn’t him, her voice a little muffled. And then she’s back with him, telling him, “I’ve gotta go.”
“Don’t let me keep you,” Elliot answers. “I’ll text you when I have Noah.”
“Thank you. And El—thank you.”
He tells her, “Of course, baby.”
And then he ends the call, and pulls up his brother’s contact.
.::.
He lies to Randall, tells him he has to work late.
He hasn’t told the rest of his kids about the marriage yet, much less his mostly-estranged brother. He knows that Randall had noticed the photo of Liv and Noah tucked in amongst all the rest of the family photos, that he’d asked Mama about it while Elliot was still at work the day he’d arrived. Mama had, predictably, told him the truth—that it was her grandson, that it was Elliot’s wife—and thankfully Randall had chalked it all up to their mother’s increasing confusion and texted Dickie to find out what was really going on.
Elliot hadn’t particularly enjoyed the look in his brother’s eye when he’d brought it up a couple of days later—knowing and a little judgmental when he’d asked, “So, dating your old partner, huh? Rich told me.” There’d been an assumption to it—the same you’re just like Dad tone that had colored Randall’s jabs about Elliot’s work taking him away from the family.
Elliot had clenched his jaw, told him, “We reconnected after I moved back to the city. After Kathy passed, Liv really stepped up for the kids. And for me. Eventually… it became more.”
“Sounds like a nice lady,” Randall had said, but there’d still been something there. A fake politeness, like he’d thought Elliot was full of shit.
“She is,” Elliot had told him. “I don’t deserve her.”
Randall had grinned at that, wide and quick, taking Elliot’s bait and quipping, “I’m sure that’s true,” before giving him a slap on the back and changing the subject.
So no, he’s not telling his brother that he’s asking him to watch their mother for the night so he can go pick up his ex-partner’s kid and spend the night at her place. He’s certainly not going to explain that what he’s really doing is picking up his step-son and spending the night with his wife for the first time in almost a week.
Let him think Elliot’s spending the night hunting down criminals—it doesn’t involve as many questions in the morning.
.::.
He’s early to pick up Noah—makes sure he arrives with about fifteen minutes to spare, and watches the last several minutes of Noah’s class from the hallway outside the studio with all the other dance parents. He’s not unaware of the eyes on him; three of the dance moms are clustered a few feet away, whispering. If they’re trying to be subtle about the way they’re eyeing him, they’re not doing a very good job. He can’t say he blames them—if some muscley bald guy had shown up and hung around Lizzie’s dance classes, he’d have been suspicious too.
He’s about thirty seconds away from just introducing himself and putting them out of their misery when one of the moms breaks away from the group and approaches him, looking mildly annoyed but fully confident. He braces himself for having to verbally disarm her, but when she reaches him all she says is, “You’re here for Noah, aren’t you?”
Elliot’s brows lift, the corner of his mouth tipping up into a smirk. “What gave it away?”
“The badge and gun,” she answers, before turning her head back toward the other women and giving them a look that screams, I told you so. Elliot watches as the women relax, the one next to him turning back to him and pointing out, “You probably shouldn’t have that in here, you know. The gun. With all these kids around.”
Elliot frowns, his hand dropping to cover the grip of his sidearm. “Yeah, I, uh—I probably should have left it in the car. Habit.”
“You don’t have kids, huh?”
“Five of them, actually,” he answers, thinking, Six if you count Noah, and he does. “Just been a while since I picked one of them up from dance class. Most of mine are grown now.”
Dance Mom’s brows had shot up at five—a reaction he’s used to by now, and mostly ignores. “Five, wow. Good for you, I guess. Or I’m sorry. I can’t imagine being that outnumbered.”
Elliot laughs, nodding his head, and telling him, “My wife was SuperMom. And it was great, but… yeah, definitely outnumbered. Our youngest was a surprise—the older kids were in high school—so we had a lot more time with just him. It was definitely different than having four little kids in the house at once.”
“I bet. How old is he now?” she asks.
“College,” Elliot answers, before pivoting and asking, “Which one’s yours?”
“Sofia,” she answers. “Two over from Noah’s right.”
She doesn’t give him anything more than that, and Elliot wonders if she’s still testing him, just a little. But he looks two spots to Noah’s right and sees a girl with dark hair pulled back into a braided bun, a sunny yellow scrunchie wrapped around the base of it.
“Yellow scrunchie?” he asks, and Sofia’s mom nods, satisfied. “She’s good.”
“She is,” Sofia’s mom agrees. “So is Noah.”
“Yeah,” Elliot murmurs, eyes on the kids as they go through their routine one final time. “I don’t get a lot of opportunities to see him dance, but Olivia brags on him all the time.”
He sees Sofia’s mom nodding slowly out of the corner of his eye, and then she finally asks, “How’d you get saddled with pick-up duty?”
“She’s stuck at work; didn’t think she’d make it in time.” Just to prove he does, in fact, know Noah, his mom, and the babysitter, Elliot adds, “Martha has the night off.”
“So, the usual,” Sofia’s mom says, matter of fact.
Something about it rankles Elliot. He knows Olivia has missed out on a lot; he also knows how much it bothers her. How hard she tries.
“Trust me, she’d rather be here,” he murmurs, arms crossing. He keeps his eyes on the dancers, adding, “We’d always rather be here.”
“Right, sorry—” He thinks she might actually be; it sounds sincere. “I just meant—she has to make other arrangements a lot, that’s all. I bet it was hard making it to everything for five, being a cop.”
Elliot scoffs lightly, nodding. “Yeah. I, uh… I missed a lot. Someone always had something, y’know?”
“I can barely keep up with Sofia,” her mom agrees. And then she goes digging again, asking a little too casually, “How do you know Olivia?”
Elliot has to fight back a chuckle. He’s pretty sure he’s being pumped for the dance mom gossip mill, but he doesn’t mind all that much. He’s sure this won’t be the last time he picks up Noah, and if he only has to sit through the not-so-subtle game of twenty-questions once, all the better. Let Sofia’s mom get all the dirt and tell the other moms, get it out of the way.
“She’s my partner,” he answers, even though it’s not really… right. But calling her his girlfriend has never sounded right, and calling her his wife is off-limits for now. “Or she was—for a decade. Now, uh—”
Sofia’s mom’s face lights up with recognition, and she cuts him off, says, “Oh, you’re Liz’s dad.”
Elliot frowns in confusion. “Yeah—How do you know Lizzie?”
“She picked Noah up a few times back in the fall.”
That’s news to him. It warms his heart a little, though—the idea of Lizzie and Noah hanging out. He knows he’s spent time with Kathleen, that she’s babysat for Olivia several times since she came back into their lives, but not the rest of the kids. He wonders what else he’d missed while he was under.
“Oh. I, uh, I was away for a while. I didn’t know.”
Sofia’s mom is looking at Elliot now like she knows exactly who he is. He can’t imagine she hadn’t suspected before, but now she knows. He’s Olivia’s.
“Well, I’m sure they’re all glad to have you back,” she tells him, and then the studio door is opening, and the kids are spilling out. Sofia is chattering away with one of the other girls, waving her mom toward her and begging for a sleepover.
They don’t even say a proper goodbye, but Elliot doesn’t care. He’s caught up looking for Noah’s curls amidst the cluster of ponytails and buns, waving at him when he finally spies him.
Noah’s face lights up when he sees him, flashing a wide grin that makes Elliot’s heart clench, his own smile spreading.
“Hey, Elliot!” Noah greets as he trots over, a backpack and dance bag slung over one shoulder.
“Hey, bud,” Elliot answers, holding out his hand and taking both bags, dropping his arm over Noah’s shoulder in their place. “Mom’s stuck at work, so it’s just us for a little bit. Hope that’s okay.”
Noah nods, and tells him, “Sounds like fun.”
.::.
They’ve been in the car for about a minute when Noah asks him, “Is that goatee thingy for work? Like a disguise or something?”
Elliot rubs his hand over it, telling him, “Yeah, it was. Grew it out after I left.”
“Are you keeping it?”
“Why? You don’t like it?”
Noah shrugs and tells him, “It’s different.” What a ringing endorsement. “What does Mom think?”
He thinks of that night with Olivia back in the fall. The way she’d shivered and gasped at the feel of his beard on her inner thighs. He shakes the thought away almost as quickly as it comes, clearing his throat slightly and telling Noah, “She hasn’t complained.”
And then he changes the subject, asking, “You hungry? Want to order pizza when we get in?”
Noah grimaces, his voice a little hesitant when he asks, “Can we not? We’ve had pizza like three times this week.”
That gives Elliot pause. Noah loves pizza, asks for it at least a couple times a week, but he knows Olivia rarely says yes more than once. She’s no longer the partner that used to survive on Chinese takeout and dirty water dogs with a fridge full of condiments and not much else. These days, she’s the Mom who makes balanced meals and saves the leftovers—even if those meals are sometimes Annie’s mac and cheese with frozen peas and a couple of chicken sausages.
Pizza three times in one week isn’t her style, not anymore. He knows she’s been buried in this case, knows that she’d been keyed up and not exactly herself when he’d seen her last week, but he’d thought a lot of that had been his fault. The whole fentanyl ordeal on top of the stress of the Maddie Flynn investigation. When he’d left on Wednesday morning, she’d been smiling again. He knows they still haven't found Maddie, knows it’s still keeping her up at night, but she can usually pull it together for Noah, if nothing else.
He feels immediately guilty that he hadn’t done a better job of checking in with her over the last few days. He’d been so busy untangling all the threads of these cases with Bashir that he and Liv hadn’t done much more than text back and forth. He’d sent her flowers yesterday, the same way he does every weekend now—roses and anemones this time, muted and peachy-pink—something to make her smile. When he’d been under, they’d been his way of telling her he was alright, that he was thinking of her, a way to reach out when he hadn’t been able to reach out for real.
But he’s back now, and he can reach out, and Noah’s casual admission has him thinking he probably should have done more—should have made sure to talk to her once a day, not just bookend their days with a few messages back and forth. It’s harder for her to hide from him when he can hear her voice.
As they pull up to a red light, he tells Noah, “Yeah, we can do something else. You guys need groceries? We can stop on the way home.”
Noah nods, says, “Probably, yeah.”
And then Elliot asks, “How’s, uh, how’s your mom doing?”
“Not great,” Noah admits. Elliot wonders if he’s telling him simply because he trusts him, or because Olivia really is doing that badly. “Did she tell you about the missing girl? Maddie?”
“Yeah,” Elliot tells him. “Yeah, she told me.”
“She’s kinda obsessed with it, I think,” Noah confesses. “She’s distracted a lot, and she looks kinda sad, and she’s always tired. I don’t really think she’s sleeping.”
“It’s hard—the missing kids. Especially doing the work your mom and I did—do. We know too much, y’know?” He sees Noah nod out of the corner of his eye. “Those were always the hardest cases when I was working SVU. I couldn’t help thinking about my own kids the whole time—how scared I’d be if they were missing.”
The light changes; Elliot shifts his foot from the brake to the gas.
“Did Mom ever tell you I got kidnapped when I was little?”
Elliot’s head whips in Noah’s direction, his eyes leaving the road for a second longer than was probably safe. “You—what?”
No, she sure as fuck hadn’t.
Noah nods again, shockingly matter-of-fact about the whole thing, but it makes a little more sense when he starts offering up the details, “My Grandma Sheila took me—Ellie’s mom. My birth mom’s mom. I guess they didn’t know about her before Mom adopted me, and she thought I should have gone to her instead. So she took me.”
“That must have been scary,” Elliot says, but Noah just screws up his face into a thoughtful frown.
“I didn’t really know until after,” he admits. “I’d known her for a little while already, and she had me go with a friend of hers and said we’d meet up with her later. I just thought we were taking a trip. She even pretended to call Mom to check in, like she knew about the whole thing. We went to her cabin up north, and I got to play in the woods and see deer and stuff. I didn’t know what was really happening until Mom showed up to take me back.”
Jesus. He thinks of all the parents of missing kids they’d dealt with over the years. The panic, the terror, the frantic, anxious drive to get answers, to get their kids back. And those parents didn’t even know a fraction of what the squad did about the horrors that could be happening to their kids. He imagines Liv, then—how fucking terrified she must have been to lose Noah, knowing everything she knows. Knowing how desperately she’d wanted to be a mom, how lucky she’d been to even be given Noah in the first place.
No wonder she’s tying herself in knots over this missing girl. She knows too much—too much about the depravity that’s out there, too much about the case itself, too much about what it’s like to be helpless, waiting, wondering when you’ll ever see your child again.
Elliot shifts his grip on the wheel, fighting the urge to turn his SUV toward the precinct and muscle his way through security just so he can get his hands on Olivia. Just so he can hug her, long and hard, until her muscles start to unclench. Just so he can apologize for not being there for another terrifying ordeal that had happened in his absence.
“Well, I’m, um. I’m glad she got you back,” Elliot tells him, not sure what else to say, his mind churning over the new information.
“Me too,” Noah nods, turning his head and watching the city roll by outside the window. “She’ll find Maddie, too,” he says, after a minute. “It’s what she does.”
Elliot really, really hopes Noah turns out to be right.
.::.
They go to Trader Joe’s for groceries—something Elliot immediately regrets when he sees how crowded the place is.
“Is Tuesday night unofficial grocery night for the whole Upper West Side or something?” he asks Noah as they maneuver a cart through the space.
“You should see it on Sunday,” Noah tells him. “Mom says she’d rather go to Westside when she gets off work at midnight than Trader Joe’s on a Sunday. The line is like a million years long.”
Elliot thinks they might be looking at another million-year line tonight, but their triple-pizza week has him suspecting the cupboards might be getting a little bare, and picking up groceries is something easy he can do to lighten her load. So he’ll brave the throngs of shoppers and let Noah lead him around and add all the things they usually get to the cart.
He’s pretty sure they don’t usually get two cartons of peanut butter cups and a box of Cinnamon Joe-Joe’s, but he also knows Olivia has a sweet tooth and it sounds like she could use some comfort food right now. So Elliot doesn’t protest, asking instead, “What does Mom like? We should get some snacks for her to bring to work, too.”
Because if she’s not eating well at home, chances are she’s living on hazelnut drip and whatever she can rattle out of that vending machine in the precinct break room during the day.
“She likes those dried mangos,” Noah answers. “We should get her some of those.”
So they get the mangoes, and they get some of those garlic naan crackers he once watched her munch her way through nearly half a box of on their way up to Woodstock and back. They also load up on frozen entrees and sides, things that will be easy to heat up on days when Olivia feels like cooking is too much—things Noah can help prepare without too much trouble.
They buy way too much, the cart ridiculously full; for once he’s hoping he’ll find her fridge and freezer nearly empty, if for no other reason than he’s worried about where everything will fit.
They’re five minutes into checkout line purgatory when Noah asks, out of the blue, “Are you and Mom still married?”
Elliot’s brows fly up. Where did that come from?
“Yeah, of course,” he tells him. “That’s kind of a lifetime thing, you know.”
“Not always.” Noah shrugs. “I have lots of friends whose parents are divorced.”
“We’re not divorced,” Elliot insists. “Me and your mom are still very much married.”
“Then why haven’t you been around since you got back?” Noah asks him. “It’s been like a week, right?”
He doesn’t tell Noah that he has been to their place since his return—both because he doesn’t want to risk any hurt feelings over him not staying long enough to see Noah in the morning, and because Noah is old enough to know exactly what they were doing if he admits he came after bedtime and left before breakfast. And neither of them need that uncomfortable revelation hanging over their heads for the rest of the evening.
“Yeah, we um—I’ve been wrapping up this case, and my mom’s not doing so well,” Elliot explains, watching as Noah’s mouth tips into a frown. “She gets confused a lot, especially at night. She needs to have someone there with her. And your mom and I… We got married when we did because I was going undercover, but we left a lot of the details for when I got back. What the living arrangements were gonna be, and all that. And with everything we both have going on at work right now… We’re still figuring things out.”
“Oh,” Noah says, and then he doesn’t say much of anything else for a minute. When he does, it’s a question Elliot sees coming but is still unprepared for—he and Liv haven’t talked about it yet, not at all. “Are we gonna have to move?”
“I—First off all, nobody’s gonna have to do anything. We’ll all figure out together what works best for everyone. And I don’t think I can tear your mom outta the Upper West Side; she’s lived here most of her life. So if anyone’s moving, it’s probably me.” It’s more than he should say without talking to Liv, so he adds, “But we haven’t talked about any of that yet. We, uh, we sort of did everything in the wrong order here.”
Noah snorts, tells him, “Yeah,” in a way that’s so Olivia it makes him grin. Sometimes he looks at Noah and can’t quite believe he’s adopted.
.::.
It’s well past midnight when Olivia arrives home looking worn out. Her bag sinks to her shoulder when she’s barely a foot in the door, the weight of it dragging her arm down for a second before Olivia lets it drop to the hardwoods right there by the door.
Elliot had been on the sofa, stretched out half awake with the TV on low, but he pushes himself to his feet then, making his way to her side by the time she’s finished shrugging out of her coat.
“Hey, gimme that,” he urges gently, slipping the jacket from her fingers. “Gimme that…” He drapes it over one of his arms before looping the other around her waist and pulling her in close. Olivia sags against him with a sigh, her body sinking heavily against his torso, her nose tucking against his neck.
“Hi,” she breathes, her own arms rising to wrap around his back.
Elliot presses his lips into her hair, murmurs, “Hey, baby. You okay?”
She hums in the affirmative, and he feels her lungs expand in a deep inhale, the warm breath of her exhale along his collarbone. “Long day. Glad you’re here.”
“Me too.” His lips fall in her hair again, again, just because he can; he has half a year of missed kisses to make up for.
“Could get used to this,” she murmurs after a moment. Elliot can hear the smile in her voice, his own face splitting into a grin.
“That’s the idea.”
She hums again, but stays put right where she is. Elliot shifts his hold so he has both arms snugly around her body, her jacket pressed to her back, his other hand stroking up and down her spine.
“Keep that up, I’m gonna fall asleep on my feet.”
She means it—her voice is low and sleepy, not quite slurring but lingering a little longer than usual over each syllable.
Elliot gives her a squeeze and then loosens his hold, saying, “Why don’t you go get ready for bed, and I’ll heat up something for you to eat. Then we can both go to sleep.”
She lifts her head, meets his gaze, her hands sliding from his back to his hips, then toward his belly. “You don’t need to get back?”
Elliot shakes his head, tells her, “I need to be with my wife.”
Olivia’s eyes slip shut, a look crossing her face that he can’t quite decipher. It’s gone a moment later, as she leans in to press her lips to his. The kiss lingers for a moment, but it doesn't deepen. A few soft presses of lip against lip, and then she’s disentangling fully, patting his chest lightly before she steps away and heads for her bedroom.
.::.
Elliot isn’t surprised to hear the familiar hiss of the shower running a few minutes later. She’d looked bone-tired, but even so, the long, hectic days usually end like this for her. A hot shower and soft pajamas; a few minutes to herself before she has to be a mom or a girlfr—a wife. He’d been about to pop their dinner leftovers (he’d made pork chops, and potatoes, and peas) into the microwave, but he has a few extra minutes now, so he leaves them on the countertop and does a lap of the apartment instead.
He re-folds the blanket on the couch and turns the TV off, grabs his empty seltzer can off the coffee table and picks up her bag from the entryway, carrying them both to the kitchen. He tosses the can in the recycling and leaves her bag on one of the kitchen stools, stashing the dried mangos and a couple of energy bars inside for her to find tomorrow at work.
He swings through her bedroom, picking up the dirty clothes that hadn’t quite made it to the hamper, turning down the covers, lighting the scented candle on her dresser. The bouquet he’d sent over the weekend is in a vase beside it, the flowers still fresh and sweet-smelling. It’s not quite close enough to be a fire hazard, but he’s leaving the candle unattended for a little while, so he moves it to the nightstand on “his” side of the bed just in case. The surface is mostly cleared off, just his phone charger and a half-empty water glass that has managed to make its way over there, no doubt to avoid the slowly growing collection of clutter on her side—two books she’s in the middle of, a box of tissues, her spare reading glasses. Her own phone charger, and a little dish with a pair of earrings, a tube of chapstick, a couple of cough drops.
He moves the earrings to an empty space in her jewelry box, and takes the water glass with him as he heads back toward the kitchen. She shouldn’t be too much longer, so he starts the microwave on her dinner, then detours to the laundry closet long enough to unload the towels from the dryer and bring the basket into the kitchen to fold.
Noah’s supposed to fold them—it’s on the chore chart on the kitchen whiteboard—but he’d asked earlier if it was okay if he skipped the folding on account of having “a ton of homework to finish.” Elliot’s not sure if he’d gotten played by the kid or not, but he does know that Noah had spent an hour at the kitchen table hunched over a series of worksheets, and another half hour reading before bed, so he thinks he might be in the clear.
That’s how Olivia finds him when she emerges a few minutes later, hair down and still towel-damp, skin bare and still dewy from whatever she’d slathered it with after her shower, dressed in (he’s pretty sure) nothing but her cozy navy blue robe. She stops short when she sees him folding one of her big bath sheets, shaking her head with a wry smile and telling him, “Noah’s supposed to do that.”
“He had homework,” Elliot shrugs, and Olivia continues toward him, pausing long enough to kiss his cheek and tell him he’s a pushover, before she heads for the cupboard and pulls down a glass. “Dinner’s in the microwave,” he tells her as she fills her glass from the Brita in the fridge. “And I like to think of it less as me being a pushover and more making up for the months I was gone.”
She hums, popping the microwave open and grabbing her dinner plate, carrying it to the breakfast bar as she says, “Just don’t let him take advantage. He’s a good kid, but he can be crafty.”
“He asked me if we’re still married,” Elliot tells her, and Olivia swivels on her chair to face him, her brows halfway to her hairline. The move makes her robe slip, exposing one bent leg all the way to the thigh, and yeah, she’s definitely just wearing the robe.
Jesus.
He tries not to think about that right now—it can keep until she’s had something to eat—tries instead to focus on the way she’s asking, “Did he? Where’d that come from?”
Elliot shrugs. “I’ve been back for a week and haven’t seen you guys yet. Not exactly scoring high marks in the husband department, I guess.”
“You picked up my son, made dinner, and are folding my towels. As the, uh… as the wife here, I think you’re scoring pretty well.” He grins at the word wife, despite the way she stumbles just a little over it, still not quite comfortable calling herself that after months of being married to a man who wasn’t here. “And besides, you were here last week.”
“He doesn’t know that,” Elliot reminds her. “I didn’t want him to feel bad that I didn’t stay long enough to see him that morning.”
Olivia has turned back to her dinner, her reply taking a moment as she chews and swallows before excusing, “Bernie needed you. Couldn’t be helped.”
She doesn’t sound like she minds, but he wonders. She needs him, too—right now, especially, he thinks—even if she’s too used to handling everything herself to actually ask for him. He watches her back as she forks up another bite of food, a comfortable silence settling between them as she continues eating and he folds the last two towels, then moves all the folded ones from the kitchen table back into the laundry basket to be put away later.
He joins her at the counter then, slipping onto the stool beside her, and nudging his knee against hers. She smiles and nudges back; Elliot grins. God, he’d missed her so much while he was under. Missed the simple things like sitting next to her sharing a meal, or the way she smells fresh from the shower. Just being with her.
“This is really good,” she tells him, grabbing the last piece of pork chop with her fork.
“Yeah, looks like you hated it,” he teases. She’s nearly cleared the whole plate. She snorts, her knee pressing against his again, her fork hovering over the plate as she chews.
He notices it then—the bracelet looping her wrist. He can’t remember if she’d been wearing it the last time he was here; he thinks he would have noticed, but maybe not. Maybe he’d been too distracted, too grateful just to be near her again. He notices tonight, though—the sleeve of her robe has bunched up around her elbow, and her arm is bare except for the little band of plastic beads, MADDIE clear as day on the inside of her wrist.
He shifts his gaze to her face, noticing now what Noah had mentioned earlier. The shadows under her eyes, the weariness she’s not quite able to hide.
“You’re staring,” she murmurs before her next bite, catching his gaze with hers for a moment.
“Like lookin’ at you,” Elliot lies. Well, it’s not really a lie. He does like looking at her, and he especially likes the way the compliment makes the corners of her mouth turn up as she chews, one of those private little smiles he can coax out of her every now and then. She swallows, and says, Oh, the smile lingering.
He really oughta keep his mouth shut, oughta let her stay in this happy little bubble she’s in for the moment, but he’s worried about her. More importantly, Noah is worried about her. And leaving her alone clearly hasn’t helped ease her burdens, so he pops the bubble, asking gently, “You doing okay?”
The smile falls, her fork falling with it, settling onto the edge of her plate with a dull clink as she scowls and mutters, “If one more person asks me that, I swear to God…”
“That answer isn’t very reassuring,” he points out, and Olivia sighs, pushing her plate away, the last uneaten spoonful of peas rolling over the empty surface.
“I’m fine,” she tells him—and that, he knows, is a lie. “Just busy.”
“Uh huh.”
Her eyes roll skyward and she slumps into the back of her stool, her voice just shy of desperate as she whispers, “El, please…” Her eyes close, her brow knitting. “I don’t want to do this tonight—please. We get so little time together right now; I don’t want to spend it on work.”
He was wrong, he thinks. She had been hiding the weariness. He can see it all over her now, the way it drags her shoulders down, the way her breaths seem heavier, the exhaustion in her eyes.
She isn’t up for this tonight. It isn’t the time, he decides, and he gives in. He stops pushing, sliding an arm around the back of her chair instead and using it to scoop her against him. He presses his lips to her brow before he murmurs, “Okay, baby.”
He feels her shoulders sink with a relieved breath, gives her another kiss and adds, “I’m just worried about you. So is Noah.”
He almost regrets adding that last part—she pulls away immediately, sitting back up and rubbing a hand over her mouth, her voice thinning as she insists, “I’m doing my best—”
“I know,” he reassures her, his hand still cupping her shoulder, fingers squeezing. “And Noah does, too. He just knows you’re… worried. I told him the missing kids are always hard for us, especially as a parent.” She nods, takes in a breath, lets it out slowly. She doesn’t say anything, her mouth pinched, the knee closest to him starting to bounce slightly. Her robe slips again, but it’s not as distracting this time, not with her all keyed up like this. He reaches for it, tugs it back over her lap, lets his hand settle on her thigh to anchor it, to anchor her.
The bouncing stops.
“You never told me he was kidnapped,” Elliot tells her, unsure if the shift in conversation will help or hurt, but rolling the dice on it anyway.
She scoffs and nods, tells him, “Yeah, that was… awful. He was four. What’d he tell you?”
“That it was his grandmother, that he didn’t really know what was happening until it was over.”
“Thank God,” she muttered. “He wasn’t scared when it was happening, but after, once he realized… He had a hard time for a little while—nightmares—but he bounced back. Me, not so much. I tried not to become a helicopter mom, but… it sticks with you.”
He makes a noise of agreement.
“There’s only a few times in my life I've been that scared,” she admits, “All the others, I thought I was about to die.” His fingers squeeze reflexively at her shoulder, his guts churning at the reminder of all the times she’d been in danger and he’d been half a world away. She leans into him again, and he reaches for her stool, tugging it even closer, until they’re pressed snugly together. Olivia settles her head on his shoulder, both hands wrapping around his when it lands in her lap again. Her voice is soft when she tells him, “When Noah was gone… I felt like I was dying. At least when I was the one in trouble, I could fight, I could… think, or plan, or…” He feels her head shake, feels the deep breath she pulls in and out.
“When it was him, I felt so helpless… She staged it like a stranger abduction. Pretended the whole time like she was ripped up over it. Over taking her eyes off him. And then all of a sudden she was gone, too. They were just…gone.” She’s playing with his fingers, rubbing, squeezing—her anxiety bleeding out into restless fiddling. He shouldn’t have nudged her into talking about this; it’s not work, but it’s certainly not a relaxing topic for a nice evening together. “I thought I'd never get him back. I thought…”
“But you did,” he reminds her, closing his fingers around hers for a moment. “You got him back.” She nods, slowly, but stays silent long enough that Elliot asks, “What happened to her—the grandma?”
“We pleaded her out,” she tells him. “They argued PTSD from the loss of her daughter caused a psychotic break, and… we let them. She got treatment and a restraining order; she’s not allowed anywhere near Noah without me present. I didn’t want the stress of a trial, and she just… she just wanted her daughter back. Noah’s mom was estranged from her parents for a long time; she told us they were dead. When Sheila found out she was gone, and that Noah had been adopted, she just… she wanted her grandson. And I didn’t want him to hate her; she’s the only—until Connor, we thought she was the only blood family he had. I didn’t want him to grow up… like me.”
She says the last part so quietly it makes his heart ache. He knows what it had been like for her—had watched her struggle for years with the loneliness, with knowing how broken what little family she had was. The darkness that hovered over it. It makes sense, he supposes, that she wouldn’t want Noah to have any more of that darkness lurking in his lineage than he already has.
“How often does he see her now?” Elliot wonders. She hasn’t come up the whole time they’ve been together, so he can’t imagine it’s often. Or maybe it’s just one of the things that Olivia keeps to herself.
“It’s been years,” she tells him, sitting up and reaching for her water glass. “We visited her a few times in the year after, but since then… He doesn’t ask, and I don’t… want her close to him. Not after what she did. I have her number, I know how to reach her if he does want to see her, but…”
He watches her face, the shift of her eyebrows, the dip of her frown. The way she doesn’t finish her sentence, taking another swig of her water instead.
“Doesn’t sound like someone I’d be scrambling to have in my kid’s life either.”
Olivia nods slowly, then tells him. “She said he wasn’t really mine—not like he was hers. That a piece of paper didn’t make him my son.”
“She was wrong.”
“That’s what I said.” She smiles, but it’s a sad smile, one that doesn't come anywhere close to reaching her eyes. “Sometimes it feels like every time I try to make a family… It goes really, really wrong somewhere.”
She looks at him then, finally meets his gaze and he can see it—the lingering fear, the cautiousness that comes over her sometimes even now, with him, with them. He thinks of the brother she lost, and the mother she lost, and the grandmother that tried to take her son away. Thinks of that kid she’d had for a little while back when they were partners, and how devastated she’d been to lose him, too.
And it clicks for him, suddenly—she’s still scared. They’re together now, and committed now, but they’re half-in and half-out, and it’s gotta feel unstable for her.
“Hey.” He slides his hand over her thigh again, gives it a squeeze. “That’s not gonna happen with us.”
“I know,” she tells him, with another sad little smile. For a second, he’s not sure she does know.
“Do you?”
“I try to,” she answers, and that, at least, he thinks is honest. “But sometimes… this doesn’t feel real. Especially now, after the last few months.”
“It will,” he promises, reaching for her hand and rubbing his thumb over the thin diamond band on her left ring finger. “We should tell the kids we’re getting married. Start planning the, uh.. the other wedding.”
He watches her suck in a breath, watches her gaze slide away from him, and for a moment he feels a shiver of dread—that she might try to back out of this, might change her mind about the whole thing. And then he remembers that ship had sailed on a sunny June morning, and she’s already wearing his ring. That the thing she’s afraid of is losing this family they’re trying to build, not having it.
“It’s not the best time,” she tells him. “I’m not—With work right now, I…” He feels another ripple of worry that he’s not going to be able to get her down the aisle of a church until Maddie Flynn is home safe, but then she shifts gears, conceding, “It would be easier on Bernie, though. We’d avoid a repeat of the Lizzie fiasco.”
“The what?” Elliot asks, and Olivia’s lips part in surprise before she breaks into a grin.
“Nobody told you,” she realizes.
“What ‘Lizzie fiasco’?”
“Oh, God,” Olivia groans. “Your mother forgot it was a secret and said something to her about us being married. Liz thought she was just confused, so she corrected her. But she wasn’t confused, and she got upset, you know, the way she does when she feels like she’s being gaslit over something she’s sure is right. And she told her that we definitely did get married, that she remembered it, she was there, it happened right here on the patio, and—”
It’s Elliot’s turn to groan, his head tipping back with it. They knew it was a risk when they chose to have Mama at the wedding, and he’s glad they had—especially with the way things are going now—but this had been exactly what they’d been worried about.
Liv chuckles and tells him, “From what I’ve been told, that’s about the time she remembered she wasn’t supposed to tell anyone, and backtracked quickly, insisting that she had been confused, and Lizzie shouldn’t listen to a word she’d said, and then of course she was upset that she’d spilled the beans, and… It was a mess, I guess. But Liz called Kathleen to get the actual truth, so.. she knows, and she’s been sworn to secrecy.”
“How’d she take it?”
Lizzie’s not the kid he’s most worried about (it’s the boys, he thinks, that will have the biggest problem with it—Eli, especially), but he can’t say he hasn’t wondered if they’ll accept Liv as readily as his wife as they have as his girlfriend.
“I wasn’t there,” she tells him, “But Kathleen said she wasn’t surprised we were getting married. She explained why we did it when we did, and Liz understood. They’ve come over for dinner a few times—both girls, and your mom.”
“Oh, yeah?” His smile curves at that, the idea of Liv and his daughters and his mom spending time together of their own volition.
She hums and nods, and tells him, “It’s been nice. I met her new girlfriend last time—Rosa.”
Elliot frowns, “Rosa? What happened to the other girl? Sara?”
“Sam,” Oliva corrects, and right. Sam. He should know that; they’d been together for months. But in his defense, Lizzie’s always been a little tight-lipped about her partners. “They broke up back in the summer. I don’t know the details; we didn’t really start spending time together until, y’know…” “The fiasco?”
Olivia nods. “The fiasco. That was back in September; they’d already broken up.”
“What’s she like—the new girlfriend?”
“She’s smart, nice girl,” Olivia answers. “She’s a middle school teacher—social studies, I think. One of the public schools. They met at some Barnard alumnae thing.” “They went to school together?”
“They overlapped, but never met,” Liv tells him, and then, “And if you want to know more than that, call your daughter and ask her yourself.”
She’s smirking as she says it, but the meaning is clear: She’s not going to be the go-between for him and his kids. Their kids. Kathy had been—he’d always known it, but it’s never been more apparent than in the years since he lost her. He always seems to be behind the times when it comes to the kids, finding out about new jobs and break-ups and make-ups long after they happen. He thinks of Eli and the new girlfriend he’d never even heard of, and frowns. He’s been telling himself it’s because he’s been undercover for so long, that he still needs to take a breath and call them all, catch up on what he’s missed.
But truth be told, he’s never been good at it. Kathy was—she’d called each of the kids every week, and she’d known what was new in everyone’s lives, and she’d told Elliot over dinner or before bed. Reminded him when he forgot names, made sure birthdays didn’t slip by unnoticed. It probably hadn’t been fair, putting that all on her, and it wouldn’t be fair to do the same thing to Olivia now.
He wants to do better this time around—be a better partner, a better husband. So he nods, and says, “Yeah, I’ll, uh, I’ll give her a call this week. Get all caught up.”
“Good,” she answers, and then she throws him a bone, says, “Liz and Noah get along really well—they bonded over dance—and he’s been asking when we’re going to see her again. So maybe we can have them for dinner when things settle down a little.”
Elliot nods, and smiles at her, says, “Yeah, that’d be good. Been too long since I’ve seen Lizzie.”
She opens her mouth to respond, but whatever she was going to say gets lost in an unexpected yawn. Elliot chuckles and glances at the time—it’s late, they should be in bed. He scoots his stool away from hers, reaching for her plate and telling her, “Go brush your teeth; I’ll take care of this and meet you in bed.”
“Mm,” she sighs. “Good plan.”
When she slips off her stool, they end up barely inches apart and Elliot reaches for her, looping her waist and tugging her against him. It knocks her a little off balance and she chuckles as she steadies herself against his chest.
“Yes?” she asks, brows lifting.
Elliot ducks his head, presses a kiss to her lips and then murmurs, “Stay in the robe. I have some suspicions about what’s underneath it, and I want to confirm.”
Olivia grins, disentangling from him without a word and leaving him there in the kitchen.