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Teddy’s everything she looks for in a guy. He’s a consummate professional, a great listener, and a total gentleman to boot. He pulls chairs out for her, holds doors open, and picks up every tab; if she has to reschedule a date because a case has come up, he understands, because it’s just as likely to happen to him.
After five dates, she can picture exactly what their life together is going to be like.
(it may be a mistake to mention this to Rosa, who snorts derisively and calls her a creep, but the five dates last year bring the total to ten, and she thinks that’s an acceptable point for the ‘where is this heading?’ conversation, even if it is taking place entirely inside her own head)
They’ll be engaged before the year’s out and married next fall, surrounded by the golds and deep reds that guarantee she’ll look her best. She’ll make captain by forty; somewhere outside the city, where they can raise two kids (but no more than two, because she knows how easy it is to get lost in a large family, and she never wants any child of hers to have to live through that). Teddy will stay with the 82 for a few more years before becoming an instructor at the academy, showing the next generation exactly what it takes to be one of New York’s finest. Maybe one day they’ll retire to the West Coast, where the winters are more forgiving, but they’ll make the trip back at least twice a year to see family and friends, who will all be jealous of the amount of sun they’re blessed with. There’ll be no complications, no surprises, no mess.
***
She’s as surprised as anyone when she breaks things off with him.
It’s not that he does anything wrong. There’s no single moment she can point to and say ‘that, there, that was where it all fell apart’. He doesn’t change.
He doesn’t change.
He picks her up at her apartment at seven, and they walk to the cosy little Italian place a few blocks away to make their seven thirty reservation. She asks him about his day and he brushes it off, turning the question back on her, always more interested in what she has to say. Throughout dinner he’ll fire off police codes at random, trying his best to trip her up, never once succeeding.
But the list of police codes is only so long, and she’s not sure what they’ll have left once he reaches the end.
She tries to get him to weigh in on the ongoing Best Police Movie of All Time debate, but apparently he prefers to leave his work at the precinct, not sit for two hours watching some overpaid actor pretend to do his job. He’s not much of a sports fan, isn’t addicted to a single embarrassing reality show, and while he claims to be a fan of art, his opinions don’t stretch far beyond what he likes and doesn’t like. He’s happy to sit and listen to her talk endlessly about things that she’s passionate about, but offers no insight of his own, and by the end of date six, she feels as though she’s exactly where she started when it comes to him.
So when they reach her apartment door at the end of the night, she reaches up to kiss him on the cheek, and tells him softly that it’s over. The fact that he doesn’t even try to convince her to give him another shot tells reassures her that she’s made the right decision.
***
She might have been the one to end things, but that doesn’t mean she has to be okay about it. She’s just grateful that date night was always a Friday night, because it gives her the entire weekend to wallow before facing the music and walking into the precinct on Monday to face pitying looks from Boyle and Terry, sheer indifference from Rosa, a barrage of mildly insulting comments from Gina, and Jake’s...
Amy’s not sure what to expect from Jake. She’s also not sure when she started thinking of him as Jake instead of Peralta, but she shakes that thought away and files it under ‘things to deal with at another time’.
She’s about half way through a CSI: New York marathon (and half way through a tub of mint chocolate chip ice cream) when there’s a knock at her door. Her hair’s thrown up in a messy bun on the top of her head, she’s lounging around in one of her brothers’ old college sweatshirts and a pair of black leggings, and she’s never felt less like seeing anybody. Whoever it is appears to be incapable of taking no for an answer, however, so she hunts around for the remote to pause the DVD and makes her way reluctantly over to the door, hoping that it’s only Mrs Vincent from upstairs there to secure her promise to attend the building’s welcome party for their newest neighbour. Amy always says yes to the invites but has yet to make an appearance at one of the evenings; one of the many perks of being a detective in Brooklyn is that people have a habit of taking you at your word when you swear that you would have loved to have been there, but a case had come up that was just impossible to get away from, and you’d definitely make it next time, as long as the criminals of New York were considerate enough to take the night off.
It isn’t Mrs Vincent.
It’s Jake, carrying a brown paper bag that smells suspiciously like the Indian takeout from down the street, who barges past her before she can even begin to tell him she doesn’t want company. He sets the bag down on her coffee table and turns to face her, but she jumps in before he can comment on her outfit.
“I’m really not in the mood, Peralta.” There’s a glint in his eye, and Amy claps a hand over his mouth to prevent him from replying. “And before you make another sordid sex tape joke, remember that I own a gun and a taser, and I’m not afraid to use them. Are we clear?”
She removes her hand when he nods and makes the sign of the cross over his chest.
“If we were to make a sex tape, though, I guarantee those words would never come out of your mouth,” he says with an air of nonchalance, but he’s focused on pulling containers out of the bag, as though making a conscious effort to avoid looking her in the eye.
She should make some kind of retort, or hit him, or something. But she feels her cheeks flush in spite of herself, and it’s one of those moments that have become increasingly more regular since the night of the Worst Date Ever, where she’s painfully aware that they’re skirting the line between platonic co-workers and Something More, and one false move could upset the balance forever. So she says nothing, just tugs on the hem of her sweatshirt and waits for him to finish carefully arranging tubs of rice and chicken korma, as well as some kind of vegetable concoction that she can’t immediately place. He stands back with a flourish when he’s done, like he’s completely unaffected by what he’s just said, although the tips of his ears are slightly pink and he still can’t meet her gaze for more than a split second.
“I figured chances were you hadn’t consumed any actual food in the last twelve hours,” he explains, staring pointedly at the (now mostly liquid) ice cream when she opens her mouth to object, “so I thought I’d bring lunch.”
“I’m not sure I should be taking nutritional advice from a guy who eats fruit roll-ups for breakfast,” she says, but she’s touched all the same, and real food does sound good right about now. Although... “How did you even know Teddy and I broke up?”
“I’m a detective, Santiago. It’s what I do.” She stares at him, arms folded, and he caves. “Okay, Rosa may have texted me. Why does no-one ever buy the detective line?”
“Because we live in the real world, Peralta.” Amy wanders into the kitchen and picks up two plates from the drying rack, remembering at the last minute to grab a handful of cutlery from the drawer beneath the sink. When she gets back to the living room, Jake’s made himself at home on her couch and is reading the back of the DVD case.
“Where are we up to?” he asks, accepting the plate she hands wordlessly to him and helping himself to the food on the table.
“Episode ten,” she replies, following his lead and piling her plate high. “The one with the...”
“...crazy murder apartment,” he finishes, a wide grin on his face. “Cool. I’ve always wanted to work a case like that.”
They watch in silence, which surprises her; she’s always assumed he’d be the kind of person who needs to keep up a running commentary on anything he’s watching. It’s only when the end credits begin to roll that he turns to face her, and she has a feeling she knows what’s coming.
“So are you going to tell me what happened between you and Mr. Perfect, or what?”
“Nothing happened,” she insists, playing with the food that’s left on her plate. But it turns out he can play the stare-into-submission game just as well as her and she sighs, reaching over to put the plate on the coffee table before pulling her feet up underneath her. “It’s just, there was no spark, you know? Last year I thought that the distance was our only issue, and if that could be solved then everything would be great, but...”
“It wasn’t.”
“No, it wasn’t. He doesn’t have a favourite cop movie,” she adds, as though that explains everything, and maybe in some ways it does, because he nods like he understands completely.
It’s nice, being able to just sit and talk about Teddy with someone, even if that someone is the last person she would have expected. She’s never been the kind of girl who’s surrounded by girlfriends she can confide in—Jake’s claim that there’s only Kylie hadn’t been too far off the mark—and the fact that Jake’s here, now, listening intently to what she has to say makes her eyes start to fill with tears that she can’t keep from falling. Jake looks almost panicked, but he scoots up next to her and wraps a tentative arm around her shoulders, pulling her into him and humming Baba O’Riley in what she assumes is meant as an attempt to comfort her.
“I’m sorry,” she says, wiping her eyes with her sleeve, “it’s just sometimes I remember how much this job sucks, you know? I can’t date anyone. I barely have a social life anymore. Something goes wrong, and who’s here? You. My partner, who I already see every day at work.”
“You’re pretty distressed right now, so I’m going to choose not to be offended by that.”
She sits up straight and bites her lip, and his eyes are automatically drawn to the motion, lingering just a beat too long when she releases it. “I didn’t mean...”
“Relax, Amy, I know what you meant.” The DVD menu has been playing on a loop for the past ten minutes, and when Jake moves over to the TV to replace the disc she tries, unsuccessfully, to convince herself that she doesn’t immediately miss the warmth of him beside her.
They watch a few more episodes and then he makes his excuses to leave, gathering up the empty food containers and disposing of them in the kitchen first. She walks him to the door, and before she can talk herself out of it she throws her arms around his neck in a hug. He stands there unmoving for a couple of seconds and she’s just about to pull away when his arms come up to wrap around her waist. He’s warm and solid and smells inexplicably like candy paired with something deeper and unmistakeably masculine, and she’s pretty sure that if she kissed him right now, she’d feel the sparks that were missing any time she and Teddy were together. She’s also pretty sure that he wouldn’t push her away, and for some reason it’s that thought which stops her from even trying.
“Thank you,” she whispers, and he squeezes her a little tighter in response before letting her go.
“I’ll see you on Monday,” he says, and then he’s gone.
(until he turns up at the same time the next day, claiming that his own copy of the season they’d been watching must still be at his nana’s apartment, and he can never leave something unfinished. She gets the feeling that he’s not just talking about the show.)