Chapter Text
From: Danny Santiago [09:11 AM]
I KNEW IT
From: Danny Santiago [09:11 AM ]
wait
Danny created a group [09:11 AM]
Danny added Alex Santiago to the group [09:12 AM]
Danny added Nic Santiago to the group [09:12 AM]
Danny changed the group name to: The Small Council v2 [09:12 AM]
From: Danny Santiago [09:12 AM]
I KNEW IT
From: Danny Santiago [09:12 AM]
Let the record show that I KNEW IT
From: Alex Santiago [09:13 AM]
uhhhh no
you said he was probably undercover??
From: Danny Santiago [09:14 AM]
close enough!
I knew they hadn’t really broken up
From: Nic Santiago [09:14 AM]
ignore him Jake we ALL agreed something was up
Amy was acting so shady
From: Danny Santiago [09:14 AM]
whatever
I called it first and u both know it
From: Nic Santiago [09:15 AM]
Anyway -- Jake welcome back!
How’s my little sis doing?
From: Nic Santiago [09:16 AM]
oh mom told us everything btw
From: Alex Santiago [09:16 AM]
yeah don’t worry she’ll come around … eventually
From: Nic Santiago [09:16 AM]
When are we getting drinks?
From: Danny Santiago [09:16 AM]
yeah we need to catch up dude we missed you
From: Alex Santiago [09:16 AM]
We had to cope with R+L=J without you
To: The Small Council v2 [09:17 AM]
I missed you losers
Jake changed the group name to: Pokémon SantiaGO [09:17 AM]
From: Danny Santiago [09:18 AM]
amazing
--
Okay, in hindsight Jake probably should’ve known that Amy wouldn’t call him into the bathroom for a high five. But when he walks in and sees her hand sticking out of the shower curtain, hovering there, it seems like the obvious choice. He can’t leave her hanging!
“Jake?” Amy’s voice carries through the flimsy curtain, annoyed and mildly confused. “What are you doing out there?”
“Definitely not high fiving you,” he says, pulling his hand away from hers, “because that’s clearly not what you wanted.”
“Clearly,” Amy bites out, her head peeking around the curtain. Her cheeks are pink and her hair is wet and woah, she looks even more pissed than when she tried to reach down the coffee filters from the top shelf this morning and realised she couldn’t.
“So what’s up?” he says, matching her frown with one of his own. “You need something?”
“Yeah, I need my right arm to properly work again.”
“It will,” he says, with an encouraging smile that just makes her glare turn as sour as the candies he was definitely not just eating out in the kitchen when she called for him. “In one to two weeks!”
“I’m so sick of this.” He can’t see her properly behind the curtain but it sounds like she actually stamps her foot on the bottom of the bath. It makes an adorable little splashy noise that totally ruins the effect she was probably going for.
“Ames.” He holds up his hands placatingly. “You got out of the hospital like a day ago–”
“Exactly,” she says, shaking the shower curtain with both hands. “D’you know how gross I felt this morning? I haven’t showered properly since you were still in Florida. There’s only so much that dry shampoo can do, Jake!”
Honestly, Amy had kind of looked like the swamp monster version of his girlfriend this morning. He’d actually kind of liked the whole messy package – her wild hair and greasy skin – just for reminding him that this was all real, not some early morning daydream in his empty bed in Coral Palms. But since Amy does seem to care, a whole lot actually, Jake shoves his own dumb feelings aside and focuses on how he can cheer her up. He starts by drawing a smiley face in the steam on her mirror, which only succeeds in making her toss a loofah at his head. So now she’s more like a swamp slash rage monster. Eh. He still loves her.
“Okay, so what exactly is the problem?” he says, calmly passing her back the loofah. “Tell me.”
Amy takes it back meekly, her lips turned down into a perfect frown, the exact opposite of the smiley face in the mirror.
“For starters, I can’t get this arm wet for 48 hours,” she says, waving the arm that’s still sticking out the shower curtain away from the spray. The dressing on her forearm is a little dirty now, the tape peeling, but it is at least dry because Amy Santiago sticks to the rules, even when they make her crazy. “And on my other side I can’t even raise my arm above my head to shampoo my hair because of my dumb shoulder.”
She disappears behind the curtain again and he watches her vague outline through the polka dot pattern as she bows her head and takes a few deep breaths. When she puts her head round the curtain again, the anger is gone and she just looks sad. Damp and sad. It’s a special kind of pathetic that makes his heart ache. “Will you please help me?”
“Of course I will,” he says softly, already shedding his hoodie and tossing it onto the closed toilet seat beside him.
Amy brightens at once, like she actually thought he might have said no, which is just about the dumbest idea ever. He’d bring her the moon if she asked for it. (Those SpaceX rockets can’t be that expensive, right?)
He hovers his hand over his t-shirt, ready to pull it over his head. “D’you want me to get in or…”
“I could get out – maybe lean over the bath?” she suggests, her cheeks warming with something other than the heat of the water. “Less awkward nakedness?”
“Smort,” he agrees, passing her a towel as she shuts the water off for a moment.
When Amy pulls back the curtain a moment later, the towel is now wrapped tight around her and it’s doing some seriously awesome things for her boobs. Not the time but still – awesome things. Jake ever so slightly loses his chill (c’mon, it’s been over three months) but he just about remembers his manners, offering his hand and holding tight as she steps carefully out of the bath and onto the mat beside him.
“Hey, before we do this can we just agree one thing?” he says, as he piles up some towels beside the bath for her to sit on. “We never ever tell Charles about this.”
“What? Why would I talk to Charles about this?” Amy says, sitting down with her back against the bath and angling her head back so her hair falls inside. She lifts her head level again, pulling a face. “Actually, why would anyone? And why would he care?”
“Oh, because he thinks it’s erotic,” Jake says flatly, lifting down the showerhead and turning it on, testing the heat on his hand. “Can you believe that?”
“This?” Amy snorts a laugh. “Yeah, right.”
“I know,” Jake agrees, kneeling beside her and directing the spray over her hair. “Crazy, right?”
(Wrong.)
Less than five minutes later, Jake has to admit – to himself, never ever to Boyle! – that Charles maybe, kinda, slightly has a point?
Oh boy.
It could just be because Jake’s been away from Amy for months and he’s so sex-deprived right now that she can turn him on by just being in the same room, but this whole situation is … kind of hot. Kind of really, really inconveniently hot. It’s not his fault! It’s just that it’s been months and now Amy’s so close and her boobs are totally front and center as he leans over to direct the water over her hair. Even when he tries to look away, nowhere seems to be safe. Her bare legs are stretched out in front of her, crossed at the ankles, and her skin is glistening with a hundred little water droplets that he would very, very much like to suck dry right now. (That’s what three months will do to a guy - hey babe, can I lick your knee?)
Jake tries not to let it all affect him, he really does, but when he starts methodically working the shampoo into Amy’s hair … she moans.
Oh, come onnnnn.
Jake swallows hard, trying not to look down but oops totally looking down to where her chest is kind of heaving a little and her throat is totally exposed as she throws her head back over the bath. When she moans again it takes everything in him not to bite down on skin there, to feel the sound under his tongue.
“Uhh, Ames,” he says, as he starts to rinse the shampoo out. She’s whimpering with every pass of his hands and it is destroying him. “Your mouth is writing cheques that your injured body cannot cash right now.”
“Oh.” She opens heavy-lidded eyes and he feels a jolt in his stomach because her pupils are blown and dark. Ha! She’s as turned on as he is. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he says with a high pitched laugh, starting to work in her conditioner now. “Are you kidding me? Amy sex noises … very high on the list of things that I missed about you.”
“Aw, you made a list?” She hums a laugh, her eyes slipping closed again as he turns the spray back on her hair. “I must be rubbing off on you.”
“Amy’s love of lists ... also on the list.”
She whimpers again when he runs his hands over her scalp and that’s it, he is not going to survive this. This is where he dies. Spontaneous human combustion. Her hair is clean now, no trace of the conditioner left, but he keeps running the water through it for a little while longer, his hand running restlessly over her scalp. His knees are aching and his arm feels like it’s about to fall off and this is honestly the most fun he’s had in months.
“So …” Amy begins, opening her eyes again and staring at his throat as he swallows hard. “What else was on this list?”
The moment sort of hangs there, possibilities multiplying in the steam, until Amy deliberately, ever so slowly, untucks her towel and lets it fall open a little.
Jake gasps – actually, honestly gasps – and drops the showerhead into the bath at once, leaning down and finally, finally pressing a desperate kiss to her lips. Amy whimpers at the contact, holding him in place with a steady hand on the back of his neck, and she’s wet and he’s dry and she’s totally naked and he’s fully clothed and this is possibly the hottest moment of his entire existence.
It doesn’t last, obviously.
The showerhead clatters around the bottom of the bath while they kiss, spinning wildly and then suddenly it twists around and the spray arches up and out of the bath, soaking them both. Jake yelps, pulling away from Amy as the spray hits him right in the chest, completely soaking his t-shirt. Amy splutters a laugh, holding a hand to her bruised side and ducking carefully out of the way while Jake reaches up and shuts the water off.
When he sits back down on his haunches, Amy has tugged the towel back up around herself and she can hardly breathe for laughing. Well. That’s just great. He didn’t get the slo-mo reunion he deserved and now the universe won’t even let him have this.
There’s really nothing else for it.
He starts to laugh too.
“Damn it,” he says, passing her a second towel for her hair. “I thought I was being so smooth there.”
“You were,” she says, her laugh turning into a gasp of pain as she tries to towel off her hair.
He snatches the towel up, running it carefully over her hair for her and then trying to twist it into one of those knot things that women seem to do effortlessly. He just kind of ends up pulling her hair and hitting her in the face with the towel. But … points for trying, right?
When he finally pulls her to her feet, he shoots her a cautious look. “So … has the moment passed? I feel like it’s passed.”
“Jake,” Amy says quietly, placing one hand on his chest, warm against his soaking wet t-shirt. “It’s been over three months. The moment has definitely not passed.”
Then she drops the towel again.
What a time to be alive.
--
What follows is basically a ton of stuff from the extensive list of things Jake missed while he was away. All of them from subsection Sexy Times.
Specifically:
- Boobs, boobs, boobs (predictable top of the list, but a classic for a reason)
- The scratch of Amy’s regulation-short nails on his back
- That breathy little whimper she only ever makes when he kisses that exact spot on her neck that drives her crazy
- The way she trembles when his hands start tracing letters over her skin (He tries to make her guess what he’s writing and she just whimpers his name. He’s not sure if that’s her answer but it's wrong, wrong, wrong. It's her name that his fingers are restlessly writing out. It's always her name. Only ever her name)
- The sight of her dark hair fanned out across her white pillows, her lip caught between her teeth, her eyes blown wide
- The perfect softness of the skin on the inside of her thighs
- Her hands sinking into his hair, gently but firmly holding his head between her legs
- The way her back arches up right off the bed when she comes on his tongue
- Her hand closing around him, and that wicked little smile she always gets when he bucks up into her touch
- The way she always seems to say his last name – Peralta – all strung out and desperate – when he slides inside her
- How she holds her breath while he’s moving inside her, forgetting to breathe for a while and then letting out these desperate little pants, her breath hot against his skin.
- Her eyes – wide and dark and so freaking beautiful – watching him when he comes apart
--
“I didn’t hurt you, did I?” he says after, when they’re lying beside each other, sweat-soaked and still wet from the shower. The sheets are a damp tangle and Amy’s hair is starting to dry into a riot of curls and Jake could fall asleep right now and sleep for days. “Because your Doctor specified careful tender reunion sex and I’m not sure I stuck to the rules the whole time–”
“I’m fine,” Amy says, stretching out carefully, rolling her neck from side to side. “Better than fine, actually.”
“Me too,” he agrees, running a finger down her bare back as she leans over to tuck the box of condoms back inside in her bedside table. “Hey, were those different condoms by the way?”
“Actually, yes!” she says, turning back to him with a smile. “They got better reviews than–”
“Wait, wait, wait.” He lifts himself up onto his elbows, looking over at her. “You read the reviews on condoms?”
“What? No! Why would – I don’t–”
“You do, don’t you?”
“No.” She scoffs an unconvincing laugh. “I mean it’s not like I actively check, it was just–”
“Amy...”
“Okay fine!” She throws her hands up. “Yes! You were gone for three months, okay? I got bored!”
“Wow.”
“So I’m a conscientious consumer, what is wrong with that?”
“Nothing at all.” He shakes his head fondly, leaning over to press a feather-light kiss to her injured shoulder. “I love you so much, you total weirdo.”
“Even when I look like this?” she says, trying to flatten her tangled hair and not really succeeding.
“Hey, I did a semi-professional shampoo job, it is not my fault!” he says as she rolls her eyes, catching her finger on a tangle. “Besides, Amy Sex Hair–”
“Let me guess, also on the list?”
“Bingo.”
“Do I ever get to see this list?”
“It’s all up here,” he says, tapping his forehead.
“You didn’t write it down?” She sits up, delightfully outraged. “Jake, that’s the worst idea–”
“Hey, it’s not my fault. It’s not like I had a ton of spare binders lying around in Florida,” he jokes, tugging at her elbow until she lies down beside him again. “Not like I would here.”
“What a nightmare,” she says, quite seriously.
“It really was,” he agrees, just as serious. He folds her into his arms, kissing her damp, curling hair. “It really, really was.”
--
Jake gets called back to work six days after coming home.
Amy … not so much.
“I don’t get it, I’m totally ready,” she says when he tells her, openly ignoring the fact that she’s currently doubled over in agony after trying to do a load of laundry.
“Yeah, it’s crazy,” he says, gently rubbing her back. “You seem in peak physical shape.”
“Shut up. I’m getting there.”
It’s true, sort of.
Her black eye has faded almost completely – black to purple to green to yellow and now mostly just a shadow over her cheekbone, almost imperceptible. The dressing on her arm is long gone, the space age-y dissolvable stitches leaving behind a shiny thin red scar that Amy quietly admits, after a couple of beers one night, that she totally doesn’t want to fade because it’s ever so slightly badass.
Her shoulder has been far slower to heal though, and the bruising on her side still makes her take a sharp breath whenever she twists the wrong way, leaving her winded about ten times a day. Winded and sore and totally mad about it because Amy Santiago is a terrible patient. Yeah. Who saw that shocker coming?
Jake tries to delay going back, offering to take a couple of vacation days, but Amy shouts him down every time.
“Are you kidding me?” she says, when he tries to broach the idea one more time over dinner the night before he’s due back. “No. No way.”
“Amy–”
“You were gone for months, Jake. Months. You must be beyond desperate to get back to work, why would you even–”
“No, I am,” he admits, picking up the pizza crust she’s just discarded out of the box and taking a bite. “But you’re not back yet and I don’t know, it just doesn’t seem fair…”
“Jake,” she says quietly, tugging on his sleeve until he turns to her. There are pizza crumbs on her shirt and she is so deadly serious right now. “Not fair was you having to give up your dream job this whole summer. I am not gonna be the reason you miss even one more day.”
“I–”
“Jake, it’s okay.” She smiles at him and he knows she means it. You can’t fake that sunshine in her eyes. “Go to work.”
“Okay.” Sometimes it’s overwhelming how much she just … gets it. Gets him. He beams at her. “You’re the best, y’know that?”
She dips her head. “I know.”
The next morning – his first back at the Nine-Nine – dawns with a bright sky and a sharp breeze, rattling the promise of fall against the old window frames of their apartment. Jake celebrates the chill by putting on as many layers as he can: his favorite plaid shirt, the softest hoodie he can find, and finally, his slightly battered leather jacket. When he slips his badge round his neck again, the familiar weight settling against his chest, he feels like … a princess, basically. A totally bad-ass, crime-solving, pretty, pretty princess.
He stuffs down his glee when he heads back into the bedroom to say goodbye to Amy, expecting her to be upset about missing work. (And by upset, he means devastated). He finds her sitting up in bed, wearing an old sweatshirt of his rolled up at the sleeves, her giant glasses perched on her nose as she flicks through her iPad.
Jake pauses in the doorway, taking her in. She’s an instagram filter of perfection right now and his brain goes full tilt shift, blurring the rest of the room until all he can see is her. Every single time the knowledge hits him like the first time all over again – this is real and it’s every day.
Sensing his presence, Amy looks up from the screen and he braces himself for the disappointment in her eyes that’s ... not there? Huh.
“Hey,” he says cautiously, still hovering by the door.
“Hey.” She studies him appreciatively, taking in his whole outfit, her eyes lingering on the badge around his neck. Then she smiles, her eyes bright, and says softly, “There he is.”
Jake beams at her, warmth blazing in his chest despite the chill in the morning air. He gives a little twirl that turns her smile into a delighted laugh, and then hurries over to the bed to climb in beside her.
“Woah, what are you doing?” she says, swatting at him. “Jake! You’re gonna make yourself late.”
“Nuh-uh,” he says, setting the iPad aside and drawing her into his arms. “I got up an extra ten minutes early.”
“What? For this?”
“Yep,” he says happily, running his hands up her back under her shirt. “Also to chase you down and bring you back if you tried to make a run for it and come into the precinct with me.”
“I considered it,” she concedes.
“Knew it! I’m the best detective in the world.”
“Excuse–”
“Joint best detective.”
“Thank you.”
He winds up getting to work just one minute late – pretty good when you consider that it was damn near impossible to get out of Amy’s warm bed, where her soft and very, very willing body was pressed against his, his badge wedged between their chests. Of course, one minute late turns into a couple more minutes when he actually gets into the building because it’d be totally rude of him not to stop and catch up with the Desk Sergeant downstairs. And then someone asks about Amy and before he knows it he’s telling the whole story of Figgis’ arrest to ten uniformed cops, one parole officer, a priest, and two old ladies who only came in for directions.
Still, he’s in the building. So he’s not really late-late, right?
When he finally gets upstairs, the smell of the place is the first thing that hits him. Industrial floor cleaner and sweat and coffee. Jake’s breath catches in his chest because, well, mostly because it smells kind of gross, but also a little bit because he’s back. He feels a very strong urge to yell, “NINE-NINE!”
When he opens the gate and steps into the bullpen, a lot of things happen all at once.
Charles cheers.
Gina actually sets down her cell phone.
The handle of Terry’s coffee cup shatters in his hand and he doesn’t even flinch.
Scully says, “I thought you were dead.”
Rosa smiles.
The Captain steps out of his office, takes one look at him, and says, “Peralta you’re seventeen minutes late.”
Jake beams at them all. “Aaaand I’m back.”
--
Jake gets stuck on boring door duty for a boring B&E all boring afternoon.
And in a shocking turn of events that takes the entire squad by surprise, he’s totally happy about it.
The thing is, all those months missing the job really did mean missing everything – even knocking on every door in a six floor walk up. (He gets to flash his badge and say, “Detective Peralta, NYPD.” What’s not to love?) By the end of the day, he’s exhausted, he’s caught no leads whatsoever, and he feels about ten feet tall. Police work is boring and tiring and so, so awesome.
He shakes off Rosa’s invite to Shaw’s and heads straight home, stopping to pick up some extra hot Pad Thai for Amy because she loves it and it’ll make her smile. And yeah, okay, maybe because the overwhelming spiciness might just distract her from feeling bad that he’s been at work and she hasn’t.
As it turns out, he didn’t need to worry – she’s found her own distraction.
It involves one enormous binder, her laptop, and a billion sheets of paper strewn all over the coffee table. She flashes him a quick distracted smile in greeting and there’s a familiar fire in her eyes that can only mean one thing – Amy Santiago has a New Project.
YikesTM
“Hey.” He smothers a helpless grin at the sight of her hunched over the papers, totally engrossed. “Watcha doing?”
“Apartment-hunting!” she says happily, retrieving the pen that’s wedged in her ponytail and checking something off on the list in front of her. She shuffles up the couch, patting the space beside her. “Come see. There’s so much to think about.”
Jake takes the spot beside her, setting down the bag of take-out and picking up the nearest sheet of paper (Water Pressure in Bed-Stuy - anecdotal evidence). “Wow.”
“I know, right?” she says, totally missing his tone.
He shakes his head fondly, busying himself with unloading the food onto the coffee table while Amy gathers up the papers and clips them carefully into the binder. She’s so focussed on the paperwork, she doesn’t even stop to suggest that they should eat at the table. Oh boy. She’s in deep.
“So did you find us somewhere yet?” he asks, passing her a box of noodles.
“Are you kidding me? No, not yet,” she says, shaking her head. “This is just preliminary research.”
“Of course it is.”
“Actually…” she says slowly, mixing her noodles half-heartedly, not actually eating anything. “I would’ve done more but – uh – my mom came by.”
“Oh yeah?” He snaps open a new pair of chopsticks. Maybe a teensy bit violently. “The first day I wasn’t around? What a super crazy coincidence.”
“Jake, listen, I think she knows she reacted badly. It’s just that–”
“Ames, relax.” He knocks his knee lightly against hers. “I’m kidding.” He dips his head, shrugging. “Sort of.”
“We had a really good talk,” Amy says, setting down her food on the table. “I honestly think she gets it now.”
“Look, as long as you guys made up, I’m happy.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
It still stings, obviously, because he’s a stand-up guy who wants to make an honest woman out of Amy Santiago some day and it’d be awesome if her mom could understand that, but it’s not the end of the world. The end of the world was Amy, tired and hurting that day they came home, fighting with her mom. Over him. Because of him. The end of the world was her face when she asked him if he hated her. It was her thinking that could be true, even for a second.
He’s pretty sure he can handle anything in the entire world as long as it’s not that.
“I mean it, don’t even worry about me,” he goes on, turning towards her, holding her cautious gaze.
“But–”
“Your Mom hating me for a while sucks, but I’ve had worse.” He hisses in a breath, wishing he hadn’t just turned the conversation this way. But Amy’s frowning, her leg shaking restlessly against him, and he’s got to fix that. “Amy, look, Florida was …” he trails off, casting around for the right word to sum up three months of misery. “Awful. It was awful. I hated every second of every day I was there.”
Her face crumples. “Jake–”
“My point is, I am not there now,” he says, setting down his chopsticks and settling his hand heavy on her knee. “I’m home. I’m back at the Nine-Nine. That’s all I wanted. It’s enough.”
“Are you sure?”
“Are you kidding?” he counters, shaking his head at her. He picks up a chopstick, tapping it towards the binder sitting on the coffee table, filled with plans for their future. “I’ve got everything I want right here.”
“Aw.” Amy smiles at him, lighting right up, and Jake feels his lips lift in reply. “Me too.”
That choked feeling in his throat is probably just from all the chili in his food, right? Probably why his eyes are a little wet too.
“Anyway,” Amy says, shaking off the heavy moment, “forget about my mom. Tell me about your first day back.”
“Are you sure? I don’t want to bum you out with–”
“Don’t be an idiot.” She swats her chopstick on his arm. “Jake, I want to know everything.”
He grins at her, won over in an instant by the eager smile on her face. “Okay, let’s see – first of all, I missed you like crazy all day. Let’s be clear about that.”
“Noted.”
“Charles cried like six separate times, for joy obviously. Someone messed with my chair settings while I was away. It’s made my posture so much better and I hate it.”
“Jake–”
“I know, I know, I’ll be glad when I’m not a hunched-over wreck at the age of forty.” He twirls his chopstick. “Um – what else – Rosa punched me and I couldn’t feel my arm for like most of the morning.”
“Oh! So her arm’s healed up okay then?”
“Getting there, she showed me the scar. It’s disgusting and it’s gonna be shaped like a lightning bolt when it’s healed. Oh, and for future ref – she does not respond well to being called Harry Potter.”
“That’s why she punched you, isn’t it?”
“I prefer to think it was an expression of joy at my return–”
“Jake.”
“Hundred percent, yes, it was all the Hogwarts references.”
“You’re unbelievable.” Amy rolls her eyes, the exact way he imagined she would if she’d been there when he was calling Rosa a total Slytherin. (Which, she so is by the way. No judgement! They’re not all bad.) “What else?”
It’s so ridiculously great just sitting here, eating takeout, talking about their day. It’s normal and boring and everything he missed while he was in Florida. And Amy’s smiling, like maybe she missed it just the same, and not for the first time Jake is reminded that she loves him the same way he loves her – down to the very last detail, and it’s the best thing in the world.
“What about the Captain?” Amy asks after a while, in a would-be casual voice. “Has he settled back okay? I made sure that no-one altered a single thing in his office while he was gone.”
“But you couldn’t keep an eye on my chair settings?!”
“Let it go, Jake.”
“Fine.” He crunches a peanut, obnoxiously loud. “The Captain’s doing great. It’s like he was never gone.”
“Aw, man. I wanna go back so bad,” Amy mutters, setting down her food. “I did so many of my physical therapy exercises today, I think I actually made things worse.”
“Amy! You gotta take it easy!” he scolds, frowning at her as she rolls her shoulder cautiously. “Focus on things you can do. Like the super important project of finding us a new place–”
“Jake.” She rolls her eyes. “Distracting me isn’t gonna work–”
“Uhhh, it totally is,” he says, flashing her a smile. “I know you, Amy Santiago, which means I know you’re dying to show me all this stuff. So … c’mon.”
“You’re sure?”
“Gimme the deets, sweets.”
She holds a cautious look for all of ten seconds before caving completely. “Okay!” She heaves the binder up and puts it on his lap. “Now, like I said, this is just preliminary research…”
It’s … not at all preliminary. Like, if Amy thinks this is preliminary research, he doesn’t ever want to see detail.
“Utilities, crime rates, community facilities,” he recites, flicking through the first few pages. “Wow, Ames–”
“Oh, ignore that. That’s my stuff,” she says, batting his hand away and turning over to a purple tab a few sheets back. “This is for you.”
“Takeout delivery area mapping, wifi signal strength, hipster saturation levels…”
This girl, though.
This girl.
“This is amazing.” He turns to her, beaming. “What would I do without you?”
He means it lightly. Just a sweet little joke. No big deal. It lands a little differently, far heavier than he intended, and far too close to the reality that they’ve been living this past summer. Amy takes a sharp intake of breath, reaching for his hand, holding on tight enough for her nails to dig into his skin.
“Jake.” She says his name softly, so much weight to those four little letters, and he feels his breath catch, his heartbeat fluttering in his chest. “Don’t even say that.”
“Right. Sorry.” He forces a laugh. “Too soon for jokes! Got it.”
He turns a few pages randomly, because if he looks at her right now he might cry, or say something stupid like, ‘Marry me.’ Which is objectively not stupid because that’s totally all he wants in the entire world, but it’s stupid for right now. He doesn’t have a ring yet. Or an elaborate plan. Or words. He talks and talks and talks and somehow he’s just got no words to tell her how much she means to him. No words to ask her to be by his side like this, every night forever.
When his eyes land on a page near the back of the binder, his heart actually stops. “Pre-school districts?” Like, if his life was a medical drama he would be the dramatic flatline on the monitor right now. “You want–”
“Oh, n–no!” Amy takes his wide eyes for panic, and snatches up the binder quickly. “Not like – not now or anything” she says quickly, slamming the binder closed. “Just …” She scratches awkwardly at her neck, like she’s allergic to this conversation. “Y’know … eventually. Maybe.”
“Eventually.” He turns right round in his seat to look at her – really look at her. She’s embarrassed, her cheeks flooded with color, but her jaw is set, totally unrepentant. She’s standing by this. She means it. “Amy Santiago, are you saying you want to have my babies?”
She rolls her eyes and opens her mouth before closing it abruptly, swallowing down whatever glib retort she was going to make. “Yes,” she says plainly, a challenge gleaming in her eyes. “I want to have your babies.”
Oh.
Well.
That’s –
“Awesome,” he says, in a voice that’s shrill and high and not at all cool and collected, which he definitely needs to work on for when they have kids because he’s totally planning to be a supremely cool dad who isn’t fazed by anything. How hard can that be? “Me too.”
Amy takes his hand, smiling softly. “You’re gonna be such a great dad one day, Jake.”
Not like your dad. She doesn’t say it, doesn’t have to. He hears it all the same, feels it in the way she’s holding his hand right now, her fingers sure and strong, not trembling at all. Amy Santiago – self confessed disaster with kids – isn’t afraid of having babies, with their soft heads and their squirming little bodies, so long as it’s with him. Woah.
“We’re gonna need a bigger binder,” he says, arching an eyebrow at her.
She bursts out laughing, and it’s his favorite sound in the universe and she’s his favorite person in the universe, so he does the only thing that makes any sense – he leans over and kisses her. The binder drops from her lap and thuds to the floor.
“We don’t – we don’t have to have them, like, right now though,” Amy says through a laugh, as he starts tugging at the hem of her t-shirt. “Jake?”
“No, no, I know,” he agrees, still tugging at her clothes, desperate to feel more of her skin, to kiss that spot where her pulse flutters at her neck. “Right now, we’re gonna use those extremely well reviewed condoms you bought us.”
“Oh! Okay then,” she says, shoving his hoodie off his shoulder. “They did get an average of five stars.”
He laughs against her lips. “You are unbelievable.”
--
From: Amy Santiago [4:11 PM]
Daytime TV sucks
To: Amy Santiago [4:15 PM]
categorically untrue
From: Amy Santiago [4:15 PM]
I’m so bored and I’ve only been out NINE days
How did you cope all summer?
To: Amy Santiago [4:15 PM]
i didn’t
Larry was a hot mess
To: Amy Santiago [4:15 PM]
but you got this!
just a few more days :)
From: Amy Santiago [4:15 PM]
I need to come back to work NOW!!
To: Amy Santiago [4:16 PM]
ok it was gonna be a surprise but clearly you need cheering up SO
… I’m bringing you something home from the precinct
To: Amy Santiago [4:17 PM]
you’re gonna love it
From: Amy Santiago [4:17 PM]
It better not be a case file
To: Amy Santiago [4:17 PM]
… it might be
From: Amy Santiago [4:18 PM]
JAKE NO
To: Amy Santiago [4:18 PM]
JAKE YES
From: Amy Santiago [4:19 PM]
JACOB PERALTA
You know it’s against regulations to take files home
From: Amy Santiago [4:19 PM]
Breaking rules will not cheer me up and you know it
To: Amy Santiago [4:20 PM]
hear me out
I swear you’ll want to see this one
To: Amy Santiago [4:20 PM]
pls pls pls
From: Amy Santiago [4:20 PM]
You will not convince me...
To: Amy Santiago [4:21 PM]
We’ll see!!
To: Amy Santiago [4:22 PM]
So … it’s a murder
Vic – mid 50s, male, lived alone
From: Amy Santiago [4:22 PM]
zzzzzzz
To: Amy Santiago [4:22 PM]
Wait for it!
To: Amy Santiago [4:22 PM]
body was found in a room …
LOCKED FROM THE INSIDE!!!!!!!!!
From: Amy Santiago [4:23 PM]
GIMME
--
Now that he’s home – back to work, back to waking up next to Amy every morning – Jake’s daydreams get a little smaller.
But no less epic, obviously.
In Florida, it was all about slapping the cuffs on Figgis in the middle of an abandoned fairground, or a private aircraft hangar, or halfway up the scaffold on a dusty construction project. It was gritting his teeth and making a tourniquet out of his tie, because he might be bleeding out but Amy Santiago was running to him and damn it, he was gonna pick her up and twirl her around before seeking medical attention.
When Jake thinks of Figgis now, he just imagines him in court, small and washed out and pathetic in the same faded orange jumpsuit that a hundred other low life scumbags have squeezed their butts into. He still looks a bit like Chris Noth in this particular scenario because Jake has seen the mugshots now and actually there is kind of a resemblance, except that the real Figgis is taller and thinner and much less likely to ever win Sarah Jessica Parker’s heart.
Figgis has a bajillion consecutive life sentences coming his way (even if the Captain keeps insisting that a bajillion is not a numerical value used by the judiciary) but Jake’s not quite settled on the perfect zinger for when he gets taken down. Whatever Jake chooses, it’s definitely going to end with, ‘see you never, dawg,’ because that’s some poetic full circle stuff right there.
That’s the dream now – not explosions or cars flipping over or made up characters with tragic backstories – just sitting beside Amy Santiago in a courtroom and watching Figgis go to jail forever. Then preferably going home and having that life-affirming break-the-furniture sex that Amy’s doctor was talking about.
“That’s it?” Charles asks, when Jake tells him about it. (The Figgis part, not the sex part. They gotta have some boundaries.) They’re sitting in his car on a long stakeout, bored and tired and cold, and Charles was obviously expecting something more. “You just want Figgis to go to jail?”
“Uhh, yeah,” Jake says, shooting him a look. “What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing, nothing,” Charles says, though he still looks worried. “It’s just … your fantasies used to be a little more–”
“Implausible?”
“Spectacular.” Charles turns in his seat so he’s looking right at him. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine,” Jake says, holding Boyle’s gaze so he knows he really means it. “It’s just – I mean I lived a made up character for three months, Charles.”
Charles looks like he might cry. “Oh.”
“So right now, y’know, I’m pretty happy with just being myself.” Jake puts on his movie announcer voice, warming to the theme. “Jake Peralta: hotshot New York Cop. Recently returned from a summer in exile, separated from the job and the woman he loves.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah.”
“You should write that movie.”
“Thanks, buddy.” Jake roots around in his bag of chips, finding it empty, and then settles his eyes back on their target, a door that no-one has entered or exited in the four hours they’ve been sitting here. After a few minutes, he says, “Although, I would maybe tweak the character a little bit–”
“I knew it!” Jake can practically hear the smile in Boyle’s voice. “Tell me.”
Jake blows out a breath, fiddling with the window controls for something to do. “Just … it’d be cool if the hotshot cop’s super hot girlfriend, who also happens to be a hotshot cop, could maybe be back at work with him. Or something.”
“Missing Amy?” Charles says at once, somehow navigating the nonsense that Jake just said and getting right to the heart of things. Honestly, Jake doesn’t know how. He’s not sure he even knew where he was going with that.
“I’m not like, missing her-missing her,” Jake says, waving a hand. “I mean, Florida ... that was missing her. I just – I don’t like being back at work when she’s not. It doesn’t feel right.”
Major understatement alert. Actually, it feels completely and utterly wrong. Her cases are going to other people and her computer monitor is getting dusty, and damn it, she’s really going to hate that. He should tell her to bring a lint-free cloth in on her first day back, but this is Amy Santiago, so there’s probably like three in her purse already.
Jake is losing about an hour every day just imagining her sitting back across the desk from him again, her hair pulled up into a ponytail, sorting her case files into a neat pile. The epic slow-motion reunion that filled his summer has been shoved aside, replaced with a hundred smaller daydreams that are actually so much bigger, in their own way. Amy in the elevator beside him in the mornings. Amy on a long stakeout, her hair falling out of a bun, stale coffee on her breath. Amy. Amy. Amy. Sensible pantsuits and chunky heeled boots and maybe, one day, the glint of a gold ring on her finger as she types up an arrest report.
“I just – I don’t feel like I’m really back until she is too, y’know?” Jake says, nodding covertly to the car that’s holding the relief team as it slowly cruises past them and pulls into position. “I know that’s dumb.”
“It’s not,” Charles says, hitting the ignition and peeling the car away from the kerb. “Jake, your love is so pure.”
“Okay,” Jake says, propping his arm up on the window, “don’t make it weird.”
While Charles drives back to the precinct, Jake calls Amy, getting her voicemail every time. In the parking lot, he finally gives up and just leaves her a message. (“Hey! You’re not answering your phone so you can’t veto pizza again tonight. I’ll be home in like a half hour. With pizza. Boom! Nothing you can do about it.”)
He’s a little distracted in the elevator, so much so that he doesn’t ever bother to object to Boyle’s suggestion that broccoli as a pizza topping is a total revelation that he just has to try. His mind is totally elsewhere – already in their apartment, where Amy is waiting, probably super grumpy about not being at work because her shoulder is pretty much healed now. He heads into the bullpen, thinking about cornering Holt for a few minutes before he heads home, see if he get him to knock a few heads in Occupational Health and speed up that appointment Amy needs.
“Woah, woah,” Gina says, when he heads towards the Captain’s closed door. “Captain’s in a super important meeting, Jake. No interruptions.”
“Oh.” Jake falters, pausing at Gina’s desk instead. “Who’s he with?”
Gina shrugs, not looking up. “I don’t know.”
“How long will he be?”
“Also don’t know.”
“Perfect.” Jake huffs, turning away and heading towards his desk to collect his things.
The first indication that something’s up is Amy’s monitor. It’s clean. Like, clean–clean.
Amy Santiago clean.
Jake freezes, sweeping his eyes over the room for more evidence, just like he would at a crime scene. And – ha! There it is. All the empty food containers on his desk are gone. That’s better than a fingerprint.
“Amy’s in there, isn’t she?” He swivels back to Gina, jerking his head to Holt’s closed door. Excitement shoots through him, electrifying every single nerve. “What’s happening? Is she coming back? Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
“Because it’s meant to be a surprise, dum-dum,” Rosa says, coming up to stand alongside him. She shoots him a look, the barest hint of a smile breaking through her glare. “So act surprised, okay?”
“Won’t be a problem for me,” Charles puts in, looking as excited as Jake feels. If not a little bit more, actually. “I am surprised. Nobody told me anything.”
“Yeah, sorry, Boyle,” Terry says, getting up to join them. “We just didn’t think you could keep a secret from Jake.”
“Oh I absolutely couldn’t,” Charles agrees, nodding. “Excellent call.”
“So aside from Charles,” Jake says, rounding on them all, “you all knew about this?”
“Uh, I didn’t,” Gina says.
Rosa frowns. “Yeah, you did.”
“Oh, then I just wasn’t listening,” Gina says, shrugging. “My bad.”
“It was the Captain’s idea,” Terry explains, nodding to the close door of Holt’s office. “He cooked it up with Santiago. They didn’t want to get your hopes up if the docs wouldn’t sign her back to work just yet.”
“But they did sign her back though, right? I mean – it’s all okay?”
“Oh for sure,” Rosa says, nodding. “I’ve never seen Santiago as happy as when she came in just now.” She cocks her head, considering. “Except maybe when we knew you were coming home.”
“Wow.” Jake beams around at all of them, his weird, irreplaceable family, who did this thing for him for no gain of their own, no purpose other than to protect him if the news wasn’t good, to make him happy if it was. “You guys …”
Before he can find the appropriate word for how phenomenally awesome the squad are, the door to Holt’s office swings open and there she is – Detective Amy Santiago. Reigning Queen of the Nine-Nine. (Yeah, okay, and of his heart too.)
“Attention, Squad,” Holt says, pausing in his doorway.
When everybody turns to look at the Captain, Jake just keeps looking at Amy. She’s swapped the sweats she was wearing when he left this morning for a pair of smart grey pants and a pale pink blouse that’s perfectly matched to the rosy glow on her cheeks. When she flashes him a triumphant smirk, Jake just shakes his head at her, his eyes narrowing because she tricked him and it’s awesome and also because he’s smiling so freaking wide right now that squinting is kind of unavoidable.
“Detective Santiago has been officially cleared for duty,” Holt goes on, flashing a rare, wide smile at them all. “She’ll rejoin us officially as of tomorrow morning.”
When everyone starts to applaud, it occurs to Jake that he’s all the way across the room from Amy right now, and that is just the craziest, dumbest thing in the world. He starts to move towards her just as she moves to him and halfway across the ten paces between them he realises that this is it – this is his moment. This is his chance.
This is as close as he’s going to get to running into Amy Santiago’s arms.
He sees the exact moment the realisation lands with Amy too, watches as the idea sparks to life behind her bright eyes. Then suddenly she’s smiling at him, and it’s wider and brighter and better than anything he’s ever seen in his entire life, and oh, that decides it.
This. Is. Happening.
He picks up the pace a little, hurrying towards her, literally living the dream right now.
Well, almost.
It’s not exactly like he imagined, obviously. They’re not at the airport, and they’re not technically reuniting unless you count the fact that they’ve been apart since he went out to work this morning. He’s not really running and there’s no soaring soundtrack, just the squad’s applause and the shrill beep of the copier jamming somewhere in the background.
And okay, it’s also not in slow motion because Amy’s totally right, that doesn’t remotely exist in real life.
When he reaches her, Jake doesn’t sweep her into his arms right away like he imagined he would. Instead he pauses, just for a second, letting the moment hang there, letting his smile grow and grow and grow until finally he takes that last pace forward and wraps his arms around her. He ducks his head to her neck and breathes in deeply, taking in her perfume and the fresh scent of her fabric softener. Then Amy laughs softly, throwing her arms around his neck, and finally – finally – he picks her up and swings her round.
Almost.
Because wow, picking up another human being is actually kind of difficult. Maybe that’s why there’s never a pause in the movies before the hero picks up the girl. Like, it’s a momentum thing? Or maybe he’s just super unfit. Either way, it’s not quite the sweeping swinging hug he imagined, it’s more like he lifts her off her feet and kind of sways there, just for a second, while Amy shrieks in delight and/or terror into his shoulder.
When he finally sets her down, she’s blushing and beaming and god, so beautiful right now it’s unreal. Like, how is this his life? Joy wells up in his chest, until it feels like he can’t possibly contain it all, like he’s gonna throw up rainbows all over the place.
Before he can decide if she wouldn’t mind him kissing her in front of the entire team, Amy surges up onto her tiptoes and presses her lips to his, soft and insistent and just the wrong side of chaste for polite company. Jake stumbles back a pace, recovering quickly and kissing her back as the rest of squad explode into cheers and possibly, in Charles’ case, tears.
When they separate Jake rests his forehead against hers for a long moment, holding his breath for a count of ten, until he’s sure he’s memorised every last second of the past few minutes. The squeak of his shoes on the precinct floor as he hurried towards her. The cool satin of Amy’s blouse under his hands. The exact timbre of her laugh. And yeah, the fact that he maybe almost dropped her for a second back there.
He opens his eyes slowly, pulling back a little and laughing as Amy starts to wince, a blush spreading over her cheeks as she flicks her gaze at the assembled crowd of their friends, like she’s only just remembered they’re not alone. Jake grins at her embarrassment, scrunching up his whole face like he’s looking at the sun, and then he steps back a little, turning to face the squad.
“Shaw’s?” he suggests blithely, ignoring their knowing grins.
“Drinks are on me,” the Captain puts in, drawing another cheer.
“Nine-Nine!” Amy calls out and if Jake loves it when everyone chants that, he loves it all the more when everyone chants it back for Amy. She gets this pleased little smile on her face, like a kid who just won a prize at the fair, and it’s the sweetest thing ever.
He throws his arm over her shoulder, turning to press a kiss to her cheek as they head for the elevator.
“Oh, hey, wait,” she says, slowing. “I almost forgot! I had a thought about your locked room murderer.”
“No way.” He stops dead, looking over at her. “Go.”
“Well,” she says, and he follows as she shrugs out from under his arm and heads towards her desk. “I was doing some research on that list of tenants you showed me and get this, about five years ago someone called Nate Anderson owned a business that went under just a few blocks south of the building.”
“Wasn’t one of the dead guy’s neighbors–”
“Nathaniel Anderson,” Amy supplies, slipping into her chair and firing up her computer. “I think it’s the same guy.”
“Okay.” Jake sits down at his own desk, sparing a hot second to appreciate Amy sitting across from him again at last because – wow. Dreams coming true all over the place right now. “But what does that have to do with the murder?”
“Oh,” Amy says, peeking around her computer to flash him a triumphant smile. “Because he was a locksmith.”
Jake’s jaw drops. “No way.”
“Yes way.”
“That’s it!” he says, throwing his hands up. “He’s gotta be our perp.”
“Right? Like, he could totally have the skill to make that room seem locked from the inside.”
“Okay, you try and find the registered address for the locksmith business,” Jake says, turning on his own computer. “See if it matches Anderson’s address and I’ll–”
“Hey, aren’t you guys coming?” Gina calls, and Jake looks up to find the rest of the squad waiting at the exit gate for the bullpen. “Shaw’s, remember? Your idea.”
“Oh – uh …” Jake shrugs at Amy, who just shrugs back at him in silent agreement. God, he loves this girl. “We’ll catch you guys up later. Murders to solve, y’know?”
“Have fun, you guys!” Charles says, as everybody files out towards the elevators. It’s kind of weird sentiment when they’re talking about a murder except that it’s not because this is Charles and he’s way over-invested in Jake and Amy doing anything at all together. Including solving murders. Also, Jake’s pretty sure this actually is going to be fun. So much fun.
“What?” Amy says, catching him staring at her.
“Nothing,” he says, turning his attention back to his computer. For like a second. Then he slides his eyes right back to her, grinning so wide that his cheeks start to hurt. “Just – we’re back, y’know?”
“Yeah,” Amy says, smiling softly at him. “I know.”
“So...” he says, leaning back in his chair until it reclines a little. There are coffee stains on the ceiling and he has no idea how they got there, and this spot right here … this is home. He’s home. “Let’s catch a bad guy, Detective Santiago.”
“Okay, Detective Peralta,” she says, voice soft on his name, the way he loves. “Let’s do this.”
That’s the thing about real life – there’s no fade to black after the happy ending. So while his fantasies always ended on that one high note, Amy laughing in his arms, real life just keeps on going.
Jake thinks that’s just about the best thing ever, actually.
--