AN: Some fluff and some crazy hormonal Amanda 'cause it's fun to write. There'll be some angst in the near future, knowing me :)


you taught me what a life is for / to see that ordinary, isn't


Amanda never anticipated how amazing it was to have more than one bathroom.

To have one attached to her bedroom? That was the ultimate luxury. She wasted no time in making sure that the modern space was void of anything child-related - when she was through, there wasn't a bath toy in sight. If Sonny had any delusions about taking up counter space with some of his belongings, he was sorely mistaken: Amanda's products and hair tools occupied the expansive marble. She admired her collection like a work of art, relishing in the opportunity to finally have the space to keep things organized. It was hardly huge, but to Amanda, all that mattered was that it was superior to the cramped place she had come from.

At six feet tall, Sonny had barely fit in the small shower stall in their Long Island City apartment. Now, their shower was big enough for two, which they took advantage of on a cold and dark Thursday morning. Her palms pressed against the tile wall, she stood up on her tip-toes, calves straining to remain at the perfect height as Sonny moved in and out of her. The collision of their bodies echoed in the space, muffled by the hiss of the steaming hot shower. He grabbed her hair, tugging her head back to cajole her with the kind of lustful, lewd language that he saved for their most fervent private moments. Her back arched for him willingly, greedy in more ways than one. When his pace became forceful and fast, Amanda cried out her sudden orgasm hoping the sound was contained to the small room. It was only when Sonny finished that the muscles in her body relaxed, her frame slumping against the slippery wall as he pressed close to her one last time.

They had to go to work. After drying off, Amanda wrapped herself up in her gray jersey bathrobe and stood in front of the mirror to run a comb through her hair. She felt Sonny come up behind her, a towel wrapped around his waist, his arms encircling her. He was warm and damp from their shower, his skin smelling of soap and his hair slicked back from his forehead.

"Y'think it worked?" he asked into the side of her head.

She laughed, her fingers squeezing his forearms. "You've asked me that every time we've had sex for the past month and every time I've told you: it's not like I can tell."

"I'm just waitin' to see if one day the answer changes," Sonny told her playfully.

"You're gonna be waiting awhile," she smirked.

"That's okay." Wearing a lazy smile, his hand slid beneath the short hem of her robe to palm the flesh of her ass. He gave it lingering, appreciative squeeze. "We'll just keep tryin'..."

"You're insatiable." She gave a purposeful wriggle and whacked the back of her hand against his shoulder deliberately. "Put some clothes on, we're gonna be late."

He raised an eyebrow as he pulled away from her. "Since when do you care about bein' late?"

"I've always cared, it's just that I rarely do anything about it," Amanda admitted, reaching for her moisturizer. She smoothed it over her face, which was still pink from both the heat of the shower and her orgasm.

Sonny lost interest once she started seriously getting herself ready for the day. She heard him padding around the bedroom and by the time she emerged, hair straight and dry, he was clothed and buttoning up his shirt. As Amanda contemplated the blouse she would wear that day, their door suddenly opened to reveal Jesse, who had gotten herself dressed for school. Wearing rainbow tights beneath a plaid dress, Amanda cringed at her daughter's outfit choice. She knew better than to challenge Jesse on her clothing selection, though, especially when time was of the essence.

"Hey, what'd I tell you about bustin' into rooms?" Amanda reminded Jesse.

"Oops." Jesse walked back out into the hallway, shut the door and knocked. A second later, she opened the door again and reappeared in their bedroom. "Okay! I knocked."

Amanda rolled her eyes. It was a close enough attempt at politeness.

"Mama, will you do my hair like Elsa?" the little girl requested.

"That means I have to brush it," she warned.

"Okay," Jesse sighed.

Grabbing her own brush, Amanda sat on the edge of the bed and motioned for Jesse. Facing away from her, Jesse stood between her mother's legs. Amanda began to gently comb her daughter's long, light brown hair. It was still baby-soft, and while she could have played with it all day, Jesse had a low tolerance for any activity that meant she had to remain motionless.

"Is your brother awake?" she asked her as she carefully worked out a tangle.

She nodded. "Uh huh."

With practiced fingers, Amanda started French braiding Jesse's hair. "That's good. Audrey'll be here soon."

"Can't you and daddy bring me to school?" she asked sweetly.

"No, baby," she told her gently, securing the braid with an elastic. "School's not right down the street anymore, we don't have time."

"Please will you bring me?" Jesse whined, turning around to look at her mother with a pout.

"Hey, wanna help me pick out a tie?" Sonny offered brightly as a distraction.

"Yeah!" the little girl agreed, her features lighting up. She ran toward him, her little braid bouncing at the back of her head.

Sonny hoisted Jesse up onto his hip with a grunt. "Either you're gettin' too big or I'm gettin' old."

"Old," Amanda offered as the answer.

"This one. We match!" Jesse pointed to a dark blue and green tartan plaid tie that hung from the rack on the back of their closet door.

Sonny heaved a dramatic sigh as he pulled it from the hook. "I don't have anything rainbow, so this'll have to do."


"This is the biggest tree ever!" Jesse declared as she stood in the middle of their living room, gazing up at the balsam that now sat in front of their window.

Christmas to Sonny Carisi was sacred - and not only because of the religious aspect. All of the fanfare and excitement around the season was extremely important to him and it commenced the moment Thanksgiving ended. Initially, Amanda hadn't understood his obsession. Conversely, when Sonny had first met her, he couldn't believe that she didn't go home for the holiday or have a tree in her apartment. For years, Amanda had only seen the day as an opportunity for time-and-a-half pay at work, since all of her colleagues preferred to take the shift off and celebrate. Since having Jesse, though, Amanda made a little more of an effort. Even when she was too young to really understand it, she got a small tree and of course bought her daughter presents. When Sonny moved in, things escalated. He had hauled the biggest balsam that would fit into her cramped living room and insisted on stockings being hung from the mantle over her non-functioning fireplace. It was his enthusiasm that made Amanda realize that the holidays weren't inherently miserable - she had simply been in the wrong company before she had met him.

That year, with much more space to work with, they were able to get a seven-foot tree. On a frigid Monday evening they hauled it from a lot four blocks away. After a half an hour of arguing about where to position it, they set it in a corner by a window and left it alone to allow the branches to fall. Frannie sniffed it curiously while Jesse was buzzing with excitement, eager to decorate. Amanda and Sonny began the work of untangling the lights until Luca demanded a snack. Sonny took over while she got him some milk and settled down on the couch with their son. On her lap, Luca curled against her chest, sleepily drinking from a sippy cup. Even if he was tired, the baby's eyes were focused on the strings of multicolored lights in his father's hand, as if he was mesmerized.

"Did you send my letter to Santa?" Jesse asked.

Sonny frowned. "Oops, I think I forgot..."

"No!" she moaned, her limbs flailing with her distress.

"Of course I sent it," Sonny chuckled.

"Does Santa know we moved?"

"He knows. C'mon, help me with this. You hold this end for me."

Obediently, she took hold of one end of the lights while Sonny traveled around the tree, nestling the string between branches until all of the spaces were filled. Jesse could hardly wait to open the first box of ornaments, her hands diving into the contents the second Sonny was finished.

"A lot of those are glass, Jess. Be careful," Amanda reminded her, setting the baby's cup on the coffee table once he was finished.

Given how short she was, the majority of Jesse's ornaments hung right at her eye level - leaving the top half of the tree to Sonny and Amanda. With a groggy Luca against her hip, Amanda used to free hand to decorate, trying to be thoughtful about how she distributed the bobbles. In the process, the baby suddenly reached chubby fingers out to touch a shiny blue ball that she hooked onto a branch.

"Pretty, huh?" Amanda cooed.

Luca strained forward to grab it.

"Ah, we look with our eyes, not with our hands," she reminded him, gently guiding his hand away from the tree.

Too tired to protest, his fist curled against Amanda's chest as his head lolled back onto her shoulder. She looked down at his long eyelashes resting atop pink cheeks and was struck by how quickly Luca was growing, seemingly all of a sudden. At his last doctor's appointment, they had been informed that he was in the 90th percentile for height. It wasn't a surprise given how tall the Carisis were, but Amanda had grown attached to his chubby limbs and soft features and didn't want him to look like anything other than a baby just yet. Maybe that was why she was so eager to have another child, even though logically she knew that they all grew up. Despite how much work babies were, there was something so simple and innocent about them that Amanda found oddly comforting.

They worked until the entire tree was glittering with ornaments that twinkled in the glow of the multicolored lights. It was an impressive sight, especially in comparison to the little ones they had made do with it the past. Stepping away from it, Sonny surveyed their work with hands on his hips.

"Looks pretty good, huh?" he asked her proudly.

Amanda smiled as she stood by his side. "It looks great," she assured him honestly. She stood up on her toes and leaned in to kiss him on the cheek. "It's perfect."


Sonny's mother had always been opinionated and overbearing. These traits were typically offset by her otherwise generous and kind nature, but Amanda hadn't been prepared for the onslaught of judgement the second her mother-in-law stepped foot into their new house. It was like she had been waiting her whole life to be able to critique something of this magnitude; Mrs. Carisi had so much to say about even the smallest things. She was shameless as she commented on the flaws she perceived in every room, her tone light and cheerful despite her seemingly endless criticism.

In the living room, she took issue with the furniture placement. "I don't know if I'd have the couch like that. I'd move it to the other wall."

Poking through Jesse's closet, she scowled. "You should get her different hangers, none of these match!"

Wandering around Luca's room, she had taken special interest in the positioning of his crib. "Doesn't that window get too drafty for the baby?"

She even made a very obvious noise of disapproval as they walked down the hallway. "This carpet has to go. You're getting rid of it, right? I know a guy who'll do it for a great price."

Amanda had bitten her tongue even though she wanted to scream. Lately, she had been especially irritable, which she attributed to going off of her birth control. She was trying to be mindful of her new tendency to fly off the handle, so she didn't feed into any of her mother-in-law's cutting remarks. She kept waiting for Sonny to say something, though. She wanted him to challenge her, but he just made little noises of curiosity and agreement as if the woman was being perfectly reasonable. It only served to infuriate Amanda further. By the time Sonny's mother was gone, her blood was practically boiling. While Sonny retreated to the living room to watch the hockey game, Amanda angrily slammed dishes and cabinet doors as she put things away in the kitchen.

"Hey, 'Manda? Can you grab me a beer?" Sonny called from the couch.

Begrudgingly, she pulled a bottle from the refrigerator, cracked it open and strode into the living room. With a passive-aggressive flourish, she set the beer on to the coffee table before walking away.

"Uh, thanks..." he told her tentatively. Moments later, he appeared in the doorway to the kitchen. "Are you okay?"

"No, I'm pissed off," Amanda admitted curtly, back to him as she roughly dried off silverware and shoved it into a drawer.

"I can see that. What's the matter?"

She whirled around on her heel. "Did you not witness your mother come through here and critique every inch of this house an hour ago?"

Sonny shrugged. "You know how she is, she's-"

"You didn't even say anything!" she interrupted.

"What was I gonna say?"

"You could disagree with her for once in your life, maybe?"

"She's my mother."

"So what?!" Amanda shrieked. "I'm your wife and you're thirty-seven years old! When are you gonna stop pandering to her?"

He roughly rubbed his palms over his face, groaning, "oh my God, this hormonal shit is killin' me."

Ignoring him, she kept going. "I don't want to change the carpet, I don't want to move Luca's crib, I'm not puttin' the couch against the other wall and I'm not buying new fucking hangers! They're hangers! Who the hell cares what they look like?" she exploded.

Years ago, Sonny's eyes would go wide whenever Amanda raised her voice. He would look like a deer caught in headlights, unsure if he should run away or stay frozen in place. Now, he appeared relatively unfazed, his facial expression relaxed, probably because he was used to her outbursts by now. "We don't have to do any of that," he assured her levelly.

She turned back around began to put the silverware away again. "Then she'll come over here and keep talking shit about it until we finally do. You know, she's just like my mother, except when your mother criticizes something she says it in a nicer voice and gives you a hug after."

"No, no way. Your mother is crazy," Sonny exclaimed with a surprised laugh.

Amanda turned around again, this time pointing a fork emphatically in his direction. "So is yours, Carisi. You just don't see it because y'all think she's the goddamn patron saint of Staten Island." She tossed the fork into the drawer violently. "We might as well move. Hell, why don't we just move into her house? 'Cause nothing is ever gonna be better than that, right? She irons bed sheets, for Christ's sake. Who can compete with ironed beds sheets?"

The words echoed through the kitchen and she winced. Her heart was pounding in her chest, partly from anger, partly because she was embarrassed by how intensely she felt things these days. At least it was only Sonny bearing witness to her insanity this time.

Sonny cleared his throat. "You done?" he asked dryly after a few moments of silence.

Gritting her teeth, she didn't say anything.

She heard his footsteps approach her. He set a gentle hand on her lower back as he asked, "y'think maybe you're overreactin' just a little?"

"No, I'm not," Amanda retorted stubbornly. "This is... we've spent... this is something really important and she just picked it all apart and... and you could have at least challenged her on some of it and made it seem like-"

He tilted his head curiously. "Seem like what?"

She stopped fussing with the silverware and swallowed thickly. She thought of what Dr. Lindstrom told her fairly often: anger is like an iceberg, what's on the surface can be misleading. Think about what's hidden below the surface. As childish as it was, beneath her fiery irritation, she was hurt. "Like what we have is good enough for you. For us."

"Aw, 'Manda, come on," Sonny said softly. "Of course it's good enough."

She crossed her arms obstinately over her chest, gaze focused intently on the shiny stainless steel of the sink.

Sonny kissed the side of her head and spoke into her hair, "I love you and I love our house. I don't care what anybody else has to say about it, not even my mother."

Amanda screwed her eyes shut, heat creeping into her cheeks as she realized how reasonable Sonny was and how crazy she had just sounded. "Sorry, I'm a little..."

"Yeah, I know," he murmured.

"It did, uh, hurt my feelings a little bit, though," she admitted sheepishly. The words felt immature to say, but they were true.

"She doesn't get it, 'Manda," Sonny explained gently. "She thinks she's bein' helpful. She doesn't understand how much all this means to you." He tilted his head to get a better look at her face. "But I do."

Amanda nodded.

"C'mon, leave this stuff. Come watch the game with me," he suggested.

"Okay," she grumbled.

She still hated when he was right.


Their backyard was tiny and relatively barren given the time of year, but Jesse wanted to play out there anyway. It was fenced in, which gave Amanda a little peace of mind, but she was too paranoid to allow her to go out there totally unsupervised. She wrapped Christmas presents - the ones that weren't from Santa, of course - on the island while she watched Jesse entertain herself through the window over the kitchen sink. The little girl was bundled up in her coat, hat and gloves as she played with imaginary friends, dug around in the dirt and attempted cartwheels. Once she came inside, she would be filthy, but she would hopefully be exhausted, too.

Amanda was carefully folding up a sweater she had bought for Kim, tucking it neatly into its original box, when she heard Jesse scream: "Mama! Mama!"

Dropping everything, she bolted to the door at the back of the kitchen. "What? What is it?" she asked anxiously.

"Look what I found!" Standing in the middle of the yard, Jesse held up a tiny, fuzzy creature which Amanda quickly realized was a gray kitten.

"Oh, lord," she mumbled, chewing on her thumb nail.

"It's a kitten!" Jesse shrieked, galloping toward her.

"Where did you get that?" Amanda demanded.

"He was in the yard! Hiding!" she explained with a grin.

She grimaced. "I'm sure he belongs to somebody..."

"Please can I bring him inside?" Jesse begged. "Please?!"

"Your father is gonna be home soon and he doesn't like cats," Amanda warned. "And that might be somebody's pet and they're gonna be real sad if we take him. Wouldn't you be upset if somebody took Frannie?"

"Mama, please. Please! It's cold out!" she whined.

Amanda frowned. Jesse looked so excited and, goddamnit, the cat was adorable. She didn't have the heart to tell her 'no' or to allow a defenseless animal to freeze to death in their yard. "Okay, bring him inside. Come on," she grumbled begrudgingly.

"Yay! I want to name him Fluffy!" Jesse exclaimed, running into the house.

"No, he probably has a name already," she said sternly. "We're just keepin' him until we find out who he belongs to."

"Fluffy, Fluffy, Fluffy..." Jesse sang giddily, gazing adoringly down at the kitten in her arms.

"Listen, we're gonna put him... in the closet for right now. We'll make him a little bed and get him some water. But don't say a peep about it to dad, y'hear me?" Amanda explained quickly. "Not until I talk to him."

"Okay. Not a peep," she repeated with a serious nod.

Grabbing several towels from the laundry, Amanda piled them onto the floor of one of the hallway closets. She gave the kitten a small bowl of water before setting him down onto his nest and closing the door almost all the way. Sonny would be home soon, so she hoped the cat wouldn't have to be hidden away for long. She instructed Jesse to get cleaned up, but when she reappeared, she kept hovering by the closet to peek inside.

When Sonny came through the front door, Amanda let him take off his coat and kick off his shoes. They greeted each other normally, but when he began to climb the steps, he paused when he heard an odd sound.

Meow.

Amanda cringed in the downstairs hallway, hoping he would ignore it and keep going.

Meeeooowww.

Sonny turned around slowly and walked back downstairs. In the hallway, he narrowed his eyes and looked at Amanda. "Why is the closet meowin'?"

"Uh..." she began stupidly. "Well..."

Sonny pulled open the door to reveal the kitten, who was sitting obediently atop his towel-bed with wide, curious eyes. Meow.

"Oh, Jesus, Amanda. Where the hell did this thing come from?" he groaned, arms flopping uselessly at his sides.

"Jesse found it in the yard," she explained meekly. Jesse was only barely containing herself next to her mother, wriggling around in anticipation.

"Well, back to the yard it goes," Sonny concluded.

"No! No, it's cold out and he'll die," Amanda said desperately, flinging herself in between Sonny and the closet.

"Natural selection, 'Manda. That's the way the world works," he reasoned crassly.

Her mouth fell open. "Sonny!" she exclaimed. "It's almost Christmas! Have some compassion."

"I have compassion. Just not for cats," he grumbled.

Amanda quickly picked up the cat and cuddled the warm little body to her chest. "Look at him. Come on," she urged her husband. Grinning sweetly, she waved the kitten's small paw in Sonny's direction.

He shook his head. "Nope, they are evil."

"Daddy, please! Please, please," Jesse howled, attaching herself to Sonny's leg dramatically. "He doesn't have a mom or dad!"

"I'll call animal control downtown Monday and see what they can do," Amanda promised Sonny quietly. She kept her blue eyes wide and innocent. "Just let him stay here till then. Please?"

Sonny looked at her, the cat and then finally down at Jesse. He was still trying his best to appear stern, but Amanda could see his expression beginning to soften. "Fine," he grumbled. "Until Monday. But not a second later."