V:

He hadn't heard from Olivia in a few days and it worried him; she had texted and said that she loved him, but she might be radio silent for a while and not to worry, she would get back to him as soon as she could. It didn't stop him from worrying: in fact, the direct opposite was true.

The fact that he was embroiled with wrapping up a high profile serial subway upskirting distribution trial was just the icing on the cake. Rafael was coiled like an overly wound spring, ready to explode.

He had just, finally, gotten home with an extremely spicy squid pad see ew and some seaweed salad – Liv was constantly teasing him about his love of green foods when she would happily tear at a hunk of meat with her teeth – when his phone buzzed with an incoming text. "Fuck," he muttered, sighing as he set aside his chopsticks yet again.

Seeing that the message was from Liv, he called her back split second quick. "Hey," he breathed.

"Can you unlock the downstairs so I can come up?" she asked.

"You're here?"

"Yeah, I've… I've got a couple days off. I needed to see you," she murmured. "Can you –"

"I'm coming," he said, jumping off the couch and all but running downstairs barefoot to let her in. "Liv –"

"Don't," she whispered.

"Okay," he said carefully. "Have you been looked at by –"

"Yes, I've been treated," she assured him as he slung his arm around her and walked upstairs at her pace. "I'm sorry I couldn't call – I've been undercover. I can't tell you much about the circumstances because you aren't involved with the case."

"I understand," he assured her.

She swallowed hard. "But I was… I was assaulted."

He flinched, his grip tightening. The idea of anyone hurting her made him sick, broke his heart; she was stubborn and willful to a fault, yes, but that was part of why he loved her so much. The idea of any man using that to break her made him want to vomit.

"Please tell me someone is fucking the bastard up within an inch of his life before I have to do it myself," he ground out between clenched teeth. "Legally speaking, I mean: throwing the book at him."

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure my assault is the least of his worries," she said dismissively. "Rafa, I'm okay…"

"You've been shaking like a bird since you came in," he said softly, letting her into his apartment. "Have you eaten? I have wine – and you can share my dinner, if you want. Or I can see if the place will send over a late pizza before they close? Or I've got waffles in the freezer from that place that does the brunch up in the Bronx that Mami likes."

She smiled, but it didn't light up her face, and he worried more then. "I had a sandwich on the way," she said. "But some wine wouldn't hurt my feelings."

He poured her a glass of wine and gestured for her to make herself comfortable wherever she wanted to sit. She dropped her overnight bag on the ground and settled in on the sofa next to where he'd set his food up on the coffee table, and he joined her. "Wanna talk, mi amor? Will it make it better to talk about it?"

"I don't think it will," she said softly. "But you deserve to know."

"Liv… I don't deserve anything you don't want to give me," he pointed out. "Even if we were married, we are two autonomous individuals with our own independent thoughts and feelings."

"I was sexually assaulted and almost raped today," she said very quietly. "Every part of me is screaming that I shouldn't be sitting on the couch with you, acting like it's just another Wednesday. Like… like we could just go to bed and it would be normal. Because it isn't. It can't be normal. I can't even think about having sex with you, Rafa, and I know you would never hurt me. I wanted to go home and hide and tell you we were over because I'm – I'm not okay. And I don't know when I'll be okay. And that isn't fair to you."

He stared at her, his mind suddenly blank, some seaweed dangling from his chopsticks. "Olivia, sex is… nice. Sex is great. But if you think I'm seeing you just to get a cheap fuck, you're out of your mind."

"Rafael –"

"Liv," he interjected, gesturing between them, "I was going out of my mind with worry the last few days. I'm still worrying even though you're right here, because you're clearly not all right. I love you. This doesn't go away because we don't have sex for a little bit; if anything, it gets stronger because I'm not thinking as much about the other. Does that make sense? No? I don't know if I'm making any sense. But I do know this: I'm not letting you end us because some asshole decided you were too much woman for him to handle and tried to break you. You're my woman, mi amor, and I would never."

She laughed bitterly. "You like feisty."

"I would prefer you to be the one doing the heavy lifting portion of the relationship, yes," he teased gently. "I will bring the angry sarcasm to the table."

"I'm sorry I just showed up on your doorstep – I should have called. You're probably working," she said.

"I am, but it's all right," he assured her. "You're always welcome, Liv. And, if we ever take our relationship further, get married, have a family…" He took a breath – it wasn't something he had considered but in the most abstract sense, but it was something on the peripheral horizon. "Then you will always come first. Always."

"Do you want that?" she asked. "To get married and have a family?"

"To be honest, I don't know," he said. "In the barrio, that's what you do when you're a kid – you get out of school, you're either married or pregnant or both. It's abnormal to wait to get started. I'm an exception to everything, it seems." He sighed and stuffed some noodles into his mouth, chewing and avoiding talking for a couple of minutes, trying not to bring up the trauma of his childhood sweetheart's fidelity issues.

Eventually, she said, "Rafa, I want to have a baby."

He swallowed his food, careful not to choke. "Well…" he rasped. "How about we hold off on that for a year or so? Gives you time to heal and process from this and gives us some time to get used to each other and being together before we try." Also gives me a chance to get over not wanting to be a father…

"That's… fair," she murmured. "You didn't say no and you didn't argue, but you didn't say okay, either."

He sighed. "Can we talk about something else?" Rafael asked, crunching on a pepper. "Please?"

"Elliot thinks I'm dating a barista," Liv said, chuckling a little. "Maybe because I keep dropping hints that my boyfriend loves coffee and when I come to work after staying at your place, my clothes positively reek of coffee beans."

He laughed; the irony was that he loved coffee with a passion that would startle a normal person, however, that wasn't going to pacify her partner at all. "Your partner is a nosy busybody who needs to mind his own business."

"He means well," she sighed. "But he's been distracted ever since his son was born. I mean… yeah. Eli was early, and it was a pretty traumatic birth. I should know: I was there." She laughed mirthlessly.

"You were?"

"I was driving Kathy to her prenatal appointment and we got hit by a drunk driver," Olivia sighed. "I'm pretty sure El blames me for everything that happened afterward, but he's just too nice to say otherwise."

Rafael shook his head and smiled; was there anything she couldn't handle? "Olivia," he said softly, "stop a second and listen to me, mi amor. You are a strong, courageous, fearless… absolute bad ass. Anyone who makes you feel less than that is a liar and a fraud. The man that tried to hurt you today isn't worth your time and trouble and spite, Liv. I love you, not in spite of all of those traits – not because they are bad things – but because you flaunt them like badges of honor, as if they are the patchwork of your very being. Te amo, mi amor."

She accepted his words and even his gentle caresses as he pulled her into his arms, holding her closely. It took another hour to get her to open up and tell him about what had happened, and his anger had built to a boiling point. But he would never show it to her, and he would never take it out on her. He would also never take it out on her partner, the man who had saved her bacon – this Detective Tutuola. He vaguely recalled the name, but not a face. No, his rage was saved for the scumbag that had dared lay hands on Olivia Benson – she was far too good for him, and any time he got wasn't enough. The DA charging him wouldn't go for the jugular, and it was a pity.

"Mi amor, are you tired?" he asked gently when her tears had dried and she had tucked her face into his shoulder.

"Yeah," Liv whispered.

"Let's go to bed," he murmured. "I'll get up in the morning and we'll have waffles and kim chi eggs and coffee… and you can tell your partner that you slept over at your barista boy toy's place just to fuck with him."

Liv smiled a little. "He hates my boyfriend," she admitted.

"Why?"

"I… well… he and Kathy were separated for a while and I think, maybe, he thought that if he made a move on me, that we'd…"

"Oh." That revelation hit him hard in the gut; that he could potentially have been far too late to have even been entitled to the smallest sliver of her attention hurt like a stabbing, thrusting wound, deep and agonizing, burning even.

"But that's completely absurd and I'm in love with a coffee-obsessed, suspender-wearing neat freak with a poet's soul," Olivia whispered, nuzzling his cheek before she kissed it. "So he'd better remember it and hold on tight."

He kissed her gently on the lips and whispered, "As if I'd let go."

"Thank you for coming, Detective," Rafael said, gesturing for Tutuola to sit down.

"Yeah, I didn't exactly think I was given a choice," Tutuola said with a humorless laugh. "Your assistant said this was about a case? I didn't think we had any cases that crossed over with Brooklyn –"

"I'm afraid I have a personal interest in this case, and I just want to speak to you on behalf of the victim," Rafael said quickly. "It's about Sealview and Harris –"

Tutuola's face changed then, shuttered even more, went emotionless and dark. "Man, don't. You don't know what you're asking," he said.

"Yes, I do," Rafael said. He exhaled a heavy sigh. "Olivia –"

Tutuola's head jerked in his direction. "You know Benson?"

"Better than you know," Rafael confirmed.

"Man – "

"She told me what happened. That Harris assaulted her, and would have gone further, had you not arrived just in time to prevent it from occurring," Rafael said in a matter of fact tone. "I'm grateful that you protected her, Detective Tutuola. She means everything to me. I intend to marry her, providing it's what she wants. If you breathe a word of that to anyone else, I will have you shot."

"Man, what you do in your own time is your own business – but she's like my sister, and I have her back no matter what," Tutuola said firmly. "Ride or die. You can count on me to watch her back, Barba."

"Thank you, Detective. That's all I needed to hear."

"Though, shouldn't you be asking Stabler to –"

"Elliot Stabler is an ass," Barba said with a sneer.

"You aren't getting an argument from me."

"He thinks she's dating a barista because she smells like coffee all the time," Rafael said, rolling his eyes.

"To be fair…"

"My apartment is over a coffee shop," he muttered.

"Makes sense. But I'll perpetuate the myth to make his classist ass sweat a bit. Maybe make him get antsy if the made up dude is black," Tutuola chuckled. "I mean, bad enough a bro's Latin…"

"Thanks for that," Rafael scoffed. "Some help is good, too much is bad. But don't let Olivia know I spoke to you. She will rip my testicles off with her bare hands, and that will be bad for our chances of having children down the line."

"Man, too much information," Tutuola sighed.

TBC...