Author's Note: I've had this idea I've been working on for a while that involves both Rollisi and EO, but I've never written Rollisi besides as a minor or background pairing. This was a little practice with writing them. :)
Title comes from a slightly edited lyric from "Heart of Gold" by Neil Young.
Some mornings, he still has to pinch himself that he's lucky enough to wake up like this, curled in Amanda's too-small bed, holding her in his arms. Her golden waves fan out behind her on the pillow; he can brush the fine ends with his hand, feel their softness beneath his touch.
He's spent most of his years surrounded by blondes, and that hasn't changed when he was lucky enough to meet Amanda. Or when Jesse and Billie came along later, and God, he loves those girls like they're his own; he's been there since the word 'go' for both of them, and he's not leaving them.
He'd do anything for the three of them – or Frannie, although he's pretty sure she's content with walks, treats, food and a little extra attention now and then – and the fact that he's now sharing Amanda's bed with her, spending more nights there than he does at his own efficiency studio that's never felt like home, that fact doesn't change that. It only strengthens it.
It'd be reciprocated, he knows, but he never wants to have Amanda in a position where she has to make a sacrifice for him. Not because he's some macho man who has to protect his woman – that's not it at all - but because he knows she'd do it without thinking twice.
Amanda turns over in his arms to face him, and she snuffles lightly in her sleep, before she repositions herself in the crease against his shoulder and stills there, her lips pressed against his bare skin.
He thinks it's so incredibly endearing to see this softer side of her, when she lets the stress of the world and her job melt away, and she can just be.
She usually wakes up before him, with the engrained, combined habits of both a detective and a mother, but the girls have been good about sleeping through the night in their own beds lately. And it means a few more moments they can relax, together, as the first dim rays of a new day's sun peek through the window.
He doesn't have to see her to know how stunning she is. She is, simply by existing.
Slowly, her tired, bleary blue eyes blink open and look up at him; a faint smile crests across her face at seeing him already awake. "You watchin' me sleep, Dominick?" she mumbles, her accent thickened by the last fleeting remnants of her slumber.
"You know I can't resist," he whispers, tenderly taking his hand and twirling a loose lock of her hair around his index finger before tucking it behind her ear. "We don't get many of these moments, quiet and alone."
She hums indistinctly, her lips finding his neck, and he can feel the heat of her smile against his skin as if she's branding him, marking him as property of Amanda Rollins.
Little does she know, she never needed to kiss him for that to happen; he's been hers, undoubtedly, since that first day, whether she realized it or not.
"Yeah, guess you're right," she says, softly. "It's nice, this."
He knows that as soon as they get out of the bed, and Frannie hears that they're up, the girls will be up too, and then the day truly begins. And Amanda will go off and stare heinous evil in the face and want to clutch her girls that much harder when she makes it home, and he'll make sure, to the very best of his legal ability, that those same people don't see the light of day for as long as he can make it.
But here and now, he has her, and none of the battles seem as scary when he knows he has someone like Amanda on his team. And he knows that she knows how much she means to him, but there's always that nagging voice in the back of her head – it's so loud, he can almost hear it sometimes – that doubts this is going to last.
Because nothing gold can stay, after all, and what the two of them have, what they share, is the most brilliant shade of gold that he could ever fathom existing.
Except, he's never going to look at her and see anything but the woman he loves; not now, not ever. And yet, he's never found the way to put that into words, so that she doesn't have to guess, she can know.
"I love you, you know that, right," he says, cradling her chin in his hands as he pulls her close for a sweet, tender, good morning kiss. "I – I thought you should know that, 'Manda, I really do." With his other hand, he smooths flyaway hairs back from her temple and gently caresses the top of her forehead with his thumb.
A flicker of something resembling fear or anxiety crosses through her eyes, and what he wouldn't give to go into her mind and slay the emotional demons that torment her and caused the flicker, but she relaxes, and smiles at him.
"You sure 'bout that?" she says, laughing a little as she pushes herself into his grasp that much further. "'Cause, I mean, if you don't –"
"I've never meant anything more in my life." His gaze locks with hers, and he knows he doesn't have an intense, piercing gaze that says more with one look than all the words in the world ever could, but he hopes she can see the sincerity and devotion he feels for her.
"Well, good, then," she says, and she returns his kiss with an equally tender, slightly more sensual kiss that nips lightly at the bottom of his lower lip, and she grins. "I really do too."
It's a start, he knows, because he knows she doesn't express her emotions well, if at all; he's not in a rush.
After all, he's taking this seriously, and so is she. And she has no idea that he's begun to look into the adoption paperwork and proceedings – when he makes Amanda a Carisi, and he fully intends to, eventually, he's bringing Jesse and Billie with them.
And then, looped in a protective band of gold that matches the locks he has looped around his fingers - framing her face to hold her for that precious second longer before their days have to finally begin – maybe then, they can have an eternity of quiet, shared moments, just like this.