The Road Less Traveled - [Bensler EO] ✓

ACT I

She glanced down the busy halls of the high school, darting her eyes between the groups of people. There he was, standing with his open locker covering half of his face. He mindlessly stored his textbooks away, lost in his own world. He was like that, he always had been.

Squaring her shoulders, she took the plunge and started towards him. She forced her way through the firm bodies standing tall in the corridor, the ones too busy talking amongst themselves to move out of the way.

"Stabler!" Olivia called out, nearly tripping on the untied shoelaces of her converse as she sped up her jog.

"Hey, Liv." Elliot greeted, shutting his locker door. His stance shifted as he looked her up and down with that signature awkwardness he carried. "What's up?"

An old friend; that's who you call in this situation. Someone who will pass the least amount of judgement, someone trustworthy. That was Elliot, despite their friendship's change throughout the past few months. She didn't have time to think about that right now.

"Hey, look. I need to ask you a favor," she ducked her head but kept her eyes on him, lowering her voice. "But not here. It's too busy here. People here eavesdrop for sport, can we go somewhere?"

He sputtered and stared at the floor. "I- I kinda have plans to–"

She cut him off with a swift shake of her head. "Blow it off, please," she pleaded. "Dude, c'mon! Last time, it was you asking me for a favor when the basketball team hung your jockstrap in Coach's locked trophy case and you made me pick the lock. I just need you to hear me out on this."

Elliot paused, shifting his weight to his other foot as he threw his backpack over his shoulder.

The rise of her brows reiterated her point for her. "Please?"

"Alright, fine," he conceded and she jumped with a dramatic exhale.

She grabbed him by the sleeve of his hoodie. "Malibu Diner on 23rd, I'll even pay for your food. C'mon, we'll walk there."

___

She poked around at the food on her plate, sitting in awkward silence with Elliot on the other side of the booth. Her fork scratched against the plate, causing an eardrum-shattering screech to break out. Surrounding customers glared at her as she shrugged her shoulders.

"We've been sitting here for fifteen minutes, you wanna tell me why?" Elliot asked, slurping through the straw to get the remainder of his Pepsi from the bottom of the glass.

"Yeah! Sorry, my bad," she nodded, pushing her plate forward before dramatically crossing her arms over her chest. "I was wondering if you wanted to go halfsies on buying this really sketchy abandoned arcade outside of Coney Island? It might be a meth lab in hiding but we'll find out after the blind auction."

"Seriously, Olivia?" he huffed, throwing his arms down on the table. "You drag me all the way over here for some super secret meeting about a crack den?"

"No," she laughed, trying her bare minimum to stop herself. Her hands waved in dismissal as he sank back down into his seat. "No, I just wanted to try to make you laugh before I whip out the heavy topic."

His brows lifted, "Which is?"

"Uh —" she hummed casually, suddenly avoiding his eye contact. Her lower lip quirked, showing the sides of her molars as her fingers traced along the wooden grooves of the table. She looked up to see him back to slurping his drink through the annoyingly loud straw "I'm uh... I'm pregnant."