Author's Note: It took me a little longer than expected to update here, because I got so caught up in Surrender. Anyway! It's not for lack of motivation, as your reviews and Twitter comments make me super, duper happy, as usual. Seriously, someone asked me the other day why I'm smiling at my phone. You know you're to blame. So yes, I wouldn't mind if you kept doing that. :D

"Captain!" She could have hugged him and kissed his feet for all the relief she felt at his appearance. "Good to see you back."

He gave her a sinister look, folding his hands on his desk. "I go out of town for a few days, and Cassidy gets set up for rape, Amaro gets in trouble over something that happened ten years ago, we get sued, and Munch is close to a heart attack and begs me never to leave again. Have I left anything out?"

"Um, no, that's basically it." Except for the ongoing family court case with Avery and the baby, but that wasn't their case. Not anymore. That was their loss. "It's all under control now. How was your trip?"

"Relaxing. More so if I didn't have thirty messages on my answering machine."

"One at a time."

"Yes." He leaned forward, rubbing his brow with one finger. "Liv, I need you –everyone, in fact- to play by the rules for a while, okay? I can't always be here. We are under observation."

"Got it, Captain."

It took Nick one car ride with her, one red light and all of 24 hours after the charges against Brian had been dropped to stick his nose in it again, since apparently, finding out that he had a son wasn't enough to occupy his mind. Sometimes, it felt like her life was his personal daytime soap opera. The man really needed to get laid.

"So you and Cassidy…" Smooth, real smooth conversation starter. Were they really going to do a re-do of this?

"Me and Cassidy what?"

"I mean…I'm not judging you…" he added in the tone she imagined God might take in that story about the second coming.

She threw him an icy look as he kept his eyes on the road. "That's very generous of you."

"I suppose there's uglier guys. Although, that face of his…"

"Glad you're not tempted to jump into bed with him. 'cause that would make this awkward." She could not believe they were having this conversation. This, this was why he was never supposed to find out.

"I mean I get it, it's nice to have someone."

"Yes."

"But really, Cassidy?" he blurted out. "Officially? Cassidy?!"

"I know his name."

"So what, are you guys, like, endgame now?"

"Yes, and you're not invited to the wedding." Clearly, her partner watched way too much TV. Endgame, really? Did people even still say that?

"I just wanna understand…you went to the Bahamas with him, right? He's the mystery man? So that means this is, what, a long-term relationship?"

She really wasn't comfortable with this line of questioning, so she took a slow, a very slow, aggressive sip of her coffee before answering. "I don't see how that's any of your business."

"Liv, you…trust me, you can do better."

He did not just say that. She wanted to kick his balls for how he made her sound like a desperate spinster, ready to jump the first man who came her way. This crossed all sorts of lines, this was so far beyond the line that she couldn't even see the line from out here. "Fine, you know what really pisses me off about this? He's just had this…horrific experience, being framed for a crime he didn't commit, and he gets through that, but all anyone goes on about forever is how he's 'that guy who sleeps with hookers', like he's the first person to make a mistake in the history of the NYPD. And everyone, including you, judges him based on that one action."

"Um, maybe because he is that guy who sleeps with hookers?"

"Well, you try finding someone who's perfect, let me know how it goes!"

"So you're basically settling for him because he's…there? It's a pretty far drop from 'perfect' to 'sleeps with hookers'."

"Oh, and you've never screwed up? Because I gotta tell you, that's pretty high and mighty, coming from you right now." She hit him where it hurt, like she knew it would.

He didn't lash back, not this time, like she knew he wouldn't when he was actually guilty. "Gil's not a mistake" he said quietly.

"I didn't mean the kid."

"Cynthia, sure…but…" He shook his head. "I have a son. Can't even wrap my head around that."

"You went to see him?" she asked, grateful for the change of subject.

"Yeah. Meet his Uncle Nick."

"His uncle?"

"She thought it would be too much for him to just have his daddy show up like that…at least until she knows that I'm gonna, you know, stick around."

"But then he'll have to find out you lied to him one day."

"No shit." He tucked at his collar uncomfortably with one hand, glancing at the truck behind them rearview mirror. "You wanna come any closer, buddy, crawl into our trunk?!"

She knew she should have taken the wheel. Nick was the most impatient driver ever, prone to honking and wasting gas by breaking and speeding too much. "But you'll tell him the truth eventually?"

"I don't know. Right now, I kind of need to win her trust. And I don't have the best track record to recommend me."

"You'll work for it. It's what you do." She looked at him, remembering the last time she had seen him with Zara, allowing her to draw at his desk while he came in to drop off a report and letting her pretend to write a police report. "Gil could do worse."

"What a shitty week" Brian grumbled as they half sat, half lay sprawled out on her couch, his arm around her, a couple of empty beers in front of them. Neither one of them was really able to focus on the Monty Python movie that was playing on TV at this point.

"I don't know. The end's looking better than the start, wouldn't you say?" He got off. He was free. They were okay. Avery and the baby were safe for now. (She was possibly an accomplice in a crime there…but that she could ignore.) These were the things that mattered.

"I swear, it's like Murphy's law or something."

"It could have gone worse. Things can only go up from here."

"Do you sometimes wonder-" He stopped himself.

"What?"

"Nothing. It's stupid."

"Tell me." She lifted her head from his shoulder to look at him.

"Do you sometimes wonder why?" There was such an innocence about the way he emphasised the question with a puzzled look on his face, as if it had only occurred to him now that there was no organising principle of justice in the world. That he might well have been convicted despite being innocent. Because now that it wasn't an acute threat anymore, it was okay to think about the implications.

She couldn't resist kissing his cheek at an awkward angle. "If I started thinking about that, how would I ever go to sleep at night?" His was a dangerous question. It was the question that eventually led to "why was I even born?". Legitimate rape. A woman's body knows. Fuck it. People were more than their parentage, than their roots. And one day, she might even start believing that they were more than the sum of their actions.

"So that's it, we just ignore the why?" 'Trust Brian to start playing hobby philosopher at age 45' she thought.

She pictured Avery's face when she had talked about Theo, the way she had looked at her son so full of love and determination to do right by him. Her baby was more than a product of rape, than a product of anything. He was a person. There was hope for them. And if there was hope for them, that could only mean that there was hope in the grand scheme of things. "I think sometimes, there are…good moments even in shitty situations. I mean, I think we're kidding ourselves when we say 'always look on the bright side of life.' Because sometimes, there isn't a bright side. But overall, there's good stuff, too, and we just have to hold on to that."

"Hm. Wouldn't have guessed you were an optimist."

She debated explaining where her newly enlightened worldview had come from, but decided against it. If she hadn't told him about this at the time of trial, there was no point in doing it now and opening up a whole other can of worms after the week he had just had. There was no way to mention the mother and child escape thing, the small victory in that, without mentioning her own culpability and, more importantly, the rape, and mentioning rape just didn't seem like the greatest idea right now. "Ask me again tomorrow" she suggested instead, "it might not last."

His fingers were drawing lazy circles on her arm, and it was strangely soothing just to sit here for a moment without having to think, without having to fight or talk or feel anything. It was safe.