Everything Changes

The Beginning

Amanda-June McLaine Rollins.

That was Amanda Rollins' real name, and she hated it. Why? Because it reminded her of home, down in Loganville, Georgia.

Yes, she'd gotten out of Georgia for good because of her history with her former captain, and also because of how sexist the men in her old unit had been, but there had also been another excellent reason she'd gotten out that not even Olivia, Nick, Fin, or Carisi knew: Bedelia.

And who was Bedelia?

Amanda's mother.

Amanda wasn't one to use derogatory terms, but when it came to Bedelia Rollins, the phrase 'white trash' always popped into her head because that's what Bedelia was. She wasn't overweight, like a lot of people in that classification were, but she sure did present with every other marker of the term: her southern drawl was almost thicker than Amanda's, and she had a lot of boot-type shoes, but while she wore jeans with her t-shirts in the cool weather, in the summertime, she always opted for shorts.

Bedelia Rollins also happened to be a smart person, but more it was more streetwise than anything else because she hadn't got any education past her junior year of high school, and unsurprisingly, she owned a shotgun and knew how to use it. Bedelia also shopped mostly at K-Mart and cooked almost exclusively out of Paula Deen cookbooks, was a smoker, and had also never lived anywhere than the trailer that she currently lived in.

Her home and neighborhood was another story, but just like any other bottom-of-the-heap, desolate southern motor park, not a lot of its residents ever strayed far from it. Amanda was the first person from the Rolling Hills Motor Park to leave it altogether in far too long, and for that, the residents closed ranks on her.

But as far as the name thing went, she'd gone by Amanda Rollins the second she could.

If any of her current colleagues found out her full name or where she'd grown up, she'd probably crawl into a hole and never come out.

"Amanda?"

The detective jumped at the sound of her name being called across the bullpen; it had been a very quiet day at work, and so things were humdrum, at best. Thank goodness her shift ended in ten minutes.

Amanda usually hated to be still, but today she welcomed it, because it gave her a chance to slow down and think about a pressing situation that she really needed to sit down and sort out with Nick as quickly as possible. She'd only just stumbled upon the news in the morning, before work, but she'd been so nervous that she just didn't know how or when to tell Nick about it.

When she heard her own name being called out, she'd expected it to be him, so imagine her surprise when it had been Olivia.

She stood and looked in her direction. "Yeah, sarge?"

"Will you come see me for a minute, please?"

Ignoring Fin's, Nick's, and Carisi's playful comments about getting called to the principal's office, Amanda answered her summons.

"What is it?" Amanda asked, genuinely curious when Olivia shut the door behind her and sat down on the edge of her desk.

"Are you okay?"

The question had been asked with motherly concern, so Amanda answered the question with one of her own. "What makes you think that I'm not?"

"I've known you for four years now, and I can read you like a book. You're also the closest I've had to a daughter in five years."

That last part derailed Amanda almost completely because one, she wouldn't have made it this far in the NYPD without Olivia's tough love, but sometimes forgot that with the sixteen years between them, Olivia was technically old enough to be her mother, and two, Amanda had no idea that Olivia had ever had a child in addition to Noah.