Chapter Text
It doesn’t hurt right away after he’s gone from the squad room to the DA’s office. She sits behind her desk, as usual, those first days and looks over at the desk where he used to sit, clean and sterile, and tries to imagine that it is so because he is only on vacation.
But then they go over there and it’s not Stone that welcomes them in the fancy meeting room, it’s Carisi meeting them, but it’s also not him. It’s not her partner anymore, the confident detective she knows, but an insecure new prosecutor that wants to be handed the case on a silver platter.
His detective skills make a progress with the Sir Toby investigation, and he keeps the word he gave her that they’d still hang out outside of work. It’s different, though, she hasn’t gotten used to the change yet — she can’t just get up from her desk and proclaim she’s going home, see him do the same and join her for an impromptu spaghetti night with the girls.
He shows her she can still rely on him at Billie’s christening.
It’s why it hurts so much on the following Saturday when he doubts the witness’s identification of the driver; she’s been up for almost 18 hours when Kat jinxed them and the phones rang off the wall the night before, three cases coming in at once. Carisi shows up in a three-piece suit and him doubting the girl’s story and complaining about his boss is the last blow in her composure already cracked by the parents undermining her capabilities as a detective.
Exhaustion takes over and the words are slipping from her tongue, “You made that bed, you can lie in it.”