Hi, so here is the latest chapter, i apologise for the delay but i had a nightmare of a time with an essay and that had to take priority. But here is the latest chapter anyway.

As Barba has now exited the show (though why i will never know) i have decided to end this story with Series 17 and while there will be no main pairing to this story the chapters will lead more towards a relationship than the show ever did and i think you all know what pairing i mean.

Disclaimer-Nothing is mine.

And Please let me know what you think.

Prosecutor's Daughter

Chapter 10-The Longest Nights

Time came though when Rafael had to go back to work. Avri had been given an extended absence from school as long as someone emailed her the work. She had taken to slowly getting back to her schoolwork but there were times when Rafael would look up from his own work to see her staring at her computer screens, but her eyes were not focused on the screen. She seemed to be locked in a dark place for a second and then she would pull herself out of it and then she was trying to come back to herself and pretend that everything was normal even though everything was clearly not.

But more to the point he couldn't think of how he could bring it up without her getting that look in her eyes, that sad but yet warning look that so much told him that she was not in the mood to talk-it was oddly enough the same thing his ex-wife had done whenever she decided not to talk to him-she would have shot him that look over her books and it was the only one that he ever paid attention to. Avri had copied that look to the letter and was using it whenever he tried to talk or to suggest that she speak to someone.

He had thought about asking Liv to talk to her but Liv since she had adopted her son-and yeah, that had come out of nowhere and had gained no reaction from Avri other than a blank stare. But she was getting better bit by bit in some areas. Rafael had noticed with a sort of desperation that she was eating. For the first few weeks she had not touched her food only picking it with her fork and eating one or two small bites. But then the morning after she had finally gotten her now short hair restyled she had taken a long shower, scrubbed her skin red and then thrown her pyjama's in the wash basket and finally changed into her jeans.

The doctors had told Rafael that his daughters knee had been internally bruised and had been very close to being knocked out of shape. Avri was still stiff on her leg even a month or so later and even though she had started going back to school she came home straight afterwards and didn't say a word.

The problem with single parenting though was that you didn't have anyone to talk to about this. Amaro was facing divorce, a custody debate and a demotion after he had faced a considerable amount of prison time for something that he was sure he had done and that Amanda had covered up and for that reason he didn't ask her-besides she was busy with showing some new detective around and from the way she rolled her eyes whenever he was mentioned it meant that he was either terrible or rather good looking depending on how you viewed it.

He had tried showing Avri a load of baby Noah Porter-Benson pictures that Fin had sent him but his daughter didn't so much as look at them. In fact as far as Liv was concerned she was blatantly not talking about her or listening to any of his stories about her either staring into space or down at her hands as if it was the only way that she could keep her control.

Either way he had to go back to work. And that meant he had to leave his daughter to go about her world in the hope that she would come and talk to him despite the fact that he had no experience of dealing with this sought of trauma.

The first case he had to deal with was the one where he had to put away a human trafficker and that felt very, very good. It was the man that had threatened and then almost shot at Liv's new adopted son but the shine he had managed to acquire had quickly gone to shit as soon as he had come home to his daughter staring blankly at the wall as if it held the answers.

"Avri" he said finally, and his daughter slowly turned to him her face showing her exhaustion. There was a second where they staring at each other. And then Rafael forced himself to speak the words that he was pretty sure would end him.

"Do you want me to call your mother? Do you want to go and live with her for a time? In London?"

Avri did stare at him then her expression showing a combination of shock and hurt and usually Rafael would have hated himself for that expression however this was the first sign of genuine emotion she had shown since she went back to school and he was talking what he could get.

"What good would that do?" she asked finally. "She's not exactly cared so far has she? I was kidnapped and almost…" she cut herself off abruptly and then shook her head.

"Somehow I think she's made her opinion clear when she said she had to work rather than come and see me. You don't know what it was like Dad, trust me despite your many faults, you are the better parent"

But then as soon as the emotions were on her face they were clean off them and even through the entire week after that was taken up by battling a racist old man and also dealing with another old man praying on young teen actresses he still couldn't take his mind over the fact that there was a teenager right now in his house that was pretending that everything was alright and he didn't have a clue how to deal with it.

"I mean" he said to Liv one night when she turned up at his office and asked how Avri was and he was regrettably unable to keep the flow of information to himself.

"It's difficult it's like she's pretending and I don't know how to not pretend" he took a big gulp of whiskey "Truth is Liv I don't know how much of it I want to hear"

Liv nodded. There had been an official report of course, there always was with this kind of thing but the fact of the matter was that he wasn't sure how much that counted. Avri had given a statement as had Liv as had Amelia but a combination of Avri trying to protect the little girl and then Liv trying to protect his daughter had made things very difficult for him to understand what was going on.

"You want me to try and talk to her?" Liv asked. Rafael paused. He had a feeling that was the last thing Avri wanted and he wasn't sure he wanted to spring anything on her without telling her. Truth was he was so out of his depth with this that he didn't know what was right and what wasn't.

"No" he said finally. "I'll ask her again but…I don't know"

Liv nodded didn't say anything else and then turned the topic of discussion back to the case.

She shouldn't have gone.

A day later her hands still shook when she thought of it. She shouldn't have gone, she should have trusted Rafael by his word and she should have left it alone but she hadn't.

She had gone to see Avri.

She didn't know weather or not the girl was going to be home and she wasn't responding to any text messages that Liv was sending her way. Instead Liv had decided to go and speak to Avri as she was coming out of her school.

It was the first time she had seen her since the trial. Hell it had been the first time she had seen Avri since she had become a parent herself and she found herself shocked by the other woman's appearance. Avri's hair which she remembered being cut was now styled to her shoulders in soft waves. Her black jeans and black jumper hung loosely on her-she had clearly lost weight. Her boots were caked in mud and she looked utterly defeated.

"Avri" she called out and the girl started like a shot had gone of near her and then her eyes focused on Liv. For a second she looked exhausted, it showed through her perfect mask that for a second reminded Liv painfully of Elliot whenever the job got too much for him and in order to stay focused and he had been forced to lock away his personal feelings. Of course she thought quietly. That had not done him much good in the end.

"Hi". Avri didn't say anything. Liv nodded. Somehow she had been expecting this to start this way. Avri just looked at her with those inscrutable dark eyes of hers for a long second and then turned away as if looking at Liv was like looking at Lewis and therefore enough to set the girls teeth on edge.

"I wanted too..." Oh hell what was it about this girl that made her stutter whenever she saw her? This was at least twice now where Avri Barba had flashed her that strange look again and now Liv got the impression there was something the other girl wanted to say.

"I have a little boy now and I would love you to meet him" she offered. Avri shook her head.

"He doesn't want to meet me. Now is Dad ok?"

"Yeah…I'm not here about that" she said trying to get over the dead tone in Avri's voice.

"He's worried about you. He doesn't know I'm here but…it's keeping him up at night and…and I want you to know that…I get it I really do so if you wanna talk…"

"What should I talk about Liv?" Avri interrupted sounding too tired for a girl of her age. "The part where I woke up with my hair gone, the part where Amelia begged me to forgive her? The part where I had to ask a twelve year old if she had seen me be raped as I tried to figure out what should hurt and what shouldn't? Or the part where Lewis would have raped me if your text message hadn't come through"

She shook her head, it was the most that she had said in weeks at least to Liv's knowledge.

"I don't want to talk about it Liv, not to Dad, not yet anyway and certainly not to you"

And if Liv had been the kind of detective, the kind of woman, the kind of mother to have allowed the conversation to stop right there she would have done.

But she wasn't and she didn't. and looking back her fatal mistake was thinking that Avri Barba was like all the other victims she had come across, to some degree they were. She should have remembered from years of hard learning that you never press a victim to talk to you if it became clear they didn't want to.

"Avri whatever happened I want you to know it wasn't your fault, you shouldn't blame yourself"

Avri did turn and look at her then and it was with an expression of such incredulity that for a moment the two women just stood there staring at each other.

"I don't blame myself" she said finally. She looked around as if this conversation was bothering her but looking back it was more than likely she was looking for a cab. However, when she turned back to look at Liv her jaw was set and she looked more alive than she had done so in weeks.

"I blame you" she said clearly.

Liv blinked shocked to her very core. She had heard a lot of reasons for Avri's behaviour from Rafael but he had never hinted for a second that she herself had been the problem. All of this happened in a millisecond and then Avri was moving to the cab that she had pulled over without Liv even noticing.

"All of this" Avri said the door half open. "Happened because of you, you taunted him, you beat him senseless, Dad lied for you, let you get away with the entire thing and then I was the one that was almost raped. All of it involves you so I don't want to talk to you, I don't want to see you and I don't want to have to see living proof of how your life is wonderful right now while mine is going down the fucking river. I want to deal with this in my own fucking way so please leave me the fuck alone"

And with that she shuts the door to the cab and it drives off leaving Liv on the sidewalk feeling a little bit like her heart was breaking for reasons she didn't want to think about.

Her and Rafael were just friends. There was no need for her to feel this way about Rafael's daughter, like she would have done if it was Noah standing there telling her this-like her heart was breaking.

She had to give Avri some credit thought she thought much later after she had put Noah to bed and then cried for a while over a glass of wine. Liv had been a cop for nearly twenty years had worked sixteen of them in SVU almost and had been exposed to the truly worst of humanity but Avri…

She had to say, Avri had left her for once stunned into silence.

And just to say Avri is confused and suffering alone in silence at the minute but don't worry the next few chapters will resolve some of these issues. And she will talk about it...eventually.

And hopefully i will update in a few days.