The next morning had been a bit hectic. It was Cultural Day at school, so Noah had thrown on his new brown dress shoes that they'd bought him, a pair of khakis, and a long-sleeve, off-white, guayabera. The kid had also wanted to wear his fedora hat. It was honestly adorable. Noah had also taken pastelitos de guayaba to share, as the teacher had said they could bring some treats or other small dishes that day for the class if they wished.

Olivia had to run to work, so Rafael dropped Noah off at school. His morning was then a series of consecutive hearings before he managed to grab a quick lunch and made his way down to the 1-6 to deal with the mess of a case that had now turned into an oh so lovely media frenzy.

The conversation with Julius Adler had amounted to basically nothing. All Tamin and Fin had gotten were comment such as 'We have so many, uh, students and teachers, patients coming in and out. They could've audited a class or an open house.' 'The work that we do here, uh, pushes boundaries. Is it possible that while they were in process, uh, feelings of helplessness emerged or traumatic memories resurfaced?' and 'I'm assuming you don't have a warrant? Uh, like you, I have to respect confidentiality. I hope that this was productive.'

The good doctor claiming that so many students passed through the doors of his institute that he couldn't keep track of them did not surprise Rafael or most of the squad. Nor did the confidentiality comment.

The man was clearly hiding something, all their instincts were screaming it, save for Rollins' if her reaction was anything to go by, but the man was doing a good job of keeping them at arm's length.

Rollins seemed to have a fondness for the man, and Rafael wasted no time in getting Carisi and Olivia alone in his wife's office to comment on the loss of perspective, asking the blond detective to 'handle' his fiancée. He was hoping Carisi could help curb more of Rollins' more spectacular self-destructive tendencies.

"Ve bene." The blond detective played with his face some. "I get where you're coming from, I do, but that woman doesn't do anything she doesn't want to."

Rafael raised an eyebrow. "But."

Carisi sighed. "I'll talk to her."

Olivia smiled. "Thank you."

They'd had that conversation and went back into the squad room, Rollins quickly pulling the pair aside to talk about the case. So, Rafael finished pouring their coffees and followed the women into Olivia's office.

"I, um, didn't want to get into it before," Rollins said, "but back in Atlanta when I was going through some stuff, I took some psych courses at Georgia State, and Adler was a guest professor. I'm telling you, this man he's brilliant, empathically, a real healer. Whatever happened to those girls, I can't imagine how he'd be involved."

Olivia gave her a pointed look. "Amanda, I hear you. But you and I both know that that was a long time ago."

Rafael gave the blonde detective a pointed look. "And people change."

"They do," she said, "but it sounds like he still keeps an open door for his students. It couldn't hurt to make an approach."

Olivia looked rather exasperated but was clearly considering the suggestion, and honestly, Rafael was too. They had a rather weak case. Sending someone in undercover might be their only way in. "It's not a completely horrible suggestion," Rafael muttered, shooting the captain a look.

His wife sighed but finally conceded. "Fine, but we're doing this properly."

Rollins nodded, agreeing without hesitation, before she headed out of the office and over to Carisi's desk, taking one of the chocolate bars that Carisi had just grabbed from the vending machine down the hall. Tamin and Fin chatting a few feet away about something or other.

He finished off his coffee and checked the time. "Well, he's not the wizard of Oz," Rafael said, "but I have a meeting with one of the wicked witches henchmen."

"Which one?"

He gave her a wry smile. "Zeirko."

She winced sympathetically. "Good luck."

She took another sip of her coffee and he snorted. "Not the first time he's tried to fuck me over and he hasn't even bought me dinner yet." Chauncey Zeirko was a pain in his ass. Rafael actually preferred Buchanan over him, and that was saying something.

She spat out her coffee when the comment registered and the face she made was absolutely priceless. "Why do I love you?"

He just smirked and gave her a quick kiss. "I'll see you later, Cariño."

She rolled her eyes at him. "See you later, crazy man."

The meeting with Zeirko went a bit better than Rafael had expected. He'd had to listen to the idiot excuse domestic violence and say a few other thinly veiled sexist comments, but that just made Rafael tearing into the sorry excuse for man all that much more satisfying for the prosecutor. He hadn't been overly hostile until the asshat brought Drew Householder into it, acting like he was somehow a better man than Rafael despite Zeirko's many many failings.

Then Rafael very much felt the man needed to be taken down a few pegs, and just ripped into him, putting him in his place. The man's personality and most of his views were absolutely abhorrent. How the hell did he sleep with himself at night?

He'd finally said his piece, reiterated the minimum deal he was willing to except for the case, he wasn't budging and would rather go to trial, gave the man two hours to contact him with his decision, and closed the door firmly behind the man with no little amount of satisfaction involved.

When we went to grab a coffee a few minutes later, Carmen gave him an inquisitive look mixed with amusement. "Do I want to know?"

Rafael gave her a pointed look, as he walked towards her. "He's insufferable."

She pushed a box of assorted pastries towards him. "Eat one. Have a coffee. Manage your files. And then go home and forget about the moron." She then made a comment under her breath about Zeirko that made him laugh.

Some of the tension leaving him, he hummed, selecting one of the pastries. "I knew there was a reason I kept you around."

Carmen rolled her eyes. "Don't you have a pastry to eat?"

He just laughed, thanked her, and took the pastry and coffee back to his office where he sat down and tried to get as much work done as possible.

The next couple of hours passed by rather quickly, and before long he'd packed up his files and was walking through the doors to his home. He figured Olivia was likely going to be at work for another hour or so if earlier was any sort of indication.

He heard music playing softly in the background and the smell of cupcakes was wafting in from the kitchen. He didn't get to ponder that development long, however, as Noah immediately ran up to him, throwing his arms around him. Lucy followed close behind with Sofía. "Papi!"

He ruffled the boy's hair. "Buenas tardes, hijo mío. Cómo estuvo tu día?" (Good evening, son of mine. How was your day?)

"Estovo bien," Noah said, "Uno de los niños de la otra clase, Jamie, quería jugar con nosotros, y no era muy agradable. Pero le dije a la maestra, y ella lo hizo perder el recreo de la tarde y disculparse." (It was fine. One of the boys from the other class, Jamie, wanted to play with us, and he wasn't very nice. But I told the teacher and she made him miss afternoon recess and apologize.)

Lucy looked between them, not really able to follow but more than familiar with the words 'maestra' and 'Jamie' enough to take a guess. "I assume he's explaining what happened at school today? Jamie said some things and ended up pushing one of the kids down on the grass when he got upset over something."

"Yeah," Noah nodded, turning to face Lucy. "I told him that Jamie didn't act very nice but got in trouble for it."

"As he should've," Rafael said to the young boy. "We shouldn't act like that, even if we might be having a bad day."

Noah looked up at him. "I told Will and Mikey we should give him another chance, but he has to promise to be nice first."

He tilted his head in a half-nod but got down to the boy's level. "That's very nice of you, Mijo. But, if he is mean again it is okay to tell him you don't want to play with him anymore. Even if he's a friend. Alright?"

Lucy gave Noah a pointed look. "Your dad's right, Kiddo."

Noah nodded. "I know."

He ruffled Noah's hair again. "Good."

"Papi, did you have to do that before?" Noah questioned.

He gave Noah a side smile. He hadn't talked to Yelina - nor Alex - since their last conversation and had decided to keep it that way. A hard decision, to be sure, but it was for the best. He didn't want to be used or manipulated. "Sí, Mijo, but enough about that. How was the rest of your day?"

"Good," Noah said. "We played tag at lunch and art was fun. The assembly that afternoon was really cool. And I got to try some Indian food and German food. The outfits were really cool. I got to teach the class a little Spanish too!" The boy rambled on, but Rafael just listened, amused by the enthusiasm. "Oh, and we got the marks for our math test and spelling test back today."

Rafael smiled. "How did you do?"

"I did really good," Noah said excitedly. "I only got one wrong on the science test and two wrong on the math one."

"Really well," Rafael gently corrected. "You have a spelling test next week, right?"

"Yeah," Noah confirmed, "but I know the words already. I've been practicing."

"That he has," Lucy chuckled. "Are you guys still down for dinner this weekend?" They were all supposed to go out for dinner and finally meet Antonio. They'd already set it up so the kids would spend the night with Grandma.

"Obviously," he deadpanned, giving her a small smile. He took Sofía from Lucy, the little girl gently snuggling into his neck. "We'll definitely be there, Lucy. Come hell or high water."

"Great," she said, the young lady grinning from ear to ear.

"How was your day?"

"It was good," Lucy said. "Did some drawing and baking with Noah. Sofía tried to help with the drawing, bless her. She went down for her nap with no problem whatsoever, and I got some of my own stuff done. Me and her watched a little TV and went for a walk after her nap."

"Perfect." His phone buzzed, so he checked it and saw a text from his wife. "So, how about we take you up on that rain check tonight? Liv's almost home and dinner won't be to long. Unless you have plans?"

"Please, Lucy!" Noah said, giving the young woman puppy dog eyes. "Papi's making Spanish tortillas and this really good papaya thing."

He chuckled. "Very descriptive, Noah."

Noah rolled his eyes and started to prattle on again.

"Sure," she said, interrupting the young boy's ramblings. "I was just going to order pizza in and watch a movie. Tortillas and visiting you guys sound much better."

"What?" he quipped. "Haven't had enough of this crazy bunch yet?"

Lucy gave him a cheeky look. "I prefer to use the term quirky, if you must know."

He chuckled, lightly shaking his head. "Or idiosyncratic."