Setting: This is part two of the chapter "Next" of this story, picking up about 45 minutes from where it left off. "Next" begins just after episode 19x13 ("The Undiscovered Country").
The movie suddenly paused, and Olivia glanced over at Barba to find him with the remote in his hand and a sleeping child on his lap.
"Should I just carry him to bed like this, or do we need to wake him up to pee?"
It occurred to Olivia that it had been awhile since Barba had asked advice or permission for smaller "parenting" decisions like this - which was his way of 'taking liberties', she supposed - and that realization warmed her. This wasn't regression, though, and she was just as pleased to hear him asking smart questions to address potential issues that a year ago he wouldn't even have had on his radar. "How long has he been out?"
"He just dropped off."
Olivia leaned over and alternated light kisses and raspberries onto Noah's neck, cheeks and forehead. "Wake up, baby boy. You need to go get ready for bed."
Noah stirred, groggy but giggling and pushing her away. "Is the movie over?"
"Nope, but you can watch the rest tomorrow," she assured him.
"With Rafa?"
"Of course," Barba answered before Olivia could even spare him a look. "I've got to find out how it ends, after all. Now go get ready for bed and we'll come tuck you in in a few minutes." Taking liberties again. She loved it. She always loved it.
Rubbing his eyes, Noah slid from the couch and left to do as he was told without objection.
"I'm going to make coffee." Barba stood, stretched, his knees popping. "He's heavier, isn't he? Which is not surprising considering how much pasta he packed away at dinner."
She followed him to the kitchen. "Yeah, he's going through a bit of a growth spurt. I may have to take a second job just to afford to feed him." They exchanged a grin, but then Olivia's expression grew thoughtful. "You seem... different."
"Honestly? I feel different. When Jack accepted my resignation, I swear I could feel my blood pressure dropping. I think I needed this more than I realized."
Barba hadn't meant to hurt her through his admission, not in the least, and she knew that. But she felt hurt nonetheless.
She also felt anger, mostly at herself for being so shocked by it all. She'd certainly caught glimpses of it before, seen the proof that they were built differently. She should have known, should have suspected.
Every time justice was less than sweet, it motivated her, spurred her on to continue. For Barba, it was a hit. It drained him.
And while she'd refused to let herself dwell on it, especially in the last few months there had been times when she'd caught herself wondering if he was staying mostly because of her. Or FOR her.
So now he had a reasonable excuse to leave, and she couldn't begrudge him the choice to take advantage of it.
Okay. Maybe she could.
"Well, I'll have you know I think my blood pressure has gone through the roof." She tried to keep it light, but she could tell by the way his expression changed that he saw right through her. "You weren't just a coworker. You were my partner. We had each other's backs. I don't even know what it's like to do this without you."
"Now who's being a drama queen," he accused fondly. "You've been with SVU since the dawn of time, long before I showed up."
"But not in charge."
"No, not in charge. But Liv -"
"Ready!" Noah called. A timely interruption.
They started his bedtime routine together, but part way through Olivia excused herself to take a call from Fin. Later Barba found her reclined on her bed atop the covers, just signing off.
"Do you need to go in?" he asked. "I can stay with Noah."
"I'm hoping they have it covered; if they need me I'll know within the hour."
Barba climbed onto the bed beside her, lying on his stomach with his head on a pillow and turned to face her. "I'll wait."
"Thanks." She settled back further, staring at the ceiling, and found herself reflecting on the fact that just the night before they'd fallen asleep together here, facing an uncertain future.
A future still uncertain, though in a way very different than she has imagined.
"So," she said finally. "What's next for you?"
"Well, in the short term, there's lots to wrap up and hand off. I've already started packing up my office but it will be at least a week before I'm actually out of there. I just won't be taking on any anything new or appearing in court. I have a meeting tomorrow at 10 to get Stone up to speed on the Markus West case."
"Stone?"
"Yeah. Jack asked him to stay on through the transition. I'm just guessing, but I imagine he's going to try to convince him to take over for me."
"Oh, dear God," she groaned.
"What? He's a good lawyer and seems nice enough."
"Rather magnanimous from the person who he tried to put in prison."
"I'm a classy guy that way," he said with a smirk. "The point is that if I can recognise that he was just doing his job, you should be able to."
"Fair enough, but that's not the issue. Let's just say I didn't exactly roll out the red carpet this past week."
That piqued his interest. He propped himself up on his elbow and said in a teasing voice, "Olivia Benson, did you defend my honour?"
"Shut up."
"You did! I'm touched." He chuckled at her eye-roll. "Anyway, I'm sure he'll understand. Water under the bridge. "
"We'll see." She sighed. "Regardless..."
"What?"
"Listen. You're my best friend and I love you and I want you to be happy. But you're also the best ADA I've ever worked with... and it took me forever to break you in! I'm not as young as I once was. I don't know if I have the energy to do it all over again."
"Ouch." Barba brought a hand to his heart in jest. "Well, I'm sorry I was such a chore. But maybe it will do you good to have someone to make you work for it again."
"You're saying you didn't?"
His voice grew more sincere, his eyes softening. "Not in the end. Not in the way I used to. Obviously you broke me in a little too well."
A tender look, followed by a long silence.
"I hate how much I'm going to miss you," Olivia admitted, her eyes turning back to the ceiling.
"People can have friends outside of work, you know. I mean, I don't know from experience. But I've heard that's a thing."
"What makes you think I'm even talking about that? Maybe I'll just miss the easy warrants."
He huffed incredulously. "Hey, I get it. Really good work friends are hard to come by. But don't fret - I've secretly been breaking YOU in too all these years as a part of my succession plan. If I've done my job, you and whoever comes after me will be thick as thieves in no time."
"Jeez, Rafa. Does the thought of that not make you even a LITTLE bit sad?"
And despite her great efforts to keep things light, to hide the depth of her feelings by meeting his verbal sparring blow for blow - his own defence mechanism, she suspected - her voice wavered.
"No, no, no. Don't you dare start, Benson. I've cried enough over the end of our working relationship today, and the last thing we need is a repeat of last night. Keep it together, you big sap."
While his words were harsh, his tone was full of affection. And of course that only made it worse.
"You need to stop talking or I am going to lose it," she scolded with a watery laugh. "Not all of us had the luxury of a midday cry-fest, you know. I had to go back to WORK after your perfect little 'I see colours now because of you' speech." Her phone sounded an incoming text which she glanced at before making a frustrated noise. "And I may have to go to work again."
"Okay, the way I see it we have two options," Barba offered reasonably, ignoring the tears forming in his own eyes. "Option 1 is we allow ourselves to just WALLOW in emotion. Be as pitiful and pathetic as we need to be. And if you DO get called into work you just go with it and own what a hot mess you're bound to be."
"Sounds good to me. And option 2?"
"Option 2 is that we get out of this bed, pour ourselves some of the coffee waiting in the kitchen, have nonemotional conversation, and trust that we don't have to see each other at work every day to have a fulfilling, supportive, successful friendship, which I happen to know is what's REALLY bothering you. We can commit to each other right now to make that happen. Because that's what best friends do."
Of course it was that sentiment so sweetly expressed that made her fall apart.
"Option 1 it is," he quipped with a sigh as she rolled toward him and buried her face in his chest.
She ignored two texts but when her phone rang she cursed - really, properly cursed using a word Barba hadn't heard from her before and that would have delighted him if he wasn't so damn emotional himself just then - and while she let it go to voicemail, knowing there was no way she could mask her current state in her voice, she did read the waiting messages.
She sat up, swiping at her eyes and sniffing pitifully. "I have to go."
"Okay."
She glanced at the mirror over the dresser near the bed. "Dear Lord, I'm a wreck."
"Yup. You are." His smirk was back. "'Own it', remember?"
"Sometimes I really hate you."
"Good. You can harness that hatred to help pull yourself together." He propelled himself off the bed and offered her a hand up, avoiding looking at the mirror himself knowing that he hadn't fared much better in their little meltdown.
Olivia went to the closet to replace the now rumpled clothes she was still wearing from work that day. "Fin's coming to pick me up in 20 minutes."
"Think you'll be out long?"
"Could be most of the night."
"No worries. I'll hold down the fort."
He left her to get ready and, after a quick stop in Noah's bathroom to wash his face, headed to the kitchen. He prepared her travel mug of coffee and packed her some snacks to help her get through the next few hours. He was just finishing up when she joined him, her eyes still red but makeup covering most of the tell-tail signs.
"You know if you have trouble finding work I can always give you room and board and you can be my live-in babysitter and housekeeper."
"Like a Tony Danza 'Who's the Boss' kind of arrangement?"
"Yes, except there'd be no question about who the boss is."
"Well, it's good to know I have a safety net. But thankfully it's a big city so I don't anticipate having TOO much trouble finding something. I know that there's going to be places where being the 'baby killer' will mean they won't touch me, but there's also probably some opportunities where that will make me a more attractive prospect."
Olivia could tell that while he glossed over the 'baby killer' label he wasn't as comfortable with it as his words may have let on. "We haven't talked about it much. I'm sorry; I should have brought it up but I didn't want to press you and I figured you'd come to me when you were ready. How are you doing with... all that?"
He leaned heavily against the counter, facing her. "It changes moment to moment. Don't get me wrong: I still believe that I did the right thing. I didn't need a jury to tell me that. But I still ended a life, such as it was. And I know I'm going to need to work through that at some point so I can really put it behind me."
She gave him a sympathetic smile that didn't reach her eyes. "Well, I'm here if you ever need someone to work through it with you."
"Thanks. And someday soon I will probably take you up on that." There was a knock at the door. "But not today."
"That must be Fin. Can you let him in? I need to go grab my gun out of the safe."
If Fin was surprised to see him there, he was too much of a pro to let on. "Hey, Counselor," he greeted evenly.
"Detective."
"You back on the clock? We're going to be looking to get a warrant first thing."
"Uh, yeah. Sure. You or Liv can email me the details and I'll do what I can." It wasn't the time to disclose that this could well be the last warrant he obtained for this team. He wondered if Liv would get emotional about that when it came up. Actually, he was sure she would.
"Thanks, Barba. And I'm assuming you know that it goes without saying we're all real glad about how things worked out for you today. Wouldn't be the same for us without you."
Barba was glad he had already had a bit of a cry, but he still had to remain silent as he shook Fin's offered hand to keep his voice from revealing anything.
"Hey, Fin. I just need a second." Barba was able to make a quick escape while Olivia was zipping up her boots and shrugging on her coat. He rejoined her in the hallway and handed her the travel mug and the brown bag containing the food he had prepared, which she tucked into her purse. "If I'm not back -"
"I'll take Noah to school. Not a problem."
"Okay, then. I'm ready to go."
"Later, Counselor," Fin said casually as he led the way out the door. His back was to them when Olivia placed a hand on Barba's chest, pausing to draw out the meaningful look and gesture, before she followed. But he didn't need to see it to sense that something was going on.
He already suspected both had recently been crying from the looks of them. He didn't say anything, of course. It was none of his business, and Olivia trusted him to keep out of things that didn't concern him unless he was truly worried about her safety, her well being, her happiness. And whatever was going on here didn't worry him, so he kept his mouth shut.
If he had been inclined to weigh in, Olivia would have been surprised to find that what Fin had considered most interesting and perhaps telling was not that Barba was there, not that he had been conscripted into overnight child care, and not even that they had apparently had an emotional exchange. No, it was how she hadn't thanked Barba for the food and coffee that had really caught his attention, an oversight that smacked of intimacy in his estimation.
Had he been in her office when they returned to the precinct and she'd decided to grab a snack before heading into interrogation, his previous interest would have paled in comparison.
But Olivia was thankfully alone when she opened the bag of food Barba had prepared, when the only reason she hadn't called him to rip him a new one for getting her worked up again was because she didn't want to wake him. It had taken several minutes and several steadying breaths to be able to effectively blink away the threatening tears and re-form from the puddle of mushy feelings she'd been reduced to. And all by 5 little words taped to a ziplock bag of cherry tomatoes:
"Got your back partner. Always. xo"
She retaliated not long after with 5 little words of her own, provided the chance when she arrived home early that morning when he was in the shower. By the time he emerged, finding her passed out in the bed he'd spent the last two nights in, the deed was done: A note taped around the chapstick in his coat pocket, which he discovered, as she'd hoped, during a marathon meeting with Stone in the dry air of his soon-to-be former office. Though instead of making him cry it caused him to bark out an embarrassingly loud laugh which he didn't even try to explain. The note was then tucked into his wallet and kept there for years to come, something he would pull out whenever he was feeling sentimental or needed to be reminded not of the words themselves, which were ridiculous, but what he knew was behind them:
"You're hotter than Tony Danza. xo"