Chapter 10: Not Tonight

A/N: So this story is completed and I will continue to post chapters if there is interest. However, I haven't really received any sort of feedback, which is a little disheartening after nine chapters. So if you are reading and enjoying this story, please let me know. Otherwise, I'm probably just going to drop it.

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Mercy Hospital - Friday Morning 1a

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Amanda sat silently in the unusually quiet Mercy ER waiting room, deep in thought, when Liv came headed her way from around the corner.

"How's Declan?" Liv asked as she ran a hand though her hair and sat down next to her.

"It's bad." Amanda said as she took in a deep breath and exhaled slowly. "The bullet hit an artery. He's in surgery now.

Amanda paused for a moment to collect her thoughts and then shook her head. "What is he doing here?"

Liv sighed. "I was sitting with Elliot while he was getting stitched up and he gave me the cliff notes version. Apparently, Declan has been in the city for the past few months working as a UC for Organized Crime. Elliot, he…didn't go into specifics regarding the case they've been working on. Just that they've been trying to take down a Ukrainian crime organization with ties both here and abroad."

Amanda bit her lip and rolled her eyes. "He falls off the face of the Earth…is completely unreachable. Leaves me and Jesse hangin' and…after all this time he decides to take an undercover gig in New York? Why NOW? I have…so many questions."

Liv placed a hand on Amanda's shoulder and gave it a light squeeze in an effort to comfort her. "I know you do. But none of them are going to be answered tonight. You should go home and be with Carisi and the kids. I know you told him you were okay, but we both know he isn't going to really believe it until he sees you for himself."

Amanda sighed, but nodded as she got up from her seat.

"Take the day tomorrow." Liv said as she stood up. "And before you try to tell me that you're fine and don't need it, this isn't a suggestion. It's an order."

Amanda put her hand up. "I won't argue with you."

"I'll keep you posted about what's going on."

The blonde nodded as she grabbed her jacket from her chair and headed toward the exit.

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Amanda and Sonny's Apartment - Friday Morning 1:30a

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Sonny sighed in relief when he saw Amanda walk through their front door.

"I'm fine." Amanda tried to reassure him as she closed and locked the door behind her.

He nodded and took a seat at the kitchen table. "What happened? You said you didn't want to talk about it over the phone but now that you're home can you tell me?"

Amanda rubbed her temples and took a seat next to her husband. "After dealing with that incident at Hudson, Fin and I heard a call over the radio about an explosion and shots being fired at a closed parking garage. Since we were close we went to help. Turned out it was Stabler who asked for backup. He was in a shootout with some Ukrainian mobsters he's been working to take down. Him…and Declan."

Sonny's mouth opened a bit more in surprise, but Amanda found his reaction to be fairly mellow in comparison to what she thought she'd get.

She eyed him curiously. "You…you knew he was here, didn't you?"

Sonny sighed and ran a hand through his messy bed head. "Yeah. I did."

Amanda angrily chuckled and shook her head in disbelief. "How long? How long have you known."

"Stabler told me about it a few days ago."Sonny explained to her. "When you were away taking care of your dad."

Amanda furrowed her brows. "Why would Stabler even tell you?"

"Because he found out who Declan was to you and Jesse during a conversation with Fin. When he found out that I got reassigned back to Organize Crime he decided to tell me because he knew there was a chance a situation might arise where I might need to speak and work with Declan and he didn't want me to be blindsided by it."

"Oh, but it's ok if I am?" Ananda asked as she pointed to herself and rolled her eyes. "I don't care so much that Stabler didn't tell me. But you should have."

Sonny sighed again and rubbed his eyes. "I wavered back and forth about it because he's in the middle of workin' a very dangerous case and I wasn't sure how you might react to it. I didn't know if you would go rogue, which we know you sometimes do, and try to confront him in a way that would blow his cover and get him, you or someone else killed. Still, I didn't like keepin' it from you and I was goin' to tell you. Tonight, right before you got called in."

She got up and started pacing around the kitchen, pondering whether or not she believed him, then asked, "Have you spoken with him?"

Sonny nodded his head slowly. "Stabler set up a controlled meet. Murphy thought he was meeting him."

Amanda stopped moving and stared at him. "What did you say to him?"

He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. "That I didn't know why he was deciding now after all these years to come back to New York, but that he needed to leave Jesse alone and that she didn't need him poppin' up after all this time. And that if he did try to waltz into her life and…did anythin' to hurt her he'd have to answer to me."

Amanda shook her head in annoyance and started pacing around again.

"What, are we not on the same page when it comes to this topic?" Sonny asked as he gestured between them, looking confused.

"That's not the point, Carisi." She retorted, making sure to use his last name, which she rarely did when speaking to him except when she got upset. "Declan is MY issue and it wasn't your place to do that behind my back. You said you were going to tell me he was here, but were you gonna tell me about THAT conversation?"

Sonny fixed his mouth to respond, but was interrupted by cries coming from the baby's room.

They both looked at each other for a minute, before Sonny finally got up to go check on Dominick and emerged back into the kitchen, holding him, a few minutes later.

"What does he need?" Amanda asked, anxious to get back to the topic at hand.

"He's hungry." Sonny told her as he headed toward the refrigerator to fix him a bottle, but paused after opening it and coming to a startling realization. "It's off."

Amanda raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean off?"

"I—I don't know, it's dead." Sonny said as he started feeling some of the items. "Nothin' in here feels cold."

Amanda immediately headed to the fridge, grabbed some of her breast milk, smelled it and groaned. She then began taking out all the milk she had stored, bringing it to the sink and started pouring it out.

Sonny closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose with his free hand. "I'll call a repair company in the morning. If it's not a quick fix and we need to order a new one I'll pickup a cooler, ice, whatever we need, ok?"

Amanda said nothing, just shut the refrigerator door and took Dominick from Sonny's arms and headed toward the living room couch to breast feed him.

Sonny followed her.

She situated herself, positioned the baby to feed and he latched onto her. "I find out that my daughter's sperm donor has been working in the city for months, that…you found out about it, didn't tell me, and then went behind my back and talked, or should I say pseudo-threatened, him. And you say I'm the rogue one."

"Amanda—"

"Now he might die." She said cutting him off. "And if he does, there goes any chance of me getting some sort of resolution for Jesse."

Sonny sat down slowly next to her. "How…can I fix this?"

"Unless you have a time machine, you can't." Amanda said as she tried to get more comfortable on the couch. "Look, I'm too tired and pissed off to deal with this anymore. I need to finish feeding him, figure out how I'm going to pump four days worth of breast milk I just had to pour down the drain in the next 24-36 hours before I need to go back to work and then I want to go to bed. We'll talk about this later, but not tonight."

Sonny frowned as he got up and headed toward their bedroom.

He slowly slid into his side of the bed and stared blankly at the ceiling.

Sonny heard Amanda slip in a little while later after feeding and putting Dominick back to bed and showering. She usually cuddled into him as she fell asleep, but instead she turned his back to him and hung close to the edge of her side, leaving a large space in between them. Sonny sighed as he laid quietly in the dark, deep in thought, unable to sleep.