It had been a long time since Dr. Weslin saw Montserrat peeling at her own skin under her fingernails. She listened attentively while Montserrat explained the reason behind her nervousness today.

"Turns out, my Dad's not available for that dinner so Rafael thought it would be a good idea to switch things around and have me go first and meet his mother." She may have yanked a fleck of skin from her right index fingernail.

"You don't want that?" Weslin asked her, slightly bemused when Montserrat nodded her head quickly.

"I do! Of course I do, I just...I didn't think I would have to go first," she confessed. She had a very different idea of how these meetings would go and it hadn't involved her being the first one to do it. "As far as I've heard, his mother is basically him and we do remember how he and I got along in the beginning…"

Weslin afforded her a small smile. "That relationship certainly got better, as we can see, who's to say that it wouldn't be the same with the mother?"

Montserrat's shoulders rose up awkwardly. She had no idea what to do with herself. "She knows about it, me I meant. She knows that her son is dating someone and...well…" She said nothing more of it, prompting Weslin to gesture her to finish.

"This is a safe place for you, Montserrat," she reminded, once again making a note of how long it'd been since she said those words. Time was, Montserrat used to struggle to speak up. It was curious to see her doing it again.

Montserrat nodded. Of course she knew she was in a safe spot. "Rafael said the last time he brought anyone home was, uh, his long term girlfriend Yelina." The mere mention of that woman's name made her shudder. She hated that woman and it wasn't at all because of jealousy, that was separate. "Their relationship may have ended badly, but it was the longest relationship Rafael ever had and his mother adored that woman. One could even say wedding bells were heard!"

Weslin got the distinct feeling that Montserrat exaggerated that last bit. "But the relationship ended for a reason," she remarked.

Montserrat agreed. "For a very good reason—she left Rafael for his best friend." Anger rose in her chest. That's why she hated Yelina, not because she dated Rafael, but because of how she treated him during their relationship and how she ended it. "She left him—she chose someone else instead of him because that man was supposedly better than him." She laughed sourly. "Boy did she get it wrong. But the point is, Rafael's mother doesn't know how badly that woman treated her son, she doesn't even know how they ended. She's got this idea of that woman and I…" She sighed heavily, letting her hands fall to her lap, though they soon began to wring with each other. "I'm afraid that she won't like me because she always lamented that Yelina left."

"Have you talked about this to Rafael?" Weslin knew the answer before Montserrat shook her head. "Why not?"

"Because I know what he's going to say."

"Really?"

"Yeah, he's going to tell me that it won't happen. I'm taking things out of proportion."

"And do you think he'd have a point?"

Montserrat drummed her fingers over her lap. "He would definitely think so."

"But would you?" Weslin insisted until Montserrat answered the question.

She sighed. "Maybe, possibly, but I can't help what I feel."

Weslin nodded. "That's fair. So how about we find ways to combat that sentiment?" Montserrat made a gesture for her to go on. "You do not like this woman but you seem to want to keep her in the present with you."

"What?" Montserrat nearly screeched. "She's in the past!"

"Yes, she is," Weslin nodded. "And you need to remember that. This relationship is between you and your boyfriend, nobody else. Would he be the type to listen to his mother enough to end the relationship? End the relationship because of his mother's disapproval?"

"No!" Montserrat said automatically, almost laughing at the absurdity. When she realized what she said, how quickly she said, she sighed. Her hand came to rub her forehead. "I know, I heard it," she said when she saw Weslin opening her mouth. "It's just a really important relationship that I cannot lose. I really can't." "It's the first relationship I have after…" she would prefer to leave it unsaid and Weslin would allow her to be, "I never thought that I'd get here again and now that I am, I'm terrified that I'm going to lose it."

"You won't," Weslin assured, "So long as you remain with the truth and logic which is: that no matter what happens, your relationship does not depend on anyone else except for the two people involved."

Montserrat nodded, trying to convince herself that she knew that. Of course she did. "I know," she said. "God, I know, I'm just…"

"Nervous," Weslin finished for her, smiling as Montserrat nodded again. "That's perfectly normal. Very few people don't get nervous. Is your boyfriend nervous meeting your family?"

"Yeah," Montserrat shrugged. "I've had talks with him about it. I try to ease his nerves."

"Consider maybe talking to him about your own nerves," suggested Weslin. "Preferably before the dinner so you're both on the same page."

"That'll be fun," Montserrat swallowed hard. Things were already being set in motion.

~ 0 ~

The same morning that Montserrat walked into the precinct, she bumped into a very shifty brunette woman coming to unfortunately make an accusation. Montserrat quickly shook off her therapy session to switch into detective mode. The woman, Avery, was very easy to guide since she'd already apparently spoken to Liv a few weeks ago.

"Why don't you go and have a seat right there," she. brought the woman into the interrogation room, "And I'll go get Sergeant Benson." Avery nodded dutifully and went for the seat.

Montserrat closed the door and headed for Liv's office. With a gentle knock, she poked her head inside. "Hey Liv?"

Olivia looked up from her paperwork. Her glasses were perched over her nose. "Everything good?" She was aware of Montserrat's late entry and while she never specifically asked how it went, she always made some casual question to remind Montserrat that she was always there.

Montserrat nodded her head. "Yeah, yeah, um...there was this woman I met on the way in. She said she talked to you about 2 weeks ago?" Even without the name, Montserrat saw the unique recognition flash across Olivia's eyes. "Her name's Avery Copeland?"

"She's back?" Olivia was already getting out of her seat. She headed for the window overlooking the interrogation, only now noticing the brunette woman sitting by the table. "What's that?" She asked when she noticed the yellow packet Avery was drumming her fingers over.

Montserrat came up beside Olivia to see the packet. "Don't know. She didn't have that out when I left her."

Olivia nodded for a few seconds. "Alright, let's go find out what it is." Montserrat was right behind her when she entered the room.

Avery immediately lightened a little when she saw Olivia. There was an awakening, fumbling greeting before she addressed the packet. "He's stalking me," she said, giving the implication that she already had a somewhat deeper conversation with Olivia at some point. "He's been calling me, saying that he wants to see me. He went to my apartment when I wasn't there, and he left a note."

"This is the man who assaulted you?" Olivia only asked out of sheer formality.

"Rick Purcell, my cameraman."

"Okay, have you told your employers about this? Anyone at HR?"

Avery shook her head. "No-look... I can't go to HR. I can't go to anybody there. I-I'm a professional. I can always do my job. I just need an out-of-work-hours restraining order."

"It doesn't work that way," Montserrat was a heartbeat away from saying 'trust me, I know' but Avery didn't need to hear that. "If he's stalking you-"

"No, can you just talk to him and tell him to leave me alone and stop calling me?"

"Have you told him that?"

"I'm trying to be polite. I still have to work with him. He's a good cameraman."

"Whoa, whoa," Olivia made a gesture for Avery to slow down. She was skipping important information. "So you've been polite for six weeks. Avery, he might be imagining a relationship."

"There's no relationship!"

"Yeah, he might not get that," Montserrat clarified. "He crossed a line, and you pretended that nothing happened, so he could be telling himself that you're okay with it."

"Avery, if you want us to help you, you need to tell us every single thing that happened," Olivia grabbed the seat opposite to Avery. "Okay, now you said that this happened in your apartment. How did he get in?"

Avery was reluctant until the stare from both women made her relent. "We were coming home from a road trip. He dropped me off, and he helped me upstairs with my bags."

"And then what happened?"

"I thanked him. I said that I was tired. He headed towards the door. I thought that he had left, so I went to take a shower. And when I came out of the shower, he was just standing there. He tried to kiss me. I said that I was tired and that he needed to go. But he pushed me onto the bed, and he raped me."

"Did you scream? Say no? No. No, I just froze. I- "

"It's okay," Montserrat said once Avery started fumbling over her words. "You said that you haven't told anyone about this?"

"No, so-there's no point in this anyway, is there?" Avery was making a move to get up from her seat.

"Well, hold on," Olivia quickly stopped her, "Hey, we can still make a case. He use a condom?"

"No. That's why I went to my doctor the next day, and I got tested for STDs."

Montserrat perked up at that. "Wait, your doctor examined you? That might be very helpful. Do you still have the sheets, the bedspread?"

Avery nodded. "Yes." She couldn't help but feel a tiny bit of hope that maybe she was finally going to get some relief because both Olivia and Montserrat were looking at her like she'd done everything right.

~0~

"Avery Jordan. Is she the one that wears those tight white jeans on the sideline?" Fin asked after Olivia gathered the squad in her office.

"Is that what you use to identify women?" Montserrat has a sour smile on her face. She leaned against Olivia's desk, folding her arms over her chest, while she waited for Fin to answer.

Olivia wouldn't let him as she went on introducing Avery's case. "This is gonna be a high-profile case. I wanna be kept in the loop."

"Another bad-boy athlete?" Sonny's eyebrows raised with a growing disdain. That would ensure things would be ten times harder than usual. "Great. An MVP-said, she-said."

"Actually, it wasn't a jock," Olivia said, "It was her cameraman, and it happened in her condo after Fourth of July weekend."

"Six weeks ago," Amanda's expression was similar to Sonny's. Things would be at least 10 times harder now. "Did she disclose to somebody at that time?"

"No, but she did see her doctor, and we're checking her bedding for DNA. She came forward reluctantly, because the guy started to stalk her."

"So you know there's nothing in it for her," said Montserrat. As soon as the case went public, Avery's career would take an unfortunate plunge.

"Alright," Olivia moved around her desk, grabbing her seat, "We're going to need to corroborate her story. Carisi, clone her cell phone. Check for recent texts, voice-mail calls."

"On it Sarge," Sonny nodded and headed out.

"Who's she accusing?" Nick asked, if only to give themselves a better idea of what they were going to get into.

"Richard Purcell," Montserrat replied, having done some preliminary vetting before the gathering. "He's single. Been at Sports & Events Network ten years. Other than some speeding tickets, he's clean. Even has a law degree from Fordham." That detail had the remaining detectives pause. "Far as I saw, he never took the bar."

"Still," Olivia leaned forwards on the desk, "Purcell knows the law. Fin, Rollins, keep that in mind when you talk to him." The two detectives in question nodded and filed out. "Amaro and Novak, stop by Avery's apartment to collect what we need for the lab."

"Yeah," the pair agreed, soon filling out to ensure their task got done.

~0~

Purcell had nothing to say in his defence except that it was all "consensual" and dropped one important detail that Avery hadn't said to neither Olivia nor Montserrat at the beginning of her interrogation. It gave Purcell, admittedly, a good advantage for the moment.

"Rick said that I'm having an affair?" Avery's eyes were wide when Olivia told her what they recently learned. She took a few steps in a pacing manner, grateful that the two women had decided to visit her at home instead of dragging her to the precinct.

"Yeah, basically that your lover found out, got jealous, and Rick got caught in the crossfire," Olivia said, hoping that everything she said was so awful that Avery would want to tell them the truth straightaway.

Unfortunately, Avery huffed. "That's ridiculous."

Montserrat awkwardly cleared her throat before she would speak up. They had a pretty good idea what was going on but they needed to hear it from Avery's lips first before they could move on with the case. "Listen, if you're sleeping with somebody else, we need to know."

"What difference does it make?" Avery snapped, prompting Montserrat to answer just as quickly.

"A huge one!"

Avery pursed her lips, letting one light huff slip through. "Rick raped me."

"And we believe that, but it affects the case."

"The lab found semen from two different men on your bedspread," Olivia added, hoping that would be enough to make Avery see there was no point in lying anymore.

This time, it was. "Look, he has a wife...kids. This will ruin both of us."

"Rick's clever. He's already using the affair to create reasonable doubt."

Avery paused for a second, eyes darting to the side. There was a new sense of dread when she spoke again. Purcel had already sent another package.

~ 0 ~

That evening, Montserrat stopped Rafael's office. He was already being briefed in on the Avery case and the paperwork showed it. Still, as soon as he saw her coming in, he let it all go to greet her.

"How's it going?" she asked him, eyes glancing over the papers on the desk.

He stood in front of her, hands resting on her arms. "Oh, the usual. Hell." She figured as much. "There's a good chance on the stalker accusation but as for the rape…"

"Trickier, also the usual," Montserrat rolled her eyes.

"You're more down than usual," Rafael noted. He held her chin with two fingers. "This isn't about the pending dinner is it?" Why would he ask if he already knew?

"Can we discuss for a moment?" she asked, taking in her lower lip as chewing gum.

"Of course, what is it?"

"After talking with Dr. Weslin, it's come to my attention that maybe I should've talked to you about this before," Montserrat's hands came together, her fingers ready to pick at each other in a moment. "Yes, it's the dinner I'm nervous about."

"It's alright, you'll be alright," Rafael assured just like he had before. "You already know my grandmother and she adores you. I'm a little afraid she'll end up liking you more than she does me." He counted a win when she laughed lightly. "And I know my mother will too."

Her laugh soon faded at the mention of his mother. "Will she, though? I mean, you said she was surprised and a little upset that she was only learning about us now."

"Yeah, but that'll pass. It's not a big deal."

"I don't know, Rafael," she moved around him, coming to lean against his desk. "You've mentioned that she loved Yelina in the past. She heard wedding bells! I'm nothing like her."

"Yeah, that's sort of one of the reasons I like you," Rafael said, earning himself a hard look in return. He sighed. "What I meant is that you're not like Yelina and that's the best damn thing about you. With you, I know where we stand. I know that the chances of you trading me in for somebody else aren't as high as they were back then." That idea alone scared him more than it should, especially knowing that soon enough he would have to deal with the truth of Damian Mackie.

"Well of course," she said, stretching a hand out for him. "Who could ever be better than you, huh?"

"I can think of a few people…" Rafael took her hand and came to stand in front of her again.

She pulled her hand out of his to touch his cheek. She looked at him so fondly he could almost lose his breath. He couldn't ever remember somebody looking at him the way she did. "No one else," she said with all the certainty in the world. "And it's because I don't want to lose you that I'm afraid of how this dinner is going to go. What if she doesn't like me?"

"Even if that did happen, so what?" Rafael challenged her to come up with an answer. "I'm doing the courtesy of informing my mother that I'm seeing someone, but really the only reason I'm doing this dinner is because I want to show you off."

Montserrat chuckled. "Oh, please—"

"No, I'm serious," he said, "From now on, I get to show you off to anybody I know. My mother doesn't have to accept you, she just has to be civil because no matter what, I'm not giving you up."

Her heart fluttered with the words she previously thought he would say. Hearing him say it out loud, though, was something incredibly different. "You mean that?"

"Well of course I do, c'mon!" Rafael couldn't help but laugh a bit.

"That's what Dr. Weslin made me realize before leaving her office," Montserrat admitted.

"Ah, sounds like a smart woman then," he bopped her nose. "Maybe you should listen to her more often."

"I do," she said, "How do you think I went from hating you to...hating you a little less?"

"Oh," he laughed again, "So it's like that?" She shrugged her shoulders. She leveled his look when he stared at her, willing her to crack first but of course, just like every other time, she never did. She upheld his look until he moved on. "Are we good, then?" he asked her.

She nodded. "I'm still nervous…"

"You'll see you have nothing to worry about," he promised. "My mother's got an attitude but she'll like you. I'm sure of it." He pressed a kiss to her lips.

"If you say so," she sighed.

"I'm always right," he made a point to remind and when she scoffed, he kissed her again.

She managed to pull away enough for her to respond, "If that's what you have to tell yourself."

"I do because I am." He kissed the corner of her mouth then below on her jawline. "And you should just admit to it."

Her head tilted to the side. "You wish," she spat.

Defiance. He loved it. A few more kisses down the side of her neck had her hands gripping his arms. "Can't I persuade you in some way?" he asked just before he would kiss over her pulse.

She could feel his smirk pressed against her skin when she shifted. "I take back what I said about hating you a little less," she took in a shaky breath, "I hate you more."

He raised his head to meet her glaring eyes. He was smiling sweetly nonetheless. "We can remedy that." He slid his hand over her cheek, his thumb stroking a soft circle. "You'll be okay," he whispered. "We both will."

She nodded, this time ready to kiss him when his lips touched hers again. They had to be okay because the truth is that she didn't hate him more nor less, she might actually love him. Maybe she did.

A/N:

P.S. As always, I have a tumblr account dedicated to my fanfic works! It's a place where anyone can comment about a story or even just talk to me! I often drop aesthetic work belonging to my stories too! Feel free to check it out, my URL is "saiilorstars"