Renovations? This ain't renovations…this is a full-on remodel. Any other day, Carisi would've complimented the hardwood, the light, open floor plan. But it wasn't great for sneaking up on a kidnapper, especially not one with a gun. Carisi could hear whimpering from upstairs and found the staircase. Sheeting was up to protect from drywall dust and paint. Again, not helpful for recon.
At first, when he saw Quinn, he thought she was trying to adjust from the awkward sitting position she was in. Her hands were bound to a support post and her mouth was taped shut. She looked like she was trying to stand, and her head jerked to-
Click.
To where he's standing right behind me. Sonny closed his eyes and slowly lifted his hands as Cole pressed the barrel of his gun into Sonny's forehead. Son of a bitch.
"Rookie mistake," Cole said. "Drop your gun."
Carisi swallowed and lowered his weapon to the floor. Cole kicked it out of the way and it went skittering across the floor. "All right, you got yourself a detective for a hostage," Carisi said, refusing to blink or take his eyes off Cole. "How 'bout you keep me and let Quinn go, huh?" he asked.
Quinn moaned and started crying. "It's okay, Quinn," Carisi said. "It's gonna be okay." Lieu told me to be careful. She's gonna kill me. If Cole doesn't first. Cole backed him against the framing and pressed the barrel of the Smith & Wesson into the top of his head. "Sit down. Hands behind you."
"I'll do whatever you want," Carisi confirmed. "Just let her go, huh? You've been takin' care of her all this time, Tom. You don't wanna hurt her."
Cole slammed the gun down on Carisi's hair and Carisi dropped, dazed, to his knees. "Jesus, it's like talking to the damn training video," Cole said. He put his gun in his waistband and stepped behind Carisi, yanking his arms behind him and securing them with a length of electrical cords. Carisi winced, but was too out of it from the blow to struggle or fight back. Cole let go and Carisi twisted his wrists. He'd done a good job. At the Academy they trained you on how to break duct tape and zip ties, but most of the time, you had your full faculties and not a throbbing headache that Carisi thought could be the start of a low-grade concussion. Stay awake. Stay focused. You gotta get us both outta here.
He glanced over at Quinn. Her mascara was running, giving her dark circles under her eyes. Tears ran a clean streak through them, and she was looking at him helplessly. "We're gonna get out of here," he promised her.
She didn't look like she believed him.
"Cole, come on," Carisi said. The cop was pacing, he looked agitated. Keep him talking. Keep him calm. Get you both out. "Look, my boss is out there, SWAT and the FBI are on their way. They won't hesitate to come in here guns blazing with Quinn still here. You don't want Quinn to get caught in the crossfire." Keep using her name. Remind him. "Send her out to Detective Benson, and you can keep me." The next words were gonna hurt, but he said it anyway. "I'm not gonna be as high a priority as she is."
As if to prove his point, Cole's phone rang, and he moved away from Carisi and Quinn to start yelling at Benson.
Carisi shook his head to clear it, trying to get the spots out of his vision. It was then that he spotted his gun, lying near a bucket of spackle. "Hey," he dropped his voice. "Quinn, look at me."
She lifted her head slightly. "How good of an actress are you?"
Fin and Amanda pulled up behind SWAT and threaded their way through the commotion until they got to Olivia. Olivia was on the phone, Amanda guessed with Cole, and the SWAT commander was busy setting up eyes and a perimeter.
"…let my detective and Quinn go. I don't want either of them getting hurt in all this, and I don't want you getting hurt either."
Carisi. Amanda's heart sank. Cole had Quinn and Carisi? How the hell had that happened? Sonny wasn't stupid, he wouldn't have gone in-
"Oh of course he did," Amanda bit. Fin gave her a confused look. She leaned against Liv's unmarked car, staring up at the house. Damn it, Carisi. "Second time in two years he's on the wrong end of a barrel, and this time I'm not in there to-"
"Whoa." Fin reached over and grabbed her arm. Amanda hadn't even realized she was falling. He helped her stand up again. "Carisi's gonna be fine. Quinn's gonna be fine. Carisi's gonna keep Cole busy with that mouth of his and Liv's gonna get them out of there."
"Yeah." Amanda closed her eyes, breathing slowly. "Yeah, okay. Okay." She looked up as Olivia came over. "Hey. What's going on in there?"
"Cole is falling apart," Olivia said. She ran a hand through her hair. "He kept saying something about how ungrateful Quinn was, and-"
"He said Quinn came over for supper with his wife," Amanda said.
"Linda Cole said she hadn't seen Quinn in awhile," Olivia said. "Quinn turned him down," she realized. "He saw that as a rejection."
"This is about Cole showing Quinn she still needs him," Fin nodded. "That's why he set up Wilson. Why he stalked her and assaulted her? To scare her into sticking around."
"This goes beyond a savior complex. He's….he's recently retired, he's renovating this house…" Amanda stared. Oh God. "Olivia, this is about him and Quinn. Everything he's done, it's all for her."
"If Carisi keeps talkin' about how he needs to let Quinn go, that's not gonna help their case," Fin realized. "It's the one play in the hostage handbook that's gonna get 'em both killed."
Amanda's heart pounded. "Then SWAT, then we…we gotta get in there," she said. "We gotta take out Cole before he-"
Damn it, Carisi. Put two and two together, figure it out…figure it out before-
A shot rang out, and chaos erupted.
Quinn Berris's breaths started coming in short, quick, shallow gasps through her nose. Her eyes widened and her feet scraped the refinished hardwood. "Hey, hey, Cole?" Carisi yelled, panic etching his voice. "Cole! Somethin's wrong with Quinn!"
Come on, you bastard. Cole came back into the room, cell phone still in his hand. He stopped short when he saw Quinn. "I think it's a panic attack!" Carisi said urgently. "Cole, come on, man, you gotta let her go or she's gonna hyperventilate or pass out!"
Quinn's face was flushed, and her eyes darted back and forth. Carisi didn't know how much of it was an act or how much of it was the realization that this was it-right now, it was all or nothing. "Tom," Carisi said, trying to calm his voice. "Tom. Help her. That's what you do. You help her. Please. You gotta do something."
Tom looked at Quinn, who was staring back at him, terrified. Then, he was at her side, pulling the tape off her mouth as she sucked in deep breaths.
It was all the distraction Carisi needed. He felt the cord snap, and fall away, and he charged Tom Cole, the multitool from his NYPD jacket in his hand. He tackled Cole to the floor. The older man was bigger than he was, and as Quinn screamed for help, Carisi's head hit the floor as Cole threw him off of him. Carisi rolled, stunned, as he rolled over something hard.
Cole stood over him- breathing heavily, a cut over his eye leaking blood down his face. "You son of a-"
Carisi beat him off the draw. Cole dropped and Quinn screamed. Carisi gave it a full count of five before realizing Cole wasn't getting back up, and then he dropped his gun hand and wobbled over to Quinn, dropping hard to the floor as he went for the duct tape around her wrists.
A door was kicked in downstairs with a bang. "Up here!" Carisi yelled. "We're, ah, we're okay!" He looked at Cole's lifeless form. "Officer down, and we need a bus!" The tape ripped free. Quinn slumped into his arms, sobbing uncontrollably.
Bodies burst upstairs, Olivia Benson at the head of the line. "Carisi?" she demanded, catching his eye.
He nodded. "We're okay," he repeated, not entirely sure if he was trying to convince his boss or himself.
"Carisi!" Amanda saw him walking out behind Olivia and Quinn. Olivia led Quinn to the ambulance, and Amanda moved to help her partner. "You all right?" she asked.
"Been better," he mumbled. "Guy hits hard." As if to emphasize his point, he felt a leg give out and he stumbled.
Amanda hoisted him upright and led him over to the car, propping him against the hood. He reached down, planted both palms on either side of him trying to steady himself. The adrenaline was wearing off and the realization of what could have happened, much like that day on the rooftop, crept into his mind.
"Carisi," she started, "what were you thinking, going in there without backup, without-" Her voice rose with every word.
"Jesus, Rollins, I know!" he exploded. "I know. It was stupid. It was stupid, and I-"
He looked at her, and Amanda gasped at the look on his face, a mix of guilt and fear and- "Hey. Hey," she said, wrapping her arms around him as he sagged into her embrace. "I've got you. I've got you."
Three years later
He gets that same feeling in his legs when Liv calls him wanting to know if he's seen Amanda, that they haven't heard from her. He pulls right up outside Amanda's apartment building, panicking about if the girls are okay, if Amanda is…
He knows now why she went off at him that day at Cole's house. Because when your partner is in trouble and you are helpless and can't do anything to find them, to fix them, you get a little pissed off, and you know it's not them you're mad at, not really. It's why he's so pissed, why he's yelling at Liv even though it's not her fault and she's right about red flag petitions and-
It's not her he's mad at. He's mad at Amanda, because he's sure she decided to go with Bucci willingly, and he's mad at himself because of the other day in court, and...Jesus, Amanda, what the hell were you thinking?
Amanda walks in with Bucci in front of her, and God, he wants nothing more than to shoot that asshole, except that now that he's an ADA he doesn't have a gun. She was in trouble, and I wasn't-
"I need to see my girls."
Her statement shortens his guilt trip about not being around for his partner. He can do this. He's been helpless for the 24 hours, or so it seems, but this, this is something he can do for her.
"I'll drive ya. I'll drive." Carisi doesn't even let Liv try to object, to get Rollins' statement. She needs to go home, and he's going to make sure she gets there in one piece. As they walk to the elevator, she's on the phone letting Sienna know she's home in less than an hour. He can hear Jesse on the other end of the line, telling Amanda, "Bye, Mommy! See you soon!"
She hangs up. "Hey, are you okay?" he asks her. Stupid fucking question, Counselor. Of course she's not.
But she's nodding as she runs her fingers through her messy ponytail. "Yeah. Yeah," she tells him…before she falls apart. "No," she whispers, shaking her head. "No. No."
And he understands. There's no 'okay' after something like this. Not for a little while. He remembers. Remembers feeling helpless, scared out of his mind. But he also remembers her. "Come here," he murmurs, drawing her into a hug. "I got you," he promises, as she breaks down in his embrace. He pulls her into him, one hand on the back of her neck and the other rubbing gentle circles on her back through his coat. "I got you."