A/N: prompt is distance & it's post community policing and mostly based off that deleted scene where barson don't talk for a few weeks after it.
Rafael lets the weeks tick on by without seeking out Liv, just as she isn't seeking out him.
It is what it is.
He doesn't know how to feel about it, about her, about the entire case. He knows who Liv is. He knows it with every fiber of his being. The whole aspect of her being a cop hadn't registered with him. He didn't realize he needed to.
He's in denial about everything and that's exactly where he wants to stay.
Denial is so much easier than facing a truth that someone might be something else than they thought.
It's worked before and it'll work now.
Of course that means his life is a bit more empty than usual. He's been throwing himself into cases that need to be tried. She hasn't called and part of him wishes she would.
She won't.
He won't.
They are both too stubborn for their own good.
Something has shifted, that much he knows. Maybe it's the case or maybe it's something else but the difference between them feels bigger.
It is bigger.
Even as she eventually finds herself in his office the distance remains. It's as if they are both trying to create as much space from the other as they possibly can.
He almost wishes she wasn't there at all and they were back. Something has definitely changed between the two of them and he knows, deep in his core, that it will not be something easy to repair.
When those cops go to trial it's only going to bring up more tension between them.
The business side of him believes she was wrong to her very core and he can't let that go, but the all too human part of him just misses his best friend.