Work Text:
Sonny Carisi lay awake. Amanda was asleep in his arms, her head nestled in the hollow between his neck and shoulder, hand resting on his chest over his heart. The coconut scent of her shampoo wafted up from her hair; a scent now so familiar to him that every time he took a breath without sensing it he felt empty, as if the air around him was somehow … wrong.
He was tired – Delia Hackman’s case had been difficult for everyone involved – but he didn’t want to fall asleep yet. He wanted to enjoy this quiet time; the silence, the peace.
Amanda had told him she loved him, and she’d said it like he ought to have known already. And he had known. Amanda Rollins certainly wasn’t the kind of person to shout her feelings from the rooftops. She told people she cared about them by showing them, and she’d been showing him how she felt for a long time.
She had shown him that night by the Hudson. She’d softly spoken his name and he’d turned to her, smiling, ready as always to do whatever she asked, only to see her struggling to find the words to tell him what was on her mind. Instead, she’d kissed him – a soft, sweet, question of a kiss that had told him far more than anything she might have said.
She’d shown him again in his office, just a few days later, after asking him if he could take a break from preparing for the grand jury in the Howard case. The dazzling smile she’d given him, sheer happiness mixed with a touch of disbelief that she actually got to smile at him like that now, had spoken volumes.
The mingled joy and relief on her face after she’d disclosed their relationship to Liv. She had done that for him; he’d known it hadn’t been easy for her, but she had shown him just how committed she was to the two of them, together. She had kissed him there, in front of the courthouse, showing the world that he was hers and she was his.
Despite her own nerves, Amanda had effortlessly charmed his mother on meeting her for the first time. When he had jumped to her defence after his mother had started asking about whether the girls’ father was in the picture, Amanda had reached for his hand; soothing, silently telling him not to worry, that she had this. And then she’d eaten an entire plateful of sfingi. Serafina Carisi greatly approved of people who cleared their plate of her sfingi, even if they had to be … encouraged to begin the process.
The way Amanda’s hand lingered on his face when she kissed him, as if she needed as much of herself touching him as possible.
The pride he saw in her eyes every time she called him “Counselor”.
A gentle hand on his shoulder after he’d been attacked by Henry Mesner; worry in her eyes and a note of panic in her voice as she’d shouted for someone to call an ambulance.
The way she curved her body so naturally into his, whether on the couch watching TV, or in bed like they were now, automatically fitting herself to him without even realizing she was doing it.
The times she had let him see her at her most vulnerable: clinging to him in an elevator, unable to hold back tears after her ordeal with Bucci. In shock after receiving the call from Atlanta that had told her of her father’s illness, then scared and at her wits’ end waiting in a hospital for news about her father after his stroke. And only a few weeks after that, looking up at him, a courthouse pillar at her back, asking for reassurance about tomorrow – because she wasn’t used to men wanting to give that to her.
He thought back even further, and remembered a New Year’s Eve invitation. Remembered her in a sheer black shirt, perched on the edge of his desk … perhaps she’d been showing him she loved him for longer than he’d realized. Perhaps for longer than she realized.
He’d told her that the words were nice to hear, and she’d said them to him again once they’d got home, the phrase coming more easily to her now she’d said it out loud once. But he knew that even if he never heard her say the words again, he would always believe the truth of them, because Amanda Rollins showed him every day just how much she loved him without using any words at all.
“I love you,” he whispered. She stirred at the sound of his voice, but didn’t wake. Her fingers flexed on his chest, as though they were cradling his heart; protecting it. You make me so happy, he added silently, and followed her into sleep.