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Sometimes, they hold hands walking into work. And sometimes, she presses a chaste kiss to the corner of his mouth before leaving to brief her beat cops on the day. Her fingers may linger on his wrist for a moment too long and Charles breaks into the widest grin, but they wouldn’t have it any other way. They never fully shied away from PDA while they were dating—being married, however, makes it all that more enticing. “Sorry,” Jake will say to the role of Rosa’s eyes, “I just love my wife.”
It’s never been a problem; not even when Gina made mention of their “bang me eyes” being on full display the week following their honeymoon, much to their horror (resulting in a secret tryst to the third floor supply closet to get it out of their systems). They are simply in love, endlessly enamored by one another, and no one can imagine it another way. Parts of a whole: Jake and Amy. With one comes the other.
Even more so with their wanting to get pregnant. Jake whispers how beautiful she looks when she surprises with him a cup of coffee, and her lips ghost the shell of his ear when she tells him how much she loves him in that dark green shirt. It’s shared smiles and glances that say more than any string of words. Everything feels more alive, more infused with attention and care, since they decided to start trying for kids. It’s precarious and tangible and real. Love is that, Jake decides after one particularly mind-blowing night: it’s him and Amy and knowing that they’ll create a being out of their own adoration.
So, sue him if he cups her cheek when she gives him a goodbye kiss before heading for the elevators. And for whispering, “Oh, the things I would do if we weren’t here…” with a wink to follow. She goes in for one more kiss—cue faux-gagging from Rosa—and tells him she’ll see him in a few hours. His eyes continue to follow her, watching and falling in love all over again, before she disappears downstairs.
Terry walks over to Jake’s desk and drops down a file. “I need you to question Mark Robinson.” His eyes flick towards a man, appearing mid-forties and fairly fit, standing in the nearby holding cell. “He’s our lead suspect in the 87th street robbery case.”
Jake looks through the file. “Didn’t Amy arrest this guy?”
“Yeah, but she’s busy with a seminar this morning. It’s a pretty open and shut case—read the file and you’ll be fine,” Terry says.
Jake nods, “Sounds good,” and starts reading.
“Who are you?”
Jake slides into the cool metal seat, flicking open the manilla folder before him, and cooly smirks. “Jake Peralta, detective extraordinaire.”
Mark Robinson cocks his head, almost with disappointment. “You didn’t arrest me.”
“Quite the astute observation there, Mr. Robinson,” Jake says, probably too sarcastically. “Maybe you should be a detective.”
“What happened to that Latina chick?” Mark asks bluntly.
Jake’s jaw twitches, slightly caught off-guard. “I’m taking over the case. Now, Mr. Robinson—“
“That’s a shame,” Mark laments. “I wanted to see her again. She’s pretty sexy.”
“Sir,” Jake says, curt.
“Like, so hot. I would let myself get arrested again if she was on the other end of it.”
“Sir, you’re here to answer my questions. I don’t need the commentary.”
“Are you trying to tell me you don’t find her attractive?”
Jake’s teeth start to grind. “You’re talking about a highly decorated sergeant. I would suggest not saying another word about her.”
“C’mon, it’s all in good fun. Just some locker room talk, man.” Mark gives him a smarmy grin.
“No,” Jake levels, words sharp and slight. “It’s not. Now again, Mr. Robinson, we have eyewitnesses who place you on 87th street at the time of the robbery. Would you like to explain why you were there?”
Mark opens his mouth, as if to answer, and snaps his fingers. “She’s your girlfriend, isn’t she? I saw you kissing some chick before I got brought into here. I thought it might have been her, but I couldn’t believe someone like you would end up with someone like her.”
Jake takes a deep breath and curls his hand into a fist, trying to restrain himself from hitting the table. Mark’s eyes flicker down to Jake’s left hand, his silver wedding band shining in the light, and breaks into a laugh. “She’s your wife? This keeps getting better.”
Jake thinks back to the Keri Brennan case, one of he said, she said, which proved to be harder on Jake than he anticipated. Amy opening up to him in the break room, about her old captain and expectations and how this is normal, for her and for women as a whole. She looked at him with wet eyes and spoke in sullen words, and he almost couldn’t meet her gaze, feeling helpless and hopeless. She never needed him to protect her, but that didn’t stop him from wanting to do so. He held her hand tightly on the yellow couch that day and continued to hold it tighter when they left work.
He watched feminist documentaries and thought he got it. But this, looking Mark Robinson in his sleazy eyes and listening to sordid words drip from his mouth without care—Jake feels like he’s back in the break room, realizing and understanding all over again.
“Shut up,” Jake says lowly.
“Did I get to you, detective extraordinaire?” Mark disparages, positively gleeful.
“No—I just don’t have time for dicks.”
“Oh, I definitely did.”
Jake slams the folder shut. “Clearly, you don’t want to be here. Neither do I. I could be doing so many other things right now. So, just admit that you broke into that woman’s apartment, and we can move on.”
“Nah,” Mark says, casual and nonchalant. “I’m having fun.”
“You stole tens of thousands of dollars of jewelry off her dresser. Felt good, didn’t it?” Jake prods, sinking to the man’s level. “To just take advantage of her?”
Mark laughs. “You think you’re going to coax it out of me?”
“She’s quite the beautiful woman, but she didn’t want you, did she? You must have met her at a bar, maybe followed her home, but she said no.”
The suspect wrings his hands together. “Nice theory there, but no.”
“So, why were you on 87th street?”
“Just taking a walk. Is that a crime now, too?”
“No, but having no alibi definitely points toward you being guilty.”
Mark falls quiet.
“C’mon, Mark. Just say you did it. We’re sending cops to your apartment soon, anyways. You really think they won't find anything?”
Again, no response.
“If you admit to me that you did it, maybe we’ll lessen your sentence.”
A beat. The man’s forehead wrinkles, thinking.
“Fine,” Mark spits, laughing. “I did it. I robbed that bitch—she just made it too easy not to.”
Jake stands up from his seat. “See Mark, how hard was that?”
Mark breaks into a grin, still laughing. “And I know I could rob your wife’s heart too.”
“Oh, you fucking wish,” Jake sneers, and leaves with the slam of the door.
Jake tosses the file onto Terry’s desk and says, “He confessed,” before quickly turning to leave the office.
“Hold up there, Peralta. Where are you going?” Terry asks, and Jake spins on his heels.
“I gotta go see my wife.” Terry gives him a dubious look, and Jake sighs. “If you see the tape from the interrogation room, you’ll understand.”
Amy is doing paperwork when Jake brings her face into his hands, kissing her softly, slowly. When he breaks away, she looks at him warmly, trying to fight off the smile that tugs at her lips. “What was that for, babe?” she asks.
“I just wanted to let you know I love you,” he says simply.
He thinks he’s hiding it, but he knows she can sense the slight change in his demeanor. She’s his wife after all. “I love you too, but seriously, Jake,” she says, “what is it?”
He pulls over the chair that resides next to her desk, his voice low: “I questioned the man you arrested, Mark Robinson.”
“Did he confess?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“That’s great.” She pauses as his head drops down, their eyes no longer meeting. “It’s not great?”
“He said… things that I can’t get out of my head.”
“Like what?”
Jake lets out a heavy sigh. “He saw you kiss me before I went to interrogate him and basically used it against me. He couldn’t believe I was with someone like you.”
“Oh,” she breathes.
“And he was just saying awful stuff about you, calling you a chick and—god, I wanted to punch him, Ames. I really did.”
Her hand falls to his, giving it a squeeze. “Babe—“
“You’re my wife,” he says so surely. “And I love you, and I know you love me but—“
“But nothing,” Amy cuts in. “The guy was just being an asshole. He doesn’t know you nor understands the millions of reasons that I’m in love with you.”
Jake softly smiles at that, almost blushing.
“You’re kind and brilliant and everything. My everything,” she says, and Jake thinks his heart could burst the way it batters against his ribcage with all-consuming love.
“I married the cheesiest person in the world.”
“Yes, you did,” she smiles back. “And no one can change that.”
When Jake heads back to his desk, Mark is getting taken out of the holding cell in handcuffs.
They make eye contact and maybe, Jake waves goodbye with his left hand, purposely showing off his wedding band. And maybe, he proudly grins and mouths ‘she’s my wife’ as Mark scowls. And maybe, he holds up his ring finger as if he were flipping the bird.
But when the workday ends and he brings his arm around Amy’s waist just as they exit the precinct and she leans into his side, sweetly whispering his name? That’s a definite.