AN: Thanks for hanging in there, guys! Hope I didn't lose too many of ya. Two more weeks till I move and work gets a little less crazy!


skeletons and plans / you've got to let 'em go


A neon green softball flew through the Staten Island air on a warm Sunday afternoon. Jesse was ready: she leapt for it, her pink and gray leather glove straining to catch it with an excited little shriek.

"Good catch, Jess. You're not afraid of the ball anymore, huh?" Sonny praised her from the other side of his parents' backyard.

It was just the two of them in Staten Island that day. Luca had an ear infection and Amanda had opted to stay home in Queens with both the toddler and Ruby. Jesse had been rambunctious and buzzing with energy since six o'clock that morning, and since she was unable to get the undivided attention she craved from her mother, she made a show of whining and moaning in bored despair for hours. Getting her out of the house made everybody's life easier.

Jesse puffed out her chest proudly and shook her head. "No." Grabbing the softball in her free fingers, she hurled it weakly in Sonny's direction as she demanded excitedly, "again! A fast one this time."

"Alright, comin' at ya..." He scooped the ball up from the grass and made a show of winding up, although he had no intention of throwing it to her with any significant force.

Before he could let go of the ball, the little girl was suddenly distracted. She craned her head to look at the sliding glass doors that led into the Carisi home. She waved her gloved hand as she called, "hi, aunt Teresa!"

Sonny turned, too, to see his sister peeking out of the doorway. Teresa offered a timid wave to them in return. "Hi, guys."

Watching Jesse smile innocently at his sister, Sonny felt a little jolt of irritation shoot through him - one he couldn't seem to shake. "Jesse, I'll be right back," he promised before he strode quickly inside the house after Teresa.

"Teresa, we need to talk." Sonny couldn't help but get straight to the point as he followed her into the empty kitchen.

"About what?" she asked sweetly, busying herself with drying the clean dishes that were waiting by the sink.

"About what you said to Amanda the other week," he clarified irritably. "Why would you say something like that, huh? That really hurt her. She'd never tell you that, but it did."

Teresa continued to organize the dishes in silence.

"And Jesse... she's my kid. Not biologically, but she's mine," Sonny went on, getting angrier with each passing second. "She's been mine for the past six years. Since when do you have a problem with that?"

"I don't, Sonny, alright? I don't," his sister blurted. Heaving a sigh, she set down the bowl she was drying and turned around to face her brother. She appeared embarrassed. "I shouldn't have said what I said, it's just..."

Sonny crossed his arms over his chest expectantly. "Just what?"

"All this stuff with Mia, it's just... it makes me feel like I've failed as a parent," she admitted. "I couldn't keep my marriage together, her dad is barely involved... now what she's goin' through and how much she's struggling..." She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head before looking at Sonny again. "Amanda is a great mother. I don't know how she does it, takin' care of three kids and workin' as hard as she does. You two are a great team. All of it just makes me feel inadequate."

"What happened to Mia has nothing to do with your parentin', Teresa," Sonny insisted, exasperated. "It has everything to do with Ethan bein' a rapist."

"It's just-"

"Dad!" Jesse's voice shouted suddenly, followed by the sound of her fast footsteps as she ran into the kitchen.

He whirled around, eyes wide in anticipation at the urgency in the little girl's voice. "What? What is it?"

Tears streaming down her cheeks, Jesse thrust her bare right arm toward him, her dirty softball glove falling to the pristine floor. "I got, a bee, a bee stung me!" she cried.

Frowning, Sonny crouched down to Jesse's level to examine her outstretched limb. "Okay, it's alright," he soothed automatically. "C'mere, let's take a look." He gently turned her arm: a small, red welt with a tiny stinger in the center stood out against the little girl's otherwise unblemished skin.

"It hurts!" she sobbed.

"I bet it does, but we're gonna fix you right up," he promised over Jesse's breathless wails. He set a hand on each of her small shoulders to steady her and looked her in the eye. "Hey, take a deep breath. You're okay," Sonny encouraged the little girl gently. "That little bee is just doin' what bees do. He must not have known who he was messin' with." Looking up at Teresa, who was still hovering near by, he asked her, "hey, can you grab some ice outta the freezer and put it in a bag for her?"

Teresa nodded. "Yeah, of course," she agreed, a hand brushing affectionately over the top of Jesse's head as she moved toward the refrigerator.

"Alright, hold your arm still for me..." Sonny quickly used a fingernail to pick out the broken stinger even as Jesse wiggled and protested underneath this grip. "Ah, there ya go," he breathed triumphantly once he had freed it from her skin. "All done."

"Hold this on there, okay?" Teresa instructed Jesse gently, handing her the bag of ice wrapped up in a small towel. "It'll make it feel better."

Sniffling, Jesse nodded and pressed the cold compress to her arm, but then she shuffled closer to Sonny in order to hug him. He smiled and squeezed her petite form close to his as she whimpered. "Hey, there's no cryin' in base- er, softball, remember?" he teased Jesse before kissing the top of her head.

From above him, Sonny heard Teresa say softly, "I'm really am sorry, Sonny."


A few months later...

Sitting in front of Ruby, Amanda tried to contain mashed up sweet potato to the baby's high chair tray. Ruby was learning to feed herself with both her hands and her small plastic fork, which was inevitably a messy experience. Beneath Amanda's chair sat Frannie, eating whatever fell her way. Luca entertained himself by watching television and playing with his trucks in the adjoining living room. Jesse and Sonny had been gone for several hours - they were spending the afternoon at the children's museum with Mia.

Sonny's niece had been noticeably more isolated and reserved since her pregnancy had been confirmed. She hadn't made a choice about what she wanted to do - instead she seemed to be avoiding it all together. Family gatherings were tense, with everybody just barely holding back their own personal opinions and judgements - until they didn't. For once, Amanda felt like she was the sanest of the bunch. She and Teresa were civil to one another; neither of them mentioned the hurtful words that were exchanged the day Mia told her mother she was pregnant. With everything else going on, it just seemed easier to sweep the interaction under the rug.

In an effort to check up on Mia, Sonny had invited her out that day. Jesse idolized the older girl and Sonny and Amanda hoped that some time out of the house doing something relatively mindless would lift Mia's spirits. Amanda also secretly wondered if being in a place surrounded by rambunctious little children would get the teenager thinking about what her own future held. When the front door of their Queens home finally swung open that evening, she was eager to know how it all went.

"Hey, guys," she called over her shoulder as Sonny and Jesse shrugged off their coats. "How was the museum?"

"It was the funnest!" Jesse exclaimed, running toward Amanda. "Mia and me made slime!"

She quirked a brow. "You didn't bring it home, did you?"

The little girl shook her head solemnly as she hovered at her mother's side. "Daddy said 'no.'"

"Mm. Smart daddy," she murmured approvingly, turning back to continue to help Ruby get more sweet potato in her mouth - as opposed to in her hair. "Mama doesn't want that gunkin' up the carpet."

"I also saw, I also saw a dino, a dinosaur!" Jesse went on eagerly. She tended to stammer when she was excited or particularly enthusiastic about something. "And when dad picked me up, on his shoulders, I could reach it's head!"

"Wow. Sounds like y'all had a lot of fun."

"We did, uh huh."

"Dadada. Dada," Ruby cooed, holding up sticky orange fingers as her father entered the kitchen. It was one of the only words she said clearly; 'mama' had yet to leave her mouth.

"Hey, you!" Sonny greeted the baby cheerfully from behind Amanda. Setting a hand on her shoulder, he looked over at the six-year-old and said, "Jess, go wash your hands, would ya? Museums are filled with germs."

Amanda rolled her eyes as Jesse obediently skittered away to the bathroom.

"Did you stir my sauce?" Sonny wondered, moving so he could peer into the simmering pot he had left on the stove hours ago.

"Yes, every couple hours, just like you asked," Amanda promised before admitting sheepishly, "I ate a meatball outta there a few minutes ago, sorry. I was starving."

He retrieved a new, empty pot from a cabinet and filled it with water so it could boil for pasta. "Good?"

"Very." Amanda used the edge of Ruby's spoon to scrape some stray food off of her chubby cheek.

After he was done at the stove, Sonny dropped down into the chair next to her, leaned over and pecked her on the lips. "Hi," he murmured. When he pulled back, his eyes flickered over her. "Your hair looks nice."

Amanda smiled and reached a set of fingers up to graze over her long blonde tresses thoughtfully. She had managed to make it to a hair appointment earlier that day. Attached to the length, she hadn't had it cut much, but color was fresh and bright. "Y'like it?"

"Yeah, you always look good," he insisted, one of his hands giving her thigh a squeeze.

"Dadadada," Ruby babbled before hurling her spoon in Sonny's direction with surprising power.

"Whoa! Easy there, slugger," Sonny exclaimed with a laugh, quick reflexes allowing him to catch the utensil mid-air.

"Okay, I think we're done with the appetizer course," Amanda determined, swiftly removing the plastic bowl Ruby had been attempting to eat out of. When the baby's eyes widened in confusion, she promised, "you can have some of daddy's pasta in a little bit."

Luca appeared from the living room, anxious for attention as he crowded in at Sonny's side with a toy firetruck in his hand. Sonny curled an arm around the little boy as he promised his youngest daughter with a grin, "that's better than some boring old sweet potato anyway."

"How's Mia doin'?" Amanda asked curiously as she began to wipe off Ruby's hands with a damp paper towel.

He heaved a sigh while Luca drove his truck up and down his thigh making quiet siren noises. "She's depressed. She still hasn't decided what she's gonna do. I think she's still just avoidin' it all together."

She stopped wrestling with Ruby's wriggling fingers, set down the towel and shook her head lightly in dismay. "Well, she's five months along now..."

"I'm hungry," Luca whined, now rolling the firetruck up Sonny's chest.

"We're havin' dinner soon," he promised him, seemingly unfazed by the way the little boy was using him as a roadway for his toy. "I dunno, 'Manda..." he continued wearily as he fiddled with Ruby's discarded spoon, "I'm worried about her."

"She talk about Teresa?"

"She said it's still tense at home. They pretty much steer clear of one another. But, ah... Teresa did text me."

"What'd she say?"

"She was hoping that we - you - could help Mia make her decision."

Amanda's eyes narrowed on her husband. "Oh, now she wants my help?"

"She said every time she tries to talk about it with Mia, they get into a huge argument."

"Wonder who's fault that is," she muttered sarcastically as she handed Ruby her bottle filled with water.

"Amanda," Sonny warned.

"I'm not sure how much help I'll be, but... for Mia, yeah, I'll talk to her," Amanda agreed with a sigh. She cast a pointed glance over at him. "I'm assuming you'd prefer not to be involved."

"Yep," Sonny told her simply. "C'mon, Lu. Help me put the pasta in the water," he suggested to the fidgeting toddler at his side before he rose to his feet.

"Okay." Luca abandoned his firetruck on the kitchen table to follow his father. Familiar with the routine, he pulled the small, folding step stool out from where it was stored by the refrigerator and sat it right next to the stove.

"You know, I really don't wanna be involved either," Amanda reminded Sonny.

"Nobody does," Sonny remarked grimly, "that's the problem."


"It's a boy," Mia announced as she sat across from Amanda at a table at El Rey, a small coffee shop and lunch place in the Lower East Side.

Amanda poked her fork at her salad, thinking. She was exhausted: this was a heavy topic to be addressing on her break from work. Eventually, she asked Mia carefully, "have you given any more thought about what you're gonna do?"

Mia visibly bridled, crossing her arms over her chest. Amanda noticed she was wearing a Hudson University sweatshirt. "Is that why you asked me to lunch?"

"I'm just, I'm worried about you, is all," she insisted, because it was true. "You seem down."

"I wanna keep it. Him."

"Okay... how's that gonna work?"

"We'll live with my mom."

"Is your mom okay with that?"

She shrugged.

"What about school? And work?"

"You sound like my mother," Mia grumbled.

Amanda sighed. "I'm just curious."

"I'll go back to school when he's born," Mia said.

She couldn't help but arch an eyebrow "Who's gonna watch him?"

"I dunno, he can go to daycare," she replied easily.

"How are you gonna pay-"

"Stop interrogating me!" Mia hissed angrily, casting a furtive glance over her shoulder to make sure they didn't have an audience.

Chewing the inside of her cheek, Amanda leaned in and met the teenagers irritable gaze. "Look, Mia. I know what it feels like to have somebody... hurt you the way you've been hurt," she admitted quietly. "I can't imagine how angry and scared you're feeling right now. But if I've learned anything - and trust me, it's taken me awhile to figure this out - if I've learned anything, it's you gotta talk about this stuff or it'll eat you alive." Her fingertips nudged Mia's on the table's surface. "If you can't talk to your mother, you can talk to me."

Mia bowed her head and fiddled with a french fry hanging off the edge of her plate. "I think I could be a mom," she mumbled. "A good mom."

"I think so, too," Amanda agreed diplomatically. "It's just... it's a lotta work, Mia."

"I've always been a hard worker."

"I know. And whatever you decide, you've got me and your uncle's support."

"My mom still feels bad about how she freaked out at you," Mia told her sheepishly, looking Amanda in the eye again. "I don't think she's very good at apologizing."

Amanda shook her head dismissively. "I'm not either. I get it."

"I'm sorry I... well, thank you for... for caring about me, through all this," she went on, fidgeting in her chair. "Sometimes I feel like all everybody ever thinks about is what happened to me, not... about me as a person, if that makes any sense..."

She nodded. "Yeah, it does."


At one thirty on a Monday morning, the body of an African American, teenage female was found lifeless in an alley in crime-ridden East New York. Stuck working an overnight shift because of staffing issues, Amanda and Sonny were called from the 16th precinct by Homicide, asking for back-up given the girl's age. Fin was already working a case in Harlem, while Liv had left for vacation the day before.

"Rollins, Carisi," Detective Devin Holiday greeted them curtly when they arrived on the scene. She stood in front of the yellow police tape like she was personally guarding the perimeter.

"Surprised you called SVU, knowin' how highly you think of us," Sonny quipped sarcastically. He kept his hands tucked into the pockets of his NYPD jacket; he clearly had no intention of greeting Devin properly, which had Amanda struggling to suppress a smug grin by his side.

"She's just a kid and there's evidence she's been sexually assaulted," Devin explained, tone clipped as she led them underneath the tape to approach the body. "Just following protocol." She pulled back the sheet covering the form of the young girl: on her stomach, limbs akimbo, one cheek pressed against the filthy pavement. A single bullet hole stood out at the base of her skull, dark blood draining down the back of her hot pink dress. "Some guy went back here to shoot up. He found her and called us. CSU went through her purse: it's filled with condoms, lube, make-up..."

"Damn, she looks like she's barely fifteen years old," Amanda breathed, noticing the girl's young features.

"She was shot execution style," Devin went on. "This was likely gang-related."

Sonny moved carefully around the body, then crouched down to further assess its condition. "VICE in on this?"

"Yeah," Devin nodded. "Apparently they've been trying to snag Cypress Hill Crip leaders who've been targeting teenage girls for their prostitution ring. They've been hanging around their high schools and contacting them on Facebook, promising them a lot of cash for sleeping with men. They wine and dine them, give them a taste of what they think is going to be their glamorous new life, before they start beating the shit out of them to keep them obedient and working."

"Yeah, we know what sex trafficking is, detective," Amanda assured Devin sardonically.

Devin bristled. "Anyway," she continued irritably, "we found a Cypress Hill College Preparatory school I.D. on her. According to VICE, a couple weeks ago a girl in that same school told one of her teachers that she got a Facebook message propositioning her to join the ring and she didn't know how to respond. When the detectives interviewed her, she denied everything and said that she was 'living the life she wanted to live.'" She passed Sonny the I.D. card before crossing her arms over her chest.

"Tara Blakely. Looks like she's a junior, so she's, what, sixteen, maybe?" Sonny observed, standing up again and peering down at the small photograph of the girl. He met Devin's hard gaze. "You contact the parents?"

"I figured I'd leave that up to you," Devin replied. "Chief Boyce at VICE wants you to report back to him with details. He said not to move forward until you talk to him."

Sonny rolled his eyes. "You're passin' the buck?"

"Of course not," Devin told him sweetly. "Just deferring to the sex crime experts."


They didn't make it to VICE until two hours later. Bleary-eyed and armed only with information from Tara's hysterical, shell-shocked grandmother and Facebook, they entered the bustling Queens precinct. They encountered Chief Boyce behind his overflowing desk; he was barely visible behind stacks of files and paperwork. Middle-aged and perpetually tired-looking, he stood up from his chair to greet them.

"Detective. Sergeant," Boyce said, shaking both of their hands firmly. "Holiday told me you were headed my way. Where's your lieutenant?"

"Disney World with her son till next week," Sonny explained. "She knows what's goin' on."

"Ah. Coffee?" Boyce offered, moving toward the beverage station in his office.

"Please," they replied gratefully in unison.

He began to pour them both cups. "What do you have for me?"

Whenever Amanda and Sonny worked cases together, there was always a quiet element of competition between them. Both were enthusiastic about their jobs - and both of them liked being right. Shamelessly wanting to show off a little for the Chief she barely knew, Amanda immediately replied, "Tara's grandmother was raising her and her two little brothers alone... mom has been MIA for five years, father's incarcerated for drug trafficking. Grandma got us in to her Facebook. Tara had exchanged hundreds of messages with older men arranging times and places to meet to have sex since April. She also had 'bodyguards' who look like they were other gang members assigned to 'watching' her when she went out; that came up in some of the chats. Going back in her history, it was a guy named Ray Alexander who first propositioned her via Messenger on April second."

"We know him," Boyce sighed, handing them each steaming hot cups of coffee. "He works under Mario Maxson, which means Tara was a part of the Crips prostitution ring. Maxson runs the operation. We've been trying to nail the scumbag for months. We haven't even bothered with the losers underneath him - my undercovers don't wanna risk their position and waste their time when it's Maxson we want."

"You think he's the one who did this to her?" Sonny wondered.

"From what I know about this guy - this gang - if he didn't do it himself, he ordered it. My men infiltrating are still too low-level to get any details on a planned hit, if that's what this was - or maybe this was something impulsive out of necessity." He perched himself on the edge of his desk gingerly. "The fact that the medical examiner said she was raped right before she was killed... she could have been doing a date, yeah, but for what it's worth, I'm willing to bet Maxson did it himself before he shot her. He's a sick bastard."

"Her grandmother told us Tara was pretty depressed the past couple of weeks," Sonny explained. "Maybe she was tryin' to escape the life and he wasn't havin' it."

"Maybe." Boyce looked between the two of them, appearing both tired and frustrated. "But these are all hunches. Right now Tara just looks like a misguided kid who was prostituting herself and got killed in the game. There's no evidence of something bigger. I'm hoping somebody blabs to one of my undercovers at the right time, but... these guys are pretty tight-lipped. They aren't dumb. They don't trust anybody and they know what we need to make a case against them."

"We're gonna go back to the high school tomorrow, see if any other girls there are victims," Amanda said after a swallow of coffee. "Maybe they can tell us something about Tara - or about any of these guys."

"Yeah, I get that, but..." Boyce heaved another sigh. "Here at VICE, sometimes we gotta get these guys from other angles, you know? A lot of times we can't get gang members on a sex crime. We can get drug trafficking, armed robbery, car theft, extortion... but rarely can we prosecute anything to do with sexual assault."

Amanda felt a rush of indignation. "Well, SVU is sure as hell gonna try."


"Carisi."

Coat in hand, Sonny turned around at his locker to find Chief Dodds standing behind him. He was both startled and mildly concerned; while he had respect for Dodds, he found him somewhat terrifying from an administrative standpoint. Whenever they interacted, Sonny tried to conjure memories of his old buddy Mike, Dodds' kind and hard-working son. He had died years ago, but he wondered if Dodds still grieved his loss, if it played into the callous way he sometimes interacted with others. Now that Sonny was a father, he couldn't imagine what it would be like to lose a child - losing a friend had been hard enough.

"Glad I caught you before you left," Dodds went on, sinking into a chair at the break room table. He gestured to an empty seat. "Have a minute?"

Closing his locker, he slung his jacket over his knee as he sat across from Dodds. "What's goin' on, Chief?"

"How are things?" he asked curiously.

Sonny suppressed the urge to raise his eyebrows; he was fairly confident Dodds wasn't interested in his life. "Uh... fine..."

Dodds nodded, then admitted, "I need a favor."

"Alright..."

"VICE is down-staffed. Since we do so much of the same kind of work at SVU, Boyce asked to borrow an experienced detective from SVU."

"I'll do a couple shifts with them, sure."

"It's a little more than that."

He furrowed his brow and waited.

"The Tara Blakely case we've all been working on this week," Dodds clarified. "Mario Maxson. VICE has been trailing him for months but they haven't got enough evidence to nail him on anything worthwhile. Even if they did, nobody'll talk and nobody'll be willing to testify against him. You know how it is with gangs." He leaned back in his chair, gaze still on Sonny. "I've been told that he's also suspected to be a major gun dealer. VICE is thinking they can get an A1 felony for that, even if we can't prove he's also a murderer and a pimp - which is the working theory."

"As you know, sometimes we have to... guide suspects into opportunities to reach the level of law-breaking we want - for maximum prosecution," the Chief went on, a mischievous glint in his eye. "We want to put this guy away for good, so we've gotta catch him in something big. VICE has got a couple undercovers with the Crips in Cypress Hill - they've been watching the guns and the drugs - but they need someone specifically working the gun angle, somebody to come in and up the ante. A buyer."

Sonny felt his stomach turn over in anticipation. "I dunno, Chief..."

Dodds appeared surprised. "I thought you'd jump at the chance to do something this big."

"I mean, I would, I am... well, it's just..." he stammered stupidly. He was immediately conflicted: he was flattered that Dodds wanted him for such an important job, but he was also apprehensive about getting involved in something so dangerous and complex as a husband and father of three children.

"You'd get paid more, don't worry about that," Dodds assured him with a small, knowing smile.

"No, that's not what I meant," Sonny finally managed. "I mean, I've done undercover work like this before. This could go on for months and I... well, I've got three little kids I gotta think about, Chief."

"When I was your age with two kids, I was still a beat cop, Carisi. I woulda jumped at the opportunity to do something like this," Dodds exclaimed. "It's a career-maker. With your extensive knowledge of the legal system, you're the only one I've considered for the job."

"I get it, yeah, but with all due respect, Chief-"

"I'm not asking you, detective," Dodds interrupted curtly, rising to his feet. "Lieutenant Benson's not happy. She doesn't wanna be down a good detective, but..."

Sonny peered up at him nervously. "But?"

He clapped a hand on Sonny's shoulder on his way out of the room. "Let's just say: it's good to be king."