It's been a bitch of a case: couple on the brink of divorce, wife accuses the husband of rape, he doesn't deny; says she just wants to use this to get custody of the kids. He kinda has a point. Of course Barba won't go near it with a ten foot pole, which means Amanda and Carisi spend the better part of a day playing relationship councilors to the mister and missus, soothing egos and wrangling divorce lawyers and all kinds of other crap that has Amanda nursing one hell of a headache by noon. They finally get them calmed down around four, and by six, Liv is calling up Barba so he can negotiate up some kinda plea.

By that point, all Amanda cares about is getting the hell home; she spots Carisi shuffling his paperwork and looking around shiftily, and decides she may as well follow his lead; she packs up her bag, he grabs his jacket, and they've piled into the elevator before Liv or Dodds can remind them of their responsibilities.

"God, I am never gettin' married," Amanda says as the doors slide shut and Carisi punches the button. He kinda chuckles. "What?"

"Nothin'," he says.

"Yeah, okay." She doesn't believe him, and sure enough, she sees him shift his weight in the corner of his eye.

"I just remember you once sayin' that about havin' kids," he says.

Amanda scoffs. "That's different."

"Oh, yeah?"

"That just kinda happened."

He snorts a little. "What, you just accidentally turned up pregnant?"

"Yeah, a little," she says coldly, and he shrugs, grinning sideways at her like he's in on a joke.

"C'mon, Rollins," he says. "I'm just sayin', leave the possibility open. You had a kid, maybe you'll end up married someday too."

"Don't," she says. The elevator doors slide open and she heads out; he follows, she feels a sting of irritation. "You can get awful condescending, you know that?"

"How was that condescending?" He doesn't have to walk as fast as she does to keep up. Amanda's tired and tense and could tell him to leave her be but doesn't, not quite yet.

"Actin' like you know better than everyone else about everything. Maybe I won't ever get married because I've seen marriage and what I've said hasn't ever been anything to write home about. My mom chased my dad right outta the house, and there's these winners today —"

"— And then you have my parents, married forty years, happy as could be," Carisi interjects. "No problems, as in love as they were the day they got hitched."

"You're just sayin' that 'cause they're your parents," says Amanda. They're nearing the edge of the station parking lot now, and Amanda knows they have different trains to catch, different directions to go: she turns on him rather than say goodbye. "I mean, what about you, you work this job, you see all the affairs and the hate and the sham marriages, and how many times have we had some poor woman in here, no clue what her husband's been gettin' up to? You wanna get married after that?"

He maybe gives it half a second's thought. "Yeah, I do. Someday. You know, when I meet the right girl."

She's not surprised by the answer, not even a little. Good Catholic boy like Carisi; of course he wants to move out to the island and have five kids and probably a dog or two. For some reason, it kinda annoys her: he's so naive, unrealistic about the world. She guesses she kinda scoffs, because he's suddenly frowning at her.

"What, that a problem?"

"No," she lies, "hey, you know, you do you. If you can somehow be the only person in SVU ever to work the whole marriage and kids thing out…"

"Oh, come on," he says, exasperated.

"Why are we talkin' about this?" she asks, spreading her arms out incredulously. She's tired and annoyed, but she's pretty sure she didn't skip out of work early to get in a fight with Carisi.

"Yeah," he sighs, rubbing at his shoulder with one hand. "Hey, you wanna grab a drink or somethin'?"

She kinda does, irritation and all, but, "Nah, I should head home, check on everyone."

"Okay," he says, and gives her a funny kinda look. "See ya tomorrow."

"Yeah, you too," she says, and that's the end of it.

Amanda doesn't date guys she has a future with. She knows it, and it doesn't bug her. She doesn't date for the future, doesn't wanna get married, move out to the suburbs, watch everything crumble into dust. She doesn't even date, not really. She sleeps with sponsors and UCs and guys going through reluctant divorces, and she likes and even kinda loves some of 'em, but she wasn't ever thinking for a second it was gonna last with them, not even when she got pregnant. And sometimes she thinks it should bug her, that she should want that kinda thing in her heart of hearts or something, but she doesn't, not really.

She does sometimes want someone around, though. To help take care of Jesse, maybe. Like if Amanda gets the flu bad someday or something. Or if something goes bad on the job. That scares her in a few different ways, and it's not like she wants to get married just so there's a man around if something goes wrong — that sounds like the fastest possible way to end up miserable and depressed, a relationship built for emergency fallback only — but she can't picture leaving her kid in the hands of her mom, or even Declan and his endless UC work, and who else does that leave? Liv?

Carisi?

She can kinda amuse herself thinking about it, him taking her kid to his mom or sisters, absorbing Jesse into his life and it's a funny picture, okay, he'd probably jump at the chance in a way Fin or Liv wouldn't, they'd be practical and what's best for the child, which is way better and what Amanada would want in that situation, but it isn't as funny as picturing Carisi turning her daughter loud and dumb and Italian and warm.

Not as funny at all.

So maybe, yeah, having a kid makes her want — someone around. Just in case. And she has the squad and that's good and she knows none of them would let Jesse fall into unreliable hands, and it isn't like she's changed her mind about relationships or anything, family or anything. Marriage or anything.

She just gets it now. A little bit.

Months and months and months pass, and it's not the end of it.

Not caused by anything, totally casual, it's pretty early in the morning and Amanda's in bed, staring up at the ceiling when she says, "Do you wanna get married?"

Totally casual.

"Uh," says Carisi, and he kinda drags it out — uhhhh — and she's a little offended like, wow, hesitating much, and also totally embarrassed all at once, she hears him rolling over to face her and she stares up at the ceiling like it's the most interesting thing in the world. "You proposin' to me, Rollins?"

"No way," she says, and she's a little relieved, that he didn't take her words at their face, 'cause she wasn't, but she rolls onto her other side anyway so she won't accidentally see him. "I mean," she starts to get out of bed, taking the sheet with her because it's kinda cold, landlord hasn't turned the heat on yet, "do you ever wanna get married."

She tucks the sheet 'round her armpits, and hears him rustle at the blankets, and she's pointedly staring at the mirror above her dresser so she doesn't have to look at him. Except she can see him in that mirror, reversed, hair messy, as he fusses with the duvet and seems to take a long time doing it.

Here is how their arrangement works:

She doesn't give it a name, and he goes with it. They go eat sometimes, but at cheap places so it doesn't feel like dating. He comes over sometimes, and she doesn't kick him out after. There are no fast, messy hookups at work or in hotels or impersonal places. They spend time together off the clock with no sex at all. She won't call it a relationship, but she tries not to treat it like a temporary secret thing, because she feels like he wouldn't like that, wouldn't want that.

Because she's pretty sure Carisi's the kinda guy who wants a future.

"Why are you askin'?" he asks, as she goes for her terrycloth bathrobe.

"I dunno. I was just thinking." For some reason, this one argument they'd had almost a year ago had drifted into her mind, where he'd said he wanted to get married someday and she'd made fun of him a little. She doesn't know why, except that this arrangement is nearing the six month mark and that feels like something.

He sighs; she can hear the exhale. "Someday," he says.

The most important rule is don't talk about it. Don't talk about it at all.

"Yeah," she says, her hand skittering towards her brush.

"C'mon," he says. "I wasn't gonna —" he falters. "ask you," her fingers clench at the handle, "I mean, not…" she holds her breath, "anytime soon?"

Amanda wants nothing more in life than to say forget it and make this go away. "But you are planning on it?"

He weighs his words carefully; she can see him thinking it over in the mirror. "I'm not planning anything. But — yeah. If this… you know, keeps up, then eventually, I'd probably…" he trails off, then throws the blankets away and gets out of bed, pulls clothing up from the floor. "Do you, uh, not want…?"

She isn't sure how he planned on finishing that sentence, can't think of a good way, a way she can answer cleanly to, without I don't know if I've changed that much. "Not anytime soon," she says, which is a hell of a lot kinder than a lot of the fear-driven things she almost says instead.

"But someday?" he asks.

She wonders what would happen if she said no. If she's leading him on. If a lot of things. "Yeah," she says, and her smile in the mirror looks kinda glassy, fake. "Someday." He's looking at her in this way that makes her heart get kinda tight, his expression is so serious. "Someday," she says again, and means it a little more. That's the best she can offer, she tells him through the mirror. He's nice and wants a future and she likes him so much, but that's the best, the very best she can do, and she doesn't wanna lie or lead him on about it.

"Okay," he says, and he smiles a little bit, his face relaxes, and she relaxes along with it. "Besides. No way can I get married to someone who only calls me by my real name about ten percent of the time."

She picks up the brush, combs out her hair. "Carisi is your real name."

"You know what I mean."

"It's a stupid nickname and I'm not gonna start using it."

"Everyone uses it. Everyone in the whole wide world —"

"I could call you Dominick, that's a real name," she offers, and he groans in counterpoint, and she laughs, and he puts on his pants, and she thinks as they keep joking around: someday.

(And also, that she vows to never, ever call him Sonny, just outta spite, and she pictures him adopting Jesse and teaching her to call him that, and it doesn't make her cringe in horror or anything, so, you know.

Someday.)

(Her vow lasts another year and a half.)