Work Text:
It's a god awful day, the kind of day they warn you about on your first day of the academy, the shaggy dog story they use to weed the weak ones out. Amy doesn't want to think about it a whole lot. She just wants to get home and rinse the blood out of her hair. (Blood by the way, that isn't entirely hers. It was that kind of day.) Her shift wasn't supposed to end until midnight, but Captain Holt sent her home early, perhaps seeing something Amy didn't, because she swore up and down she was fine to work the rest of the night. The dissonance of wanting to prove herself to Holt by staying back but also wanting to respect his orders and go home is not lost on her.
She arrives home, bone tired and heartsore. The heartsore feeling isn't new though. A week ago, she and Teddy broke up. To put it correctly, Teddy broke up with her. He was gentlemanly about it, gave her the most sincere 'it's not you, it's me' that she'd ever gotten from a guy. He even had the courtesy to fish his toothbrush from out of her shower, thus sparing her the indignity of getting emotional over it now as she fumbles with the hot water faucet.
This is what she told Rosa, coffees on the console the morning after, bribery for this vaguely out of character bit of girl talk. "As far as break-ups go, it was pretty nice."
(That's kind of a lie. This is what she doesn't tell Rosa: they were in bed at the time. He rolled over, as she was in that dozy content stage of falling asleep, cleared his throat awkwardly and that's when they had the talk. When they were lying in bed and he should have been thinking of all those romantic clichés, like how adorable she looked when she was half asleep, or about how he was going to surprise her with breakfast in the morning, he was thinking about the gentlest way to let her down. A clean and inoffensive break, Amy thinks to herself. "Clean and inoffensive, the title of your latest sex tape", she doesn't say out loud.)
She's kind of pissed off about this now, come to think of it. By being so damn nice about it, he's robbed her of the chance to get mad at him for what, as Rosa put it, 'was kind of a dick move'. And right now, she really, really wants to be mad at someone. She also kind of really, really, really wants to be held. She rinses the shampoo out of her eyes and fights the urge to call her mom, the only reliable place to get both of those needs fulfilled. No good can come of that idea. She rests her head against the tiled shower recess and sighs deeply. Amy is pretty sure a week is way too long a lapse to call someone and bitch them out. Probably this is something she should ask Gina for advice on. Probably not. Absolutely no good can come of that idea.
Gina knows, of course. How she found out, Amy has no idea. She suspects it was something to do with Boyle, and Rosa wanting to spare her from being guilt tripped into sampling whatever vegetable abomination Boyle is currently pickling in the space above the boiler. So because Gina knows, Amy assumes everyone knows. Terry brings her a parfait at lunch (not even a yogurt parfait, an honest to god ice cream parfait, with a wafer stick and everything), Boyle offers to test her on operating procedures for various emergencies, and Rosa brings her coffee the next two mornings in a row. Jake does nothing. Well, not nothing, but nothing out of the ordinary. He's nice to her, but not so nice that it's weird.
(It's still kinda weird anyway.)
This might all be enough ammunition for her current state of mind, but in an extraordinary display of hubris, the universe decided that Amy Santiago wasn’t done yet. The blood in her hair, streaming through her fingers, is not hers. It belongs to a child, or at least, it came off a child. (She doesn’t want to think about it.) Does not want to think about a little boy running scared out of his apartment, a domestic violence call followed through to the worst of all possible conclusions. There will be plenty of time to think about that in the departmentally mandated counseling sessions which she is definitely going to be sent to. Time enough to figure out exactly every way she did things wrong, acted too quickly and ended up fucking up. She’s got the rest of her life to think about that. What she wants now is a glass of wine, her fuzziest throw blanket and something appropriately mind numbing, like the Weather Channel, or CNBC. That’s what she wants, but it doesn’t stop her from running through her mental account of the day, beat by beat, as the water streams over her head.
Fifteen minutes later, the hot water runs out and she gasps, skin rubbed red raw from the hot water now stinging sharp from the cold. She piles herself into a bathrobe and shrugs a pair of sweat pants on. (“Don’t wear those pants, mija,” she can hear her brother saying, “You look like you’ve given up on life.”) She’s just about to shrug on her oldest, comfiest cardigan when she hears a knock at the door. Well, it’s one loud knock, followed by a quick succession of little knocks. It’s kind of hugely obnoxious, and since it’s not Halloween, there’s only one other person she knows who would knock like that. She pulls her still drying hair into an elastic and goes to open the door for Jake.
He's standing in her doorway, hood up, dorkass grin spread across his face and a bag of food balanced on one hand. She's just about to ask him to leave when she notices what's in his other hand. Before she can help herself she blurts out, "Wait, you still have a rental place in your neighbourhood?" He moves past her easily, walking into her apartment like he belongs there. Were it anyone else, Amy would think something of the familiarity, but truth is, Jake's like that everywhere.
It's a gift. Or a curse, depending on who you ask.
He puts the food on the counter and shakes a few busted up looking DVDs out of the bag, with photocopied labels. "One of the benefits of moving into Gina's apartment. It's called "Blockbester", he says, putting the words into inverted commas with his fingers, "which I think is breaking like, fifteen different copyright laws, but they're the only place I can find Mighty Ducks 3 on DVD anymore, so you know, the greater good." "Oh of course," she deadpans, unable to help herself, "the long arm of the law can only reach so far."
"Exactly!" He grins. "Okay so, we've got Ghostbusters, Mighty Ducks 3, obviously, and of course, Die Hard. But first, food." He removes the bag from his other hand and Amy dives in, eagerly. She hasn't eaten all day and the lure of an egg roll is too much to bear.
After a moment spent opening the bag, she looks up at Jake, who is watching her, evidently waiting for her to say something.
"This is, really nice of you, Jake." She begins, carefully. "But I'm kinda tired and I'm not really in the mo-" Jake nods quickly, then begins speaking over the top of her. "No, I get it. But I've been through what you're going through, and I know you think you want to be alone, but trust me, you don't." He shrugs. She looks up, and there's a weird expression on his face, one she hasn't seen before.
(Out of nowhere, she remembers asking Gina, just once, if Jake was okay. She hadn't wanted to weird Jake out with her concern, and figured that asking Gina was the best barometer of his state of mind. Gina had nodded, and Amy had left it at that.)
Amy feels guilty. Jake on the other hand, isn't finished talking. "And I know you're going to want to sit and Santiago the problem until you find a way to deal with it, but you can't fix this, and as much as you try not to, you're just going to stew about it, and you don't wanna do that. You really don't. And I know, I'm not the person you'd want around, specifically, at a time like this, but I'm here, if you change your mind." He stretches himself up to his full height, preparing to leave, tidying the stack of DVD’s on the counter. "Make sure you return the movies, okay? Yuri will kill me if I'm late again." He taps his knuckles on the counter. "I'm completely serious. I'm like, ninety percent sure I saw a box of fingers behind the register." She smiles, in spite of herself, she wants him to stay.
Later on, she will tell herself it was just because she didn’t want to be alone.
(This is true, but also kind of a lie of omission.)
"It's okay Jake, you should stay." His face splits into a grin and she nods, affirming it to herself more than to him, "I'll just get some plates, okay?" She goes into the kitchen, just kind of needing a minute. She can hear him examining the bags of food, and while he's talking she knows that he doesn't expect her to answer. It's kind of nice. It feels normal.
(She does not shake her hair out of her rapidly drying ponytail, but she definitely thinks about it.)
She returns with two plates and a couple of beers, to find Jake already digging in, eating straight from the containers. She's really grateful she didn't take longer, she's forgotten that dining with Peralta is like sharing a meal with an army platoon. The dumplings are disappearing at a rapid rate. Jake looks quizzically up at her with a mouthful of chicken lo mein. She has to ask. "Why did you come here?" Amy doesn't mean for this to sound as harsh as it comes out. She screws up her face. "That's not what I meant. I mean, this is really nice, and I'm, I just don't want-" -you to get the wrong idea, she thinks she means to say, but she trails off instead. "Never mind, forget I said anything." She knows Jake knows exactly what she meant. He is, after all, kind of a great detective. He also has an excellent poker face.
"Relax, Santiago. It's Chinese food, not marriage. Besides," he adds, a grin spreading across his face. "When I was eleven I promised I'd marry Gina and I can't go back on that, we spit shaked."
Amy nods, as if this explains everything, and drops into a chair, pulling a container towards her. "Guess I'll just have to be the other woman."