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Chapter Text

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“Your tribute was beautiful.”

“Oh, hello Counselor. I thought you might be here today. In fact, I was rather hoping….”

“Olivia. Mr. Barba. Thank you both for coming. Olivia, thank you for your kind words about my father. You certainly captured the essence of the man. And thank you both for coming to see him before.…”

Olivia looked fondly at her old friend’s daughter, remembering the young girl she had been when they met years before.  “Lenore, I’m so sorry for your loss. For all of our loss. Bayard was one of the finest people I’ve ever known. He certainly adored you, and was so proud of you. He told me you’ll be starting Columbia Law in the fall.  Ready to follow in his footsteps?”

“I can only hope to be half the lawyer he became,” Lenore answered.  “Please excuse me. I see the funeral director trying to get my attention.”

Left alone, the two former friends stood staring awkwardly at one another for a few moments. Finally, Barba broke the silence. “You visited with Ellis recently?”

“Yes. He and I go back a long way, and had become good friends over the years. When I first met him, he was a newly-single father of a tween. Now that Noah is in that phase, I found myself seeking pointers from Bayard. And he’d asked me to come, to tell me about his diagnosis and prognosis. I gather you also went to see him in his final days?”

“Yes. He had asked  for me to….”

“Olivia? Olivia Benson?”

Olivia stood transfixed at the sound of this voice from the past.  Last she had heard, David Haden had moved back to his native Louisiana after becoming the sacrificial lamb for a scandal in the DA’s office. But it was widely understood that he had had nothing to do with the well-hidden corruption within his command. Thus, he was able to land on his feet, joining the U.S. Attorney’s office in New Orleans.

“Liv, you haven’t changed a bit. Still as lovely as ever.”  Time had certainly not diminished Haden’s charm or flirtatiousness.

“So you two are acquainted?” interjected Barba.

“Olivia and I worked a couple of cases together back in the day.”

Barba and Haden shook hands. “Haden, I understand that congratulations are in order. Bayard Ellis’ shoes will be hard to fill.”

Olivia’s eyebrows arched. “Bayard’s shoes? You’re taking over the Innocence Project?”

“Yes,” Haden replied. “I’m at least willing to take a stab at it. You refused to even try, Barba.”

“It was tempting, but I’d just committed to something else. And you are a great choice for the job.”

Haden turned to Olivia. “So there you have the latest with me. What about you, Detective Benson? It’s been a long time. What is new with you?”

“Well, for one thing, it’s Captain now.”

“Well, well. I’m glad the NYPD recognized what they have in you. But update me on the rest of your life.  Did you ever make it to Paris?”

“I did indeed. A few years ago.”

Haden smiled. “I’m happy to hear that. Alone, or with someone special?”

“Someone I was seeing at the time, and my son.”

“Son? You have a child! You and his father took him to Paris?”

“Not his father, though Ed did dote on Noah.”  Olivia pulled out her phone to show Haden some photos of her growing boy.

“Good-looking kid. Just like his mother. How old is he? 12? 13?,” queried Haden.

“He’s 12.”

As Haden’s eyes narrowed, Barba’s did the same. Olivia obliviously asked, “What of your children, David? How are they?”

“Adults, for one thing. Which shows how long it’s been since we last talked.”

Lenore approached the trio. “Sorry to break this up, but we’re heading out to the gravesite now. David, it’s time for pallbearer duty.”

“Certainly. Liv, let’s get together and catch up. See you later,” David nodded to both Benson and Barba as he left with Lenore.

Barba turned to Benson. “Worked a couple of cases together, huh?”

“Yes. You remember what that’s like. Why?”

Barba smiled a bit.  “Oh, nothing. By the way, what was it you were hoping?”

“What?”

“A few minutes ago, before Lenore came up, you said you’d been hoping….?”

“Let’s defer that to later. We need to leave, and I promised I’d ride with some others from NYPD.”

“Later, then.”

————

Two weeks earlier:

Olivia Benson ran her fingers around her neck, forgetting that she had loaned her compass necklace to a friend who needed the compass more than she did—or thought she did—at the time. The necklace had been a gesture of hope for a clearer direction—a gift from someone who was himself hoping it would point her in his direction.

And why not go in his direction?  After ten years of no-contact, they had spent the past three years rebuilding their friendship. They had had a close relationship over the course of a 12-year partnership, but after a squad room trauma, he’d walked away—from the job and from her—without a word. The existence of his marriage and of the professional partnership had kept that relationship within the bounds of proprietary all of those years, despite their growing closeness and inter-dependency. Or perhaps some would call it co-dependency.  But now they were no longer partners and he was no longer married, due to the tragic murder of his wife.

But something was holding her back. Or some things. Leaving without a word, and ghosting her for ten years. A letter that he didn’t and did write that at once dismissed and acknowledged the bond they once had. The wedding ring that keeps disappearing and reappearing. His inability to look within, much less cope with, his own feelings. His at times ungovernable temper. His macho intensity. Her own fears—fear of being abandoned yet again; fear that the reality would not match the idealization; fear of commitment.  And concerns—about what kind of role model he would be for her growing son; about letting her son get too close to another male figure only to have him leave his life as others did before; about letting herself get too close to someone who had already proved that he could abruptly leave. 

And about the fact that he had no curiosity about what might have happened to her in his absence.  Oh, he asked about it, but only after she challenged him about his lack of interest. And, even then, the way he asked made clear that the only thing he cared about was her dating history.

But she would need to think about all that later. Bayard Ellis had asked her to visit him at his apartment. It had been more than a year since they last got together, and she looked forward to catching up with her old friend.

———

“Thanks for coming, Liv.”

Olivia tried to hide her shock at seeing him. The once-robust man was now downright skinny and ashen.  ‘Bayard, is everything all right? Are you okay?”

“Obviously not. I asked you here to talk about a few things, that included. There’s no gentle way to say this, Olivia. I’m dying. Stomach cancer. It could be a few months, a few weeks, maybe a few days. But I’ll soon be gone.”

Olivia was reeling. She didn’t know Ellis’ age, but was pretty sure it was close to hers. How could he be this far along in a deadly illness?

“Bayard, I’m so sorry. How long have you known?”

“Not long. And so now I’m racing my own body to get things in order and to make amends where needed. And that’s why seeing you is a priority.”

“Whatever I can do, just tell me.”

“Let’s start with the Innocence Project. I’m helping its board find my replacement. We have it narrowed down to a couple of people. Whoever it is, I think it’s important that they have a sounding board within NYPD who can be fair, objective, and discreet.  You were always that for me. Will you do that for my successor?”

“Of course.  I doubt that anyone can be the leader and lawyer you’ve been but I’m certainly willing to do what I can to get them up to speed.”

“Good, thanks. Now to the amends part. Olivia, I’m sorry. I’ve been a damn lousy friend to you. Here you sat through hours of my daughter’s softball and soccer games, helped me get over my wife’s death, helped me with cases, and I repaid you by constantly torpedoing your love life. I can’t help but think that you’d be happily settled with the love of your life right now but for my interference.”

“Yes, you did manage to blow up my relationship with David Haden. But, face it, he was not the love of my life. That relationship was doomed to eventually die anyway from the factors that your little bout of blackmail laid bare. And you and I got past that more than a decade ago. One incident does not ‘constantly’ make.”

Ellis’s eyes narrowed as he regarded his friend. “You don’t know, do you? What I did a couple of years ago?”

She shook her head in puzzlement.

“I’ve done a lot of things in my life that I regret. Things that I later tried to make up for, but could never undo. I wasn’t a great husband or father while my wife was alive. I tried to make it up by being a good single father, but I was far from perfect at that. And I was what was essentially a mob lawyer for many years.”

“And you made up for it with your civil rights and innocence work since then,” Olivia noted.

“I tried. But my latest regret was refusing to be a mob lawyer one more time.”

“Refusing? That’s a regret?” Olivia looked puzzled.

“A contact told me about a prosecution of a modern-style mobster by the name of Richard Wheatley.”

Olivia sat up ramrod-straight.

“My contact isn’t a lawyer, so obviously couldn’t take the case, but she was worried. I’ll just say that she’s someone who knows and likes you, and is aware of some of the things you’ve been through. And she knew your former partner. She was worried that some shark of a lawyer would get hold of this case, and go after you for the sheer sport of it. So she wanted to find someone who would give Wheatley a proper defense—as is every lawyer’s obligation to do—without doing you serious damage. Not to mention that the case was just filthy with reasonable doubt and never should have been brought in the first place.

“But I was a lousy friend. To be honest, I didn’t worry much about angering you if I took the case. I knew, or thought I knew, from experience that you can be very forgiving. But I worried for myself about getting sucked back into that world. So, instead, I approached another attorney about it. One who I knew would protect you as much as anyone could.”

Now Olivia was staring at the floor as she uttered “Rafael Barba.”

“Yes. I told him how the victim was the wife of your former partner. About how your former partner called you to the scene even though it was outside your jurisdiction. About how you would be a witness and about the interrogation that was on video. He agreed to seek the representation. And Wheatley hired him. Not a surprise, given Barba’s credentials.

“Rafael came back to me after you’d asked him not to take the case. He’d already entered an appearance, so withdrawal would be difficult. But he nevertheless asked me to take over the case. I declined, again to protect myself. I reassured him of how forgiving you can be, and he did remember times when he had experienced that himself with you. So he felt a little better about going forward. Which he did. And for which you, in fact, have not forgiven him,” Ellis added with a side-eye toward Benson.

“Thank you for telling me that bit of history,” Olivia said. “Though I don’t know what that has to do with my love life, so I can’t guess how that constitutes torpedoing it. Barba was never anything more than a friend.”

“Hmmph. If you say so. Well, whatever he may have been to you, I hope you can find a way to reconcile with him. He’s a decent man, and deserves forgiveness.  I may not be so decent, but I hope you can forgive me too.”

“There’s nothing to forgive you for. But, if it makes you feel better, you are absolved. Now, tell me about Lenore. How is she coping with all this?”

Their conversation continued until it become clear that Ellis was tiring, and Olivia showed herself out.

———

It had been two years since Olivia Benson and Rafael Barba last sat together at a bar. The pain of that final conversation washed back on both of them. They ordered and sat silently for a moment, until Barba decided to break the ice.

“Are you going to put Haden out of his misery?”

“What do you mean?”

Barba shook his head. “Never mind.” He then looked her in the eyes. “Didn’t end well, huh?”

Olivia’s face registered surprise. “How did you even know there was anything to end? We weren’t exactly public about it.”

“I didn’t know. Not until you confirmed it just now. He’d already left New York by the time you and I met. Your relationship must have been before that. As in, about 12 or 13 years ago?”

“Yes.”

The silence returned, as the two former friends struggled to find a way to address the elephant at the bar. Barba decided to take the plunge.

“So, what was it you were hoping? You know, what you started to say to me at the memorial?”

“This. I was hoping we could talk.”

“OK, so let’s give that a try. You start,” said Barba.

“Tell me, Rafael. What was your journey after you left the DA’s office?”

“You know my journey, Liv.  Election work, then defense work….”

“I don’t mean job-wise. I mean mentally, emotionally.”

“What are you doing Liv? Two years of silence, and you want me to bare my soul on demand? To what end?”

Olivia sighed.  “I’m sorry. I’m doing this all wrong. Let me start over.

“I was arrogant enough to think I understood you,” Olivia began. “The arguments we had, and the way we overcame them and sometimes even enjoyed them. The way our friendship deepened over time. Yes, once we stopped working together, we drifted apart somewhat, but I thought we still had a connection that went at least a bit beyond the job. Then Wheatley came along, and suddenly you were a stranger to me.

“You have expensive tastes. Wheatley would provide a substantial payday. So, I twisted it around in my head until I concluded that all the reasons you gave me for taking the case were window dressing—that it was really all about the money. And that I was just a side issue not important enough to consider.”

A stunned Barba replied “I’d say that I thought you knew me better than that, but I’m hearing you say that you thought you knew me better than that too. But you then ignored the evidence of our past and came up with your own narrative.”

Olivia nodded. “Exactly. But then Bayard told me the story of how your involvement with the Wheatley case came about. And it made me realize how unfair I’d been to you. That, indeed, you took the case for the reasons you stated. That you are the person I’d long thought you to be, and the friend that I remembered. I am so very sorry for how I’ve misread and mistreated you. I should have known better. Please forgive me.”

Barba took a deep breath. “I don’t know how, after everything, you could think that the money would drive me. And anyway, my practice was doing pretty well without me having to take on repulsive cases. And this one was accused of something that I knew would hurt your empathetic heart.  But I took the representation, for the reasons I told you back then. I didn’t tell you the Ellis part but I guess I didn’t think that was relevant.”

“You mention evidence, Rafael. Ellis gave me the evidence—he was your corroborating witness.”

“I guess I thought I didn’t need corroboration with you.”

“I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have. It’s just that, after you left the DA’s office, we got together only sporadically and I lost sight of where you were internally. That’s why I asked about your journey.”

Benson looked at him ruefully, “Full confession: I also think I was just so wrapped up in Elliot’s pain that I blanked out what I knew of you. It was so much easier to focus my anger on you than to let it loose on someone who was in the throes of severe trauma.”

Barba shook his head. “So you chastised me when I was right? You really did feel more anger toward me than you felt—let yourself feel—toward Stabler.”

“You weren’t entirely right. I did feel anger toward Elliot—a lot of anger. Actually, more than I felt toward you. And I indeed felt it. I just couldn’t let myself show it, not with everything he was going through” said Olivia, shaking her head.

“And, besides, you telling me how I felt was pretty much the epitome of mansplaining,” she added with a grin.

It was Barba’s turn to grin. “I guess it was. I hope it isn’t mansplaining to state what I’ve observed about you. You are the most empathetic person I’ve ever known.”

Olivia smiled smiled sardonically. “And ‘it’s easy to lose yourself when other people need you’.”

His face clouded a bit.  “You remember more of what I said than I thought you’d even heard.”

Barba continued, “I suppose it’s my turn for a confession and apology. I did lie to you about one thing. Though only because I was lying to myself at the time. I told you, and myself, that I had nothing against Stabler, that I didn’t know him so therefore how could I dislike him. It’s taken me this long to realize that I did, indeed, dislike him. Or, more accurately, I disliked how he treated you.

“I know that he left without so much as a goodbye to you, and stayed silent for ten years.  And then, when he returned, it was to use your empathy to his own ends. He made sure you were involved, I’m sure because he thought he could manipulate you into letting him into the investigation. And he was right, wasn’t he? You did let him in. If that wasn’t enough, he promptly disrespected you and all you’d achieved by attacking a suspect in your interrogation room. And he bullied you, me, and everyone else in his path to get his way. It is only because you had Garland on your side to save you from yourself that it didn’t blow up your career even before any charges were brought against anyone. Did Stabler even care about that?”

Olivia almost whispered her reply. “Those are some of the reasons for my anger at him.”

“Only some? There’s more? Are you still angry with him? He is still in your life, isn’t he? How is he treating you?”

“Not that it’s any of your business…. Sorry, I’m the one who opened that door, so I guess I made it your business.  Yes, he and I are working on our friendship. It’s complicated,” Olivia said without meeting Barba’s eyes.

“Complicated. That’s Olivia-speak for you don’t want to talk about it.”

“I guess we do know each other well after all.”

———

The next morning, David Haden was already at the donut shop when Olivia Benson arrived. “Thanks for coming. You…. Oh, hell, forget the pleasantries. Why didn’t you tell me, Liv? Let me take responsibility and be part of his life?….Or is he not mine? Was it the guy you were just getting over when we met? Or was there someone else? Was it Bayard? Was that why he undermined our relationship?”

Olivia shook her head. “David, what are you raving about?”

“Your son. Our son.”

Olivia’s jaw dropped. “Calm down and think. You and I ran into each other a few times after our split. Did I look pregnant then? And, if I’d had a baby, don’t you think the grapevine would have gotten it back to you?”

“Well, if you didn’t have a baby, how is it you have a son? One that age?”

“You’ve heard of adoption, right?”

Haden sat back. “Well, yes, but…. But the demands of your career, your age, your lack of a family support network—-I wouldn’t have thought an agency would approve you.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence. But, you’re right. I’d already been turned down for adopting before you and I ever met.  When I was still fairly young. But Noah was different. I’d found him as an infant during a raid. I kept tabs on him as he suffered through successive horrible foster homes. It was all pretty brutal, but in the end the family court judge realized that Noah and I were meant to be together. She was the one who suggested the adoption, and then pushed through.”

“So you found the love of your life in a raid? That’s so you.”

Olivia’s eyes lit up as she laughed. “I suppose that’s true. You always had a way of getting down to the essentials.”

David cleared his throat. “So here’s an essential to get down to. I’ve always regretted not working harder to find a way to keep us together. I guess I panicked, but I’d like to try again if you’re willing.”

“I’m sorry. Right now, there is room only for Noah and the job.  And, if we’re honest, if it was meant to be then one or both of us would have tried harder to find a way. Our time is over, but I hope that we can rekindle a friendship, since it appears you’re moving back to New York.”

“I’d like that. Besides, Bayard assured me that he had a cop at the ready to be my sounding board in my new job. I’m guessing you are that cop?”

“I am.”

Chapter Text

When Liv arrived at the 1-6, she was greeted with condolences from the squad members over the loss of her friend, even though there was only one who’d actually ever met Ellis.  “For a lawyer, he was a pretty decent guy,” Fin grumbled.  Olivia chuckled in agreement.

The past few months at work had been grueling, but now she had a full contingent of detectives, and had resolved to delegate and direct more. She had to acknowledge that all these years of disclosures, investigations, empathy, and trials had taken their toll, emotionally and physically. And while most of the squad was new, and were still in early stages of building mutual trust, she had at least two of her pillars by her side. Odafin—Fin—Tutuola, her brother from another mother, and Dominick Carisi, once a solid detective on her squad and now a trusted partner as ADA (and husband to her closest female friend), were her backstops.

So when she got the call that her input was wanted on a case being handled by the FBI, she handed the reins for the day to Fin as she headed off to Foley Square.

The offices at 26 Federal Plaza were no prettier than its exterior, more utilitarian than attractive, but the room she entered was a good bit larger than her own squad room. Her eyes went immediately to the large, high-tech link chart on the wall.

“Captain Benson. Thank you for coming. Let me introduce the team before I explain why we’ve asked you to come. I am Special Agent in Charge Thomas Wilson. Please call me Tom. This is Special Agent Carlos Moldonado, and I believe you know Special Agent Shannah Sykes.”

Olivia was not surprised to see Agent Sykes—she had rather suspected that Shannah had been the one to suggest she be called, notwithstanding the combative end to Sykes’ recent secondment to SVU.  “Hello, Carlos.” She looked at Wilson. “I met Agent Maldonado during his NYPD days. Our respective squads worked a case together. Nice to meet you Tom, and it’s good to see you again, Shannah.”

Tom Wilson spoke again. “Your presence was requested because Sykes thinks you may have particular insight about a serial we’ve started tracking.  An Assistant U.S. Attorney is on his way now to join us, and should be here momentarily. I understand he is new to the Justice Department—as in just started this week—but I’m assured he is a seasoned prosecutor. In the meantime, can we get you some coffee?”

“No, I’m good, thanks. You said serial. Rapist? Killer?”

“Rapist and torturer. And now, more recently, killer.  Ah, I believe this is our AUSA now.”

“I hope I’m not late.”

“Not at all. Come join the fray. Let me introduce everyone.” He repeated the introductions of his agents he’d made earlier, but it seemed like the attorney was focused on one person in particular. “And this is our special guest from NYPD Manhattan’s Special Victims Unit, here to provide some specific expertise…..”

“Captain Benson,” said the attorney, looking around the room with a slight smile. “We’ve met.”

“Indeed we have. You’re right, Tom. Mr. Barba does indeed know his way around a courtroom and an investigation. He was a senior ADA who handled my unit’s cases for six years,” concluded Benson.

“Well, that is good to know,” Wilson answered. “Let’s get started.”

———

As Olivia looked at the link board, she realized two things: why her eyes went immediately to it, and why she was in this room.  The photos of the victims’ wounds were all too familiar to her. In fact, she’d have been able to identify the perp but for the fact that the man was unmistakably dead. She nevertheless let Wilson have his say.

“Our perp likely has been operating for nearly a decade, mostly in small towns and rural areas and, until recently, in the southeastern United States.  It’s only been in the past few years that the results of rape kits from some of these jurisdictions have made their way into CODIS, and only in recent months that VICAP picked up the pattern and found the multitude of DNA matches. We identified dozens of rapes matching this DNA. Unfortunately, it’s only the DNA found on the victims. The man himself does not have anything in the system.

“His MO in the past was pretty consistent. He’d break into women’s homes, hold them at gunpoint, tie them up.  He would then proceed to spend hours in their homes, torturing and raping them repeatedly. Force-feeding them alcohol and drugs. Non-lethal stabbing and cutting. A lot of burning—cigarettes and blow torches, as well as heating metal objects and using them to brand the women. When he’d finished, he’d tie them up by their hands and hang them in a closet until their family or friends find them.”

Benson and Barba exchanged looks. “You said ‘in the past’. Has his pattern changed?” asked Barba.

“More like escalating. The same break-in, torture, rape pattern continues. But he’s been moving north, into more populated areas, and spending longer with the women, sometimes kidnapping and moving them to other locations. Two months ago, he staged an attack in Baltimore. Then in Philadelphia. Then in Newark. And, three days ago, in the Bronx. The woman in Baltimore, he shot and killed her husband before attacking her. In Philadelphia, he  kidnapped his victim and took her to an old shed. Held her there for three days, denying her food or water, and repeatedly brutalizing her. He left her there for dead. She was found alive a couple of days later, but only just barely. She was able to tell her story before her organs shut down and she died. In Newark, he shot his victim point-blank once he was finished with her. He kidnapped his Bronx victim and took her into a camp in some woods in Connecticut. He also shot her to death when he was done.”

The room was silent as they all took in the magnitude of the case.

Olivia took a deep breath and spoke. “So we have a William Lewis copycat? Who has made his way to New York?”

Shannah Sykes nodded. “That’s why I suggested you. I was brought onto the case yesterday, and recognized the pattern. We have requested the Lewis file but haven’t received it yet. Regardless, I doubt that anyone understands Lewis the way you do. We’re hoping you can give us some insights.”

“I’m not familiar with the William Lewis case,” said Maldonado. “Rather than a copycat, could it be the same guy? Maybe he’s out of prison?”

“He’s dead,” Olivia said flatly.

“Could there be any mistake about that?” Maldonado queried.

“No mistake,” Olivia said firmly.

As the two former colleagues approached the board to look more closely, Barba gently touched Benson’s arm. “Are you okay with this?” Barba asked softly in her ear.

“I’ll have to be,” she whispered back.

Captain Benson turned to the others in the room. “Mr. Barba and I will need to study these files. Can we get them placed in a room that we can use for the review? And show the board in that room as well? I don’t know if the Attorneys’ office made a deliberate choice or if this is a coincidence, but Mr. Barba prosecuted the Lewis case, and thus is also deeply familiar with it.”

“His office said they were sending someone who has specific expertise relevant to the case, so I don’t think it’s coincidence,” said Sykes. “In any event, we should be getting the Lewis file today. I’m sure you remember a lot about it, Olivia, but it has been ten years. And Mr. Barba may not remember all of it.”

“Every detail is seared into my memory,” Barba growled.”But, yes, let’s see the file. Please bring it unopened straight to the captain and me.”

———

“Why didn’t you tell me you’d joined the feds?” Olivia asked when they were ensconced in a conference room while the current case files were being brought in.

“I didn’t get the chance. I was going to tell you about it when we got together again. It’s part of that journey you asked about. I didn’t know anything about this case when I was told to come over, much less that you would be here. Are you bothered that I’m here?” Barba asked.

“No, I’m relieved that it is you. And I’m glad that you requested what you did about the Lewis file. I don’t need Maldonado seeing all that.”

“Why Maldonado in particular?”

“He was with the Organized Crime Bureau when he was NYPD. He worked with Elliot, and might still be friendly with him. I don’t need him running to his former squad and tattling.”

“Tattling? Stabler doesn’t know about Lewis?”

“Not from me. And not from anyone else on the squad. If he heard someplace else, he hasn’t mentioned it.”

“You say you’re working on your relationship with him, and you don’t tell him what is probably the biggest—okay, second biggest—thing that happened to you during his absence? Are you being fair to him?”

“Well I’ll be damned. Rafael Barba worried about fairness to Elliot Stabler? I didn’t have that on my bingo card,” Olivia chuckled.

“I don’t give a damn about Stabler. But I give more than a damn about you. You deserve relationships that are healthy and open. This is a big one to hide from someone important to you.”

“In a way, it’s nice to have one adult in my life who doesn’t know the story—who doesn’t have every detail seared into his memory.”  Olivia noticed Barba’s wince at the reference, but continued. “Besides, I’m not hiding it. I’m waiting. For him to ask.”

“What is he supposed to ask? ‘By any chance were you kidnapped and tortured by a psychopathic rapist while I was away?’ Should I be asking you that about the past two years?”

“I happen to know you’ve been keeping tabs on me the past two years. What, you don’t know that Carisi can’t keep a secret? As for Stabler, I just want him to ask anything about my life during those years. Other than my dating history. It feels sometimes like I don’t exist for him when I’m outside of his presence.”

“He asked about who you’ve dated? One of the things you don’t share with anyone unless you’re cornered? What did you tell him?”

“Only that I’d had a couple of relationships. One that I thought might amount to something. With a guy named Ed who later died.”

“Ed? No last name? I heard Stabler had quite the history with Tucker.”

“Which is why I didn’t give Elliot his full name.”

“Shouldn’t that tell you something?” Barba asked. Before he could continue, the file boxes arrived.

———

Four hours later, the full group at 26 Federal re-convened.

“Lewis had several different patterns during his crime spree, but there were a number of common elements, and our perp seems to be following many of the known ones,” Olivia advised the group.

“Were any details withheld from the public that this guy has or has not followed? In other words, are we looking at a Lewis admirer or someone who actually knew Lewis and knew his secrets?” asked Tom Wilson.

“Pretty much everything came out at trial,” Barba noted. “And Lewis was a loner, so I doubt that anyone knew him or his secrets that well.”

“Excuse me. I need to take this,” Olivia announced as she stepped away and answered her phone.

“Liv, someone at the FBI ordered the William Lewis file. That you?” Fin asked his boss.

“Yes, there may be a copycat.”

“Damn. That’s what I was afraid of. We just caught a case that made me think exactly that, which is why I went looking for the file,” Fin answered.

“Here, let me put you on speaker so the others can hear.  Everyone, this is my Sergeant, Odafin Tutuola. Our unit has a case he wants to tell us about. Fin, please tell the group what you were about to tell me.”

“Bruno and Curry took a call in the upper east side. Guy broke into an apartment where a woman named Martha Marron and her teenage daughter Vicki were home. He tied the daughter up, and made the kid watch while he tortured and raped her mother. He then threatened to do the same to the daughter unless mom played Russian roulette with him.”

As Olivia’s face paled, Barba’s face darkened.

“Mom wound up shooting herself in the head while her daughter looked on. Then he went ahead and raped the daughter anyway, and left her tied up and hanging in a closet.”

“Martha Marron,” Barba choked out, his hazel eyes having turned almost black with emotion. “She was Lewis’ second lawyer, the one he pushed aside to represent himself. That can’t be a coincidence. Lewis tended to target people who had been involved in his life. In fact, he targeted Marron, but she wasn’t home at the time. Now this guy has targeted someone involved with Lewis.”

“We have to get protection on Captain Benson and her son,” Barba continued. “Right away. Liv, don’t even try to argue.”

“Is that Barba’s voice I hear? I’m not even going to ask what you’re doing there, Counselor” said the voice from the phone. “We’ll get a detail to pick her up there and some squad cars to her place, and get guards on Noah. Liv, I’ll pick Noah up from school right now.”

“I’m not arguing,” said a shocked Benson. “And, Fin? Better get someone on Rollins and her family. Lewis may have been obsessed with me, but Rollins made the initial arrest and was the first to see the monster within. Also, Lewis’ legal aid lawyer, Vanessa Mayer, and her mother. Amelia and Lauren Cole. Viva Nunez—you know, the maid from the beach house—and her daughter Luisa.”

“You can probably get NYPD on the protection faster than I can move the FBI, so go for it. We’ll replace or supplement as soon as we can,” said Wilson, turning to Benson. “Was Russian roulette part of Lewis’ MO?”

“Only once that I know of. With me. Except he’s the one who wound up with the bullet in the head.”

Tom Wilson eyed Benson speculatively. “So there’s more to your experience with Lewis than as an investigator?”

“It’s a long story,” Olivia said as she leafed through the pictures of the victims’ wounds. “These photos. Lewis told me that he enjoyed knowing that he changed the trajectory of ‘his girls’ lives. That all their hopes and dreams would be shattered by their encounter with him. That no relationship would ever be the same.”

Barba said softly, “you never mentioned that in trial prep. And it certainly never came up at trial.”

“He told it to me later, after you’d put him away and he escaped prison,” Olivia said, almost absentmindedly as she studied one of the photos.

“I just realized something. This perp has another pattern in common with Lewis—something never made public. The wounds. Some of these are going to heal and leave no trace,” Olivia noted, pointing at knife wounds and minor burns on the women’s arms. “Others will be permanent scars,” she said, gesturing toward their breasts, torsos, and groin areas. “The thing is, the permanent scars are never in places visible to the world at large. Only to the woman herself, and to any intimate partner she might have.”

Olivia’s eyes seemed to focus on the distance as she continued. “The presence and locations of those scars will put images into the heads of lovers and spouses that they could never erase and that would eventually seep into the relationship. New partners? Something to be explained when that’s the last thing someone who lived through this would want to talk about. And, again, would instill in even the least imaginative partner pictures of what happened to her. Lewis wanted to make sure that any woman who survived him would never again have a truly healthy intimate relationship, and perhaps never want to be with a partner again. At least not with the lights on. So that he would always be in her head. Our perp is doing exactly the same thing. This has to be someone who knew Lewis, or knew a lot about him.”

“Maybe someone in law enforcement who investigated his case? Who picked up on this? Or an intimate partner of one of the vics?” Sykes ventured.

Benson was staring thoughtfully at the board. “Or…….”

“Liv, what are you thinking?,” Barba asked.

“Maybe our perp is not a copycat. Maybe Lewis was the copycat.”

Olivia was on a roll. “We’re assuming this guy started after William Lewis. But what if our perp started first—maybe long before Lewis? And Lewis learned from him? Have you looked for older cases—cases pre-dating reliable DNA and CODIS? Maybe dating back to the 1970s or 80s. Possibly in Kentucky, maybe Tennessee or Alabama.”

All of Barba’s antennae were up. “Liv, that’s pretty specific. You have a suspect in mind, don’t you?”

“Something else Lewis told me. A story from his childhood about his father raping a babysitter in front of him. He called it the best day of his life. We’ve seen it too often, Rafa: monster begets monster. Or, in this case, perhaps also teaches monstrous ways.”

Olivia looked at the FBI group. “Has anyone run familial DNA on the perp? Against William Lewis’ DNA? Is Lewis’ father still alive? If so, can we find out where he is? His survivors describe him as older—maybe late 60s. The age is right.”

“Damn, Liv,” came the voice from the phone. “Can the fibbies there get a quick run on the DNA while we try to track down the father? Melinda’s on vacation, and I’m not confident we can move the lab quickly on this without her.”

“We’ll also put our resources on the tracking ,” said Tom Wilson. “Sergeant, weren’t you going to pick up and guard the captain’s son until his detail arrives?”

“I’m in front of his school now.”

———

Rafael Barba placed a gentle hand on Olivia Benson’s back as he walked with her toward her just-arrived protective detail.  “How are you doing with all this, Liv? That was a lot for you, on a lot of levels.”

“I’m numb. I just want to go home and hug my son.” 

“Let me come with you. I want to make sure you get home all right.”

“I have two armed and trained officers who can cover that.”

“I’m sure they can. I wasn’t talking about your physical well-being.”

She gazed at him for a long moment. “Yes, please do come.”

Chapter Text

---

Noah shot directly into his mother’s arms as soon as she walked through the door. “Mom, what’s happening? Has someone hurt you again? Uncle Fin said you’re fine, but why are all these officers here?”

Benson looked at her sergeant.  “Fin, thanks for bringing him home. Noah, I’m fine. This is just a precaution. There’s a bad guy on the loose, and until we find him we just want to make sure everyone is safe. We’re not the only ones getting this extra protection.

“Noah, look who else is here. Do you remember Rafael Barba?”

“Hi, Noah,” Barba greeted.

“Uncle Rafa! Sure, I remember you!  It’s been forever since I saw you. I thought maybe you were mad at Mom, since you stopped coming around,” said Noah.

“I was away from New York for a while. Then there was covid. Then I guess we all got busy. But I could never stay mad at your mother, or stop liking her.” Barba said, looking at Noah and not daring to look at his mother.

Fin spoke up. “I’ll leave you all to catch up. I’m going to swing by the Rollins-Carisi household and check that they are on proper alert and a full detail is there.  Noah, you look after your mom. Here’s a radio, Liv. There’s a guard outside your door, another in the lobby, and a squad car staking out the street. The slightest thing, you radio one or all of them. And call me. Take no chances.”

“Believe me, I’ll be careful. Thanks, Fin.”

“Bye. Good to see you again, Counselor. You look after her too.”

“I will,” agreed Barba.

Olivia turned to Barba. “We had dinner the other night with Carisi’s family, and his mother gave us enough leftover lasagne and sides to feed us for a year. Will you join us, Rafa?”

Barba was delighted to hear his abbreviated name come from her lips. “I’d like that. Thank you.”

“I’ll start heating things up. There’s a bottle of scotch in the cupboard there, Rafa, if you’d like some, and I’ll open a bottle of red. Noah, please set the table.”

Noah had grown since Barba had last seen him. Olivia’s hair was different, and in fact Olivia was a bit different—more subdued.  But it did not take long for the tableau to feel comfortably familiar to Rafael. He asked Noah about his current interests, and listened with interest to the boy as he bubbled over about school, friends, games, dance, and his surprise half-brother.

After the dishes were cleared and Noah sent to his bedroom to do his homework, Olivia and Rafael adjourned to the sofa with their wine glasses. “I’m glad you’re here, Rafa. It really helped to calm Noah about all this. And me.” Olivia stated.

“What did he mean by ‘someone else” when he asked if you’d been hurt? Was he talking about the BX9 attack on you, or is there something else I don’t know about?”

“You have been keeping tabs. He’s likely talking about BX9—he saw part of the attack, plus I had to send him to his half-brother’s parents’ home for safety until it all got sorted out, so it really impacted him. He might also be referring to when I was shot last year, though that was not serious—I was just sore for a while—and he didn’t witness it, so I’m not sure how much of that incident even registered with him.”

Barba shook his head. “Liv, how much longer can you keep this up? All the close calls you’ve had. All the traumas. It has to take its toll.”

“I try not to dwell on it.” 

An uncomfortable silence ensued. They rose simultaneously to return their empty glasses to the kitchen, and Barba mentioned that he ought to leave to let Olivia get some sleep.

At the door, Olivia turned to Rafael, saying “I’m glad you are back in my life. You are, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am if you are letting me be back.”

As they came together for a goodbye hug, it occurred to Barba that this was something new. Had they ever really hugged—as in both of them fully embracing—before? During all the years they worked together and comforted each other through difficult events, and all the times since then that they’d been in each other’s company, he couldn’t recall having his arms around her like this. Comforting had always been largely with words, and at most a light touch on the arm or shoulder. He could recall once when he tried to embrace her when she was panicking over Noah having been kidnapped, but she had quickly recovered and moved immediately from his arms. And there was her hug after his acquittal, but they’d had a railing between them even in that fraught moment.

But now, after their lengthy estrangement, here she was in his arms, and seeming comfortable there. And he was enjoying having her there. Perhaps, he slowly realized, he was enjoying it a bit too much as he sensed his body starting to betray him. If he didn’t disengage soon, she’d also realize how he was reacting, and they didn’t need that complication at this juncture—just when they were reconciling, and on the same day that she’d been forced to recall perhaps the worst trauma of her life.

Barba gently pulled away and started to the door when the radio buzzed. The officer in the lobby said that an NYPD detective was on his way up to her apartment. Voices outside her door confirmed this. “Here is my shield. I’m a friend of the captain, and want to check to see if she’s all right. Please let her know I’m here,” said a familiar voice.

Olivia grimaced to Rafael as she opened the door. “Hello Elliot.”

“What’s going on, Liv? Why are you under guard? And what the hell is he doing here?”

“Being a friend,” said Barba.

“Liv isn’t friends with defense lawyers. Particularly ones that defend her friends’ murderers,” growled Stabler.

Olivia frowned. “You have no right to decide who I am or am not friends with, Elliot. Actually, I consider several defense lawyers to be friends, even though most of them have subjected me to some pretty tough cross-examinations over the years. It’s called doing their jobs, something I have learned to respect. Elliot, why are you here?”

“I ran into Carlos Maldonado. He told me that you were consulting on a case he was working, one that sounded pretty rough. I thought I’d just check in with you.”

“I appreciate that, El. But it’s been a hard day. Hell, it’s been a hard week, one that started with burying a beloved friend. A defense lawyer, by the way.”

The trio heard a door opening in the apartment, and a pajama-clad tween emerged from his bedroom. “Uncle Rafa, can you help me figure this…. Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were here, Detective Stabler.”

“Hello, Noah. Please, I’ve asked you to call me Elliot.”

“Hello…Elliot. Uncle Rafa, I’m working on my Spanish homework and I remembered that you are fluent. Can you help me with my conjugations?”

“Certainly, lead the way,” Rafael said with a smile at the youngster.

Stabler looked at Olivia. “I can’t even get him to call me by my name. How did that guy get promoted to ‘uncle’?”

“Noah calls adult friends who’ve known him since infancy ‘uncle’ and ‘aunt’. Now that he’s older, I don’t think he’s bestowing that title on anyone new.”

Barba reentered the room. “You’re raising a perfectionist, Liv. He is doing great with his Spanish. I should take my leave.”  Walking over to Olivia, he said quietly in her ear, “Liv, talk to him. Tell him. About all of it—Lewis, Mike Dodds, Sheila Porter, Johnny D, and all the rest. Be fair to yourself by being fair to him. You won’t move forward as long as these omissions hang between you and someone you care about.”

Barba then spoke more loudly. “Good night, Liv. Stay safe. Goodbye, Detective Stabler.”

———

Stabler stared at the door that had closed behind Barba. “I may be getting old, but my hearing is still good. I caught what he said to you. He seems to be doing me a solid. Or probably more like doing you a solid, and I happen to be along for the ride. In any event, he does seem to care about you, and I can’t hate that. But I can still hate what he did.”

“It’s taken me a long time to stop hating what he did.”

“Just doing his job?”

“It’s more complicated than that.”

“But you do see the defense bar like that now? Next you’ll be telling me you’re down with IAB. Which I guess you are, since you seem fine with having an IAB captain in your unit. At least she’s not Tucker. He was sure a piece of work. He retired, right?”

“He did. Sadly, he died a while after.”

“Sadly? You became friends with even him?”

“You could say that,” Liv said, looking at the floor.

“You and Ed Tucker friends? I’d never have predicted that, not after he tried to send you to prison.”

Olivia looked up. “A lot of water under the bridge since then.”

“I guess so.” Suddenly, Stabler recalled something Olivia had said when she was helping him when his son Eli had been in trouble.  “‘Ed.’ That’s the Ed? The serious relationship? Just how much is there to unload from our years apart?” Elliot’s eyes held anger and sadness at once. “You’ve been trying tell me, haven’t you? Trying to let me know that I needed to probe more about our years apart? I’ve been a self-absorbed prick, haven’t I?”

“Well….”

“And Barba knows this, doesn’t he? What have you told him about us?”

“Almost nothing. He and I only got back onto speaking terms very recently. But he’s very observant about people. That’s what makes him a good lawyer. And a good friend.”

“I see. Like I said, he does seem to care about you.”

“El, I need to put my son to bed and get some sleep myself. Can we have this conversation another day?”

“Yes, but let’s make it soon.”

———

Two security details, courtesy of the FBI, appeared early the next morning at the Benson household: one to accompany Noah and one to accompany Olivia. And NYPD guards remained outside Olivia’s door and in the lobby, as well as a pair of officers keeping eyes on her windows. No chances were being taken anywhere.

When Olivia arrived at the 1-6, she found Fin and Tom Wilson deep in conversation.

Wilson looked up. “You were right, Captain, about the familial DNA. It’s a father-son match with William Lewis. We don’t have a name, much less a location, on his father. We’re still digging.”

Fin proceeded to give his captain the run-down on police and FBI protection. “I got hold of Lauren and Amelia Cole. They’re grateful for the warning and the protection. Their father passed away a couple of years ago. By the way, Amelia would love to see you whenever we get this thing behind us. I think she wants you to know that her life was worth what you went through to save her. We haven’t been able to trace the maid and her daughter. Hopefully our perp can’t either. But we’ll keep looking. Mrs. Mayer is also glad for the protection. Her daughter left Legal Aid after what happened, and her life spiraled down after that. She blamed herself for what happened to her parents. As well she should have.”

“Now, Fin. She was young and naive then. No one should have to face what she did. Where is she now?”

“Rehab in Arizona,” answered Tom Wilson. “Our field office there is sending out protection, even though our perps’ last known attack took place here.”

“I also got some people on the widow and kids of the cop Lewis killed,” Fin added.

“Good thinking. I can’t believe I forgot to include them,” said Liv.

Fin continued, “We’ve also gotten out what bits of description of  the perp we have from his victims. Velasco is leading a canvas of Marron’s building, and checking for videos from the surrounding area.”

Wilson piped in, “We’ve put out word in the states you mentioned for PDs to check MOs on old cases, but that’s going to be a long shot.  A senior AUSA from New Orleans happens to be in New York right now, and he’s checking back with police contacts there. He’s only technically still on the job—he’s using vacation time until next week when he starts a new job on the other side of the courtroom here in New York.”

“David Haden?” Olivia asked.

“Yeah, you know him?”

“He used to be the Executive ADA here. I ran into him at the funeral of a mutual friend the other day.”

Fin smiled slightly. “Those old ADAs just keep popping back up this week, huh? At least the male ones. If Stone walks through that door, I’m leaving.”

Olivia just shook her head. “Keep me posted.”

———

Olivia, flanked by the two officers of her protective detail, knocked on Elliot Stabler’s door. She knew that she couldn’t put off any longer the talk she needed to have with her former partner. Given the deeply personal nature of what she had to say, she did not want a public place for it, nor did she need the prying ears of an impressionable tween anywhere nearby. When she’d texted Elliot to ask to talk, he mentioned that his son, his son’s fiancee, and his mother were currently staying elsewhere, so there would be no prying Stabler ears either.

She left the two officers outside the door to guard, assuring them that her visit was to a highly trained and experienced officer who would make sure she’d come to no harm.

“Drink? I have wine, whiskey, coffee, tea…..”

“Tea would be nice.”

Olivia’s leaned against the kitchen island as Elliot prepared the brew. “We haven’t talked much about either of our lives during the years you were away.”

“You have the basics of my life. Italy; the job; Kathy; the kids. But you…you have never been one to volunteer details. Most of the time, when we were partners, I had to guess.”

“But at least back then, you’d ask. The only question you’ve ever asked me since my return was my dating life. Hell, you even asked for my body count. But not anything else.”

“And you weren’t very forthcoming about even that. Although I can understand why you didn’t want to mention names. Tucker, of all people!”

Olivia gave her old friend the side-eye. “You are missing the point.”

“OK, then tell me the point.”

“El, some of this is hard to talk about. But we seem to be building something here, and I feel like we are missing some of the blocks needed to make it solid. I’m not sure I really know you anymore, and I’m pretty sure you don’t know me. I’m not the person I was 13 years ago.”

“No one is, Liv. I know you had a couple of lengthy relationships, or at least lengthier than any you had when we were partners. You have a child. You rose in the ranks to captain. And you’re even more badass now than you were when we were partners. I’ve watched you command major operations, and it blows me away.”

“Thanks for that. You do know the good things. Yes, even the failed relationships were good for what and when they were. But there’s some things that fall into the ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’ category. Though I wonder sometimes about the stronger part.”

“The names I heard Barba say. Those things?”

“Yes.”

Stabler put his hand over Olivia’s. “Tell me.”

“I’m trying to figure out where to start.”

“There was a woman’s name in there. Start with her?”

“Sheila Porter.” Olivia sighed and took a deep breath. “OK, here goes.”

Olivia explained how Porter, Noah’s maternal-side biological grandmother, tracked them down, insinuated herself into their lives, then kidnapped 5-year-old Noah. And how Melinda Warner had accidentally found Noah’s biological father Johnny Drake, a vicious criminal who tried to use Noah as leverage in his case. And who wound up opening fire at his trial, killing a security officer and wounding a judge and Olivia’s partner Nick. Sheila went to prison, and Johnny D was dead, shot by Nick to end the standoff.

“That’s all horrifying. So Noah is adopted. I thought you’d been turned down for adoption,” Elliot said.

“I’m sorry. I thought you’d realized that, particularly after you picked him up from his half-brother’s home.”

“No, I had already formed a picture in my mind of Noah being the love child of you and ‘Ed’. I somehow decided that the other boy was Ed’s child as well. Jealousy has a way of clouding one’s thinking.”

Olivia looked startled. Many times during their partnership she’d sensed jealousy on Elliot’s part, but this was the first time anyone had said the word aloud. “No,” she replied. “He is Johnny D’s offspring. Undoubtedly a product of rape, just like with Noah’s birth mother.”

“And yours.”

Olivia shrugged. “Maybe that’s one reason I bonded so readily with Noah. He had had a tough beginning—I found him as an infant in the nest of some child pornographers. He was bounced from bad foster care to bad foster care until a family court judge recognized the bond I had with him and asked me to take him on. I’ve never looked back.”

“Look at you and Noah today. You’re as strong a family as I’ve ever seen, and he seems like a terrific and well-adjusted kid.”

Olivia smiled at that and sipped her tea. Elliot gazed at her speculatively.

“There were other names Barba mentioned. Dodds. There’s a memorial poster of a Mike Dodds in your squad room. He was under your command?”

“He was my sergeant, back before Fin finally agreed to sit for the exam. He was the son of my Chief at the time, in fact. Will Dodds, his father, pretty much forced me to take him on.”

“Nepotism at its finest. And a spy for 1PP?”

“That’s what I thought at first. But he turned out to be a good cop. Brave, solid, bullshit-free. A little too anxious to please daddy, but not at the cost of loyalty to the team. He and I were trying to get the wife and children of a Corrections Officer who was on trial for raping inmates out of the house when he came home and started acting erratically. The wife told us there were no guns in the house, and we didn’t check for them. I took the kids out to the car, and Mike stayed to get the wife out when the CO pulled a gun and wound up shooting Mike. I’ve never forgiven myself.”

Elliot put his arm around Olivia’s shoulder. “You have nothing to blame yourself for. You did your part to keep the children safe.”

“I was the commanding officer. I should have been the one who stayed behind with the dangerous felon. And I shouldn’t have taken the wife’s word for it that there was no gun.”

“You can’t second guess yourself. If you’d been the one in the house, Noah would have no mother.”

“Instead, Chief Dodds has no son. And Mike’s fiancee no husband.”

Elliot pulled his old friend into a deep hug, stroking her back and hair until she relaxed in his arms. She turned her face up to speak to him, but instead her lips were met by his. The kiss, soft and affectionate at first, gradually grew in intensity until it became a frenzied effort to satisfy a hunger years in the making.

Olivia felt as though she were outside her own body, watching some other woman she vaguely recognized struggling to return Elliot’s passion.

Without loosening the embrace, Elliot nudged her into his bedroom. Pushing her onto the bed, Elliot ran his hands down the sides of her body until they were at her waist, while his mouth sought out her neck, her ears, the top of her chest. He climbed on top of her, grinding himself against her. His hands moved back up her sides, pushing her arms up until they were locked above her head. Keeping one hand on her wrists, he freed his right hand to open the top button on her shirt while he kissed the skin behind it.

Olivia slowly realized that the woman she was watching was her younger self, free from the traumas that would come later and yearning to have everything Elliot Stabler represented—family, safety, protection, home. But she had her own family and home now, in Noah and her friends. And she now provided her own safety and protection—to herself and to those she cared about. With that, she returned to her own body, the one she now occupied. Feeling the urgency of his powerful body on top of her and the confinement of her hands above her head, she realized that she did not right. Could it be that she did not feel safe? With Elliot, of all people. She freed her arms from his grip and pushed at him. He responded by returning his mouth to her lips. She allowed the kiss for a moment, and then pushed again whispering “Elliot, no.”

He leaned back. Had he heard her correctly? Wasn’t this what they’d spent the last couple of years—hell, maybe the last 25 years—working up to? “Liv, I love you. I want you. I’ve wanted you for as long as I can remember.”

Looking into her face, he was shocked to see tears starting to form. Not tears of joy. Not tears of passion. Tears of unhappiness.

“Elliot, this is all wrong. We can’t do this. I can’t do this.”

And with that, she was out the door.

———

“Captain, are you all right? Did something happen?” queried Officer Scruggs of her protective detail.

“No, my friend and I just had to discuss some difficult issues.”

“Home?”

“Yes,” answered Benson. Then, “no, wait. Let me check on something.” She proceeded to send a text, which was answered immediately. “I need to make another stop, at this address.”

The two members of Olivia’s detail greeted the officer in front of the door of the Carisi-Rollins residence. Scruggs stayed outside with his colleague while his partner, Officer Lester, entered the home when Sonny Carisi answered the door.

“Good to see you, Liv. To what do we owe the honor?”

“Actually, Amanda is expecting me.”

“Hey, Liv. I just put Nicky down for a nap. The girls are doing their homework.” She turned to her husband. “Babe, Liv and I need to talk. Privately. OK if we use our bedroom?”

“Fine with me.”

The two friends sat cross-legged on the bed. Amanda prompted “OK, talk. What happened with Stabler?”

Olivia shook her head. “Elliot. That man can at times be nothing more than pheromones on feet.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“It can be when it’s undiluted and unfiltered. When we were partners, that intensity was always there, but it was tempered by a kind of sweetness. He could focus on a person and be so caring and genuine. He was my place of comfort, but I also could always sense that other thing right under the surface. It was captivating in its own way.

“Of course, he was married and he was my partner. So it stayed under the surface. And then he was gone. And then, ten years later, he was back but faced with such overarching trauma and grief that there was room for little else. But then last year, the old Elliot seemed to be coming back.”

“Minus the wife and the partnership,” Amanda noted.

“Well, there’s that. And I guess I was starting to respond to all those factors. I started to think that something might just be possible there. And he made it pretty clear that he wanted me. But then, family things started to spiral down for Elliot and some of my old traumas keep getting triggered. I tried to hang on, but I could feel us drifting. And there were issues between us that I couldn’t get past.”

“Like?”

“You know that Elliot has never asked much of anything about my life during the decade he ghosted me. He just reappeared and seemed to expect to pick up where we’d left off.”

“And you never volunteered much, did you?”

“No. I wanted him to want to know. Then, yesterday, Barba suggested that perhaps I wasn’t being fair to Elliot, and that if I ever expected to have a healthy relationship—of any type—with him, I should tell him about some of the things that happened during those years. Particularly the tough ones.”

“Wait, Barba? When did he get back into the picture? And he’s encouraging you to pursue something with Stabler?”

“Yeah, long story about Barba. OK if I fill you in later on that? Or maybe Carisi already knows and can tell you. He and Barba seem to gossip like a couple of teenagers.” Olivia sighed. “It’s not so much that he’s encouraging a relationship with Elliot. It’s more that he doesn’t think the status quo is healthy for me, and suggests I change it up.  Turns out, it was either terrible advice or spot-on. I’m still not sure which.”

“OK, spill. What happened today?”

“I went to Elliot’s to put all the trauma on the table. Noah’s kidnapping and his biological father, Mike Dodds, William Lewis. And I started doing so. Told him about Sheila Porter and Johnny D and what happened with them. Do you know, he hadn’t realized that I had adopted Noah? He thought Noah was my and Ed Tucker’s biological child.”

“Whoa. Tucker? He knows about that? How?”

“He sussed it out from a couple of things I said. Elliot spent time with Noah after the BX9 thing, and even met his half-brother and yet he didn’t pick up that someone else had given birth to Noah. Some detective!”

“His jealous little brain just focused on the competition for him. He wasn’t giving much thought to other things in your life,” observed Rollins.

“And therein lies the problem,” said Olivia.

“How did he react to the Williams Lewis story?” asked Amanda.

“We never got that far. When I told him about Mike Dodds’ death….”

“You started blaming yourself again and got all sad…”

“Exactly. And he said all the things you and everyone else always say, and seemed to try to comfort me. Arm around the shoulder at first, then a hug, then a kiss, then….we were in his bedroom and he was climbing on top of me. He pinned my arms above my head, and pushed himself against me.”

“Liv, that sounds like….”

“It felt for a moment like I was back in the beach house. It doesn’t help that I’m currently working on a case that has a lot in common with Lewis. A lot.  But I knew it wasn’t Lewis, that it wasn’t an effort to terrorize or assault me. That it was a moment of passion, maybe even what for him is love. Somewhere in there, he did say that he loved me. But it didn’t feel like it. Believe me, I have no objection to intense passion. But it felt…impersonal. Even menacing in a way.”

Amanda’s face turned red. “That idiot! He spent how many years in SVU? He had to know what that might feel like. Surely he should have known to make sure you were consenting.”

I guess I should be glad of it. It broke the spell. You would think it wouldn’t have taken me this long in life to finally understand that, while I still want the passion, I also want caring, connectedness, balance. I doubt I’ll ever find it, but I least I know what to look for.”

Amanda looked slyly at Olivia. “It may not be as far away as you think.”

At the sound of a knock, both women turned their heads to see Carisi at the bedroom door. “Elliot Stabler is at the front door. At first he said he came to see you, Amanda, but he recognized Officer Scruggs and knows that Liv is here. It’s really her he wants to see.”

Olivia shook her head. “I’m not ready to see him.”

“He thought you might say that,” noted Carisi. “He asked to see Amanda if you won’t.”

Amanda also shook her head. “I don’t think I’m quite ready to see him either.”

Carisi nodded. “OK, I’ll get rid of him.”

———

Carisi stepped outside and pulled Stabler out of the earshot of the protective details.

“Neither of them wants to see you,” Carisi told Stabler.

“I can understand Liv, but why Amanda?”

“She’s Liv’s friend and I think she’s pissed off at you on Liv’s behalf.”

“Over what? Liv not being ready to be with me?”

Carisi’s face registered surprise. “Wow. You really don’t get it, do you? Look, I didn’t hear most of what Liv shared with Amanda, but I heard enough. I hadn’t joined SVU yet at the time, but I’d seen the news stories and heard the whispers later in the squad room, so have some inkling of what Liv went through with William Lewis. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that if a woman was held by a psychopathic rapist for four days and spent much of that time chained to a metal bedpost, she’s not going to like having her arms pinned above her head. And if, after spending four days being beaten, tortured and starved, she can muster enough strength to pull that bedpost loose and enough anger to beat her captor nearly to death with it, she’s not going to react well to being pinned down on a bed. Even if that hadn’t happened to her, you know better than most that she’s spent a quarter century listening to disclosures that sound just like that. What the hell got into you?”

Elliot Stabler’s face was a shade of white Carisi had never seen before. “Who did that to her? Who is William Lewis?” he spat out.

“You don’t know?”

“She never said anything.”

“Have you heard of a thing called Google? Do you not know any other cops who were around while you weren’t? Didn’t your kids stay in New York after you left? Did you ask Liv what had happened in her life? Fin or Cragen? If someone I cared about was going to be back in my life after ten years, the first thing I’d do is start looking into what her life had been during that time. You say you care about Liv? I don’t see it. You’d better just leave.”

“Wait.” Both men looked up to see Olivia come down the hall. “Thank you, Sonny. I appreciate what you’re doing, but I need a few moments with Elliot.”

“Are you sure Liv? I’ll stand by to be sure you’re OK.”

“You’re a wonderful friend, Sonny. But one thing I know for certain is that Elliot is not going to hurt me.”

“If you say so. But remember there’s two guards right over there if you need them. And Amanda and I are just inside.” Carisi returned to the apartment, signaling the security guards to remain vigilant but to let the pair have their privacy.

“Liv, my god, I had no idea. What he said—what happened to you. I’m so sorry. Sorry it happened. Sorry I wasn’t here to protect you. Sorry that I triggered that.”

“Apparently the counselor has big ears. No, you didn’t know. I didn’t get to that one. I’m sorry for running out on you without telling you why.  El, only I am responsible for protecting myself. I didn’t do the best job then, but I’ve learned from it. And you had no way of knowing.”

“Your friend just told me a half dozen ways I had of knowing. And you’ve been trying to tell me ever since that day at the courthouse. And I just shut it out, I guess not wanting to know.”

“That’s all in the past now. Let’s talk about where we are. Elliot, the letter. It was correct. Every word. After you told me that Kathy had dictated it, I convinced myself that she was afraid that the boundary between us might get broken and she wanted to protect her marriage. And you wanted to protect your marriage too, because you always valued your family above all else. Truth be told, that’s one of the things I always loved about you. And I told myself that you wrote that last sentence to let me know that you and I still had a connection.”

“I did.”

“But the thing I cannot get past is that you actually gave the letter to me. Kathy was gone, there was no marriage to protect, but you chose to tell me those things anyway. Kathy was right. She was doing both of us a kindness, and it’s time we both accepted that. Back in the day, we did get in the way of where each of us needed to be. We are still doing that.”

Stabler’s voice cracked as he responded, “I don’t agree, Liv. We were great together. We still are. I don’t know why I agreed to write that letter. I don’t know why I gave it to you—maybe I was feeling guilty because Kathy had just died and yet I found myself wanting you. The only part of the letter that I know is true is that it will always be you and me.”

“In a parallel universe. Deep down, you know that that isn’t true in this universe. Maybe you didn’t fully believe Kathy’s words when you wrote them down. But you never would have given the letter to me if you didn’t think there was truth in it. In all of it.” Olivia tilted her head. “You were a great partner. As my senior and my friend you taught me so much, you protected me, you had my back. I’d like to think I also looked out for you, and absorbed incoming when things got tough.”

Elliot’s face was the picture of shock, but Olivia continued.

“We were great partners—always so in sync, as Kathy said. I loved you then. I still do and I always will. But not as a lover. As a friend who has a place deep in my soul and will always be a part of me. Kathy was your wife. I was the person you could rely on to understand the things she didn’t because I shared the work part of your life. It didn’t change or diminish your marriage. It was just an adjunct to it. I would say that there will never be anything more than that, but that implies that what we had—and have—has been something lesser. It’s not. It’s huge. And I hope we’ll always have it.

“When you left, it felt like a part of me had been ripped away. But later, when I came to understand that I was truly and completely on my own, I began to blossom. I took risks with my heart. They didn’t work out, but it felt good to try. I became a different style of cop—my own style, using your influence but cementing my own way. I never would have done so without what I learned from you, and without the cocoon you gave me to learn. But you aren’t the home I once imagined you to be. And I am not yours.”

Elliot studied her face. “God, Liv. You were, and are, a part of my fantasy life. I’ve always wanted you, but I wanted my marriage too. But as long as you and I were partners, the center held. You looked out for me on the job, made sure that I was safe to come home to my family. Kathy never thought that we were having an affair, even an emotional one, but only because she didn’t think I had enough emotion to sustain one.”

Olivia looked into his eyes. “I’ve never doubted your emotional depth. But it always belonged first and foremost to your family. You and I have something special, but it doesn’t belong in the sexual realm. You will always be my partner in spirit. But both of us need to move on from the fantasy. Elliot, you have your children and your grandchildren. And I have no doubt you will love again, the way that a man should love his mate. It just won’t be me.”

Elliot seemed unable to breath. “I don’t know if I can let this go, Liv. I’ve been so focused on us that it’s hard to accept that there is no us.”

“There is an us, Elliot. Just not that kind of us. Let’s release each other, so we can find where we each truly need to be. I’m not ready to let you out of my life, and I hope I never am. But I know that you aren’t where my future lies. And I’m not where yours resides either.”

They stood staring at one another for what seemed an eternity. Then, with a brief hug, they walked away in opposite directions.

Chapter Text

----

The next morning, Olivia stopped by the 1-6 to pick up Fin before heading over to Federal Plaza. Officer Lester drove, while Fin and Officer Scruggs sat in the back seat.  They were the first to enter the conference room, but soon Wilson and Sykes arrived, joined a moment later by Rafael Barba.

Tom Wilson addressed the group. “Updates. Viva Nunez and her daughter have been found. She got married eight years ago to a man from Costa Rica, and they all now live there. They are out of our jurisdiction and in any event they are likely safe. As for everyone else, all of the FBI protective details report no signs of threats.”

Fin added, “NYPD details report the same.”

“Good. Let’s make sure they stay vigilant,” said Wilson. “As to the case, it looks like the inquiries with local police have gotten us a probable on the perp’s identity. There was a rapist operating in and around Peducah, Kentucky in the mid-1980s. He’d break in or do home invasions on women home alone, and spend a few hours burning, slashing and raping them, then hoisting them up in a closet or garage. He finally made the mistake of targeting the wife of a cop, who walked in on him in the act and made the arrest. He did 4 years of a 15-year sentence in the state prison in Blackburn, before being released in 1993. His name—get this—Lewis Williams.”

“And the fingerprints from Kentucky match the prints at the scenes of the current spree,” said Agent Maldonado as he entered the room.

“And prints from a peeping tom in Natchitoches, Louisiana in 1995,” piped a voice from behind Maldonado.

“Thanks for coming, counselor,” said Tom Wilson. “AUSA David Haden, Captain Benson tells me you two are acquainted.”

“That we are. I also know AUSA Barba.”

“Great. And these are Special Agents Shannah Sykes and Carlos Maldonado.”

“Nice to meet you. Kentucky put the Williams fingerprints into AFIS after your inquiry, and so now a search is underway for any other print hits. My soon-to-be-former office found only this one in their jurisdiction. Natchitoches police think the peeper moved on after he failed to gain entry into his target’s home.”

“All right,” said Tom Wilson. “Kentucky is doing a records search to see if Lewis Williams is in birth records as William Lewis’ father.”

“When we first arrested William Lewis, we had trouble finding his priors because none of the records had the same name, though they all had something close. So it wouldn’t surprise me if William Lewis was not his real name,” Olivia stated.

“So, any hints as to where our guy is right now?” queried Agent Sykes.

“None whatsoever,” replied Wilson. “We are operating on the assumption that he is still in the greater New York area, but can’t be sure of that.”

“He’d been on the move steadily up the northeast corridor most recently. Perhaps he’s gone on to Boston or someplace similar,” noted Maldonado. “And he does seem to be following the train tracks up.”

“We’ll alert the cities along the Amtrak corridor, as well as Amtrak police, to be on the lookout. But I can’t help but think that he’s in New York with a purpose in mind, given the connection of his latest victim to his son,” replied Wilson.

Fin looked troubled. “You think he’s aiming at Liv.”

“Don’t you?”

———

After promising to keep each other informed of any developments on the case, the group broke up. Olivia approached David Haden. “David, I did get your voicemail after the Lewis affair. I apologize for never calling back.”

“I told you in the voicemail that there was no need to, unless there was something I could do to help. I just wanted you to know I was thinking of you.”

“I appreciate that. What brings you by today? Surely you don’t need to spend your last week at Justice delivering messages about fingerprint hits.”

“Tom Wilson told me about your involvement in the investigation. I thought I could catch up with you here. I don’t think I told you, but my daughter turns out to be a talented pianist. She is in the orchestra for a Broadway musical that is opening Saturday night, and has given me two tickets. Would you like to accompany her proud papa? As friends, of course.”

“I’d be delighted.”

———

They were still in the car on the way back to the precinct when Olivia received a call from Tom Wilson. “Lewis Williams is listed as father on the birth certificate of one Lewis Williams Junior, born in Hendron, Kentucky on April 28, 1978. Mother Heather Prentice Williams. There’s a death certificate on file for her dated a bit less than four years later. Death was ruled accidental. Trauma to the head supposedly from slipping on a rug and falling into the corner of a table in her home. It looks like little Lewis was raised by daddy Lewis. A fine role model, no doubt.”

“No doubt.” Olivia sighed. “We can’t say 100% they are father and son, but it’s close enough to certain that I think we can operate on that assumption unless we find something to the contrary.”

“Agree.”

Upon arrival at the station, Olivia received an update from Captain Curry on the team’s outstanding cases and current activities. Having two captains in the same squad was unusual, to say the least, particularly as only one captain was in charge and the sergeant was clearly the second in command. The jury was still out on how the arrangement was working out, but Olivia appreciated the way that Curry deferred to Tutuola but also stepped in when backup command was needed.

As she started to rifle through the phone messages handed to her by the desk officer, Detective Terry Bruno stuck his head into her office. “Captain, 911 is handling a call you need to hear.”

As the emergency call was patched through to SVU, Olivia could hear the voice of what sounded like a teenaged girl speaking quietly but frantically into the phone. “He has a gun to the teacher’s head now and is dragging her away. Oh God, someone help!”

“The police should be there any minute, honey” said the dispatcher. “Just stay with me on the phone until they get there.”

“He’s gone down the stairs now. A lot of the other kids are crying. I’m going to leave the changing room now. I don’t think he ever saw me.”

The listeners could hear the sounds of heavy footsteps, then voices. “OK, kids. You’re all safe now, and so is your teacher. The bad man is running away, but my colleagues are chasing after him.”

Bruno disconnected the 911 patch and turned to his captain, who commented “That was harrowing, but it sounds like the NYPD has the situation in hand. Terry, what is it about that call that made you want me to hear it?” She had come to trust Detective Bruno’s instincts, and was certain that he had his reasons.

“The call was from the Randolph Dance Studio on…”

“That’s Noah’s studio!”

“Exactly.”

“He won’t be there right now—he stopped doing the lunchtime lessons as of this week, and goes after school now. Had he been there, so would his security detail, and those children might have been spared that trauma.”

“Liv…,” Fin ventured.

“Damn. You think the school was deliberately targeted? That he knew—or thought he knew—Noah’s schedule?”

“I’ll call the cops on the scene to get a description,” Fin said as he picked up the phone.

Fin looked up. “They’re doing better than a description. They caught the guy. They’re taking him over to the 1-9 now. I’ll call Wilson. Hate to sic the fibbies on our brothers, but this is one time they’re needed. I’ll call my buddy DiMarco at the 1-9 to give him the heads up.”

“Great. Tell Wilson we’ll meet him there. I’ll call Barba and get him to join as well. After I talk to Noah to be sure he wasn’t there.”

———

“Was Barba this hands-on when he was your ADA?” asked Tom Wilson.

“Yes, he liked to be put in the picture early and often. It actually helped our investigations to get his input on how well what we had would stand up in court, even if we often wanted to throttle him. He was in Brooklyn before he came to Manhattan, and I’m told he was not as involved there. He meshed well with our squad, so I think it just worked out for all of us.”

Wilson looked at Olivia with an amused expression. “Yes, I’m sure that was the reason.”

“Sorry to interrupt,” said Captain Brixton of the 1-9. “I get this is an FBI and an SVU case, but it’s also our collar. How do we want to handle the interrogation?”

Sykes, Maldonado, Fin, Barba, and Detective DiMarco from the 1-9 gathered to join the conversation. Fin interjected “How about DiMarco and I start it off? He and I worked together in Narcotics years ago, and can probably still read each other’s style.”

“And freeze out the FBI? Remember it’s our case,” Wilson reminded. “SVU is only consulting.”

“Fine,” said Fin. “It was just an idea.”

“OK, DiMarco and Maldonado will start it off,” said Wilson.

Olivia spoke up, “You know, it was my son who was his likely target. And I know more about this guy’s son than pretty much anybody else.”

Barba leapt to his feet. “Liv, you are not going into that interrogation.”

“I wasn’t suggesting that I should. At least not initially.”

Tom Wilson smiled at Olivia. “I agree you shouldn’t go in there now. But let’s keep you in reserve in case our buddy here needs a particular type of prodding. Does that work for you, Counselor? I have a feeling that the captain here has a unique skill set when it comes to strategic interrogation.”

Barba nodded sulkily while Olivia smiled.

———

The interrogation was getting nowhere. For thirty minutes, DiMarco and Maldonado threw questions at Williams, and for thirty minutes he sat stone silent. He didn’t ask for a lawyer, he didn’t ask for food or water. He just looked at the glass wall in front of him. Finally, the detective and the agent exchanged looks and also fell silent and simply stared at their prisoner.

Most people cannot abide complete silence for long.  Finally, Williams spoke. “Is that bitch who killed my son on the other side of that glass? Watching?”

“Watch your mouth! And your son killed himself.” Maldonado growled.

“Only after that…after she maimed and taunted him. He was only doing the work he was put on this earth for and she crippled him for it. Let me talk to her.”

“Not happening,” said Maldonado.

“You want a confession? You want to know what other bitches I might have taught to obey me? There’s plenty you don’t know about. I’ll talk to Olivia Benson. No one else.”

DiMarco stepped out of the interrogation room while Olivia moved toward its door. Barba and Fin stepped in front of her. “Liv, don’t do it,” Fin pleaded. “He just wants to see if he can trigger you.”

“Fin, I appreciate your concern, but it’s been ten years.”

“I don’t have to tell you—particularly after where your head has been these past several months—these things never go away. I’ll go in. Me and Sykes, we can get it out of him.”

“Liv,” Barba added. “We have mountains of solid evidence. We don’t need his confession to put him away for life.”

“It’s not just a confession on these cases, Barba,” Olivia replied. “We don’t know how many other women are out there waiting for justice. Waiting for closure. Or families waiting and wondering what happened to their wife, sister, mother, daughter. We owe it to them to do our best to give them that. You see how determined he is. I’m the best chance of getting it for them.”

“She’s right,” piped in Wilson. “He’s really not going to talk to anyone else.”

“OK,” said Barba. “But she’s not going in alone. Fin and I will go in with her.”

“I can see having the attorney in the room for any deals that need to be made. And another cop in case of trouble. Let that cop be me,” Wilson stated.

Fin shook his head. “Wilson, I’m sure you’re damn good at what you do. But Liv and I have been working together for so long that we’re practically one person. I can read her and she can read me. To hell with jurisdictions. Let’s just do what gets results. And keeps everyone safe.”

Wilson held up his hands. “OK, I’m convinced. Let’s get to it.”

———

Williams’ eyes locked onto Benson’s the instant she entered the room. He glanced briefly at the two men entering behind her, then locked his gaze back onto her face.

“Just you. Get rid of these two clowns.”

“They stay,” Olivia said. “Mr. Barba here is the U.S. Attorney. We can’t do any deals without him.”

“Barba, huh? Okay. He can stay. But this guy…,” Williams said pointing at Fin.

“Sergeant Tutuola will help with the questions and take notes. That’s protocol and is non-negotiable.”

Williams shifted his gaze and laughed as he said “Tutuola? I read your testimony. You still remember the smell from her apartment, don’t you? Even to this day. Every time you look at her, every time you hear her voice, that smell of burning flesh and hair comes back to you, doesn’t it?”

Standing by the wall parallel to the table, Barba could see Olivia’s face form a contemptuous smile, while Fin’s expression remained impassive. From the observation glass, Wilson and Maldonado could not see their colleagues’ faces, but noticed Benson’s hand reach under the table to cover Tutuola’s.

“How does it feel, Olivia, to know that he knows? And this guy knows too,” Williams added, turning to Barba. “You’re the shyster who prosecuted him, right? The clever lawyer who my boy outsmarted? Twice.” He turned back to Olivia. “Burning hair. They all know you had no burns on your scalp. Do they know what my son did to shut down your whoring ways? That he didn’t just stop at the pubes? Do they know what went inside you?”

Barba’s hazel eyes darkened until they were almost black. Olivia looked at him, silently signaling him not to speak, while her hand tightened around Fin’s to convey the same to him.

Williams continued, “That must have been soooo painful. For a long time after. How long before you could stand to have a dick inside you again? Before any man could stand to do you without being repulsed? I know my boy did a number on the places that shirt and pants are covering. Do the scars make them gag? Have you finally had to go all virginal? Or maybe you just leave the lights off, and keep fucking anything with a dick?”

Olivia’s contemptuous smile grew. “Was it you that taught him that trick? How many of your little adventures did you take him along on?”

“Dozens. At first, he wasn’t old enough to do much more than watch. But then he helped with the teasing. Cigarette burns, some cutting here and there. I taught him how to heat up everyday metal objects to add a little fun. He really liked the keys and the wire hangers. Then, when he hit puberty, he started joining in on the best part. There wasn’t a hole that boy wouldn’t stick it—and everything else—in. Actually, he was the one who taught me the little trick he used on you. But I don’t use it much—only on my best girls. He, on the other hand, preferred to use it on his worst sluts.”

“Prove it. Who were those dozens of girls? Where were they?”

“Later. You haven’t answered my questions.”

“You know, it was painful. But your sonny-boy was hurt more. You know why? He said he burned me there so that when he thrust in me it would be excruciating. What really hurt that impotent nobody was that he couldn’t get in me because he couldn’t get it up. Four days, and he never so much as unzipped. Then, a few months later, he had another opportunity and was a limp dishrag yet again.

“Bet you never had that problem, huh? Look at you, even at your age I’ll bet you’re still going strong. How many have you done in total?”

“You’re right, babe. My friend down there has never let me down. I can keep going at ‘em for hours and hours. I had to stop while I was in jail—I don’t do guys. After I got out, I traveled some and had myself some real treats. But I stopped for a few years after that. Got a girlfriend and she kept me satisfied for a while. Boy, she was really something.”

“What happened?”

“One of her burns got infected. Spread to her whole body, and she was gone. So I had to go back to doing randoms.”

“Do you remember those randoms?”

“Yep, all of them.”

“You want to write them down, or shall we?”

“You get your jollies from this?”

“Something like that.”

“Give me a pen and paper and I’ll give you every detail of every one.”

Fin pushed his pad and pen to Williams, who said “This is gonna take a while.”

“I expect so. We’ll give you the time,”  Olivia said, nodding at Barba to leave with her.

On exiting the room, Benson turned to the observers. “Can someone go in and relieve Fin? We need to keep an eye on Williams to make sure he doesn’t try to stab himself with that pen or something.”

As Maldonado entered the box, Fin exited in time to see Benson leaving the observation area.

“Where’s she going?” Fin asked.

“She asked directions to the ladies’ room,” replied Tom Wilson.

Fin rushed out of the room, which put Barba on the alert. He hurried after the sergeant to see him entering the ladies’ room with Sykes standing guard outside. “What’s going on?” he asked the FBI agent.

“From the sounds of it, she’s in there throwing up. I told Fin there was no one else in there, so he went in to help her. He asked me to stay out here to guard and not let anyone in.”

“He didn’t mean me.”

“Actually, he specifically said that that included you. Sorry.”

Barba felt like he’d been kicked in the gut. Fin knew Olivia better than anyone else on earth. So if Fin thought that she didn’t want him, then she didn’t want him.

Wilson looked up at Barba as he returned. “That is one badass woman. How she could sit there and listen to all that—after having lived all that—then turn it on him to get what we needed, that was just amazing.”

Barba agreed, “She’s damn good at what she does.”

“I was a little surprised that neither you nor Fin jumped in to shut his appalling mouth. You knew what she was doing?”

“She knew what she was doing, and I long ago learned to trust that.”

“You three are quite a team. I’m looking forward to working with you more, Barba. I can see you know how to work with law enforcement.”

“I learned a lot from Liv. About a lot of things.”

“Tell me if I’m out of line asking this, but are you and she…involved?”

Barba shook his head. “Not like that.”

“Then, do you know if she’s seeing anyone? She’s not wearing a wedding ring, so….”

Barba laughed. “I’m not going to answer questions about her personal life. You’ll have to ask either her or someone a lot braver than me. And, I’ll clue you now, that someone is not Fin.”

Fin returned to the room to tell the others that he and Benson were headed to their station. Barba pulled him aside.

“She okay?”

“It was pretty draining.”

“You really do look out for her, don’t you?”

“Yes, she’s my sister. And she looks out for me.”

“Tell me. Why did you not want me in that room with her? Did you think I can’t be of comfort to her?”

“Liv is very private. She hates for people to see her when she gets like that. But someone ought to be there when she needs it, and over the years that has been me.”

“And Stabler.” Barba grumbled.

“Hell no! He’s the one she hides it from most of all. You wouldn’t believe how much shit she kept from him, even when they were still partners.”

Fin noted Barba’s look of surprise and continued: “Elliot is my friend. And he really cared—cares—about Liv. But he can be a self-centered bastard sometimes. You know that—you used a video of him being that when you defended Wheatley. That was nothing new. And then there was an incident in the squad room years ago. He was yelling at her, blaming her for a mistake he’d made that got a kid killed. He said it wouldn’t have happened if she’d been doing her job, if he hadn’t had to look out for her. She rightly called bullshit on that, but I think she’s been trying to prove him wrong ever since. She will not do anything in front of him that she might think shows even a bit of weakness. Or, in front of anyone else.”

“Except you,” Barba muttered, almost to himself.

“Even me. But sometimes she has no choice. I know her too well.”

Olivia stuck her head back into the room. “We have to drive ourselves now that the security detail has been called off. Fin, can you bring the car around? I want a minute with Barba.”

“What’s up, Liv?” Barba asked.

“I want to apologize to you.”

“For what? You have nothing to apologize for.”

“For not telling you when you were preparing for the Lewis trial about the burn that daddy in there talked about. The penetration with a foreign object would have made for an additional count to go after him on, but I just couldn’t bring myself to talk about it.”

“Liv, I knew about it. Did you never read the report from your physical exam? It was in there.”

Olivia shook her head. “I couldn’t bring myself to read it. If you knew, why didn’t you bring it up when I was testifying? Why didn’t you include the SA charge?”

Barba’s eyes became moist. “It did come up, before you testified and so before you could be in the room. The jury was given that report, and I flagged the paragraph for them. But what I finally learned—from you—was to try to avoid re-traumatizing survivors on the stand. I sometimes charge differently or avoid asking for testimony on some the more horrific aspects of the crime if I think we can get the conviction and sentence the perp deserves without it. Which is what happened here.”

It was Olivia’s turn for tears to well. “You were protecting me.”

“As much as I could.”

“Thank you.” Olivia began to leave and then turned back. “He was wrong you know. Lewis did not outsmart you. He was just the luckiest SOB on earth. Until he wasn’t anymore.”

Chapter Text

---

Elliot Stabler sat in front of his computer. He could not bring himself to absorb all that Olivia Benson had said to him. He could hold onto the fact that she told him she loved him. But he could not bring himself to accept how she had defined the parameters of that love. Instead, he kept re-running in his mind the things that Dominick Carisi said. He’d googled William Lewis along with Olivia’s name, and read the press accounts of her kidnapping, his trial, and her public confession that followed. There was a brief bit about his death, but just enough to tell him that there had to be a great deal more to that story than was made public. He also knew from his own experience to give no credence to her confession, and to take the rest of the coverage with a very large grain of salt.

Among the surprises uncovered in his reading was the name of the prosecuting attorney—ADA Rafael Barba. Now he knew how Olivia knew that Barba was a good lawyer. And, remembering how close she had been to some other ADAs, how they had become friends.

His search also brought up the fresh story of the arrest of a man named Lewis Williams, who was now in FBI custody. Few facts were given, but he had to wonder if this was the case Maldonado had mentioned. Perhaps it was time to buy his former colleague a drink.

———

“Man, that former partner of yours is one hell of a woman,” Carlos Maldonado said after he and Elliot Stabler had placed their drink orders.

“You planning to have a go at her? Isn’t she a little old for you?” Stabler asked with a smirk.

“Hey, she’s still damn hot. But, no, my fiancée wouldn’t approve. And, besides, I think my boss has his eye on her. He has a thing for badass women. That case she was consulting with us on? She’s the one who figured out who the perp was. Turned out he was the father of some bastard who’d worked her over pretty badly a decade ago. She used what she knew from that to get his confession to more than 50 open cases around the country dating back to the 1980s. A real monster. He’d even brought his son along and pretty much taught him how to rape and murder.”

“The son was William Lewis?” Stabler asked, trying to be nonchalant.

“Yeah. I mean, I didn’t see the files from her case—that DOJ lawyer was the prosecutor on that, and he guarded that file like a hawk. They seem to be good friends, and I think he was trying to protect her privacy. But that prick Williams went on and on about some of the stuff his son had done to her. Trying to rattle her, I’m sure. But she just used it to get his confessions. Never lost her cool for a second. It doesn’t get more badass than that.”

“She’s pretty tough.” Elliot took a sip of his drink, then asked, “DOJ lawyer? Barba?”

“Yeah, that’s the guy. She kept her cool, but I thought he was gonna rip Williams’ head off. Him and that sergeant of hers. They’re both pretty protective of her, but in the box, it looked more like she was protecting them. Or at least trying to make sure they didn’t lose their cool and blow her strategy.”

Maybe he was trying to protect Olivia’s privacy, or maybe he didn’t want to know exactly what Williams ‘went on and on about’. But Elliot decided not to press Maldonado further. Instead, he would go to other sources—people who knew Liv better—to get at the truth.

———

As Olivia entered the old-fashioned Italian restaurant, she could not help but think of Forlini’s, a now-defunct classic red gravy house where she and Barba often met. It had the same atmosphere and a similar bar. She wondered if that was why he chose this as a meeting place.

She spotted him in a two-person booth across from the bar, and slid into the seat opposite him. A glass of cabernet was already in front of her spot. And another glass opposite her on the table. “What, no scotch?”

“I figured that since we’re meeting on my turf, we should drink from yours.”

“We have turfs? I thought this was to be a friendly get together.”

“I hope—no, believe—it will be. But we do have to talk. About some things that might be difficult. We’ve had two years of silence.”

Olivia sighed. “Telephones run in both directions.”

“Given that last conversation, don’t you think the ball was entirely in your court? I told you that I’d be here whenever you were ready to stop resenting me. I had to assume that you were not ready.”

“That did put the ball in my court, that’s true. I know you have your pride, but don’t you think that at least a bit of the fault for our falling out was with you?”

“There are things I should have done differently. I can’t argue with that. But this isn’t about quantum of fault. We both carry some here. It’s about whether you are ready to have me fully back in your life. To be fully back in mine. I’ve been ready for that all along. But I was afraid if I kept nattering at you, I’d only push you further away.”

They were both silent as they studied one another’s faces. It was Rafael who finally spoke. “I’ve thought a lot about you during the past two years. Have you ever thought about me?”

Olivia’s eyes started to mist. “Often. I’ve turned everything over in my head so many times that everything about you has become a jumble. Did I just imagine how much strength and comfort I drew from you when we worked together? How much I learned from you? Not only about how to build a better case, but about how to just be an honorable and decent human being. Did I imagine that I gave something back to you? Support? A shoulder to lean on? And maybe a little bit about showing the compassion that already was inside you? Added a bit of color to your perspective, as you said when you left? Did I simply invent the bond I thought we had?”

“You didn’t imagine any of that. Except maybe about being taught to be honorable and decent. That has always been the essence of who you are and strive to be. And we did have a bond. One I used to think would be unbreakable.”

Olivia winced at that last statement. “Used to.”

“The past two years showed otherwise.”

“Rafa, you went nearly no contact for the first year or so after you left the DA’s office. Every so often I’d start questioning whether the bond was real. You said you had to move on. That and not seeing you for all that time seemed to say that you were moving on from me as well as the job. That all we were was work friends. I’d seen that movie before, and so had come to expect it everywhere.”

“And that was why you asked me about my journey after leaving the DA’s office. You were giving me a chance to explain.”

“Yes. After you called from Iowa, and we got together for dinner, I started to feel that maybe you had just needed time to get your head on straight. I hated that you had cut me out from that process, but understood that you are someone who processes in your own head. And then we started to get close again after the Mickey Davis case, so I thought that maybe we did have some bond after all.”

“Until Stabler came back, and pulled you into his chaos.”

“I guess so. And then you took the Wheatley case, and my mental jumble about you came back. I’ve already told you what I let myself conclude. And then that last conversation at Forlini’s threw me again. I kept interpreting and re-interpreting the things you said. I was finally getting to the point a few months ago that I missed you so much that I was willing to just let it all go and call you.”

“What stopped you?”

“I was at the mayor’s gala.”

Barba swallowed hard. “I didn’t see you there.”

“No, but I saw you. With Yelina Munoz. I’d suspected during her husband’s case that you and she had some history. And even if you didn’t have a past with her, I could see at the gala that you were certainly with her in the present. You looked…ecstatic. How could I interject my mess back into your life when I could see you were finally happy?”

Rafael sighed. “She and I did have a history. Alejandro and I met her the summer before law school. We were all working in a community organizing project, and Alex and I both fell hard for her. He and I made a ‘may the best man win’ pact. And at first I thought I was it. She and I were together all that summer, and we agreed when I left for Cambridge that she’d wait for me.

“My scholarship covered my tuition, room, and board, but not any other living expenses. Even if my parents could afford to send me money, my father wouldn’t have allowed it. He thought I should be out working, not farting around with more schooling. So I had to get a part-time job on top of some pretty demanding studies. There was no time to give to my girlfriend, particularly one in another city. By the time I returned for Christmas break, she and Alex were together. I was the best man, all right. At their wedding.

“They seemed happy. Then you know what happened. She stuck with him through the whole scandal, and thought they were repairing their marriage. Then it came out that he was still sexting, and still doing it with underage girls. So she walked.”

“Straight over to you? And you took her back in a flash?”

Barba nodded. “Enough about that. On another topic, have you had that conversation yet with Stabler? About your life while he was gone?”

“About that. You’ve said that you don’t like Elliot, or more accurately how Elliot treats me, yet you pushed me to raise all that with him. Why? You’ve always been good at reading people—that’s your lawyer superpower. Did you foresee what would result?”

“I was trying to get you to challenge him into a healthier relationship, wherever that may lead. You need to get off the treadmill of his dysfunction.”

“‘Stabler coming back has made things more complicated’,” Olivia recalled.

Barba grinned briefly. “You were listening. You brushed past that so quickly I didn’t think you’d even heard the words. So, you did talk to him?”

“Yes, some. It certainly had a clarifying impact on that relationship.”

Barba’s eyes narrowed. “How?”

“I’m still trying to absorb it. Can we drop the subject?”

Barba paused a moment as his eyes grew cloudy. “In other words, ‘don’t ask me that’?

Olivia’s head shot up, but she avoided his eyes, which seemed to pierce into hers.  But whatever Barba did see agitated him.

“So, did you leave the lights on?” Barba spat out angrily.

Olivia took a minute to process his words and his tone. He watched her face turn from shock to pain. “I was afraid that the FBI people understood that that came from personal experience. I figured that you might realize it. But you were the one person I trusted with that information. I never dreamed you would weaponize it.”

Barba panicked. “Oh, god Liv. I’m so sorry. I don’t know where that came from. I’m sorry. Please don’t give up on me—I won’t do anything like that again. You are safe with me.”

“Why? Why did you lash out like that just now? You’re the one who was urging me to change the dynamic with Elliot.”

“Maybe it’s because I got what I wanted. You clarified things with Stabler. Now that I know you’re able to move forward with him, I find that I didn’t want that at all. I’m being selfish, I know, but I will do my best to be happy for you.”

“Rafa. You know nothing.”

Chapter Text

———

“I do need to use the ladies’, but I’m sure the line is already miles long. Sorry to be a cliche, but Olivia will you please come with me? We can use the time to get acquainted,” Isabel said as she dragged Olivia away from their respective dates. “Rafael, dear, can you order me a red wine while we’re gone?”

Olivia Benson shrugged apologetically to her escort, who asked “Same for you, Liv?”

“Yes, please, David.”

Olivia Benson and David Haden had been enjoying the first act of a new musical debuting on Broadway from balcony seats that afforded a perfect view of the orchestra pit. From there, they could watch Haden’s daughter play the piano for the show. Below, in prime seats in the orchestra section, Rafael Barba accompanied Isabel Carasco as they enjoyed a close-up view of the action on stage. Entering the lobby at the interval, Haden had spotted Barba and his companion, and steered Benson toward them for introductions.

As the two men watched their dates walk away chatting, Haden gave Barba an amused look. “You seem apprehensive. Who are you afraid will spill what?”

“With Izzy one never knows. But she’s definitely up to something.”

“Have you been seeing her for long?” Haden asked.

“I’ve known her forever. We first met when I was clerking at the Second Circuit after law school. Her mother was an appellate judge there. Izzy was crazy then, and has gotten crazier over the years,” Barba said with an affectionate smile.

“Well, crazy or not, she’s certainly easy on the eyes,” Haden observed.

“Yes, she’s like Liv in that regard. Stunning in youth, and only gets better with the years.”

Haden raised his eyebrows. “You noticed that about Olivia, huh? Anything there I should know about?”

Barba just laughed. “So did Liv relieve your concerns? About Noah?”

“Her son? Yes. Was it that obvious that I thought he might be mine?”

“The wheels turning in your head were visible.”

“So you know her son?”

“Yes, I was working with SVU when she adopted him. In those early years in particular, she would share her child-rearing concerns with me. Not that I could give her anything but reassurance. I know less than nothing about raising a kid.”

“It’s not easy. I have a couple, but in all honesty, my ex-wife did most of the heavy lifting. I just get to enjoy the results now that they’re terrific adults.”

The two men were joined by a pair of smiling women.

“So what are you fellows gossiping about? And where’s my wine?” Isabel laughed as she put her arm through Rafael’s.

“Here it is now. And Olivia’s,” Barba replied.

Olivia gave her thanks for the wine then turned to her escort. “David, did Rafael tell you that Isabel teaches theater arts? Four of the chorus members in this show are her current or former students. And remember I told you about that theater camp in the Catskills that Noah heard about? She is teaching there this summer.  She knows Noah’s dance teacher, and is going to drop by his class this week to see if he’s good enough to qualify for the dance track at the camp. Which of course he is, in my clearly unbiased opinion.”

“School is almost out for the summer, so that camp must be starting soon. Isn’t there a mile-long waiting list to get in?” David asked.

Isabel grinned. “I happen to have some inside information that two of the dance campers have been cast in a summer road company of ‘Newsies’, so a couple of openings are about to emerge. I can probably get Noah pushed to the top, which isn’t as awful as it sounds because most of the other interested kids have already committed somewhere else for the summer by now. But he still will need to audition. Because he’s survived at Randolph this long, I expect that he will pass muster with dance, but still we expose every camper to acting, singing, and production, so he’ll have to show some grain of promise in the other areas. He doesn’t need basic skills in those areas yet, except in his track, but he can’t be hopeless on singing and acting.”

Olivia beamed. “I’ll make sure that he doesn’t get his hopes up too much. But I know how much he’d like to go this camp, even though he only heard of it a week ago. I do hope it works out.”

“How long is the camp?” Rafael asked.

“One month,” answered Isabel and Olivia simultaneously.

Rafael turned to Olivia. “Have you and Noah ever been separated that long? Will he get homesick? Won’t you miss him? I remember what a mess you were the day you started him in daycare.”

Olivia laughed. “We’ve both grown up a little since then. He did stay with the McCanns for a while during that BX9 thing, and that was pretty awful for both of us. But then that was a pretty awful situation. This is the exact opposite. And, besides, parents will be invited up to watch recitals and performances.”

As the gong sounded to indicate that the second act was about to begin, Isabel turned to Olivia and David. “Shall we all have a drink together after the show?”

Olivia noticed that Isabel hadn’t even looked at Barba to see what he might think of the idea. “Oh, that would be lovely, but I need to get home and let the sitter leave.”

A relieved-looking Barba asked, “Still Lucy?”

“No,” Olivia laughed. “She has her master’s now, is working in Child Services, and is married with a child of her own on the way. There’s a woman in my building whose grandchildren live far away, and so she does some sitting to keep her hand in and pick up a bit of extra money. It’s a good transitional situation because Noah thinks he’s old enough now not to need a sitter, and I’m not quite ready to go there, particularly at night.”

Isabel, either having missed her escort’s relief at not having to go for drinks with the other pair or having chosen to ignore it, piped back up. “OK, but let’s all get together soon. It’s been fun meeting you both.”

As they returned to their seats, David turned to Olivia. “Well, you and Barba’s date seem to have hit it off.”

“She’s a bit over the top, but her heart seems to be in the right place. And she’s quite pleased that you and I are just friends. That’s what the drinks invitation is all about. She has her eye on you.”

“Wait, isn’t that a bit out there? Isn’t she with Barba?”

“Oh, not really. She shared that they had a thing years ago, but now are just friends. ‘With benefits’, mind you, when they’re both between relationships. But I happen to know that he’s with someone now, so I assume it’s platonic at the moment. She’s the one who bagged the tickets, and wanted a little eye candy on her arm, so invited Barba.”

“Barba is eye candy? I don’t see it, but whatever. Do you know his current partner?”

“I saw them at an affair a few months back. He didn’t see me, but I recognized his date. She’s someone I think he’s had a thing for for years, but she was married when I first met her. I’d heard she’d gotten a divorce, so it didn’t surprise me much that she crooked her finger at Rafael and he went running.”

“Interesting. Yet, he did not look at all excited about the idea of the four of us having drinks together.”

“Yes, that is interesting.”

Haden looked at Olivia speculatively. “You know what’s also interesting? Friends with benefits.”

“Don’t get any ideas.”

———

While enjoying the post-coital cuddling, Isabel became aware of three things. First, her partner’s eyes were closed. Second, he wasn’t sleeping. And the third was something that might have offended others. But Isabel, being Isabel, was amused.

“Hey! I know what you’re doing, Raf.”

His eyes opened. “What am I doing?”

“The same thing you’ve been doing since we hit this bed. The same thing you have done a few times in the past. You’ve been pretending that I’m someone else. Someone you’d rather be here with.”

“I like being here with you, Izzy.”

“I know you do. But I also know how you usually are with me—or at least how you’ve been since we stopped being a ‘thing’. All technique and heat and release. I can’t complain about any of that.”

“Nor can you say that you are any different on that score.”

“True enough. Which is why I don’t mind your using me for the occasional fantasy. But I can tell the difference. After you caught on to how Yelina was using you to get back at that prick she divorced, we had a nice little round of angry revenge sex. Being nailed like I was the enemy was kind of fun, but that’s so not you. And tonight, well, you haven’t been like that since our early days when we thought we were in love. All tender and affectionate. Along with the heat.”

Rafael just sighed and rolled away from her.

“And I notice that you don’t deny it,” observed Isabel. “Hey, I have an idea! Why don’t we invite her for a threesome?”

“What? Who?”

“You know who. The one I was a stand-in for just now. Olivia.”

“Oh god Izzy. Just shut up.”

“Yeah, you wouldn’t want to share her, you greedy thing. So I guess a foursome with her and that hunky date of hers is also out?”

“I’m going home, Iz.”

“Don’t be such a prude,” she laughed after him.

———

“Thanks for agreeing to talk to me about this, Captain,” Elliot said to his former commanding officer.

“At this point, I think you can call me Don,” replied Cragen.

“Thanks, Don. I know this is a hard subject, and I’m a decade late to the inquiry, but I really do need to know what happened with Liv and William Lewis. I don’t want to make her relive the whole thing, but it seems to have deeply affected her, particularly because….”  Elliot didn’t quite know how to put it.

“Because she had to relive it already to bring Lewis’ father down.”

“You know.”

“Yes. Fin filled me in, in case she needs me.”

“So, what happened?”

Cragen proceeded to explain the squad’s history with William Lewis, from Rollins’ initial instinct that something was really off, to his attack on Alice Parker and her subsequent death, to the trial that resulted in Lewis’ release on a technicality, to Cragen sending Olivia home to take some time off.

“We left her alone for a couple of days, hoping she’d get some rest.  Of all the command mistakes I’ve made over the years, that’s the one I regret the most. I’ll never forgive myself for not checking on her sooner. I know that Melinda feels a heavy burden of guilt because of the lab error, and Barba because he couldn’t think of a way to keep the DNA in, or get at Lewis after the DNA was thrown out. We’ve never talked about it, but I think the whole squad carries the guilt to this day for not checking on her. All of us assumed her boyfriend at the time was with her and looking after her. He was a detective busted down to uni because of a stupid mistake, and wound up pulling a double shift instead of going over to her place, so he wasn’t there. I know for a fact that the guilt still consumes him.

“Lewis had already broken in and  was waiting for her when she got home. She has never been sure how many hours or days he spent torturing her in her own home—he had her so drugged up that she lost track of time. He then took her on the road, forcing her to watch him rape and kill, and promising to do the same to her once they finally wound up at an abandoned beach house. Where he spent another two days torturing and terrorizing her. However, she insists that he never actually raped her, and the rape kit backs that up.”

Cragen filled in the rest. How she freed herself, then beat Lewis to a pulp with the bedpost. How he represented himself at the trial in order to further torment her. How he was nonetheless convicted, but later escaped from prison with the help of the jury foreperson and went on another spree to trap Olivia again. How he used threats to a child to force her to make a public “confession” about beating him. And how, in the end, he killed himself in a horrific game of Russian roulette.

By the end of the narrative, both men were spent. Elliot’s distress was palpable, and he blamed himself for not being there to protect her.

“I’ll tell you what she has told every member of the squad,” Cragen stated. “If you’d been there, you’d be dead. Just like everyone else who got in his way.”

“But she survived,” Elliot noted somberly.

“She did indeed. She did what she had to do to live through it all. But the trauma haunts her to this day. Elliot, a lot happened in her life during the years you were away. The way you left was hard on her. You are like a son to me, but I’m not sure I’ve ever forgiven you for how you left things with her. I know you were in a world of hurt, but you owed her better.”

“You’re right. I deserve that.”

“But she got over it, and grew as a person and as a cop. I’m proud of the person she is today, both professionally and personally. But she still has a lot of demons nipping at her. I’m not sure if you can help her with them, but whatever happens between you, don’t try to drag her backwards. If you can’t help her keep moving forward, at least stay out of her way.”

———

“Shall we get a bottle of cab?” Isabel asked with a grin. “To celebrate?”

“So he passed the audition?” Olivia asked, also smiling. “A bottle it is!”

“Noah has real talent, Olivia. He’s a good dancer in part because of his innate musicality. You might want to look into getting him some voice lessons, and maybe have him learn an instrument.”

“Thanks for that. I’ll take it up with him and see if that’s what he wants.”

“The camp should give him some perspective on whether he wants to pursue music writ large.”

“So he’s in?”

“He’s in. Here’s the literature on what, where, when. And the bill of course.”

“He’s going to be so excited. Shall we toast.”

“To Noah.”

Isabel gave Olivia a mischievous grin. “Sooooo. You’re still maintaining your hunky date at the theater is just a friend? How do you keep your hands off that body?”

Olivia laughed. “There was a time when I didn’t. But that was long ago, and I just don’t think I can go back there. We stayed friendly after things ended, but then he moved away for a long time, and now we’re just working on rebuilding the friendship.”

“Well, nothing says you can’t do both. Look at Rafael and me. As long as no one else gets hurt, what’s the harm?”

“Mmmmmm” was all Olivia could say.

“Well then, I guess me joining you two for a threesome is out?”

“Most definitely,” Olivia replied laughingly.

“Rafael said you’d say that. I wanted to invite you to join Raf and me, but he vetoed that,” Isabel said slyly as Olivia choked on her wine.

“Isabel, I’m flattered, but I’m not much of one for an audience.”

Isabel sighed. “Oh I wouldn’t be just watching. And neither would Raf. Well, it was worth a try. Would you mind if I took a run at your David Haden?”

It was Olivia’s turn for a sly grin. “Not at all. In fact, I’ll give you his contact information.”

“Aren’t you a doll?  Hey, you want to take a try at Rafael? He says you two have never done it, but I think he’s kind of sweet on you. I’ll even cut off his ‘benefits’ so he can focus on you.”

“You’ve been having ‘benefits’? I thought you only did that when you were both between relationships?”

“He is, and so am I. Unless David comes up to snuff.”

“I thought he and Yelina Munoz….”

“Oh, girl! That’s old news. Turns out she was just using him to get back at the jackass husband of hers. It took poor Raf forever to catch on, but once he did, he was good and done with her.”

Chapter Text

———

“Thank you for inviting me to dinner, Rafael.”

“I owe you at least that. And more. I’m so sorry about what I said to you the last time we talked one-on-one. The last thing I want to do—ever—is hurt you. I’ll never forget the look on your face, and I promise that I will never again be the person who puts it there.”

Olivia smiled and then replied “It doesn’t make things even for the way I’ve hurt you, but it does put us closer to a more even footing in a way. Rafa, I’d like to think we are in a better place now. You and I, I mean.”

“I am if you are.”

They both felt like a shadow that had been following them had at last departed. Smiling, Olivia asked her companion how he was liking being a Fed.

“I like being back on the prosecution side. Defense work had its rewards, but I spent a lot of time gritting my teeth and reminding myself that, even if I disliked my client, I was still an attorney for justice. Our adversarial system works only if both sides are well-represented. As for working at the federal level, the pace is not as insane as the D.A.’s office, primarily because we are better staffed and funded. And can be more selective about the cases we bring.”

“No obnoxious cops haranguing you to prosecute a tough case?”

“Just obnoxious FBI agents doing the same. But, really, we have a bit more autonomy. I do miss working closely with the investigators, though.”

“You were very much present during the Williams case.”

“I was new to the agency, and with you involved I just fell into an old pattern. I was pretty quickly disabused of that practice afterward.”

“So you don’t see much of Wilson, Sykes, or Maldonado?”

“No, not really. By the way, did Wilson ever ask you out?”

“No. What makes you ask that?”

“Oh, he asked whether you and I were involved. When I told him no, he asked if you were seeing anyone.”

Rafael had trouble deciphering the look that Olivia gave him. Rather than probe, he continued to talk. “Actually, I think it’s just the SVU squad that I miss working closely with. I never interacted that much with the cops over in Brooklyn. Your group was pretty special. Though I guess it’s just you and Fin now from back then. How is the new group?”

“We’re still trying to coalesce.”

“I’m sorry. I know your squad was like family to you in many ways. You’ll get there—and if you don’t, well you have an official family in Noah.”

Olivia sighed. “We had our squabbles, but the squad you knew really was like family. And the old one—before Rollins and Amaro—felt that way too. But both took time to get there. I was so green when I first started. I’d just gotten my shield, had requested the storied SVU and got it. Cragen took me under wing right away, and assigned me to partner with the second most experienced detective in the unit.”

“Stabler.”

“Right. I know Elliot could—can—be an anger ball, but he was really good with victims, particularly children. He also taught me a lot about interrogations, though in the end I found myself needing to unlearn some of that.”

Barba’s eyebrows raised at that last statement. He had seen her interrogation techniques evolve. He hadn’t realized that it had been a deliberate effort on her part. Or that she understood Stabler’s role in her early mistakes.

“If I was the little sister, there also were two baby brothers—Ken Briscoe and Brian Cassidy. Ken was the nephew of Lenny Briscoe, one of the most respected detectives ever to grace NYPD and a good friend of Don Cragen. Unfortunately, he wasn’t the cop his uncle was, and left NYPD after less than a year. Cassidy couldn’t handle SVU—you probably wouldn’t guess it, but he actually had too much empathy to deal with what we deal with. So he was reassigned.”

“Cassidy of the ’13-year gap’? You and he were together while you worked together?”

“Not really. Just a drunken one-night stand. He wanted more. I wanted to forget the whole thing. I know, don’t say it. He wound up getting more. Much more than he ever bargained for, I’m afraid. Anyway, the middle sister was the only other woman in the unit, Monique Jeffries. I’ve never been sure what happened, but she wound up turning in her badge around the same time Cassidy and Briscoe left. Fin replaced her. There were some tensions early on, particularly between him and Stabler. In fact, Fin almost quit just to get away from Elliot. And Fin had issue with how I had handled a particular situation. He called me out on it, but he and I had a good talk, saw each other’s perspective, and we’ve been besties ever since.

“Then there was everyone’s big brother—John Munch. I adored that man. He was a lunatic with the conspiracy theories but a kinder man never walked the earth. He’s the one who truly let me know that I was with family. I’d been there about a year, and had been having a particularly difficult time with both work and personal issues. He gently told me that the whole squad had my back. That was all he said. But what he was really telling me was that I was home. And I’ve been home there ever since.”

Rafael looked tenderly at his friend. “Thank you for sharing that with me. I guess I always thought of those early years for you as being dominated by Stabler.”

“Well, Elliot does have a way of dominating. But, no, it was the whole team. And it turned out I had a father after all. One of my happiest moments in life was after I’d made captain, and Don Cragen told me he was proud of me. I never realized until then how badly I’d wanted that.”

“He’s a good man. You chose your father well.”

“We’ve been talking all evening about me. How about you? How is your mother? Is she still running that charter school?”

“She finally retired. She has a place in Florida and splits her year between there and New York.”

“Do you miss her when she’s in Florida?”

“Actually, yes, I do. She’s become my closest confidante, and I think I am hers.”

“That’s sweet. I hope that that is the future for Noah and me.”

The two continued to talk amiably as they concluded their meal.

“I have a confession to make,” started Rafael. “I chose this place because I know it—I live nearby. I’m sorry I made you come to me for dinner.”

“Nothing to be sorry for. The city is filled with taxis and ubers, not to mention a subway.”

“Would you like to come up for a nightcap?”

Olivia hesitated. She could not put her finger on why, but this felt like playing with fire. But she didn’t want the evening to end. They had regained some of their old connection, and she wanted to solidify it.

“I’d love to.”

———

Olivia was surprised at her friend’s apartment. She had expected something large and fashionable, perhaps industrial chic. But this was a cozy nest, filled with comfortable furniture, books, vinyl records, eclectic artwork, and mementos of a life in the law. “I just realized—I’ve never been to your home before.” All those years….

“No. I guess you haven’t. That was my omission. What would you like to drink? I have a well stocked bar and wine rack.”

“I’ll have what you’re having.”

“Then scotch it is.”

Olivia leaned against the back of his couch, watching him get the glasses and whisky from his cabinet. The evening had flowed so easily, but now a bit of awkwardness fell between them. It didn’t help that Rafael had stopped pouring the amber liquid and instead was staring at Olivia’s face, to the point that she became uncomfortable.

“Do I have something on my face?” she asked.

“No,” he answered. “It’s what is not on your face.”

Next thing she knew, he was in front of her, with his left hand holding the back of her head and his mouth on top of hers. At first she was too stunned to react, but then she found herself responding. But then…she couldn’t help herself. She started to laugh, a mild chuckle at first, growing to an out and out roar.

“That’s exactly what every man wants when he tries to kiss a beautiful woman. To be laughed at.”

She looked at him, wanting to apologize for offending him. But he didn’t look offended. In fact, he also started to laugh.

“Was the kiss really that comical?” he asked.

“Not at all. In fact, it was rather nice. It was what you said….”

“Pretty cheesy line, huh?”

“Extremely.”

Rafael leaned against the back of the couch next to Olivia. “I’m sorry. I know you weren’t looking for that. I don’t know what got into me. Yet again.”

“I just never thought that you saw me that way,” Olivia replied softly.

“It would be hard not to see you that way. So I guess I can conclude that you don’t see me that way,” Rafael said resignedly.

“During that first year we worked together, I would—from time to time—fantasize what it might be like to jump your bones.”

Rafael half-sputtered, half laughed at this very un-Liv-like proclamation. Then his face turned serious.

“But the fantasy ended, huh? And not because you satisfied your curiosity. That I would have remembered.”

“You’d better believe you would,” Olivia teased. But then her gaze moved away from Rafael and her face grew sober.

“It ended with William Lewis. I’ve spent the last ten years trying to pretend that that experience had no lasting effects on me, that he took nothing from me. But that’s a lie. One of the things he robbed me of was my ability to look at you that way.

“I’ve always wished that it had been someone other than you who prosecuted Lewis. Who had to study those photos, read the examination report, go over my testimony. I had to end the fantasy. The knowledge that you had those images in your head kept creeping in.”

Had Olivia been able to look at Rafael, she’d have seen a look of heart-rending tenderness and sadness. “Surely Cassidy had those images, through his own imagination if nothing else? Tucker? Yet you were with them in the aftermath.”

She turned slowly to him. “Probably. But they didn’t see the evidence photos. They weren’t in court for the testimony. I never told either of them any details. At all. They didn’t know, and I made it clear to them that I didn’t want them to know.”

“I always wondered why Cassidy didn’t come to support you for most of the trial.”

“I begged him not to. I couldn’t go home to him knowing that he’d heard the things that were bound to come up at trial.”

Rafael shook his head. “But my job meant that I had to be there. The photos and report were evidence in a case. I learned long ago how to de-personalize evidence, though I admit it was harder because I knew you. But I did it. I saw wounds, not a complete body.”

“The one benefit to this is that, in the years afterward, you and I became close in ways that I don’t know would have happened if I kept having to manage lustful thoughts about you,” Olivia sad with a wry little smile.”

“Yet I developed my side of that closeness while entertaining frequent lustful thoughts about you.”

Olivia looked up in surprise. “I’m sorry…I didn’t know.”

“Liv, like you said, it’s been ten years. And a quarter of that we spent being estranged. Maybe you can view me a little differently now?”

Olivia’s look of surprise widened, but then her face became thoughtful. “I don’t know, Rafa. I have to confess that, seeing you again, a lascivious thought or two had crossed my mind. But then you told me during the Williams case that you knew…that thing I didn’t disclose, it was like we were back at trial prep. If you were to touch me there, knowing….”

Barba silently cursed Lewis Williams and cursed himself for telling her that he knew. “Liv, scars are wounds that have healed. They show how strong you are, how fiercely you’ve battled back from the worst. Any man would be honored to be allowed to touch you.

“As I guess you know now, I would like to be that man. But if not me, let it be someone who deserves your love. I’m not going to try to push you into something you don’t want. I’m happy to have you back in my life. And if we can get back the closeness—the emotional intimacy—that we once had, that would be more than enough.”

“Thank you for that, Rafa. You have no idea how much that means to me.”

———

Fin Tutuola looked up from his desk to see Elliot Stabler enter the squad room. “Liv isn’t here right now, Elliot.”

“Actually it’s you I came to see. Got a minute?”

The two men took seats in the interview room. “What’s up, Elliot?” Tutuola asked.

“Something I’ve been wondering. Back when I first got back to New York, while Kathy was in the hospital, you put me ‘in the picture’ about Liv. Told me she’d had a couple of relationships, one serious, and a kid. I appreciated knowing that. But you never mentioned the other things. The traumatic things, like William Lewis. Why is that? I’m not trying to blame you or anything. I’m genuinely curious.”

“What little I did tell you felt a little like I was betraying her confidence, but I wanted you to understand that she’d moved on from you. I also wanted to give you a place to start with her. I did tell her later that I’d told you, and apologized to her for having done so. I’ve kept a lot of her confidences over the years, and it’s important for her to understand that I always will. It was on you to bridge the gap of the years you were away. You’re my friend, but she’s my sister. She’ll always come first with me.”

“I appreciate that you looked out for her, and still do.”

“I can’t keep bad things from happening to her, especially with some of the crazy chances she takes, but I do my best.”

———

“Wait up!” Olivia heard a familiar voice as she pressed the button for the squad room floor. She smiled up at David Haden as he entered the elevator.

“What brings you here today, counselor?”

“I have a meeting with the Homicide unit here, so thought I’d pop in to say hello to you.”

“Always good to see you,” Olivia said with a smile.

“I’m trying to figure out whether to yell at you or thank you.”

“For what?” Olivia asked, even though she suspected she knew the answer,

“Isabel Carasco. She said she got my number from you.”

“So, are you going to go out with her?”

“Well, I’m getting nowhere with you, so why not?”

As the pair entered the squad room, they encountered Fin and Elliot coming out of the interview room.

“Elliot,” Olivia said, “what brings you here today?”

“Just wanted to catch up with my old buddy Fin. But since I’m here, got a minute?”

Olivia introduced her former partner to her  companion, who then said “Liv I’m going on down to my meeting. Let’s catch up soon.”

She turned to Elliot, and invited him into her office.

“Liv, I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”

“For what, Elliot?”

“You mean, for which thing? I have so much to be sorry for with you. But the most recent thing is for how I acted—triggering you about your experience with William Lewis, particularly when that case with the FBI made it so raw.”

“You didn’t know.”

“I should have known. I should have been more interested in the things that happened to you while I was gone. Now I’ve looked at the news reports, and got Cragen to fill me in on what really happened. I’m so sorry I wasn’t here to protect you. You know that I would not have let you go two days without checking on you, not when that psycho was out on the loose.”

Olivia put her face in her hands. There it was. The thing that she was careful for the ten years since her kidnapping not to let get into her brain. She did know exactly that. Elliot would have accompanied her home. Checked her apartment. Called. Come by. He’d been the only person in her life who’d ever looked out for her that way.

But Lewis would have killed him immediately. Or maybe he wouldn’t have come, for the reason the others didn’t. Because she had a boyfriend who was a cop. The boyfriend would take care of her. But then, chances are she wouldn’t have had a boyfriend had Stabler still been her partner. She certainly never had one for more than a few weeks when he was. These were all places she didn’t want to go.

“El, those are all what ifs. None of us know what might have happened, only what did. None of this is on you—it is all on Lewis. He’s dead, and it’s over. I’m sorry I over-reacted at your apartment. PTSD has a way of creeping back up on you just when you think it’s been exorcised.”

“Can we try again, Liv? We can take it slow—tell me what you do and don’t want, and I can be there.”

“Elliot, what I said in that hallway outside Carisi and Rollins’ place had little to do with what happened in your apartment. It just brought things into focus. A year ago, when I told you that I wanted to but wasn’t ready, I wasn’t being honest. With you or myself. I don’t want to. Like I said, Kathy was right. We just get in each other’s way. You’ve lost a lot. Kathy is gone, your kids are grown, your mother is fading away. I think I represent a past that you are trying hard to hold onto. But that’s a mistake. You need to move on. Know that Olivia your friend will always be here for you. But she has never been and will never be your lover.”

Olivia tried to remember if she’d ever seen Elliot cry other than when Kathy died. But the tears were in his eyes now. She got up and gave him a hug. He pinched the tears away, straightened his shoulders, and turned and walked wordlessly out of her office.

———

“What’s up, Rafael?” Carisi queried of the man standing in front of his desk.

“The Lewis Williams case. I know it’s not technically yours, but I’m guessing that you’ve been aware of it. I wanted to let you know that we’ve agreed to take the death penalty off the table in all potential jurisdictions in exchange for life in prison without chance of parole. The AG polled the states that have a death penalty that could apply to Williams to be sure they’re all OK with it, and they’ve agreed. As has the judge. So it’s over.”

“Thanks for letting me know,” said Carisi. “Does the SVU team know?”

“The FBI has kept them informed.”

Carisi nodded and waited. His former mentor was hovering, so something clearly was on his mind. “Have a seat, Rafael. You look like you want to talk.”

“Thanks. May I ask you a personal question?”

“Ask away. I can’t promise I’ll answer though,” Carisi added with a chuckle.

“You and Rollins were friends—good friends—for a long time before you finally got together. What did you do to finally get over the finish line, as it were, with her?”

“Asking for a friend?”

“Something like that.”

“Actually, all I did was stand there looking stupid. We were talking while at Fin’s non-wedding celebration and suddenly out of nowhere she kissed me. And that was that.” Carisi smiled at the memory.

Barba shook his head ruefully. “There’s not a chance that will happen here. She literally laughed in my face when I made a clumsy pass at her. And besides, she’s already involved with someone else and is not the sort to cheat.”

Carisi looked surprised. “Who is this woman?”

“I’m surprised you haven’t guessed by now—I’ve been infatuated with Olivia Benson for some time now.”

“That’s who I’d thought you were talking about. But I can’t see Liv laughing in your face. And, as far as I know, she is not involved with anyone.”

“I told you the pass was clumsy. It was pretty funny—I laughed too. I couldn’t help it, and neither could she. But she told me clearly that she doesn’t think of me that way. And, in any event, she’s with Stabler now.”

“I’m sorry to hear she turned you down. I always thought she had at least a bit of a thing for you. I guess I mis-read her. But unless something radically changed in the last couple of days, she is not with Stabler. He tried—pretty aggressively I might add—but she turned him down kindly but unmistakably.”

“How do you know that?”

“It happened at our apartment. At least the turning down part. And she’d confided in Amanda about the pass he made. I just happened to overhear part of the conversation.”

“Hmmm,” Barba mused. “She seems to be on a rejection roll. Stabler, me, Haden, Isabel….”

“Who is Haden? And who the hell is Isabel?”

“Haden is an old flame of hers who is back in town. Former Executive ADA. Isabel is a friend of mine who has rather catholic—small c—tastes.”

“Perhaps she’s overwhelmed. It’s a lot all at once” mused Carisi, “during a time when she has to be feeling pretty raw because of the Williams case. I don’t know Haden or Isabel, but of the four of you, my guess is that you stand the best chance with her if she can push past this.”

“I hope you’re right, but I doubt it.”

Chapter Text

———

Olivia cursed herself for having agreed to this dinner. It wasn’t as if she and Tom Wilson had some kind of immediate chemistry. He’d led the Williams investigation more than competently, and she respected his skills as an investigator. But a date? She had trouble remembering the last time she’d been on an actual date. So why break her pattern with this guy?

Why indeed? There had been a time in her life when she’d readily accept a date from any seemingly decent fellow. After all, how was she going to find love if she didn’t at least try? Except it seemed like, lately, all she did was turn men down. At least for sex. Men with whom she had strong chemistry, no less. Two of those men fairly exuded red-hot sensuality, and with the third she could vividly remember some extremely satisfying rounds in the bedroom.

She had to ask herself why. Her physical attraction to all three had at various points been strong. And she had close emotional bonds to two of them, with the potential for such a bond with the third. So why not pick one of them, rather than venturing out with this new wild card?

Well, for one thing, she no longer approached sex with the abandon that she once had. Now to reveal her body to someone was fraught with fears and triggers. As she had done so many times in the past decade, she cursed William Lewis for the horrors he’d imprinted on her. But, if she was to be completely honest with herself, perhaps Lewis was in part an excuse. The truth was, she had long separated emotional intimacy from physical intimacy. It was just more comfortable that way.

But she had agreed to meet Tom Wilson, and this contemplation was not solving the question of what she would wear on this date. Wilson wasn’t asking for sex. (At least not yet.) It was just dinner and a chance to get to know each other.  She chose a simple blue dress that set off her coloring well but would not come across as seductive, and headed out for her evening.

———

Wilson and Benson hugged briefly in greeting in front of the pan-Asian restaurant to which he’d invited her. Maybe FBI agents are a little more adventurous in their eating than your average cop, Olivia thought fleetingly.

“Thanks for coming,” Wilson opened once they were seated. “I enjoyed working with you, and thought it would be nice to get to know each other a bit. So what do you do when you’re not hunting down rapists and abusers?”

“Very little else,” Olivia laughed. “Most of my non-work time and energy is spent on raising my son Noah. He’s 12 years old—soon to be a bona fide teenager—and is a whirlwind of energy.”

“Single mother, huh? Is the father in the picture at all?”

“The father is dead, as is his birth mother. I adopted Noah when he was an infant.”

“That was brave of you. But, from what I saw in our case together, you are the epitome of courage.”

Olivia blushed a bit at the compliment. “Probably more like crazy. But tell me about you. Any kids?”

“Two. A son who just graduated college, and a daughter who is currently at the NYPD Police Academy. Their mother and I divorced when they were still little, and we had shared custody while they were growing up. They’re both great kids.”

“How long have you been with the FBI?”

“Coming up on 25 years. How about you with NYPD?”

“Over 30 years, and more than 25 with Special Victims.”

“Wow. I’d have thought that that unit would have a lot of turnover.”

“It does. Most of the squad has turned over multiple times since I joined. But, for me, it’s a calling. I can’t imagine doing anything else.”

“Even with all you’ve been through? Sorry if I’m touching on a sensitive topic, but it sounds like you went through hell with Lewis Williams Jr.”

“I did. But that was a decade ago. I’ve learned to live with it. And Noah came along not long after that, and gave me a new lease on life. But enough of that. Tell me, are you originally from New York?”

And, with that, the conversation turned to typical first date, getting-to-know-you, topics. Olivia found it oddly invigorating.

Olivia declined Wilson’s offer to drive her home, opting instead to take an Uber. “Two minutes away,” said Olivia as she looked at her app.

“That gives us enough time for this,” said Wilson as he leaned in for a kiss. Like the rest of the evening, the kiss was exactly right. Warm and inviting, but not too intimate. A bit of tongue, but not so much as to feel demanding.

As she rode home, Olivia acknowledged to herself that she was glad she went on this date. It felt so…normal. She enjoyed being courted without being pressured, and imagined that this was how other people—normal people—conducted their dating lives. People who didn’t have the sole responsibility for raising a child. Who didn’t have the safety and well-being of a squad of officers and detectives in her keeping. Who didn’t hear daily of the horrors that human beings can inflict on one another. Who had not suffered some of those horrors in her own life. Normal. Maybe it was time she allowed that for herself.

———

Unnoticed by the couple in front of the pan-Asian restaurant, a group of young adults exited a pub across the street. Laughing and teasing one another about their failure to win team trivia yet again, they started to separate to head to their respective homes. The evening had been a relief to one of the young women in particular, who had recently taken on an unusual roommate—her grandmother, whose failing mental acuity meant that she could not be left alone for any extended period. Tonight, gram was staying with her own son in order to give Kathleen a bit of relief from the responsibility.

As she headed to the subway, Kathleen glanced across the street, certain that she recognized the woman in the couple leaving the restaurant. Beyond doubt, that was Olivia Benson being kissed by the middle aged man accompanying her. “First date,” Kathleen muttered to herself. Clearly Olivia had arrived and was leaving on her own, rather than letting the man pick her up or take her home. That was a practice that Kathleen’s cop father had hammered into her head from an early age. Of course Olivia, Dad’s then-partner, would exercise the same precaution.

But what was Olivia doing on a date with someone who was not Elliot Stabler? While her father was not one to share details of his personal life, Kathleen assumed that he and Olivia had become involved at some point after her mother’s tragic passing. While some of her siblings were uncomfortable with the idea, partially blaming Olivia for their father’s absence for much of their childhoods, Kathleen understood that Olivia had simply been her father’s partner in a job that was the culprit in keeping him away from home. Their mother had confided that, even if she didn’t entirely trust her husband not to have an affair, she trusted Olivia not to do anything that would damage the marriage and family that her husband’s partner so clearly respected.

In fact, her mother sometimes called on Olivia for help with family matters. As had Kathleen, whom Olivia had aided during Kathleen’s struggles to come to terms with her bipolar disease. Kathleen had come to regard Olivia as a friend.

But, apparently, her friend did not have the relationship with her father that Kathleen had assumed. Either that, or Olivia was stepping out on her father.

———

Port Authority was, of course, a zoo. In addition to the usual hubbub of scheduled buses, summer camp buses were filling up with children and tweens, many of them about to experience their first extended period apart from their parents. The Bensons were no exception. Olivia was trying hard to be happy for her son and the imminent fulfillment of his wish. Noah was trying to act like he wasn’t nervous about being away from his mother for so long. Olivia chuckled into her son’s ear as she gave him a hug. “Look around at all the other parents and kids pretending to be nonchalant about all this. I guess this is your first acting lesson, huh?”

Noah surveyed his fellow campers and returned his mother’s laugh. “I see what you mean. We’re all so very brave, aren’t we? I’m going to miss you, Mom.”

“I’ll miss you too, sweetheart. You have no idea how much. So you’d better have lots of fun to make up for it!”

“I do know how much. And you need to have some fun too. You’re going to have a month of not being tied down by the needs of some snotty kid. Take advantage of it. But…be safe. No getting shot or beat up by bad guys while I’m away!”

Olivia looked at her son as though he’d just been replaced by some other person. “Wow. Are you sure you’re 12 and not 42?”

Noah just grinned and gave his mother a goodbye hug.

———

Her schedule had given Olivia little time to start missing her son. She had no sooner put him on his camp bus than the squad caught a case that occupied the remainder of her day. Somewhere in the middle of it all, she took a call from Rafael Barba who, mindful that she’d be seeing Noah off that morning, invited her for dinner that night.

The restaurant was a nice one that had recently opened to rave reviews, and thus required her to up her dress game a bit more than usual. As she contemplated her closet, her thoughts moved to her evening with Tom Wilson. Unremarkable as it was on the surface, the date had resonated with her—perhaps exactly because it was unremarkable. Here was a perfectly nice man who was aware of one of the most traumatic bits of her history and its likely impact on her body and mind, and yet displayed romantic interest in her. Not an overly strong advance, but enough to signal that he would like more. He’d followed up the next morning with a text saying he’d like to see her again, to which she’d replied positively, even if they made no specific plans.

In other words, he was moving at a pace that was traditional and normal for adults of their generation. Which meant that he viewed her as normal, even though he knew that at least some of her history was anything but normal. Was it possible? Stabler had teased her about having “normalitis”—fear of being normal. But perhaps normal was exactly what she craved. Normal with a touch of boldness.

———

After work, Kathleen headed straight to her father’s apartment to pick up her grandmother. Since Bernice was not quite ready, Kathleen decided to plunge in with her father.

“Hey, Dad. What’s up with you and Olivia? Are you dating, or what?”

Elliot was surprised. It wasn’t like Kathleen to query about his personal life. His first instinct was to deflect, but he realized that, of all his children, she was the closest to Olivia. To the extent anyone had a right to know, it would be her.

“More like ‘or what’.  We’re good friends, that’s it. We aren’t dating.”

“I’m surprised. During that intervention after Mom died, you blurted out an ‘I love you’ to her. I know you tried to pretend you meant it for all of us, but you weren’t fooling anyone. Certainly not me.”

“That was a particularly difficult time in my life. In all of our lives. I was leaning heavily on Olivia at the time. She helped me get through it all. And, yes, I do love her. Just like I love you, or Gram, or the other important people in my life. But I’m not dating any of them.”

“I guess I’m relieved to hear that.”

“Really?” queried Elliot. “I thought you liked Olivia.”

“I do. A lot. But last night I saw her out on what clearly was a date. She didn’t see me, but I saw her. I hated to think she would be cheating on you.”

“A date, huh? Did you recognize the guy? Like, maybe someone you saw at the trial of Mom’s killer?”

“No, I’ve never seen him before.”

Elliot thought of the man who’d come into the squad room with Olivia the other day.  “Tall guy? Brown hair?”

“On the tall side, but very little hair.”

So clearly it wasn’t Barba or Haden. Elliot wondered what other man was in Olivia’s life.

———

Rafael was waiting at the maitre d’s podium when he saw his companion for the evening arrive. He knew he was not the only one staring at the stunning brunette in a red dress that flowed down her body and caressed every curve. But she was looking only at him, wearing a smile that lit her whole face. He could only smile back and tell her how beautiful she looked. She returned the compliment. He was wearing her favorite suit, an elegant two-piece navy blue with a red and blue tie and pocket piece.

They were seated at a quiet table near the back where they would receive just the right amount of server attention along with a dose of privacy. Olivia did not doubt that Rafael had taken steps to ensure they would get the right table. Their drinks arrived with the menu, and they took their time deciding on their meal.

“How is mami doing? Are you missing Noah yet?”

“I started missing Noah before the bus even left. But work kept me busy the rest of the day. Thank you for inviting me out tonight. It helps to keep me from brooding.”

“Glad to be of service.”

They both smiled as they ordered their meal.

“So…,” Olivia started, “may I hit you with the question I asked back when we initially re-connected?”

“My journey?”

“Your journey.”

Barba took a long breath and a sip of his scotch.

“After law school I was fortunate to get a clerkship with a federal appellate judge at the second circuit here in New York.”

“I didn’t realized you’d clerked. I thought you’d gone directly to the DA’s office. Aren’t federal circuit court clerkships extremely prestigious? Particularly the second circuit?”

Barba nodded. “Second only to a Supreme Court clerkship in bragging rights. It was a pretty big deal for this Jerome Avenue miscreant.  Clerking for Judge Ross was a great experience—I learned a lot under his tutelage. He’d been a New York prosecutor before being appointed to the bench, and encouraged me to follow a similar path. He also was good friends with his colleague, Judge Carasco, the first Latina woman to be appointed to that court.”

“Carasco? Any relation to Isabel?”

“Her mother. That’s how I met Izzy. That was a heady time for me. Here I was in this great job, but was still sulking over losing Yelina three years before. Then Izzy came storming into my life, with all of her right-brained artistic energy as counterpoint to my extreme left-brained rationality. We fell in what we thought was love, and burned hot for a while. But we were just too different, and never really connected at a deeper level. The flame burned out pretty quickly, and she soon found someone else.”

Olivia grinned impishly. “And yet she’s still in your life. With benefits, as she told me.”

Rafael rolled his eyes. “Isabel doesn’t have much of a filter. Yes, we remained friends and are each other’s escorts when needed.”

“In public and private, as it were,” Olivia said with a smirk.

Rafael debated with himself on how much to say. He decided that, whatever Liv’s reaction, he might as well tell the truth. “We still get together if neither of us is otherwise involved. I understand she propositioned you? Or, more accurately, you and Haden together.  I’m sorry about that—I certainly didn’t encourage it.”

“She took my declination gracefully. She also mentioned you as a potential participant,” Olivia added with a sly smile.

“Sorry about that. Izzy does what Izzy wants to do. I had no hand in that.”

“She pretty much said that.”

“She would. She may speak without thinking, but she rarely lies. Anyway, Judge Ross helped me get my initial job with the DA’s office. From the moment I became a prosecutor, I threw myself in wholeheartedly. It permeated my whole life. I stopped being Rafael Barba and became ADA Barba. I maintained a social life outside of work, but it was all superficial. When I was in Brooklyn, I wasn’t close to anyone connected to my job. When I came to Manhattan, it was the same at first. It wasn’t long before SVU prosecutions became almost all of my caseload.

“And I loved it. I was doing the work of the angels. The police squad I was working with—you guys—demanded my best and I tried to deliver. And the DA gave me extraordinarily free rein. Probably too much. I found myself looking for reasons to spend more time with the SVU squad. And one detective in particular with whom I developed an almost symbiotic relationship,” he said looking into Olivia’s eyes.

She grinned. “Oh, I didn’t realize you and Fin were that close.”

“Ha ha.”

They sat smiling across the table for a moment.

Barba then continued, “Anyway, you know how things went for the next few years. Then the Householders dug deep into my heart and, well, you know what happened there. McCoy actually tried to reject my resignation but deep down he knew as I did that I could not continue in that job after that, despite the acquittal.

“By the way, have I ever thanked you for the way you stood by me, and stood up for me, during that ordeal? Thank you too for the things you said to McCoy and Stone—that did get back to me.”

“You’ve thanked me at least a dozen times,” Olivia reminded him. “And it was the least I could do.”

“The problem then was, I’d lost myself. I had allowed the job to become almost the entirety of my identity. I was what I did, and if I wasn’t doing it anymore, who was I? I was no one. I cut myself off from everyone, even my mother, because I felt like I had nothing to offer. So I went on the run.

“First I gave up my apartment, put my things in storage, went to Miami for a while, and sat for the Florida bar. I became enmeshed in the Cubano community, and set up a pro bono/low bono clinic there. With some grant money for expenses and a small salary, it brought in just enough money to cover costs and keep a roof over my head while I did some good for the community. A well-placed friend there introduced me to a watchdog group working on election integrity, and I wound up handing the clinic over to some hungry young lawyers, and hitting the road for the group.

“During all this, I struggled to regain my sense of self. When I came back to New York and saw you, I felt on more solid ground. Izzy had, years previously, introduced me around the arts community, and I found myself spending more time in that environment. That gave me an outlet outside of being all lawyer all the time.”

Olivia gave Rafael a rueful look. “I don’t suppose it helped you when I arrested one of your friends in the dance world.”

“He deserved it. I was just sorry that I misread him and told you he was a good guy.”

“And you settled back in New York around that time, didn’t you? And started doing defense work.”

“Yes. I plunged back in to develop a practice. When you asked me to take on Mickey Davis’ case, it felt like old times even though I was on the other side of the aisle. Liv, I don’t want to make you uncomfortable—you’ve told me where you stand on this, and I respect that—but you played a big part in my deciding to settle back in New York. When you told me after the Davis case that you missed me, I couldn’t go on as I’d been, trying to ignore the feelings I knew I had for you. Even though I was sure it was our friendship you missed, and you weren’t expressing a desire for something more, it reminded me that I’d rather have you in my life than out of it.”

Rafael was unable to read the expression on Olivia’s face. But the fact that she was looking directly into his eyes gave him the courage to keep going. “We started seeing more of each other, though certainly nothing like the old days. Still, it felt good. I started to feel more whole. The guilt over the action I took with that baby will never leave me, but at least I started to feel less robotic. You have always had a way of humanizing me.”

Rafael chuckled ruefully, “I finally worked up the nerve open up with you and ask if you were willing to explore the possibility of a relationship with me. I had it all so carefully planned out. But then I went to the ceremony to see you receive that award. But you never showed, and we both know why. The car bombing that killed Kathy Stabler. After that, you became so enmeshed in Stabler’s situation that I couldn’t put my own feelings on your plate. Plus, I suspected you’d be grappling with some pretty complicated feelings yourself.”

“That’s one way of putting it.”

“And then Bayard called, and it all went to hell.”

“I’m sorry,” Olivia said at barely a whisper.

“I’m not saying this to make you feel guilty—my reaction is my problem, not yours. But I did start to spiral down again after you exiled me from your life. You were so much of what made me something beyond what I did for a living, and suddenly what I did for a living caused me to lose what humanity I’d started to regain.

“And then I ran into Yelina Munoz at the courthouse. She had just finalized her divorce from Alex, and she poured her heart out to me. She was just the salve I needed, or so I thought. We started to see each other. We were going strong for several months, again so I thought. Then one night we ran into Alex. Yelina, who was never much for public displays of affection, was all over me in front of him, and then started verbally goading him, saying I was so much the better man than he was—in every way. As soon as he stormed off, she took her hands off me and started laughing. That’s when it dawned on me. I asked her if she’d been using me to get back at Alex, and she admitted that she had actually set it up for him to see us together.”

“Wow,” Olivia responded. “That was brutal. How did that make you feel?”

“Humiliated. Used. Something below less than human.”

“When I told you that I’d seen you with her, you let me believe—or at least didn’t disabuse me of the notion—that you were still with her. It was Isabel who told me that you weren’t.”

“Well, you let me believe—or at least didn’t disabuse me of the notion—that you are involved with Stabler. It was Carisi who told me that you aren’t.”

“Touche,” Olivia laughed. “I guess we both have been playing it close to the chest.”

“Speaking of which, were you going to tell me you went out with Tom Wilson?”

“Actually, yes I was. We just hadn’t gotten to it. How did you know?”

“I ran into him this morning, and he mentioned he’d had a lovely evening with you. Is that your take on the evening?”

“It may well have been life-altering for me.”

Barba’s eyebrows shot to the top of his head. “You’ll have to explain.”

As he had just settled the check, it was not appropriate to remain in the restaurant to hear Olivia’s explanation. Neither did a crowded bar seem the right place. Rafael thought to invite her to his apartment, but was afraid she’d be gun-shy after his awkward pass the last time she was there. Maybe if he promised her that he wouldn’t try again? The problem was, he wasn’t sure he could keep that promise. Although, maybe if she has entered into a relationship with Wilson, it would be safe.

“Hey,” Olivia said interrupting his thoughts. “I never got that drink you promised last time we had dinner. Can I claim my rain check now, and I can fill you in at your place?”

Rafael stood stunned. Was he understanding her correctly? Did she want to be invited to his apartment again? What the hell was going on?

He gave the only possible response. “Of course. I’ll flag a taxi.”

They were both quiet on the short ride to his building, and on the ride up the elevator. Neither could read the other’s expression, but clearly both minds were racing. The question was, racing to where?

Chapter Text

———

On entering his apartment, Rafael removed his jacket and tie, carefully arranging them across the back of a chair, and undid the top button of his shirt. “Might as well relax,” he said to Olivia. “Those heels are lovely, but I’m betting you’d be more comfortable without them.” She smiled as she duly removed the shoes. She followed him into the kitchen and nodded at the offered nightcap liqueur.  Handing Olivia her glass, he put his hand on the small of her back to accompany her to the couch.

Suddenly he froze. His hand had moved from her waist, tracing its way down toward her backside, and then had been quickly pulled away. She saw that his face had changed to something unreadable.

They sat facing each other on opposite ends of the couch, both fidgeting nervously like a pair of adolescents on a first date. “Oh god, that maneuver with the hand. He knows what I did,” Olivia thought. “So much for being bold and audacious. Now I just feel like an idiot. How am I going to explain this to him?”

Rafael had been uncomfortably aware since they left the restaurant that tonight would be a turning point for them. Certain that she was going to tell him something that he didn’t want to hear—that she had decided upon permanent celibacy, or was in love with Wilson, or had decided to take up with Stabler after all—he started to mentally strategize how to at least keep her in his life. But, he remembered, it was she who invited herself here. And then there’s what he detected, or more accurately didn’t detect, when his hand slipped down her back. What the hell did that mean?

Rafael decided he had nothing to lose by speaking up. “Liv, what is going on here? I’m getting some very mixed messages. Usually, when a woman dresses to kill and omits the panties, that’s a message. A clear one. Though usually she mentions that omission during dinner, because she knows that it will drive her target wild. Yet you never gave the slightest indication.  But you’re the one who suggested we come up here.  On the other hand, you shut me down pretty thoroughly last time you were up here. And you talked about your date with Wilson being potentially life-changing. Was this deliberate wardrobe malfunction for my benefit or his? Had you been planning to see Wilson later? ”

“Actually, it was for my benefit.”

Rafael looked puzzled.

Olivia took a deep breath. “Over the years, I think you’ve picked up on enough about my childhood to get the gist. My mother used the bottle to cope with the trauma of her rape and my subsequent birth, so I pretty much raised myself. I’d look around at all these happy families with two functional parents and maybe some siblings, and all I wanted was that. Normalcy.”

“Those families aren’t always what they seem.”

“I know that now, but not then. At 16 I became involved with a man five years my senior—a big gap at that stage of life. I even agreed to marry him.”

“The age gap mattered both chronologically and legally—I don’t have to tell you of all people what the law has to say about that,” Barba interjected.

“Yes, well, he recently reconnected with me and finally—40 years later—I came to understand how I’d been groomed. But that’s a story for another day. At the time, what I was seeking was something as close to normal as I thought I could get. But my mother intervened, and shut the whole thing down. I took it as her trying to ruin my life. I see now that, in her own drunken way, she was trying to protect me. Again, it took me 40 years to see it. I guess I can be pretty obtuse.”

“About some things, yes. I can bear witness to that,” Barba said as gently as he could.

“And that brings me to now. The date with Tom Wilson? It was so incredibly normal. We did all the normal first date things. Had all the normal first date conversations. Ended the evening with a kiss, and nothing more. He contacted me the next day to say he’d had a good time and would like to see me again.”

“And that is life-altering? Did you fall in love with normalcy?”

Olivia laughed. “Perhaps. I can divide my relationships with men into two distinct categories. On one side are those with whom I have connected emotionally, but never slept with. Elliot, Fin, Munch, Nick, Carisi. You. On the other side are men I’ve slept with, but never truly connected with emotionally. Tucker, Cassidy, Haden. And others. On a venn diagram, there would be no intersecting circle.”

“You do know that at least two men in that first category would very much like to sleep with you,” Rafael said with a grin. “But where does Wilson fit in?”

“Neither. He’s just a nice man with whom I had a nice time and, were it not for my epiphany, I’d probably see again and allow the relationship to develop into the second category.”

“And your epiphany is….?”

“That I’ve been doing a lot of lying to myself. I told myself that my reservedness on the sexual front was because of what Lewis did to me. I could be with men like Brian and Ed—in the dark— because they knew but as long as they didn’t see it would be OK. And if they were repulsed by me it wouldn’t be that devastating because, well, I wasn’t that invested in them. I didn’t want to be with Elliot because he didn’t know and I didn’t want to have to explain. I didn’t want to be with you because you knew too much. Much as I hated giving Lewis that kind of power over me, particularly all these years later, it was better than facing the truth about myself.”

“Which is….?”

“That I am so stunted as a human being that I can only be with a man I don’t deeply care about. And cannot be with someone I genuinely love. I can’t be normal.”

“I won’t allow you to call yourself ‘stunted”. Yes, you are not ‘normal’, you are so much better than normal,” Barba growled.

“You can allow it, because I am done with that. That is the epiphany—I don’t want to live that way any longer. I want a normal life, with someone in the intersecting circle of the venn diagram. And I’ve been the one standing in the way. Not my mother, not the job, not Lewis.  You wondered about the lack of underwear? That was my statement to myself that I can be a fully functional sexual being again, and that for the first time in my life I can perhaps be that with someone with whom I share a deep emotional connection. Someone I truly love. So I spent this evening commando in order to give myself that sense and build my own confidence.”

“An evening with me,” Rafael said carefully.

“Yes, with you. Someone I truly and deeply love.”

Rafael sat unmoving, stunned into silence.

“Rafael Barba, speechless?” Olivia laughed. “I never thought I’d see the day. Seriously, Rafa, I understand that you may be hesitant. Yelina used you, and that can’t feel good. Isabel uses you, but then you use her too, so I guess that’s okay. And, in my own way, perhaps I am using you. Using you to finally feel normal. I don’t think I could do this with someone I didn’t feel so safe with. Someone who I can see a future with. Someone who, fortunately for me, I also happen to be in love with.”

“You wouldn’t feel so safe if you knew what was on my mind right now,” Rafael said as he stood and reached out a hand to Olivia.

She took his hand and rose to meet him. “I’m very much hoping it’s what is on my mind as well.”

Chapter Text

———

Unless you count a smooch on the forehead or an awkward pass, they had never kissed before. So the first real meeting of their lips was something tentative and exploratory. How do friends become lovers? How do they break the habits of a decade of companionable interactions? It is one thing for two very verbal people to declare their love in words. What happens when the time comes to express that love physically?

When Olivia rose from the couch, her mouth went straight to his. The kiss was sweet and tender at first, slowly deepening until a passionate hunger exploded between them. Rafael’s hands traced Olivia’s shape, while hers explored the contours of his chest. As she moved to unbutton his shirt, he gently took her hand, smiled, and led her to the bedroom. “Let’s do this properly,” his thickened voice uttered.

In the bedroom, Rafael reached to turn off the bedside lamp that he had left burning. Olivia stopped his hand. “Leave the light on please. If it turns out that what you see is too hard to bear, I will understand, but it’s better we know that now.”

“Liv, I was only turning it off for your comfort. Are you ready? You haven’t….”

She shook her head. “I want to be fully present with you. And I want to be able to look at you. It was your expressive eyes that first attracted me. I want to see them as we make love.”

Those expressive eyes gazed into hers with a mixture of tenderness, love, and unadulterated lust. Keeping his eyes on hers, his hands explored her upper body, caressing her arms, her back, her abdomen, and her breasts. She could see that he was taking pleasure in the sensations.

“May I open your dress?” Rafael asked huskily.

“I wish you would.”

He pulled her zipper down partway and undraped the top part of her dress while spreading kisses from her neck down to her chest. Removing her bra, he stroked both breasts, softly at first, then with greater vigor. He then lifted one breast to his mouth and moved his tongue around and over it, eliciting a low moan from his partner. Moving his hands to her back, he pulled her zipper fully down, allowing her dress to fall to the floor.

Rafael took a step back and let his eyes wander up and down the body in front of him. His unmistakeable look of admiration and desire led Olivia to smile and say, “No fair. My turn now.”

Kicking her dress aside, she approached Rafael and proceeded to unbuckle his belt and unbutton both his shirt and trousers. She pulled off his shirt and undershirt, slowly moving her hands over his chest and then below his waist. She held his eyes to hers as she ran a hand across his bulge, feeling it continue to grow under her palm. They both were breathing heavily as they joined for a deep, passionate kiss. Olivia opened his zipper and reached behind him and into his boxers to cup his derriere with both hands. With a triumphant smile, Rafael pulled Olivia to him, so that his hands were also cupping her behind. His erection, still inside his pants, ground against her.

“Show-off,” Olivia accused with a smile. She quickly pulled down both his trousers and boxers. As he stepped out of them, she stepped back to give him the same inspection he had given her. She started to chuckle.

“Hey,” Barba said, his offended words belied by the wide grin on his face. “You laughed the first time I tried to kiss you, and now you laugh at seeing me naked for the first time. I’m starting to develop a complex.”

Olivia was fully laughing now. “I’m sorry. I just discovered that the old wives’ tale about men with long fingers is true.”

Rafael’s smug smile grew even wider. “That’s why they stay wives long enough to be old.”

“It’s not the size that counts so much as what you do with it,” Olivia teased.

“Then let me show you.” With that, he gently nudged her onto the bed then laid next to her. “But let me first demonstrate what long fingers can do.”

With that, he started to stroke her inner thighs, occasionally teasing her labia with a brief tickle from his fingertips. As the stroking increased in intensity, so did the teasing until his fingers started to penetrate her. Pushing upward with two fingers, he used his thumb to circle her nub, slowly increasing the intensity until she started to thrust over his fingers. He looked at her in alarm as she started to make what seemed like a choking sound, but the expression on her face was one of great pleasure. “Please,” she whispered, “don’t stop.”

So he didn’t. He continued until her lower body released in a spasm and the choking noise turned to loud whimpers as she reached climax. She held his face in her hands and they gazed at one another, each realizing that the other had tears in their eyes. They put their foreheads together and laughed quietly as they caught their breaths.

After a few minutes’ rest, Olivia pulled herself up and let her hands roam his body, touching just about everything except his genitals. She then used her mouth and tongue to trace the same path, stopping at his nipples, his abdomen, and his outer and inner thighs. Her tongue gently tapped his testicles, then attended more closely to them. She ran her tongue along the bottom of his penis, letting her mouth circle the tip then travel down the shaft. Using her hand to stroke the bottom half of his member, her mouth entertained the top half, as she enjoyed the sounds of his soft moans all the while. She then brought her face back up to his, and laid on her side next to him.

Rafael turned to his side to face her, and kissed her neck, her chest, and finally her mouth. Rolling her onto her back, he knelt between her legs and moved his tongue across and into her clitoris. He could sense that she was about to orgasm again and pulled his head back. “Liv,” he said quietly, “may I enter you?”

She replied with a laugh, “You damned well better, and now!”

He laughed too as he started to arrange his tip against her opening. She reached down and guided him in, all the while smiling into his eyes. Rafael slowly sank himself into Olivia. He held himself still inside of her, savoring the sensation of having physically merged into one being. He started with long, slow thrusts, stopping just short of pulling out entirely with each upward movement and then plunging deeply back down. He reached down and rearranged her pelvis so that each thrust would land upward inside her, thus stimulating her g-spot and bringing her to orgasm. As she clamped him inside her with her spasms, he could hold out no longer, and achieved his own release with a single low yelp.

Rafael collapsed on top of his partner as his eyes seemed to roll back in his head. She could feel him still twitching and asked him to try to stay inside her if he could. He obliged for as long as he was able, then rolled to her side. She turned to face him and they embraced, both of them shaking as they held one another tightly without speaking.

After a while, Rafael whispered to Olivia, “I hate to break this for even a moment, but I have to…”

Olivia chuckled. “Of course. Hurry back.”

As he entered the bathroom, he caught a glimpse in the mirror of his still-flushed face and the smile that was on it. He realized that what he was seeing was, for the first time in his memory, the face of complete happiness.

———

He had indeed rushed back to her, to experience the bliss of falling asleep in her arms. She awoke a few hours later with her own need to visit the facilities. She did her best to slip out from around him without waking him, and thought she had achieved that goal. But on her return to the bedroom, she could see his intense eyes follow her as she walked naked back to the bed.

“Sorry, I tried not to wake you.”

“You didn’t. I suddenly felt bereft, as though something important was gone. Then I realized that it was true. You weren’t in this bed anymore.”

She kissed his cheek as she crawled back into the bed next to him.

Rafael muttered, “Tom Wilson is probably the best friend I have in the world.” *

“Because an evening with him and his normalcy made me understand what…and who…I really wanted?”

“And that what and who was me. Tonight was…transcendent,” Rafael said quietly.

Olivia agreed, “It was tender, loving, and electric all at once. And fun. We actually laughed as we made love.”

“A wise author wrote, nearly a century ago, that ‘the worst sin—perhaps the only sin—passion can commit is to be joyless. It must lie down with laughter or make its bed in hell’,” Rafael quoted.*

“That’s perfect.”

“You know what else is perfect? You.” Rafael said with a leer.

“Hardly. But I’ll take it. And this as well,” she said as she smilingly touched his erect shaft.

———

Olivia was momentarily disoriented as she woke and realized she was not in her own bed. A cascade of ‘what have I done?’ and ‘where is Noah?’ and ‘am I late for work?’ questions flitted briefly through her head. Then she realized that it was Sunday morning and she had the day off, Noah was away at camp, and what she had done was sleeping next to her with his muscular arm across her chest and his long fingers circling her breast. And the pleasurable ache in her nether regions reminded her of just what those arms and fingers could do.

The sun pouring in through the cracks in the blinds reminded her that she was lying her naked next to this sexy man, and that they had made love last night—at least the first time—with the lights on. And he wasn’t repulsed—quite the opposite. And she wasn’t self-conscious about her scars. She felt accepted and loved.

“Mmmm,” she heard next to her. And then felt a soft beard nuzzling her face. “Am I really waking up next to the love of my life?”

Rafael could feel her stiffen momentarily. Then she relaxed and kissed him. He started to apologize, then stopped himself. Instead, he said, “That surprised you?”

“Maybe a little. The only other person to call me the love of his life was Cassidy. Long after we’d split up. I’d never had that sense from him, and so didn’t know how to react. Your saying it brought that moment back, but then I realized—I think I did know that about you. And it startled me into realizing that you are the love of my life. I was an idiot not to realize it sooner.”

“You had a lot to work through to get here. I’m just glad you did. Maybe if you’d realized it earlier, or I’d spoken up earlier, we’d have started to enjoy this long ago. But I think we both had to go through some changes to grow into this kind of love. Fate kept us waiting until we were truly ready for each other.”

“I’d like to think that.”

“And now I think some coffee is in order. “Let me find you a shirt to toss on while I get it started.”

———

They sat together at his breakfast bar, holding hands as they sipped their coffee.

“Liv,” Rafael started, “I think I need your help with something.”

“Certainly.”

“I’ve never been very good with children. Never quite known what to do with them or say to them.”

“You were fine with Noah once he started to get a bit older.”

“Only when other people were around to help. That’s what I’d like your help with. I’d like to get to know Noah. That is, if you’ll allow it. I know you’re protective of him, and concerned that he not get too attached to someone who might disappear from his life. I have no intention of disappearing ever again, and he’s of primary importance to you, and therefore very important to me.”

“I’d like that. And thank you for realizing the need for it. The thing is, he’s away for a month. So we have some time to work on us just by ourselves. But his camp is going to have a parents’ weekend in couple of weeks, where they put on some performances and spend time with their families. Maybe you could come to that with me?”

“I’d love to.”

“We’ll need to figure out how to introduce the idea of you to him, so that your presence doesn’t take him too much by surprise,” Olivia mused.

“Well, my friendship with one of his instructors might be an excuse for me to be there.”

“I’d rather not use false pretenses. We’ll figure something out. There’s other thing I’ll have to prepare him for. I have not had a man sleep over, other than as a visitor on the couch, since Noah was a toddler and didn’t know what was going on. He’s entering adolescence, and knows what is what. I’ll have to prepare him for that as well.”

“I guess being a parent is not easy.”

“It has its rewards, but some things get tough.”

“Speaking of telling people…. I know you’ve always played it close to the chest in terms of letting friends and family know about your relationships, as have I. What do you want to do in that regard? We don’t have to worry about conflicts of interest or disclosing now. And I hope to be a major part of your life, and you a major part of mine….”

“So you’d like to tell our friends and families that we’re together?” Olivia asked.

“Yes. I’m supposed to have lunch with my mother today, by the way. I do confide in her, and I’d like her to know there’s someone special in my life.”

“Of course. Please do tell her. And, as we’ve just discussed, I need to talk to Noah about you. But our friends? Particularly our mutual friends? I don’t want someone blabbing to Noah before I’ve had a chance to talk to him.”

“So I won’t tell Izzy. She can’t keep a secret, even from a child.”

“Well, maybe you can talk to her about it when we’re at the camp. She’’ll probably figure it out from your very presence with me. And certainly when you tell her the ‘benefits’ are off the table. Hint, hint.”

Rafael laughed. “You don’t have to worry about that.”

Olivia looked thoughtful. “So maybe we can go ahead and let people know, since Noah and Izzy are up in the Catskills. Some will figure it out anyway. Fin always seems to know things about me. I won’t make an announcement to the squad or anything like that, but I can let him, Amanda, and Carisi know.”

“Carisi? Who can’t keep a secret?”

“Well, Amanda is my closest female friend, and I think she already sensed something even before I did. And I can’t ask her to keep a secret from her husband. All we’re asking is that it not get back to Noah before I can talk to him. Even Carisi can manage that.”

“OK, I think we have a plan.” Rafael grinned. “I’m oddly excited about this.”

“Same here. Speaking of your mother, when are you meeting her?”

“One o’clock. Shall we then spend the rest of the day together? I can swing by your place at around three.”

“That would be nice. I do need to get home, get a shower and get dressed.”

“And put on some underwear?” Rafael suggested with a laugh.

“Funny you.”

“Speaking of which, you know we do have a little time….”

“What did you have in mind?”

“I’ll show you.”

———

An hour later, Olivia was back into her dress from the previous night, and assembled enough to go home. Rafael walked her downstairs and summoned a taxi for her. Opening the door to the cab, he gave her a goodbye kiss and whispered “I love you” in her ear. She responded in kind, and slid into the taxi to give the driver her address.

Olivia gave a sigh as she settled into her seat. The driver smiled into the rear view mirror and asked “nice date, huh?” 

“Um, yes. I guess the evening attire gives it away.”

“That and the love-birdiness farewell. Handsome fellow, and decent enough to walk you down. And pay me generously for the trip without you seeing,”

Olivia smiled and looked at the driver’s license displayed on the car’s visor. “Thanks for your honesty…Christine…I would have paid you again without knowing.”

“My mother always told me, if you want to be treated decently you have to treat other people decently.”

“Your mother is a wise woman.”

Olivia looked at her ringing phone and muttered, “what is he doing calling me on a Sunday?”

“Not the handsome boyfriend, huh?” asked Christine.

“Oh, this caller is plenty handsome, but he’s a work-related person. I’m not going to let him ruin my Sunday.” So she let Trevor Langan’s call go to voicemail.

——-

Chapter Text

———

Rafael Barba took advantage of the walk to the diner to mentally relive the previous night. And the morning. He had tried so hard for so long—at times unsuccessfully—to keep from imagining what it would be like to have Olivia Benson in his bed, certain that it could never be more than a pipe dream. And yet it had happened.

“Well, you’re looking mighty pleased with yourself this afternoon,” Lucia Barba greeted her son.

“Good afternoon to you, too, mother,” Rafael responded. “It’s a beautiful day. Why shouldn’t I look pleased?”

“I’ve never known you to be so affected by the weather. Something is up. I can see it in your eyes. Is someone making you a judge?”

“Of course not. That is never going to happen now, and I’ve long accepted that. I was lucky to pass the security clearance for my federal job.”

The waiter poured their coffee and took their order. As Rafael sipped his coffee, he looked contemplatively at his mother, trying to decide what and how much to tell her.

“Aha!” Lucia finally declared. “I know. It’s a woman, isn’t it? Good lord, please don’t tell me you’re back with that Yelina.”

“I won’t tell you that, because it isn’t true. But you’re on the right track. There is a woman.”

“Do I know her? Is she Latina?”

“You met her briefly, some years ago. And, no, she is not Latina.”

Lucia sat back in thought for a moment as Rafael said no more. Then it dawned on her. “Not that Sergeant Benson? The one who broke your heart?”

“She’s Captain Benson now, and, yes, it’s Olivia Benson. And she didn’t break my heart. She hurt me, it’s true, but I also hurt her. We’ve been working on making amends to each other, and have recovered our friendship over the past couple of months. She has seen a lot of darkness in her job, and has been through a lot in her life. After some difficult self-examination, particularly for her, last night we were able to find our way to each other.”

“And all that follows from that,” Lucia said with a sly smile.

“Mother!”

“What? You’re both adults, and I’m no idiot. Just be careful, my dear son. Don’t let lust blind you to the trouble spots. I made that mistake, and look what it got me. Your father. Though I guess you wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t been so blind. But she’s of an age where that is not going to be a result. Speaking of which, doesn’t she have a child? How are you going to deal with that? You’ve never been terribly comfortable around the little ones.”

“He’s not so little anymore,” Rafael noted. “He’s 12, soon to be 13. And she and I discussed my getting reacquainted with him. He and I did have a bit of a relationship when he was younger, and he still calls me Uncle Rafa, so I guess that’s something we can build on. He’s at summer camp for a month—the one Isabel Carasco works at—so that’s going to have to wait a bit.”

“So when will I meet her?” Lucia held up her hand. “I know, I’ve already met her. I mean, get a chance to get to know her.”

“You want to scare her away so soon?”

“Ah, I’m not that scary.”

“Hmmmm.”

———

Fin Tutuola grumbled to his lunch companion as he saw that the incoming call was from Renee Curry. “She’s supposed to be the leader on call this weekend. Why is she bugging me? What good is having another captain in the unit if she can’t take the lead?”

“Could be an emergency. Better see what she wants,” said Elliot Stabler from across the table.

“Sorry to call you on your day off, Sergeant, but I was sure you’d want to know about this. I’m at Mercy Hospital, where they just brought in an unconscious Captain Benson. She’s been attacked. The doctors are with her now, and they’re going to run a rape kit after that.”

“Thanks for calling. I’m on my way now. Is she in ICU?” responded Fin.

Fin turned to Elliot. “I have to go. Liv’s been attacked, and is at Mercy.”

“What happened?” queried an alarmed Detective Stabler.

“I don’t know. I’ll find out soon enough.”

“I’m coming with you.”

“You probably shouldn’t.”

“You know you can’t keep me away.”

“True that. Let’s go.”

———

“Renee Curry, have you met Liv’s friend, Elliot Stabler?”

“Olivia’s former partner, right?”

“Right.”

She turned to Fin. “Perhaps we can find a place to talk?”

“You can talk in front of me. I’m NYPD—a detective with the Organized Crime Bureau,” said Stabler.

Fin hesitated a moment, then said, “I guess it’s OK, but Elliot you have to stay cool.”

“Got it.”

“How is Liv?” Fin asked.

“Still out. The doc doesn’t think there’s any long-term damage, but they’re keeping her under observation just in case.”

“So, what happened?”

Curry referenced her notes. “911 got a call around 12:45. A neighbor, Rena Grayson, babysits Noah sometimes, and had come down to see how Olivia was doing with Noah having left for camp yesterday morning. She found Olivia’s door slightly ajar, and went in after she got no response on her knock. She found Liv lying on the floor, out cold and bleeding from her head.”

Fin nodded. “You said when you called that a rape kit was being done. Why?”

Elliot looked at them both in surprise.

“The kit is being done now. Olivia was in an evening dress.”

“On a Sunday morning?” Stabler interjected.

Fin gave his friend the evil eye.

“So she had been on a date?” Fin said to Renee.

“So it would appear. The evening before. The concierge in her building said he saw her come in in that dress a bit after noon.”

“Then the attack happened sometime between noon and 12:45. That still doesn’t answer why the rape kit.”

“When the police questioned Ms. Grayson, they asked if she had touched or moved anything at the scene. She admitted she had. When she first found Olivia, the skirt of her dress was hiked up, exposing her lower regions. She had on no underwear, and none were found at the scene. Ms. Grayson lowered the skirt to preserve the captain’s dignity before the police got there.”

Fin nodded, reminding himself to treat this as he would any case. “Do we know how she was knocked out?”

“Ms. Grayson noticed a sculpture missing, and it appears that the wound fits the general shape she described. That also was not found at the scene.”

“”Any signs of forced entry?” Fin queried.

“None. It looks like either she let her assailant in, or it was a push-in attack.”

“Do we have her phone?”

“CSU did not find it at the scene.”

“Well, he might have taken the panties as a souvenir,” Fin mused, “and took the weapon to get rid of it. But why take her phone? Unless it was someone she knew who didn’t want his messages seen. We need to find out her movements over the last 24 hours, particularly last night and this morning. Who was her date?”

“Ms. Grayson didn’t know, and I certainly don’t. I wasn’t aware that she was seeing anyone, but she doesn’t confide in me about such things.”

“Liv’s never been one to confide about her personal life. Except, in the past couple of years, she has opened up more to Amanda Rollins,” noted Fin. “David Haden has been back sniffing around recently. I’d be surprised if she has taken up with him again, but you never know with Liv. I’ll check with him. And with Rollins to see what she knows.”

Stabler spoke up. “You know, Kathleen saw Olivia out on a date with someone a couple of nights ago. She described him as tall, middle aged, and balding. Sound like anyone you know?”

“Sounds like half the men in New York,” replied Curry.

“Could be the FBI agent in charge on the Williams case. I didn’t see any spark there, but he and Liv did get on well,” Fin noted. “Another person to try.”

“That could be it,” said Stabler. “Carlos Maldonado said that he thought his boss had a thing for Liv—he apparently likes badass women.”

“Olivia would certainly fit that bill,” Curry mused.

“I’ll make those phone calls, but we need to get the squad on this,” said Tutuola. “Curry, can you get some unis to search the area for the weapon, her phone, and her panties? Have Bruno and Velasco talk to the concierge and canvass the neighbors to find out what they saw, including how Liv got home. And, review any security footage from inside or near the building during the relevant time period.”

At that moment, Fin saw a familiar nurse emerge from Olivia’s room and hailed him. “Sam, what do you have?”

“No tearing or bruising to speak of. No indications of a struggle, though there is some recent chafing on the shins and knees. Seminal fluid is definitely present. I’ll get the swabs to the lab asap.”

“Can you send it as a Jane Doe? Everyone in the lab knows Liv, and it would be nice to preserve as much of her privacy as possible,” said Fin.

Sam replied, “Happy to do so, though you know they give JDs low priority.”

“Thanks, pal.  I’ll call Melinda and see if it can be prioritized. Can we see Liv now?”

“I don’t see why not.”

———

Curry left to join her colleagues in the investigation, while Fin and Elliot visited with an unconscious Olivia. After a few minutes, Fin excused himself to make his phone calls.

He started with ME Melinda Warner. “Sorry to bug you on a Sunday, Melinda, but I need a huge favor. Samples from a rape kit for a Jane Doe were just sent to your lab from Mercy. Can you put an asap rush on this one?”

“Since when do you call in a favor on a Jane Doe?”

“This one is important, Melinda..”

“Why do I think this is not an unknown vic? That it’s someone whose identity you’re trying to protect?”

“Please just trust me on this. I’ll fill you in when I can.”

“Only because it’s you, my dear friend. Ricardo is on duty today. I’ll call him to get it started and then will go in to finish it up.”

“Thanks, Melinda. I owe you one.”

“Yes, you do.”

Both Haden and Wilson were alarmed to hear what had happened to Olivia, but neither man admitted to having seen her in the last 24 hours. Before calling Rollins, Fin called Carisi to ask him to get a warrant for Olivia’s telephone records. A disturbed Carisi then turned the phone over to his wife.

“No, Fin. I don’t know who Liv might have been with last night. Have you checked with the most obvious person?” asked Amanda.

“You mean Stabler? He was with me during the time frame of the attack, and was with his mother and daughter last night.”

“I’m going to come to the hospital as soon as I can get someone to watch the kids. Let me give it some thought.”

Fin returned to Olivia’s room. “Neither Haden nor Wilson has seen her this weekend, and Amanda doesn’t know. Carisi is working on a warrant to get Liv’s phone records, and Rollins is on her way here,” he reported to Stabler. Then he looked at Stabler’s face. “Hey, man, you OK?”

“Sorry, Fin. This just reminds me of what happened with Kathy. I pray this doesn’t end the same way. As Liv would say, ‘this must be triggering for you’.”

“Yeah, I can see that. But this won’t end the same way. We have to believe that.”

Velasco called to report that he had reviewed the lobby and front door footage for the noon to 12:45 period with the building concierge, and saw nothing out of the ordinary. The videos did show Olivia getting out of a taxi shortly after noon, and walking directly to the elevator by herself. The taxi number showed clearly on the video, so Curry was working on tracking down the driver.

“Could it have been a neighbor? Someone who looks like he belongs?” queried Fin.

“Bruno is canvassing now.”

“Keep me informed.”

———

“Christine? I’m Renee with the NYPD. Can I ask you a few questions about a fare you had this morning? A brunette, middle aged woman wearing a red dress?”

“Oh yes, she’d be hard to forget.”

“Why is that?”

“I do a lot of Sunday morning shifts, and get a lot of women going home wearing their clothes from the evening before. Which means an overnight with their date. Most of the time, they are standing there alone waiting for me, and have that look of regret or embarrassment. Not her. She was floating on cloud nine. And I could see why. Her fella—handsome guy—had waited with her, sneakily pre-paid me, helped her into the car and whispered ‘I love you’ into her ear. Which she whispered back. I hope if I’m still single at that age, I get dates like that.”

“Can you describe him?”

“Gorgeous eyes—green or maybe hazel. Killer forearms. Dark hair with flecks of gray, beard to match. Around the same age as her, and around the same height. Why are you asking? Is she OK?”

“She will be. We’re just trying to figure some things out. What address did you pick her up from?”

Christine checked her log and gave Curry the address. Curry then asked her, “Did you see or hear anything unusual during the ride or after you dropped her off?”

“Not really. Oh, she did get a phone call she didn’t seem happy about. She didn’t take it—she let it go to voicemail. Said it was someone from work, or related to work, or something like that. She didn’t like that he was bugging her on her day off.”

“She didn’t mention a name?”

“No. When she didn’t seem happy about the call, I make some joke about it not being her handsome boyfriend, and she said this guy was handsome enough, but….”

“Thank you. Anything to add?”

“No, not really. I do hope she’s okay.”

———

Amanda arrived at the hospital just as Fin was receiving the report from Renee Curry’s conversation with the taxi driver. He repeated the pick-up address and the description of Olivia’s date to Amanda.

“I don’t know that address, but I know who that is. And so do you, Fin. I was just thinking on the way over here that it could be him. Remember how close they were back in the day? How they used to look at each other? I know that all came to a bitter end, but she recently made some reference to him being back in her life, and Carisi says that they’d rekindled their friendship.”

“Damn,” said Fin. “That’s not as far-fetched as some relationships she’s been in. The way the taxi driver described things to Curry, they were pretty lovey-dovey when she got into that cab.”

“So what happened when she got home?” Rollins wondered.

Neither Fin nor Amanda had realized that Stabler had come out of Olivia’s room and was standing within earshot.

“Obviously he followed her home, he forced himself on her, and then he hit her. You know who he is. Pick him up,” Stabler spat angrily.

Fin shook his head. “One thing I know is that he’d never hurt Liv. And if she’d just spent the night with him, and seemed happy about it, why would he come after her and force himself on her? It doesn’t add up. It’s looking like what happened last night and what happened today are two entirely separate things.”

“We’re talking about Rafael Barba here, aren’t we? That guy is capable of anything,” Stabler growled.

“Like Fin says, he wouldn’t hurt Liv,” interjected Amanda. “Someone does need to call him and let him know what happened. I can do it, but given I’m no longer a cop, I guess I shouldn’t be the one to ask questions,.” She saw Elliot make a jerking motion. “And neither should you, Stabler.”

“Call him,” Fin said. “I expect he’ll want to come down here to see her. I can question him then.”

As Amanda stepped aside to make her call, Carisi arrived. “Got the warrant, and got the records. Only two things since yesterday afternoon. A call that went to voicemail at 11:52 this morning, and a text about a half hour ago. I got a run on the numbers. The call was from Trevor Langan and the text from Rafael Barba.”

“Interesting about Langan,” Fin said. “It looks like it was Barba she spent the night with, so the text is not surprising.”

“Well, finally. I wondered if the two of them would ever figure it out,” Carisi responded. Stabler’s eyebrows shot up. “Sorry man,” Carisi said, “I’ve been watching their dance for years now.”

Fin looked at the phone number on the print-out and stepped aside to call Langan.

Amanda returned to the group. “It was indeed Barba. He is beside himself with concern. He’s on his way here.”

Fin reappeared. “Langan didn’t answer. I left an urgent message for him to call me,” Fin’s phone rang and he quickly took the call from Melinda Warner. 

“I have some preliminary info for you, Fin,” Melinda started. “I’m going to send the report to you, but here’s the gist. It’s clearly a single donor. The seminal fluid from the vaginal and mouth swabs show somewhat mixed levels of deterioration, indicating multiple encounters over the course of about 12 hours. Unless you tell me there are signs of her having been restrained, all evidence points to consensual contact, particularly given that the physical exam showed no indications of injury other than what sound like rug burns on the legs. It doesn’t take much imagination to figure out how that happened. I can have the DNA run through the system for identification, but it sounds to me like Jane simply had a very enjoyable date.”

Fin was silent for an uncomfortable moment. “No need to run it. We just found out who she was with last night. Good to know it was a single donor. This means that, whatever happened, it wasn’t rape. That’s a relief, but doesn’t get us much farther in figuring out what happened.”

It was Melinda’s turn to be silent. Then, “this isn’t some celebrity whose identity you’re trying to protect, is it? It’s someone known to a lot of my staff. And the reason that it wasn’t the Captain who asked for this favor. How badly is Liv hurt?”

“Head trauma—hit with a hard object, probably a sculpture. She’s been unconscious for a few hours now, but the doctors are optimistic about her recovery.”

“My god, hasn’t that woman been through enough? At least she wasn’t raped. And at least it seems like she had a great night last night.”

“All that.”

“You are really uncomfortable with this conversation, aren’t you?” Melinda asked sympathetically.

“Liv’s like a sister to me. Does anyone really want to know these details about his sister?”

“I get you. But now you know to explore an alley other than sexual assault, right?”

“There’s just one thing that bugs me. She was left with the skirt of her dress pushed up, which could have simply happened in the struggle. But she was not wearing any panties. How to explain that?”

“Oh my dear, sweet, surprisingly innocent friend!  Ask her date,” Dr. Warner chuckled.

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll bet the date can tell you what happened to those panties.”

When Fin looked up from the call, he realized that Stabler had been standing directly behind him. “How much did you hear,” he asked.

“All of it,” replied Stabler flatly.

———

Fin saw ‘the date’ rushing toward him. “Fin, how is she? Is she conscious yet? What do the doctors say?”

From the corner of his eye, Fin could see Elliot Stabler moving toward Barba, and so stepped between the two men.

“I get it you’re upset, Stabler. So am I. Just back off,” said Barba, turning to Fin. “Can I see her?”

“Just down the hall here.” Fin led Barba from the waiting area to the ICU room where Olivia was being monitored. Her doctor was just emerging as they approached.

“Hey, doc,” Fin said. “This is Captain Benson’s partner, Rafael Barba. How is she doing?”

“The only thing concerning me is how long she has been out. I see no signs of long-term damage. But if she doesn’t start to rouse soon, I’m going to order some further scans on her.”

“Can I sit with her?” Barba asked.

“Yes,” said the doctor. “And talk to her if you want. She might hear you, and the voice of someone she’s close to could help bring her around.”

Rafael sat next to the bed, and took Olivia’s hand. Surveying the various tubes and drips sustaining her, he felt like crying, but resisted the urge. Instead, he spoke softly to her. “Liv, it’s me. I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner—I didn’t know. I wondered why you didn’t respond to my text, but figured you might be in the shower or something.”

He hesitated, then plunged forward. “You have to wake up. You can’t tell me you love me and then disappear into a coma or something. We have so much living to do—together. Come back. I need you. Noah needs you. He’s going to be such a fine man, but he’ll need your hand to guide him there. There’s a waiting room full of people who want you to come back. Because we all love you.”

Rafael heard a noise, and looked up to see Elliot Stabler standing in the doorway. “Sorry to interrupt. Fin needs to talk to you.”

Rafael squeezed Olivia’s hand then followed Stabler down the hall. Just before they reached the waiting area, Elliot turned to Barba. “Sorry about earlier. I know you genuinely care about Liv—I realized that a while back. I just didn’t want to admit it, because that would be admitting that I’d lost her to you. It’s hard for me to accept that.”

“You haven’t lost her. She cares deeply about you, and your friendship means the world to her. I doubt you and I will ever be friends, but I don’t want to take anything away from her. Especially a person who matters so much to her. I know she still wants you in her life.”

“Thank you for that,” Elliot responded sadly.

———

“Trevor Langan just called me back,” explained Fin to Barba. “He’d called her after she left you this morning, and she let the call go into voicemail. He told me that he was calling her to set up a meeting for the morning to discuss what to do when Sheila Porter is released from the psychiatric facility where she’s been serving her time. Seems she’s scheduled for release at the end of the month. Given your new status with Liv, you might want to talk to her about it when she comes back around. I know it’s going to stress her out something wicked.”

“Thanks, I’ll do that.”

Fin held up his hand as he took an incoming call from Joe Velasco.

“Hey, Sarge. Got a couple of things for you. First, one of the unis found the sculpture and the Captain’s phone in a dumpster a couple of blocks from her building. All fingerprints were wiped clean, but there’s still some blood on the statue. No sign of the panties, though.”

“OK, tell the officer good job. What else?”

“We decided to check the videos from earlier than our time period, to see if her attacker might have arrived earlier and waited for her somewhere inside. Sure enough, there were a couple of women who walked in together a little before 11:00. The concierge recognized one as a resident in the building, but not the other. So Bruno went back to the resident to ask about her companion. She said she didn’t know the woman—they simply came in at the same time and the woman started making small talk as they came through the lobby. She pushed a button for a different floor—Benson’s floor. We think she might have been lurking nearby waiting for the captain. We’re trying to isolate a still of the woman from the video. I’ll send it to you as soon as we get it.”

“Good work! Thanks for all the info.”

Fin turned to Barba. “The weapon and Liv’s phone have been found. And there’s someone on the lobby video who could be her assailant. Velasco is working on isolating a still to send me. But that reminds me. The other thing we were looking for was Liv’s panties. She wasn’t wearing any. That was one reason we went down the rape rabbit hole. Anyway, they weren’t with the other two things the assailant tossed. When I told Melinda Warner about it, she just laughed and told me to ask her date from last night. So I’m asking. Do you know anything about that?”

And Fin witnessed a first—seeing the ever-confident and composed Rafael Barba blush. “Umm…she wasn’t wearing any last night. Let’s just say that the revelation of that fact altered the course of the evening. And perhaps, with any luck, the course of my life.”

“Damn.” Fin said, shaking his head. “I knew it was a mistake to ask.”

———

When the still photo from the video arrived, Fin showed it to Barba. “Looks like Langan was misinformed. Sheila is already out.”

Barba took out his phone and called a contact at the Bureau of Prisons, explaining the situation and asking for a check on her status. A few minutes later, he told Fin, Stabler, Rollins, and Carisi “Sheila Porter was released early this morning to a halfway house. Here is the address. She must have slipped away almost immediately.”

“I’ll get Curry over there,” Fin responded.

Amanda looked horrified. “Obviously, she wasted no time in coming looking for Noah. She probably attacked Liv when she wouldn’t say where he was.”

Stabler asked, “Is that Noah’s grandmother? Liv told me she had kidnapped him once before.”

“That’s the one,” replied Amanda. “Liv went through hell with that.”

Fin looked up from his phone. “I just got a BOLO put out on Porter.”

“Good,” said Barba. “She likely took Liv’s phone to see if she could find anything about where Noah is. Does anyone know if Liv has facial recognition set up on her phone? Porter could have used that once Liv was unconscious to unlock the phone and look for clues as to where Noah is.”

None of the others knew the answer to his question.

“Well, we can’t take any chances. He’s probably safer at camp than here in the city, but we need to get protection up to him. I can call my friend who works there to arrange it with the camp. Fin, can you mobilize….”

“I’ll do it,” declared Stabler. “I protected him once before at Liv’s request, so I think he’d be comfortable with me. I’m sure my sergeant will be OK with it. If you can give me the location, Barba, I can head up there right now.”

“That would be great,” replied Barba.  “I’m sure Olivia’s confidence in you is well-placed. Here’s the camp information, and here’s my number so you can keep me informed. In addition to informing the camp, we need to let Noah know you’re coming and why. I don’t know how much he remembers about his experience with Sheila, or whether he still asks about her. I know he used to—he had become attached to her, and Liv’s rescue of him from her was pretty traumatic for him. I’d hate to try to explain it to him without Liv, but I don’t know when she’ll be able to be involved.

“I think I need to tell him that his mother’s been hurt, and can’t talk to him now, but that she’ll be okay. And we thought it would be best if someone protects him until we can catch whoever did this. It’s not an out-and-out lie, more like an omission. Are you comfortable with supporting that approach, Stabler?”

“Yes,” Elliot replied. “I think it’s what I’d have done in this kind of circumstance when my kids were that age.”

As Elliot gave his contact information to Rafael, the two men nodded to each other in mutual understanding. As Stabler departed, Barba returned to Benson’s room.

Chapter Text

----

Barba saw no change in Olivia’s condition, so stepped back into the hallway to call Isabel. Flighty as she could seem at times, Izzy was cool and reliable in a crisis, and today was no exception. She agreed to talk to the camp’s management and find a way to integrate Stabler’s protection into the flow of the camp so that the youngsters would not find his presence disconcerting. Barba explained that Sheila had previously used a surrogate for the actual abduction, and that the camp needed to look out for any stranger.

Isabel explained that Noah was currently canoeing on the lake with his fellow campers, and did not have a phone with him. They mutually decided that she would have Noah call Rafael when he was back ashore so that he could explain the situation to Noah. At the conclusion of the call, Barba sent photos of Sheila and Elliot.

Returning to Olivia’s room, he kissed her cheek and sat next to her bed. He took her hand and whispered “I’m still here, Liv.”  He thought he felt her hand move, but decided it was his imagination since he could see no other change.

After a bit, he felt her hand move again—this time he was certain—and saw her lips part, as though she were trying to speak. Her eyelids fluttered for a second and she said one word: “Noah.” Then she was out again.

Rafael mashed the button to summon a nurse, who promptly appeared. He explained what had happened, with the result that a rush of medical personnel entered the room and requested that he step outside.

Joining Fin at the window, the two men watched until the nurse drew the blinds for privacy. As they leaned their backs on the blocked window, Rafael turned to Fin. “This is not a comfortable question—for either of us—but why did you pursue a rape investigation? Was it the missing panties? And how far down that rabbit hole did you get?”

Fin explained that the situation of Olivia’s clothing when the neighbor found her suggested sexual assault, and Barba agreed that that line had to be pursued. Fin was hesitant at first to tell him about the details that emerged from the rape kit, but decided that both Rafael and Olivia had a right to know how deeply the privacy of their time together had been probed. Barba had spent enough time trying SVU cases to know how much detail could be derived from a lab report, so was not surprised. His only question was how widely the knowledge had been spread.

Fin shook his head. “Melinda knows all the details, of course. Even though we put it in as a Jane Doe, she figured out it had to be Liv. The squad knows she was with someone last night and into the morning. They don’t know the details or even the name, though I suppose they know by now or will know soon it was the former ADA for SVU cases. Unfortunately—and, man, I am so sorry about this—Stabler overheard the report Melinda gave me.”

“Ouch,” Barba replied. “Liv’s going to hate that. And that can’t make Stabler feel good.”

“Yeah, I hate knowing those kinds of details about my sister. It has to be even worse knowing it about a woman you love.”

Rafael simply nodded.

Fin went on. “The problem is, he never really knew how to love someone like her, and she finally figured that out. I’m glad she did, for her sake. I’ll deny I ever said this, but you’re much better for her.”

Seeing Barba’s look of surprise, Fin gave him a humorless grin and added, “That said, if you hurt her, they’ll never find your body.”

“I’d expect nothing less.”

———

The problem with a long drive by yourself, Elliot mused, is that it leaves you alone with your thoughts. And your emotions, which he’d spent his life trying not to think about. At least this drive was in service of him doing the thing he loved most to do: protecting a child. The child of someone he loved, no less. The child of the single most important person in his life.

He winced as that phrase popped into his mind, taking him back to when Olivia admitted that he had once been that to her. Well, it was more accusation than admission. Accusation of abandonment. But as part of that accusation she had, at long last, said the quiet part out loud. That he had mattered deeply to her. Mattered much more than as a partner.

At the time she said it, he was raw with the trauma of having seen the attack on his wife and knowing that she was hanging onto life by a mere thread. And, after Kathy’s passing, he—without real thought about it—took Liv’s statement to refer to love. And not the platonic kind. He chose to ignore that the statement had been phrased in the past tense. Or to consider it in any other way.

But now he could see it differently. Liv had no real family of her own. The less said about her father, the better. Her mother had been too awash in her own alcoholic misery to be a real parent, and had died in the early years of their partnership. She’d found a brother, with whom she desperately tried to connect, but he ultimately caused her more pain than help. She dated a lot of men, of course, but none developed into a real relationship. She had few, if any, friends outside of her job, which had been all-consuming. So, yes, she had connected closely with her partner. He understood her and she understood him. 

But how much had that connection mattered to him? Perhaps he had answered that question thirteen years ago when he left without a word to her. And continued to answer it for ten years after by never contacting her again. Until he needed her. He had told himself—and told her—that he couldn’t talk to her because he wouldn’t have been able to leave if he heard her voice. But for ten years? He was already gone then, so why not reach out to her?

He couldn’t answer that question for himself. But the fact of his silence had answered it for Olivia. And she had moved on. Once freed from her connection to him, she built deep friendships, had actual long-term relationships with men, built her own family, and climbed the ranks in her career. She was now much loved and admired throughout NYPD. Hell, his own boss looks up to her as a role model. She thrived in his absence.

So what the hell was he doing? He spent these past three years since Kathy’s death toggling between pursuing Olivia and torturing himself with guilt over wanting her. Because he had wanted her through a good portion of his marriage. Which Kathy knew on some level, or else that letter would never have been written. Was it guilt that made him give it to Olivia? Yes, probably.

But, he had to now ask himself, does he really love Olivia? Well, yes, of course. But, romantically or platonically? Was he, feeling that he had nothing else left in his life, imprinting on her the way she had imprinted on him back in the day? Was he directing all of his feelings to her so he wouldn’t have to deal with the feelings generated by the situations with the people who were—or at least, should be—important in his life? His mother’s failing health and mental status. His brothers’ troubles? His children’s adulthoods and independence from him?

Perhaps Liv had been right. That his pursuit of her was an effort to hold onto the past? Perhaps it was time to finally let go. Just as she had. With someone he could tell himself he despised, but who he was reluctantly coming to respect.

As though the thought had conjured the man, Elliot saw that he had a call from Rafael Barba. He hit answer to hear the words “Liv’s awake.”

Elliot breathed a sigh of relief. “How is she doing?”

“She’s drifting in and out, which I gather is typical. The doctors are with her now. Fin and I are waiting to hear from them.”

“OK, keep me posted.”

“I will. When you get to the camp, ask for Isabel Carasco. She is an instructor there, and is aware of the situation. She’ll help you with the camp’s management, and with Noah. Your story is going to be that you are from the state agency that oversees camps, and are conducting a review. Noah will know the real story, obviously, but the other campers and most of the instructors and counselors will not. I haven’t talked to Noah yet—he was out on the lake when I called. I’ll let you know when I—or Liv—have talked to him.”

“Okay. Barba? I appreciate you keeping me updated about her condition.”

———

“Do you know someone named Noah? Sheila?” the doctor asked Fin and Rafael.

“Noah is her son. He’s away at camp. Sheila is the person we believe attacked her,” replied Fin.

“That explains it. She is rather agitated, and keeps repeating both names,” the doctor indicated.

“We’ll explain to her what’s happening with them. How is she?” asked Barba anxiously.

“She’s still somewhat disoriented, and still floating in and out. That’s to be expected for someone with her type of injury who has been unconscious for a few hours. Apart from that, she’s doing well. I see no reason not to expect a full recovery.”

“Thanks doc,” said Fin. “Can we see her now?”

“Yes, please do. See if you can calm her, and then let her rest.”

———

“Liv, it’s Rafael. Fin is here too. Can you hear me?”

Olivia’s eyes shot open and she looked toward the the direction of the voice. Her visitors could see that she was having trouble focusing her vision, but otherwise she seemed aware. “Noah?” she gasped.

“He’s still at camp,” Rafael explained. “We know that it was Sheila Porter who attacked you. Fin has half of NYPD out looking for her. The camp has been made aware of the situation, and Elliot Stabler is on his way there now to protect Noah. Do you have any reason to think that Sheila knows where he is?”

Tears welled in Olivia’s eyes, and she made an abortive attempt to sit up. She whispered a no.

“Liv, it looks like Sheila had your phone for a short while. Do you have facial recognition activated on it?” queried Fin.

Olivia’s eyes finally focused and she stared at Fin in puzzlement. Then realization dawned on her. “No. Too much risk.”

Both men breathed sighs of relief. Rafael said, “She probably didn’t get clues from your phone then. But having Stabler there to protect him is still a good precaution.”

“What did you tell Noah?” Olivia choked out.

“Nothing yet. He was out on a lake with no phone when I called Izzy. She’s taking care of things, but either you or I need to talk to him before he catches sight of Stabler. Noah will know something is wrong the minute he sees him,” Barba noted.

“I will. Call him?”

“Okay, but maybe let me explain first that you’ve been hurt but are recovering. Then you can use what voice you have to address the sensitive parts.”

Olivia nodded while Rafael dialed Isabel, who answered immediately.

“Izzy, Liv’s awake and wants to try to talk to Noah. Is he available now?”

“I’m just outside the bunk room where he is. Hang on a second, I’ll get him.”

Rafael put the phone on speaker, and after a minute Noah’s voice came on. “Mom?”

“Hi Noah. This is Uncle Rafa. We don’t want to upset you, but thought you’d want to know this. Your mother was attacked, but she’s okay. Her throat is dry, and she’s having a little trouble talking, so she may not be able say much, but she’s right here and wants to talk to you.”

“Mom! I told you to stay safe! What happened?”

“Sorry,” she rasped. “I tried. But, honey, do you remember Grandma Sheila? That she was in a special place to get help for her sickness that made her do bad things?”

“Yes. You stopped taking me to see her a long time ago, but I remember her and that place.”

“Well, they let her out because they thought she was better. She wasn’t. She came to our apartment and knocked me out, then ran away.”

“Why? How bad are you hurt?”

“She wanted to see you. I’m okay now, just tired. We don’t think she knows where you are, but just in case….” Olivia started coughing and had trouble continuing. She nodded at Rafael, signaling him to continue the explanation.

“Noah, this is Uncle Rafa again. Mom’s voice is giving out, so I’ll finish what she was saying. Elliott Stabler is on his way there now to keep an eye on things until we can find Grandma Sheila. You should be safe, but please don’t go anywhere with anyone other than Elliot or one of us. Or, of course, camp activities. You shouldn’t be in any danger, but we don’t want to take any chances.”

Noah’s voice was shaking. “When I was little—when she took me to that cabin in the woods— she had kidnapped me, hadn’t she? She had her friend do it—that’s why you don’t want me going with anyone, right?”

Rafael looked at Olivia, who nodded. “That’s right.”

“Mom said then she was a good person who did a bad thing. She’s still doing bad things, isn’t she?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“OK, I’ll be careful.”

Olivia was able to speak again. “Sweetheart, we’ll talk more about this later, OK? In the meantime, try to forget about all this and have a good time.”

“I do like it here. It’s a lot of fun. But I want to come home to take care of you like you always take care of me.”

“I know you do, honey, and I appreciate that. But it’s not your job to take care of me. And you are safest being there. You were so excited about this camp, and you’re enjoying it. It would make me feel bad if you had to leave. Besides, Rafa and Fin are taking good care of me.”

Bye, sweetie. I love you.”

“Love you too, Mom.”

———

When Elliot Stabler pulled up to the camp’s administrative cabin, he spotted an attractive blonde woman who immediately approached his car. Holding out her hand, she introduced herself as Isabel Carasco, and indicated that she recognized him from the photo that had been sent.

Isabel was a bit disconcerted that the detective was staring at her with an odd expression. Finally, he shook his head slightly and apologized. “Please excuse me. I’m quite sure we’ve never met, but you seem very familiar for some reason.”

Isabel laughed slightly. “You’re correct. We have never met. Perhaps I just remind you of someone you know.”

“Perhaps,” Elliot replied.

“So,” Isabel started, “you’re a friend of Rafael?”

“Hardly,” Stabler replied. “I’m a friend of Olivia Benson. She was my partner for many years.”

“Police partner or life partner?”

“Police.”

“I see,” she said, looking at him speculatively.

Isabel took Elliot into the office to get his cover story and routine worked out, then excused herself, coming back a few minutes later with Noah.

“Hello Det….Elliot,” Noah greeted. “Thank you for coming to protect me. Again.”

“I’m always happy to do so, Noah. So you’ve talked to your mother?”

“Yes. Did you see her? How is she…really? She says she’s fine, but….”

“I know. Your mother always says she’s fine. But she really is. When I left, she was still unconscious, but as you know she’s awake now. And the doctors said from the beginning that they expect her to recover completely. So, you don’t need to worry about her. You know she’d hate it if she thought that’s how you were spending your time. I’m going to be around—the story is that I’m here from the government to inspect the camp. I’ll even be sleeping in the same cabin as you and the other boys ‘to get a good idea of the camp’s workings.’ So we should not pay each other any extra attention, but please know that I’ll have your back.”

“Just like you had Mom’s when you were partners.”

“Exactly.”

———

After promising that he would fill Benson in as soon as she woke up, Barba disconnected the call in which Stabler had reported in from the camp. Olivia had been moved from ICU to a regular room. Carisi and Rollins were in her room when he arrived, quietly watching her sleep. “We had a feeling you’d want to stay to watch over Liv, so took the liberty of asking that a cot be set up here so you could spend the night,” Amanda whispered to him. “Is everything OK at the camp?”

“Yes. Noah is of course worried but Stabler thinks he’s calmed down now.”

“You seem pretty blasé about him being the one to protect Noah,” remarked Carisi.

“I was thrilled that he volunteered,” Barba replied. “No one is better qualified. He is a protector by nature and he’d take a bullet himself if it meant keeping a child—particularly this child—safe. That is all that matters.”

“Thank you for seeing that,” came a voice from the bed. The three visitors turned to see Olivia smiling gently at them. “And for putting Noah’s well-being first.”

Satisfied that Olivia was truly out of the woods, Carisi and Rollins said their goodbyes for the night. Rafael went to Olivia, kissing her gently on her forehead and taking her hand. “It’s so good to see you looking and sounding well. If all goes well tonight, you’ll be discharged in the morning, with the proviso that someone be there to look after you. Which works out well, since I am not going to let you out of my sight until I’m sure you’re fully recovered and that Sheila had been apprehended.

“And maybe not even then,” he added with a smile. “You’re stuck with me, like it or not.”

Olivia smiled. “Oh, I like it. But don’t you have to work?”

“I’ve already requested a few days’ leave due to a family emergency.”

“Family?”

“Yes, family. We are family now, aren’t we?”

Olivia’s smile turned into a wide grin. “I suppose we are, aren’t we? I love the sound of that.”

“That’s good. Because I love you.”

———

After campfire songs and games. the boys returned to their bunk room for their second night at camp. Elliot noted that he’d been set up in a bottom bunk near the door, then stepped outside to take in the night air as the boys prepared for bed.

“Star-gazing?” queried a soft female voice as Isabel joined him on the bench.

“Stars are not very visible in the city. This is a treat,” Elliot replied to Isabel.

“I know. That’s one of the reasons I do the summer camps. That, plus I love working with these young people. Noah is quite a talented dancer, and he shows promise in singing and acting as well.”

Elliot’s brow furrowed a bit. “That’s a tough life if he decides to pursue it. But I know his mother will support him 100% if that’s what he chooses.”

“So, you’re another one of those?” Isabel asked with a smile.

“Those?”

“Olivia Benson admirers. Don’t tell me you have a thing for her too.”

“Too?”

“You do like the one-word questions, don’t you? Yes, too. She is lovely, both inside and out, so I get the appeal, but really. There’s you. There’s Rafael. There’s David, her former flame from years ago who I tried to date, but he’s still hung up on her. And, for that matter, there’s me.”

“You? So you…?”

“My tastes are eclectic,” Isabel said with a smile.

“I see,” said Elliot. Then he broke out into a wide grin. “I just realized why you look so familiar. Carole Lombard. You are a dead ringer for Carole Lombard.”

Isabel’s eyes shot up in surprise, and she practically squealed. “Thank you! I adore her. Yes, I do try to emulate her, both in looks and in some of her roles.”

“Screwball comedies!” Elliot laughed. “My secret vice. I love those old movies. ‘My Man Godfrey.’ ‘The Awful Truth.’ And Irene Dunne, Claudette Colbert, Kate Hepburn. You’ve chosen your part well.”

“I have a collection of them on DVD in my cabin. You’ll have to come over and watch.”

“I’d like that,” Elliot said with a satisfied smile.

Chapter Text

---

Rafael slipped out of the hospital room while Olivia was still sleeping to go home and pack a bag. Dropping it off at the Benson apartment and picking up some clothes for her to wear home, he returned to find her awake and picking at a breakfast tray. He handed her a take-out cup of coffee, and was rewarded with a broad smile.

“Thank you. The hospital stuff is undrinkable.”

“I wasn’t sure if you’d be allowed coffee, but I thought I’d better get you some in case you are.”

Olivia’s doctor entered with the good news that she would be discharged shortly. “This is on condition that you will not be alone for the next 48 hours. Can I assume that your partner will be with you?”

“I don’t have a…,” Olivia began.

“Yes, I will,” Rafael interjected, earning a surprised look from the woman in the bed.

“Great. The admin will be in shortly with the paperwork and prescriptions. I’d like to see you again on Wednesday. In the meantime, please avoid physical exertion and alcohol, and get plenty of rest.”

Olivia turned to Rafael once the doctor left the room. “Partner?” she asked.

“That’s how Fin introduced me to the doctor, I assume in order to make sure I’d be allowed to see you. Do you not like that identification?”

“Maybe. If we’re going to be together for the next 48 hours, I guess we’ll have time to discuss exactly what we are.”

“We’ve already decided we’re family.”

“Yes. But this is all so new, Rafa. Aren’t we moving awfully fast? After all, we just got together two nights ago.”

“Are we moving fast? Liv, we’ve known each other for more than a decade. We spent years building and strengthening a bond. I realize you only just realized that you love me, but I’ve known I’ve loved you for a long time now.”

“I guess I need a little time to catch up,” Olivia said gently.

Rafael said “I get it,” but Olivia saw the hurt in his eyes,

“We’ll talk some more at home,” she said as the hospital admin entered the room.

———

Back at the squad room, Fin conferred with the team about the efforts to locate Sheila Porter.

“She slipped out of the halfway house less than an hour after being transferred there,” reported Velasco. “Security cameras there show her walking south from the front of the house. A camera outside a bodega a couple of blocks away caught her getting into a taxi. The cab company records show that she was dropped off at the Captain’s building.”

“Captain Benson had moved since Porter last saw her,” Sgt. Tutuola observed. “So how did she know where to go?”

Renee Curry piped in. “As far as we can tell she has had no internet access, and the only outside contact she had in the past year was her attorney who was working on her release. We can’t get anything out of the lawyer. She’s claiming attorney-client privilege.”

“Back when Sheila kidnapped Noah, Barba was able to get key information from her attorney. I assume it’s a different lawyer now, but perhaps he can repeat that feat. I’ll talk to him. Any info on where she went after she left Benson’s?”

“The last sighting was on the entryway camera in the Captain’s building, which caught Porter leaving. No trace of her after that,” replied Terry Bruno.

“Ok, canvass some more around the area, particularly in the direction where the Captain’s phone and the weapon were found. Porter is still an attractive woman. Someone might have have noticed her,” Fin concluded.

———

After disconnecting Fin’s call, Rafael returned to Olivia’s room to find her dressed and ready to leave. Accompanying her to a waiting SUV driven by a uniformed officer, Rafael explained that the officer was part of a security detail that would be protecting her until Sheila could be found. He further explained the mission that Fin had assigned him, and indicated that Rollins would be staying with her while he was out questioning Sheila’s lawyer.

Once Olivia was settled and Amanda arrived, Rafael set out for the office of attorney Linda McAllister. “Rafael, it’s been forever! What can I do for you?” queried the lawyer.

“I understand you are representing Sheila Porter. As I think you know, she absconded from the halfway house and attacked an NYPD captain….”

“The police have already questioned me. I don’t know where she is, and you know that my conversations with her are privileged,” McAllister interrupted.

Barba sighed. “Linda, that captain means the world to me, which means her son does as well. Sheila kidnapped him once before, and she clearly is looking to do the same again. You would be doing your client a service by helping us find her before she can commit another crime. Not to mention that the privilege claim is more than a little shaky when it comes to planning a future crime.”

“Rafael, you know me better than that. I’d never be part of planning a crime. I simply helped my client, who had convinced me as well as the relevant authorities that she’d recovered from her mental break.”

“I do know that. But you may know something you don’t realize you know. Did she ever ask you for a referral to a private detective, or someone along those lines?”

McAllister started to shake her head but then stopped. “It was quite a while ago—maybe more than a year—but she did ask for someone to help track down an aunt who owed her money. I gave her the contact information for a private detective. Here, I’ll give you his information.”

“Thanks, Linda.”

“Rafael, this cop who means the world to you…. Are you telling me that someone has finally captured that hard heart of yours?”

Barba just smiled and waved goodbye.

———

Rafael swung by his office to see if he could find any information in federal databases on the private detective. Finding nothing but standard information, he called Fin to give his report. The sergeant indicated that he would follow up. Barba grabbed a few files to work on while  Olivia sleeps, and headed toward the door.

As he departed, he saw Tom Wilson coming toward him. “Hey, Barba. I had a meeting downstairs, so thought I’d stop by to see if you know how Olivia is doing, I’d had a call from her people yesterday. They said she’d been attacked and was unconscious. They were trying to track her movements prior to the attack. Do you know what’s up—how she’s doing?”

“She’s fine, fortunately. She regained consciousness last evening and was sent home from the hospital this morning. So, her movements are known, as is her attacker.”

“Has he been arrested?”

“It’s a she, and, no, she is still at large. Her squad is working on finding her.”

“But Olivia is OK?”

“Yes. I’m on my way over there now. I’ll send her your regards.”

“Thanks.”

As he started to leave, Barba turned back to the FBI agent. “Wilson? Something I think you ought to know. I know that you and Liv went on a date. She told me she enjoyed it.”

“So did I. I hope to see her again.”

“About that. You had asked before if there was anything going on between Liv and me, and I answered no. Which was the truth at the time. But, well, things have changed….”

“That was fast. She and I just went out a few nights ago.”

“I know. But….”

“I get it. I’m disappointed, but there was a reason I asked you that. I kind of had the sense that there was something between you.”

“Yes, but she hadn’t quite gotten there yet. And I didn’t think she ever would. I’m probably speaking out of turn here, but you asking her out had a clarifying effect on her.”

“What? I was so repellent I sent her straight into your arms?”

“Far from it. You see, I was the one person who knew the most about what happened with William Lewis. That was our barrier. Then, after the interrogation of his father, you knew the worst of it too. And you still wanted to date her. That broke the barrier for her.”

“I had no idea. She seemed at peace with the whole thing.”

“I think she is now. Or almost there. Look, please don’t tell her I told you this. It’s pretty personal, and she’s a very private person. I just wanted to let you know that she holds you in high regard. As do I.”

“That may be the nicest warn-off I’ve ever gotten from a rival for a lady’s affections.”

———

When he returned to the apartment, Barba found the two women deep in conversation on the couch. “Shouldn’t you be in bed?” he chided to Olivia.

“I’ve been in bed for nearly 24 hours. I need to be upright for a while. And Amanda and I have had a good talk.”

“It’s nice to have an adult to talk to who isn’t Carisi,” Rollins said with a smile.

“Do I want to know the topic?” Barba queried.

“No!” said both women simultaneously, then burst out laughing.

“I do need to go pick up the kids,” Amanda said. “Did you have any luck?”

“McAllister is an old friend. She gave me the name of a PI who Sheila hired last year to ‘find her aunt’. Aunt Olivia is my guess. Fin and his team are following up.”

After Rollins left, Barba made some tea for Olivia then joined her on the couch. “So am I to gather that I was topic A with Rollins?”

“Of course. She was my confidante when I saw the light about Elliot. She was not particularly surprised at the next step in my enlightenment. And it sounds like Carisi has been pulling for you all along,” Olivia said with a grin.

“I’m glad we have perceptive friends. By the way, when I stopped by my office, Tom Wilson came to see how you’re doing. He sends his best wishes.”

“How did he know?”

“Apparently, one of Stabler’s kids saw you out on the date with Wilson, and told her father. Who in turn told Fin when Fin was trying to trace your movements. He checked with Wilson to see if you’d been with him. You know Fin—he didn’t share much information other than that you’d been attacked and were unconscious. I told Wilson you are home and recovering nicely….. I may also have indicated to him that you are no longer available for dating.”

Olivia’s raised her eyebrows. “Mighty presumptuous of you.”

“I know we haven’t talked about being exclusive, but I would think that, given everything, it goes without saying.”

“That’s not the presumption. Of course we’re exclusive. The combination of declarations of love and lots of mind-blowing sex pretty much speaks for itself. The presumption is that you took it upon yourself to announce it to a man you know only professionally.”

“During the Williams case, he had asked me if you and I were involved. I’d told him no, which was the truth at that time. I felt the need to set the record straight.”

“And mark your territory?”

“You are not my territory. You are my love.”

“Good answer.”

———

Fin was surprised to find the private investigator to be highly cooperative. He explained that Sheila had hired him to find her aunt, Olivia Benson, and suggested that her cousin—Olivia’s son—might be a lead as he was likely enrolled in a school somewhere in Manhattan. He had found Olivia’s address and identified Noah’s school, as well as the dance studio where Noah was enrolled, and provided that information to her on Saturday morning.

Porter had paid his fee in cash, which raised his suspicions. He then decided to look into Porter a bit, and discovered that she’d just been released from a mental institution after having attempted to kidnap one Noah Benson. He’d been about to notify the police when Fin arrived. The PI was mortified that he’d not checked her out before accepting the assignment, but the referral had come from an attorney he liked and trusted.

Unfortunately, the only address he had for her turned out to be an empty lot downtown.

Fin went immediately to the dance studio, which had a class in session. The instructor indicated that she was unaware of any strangers having come to the studio since Saturday morning, nor of anyone taking an interest in Noah. 

Fin decided to go to the administrative office at Noah’s school to see if they had seen or heard from Sheila. Upon arrival, he was surprised to find two uniformed officers from the 1-9 questioning the secretary and principal. “What’s up guys?” Fin asked the officers.

“A student here missed his summer school class. When the school contacted the parents, they insisted the boy was in school. So we might have a missing child on our hands. What brings you?”

“I don’t know if you’ve seen the BOLO. A woman who once kidnapped my Captain’s son has been released, and she promptly came around looking for the boy. Knocked my Captain unconscious, but fortunately didn’t get the boy. This was his school before summer break.”

The secretary spoke up. “Would that be Captain Benson’s son Noah? Delightful boy.”

“Yes, that’s him.”

“Our missing boy looks a bit like Noah. And note the similarity in names—Noel Benito. Would this woman know the difference?” queried the secretary.

“She’s his birth grandmother, but it’s been a number of years since she’s seen him. It’s possible she mistook Noel for Noah,” said Fin. “Ma’am, do you have security cameras?”

The principal led the three policemen to a room to view footage from the morning. It did not take long to spot a woman approach a boy of about 13 with curly brown hair and speak to him for a few minutes, then escort him away from the school.”

The officers immediately contacted their precinct to get out another BOLO and distribute stills from the footage. Fin then made the call to the parents. “Noel just walked through the door,” his mother stated. “I don’t know yet what happened.”

“I’ll be there in five minutes,” Fin replied.

———

The boy was fighting back tears. “I’m sorry Mom, Dad. I do know better than to go with a stranger, but when she said that Mom had been hurt and was in the hospital, I panicked and went with her. I thought she had said my name. And she said she was my grandma but had been away for a long time. I assumed she was Grandma Benito. I haven’t seen her in years. But then as we were walking, I realized she was calling me Noah, not Noel. I told her my name and she apologized, then said I should go home and she was going to go find Noah. I think she meant Noah Benson. People confuse us all the time.”

“Where did she leave you off, and which way did she go?” asked Sergeant Tutuola.

The boy indicated a spot about halfway home from his school, and said that she looked like she was headed back to the school.  Fin immediately called for patrol cars to the school, and then asked Velasco to meet him there.

At the school, he found the secretary attempting to calm a distraught woman demanding to see her grandson. Sheila Porter.

Chapter Text

———

As the officers took Sheila away, Fin called Olivia to tell her the good news. Barba answered her phone to tell him that Liv was sleeping, so he asked Barba to let her know. Fin’s next call was to Elliot Stabler, to tell him that he could now stand down and return to the city. He gave Elliot permission to tell Noah that the danger had passed and that his mother would undoubtedly be calling him soon.

Elliot had been watching the campers learn a dance routine. While he didn’t know much about theater, he was impressed at the talent displayed by these young people, particularly Noah, and said as much to Isabel Carasco, who was standing next to him. He let her know that Sheila had been captured and that the danger was over.

“I’m so glad to hear that,” she said. “I hate that he was in danger like that. But I guess that means that your ‘inspection’ of the camp is over and you’ll be going home now.”

“I do need to talk to Olivia first to make sure there’s nothing else needed.”

“Well, why don’t you stay until tomorrow? Since you won’t need to guard Noah anymore, perhaps we can have that mini film festival?”

“I’d like that,” Stabler said with a smile.

Elliot caught up with Noah as he left the stage, and complimented him on his work. He then told the boy that Sheila had been found and there were not further worries about her.

“How is Mom?” Noah asked.

“She’s home and doing well. She needs to sleep right now, so she hasn’t been told yet, but I know she’ll call you when she wakes up.”

“Are you going home now?”

“Not until I talk to your mom and make sure she doesn’t need me here for anything else. I’ll likely stay over until tomorrow. Ms. Carasco and I have discovered a mutual taste for a very specific type of old movie, and she has a collection of them. She’s offered to show me some.”

Noah looked at Elliot speculatively. “Are you dating Ms. Carasco? Does that mean you’re not dating my mother anymore?”

“I just met Ms. Carasco, and she’s going to share some movies with me. That’s all. And I was never dating your mother. She is my dearest friend, but that’s it.”

Elliot was unsure how to read Noah’s expression, but the boy seemed satisfied with what he’d just heard.

———

While Barba hovered around the living room, Olivia hung up from Noah and promptly called Elliot. “El, thanks for looking after Noah. Everything seems safe and secure now.”

“How about you, Liv?  I know you’re home. How is your head? Is Barba looking after you?”

“I’m doing fine. Getting restless and anxious to get back to work. And looking forward to coming up to camp to see Noah this weekend. And, yes, Rafael is taking good care of me. I hear you and Isabel Carasco have struck up a friendship.”

“She’s a very engaging lady. And we have some interests in common.”

“You have interests? Outside of criminals and family, I mean.”

“You don’t know me as well as you think you do,” Elliot said laughingly. “Is Barba there now? May I speak to him?”

“Why?” Olivia asked suspiciously.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to attack him. I just want to ask him something.”

“Elliot wants to talk to you,” Olivia said as she held the phone out to a surprised-looking Barba.

“Stabler?”

“Hey, we both know that Liv will say that’s she’s fine even if she’s bleeding out on the floor. How is she really?”

“She really is fine,” Rafael replied with a smile at Olivia.

“Good. Take good care of her. She deserves the best.”

“I agree.”

“And, by the way, if you ever hurt her you’re as good as dead.”

“You have to get in line behind Fin for that. He’s already given me the same warning, just more Fin-like.”

“Good. Then you get the message.”

“Stabler? The same goes for you regarding Izzy. She’s good people, and deserves to be treated well.”

“I can see that. Message received.”

Once the call was over, Olivia turned to Rafael. “Elliot and Isabel? I’m glad they connected, but I wonder if Elliot might find her a bit…adventurous…for his blood.”

“You mean her rather inclusive tastes and her perchance for requesting threesomes? I expect he already knows. Izzy doesn’t exactly hold back on such things. Though I sometimes think she deliberately target people she thinks likely to turn her down for the threesomes. Though people have surprised her from time to time.”

“Hmmmm,” Olivia replied. “I’d already come to realize that, back in the day, it wasn’t Elliot I wanted. It was his life. The spouse, the kids, the siblings, the family. Back then, he took way too much interest in my dating life. I interpreted it as jealousy—I did have the sense he was interested in me, but of course could not go there. But now I wonder if it was just the other side of the same coin as me. He was still a teenager when he married and started having kids. Perhaps he wanted what I had. The freedom to explore. And, maybe now he’s finding his chance to do just that.”

“If that’s the case, he’s found the right partner in Isabel.” Rafael’s hazel eyes darkened and moistened as he turned an intense gaze on Olivia.  “As for that coin, now I hope that you have found what you’ve longed for—a family. Certainly in Noah, and maybe in me?”

“I think so. I hope so. We do need to talk. But maybe in the morning? Let’s go to bed now.”

“OK. Let me get you settled in, and then I can sleep in Noah’s bed.”

“You’ll do nothing of the sort. I want you next to me. Very next to me. Inside me, in fact.”

“Liv, the doctor said no exertion until he clears you.”

“I’ll make you do all the work. I’ll just lie back and enjoy,” Olivia said with an evil grin.

“Liv, I’ve seen you. Your orgasms are an athletic event in and of themselves.”

“So don’t bring me to climax,” she said as she stroked him below the belt. “The extraordinary thing I learned the other night is what happens when emotional intimacy meets physical intimacy. The result is something much greater than the sum of those two parts. Just having you inside me—the two of us merging into one—is one of the greatest things I’ve ever experienced. I’d like that comfort, that closeness, tonight. Besides, this fellow I’m handling here needs someplace to go. He’s growing by the second.”

“How can I deny you when you put it that way? We’ll be careful not to overdo it.”

———

As morning light entered the room, Olivia woke to find a pair of hazel eyes watching her. “That can be kind of creepy, you know,” she murmured into his ear.

“I’m sorry. I can’t stop looking at you. Lying here next to me. I have to keep checking to make sure it’s real.”

“Well, last night was certainly real. Thank you for that. I can’t recall ever feeling quite so…loved.”

“It was very much my pleasure. What you said last night is true. The physical and emotional intimacy somehow amplify each other. But it was a different experience to deliberately avoid bringing my partner to climax.”

“Partner. That word,” Olivia said almost wistfully. “It can have so many meanings. Sex partner. Business partner. Life partner.”

“Police partner,” Rafael added.

“Yes. That’s what that word usually means to me.”

“And that’s why you didn’t immediately embrace it?”

“In part, yes. I’m sorry, I know you were hurt when I told you I needed time to catch up with you. It’s not that I don’t see us as long-term, even as life-long. It’s that, it was only a few days ago that I realized how and how much I love you. And only the other night that I told you. With all that happened after that, I haven’t had a chance to think about how we label this, much less where it is going. I’ve not had much success with long-term relationships.”

“Nor have I.”

“But I know that none of them felt like this. This feels…solid, real, dare I say, permanent.”

“Look, we don’t know what the future holds for us,” Rafael said. “I’m sure we’ll disagree over things large and small, and maybe even fight dirty from time to time. And I don’t know whether Noah will accept me into your lives or how I’ll be with him. There’s a lot of open questions. But we have to plunge forward and give it our best. Make a pledge to each other to do so.”

Olivia sat up, prompting Rafael to do the same, and they looked into each other’s eyes.

“I pledge to love you wholeheartedly,” Olivia started.

“I pledge to work through whatever comes our way,” Rafael answered.

“I pledge to fight fair.”

“I pledge to be faithful.”

“I pledge to never again shut you out.”

“I pledge to tolerate and even try to like Stabler.”

“I pledge not to scratch Yelina’s eyes out.”

“Oh, you don’t need to make that pledge.”

“OK, I take that one back. How about this? I pledge not to hide our relationship or my feelings for you.”

“I pledge to make my mother be nice to you.”

“I pledge to encourage Noah to be nice to you.

“I pledge to abide by these promises even when we aren’t naked in a bed together.”

“Ditto,” Olivia laughed.

“I think we just wrote our wedding vows.”

“Now you’re really jumping ahead.”

“Am I? Liv, if Noah accepts me maybe that’s the direction we should go. I want to be with you for life. Promise me you’ll think about it.”

“I will. It seems crazy, but it also seems right somehow. But first, Noah. Want to come with me to his camp this weekend? We can call him later today to let him know you’re coming so it doesn’t take him completely by surprise.”

“You’re on.”

———

The following Saturday morning:

As cars started pouring into the camp, dozens of excited youngsters came running to greet their parents. Olivia was barely out of her driver’s seat before her son’s arms were around her and he was rattling off plans for the day. “Mom, I missed you. You really are better, aren’t you? We’re going to have a big picnic today for all the families. I can’t wait for you to meet my friends. This is so much fun! We’re going to have a show for you all tonight, and then you can be part of campfire afterward.”

“Whoa, slow down. I’m so happy to see you. It sounds like a fun day.”

Noah looked up to see Rafael leaning on the other side of the car. He ran to the other side to embrace the man as well. “Thanks for coming Uncle Rafa. I was so happy when Mom said you were coming. She didn’t have to make the drive alone. Wait til you see our show. There’s a song in Spanish, and my friend Ollie has the solo.”

Rafael looked across the car at Olivia, who smiled widely and nodded at him.

“Come on, I’ll show you the bunk room,” Noah said as he pulled the two adults into the large cabin. “That’s my bed—I have the top bunk. This bed here by the door is empty, but it’s where Elliot slept when her was here. Did he tell you he’s coming this weekend? He really liked watching our rehearsals so he wanted to see the show. But he’s not going to sleep in his bed. Don’t tell anyone, but I think he’s going to stay with Ms. Carasco in her cabin. They kind of like each other.”

Moments later, Noah’s tale was confirmed as Elliot Stabler pulled into the parking lot. “Liv, Barba, hope I’m not taking you by surprise. I enjoyed watching the kids, and Isabel invited me up to see their show.”

“I’m glad you’re here, El. And glad that you and Isabel seem to have hit it off.”

“You were right, Liv. It’s time for me to get out there.”

The day proceeded as Noah had described, with all involved enjoying the activities and each others’ company.  As the evening campfire gathering broke up, Noah approached Rafael and asked if they could talk.

As the two walked toward the lake, Noah turned to Barba and asked, “Are you dating my mother?”

“Yes, I am,” answered a surprised Rafael. “Does that bother you? I know it’s been just the two of you for a long time now.”

“Thank you for answering me honestly. Adults always seem to sputter around when asked that question. No, it doesn’t bother me at all. I’m glad.”

“I’m happy to hear that. Because I love her.”

“Does she love you?”

“You know, my first instinct was to tell you that you need to ask her that. But I think I can answer for her now. Yes, she does.”

“Are you going to marry her?”

“I’d like to.”

“What’s stopping you?”

“Well, we only just got together. She was mad at me for a very long time, and we both needed time to get past that, and to learn not to shut each other out when we do get mad. I’ve known I’ve loved her for a long time, but she only recently figured out that she loves me. I need to give her time. Plus, we need to figure out how to fit me into the other important things in her life.”

“Like me.”

“To be honest, yes.”

“I will eventually grow up and move out. Mom hasn’t really dated anyone—at least anyone she let me see—for a very long time. I can see she’s lonely for someone to love. Adult love. I know she loves me. I want her to have that, and not wait for me to grow up. I want her to have everything. And I’ve always liked you, so that helps,” Noah added with a smile.

“Wow. You are very wise beyond your years. And very thoughtful of your mother.”

“Thanks. Plus, I’ve always wanted a father. You’d be a pretty cool one.”

“I’m flattered beyond words.”

“Let’s get back to Mom before she starts to worry.”

———

As Olivia and Rafael entered their motel room, she turned to him to ask, “OK, give. What did Noah and you talk about?”

“He wanted to know if we are dating. I told him yes. He then wanted to know if I am going to marry you. I told him I want to.”

“Good god! That child can be pretty forthright when he wants to be! How did he react?”

“Surprisingly well, though I’m not sure anymore that he’s actually a child. He seems to have a pretty mature perspective. He doesn’t want you to be alone, and he thinks I’d make a cool father,” Rafael said with a grin.

Olivia’s eyes grew wide. “Is there any paper and pen in this room? We’d better write down those vows while they’re fresh in our minds.”

With that, Rafael pulled her into a full embrace. He knew now that he had all he wanted. And Olivia knew that the demons that have haunted her for over a decade were fully put to rest.