Work Text:
i am not a stranger to the dark
part 1: jake
The snow begins to fall the moment they leave Manhattan.
“Told you it would,” Amy remarks as Jake leans against the glass, staring at the frail white flakes beginning to cover the ground. “It said so under the weather section of the binder.”
“The binder for the car ride, or the Christmas binder?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Jake raises a brow. “The car ride binder, obviously. I ran out of space in the Christmas binder days ago.”
The snow is painting the trees a pale shade of white against the gray sky. Jake squints through the window, making it all blur together. White and gray makes even more gray, but inside of their car there is color. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see the stones of the engagement ring on Amy’s finger. There’s either just enough sunshine peeking through the clouds for them to glisten, or he’s imagining it, but it makes him feel warm anyway.
“Are you nervous?” She asks, and he shakes his head, even though yes, he totally is, but he’s trying not to think about it. If suppressing uncomfortable thoughts were a marketable skill, it would be listed on the top of Jake’s CV, provided that he also had a CV.
“Why would I be nervous?” He asks, trying and failing to make his laugh genuine. “I’m not nervous. It's not like I’m meeting your whole family at the same time and spending several days with them in a cabin in the woods where I have nowhere to flee in case I make a bad impression.”
Amy rolls her eyes. “You’ve met most of my family before, Jake. They like you.”
“Your dad, last Thanksgiving, would beg to differ.”
“He's over it. I promise.”
“Your mom is secretly judging me all the time.”
“She does that to everyone, it's not personal.”
“Your brothers probably think I'm not good enough for you.”
“My brothers love you. Julian literally won’t shut up about you. And if any of them ever say you're not good enough, I’ll fight them. I grew up with them, I know their weaknesses.” She looks away from the road just long enough to meet his nervous gaze. “Babe, everything is going to be fine. My family's intense, but they're not monsters.”
“Except for David,” Jake adds. Amy smiles.
“Exactly. I’m proud of you.”
He smiles back, holding her eye contact for as long as she offers it and soaking in the brief moment of connection. Whenever he feels like he's losing his grip on reality, he looks to Amy; literally as well as figuratively.
He's been doing it a lot lately. He's not sure what he expected, but being less than three months out of the most traumatic experience of your life and struggling to process it, while also throwing yourself back into the rush of normal life, has turned out to be more difficult than he predicted. He thinks two, three more times before every move he makes at work now, and maybe it makes him a better detective like Holt said, but it's made him far more anxious, too. He still struggles with crowds, fearing someone will recognize him from the news months ago, and with deserted places, because they make him hyper-aware that no-one's around to help him if he’s attacked. He still has nightmares, and they still wake him up screaming and leave him feeling uneasy and ashamed.
It's like he wants to be back to normal so bad, he can't make himself accept the parts that are inevitably different.
“We should run through some of the basic rules for this stay,” Amy says, noticing him drifting away in thought. He loves her, for somehow knowing when he needs to talk about it and when he just needs to get distracted. “Off-limit topics, go.”
“Julian saying he doesn't want kids. Last Christmas when Simon gifted everyone watches that turned out to be leftovers from a failed brand deal. Whether or not tía Adriana voted Republican last year and whether we can still talk to her. The time Simon got a restraining order after trying to collab with Zoella. The time Tony tried to run the New York marathon and had to give up halfway. The fact that Simon filmed it.”
“Maybe just don't bring up Simon’s YouTube channel at all.”
“Got it.”
“Rule on entering the kitchen when my mom is cooking and cursing in Spanish?”
“To avoid it at all costs if you want to keep all of your limbs?” Jake eyes Amy skeptically to see if she was serious about that one, but there's not a hint of playfulness on her face as she nods.
“Correct.”
“Who can choose the Christmas music?
“Literally anyone but David. Never let David choose the music.”
“Not unless you want to listen to Silent Night in Hungarian until your ears bleed.”
“I have so many questions, but okay.”
“And finally, the rule on researching cases that my dad worked as a cop to find flaws in them?”
“To not take that chance again.”
“Thank you. But if you can find a flaw in one that David worked, I will literally marry you on the spot.”
It's a casual reference, said almost as a joke, yet the excitement makes him feel like he's buzzing from happiness amid his nervosity. He clenches his fists and releases them a few times, trying to get rid of the excess energy.
“You're going to do great,” Amy tells him. “I left a note in your phone with the rules in case you need to repeat them. And if it gets too much, you come find me. We can have a code if you want. Like… tell me there's an important work call and tap your wrist twice.”
“Spy code, noice.” He tries to smile, but it comes out as a grimace. “I have one more question. It's probably dumb, but…”
“They all knew Melanie was dirty, Jake. They're not going to ask about it unless you bring it up, and you don't have to talk about it if you don't want to. My family's a little crazy, but they're respectful.”
“Okay.” Jake takes a deep breath. “Then I’m ready.”
Amy lets go of the steering wheel with her right hand for the shortest moment, just long enough to squeeze his. “Our first Christmas as an engaged couple, huh? Next year we’ll be married.”
“Next year we’ll be married,” he repeats. “I can't wait.”
The speaker in the car, playing a mixed playlist from Jake's phone on low, switches to a new song. He’s only heard it a few times before, but he already remembers the lyrics.
And I know it’s bad when we look out
But bad, bad people don't live in our house
He raises the volume, hoping Amy might recognize it too, and grins as she starts humming along.
“I love this one.”
“I know.”
I know it’s hard enough to love me
But woke up in a safe house, singing
Honey, let's get married.
When it's just the two of them in the car, it never seems to matter that neither of them can sing. Jake looks at Amy tapping her fingers against the steering wheel to the music, in the completely wrong rhythm but with adorable enthusiasm, and lets himself forget about everything else for a minute.
~
The first evening with all the Santiagos under one roof goes by almost without a hitch. The food is almost done by the time they get there and nobody bothers Camila in the kitchen, Christian is in charge of the music, and Jake doesn't even call a child the wrong name once, which is practically a Christmas miracle considering how many of them there are. They crowd around the table for a late dinner once everyone’s arrived, and he’s squeezed between Amy and Tony as he takes bites of chicken in between trying to keep up with the conversation. He’s so used to hearing Amy talk, he never thinks about how fast she speaks, but when she’s surrounded by her siblings, it’s intense. It’s like there’s a constant race in who can provide the most information before being interrupted, or give the fastest comeback, and it’s almost dizzying before he manages to fall into the pace. Once he’s done that, he’s still confused, but he’s also hooked and feeling like he’s gained yet another puzzle piece in the great puzzle of Amy, of who she is and why. He’s been laying that puzzle since the first day they met, although it was a subconscious action at first. He can’t wait to spend the rest of his life working on it, even if it means he’ll have to learn to keep up with insanely fast-paced conversations that change between Spanish and English when he least expects it, and teach himself how to eat Tony’s sugar and gluten-free cookies that taste like dirt without publicly gagging.
He goes to bed content with his first evening and excited for the next day. Amy plays with his hair before falling asleep, her hand drifting to his shoulder once she does, and it’s the perfect sense of closeness and intimacy while giving them both enough space to fall asleep comfortably. He’s not anxious when he falls asleep, and he’s not thinking about prison. It makes no sense for him to have nightmares, but he does anyway.
It’s not even a new dream, or a detailed one. He’s not particularly sure what happens at all, if it’s memories replaying or if there are moments of fiction mixed in with them. He’s been through so many versions of them by now, it’s been a long time since he could distinguish them. They’re more of a feeling at this point, but that feeling is unnerving enough on its own to leave him paralyzed with dread.
He wakes up gasping to Amy sitting up in bed next to him, watching him with worried eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers even though his mouth feels like sandpaper. Amy gives him the glass of water on her nightstand and he chugs it.
“You were screaming,” she says, and Jake’s face flashes hot. “It's okay. It wasn't too bad this time.”
This time. The fact that it’s still so common, they can compare them.
“I…” He shakes his head, sighing. His heart is still pounding, so fast and hard it's the only thing he can think about. “I don't even know why.”
“You went through something hard. It takes time to heal from. It's not weird, Jake.” Amy looks like she's a second away from jumping into a lengthy explanation of post-traumatic stress disorder before she changes her mind. “Do you need anything? Go out for some fresh air, or a shower, or -”
“I’m okay.” He's not sure it's true, but he wants it to be. “I’m just going to go back to sleep, I think.”
She nods and lays down next to him like she always does after the nightmares, the way he never knows if it's mostly for him or for her own sake. As much as he jokes about little spoon being the superior of the two choices, they usually switch it up; but when he has nightmares, Amy makes a point of sleeping with her torso against his back, sometimes with her arms wrapped around his chest and their legs tangling together. It's sweaty and not always the most comfortable of options, but it makes him feel safe. He wonders if it does the same for her, if it reminds her he's not going anywhere.
He wonders if Rosa still has nightmares, too. He wonders what helps her fall back asleep after them.
~
Jake doesn't feel very rested when the sound of children laughing in the bedroom next to them and the clinking of cutlery from the kitchen below wakes him up the next morning, but Amy's already getting dressed. He lets himself stay in bed a moment longer just to enjoy the view. It never seems to get old, shamelessly watching her change out of her oversized t-shirt and put on bra, jeans, tank top, and a sweater, and it’s not even about sex. It’s the knowledge that he gets to be here with her, that he gets to see her in these everyday moments, today, and – if he has anything to say about it – for the rest of his life.
“Thin walls,” she reminds him with a smirk when she catches him staring.
“I know,” he says. “You’re just beautiful.”
That does earn him a kiss, even if it’s quickly interrupted by one of Amy’s nephews banging on their door to tell them breakfast is ready.
One perk of being so many people under one roof is that it never gets boring. There’s always something happening to keep him distracted, whether it’s Victor trying to decorate cookies with his grandchildren in the kitchen and being surprisingly patient even when two-year-old Ellie puts her whole hand in the bowl of green icing and smears it in her hair, or Tony insisting on a snowball fight only to be defeated in minutes by Christian and Simon teaming up against him. There’s always someone talking to him or dragging him along to the next room until he’s completely lost all sense of time, and suddenly he’s hurrying out of the kitchen as Camila starts muttering curses about rice, and walking right into the living room where David is typing out words in a foreign language in the Spotify search bar.
A downside to the organized chaos is that he keeps losing track of Amy, and without her, it's easy to feel overwhelmed. Everywhere Jake goes people are talking, laughing or crying, playing and competing, and as much as he loves it, he can't help but feel a little left out. It's not that they don't include him – Julian and Lucas almost started fighting each other over who got to have Jake in their team in Pictionary, despite him explaining that he did in fact not inherit his mother’s art skills – but rather that no matter what he's doing, it feels like a part of him isn't fully there.
He wonders what it would have been like to celebrate Christmas in prison. Would Amy have visited? Would they have exchanged gifts under the eyes of vigilant guards, and what sort of gift would he even have been able to get her? Jake knows she wouldn't have cared, that she'd been happy just to see him alive and healthy, but it still would have felt wrong not to be able to get her something nice. He wonders if they would have served Christmas lunch in the cafeteria, or if some rare enthusiastic guard would have allowed them some decorations. Most likely, he figures, it would have been like any other day in there for them, passing by without much more acknowledgment than the inmates with families missing them more than usual. This is way better, Jake thinks. No matter how loud and intense it can get when everyone seems to be talking at once, he's grateful he gets to be here.
~
As much as Jake enjoys getting to know all of Amy’s brothers, her nieces and nephews are just as fun. They’re also much less pressure, because they literally adore him as long as he gives them attention and listens to them explaining every detail of their Lego creations. He doesn’t know why he wouldn’t; they’re very creative, and he genuinely enjoys listening to Matthew and Mason describe the specifics of their super-secret spy tower, which apparently has flame throwers and several intricate traps. Matthew is in the middle of explaining the specifics of one of them when Mason interrupts him, asking Jake a question.
“You woke me up when I was sleeping because you were screaming. Why were you screaming?”
“I, uh…”
“You’re not supposed to ask him that,” Matthew reminds his younger brother. “It’s not nice.”
“No, no, it’s okay, “ Jake hurries to say. “I was having a nightmare. Do you ever have nightmares?”
Mason nods, wide-eyed. “One time I had a dream I was eating a big cupcake. But then, it started eating me instead.”
Jake nods, careful not to start laughing at the dead-serious child. “That does sound scary.”
“Are your nightmares about prison?”
“You’re not supposed to ask him that either,” Matthew says. Mason ignores him.
“It’s fine. Yeah, most of them are.”
“Why?”
“Well, I thought it was really scary in there.”
“Hmm.” Mason pushes up his glasses. They’re too big for his face and sliding down all the time, but he doesn’t seem to mind. “I’m happy you’re not in prison anymore. Then you couldn’t build a spy tower with us.”
“You know what?” Jake laughs, moving his lego figurine two steps forward. “I’m really happy about that, too.”
Matthew sighs deeply. “You just stepped in the alligator trap. Now the alligators are going to eat you.”
~
Hungry alligators or not, eventually afternoon fades into evening on December 24th, and Camila throws everyone but David out of the kitchen so they can perfect the last details of the Nochebuena dinner. Jake finally finds Amy again and moves as close to her on the couch as he can get without her brothers wolf-whistling at them, her head resting on his shoulder and his hand squeezing hers.
“Long day?” He asks when she yawns. He wonders how much sleep she got after he woke her up, and feels bad.
“Always is,” she says, flinching as Mason dashes past the Christmas tree, and a fragile ornament rocks slightly. “Still great, though. This is when the fun begins. You excited?”
“And a little terrified,” he mumbles, low enough for only her to hear, and it makes her laugh.
“You’ll be fine. It's nothing too crazy. We'll just have dinner, play some games and exchange some gifts, and then we'll go to bed and wake up and open even more gifts.”
Jake can feel his smile not reaching his eyes and looks away, feeling grateful that Simon chooses the same moment to ask Amy a question.
He is excited, but something still feels wrong, like there's something important he's forgotten to do. He just can't quite figure out what it is.
His phone vibrates in his back pocket, and he reaches for it, prepared to react with some hearts to what is probably another thirty pictures of Nikolaj playing with the Christmas gift Jake stopped by to give him before they left. Instead, he gets a surprise when he opens it to see a text from Rosa.
Can you talk?
~
part 2: rosa
Rosa may have lied when she first told Holt and Terry about her Thanksgiving plans, but for Christmas, she's serious. It's just her and her bike, mile after mile, driving until it feels like she's left this year behind her. She knows it doesn’t work like that, but going as fast as she can on roads that get emptier the longer she drives, she can pretend it's time and not distance she's leaving behind.
She knows she's going to have to turn around eventually, but she's going to enjoy every minute until then. The biting cold against her cheeks, the wind making her hair fly behind her, the pressure of the handles against her palms as she rides. No music, no company, no dinner.
She wasn't meant to be spending Christmas on her own. She was supposed to be with her family, having a big party with her mom and dad and sisters and nieces, playing kid-friendly games and filling up on her mother's cooking until she could barely stand. She’d been so excited. Up until a week ago, when she realized that her father telling her they better put family game night on hold for a while, meant the same thing would need to happen with Christmas. It would still take place for the rest of the Diaz family; just not with Rosa.
She considered protesting. She could have easily showed up either way and tried to live through the awkwardness. Even if they had locked the door, she knows enough gymnastics and tricks from her youth to be able to climb through a window. But as much as it hurts to be left out, Rosa loves her family, enough to prefer them having a pleasant time without her, than her presence ruining the entire evening because her mother still thinks it'd be better if Rosa was some man’s mistress than in a healthy, loving relationship with another woman.
It would have hurt less if she'd at least had the option of celebrating with said woman, but she's only dated Hailey for a month, which is nowhere near long enough to follow your girlfriend’s close-knit family to live in a bungalow in Hawaii for four days. It would have been fine if she was working, too, but not even the scheduling worked out in her favor this year. Long story short, it’s just Rosa and her motorcycle for the day.
It's fine. It really is perfectly fine. She doesn't mind her own company, and if anything, it's nice to have a chance to reflect on everything that has happened this year. Going as fast as she can, feeling the rush of adrenaline, she can finally think clearly.
She tries not to think about how Melanie Hawkins rode a motorcycle too. Rosa had admired it about her, gone almost ecstatic when she found something the two of them could bond over. It had been almost like hypnosis, the way Hawkins worked her charm with them at first, and they had fallen for it. Paid for it, as well.
Rosa tries not to think about prison, either, but it seeps in either way. Mostly when she’s alone. Sometimes she thinks that’s why she threw herself back into dating instantly, craving company at all times for once in her life. Being alone takes her back to the isolation cell, to the very real feeling that someone’s always watching her. It takes her back to a darkness she hasn’t known since her teenage years, and she desperately doesn’t want to be there, can’t return to that place again. Hailey and Holt both recommended a therapist, but outside the mandatory meetings she’s been forced to in order to return to work, she hasn’t been able to make that call.
She will, though. Maybe. Another day. Until then, she has her motorcycle, these roads, and the mesmerizing blur as she flies past the trees and fences lining the asphalt. Here, she’s free. No one can hurt her here. She can go wherever she wants, the whole world at her feet as long as she returns for work in two days, and it’s the best kind of high there is.
At least until her motorcycle lets out a damning sound, like a hysterical cat screeching, and Rosa just about makes it to the side of the road before the motor dies.
She curses her bike and her luck and this stupid-fucking-goddamn-son-of-a-bitch year, because of course it has to end like this, and did she ever really think she deserved better, anyway?
She hitchhikes home with a hippie family of three kids who spend most of the ride trying to make her sing along to Frozen songs, and an old poodle who spends most of it trying to hump her leg, reminding her of Charles’ dead dog in a not so flattering way. The parents are nice enough to drop off her motorcycle at the closest open mechanic, though, and Rosa makes a note to herself to send them a scrapbooked thank you-card in the mail.
Her phone battery is dead, but once she plugs it in it’s only minutes before a barrage of texts from Hailey are rushing in, complaining about her family and telling Rosa she misses her, that she hopes she’s okay, that she can call whenever she wants to but she might not be able to answer if her grandmother has decided that everyone is too obsessed with their phones nowadays and put every mobile device in a drawer for an hour. Rosa takes the chance, but no one picks up.
Her dad has sent a text as well. He wishes her a Merry Christmas, says he’s sorry they can’t celebrate together this year, that he hopes it will be different next year. A little more time, he repeats whenever they talk, and Rosa loves him but hates him for the fact that he hasn’t been able to convince her mom otherwise. It’s selfish, she knows, but the frustration is stronger than the guilt. She needed not to be alone this year, she needed distractions like she’s never needed them before, and yet here she is. She almost thinks about calling Pimento, just to catch up, but that’s a door she probably shouldn’t open. The two of them never were much for long conversations, after all.
Rosa throws on her best pair of expensive pajamas, grabs a bottle of whiskey from her cabinet, and lays down on the couch. At least she has Nancy Meyers, and at least she has Arlo, who must be able to sense her sadness judging from the way he lays down at her feet. When he exhales, it tickles, making her laugh for the first time that day.
She wonders how Jake is doing. He’s struggled, she knows, more so from talking to Amy than from actually asking him. It’s not like either of them loves talking about their feelings, and they’ve dealt with the return so differently, too. They’ve tried a few times, but it always ends with them drinking in silence. Rosa doesn’t mind it. She wonders whether Jake, secretly, does.
Maybe she could call him, she thinks. Just for a few minutes, to wish him a Merry Christmas and ask how he's doing. She checks the time on her phone; it's not dinner time quite yet. He might have time. Might even appreciate it, if she knows him right.
It's a weird Christmas for both of them, after all.
~
His contact picture is the same as it's been since the academy; a picture of him stuffing his cheeks filled with marshmallows during a less-than-sober competition with some classmates. It’s the one picture she keeps of him, because it never fails to make her laugh, and the only reason she lies about having it is so he’ll never make her delete it. She sends a text first in case he’s busy, and is surprised when the phone lights up with an incoming call barely two minutes later.
“Is something wrong?” He asks first, in classic Jake-style. “You never call.”
“Everything’s fine. Just wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas.”
“Aww. Merry Christmas to you too. Or Feliz Navidad, as you say.”
“You learning any Spanish from the Santiagos, el baboso?”
“Ugh. I’m trying so hard, but all the kids just laugh at me. It’s so unfair, Diaz,” he whines. She snorts. “It’s fun, though. Well, it’s mostly fun, and a little crazy. But it’s good. How is your Christmas?”
“Well,” Rosa grimaces before realizing he can’t see her face. “It’s just me and Arlo. And Nancy Meyers. It’s fine, though.”
“Shit,” Jake says, and she can hear the guilt in his voice. “Fuck. I forgot. I’m sorry.”
“Why are you sorry?”
“I don’t know,” he mumbles. “I could have asked you to come with us, maybe – I could have asked Charles – it totally slipped my mind. You shouldn’t have to be alone on Christmas, that’s just sad.” “I said it’s fine. Honestly. It’s not bad.” Rosa takes a swig of the whiskey, feeling it burn in her throat. “I’d rather be here. It’s for the best.”
“Sorry.”
“Dude, please stop saying you’re sorry.”
The call goes silent for a while, save the sound of snow crunching under someone’s shoes, before Jake asks a question.
“Is it weird for you, too? Christmas after prison?”
“Everything’s weird after prison,” Rosa says, a rare moment of honesty.
“What do you think celebrating Christmas in there is like?”
“You mean, do they know it’s Christmas time at all?”
Jake snorts. “Band Aid. Great hit.”
“The ones in isolation probably don’t know, unless the guards tell them.”
“Yeah. I could never remember what date it was in there.”
“You can never remember what date it is in the real world.”
“That’s fair. Did I tell you about the mashed potato portrait?”
“You did.” Arlo is nuzzling at her feet, and it’s taking Rosa a lot to hold back from giggling. “At least this is still way better than... that.”
“Literally everything is better than prison.”
“True that.” Rosa looks up at the tv, realizing she’s missed at least ten minutes of the movie already. “I’m glad we got out.”
“Sometimes it still feels like a part of me didn't,” Jake says, quietly. “You ever feel that way?”
“Sometimes,” she admits. “We did, though. That's what's important.”
Rosa can hear someone talking in the background on the other end, and Jake mumbling something back in reply.
“I have to go,” he tells her, and it makes her a little sad, because he's good company. “I can't miss dinner. Wouldn't want to piss off the entirety of my fiancées family before I’ve even married her, right?”
“Right. Well, tell Amy I said hi. And, you know…” She wriggles slightly in her seat, uncomfortable with the emotions even though she can’t see his face. “I hope it gets easier. All of it.”
“I hope so, too. And I’m sure Charles would still be over the moon to have you for Christmas dinner -”
“Jake. I’m okay.”
“I know. Well, in that case…Merry Christmas, Rosa.”
“Merry Christmas, Jake.”
He clicks her in the next moment, just as Arlo nuzzles a little harder, the way he always does when he wants to play. She laughs and scratches his chin, reaching for an abandoned dog toy on the couch table and throwing it across the apartment. Arlo sets off in a hurry to bring it back to her, and his boundless excitement makes her smile.
It may be a weird Christmas, but at least Rosa’s not alone. She knows Jake isn't, either, and she's happy for him.
The road back is a weird one. She's still happy they both get to take it.
~