Sweet Relief

K.O.

"Emma, come on..." Olivia calls out again, frustration seeping into her voice as she knock on her daughters door for the fifth time this morning.

"I'm not going." She yells back.

Olivia groans and forces herself to take a deep breath before she pushes Emma's bedroom door open, to see her still laying in bed, facing the wall. "Em, you have to go." Olivia says, standing at the foot of her bed, doing her best to bite her tongue.

Olivia's worked her entire life to be nothing like Serena and she's not about to start now, but a week of this particularly frustrating behavior makes her want to rip the covers off her daughter and force her out the door.

"I'm not going unless Dad takes me to school." Emma says, back still turned, refusing to look at her mother.

Olivia stands for a moment, stunned to hear Emma call Elliot Dad. She's never done that before. It takes her a second to recover and in that time she goes a bit soft. She knew Emma was taking his absence hard but it hadn't occurred to her that this was also about Elliot. "Emma, I know you miss him, I do too, but you have to go to school." She says gently.

"I'll go to school. As long as Dad takes me." Emma fires back, beginning to grow angry with her mother.

"I'm serious, Emma. You know if he could he would. You've got fifteen minutes before I'm walking out the door, you better be dressed and ready to go." Olivia says firmly, "This has gotten out of hand."

Emma pulls the covers up under her chin even tighter, not moving an inch.

"If you're not able to go to school today we're seriously going to reconsider those plans you have to go to the art exhibit with Uncle Rafa this weekend." Olivia says, immediately feeling guilty for threatening Emma with something she's been looking forward to, but knowing it's the only card she has to play.

"Mom, that's not fair!" She says whipping around to look at Olivia. "I haven't seen him in a year!"

"I know, and I think Uncle Rafa's going to be very disappointed if I have to call and tell him you can't come because you didn't go to school." Olivia says, hoping Emma doesn't see through her bluff.

Emma throws her covers back and gets out of bed, stomping towards the bathroom and Olivia breathes a sigh of relief and goes to pour herself a cup of coffee while she waits.

She leans against the counter and stares down at her phone for the tenth time this morning willing it to ring. Elliot's been gone for a month as of this morning and Olivia hasn't heard from him since a few days after he went under. She's called and texted and shown up a the precinct and still nothing. She knew this operation would be rough on them but she didn't expect complete radio silence. She anxiously checks her watch, willing the time to pass faster than it is.

The last time she'd heard from Elliot had been a text.

"Our bench, Central Park. Three weeks, 9am."

It's all she's been able to think about for the last week. She keeps turning the words over in her mind, trying to soothe her anxiety about the state he'll be in when she sees him. It doesn't matter. She'll be able to set eyes on him and touch him for the first time in a month. She's overwhelmed by just the idea of how good it will be to see him. She's more than counting on it to tide her over for the rest of the operation and fuel her patience for handling the kids by herself.

Fifteen minutes passes and she looks down at her watch again, beginning to mentally prepare herself to go back into Emma's room and argue with her once again but when she looks up she sees the little girl coming down the hallway, dressed for school, arms crossed angrily."We have a couple minutes, do you want to grab breakfast?" She asks gently.