Sweet Relief

A Toast

Olivia forces herself to take a deep breath as she runs her hands down the front of dress, smoothing the nonexistent wrinkles in the fabric. Her nerves are starting to get the better of her again, she's already run through the full range of emotions as she closed her last cases at SVU, and now.. to tackle the retirement party she had been dreading.

She has to remind herself several times over that beginning a new career at the FBI for twice her paycheck and better hours isn't exactly retirement but facts be damned, the word makes her feel older than her years. She finds herself once again in disbelief that she actually went through with it all. At every stage, she's pictured herself backing out, staying at SVU, being Captain Benson for the rest of her career. But when the FBI promised her nine to five hours with double the pay just as she took custody of Noah.. she couldn't say no. She knows she'll carry guilt about how absent she was when Emma was growing up forever, but she still has a couple of years, and this job made offer made her feel like maybe it was possible to do it all.

As she puts her earrings in she mentally prepares for all that the night will entail. She begged for a round or two of drinks at O'Malley's with her squad to be the final farewell but they wouldn't hear of it. And when she caught a glimpse of the guest list on Amanda's desk a few weeks ago she knew she was in for it. Two days later she had received a formal invitation that could have been mistaken for a wedding invite and the dread has been building since.

Cragen had not so subtly tipped her off that the brass would be there and she should expect an award of some sort and several longwinded speeches in her honor. And even though she was not looking forward to it, she manages a smile as she looks at herself in the mirror. Her favorite black dress had always hugged her curves in all the right places and it wasn't very often that she got an excuse to wear a ballgown anymore.

As she walks into the living room she blushes as Lucy's jaw drops a bit. "Wow, Olivia..." She says, "You look amazing." Olivia laughs. It's not often Lucy sees her in anything but her work clothes, and for the last few months all of their interactions have been cloaked in Olivia's overwhelm as she begged the nanny to stay later while she wrapped up everything at SVU. She can only imagine how shocking it is for the young girl to see her look put together.

"Thank you." She says as she takes the baby from Lucy's arms, She closes her eyes and presses a kiss to his forehead, swaying him back and forth as he curls peacefully into her chest. He's starting to lose that baby smell and it makes her ache. Everything seems to pass her by so quickly lately.

She hears the fridge opening and turns around just in time to see Emma slinking back to her room. "Aren't you going to say goodbye?" She asks, her voice full of amusement as the moody little girl does her best to ignore her mother.

"Bye, Mom." She grumbles.

"Oh come on, Honey..." She says, "You would have a terrible time and you know it, it's going to be a bunch of grown ups in suits reminiscing about "better days", even I don't want to go." Emma rolls her eyes at her mother's attempts to assuage her, but she's unable to keep the smile from touching the corners of her lips. Olivia smiles at her, grateful that she still possesses the skill to pull her daughter out of a mood, knowing she doesn't have many more years of that left. "Your Uncle Fin promised me a good dinner with just the family next week, you can be my date to that..."

The promise elicits a satisfied smile from Emma and she kisses her daughters forehead promising to be back later.

Her cab ride to the Arthouse Hotel is quiet as she looks out at the sun setting over the New York city skyline, the breaks between skyscrapers filled with warm shades of orange, her head resting gently in her hand as she thinks about the last two decades of her life. She thinks about all her time at SVU and even though she's able to view it in a much more positive light than she used too, there is still something about closing this chapter of her life by herself that saddens her in a way she can't quite seem to put into words.