"Do not enter WITSEC unless you have absolutely no alternative, because it will be the toughest experience you will ever face."

- Howard Safir, NYPD Commissioner 1996-2000

"The almost total break in family and social bonds often creates serious psychological problems for witnesses."

- United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Good Practices for the Protection of Witnesses in Criminal Proceedings Involving Organised Crime, 2008


The amber liquid flowed into the glass with a satisfying splash that echoed in the silence of his kitchen, and Rafael inhaled the familiar scent deeply, his fingers idly tracing the Macallan logo on the bottle. He clutched the glass, the crystal heavy in his palm, and hesitated as he lifted it to his lips.

Rafael Marquez doesn't drink, he'd told himself countless times on the drive home, as his mind wandered to the last time he had liquor in his system - that last night in New York with Olivia in that Italian restaurant, glasses clinking and Cabernet on their breaths, two months ago when he had the world in the palm of his hand instead of waiting for it to swallow him whole. Rafael Marquez doesn't drink, because it was a hedonistic New York habit associated with the sleepless nights he'd spent hunched over his laptop, frantically alternating between case notes and his email inbox.

Rafael Marquez doesn't drink, he reminded himself as he stepped into his empty kitchen, because being with Olivia was intoxicating enough that he didn't need the buzz of a glass of Macallan at the end of a long day. He thought that he had more than enough, until it wasn't and he found himself retrieving the bottles he'd carefully tucked away after that impulse trip to the liquor store.

He didn't need this glass of scotch, but he desperately wanted it.

The evening had gone as he'd envisioned it. The leftover beef slices had gone on top of the fried rice they'd ordered from China Garden after Olivia had accidentally added one too many pinches of salt into the pot; they'd settled in front of the TV to polish it off, their laughter reverberating against the backdrop of some schmaltzy 2000s rom-com. The empty plates languished on the coffee table as Olivia's head came to rest on his shoulders, the same serenity of their afternoon gazing at the Potomac River now settling over the room, and conversation giving way to a languid, contemplative silence.

And Rafael knew exactly what came next - cleaning up the dirty dishes, perhaps a hand in her freezer in search of the leftover mint chocolate chip ice cream from three nights ago. Before long the empty tub would be in the trash and their lips locked; they'd lose themselves in each other for a few rapturous minutes, then fall asleep skin-to-skin beneath her covers. There was no reason to fracture that vision - a vision of comfortable, contented domesticity.

It was a vision of comfortable, contented domesticity that only concealed the riot of emotion trapped right under his skin and threatening to fester until it exploded.

And so the evening had gone exactly as he'd envisioned it, until Rafael was standing over her dishwasher, plate in hand, and abruptly declaring, "I think I'm going to head home and call it a night."

For a few seconds, the room felt like it was spinning as the gravity of that innocuous statement sank over them. He immediately caught sight of Olivia's stunned expression, her plate frozen in her palm; the clock on the wall that announced that it was 9pm and far, far too early for him to be turning around and walking out the door. But that was exactly what he did, mumbling that the combination of the rising heat and their afternoon pseudo-hike had exhausted him and picking up his keys as a silent Olivia looked on, her confusion clear as day and eyes peeled to his every move but lips never parting to stop him in his tracks.

And maybe that was exactly what he needed. He needed her to let him go, because one word from her and he wasn't sure he'd be able to tear himself away.

Rafael shut the front door behind him with a quiet click, her brown eyes piercing him with her concern but his too afraid to meet her gaze. Every step in the direction of his car was an opportunity to turn back and reverse that impulse decision, his conscience screaming at him to look in Olivia's doubt-ridden and concerned eyes and assure her that she wasn't the problem, he was, except that it would be an outright lie to both himself and her.

He'd resisted opening the cupboard where he'd hidden the Macallan and Bacardi all week, the tyranny of his own emotions so consuming that the mere thought of a drink made him shrink in guilt, but he stood by his kitchen counter with that glass in hand, the tiles cold under his feet, as a string of messages from Olivia interrupted his reverie.

Are you alright?

Was it something I did?

Do you need to talk?

She was worried. Desperate. He could feel it emanate from the screen.

He wished he knew how to answer any of those questions truthfully.

The darkness of the room now punctuated by the harsh light of his phone screen, Rafael lifted the glass to his lips and took a swig, the familiar burn at the back of his throat the antidote he hadn't realised he so desperately needed. He needed this - one night with his thoughts, recovering the private ritual that'd been a constant in some of the worst battles in his life and had slipped through his fingertips without him even realising it. He needed to unabashedly marinate in this tidal wave of emotion: see it through, think his way to a solution like he always did.

He needed one night without Olivia.

Her messages went ignored as he emptied the rest of his glass, the warm buzz that gradually filled him enough to quell the nagging fear that she was anxiously pacing her living room and eagerly awaiting his response; a much-needed I'm alright, it's not you that would take 5 seconds to type if not for the way his fingers froze as they hovered over the keys.

He needed one night without Olivia, he repeated in his head like a refrain. One night to get his head straight, and he'd wake up tomorrow and appear on her doorstep with coffee in hand and a serene smile that would bury any last trace of doubt.

His bed was cold and empty, but the alcohol in his veins made him feel anything but, and the ceaseless gush of the Potomac River rang in his ears ceaselessly as the immensity of that afternoon overwhelmed him once more.

Memories matter to me, Liv, because in the end, memories are all that any of us have.

His memories of New York were fading and blurring at the edges - the roar of a passing subway train, warm affection in his abuelita's embrace, the corner of Carmen's desk that he always stubbed his toe on as he rushed out of his office and in the direction of 60 Centre Street. His book collection had lost the woodsy aroma of the Diptyque diffuser on his home office desk, their pages now rapidly yellowing under the harsh light that shone through his living room window. The suits he'd once pressed to perfection lay untouched in a row in his closet, emblems of a life so jarringly different from placid Bethesda afternoons with Olivia's head in his lap.

And you. You are all that I have.

Rafael's memories of New York were fading, but Olivia was real.

He didn't want to know what he'd do if he lost her, especially if he let his out-of-control emotions ruin the only good thing - person - he had left. He could almost feel Olivia's fingers wrapped around his, her head resting on his shoulder as they stared into the rushing water hundreds of feet below them, that kayaker's neon yellow vessel a beacon of hope - or despondency - against a sea of green and grey.

That was real. Olivia was real.

His mind wandered back to the smoke-filled Korean BBQ joint; the time he'd almost kissed her in the foyer of Matchbox Pizza; his hand on her back under the warm pink glow of a Washington D.C. sunset. One wrong move and he'd irreparably fracture that serenity. One wrong move and he'd be untethered, alone in Bethesda without the only bridge connecting Rafael Barba and Rafael Marquez.

Everything rested in his hands now. There was nothing else he could do but ride out this wave of insecurity and pray that the wedge he'd already driven between them would close quickly - or brutally crush that insecurity until it never resurfaced. Rafael sank into his mattress, the taste of scotch lingering on his tongue and the warm buzz quickly giving way to a frenetic anxiety.

I'll see you tomorrow?

He imagined Olivia alone under the covers with her phone in hand, watching the "Read" in tiny print appear underneath the blue bubble and waiting for a reply that never came, and the guilt that struck him was a spell potent enough for him to finally type the 4 words she'd probably been waiting all evening to hear.

Nothing about this life felt real, but Olivia was. She was the only thing he could be sure of. He couldn't lose her.

I'll see you tomorrow.

His phone landed on the carpet with a thud, and he wondered if he'd muster the certainty imbued in that 4-word text by the time the sun filtered through the blinds. As the last of the buzz drained from his chest and he lay in the humid darkness, fists clammy against the sheets, a quiet resolve crept into his chest.

I'll see you tomorrow.

He needed one night without Olivia, he repeated in his head like a refrain. One night to get his head straight; to purge every last trace of his envy and competitiveness and self-doubt from his mind.

He needed one night without Olivia. One night with his own emotions, that he would promptly put aside when the sun rose so he could throw every ounce of support behind her, because that was the Rafael he'd always been for her.

He needed one night without Olivia. He'd wake up tomorrow and appear on her doorstep with coffee in hand and a serene smile that would bury any last trace of doubt, and they'd revel in the same comfort they had before the night it'd been poisoned by that disarmingly simple declaration that she was going to start looking for a job.

That was Rafael's final lucid thought as sheer exhaustion overwhelmed him and he drifted into slumber.


Rafael had always been good at thinking his way out of problems.

That talent had gotten him out of his sophomore year funk - one straight-A semester that'd helped him effortlessly breeze past and win over the rest of the Upper East Side snobs who until that point had looked at him with contempt when he sat by Rita at the lunch table. Difficult case - an afternoon in the law library bent over every law journal he could find that was even remotely relevant until he found the right loophole to thread through. Slimy defence attorney - one sleepless night in his office with his gold pen and legal pad in hand mapping out every single underhanded tactic that could possibly be slung his way the following morning. He thrived on problems that made him tick; puzzles that he could bury himself in before emerging from the tornado with a solution in hand.

Maybe this was yet another problem he'd successfully thought his way out of, this green-ey'd envy, this unkind division that had almost ripped him - and them - apart. All he needed was one glass of Macallan and one night without the soft soundtrack of Olivia's breaths next to him, and he'd knocked on the door bright and early the next morning with two cups of coffee in hand and a serene smile that told her that absolutely nothing was wrong, after all - one that he almost believed himself.

It can only get better from here, he successfully convinced himself as he walked into her kitchen and heaved a sigh of relief realising that the MacBook that'd silently tormented him had vanished from the counter. He'd spent two weeks drowning in the depths of self-inflicted misery that he knew he had to be far above, and he was ready to move on - something that he became absolutely sure of when Olivia smiled at him over the rim of the coffee cup he'd made a detour for, the relief in her sparkling eyes a healing balm after a night of fitful, restless slumber.

That was the Olivia who had a way of making all sense flee him when their eyes locked from across the room; the one he realised he'd fallen for one bitterly chilly winter afternoon in New York when she emerged through the precinct doors in snow-covered boots, her nose red from the cold and hair damp and tousled. She was the Olivia the Rafael of New York could never feel competitive with or envious of, because how could he when she'd become one of the only people with whom he could put down his courtroom armour? Why had he let a moment of weakness almost change that?

She still was the same Olivia he'd always known. This Olivia was real.

And perhaps he'd realised that the tidal wave of emotions he'd been experiencing wasn't.

His petty rivalries with Rita and Alex were things of high school and college - immature and misguided. Surely he'd changed enough in the last twenty years to know an irrational, destructive emotion when he saw one - and how to crush it under his heel before it could metastasize.

He was going to force himself to move on, somehow, and that was exactly what he did - throwing himself into whatever book he was reading that day with the mission of re-reading his entire collection, completing the Washington Post crossword while trying not to compare it to the clearly superior New York Times ones, or trying to expunge the residual guilt he felt whiling away each afternoon thinking about everything other than the pressing practical matters that lay ahead.

There was an almost unbelievably simple explanation to all of this, he learned one afternoon as his eyes fluttered shut to the gentle breeze that caressed his skin through Olivia's open living room window.

"Maybe you're just burnt out, Rafael," she'd suggested off-handedly as she scanned a Bloomberg article about mid-career job applications, one hand brushing her bangs out of her eyes.

He looked up from the copy of Mrs Dalloway that he'd been thumbing through, a brow furrowed. "Burnt out?"

"Yeah. Maybe you need some time to rest and regroup. When was the last time you took a vacation from the DA's office? Not a week off - an actual break."

The fact that he had to rack his brains for the answer was telling enough. Probably the time he'd taken a week off to ski in Gstaad for the New Year's break, only to be summoned back to New York early to face off against Minonna Efron on a particularly gnarly case. He'd scored a conviction by the skin of his teeth and had still managed to squeeze in 3 days at the resort, but one look at her terrible courtroom outfit and "Mr Barba's motion is clearly ridiculous" and any traces of his holiday mood had evaporated instantly - as though he'd even had time to get into a "holiday mood" in the first place when he'd been thinking about paperwork (and Olivia) the entire time he was on the slopes.

"See, you're actually thinking about it, which proves my point," she gently teased, her outstretched foot casually grazing his thigh. "You know, one of my college professors told us that we should take a sabbatical once every 5 years or so..."

"I guess mine's long overdue, isn't it?" he interjected with a dry chuckle, although he was quickly realising that Olivia actually had a point.

How had he survived this long in a job in which one misstep could open himself up to crucifixion by both the DA and the entire population of New York City, where eight hours of sleep was a luxury and nothing was stopping him from being called in on a Sunday? Or the early years getting read the Riot Act by judges in chambers or knocking on their doors at 11pm for a last-minute warrant? How had he survived this long on adrenaline and fiery anger alone, so potent that he sometimes fell asleep with grisly crime scene photos in his mind and closing arguments in his ears?

Maybe this was fate's way of intervening before he worked himself into self-destruction.

Olivia looked up from her screen contemplatively. "Maybe you're feeling guilty because you've been forced to take time off work - I know exactly what that feels like. Even if you actually need that vacation," she added with a raised eyebrow.

"You have a good point," he'd added, his mind already a million miles away. "Maybe I am burnt out."

Maybe he was burnt out. He could afford to cut himself some slack before launching himself into yet another rat race.

That was the one explanation he needed for every negative emotion he'd expended so much energy purging from his mind in the last few days - and so he latched onto it tightly. Exhaustion made people irrational; irritable. This was just a phase that he'd soon put behind him.

The explanation seemed to be good enough for Olivia. It was good enough for him.

As the first blushes of summer painted the sky, the last of the guilt that'd stabbed at him melted into more leisurely afternoons poring over the rest of his book collection, sometimes driving to Barnes & Noble to lose himself in the stacks while Olivia waited with an iced latte in the Starbucks downstairs. On other days they'd leave the apartment and stroll around the neighbourhood as the sun dipped below the horizon, until twilight blanketed them and they'd catch glimpses of deer wandering back into the woods behind the rows of McMansions. They returned to Great Falls and watched that same kayaker furiously press on against the unforgiving current, a fraction faster each day, and Rafael finally understood what she'd meant the first time when she'd remarked that he was admirable for throwing himself into that uphill climb.

Maybe that was what Rafael wanted to be as well: someone who was admired by Olivia, just as much he did her. And that made his own uphill climb a fraction less insurmountable.

Rafael knew that he'd changed when he woke up next to her one morning, the buried anxiety he'd expected to be flooded with simply melting into contentment as he laid eyes on her. He reached over and brushed her bangs out of her eyes, her chest gently rising and falling against his bare torso, and wondered how he'd ever allowed himself to feel anything but warm affection for her.

Maybe she'd made it easy for him by silencing all mentions of her job search. The hardened, almost hostile, ambition in her eyes had all but disappeared, and the MacBook lay untouched on her desk for hours, sometimes days, at a stretch. And with that the seeds of envy and heated competitiveness slipped into the past, dead and buried under their easy intimacy and the quiet immensity of Olivia's companionship. How foolish had he been not to realise that she was the antidote to his festering worry all along; that she was his protection against the demons that'd almost consumed him?

There was no need to rush. He was burnt out, wasn't he? He could afford some time off before catapulting himself back into the unforgiving world of employment and bills and taxes. His compulsive need to work and be productive was just the toxic neoliberal capitalist construct he'd spent hours reading about for his political science seminars - an idea that finally was leaping off the page and into his life.

He wasn't unmotivated. He wasn't paralysed. He wasn't failing; he just needed rest. Rest was radical - rest was defiance against the forces that made him feel worthless for spending his afternoons re-reading Ulysses.

That was the explanation he needed for everything. He needed this break; this unapologetically carefree summer before plunging into Rafael Marquez's job search.

Why rush into that, when things finally were easy again? There were no grand gestures, no trappings of romance, no contrived and pitiful are-you-okay glances and belaboured excavations of emotion. They read each other seamlessly, Olivia's hand gently resting on his thigh as they watched TV in the evening all he needed to forget that he'd ever allowed himself to let the bitter, irrational seeds of envy and competitiveness take root.

He was better than those petty, childish emotions. He'd always found a way to fight through those nagging feelings of inferiority, and this was no exception. This wasn't a race; Olivia wasn't his rival. In fact, she was the opposite: she was his life force, the one who was getting him back on the right track after that abrupt, unwelcome diversion.

It'd all get better once he'd gotten over this stubborn burnout, he told himself. He'd take a week more - maybe two - and jump right back in whole-heartedly when he was ready.

Things could only get better from here.

And so he threw himself into everything but thinking, Olivia's words about taking a sabbatical continuing to ring in his ears, and he learnt to spend afternoons expunging the last traces of frantic worry about his caseload in favour of all the things he'd never had time for in New York - re-reading all of Virginia Woolf's writing, finally finishing that copy of One Hundred Years of Solitude, taking his time in the Whole Foods pasta section or actually enjoying the bland, saccharine brand of mall capitalism that greeted him whenever he strolled into the Westfield Nordstrom. He threw himself into rest; into learning how to be at ease with the fact that he didn't have something pressing to attend to every afternoon. Maybe he was even enjoying it.

Maybe this was the break he truly deserved after giving the last twenty years of his life to the DA's office - the one he truly needed before he could trust himself to put himself out there once more, this time as Rafael Marquez.

Rafael had always been good at thinking his way out of problems, but perhaps this was one that he'd been overthinking all along - and he was more than glad to slip back into that comfortable, easy intimacy, where solutions didn't come with a deadline and he wasn't running on a treadmill with guard up, in perpetual anticipation of the next fire to fight.

The final whispers of spring blossomed into summer heat and the evenings grew long and languorous, and for once in his life, Rafael was content just being at ease, the sound of the breeze rushing outside the window a timely reminder that he could afford to be kind to himself for just a little longer.


"Where are you headed so early?"

Shit. Fin turned in the direction of Nick's voice. So much for trying to slip out unnoticed.

"Got a date, Fin?" Amanda teased from across the room, her lips curling into a grin. "Third Tuesday in a row."

"Can't believe you've actually been keeping track," Fin fired back sarcastically. "Why do you care if I'm going on a date?"

He couldn't imagine the reaction that he'd get from Nick and Amanda if he told them that he was driving uptown to meet Rita Calhoun, of all people - or if the reason for his increasingly frequent visits ever saw the light of day. Rita Calhoun! Tragedy truly had a unique way of bringing people together.

"Hey, I'm happy for you." She raised her hands in mock surrender. "Even if you leave us with the rest of the paperwork. Does Cragen know that you're off?"

Fin hastily peered through the partially shut blinds of Cragen's office, where the stoic captain was hunched over his laptop screen and deep in thought - an unusual sight after what had been a relatively laid-back day in the squad room, but Fin had a drive to the Upper East Side in rush-hour traffic and wasn't about to waste a minute longer speculating about something that probably didn't have to do with him. "I don't think he'll have a problem with that. We've been sitting on our asses the whole afternoon. See you both tomorrow."

"Enjoy your date, Fin," Amanda reiterated with a smirk, as Nick waved him goodbye from his desk.

The sound of conversation from the squad room floor momentarily distracted Cragen from the email he'd been staring at for the last couple of minutes, unsure what to make of it. Sure, it wasn't uncommon for him to get the occasional email from former Homicide colleagues who wanted to catch up, but this one certainly wasn't about just "catching up".

Don,

I'm writing just to give you a heads-up. I'm not sure if this is relevant or important, but an IAB detective named Brian Cassidy came by our precinct the other day to ask about one of your former detectives: Olivia Benson? Wanted to look at case files, talk to the detectives on the case; I had to tell him that the Feds took her and that ADA's case, but he wasn't pleased to hear that. Not sure if he's going to come to you, but it seems like he's digging around. Heard he's gone to Vice too, but they didn't have anything to give him either.

He knew Brian Cassidy, and he certainly knew about the detective's long-held torch for Olivia, but this?

There were more than enough signs to raise suspicion, and Cragen wasn't surprised that the unassumingly sharp detective had zeroed in on them. They'd been denied hospital access when Olivia was fighting for her life, none of them had actually seen Olivia's body with their own eyes - not even Melinda Warner -, the Feds had swooped in to handle the case almost too quickly…

It was an eerie reminder of the time Alex Cabot had disappeared into witness protection, but what good would finding out do, especially if it turned out that Olivia and Barba weren't as fortunate and could never return to New York?

Cragen idly thumbed through the paperwork that Fin, Nick and Amanda had submitted to him that afternoon, quietly heaving a sigh of relief that everything appeared to be in order. Nearly two months since they'd lost Olivia and it finally looked like some normalcy was going to be restored - cases were being solved, morale was slowly climbing even though they still were short of a detective, and the laughter that occasionally filled the squad room felt like much-needed rain in an extended drought.

Maybe Cassidy was onto something - maybe finding out that Olivia and Barba were alive and well somewhere was what the squad truly needed to heal from this. But could he afford to have his squad go on a wild goose chase in search of the truth and blow things up again, just as they'd finally settled back into a hard-fought new normal?

And what if his and Cassidy's hunches were wrong? The last thing they needed now was false hope, he concluded. False hope would only destroy everyone even more profoundly, and he wasn't sure how to help everyone come back from that.

He abruptly shut his laptop without sending a reply.

On the other side of the door, Nick grabbed his phone from his pocket, expecting a long-awaited text from Maria or Zara, but his eyes shot open in surprise when he saw an unexpected name on the screen: Brian Cassidy. What kind of business the newly-minted IAB detective had with him, he didn't know, but he had a distinct feeling that it was about the one person they had in common.

Hey, it's Brian Cassidy. We need to talk.

Nick feigned ignorance as he fired off a reply.

About what?

Olivia.

I think you'll want to hear it.

Seeing that name was like a jolt to his senses. He'd spent the last month trying to forge ahead without feeling his heart sink each time he looked at her old desk or turned towards the office to find Cragen sitting there instead.

Things had been going better; he was starting to think that he could move on from this. But all it took was two messages from Brian Cassidy to rip apart that fragile peace.

Nick's fingers hovered tentatively over the keys without typing a word.


The weather grew hotter, and so did everything in Olivia and Rafael's relationship.

In local news, temperatures in D.C. are soaring well into the 80s and expected to climb over the next few weeks! Stay tuned for tips to beat the heat…

Rafael fidgeted uncomfortably in his seat, the sweat that coated his skin leaving a thin film on the leather couch as he frustratedly jabbed the A/C remote control. The untouched iced coffee he'd brewed just half an hour ago was coated in condensation, the droplets sliding into a rapidly growing puddle on the glass table. He snuck a furtive glance at Olivia on the other side of the couch, her glass half-emptied and familiar blue of the LinkedIn app filling her phone screen, although those signs weren't quite as telling as the subtle way she angled the screen away from him, her grip on the device just a notch more deliberate than usual while a deceptively cheerful 90s playlist piped through the speakers.

Summer had never been Rafael's season. Growing up in a Bronx walk-up without functioning A/C probably accounted for half of his hatred of this time of the year, and sweat was always a nightmare when he'd made three-piece suits his unofficial courtroom uniform. Perhaps it was also the way the days dragged on endlessly and sweltering air made the city just a touch too putrid for enjoyment, and he'd find himself standing on a subway platform, shirt soaked with perspiration and rats feasting on an ice-cream wrapper a tourist had tossed on the track, Rafael eagerly anticipating the arrival of fall before the humidity encased him.

Sure, Bethesda was a touch - a lot - less nauseating in the sun, and at times Rafael even thought that this summer was the first one in a long time that he would actually be able to enjoy, with the aid of an especially powerful A/C unit and absence of any need to don a suit for the foreseeable future - until he started to realise that the relentless sun wasn't the only source of the suffocating, clammy heat quickly seeping through his skin.

He'd seen the sparks of Olivia's ambition return in almost imperceptible bursts over the last two weeks - the MacBook Air reappearing on the coffee table as he walked into her kitchen one morning, the extra seconds she spent scrolling through job postings on her phone as they waited for a table at Founding Farmers or Matchbox. Then came the notepad he caught sight of on her nightstand, the find a job by the end of the summer (August/September) underlined with neon highlighter and peeking out from under a Pepco bill, that he quickly averted his gaze from as he pulled her tank top over her head and reached into her drawer for a condom.

Soon enough those sparks had blossomed into fiery ambition. Rafael had been searching for a pesto recipe on her laptop when he'd accidentally clicked on the desktop folder marked "Work" and was instantly confronted by a series of Word documents and the resume he'd helped her tidy up, Olivia Davis emblazoned at the top in the professional, foolproof and polished navy blue Helvetica Neue he'd picked out for her a few long weeks ago.

He'd closed the window and quickly printed out the pesto recipe, because this was Olivia's job search, and it didn't matter that he hadn't started his own. It didn't matter that Blake had sent him home from their last meeting with a folder of resources on mid-career job applications and law-adjacent jobs that he'd promptly buried in his dresser drawer and never read again, because he'd made peace with himself, hadn't he? He needed this sabbatical from employment, didn't he?

That was perhaps the first time Rafael realised that he wasn't truly at ease, after all.

Then came the increasingly conspicuous presence of her phone on the coffee table or nightstand, every email notification enough to make all conversation cease as she reached over to read it. He carefully watched her face crumple with disappointment or the occasional relieved smile, and the way she wiped all traces of emotion in seconds and turned back to him completely unfazed, wearing the exact same brand of warm affection she always had.

Before he knew it that fire had erupted into an explosion, and he was helpless in the inferno, Olivia's blazing ambition a bonfire he was too afraid to touch.

"Looking for a job is a full-time job," a drunk Rita had once whined to him in a Cambridge bar in their final year of law school as they fumbled their way through the maze of New York law firms, to which he'd promptly bought them another round and they'd drowned their shared misery in cheap beer and stale pretzels. And that spur-of-the-moment sentence rang in his ears whenever he looked over Olivia's shoulder at her laptop screen, as the furious click-click-clicks of the keyboard started to churn out Job Application - Olivia Davis email subject lines instead of haphazard Word documents.

Maybe he was on fire just as much as she was, except his was on a destructive rampage while hers propelled her forward at what felt like breakneck speed. Looking for a job had become Olivia's temporary full-time job, and now he had first-row seats to a spectacle he wasn't sure he wanted to be a witness to.

It hit him one night as they crawled into her bed, every last nerve in his body on fire as he sank into the mattress. He marinated in the muggy summer heat, covered in a thin film of sweat he wasn't sure was from the debilitating humidity or the anxiety that was starting to pool in his belly whenever he shut his eyes and realised that Olivia's quiet breaths next to him were anything but calming.

It would have been foolish of him to ignore the inevitable: that she would get right back to her job search at some point, when his ego was less wounded by all the upheaval they'd been forced through. He'd always secretly hoped that Olivia's fire would rub off on him in time for this sabbatical to end and him to finally plunge into that damned job search that seemed to be the root of all his stress.

This, however, wasn't the way he wanted it to be.

Rafael had always been good at thinking his way out of problems, but he'd been just as good at talking himself out of them - psyching himself up before the LSAT that'd aced on his first attempt despite being raw from a break-up with Yelina, or convincing himself that he DID have the rock-solid evidence to put William Lewis away for life even though he most certainly did not, and both times he'd celebrated having almost forgotten why he'd been worried in the first place. Surely this was a funk he could talk himself out of too: by reminding himself that the ultimate antidote was not to succumb to unnecessary competitiveness, or to let Olivia's ambition force him into plunging in before he truly was ready to think about his next career move. He could control this narrative; he could stop himself from catastrophising every event that came ahead.

But the temperatures continued climbing and the calendar on her wall insistently gestured at the impending start of summer, and his resolve was starting to wear thin as time ticked away mercilessly, the line between a reasonable long-term goal and undue source of anxiety blurring even more by the day.

Three months until Olivia's internal deadline, he thought every time he glanced at the menacingly large calendar she hung on the fridge. Five months until we wake up without a federal check in our bank accounts. He looked at Olivia, his only basis of comparison, surging ahead. He looked at himself, now completely stripped of the achievements and career that made him the very person he was, yet still paralysed by the prospect of starting all over again as a brand new Rafael, where he'd spend the rest of his days living a lie.

It was the kind of self-talk he didn't want to fall into, but had even before it'd become perceptible, and he wasn't sure what felt worse: the fact that he'd slipped into complacency so disarming that things felt to be spinning out of control again, or that the emotions he thought long buried were starting to fester again.

There was no logical basis for anything he was feeling, he rebuked himself when he caught himself groaning at the sight of Olivia's Macbook on the coffee table as he searched her fridge for fruit. Maybe anxiety was cyclical; non-linear. He could intellectualise this as a vicious combination of lingering insecurity, the way Olivia's neatly-written checklists on the notepad on the table reminded him of all the things he had yet to do, and the way the muggy weather made everything from his car seats to his emotional state feel like they were ablaze. He hated feeling this way; he hated feeling this way about Olivia.

And so he trudged on, burying his emotions as deeply as he could, vowing never to let them touch the light.

It wasn't as though Olivia wasn't trying - she was far from oblivious to the brewing storm, every move increasingly cautious and calibrated. The are-you-okay glances she cast at him as she worked were one sign; the deliberate way she shut her laptop when she felt his insecurity radiate from across the room was another. She'd astutely picked up on even the most minuscule hints of unease and correctly sensed his fear of being left behind as she forged ahead of her new life, and so she started inviting him into that world, letting him read her cover letters over her shoulder or picking his brain for non-boring ways to say that she was a team player, feeling some of the tension in the room dissipate when he shifted from his spot on the couch to glance at the screen.

"You've always given off more "lone wolf" than "team player" vibes to me, you know," he'd teased, as he deftly amended the sentence.

He meant that as a good thing. "Lone wolf" Olivia Benson was her own person - and the fact that he looked at her now and still saw that Olivia Benson spoke volumes.

"Being a lone wolf probably isn't going to get me hired, Rafael," she chuckled as she snatched the laptop from his hands.

His lips curled into a smile. "You're extremely hireable, Liv. Whether or not you spin yourself as a team player."

The cutting sincerity of that compliment was telling enough in itself, and the warm intimacy percolating between them finally settled, even for just an afternoon. She would take that.

Olivia occasionally wondered what was running through his mind as he blazed through the yellowed pages of one of the novels on his shelf, twirling a pencil in hand and countless Post-It notes sticking out from the edges. He'd stopped completely shutting down any mention of the elephant in the room; perhaps the self-imposed sabbatical she'd suggest he take actually was working. Once in a while, she was seconds away from gently pointing out to him that he ought to give his search some thought too, but why cut that sabbatical short prematurely, especially if it reopened freshly healed wounds? Why intervene, when it wasn't her place to make that decision for him? And so she kept quiet, content to keep things the way they were.

The peace felt fragile, but at least it was peace.

It wasn't as though Rafael wasn't trying to maintain that precarious peace either. Perhaps it was just his latent guilt that was emboldening him to take an interest in Olivia's job search, but an interest, regardless of the source, was better than the cold shoulder he once gave her or how he clammed up whenever he caught sight of that folder on her desktop and felt his own lack of progress slap him in the face. Sometimes, it worked and he was able to put aside his nagging insecurity to let a few questions about her progress slide into casual conversation; on other days, he'd allow a clammy silence to settle over the room as she worked, counting down the hours until they could focus their attention on something unrelated.

Surely any progress was promising enough. He could be supportive, couldn't he? This was just another phase he could think his way out of?

Except that this wasn't New York, and the increasing lack of clarity he had about his own emotions was starting to terrify him. How could he ever become Rafael Marquez, when he was losing more and more of Rafael Barba by the day?

Was he really burnt out, or had he fallen back on that convenient explanation for the tangled mess of emotions about Bethesda and Olivia and starting all over again that he still couldn't get to the root of?

Rafael's copy of To the Lighthouse remained untouched on his lap, his movements sluggish and lethargic as the A/C struggled to keep pace with the relentless late morning sun, and then Olivia accidentally kicked the remote off the couch and the sheepish grin that appeared on her face jolted him out of that destructive train of thought.

She didn't notice the way his breath caught when he lifted his gaze to sneak a glance at her, the sunlight illuminating her bare arms as she reached over to pick the remote from the carpet, and he instantly slipped back into the quiet ecstasy he'd felt just a couple of hours ago, when their bodies were tangled under the sheets and his only thought was how fucking much he wanted to lose all control for this woman, his cock straining against the thin fabric of his shorts and her lips pressed to his neck.

Perhaps this heat wasn't all deadly; it wasn't all dangerous and on the precipice of exploding after all.

Not when they were in bed together and the only heat engulfing him was the fire in her kisses; the guttural moans escaping the back of her throat as her hips moved in time with every thrust. It was a fire that he was invincible in the face of - maybe the only fire he wanted to douse himself in.

Rafael had begun to relish the summer heat on his skin, intermingled with the heady scent of her floral perfume. He relished waking up and catching a glimpse of the light hitting Olivia's freckled skin - the same light that she bathed in across from him on this couch - his senses alert to her every movement and touch as a balmy breeze wafted through the window they'd left ajar the night before. Their bodies would be tangled even before they could fully open their eyes, her skin so scorching hot to the touch but as delicate and snow-soft as it'd been that last night in New York.

She electrified him; her playful grin cheekily daring him to kiss her harder, while her hips bucked almost uncontrollably against his, commanding him to fuck me harder, every movement charged with raw, anguished desire. He knew very well from the intentionality that flooded her every move - and the curt emails he read over her shoulder about how we're only hiring fresh college graduates - that she craved release, and he fucked her harder because she wanted it.

She wanted it. She needed him. And that was as almost as rapturous as the way her eyes lit up as the fire in his connected with hers, Rafael's delirious intoxication at the mere brush of their bare skin sending giddy waves of arousal rippling through her body.

He needed it too, just as badly as she did. He needed Olivia to need him, because there was so little else he was sure of now, and he was going to hang on tightly to the only thing that hadn't changed with their forced departure from New York: the solace they could find in each other's bodies.

Sex was comfort; a healing balm for the wounds of displacement, envy and anxiety, the warm familiarity of each other's skin enough to smooth over any residual tension from the day. Sex was release when everything else felt like too much. Olivia wasn't the kind to talk through her problems when things were difficult; to be fair, neither was he. But their bodies did all the talking where words failed them.

Sex was the retreat into the past they both needed, that carnal desire the only pure, untainted thing from New York they had left.

And sex was a distraction, but neither of them ever talked about that.

He stared at that untouched glass of iced coffee, now resting in a puddle of condensation and disappearing ice cubes leaving a watery film in their wake.

"Hey, are you alright?" Her lilting voice punctuated the silence, her brown eyes catching the light as she looked up from her phone.

There she was - the Olivia who made every last ounce of sense flee his body, especially at the worst times, although he wasn't quite sure that this was badly timed.

Sex was a distraction, but surely there was nothing wrong with a distraction when they both needed one?

The long afternoon walks they'd taken in the last few weeks had imbued a healthy glow into Olivia's once-pale New York skin, and he found his gaze lingering on her every movement as she absent-mindedly reached for his glass and took a swig from it, Rafael not bothering to correct her.

"I'm fine," he smiled. "I'm great, actually."

He knew he was standing too close to the fire, but he could afford to live a little dangerously.


"You have to promise to hear me out, because I know it's going to sound crazy."

"That doesn't inspire much confidence in me, you know," Nick deadpanned as he handed Brian a bottle of beer from his fridge.

It was a sight he'd never once imagined. Brian Cassidy sitting on his couch in his apartment in Queens, ostensibly to talk about something both related to Olivia and crazy, after the last few interactions between them had been nothing but downright prickly - what possibly could go wrong?

"I think she's alive."

Nick almost spat out his beer.

"You drove all the way here to tell me… this?" This was the purpose of the meeting Cassidy had tried so desperately hard to schedule and that Nick had put off for at least two entire weeks?

Olivia, alive? Was he hallucinating this conversation?

"Hear me out, please," Brian implored.

"Brian, we were at the funeral."

"We never saw her body, did we?"

Nick froze. "I-"

"Melinda Warner didn't either. She told me that the Feds swooped in to take the case. Think about it Nick - Homicide and Vice didn't have anything to tell me, and when I went to her apartment to collect her stuff a few weeks ago, all her things were gone. Her line's been disconnected too. I know this sounds crazy, but something isn't right, Nick."

Nick was silent for a few seconds as he took in that deluge of information, the memories of the last two months he'd tried hard to bury flooding his mind once more. The hospital, where they'd been turned away at the entrance because Olivia was fighting for her life in a high-security ward. The funeral, where he'd laid eyes on the casket without as much as thinking that it could be empty. There was no reason for Brian to be right; no reason for him to come waltzing in and excavating the squad's pain because he had a hunch that Olivia was alive. He probably missed her so much that he'd channelled the pain of mourning into chasing completely implausible and ridiculous theories. There was no reason to blow up the precarious peace he and the rest of the squad had only just started to recover.

So why was he starting to feel convinced by the string of information that he'd just been presented with?

Was Brian Cassidy… actually on to something?

Nick crossed his arms sceptically. "Why are you telling me all of this?"

"We should work this. Together. You were her partner. That'll get us places."

This evening was getting even more unbelievable by the minute. Now he was suggesting that they work together?

"Look, I know we've never been best friends and I don't expect that now, but I think we should give this a shot, Nick. For Olivia's sake."

It was the first time in weeks he'd heard someone say her name in weeks, and it made his hair stand on end.

"So, are you in?"

Brian's facial expression was the most earnest; the most imploring it'd ever been, and an expectant silence hung over the room as Nick considered his request.


CASE NOTES: PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL

Rafael Marquez (Barba) [Deputy US Marshal Edward Blake]

20/6/2014, Friday, 11am-12pm

Rafael was in slightly higher spirits today, which was an encouraging sign after our meeting earlier this month, although his mood quickly soured after the topic of conversation wandered to job applications. He continues to spend the vast majority of his time with Olivia, who has been an important source of support, but I sense a growing frustration with the situation he is in - the lack of progress he has made in his job search is concerning, and he seems to be acutely aware of this, albeit unsure of how or unwilling to make progress. I have proposed a few industries or career paths that will make use of his legal training that he can consider, although he does not appear to have given them serious thought, and has instead chosen to take a sabbatical (of unknown length) before proceeding.

I am more concerned, however, about Rafael's general well-being and mental health, which appears to be the root cause of the lack of progress he has made relative to Olivia; this was an issue surfaced to me by Deputy Marshal Nguyen after she met with Olivia, where Olivia shared that her job search seems to have put a strain on their relationship. While Rafael did not share much with me, I sensed that he has internalised much frustration with both himself and Olivia for his lack of progress, particularly as Olivia has already filed many applications. While it is not unusual for relocated individuals to experience a great deal of stress in the first few months, Nguyen and I will follow up on this issue and offer relevant career-related and mental health resources to Rafael, as well as speak to him about how we can better support him during this period of adjustment.

CASE NOTES: PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL

Olivia Davis (Benson) [Deputy US Marshal Michelle Nguyen]

20/6/2014, Friday, 11am-12pm

In the approximately two months since her resettlement, Olivia's progress with her job search has been promising, albeit not without a few hurdles. Her extensive experience with advocacy work and knowledge of the support systems available to vulnerable women and children make her a strong candidate for positions in the non-governmental organisations and charities she is applying to; however, she has yet to progress to the interview stages of any of the positions she has applied for. Nonetheless, she has cast her net wide and remains undaunted, and appears to be on track to secure a full-time position by the end of the summer if she continues at this rate.

Olivia also expressed private concern about Rafael's well-being, which I will follow up on with Deputy Marshal Blake in the fortnight before our next meeting - she is particularly concerned about the lack of progress he has made in his job search, as well as his general mental state. It is Olivia's belief that her job search has put a strain on their relationship, and her efforts to smooth over the tension seem to have worked only in the short term.


"Rafael?"

A dazed Rafael looked up from his plate and met Olivia's concerned gaze, her hand reaching across the table for his. "Something about that chicken that's bothering you?"

"No… not at all. The chicken's great."

When Olivia had suggested they get lunch at Founding Farmers after their meeting with the marshals, he'd agreed in a heartbeat - how he could say no to fried chicken and waffles and the allure of air-conditioning? And so they settled into the booth seat they always got, the one by the glass windows where the light hit Olivia's face just right and they were close enough that their knees grazed under the table, and ordered without even having to look at the menu.

But today the light hitting them felt almost blinding, the heat oppressive and scorching, and he didn't know where his appetite had disappeared to.

"Penny for your thoughts?" she asked gently as she rested her fork next to her half-eaten chicken pot pie. "How did things go with Blake?"

Ah, shit.

It was exactly the topic he'd come to Founding Farmers with the precise hope of avoiding, but he should have known better than to expect Olivia not to bring it up - and he already knew from her carefree, relaxed manner as he approached their table twenty minutes ago that hers had gone well. They always did.

That only made it harder for him to be the wet blanket who told her that meetings with Blake were tolerable at best and insufferable at worst, the deputy marshal's almost-cold professionalism toeing the fine line between being authoritative and patronising. I'd suggest you get moving on your job search soon; no, it's too unsafe for you to practise law; we need to tackle what's holding you back, his clinical tone accompanied by inscrutable eyes Rafael always sensed were filled with silent judgment.

Sure, Rafael had never quite warmed up to Blake, their tension-filled hours in the federal clearinghouse continuing to hang heavy over them whenever Blake tried to coax updates out of him for his fortnightly progress reports. Sure, it was Blake's job to make sure that Rafael became financially independent by November, and he was doing exactly as his job scope asked. But he couldn't shake that nagging suspicion that Blake's increasingly icy demeanour was barely concealing the sheer impatience he was feeling on Rafael's behalf, every "I'm taking some time off before looking for a job" a new thorn in his side.

"Fine, I guess," he muttered half-heartedly as he stabbed the now-soggy waffle with his fork, the syrup turning it into a sickly-sweet, unappetising mush. "It was over pretty quickly."

She furrowed her brows sceptically, the look in her eyes changing almost immediately to one of concern - a look that had a way of making him feel increasingly uncomfortable of late. "You know you can tell me if it didn't go well, right?"

Of course he could. When had Olivia ever been anything but trustworthy? Supportive? Patient? But that was a difference between that and wanting to tell her, and it was quickly dawning on him that the latter was becoming increasingly unappealing.

"It didn't go badly, Liv," Rafael replied firmly - perhaps a little too firmly. "We talked about what I've been up to the last couple of weeks, and then he asked about my job applications."

"What did he say?"

"Blake's very concerned that I haven't started looking for a job. Nothing new," he explained flatly as he resisted an eye roll. "He's been going on about that for the last month."

"He's probably just concerned," Olivia remarked casually. "It's his job to check on you, after all."

"A little too concerned maybe," he blurted out before he could catch himself. "It's all we ever talk about, and I'm starting to get a little sick of him going on about how I should start now because it's going to take longer than I expect."

"I don't know," she pointed out cautiously between sips of iced tea. "Maybe… he does have a point."

"Doesn't make it any less irritating, though," he fired back. "I don't need his silent judgment."

She flinched hearing the frustration in his voice. "I don't think Blake's judging you, Rafael. Surely the marshals just want us to get settled here. Maybe it'd be good to get him to help you out if you're so stuck."

He could tell by the regret that crossed her face that she instantly regretted that choice of word, but interjected before she could backpedal.

"I'm not stuck, Liv," he insisted between gritted teeth, his grip around his fork tightening. "You're the one who suggested I take some time off, right? I don't need your silent judgment, either."

Rafael didn't know what exactly Olivia was feeling about his present situation, but it certainly wasn't the admiration he'd long craved from her.

Olivia softened instantly. "Hey, I'm not judging you," she assured him, hurt flashing through her eyes. "We haven't done this for twenty years; it's alright to ask for help."

It's alright to ask for help from me, her eyes were silently adding.

Rafael wished he weren't so goddamn stubborn, but these days, stubbornness was proving far easier than vulnerability. "This time away from work is helping me, Liv," he explained after a long pause. "I've gone the last few years without a break of any kind. I just have to spend some time regrouping before I can start over," Rafael insisted quietly in the hopes that she would buy it.

It didn't take him long to realise that the person who really needed to be convinced by that explanation was himself.

Olivia nodded slowly. "But you know you can talk to me about anything, right?"

"Of course." He turned his attention back to the rest of his unfinished chicken, accidentally dousing it with the contents of the small ramekin of gravy on his plate. "Of course, Liv."

With just a flick of his wrist, he'd ruined the rest of his chicken, just like how that turn of conversation had ruined what was supposed to be a comforting meal.

Of course he could talk to Olivia. Here she was, practically begging for him to open up to her, yet words always seemed to elude him the instant his job search entered the picture. Of course she wasn't silently judging him. He knew better than to assume that from her.

Still, it didn't stop him from wondering.

Her smile was kind; understanding, but the hurt that'd flashed through her eyes never quite left, and she didn't finish that chicken pot pie.

"What should we do this afternoon?" she asked tentatively as they split the check, her eyes shifting nervously between him and the half-eaten plates of food on the table.

The easiest and probably default answer was to mumble something about heading back to one of their apartments, but he caught sight of his parked car in the lot out of the corner of his eye, and instantly realised that his default answer wasn't going to be good enough for him.

"I… think I'm going to take a drive," he declared more decisively than he expected. "Clear my head a little."

She gathered her purse and twirled her car key in her fingers in an attempt to hide her residual worry. "Okay. Text me about dinner plans?"

"Of course."

He'd worry about those later.

That was how he ended up alone in his car and cruising along Montrose Avenue, the silence much more welcome than it'd been just a few weeks ago. He circled the Barnes & Noble parking lot, contemplating whether or not to add a new paperback to his shelf, the steering wheel hot to the touch and oppressive heat radiating from the ground into his car, but thought about the unread titles piling up on his shelf and continued on his way without a destination in mind.

Rafael wondered how his abuelita was doing in that Bronx walk-up, the A/C unit so rusted and unreliable that he spent childhood summers waking up from naps drenched in his own perspiration. He thought about his mother, soon to close the book on another school year without the holiday to Cuba he'd promised her for months, and writing up her principal's reports in the apartment now haunted by the ghosts of two Barbas.

They were just a phone call away, he told himself, as he ran a thumb over his cell phone on the dashboard. Nothing was stopping him from reaching out to dial those familiar ten-digit numbers - except the crushing fear of the insidious forces behind Ivan Lavery's bludgeoning adding two new pools of blood to their carnage. The marshals had told him enough horror stories; he wasn't about to become the next example, even if it killed him first.

He approached the coffee shop and wondered about spending the afternoon on that patio with an iced latte in hand, Allison chattering away excitedly about her favourite coffee blends and the best croissants in the neighbourhood, until he remembered the cheerful way she'd casually announced she was at Georgetown Law and he zipped past the parking lot without a second thought.

There was no shortage of places he could drive to - Great Falls, Rockville, heck, maybe even downtown D.C. if he really wanted to - but he soon found himself standing under the comforting and familiar fluorescent lights of the Nordstrom in the mall, an unreasonably expensive shirt in one hand and tie he had no use for in another, feeling the most intoxicated he'd been in a while outside the confines of one of their bedrooms. The Brooklyn ADAs used to joke that Rafael was hooked on the dopamine rush that came with retail therapy, and he couldn't help but think that they'd delight in being proven right by the large sum that flashed on the screen at the register - and his signature on the receipt.

Perhaps he was seeking more control over his life than just the material kind, but control was control, and he was grasping at any he could find.

And thus he found himself there again the next day, and the next, the realness of the shopping bags in his hands a foil to his aimless drives around Bethesda he took as Olivia fussed over her resume in her living room, probably liberated of Rafael's intrusive gaze at her progress.

Anything to keep the peace. He was doing his part.


Rafael thought they'd both forgotten about the little tiff they'd had at Founding Farmers when he and Olivia found themselves back in bed three days later, him unable to tear his gaze away from her as her pert nipples pressed against his bare chest, her hand stroking his erection over his shorts. A low moan escaped the back of Olivia's throat as Rafael's fingers brushed over her panties, thoughts of plunging into her wetness sending a shiver up his spine when her tongue plunged into his mouth.

And then she stopped.

He groaned quietly as their skin lost contact, his arms instinctively reaching for her as she shifted on her side, until he looked up at her and the disquiet that had wiped out every trace of desire in her eyes made his hair stand on end.

Then came the question that put a wrench in the works.

"Have you been drinking?"

She knew that taste; she knew that all-too-familiar burn that made her lips tingle. The icy-cold mint of the mouthwash he'd clearly just gargled hadn't masked the unmistakable afternotes of liquor that she'd come to recognise after months of tasting it on his tongue: Macallan.

He didn't have to say a word, because the way he nervously averted her gaze said it all, and it was then that she noticed the subtle flush in his cheeks - one that clearly wasn't just from arousal.

"I'm not drunk, Liv, if that's what you're asking," he remarked testily, his erection throbbing painfully beneath the waistband of his shorts and begging for them to continue. "Nowhere close."

She paused for a second, feeling his cock twitch against her core and on the precipice of pressing her lips to his again, but the woody aftertaste on her tongue engulfed her mind.

"Liv?" he asked, impatience creeping into his tone before he could catch himself.

Olivia untangled her T-shirt from the mass of sheets at their feet and pulled it over her head, an irrefutable sign that they weren't going to fall asleep with bodies tangled and the air smelling of sex. Rafael stared in a stony silence, his tongue like lead as he nervously studied her inscrutable expression.

It wasn't inscrutable five seconds later when concern crossed her face, laced by hints of withering judgment he wasn't sure were real or imagined.

"I'm worried about you, you know."

He pulled his shirt back over his head, suddenly feeling that he needed at least one layer of protection against Olivia's eviscerating gaze. Sensing that she was concerned was one thing. Hearing it from her mouth, with that look on her face, was another.

"When did you start drinking again?" she pressed.

"Why are you so interested?" he retorted, his defences rising instantly.

He decided to leave out the part that she had to play in it.

"Driving around and shopping all afternoon aren't going to make whatever's on your mind go away," she said firmly, an eye trained on the pile of Nordstrom and J Crew bags on the floor. "What's gotten into you? Is there something you're not telling me?"

There were too many things he hadn't told her.

"I don't think now is the right time to talk about that, Liv," he replied evasively.

The guilt that flashed through her eyes lasted only a second. "I'm serious, Rafael. I'm worried about you."

Bitter sarcasm filled his tone before he could catch himself. "You've made that very clear."

Sex was the retreat into the past he so desperately needed, that carnal desire the only pure, untainted thing from New York they had left. It was an escape into an idyllic past so clearly demarcated from the unforgiving present - until now, when the two were clashing like fire and ice, the last traces of Rafael Barba he'd kept tucked away now contaminated by Rafael Marquez's poison.

Once he'd felt invincible in this heat; now he pulled the covers over himself, vulnerability seeping into every fibre of his being.

This time, it was her turn to say those words.

"I think we should settle this tomorrow and call it a night."

The unused condom went back into the nightstand drawer and light was turned down seconds later, and Rafael sank into the mattress, his mind a hurricane of frenzied thought until Olivia's laboured breathing slowed, and only one word came over him.

Fuck.

He couldn't push the disappointment in her eyes out of his head; the coldness and defeat in I think we should call it a night playing on loop and taunting him as he lay in the humid darkness, fists clammy against the sheets. Olivia had turned her back to him as she fell asleep, the pillow that now separated them an ocean of distance after countless nights with legs tangled and noses grazing.

She deserved better than this version of him - the Rafael who shut her down that cuttingly; the Rafael who dared to feel annoyed at what was nothing more than a simple expression of concern.

It was a version of Rafael that didn't exist in New York. He hated that he had let himself regress this far.

He didn't sleep that much that night, the tension percolating between them keeping him from falling into a deep slumber. And so he squeezed his eyes shut and willed himself to think and talk himself out of his problem, because he didn't know what else he'd do if they didn't work this time.

Olivia was real, he yelled at himself. These irrational emotions that were eating him alive weren't.

But the tension that hung over this room also was very real, and he had to fix it before the sun rose.

Three weeks ago he'd done it. He'd given himself one night without Olivia to expunge every last noxious emotion from his mind and showed up at her door the next morning with that serene smile on his face, her brown eyes twinkling with joy at the sight of him.

He wondered if he'd see the same twinkle when her eyes fluttered open to the sight of him in a few hours.

One night to get his head straight; to purge every last trace of his envy and competitiveness and self-doubt from his mind. One night with his own emotions, that he would promptly put aside when the sun rose so he could throw every ounce of support behind her, because that was the Rafael he'd always been for her.

He'd done it once. Surely he could do it again.

Surely he could do it again…?


"Do not enter WITSEC unless you have absolutely no alternative, because it will be the toughest experience you will ever face."

- Howard Safir, NYPD Commissioner 1996-2000