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When Amanda opens her eyes and sees Nick sitting in the chair beside her hospital bed, for a second she’s sure she’s imagining things. That with the stress of this pregnancy, her high blood pressure, all the hassle with her mom and Kim, everything has come to a head and she’s hallucinating.
Then he stands, takes a step towards her and she gets a whiff of his cologne and it’s so familiar that it makes her throat ache with unshed tears.
"So this is the kind of trouble you get into when I'm not around?" He sits down on the bed, takes her hand in both of his. There's the faintest ghost of a teasing smile on his face but his eyes are dark, made darker by the shadows underneath them. Like he’s had as much sleep as she’s had over the past couple of days, like he’s been sharing her worries.
But she remembers how to banter with him so she plays her part, tilts her head, wrinkles her nose. "I don't know, Nick... I'm fairly sure I got into this trouble when you were still here. I mean, that's kinda how it works, right?"
Nick's fingers tighten on hers, just a little and there's what seems like a long pause before he speaks again. "So it is mine."
The sudden lump that rises up in her throat takes Amanda by surprise. She didn’t expect his doubt to sting quite so badly. "There was no-one else." She has to force the words out. "You know that."
"I thought I did." His voice is lighter now, and it doesn't sound forced. She's talked enough to him to know the difference. "Then I had to hear about this from Carisi of all people."
"Carisi...." She's going to kill him. As soon as she can get out of this bed, she's going to kill him with her bare hands.
Nick interrupts her before she can say any more. “If it’s any consolation, he was pretty hesitant to come out with it. And he also mentioned that you’d denied it. Numerous times.” Amanda feels her cheeks burn because she had done that. No matter how many times she’d sworn she was on the straight and narrow, that she was done lying, she always found herself right back there again. At least this time it was done with the best of intentions. Well, she’s thought so; she wonders if he agrees. “I think he thought you were protesting a bit too much.”
She knows there’s probably an element of truth in that. “Zara and Gil are out in California,” she says. “What, you’re going to stay here and go back to night feeds and dirty diapers?”
Nick is frowning. “West Coast, 2, East Coast, 1, is that what you’re thinking? C’mon, Amanda, it don’t work like that.”
“We never put a name on anything.” She’s trying to explain her thought processes because they’d made sense to her at the time. But having him here, actually looking into his eyes, it’s scrambling her brain a little bit, because he’s so solid and so steadfast and so obviously one hundred per cent here that it’s making her head spin. Or maybe that’s whatever drugs they’re pumping into her, she’s not sure.
The pressure of his hand on hers increases and, wonder of wonders, it grounds her, the same way his hands on her skin had grounded her on so many long dark nights after so many long dark cases. “Didn’t think we had to.” She will not cry, she tells herself, clenching her jaw to keep a sob from escaping. That gets harder when his voice, infinitely gentle, asks her, “Amanda, why didn’t you tell me?”
It takes a second to get the words out. “I didn’t know at first… not until you were already out in California. And you were settled there… with Gil and Zara… and I wanted that for you, you know? To be happy with your kids.”
His hand is warm on her cheek, his thumb wiping away the tears that have finally fallen. “I was,” he tells her. “But I’ve spent the last few months feeling like something’s missing.” He glances down at her abdomen, his hand moving slowly from her face to its curve, like he’s waiting for her to object. She never does though and when his hand rests there for a second, as if by magic, the baby shifts, delivering a strong kick right where he’s touching. Amanda laughs at the look of shock on his face and a second later he’s chuckling too. “Like their mom,” he says, “not making things easy for me.”
It’s on the tip of Amanda’s tongue to point out that the kid hasn’t exactly made the last few months easy for her either - heartburn, food cravings, food aversions, the almost constant need to pee - but when she sees the look in his eyes, she can’t speak.
She’s seen him look at Zara and Gil like that.
“Look,” he says quietly, “I get why you did what you did. Kind of. But it’s done now. I know now. So I’m here… and, Amanda, I’m not going anywhere. Unless you send me away, but I’m really hoping you won’t…”
He’s smiling at the end and so is Amanda. “Please, don’t leave me.” The words are out before she can think, before she can stop them and it’s not lost on either of them, she thinks, that it’s the most honest she’s ever been with him.
“Okay.” He takes one of her hands then, brings it to her stomach and puts it on top of his. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Amanda closes her eyes and, for the first time in what seems like days, lets herself believe that everything is going to be all right and that maybe, just maybe, she’s got herself into some good trouble this time.