Part II: Cell Phone Delivery

The one thing an ADA can't live without: his cell phone. The one thing he left at home? You guessed it.

Warnings: OC

Associated episode: N/A

I took the courthouse steps two at a time; the cell phone in the back pocket of my scrubs had been vibrating non-stop for the past hour. Each time I checked it a different number illuminated the screen, the names all correlating with lawyers, ADAs, cops, even his assistant. At last count he had seven voicemails and twelve text messages awaiting his review.

Now all I had to do was find him.

I hurried through the big double doors into the cool entryway of the courthouse, a stark contrast to the sweltering heat rising outside. I wove past women in smart business clothes in a myriad of muted colors, and men in suits that cost more than a month of my salary.

At the elevator I jammed the up button a few times with my knuckle, bouncing on the balls of my feet as I watched the numbers slowly decline. The courthouse was a twenty-five minute cab ride from the hospital, and if I was so much as fifteen seconds late in returning, my boss, Mrs Akalitus, was going to gut me like a fish.

Rafi's office was on the third floor, and the elderly elevator took its jolly old time climbing up there. I knew the way passably well, though I'd never come around during business hours. After a late-night at the hospital, when I knew he was still at the office, poring over a mountain of paperwork on a current case, I'd swing by, bring dinner or coffee. Mostly my visits were brief: he'd either shake off my requests to come home, citing a metric ton of work that couldn't wait, or we'd end up having sex on his desk and leave together shortly after.

Either way, my previous visits to the office of the ADA had been brief.

In his office I was greeted by a look of mild recognition on the face of his assistant. She was thin and tall, her hair neat and short, and today, as in every one of the handful of times we'd met, she gave off an air of put-togetherness that I had never in my life achieved.

"Can I help you?"

"I'm looking for Raf…ael," I stammered a bit, thinking at the last minute that nicknames might not be appropriate here. "Barba. I'm his, um…"

My hesitation seemed to trip something in her brain. "His girlfriend, of course!" She got up and shook my hand in a warmly businesslike manner. She glimpsed the cell-phone I slipped from my pocket, and the puzzle was complete. "That's right, he said he left that at home this morning. I offered to run over and get it, but…" She gave a backward glance at the pile of paperwork on her desk, a mountain looking rather like Krakatoa.

"But you're swamped," I offered and she grinned.

"Always. Mr. Barba is downstairs at an arraignment. Do you want to leave his phone here?"

"Ah," I waffled, glancing at the clock on the wall. I could feel the minutes ticking by, but… "I'd kind of like to see him. Think he'll be long?"

She backtracked and clicked around on the computer some, before nodding, "Actually he should be getting out now, if he hasn't already. First floor, arraignment courtroom three." She offered me a smile that dimpled her tan cheeks. "Go get him, girl."

I hurried downstairs, choosing the stairs over the elevator that was likely new when Abraham Lincoln was frequenting the theater. The building was beautiful, you had to give it that: the polished floors, bright marble, shining hardwood, even a depiction of the Lady of Justice rendered in stained glass. I was distinctly out of place: I came to a crossroad of hallways and stopped a woman to ask for directions. She looked at me in my bright polyester scrubs like I was an overgrown blue parrot fluttering around her workplace.

I finally found the place but no amount of craning in the crowded room found me the man I was looking for. With a heavy sigh I resigned myself to heading back upstairs and leaving the phone with Carmen… until at last, in the hall, I found what I was looking for: one handsome, harried ADA in a gray suit and peppy checkered tie.

I started forward, but almost immediately hit the brakes. He was flanked by three people, and deep serious conversation. I could guess their identities: middle-aged and dark-haired, pretty, and badgering him… that would be Benson. Tall, blondish, gangly guy about my age… Carisi, the night-school law student who already thought he was an attorney (at least that's how Rafi described him in his more inspired tangents). And the short, young blonde would have to be Rollins.

None of this quartet looked particularly happy, Rafi least of all. He was talking a mile a minute, briefcase in one hand, the other struggling to loosen the tie I'd told him this morning looked more like a summer pinic tablecloth than a tie. It had taken quite a bit of convincing to get the irritated look off his face after that particular allegation….

Seeing him here in his natural habitat was a jolt, so different from seeing him in his apartment or mine, in restaurants or in the park. This was Rafael Barba, ADA, known for chewing up defendants with his wit and cleverness, and his snark besides. This was not the Rafi who ate Ben & Jerry's ice cream with me in bed in our underwear, who left his apartment in the most hideous running gear known to man, planting a kiss on my chin as he left, or the one who held my hand as we traversed the city's bookstores and parks on the odd free weekend.

All right, so I was intimidated, and not entirely sure he'd wand his posse to meet me. I'd met a few of his friends: a college friend here, another ADA there. We'd sat next to a congressman who had once been his roommate at a showing of Hamilton on Broadway. I'd met his mother - Lord help me - and his grandmother. But I'd never met these people. The ones he saw on a daily basis. The ones that brought him the horrific cases he so often became mired in. The ones who saw a whole different side of him - a side I wasn't sure had anything in common with the one that I knew.

The phone vibrating in my hand brought me back to reality. I squared my shoulders and started forward.

"Any of them file a lawsuit, or press charges?" He was asking, still struggling with the unyielding tie.

"No, he's been good at dodging charges," the guy I assumed to be Carisi was saying, but Raf shook his head, talking over him, "No, that won't work, if charges weren't brought…"

His eye was likely drawn by the unnatural brightness of my blue scrubs in this sea of muted colors, but for a second his ADA-expression stayed fixed on his face, not quite placing me. A heartbeat later, the facade cracked, and he smiled. "Cariño."

"Hey," I forwent my usual honey or babe as he came forward to meet me. I was keenly aware of the three detectives and their attention fixed on the awkward blue-clad red-cheeked woman their ADA was approaching.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you," he took the phone from me with one hand and slipped the other arm around me. He pressed his lips to my cheek, and gave me a look that helped calm my suddenly jittery nerves. "You are… just what I need right now." His smile was one of such singular sweetness I all but forgot that I wasn't the only one in the room, until he said, "Come here, come meet the crew." His arm around me, he shepherded me towards the trio. "Olivia Benson, Carisi, Rollins, this is my…"

I held my smiling breath. My friend? Girlfriend? Lover? My phone delivery girl?

"… lady friend." My eyebrows arched, and I mimed lady friend as he went on to provide them my name and unimpressive credentials. "What?" He asked, catching sight of my expression. "Girlfriend sounds infantile, like we're in the seventh grade."

I shook hands and exchanged pleasantries with the detectives who regarded me with varying levels of curiosity and welcome. Carisi, true to the idea I'd formed of him, was the one to press forward. "I never really pictured Barba having a girlfriend… or, you know, any life outside the office. What do you do in your free time, talk about tie patterns?"

"Yeah, actually," I laughed, even as Rafi's expression withered. He took my by the elbow - giving Carisi a look I didn't envy being the target of - and led me away from the trio. I couldn't wipe the smile off my face, and this seemed to soften his glower a little. "Can you stay? Grab some lunch?"

"Ah, I wish I could," I lamented. "I've got to get back to the hospital. Places to go, patients to triage."

"No rest for the weary," he nodded, and pressed his lips to mine. "Go. You're saving the world, you know."

"Please!" I laughed, walking away, holding his hand until the last second. "See you tonight?"

"Esta noche, mi amor."

Translations:

cariño - darling

Esta noche, mi amor - Tonight, my love

A/N: Thanks to everyone who's reading this, and an enormous thanks to those that reviewed. Hope you enjoy! - C