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“You really didn’t feel the need to call and tell me about this before I received notice in the mail?” Olivia taps her foot against her desk.
You’re fine, she assures herself, breathe. She should offer him the the courtesy of an explanation. Even if he didn’t offer her the courtesy of a head’s up. Even if the notice had been like ice in her veins.
No - not the correct metaphor.
“Liv?” he questions, as if he hadn’t checked the caller ID before answering
Maybe he hadn’t. She can hear the sounds of the city behind him. Horns, people talking. She resists the urge to hang up. She deserves an explanation. He owes her an explanation.
“Is she pregnant?”
That sounds accusatory and mean and not at all what she wanted to say, but that’s what comes out.
“What?” he coughs.
It’s the only explanation for why she’d received such news without forewarning. She sighs, willing herself to look at the vellum square in her hand.
Pink and silver writing adorn the paper that is currently causing her such distress:
Mr. Harlan Masters requests the honor of your company at the marriage of his daughter
Fiona Diane
To
Rafael Barba
Ice in her veins was the exact wrong metaphor. A dull, flaming panic that caused indigestion and itchy fingers and wrapped around her throat - the albatross she hadn’t even known she’d had the pleasure of murdering.
“No, right, sorry.” she shakes her head, willing her tongue to form sentences. “I should be saying congratulations on finding the love of your life, but you didn’t even see fit to inform me you had a girlfriend before sending me this announcement of your impending…” she trails off, searching for a suitable noun. Girlfriend she can say, fiancee possibly, but actually saying he's getting married wants to stick in her throat.
She can claim she's mad about the lack of communication all she wants, but that's not the real reason. They'd drifted apart a little.
Maybe a lot actually.
“Nuptials.” Is what she settles on, even as the bile rises in her throat.
“Damn,” he swears. She can hear him rustling with a door as he laughs slightly. “She told me I had three weeks and when Fiona says three weeks she means three weeks.”
She doesn't realize she was expecting a denial until she gets confirmation. Now that she's said it out loud she's made it real.
“I really wouldn’t know,” she snaps. Lightly, but enough that he notices.
“I’m sorry.” He sighs. I meant to call you but everything’s been a whirlwind.”
“Sounds like it.”
“I understand if you don’t want to come, after what I did, but she’d at least like to meet you.”
What he did? Practically told her he loved her. He’d confessed nearly everything but his love, just after gaining his freedom, kissed her on the forehead in the freezing cold. None of that was was really the problem. It was February. The cold couldn’t be helped.
No, the problem was he’d gotten her hopes up. Her stupid, ill-gotten, misconstrued hopes. Hopes she hadn’t realized she’d had until he dashed them, told her he had to move on.
What he’s talking about, she suspects, is what led to that trial. She could give a shit what Jack McCoy and his errand boy from central casting cared about there.
She wishes she had been able to tell him that before he ran off to Europe, and apparently, met some floozy. Floozy is a ridiculous word offered by old women at the bingo parlor, but that’s what she must be.
She sighs, be the bigger person. She has to be the bigger person or her heart is going to crash out of her chest.
“I’ll think about it.” she half-offers, unenthusiastically.
Her eyes scan down the Bergdorf Goodman website she had only opened to confirm her hallucinations.
“Though I’m not sure I could afford the things on your registry.”
A $6500 blue bowl, an ugly yellow elephant bag.
“Don’t mind that,” he practically giggles. Its… disconcerting. “She just registered for the most expensive things she could find so people would be more compelled to donate.”
She scans down the bottom of the placard.
In lieu of gifts guests may donate to the following causes: The Partnership Against Domestic Violence and the Southern Poverty Law Center.
She thinks she might like the floozy?
“Rafael,” she manages to laugh, “have you fallen in love with an activist?”
“Worse,” he responds conspiratorially, “An heiress.”
He sounds, in a word, fond. She could be wrong about that, but probably not. Nevertheless, it shaves a little skin off her heart - leaving it bleeding, just a hair, in her chest.
She's going to have to meet her now. Great.
This was easier a few seconds ago when Rafael’s fiancee was a vapid airhead with a trust fund. Rafael would never marry a vapid airhead with a trust fund.
“Does this count as my RSVP?” she jokes, tentatively, holding the tiny little insert that taunts her with Olivia Benson and guest. As if she’d have a guest.
“Yes,” he laughs, “And come to the wedding party on Saturday.”
For some reason, that makes her feel like vomiting, but for some other reason, she feels like she owes that to him. To herself, maybe.
“Okay,” she swallows, over the rising panic in her chest, “I’ll be there.”
It’s probably bad to hope she catches a massive case before that point. It’s definitely bad to hope she catches a case that day.
She tells herself she’s doing research on Fiona Masters because of her friendship with Rafael. It’s the thing a good friend would do, right? Find every conceivable flaw in another person just to undermine their relationship.
No. A good friend would figure out a way to be happy for him and not mad she wasn’t a part of the beginnings of the relationship. Or, at least told the relationship existed before she got a wedding invite.
That’s what she’s mad about, she assures herself, even as she resolves to forgive.
Fiona Masters has a PhD in Biology and is apparently an expert in familial DNA as well as a lot of other things related to genome sequencing she doesn’t have the advanced degree to understand. Far from an airhead unfortunately.
No. She’s probably even smarter than Rafa, and she should be delighted he’s met his match.
The wedding party is at some fancy building in the Financial District. She has no idea why she felt the need to get Noah a babysitter (Amanda, who had expressed her desire for her to “ruin their lives.") when she has no business being here.
This is a place for heiresses and maybe a few professors. Possibly some lawyers, but only if they went through the Ivy League. It’s definitely not somewhere for the former best friend of the groom who went to a liberal arts college and works as a civil servant.
Just as she’s about to make her leave she hears a light squeal across the room.
“Olivia!” a mass of pink practically slams into her, clasping her into a hug immediately. She’d be lying if she said she didn’t recognize Fiona from her picture, but in the flesh is something else entirely. “I'm so happy to meet Rafael's best friend!”
She smiles as she releases her from the hug. It’s genuine and warm and God, she wants to hate her. She’s too perky and too happy and she’s probably a size 2.
Then again, who wouldn’t be perky and happy at their wedding party? Amanda probably.
“I assume you’re Fiona,” she ekes out a laugh, though she suspects it sounds more like a choke.
“Oh,” she frowns, holding out her hand, “Yes, sorry. I’m just very excited to meet you. He’s told me so much about you.”
She really can’t say the same. She would have no idea who Fiona was if she hadn’t played into her investigative instincts. There’s a plot to a 90s romantic comedy in here, she thinks as she takes Masters’ hand and shakes. Before she can come up with some way to pretend she actually cares about this, Fiona continues, “I know this all probably seems so sudden but sometimes when you meet someone it just - clicks.”
Fiona isn’t wrong in that assumption. She’s worried it might show on her face, so she efforts a smile. “Sounds like a whirlwind romance.”
“Don't let him fool you,” Fiona smirks, “He is quite romantic.”
Rafael, who told her sentimentality is the enemy of good writing, romantic? Then again maybe we're all a little romantic for the right person.
“I'm sure,” she manages.
“Do you want me to point out all the people who you'll want to kill so you can avoid them? Daddy has it in his head he has to pay for a fancy wedding so he can impress people. I'm 40.”
She doesn't look a day over 32.
“You don't want a fancy wedding?”
“Oh I absolutely do. That's part of the reason we're doing this so fast. St. Patrick's became available and we figured we'd just go on with it.”
Now this sounds like the plot to a Hallmark movie where it turns out there's a cute boy back home she's been avoiding. Not that she would know the plot to any Hallmark movies.
Maybe it's just wishful thinking. Fiona is from the city and there is no boy.
No boy other than the best friend she somehow lost track of.
She'd thought he loved her. Hell, maybe he did. Once. Long ago.
Fiona is lovely and Olivia needs to will herself to grow up. She’s perfectly nice and while she’s a bit obnoxious it sounds like Rafa is into that sort of thing. Hell, he’s a bit obnoxious himself.
Still, there’s a rock lodged somewhere in the middle of her throat when she sits down across from them. The man next to her is perfectly nice. He’s in publishing and about her age. She can tell by the way Fiona lists off his resume she’s trying to set them up. Though she’s polite enough not to say that out loud.
She’s perfectly nice to the man whose name escapes her, but she thinks even he can tell she’s distracted. Rafael and Fiona, making googly eyes at each other and laughing in a way that annoys the shit out of her. There’s nothing particularly egregious about it - just loud and inconsiderate and - she’s jealous.
Jealous that he got to leave her behind to pick up the pieces of her shattered heart while he gallivanted across Europe and found some skinny heiress to fall in love with.
That isn’t fair, and it isn’t true. She has it on good authority they met through mutual friends once he got back to New York. The authority is Fiona, who told her the entire story while she pretended to be enraptured.
It may not be fair but it’s how it makes her feel, and if she ignores the chiseled jaw next to her to pretend she isn’t glaring at the couple in front of her, then she can do whatever she wants. If she drinks a little too much wine, that’s her problem to deal with. Everything, as it turns out, is her problem to deal with.
She’s jealous she never figured out how to let someone in.
She manages to catch Rafael after most everyone has left. Fiona runs ahead, hugging and thanking people for coming. He tells her how happy he is. How he's grateful they found such a beautiful place to have this get together. How Fiona fills a piece in his heart he thought was irreparable.
She feels the chasm in her heart grow wider at the thought.
“You ever think, maybe we could have had something?” she asks, hating herself for saying it out loud before she can stop it.
He smiles, “I thought we did.”
This is supposed to be mine, she thinks, watching with something close to longing as he pulls on his jacket. The flowers, the church, the four hundred guests. This was supposed to be her wedding party. That’s why she’s jealous.
But she wouldn't want this kind of fanciness. She never thought he would either. Rafa would have the finest silks delivered from Italy to marry the love of his life in a bodega on 42nd Street, while complaining loudly about the snack selection.
He doesn't really want this either. He's pretending, for Fiona's sake, that he enjoys all this hullabaloo. He really wants something nice and simple. Surrounded by friends and family.
Then again, it looks like they are surrounded by friends and family - practically smothered in it.
“I meant,” she attempts her own smile, catching his eyes. “When you gave me that speech in February about colors I thought you might be saying you loved me.”
He frowns, “I did.” Past tense, because he has moved on. “I do,” he continues, “you're my best friend, Liv. I'm really glad you found it in your heart to forgive me for what I did. It couldn't have been easy.”
She can't bring herself to push it anymore. She couldn't live with the denial, the betrayal of her deepest desires. Confirmation he never truly loved her. Confirmation that if he did, she destroyed it a long time ago.
He'd given her so many openings to make a move - to follow him before he walked away. She doesn't get to be mad he found someone who would listen.
“I’m really happy for you,” she lies. She's only just realizing she does love him. In fact, she always has. Now it's just too late.
She doesn't want the four hundred guests and exotic flowers. This wasn't supposed to be her wedding party, or wedding. This is Fiona's life. She's happy she's getting what she wants. Truly.
The only problem is Fiona's marrying the man who's supposed to be her husband. That part she can admit to herself now that she's lost it.
In the movies you don't watch the love of your life marry someone else. In the movies he runs away from the dopey but sweet girl at the last minute. In the movies you speak now.
This isn't a movie.
Rafael Barba marries Fiona Masters on a perfect fall day in a big fancy church. Noah remains a gentleman, and maybe only Fin gives her a sideways glance at the opportune moment.
Olivia Benson now accepts the reality that they've missed their chance. She understands he deserves some measure of happiness, even if it isn't with her.
If she cries herself to sleep that night, well, that's only because she has to.
She forever holds her peace.
“Shhhh,” she hears a voice coo in her ear, “es solo un sueño mi vida. Mi amor despierta por favor.”
It’s a very soft, very sweet, very familiar voice. It’s dear to her and if he didn’t sound so stressed out about her waking up she’d happily keep her eyes closed for hours just to hear him speak so reverently.
Though that might also have to do with the very comfortable bed and broad hands massaging her back. If the hands are connected to the voice, well, she’s certainly not kicking him out of bed anytime soon.
If she knows what’s even going on at the moment.
She sighs, willing her eyes to flutter open.
A very familiar face is staring back at her. More like very familiar green eyes under a worried brow and pinched expression. A face she’d recognize anywhere.
“Rafa?” she breathes, not quite sure if she’s awake yet.
“Gracias a dios,” he mutters, leaning forward to press his lips against her temple. “You really had me going there for a minute.”
Rafa is in her bed when last night he married some rich lady? Some very nice, very capable of using her rich powers for good, very nice rich lady.
Still, this is very nice, and since that voice is very much attached to those hands she is going to lean into whatever this is. It will be quite enjoyable, if memory serves.
Wait.
This is her apartment. This is her bed. And this is her husband looking very concerned over whatever she was doing in her dream. Crying, she remembers vaguely.
She looks down, laughing at the gross bedspread she recalls him complaining about last night. ( “It’s teal, Olivia!” he’d explained, quite unhelpfully, “I cannot believe we even have a teal bedspread.”) She’d only used it because they’d waited too long to do laundry and the others were still drying. Maybe she’d waited a little too long to do the laundry because she knew the teal would get him all riled up.
She remembers that clearly, but the dream she doesn’t really want to recall.
“I think I had a nightmare,” she mutters, reveling in the feeling of her palms against his chest. He’s real. This - is very real.
He pulls back, looking into her eyes, still concerned. “I know mi vida. Just try to remind yourself that you’re not there anymore. He died years ago.”
“What?” She furrows her brows, then realizes what he thinks was happening. It would be sweet if it wasn’t also disturbing. “No, it wasn’t about Lewis.”
The concern is still gracing his face and she wants it off of there, but that’s easier wished for than accomplished.
“There’s something else that makes you sob like that?” he asks.
“It’s stupid,” she shakes her head, trying to burrow her face into his chest.
“And it’s me.” he stops her from doing so, pulling her chin up to look in her eyes. “Remember we have a long history with your weird, reality altering dreams.”
He’s referring to that stupid Christmas where her brain thought they were married only to wake up and realize they weren’t even dating. Except, now they are married.
“You were getting married,” she rolls her eyes.
“Isn’t that a good thing,” he raises an eyebrow. Yeah. This is definitely her husband. “Seeing as how we are?”
Her infuriating, charming, gorgeous, sincere, best friend of a husband.
“No. We,” she throws two fingers between them as if to emphasize her point, “weren’t getting married. You were marrying Fiona.”
“Masters?” his eyebrow practically shoots into his hairline. He obviously thinks she’s being ridiculous, but is trying to hear her out. “From Homicide?”
“It was after we hadn’t really spoken for awhile because you ended life support on a baby with a chronic illness.”
Her brain had somehow known that part though it hadn’t wanted to dwell on it. That weird stuff that makes complete sense in your dream but when you wake up you wonder how that even seemed logical.
He snorts, “Whoever writes your dreams is disturbed.”
“It wasn’t funny,” she shakes her head, moving her hands to his waist, “the reason you did it had something to do with guilt over your father’s death a few years back.”
“I have no guilt over that man’s death,” he frowns, “and my mother happily took him off life support.”
“I know,” she tries to comfort with a soft expression and running circles over his stomach, “but the dream didn’t know that. In fact, after you did it, Ben Stone’s son prosecuted you for murder.”
“The baseball kid from Chicago?” this time both eyebrows shoot up into his hairline, “What was he doing in New York?”
Peter Stone in real life was an accomplished ASA for Cook County and had just helped convict a serial killer. In her dream he was a dispassionate, hardened ADA who’d attempted to ingratiate himself into her life after he’d lost the case against Rafael.
“I guess Ben died, which I know is very much untrue.”
“I talked to him last week for advice on the Robards case.”
“I know, but dreams don’t make much sense, obviously.”
“Like me marrying Fiona Masters,” he shakes his head, “Last year she tried to get the ACLU to defend someone on the grounds that murder should be legal if you kill a jackass.”
She remembers the case vividly. She mostly remembers him complaining about Fiona vividly, and maybe that was the reason her subconscious had supplied the woman as a foil. It had actually ended up being a landmark self-defense case they had used to refine application of stand your ground statutes. Fiona had, however, framed it as the Killing a Jackass Defense.
“She was a lot nicer in the dream,” she laughs, “It made sense.”
At the time, she adds silently.
He doesn’t buy it.
“There’s no way it made any sense if I wasn’t marrying you.”
He genuinely means it, she can tell, and she can’t help grinning about it.
“You’re sweet,” she murmurs, resisting the urge to pull him into a kiss.
“I’ve never been sweet at any point in my life,” he scoffs.
She begs to differ, but she’s happy to be awake, in this reality. Where dreams are only dreams and she’s very much married to the love of her life.
Looking at him now, smiling and relaxed and cuddled beside her and happy about it, she can’t believe she ever thought he didn’t love her.
He seems to follow her train of thought, laughing as he tucks her hair behind an ear, “you’re thinking of the three times I’ve been sweet, aren’t you?”
“It’s more than three,” and they both know it, “but I’ll allow it.”
“So,” he leads, pulling her into his chest as he continues smoothing his hands across her back. If she isn’t careful she’s going to fall asleep again and she really doesn’t want to, “What do you think brought on this untenable experience where I was apparently both an idiot and an asshole who broke your heart?”
She could try to explain that it wasn’t like that, that they’d both made some missteps and failed to correct them. She could try to tell him Fiona was perfectly nice and they seemed genuinely happy, but he wouldn’t hear that and it isn’t the point.
“Dodds said something the other day about it being a shame I’m married to the head of the ACLU or I’d be right in line to take over for him after he retires.”
She’d been dreading bringing it up to him because she’d found it so ridiculous, and really Dodds was only talking about the way the brass was about these things. But maybe, for a brief moment, she’d entertained ideas of what she could have accomplished had she not fallen for this man. Her brain had barely allowed her the logical follow-through.
He doesn’t pull her up to look in his eyes, but she call tell he’s pissed by the stiffness in his muscles.
“Would he like a letter from my office about everything wrong with that statement?” he grumbles, “Actually, it would be a list, complete with citations of what court cases and departmental guidelines he is in direct violation -”
“Rafa -” she interrupts, trying in vain to calm him down.
“I wouldn’t even have to write it. I could staff it out to an intern that’s how ridiculous and addled that is,” he continues ranting, “I mean, this is the man who had his own son working under him and he’s talking about conflicts of interest.”
“I’d tell you not to get mad,” she kisses just above his heart, “but you’re already there.”
He doesn’t have a response for that, and it seems to knock a bit of the fight out of him.
“You were thinking how your life would have been if you’d let me move to Chicago and then your brain went haywire?”
She nods against him, “don’t ask me how.”
“As long as you’re happy to be here now.”
“Rafa, you know my subconscious really likes being married to you.”
“Then we have that in common.”
She really likes being married to him. Even though he gets pissy about things she mentions in passing, even though she never wants to get out of bed anymore, even though he makes it difficult to get work done. She’d never admit to him it’s partially because of some of this she fell for him in the first place and she wouldn’t trade it for anything.
Besides, he already knows.
“Rafa -” she says to the silence in the room, “can you remind me about our wedding day?”
“Now who's feeling sweet?” he laughs. Apparently she’s the only one feeling sentimental.
“Whatever.”
“It was June, the cicadas were in full force,” he continues, “Noah had a rash from God knows what, and Rollins was trying to murder me.”
“It was not that dramatic,” she laughs.
“It was that dramatic.” he insists, “but none of that mattered, because even though it was outside and near a pond filled with malaria and possibly Zika, I got to marry you. And that's all I ever wanted.”
He’s romantic when he wants to be, for the right person. Even though he’d tell anyone else it’s worthless and sappy and the product of bad prose. She’s not going to point it out to him. He’d deny it anyway.
“I can't believe we didn't get married in winter.”
“Considering how much Christmas played into our relationship? Yes, but however could I miss out on the chance to get you even more gifts you will hate?”
She doesn't hate his gifts.
“I like your presents sometimes.”
“I have to take that dumb dog out for a walk soon,” he sighs, changing the subject as he presses his lips to the top of her head, “My son guilted me into it.”
That gets her to look up, “Noah politely asked to take Felix on a walk in the park this morning and you agreed without thinking.”
She’s got him. They both know it. Instead, he changes the subject.
“I think Felix pooped in the tub again.”
Felix has never pooped in the tub. She doesn’t know what he’s attempting with an ‘again.’
“I think you don’t want to go outside and you’re coming up with excuses.”
“Can you blame me?”
“Yes because it’s your fault we got the dog.”
He tries to change the subject again.
“You didn't have that wacky dream because you were worried about your anniversary gift next week, did you?”
She’s never once gotten him a gift for their anniversary, because he had successfully convinced her the pleasure of each other’s company was enough the first year and she’d naively believed him. She doesn’t participate because he’s hard enough to buy gifts for and she thinks honestly, that he’d meant it when he'd gone off about her being just enough to make him happy for the rest of his life.
He just likes giving her a hard time.
“You know neither of us are supposed to get each other anything and I’m the only one who follows the agreement.”
That gets a grin, “Just confirming.”
She raises an eyebrow, “You're stalling because you don't want to take Felix on a walk.”
“That thing is a menace. You should help me.”
That thing that curls up next to him on the couch and follows him around until he scratches his head. That dog who follows the strictest diet known to canines because her husband read a book that said it would make him live longer and “we can't take any chances.” Felix, who Rafa would probably take to work with him if his assistant wasn't allergic to them.
Yeah, the menace.
“I wasn't the one who made a promise they now regret.”
“Fine.” he mutters, dramatically flopping out of bed and making a show of going to the closet to find some jeans and a pullover jacket. After he does so he comes back to the bed, leaning over her without getting in it, “Liv?”
“Yeah?” she meets his eyes.
“I love you.”
She reaches up to grab his neck, fingers caressing the hair at his nape, “I love you too.”
“Don't go marrying anyone else while you sleep.”
She rolls her eyes as he leans down and kisses her.
The thing he doesn't get is, she never wants to marry anyone else. She's happy to be right where she is. She wouldn’t ever actually change a thing.