Forgot where I wanted to go with this but it's complete-ish, so I figured I post, before I went off on a bigger tangent LOL. Thanks for indulging me.

23x08

"Thanks for meeting me." Amanda said sadly when her companion met her at the coffee shop.

"You sounded upset. Of course, I'd be here. What the hell happened in court yesterday?" Kat asked sincerely as she pulled out the chair so she could sit across from Amanda.

"It was awful, Kat. Really bad." She said as she pushed the coffee she ordered for Kat towards her.

"I never saw Carisi as a bully before but that's exactly what he was."

"Carisi? A bully? Those are two words I never thought I'd hear together." She nearly choked on her coffee.

"If you would have seen it..." Amanda shook her head. "That cross was brutal."

"He's a prosecutor doing his job, Rollins."

"But he tore apart the victim!"

"Because the law said he had to! She was a victim, yes, but she was on trial for a crime."

Amanda blinked a few times. "This isn't what you'd be saying if you worked the case...you've let Carisi have it for less." She crossed her arms.

Kat shrugged. "His hands were tied. The man can't single handedly change New York State law in an hour."

"That's something he'd say."

Kat smirked. "He did say that to me once when I did call him out on something. For what it's worth, he probably felt so guilty after court that he went to confession."

A few beats passed and Amanda didn't offer anything else, so Kat gave her a little nudge. "Did you guys fight about it?"

Amanda shrugged. "He asked if I was mad at him, and I said I was sad at him."

"Oof."

She cringed, biting her bottom lip. "Yeah, I know. You would have thought Billie said that and not me, but it was the best way to describe what I was feeling."

"What happened after that?"

"He said he didn't know how to take that and walked away from me. Things have been a little...tense, no," she corrected. "They've been a little awkward since. That's a better way to describe it. He made sure he came home very late last night, and I was pretending I was sleeping so we didn't have to talk about it. We both knew exactly what we were doing."

She left out the part where she woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't fight the urge she had to gently kiss his ear where the scar from Henry's attack was. She also left out the part where, even though they fell asleep with their backs turned to each other, she woke up to begin the day with his head on her pillow and his nose buried in her shoulder.

"And this morning?" Kat prompted.

"He left earlier than usual. He still helped get the girls ready and made breakfast, but we didn't have any type of conversation about it. It was basically just "have you seen Billie's shoes?" and "Where's Jessie's lunchbox?"

She sighed, picking at the cardboard sleeve on her coffee cup. "I guess we were due for this...you can't spend your whole relationship in the honeymoon stage."

"You guys will get back on track," Kat assured her. "But the only way to do that is if you talk about."

"I know."

"Carisi walked away from the argument, he didn't walk away from you."

Amanda's eyes flew up and locked with Kat's.

"Oh, come on, Rollins. That's what's bothering you, too, isn't it?"

"Maybe? I mean, I was so focused on how he was in court, but maybe subconsciously...I mean, I suppose. It's complicated." Suddenly flashes of her childhood – and the memories of her parents fighting- bombarded her.

"Sometimes, walking away in the midst of an argument is the best thing you can do. It's a sign of maturity, in my opinion. Look, Carisi is a good guy, but that doesn't mean he's perfect. No one is."

"But doesn't walking away mean that you're afraid to say what you really think?" she countered.

"No, not always." Kat assured her. "Sometimes it just means you know each other well enough to take a breather. You'll work it all out, and when you're ready to make up, Celine and I will be happy to have the girls come over for a sleepover. You and the counselor can have all the privacy you need," Kat waggled her eyebrows and chuckled at Amanda's blush.

"I'll keep that in mind, Kat." Amanda quipped as she rolled her eyes jokingly before her phone pinged with a text. "Oh." She said as she opened the text. "That's Carisi. He wants to know if I can meet him at the courthouse."

"Let's get outta here," Carisi said, biting back a smirk as he casually brushed his palm against the small of Amanda's back while he maneuvered her through the crowd.

"Your place before I have to relieve Sienna?" She asked, arching an eyebrow as she glanced at him over her shoulder.

His only response was a firmer press of his hand against her back and a real smirk. "It's like you read my mind, partner," he whispered in her ear when they were a respectable distance away from the courthouse steps.

She chuckled as they fell into step with one another and they enjoyed the calm, comfortable silence before Carisi spoke again. "I know you said we're good..." he began.

"But?" Amanda prompted, stopping in her tracks.

"I think we should still talk about it."

Amanda nodded and gestured towards a bench across the way. "Let's go over there."

She smiled softly as she watched Carisi brush away the fallen leaves before he motioned for her to sit down. After she was seated, he sat on the bench, so close to her that their knees were touching.

He swallowed before he spoke. "This was a tough case."

"Yeah," she agreed. "It was."

"Sort of like another tough case where we had a pretty public fight."

"There were some differences, too, though..."

"Like?" He prompted.

"You walking away...from me." She tacked on softly, vulnerably, really.

He snapped his eyes to hers. "Manda-"

She cut him off before he could continue. "Don't worry. I already talked this through with Kat; she made me see the light, so to speak."

"You talk to Kat about me?" He asked, pretending to be surprised, even though he's suspected all along. And truthfully, he was glad that Amanda had a friend to confide in.

"Yeah," she snorted, resting her head against his shoulder after a quick glance around confirmed there were no familiar faces around, "the same way you talk to Bella about me."

He chuckled. "So, we're even."

"Mmhm."

"Listen, Manda, I never meant to hurt you by walking away -"

"I know. We're partners. We fight and we make up. You said so yourself. It's bound to happen, but as Kat pointed out to me, sometimes, walking away from the fight is the best thing to do. It wasn't me you walked away from."

"It wasn't," he assured her.

"When my parents would fight, they didn't know when to stop. They'd provoke each other to the point they would say awful things and my dad would hit my mom and then leave for days after. When I was six years old, there were times I'd wonder if I'd ever see him again..." she trailed off and cleared her throat. "I know that's not us. I also think it shows how much we grew since last time... how solid we are now, you know?"

He nodded.

"Sometimes walking away to process the situation does show how much you care for someone." She continued.

And unlike with her father, Amanda knew without a shadow of a doubt, that Carisi would always come back.

"Look. I lo-," he caught himself and quickly settled on a different word choice. "I value you," he began again, "you and the girls are the most important thing to me in the world and I hate being the reason you're sad."

"I know you do," she placed her hand on his knee, smiling at his almost slip. Those three words no longer scared her.

"But...but I also had a job to do." He slipped his fingers between hers.

"You did. Kat reminded me of that, too. And for as much as I hated it, you did it well. You're a good lawyer, Dominick, and I'm so proud of you." She took deep breath. "I value you, too, and I would love you regardless of your job. I'd love you if you were a cop, prosecutor, defense attorney, or none of those, because I love the man you are."

She turned her head to face him, and flushed a little at how intently he was focusing on her. It was as if everything around them had disappeared and they were the only two people in the entire city.

"Do you realize what you just said?" He asked, almost afraid that she didn't, as he reached out to brush a piece of hair behind her ear. "Or implied, I guess," he back peddled nervously.

"Yeah," she beamed at him, placing her hand over the hand he still had pressed against her cheek. "I love you." She repeated confidently. "I know you were about to say it before you changed your word choice. I'm sorry if I stole your thunder."

"It doesn't matter who says it first," he assured her before kissing her. "I love you, too, you know that? I'll tell you every single day for the rest of our lives."

"Is that a proposal?" She teased with a watery chuckle.

"If it were...?"

"Dominick?" She knit her brows together, her heart beat increasing with each second as she watched him open his briefcase.

"I've had this for a while," he confessed. "But it seemed kinda silly to propose before we said "I love you," right?" He shrugged.

She gasped as he opened the velvet ring box. "Ask me." She blurted out, unable to pull her eyes away from the box.

He grinned. "A partnership is a lot like a marriage," he began. "And we've done pretty well with our partnership, so what would you say to giving the whole marriage thing a go?" He asked, casually, knowing her well enough to know that asking her that way suited her more than the standard "will you marry me?"

"Yes, yes, yes!" She exclaimed happily, nodding her head, holding her hand out so he could slip the ring onto her finger. "It's beautiful." She said in awe.

"I had two little helpers when I picked it out last month. They're gonna be pretty excited when they see you wearing this. I think they've been looking for it on your finger every day since."

"They kept it a secret that long?" Billie was young enough that she may have even forgot about the adventure, but Amanda was very surprised Jessie didn't spill beans.

"A surprise," he corrected. "We may have had a conversation about the difference between secrets and surprises after we left the jewelry store...I hope I didn't overstep...I just thought it was important to talk about that. They're at that age, and with our work..."

She had no idea it was possible to love him more than she already did, but hearing him say that did it. "You didn't overstep," she assured him. "That means more to me than you can ever know. You're their dad in all the ways that matter. Don't ever forget that." She reached out to cup his face between her hands. "Okay?"

He nodded, placing his hand over hers and smiling when his fingers touched the new piece of jewelry on her ring finger. "We're family," he said sincerely.

"We are."