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There’s an absurdly fat pigeon standing in front of a green dumpster, aggressively pecking at a sad chunk of poppy seed bagel.
That’s what Jake knows for sure. Everything else is a little fuzzy.
For example, why is he standing in this sketchy-looking alleyway? Why is the front of his shirt covered in coffee? Why does his head hurt so damn much?
And where the heck is that voice coming from?
“...Helllooo? Earth to Jake...? What do you want?”
It’s such a familiar voice, Jake thinks as he whirls around dizzily, searching for the speaker. Female, he’s pretty sure. A little nasally. Definitely annoyed with him.
“If this is a butt-dial, I don’t talk to butts. I’m hanging up,” the person huffs, and wait a minute, people don’t hang up unless they’re talking on the–
“...phone?” He looks down, blinking in confusion at the device in his hand. He brings it up to his ear, which causes him to hiss slightly as a jolt of pain shoots through his elbow. Why does that hurt? “Who is this?” he asks.
“This is the person whose mid-morning Instagram live stream you’re interrupting,” the voice drawls. “Now my viewers will never learn the secret to Ryan Reynolds’ fabulous hair game.”
She sounds so familiar. Why can’t he remember? Has he been drugged? Is that why his head hurts so much?
“No seriously… who is this?” Jake mumbles. He steps forward, stumbling a bit, and has to catch himself on the side of the building to keep upright. Definitely impaired. He hasn’t been drinking, has he? Seems pretty early for that...
“It’s Gina, dumbass,” she retorts, and as soon as she says it, it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “You’re the one who called me.”
“Right, right…” Jake mutters despite having absolutely no memory of this. His brow furrows as he watches the pigeon abandon the bagel and strut across the pavement at a hasty pace toward a soggy-looking pile of french fries. “Um… any idea why I’d do that?”
“I am many things, but psychic isn't one.”
Between the bird’s ruffled grayish-blue feathers and its over-confident attitude, Jake is strangely reminded of the lead character from a show about the Napoleonic Wars that he and Amy binge-watched a few weeks back. Horatio, he’s pretty sure the guy was called.
Now, how the hell does he remember that when he can’t even remember why he’s on the phone? “Was I... getting you bagels?” That doesn’t sound quite right, but it’s all his brain is coming up with at the moment.
Gina’s tone grows a little more serious. “Jake, what’s going on?”
“Not sure…” He can feel something trickling down the left side of his face and lifts his fingers up to touch it. They come back wet. And red. “I think I’m… bleeding?”
“You’re bleeding?” Gina repeats in confusion. “Where? How? It’s your day off.”
Is it? Well that would explain why he’s standing here in broad daylight wearing cargo shorts and a graphic t-shirt with a picture of eggs in a frying pan and the words ‘omelette that slide’ rather than his gun and badge.
“I think–” He follows the trail of blood up his face with his fingertips, then sucks a sharp breath in through his teeth as they brush against a gash along his hairline. “Yeah… Yeah, head’s definitely bleeding… Ow...”
“Well that's concerning,” Gina mutters, and he can hear movement on her side of the line. “Where are you?” she asks, clearer now.
“Uh...” That’s a pretty good question, actually. Jake stumbles further down the alley towards the cross street, looking for anything that might jog his memory. Between growing up in Brooklyn and chasing perps down the city streets for a living, he likes to think he has a pretty solid grasp of the local area, but wherever he is, this isn’t ringing any bells. “An alley?” he tries.
She scoffs a bit. “Jake, this is New York. Gonna need you to be a little more specific than that.”
“Yeah, I…” He looks around, his gaze falling once more on the ornery pigeon and half-pecked chunk of bagel, which seems oddly important for some reason. “I really think it’s got something to do with Horatio’s bagel.”
There’s a beat of silence. Then, “Okay, this is a little above my pay grade. Hold on.”
The line goes silent.
Jake hums a bit. His head is spinning. He should probably sit down before gravity makes that decision for him.
But as he lowers himself shakily down to sit on the concrete step, he gets a closer look at the bagel. There aren’t just poppy seeds on top, but flecks of onion and sesame as well.
Maybe he doesn’t know anything at all.
X
It is 11:37 a.m. and Captain Raymond Holt is sitting at his desk. Having consumed exactly two-and-a-half bites of his egg salad and iceberg lettuce sandwich, he is now warily eyeing the can of lemon-flavored sparkling water Kevin packed him that morning.
Raymond’s favorite flavor of sparkling water is ‘plain,’ but Kevin—who’d been in a particularly adventurous mood this week—suggested they branch out, and against Raymond’s better judgement he’d allowed it. Now he’s having second thoughts.
He’s just working up the wherewithal to take a cautious sip when the door swings open.
“Houston, we have a problem,” Gina announces, her cell phone held against her chest.
Raymond frowns. “I specifically requested that you schedule all problems for after my thirty-minute mandatory unpaid lunch break.”
“Yeah, but it’s Jake,” she says, and she actually seems worried. “Something’s wrong. He called me and he’s really confused and says he’s bleeding. I think he hit his head.”
Raymond sighs, setting the sandwich back into its tupperware container. It seems that even on Detective Peralta’s days off, he can still manage to interrupt Raymond’s lunch break. He takes the phone, pressing the speaker. “What is it, Peralta?”
“...It’s an everything bagel,” Jake whispers slowly, as though something is dawning on him as he speaks.
Raymond glances up at Gina, brow furrowed. She gives an exaggerated shrug in return. “He’s really hung up on that bagel.”
“Peralta?” Raymond prompts again.
“I was wrong.” Jake’s words come out in a low murmur. “The bagel is an everything, and I know nothing.”
Is this some kind of code? Raymond wonders. He racks his brain for all the common ciphers he’s committed to memory—which is quite a few—but comes up short. “Gina says you may be injured. Where are you located?”
“Wish I knew, sir,” Jake mutters under his breath.
Alarm bells are going off in Raymond’s head now. Jake has his fair share of flaws, but orientation has never been one. “What do you see around you? Does anything look familiar?”
There’s a pause, then, “Horatio.”
“Horatio?” The only ‘Horatio’ Raymond knows off the top of his head is the infamous faithful friend (and potential secret lover of) Shakepeare’s Hamlet. And if Peralta is seeing that man, then this is more serious than Raymond thought.
“I think…” Jake trails off again. “I think I was in a fight?”
“With Horatio?” Raymond confirms.
“Hope not.” Jake lets out an abrupt little giggle. “That would be embarrassing.”
“Why is that?”
Jake hums. “‘Cus he’s a pigeon.”
Raymond exchanges a look of utter bafflement with Gina. “A pigeon?” he clarifies.
“...I don’t feel so good,” Jake murmurs.
“Yes,” Raymond states as the telltale sound of retching echoes over the line. “We’ve gathered that much.”
X
Jake now knows at least one thing again, and that’s that he must have eaten scrambled eggs for breakfast. Or at least they’re scrambled now, as they splatter against the pavement.
Over the ringing in his ears, he hears Amy’s concerned voice joining the mix: “Sir, what’s going on?” she frets. “Where’s Jake? Gina says he’s bleeding. What happened?”
She sounds distressed. Jake should say something reassuring, but as he opens his mouth to do so, that’s not what comes out of it.
“Is he throwing up?” she asks worriedly as Jake’s next round of vomit hits the ground. Horatio ruffles his feathers and hops away, squawking loudly.
Jake can just make out Holt’s murmured answer: “He seems to be concussed and he doesn’t know where he is.”
There’s movement and muffled voices over the line. If Jake thought he was dizzy before, that’s nothing compared to now. Squeezing his eyes shut, he leans his shoulder up against the iron stair railing.
“Jake, what happened?” Amy demands. “I’m tracking your phone, and it’s telling me you’re in Lyndhurst New Jersey.”
Even in his disoriented state, Jake’s nose wrinkles up in disgust. “Jersey? Did I– I didn’t get kidnapped, did I?”
There’s a pause. “...Do you think you got kidnapped?”
“I think…” Jake racks his brain. Fuzzy images of crossing over the turnpike are coming back to him now, which he can’t really imagine doing of his own volition. Then again, having been kidnapped once or twice before, he has to admit this is a strange way to do it, with no restraints or locked doors or even a guard. Unless…
“Wait…” He eyes the bird warily. “Do you think Horatio is a guard?”
“Who is–”
“A pigeon,” Holt interrupts. “We have established Horatio is a pigeon.”
There’s a beat of silence. Then Amy says, “Honey, are you sure you’ve been kidnapped?”
Jake is honestly offended. What other reason could he possibly have for being in Jersey? But even as the thought is crossing his mind, his eyes fall back to that sad chunk of bagel on the ground and it hits him like a bus. “Wait! Bagels!” It’s all flooding back to him now. “I was getting us bagels!”
“In Jersey?” Amy questions. “Why would you– Wait, the Instagram bagels?”
“Yes!” Jake confirms, glad to finally be getting some clarity, even if it makes his head throb. “Julia’s Sugar Bagels!”
“Sugar bagel?” Holt repeats, sounding confused. “So… a donut?”
“No, a sugar bagel,” Gina—who Jake had almost forgotten was there—groans in exasperation. “Have you been living under a rock? They’ve practically taken over the internet.”
It’s true. Sugar bagels are basically the new cronuts, with stores popping up left and right all over the northeast. Personally, Jake prefers savory flavors, such as the ‘Chili Cheddar Ham-’Splosion’ from their local bakery, but Amy has been dying to try Julia’s specialty bagels ever since Instagram started recommending her account.
So, since Jake is a fantastic husband, he thought he’d use his day off work to surprise Amy by bringing back a dozen, which would have no doubt gone over very well, if only the store hadn’t been–
“Robbed!” Memories of a shady-but-familiar character in a dark hoodie with a handgun pointed at Instagram Star Julia herself are coming back to him. “The bagel store was robbed!”
“There was a robbery?” Amy questions.
“And you called me about it?” Gina says incredulously.
Jake frowns. Now that they mention it, it is kind of strange that he chose to call Gina instead of the cops—or his own wife, for that matter. But then again, it’s not Amy whose weird cousin just held up a bagel store at gunpoint.
“Oh my god!” Jake blurts. “I remember now! I’ve solved the case!” He’s almost lightheaded from excitement. Or maybe it’s just blood loss.
“...There was a case?” Holt murmurs in the background.
“The Sugar Bagel Bandit is Samuel Adams!” Jake exclaims triumphantly.
“The founding father?” Holt asks.
“The beer brand?” Amy questions.
“My cousin?” Gina demands.
Suddenly, a jostling sound from the other end of the alley catches Jake’s attention. He glances up just in time to see the lid of the dumpster flip upwards. A woozy-looking man with a black eye and a torn hoodie, covered head to toe in garbage, pops up over the side. He blinks twice, then leans forward with his arms over the edge of the container as though he’s about to climb over, but instead topples forward over the rim and lands on the ground, face first, with a thump.
“Cousin,” Jake confirms, wincing. Horatio moves over to peck at the banana peel currently stuck to Samuel Adams’ hair like the world’s grossest hat. “And I’m looking right at him.”
“Lyndhurst city police are two minutes out,” Holt promises.
“Oh good…” Jake murmurs. Now that the case is solved, he can feel the rush of adrenaline draining away again. “Good, that’s good…” Dark spots are dancing in front of his eyes. “Just gonna… take a lil’ nap... while I wait…”
“Wait, Jake that sounds like a bad ide–”
But that’s the last thing he hears before he succumbs to the darkness.
X
There is a silver lining to this day, and that is that Jake Peralta learns that sugar bagels are utterly magnificent.
“It’s like… sweet,” Jake mumbles, chewing dazedly, “but not too sweet… and bready but also… chewy… like a donut that you... boiled? But then– but then baked? With the– with the...” He sets his half-eaten bagel down on the sergeant’s desk, and swoops the hand that’s not currently in a sling around in a vague gesture, trying to recall the word. “The outside part… uh, the bread… skin.”
“...You mean the crust?” the Lyndhurst officer asks tiredly. He’s been sitting with Jake ever since New Jersey Police picked both him and Samuel Adams, Gina’s delinquent cousin, up from the alleyway.
“Yes! The crust!” Jake says happily. “How’d you know?”
“Because it’s the fourth time you’ve mentioned it.”
Jake winces. “Ah, sorry. Head’s a little…” He points to his gauze-wrapped head.
“I’m well aware,” the officer says dryly. He doesn’t seem to be enjoying his Jake-watching duty very much. “Seeing as I’m the one who wrapped it.”
Jake wrinkles his brow. “Did you?”
If the officer’s sigh just now had been any deeper, he might have passed out. “Just eat your damn bagel.”
“Jake!”
From across the bullpen, the elevator doors open, revealing a very-anxious-looking Amy. She sidesteps around a few uniformed cops, making a beeline towards the desk where Jake is seated.
“Honey, are you alright?” When she gets close to him, she drops down onto one knee and reaches out her hand, lightly brushing her fingertips against the bandages. “I got here as quick as I could. I was so worried.”
“Worried?” Jake’s brow furrows. “Why were you worried?”
Amy blinks at him. “Jake, you were in another state, bleeding from a head wound, babbling on about a bagel-eating pigeon.”
Jake winces. That does sound kind of concerning when she puts it like that.
“Honestly Jake, what were you even thinking?” she demands, but she sounds more baffled than angry. “They showed me the security footage downstairs. Confronting an armed robber while off-duty? Chasing him on foot after he pistol-whipped you to a secluded alley? Throwing him into a dumpster?”
Did Jake really do all that? He feels his lips spreading into a grin. That sounds kind of badass.
“No, that is not badass,” Amy retorts in exasperation, and wait, did Jake say that out loud? “That is dumbass.” Amy’s bottom lip is starting to tremble and her eyes are glistening with unshed tears. “You could’ve been killed! Did you even think of that?”
A wave of guilt washes over Jake. “I’m really sorry, Ames. I’ll try never to do it again.”
“Try?” she demands, a little frantic now.
He gives a sheepish shrug. “Well I don’t really remember deciding to do it this time, so it’s hard to say for sure. But I’ll give it my best shot.”
“I guess that’s all I can ask,” she says with a sigh. “Now let’s just get you home.”
Taking Jake’s hand, Amy helps him to his feet. Jake wobbles a bit, but his legs hold and they begin their slow shuffle towards the elevator, but not before Jake snags the white cardboard box from the desk.
“...Want a sugar bagel?” he offers, holding the box out to his wife.
“Later, Jake,” Amy sighs. “Later…”