Chapter Text
june 16th, 2019
Jake is not having a great Sunday.
First of all, he hates working Sundays. The weekend squad are somehow both dull and annoying at the same time, their coffee is never as good and it always seems to run out the minute he gets there. He wonders if they do it to him on purpose.
Second, the series of burglaries he’s working with Charles is giving them dead end after dead end. He’s started questioning whether Terry gave it to them just to get back at Jake after he accidentally questioned whether some recent drawings by Ava really portrayed anything at all. In his defense, he just figured his goddaughter might be really into abstract art.
Third, Amy’s not working today.
She has more Sundays off than he does, and it never stops being physically painful to abandon their warm bed cocoon all too early in the morning, watching her pull the covers closer to her chin with a smug smile once he’s kissed her goodbye. Even though they don't even work on the same floor anymore, being at work without her never stops feeling wrong, like he could be doing so many better things with his time.
Finally, the ultimate fourth - he’s just been reminded that it's Father's Day.
To say Jake doesn't have many fond memories of Father's Day is an understatement. He doesn't remember the ones before he turned seven, and after that point, the holiday always felt like a gut-punch when his dad chose to spend it either working or playing golf - which Jake would later found out meant having sex with another one of Karen’s friends - and in the evening, Jake would be forced to give him a card he’d barely wanted to buy in the first place. He supposes it should be easier now, with no one forcing him to celebrate Roger, but it’s not. If anything, it's worse to see everyone around him roll their eyes at how they have to remember to buy a gift or send a message to their fathers, when Jake can't shake the memory of the time three years ago he sent a Happy Father's Day-text and got a “who’s this?” in return.
His thumb hovers over Roger’s phone contact as he waits for Charles outside the building they're doing door duty in today, but he doesn't do it. They’re doing better than they have in a long time, yet something is holding him back.
Charles is a couple of minutes late, and Jake finds his explanation when he sees him arrive on foot with Nikolaj and Genevieve. Nikolaj is walking in between his parents, and Jake watches as they let him jump ahead and swing in between them in that way all children seem obsessed with. Nikolaj laughs, and Charles glows with pride in the way that only shows when he's with his son. Jake smiles and waves at them.
“So sorry we’re late,” Charles greets him once they’ve crossed the street. Jake just waves his hand dismissively - he’s never been the right person to judge others time-keeping skills. “You see, we wanted to get in an early Father’s Day breakfast before work, and then I lost track of time opening the gifts, and then Nikolaj asked if he could have dessert and because he had just gifted me the most beautiful new spiralizer and a new recipe book for how to cook with sea urchin, I couldn't say no.”
“And I made a drawing!” Nikolaj chirps. “For Papa’s day! I made one for you, too!”
“Oh, wow, that's - you really didn't have to,” Jake blushes as Nikolaj pulls out a paper from his green backpack and hands it to him.
On the top of the paper, it says happy god-father's day. There’s a tall building and a person jumping from it tied to a rope, and in a speech bubble it says in squiggly letters - yippee kayak, other buckets.
Jake doesn't mean to tear up, but his eyes get a little misty anyway.
“Thanks, Niko,” he grins, and his godchild shines up.
“I don't know what that movie’s about! But papa said you would be happy if I drew that, so I did! Do you like it?”
“I love it,” he assures him before folding it carefully in his pocket. “Charles, should we, uhm -”
“I’m just going to say goodbye to my family,” Charles nods. Jake optimistically expects a brief exchange, but instead he has to look away as the hugs and kisses exchanged between family members quickly turns into Charles and Genevieve making out. Jake coughs to remind them there are children present, and eventually, they break apart. Charles looks pained as the rest of his family walks away, still waving, but Jake is relieved.
“So I take it you had a good morning?” He asks Charles as they tackle the stairs of the apartment building. They’re starting on the top floor and working their way down, and to make it all worse, a note in bold red letters stuck to the elevator doors has informed them it is out of function today.
“Oh, it was nothing big, you know! The real celebration is after I finish work tonight.” Charles is keeping a brisk pace on the stairs. It’s like there’s an extra pep in his step today, and Jake is struggling to keep up. “We’re having dinner with my father at Csaba, of course, to celebrate the excellence of Boyle men’s fatherhood. After that, Genevieve has promised to make love to me for at least -”
“Sounds great, bud!” Jake half-shouts as he notices the two young children peeking out of a door on the next floor.
“You’re invited!” His friend insists without seeming to notice the kids. “Well, to the dinner. Not to the following events.”
“Figured. Wait - why am I invited?”
“Well, my dad sees you as a son.”
“Which is weird.”
“ - and I figured you didn’t have plans with your own dad. I know you hate Father’s Day, but I thought feasting on a plate of sausages together with us might brighten your spirits about it.”
“It definitely would not, but thanks. And I don't hate Father's Day,” Jake remarks, panting as they reach the fifth floor. “It’s just overrated, and it was always a shitty day growing up because my dad was never around, and fine, I guess I hate it, but that's my personal problem, okay? I don't need a pity invite.”
“It's not a pity invite! Like I said, my dad -”
“Charles, I appreciate it, but please let me hate the day on my own.” Jake doesn't mean for his tone to get so sharp, but Charles looks taken aback by it as they stop on floor number six. He sighs. “I’m sorry.”
Charles gives him a halfhearted smile. “Someday, you’ll get it.”
“Stop,” he mumbles, forcing himself to keep quiet about the conversation he had with Amy after the manhunt two weeks ago. Charles can’t know they’re trying, Amy’s decided, and Jake gets it. As much as he’s bursting with excitement to tell his best friend about the decision, how dope but terrifying it is, he knows that if - when - he finds out, there’s an overhanging risk they’ll be drowning in unsolicited advice about diets and sex positions before they know it. While Jake thinks he could handle the intensity, he knows Amy would struggle. “Let’s get this door duty thing over with.”
Door duty, it turns out, gives them nothing. Each person they meet seem to give a different description of their perp, who is either caucasian or hispanic or according to an elderly man, possibly just very tan, and is either in his thirties or his fifties or according to a young girl with round glasses half the size of her face, maybe a time traveller. Jake later discovers that Charles has written time traveller? in his notes. There are five apartments on each of the six floors, and by the time they get to apartment number ten, Jake’s already bored. That’s not what frustrates him most, though.
The more doors they knock on, the more obvious it gets that this is an apartment building filled with families, and somehow every one of them seems to be in the midst of their Father’s Day-celebrations. They knock on the door to at least five family brunches, three hallways with piles of wrapping paper, and two where they’re invited inside for a cup of coffee and pancakes. An elderly man asks if they can help him figure out how to video call his daughters, a single dad wants to show them the drawings his three-year-old daughter made, a man with a sleeping infant in a BabyBjörn asks, unprompted, if he can talk to them about the magic of fatherhood, and a father of two lively twins almost tries to close the door in their faces so he can get back to his breakfast. Jake wonders how not one unhappy family can seem to live in this building. Surely there’s something suspicious about it. They can’t all be that happy, and he finds himself searching for imperfections, scanning the environment for signs of a broken family. Something about it rubs him the wrong way, but he can’t tell if it’s intuition or his least favorite emotion; jealousy.
“It just seems too good to be true,” he mutters to Charles on their drive back to the precinct. “Somewhere in there is a broken marriage, I swear.”
“I thought they all seemed really lovely! Particularly the couple that offered us buttermilk pancakes. God, they smelled delicious - both the pancakes, and the couple! Did you notice his perfume? I should have asked him about it.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Agree to disagree.”
Jake rolls his eyes. “Either way, we didn’t get any valuable information about our perp and whether he’s hiding out there, so, this was worthless. Useless informants, and I had to open the door to like fifteen reminders of my own broken relationship with my dad. Real cool.”
“You don’t think you’re reading too much into it? I mean, a lot of those fathers were quite young, and you can’t judge someone’s whole life based on one Sunday morning. You might be projecting a little, you know.”
“I’m not,” Jake says, even though yes, he definitely is.
“Offer to come along for dinner tonight still stands.”
“I’m still good, thanks.”
They’re silent for the rest of the drive. Jake doesn’t say what he’s really thinking; that as much as he appreciates his best friend’s offer, celebrating Father’s Day with the Boyles would just be an even more agonizing reminder of Roger Peralta’s failures.
The one thing that makes Jake willing to accept his Sunday shifts is the fact that they’re usually short. Today, he gets to leave at three, and he’s not embarrassed to say he practically sprints to meet Amy by the car. He’s missed her, damn anyone who says that makes him desperate or cheesy, and on days like today, he just needs her presence for a while until he feels good about himself and his place in the world again.
She must be able to tell that he's had a rough day, because when he almost topples her with a hug on the spot, she doesn't seem shocked. She just squeezes him tight, stroking his hair as he sighs into the crook of her shoulder.
“You okay?” She asks, and he just mumbles,
“Am now.”
They're going to Target, Jake finds out. They need groceries and apparently towels and some new dining tray Amy’s found, and because anywhere with his wife is better than anywhere without her, he follows despite knowing it means he’ll have to stare at the endless Father’s Day-displays. They're the same every year, wanting him to buy t-shirts and mugs and fake trophy cups. They may be cringey, but Jake always gets jealous anyway. He wants to buy a stupid mug and a card and gift it to his dad as a joke, too, and he wants his dad to laugh and then use the mug every week anyway, and he doesn't want it to feel fake.
Amy knows all that, so Jake doesn't talk about it. Instead, he tells her about Charles’ invite, and she scrunches her nose at the mention of sausage mountains.
“It's sweet that he invited you, though,” she says. “He knows you don't like the day and wants to help make it better. It's definitely weird, but it's sweet.”
“Yeah, maybe. Nikolaj gave me a Die Hard-drawing and said today is also Godfathers day. I think Charles told him what to write, but it was still adorable.”
Amy smiles. “I bet.”
“It made me think about whether our kids are going to like Die Hard,” Jake confesses. It’s still crazy to him that they're having these conversations now, talking about their kids as people who will come to exist one day, but he finds that he really loves it. “Seven’s old enough to watch it, right?”
“Eleven minimum.”
“Hey, I was seven!”
“You’ll watch it with them behind my back no matter what I say, won't you?”
“Probably,” he shrugs. Amy shakes her head. “I’m excited for it, though. Do you think - for next Father's Day - you think we’ll have a baby by then?”
“If we’re lucky? Not impossible,” she says, and Jake grins.
Target is crowded with people doing their afternoon Sunday shopping, young couples pointing at items on sale in the interior design aisles and kids dragging their parents to the candy and snacks. Jake helps a boy, maybe three or four years old with red hair and freckles, reach the sour straws from a higher shelf, and then earns himself a hateful look from the child’s mother when she returns and tells her son he needs to put those back. The boy lets out a deafening growl before throwing himself on the floor, and Jake flees the site before he discovers whether looks can actually kill.
He finds Amy at the feminine hygiene aisles, and is just about to ask her if they can get out of here for their own safety when he notices the dark pink box in her hand. She’s reading the back of it carefully, scrunching her forehead, and Jake’s heart does a nervous flutter when he reads the words Early Detection Pregnancy Test.
“Uhm,” he says, losing his words as he points at the box. “That’s, uh -”
“A pregnancy test,” she shrugs, like it’s no big deal. “I thought I would keep a few at home, so I can test a few days ahead of when I should get my period.”
“Didn’t you just have it?”
“I did. I’m not taking it today, I just thought I’d have a few at home for later.” Amy stands on the tip of her toes, kissing his cheek before placing the two-pack of tests in the cart. “You look nervous.”
“Just surprised,” he mumbles. “So we’re not finding out today, then?”
“Remind me to teach you more about menstrual cycles,” she laughs, and he blushes. “Jake, we haven’t even properly started trying yet. We’re not. I’m not. Yet, at least.”
“Yet,” he repeats, feeling the same nervous flutter again. “Would have been kind of funny if we’d found out today, though. Made it a less shitty father’s day and all that.”
Amy smiles. “That’s true. I might have something else that could cheer you up, though.”
“Like what?”
“Well, according to my period tracker, today is the start of my fertile window. So if we want to actually start trying, then…”
“We could start trying today,” he fills in, a little too loud and causing a young teenage girl grabbing a packet of condoms from the next shelf to give him an amused look. “Okay, that does make me hate today less. Immediately let’s go home and do that. Also, I need to get out of this store before some random child’s mom hunts me down anyway.”
“Huh?”
“Long story,” he says, and then he tugs her arm lightly towards the self checkout machines, suddenly eager to return home.
He doesn’t really think about it during, but he thinks about it after. After, when they’re catching their breath and the sweat on their skin is cooling on the sheets, when his heartbeat is slowly regulating back to its usual pace, he looks over to Amy and thinks, magic, this must be magic. They don’t even know if it’s worked yet, won't for at least a couple of weeks, and he’s not sure what the chances are for it working on their first attempt, but just the knowledge that they’re doing it - that they’re trying to make a baby - makes it uniquely special. It’s fresh and exciting and a little bit mind-blowing, and it’s daunting but amazing and he’s so ready.
“Feel pregnant yet?” He teases Amy, and she rolls her eyes, but she giggles.
“Let’s say until proven otherwise.”
“Solid,” he yawns, throwing an arm around her warm body and pulling her closer to him. She rests her head on his chest with a relieved sigh, her legs slotting in between his. Jake wonders how it works that only minutes after being as close to her as he can physically get, he can crave this with her. Even on the worst days, this helps him feel whole. Not necessarily the sex, although it doesn’t hurt; but the intimacy, the striking reminder that this, next to her, is where he belongs.
“Are we going to know when?” He whispers, and Amy lifts her head to give him a questioning look. “Like, if we get pregnant, are we going to know what day it happened? So that if we know it worked the first time, we can brag real hard about it.”
“No,” she says simply, and Jake pouts. “Maybe, if we only tried once. But we're doing this every day for the days of my fertile window to maximize our chances.”
“Cool.”
“But even if it’d only been once, sperm can live inside the uterus for up to five days. So, no. We would have to do IVF to know the exact date of conception. Any reason you're curious?”
“Just turns me on hearing you talk biology facts,” he winks, not entirely joking. “Plus I thought it would have been fun if we knew it had been on Father's Day.”
Amy hums, closing her eyes and pecking his chest with kisses. “I guess.”
“It's still a pretty okay one, though,” he thinks out loud, running his fingers through her thick, silky, hair. “This, you - made it better.”
“You're welcome,” she says, sounding pleased with herself. “Are you going to text your dad?”
“Amy,” he groans. “Don't.”
“Sorry. I thought it could be like a facing your fears-thing.”
“It's not a fear when your dad's just a jerk,” Jake mutters. “No. I don't think so.”
“Okay.”
“I know what might help make the day even better, though,” he says, and then he's kissing her like that again.
“What?” She pants when they break apart for air.
“Pizza and Die Hard,” he grins. She smacks him in the shoulder, but then she is kissing him back, giving his lip a little bite, and Jake thinks he's forgiven.
He gets pizza and Die Hard on the couch later, too. He scrolls through social media while Amy’s in the shower, liking some of the Santiago brothers’ posts about the holiday and the twenty pictures Charles has uploaded, and then he opens the message conversation with his dad again. He writes out a simple Happy Father’s Day, and he’s close to pressing send before he changes his mind and erases the sentence, double-clicking the home button and swiping up to close the app. It feels forced, and even if they’re building towards repairing their relationship, Jake doesn’t think he’s ready yet.
Amy gets out of the shower, and it’s a relief to have an excuse to put his phone down as she brings out paper towels and they cut the pizza with scissors, splitting two different kinds between them. After, Amy reads a New Yorker-article on her phone while he plays with her hair and watches Bruce Willis on the screen at the same time, and Jake decides that as Father’s Day’s go, he’s had a lot worse.
He wonders if it’ll be a brighter day next year. There’s a possibility, small but existing, that he’ll be celebrating this day with his newborn daughter or son by then. Father’s Day won’t just be another reminder of what he never had, because he’ll have his own family to celebrate with.
Jake puts an arm around Amy, and hopes that will be the case.