"Fuck, fuck… straight to voicemail."
"Both marshals?"
"Both of them."
"Shit."
"I'll leave a message for Blake. We don't know if Nguyen is still on leave."
"Keep trying until you get to one of them."
"You don't have to tell me that."
"I-"
"Just drive, please."
"God damn it, Rafael, I'm driving as fast as I can."
Olivia sighed irritably and stepped on the gas.
"Are you absolutely sure?"
Rita stared sceptically at the small plastic brick in Fin's hand. It'd been so long since she'd last used one of those old Nokias, but weren't they practically indestructible? She knew exactly how carefully Fin had kept the burner cell all these months - surely it hadn't just malfunctioned on them.
"Nothing from them. And every single call I've made has gone unanswered."
"They've never missed our usual call time. Do you think they're okay?"
"Either they've been living so blissfully that they've forgotten to check the cell…"
"Or they're in trouble."
Rita shifted uncomfortably in her seat, and Fin quickly took her glass of wine from her hand and set it down on the table before she could spill it. When she'd carved out a free afternoon to spend some much-needed time with Fin, she wasn't expecting their conversation topic to veer in this direction. "I don't want to assume the worst."
"But we have reasons to assume the worst. Trevor saw them, and we don't know how many people he's told."
"The DMV is huge. It'd take ages to track Liv and Barba down. They could be in Maryland, Virginia… That's if they're even living there in the first place. Who's to say they weren't just on vacation there?"
"Fin, we know better than anyone that this sex trafficking ring will stop at nothing to get their targets." The words felt useless coming from her; there was nothing that Fin didn't already know. But at least verbalising her fear made her feel an ounce better.
He sighed quietly and squeezed her hand. "We'll just have to hope that they forgot about our usual call time. Maybe they went on vacation somewhere and didn't take the cell."
Rita nodded silently despite her growing unease - the last thing she wanted to do was let the marshals in on the fact that they'd been communicating with a burner cell the whole time.
"I'm just as worried as you are," he admitted.
"I don't know what to think. I just have a feeling that something's gone wrong."
She frustratedly tapped her foot against the carpet, unable to articulate just why something felt so amiss. This wasn't like her at all - lawyers couldn't go to court and concoct something on feeling alone - so why was this tripping her up so much? Why was she so damn worried when she didn't have any other evidence to suggest that something had gone wrong?
"I'll keep trying, okay?" Fin offered. "If they still don't get back to us, I'll call the marshals and we can try to find out if they're alright."
"Okay," she replied shakily. "We'll wait for a few more days."
Rita wasn't used to this - this kind of anxiety that consumed her to the point that she'd taken the afternoon off work because she couldn't concentrate in the office. There were always far better uses of her energy than worrying, and she'd learned over time to channel her nervous energy into things that helped her win cases. But the situation wasn't something that an afternoon of research or carefully crafted argument could resolve, and even Fin's hand wrapped around hers wasn't doing much to calm her down.
"Babe," Fin interjected quietly after a beat, as he nuzzled closer to her, "Talk to me."
"I'm not used to this. Not being able to do a thing about it, other than wait."
He didn't have to press her for details to know that the uncertainty of the past year had been looming over her - he had a first-row seat to that. "I know what you mean."
"I really took Rafael's presence for granted," she sighed. "I just assumed that I'd always have my best friend around - or an actual phone call away, not on a burner."
"And I assumed that I'd always see Liv around the precinct. Munch and I used to joke that SVU would collapse the day Liv left because she's been there for as long as I can remember."
SVU hadn't collapsed, of course, but there was no denying that Olivia and Rafael's absence in the squad room had been especially conspicuous. Somehow, the two of them had a way of completely filling that space.
Rita decided to do what she did best - press for information until some of her doubt evaporated away. "Do you know anything about the sex trafficking ring's operations now? Any intel from Vice?"
"I asked around, but most of the operation is with the Feds now. They're working on exposing the network across other states - but I don't know how much of the case they've actually cracked yet."
"You don't think Blake or Nguyen would be willing to share that information with us?" she laughed dryly.
"Definitely not… but I'm sure that they'll call if Liv and Barba are in trouble."
"Then I guess hearing from the marshals would be a bad sign."
"Yeah," he sighed. "I don't even have a timeline for this investigation. My contacts at Vice say that the Feds could be days away from cracking this… or even years. This ring's network is huge. We don't know how much of it we've busted."
"I've been holding out hope that Raf and Olivia can return to New York someday, like Alex Cabot did," Rita admitted after a very long silence, her expression sombre. "I still can't let that go."
"Neither can I," he added quietly.
"But we all thought that Alex was dead. We went to her funeral thinking she really was dead. We know that Raf and Olivia aren't…"
And I hope they don't end up dead was the end of that sentence that neither of them wanted or needed to complete.
If Rita closed her eyes, she could still picture the last time Rafael had been in her apartment, at one of those Harvard reunions she organised whenever she could. He'd stayed the latest of all the guests, lingering in her living room to laugh over all the law school artefacts and souvenirs she'd hoarded until 5 in the morning. On rare nights like those she remembered how endless and formless time felt, like it had in college when she had her whole life ahead of her and no hearings to prepare for on short notice.
She glanced at the calendar on her credenza. Weeks since they'd last heard from Rafael and Olivia. Months since they'd last met in a Bellevue hospital hallway and she'd played the role of grief-stricken best friend at his elaborately staged funeral.
Now time felt cruel, and there was nothing she could do about it.
In the world that Olivia had once inhabited, heightened emotions had become her default mode of existence. She'd been on the force for years, but the visceral anxiety that flooded her in the seconds before she stormed into a perp's apartment or waited for the jury foreman to deliver their verdict hadn't dulled over time. Perhaps it was the deep sense of responsibility that the job had instilled in her - the urge to make things right, to get to the bottom of whatever case she was pursuing, to wield the power she had wisely.
Then, Bethesda had taught her to forget all of that. Once upon a time she'd looked at her fellow subway riders en route to their corporate jobs and wondered if their days were dull and monotonous compared to hers, but she quickly learned when she got to Maryland that she wasn't that averse to dullness and monotony. She'd grown to like it, even. Being able to curl up on the couch with Rafael after a long day or take a long walk around the neighbourhood without worrying about being called to a crime scene in the middle of the night were small luxuries that she treasured, even over a year later.
Today, however, she'd fully stepped back into the shoes of Olivia Benson, checking into this nondescript motel in Virginia and pushing furniture against the door to barricade it and shutting all the curtains. She combed every inch of the room, checked every nook and cranny, and rested her cell phone in a spot where she'd be able to grab it quickly if Blake called them back. Rafael sat quietly on the edge of the bed, eyes following her every move from the second they'd locked the door behind them until she finally halted in her tracks and looked him in the eye. Sit down, he beckoned to her wordlessly when the sound of her laboured breathing echoed through the silent room.
Olivia eyed the bed in front of her. Olivia Davis wanted to lie down and curl up in his arms and sleep the hours away until Blake finally arrived to rescue them from his hell-hole in the middle of nowhere. Olivia Davis was a civilian without any obligation to take charge of the situation and keep them both safe. But being a civilian also came with a distinct feeling of helplessness that Olivia Benson - the part of her who'd never truly left - couldn't stomach.
A part of her didn't want to be Olivia Benson anymore - but for both their sakes, she had to. And so she resisted the lure of the bed and grabbed the television remote to turn it to a random daytime talk show, to which Rafael could only stare at her quizzically.
"We need to figure out how they got to us."
Suddenly he understood why she had to turn the TV up - it was something that Olivia Benson would do to mask the sounds of what looked to be a very tense discussion ahead.
"Should we be discussing this now?" he offered cautiously, unsure if they were in the right place or state of mind to pull the situation apart, but knew even before she could reply that it was a pointless question. Her focused expression made her answer abundantly clear to him: she wasn't going to relax until she had some semblance of an answer to the elephant in the room. Heck, she probably wasn't going to relax at all until Blake came to get them, which could take hours, depending on when he called them back or how maniacally he drove back to the DMV.
"They took the burner cell. They had to know it existed - they went straight for it."
"Didn't we always delete the text and call history?"
"Always."
"We've been very careful with the burner cell. How likely is it that they tracked us all the way to our exact apartment using that Nokia? Could it have been something else that gave us away?"
"What other possibilities are there?" The impatience in her tone stabbed, and he had to remind himself that she wasn't directing that anger towards him. This was a high-stress situation; now wasn't the time to bring another source of tension into the room.
"Well…" he started, "Trevor Langan could have tipped someone off back in New York. By accident. He knows everyone, doesn't he?"
It seemed like the most concrete possibility. It hadn't been that long ago that Trevor had apparently spotted them at Target, and it just happened to coincide with the very first time their aliases had been compromised. Had that monstrously tall lawyer inadvertently put them in danger? If he ever made it back to New York safely, boy was he going to give Trevor a piece of his mind…
"How good is Rita at getting him to shut up?"
"Usually very good, but who knows? Things leak like sieves in that circle…"
Olivia's pacing was becoming increasingly frenetic, and Rafael silently contemplated forcing her to sit next to him on the bed - there was only so much carpet in this small room that she could pace on. "Trevor is just one person, though. Could someone here in D.C. have blown our cover?"
"We've met so many new people here." He scratched his head. "It'd take us hours to get through everyone." She had a whole office of colleagues to go through; he had his entire writing department and heck, all the students he'd instructed in the last academic year. He'd never been good at mental sums, but the number was bound to exceed at least a hundred.
"It might have been someone we've met recently. Things were fine for more than a year and went to shit only this summer."
"That's a start. But…" he tried hesitantly as he crossed the room and approached her, "as much as I want to get to the bottom of this, I don't think now is the time for us to-"
"You know how serious this is, Rafael," she snapped, shaking her hands free from his. "I'd never be able to live with myself if something happened to us."
Rafael flinched when Olivia tore herself from him. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen her this heated; maybe not since their cataclysmic fight of the previous summer or in another lifetime in a Manhattan police precinct. But he quickly shook that off and finally crossed the line he'd been trying to toe since they'd arrived in this room. "You're a civilian now, Liv. Even if we figure this out now, what good will it do us? There's nothing to do, no databases to check…"
"So we're just going to sit here and wait for God knows how long and pray we don't get discovered?"
"We're unarmed, in the middle of nowhere - even if they came for us, we have nothing on us that we can use. What use is there in going over this now? You're not Olivia Benson anymore," he retorted, placing almost uncomfortable emphasis on the last sentence.
You're not Olivia Benson anymore. The words echoed throughout the room and hung over them.
They were standing eye to eye now. Olivia's gaze was stubborn and resolute and almost demanding him to back off, but he didn't cave. "The best thing we can do is wait for Blake to call and make that choice for us."
Her eyes were burning with an inscrutable mix of fury and anxiety, but he wasn't going to relent so easily - not when she was so wound up that she was almost shaking, in a way that no police case could bring out of her. He saw the way her nostrils flared, heard her sharp intake of breath, the same way she always did right before delivering an obliterating remark or comeback in her squad room, and braced himself for an impact that never came.
It took only a split-second, but he saw it: he saw the corners of her mouth twitch and shoulders slump ever so slightly, her white flag raised before she could utter a word. Rafael reached out to hold her again as she crumpled into his arms, the last of the day's adrenaline finally burning away and leaving a hollow emptiness in its wake.
"Hey, hey," Rafael whispered, his lips brushing against her forehead and tone now much softer, "Liv."
The last of her defences crumbled when he said her name. Liv, like a prayer cutting through the fog of the day and bringing her back to the present, in a shitty motel in the middle of nowhere, desperately waiting for Blake or Nguyen to come and rescue them from their mysterious assailants - who now had their home address, new names, and God knows what else. But she wasn't alone; she had Rafael, and the way he said her name, as gently as he always did when he kissed her goodnight, made her want to ensconce herself in his arms and unravel.
Rafael seemed to sense that before she could utter a single word in reply. He led her to the bed and sat down next to her at its foot, the TV still blaring with canned comedy laughter that now felt almost mocking; malicious, even.
"I'm scared this is my fault." She spoke so softly that he almost didn't hear her at first.
"How is this your-"
"The burner cell," she interrupted. "I should have known better than to get it in the first place."
He sighed deeply and moved to turn down the volume on the TV. They'd had the burner cell for so long that the topic hadn't crossed his mind until this morning - had they grown complacent?
But he also couldn't imagine not having that plastic Nokia for the past year. It'd been their lifeline of sorts; their only real connection to the city they'd fled. Every text or call they got from Rita and Fin instantly became the highlight of their day, and just knowing that they hadn't been completely forgotten kept Rafael Barba - the part of him he'd been forced to bury - alive. Rafael Barba, who still had family he loved back in New York.
"I wouldn't have gotten the chance to see my mom and abuelita if you hadn't bought the burner cell," he reminded her quietly, and suddenly his eyes felt as though they were watering. "I can't blame you - at all - for getting that cell."
Olivia visibly softened with that admission, but the guilt etched into her expression didn't fade one bit - so much so that it almost had physical weight. "Even so - I should have tossed the cell after we got back from New York last summer."
"We both agreed to keep it," he reminded her. "Not just you."
"And look at where that brought us." Perhaps this motel room would be liveable if they could open the curtains, but Olivia had shut them so securely that barely any slivers of light shone through, which left them with only the insidious-looking yellow glow of the ageing overhead lamps.
"I'm sure Blake will see our messages and calls soon." Hopefully, he would see them by the end of the day - the thought of spending the night here filled him with dread, and he didn't have to verbalise that thought to know that Olivia felt the same.
She didn't respond, but kept a watchful eye on both of their phones on the TV console - and Rafael hoped, for both of their sakes, that Blake wasn't anywhere more than a 3-hour drive from the DC metropolitan area. All they'd brought with them was the small duffel bag they'd taken on vacation, and neither of them had even considered how they were going to get any form of sustenance (beyond the vending machines in the motel lobby).
He wanted to suggest that they lie down for a while, get more comfortable than they currently were because there was no telling how long they would have to wait here. His eyes drifted towards the closed curtains and he almost got up to let some light into the room, but a part of him already knew that Olivia would shut either request down before he could make it halfway across the room, so he dropped the thought and let his gaze fall on their phones, hoping and praying that one of them would light up soon. Rafael reached for her hand and was surprised when she didn't recoil, but he could feel her anxiety emanate from her in waves.
He really wasn't sure why he wasn't feeling more anxious about all of this. Heck, their apartment had been broken into and their new identities uncovered, very likely by the same criminals who'd tried to murder them just over a year ago, and he wasn't having a nervous breakdown on the floor of this motel room.
Bzzzz.
They both jumped when Olivia's cell phone lit up a few feet away from them, but she leapt to her feet a split second faster than he did and grabbed the phone from the TV console.
"It's Blake," she mouthed to him as she accepted the call, and suddenly the air in the room felt lighter. Rafael watched silently as she fired off their location to him, and the realisation that they were going to get out of here in a matter of time helped calm his racing heart.
Olivia hung up and set the phone back down, now visibly calmer than she'd been just two minutes ago. "He'll be here in about 3 hours."
Three hours. They could survive three hours.
He didn't ask if Blake had told her where they would be going - he figured that she would have divulged that information immediately anyway. In fact, a part of him didn't even need to know where they were going, because all he needed to know was that Blake was coming to get them. They would be out of this motel room soon enough.
And Olivia seemed to be letting that same relief wash over her, because she'd finally kicked off her shoes and allowed herself to sit in a more comfortable position on the bed, safe in the knowledge that they would soon be rescued.
Neither knew what was coming next. But for the next three hours, they didn't want - or need to - think about that just yet.
She grabbed a pillow and hugged it to her chest, silently beckoning for him to come closer, and when Rafael nuzzled against her she immediately buried her head in his chest, feeling his heartbeat slow in time with hers. He was surprised at first; the panic that'd permeated every square inch of the room was disappearing so quickly that he could no longer focus on what was playing on the TV.
"Raf?" She didn't turn to look him in the eye. He could tell that she was scared to.
"Yeah?"
"I know what you're going to say…" She raised a hand to silence him before he could interrupt her. "…but still, I'm sorry."
"Don't apologise. I wanted that burner cell around just as much as you did."
She was about to say something in protest, but Rafael held her tighter and pressed a kiss to her forehead before she could. It's okay, he mouthed against her temple, and that simple gesture put an end to their conversation. He reached for the remote control and turned up the volume, and for the first time since entering the room he sensed her actually watching what was on the screen, instead of using it only as background noise. Internally, he heaved a sigh of relief feeling her relax; the frantic energy in the room had all but disappeared.
And it was like, oh Gosh, this trip turned out to be a nightmare.
Rafael didn't care much for whatever daytime talk show host was interviewing her guest about a memorable vacation experience, but the last word jumped out at him immediately - and him only, judging from Olivia's unchanged expression. Heck, she was even laughing quietly at the C-list celebrity's animated recap of whatever had happened.
Before he could stop himself, his mind had raced back to the events of just a few weeks ago, when their summer hadn't yet veered off course. They'd celebrated the end of the semester and her promotion and thought that life in Bethesda couldn't be any better - until Olivia's nightmare about William Lewis.
He reached out to take Olivia's hand in his and silently admonished himself for even entertaining that train of thought. Weeks ago, he'd spent hours chiding himself for being irrational. It was one nightmare about a man who'd already died in prison, not a sign that things in Bethesda were about to take a turn for the worse. She needed him to be there for her, not for him to get carried away making non-existent connections between the nightmare and the looming threat of the sex trafficking ring on their tail. There had been little reason for Rafael to assume that a single nightmare was symbolic of something deeper. He couldn't cave to his irrational fears. And so he hadn't; he'd stayed strong for her.
But he glanced at the faded walls and worn carpet of this motel room and his fears didn't feel so irrational. They'd spent the last few months in complacent bliss and let their guard down. And things had never recovered to the blissful state they'd been in at the start of the summer.
Maybe it'd been a signal to them all along.
Olivia seemed to sense that Rafael was ruminating about something discomfiting and shifted in his arms, but chose not to probe. She'd put him through enough since arriving here, she thought to herself, and with the assurance that Blake would soon arrive, their sense of mortal danger had been quelled slightly.
Three hours. They could survive three hours - even if those three hours were being spent in a room they'd been forced into after being exiled from their apartment.
She forced herself to focus on what was happening on TV, but also had an uncanny feeling that she knew what had caused Rafael's sudden shift in demeanour.
Everything about this summer had seemed idyllic until that night: the one that she tried her best not to mull over. Why did it feel like that nightmare had set all these events in motion?
At some point, Blake and Nguyen would probably have to sit her and Rafael down to get to the bottom of this mess. They'd been impressed with how quickly Olivia and Rafael had assumed their new identities and assimilated into the D.C. suburbs… surely they now had a lot to say about how quickly all of that had unravelled. Surely I had a nightmare about William Lewis and things escalated from there wasn't going to cut it when they eventually sat down in an interview room somewhere.
Neither of them even wanted to think about the possibility of yet another relocation - and the new identities that would come with it - that lay ahead.
Three more hours until Blake arrived. They could survive three hours here without unravelling.
The message finally arrived when Rafael was on the precipice of bursting.
"He's fifteen minutes away. Let's get ready."
Rafael seized the opportunity to duck into the small bathroom, one eye trained on Olivia in the mirror while he hurriedly washed his face and straightened his hair. They were gestures that felt incredibly stupid in the face of the danger they were running from, yet steadied him enough that he could walk across the carpet without his legs turning to jelly.
He gathered both their bags and placed them by the front door, and waited.
Fifteen minutes couldn't pass by more slowly. Olivia crouched cautiously by the window for any sign of Blake's car, although it was a futile mission. He certainly wasn't going to pick them up in the sedan he always drove; not in circumstances like this. He'd been as calm and emotionless as he always was over the phone and in his texts to her; did he already know how they'd been traced and have a scolding prepared? Had he already alerted his supervisors to make plans to relocate them to a city in the middle of nowhere?
Where were they even going to go from here? Unless Blake and Nguyen had mysteriously cracked the case wide open, there was little chance that they'd ever see the walls of their Bethesda apartment again.
Olivia chewed nervously on her lower lip and forced herself to focus on keeping watch. Now was no time to be distracted; not when Rafael was nervously pacing the room behind her, his attempts to hide his anxiety increasingly futile by the minute.
Three firm knocks on the door were their sign that they finally were going to get out of this room, but the relief they felt when they hopped into Blake's car was quickly replaced by a mounting uncertainty - one that was amplified by the blacked-out windows and his dangerously fast driving speed.
"Did anyone try to contact you or interact with you since you left your apartment this morning?"
"No, no one has." Her voice was caught in her throat, and she instinctively reached across the backseat to grab Rafael's hand.
"Okay, good. I'm taking you back to the federal facility now. The other marshals are going to collect your car and comb your apartment. We'll need to keep you safe while we assess and trace this threat."
"How long will we be there?"
Blake's resigned sigh was enough of an indication that the outlook was bleak. "Honestly, your guess is as good as mine. This could take days, maybe weeks… and I'm sure you both remember what the worst-case scenario entails. But for now, we're keeping you in protective custody indefinitely."
Indefinitely.
Between that and the worst-case scenario, they'd happily take the former, but "indefinitely" had an eerie ring to it that neither of them wanted or needed to acknowledge verbally.
They spent the rest of the car ride in silence, hands tensely folded in their laps, until they pulled up at the same imposing brutalist compound as they had a year ago. "We're here," Blake announced flatly, and it was at that moment that Olivia finally turned to look Rafael in the eye and a lump formed in her throat.
"We're back," Rafael echoed quietly, his tone already defeated. She wanted to urge him to look on the bright side; maybe crack a joke to ease the tension or assure him that they were going to be alright, but what use would that be when she couldn't even believe that herself?
They were safe now, but even that wasn't much comfort in the face of their mounting uncertainty. Blake and another marshal took them through the snaking corridors of the facility, where the sound of every door slamming shut behind them made Rafael jump slightly. The last time they'd been here, they had the assurance that they'd be out again in 2 to 3 weeks - now, their sentence was indefinite.
They came to a stop in front of a familiar-looking door, and no one needed to point out that they'd been housed in the same apartment over a year ago. The circumstances made it look much more foreboding than it had been back then - or maybe they simply hadn't been paying attention because of the promise of freedom in a matter of weeks.
We're keeping you in protective custody indefinitely.
"I'll order some food for you both and give you time to settle back in," Blake chimed matter-of-factly as he retrieved the key from his pocket. "Marshal Lance will be back with some groceries and supplies, and there's coffee and tea in the pantry. You can call me with the phone by the door if you need anything - just like last time."
He opened the door to the small apartment, lingering uncomfortably on the last few words. Rafael took a deep breath and pushed the door.
Fin's idea of a nice dinner usually involved a box of take-out and an evening spent in front of his TV, but Rita had made it a habit to remind him that living in New York meant that he had a plethora of options at his doorstep. The sceptic in him had surrendered quickly when she'd first taken him to her favourite hole-in-the-wall taco joint, and very soon he'd accepted that Friday evenings with Rita were going to be a part of his life indefinitely - and he wasn't complaining one bit.
He'd even ordered wine tonight, partially because she'd been eyeing the list on the restaurant's website all week, and because why not? They had spent the last three days fretting over Olivia and Rafael; with still no reply to their texts or sign of life from the duo, Rita and Fin had been more on edge than ever, and they'd earned one relaxed evening this week.
"How's your pasta?" he asked between forkfuls of pappardelle bolognese. "Babe?"
She jumped slightly when he reached for her hand. "Sorry, what did you say?"
"Is something wrong?" Fin frowned. "You've been staring at the corner all evening."
"I hope it's just me being paranoid… but I feel like someone's watching us."
That, combined with the urgent whisper she'd dipped her voice to, made Fin's heart beat just a little faster. He scanned the room as surreptitiously as he could, coming to a pause at the lone diner sitting at a table in the corner, who wasn't as compelled by what was the best pappardelle bolognese in Manhattan as Fin was.
"I can't shake the feeling. He looks familiar, doesn't he?" She circled the rim of her glass of wine nervously, her pasta mostly untouched.
Fin racked his brains. Had he seen this mysterious figure before? One problem with being a cop for as long as he had was that all the perps' faces seemed to blur into one. This man, unfortunately, was so generic-looking that he had no frame of reference. Why did so many New Yorkers have the same black jacket and jeans?
"You want to skip dessert and leave?" he offered quickly when the man turned in their direction and made direct eye contact. Something about the look in his eye sent a chill down Fin's spine - watchful? Intentional? Predatory, even?
"You think he's staring at us? Can we leave discreetly?"
"I'll call us an Uber now. We'll hop in before he can follow us."
Without a moment's hesitation, Rita discreetly waved over the owner and arranged for the tab to be taken care of later (thank goodness she'd been a regular here for long enough that she'd earned that privilege) while Fin whipped out his cell phone, but the seconds that ticked by felt like an eternity. There was a good chance that they were imagining things; that the solo diner was just another stressed Upper East Side man drowning his stress in handmade pasta and made-to-order dessert.
But wasn't that also the kind of assumption that could put them directly in harm's way? They were one of a handful of people in the city with access to a secret as big as theirs - and a burner cell with access to two people whose heads were on the line. If complacency came with a side of mortal danger, she wasn't taking that chance.
(That was, provided that Olivia and Rafael hadn't already fallen in harm's way wherever they were.)
Fin was grateful that Rita had long mastered the art of looking unflappable in stressful situations, because the last thing he wanted was for either of them to tip off the mysterious solo diner in the corner. We're just two people enjoying a dinner date. Nothing more than that. "Our car's 2 minutes away," he mouthed to her when the man turned away for just a second, to which she nodded and covertly grabbed her purse in preparation for a quick exit. All his police training had taught him not to draw attention to himself, but Fin couldn't stop sneaking glances in that direction.
There were too many possibilities. Maybe the man looked familiar because Fin had arrested him years ago; maybe he'd been grilled at the precinct. A witness in court? A perp's vengeful sibling or son? Someone he'd encountered when they'd first caught that sex trafficking ring case over a year ago - the same one that'd exiled their friends?
"Fin - I think the driver's here," Rita hissed when she glanced at his phone screen, jolting him from his reverie. "Let's go."
The diners at the next table were visibly startled when Rita burst out of her chair, pulling Fin along with her, and there wasn't even time for him to remind her that they needed to slip out undetected. All he could focus on was getting her into that Uber before she ended up in harm's way.
"Take the longest route you can, please," Fin ordered the driver as he slammed the door shut. Rita's apartment wasn't far from the restaurant, but he couldn't possibly lead the man right to her townhouse, and so he'd hastily selected the address of the only safe alternative right now: the 16th precinct.
"Did he follow us out?" Rita looked anxiously at the road behind them.
"I don't kno- shit, he just came out the front door!"
"Is he getting in a car?"
"Not that I can see, but I hope to God that they don't already have another car ready and waiting."
"God damn it," she cursed under her breath, grateful that the driver had put headphones in and seemed to be more than engrossed in his own music.
Fin craned his neck as far as he possibly could, not caring that it was a profoundly uncomfortable position. The fact that there was a ridiculous amount of traffic behind them didn't make things much easier for him. He'd seen the most resilient of perps run from a speeding police car on foot for tens of blocks, and he was hoping that he hadn't encountered another tonight.
"Anything?"
"Not that I can see, but wait till we make a turn. Stay low."
Rita sunk in her seat on cue, but when her mind finally caught up to her body she couldn't resist a quiet what the fuck. How had they gone from a relaxed dinner date to fleeing the restaurant in an Uber?
She wondered if Fin had his gun with him.
Would a gun fend off whatever threats were sent their way?
Fin reached over to squeeze her hand, his gaze still trained on the road behind them but touch just reassuring enough to make her take a deep breath. There was no way she'd be able to handle a situation alone - thank God they were together, and that he knew what he was doing.
"I think we're in the clear."
She glanced out the window and a quick squint at the road signs made her realise that they'd driven 15 blocks from the restaurant - the most anxiety-inducing 15 blocks she'd ever experienced in her lifetime.
"Shit, that was close," he murmured just loud enough for her to hear. "Let's get back to the precinct."
In their rush to leave the restaurant, she hadn't even realised that they were headed for the precinct. It wasn't like her to be this oblivious, ever… she was learning quickly that fear certainly had a way of taking over every rational thought. The precinct. She'd never been fond of its ashy grey walls and the smell of day-old coffee, but it was bound to be safe, and she wasn't going to think straight until she was seated in one of those rickety chairs that Fin loved so much.
She'd always told Fin that she could never quite comprehend how he recovered so quickly from all the spikes in adrenaline he was bound to face daily, and now she was tempted to mention it again. Her heart was beating so wildly that it felt like it would leap right out of her chest - no case she'd tried had ever made her feel this way. As though sensing the wave of anxiety rushing over her, Fin wordlessly reached over and took her hand as they left the Upper East Side, but even that show of affection had little effect on her nerves.
If she'd been bolder, she would've taken her unfinished glass of wine along with her. She certainly needed a drink right now.
"I'm quite sure I have a beer stashed away in my locker," he whispered, but all she could muster in response was a dry, hollow laugh. The last thing either of them needed was more alcohol in their systems - despite having only drunk half a glass of wine each at dinner.
God, why was it taking even longer than usual to get to the precinct? Rita settled for a death grip on her cell phone, figuring that easy access was a priority in an emergency, although she probably wasn't to get a call in if somebody tried to sabotage this car… or if that same somebody put a bullet through her head.
She'd never had the chance to ask Rafael what had raced through his head the night they'd disappeared from New York. She hoped she wasn't getting an answer to that question tonight.
The rest of the ride to the precinct was a blur. All she could recall was Fin thanking the driver and getting them through the precinct doors as quickly as possible, eyes scanning the sidewalk for even the smallest sign of danger, not slowing his pace until they were in the safety of an empty interrogation room.
"Everything okay, guys?"
Rita jumped hearing a new voice pierce her reverie, but it was just Nick with two glasses of water. No alcohol in sight, but water would more than suffice after the half an hour she'd just experienced. She hadn't even realised that Nick had been on duty tonight, but judging from the concerned expression on his face, Fin had quickly filled him in some time in between them bursting through the front door and her collapsing in this cold metal chair.
She grabbed one of the glasses and downed it within seconds, relishing the feeling of water gliding down her throat. The feeling of being alive. And with that, the world finally seemed to regain its clarity.
"I think I know what we need to do now."
Her sudden confidence made Fin, who until this point had been silently catching his breath next to her, sit up.
"We should call the marshals."
"I'll get the phone. And arrange for a security detail for both of you."
Before either of them could say anything further, Nick ducked back into the squad room to grab a handheld phone, leaving her and Fin alone in the tiny interrogation room with only a sobering silence hanging in the air.
They'd made it out alive tonight, but tonight was looking to be the first of many of these nights.
Someone was going to have to do something, fast, and Rita desperately clung to the belief that they all were going to make it out of this unscathed. But between the calls that Rafael and Olivia hadn't answered and her and Fin's dinner date gone awry, even Fin's steady hand gripping hers couldn't make the knots in her stomach go away.
When Rafael and Olivia had finally decided to move in together a little over half a year ago, the question of whose apartment should we move into had loomed large over every conversation once the blissful high had worn off and they finally got down to discussing the practicalities. Back in New York, Brian hadn't hesitated to give up his shitty and overpriced Hell's Kitchen studio for Olivia's rent-stabilised Upper West Side one-bedroom; and other than that one time, she'd simply never tabled the topic of moving in - there hadn't been another person she'd wanted to share a space with.
Not until Rafael came along and turned her simple "move in with me?", uttered one cold February night, into a weeks-long debate. Rafael's apartment had a great view of the neighbourhood and more spacious living area; Olivia's had an elevator and a tree-lined street out the window. They'd traded photos, discussed logistics, even started rearranging furniture, until deciding once and for all that Olivia's apartment had the slight edge, and there they had made a home for themselves. Space had always been a luxury in the city: sometimes it felt like city views were saved only for the 1% and criminals with blood money, but in Bethesda, MD they'd become woven into the fabric of their daily lives - waking up to only the birds chirping and not a garbage truck crushing glass at 5am, and jogging around the block without stepping into a puddle of day-old sewage. Before long, they wondered just how they'd been able to tolerate NYC apartment living for as long as they had, and how it was going to be immensely difficult to ever go back - but it wasn't as though they would be back anytime soon, would they?
Unfortunately, this summer had a way of taking them back to a time that they didn't want to relive.
Rafael and Olivia had hardly discussed the weeks they'd spent in protective custody before being released into the wild woods of Maryland. What was there to remember, anyway? All they'd done was speak to the marshals, cook meals, and spend evenings watching CNN in anticipation of their first steps into freedom, trusting that they'd never lay eyes on those concrete walls ever again.
How wrong they had been.
"We've made a few changes to the apartment recently. There's a new coffee machine, sound system for the TV, alarm clocks for the bedroom, and the sofa was reupholstered," Blake rattled off just as he was leaving, which made Olivia wonder just how many people this apartment had housed in the last year. "Make yourselves comfortable."
Rafael couldn't find a single witty retort to that last statement.
Olivia and Rafael waited until the door clicked shut behind them to let out the collective breath they'd been holding. This wasn't a place they ever thought they would return to - but here they were, and this time indefinitely.
They were safe now. He tried to remind himself of that. He was safe indefinitely, in fact. The last thing they needed to do was complain about their new living quarters after Blake had dropped everything to rescue them from that run-down motel. But Rafael couldn't stop the chill that ran down his spine as he sat down on the newly reupholstered couch and took in their surroundings, realising that they were going to be here not for just two weeks, but indefinitely. Even the couch, with its waxen blue fabric, felt uncomfortable, a reminder that they would never feel fully at ease in a space like this.
A soft thud interrupted his reverie, and he looked over at the entryway to realise that Olivia had kicked off her Keds, her expression a wordless but resolute I'm going to make the most of this that he wished he could feel too. He'd almost forgotten how well she thrived in situations like these; the ones where almost everything was stripped away from her and she could still come back fighting.
Him, on the other hand? He'd never been sure.
"I'm going to lie down for a while," Olivia remarked quietly as she made a beeline for the same bedroom that they'd shared during those terrifying weeks, practically a lifetime ago. He didn't have to ask to know that there was an invitation embedded in those words; the way those brown eyes were beckoning for him to follow behind her told him enough.
He glanced at the clock on the wall. 6pm. Who took naps at 6pm?
But what better things did they have to do?
After all, they'd still been on vacation not more than a few hours ago. That bed and breakfast in Virginia was starting to feel like a distant memory.
"Okay," he replied in a half-whisper, and he was almost taken aback by how every word reverberated in the air, the Bethesda quiet now nothing compared to the grave silence of this compound.
She smiled wearily as she closed the door and pulled the curtains shut, but he didn't miss the small grumble she let out when she remembered how the paper-thin fabric couldn't block out the afternoon light completely, the same irritation from their first day here returning to grate against them. But they both knew better than to fight the situation and Olivia let the curtain string fall back into place, gliding back across the room to join him.
The bed wasn't comfortable and had never been, but Rafael clutched Olivia to his chest and let the warmth of her skin envelop him; he could still smell the floral notes of the shampoo they'd used at the bed and breakfast over the last few days, taking him right back to happier times from just a day ago. She sank into his embrace as effortlessly as she always did, lips grazing his neck and chin and finding their way to his, and he closed his eyes and surrendered - surrendered to being here, surrendered to being here with her, surrendered to the feeling of getting swept up in Olivia as though it were any other evening in their suburban apartment. He didn't know if they'd ever see the walls of that Bethesda one-bedroom again, but she felt like warm familiarity; like home.
Maybe it was time that he started tricking himself into thinking this place was home. After all, he wasn't sure if they were going to be here for days, weeks, or even months.
Was WITSEC well-funded enough by the US government for them to stay here for months?
Was thinking of that very question - a very Rafael Barba-esque question - a sign that he hadn't completely lost his mind after that day's events?
He couldn't hold back a dry laugh and Olivia looked up at him quizzically. "You okay?"
"Yeah," he smiled, as he tried yet again to squeeze his eyes shut and surrender to his exhaustion. "Just tired."
"Well, I've been extra tired because you fucked me this morning," Olivia murmured half-deliriously, one hand rubbing the spot on her neck where she was sure a hickey had formed. Sense was fleeing her the more she sank into the bed and Rafael's arms; and judging from the way his cheeks flushed immediately, he was not expecting a remark of that variety.
"Jesus," Rafael snorted, although he couldn't help but smile amusedly - a welcome change of pace from the anxiety of the entire afternoon. "Glad I wore you out."
She didn't reply, but responded by pulling the covers over them and nuzzling against his chest, in the exact same way she had earlier that day. And maybe, just maybe, he allowed himself to feel the same quiet contentment he had all morning in that quaint little bed and breakfast, when their only priority was making the most of their short escape from reality.
He wondered what time it was. Probably a little past 6pm. On a typical day they'd be making dinner or deciding which restaurant in the neighbourhood to pay a visit to, and then head to bed early for work the next morning.
Work. Shit, how was he going to tell the community college that he couldn't come to work because he'd been moved to a secure federal facility? Would Blake even let him have contact with the college?
What if someone at the school had been the one to expose his true identity?
At the very least, the next semester started in a month. Hopefully, this situation would be resolved by then and he could return to his job.
Was that just wishful thinking?
Olivia shifted against him as though she, again, sensed and wanted to silence his train of thought. In the half-darkness of the room she reached out to caress the side of his face, and the bolt of electricity that coursed through him from that split-second gesture was enough to shock him back to reality. He had to surrender now: surrender to being here, with her.
(And that wasn't half-bad.)
The last thing he remembered before he drifted off to sleep was the soft kiss she pressed to the bottom of his jaw. There was nowhere else they could go and nothing else they could do, but he had her, and that was enough for tonight.
Tomorrow, they would figure out the rest.
We should call the marshals.
Fin made good on Rita's declaration that night. He called Blake after he'd caught his breath and thanked the gods that the marshal picked up to discuss what had happened. However, he didn't expect to be called in for a meeting at Blake's office the following morning, with specific instructions to bring Rita with him.
At first, he assumed that Blake was following up on their call; perhaps conducting a formal interview to get the details on record, just like he had when Trevor had let slip that he'd seen the couple. But this meeting felt distinctly more ominous for a reason that he couldn't pinpoint, and he could tell from the way that Rita's hand was clutching his under the table (and all through the car ride to Blake's office) that she felt the same way. He didn't care - he needed that just as much as she did.
"Thanks for meeting me on such short notice," Blake began, his expression as inscrutable as it'd always been.
"Our pleasure," Rita interjected before Fin could get a word in, her Harvard politeness and carefully rehearsed legal facade emerging on cue. Despite the events of just a few hours ago, she looked remarkably fresh and sharp in her court attire, as though this meeting was just a small detour in an otherwise ordinary day. "How can we help you?"
This can't be good, Rita had admitted to Fin in the car on the way here, but none of that trepidation was showing now. He wasn't wrong when he told her that she had nerves of steel.
"Is this about the incident that happened last night?" Fin asked cautiously, hoping that it was nothing more than a follow-up interview.
"Ah, yes. I'll follow up with you both on that after we discuss another topic I think is related to what happened."
After? Rita instinctively tightened her grip on Fin's hand but did her best to maintain her steely expression. It certainly helped that she'd already gotten dressed for work - it gave her armour. Inwardly, though, she was sweating in her Louboutins.
"I won't waste any time. I want to follow up on a surveillance image I received that I think both of you know about." His tone made it abundantly clear that this wasn't just conjecture; Fin and Rita had sat in enough police interrogations to know that.
Blake reached into the manila folder on the table and pulled out a grainy printout of a group of people standing in a sterile-looking hallway. There were no other identifiers, but they didn't need any more context - there was only one place the two of them had been together with Olivia and Rafael in the last year. Bellevue Hospital.
"Would you like to explain what you were doing with your friends in the VIP wing of Bellevue in August last year?"
It was obvious from Blake's knowing look that he'd already uncovered more about this mission than Fin and Rita had ever imagined he would know. But how Blake had found out and the very fact that he'd come into possession of that image were secondary at the moment; he wanted to hear about that day in their own words.
Fin cursed inwardly. They'd been discovered.
"Catalina - Rafael's grandmother - was critically ill after a stroke she suffered," Rita replied calmly, her expression and tone as cool and collected as Blake's. "We managed to get in contact with Rafael and Olivia, and arranged for them to make a day trip to the city to visit her in the hospital."
Fin resisted the urge to interrupt her; she shot down his side-eye long before he could get a word in. There's no point lying anymore, she mouthed to him as Blake was engrossed in taking notes on his laptop.
"And you contacted them via…"
"A burner cell," Fin chimed in, taking Rita's cue. "We kept in touch in the month before that and delivered the news to them. They agreed to make the trip back when we told them how serious Catalina's condition was."
Did he want to tell Blake that it was Olivia who had first initiated contact with New York? Did Blake already know? The marshal's fingers were flying across the keyboard as he took notes, and Fin paused before he spoke next, suddenly unsure of how to spin this.
But all Blake did was nod slowly, as though he was expecting that answer. "Who else was involved that day?"
"Detectives Nick Amaro and Brian Cassidy. Nick's with SVU, Cassidy with IAB… Cassidy and Olivia were involved a couple of years ago."
"That I'm aware of. Anyone else?"
"Lucia - Rafael's mother. I meet with her regularly and check on her. I'm positive she wouldn't have put her son and Olivia's safety on the line." Rita regretted that second sentence the instant it'd slipped out of her mouth. Too defensive?
"Did anything of note happen that day that could have put Olivia and Rafael's safety at risk?"
"No, I don't recall." Fin racked his brain for memories of that day, but it'd been nearly a year and he'd considered the mission enough of a success that he remembered shamefully little of it - his mind had a way of dwelling on things that'd gone wrong in the past, leaving hardly enough room for the successes. But even of what he remembered of that day, he couldn't recall a single breach. "We planned this as meticulously as we could."
"Neither do I," Rita added. "None of us left the hospital that day. Fin drove them out of the city, and we didn't see them again after that."
"Have you contacted them since that day?"
At this point, Fin had completely given up on downplaying the truth - the secret of the burner cell had already seen the light of day. "We have - using the burner cells."
"When did you last speak?"
It was a grave reminder of the question they'd been hoping to address with Blake at some point, and the air in the room suddenly felt a few degrees colder. "Over a month ago, at this point. It's the longest we've gone without contact." She was surprised at how calmly objective she sounded, having loudly agonised over the matter with Fin and Nick just about anywhere she could - her apartment, Fin's apartment, the precinct interrogation room, her office…
"Yes," Fin echoed solemnly. "We've not heard from them at all."
"And you didn't previously agree to cut off contact at any point?"
"No, we made no such plans."
Rita silently admonished herself again. They'd never made any plans to cut contact because they'd genuinely thought they could keep this up indefinitely… which certainly wasn't doing any favours for any of their standing with WITSEC. Had they inadvertently made the situation worse for everyone involved?
She couldn't even really say that they'd inadvertently made the situation worse. They'd been caught intentionally and knowingly violating one of the cardinal WITSEC rules, and the problem was hardly in their hands anymore.
They'd helped Olivia and Rafael violate one of the cardinal WITSEC rules.
Blake sighed loudly, echoing Rita's train of thought, and she wished that she had some slick way of getting around this interview like she always did in the courtroom. For the first time in a long time, she genuinely felt tongue-tied; like her throat was made of sandpaper.
Fin had the sense to diffuse the awkward tension that was quickly gathering over them. "Are Olivia and Rafael safe, at the very least?"
Blake mulled over that question for a few seconds, probably pondering over how much to reveal to Rita and Fin after staring down the massive pit of disaster they seemed to have created. "They're safe. You have my word."
Fin didn't even pretend to hide his immense relief. "Thank you."
That uncharacteristic show of emotion from him made Rita want to burst into tears, and before she could stop the floodgates from opening, she finally asked the question that'd been on her mind for the last two minutes.
"Did… did we put them in harm's way? Are you relocating them?"
Next to her, Fin froze, his gratitude now displaced by cold, hard reality. Blake still hadn't addressed the elephant in the room that had been lying in wait. Rafael and Olivia were safe wherever they were - but were their lives about to be shaken again?
"We're still investigating what happened. We won't make any final decisions until we gather enough information to make that call. But…," he paused gravely, "in the light of what has happened, it's very likely that we will relocate them again with brand new identities. In the meantime, you need to cease contact with them immediately. Get rid of the burner cell. We cannot risk any further threats to all of your safety."
"Okay," Rita responded calmly, although Fin could immediately tell from the slight tremble in her voice that she was unnerved - a very un-Rita emotion, and one that troubled him. They could very well be the ones responsible for the next seismic shift in Rafael and Olivia's lives, as though they hadn't already been through enough in the last year.
Rita left the rest of the interview questions to Fin, ignoring his concerned looks. She tried to rationalise the situation as she exited the building with Fin's hand on the small of her back, Blake's promise to be in contact with them soon (far beyond his scope of responsibility) hardly an antidote to the guilt that was creeping into her system. In the months that had passed since that fateful summer, she'd easily convinced herself that she'd made the right call getting Rafael and Olivia back to New York; persuading Fin to go through with her crazy plan. She knew better than anyone how close Rafael was to Lucia and Catalina; even treated the latter like a third grandmother to her since Harvard days - and she'd always known that Rafael would drop everything to return to the city in a heartbeat. Not telling Rafael, and risking him not seeing Catalina while she was at death's door seemed like precisely what a terrible friend would do.
Anyway, Blake couldn't even confirm if this visit to New York had been the incident that'd blown their cover.
But what if it turned out to be? Rita had been the one to make that phone call. She'd begged Fin to hatch this grand plan; begged him to call Rafael and Olivia and summon them back on a day's notice. She'd set the entire chain of events in motion, and now Olivia and Rafael were going to be violently pulled yet again from the lives they'd probably painstakingly built over the last year.
"Hey, you know this isn't your fault, right?" Fin chimed in next to her, sensing the weight of the thoughts on her mind before she'd even voiced a single one.
Rita smiled into the quick, but tender, kiss he pressed to her lips as they walked down the block, surreptitiously glancing at the uniformed officers who'd been keeping watch since the morning - an emblem of the omnipresent air of threat that'd hung over them for the past few days.
"Sure you want to go to the office today?"
If this were any other case, she'd have shaken off her residual anxiety and gone to work, but the thought of sitting in her office and thinking about other cases all day was thoroughly unappealing. "No - I'm going to have my team move things around so I can take some time off. I can't think like this."
He nodded sympathetically. "I don't have to be in until the evening. Rollins and Carisi are covering today. I'll take you home?"
"Yeah," she muttered, feeling a wave of nausea overcome her suddenly. "I'd like that."
Two months ago she'd been bracing for one of the busiest summers in her firm's history - headline-hitting cases, interviews, court appearances so frequent she genuinely considered booking a short-term rental downtown. Now it was looking like she had to check out of work - a choice that the Rita Calhoun of two years ago would not have been able to fathom. However, she also couldn't afford to show up in court in less-than-ideal condition - and if she was going to embarrass herself, she was going to do so in the far less public way of lying in bed at home.
When they finally made it through her front door she unravelled almost embarrassingly fast, kicking off her stilettos and unceremoniously throwing her blazer and purse onto the couch, all the while grateful that Fin was her only audience member. He was in her kitchen even before she turned to lock the door behind them, grabbing glasses and a bottle of wine from the cabinet he'd become intimately familiar with over the months. Rita watched him silently from the living room, recalling a time when she and Fin did little more than exchange greetings when she stepped into the precinct to defend a perp he'd just arrested - polite, distant. But over the last year he'd started to carve a space for himself in her home, in her bed, in her heart; all because of the secret they shared.
She was glad that Rafael had asked Fin to look her up the night that he'd been exiled from New York. Fin deserved someone to share that burden with - even if she wasn't very good at carrying it herself.
Rita's freshly laundered work clothes became a crumpled mess when she crashed onto her couch inelegantly, but she had no energy or sense of urgency to adjourn upstairs to change out of them. Anyway, it wasn't like Fin cared (especially when he'd already seen her in all stages of undress over the months); and all she wanted to do was collapse into his arms and let herself languish in them until she had the will to get her day back on track. She took a large sip of her Cabernet and placed the glass back on her table with a soft clang, where it sat untouched for the good part of an hour.
Fin gently swatted her hand away when he realised that she was chewing on her manicured nails - an old nervous habit that'd returned of late, for unsurprising reasons - but wisely chose not to say anything else, exhaustion hanging heavy over the room. The morning had consumed her whole; she couldn't even bring herself to care about all the work that she'd left for her associates and fixing every potential mistake they would make. Even the headline cases could wait at this point - all she could care about was the fact that she could have put the safety of her best friend in jeopardy.
"Babe?"
She jumped slightly when Fin's voice echoed in her ears - it was merely a whisper but felt booming in the silence of the room. "Do you want to get some sleep?"
He'd slept over last night when they'd gotten news that Blake wanted to see them in the morning, but in reality, sleep had been elusive. Rita had tossed and turned under the covers for the better part of the night, and he could see her tiredness etched into her features.
"Can you stay?" she asked shakily, her hazel eyes imploring and full of fear, and there was no way he wanted to say no to that. Leaving her alone was the last thing they both needed right now, and the relief in her expression when he nodded was palpable.
She let the covers swallow her as soon as she shed the last of her stuffy work clothes and slipped into her bed, Fin's hand still quietly resting on the small of her back. Rita instinctively curled up in his protective embrace, realising at that moment just how small she suddenly felt - engulfed by a situation that'd felt like it'd spun out of control. The last time she'd felt like this was in her previous life as an overworked ADA, or maybe even a 3L at Harvard struggling to get her essays done for the first time in her life, and she bit back the hot tears that were threatening to fall.
"Shit, Fin," she cursed suddenly, anger seeping into her tone. "I feel like I've fucked all of this up."
"Rita, this wasn't your fault. You-"
"But-" she interrupted him brusquely, wincing a little at the shock that flashed through his eyes, "Telling myself that doesn't make me feel any less guilty. They never would have come back here if not for me."
"We have no way of knowing for sure that the trip here was what blew their cover."
"Then what else could it have been?" she almost demanded. He bristled at the hurt and frustration in her expression, even though he knew it wasn't directed at him.
He sighed and lingered on that question for a second, finding her hands under the covers and lacing his fingers with hers. "Trevor could have mentioned something to the wrong people. Maybe the sex trafficking ring just has resources or connections that we don't know about."
Fin was relieved to feel her relax slightly in his embrace when he listed out those possibilities - tangible, plausible ones that weren't just empty words of assurance, because Rita wasn't the kind of person who'd be swayed by those. "And look - Liv and Barba weren't exactly ordinary civilians. They were in the news all the time; their names are tied to so many cases. It isn't impossible that someone who works with Liv or Barba now thought they looked familiar and traced them back to New York, even if their intentions weren't harmful."
"In any case…" he continued after a pensive pause, "there's so much about their new lives that we don't know. And even if this was the trip that blew their cover… I think you made the right call. We did the right thing with what we knew at that moment. We reunited him with his mom and abuelita."
We reunited him with his mom and abuelita.
She tried her best to picture Lucia's tears of relief when she saw Rafael emerge through the Bellevue hospital door that morning; to feel Rafael's grateful hug that words couldn't encapsulate - and the dull ache in her chest suddenly multiplied in intensity.
"You made the right call," Fin repeated, taking her hands in his and silently begging her to take his word. "And if we had to make that choice again, I still would've done everything I could."
Just when she thought she'd peeled all away the layers to Odafin Tutuola, the softness in his voice - the most gentle and reassuring that she'd ever heard him - was her undoing, and the tears that she'd been holding back all morning suddenly poured out of her.
"Hey, I've got you."
Fin didn't speak after that - for a while, he simply couldn't. He'd never been good at these kinds of things. Tears. Sadness. Emotion, really. He'd lost far too many people he loved to the emotional wall he'd put up for himself over the years. When Rita had appeared in his life under these extreme circumstances, he'd found himself at a loss at first, mystified and intimidated by her razor-sharp intellect and intensity that no other woman he'd dated even came close to. He simply didn't date people like Rita Calhoun, let alone fall in love with them. But now that he had her, he sure as heck wasn't going to let her down.
So he did what he did best, wordlessly pressing his lips to her forehead and pulling her against his chest until the tension in her shoulders melted away. She shivered slightly at first, stubbornly protesting his silent order to relax, but finally caved in and let herself sink into him fully.
"You're the best thing that's come out of this fucking mess, you know?" she managed. Fin's hand tenderly brushed across her cheek, wiping away the streaks of tears. His sudden show of affection took her by surprise, and when she looked into his eyes and saw the unmistakable tenderness in his gaze she felt like her chest could explode with just how much she felt for him.
Had they really been little more than strangers a year ago? To think that they'd been brought together by tragedy. Before Rafael and Olivia had disappeared from the city, Rita and Fin hadn't exchanged more than pleasantries or the occasional tense remark at 60 Centre Street. Now their lives were completely entangled - and Fin was starting to think that things would stay this way for a long time to come.
(He liked that prospect very much.)
Were Rafael and Olivia feeling the same, wherever they were? He hoped so.
"I really hope Raf and Olivia are just enjoying themselves on vacation somewhere," she said after a beat, as though she'd read his mind. "Especially now that we definitely can't get in contact with them."
Fin made a mental note to bring the burner cell to TARU the next day, as much as the idea repulsed him. "I really hope they're doing alright."
"And that they aren't going to be relocated to somewhere they hate," she added quietly, guilt still heavy in her voice.
"There's really nothing else we can do, can we?"
"No, there isn't."
"And we're going to have to be okay with that."
"Yeah."
"Yeah," she echoed solemnly.
Rita squeezed her eyes shut and tried to focus on one of the many other things that demanded her attention. She still had a firm to run; hearings to attend. But the air of defeat that hung over them was too crushing to exorcise.
"Get some sleep, babe," Fin murmured against her cheek. "You need it."
"Thanks for staying."
"Anytime."
She squeezed her eyes shut again, this time finding something better to focus on - the fact that she had someone to share this burden with. It was a far better option than ruminating on the elephant in the room.
"Would you like to explain what you were doing with your friends in the VIP wing of Bellevue last year?"
The last time Rafael had sat in this interview room, he'd thrown a minor tantrum in front of Blake about becoming Rafael Marquez, while Olivia presumably breezed through her session with Nguyen next door. This time around he didn't have to wonder what Olivia was up to because she was inches away from him, staring at the grainy CCTV image that Blake had presented to them. They'd been summoned from their "apartment" right after breakfast without a clue as to what to expect, but it seemed like a stern scolding was on the cards.
"Have you talked to Fin and Rita about this?"
"That isn't relevant to my question." Blake gestured at the print-out, this time slightly more emphatically. "What happened?"
Rafael suddenly found himself tongue-tied, unable to squeeze a word from his throat, but Olivia responded without missing a beat.
"We were visiting Rafael's abuelita. She was critically ill after a stroke and we didn't think at that point that she had much time left." She explained it so matter-of-factly that Rafael was almost surprised by her candour - but what point was there in hiding it when Blake literally had photo evidence of their expedition? Better that they came clean than covered their tracks now, right?
Rafael swallowed the lump in his throat that had formed at that memory. "We were there for the entire day. Never left that room or corridor."
"How did you get to New York?"
"We rented a car from a place near our apartment and drove it to New Jersey. Fin picked us up and drove us into the city in another car he'd rented."
It seemed almost ridiculous how their nerve-wracking expedition from a year ago had been reduced to a few matter-of-fact sentences - and that they'd somehow ended up discussing them with such candour with Blake, the very person they'd been looking to evade. Then again, it was downright foolish for Rafael to have believed that this trip would be a secret forever, and as much as this interview demanded his absolute focus, he couldn't help but admonish himself for it. He was a Deputy US Marshal, for God's sake, with more resources than Rafael could fathom, and had warned them ample times of the risks of violating WITSEC rules.
Violating WITSEC rules. Inexplicably, that had slipped his mind entirely. The room suddenly felt ten degrees hotter.
"Who else knew about this trip?"
"Nick Amaro, from SVU - and Brian Cassidy from IAB. We trusted them, and they kept us safe that day." Olivia wanted to believe that it was true. Nick and Brian had burned the midnight oil coming up with their plan - surely all their effort hadn't gone to waste?
Blake gestured at the print-outs again, this time more emphatically. "Clearly not safe from the surveillance cameras that caught clear shots of you both."
The room lapsed into silence. Rafael looked to Olivia nervously, half-expecting her to have a pithy remark or smooth comeback up her sleeve, but all she did was bite her lip and dip her eyes to the print-outs on the table: a tacit admission of guilt.
"I don't have to tell you that returning to New York, even for just a day, was an extreme risk to your safety."
All they did was nod silently. There was no appropriate comeback; no loophole to thread. They'd flouted the rules knowing full well that they existed for a reason.
"Did anything suspicious happen on that day trip that might have compromised your identities?"
Olivia hesitated to answer; he could almost see her run through every detail in her head, the same way she used to when working on an average case. She wasn't the kind to miss out on details so easily. But he didn't wait for her this time.
The question slipped from his lips before his brain could fully catch up. "Are you saying that this trip was what blew our covers?"
Had his trip to see his sick grandmother - one that he'd been determined to make - almost signed their death certificates?
"I can't say for sure. We have to investigate every lead we have." That was exactly the kind of answer that Rafael had been expecting from Blake: polite, non-committal, generic. But the furtive glance that Blake snuck at the pictures on the desk as he said that said enough for Rafael to draw his own conclusions.
"So you're saying that this trip could have been the one that did."
"Rafael, as I just said, we have to look into-"
"Do you have any other plausible scenarios that might explain this?"
Blake seemed to hesitate for a second, wondering how best to talk Rafael down, but gave in after some deliberation - Rafael clearly wasn't going to accept a platitude at this stage. "At the moment, this is looking like the most probable cause."
"God damn it," Rafael cursed before he could stop himself. Most probable cause.
"But that's something that I still need to look into further," Blake quickly interjected before Rafael could continue - even he was visibly taken aback by the fury in Rafael's expression.
"How about Trevor Langan?" Olivia suggested. "He could have told so many different people - and that was much more recent than our trip back to New York."
"At this point, I haven't been able to find any evidence that Trevor was the source of any security breaches. It seems like Rita got him to keep quiet, after all."
Rafael couldn't decide what to feel about that piece of information. Trevor Langan would have been easy to blame, especially when the alternative now looked to be blaming himself for the recent string of events.
Most probable cause. He couldn't get those words out of his head. There was a very good chance that his need to see his abuelita had signed their death warrants.
"Look, guys," Blake softened his tone when he noticed how defeated they both looked. "I'm still investigating everything that happened. Most probable doesn't mean that it definitely was the source of the leak. Give me some more time."
Olivia and Rafael nodded silently, but she couldn't be sure that Rafael was even listening - he was staring at the photo on the table, lost in thought.
"That being said…" he added sternly, "I'm sure both of you know the consequences of having your identities compromised. You're already sitting - and living - here, so I won't belabour the point."
She bristled, but took the liberty of answering on behalf of Rafael. "Alright. And… we're sorry for causing you this trouble." Trouble was very much an understatement, but it was all she could think of.
"Yes," Rafael echoed, which surprised her. "We're sorry about all of this."
"When I have more details, I'll let you know what comes next."
He shut his laptop and manila folder, signalling that the conversation was over, and stood up to usher them back to the apartment. Olivia couldn't help but notice how much Rafael had transformed since entering the room half an hour ago - he'd been resolute and confident over breakfast, but now he was a shell of his earlier self, his shoulders slumped in defeat and footsteps hesitant.
Truthfully, things hadn't even gone that badly with Blake. She'd been expecting a long scolding, but Blake hadn't even raised his voice once. Sure, there was no confirmation as to how long they would be staying in this facility, but that in itself was the punishment they deserved for so egregiously flouting WITSEC rules.
(She wondered if Fin and Rita were losing their minds in New York, now that the burner cell was gone and they'd missed their usual contact time.)
(There was nothing she could do about that anyway.)
Rafael made a beeline for their bedroom the instant Olivia shut the door behind her, and she could tell from his sullen expression that he wasn't inviting her to follow him.
It only made sense that he wanted to be alone, Olivia rationalised. It didn't take a genius to figure out that he was blaming himself for making the trip back to New York to see his grandmother, and she wasn't going to be able to talk him out of that right now.
With nothing else she could do right now, Olivia rummaged through the kitchen cupboards and started on that day's lunch. Would Rafael even be in the mood to eat? She couldn't make that call just yet, but a part of her was determined to ensure that things felt as normal as possible even under these circumstances.
She gritted her teeth and brought the pot of water to a boil. Hopefully, he'd be up to talking in a few hours.
"I keep thinking about whether we should have made that trip back to New York."
His admission slipped out as she was plating the pasta she'd made, and Olivia wondered why she'd spent a good part of the last hour agonising about how to table the topic with Rafael. Clearly, it was the elephant in the room, and a part of her was grateful - very grateful, actually - that he was wasting no time in addressing it.
She was half-expecting him to be as downcast as he'd been since they'd trudged out of the interview room, but she looked across the table at him and the worst of his misery seemed to have disappeared during his nap. Instead, he looked… pensive, deep in thought, as he picked at his plate.
"We couldn't have predicted any of this a year ago," she pointed out quietly, still cautious about his fragile emotional state. "And you wouldn't have found out about your abuelita if not for the burner cell…" she added after a pause, echoing what she'd told him in the motel room the day before.
"Still, I made the choice to go back."
"We made the choice to go back."
"To see my grandmother."
"Like you said that morning - you gave me the choice to go with you or not, and I decided to go with you. If Blake was right about this hospital visit being the reason we're here now, then both of us are on the hook. You'd never have found out if I hadn't bought the burner cell, and we both decided to go back to New York."
She saw the wheels turn in his head, frantically searching for a pithy retort to that statement, but was met only with silence. Rafael's usual stubbornness was completely defenceless now - it was the truth, and they both knew it.
Her pasta suddenly seemed incredibly unappetising to her, and he flinched a little when she dropped her fork on the table with a resonant clang. "You know what, Raf? I don't want to do this anymore. This blame game. We're going to be here for some time; I don't want to spend it like this."
He was silent for so long that she wondered if she'd misspoken, but finally, he let out the breath she didn't even realise he had been holding. "You're right. I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry too," she replied in a half-whisper, and for a few long seconds they stood in silence at opposite ends of the table, both suddenly hesitant about what to do next, until Rafael finally broke the ice and reached out to rest his hand on top of hers, and not in the same way as in the interview room earlier - desperate, clammy. She almost bristled at his sudden show of affection; the kind of quiet assurance she received under the table on a dinner date or under the covers, seconds before she fell asleep.
Rafael was relieved when she looked up at him and the corners of her lips curled into a smile - a weary one, laced with the exhaustion of the last two days, but a smile nonetheless.
"The pasta smells great, by the way," he quipped, and she couldn't help but laugh at that simple remark, which felt like a typical Tuesday night in their apartment kitchen, Rafael humming as he sliced vegetables and snuck bites of whatever she had on the stove. She let herself feel the momentary heartache of being reminded that they might never see the walls of that apartment again, but at the very least, they'd had a few very blissful months there.
If they had to move to a new city, at least they'd be apartment hunting together, she thought. The long year they'd spent living alone in Bethesda would be no more.
(Something about the… domesticity of that prospect made her heart stir, especially when Rafael smiled as he took a bite, in the same thoughtful and appreciative way he always did when she made dinner.)
Their eyes met again over the rim of her glass of water, and suddenly, the dull walls of this safehouse seemed a touch brighter.
Blake returned the next day with a precious lifeline: two laptops with secure Internet connections.
"I don't have to tell you that any contact with people you know - from both New York and Bethesda - is strictly forbidden," he'd warned them as he left, and both Rafael nor Olivia knew that it was in their best interest to strictly abide by the WITSEC rules this time around.
Olivia looked over at Rafael, who was lounging on the couch and reading a PDF copy of a novel he'd been meaning to catch up on for weeks now, and felt a small prick of jealousy. Being a college instructor meant that he truly had the summers off - no one was calling or emailing to check on him or demand a new report or proposal. Neither was he expected back at the office until the new semester started, which probably wasn't for a few weeks more anyway. Blake was bound to return with news before then, wasn't he?
Her, on the other hand? She wondered if she'd already been fired.
Did it really matter that she hadn't checked her work email in days, though? If it was so unlikely that she would ever see Bethesda in the flesh again, she had nothing to lose if her boss let her go. They might as well spend the rest of her summer looking for her replacement.
The afternoon seemed to trickle by, just like every other afternoon they'd spent here. She strolled around the small outdoor patio they'd been given, its imposingly high walls an omnipresent reminder of the high-security surroundings, but the sunlight on her skin provided some welcome respite from the malaise of the living room. Rafael had proven much easier to entertain over their time in Bethesda; a good novel or intellectual puzzle of some kind was more than enough to keep him meaningfully and contentedly occupied for hours. There was a good reason he'd become a lawyer poring over legal documents and she'd always been on her feet, racing through the pavements of New York.
But did she really want to be out of here as soon as possible? Being free from this facility probably meant that they would have to start all over again in a brand-new city. Was she - or Rafael, for that matter - ready for that? They'd gone through this once, barely even a year ago; now she wasn't sure if they could handle another seismic change. Their lives torn from them once more, no matter how fledgling Olivia Davis and Rafael Marquez's existences had been.
Somehow, that violence felt even more lethal than the gunshots that they'd survived that night in Chelsea.
She sprang up from her seat, grateful that she hadn't interrupted his intense focus, and decided to do the dishes in a desperate attempt to have something to do with her hands. Thank goodness this place didn't have a dishwasher (something she'd never say under ordinary circumstances).
Only then did she see the note that Blake had slipped under the front door.
Rafael and Olivia,
I have an update for you. I'll see you tomorrow morning at 9.
Blake
Neither Olivia nor Rafael had much of an appetite when they took their seats across from Blake in the interview room the next morning, where she fruitlessly tried to predict the nature of his news. Blake always looked so calm. Olivia wondered if she'd projected that image in her previous life. Even if she did, had she lost it all after becoming an exile from her city?
She did know one thing for sure. After their mistake, she was definitely a permanent exile from New York City now.
"We've weighed various options for you both. At the moment, it's not safe for you to be released from the facility."
Rafael reached for her hand under the table and she wrapped her fingers around his, feeling the quiet security of his touch. She wondered what was going through his mind; his expression was uncharacteristically inscrutable, but his fingers twitching in her palm were enough of a sign of his nervousness.
"You'll be held here until we can establish that the threats against you have been dealt with."
There was no appropriate reaction to that assessment. Stay here, and let mind-numbing boredom creep into every crack of the room and last brain cell. Leave, and once again be on the run from a sex trafficking ring that'd already uncovered them once - with no guarantee that the next city would be as welcoming as this one.
"So… you still don't know who compromised our identities?" Olivia managed after a beat.
Blake frowned, and for a split-second, his calm facade gave way to sheer exhaustion. "I'm afraid that it's still inconclusive. We've been investigating various possible leads, but haven't been able to rule any of them out with certainty."
"What happens next, then?"
"You cannot return to your old lives in Bethesda. Your names and exact location were compromised, and we cannot risk the assailants tracking you down again."
Olivia's heart sank. She'd always suspected this, but having confirmation was a separate - and even more devastating - blow.
"So… at the moment, it is extremely likely that you will be relocating to a new city. We will be establishing brand new identities for you."
She anxiously looked at Rafael, whose blank expression was more terrifying than tears could ever be; the fire that usually burned in his green eyes had completely extinguished.
"I'll let you know when we're ready to restart the official relocation process. I'm sorry." Blake's genuinely apologetic expression provided little consolation.
We're being relocated again.
Soon, Rafael Marquez and Olivia Davis would be no more, in the same way that Rafael Barba and Olivia Benson had been brutally wiped from existence.
We're being relocated again.
The room fell into silence. He looked at Olivia, whose expression was as inscrutable as the discomfiting quiet.
It wasn't the kind of silence of languid evenings spent laughing at the TV, or the one that fell over them in the seconds before he pressed his lips to hers each night. It wasn't the kind of silence that felt like warm comfort or calm acceptance; the kind that'd slowly crept into their lives over the past year.
Instead, this silence felt like death.