Work Text:
Rafael wiped his brow with the back of his hand, wondering why on earth he’d decided to put a full suit on that morning. The undershirt he was wearing felt uncomfortably damp and he’d loosened the tie away from his neck a long while ago. His suspenders were digging into his shoulders.
In truth, he did know why he’d gone with the full regalia. He’d had a conference call that morning with the Fordham faculty to discuss his progress in the nearly four months that he had been working there. It had gone well; they were highly complementary of his work, very thankful he had considered the position at all. But…
But the teacher he had been covering for had had a much more difficult birth than anyone was anticipating. She was still in hospital, as far as Rafael had been informed, and would be on some form of bed rest for a little while afterwards too. At the end of his conference call, Rafael had been asked if he would still be available to cover for the rest of the year.
He wanted to say no. He wasn’t a teacher- not in the same way as other people seemed to be (it really was a vocation, not just a job).
He wanted to say yes. When was the next time he would able to get into a court room? It would be stupid to leave perfectly good employment.
He didn’t know what he wanted. He didn’t even really know how to make the decision.
He used to be good at making decisions.
Rafael raked a hand through his hair, feeling the dampness of his undershirt beginning to go through to his dress shirt. It had to be at least 80 degrees outside. Olivia’s apartment had air-conditioning, but it wasn’t achieving very much. Rafael longed for the amenities his old place had.
He could hear her on the phone in her bedroom, talking about some case or another. She hadn’t divulged much about work recently; for some reason preferring to steer the conversation to more or less anything else.
Well, that was when they did talk at all.
Rafael wasn’t sure when it had started happening, but he’d noticed that he and Olivia were beginning to only converse when they had to. He’d pass her a cup of coffee in the morning and she’d say thank you, or warn him when she was going to be using the bathroom in the evening. They’d sit in the living room after Noah went to bed, but usually in silence as they stared at some show neither of them were all that interested in. And even though he hated it- hated how non-communicative they had become- for some reason he couldn’t seem to fix it either.
The students in his class were getting more and more stressed, which leaked into the way he was teaching them. He felt himself losing his patience with them whenever they sent him an email, even though he knew they were only trying to do the best they could.
It was all anyone was doing at the moment.
~~~~
Olivia pulled at the neckline of her blouse. She’d forgone anything synthetic, deliberately opted for one of her thinner cotton shirts, but the lack of really any breeze throughout her apartment wasn’t helping.
New York was experiencing an early summer heatwave and she hated it.
Hot weather made people do stupid things. Things they’d never usually do, but Olivia found that somehow the humidity went to people’s heads and cut off whatever part of the brain controlled decision-making. Fin informed her that they’d already had a number of cases come in involving drunken fights and sexual harassment in parks.
The heat made Olivia agitated. And tired. She was spending all day fielding phone calls, video conferences and mountains of paperwork in the confinements of her bedroom, when all she really wanted to do was curl up and sleep.
What made things worse was that she knew she wasn’t alone in feeling this. She’d seen the way Rafael would sink into his work in the morning and barely come up for air all day. In Noah’s case, he had resorted to barely getting into his schoolwork at all and getting more and more wound-up when she asked him to try.
Olivia wanted to be able to fix it, but she was losing energy each day.
~~~~
“But I don’t get it!”
“Of course you do Noah, you’ve done this before,” Olivia tried to encourage, crouching beside her son.
He was sat at the desk in his bedroom, the iPad set up in front of him with a series of literacy exercises waiting to be completed.
“I don’t remember!”
Olivia took a breath, trying not to lose her patience.
“It’s just spelling,” she repeated for what felt like the hundredth time. “You can spell really well Noah. You don’t need me to help you with these.”
He’d come into her room about ten minutes earlier, claiming the work he was being asked to do was too hard and he needed her to stop what she was doing and come help him. The last thing she wanted to do was ignore her son, but Olivia had been in the middle of a phone call with the family of a victim at the time and she didn’t want to hang up on them abruptly either.
“It’s too hard,” Noah continued to whine, folding his arms on the table. “Can’t I just leave it and do something else?”
Olivia sighed.
“Your teacher is asking you to do this right now. Why don’t you just have another go for me, while I finish the call I was having?”
“But I need you to help me!”
He was trying to get her to stay, and she knew that in any other circumstances she would, but the parents on the other end of the phone line were still waiting for her to explain what had happened with their son’s assault case. She couldn’t leave them hanging any longer.
“I’ll be back in a bit, just please have another try.”
When she came out of his room, she could hear Rafael at the dining table. He was typing something up, though she didn’t know what. He paused for a moment and then started flipping through some paperwork with a loud huff. Olivia left him alone, and went back to yet another sad conversation.
~~~~
“Mami you sound rough,”
“Oh thanks, mijo, you’re always so kind to your mother.”
“No, I mean you sound ill,” Rafael clarified, tucking the phone into his shoulder so that he had both hands free to pull the sheets out from the box and spread them over the couch bed. “Like you’ve got a cold.”
“I never get a cold.” Lucia argued; her voice as indignant as ever.
“Have you been tested?”
“I don’t need a test Rafi, I’m not ill.”
Rafael sighed, trying his best not to bicker with her too much. They hadn’t seen each other in months- she was still stuck in Miami.
Lucia then did a very poor job of covering up a cough, and subconsciously Rafael pulled the phone away from his face.
“How long have you had a cough?” he asked her.
“It’s not a cough, I just got a little something stuck at the back of my throat.” she replied, her voice a bit more hoarse than it had been seconds before.
Yeah, like a lie, Rafael thought to himself.
“Please go and get a test mami,” he pleaded with her. “It doesn’t hurt to be sure.”
She was about to argue back, but another cough interrupted. The pair of them sighed a little, weary with lack of contact.
“Alright, alright, Jesus,” she relented. “Pero, I’m telling you, I’m fine.”
Rafael wanted to believe her. But the hospitalization and death rates were going up each day. He prided himself on being a pragmatist, not prone to hysterics. But he would have to be practically inhuman not to be affected by the statistics he was reading in the news each day. He’d lost his grandmother too soon- he didn’t know what he’d do if he lost his mother as well.
He let her go after a while, reminding her again to get a test. Though he’d been incredibly tired not even an hour earlier, when he did actually climb into bed and lie down, Rafael found it difficult to get to sleep. His brain ran through a Rolodex of emotions; worry about his mother, frustration with the way the whole virus was being handled by the government. Stress about his workload, concern for the palpable, difficult atmosphere that the apartment was manifesting further each day.
It was too hot for the covers. He pushed them away.
~~~~
“You don’t have to do that,”
Rafael was crouched down in front of the washing machine, transferring its contents to the dryer. He’d forgone the tie today, but was still wearing the suspenders. Olivia tried to ignore the way his shirt stretched nicely across his back.
“Its fine,” he replied shortly, continuing to sort through the laundry. “I don’t mind.”
Of course he didn’t. He was still trying to do as many of the household chores as he could, to try and pay her back for still being in her space. She’d almost given up trying to get him to understand that it was fine. That she didn’t mind, that he wasn’t a bother.
“Most of its mine anyway,” she continued.
It was mainly t-shirts and pyjamas, but Olivia knew that there must also be a couple of pairs of underwear in there too. They were both adults, but she still didn’t want him to feel uncomfortable about it.
“Liv, seriously it’s fine. It needs to be done, might as well be me that does it.”
As he said that, he grabbed a handful of the wet laundry and Olivia spotted a pair of her underwear sticking out of the top. She waited for him to notice, to grow still and embarrassed like he had when he’d seen her in various stages of undress those two times before.
But if he had noticed the purple cotton panties wadded up in a couple of t-shirts, he didn’t let on- just shoved it all into the dryer without so much as an awkward cough.
For some reason, that annoyed her more than if she’d been proved right and he’d got embarrassed. Was the sight of her underwear so mundane all of a sudden? Did he not even register that she wore them, that she was a woman at all? He’d been so red-faced before, why was this so different?
More to the point, why did she care? She didn’t want him to see her that way. It would make things odd and confused and they were still living together during a pandemic of all things and-,
Rafael shut the door of the dryer loudly, stood up from the kitchen floor and went past her- back towards the dining table. He was speaking to her, but Olivia wasn’t really listening. When she tuned back in she realized it was something about ironing the clothes after they came out of the dyer and for some reason that was enough for her to snap out loud.
“I can iron my own clothes Rafael, thank you.”
She was back in her bedroom with the door shut before she’d even realized she’d raised her voice.
~~~~
Hola Rafi. I got a hold of a test finally. It’s positive, but I’m fine. My chest hurts from all the coughing and I’m very tired, but it’s not too bad. Please don’t worry too much about me. I’ll call you tomorrow. Mami x
Rafael kept re-reading the text, as though the contents of it were going to change each time he unlocked his phone.
He knew she wasn’t well. Even from thousands of miles away, he could tell, because she was his mother and he knew her better than anyone and she’d never have relented unless there was something really wrong.
Not for the first time, he wished his abuelita was still around. She’d know just what to say to make him feel better; to quash his worries and probably force feed him as much home-cooked food as he could manage to take his mind off it.
In a crisis, Catalina Diaz was the woman you wanted on your side.
At his worst moments, she was the person he felt like he needed the most.
“Is that your mom?”
It was the first thing she’d said to him that day, if you didn’t count her asking him if he wanted any toast earlier on in the morning.
“Yeah,” he replied quietly, placing his phone screen side down on the coffee table. He’d taken a break from marking papers to sit on the couch.
“And?”
“She got a positive test result,” he explained, aware that he was holding his shoulders high and tense.
Olivia stepped closer to the couch, one hand on her chest in surprise. He waited for the inevitable sympathy, for her to try and tell him it was going to be fine.
“Is she ok?”
“No of course she’s not ok Liv, she’s got Covid,” he snapped; immediately regretting it.
“I- I know,” she replied, eyes closing for a second like they usually did when she was trying to think of the right thing to say. “I meant like, how ill is she?”
“If you ask her she’s just got the flu,” he replied, standing up from the couch and moving back towards his work spread out on the table. “But who knows? I’m calling her tomorrow.”
He sat back down on one of the dining table chairs and pulled the laptop closer, wiggling the mouse to bring it back to life. He was aware that Olivia was still stood nearby watching him, but he didn’t really have anything else to add. If she thought he was about to have a heartfelt conversation about this, then she was very much mistaken.
“She’ll be ok Rafael,” Her voice was low and gentle. “She’s a strong woman, she’ll get through this.”
How would you know? he wanted to ask. You’ve met her like once. He gripped the pen he’d left uncapped tightly. You don’t know what we’ve been through, how often she let herself get sick, and stay sick because Papi didn’t want to pay for doctors and she didn’t want me to think of her as weak.
He didn’t say any of that. Instead he just looked at her with a thin-mouthed half-smile and hummed, before turning back to his work.
~~~~
“Uncle Rafa, can I have a cookie?”
“Hmm? Yeah sure,” Rafael was concentrating on his laptop, double checking his slides for the class he had in about twenty minutes. He wanted to make sure he’d mentioned everything he wanted to; they’d need the information for their exams later on in the year.
Noah used his step stool to reach the box above the fridge, stretching up on his tip-toes. Rafael could see him out of the corner of his eye, made sure to watch that he didn’t fall, but was still scrolling through his slides at the same time.
“Noah what are you doing?” Olivia’s voice came from the hallway.
“Uncle Rafa said I could have one.” he told his mother, jumping down from the stool.
“Did he?” Olivia muttered, throwing the man in question an accusing glare- but he didn’t notice because he was still staring at his laptop.
She went into the kitchen to get herself a glass of water.
The heat hadn’t died down at any point this month- if anything it had only got worse. She wished she could work with the bedroom door open, in a vest and shorts. She wished her air conditioning was better.
She wished Rafael would talk to her about the things that were clearly bothering him, and then she remembered that she wasn’t talking to him about those things either and had to push those feelings aside.
“Are you doing your school work?” she asked Noah, who looked back at her guiltily.
“We have a break.” he replied, most unconvincingly.
Olivia raised an eyebrow at him.
“Go back in there please.” she said sternly.
Noah huffed and turned to run from the kitchen back to his bedroom.
It was poorly timed; just as he got out to the corridor, Rafael had appeared carrying a nearly full cup of coffee that he had forgotten to put sugar in. The two of them collided suddenly as Noah skidded on the floor in his socked feet. The little boy dropped his cookie and the lawyer spilled his drink all over his clean, white shirt.
“Ahh, shh-,” Rafael had been about to swear, then remembered his present company.
“Sorry Uncle Rafa!”
“Noah, go and do your school work please,” Olivia chastised, pushing his shoulders gently. “And walk!”
Rafael was pulling the shirt away from his chest, where the liquid was slowly spreading out.
“I’ve got a class in like twenty minutes!” he exclaimed, grimacing.
“Was that hot?” Olivia asked him, trying to hand some paper towels over to soak up the liquid.
“Yes!” he practically shouted, thumping the cup down on the kitchen counter and already unbuttoning the shirt. “God, I don’t need this right now.”
“Give it here, we need to soak it.”
“I can do it Liv,” he snapped, batting her hands away when she tried to reach for the shirt that was now completely undone but still gathered in the crook of his arms. She couldn’t help but notice the smattering of chest hair that was poking out of the top of his undershirt, and the slight glint of the gold chain of what she assumed to be a crucifix nestled against his chest. “Your phone is ringing.”
“What?” she tore her eyes away from him, looking over to the end of the breakfast bar where she’d put her phone down.
“It’s ringing!” Rafael repeated himself, using one hand to point at her phone and the other to fill the sink with hot water.
“Yes, I know, thank you.” she replied, moving away from him to snatch up her phone and answer it with more venom than she’d intended. “Benson?”
“Liv?”
It was Amanda’s voice and she didn’t sound like she had good news.
Leaving Rafael to grumble about his shirt in the kitchen, Olivia moved back to her bedroom, shutting the door behind her.
“Hey Amanda,” Olivia greeted her detective. “What is it?”
“I’m at the Willard’s house,” Amanda began. It took Olivia a moment to remember which one was the Willard case. In the background, she could hear the vague sound of sirens and people talking. “Neighbours called 911 about half an hour ago; two uniforms called us when they got here.”
“The woman who came in a couple of months ago,” Olivia recalled.
Mrs Willard, despite being coerced into going back to her husband back at the end of March, had not been entirely broken. Olivia had managed to give her one of her cards, and even though at the time the woman had seemed a little too out of it to recognize the olive branch, about two weeks later she had called Olivia back. It was to feebly reassure her that she was fine and that her husband had apologized, but it was communication all the same and Olivia hoped against all hope that she would use it again when she needed to.
“Yeah…” Amanda confirmed, but her tone wasn’t good.
“What’s happened Amanda?”
“He killed her, Liv.” the detective told her, sounding utterly dejected. “He beat her so bad she bled out on the living room floor.”
Olivia sank down onto her mattress. She pulled the phone away from her ear for a second to take some deep breaths and will herself not to let this break her so quickly.
“Liv?”
“I’m here,” she said to Amanda, voice wavering. “Uhh, have you arrested him? Is he… is he even there?”
“He was still standing over her body when the uni’s showed up,” Amanda answered in disgust. “Tried to tell them it was an accident. We’re trying to get hold of her parents.”
“So take him back to the precinct, book him and try to get him arraigned as quickly as possible. I don’t want him to see the outside world from this point onward.” Olivia told Amanda, forcing herself to go into Captain-mode and push the emotions down into the pit of her stomach where they belonged. “And make sure his mother stays well away, she’ll only try to give him a false alibi.”
“Will do,” Amanda replied fiercely, and then, softer. “Liv? You ok?”
“When this guy is rotting in a jail cell, I will be.”
Amanda laughed, but it was without humour.
“Ok. I’ll keep you updated.”
“Please do.”
Amanda hung up and Olivia let her phone beep at her for a few seconds whilst she tried to process what she had just been told.
She should have tried harder to reach out to her. It was only a matter of time before something like this happened; not to mention the fact that the whole city had been in lockdown for months now. This woman was quite literally being forced to stay cooped up with the man who was abusing her. And she’d tried to leave just before it had all come into place. Olivia could only imagine how scared she must have been when she realized what she was going to be faced with.
The most dangerous moment for an abused partner was when they were trying to leave. Olivia knew this and yet she’d let herself get distracted with other cases, and laundry and Rafael being constantly in her peripheral vision. What was the point of being an NYPD, SVU Captain if she couldn’t save the women who came to her for help?
Her hands gripped the bed-sheets tightly, until her knuckles went white. She needed to be the one to call Mrs Willard’s parents, if they were still around. She wanted to be the one to get her piece of shit husband to confess.
If she got changed quickly, she could probably beat Amanda back to the precinct. Standing abruptly, she went to her wardrobe and pulled out a clean pair of trousers and a shirt.
Olivia stuck her head into Noah’s room to tell him she had to go into work for a bit. He hugged her goodbye, but said little else, so she ventured out into the living room.
She gathered up her keys and purse, stuffing them into her bag whilst she looked around for her shoes. She didn’t have time to do anything with her hair, so she’d just pushed it back with a clip.
“Where are you going?”
“I have to go into work,” she answered Rafael’s question, finally locating her boots and shoving her feet into them. “I don’t know how long I’ll be.”
“Alright,” he replied. Olivia looked up from where she was double checking her bag to find him reading something on his phone. He was wearing a clean shirt.
She was surprised by his response- she was leaving suddenly and he didn’t even want to know why? Usually he was picking her brain about work all the time, wanting to know everything she knew (even if he wasn’t SVU’s prosecutor anymore.)
“I’ll call if it’ll be a late one,” she told him, hoping that would elicit more of a response.
It didn’t. He just waved at her with one hand, eyes still firmly glued to his phone screen.
It stung a little, that he didn’t even look at her to say goodbye. But her mission was still to get justice for the murdered woman she hadn’t done enough to help, so she pushed those feelings down as well and exited through the front door.
~~~~
Rafael wasn’t sure if he’d ever had a panic attack before- had never had it confirmed by a professional that it was something he might suffer from. But if he had to take a guess at what one might look like, his position currently would be a damn good guess.
Rafael sat on the couch, head hanging almost between his knees as he tried to regulate his breathing. He felt hot, and it wasn’t just because of the temperature outside. He almost wanted to cry, but there were no tears coming out, so it just left him with a dry, sore feeling at the back of his throat. His left leg bounced up and down with nervous energy- something he hadn’t done since he was a scrawny, insecure teenager.
The email had come through last night, but he hadn’t checked his inbox until after he’d changed his coffee-stained shirt for a clean one. At first, he wasn’t sure what he had been reading. The sender wasn’t one he recognized, nor was it in keeping with the other internal university email addresses. Once he’d got to the end of it, he understood why.
Dear Mr Barba,
My name is Mrs Franks. I believe my daughter is taking your class at Fordham. As I understand it, you are covering her previous teacher who is on maternity leave. I don’t know much about what my daughter studies at college, but recently she has mentioned you quite a few times, which intrigued me, so I looked you up.
I would like to say that what I found impressed me. If it was simply your career as a lawyer I found, then perhaps I might have been, but unfortunately I have to inform you that instead I am disgusted by what you have done.
I don’t know what made you think you could play God with a baby’s life, but I hope you realize that you were wrong. All children’s lives are sacred and it is not for us to decide whether they should live or die. I don’t know what kind of liberal agenda your time working in the so-called Special Victim’s Unit gave you, but know that I am appalled. Perhaps where you come from, things are different, but in America we value the lives of children.
In my opinion, you should have been found guilty. The fact that Fordham have employed you at all is a disgrace, and I will be launching a formal complaint with their office as soon as I have sent this email to you. I will also be requesting that my daughter be transferred from your class. I do not want her being taught by a man who should by rights be in a jail cell.
Good day.
He read it once, twice, almost three times before he felt like his phone was burning his hand and he had to walk away.
Rafael knew it was all too good to be true. How could he truly expect none of this to come back up? He was surprised there hadn’t been more of these kinds of emails from other students and their parents as soon as he’d started teaching. He’d certainly got enough threatening messages in the aftermath at the DA’s office.
Sensibly, he knew he should contact someone in the faculty and tell them what had happened. But he couldn’t move- in his head was a replay of those dark few weeks after baby Drew had passed away, where Rafael didn’t know if he would ever be the same again.
The alarm he’d set on his phone to remind him that he needed to start his lesson in the next few minutes rang out. He didn’t think he could even look at any of them right now, let alone talk to them for an hour. Working on auto-pilot, Rafael sent out a group email to tell them that the lesson had been postponed, and then switched his phone off altogether.
He wanted to get a glass of scotch, but that was a slippery slope- one he didn’t want to fall down, despite it all. Noah was still in his room.
Rafael went back to his shirt that had been soaking in the sink with some detergent and began scrubbing furiously at the stain, knowing deep down that it probably wasn’t going to come out.
~~~~
The fuse finally ran out two days later.
The temperature had continued to climb, until Olivia’s measly air conditioning was barely making any difference at all and the three of them were going through cold showers and the ice tray like it was going out of fashion.
She had already allowed Noah to have two popsicles, purely because she couldn’t be bothered to argue with him when it was so warm. She knew the sugar crash wouldn’t be fun, but fun wasn’t exactly on her radar at the moment. Mr Willard was claiming he hadn’t intended to kill his wife, so what she’d wanted to be a simple open and shut case had inevitably turned into one that was going to trial.
She wanted to talk about it with Rafael, but every time she intended to bring it up, something stopped her. She still felt guilty that Mrs Willard had died and she spent so much of her time going back over her case, it almost felt like torture to try and recount it to him as well.
Not that he’d asked. Or even noticed that something was wrong. For two days, he had been swinging between quiet and closed off, to rushing around doing chores and firing back sarcastic remarks to her, admittedly snappish, conversation attempts.
Olivia stood in the kitchen, hovering in front of the fridge to both take advantage of the cool air and try to decide what they were going to have for dinner. The options were not all that exciting.
“Have you seen my pen?”
Rafael’s voice carried from the living room, his tone short.
“What?” Olivia turned slightly to look at him. He was stood by the table, lifting up papers and putting them back down when he couldn’t find what he was looking for.
“My pen, have you seen it? It’s the gold one, with the cap?”
“No, I haven’t.” she replied, turning back to the fridge. Faced with its poorly stocked shelves, she sighed a little and shut the door. “Do you need to borrow one?”
“No, I need to use this one.” he replied, now looking under the table.
“I have some you could use, it’s not a problem.” she continued.
“I don’t want to use one of yours, I want to use mine.”
Olivia frowned at him, not quite understanding why he was so insistent.
“Rafa, it’s just a pen, don’t worry about it.”
“It’s not just a-,” he cut himself off, moving to the couch and pulling the cushions off a little furiously, leaving them scattered on the floor. “I just really need it. Has Noah got it?”
“Why would Noah have it?” she asked him, her temper rising a little at the way he was acting.
“I don’t know, he’s a kid, they take things without asking sometimes.”
Olivia felt her hands clench involuntarily, her palms instantly sweating.
“Are you seriously suggesting that my son has stolen your pen?” she sniped, reaching back into the fridge for the water jug she kept there. “Do you even hear yourself right now?”
He was in the middle of pushing the coffee table to one side so he could pull out the bed part of the couch. She couldn’t fathom his actions at all.
“You wouldn’t understand…”
“Really?” she snapped back, thumping the water jug down on the counter next to a glass she’d retrieved. “I wouldn’t understand about a pen?”
“It’s valuable.” he said, trying to lift the mattress and failing.
“What, is it made of real gold?”
“Don’t be facetious, it doesn’t suit you.” he barked at her, eyes narrowed.
“No?” she continued, feeling the adrenaline rising with each word they spoke. “It suits you.”
Rafael practically growled, turning away from her and reaching for his briefcase to unload its contents onto the unmade couch bed.
“What is the matter with you?” she finally asked, rounding the breakfast bar and coming to stand on the opposite side of the mattress. “You’re acting like a completely different person all of a sudden.”
“And you know me so well,” Rafael retorted, still going through the contents of his briefcase. “Tell me, if you’re such a good friend- if you’re such a good detective, why can’t you tell I don’t want to talk about things right now?”
“Oh believe me, I’ve noticed.” she exclaimed. “It’s like living with a hermit; I swear you’re never out of that little work-bubble of yours.”
“You’re not exactly one to talk, Olivia Benson. When was the last time you didn’t shut the door in our faces every time you went into your room?”
Olivia seethed, unable to fathom where all this rage had come from all of a sudden.
“Well I’m sorry if I can’t just ignore all the crimes taking place whenever you want me to,” Olivia argued back. “Why don’t I put a press statement out; ‘Rapists of New York, Barba wants you to stop because it’s inconvenient for him!’” Rafael scoffed, rolling his eyes in a way that she couldn’t help but be infuriated by. “Sorry, not all of us can have cushy little jobs teaching college students how to suck up to judges.”
“There’s that Olivia Benson compassion everyone loves,” Rafael sneered, pointing at her. “If you’re not out saving the city, your life can’t possibly be at all difficult.”
His eyes were burning with the kind of anger she had not often seen before. He was usually quite good at controlling his temper. No longer, it seemed.
“Don’t try and make out like I’m the one being ridiculous here,” she told him, jaw set. “When you’re clearly taking something internal out on me, though god knows why.”
He laughed, shaking his head. It unsettled her, how much they seemed to want to shout at each other. His hands were curled into fists, she was gesticulating wildly as she spoke.
“No, no of course not. You couldn’t ever be in the wrong, because you’re Olivia fucking Benson and we should all be grateful to just be in the same room as you.”
“How dare you-,”
“I don’t even know why you’re still trying to get me to talk at all-,”
“You’re being absurd- and cruel-,”
“And you’re being relentless-,”
“Momma? Uncle Rafa?” Noah’s small voice cut through their argument.
“Not now, Noah,” they both replied in unison, perhaps a little louder than they meant it.
“Why are you shouting?” he asked them, worry etched across his small face.
It should have brought them to some kind of cease-fire, but the weather was sweltering and they were both hurting but neither knew why yet and instead it continued on.
“Just go to your room, please.” Olivia told him.
“I want Uncle Rafa to help me with my Spanish,” Noah replied, still not understanding why they were angry.
“Later, Noah.” Rafael replied in a tone of voice he had never once used with the boy before. It took them both by surprise; Noah swallowed, turned on his heels and ran back to his room. Rafael clocked his bottom lip wobble before he left and it struck him in the chest almost instantly.
He’d never made a child cry before, least of all Noah.
Stood in Olivia’s living room, the mess of him looking for that damned pen strewn about him, Rafael paused. His fists were still clenched and his entire body was practically shaking.
In his head, he felt like he looked like his father.
“Please don’t use that voice with my son.” Olivia told him, the danger in her tone evident. “If you’re going to shout at anyone, shout at me.”
“I don’t want to shout at you.”
“Could have fooled me.” she snarled.
“Liv, please.” he ran a hand through his hair, mussing it up and she shouldn’t have found it attractive given the circumstances, but she did. “I can’t do this right now.”
“Do what?” Her breathing was heavy, her heart beating rapidly.
“Just, this… this whole conversation-,”
“Argument.” she snapped, unable to stop herself. He gritted his teeth and growled again.
“Liv, please. Just… stop, because I swear-,”
“What?” she exclaimed, throwing her hands up in the air. “What will you do? Shout at me some more? Ignore me?” Then, in a lower voice, one thick with emotions that hadn’t ever really gone away; “You’ll leave? Why not, Barba? You’re really good at it.”
The look he gave her was almost a carbon copy of the one he had on his face when they’d argued about her involvement with Tucker, back in his office at 1 Hogan Place.
Anger. Disappointment. Hurt.
There were a few painful seconds where she didn’t know what to expect, where they stared at each other from across the living room.
Then, just as she was about to try and take it back, Rafael turned suddenly away from her; grabbing his phone and keys and then storming out of the apartment. The front door swung shut behind him, slamming so loud it made Olivia jump.
Olivia stood wallowing in the sudden quiet for a few moments.
She wanted to go after him.
She wanted to let him go as far away as possible.
Most of all she wanted to cry, but her body was still thrumming with adrenaline from the fight so she found herself instead beginning to tidy up the mess of her living room. She gathered up the things from his briefcase, put them back inside and returned it to the bottom of the coat stand where it usually lived. Some of the paperwork had fallen from the table, so she piled it back up and rested it on the laptop that had since gone on standby.
“Momma?” Noah’s wobbly voice returned. He was stood in the corridor, looking at her with wide eyes.
“What is it, sweet boy?”
“Where did Uncle Rafa go?”
She tried to smile at her son, put on a brave face.
“He just had to step out for a bit,” she chose to tell him, moving over to the couch bed. “What did you want to have for dinner?”
Noah didn’t take the bait. He was concerned and confused and he didn’t buy her attempts to change the conversation.
“Why were you arguing?” He followed her over to the couch, leaned against the arm of it.
“It’s complicated, Noah.” she said, lifting the cushions up off the floor. She needed to put the couch bed back, but she couldn’t find the strength. “Sometimes adults can get angry with each other, but that doesn’t mean-,”
“Momma what’s that?”
Noah was pointing at something on the floor. It was poking out from under the edge of the coffee table, the gold of it catching the late afternoon sunlight that was slipping through the windows.
Olivia bent down to retrieve it and then collapsed on the rug with guilt when she saw what it was.
In her hands was Rafael’s gold pen, the one he’d gone mad trying to find. On the side of it, engraved in a fine and delicate hand were the words;
‘A Rafael. Con amor, Abuela x’.
‘To Rafael. With love, Grandma x’.
Olivia moved until she felt herself rest against the side of the coffee table, before gesturing for Noah to come and let her hold him.