July 4th 2014

Rafael realised quickly that television was the easiest way to fill the silence.

Had it really been two days since he'd stood in this very spot, looked Olivia in the eye, and told her that he couldn't be around her? That she was the problem?

The look she'd given him - so crushed, devastated, and broken that even those three adjectives were inadequate to encapsulate the sheer pain in her eyes - had lingered in his mind until he'd turned off his bedroom lamp and slipped into slumber, his shame and disbelief at actually having dared to utter those words to her powerful enough to keep his fingers away from his cell phone. Perhaps he'd wake up the next morning, feel that shame hit him like a freight truck once more, and he'd muster the courage to dial those ten digits and hear her voice; maybe even show up at her doorstep with coffee and an earnest apology. Assurance that she wasn't the enemy he'd so callously accused her of being.

Then his eyes fluttered open a few hours later and all he'd felt was relief.

Rafael basked in the warm morning sun, limbs outstretched and grazing the empty half of the bed where Olivia's head usually lay. Gone was the way his pulse had begun to unconsciously accelerate when he woke up before she did, his dread of rousing her from her peaceful slumber and ushering in yet another day of tense half-truths now evaporated. The room came into clarity far quicker than it had in weeks - the sun was brighter, the air lighter.

He felt lighter. And there'd been little to stop that feeling of liberation from blooming over the next two days, where the silence in his apartment stemmed from actual tranquillity instead of awkward dancing around an elephant in the room, and he didn't have to look up from his book once every few minutes and contemplate how he was going to rip the Band-Aid with Olivia sitting across the room.

Maybe that apology could wait.

Maybe he didn't actually want to undo the events of that night.

Jordin Sparks was belting out America the Beautiful on the PBS Capitol special, and Rafael found his usual cynicism about these kinds of festivities uncannily absent after years holing himself in his apartment all day to avoid the inevitable crowds descending on the East River for the fireworks. Perhaps the only trace of the cynicism that remained was the way he'd deliberately skipped over the Macy's special on NBC and hence shielded himself from wide-angle shots of the New York skyline, but even that didn't detract from the quiet awe he felt as he stared at the screen with a scotch in hand, the Capitol building twinkling magnificently in the dusk.

Sure, D.C. had been beautiful every single time he'd made that ten-mile drive with Olivia - hands grazing under the shadow of the Washington Monument, steps of the National Gallery, the Lincoln Memorial illuminated after dark - but only now was he starting to truly feel that beauty himself, and that was all the confirmation he needed.

He'd done the right thing. He couldn't be around Olivia. He needed space from her, until he started feeling things - more specifically, feeling like himself again.

He didn't know how long it would take, but realised that he was content not having an answer.

Rafael's gaze shifted between the riot of colour on the screen and the Macallan bottle he'd just retrieved from the kitchen cabinet as fireworks burst over the National Mall and painted his screen in an array of colours. He downed the last of his glass, the satisfying burn at the back of his throat a fitting finale of its own, and removed the stopper of the bottle with a vigorous tug, the rich, oaky aroma of the amber liquid wafting through the air. Occasionally he still missed the ambience of Forlini's, with its tinted wooden countertop and light-hearted banter with Anthony as he pored over trial prep, but this wasn't too shabby a substitute - especially when tonight had been the first time since he'd opened this bottle without every sip being charged with guilt or fear of Olivia's silent judgment.

He gripped the neck of the bottle in his palm and heard the first splash against his now-empty glass, only to recoil and set it back on the counter with a small thud. Surely there was nothing wrong with a nightcap, especially after the week he'd just had? Olivia wasn't lurking in his kitchen any longer - what reason did he have to hold back?

He'd impulsively stopped by the liquor store all those weeks ago and bought this very bottle to numb the quiet agony of looking into Olivia's eyes and seeing everything that he'd aspired to but just couldn't be, but now he'd gotten rid of that very problem.

He didn't need this drink. Maybe he didn't want it either.

And so he capped the bottle and stowed it in its cabinet, just a few inches further from the light than before, the aftertaste on his lips suddenly hedonistic and gratuitous.

Rafael turned the TV off and the apartment plunged back into silence, but he slept well knowing that it was one of healing and not hurt, finally.


Olivia quickly learned that television was the easiest way to fill the silence.

As a beat cop she'd patrolled the annual Macy's 4th of July Spectacular, catching glimpses of the performers between careful surveys of people clamouring for a better view of the river, and even sneaking in a couple of blurry photos of the fireworks with the disposable camera a former flame had gifted her earlier that summer. Then she'd moved to Special Victims and traded that blue uniform for a blazer and slacks and patrol shifts for interrogations, but her soft spot for the festivities had endured, and that was how she'd ended up sitting alone in her living room, nursing a cup of coffee she knew it was far too late in the day to consume, sounds from the TV special blaring through the speakers to mask the almost debilitating silence that'd festered over the last two days.

I can't be around you, Liv.

Six words she couldn't stop her mind from returning to as she dusted every inch of her house with a vengeance when she woke up the next morning or made dinner for one. It was in his icy, hardened tone that she'd seen the Rafael Barba she'd once known finally return, except that the scathing remark had been directed at her, not the perp he was cross-examining.

You're the problem. You're the reason I can't move on.

And if those six words had been his cross-examination, these ten were the sentence.

She could recall every step she'd taken between the living room couch and his front door, hiding her shaking legs and pausing only to pick her car keys from the counter, although she'd dragged her heels for just a fraction of a second longer than usual - a silent invitation for Rafael to stop her in her tracks and take everything back.

He didn't.

All she'd left him with was a final look into his piercing green eyes, making no attempt to conceal how profoundly wounded those ten words had left her, before disappearing into the safety of the car she'd spent all afternoon anxiously circling his apartment complex in.

Olivia didn't cry that night. She'd collapsed into bed, too exhausted to make sense of her own crushing devastation, until she'd woken up after a few hours of restless slumber to an empty bed and uncharacteristically cold sheets. She'd prepared two cups of coffee on instinct and found herself pouring the spare down the kitchen sink minutes later. She neatly folded the T-shirt he'd left behind on a previous visit, on the off-chance that he'd text and ask for it, although she knew better than to give herself false hope.

Still, Olivia didn't cry that afternoon, or the next. She drove to Whole Foods and replenished her supply of lettuce and bread, throwing in a pint of ice cream for good measure. Then she'd cleaned every inch of her apartment, dusting and vacuuming until it was virtually spotless - symbolic of the clean slate this was meant to feel like.

Except that she couldn't seem to exorcise the ghost of Rafael Barba from these four walls, his voice echoing even over the whir of her coffee machine or gush of the shower jet; his weary figure hunched over a copy of the Washington Post on the living room couch. She changed the sheets that bore traces of his scent; she sprayed so much Febreze in the air that any last trace of Terre D'Hermes was replaced by cloyingly sweet vanilla, but could still feel his warm breath on her ear as she tossed and turned in bed, hand grazing over his now-cold pillow.

Maybe she was nostalgic for a time - a person - that simply didn't exist any longer.

The Empire State Building glimmered behind Miranda Lambert as she crooned an upbeat country-rock number that Olivia couldn't care much for, but she turned up the volume anyway, before her train of thought could drown out the spectacle on her screen. God damn, she couldn't tell if it was the festive atmosphere or the events of the last two days that made the Manhattan skyline look especially dazzling tonight - more salt in her wound.

If this were New York, she and Rafael would be back in their offices butting heads within days, allowing the intricacies of the case to smooth over the lingering personal tension between them, until they'd find themselves at Forlini's a couple of weeks later chatting like they hadn't traded barbs at all. Maybe they'd even end up in bed at the end of the evening, content in the knowledge that the solution to every bump in their relationship was swerving deftly around it and not thinking about it at all. Except that New York now existed only on screens, they'd lost the infallible glue holding them together that was their jobs, and Olivia just knew that she was going to be thinking a lot about this in the weeks - or God forbid, months - to come.

Fireworks exploded over the Brooklyn Bridge, bathing the city skyline (and Olivia's screen) in colour, but Olivia's back was turned to the screen as she trudged to the bathroom and promptly found herself staring at the crimson stain on her sweatpants that she now realised was responsible for the persistent discomfort she'd felt all day.

Wasn't this exactly what she'd wanted? What was it she'd told Rafael two nights ago, hours after staring at the single line on that white plastic stick? God help me if it was positive, because we can't do this? This was unequivocal confirmation that all the fears that she'd entertained during those five arduous minutes crouched on her bathroom floor had been unfounded after all. She wasn't pregnant - and now she knew it for sure.

Maybe it was her much-needed sign that this situation she'd gotten herself into with Rafael - now a thorny mass she couldn't even define clearly anymore - was well and truly over.

Olivia begrudgingly abandoned her plans for an early night and stood over her sink, furiously scrubbing away at those Old Navy sweatpants she'd bought on a trip to the mall with Rafael back when nothing could put a dent in their relationship, every forceful stroke a release of the pent-up emotion she'd kept trapped in her chest those two days in solitude.

You're the problem. She'd done nothing to deserve this cruelty from him. God forbid she actually try to do something with her life without waiting for the inevitable explosion of tension between them.

You're the reason I can't move on. All she'd tried to do was help Rafael - and now she was being punished for it. Had he ever thought about just how deeply his emotions could wound her too? Was he really blaming her for digging the emotional pit he'd fallen into?

I can't be around you, Liv. How had they fallen so far that it was as though the mere sight of her physically repulsed him?

You're the problem.

He'd gotten what he wanted. She - the problem - was gone, and she hoped he regretted it.

If that was what he'd needed all along, she only wished he'd have told her earlier, before he'd made that fucking reckless decision to drive all the way to goddamn Hoboken to sightsee, while she'd spent the day in her parked car, agonising over whether the sex trafficking ring that'd put them in this plight in the first place had gotten to him. It was bad enough that he'd actually made the two hundred miles to New Jersey. Even worse was the sobering realisation that she'd driven him to do that - and he certainly hadn't hesitated to make that known to her two nights ago.

By the time she'd wrung those ruined sweatpants dry and hung them on her towel rack, a threadbare patch of fabric had taken the place of the offending stain, and Olivia crashed onto her bed with red-hot anger coursing through her veins. How dare he look at her as an enemy when all she'd done was try to get him back on his feet. How dare he shut her out, after all they'd been through toget-

No.

That epiphany washed over her like a spell.

She wasn't going to let Rafael Barba - or Marquez, whoever he was - wear her down like that.

You're the one choosing to make me your problem. If he didn't want her to care, she wasn't going to. She was going to give him exactly what he wanted.

You don't have to let my emotions affect you. She wasn't going to, because her new life - one that she'd built independently of him, whether or not she'd realised it at the time - was awaiting, and the last thing that she needed was afternoons in a new office wondering if Rafael had snuck off to Hoboken or done something utterly reckless yet again.

She'd looked him in the eye two nights ago and told him that she wasn't going to feel guilty for forging ahead - and that was exactly what she was going to hold herself to. It wasn't her job to fix someone who simply didn't want to be fixed. She had better things to do than this; heck, she was better than this.

It didn't matter that sadness and hurt still managed to creep into her chest while making the twenty steps between her bathroom and bed, because the small - but nonetheless powerful - burst of determination she felt soothed the residual pain. Since when had she been the kind to wallow in self-pity? That simply wasn't in Olivia Benson or Olivia Davis' nature - and she was going to prove that to herself.

She was going to focus on herself from here on - her new job, her new life. One without Rafael.

That was the mantra she repeated in her head as she switched off her lamp and shifted across the bed to occupy some of the space where Rafael's body had once laid. She hugged one of her spare pillows to her chest, glad that the fresh sheets had purged the final traces of his familiar scent from her bed, only to kick it to the ground two minutes later when it started feeling oppressive against her chest.

She'd given herself two days to mourn that loss. Now it was time to exorcise the ghost of Rafael Barba from this apartment.

She was going to focus on herself from here on, because she saw no other option. Why hang on so tightly to something - someone - she just couldn't control?

Surely it was far from being a bad option.


July 11th 2014

The first thing Rafael did when he reached for his phone took him by surprise.

His eyes still bleary from slumber, he'd somehow mustered a burst of Sunday morning courage to click on the Bank of America app instead of his usual Washington Post update and made it past the login screen for the first time in a fortnight - and he was confronting his bank balance. Rafael's first instinct was to heave a sigh of relief when his quick mental calculations assured him that he wasn't anywhere close to living in poverty, even after all the reckless spending of the last few weeks, but only one thing felt right when he caught sight of the pile of Nordstrom bags on the floor.

That was how he ended up at the mall later that afternoon, unloading the bags from the trunk of his car in exchange for reassurance from the sales clerk that the balance would be refunded to his card in a matter of days. He shrugged off that bout of buyer's remorse as little more than an attempt to clear the clutter on his bedroom floor (something he'd absolutely detested back in New York) and spent the rest of the day getting lost in a copy of Mrs Dalloway at the Barnes & Noble Starbucks.

Still, seeing the now-empty spot on the carpet by the foot of his bed - and the few hundred dollars that returned to his bank balance the next day - made him feel lighter.

Two days later, Rafael had been standing on his balcony and looking out at the Georgetown Prep golf course, hand absent-mindedly reaching for his pack of cigarettes on the ledge, only to open it and find that it was empty.

There was more than enough time for him to stroll to the nearest 7-11 and get himself a new pack before dinnertime, he convinced himself, until the sun dipped below the horizon and he realised only while ordering pho on Postmates that he'd never made that trip. He'd shrugged that off as a by-product of his summer indolence and completely forgotten about the empty pack until he opened his trash can later that night and caught a glimpse of the discarded box, which promptly got buried under his empty take-out containers.

Still, falling asleep that night without even an ounce of nicotine in his veins made him feel strangely victorious - a euphoria he'd nearly forgotten - and with that came the same lightness he'd felt handing the bags back to the Nordstrom clerk. It was a lightness that even nicotine couldn't give him.

(He wondered what Olivia would think.)

(He immediately buried that thought.)

Then there was Wednesday evening, when it hit him in full force that it'd been a week since he'd last seen or heard from Olivia, and he found himself crouching by the cabinet door where he'd stashed that bottle of Macallan, his fingers lightly tracing the rim, but stopping just short of gripping it in his palm.

No, he didn't need this. It would have been easy for him to pour himself just half a glass as a nightcap to accompany the copy of Love in a Time of Cholera he'd just started re-reading, but he didn't need alcohol on his breath tonight.

Maybe he didn't need alcohol at all.

And that was where the bottle stayed, because he didn't need scotch for the quiet buzz that'd seemed to have crept into every crevice of his mind and this apartment - the same buzz that roused him from slumber well-rested and made him think for just a second longer before he slapped his Visa down on the counter for another purchase at Nordstrom. He didn't need to run to 7-11 for cigarettes to take the edge off his most destructive emotions, because he'd been unshackled from them when she'd walked out his door that night. He didn't need to seek solace in guilty pleasures, because he no longer had to lie to himself - or Olivia - that he was alright.

One week. Just one week without Olivia, and he felt like he had space to breathe again.

He wasn't as broken as he thought he was. Things were looking up for him; all he'd done was remove the poisonous root and choose to focus on himself.

Sweat dripped from Rafael's forehead as his feet pounded the pavement, the Friday morning heat searing his skin but his strides assertive and confident. His first time running since the few times he'd ventured out on Olivia's persuasion, only for him to get left in the dust - this time, he stared down an empty pavement, the freedom to run at his own pace intoxicating enough for him to push through the exhaustion that was starting to creep into his heaving chest. There was no more shadow to follow; no more silent comparisons.

It didn't matter if the burn in his calves was absolutely hellish or the sun scorched the back of his neck, because he ran knowing that he'd made the decision to get off the couch and pull on his barely-used running shoes. It was what he wanted; his choice.

He needed this - this feeling of control that'd slipped right out of his grip the night Olivia had first told him she was going to start looking for a job; maybe even the night he'd woken up in that hospital bed without realising he'd started the timer on his last few hours in New York.

As Rafael paused by a stoplight to tie his shoelace, he could have sworn that he saw Olivia's Ford Focus pass him on Rockville Pike, but didn't turn back for a second look.


When Olivia woke up that morning and heard a muffled bang on the other side of the wall, she had the distinct feeling that her television wasn't to be the only thing filling the silence of her apartment in the weeks to come.

She'd asked her cantankerous building superintendent about it a couple of weeks ago: why the light never seemed to be turned on in the apartment next to hers, despite the obvious signs of life that were the custom sign on the front door and the mail she'd continued to receive, to which he'd mumbled something about the tenant travelling in Europe for the last few months, and continued tinkering with the building intercom. Olivia didn't even know why she'd asked in the first place - since when did she pay any heed to her neighbours back in New York, despite living in the same apartment complex for nearly ten years at one point?

But this wasn't New York; this was Maryland, and if that unmistakable bang was indicative of another human being on the other side of her bedroom wall, she was at least going to try acting like Olivia Davis and casting the person a cursory smile if they ever bumped into each other in the hallway. After all, it was high time that someone came along to disturb the almost unearthly silence that'd hung over her apartment all through the past week - an omnipresent reminder of just how drastically different an existence without Rafael was.

It ended up being far more than a cursory smile when Olivia slipped out her front door an hour later and locked eyes with a well-dressed, statuesque woman, probably around her age, who was turning a key in the lock of the apartment next to hers.

"You must be the new tenant," the woman spoke first, her chestnut brown waves falling effortlessly over her shoulders and Olivia just making out hints of a European accent - British? German?

"I am." Olivia smiled. "Moved in about three months ago."

"Ah, Cedric told me when I got back last night that someone new to town had moved in! Sorry we didn't get to meet earlier - I was back home in Switzerland. I'm Emilie, by the way," she explained with a smile, a hand outstretched.

That explains the accent, Olivia thought. "I'm Olivia. It's nice to meet you."

A new neighbour - one that she actually could say she'd talked to for longer than ten seconds. The cop in Olivia instantly took notice of her immaculate work attire and make-up, nary a sign of jet-lag in her blue eyes; perhaps a seasoned traveller in a cushy corporate job downtown, although Olivia didn't bristle in the same way she did when she encountered one of those nasty, unscrupulous Wall Street types. Three months ago this interaction would have made the New Yorker in her profoundly uncomfortable, but now the knowledge that she had a neighbour - one she actually knew by name and seemed decently friendly - was far from unwelcome.

Maybe this was a step in the right direction.

After all, Olivia realised with a sinking feeling (one that she quickly bit back), she probably was going to need someone else to talk to if this cold war between her and Rafael was going to rage on indefinitely.

(She hoped it wasn't, but couldn't seem to eject that possibility from her mind.)

"I have to drive to work now, but I'll see you around?" Emilie suggested as she fished a business card from her purse. "Knock if you need anything! It was so nice meeting you, Olivia."

"Nice meeting you too. See you around," Olivia replied politely, and inspected the crisp white card in her palm as Emilie's heels click-clacked down the hallway.

Embassy of Switzerland in the United States of America. That explained a lot. She was a diplomat - definitely the kind of person Rafael rubbed shoulders with far more often than she did.

(She wished he'd been around to meet her too - or maybe not.)

The cynic in Olivia wanted to write that conversation off as nothing more than just an exchange of pleasantries, but what use did she have for cynicism when she could use a new friend, especially in light of the circumstances? Perhaps it'd been far too long since she'd contemplated the prospect of making an actual friend who didn't also happen to be a face she saw at work every single day, and that was something that Olivia Davis now could do that Olivia Benson had never quite succeeded at.

Perhaps this was a sign that things were picking up for her.

In any case, that brief interaction was the first time in days she'd felt this much adrenaline course through her, and she was going to hold on tightly to that modicum of hope after what'd been a week of languid, melancholic silence in an empty apartment, wondering how she and Rafael were going to come back from this - if they ever were.

After all, she'd vowed to focus on herself. Why let him continue to hang a cloud over her?

When Olivia emerged through the glass doors of the Pike & Rose Starbucks ten minutes later, she instantly felt her spirits lift a notch further when Nguyen excitedly waved her over to their secluded corner table, her smile just a touch more exuberant than usual. "Congratulations on the job! I was so delighted when I saw your message," she greeted cheerfully.

"Thank you," Olivia beamed as she slid into the seat opposite Nguyen, although she promptly forced herself not to think about the cost - and not just to herself - of all that hard work.

"I was surprised when you told me that you start on Monday," the marshal remarked as she slid an iced latte across the table. "How are you feeling about it?"

"Great, actually," Olivia replied, feeling her confidence swell as those words slipped out of her mouth. "It's been a great couple of months of rest, but I think I'm ready to actually get out of the house and do something again."

(It beat sitting at home and wondering how Rafael was doing.)

(But she knew that even the distraction of work wouldn't stop her from wondering.)

"I'm glad you're looking forward to it! And that's actually why I wanted to meet you today, before all your weekdays disappear," she replied with a light chuckle, although her voice immediately dipped a semitone as she pulled up a folder on her iPad. "Work's going to be quite a big change, Olivia, and I just wanted to make sure that you're mentally prepared for it."

"Ah, I thought that you'd want to talk about that," Olivia shrugged nonchalantly, although the sheer length of that iPad document was unnerving. She'd already gone over this in her head from the moment she'd received the call telling her she'd gotten the job, but what had she missed?

Nguyen leaned in, extra cautious about being overheard although the music and roar of the coffee machine easily drowned them both out. "Have you met any of your new coworkers? What's your feel of the place?"

"I toured the office that day and talked with my manager over the phone yesterday. Quite a change, I'll admit, but it's nothing I can't handle," Olivia explained, hoping that her confidence wasn't just a facade. "I thought it'd be nice to work someplace where I'm not one of the two women in the room, you know?"

"I did my own background checks on the charity when you told me you'd made it to the interview stage, and it seems like a great fit for you." However, Nguyen hesitated slightly before continuing, "I'm confident that you'll handle your responsibilities just fine since it's in the same realm as your previous work, but more concerned with how you're going to interact with your co-workers who won't be privy to your actual past."

Olivia furrowed her brows between sips of coffee. "I know - I'll be around new people all day and will need to maintain my cover," she remarked. "It's not something I haven't thought about."

Nguyen nodded cursorily, but didn't take her eyes off the array of notes she'd taken on her iPad - particularly, one note with Olivia Davis - Biographyin bold right at the top of the page. "When you work in an organisation that's so small and close-knit, it's much likelier that you - and your identity - will be placed under close scrutiny, compared to a big organisation where anonymity is relatively easier. In that light..." she started as she quickly scrolled through her notes.

Olivia's mouth suddenly felt dry. "What do I need to know?"

"You've spent the vast majority of your time either alone or with Rafael over the last three months, so you haven't really had your alias… tested in social situations outside of transient interactions. Work means that you'll be spending seven to eight hours a day in close confines with brand-new people who'll be eager to get to know as much as they can about you, and some of them will probably end up becoming your friends - maybe even your close friends."

Only then did Olivia's palms start to feel slightly clammy - whether from the condensation on the outside of the cup or her nerves, she didn't know, but one glance at the extremely detailed profile of Olivia Davis that Nguyen had pulled up on the screen made her wonder just how much of the fiction she'd created in the clearinghouse she'd already forgotten. Portland, her life of activism, the University of Oregon, she certainly remembered clearly from her time spent "rehearsing" parts of her persona before the interview - but what about the smallest of details that could easily do her in?

Seven to eight hours a day. Those kinds of hours were a luxury compared to the 12-hour shifts she regularly pulled, but Nguyen was right - it'd been too long since she'd last been confined to an office without the promise of a new case to get her out of her seat, and she was going to have to convince everyone around her that she was the Olivia Davis that her manager and HR had seen only in glimpses, after weeks being the Olivia Benson she'd always been behind closed doors.

Before she'd left the house she'd wondered how much she truly needed this meeting. It was becoming clear that she absolutely did.

"I brought print-outs of what we talked about in the clearinghouse for you to study over the weekend. I'd suggest looking at them closely and memorising as much of them as you can - don't bring them to work with you, of course." Nguyen slid a nondescript brown envelope across the table, and Olivia tucked it into her purse with a hand that trembled ever-so-slightly seeing its imposing mass. "Think of it as going undercover again - I know Dean Porter, and I'm sure he trained you well."

Persephone. Of course. She'd done this before; even lived with the people she was investigating and never once broke cover - surely she could do it again? Surely the one summer she'd spent in Portland was a much better start than having to speak of a city she'd never even stepped foot in?

"You're already more equipped than most of the people we relocate by virtue of the work you used to do," Nguyen promptly added when she noticed Olivia's uneasy frown. "Give yourself some time to settle in and be extra cautious in the first few days and weeks - you should be fine after that."

"Any tips on being "cautious"?" Olivia couldn't help but ask. She'd take any advice she could.

"When you're engrossed in a task or distracted, it's easy to make small slips - things like mentioning what you used to do at your previous job, or little things where you used to live. It also happens in casual conversation, especially when you're trying to build rapport with new people or fit into a social group, because it's natural for you to want to share things about yourself that could potentially blow your cover. Conversation topics that aren't specific to your old identity, like music or movies, may be easier before you get settled."

Olivia nodded thoughtfully. She'd certainly brushed up on her movie trivia after sitting through Rafael's movie marathons - although she now had to keep her focus on the trivia and not the feeling of Rafael's hand resting on her thigh…

(God damn it.)

Nguyen continued without missing a beat, impervious to Olivia's momentary distraction. "Don't rush into conversations in the first few days; always think over your answers when you're talking to someone new, and things should get better once you know better who you can trust. And don't be afraid to shift the topic of focus back to the person you're talking to if you feel uncomfortable - more often than not, they'll be more than happy to talk about themselves and take some heat off you. Look, I don't want to scare you - I've seen and heard of plenty of other witnesses who've managed to build meaningful friendships with the new people they've met, and it may take some time and extra effort, but it's certainly possible," Nguyen smiled reassuringly. "And if it's something you can't handle, you always have the option to withdraw and back away."

Those were almost identical to the tips that Dean Porter had given her back in the day, only that this wasn't an assignment with an end date in sight. Things should get better once you know better who you can trust - perhaps there still was a place for Olivia Benson to live on. It was a comforting thought.

"Anyway, work isn't the only place you can meet new people," Nguyen pointed out. "There are hobby groups, gyms, volunteer work, your neighbours…"

"Ah, that reminds me," Olivia interjected. "I just met my new neighbour today. She seems nice."

Perfect timing - almost eerily perfect, in fact. Was this a sign? Despite not having much to go on, Olivia was feeling strangely optimistic.

"Strike up some friendly conversation with her; try a little socialising as Olivia Davis if you can this weekend," Nguyen suggested. "That could be a great way to test the waters."

"Sounds good." Olivia was surprised that she didn't feel more trepidation despite the lingering weight of Nguyen's barrage of advice. Finally talking to people without worrying that she'd inadvertently unlock trapped insecurity or step on a landmine - she could use some casual conversation after spending all week replaying that last exchange with Rafael in her head in the silence of her apartment.

"Don't forget to be kind to yourself, Olivia," Nguyen added. "This is a huge change for anyone, let alone someone in your situation, and it's going to take some time for you to feel fully at ease."

Be kind to yourself. That was something she could afford - especially with the Rafael-sized hole she was trying to pretend didn't exist.

Olivia ran a finger down the edge of the brown envelope wedged in her purse, its weight now slightly less imposing than before, and nodded silently. Just like being Persephone James, she reminded herself. Just like Persephone. Undercover work had always been a strength of hers - even Cragen and Elliot used to joke that she'd make a brilliant actress in another life. Surely she could get through the work day in one piece.

"Of course, you have Rafael here with you. A support system can be greatly helpful," Nguyen added casually as she polished off the last of her latte, to which Olivia immediately grimaced.

"About that…" Olivia stammered, unsure of whether or not to divulge that seismic change to her. God, the way the topic had slipped out of Nguyen's mouth so effortlessly was a glaring reminder of just how much things had changed in little over a week, and she could feel her cheeks flush - whether with anxiety or embarrassment, she didn't know.

But what reason did she have to hold back anymore, when he'd basically exiled her from his life without even a hint as to the end date of this cold war?

Nguyen's tone changed immediately when she sensed Olivia's trepidation. "Oh dear. Did something happen? How is he doing?"

"I really don't know," Olivia replied tentatively.

"You haven't talked to him in a while?" Nguyen frowned.

"We've not talked for over a week," she admitted after a long pause - why had that week felt like an eternity? "We fell out."

We fell out because he ignored my calls and disappeared to drive to fucking Hoboken, Olivia almost wished she could admit, but stopped herself even before she'd finished entertaining that thought. She didn't want to imagine the potential consequences of Rafael disobeying the marshals' direct orders - probably a rebuke at best, probably relocation at worst. The very thought of relocation made her pulse accelerate, and so she kept her lips shut.

"I was hoping the situation between you two had improved. Talking about it didn't help?"

Olivia shook her head defeatedly. "I think I just made the situation worse, actually. He's in a bad place now."

The rational side of her knew better than to hold herself responsible for a wealth of emotion that she had no way of controlling, but even those bursts of rationality didn't stop her from replaying the most devastating line in their final conversation on loop when the silence in her apartment reached a fever pitch.

You're the problem. You're the reason I can't move on.

Even worse was Rafael's scorned, eviscerating gaze, which just couldn't seem to escape her head when she shut her eyes at the end of the day.

Nguyen shut her iPad, and Olivia didn't miss her look of genuine concern. "If you don't mind me asking, how did things get this bad?"

"The same problem I talked about the last time - we've been on different paths lately and he didn't take things well. We ended up arguing about it the last time we talked. I think he needs some space to figure himself out before we talk again, because he doesn't want my help now."

She'd summarised the last few weeks in three sentences, but words weren't quite enough to capture the anguish she'd only just begun to feel in full force since she'd walked out his apartment door that night. Rafael was a completely different person now - one that Olivia didn't quite know how to handle - and she wondered just how long he'd take to "figure himself out"; that is, if he ever did.

She'd summarised the last few weeks as though they'd been just a temporary bump in their otherwise seamless relationship - one that some soul-searching alone would almost definitely remedy. She hoped it'd be enough, but that still left her - them - suspended without a light at the end of the tunnel, and that made Olivia feel far more uneasy than she'd expected.

And that uneasiness was how she'd ended up providing Nguyen with an almost blow-by-blow account of their blistering final exchange (omitting the trip to Hoboken, of course), Nguyen pausing only to take the occasional note on her iPad - for what purpose, she didn't know, but the sheer respite she got from getting it all off her chest, especially before Monday, was enough for her to put aside any residual doubt she had about admitting this to the marshals. If the situation had gotten this out of hand, perhaps it was time for her to turn it over to someone who was bound to have ways to actually help him - hopefully not before it was too late and he pulled another Hoboken-level stunt.

Maybe a part of focusing on herself was wiping the slate clean.

"... And that was it. I left his place that night, and we haven't talked at all since."

God, re-living the tension of that evening made her feel like she'd just returned from a 5-mile run, and Olivia instinctively took a massive sip of her now watered-down latte to quench her parched throat.

At least she'd done it before Monday.

"Goodness," Nguyen remarked, her facial expression mildly horrified. "You've cut off contact completely?"

"Well, neither of us has tried. I haven't heard from him at all since."

Nine days. She hadn't meant to keep count, but nine days was the longest she'd ever gone without talking to Rafael since the day they'd just met in 60 Centre Street. Never had they clashed so bitterly that it seemed as though all channels of communication between them had been severed.

Maybe she could press Nguyen or Blake to talk to Rafael and get a much-needed update from him - anything to make sure that he was alive, healthy, and not driving 200 miles northbound. Had he finally taken the past week to figure himself out? Or had he fallen even deeper into his slump? Would he even tell the marshals if he was struggling, especially when he'd made it clear that he and Blake weren't quite a match made in heaven?

No, not this again.

Why was this so easy to forget?

What happened to focusing on herself? She had so much else to devote her attention to - her new job, her new life. One without Rafael. One that Nguyen had prepared her well for, and one that she was going to excel at, with or without Rafael by her side.

Olivia suddenly straightened in her seat, determination creeping into her voice. "I might as well use this time to make sure I get settled into my job without distractions," she changed the subject. "Focus on myself more…"

How much did she truly want that?

Did she want to give him space, or did she desperately want to check up on him? Did she want both? It made her head spin.

No, she was better than wandering down this train of thought yet again. If only her mind would stop straying to last week's heated exchange.

Why was she still making Rafael's problems her own? Nguyen had called for this very meeting to tell her that now was a time to be cautious, where one slip could jeopardise the identity she'd worked so hard to build. The last thing she needed was to be distracted by Rafael Barba (or Marquez) at a time like this.

"I think that's a good idea. But I'm sorry to hear about Rafael, Olivia. I'll ask Blake to talk to him when they meet next week. I've worked with witnesses who've had significant difficulty adjusting to their new surroundings - perhaps I can help."

"Hopefully he isn't too stubborn to accept any help from both of you," she muttered.

"We'll try our best - don't worry too much about him," Nguyen promised. "In the meantime, you have work to look forward to on Monday!"

That was the jolt back to the present she needed. "You're right."

Nearly three months of waiting had finally become just three days, and it was in that moment, sitting across from Nguyen at that Starbucks corner table, that she resolved to put everything with Rafael behind her and forge ahead with her life. No more running over their final exchange in her bed or allowing herself to wonder how he was doing - she'd done that for a week too long already.

She deserved better than his scorn and cruelty. She wasn't about to squander this job opportunity - one that truly ushered in a fresh start for her.

The ghost of Rafael Barba wasn't going to follow her out of this Starbucks.


One of Fin's primary motivations for taking the sergeant's exam was being able to permanently excuse himself from nighttime stake-outs, where only stale bodega coffee, greasy sandwiches, and the temptation of slumber beckoned.

Unfortunately, the next exam sitting was two months away, which meant that he was confined to an unmarked car on a deserted residential street with only Nick Amaro for company for at least the next two hours. Fin hadn't protested the assignment when Cragen had sent them on their way with the keys and a wad of bills for dinner from a nearby bodega; Amanda had already pulled two consecutive graveyard shifts, and Frannie was not taking well to nights alone. But with a new detective still elusive in light of departmental cutbacks, that left him in the awkward position of spending alone time with the detective whose new side mission sometimes overshadowed his actual work.

Since that night in Forlini's three weeks ago when Brian Cassidy had shown up without warning to announce that he and Nick had teamed up to probe into Olivia's mysterious assassination, the light banter that Fin had once traded with the junior detective had seemingly disappeared from the squad room, replaced by brooding looks from across the table or cursory, stilted greetings. Neither discussed the subject, but Fin knew from the way that Nick had eyed him at the bar that night that his slip-up had aroused his suspicion.

Witness protection. Fin couldn't believe he hadn't caught himself before that term into the conversation and inadvertently fuelling the fire after months of keeping it well under wraps. He'd already been called into the office of a furious Cragen, who wanted to know why two of his detectives - one current and one former - had decided to show up unannounced at the US Marshals' office downtown to probe into a drive-by shooting in April in Chelsea.

"Can you please sit down with Amaro and talk some sense into him? There are open cases that we need to chase leads on now - and I can't afford to have one of my detectives distracted by a fishing expedition," Cragen had asked Fin in frustration when he'd received that email from an old friend doing some investigative work for the Feds. "I know we all have our… suspicions, but now's not the time."

The way that Cragen had lingered on that word made Fin furrow his brow almost imperceptibly, but all he did was nod silently and slip out the door without another word.

Now Fin and Nick were sitting in silence in this car, the summer heat simmering and humidity swelling. The only sounds were the bites they took from their bodega sandwiches, and the elephant in the room (car) still hanging heavy over them after weeks of evading the topic.

"So… you and Cassidy."

There was no use beating around the bush any longer - not when they knew the exact reason things between them had soured of late.

"What?" Nick murmured between bites of his sandwich, his demeanour unflappable as always, although the way he deftly avoided eye contact was telling in itself.

"You know Cragen's not happy that you've been distracted," Fin pointed out flatly. "Rollins and I shouldn't have to pick up your slack."

"When did you become a model employee, Fin?" Nick retorted.

"I'm not showing up at the US Marshals' office asking about a federal case we're not supposed to be investigating."

Nick ignored that statement. Damn Cragen for telling him about that visit. "If you know something about Liv that you're not telling me, Fin…"

Fin kept his gaze trained on the radio on the dashboard, his steady voice hiding his growing unease. "I don't know why you've assumed that I'm hiding something from you."

He knew exactly why, but that was the last thing he was going to admit to Nick - especially when he'd formed an alliance with a man who certainly was not over Olivia Benson.

"Witness protection. That's a very specific term," Nick pointed out sharply, the exchange in Forlini's clearly still fresh in his mind.

"It's just a theory. Back in the day, our ADA went into witness protection for a few years because the Colombian mob was after her," Fin explained nonchalantly, grateful that Alex Cabot had popped into his head in the nick of time. "The circumstances were similar enough that I couldn't help but remember it."

Nick swallowed the lump that'd formed in his throat, and Fin could almost see the wheels in his head turn - hopefully regret for ever being suspicious of him in the first place, even though he had to admit that it was somewhat justified.

"Even if Liv and Barba are in witness protection somewhere, digging around isn't going to bring them back, Nick. They'd be safer this way," Fin added, this time more gently.

"But don't you want to at least know if she and Barba are alive?" he insisted.

"I'm sure we all do, Nick," Fin sighed - not with the weight of that loss, but with the weight of the secret that was coming dangerously close to being exposed.

The grave silence that suddenly hung over them both was a clear signal that this conversation was over.

Their suspect still nowhere in sight, Fin and Nick balled up their empty sandwich bags and settled into their seats in anticipation of a long night ahead, until Fin's cell phone, which until then had been resting on the dashboard, lit up with a message that Fin instantly regretted not disabling notifications for.

Hey Fin, how are you doing? Want to catch up this week?

He grabbed his phone and deleted the notification before Nick could see that the message was from Rita Calhoun - or that she'd addressed him by his first name. God damn, he thought this secret would only get easier to keep over time, but the fight that Nick and Brian Cassidy were putting up was doing the exact opposite, and he did not like how carefully he had to tread around them.

He made a mental note to text Rita back only when he was in the privacy of his own apartment.

Fin snuck a furtive glance at his temporary partner in the rear-view mirror and was relieved to see him deep in thought - he probably hadn't even noticed the message on Fin's phone, and the less Nick Amaro knew or wondered about this, the better.

What Fin didn't realise, however, was that Nick was wondering exactly what reason Rita Calhoun would have to text Fin for what looked like something distinctly unrelated to work.


July 18th 2014

"What happened to Blake?"

Rafael couldn't say that he was displeased when Nguyen had texted him that morning to say that she was taking Blake's place at their afternoon meeting. Based on how well Olivia got along with Nguyen, he was at least somewhat optimistic that she would be more agreeable than the surly Blake, whose relationship with Rafael hadn't improved significantly in the over two months since they'd left the clearinghouse.

"Sorry about the last-minute change," Nguyen explained apologetically. "Blake threw out his back during a training exercise, so he's taken some time off."

"Ah, I see," Rafael shrugged. "Sorry to hear about that."

"Don't worry, he passed me all his notes and I managed to have a look. So, let's get right to it - how have you been?"

Rafael bristled. "You know, I never really know how to answer that question."

In New York, how are you was the kind of pleasantry Rafael wouldn't give a second thought to before murmuring a brief "fine", but even the most innocuous of questions had a way of becoming charged with uncertainty in unfamiliar circumstances. Maybe it was his easy way of hiding the fact that he simply didn't have a straightforward answer to that deceptively simple question - one that the marshals would approve of, at least.

"I'll rephrase that," she suggested immediately when she sensed his discomfort. "What's happened in the last few weeks?"

He bit back a snarky comment about how she sounded exactly like a lawyer. "Not much, honestly. Lots of reading; cleaning the apartment. Managed to get out of the house for a run a few times this week."

"That sounds great," she replied between notes. "Anything else happened?"

"No, I don't think so."

"Are you sure? Anything noteworthy?" she asked, one eyebrow raised.

She cast him a knowing look from across the table, and it was then that he made the connection. Of course Olivia had brought it up. There was no running from her, was there?

"What did Olivia tell you?" he asked suspiciously.

"It doesn't matter what she told me. I want to hear from you," Nguyen pressed gently.

Only after a long pause did he break the silence. "We aren't talking at the moment. I last saw her more than two weeks ago," Rafael explained matter-of-factly.

"What happened?"

He folded his arms defensively - the same move he always pulled when his conversations with Blake started to go south, even though Nguyen hadn't orchestrated that plunge quite as quickly. "I don't think it's something you need to hear about."

She ignored his remark. "Did you two have an argument about something?"

He finally was starting to understand why Olivia and Nguyen got along so well. Everything about her screamed "therapist" - those concerned but non-judgmental eyes, her attentive body language, that calm and measured tone…

"I'm here to listen, Rafael."

She definitely screamed "therapist".

He wasn't going to cave that easily - not to another marshal who probably was going to pass along some scathing notes to Blake to peruse while he nursed his sore back. "We just decided that we needed some space from each other and left it at that," he explained quickly, hoping it would suffice and he could get out of here sooner than later. "I decided that I needed some space from her and left it at that," he amended.

Nguyen nodded thoughtfully, and Rafael wondered what Olivia had told her about their friction. "What precipitated that decision? Especially since you two have weathered many of these changes together."

"Just because we weathered them together doesn't mean we're on the same page about them."

It was almost an understatement after how viciously they'd argued that night.

"Can you tell me more about that?" she asked calmly.

Rafael shifted uncomfortably in his seat, but didn't let that growing unease creep into his terse response. "She wanted to forge ahead and find a new job; I wanted to embrace my sabbatical from work and take things easy."

"I understand that desire - especially when you were in such a high-stress job. How's this break going for you?"

"Alright, I guess," he shrugged. "It took some acclimation, but I'm glad for the time off."

She didn't skip a beat. "How did Olivia feel about that? You said that you two aren't - or weren't - on the same page."

God, he actually was starting to feel like he was at therapy.

The air-conditioning in this Starbucks was unreasonably cold, but he could still feel his palms grow clammy. "She actually was the one who suggested I was burnt out and needed some time off, but I suppose that she thought my break was too long."

"Was that what led to you arguing that night two weeks ago? This break you're on, while she finished up her job search?"

"Again - I don't think it's something you need to hear about," he repeated, this time slightly more firmly, although he could feel some of his resolve unravel in the face of Nguyen's determined questioning.

He'd blocked that conversation from his memory as much as possible over the last two weeks. Usually, a good book worked; something with dense, intricate prose like Ulysses or an elaborate plot a la whatever Marquez book tickled his fancy. When that failed, there was always the TV - he'd spent a good part of a day re-watching Inception and excavating every detail - or a run around the neighbourhood until his calf muscles burned.

You're the problem. You're the reason I can't move on. The devastation in her eyes as she closed the door to his apartment. Those were the most vivid details he had left - details he thought he could live with replaying every once in a while.

Now he was starting to question that.

The iPad that Nguyen was holding remained closed, her tone still calm and judgment-free. "This is off the record, Rafael. I won't pass anything on to Blake unless it's absolutely necessary. But I do want to hear your side of the story."

And just like that, the last of Rafael's defences crumbled.

With a deep sigh, his mind wandered back to that evening, and the hazy, tumultuous days that'd preceded it. "I don't know where Olivia and I are now. Actually… I don't know where I am with her right now."

"That night was just the culmination of everything that's happened between us in the past month. I know she's not happy with the way I've dealt with all these changes," he explained, not bothering to go over the details that Olivia had probably already explained to Nguyen. "And she's probably right, honestly."

He didn't know where that afterthought had come from.

God, how had things come to this? How had he been so reduced to a shell of his former self that he'd let his walls crumble so quickly?

Maybe this - being here, talking about it - was a mistake.

Things had been going well for him in the last couple of weeks - that alcohol untouched, cigarettes unreplenished, jogs invigorating, Olivia absent… There was no reason for him to open the floodgates again. Why risk unravelling the slow but steady progress he'd made with his own life to let those incredibly distracting brown eyes fill his head once more?

God damn, she still had that power over him, even when they hadn't been in the same room for sixteen days.

Sixteen days. He hadn't meant to keep count, but nine days was the longest he'd ever gone without talking to Olivia since the day they'd just met in 60 Centre Street. Sixteen days without Olivia Benson and he still found himself distracted by her. Would this ever change?

Nguyen didn't puncture the silence as he lingered on that thought, that iPad still untouched as she leaned in attentively. The roar of the coffee machine and cheerful conversation in the background felt a million miles away, his coffee and croissant tasteless in his mouth. Sixteen days without Olivia Benson and he still found himself distracted by her. Maybe this would never change - and maybe this was why he was compelled to bare his soul to the one bridge between them.

And that was exactly what he decided to do.

"I can't be around her now - I've lost enough objectivity as it is. I know everything I've felt about her has been irrational; poisonous, even. Even I don't know how I could possibly feel so envious and resentful of someone who's been nothing but supportive and patient. It's better for the both of us that we keep our distance while I figure things out."

The last sentence came out far more shakily than he'd expected it to.

(Maybe it was a sign.)

"I need time to decide what I want to do - something to plug this void I'm still feeling after all this time. And she doesn't need me to weigh her down."

Nguyen finally chimed in after a long, contemplative pause, silently processing that deluge of emotion. "Thanks for telling me all of that, Rafael."

Three months of talking to Blake and he'd never opened up like this. One meeting with Nguyen and his heart was bleeding all over the floor, god damn it.

(He was starting to think that it wasn't just Nguyen's pseudo-therapist persona that was responsible for that.)

"You and Olivia haven't talked in over two weeks now. Have you been able to figure things out? Or have you started trying to figure things out?"

"Maybe? Somewhat. I've been trying to build a routine again - waking up earlier, eating better, exercising… I don't know if that counts," he said tentatively.

"What is it that you want to figure out, exactly?"

He opened his mouth to answer that question, only to realise that he didn't have a response to it. What was missing from his life - the one thing that was keeping him from truly finding happiness while on this break and settling into Bethesda? What exactly was he seeking? Why didn't he know?

The epiphany washed over him like a spell a few seconds later.

"I need a sense of purpose. Something to make me tick." Rafael took a swig from his coffee cup and allowed the caffeine to bring his mind into clarity with every passing second. "I miss the intellectual challenge - and the excitement - of my old job. And I think it's time I find that again."

He couldn't believe how long it'd taken for him to arrive at this almost blindingly obvious conclusion. Reading could only do so much to fill that void; that craving for an intellectual challenge he could sink his teeth into. He needed something new to make him feel on fire.

(Could that something be a new job?)

"You know what you need. That's always a good start," Nguyen smiled.

"I'm surprised it took me so long," he remarked in genuine awe.

"Let's put it this way - it's testament to how helpful this break has been for you," she pointed out.

"That's true." Rafael could feel some of his confidence return. He'd absolutely needed this break - but now he also had a light at the end of the tunnel.

"I know you didn't quite like what Blake had to offer, Rafael, but I certainly can try to point you in a different direction. Do you want that?"

"I would, actually," he said on instinct, surprising even himself with his keenness. "I would," he repeated, this time more emphatically.

"That's fantastic," Nguyen beamed. "We can talk more about that, and I'll see how I can best support you."

He'd entered this Starbucks expecting nothing more than a brief catch-up before driving straight back home to finish the rest of Ulysses; instead, they spent the good part of an hour going over what he wanted to embark on next, Rafael smiling to himself when they finally discussed the job search without him involuntarily squirming in his seat. For the first time since they'd arrived in Bethesda, he finally saw something on the horizon beyond the next week, tantalisingly close to the sense of purpose he'd so badly craved all this time.

"How about we meet again next week to talk more about this?" Nguyen suggested as they packed up to leave.

"Sure," he smiled.

"I think Olivia would be very proud of you if she were here, Rafael," she added. "She's worried about you, but I promised her that we'd sit down and talk about everything that's been going on. And now we have a solid plan."

She's worried about you. He'd always known that, but something about Nguyen's use of the present tense struck him instantly.

She's worried about you. Two weeks ago he'd seen only condescension in Olivia's concern. Maybe he'd simply blinded himself to everything else that it was.

Nguyen's tone was relaxed; casual even, but that didn't diminish the impact of that first sentence on him. I think Olivia would be very proud of you.

The very fact that he craved just that - Olivia's pride in him - was perhaps the clearest sign he'd gotten all day.

Rafael opted for a leisurely drive back home, ignoring the GPS-suggested shortest route to bask in the sights and sounds of North Bethesda for just a few minutes longer before starting on his pasta for dinner. He wound down his windows and let the balmy afternoon breeze flow through his car, inhaling the fresher air deeply - a crispness that wasn't easy to come by in New York. Why had he so stubbornly hung onto his cynicism around suburbia and closed his eyes to just how alive it could make him feel?

Maybe it wasn't a mistake after all, letting the last of his defences crumble like that. The residual weight on his chest had all but disappeared. This was exactly what he hoped he'd get out of this time of solitude, and finally, it felt within his grasp.

He didn't realise that he'd turned onto the street where Olivia's apartment complex was until he passed the familiar white building - his first time coming face-to-face with it in weeks. Rafael instinctively scanned the parking lot for Olivia's Ford Focus, only to find her assigned space empty.

Work. She'd probably started by now. Maybe it'd be his turn soon enough - and he no longer was repulsed by the idea.

He wondered if she would be proud of him.

He wondered how she was doing.

It would be easy enough for him to grab his cell phone and call her right now, but that could wait - not when it was precisely the space that'd formed between them that had ushered in his turn to savour a sense of accomplishment, at long last.


When Alex Cabot re-appeared in New York after being released from WITSEC custody, she'd been reticent about the three years she'd spent in rural Ohio. It was perfectly justified, Olivia and the rest of the squad had thought - hence everyone worked hard to help Alex fall right back into her New York routine like she'd never even left, painting over that three-year gap with a deluge of new cases and careful dances around the events that had transpired in the ADA's absence. Only once had Alex let slip a WITSEC memory over coffee with Olivia one afternoon, nearly five years after stepping foot into Manhattan again.

"It wasn't like I didn't have friends at work; I had Dan…" She'd bristled at the mention of her one-time fiance. "... But I was lonely. All the time."

Before Olivia could ask Alex to elaborate, she'd deftly shifted the topic of conversation to something more relevant to the courthouse across the street, and Olivia had forgotten about that afternoon - until tonight. Sleep should have come easy at the end of that arduously long week, but Olivia tossed and turned in her bed for hours, even the cool blast of the A/C providing little respite from the sticky, clammy heat that refused to leave her skin.

Five days at her new job. That was all it had taken for her to feel this bone-weary; this enervated. Yet it was a different kind from the exhaustion that she felt after chasing some perp down a crowded New York sidewalk or rushed road trip to Attica, where it'd take no longer than a minute for her to drift into slumber when her head hit the pillow. This was the kind of exhaustion that sent her mind into a frenzy, the events of the past week an incoherent blur and refusing to let her exhausted limbs find rest.

Maybe the subtle pain in her lower back was a sign that she wasn't cut out for office life - five days in a chair behind a desk, without the possibility of being summoned to a crime scene at a moment's notice. The dull ache in the lower half of her face was a reminder that the friendly, open facade she'd spent all week cultivating was precisely that - a facade. Just like the way she'd started signing Olivia B- on a document from HR before she'd caught herself and promptly dropped that pen onto the desk like it physically repulsed her.

It'd been nearly two months since she'd last slipped. She stared at that print-out for an inordinate amount of time, silently admonishing herself for coming this close on her third day working at this charity. And now, lying alone in bed as the minutes ticked by arduously, Olivia couldn't shake the sinking feeling that this was a change far, far more trying than she'd expected.

I was lonely. All the time.

The one thing that Alex had told her about WITSEC was becoming achingly true. She was lonely.

It wasn't like the faces she was growing to recognise were unkind or unwelcoming - in fact, she'd been welcomed to her new office with open arms and even hugs. There was the fresh-out-of-college receptionist who'd left fun-size Mars bars on everyone's desks to combat Monday blues; the HR manager who'd first called Olivia with the good news and welcomed her to the office with an unexpected hug; sagacious and insightful Eleanor, who was one of the handful of female commanding officers (bosses - she had to remember that she wasn't a cop anymore) Olivia had worked under. Gone was that undertone of passive-aggressiveness that she'd detected between Nick and Amanda in a past life, or Fin and Elliot in an even more distant life, or the raucous banter between the unis that had a way of creeping into their squad room. This was precisely the women-centric space Olivia had told Nguyen she was looking forward to, yet her feelings of apprehension only grew walking through the glass doors each morning.

Was it complacency? She'd spent the last few weeks being the object of Rafael's jealousy and not-so-silent resentment for making things look easy - the applying for jobs, getting along with Nguyen, actually enjoying life here; you make it look easy kind of "easy", where every obstacle was effortlessly scaled and negative emotion promptly destroyed before it could chip away at the steely determination that she didn't have to spend much time searching for. At least, that was what he saw when he looked at her - and perhaps she'd started to actually believe it.

She'd spent those weeks trying to talk him out of that funk, but maybe was only really just starting to understand exactly what it felt like: that fish-out-of-water feeling as she sat behind a desk and typed away at documents in a language she had to convince herself she was more than fluent in, or the omnipresent worry that Olivia Davis would fall apart with just the slip of a pen or her tongue.

Was it just first week jitters? She could barely remember her first week as a beat cop twenty years ago, although she'd probably spent those hours cruising around in a squad car with Patrick Griffin, laughing and revelling in her gratitude for such a gentle and good-natured first partner. It didn't help that she now was at her desk in that open-concept office all day, the women around her almost too good-natured for Olivia to feel at ease, and the conspicuous absence of a police radio to fill awkward silences with strings of commands. Twenty years in the NYPD and she'd left them all behind to start all over again in a new city, in a job she'd never done before - surely an especially nasty case of first-week jitters was completely justified.

Nguyen had prepared her for precisely this: these feelings were only her natural response to being thrown right back into a 9-5 job, except that this was no ordinary job - this was a 9-5 she'd have to assimilate right into with a resume that wasn't truly her own, while fully becoming Olivia Davis after three months of doing so only in intermittent bursts when she'd been with Rafael. She'd resorted to framing a small photo of Portland on her desk, one of the few souvenirs from her time undercover that'd survived all these years, as a reminder that Olivia Davis was the person she now was, and that she wasn't just a character she was going to play for a summer.

But all the mental preparation wasn't enough to prepare her for the mental gymnastics she'd dragged herself through all week: pauses before she launched into any conversation about her previous job experience, gripping the pen just an ounce tighter and hesitating just before signing any official document, even innocuous small talk with the other women on her lunch break more stressful than leisurely. Evenings were spent looking over her "resume", rehearsing details of her backstory in her head with Nguyen's neatly typed documents, or Googling whatever she could about Portland on the off-chance that it came up in conversation (which it did), until she fell asleep, mind heavy with tidbits of information that never quite felt like a coherent whole - akin to just how fragmented she was realising Olivia Davis really was.

It didn't matter that she was surrounded by people all day. She hadn't realised how profoundly lonely she was.

Olivia crawled out of bed and stumbled to the kitchen in the half-darkness, hopeful that a mug of chamomile tea would lull her into slumber, and stood over the kettle with bleary eyes. Even the wine that she'd drunk over dinner with Emilie hadn't quite helped - a surefire sign of the enormity of the issues weighing on her mind.

Maybe that was why her exhaustion was this overwhelming. She'd almost forgotten about dinner.

It wasn't like she hadn't enjoyed herself, or wasn't grateful to have found a new friend just a couple of weeks after Rafael's sudden disappearance. In fact, it was almost uncanny how naturally they got along, the crisp inflexions of Emilie's Cambridge University-honedaccent and stories about growing up in Geneva an actually surprisingly pleasant distraction from the weight of everything else going on.

Best of all, she'd never been anywhere near Portland before.

When Emilie had first tabled the idea of dinner while they were waiting for the elevator on Tuesday morning, Olivia had agreed far more quickly than she'd expected herself to. Perhaps it was because all the little conversations they'd had in the hallway since the first time they'd bumped into each other had convinced her that this woman would probably make a trustworthy friend, and Olivia had accepted that she was going to have to talk to someone who wasn't Rafael or one of the marshals eventually. And so she found herself in an apartment almost identical to her own on this Friday night, trying raclette cheese melted with a small metal contraption Emilie had brought back from her recent vacation in Switzerland and silently reminding herself to let her hair down and embrace some spontaneity.

Unfortunately, spontaneity was precisely the problem.

How was spontaneity even possible when all Olivia was doing was think? Thinking about her alias, thinking about catching herself before she inadvertently let slip that she was a cop and New Yorker in a past life, thinking about how to match Emilie's off-the-cuff, candid anecdotes with some of her own… Nguyen had explicitly warned her to be cautious, but "caution" felt artificial; deceitful, even.

"So, Olivia, where are you from?" she'd asked not long after Olivia had rung the doorbell.

"N-... Portland."

A near-miss, this early in the conversation - thankfully, Emilie had been too engrossed slicing the bread to notice that slip-up.

"You probably get nice weather there. What brings you to D.C.?"

"Just wanted a change of scenery. Big city, but without as much hustle and bustle, you know."

It was the exact response she'd rehearsed with Nguyen in the clearinghouse and again under her breath on the way to work each morning, but there was a difference between repeating it to a US marshal or the baristas she knew would be little more than acquaintances, and to a person she wanted to see as a friend. This wasn't just a transient interaction while Allison brewed her morning coffee - she lived next door to Emilie, and dinner was much, much more than just a two-minute exchange about Georgetown Law School or the shop's new custom coffee blends.

How was she supposed to make any real friends (who weren't Rafael) when there were always going to be parts of herself - huge parts, in fact - that she was going to have to hold back; when every conversation was a calculated, deliberate performance of the alias that was Olivia Davis? How could she build a real friendship on random facts that she could rehearse in the mirror?

Rafael had been on to something when he'd expressed his fears about this exact issue in the clearinghouse, back when the only person she could see herself spending extended periods with was him. Now their text exchange was frozen in time, her anxious messages from the day he'd disappeared to Hoboken a stinging reminder of the night it all imploded, and a stern warning to back away from him.

Olivia stretched her aching back as she sipped the last of her tea in the half-darkness, and settled back into her empty bed, the tangled mass that was her pillows and duvet doing little to take her mind off the one person she wished she could fall back right into the arms of. Was he the remedy to her loneliness? Her phone rested on the nightstand, its metal exterior glinting in the moonlight, and never had the temptation to dial his number felt stronger.

She'd forbidden this thought from crossing her mind all week, but with exhaustion enveloping her, the last of her defences crumbled. She missed Rafael Barba. She missed his forehead pressed to hers; the thousands of words they could exchange in a single look, because he knew her better than anyone else did. There were no pretences; no choreographed performances with him - she could just be.

What if she got in her car, drove straight to his apartment complex, and knocked on the door?

Her rational side immediately resisted. No, why would she? Why was she throwing in the towel after just a week back at work? Why rashly leave her apartment at 2am when the far more reasonable course of action was to do exactly what Nguyen had told her to do - be kind to herself - and wake up rested in the morning, ready to face another week?

She'd survived much, much worse in the last two years alone. She was made of stronger stuff than a 2am call to a person who probably wanted nothing to do with her. After all, this was just a phase, wasn't it? Something that she'd get over in due time?

(Did Rafael tell himself that all those weeks he'd battled those destructive emotions?)

(If it hadn't been enough for him, would it be enough for her?)

Olivia buried her arm under her pillow and cocooned herself in her sheets, although they were little more than an inferior substitute for a hand affectionately grazing hers or arm around her back. She briefly wondered about the look he'd wear on his face opening his door to her at this hour, hair tousled from slumber and bleary green eyes still seeing right through her.

She missed Rafael Barba.

No, she couldn't let herself go down that path - not when she'd already exorcised his ghost from these four walls.

She missed Rafael Barba.

No, this was exactly what she had told herself not to do.

Those thoughts warred in her mind until sleep overtook her, although the last thing she felt was the fleeting apparition of his breath on her neck, and she drifted into slumber with the ghost of Rafael Barba haunting the room.


July 25th 2014

For the first time in weeks, Rafael was reading something that wasn't the Washington Post or a novel from his collection.

Instead, he'd made himself comfortable at his usual table at the Barnes & Noble Starbucks, politely exchanging a nod with the barista who now recognised him, and opened the zip file of articles and links that Nguyen had emailed him the evening before. Alternative Careers for Lawyers. A few weeks ago these words would have unnerved him, but today he barely hesitated as he clicked on the PDF.

Was this what a sense of purpose felt like? Whatever it was, it felt like hope - and the options on his screen were far from repulsive. Mediation. Public relations: the career he and Blake had created for his alias, but was a tantalisingly real possibility. Education, just like his mother and abuelita. Management consulting, even? He chuckled to himself. But one truth revealed itself to Rafael as he made his way through the document - all he needed was an intellectual challenge; something that would make him tick again.

Maybe, just maybe, he didn't have to be a lawyer to find one.

The thought left him almost as quickly as it'd popped into his head, but only after he'd finished scanning that PDF did he realise just how consequential it was. It was all he'd struggled against since first arriving in this town, and he was ready to put down his armour. Was it really this simple? One conversation with Nguyen, and the burden he'd been carrying around had so suddenly disappeared?

Now he truly understood why Olivia paid an arm and leg to see Dr Lindstrom.

He wondered what she would think if she could see him now, the cloud of doubt hanging over him vanished and finally embarking on the life he'd - they'd - aspired to. Finally, he'd clambered over the mental block that'd been plaguing him - and hurting her.

The residual guilt made him shrink into his seat.

You're the problem. You're the reason I can't move on. The devastation in her eyes as she closed the door to his apartment. They still were alive in his memory, no matter how hard he tried to bury them.

He'd needed this break, of course - this distance from Olivia had only done him good. But did he have to cut her out that viciously; that cruelly? He forced his eyes shut for a second, the pain in her eyes that evening so visceral it made him physically uncomfortable just remembering that look.

Was it time for him to rebuild the bridge he'd torched that night?

Would Olivia even want to look him in the eye after what'd transpired between them that evening? Did she want him back in his life after he'd done nothing but wreak havoc on the peace they were enjoying; after he'd unfairly made her the target of his resentment and envy? In all likelihood, she was settling well into her new job and carving out a new life that didn't include him - the last thing she needed now was for him to show up at her doorstep with an apology and plea of forgiveness, especially not after all the chances she'd graciously extended to him and he'd squandered.

But more when envy breeds unkind division:

There comes the ruin, there begins confusion.

King Henry IV was the one Shakespeare play he knew the least, yet those lines had stubbornly imprinted themselves in his mind since sorting his book collection three days ago. Were the ruins he'd left behind so irreparable that he and Olivia would never come back from this?

Rafael hadn't intended to take this route home, but found himself slowing to a crawl outside Olivia's apartment complex, her parking space empty and windows shut. Perhaps it was his subconscious craving her brown eyes raking over him; her soft skin against his and lilting voice in his ears. He briefly wondered about the look she'd wear on her face opening her door to him at the end of the workday, Ann Taylor dress hugging her curves and skin luminescent in the evening sun.

Did he miss Olivia Benson?

Did he deserve her anymore?

Determination surged through him when he finally tore his eyes from the familiar white building and made the last turn home. He had to be more patient than this. He was going to fully crawl out of the pit he'd been languishing in and face Olivia again when she could no longer see traces of the broken, utterly defeated person he'd been the last month - one that even he couldn't recognise.

Hopefully, she'd take him back.

Before he could be Rafael Marquez, he had to find Rafael Barba again, but he had the distinct feeling that he was on the right track at long last, after months of aimless wandering.


All through the day, Olivia was determined to find an excuse not to do it.

She drummed her fingers against the table in her morning meeting and then the lunch break she took at her desk, willing herself to chip away at the mostly blank Word document she'd had open all day but typing at a snail's pace as the hours ticked by.

No, she couldn't do this, she reprimanded herself when she was tempted to whip her phone out of her pocket and check Google Maps. It was too dangerous; in fact, it was downright foolish.

You cannot, at any point, re-establish contact with anyone from your past life while in WITSEC.

She and the marshals had gone to such great lengths to expunge Olivia Benson from existence - so why was she flirting with doing the exact opposite?

There could be serious, even fatal, consequences for doing so.

No, she couldn't do this, she repeated in her head all afternoon long, the words on her desktop screen blurring into one another. She'd leave work as late as possible and drive straight home for take-out, wine and a trashy movie - all options markedly free of mortal danger. Tomorrow she'd go for a run; perhaps finally check out that Korean tofu stew place she'd had saved on her phone for weeks but hadn't yet gotten down to trying. There were many, many things she could do to fill her time and the increasingly oppressive lonely void, she told herself - options markedly less reckless than crossing state lines to do something she'd been expressly forbidden from doing.

Then the building superintendent barged into the office at 4pm to announce that everyone had to clear out within the hour for the maintenance crew to do routine A/C maintenance, and Olivia was on her feet and behind the wheel within minutes, her loneliness overriding rationality.

There were numerous opportunities on that 1.5-hour drive for Olivia to come to her senses, turn back, and pretend she'd never even entertained this idea, but it was quickly dawning upon her that this was the most lucid and clear-headed she'd been in weeks. Was this what Rafael had felt speeding along the I-95 towards Hoboken all those weeks ago; this almost dizzyingly forceful yearning for a part of his old self that nothing in Bethesda seemed to fulfil?

Was it her turn to feel the exact same way; so emboldened by the void in her mind that Nguyen and Blake's stern words departed her mind?

(Perhaps it was her turn to wilfully ignore them.)

The irony of the fact that she'd reprimanded Rafael for doing this wasn't lost on her as she handed a wad of bills to the cashier in a Walmart in West Virginia, a Nokia 3310 and prepaid SIM card in hand. It continued stabbing away at her when she found herself in an Internet cafe a few miles away, activating that SIM card with the burner email she'd created solely for that purpose, head down and hair just concealing her eyes as she anxiously awaited for those five bars to appear at the corner of the tiny screen.

The Nokia remained buried at the bottom of her purse until she parked her car in the empty Barnes & Noble parking lot, the small, plasticky device almost oppressively heavy in her palm. Ten digits; just ten digits and she'd hear a familiar voice on the other end of the line to take her out of the weariness that came with being Olivia Davis and remind her that she'd been, and maybe still was, Olivia Benson.

Olivia tentatively lingered over the keys, which felt foreign and almost alienating under her touch screen-accustomed fingers. Call the precinct? It was Friday night - had the new captain, whoever they were, changed the on-call roster since she'd left? Dial a personal number instead? Was that too risky? Was there a less risky option?

Then again, why was she worrying about risk only now, when she'd already spent nearly three hours on the road in search of the lifeline she was clutching in her hand?

She took a deep breath, furtively scanning the room to make sure that her doors and windows were locked shut, and dialled the first three numbers.

212…

Shit. What came next?

Surely she hadn't already forgotten the number she could recite in her sleep for the last ten years?

212…

She'd lost track of the number of times she'd dialled this very number from memory - why couldn't she remember the fourth digit?

212…

Olivia forced her eyes shut and furiously attempted to shut down the rest of her thoughts. Muscle memory. Muscle memory had to kick in, somehow - her silent assurance that she still had pieces of Olivia Benson left to her.

She finally hit "Call" on the ten digits she fervently hoped were right, each ring almost agonisingly long, until she heard a breath on the other end of the line and realised that her heart was thumping wildly in her chest.

Then the voice spoke, and she felt her hair stand on end.

"Hello?"