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He shouldn’t have even been there.
That was the thought rattling through Amanda’s head in the cold, quiet of the too-white corridor. There was a sharp pain in her head as it connected with the wall behind her but it was quickly dulled like everything else, a thousand and one things she needed to do screaming at her from behind a cloud that was just he shouldn’t have even been there.
There was still blood seeped into the beds of her fingernails, lingering in the creases and joints of her hands. She’d changed out of her bloodied shirt and jacket a while ago; Velasco had grabbed the hoodie that was slung in her locker and he hadn’t realised it was Sonny’s until she’d told him. She’d taken it with a shaking hand, running her fingers over the fabric that still carried faint traces of Sonny’s cologne, and when she’d pulled it over her head she’d closed her eyes just long enough to imagine him there with her.
But he wasn’t.
She was slumped over, her arms resting on her knees as she held back from crying and fought for the breath she so desperately needed, breaths that seemed pointless in this new vision, where behind the blur of unshed tears there was only an expanse of empty hospital corridor and no blue eyes looking down at her, no soft small to hide his worry.
He shouldn’t have even been there.
He was supposed to meet at her at home - at her place, where he had a key and a drawer full of his clothes, where there was a fourth toothbrush in the holder on the sink and his shoes on the rack by the door - but he’d waited for her. He was standing outside 1 Police Plaza when she walked through the door having finished giving a statement about their latest case; Velasco had fired his weapon, it was a good shoot, the red tape that came after just a formality, a thorn in the side of her plans for an early finish.
When he’d seen her coming a smile had crossed his face, one that danced in the corners of his eyes for only the briefest handful of seconds before it was replaced by something else, and instead of reaching for her hand he was diving in front of her.
The voice calling her name wasn’t the one that would whisper in her ear, wasn’t the one that would fill the silences in her apartment with endless conversation, wasn’t the soft, gentle tone that read her daughters to sleep at night. It was familiar, but it wasn’t home.
“Amanda?” Liv said - repeated, really, because Amanda could tell she’d been trying to get her attention for a while. She lifted her head, meeting Liv’s eyes and only finding questions there. There was fear in her voice, thinly masked, but so obvious to Amanda, “How is he?”
Liv was afraid of the answer; so was Fin, lurking at the end of the corridor, hands in his pockets as he tried and failed to look unconcerned.
Amanda shrugged, “Still breathing, last I heard.”
If Liv was shocked by the way Amanda answered she didn’t comment - Amanda could hear how hollow her voice sounded, how the distance between her and Carisi and the aching, torn up, mess of her heart must have looked. But it was all she could say, all she could do, because the alternative was breaking down and she couldn’t do that right now.
She was angry with him. He could have died. And she was angry about it.
Liv held out a hand that Amanda didn’t take as she pushed off the wall and forced herself to her feet. There was a conversation happening around her, one she thought she was meant to be a part of, but the words floated past her without her hearing them, a buzz just beyond her ears.
Liv’s hand was firm on her shoulder, “Come on,” she said, breaking through the cloud around Amanda’s head. She steered her back towards the waiting room, half-guiding, half-forcing her into a chair, “Tell me what the doctor said.”
Beneath her rage Amanda tried to remember what they had told her; she’d followed him out of the ambulance, her clothes soaked in his blood, and his hand had been wrenched from hers at the speed they’d steered the gurney with. A nurse had stopped her at a set of double doors, they’d swung back into place right in front of her and Amanda’s breath had caught in her throat, her chest tight with worry, and she’d tried to push past, had pulled out her badge, her blood-stained fingerprints marring the shield.
She’d been angry, at the EMTs, and the nurse, and the surgeon. And most of all at him.
“They need to find the bullet,” the nurse had said. Amanda repeated those words to Liv as her arm curled around her shoulder.
She must have already said that. She’d stood in the hallway feeling impotent, the man she loved had been taken from her and there was nothing she could do but call Liv and try not sob down the line. She’d already known - of course she had - and was driving across the city, trying to find out what had happened.
The next twenty minutes had been a blur. Liv had gotten to the hospital first; shock and confusion and and an apology on her face she knew better than to voice. She’d asked questions that Amanda couldn’t answer and she’d held her hand until her breathing had regulated. She’d paced. She’d made phone calls.
Fin and Velasco had arrived soon after, the same thunderstruck looks on their faces. Amanda had been too afraid to meet Fin’s eyes, not sure what she’d find there - history, recognition, loss.
The waiting room could have been filled with people but Amanda couldn’t see anyone but her squad, feeling empty and hollow.
Velasco had held out the hoodie with a tentative hand, and though he murmured some half-baked explanation Amanda knew it had been Liv’s suggestion, knew one of her phone calls would have been to the two of them.
“This is Carisi’s,” she had whispered, fingers curling around the fabric. Velasco had hesitated, words sticking in his throat.
Amanda had taken the hoodie and walked away, into a bathroom, and then she’d breathed in the scent of Sonny’s cologne and her hands had begun to shake, her throat tight and her stomach in knots.
Liv had knocked on the door after a moment or two. Taken Amanda’s bloodied clothes and offered up empty reassurances.
“I’m going to make some calls,” Liv had said, but Amanda didn’t know who she had called or why. She had sat between Velasco and Fin in the most agonising silence until Fin stood up too, taking a call of his own.
Walking away hadn’t even been a conscious decision Amanda had made - she’d just gotten to her feet and moved away from it all - the bright lights, sympathetic faces, vacant hope.
She’d slumped to the floor in a pool of her own anger and pain.
Amanda wasn’t sure who she was angrier at - Sonny, or herself.
Of all the fears she had had about disclosing, all the possible outcomes and disasters she’d envisioned, this hadn’t been one of them. She’d been afraid of losing Sonny once other voices weighed in, of the pressure they’d face, afraid she’d have to leave her job, lose the people she loved differently than she loved him, but who were no less important to her.
She’d never imagined disclosing their relationship would lead to this - to Amanda on the steps of 1 Police Plaza with Sonny’s head against the hard concrete and his body half draped over hers as she frantically tried to stop the bleeding, yelling for help, yelling for a bus - yelling until her voice was hoarse and her shouts had turned to sobs.
That one thought running through her head over and over and over. He shouldn’t have even been there.
Falling apart wasn’t an option. It had never been an option for Amanda Rollins - there was always someone else to pick up, always wounds to bandage and bruises to hide. Sat back in the waiting room after the closest she could come breaking down Amanda rebuilt a shaky version of herself - a version who could do what needed to be done.
Once her breath had evened out she turned to Liv, “Tell me what you know.”
The reluctance in Liv’s eyes was overridden by Amanda’s own, steeled expression. “Lone gunman. Two shots; both hit Carisi,” she grimaced. “McGrath has people on it, looking through potential suspects. SVU is officially off the case but I’ve reached out to some people. Fin is chasing down leads.”
“They weren’t aiming for him,” Amanda said.
Liv nodded, “I’ve seen the footage.”
“Why would he-”
The look Liv fixed Amanda with was uncompromising, full of all the things Amanda hadn’t admitted out loud until very recently.
Amanda sighed, “I need to call his mom.”
Dread filled her at the thought - she’d met Sonny’s mother only twice and had never dialled the number Serafina Carisi had insisted she save in her phone for emergencies. Amanda was pretty sure this wasn’t the kind of emergency she’d had in mind.
Liv held up a hand, “It’s taken care of. And I spoke with your nanny; she’ll stay with the girls tonight.”
Amanda glanced over her shoulder, back towards the doors, half expecting Sonny’s parents to materialise. She stared down at her hands, the deep red encrusting her fingernails. She could still feel the warm liquid as it pooled under her hands, hear the gasping breaths Sonny had let out before he stopped moving altogether.
The seconds were interminable.
Surgery to remove two bullets, quell the bleeding, stitch up the holes hot metal had torn through Sonny’s body - it wasn’t a quick process. Amanda breathed. In. He should have just gone straight home. Out. He’d looked so happy to see her. In. He was supposed to be stirring spaghetti sauce with Jesse right now. Out. Her heart had jumped a little in her chest when she’d caught sight of him. In. She longed for his voice in her ears. Out. For the way his fingers would press against her skin as he held her close. In. She couldn’t exist in a world without his Sunday morning smile. Out. She couldn’t exist in a world without him.
It wasn’t calming.
There was a flurry of movement, the surgeon approaching her, a weary look in his eye. Fear freezing Amanda in place.
A gentle smile, reassuring or sympathetic, she couldn’t tell.
Words she could barely process - bullets and organs and blood loss and pain - until, at the end, “We’re hopeful he’ll make a full recovery.”
“He’s alive?” Amanda heard herself say - heard the disbelief in her tone, the uncertainty fringing the hope.
The surgeon nodded, “He’s still sedated but you can see him.”
Amanda could hear his voice, almost a year ago now, reading her a speech that was less about the wedding he was officiating and more about them - you fight, then you make up - every word for them and true, but the phrase that’s lingering now is the one she’d hoped they’d never actually see - if you had to, you’d take a bullet for each other.
“Stupid,” she muttered, looking over at him, “Why did you have to-”
But she knew the answer. The same way she had known when she’d said it to Liv.
She crossed the room carefully, hesitant to break the spell of his restful sleep. He looked calm, the same kind of relaxation she’d watched on his face on countless mornings over the past nine months.
Amanda knew it was the morphine; knew from experience the pain that was coming when that wore off.
So despite the anger that was rising up again now that she could see him she didn’t yell into the quiet of the room, didn’t scream at him about being irresponsible, taking risks.
She slid into a chair at his bedside and reached for his hand, careful not to disturb the cannula embedded there.
Her thumb traced the back of his hand and grief and rage mellowed out into relief. Relief that he was here beside her, that his skin was warm beneath her touch and his chest rose and fell with every breath, relief that the thoughts she’d had about what she would have to tell the two little girls waiting for their daddy to come home wouldn’t come to fruition, relief that he would wake up when the anaesthesia wore off and she would be able to tell him everything on her mind - the withheld words rising above the harsh words she was ready to throw at him, so that once she’d asked him what the hell he’d been thinking she could then tell him what it meant to have someone in her life who was willing to risk it all for her.
Everything was still and quiet, the noise that had flooded Amanda’s head since the second Sonny had frozen in front of her, rendered immobile by the shock of the bullet tearing through his skin, faded into nothingness. She couldn’t hear noise from the corridor outside and she barely registered the steady beeping of the machines Sonny was hooked up to. The world had narrowed to her hand and his, to this moment of calm before everything came flooding back.
In another world she would have sat quietly, serenely, holding his hand until his eyes fluttered open and he smiled softly at her, everything forgotten but their love for one another.
But Amanda Rollins didn’t live in that kind of world.
Her time alone with Sonny was interrupted soon enough; the door opened and the sound of his mother’s gasp drew Amanda’s focus away from Sonny for just a second. Serafina hurried across the room, and for all that she had teased her son in Amanda’s presence, in this moment everything about her softened. She took Sonny’s free hand and gripped it tight in her own, looking down at him with eyes already brimming with tears as Dominick Sr followed to stand by her side.
Guilt joined the array of emotions Amanda had been warring with - as angry as she was that Sonny had put himself in the way of that bullet, it was drowned out now by the guilt of knowing that if things were different she would be the one in the hospital bed and Mr and Mrs Carisi wouldn’t be looking down at their son with the grief of all that could have been shrouding them both.
It was that thought that her standing up, releasing Sonny’s hand with reluctance, “I’ll let you have a minute,” she said hurriedly, and she wasn’t prepared for the way Serafina’s gaze made her feel.
Sonny looked like his dad; it was the first thing Amanda had thought when she met Dominick Sr, but the expression on Serafina’s face was all Sonny - one he’d give her in the past whenever he thought she was being too hard on herself. “He’ll want you here,” was all Serafina said, but there was a layer beneath it - an understanding passing between them - a mother who knew her son’s heart and knew that the boy she’d raised was a man who cared a little too much, who protected with all that he was, and who was never not going to try to take that bullet, and the woman he loved who would have done the same if their roles were reversed.
There wasn’t an uncomfortable silence that followed, the two of them each holding one of Sonny’s hands for an interminable wait. There was Liv checking in, squeezing Amanda’s shoulder gently. There was McGrath barrelling in like anyone wanted him there, making a show of checking on the ADA shot right outside the NYPD headquarters - the media must have been all over this, and McGrath liked his moments in the limelight.
Amanda had to leave to give a statement, to check in on the girls, to drink lukewarm hospital coffee that Fin pressed into her hand in lieu of conversation, to talk to yet another detective, giving the same statement again and again until she’d snapped, a glimmer of her emotions sparking to the surface, only held back from growing into full rage by a voice calling out to her, “He’s awake.”
Everything narrowed again.
She turned on her heel, walking back down the corridor without sparing another glance to the detective.
And there he was - groggy, pupils blown, skin pale - awake, propped up against his pillows, and daring to smile at her.
“You shouldn’t have even been there,” Amanda said, the words that had been crammed into the back of her mouth all night spilling from her lips unbidden, choked out behind the sob she was holding in.
Sonny shook his head, still smiling dopily, the after effects of the pain killers he was dosed up on, and said, “I’m glad I was,” in a tone far too cheerful.
It broke her.
The smile dropped away and Sonny’s parents didn’t hesitate to give them the room, not that Amanda noticed them leaving. Amanda’s hands shook as they wrapped around Sonny’s fingers, feeling the life there beneath his skin as his pulse beat steadily, and Sonny whispered soothing words whilst she lectured him, everything she’d held back until she was crying, tears no longer withheld, and she wiped angrily at her eyes with the back of her left hand, her right still gripping Sonny’s, “Never do that again,” she said at last, finishing with the fear and loss overtaking all else.
“I’m not makin’ any promises,” Sonny said.
She wanted to say more, to tell him her fears that disclosing their relationship was the root cause of all this, unlikely though it was, but Sonny knew her, even buzzed on morphine he could fix her with sobering expression, his blue eyes shining, and he could find those deepest thoughts and shake them from her, “Whatever you’re thinkin’, you’re wrong,” he said, “And you’re here, holding my hand, not having to pretend we’re anything other than what we are.”
He was right, of course. All the what ifs and maybes and could have beens wouldn’t have guaranteed that the bullet didn’t find Sonny some other time, and going through all of this whilst pretending would have torn her apart. She wouldn’t have been able to hide and everything would have come out at a time when she was already barely holding herself together.
“I’m not losing you, Sonny Carisi,” she told him firmly, and there was more - but there was a knock at the door. There were detectives and doctors and nurses and so, so many Carisis.
So those words would have to wait.
But they had a whole future ahead of them; it wasn’t cut short, they still had time.
And maybe, despite the anguish of the day, Sonny had been exactly where he was meant to be - at her side, where he’d promised to be.