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i.
The day of their captain’s funeral is a hellish nightmare rollercoaster in terms of Amy’s emotions, none of them really related to the actual death part. The day starts with her in bed with her brand-new boyfriend, followed by a series of turbulent and emotional events, but by ten o’clock they’ve left the bar and she’s back at Jake’s apartment with the knowledge that he will continue to be her boyfriend for the time being.
She’s on his very uncomfortable bed, still in her very uncomfortable uniform, when Jake is done with his shower and has already changed into sweatpants. He seems surprised, given the events of their six days together, that she hasn’t either changed into some of his clothes or ditched the clothes entirely to continue the amazing revelation that is how good they are at having sex together.
“What’s up?” he asks, tossing his towel he was using to dry his hair on the floor - he really does live in filth - and plopping down next to her at the end of his bed.
She bites her lip, unsure how to explain the thoughts in her head in a coherent sentence. The trail of thoughts keeps circling her brain, always landing back on the same, main idea: I don’t deserve him.
“I’m sorry,” she blurts out. “I’m sorry, I know I keep giving up on us every time there’s an obstacle and I don’t want you to think that it’s because I don’t want this, because I do. I want this.”
He nods slowly, his hand inching over to cover hers. He opens his mouth, likely to say it’s okay or something along those lines because, again, she does not deserve his patience with her. She doesn’t let him say those things.
“I’m not giving up so easily because I don’t want to be with you,” she continues, allowing her hand to curl around his. Even when she’s talking to him, talking about him, he gives her strength to release her inner thoughts and feelings. “I just, I guess I still can’t believe how happy I am with you because I’ve never been this happy with anyone before, so I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. Like, maybe…this is too good to be true.”
Jake Peralta is rarely left speechless, but this is one of the first times, excluding kisses and sex, that she manages to do it for a moment. He’s looking at her in awe, interlocking their fingers.
“I get it,” he says. “I feel like that sometimes too, when we’re kissing or doing other stuff or I’m talking to you and I can’t believe that you’re really my girlfriend now after wanting this for so long.”
“So how do you get past it?”
Jake’s smile grows, his free hand brushing her hair away from her face and resting on her cheek. The butterflies she gets every time he touches her are flying wildly in her stomach.
“I guess I just…I just look at you and it feels so right that the doubts kind of just go away.”
At this point, she has no choice in the matter, she has to kiss him. She doesn’t hesitate, just grabs his face and presses their lips together, sighing into the kiss the instant his lips part to make room for hers. His line is kind of cheesy, a bit derivative of a romantic comedy, and its everything she’s been waiting for her entire life. A man that is certain he wants to be with her, so certain that he’s willing to risk his career, the one thing that he’s consistently put first in all the time she’s known him.
She curses the version of herself that earlier that evening said the words ‘six days’ as a way to diminish the value of their relationship. She was wrong, six days is everything. Six days is enough to know that she’s falling in love.
ii.
It takes one glance at her phone to realize that the freezing cold waters of the Hudson are no longer the worst of her fears.
Her worst fear is currently a very real possibility in a way that it hasn’t been yet in the first few months of her relationship. She’s aware that she is dating a cop, just as she is fully aware of the risks of being a cop, but it isn’t until she reads the words Die Hard situation on her phone and she recalls the plot of the movie her boyfriend makes her watch once a week that the two awarenesses mesh together in her brain.
Jake is in danger, and the freezing cold water doesn’t seem so scary anymore. What is scary is the drive downtown, shivering in the back of her captain’s car and not caring that she’s getting his seat wet, a concern that would be eating her alive in any other circumstances. It’s a miracle that they manage to pull up to the scene of the crime just as she spots Charles running out of the store, followed closely by Gina, and then…
“Jake!” she exclaims, her feet carrying her to him without any conscious movement. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”
She crashes against him, his lips warm against her cold ones, his hands on her waist tugging her closer. For the moment, but certainly not forever with people like Jimmy Figgis and Seamus Murphy and Melanie Hawkins in the world (those are worries for another time, worries that she’s still blissfully unaware of), Amy’s fear fades and her heartbeat slows until it’s synced with his.
“Wow, you were really worried about me?”
Of course I was, you idiot. I love you. I can’t live without you. Her thoughts cover a far broader range of emotions than she’s willing to get into at a crime scene full of their colleagues, so she doesn’t voice them yet.
“Mhm, also your face is so warm and I think I have hypothermia.”
She kisses him again for as long as she can until Charles interrupts them, muttering apologies for “ruining the most beautiful moment he has ever seen” and telling Jake he has to get his head looked at by one the paramedics.
“You got hurt?” Amy asks him, her head spinning from the cold and the kiss and, now, concern for him once again.
“Yeah, I just got knocked out, it’s no big deal,” he assures her. “I’ll just go get checked out and then we can head home, okay? If you want to stay over tonight-“
“I do,” she cuts in immediately, grabbing his hand, letting his warmth flow through her again the moment their skin touches.
She doesn’t let him go as the paramedics confirm he only has a mild concussion and give him an ice pack for the swelling, nor does she want to when Captain Holt calls her over to ask a question about one of the perps that they arrested in relation to a case she’s been working on. Holding onto Jake for twenty minutes was enough for her to get a clear enough head to know that she can’t disobey her captain, so she kisses his cheek and leaves him with Charles.
That night, listening to his steady and, most of all, present heartbeat while they watch a Christmas movie that has nothing to do with hostages or explosions on his couch, Amy decides to tell him she loves him soon. She can’t take the risk again of never getting that chance.
iii.
“I love you.”
She’s thought it countless times. She’s almost said it once or twice, never fully working up the nerve to get the words out. It’s not scary because she doubts that it’s true - she has no doubts at this point - but because he still hasn’t said it.
Amy knows it isn’t fair. He’s made every first move: the confession of feelings right before he disappeared undercover for months, the glorious first kiss in the evidence lockup. He’s not an overtly emotional person, so those moments were big for him.
Still, her heart breaks for a moment when he replies with his typical “noice, smort” because despite any emotional barriers he may have, she really wanted him to say it back. It’s the cherry on top of a romantic vacation that turned into a case, showcasing his inability to prioritize personal matters over work. She can’t be mad, though, because he’s trying. He’s already matured in so many ways since they’ve been together, the sheer fact that they’re salsa dancing right now instead of eating shrimp in bed is proof of that. She loves him so, so much and she’s terrified that he’ll never be able to let her in enough to understand that.
Then comes the “I love you too.” Her face softens, her heart melting with adoration and the relief that he returns the feelings that have been exploding in her chest for months (years, if she’s being totally honest with herself).
She’s grateful that he leans in to kiss her because she’s too dazed to do it herself and she needs to be kissing him right now. Her hand slowly cups his face, her thumb stroking his cheek as he squeezes their joined hands.
She wants to say more, to tell him the millions of reasons why she loves him, but they realize that they’re in a dance class for widows - a small blip in the otherwise flawless Santiago-style vacation itinerary - and they’re exiting the room hastily.
Amy doesn’t tell Jake all the reasons why she loves him that night, but after they decide that there are better uses for their bed than eating shrimp she shows him how much she loves him in every way she can.
iv.
After a full week of spending every moment with Jake, Amy is glad to be back in her apartment, in her own bed, her own shower, her own space. She enjoys the peaceful silence of her bedroom as she lights a candle and grabs one of her favourite Dickens novels - as if she could ever pick just one - and curls up into bed. It’s nice…for about ten minutes.
After she starts to get a bit tired, she leans back and frowns at the amount of empty space in her bed, her queen-sized mattress seeming way too big. She’s also freezing despite her heat being cranked, the fact that she’s sitting under the covers, and her big cozy sweater that does smell like her boyfriend but is a poor substitute for the real thing.
She wrestles with the idea of calling Jake for a few minutes, because on one hand she’s a modern woman and feminist who can survive without a man and has done so for much of her adult life, aside from Teddy and a few very Teddy-like men that preceded him. On the other hand, she wants to cuddle with her boyfriend and as a modern woman and a feminist, she should be able to do so without seeming weak or needy.
Around ten, she decides to just give it up and call him. He answers on the first ring.
“Heyyyy there beautiful, what’s up?”
Her heart is already bursting at the sound of his voice alone and a smile spreads across her face involuntarily. “I know we just spent a whole week together, but…”
“You miss your devilishly handsome boyfriend whom you love and adore and can’t bear to spend a single night apart from?”
“You using ‘whom’ correctly is kind of turning me on, so I’m just going to say yes to all of that.”
Jake’s laugh on the other end only makes her smile grow.
“Okay, I’ll be there in twenty,” he says, and she can hear some movement in the background. “Love you.”
“I love you too,” she says, meaning it just as much as she has the past ten or more times she’s said it in the span of four days. They both realized fairly quickly that they both had been holding it in for a long time, and once they finally said it the floodgates opened and him saying those three words became the only sound she wants to hear for the rest of her life.
True to his word, he’s there in twenty minutes (with forty-five seconds to spare) with two hot chocolates and a backpack containing his work clothes for tomorrow.
“Long time no see,” he jokes after kissing her hello, passing her the hot chocolate and climbing into the bed next to her. “I missed you too. Five hours is way too long.”
“We’re that annoying couple, aren’t we?” she observes, shuffling down to lean her head on his shoulder.
“Definitely.” He kisses her head, his arm swinging around her. “So, I actually wanted to ask you something. How would you feel about meeting my mom soon? She keeps bugging me to bring you over for dinner, and now…”
She understands the implication: now that they’ve said those three big words, there’s a new level of commitment that involves things like meeting the parents. She’s already met his deadbeat dad at the precinct, a memory she isn’t terribly fond of, but his mother sounds like an amazing woman. The fact that she’s a single mother who worked to support her son after her husband left her would be enough to gain her respect in Amy’s books, the fact that her son is Amy’s favourite person on the planet warrants a whole new level of admiration.
“I would love to, Jake.”
She leans up to kiss him, smiling at the taste of her favourite Polish hot chocolate. He really knows the way to her heart.
“Hold on,” she says after a few soft kisses. “I’m gonna need-“
“A bunch of info on my mom before you meet her?” Jake guesses, holding up his phone. “I started typing up a note on the flight today after you fell asleep.”
Amy grins at his acute ability to anticipate her needs, taking the phone from him and glancing down at the note titled Karen Peralta. It’s a plethora of unorganized information scattered in incoherent thoughts because, well, it’s Jake, but it’s nothing a binder can’t fix.
“You can start studying while I go pee, I drank way too much hot chocolate,” Jake says, pecking her forehead before climbing out of the bed and rushing to the bathroom.
Laughing at her boyfriend’s antics, she looks back down at his phone to realize she’s accidentally exited the Karen file and is back on the main list of all of his notes. Her eyes scan the list to find it again, most of the notes she sees being old grocery lists or the occasional ‘cool arrest lines’ or ‘catchphrase ideas’, until she sees one that piques her interest, simply labeled Important Stuff.
She’s incredibly curious as to what Jake would classify as important if cool arrest lines and catchphrase ideas are on separate notes. Her first guesses are the best quotes from Die Hard or maybe a collection of his funniest perp names over the years. She taps on it out of sheer curiosity, quickly realizing that her guesses were very wrong.
Important Stuff
1 zoloft (the blue bottle) 2 if really bad - in her purse, extras in work locker, cabinet above toilet at amy’s, kitchen cabinet next to pasta at home
keep water bottle full
keep apples, chocolate, granola bars (no raisins) at work
decaf coffee only
calm sounds app - ocean, forest, river are best
panic attack symptoms - nausea, hyperventilating, crying
deep breaths
stay calm - don’t freak out
touching helps sometimes but ask first
emergencies:
brooklyn methodist ER - ask for dr chen or dr grant if she’s not there
dr chen - 7189356753 (personal number)
Amy can feel her eyes watering as she finishes scrolling through the note, staring at the screen in complete shock. She doesn’t have time to compose herself or even gather her thoughts when she sees Jake come back into the room, looking up at him with teary eyes.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, frowning with concern. “Did something happen? I-“
Before he can finish she’s flinging herself at him, arms wrapping around his neck.
“I love you,” she murmurs in his neck as soon as his arms wrap around her waist.
“I love you too, but what’s going on?”
She pulls away, holding up the phone that she’s still holding onto. His eyes flicker with understanding after a moment.
“Oh, that’s nothing,” he mumbles, scratching his head. “It’s just something I put together, like, a year ago and added to a few times. You know I have a terrible memory, so I just wanted to make sure I had that stuff written down. Just in case.”
It doesn’t take her long to do the math in her head. They’ve only been dating for eight months, for one thing, but she recalls a particular event that happened almost exactly at this time last year. “A year ago, that was…”
“When we were on that stakeout, yeah.”
Her mind drifts back to the two of them in a sketchy motel room a year prior staking out a group of drug dealers. She happened to forget to take her anxiety medication that day, and hours before the guys they were looking for even showed up she started having a panic attack brought on by stress and lack of sleep. He had no idea what to do, but he did his best to talk her through it. He held her hand and got her water and he made her laugh so much afterwards that she nearly forgot about it.
Now that her mind is on the subject, she can think of dozens of times that Jake’s brought her a snack at her desk or reminded her to take her medication or bought her coffee when she’s having a rough day (she never realized he was getting her decaf, but it explains why the coffee never seemed to worsen her anxiety on those days). She didn’t even know he kept a bottle of pills at his place - she doesn’t ever forget them in her purse since the motel incident, so she’s never needed them - but it makes her want to start crying and hold him again all at once, so she does both.
“I didn’t want to upset you,” he says, holding her. “I know there’s only so much I can do when it comes to this stuff, it just-it really makes me feel better to know that I can try.”
“I’m not upset,” she clarifies, pulling away with a tearful smile. “I just can’t believe how lucky I am.”
He holds her again, stroking her hair and kissing the top of her head god knows how many times. She feels so in love with him right now that it should be suffocating her, but she feels lighter than air.
v.
Five minutes.
When Amy boarded the plane back to New York earlier that evening after three weeks undercover, ecstatic to see her boyfriend for the first time after the longest separation thus far in their relationship, she never imagined that a few short hours later she would be whisked away from the bar to a secret government facility and told that both his and their captain’s lives are in grave danger and she only has five minutes to say goodbye to him.
Overwhelmed by fear and heartache, the tears start flowing the second they enter the tiny room that they only have five fucking minutes in and Jake closes the door.
“Ames, it’s gonna be okay,” she hears him say, but she doesn’t register the words until he’s wrapping his arms around her and pulling her firmly into his chest.
“He’s trying to kill you,” Amy croaks into his chest, her arms around his waist. “He’s killed so many people, Jake.”
She lets out a full-blown sob as soon as she finishes her sentence, her body trembling in his arms. He pulls her closer, but it does nothing to calm her down. There’s only so much comfort he can give her when he, the man she loves, is at the top of a known killer’s hit list.
“I’m going to be safe,” he promises her. “And I’m going to come home to you as soon they find Figgis. It could only be a few weeks.”
“Or it could be years,” she retorts. She’s familiar with Witsec, she knows how these things go. “God, Jake, three weeks was already so hard.”
He rubs circles on her lower back, his other hand on the back of her head, holding it securely to his chest.
“I know.”
They spend the next three minutes like this. She tries her hardest to memorize how it feels to be held by him, the warmth of his hands and the sound of his heart beating and the rhythm of his breathing. She pulls away only to grab his face and kiss him hard and fast - they only have about a minute left.
“I love you,” she says against his lips. “I love you so much, Jake.”
“I love you too.” He caresses her face in both hands, continuing to whisper ‘I love you’s in between passionate kisses. “I want to say one for every day that I won’t be able to say it, but…” He doesn’t have to finish. She knows that there’s no way of guessing how long it could take for him to come back to her.
His eyes flick away from her for a second, and she realizes why as he’s pulling away from her to grab the pen and pad of paper on the table next to them, next to a box of tissues and two glasses of water. He scribbles something down quickly and tucks it into her jacket pocket just in time for the door to swing open. Two FBI agents stand there in uniform.
“Time to go,” one of them says.
Amy throws her arms around Jake one last time, her tears still falling on his t-shirt.
“Be safe, babe,” she tells him, pressing a final lingering kiss on his lips. The last glimpse she gets of him is a soft, sad smile as he pulls away, his fingers slipping out of her grasp as he’s escorted out of the room, the door closing behind him.
For the first time in nearly a year, she’s alone. She can’t see him, call him, or text him. She can’t hear his voice (aside from a video on her phone of him drunkenly trying to act out scenes from Die Hard in his apartment that he insisted she film one night after coming home from the bar - a video that she’ll watch every day that he’s gone). Just like that, the best thing in her life has vanished into thin air.
She so badly wants to throw the glass of water across the room and scream out in a fit of rage, but she’s stable enough (barely) to know that she’s in a government building and Amy Santiago would never do such a thing. Instead, she silently slides down the wall until she’s sitting on the cold floor, burying her face in her hands. She isn’t sure how long she sits there, crying quietly and trying to figure out how she’s supposed to live without him, but eventually there’s a soft knock on the door followed by it opening slowly.
She looks up to see Kevin standing there, seemingly unsure of how to approach her in this situation. He appears to be more composed than she is, though upon further inspection she realizes his eyes are also tinged with red and his hands are very slightly trembling.
“One of the agents informed me that you were still here,” he explains. “I was wondering if you would like a ride home since you were transported here with Raymond and Jacob.”
It dawns on her that she hasn’t even thought about getting home. After weeks in a Texas prison, she was excited to sleep in her own bed earlier today. All of the appeal of this idea is lost when she realizes she’ll be sleeping in it alone.
Amy nods, wiping her face with her sleeve and getting to her feet. “That would be nice, thank you.”
The walk to Kevin’s car is silent and the cold air is making her shiver, so she’s appreciative of the comfortable, heated leather seats as they pull out of the parking lot of the top-secret FBI building off the New Jersey turnpike.
“I’m sorry about Captain Holt,” Amy says a few minutes into the drive after noticing Kevin’s grim expression.
“Raymond is safe, that’s all I can ask for,” Kevin says, his eyes glued to the road. “And you don’t need to apologize, Detective Santiago, you’re in the same position as I am.”
“Jake and I have been together less than a year and I can’t imagine life without him. I can’t even think about how hard it would be after building a whole life together,” she says earnestly.
He nods in appreciation of her understanding, his eyes flicking over to her briefly.
“It doesn’t get any easier,” he says after a few more minutes have passed. She looks over at him, trying to figure out what he’s referring to. “Loving a cop. I’m sure that it is different for you, given that you share the profession, but I assure you it will not be easy. Despite his flaws, I believe that Peralta cares deeply about helping people in the same way that my husband does. Unfortunately, it means that he has often been a target of those who do not share such values.”
Amy’s heart breaks with two bitter realizations - one, that Holt and Kevin have likely been in similar situations before and that this is another rude interruption to their happy life together, and two, that Jake will never be fully safe or secure in the job that they have. In twenty years, they could be doing this again…or worse.
“You’re right, sir,” Amy says, fighting back more tears. “But as awful as it is, I think it also means that we’re lucky to have found people that put their own lives above others, even if we wish they wouldn’t.”
“I agree,” Kevin says without missing a beat, his voice softer than before. “And, Amy, please call me Kevin. I believe we’ve now been through enough together to bother with formalities.”
Amy smiles, though it fades as soon as she realizes that if he told her to ‘call him Kevin’ on any ordinary day, her first reaction would be to call Jake and freak out over the captain’s husband’s acceptance of her. Sticking her still shaky hands in her coat pockets, she freezes as she feels the small scrap of paper that she forgot about Jake placing there earlier. She quickly pulls out and unfolds the paper, her eyes scanning his messy scrawl:
I, Jake Peralta, hereby swear with this totes legally binding document that I love Amy Santiago for every day that we are apart (and every day after that) plus a million more
Tears streaming silently down her face, Amy Santiago swears in this moment that she will continue to love Jake Peralta every day for the rest of her life (plus a million more).
vi.
The night after they decide to move in to her apartment, they sleep at his. Although she would never in a million years want to make it her permanent residence, the little loft in Cobble Hill has become one of her favourite places.
His eternally-unmade bed is the same one where they broke the best rule she’s ever broken on their first real date. She’s spent countless nights falling asleep on his couch after a long work day, waking up with a stiff neck from awkwardly leaning on his shoulder and a blanket draped over her. The tiny kitchen with a broken dishwasher is where he taught her how to properly cook mashed potatoes after yet another Thanksgiving gone wrong.
“I called the landlord and told him I won’t be extending my lease next month,” Jake tells her as they settle into the couch.
“I thought you would be more reluctant to let go of this place,” she remarks, leaning back against his chest.
He shrugs. “It’s just an apartment.”
She grabs his hand as his arms wrap around her and he sinks back into the pillows, turning on the TV.
“Sweet, Love It Or List It marathon!”
A few minutes into watching a couple in their mid-twenties that somehow have 1.2 million dollars lying around to drop on some beachfront property, Amy turns and kisses his jaw to get his attention.
“What’s up, babe?” he asks, still watching the television.
“I just wanted to say thank you again for today. That was really mature of you.”
It’s not a word she often uses to describe her boyfriend, but she means it. She’s never doubted that he cares about her happiness, but putting it above one of their bets is an unprecedented move. It’s hard for her to believe that this is the same guy that made her wear a plastic dress and dance to a song from Titanic in front of their colleagues or the same guy who spent every waking moment finding ways to embarrass her at work. That was the guy she fell in love with and still loves, but she thinks she loves the man in front of her today even more. Maybe she’s grown up a bit, too, because seeing him make a sacrifice for her happiness brought her more joy than any childish rivalry ever could.
“It’s not a big deal, Ames. I just want to live with you, I don’t care where.”
“I know, me too,” she agrees. “But there was a time that you would’ve cared more about winning that bet anyways. I think my boyfriend’s becoming an adult.” She winces, shaking her head. “I wish that didn’t make me sound like a pedophile.”
She feels his chest vibrate as he laughs, constricting his arms around her.
“I could still kick your ass in a bet any day if I wanted to,” he clarifies, making her roll her eyes. “I just…I don’t know, I guess if we’re in this for the long haul, I’ve gotta compromise sometimes. Like how you drank an orange soda the other day.”
“I had a sugar craving and it was all we had,” she reminds him. “But yeah, I think that’s a good idea.”
She settles back into him, allowing her eyes to flutter shut earlier than normal after the day she’s had, being lulled into sleep by Jake’s hand slowly and steadily running up and down her arm. She thinks about her parents as she drifts off, of their successful thirty-six year marriage built on trust and understanding and compromise. That’s the kind of love that lasts a lifetime - the kind of love that she’s beginning to think she’s found for herself.
vii.
Amy’s heart is racing with the possibility of an impending panic attack when she gets out of the car and marches to the roof of the building at 397 Barton St.
She shouldn’t be nervous. She passed the practice test with flying colours. She’s definitely going to be a sergeant, advancing her on the path to becoming the youngest female police captain in the NYPD. The only barrier in her mind preventing her from taking the test is, ironically, also her biggest supporter.
The second she steps onto the roof, she’s flooded with memories and emotions from over three years ago. She can still feel the brisk January air and hear the sound of Jake’s laughter as she attempts to throw nuts in her mouth and fails miserably. She recalls vividly the way that her heart started to swell as she realized the worst date ever had quickly become the best. She felt it again the next morning when Holt thanked them for turning down the relief team and she had to contain a small smile, and she hasn’t stopped feeling it since.
That was the night that Jake began to fall for her, and the night that she realized he was so much more than the childish, annoyingly clever detective she’d pegged him as.
Flash forward to three years later, and that same man is continuing to catch her off guard. She never dreamed she would consider deterring her career for a relationship. To her credit, she never dreamed she would be in a relationship like this.
He finds her after twenty minutes because it’s Jake and he knows her better than anyone. He’s also the best detective she knows, though she doesn’t say it often because she knows it’ll go to his head. He understands the significance of the record of their stakeout, though she isn’t surprised by that either.
Frankly, she’s also not surprised when he says “you can’t be afraid to be successful, you’re too good for that.” There’s been no indication in eight years of knowing Jake that he would be at all threatened by his girlfriend becoming his professional superior. Perhaps other men would be, certainly some her ex-boyfriends would’ve found discomfort in being her subordinate, but this isn’t just some man. This is Jake.
This is the same guy that punched his lifelong hero in the face for calling his boss that he barely knew at the time a homophobic slur, the same guy that recently helped her explain racial prejudice to their coworker’s children, the same guy that watches the news with her and voted for Hillary and has had many conversations with her about their shared world views. So, yes, of course his first thought when faced with the possibility of his girlfriend, both younger than him and a woman of colour, getting a promotion before him is that they can get premium cable now. Jake isn’t just good to her, he is objectively good.
“I love you,” she sighs with her hand on his chest, because she doesn’t have any other words to explain how much this means to her.
“Love you too.”
She leans up to kiss him, hoping to god that he understands how lucky she considers herself to have found a man that sees her as an equal. It’s one of so many reasons that she’s beginning to think her dream future is closer than she thought, though no amount of binders could’ve forecasted that she would find someone she would sacrifice everything for, but will never have to.
viii.
The waiting area of Jericho Supermax Prison is a desolate room with three metal chairs, dim fluorescent lighting and one apathetic-looking woman sitting at the reception desk. There’s only one other person waiting, a woman about ten years older than Amy with shiny blonde hair, red lipstick and expensive-looking clothes that make Amy’s jeans, plain black tank top and slightly-greasy hair tied up in a ponytail look severely lackluster. She wanted to look good the first time Jake sees her as a free man, but she’s been working tirelessly to get him out and the exoneration happened so quickly and then she was getting on the first plane to him.
Amy’s hands are shaking with nerves. She’s been waiting for Jake for fifteen minutes longer than she was told she would be. The guards assured her that he would be out any moment, but a small part of her is still terrified that somehow his release will be delayed or canceled for some reason even though he’s both morally and legally an innocent man now.
She decides that talking to someone will help, even if the only someone she has to talk to could be the wife of a serial killer or the sister of an arsonist or something else along those lines. Her imagination runs wild with possibilities (she can think of a lot of them, she’s a cop).
“Are you waiting for someone?” she asks the woman, quickly realizing it’s kind of a stupid question for someone in a literal waiting room.
The woman looks over at her, her red lips spreading into a wide smile. “Yes, my husband. He’s been in here for ten years.”
Amy’s mind flips through the many possible crimes that could result in a ten-year sentence, and the woman seems to read her expression.
“He was given a life sentence for murder, but they found the real killer last week,” she explains, still smiling. “He was acquitted of all charges.”
Amy’s expression softens with sympathy for the woman. “So was my boyfriend.”
“What was he charged with, if you don’t mind me asking?” The woman moves over into the chair next to Amy, clutching her black handbag. “I’m Laura, by the way.”
“Amy,” she answers with a small smile. “He was charged with bank robbery when he was undercover - we’re with the NYPD - after he got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time trying to arrest someone else. We finally proved that she’s guilty, though, and of a lot more than he was charged for - she’s going to prison for a long time. It’s just been a crazy twenty-four hours.”
Laura nods sympathetically, seemingly unbothered by Amy unloading so much on her.
“How long was he locked up in here?”
“Two months.”
As soon as Amy says it she realizes that the hardest two months of her life are nothing compared to the ten years this woman has endured without her husband. The thought that Jake could’ve been gone for fifteen years if Holt hadn’t made the discovery about the diamonds makes her feel nauseous.
“You must be so excited to see him,” Laura says softly. “John and I are going to our house in California for a few months - making up for lost time, you know?
Amy nods, thanking the universe once again that she and Jake only have eight weeks to make up for.
“Yeah, it’s been hard, but I can’t wait t-“
She stops talking as she sees the doors fling open and a guard step out into the waiting room, Amy’s entire world right behind him. She swears the sun comes out in the gloomy prison waiting room, and it feels like she can see colour for the first time in two months.
“Jake!” she pretty much squeals, dropping her bag and sprinting until she slams into him and her arms fling around his neck.
His beard tickles her cheek as their faces brush against each other. He lifts her off of her feet with a surprising amount of strength likely fuelled by adrenaline, spinning her around. She lets out a gleeful laugh as he finally sets her down, his fingers pressing into her cheeks while he leans in to kiss her. She hasn’t felt his lips in so long, she nearly forgot that kissing him is her favourite activity on Earth (better than crossword puzzles, binder-making and even reading).
Her hands clutch desperately at his dark blue t-shirt, much softer than his prison clothes were when she held him on visiting day and wished that she didn’t have to let him go.
“I love you so much,” he whispers for only her to hear.
“I love you more,” she tells him, which she thinks she would if it were possible to love someone that much.
“You guys really got me out. I’m really free?”
Her eyes begin to well with tears at the disbelief in his voice. For all their talk of ‘we’re definitely going to get you out’ and ‘don’t give up hope’, there were moments for both of them where hope seemed futile.
“You’re free, babe,” she promises him, stroking his hair. “We’re going home. For good.”
She adds the last part to make it clear to him, herself, and the powers that be that she does not intend to lose him again. After six months in Florida, two months in prison…she’d be content to never leave his side for the rest of her days.
“We fly back to New York in two hours, we should head to the airport.”
He nods, taking her hand and holding it tightly, as he will for the car ride to the airport and the flight to JFK and in a booth at Shaw’s with their friends a few hours after.
She leads him over to the chair she’d been sitting in to grab her bag, where she’s packed his favourite jacket, a bottle of orange soda, a bag of Doritos, and his phone, fully charged and ready for Die Hard viewing on the plane.
“Congratulations, you two,” Laura says with a grin.
“Thank you,” Amy says, looking up at Jake and squeezing his hand. “Will your husband be out soon?”
She nods. “The guard just told me five more minutes.”
Amy realizes she was so wrapped up in Jake she didn’t even hear the conversation happening five feet away from her.
“Well, give my congratulations to him as well. Enjoy California!” Amy smiles at her before leading Jake out of the building.
“Ames, did you make a new best friend?” Jake teases her, wrapping an arm around her as soon as they’re outside, his eyes squinting as he basks in the sun that he hasn’t seen outside of the tiny prison courtyard in so long. She hasn’t had the same misfortune, but the world does seem brighter now that he’s by her side. “What am I going to tell Kylie?”
She laughs, leaning into him. Eventually, she will talk to him about how two months could’ve been fifteen years and how the thought of living without him for that long petrifies her, but not today. “I needed someone to vent to while I was waiting for you. I was scared.”
Jake hops into the passenger seat of her rental car, staring at her with fondness as she adjusts her mirrors and takes off the parking brake. Safety first, always. She catches a glimpse of Jericho Supermax in her rearview mirror as she pulls out of the parking lot, grateful that she never has to come back here. In fact, she may just avoid South Carolina entirely.
Jake’s hand strokes her thigh as she gets on the highway towards the airport, making her whole body feel warmer. She grabs his hand and lifts it to her lips, kissing his knuckles as her eyes stay fixed on the road. With every moment she’s touching him, her world seems to fall further back into place. If anything makes her realize how much she loves Jake Peralta, its the fact that nothing makes sense without him.
ix.
Four-drink Amy loves Jake. Every version of her does, but after two beers quickly followed by two tequila shots - turns out your friends are very eager to buy you drinks when you just got engaged - she’s suddenly very uninterested in her conversation with Terry and practically pushes him out of the way as she spots her boyfriend - no, her fiancé - sitting across a booth from Rosa and Charles.
“There you are!”
She slides into the seat next to him, placing a hand on his leg and using the other to grab his shirt and pull him in for a kiss. When he attempts to break the kiss after a moment, she tightens her grip on him and deepens the kiss.
“Okay, we’re leaving now,” Rosa says, pushing Charles out of the booth while he continues to smile gleefully at the happy couple.
Amy groans as Jake pulls apart from the kiss anyways, his hand on her shoulder keeping them separated.
“Babe, we can’t sit here and make out in front of all our coworkers,” Jake tells her. She frowns, still trying to shift closer to him. “We can go make out in a closet, though.”
Grinning, she allows Jake (who’s had a few drinks himself) to take her by the hand and lead her down the hall to an empty supply closet. She locks the door behind her and throws herself at him before he can say a word.
“We’re getting married,” she murmurs on his lips between desperate kisses, “you’re going to be my husband, I’m gonna be your wife...”
“Oh, that is so hot,” he grunts, backing her up against the wall. She wastes no time in sliding his flannel shirt off and tugging at the bottom of his t-shirt until he lifts it off himself and tosses it aside. “Babe, are we really gonna have sex in this closet?”
Amy removes her shirt and kisses him again, grinning as he undoes the button of her jeans and his fingers graze her dark red underwear, perfectly matching her bra. She’s thrilled that she’s somehow wearing his favourite set despite never imagining today would end this way (okay, maybe he’s not so predictable after all). It should’ve been a normal Tuesday evening that likely would’ve ended with them passing out on the couch after a long day of heisting. Instead, it’s the best day of her life so far.
Surprising her, not for the first time that evening, Jake lifts her up onto a stack of boxes so she’s at the perfect height to wrap her legs around him and kiss him harder.
“Oh my god, Ames-“ he moans as she thrusts against him, feeling how hard he is immediately.
“Let’s do this, Peralta,” she smirks, the red thong he loves so much discarded on the floor.
A few incredible minutes later as he’s making her feel things she’s only ever felt with him, which are heightened by her level of drunkenness and the euphoria of getting engaged, she glances at their tightly entwined hands and spots the sparkling ring on her finger. She moves the hand to his face and kisses him slowly, sinking into him as the love pouring out of her heart swallows her whole and all she can feel or think or want is Jake. She loves him, she loves the way he makes her feel, and she loves that she gets to spend the rest of her life loving him.
x.
On the day that Amy marries Jake Peralta, she falls in love with him more times than she can count.
She falls in love with him when she wakes up in his arms and quickly scurries off to the guest bedroom before Boyle arrives because they promised they wouldn’t sleep together the night before their wedding day due to some old superstition.
She falls in love with him when they realize maybe it’s not just a superstition and that there is very much a bomb in their wedding venue. He’s the most prepared she’s ever seen him, fully equipped with nicotine patches and plans to save the day.
She falls in love with him when he says he would marry her during a King Kong attack and she genuinely laughs for the first time that day, reminding her that this is the reason she’s marrying him and the venue, the dress, the cake...none of it could be more irrelevant as long as she gets to be his wife.
She falls in love with him when she sees his smile while she walks down the aisle towards him to the soft sounds of Mlep(clay?)nos’ violin. She’s never felt so happy as she does when they exchange their vows, and that moment is quickly beat when Holt tells him he may kiss the bride and she feels his soft, warm lips against her own and his hands on her back. They are husband and wife.
She falls in love with him when they’re back at their apartment many hours later, him in plaid pyjama pants and her in nothing but her wedding night lingerie that he only saw on her for five seconds before ripping off and a baggy t-shirt. There’s an extra-large pizza in front of them because neither of them actually ate anything since breakfast. She’s curled into him on the couch, pressing lazy, half-drunk kisses to his shoulder.
“We’re married, babe,” she says, beginning to giggle softly.
“Totally married,” he agrees, his thumb stroking her legs that are draped over his lap. “Like...matrimony-stylez.”
She laughs at the memory of a younger Jake and Amy, thinking of how foolish her former self was for not kissing him right then and there. She decides to make up for it by kissing him now, even though they both just ate a ton of garlic bread.
“I love you so damn much,” he murmurs softly after kissing her back.
Amy says it back, though she’s beginning to think she’ll never be able to convey with words just how much she means it. Her love for him knows no bounds, no worldly limits, and if it’s only grown stronger over the years she’s spent falling in love with him, she knows it won’t ever fade. Amy loves Jake with every inch of her being, and the look in his eyes right now makes her think that he might just love her that much too.