In this world, we're just going to pretend Nicole didn't exist at all. It's easier than me coming up with a way to address their breakup for a one-shot story.

"Hey, why such the sad face, Rollins? It's not even 9:00am yet. Did you catch a case already?" Sonny asked with a frown as he reached Amanda's desk and handed her a bag containing a breakfast pastry and a coffee.

Amanda sighed as she accepted the bag from him. "You really gotta stop doing this to me, Carisi." She said as she peaked in the bag to see what type of pastry he picked out for her today.

"Yeah, well you don't eat enough."

She rolled her eyes and dropped the bag on her desk before she took a sip of coffee. She exhaled a breath slowly. "Jessie's class is having a pizza party at school this afternoon and each student is allowed to invite a guest." She began.

"Oh, that sounds nice."

Amanda bit on her bottom lip. "I was supposed to go, but Liv called me as I was dropping Jess off and said Fin was going to be out sick today. That means I have to go to Rikers with Kat to do some interviews for the cold case we are working." She paused for a second. "Right there in the drop off line, I had to break it to Jessie that I wouldn't be able to go to the pizza party. She was so heartbroken. We both ended up crying. I feel like a terrible mother." She sighed again as she placed her coffee cup on the desk and ran her hand through her hair. "A terrible mother," she repeated.

"That does not make you a terrible mother, Amanda," he said sincerely.

She shrugged. "I think it does."

"What time is this pizza party?" He asked.

"11:30-12:30. It's a half day at school today. She's able to leave after..." she trailed off, reminding herself to call Sienna to see if she was able to pick up Jessie a few hours earlier since she wouldn't be there to do it herself. "Why?" She asked curiously.

"Well," he began with a casual shrug of his own, "there aren't any morning arraignments today, and I don't have anything on the docket at all. I was just going to knock out some paperwork, so maybe I can go in your place? She can come hang out at my office after school until you get back." He suggested. "If you think that would be okay with Jess, of course..."

Amanda threw herself into his arms like the day they found out he passed the bar exam. This time, however, she planted a kiss on his cheek in the process –dangerously close to his mouth- and was thankful that the squad room was empty, and Liv wasn't in her office yet. "Really?" She asked as she pulled away from him and regained her composure. "You'd do that for us?" Her hands her still resting on his forearms and she stared into his eyes.

He nodded, a smile on his face appearing to match hers. "Yeah, yeah. Of course. I wouldn't have suggested it if I didn't mean it."

"Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you. You always save me, Dominick. This is going to mean the world to her. I owe you big time."

"You don't owe me anything, Manda." He whispered.

They stared at each other a moment too long for two people who were "just friends" before Sonny cleared his throat and said, "Well, uh, I better get back to my office and get some work done before I leave for Jessie's party."

"Yeah, I suppose you should," she said almost sadly, not wanting him to leave. "I need to get ready to head out to Rikers as soon as Kat gets here, anyways."

"Be careful," he reminded her as he made his way towards the elevators. "Text me when you're back, okay? We can formulate a plan for you to pick up Jessie then."

"Okay," she nodded. "And thanks for breakfast!" She called out before his figure disappeared around the corner.

Kat stepped off of the elevator as he was stepping on. "Morning, Counselor," she smirked. "Coral's a nice shade on you," she teased him as she motioned towards the smudge of lipstick on the corner of his mouth. "It looks good on Rollins, too..." She laughed as he brought his hand to his face and rubbed away the lipstick. "Are congratulations in order?" She raised an eyebrow.

"It's not like that, Kat," he said, shaking his head and fidgeting with his tie, as the doors began to close.

She scoffed. "If you say so," she managed to reply with an eyeroll before the doors closed completely.

Only they both knew it was exactly like that.

It was official on paper – the DA's office and Liv knew right from the start, and while they did not make it a big deal, their coworkers figured it out fairly early on, too. They did work with some of the best detectives in New York City, after all. But he and Amanda didn't want people to see them any differently at work – they just wanted to be the same Detective Rollins and ADA Carisi that they had been since Sonny's move to the DA's office. So, they told their coworkers to treat them exactly as they would if they didn't know they were together, and Kat was doing a very good job at that in particular.

After getting a visitor's ID badge from the school office and signing the proper paperwork to take Jessie home from school, Sonny followed the secretary's directions and found his way to Jessie's classroom. As he approached the door, he could hear the excited chatter of kindergarteners as they talked to each other and the adult visitors in the classroom. He paused in the doorway, for a moment, when he caught sight of Jessie. She looked so sad – sitting there without her guest sitting across from her like her two classmates on either side of her did.

He briefly made eye contact with the teacher, Mrs. Quinn, who was talking to a group of students and their guests a few tables away from Jessie's table. They shared a brief exchange of head nods in acknowledgment of each other, and Mrs. Quinn appeared to be relieved when she saw him there. He's picked up Jessie dozens of times from school in the past, so he knew that she must have realized he was filling in for Amanda today.

Jessie sighed, leaning forward, and placed her head in her hands on the table, as she kicked her legs back and forth underneath her chair.

"Maybe your mommy is just running late," one little boy's mother said as she offered a sad smile in Jessie's direction. "That happens sometimes."

"No," Jessie began with an expression that was somewhere in between a pout and a scowl. "She's not coming because she's in jail today," she replied dramatically with another sigh.

Sonny's eyebrows nearly reached his hairline as the woman's mouth formed a perfect "o" shape. She was stuttering, trying to formulate a response, and Sonny took a few long strides to cross the room and reach Jessie.

"Uh, context is important, Jess," he chuckled almost nervously– glancing at the woman briefly.

Jessie's face immediately lit up when she saw him. She pushed her chair away from the table and darted over to hug him. "You came to be my special guest?" She grinned at him.

"Mmhm," he confirmed. "Mommy told me what happened when she got to work. So, we decided maybe I could come in her place, and after when it's time to leave, you can come back to my office with me until she gets back."

"Oh, yay! I'm not sad anymore. I was really sad before," she admitted. "Momma and I cried this morning."

He was acutely aware of the way the other mom was watching their interaction and looked over to offer an explanation. "Her mother is a detective. She had to go conduct some interviews at the jail today. Something came up at the last minute." He explained.

The little boy's mother visibly relaxed. "Ohhh," she sighed. "I must say that's a relief. Her mother is at the jail, not in jail."

Jessie looked at her curiously and then at Sonny. "Did she think mommy was incarcerated?" Jessie crossed her arms, eyes wide. Sonny bit back a grin- the lawyer in him coming to the surface- at her perfect pronunciation of "incarcerated."

"My, that's quite a vocabulary you have," the woman commented in an offhand manner at Jessie's word choice.

Sonny winced ever so slightly sensing the judgement in the woman's gaze and tone. He knew Amanda always compared herself to the other mothers, and he didn't want this one to cause any unnecessary drama between Rollins and the other mothers.

"Jessie is a smart girl. Like I said, her mother is a detective," he repeated as an explanation, "and I'm an ADA. We don't talk about the specifics of our work in front of her, but she definitely knows all about the legal system. Isn't that right, Jess?" Sonny ruffled her hair, before fixing the pink floral headband that was sliding out of place on her head.

"Yep," Jessie nodded. "I even know all of the Bill of Rights!" She declared proudly and Sonny couldn't help but to beam with pride – thinking to himself – that's my girl.

The woman clicked her tongue and seemed satisfied with the explanation. "So, is that your drawing over there, sweetheart?" She asked Jessie as she pointed to a specific drawing hanging up on the classroom wall.

Sonny was able to instantly identify Jessie's artwork, but this particular drawing stood out. In a sea of kindergarten doodles, hers was the only one that portrayed a collection of stick figures.

It was the third one from the left in the second row. One was clearly Amanda with yellow hair and a star drawn on her waist which he assumed was her badge. The next stick figure was slightly taller than the first, and had silver hair and a navy-blue tie and a brown briefcase. There was no doubt about who that was supposed to represent. The two smaller figures were clearly Jessie and Billie and he could only assume that the little blob at their feet was supposed to be Jessie's attempt at drawing Frannie. There were some trees and flowers in the background and green scribbles that represented grass near the lower edge of the paper along with blue scribbles near the upper edge of the paper for the sky. Near the bottom right-hand corner, the words "My Family" were written in what he assumed to be the teacher's handwriting.

"Yes," Jessie nodded proudly. "That's my picture. We had to draw what made us happy, so I drew my family at the park," she said simply.

Family.

The word played over and over in Sonny's mind, and he realized that was the best way to describe what he and Amanda had.

Saying they were dating seemed too juvenile. They were way past that level of getting to know each other and it just didn't feel right. It almost felt like it cheapened what they had.

Not when they had already shared some of the most important, or even most traumatic experiences, life had to offer together. Not when he spent a majority of nights at her apartment. Not when he had countless ties that had to go to the cleaners because Billie's little maple syrup covered fingers always reached for him with a grin at breakfast time. Not when he stayed up with Jessie until 3am the night she had a stomach bug and threw up on his shoes the moment he got to the apartment to relieve Sienna while Amanda was stuck working a night shift.

No, what they had, it was more than that.

And contrary to what most people assumed, like the nurse when her father was in the hospital, the barista at the coffee shop, half of the people at Jessie's school and Billie's daycare, they weren't married or even engaged. They may have had a history that was over seven years in the making, but Sonny knew it was still way too soon to broach that subject with her. He knew that she needed a little bit more time to accept the fact that she did deserve to be happy.

But to say that they were a family? That felt right.

And families came to be in a lot of different ways.