Through Thick and Thin

23. Blessed Beyond Belief

Five years later...

A lot had happened in the last five years. Everyone in the gang got married, had babies and were thriving in their careers. Alex and Casey were prosecutors for the New York District Attorney's Office. Trevor was a defense attorney trying to develop his own firm with a friend he met through law school, Eric Henshall. Ryan O'Halloran was a lab technician working for the NYPD's Special Victims Unit. Melinda was the Medical Examiner for SVU. Fin was one of the detectives for SVU and Elliot and Olivia were just promoted to be the two lead detectives. They couldn't ask for better lives.

"Benson, Stabler!" Don Cragen called as he walked out of his office in the Special Victims Unit. Even though Elliot and Olivia were his son and daughter-in-law, Cragen was able to pull some strings to allow them to join the unit.

"Yeah, Captain." Elliot responded as he and Olivia looked up from their computers to their captain, ready for an assignment.

"Domestic dispute turned murder...and there's a child involved." Cragen spoke softly, knowing the case was going to be a tough one.

"Got it." Elliot said as he took the paper from Cragen which had the address on it and he and Olivia went on their way.

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Once they arrived at the address, all hell broke loose. The man, who turned out to be the woman's pimp, killed the woman who was the mother of the pimp's little boy and tried to shoot Elliot. Thankfully, he dodged the bullet and arrested the man for rape, since the girl was underage when she got pregnant, murder and attempted murder of a police officer.

While Elliot was arresting the man, Olivia went to find the little boy. Once she went into the house, she found one of the officers holding the boy and her heart broke. He was screaming quite loudly and she could tell that his diaper needed to be changed.

"I can take him." Olivia said to the officer who looked like she was barely out of the academy.

"Thanks, Detective." The officer responded as she handed the baby over to Olivia. "His name is Noah." The officer added.

"Let's go get you changed, huh, Noah? Does that sound good?" Olivia said softly to the boy and she was relieved when his cries instantly stopped.

Once she got him changed and fed, thankful the fridge was stocked with formula, she was sitting in the nursery of the victim's house, reading a book to the now content baby. After one of the officers took the shooter to the precinct, Elliot went into the house to find Olivia. He was growing concerned when he couldn't find her but once he did, he smiled as he watched his wife. He was falling more in love with her with each passing moment and he felt blessed to have found a woman like her to love.

"You can stop staring, El." Olivia teased as she looked up from the book and winked at her husband.

"You're so good with him." Elliot said softly as he walked over to them and bent down in front of the chair.

"He's already been through so much and he's only four months old." Olivia said as tears formed in her eyes.

"Hey, hey, hey," Elliot said soothingly as he rubbed her arm gently. "CPS is gonna find a good home for him, babe." He said, but they both knew it probably wasn't true. Child Protective Services wasn't the best at finding good homes for children because they rarely did background checks or home visits because of their overloading cases and not enough employees.

"I wanna keep him." Olivia said as she looked down at the baby who was now sleeping on her chest.

"Honey," Elliot tried to say but Olivia shook her head.