Disclaimer: I own nothing, all creds to Dick Wolf
AN: So this story is just going to be a collection of Barson one-shots. I'm not sure where it's going or if it will end up connecting the chapters at all, but for now it's just one-shots. I tried to keep it in-character. Haven't written an SVU story since I was a shitty little writer in middle school ahaha so let's hope this isn't too bad.
***First chapter set after "Community Policing."
"Olivia," a familiar voice shouted from behind her as she marched down the steps of the courthouse. She was not in the mood to hear whatever Barba had to say right now, so she continued to walk away, ignoring him completely.
"Liv, prosecution was right here," he said.
Impulsively, she spun around. "Prosecution? You mean you. No, you weren't, Barba, and you know you weren't. You did what you thought would please the public; you cared more about being politically correct than you did about making the morally right decision."
"My 'decision' had nothing to do with politics. I was commissioned to prosecute the case, and so I did. I don't work for you, don't forget that-"
"Oh believe me, I know you're not working for me. A member of SVU would never throw cops under the bus for doing their job," she spat, her voice lowering and lips parting as they did when she was especially annoyed.
His sharp features focused on her intensely, his eyes flitting back and forth in contact with hers. His hurt at her remark showed visibly on his face, even as he tried not to let it. He stepped closer to her, thinking of what to say, but he didn't get the chance, as she opened her mouth again.
"You know, I get that you were in a difficult position, Counselor. But you grilled me on the stand, made it personal, asked if I would have done the same thing…You crossed a line," she said.
"I didn't cross a line. I used you for the prosecution, that's what you're for," he blurted.
Olivia's eyebrows raised as she gave a clear look of passionate anger, now insulted far more than before. "Ah. Got it," she said, flipping back around and finishing her descent down the courthouse steps. Barba went after her and grabbed her arm, only for her to violently pull away from him and continue her departure.
At her apartment, Olivia opened a bottle of wine, opting to drink straight from the bottle so she could keep track of how much she drunk and also from the sheer laziness of not wanting to find a wine glass. Noah was asleep for the night and while she'd never get drunk with a child she was responsible for, she did want to at least unwind. She sat on her couch thinking for countless hours, until some point late in the night. Her mind couldn't shut down and give her the bliss of sleep. She found herself unable to think about anything other than the case; every unfortunate detail. The whole ordeal was bad. Nobody had deserved to die, and nobody had deserved prison for a likely ten-plus years. It sickened her that as hard as she worked, people's lives were over. She knew that in contrast, she saved and gave justice to many, but that wasn't what it was about for her. It was about the fact that every life was as valuable as her own, and every time one was lost, it was as big of a deal as every life she had saved combined. Every time someone died, something about the world was altered, and the lives of everyone who knew that person were tainted with grief and sorrow. A death was never anything to take lightly, and imprisonment for the undeserving was just as bad.
She used to blame herself for everything, but she stopped at some point and started to realize that every bad thing that happened wasn't her fault and couldn't be prevented by her. But it was almost as if not blaming herself and having learned just to accept that bad things happened for absolutely no reason other than the mere concept that life basically sucked ended up being worse than blaming herself. At least when she used to blame herself for everything, she could just sit and feel bad about herself and be angry with herself and her own incompetence. But once she had the realization that she didn't deserve the blame, it raised the constant whirlwind of thoughts which she now lived with every second; a never-ending tree of questions which branched into other questions and forced her thoughts to be centered around existential unfairness and the ways of the world and why things were the way they were.
To further enhance her bitter mood, rain started pouring, drizzling down her glass window from which the only light source in her house was coming; the city lights illuminated a circular patch of area where she was sitting on her couch, and everything else around her was dark. The atmosphere made her feel more upset, but she was also somehow a little proud of herself for sitting in her apartment in the dark. For a long while after her encounter with Lewis, she was too paranoid to do much. She only took baths because every time she took a shower, she became worried that someone was in her apartment but she was unable to hear them over the water. She slept with her gun under her pillow—a dangerous and stupid habit. Now, sitting in the dark alone, she wondered if the reason she wasn't scared was because she'd seen too many monsters lately to be concerned about something lurking in her apartment.
However, as if her body were to protest, she jumped out of her skin when a knock at the door jarred her from her thoughts. It should have been obvious, but Olivia was genuinely surprised when she saw Barba standing in her doorway, hair damp from the rain which undoubtedly made its way around his umbrella in this hurricane-like storm. She supposed that she was shocked because Barba didn't just show up at her apartment at—she checked her watch—one in the morning. He was casually dressed, a sight Olivia wasn't used to but had seen before, in black sweats, a t-shirt, and a windbreaker. His facial expression was unreadable, perhaps a mixture of fatigue, contempt, and maybe a slight bit of guilt. He held up a bottle of wine to which she lifted up her hand and revealed her own bottle which she'd now drunk half of; she was a heavyweight with alcohol.
"Anymore and I'll be drunk with my child asleep," she said, lying as she knew that she could drink the rest of the bottle and some of his and not get drunk.
"You don't have to take it literally," he replied, his face downcast and his eyes peering at her from the depths of the shadows his forehead cast.
She pursed her lips, staring at him. "A peace offering? Not this time, Counselor. You're the last person I want to see right now. Go talk it out and relieve your conscience with someone else."
"You don't know everything that happened. Come on, Liv. Don't push me back into the rain," he said, his mouth upturned just slightly.
Olivia really didn't want to see him; she hadn't been just throwing him a cold front. But she would be awake for undoubtedly several more hours into the night, and her mind would only feel further guilted if she let him leave when he'd, for once, made the effort to come out to her apartment in the middle of a rainy night to repair things with her. Reluctantly, she stepped aside, and Barba walked in and they both collapsed on the couch after he awkwardly set his bottle of wine on her counter.
"Why'd you come out here in the middle of the night?" Olivia asked, her voice cold. It was more of a statement than a question.
"You know why. I was a dick earlier. It…came out wrong," he said.
"What part? The part where you blatantly pushed me on the stand, the part where you made it personal by asking if I would have done the same thing, or the part where you said the only thing I'm here for is to be used for the prosecution's benefit?" she barked at him, nearly causing him to flinch.
He gave her a disapproving, 'don't-bully-me' look. "The last one. That's not what I meant-"
"Then what did you mean?" she interrogated.
He readjusted himself on her couch, turning towards her. "I just meant that…You give me cases and I prosecute them, and you help me to pursue the cases by providing testimony. So typically, you are a benefit for the prosecution. I didn't mean that that's the only thing you're good for," he said, making stern eye contact with her.
"Well, I didn't want to be a benefit for the prosecution this time. I didn't agree with this, Barba, and I just…I get this from a professional standpoint, but I guess I just thought that…"
"Thought what, Liv?" he said, staring at her.
She shook her head. "Nothing, never mind," she said.
He grabbed her half-drunk bottle of wine off the coffee table and consumed some of it himself. "Finish, or we're not going to work this out," he said matter-of-factly.
Olivia felt pissed nevertheless, but a part of her felt fond towards him because he was making such an immense effort to 'work this out.' He wasn't typically one to care what others thought of what he did, and the fact that he was here trying to fix everything showed that a part of him must have cared about her to some degree, so she felt encouraged to tell him what she was thinking.
"I just thought that you would value me enough not to go against me to please the public. We're not friends, all right; we work together, I get that. And the job comes first. But you picked the side of the public over the side of the cops you work with and know," she said.
Barba bowed his head a little bit and gave a slight nod, running his thumb over the top of the bottle of wine in his hand before looking back up at her. "If it was you, I wouldn't have prosecuted. Because I do know you. But I didn't know them, and I didn't choose the public. I chose what I thought was right, can you trust that? I thought those cops overkilled, I thought that as long as they didn't see a gun, they shouldn't have fired, especially not more than once. If it had been you, I still would have thought you were wrong, I just wouldn't have prosecuted because I couldn't do that to you. But that's just the thing—you wouldn't have done that, and I know you wouldn't have," he explained.
For once, she found herself beginning to understand a little better. She disagreed with him from a moral standpoint, but she finally realized that he hadn't really chosen whatever was going to get him liked the best; he had chosen what he thought was right, and that was something she could respect, even if she thought he was wrong.
"I've been a detective for 17 years, though," she said.
"And even in your early years, you didn't make a decision like that," he said, showing that he'd clearly done his homework on her.
"As for manslaughter one," he continued, "I didn't want that. I didn't, Liv. The jury came up with that, and I tried to talk them out of it, but there were too many of them who wanted higher charges. It was out of my hands at that point. I just carried out what they would have done with any prosecutor," he finished.
She stared at him for a long moment, seemingly defeated. She took the bottle of wine from him, placing her hand over his for a brief moment before he let go and she took a swig. The physical contact felt like a moment of warm passion even though it was such a subtle touch, mostly because they had been fighting and cold towards each other and that touch ignited the feeling in both of them that reminded them that they were better friends than they admitted to being.
"I still don't think your prosecution was in the right, but I can understand," she said to him.
Barba nodded in response, a small smile on his face that he was obviously trying not to let show but failing miserably at. After a moment of awkward silence, Olivia tugged at his jacket lightly, a chuckle escaping her lips.
"You want me to put this in the dryer?" she asked.
He complied gratefully, pulling it off and handing it to her as she stood up.
"So we're really not friends?" he called out as she left towards the laundry room. "Last time I checked with you, we were gonna be eighty-five together!"
Approaching him again and sitting down, a look of amusement spread across her face. "I thought I drove you a little crazy, Counselor," she replied.
"Only in the best way."
AN: Please leave a review if you enjoyed this! I have another chapter idea in the works that I'll post soon, granted that anyone reads/likes this story.