Chapter Text
Despite his earlier warnings against the very thing he was doing, Sonny sat, dozing on and off with a sleeping Margo in his arms. His head drooped, and a few moments of rest caught him in their embrace. However, sleep’s tentative grip on him immediately loosened the second the rumbling sound of the door to their prison opening reached his ears. Jerking his head up, he looked up to find Barba standing stock still as the door closed behind him.
The attorney’s grimy blindfold was missing, and instead of a swath of dirty fabric, Sonny found himself staring into the dulled, muddy-green hues of the attorney’s eyes.
“Rafael?” Sonny questioned.
Immediately, Sonny found himself wondering what deal had been made for Barba to have his sight returned to him. And that wasn’t all. Barba was clean, freshly shaven, and his hair was even combed back. But the most jarring detail was that he wasn’t naked. Hanging low on his hips was a pair of white boxers printed with red heart outlines. Valentine’s signature on him couldn’t have been more overt.
“Are you okay?”
“I … we,” Barba muttered, “took a shower.”
“Okay,” Sonny replied, doing his best to remain positive. “That’s not so bad.”
“It wasn’t. Best shower of my life.”
Hearing Barba describe an encounter with Valentine as the ‘best of his life’ was deeply troubling. But before Sonny could address it, the attorney continued.
“Then we… first time since Margo’s been born… we…”
Sonny’s mind filled in what Barba had left unsaid. It wasn’t all that surprising, but it wasn’t easy hearing that his former mentor had once again been manipulated into having sex with their captor.
“Oh no, Barba. She didn’t, did she?” Sonny remarked, hoping his assumptions were wrong.
"I could've said no. Maybe even stopped it from happening,” the attorney said, turning towards the door and staring at it. "I didn't... I didn't want to stop it."
“Rafael?”
“You don’t get it,” he remarked. “She gave me back my autonomy, and the first thing I did with it was kiss her.”
“Autonomy?” Sonny shot back with what he felt was an appropriate level of fervor. “What autonomy? You’re locked in here. Same as me.”
“No,” Barba muttered. “It’s not the same, Sonny.”
Feeling unsettled by what he was hearing, the detective asked, “What are you saying?”
Pivoting around, Barba looked back in the direction of the younger man.
It was then Sonny noticed what he had missed before. Barba’s green eyes weren’t just dull; they were unfocused. His gaze drifted past him, pupils trembling pinpricks, fixed on nothing at all.
With the warm weight of their captor’s daughter suddenly heavy in his arms, Sonny felt his mouth go dry. He knew Valentine was cruel, but this? This was utterly reprehensible. The blindfold hadn’t just limited Barba’s sight; it had left the attorney impaired to a devastating degree.
“I just had to see it,” Barba muttered, his word choice ironic—though perhaps unintentionally.
“See what?”
“Her devotion.”
“Her what?! Rafael! Have you gone literally insane?”
The look on the attorney’s face said it all. The tightened jaw, the press of his lips into a straight line, and the dip of his brows were a clear indication that Rafael Barba did not appreciate being called crazy.
Trying to temper his previous statement, Sonny gently supplied, “It’s conditioning, Rafael. She isn’t devoted to you. She doesn’t … she doesn’t love you.”
Stepping closer, Barba closed the distance between them. He reached out, using his fingers to compensate for his unreliable eyesight. With his hand on the detective’s bare shoulder, Barba quickly oriented himself and lifted the sleeping baby from Sonny’s arms.
Barba pressed a kiss into the wispy blonde strands of his daughter’s hair and bitterly said, “What makes you think you know a thing about love, Carisi?”
“I know it doesn’t involve being left chained up, naked, for months,” Sonny bit back. “I know it doesn’t involve rape.”
“The world isn’t black and white, Detective,” Barba snapped. “Maybe you’re content seeing it that way, but I refuse to let bravado and grandstanding blind me to a reality seeped in color and complexity. You talk about Valentine as if she is a monster, but she isn’t. I know she isn’t. Despite everything she’s done, I have what you lack: the courage to see her for who she really is.”
Barba’s words, to say the least, were infuriating. Sonny could feel anger boiling just beneath the surface, making his skin flush red. Despite this, he tried to keep his tone cool as he replied, “And what’s that?”
“It’s not my story to tell. But maybe if you’re good,” Barba replied as he moved to the other side of the room, “she’ll tell you herself. In the meantime—don’t talk to me.”