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“This was a waste of time,” Barba said, glaring at his phone’s screen.
“Yeah, you said that,” Benson answered with a flare of irritation. “It was worth a shot.”
“I told you, the corruption in places like that is so systemic, it’s actually mortared into the foundation. They aren’t going to roll over—”
“I get it, Barba,” she snapped, glancing at him.
He looked up from his phone, frowning. “And we wouldn’t be out in this—” he started, gesturing toward the blizzard assaulting the windshield.
“Have a snack or something,” she cut in. She was driving, both hands fisted on the steering wheel, her muscles tensed as she peered into the near-whiteout conditions. It was late, nearly ten, and they were still hours from the city. They should’ve stopped somewhere for the night, but they’d both been irritable and snippy all day, and it had seemed prudent to get the roadtrip over as quickly as possible. The weather had been growing steadily worse, though, and she could scarcely see the reflectors marking her side of the highway. She was driving as quickly as she dared, just wanting to get through the worst of the storm.
Barba sighed. “And my phone’s dead,” he said, dropping it into his shirt pocket.
“Crawl in the back if you want to pout,” she told him.
“You’d arrest me for taking off my seatbelt,” he said.
“Don’t tempt me.”
He crossed his arms over his chest, staring out the windshield, his lips pursed. “Have a snack,” he muttered under his breath after a few moments of silence.
In spite of herself, she almost laughed. If she weren’t in such a foul mood, herself, his petulance would be funny. She had the radio muted so she could concentrate on driving, but music might not be such a bad idea. She reached for the radio dial, taking one hand off the steering wheel for the first time in hours.
“Liv,” Barba said, straightening, but she’d already seen it: the hulking shape of a snow-covered van, appearing out of nowhere in front of them. It was parked, nearly buried, and she realized that she was driving on the shoulder of the snowy road. Gripping the wheel, she steered to the left, touching her brakes, praying for a little bit of luck. The car started to slip in spite of her attempts at a gradual correction, and the backend slid to the right. The car was sliding at an angle, and she turned into the drift, her teeth gritted and breath held. She tapped the gas and felt the tires spinning, but the rear end straightened itself out. They passed the van, missing it by less than a foot, but the car had begun to fishtail. Snow was flying, and as soon as the van had been swallowed by the night, Benson could see nothing but whiteness, had no bearings by which to navigate. She pumped the brakes on instinct, in spite of her training—the way she’d been taught as a teenager, the way they’d done before anti-lock brakes—but she could feel the snow pulling at her tires and knew they had hit the left shoulder of the road.
“Hold on,” she said, turning the wheel, but it was no use—she had no control as the car spun. Everything was a blur of white. The back of the car bumped upward, and then the car was tilting and sliding. She could feel them tipping to her side—an avalanche of snow poured over the windshield, and she put her arm in front of Barba’s chest without even realizing she was doing it.
And then they were rolling, up onto the driver’s side and over onto the roof, all of their loose belongings tumbling through the air around them. The corner of Barba’s briefcase knocked her in the back of the head, but she barely felt it. The sounds of squealing metal filled the world, and they finally slammed to a stop. The car rocked for a few moments and then stilled, and quiet filled the place of noise.
The car was sitting at an angle, Benson’s side higher than Barba’s. His door was barely dented, but hers was mangled, pushing in against her leg and hip so that she was squeezed between it and the console. Her window had cracked but not shattered. Her airbag had not deployed.
The engine sputtered and died, and suddenly the world was silent except for the magnified sounds of their breathing. “Barba,” Benson said, blinking in the dimness. The car had become a cave, and she could barely see him.
“Liv,” he answered, and she reached a hand toward him as he shifted against his door. Her seatbelt was locked, supporting the weight of her upper body but making it impossible to reach him. He turned his head to look at her, and in the dimness she could see the darker trickle of blood on his forehead, creeping out of his hairline. He put his hand against the door to brace himself and leaned toward her. “Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yeah, I…You’re bleeding,” she said.
He touched a finger to his scalp and looked at the dark smear. “It’s nothing,” he said, fumbling for his seatbelt buckle. “Liv, your leg.”
“Stuck,” she said. She tried to shift her weight and gasped at the sudden spike of pain.
He reached up and clicked on the overhead light, glad that it still worked—for now—even though its glow was a pale arc. The roof of the car was dented, but not as badly as the door; the snow had softened the impact of the roll. “Liv,” he repeated.
She gave her head a shake, trying to clear the confusion from her brain and the tears from her eyes. “I’m alright,” she said.
“No, you’re not,” he answered. He looked around at the windows, muttering under his breath, and reached for the glovebox. It dropped open, and he rummaged in the shadows until he found the flashlight that he’d hoped would be there. “Where’s your phone?” he asked, clicking the flashlight’s button. “Olivia, where’s your phone?” he repeated, and she could hear the stress in his voice. Barba wasn’t one to lose his cool in a crisis, and his agitation worried her. The pain in her leg was spreading, growing, blocking out all the other aches and pains.
Barba was searching the floor around his feet with the flashlight, his movements verging on frantic. Gathering her courage, Benson took a breath and looked at her leg in the arc of the overhead light. The twisted metal of the door wasn’t just pressed against her leg; it disappeared into her left thigh, just above her knee. She couldn’t see the injury, but she set a shaky palm against her blood-soaked pants and could feel the heat, feel the metal under her skin, inside of her body.
She didn’t know what she would do if she couldn’t do her job. As soon as the thought arose, she shoved it down, trying to keep her panic at bay. She could worry about her career later. The most important thing was getting out of this car and back to her son. She fumbled for her radio at her left hip, but it was wedged between the door and her body; she couldn’t tell if it was broken—her fingers were trembling too badly—but there was no way she could get hold of it, not without being able to move.
Her cell phone had been in the center console tray beneath the radio, but Barba hadn’t yet been able to find it.
Benson could feel the unwelcome and overwhelming fear beginning to claw through her. She tried to fight it, knowing it would only make things worse—but it was spreading through her like dark and frigid water, fueled by her sense of immobility.
“Damn it.”
“Barba,” she said, and he looked up at her, the flashlight briefly blinding her. She winced, and he quickly turned the beam away.
Their eyes met, and she knew that he could see her pain—and, worse, her fear. She despised nothing more than letting people see her at her most vulnerable, when she felt helpless, and she wasn’t usually one to fall apart under stress. She couldn’t seem to get a handle on herself, though.
Barba saw the fear shining in her eyes, and he took a deep breath. She was looking at him—staring at him, holding onto the fact of his presence as the only thing keeping her from completely panicking—and she saw his eyes change. His jaw tightened; and just like that, all traces of his agitation were gone, wiped from his expression.
“Look at me, Liv,” he said, and the calmness in his voice—even if it was an act—was like a soothing balm to her nerves. “You’re going to be fine—we’re going to get out of here. I’m right here. Take a deep breath.” He had one hand on her arm and the other on her right thigh; the flashlight was in his lap. “Deeper,” he said. “Does it hurt to breathe?” She shook her head, and he nodded. “Okay, good. Listen to me. I’m going to look at your leg, alright? Don’t try to move.”
As he shifted toward her, levering himself up with his hand on the console, she said, “I can’t get my radio—help me undo my seatbelt.”
“No, Liv, not yet,” he said, and she had just enough presence of mind to admire the low evenness of his voice. If he was feeling any anxiety, he was hiding it well. There was no trace of it in his voice, or his face. “Let it hold you until I can see what we’re dealing with.”
“Rafa, if I can’t—”
He was leaning over and he paused, his face close to hers, meeting her wide gaze. “Liv,” he said. “You’re going to be fine.” His voice was soft, reassuring. Comforting. “You survived William Lewis, you can deal with a little fender-bender.”
She laughed—it was a small laugh, but it was a start. She’d already begun to feel calmer. He was right, she’d been in life-threatening situations more times than she could count.
He’d swiped the blood across his forehead, leaving a smear to his temple, but he seemed otherwise unhurt. She couldn’t bear to think of how much worse the accident could have been. He put his hand on her shoulder and said, “This will probably hurt. Scream if you have to, Liv, it’s just us here.”
She nodded, biting her lip in preparation. He picked up the flashlight and, with one knee on his seat and his foot braced against his door, bent between her and the steering wheel. His arm was pressed against her chest, his other shoulder wedged against the wheel as he shone the light into the tight space. She felt his fingers—gentle, steady—at her thigh, and she bit harder on her lip to keep from crying out.
“I’m going to try to rip this hole wider, Liv. Hold on—pull my hair if you need to.”
“Just do it,” she said.
Holding the flashlight between his shoulder and cheek, he got his fingers under the frayed edges of the hole around the metal impalement. He tried to tear the fabric, but it was soaked with blood, making his fingers slippery. He could tell from her breathing that he was hurting her, but he had to see the injury to know how bad it was. He couldn’t see the back of her leg, couldn’t tell if the piece of car door had gone all the way through. She could be bleeding out and not even realize it; the floor under her seat could be pooling with blood.
Snow was coming in through the door—so far it was melting, but the temperature inside the car was going to drop quickly, even with their body heat, and the more blood she’d lost, the more susceptible she would be to hypothermia. Gritting his teeth, he pulled the material and the ripping sound filled the car. He tore the hole up nearly to her hip and plied the bloody flaps apart.
“I’m going—”
“Just do it,” she repeated.
He used his sleeve to wipe some of the blood aside as best he could, prodding at her skin with his fingers, following the outline of the metal shard. He reached over and forced his hand between her leg and the door, feeling the snarled metal scraping the skin from the back of his hand and wrist. He managed to get his fingers under the back of her thigh, feeling blindly.
“Does this hurt?” he asked.
“I don’t—I can’t—No,” she said, forcing her uncooperative mind to focus. No, the back of her leg didn’t hurt. The pain had localized at the site of the puncture wound.
“Can you feel my fingers?” he asked after a moment.
“Yes,” she said. “And…I can feel my foot against the floor.”
“Good,” he said. “Okay. So, this piece is pretty thin, and it doesn’t seem very deep. It’s a good four inches inside your leg, but…seems fairly…shallow. It looks like a lot of blood but it’s really not bleeding much at all. As long as you don’t move your leg too much—”
“Did you go to medical school in your free time?” she asked, relieved to find that she was capable of making even a small joke. She was beginning to feel like herself again, in spite of the pain, and she was glad. She needed to be in control of herself if she could control nothing else.
“No, I used to watch ER,” he said, glancing up with a little smile, and she snorted. “Alright, I’m going to get your radio.”
“Hurry up, I can’t breathe.”
“Sorry, I’m trying not to squish you,” he muttered, getting his hands around the radio and prying it out from between her hip and the door.
“That’s not what I meant,” she murmured in response, and he looked up, stilling. They stared at each other, barely breathing, each suddenly aware of the intimacy of their positions.
Now that he’d assured them both that she was not in immediate danger of bleeding to death, some of their fear was eased, in spite of her pain.
“If you wanted to get me alone, Liv, you could’ve just asked,” he said, softly, his lips curving. “You didn’t have to impale yourself—”
“I did ask,” she interrupted. “You don’t think I could’ve sent Rollins and Carisi on this trip? Carisi could’ve thrown around a little legal mumbo-jumbo—”
“Is that what you hear when I talk?”
“—and made just as much headway.”
“Which is exactly none,” he muttered.
“Precisely,” she agreed, smiling. “You said yourself, it was a wasted trip.”
“Liv, I didn’t mean—”
“No, Rafael, you were right to be…annoyed. I dragged you along for my own reasons without being honest about it.”
He swallowed and turned his head, tugging the radio the rest of the way free. He looked at it, turning it over, pushing the button a few times. “This is dead. Cracked.” He carefully levered himself up, sinking back onto his knee, and looked at her pale face. “I wasn’t annoyed,” he said.
“You’ve been cranky all day, Barba,” she answered, her expression daring him to deny it.
“So have you,” he returned.
“Fair enough,” she admitted. “I guess I was just hoping to spend—”
“Liv, do you know how frustrating—” He stopped, pulling in a breath through his nose. “Do you really want to have this conversation now?”
She lifted her shoulder, wincing. “What I want is to undo this seatbelt,” she said.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Barba answered.
“Well, whatever you think is best,” she muttered, leaning her head back against the seat and closing her eyes.
Barba snatched up the flashlight. “I need to find your phone,” he said.
“Did you try yours?” she asked without opening her eyes.
“It’s dead.”
“Might be enough for a 911 call,” she shot back, unable to keep the irritation from her voice.
He pulled it from his pocket. “Won’t even turn on,” he said after a moment.
“Next time I’ll know it’s my job to remember your charger,” she answered.
He dropped his phone, now smudged with bloody fingerprints, onto the dash, where it slid up against the windshield. “Next time I’m sure you’ll remind Carisi,” he said, bending down to feel under his seat. The back of his hand was raw, burning, and he winced as it scraped the gritty carpet. He searched blindly along the floor, before twisting to look between his seat and door. Then he shone the light beside the console, sliding his bloody hand into the space with another grimace, feeling with splayed fingers. He crouched down, shining the light under the steering wheel, scanning the floor around her feet. He couldn’t see under her seat. He knelt and leaned into the back, searching those sections of floor.
He picked up his briefcase, tossing it onto the backseat, and stretched, feeling as far under the backs of each seat as he could. The phone almost had to be under her seat.
“Keep talking so I know you’re alive,” he said, after her silence had stretched longer than he liked.
“I don’t think you want to hear my thoughts right now,” she answered, and he recognized the hurt feelings lurking beneath the anger.
“I don’t want you going into shock,” he returned. He reached down by his door again and pulled the lever, pushing the back of his seat down. He crawled over it and into the backseat, adding, “Seriously, Lieutenant, stay awake.”
“We’re already late getting back,” she said. “When they haven’t heard from us, they’ll try to call. If the phone is working, we’ll find it when it rings. If not, they’ll come looking.”
“It’ll be like finding a needle in—no, like finding a snowball inside of a snowman,” he said, and he was relieved to hear her laugh. “Don’t get me wrong, I have complete confidence in your detectives—but morning’s a long way off.”
“There’s nothing we can do about that,” she answered.
He was contorted into the backseat, peering under her seat. “You seem pretty calm,” he remarked.
“I thought you wanted me to be calm.”
“Where the hell—?” He straightened with a sound of frustration. He looked up at the back driver’s side window, where the covering snow seemed lighter. He pulled the door handle, pushing at the door; it opened less than an inch, just enough to let some snow tumble into the car. It was no use—the car was too deeply entrenched in the snow, and he couldn’t see how badly they might be mangled around whatever they were propped against.
“Did you find my water bottle?” she asked, quietly.
“I found everything but your damn phone,” he said. He picked up the closest container, peering at it. “I don’t know if this is mine or yours,” he said, handing it over her shoulder.
“Thanks,” she said, unscrewing the cap with shaky fingers. She took a long drink, and fumbled trying to put the lid back on.
“Are you cold?” he asked, taking the bottle and closing it for her.
“Can you get my gun out of here?” she said, shifting her right hip with a grimace. He slid his hand down and managed to unsnap the holster, sliding her weapon out. He handed it to her, butt-first, and she let out a breath of relief. “Thanks,” she repeated, taking the gun and sliding it into the tray where her phone had been. “I’m going to have a huge bruise there.”
He laughed and saw her lips curve into a smile. “Is there a blanket in the trunk?” he asked.
“Yeah—first aid kit, too, and I could really use a Band-Aid,” she said.
Chuckling, he swiveled onto his knees, his back to her. “Where’s the release—never mind, found it,” he said, flipping open the little plastic cover. He pushed the button and pulled the seatback forward, squeezing himself into as small a space as possible. He couldn’t fold the seat down all the way—his own seatback was in the way—but he braced his foot against the console and shoved his head and upper body into the cold air of the trunk. He shone the light around, noting that the metal above him was dented inward and one taillight was busted out, letting in a drift of snow.
Everything in the trunk had been tossed in the roll, and the blanket was all the way at the back. Muttering under his breath, he pushed himself forward, trying not to kick the back of Benson’s seat. He strained, reaching, and finally managed to get one corner with the tips of his crusty fingers. As he started to draw back, he had several moments of panic as he found himself stuck in place. The seatback was digging into his gut, the top of the frame was hard against his back, and he had nothing on which to leverage himself. He cursed, dragging the blanket and first aid kit through the opening, dropping them and the flashlight onto the seat so he could use both hands to push against the floor, still mindful of his legs as he did his best to keep them from flailing around.
Then he felt her hand at the back of his waistband, felt her pulling him back and down. He pushed, and then the seatback tilted and he was able to slide himself out with a rush of relief.
“Sorry, you can’t escape that easily,” she said. He could hear the strain in her voice and knew that her assistance hadn’t come easily.
“Just seeing if you were paying attention,” he answered. He shoved the back up and, turning, dropped onto the seat with a grunt. He looked up and met her eyes in the rearview mirror. “Are you okay?” he asked.
“Is there any Tylenol in that first aid kit?” she returned.
He flipped it open in his lap. “Only aspirin. Blood thinner—bad idea. I thought you might have lidocaine in here.”
“No? Someone’s fired,” she answered.
“There are scissors—those would’ve been helpful.”
“Is there a hacksaw?”
“Nope. Would you settle for a granola bar from the floor?”
“Tempting.”
“Actually, here,” he said, handing it to her. “You need to keep your strength up. Your hands are freezing,” he told her when their fingers brushed. He tossed the blanket forward onto the dash before awkwardly crawling up into his seat. He grabbed the blanket and pulled it open, tucking it between the steering wheel and her knees, reaching down to straighten it over her legs. He pulled the other half up and tucked the corners behind her shoulders.
“I’m sorry I got you in this mess, Rafa,” she said.
“Hush,” he told her, meeting her eyes. “Eat your granola bar like a good girl.”
She snorted, and said, “Screw you.”
“There you go,” he answered with a smirk. “Stay angry, it’ll keep you warmer.”
“I’m not angry.”
“No, but you should be. I’ve been acting like an ass all day.”
“I don’t want to fight with you. I hate fighting with you.”
“We’re not fighting,” he said.
“Then what are we doing?” she asked.
He reached out a hand and pressed the inside of his wrist to her cheek. “You’re freezing,” he said. “Is there still snow coming in?”
“Some,” she answered. “You’re bleeding.”
“It’s stopped. It’s—”
“Not your head, your hand,” she said.
He turned his wrist to look at the back of his hand. It did look pretty nasty, and it didn’t feel any better than it looked. “I think most of the blood’s yours,” he said.
“Does that make you my blood brother?” she asked with a small smile.
“Oh, I hope not,” he said, and her smile widened. “Here, stay hydrated,” he added, twisting the cap off the water bottle. She lifted a hand from under the edge of the blanket to take it, but her fingers were shaking so badly that she almost dropped it in her lap. Barba caught it. “Let me help,” he murmured, tipping it up to her lips. She closed her eyes as she drank the last of the water from the bottle. He capped it and tossed it onto the floor by his feet. “Tell me what I can do, Liv,” he said.
“If something happens, and I don’t make it out of here—” She held up a hand to forestall his objections, and rushed on: “Listen to me. Just in case I don’t, I need you to promise that you’ll tell Noah how much I love him.”
He picked up her cold hand, squeezing it between both of his. “He knows that, Liv.”
“Just promise me you’ll tell him.”
“I’m not getting out of this car without you,” he said, and there was a fierceness in his expression that she’d never seen before. “You’re going to have another sixty years of telling him how much you love him.”
She let out a shaky laugh. “Sixty years?” she asked, rolling her eyes. “I don’t think so.”
“You are not going out in a snowbank with a piece of metal in your leg and a selfish asshole as your only company, Olivia,” he said. “That is not how your story ends. This is just…a bad day, that’s it.”
“I have had better,” she agreed. “What about you, Rafa, do you think you have another sixty years in you? A bunch of little Rafael Juniors?”
“God, could you imagine the hubris?” he asked, with his familiar smirk. He was rubbing her hand between his, trying to warm it. The windows were all fogged with ice crystals, and Barba could already see his own breath puffing in front of him.
“Seriously, though,” she said, shivering.
“I don’t think I’m suited to fatherhood.”
“I don’t believe that,” she answered. “Selfish ass or not, you’d be—”
“Our fathers both did a number on us, Liv,” he said. “Just in different ways. They do that, you know? They plant these…seeds in our brains, and no matter how much we try to distance ourselves from them, there’s always just a little bit…” His jaw clenched, and he shook his head. “I wouldn’t be where I am today without my father, I wouldn’t have this career. I swore I would never be like him, but I couldn’t get away from that hardness. It’s built into me. I use it when it suits me but that doesn’t mean I can control it.”
“That’s a copout,” she said, and he blinked in surprise, some of the edge leaving his expression. “That hardness isn’t built into you, it’s a shield—and an act. It might fool a lot of people, but you can’t fool me. I see who you are—and I see who you are around Noah. You think I never doubted if I could possibly know how to be a mother? Of course I did. I thought it would be selfish to bring a child into this world when I was so screwed up. To get married? To start a family? How could I, when I didn’t even know what family felt like? But the minute I met Noah, everything changed. He made everything okay. Without even knowing he was doing it, he filled this hole inside of me.”
“I’m not like you, Liv,” he said, his lips barely moving.
She sighed, offering a small smile. “You’re just like me, Rafa, and you know it. The seeds our fathers planted were self-doubt. They made us feel like we didn’t deserve to be happy, like there was something fundamentally unlovable about us.” She saw the pain twisting his features, and said, “But they were wrong. They didn’t make us hard, they made us strong. I spent a lot of years trying to see the difference. Maybe that’s why it was so easy to see it in you.”
“You’re too cold, Liv, we need to warm you up.” He ran his hand up her arm; her whole body was shivering, and he felt his panic returning. If she went into shock—if he had to sit there, watching helplessly—He shook his head. “Alright,” he said, looking around. “Okay. Hold onto the steering wheel, Liv, hold yourself upright. Don’t move your leg—I’m going to lay your seat back,” he said. He crawled into the backseat and put a hand on her shoulder. “Can you pull the lever? Can you reach it, or do you want me—”
“I can get it,” she said, gritting her teeth to keep them from chattering. She didn’t ask why, she didn’t ask what he meant to do. She trusted him. She held the steering wheel with her other hand while she pulled the lever, and Barba held her shoulder with his right hand while he laid the seat back as flat as it would go.
And there, he found her cell phone. “Hm,” he said, picking it up. He turned it on, feeling a rush of gratitude when the screen lit and he saw three bars of service in the corner.
“Hmm, what?” she asked, looking over her shoulder.
“Found your phone,” he said. “Do you mind?” She shook her head, but he was already typing in her passcode—Noah’s birthday, no surprise there. What did surprise him was her wallpaper—he was suddenly looking at a picture of himself; a picture, actually, of him with Noah and Liv that had been taken at Jesse Rollins’s first birthday party, a picture of the three of them smiling with bright-colored party hats cocked on their heads. For several moments, he couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe.
Something fundamentally unlovable, he thought, looking at their smiling faces as though they belonged to strangers. Those three people didn’t look unlovable; they looked like a family.
“Is it working?” she asked.
He cleared his throat. “Yeah. Hold on.” He slipped the phone into his shirt pocket, afraid he would drop it. “This might hurt, I’ll be as careful as I can but I’m going to have to move you a little bit,” he said. “I’m going to unbuckle your seatbelt, can you hold yourself up?”
“Oh now you want to undo it?” she asked, teeth chattering.
“Well, I never have won an argument with you, yet, Liv,” he said. “Can you—”
“Yes.”
He unbuckled the seatbelt and slid his hand under her hip, muttering, “Sorry. Take a deep breath.” He shifted her weight and slid his right leg between hers and the console, hating the sound that caught in her throat. “Almost done,” he said, struggling to jostle her as little as possible as he straddled her from behind. His left leg was between her and the door, but he planted his foot beside the steering wheel so that his weight wasn’t on her impaled leg. “One more, I’m sorry,” he said, shifting her a little bit more as he settled in behind her. He was at an uncomfortable angle, the console hard against his hip and thigh, his right leg stretched along hers while his left leg was up at shoulder-level, but he didn’t care. He was cold, but she was colder, dangerously cold, and he wrapped his arm around her, pulling her gently backward. “Okay, you can relax, I have you,” he murmured, tugging the blanket up around her shoulders. She settled her back against his chest, all of her muscles quivering from the cold.
He fished her phone out behind her back and again looked at the wallpaper.
He swallowed and handed the cell to her. “Call the cavalry,” he murmured, leaning closer, wrapping both arms around her, trying to give her all of his body heat. “Keep talking to them until they get here, I’ll keep you as warm as I can but you can’t go to sleep.”
“I d-don’t want t-to talk to them,” she said. “I want to talk t-to you.”
“We’ll talk, honey, we’ll talk all you want, but first you have to get out of here and when they get here, it’s going to be bad. They’re going to have to cut the door—”
“I know the d-drill.”
“Yes. Make the call, Olivia.”
“You’re shutting me out.”
“No.”
“You are. I p-pushed, I’m s-sorry, I didn’t m-mean—”
He bent his head forward to kiss her shoulder. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “If you weren’t hurt, and freezing—”
“I won’t p-push again,” she said. “Just b-because I’m ready d-doesn’t mean you have to b-be.”
“Liv, call them, the longer you’re—”
“N-now that I f-finally know what I w-want, I c-can wait,” she said.
He was silent for what felt like a long time, and she waited, shivering, wrapped in his warmth and scent. “You’ll wait for me?” he finally said, barely above a whisper. He hesitated, and added, “To be ready for you?”
“Y-yes, unless you c-can look m-me in the eye and t-tell me you d-don’t want—”
“Liv,” he breathed, his lips at her ear, “I won’t have this conversation while you’re sitting here thinking you might die—You’re not going to die, we’re going to get out of this, and then, when you’re safe and warm and holding your son in your arms, when this right here just feels like a bad dream, then we can talk about it, but I swear, if you don’t call someone to come get you out of this damn car, I’ll—”
“What?”
“I’ll…crawl out the trunk and walk home without you.”
She laughed, an uneven sound as she continued to shiver. “Dial for me, my hands are shaking.”
He reached in front of her, wrapping his hand around hers to steady it while he tapped out the numbers with his thumb.
“You’re right, I’m not going to die here,” she said.
“I’m always right.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Well, I am this time, but you’re still worried or we’d still be bickering and cranky. Here, it’s on speaker so you don’t have to hold it up.”
“Later,” she said.
“Yep,” he replied, and then she was talking to the woman on the phone and Barba was able to rest his forehead against her shoulder and focus all of his attention on trying to transfer his heat into her.
* * *
“I have one rule to live by, Liv. One rule that informs all of my decisions.” He hesitated. “Don’t hear what you want to hear.”
She tipped her head. “That’s insane, Rafael. How do you ever get what you want that way?”
“You don’t get what you want, you get what you work for,” he said. “And you work for what you need.”
“That doesn’t make for a happy life.”
“Not everyone gets to be happy, you know that.”
“I don’t accept that, Rafa—not for us.”
He pressed his lips together, staring at her. She was in the hospital bed, safe and warm, with her son curled up in her arms—just as Barba had predicted. Noah was sleeping peacefully, his head on Benson’s chest and his arm over her stomach. “Neither do I,” he finally admitted. “Not anymore. But now that you’re in your right mind, we can discuss it.”
“My right mind?”
“And I can make my case to why you deserve someone better than me.”
“So, let me get this straight—you’ll correct me if I’m wrong?”
“Always.”
“You thought I was, I don’t know, delusional or hysterical or something, and that I was just saying those things because I was afraid of dying?”
“I would never call you hysterical, Liv,” he said. Then, quieter, “But if something sounds too good to be true, it almost always is.”
“You were hearing what you wanted to hear?”
“What I desperately wanted to hear,” he agreed, barely above a whisper. “All day, I wanted…everything. Everything I couldn’t have. But you were pissed at me, Liv. With good reason. I had to make sure.”
“So you’re not going to run away?”
He lifted his chin, narrowing his eyes, and said, “I’ve never run away from anything.”
She laughed, and his lips quirked into a smile. “Why don’t you just tell me what you want, then?” she said.
“I want what I’ve always wanted, Liv. You. But you’re a single mother, and I’m…me. I don’t know how to—”
“Want to see something pretty great?” Benson interrupted. “Watch this.” She bent her head down and said, softly, “Noah? Hey, sweet boy, wake up.” She ruffled his hair, and Noah slowly lifted his head, blinking sleepily. Benson smiled at him and kissed his forehead, smoothing the curls back from his forehead. “Noah, look, someone’s here to see us,” she said, gesturing with her chin.
The boy turned his head and caught sight of Barba standing near the foot of the bed. His face immediately split into a giant, sleepy grin. “Uncle Rafi!” he exclaimed, pushing himself halfway upright.
Barba found himself walking forward, smiling in response. “Hey, there, Noah,” he said. Looking at the boy’s happy, trusting face, Barba knew that he would do anything within his power to protect Noah from the evils of the world. When his gaze slid up to Benson’s, he found her regarding him with a smug and knowing look, and he loved her more than he’d ever imagined it possible to love another person.
“Told you, pretty great, right?” she asked, and Barba nodded, not immediately able to speak. She lifted a hand, and he crossed the rest of the distance between them without hesitation. “What is it you want to hear, now?” she asked as he laced his fingers with hers.
Barba swallowed. Before he could find his voice, Noah piped up: “Uncle Rafi, do you wanna hear me read my book?”
Barba ruffled his hair and, grinning, said, “I’m always up for a new book. People love it when you quote literature,” he added, his eyes twinkling when he looked up at the boy’s mother.
“Feel like running?” she asked.
“Ask me in sixty years,” he answered, and her answering smile stole his breath. He leaned down, bracing himself on the edge of the mattress, and said, “Noah, do you mind if I kiss your mom?”
“Mm…okay,” Noah answered, giggling.
Barba met Benson’s eyes, and his heart skipped.
“Hold on, Barba,” she said. “First, I want to hear you admit you were wrong.”
“Never,” he answered. Then, “Oh, wait, okay. I was wrong. About what?” he added with a smirk.
“The trip being a waste of time.”
His smirk spread into a grin.
“Kiss already!” Noah exclaimed.
“Yes, sir,” Barba said. “Lieutenant?” he added, his pupils dilating as their gazes held.
“Just do it,” she answered, and he was smiling when their lips met.