Disclaimer: Lyrics from The Smiths, "Asleep." Characters are not mine.

Authors Note: Forgive any typos. I finished this late. Some editing will be made if errors are caught. Also this particular chapter is dedicated to my mom. February 20, 2015 marks eight years since her death. I love you to the moon and back, Mom.

Sing me to sleep

Sing me to sleep

I'm tired and I

I want to go to bed

You can't sleep anymore because Rafael doesn't. You know he's in pain from the surgery, from where they cut into his nerves and it hurts so much because you can hear him moaning in his sleep. And you can't sleep because you want to take away the pain but you can't. That's one of the hardest things for you - realizing how very, very limited you are against this enemy. Unlike the perps that you can arrest and lock away, this particular perp you can't.

This has been your life for the last several weeks, since the surgery that changed your lives forever. The doctors didn't give him much time to regroup before they dropped the hammer that you had been fearing since you saw that grotesque mass of white on that X-ray. It is cancer and it's bad. They tell you it's advanced and he has maybe until Christmas.

Not much time for so much that needs to be done, needs to be said.

It's funny how in the span of five minutes your life can suddenly change. It's rather like the weather, you suppose, one day it can be brilliant sunshine and everything is perfect. The next day can bring storms that leave devastation in their brief but tumultuous wake. But the world still keeps turning, the flowers are growing, people still chatter, chatter, chatter and no one around you notices that your world is breaking in two.

Noah's started to talk now and he touches your face with his chubby hand, reminding you that he is still there, that they are both still here, and they need you. And you must do what you can to be strong because they both depend on you.

It's so strange, you think, that the man who once had his opponents wincing and trembling in the courtroom, was depending more and more on you to be his strength. His lifeline. Declan Murphy was taking care of your team, you weren't really worried about them. Your day now was taking Rafael back and forth to treatments.

Rafael had decided to try the chemotherapy.

"I want as much time with you and Noah as I can. I'm going to feel like shit, I know that, but if it gives us more time, I'm willing to do it." Because I love you that much and I want to go out fighting.

Neither of you talk about the shadow hovering around you, outside the door, outside the apartment windows. The tree branches rattle against the glass sometimes and since you can't sleep well, you try to imagine that instead of a grim monster waiting to destroy, it's an angel of mercy waiting to end the pain.

The treatments almost do kill him. The robust and healthy man you once knew is gone, in his place is that stranger from that day in the hospital, pale, slight, moving slower and slower these days. His hair has thinned but it's one kind mercy from fate that he hasn't lost it as many people usually do. You want to cry but you don't because you know seeing the pity in the eyes of people who visit already is hard enough on Rafael. He's so proud and he rarely permits people to visit now.

"Liv," he says to you one day, "I can't do this. I can't stand the pity in their eyes. Goddamn, I don't want them to remember me this way."

He wants them to remember him as the barracuda who put Lewis away, the one who had helped save their beloved Sergeant, the snappy, snarky "not MY yacht" ADA that always took on the seemingly unwinnable cases. Let that be their last remembrance of him. He's very insistent on this point so you agree to it.

You explain to your squad (because you still see them from time to time) that he's too ill to see anyone - because that's not really a lie - and apologize.

But they know. Thankfully, they go along with the pretense.

Nick simply grips your hand in his when you stop by. And you're so grateful for him. There's a moment when you come to pick things up when you almost lose it because there's a picture you've forgotten in your office of you and Rafael, in better times. It was when you both had gone out to dinner to his favorite Cuban restaurant and you were glowing, you were so happy.

Those days seem so long ago.

Rafael's strength is fading, quicker than the doctors had thought, because the chemo is really taking a toll. As the days go by, as summer turns into Indian summer, when some of the days are unseasonably warm and the days start getting shorter, you can see him fade day after day. Oh, he's still fighting – he will never stop – but you can see that he's getting tired.

He still has enough strength to play with Noah and to sing him those Spanish lullabies that he loves to sing….Noah loves it when he does that. You can never get him to sleep as quickly as Rafael does. And Noah giggles and laughs when the two of them play together. You watch and store those memories close in your heart.

One night you're lying in bed with him, your arms wrapped around him, his mouth on your skin. Because when you lay together, he always wants to touch you, to feel you, even if he doesn't always have the strength to fuck you senseless. Most nights all you can do is simply lie there with him, because sometimes he needs your help to get to the bathroom.

God, how humiliating that's been for him. To be so dependent on you. And the occasional help of an in-home nurse that helps you when you simply don't have the strength to handle some of his needs. That's been one of the hardest things about this, realizing there are things you cannot do. That you are not superhuman.

But even if he can't fuck you, he'll make love to you with soft caresses and gentle touches that set your skin on fire. He can still use his tongue to make you sing and hum in the soft evening, while the light from the moon dances in your living room. He tells you he adores you and touches you and you fall apart from the beauty and the pain of it.

Because you know it's going to end.

And you have to talk about the end.

So you do.

He tells you he wants to be buried near you. "I know you have a plot, Liv." He smiles tiredly at you in the darkness, your head on his chest, running your fingers along the scars from his surgery. The nerves never repaired properly so he likes it when you rub them, it eases the pain. Because have you ever had your nerves cut and have to have them knit together again?

It is fucking hell on earth.

"I don't want to be buried anywhere near my father. Please." His voice almost breaks and your heart clenches. Even these many years later, Rafael has never forgiven his father. And never will. Some wounds are just too deep, some scars just too raw. In these past months, he was able to reconcile with his mother to some extent - well, they can be civil now. But you don't think he's told her how serious his illness is.

She doesn't care, he said once. She'll know I'm dead when she reads my obituary in the papers.

He doesn't think she deserves to know and that hurts your heart a little but you understand it. Understand the anger and the pain from words spoken in anger and the betrayal from the person who was supposed to protect you, to keep you safe.

He tells you he doesn't want a big funeral. That's not him. No fuss, no bother, that's who he is. "With you I've been content, Liv. With you and Noah. I've not wanted for anything else. You're my familia, my family." You turn your face away to hide the tears that have been building in your heart over the past months. And the guilt is so strong because there have been times when you couldn't stand seeing him suffer, seeing him throw up because the chemo has made him so sick, seeing him hobble just to get from one side of the room to another.

You have actually prayed for this to end and then you felt horrible about it afterwards.

"I know how hard this has been on you." He says quietly. "And, Liv, if there's a God and if He listens to people like me, I ask him every day to end this so you can be happy." You thought he hasn't heard you cry in the deepness of the night but he's not stupid. He knows. He's heard.

"I'm so sorry." You choke out. You know I would give anything to have you here, right?

"Liv," he chuckles breathlessly - he gets winded easily. "I don't blame you for wanting this to be over. God, I want it too." But he looks at you and smiles to ease the sting. "But not because I don't want to be with you. Because I want you free. Because I can't bear to see you hurt."

"Oh, Rafael," that's all you can manage to get out, because your throat is closed from all the unwept tears and the pain.

His hand wipes away the single tear on your face.

"Don't cry for me. I'd rather you remember me laughing. Or cracking this joke…" And he goes on to tell you a joke he had picked up from Amaro. The two of them had made their peace and even had become friends of sort in the last year. Funny how shared fucked up families can bind two people together.

You groan.

"That's horrible, Rafael."

He chuckles. "Blame Amaro for that one."

"Oh, I will."

He gets serious again. "Liv, we both know how this is going to end." He puts a finger against your lips because he knows you want to protest. "Don't mourn for me forever, okay? Promise me that. Promise me that you'll be happy again. Remember Noah. He needs you."

But how can you be happy without him ? Without your constant, your touchstone? That's like asking the world to move on when the sun has gone to sleep forever. It's not possible. But somehow you have to make it possible.

For him.

He pulls you close and you feel how fragile he is. No, it won't be long now. And you ache. Ache with a pain that's dug into the marrow of your bones, into the fiber of your skin. Part of you is leaving and you don't know how to say goodbye.

Because you know he's saying goodbye in the way he knows how.

"Oh, Liv?"

"Yes, Rafael?" The tears you've refused to cry are in your voice and he can hear them. And you're ashamed that he can hear them. Because you've done such a good job of holding them in. You're brave, you're SO brave. You have had to be…for him.

He tilts your face to his and kisses you.

"It's never goodbye. It's just until I see you again. Live for me. Live for Noah. Promise me that."

And you do. You don't know how you're going to keep the promise but you say it. Because you want him to have peace of mind. And you're willing to say or do almost anything to give him that. And you kiss him back and in your kiss are all the words you haven't been able to say. But he knows. Oh, he knows.

His eyes are tired, haunted with the shadows of the pain he's been fighting for so long, but he gets the message loud and clear. I love you too, Olivia.

"I promise, Rafael. I promise." You whisper. You can give him that.

You know he's heard because the lines of pain are smoothed away and there's a smile on his face as he falls asleep. Falls asleep holding your hand.

A few days later, he's gone. You come in to give him breakfast, which wasn't much because he hadn't been eating. And he has left without a noise, without disturbing you, which was really so him. And you kneel by his bed and finally you cry. You cry because you miss him, you cry because you love him, and you cry because finally it's over.

Finally, he's at peace.

Sing me to sleep

Sing me to sleep

And then leave me alone

Don't try to wake me in the morning

EPILOGUE

As he had requested, you had him buried in the plot next to yours. It's in the shade of an old oak tree in a small cemetery. The headstone is small, he never wanted anything too elaborate. It's quiet there, and peaceful. You talk to him sometimes and tell him all the things you could never really manage to say when he was alive.

You bring Noah there with you sometimes. He doesn't understand but you want him to remember his Uncle Rafael, the man who had loved him and treated him as if he was his own blood. You tell Noah stories often, but the happy ones. Rafael was very clear on that. Let him remember me with a smile, Liv.

I will always talk to him about you, Rafael. Always.

You gently trace the words carved into the stone.

Rafael Barba, rest in peace.

And you have to smile at the line written below: "Death had to take him sleeping, for if he had been awake, there would have been a fight."

Rafael would have been amused and pleased at that. Because he always had been a fighter. Even until the end.

You note the flowers and tributes around the grave. People make sure this grave is well-tended and honored and you are touched.

You were so loved, Rafael. So very loved. I hope you know that.

Noah's getting a little fussy so it's time to go. As you walk back to your car, Noah in your arms, you turn around one more time and look back at the small grave beneath the tree.

I love you, Rafael Barba. Remember me where you are.

You look at Noah who squeals with laughter, pulling at your hair. And you smile.

See, Rafael? I'm keeping my promise to you.