Chapter Text
Barba rarely gets sick. When he was little, his mamí used to say fondly as she tucked him into bed that it was because he was so stubborn; Barba believes instead that it stems from sheer hatred of being incapacitated. Whatever the cause, he can count on one hand the number of times he has gotten anything worse than a cold.
It doesn’t concern him, therefore, when he feels a tickling in the back of his throat during his closing statement of an open-and-shut rape case. He merely coughs politely, nods at the head juror, and continues. The jury takes less than half an hour to convict the defendant, and Barba can’t suppress a smug smile as he packs up his briefcase. And if he coughs a couple more times on the way back to his office, well, it’s cold outside, people are getting colds, and he can stop by the drugstore after work.
But the cold doesn’t go away, much to Barba’s annoyance, and what started as barely a thought in the back of his mind is turning into a problem. A week later, there are circles growing under his eyes, he knows he’s paler than he probably should be, and, in a final insult, his secretary doesn’t even wait until the end of the day before suggesting quietly that maybe he’d like to take tomorrow off. The look he sends her quickly sends her scurrying, but the damage is done to his mood, and he slams the door behind him in a fit of childish anger before dropping into his chair.
Rubbing at his temples in a futile attempt to alleviate his growing headache, he is just popping a few aspirin when Olivia marches into his office. “Your secretary looks like she’s afraid your door might grow legs and eat her.” She announces by way of greeting, closing said door much more gently than he had. “What did you do, and is it related to the reason you’re downing half a pharmacy?” She raises an eyebrow at the pill bottle in his hand.
He scoffs as he tucks it back into his desk drawer. “I’m fine, and I didn’t do anything- not that it’s any of your business.” Her eyebrow just goes higher as he defiantly meets her gaze, and to his shame, he only lasts for a moment before he has to look away. Olivia was always more than a match for him anyways. “Nothing I can’t handle,” he mutters instead, rubbing his head a little bit harder. “Just a bad day and a headache, that’s all.” Liv’s eyebrow doesn’t go down, but after a moment she starts rattling off the details of their latest case, spreading files across his desk as she talks. Barba knows she is humoring him, even as he leans forward and asks all the appropriate questions, but his head really hurts and he’ll take what he can get.
They finally finish an hour later. “See you in the morning?” Olivia asks as she gathers her things, and Barba can barely find it in himself to nod. He is so, so tired, and he notices belatedly that Olivia looks concerned. Shit. “Listen, Rafael…” she begins, but he waves her off.
“It’s fine, really.” He says unconvincingly. He winces internally, puts on what he hopes is a slightly more convincing face, and tries again. “I’m just really tired.” He attempts a smile, and then thinks better of it. Olivia looks at him like he’s grown a third head, and he wracks his brain for anything else. “I think after some sleep I’ll be okay.” Third time’s the charm? He thinks a little bit deliriously, but evidently there’s something to it, because Olivia’s nodding slowly, telling him to call if he needs anything at all, and making her way to the door. She glances back a few times more than she usually might, but then she is gone, and all Barba can think about is making it to the sofa before he passes out.
The next thing he is aware of is a loud, insistent buzzing by his ear. He groans and swats at it, but when it doesn’t stop, pries his eyelids apart and fumbles for the culprit. The phone is at his ear before he even registers what it is. “H’llo?” He mumbles, forgoing his usual greeting while he presses his face into the cool leather of his couch, and there is a second of silence on the other end.
“…Barba?” Comes a male voice. Amaro, a helpful voice in his head supplies. Why is Amaro calling? He wonders, and then it hits him.
“The meeting-“ He gasps, sitting up fast, and shit, the world was spinning. He takes a moment to get his bearing, and then pushes up his sleeve to check his watch. 9:20 am- had he really slept through the entire night on his office couch? But that was definitely Amaro’s voice in his ear, telling him it’s fine, but if he could get down to the precinct as fast as he could that would be great, and would they see him soon?
He mutters a distracted affirmation and hangs up the phone. It takes him three tries to get up off the couch, and he’s aware he’s not thinking a hundred percent straight, but he figures as long as he can make it through the morning he can work things out from there. Besides, he’s already twenty minutes late to this meeting, and he needs to move.
He doesn’t quite know how he does it, but half an hour later he’s slumped in the back of a cab as his secretary slowly disappears from view in the mirror, wringing her hands and looking like she’s about a half-second away from calling emergency services on him. Barba can’t quite bring himself to care.
Time seems to slip by, oddly fluid, and he blinks and he’s standing outside the precinct, staring up at the stairs. Another blink and he’s in the elevator, and is he trembling? He can’t tell, but another cop, one he doesn’t know, is staring at him and the thought crosses his mind that maybe he’s a little more sick than he had originally believed.
The elevator doors are sliding open, though, so he doesn’t have time to dwell on it. Why is he here again? To see Olivia, that’s right. He takes a step off the elevator and stops, swaying. Liv. Find Liv. He blinks again, and there’s someone at his arm, talking to him, but it’s not Olivia so he doesn’t turn to look. He takes another step, sways more violently, and the person at his arm now has his arm and he’s shouting something across the precinct. Barba makes a half-hearted attempt to shrug him off, because he really needs to find Liv, but the man isn’t letting go and Jesus, doesn’t he have better things to do?
But finally, finally, there’s Liv jogging toward him with a very strange look on her face, and Barba has the fleeting thought that she’s angry with him. But he can’t bring himself to care, because she’s there in front of him, and now it’s her hands on his arms, both of them, and the man is letting go (it’s Amaro, he recognizes distantly, Amaro is the one that had been holding on to him), and Barba can finally relax.
Olivia isn’t relaxing, though, and it takes him a minute to notice that his perspective has shifted, and now he’s somehow looking up at her. He frowns, because he’s on the ground and this is going to wreak havoc on his suit, but overall he can’t be too upset, he really feels much better, and he just wishes Olivia would stop yelling. And tapping his face as well, she’s started doing that now, and come on, that’s just rude. He decides to shut his eyes for a bit, and Olivia seems to get louder for a bit before everything goes suddenly, blissfully quiet.
When he wakes up, some time later, it’s still quiet. There are a few moments of disorientation before he realizes he’s in a hospital- white wall, white door, white bedspread- and that his left arm hurts. He glances down at it to find there’s a brown mass obscuring his view. “…Liv?” He tries, making a guess. It comes out as a croak, but the mass jumps, and he was right, it seems. Olivia sits up, disheveled as he has ever seen her, and they stare at each other for a second.
"You idiot-” she starts, and Barba makes out a few words about infection, really sick, you could have died, but to be honest, he isn’t really listening much. The fact that someone is in the hospital room with him, has been in the room with him, gives him a funny little feeling in his stomach. So instead of listening, he watches, and when she reaches a point where she has to stop for breath, reaches out a hand and gently touches hers.
"Olivia," he manages, and tries to smile. She stops, looks at him for a long time, and he really does smile. "Thank you."