Alaskan Nights (A Law and Order: SVU fanfic)

Ch.29

The numbers of the digital clock beside his bed still bleed together even though the haze of sleep had long left his eyes.

5:53 am.

It was Maureen's text that had woken him up when it came in a little before 5 am...that would be the official story, anyway. It wasn't at all that he was already awake only having truly closed his eyes and wrapped himself in the cocoon of his bed sheets the night before for the entertainment of the walls and the curtains. He hadn't been able to sleep for very long or very deeply because, for every voice in his head that told him to sleep, there was another, louder one that told him that he couldn't and that if he did, he'd wake up to Rebecca incoherent over the phone, trying to tell him only one thing.

It also didn't help that by the time he had settled for bed it had been around 8:30 pm and so the sun had only just begun to move towards the west. And while the dark curtains had done their job in keeping out most of the light, it hadn't been enough to even trick his mind into thinking that he should sleep. His body knew that the sun was up, and that meant that he, too had to stay awake.

He picks up his phone off of his chest once more and re-read the text sent to him by his oldest daughter.

Sat? 4 pm my time? Can't talk all day so just text. He'd silently hoped before he opened the message an hour ago that she'd messaged about something else.

Anything else as the world of Sitka, Alaska and all of its characters were slowly closing in on him and suffocating him. Instead, he wanted to hear about the city, about the trains being horrifically late, or the rats abducting abandoned food both above and below ground--heck he wouldn't even mind Munch droning on about the president. He wanted Lizzie's late-night calls complaining about how annoying Maureen was around the house or Maureen's early-morning calls complaining about how annoying Lizzie was in general.

It seems, no it was ironic that he missed the facets of his 'old' life so much especially since he'd moped and griped for Olivia for years and now that he had her and knew where she was, he wanted nothing more than the moping and griping of a week ago.

As much as he hated to admit it, it wasn't just worrying over Olivia's condition that kept him up last night; the impending reveal of his youngest son's existence had definitely contributed.

He reseals his eyes and clasps the phone over his chest with his intertwined fingers and once again imagines his three daughters and his son huddled together in Maureen and Lizzie's shoebox of an apartment. He imagines that upon her arrival, Kathleen would unwittingly open the windows of the apartment to let some air into the girls' stuffy apartment. Which would then give passage to their collective screams of shock to flow into earshot of the girls' nosey 79-year-old next-door neighbour who would call the police who would then take the statement of his family which would definitely spread back to the 1-6.

The best-case scenario, he thinks, is that when they tell them, the news instead shocks them into silence and so they all just sit quietly as the static-filled the thousands of miles between them all until the phone died. It's a pipe dream, he knows that but it's all that he can dream up to quell his anxiety.

He wonders if this was what was best for Quinn, introducing him into his other children's world in such a way: via the phone and with him being thousands of miles away. But he quickly decides that as much as this was in fact about his youngest son, it also really wasn't. It was about his mother and his father and the reactions of his family to their tryst. And in reality, it had as much to do with the baby as it did with how far away Saturn was from Jupiter in a leap year.

Which one will they take worse? This hidden relationship with Olivia or the fact that she's dying? Will the cushion of the other soften the blow of the former? After the reveal would they even care that she was dying?