A/N: Thank you so much for the reviews, follows and favs since the last chapter. I encourage people reading this story to leave reviews so I know what you guys like and what I can work on. Also, RollinsAmaroFan regarding your question about the fight, this is a different fight that wasn't on the show. But what they were fighting about wasn't so different from that fight back in the bar - stuff about Nick having a bit of a savior complex and Amanda being stubborn when it comes to to accepting that she was once a victim. It'll make more sense when we get to the Amanda chapters. But until then, I hope you guys enjoy (or weep) at the final saga of Nick... er, I mean, Carlos and Cynthia.

Read, enjoy, and review.

March 28, 2004

Nick Amaro's longest relationship in the last ten years was with his alternate identity, Carlos Guevara. He read through the backstory and the paperwork; Carlos was a drug dealer from Colombia. He had doctored papers to allow him to fly to New York and work his way up the Mancheno Organization. Nick had been Carlos for so long that he didn't know which parts of his personality were real and which parts were a fabrication. He'd come home to his temporary apartment up in Hell's Kitchen and look at the scraggly beard on his face. His mom hated it when he didn't shave; she said it was a shame to hide such a handsome face. "Maaa," he'd stress on the vowel, try to play it off, but he loved the attention. He was his Ma's boy, and he wasn't the least bit embarrassed about it.

That's probably why this undercover operation was so hard. He'd had to cut ties with everyone he knew apart from his C.O. and the other detective on the job. He missed his mother's cooking. He missed how she always came over unannounced and insisted on doing his laundry. Then she'd give him trouble about the way he ironed his clothes. Nick could admit he didn't always listen to Father Delgado's Homily, but he missed the Sunday morning routine of accompanying his mother to church. He'd glance at his cell phone and his Ma would smack his hand before she pointed to Jesus on the cross looming over them.

Nick was grateful that there was no such thing as desk duty being the right-hand man to Antonio Mancheno. But he did miss being a cop. Technically, he still was; but some days he felt more like a criminal than the guy responsible for putting them away. He had to stand back and watch Antonio gain power. When he started his UC work, the organization was dealing cocaine to an exclusive Wall Street clientele, which is why there was so much attention into the investigation in the first place.

As Antonio's influence grew, the organization became involved in blackmail and securities fraud. At this point, Antonio was swimming in cash; but it wasn't enough for him. He might have been peddling drugs to white collar crooks on Wall Street, but he was still from the barrio. Turf wars were commonplace among the drug organizations in the city, so Antonio and his guys began recruiting kids from the streets. These kids, barely out of middle school, became the fall guys – a test of loyalty, according to the boss himself.

The growing contempt for Antonio culminated when the organization started supplying GHB and MDMA to several sex traffickers in the Tri-state area. He felt like he was complicit in these activities, even though his C.O. assured him he was doing nothing wrong. By-the-book Nick - there's a reason the guys in the precinct call you that. It always tested him to sit back and watch these things happen. He was itching for his C.O. to give him the go signal and take these men down, but he knew they needed more if they wanted to keep Mancheno and his cronies off the streets for good.

His only saving grace was Cynthia.

As much as he wanted this operation to come to an end, and as much as he wanted to send these dirtbags to prison, he knew what the end could mean for Cynthia and him. From both sides of the fence, it was wrong to pursue a relationship with Cynthia. IAB would be all up on his ass the moment it came out he was having an inappropriate relationship. And even though Cynthia knew her brother would be accepting of their relationship, he insisted that they keep it a secret for a little while longer…. Until he took her brother down.

Nick was a natural pessimist so even as he thought of multiple scenarios of how they could work after the bust, nothing seemed to point to the right direction. Maybe she'd understand why he had to lie to her. It's the nature of the job. He knew being the sister of a drug kingpin wasn't Cynthia's choice, so maybe she'd be grateful…. Who was he kidding? She'd never forgive him.

Getting to the precinct as a UC detective was a process in itself. He had to get booked for something small and taken to interrogation. Time was limited for 'interrogation' in case someone else in holding grew suspicious. Today, Nick sat in the cell for possession of marijuana in public view. He sat across a few low lifes and one familiar face.

Jeremy Mackey was the other UC detective on the case. He was working with the Del Toros, the Mancheno Organization's rival gang. They had exchanged information about each other's operations over the last few months. There was word of an organization from Boston coming down to reclaim territory over Connecticut and Long Island. The Del Toros were working closely with them. For years, the Boston group was supplying to the sex traffickers and pimps in those regions; but now with Mancheno supplying a better drug at a better price, they were losing its claim on the area.

With his arms cuffed behind him, Nick was led into an interrogation room by a uniformed police officer, who wasn't aware Nick was a detective. The officer shoved him into the room and ordered him to, "sit his ass down." Nick rolled his eyes. He couldn't wait until he could go back in that squad room with his gun and his badge, and see all their faces.

Shortly after, Detective Mackey and their Commanding Officer, Captain West, joined Nick around the table. They exchanged brief pleasantries before they got down to the investigation. Mackey updated them about the plot of the Boston gang and the Del Toros to ambush Antonio and his men in an abandoned warehouse in Queens.

"Queens? Tonight?" Nick asked taken aback, "we're transporting ten case loads of GHB to a sex trafficking operation in Hartford." Nick swallowed hard. He had plenty to say about Antonio and how the man deserved to rot in jail, but he couldn't picture him dead. "Antonio has no idea."

"We need to put an end to this before it turns into mass murder," said Captain West. "That's why I'll be sending backup tonight."

"Already, Cap?" interjected Mackey.

"We have two gangs on conspiracy to commit murder, and we have Mancheno on all the drug trafficking charges. It'll be enough to put those sons of a bitches behind bars for life."

Nick rubbed his face in his hands. He was supposed to be running the warehouse deal tonight with Antonio. If Mackey hadn't come in with the information about the ambush, then he would have most likely been on the receiving end of a bullet to the brain. He owed Mackey for this one.

It was finally here; the last day of being Carlos Guevara from Cartagena. He had been waiting for this day for such a long time, but why did he feel a knot was forming in his stomach? The three men went over the details of tonight's operation. Nick tried to keep his head straight. He embedded the timeline in his brain, the minute he was to pull his gun and expect back up. Captain West had given him the honor of cuffing Antonio. Tonight, he could be Detective Nick Amaro.

February 28, 2015

The interrogation room wasn't the only thing frigid as Nick walked inside with a cuffed Thomas Fischer. His partner didn't even glance up to acknowledge them as they walked in. Nick sat him down before he went around the desk and sat beside his partner. Amanda was jotting something down on a pad, still refusing to make eye contact with him.

"Thomas," she began.

"Tom." He interrupted, "you can call me Tom. Only my grandma calls me Thomas," he chuckled. He adjusted the glasses on the bridge of his nose and smiled at the blonde detective.

Amanda smiled back weakly, "All right, Tom. Can you tell us what you were doing walking down Seventh this morning?"

He shrugged his shoulders and pursed his lips, "just taking a walk, detective."

"Any particular destination?"

"I wanted to go down to the 9/11 Memorial."

"You ever been there before?" Nick asked.

Fischer nodded, "a few times. I went to school up in Fordham so I've taken the train a few times down there to see it with visiting friends and family."

"Fordham, huh?" Nick nodded, "what was your major?"

He took a moment to mull over his answer. Amanda jotted something down on the pad; Nick's eyes scanned the page but he could barely make out her writing. "Um, Business Management," Fischer replied.

Amanda opened up her folder and pulled out his transcripts. "It says here you took English Literature on your first two years and then switched to Business Management during the winter semester."

Fischer chuckled nervously, "you don't see a lot of English majors working these days, unless it's in a coffee shop."

"So, is that why you switched majors?"

Fischer shook his head, "Not at first. My pops owns a car auction business in Toledo and he wanted me to take over. He was paying for college so it's not like I had much of a choice."

"Your current residence and occupation states you're from Toledo, Ohio. So what brings you back to New York?" Amanda asked.

"A girlfriend, maybe?" Nick added.

Fischer laughed as he scratched the back of his neck, "Nah, man, I just missed the city. I had a few days off from work – no one really buys cars in the winter. So, I decided to drive up here and have a little vacation."

"Maybe meet up with some old Fordham friends?"

He shook his head, "I haven't really kept in touch with people from college."

"What about Lena Rodriguez?" Nick asked as Amanda pulled out a picture from her folder. Nick saw the way his face tensed at the mention of Lena's name. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back. Fischer glanced briefly at the picture before looking away.

"I don't know her."

"You don't?" Nick chuckled, "you two were in the same classes your first two years of college. This morning, she also identified you as her rapist."

Fischer's eyes nearly bugged out of his skull, "She's the girl who claimed I raped her? I've never even seen her before!" He looked Nick in the eye before he turned away from the intense stare. Fischer licked his lips and shook his head, "besides, there are over a hundred students in those classes."

Amanda rested her hands on the table and leaned towards their suspect. "Tom, you have to admit, it's suspicious that after Lena identified you, you ran away from the officer on the scene."

"I freaked, ok?" he replied nervously, "I've never been in trouble so when I heard her crying and pointing to me, I just panicked."

"If you didn't rape her," Nick began, "why would she cry rape and point to you?"

Fischer shrugged and drifted back against the chair, "girls these days just want to play the victim card. I guess, she saw me standing on that street corner and decided I was a perfect candidate for a false rape accusation."

"A perfect candidate?" Amanda scoffed.

"Yeah, a white male in his 20s," he started, "girls, especially these social justice warriors, just want to point their finger at us and blame us for everything that goes wrong in their lives. A guy looks at a girl a certain way and says 'hello', and they call it assault. A guy doesn't look at a black girl or a brown girl, and they say we're racist. Suddenly, it's all a pissing contest about who's the bigger victim."

Nick could sense Amanda's anger bubbling to the surface. He noted the way she clenched her fists and glared at Fischer. Instinctively, he rested his arm across the desk, forming a suggestive barrier between his partner and the suspect. Angrily, she stood up and walked towards the back of the room. She was pacing now, and Nick could feel like one more word from Fischer could tip her over the edge. He decided it best, since Fischer was denying knowledge of Lena Rodriguez anyway, to cut their interrogation short.

March 28, 2004

"Carlos, what are you doing here?"

He pushed himself into the house and closed the door behind him. He paced down the hallway and looked into the rooms. Once he knew they were in the clear, he pulled her towards him and kissed her like he knew he might not kiss her tomorrow. That knot in his gut was telling him he might be right. He held her for a moment and pressed his lips against the side of her head.

"What's going on?"

He stared into her big, brown eyes, but wavered when he could sense the distress behind her irises. "I need you to stay with your tia in Jersey tonight."

"What? Why?" she asked, reaching for him as he made his way up the stairs. Cynthia followed him into her bedroom. He pulled a suitcase from her closet and started throwing her clothes inside. It didn't even make sense how he was throwing her sundresses and shorts when there was still snow on the ground. "Carlos, what are you doing?"

He took her face in his hands, "just trust me, ok?"

"Is Tonio in trouble?" her bottom lip quivered.

"Don't worry about him," he continued to pack her things, this time with a much calmer demeanor. "You know I'll have his back."

Cynthia sat on her bed and pulled him towards her until he stood between her legs. "You promise me you'll keep him safe."

He couldn't promise her that, but he knew he needed to lie in order to keep her safe. They were not only busting the warehouse tonight; they were also busting Mancheno's house including his childhood home in Queens, where they were storing case loads of illicit drugs. He also knew that Antonio kept guns in the house. If Cynthia was found in possession, she could be going to prison too.

"I promise," he stroked her cheek.

Once he zipped up her suitcase, he pulled out an envelope of cash. "Stay with your tia for a few weeks. I'll come for you when this is all over. I promise." That was a promise he could keep. No matter what, he was going to do everything in his power to find her when all of this blew over. Screw IAB. He couldn't afford to lose this woman.

"Carlos," she began but her voice wavered. "I love you."

He looked at her eyes welling with tears. Nick loved her. There was no doubt in his mind that he was madly in love with Cynthia. But this revelation couldn't have come at a worse time. It would be unfair to tell her now, just as he was about to take down her older brother. Instead of telling her what he felt burning in his chest – what he was supposed to tell her – he pressed his mouth over hers and kissed her softly.

"Stay safe, mi amor."

Cynthia watched as he walked down the stairs and closed the door behind him. She stood at the top of the steps and with one hand, held onto the banister. Her other hand positioned over her growing belly, holding onto her baby. Their baby.