Olivia Benson x Elliot Stabler ♡ Law and Order: SVU ♡ 0.8k ♡ Ao3 ♡ masterlist
summary. losing things is always hard. it's harder when you lose what you didn't know you had.
tags. angst, hurt no comfort. miscarriage, loss of pregnancy, unplanned pregnancy takes place just after Elliot leaves svu in s12. just very sad overall, the author had to get some things out.
jayne yaps. so, this sort of became more of a trauma dump than an actual solid fic, but isn't that how all my good writing comes to be? my heart goes out to anyone who's gone through something like this, it's not easy. yall know my mailbox is always open for you guys <3 enjoy the read lovelies 💌
She knows something is wrong the moment she sees the blood. Something about it is just off; the color is too bright, the bloods too clotted, and it’s just too much in general. Whatever it is, it’s not her period.
She hadn’t even considered that she could be pregnant. Sure, her cycle had been a little late, but things at work had been hectic, and she figured the stress of it had caused a delay. Things like that happen all the time to people. Normal things like that happen to normal people.
Then again, when has anything in her life ever been normal?
She can’t explain how she knows it’s a miscarriage, but she can feel it, in every part of her mind and soul. Maybe it’s a fucked up sense of motherly instinct, her subconscious sending her messages.
She doesn’t tell anyone, not immediately. She can’t bring herself to say the actual word, so she dances around it.
“What if… what if I was pregnant, and now I’m… not, anymore?”
That’s how she phrases it when she tells Fin. Because saying it makes it feel too real, and if it’s too real she’ll let herself get upset about it, but that can’t happen. Not yet.
Fin does his best to tell her she’s overthinking, it’s probably just a heavier period cause the cases have been so stressful. This isn’t his wheelhouse, and she knows that, but who else can she go to about this? Elliot went off grid right after they slept together, and any phone call she tries to make goes straight to voicemail.
She takes a test on the third day of the bleeding, just to ease her anxiety. She figures even if it’s gone, the hormones won’t be gone overnight.
There’s a part of her that’s surprised by the positive result, just a little bit. Even though she’s had the feeling for days now. She convinces herself that it doesn’t have to mean anything, that false positives happen to people all the time. It doesn’t work well. Lying to yourself hardly ever does.
She shouldn’t have even gotten pregnant. They’d been safe, and the sex had been tame. More intimate than anything else. If they’d been crazier, if things had been wilder, then it would’ve made sense. But it hadn’t, and it doesn’t. That night they’d just been two people finding comfort in a slow rhythm together. Apparently that’s all that needs to happen.
She sees Melinda the next day. It’s not her department, not at all, but Liv doesn’t want this on the record, and in her line of work, you don’t know who you can trust. Rumors spread like wildfire.
It’s a confirmation of what she’d thought already. A chemical pregnancy. An extremely early miscarriage.
She can’t really explain why she starts crying when she gets the news. It’s not like she knew she was pregnant. And even if she had known, would now have even been a good time for a kid? Her work is so demanding, and Elliot just left, and adding a baby to that? It wouldn’t have been a good idea. But the sadness lingers either way, heavy on her chest, her bones, her soul.
That’s the overarching feeling on top of everything. Guilty because she didn’t have the slightest idea that she could be pregnant. Guilty because it died inside of her. Guilty because in a way, she’s glad that it died. Because if it was alive? It would’ve led to so many disasters.
She wonders if she’s a bad person for that. People tell her she’s not. She doesn’t know if she believes them.
She tries to move on, to go on with her normal life, but it’s hard. Somehow, despite everything going on at work, the only thing that’s constantly in her mind is what’s happening in her body. Maybe that makes her selfish. Maybe it doesn’t. Sometimes she doesn’t know anymore. She cries herself to sleep about it at night, when she’s alone with her thoughts in an empty room. It’s a dangerous situation.
She bleeds for 13 days. When it’s over, there’s an emptiness that lingers in her body, a newfound hollowness to her. She’s glad, of course, that it’s over, that she no longer has to deal with it and can move on.
But then again, now she has to move on. And she will, eventually. She always moves on in the end. But the thoughts linger, and the emptiness of her room is filled to the brim with sadness, the kind that clouds your entire day.
She tries to ignore it. To forget. It was early, just cells at that point. But she can’t shake it. The what-if’s play in her mind on repeat, the maybe’s haunt her dreams. And if she sits with them too long? She’ll break.
Maybe she needs that. Maybe she doesn’t. She doesn’t know anymore. Maybe she just needs to sleep, for a long long time.
And tomorrow, she’ll wake up and go back to work and act like it’s all fine. Like it should be.
