New Rollaro! You're welcome

So this fic takes place during season 13 before Amaro's wife comes home from Iraq. I know it's totally out of character for Amaro but I thought it would be a fun story for y'all to enjoy. Let me know what you think and FYI Rollaro will have a slow start but bear with me please. I'm also open to ideas.

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Amanda had just gotten home from a long, brutal day at work. Her dark, quiet, and semi-depressing apartment usually provided her comfort after long days but after a day like today, she couldn't wait to tear off her work clothes and put on her running gear. She definitely needed to get oxygen flowing through her body. The detectives in her unit had all spent the better part of the week on a particularly difficult "he said, she said" case. And as usual, she and Amaro had disagreed, sometimes it seemed like he purposely disagreed with her. They both had a temper and their difference of opinion on everything was the fuel that ignited their arguments.

After four straight days of arguing about whether or not a young woman was raped, TARU sent Rollins the evidence that supported the man's version of the story. Usually, Amaro didn't gloat, but today he gloated and it made her anger flare from deep within her gut, little by little he was getting under her skin and she didn't like it one bit. The rest of the squad was tired of hearing them argue, she was sure of it. He looked at her with a big, teasing grin and shrugged. Then she lost it.

Amanda started off on a light jog with Frannie but the more she thought about her argument with Amaro the faster she ran and within a few minutes she was in a full sprint trying to outrun her anger and the memory of their harsh and hurtful argument.

After hearing Amaro gloat she tossed the file in her hand at him and yelled, "Go fuck yourself!" before storming off into the cribs. He followed her in there and deliberately picked at her.

"Rollins, go back to Atlanta with the rest of your slow-minded kind. You're not cut out to work with the big guys."

"The only thing big about you is your head, Amaro. Fuck off!"

"It's clear I'm the smarter detective here because clearly I have two big heads."

She slapped at his two raised fingers, "Go fuck yourself until your wife comes back or is she in no rush because she's getting hers out there?" Amanda took a cheap shot and she knew it, a few weeks ago she overheard Amaro arguing with his wife about another man. She wasn't sure of the details or if his wife was even cheating but she knew it would hurt him.

"Don't talk about my marriage."

She knew she hit a nerve by the anger that appeared in his eyes, "What marriage? You call living in two different countries and Skyping once in a while a marriage? Face it, Amaro, if your wife wanted a marriage she never would have accepted that second tour." She spat at him.

"You're being a bitch right now. I liked "Amanda the gambling trailer trash" better. At least then I knew I could throw money at you and you'd shut the fuck up!"

She noticed his clenched jaw and his clenched fists, "Aw, did I hit a nerve, baby?" She held out her arms, "What? You wanna hit me? Huh? Hit me like your father hit your mother?"

"Stop." He told her sternly.

She pushed him back into the wall, "Hit me! You know you want to! You know what they say about little boys who see their daddy's beatin' on their mommy's."

Cragen walked into the cribs just as Amanda pushed Nick again, "That's enough! The whole damn squad room can hear you two. Kill each other when you're not at work!"

Amanda backed away from Nick, "Sorry Cap, but I have the urge to puke from disgust. I need to head home."

On her way out she heard Cragen ask Amaro, "What the hell was that?"

"Nothin'" She heard Amaro snap back.

Amanda kept running until her side ached, she slowed down to a jog to give herself and Frannie a chance to catch her breath.

She regretted the name calling and bringing up his personal life but his insults had hurt her. She wanted to hurt him too. The last couple of months they had been at each other's throats constantly. She didn't know what changed to make them act that way towards each other. It bothered her how easy life was for him. Success seemed to seek him out, whereas she had to chase success and once she felt she could grasp it, it was pulled even further from her. Nick smiled and life bent over backwards for him. He had to be honest and do everything the right way. He was a perfectionist and he made it look effortless, she hated that about him. He was like Prince Charming straight out of a fairytale, she grew up thinking men like Prince Charming didn't exist, but as if Prince Charming wasn't good enough, Nick had to be St. Prince Charming, even escorting his mother to Sunday Mass. She needed to see some of his flaws to know he was real and imperfect like she was. And making him lose his temper was the only way she could see that he wasn't perfect.

Amanda ran back home, fed Frannie, showered and headed to the bar. She needed many stiff drinks and few good hands.

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Nick headed to gym right after Rollins had stormed out of the cribs. Anger was still burning through him and he needed a release, a positive release. He gloved up and took it out on the punching bag, he didn't think about anything, he punched the shit out the bag and didn't stop until well after an hour when his arms felt like cement bricks. He sat on the leg press to catch his breath and pull off his gloves.

His head felt a lot better and he definitely felt less angry but then his thoughts wandered back to the root of his anger. He clenched his jaw and remembered how Rollins's words hit him in the gut. He was so angry with her back in the cribs he remembered how loud and fast his heart pounded in his ears. He remembered trying to calm himself down and not give her the satisfaction of seeing him lose control.

At first, he meant for the gloating to be more of joke to get her to laugh and let go of some of the anger, he could tell she had been much angrier than usual. But Amanda didn't take it how he hoped. He followed her into the cribs with the intentions of making things better; he tried another joke that obviously didn't land. Nick just wanted to see her laugh after the week they all just had, a joke usually made everything better.

He pressed down slowly on the iron weights beneath his feet, the more he thought about Rollins the angrier he got, the angrier he got the faster he pushed down the on press plate and his thoughts turned from Rollins to Maria. His legs and thighs burned from the quick reps, Nick jumped off the leg press. He kicked and hit the punching bag with his bare hands. He stopped only when he was spent and the blood from his knuckles was smeared on the bag. He was angry with Maria for accepting the second tour in Iraq and angrier with himself for allowing her to take that tour. He should have asked her not to go but he expected her to realize she should be home with their family and take an assignment in New York. Rollins was right, his marriage was in the gutter, and he and Maria couldn't even manage to have a conversation. The times they were able to get a hold of each other on Skype or on the phone all they did was disagree and fight and the few times they managed to get along one of them would get called back to work. Maria had been gone for a year already and she still had another eight months to go.

Nick drove home and peeled off his drenched tank top and workout pants, he stood under the steaming hot shower and thought back to the last time he had made love to his wife. It had been so long, he missed her touch, her scent, her warm and moist core. He stood in the shower feeling pathetic as he pleasured himself; he was a 36 year old man that had to jerk off for the last year because his wife chose to be thousands of miles away.

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The weeks following their argument were full of tension. Cragen and the other detectives felt it as well, it didn't go unnoticed how Nick and Amanda seemed to avoid each other at all costs. Fed up with their childish behavior, Cragen made them squash it and apologize to each other in front of the squad. And out of respect to their Captain the two were civil and worked together, but not happily. Still, the tension lingered, they wouldn't exchange words or pleasantries. Olivia tried to talk to Nick about it but he brushed her off and insisted he and Rollins were over it. Fin tried to talk to Amanda but she reminded her partner that she and Nick squashed it in front of everyone.

Two months later, Amanda was again complaining about "The Asshole" from work. As usual, her friends listened to her vent and tried to offer advice but Amanda wouldn't hear of any peacemaking. She insisted the asshole was a selfish, stubborn jerk that resembled and behaved like a caveman.

Amanda's friend, Ashley, had been sitting back listening to Amanda vent and it finally hit her.

"Amanda" she said excitedly, "I've got it!"

"What?" Amanda looked at her with confusion.

"You need to fuck his brains out!" Ashley laughed.

"Whoa, that's not happening, he's married."

"Then you just need to go get laid, girl, because this guy has you all wound up!"

"Yeah!" Her friends agreed.

"Come with me next week to Frank's basketball game, the guys on his team are hot! After the game, we'll grab some drinks and introduce you to some of the guys; you can take your pick and release that tension you've been holding onto."

"I'm up for a basketball game but don't expect me to hook up with one of Frank's friends. I'm not that desperate." She joked.

Later on, once Amanda was home and getting ready for bed she was found herself thinking about what Ashley said about Nick. She chuckled to herself and quickly brushed that thought away. Sure, she thought Nick was good looking but he was married with a kid, and therefore, off limits. So she never really allowed herself to think about him in any way other than the macho, stubborn, overconfident prick from work. She thought it was funny how the word married was the first thing that popped into her mind when she thought about him considering she had never actually seen or met his wife and now that she thought about it, he never talked about his wife either. She only knew he had a daughter because she overheard him telling Olivia about her first day of kindergarten.

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The following weekend Amanda was on call but she still agreed to go with Ashley to the basketball game. She wasn't too thrilled though because it wasn't on any of the lists. What fun is a game if you can't bet on it? On the cab ride over to the game she started feeling a little guilty about how much she had been gambling lately, she was in the hole quite a bit and she knew she should stop and just pay what she owed. But that itch was just so darn itchy these days. Amanda calmed her own nerves by telling herself she would stop after she won enough to pay her debt.

She met up with Ashley in front of the park and followed her into the caged basketball court. "We're sitting over here," Ashley motioned to the other side of the bleachers, "Girl, these guys are so hot, don't let them see you drool!"

Amanda chuckled at how excited Ashley was about how hot these guys were. Amanda absolutely enjoyed men but Ashley was the man crazy one. Frank was her third boyfriend in the year she had known her.

Amanda sat down next to her friend and laughed when Ashley looked at her and giggled excitedly, "Oh yeah, it's street ball so they do the whole shirts and skins thing."