It's been a LONG time since I wrote anything for SVU. I actually wrote most of this chapter about four years ago- I've recently unearthed it because I write a lot of fanfiction for another show, and I'm totally convinced two of the characters on that are based on Olivia and her mother. I ended up rewatching the Bensler years this week and fell back in love with SVU, so I've revived this story and I'm trying again!

I'm not American, and I always end up hating my SVU fanfics because they don't feel American enough, so any pointers/constructive criticism would be so appreciated! I do have more of this story I can edit and post if anyone wants to read it.

-IseultLaBelle x

November, 2021

"I thought Mommy was coming to get me today."

Olivia's eyes watch him suspiciously, Olivia's questioning look, Olivia's expression. Olivia's nose crinkles as she approaches him, wanders out through the school gates.

"Yep. Yep, I think that was the plan," Elliot agrees, one hand protectively on her shoulder as she skips along beside him. "But you've got me instead now. That okay?"

"Why?" Olivia's frown greets him now, Olivia's confusion.

Her small hands play with Olivia's old pendant, lotus flower, gold chain glistens around her neck as she tangles it in her fingers.

Absentmindedly, Elliot ponders that his girls- his other girls, that is, his own girls- would never have worn anything so grown-up at this age.

"Because your mom got… tied up with something," he explains- not a lie, not really. "So you've got me instead today. That alright with you?"

Liv…

"It's parent-teacher night."

"It sure is."

God help him.

"So doesn't Mommy have to be here? For parent-teacher night," his charge points out, twirls Olivia's chocolate brown hair around her finger.

"Well, Mommy might be done by then," he reasons, lies through his teeth because deep down, he knows there's no way in hell that Olivia is going to be in any fit state to sit through fifteen minutes of her daughter's schoolwork being picked to pieces. "Or she might not. But if she's not, I'm just going to have to go be her stand-in at parent-teacher night too, aren't I? Once I'm done being your taxi service. You been good for your teacher this year? And the nuns? Or whatever you call them?"

"I'm always good."

"Sure you are," he teases her.

"I am!" She fights back with Olivia's emphasis, Olivia's feistiness, Olivia's mock offence.

"Well, I'm going to be finding out in a couple of hours, aren't I? You better be right."

"I thought you said Mommy might be done by then."

She's suspicious, Elliot realises.

She's onto him already, suspects something's wrong and she's probing at him for answers, ready and waiting for him to slip up and let out the truth.

"She might be," he lies. "But you do realise she's going to fill me in on your parent-teacher night if she is, right? I'll find out either way."

"I got ten out of ten on my spelling test today," she offers up now, proudly, hopeful. "And Miss Ivanovna says I'm a good listener."

"Then you've got nothing to worry about, have you? Right, I'm parked up there, okay? Give me your hand.

"Mommy doesn't make me hold her hand." Olivia's frown protests with him now, unimpressed at his apparent display of overprotectiveness.

"That's Mommy's call. When you're with me, you hold my hand."

"Do you make Eli hold your hand?"

"I did when he was seven."

"So does that mean I don't have to hold your hand when I'm…" She closes her eyes for a moment, pulls Olivia's concentration face. "Fourteen."

"Nah, forget fourteen. You're holding my hand until you're forty."

"Forty?!"

"Uh huh."

"Why?"

"Because I'm not your parent, am I? I'm responsible for you, when you're with me. But I'm not your parent. And your mom's scary when she wants to be. I'm not brave enough to tell her anything happened to you on my watch. You hungry?"

"Nuh uh."

"You sure? We can go via Bagel Works and…"

"I'm not hungry, Uncle Elliot."

"Alright. You're a hard crowd tonight, aren't you? I don't think my kids turned down stopping for food once in all the years I picked them up from school."

"Is Mommy definitely okay?"

Olivia's eyes plead with him for answers, wide brown orbs, impossibly hard to lie to.

Except he has to.

For now, at least.

Olivia was a mess, when he left her, just about flashback-free enough to insist that someone needed to cover the school run but still in a state of hyper-alertness, anxious paranoia and so busy trying to hide it she was just making it all worse, and he can't tell her daughter that.

"She's fine. She's in work," Elliot tells her, decides the truth is the best way to go on this. "She's not out on a case or anything, she's in work. She's just a bit busy with something right now, okay? You'll see her later. Here you go, then, this is us."

"Why aren't you in your car?"

"Because I'm still technically on shift. I'm going to drop you off, run back into work for a bit and come back for you later, yeah? Or Mommy will."

"And parent-teacher night."

"And parent-teacher night," Elliot agrees. "We'll work it out between us, alright? Me and your mom. You let us worry about that." Protectively, he pulls open the passenger door, ushers her in. "I got all your stuff from your mom, look, it's on the back seat. You getting changed there?"

"Is this Mommy's?" She ignores his question, preoccupied.

"You know it is."

"No." She finishes wrapping Olivia's scarf around her neck, too big, swamps her. "This."

Elliot's heart sinks.

How out of it was she? Shit, Liv…

"Oh. Oh, okay, yeah. Yeah, that's your mom's. Where was that?" He asks, casually as he can manage.

"Under her scarf on the seat. 01139," she reads out her mother's badge number, runs her fingers over the surface.

"Right. She must have left it in here, when we got back from…" he begins to cover, takes one look at her, Olivia's scepticism in her features, decides he's getting nowhere. "Look… your mom's just a bit upset, today. You know how she gets sometimes. It's not anything you need to worry about…"

"Is it because she was on the TV last night?"

"You saw that?"

His question is sharper than he intended, more forceful, and she blinks at him, affronted, hurt.

"Sorry. Sorry, I just…" he sighs. "Just been a long day, you know?"

"Because of Mommy?"

"No. Well, yes and no. But she's fine. She's fine, Lollie, I promise…"

"Pe…"

"I'm not calling you that until you're at least twenty-five."

"Why?"

"Because you're still a baby. To me, anyway. I'm still getting my head around you being a second grader, don't push me too hard just yet. So what did you see on the TV?" he presses now, glances across to her in the rear view mirror and back again, pulls out of the roadside parking space.

"With Mommy?"

"Uh huh."

"Just photos. On the news. Outside the beach house, with blood…" she shudders now, presses Olivia's scarf to her nose, inhales. "That one. And her pass photo. And they were talking about Lewis, I think."

"They?"

"Like, the news reporters."

"Sure, I got you. Did you… did you hear anything else?"

"No. Mommy turned the TV off after that, and she told me to go back to bed."

"She wake you?"

Silence.

Olivia's eyes bore into him, hesitant, torn.

"Lollie," Elliot warns.

"Lying's bad." She shrugs, clams up, body language radiates all the tell-tale signs of being caught between the two of them, too fiercely loyal to her mother to surrender.

"That's true," he agrees. "Shall I ask you something else, then?"

He tries not to think too much about the number of times they must have been through this routine before to have perfected it so thoroughly, just the two of them.

"Sure." Apprehensively, she fidgets with the frayed edges of Olivia's scarf, fingernails longer, more impeccably shaped, manicured, than he would have considered age-appropriate were it down to him.

Perhaps that's a strange thing to notice, detail-obsessed, but he loves her like she's his own and that's the truth of it.

She's his unofficial sixth child, and he's as protective of her as he is the rest of them.

That possibly makes it all the more frustrating that his role as godfather grants him no say whatsoever in how grown-up she gets to be.

"Did she have nightmares last night?"

"She told me not to tell you that."

Elliot sighs. "Alright. She eat anything this morning?"

"No."

"Last night?"

"I don't think so. She…" Her eyes fill with Olivia's guilt now, Olivia's worry. "She locked herself in the bathroom for a really long time last night."

"Before her picture on the TV spooked her?"

"Uh huh."

"Okay. How about I come round tonight, then, and we order in Chinese? Yeah? You up for that?"

"If the Chinese does vegan food."

"Oh my god, you're not still on that, are you?"

It was only vegetarianism when his own kids were growing up, and he might have despaired over Maureen and Lizzie's brief phases twenty years ago, but he sure as hell wouldn't trade with Olivia now.

"Mommy never leaves her badge anywhere," she points out simply, apparently still too preoccupied to give him the dairy cow welfare speech he knows for a fact she's perfected.

"No," he agrees, keeps his eyes on the road. "No, nor do I. But we all have momentary lapses of…"

"Was it bad?"

Elliot pauses.

"It could have been worse," he confesses at last. "She'll be okay. She just needs to work through it and calm herself down and…"

"She needs her badge."

"Probably not this afternoon, Lolliebug," he tells her, desperately hopes she'll catch on to what he's trying to convey beneath the surface.

"She does, though."

She's probably right, Elliot realises.

Olivia isn't going to be needing it for work today, not if he and the rest of the squad has anything to do with it.

But still, she has a point.

"I think you're right, actually. I'll give it back to her once I've dropped you off, yeah? Will you leave it in there for me?" He gestures to the cup holder.

"Okay. Uncle Elliot?"

"Hmm?"

"You know I have ballet and thenviolin, right?"

Damn Olivia and her apparent need to give her daughter everything her own mother didn't.

"I knew that. Your mom know what overscheduling means?"

"Over what?"

"Doesn't matter. I'm heading the wrong way, aren't I?"

"Yep."

"It's alright, we've got time." He indicates, curses himself, mind on other things. "I can just turn around here, it's fine. Not a problem. And if it looks like I'm going to make you late, I'll just stick the sirens on."

"Uncle Don told you off when you did that last time."

"He did, didn't he? Maybe not, then. At least one of us is paying attention, hey?"

"Can I put music on?"

"Sure. You remember my cell password?"

"Uh huh." She reaches for Elliot's phone, abandoned by the gear stick, as at ease with taking control of his possessions as though she were one of his. "Spotify?"

"Whatever you want," he tells her, wondering, not for the first time, as she selects her playlist, how the one kid he managed to produce who has taken an interest in his Irish heritage is the one kid who isn't actually his. "You know they're coming to New York next year?"

"Celtic Woman?" Her eyes light up.

"I know your music tastes. You want to go? You and me?"

"Can we?"

"If your mom says it's okay. We'll talk to her later, yeah? Well, maybe not tonight. We'll see how she is."

She nods, Olivia's pensive gaze, troubled. "What did Lewis do?"

"You know that story."

"But this time. He must have done something."

"Because your mom was on the news last night?"

"Yeah."

"He's… he's just trying to make trouble for your mom, that's all," he summarises, no idea how much he should be telling her. "But it's fine. It's fine, Lollie, okay? He's still in jail, he's not going to be released for a very long time."

Perhaps if he tells her that, it might still be true this time next month.

"So it just made Mommy remember?"

"… Yeah. Yeah, it just made Mommy remember," Elliot repeats. "That's all. There's nothing to worry about, alright? Your mom's going to be fine. You'll see. I'm going to be gone for a couple of days next week, though," he reminds her now. "So you going to look after her for me then?"

"Are you going undercover again?"

"What? No, I'm just going to visit Kathleen for a few days. No, not undercover again, thank god."

"Because going undercover's dangerous?" She grips her right foot in her hands, pulls it up above her head.

"Hey, don't do that."

"I'm stretching before ballet."

"I know, but your seatbelt won't work properly if you do that, alright? You should really have a booster seat as it is, I don't want you doing that."

He should have brought his own car, really.

His own car, complete with the permanent fixture booster seat, despite the fact that his own youngest stopped using one circa 2015.

"Sorry."

"It's alright. Just please don't do that when I'm driving."

"Is undercover dangerous, though?"

"Well… it can be. Not always," he tells her, suddenly conscious that this could come back to haunt him, were Olivia ever to receive the call again. "Just sometimes."

"I was born undercover," she reminds him, voice filled with all the innocence of someone far too young to understand the alarming nature of her words.

"I know you were. You near gave me a heart attack, I won't be forgetting that in a hurry." He shudders involuntarily at the memory. "As won't pretty much the entirety of NYPD, I would have thought. I think Cragen's still having nightmares about all the paperwork he had to do. I'm still having nightmares about all the paperwork Ihad to do, come to that."

"Here, Uncle Elliot." She points, Olivia again, bossy, taking control.

"Hey, alright. How many times have I driven you here? I know where to pull in. I drive down here a lot when I'm on the job with your mom, actually."

"You did just go the wrong way."

"I did, didn't I? Come on, then. I've got your kit bag, I'll walk you up, alright? Hey, hey, wait till I come round your side before you get out."

"Mommy lets me walk up by myself now." She jumps straight out the passenger side before Elliot has the chance to lecture her on stranger danger and bordering a little too close to the Bronx for his liking, and how he's sure ballet schools must be every drug dealer's paradise and he knows of at least three muggings on this street in the last fortnight.

And that's withoutadding in that her mother had a letter from Riker's today and it scared her shitless.

"Well, that's on your mom," he shrugs. "I'm walking you up, hold my hand."

"AndMommy lets me get the subway to ballet with Ariana and Sasha sometimes."

"I know she does, and I think she's insane. Grab your bag, then." He frowns, inspects her face as he leads her up the front steps of the building, wonders if he'll ever understand how the hell Olivia manages to send her off to prance around in a leotard and next to nothing else in New York central when she's seen everything he has and worse. "Does your mom know you're wearing makeup?"

"It's only mascara. And eyebrow gel."

"Not my question."

"Mommy put it on me when I asked this morning."

"You're so lucky you're not my daughter."

"Why?"

"Because my daughters didn't wear makeup out the house until they were at least in high school."

"Mommy said I could only wear the stuff that doesn't show up much."

"Well, that's something. You got the door?"

"They aren't that heavy."

"If you say so. So… someone will come and get you at five, okay? Either me or your mom. And we'll take care of parent-teacher night. You got anything you want us to bring up?"

"I don't think so."

"You sure? Last chance."

"Can you check if the Chinese does vegan food?"

"I was thinking more that you want your mom and me to raise at parent-teacher night. But we can negotiate on that one later. You can fight that one out with your mom later, actually. I'm not getting involved."

"I'm not eating a pig. Pigs are actually really smart, and they're so cute…"

He rolls his eyes. "We don't have to order pork."

"I'm not eating other meat either. Or eggs."

"You do realise egg fried rice is the best part of Chinese takeout, right?"

"But they kill the male baby chicks in a ble…"

"Alright! Alright, save your animal welfare speech for your mom. I'm not the one you have to convince," he reminders her, frowns. "You okay?"

He's suddenly aware that's she's still somewhat subdued, bounces from one conversation to another with him so naturally that it's easy enough to miss.

And yet she's deflecting.

Olivia's uneasiness, Olivia's distraction techniques.

She's unquestionably her mother's daughter.

"Lollie," he says gently, steers her into the elevator up to the studio. "Lollie, listen. Your mom's fine, okay? I promise. You'll see. You need me to do your hair?"

"I can do it."

"You sure?"

"I can't do it as well as Mommy," she reasons, blinks at him, oh-so-innocent and yet her eyes tell him she knows she's chancing it. "But I'm better at ballet hair than you are."

"Oh wow. Harsh. Harsh, but true. You sure? Final chance," he warns. "I'm going to go and work out who's doing parent-teacher night now…"

"Can I call Mommy before you go?" Olivia's panicked eyes meet with him now, try to hold it in but she just can't quite manage it.

"I don't think she's going to pick up," he admits. "She's seeing her shrink…"

"Because she had more flashbacks?"

Elliot hates that she knows that word.

"Can I leave her a voice message?" she asks again, before he can work out how to try and reassure her.

How can he explain?

How can he even begin to tell her in a way that she might understand why it is that Lewis still has such a hold over her mother, why eight years have done everything and nothing all at once to heal those wounds?

"Course you can." He holds out his phone, presses it into her palm. "Lollie?"

She blinks at him, and she trusts him completely- that much is clear- but there's a definite look of 'you're-not-my-mom' in her eyes that Elliot just can't shake.

"How about you let me do the worrying?" he suggests. "Yeah? Not that there's anything to worry about, okay? That's not what I meant. You just… you record your message for your mom," he tells her, gentle, firm. "And then you go and do… whatever it is you do in ballet class, and I promise you, by the time we sit down with our Chinese takeout complete with a vegan option tonight, I'll have sorted everything. Alright?"

It's only ten minutes later, after she's emerged from the changing rooms, not-quite-happily recorded her voice message and handed him back his phone and he's watched her disappear off into her ballet class because she's Olivia's and like hell is he letting her out of his sight until he has to, that Elliot realises he's well and truly caved.