Chapter Text
“Amy, do you have your first aid kit in there?” - Rosa asked again. “Nikolaj’s allergies are attacking again and he needs your epipen. If you want your flower boy to actually be able to walk down the aisle you should probably open the door.”
“Coming!” Before Amy even registered anything Rosa said, she was already getting up and picking up the phone, the still opened book and the box as she hastily moved to open the door. For some reason, she felt like a child getting caught stealing candy from the kitchen cabinet in the middle of the night.
“Hi, Diaz. Rosa. Hi, Rosa Diaz. Which is you. Hi, you. What’s up, girl?” Amy managed to say after opening the bathroom door while fumbling with all the items she was trying to hold. That, of course, resulted in the scrapbook being dropped to the floor and Amy immediately diving to catch it.
Rosa stood there for about five seconds with a “Do I Really Have to Deal With This Right Now?” look on her face until she decided that no, she didn’t. There were more pressing issues at the moment. “Okay, just move before Nikolaj’s throat closes up.” Rosa moved past Amy, spotting the small kit on the counter top behind her.
“Oh, that’s really great for him” - Amy mumbled, completely distracted by the new page of the scrapbook that had been revealed when it fell. She didn’t really understand what she was seeing at first. There were no pictures, just hundreds of very small printed sequences of numbers and letters, that at first seemed completely meaningless, organized in about nine or ten columns under the title “SONG #2”. On the bottom of the page, a small massage in Jake's chaotic handwriting that said: "It sucks A LOT less when I get to do it with you".
She picked up the book, and moved towards the couch, still mesmerized by the curious inscribed numbers, but before she could actually sit down, Kylie, who was still on the phone, grabbed her arm and moved her slightly to the side, avoiding the fact that Amy was about to sit on a bunch of Gina’s makeup, therefore, saving her life from certain murder.
Kylie threw her an exasperated look but Amy didn’t even look up, so she rolled her eyes and went back to yelling into her cellphone.
Amy put on the headphones again just as she began to suspect what all those numbers were. She pressed play and when “Let’s Work Together” by Canned Heat began playing, she was sure. That was the song Jake made her, and everyone in the precinct, listen to whenever they were assigned to work together on a case for at least two years into their partnership.
Every time Jake left Captain McGintley ‘s office with a file in his hands, playing air guitar while making his way to her desk, singing “Let’s get on the ball and work together. Come on, Come on. Let’s work together”, Amy would take a deep breath and accept the fact that she was in for a long ride.
But that’s the thing, though. After a while, she stopped believing that all his buffoonery and childish behavior interfered on his abilities to do his job, he had proved time and time again what a great detective he was, there was no denying that. And more importantly, she stopped believing that the two of them would never work well together because of their very fundamental differences. Turns out, their partnership was so powerful and solid because each brought their own strengths to the table and even though Jake had insisted for a long time that he was a lone wolf and worked best alone, they both knew that was not accurate at all. When they were solving crimes together, they found a balance that just made everything easier.
Those series of numbers on the page were actually the numbers of cases she and Jake had solved together as partners, since day one up until the grand larceny case they worked on a few weeks ago. Hundreds and hundreds of them.
Amy was thinking about all the work Jake had put into getting all of those files and wondered if Kylie had actually helped him, as she scanned the page once more, just now noticing a few small drawings around some of the numbers. Some of them made her sigh lovingly, for example, surrounding what she recognized to be number of the Augustine case, there were dozens of badly drawn tiny hearts.
Others made her roll and eyes and smile, like the drawing of (barely recognizable) car keys around what was probably the number from the case of that crazy woman, who insisted she had every right to leave her small children locked inside her car alone and actually tried to swallow her car keys to prove that point. They didn’t know how long those kids had been inside the car, so Amy acted on impulse and literally shoved her hand down that woman’s throat, successfully recovering the keys while Jake already had her on handcuffs. She’d never forget seeing Jake with his mouth hanging open and a look of complete wonder on his eyes, as if she was his own personal hero.
Also there was what she assumed to be a vulture next to the numbers of every case they had almost lost to Major Crimes but managed to solve first. And lastly, she noticed the small drawing of a green and a white bar, intercalated between gold vertical bars, that was probably an attempt to reproduce the Excellent Police Duty Medal, which both she and Jake proudly wore on their uniforms. She ran her finger softly over the number next to it as her mind drifted once more to a time when she would’ve laughed out loud if told that she’d be marrying her partner.
It was a little less than a year before Holt became their captain and Jake and Amy were working on a huge case. Their informants were hitting at a new guy in town who had begun a big distribution ring in Brooklyn. After months of investigating, they found out his name was Gregory Giordano, he was the youngest kid in the Giordano family, a huge name in the mafia active on the West Coast. From what they had managed to gather, it seemed that Gregory had a major falling out with the rest of his family, so he decided to fly solo and move to New York.
Everyone they arrested with information about him would said he wasn’t like any other boss they had ever had before. Because he didn’t have an established network he could trust, he was very hands-on and liked to oversee every operation himself. They described him as a large man, who was very passionate and blew up very easily, especially when talking about his family, but still was very careful and did not do things without thinking them through first.
Finally, after weeks trying some way to approach him, they got intel that indicated he had a new dealer he was training on the streets. That meant he would be watching the new guy work throughout the day to evaluate him and accept him or not into his operation. They knew they had to get Giordano to take down the ring and that was their best shot.
It was settled that Jake and Amy would go undercover, act like they wanted to buy drugs from the new kid and try to get Giordano to engage, hoping for at least a first contact with him. They would be surrounded by backup and Rosa and Charles would also be strategically positioned in case anything went wrong.
They were in the car, about to drive to the location, and Amy was really nervous but hearing Jake babble about his ridiculous made up story for their cover in the driver’s seat actually helped a little.
“So, let’s go over it one more time: I am Jack Daniels, a successful motocross rider that has but one flaw — he is an adrenaline junkie and being on two wheels in very dangerous roads is just not enough for him anymore. Now, he started to do cocaine hard. Like, right before the doping tests so he never knows if he’ll be picked or not. You see, it’s like russian roulette but it’s his entire career on stake, not his life. Well, metaphorically his life is at a stake too, because, you know, motocrossing is his entire life. And you are, Stephanie Garcia, my trusty assistant who would do literally anything for me because you’ve been secretly in love in with me for five years now. You don’t want me to be recognized so you’ll do the talking with the dealer while I’ll just hang here wearing these cool sunglasses.”
“Sure, okay. Just drive already, we’re gonna be late.” - Amy answered.
It was less than twenty minutes until they arrived on the street where the dealer supposedly was and they quickly spotted a skinny kid, looking like he couldn’t be older than seventeen years old hanging around a black SUV.
As instructed by their informant, Jake drove to the front of a abandoned football camp, and parked beside a “Keep Out” sign. He did the code, which was to honk twice and roll down all four windows and waited. It wasn’t long until the scrawny looking boy came their way.
He stopped by Amy’s window and said “Sup”.
Amy took a deep breath, looked at him and muttered the following words: “May I have some cocaine, please?”
It was dead quiet for about five seconds.
Then Jake started to cough nervously and the kid jumped, taken aback.
“The fuck, dude. You guys fucking cops or something? What the fuck.”
At the sign of trouble, a huge guy left the SUV followed by two man dressed in suits. Both Jake and Amy noticed how all three of them kept one their hands on their waist, indicating they were all armed.
The large man, who matched Gregory Giordano’s description, reached their car after pushing the kid back and looked inside. It seemed that the kid was wearing a wire and Giordano was listening to the whole thing in the small device he was still holding.
“Is there a problem here?”
Amy was about to answer but Jake was faster.
“Oh man, not at all! You have to excuse my girlfriend. It’s the first time she’s doing this and with her kind of backstory, it’s hard to let some old habits go.” Everyone, including Amy looked at Jake like he had literally lost his mind but he just kept going.
“You know, she’s embarrassed to say it but… Jacintha here is actually the only heir of the family that owns all of the… art places in New York City. Or should I say…” - He took of his sunglasses in a dramatic manner for effect - “... was the heir, because you see, Jacintha was done with being told what to do and how to behave, she was sick of being the princess who had her future set in stone without being able to choose what she wanted to do with her life. She had a very formal upbringing and we met when she was forced into grad school, then Jacintha fell in love with the bad boy, which is me, by the way, if you can’t tell by these awesome sunglasses I’ve got here. So, I took it as a mission to show her the darker, more fun side of the world with the drugs and the um… staying up late. Anyways, that’s why she’s so formal, she had to grow up like that, but we are actually super chill and my girl here is just really inexperienced with this kind of thing, thanks to her family.”
Giordano was now staring at Amy, as if he were carefully examining every aspect of her face. She just tried to keep on smiling, whispering a small “sorry” through clenched teeth.
“You wouldn’t let anything bad happen to a happy couple in love that’s just looking for some cocaine, would you?” - Jake said, holding Amy’s hand and flashing him the best smile he could muster.
Giordano, who had never taken his eyes off of Amy, said: “So, your family’s just a bunch of assholes, huh?”
“Hm, yes, sir. They most definitely are.” - Amy managed to answer.
“I know how that feels like. Having your stupid family telling you what you should do and shit. Fuck them. I feel you, I really do. But listen to me, the best thing you can do is get the hell away from them and get your sweet revenge, you know? Like me, my dumb family was planning on moving to New York and shit. To expand the business. Guess what I did? I moved here first, took all their little plans and now I’m about to become the motherfucking main king of the area. Right in their fucking ugly faces. So yeah, I got your coke. On the house. And if you look for me again in about a week, I’ll be serving some meth, too. ‘Cause business are going great, baby! Those fuckers never saw this coming.”
He was very altered, basically yelling for anyone who wanted to hear.
And Jake and Amy were smiling from ear to ear, because just when he turned around to get the drug from the kid, he was faced with Detective Diaz and Detective Boyle, who had already taken down the three remaining people in the scene, pointing their guns at him.
Amy left the car with her handcuffs ready - “Gregory Giordano, you are under arrest.” and after she had gone through the Miranda Rights, Jake whispered to Giordano - “I’m sorry your family never loved you, dude”.
A few days later, Jake and Amy were at a ceremony in which they’d be receiving the Excellent Police Duty Medal for “an intelligent act materially contributing to a valuable accomplishment”.
Right before they were called up on stage, Jake turned to Amy and said: “I guess you are a pretty good detective.”
Amy smiled and was about to return the compliment but he kept going before she could say anything.
“Not better than me, of course. But second best is not that bad.” That made Amy’s face transform immediately, going from a soft thankful expression to furrowed eyebrows and incredulous look.
“What? Are you kidding? I am obviously a much better detective, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You wish. If I hadn’t made up that story for you insanely soliciting drugs in perfect grammar, we wouldn’t be here today.”
“Well, if I hadn’t done that in the first place, there would be no story for you to create and Gregory would be selling meth left and right. And, oh yeah, that’s right, we wouldn’t be here either.”
They kept going back and forth all through the night and until the next day, when they were all in the conference room before the morning briefing. The rest of the squad could not take anymore of Jake and Amy's banter, everyone was sick of hearing the two of them discussing about who was actually the best detective.
“You guys should just make a bet and settle this already.” - Gina suggested.
After the small crowd, including Jake, hollered in approval of the idea, Amy put her hands on her hips and asked: “Okay, but what are the stakes? And don’t say money because I know you’re in debt.”
Before her mind could take her down that path, the song ended and she hadn’t even turned the page when the next song started. As her mind caught up with the familiar beats, Amy laughed out loud.
“Oh, my God. You didn’t.”