Chapter Text
“I don’t need a protective detail.”
Benson shakes her head at him from across the room, leaning forward on her desk with her fingers interlinked and a look on her face to rival the one Sonny’s mother has been throwing him his whole life. “It’s not negotiable, Counsellor.”
The threat is credible. It’s more than credible; it’s inevitable. As soon as Anton Tepler’s right hand man was arrested on the only charge the NYPD could make stick - statutory rape in place of the score of murder and attempted murder charges that were only the tip of Tepler’s trafficking empire - the phone calls had started. Hang ups at first, then instructions to drop the case. SVU had picked Roberts up on the statutory charge but they had bigger fish to fry and hopes that names would be named; Sonny played his part, pressed the right buttons, offered the right deal.
But Roberts still wasn’t talking and the charges being what they were the judge granted bail.
That was when the threats had amped up. The phone calls were no longer instructions but demands - the kind with consequences. Then there was the guy following him, a threat hissed into his ear in a crowded bar the day after he arraigned another of Tepler’s associates.
It was the bullet that had tipped Benson over the edge; she’d been offering to have a uniform at his apartment door, someone watching his back as he drove to and from his apartment, eyes while he grocery shopped and visited his family. He’d declined it all, brushed it off like it was nothing. But that bullet had only missed him by an inch and it was lucky that Fin had been with him as they walked out of the courthouse, that he’d drawn his gun before a second shot was fired.
And so Sonny found himself standing near the door of Benson’s office, arms folded over his chest, with Benson’s eyes narrowed at him and resignation already forming in his head; he knows she isn’t going to let this go. Sonny hasn’t been a detective for over a year now, but he’ll always be one of her people, and she is always going to worry like he’s still part of her squad. That doesn’t mean he’s thrilled about the US marshals’ involvement - in the case that is about to be taken from him, or in his ability to live his life.
“I’ve asked for someone I know, someone I trust,” Benson says, “You’ll be in safe hands.”
“I don’t wanna be in anyone’s hands, Cap-”
There’s a sharp rap on the door before it opens and Sonny turns his head as a woman enters. She walks into the room like she’s familiar with the space and ready to command it; head held high, shoulders squared. Sonny watches with curiosity as she softens when she greets Benson - just a little; trust and mutual respect passing between them.
“This him?” she asks, walking past Sonny with only the briefest inclination of her head in his direction. It allows him a few seconds to cast his eyes over her. She’s not at all what he’d been expecting. The shadowy, unwelcome, figure of the US marshal in his head wasn’t nearly so attractive, for a start.
Benson nods, “Amanda Rollins, this is ADA Carisi.”
Sonny manages to keep his displeasure from his voice as he greets her, “Nice to meet you.”
Rollins nods, “Circumstances could be better,” she says, turning right back to Benson, “Is he up to speed?”
“Working on it,” Benson says. She looks over at Sonny, a smile on her lips. She already knows she’s won, “Are you going to stop fighting me on this?”
Sonny gives her a half-shrug; he’s resigned to his fate, but not convinced by it.
“Good,” Rollins says quickly. “Time to make you disappear.”
Sonny falters. Protection is one thing… disappearing, that’s a whole other ball game.
He crosses the room to stand in front of Benson’s desk, shaking his head as his eyes dart between the two women, “No way,” he says quickly, hands moving with his words as a new type of fear creeps into the back of his head, “I can’t fake my death; my mother would kill me for real.”
Rollins rolls her eyes, “No one’s killing you off. Yet.”
Sonny turns to face her, irritated by her casual tone, “What’s the plan then?” He asks, “Where are you shipping me off to?”
“Carisi,” Benson cuts in, “I know you’re not thrilled about this but it’s happening, and this is only making it worse.”
Rollins ignores Benson, turning to meet Sonny’s eye, her shoulders squared again, “Alaska.”
Sonny balks; he’s barely on board with the plan as it is, and now his mind is filled with images of barren landscapes and icy plains and absolutely no cell service. “You can’t be serious.”
Benson and Rollins share a look - a brief conversation passing between them. It seems like it’s about more than where he’s headed and Sonny has a hundred questions about how they knew each other, but he doesn’t ask any of them. His other questions are more pressing.
“I can tell this is gonna be fun, Counsellor,” Rollins says as she turns away from Benson, a sly smirk on her face. Sonny doesn’t share her amusement and he presses his lips together in silent disapproval.
She rolls her eyes again and sits down on one of the chairs in front of Benson’s desk, glancing up at him over her shoulder, “We’re going to let slip that you’ve boarded a plane, book you a ticket to Europe, another one to Mexico. They’ll be looking in all the wrong places.”
“And I’ll be where, exactly?”
“Just upstate. We’ve got a safe house.”
Sonny sighs, “So I just pack up my whole life and hide in the middle of nowhere?” The abstract thought was bad enough, but faced with the reality it feels like the opposite of everything he’s worked for since the day he first set foot in the academy. “No, I’m not afraid of these guys.”
“You should be,” Rollins says, fixing him with a stare. It rivals the look Benson is still giving him, and it doesn’t matter that he knows they are right - it still feels like running away, like giving in. After a beat Rollins softens a little; something in his expression must show his frustration, “It’s just until we’ve made the arrests. Once Tepler and his associates are behind bars you’ll come back and we’ll move to a regular protective detail until after the trial. We’re talking about weeks, months at most.”
“And what do we do til then?” Sonny asks, “I have a new identity? And you’re what, my fake wife?” He’s mostly joking, but it doesn’t carry and Rollins doesn’t look amused this time.
“We’ll figure out a cover story,” she says stiffly.
“What about my family?” Sonny asks, half-exasperated, half-fearful. Flipping his own world upside down is one thing, but his parents? His sisters? They have jobs, they have lives. “You gonna hide them away, too?”
“We’re going to make it look like you’ve been pulled from the case,” Rollins says, “You have been pulled from the case. Once Tepler thinks you’re running scared he won’t have any reason to go after your family,” she raises a finger before he can speak again, “But we’ll have someone watching them too, just in case.”
And so the last of his resistance is pushed back at him. No more obstacles to fire at them, no more reasons to refuse beyond his own stubbornness - and something tells him Rollins would outlast him there. He already knows Benson can.
Plans are already in motion; the US marshal’s office had begun making arrangements before Sonny had even entered the precinct for this conversation. Identity documents are being made up, flights are being booked, cars arranged. Rollins threatens a lengthy car journey and time to put together their cover story, but the basics are already laid out before them - Rollins will be his fake wife, the two of them relocating to a small town where everybody knows everybody else and news of any of Tepler’s associates showing up will reach the whole town’s ears within minutes.
They take over Benson’s office, finalising arrangements for the life he is going to leave behind. He can tell his parents he’d be out of town for a while, but not where he is going, or why. He’s already dreading the phone call; knowing that as much as it’s necessary it isn’t going to go down well.
He finishes the detailed list of his relatives - their homes, jobs, schools, all too much when he has it written out in front of him. A whole world that will be prodded and invaded, eyes lurking in every corner just to keep them safe and all because of him. He adds guilt to the uneasy feelings he’s reckoning with.
“That’s it,” he says, handing the list off to Rollins.
She runs her eyes down the page before tucking it into a folder that is balanced on her knee, “Anyone else we need to know about? Girlfriend?”
“No,” it feels like a strange admission in these circumstances, with Rollins’ eyes on him.
“Good,” she says, “Makes this simpler.”
She stands, slipping the file under her arm, and glances at her watch, “I’ve got some loose ends to tie up. You go home, pack a bag. You’ve got three hours, then we’re on the road.”
Just like that she’s gone - leaving Sonny still feeling completely on the back foot, his whole life just tipped upside down, shaken out by Deputy Marshal Rollins and scattered on the floor in front of him.
He glances over at Benson and she gives him a long, appraising look, “I know this isn’t what you want,” she says, “But we’ll all keep working to the bone on this case and we’ll have you back as soon as we can.”
“Right,” he sighs, “I used to be a cop, Liv. I don’t need to be coddled. I can-”
She holds up a hand, “You almost got shot. I’m not risking that again.”
There’s something in her eyes that stops Sonny fighting her further, something that reminds them both of Sergeant Michael Dodds and a bullet that Benson will never fully recover from. It’s not the first time Sonny’s been a hairs-breadth from being shot but Benson will do whatever she can to make sure that it’s the last.
And if that’s calling up an old friend - was Rollins Benson’s friend? Did Benson have friends in that kind of way? It was hard to picture her and Deputy Marshal Rollins catching up over a bottle of wine, gossipping about their lives. But if what it takes is Benson calling in someone she trusts with this, with the life a guy she hadn’t wanted on her squad in the first place but who she’d come to regard with something like affection - or at least Sonny thinks so - then he’ll suck it up and go through the motions. Hide out in the woods with an attractive blonde like he’s living in a made for TV movie.
He supposes he could’ve gotten a rawer deal.
Still.
“What the hell am I gonna do up there?”
Benson smiles, glad of his acceptance. “Find a new hobby.”
“What, I’m gonna sit in a corner and read spy novels like I’m not already prematurely turnin’ into my old man?”
“I’m sure you and Rollins will keep each other company,” she says, and Sonny stops with his fingers on the door frame, turning to look at her.
“You and Rollins,” he asks, “You go back?”
Benson nods, but doesn’t elaborate. “I’ll see you when this is over,” she says instead.
“Thanks. Don’t- don’t let it be too long, yeah?”
He’s halfway through the door when she calls out and he steps back into the room. She’s looking at him from behind her desk, hands folded in front of her, “Carisi.”
“Yeah?”
“It might be a good idea for you to shave.”