blues and greens (barson)

iv.

Olivia left the room and slipped into her office. She called the Chief of Detectives' office and just like that, another person knew that she and Rafael had a child together without any information on the why.
It had been a drunken discussion one night after Brian Cassidy and before Noah. In that short period between. Liv told Rafael of the pregnancy scare and admitted that she was afraid that she would never get to have a child, though she knew, eventually she wanted one. It was something she'd wanted for a long, long time. She wanted a family of her own. Rafael admitted that he had never considered it until he started working with SVU. He admitted to her that he'd like a child someday, but he didn't think he'd do well with a baby.
Olivia offered it as a joke, "well we could have some samples frozen, maybe even fertilize a few."
"Fertilize?" Rafael had choked, laughing as he'd been sipping his scotch.
Once they'd recovered from laughing at his misfortune, she'd nodded, "samples for if we find someone else and embryos because if I never get married, of course I want to raise a kid with my best friend."
He'd stared at her for a long time, the drunkenness blurring the line on what answers he thought were okay.
"Well," he shrugged, "I definitely am not opposed."
That was the answer he'd settled on because part of him screamed that they could just try if she really wanted a baby with him and another part knew he wasn't ready for the domesticity.

Liv looked through the window in her office, observing the way Rafael and Aspen were flipping through a food delivery app.
It was clear that Rafael hung on her every word, mentally recording things she commented about disliking and things she mentioned liking.
She brought her phone that she'd been holding up and texted Lucy, asking her to bring Noah to the precinct so she could take him to lunch.
Fin and Rollins returned not long after she'd sent the text.
"Cap," Fin said as his head peeked through the door of her office.
"Come on in, Fin," she turned from the window and moved to sit at her desk.
"I'm here, too," Rollins said as she followed Fin in and she closed the door.
They both sat opposite her.
"I have to tell you both that, officially, Fin is on point for this case. Barba asked me to recuse myself so I didn't get the case thrown away and you know normally I'd fight tooth and nail but I don't want to risk it this time."
"Officially, meaning you'd still like us to report findings to you?" Fin arched an eyebrow and a smile dancing across his features.
"I," Olivia glanced toward the window where Rafael was laughing at something Aspen had said, "yeah. I can't just not know what's going on here. I know as C.O. I'm supposed to be able to separate myself if-"
Rollins interrupted, "you don't have to explain, Liv. I- we, we get it."
"Can you explain how the hell this happened, though? Before we tell you what we found out," Fin requested.
"It was just meant to be a..." Olivia's brow furrowed, "like a safety net. If either of us got to a point where it was like now or never and we hadn't found someone. We wanted to know who the other parent was and we wanted to be able to allow the other to be in the child's life."
"Makes sense to me," Rollins shrugged.
"But then I adopted Noah, so I pretty much forgot about it and Barba decided that being Uncle Rafa was enough so we were intending to have the embryos destroyed but things got so hectic and I completely forgot about them."
Fin looked at her and nodded slowly.
"Judge Linden says we should go after the facility so," Liv glanced toward the room where Rafael and Aspen were still chatting, he was nodding and she saw him stand and come toward the door.
His head peeked in, "oh, sorry to interrupt."
"No problem, counselor," Amanda said cooly, it was clear she still hadn't forgiven him for the Wheatley trial.
"Olivia, Aspen wanted to know if you're going to join us for lunch?"
Liv turned and gave a small smile, "I'm actually... uh, going to have lunch with Noah and try to get his feelings on all of this."
Rafael's eyes went a bit wide and he tilted his head, glancing back he said something to Aspen before slipping into the room, "I thought maybe we could do that together."
Olivia shook her head, "when we introduce them, but I want to make sure he knows that I'm not going to love him any less or that it's going to change that he and I are a team or anything like that."
Rafael nodded, he looked at Rollins and Fin before back at Olivia and he gave her the same look he'd given her when he asked if she was okay, years ago now, after a particularly difficult case.
She gave him a small nod.
With a weak smile in her direction, he slipped back from the room.
The beard was something she didn't think she'd ever grow used to, even the weak smile had an air to it.
Fin and Rollins looked at each other and then back to Liv.
"Lucy should be here with Noah soon, can I have a quick update please?"
"Well, we're trying to find enough to get a warrant. The doc that we spoke to there was really shady, Liv," Rollins explained.
"What kind of shady?" Liv pressed.
"Well, he started commenting immediately on how Amanda looked like she'd be a fantastic surrogate and then started talking about how he was an innovator in IVF studies."
"That's not the first time we've heard that."
Fin shook his head.
"We're looking for even the smallest thing because Carisi said they can't get a warrant for us on bad gut feeling alone," Rollins sighed, "even if he was infuriated by the comments made toward me."
Liv nodded, "it sounds fishy. Keep on it."
She saw movement outside her office door before it flew open and her favorite little boy ran in.
"Hi, momma!" He ran directly to her and hugged her.
"I'm sorry, I told him we should knock," Lucy grimaced upon seeing Rollins and Fin.
Amanda waved a hand, "don't worry about it, we were pretty much done, anyhow. We know these two got a big lunch date."
Fin and Amanda headed toward the door, "we'll keep you posted, Cap."
She nodded in response to Fin's words, "thanks, guys."
"Is that Uncle Rafa?" Noah moved toward the window into the interview room.
Olivia's heart started pounding, she was nervous about the conversation she needed to have with Noah. She was afraid that this new development would hurt him and she didn't know what the plan was, she didn't know if it would be weekends and vacations or if this would be the thing that would finally push the two of them together.
"It is," she confirmed softly, "why don't we go get lunch? He'll be around when we get back."
Lucy looked at Liv, "do you want me to pick him back up later?"
Liv glanced at the time, "probably around one-thirty or so? I'll text you if plans changed?"
Lucy nodded and smiled.
The three of them walked out of the precinct together and Noah hugged Lucy before she split off to go her own way.