Chapter Text
“You know, I’m surprised, Liv,” Nick said over his third – or was it fourth? – beer. Olivia wasn’t sure, she wasn’t counting. Usually she counted. Not tonight.
“Yeah,” she said in a drawl, “I have that effect on men.” But her sarcastic response was quickly replaced by a wry grin because she was enjoying her night out with her partner more than she thought she would or should. “Alright, I’ll bite. Why do I surprise you?”
Nick flushed and played with the label on his beer. “It’ll sound kind of . . . I don’t want to make it sound like women only have one purpose –”
“Ah,” she said, taking another swallow and signaling the bartender to bring them a round of shots. High shelf tequila. After all they were celebrating the fact that her brains weren’t splattered against a wall. “Let me guess, the whole husband and kids thing?”
“Well,” he said with a shrug before thinking about it, “or maybe you’re right about that. Can’t really say my experience is going so great.”
Something she now knew since they’d spent a portion of the night going over Nick’s marriage and all the ways it was going off the rails.
“Hey, maybe Haden’ll make an honest woman of you.” There was a touch of derision in the phrase but she figured it was more about his antipathy for David than any judgment of her.
“It would be nice to have a family,” she conceded. “I always thought I would. But . . . you know the years come and go and before I knew it . . . it was like all my chances had passed me by.” She wanted to say that she was afraid fate didn’t find her worth but couldn’t find it in herself to be that frank about what was so delicate in her soul.
Nick made a face before he shook his head. “I don’t believe that. There’s no reason you can’t have that. Not if you really want it.”
Did she want it? She wasn’t so sure she’d enjoy the husband part of things. But she still ached whenever she saw a baby. Whenever she saw a parent cleaning off a toddler’s sticky hands or holding hands as they walked down the street. She wanted it with everything inside of her but she was almost at the point of reconciling herself to admit it just wasn’t in the cards for her.
“There are only so many options, Nick. First, I’m not going to have a baby with just anyone. I don’t want any deadbeat dads or someone who’s going to whine about choices I make.”
“Alright, so have one alone. Lots of women do it. My mom raised us alone. I mean, the deadbeat dad appeared every once and a while, but she largely did it on her own. Nothing wrong with that.”
“Sure, but there’s limited options for that, too. IVF is too expensive, even if I put everything into it and even then I’d only have one chance at it. And adoption . . . well, let’s just say that I tried that route and was given a definitive no.”
“Assholes,” he muttered under his breath.
“Yeah,” she agreed with a sigh. “Assholes.”
“Alright, so just . . . I don’t know. I mean you already got everything you need to have a baby, except the fun juice.”
Olivia almost choked on her drink just as their shots were put in front of them. “I’m sorry but did you really just refer to semen as fun juice?”
Nick pinked. “Not the best euphemism. Cut me some slack, I can’t hold my liquor.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“But my point stands. I mean just hook up with someone and . . . you know, don’t tell them.”
“First of all,” she said, “that’s a terrible thing to do to someone. Second of all, I’m not going to have unsafe sex with a stranger. I had an HIV scare years ago and I’m not going through that again. And third, that’s a terrible thing to do to someone.”
“Alright, alright,” he conceded. “I guess it is.”
“It is.”
“So . . .” he looked thoughtful, “you don’t have anyone you can . . . ask?”
It was impossible to bite back her smile as she rolled her eyes. “Like Munch? Fin?”
“I’m sure you and Munch would have lovely children.”
“Their ears could fly them across the continent. Nevermind that they’d most likely inherit both of our most obnoxious traits. And Fin would never go that route.”
“I guess Cragen comes with too many daddy issues?”
Olivia let out a loud laugh and smacked his chest with the back of her hand. “Can you be serious?”
Nick picked up his shot and held up the amber liquid to the light, studying it for a long moment. Olivia picked up her own and clinked her glass against his before throwing it back. Nick followed.
“Hear me out,” he said, blinking heavily, “and if you find yourself put off by the idea then we chalk it up to drunken mishaps and forget everything.”
Olivia felt her heart thud in her chest, loudly, painfully, constricting in a vice that made her choke.
Part of her wanted to stop him before he said what he was going to say. Part of her wanted to laugh the whole discussion off and convince him she didn’t want a child that badly.
Except she did.
She really, really did.
And time was growing shorter and shorter each year. She was already in her mid forties. Serena had gone through menopause early. It made sense she might, too. How many years did she have left to –
“What if you asked me?” Nick asked quietly and without looking at her. “I’ve got pretty nice ears, all things considered.”
For the briefest moment she was thrown back to years ago, Elliot by her side, knowing intuitively that she was taking their case hard because she knew that sort of longing for a child, and she knew what it was like to be told no. Elliot. Elliot sitting beside her. Elliot offering to help her out however he could and for the briefest moment she’d been so tempted to see how far he was willing to go to keep that promise before realizing that it would mean the end of everything. However Elliot meant he’d help . . . if it was how she thought he meant it, that would be the end of their partnership. Even if she kept their child’s paternity a secret, that would be the end of their time together. It would have to be. They couldn’t have a love child without ruining everything. And she’d made her choice. She’d chosen their partnership over everything. Even that.
But Nick . . . well now Nick was a different man altogether. Where Elliot never would have brought a child into the world that he didn’t claim as his own, even if it meant the end of his marriage –
But Nick. Nick could get away with it. Not just with Maria, but Nick could compartmentalize. Nick could separate fathering a child from being a father to a child. He’d just be fun Uncle Nick. He’d just be what he was supposed to be. A donor.
Olivia thought about it. Really thought about it. And maybe she was just inebriated enough to make a bad idea sound like a good idea but she said, “The logistics alone –”
“It could work,” Nick insisted. “It’s just . . . a donation, you know. Helping a . . . friend.”
Her eyebrows rose on her forehead. They were partners, but were they friends? She supposed they were. She supposed that if Nick could kill to save her life he deserved to be called her friend.
“Nick –”
“Or just –”
“What if I said yes?” she asked, heart stuttering to a stop before beating double time to catch up. “What would that look like, Nick?”
Nick faced her fully, his eyes dark and lovely. Their baby would have gorgeous eyelashes.
“I think it would be wonderful to see you with a baby of your own.” His voice was soft, tender, sincere.
And oh, she ached for it. She craved it in her belly. Wanted it more than she’d ever wanted anything.
Here was the opportunity. Here was what could possibly be her last chance. And was it really such a bad option?
“Could you really do that?”
“What? Hold an erection?” he teased.
Against all odds she laughed. “I mean help bring a child into the world that you didn’t claim as your own?”
She watched him think about it for a long moment.
“If I knew that child would be safe, loved, happy. If I knew from the start what my role was and not to let it get to my head . . . I think I could. I really do think I could. Especially . . .” He coughed into his hand, looked at her out the side of his eye. “For you, Liv? I don’t know that I’d do it for anyone else in the entire world but you.”
The alcohol made it easy. Nick saving her life made it easier.
It was a series of questions and answers, a drunken agreement, a hasty proposal, promises and what little objections could be raised seemed so small when it came to creating a baby. God, a baby. Nut brown hair, large and dark eyes, perpetually tanned skin. And they’d take the shot. If Nick was her child’s father, that child would inherit that. Their child would take the shot when it mattered. It was that that convinced her more than anything.
It was what led her to take hold of his hand and lead him out the bar. Hold his hand as they got into the back of a taxi, as they arrived at her building, walked up to her apartment, moved into her bedroom and undressed.
It was impossibly sweet. It was slow and tender. It was passionate and wild.
Their bodies fit together. They moved in sync. It was comfortable and natural and he knew what he was doing as he made her body sing like it hadn’t in a very long time. They were not in love but they made love and there was something beautiful about it that had been lacking in previous trysts: the idea that together they could make something that was bigger than the sum of their parts.
Nick rocked into her and she welcomed him each time, encouraged him, breathed into his ear how happy she was to be with him. To do this with him. To put her trust in him and her hopes and bare a tiny bit of her heart that she usually kept hidden from even her closest friends.
It was lovely and it was beautiful and the idea that they were making a child was more erotic than she expected it to be.
In the aftermath he held her to his chest and it felt comfortable. His smooth skin under her cheek felt like maybe she was supposed to be there. That maybe two strangers had met under less than ideal circumstances and he hadn’t been put off when she bared her teeth to mask her broken heart and she allowed herself to be taken in by his charm and patience.
It surprised her that they fit together. David and Maria had no part in it, were barely concerns.
It mattered. It mattered when you were facing down the long end of the barrel, whether that barrel was your biological clock ticking its last breath or a literal shot gun in your face. It mattered when someone stepped up to save you, to help you when you couldn’t help yourself. It mattered.
Olivia fell asleep on Nick’s chest with his arm wrapped around her and when she woke up the next morning to find him softly snoring she smiled and felt a tiny starburst of hope that if it had worked, if it would work, then maybe her baby would sleep like that. Hair touseled, mouth slightly open, serenity in their expression.
It was their first time, but not their last and it was easy and it was comfortable for them to go back to her apartment at the end of the day and build something together that might take root in her body and it happened quicker and easier than it really should have, given the decades of rejection that came before.
Three weeks after that first drunken time Olivia held a small plastic stick, her eyes filling with tears when she saw the plus sign appear.