Chapter Text
He’s been reading caselaw from the New York State Family Courts.
If his appointment to a bench in the 10th Judicial District is approved (though he’s almost certain it won’t be), he needs to make sure that he never loses his grip on the law again. So he reads the worst cases, the most objectively horrific ones, the somewhat less horrific ones that remind him of everything he doesn’t want to be reminded of, again and again, until the cases and memories don’t punch him in the throat anymore.
One night in January, he comes home late from an interrogation at the 27th Precinct — he’s been picking up some pro-bono work to keep himself in good standing with the ABA and the New York State Bar — to an empty living room. He can hear Benson in their bedroom, talking on the phone. What worries him is the dining table: Liv’s laptop open, not shut down, and papers spread out everywhere, including records of Noah’s adoption.
He peeks into Noah’s room. The boy’s sound asleep, snoring off the remnants of his most recent winter cold. The other bedroom door is closed. He opens it slowly, cautiously, and finds her sitting cross-legged on the bed, her phone in front of her, her hands trembling.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, panic seeping into his voice as he sits at the edge of the bed.
“Sheila Porter may go free on appeal.”
He squeezes her hand and looks directly into her eyes. “We won’t let that happen.”
“I’m texting Lucy now. Trevor Langan and I are heading up to New Hampshire tomorrow. This came out of nowhere.”
“I’ll stay home. I’ll take Noah to and from school, I’ll stay with him until you come back. We will not let that woman go free on appeal.”
“Okay.” She tries but fails to steady her breathing. “Okay.”
After he changes into his pajama pants and slides under the covers for the night, she sinks into his arms, struggling not to let on how terrified she is. Her skin is cold. He holds her until she falls asleep.
The next morning, she drives up to New Hampshire with Langan. She’s relieved when a judge declares that Sheila, a non-custodial grandparent who kidnapped her grandson and then took his mother’s service pistol after striking her with a fireplace rod, has no grounds for appeal.
In exchange for leniency, Sheila signs away her right to make any future custodial claims to Noah.
Benson hates how relieved she is.
She comes home the next night and finds Barba on the couch, reading through the contents of a folder, probably for one of his pro-bono cases. Noah is leaning against his arm, sound asleep. She drops her purse on the dining table and sits with them.
“My arm has been asleep for an hour,” he whispers.
“Why didn’t you put him to bed? He’s going to wake up crying and probably won’t fall asleep for another hour now.”
Barba shrugs.
“You were worried too,” Benson says.
“Very.”
“Langan said I got myself worked up for no reason, that she’d never have made it all the way through the appellate courts up there.”
“Yes, but if they found grounds for appeal, you’d be up there in court every other week, the adoption would have been questioned —“
She raises a finger to her lips and gently picks up Noah, who lets out a few grunts of complaint but lets his mother carry him off to bed. “That’s a miracle if I ever saw one,” she says when she returns to the couch. “I thought for sure he’d be up screaming at us.”
“How are you doing?” he asks. “This was terrifying for you. I could see it.”
“You too.”
“I admit, I had my eyes peeled when I was walking him to school, wouldn’t let him out of my sight, even introduced myself to the school security guard …”
“Look at you, a parent.”
Leaning back, they slump into the couch together. “I’ve been reading a lot of caselaw,” he says.
“I noticed.”
“A lot of cases involving stepparents pass through family court. Mostly custodial.”
“If a parent dies, the stepparent has no rights to the child, not even visitation.”
“Now,” Barba said, “as Captain Eames and Sergeant Tutuola will attest, Captain Olivia Benson is immortal.”
She tilts her head to the side and reaches over to rub his arm. “You want to adopt Noah?”
“Yes.”
“So we’re prepared in case everyone’s wrong about my alleged immortality?”
“He’s legally more secure the way.”
“Legally,” she says with a laugh.
“It’s true.”
“Is it also because you want to be his father?”
“Yes.” The answer is honest, clearly honest, but from her position next to him, she can feel his heart racing.
“My son is a beautiful boy. My son is a beautiful boy who is the product of a violent pimp who shot a judge and a witness in open court and a heroin-addicted prostitute who died a horrific violent death. I don’t think about any of that when I look at him. I see a bright little boy who has nothing to do with the violence that brought him into this world.”
“There’s a lot of paperwork,” he says. “We should get started soon.”
“Rafa.”
“What do you want me to say? I will never … he never … you know I don’t like to talk about this. I want to be Noah’s father, not my father. I’m tired of the psychological canard that says we have to always worry about turning into our parents.”
“So am I,” she says.
—
Early one Saturday morning, when they’re letting Benson sleep in, Barba has a talk with Noah about commuting his 107-year sentence. It’s Noah who brings it up; he’s in first grade and “too old for jail games” and besides, he’s happy that Uncle Rafa and his mom are friends again (“You know we’re married, don’t you?” “Yes, when we went to the diner with Jesse. You’re married but you’re also friends.”) He says he’ll commute the rest of Barba’s sentence and that Barba can be his dad as long as he brings him snacks and doesn’t move away.
____
It’s one year to the day when Barba resigned from his position as ADA, packed up his office and forehead-kissed Benson goodbye, unexpectedly walking out of her life just as unexpectedly as he’d flushed his career aspirations down the toilet. Benson’s working late to help her detectives close a case. She gets home after Noah’s asleep, nukes a slice of pizza from the fridge, and asks Barba if he’s heard anything about the state senate.
“I have,” he says through pursed lips.
“Bad news?”
“Not quite. They’ve asked me to appear before them next week. I’ll go up to Albany, give my impassioned speech, and then I’ll come home with my tail between my legs and accept that job with Rita’s firm.”
“Hmph.” She’s still chewing on greasy re-heated pizza.
“Was that a “my mouth is full of pizza” hmph or an “I can’t believe you’re going to become a defense attorney” hmph?”
She swallows the last of her pizza and kisses him as she playfully untucks his undershirt from his pajama pants. “It’s an “I believe in your humanity and the New York State Senate should too” hmph.”
“You’ve got pizza grease all over your hands.”
“What’re you going to do about it?” she teases.
“I have a few ideas.” He kisses a spot behind her ear, which somehow also has pizza grease on it. He laughs against her skin.
Neither of them acknowledges what day it is.
—
He heads up to Albany the next week, faces the questions he was prepared for (and one he wasn’t: one of the senators asks a question about his involvement in the Alex Muñoz corruption cases; that one stings for a second), then returns to his hotel room to order dinner, shower, and FaceTime Liv and Noah.
Just after 8, he’s getting out of the shower when he gets a call from the governor’s office. He’s surprised (but not too surprised) that they’ve got the assistants working so late.
It’s the department that handles judiciary appointments. They’re calling after business hours because they want to make sure that all the new appointees will have time to register for the weeklong institute required of new judges taking the bench.
His appointment has cleared the state senate.
By the time he calls home, his eyes are betraying him with happy tears.
Benson covers her mouth with her hand as soon as he comes into view on her screen. “I’ve got a weeklong legal institute the first week of March, and then I’ll be sworn in,” he tells her.
“Yes!” she shouts, and he can hear Noah laughing in the background. She moves her hand from her mouth to her heart. “When can we start addressing you as The Honorable Rafael Barba?”
He catches the first train back to New York City the next morning and heads over to SVU. As soon as Benson sees him, she stands up from behind her desk, walks over to him in three long strides as he closes the door, and wraps her arms around him, squeezing so tightly that he almost loses his breath. She understands. She knows what this means to him.
—-
They celebrate at home with Lucia, Eddie (who has to ask Lucia twice to please not bring up her theory about Alex looking out for Rafael while he testified before the state senate), Benson’s senior squad (Carisi’s kvelling), and Rita (who still can’t believe that she was left out of both Barba’s wedding and murder trial). Eames calls to congratulate him. Lombard sees Benson at a meeting the next week and asks her to please pass his congratulations on.
For the next three weeks, Barba’s meeting with senior judges in Nassau County and going to a legal institute on a campus up in Westchester. He’s hurrying out the door every morning, hoping the Long Island Rail Road or Metro North is running on time, and Benson is squabbling with him about how he really needs to (re-)learn how to drive.
Rita Calhoun’s take: “Rafael Barba is so afraid of making left turns into traffic that he makes three rights instead.”
Benson reminds him that he’ll be commuting off-peak both ways, that nobody in their right mind commutes west-to-east by train in the morning. With a wink and a caress, he promises her more time with his suspenders if she never, ever asks him to get behind the wheel of a car again.
“That’s a great offer, but you’re screwed if you miss the last LIRR train or if the only train that gets you to the courthouse is out of service. So how about I take you out driving on weekends and I make you some promises in return?”
“I’ll take that deal.”
“So quickly? Your negotiating skills are falling by the wayside there, Mr. Barba.”
“When it’s you whispering filthy promises in my ear, all bets are off.”
The whole way through the Midtown Tunnel, across the Long Island Expressway and onto the street that takes him to the courthouse where he’ll soon be employed, he complains that the Railroad is easier, when it’s running on time that is, when no possums or cats on the track, when it’s not raining, and besides, driving Benson’s car makes him feel short.
“It makes you “feel” short,” she echoes, and his eyes narrow. “Admit it, though, this makes more sense than a subway, two commuter trains, and a six-block walk.”
“Everything makes more sense.” He leans over and kisses her. “But you’re driving to the swearing-in ceremony.”
——
On a rainy morning two weeks before the start of spring, Rafael Barba is sworn in as a judge in the 10th judicial district of New York State. Benson, Noah, and Lucia sit in the gallery.
“I’m proud of him,” Lucia whispers to her daughter-in-law. “I thought he had thrown away everything last year, I really thought that was it for him, but this, this is where I always hoped he’d be. The Honorable Rafael Barba.”
“Tell him that,” Benson says.
“He doesn’t need to hear —“
“Tell him.”
Barba, in his judicial regalia for the first time, raises his right hand and takes the oath of office.
Immediately afterwards, he does what he’s done in courtrooms for the better part of the last seven years: he glances back at Olivia Benson so they can check in with each other before moving forward.