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Amy Santiago waits in the hallway, her leg jiggling up and down restlessly.
She wishes dearly she had a cigarette, she also wishes that Jake and Captain Holt would come out of the Marshal's office. It feels like they've been in there forever.
She's just wondering if she would have enough time to run out and buy some cigarettes and be back before Jake and Holt are out, when they come out of the office, followed by the Marshal.
"Jake!" Amy rushes up to him, and slides her arm up his chest, and squeezes the of his neck gently. She looks from Jake to Holt. "What's going to happen?"
Holt gives Jake a slight nod, and Amy looks at him expectantly, her arm sliding away. Jake takes her hand and squeezes it sadly. "We're going to a motel," he says bleakly.
Amy frowns, and looks over at Holt for confirmation. "A motel?"
"Yes, Santiago, that's what he said." Holt replies.
"And then?" she looks over at Jake again.
She knows what the answer is: witness protection. She just doesn't what it to be the answer.
"At the motel, Ames, okay?"
"I'm coming with you?" she asks, surprised.
"Yeah, Marshal's orders. Can't get rid of me yet," Jake attempts to joke, but it comes out sounding sadder than he'd meant. Amy squeezes his hand comfortingly.
The three of them are completely silent during the drive to the motel, all three tightly packed into the back; Amy doesn't let go of Jake's hand for the whole drive. She draws circles gently on the back of his hand with her thumb, watching him as he stares out at the night.
She wishes she had a cigarette.
She wishes this wasn't happening.
Their room is a few doors down from Captain Holt's, and the three stand in front of the two doors awkwardly for a moment; the doors between them seem to stretch for miles.
"Well, Peralta, Santiago," Holt says loudly, turning to them, "goodnight."
He opens his door.
"Captain!" Amy blurts, stepping forward. "I-"
Holt hands up a hand and Amy stops talking. "I know, Santiago," he says kindly.
She nods, and smiles. "Goodnight Captain," she says, and lets herself into her and Jake's room.
Holt and Jake stand beside each other, not really knowing why. Holt fiddles with his burner phone — the FBI gave both him and Jake one, to call family members briefly, to say goodbye. Jake notices. "You should go call Kevin,"
Holt looks at the phone and back up at Jake. "I'll see you in the morning, Jake."
Jake smiles and nods goodnight to Holt, before entering his room.
Amy is sitting on the bed. Her leg is jiggling restless and she's chewing her fingernails.
He knows exactly what she's thinking.
God, I wish I had a cigarette.
He stands there, just for a moment, watching her. She looks up, feeling his eyes on her, and he sees the question in her eyes.
He sits down next to her, and she puts her hand on his knee.
She's bursting, he knows, she's desperate to ask, but she's going to let him tell.
God, he loves her for that. For everything.
"In the morning," he says once they've been sitting in the silence for some time, looking straight ahead rather than at her, "at three, Holt and I have to leave, be briefed again, and then fly to Florida,"
"For how long?" she asks gently.
He shrugs. "They said the estimated amount of time was six months, but really it's as long as it takes to catch Figgus,"
"Well, six months isn't too long," Amy says, her voice void of all conviction. There's a lump in her throat and a burning behind her eyes.
Jake turns to look at her this time, and he holds her gaze, his eyes blazing into hers. "It's a pretty long time," he says breathlessly.
And then they're kissing, and it's desperate and messy and sad. Amy's grasping at him, and he's gripping her. Both are craving more of the other. Needing more. They move up the bed, their clothes coming off with a flourish. Amy rakes her hands over Jake's body, and he kisses Amy all over hers. They know each other with an impossibility, their bodies maps in their minds, but they are desperate to memorise the other one last time.
It's just gone one AM, and Amy is lying in the motel bed, as Jake sits on the end of it. She listens as he calls his mother and speaks softly, telling her he has to go away for a while.
She can picture Karen's reaction in her mind. What do you mean 'a while'? What do you mean you can't tell me where? What do you mean a 'mob boss'?! Amy smiles to herself.
When Jake hangs up, he looks over his shoulder at Amy, and smiles sadly at her. He crawls up the bed, and under the covers with her, kissing her.
"You'll visit my mom while I'm gone, yeah?"
"Of course,"
He kisses her again. "I love you, Ames, so much."
"I know," she says, and she feels the tears burning again, but she suppresses them.
"Why'd it have to be now?" he asks angrily
She doesn't have an answer. "I don't know," she echoes.
"I always thought being threatened by someone like Figgus would be cool, but this is not cool. Not at all."
She laughs gently, and his expression moves from anger to sadness.
"It hasn't even been a year since we started dating. We deserve more time."
"We'll get more time," she tells him softly, and she strokes his cheek with the back of her hand. "And it'll be wonderful, every second of it."
"I wish I didn't have to leave."
"I wish you didn't have to either."
Three AM comes, and the world outside is just as sleepy and lethargic as Jake Peralta and Amy Santiago.
"Tell the rest of the squad that I... uh — love them sounds lame, but just tell them something for me, yeah?" Jake asks Amy.
"I'll tell them, don't worry,"
Don't worry. It's such an absurdly pointless thing to say. There is so much to worry about, and it frightens Amy Santiago, right down to her core.
The digital clock on the motel bedside table goes from 2:59 to 3:00. Jake looks from it to Amy, and takes a deep, shuddering breath. "Let's go," he says, as if they're just going out to get milk or something.
The motel hallway is dimly lit, and Holt is already standing out there with their driver from earlier in the evening.
"Captain Holt," Amy says, and she salutes him.
"Amy Santiago," he replies, saluting her back, and if she wasn't so filled with sadness, she would be beaming.
She turns back to Jake, and kiss him tenderly. It's sweet and sad, and she fights the urge to cry.
"I love you, Jake,"
"I love you too."
And then he's gone. She watches them walk down the hallway and away from her, and feels so incredibly lost.
She lets herself back into the motel room, and crawls under the covers of the bed. It smells of Jake and motels. She's exhausted.
She falls asleep almost immediately.
It's two weeks later and Amy Santiago is standing outside Jake Peralta's apartment door.
She'd been instructed to remain at that motel for the first week Jake was away, and she'd been moved to another the week after that. They wanted to make sure Amy wasn't receiving any threats as well. She'd been told today that it was all clear for her to go home, but that it was highly recommended that she install a security system (like she wouldn't already have one).
And so instead of finding herself back at her apartment, she finds herself at Jake's.
With trembling fingers, she unlocks the door.
She steps nervously into the apartment, and is met with the smell of Jake; tears spark in her eyes. She looks around the empty apartment. It seems so quiet and empty without Jake's loud presence. It's wrong.
She imagines Jake in some large house in Florida. A house that doesn't smell of him but of humidity and whoever he is pretending to be.
Wrong.
It's all so wrong.
Her eyes are drawn to his bed, messy and unmade, dusty from not having been slept in.
She walks over to it with intent to strip the sheets and wash, when she smells him: Jake. It's strong by the bed. She lifts up the sheets and breathes him in.
Jake.
And then she cries, and all the pain that she's felt these past two weeks comes pouring out, and all the pain of the months ahead. She falls onto the bed and pulls the covers over her, engulfing herself in the smell of Jake. She sobs into his pillow. She misses him. She misses him so much.
It's been almost half an hour when she finally gets out of his bed.
She wipes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and tightens her ponytail, before heading back to the precinct to work on the Figgus case.