Chapter Text
It's the case they'd just finished working that sets it off, waking her at 3 a.m. in a panic.
Not for the usual reasons – a baby needing a bottle or, you know, the horrors of humanity creeping into the only part of the day she isn't paid to be conscious of them – but for new ones.
For paperwork ones.
Because their current vic had kids – two boys – and now those two kids are going to be separated, and live with two different people, in two different states.
Obviously it wasn't just the paperwork, there was one bad break after another for these kids, nothing went the way it was supposed to, no official arrangements had been made, and the judge had done the best she could, but it really had just come down to two pieces of paper, with two different names on the father line.
Two pieces of paper, with two different men – just like Amanda has.
And, sure, it's not that Declan or Al are bad men.
Al had made sure she had everything she needed to start Billie's life off on the right foot, and improve Jesse's.
Then, when it was clear Amanda's own feet were not going to be keeping her at Al's side, he'd even given her a choice for the rest of it – he'd support financially however she wanted, monthly, yearly, a lump sum, whatever.
Amanda had been committed to the idea that she could do this on her own, that she could work and raise her children.
It was maybe a little prideful on her part, but Al hadn't fought her, and he'd had a trust established for Billie, the firm that had done it eliciting a low, impressed whistle from Carisi when he'd seen the letterhead.
Declan had – well, Declan had less formal methods, but she thinks even he's got an eye on it, that he's probably got a duffel bag under a bed in a safe house across an ocean or something that someday Jesse'll use to pay for college.
But money and childcare – money and parenting – are two different things, and she can't picture either of these not-bad men actually raising her daughters.
And though she knows her best friend has a law degree, though she knows she should've taken care of this for Jesse ages ago, let alone Billie, she hadn't.
She's not even sure how to take care of it, any of it.
There are some papers of course – but they're mostly about Amanda, and her meager assets, they are not explicit arrangements for what should happen to her children in the event of her death.
Which is why Amanda has to figure this out – why she obviously should've already had it figured out.
She just doesn't know where to start.
&&.
Amanda had only lasted a day alone, with herself and the internet, before she'd called in Carisi.
Something was going on with him – he was still turning up to make dinner and show off his swaddling skills, pretending that both of them didn't know Amanda would fall asleep as soon as her butt hit a soft surface (and then – and this part was important – just letting her sleep).
But he was hanging out with Stone more, like, a lot more and, for reasons she couldn't put a finger on, she got the sense it was about more than just "bro" stuff; the fact that she'd caught them having more than one serious conversation was part of it.
Carisi wasn't offering any details though, and she didn't feel like it was her place to ask, not when she was already asking so much of him, including this most recent request to do her adulting for her.
Which he'd apparently completed, crossing her doorway earlier in the evening with a stack of paper thicker than a pizza crust, an actual pizza, and bad news.
"So, Declan's gonna be a problem?" she says to him, shifting on the couch to glance at the baby monitor, the girls sleeping peacefully (for now) filling the screen in that weird night-vision lighting.
"Well, not knowing where he's at is probably gonna be," Sonny says. "Once you've got the, uh, the contingency guardian on board, Declan and Al will both need to sign off, since they're both officially listed as the fathers."
"Got it," she says, nodding to herself. Sonny had given her so much information, so quickly, over the last half hour, she's still reeling a little.
"It's good you're doing this though," he says. "Because if we don't find him now and get this done, and something happens, they'll be finding him to – "
He trails off, but she knows what he means. If she dies, they'll be finding Declan to give him Jesse.
Really just a great, light, easy conversation they're having with their Friday nights.
"And it doesn't count if he doesn't sign it?"
"Not this way," he says, and he doesn't say more, but there was more there, she can tell, and she prompts him.
"So…another way then?" she says. "We're detectives, Sonny, it's dangerous, if there's a way to get this done and sooner, I need to do it."
Because Carisi's a nice guy, he doesn't point out that it's her own fault she's only just now figuring it out, which is good, because she's already been beating herself up enough over it.
The anxiety over not having it done is now routinely cutting into her precious few hours of sleep.
"It's just a weird New York thing," he says. "One of those old, quirky laws still on the books."
"Okay, so what is it?" she says, and why is he drawing it out like this? He's being weird, nevermind New York.
"Adoption is…different," he finally offers.
"Adoption? What?"
"Because you're a government employee, and so is Declan – and you have sole custody of the girls – another government employee can undertake a modified adoption process, without dual parental consent, if a provable, good-faith effort has been made to locate the second, non-custodial parent," he half-quotes.
"It was a wartime thing, I think. I sent an email to one of my old professors, because now I'm curious, but that's my best guess."
"Wait, the new…parent, or whatever, has to be a government employee, too? Why?" she says.
"Government employees have already passed government background checks," he says, lifting a shoulder. "Again, I'm just guessing here."
"Right," she says. "Okay, so, if I can't find Declan, and I want a legally binding document dictating who raises my kids if I die, it's going to have to be adoption paperwork?"
"This is why I wasn't gonna bring it up," he says. "Obviously that's not actually a solution. We'll just find Declan."
This is – oh, god, how badly did she fuck this up? How could she have not already taken care of this? It's their lives, her children's lives.
Carisi's looking at her gently, which means he can tell she's pretty fucking pissed at herself, and the last thing she needs is him telling her it's okay, because it is not, and that is her fault.
She forces herself to relax.
"Yeah," she says, casually, trying to at least seem like she's shaken it off. "We'll find Declan. Besides, it's not like there's a list of government employees I'd want raising my kids."
A rash of heat floods the back of her neck.
Shit.
She glances at him just in time to see him glance away.
She knows suddenly that it's not a list – because it's only one name.
His.
&&.
They do not find Declan.
It's been an entire month, somehow, and the phone calls, emails, texts, and good, ol' shoe leather she's put in trying to track him down have landed her nothing – he's a ghost, and the NYPD is a fucking stone-walling haunted mansion.
It's not like she even knows whose name would be on the piece of paper she'd be asking him to sign, which is another problem that didn't solve itself.
Because she wants it to be Sonny.
It had taken the better part of the last four weeks to truly accept that as a concept, and it certainly wasn't something she could, like, act on.
There were actually two adults in the world she would trust full-time with her kids – their godparents.
But their godmother already had Noah, she couldn't ask Olivia to raise three kids alone, and their godfather – well.
She can't ask him that.
Even if now, watching him from the armchair, with Billie asleep on his chest, as he lays sprawled horizontally across her couch, it feels like the most natural thing in the world.
Because – god, because she has a photo of him just like that with his shirt off.
Maternity leave had been harder with Billie, because she had Jesse, too, and those first few weeks especially, she swears Sonny practically lived with them.
Billie would cry and cry, and he kept showing up, kept bringing Amanda department gossip, kept cooking them dinner, and rocking her kids to sleep.
She wasn't even sure what day of the week it was, all of them blurring together into a mess of diapers and broken sleep, but one day, early on, nothing was working with Billie.
Amanda had felt like she was going to explode or cry, probably cry, the pressure under her skin building and building, her nerves shot and her hormones a mess, and Sonny had asked, tentatively, if he could try something.
"I don't want you to think it's weird," he'd said.
"Why would I think it's weird?" she'd said, completing her fiftieth circuit of the living room, Billie crying plaintively where she was cradled against Amanda, and Amanda moments away from joining her in her tears.
"I just – what if I took my shirt off?"
Amanda had a memory of quickly checking she wasn't sleeping then, that this wasn't one kind of dream instead of a different kind of reality, but the realization of what he'd meant – skin-to-skin contact and oxytocin – had followed quickly.
And maybe she should've fought him, maybe that was crossing some line, but she didn't have it in her, and she'd nodded instead.
"Worth a shot," she'd said, moving to the changing table to strip Billie down to her diaper.
His tie was already off, and he'd turned around to unbutton his shirt, before seeming to realize it was ridiculous – she was going to see him in a second anyway – so he just kept going, spinning in a clumsily-executed full circle that Frannie thought was a game.
She'd found it endearing, until he'd just tugged both that and his undershirt off over his head in one move instead, and then she found it…uh.
Something else.
Sonny standing shirtless in her living room, his hair mussed from how he'd pulled his shirts off, his stomach flat and a little tan, skin and hair and the waistband of his underwear just visible above the belt at the top of his suit pants – it was a lot.
He'd motioned for the diaper-clad Billie and Amanda had handed her over.
Then, he'd stretched himself out on her couch, settling Billie on his bare chest, and Amanda remembers marveling at how huge his hand had looked where it spanned Billie's tiny back, keeping her in place.
Billie had quieted almost immediately, but it was Amanda making the noise then, inside her own skull, like a thousand orchestras warming up at once.
It's not like she wasn't used to quieting her brain when Sonny was around, not like she wasn't well-versed in ignoring whatever she might feel for him besides friendship, because it could come at the cost of that friendship, but that image, and the handful of times it happened after, had struck her particularly hard.
And, because she was a masochist, she'd taken a picture.
It was in the "hidden" folder on her phone, surrounded by thirst traps of Jason Momoa, and it was always the one she tapped on first – no matter her, uh, reasons for visiting that folder at night.
He was already so much to them – to ask him to be more just didn't seem fair.
Until she gets shot at.
&&.
It's not that it's abnormal that someone would fire a gun in her direction while she's working.
It's abnormal that it grazed her, slicing across the left shoulder pad of her blazer and causing the thin, white stuffing to spill from the insides – the same way her blood would have.
It scares the shit out of her.
A handful of inches in another direction, and she wouldn't have walked away, probably wouldn't even have survived.
And she'd have orphaned her children – which is the key difference between this and the time she was actually shot: she has children now.
It's a lot to process, her adrenaline still buzzing as she cuts Jesse's chicken into small pieces for dinner, as she puts the girls to bed, as she hears the knock on the door she knows is Sonny.
She'd been sent home, but he'd stayed to finish working the scene, and though he hadn't said it, it was clear he'd be stopping by when he was done.
It was a read she was confident enough in to order him food when she'd gotten dinner for her and Jesse, and it's that food – a gyro – she produces now, the fries that were supposed to accompany it having long been shoved into her own mouth.
"You didn't have to get me dinner, Rollins" he says. "You're the one that got shot."
"I didn't get shot," she says, because she hadn't, but she could've been, and what would've happened to the girls? Fuck, fuck, fuck. "Lost a good blazer though."
"Let me take it with me," he says. "My guy'll fix it up, be good as new."
She exhales a soft laugh. "Staten Island's finest?"
"You know it."
"Come on, sit down, eat," she says, glancing at the baby monitor, as she settles on the sofa.
She moves to pick up the remote – with Sonny here, she already feels calmer, she was shot at today, that should get her one quiet night with trashy, reality TV from the universe, right?
But Sonny has other ideas.
"Can we – listen, can I talk to you first?" he says, sitting down next to her, and dropping the takeout container on the coffee table.
She leans back from the remote, nodding for him to continue, because, even if she's exhausted, what's she gonna say? No?
Not to him.
"I've been thinking about this, not just today – but a lot today – I think you should at least do the paperwork," he says. "It's better than nothing, even without Declan's signature. And then, on the off chance he turns up, you have it ready."
She really doesn't want to talk about this right now, everything feels rubbed raw and wrung out, all of her emotions and her anxiety and her fear gurgling up as her adrenaline finally (...now that Sonny's here) recedes.
She doesn't have the strength for the dance and the charade and if he pushes this, she's gonna say something stupid, she knows she is.
"No, yeah," she says, "makes sense, I'll, uh, get it done."
"Oh," Sonny says, and he's the one that just told her to do it, why does he sound surprised? "Did you – you got someone lined up then?"
His tone is too casual, and it's making her feel even more aware of how close everything is to the surface for her right now.
She tries to brush him off again. Just for tonight. "Not…exactly, but I'll get it figured out, really."
Sonny exhales slowly, looking uncomfortable. "I've been trying not to push you, but the horror stories we heard in my family law classes – Rollins, this is serious shit."
"I know, Carisi – you think it doesn't keep me up at night?" she says, feeling the dam holding back…everything splinter.
"You think I'm not constantly mad at myself that I didn't have it done sooner, that I wonder what kind of parent I must be that I just fucking forgot this was my responsibility? That I get up every morning and go to a job where people shoot at me, and there's a very real chance one day – almost today – one of them's gonna hit me?"
She can feel the hot rush of tears flood her eyes, hormones and the day finally getting the best of her, as her anxiety unspools itself out loud.
"I'm sorry," he says, and it's not rushed or panicked, it's genuine. "You're right, I should've at least given you the day. I just – "
"I want it to be you, Sonny," she blurts.
And then, like the inveterate gambler she is at her core, she doubles down.
"And if I'm being honest, I've never thought of you as a government employee more than I have recently, okay?"
She can feel that he's looking at her, and though whatever she's saying with her mouth is probably also written across her dumb face, she turns to meet his eye.
"So," she breathes out, feeling wobbly and beat, "I'm working through that, and if you just – give me a second, I'll get everything figured out, I promise, I get how serious it is, trust me."
Sonny glances away from her, brow furrowing slightly, and then back.
"What do you mean you're 'working through that?'"
"I'm – I'm working through it, what do you mean what do I mean? I'm gonna get over it."
"You're gonna get – I'm sorry," and he looks genuinely confused. "Did we have a conversation I don't remember or something?"
"What? No. Why would we have had a conversation? We didn't need one. Like what, like you're just gonna adopt my kids, Sonny?"
She says it in a voice like it's absurd, because it is – he's a good-looking, single, NYPD detective, with a law degree. He makes a great uncle, and she's just gonna die and saddle him with two kids that aren't his own to raise?
Hardly.
But he's – he's not looking at her like it's absurd.
And then he shrugs. It's a small gesture, self-conscious, like he's admitting something.
But – no. He must just be upset she hadn't asked him, like making a reach for the check; she should've made the gesture.
"I might," he says, and she's suddenly aware of the beating of her heart in her chest, the rhythm echoing in her whole body, and drowning out her ability to think clearly.
"Is this a real conversation?" she says, watching him carefully, she feels totally wrong-footed, and can't tell if he's faring any better.
"As opposed to?"
"The gesture," she says.
"What?"
"Like, I should've made the gesture to ask you to do this, and you're making the gesture to say you would, but I don't actually think you're gonna raise my daughters if I die, how could I possibly – "
"'Manda, that's what I'm saying, I'd like to talk about what it would look like to do that," he says. "Not the, uh – not the you dying part, today was close enough – but, look, truthfully, I've been thinking about how I'm a government employee, too."
He glances to look at the baby monitor, the girls slumbering there, and there's a tenderness to his face that makes her chest feel hollow with something like longing.
It's probably longing.
If he were to raise her kids, it would be because she wasn't around, and that part's a shame, because she knows she'd love to see it – he's so damn good with them.
Maybe it's silly to keep fighting this so hard, he's a grown man, he's not going to consider volunteering for a responsibility like this without understanding what it means.
And she doesn't plan on dying.
If he wants to talk about it, if he's willing to talk about it, she'd be doing the two small human beings down the hall a disservice not to take him up on it.
"Okay, but how would that even work?" she says, trying to play it out. "You're a cop, too, you're my partner, we're on the same cases all the time, we might both get taken out, and then – "
Carisi…reacts to that. She can't think of another word for it, and it brings her train of thought up short, waiting for him to explain.
"I've, uh, I've been meaning to talk to you about – I just – I got this degree and Stone's been saying that he's – I don't know, I think it changes every day – but then Barba called – and I – I'm thinking about leaving NYPD."
It feels suddenly like she's in a vacuum, like she's been dropped straight into the inky nothingness of space, no noise, no feeling, just a hollow, yawning void in the middle of her living room.
She feels alone.
And betrayed.
"Oh," she says.
"Yeah," he says. "Stone's thinking about leaving, thinks I should consider trying to make the jump over there."
"Barba, too, is that what you said?"
"Yeah, somehow he heard, gave me a ring to bust my chops, but said he'd already made some calls, and it's not as far out of the realm of possibility as I might think."
"That's – that's great news, Sonny," she says. Because it is – it is – but she can be happy for him, and more than a little devastated for herself.
"Yeah?" he says, and it's in this voice that kills her, a little bit proud, a little bit shy, a little bit hesitant, so she forces herself to give it more gusto on her response.
"Of course! I'm excited for you, and glad you're not going too far – we'd miss you," she says, giving him a soft shove on the arm.
"Fin wouldn't," Carisi says.
"I actually meant me and the girls, but Fin would definitely miss you, you bring in the most food by a mile," she says.
"Great, got all the appeal of a broken vending machine, thanks, Rollins."
"A step up from lawyer in most people's book," she says.
"Needed a lawyer for that, didn't you?" he says, gesturing at the stack of papers still sitting on her coffee table.
"Might still need one," she says, and catches his eye. It's not what she wants to do, she wants to turn on Love Island and stop thinking for the rest of the night, but they need to finish this conversation, she needs to get this done for the girls.
"Yeah?"
"Listen, this is – what'd you call it? Serious shit?" she says. "Can we just talk about it, like, plainly, without it being weird? Without any pressure?"
He nods, turning to face her more fully on the couch.
"Shoot," he says, and immediately winces, eyes skittering to where her torn blazer hangs thrown over the back of a kitchen chair.
"Smooth," she says, shaking her head at him, fondly, before clearing her throat.
This kind of conversation – a show-your-cards kind of conversation – doesn't come naturally to her, but she's committed to pushing forward, because it's the only way this is gonna get settled – and it needs to be settled.
It already should have been.
"Okay, you know the situation I'm in," she says. "And what my options are – because you told them to me."
"Right."
"And so we both know that one of those options is that a, uh, government employee joins me on paper as an official parent of Jesse and Billie."
"We do."
"And I know that the number of people I would agree to that with is…one," she says, and she gestures limply in his direction, losing a little bit of her nerve.
He looks at her so sweetly then, that she has to look away, glancing at Frannie chewing on a toy, and when she looks back, his expression has changed to something more uncertain.
"That – 'Manda, you don't know how much that means to me, but I can't – "
She feels her stomach drop, but forces herself to keep listening.
" – I can't just be a dad on paper. That's – it's meaningful to me, it's something I want. If we were gonna do this, I'd want, you know, the, uh, whole experience."
She looks at him quickly – did he mean –
"Of actually being a parent, I mean," he clarifies, but he fidgets a little, and she hadn't been alone in recognizing that could've meant something else – could've included something else.
"And, if you could have this, um, whole experience, that's something you'd consider?" She tries to keep her voice even, but it sounds a little hopeful, even to her own ears.
If she thought it was absurd to even ask him about this, she's not sure what to call the conversation they're having now.
"I think so," he says, carefully, both of them aware that this is definitely serious shit. "I'm getting older, maybe my path to a family ends up being a little less traditional – I think that's something I'd consider."
He's not looking at her as he finishes, he's looking at the monitor, Jesse is fussing in her bed, groping around in her sleep, trying to find her stuffed bunny.
Amanda can tell he's watching to see if he needs to intervene, not because she'd asked him to keep an eye on the kids, not because he'd even consciously thought about it, but because it was instinct for him.
"What – Sonny, what are talking about here?" Because she knows what it sounds like to her – that Sonny is…Sonny is talking about co-parenting, in a real way.
And she – she doesn't not want that, but she didn't know it was an option.
Is it an option?
"Look, I'll do it the other way, too – you're – you're never gonna die, Amanda Rollins, you're just not," he says, and, for a moment, he sounds a little bit like a kid himself, meeting her eye with a look to match.
" – but if something were to happen – of course I'd be there. But I – I've thought about it, and I'd be…willing to be there now."
She can only picture one version of this, and it's the one from her, like, secret daydreams, one where he's a father and a husband, where they're a little nuclear family, taking trips to Disney World and his parents' house for Sunday dinner – but she knows that's not what they're talking about here.
Because that is fiction and this is – well, she doesn't know what this is.
"What do you – what would that look like?" she says.
"I think we'd have to figure it out, really figure it out," he says. "But I think we could."
She knows in her heart that both girls probably already see him as their father.
Jesse's never asked why she has an Uncle Sonny instead of a dad, but she's also never complained.
And Billie – well, she doesn't know what babies think, but she's pretty sure he's filling some primal, dad-shaped need for Billie, at the very least.
Billie wants her momma most of the time, but there's a not-infrequent preference for Carisi, too.
If Amanda is riled up, it's almost like Billie senses it, a feedback loop that's hard to break, but Sonny – Sonny's always so solid and grounded, and Billie responds to it, slowing her mood to match his, instead of rising to meet Amanda's.
That…balance – it's probably good for the girls.
But is this – it really is absurd, right? They can't actually be considering this.
There's a weird sound then, once she can't quite place, but it sounds like –
Sonny's stomach growling.
"See, I told you to eat, probably woke the kids with the sound of that," she teases, and he rolls his eyes, reaching for his gyro.
It clicks then, with the sort of sudden finality that feels like finally cracking a case –
They're talking about doing this like they're not already doing this.
Both of her girls are already his.
So, uh.
Paperwork.
&&.
There is so much more to it than paperwork, goddamn.
The last six weeks have been a kind of chaotic she isn't sure she's ever experienced before.
Stone officially announced he was leaving, kicking off the process for Carisi's potential first total life change.
This had meant he was shadowing Stone and doing NYPD work, although he had to do less of it, which meant that the rest of them had to do more of it.
Billie was cutting her first tooth, later than anticipated, something she found out was genetic to Al's family when she'd brought him a stack of papers, with her heart in her throat, because –
because –
Sonny was filing to adopt Jesse and Billie.
The road to get to that point had been a huge part of the chaos.
She'd felt like she was living in the Twilight Zone some days, with the kinds of conversations they were having – real and adult and serious.
And it was over the kind of stuff she'd never had to talk to another human being about before – about not just the girls' lives, although that was a huge part of it, but her own.
They'd had to move.
Into a new apartment, with three bedrooms even, because they were, somehow, now a dual-income family.
They weren't particularly big bedrooms, but there were three of them, and Sonny moved into one of them.
Because he – he wanted to be near his daughters.
Every time – literally every time – she thought of it that way, her heart felt like neon in her chest, a too-bright glow and a steady, zapping buzz.
For better or worse, she was gonna raise these girls with her best friend.
That was a vow she felt comfortable making – felt sort of…excited to make.
What Sonny had said was true – they were a less traditional family, but they were a family.
But Sonny already had a family, and another weird cut through this whole thing was Carisi's decision not to tell another Carisi, any of them, yet.
Late at night, Amanda worried that it was because he thought they'd try and talk him out of it, and then she worried that they'd have succeeded.
But it wasn't her decision to make, when to tell them.
Amanda's own mom knew, had helped watched the girls while they moved, and then made more than one inappropriate comment about Sonny having moved into his own bedroom, and not Amanda's.
Which was another…challenging thing about this new arrangement: that people automatically assumed they were together romantically, too.
It wasn't new, exactly, people mistook them for a couple all the time, they'd had to pretend to be one for work more than once, but it felt more loaded now.
They were living together.
And she'd been afraid to ask about what would happen if he wanted to bring a girl home, but, eventually, he was gonna want to, and they were gonna have to talk about it.
And then – then there was, well, there was Catholicism.
Amanda believed in the sorts of things Carisi believed in, but her beliefs were much…looser held.
Sonny – totally understandably, so she wasn't sure why she was surprised – had always assumed he'd raise his kids Catholic.
That his kids would have already been partly – in Billie's case, just ever so slightly – raised, and not Catholic was not something he'd planned for.
And having to suddenly decide if she was comfortable with her kids being raised Catholic was not something Amanda had planned for.
It was the only time in the last month and a half they'd gone a day without speaking – she'd taken a couple, in fairness to her, absolutely correct blows at the Catholic church.
He, in fairness to him, was not prepared to write the whole thing off over an extreme minority of Catholics.
In the end, she'd agreed, if only because it was something that was just always going to mean more to him.
It wasn't a marriage, what they were doing –
(she'd become explicitly aware just how not a marriage, with its implicit perks, very early into their cohabitation, Carisi in sweatpants was a little bit, uh, disruptive)
– but it was still going to require compromise, and she was committed to it.
He'd done the same when she'd saged the new apartment. It wasn't quite the same as committing to a religion, but he'd been game enough.
Or, well, maybe she thinks of that occasion with such weight because she'd stopped by for lunch a few days later, only to end up eavesdropping on Carisi talking to a group of women Amanda recognized as part of the newest batch of law clerks.
"Oh, yeah, you gotta smudge," he'd said. "My daughters' mom just did that to our new place, slept like a baby ever since – not that the actual baby has."
It was maybe two dozen words, fewer than the Pledge of Allegiance, and yet she'd hung it up like a banner, examining it from every angle that night before bed, finding new parts she liked, letting herself think of all the implications inherent in the words, what it meant that he could say all of those things.
Getting a glimpse of her life from the outside, the ways it had changed in such a short amount of time, it was reassuring to know that she'd clearly gotten it right, that it'd been worth it, all of it – including the nerve it had taken to ask Al to sign the papers they needed to make it official.
In a logistical sense, a behavior sense, his signature was irrelevant – she and Sonny were doing this, had, in fact, already done a bunch of it.
If for some reason they couldn't formalize it yet, it was clear neither of them was going to be the one to turn back.
But they wanted it formalized, and Al was the key to that.
All of Amanda's attempts to find Declan more than met the standard for Billie's adoption, but the court was holding the application until they could file for both girls at the same time.
Because Sonny had been correct – this was a wartime law, which meant that the timelines were much quicker, and apparently they were, like, a huge pain in the ass to process. Sonny was going into the DA's office with absolutely no friends in family court.
So, the conversation with Al had felt…weighty.
Amanda had gone alone to the lunch, after a morning where Carisi was also at the 16th, and they'd both gotten next to nothing done, too twisted up to do anything but watch the clock and bounce her leg.
(The leg bounce may have just been the caffeine, honestly, Carisi's fancy coffee maker might've been the best new addition to the apartment, well, next to the guy that used it to make her a cup most mornings lately himself.)
And then Al had just – agreed amicably, assured her he wouldn't change a thing with the trust, and asked where to sign.
"You sure? You don't even want to meet him?" she'd said. She didn't want to overlook what a huge relief it was, but some part of her was perplexed, or maybe sad for him, that he didn't recognize what he was freely giving up.
Mostly, though, she was grateful.
"Carisi, right?" Al had said, pen poised over the first of the papers, and she'd nodded. "He was at the hospital. He'd looked a little…green, but I thought it was one-sided. I see I was mistaken."
Green? What did he…? Oh.
"It's not – it's not quite like that," she'd said.
"Of course not." he's answered, waggling the edge of the paper he was signing up and down a few times. "You're both just doing this for fun, I'm sure."
And then he'd finished the paperwork that would allow Carisi to file to adopt Billie.
&&.
Sonny arrives home from his first day as an ADA with meatball heros and the official adoption certificates, and it feels like Amanda's dreaming.
She's – she's happy.
It was something Sienna – the new nanny, the only nanny she and Carisi could agree on – had commented on the other day, how she loved that Amanda seemed like such a happy person, that it was "cool."
If you'd asked Amanda a year ago, pregnant with Al's baby and more than a little conflicted about it, to describe how people saw her, how she saw herself, she's not sure happy would've necessarily leapt to mind.
But it does now, because she is.
And Sonny is, too, talking about the first time someone had called him Counselor in a meeting, and that Barba was actually responsible for the adoption paperwork being on his desk when he got in, that'd he called in a favor.
Amanda feels a swell of pride for him – she knows how much he admires Rafael, that he thinks of him as a mentor (even if she knows there are even odds Barba would do a little eye roll at the word mentor ) – and to have that validated on his first day in the DA's office?
And then to come home to his daughters? Officially, formally, legally?
He looks like she feels – smiling and light.
They settle around the kitchen table – the new one they'd picked out together – with dinner, and he tells her about everyone he met at work and she tells him about the case that came in, both of them beaming like idiots at each other the whole meal.
She gives the girls a bath, while he cleans up dinner, and she doesn't see him again for twenty minutes, when he returns with Jesse tucked sideways under his arm, like a plank of wood, wet hair dangling out from underneath the hood of her unicorn towel, as she giggles up at him.
"This one escaped while you were getting Billie dressed," Sonny says.
"We had a fugitive? Well done on the capture, Detective," Amanda says, snapping off a mock salute at Sonny, as he sets Jesse on her feet in front of Amanda.
"Uncle Sonny's a counselor now," Jesse says, the word enunciated more clearly than Amanda's heard her say it to date – Carisi must've been working on it with her.
"That's right, sweetheart," Amanda says, toweling Jesse's hair off.
Uncle Sonny was actually going to get another name change tonight, now that the adoption was final.
He was gonna become – Dad. Or maybe…Daddy.
(She was having a hard time calling him that – with the silver hair, and the accent, and the sexy way his voice rumbled when he was tired, especially when he was tired and frustrated, it was actually maybe too easy to think of him as – no, yeah, better – better for Amanda to just call him Dad.
Less, uh, less confusing for everyone that way.)
Whether it was superstition or something else, they'd mutually agreed to wait to tell Jesse until everything was final.
Amanda had told Billie ages ago, whispering in her tiny ear to save the poopy diapers for her dad, to give her dad a break, he'd had a long day, that she knows she misses her dad, but he was at work, and crying wasn't going to get him home faster.
But tonight, she was actually gonna say it out loud, and, if things went like Amanda thought they were going to, so was Jesse.
Sonny scoops up Billie from where she's lying in her crib, watching her mobile, and Amanda finishes getting Jesse changed.
When they get back to the living room, Billie's already dozing in her swing.
(It's a Carisi family hand-me-down that Sonny had deposited in their living room after a trip out to Staten Island one Sunday – it's nicer than any baby gear Amanda's ever bought new and Billie is obsessed with it.)
Sonny's seated back at the kitchen table, three coffee mugs in front of him.
Jesse makes a beeline for him, clambering into the seat opposite him and peering into the cup, as Amanda slips into the seat closest to Carisi.
"Is this hot chocolate?" Jesse says.
"It is, yeah," Sonny says, the corners of his eyes crinkling, as he smiles at her. "When I was little, my dad used to make me hot chocolate when we had a grown up talk, so I could pretend it was coffee. I made you this mug of hot chocolate because your mom and I would like to have a grown up talk with you – is that okay?"
Jesse nods, index finger extended and lip bit in concentration, as she counts the number of marshmallows dotting the liquid's surface.
"There are nine marshmallows, so you get to talk for nine hours," Jesse says, confidently.
Amanda and Sonny glance at each other with a grin, Jesse's concept of a time is a new favorite source of entertainment.
The other day she'd told Amanda she'd be done watching Bluey in "ten minutes or four days," and she and Sonny have begun using it as an estimate of time.
She's already fixing to tell Carisi she'll have his DD5s in "ten minutes or four days" the first time he asks.
"Thank you," Sonny says, kindly. "Not sure this'll take that long, but it's good to know we have the time."
Jesse nods in agreement and scoots her mug closer on the table, slurping a sip.
"It's not too hot, is it?" Sonny says.
"No," she says, wiping the chocolate mustache from her lip with the back of her hand. "What'd'you wanna talk about?
Amanda takes a sip from her own mug – she can't remember the last time someone made her a mug of hot chocolate with marshmallows. It's must've been, like, decades.
And she can't think of a single person in her life more likely to have broken the streak than Sonny.
"Listen, Jess, you know how I live here now?" Sonny says.
"This is about where you live?" Jesse says, and Amanda has to bite her lip to keep from laughing.
"Not quite," Sonny says, patiently. "I live here now because I was – I was hoping to be your dad."
Jesse's hands freeze where they'd begun to reach for her mug, and she looks at Sonny with big, wide eyes, an expression she then turns loose on Amanda, and then back to Sonny.
"You're gonna be my daddy?"
"If that's okay with you," he says, like he hadn't brought home a piece of paper making that a legal certainty.
"It's okay with me," Jesse rushes out, like she's afraid he'll take it back if she hesitates.
Then, she glances down into her hot chocolate, like she's thinking deeply, for a moment.
"I do have one question," Jesse says, glancing back and forth between Amanda and Sonny.
"Of course, kiddo," Sonny says, at the same time Amanda says, "What is it, sweetheart?"
"Will you be Billie's daddy, too?" Jesse says, and Amanda feels her heart swell. "She wants that, she told me."
"Oh, she did, did she?" Sonny says. "Well, in that case, I couldn't possibly say no."
He's being light and gentle with Jesse, but Amanda can hear the emotion underneath his words, can see the way he's watching Jesse so closely, like he's trying to memorize this moment.
She knows, because she's feeling the same things, is trying to get it all down the same way.
Jesse nods, satisfied, and then the gravity of the situation seems to hit her all at once, her eyes welling with tears as her lip quivers, and though Amanda's closer, Sonny beats her to kneeling beside Jesse's chair.
"Hey, hey," Sonny soothes, gathering Jesse up in his arms, as she slips off the chair toward him. "It's okay."
"I'm happy," Jesse says, pressing her face against Sonny's neck. "But the tears won't listen, they won't stop."
"That's normal, honey," Amanda says, shifting to pet her hand down the back of Jesse's hair, "Big emotions need somewhere to go – even happy ones."
They breathe in silence together for a few moments, letting Jesse calm herself down, until she moves to pull back from Sonny, dropping a kiss on his cheek.
"Thanks, Daddy. I gotta go tell Bun-Bun," Jesse says excitedly, darting down the hallway toward her room with a kind of on-to-the-next-ness Amanda misses about being a kid.
Sonny rises from his crouch slowly, shifting to walk back to his chair.
He drags his hand lightly along Amanda's shoulders as he passes behind her, lingering on the one the bullet had grazed what felt like a lifetime ago now, and she reaches up to place her hand over his, squeezing lightly.
Sonny glances down at her with his whole heart in his face and she just – she wants to stand up and kiss him.
She pushes back from the table without telling herself to do it, his hand dropping from her shoulder, as she moves to stand in front of him instead.
When she catches his eye, it's like he's been waiting for it, for permission, the way his entire body seems to go slack, and then he's bundling her into a tight hug.
She can feel the emotion racing through him, he's clinging to her like he's a little overwhelmed, his larger frame trying to fold itself into her smaller one.
She lets him get his fill, keeping her arms wrapped around him, fingers scratching through the hair at the back of his neck.
When he finally pulls back, he keeps his arms wrapped loosely around her, staring down at her, open and sincere.
"Congratulations," she says. "You're a dad."
In response, he glances at her for a moment, like he's thinking about something – about her.
Then he lowers his head, and kisses her.
It's gentle, testing the waters, and he pulls back to see the results.
But she – she's all out of restraint, and she tips her head up further, pressing her lips against his.
He makes a quiet, pleased sound and kisses her back, mouth working softly against hers. His hand moves to cup her face, the other wrapping around her waist, his fingers stretching across her lower back and anchoring her to him.
She combs her fingers through the hair at the back of his neck again, an echo of the way she'd comforted him just a few moments ago, but now she uses the grip to tilt his head slightly, angling it, as she swipes her tongue against his bottom lip.
He tugs her closer, their hips pressed together as his mouth opens, and then his tongue is slipping by hers, hot and wet and in her mouth.
Carisi's tongue is in her mouth.
She rocks up further on her toes, trying to get closer to him, as he kisses her like she knew he had in him – the way where she feels it everywhere.
His hand is dipping lower on her back, edging to the top of her ass, both of them making quiet, hungry noises she feels between her legs in the gaps of the kiss.
Down the hall, a door opens, and she pulls back from Sonny in surprise, as he does the same.
"Bun-Bun is so excited," Jesse says, her voice getting closer, and then retreating. "Wait, I forgot, she wants to give you a hug, too."
Sonny's eyes glance at the hall Jesse would be coming from, and then back to Amanda.
He's panting lightly through kiss-pink lips, and she could swear from the look in his eye – he looks like he just wants to say fuck it, and lay her out on their jointly-selected kitchen table.
She knows the feeling – she's staring at his mouth, and is unable to stop herself from licking her lips.
She has to force herself to look away, eyes shifting to his chest instead, the small, red splotch on the fabric that covers it.
"You've got sauce on your shirt," she says, surprised at how low her own voice sounds.
He blinks at her in silence for a second, before looking down at his shirt, and then at hers, squinting.
"So do you," he says, raising his hand to drag his index finger down the speckled trail of red sauce leading from just below her belly button to the untucked tail of her shirt.
It's a dangerous place for his finger to be.
"Seems like things maybe got a little messy," she says, catching sight of Jesse coming around the corner, Bun-Bun in hand.
"Yeah," Sonny says, and she can't decipher his tone.
"Messy."
&&.