AN: Buckle up, kids. It's gonna be a bumpy ride.
Sonny was moving though the squad room in a hurry that afternoon, a flurry of long limbs and papers.
"I gotta head down to Barba's office to meet Liv," he said to no one in particular as he put his suit jacket back on at his desk. "Leah, you wanna come?"
Amanda looked up from her keyboard, interest piqued. Leah. It had only been a few weeks and Sonny was already calling the new girl by her first name? Hadn't it taken him forever to call her something other than Rollins? Amanda couldn't quite remember, but it annoyed her anyway.
A few days later, Amanda and Leah peered into the interrogation room through the glass. Sonny was almost nose-to-nose with a suspect, talking to him in the low, threatening way he saved for perps who didn't respond to yelling. Fin loomed, puffed up and serious. The man they were questioning was middle-aged and unassuming, the type of person who could easily go unnoticed on a busy New York street. He was an accountant and a little league coach - but the squad had reason to believe that he was a rapist, too.
"How do you ever trust a man, working here?" Leah asked her.
Amanda suppressed a smile, not because of the subject matter, but because of the memory it triggered. Years ago, she had asked Liv the very same thing. She could have given Leah a sarcastic or teasing response, but instead she shrugged. "It's hard," she admitted honestly.
Leah glanced over at her and nodded wordlessly.
She eyed the brunette detective's profile: she looked anxious, distracted. Leah had only been at SVU for a few weeks and Amanda wondered if their cases were renting too much space in her head; maybe they were creeping into her personal life. As someone who had a bad habit of getting far too invested in her work, Amanda empathized.
Amanda flipped the switch to turn the sound from the interrogation room off. She turned to Leah and offered, "you wanna take a walk? We can bring coffees back or something."
"Yeah, sure," Leah responded, looking relieved.
Amanda gave a little tilt of her head toward the squad room, indicating to Leah to follow her. Back at her desk, she began to put her coat on and stuck her sunglasses atop her head. Nobody would miss them if they disappeared for a few minutes, especially since they would return soon enough with provisions.
"I love your coat," Leah cooed in admiration, reaching out to touch the fabric of Amanda's olive green Burberry jacket.
"Thanks." I won a bunch of money gambling and bought it while I was drunk, she could have added, but way too many people knew about her past already - she didn't need yet another coworker walking around with that kind of information.
Outside, they walked together down the busy Manhattan street. It was cold but the mid-morning sun was bright, the harsh light reflecting off of the lingering snow and ice from a storm two days ago.
"A lot of good men are out there, you know. You just gotta sift through all the pieces of crap," Amanda broke their comfortable silence, casting a glance over at Leah through the dark lenses of her sunglasses.
"I feel like I've been sifting for awhile. My friends... they don't have jobs like ours, they don't get it," Leah explained sheepishly.
"That's why everybody in NYPD is sleepin' with one another," Amanda quipped, eyebrows raised in her own private amusement.
She pulled open the heavy door to Starbucks so they could both hurry inside. The early morning rush was over now, so the shop was relatively quiet. Students with headphones and laptops took up most of the table space, but nobody was in line.
"Hey, Maggie," Amanda greeted the familiar face behind the counter. "Um... two venti Pikes, both black, a tall Earl Grey and whatever Detective Ricci over here wants," she ordered, then added as afterthought, "oh, and one of those little vanilla scones."
"Um, just a tall blonde roast, black. Please," Leah asked politely.
"You got it, Detectives," Maggie told Amanda with her usual chipper smile.
Amanda handed her credit card to Maggie before moving to the side to wait for their drinks. "We're probably going to Forlini's after court this afternoon," she said to Leah. "You should come."
"Yeah?" Leah said tentatively.
"Yeah. I promise Fin's less intimidating with a few drinks in him," Amanda assured her. "Get him talkin' about video games and he won't be so quiet - you'll probably never shut him up."
Leah visibly relaxed. "Really? He's sort of..."
"Yeah, I know." Amanda didn't need her to finish her thoughts, because she'd had them once, too, a long time ago. "He'll warm up to you."
"And Carisi is kind of..."
She looked at Leah expectantly, interested in her assessment.
"He's really nice, actually," Leah concluded. She seemed surprised.
Amanda suppressed a grin as she reached for the tray that held their coffees. "He is."
The squad hung around the crowded bar at Forlini's that evening, mingling with court officers and other familiar NYPD members who all were looking for the same kind of post-work reprieve. Amanda sipped soda water with lemon while the others drank, secretly jealous of their whiskey neats, chiantis and beers in frosted glasses.
Amanda had left Sonny sitting at the bar in favor of standing; she needed to stretch her legs. She lost track of time as she contentedly moved from conversation to conversation, and when she figured she should finally return to Sonny, Barba intercepted her.
"Rollins, you're glowing," Barba observed over the rim of his glass, his tone teasing. He had won their case and it showed.
She rolled her eyes, about to fire back with sarcasm, but then she remembered something. "Hey, I never thanked you."
He looked perplexed. "Thanked me? For what?"
"For what you did, a few weeks ago. You tipped the squad off to where I was. Without you, I'm not sure what would have happened," Amanda explained.
"Ah, that. Well, like I told Carisi: I found it strange how uncharacteristically forgiving you were being on the phone that day," Barba said with a little smirk. "I knew something had to be up."
"Yeah, well-"
Amanda paused mid-sentence, something over Barba's shoulder catching her eye: Sonny and Leah were sitting side-by-side at the bar, heads close together like they were discussing something private. Leah's hand was lingering on Sonny's forearm, skin on skin, sleeves of his dress shirt rolled up.
"Rollins?" Barba said, waving a hand in front of her face to get her attention.
"Sorry. I, uh, excuse me for a minute?" Amanda managed, not waiting for his permission before she began shouldering her way through the crowd toward the bar.
She stopped when she was in a place close enough to hear Sonny and Leah's conversation - but not directly in their line of sight.
"You went to Notre Dame High? I went to St. Peter's!" she heard Sonny exclaim.
"No way. We always had dances with you guys," Leah responded excitedly.
"I musta graduated way before you, though."
"C'mon, you're not that much older than me."
Sonny laughed into his beer bottle. "You flatter me."
"Well, in any case, you certainly don't look it," Leah assured him flirtatiously.
Amanda watched Leah bat her dark eyelashes as she nursed her wine. She waited to hear how Sonny replied, a twisted part of her wanting to catch him saying something compromising to confirm her warped trust issues, but then he caught sight of her out of the corner of his eye.
"'Manda! There you are," Sonny called cheerfully, waving her over and displacing Leah's hand in the process.
Pulling in a deep breath, she steadied herself. If she caused a scene here, it would be in front of a lot of people she worked with - several of whom already knew about her occasional issues with impulsivity. Gripping her drink, Amanda moved toward the pair. Once she was close, Sonny's arm went around her, his hand resting on her back, just low enough to indicate that it was more than a friendly gesture. Amanda's blue eyes met Leah's hazel, her gaze narrow and icy.
"You wanna sit?" Sonny offered her.
"Nope," Amanda replied, taking a large sip of her soda water.
Leah was smiling at her, oblivious.
"Here, just take my seat for a minute. I'm gonna run to the bathroom anyway," Sonny insisted, ever the gentleman. He stood up straight to maneuver Amanda into his spot.
Before he walked away, Amanda rose up on her tip toes to catch him a kiss. It was a bit out of character for her given the environment, but she was being strategic. Is that how women really think? Nick Amaro had asked her once when Amanda had encouraged him to manipulate Maria for information. Not just women, she had asserted, but Amanda knew that being calculated was something she was particularly good at - although she wasn't necessarily sure that was something she should be proud of.
Sonny looked pleasantly surprised when she pulled back, giving her butt a playful swat before disappearing into the crowd. Amanda took his place on the barstool and set down her glass. She turned her body to get a better look at Leah.
"When I said there were a lotta good guys out there, I didn't mean that one," Amanda told her, her smile contradicting the chill in her voice.
She expected Leah to blush and frantically apologize for her misstep, but she didn't. Instead she met Amanda's gaze as she responded coolly, "I had no idea."
"Now you do," Amanda said sharply, the edge in her voice cutting through any attempt at civility.
When Sonny returned, he stood by Amanda, totally unaware of the interaction that had taken place in his absence - and Amanda planned to keep it that way.