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Everything is fine.
All of Amy’s officers are working -- no, excelling -- on their assigned tasks, they just busted a ring of money launderers, and Holt had actually used the phrase ‘Nice work, Sergeant ’ not once but TWICE in the past week.
Everything is fine.
Jake is upstairs working on his latest case, a robbery she knows he’ll crack within the day, they have a date night planned for tomorrow, and they’d managed to sneak into storeroom C for a, well, extended lunch break earlier that day.
So everything is fine.
That is, until it isn’t.
Until Amy realizes she mislabeled a piece of evidence and single handedly ruined a four month investigation in a matter of minutes. It was a simple mistake, something that happens at least once in every officer’s career. But it had never happened to her. Not her, not Amy. She is the Queen of Organization, the Khaleesi of Paperwork. She didn’t make mistakes.
Until she did.
She finds herself praying to all the gods she can think of as her eyes rake through the file, but now that she’s seen it’s so blatantly obvious she messed up. This son of a bitch is going to get off and released without so much as a slap on the wrist, and all because she didn’t triple check her work like she usually did.
Her leg starts to shake as she stares at the paper, her eyes scanning and scanning the same five words, the five little words that have fucked up her entire investigation. She reads them more times than she can count. They’re her words. It’s her mistake. Mistake.
Mistake. Mistake. BIG HUGE TERRIBLE FUCKING MISTAKE.
“Sergeant Santiago?”
Amy snaps her head up to see Gary standing directly in front of her desk. She tries to shake off the sinking feeling in her chest, forces her shoulders down to their normal height before addressing him.
“What is it, Jennings?”
He recoils, and instantly Amy can tell she sounded too harsh.
No wonder your squad hates you.
They don’t hate you.
Uh, yeah, they definitely do.
“Sorry,” she winces. “Rough day. What’s up?”
“It’s okay,” Gary says quickly. “It’s just, well, I just ran into Detective Peralta and he told me to tell you to go home without him. He and Detective Diaz were on their way to make an arrest. Said it might be awhile.”
Amy checks her watch. 5:34. She should’ve gone home a half hour ago.
“Thanks, Jennings. I appreciate it,” she sighs. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Gary perks up at that. “Right. See you, Sarge!”
He turns around and heads towards the elevator, a slight spring in his step Amy can’t help but envy. Gary’s not the one who ruined his own case. Gary’s not the one who has to tell Captain Holt that her carelessness let a criminal free.
Oh god. Holt.
He’s gonna kill you when he finds out.
No he won’t.
Well, maybe not kill, but he’s definitely gonna be disappointed and you know that’s ten billion times worse.
Her heart rate picks up as she tidies up her desk. She puts away the terrible file in question and puts her pens back in their cup. She straightens the photo of her and Jake on their honeymoon and ticks off the last tasks on her to-do list. Normally it’s relaxing, cleaning off her desk. It should be relaxing. It’s a ritual, a routine, and Amy loves her routine.
But today all Amy can think about as she locks up her laptop is the fact that she has to tell Holt what she did.
She can see it now.
He’ll either yell or say in his most disapproving voice, “I expected more from you, Sergeant,” and then he’ll question why he ever promoted such a careless detective to manage his uniformed officers, and then he will lose all of the respect he’s gained for her over the last six years and — Oh god, her mentor is going to hate her. He will. He really, truly will and then her entire career, everything she’s worked for will have been for nothing because of she can’t even get her mentor to believe in her, how can she expect anyone else to?
No, he won’t hate you. You’re spiraling.
But what if I’m not? What if that happens?
Well, then you deal with it.
But what if I can’t?
It’s this cycle that follows her home, that eats away at her until she finally reaches their apartment. Her heart feels like it’s going to run right out of her chest as she fumbles for her keys. Oh great, her hands are shaking, too.
It takes Amy way too long to get the door open. When she does finally turn the key it takes every fiber of her being not to slam the door to smithereens. But she stops herself, only because if she did she’d have to explain the broken door to Jake and then she’d have to tell him about the horrible, completely idiotic thing she did today. So Amy shuts the door like a normal person, like someone who isn’t in an anxiety-induced panic. She drops her purse on the floor and heads straight to her room, not even bothering to pick it up.
Once in her room Amy peels herself out of her uniform and slips into her comfiest pajamas (her favorite NYPD sweats and the NYU t-shirt she’s had since freshman year, the one with the holes in the shoulder). Maybe, just maybe , the added comfort will snap her out of this terrible trance she’s trapped herself in. She lights candles and makes herself a giant mug of hot chocolate before settling herself on the couch.
Nope. She doesn’t deserve this. Doesn’t deserve to be relaxed.
Not after what she did.
You know, any normal person would have let this go by now. Jake would have. Rosa would have. Only you are making such a big deal out of this.
But Jake and Rosa don’t have a squad to run.
You’re allowed to make mistakes.
No I’m not.
Amy’s stuck. She knows she is. The logical part of her brain knows she’s fine, that Holt will forgive her and that she’s human so of course she’ll make a mistake every now and then. But there’s no way out of it now. There’s nothing but crippling thoughts and racing hearts and she might as well just lay here forever because there is not a single escape path in sight.
It’s that thought, the thought of being stuck in this terrible vortex of loathing and humiliation that causes tears to finally spill over. She pulls the blanket up to her chest and turns so her body is facing the back of the couch, ignoring the impossibly cheery Property Brothers now blaring on the TV as she closes her eyes and lets the tears run down her face.
She loses track of time, giving herself over to the cycle she’s found herself in for the foreseeable future. Her breathing gets shallow, her blood rushes to her ears, the sound so intense she can barely hear the door click open.
--
The lights are on in the apartment, but Amy is nowhere to be seen when Jake walks into the apartment a little after nine.
“Ames?”
No answer. She must’ve fallen asleep on the couch.
He takes a step and runs right into...Amy’s purse?
What’s her purse doing on the floor?
“Babe?” he calls again as he picks up the bag and places it on its usual hook. “You here?”
He sees a flutter of movement on the edge of the couch. A fuzzy sock-clad foot stretches out before receding from view. A grin flickers onto Jake’s tired face.
“Ah ha! I know you’re there.”
“You caught me.” Amy’s voice is quiet, wary. Something’s off.
His eyebrows furrow as he approaches the couch and sees Amy curled in a ball, her hair plastered across her tearstained face. Her eyes are closed, but he knows she’s awake. Her breathing is fast, shallow.
Everything makes sense now. Why her bag was on the floor, why she didn’t respond to his texts, everything.
“Hey,” he says softly, sitting on the edge of the couch. “What’s going on?”
Amy shakes her head against the pillow. “Nothing. I’m fine.”
“Ames.”
“Jake.” Her eyes flutter open, revealing themselves to be red, puffy. “I’m fine.”
Shit, she’s been crying for a while.
“Your purse was on the floor and you’re wearing the holey NYU t-shirt. All signs that you are not as fine as you say you are, Santiago.”
“Santiago-Peralta,” Amy murmurs, her back still turned away from him. Of course she’s correcting him even in the middle of an anxiety attack.
“Right, of course,” he says with a tiny grin. He tentatively reaches out and rubs her leg. “Care to tell me what’s really going on, Amy Santiago-Peralta?”
She pauses for a moment, weighing both her options before finally, slowly turning onto her back to face him.
“It’s stupid.”
“I bet it isn’t.”
“I bet it is.”
“Babe, I don’t care if you’re crying because you literally spilled milk or because you lost virtual Jeopardy or -- or because you realized you should’ve married Charles over me. Well actually, I would care about that last one. Please don’t leave me for Charles.”
Amy scoffs. “Not gonna happen.”
“Damn, Charles is gonna be crushed.”
“He’ll live.”
“That’s what you think. He really thought he had a chance with you. He’s at his place making you all ten types of paella right now.”
Amy lets out a breathy laugh, but her smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes.
“Amy,” says Jake, his tone serious now. “What’s wrong?”
She squeezes her eyes shut, allowing a few more tears to leak out before opening them again.
“Holt’s gonna hate me,” she says, her voice cracking.
“Why would Holt hate you?” he asks, confused.
“Because,” Amy says as she sits up. She runs a hand through her unkempt hair. “Because I am a terrible detective who should have never become a sergeant.”
Jake fervently shakes his head. “Wait what!? Where is this coming from?”
Amy lets out a shaky sigh, focusing on the blanket she’s been threading through her fingers. “I mislabeled a piece of evidence on the Portman case and now we’re gonna have to throw out the investigation. We’ve been trying to nab this guy for months and now because of me we have to let him go free. I’ve already sent it off, there’s no way to fix it. I should have caught it, I should have been paying closer attention. But I didn’t and now a criminal will walk and Holt is going to demote me and never want to mentor me again.”
She’s crying again, real, heavy sobs that shake her entire body. Jake’s seen this before, has worked her through her anxiety attacks several times in the years they’ve been together, and once before, but it never gets easier to see her like this. It baffles him that she could look at herself and see anything other than the incredibly smart, beautiful, thoughtful, ambitious woman he sees.
But as he’s learned, both from talking with Amy and his own research, right now she really, truly believes that she is a terrible detective. And while he hates it -- Seriously, all he wants is to jump inside her beautiful giant brain and strangle every last piece of brain tissue that’s trying to tell his wife she is anything less than extraordinary -- he knows he needs to put that aside.
So Jake takes Amy into his arms, wrapping her up in the best hug he can give.
“You’re not a terrible detective, Ames,” Jake whispers into her hair, planting a kiss on her hairline. “You’re an awesome detective. You’re also a human. Humans are allowed to make mistakes sometimes.”
“Not like this.” She shakes her head. “Not when that mistake means a criminal goes free.”
“Babe, do you know how many stupid mistakes I’ve made? I once had to let a guy go because I spilled grape soda all over his arrest report. Not even the good kind of soda!”
That gets a little laugh against his collarbone. “If you’re gonna spill on a police report, it should at least be orange soda. Much cooler.”
“Right?! What an idiot,” says Jake, rolling his eyes at the memory. “But seriously. These things, they happen. We’ll find a way to get Portman again. And Holt? I mean, yeah he might be mad for like two seconds, but then he’ll remember the five million other times you’ve been a brilliant detective and he’ll move on. I mean come on, he loves you. He said so himself. When he officiated our wedding, remember?” he adds pointedly.
Jake looks down to find that Amy’s stopped crying.
Heck yeah I’m onto something!
“Remember?” he repeats. “Remember what he said?”
Amy gives him a sheepish little grin. “I’m proud of you and I love you both.”
“See!” Jake exclaims. “He wouldn’t have said that if he didn’t mean it.”
He cups Amy’s chin and gently pulls up so she’s looking at him. Her eyes shift, uncomfortable with the sudden eye contact. “Look at me, Ames.” Amy begrudgingly looks Jake in the eye. “Holt knows you’re an incredible detective. He’s not going to let one mistake change that. And if he does, then he’s an idiot and not the mentor you deserve.”
“Jake,” Amy interjects, cocking her head in disbelief.
“What? I mean it! But, that’s not going to happen because Holt is a great mentor and you, babe, are a phenomenal mentee. I know Holt knows that.”
A shy glimmer of a smile appears. “He does?”
“Yes, he does.”
Jake runs the pad of his thumb over Amy’s cheek, wiping away the last of the tears. He can see her brain trying to process everything he’s told her. Her eyes flick back and forth as she rationalizes and breaks down their conversation word by word. Finally, finally , she brings her hand up to his, giving it a gentle squeeze before pulling his lips to hers. The kiss is soft, so gentle Jake almost wonders if he imagined it. But then Amy pulls back and rests her forehead against his.
“Okay,” she whispers, her gaze now much calmer than it was even two minutes ago. Jake lets out a gentle, airy laugh.
“You believe me?”
Amy nods against his forehead, her eyes fluttering shut. “I think so.”
“Good.” He plants one more kiss on her lips. “All I want is for you to see all of the amazingness in yourself that I see every single day. You’re incredible, Ames. I love you so much.”
Amy doesn’t say anything, but Jake feels her shoulders relax, her heart rate finally evening out as she wraps her arms around him and sinks into his chest once more. The worst, it seems, is behind them. Eventually they slide back onto the couch, Jake being the big spoon for once as he shifts his grip from her shoulders to her waist. It’s not till later, after they’ve been laying there for awhile and her breathing is back to normal that she whispers back,
“I love you so much, too.”