TITLE: ISSUE
E-MAIL: adrienne_miranda@yahoo.com
FANDOM: Law and Order SVU
PAIRING: Alex Cabot / Olivia Benson
DATE: June 2, 2004
FEEDBACK: Yes, please!!!
ARCHIVE: Ok, just let us know where.
RATING: PG. Also, if same-sex relationships bother you, you might want to read something else. Otherwise, ENJOY!!!!!!!!!
LEGAL STUFF: Copyrighted 2004 by Adrienne Lee and Miranda Rafferty. Non-original characters, if applicable, are used without permission under "Fair Use" doctrine. The author reserves all rights attached to all original aspects of this work. This is a work of fiction; any similarity to characters or persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
SUMMARY FOR STORY: The legal definitions of the title…
SPOILER: Post "Loss".
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is set in our on-going Alternate Universe where Alex and Olivia are still together after Alex went into WPP. It contains spoilers and references to future events / story-lines. Can’t remember if Lillian had already shown up in other stories… Anyway, she’s Ling’s mom.
It had been a while since the detective’s last three-day weekend. Edith had gone to Atlantic City with Mrs. R. Alex decided she would take Monday off as well, so they could have a long relatively idyllic weekend together.
Olivia was in the kitchen, humming a cheery ditty and preparing lunch. This was going to be a perfect day. Her cell phone was off, and would not be on again until Tuesday morning. Ling and Douglas and their kids were visiting Lillian in Flushing, there would be no interruptions from them. It would just be their happy little family unit. Nothing could go wrong.
Just as that thought surfaced, Alex’s scream came through the intercom. Olivia dropped everything literally. Taking the stairs two and three steps at a time, she ran up to the nursery. Oliver mewed and scrambled out just as she flew in.
A quick once over reassured her the sky hadn’t fallen. Alexis was on the changing table, just kicking and gurgling and cooing and laughing, blissful as a lark. There was talcum powder on the floor, but everything else looked normal. Everything except for a shaking Alex, with a strange look on her face. At least she had stopped screaming.
“Sweetheart, what’s the matter?” Olivia checked her up and down. There was nothing visibly wrong with her lover.
The blonde remained silent, still trembling.
“Is there a bug or something?” She started looking around on the floor and on the walls. “A spider?”
Alex shuddered, but finally managed, “Get this thing off me.”
“What? What?”
“The shirt.”
“Why?” Olivia began to unbutton the blouse. “Is the bug inside?”
“NO!” Alex yelped and shivered again. As soon as the top became undone, she shucked it off. “Ewwwwwwwwww!”
“Honey, it’s wet.”
“Your daughter peed on me!” Alex snapped like the proverbial wet hen. The exaggerated look on her face was comical.
“She did what?”
“You heard me!”
It had taken Olivia everything to not burst out laughing from relief and humor. “Sweetheart, calm down, it’s just baby pee.”
“Pee is pee, and can you stop reminding me?” The blonde unclasped her bra and handed it to her lover. “It’s like she rained on me.”
“Okay…” The brunette could feel the laughter bubbling up, and quickly searched for an escape. “I’m going to take these to the washer…”
“You will not!” Alex demanded. “Just get rid of them!”
“Why? It’s just a little… um, rain.”
“Fine. Do whatever you want with them. Use them as car rags. I don’t care. Just take them away, please.”
Olivia looked down at the bra, **Well, this will make an interesting car rag,** she thought, but she was not going to bring that up. “If you think of it the right way, it’s just reprocessed you.”
“It’s what?”
“It’s just reprocessed you?” Olivia offered helpfully. “It came out of… you know… and went into her…” She did all the appropriate gestures, pointing at Alex’s breasts and their daughter. “And it came out and you know…”
“You’re not helping.”
“Oh.”
“I can’t believe she… ARGH!”
“It’s not like it’s personal.” She offered, hoping her lover would see the hilarity in the situation. “It’s happened to me and Edith. I’m sure you did that to a few people back in the day.”
“Since you think it’s so amusing, you can finish changing her.” Alex said and headed out of the room. At the door, she turned. “And just so you know, I’m never changing her diapers again.”
**It’s not like you’ve been doing it that often anyway.** Olivia commented in her head, grinning secretly.
“Did you say something?”
“No, honey, not a thing.” Sometimes she really wondered if her lover could read her mind.
“I’m going to take a shower.”
“Okay. I’ll have everything under control when you come out.” She promised, and proceeded to powder Alexis…
With the baby asleep, and the dishes from lunch taken care off, the lovers sat in familiar repose. Alex stuck her head under the brunette’s nose, and asked. “Are you sure I smell okay?”
“How many showers did you take? Two?”
“Three. Do I need to go take another one?” She started to sit up.
Olivia pulled her back into her embrace, and smiled. “No, you smell fine. Lovely, in fact.”
“Are you sure, sure?”
“Yes.” She sniffed exaggeratedly, all over her lover’s back, then snuggled closer. “Very sure.”
“I feel so yucky...” Alex drew the strong arms about her and settled in.
“So, you’re really not going to change another diaper, huh?” She teased, nuzzling against the soft flaxen tresses.
“At least not this weekend.”
“Maybe if you’re lucky, she’ll be like you.”
“What do you mean?” She questioned defensively, furrowing her brows.
“Edith told me you practically potty trained yourself.”
“She didn’t.” Alex buried her head against her lover’s shoulder. “What else did she tell you?”
“Just stuff. Cute and funny baby stuff. Sometimes I wish I could go back in time and get to know you when you were little. You must have been an adorable baby.” She admitted, then added silently, **And sometimes I wish we knew each other since when we were little…**
“You sure you were talking to Edith? I think I drove her crazy.” The blonde smiled. “I remember one time, Ling and I decided we wanted to be bakers. While nobody was looking, we stole pie-pans from the kitchen and took them outside.”
“Oh?”
“It had just rained and the ground was still wet.”
“You made mud pies?” Olivia asked, totally stunned. It was hard for her to imagine Alex playing with mud.
“Yeah, Leon found us and squealed on us. He told Edith.”
“What happened?”
“Edith had a herd of blue cows. It was right before a formal dinner party and we were already dressed.”
The brunette laughed lightly, shaking her head. “Before you decided to make mud pies.”
“Yeah.” Alex grinned shyly, and met her lover’s gaze. “Still want to know me when I was little?”
Olivia confirmed with a sincere nod and a gentle peck on her cheek. “Although maybe Alexis being like you is not such a great idea.”
“And I suppose you were the perfect child?”
“If Alexis were like me, we might want to start running for the hills now.” She recommended in all seriousness. “Or we should look for baby boarding schools.”
“Oh, really? Do tell!”
“Oh, no, that’s one of the advantages of being an orphan. I get to keep the stories of my quirks and delinquencies to myself.”
“Liv, that’s a terrible thing to say.”
“I can cry about it, or I can laugh.” Olivia shrugged, and touched her lover’s lower lip delicately with her thumb. “And I choose to laugh.”
Alex closed her eyes, and parted her mouth to welcome the kiss…
At the end of Monday, Olivia found out how wrong she had been. “I’m sorry, Sweetheart,” she looked up and extended her heartfelt apology.
“For what?” Alex gave her a brilliant but perplexed smile.
“For thinking you haven’t been changing that many diapers. How do you and Edith do it?”
“You gotta do what you gotta do?” The blonde answered absently, intent on divesting her lover of her tee-shirt.
She raised up to allow access. “How did you manage to still have issue with pee?”
“I don’t know. I think it was the surprise factor.” Alex explained as she dropped the shirt onto the floor, and peeled off her own. “I mean sometimes I feel like I’m wading in the stuff.”
“Oh, yuck.” Olivia cringed, and wiped her face with her palms. “Please don’t remind me. Yuck. I think I’m developing an issue of my own.”
Alex laughed, took the large hands and placed them over her breasts, and bent slowly forward until she could touch her lover’s nose with her lips. “I thought that’s what you wanted.”