VI:

"So… ah," Rafael began, his fingertips running lightly over her back. "My cousin is getting married next month in Miami. It's a big deal, apparently, but he only just invited me because he thought for sure I wasn't going to be able to come."

"You should go – absolutely," Olivia murmured. "Family is everything, Rafa. I only have my half brother left, and… god, I don't even know. But you have this family and – you should go." She snuggled in closer to him and held on tighter, trying not to let him see that the conversation was unsettling to her, that she was upset by it.

"That's the thing: they jokingly said to bring a date," he said softly. "I guess they think I can't find anyone because I work so damn much, but joke's on them… because we've been together almost what, six months now?"

She smiled softly. "Yeah… but don't think you have to drag me along and out us to your family if you're not ready," Liv murmured. "Something like that is a commitment, Rafa. I haven't even met your mother yet."

"We can change that in the morning," he pointed out. "Instead of me hopping on the train by myself and going up to the Bronx to meet Mami for mass and brunch, you come with. We had such a nice date tonight, going out to dinner, the ballet… coming back to yours… I mean, I'd feel like I was dragging you into a firing squad, but –"

"No, I want to meet your mom," she insisted. "What have you told her?"

"Nothing: she doesn't know anything. She's been trying to set me up with any nice girl – and, to be fair, some men – that are breathing and varying degrees of attractive, for the last year, and with increasing frequency over the last few months like she can sense something like the Bat Signal." He laughed. "Maybe it will set her mind at ease, knowing I'm taken care of by a feisty mamacita with a gun and a badass attitude."

She laughed and kissed him lightly on the lips. "Or she'll hate me on sight because I'm not a good straight-laced girl."

"Mi amor, the last time I tried that, it did not work at all in my favor," he said softly. "I just hope that Mami wants me to be happy and leaves it at that; at least that way, we'll get a little peace."

Liv chose to dress in a more traditionally feminine, soft manner for Barba's mother, which clearly appealed to her boyfriend, if the way his face lit up was any indication. But he lit up like that any time she walked into a room, so he was clearly biased. She smoothed an invisible wrinkle from the front of her dress and said, "Will this do?"

"Liv, you look beautiful no matter what you're wearing," Rafael said, his tone low and earnest. "Your gun and badge…?"

"My badge," she gestured to where it was clipped on her dress's neckline, "but I'll have to carry my gun in a shoulder holster." She smiled sadly. "I know: I'm sorry."

"No, I know – regulations," he said. "You're a good cop, Liv, and I wouldn't expect anything less."

"Will your mom understand?"

"I'll make sure she does," he said firmly. "Even when you're off-duty, you're never really off-duty. It's fine, mi amor. Te amo." He leaned in and gave her a kiss, then helped her into her holster and her leather jacket that concealed the gun a bit more from view. "Are you sure you want to do this? I can take back the plus one I sent to Eduardo about the wedding –"

"Hell no," she said firmly. "If I can't make a fuss about our relationship anywhere else, the least I can make waves is with your family. I want to be seen as yours, Rafa. And to do that, we have to start with your mother, don't we?"

They took the 1 uptown to the Bronx and walked a few blocks to meet his mother outside a church. The woman eyed Olivia with vaguely-veiled suspicion, but Rafael interjected, "Mami, there's no time – let's just go in and we'll talk at brunch." Mass dragged on what seemed like forever and Liv felt no absolution for her sins, whatever they were meant to be, and then they were back out on the sidewalk, heading off on their way to brunch.

"Mami, this is Olivia Benson," Rafael introduced as they walked. "Liv, this is my mother, Lucia Barba. Mami… Liv and I have been seeing each other for a while now."

Lucia stopped dead still on the sidewalk and slapped her son on the back of the head with the church bulletin she still clutched in her hand. "MIJO!"

"Mami, what was that for?" he asked, indignant at the assault.

Olivia held back a snicker as Lucia yelped, "You let me try to set you up with all those girls and those… those boys because I thought you might be a little gay and you were really just seeing someone already?"

"I didn't want you to get upset –"

"I'm upset now!" Lucia gasped.

"Mrs. Barba, if it means anything, we haven't told anyone," Liv said. "Mainly because it's so new and fragile and we can't believe it hasn't imploded yet."

"Oh, that won't do," Lucia said. "Please tell me you're coming to Eduardo's wedding with him – he'll be miserable if he goes alone. He's always miserable at family events. No one to talk to, everyone thinks he's all work…"

Liv smiled at her blushing boyfriend and said, "It's my intention to come, yes."

They started walking again, and Rafael hesitantly took Liv's arm. She leaned into him like they usually did late at night as they walked to the subway, and he relaxed, breathing deeper at last. Lucia looked at them with an appraising eye, then smiled. "You two love each other very much," she said.

"She drives me crazy," Rafael muttered.

"You drive me crazy," Liv shot back.

"I adore her," he added, squeezing Liv around the waist and smiling. She grinned back at him, then winked and stole a quick kiss.

Once they were settled in at the table and perusing the menus, Lucia said, "So… how long have you two actually been seeing each other? You said a while –"

"About six months," Olivia said.

"Rafi! And you didn't introduce her to me before now?" Lucia gasped. "Mijo!"

He huffed. "I didn't want you to make a big thing about it, Mami. And you already have. Olivia and I barely get to spend time together as it is because of our jobs –"

"What do you do, querida?" Lucia interjected.

Liv cleared her throat. "I'm a police detective with Manhattan Special Victims' Unit," she said.

"Oh – oh, is that how you two met, then? Work?" Lucia questioned quickly.

"Liv was covering in Brooklyn for a few weeks and we might have hit it off a bit," Rafael said, blushing under his mother's scrutiny. "But I refute that we did anything wrong."

"You just didn't tell me you were seeing someone," Lucia scolded. "And what about your abuelita?"

Rafael blushed. "Yeah, I should probably –"

"She's going to be very angry with you."

"Why didn't she go to mass today?" he asked.

"She's been feeling very tired all week and wanted to rest. But for this, I think she would perk up."

He smiled a little and said, "Yeah, but we'll all be in Miami in a couple of weeks, yeah? Why not surprise her then?"

"Give her a heart attack, you mean – she still thinks you're going to marry a nice, sweet Cubano girl…"

"Yeah, I'm definitely not Cuban," Olivia said with a chuckle.

"And you're definitely not sweet," Rafael teased, nudging her with a sly smirk as their food arrived.

"Asshole," she muttered, chuckling. Her phone started ringing and she sighed, recognizing Cragen's ringtone. "Sorry, I have to take this – it's my Captain." She gave her boyfriend a quick kiss on the lips and slid out of her chair before pressing her phone to her ear and heading outside to take the call. "Hey, Captain – I'm sorry, I'm out to brunch, give me a moment to get outside."

Cragen waited a beat and said, "Sorry to interrupt. Was your date last night good at least?"

"Yeah, we saw a contemporary ballet production and I was actually pretty impressed – I didn't think I'd like it, but… I guess I'm more trainable than I thought." She got out onto the sidewalk outside the restaurant and said, "Okay, Cap, what's up?"

"I need to call you and Elliot in on a murder-suicide in Harlem. There are definite sexual overtones, not necessarily consensual. That's all I can give you at the moment. I don't want to turn it over to junior detectives for obvious reasons, and Munch and Fin are already running back to backs on the Lower East Side and Midtown."

"Well, I'm in the Bronx, so I'm looking at probably… half an hour, forty minutes before I can get there," she sighed.

"And Elliot is coming from home."

She took a deep breath. "Okay. I'll… I'll check in as soon as I get on the scene." Olivia ended the call and scowled at the phone. Of course. Of fucking course.

She went back inside and sat down to interrupt Lucia saying, "Rafi, I just don't know how good your relationship can be if she can just get up and walk away like that at any time –"

"Mami," Rafael said in a warning tone, "our relationship is fine. Olivia and I are adults with jobs that take priority over physical proximity most of the time, and we've had to learn to live with that – haven't we, Liv?"

"Yeah," Liv said, hurriedly eating a forkful of her omelet. "Rafa, I'm going to have to go in a minute – El and I caught a case in Harlem."

Several emotions flashed over his face at once, but the one that beat the others out was concern. "Do you need me to come with you?" he asked.

"No, I'm good – you go with your mom and see your grandmother," Liv murmured. "Make sure she's okay. I'll see you back at mine if it's not too late. And if it is, we'll try to meet up at yours later in the week sometime." She reached up and stroked his cheek. "I'm sorry I ruined things."

"You didn't ruin anything," Rafael said softly. "Now stop talking and eat before you go so you can be the badass Benson we all know you are."

She didn't want to know what kind of a conversation she had interrupted, and she didn't want to know how it had continued once she was gone. She only knew that Rafael had defended her and had her back; and that meant the world to her. Every other man she had been with had thrown her under the bus, but there he was, cheerfully taking the brunt of it for her.

If she hadn't already been hopelessly in love with him, she would've been sunk.

She waited for Elliot before entering the crime scene, and he showed up in jeans and a t-shirt, covered in flaking, drying streaks of paint. There were even flakes and patches of paint in his close-cropped hair, and a streak of it on his temple. "Stabler and Benson, SVU," he announced to the attending uniforms, flashing his badge. She flashed hers as well, and the Detective on the scene eyed her appreciatively, which earned him a dirty look from both of them. "Where were you?" Elliot asked, annoyed.

"Brunch," she shot back. "With my boyfriend and his mother."

"Are you still with that tool?" he asked. "Seriously?"

"You know I am, and he isn't a tool," she muttered.

"He sends you a single damn rose every day you work."

"It's romantic."

"It's stupid."

"He loves me."

Elliot rolled his eyes. "Yeah, okay. Love isn't flowers and shit from your favorite bakery, Liv. Love is… the hard shit, too."

"Well, being pulled away by work nearly every time we're together is some pretty fucking hard shit," she muttered as they crossed into the bedroom and were greeted with one of the most horrifying scenes she'd witnessed.

"Jesus fuck." If it was enough to rattle Elliot, she felt better about her urge to vomit.

"I think we need backup," Liv croaked.

It was well past midnight when she got home. The lamp was on in the living room; Rafael had tidied up, put her boots and running shoes neatly on the rack, hung her jackets on the pegboard carefully, washed the dishes and put them away, even vacuumed. What the hell would she do without him?

She kicked off her boots and put them away on the rack, too tired to be a brat and leave them in a messy heap on the floor when he'd made such an effort to clean up her space for her, and settled onto the sofa with one of the oversized cushions in her arms, tucking her face into it.

"Hey," Rafael said, coming out of her bedroom.

She looked up at him. "What are you still doing here? I thought you worked in the morning –"

"I do, but the later it got, the more I realized that you caught a bad case," he said softly. "And you'd need me when you finally got in."

"I… yeah." It was cowardice that prevented her from saying I always need you. But the words lingered on a knife's edge, just barely out of reach. "It's bad."

"Come to bed, mi amor," he whispered. "Let me worry about tomorrow in the morning."

She abandoned her pillow and moved into his arms, into the safety, comfort, and security of her bed and his embrace, let him hold the demons of the day at arm's length so she could breathe. And she marveled at how the touch of Elliot's hand at the small of her back, so possessive and firm, could make her feel so small, but the same gentle touch from Rafael made her feel so loved and cared for.

"Te amo," she breathed, closing her eyes and willing away the darkness for a few minutes so she could rest. Just a few minutes…

TBC...