Sunday came and went quickly and much too soon they were waking up on Monday morning, rushing to get ready for the day and make sure that everyone was where they needed to be on time.

Before he knew it, it was Thursday. Rafael had to shake his head at the news though, as he looked over the paper and found yet another ridiculous situation made the news.

White Woman Who Called Cops On Central Park Bird-Watcher Made 2nd Bogus 911 Claim

Melissa Cooper's second 911 call in the past year falsely claimed that a Black man "tried to assault her," prosecutors said.

A white woman in Manhattan who falsely claimed a Black man was threatening her in Central Park made a second 911 call and lied that he "tried to assault" her, a prosecutor alleged on Wednesday.

Putting the newspaper down, he didn't even bother reading the rest of the article as he had no doubt it was just as ridiculous as the first time the woman had done that.

On the other hand, the attention was largely off of Olivia, at least temporarily, which was only a good thing in Rafael's opinion. She needed to watch her steps for a while, but hopefully, not too much damage would be done by the end of the entire thing.

As Olivia had an early morning meeting with IAB, Rafael ended up needing to be the one to drop Noah off at school that day, which was perfectly fine. Noah had Spanish class that afternoon so they made sure his things were ready and by the door so that Lucy didn't have to run around to grab what Noah needed and got ready to leave.

Noah had, thankfully, come around to the idea of continuing with the language classes, but he still preferred dance class and loved to demonstrate what he learned during any given dance class the second that he could.

Rafael was glad Noah had found something he really seemed to enjoy, and he knew Olivia thought the exact same thing.

He did sometimes worry though if they weren't overloading Noah with everything, but the boy didn't complain really and clearly enjoyed dance class. He'd also had his friend Julián over the day before, so he still had time to be a kid.

"¿Tienes todo?" he inquired without preamble. He wanted to make sure that his son wasn't forgetting anything. Noah's class had a field trip that they were going on. The class was going to the Charles Dana Discovery Center with another one of the third-grade classes first thing that morning, and Noah was understandably quite excited about the whole thing. The boy had been talking about the field trip for days. "¿Algo para comer? ¿Una botella de agua?" (Have everything? A Snack? A water bottle?)

"¡Ay, papi! Todo está en mi mochila." His son's slightly exasperated reply had a rather good eye roll to go with it. Rafael had definitely rubbed off more than a little on the boy. "¿Podemos irnos ahora por favor? Realmente no quiero perder la guagua." (Ay, Papi! It's all in my schoolbag. Can we go now please? I really don't want to miss the bus.)

Rafael rolled his eyes right back. "No vamos a llegar tarde," he immediately assured the boy. "Si tienes todo lo que necesitas, ponte los tenis y vámonos." (We're not going to be late. If you have everything you need, put on your runners and let's go.)

While Noah was doing that, he quickly talked to Lucy. The young woman was was holding Sofía who was very much awake; giggling and babbling happily.

After their quick little chat the boys had to say goodbye to the girls and run out the door, quickly hopping into the car so that neither of them was late.

Once they were at the school, Noah quickly spotted Jeremy, Will, and Mikey. The seven-year-old immediately turned to face Rafael, said, "¡Hasta luego!" and then ran off to where his friends were hanging out and waiting. (See you later!)

Feeling quite amused by his son's rather palpable enthusiasm, he called after the excitable seven-year-old. "¡Chao! ¡Diviértete!" (Bye! Have fun!)

With Noah now otherwise occupied, he checked the time, got back in his car, and made the drive in less than ideal traffic from the Upper West Side to Lower Manhattan.

Trying to find parking that was close to the courthouse was a bit of a mess because it seemed like everybody and their mother was in the area for who even knows what. He shook his head for the second time that morning. He was very much reminded of exactly why it was that he never really drove much prior to his relationship with Olivia. "Tratar de parquear en cualquier lugar del centro es un dolor de cabeza," he thought aloud, not immediately realizing that he'd actually voiced the comment. (Trying to park anywhere downtown is a pain in the neck.)

Thankfully, he was finally able to find a reasonably close parking spot - less than a block away - and get to the hearing before he was late.

The arraignment hearing went well, but the same could not be said about the Molineux hearing. John Buchanan had managed to win that one, but Rafael had been fully aware that it was a long shot going into it.

They'd just finished voir dire yesterday for that case, and Rafael was feeling fairly content with the jury panel they'd put together in the end. However, the detectives had uncovered something afterwards that would've been useful to know sooner. He'd be happier if the judge had sided with him during the Molineux hearing, but it was what it was. He'd figure something out.

Heading to his office, he quickly touched base with three of his ADAs and then spent more time than he'd like on the phone. He returned the five messages he had on his voicemail and started making this way through the dozen unread emails as well, hoping to get caught up before his meetings with the the heads of the Sex Offenders Monitoring Unit and the DNA Tracking Unit.

He met up with Eddie Garcia lunch at noon, which had been nice, but eventually they both had to go back to work, and Rafael had a rather large list of things to get done if he wanted to go home at a decent hour.

By one o'clock, Rafael was back in his office. He had several more messages an emails to deal with and then started prepping motions, subpoenas for trial, scheduling witness conferences. It felt like his list of things to do had grown twice the size, and he was relieved he hadn't been called in for another case and could just focus on the pile of work he already had in front of him.

Opting to take a bit of a break, he pulled out his phone and called Rita. The short break from all of the paperwork was all too tempting.

"You did what?" he said with an amused little snort. He raised his eyebrows as he continued to speak despite the fact that Rita couldn't see him. "Are you going to let our old sins haunt us forever, Firecracker?"

The woman just chuckled at Rafael's comment. "Don't worry, Half-Pint, I left out our more colourful escapades. Your reputation as a complete hard-ass is still intact."

Rafael rolled his eyes. "Much appreciated. I've worked hard for that, you know."

She gave a little snort. "I can remedy that. Want me to get your wife to send me that video from your trip to Miami? I'm sure Carmen would help in a heartbeat, and you know how fast your office leaks."

"Like a sieve," he said with a chuckle of his own. He knew she was only teasing, and being a bit of pushover father of two kids was definitely not the image the majority of his colleagues at work were used to. He loved both of his kids to death, though, so couldn't be bothered to particularly care much.

"Too true," she said. She had her own pile of paperwork to contend with so wasn't all that less busy herself. "I've got to go, but we need to grab lunch sometime. It's been too long since we've actually sat and talked."

"It has," he agreed. "Let me know when you can. Talk to you soon, Rita."

"Talk to you soon, Raf."

The call ended, he checked the time. They'd talked for little under ten minutes. Feeling less bogged down by the paperwork now, he threw his phone in his pocket. He then went to grab a coffee, checked in with Carmen, sent a quick text off to his wife, and sat back down at his desk to do some prep work for an upcoming trial of his.