AN: I'm getting the weird urge to put Sonny through the wringer somehow so Amanda can be her crazy protective mama bear self. What's wrong with me?

you're still all over me / like a wine-stained dress I can't wear anymore

Five years earlier.

One PP announced that the 16th Precinct would be getting randomly audited, sending every officer and administrator into a panic. SVU had always functioned fairly independently, meaning rules were bent and procedures were adjusted as necessary, which only became a problem when Dodds or IAB started poking around. Liv was gifted at protecting her detectives and their methods, but the Audit Squad was not typically amenable to excuses or explanations. Knowing that SVU's paperwork and documentation wasn't always in the best order, Liv had instructed Amanda and Sonny to go through all of the case files they could manage to make sure everything was in place (or at least appeared that way). It was a tedious, painful task that seemed like punishment to Amanda, but she knew better than to challenge their Lieutenant.

The two detectives organized piles of cases by date on the table in the middle of the squad room. As they rifled through them, they set aside the files that weren't complete; by six o'clock, that stack was alarmingly tall. Hungry and bleary-eyed, Sonny offered to go pick up dinner. When he returned with Chinese food, Amanda was grateful for the break.

"I think Wok 88 is better than Main Noodle House," Amanda announced after a spoonful of won-ton soup.

"No way," Sonny scoffed from across the table. "If Main Noodle hadn't closed 'cause of a burst pipe, I woulda picked dinner up from there."

"Taste this egg roll!" she insisted, picking one up. "This is an amazing egg roll."

"I don't like their egg rolls." He shook his head stubbornly. "I like Main Noodle's egg rolls."

"You've never had Wok 88's egg rolls, so how do you know?" Getting up from her chair, she leaned over the folders between them and waved the egg roll seductively in front of his face. "Here, try it. You know you wanna."

Sonny scrunched up his nose. "Get that outta my face. I'm not betrayin' Main Noodle, no way."

Feeling playful, she childishly prodded his nose with the egg roll, eliciting a laugh from him as he shifted back in his chair like he was trying to escape. "See, you know you-"

"Detectives?" Liv's voice was sharp and sudden.

"Uh, hey, Lieu," Sonny said awkwardly.

Amanda dropped back into her seat and intently studied her soup. She could feel her cheeks heating up with embarrassment, like she was sixteen years old and had just been caught by the school principal making out underneath the football bleachers.

"Remember: I expect this done by tomorrow morning," the lieutenant reminded them curtly.

"Copy that," Amanda replied with a nod.

Once Liv had walked away, Sonny grumbled, "how'd we get stuck doin' this?"

"Paperwork's never been Fin's strong suit," Amanda sighed.

They went back to work, simultaneously eating while they reviewed. Liv would be leaving for the day soon, which was a relief. She didn't know the two of them were sleeping together - or if she did, she hadn't let on. Occasionally Amanda got a little thrill out of sneaking around, while other times it just made her anxious. She knew Sonny hated the deception; he was so damn honest.

"Did you know this guy?" Sonny suddenly asked.

Concentrating, she organized the file in front of her. "You gotta be more specific, Carisi."

"Patton, from Atlanta PD," he clarified.

Amanda's fingers froze and her breath caught in her throat. The Chinese food sitting in her stomach churned. "Give me that."

Sonny looked confused. "Huh?"

"Give that to me," she demanded.

"Okay..." He handed the file over to her.

"I'll do this one," Amanda told him hastily, shoving it underneath the folders she already had in front of her.

"Did you ever work with him?" Sonny asked curiously.

She cleared her throat unnecessarily. "Yeah."

"What's his case doin' here?"

"He raped one of his detectives after Cop Con."

"Really? What happ-"

"At this rate, we're gonna be here till midnight," Amanda interrupted. "Can we move on, please?"

xxxx

Sonny's hands were everywhere: beneath her shirt, between her thighs, groping her ass. Amanda usually loved the feeling of being possessed by him, but now it was as if she was being suffocated.

"Sonny, I can't," she gasped from beneath him, fingers gripping his biceps, pushing him away. "I... I have to tell you something."

"Right now?" he murmured into her neck in between the kisses he was placing there.

"Yeah." She wriggled away, then scrambled up from the bed like it was on fire. She was down to her white t-shirt and the blush lace of her panties, and while she was typically very comfortable with her body, Amanda couldn't have this conversation half-naked. The subject matter made her vulnerable enough. She clambered into a pair of sweatpants that she had tossed on the floor earlier that day.

"Wait, wait, I thought we were takin' clothes off," Sonny asked, sounding exasperated as he sat up.

Ignoring him, Amanda began to pace, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. "Chief Patton. He, uh, he came to Cop Con with this detective, Reese," she explained. "She was this pretty young thing, barely thirty years old. Anyway, she uh, she was really hard-working. She did anything Patton said, wanted to impress him, wanted to be good at everything."

"Okay..." Sonny sighed, shoulders slumped in defeat. "Why are you tellin' me this?"

"He raped her," she went on. "But, uh, he..."

He blinked at her expectantly.

"When I was workin' in Atlanta, Kim was screwing around. She messed up really bad. At that point she, uh, was facing a felony," she told him. "One day Patton called me into his office to talk about it. He... well, he implied that if I had sex with him, Kim wouldn't be prosecuted."

"So he's always been a scumbag," Sonny concluded.

Amanda stopped moving and studied him sitting on her bed. He looked so handsome, the lean muscles of his chest and arms exposed, his cheeks pink and a curl of hair perfectly out of place against his forehead. He clearly had no idea what her point was - he was probably merely humoring her outburst just long enough to get back to getting laid. Would he want her ever again, after he knew what she had done? It was doubtful. "I did it."

Sonny's eyes widened at her confession. "Huh? What?" he sputtered.

His shocked reaction was enough to get her pacing again; she felt like she was going to crawl right out of her skin. "I... I wanted to help Kim, and I wanted to keep Patton happy with me. He was my mentor; he had all these big plans for me. So one night I met him at a hotel and he was wasted. He got really rough and I kept telling him to slow down, to stop," she babbled, the words tumbling over each other as they left her mouth. She scraped a set of fingers through her hair. "He... he slammed my head so hard against the headboard I started bleedin'. I'll never forget trying to get the dried blood out of my hair... I tried to get away from him, but I couldn't. He pinned me down, told me I wasn't going anywhere and that nobody would believe me if I told."

Sonny slowly rose to his feet. "Are you saying..."

"He raped me." Amanda couldn't look him in the eye, so she focused on the carpet as she moved back and forth, back and forth. "I never told anybody, but that's why I left Atlanta. I didn't want to come to New York. I woulda stayed in Georgia but I just... I couldn't after that. All of the guys there, they knew. They thought I slept with him to get ahead. None of my work mattered anymore. Captain Reynolds used to proposition me all the time but I never took him up on it, so he was pissed, like I had chosen Patton over him or some shit... so he was out to destroy my career. I had to get out of there. But then, five years later, SVU caught Reese's case and he did exactly what he did to me, to her. I was gonna testify, I told Barba everything, but the judge wouldn't allow-"

"You're tellin' me that Barba and everybody knows all this and I haven't till now?" he interrupted her. He sounded angry.

She stilled again and finally met his gaze. "When should I have brought it up? It's not exactly a casual topic of conversation," she challenged him weakly. "But I, I didn't want you to see that case file and read it. It's bad enough that it's documented and the whole squad knows, but, you... I didn't want you to think less of me."

His Adam's apple bobbed in his throat as he swallowed hard. "Amanda..."

"I'm not proud of it. I know that I shouldn't have agreed to it in the first place, I know that set me up for-"

"For what? You know just as well as I do consent can be revoked at any time."

"You can say that, but when it's you, you look back at it and you can't help but think, 'how the hell did I get here?' and 'what could I have done differently?' Could I have prevented it? I think about that all the time," she babbled. She could feel herself unraveling. She wanted to open a window to get some air, but her hands felt too tremulous. "He didn't get jail time. They took his shield and he's on the registry, but he never did time." She wrung her fingers together. "I just, I did what I thought I had to do. I wanted to take care of Kim, I wanted to make sure my job was secure..."

"I... I'm really sorry that happened to you, Amanda," Sonny told her softly.

"Don't say that. Don't use that voice," she snapped, her shame now veiled by defensive irritation.

He looked confused. "What voice?"

"The... the Sensitive Cop voice," Amanda scoffed. "I'm not a victim. I'm not some co-ed who drank too much at a party and didn't know what she was doing. I knew what I was getting myself into. When you're in a boys' club, you've gotta do things their way. That's what I was trying to do and it went bad."

"It doesn't matter how you got into that hotel room!" he exclaimed incredulously. "What matters is what Patton did to you. There's no excuse for it. He's a predatory, scumbag, piece of crap hidin' behind his badge and his power. If I ever met him, I'd beat the living shit outta the bastard so he could experience even one tenth of the pain that he's caused."

Pain. That's what it was. It still hurt, all these years later. She only had to hear his name to be brought back to those frantic moments struggling beneath the Chief's heavy, sweaty frame. Her cheeks grew hot with embarrassment just remembering the smirks on her colleagues's faces, how they had leered at her and made cruel jokes the next morning, as if the event had been broadcast to the entire precinct. Patton had been true to his word - he let Kim off the hook - but it seemed like Amanda had gotten all of the consequences instead.

Sonny looked a combination of furious and sad and she felt her heart swell in her chest. Amanda didn't know what to make of it - would it fade when he really thought about her role in it all? - but for the moment, his outrage was reassuring.

"Sometimes shit happens to you and you can't figure out why," she whispered. She hated the tremor in her voice, but she couldn't fight it. "In the past few years I finally came to this place where... where I was thinkin', 'maybe it happened so I can do this work better. Maybe my suffering can make me useful to others.' Other times, I still get so fucking angry. I don't even know who I'm mad at. Him? Me? Both? I don't know..."

He nodded solemnly, silently.

"I know this is a lot. I... if I'm bein' honest, I never planned on telling you. I... try not to think about it," Amanda admitted sheepishly.

"Why wouldn't you tell me?" he wondered.

"There are so many... things about me, stuff I'm not proud of, I just couldn't stomach bringing up something else. When I say this shit out loud, it's like, 'Jesus, Amanda. How many bad decisions can one person possibly make?'" she explained, tone filled with self-loathing.

Sonny raised his eyebrows. "Doin' what we do, don't you think I coulda handled it?"

"I know you can handle it. It's just, I don't want to be handled. I don't want you feelin' bad for me, or trying to fix me, or whatever." She added softly, "I just want you to want me."

"I do want you." He took a step closer to her. "I wanted you then and I want you now."

She didn't know what to say. "Okay," she eventually croaked.

Sonny reached for her. Amanda closed the space between them, her cheek pressed against his chest as she wrapped her arms around his bare torso and squeezed. The sensation of being held by him made tears sting her eyes, but she screwed them shut, preventing them from falling. She didn't know if she was relieved, frightened, grateful... she felt jumbled up, but at least Sonny was there to anchor her in the moment. Amanda only hoped that he would not let go.

"You didn't bring the baby?"

Kim Rollins sat across from Sonny and Amanda at a steel table in the crowded Riker's Island visiting room. She wore an orange jumpsuit as she looked expectantly at the two of them through the fringe of her bangs. Two weeks earlier, she had called Amanda and asked them to come on visiting day. Sonny had refused until the absolute last minute, still furious with Kim for robbing their house months earlier. Unsurprisingly, Amanda gave in to Kim's pleading, although she had no plans to tell her sister all of the things she undoubtedly wanted to hear.

"You think we'd bring a four-month-old to Riker's?" Sonny scoffed, arms crossed over his chest. Amanda could feel the tension radiating off of him; the burglary had really been the last straw in terms of his relationship with her sister.

"Kim," Amanda sighed. She already had a headache and was in desperate need of another cup of coffee. "Why did you want us here?"

"I wanted to apologize for what I did," her sister explained.

Amanda and Sonny were both silent.

"That prick you were with, he knows where we live," Sonny reminded her eventually.

Kim looked earnest. "He's locked up, too."

"What about any of his scumbag friends, huh?"

"I don't think so-"

"You don't think so?" Sonny interrupted angrily. Unfolding his arms, he leaned in, a finger jabbing emphatically at the cold metal of the table's surface as he spoke, "I swear to God, Kim, if any of those thugs come anywhere near my kids, I'll-"

"Nobody's gonna bother you!" Kim cried, pouting like she was the victim. Doe-eyed, she looked over at Amanda. "'Manda, tell him to calm down."

"Don't tell her what to do," Sonny snapped.

"She's my sister," she challenged him, appearing smug. "I can tell her whatever I want."

Sonny stood up abruptly, tossing his hands up in defeat. "I gotta take a walk," he announced before storming away. He was familiar enough with Riker's staff that they allowed him to breeze past them to escape into the hallway.

Amanda didn't stop him. Her eyes flickered around the busy room: the lingering corrections officers were already eyeing their table, suspicious of the raised voices. She didn't want any trouble; she was already resentful that she was spending her Saturday morning at Riker's Island and not with her children.

"He's real mad," Kim observed meekly.

She nodded. "Yeah, he is."

"I said I was sorry," her sister frowned.

"I appreciate that, but..."

"I'm back on my medication. I'm goin' to groups, and meetings..."

"That's good."

The two sisters stared at one another, quiet.

"It was just stuff, Amanda," Kim shrugged. "I wasn't tryin' to hurt you."

"It wasn't 'just stuff,' Kim," Amanda replied irritably. "You took my jewelry that belonged to grandma. I gave that watch you stole to Sonny for his birthday. And our guns - those are licensed to us by NYPD. They don't belong in anybody else's hands. Ever."

Her sister frowned. "Are you ever gonna forgive me?"

"I forgive you, Kim," she responded levelly. "But that doesn't change anything."

"What do you mean?"

"When you get out - and I'm not helpin' you with that - you need to do this on your own. I told you, I have to take care of my family now. I can't put you first."

"I'm your family!" Kim exclaimed.

"You are, and I'm always gonna support you doing the right thing, but this is on you," she said quietly. "I can't let you stay with us, I'm not giving you money, I'm not making excuses for you... you've got a long way to go before you get my trust back."

"Can't I... can't I at least see the baby?" she pleaded.

"No." Amanda shook her head. She felt sad, but less so than she had imagined she would. "When I see you're doing better, maybe. But I have to see it, not just hear you talk about it."

The spring was typically a busy time at SVU, but that afternoon, the squad room was relatively quiet. The visiting detectives milled around, poking through case files, trying to stay busy during the lull. Amanda's fingers were flying over her keyboard, trying to finish a report from two days ago. She only looked up from her computer when she felt somebody standing by her desk.

"Sergeant?" Officer Riley said. "This young lady needs to speak to someone." Beside him stood a pretty, young girl with long, straight black hair and perfectly porcelain skin. Her brown eyes darted anxiously around the bullpen as she rocked back and forth on the heels of her loafers.

"Hi." Amanda rose to her feet and offered the girl a small smile. "I'm Sergeant Rollins. How can I help you?"

"I'm Christina," the girl said, meeting Amanda's gaze only briefly. "Do I... can I talk to you somewhere more private? Please?"

"Of course." She glanced over at Dana, who was hovering eagerly. "Is it okay if Detective Sinclair over here comes with us?"

Christina nodded. "Sure. Yeah."

As Amanda led them both to an interview room, she was feeling rather proud of herself for willingly including Dana. She could have very easily shut her out - she wasn't obligated to have her shadow - but Amanda had come to realize that it took a lot more energy to be cold and aloof than it did to be open-minded - at least until Dana crossed her, and then she would definitely not hesitate to let her know her place.

Dana sat beside Amanda on one side of the table, while Christina sat at the other. It was silent for a moment, until Christina said, "I, um, need to report a rape. I... it was me. I was raped."

Amanda frowned. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Dana scribbling notes onto her notepad. "Okay... I'm sorry to hear that," she told her gently. "Who raped you?"

"My statistics professor, Elliott Daly," Christina explained. "I'm a student at Hudson..."

"What happened?" she asked.

"I'm there on scholarship. I'm failing stats. I just can't get it, it's hard for me to understand. My parents, they're from Vietnam. I'm the first one to go to college. They are so strict and so determined for me to be successful. They can barely support themselves, they are relying on me to do well and to help them financially." Her dark eyes studied the table's surface as she continued, "a few days ago, I went to Elliott's office hours and he told me he could help get my grade up... if I had sex with him."

"Did you agree?"

"Yes. I did. Last night. But I, I took it back."

"Tell me what happened."

"We had a drink at his place. We started kissing and undressing in his bedroom, but... he was way too rough. He tied me up, I... I realized I didn't want that. I told him 'no.' I know it's my fault that I agreed but, I took it back." Her voice became thick with tears, "I told him 'no.' I asked him to untie me but he wouldn't."

Amanda felt her throat tighten. Christina's guilt and shame was palpable; it reminded Amanda of her own. "How old are you, Christina?"

"I'm nineteen. I'm a sophomore," she replied. "I already looked it up in the Hudson handbook: it's frowned upon, but it's not technically against the rules to have personal relationships between professor and student as long as-"

"If you consented," she interrupted firmly. "You didn't consent."

Christina sniffled. "I did at first."

"At first. Then you didn't," Amanda clarified. "That makes a difference. Did you shower or go to the hospital since this happened?"

She shook her head. "I haven't done anything but cry, then I came here."

"We've gotta get you to Bellvue for a rape kit, okay?" she explained. "That's the first thing we need to do." She rose to her feet and Dana followed suit. "I'm gonna go talk to my Lieutenant, you just hang out here. Can I get you anything?"

Christina shook her head again and whispered, "no."

"We'll be right back, okay?" Amanda promised before the two of them left Christina alone in the interview room.

"This is kind of a stretch," Dana announced to the squad boldly.

Amanda raised her eyebrows in surprise. Fin looked up from his phone and Sonny put down his crossword puzzle. Liv, who was perched on the edge of Amanda's desk, appeared intrigued.

"What'd she say?" Liv asked.

"She had sex with her professor for a higher grade and now she's claiming rape," Dana told her.

"It's more than that," Amanda insisted, an edge of disdain in her voice. "She agreed to have sex with him, yeah, but then she got scared and took it back, said 'no,' and he raped her."

"This guy's reputation and career is gonna be destroyed 'cause she was hot and cold," Dana remarked incredulously. "That doesn't seem fair."

"Well, I don't think it's fair that men only hear what they want to, when they wanna hear it," she snapped. "She has the right to consent and then change her mind."

"She does, yeah, but it's a little iffy, her getting all the way to the point where she's tied up naked on his bed in his apartment..."

"It doesn't matter what stage they were at in the interaction. She said 'no.'"

"What did she think was gonna happen, agreeing to sex with him?" Dana said with an infuriating little laugh. "It sounds like two, consenting adults made an arrangement. A shady one, yeah, but..."

"It doesn't matter!" Amanda shouted before she could stop herself. "People make crappy decisions, that doesn't mean they deserve to be assaulted!"

The silence that followed was deafening. Liv's eyes were wide, Fin looked pained, and Sonny was intently studying his keyboard. The other visiting detectives seemed uncomfortable.

"I'm... gonna get some air," Amanda stammered before quickly walking away from the group. She kept her eyes on the floor as she moved, too embarrassed to meet anybody's gaze.

She didn't have the patience to wait for the elevator, so she pounded down three flights of stairs before bursting out onto the sidewalk. She pulled in a big gulp of air before exhaling shakily. She toyed with her lower lip while her other arm wrapped around her torso as she silently chastised herself, after all this time, you still can't let this go?

"'Manda? You okay?" came Fin's voice from the doorway a few minutes later.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she responded automatically.

"Hit a nerve?" he wondered.

"A little bit, yeah." Amanda turned and looked at him. "Sometimes I just wonder what it's like to be in the place to come at this stuff from such an... oblivious perspective. Like, has your life really been all sunshine and fuckin' rainbows? Is it so hard to believe things like this happen? To imagine what it feels like to be Christina?"

Fin nodded. "Well, they are here for training..."

"I know. I know they are." She shut her eyes and shook her head, like she was trying to clear it. "Go back inside, Fin. I'm okay."

"Alright. If you say so..." he agreed hesitantly before disappearing into the precinct again.

Five minutes, Amanda thought to herself. You have five minutes to pull yourself together. Then, you're going to go back inside and do your job, just like you do it every single day. He doesn't get to take that from you, not all these years later...

Wrapped up in the soft jersey fabric of her gray bathrobe, Amanda stood in the master bathroom. Her hair was piled up on top of her head in a bun while she washed the make-up off of her face at the sink. She watched the mascara, eyeliner and concealer all swirl around the white porcelain until her skin was soft and clean. She was relieved that the day was finally over, and that she was safe inside of her house.

"'Manda?" Sonny's voice came from the other side of the ajar door.

"Yeah?" she replied against the fabric of her white face towel as she dried off her skin.

"Can we talk?" Inside the bathroom, Sonny leaned his back against the counter top next to her.

"About what?" She reached for her moisturizer and rubbed it between her palms before smoothing it onto her face.

"About what happened today," he clarified.

Amanda suppressed a sigh. "Okay."

He watched her at the sink, brow furrowed in obvious concern. "You seemed really pissed off."

She shook a little of her nighttime face serum into her hand, then swiped it under her eyes. She was always hoping that one day, it would magically make her look less tired. "I just didn't appreciate the insinuation that what happened was that girl's fault." She set the small bottle back down.

"I know. That... wasn't good," he agreed, the cringe on his features evident in his tone.

Bowing her head slightly, Amanda traced an absent pattern against the cool marble surface of the counter. She did feel embarrassed by her outburst; she didn't want anybody thinking she couldn't handle certain kinds of cases because of what had happened with Chief Patton years ago. Maybe if it hadn't been Dana challenging her - pretty, pristine Dana - she wouldn't have had such an impassioned reaction. The woman had only been echoing the thoughts that so many non-SVU officers spoke day after day. "I get it, though," she finally concluded, because she did. Dana was lucky enough not to share in Amanda and Christina's experience. "Not everybody can relate."

"Hey..." Sonny said quietly. He turned and extended an arm over her shoulders and gently squeezed them. "I love you, babe."

She peered over at him and offered a wan smile. "I love you, too."

His hand soothed up and down her upper arm. "You comin' to bed?"

"Yeah," she nodded. "In a second."

When he left, Amanda looked at herself in the mirror and sighed. Her life was so much different now than it had been years ago when she had entangled herself with Patton, but that day, it still felt brand new. Her assault didn't cross her mind often, but when it did, it consumed all of her senses. She could smell him, she could taste him, she could feel the warmth of her own blood trickling down the back of her neck. It was vivid; it was terrifying. It made her angry that Patton still played even the tiniest role in her life, but while that memory resurfaced on occasion, at least Amanda wasn't a prisoner to her fear.

Leaving the bathroom, Amanda pulled her hair out of the bun and shrugged off her robe. The only light left on was the one by the bed, and Sonny was already beneath the sheets when she crawled into the covers on her side of the mattress. Back to him, she reached up to shut off the lamp. Everything was dark except the glow of the baby monitor, which showcased Ruby asleep in her crib. Every now and then, the infant made a little squeak or whine before quieting again.

Amanda couldn't seem to keep her eyes shut, restless despite her exhaustion. "Sonny?" she said into the darkness.

"Hm?" he grunted in response.

She chewed on her lower lip. "Hold me for a little?" she asked meekly.

She felt Sonny move so his back was pressed up against her chest. He draped an arm over her, slotted a knee between hers, and pressed a kiss into her shoulder. He didn't say anything, but she didn't need him to.