Work Text:
i.
Amanda had been half-joking when she’d suggested Carisi come over and ferberise Jesse, but he’d shown up at her apartment a couple days later, determination in his eyes.
Determination that had lasted all of about four minutes before he crumbled and lifted Jesse from her crib, bouncing her gently as he made soothing noises. Amanda leaned in the doorway of her bedroom, a slightly smug smile on her face at Carisi proving himself wrong. It softened a little as she watched them, into one of affection - there was something about seeing him with Jesse that warmed Amanda; probably some sort of biological imperative, something primal to do with ensuring your offspring have a male figure to protect them from the world - internal programming to stop mothers murdering their baby’s fathers for being just a little irritating in the aftermath of the birth. She tried her best to ignore the feeling, the way it was softening her more towards him - they were friends, only friends and only recently, really. There was no time for her hormones to get her tangled up on anything else.
Jesse settled against Carisi’s shoulder and he gently rested his head against hers, pressing a soft kiss to her crown that had Amanda’s heart going again.
“So ferberising’s out,” Amanda said.
Carisi shook his head, “I won’t cave again.”
“You will,” she smiled, “Go on, go home.”
He walked towards Amanda with Jesse in his arms, slipping past her and walking back out to the living room, where he gently lay Jesse in her moses basket, “I’ll stay,” he insisted, “You go get some sleep, and I’ll keep an eye on Jesse.”
“You need sleep too,” Amanda countered, “You’re the one actually working.”
“You got a couch,” he said, “And I brought my toothbrush.”
Amanda shook her head at him, but she knew she’d be mad to turn down his offer - there was no way he was going to go through with anything close to letting Jesse cry it out, and that could mean a few hours of uninterrupted sleep for Amanda. “Fine, there’s formula in the-”
“I got this,” Carisi insisted, “Go to bed.”
Amanda slept a blissful four hours, but the apartment was too quiet when she awoke, and though Jesse had only been in Amanda’s life a short time, her absence in the crib beside the bed had something uneasy bubbling inside her. Amanda slipped from her bed, padding towards the living room, half expecting to find Carisi pacing the room with her baby girl.
He wasn’t, but he clearly had abandoned any attempt at ferberising Jesse yet again, because he was leaning back on her couch, feet resting on the coffee table and Jesse sound asleep on his chest. Amanda stood watching them for a few minutes, the way Carisi’s fingers were splayed over Jesse’s back, his hand covering the width of her body protectively even as he slept, and the way Jesse’s face rested softly against the fabric of Carisi’s t-shirt, her tiny nose scrunched up as she slept.
She could’ve stood there all night just watching the two of them, but she knew that the chance of a few more hours of sleep was a gift, one Carisi had willingly and nonchalantly given, and so when she eventually tore herself away from the sight she crept back into her bedroom, knowing Jesse was safe and content.
ii.
In the weeks since Carisi had left the department, defecting to the DA’s office - Amanda knew that wasn’t what the move was about but it still stung whenever she thought about it - he hadn’t been over all that much. Amanda got it; he was busier than he’d ever been, more stressed that she had ever seen him, and she hadn’t exactly been offering up invitations, or given him any indication that he’d get a warm welcome if he showed up at her door.
He did show up eventually, though, a couple of days after she had blown up at him in the squad room - he’d given it enough time for the dust to settle and for them to move on from the argument, to pretend she didn’t wave her heart in front of his face with the words she spewed out, worn down by stress and emotion and a severe lack of sleep. They had been texting back and forth, the way they used to do, back when they were still partners and Amanda didn’t look to her side and find Fin or Kat where Carisi should have been.
As it turned out, he got a very warm welcome when he knocked on her door, Amanda had barely gotten the words, “Carisi, hi,” out of her mouth before Billie was halfway out of Amanda’s arms and into her godfather’s. Jesse’s feet thundered down the hallway at the sound of Carisi’s voice, and he soon had a child in each arm, Jesse talking his ear off while Billie rested her head against his shoulder in a way that made Amanda’s thoughts and heart go down a road she’d been trying to avoid ever since she stared down at the two lines on each of the three pregnancy tests she’d taken.
Carisi offered to cook, but there was tiredness set deep into his expression, and Amanda wondered how much sleep he’d had since their marathon shift over the weekend; she was willing to bet it was less than her, and that was saying something. Instead, Amanda ordered pizza while Carisi settled down in the living room with the girls.
Amanda left them to play - Jesse and Billie had missed their Uncle Sonny, and there would be time for them to talk and catch up on one the many shows filling her DVR once the girls had gone to bed. While she waited for the pizza to be delivered, Amanda took advantage of the girls’ distraction to get some laundry done and tidy up some of the chaos her apartment seemed to live in between her days off.
When the pizza arrived, Amanda called out to Carisi to ask if he could grab some plates, but when she got back to the living room he hadn’t moved from the couch. Jesse was sat on the floor, legs crossed under her as she looked up at Amanda with a finger pressed to her lips, “Sssh,” she said in a whisper no one could describe as quiet, “They’re sleeping.”
Amanda looked away from Jesse and up at the couch; Jesse wasn’t exaggerating, Carisi was stretched out onto the couch, still in his work suit, his loosened tie the only sign of relaxation other than his closed eyes, and the way the lines on his face had smoothed out as he slept. Billie’s head was tucked into the crook of his neck, her mouth slightly open in a mirror of the expression on Carisi’s face. Amanda placed the pizza boxes on the coffee table and reached out to smooth Billie’s fine hair away from her forehead, careful not to disturb Carisi. Her hand almost moved to Carisi’s hair, the instinct to brush back the strands that had dropped onto his forehead was difficult to resist, and her finger hovered just inches away for a beat before she drew back.
She plated up pizza for Jesse and the two of them squeezed onto the arm chair together, letting Carisi get the rest he so obviously needed. Amanda’s eyes drifted periodically over to him, and as he and Billie began snoring softly at almost the same moment, Amanda shared an amused grin with Jesse, her arm around her eldest daughter as her thoughts once again drifted to could have beens. She looked from her children to her former partner and sighed contentedly; Carisi might wake up with a crick in his neck, and Billie would be cranky having had a nap this close to bedtime, but she would enjoy this moment while they were in it, where everything felt warm and right after weeks of feeling that something was missing.
iii.
When Amanda finally got home in the early hours of New Year’s Day the apartment was quiet but for the faint hum of the television, volume turned down low. Sonny was exactly where she’d left him, but the blanket that she’d had draped over herself while she curled into him earlier in the night was now covering Jesse where she lay sprawled in the space Amanda had left behind. Her head was resting on a pillow in Sonny’s lap, she had one arm thrown across her face as though she were trying to block out the light, and he had one hand tangled in her hair, as though frozen in a moment of soothing her. Sonny’s own head had dropped against the back of the couch at an angle that he would probably regret in the morning.
Amanda took a moment to watch them, thinking back five years to Sonny asleep on a different couch in a different apartment, Jesse still so small he could support her with one hand. A lot had changed since then; her baby wasn’t really a baby anymore - she was a kindergartener with a cheeky smile and smart mouth - and Sonny wasn’t just her friend anymore. They hadn’t defined anything, hadn’t kissed or shared the words that she knew she should say to him, but Amanda knew that things between them were not as simple or as removed as they had been back then. She didn’t have post-pregnancy hormones to blame for the way her heart fluttered at the sight of him taking care of her baby girl, and just hours ago she had woken with her head pressed against the fabric of the sweater that was now bunched up at the bottom, leaving a small patch of his skin exposed, and it hadn’t felt awkward or inappropriate, she hadn’t felt the need to jerk away from him; if the Amber alert hadn’t come in she might well have stayed there, could have rung in the New Year warmed by his body against hers.
She was reluctant to wake them, and there was a part of her that wanted to sit down in the armchair and drift off to sleep watching two-thirds of her world lying together deep in a comfortable slumber. She almost let herself, but then Jesse let out a huff of air in her sleep and rolled over onto her side, narrowly missing elbowing Sonny in the face as her arm followed her body.
Amanda crouched down beside them; she’d carried Jesse from the couch to her bed dozens of times, and there would only be so many more chances like this, to hold her sleeping baby, before she got too big to carry, and too old to let her. She tried to ease Jesse out Sonny’s embrace as gently as she could, but he let out a murmur of protest as his hand slipped from Jesse’s head. “Ssh,” Amanda whispered, “It’s just me.”
“Rollins?” Sonny mumbled, his eyes inching open as Amanda stood, cradling Jesse in her arms. “S’goin’ on?”
“Go back to sleep,” Amanda said, giving him a soft smile. The urge to reach out to him was tempered only by the child in her arms, “Happy New Year, Dominick.”
iv.
Amanda leaned back in her desk chair rolled her eyes at the message her mother had just sent her, asking for a recent photo of Jesse and Billie that she could show Kim when she went to visit her later in the week. Amanda had already shared her thoughts on that - that Kim had a better chance of making progress without their mom fussing over her like she was still a little kid and not a mother who needed to get her head on straight for her son - but she unlocked her phone to find some pictures to send anyway.
The first picture in her album was of Sonny and the girls. She’d taken it last weekend - at 2am when she got back after a long night chasing down a perp who’d left a teenage girl for dead in the park - she’d gotten home exhausted, ready to crawl into bed beside Sonny and pass out, only to find that her spot had already been occupied. Sonny had shifted to the middle of the mattress, Jesse curled into his side, her stuffed giraffe wedged between the two of them, and on his other side was Billie, lying width-ways, taking up more room than anyone her size had any right to, her head resting on Sonny’s stomach and her little feet just hanging off the edge of the bed. She’d snapped a quick picture before resigning herself to sleeping in Jesse’s twin bed, only for Sonny to blink awake. “Hey,” he’d said looking up at her through bleary eyes.
“Hi,” Amanda had leaned carefully over Jesse to press a brief kiss to his lips, “What happened to ’em sleeping in their own beds?”
“Jess had a bad dream, and,” he’d stifled a yawn, “An’ then Billie woke up lookin’ for you, so I said they could hang out in here,” he sat up slowly, careful not to wake Billie as he resettled her on the mattress. “I was gonna move them back, I guess I fell asleep.”
Amanda had given him an affectionate smile - she couldn’t pretend that she hadn’t enjoyed the sight - tired as she was, there was still something deep within her that melted a little seeing him like this with her girls - not that she’d ever admit that out loud, of course.
He had carried Jesse to the girls’ room while Amanda had followed with Billie, and once they’d returned to Amanda’s bed, she’d taken full advantage of the fact that she was allowed to wrap herself around him these days; in the past two months she had slept more nights at Sonny’s side than without him, and the novelty was yet to wear off.
She smiled at the photo in her camera roll then swiped to the next picture; that particular image was for her to find light in on long days, it wasn’t one to share with the world, or her mother.
v.
Amanda let herself into their apartment a little after 9pm; she’d expected to find the girls in bed, Sonny at the dining table catching up on paperwork while he waited for her to get home, and she headed straight towards the kitchen to greet him, but when she passed the living room door the light from the television illuminated two figures on the couch, catching her eye, and she stepped backwards to investigate.
She walked through the door and stopped in her tracks, her heart tightening at the sight before her; Sonny was stretched out on the couch, his head dropped back against the cushions; lying on top of him, moving with the rise and fall of his chest, was Billie - she was curled up, her head wedged between his neck and shoulder; he had one arm curled around her protectively, the other hanging off the couch and trailing along the rug.
Sights like this one never got old - not even after almost a whole year of openly loving this man, eight months officially living together, and six and a half years of finding him asleep with one or both of her daughters nestled up against him. These days, though, she didn’t have to resist the urge to reach out and card her fingers through his hair, gently waking him with her touch.
“You’re home,” he said, smiling up at her as he opened his eyes. He leaned into her touch even as she drew her hand back, “I didn’t mean to fall asleep," he began, launching into an explanation without her asking, "Billie was a bit clingy tonight, she didn’t wanna go down.”
“Billie’s always clingy with you,” Amanda said, no heat to it - Billie followed Sonny around the apartment like she was his shadow. Jesse and Sonny had a very close relationship, one that was borne of activity and excitement, and Jesse picking up Sonny’s mannerisms to the point where grandmothers at the playground would tell Amanda how much her little girl looked like her dad, but with Billie it was subtler; she was curious, always, about what he was doing, where he was going; she’d look up at him with wide eyes and ask questions varying from, “Why are there clouds?” to “Will you love Momma forever?” Amanda was sure the endless queries were just because Billie enjoyed listening to him; she’d been settled and soothed by the timbre of his voice since she was just a tiny baby, and she’d cling to him now, listening with rapt attention to the answers he’d give her.
"Not always," Sonny said as he shifted Billie and stood up with her in his arms, her head lolling against his shoulder as Amanda followed him down the hallway to Billie’s bedroom.
“What was tonight’s big question?” Amanda asked as Sonny lay Billie gently on the bed, tucking her comforter up around her. There was always a question that eked out bedtime a little longer, often the culprit of Billie falling asleep anywhere but her own bed.
“Uh,” Sonny said, a little hesitation in his tone. He backed out of Billie’s bedroom, flicking the night light on, and waited until they’d closed the door behind them to continue, “It was a tough one.”
“Where do babies come from?” Amanda suggested.
Sonny shook his head, “No, uh,” he sighed, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand, and Amanda nodded towards the living room, leading the way to the couch and waiting for him to sink back into the cushions before she looked expectantly over at him.
He gave her a nervous smile, one that filled Amanda with apprehension as she waited for him to finds his words, “Billie asked why I wasn’t her real daddy.”
Amanda felt a cold guilt in the pit of her stomach as she clocked his uneasy expression; Billie wouldn’t have meant anything by it, but the reminder that someone else - someone mostly absent and undeserving of Billie’s love or thoughts - had fathered her would always sting a little, “Dominick-”
He held up a hand, “It’s fine,” the smile on his face grew more relaxed as he reached out an arm, silently asking her to slip into the empty space at his side, to let his hand rest on her arm as she leaned into him, “We talked it out, an' I told her it didn’t mean I loved her any less, and I guess we must’ve just… drifted off.”
“The two of you did look pretty cute all cuddled up here,” Amanda said, trying to lighten the leadlike feeling deep inside her.
Sonny smiled, pressing a kiss to Amanda’s hair, “You think so, huh?”
“Yeah,” Amanda admitted, tilting her head back for a proper kiss. When they broke apart she smiled up at him, “I’ve always loved it seeing you like that with them,” she confessed, the weight inside her lifting as his face filled with a warm smile that reached his eyes and shined there.
+i.
Sonny untied his shoes by the door and shrugged his suit jacket off, draping it over a chair as he crossed the hotel suite in search of Amanda. It was almost unsettlingly quiet after the chaos of the day and the noise of celebration from the bar downstairs. The bottle he’d collected before slipping up here was cold in his hand as he walked through to the bedroom, but instead of opening it, pouring the liquid out into the glasses he held by their stems in his other hand, and tasting the overpriced champagne from Amanda’s lips, he set the bottle and the glasses down on top of the dresser as he finally found his bride.
Amanda and the girls were all still in their dresses, three matching pairs of shoes were scattered at the foot of the bed, no doubt kicked off by their owners shortly before the excitement and exhaustion of the day had crept up on them. Amanda was leaning back against the pillows, eyes closed and her breathing even. Billie lay between Amanda and Jesse, her yellow flower girl dress crumpled beneath her and her mouth open, while Jesse snored softly where she lay with one arm draped over her little sister, the plaits Amanda had carefully put her hair into loose around her head, strands falling to her face.
Sonny was careful not to jostle the sleeping children as he climbed onto the bed, laying down at Jesse’s side and propping himself up on his elbow to watch the three of them; his whole world sleeping soundly together. He felt his own eyes start to droop closed as he studied them, their faces each an echo of the others, the way all three of them tilted their heads to one side in their sleep and spread their limbs out over whatever space the queen sized mattress allowed them to. He loosened his tie, tugging it off and leaving it on the nightstand before he gave up fighting his tiredness and lay his head down on the pillow beside him.
He was on the verge of sleep, hovering inches from dreams that could never match up to reality, when Amanda whispered his name, “Carisi.”
Sonny forced his eyes open and saw Amanda smiling over at him, reaching an arm across the girls so that with very little movement he could slot their fingers together, “Back at ya,” he said, the grin that had barely left his face since she’d said I do in a small ceremony earlier that day - just them, their girls, his parents, Liv, Noah, and Fin. They’d had a larger party here in the hotel, extended family and friends clamouring for their attention, and his smile had only widened as each person congratulated them.
“You’re not calling me Carisi,” Amanda said, smiling right back at him. She squeezed his fingers and nodded down at Jesse and Billie, “Not the most romantic wedding night.”
“There’s nowhere I’d rather be,” Sonny assured her, “An’ I don’t know about you, but I’m exhausted.”
Tomorrow the girls would go to spend the rest of the long weekend with Amanda’s parents, and she and Sonny would stay another night in this motel room and enjoyed the beginning of their married life, but for now, Sonny was content to fall asleep beside all of the girls he’d made his today - the marriage certificate and adoption papers signed minutes apart.
He made no attempt to pull away from Amanda’s grasp and they shared a long look before they gave in to the desire for sleep, drifting off entangled together; not for the first time, and definitely not for the last.