Quote Prompt #102: "Finally she found her peace, her safe haven. After all the pain, drama and deceit, the chaos and disorder, there was rest. She felt the warmth and safety of his arms and how his hands held her as if he had known her all her life. She was home."
Finally Home
~oOo~
"Come on, come on, come on, we're gonna be late!" Keeping an ear out for shuffling noises from the kitchen, Amanda grabs the girls' backpacks and checks the time again. "Sonny!"
"Coming," her husband hollers back from somewhere deep within their newly acquired Bay Ridge home.
Perfectly located between their work and the Carisi family home, they got a good deal on a fixer-upper that still needed a lot of fixer-upping. But it's got floorspace and it is theirs.
Sonny turns the corner just then, one girl on each hand, and another one strapped to his chest. The BabyBjörn carrier gives Amanda just enough room to kiss the top of her newest daughter's head. "All ready to go?"
"Aye, aye, Captain!" Jesse giggles, still in her nautical phase ever since Dominick Sr. took them out on a boat in the harbor a few weeks ago.
"That's Sergeant to you," Sonny replies, his eyes sparkling just like the moment he first heard the news that his wife passed her exam.
"Mama, will Jamie stay in kindergarten with me?" Billie asks while slipping into her sandals. "I don't want her to be home alone."
"She is still way too little to come with but she will help walk you into your new classroom. And Daddy will stay with her so they can pick you up again this afternoon."
The middle child doesn't seem very pleased with that answer but for once she lets it slide. Small miracles and all that.
"You walk me into my class too, right Dad?" Jesse questions as well.
"All the way to your seat, sunshine."
With first-day energy, the family of five makes their way to McKinley Park Elementary.
~oOo~
"You nervous?" Sonny breaks the silence three minutes into their walk to the school. Jesse and Billie are a few feet ahead of them on their scooters and Jamie is sleeping peacefully against her father's chest.
"What's there to be nervous about?" Amanda quickly shuts that conversation down.
"I don't know," Sonny counters. "Maybe the fact that the girls start a new school, that it's your first time away from the baby, that you're starting a new old job, or that I love paternity leave so much that I will never go back to work, making you the breadwinner of the house."
"As long as you keep being the breadmaker, I'm fine."
Sonny leans down and with Amanda up on her tiptoes, they give each other a soft kiss over the baby's head.
"I will definitely miss her," Amanda takes Jamie's little hand in hers, "miss them," she looks towards the girls who are waiting for their parents at an intersection. "Is it wrong that I'm more excited than nervous?"
"You wouldn't be the woman I married if you weren't."
"I promised y'all that I wouldn't put myself in harm's way ever again. That I would come home every night."
"Not even I come home every night," her husband tries to appease her. "You're showing the girls that being comfortable doesn't mean being happy. You tried something new and it wasn't for you—there's no shame in that. There are not enough cops out there who do what they do out of passion for helping people. The girls are proud of you, I am proud of you. And if you miss a spaghetti night or two, that's okay. That's what we have a support system for. My parents, Bella, Mia, Fin, and Olivia…"
"Elliot."
"Elliot?" Sonny gives his wife the side-eye. "Elliot Stabler? Not sure I would consider him part of our bubble yet, but if you feel comfortable—"
"No. Not that. Elliot," she points towards the entrance of the girls' school, "is right over there."
Sonny stops and tries to make out who the slightly blurry body belongs to. He really needs to get glasses but he still refuses to look more like his father than he already does. "Is that…Liv?"
Amanda's fingers dig into her husband's arm so hard, he's worried she will draw blood.
"What the fu—dgesickle are they doing in Brooklyn? Together! They are here together, right?"
The couple stands stock still, watching on as Olivia Benson does the most un-Olivia thing they have ever seen: she puts her hand on Stabler's face, a look of pure contentment and joy on her own, and then her thumb strokes his jawline—the smile on both of their faces widening.
The Rollins-Carisis aren't close enough to see their eyes but Amanda knows that the look in Stabler's must be the same all consumed by love one that Sonny started giving her a year into their partnership. And the one in Liv's will mirror her own the moment her groom carried her over the threshold of their new house. After a long and winding road, she arrived.
Cautiously, like you approach a wounded animal, the newlyweds join the new lovers? in front of the school doors.
In a bubble just for two, Benson and Stabler don't even notice their friends—or anyone really—stopping right beside them. At least not until Carisi clears his throat—louder than any normal person has ever cleared their throat.
The couple jumps apart, Olivia almost pushing Elliott off of her in a vain attempt to hide their relationship. Her eyes scream, move along, nothing to see here—just two co-workers doing co-workerly stuff, but her acting skills are as great as Sonny's when he tried to hide his jealousy over anyone Amanda ever smiled at. Back when these two were in their pre-co-workerly stuff phase.
"Amanda! And Sonny!" Olivia rarely smiles—a lifetime of dealing with crime does that to a person—so the fake one she has plastered on her face now would have been a dead giveaway even if she hadn't been a human heart eyes emoji in the middle of the street just seconds before.
"Boss," Amanda greets, having a hard time keeping her face neutral.
"Sergeant, Counselor," Elliot replies, cool as a cucumber. There doesn't seem to be anything in the world that can make him lose his chill—outside of work that is. And being caught red-handed with Olivia Benson does nothing to him but put a cocky grin on his face. "Also, not really your boss," he adds.
"Maybe not on paper, but Lieutenant Bell clued me in on the bureau dynamics."
"I'm sure she did," Olivia laughs, seeming much more comfortable talking about work than her reason for wearing last night's outfit in a borough far from home on a Monday morning.
"Auntie 'Livia," Jesse brings them back to the situation at hand, "are you taking me to my new classroom, too?"
"Oh, no, no, sweetie. I'm just here helping out a friend." She throws a cautious look at Stabler.
"Does your friend go to my school?" Billie asks innocently. "Is he in my class? Do you think he will be my friend, too?"
Elliot leans down to the four-year-old. "I might not go to your class, but we can definitely be friends." He reaches a hand out to her, giving it a good shake when she takes it. "I'm Elliot and your mom is gonna be my new boss."
"She's gonna be really good at that!" Billie says excitedly. "She's very bossy!"
The adults laugh but Jesse comes to her mom's rescue.
"Only when we run in the house and don't clean up our toys," she reminds her younger sister. "And never with Jamie. She's still too little and can't do anything yet."
"Jamie?" Elliot rises to full height again, his eyes falling on the baby strapped to Sonny's chest. "That's—"
"It just felt right," Amanda says with a shrug. "This last year—I was so lucky when he wasn't. We just wanted to honor that. I expected Liv to have told you."
All eyes are on the SVU captain again.
"It didn't come up."
"So what did you talk about all of last night then?" Amanda asks with a gleam in her eyes, happy to be switching to a lighter topic again. "Or was there no time for talking?"
"Oh, we talked." Elliot's grin got even bigger—if at all possible.
"And what are you doing here?" Sonny enquires. "Don't you live in Queens?" He eyes Stabler warily. He still hasn't 100% warmed up to the OC Detective. When it comes to Olivia Benson, Dominick Carisi Jr. is like a mama bear. Or, well, like an overprotective little brother.
"I don't know why it would matter to you," Elliot challenges him right back, "but I was babysitting for my daughter. She got called into work overnight and needed someone to bring my grandsons to school this morning."
"And you needed a police escort from a superior officer? Cause with five kids of your own, you clearly didn't need help looking after two sleeping boys, right?" Amanda looks like that cat that got the canary now.
"I was already in the neighborhood and remembered that I needed to give something to Detective Stabler."
"And one thing just led to another?"
"Excuse me?" Olivia gives her a tense look.
"Goodnight kisses turning into overnight stays.… We've been there, haven't we, Sonny?"
If there ever was a time Olivia was frustrated that Amanda was just a friend and not her subordinate anymore, it was now. How dare she! And right in front of Elliot!
"Absolutely," Sonny agrees, "bedtime can be so demanding. I can't even count the amount of times I fell asleep on the couch when the girls were little. I hope you managed to actually get some sleep and didn't throw your back out, Liv. We're not as young as we used to be and sometimes these nightly activities really suck you dry."
Liv's eyes widen, Elliot and Amanda start full-on laughing, the girls look lost, and Sonny almost dry-heaves.
"Please, ignore that last bit. Or every bit of that. Just, ugh. I'm sorry! It's like picturing my parents—"
"Be careful of your next words, Carisi," Olivia warns him but the gleam is back in her eyes.
Sonny zips his mouth and then raises both hands in surrender.
"Good." Elliot pulls Olivia back into his side. "Now that the cat is out of the bag, you don't mind that I come into work a bit late, right, Sergeant? I want to treat my girlfriend to some breakfast. After all, she's in need of a lot of caffeine if she wants to make it through the day." He winks at Liv and then gives Sonny a cocky grin which makes the younger man shudderer again.
"Anything for our Liv," Amanda replies, truly happy for her friend. She would give Stabler the whole day off, but she knows there is nothing that can make Olivia Benson take time off from seeking justice for survivors. Not even the promise of a romp in the sheets with Elliot Stabler.
But there is one thing she has to do first. Pulling Olivia a few feet away from the men, Amanda gives her a wide smile that is mirrored on her friend's face—and then some!
"So that sleepover last night. Why do I feel like you dropping off the new pencil cases for the girls was less about being in the neighborhood when Stabler called and more about being in the neighborhood where Stabler was?"
"I plead the fifth?"
Amanda first pulls Olivia into a hug and then moves her body back a bit, their gazes finding each other. "Right place, right time?"
"Right person, right time." The smile that accompanies the words makes Olivia look about 20 years younger. Like a woman without burden and horror in her life. Someone who didn't have to wait almost three decades to be with the man she's destined for.
"Happiness looks good on you."
"Thought I try something new, you know."
Amanda just lets out a delighted sigh.
"He's gonna stick around now, I make sure of that."
"Thank you, Sergeant," Olivia puts special emphasis on that last word before letting her friend go.
They both look over to the school doors where Jesse is impatiently trying to pull her dad into the building, and Billie recounts the order she eats her breakfast cereals to an actively listening Stabler.
"Did you ever think we would get here?" Amanda asks her old Captain.
"Not in a million years. But after all the pain, drama and deceit, the chaos and disorder, this is rest. This is home."
The author of this SVU - Quills & Shutters story will be revealed in October