Preface – Present
With a huff, Barba pushed the door open.
The clicking of her boots down the marble hall was the only sound in the otherwise completely silent courthouse.
"Liv, stop!" He called after her down the hall.
Under the red glow of the 'Exit' sign, she did everything but stop.
"Olivia!" His voice rang out with a desperation and harshness he didn't recognize as his own.
Racing out into the darkness of the crisp, Manhattan January night, the heavy oak slammed shut behind her. Olivia was out of his sight. Again.
The pit that suddenly presented itself in his stomach was nothing new. It was the feeling Rafael got every time she did this. Every time she allowed herself to be vulnerable with him, she retreated. Olivia Benson's MO: Run. He knew the program. More often than not, he chased her. If not literally, he would do something to remind her that he was there for her. He'd pull through. When she thought she was alone in the fight, whether it was her fight against Lewis, for Noah, or on behalf of the victims, he refused to let her prove herself right.
No matter how hard she tried to escape the pull that drew them together, what they'd become for one another, he wasn't going to give up on it. She meant too much to him.
So, tired as he was of this war, Barba followed her yet again. By the time, the cold air hit him and he was at the top of the steps, she'd nearly made it to the bottom.
"Liv, I'm sorry!"
They'd been prepping for a few hours. It must have been close to 10, but a few people still made their way past the mammoth building. The passerby who'd a few moments ago been looking up in awe at the granite-lined structure's ornateness now directed their attention to the spectacle he and Olivia were creating. The fact was, he didn't care who witnessed this.
"Will you stop?" On the last word his voice snapped. Mr. Nice Guy had been worn thin. Any semblance of restraint that Barba had so carefully kept in place to make sure Olivia's feelings were protected was gone. His visceral need for her to feel the pain he'd been in over the past months took over and kept him charging forward.
Now on the sidewalk below, arm raised, she was trying to catch a cab. In a matter of seconds, a yellow taxi slowed to a stop.
As Olivia moved to get in, Barba felt his eyes fill with tears.
"You're so freaking selfish."
He couldn't help himself. The words were out.
Bending over, she leaned into the car, said something to the cabbie, and then abruptly banged the car door shut with a force he'd never seen her unleash before. Considering this was Lieutenant Olivia Benson, that was saying something.
Pivoting to face Barba, who by now was within feet of approaching her, he fully expected to be met by profanities and cruel words he'd know she didn't really mean deep down but had become her conditioned response only a lifetime of heartbreak could've produced.
What he got was worse.
When Barba saw Olivia's face for the first time since the three minutes earlier in the room in the building above, he struggled to find her eyes. Normally brown, on her now tear-soaked face, they took on a darkness that struck him to his core.
Not in the years of tragedy and sorrow that they'd faced together had she ever displayed such unabashed anguish, at least not to him. It stopped him in his tracks.
For what felt like an eternity, the world stood still. It was as if the air between them ceased to move.
When, finally, Olivia took a step forward, Rafael felt himself start breathing again. Panic-filled, but breathing.
"How could you say that?"
Barba wasn't sure if the soft words had come from her or his imagination, because he definitely hadn't seen her lips move.
"What?" He responded with his own tentativeness. The look on her face had made him forget how they even ended up down here, never mind the exchange that'd just taken place.
Now he was the one moving toward her. When he assumed the position in her personal space that he routinely occupied, she took a step backward. The significance of that step, what it meant, was not lost on either the detective or the prosecutor.
"What's wrong?" Apparently, his instinct to want to come to her aid in a crisis hadn't been lost either.
Olivia looked at him accusingly, like he'd asked the question he'd asked was simultaneously the dumbest and most hurtful thing he could have said.
"Are you serious?"
"Liv, tell me what you want me to do."
"It stopped being about what I want a long time ago."
What do you mean? Realizing Olivia was answering before he could even get the question out, she continued.
"Can't you see that this is killing me?"
Somehow he'd re-entered the proximity to her where their closeness made it feel as if the rest of the world was a far-away nightmare and they were the only two people who'd ever existed. The silence was like a vacuum sucking them both in.
"What is?"
In a daring move, Barba reached up to brush away some of her tears. As his thumb made contact with the softness of her cheek, he realized that with the exception of some supportive hand holding, this was the first time his skin had ever touched hers. When it did, his suspicion that he'd never need to touch anyone else as long as he lived became tangible.
"Because if it's me being too overbearing, I'm sorry. Just tell me to stop. I'm just trying to help you, but I don't know what I'm supposed to do."
It was true. Over the past several weeks, as the trial approached, their interactions not only were fewer and further between but they became more tense. Sure, he could tell the job was taking a toll on her, and he suspected or, rather, wishfully hoped that his still-new more-than-friends relationship with Yelina was having some- even miniscule- impact on her. So, yeah, Barba had a few ideas but didn't in fact know why, but it seemed like any distance between them was too close for her.
That is, until this afternoon when for the first time, she called him for no reason at all, for the first time in a long while. They were set to go over her testimony at 7, so when he saw her name come up on his phone after his Sunday morning church and brunch with Mami, he was pleasantly taken aback. She was taking Noah to the park, she said. Then with an uncharacteristic nervousness, she asked, you wouldn't want to join, would you? Quickly adding, I mean I know we haven't really just visited in a while, but I just thought...
He couldn't handle her being anxious on his behalf, so he cut her off.
Olivia. Yes. Of course. When are you guys going?
So, at 2 p.m., Rafael showed up at Olivia and Noah's usual spot. He stood by the swings, one hand in his jeans pocket, the other scrolling through some work e-mails, when he looked up and saw her and her son.
He wanted to ignore the flutter in his chest, because it wasn't fair to Yelina. He knew that. But the effect Olivia had on him was like the one Yelina had on him 20 years before. That and so much more. And to feel like he belonged somewhere and with someone for, truly, the first time in his life, at his age, it was worth more than gold.
Standing before her, now hours later, as Barba recalled the feeling that kept the smile plastered on his face all afternoon and evening, in spite of himself, he couldn't help the same smile from re-appearing.
She kept her gaze on him, with an expression that was at once blank and so full of emotion that it was unreadable, even to him.
"I can't help it, Liv. I'm sorry. I just want to help you."
With those words, he gathered Olivia into his arms. As his body enveloped her, Rafael realized just how small and fragile she was in this moment.
Her fragility, somehow, gave him strength. They seemed to work that way. Complementing each other. Where his uncertainty caused her to be stronger, and her skepticism made him more assured. At any given time, they made one another better by providing what the other didn't even know they needed.
"You cannot tell me that what just happened, that what you just did meant nothing." If his mouth's resting in her hair right next to her ear left any doubt as to whether she heard him, the way that she exhaled told all. As if unloading a Herculean load off her back, he swore Olivia had just crumbled.
"Rafael."
Sensing how difficult this was for her, he pulled her tighter and tried to comfort her in the best way he knew how. By telling her she wasn't alone in what she was feeling.
"I feel the same way, Liv. This thing between..."
"Rafael, he's your brother." Her words came out fast.
In an instant, everything he'd ever known disappeared. The ground was taken out from underneath him. And the woman in his arms was a stranger.