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It was supposed to be safe. Routine. Just a stakeout. Jake had complained about how boring it would be, pouting exaggeratedly. He'd held it as best he could, but quickly broke into the broad, lip-biting grin that made her melt a little no matter how many times she saw it.
Jake, who'd leaped out of the car and pelted after their perp the second he'd appeared, Amy right behind him. Jake, who'd cornered him in an alley and warned him to drop the weapon.
Jake, who wasn't wearing a vest.
The perp's eyes gleamed dangerously in the low light. In a blink, his gun was raised.
Multiple shots. Amy's ears rang. Muzzle flashes dazzled her.
She gave herself a mental once-over, making sure she was unhurt. Blinking the lights out of her vision, she saw their perp and winced at the grisly sight. Unquestionably dead. She turned her head to check in with Jake.
And saw him prone, hand pressed to his chest.
For just one moment, she stood rooted to the spot while ice ran through her, while her world began crashing down around her. A flicker of movement spurned her into action.
"Jake!" She skidded to his side, barking their location into her radio, voice high and fast. "Officer down, gunshot wound to the chest, I repeat, officer down with a gunshot wound to the chest."
"Amy..." he moaned.
"Jake, oh god." A dark stain spread on his shirt. She pried his fingers away from its source and tried not to focus on the ragged hole revealed, instead covering it back up with her own two hands and leaning as much of her weight onto it as she could.
Jake screamed. "I know, I know, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," Amy whispered.
He bit it off, clenching his jaw, and the raw sound bounced off the close walls. His face was twisted in pain.
"Least it... it wasn't you that - that shot me this time," he forced, voice hitching.
"Only you would try to be funny while you're bleeding in an alley." Amy's words were full of tears.
With a grunt of effort, Jake moved his hand to rest on top of hers. His squeeze was weak. For just a second, Amy flipped her palm upwards to squeeze back.
His blood looked black. It slicked their fingers. It pulsed in time with Jake's heartbeat, a warm flush against Amy's hand. She repressed a gag and renewed the pressure. A strangled groan slipped out from behind clenched teeth, ending in wet, choking, gasping.
"Shh, I know, just hang on, it's going to be fine, you're - you're going to be fine."
His breathing settled into a ragged and shallow inhale, exhale, each one scrabbling for the next. Amy considered letting up on his chest, but there was so much blood already; the growing stain was swallowing him up.
"Ames..." The fraying thread of sound barely reached her ears.
"Jake?"
"M'tired..."
Panic shot through her. "I know you are, but you have to stay awake. You hear me? I need you to stay awake."
The alley was quiet but for the breathing of two people. Red dotted Jake's lips.
"Jake?"
His eyes slipped closed.
"No, no no no no." Amy shook him, tapped his face. "Wake up, please, Jake, open your eyes, I need you to open your eyes!"
She slapped him, hard. His brow twitched, and glassy eyes made an appearance.
"Oh thank god." She bowed her head and took a shaky breath. The world remained intact a second longer. "Jake, baby, look at me." She cupped his face in her hand. His gaze meandered to her vicinity, but went right through her. She saw his lips form an Amy, but there was no sound.
"You need to stay awake," she searched for comprehension in his look, "Please, baby, don't fall asleep." She prayed he understood.
The bleeding was slowing. She could feel his heartbeat weaken. His hand spasmed, then lay cold and limp. His ring glinted. His eyelids fluttered.
"No!" Amy lunged forward, as if to chase him into unconsciousness and haul him back out. The red handprint smeared on his cheek. "Come on, come on." She tried desperately to rouse him, but his eyes stayed resolutely shut. Tears fell thick and fast, mingling with the blood. "Hold on, just hold on." She sobbed. "I can't - I can't be without you, Jake."
Sirens split the bubble around them. Hope sparked. "That's help, they'll fix this, this isn't how it goes, right? We've only just got married, and you always wanted to be a dad, and-"
The chest beneath her hand stilled.
She couldn't feel a heartbeat.
And the world, held at bay all this time, finally, finally came crashing down.
Amy wasn't sure if it was her hands that did compressions, her mouth that breathed for him. She felt far away; this couldn't be happening. She wasn't there. She was a passive onlooker in her own body: she felt the sickening squelch with every compression, tasted the metal on her tongue, but it was happening in a dream. She couldn't see the nightmare through the tears.
Hands grabbed at her, pulled her away. For an instant she fought, breaking away, pushing through the people swarming him, shrieking Jake's name. More hands held her back.
"Sergeant, please, they're trying to help!"
Reality snapped back into place. She blinked the tears from her eyes, and the bodies resolved into paramedics lifting Jake onto a stretcher and carting them away, shouting urgently. More were covering the body and taking it away. She couldn't summon the energy even for anger. She chased after Jake, through the thickening crowd, the beat cop following.
She saw his shirt cut open, saw them fit plastic into his mouth to force breath into his lungs, saw them load him into the ambulance, heard them shout "Clear!"
She saw his body jerk, then lay pale and still.
Again.
And again.
She was going to be sick.
And then she heard the shout, and saw the jerk, and heard the most beautiful thing in the world: "We've got a pulse!"
Amy though she might pass out from the rush of relief. Her legs were weak and her vision tunneling when she bounded into the ambulance before they could shut the doors.
"Sergeant!" The beat cop. "You should come back to the precinct, we need a statement."
Her stare was utterly wrecked. "He's-" her voice broke. "He's my husband."
"Oh." It was very small.
Amy took Jake's hand, gripped it tight enough that tendons stood out on her forearm. The doors slammed shut on the cold night, the flashing lights, and that cop's mournful look.
There was blood on Amy's sleeves.
She'd burst out of the ambulance after it screeched to a halt, running alongside the gurney as even more doctors converged, until a nurse caught her arm and told her she couldn't go any further, and sagged as she watched Jake be rushed down a corridor, out of her view. Anxiety wormed its way under her skin and settled there. She couldn't see him, she wasn't with him, she didn't know if he was -
She raised her hands to rub at her eyes, and remembered. The blood. It was drying tacky on her hands, cracking along the lines of her palm, and it was too much. Clean. She needed to be clean.
She asked a sympathetic nurse for directions to the bathroom, and stumbled inside. She avoided her own gaze in the mirror, instead scrubbing furiously, into the creases, up onto her wrists, under her fingernails, trading the red of blood for that of raw skin.
She pulled off her rings, washed off what caked under them, washed them individually, making sure nothing remained in the crevices of the diamond. Eventually, there was nothing more to do. They shone. Amy stared at them. One second. Two. Gently, she replaced them on her finger.
Then shoved a fist to her mouth to keep in the sob. It came out anyway.
She collapsed down to the bathroom floor, curled up against the wall, and cried. She cried until her eyes burned dry, and leaned her face back against the wall, savoring the coolness on flushed skin. She sucked in a shaky breath, grabbed the porcelain sink.
And hauled herself up.
She splashed cold water on her face, wiped away smeared makeup and tear tracks, retied her disheveled ponytail. Her red-rimmed eyes remained.
And now, sitting ramrod straight in a waiting room chair, clutching cold coffee, there was blood on Amy's sleeves. She couldn't get it out with just soap and water. It would probably need hydrogen peroxide, or something.
God, she needed a cigarette. She couldn't step out though, because the surgery would take a while, but any moment a doctor could walk in with an aggrieved expression and the words I'm sorry on their lips...
"Amy."
She jumped. "Captain," and, surprised, "Kevin."
Of course, Holt would have been informed. Amy started as she realized she hadn't even thought to contact the squad, or Karen, for that matter.
"I should call the squad."
"It's already done, they'll be arriving soon." He sat heavily into the chair beside her. Kevin gave her shoulder a squeeze, and took a seat on Holt's opposite side. Amy was grateful he hadn't sat next to her as well; she felt boxed in enough already.
"But his mother, sir?"
"Of course. I can call her, if you'd like?"
The temptation was strong. "No, I'll do it." She walked to the corner and quashed her dread.
Voicemail. Irrational anger surged. Her son had been shot. He died in Amy's arms, and was brought back, and she couldn't pick up the damn phone.
It was recording, had been for several seconds. Amy gave a hurried message saying it was an emergency, to call back the minute they got this, but no more. She pressed the heels of her palms to her eyes for a long moment after hanging up.
Making her way back to her seat, she shook her head. Silence hung thick in the air. She picked at a loose thread on her cuff. The blood had dried brown.
"Amy."
She stared into her lap.
A hand rested, large and warm, on her shoulder. "I can't tell you what's going to happen, Amy. I can tell you that I haven't met anything yet that could keep Jake down. And I have faith he'll make it through. You should too."
Amy finally met Holt's gaze, steady and sure. A few stray tears spilled onto her cheeks, and she swiped them away. She was so sick of crying.
"Thank you, Captain."
Silence settled again, but one not quite so stifling.
More members of the squad did start wandering in soon, as Holt predicted. Even Hitchcock and Scully found their way in. Rosa was first, in her leather jacket and black jeans like she'd never gone home. She didn't say a word, but pulled Amy into a tight hug that meant far more. Gina had bloodshot eyes and streaked mascara. She didn't say anything either, and Holt went over, speaking to her quietly. Boyle was weeping openly, and cried into Amy's shoulder for a minute before Rosa led him away. Terry was still in pajamas. He gave her the gentlest look she had ever seen, said "Oh, Amy," and swept her into a hug. She could have wept again; she felt like a child in his arms. He set her down, but kept holding both her hands. "He's going to be okay," he said, and he sounded so confident, so reassuring, that for a second, she believed him. She nodded. She didn't trust her voice.
And so they waited.
Hours dragged by in this way. Amy phoned Karen a few more times, to no avail. She was probably asleep. Amy's fingernails were bitten to the nub. Others dozed, but her nerves were sliced open and exposed. Jake's scream rattled in her head. She felt paper-thin.
It happened when pale light started mingling with the harsh fluorescents, when rose just started to stain the horizon. A doctor walked in.
"Those here for Detective Jake Peralta?" she said.
Seven pairs of eyes snapped in her direction. Eight, after Scully was nudged awake.
"He made it through surgery."
Sighs of relief, cries of joy, but Amy just collapsed back into her chair. Static played in her head. The doctor was still talking ("He's not out of the woods yet, but we're optimistic,") but Amy couldn't focus.
Jake was alive.
"He can have visitors, but only one at a time, and only family," she finished.
The eyes moved to her. Amy stood on liquefied legs. She followed the doctor, through the supportive pats of the squad, and was led to a doorway. She walked through and saw him.
He was pale, thoroughly bandaged, hooked up to myriad machines, but one of those machines beeped with his heart, as if announcing, over and over:
Jake Peralta is alive.
Later, there would be brown eyes opening. There would be Karen racing in. There would be a hospital room filled with well-wishes. There would be pain and recovery and desk duty and frustration and setbacks and god, the whining.
But at that moment, there was his hand in hers, and the sound of the heart monitor, and the warmth of sunrise, and Amy's world stitching itself back together.