"Mr. Carisi?" Sonny's secretary caught him as he was getting off the elevator on the eighth floor, and then immediately shut up, looking at her boss. Carisi's hair wasn't its usual slicked back, his white button-down was untucked at the waist, and sporting what looked suspiciously like oatmeal along one side. "A-are you okay?" she managed, looking at him in shock.
"I-what?" Carisi blinked. "Oh. Yeah, yeah I'm good." He sighed. "Little trouble at home this mornin'. We've got one sick one, Amanda was tryin' to get out the door, it was a whole thing."
"That's rough," she replied sympathetically. "Um, well, just a heads up, there's a gentleman waiting in your office for you, there's coffee already on, and if you let me know what size shirt you wear I can probably grab you another one before you have to meet Judge Ortiz."
He swore under his breath in perfect Italian. "Sorry, sorry," he apologized, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Leah, you're a lifesaver. This is why I pay you the big bucks."
Leah shrugged. "Can't do much about the guy in your office, though. Hope he likes oatmeal."
"Yeah," muttered Carisi, "me too." He set his briefcase down on the top of her desk and buttoned his suit jacket, hoping it would hide the stain, brushed his fingers quickly through his hair (and made a mental note to have Leah pick up some gel along with the shirt), and then opened his office door.
"Don't know why you bothered gettin' all pretty," Max Lawson laughed. "It's just little ol' me."
"Yeah, you're definitely not worth the time!" Carisi shook his head and clapped the other man in a hug. "Hey, sorry about shoving my wife at you the other day, somethin' came up with a deposition."
"You better close that door before someone out there thinks this is a whole other conversation," Max grinned. "Because my comeback to that might get me in trouble with your old captain down at SVU."
"Amanda can take you," Carisi countered. He handed Max a cup of black coffee and gestured to the leather bench.
His old college roommate sat down with a knowing grin. "Again, I'm not gonna say anything that can incriminate me, Counselor." Max leaned back. "So. Assistant District Attorney. Look at you go."
"Well it's not Professor of Criminology," Carisi shrugged. "Who'da thought we'd both end up respectable gentlemen?"
"Depends on how you define 'respectable,' Max grinned. He pointed at Carisi with his mug. "You don't look so respectable right now."
"Side effect of datin' a woman with two adorable munchkins. One that's not feeling well and wasn't a fan of oatmeal this morning."
Max smiled. "It looks good on you. No, I actually mean that one," he said when Carisi scoffed and rolled his eyes. "The whole thing. The office, the suit, the career, the kids…" He waved a hand. "All of it."
"You know, you're not doin' to bad for yourself, Max. Tenure at Fordham. Guess they didn't look too close at our records freshman year at NYU."
"I'm amazed we got anything done playin' on that old PS2," Max shook his head.
"I'm amazed it even worked considerin' it was like a decade old by that point."
"Respect the classics," Max reminded him seriously, and Carisi laughed. Max stood up, set his mug down on Carisi's desk. He wandered over to the window and glanced outside.
"You know, if I didn't know better, I'd swear you're about to give me a side quest," Carisi told him, motioning to the fact that he was bathed in morning sunlight streaming in through the window.
"Actually, it's not for you. It's for your wife."
Carisi frowned. "Amanda? What about her?"
Max turned to him. "My students can't shut up about her lecture the other week. They thought it was the coolest thing that she came in to talk to them, and the weird part? I asked 'em to write reflection papers and they actually paid attention."
"Yeah well, Amanda's worth listenin' to," Carisi said. "She's got a ton of experience."
Max looked at him. "Do you think she'd be willing to bring that experience to Fordham?"
Carisi cocked his head sideways. "Max?" he prompted. "What, ah, what are you gettin' at?"
"We've got an opening next semester," Max told him. "Twice a week class, but the professor that does it currently is goin' on sabbatical and none of us can fit it into our schedules. It's an elective, not a core, but it's a pretty popular class, and-"
"Hang on a second." Carisi held up one finger. He studied Max. "Are you…are you offering Amanda a job?"
"It's Forensic Psychology. She's got her Master's, right?"
Carisi blinked. "Yeah, but-" He ran a hand through his hair. "Wow."
"She commands a room, Sonny. She got those kids' attention. What she said, they were interested in." Max shrugged. "I'm just saying she'd be a good fit. Hell, I'll write her a letter of recommendation if you want." He glanced at his watch. "I should go, I've got class in an hour and I gotta take the train back up. But think about it, huh? Run it by her." He smiled. "You'd probably get to see her more," he offered. "And the munchkins." He gave Carisi another hug. "It was good to see you, man."
"Yeah," Sonny stammered out as Max left the room. "You too."
He couldn't have begun to tell anyone what he talked about with Ortiz that afternoon. Didn't notice that the sleeve length on the shirt Leah'd picked up for him wasn't quite long enough. A call had come through from Liv about getting a warrant, and he'd almost forgotten to talk to a judge about it.
Professor Amanda Rollins.
He rolled that over in his head, and thought back to that night at her house, when she'd pulled her gun on the monsters in Billie and Jesse's closet. Thought about when he'd gone sprinting into Mercy after Benson had told him she'd been shot (and been pissed that she'd told him so long after the fact), terrified that Amanda, that she-
If it had been up to him, he would have told Max she was taking the job and that would be that. But Amanda would murder him, and had been with SVU long enough to get creative. It wasn't his decision, it was hers.
He begged off going to her place that night, citing work, and it was at least a partial truth. He hadn't been able to focus all day and a stack of folders was on his desk. He barely noticed when Leah left him Chinese takeout and a bottle of styling gel, along with a dry-cleaned shirt, and then crashed on the couch in his office.
The next morning, he switched out shirts, slicked his hair in the men's room, and did his job. But not before texting Amanda and asking if she could meet him in his office around lunchtime, and asking Leah to see if she could hunt down a bottle of Dom Perignon and smuggle it into the office.
"Are you celebrating?" she'd asked him, scrolling through Google for the nearest bottle shop.
He swallowed. "I hope so."
