"Hey, Elliot?" she asked as they stood together at the counter, waiting their turn to order lunch.

"Yeah?" he turned towards her, smiling, the way he'd been smiling for most of the morning, a smile that did not reflect the unease she felt twisting in her own belly.

"Is it ok if one of my friends comes by the apartment this afternoon? I'd like to meet him, and I think it would be better if we didn't do that in public."

It hadn't gone so well, trying to have these conversations out in the open; in the cafe Fin and Elliot had been careful, not wanting to say too much or speak too loudly lest they be overheard, and it had happened again this morning, at the park, where the press of people all around them and the smiling faces of happy families had stayed her tongue, made it hard to speak her mind. When Barba came she didn't want to meet him in a crowd, at another coffee shop full of witnesses. She wanted to be somewhere safe and quiet, somewhere they could all say exactly what they were thinking.

"Which friend?" Elliot asked. Noah was no longer riding on his shoulders; Noah was standing between the pair of them, each of them holding one of his little hands, keeping him close until they got their food.

"Barba," she said. She was pretty sure Barba was his last name - oh, we're back to Barba now he'd said, as if they had grown past it, her calling him by his last name - but she didn't know what his first name was, and she felt foolish now. How could she not know her own friend's name?

"That's the ADA, right? The one from the picture Fin showed you."

She hoped that was a good sign, the fact that Elliot remembered the name, that he knew Barba wasn't just some random stranger.

"Right," she said. "He's coming to the city, he says he has time to see me today."

"Yeah, that's fine," Elliot said. "I'd like to meet him, and maybe he can help fill in some of the gaps."

The gaps that were created by Elliot's departure, the seven years he remembered no better than Olivia did, the gaps that only existed because Elliot had walked away and never looked back.

He did, she told herself. He did come back. He came back for you.

Maybe if she reminded herself enough times she'd start to believe it as fervently as Elliot did.

"Will you give me your address? I need to tell him where to go."

"Sure thing."

And just like that it was done; Elliot gave her the address, and she texted it to Barba, and they ordered hamburgers and french fries, ate them together at a sticky booth looking out at a busy sidewalk, and all the while Olivia thought of Barba and his accusations, Barba and his palpable alarm at the idea of her staying with Elliot. Thought of Barba, and Elliot, too, thought of the weight of him inside her, on top of her, thought of the rough sound of his voice saying I love you and his broad hands cradling Noah tenderly. The man was a study in contradictions but then so, too, was she, and she did not know what Barba was, not yet. She was eager to find out.

The knock on the door filled his belly with dread, but he did his best to hide his reticence from Olivia. It was good, that her friend was coming to see her; hell, wasn't that why she'd come to the city in the first place? To walk on familiar streets, sit down across the table from familiar faces, to help her rediscover the memories she'd lost? It was a good thing, Barba coming here, but Liv didn't even know the guy's first name, and Elliot hadn't had time to look him up before welcoming the stranger into his home. It boded well that Barba was - or had been - SVU's ADA; some of the ADAs who'd come through their door had been like family. Alex, Casey, even Sonya in her own fucked up way. Some of them had not, though; some of those ADAs had never really understood the detectives, had not understood what the sacrifices required to get the job done, judged Elliot and Olivia both harshly for their mistakes. Barba was in the photo from Noah's adoption celebration and maybe that made him family, but what if he wasn't? How could Elliot hope to protect Olivia from a threat he did not understand?

Too late, it was too late now to worry; Olivia danced over to the door before Elliot could stop her, swung it open and called out, "Barba?"

"You can call me Rafael, Liv," the man on the other side said with a smile.

He looked, Elliot thought, like a harmless kinda guy. Well dressed, a little on the short side, with a beard that hid his age, though if Elliot had to guess he'd reckon Barba was a few years younger than Liv and himself. The pair did not embrace; Olivia did not fling herself into Barba's arms as she had done when Elliot arrived at her doorstep, and a part of him felt a smug, reckless pride that Olivia had extended that affection to him, and not this stranger.

"Come in," she was saying to Barba. "Noah's just gone down for a nap, we've had a busy day. But you can meet Elliot."

"Yeah, I'd love to meet Elliot," Barba said, his emphasis heavy and unmistakeable, his eyes darting to Elliot as he stepped inside the apartment, a challenge written all over his face. They'd never even met, Elliot and Barba, and it seemed Barba disliked him already. Two could play at that game; Elliot decided he didn't like Barba much, either.

"Hey, man, how you doing," Elliot said almost on reflex, reaching out his hand for a shake. "Elliot Stabler."

"Rafael Barba," the interloper answered. To his credit he did shake Elliot's hand, but only briefly, releasing him at once to shove his hands in his pockets instead, looking around the apartment curiously.

"Big place for one guy," he said.

"Got kids," Elliot grunted. "You want a drink?"

"I'm good, thanks," Barba said dismissively, and then he literally turned his back on Elliot, focused all his attention on Olivia instead.

"So," Barba said to her in a voice heavy with concern, a concern Elliot thought seemed genuine. "What the hell's going on?"

"Why don't we sit?"

She gestured towards the couch, and the three of them made their way there. Elliot was a little ahead of them and plunked himself down firmly on the couch first, staking his claim before Barba got a chance. The stranger could have the armchair; Elliot would not cede his own sofa or the chance to sit with Liv. It seemed Olivia was oblivious to the power struggle playing out vis a vis the seating arrangements; she danced over to the sofa and settled next to Elliot, so close their thighs were almost touching. At the sight of their proximity Barba's eyebrows rose incredulously, but he had the good grace not to draw attention to his concerns, choosing instead to sit in the armchair with as much dignity as he could muster.

"It's really not that complicated," Olivia said. "There was an accident, I hit my head, and when I woke up I didn't remember anything. Not my name, not anything. Some details are coming back to me, but I'm still feeling a little…lost. My friends are helping me, though," she added, smliing up at Elliot.

"Friends like Elliot?" Barba asked with a shrewd glance at Elliot.

"And Fin," Elliot said, realizing at once what Barba was implying. "And her friends in the town where she's staying. I know Liv's reached out to a few other people, too, just trying to make arrangements."

"It's good you aren't keeping her all to yourself," Barba said drily.

What the fuck is his problem? Elliot wondered. It usually took more than two minutes for strangers to decide they didn't like him. What had Barba heard - what had Liv told him - to make him so mistrustful of Elliot now?

"She makes her own choices," Elliot said with a shrug.

"Ok, that's sweet, but I've got some questions." Barba sat up a little straighter, something of the prosecutor still lingering in his demeanor as if he were preparing for a cross. "Liv - do you know what actually happened to you? The accident, I mean. Was there another car involved?"

Liv frowned.

"The police didn't tell me much," she admitted. "They said I hit a tree. They think something made me run off the road, but they don't know what it was."

"Wait, what?" Elliot asked sharply. How was this the first he'd heard about the actual accident?

You never asked, he reminded himself grimly; he'd been so worried about Liv, about whether she was safe, whether she was ok, so distracted by the consequences that the accident itself had slipped his mind. Not so Barba; the man came in and asked the very question Elliot should've started with himself.

What would make Liv run her car off the road? Was she being pursued, pushed into it by another driver? Had someone done this to her on purpose? Even if they hadn't, weren't there things a person was supposed to do after an accident? Call the insurance company, at least, he thought; the car was totalled, and she was gonna need a new one. Was she still paying off the car? Had anyone called the bank?

How could he have failed her so completely?

"That's what they told me," Liv said uneasily. "I'm sorry, I don't know anything else."

"Don't apologize -"

"You don't have to be sorry -"

As one Barba and Elliot rushed to reassure her, shooting dark looks at one another as they were interrupted.

Three doesn't work, Elliot thought. There's always an odd man out. Whatever Olivia's relationship to Barba had been in the past, it was clear Barba didn't think there was room for Elliot in it now.

"I'd like to speak to the police," Barba said. "I can do it as your lawyer, if you want. I'm in private practice now."

"Got tired of fighting the good fight?" Elliot asked.

"It's a long story," Barba answered tartly. It was a story Elliot very much wanted to know, the story behind this ADA's departure from his office, but maybe Barba was right; now wasn't the time to focus on anything but Olivia.

"There's a lot of paperwork involved in an accident like this, even if no one else was injured. I can help you take care of it," Barba said to Olivia then.

"Oh, that would be great," she said. "I've been - I really don't even know where to start. Malcolm had to show me how to use my phone."

"Malcolm?"

"Her neighbor," Elliot supplied for him. "He was looking after Liv until me and Fin got there."

"Do we know this Malcolm?"

"I do not want to talk about Malcolm," Olivia said firmly. "I want to talk about you. You're my friend, Rafael," she said earnestly, leaning towards him with her elbows on her knees, "and I didn't even know your name. I want to know how we know each other, what we did together."

Yeah, Rafael, what did you do together?

The guy didn't really seem like Liv's type; she had a thing about lawyers, didn't really trust them, and she liked her men a little tougher. Barba was slick and clever and maybe a bit hot tempered, but he was nothing like the other guys Liv used to go for.

He was nothing like Elliot, and it was Elliot's bed, and not Barba's, where Olivia had spent the night. Where he hoped she would again, if Barba didn't completely wreck their delicate detente.

"We worked together," Barba said. "But we got close. We're very good friends."

"Like me and Elliot," she said, smiling at Elliot again, and his hand itched to reach for her, to grab hold of hers, to twine their fingers together and remind Barba of the natural order of things. It was Elliot who belonged by her side, Elliot who knew her best.

Wasn't it?

"Not like you and Elliot," Barba said, his eyes flickering between them in an unsettling way. "Can we talk in private, Liv?"

"What's the matter, Rafael? Don't you trust me?" Elliot asked him coolly.

"Frankly, no, I don't," Barba fired back. "I don't know you, but I know about you. You know your jacket's got more excessive force complaints than any cop I've ever seen? You spent fifteen years trying to solve every case with your fists. How many people have you killed, again? Including the teenage girl?"

Shit, Elliot thought, shooting a worried glance at Olivia. She'd asked him about it this morning, about Jenna, about the case that made him walk away from SVU, and he'd been vague, and he was regretting that now. She should've heard the truth from him; he should've told her himself, carefully, slowly, with context. It shouldn't have been like this, Barba throwing a grenade into the middle of what had been, so far, a beautiful day.

Olivia didn't look scared, though. Didn't look shocked, appalled, taken aback; she looked like she knew about Jenna already. Her dark eyes were sad and soft as she looked up at him, not confused or questioning but disappointed, somehow.

She knows, he thought. She'd known this morning when she asked, and he'd failed the test, apparently, because when she gave him the chance to speak for himself he'd balked.

I won't do it again, he thought. If she wanted the truth, she would have it. All of it.

"You want to talk about it, let's talk about it," he said.

Here goes nothing.