I'm having some serious writer's block with my JAG stories, so I guess it's more Rollisi for you guys instead. :)
This one takes place during 22x04.
With just enough time to be able to catch a few hours of sleep before she had to go back to the precinct, Amanda Rollins entered her apartment as quietly as she could.
It felt strange to come home – in the middle of the night no less – and to have someone there that she could discuss her job with, but at the same time, it felt so welcomed and comforting, too. Stepping further into the apartment, she realized that Jessie was no longer in the chair. Instead, she was sprawled out across Sonny's chest on the couch and the blanket from earlier was covering them both.
Feeling bold, and wanting to reclaim some of that priceless moment from earlier where she fell asleep cuddled up beside him, she gently leaned down to place a soft kiss on Sonny's forehead.
"Sorry you had to miss your New Year's kiss." She whispered, torn between wanting him to hear and not wanting him to hear. There was a shift with in their relationship tonight. Perhaps it was the magic of the holiday, but she could feel it. Something was different and it was both exciting and terrifying to her all at once.
"Manda?" Came a raspy, sleep filled voice, as he blinked his eyes a few times before they focused on her. Once they did focus on her, he offered a sleepy smile.
A brief flash of jealousy rushed through her at the realization that he said her name more as a question than as a statement. Maybe he was wishing she was someone else. "Yeah...I'm home. How were things here?" she asked quietly.
"Billie woke up once – right after you left. All she needed was a new diaper and then she was out like a light ever since. Jessie, however, got a little bit worried when she woke up and you weren't here. So, we watched the rest of the countdown and I promised her I'd be here if she woke up again. I think she fell asleep around 12:30."
"And you've been like this ever since? That has to be torture on your back. You could have put her in her bed."
"Nah, I didn't want to break my promise to her...or scare her more if she woke up and was all by herself in her room."
Amanda smiled, and even in the dark, Sonny would say it lit up the whole room.
"You're a good man, Dominick."
He shrugged his shoulders slightly to brush off the compliment. "She really missed you. She was very...anxious."
"Sometimes...sometimes I feel like a bad mom." She confessed.
"You're not a bad mom."
"Ever since the night I didn't come home because of Bucci...she's been more afraid when I leave." Amanda ran her fingers through Jessie's hair. "And the whole virus thing complicated matters, too. Other than you and Sienna, she hasn't seen anyone in almost a year...and she doesn't really understand it completely, but she's smart. She knows it's dangerous, and I think that scares her when I leave the apartment, too."
Sonny nodded understandingly. "It's been tough year for adults...being isolated and all. I can only imagine how a kid feels, you know?"
"Yeah," she agreed sadly. "I'll wake her up and take her to her room. That way you don't have to break any promises."
"Thanks, partner," he grinned. "Nice to know we can still do good cop/bad cop, huh?"
She rolled her eyes. "Jessie, sweetheart. I'm home," she started as she gently put her hand on her daughter's back. "Happy New Year."
Jessie stirred and her face lit up when she saw her mother. "I missed you!"
"I missed you, too!" She dropped her head to give Jessie a kiss on the cheek, her hand coming to brace herself on Sonny's chest so she didn't lose her balance. "But, I think it's time to get you into your own bed, okay?"
Jessie nodded and crawled down from the safety of her uncle's arms. She gave him another hug and kiss. "I love you, Uncle Sonny."
"Not as much as I love you, Jess."
Jessie yawned and lifted her arms. Amanda picked her up as Sonny stood from the couch.
"Well...I guess I should go..." he started somewhat awkwardly.
Her face fell. She knew it was late, and he'd have to be at work just as early as she would have to be in the morning, but she didn't want him to leave. She stood there for a moment in silence as she shifted her weight, trying to think of something to say.
Maybe he was reading into something that wasn't there, but he swore he saw the disappointment flash in her eyes. "Or...or, uh, I could stay longer."
"That would be ...nice." She smiled warmly.
"Then, it's settled." He reached out and placed a hand on Jessie's back. "Sleep well, Jess. We'll have a spaghetti night soon."
"Promise?"
"I promise."
Sonny began to clean up some of the mess from earlier as Amanda brought Jessie to her room. He wasn't trying to eavesdrop, but Jessie couldn't really control the volume of her voice all that well, and he couldn't help but to hear – very clearly – the conversation that was happening just down the hall.
"Momma...sometimes when I wake up and you aren't home, I get scared."
"I know," Amanda said, sadly. "I'm sorry there are times when I have to leave in the middle of the night."
"Sienna helps make me feel better a little and she'll read me another story."
"That's good. Some extra bedtime stories are always a good thing, huh?"
"Yeah," she nodded. "Momma...I was scared one time when we lived at Dr. Al's house. I thought there was a monster in my closet. You were sleeping so he told me to go back to sleep, too, and that I could have extra ice cream next time." She wrinkled her nose. "Dr. Al was nice to me, but he's not the same kind of nice Uncle Sonny is."
Amanda bit her bottom lip. She loved Billie so much, but she still often wondered what she ever saw in Al. He had a few good moments with Jessie here and there, but his interactions with Jessie never came as effortlessly as Sonny's did.
"Ice cream is yummy," Jessie continued, "but it doesn't make me feel better...Dr. Al didn't know that. I'd rather have spaghetti than ice cream, Momma." She declared. "I'd rather have spaghetti cause it makes me think of Uncle Sonny and that me makes happy."
"Me, too." Amanda adjusted the covers over Jessie.
"You and Uncle Sonny make me feel better the mostest. I was sad cause I missed you tonight, but Uncle Sonny makes me feel not scared. I know he'll keep the bad things away and make sure we're safe...and not just cause he was a policeman...but cause he loves us. It's different than how Dr. Al and Sienna love us."
Kid were so much more perceptive than adults would give them credit for, Amanda thought. "Uncle Sonny is so good at making us feel safe. He's such a great protector, and he always makes me feel better, too. The way he loves us is special."
"You get scared sometimes, too?"
"I sure do."
"And Uncle Sonny makes you feel better?" She asked for clarification.
"Every single time," Amanda confirmed.
"Hm. Maybe he can stay all the time," Jessie suggested innocently.
Unsure what to say, Amanda dropped a kiss on Jessie's forehead. "Good night, sweetheart."
"Thanks for staying," Amanda said when she returned to the living room.
"I'm happy, too," he said softly. "Jessie wasn't the only one who missed you," he confessed from his seat on the couch.
She walked over to the couch and sat down just the way she was before the Amber Alert went off – only this time his arm went around her shoulders instead of resting on top of the couch and she snuggled even more into his side.
"Did you want to talk about the case?" he asked after a few beats of silence passed between them.
"At first, yes, I did, but I don't want to anymore. You'll get to hear all about in in a few hours yourself anyway from Liv. We're going to need some warrants."
"Is there something else you want to talk about?"
She almost said yes. She almost said she wanted to talk about them, but she didn't. "I think I just want to enjoy this moment...since we couldn't ring in the new year like this."
"Okay."
The next morning, they didn't even talk about the fact that they fell asleep curled up on her couch together. They only slept for a few hours – more of a power nap than anything – but Amanda felt refreshed for the first time in a long time.
"I have to go home and get ready for work." Sonny said as walked over to hand her a mug of coffee. Then, he went to put on his coat and shoes.
"I know." She brushed her hand through her hair and hoped she looked presentable. "Thanks for staying." She took a sip of coffee – coffee that he brewed for her in her own kitchen, with her on coffee grounds, and wondered why it tasted so much better than when she made it for herself.
"I'll see you at the precinct in a little bit."
She never would have been able to predict what a rollercoaster the next few days would prove to be. Things with the case spiraled and Sonny pulled further away. He wasn't returning her calls other than a brief text – that read "working."
So, that's why she knew she would find him in his office even after voir dire took 12 hours. He was upset, and clearly stressed, and she regretted – not for the first time - the way she treated him last year when he initially made his move to the DA's office. She was so consumed by her feelings of abandonment, that she didn't stop to process how hard it was for him to leave all his friends and start a new job.
It hurt when he accused her of helping Barba.
Barba was here before me.
Fin was your first partner.
"That doesn't mean that I am more loyal to them than I am to you," she had replied, when what she really wanted to do was smack him upside the head with a file folder for thinking that she'd go behind his back like that.
Why did they always take one step forward and then three steps backwards? She finally thought they were getting closer to something and then this happened. Why did everything have to be so complicated?
She could tell he was still angry when he asked if Fin brought Barba in, and she just wanted him to feel better – the way he always made her feel better.
Sighing, she stood up and walked behind his desk so she could place her hands on his shoulders. She pushed her fingertips into his shoulder blades, hoping to help him relieve the tension that was so clearly resting in his neck and shoulders.
"Oh...you're good at this," he said.
She let out a soft chuckle and her breath tickled his neck. "Does this help more than the Pepto?" she teased as she glanced over at the pink Pepto bottle on his desk. "Maybe it's tension headaches manifesting as stomach ulcers that are really plaguing you, Counselor."
"Mmhm..." his eyes were closed and he leaned more into her touch. "You might regret letting me know what good massages you give. It might become a trial prep ritual." He teased back.
"Happy to help," she replied as she imagined giving him a proper massage.
Her motions slowed when she noticed the framed picture on his desk. She had been in his office dozens of times since it became his, but never on this side of the desk. She saw the frame when she'd sit in the guest chair across from him and always just assumed that it was a picture of his family. She never would have dreamt that it was a framed picture of her and Jessie. Her smile grew when she realized there was also a picture of Billie. It was a small, square, glossy print propped up against the framed picture. If you weren't looking for it, or if you didn't know it was there, you probably wouldn't even notice it on his desk.
It was from the day Billie was born. Carisi was holding Jessie, and she was holding Billie in her arms. Jessie was staring down at her new baby sister, but she and Dominick weren't looking at Jessie or Billie...they were looking at each other. It was such a raw, candid moment between them. A moment where the look in their eyes seemed to speak the words for them that their mouths couldn't say.
She never saw the picture before, and wanted to thank the person who took it.
Olivia must have taken it, she thought. That's the only thing that made sense. Fin wasn't sentimental enough to capture a moment like that.
She realized that no one has ever had a photo of her on their desk before – at least not to her knowledge. There were hundreds of pictures of just Jessie and Bille by themselves that he could have picked, but he didn't. He picked ones that at her in them as well.
It gave her butterflies, truthfully.
"You're a good ADA, Dominick. Don't doubt yourself."
"Ehh..." he started, as he shrugged his shoulders, and she increased the amount of pressure she was using as an attempt to keep him in place.
"You know..." she began. "I always noticed the picture frame on your desk. I just assumed it was a picture of your family."
He opened one eye, and then the other. Busted, he thought as she nodded towards the picture frame and the small print propped up against it.
She dropped her hands away from his shoulder when he leaned back in his chair so he could crane his neck upwards and look at her.
"It is a picture of my family," he answered simply.
"It's over...and not for nothing. You won." She was saying to him the next day in an empty bar as Kat went to buy the next round of drinks. He was in slightly better spirits than he had been for most of the week, but it was still abundantly clear about how hurt he felt when it seemed like half of his old squad was going against him.
She wanted to tell him that she knew him well enough to know that if the roles were reversed, he would have done the same thing, but he didn't want him to think she was dismissing his feelings. She wasn't quite sure where things were with them. New Year's was magical, then there were a few bumps with the case that caused tension...but ever since she found those pictures in his office, she couldn't deny that she wanted more with him. She just didn't know how to get there.
"Hey," Amanda began quickly, the volume of her voice dropping, when she noticed Olivia was now at the bar with Kat. "What would you say if we finish our next round of drinks and then blow this popsicle stand?"
He arched an eyebrow. "And do what?" He prompted, amused.
"And go back to place for spaghetti? Spaghetti that you're gonna cook for us, of course." She clarified.
"So, I win my case and then I am supposed to make dinner for you and the girls to celebrate?" He asked, his tone was light – happy, really.
"Hey! I bought your first drink!" She quipped - swatting his shoulder playfully.
"I know!" He grinned, his first real smile in days, and Amanda's heart melted, as he waved his hands in surrender. "I'd love to, Rollins." He said as reached over to tap his beer bottle against her glass again. "That sounds... perfect, actually."
"Yeah, I think a nice family dinner is just what we need after this week."
Someday soon they would talk about this dance of theirs – but they were definitely a family – even if it was in a slightly unconventional way.