Amanda awoke, her head aching, whether from crying or from the bottle of red wine she had drank before bed, she didnt know. Today was the day. Patton would be flying in from Georgia, and she would have to show him around. She sighed, standing and padding to her bathroom, falling to the floor in front of the toliet as she threw up the contents of her stomach. Oh yes. Hangover. Without a doubt. She closed her eyes, reaching over and turning the shower, stripping off her clothes from the night before and crawling into the warm stream of water. She lay there, on the floor of the shower, closing her eyes and falling into another blissful sleep.
The water turning to ice woke her. She shot up, out of the shower, and promptly threw up again. She needed to eat something. She glanced at the clock on the coffee maker, and her eyes shot up in a panic.
"Damn." She groaned, rushing to get dressed, grabbing a sports bra out of her drawer, not caring that it wasn't the best choice to wear with the pink blouse shed chosen. She threw on her slacks, socks and work shoes and raced out the door. She'd have to stop at Shell and pickup breakfast and coffee.
She did just that, pulling into the gas station parking lot, running inside while her car was filling up with gas. She quickly grabbed a coffee, and a ham and swiss egg sandwich, and rushed to the counter to pay. She didn't want to be late. Didn't want to add pissing off the boss to the list of things that were sure to go wrong today.
"Input your pin please." Amanda barely heard the cashier. She was eyeing the lottery sheets on the wall, battling the temptation to buy one. Why not. What was the harm in spending five dollars to get a little luck in her day?
"Add one of the fives to my tab. That purple one with the dog on it." The lady sighed, grabbing it down from the case and handing it to her. Amanda took one of the pennies from the can on the counter and used it to scratch the ticket. She had three sevens in a row!
"Looks like you won!" The woman said, her eyebrows raising. "Let's see. You got a thousand dollar gas card. Looks like you wont be paying for gas this year!"
Amanda hummed as she walked into the station, her pace brisk as she walked by Liv's desk, dropping off the coffee and sandwich, deciding to try her luck in other areas as well. If she was so lucky with a simple scratch off, what was to stop her from having luck in wooing the beautiful detective?
"Thanks. Amanda, Patton isn't coming. Officer Reagan and his partner stumbled upon the perp while on a routine traffic stop. He confessed to everything, and produced the evidence to back up his story. So, You and Fin are on paperwork duty today."
"Oh." Amanda's heart exploded from her chest. Patton wasn't coming! She didn't have to ride around all day with her old boss, and didn't have to tell Olivia why she didnt want to. Because it wasnt happening. This was great! This was lucky. That...that lottery ticket was magic.
"Rollins?" Benson's voice shook her from her daydream, and she realized that she likely looked like the cat who ate the canary. "Something wrong?" Olivia's eyes were concerned, filled with worry and something she couldn't place.
"No. Nothing's wrong, Im just laughing because the dumbass got himself caught at a traffic stop." She chuckled, relieved when Olivia began to laugh along. "I'll head on over and get started on that paperwork. I look forward to working with Fin."
Amanda sighed softly, running her hand through her hair as she entered yet another case file into the computer system. Names and dates swam past her brain like fish in the sea as she allowed her mind to wander while she mindlessly worked on the task at hand. That morning, had been a coincidence. But how could it have been? She won a thousand dollars of free gas, which would last her a long long time, she earned a smile from Benson when she had given her breakfast, and smiles, she was learning, were hard to come by from the beautiful woman. Best of all, Patton was not coming to New York anytime soon. The horrible man was staying far, far away and she was quite happy with that new development. The perp had been caught, by a beat cop no less, and in her mind, Amanda saw the facts adding up. That lottery ticket was lucky. It had to be. And if that one was lucky, then perhaps, there were other lucky ones out there. She just had to find them.
Her mother had always said she was a lucky kid. When she was twelve, she had nearly been hit by a car on her bicycle, but had been stopped by the front wheel suddenly not turning, and she had come to a sudden stop. Shed gotten a skinned knee and a banged up head, but it sure beat the paralysis she surely wouldve gotten otherwise. And when she was fifteen, Banjo had saved her from a cougar when she was walking through the woods to go and meet up with Stella, the preacher's daughter and her current girlfriend. He'd gotten out of the house, Mama said, and it was a good thing he did, because he tackled the wild cat before it could do any harm to the teenagers. Lucky. Thats what she was. And she was going to keep making her own luck, whenever she could. And she'd start with those lottery tickets.
"Manda, grab me the Johnson case file? The one under the top left?" Fin asked, turning around and taking it from her. "That necklace is awful special to you, isnt it?" He asked, raising an eyebrow in question. "Boyfriend give it to you?"
"No." Amanda snapped, then took a deep breath. She blushed as she realized she was playing with the locket, tracing the small faded ivy "O", worn down from the many times that she sat there, absentmindedly like this one, running it through her fingers as she tried to work out problems in her mind or to calm her racing heart. "No. It aint from a boyfriend. I bought it at a low point, because it reminded me of someone who motivates me to keep my head up." She hoped he was satisfied with that explanation.
"That's good you got something like that. I keep my Dad's dog tags in my pocket, and sometimes during a real difficult case, I'll run em through my hands and it's like hes telling me what to do." He sighed, taking a sip of his coffee before turning back around in his chair, falling silent again as he busied himself with the paperwork and likely, fell into his own thoughts.
It was well after seven when Amanda drove home, heating up leftover meatloaf and asparagus for dinner, settling down in front of the TV when she heard the truck in the parkinglot. She set her food down, following the sound of desperate barking, looking out her door to see a man in a ford toss a tan pitbull out of the vehicle, kicking it in the head to make sure it stayed down.
"Hell no." She reached for her gun, grabbing Banjo's leash from the door, thanking herself for keeping it there out of habit, and hurried outside, waiting until the truck was out of sight before kneeling down beside the dog, looping the leash around its head. "Hey girl, its alright. Its ok. Im going to be your mama now, ok darlin?" She helped the shaking dog up, walking her up the stairs to her apartment, shutting and locking the door behind them.
"Stay baby." She whispered, laughing as the dog followed her to the kitchen, eyeing her as she rummaged around in the cabinets, finally finding a can of chopped chicken, tossing it in a bowl with leftover rice and peas from a few nights ago. "Here you go darlin. Sit." She was amazed at how well this dog behaved, and impressed at how sweet she was.
"What should I call you anyway? Baby's a poodle's name, and I already had a Banjo. Can't call you Liv, that's just weird. Goldie's a fluffy name, though you are gold. Lucky?" The dog pricked her ears. "Thats a boys name, but wait a minute. The lady who sold me the ticket, her name was Frannie." The dog barked, sitting on her haunches and raising both paws in the air.
"Alright girl. Frannie it is. Finish your supper, then I'll give you a bath and we can go to bed. I'll take you tomorrow to Petsmart to get you a harness and food and toys."