Law & Order: SVU - Rafael Barba x OC

She spent her life learning how to survive.

By twenty-seven, Detective Jazmyne Mansour has already learned not to need anyone.
She knows how to read a crime scene, how to protect a victim, how to keep her emotions under control and, above all, how to keep people from getting too close.
At the Special Victims Unit, she's built a life she never thought she'd have. A team that trusts her. A career she's proud of. A family she never asked for but somehow found anyway.

Then Rafael Barba arrives. He is arrogant. She is impossible.

He pushes every button she has, challenges every decision she makes, and seems determined to prove that he can see through the walls she's spent years building.

She can't stand him. At least, that's what she tells herself. Annoyance becomes respect. Respect becomes friendship. And friendship becomes something neither of them is prepared to name.

But Barba isn't the only thing waiting beneath the surface. Some wounds don't stay buried forever.
And when the past she spent her entire life running from finally finds her, she will have to face a question she's never allowed herself to ask: If surviving was all she ever knew... does she know how to live?

Law & Order: SVU fanfiction | Rafael Barba x OC | Slow Burn |