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Jake’s quiet on the drive home, which isn’t surprising, given everything, Still, Amy reaches for his hand where it’s resting on his thigh and squeezes his fingers, and she hopes he understands that she will listen, whenever he’s ready.
It takes him a couple of days, but then he says over takeout one night, “Why do you think I became a cop?”
Amy pauses with her chopsticks halfway to her mouth, then commits to her bite of Pad Thai and chews thoughtfully before answering. His tone is casual but this is a loaded question, something out of left field, and that’s not really Jake’s style.
“Die Hard,” she says after swallowing. “I mean, it’s gotta be Die Hard.”
Jake smiles at her but it’s half-watt, and it slips into a small frown as he picks up a spring roll and dips it in the peanut sauce then just stares at it for a long moment.
“My mom said something weird the other night – she said I became a cop because I was always protecting her after my dad left and that was just my thing, or whatever.” Jake’s waving his hand a little, gesturing with the spring roll. “But that’s ridiculous, right? It was Die Hard.”
Amy nods but she’s not sure what she’s agreeing with or where this is going. She can’t say she really knows Jake’s origin story, but it’s surely more complex than a boyhood crush on John McClane. Jake’s too good at his job, too natural, for it to be all about Die Hard.
But it’s obvious something is troubling him, and as much as she doesn’t want to treat her boyfriend like a case to be solved, she can tell she’s going to have to work at this mystery.
“Well, that’s nice?” Amy says. “It’s sweet that you were looking out for her, and that she thinks you’re a cop because you want to protect other people and you’re good at it.”
She’s watching his face and he’s still staring at the spring roll, and she can’t tell if he’s really listening. Jake is actually a pretty good listener, most of the time – when it’s just the two of them – but he looks lost now, far away.
“You know you’re good at that, right? Protecting people?”
Jake blinks and glances up at her, and his eyes are shining and she realizes abruptly that he’s about to cry. He blinks again and looks away, and she wants so badly to let him know that it’s okay, that he’s safe, but she isn’t sure how.
“Jake-”
“It’s stupid,” he says, cutting her off. She opens her mouth, starts to protest though she has no idea what he’s referring to, what she’s counteracting. “I always told myself it was Die Hard. I wanted to be that guy, the one who dives through windows and jumps out of helicopters and takes the bullet and saves the world. And instead it’s all about him .”
Amy’s about to ask “who” and then she figures it out.
“Your dad’s your origin story,” she says, without fully thinking it through.
Jake stares at her, mouth hanging open, and she regrets her words, rushes to come up with something to fix this. But then he’s laughing. It’s sort of manic, sort of frantic, but she’ll take it.
“Yeah, exactly,” he says. “Roger Peralta is my Joker. His evil made me.”
Amy laughs at that, and they kind of cackle together, and she can tell neither of them finds this very funny. Because Jake is clearly upset, and Amy feels like she’s stepped on a landmine, and she thinks somewhat hysterically that both of them aren’t very good at this kind of emotional navigation.
But then, this is what a partnership is, after all. Amy stops laughing, takes a deep breath.
“John McClane is good at protecting people too,” she says, softly.
Jake wipes at his eyes, and she thinks it’s from laughter, which is okay. He also picks up his spring roll and takes another bite, chews thoughtfully.
“When I was a beat cop,” he says after a moment, wipes his mouth with his napkin, “I met this woman, she was being abused by her husband. She had a kid, 6 or 7 years old I think. Her house had been broken into and I was just there to take the report, but she had these black eyes and I just knew. So I asked if she wanted to press charges against anyone, for the abuse, and she started crying and said no. And her son, he was holding her hand the whole time, and sort of patting her back. And I remember thinking that poor kid, he’s got a lot of weight on his shoulders.”
Jake’s folded his hands over his dinner plate, and he rests his chin on his fingers, finally meets Amy’s eyes.
“I ended up looking up her husband and he had an outstanding warrant, some minor league stuff, but I went out there and I arrested him and got him out of there – probably not for long, maybe a few weeks at most. But I figured, at least that kid didn’t have to worry about his mom for a little while. It was the best I could do.”
Amy smiles at him, careful, because she can feel the tension rolling off of him. She reaches across the table and clasps his forearm, thumb stroking over the back of his hand.
“I don’t want Roger Peralta to be part of why I became a cop,” Jake says. “I don’t want him in my life at all.”
Amy nods, swallows hard. “You know that’s your call to make,” she says, careful. “But if he’s back with your mom again, for real, it might be hard to do.”
He huffs a small laugh and lifts his head, kisses the back of her hand before turning his over and twining their fingers together.
“I wonder what John McClane would do,” Jake says. “I bet he’d kick his own dad’s ass and then find a building to blow up.”
“I think,” Amy says, getting up from the table and pulling Jake up with her, “he would stop worrying about how he got here, and focus on being here. With his awesome girlfriend who happens to think he’s an amazing detective-slash-boyfriend.”
Jake smiles at her, tender and sweet and nothing like John McClane (or Roger Peralta), thank God. She smiles back against his lips when he kisses her, and sighs when he pulls away too soon.
“I think my awesome girlfriend is incredibly smart,” Jake says.
It’s true, Amy doesn’t care about his origin story. She’s much more interested in the man he is right now, who takes her hand and leads her to the bedroom – and the man she’ll wake up with the next day, and hopefully every day after that.