I've been trying to write this fic since The Road Trip aired to put a narrative to what we now know Amy's thoughts and feelings from Charges and Specs onwards were and heck, somewhere along the way it turned into an epic. What you see here is the third rehash of the structure I had in mind—it was a tough one to get right. I hope you enjoy this and tell me what you think!

stand back where you stood (i wish you would)

You're supposed to be going out for dinner with Teddy that night but you cancel with a text, saying a work thing came up. It's not entirely a lie and Teddy knew it was Jake's hearing today (you've been talking non-stop about how out of order it is all week while Teddy mmm'ed and ahh'ed when you paused for breath) so you're sure he'll assume it's about that. And it is, in an indirect way.

Instead, you go home alone, get into your soft faded NYPD t-shirt and leggings, and sit in front of your boxset of CSI: New York without really watching it. Instead, you think about every strange look, every time you thought you caught him staring at you past the wall of computer monitors between you, all the times his smile looked that little bit forced when you brought up Teddy, you think about how all of it makes sense now. Not that you can get your head around the fact that it's Jake of all people with these feelings-you spent the first six months of knowing Jake Peralta almost certain he wasn't capable of feelings beyond smug and self-important.

By the time the first notes of Baba O'Riley are coming out of your TV speakers for the sixth time, you've mentally exhausted every possibility for how this could change your partnership finally coming to the conclusion that… actually, nothing has to change. Not really. Not if you don't let it change. Like he said, you're with Teddy and more importantly, happy with Teddy, and he'll be undercover for a minimum of six months. Whatever happens after that you can deal with as it comes along.

Nothing has to change.

-/-

You avoid Teddy's rather frequent calls as much as possible for almost three weeks afterwards, only briefly explaining Jake's cover story of being fired and sending him placating texts when he seemed to be getting concerned. You spend those almost-three-weeks glancing up at Jake's desk opposite you and expecting him to be sitting there. It's the first time you've had a chance to realise how big a chunk of your life Jake plays a part in, through work and just because that's the way Jake is. And it's not just you-everyone at the precinct is that bit quieter when Jake's not there, like they're missing a part of the whole. Jake is larger than life, impressing himself exuberantly onto parts of other people's lives he has no real business being in without even realising he's doing it.

When you finally decides to pull yourself together, you throw yourself into your relationship with Teddy with renewed vigour, surprising him at work one evening with a reservation to his favourite Pilsner establishment/restaurant (to him, they're one and the same.)

You explain as little as she can about Jake's hearing and the aftermath –helped immensely by the fact you're only allowed to tell Teddy the cover story anyway, and try to change the subject at the earliest opportunity. An odd feeling of guilt accompanies talking to Teddy about Jake now, knowing what you knows now. It's as though you're being unfaithful, but like it's not Teddy you're betraying.

When Teddy asks why you've had no time to talk recently, you don't have an explanation that'll make sense to him (since it barely makes sense to you) so you say pathetically, "I was- confused about some stuff" and leave it at that. It's not like it matters after all, you're here now and ready to make a success of your relationship instead of pursuing a might-have-been.

-/-

Six months is a long time, and by the end of it, you're sure of what you're going to do. You're happy with Teddy, you are, and he's reliable and safe and doesn't eat gummy bears in fruit roll ups for a serious breakfast meal-so when Jake gets back you'll let him down gently and he can move on and everything can go back to how it was.

As prepared as you think you are, your heart still leaps into your throat when you sees him for the first time. His hair's longer and even messier than usual, but in lot of ways it's like he says it is: like he never left. Everyone reacts to him in the same way they always did. Excepting yourself, of course, but no one else was on the receiving end of a goodbye declaration of feelings six months ago either.

Once the squad have dispersed and an awkward hello has been exchanged, he asks to speak to you in private… and then he asks you about Joe Uterus. It's so far removed from what you were expecting him to say that all the tension you're feeling releases at once, setting you at ease in the old familiarity between them in place of the uncertainty you've felt for the past six months—and it actually seems like that was Jake's intention. There's no way he wanted to know about Joe Uterus the stray dog killer that badly (you wonder how he even heard about that) and you've known he's more considerate than people give him credit for.

"But… also, I just," Jake continues. "I know we left things kinda weird. You know, me saying that I liked you-"

In the end it turns out 'letting him down gently' isn't actually as gentle as you'd had hoped. You'd had a small but tactful speech prepared from when the first whispers of his undercover assignment coming to an end had started drifting around the precinct. Of course, confronted with him now, it blanks from your mind and lacking anything else to describe it, you turn his own words back on him. It's only after you say them that you realise how insensitive it sounds and you kick yourself.

But then he's telling you that he didn't mean what he said; the words you've been replaying in your head for the past six months, the phrase you deconstructed endlessly in line in the grocery store and in the bath and during long nights of paperwork. There's something off about the way he tells you this new development but his explanation makes at least some sense and you have little choice but to take him at face value.

But you're not sure you want to.

Maybe you were just flattered by the whole thing. That's why you feel disappointed right now. Flattered by Jake's apparent romantic stylez feelings for you, not that you'd cheat or even think of it but you liked the feeling of being wanted by someone other than your boyfriend. Your high school experience was such that you're still slightly disbelieving when anyoneexpresses an interest in you and you know that if you and Jake had been in high school together, he'd have been the popular class clown to your teacher's pet know-it-all. He wouldn't have even glanced twice at you. Even if the police precinct where you both work is not high school (and you thank God every day for it), it's still kind of… nice to have someone like him be interested in you. Kind of.

That's definitely it.

-/-

Teddy comes to pick you up at the bar once you're ready to leave Jake's not-so-surprise party. You're sitting with Gina and Jake when he spots you, walking over and bending down to kiss you in greeting. You turn your face just in time so his lips meet your cheek instead but you still see Jake avert his eyes uncomfortably. You're also sure you see Gina discreetly do the Awkward Turtle hand motion but you're not sure whether it's in reference to Jake or the lips-to-cheek conversion and you ignore it.

"Hey, man," Teddy says to Jake when he sees him, clapping him on the shoulder. You'd explained that Jake hadn't really been fired but was undercover the evening after they got word that the sting had gone successfully. "Nice work on the undercover assignment—even my bosses at the 8-2 are talking about how well it went!"

"Thanks," Jake says. "I mean, it could have gone better. One of the mafia guys got away, so."

You catch Jake's eye and smile reassuringly because you know how pissed he still is about that. Even without going through what he undoubtedly has in the last six months, you get why. Six months of his life invested getting up close and personal with some of the guys Jake lives to put away—anything less than a perfect result is a failure. Jake smiles back a little, his squared posture relaxing a bit.

"Ah, well. You win some, you lose some, right?" Teddy tells him, apparently oblivious to Jake's feelings about it and how much he isn't helping. Teddy turns to you now. "You ready to go, babe?"

You gather your bag and throw your coat over your shoulders, standing up.

"Nice seeing you guys again," Teddy says to Jake and Gina—though really he's only saying it to Jake because the present conversation isn't interesting enough to keep Gina off her phone. You are no longer offended by this since you learnt how few conversations are interesting enough to keep Gina off her phone.

"See you tomorrow?" You're not sure how it mangles itself into a question on the way out, somehow needing reassurance he won't have found some new undercover mission to disappear on by tomorrow morning.

"Crime's not going to fight itself, Santiago. I'll-I'll be there," Jake manages a joke, smiling even it's a bit forced. The last thing you see before you turn away is Gina drop her phone to her lap and look at Jake.

("Hang on in there, prin'," you overhear her say to Jake when she thinks you're out of earshot. You swallow hard and keep walking.)

-/-

On the car ride back from the bar that night, you decide to tell Teddy the truth. Now Jake's back, it's something he should know… right? It's in the interests of full disclosure. If Teddy somehow finds out through other means and gets suspicious about why you kept it from him, this whole thing could get very messy very quickly.

You turn the radio down to a talkable level and pick at the skin around your fingernails, an old nervous habit you thought you'd kicked. "Look, um, I didn't tell you this at the time because we hadn't been dating that long and it was kind of complicated with him going undercover and the cover story and everything but- before Jake left, he told me he liked me and that he wished something romantic could happen. Between me and him."

You're not sure what to expect in Teddy's reaction to this news but you definitely don't expect how he does end up responding, which is: a long silence, then, "Oh."

You squint at him in the darkness of his car. "You're… not surprised," you surmise.

"Were you?" he counters and you want to scream 'yes' but instead you just nod mutely. Teddy shrugs. "No, I'm not surprised. I always got a jealous vibe from the guy when he was around you, but I didn't think anything of it. Well, until now."

Absently you think it's amazing that your own boyfriend saw it coming before you did.

"So has he said anything about it since he's been back?" Teddy asks.

"He told me that-" you start hesitantly, staring intently out the windshield "-what he said then was real but he respects that I'm with someone else."

Teddy nods approvingly, then looks at over at you. He puts his hand on your arm in a gesture of comfort. "Don't worry about Peralta, Amy. He's a big boy, he can handle a little unrequited crush. I'm sure he'll be over you in no time."

"I'm sure he will," you say faintly.

-/-

Most things go back to normal then almost immediately. It's so normal, in fact, that it's almost weird. Even between yourself and Jake, things are the same as they always were. You solve cases together, Jake makes sex tape jokes after the things you say, you roll your eyes at him. It's all spectacularly ordinary. You're not sure why you have a lingering sense of unease, since 'everything going back to how it was' is exactly what you wanted.

'Most things' does not include your relationship with Teddy though, and you can only blame yourself for that. You go to the opposite extreme to your last rough patch with him and become the textbook clingy girlfriend. You organise date nights for the two of you most nights out of the week save the nights one of you is working (most involve something to do with Pilsners which, okay, isn't your favourite thing in the world but you don't hate it so you'll put up with it for his sake) and stay most nights at his apartment. He's a little confused by your sudden involvement but he doesn't seem to mind.

There's only one instance where things actually get strained and it happens after he cancels on you one Friday evening, citing a work thing. Usually, this would be fine because it happens a lot between the two of you and in fact, one of the benefits of dating a fellow cop is the mutual understanding of the unsociable and erratic hours you have to work. But this time, for whatever reason, you take it seriously letting your imagination run away with you as to what it means for your relationship.

He comes to your place on Saturday morning with your favourite take out breakfast to make it up to you and you acknowledge his sweet gesture but you're still unsettled.

"So," you start, out of the blue once the breakfast food is almost finished. "Where do you think this relationship is going?"

Teddy nearly chokes on the orange juice he's chugging. "Excuse me?"

At his surprise, you rationalise quickly in head that it's not too early in the relationship for this conversation—you have been dating almost seven months after all. You shrug, carefully casual. "I was just wondering where you thought our relationship was going."

"What's brought this on?" Teddy questions.

"I just feel like we've been kind of-" you pause, trying to find the right words "-out of sync with each other recently, you know?"

Teddy just looks baffled. "Amy… I cancelled one date. I'm not sure we need to go to relationship guidance counselling over this."

You realise abruptly that that's what it must look like from his side (from anyone's side except yours) and since you're not sure you could explain your perpetual feeling of unease there's not much point pursuing this with him. You plaster a smile and shake your head, standing up to move some of the dishes to the sink. "You know what? You're right. Never mind, I'm being stupid. Don't worry about it."

Behind you at the sink, you hear Teddy's chair legs scrape noisily across your floor. When he speaks again, he sounds suspicious. "Is there something else going on with you? Something you're not telling me?"

You whirl around to face him, the washing up liquid on your hands splattering over your counter top. "Of course not. Why would you say that?"

"You've been acting strange for weeks. You want us to spend all this time together-"

"Aren't I allowed to want to spend time with my boyfriend?" you say irritably.

"Yes, of course you are but every time we've spent time together recently, I always feel like you're weirdly invested- like, like you're waiting for me to prove something to you or something."

You swallow hard and try to keep a straight face, thrown by how right he is. "What would I want you to prove?"

"You tell me," he challenges.

You stare each other down for a few long tense moments, until you finally concede and drop your offensive. You don't want to fight with him and you can't deny that it's you who's fucking this up. "I'm sorry I've been off recently, Teddy. Things have just been weird at work recently-"

"-Because of Peralta?"

You start at the mention of Jake. The denial leaves your lips a little too quickly. "No! Nothing like that. Just… work things. I haven't been sleeping well."

Teddy softens. You can feel that the fight is officially over, and he walks over to hug you. "You should've just said."

You nod against his shoulder. Teddy steps back when he realises you're getting washing up liquid on his shirt.

-/-

You hear about Sophia weeks before you meet her. He doesn't really talk about her to you so much but you overhear Jake and Boyle's conversations about her sometimes because you're nosy and when he comes into work with a huge smile on his face and a spring in his step some mornings-it doesn't take a detective to work out that Jake is smitten with her. And you're happy for him, you really are. It's nice to see him so happy and by all accounts, Sophia sounds like she couldn't be more right for him. Like they were meant to be or something.

(You only experience that bitter twinge of something you can't and don't want to name every once in a while and it's relatively easy to smother. Plus, you're an excellent compartmentaliser, so you can separate it from feeling happy for Jake. It's nothing really.)

You come back from the evidence lock up one evening to find a woman sitting in the chair next to Jake's empty desk, thumbing curiously through the things on his desk. She stops when you approach, almost guiltily. After a few minutes of staring at your computer screen and pretending to work, your curiosity about why a random woman is sitting next to Jake's desk gets the better of you.

"Um, Detective Peralta is out at the moment," you say to her. She turns in the seat to face you. "But can I help you at all?"

"Oh, no," she says, waving her hands. "Sergeant Jeffords told me it'd be okay if I waited for Jake in here instead of out in reception. I'm Sophia- Jake's girlfriend."

Now she's explained, you're not sure why you didn't put it together sooner. She's dressed like a lawyer and she's beautiful and leggy and probably exactly Jake's type. After a brief speechless moment, you smile amiably, shaking her outstretched hand.

"Oh, of course. Of course. I'm Amy Santiago, Jake's my partner actually." You wince internally at how much it sounds like you're staking your claim on him, identifying him as yours in some way in response to her 'girlfriend' label.

"It's so nice to meet you! Jake's told me a lot about you," Sophia tells you. You almost want to ask what he's said, whether it was actually about you or whether she means just the squad in general, but she carries on talking before you can think of a way to frame the question that isn't weird and overly involved. "We're supposed to be going out to dinner but he just text to say he's running late, of course. Why be early when you can be late is Jake's philosophy— but then, I imagine you know what I'm talking about, since you work with him."

You blink at her, trying to catch up with what she's saying. "Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, Jake would be late to his own funeral if he could manage it."

"Right?!" Sophia says, laughing. You almost hate that she seems so nice.

You're interrupted then by the man himself walking in with Boyle. He sees Sophia before he sees you – well, duh- and you're subjected to a look of unadulterated joy that practically punches you in the gut and you have to look away, feeling ever-so-slightly winded.

"Hey you, sorry I'm late," you hear Jake greet Sophia. You just stare at your blank computer screen. "I see you've already met Santiago."

"We were just-" you start to explain.

"-Gossiping about you," Sophia supplies. She's grinning at Jake.

You almost laugh at the sudden look of masked worry on Jake's face as he looks between the two of you. "Really? That's, um, cool. Just as long as you know that you can't trust a word that comes out of Amy's mouth. She's actually a compulsive liar. It's a real problem, but we're all supporting her through it. Right, Amy?"

You scowl at him and you almost feel normal for about five seconds, until Sophia slides her arm around Jake's waist, all casual and comfortable intimacy. Your hands itch in your lap for something to do and you have a sudden hankering for a cigarette.

"You ready to go?" Sophia asks him.

"Yeah. See you tomorrow, Santiago."

Sophia smiles at you. "It was nice meeting you, Amy."

"You too. Have a great dinner!" you say with enthusiasm that even you can hear the falsity of, but neither of them really notice.

Once they leave, you throw yourself into your work so intensely that the Sarge has to ask you three times if you want a cup of coffee before you respond. On your next break, you go out onto the terrace and take long drags from a cigarette.

You're fine. Really.

-/-

You're far too on edge to sleep or do anything else after the Dinner of Cascading Failures, which is how it shall forever be known.

Standing in the corner of the hotel room you were supposed to share with him whilst Teddy angrily packed his things was a supremely awkward affair and once he's left, the room is almost eerily silent. You change into your pyjamas and get into bed, turning your iPod on full blast in an attempt to drown out your own panicked, circuitous thoughts. This approach decreases in efficacy as the night wears on.

Even though you know in your heart that it's probably for the best that you got the whole breaking-up-with-Teddy over and done with, it's true that you also could have handled it better. A lot better. Though, you still can't help but be a little pissed with Teddy. As badly as you handled it, Jake and Sophia didn't deserve that. You're not even certain you deserved it.

With the benefit of hindsight, you know you were an idiot to assume that Teddy wouldn't notice what other events in your life the rough patches in your relationship with him coincided with—the three week radio silence after Jake left, then the clingy girlfriend phase when he got back. Especially since you said it yourself not twelve hours ago that he's a really good cop.

Frankly you're surprised he kept his suspicions to himself for so long considering how certain he was of it at dinner.

But it's not really Teddy you're concerned with right now anyway. It probably should be, but in reality it's not (you feel like this has been a background theme to your entire relationship with Teddy since that night in the parking lot.) You get up and pace the room a few times when the noise in your head gets too much, half wanting to go to Jake and Sophia's room to try to smooth things over with both of them but you know you're probably the last person either of them want to see right now and you'd probably make things worse.

After much anxious deliberation and finally frustrated to your limit with not doing anything, you pick up your phone and type out a careful message to Jake. Your finger hovers over the 'send' button for a good ten minutes for you work up the courage to press it. I'm sorry I told Teddy what you said.

You throw your phone across the bed like you've been burned by it once it sends. You're simultaneously disappointed and unsurprised in the five minutes after when Jake hasn't responded. Cursing yourself, you grab your phone again and type another before you can think too hard about it. I'm sorry he ambushed you with it at dinner.

Three minutes later: Also… sorry that he did it while Sophia was there.

One minute after that: And that it caused problems between the two of you.

And I'm sorry for all these apologies. I'm stopping now. I'm sorry.

You finally switch your phone off before you can be tempted to send anything else because your pathetic string of apology texts are starting to look ridiculous.

-/-

Jake at least looks relatively chirpy when he approaches the SUV at the ass crack of dawn the next morning. You, meanwhile, barely slept at all last night, skipped eating even though you haven't since lunch yesterday since dinner was botched and feel anxiety-induced nausea at the thought of being in a car with him for the whole ride back to the precinct.

Against every scenario you'd imagined in your head since last night, he greets you as though your (now ex-) boyfriend hadn't unceremoniously laid out your feelings for him and threatened his still new relationship with Sophia the night before. You know it's going to take you a while to work up the courage to ask what happened with Sophia but you rationalise that it can't all have gone south between them or he'd be in a lot worse mood right now.

On the way to the sheriff's station, Jake talks to you about the perp and complains about the inflexible sheriff that's making you do this prisoner transfer at an unholy time of morning instead of bringing up what happened last night. Something in you that's been tensed since last night relaxes as you talk about the work and you're reminded of how he brought up Joe Uterus in the evidence lock up on his first day back, always trying to make you feel comfortable.

(You think this is why you like him. The genuine regard he has for other people under the teasing and joking that he pretends is the extent of his personality. He hides it well, but it's there.)

Last night's debacle doesn't come up till you're on the road back to Brooklyn during a lull in the carefully light conversation when the tiredness and emotional exhaustion start to set in. Jake notices, of course he does, and offers you the chemical blue liquid sugar that you would have turned your nose up at yesterday. As it is, you just hope it'll keep you alert enough to finish this godforsaken prisoner transfer and get home so you take a long deep swig that surprises even Jake.

Since he brought it up, you finally ask the question that's been plaguing you since last night. "So, how'd it go with Sophia?"

"Good. We made up, we're still together," he tells you. Based on his mood, it's what you were expecting. "I told her, you know, everything between me and you is in the past and we're just friends, so."

This is also what you were expecting but it still stings like salt on an open wound. It's what you were expecting, but there was still that little part of you that hoped he'd drop everything for you. It's the same part that was waiting all last night for him to knock on your room door, come to tell you he's ready to try something real with you.

You look away from him and smother the feeling.

-/-

Noticing that you're currently running on fumes, Jake abjectly refuses to let you help with the paperwork once you're back at the precinct and the perp is the holding cell and tells you to go home. You're too tired to argue or to worry too much about what the Captain might think. As if reading your thoughts, Jake assures you he'll cover for you so you thank him and leave.

You actually only remember to turn your phone on again once you're bundled under your duvet, fully intending to sleep through the day and a half you have until you're in work again. You're half asleep with your phone in your hand but the surprise of a message from Jake alerts you, sent about an hour after your last apology text last night.

most of these things arent ur fault but i forgive u on all counts anyway. stop worrying.

You tell yourself it's your exhaustion that makes tears spring to your eyes at his kindness.

(this is why you like him.)