XXIII:

Liv came out of the bathroom, toweling off her hair. "We had a live one today," she murmured. "How was your day?"

"Frustrating," Rafael muttered, glancing up at her over the top of his glasses from where he was studying his files on the bed. "Didn't help I had to leave early to take abuelita to therapy because mami had to go to a rally for Alejandro Muñoz. Do I need to worry about what I'm walking into tomorrow –"

"No, McCoy is kicking it to Gifford," she replied with a sigh, dropping her towel in the hamper and coming over to join him on the bed. "Something about wanting you to concentrate on some other cases for a while –"

"Yeah, we've got a few things in review that he needs a honed eye on," he said. "Nothing you need to be worried about, but it means I won't necessarily be neck deep in SVU cases for a bit."

"Right," she murmured. "So… I'll need an actual reason to come see you."

"Mi amor, you can come see me for any reason," he replied with a chuckle. "It's your squad that needs to watch the favor-mongering."

"If I pass my sergeant's exam, they won't be my squad anymore," she lamented softly. "They'll transfer me. It's just the way it is."

"You don't know that." He made a couple more notes in the file, then closed it and put away his work for the night. "Are you really worried about that, Liv?"

"SVU has been my life for so long, I just… I don't know what I'll do without it," she confessed.

"Maybe Cragen will fight to keep you there."

She shrugged and sighed. "I don't even know if I'll pass. I'm taking it next week, special session."

He nodded. "Do you need help studying?"

"No." Her voice was very small and she looked hopelessly defeated. "Rafa?"

"Hmm?"

"Did I make the wrong choice?"

"I don't follow, baby. What choice?" He reached over and gently rubbed her back, her shoulder, trying to keep her focused, grounded.

"When I decided to become a cop."

"I don't think you did, but… are you second guessing that decision now?"

"I don't know. Maybe. Maybe I always have, somewhere in the back of my head," she admitted. "But if I hadn't been a cop, would I have met you? Would I have been happy? Because whatever else – you make me happy, Rafa."

He paused, hesitated for a moment, then said, "I think we make the decisions that make sense for us at the time."

"Why did you become a lawyer?" she asked, drawing her knees up under her chin and watching him.

He shrugged. "I didn't want to be a lawyer," Rafael said. "I still don't. But to get where I want to be, it's a necessary step in the process."

He remembered the day when he had toured the Bronx Courthouse with his class and met Judge Urthwaithe when he had been eight, and had heard all about the law, the steps of a conducting a trial, and how laws were enforced, and had decided then and there that he wanted to be a judge. The idea of enforcing the laws, of handing down judgments in accordance with the strict letter of the law appealed to him – not the debate, the fury of the nitty gritty, the proving of the case against the accused. He wanted to be out of the fray, but still on the side of the letter of the law. It was a distinction that his young mind had made even then, and still held firm to in his adulthood.

"You want to be a judge." Her tone held no judgment; it was something he had disclosed many times to her, and she had never understood why it was so important to him.

"I do," he said. "I'm tired, Liv. I'm tired of fighting day to day to throw people away – some who deserve it, some who don't, and some who walk away scot-free who deserve it until their last breaths – and they skate away on technicalities." He ran his fingers through his hair. "My father was arrested and tried once, you know. And was released on a technicality. They couldn't prosecute. I was seventeen then; just old enough to get out of the house and stay with my friends until I graduated and went off to Harvard. When I started practicing, I couldn't go in for defense law – not after everything he'd done. Not for all the money in the world, Liv. So I've kept my head down and worked hard to get where I am. And for what? For my mother to call me and tell me I'm a fucking disappointment for not selling my soul for a job."

"What do you mean?" Liv asked softly. "What job?"

He scoffed and shook his head. "It doesn't matter."

"It does if your mom is mad at you –"

"Liv – she's mad at me if I breathe," he pointed out. "I married a white girl instead of a nice Latina, we haven't blessed her with an overabundance of grandchildren, we work too much… Me refusing to work for Alex Muñoz is just the icing on the cake in her eyes."

"Why would a mayoral candidate ask you to work for him?" Liv asked, raising an eyebrow.

Rafael felt a rush of shamed embarrassment creep over him; the pain of going home and finding Alex and Yelina together had been indescribable at the time, and he had cut them out of his life, focusing on his work to the detriment of everything else. Until he had met Olivia. He didn't want to explain how badly he had fucked up his life. He didn't want to tell her that he had once been friends with the man, only to be so badly betrayed that he had turned into a prickly asshole, shutting out everyone.

"We grew up together," he finally settled on saying.

"If any of the people I grew up with asked me to do anything for them, I'd tell them to fuck off," Liv said with a small smile. "No wonder you didn't want to work for him."

He swallowed hard. "I… no, that's – it doesn't matter, Liv. Not anymore." Rafael smiled tightly. It didn't matter: not really. He had Liv, and she was worth a thousand of Yelina: the true test of time was that he had learned what love really meant. Alex could keep Yelina with her overt perfection and her pointed digs; Liv was his complement, the empathy and compassion to his waspish sarcasm and grumpiness. "You know I love you, right?"

"Yeah, I do," she said softly. "What's –"

He sighed and took off his glasses. "I dated Yelina Rodriguez in my senior year of high school. Alex Muñoz decided he wanted her while I was away at Harvard and swept her off her feet. Next thing I know, I'm walking in on my girlfriend getting eaten out by my best friend and Rita's dragging me out of a gay bar before I can get pegged."

Liv's eyebrows shot up. "Oh."

"Yeah, not my finest hour. The pegging thing, I mean. It was ladies' night, in my defense, and I wasn't exactly sober when I stumbled into the bar, so it's not like I was paying attention –"

"Rafa, it's not like I didn't know you swung for both fences," she pointed out gently. "But you didn't mention Muñoz at all. Ever."

"I wouldn't piss on him if he was on fire," Rafael muttered. "To borrow what you said the day we met."

"He really hurt you," she whispered. "They really hurt you." It wasn't a question, it was a certainty, coming from the woman who knew him better than anyone else in the world, and it shamed him to think he could have thought to keep it from her. "Rafael, it's okay – you're only human. I didn't think I was the only person you'd ever loved. I'd be an idiot if I thought that."

"I loved him, too," he said very quietly. "But –" His laugh was bitter when it came, like a bubbling of poison in his throat. "Fuck, what did I know? I was just a kid, Liv. I was a stupid kid. I didn't know what love was then."

"It's okay," she assured him, crawling across the bed, seeking his consent before falling into his arms and holding him close. "I don't think anyone knows for sure what love is – there are so many types and flavors, and none are the same."

"I don't want you to think that I'm going to do something stupid –"

"No, of course not," Liv murmured. "You're just hurting. And he hurt you by offering you the job, didn't he?"

Rafael flinched under her touch. "Fuck his job," he muttered. "Like I'd work under him. What hurts is that mami thinks I'd do it just because Alex crooked his little finger. Like what I'm doing is unimportant."

"Rafael –"

"McCoy is offering me EADA when Alder leaves in May; he's going into private practice," Rafael said. "And the plan is to groom me for the DA run when McCoy retires next cycle."

"Are you ready?" she asked.

He hesitated for a moment, then said, "It's now or never, Liv."

"You didn't answer my question."

"You don't know if you're really ready until you make the move," he said. "I didn't know if I was ready to ask you out until I had done it. I didn't know I was ready to be a father until my chance was gone. I have to try or I'll never know."

"Do you want to be the District Attorney or do you want to be a judge?" she asked.

"I feel like… the way my career has been, I need to be the one before anyone will take me seriously as the other," he said quietly. "I want to be Justice Rafael Barba as much as I want to be your husband, as much as I want to be a father to your children, Olivia… But if that causes me to lose you, or to cause you pain – "

She smiled and put her hand on his cheek, gently caressing it. "You worry too much," she murmured. "I think that if Alejandro Muñoz wants to get himself elected mayor, the least you can do is get yourself elected DA so you can take me out in my heels and gun for social occasions."

He spluttered a laugh. "Detective Benson, you naughty girl."

"I mean, it's only fair," she teased, grinning at him.

"The DA and his sexy cop wife," he chuckled. "Those are some optics –"

"Oh, you can just call me your personal bodyguard," she murmured.

"You wanna guard this body?" he said, gesturing in a self-depricating way.

"Absofuckin'lutely," she said resolutely. "It's getting late, Rafa. Don't you have an early meeting with McCoy?"

He sighed and reached over to turn off the lamp. "Don't remind me."

"Hey," she whispered.

"Hmm?"

"I love you so much, Rafael." She snuggled up against him as they settled under the covers. "Fuck what other people think – they don't matter."

He chuckled and pressed a kiss to the top of her head, glad that she didn't pull away for once.

"You're… serious," Rafael said. It was very difficult not to squeak the last word into a question, but his voice might have lilted that way in sheer panic.

"As a heart attack," Jack McCoy said, leaning back in his chair. "You didn't think I was bringing you on to keep you down like a lap dog forever, did you? Especially after you disclosed your relationship with Detective Benson – you do know I had to grovel to keep the status quo."

"I… had an inkling." He swallowed and ran his fingers through his hair. "Chief Assistant District Attorney, though? That's – that's a hell of a leap, sir."

"Is my faith misplaced that you can manage the circus?"

Rafael hesitated a moment, then said, "No."

"Then what do you say?"

"I say… I'm ready, Jack. Let's do this," Rafael declared firmly, despite the anxiety bubbling low in the pit of his stomach. "But… I reserve the right to try any cases that I see fit personally."

"That's reasonable," McCoy said with a chuckle. "Don't let too many of them be your wife's though. People might talk." He smiled over at Rafael and added, "Speaking of your wife… she's really quite something, Olivia Benson. How ever did you manage to snag her? Wouldn't think you were her type."

"I'm not in lawyer mode all the time, Jack," Rafael said, rolling his eyes. "She hates ADA Barba, loves Rafael with bare feet and messy hair who makes a mean omelet and a meaner cup of coffee."

"I suppose I can see that," McCoy said with a shrug, "but you still don't seem her type."

"We've been married five years," Rafael pointed out. "I'd say I'm exactly her type."

Liv was home before he was; he could tell because the TV was on in the living room, but the lights were out and she was sound asleep on the sofa. He leaned over and pressed a kiss to her forehead before he turned off the Late Show. "Hey, mi amor," he murmured. "Is there anything in the fridge or…?"

"A couple slices from Frankie's," Liv mumbled groggily. "You okay? You didn't answer your phone all day."

"I was in court," he replied. "And meetings. And I've got a lot of shit on my plate in the next few days, so I won't be home much." Rafael studied her and smiled slightly. "I, uh… so, there's a thing at work."

"A thing? Rafi, I'm too tired – you're not making any sense." She blinked tiredly at him, following him to the kitchen, squinting in the bright overhead light as he clicked it on and went in search of the slices of pizza she'd left for him.

"I got promoted," he said. "Chief ADA. So I'm in charge of everything – all the cases, overseeing personnel, assignments, the whole enchilada."

She paused, resting her hands on the countertop, blinking at him in shock. "When – when did this happen?"

"Today. This morning. It's what the meeting was about."

"Holy fuck," Liv said quietly. "That's… that's – Rafa, I'm so proud of you," she whispered.

"You don't have to be," he said.

"But I am, even though it means we won't be working together as much – and we'll see less of each other at home," Liv said. She tried to smile, but it fell flat.

He set aside his pizza and sighed. "Mi amor – we'll find a way to make it work better after a few weeks to get everything settled," he promised. "It'll be chaos at first, but it'll get better."

"I hope so," Liv said. She paused for a moment, then said, "Baby boy Doe was removed from his foster family today. The case worker did a surprise check and found him sitting in a wet diaper that clearly hadn't been changed in hours – and he had fresh bruises all over his body. I went to the hearing. I tried to call you –"

"I was in court," he reminded her gently.

"Yes – I know." She got very quiet again. "Rafa…"

"Cariño, we can't save everyone," he said. "You found him, you protected him, you've done your duty. And now it's up to CFS to do theirs." He reached over and took her hand in his. "I'm sorry, Livvie."

"Me, too," she whispered. "He needs us – Rafa… he needs us."

"He's going to find some perfectly nice parents," he promised. "And everything is going to be fine, Liv."

She sighed heavily and muttered, "Eat your dinner. I'm going to bed."

He watched her leave, feeling strangely bereft like she had sucked all of the air out of the room with her exit. And as the pizza grease congealed on his fingers, Rafael wondered – not for the first time – if he had made more than one error in judgment in the span of his day to bring him to the spot he was in and the potential shitstorm he was embroiled in with his wife.

Because he was pretty certain that she was pissed at him. Again.

TBC...