The rest of the day seemed to have dragged on for Quinn. Usually the Pediatric ER was too loud and hectic for her to even catch a break. Her day had not started out well, and the unfamiliar silence emanating from her phone had bothered her so much that she had thrown it in her locker for the rest of her shift. Mike used to text her every so often, even if it was just a stupid emoji or something. But now? Now he hadn't even bothered to say anything at all. Fuck him, she thought, I'm not holding my breath.
She sat at the computer, typing her notes for the day in furiously, making sure she didn't miss a single detail of every case she was called to. Aside from the Jackson case this morning, she had a couple consultations on cases she was managing, as well as following up on a few children who were being kept under observation for suicide. Mr. Jackson had taken up most of her day, seemingly needing more consoling than Melanie needed. Quinn had convinced him and Melanie to press charges when she was finally calmed down by the nurse doing her examination. She wanted to assign the case to another social worker, hoping to not have to deal with SVU anymore for a while. She had been sitting with Carisi the entire time as he took her statement while Olivia was making phone calls to the ADA, Rafael Barba. He'd taken a few of her cases to court before and Quinn liked to think she got along with his prickly personality.
As she finished her note, Quinn sighed and leaned back in her chair. One of the residents in the area leaned over the top of the desk. "You need some coffee, Silver? You look a little exhausted."
"No thanks, Brett. I don't have the overnight tonight. I'm heading home and going to bed." She sat up straight and started to pack up all her files, hoping he would leave. Brett Daniels was new to the emergency room and had been hounding her ever since he was put on this rotation. There was something skeevy about his cockiness every day, expecting her to give him the time of day, that bothered her. She couldn't tell who was worse - Brett or Sonny.
"Ah, come on, Silver. A little coffee never hurt nobody. Come with, I'm going to Dunkin Donuts right now."
Quinn flushed and stuffed her papers in a drawer, locking it with a loud slam. "No. Thank you, Brett, but no thank you." She brushed past him into the locker room, collecting her belongings and clocking out before Brett could stop her again. As she walked out of the hospital, she started to feel bad. Maybe she could have at least walked with the guy to the front door. She was taking out her anger and frustration on him… No, she thought. I don't want to hang out with anyone today, I'm not in the mood, and I'm not going to feel bad about refusing a guy who doesn't understand the meaning of 'no'.
Quinn walked the twenty blocks to her house, needing some time to clear her head after the long day she had. Her phone was still ominously silent, save for the occasional check-in from Olivia regarding the case and some texts from numbers she didn't have in her address book.. When she got to her apartment, Quinn leaned against the wall while waiting for the elevator, pulling her phone from her pocket.
Olivia Benson: Barba wants to meet with you tomorrow.
Unknown Number: Quinn, it's Rafael. Do you have a minute to chat tmoro?
Unknown Number: A response would be appreciated, I know we are both very busy people.
Unknown Number: Yo CPEP answer Barba's messages before he pees himself.
Unknown Number: Btw Liv gave me your number, don't think i'm a creep or nothing
Quinn smirked and saved the unknown numbers as their corresponding senders. As she fumbled with her keys, the phone buzzed again. She jammed the key in the lock and turned it, dropping her purse in the hallway and kicking her shoes off. The phone buzzed again and she groaned, flipping it to face her.
Incoming call: Fordham Law
She cautiously pressed the green circle and swiped it across her screen. "Hello..?"
"Ay, CPEP, you finally answered. Barba's gonna be so mad!" Sonny's cheerful voice poured through the speaker.
"I've been busy at work, Fordham. Not everyone can play Candy Crush forever while sitting in an unmarked vehicle." She heard him snicker before there was a shuffling, a shout from Sonny and a thud. She raised an eyebrow as a different voice came through the receiver.
"You'll answer this idiot's calls but not a text message, Silver? Lieutenant Benson spoke so highly of you…"
"Very funny, Barba. As I was just telling your protege, I've had quite a busy day at work and have only just arrived at my humble abode." She paused, gauging just how much of his commentary was sarcastic humor and how much of it was serious.
"I see," Barba finally muttered. "I'd like to meet with you tomorrow regarding the case you called SVU in on. If Carisi is half as good of a detective as I hope he is, we have a matching MO for a string of assaults that we've been tracking." Quinn heard a loud Hey! coming from the speaker and grinned. "Are you free at all tomorrow, or are you going to be busy again?"
"Barba, I work in the emergency room. I don't know what my schedule looks like. I can let my supervisor know I'm needed to assist on a case - we've got a couple other social workers there who can hold down the fort."
"Okay, good. Carisi will be present as well, considering he is the only other detective who has any knowledge of this case. Olivia, unfortunately, has her son to attend to tomorrow."
Quinn sighed. "Don't be so mean to the poor guy. I'm sure he tries his best."
"You hear that, Carisi? She said you try." Quinn shouted at Rafael as he told Carisi what she had said about him.
"I'm hanging up on you, Barba."
"Eight AM sharp, my office." She heard a click and Rafael was gone. She tossed her phone onto the couch and sat down, kicking her feet up on the coffee table. Eight AM… who does he think he is. It was entirely too early for her to want to deal with happy, chipper, Dominick Carisi and his polar opposite Rafael Barba. Sending a quick text message to her boss regarding tomorrow's plans, she reached over to grab the bottle of wine that had been sitting there as a decorative centerpiece for a few days. She had bought it to celebrate her and Mike's six-month-aversary next week and obviously it no longer served a purpose. Quinn started to get up to find a glass, but decided otherwise and simply reached for the corkscrew on her little Swiss Army Knife tucked into the coffee table drawer.
The bottle was two-thirds gone by the time she decided it was an appropriate hour to go to sleep. Quinn looked over at the digital clock on the end table. 2AM? Holy shit. She scrambled to cork the bottle and jumped into bed, figuring she might have enough time to shower in the morning and look presentable. It wasn't that Barba was devilishly handsome and always put together - she had made her peace with her odd crush on the ADA long ago - but that Sonny would be there and she would not give him the satisfaction of knowing she had been crying, drinking, and watching Bridget Jones's Diary ever since she got home.
Not that she would tell him those details, of course. He would just know the break up had gotten to her, and Quinn couldn't have that.
Setting her alarm for 5:30, she drifted off to sleep…
Only to wake up at 7AM, cottonmouth and all. She cursed her hungover self for knowing how to work a snooze button in her sleep and bolted out of bed into the shower. She was done in record time, make up and all, and booked it out the door, slamming into whoever decided to stand in the doorway of her building at that very moment.
"Sorry, sorry, late for work, I'm so- Sonny?"
She took a step back after colliding with the detective. "What are you doing here?"
"Ya might wanna check your messages, CPEP. I don't mind a booty call now and then but this was on a whole different level." Quinn paled as she turned her phone over in her hand.
"Listen, if I said anything that might give you ideas…"
"Relax, CPEP, I'm joking. I could smell the booze through the phone and you asked if I'd come get you in the morning. No big deal."
Quinn scrolled through her texts, and true to his word, she found incoherent babble in her Fordham Law thread, with her address peppered in. Thank God for autocorrect, or Sonny would have been waiting forever. She looked up sheepishly at the detective, who was watching her with an infuriating smirk on his face. "So you came from Staten Island to meet me at seven to take me to Barbas office, and that's not a big deal to you?" she asked, raising an eyebrow skeptically.
"I may have borrowed my parents' car for the day, alright CPEP? Now, I'm double parked and don't have cop plates on it, so let's cut the interrogation and hightail it downtown." She cringed as Sonny's tone changed from playful to serious and she followed him to the old sedan parked across the street. Sonny, gentleman that he was, even opened the passenger door for her before getting settled into the driver's seat himself. Quinn fastened her seatbelt and held her pocketbook on her lap, fiddling with the strap. The engine sputtered to life and Sonny pulled away just as the street cleaner turned onto the block.
She sat quietly as Sonny fiddled with the radio in his old Toyota, finally settling on a station playing an energetic guitar solo. Quinn popped open her bag, fumbling around for the last single pack of Advil she saved for times like these. As she ripped the foil packet, Sonny looked over at her. "I've got some water in my bag if you need it."
"Eyes on the road, detective," she chastised, shaking the two orange pills out into her palm. "But thank you. I was considering a dry swallow but I guess you're prepared." Quinn reached behind her, groping at the air blindly for Sonny's backpack in the backseat. She grabbed hold of it and dragged it out over the center console and placed it between her legs, fishing out the water bottle from one of the pockets.
They drove in silence until they reached Barba's office building. Sonny pulled into a parking space and went to feed the Muni-Meter. Quinn gathered her belongings as well as Carisi's backpack and stepped out into the street, quickly walking around the car to where Carisi was pumping the meter full of quarters. His brow was furrowed so much that Quinn was worried it would stick that way forever. Swallowing her pride, she handed him his book bag. "Thank you, Sonny. I really appreciate you doing this for me." His expression softened as he turned to look at her.
"What happened to 'Fordham'?" he chuckled. Quinn frowned.
"I'm trying to be nice here, Carisi."
"Well, we all know what a feat that is, so I, too, thank you for the effort, Silver."
She all but threw his backpack at him as he laughed and led the way to Barba's office.