#and by happiness i mean cabenson kiss scene

[cabensqn]

i personally think i should be on the svu team as a showrunner . cut the bullshit cabenson is canon and they're married and we get the kiss scene

[aries-rising-on-an-aquarius-tide]

A/N: I know it's been a long time, and some of you decided that Evocations was over for you before we rounded the final curve ... but I am still determined to finish it, bc Cabenson deserves it. This story means something to me, even though Cabenson isn't canonically endgame. So, here's the next piece. There's not too much left to cover past this, so hopefully I can do the rest of it justice, too.

Rating: 14+

Spoilers: Scorched Earth, Lost Reputation, Above Suspicion

Trigger/content warnings: references to Domestic Abuse/Violence (M/F), alcohol, Domestic Homicide including graphic description of a crime scene, nausea and vomiting

Evocations: XXV

They say you can never start over the way it was, but for just a little while, they beat the odds. Somehow, it was 2002 again, with Alex in Olivia's bed at the end of the day, it was joints shared on the roof in each others' arms, talking about their years spent apart. There were no rough edges, no fighting. Just fucking, laughter, good food, and solid sleep.

When the world once again shifted beneath Olivia's feet, for the first time it was not Alexandra who left her.

Elliot disappears as though twelve years together evaporated into the aether. No words, no phone call, not a post-it note or a 'kiss my ass' to dream on. At the end of the day that she finds out from Cragen, she walks into her apartment to find Alex making dinner.

"Elliot quit," she tells the blonde, hands fisting her hips in an attempt to push the tremble in her voice down her arms and back into her body.

Alexandra stopped dicing just shy of severing a fingertip in surprise. Biting her lip in dismay at the emotion on Liv's face, she wiped her hands and came around to the brunette, enveloping her in a hard hug, which lasted a long time.

Alex tried what she could to dispel the dark cloud that Stabler's ghost wrapped around Liv; she pulled out every trick she knew from all their stuttered years, making time for wine nights, for trying new restaurants, for black & white film festivals. They were still happy together, but the blonde knew that something inside Olivia was broken, something that all the quality time in the world was never going to fix.

Not everyone's heart is made whole by the love of just one soulmate. Part of the identity Liv had carved out of herself was made to fit into Elliot Stabler, and his absence took up as much space as his presence ever had.

Stabler had been Liv's anchor, and now Alex knew that Olivia was adrift at sea.

.

.

Throughout 2012, ADA coverage was a three-way split for SVU between Cabot, Novak and Cutter. When one of them was handling a sex crimes case, the others were handed cases in other departments. Late that year, Alex got a call telling her to meet a client at the hospital.

A pack of bustling ER nurses parted to reveal a battered middle-aged woman who looked like she had lost a battle with the not-so-jolly Green Giant. For a moment, from a distance, she looked so much like Olivia that Alexandra's heart jumped.

"Hi," she says quietly when she gets within speaking distance. "I'm ADA Alex Cabot. What's your name?"

The scared brunette looked at Alex, but the gaze was hollow. "Betty," she answers through swollen lips, "Betty Bluestone."

When Alexandra gets home that night, she is poised to start telling Liv about Betty's DV case. But the apartment is dark and silent. A ripple of discontent passes through the blonde for the first time since she returned, and she is immediately uneasy. She doesn't call, or text - opts, instead, to open a bottle of wine and order in something to eat.

Hours later, Olivia finds her swaddled in the heavy throw blanket, asleep in front of some flickering old movie. There is unfinished wine and cold Chinese on the coffee table. The brunette shakes the ADA awake, unaware of all the words that come rushing up out of the sleepy blonde's mind about the beaten woman who looks like her.

Before Alex can form any of them, Liv tells her, "Cragen's been accused of murder."

.

.

They fight with each other, but only in their heads. Olivia dives into saving Cragen, which Alex understands, as Cragen is really the only father Liv has ever known. Alex doesn't budge from the Bluestone case, which Olivia won't forgive.

It makes the Autumn longer, and colder. They don't have much time for just each other - they are ships in the night, passing like ghosts, hulking and silent. Over the weeks, Betty becomes the surrogate for Alex's protection and concern: she checks in constantly, arranges shelter, makes sure there is no contact with Mitch, and preps Betty for court until both their voices crack.

Liv goes to war for Cragen; her years at SVU, and Elliott's abandonment both tangled up in her battle plans. She learns the hard lesson that parental figures are never faultless. She refuses to lose another part of what has made SVU her home.

In the end, both battles are lost.

.

.

"Mitch, no. Leave her alone, let's just go home."

Alex is numb with the cold on the stone steps of the courthouse. Her ears lift at the sound of Betty's plaintive voice.

"I should give that bitch a piece of my mind," Mitch Bluestone rumbles back to his wife.

"I just want to go home. I've missed you."

Alexandra's stomach knots at the words that come out of Betty's mouth. She turns just enough to watch the couple continue down the steps in perfect sync, waiting to see if Mitch will throw a snarl back over his shoulder.

Their day in court had been a disaster. Between Mitch's intimidation from the defense table, and his lawyer tearing Betty apart, it had all gone to hell. It had taken an act of divine intervention to keep Cabot from screaming when Betty had apologized meekly after telling the ADA that she and Mitch were going to "try one more time."

She stood in the cold for long minutes after the Bluestones had disappeared from sight, wishing for a joint, wishing for Liv's calm pragmatism, for anything but the emptiness that the defeat had punched into her. Even if she goes home, she knows she won't find relief, because Cragen is still in lockup. Olivia has slept and showered mostly in the cribs at the precinct for weeks, sending errant text messages when she had an extra three seconds in a minute.

So Alex goes to a bar instead, tossing back martinis that make up the largest portion of her meals for the day. By the time a woman makes eyes at her from across the bar, the blonde is four drinks deep, but allows the woman to buy her one more anyway. She stands up to leave when it's empty, and isn't sure if it's the world that's spinning her on her feet, or the Wheel of Fortune.

Perhaps both.

.

.

Alex wakes in bed in the apartment, with Olivia shaking her insistently. The dull ache of a hangover is a weight at the blonde's temples as she wonders when her lover got home, and if it means Cragen's charges are dropped.

"Lex," the brunette mumbles again, "Alex. Your phone's ringing."

She reaches to the bedside table, doesn't recognize the number, puts it haphazardly to her ear anyway. "Cabot," she muffles out.

"ADA Alexandra Cabot?" The voice on the line is far too awake for the hour, and Alexandra winces.

"Yes."

"We found your card in the effects at our crime scene. Is a Mrs. Elizabeth Bluestone your client?"

Her blue eyes snap open wide as she sits up in the bed. Olivia is already back to sleep and breathing softly. "Yes. Did she ask for me?"

There is an apologetic pause on the line, then: "Uh, no ma'am. She's dead."

.

.

Mitch is arrested and long gone from the scene by the time Alexandra arrives. The one cop car that remains outside has lights but no siren, the blue light illuminating the windows in staggered flashes. The darkened house full of shadows hulked on the lawn in the eerie quiet that follows chaos.

Unlike Olivia, who could flash a badge and push her way in to nearly anywhere, ADA credentials didn't grant Alex much entry. She waited uneasily for someone to fetch the cop in charge so she could get inside, and a younger guy, the one that had called her she presumed, came out to meet her.

"Neighbor called in a Domestic Disturbance," he explained quietly as he lead her into the house, "which escalated to Shots Fired before we even arrived. The husband went quietly enough, but the woman was DOA. We found your card in the pocket of her jeans."

At the end of the hall they turned into the bedroom, and Alex was hit immediately by the tell-tale scents of domestic violence that has reached its climax: sweat, gun powder, and the copper-metal tang of spilled blood. Her stomach lurched, already disquieted by her hangover.

Off the master bedroom there was an ensuite. The light inside it was on, the coroner and a CSI stood near the doorway, trading quiet murmurs between them.

"I don't imagine this was their first fight," the young cop said.

"No," Alex confirmed, her heart racing at the idea of looking inside the bathroom. She took another couple steps forward, then halted again. "Did he say anything?" she asked, "The husband?"

The police officer cleared his throat. The coroner, the CSI, both turned their heads to look at him. "He said . . . he said he wished he'd've had more bullets. Ma'am." He took a breath to tell the tall blonde ADA that she didn't have to go in there, but it was too late - she had closed the distance between herself and the doorway.

Alex swayed on her feet for just a second. Her nostrils flared, heart racing as her pupils dilated with the shock of fight or flight. Blood coated the bathroom tile, parts of the walls, and flecked the porcelain of the fixtures. Betty had dropped where she stood, a freeze-frame of her last moment, eyes wide open and a hole bulls-eyed into her forehead. The blood pooled around her head that had soaked into her dark hair was scattered with bits of brain and scalp and splinters of skull bone.

Mitch had said "I should give that bitch a piece of my mind," earlier that day, but instead had gone home and painted the ensuite with pieces of Betty's.

But the worst part were her eyes.

Not that they were open. Not even that they were dull with the finality of it all.

No, the worst of it was that instead of looking surprised by the turn of events the night had taken, Betty looked as meek and as cautious as she'd looked when apologizing to Alex after court. There was no righteous indignation, no pleading or regret.

Betty Bluestone looked for all the world as if she had been expecting it.

Betty Bluestone looked relieved.

Alexandra didn't see the long pale grey hallway wall, or recall ducking the crime scene tape as she rushed past the cop watching the front door. The next thing her eyes fixed on was the Bluestones' lawn as she threw up whatever was left of her drinks from earlier that evening. Normally, the ADA would be ashamed of such a rookie move, but Alex was past it that night. She was past all of it, perhaps for the first time in her whole life.

As the cold night air seeped into her skin, she thought of all her years at SVU. She thought of her years on the run - from Wisconsin to other made up lives, of all the people and love lost along the way. Then of Africa, of how anything she did there had been little more than a drip in a giant bucket of war and violence that never ended. Alex thought of Holland, of Knopf the cat, of Sky High, of the children she was probably keeping Olivia from having. There was all that loss, all those endings, all the change and activism that she had wanted to achieve.

And there was Betty, getting cold on the bloody bathroom tile.

It wouldn't do.

Not anymore.

.

.

The clean white light from above the stove is the only illumination in the apartment when Olivia gets home the night of the day of Betty Bluestone's death. Cragen is still in lock up. Cassidy had been shot. Her entire world was upside down, and all she wanted was to crawl into Alex's arms and find sleep that wasn't tainted with the impotence of all her efforts.

On the counter across from the semicircle of light was a little dark object that Liv didn't recognize. She stumbled through taking off her shoes as she got closer. Slowly, a faint smile crossed her features as she held the item up into the light, turning it.

It was a set of Nesting dolls, but instead of the traditional Russian doll style, they were painted to look like a female cop in uniform. Liv twisted the doll open to get to the next one, closing the largest and setting it aside. She repeated with the second doll.

The third doll was not a cop.

Liv frowned. The third wooden doll was a likeness of Alex: blonde, court-ready in a formal skirt and jacket combo, her reading glasses on. Then the fourth and fifth dolls went back to cops in uniform. Lastly, even stranger, the tiniest of the dolls was painted as a baby. It was just a tiny, indistinguishable face, swaddled in a white blanket. Olivia used a fingernail to part the seam in the wood and popped it open.

Inside of it was a ring.

Alex's ring.

Olivia had bought it for her for the first birthday they'd spent together after Alexandra's return. It complimented the diamond and rose gold one that the blonde had bought all those years ago.

The finality of it gripped Liv slowly, a tingling numbness that started in her toes and filled her all the way up. It felt familiar, and somehow different all at once.

The Matryoshka doll was Alex's goodbye letter.

Olivia was finally, truly, alone.

TBC

[amanda-glassen]

The Wonder Years: Part 4

While getting ready for her first school dance, twelve-year-old Olivia starts a path toward discovering who she is truly meant to be. Parts 1-3 can be found under the the tag #alex and liv: the wonder years

Thank you to everyone who reblogged the last chapter and an extra special thank you to @storiesofsvu @ghostwritingcabenson @oliviaswifey @denpine @cabensons and my two anons for your kind words and encouragement to keep going with this.

Approaching the entryway to her middle school in the morning was always a scary thought for Olivia, but at 6 o’clock on the night of her first school dance, the entryway seemed downright menacing. Other students were excitedly approaching the entryway－some with groups of friends, others with dates－but none seemed to be as nervous as Olivia.

“Ms. Benson, can you take a picture of Olivia and me together?” Alex asked. She handed her phone over to Serena and yet another wave of nervousness hit Olivia. She’s going to hug me or something and my mom is going to freak out again.

The two of them posed near the colorful Spring Fling banner with Olivia afraid to even wrap her arm around Alex. She had wanted to get the pictures over with until she saw how disappointed Alex looked. 

“Loosen up, kid,” Jamie teased her. “It’s your first dance, not your first day of school. Why don’t you twirl her?”

Olivia gave her a confused look. “Twirl her? How?”

“Like this,” Jamie held out her hand for her girlfriend. “Serena.”

Alex and Olivia watched as Jamie did a twirling pose with Serena. When she decided to actually twirl her, Serena let out a squeal that made Alex giggle.

She grabbed Olivia’s hand and tried to get Olivia to go along with it. “Olivia! Twirl me, please! That looks so cute!”

With an encouraging look from Jamie, Olivia held Alex’s hand and raised her arm up to twirl her. Alex smiled and giggled and Olivia considered that giggle to be her new favorite sound and she was now willing to do just about anything to hear it again. 

Alex looked so beautiful and so happy in the pictures and, although she wasn’t too big on social media, Olivia couldn’t wait to post them and brag to everyone about her girlfriend.

“I’ll send you the pictures, Ms. Benson,” Alex said while scrolling through her phone. “You too, Olivia. I’m going to post these and show everyone how cute and dapper my girlfriend is.”

“Alex! Alex!” They heard a girl shout. Olivia looked ahead and saw Serena Southerlyn, Alex’s best friend, walking toward them.

“Hi, Serena!” Alex responded. 

Olivia watched as the two of them hugged and complimented each other’s dresses and hair. She liked seeing Alex with her friends because it made her feel like she was in some sort of alternate universe. Olivia’s friends were mostly boys and they wouldn’t be caught dead complimenting each other’s appearance. Instead, there were high-fives when they greeted each other and the occasional teasing that was all in fun.

“We should go in now,” Alex said to Jamie and Serena. “Thank you Ms. Castillo and Ms. Benson. I appreciate you both bringing us.” 

"What's the rush?" Alex's best friend asked Alex and Olivia. Olivia noticed her girlfriend roll her eyes when Serena approached Jamie. "I don't believe we've been properly introduced. My name is Serena Southerlyn. I'm a friend of Alex's and an acquaintance of Olivia's. You are the most dashing woman I have ever seen. Would you escort me to the dance?"

Alex covered her face with her hands. "Serena! You have a girlfriend."

Olivia looked at her mom who had started scrolling through her phone to prevent herself from laughing, but her movement got the attention of the younger Serena. "Who is she?" the twelve-year-old Serena asked Jamie with a disgusted look on her face. 

Jamie reached for her girlfriend’s hand. "She's my girlfriend who is also named Serena."

"And she's my mommy," Olivia said defensively. Once the word 'mommy' came out of her mouth, she was grateful the guys weren't around. Instead it was just Alex who looked at her adoringly.

"You are a very beautiful girl," Jamie began. "And I'm sure you're aware that girls named Serena are always the prettiest and always the most special, which is why there's only room for one Serena in my heart, but I know for a fact it won't be long before some girl sweeps you off your feet."

Alex tugged at Serena’s arm to get her to leave with them. "Some girl already has. She has a girlfriend, one whose parents will be dropping her off at the designated drop off area any time now."

"Fine," twelve-year-old Serena yanked her arm from Alex's grip before gesturing to the older Serena. "If this doesn't work out, Jamie, you know where to find me.”

Mrs. Carmichael’s SUV pulled into the drop off area and when Abbie stepped out of the vehicle in the same navy blue and floral criss cross fit and flare dress as Serena, Serena ran over to her without saying another word. 

It had taken every ounce of willpower she had, but Serena Benson had managed to hold in her laughter until the twelve-year-old Serena was out of earshot. “If she’s like that at twelve, what is she going to be like at seventeen?” She playfully smacked Jamie’s arm. “I guess I just have five years left with you.”

“Forgive her,” Alex smiled nervously. “Ever since she turned twelve, all she can think about is women. And please don’t judge me based on my best friend. I promise my heart belongs only to Olivia.”

Once she heard that, Olivia couldn’t decide if she wanted to beam with pride because of how Alex felt or cease to exist because of how her mom would react. With no idea what to do with herself, she stood there with her eyes wide.

“I’m sure you’re the perfect girlfriend for Olivia,” Serena said as she pulled Olivia in and gave her a tight embrace. Olivia felt like her circulation was being cut off, but what made matters worse is when her mom planted a kiss on her cheek. “My little Ollie. I love you so much.”

Olivia finally managed to move just enough to give Jamie a look that she hoped she would see as a cry for help. “Come on, babe, be cool.” Jamie snickered. “She’s in middle school now. She’s got a reputation to protect.”

Olivia’s reputation consisted of when she ran away the first time Alex flirted with her and the time she narrowly avoided walking into a pole and instead fell down on the cement and scraped her knee as a result of watching Alex apply lip gloss. Now that she thought about it, she no longer had a reputation to protect, but she was grateful for Jamie’s statement nonetheless.

“I’ll let you go,” Serena told her, just slightly lessening the tightness of her embrace. “I want you girls out here at nine o’clock. If not, I’m going in there and I will make an announcement that I’m looking for Olivia Margaret Benson in 6th grade, core 1, Mrs. Peterson’s homeroom.”

“Oh, god,” Olivia groaned, a look of absolute terror on her face. 

“She’s kidding, Olivia,” Alex giggled.

“She’s not,” Olivia worriedly responded.

As soon as they entered the auditorium, Olivia realized, aside from the colorful streamers and punch, the dance was nothing like she expected. The seventh and eighth graders were all on the dance floor, but the sixth graders were separated along gender lines with the boys on one wall of the auditorium and girls on another. Her friends who had all talked big just one day prior were now even too afraid to stand near their dates. The only sixth graders who seemed to be enjoying themselves were Abbie and Serena who were on the dancefloor along with the older kids. 

“Do you wanna dance?” Olivia asked Alex while she scanned the room.

“I don’t know,” Alex responded nervously. “I mean, maybe later. This isn’t my song.”

“Yeah, good idea,” Olivia nodded, feeling completely relieved. “This isn’t my song either.”

Their friends may have been on opposite sides of the auditorium, but what soon brought them together was Olivia’s new haircut, which much to her chagrin, became the topic of conversation among their respective groups. The girls showered her with compliments, some of which made Alex start to feel jealous until Olivia squeezed her hand to reassure her that she was the only girl for her. 

A slow song began to play and, although Olivia hadn’t magically learned how to slow dance over the last few minutes, she knew another romantic gesture might be required to make Alex feel better. Even if I make a complete fool of myself, she’s worth it.

“May I have this?” Olivia blurted out.

Alex narrowed her eyes. “Have what?” she asked before Olivia realized she hadn’t finished the rest of her question about asking her to dance.

Her girlfriend may not have been the most popular girl in sixth grade, but Alex and her friends held enough rank in the sixth grade social scene for that moment to be sufficiently awkward for Olivia with all of them exchanging glances and wondering what Olivia was trying to ask.

“Dance with me?” Olivia’s voice squeaked for a third time that night.

Her question was followed by a chorus of ‘aww’ and ‘how cute’ from Alex’s friends, but most importantly, it was followed by a kiss on the cheek from Alex. “I’d love to dance with you, Olivia.”

Olivia tried to remember every prom scene from teen movies she had watched with her mom on Netflix so she could know where to place her hands during slow dancing until she realized she usually got bored of those movies and the two of them would watch some cheesy horror movie from when her mom was a teenager because Olivia considered those way more fun, especially when they’d turn the lights off in their apartment and eat junk food on the couch while they watched. I guess the Blair Witch Project can’t save me now.  Panic set in once again until she saw how beautiful Alex looked standing in front of her. Her girlfriend’s glittery lips and braces-filled smile put Olivia at ease and, once she focused on her instead of the logistics of slow dancing, Olivia finally started to enjoy herself.

She didn’t know if she had rhythm and she didn’t care because what mattered most to her was holding Alex close while some song about eternal love or maybe heartbreak－Olivia didn’t actually care－played in the background. 

Alex’s coconut body spray reminded her of every good summer memory she ever had and all of the new memories she wanted to make with her that summer. It was the first time she had held Alex that close and for that long and, as much as she enjoyed the time she pigged out on nachos and caught a foul ball at a Mets game with her uncle, she now had a new contender for the best moment of her life, but when Alex whispered in her ear ‘You’re the best girlfriend in the world,’ she knew nothing could ever compare to her first slow dance with the very first girl she would give her heart to.