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They get married on a Saturday evening, and that morning, it rains.
Amy wakes to the gentle tap of steady rainfall knocking gently on the window just three inches back from the very top of her head. For a moment, she lays very still - her sleep-dried eyes blink lazily up at the all-too-familiar ceiling above her head, watching blankly as a dull muted light casts soft shadows that stretch from the window all the way to the ceiling fan in the center of the room. She inhales deeply, so deeply that she feels a faint pop between her shoulder blades, and her eyes flutter shut again.
Seconds later, the stillness of the morning is pierced by an all-too-familiar alarm, and when her eyes fly open, they fly open on the wings of a powerful surge of excitement and adrenaline.
She’s getting married today.
Her mind automatically shifts into list-making mode, all the Morning of the Wedding Gears spinning at hyper speed, and there’s a tiny disconnected part of her brain that marvels at how even now, on such a Big Important Day, she’s still so inherently entrenched in who she is. But it’s just a brief, fleeting thought, gone before she can really grasp it and flesh it out, because she’s already focused on whether or not they’re going to have to throw tarps up at the wedding venue to keep it from getting hopelessly muddy outside. Because despite the fact that she can still hear her mother talking about rain being good luck on your wedding day, she’d really rather not have to deal with people tracking mud inside the pretty, sun-soaked venue.
She sits up right in the center of the bed and her attention is immediately drawn toward the empty stretch of mattress to her right. Despite the fact that she went to sleep alone the night before, knowing full-well that she would wake up alone, it’s still a bit jarring to wake up without Jake’s sleep-slack face tucked into the side of her pillow or his arm haphazardly flung across her middle. There’s a voice in her head (that sounds suspiciously like her mother’s) that reminds her in a quiet, joyful whisper that this is the last morning she’ll ever have to wake up alone again.
It’s not true, of course. They both travel for work pretty regularly, and more often than not their trips overlap. Realistically, she’ll wake up alone plenty more times in the coming years. But she’ll wake up with two rings on her finger and the knowledge that somewhere in the world, her husband is running around with two rings of his own.
She heaves another slow, fingertip-tingling sigh, and when her arms fall loosely against her thighs, her line of vision lands upon the outfit she’d laid out the night before. Her denim cut-off shorts hang neatly over the back of the chair, almost covering the graphic design of her loose cotton grey tank top.
Which is curly cursive black text of the word “wifey.”
It’s stupid, and cheesy, and insanely tacky, but.
She kind of loves it.
They get married on a Saturday evening, and that morning, Jake wakes up with a hangover.
Okay, it’s not like it’s the worst hangover he’s ever had (because, despite what Captain Holt says, he has learned how to handle his brown, thank you very much). Only one quarter of his whole body has dry mouth this time, which is nothing a few bottles of water and a couple of acetaminophen tablets won’t cure. He’s slow to wake, his consciousness coming to him in small bursts as the world around him begins to stir - he furrows his brow at the low rumble of thunder somewhere in the distance, he groans quietly at the feeling of an extended leg stretching out against the back of his calf, and his eyes split open at the sound of a low battery warning echoing from someone’s cell phone somewhere in the room.
He’s at Charles’ apartment, in Charles and Genevieve’s bed, and the leg he’d felt stretching against his belongs to Charles. He can hear Terry snoring quietly somewhere down on the floor at the foot of the bed, and he almost groans again.
Alright, so maybe the groomsmen took him out to a bar last night after the rehearsal dinner. And maybe it started as a distraction from the nerves that set in the second Amy kissed him goodbye outside the restaurant before climbing into the back of Gina’s car and driving away. And, okay, maybe he had a few too many.
At least he didn’t black out this time.
Terry’s snores cut off suddenly, replaced by a faint shuffling, and just as Jake props his head up on one hand, a very sleep-deprived looking Terry appears from the shoulders up at the foot of Charles’ bed. “Where m’phone at?” he mumbles, looking around the room in an obvious daze.
Jake grunts and points in the general direction he’d heard the low battery notification and lets his head fall back against the pillow. He listens to Terry curse and fumble quietly over the phone charger for a second, just moments away from drifting back to sleep, before it suddenly hits him with all the force of a careening freight train:
He’s getting married today.
He’s marrying Amy today.
Amy’s going to be his wife in just a few hours.
He sits up immediately, which proves to be a very bad idea (the lingering aftereffects of all the whiskey he drank last night do not agree with gravity and he’s paying for it in the form of a sudden and piercing headache). He groans breathlessly and drops his forehead to his hands, and the mattress suddenly jerks and shakes beneath him as Charles lurches into consciousness.
“Whuzappenin?” Charles slurs.
“Married - I’m, I’m getting married today,” Jake mutters, scrubbing at his eyes with the heels of his hands.
Charles gasps raggedly, and when Jake manages to lift his head out of his hands, he rears back at the sight of Charles in near-silent tears beside him. “I can’t believe it’s finally happening,” Charles whispers hoarsely. Jake groans again, but he can’t hide his face fast enough to keep his grin from Charles. “I’ve just…I’ve been waiting for this day for so long,”
“Me too, buddy.” Jake doesn’t try to hide his grin this time.
“We gotta, we gotta get dressed. We’re supposed to be at the venue in two hours and you have to shower and get dressed and get your suit and your, your shoes…Terry, stop cuddling with Genevieve’s nude yoga mat -”
“Oh, God, what?”
“- I’ll go get breakfast started, make sure Jake’s in the shower in the next two minutes!”
“Sarge, hand me my bag,” Jake rasps as Charles rushes out of the bedroom.
Terry hauls the gym bag up to the foot of the bed, still moving sluggishly despite Charles’ suddenly manic pace, and Jake crawls forward on his hands and knees to dig through the contents for the bottle of shampoo he’d thrown in yesterday morning.
Except as soon as he unzips the bag, he’s greeted by the sight of the t-shirt he’ll be wearing out to the venue later today. It’s soft and grey and cotton and it matches the tank top he already knows Amy will be wearing, except his graphic design is made up of large, bold block letters.
It’s the word “hubs.”
He grins in spite of himself.
Gina and Rosa show up an hour after Amy gets out of the shower, and despite the fact that they’re all respectable adults who work in a serious police precinct, Amy still finds herself squealing a little bit when Gina pulls her into a bouncing hug. Rosa grins broadly and punches her upper arm lightly (but still hard enough that Amy’s pretty certain it’s going to bruise later).
It’s going to be a perfect day.
They still have some time before the limo is set to arrive, so of course Gina busts out a bottle of champagne from a bag that looks large enough to carry at least four bowling balls (and is lumpy and overstuffed enough that Amy really wouldn’t be all that surprised if there were four bowling balls in there, honestly) and they toast, to Amy, to Jake, to Amy and Jake, and when she lifts the glass to her lips she’s smiling so broadly the champagne dribbles down her chin.
It’s a true testament to what a special day it is that Gina doesn’t even consider making fun of her.
She’s already appointed Rosa to dress-guarding duty and Rosa takes the role very seriously, glaring at Gina so fiercely she freezes with her arm only half-outstretched toward the garment bag in question. Amy listens to Gina chatter about something in the living room from her bedroom, where she’s throwing in all the last-second items she’d listed out two days earlier. Once all of that is secure, she slips out of her bathrobe and into her Morning of the Wedding outfit and grins at her reflection.
Rosa and Gina both roll their eyes when she emerges, but they’re both smiling, too, which Amy takes as a good sign.
The limo arrives five minutes later and Amy watches with only a touch of anxiety as Rosa and Gina carefully load her dress into the limo. The bridesmaids dresses quickly follow, and then all three girls tuck themselves into the back and fill the champagne glasses they find in the limo with the chilled champagne they find in the ice bucket in the back and toast once again - this time to Gina’s undying, ageless beauty.
It’s an hour drive to get to the little farm they chose almost a year earlier as their venue (after finding six brochures for it stuck in various places throughout their apartment and desks, carefully placed by Charles, of course) and by the time they arrive, Amy is pleasantly buzzed and pleasantly surprised at the flurry of activity around the entrance of the main barn. The lawn is immaculately cut and the front doors are wide open, and already the faded grey light from the sunlight leaking through the clouds overhead is throwing an ethereal kind of glow over the light interior.
The caterers and florists all wave when they finally make it inside and the girls rush upstairs to their dressing room to deposit their bags and dresses. Excitement rushes through her veins as she digs through her bag for the final checklist that she’s had memorized for three weeks now, already mentally ticking off the first three boxes: groundskeepers present, caterers present, florists present.
Within a couple of hours, the grounds have started taking shape. The rain - which was never really more than a light drizzle, really - has stopped, providing just enough moisture to prime the ground for the stakes lining the winding path from the parking lot to the front door that will hold up the strings of lights currently being unravelled by a few of the groundskeepers. The clouds are sparse and rolling so quickly that the sun comes in brief bursts of dazzling light that race across the grounds. She stands in the doorway squinting across the lawn toward the trees lining the far gates; Jake was right, they timed this perfectly, the trees are all the magnificent colors of fall and it’s all so beautiful she feels as if her heart is going to burst.
She hears a shriek shrouded in resounding laughter from somewhere behind her. She whirls around and spots Gina and Rosa in the middle of the cavernous entry way pointing the confetti poppers they’re supposed to be splitting evenly in the baskets on the bar behind Gina at each other like weapons; there are bits of confetti caught in Gina’s messy ponytail and Rosa’s grinning much the same way as she did when she came out of the security closet after watching Amy and Jake making out in the evidence lockup all those years ago. Amy chokes down her desire to snap at them long enough to appreciate both as they are: slowly pacing the edge of a wide circle, eyes equally calculating and playful as they keep careful track of the other.
A horn honks out in the parking lot, and when Amy glances back over her shoulder, she spots a familiar black limo pulling up.
“Guys,” she calls through a grin as she turns back to Gina and Rosa, “they’re here.”
They race up the stairs, Rosa and Gina attempting to elbow each other out of the way, and Amy dives down knees-first on the loveseat beneath the window in their dressing room just in time to catch sight of Jake getting out of the back of his limo, gaze fixated right on the window in which she’s framed. Terry and Charles pour out behind him.
She waits until they’ve started trudging up the path before lowering herself down to the seat cushions beneath her and taking in the rest of the dressing room. There are gifts on the coffee table from Amy to each woman before her and champagne glasses someone poured between their arrival that morning and right now, Rosa and Gina are taking full advantage. Their dresses hang neatly in their garment bags on the hooks on the far wall, and Amy’s got half a mind to go and open hers so they can all admire her dress one more time. It’s beautiful, so beyond anything she ever dreamed she would be able to find, all fitted in the bodice and flowing in the skirt. It’s not so over the top like those Cinderella ball gowns her mother sent her seventeen photos of back when she was still in the hunting phase, but it’s also not mermaid, which would be a bit too restrictive on her legs. It’s just the right amount of femininity, and it fits her so perfectly it’s like a second skin.
“Here,” Gina tosses the silky white dressing gown hanging over the back of a chair to Amy, who misses it completely and ends up blinded by the thing landing over her head. They all promptly burst into laughter, the hysterical kind fueled by a long-built excitement finally bursting forth.
She’s just taken her shirt off and slid into the dressing gown when a terribly grating squeaking noise explodes on the other side of the door. All three of them wince; Gina almost drops the makeup bag in her hands. It stops a moment later but before they can even exchange a confused look, Rosa stalks toward the door and pulls it open just far enough to poke her head out.
“What the hell are you guys killing out here?” Amy hears her ask. She suddenly jerks her head back and yanks the door closed, pulling the lock into place. “Nice try, Peralta!” She shouts through the door.
Amy’s heart lurches in her chest. He must have tried to catch a glimpse of her around Rosa’s head. She can hear Charles’ muffled voice out on the landing and then the low rumble of their door closing and Gina’s in her face brandishing makeup brushes and she feels herself sinking into a state of total calm. She registers that Gina and Rosa are chatting but she refuses to focus enough to comprehend the words; at least, until she hears her name.
“Wait, what?” The brush lathering powder on her left eyelid vanishes and she opens her eyes carefully. Rosa and Gina are both looking at her, brows raised. “Sorry, I heard my name.”
“Yeah,” Rosa says slowly, “I was just talking about that time you and Jake came back from the armed robbery scene and he was losing his mind because you reached down some woman’s throat to get her car keys.”
A smile creeps across her face at the memory - specifically, how he’d followed her around for twenty minutes after they got back from the precinct making a loud, disbelieving squawking sound, face contorted comically into what can really only be described as an open-mouthed smiling emoji. How he warned Hitchcock and Scully with all the faux-seriousness he possessed to not eat any food in the refrigerator that didn’t belong expressly to them, because if they did Amy would literally reach down their throats to retrieve it.
“That’s actually kind of the first time I realized…y’know.” Rosa interrupts, coughing awkwardly. Amy blinks her daydream away and refocuses on the woman seated across the coffee table from her, champagne glass in hand.
“Realized what?”
“Y’know. That he…y’know. Liked you. And that, maybe, you liked him back. Didn’t think you dorks would get married, though.”
“See, the first time I ever noticed it was way before that. I’m talkin’, like, my first day in the office before that.”
Amy’s brows shoot to her hairline; Gina started just a year and a half after Amy did, back when her relationship with Jake was still somewhere in the murky waters between mutually antagonistic and begrudging friends. “He still drove me nuts when you first started, there’s no way -”
“Well I’m talkin’ about when I noticed he liked you, dummy. God, not everything is about you, Amy.” She starts dusting her brush over her makeup pallette to hide her grin, and Amy deflates and lets her tilt her face up with two fingers beneath her chin. “It was my first day and he gave me the tour and introduced me to everyone except you, because you were out somewhere, and he mentioned that you guys were partners and you’d be back soon. So I was sitting at my desk and I saw you come in and as soon as he saw you walk by, it was like his whole face lit up. Like he was just happy. I hadn’t seen him like that since Jenny.” She feels herself blushing even as Rosa snorts. “And the first time I ever noticed that you liked him was a while later. Like, after Holt started. Right around the time he went undercover, actually.”
She swallows hard and behind her closed eyelids the dim orange light of that parking lot flashes, his face thrown in sharp shadows as he looked at anything but her and stammered out the words that still, to this day, make her heart lurch unpleasantly - “I’d be pissed at myself…”
“You were like a lovesick little puppy,” Gina says, easing her back to the present with a nasal laugh. Amy hopes her smile looks more natural than it feels (those six months mark the second-worst period in her life, the worst being the six months he spent in Florida); judging by Rosa’s smirk, she’s pulled it off. “But, yeah, it was pretty clear right from the start that you guys were gonna be together.”
“Yeah,” Rosa grunts in agreement as she swirls the contents of her glass. “Weird how long it took, though. Everyone knew but you guys, I guess.”
Amy only has a moment to ruminate before they hear a knock at the door. “Amy?” Charles calls hesitantly from the landing. “Can I come in?”
Rosa gets to the door just as Gina steps back and Amy secures her dressing gown with the ties around her waist. She nods to Rosa, who pulls the door open, revealing a half-dressed Charles, looking far too stressed for her liking. Just the sight of his furrowed brow sends her heart rate spiking.
“What’s wrong?” She asks, rounding the coffee table to meet him in the doorway.
“It’s Jake, he - he’s outside, he said he needed some air, but I’m worried about him -”
“When are you not worried about him?” Gina demands somewhere behind Amy.
“He seems really upset about something and - I didn’t know what else to do,” he shrugs a little helplessly. “You’re the only person I know who’s better at making him happy than I am.”
“Well let’s hope so, considering he’s marrying her and everything,” Rosa mutters.
Amy ignores her, stepping forward and gripping Charles’ wrist. “Where is he?”
There’s a part of his brain that registers the fact that the venue is even more beautiful all half-done for the wedding than it was in the brochures or on the website or that one time they came and visited three months ago, but the main portion of his focus fixates on the window on the second floor to the right. He stays transfixed as he climbs out of the car, never wavering even when he stumbles a little on the pavement. Charles and Terry are still raucous, having chosen to recover from their respective hangovers by drinking the limo-provided champagne to a mutual state of tipsiness. Jake, on the other hand, found Charles’ spicy scrambled eggs, two aspirin, a glass of water, and the exciting reality of his changing relationship status to be enough of a hangover cure.
The feebly-stirring bits of confetti in the entryway drawn up by a hardly-there breeze catch his eye for only a moment before a muffled thump from over their heads draws all three of their gazes upward. He swears he can hear the faintest edge of Amy’s laughter echoing through the aged wood above their heads.
“C’mon, Jakey,” Charles pushes him forward slightly, toward the staircase a few feet ahead of them on their right. He stumbles a little again, gripping the edge of the garment bag slung over his shoulder tightly to ground himself before remembering that it might wrinkle his suit jacket and loosening his fingers accordingly. He can feel Terry and Charles flanking either side as he trudges up the staircase, trying and failing to ignore his heart caught in his throat. Each step brings him that much closer to Amy.
The bridal suite and the groom’s suite are tucked in the back left and right corners of the upper landing, which takes up about half of the barn’s second story, acting like an indoor balcony over the ceremony space. Both suites are covered by big sliding doors reminiscent of barn doors that roll on tracks secured to the wall, and the rest of the balcony is a large open area, currently full of half-set-up round tables. A few of the venue staff members are chatting with the bartender as they set up the tables, but Jake hardly pays them any attention; he’s too busy studying the handle of the bridal suite door, wondering just how secure they made it when they went inside.
“Got it!” Terry grunts triumphantly. The groom’s suite door groans as it rolls down the tracks, halting all conversation amongst the staff at the horrible grating noise.
Jake’s only just started to slowly lower his hands when he hears movement behind him. “What the hell are you guys killing out here?” Rosa demands, her face perfectly framed in the space between the wall and the door. She, of course, vanishes before anyone can answer her - Jake’s taken one step forward subconsciously, toward the light airy interior, where he can see half-full champagne glasses and shiny white-and-gold gift bags placed haphazardly on the coffee table. “Nice try, Peralta!” Rosa barks through the door.
“You didn’t really think that was gonna work, did you?” Charles laughs, slapping him on the back. He moves past Jake, leaving him alone on the narrow landing between suites with his hand half-outstretched toward the bridal suite.
Terry’s already thrown himself across the loveseat beneath the window and appears to be in the midst of FaceTiming Cagney, Lacey, and Ava, who from the looks of it are in the middle of getting their flower girl dresses on while Sharon holds the phone; Charles is in the middle of pouring an amber liquid that looks suspiciously like whiskey into three glasses. He glances up and grins at Jake as he slowly makes his way inside.
“How’re you feelin’?” He asks as he straightens up and screws the lid back on the bottle in his hand.
“Good. Queasy. I think it’s still the hangover, though,” he adds quickly, raising his hand to Charles, whose face twists in concern. “I’m good, I’m good. Really.”
“Well, Genevieve just texted a picture of Nikolaj in his ring bearer outfit -”
“It’s a suit, right? A little baby suit? Amy was super clear -”
“I know, I know, relax -” Charles hands Jake his phone, where a picture of Nikolaj smiling broadly in an adorable tweed jacket over a white button down tucked into black slacks. “We’ll find another excuse for him to wear his authentic traditional Vidzeme costume.”
Jake maintains his smile despite immediately picturing Amy’s vaguely horrified expression from when Charles first suggested it. “Maybe for his birthday?”
Charles snaps his fingers excitedly. “That’s a great idea!”
“Hey Uncle Jake?” Terry calls, his voice sing-song and melodic the way it only gets if his kids are around. Jake peers around Charles’ head to find Terry sitting up on the loveseat, his phone turned toward Jake, where Cagney, Lacey, and Ava are all framed. “The girls want to say hi!”
“Hey, girls!” Jake calls cheerfully, crossing the room quickly and taking Terry’s phone from his hand. “You all look beautiful!” They all respond at once, their voices made all the more shrill by the phone’s tinny speaker, so Jake just smiles and waves. “I’ll see you in a little while!”
He hands the phone back to Terry and when he turns back toward Charles, he’s met with a glass filled with two fingers of whiskey and his neatly pressed suit pants. He downs the whiskey all in one go (to the sounds of Terry and Charles’ disbelieving laughter) and blinks tears out of his eyes as he pulls his jeans down and changes into his dress pants. He’s just getting the belt buckled when a voice echoes up from the front lawn outside; Jake clambers onto the loveseat straining to get a look through the window. He peeks out just in time to see Karen emerging from the driver’s seat of her Volkswagen bug, waving cheerfully to the musicians hauling instruments and amps toward the front door. There’s a flurry of movement all around the front lawn - groundskeepers setting up cornhole games over toward the right along the side of the building and stringing lights between the wooden stakes lining the path from the front doors to the parking lot, but all Jake can focus on is the fact that his mother is currently coming up that path alone.
It’s not unexpected. He was pretty adamant about not inviting his father all four times Amy approached him about it, citing the fact that they sent him an engagement announcement and that that would be enough, but…there’s something unsettling about seeing Karen walk in alone.
“Hey, guys, my - my mom is here,” Jake says over his shoulder.
“I can go -”
“No, I’ll go.” Jake interrupts Charles quickly, shoving back from the loveseat and crossing the room toward the door in a flash. “I’ll be right back, just - stay here.”
He pushes the door to one side before either one of them can reply, jogging past four venue employees balancing a teetering stack of plates each toward the stairs. Karen’s voice is already echoing up the wooden staircase from the entryway, but before Jake can get to her, he hears another familiar baritone responding to something she’s just said. He bounds down onto the landing between floors and catches sight of her smiling and nodding at something Captain Holt is in the middle of saying.
The moment after he pauses on the landing, though, both of their gazes snap toward him. It’s suddenly exceedingly difficult to draw a breath.
“Ma,” he manages to breathe. She takes a step toward him and he descends the rest of the staircase two at a time, throwing his arms around her and sweeping her up into a hug that she returns as fiercely as she can. “You look beautiful,” he says.
“Oh, please,” she swats his arm when she pulls back before lowering both hands to smooth the delicately braided fringe of her blouse over her flowing skirt. “You’re too nice. And not dressed yet.” She adds, raising an eyebrow rather severely as she takes in his appearance.
“I got time,” he says sheepishly, stepping around her toward Holt, who offers him a one-armed hug. Jake feels the edge of a binder press against his middle as Holt draws him forward; his gaze darts down to the binder with the words WEDDING CEREMONY printed across the cover in neat block letters. “Captain.”
“Detective. The temperature is optimally average, both indoors and out.”
“Captain, are you making small talk about the weather?” Jake asks through a gleeful grin.
Karen chuckles, despite Holt rolling his eyes. “I thought the information might be useful considering Detective Santiago spent the vast majority of her most recent work shift closely studying today’s weather forecast.”
His grin transforms from gleeful to soft in an instant as the memory of Amy hunched over her desk taking meticulous notes on cloud formations in the back page of her wedding binder. “Right, how could I forget,” he says, craning back to peer out of the wide-open front doors. Spots of sunlight breaking through the clouds race quickly across the immaculate front lawn, and as he watches, a red bird swoops down from above and lands in the grass.
The image of perfection.
“Have you seen her yet this morning?” Karen asks as she squeezes his arm just above his elbow.
“Not since last night after the rehearsal dinner,” he says, and his heart is in his throat again because it’s been so long since he’s seen her and as nice as it was to have a gourmet breakfast this morning, he really wishes he’d woken up next to her instead. It’s like his center of gravity is off, which is strange, since they’ve been so careful to keep the relationship healthy by spending time apart (a task he found particularly challenging after spending six months with no contact with her and finding that at any given moment he’d rather be tangled up with her on her couch while Magnum P.I. plays softly in the background).
“Well, I’m about to go see her just as soon as I put my bags away,” Karen says a little smugly. “You want me to give her a message?”
“Um - just that, uh, I’ll…I’ll meet her at the altar.”
Holt levels a rare smile just as Karen presses a hand to her chest and sighs a bit dreamily, and Jake doesn’t have the heart to tell them that he actually already said that line the night before and it was way more suave because he murmured it right before kissing her.
“Jake?” They both turn to find Charles at the top of the staircase, dress pants and button-down already on, beckoning him upward. “It’s time to start getting ready, buddy.”
He glances at Holt, who nods in understanding, before turning back to Karen. “I’ll come find you before the ceremony.”
“You better, mister, considering you’re my escort in there.”
She smiles cheekily and allows Captain Holt to direct her toward the hall, but Jake turns away before she’s made it inside. A deep-seated feeling of discomfort is settling over his stomach, tying it in knots that make trudging up the staircase a far more arduous task than he ever imagined possible.
Terry and Charles are both half-dressed and talking loudly as Jake reenters. “Oh good, good, Peralta, settle a bet for us - have you been in love with Santiago since the moment you met her or since the first time you saw her do something badass?” Terry asks, words just barely slurring.
“Obviously it’s been from the very beginning, he just didn’t realize it until she did something badass - like that time she pulled those keys out of that woman’s throat!” Charles shouts.
Jake grins in spite of himself. It was so cool he could literally barely contain himself; for weeks afterwards, every time he saw her coming, he would shove whatever he was holding into his mouth. Partially because it’s a genuinely funny joke, but mostly because it made her laugh. And the memory of her laughter is almost enough to calm the unidentifiable swarm of emotions rumbling through his system.
Almost.
“I say that’s when it started,” Terry interjects. “And you waited so long to tell her.”
Jake blinks, and behind his closed eyelids he sees the harsh orange lights from that parking lot throwing the anguished expression on Amy’s face in response to his stammering confession thrown into sharp relief. The anxiety clenching around his heart intensifies.
“Jake?” Charles’ voice is strange and distant and muffled.
“Yeah, I - um - I need some - some air -”
Jake starts toward the door, which moves aside easily, and practically runs across the balcony and down the stairs and toward the front doors where the fresh air greets him with an edge of autumn chill that nips down his throat. He paces away from the building, over the lawn, toward the far gate where the goats are roaming an open pasture.
She finds him exactly where Charles tells her he’ll be.
The October chill is seeping through her thin dressing gown and she kind of wishes she’d put her shirt back on before she came outside, but it’s no matter. He’s warm enough for the both of them, after all.
The grass provides enough of a cushion that her approaching footsteps are muffled, offering her a brief few moments to enjoy the fact that even with his back turned to her, she can tell he’s chewing the inside of his cheek and picking at the cracked paint on the gate moodily. And there’s Gina’s voice in her head loftily pointing out that the fact that she can tell these things without even seeing his face further supports her “from the dawn of time” thing, or whatever, but what else would you expect from partners of close to ten years?
“Outdoor paint is expensive, y’know,” she says, grinning when he whirls around quickly, guilt written across his features. The guilt vanishes in an instant as soon as he recognizes her and he raises a hand to shield his eyes from the sun as she slowly closes the distance between them, stopping only when she’s leaning against the fence so close to where he stands that their shoulders brush. He mimics her pose, leaning forward so that his forearms hold some of his weight, eyes still wide and uncertain. “Relax, Jake, it’s okay.”
“But - Charles said the tradition -”
“Charles is the one who told me to come out here.” She interrupts. He seems to deflate a little, the uncertainty slowly evaporating from his eyes before he turns back toward the goats. “So…”
He sighs and drops his head and scrubs the heel of his hand over his left eye a few times. “It’s - you’re gonna think I’m stupid.”
“Maybe. Only one way to find out.”
He stares at the ground for a moment, twisting his fingers compulsively, and Amy waits. “Okay. Okay. See…the thing is…” he turns his head and his breath seems to catch upon finding her already looking at him. “You’re beautiful,” he says in that reverent way that never fails to make her heart skip a beat.
She smiles, honest and true, and slips her left arm beneath his right to hook their arms. “Thank you. Also, nice try.”
His smile is rueful but he squeezes her arm between his own and his side all the same. “Had to give it a shot,” he says with a shrug. “Okay, honestly, I just…I saw my mom come in alone, and…it’s not like I wish she was still with Roger, that would be insane, but…” he releases a breath slowly, dropping his troubled gaze back down to her from its skyward fixation.
“He’s your dad,” she says softly, squeezing his arm when he nods. Someday she’ll tell him about slipping Roger’s invitation in with the rest of the outgoing mail at the post office. She’ll tell him about Roger RSVP-ing yes just to call one week before and cancel with an excuse so paper-thin she forgot it as soon as he said it. She’ll tell him about telling him off, about angrily thanking him for being the world’s most absent father if that’s what it took to make Jake into the person she’s going to marry, but that’s later. For now, she just leans her head against his shoulder and rubs his upper arm with the palm of her right hand when his head tilts down to rest against hers. “I’m so sorry, Jake.”
“S’not your fault,” he mumbles, and she’s got this terrible feeling that the words are filtering through silent tears. “It’s so stupid, I just - I don’t know.”
She stays quiet, listening to him try to regulate his breathing, before squeezing his arm once again. “At least - at least Captain Holt’s here,” she offers.
“Yeah. Yeah, he is, isn’t he?”
“He is. And, Jake - I know it’s not the same, but…my dad loves you. So does Captain Holt, and Terry, and…and Rosa and Gina and Charles and me. And my mom and all of my brothers and…basically everyone you’ve ever met and haven’t arrested.”
This gets a laugh out of him, and she grins a little giddily - even now, after all these years, she’s still caught off-guard by his clear-and-true laughter. “I love you, too,” he chuckles as he kisses the top of her head. “God, I can’t believe how stupid I was.”
She pulls her head back so that he can experience the full effect of her furrowed brow. “When?”
“Well, always, but I meant, like…back when Holt first started at the precinct. Back when I first realized it was more than a stupid office crush.” She can feel herself softening as her heart begins to melt. “Like I just…I wasted so much time, y’know? And resisting this was like, it was like - like fist-fighting a fog. Just so pointless, because…” he trails off shaking his head.
“Are you implying that we’re soulmates?” Amy asks slowly, her grin spreading to face-splitting proportions.
He blinks rapidly for a moment. “Well it sounds stupid when you point it out like that,” he mutters.
She laughs and he pushes her away gently enough that she has time to find her footing before he pulls his arm from her grasp. In an instant he’s dropped into a half-crouch, hands raised and eyes sparking in a way that can only mean one thing:
“Please don’t, please don’t, Gina just did my make- no!” It’s too late, his wiggling fingers have already made contact with her sensitive sides and she can’t get a word out through her laughter. He chases her across the grounds along the fence line down the side of the barn where she leaps over one side of a cornhole game and turns to find Jake hot on her heels. He catches her a second later, arms firm where they wrap around her middle, handling her carefully even as he lifts her off her feet and spins her back around.
They’re still laughing a moment later when the side door opens and Charles steps out. “Guys,” he calls, and Amy swears there’s an apology buried deep beneath the apprehensive tone.
“I guess I gotta go,” she says with a sigh. He squeezes her one more time, just long enough to rest his chin against her shoulder, before heaving a sigh of his own and letting her step away from him. She spins around and catches his hands, leading him toward the door Charles is holding open for them. “Hey, I have an idea.”
“Hm?”
“Let’s get married.”
He snorts. “Name the time and the place and I’m there.”
“How about…here…in, like…two hours.”
“Done.”
He and Amy collectively know way too many people. The entire entry way is completely packed with people, all of whom appear to be fighting the tides to get to him the moment he descends the staircase. And he can’t even fall back on Charles and Terry to deflect all the cheek-pinching and shoulder-clapping and cheek-kissing (what is it with these old ladies and his face?) because they’ve already split off to find their families, leaving Jake struggling to catch his breath.
He’s just greeted the twelfth Santiago cousin when Kevin, of all people, saves the day. “Jacob, my husband would like a word with you in the ceremony hall.” He says, directing him toward the doors separating the entryway from the hall with a firm hand on his back. Jake lets him steer unthinkingly, not realizing that he’s holding his breath until he gets inside and can actually release it without worrying about exhaling all over an aunt or high school friend.
The hall is finally transformed completely, the arch made of delicate twisting flowery vines marking the front center of the hall where a small, makeshift podium has been set up for Holt to set his binder on. He can see the two cellists chatting in the corner and every now and then a head belonging to the musicians who will play their reception later bobs by the windows, but otherwise, the space is empty. “Wait, where’s -”
“Oh, he’s actually upstairs visiting with Detective Santiago. You just looked like you could use a break.” He smiles, and it takes Jake a moment to recognize the mischief shining in his usually unreadable gaze.
“You were totally right.” He says with a nervous chuckle. “They’re family and everything, but - yeah.”
“I understand. A day like today is overwhelming by nature. I’m sure being surrounded by so many people only heightens whatever nervousness you must already be feeling.” He nods, and they share a smile. “You look very handsome.” Kevin says.
Jake glances down, smoothing his dark blue jacket down over his thighs compulsively. The white spot of his boutonniere stands out like a neon sign illuminated in darkness and it catches his eye for just a moment, the water lilies sending a wave of calm rippling through his system. “Thank you,” he says, sucking in a breath that goes straight down to his toes.
“Peralta,” a voice calls over their heads. They glance up to find Holt at the edge of the balcony. “The ladies have asked me to inform you that they are ready to proceed, son.”
He swipes his hands over his thighs one last time, gaze darting to Kevin, who nods encouragingly. “Alright, great, we’re ready too.” Jake calls up with a giddy grin.
Things begin happening very quickly after that despite the fact that he’s got Amy’s voice echoing in his head with the reminder to take mental pictures and remember the details or something like that. All he knows is that one second he’s watching two of the venue staff members prop the ceremony hall doors open and the next he’s back out in the entry way with his mother clutching his arm, waiting for Terry to get Amy’s mom to her seat before he can do the same for Karen, faint cello music filling the hall before him. Every person who was clambering to say hello to him is now seated in the rows of identical chairs lining the ceremony hall floor but their faces blur together as Jake walks Karen down the aisle toward the empty seat on the front row to his right. She kisses his cheek far more gently than any of the other women who went before her before she sits and when Jake turns, he’s greeted by the sight of a smiling Holt, a crying Charles, and a beaming Terry.
“You okay, buddy?” He whispers as he takes his place in front of Charles.
“Ecstatic,” Charles manages to gasp.
He chuckles quietly and looks back to the front of the hall, where Gina stands framed in the doorway. She looks positively beautiful in her floor-length golden gown that shimmers in the faded light. Her hair is pulled up to one side, but a few strands hang in soft curls that tumble down to her shoulders from her temples. He recognizes the white in her bouquet to be matching his boutonniere, though her water lilies are nestled between muted greens and light blues. Her gaze sweeps across the audience as she begins to float down the aisle, but her grin widens comically when she makes eye-contact with Jake. She flashes him a thumbs-up from beside her bouquet.
A few of the audience members are still laughing at Gina’s excitement when Rosa appears in the doorway, and even though she’s just as beautiful as Gina is in her matching dress, her gaze is a bit more apprehensive, a bit more hesitant. Her eyes dart over the audience almost nervously before landing on the wedding party ahead of her. Jake tries to smile encouragingly, but realizes a beat too late that she’s not looking at him; one quick glance to his right confirms that she’s locked eyes with Gina.
He doesn’t have time to decipher the significance of their gazes - or the way Gina’s eyes linger on Rosa’s figure as Rosa takes her place in front of Gina - because a second later, Nikolaj appears smiling proudly as he carefully carries the pillow to the front of the hall. And a moment after that the hall is full of collective sighs and quiet squeals as Cagney, Lacey, and Ava begin their ambling approach to the front of the hall, smiling shyly as they toss delicate pink flower petals to the ground at their feet. Halfway down the aisle, Ava spots Sharon in the crowd and takes off at a tottering run, abandoning her basket in the middle of the walkway to the sounds of sympathetic laughter. Lacey quickly snatches the basket up as Sharon scoops Ava up and positions her on her lap, and Jake shoots the twins a grin when they reach the end of the aisle.
Sharon helps them climb into their seats with the hand she doesn’t have gripping Ava’s side and then the cellos cut off and the hall is plunged into semi-silence. The doors are closed - when did they close? - and Jake’s heart is in his throat and his lungs have expanded to full capacity and are straining against his ribs for freedom. He’s gonna pass out.
“If you would please rise,” Holt says, voice ringing clearly through the hall, and there’s a scuffle of chair legs scraping lightly against the floor as every person in the room rises to their feet. He’s gonna throw up because the cellists are queuing their music and the two venue staff members clutching each door handle are looking to Holt expectantly and Karen’s smiling at him and Mrs. Santiago is already crying and good God it’s too much pressure -
But then the doors open and it’s like - it’s like, suddenly, every single thing in the entire universe comes down to this. To this woman, this absolute vision descended from heaven itself approaching slowly on Victor Santiago’s arm. And his lungs weren’t trying to escape to freedom, they were trying to get to her, everything in him was just itching to get to her because at the mere sight of her his internal chaos has gone completely quiet. She’s smiling but it’s blurred and that’s okay because it’s like looking directly at the sun for too long, and, frankly, he doesn’t ever want to stop. She is the very definition of beauty, she is every good thing in the world wrapped up in the smallest and most concise packaging that has ever existed. Every pure and excellent and wonderful thing from the past, present, and future pales in comparison to Amy Santiago.
It seems like six lifetimes pass before she finally gets to him. He registers that Holt is talking, that the audience has sat down, but his whole life has come down to the moment she reaches for his hand. He takes it and it’s everything he has not to yank her to him - somewhere in the back of his mind he remembers her talking about the heels she’s wearing for the ceremony - so he does his best to take it slow, to be gentle as he pulls her to him. Her warmth comes into contact with his side through the suit jacket and it’s only then that he realizes he’s been crying since - well, since the second he saw her, really.
He promised himself that he would pay attention to the ceremony but honestly he counts it a miracle that he’s even still on his feet at that point so, really, everyone should just count their blessings and let him live. He manages to make out his cues through the buzzing in his ears (and Amy only had to nudge him once) and then she’s sliding a silver band over his knuckle where it nestles against the cheap plastic one she put there as a joke over a year earlier and he’s sliding a matching silver band over her knuckle to nestle against the engagement ring he saved for six months to afford and then he's stomping on the glass and he hears the word ‘kiss’ and dives toward her on instinct over a chorus of mazel tovs.
He can tell by the surprised noise that buzzes against his lips combined with the delighted cheering from the audience to his left that he probably jumped the gun and interrupted Holt, but he can’t even bring himself to care because Amy Santiago just married him in front of people. He feels Charles thumping his back and when he pulls away Holt is genuinely beaming at them and this - this is what happiness feels like.
Every article she read leading up to this day has reminded her, in some shape or form, that there will be unexpected moments in the midst of the ceremony and the reception, and that she should take a second to memorize every detail of said moments. Of course, nothing could have prepared her for what has turned out to be a rapid-fire of special moments, from catching her father dancing with Jake’s mother to catching one of her nieces taking a long gulp from a rogue glass of sangria, believing it to be grape juice. She never really expected such a hurricane of emotions to pummel her so ruthlessly.
What she also did not expect was for one of those moments to be Gina holding the folds of her dress up for her while she attempted to use the bathroom. But that’s exactly where she finds herself two hours into the reception, music blasting over the shouts and laughter of the party in full-swing on the dancefloor.
Gina’s leaning pretty heavily against the stall door, face red from exertion and alcohol, eyes closed as she passionately sings along to the song playing outside. There’s a rational part of Amy’s mind still intact reminding her that this should feel far more embarrassing than it actually does, but the buzz from the champagne and the mental image of her husband’s blazing grin make it impossible for her to register any emotion aside from pure, unadulterated joy. So rather than dwelling on what should or shouldn’t be, Amy just giggles as she reaches back to flush the toilet and allows Gina to pull her to her feet.
“I got it, I can do it - go find Rosa,” Amy pushes Gina out of the stall, laughing again as Gina immediately whirls around and marches unsteadily toward the dancefloor. It takes an extra moment or two before she’s able to get the skirt to lay the right way again but eventually Amy emerges from the bathroom and sets off toward the hall with a triumphant grin.
The music is much louder inside the hall and her gaze is immediately drawn to the mob of people bobbing and weaving out on the dancefloor. Jake’s in there somewhere, probably right in the thick of it, and even though she’s kind of dying to see him again, she lets herself scan the few people seated at the tables here at the back of the hall. She runs through each face carefully, delighted to find that she’s already said hello to all of them (all of those articles also said that it would be impossible to say hello to every guest - clearly they don’t know her).
There’s a sharp movement to her right and she makes the mistake of glancing over: her Great Aunt Brenda is rounding the tables between them, eyes lit with the promise of what will be their fourth lengthy conversation this evening. She briefly considers dashing back to the bathroom, but before she can gather her skirt up enough, another familiar figure appears at the edge of the dance floor.
“Ames!” Jake shouts, his voice rising above the din of noise. His jacket has disappeared and he’s a bit sweaty from all the dancing, but he’s completely lit up with glee as he quickly beckons her toward the dance floor.
It takes a bit longer than usual to get to him (damn heels) but as soon as he grabs her hand he whisks her into the mob, right to the center of the action. The blessedly familiar faces belonging to her squad surround them on all sides and the music is swelling as the hypnotic movement of the group presses her right up against Jake’s chest.
All other faces blur as she draws his laughing face down to hers and it’s just - it’s suddenly so ridiculous that she’s spent so long trying to plan a future when her future was sitting in the desk across from hers all along.
And when he pulls back a long moment later he has stars in his eyes and he looks at her like she’s everything he’s ever wanted and it doesn’t matter if they’re soulmates or just two people in love because they found each other and fought tooth and nail to keep each other and she can’t imagine ever needing anything more.