Chapter Text
Jake never thought he’d say this, but he’s never been so glad in his life to hear a little boy crying, a few tears messily slipping down Nikolaj Boyle’s cheeks as he clutches his teacher’s hand on the way to the nurse’s office. There’s a gentle knock, then the creak of the door and the sound of sneakers running across the floor. Nurse Amy Santiago walks out from another bedside, all flowery scrubs and vanilla perfume, and Jake tries not to let his voice falter the way it wants to.
“We, um – he – got hurt at recess.” And his hands fold over each other, not tiresome but simply seeking to kill time as Amy tucks hair behind her ears. He’d say something if it didn’t seem so difficult, uncomfortably pushing his glasses up his nose. She seems to agree, the way she wordlessly kneels down and puffs out her cheeks to cheer Nikolaj up (it does.)
“You okay there?” She gently prods at Nikolaj’s knee, finding the Captain Latvia band-aids Charles insisted she special-order and neatly placing one across the wound.
“Yeah, Ms. Santiago. We were just playing Cops and Robbers outside, and I - I fell. No big deal. It barely hurts, but Mr. Peralta said I had to come.” Nikolaj still swipes at a runaway tear with the edge of his shirtsleeve, but he keeps his facade.
“Did he now?” Amy looks up at Jake, standing at Nikolaj’s side, who’s ignoring the equally harsh slash on his forearm. “How thoughtful of him.” She puts the band-aids back in their box, unintelligible Latvian written across the front in large block letters, and double-checks for those Die Hard bandages she saw at the pharmacy across the street from to the stationery store.
“He, uh, was crying, and Charles – Nikolaj’s dad – would’ve hated me if I did anything less,” Jake explains. “Um, if you don’t mind, I guess I should go, right? Teachers just drop their students off and head back to class?”
“You’re not going anywhere. You’re hurt,” she replies, catching Jake’s arm on his way out the door. His ears turn pink, and he hopes she doesn’t see. “What happened?”
“Um, nothing out of the ordinary,” Jake stutters, eyes widening as he sees the Nakatomi Plaza logo on the band-aid Amy cautiously plasters on his arm. “I ran into a file cabinet, um, in homeroom, while I was getting out the multiplication practice.”
She frowns. “Don’t you only have homeroom? I thought you taught third grade.”
“That … is correct. Good job, Ames. Amy,” he corrects, almost scared.
“Thanks?” Crossing the room to throw away the bandage wrapper, Amy tries not to fiddle with the loose strap of her watch. She hopes he can’t see her fidget. Old habits die hard. “Anyways, it was really good to see you. You can call me Ames, if that’s what you’d like.”
Nikolaj sighs, pulling at his teacher’s sleeve, and Jake walks out of the nurse’s office as quickly as he came. “Bye!” Jake calls, holding onto Nikolaj’s hand. “It was, uh, nice seeing you.”
“You too,” Amy says, smoothing out her scrubs. “...And now I realize I already said that.”
“Bye, Ames.” Jake laughs, seeing Nikolaj’s insistence and enthusiasm and Captain Latvia band-aid, feeling the boy’s grip on his hand. He feels a new and unsettled feeling in his heart, sporadic as if a moth to a flame, and begins hoping (rather unethically) that he has more excuses to come to the nurse’s office in the future.
Amy, putting on a little more vanilla perfume and double-checking her stock of band-aids, starts to wish the same.
“Mr. Peralta likes someone at school,” Nikolaj blurts, stepping out of the Mustang and onto the front steps of Charles and Genevieve’s house. “Guess I don’t blame him.”
“I hear wedding bells!” Charles teases, walking out of the house in his beloved yet ridiculous yak-hair slippers. “Who is it?”
“It’s nothing,” Jake says, silently glaring at Nikolaj under the night’s cover. “There’s … this nurse at school, and she’s kinda new, and she just happens to be really nice and pretty. That’s all. Nikolaj got hurt at recess, and-”
“Is he okay?” Charles interrupts. “Did he make it home alive?”
“I’m standing right here, Dad. Nurse Amy even had those Captain Latvia bandages you told her to buy before the school year started.” Nikolaj rolls his eyes, a habit he really shouldn’t have adopted by the tender age of eight. He elbows his Uncle Jake innocently. “Those weren’t the only band-aids she had.”
Face flushing, Jake rolls up the sleeve of his hoodie and shows Boyle the slash across his arm, now all covered up. “She had Die Hard band-aids! How was I supposed to say no? And she kept smiling and she smelled like cookies and she let me call her Ames. I thought my legs might give out from under me.”
“Just ask her out, you sap,” Charles chides, slapping his friend. “Aw, I can’t even call you a sap without grinning. Jakey’s in love!”
“Shut it,” Jake replies, feeling that annoyingly familiar flutter in his chest. “I don’t even know if she’s single. I barely know her, okay?”
“All the more reason to visit the nurse’s office!” Charles cheers. “Now, son, I of course want you to be healthy, but if you feel like your temperature’s even a tenth of a degree away from that 98.6 average, you go see Nurse Amy. Got it?”
“He’s in third grade! We’re on the times tables! We haven’t covered Fahrenheit in class, that’s way too advanced!”
Nikolaj nods assuredly, tugging at his father’s hand. “Got it, Dad. If I feel chilly or a teensy bit hot, I’m pulling Uncle Jake out of class to go see his girlfriend.”
“She’s not my girlfriend!”
“Not yet,” Nikolaj corrects, grinning up at Jake with that just-lost-my-two-front-teeth smile. “That’s the plan, right?”
“I’m so glad we have this long weekend off from school. Means we can really get hungover.” Rosa sets four Kamikaze shots down onto the table with a clatter, sliding two of the sleek glasses Amy’s direction. “And I heard you were into Peralta.”
“Since when do you care about my love life?” Amy frowns, downing her first drink in an instant. She’ll need it.
“Since you learned that I went to college with Jake,” Rosa responds, setting back two shots, “and, because of that, since you started texting me ten times a day asking me about him.”
Amy flushes pink, whether from the alcohol or the smitten thought of Jake Peralta. “I do not talk about him that much. I just care a reasonable amount about … his life.”
“Yeah, right. Just wait ‘til you meet my girlfriend.” Rosa pauses, beckoning a shorter woman over from the bar. “She grew up with him. It means she’s got all the gossip.”
“Gina Linetti. Human form of the 100 emoji.” She runs a hand along the edge of her black dress before she walks over and sits down, casting a glance to the counter behind her. “You see that platter of drinks? We should take it. It’s been left out too long, and whoever was in charge of serving it will only get in trouble if the manager sees. Stupid Dave. Butt-face Dave, I call him.”
Amy frowns. “How do you know that?”
“Easy. You can tell from the condensation that the drinks have been out for at least ten minutes. The glasses are all arranged in a circle, meaning they haven’t been moved since they were set on the counter. The bartender working tonight already started washing the glasses, and yet this tray is left alone. He doesn’t want to move anything that a customer hasn’t touched - they’re sober enough to remember the guy who dumped their drinks down the drain.”
“We get it. I’m on my way, babe,” Rosa calls, a rare smile on her face as she walks to the counter as subtly as she can. It’s not difficult. The bar is chaotic, glasses slamming onto tables and the shrieks of not one but two bachelor parties ringing in the background. The bartender breathes a sigh of relief as soon as she takes the platter of drinks, slipping him a ten-dollar-bill. “I’m a badass, not an anarchist,” Rosa mutters.
“Gina Linetti,” she repeats, reaching into the pocket along the side of her dress and opening her wallet in a move she’s obviously rehearsed. She even pantomimes sunglass choreography. “Not just the 100 emoji. I work with Boyle. I’m a detective with the Nine-Nine.”
“Jake, what’d you do with our drinks?” Charles asks, scanning the bar. “Didn’t you order ages ago? You better hope someone didn’t take them.”
“Hey! Back off! Those are ours!” Jake exclaims, swatting a dark-haired girl eagerly reaching for a tray of drinks that obviously doesn’t belong to her. “Wait - Rosa? An elementary-school Spanish teacher is stealing my tequila shots?”
“It’s Diaz to you, unless you let me take these back to my table,” she shrugs, looking down at the glasses cold against her skin. Picking one up, she knocks it back within seconds. “Oops.”
“No!” Charles yells, seeing her fingers, black lacquer on her nails, circle around a second. She lets go, but only to humor him.
Jake scowls, keeping a watchful eye on the remaining four shots. “Okay, who’s even at your table that’s worth all this? I just see Gina and, and-”
“You just see Gina and who?” Rosa asks, crossing her arms and grinning.
“Told you it’d work,” Charles whispers, nudging her shoulder and performing some sort of secret handshake with her.
There are too many moves involved to even keep track of, with shadow puppets and some firework noises intermittently sprinkled in, but Jake doesn’t even hear Rosa and Charles as he stares across the bar, seemingly frozen in his seat. He mentally curses himself for wearing the plaid shirt (well, they’re all plaid, but they’re kind of plain and nerd-looking) tonight of all nights.
Amy Santiago is a few feet away, her hair let down, and she’s thrown her head back as she laughs at something Gina just said. He feels a twinge in his heart, knowing how many embarrassing stories Amy might be learning about him (please, please not the one about Jenny Gildenhorn and his bar mitzvah. Anything but that.)
Rosa taps Jake on the shoulder a minute later, pulling him out of this reverie. “You should go talk to her. She won’t quit mentioning that I should tell you she’s single.”
“She- she said that?”
“And,” Rosa adds, “She asked me if you were unattached. I said yes. You’re welcome. Now go talk to her before I demand a fee for being your wingman.”
Charles looks at her in awe. “You’re like the matchmaker from Mulan.”
As Jake plays with the cuffs of his shirt, downing a shot if only to make himself feel more confident, Rosa replies, “Well, I like to think I’m a little better than that.” She then pulls out her cell phone. “Devil’s in the details, Boyle.”