Chapter Text
Jake 3, Amy 3 months
Jake’s father was supposed to be Karen’s soulmate.
Upon meeting him, she felt like her world had alighten and fallen apart at the same time; a feat no person had ever achieved in her life. She couldn’t help but shake that something about him was different. He strutted into the bar with his tight jeans and the most perfect hair she had ever seen. His eyes gleamed mischief and his smile screamed danger. He looked like every bad boy cliche in every movie she’d seen. When he sat next to her, it took all she had to hide her blush. Until finally, she lifted her head and her eyes met his. And at that moment, without expectation or warning, her heart felt like it was on fire. And to add to the feeling, she saw the tell-tale pale pink color flood the brown of his irises.
She made sure with all she had that Jake was spared from the screaming, crying, and commotion that lead to the inevitable divorce. She owed her life to Mrs. Luo from her Art class. In any hour of night or day, she always agreed to care for Jake whenever problems arose at home. The gift basket compiled of her most beautiful artwork was already packaged and ready to be delivered to that saint of a woman.
Today is different though. Jake isn’t the only one who needed a distraction, so Mrs. Luo was relieved of her duties. Roger is packing up his things back at their spanking new house and she’d rather not look him in the eye more than she had too. So instead, she put Jake in his Spiderman shoes, packed a backpack with his favorite toys, buckled him into his car seat, and off they were.
“Jakey?” She peered into the rear view mirror to see him with peeked attention at her, dropping all his playing to listen.
“Yeah Mama?” he says in that sweet little voice that never failed to make her smile, even in the darkest of moments.
“Do you know what a soulmate is baby?” she asked. He adorably looked around to find an answer but when turned up with nothing said: “Uh uh.”
She’s not even sure where she’s going with this, or why she even brought it up. Her husband was probably the worst soulmate in the history of soulmates. Their pale pink irises did not tell the cinematic love story she’d prayed for her entire life. Nonetheless, she continued on.
“Well, for some people, the Universe has a special person destined just for them. Someone they promise will love them forever and ever.” Jake is uncharacteristically quiet while she speaks, usually by this point he’s an erupting well of questions, so much so she ends up forgetting what her point was. But right now, he just stares in rapt attention, and maybe she should pay more mind to this, but she shrugs it off. “And maybe, one day, you’ll find your soulmate, or maybe you don’t, and that’s okay. But if you find someone you love, whether it’s a soulmate or not, I want you to love them sooooo much, with aaaaaall your heart. Just like I love you. You understand?”
“Yes, Mama!”
Even with his incessant energy, Jake was a good boy, and he never left his mother’s side in public unless he absolutely couldn’t stand it. Which, for a child, was pretty good. His mother didn’t have to always remind him to stay close or keep hold of her hand, he happily complied. So Karen was able to truly relax while they walked through Jake’s favorite part of Central Park. Jake caught sight of the bridge and yelled “Tower!”, tugging his mother’s hand towards it.
“No honey, that’s a bridge! That’s not a tower,” she laughs but it falls on deaf ears as he runs up to the peak of the bridge. It’s Jake’s favorite thing to look down at the water. In Karen’s opinion, it’s really nothing special. There are plenty other bridges and bodies of water in New York that she finds to be far more beautiful, but nothing is better than the glee on her son’s face at the fishies and the duckies swimming around for his attention.
Roger is almost completely out of her mind since she’s focused all her attention on her squealing boy, jabbering miles a minute about the animals, critters, leaves, people, trees, and all things that could possibly catch his eye.
“Mama, look,” Jake exclaims and his chubby legs take him in the direction of a squirrel. The park’s becoming more and more crowded as the day progresses, so when people threaten to obscure her view of Jake, she grows a little nervous.
“Jake, baby, come back!” she calls out, and breathes a sigh of relief when a couple walks off to reveal him crouched down in front of the squirrel that so raptured his attention. One more call to him, he looks up and comes running when she beckons him with her hand. With Jake’s spirit, he doesn’t just run off, he sprints. It’s something they’ve been working on, trying to find other ways to release his energy. Usually this park is safe to run in the mornings, but it’s almost 11 o’clock and they’re cutting it close to lunch hour. When Jake is finally looking up at her, she puts on her best disciplinary face.
“Jake, honey, what did I tell you about running off like that?” He frowns and pulls on his jacket sleeve; a nervous tick she noticed he’s developed just a few weeks prior when a drunken Roger came to the door with a woman at his heels. It… was not a good day for either of them.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers. She sighs and rubs his hair in forgiveness. Today may be a nice day, but they really shouldn’t spend more time at the park. But she also really does not want to go home. She looks out beyond the bridge, cursing her now ex-husband for putting her in this situation.
“How about some ice cream,” she looked down to Jake, but all she sees is the brick floor. She turns to her right, and she’s greeted with the same occurrence. She turns, looking around the bridge area, but he is nowhere in her line of vision. She calls out for him, but she gets no answer. Her heart clenches immediately.
“Jake,” she calls out again, and behind a corner tree, behind an old man throwing cracker crumbs at a group of birds, she sees little red shoes disappear. Gripping tightly onto the strap of her bag, she takes off running in his direction.
When she catches up, she sees Jake running faster than she’s ever seen him run before, almost with intent. This makes her a bit nervous, because the more he runs, the more she begins to lose him, and he’s running toward a busier section of the park.
He stops suddenly. The tension in her shoulders and her chest lighten. She slows down a bit and studies her little boy, whose looking around back and forth in almost desperation. It suddenly dawns on her that he’s never done this before. Yes, he runs off, but always returns when called. But not this time. As she gets closer, she notices a daze in his eyes. But before she can think much further of it, he sprints again.
“No! Wait!” But he’s gone. Disappeared behind crowds who hardly notice the boy.
Oh god, please no.
“Jake!” She shoves people aside to get through, but there’s no sight of him. The yells of his name turn raspy and desperate. Every limb starts quivering in the fear of, oh my god, she lost her son.
The people around have turned to her. The crazy lady screaming something unintelligible over and over. But that’s all they do. They just stare. She wants to scream at all of them, rip someone’s hair. Don’t they see she needs help? That she’s lost her son? No one seems to hear her, no one seems to understand. So she runs in the direction he ran in. She moves away from the large crowd and looks around in a frantic.
She can’t possibly accept the idea that’s she’s lost him forever, but that anxiety threatens to overwhelm her. She asks around, but no one seems to have a seen a small boy with curls run by them. She reaches an area of the park that is practically empty. A few couples or small families are occupying the benches under the trees. Her chest begins to heave again and it’s only when she tastes salt she realizes she’s been crying.
“Excuse me?” a voice to her right says. A woman is sitting on a bench, one who definitely looks like an elementary teacher she’s worked with before. Her dark hair is in a sleek bun, her red lipstick a stark contrast to her tan skin, and she’s wearing a simple, modest dress. Despite this no nonsense appearance, she has gentle eyes. “Is he yours?” She notes the definite accent there before she tilts her head to see Jake with his face practically buried in the little stroller beside her. She lets out a choked noise at his red shoes and runs over to him, the woman practically forgotten.
“Jake! How dare you run off that way! You scared me half to death!” Karen cried out, her body nearly collapsing within itself. Usually, when she scolds Jake, her energetic little boy will jump nearly two feet in the air and blabber a million words a minute to try and excuse his behavior. So it catches her by surprise when her reprimands are not acknowledge, he doesn’t even flinch. He’s just staring down into the little stroller in the same daze she noticed earlier. “Jacob Peralta, get over here right now.”
Color floods her cheeks at what the other woman sitting there must possibly be thinking. With a deep, exasperated sigh, and a sheepish glance towards her, she takes a hold of Jake’s sides and hoists him up.
She didn’t expect the chaos following this though. Jake begins to scream, cry and kick against her hold, the baby in the stroller lets out a horrible wail, and the mother is quick with her gentle protests. In surprise, she releases her little boy, who quickly attaches himself to the baby once more. Her face is sure to reflect the stun that she feels, looking towards the woman who could possibly have the answers. What just happened here is not normal, not by a long shot. She briefly wonders what this lady could’ve possibly done to him.
“Please, you can let him be,” she says softly. “My name is Camila.” Her name? Her son just kicked her in the ribs and pushed against her chest in a crazed fit, and she thought the most pressing concern right now is her name? Karen is too rattled to reply though, and the woman is far too calm for her liking. The woman, Camila , takes a deep breath, as if preparing some disheartening news. And she can’t decide whether or not that tone matches her next words.
“I think our children may be soulmates.”
Karen’s mind goes blank. She can’t… quite process what she just said. But… no… no this can’t be right. Soulmates? Soulmates… soulmates. Oh my god.
Her heart seizes. The world seizes. She feels the sky crash down on her head and her only love being yanked from her gasp. Her son is only 3 years old! He just got potty trained, he can’t have a soulmate. Also, she has no idea where this Camila woman’s basis on this are. Her son has no celestial mark from where they touched and his irises don’t have a pink hue to them. Well, actually, she couldn’t be sure, Jake didn’t give her enough time to take a good look at him.
“I think you’re mistaken. My son is way too young to have a soulmate,” she says, friendly but firmly. It would explain his strange behavior, his urgency and his focus. But she’s never heard of any of that being connected to soulmates.
“I can agree with you there that they are way, way too young. But I don’t think I’m wrong. I think they may be something called Magnetic Soulmates, I learned about it in a documentary I saw,” Camila says, she motions for Karen to sit in the spot next to her, and there’s so much authority in the move that Karen plops herself down without consideration. “Two soulmates are spiritually attracted to each other like magnets and that attraction isn’t broken until they touch skin.”
“No. No, those are incredibly rare, only 2% of soulmates are Magnetic.”
“Yes, but I do not doubt it has happened with our children,” Camila knew she needed more convincing so she took a deep breath. “See it from my perspective, Amy was sleeping peacefully after I walked our usual route with my three boys over there.” She gestures towards three almost identical looking boys circling each other with toy cars and wooden sticks they’ve claimed from the ground. She’d think they were triplets if it weren’t for the obvious age differences between them.
“But then she started crying, which is very odd because it was not feeding time or changing time; and Amy is very precise in her schedule. I thought she was only startled but then, she started screaming! I’d never heard her scream like that before. I got so scared, I thought she was in pain. Until all of a sudden, I see your boy running to us and he looked at Amy before I could say anything. Immediately, she stopped crying. I knew, instantly, they were soulmates.” She looks to her son and the stroller, and it’s the first time she really looks at the tiny baby in there. She’s clad in a pink onesie and a little headband around her head, a clear and blaring sign she’s a baby girl. Her wide eyes are staring up at Jake, arms twitching and a smile coming and going. What surprises her though, is the way Jake is delicately, oh so gently, stroking her head, and whispering things she can’t hear.
She’s right.
She’s absolutely right.
Her son had found his soulmate… and on the day that hers was leaving them. Ha ha, what a cruel, cruel trick of fate. Speaking of Roger…
“I just don’t know how her father is going to handle the news,” Camila chuckled. Should Karen share this with Roger? She wants to, so badly. For 6 years she’s shared every moment of her life with him, every milestone and every crying fit. For 6 years, he’s all she’s had. But… no. She won’t share this with him. He decided to separate from their lives, and he’s at home right now enacting just that. So no, this new development is only for her… for now at least.
“My name is Karen,” she finally says. “I guess we’ll be seeing a lot of each other.”
Jake felt her calling him. The feeling was so strong, so desperate, he had to get to her. He had no idea who she was, but he could feel his little heart in his chest aching to reach her. And it was like a string was pulling him through the park. He didn’t know where he was going or how to stop, and he didn’t want to. He was pulled, almost against his will towards his siren call. And when he got to her, he felt so full he didn’t bother to ask any questions.
Her tiny face was all red like a big cherry, and her big eyes were full of tears. When she looked at him, he felt kind of okay, kind of still achy. He finally found who was calling to him, and who his heart was calling for, but it still wasn’t completely gone yet. And the farther he got from her, the suckier it felt. Someone tried to take him away from her, but it made his chest hurt a lot and he didn’t like it at all.
He got a really strong, uncontrollable urge to reach out and touch her. He doesn’t like touching babies because his mama always tells him he’s touching them too hard, and he doesn’t want to hurt her. But he can’t help it, he reaches his fingers out and strokes the spiky fuzz on top of her head as soft as he possibly could.
Instantly, he felt like when he’s filling up a water balloon, and it gets fuller, and fuller, and fuller, and it gets so full that it pops! But a good kind of pop, not the kind that gets water all over his pants.
He already loves her so, so, soooooo much. He doesn’t know why, but he does! And when her little lips spread into a smile, and he sees no teeth there, it makes him really happy.
“Hello little baby, I’m Jake,” he whispers, because his mama said not to yell around babies because it scares them. “I like your bow, it’s very pretty.” She doesn’t reply, of course she doesn’t, she’s too little.
“My mama said, babies grow up just like me. So when that happens, we’re gonna be the bestest friends!” Her arms flail out and she gives him another smile, it’s so funny that Jake gives her one of his own.
He didn’t like the last baby he met. Aunt Linda put his cousin Benjamin in his lap because he couldn’t say no, and he cried too loudly and pulled at his hair. But this one is awesome. She hasn’t done anything particularly awesome yet, but Jake knows it. She’s awesome.
He also remember that with Bratty Benjamin, his mama made him kiss his head. He didn’t see why he had to, but did as he was told anyway. This time though, he really, actually wants to. So he stretches in, careful not to hurt her, and he stumbles a bit on his way there, but he manages to give her an audible Mwah! She gurgles and twitches in response, he takes that as a Thank You.
“Jake?” He turns to look at his mama. She looks like she’s been crying, she’s been doing that a lot lately and he doesn’t like it. It makes him very sad. And he has a big feeling it’s because of Daddy, which makes him very mad. Why would he want to make Mama cry?
“Are you crying mama?”
“No, no Jakey I’m fine,” she says and wipes off the rest of her tears. “Do you know what her name is?” He shakes his head no.
“Her name is Amy.” Amy? Aee-mee? He’s never heard that name before. It’s weird and his mouth feels awkward saying it, but he likes it. He likes it because it’s her name, and he already decided earlier that everything about her is awesome. He turns back to the baby in question, who still hasn’t looked away from him. He knows she probably doesn’t, but he has to ask anyway.
“Do you like race cars?” Amy answers with a yawn, she finds them boring he guesses. Oh well, his dad told him that girls don’t like race cars, so he should’ve known. Amy’s hand reaches out, stretched towards him expectantly, and Jake gives her his own hand. She grips two of his fingers very tightly and hugs them to her. She’s still has his fingers cuddled against her when she dozes off.
That makes him very happy too.