𝙳𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚝𝚘 𝙵𝚘𝚛𝚐𝚎𝚝 𝙼𝚎| 𝚁𝚊𝚏𝚊𝚎𝚕 𝙱𝚊𝚛𝚋𝚊

Didn't You Know?

The victim, Hayley Connors, lived a rowdy nightlife. As it turned out, there were various accounts of misconducts that made her story a bit unbelievable. She'd been beaten and raped, there was no doubt about that, but the defense would have a field day with all her prior misconducts. Still, she'd been able to give more details on her attacker which corroborated with what Montserrat had told SVU as well. Between the two statements and a couple pieces of evidence, the squad was able to track down the suspect. With that came the ID sessions.

Montserrat was tapping her boot against the floor when Olivia walked into the interview room. "Hayley finished. You can ID next," Olivia soon noticed the jittery action of the ginger and wondered if there was something wrong. "Are you alright?"

"Yes, sorry, this kid thinks my bladder is a squeeze toy," Montserrat awkwardly smiled as she pushed herself up from the chair. "I just have to use the restroom."

Olivia smiled and told her it was fine. Montserrat felt embarrassed enough. Twice she'd been to the restroom since her arrival. Once she returned, Olivia took her straight to the line up where she met Rafael and also had the (un)fortunate pleasure of meeting the suspect's lawyer, a Mr. Buchanan.

"Detective Novak," Rafael nodded her to step towards the window. "You know what to do, right?"

A sarcastic smile spread across Montserrat's face. "I think I might." She gave the nod to Olivia that she was ready and so Olivia knocked twice on the glass to get the lineup. Montserrat's eyes trailed from one man to the next until she spotted the familiar lanky monster. "It's number four. He was attacking Hayley Connors and then tried to do the same to me." Olivia knocked against the glass to get the line up taken out.

"Which is not part of the charges," Buchanan was quick to say.

Montserrat side glanced at him with a straight expression. "Doesn't matter. He's going down anyways. We'll see your client in court." The twitch of her smirk elicited quite a glare from Buchanan but he kept to himself and took off first.

"I have to warn you, Detective, that antagonizing Buchanan is only going to make his cross examination even more difficult for you," Rafael warned once it was just the three of them.

"Please, either way he'll want to destroy me."

"Which is why you need to know exactly what you're going to be saying."

"And Hayley," Montserrat suddenly chuckled. "I know that look."

Rafael exchanged a confused glance with Olivia, but neither knew what she was talking about. "What look?" he then asked.

"You have the same look that the ADA I worked with would give me when he thought I didn't know what I was doing."

"Montserrat, we both know that you are equipped for court," Olivia started off kindly, but Montserrat knew exactly where she leading up to. "But you worked Homicide. The cases are very different at SVU. In homicide, everything is concrete but here...you have to prove that what the victim claims is true."

"So one wrong word and you could throw Hayley's case out the window," Rafael held nothing back unlike Olivia. He needed Montserrat to understand the implications before she would take the stand. "Maybe I am giving you that look your old ADA did but in my case, don't I have a right?"

Montserrat upheld his gaze for a couple seconds before giving in. She wasn't there to argue. This division was new to her, and despite filing her transfer papers months ago she still needed actual experience to know what SVU really dealt with. "Sorry," her answer was met with suspicion from Rafael, but she just smiled. "You're right. I'll listen."

He opened his mouth to retort but closed it instead. His tilted head made her smile even more. "If all the detectives here were like you, I'd have less headaches."