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She moves more slowly than she used to.
Jake watches her carefully from his position on her couch, sprawled across the cushions in such a strategic way that he’s able to look like he’s asleep at a glance. Amy’s in the kitchen, reorganizing her plates first by pattern, then by circumference, only pausing every now and then when she moves too fast and aggravates the bullet wound. Music is playing quietly from the speakers a few feet in front of Jake’s head, which drowns out the sounds of the plates clicking together.
It also drowns out the quiet grunts of pain he suspects escape Amy’s throat every time she pauses and winces.
He’s been walking a fine line recently. She’s been out of the hospital for less than a week, and while she’s been incredibly diligent about following all of the instructions the doctor gave her about medicine and physical therapy, she’s been all but belligerent about the bed rest side of things. It’s hard to tell her no, and not just because one pleading look would be enough to convince Jake to commit arson for her; Amy Santiago can be quite intimidating when she wants to be.
(Part of him wonders just how much that terrifying look hardened while she was undercover. Part of him never ever wants to know.)
So while he came here to be both her doting boyfriend and her concerned partner, she very flatly refuses his help with virtually everything she does, so he more often than not finds himself shunted to one side to look on helplessly while she goes and does the exact kind of physical labor her doctor warned against. Like purging old clothes from her closets or reordering her spices or deep cleaning her oven.
Or reorganizing her plates, apparently.
She won’t even let him hover in the doorway. But luckily Jake is an amazing detective-slash-genius, and has managed to discover that if he pretends like he’s taking a nap in various locations strategically placed around her apartment, he can keep an eye on her without her noticing. It’s definitely not perfect (he’s convinced that somewhere out in Brooklyn, Amy’s doctor is shuddering right this second), but it’s better than nothing.
Jake shifts his head a few inches forward, tucking his chin down slightly, just enough to get a full view of her as she stretches up on her toes to reach for a higher shelf. For a moment he’s nearly overwhelmed by the urge to lunge off the couch to just grab whatever it is she’s reaching for himself, but he resists, letting the tension wind up in his belly and harden in the space between his shoulders.
The music isn’t quite loud enough to drown out this particular grunt of pain, but Amy falls back to her heels with a triumphant grin and an unfamiliar, ornate plate in her hands. Jake blinks and realizes he’s sitting up now, hands planted on the cushions and legs bent, ready to spring off the couch and rush toward her in the event that she loses her balance.
He watches her carefully twist toward a stack of plates to her right, her face folding in another grimace, her hand lightly and absently pressing into her injured side.
He’s on his feet before he’s even aware of making the decision, stealing across the distance between them on socked feet. He approaches her slowly, taking care to knock his knuckles against the counter top to catch her attention, waiting until she glances back at him over her shoulder before ghosting the palm of his hand across her shoulders.
“I was wondering how long you were gonna fake it over there.” Amy says slyly. Jake snorts and dips his chin down just far enough to rest on her shoulder.
“I wasn’t faking,” he says innocently, closing his eyes briefly when she tilts her head to bump lightly against his. “I was sound asleep. You woke me up bangin’ plates around in here.”
She laughs and inches backwards, leaning her shoulders into his chest. He snakes his arms around her middle carefully, meticulously avoiding the bullet wound while hugging her closer. Her hands smooth up his forearms, her palms warm and soft, and in their wake they leave a kind of peace he has never known seeping through his skin and settling deep in his bones. The whole scene feels as if it’s encased in a thick bubble of tranquility; like the first glimpse of a clear sky after a never-ending hurricane. “You’re always so warm.” She tells him quietly.
He hums, and then lifts his head just far enough to peck a kiss on the corner of her jaw. “My middle name is space-heater.”
“Your middle name is Roger.”
He gags. “Don’t remind me.”
“Sorry.” She squeezes his forearm, and he snuggles closer.
“I’ll forgive you if you go sit down and let me finish this for you.”
She stiffens in his arms and he squeezes his eyes shut, savoring her nearness before she pulls away. “I don’t need your help,” she says carefully, pulling his arms away and stepping to her right. He sighs and moves to the left, watching her hands drift along the edges of the nearest stack of plates protectively.
“Amy -”
“I can organize plates, Jake. I got shot, not run over by a truck.”
He huffs out a disbelieving laugh and immediately regrets it; the urge to remind her that she also fell off a roof shrivels up and dies when she shoots him a withering glare. “You’ve only been out of the hospital for a few days, Ames. You’re supposed to be taking it easy.”
“It’s not like I’m performing gymnastics! I’m not going out running, I’m not working out. It’s just a stack of plates. I’m more than capable of lifting a stack of plates, doctor’s orders be damned.”
“Amy,” he says softly, and she seems to recoil a little, suddenly highly interested in a chip on the edge of a plate. Her gaze remains fixated on it even as he inches closer to her again. “It’s okay to need help. That’s why I’m here, actually. To make your recovery go as quickly and painlessly as possible.”
She chews the inside of her cheek contemplatively for a moment, before peering up at him through her lashes. “I thought you were here because you like me.”
There’s a playfulness to her gaze now, a mischievousness to the smile rounding her cheeks and wrinkling the corners of her eyes, that makes his whole gut ache. Affection washes through him all at once, almost powerful enough to bring him to his knees; it knocks the breath out of him, leaving him dumbstruck and enchanted.
“Well that - that too,” he says, too out-of-sorts to even attempt a joke. Amy smiles, a real, genuine smile, and the urge to swoon is astronomically high. “I can be here for more than one reason, y’know.” She chuckles and he steps closer, letting his left hand drift across the counter and stopping just before his fingers brush against the plates. Amy tracks the movement until he ducks his head to catch her gaze. “I know you can do this without my help. I know you can. I’m not asking you to stop because I think you can’t do it. I just - I want you to get better as fast as possible. I know this is driving you insane, I know you wanna get back to work as soon as you can, but it’s gonna take so much longer than it should if you keep trying to push yourself like this.”
She studies him a moment longer before dropping her gaze down, lifting her right hand simultaneously to rest over his heart. “You’re right.” She says, quiet and subdued, and he almost hates himself for saying anything to begin with. “I know. I do need to…I know. It’s just - it’s really hard to feel…powerless. I felt - I felt so powerless the whole time I was - because I couldn’t, y’know…I couldn’t fight back.” Jake clenches his jaw and moves closer, until she’s close enough that he can rest his right hand on her hip and his left on her elbow still bent between them. “It’s not that I don’t want your help, I just…I miss feeling like I’m completely in charge of my own life. And you’re right, I do wanna go back to work, I wanna make things right -”
“Hey, we talked about this. You don’t have to make anything right, because you didn’t make things go wrong in the first place.” She frowns, but he ignores it. “No one blames you for what happened to me and Holt. Holt was a casualty to Wuntch, and I technically brought what happened to me on myself. I’d do it again in a heartbeat, but that’s another story. My point is, no one blames you. Okay? No one.”
“Okay.” She breathes the word and he can’t help himself - he leans into her space and kisses her, just firmly enough to ensure that the message sticks.
She sighs when he pulls back, her eyelids fluttering as she leans her head down to rest against his shoulder. Her arms wind around his waist and he pulls her in close, running one hand up her back to rest between her shoulder blades and letting the other smooth her hair down against her temple. “I know how much you hate not being in control,” he murmurs, “but think of it this way: I’m here to do exactly what you say, exactly the way you say it, for however long you need me to.”
“So you’ll still be here next year when I’m all healed?”
“I’ll be here.”
“Three years from now?”
“Hell yeah.”
“What about a decade from now? Will you still be here doing all of my bidding?”
“Amy Santiago, if you’ll have me, I’ll be here until the day I die.”
She leans back then, eyes wide in wonderment, and he maintains a steady gaze even as the heat begins rising up his neck to pool in his cheeks. “Really?” She whispers.
He nods, and then kisses the end of her nose. “But only if you let me finish reorganizing your plates right here, right now.”
A begrudging smile breaks across the wonderment, growing ever-wider as she seems to consider it. “Okay, fine. But I get to sit right there on the counter and watch.”
“That’s very voyeuristic of you, Ames. I didn’t know you were so kinky.”
“Shut up before I change my mind.”
He kisses the end of her nose and hoists her up to the counter, shouting “as you wish!” over her surprised shriek of laughter.