Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

One second, Doctor Kevin Cozner Phd. is walking across campus on a normal, slightly overcast morning, past clusters of students, the air filled with chatter and the faint smell of coffee; the next he’s on the ground, the bang of a single shot echoing in his ears and there is screaming.

So much screaming, a cacophony of voices, utter pandemonium.  

The side of his head seems to be on fire and warm liquid drips down into his eyes. Kevin wipes at it without thinking. His fingertips come away bright red. He blinks, thinking of the discussion the faculty had regarding the implementation of active shooter drills. How much he’d wanted to ask Raymond about his opinion, only to remember that Raymond was gone. Whisked away to a secure location by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Kevin draws in a shaky breath. People around him are running for their lives, in what seems to be blind panic, but he feels nothing. Since his return from France – to an empty home – he has been walking around in a stupor, performing his daily tasks mechanically, with as little emotional involvement as possible.

He finds himself wondering idly if this is it. If he is to die here, now, God knows how many miles from Raymond, unable to even remember the last words he said to his husband. He hopes they were I love you.

His grim line of thought is interrupted by a man who kneels on the ground next to him and touches his shoulder.

“Doctor Cozner, can you stand?”

Kevin looks up at the man. He is young and black and quite attractive, dressed in a dark suit and tie. Clearly, he belongs to neither student body nor university staff. Over the last few months, Kevin has seen enough agents to instantly recognize a member of the FBI when he encounters one. Somehow, he is not surprised.

The young man helps him to his feet; sirens are wailing in the distance.

Kevin thinks briefly of Raymond’s squad.

He realizes he does not want them here, not if this is an active shooter situation.

They have been kind to him and while he still finds himself reluctant to let them into his private life, he cannot help but feel heartened by their genuine love and respect for Raymond.

The young man is pulling him toward a car. It’s sleek and black, the windows tinted. Were the situation not so serious, Kevin might have raised an eyebrow at the cliché.

As he is pushed into the plush leather backseat, he hopes that his students and colleagues are safe. The agent sidles in next to him, shuts the door and gives the driver a nod.

“We’ll get you to a doctor, Doctor,” he tells Kevin, a glint of humor in his eyes, “You know, a medical one.”

While he is somewhat appalled at the glib remark under these horrifying circumstances, Kevin does appreciate the choice of medical instead of real as a specifier.  He remembers the last time some friendly ribbing curtesy of one of his brother’s dentist friends regarding the validity of his title almost resulted in Raymond physically assaulting the man.

“Thank you,” he replies stiffly, manners trumping all other concerns for a second. But only a second. Kevin looks out the window as the car pulls away. A police cruiser shoots past them, flashes of red and blue pulse through the car. Feeling faint, Kevin turns to address the young man. “What just happened?”

“You were shot, Mr. Cozner,” the young man says, his voice calm and reassuring, the actual content of the statement the complete opposite. “From the looks of it, I’d say the bullet grazed your temple.”

“Oh,” Kevin breathes, his fingers once more reaching up. He stops himself, fingertips hovering over the wound. “Oh, my Goodness.”

The young man nods once, his eyes dark and serious. “This was an attempt on your life. Jimmy Figgis sent someone to kill you.”

***

Kevin isn’t quite sure that the shock has worn off. He still feels numb and confused, even after the doctor has looked at his injury, declared it a scratch and applied a bandage. To his surprise, the FBI has not taken him to a hospital but a non-descript, grey building. Kevin was ushered inside, into what looked like an office, where he sat on a couch and let the doctor examine him.

Now the doctor is gone, replaced by two new agents, a man and a woman, both approaching middle age. Kevin does not know what exactly is expected of him.

“This is Agent Valchek,” the woman says, “I’m Marshal Haas. How are you feeling, Professor Cozner?”

Such a simple question and yet Kevin is not sure how to answer. His wound still stings; there is dried blood on the collar of his shirt. He was shot.

And they are not going to let him go home, he realizes. He can see it in their carefully guarded expressions; they have more bad news for him.

“I’m doing all right, considering the circumstances,” he says, voice clipped. “What is going to happen now? Have you arrested the…?” Kevin has no idea what to call the person who attacked him. Assassin sounds far too dramatic; besides he was not assassinated, therefore the term would be misapplied.

Marshal Haas, however, is already waving her hand in what seems to be an airy dismissal of his question. “No, he got away. It was close, though. Anyway, Figgis is getting desperate, coming for you like that. He’s never gone for family before. Seems like he really wants to lure your husband out of hiding, which is good news because it means he’ll get sloppy.”

It is a mystery to Kevin how she manages to sound so cheery.

“You did not arrest anyone,” he says, fingertips brushing the gauze on his temple. This is absurd.

Agent Valchek glares at him.

 “It happens.” Marshal Haas shrugs. “As for you…” Her voice drops meaningfully and Kevin tenses. “You are going into witness protection. We’ll discuss the details as soon as Detective Santiago gets here.”

“Detective Santiago?” He frowns, a sick feeling spreading in his stomach at the thought that something might have happened to her.

Misinterpreting his expression, Marshal Haas gives him an exasperated look. “Well, duh, if you’re in danger, so is she.” She brightens again, far too quickly, he thinks, “I’d say pack your bags, you’re going to Florida, but your bags will be packed for you,” she continues, a smidgen of apology in her voice, “Honestly, you can’t really bring any of your stuff.”

While Kevin’s emotions are in absolute turmoil – does this mean he will see Raymond again? what about Cheddar? – Marshal Haas narrows her eyes at him.

“But you’re still going to Florida,” she says, deadly serious.

Chapter Text

Detective Amy Santiago does not lose her nerve easily. She is a tough New York City cop, that’s how her dad raised her. Okay, maybe she isn’t Rosa Diaz-level tough, but still.

This though, this may be too much.

It starts with the radio transmission: active shooter at Columbia University, all units respond.

Instantly, Amy has ice water in her veins. She catches Terry’s gaze and says, “Sarge, I need tactical gear from the armory.”

“Yeah, me too.” Rosa stalks over and folds her arms across her chest.

Over the crackle of static, they hear officers give their names and badge numbers. Show me going.

Terry holds her eyes and shakes his head.

“I’m sorry, I can’t do that. We’re nowhere near the scene. The 26^th has first response. We have orders to stay and carry on as usual.”

Amy can’t believe what she’s hearing. She opens her mouth to protest, but before she can say anything, Gina pipes up, her voice uncharacteristically tentative.

“Wait, do you think Kev is there right now?”

“I know he’s there,” Amy says, her eyes boring into Terry’s, “he’s giving his weekly Greek linguistics seminar at ten.”

“How do you know that?” Rosa asks, looking at Amy like that’s a weird thing to know when it’s totally normal.

“His classes are listed on the university website.” Duh.

“Girl, you’re a stalker,” Gina says with way too much appreciation.

Amy shakes her head. “That’s not true and anyway, it’s not important. He’s there. He’s in danger!” She stares imploringly at Terry, pleading with her eyes. He’s the acting captain, she needs his signature.

“I’m sorry, but we can’t just ignore our orders,” Terry says. He sounds genuinely upset by the whole thing, which would be a comfort in any other situation.

“Dammit.” Rosa kicks Hitchcock’s desk, startling the detective out of his slumber.

“What did I do?” he whines.

“Look, I’m gonna get in touch with the 26^th, I’ll keep you posted, okay?” Terry turns to get into the captain’s office. Before he enters, however, he turns back to them one more time. “But you have to stay here and do your job!”

“If Captain Holt and Jake were here…,” Amy mumbles, then stops herself, unsure how to finish the sentence.  Her being in an active shooter situation would be the last thing Jake would want. He’d want her to be safe. But then, she knows he would try to go help Kevin. As for Holt, she can’t even imagine what he would do.

With a sigh, Amy slinks over to her desk and drops into her chair.

She feels utterly helpless.

***

Roughly fifteen minutes after the first transmission, they get the update. Only one shot was fired; the shooter is on the run; the FBI has taken over. One civilian was injured, no casualties.

It’s good news, all things considered.

Except that when Terry comes out of the office the second time, Amy only needs one glance at his face to know exactly what’s going on. He looks devastated.

“It’s Kevin,” he says.

***

“One shooter, one shot fired, and Kevin is the only one injured,” Rosa says, “you know what that means.”

Amy nods, feeling sick. “It was Figgis.”

As if that was the cue they were waiting for, the elevator doors slide open, revealing two men in suits.

“Detective Amy Santiago,” one of them says, flashing his badge, “I’m Marshal Nick Bister, we’ll need you to come with us.”

***

It’s one thing to be told that Kevin’s injury is superficial; it’s another to step into a room and see him sitting there on a worn leather couch, alive and well.

“Kevin!” Amy herself is a little surprised at the volume and pitch of her voice; it’s almost a squeal. She strides over to him; he gets up and then they both hesitate. Amy’s arms are open, awkwardly so. They don’t really have a hugging kind of relationship, she realizes way too late. In fact, Amy has not even seen Kevin hug is own husband.

This is weird, she thinks, I’m making it weird.

But just as she drops her arms, Kevin does embrace her. “I’m glad to see you are unharmed, Detective Santiago,” he says and a tear slides down Amy’s cheek. Silently, she’s committing this moment to memory, filing it under the way Captain Holt’s husband’s hugs feel. She knows she’ll want to reference this later.

“You’re the one who got shot,” she says into his woolen sweater.

There is something incredibly comforting about his smell, she thinks. It takes her a second to understand what it is. He smells like books and Captain Holt.

Chapter Text

Larry Sherbert likes to sleep in; at least that’s what Jake tells himself when he’s lying in bed in the morning, with no energy to do anything. He stares at the ceiling and thinks about Amy. It’s twelve minutes past ten, which means that she’s at the precinct. She’s probably wearing a grey pantsuit, maybe with a white or blue blouse. Her hair is most likely up in a neat ponytail or bun. He pictures her sitting at her desk, diligently typing away on a report.

Jake sighs, wishing he could be there.

But he can’t. He can’t be there, and he needs to stop. He needs to focus on what he can do.

It’s so hard, though.

Come on, Jakey, you can do it! You can do anything!

That’s what Charles would say, Jake can pretty much hear it in his head, and weirdly it actually helps. He groans and reaches for the remote on his bedside table.  He’s gonna watch the news first, then maybe one or two cartoons and then he’s going to get up and go to his storage unit.

Next to the remote there’s a box with leftover pizza from the night before. It was super gross when he first tried it, so Jake figures it can’t have gotten much worse. He takes a slice – it’s cold and rubbery, flopping down like a limp dick – and switches on the TV.

Monster trucks roar across the screen. Jake pulls a face as he bites off the tip of the slice. Yeah, it tastes like melted erasers, and why is he even surprised? Florida pizza is the worst, Florida everything is the worst.

He leans over to spit the chewed-up garbage pizza back into the box and changes the channel without looking. As he grimaces at the mess– hard to say if the stuff from his mouth even looks worse than the intact slices – the droning voice of a news reporter comes from the television.

“—currently. The campus is still on lockdown; students and faculty are asked to stay indoors as police search for the shooter.”

Jake glances at the screen and almost chokes on pizza crumbs when he reads the news ticker headline crawling along the bottom. Shots fired at Columbia University. Shooter still at large.

He is out of bed before he knows it, struggling into the crumpled pair of cargo shorts he finds in the pile of clothes on the floor. Thankfully his phone is in one of the pockets. Jake digs it out and starts googling for updates while he runs outside.  

At this hour, Holt is definitely at his ridiculous job at the Funzone – Jake will be forever mad at Florida for taking something that would have been hilarious under any other circumstance, aka Holt working at a place called the Funzone of all things, and ruining it by being a shitty state miles and miles away from everyone Jake loves. Anyway, if Holt is at work, he doesn’t know because he is such a stickler for rules that he’ll actually turn his phone off during work hours.

He hops on his ATV – he’s been thinking about applying for a job at Dan’s, if only to get Holt off his back – and takes off, as jerkily as ever.

By the time Jake arrives at the Funzone, the internet has very little to offer in terms of new information. Still no arrest, nothing about casualties, nothing about the number of shooters, just generally nothing. He hopes Amy isn’t there. Or Rosa, Terry or Charles…

Jake swallows, trying to unthink the thought that has been on his mind from the moment he saw the headline scrolling across his TV screen. Kevin is there. Jake does not know that. Holt would know. Or maybe he wouldn’t since he hasn’t seen his husband in months.

Perhaps Kevin isn’t even back in America, perhaps he got to his senses and said screw this and stayed in Paris. By the time they had to leave for Florida, Kevin still had another five days in France, after all. Holt and Kevin never even met; Kevin got a phone call from the FBI explaining the situation to him, that was all. So maybe Kevin is not currently undergoing a terrifying and life-threatening ordeal, Jake tells himself, maybe he’s shacked up in Paris with a hot French dude called Maurice or something, eating baguette and cheese and saying oh la la a lot.

And Jake would like to make himself believe that, but he can’t because for all his weird snobbishness and stuck-up-ness Kevin seems to genuinely love the captain.  He wouldn’t leave him, Jake thinks, not even for hot, French, baguette-toting Maurice.

There’s one more thing Jake can do before he has to face Holt, and that’s calling their Marshal. Haas has given them an emergency number. It’s saved on Jake’s phone. He taps it now, for the first time since coming to Florida and it goes straight to voicemail.

“Are you kidding me?!” Jake yells at the phone, turning the heads of a young guy with a tribal face tattoo and the kid he’s leading by the hand – the little boy has a matching symbol on his cheek, which Jake can only hope is non-permanent – as they walk past him into the Funzone.

So that leaves him with nothing.

Out of a strange compulsion, Jake hits refresh on the news page one more time. A new headline pops up. Professor shot at Columbia University.

Jake’s stomach twists into a painful knot. Nonononono, he thinks, then, okay, okay, okay, there’s more than one professor at Columbia, there are tons of professors, no doubt, no doubt, okay.

He taps the headline, but there’s no real story there. It’s basically just shots fired at Columbia, one professor shot, shooter still on the run.

“Larry?”

Jake whips around.

Holt is standing there, in the open door, glaring at him. His manager appears behind him; he’s a skinny, weaselly guy, probably easily impressed.

“Something wrong, Greg?” the manager asks.

“No, I was merely surprised to see my neighbor here…, but then I did encourage him to… ʻcheck this place outʼ for fun and recreation.”  Holt is still staring at him, a dark look in his eyes.

Jake swallows. He feels awful; his eyes are actually getting moist.

Noticing this, Holt’s expression softens with concern.

“Come on in, Larry, I’ll show you around,” he says and grabs Jake’s arm to pull him into the dark arcade.

“I mean I get that you’re friends, but he’s still gotta pay.” Manager guy, his nametag says Taylor, follows them.

“Uh.” Jake digs into his pockets and comes up empty-handed. In his hurry to get to the captain, he’s forgotten his wallet.

“I’ll pay for him.” After Holt has handed over a couple of bills, Taylor finally leaves them alone. Jake would have breathed a sigh of relief, if he actually felt any.

As soon as he’s sure no one is watching, Holt drags him out back into a shed filled with go-cart parts.

“What are you doing here?” And there is the outrage. Holt keeps his voice low, but he is pissed and worried.  “You cannot just show up at my workplace! We are supposed to be—”

Because there’s no good or easy way to do this, Jake simply shoves his phone at the captain.

For all his jokes about Holt’s lack of emotional expression, Jake now finds himself wishing he didn’t have to watch this.

Holt’s eyes widen a tiny fraction, he closes his mouth and swallows once, thickly.

“It was on the news this morning. I already tried to reach the Marshal but the call went straight to voicemail.”

Jake is about to ask what they should do next when Holt plucks the phone from his hand and starts dialing.

It’s a long number and he’s typing it in from memory.

He’s calling Kevin, Jake realizes, shocked but not really surprised, because of course he is, how could he not? Still, this is very against the rules.

They’re standing close enough for Jake to be able to hear the ringing tone. He tenses with every beep, the silences between them lasting an unbearable eternity. Kevin doesn’t pick up. The Captain ends the call just as the message that he’s unavailable starts to play.

“I’m calling the precinct,” Holt says next, “They must have more information.”

“Okay.” Jake shoves his hands into his pockets because he doesn’t know what to do with them. He doesn’t know what to do in general. What if the nine-nine really does have more information? What if it’s bad?

Holt has only punched in the first two digits when the phone in his hands begins to vibrate, the screen displaying the name Bunny. Startled, Holt looks up at Jake.

“It’s Haas!” Jake whisper-shouts.

It takes Holt two seconds longer to pick up than normal. He’s shaky.  “Hello, Marshal?” he asks, his voice hoarse.

Jake moves a little closer, he needs to hear this too.

“Greg? Why are you answering Larry’s phone?”

“Never mind that. What can you tell me about my husband? Is he okay?”

“Your—? Okay, you know what. I get it. You’re in shock. We were trying to keep the news contained, but the press, what can you do—”

Holt’s nostrils flare. Jake doesn’t think he’s ever seen the captain this upset before. It’s scary. “Doctor Kevin Cozner!” Holt cuts her off, “Is he all right? Tell me!”

“He was shot.” The words seem to suck the oxygen out of the room. Holt stands very still. He is not breathing, Jake thinks, he is not doing anything. “But his injury is superficial,” the Marshal’s voice comes over the phone and Holt closes his eyes, keeps them closed as she continues speaking. “He’s fine. He’s in a safe location. As is Detective Santiago. Look, we should not be doing this over the phone. Location one, tonight 1900 hours.”

There’s a click; the conversation is over, yet Holt makes no move to put down the phone. He just stands there, breathing in and out.

“Sir?” Jake asks tentatively, “Are you okay?”

Holt draws in a deep, shuddering breath. He opens his eyes, schools his face into its usual blank look. It’s weird to see the effort it takes him.

“You heard the Marshal. Tonight, 1900 hours,” he says finally, handing Jake the phone.

“Okay, okay, okay,” Jake says, wondering if he should ask if Holt needs anything, if he can do anything. He probably should. But his own legs feel rubbery and a tiny voice in his head is ranting, Man, that was messed up, Amy and Kevin are safe, thank God, but why the fuck would you not lead with that?! What the Hell?!

“I have to go back to work,” Holt says, smoothing down his non-creased pants. He’s all business again, or trying to be.

 “I’ll go,” Jake says, to work on tracking down Figgis, he adds in his head.

“No.” Holt puts a hand on his shoulder to stop him. “Don’t leave immediately. Too suspicious.” He pulls his wallet out of his pocket and hands Jake a few perfectly pristine bills. “Go play a few videogames or win yourself a stuffed animal from the claw machine first. Eat some soft-serve ice-cream.”

It’s such a dad-thing to do that Jake is momentarily flustered; his eyes are threatening to tear up.

He clears his throat. “Ooookay. Cool, cool, cool, no doubt, gonna go and play some games now, thanks, uh, captain.”

He managed to say captain, not dad, that’s gotta count for something, Jake thinks.

Chapter Text

“So, here’s what’s going to happen now,” says Marshal Haas after the quick introduction is over and Amy is sitting next to Kevin on the couch. “You’re both going into witness protection. We are making the arrangements right now. You’ll be leaving in a couple of hours, until then, you’ll stay here. Any business that needs taking care of will be handled by us. Questions?”

“What have about --?” Kevin and Amy blurt out at the exact same time, their questions overlapping into an incomprehensible jumble of words.

“I’m sorry, you should go first, Detective,” Kevin says, courteously as ever. He’s sitting up very straight, hands folded in his lap. Amy can’t help but admire his composure, but then, it would probably be foolish to expect anything less from the captain’s husband.

“No—I mean thanks,” Amy ducks her head. The Marshal is looking at her with ill-concealed impatience. “I was just wondering if you’ve made the arrest. The shooter could lead us to Figgis, right?” And finding Figgis would render the entire witness protection point moot. Captain Holt and Jake could come home, too. This should be the priority.

“Unfortunately, we’ve not caught him yet, no. We did find his weapon on the scene though, and we have identified him by the fingerprints left on it.”

“Okay?” Amy pauses, waiting for some elaboration on that, maybe a name? But the Marshal gives her nothing.

“What were you going to ask?” she says instead, addressing Kevin and Amy can’t help but feel rebuffed.

“I have a dog at home; I will need to make arrangements for someone to look after him in my absence. Will that be possible?”

“Sure, we’ll contact whoever you need to contact. Can’t have the pup starve to death, right?”

Kevin frowns, clearly displeased by the flippant remark. “Thank you,” he says archly. His gaze flicks to Amy as if seeking her support for his next question. “Am I correct in my assumption that you will send us to the same location as Detective Peralta and Captain Raymond Holt?”

Amy is a little proud of herself for being able to detect the sliver of hope in Kevin’s otherwise politely bland tone, not to mention the warmth when he said his husband’s name. Her own heart is beating a little faster. She has to resist the urge to grab his hand and squeeze it.

A sequence of emotions flicker across Haas’ face before her expression settles into a mix of annoyance and exasperation.

“No, you are not,” she says. “What do you think this is? Some kind of Honeymoon vacation service?”

Kevin, visibly taken aback by the harshness of her response, looks at Amy again.

“I’m sorry, I don’t—”

“Look,” the Marshal interrupts him, “we can’t send you to Peralta and Holt, okay? They already have new identities; they’ve been using them for months. You can’t just show up in their new lives like some long-lost relatives. It would be far too suspicious.  Figgis is looking for you. He is trying to kill you. So, you will get new identities and live undercover until we’ve arrested him.”

“We’re not going to see Jake and Captain Holt.” Even just saying the words out loud hurts. Amy looks down at her hands and presses her lips together. She feels a shift on the couch as Kevin sinks into the upholstery, his posture faltering.

“No, you are not to make contact. It is absolutely verboten. But,” and here Haas softens slightly, “we will keep you two together.” She shrugs, adding, “It’s never great to send a single civilian into witness protection alone, tends to end with a dead civilian.”

Really, Amy thinks, glancing at Kevin, whose brows are knit into the most severe frown she has seen on anyone’s face ever, what is there to say to that.

***

It looks real. That’s all Amy can think when she opens her new passport. Luisa Mac Allister’s passport.  Née Luisa Garcia. She grimaces.

“You cannot be serious,” Kevin says. His voice is almost toneless; his face even paler than before.

“I am very serious, Mr. Mac Allister,” Marshal Haas replies, unfazed.

“This is…” He gestures at the open passports on the table in front of them, “ridiculous.”

It’s quiet in the small cafeteria where Kevin and Amy have been served their lunch – going to need some fuel, you’ve got a long trip ahead of you, the Marshal said – and Kevin seems to be locked into some kind of staring contest with Haas.

Feeling miserable, Amy takes a sip of her water.

“I am dead serious,” Haas says finally. “This is your cover. It makes the most sense for a man and a woman living together.”

“I must be,” Kevin glances at Amy, hesitating as he tries to calculate, before visibly throwing in the towel and going for vague, “almost twenty years older than Detective Santiago!”

He’s exaggerating, Amy thinks, which isn’t really helping their case. Not that Haas seems to be willing to listen anyway. The Marshal merely raises an eyebrow.

“So?” She fixes Kevin with a glare. “Age is just a number.” It’s not the most withering rebuttal but she says it like a challenge. “If you were an older woman with a younger man, sure, people would talk, but for a man it’s totally acceptable to marry someone half their age; that’s just the world we live in.”

“And while that may or may not be the case, Marshal, there is still one thing you seem to be forgetting,” Kevin shoots back, his voice low and sharp. Amy has never seen him this angry before and it’s something. “I am gay. And I am not going back into the closet; I am not pretending to be married to a woman. Frankly, it is offensive that you would even suggest such a thing.”

Haas looks stunned for a second, her eyebrows shooting up almost to her hairline. Then she lets out a humorless chuckle.

“Man, do you not get it?” She huffs in exasperation and brings up one hand to tap her temple. Amy cringes, sensing what’s about to come.

When the Marshal continues, her voice is almost cheerful. “Half an inch to the left and your students would be picking bits of your skull and brain off their Converse Chucks right now. You’d be dead. Or, you know, medicine has come a long way, maybe you’d just be in a hospital bed with your husband feeding you apple sauce and wiping your butt for the rest of your life. Or the rest of his life because Figgis would definitely take him out as soon as he got the chance. Is that what you want? Because it’s still on the table. I’m sure Figgis would be happy to deliver.”

Next to Amy, Kevin has gone completely still. He’s sitting stiffly, back ramrod straight, jaw clenched. His hands are under the table, no doubt also clenched into fists.

“So, listen, James--” Haas’s eyes narrow; she’s about to deliver the final blow. It’s going to be brutal and after the day he’s had, Amy isn’t sure Kevin can take it. Either way, he shouldn’t have to.

“Okay, stop,” she interrupts, “that’s enough. We get it. We have no choice.” She glances over at Kevin and their eyes meet. He looks so miserable, it’s heartbreaking. “This is only for the duration of the case, which is ongoing and progressing, right?”

Haas shrugs at that, way too casually for Amy’s taste, but there really is nothing they can do about it.

“We’ll follow the rules, we’ll get through this and then we’ll go home,” she says.

“Okay, great!” Haas claps her hands together, and for a second Amy thinks the worst is behind them.

Until the Marshal opens her mouth again. “Time to take some wedding pictures!”

Chapter Text

Location one is a parking lot on the edge of town. It is deserted, most of the time. Except when Greg Stickney arrives today, at four in the afternoon, three hours early for their scheduled meeting with the Marshal. He circles the area, watching two young men go about their business – which is obviously a minor drug deal.

Captain Raymond Holt would have arrested them; Greg Stickney barely even manages to call the local police station. The woman on the phone tells him that they’ll send a unit to see what’s going on. When Greg completes his fourth round around the block, the two punks are gone, and there is no sign of the police.

For a second, he wonders if it might not be better to drive home to wait until evening, in case the police do show up – they might end up arresting him – but then he thinks about Greg’s empty house and his laptop with the Columbia University faculty page open in one browser tab.

It is always open in one tab.

Because he is weak.

After what happened today, he knows he won’t be able to look at Kevin’s picture.

Raymond pulls into the parking lot and settles in to wait.

***

When Kevin departed for France, Raymond developed certain coping mechanisms to deal with his husband’s long absence. One of them was tried and true, a single-minded focus on work, on completing tasks, one after the other.  This was a strategy he had employed since his youth, and yet he had not found it easy to return to it. Living without Kevin suddenly revealed how much living with Kevin had changed him, how it had given him a place of refuge outside of himself.

In his early years at the NYPD, Raymond had viewed himself as something like a snowplow. Here he was, head down, shoulders squared, pushing forward against an endless barrage of, well, snow would have been the more pleasant image, but honestly, it was bullcrap, hoping to forge a path not only for himself but for generations to come.

He’d always had the love and support of his mother and sister, of course, something he had learned not to take for granted when he realized that Kevin did not come from an equally loving home, but with Kevin it was different. With Kevin he had been able to build a home where he could leave the constant struggle behind.

It had not been effortless, their careful construction of a life, but more than any other partner Raymond had had before him, Kevin had been willing to put in the work, to bear the weight of Raymond’s exhaustion after a long day of not only fighting criminals but also colleagues and superiors, to turn first their apartment and later their house into a warm, bright place, where Raymond could truly let his guard down.

Raymond’s eyes blink shut. A fraction of darkness, shorter than a breath. The humid Florida heat soaks into his pores.

He was shot.

Oh, how those three words had plunged him into an unfathomable abyss.

Sometimes when he is feeling particularly lonely, Raymond compiles mental lists of things that irritate him about Kevin.   

His disinterest in the life and work of Frans Brüggen.

His lack of passion for accurate model trains.

His refusal to use his enormous intellect for the betterment of the world – aka the destruction of the cantankerous she-devil Madeline Wuntch.

It rhymes with hunch! There is something there, Kevin, I know I can use it, but how? Hunch…back? No, it’s too long, cumbersome, it lacks elegance! Help me!

Raymond, I know Madeline is a… complicated person, but—

Person? Oh Kevin, a vile spirit can escape from the Netherworld, it can wrap itself in old, decaying leather rags to disguise its true nature, but that does not make it a person!

Raymond’s fingers are gripping the steering wheel too tightly. His heart thumps hollow in his chest. He misses Kevin, even in his worst moods, when he is curt and snobby, withdrawn into his academic shell, resorting to sarcasm, gloating and saying I told you so, stubborn, sulky, hurt for no rational reason, passive-aggressive, bitchy.

As always, the most irritating thing about Kevin is that he is not here.

Raymond takes a deep breath, willing himself to calm down. Kevin is safe. And that is all that matters.

***

To Raymond’s surprise; Peralta shows up on time. He brings his ridiculous ATV to a stuttering halt next to Raymond’s car and cuts the engine. For a while, they both just stare straight ahead into the deserted Florida landscape.

It takes a few more minutes until the Marshal arrives. She is late. When she does show up, she looks tired as she waves for them to get into her car.

Before Jacob’s behind is even fully on the backseat, he blurts out his first question.

“Where are Amy and Kevin?”

It earns him a glare.

“In a safe location,” comes the curt reply. Haas’ unwillingness to elaborate is palpable.

In the time he has had to mentally prepare himself for the meeting, Raymond has gone over several strategies he might employ in the negotiation with the Marshal – and yes, it was obviously going to be a negotiation. At first, his blood still boiling from their short phone conversation, he was going to demand to see Kevin.

I need to see my husband now.

It had been the sole thought on his mind ever since he had first read that horrible headline on Peralta’s phone. Where is Kevin?

He glances over at Jake now. Jake, who is visibly upset, sweat shining on his scrunched-up forehead.

“And where is that? When are they going to get here?” Peralta asks, desperate for the answers Raymond seeks as well.

“They are already in Florida. As for here, specifically this town? They are not coming here, Larry.”

“What? What do you mean, they’re not coming here? How are we going to protect them if they’re not here?”

Haas watches Jake’s outburst in the rearview mirror. “They are protected,” she says evenly. “Just like Greg and Larry are. Your new identity is your protection.” She sighs, her gaze flicking from Jake to Raymond. “Don’t look at me like that. You know how this works.”

She is right, of course, as much as Raymond wishes she were not. He himself has come to the same conclusion hours ago. It is no surprise that the FBI would want to keep them separate to protect their cover.

Jake, however, is shaking his head in disbelief.

“Why not bring them here? We could look out for them; it would make this easier.” There is a pleading note to his tone that Raymond cannot help but find undignified – not that it’s any surprise from Jake at this point.

“People would talk if all of a sudden two new neighbors showed up, don’t you think? Keeping you two this close to each other was a risk we only took because you begged us not to send you to different places.” Haas fixes Jake with a glare and Raymond’s eyebrows shoot up. This is the first time he is hearing about this ʻbeggingʼ; in his own pre-extraction briefing with the federal agents their destination had already been decided. The option of separate arrangements had not been presented to him.

“Uuuuh,” Peralta shoots him a guilty glance. “Beg is a strong word. I feel like it was more of a suggestion. And it’s working! No one cares about us! We are incredibly boring! No one would care if like maybe my super cute girlfriend I met online showed up and moved in with me! What’s so suspicious about that?”

“And I assume Greg is just supposed to come out as gay? I’m sure no one would talk about that.”

“Or…maybe they’re half-brothers who’re just really close.” Jake shrugs, then, after a beat, bumps Raymond’s shoulder and adds a hastily mumbled, oddly hopeful, “Title of your sex tape?”

Peralta is clearly looking for his support, but Raymond has none to give – and is unwilling to even acknowledge the frankly quite disturbing quip – he refuses to meet Jake’s eyes, holding Haas’ gaze in the rearview mirror instead.  

“I want to know the exact nature of my husband’s injuries,” he says.

“A bullet grazed his temple. It left a shallow cut and he has a few scratches and bruises from the fall. That’s it. He’s fine.”

“Jesus…” breathes Jake.

Raymond nods, trying not to clench his hands into fists. He fails. His fingernails dig into his palms. “Thank you,” he says. “Have you arrested the shooter and/or made any progress locating Figgis?”

“No, but we’re following a few leads.”

“I see.” For a second, he contemplates asking about the duration of their stay in Florida but decides to suppress the impulse. It is obvious that there will be no new answers. “I have no further questions.”

Jake whips around, pulling a face. “What?”

“Then that concludes our meeting,” the Marshal says. “Greg, Larry.”

Jake whips around once more, this time to face her again. “What?!” he squawks.

***

The Marshal’s car has not even fully pulled out of sight before Jake grabs Raymond’s arm and whisper-yells, “We have to find them.”

Though he is not really surprised by this, Raymond still injects some disbelief into his tone to chastise him. “Have you not listened to anything we were just told?”

This does not have the desired effect on Peralta – when has it ever? – instead it causes petulant outrage. “How can you be on their side?” Jake asks, sounding hurt of all things.

After the day they have had, after what they have just learned, it is too much. How does Jake still not understand the stakes? How does he still act as though they are characters in a movie?

Raymond shakes his head, tired of keeping a lid on his fury.

“Their side?” he barks, making Jake flinch. It is not as satisfying as he hoped it would be. “There are only two sides here, and Figgis is on one of them. The other one is trying to keep him from murdering us and the people we love.”

“Yeah? Well, they’re going about it all wrong,” Jake has the nerve to protest.

Raymond snorts. “You want to find Santiago and Kevin, draw attention to them, have all of us in one convenient place and make that place obvious for anyone looking for exactly four people matching our descriptions.”

“Okay, if you say it like that, it sounds stupid, but—"

“Enough!” he yells. He is too loud, but they are in the middle of nowhere, the surrounding area flat and barren, they are alone, and he is so, so tired of this, of holding himself together. “I am not endangering my husband’s life any further than I already have!”

Jacob blinks, anger and defiance melting from his expression as his eyes soften with something Raymond has no desire to see. “Captain, you didn’t—”

Shaking his head, Raymond stalks to his car. “You heard the Marshal; this conversation is over.”

This time, Jake knows better than to try to stop him.

***

In his picture on the university faculty page, Kevin’s smile is serious and professional. No teeth – he is not a raging lunatic, after all –, a subtle quirk to his lips, his clear, blue eyes looking straight into the camera. The expression is not unlike the one he wears in their wedding photo, taken on the city hall steps minutes after the ceremony. It is one of achievement, the smile of a man reaping the fruits of hard labor.

Raymond loves that smile.

He loves Kevin.

His finger sliding across the touchpad of Greg Stickney’s laptop, Raymond pushes the cursor up to the little x in the top right corner of the window. He clicks on it and Kevin’s picture vanishes from the screen.

He’ll remember what he looks like.

Chapter Text

Kevin does not open his eyes until Detective Santiago touches his shoulder. Only then does he notice that the car has stopped moving. It seems they have arrived at their destination. He glances out the window against which his head has been resting for what might have been minutes or hours. He has no idea. Time has become elusive. Χρόνος and καιρός slipping through his fingers.

The detective’s touch startles him out of his daze – he had been dozing off, half-dreaming he was in Gertie’s passenger seat, Raymond next to him, driving them home.

Reality is a grimy car window and a house in Florida. It is painted a fading yellow, it has a sickly-looking lawn. Honestly, Kevin could not care less.

“Are you okay?” Amy asks. She studies his face, her big brown eyes full of concern. The answer, of course, is no, he is not okay, but Kevin nods and begins the arduous process of peeling himself out of his seat.

His neck hurts, the pain flowing up into his head, where it turns into a hot nail being hammered into his temple. Had Raymond been sitting next to him, he would have cautioned Kevin against resting his head against the window, he would have handed Kevin the travel pillow from the glove compartment and Kevin would have scoffed at the indignity of wedging such a thing around his neck but Raymond would have given him that look and—

There is no point in indulging the fantasy. Raymond is not here.

The moving truck pulls up behind them, just as Kevin slams the car door shut.

Two young men get out. They’re federal agents in disguise, here to do one last sweep of the neighborhood. Kevin watches them unload a few boxes from the back of the truck and carry them to the front door where Amy is waiting with the keys to the house.

The detective is an odd sight. She is wearing a pastel pink t-shirt with a cartoon panda emblazoned on its front. The panda is slurping noodles from a bowl, its closed eyes stylized into upcurving half-moons. The rest of her outfit consists of blue Hawaiian-print shorts and flat beach sandals.

“Pick something you wouldn’t normally wear,” they were told when they were presented with an assortment of clothes roughly in their sizes. 

“You know, it’s a lot warmer in Florida,” they said when Kevin chose a plain white polo shirt and – simply because they were the sole non-short option – denim trousers.

“I only wear shorts when I play squash or tennis,” Kevin replied. “I assume I won’t be playing squash or tennis on the plane, ergo I will not be wearing shorts.”

His choice of footwear, however, was limited to sports shoes and sandals, which meant that it was really limited to sports shoes because sandals were out of the question.

Consequently, Kevin is wearing a polo shirt, denim trousers and sports shoes, plus a ridiculous hat Santiago called a trucker cap when she urged him to put it on. Given the choice, he would have preferred to stay in his own clothes, dried blood, dirt and all, or even the cheap tuxedo they had made him wear for the ʻweddingʼ pictures. The wedding pictures, something else that does not bear thinking about. The sardonic voice in the back of his head that had whispered, Father and Mother would love this, as he pressed his lips to the detective’s temple in a fake kiss.

God, he does not know which memory to repress first.

Kevin takes a few steps towards the house, then is stopped by a sudden onslaught of nausea. He feels as though he is made to walk the plank, as though he is staring into the merciless waves of a dark raging ocean waiting to devour him.

And as if that was not bad enough, a shrill voice rings out somewhere to his left, “Oh! You must be the new neighbors!”

Kevin turns his head and immediately regrets it a) because it makes his headache intensify and b) because he catches sight of an elderly woman heading his way. Despite her frail build and white hair, she is surprisingly agile. In the space of mere seconds, she has crossed her lawn and reached her destination, which, sadly, turns out to be Kevin.

“Hi!” She beams up at him and sticks out her hand.

One of the ʻmoving company menʼ walks by close enough to brush Kevin’s shoulder, but apparently, he judges the old lady a non-threat because he keeps walking. Meanwhile, Kevin is staring at her, unmoving, not even blinking. He watches her smile become more and more strained, her hand wavering. It is as though he has forgotten how human interaction works. He could not have been more shocked if Scylla herself had risen from the sea to drag him down into the depths.

Thankfully, Detective Santiago appears and inserts herself between them. She grabs the woman’s hand and gives it an enthusiastic shake. “Hi, it’s so nice to meet you! I’m Luisa, this is my husband James.” She ends the handshake and slips her arm around Kevin’s waist. Startled by the casual intimacy of her touch, Kevin tenses. To her credit Amy keeps talking as though nothing out of the ordinary is happening. “We’re the Mac Allisters!”

Kevin is relieved to see that Santiago’s quick intervention seems to have the desired effect. The elderly lady’s expression settles back into a more relaxed smile.

“I’m Patricia, but everyone calls me Pat. Or Tricia. Or Patricia!“ Inexplicably, her own disastrous attempt at humor makes her giggle, then her eyes dart over to Kevin again. He is still staring; he does not know how to stop. This failure to adhere to social norms visibly unsettles the woman. She opens her mouth, at a loss for words. “Uh…”

Luckily, Santiago is there and quick to react. “Oh, I’m sorry! James is not feeling well, I think he’s coming down with something. Plus, he hit his head really hard this morning.” She laughs, the sound of it astonishingly natural. “It’s been a day, if you know what I mean. Well, actually, it’s been a couple of weeks.” When Santiago rolls her eyes theatrically, Pat nods along to signify that she understands the experience of stressful periods of time lasting longer than expected. Kevin also nods.

He has to give it to Santiago; the detective is quite the actress. She rubs his back, the warmth of her small hand seeping through the cotton of his polo shirt. “Why don’t you go inside, baby? Get some rest?”

Baby? he thinks, unable to remember the last time anyone called him that, possibly because no one ever has. He has heard Raymond use this particular term of endearment with Cheddar though, especially back when Cheddar had actually still been a puppy.

For a startling second, he wants nothing more than for Raymond to appear and call him baby. He has never wanted that. The term is infantilizing to the point of absurdity. One should not want to have sexual relations with a person one views as a baby. And yet, now, in this terrible moment, Kevin feels small and helpless and wants nothing more than to be held by his big, strong husband.

He has picked up the pieces for Raymond so many times, why can’t Raymond be here and pick them up for him now?

Santiago’s hand is no longer rubbing; it is pressing into his back and he realizes that everyone is looking at him.

“Thank you,” he says, his voice gravelly and strange even to his own ears. It causes a flicker of worry to cross the detective’s face. Kevin soldiers on, “Yes, that sounds like a good idea.” He nods at Patricia. “It was a pleasure to meet you. I am not feeling well. Please excuse me.”

Finally, he can leave. Kevin all but staggers to the front door.

“You two are so adorable!” Patricia’s voice floats after him as he steps into the house. “Where are you from?”

Wondering if her reaction would have been the same, had she encountered him with his actual spouse, Kevin takes off his shoes – these might be extreme circumstances, but he is not an animal – and makes his way towards where he suspects the bedroom might be.

Passing through the living-room, he is stopped by the second federal agent.

“The house is clear. Will you be okay, sir?”

Kevin nods. In truth he is contemplating the option of just collapsing on the couch and staying there, but he doesn’t like the large windows flooding the room with natural light. It’s too bright. Also, Santiago is going to have to come through here, since the foyer opens directly into this area.

So, he keeps walking until he is in the bedroom, which is pleasantly small and dark. The bed is king size and looks comfortable enough. Kevin takes off his stupid ʻtrucker capʼ and sits down on the mattress. He sighs, his shoulders sagging. Finally, he lies down and rolls over to bury his face in one of the pillows.

It smells new – faintly of some chemical cleaning agent. At home, the sheets still smell like Raymond. For months, he has not been able to bring himself to change them. He would rather live like a pig than live without this small remnant of his husband.

Kevin closes his eyes and tries not to think of his phone as he handed it to the Marshal. Of the message on the screen alerting him of a missed call. Unknown at 10:24. Raymond. He was sure. He knew it in his heart. It was Raymond. Raymond had called and he had missed it.

The Marshal’s fingers plucked it from his before he could do anything. He’d thought irrationally of jumping up and wrestling it from her grasp, but it had been too late.

Καιρός had slipped through his fingers.

Chapter Text

Detective Amy Santiago is standing in front of the closed door to the bedroom of their Florida safe house, one fist hovering an inch from the wood, a tray balanced on her other hand.

No, scratch that, she chastises herself. Luisa Mac Allister is standing in front of the door to the bedroom of her new home in Florida because Luisa Mac Allister is worried about her husband James Mac Allister, who has not left said bedroom ever since their arrival forty-one hours ago.

Meanwhile Luisa has met all the neighbors, scouted the neighborhood, done some shopping and some home decoration.

She’s doing fine; she’s doing exactly what she’s supposed to be doing. On the plane, she studied the binder with all the instructions and information regarding their time in witness protection. She knows all of Luisa’s likes and dislikes, her family history and the history of her relationship with her husband by heart. She also learned everything there was to learn about James.

Kevin hasn’t even glanced at the binder once. He slept on the plane, then he slept in the car. He is probably sleeping right now, behind this very door, which might not be such a bad thing, since, when he was awake, he acted like some kind of alien-robot in a very flimsy human-suit.

She needs him awake though. Awake and acting like a normal human being.

***

“Honey, are you sleeping on the couch?” Pat asked her their first morning in Florida when Amy emerged from the house to do some shopping for breakfast.

Amy was shocked, both by the old lady’s sudden appearance and the bluntness of her question. Also, how did she know?

“Is it that obvious?” Amy stammered, playing up her embarrassment to cover the defensiveness and suspicion in her voice. She brushed a hand through her hair to smooth down any errant strands.

“Oh, I just happened to see your blanket and pillow on the couch when you opened your blinds earlier,” Pat replied as if staring into your neighbor’s living-room was completely normal. “Is everything okay with you two?”

“Um.” A nosy neighbor was the last thing Amy needed. For a second, she felt helplessly exposed under the scrutiny of Pat’s watery hazel eyes.

“You know, last year, this couple moved in across the street, Mexican, she was such a pretty thing, but wearing long sleeves all the time. Turns out he beat her. I called the police on them, saved her life probably.”

The old lady was squinting at Amy, as if trying to see through the fabric of her short flower-printed dress.

Great, so they were living next to the person who considered herself the neighborhood watch.  

Amy gasped theatrically, cupping her hand over her mouth.

“Oh my God, oh no! How awful!” She shook her head. “That’s so sad, but no, we’re fine. James is just very sick. He has the flu; he’s been running a fever all night. He didn’t want me to catch it, so he wanted to sleep on the couch, but I said,” Amy made a mock-stern face, wagging her finger, “ʻno, baby, there’s no way I’m letting you leave this bed in your condition.ʻ” She tried very hard not to imagine herself actually saying that to Kevin and failed. Also, in her imagination the captain was somehow in the room watching. Oh God.

“Aww, that’s so sweet of you, Honey,” crooned Pat, oblivious to Amy’s torment.

“Anyway,” she said, eager to escape the conversation, “I really have to go run some errands. Have a great day!”

“You too! Tell your husband to get well soon and, remember, if you need anything, I’m right over here,” Pat called after her.

***

How could I forget, Amy thinks, miserable.

Ever since her first morning in Corrado Beach there have been only two things on her mind, Kevin locked up in the bedroom and Pat in the house next door, spying on them. And okay, there is a third, but he’s been on her mind for months. Jake. She’s been in a state of missing Jake for so long now, it’s become something like a terrible new normal.

Anyway, it’s bad. Her fingers are itching to braid her hair and while stocking the kitchen cabinets, she caught herself singing “When I lost you” under her breath.

Since their arrival, Amy has checked on Kevin twice. She knocked on the door and stuck her head into the bedroom and asked how he was doing and left a bottle of mineral water and a plate with two sandwiches and every time she found him lying on the bed – on top of the covers – back to the door, almost unresponsive. A mumbled “Thank you, Detective.” That was all.

This isn’t working, Amy thinks, not for the first time.

She needs this to work, though.

If watching Cheddar was a level one responsibility, Kevin is a zero, or maybe even a negative level. He is the most important person in the captain’s life. If anything were to happen to him… Amy doesn’t even want to think about that. Captain Holt would never forgive her. Never. And the thought of the captain never forgiving her makes her chest tighten to the point where she has to fight to keep breathing.

But what can she do?

Back in New York, the day of Kevin’s return from Paris, she’d called the captain’s house to check in on him and he’d told her on the phone that he was terribly jet-lagged and would prefer to spend some time resting. When she’d visited a couple of days later, she was shocked to find him on the roof of his house, cleaning out the gutters. He’d gently chided her for dropping by unannounced, then, after he’d come down and invited her in, described the many projects he was planning to complete in his husband’s absence. He’d been polite but distant, most importantly, he’d seemed fine.

And Amy, who’d secretly been hoping to bond with him over their shared pain, had been slightly disappointed.

“Geez, Amy, why are you so surprised?” Gina asked after Amy made the mistake of going to her for Kevin-related advice. “Kev’s not like you. He’s got his shit together.”

“I have my shit together,” Amy protested, earning herself an eyeroll from Gina.

“Yeah, well, you can say that all you want, but that hairstyle is telling a different story.”

Amy presses her knuckles against the door, producing no sound. She’s so tired.

She doesn’t know what to do.

A part of her wants to just pick up the phone and dial the emergency number. Maybe if she talks to the Marshal, they’ll figure something out. Maybe they can arrange a call or a meeting with Holt. If Kevin could just speak to his husband, just once, even just for a few minutes… it might be enough to help him snap out of this horrible depression. And maybe Amy could talk to Jake too…

But she’s afraid to ask for this, because it would be an admission of things not going well and she has no idea what will happen if the Marshal starts suspecting they might blow their cover. It could endanger the whole case, not to mention their lives. If he is viewed as a risk, Kevin might be taken into protective custody, he’d be locked into some drab little room somewhere and, no matter how great they are together, Amy isn’t sure his marriage to Holt can survive that.

She needs to talk to Kevin. Now.

Amy knocks once and listens. There is no response. She knocks again, louder this time. Finally, there’s a muffled “Yes?”, so Amy opens the door and squints into the semi-darkness. The blinds are still drawn. The sandwiches are still sitting on the bedside table, one of them is half-eaten and some of the water is gone from the bottle next to the plate. The room is stuffy and starting to smell like its unwashed occupant. It makes Amy think of the captain walking into the precinct with oatmeal on his tie.

Kevin is lying on the bed, on his back, his head turned to look at her. His hair is a mess, his face covered in stubble. The gauze pad stuck to his temple has come off, exposing an angry red scratch.

“Detective,” he sighs, “to what do I owe the pleasure?”

The sarcastic edge to his tired voice makes Amy square her shoulders as she strides into the room.

“I’ve made chicken soup,” she says.

He gestures vaguely with his hand.

“Set it down wherever you want.”

“No. You’re going to eat it now.” Ignoring his affronted expression, Amy sits down on the edge of the mattress. Balancing the tray on her thighs, she takes the bowl of soup and all but shoves it into his face.

Kevin scoots away from her, until his back hits the headboard, and glares.

“You can’t keep doing this,” Amy says a little more gently, “you can’t just lie here.”

“Why not?” he snaps. “This is a waiting game, is it not? All we can do is wait until the FBI finds Figgis, and they did not seem as though they were in a hurry. They have not even arrested the man who shot me. Why should I put any effort into this cruel farce when they so clearly aren’t?”

“Because you’ll blow our cover. The neighbors are already asking questions. Look, I know this is hard, you didn’t sign up for this, you’re a civilian—”

Kevin clenches his jaw, a bitter twist to his mouth. “Do not patronize me. I am not a child, Detective.”

“Well, you’re acting like one, so.” If anything, Kevin’s face hardens. Time to bring out the big guns. “Don’t you think that, if he were here, Captain Holt would be disappointed in you?” she asks. The line would work on her, just the thought is enough to make her sit up straighter.

But Kevin folds in on himself. “Does it matter? He is not here. He has not been ʻhereʼ for a long time.”

Unshed tears shine in his eyes, Kevin however blinks them away. He stares, unseeing, into the middle distance, his face like concrete. Amy does not think she has ever seen anyone suffer quite in this way; he is trying so hard to keep it all in.

Amy sets soup and tray aside and grabs his hand.

“I’m here”, she says. “And they’ll come back. It’s only a question of time. It might be weeks; it might be months,” She does not say years because it would break her, “but they will definitely come back. I promise.” The room is quiet, and Kevin’s hand is limp in her grasp. “Kevin, please, I can’t do this alone. I miss Jake so much. If we blow our cover, we don’t just put our own lives in danger but theirs too. Do you really want that?”

Now she’s almost crying, the only thing keeping her from it is the memory of her father telling her, Amy, you can’t cry on the job. You have to be a cop, you can’t let people see you cry or they’ll think you’re just a girl. So she swallows her tears and squeezes Kevin’s hand.

“I do not want that,” Kevin says, then adds, softly, “I want my husband back.”

“I know,” Amy says, thinking of the last time she hugged Jake, of the tears in his eyes. “We’ll get through this,” he told her, so she repeats it now for Kevin and herself because when Jake said it, she believed him.

Chapter Text

Detective Santiago’s soup is shockingly inedible. 

Kevin’s mouth contorts around the spoon. He feels like a layer of melted fat is coating his tongue. His upbringing, years of learning proper manners, override his first instinct, which is to spit out the possibly toxic concoction. Instead, he forces himself to swallow, his throat producing an unseemly loud gulping noise.

“Oh my God,” he gasps once his mouth is empty except for a greasy aftertaste. “What is this?”

“Chicken soup,” Amy replies as though stating the most obvious fact in the world. “But I forgot to buy any spices and we don’t have any fresh vegetables, so I just put in more chicken for the flavor.”

In his mind, Kevin assembles these pieces of information into a deeply upsetting picture. “Then… this is just water, in which you have boiled a chicken?”

“Yeah, that’s what a basic chicken soup is, right?” Amy stares at him as though he is the crazy one. 

With as much poise and dignity as he can muster, Kevin sets the bowl aside and gets off the bed. “Please excuse me,” he tells Amy, “I will go to the bathroom and take a shower and then I will prepare some actual food.”

***

Some of the bone-weariness has gone. Perhaps, Kevin thinks, it was the soup, which was a near-death experience. However, he still feels sad and lonely. The ache of Raymond’s absence lingers as well as terrible anxiety regarding their future. Kevin knows he must not dwell on any of the questions swarming in his restless brain. All he can do is focus on what is in front of him in the present moment.

Which is a boiled chicken carcass floating in cloudy water in a pot on the stove. 

Kevin sighs and goes to work.

***

After their quick trip to the grocery store - Amy refused to let him go alone - not a good sign, he will have to win her trust somehow - and he is already thinking like a prisoner - anyway, after their trip to buy groceries, Kevin cooks a simple pea and chicken risotto, a dish he knows his Raymond would have enjoyed. Santiago seems to have no objections to it either, though having witnessed her recent crime against the defenseless chicken, Kevin would not have valued her culinary opinion anyway.

Over dinner, Amy brings up the binder they were handed before leaving New York. It was thick and blue and filled with pages and pages of information which Kevin could not give a rat’s ass about.

“You need to read it,” Amy says, skewering a piece of chicken on her fork. Defiance must have flashed in his eyes because she adds, “I’m sorry, but you have to.”

He could ask why, but it would only lead to her explaining the entire concept of witness protection to him again and he cannot bear to listen to this particular lecture any more times than he already has. It is draining.

He swallows a mouthful of peas - not as mushy as Raymond likes them - then nods. “I suppose you’re right.” Obedience seems like the most promising strategy. Perhaps he can lull Amy into a false sense of security and then escape. Except, where would he go? Kevin no longer has access to his bank account and he does not have his phone. He might be able to drive to his brother or - God forbid -  his parents, but then what? It would not bring him any closer to Raymond and as incompetent as the Department of Justice appears to be, even they would find him if he were to hide with his family. Also, he can only imagine what his mother would say if he turned up, on the run from the authorities and mafia hitmen, all because of some criminal’s grudge against Raymond.

Didn’t I tell you, is what she would say, that all too familiar mixture of smugness and disdain written all over her face, I saw this coming--

Oh did you, mother, he would snap back, you saw this exact turn of events coming? The mafia attempting to assassinate me, the Department of Justice--

I knew he would make you unhappy, the version of his mother that haunts the back of his mind cuts him off, jolting him out of the pointless imaginary argument by stating a fact he cannot deny. He is unhappy. 

Still.

It is not Raymond’s fault.

“I know this is hard,” Amy says, reminding him that he is not alone and that he had better keep his emotions from showing on his face. He forces a wan smile and eats his risotto. It’s too spicy and the texture is just wrong.

Without fully meeting her eyes, Kevin shakes his head. “I should apologize for making you worry. I can do my part.”

***

After doing the dishes, they sit down on the couch in the living room. Kevin can’t help but stare at the wedding picture Amy has hung prominently on the wall opposite the large windows. It seems to glow in the fading sunlight. 

“Sorry, this seemed like a good spot.” Amy grimaces, as uncomfortable with the image of him kissing her temple as he is. He wonders what Raymond would say. Perhaps he would comment on the visible cheapness of their clothes. The stiffness of their pose, the tacky rose-colored background. Raymond would never comment on the fact that they do not display a single photograph of Kevin kissing his actual spouse in their real home.

Kevin shrugs, refusing to dwell on the thought. “I understand that it is necessary to keep up appearances.”

“Speaking of…” Amy hands him the binder she retrieved from a hidden safe behind their framed wedding photo. “Here’s everything you need to know about our secret identities. I kind of want to burn it when you’re done, but if you have trouble memorizing--”

He shoots her a withering glare. Who does she think he is? Flicking through the pages, he confirms: letter format, public sans, 12 points, 80 pages, single-spaced, double-sided. “I will return this to you in 3 minutes and twenty seconds. You can quiz me then.”

Amy gapes at him, her cheeks reddening. Under her breath, she whispers something that sounds suspiciously like Oh Mama.

***

The written summary of James and Luisa Mac Allister’s lives is a pointless and depressing document. 

“I am a high school dropout,” Kevin says as he gives the binder back to Amy. “Not even college. High school.”

“You left at nineteen after failing senior year twice.” Amy has the decency to grimace in sympathy. For both of them, this is like discussing a gruesome injury. No, Kevin thinks, he doesn’t know about Santiago, but he would have preferred being physically maimed to academic failure on this level.

“But you did travel!” she chirps, clearly trying to cheer him up.

“All the way to Mexico where I apparently experimented with hallucinogenic drugs, was arrested for public indecency and as a consequence am no longer allowed to enter the country.”

 “Still, you met your wife on that trip so it was worth it.”

“Of course,” he agrees, his voice turning acidic, “at the hair salon that employed you at the time. Where you fell for me because of my - quote - long and luscious hair - end quote.”

To her credit, Amy keeps her eyes trained on his face, never once does her gaze dart up to his hair. She shrugs awkwardly, her fingers worrying the edge of the binder in her lap.

“Well, to be fair, that was supposed to have been more than a decade ago.”

“Yes, when you were a…” It disgusts him to even say it. “... teenager.” 

Kevin sighs. He suspects the awful marshal had something to do with his… colorful backstory.

“Okay,” Amy fixes him with a piercing stare, challenge in her eyes. “It is what it is. Tell me your likes and dislikes.”

Unpleasant but simple enough. “Likes: chocolate ice cream, the 2015 remake of National Lampoon’s Vacation, starring Ed Helms and Christina Applegate - whoever those people are--”

“You should read up on that,” interrupts Amy.

“Fine.” Kevin rolls his eyes, which earns him an actual glare.

“And watch the movie.”

This, he chooses to ignore. “--surfing, stonewashed denim and” at this point he cannot help but sigh again, “the music of the band KISS.”

“Dislikes?”

“Books - understandable, as I seem to be barely literate - politicians and” Kevin closes his eyes briefly, mustering the strength for what he is about to say while sending a silent apology to his distant darling, “small dogs.”

Amy nods her approval. “Okay, good.” 

Clenching his jaw, Kevin avoids her gaze as well as the sight of the wedding picture. He stares down at the binder, wondering why the Department of Justice wasted all this paper when their pointless rambling just boiled down to one undeniable fact:

James Mac Allister is a basic bitch.