Olivia and Nick walked down the street, side-by-side, their shoes clicking on the same rhythm. It was his turn to share a favorite place as a kid, but since a lot of them were located in his old neighborhood, he thought it would be nice to take Olivia to a small "tour" on that Sunday afternoon.
"Here," Amaro pointed out at a house with a red fence. "there was a brown dobermann that was actually super friendly and on my way to school I would always play a little with him. His name was Carlos."
Olivia laughed.
It was just their second time going out in their "sibling meetings", and not only they had shared a lot about themselves already, but the atmosphere between them was clearly getting more friendly and warmer. Of course that was only the beginning of their siblinghood, but both of them could already tell that they were venturing through the right path.
One can't simply create a brother or sister out of nowhere. But together, they could try to carve and shape and polish that weird, unknown monolith they had discovered into something they would recognize and cherish, someday very soon.
"That's the best dog name ever. However, I can't ignore the fact that this is the fifth dog friend you told you had, not to mention all the stray cats." Olivia pointed out. "That's how you knew the neighbours, through their pets?"
"I just like them a lot, okay?", Nick replied with humor. He pointed out a turn to their left. "And going down that street is the community library I used to bike to all the time."
"What a good boy you were." she said, making an impressed face.
"It was my way of getting away from the house for a while. To stay away from my father's radar." he told, but not wanting the conversation to go south, he added, "It was good I did that, though. There were a lot of adventure old books in there that became my favorites - Treasure Island , Robinson Crusoe, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea , and so on. I used to pretend to be Captain Nemo all the time. My best friend back then would play as my sidekick from the Nautilus submarine."
"I liked to play as a pirate all the time when I was little." Olivia said with a funny squinty face on her, as if thinking the coincidences were odd, but awesome at the same time.
"That's pretty ironic, seeing what you ended up doing as a job."
"I know, right? I think I should have gone for that career instead." she joked. "It kind of explains the shirts I wear sometimes. This is being quite the revealing conversation."
She squinted again with a side smile on her lips, half joking, half seriously considering what she had just said.
"It's always funny when we notice these patterns that follows us since our childhood." Nick pointed out as they turned around another street. "I guess mine is that I've wanted to be like the heroes I read about. Helping people out, somehow."
Nick didn't mention it, but she knew he also probably turned to be a cop exactly because of his experience at home, with their father. She knew that was one of the major reasons she turned to be a cop herself, with her mother's experience both as a victim and perpetrator of abuse.
She saw her brother point out to a house with yellow walls on their right.
"Where is that house now, it used to be an empty lot we used to play in. My best friend back then was this girl… her name's Lilly, but everyone called her 'Bone' because she was skinny, pale, hair so blonde it was almost white. But she's really tough, hence the nick." he narrated to Olivia, his eyes twinkling with a warm, tender nostalgia. "We used to ride our bikes everywhere, exploring all the neighborhood and around, my mom was always deadly worried about us alone out there."
"I smell a puppy-crush there.", Olivia said, with an expression that could only mean 'that's so adorable'. Amaro laughed a little, gesturing a no with his head but cheeks turning red nonetheless.
"Nah, she was more like a sister, really. That's where I got the idea of wanting a sister of my own I think, she's two years older, so she kinda took responsibility over me. She was already used to that, with her younger sister Chris. She was the one who sometimes would protect me from the bullies, and she tried very hard to teach me how to baseball, but I've never been as good as her."
"What happened to her?", Olivia asked. Amaro noticed the small note of tension in her question.
"Oh, don't worry, she's alive and well, for what I've known." he reassured. "She just moved out to Philadelphia with this dude named Ray when she was around nineteen. I haven't heard from her since, but she always knew how to take care of herself, ever since she was a child. I think… we were all just little kids trying to fend on our own, somehow."
"She had problems at home, too." it wasn't a question, Olivia easily recognizing the signs.
"Her father was out of the picture, and her mother would either lock Lilly and her little sister outside or inside, for days. My mother would take them in when they were locked out, until their mom was sober enough to either open the door, or just to return home."
"Oh my god, that's terrible." her SVU side kicking in instantly, outraged. "Let me guess: Child's Welfare didn't take them from their mother because they were white."
Olivia's bitter tone was evident, just as how many times she had probably seen that happening while working with the Special Victims.
"Definitely." Amaro said, with the same bitterness in his reply. "She went through some really rough patches. I did, too. But at the same, we tried our best not to let those things get us down, you know."
"Yes." Olivia said with a defeated sigh. "It's like we all had to survive in the wild by ourselves."
He nodded in agreement.
"Lilly and I tried our best with whatever tools we had back then, and I think it worked, even if just a little."
"You should try looking for her. I bet she would love to see you again." Olivia suggested.
"Now that we're saying it, I wonder why I haven't done that before."
"Sometimes we're just afraid to look back because of all the bad stuff.", Olivia said, with the certainty of her own experience. "And we end up kinda forgetting about the good, too."
Nick seemed a little thoughtful for a moment.
"Yeah... That makes a lot of sense, really.", he answered, thoughtful.
They walked together for another two blocks and he then decided to take her to the main street again and go to a local grocery store where both the owner and decoration were probably the same since the dawn of times.
The old man recognized Amaro right away.
"Nico boy!", he said, joyful, walking around the counter to give him a hug. "It's been what? Ten years since the last time I saw you, you dog?"
"I think it's been fifteen, actually.", he laughed. He turned to Olivia. "This is Mr Torres. Best ice cream around since forever. Mr Torres, this is my friend Olivia."
Torres looked at her and squinted for a second, as if recognizing Olivia.
"Are you Hilaria's granddaughter?", he asked.
"Oh, no. My grandmother was called Margaret."
"She's not from around here. She's a friend from work.", Nick explained. He then turned to Olivia, "Mrs Hilaria was an old lady who lived here years ago."
At Nick's introduction, Mr Torres just made an " oh " kind of expression, with hints of "that's my boy " in it.
The siblings' faces went red right away. They should be expecting that kind of confusion from people, because men and women could never just be friends - or related -, apparently. However, they had silently agreed that revealing Olivia's status as Nicolas Fiorello's illegitimate daughter in the neighborhood Nick still had family in was probably not the best idea.
"She's… really just a friend, Mr Torres." he corrected the man's unsaid words. Torres didn't seem too convinced.
"And what can I do for you, my son ?", he said, adding the Spanish at the end of his sentence.
"I was showing Olivia the hot spots around here, and of course we had to come over to have your famous ice cream." Nick smiled, throwing all his charisma to stroke Mr Torres' ego, but also to quickly change the weird subject of Olivia being more than just a friend - not only because it gave Nick the heebie-jeebies, but also because he had his wedding ring on, and the old man definitely noticed it.
It seemed to work, since Mr Torres was more than thrilled to serve them strawberry-vanilla cones, expansively explaining some of the home-made ice cream process to Olivia. During the entire time she just had an amused smile on, picking up from Nick's also amused expression that that was the old man's M.O. of dealing with new customers.
After that, they thanked Mr Torres - with Nick having to promise to come back again soon - and they walked down a small block to reach a local kid's playground. Since it was a Sunday afternoon, there were still a few parents around accompanying their kids, who were happily playing in the jungle gym and swings. They sat down at one of the stone benches with their cones still in progress.
"I'm sorry, but you just had to have the 'Mr Torres Experience'." Amaro laughed.
"I'll allow it. You asshole." Olivia answered, her words mixed in with her own laugh as she had another bite of her ice cream. "It was totally worth it though, this is insanely good."
"It is, isn't it?", he said, also having a little more himself.
"It almost makes me want to come back again and hear more about the art of ice cream making." she chuckled. She then turned to Nick, a bit more serious "I just hope me coming over here won't bring you problems...?"
"Nah, that's alright. My mother still lives around, but she is on the east side, we are 'safe' here."
"Mr Torres thought I was familiar. I hope he doesn't remember where he had 'seen' my face before."
Amaro shrugged.
"Maybe he just recognized you from the papers, or from the news."
"Hm, yeah. There's that." Olivia said, wanting that to be the case, which probably was. Not wanting to be paranoid about it, she decided to brush the thought away and just enjoy the treat and her little brother's company.
They stood there for a while, longer after their cones were already gone, just talking until nighttime poured in like ink running through water, quickly turning it black. Soon, they were the only ones there, but they weren't afraid - the playground had lights on, and the fact they were together also made them feel safe.
Olivia just sighed in contentment, not really wanting that moment to end. Nick leaned back on the bench, also relaxing with the same feelings of his older sister. The air was cold around them, but they didn't mind it at all. He looked at the empty playground.
"Were the swings your favorite, too?", he asked.
"It's basically everyone's favorite and always disputed.", she replied.
And then, as if their minds were connected for a moment, they turned their heads around at the same time and looked at each other with a dash of windy mischief inside their dark eyes.
"There's no one around." Nick pointed out.
"We are probably too old for this.", she said.
"Speak for yourself, granny.", he laughed.
"Respect my years older than you, Kiddo."
"Last one there is a rotten egg?", Nick said with a smile, staring at her for a moment. He thought Olivia was not going to do it, so he was a little startled when she just got up really quickly and ran.
"Hey, that isn't fair!", he said, running right behind her.
"I can see who's the real granny here.", she laughed as she moved swiftly as rainy clouds in the sky.
Nick quickened up his pace and soon they were running side by side, playfully like little lions, their physical training really showing as they swiftly crossed the playground. No one of them could tell who got to the swings first, but it didn't prevent them of bragging about it.
"Seems like I got first place.", he said, breathing in and out just a little faster with the effort.
"Only in your dreams.", she raised a brow, not breathing quickly at all, holding the chains for a moment. "I think it can hold our weight."
"Well, it was made to hold wild children. It should be strong enough."
He picked the swing by her side. Still with a dash of embarrassment for feeling too old for that, but at the same time not really caring about it, they sat, made the impulse and started to swing. Like everything around their siblinghood still in progress, being two adult cops swinging in a playground at night was probably the most weird experience they've ever had. The silliness they felt was real, but so was the genuine, simple fun.
For just a moment, all of their problems and the weight of the bad things in their past had completely disappeared, and they could pretend - even for just a second - that they really went back in time like they had wondered a few days before, at Liv's apartment.
Their laugh reverberated through the empty space of the playground, filling the night air as the trees here and there watched over them.