THE RETURN

Chapter 88

Hannah Faith Stabler.

Born April 24th, 2020 at 2:35am.

7.2 lbs and 19 ½ inches of pure perfection.

Elliot was an excellent camera man. Made sure to take pictures and videos of everything. Lilly was quick with Hannah's assessment and vaccinations, was quick to make sure the baby girl and parents weren't deprived of one another for too long. And although Elliot insisted on helping Olivia get dried and cleaned up, Lilly assured him that they would help mama while he got his much needed skin to skin with Hannah. So as Olivia was taken care of, he sat on the couch provided in the room with their bundle of joy pressed softly against his bare chest.

He remembered the first time he held all of his children and when Michelle had helped Olivia hand Hannah off to him, he couldn't even help the few tears that rolled down his cheeks. Hannah had fussed some, had protested the fact that she was taken away from her mother but as soon as he spoke to her, as soon as he told her, "It's okay, princess. It's daddy," she settled quietly once more. She always did like her daddy. He couldn't stop smoothing his hands up and down her back, couldn't stop kissing the top of her dark brown hair, couldn't stop looking at her. At the little girl that he and Olivia had made together.

And as his heart swelled with more and more love for her, Olivia watched. Watched his love pour into their daughter as Michelle checked her vagina, as Lilly checked the placement of her uterus, as both of the women cleaned her up, as she was helped into some underwear completely equipped with a pad, as they assisted her in feeling a little more human again. There was no one else she ever wanted children with. When they were partners, when she dreamed of having a baby of her own, Elliot was the only man that ever came to mind. Even if they would have let her adopt when she first tried, she had a small hope that Elliot would step in as a father figure to her child, regardless if he was still married to Kathy or not. They didn't have to be anything more for him to step in.

But to have it. To actually have it, with not only Hannah, but Noah as well, it was like she was in a dream. This whole experience, Elliot coming back to her, Noah falling in love with him just as much as she had always been, Eli becoming like her own, her falling pregnant, her giving birth, it all seemed like a dream. An incredible dream that was just going to get better. Because whenever she wanted, whenever she made the call, whenever she told him, they were going to be husband and wife. She was going to be a Stabler. Noah was going to be a Stabler. She had just given birth to a Stabler.

She accepted the phone Lilly handed to her with a smile, snapped a handful of photos and a video of father and daughter and grinned brightly when Elliot smiled joyfully at her. He was everything. Her life was everything.

And when Hannah was placed back onto her breast, her reaction was instant. She went from relaxed to shifting. Her little head wiggled back and forth against the softness of her mama and when Elliot whispered how he thought that she was hungry, they both helped her latch for the first time. Olivia shifted her perfectly while Elliot lifted her breast, squeezed softly to get some of her colostrum to surface and sandwiched her areola into the wide open mouth of a waiting Hannah. She latched perfectly. A deep, strong latch that had Olivia sighing in contentment, Elliot smiling proudly and Michelle and Lilly praising. And when Elliot pulled out his phone once more, Olivia smiled softly. They were definitely going to need to make a photo album.

Olivia was exhausted, could already feel her eyes beginning to shut against the feel of Elliot's fingers rubbing lightly along her scalp, against the feel of Hannah's soft suckles at her breast, against the feel of Lilly placing a pillow under her arm to help her hold Hannah against her, against Michelle's voice telling them what time visiting hours were.

Elliot could see the exhaustion, could almost feel it radiating off her and leaned in close to whisper lowly in her ear, "I love you, the both of you so much."