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Rafael Barba sat in a court room.
The view from the witness stand felt entirely alien to him. It was wrong- he should be sat at the prosecutor’s table, not here.
He was on display to the entire room, and not in the way he was used to.
The gallery was filled with people, but they had no faces. Any time he tried to focus on someone, to see if he could recognize anything about them, the features shifted, moving so that his eyes wouldn’t be able to linger. He tried to turn to look at the judge, but his head refused to move in any way to the right.
Despite the room being packed with people, it was utterly silent. Rafael could actually hear the ticking of his own watch as he waited for someone to say something, anything. He looked down at his hands in his lap, then back up.
Peter Stone was sat at the prosecutor’s table- at his seat, Rafael realized all of sudden.
He’s sitting in my seat, this is all wrong.
Stone rose and came to stand in front of him. He looked at Rafael with almost bored disinterest, not bothering to button his suit jacket. He turned to the mysterious judge- the one that Rafael couldn’t seem to look at- explained that he was calling his witnesses for the prosecution and gestured to the jury.
Rafael frowned, felt his heart rate pick up. Where there should have been a jury of twelve, there were instead only six.
And unlike the gallery, or the judge, he knew every single one of them.
“Please tell the court what he did.” Stone told them, going to lean against the table.
Maggie Householder sat in the middle, her eyes swimming with tears. When she looked at him, they fell in thick waves down her cheeks. She held her hands against her chest, rocked back and forth gently.
“He killed my baby,” she spoke around tears.
Rafael tried to speak, tried to explain that that’s not what had happened, that he wanted to help her, but his voice was gone- stolen from him at some point when he wasn’t paying attention.
Beside Maggie sat Astonja Abreu’s mother, dressed in the same clothes she was wearing the day she testified.
But that doesn’t make any sense, Rafael thought, she died years ago.
“Because of him, my daughter’s an orphan.” she spat, her leg jiggling hard against the seat of the chair.
He had tried to help her too, he wanted to shout; had almost lost his job because of it.
“He betrayed me,” an angry voice came from another seat.
When Rafael followed the sound he was faced with Alex, wearing a prison jumpsuit and a face littered with bruises. “He put his oldest friend in jail.”
No, Rafael screamed in his head, you did that. But Alex was glaring at him with fire in his eyes, the rage obvious.
“He barely speaks to me,” his mother’s voice carried from the other end of the jury box.
Rafael’s stomach dropped, the shame forming a heavy lump inside of him. Why was she here? She can’t be here.
“I didn’t want to move,” his grandmother explained, seated next to Lucia. “But he made me go.”
No, Rafael wanted to beg. She would never testify against him, this simply couldn’t be happening.
He looked to Stone, who was flicking through a file, barely paying attention, and then back to the jury.
The final seat had been filled.
“I trusted him,” Olivia said in a clear and even tone. “But he couldn’t even keep William Lewis in jail.”
Rafael’s chest tightened, his heart clenched. I tried Liv, he pleaded with her in his head, even though she couldn’t hear him. He wanted to try and tell her he was sorry, that he’d never forgiven himself. All the warmth that he’d learn to look for was gone from her eyes.
Rafael tried to stand up from his chair, but he couldn’t move. His legs felt like lead weights, his feet practically fixed to the floor. When he lifted his arms, his wrists were bound by a set of handcuffs. He wanted to shout, to get someone to see that this was all wrong.
“Don’t you see mijo? You can’t wriggle your way out of this one.”
That voice.
He hadn’t heard that voice in years, but somehow it still managed to make his blood run cold, make his hands curl into fists.
Stone had returned to his chair at the prosecutor’s table, so Rafael tried turning his head towards the right once again. He was both relieved and then instantly devastated to find that he could.
Sat on the elevated seat, that should by rights be occupied by a judge, was his father. For some reason he was wearing the suit he had on in the photo of his parent’s wedding that they used to keep on the mantle in their old house in the Bronx. It was faded, and moth eaten, and dated, but Barba Sr. was still, inconceivably, the size he was when Rafael had been a boy. When he met his father’s gaze, the older man smiled.
“You’re the reason all these people are miserable.”
His father swept his arm outwards, and Rafael could see that some of the faces in the gallery were now tangible.
Recognizable.
Carisi and Rollins. Tutuola and Amaro a few seats down, with Munch and Cragen behind them. Carmen was trying not to look him in the eye. Near the rear doors, Eddie looked moments away from leaving altogether.
“You tried to be good, but you failed.” his father continued, leaning back in his chair in that capricious way he had always been good at. “You always were useless. I wanted a son who could be a man, not a disappointment.”
Rafael wanted to scream. He wanted to be sick. His tie felt like it was strangling him, the light in the courtroom getting darker and darker, and closing in like thick dense fog.
“It’s your fault their lives are ruined.” his father repeated, jabbing a finger towards him but not quite touching yet.
No, Rafael sobbed, though there were no tears falling. Please stop.
His fingernails dug into his palms, drew blood- but he couldn’t feel it. His father leaned forward, grew closer still; so close Rafael could see the stubble under his chin. Just like when he was small, and he would hold him by the front of his shirt so he could scold him up close, shake him into fear.
I didn’t mean to, Rafael whimpered, the same way he used to as a child. Papi, please make it stop.
From the jury box, voices rang out again.
“It’s your fault I’m in prison,” Alex told him.
“It’s your fault we’re distant,” his mother explained.
“It’s your fault I’ve got scars,” Olivia almost whispered.
“It’s your fault I’m dead,” said his grandmother.
“It’s your fault I’m dead,” said Astonja’s mother.
“It’s your fault he’s dead.” said Maggie Householder.
Rafael couldn’t catch his breath, felt like he was drowning on dry land with no one left in the room that was willing to save him. If he could just stand up, if he could just move at all-
In his father’s hands was a bundle, wrapped in a hospital blanket Rafael was scared to notice he recognized. He wanted to shout at him; to put the baby down, to leave them all alone.
The blanket fell open, baring its contents; pale, stiff limbs, tiny curled fingers hanging limp and cold. Rafael wanted to close his eyes, to curl into a ball on the floor and block it all out, but his breath was coming in shorter and shorter bursts- so much that his lungs barely filled with any air at all, stopped short at the lifeless body in front of him, and the people staring him down behind that and the darkness so suffocating he couldn’t fight any longer…
~~~~
Rafael woke with a start, sheets tangled around his legs and sweat pouring off him like he’d just run a marathon. It took a few moments for his brain to register that he was at home, in bed. The TV on the wall was still on, quietly playing a re-run of some World War Two documentary. On the nightstand, Rafael’s phone sat charging, but switched off to prevent anyone calling him.
He waited for a few moments, so that he could gain a full breath and let his racing heart calm somewhat. When he felt able to stand, Rafael pushed the covers away properly and shuffled into his bathroom- pausing to splash his face with tepid water and use the toilet. His face in the mirror above the sink looked grey and washed out; the dark circles under his eyes belying how little sleep he had been getting recently. He hadn’t shaved in a few days, so there was a smattering of stubble across his cheeks and chin. He’d fallen asleep in sweatpants and a hoodie. Rafael yanked the top off and shivered a little when the cool air hit his bare chest, but also feeling himself wake up more because of it- which he was grateful for.
It was the third nightmare that week.
~~~~
The post box in the lobby of his building was stuffed with the usual circulars; bills, take-out menus and the like. Rafael pulled them out roughly, not taking much notice of any of it until he realized that there were a couple of extra envelopes in there; smaller than the others, with hand-written addresses.
When Rafael took the post back to his apartment, he barely paid attention whilst he opened the smaller ones. He’d left a cookery show playing on the living room TV- was briefly distracted by an unbelievably tall cake whilst he ripped open one of the envelopes. The paper inside it was cheap, and it took a few moments for him to fully take in what he was reading.
The handwriting was neat enough, almost elegant in comparison with what it was saying. Rafael was confronted with a letter spouting some of the most colourful abuse he’d received in a long time, filled with curses and swear words his grandmother would have flinched at. The other three smaller envelopes contained much of the same, though all in different hands.
According to the senders, Rafael was all manner of things; a criminal, a monster, a baby-killer. He didn’t deserve to live, he should be in prison- they hoped he would suffer for what he had done.
Rafael had been threatened before; more times than he cared to count. It came with the job. One could only put so many people through the justice system before they started resenting him personally for it.
However, there were only two incidents that had genuinely unsettled him; the threat he had been given on the courthouse steps just before Mike Dodds’ death, and these letters.
He didn’t know how these people had found his address, but it wasn’t good. He’d had nasty emails and phone calls to his office when he was still at 1 Hogan Place (Carmen had become too used to fielding any communication that came through with stern precision), though he’d naïvely thought that once he’d left that would stop.
Rafael gathered up the letters and took them into the kitchen. With one hand he switched on the hob, waiting for the flame to lick upwards to touch the corners of the papers and catch alight.
He dropped the burning letters into his sink, watched them curl and char.
~~~~
Rafael shut the door, thankful that the cabinet his mother had bought from a store that didn’t offer delivery actually fit in the boot of his car. The guy who’d helped him carry it out mentioned that he needed to go back and get the receipts, so Rafael was forced to stand outside and wait.
He didn’t particularly want to be there, in public- in the Bronx-, but he’d promised his mother weeks ago that he would help her collect the cabinet and after everything that had happened he couldn’t find it in himself to tell her no right now.
The trial had finished over a week earlier; Rafael’s name was still appearing in some of the papers, particularly the tabloids who found the story of a New York ADA having a hand in the death of a baby much too good to let go of just yet. He’d had a few journalists try to get into his building, and some more abusive emails and letters. Rafael was spending most of his days holed up in his apartment, letting the phone ring out and trying not to Google himself.
Pulling his coat higher up his neck, Rafael attempted find something on his phone to try and distract himself whilst he waited for the guy to return with his receipts. It was still cold, and the sweater he was wearing under his coat wasn’t all that thick. The wind nipped at his ears.
“Long time no see Rafael,”
His hands stilled, wishing more than anything that he’d just got in the car and driven off, his mother’s receipts be damned.
“Yelina, I-,”
“What?” she said, tilting her head; birdlike.
Yelina Munoz stood a few feet from him, wearing an expensive wool coat and her hair hanging long down her back- the way she had always worn it, ever since they were kids. If Rafael had been more in his right mind, he might have noticed the weight she had lost, or the dark circles under her eyes that, even with make-up, could still be seen by those who knew her well.
But he didn’t see any of that. He just saw the woman he had once thought himself almost in love with, and the absolute look of disgust etched onto her beautiful face.
“I didn’t know you’d be around.” he said in a small voice.
She almost laughed as she stared him down.
“I think of the two of us, you are the one who doesn’t belong here, Rafael.” her voice was cold. “I’m surprised you’d even have the balls to show your face in this community, considering everything you’ve done.”
Something in his brain, the part of him that still knew how to act quickly, made him fumble for the car keys in his coat pocket, and make for the door.
“I was just leaving-,”
“You see this man, girls?” Yelina spoke to the two children that for some reason Rafael had only just noticed were stood either side of her. “This is Tio Rafael, your daddy’s oldest friend.”
“Yelina, you don’t have to do this.” he tried to argue, seeing the way the two girls’ eyebrows furrowed as they looked between their mother and him.
“You probably don’t remember him, because he didn’t really stay in touch,” she continued, the venom in her voice evident. He didn’t think, years later, she would still harbour so much disdain for him. Perhaps that was his fault for being naïve. “And then when he did, he put your papi in jail. He didn’t help him, even though he was this hotshot lawyer-,”
“Yelina, please don’t.”
“Mom?” the oldest girl questioned, evidently confused by her mother’s sudden behaviour.
“But do you know what? It’s ok, because even though Mr Barba didn’t help your papi and left behind everything he knew to sell out in Manhattan…” Yelina looked up from her daughters’ bewildered faces to stare down Rafael once more. “He got what was coming to him, in the end.”
Rafael looked at her, tried to find evidence of something in her eyes that would explain why she hated him so much. He didn’t want to listen to what she’d said but her words slithered inside of him and settled on his chest like heavy stones. She always was good at making him feel things.
He wished, not for the first time in his life, that she wasn’t.
“Your receipts, sir.”
The man from the store appeared, holding out the bits of paper for Rafael to take. He grabbed them, perhaps a little more violently than he’d meant to, and smiled in thanks. In his other hand were the car keys, which he used to open the driver’s side door and begin to climb in.
Just before he turned the ignition, he turned to look one last time at her.
“Adios, Yelina.” Rafael said, with an expression he hoped showed the right amount of sympathy for someone he still cared about, despite everything.
~~~~
“I have a friend who has a condo in L.A.,”
“Your bragging isn’t really making me feel better.”
Rita Calhoun sat on his couch, her expensive leather handbag resting on the floor next to an empty bottle of scotch he had finished two days ago and still hadn’t put in the recycling.
“Will you just shut up for a minute and let me finish?”
Rafael held his hands up in mock surrender.
She’d barged her way inside about ten minutes previous, scrunching her nose up at his sweater he knew had a stain on, and the darkness of his living room. He’d shut the curtains a few days before when he’d noticed some men he was sure were photographers squinting from the streets below, trying to figure out which window belonged to him.
“It’s one of their vacation homes, but they rent it out to people when they’re not staying there,” Rita continued, her hands folded in her lap. “If I give them a call and say you’re a friend, they’ll probably lower the rates.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying you’re spiralling, Barba.” she answered firmly. “No one sees you anymore, you won’t answer your phone. I get why you might not want any company right now, but you can’t stay cooped up inside this godforsaken bachelor pad all the time.”
Rafael looked at her from the other end of the couch, unsure.
“So you’re not telling me not to not hide, just to run away and hide in a different state?”
Rita sighed and rolled her eyes.
“God you’re insufferable,” she muttered, before continuing. “Barba, when was the last time you had a vacation? Had any time off at all, that wasn’t enforced?”
“I don’t deserve a vacation,” he spat, stuffing his hands into the pocket of his sweatshirt.
“But you need one.” Rita argued. “Whether you like it or not, you need to get out, find some perspective. Figure out what your life is now that you’re not at the DA’s office. Would it really be so bad to do that somewhere warm and sunny?”
Rafael paused, imagining himself trying to enjoy walking along the beach or sitting next to pool whilst he was feeling so utterly wretched. The picture of him in his current state of mind, holding a pina colada in some Californian bar, almost made him laugh it was so ridiculous.
“I’m worried about you Rafael.”
Rita’s voice was uncharacteristically soft. His eyes met her’s suddenly- she’d not looked at him like that since they were in college, having irregular, drunken heart-to-hearts.
“Well, that is something.” he murmured in reply.
“You’re not going to hear me say it again, but I am your friend and I care about your welfare.” she told him. “If I thought staying inside your apartment, drinking too much and ignoring everyone around you was going to make a difference, I wouldn’t be here. But it’s not. So please,” she reached a hand out and placed it on his leg. “Just think about it?”
Swallowing around the lump in his throat, Rafael nodded.
~~~~
So Rafael Barba packed up some of his things, gave his apartment key to his mother and left New York, in the small hope that running thousands of miles in the opposite direction would in some way help him get over what had happened.
The condo itself was nice enough- a little too contemporary for Rafael’s tastes, but it had an expensive coffee machine, a well-stocked drinks cabinet, a large TV in the living room and- crucially- was absolutely nowhere near anyone he knew.
For almost two months, Rafael stayed more or less completely inside the house. In a pattern not dissimilar to the one he had begun at his place in Manhattan, Rafael would wake late in the day, skip breakfast for strong coffee and try to distract himself until dinner, where he would usually order something in from a restaurant that did delivery. Sometimes he’d watch an episode of whatever was on TV, or read one of the books that were on the shelf in the bedroom (it seemed to be almost all John Grisham-type paperbacks, which didn’t really help to take his mind off things) until he felt like it was a reasonable enough time to pour a drink. He’d then go to bed much too late, and begin the cycle again.
The threats and abuse that he’d been getting in New York didn’t initially stop; although his name wasn’t appearing in physical papers anymore, somehow there was still a decent amount of people who really wanted to let him know in person how much they’d despised his actions.
After about a month, he got better at blocking and reporting unknown accounts that messaged him on social media and putting strange email addresses in his spam folder. But every now and then, when he was feeling especially low, the urge to go back and read those messages- to see other people confirming what he knew were the worst things about himself- was too strong.
He hadn’t returned any of Olivia’s calls.
~~~~
At first, she called him every day. At the same times, every day- he assumed when she was on a break, or at home with Noah.
He wanted to answer the phone- in many ways desperately needed to hear her voice in his ear telling him that it was going to be fine, that he was an idiot, than he needed to come home.
But there was always that voice shouting above everything, telling him that she was too good for him and he’d already let her down in so many ways. She didn’t need him in her life, causing any more disappointment or trouble. He’d done enough, and she had her son to think about. Why would she want Noah around a man who had ended the life of a child?
So it didn’t matter how much he missed her. How much his heart ached from having left her standing alone outside the courthouse.
It was better for all of them if he just stayed well away.
~~~~
One morning, Rafael had risen surprisingly early. A migraine had thumped him awake, forcing him to rise from the unkempt bed in search of water and painkillers, of which he only had a few left. (He’d always been plagued by headaches, but in recent weeks more so than ever.)
Not feeling able to get back to sleep, he’d wandered into the kitchen of the condo and switched on the coffee machine out of habit, knowing that in reality the caffeine would only make his head worse. The sun was beginning to stream in through the French windows, so Rafael opened them in the hope that some fresh air would clear the fog from his mind.
He felt hungry, but couldn’t decide what to eat. Tired, but unable to sleep.
He rested the side of his body against the open door frame and pressed the cool glass of water against his forehead, trying to un-clench his jaw but not really succeeding.
From the kitchen counter, his phone rang.
Rafael wanted to just let it ring off, because it would only be his mother checking in on him, or another anonymous champion of terminally ill children waiting to spit bile down the line.
But his head screamed from the noise of it ringing, so against his better judgement and suddenly angrier than he’d allowed himself to be in weeks, Rafael answered it.
“How did you get this number?” he snapped, because having thought about it for more than a second he knew his mother wouldn’t ring him until she knew he would be awake, which hadn’t been this early in a while.
“Uh, you gave it to me, counsellor? About six years ago in fact?”
Rafael paused, his anger suddenly evaporating at the sound of the familiar voice.
“Amaro?”
Rafael pulled the phone away from his ear to double-check the number.
“Good morning.” Amaro replied.
“Is… is there something I can help you with?” Rafael asked him, suddenly very confused. He hadn’t spoken to Amaro in a long time- was there something wrong? Of all the people he’d expected to hear from at that moment in time, the former detective was not at the top of his list.
“I don’t need a lawyer, if that’s what you’re asking,” Amaro quipped.
“Not sure you should have me represent you even if you did,” Rafael muttered, placing the glass of water down on the table next to the French windows.
“I never knew you to play down your skills, Barba.” Amaro said, and Rafael could almost picture the unimpressed expression that might be on his face.
“Yeah well, things aren’t exactly… as they once were.” Rafael replied.
There was a pause before Amaro spoke again.
“Yeah… yeah I heard. How’re you doing, counsellor?”
“Fine,” Rafael answered shortly, deliberately ignoring the empty take-out containers piled up in the kitchen and the pyjama bottoms he’d been wearing for five days straight.
“So you running away to L.A. is… what, exactly? A sudden need for warmer weather?”
Amaro always had been good at sparring with him. Rafael had forgotten how quick the detective was.
Wait, hang on…
“How did you know I was in California?” Rafael asked him rapidly, his brows furrowing.
“I spoke to your mother.”
“My mother?” Rafael repeated. “What- how did you-,”
“She’s pretty easy to look up; her profile on the charter school’s website helped me find her details.” Amaro explained. “It didn’t take me very long to get her phone number.”
“Why are you calling my mother?” Rafael asked again.
“She’s a nice lady,” Amaro continued, probably enjoying keeping Rafael strung along like this. “Nicer than you, at least.”
“Amaro!”
“Liv’s worried about you.”
That made Rafael pause. He took a shaky breath, rubbed the tiredness from one eye and tried to think about how to proceed. He didn’t want to talk to Amaro about Olivia, about any of it; but how to tell him that without coming across like the dick the former detective probably already thought he was?
“I spoke to her yesterday,” Amaro spoke again. “I heard about… what happened. Liv said you left your job. She also said you’re not returning any of her calls.”
“That’s not really any of your business, is it?” Rafael snapped angrily.
Oh well, he thought to himself. So much for not being a dick.
“Probably not,” Amaro replied. “But she’s my friend and, honestly, I’m worried about her too.”
“Worried? About Liv?” Rafael exclaimed. “What happened, is she ok?”
“What happened?” Amaro repeated with something that was almost a laugh. “Barba, what happened is you left suddenly, without so much as a forwarding address and now won’t answer when anyone calls. Except for me, for some reason.”
Rafael huffed, leaning his body against the glass of the door.
“Yeah well, I’m as surprised as you are about that.”
Outside, Rafael could hear the hum of someone mowing their lawn. It was probably going to be nice day, weather wise. The next in a long line of sunny Californian afternoons he had yet to make the most of.
“Look, I’m in L.A. right now too, as it happens. There’s a park downtown that’s pretty nice; it’s got a fountain and there’s usually a few food trucks hanging around that are good. Why don’t we have coffee?”
“Asking me on a date, detective?” Rafael sniped, heart thudding at the prospect of possibly having human company for the first time in two months, whilst simultaneously thinking of ways to sabotage it.
“Whatever’ll get you down here, counsellor.” Amaro replied. “I just think it would be good to talk.”
Rafael ran a hand through his hair, chewed his bottom lip. His mouth answered for him before his brain could kick in;
“Alright.”
~~~~
Rafael showered, dressed in some of the few clean clothes he had left, and caught an Uber down to the park that Amaro had sent him the directions to.
It wasn’t until he was stood at the edge of the park, warm breeze blowing through his damp hair as he looked around at the people enjoying their day, that Rafael realized what he’d done.
He was out. In public. Where people could see him.
He hadn’t gone into public since the day he had ran into Yelina, too scared that someone might recognize him from the news. It didn’t matter that, apart from Amaro, he didn’t know anyone in L.A. The fear of being spotted as the baby-killing ADA was beginning to set in.
If he left now, he could be back at the condo before the place got any busier. He could book another Uber in no time, and all of this would be forgotten-
“Barba!”
Too late.
Amaro’s voice carried from just ahead. Rafael looked up- saw the other man waving from a few feet away. Steeling himself, Rafael walked slowly over to him, hands in his jean pockets.
“Detective.” Rafael greeted with a tight smile.
“I’m not a detective anymore, counsellor.” Amaro corrected him, pulling off his sunglasses.
“If we’re playing by those rules then you can’t call me counsellor either.” Rafael argued, pushing his own sunglasses to the top of his head.
“We’ll see.”
Rafael had to admit- the former detective looked good. He was wearing casual clothes (a polo shirt and dark jeans that suited him well) and he had more of a tan than he’d ever been able to get in New York. California seemed to agree with him.
Amaro gestured to a picnic bench not far from where they were stood. Reluctantly, Rafael followed- eyes darting around to make sure that no one was looking at him for too long.
Amaro sat on the side of bench that faced out to the park, leaving Rafael with the seat that left his back to the majority of people out and about, which he was fine with. A part of him wondered if Amaro had done this deliberately.
“I got some pastelitos, cafecito,” Amaro told him, pulling out some paper take out bags from a cool bag on the bench and sliding a coffee cup towards him. “Help yourself.”
“Gracias,” Rafael thanked him, taking the lid off his coffee and having a small sip. He almost groaned- it had been too long since he’d had proper Cuban coffee, and not the instant pod type that most machines made. “What do I owe you?”
“The person organizing the date pays, don’t they?” Amaro ribbed, raising one eyebrow at him as he pulled apart a pastelito and popped a piece in his mouth. “You don’t owe me anything Barba. Just eat.”
Warily, Rafael took one of the pastries and pulled off a piece to chew on. It gave him an excuse not to speak.
“You enjoying L.A?”
“Can’t say I’ve seen all that much of it.” Rafael replied, swallowing his food.
“You’ve been here like two months,” Amaro stated with a frown. “What have you been doing, hibernating?”
“Something like that,” Rafael murmured, looking off towards the fountain that was to the right of them, where a few small children were splashing about. It made him feel strange to see them so happy, so he turned back to the front and instead caught Amaro’s sympathetic expression.
The former detective lowered the coffee cup from his mouth and took a breath.
“You wanna talk about it?”
“Not really.” Rafael replied, pulling off another bit of pastelito.
“You talked to anyone about it?” Amaro asked.
“Not really.”
Rafael chewed the pastry, but stopped really tasting it. His headache was threatening to return.
“So…what? You’re just stewing away in your own misery, growing a depression beard and ignoring everyone who wants to help you?”
Rafael’s eyes lifted back up to meet Amaro’s, was surprised by the intensity he saw there.
“Depression beard?” he repeated.
Amaro gestured to the thick smattering of stubble growing across his face, that he knew he had never allowed himself to have whilst he was working at SVU.
“It sort of suits you I guess,” Amaro said. “But it’s definitely a cry for help right now.”
“And you would know, because?”
“Because I got a divorce, my children moved away from New York without me, I nearly lost my job and I got shot- all within only a few months?” Amaro responded, deliberately keeping eye contact with Rafael. “And when all of that happened I felt the lowest I ever have in my entire life, I drank too much and I didn’t shave for three months.”
Rafael paused, felt the bitterness leave his body for a moment. Amaro hadn’t had it easy and the former lawyer felt guilty for having forgotten that. He regarded the tense way Amaro had begun to hold his shoulders and let out a small sigh.
“Depression beard.” Rafael conceded.
The sound of the children playing not far away continued- intermingled with the general noise of people milling in and out of cafes and shops, the occasional ding of a bicycle bell and music playing out from speakers somewhere distant. Rafael supposed it wasn’t so bad to be out of the house. He’d wanted to avoid human interaction, but it was nice to be reminded that people existed- and that not all of them wanted him locked up.
“I- uhh… I just had to not be in New York for a while.” he eventually explained, fiddling with what was left of his pastelito. “I couldn’t be there anymore.”
“I get that,” Amaro told him. “From what I heard, it was a tough case.”
“In more ways than one,” Rafael agreed. “Even before I…” He cut himself off, still not quite able to say the words out loud.
“It should never have gone to trial.” Amaro exclaimed, swiping pastry crumbs off of the table. “I can’t believe McCoy even thought-,”
“The less time we spend analyzing McCoy’s thought process, the better.” Rafael interrupted. He respected the man and liked him personally, even after everything. But he didn’t know if he could ever truly reconcile what had happened because of his decision to prosecute.
“Still,” Amaro replied. “It was wrong.”
“There are lots of people who’d argue that what I did was far worse.”
“Those people don’t know what kind of a person you are.” Amaro stated firmly.
Rafael regarded him with a bewildered expression. The other man was looking at him rather earnestly. It confused him.
“Which is?” Rafael asked, somewhat scared of the answer.
“I don’t know, you tell me.”
Rafael swallowed again.
“Are you my therapist now?”
“Do I need to be?” he asked. “You’re in a downward spiral, Barba. I might not be a detective anymore, but I haven’t lost it. I can tell you’re not taking care of yourself.”
“I… haven’t been sleeping all that well.”
Rafael wasn’t sure where his honesty was coming from. Maybe it was because he was talking to Amaro, whom he had not seen in so long.
It was almost like talking to a stranger.
“Nightmares?”
Rafael nodded, looking at his hands tearing up the pastry on the table.
“About the trial?”
“I guess,” Rafael answered with a shrug. “It’s just a delayed trauma response, I suppose. It got close for a minute there. And lawyers don’t usually fare well in prison.”
“Neither do cops.” Amaro added, and Rafael remembered the other man’s own close brush with criminal charges. “It’s normal, y’know. To not be ok yet.”
“I know.”
“But distancing yourself won’t help either.” Amaro added. “You have friends who want to help you through this.”
Rafael flushed with shame, because he knew Amaro was making sense. He just didn’t know how to get right with that in his own head.
“And if they decide they don’t have the patience or the sympathy for a self-pitying, arrogant ex-lawyer who narrowly avoided jail time for killing a child?”
If Amaro was in any way taken aback by Rafael’s sudden shift in tone, he didn’t let on. Instead he just sat there, on the other side of the table, looking into his eyes with the kind of straight-laced honesty that, deep down and despite everything, Det. Nick Amaro had always tried his best to keep alive.
“First of all, you didn’t kill that child.” he replied. “You were brave enough to ease his suffering, something as a parent I would move mountains to be able to do if I was in that position. And you’re not self-pitying either. You’re grieving.”
It was as though someone had slapped him round the face.
Of course he was grieving. He’d lost the life he had become accustomed to; the life he had come to cherish in a way he hadn’t ever expected. What else could this behaviour be caused by, if not grief? He didn’t know how it didn’t come to him before now.
Rafael then understood it wasn’t like talking to a stranger at all. Because Nick Amaro knew him better than he realized.
“You’re a good man, Rafael.” The use of his first name by the other man took Rafael by surprise. In the few years they had worked together, he couldn’t think of a single time he had used it before. “You’re not half as bad as you might think you are.”
“I always got the impression you didn’t like me very much.” Rafael replied softly.
Amaro shook his head with a small smile.
“I mean, don’t get me wrong, I thought you were kind of an asshole at first. But the kind of asshole you learn to like.” Amaro’s eyes glinted a little, teasing him. “You were- are- a damn good lawyer, and friend.”
“Were we ever really friends?” Rafael asked him. Amaro shrugged.
“Who knows? Maybe if we spent less time arguing in elevators, we might have realized we were more similar than we thought?”
“You think?”
“The whole Munoz case… I know it wasn’t easy for you to let that part of your life go like that. And when my father was in court, you mentioned something about yours. How your hand still curls into a fist when you think of him.” Amaro spoke quietly, arms crossed on the table between them. “That… that all stuck with me, I guess. Made me see you a little differently.”
Rafael nodded slowly.
“The Householder case- uh, baby Drew. The whole life support issue hit a little closer to home than most people would have realized. I had… history, with my father-,”
“I understand. You don’t have to explain yourself to me, Rafael.” Amaro said. “But I think Liv deserves an explanation.”
Rafael felt his cheeks warm. He picked his coffee cup back up just to have something to do with his hands.
“She doesn’t need me giving her excuses.”
“You can’t make that decision for her.” Amaro told him sternly. “You were close weren’t you? You cared about each other?” Rafael nodded. “So don’t throw that away just because you-,”
“Dad! Gil won’t let me play with the ball, even though it’s my turn!”
Both men turned their heads in the direction of the high-pitched voice coming from the other side of a nearby bush.
Zara was running towards them, her hair in a long plait that trailed behind as she rushed towards her father. She was older than Rafael remembered, but then it had been some years since she’d moved away with her mother.
Not far behind was Gil, who seemed to have shot up to about 6ft tall and was carrying a basketball under one arm.
“You’re such a tattler!” he teased his half-sister as they came closer to the table.
“Am not!” she snapped back, almost stamping a foot down on the ground. “Dad- tell him he has to let me play too!”
“Zara, will you-,”
“Who’s this?” she asked, suddenly pulled out of her frustration by the need to establish who the man sat with her father was.
“Hey; manners.” Amaro scolded her. “This is Mr Barba. I used to work with him back in New York.”
Zara stared at him in a way that slightly unsettled Rafael. It was like she was trying to see how much she could ascertain about him just by looking.
“You’re that lawyer,” Gil pointed out as he came closer to the picnic table.
“Uhh, yeah,” Rafael replied dumbly.
“I remember seeing your picture somewhere before.”
“Gil, maybe-,”
“Picture?” Rafael asked.
“Yeah, online I think?” Gil frowned, trying to remember exactly.
Rafael’s stomach dropped, waiting for the inevitable moment when Amaro’s son realized where exactly he had seen his face.
“Gil, why don’t you go and-,” Amaro tried to interrupt his thought process, but to no avail.
“Oh yeah!” Gil exclaimed, face brightening with recognition. “You were the one who put away that TV host guy, who hurt that lady with the book she didn’t actually write. You pulled that stunt with your belt, to prove how much he liked to-,”
“Ok!” Amaro cut him off, loudly. “You don’t need to finish that sentence, thank you.”
“What?” Zara asked them both. “What did he like?”
“Never you mind mija.” Amaro told her sternly, before looking back at his son. “And you were definitely too young to read about that when it happened.”
Gil rolled his eyes.
“I read about it afterwards,” he replied, as though that was obvious. “I remember you saying something about him once and I looked him up.” The teenager turned to Rafael once more. “You’re pretty cool actually.”
It was such an unexpected thing to hear at that point in his life, that Rafael couldn’t help but let out a laugh.
“Thanks,” he said to the boy and honestly meaning it.
From the other side of table, Amaro watched the interaction, a little stunned. He then rummaged around in his pocket for his wallet, before pulling out a handful of dollars and giving them to his daughter.
“Zara, why don’t you and Gil get yourselves an ice cream, huh? Let me and Mr Barba finish our talk.”
Zara eyed her father suspiciously, holding the money in her hands tightly.
“You always say the ice creams in those trucks have way too much sugar in them.”
“Yeah well, just this once I’m pretending like that’s not true.” he replied, stuffing his wallet back into his pocket. “So go and get something before I change my mind.”
“C’mon,” Gil pulled her arm. “I want rum and raisin.”
“Race you!” Zara challenged her half-brother, before the pair of them set off at speed towards a food truck at the far end of the park.
Rafael watched them go; smirking at the obvious sight of them continuing to bicker once they reached their destination. They seemed so carefree. Rafael wished he had half their zest for life.
“You didn’t say you’d be with your kids.” he said to Amaro.
“They both had the same week off school, miraculously.” he explained, screwing the paper his pastelito had come in into a ball. “I don’t always get to have them both at the same time.”
“And yet you took out an hour of that time to talk to me?”
“They don’t mind me letting them go off for a while, believe me.” he answered. “And I wanted to see if you’d come.”
Rafael looked at the man once more and sighed a little.
Somehow, he didn’t feel quite so wretched anymore.
“Well… thanks for asking me to.”
Amaro’s mouth turned up in a smile, nodded once. There was a quiet moment where Rafael wasn’t sure what else to say- but it didn’t matter, because Amaro spoke instead;
“I meant what I said, Barba. You are a good man.”
Despite feeling slightly better, Rafael was still unsure.
“How do you know?” he asked in the smallest of voices.
“How do I know?” Amaro repeated, bewildered. “I don’t know; because you spent the better part of twenty years putting away the worst of humanity? Because you always pushed us to do better- to do right by the victims? Because even though I allowed my anger to cloud my judgement about you multiple times, you never once judged me in return? Because when I called you after hearing what had happened, the first thing you asked was if I needed help?”
Rafael watched Amaro’s face twist with the kind of righteous energy he remembered from their time working together. It was strange to see it directed at him, after all these years- but not unwelcome.
“Give yourself a break, Rafael.” Amaro said. “You can’t continue to hate yourself. Believe me, it’s not worth it. Besides, there’s too much good left for you to do.”
Rafael’s throat suddenly grew tight. The last thing he wanted to do was cry in front of the man, but if he continued to be so godamn nice…
Amaro stood from the bench, threw his wrapper and coffee cup into a nearby trash can with expert precision. Rafael stood in return, his body working on autopilot whilst his brain was still churning over everything they had said.
In the distance, Zara and Gil were making their way back from the food truck, carrying their ice creams.
“We got one for you too Dad!” Gil shouted from across the grass.
“You should probably go,” Rafael said to the former detective.
“Don’t be a stranger ok?” Amaro told him, sticking his hand out for the lawyer to shake. Rafael took it; weeks without human contact must have rendered him weak, because this small touch was enough to make his chest tighten even further. “Feel free to call, if you ever want to talk. Or, y’know, sit in a bar and drink over-expensive scotch in silence. Whatever still works for you.”
Rafael laughed shortly and nodded.
“I might just take you up on that.”
Amaro grabbed the cool bag that was still on the bench, lifted his sunglasses up from where they had been hanging from the collar of his polo shirt and put them back on. He rounded the bench, moving back over to join his kids, who were furiously licking up the drips from their ice creams. Rafael realized again just how at ease he looked- so in contrast with his last few years in New York.
Perhaps there were some things he could learn from his old colleague.
“Oh!” Amaro called from a few feet away, stopping to turn back to face Rafael for a few moments more. “And call Liv back! You’re never gonna find anyone else who’ll put up with your shit like she will! Don’t be an idiot!”
Rafael laughed again and shook his head, before lifting one arm up to wave them all off. He waited until they were out of sight, for some reason taking comfort in watching Amaro have fun with his kids, wandering off to the next good thing they had planned.
Rather than go immediately home, like he had initially wanted to, Rafael instead took the time to walk around the park. Amaro was right, it was a beautiful place. He could smell something wafting over from one of the food trucks- Korean maybe? Rafael’s stomach rumbled and he remembered that, apart from most of a pastelito, he’d not eaten anything yet.
On his way over to the truck, Rafael passed a bed of flowers. Tulips and roses in varying shades of pink and orange; a shock of colour in an otherwise mainly green and dusty brown landscape.
He’d missed Olivia’s birthday. But perhaps he wasn’t too late to try and make amends.