XIII:

Olivia stirred and Rafael pressed a kiss to her hand. "Rafa?" she croaked.

"Shh, mi amor," he murmured. "I'm here. It's all right."

"It isn't," she whispered. "It isn't –"

"Shh…"

"Eva – our little girl, Rafa – oh, god, I'm so sorry –"

"Liv, shh…" Rafael reached up to stroke her hair back and look directly into her eyes. "This was not your fault. I promise. None of this was your fault, mi amor. There is no one to blame."

The single most difficult thing he had ever been forced to do in his life was to not scream when the surgeon had told him that while the surgery had been successful in saving Olivia's life, she would never be able to carry a child to term if she was successful in conceiving again. There had been a lot of medical jargon that had made his eyes glaze over and his brain shut down, but he knew that she would come out of the experience angry with the world.

Hell, now that he had been given a taste of hope and heaven, only to have it snatched away again, he was furiously numb.

But he couldn't be angry with her – never with her. It wasn't her fault.

"Did the doctor tell you what happened?" she asked.

"Only a little," Rafael said. "That you had placental abruption about 12 hours before you delivered Eva and you almost bled out."

"Cragen was here with me," Liv said. "I… I couldn't consent to the surgery on my own because I was dying and he couldn't get ahold of you. Rafa – the look on his face."

Rafael sighed heavily and pressed his forehead against hers. "Olivia, I thought I lost you forever today," he whispered. "Don't ever… please…" He closed his eyes and fought to control his breathing, the panic that still threatened to overwhelm him. "They told me more: that you shouldn't try to carry a baby to term again. That you were already told by your OBGYN that there was only a slim chance that you would be able to conceive and carry a pregnancy to term in the first place. That the surgery today is only a stop-gap measure and if you had been in better shape to consent, they would have asked to do a total hysterectomy to give you quality of life since the scar tissue from your endometriosis has already severely impacted your uterus." He took a deep breath and opened his eyes. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"We just passed six months," she said, hanging her head guiltily, "and I thought we'd be okay – Dr. Glen thought we'd be okay. We were… we were fine, Rafa."

"Until you weren't," he said. "Liv – mi amor – do you understand that your health isn't a game? Endometriosis isn't –"

"It isn't something you can cure, Raf," she huffed.

"No," he agreed. "I might have been googling it while I was waiting for you to wake up." He sat back and ran his hands through his hair, getting frustrated. "Liv… I just don't –"

"Don't leave me," Olivia said in a rushed panic, her hand reaching out to grab his arm in a grip like a vise.

"Don't be ridiculous," Rafael said softly. "I'm not going anywhere."

Her eyes darted around his face, seeming to look for any signs of deception, then she exhaled a brief sigh, and a breathed confession of, "I didn't tell you because I didn't want you to think I was weak."

He bit back a startled laugh. "Weak?" Rafael echoed. "Liv, no one who has ever met you could ever describe you as weak. No one. Dios mio, mi amor, you are the strongest woman – the strongest person – I have ever met in my life. And you don't deserve to suffer in silence when I'm right here to help you carry your burdens. Isn't that part of why we got married?"

She made a face and looked away. "I'm really bad at –"

"We both are," he pointed out with a sigh. "Olivia, I love you. I'm sorry if you thought I would turn tail and run just because you have this condition: it isn't going to happen."

She was frowning and he didn't like it. "Rafael," Olivia began, "I… look, okay…" She drew in a ragged breath. "If you want a divorce, I need to know now. I don't think I can live with pretending everything is going to be okay and then you hit me with that in a few months when you decide that you're so angry about today that you can't stand the sight of me anymore –"

"Liv."

"So if you're going to walk, just do it now."

"I don't want a divorce." He hesitated. "Do you?"

"No." The word was so quiet he almost didn't hear it. "Everyone I've ever loved has either walked away or fucked me over. Except you." She looked up at him, her brow furrowed. "I guess I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop – especially now."

"When I said I wanted to grow old with you, I meant every word of it," Rafael declared. "There's always bad shit that happens, Liv: it's… it's how you overcome the bad shit and keep going that defines your relationship as a couple." He pressed a kiss to her knuckles, then to the inside of her palm, then her wrist, clasping their fingers together. "I want our relationship to be predicated on trust. You can tell me anything, and I'd hope the reverse would be true."

She squeezed his hand, but didn't say anything else.

Rafael looked up to see his assistant in the doorway. "Yes, Carmen?"

"A Detective Amaro from Manhattan SVU is here to see you but he isn't in the appointments – do you want me to tell him…?"

"No, it's fine, just give me a couple minutes to clean up," he said. "We have a case that has possible intersections and I asked Captain Cragen to send someone over," Rafael lied smoothly, shuffling his notes into some semblance of order on his desktop. "I'll provide the coffee and snacks. If the meeting runs too long, I might send you for sandwiches or something, but I don't have anything on my schedule the rest of the afternoon aside from finishing this and heading out."

At the five minute mark, Amaro was shown into his office, and Rafael looked up from his paperwork, smiling tightly. "Detective Amaro, please, come in and have a seat," he invited, gesturing at one of the guest chairs as he stood up. "Can I get you a cup of coffee?"

"Sure… black is fine," Amaro said, draping himself into a chair.

Rafael started up the Keurig and glanced over his shoulder at the younger man. "You're Detective Benson's new partner," he said without preamble. "New being a latent descriptor since it's been several months, but –"

"Yeah," Amaro said. "I saw you on the news this morning. That's how I recognized you: Kings County Executive ADA Rafael Barba."

Rafael paused, his normally unflappable demeanor shaken for just a second. "Yes."

"Liv's on mandatory leave for three more weeks," Amaro said, "but I swing by her apartment every day to bring her lunch."

"You're a good partner to her," Rafael said with a small smile on his lips. "Stabler could never."

"You knew him?"

"I had the unfortunate task of working with him a few times," he acknowledged. "The man was a remnant of a different age of policing – one that Benson hopes to drag the NYPD out of by the short and curlies."

"You seem to know Liv pretty well," Amaro said, inclining his head as Rafael passed him the coffee mug. "Baby daddy?"

Rafael hesitated again, then took a deep breath. "Off the record?"

"I want to help her," Amaro said.

The concern on the other man's face secured Rafael's trust in a moment. "Husband," he acknowledged. "It isn't common knowledge. We've disclosed but there isn't a big… hoopla about it."

"Seriously? Benson is married?"

"Yes." The word was clipped, taut, frustrated. Why did no one ever just believe them when they disclosed the fact, even when their marriage license was right in front of them? It was absurd.

"How long?"

"Three years, almost four." Rafael sighed. "Eventually, we're going to have to do something about the living situation or the jobs or something – maybe I'll run for DA. It would look good to have Liv on my arm for the campaign…"

Amaro chuckled. "She's not exactly a trophy wife, Barba."

Rafael's lips twitched into a smirk. "Oh, believe me, I know. This is me not complaining."

The amusement faded from Amaro's face and he cleared his throat. "So, ah, mainly, I came to find out what your intentions were toward Olivia… because she's been pretty down the last couple of days. And if you were being a prick to her, I was going to kick your ass."

Rafael stared at him for a long moment and said, "You're no Stabler."

"What's he got to do with anything?"

"He was verbally and sometimes physically abusive to her sexual partners, which is why we didn't disclose until after he left the NYPD," Rafael admitted. "Liv was trying to protect me. She doesn't realize that I spent my formative years debating with bullies until my best friends either bribed or beat the living daylights out of them, so I can handle my own. And if she's the prize? I don't even have to fight: I've already won."

Amaro nodded and said, "Well… I mean, I guess I'll just keep checking in on her until she goes back to work."

Rafael sighed and nodded. "I… thank you for being there with her when it happened, Detective. She needed a friend."

Amaro gave him a withering glare. "She needed you."

"I'm going to get it done," Olivia said, putting away the stack of plates in the cupboard.

He frowned. "… I'm a little tired and maybe overwrought since we argued over everything tonight, but to which it are we referring, Liv?" Rafael didn't mean to be obtuse, but it had been a long week on top of a long year where they had been at each other's throats after the loss of their baby.

"I was at the OBGYN today," she said. "The endometriosis is getting worse, and I've been growing uterine tissue as far outside my uterus as my calves and my left shoulder the last few months." She hesitated and looked up at him. "That's why I was having so much pain in my shoulder last week, and those radiating pains down my spine and legs when I have my period. My body is trying to shed all the uterine tissue, but the displaced tissue can't really go anywhere. They can do ablations as outpatient procedures, but it's only temporary and until I just get the hysterectomy and bring the entire process to a screeching halt… I'm going to suffer."

"Olivia –"

"I didn't want to make a unilateral decision –"

"Mi amor, it's your body, your health –"

"And you are my husband: you deserve a say, too," she snapped.

He curled himself around her, holding her close. "I don't want you to suffer," he whispered into her hair. "It really is your choice – god help anyone who tells you what to do with your body, Mrs. Barba."

She smiled a little and murmured, "I asked if we could harvest my eggs… but my ovaries have basically gone to scar tissue now. They think it's very unlikely that there will be any salvageable. So… I don't know. Maybe we'll have to look into fostering or adopting to build our family, Rafa. But I'm not letting you off the hook so easily."

"Wouldn't think you would," he replied, kissing her neck. "Hey?"

"Hmm?"

"I fucking love you, Olivia Benson. You know that, right?" Rafael's voice was soft, gravely. They had been yelling earlier, hurtling around insults and things that really hurt – accusations that were baseless and cruel, but still stuck in the ribs like a knife. It was just an argument that had come out of months of overwork and not enough time together and divorce had been screamed as an option more than once. But it was an empty threat; they both knew it.

"Do you?" she whispered. "It doesn't feel like it a lot of the time. It feels like… like I'm playing second fiddle to your job."

It took all his strength to keep breathing.

"Mi amor –"

"Raf, don't listen to me, I'm just whining," she muttered. "It's fine, I'm fine." She took a deep breath. "Of course I know you love me – and I fucking love you, too."

The smile on her lips didn't reach her eyes.

The pain in his heart compounded a thousandfold.

That was the moment he decided that running for DA could get pushed back another election cycle or two. And that he needed to call in a probably long-forgotten favor.

TBC...