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They’re sitting on her couch, the distance that has yawned between them in these past years evident in the added inch of space between their knees. She wishes he would scoot closer, press his thigh against hers as had become their norm back then, always a point of physical connection between them. But he leans forward from where he’s settled against the arm of the couch and that feels like a small win. She can see that he’s unsure about touching her, notices his hand start towards her multiple times before dropping back to his own leg.
She’s missed this, watching his smirk behind a tumbler of whisky, the way his face falls open at the slightest hint of angst in her expression. She’s been trying really hard to not reconcile the two events, to not draw a comparison between the emotion in her chest about Elliot's return and the bubble of damp hope that had sprung anew when Barba’s face popped back into her world. But now they’re here, settled into her living room like it’s completely normal - a cruel part of her brain whispers harshly ‘it used to be’ - and he’s so relaxed, so receptive as she unpacks this mess of knotted threads that usually sits squarely beneath her ribs.
He’d never been a natural with kids, but today he’d swaggered into the apartment with a big grin and an eager “Amigo!” and Noah had thrown himself at the man, grabbing his hand to drag him around and talking a mile a minute. Barba had crinkled his eyes in glee and Olivia had felt the world click a little more securely into place. She’d been nervous to let Elliot back to this part of her life, but for Barba she’d thrown wide open the door.
The night is quiet around them, still, the worlds problems buffered outside the walls of this house. And he’s on her couch, watching her with eyes that are sturdy and reliable and kind, eyes that she has missed, that she had once imagined building a future on. Perfect, he’s perfect.
Fin had told him about Elliot’s tumultuous return and there was no backing down from the gentle slope of Rafael’s eyes, the tender tone around his “You can talk to me Liv.” The two men - these two men both so integral to who she is - have never met and she wonders distantly if they will, when they will. They’ll probably hate each other, but that makes her lips quirk into a smile despite its contradiction to their current topic of conversation.
“I don’t know how to tell him about so much of it. About Cassidy and Ed. He’ll probably laugh about Brian, I guess, given everything back then. But Tucker - he’ll never understand that. He
hated
him. I just- I think about how mad you were, that day you found out, I’d never seen you so… furious. And you didn’t have that history, so how is El going to react?”
Rafael’s hand reaches for her tentatively. “Liv, you know that wasn’t really about Tucker right?”
She tries to bat away the memories - the tense line of his jaw, the defensive stance of his gait - and nods absently, “It was a rough case, I wasn’t making it easier.”
There’s something in the crease of his brow she can’t decipher. “No, Liv, it was - well yes okay partly the case, partly that it jeopardised everything we were trying to do and I had unintentionally breached protocol. Professionally, yeah I was pissed. But the posturing, everything else… it was about-“ he swallows thickly and she watches with an abstract fascination as the muscles in his throat work, “-us. Me.” Her head quirks on an angle, trying to read him, but he just takes a sip of the drink in his hand and elaborates far too casually “I was jealous as hell.”
She stares at him. The revelation spinning their past off onto a new kilter. But this is Rafael Barba - feminist icon, good man - and he doesn’t force them to linger, doesn’t pivot this discussion onto himself. His voice and expression are soft and sincere as he holds her gaze. “Elliot will understand. A lot happened in the decade he was gone, he’s not going to fault you for that.”
His fingers are a familiar balm around the jut of her knee, a spark that spreads warmth through her whole body. And she suddenly doesn’t care what Elliot will think about Brian or Ed or any of it really, her mind fixated on the bombshell Barba’s just dropped, on looking at all those moments through a radically different prism.
She’s grateful for the lifetime of police training when her voice remains steady around “You were jealous?”
And he throws her a smile that stretches only one side of his mouth, a dismissive wave of his hand sending the whisky splashing against the internal sides of its glass. “Of course I was.”
She hesitates, weighs the options before going all in. “And now?” There’s a soft confusion that lands a crease between his eyes and she wants to smooth her thumb across it, grateful that he hasn’t mimicked her tactic and slipped into his lawyer mask.
Still there’s a forced neutrality to the tone when he queries, “What are you asking?” Barba’s eyes are bright and searching and it’s almost enough to make the leap. But they’re here, talking about her exes and the other man who once left a hole in the fabric of her world, and she’s only just got him back, can’t risk pushing him away again. So she looks away, huffs an unamused laugh around “I don’t know.”
His mouth draws down, and she can’t help but be transfixed by the sharp flickering of his eyes, as if he’s reading her face like a book. Maybe he is, because his teeth skate across his bottom lip for a fleeting moment before he leans to press a gentle kiss beside her own.
All the training fails her this time and there’s a perceptible waver to her pitch as she breathes, “What happened to moving on?”
His own voice is thick, a roughness to it she’s only heard a handful of times, an unadorned confession. “I don’t think I could.”
This time she moves forward, her mouth landing firmly against his, her heart skipping at the smile she can feel stretching beneath her lips. His hand around her knee lifts to cup her jaw and it’s certain, steadfast. Like an anchor in a spinning world. They seperate and the pronounced joy on his cheeks has her giddy, her fingers working into his hair as she asks, “Still wanna be squabbling with me at 85?”
Barba just grins - bright and beaming and breathless - “And every day before and after.” before pulling her back to him, his beard grazing against her cheek, the taste of whisky on his tongue as he litters open-mouthed soft kisses against her hungry lips.