Chapter One - Impossible Year.

There's no you and me,
This impossible year,
Only heartache, and heartbreak,
And gin made of tears

-x-

Shoulders back, chin up, deep breath. Don't cry. Don't you dare freakin' cry.

This was all Amy could come to tell herself, the harsh commands rotating through her mind over and over again. There wasn't even any reason to cry. Not just yet. There wasn't going to be. Everything would be okay. Surely. Everything was going to be fine.

But just in case...

Amy sucked in another long breath as she continued to stare at the perfect scribbles of her life calendar hanging on the wall above her bed. She bit down on her bottom lip, swaying with hesitation.

This wasn't part of the plan. None of this was ever supposed to be a part of Amy's plan. And maybe until it was all truly over with - maybe the wisest thing was to put the rest of her plans on hold. Just for now.

Right as Amy summoned the courage to climb up onto the bed, her feet sinking into the mattress as she unhooked the calendar from the wall, the detective suddenly jumped in surprise at the sound of the bedroom door clicking open.

A stunned silence was all that filled the room for a second or two.

"What are you doing?"

Stepping down from the bed, Amy kept her eyes glued to the floor.

"Ames?"

Her heart skipped a beat. His sweet tone accompanying her even sweeter nickname had always been her damned weakness.

Bringing her soft, brown orbs up to mirror his own, Amy tried to force a small smile. His expression was filled to the brink with concern as Jake frowned at his girlfriend.

"When did you decide you were just gonna' start winging it?" he asked with a slight chuckle, "No more life calendar?"

Amy heaved her shoulders up and down in a shrug.

"What's the point?" she murmured, "Where's the point in any of it when our lives could be completely turned upside down in a few days?"

Holding in a nervous shudder, Jake was still for a moment. Up until that very second, he and Amy had only been carefully tip-toeing around the cold hard fact that not only had Lieutenant Melanie Hawkins framed him for a crime he didn't commit, but now he was facing fifteen years in prison for it. Fifteen years. One hundred and eighty months, five thousand, four hundred and seventy-nine days, and far too many seconds to count. She was yet to discuss it with him so blatantly.

And perhaps what was worse than just that, was that right now, Jake wasn't even sure what he was meant to offer Amy in response.

"Way to sentence me prematurely," he fumbled through some kind of joke, "You don't need to worry, no-one needs to worry, we've got the meat fork, remember? Our two prongs! We're innocent, we're not gonna' get sent to jail."

A couple of dull thoughts flashed through Amy's mind. She wondered if Detective Diaz was thinking as positively as Jake was. She also wondered who it was that Jake was truly trying to convince - Amy, or himself.

"Yeah... yeah, okay, well, I guess once we know for sure that our life is back on track, I can just make a new one - "

" - Or," Jake spoke, quietly cutting her off. He gently took the array of card and paper and marked sticky notes out of her hands before she could crumble it all up into a ball, "We could just leave it right here and hang it straight back on the wall as soon as this nightmare is over."

Following his actions with her eyes, Amy feigned an appreciative grin as Jake tucked the oversized calendar behind her wardrobe. It safely stood against the wall behind the wooden structure, out of sight until it was needed again.

As he looked down at her, a goofy smirked plastered across his face at his own sheer genius, Jake's appearance faltered at the uncertainty still pooling in Amy's eyes. The detective - suspended detective - sighed to himself. Jokes and laughter and gags clearly weren't going to be able to solve this problem for him.

"Hey, but seriously," he spoke with a whisper, reaching his hand out and gesturing for Amy to take it in hers. She did so almost instantly, stepping closer to him as he coaxed her inward and grabbed onto her other hand just as tightly, "Babe, everything's gonna' be alright."

A shiver raced down Amy's spine as she locked her orbs onto Jake's, getting lost in all the twinkling emotion she could see dancing behind them. He gave her hands an affectionate squeeze. She swallowed a lump in the back of her throat, eventually nodding her head. Jake smiled at her again.

"I'm not going to let anything come between us, and I'm not going to let anything take me away from you again. I promise."

Those familiar words started racing back across Amy's brain. Don't. Freakin'. Cry. Instead, she ripped her hands away from his and threw them around his waist, diving into his grasp and burying her head in his chest.

Jake pulled her close where they stood in the centre of their bedroom. He leaned down and pressed his lips firmly, adoringly to the crown of her head as he kissed her, breathing in the scent of her hair.

"I love you. So much."

His words sent goosebumps shooting up her arms. Maybe Jake was right. Maybe everything for he and Amy really would be okay.

"I love you so much, too."

"Guilty. On all charges."

Amy would never forget how she felt the moment she heard that accursed word.

Her heart had plummeted from her chest into the depths of her stomach with the same thud that Rosa had made when she collapsed down into her chair. Her mind had started racing with the same state of panic that Jake had been muttering through with his "cool, cool, cools" over and over again. A coping mechanism of denial that she knew he was using to shield the insane fear that had instantly eaten at him from the inside out.

But that had all been four days ago. What Amy felt right now was much, much worse.

Sitting in the same courtroom, in the same seat, in the same unwashed pantsuit, Detective Santiago was frozen. Her hair was an unkempt mess and her eyes were red raw from a lack of sleep over most of the past ninety-six hours. The rest of the Nine-Nine were there as well, and Jake and Rosa were sitting before the judge's bench in handcuffs, having been released from their holding cells. But only temporarily, of course.

Today was their sentencing day. And Amy felt like her heart was about to shatter into a million unmendable pieces.

Jake was near thoughtless where he sat awaiting his fate. He didn't have the first clue what to think, or what to feel. He was drowning in an ocean of different emotions. Fear, anger, regret, misery. They all swirled in a sick mess in his stomach, warning him that he very well may have been on the verge of puking. And perhaps he would have, if he hadn't been distracted by the sound of a single, sad sniffle echoing from beside him.

Blinking just once, Jake turned to his left to fix his pale, brown orbs onto Rosa. Her head was facing down, emptily staring into her lap as she brought her cuffed hands up to wipe the corner of her eye.

Jake felt another piece of his heart break away.

"Rosa..."

Jake's tone was quiet and gentle as he reached forward to grasp at Rosa. But as she only snivelled once more and grumbled under her breath, Diaz quickly swatted him away.

"Leave it, Peralta," she snapped, clearly trying to conceal how upset she was.

Jake sighed, keeping his voice at a whisper, "Look, you and me are going to get out of this, okay? I know it doesn't feel like it right now, but one way or another the squad are going to - "

"It's not that," Rosa cut back in, "I can handle myself, and I can force myself to handle prison, even if it kills me."

Her words sent a haunting shiver racing up Jake's spine as he tried to shake off the nervous sensation, "Then, what is it?"

Rosa's eyes immediately shot back to the floor. She swallowed what Jake could tell was a reluctantly harsh lump in the back of her throat. And then, Rosa brought her voice to a broken murmur.

"It's... it's just," she paused with a sigh, "...Adrian."

Jake's expression softened in understanding, "Adrian?" he repeated, "Rosa, Pimento loves you, he's totally gonna' wait for you, you don't need to worry - "

"I know that. I know he'll wait," Diaz interjected once more, "But maybe that's exactly what's making me feel so goddamn crappy right now."

Falling to silence, Jake sensed his brow crease into a confused frown, "What do you mean?"

A fresh wave of hesitation crashed over Diaz as she scratched at her leg through her uncomfortable prison jumpsuit. Even in that very moment as she sat with her hands chained together and it felt like all hope was completely lost, even still, her fiancé was in Argentina exterminating scorpions (or housing more scorpions?) and trying everything he could to make his and Rosa's life that little bit better.

Adrian truly would go to the ends of the Earth for her. Only, Rosa wasn't sure if she wanted to let him do it anymore.

"I'm engaged to the dude, but for the past year it feels like we've been a part way more than we've been together. I can't keep doing that to him, man," Rosa explained. She turned to fully face Jake, her features frozen in a solemn expression, "I don't want to just sit back and let him throw away fifteen years of his life for me. That's not fair on him."

The last five words Rosa spoke struck through Jake like a bolt of lightning. He sensed his chest cave in so deeply that it felt like his heart had actually stopped for a terrifying second or two. His abrupt silence was so apparent that Rosa eventually turned away from him again, assuming that she had left him with nothing to say or think.

But Jake's brain was suddenly racing into overdrive. The sick sense of vomit was re-forming in his throat as he took a sad glance over his shoulder.

Charles and Gina both looked devastated. Terry was so furious that it looked like he was ready to rip the head off anybody who came within two feet of him. Even Raymond had succumbed to a clear mix of emotions, looking somewhere eerily between the same sadness and anger scattered throughout his squad.

But it was the expression on the figure timidly nestled in beside Holt that told Jake there really was no point in denying the reality that was slapping him hard across the face any longer.

As he stared at her, Jake wasn't sure if he even recognised Amy for a second. Not properly recognised her. Her face was white as a sheet, her shoulders were dejectedly slouched back, and her eyes were shadowed with painful defeat.

The last sentence Rosa had spoken was still cycling through Jake's brain as a thousand and one memories of he and Amy suddenly reappeared to him. Their first real kiss, their first date and their first 'I love you' made Peralta feel like he was invincible. But the insane sense of loneliness that consumed him from being separated from her for six months while he had been under witness protection in Florida still laced his mind with nightmares.

And finally, there was the emotion that had crossed him only a couple of short months ago when he had subtly turned to face her where she sat in bed beside him. April twenty-eighth was surely a date that Jake was never, ever forget. To complain about something as trivial as a spelling mistake in a crossword puzzle was the most typically-Amy thing he had ever encountered throughout their relationship. But it had also told Jake something that he still knew to be absolutely certain today. And that was how much he truly loved her. And how much he needed to make Amy his wife.

Fifteen years sure would be more than enough time to plan the wedding of the century. But something else Peralta knew was that he absolutely could not make Amy wait that long. For a wedding, or for him. That wasn't fair on her.

"All rise for the Honourable Judge Marinovich."

The sound of the bailiff's voice thundered throughout the courtroom and snapped Jake out of his deep trance as he gulped and came to his feet. He could hear the shuffling of his friends and colleagues nervously standing behind him, as well.

And as he took one last peek at Amy, and his beautiful girlfriend forced her way through a comforting smile and a confident nod of her head, that's when Jake knew what he had to do.

"Be seated," Judge Marinovich instructed, "Mr. Peralta, Miss Diaz, please remain standing."

The chains around his ankles rattled as he uncomfortably shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Jake was certain he would never get used to being referred to as Mister rather than Detective.

"Do either of you have any final thoughts you would like to offer the court before your sentencing?"

The words sliced through Jake like he was a day old lump of meat. He had seen through hundreds of trials headed by Judge Marinovich and heard him ask that question in his deep, monotone voice countless times before. But never in his life did Peralta imagine that he would be the one being forced to answer.

Glancing out of the corner of his eye as he began to hesitate his response, Jake found his vision coming to a standstill at the sight of Rosa all over again. The agonising heartbreak in her demeanour was still all to clear to him, no matter how hard his friend was desperately trying to remain strong.

She truly was one of his best friends - his oldest friend, a part from Gina. The memories from the Academy that Jake held with Rosa were some of the greatest of his entire existence. Rosa always had his back. And it was time for Jake to have her back one last time.

"I do, Your Honour."

The unexpected noise of the four simple words humming out from between his lips made Amy leap out of her skin. Her neck snapped up, her narrowed, brown eyes locking onto the back of her boyfriend's skull. She would have given anything in that moment for the power to peer into Jake's brain and see just what the hell he was thinking.

Judge Marinovich raised an intrigued eyebrow, "Mr. Peralta?"

Jake could all but feel just how much Rosa had stiffened in her place beside him. She peered right through him, trying every appropriate action she could to gain his attention, but Peralta only pushed on with a deep breath.

"Your Honour, there's something else you need to know. And that's..."

Jake took one last second. He glanced down at his cuffed hands sitting over his stomach. There was no getting out of this for either of them. But maybe he could make things just a little bit better for Rosa.

"And that is Diaz was only present at the last robbery."

Amy felt her heart completely stop.

"What?" Rosa quietly hissed under her breath, wrenching around to face him, "Jake!"

"I was the only one on my squad involved with the Golden Gang and all of their operations," Jake carried right along, "When Diaz uncovered everything and confronted me about what I was doing, I threatened to frame her for the whole thing if she didn't help me on this last robbery. The amount of money in her bank account only looks so similar to mine because I didn't want to create any suspicion surrounding what I did to her."

Santiago wasn't sure how many more of these hoops she could be thrown through before her system completely shut down on her. Just as she could sense a fit of hyperventilation worse than her dog allergies begin to creep up on her, Amy was rattled by the sensation of her captain's shoulders shaking slightly from his place beside her.

Amy was stunned. It wasn't like Holt to lose his cool, or project any kind of physical emotion, for that matter. Ever. Right when she began to question whether or not her captain had found enough despondency in himself to force a couple of sad tears, the detective soon found that the bizarre situation was actually quite the opposite.

Raymond was laughing. It wasn't a full blown, hefty belly laugh. Just a few quiet, chuckling murmurs to himself as he shook his head back and forth in disbelief. And it wasn't a laugh stemming from any kind of humour or hilarity, either. Amy could tell. Holt was simply laughing in ironic admiration of Jake's latest daring move of self-sacrifice.

Peralta always had been far too blindly loyal to his Nine-Nine family. It was both a blessing and a curse.

"Miss Diaz, can you corroborate Mr. Peralta's claims?"

Rosa had never wanted to stab Jake in the back so badly in her entire life.

She didn't know what to do. What she did know was that she only had an extremely limited window in which she could answer Judge Marinovich's question with even a lick of believability.

If Rosa confessed that Jake was lying, then her friend could quite possibly be charged with perjury. But if Rosa lied as well and threw him under the bus... who knew what could happen to Jake.

The tenseness that filled the air could have been sliced with a knife as Rosa finally spoke.

"Yes," she muttered, "Yes, Your Honour, I can. I was only involved in the robbery because Peralta blackmailed me."

A collective, shallow gasp emptied from the lungs of each member of the squad as Amy dug her nails deeper into the bruise that surely had to be forming on her arm by now. Jake sighed as well. He was equally proud of himself, but also completely terrified of what might happen next.

He glimpsed quickly at Rosa, smiling softly at her with a nod of his head as she stared back with an incredible amount of gratitude. When Judge Marinovich finished flicking through the papers at his bench and cleared his throat, Jake and Rosa both looked up at him and held their breath.

"Based on these newly provided details, as well as the jury's findings in this case..."

Jake's chest skipped a beat as he took a second to gently shut his eyes.

Eyes closed, head first, can't lose.

"Jacob Peralta, for your convicted crimes against the New York Police Department and the State of New York, I hereby sentence you to serve fifteen years imprisonment in Riker's Island Maximum Security Prison."

Amy felt her soul shatter.

"Rosa Diaz, I sentence you to serve at Bedford Hills Maximum Security Correctional Facility for the duration of," the judge paused, making one final note on his papers, "Twelve years."

Rosa thought she was going to collapse back in her chair all over again. If her new most hated word was 'guilty', then perhaps her new most loved number was 'twelve'. There was certainly no doubt in her mind that her favourite person in that moment was no-one other than Jake Peralta.

"Court adjourned. Bailiff, please escort the prisoners back to their holding cells for transportation."

When Judge Marinovich's gavel came crashing down with a loud thud, hammering the final nail into the coffin that was Jake and Rosa's fate, Amy immediately sprung to her feet.

She blinked a few times in quick succession and swallowed back a whimper in her voice to stop any tears from flowing. The detective kept her eyes glued to her boyfriend, watching as Rosa slowly spun around and continued to stare at Jake in disbelief.

Hiding behind her mess of dark curls, Diaz stuttered over the start of a sentence - any sentence, anything she could think to say to Jake before she was hauled away from her friend for twelve years.

Raising his cuffed hands slightly to cut her off, Peralta merely shook his head.

"You can owe me a thousand push-ups for every year before me that you get out."

His voice was hushed and almost glazed right over her, mainly because Rosa still couldn't be certain that Jake had really just done what he did for her. She took one shuffled step towards him as her chains clinked around her ankles, but instead sucked in a sharp, surprised breath as the large, oaf of a bailiff standing behind her suddenly grabbed onto her upper arm.

Resisting the urge to struggle and fight away from him, Rosa subtly turned back to Jake one last time. And then, with a single, slight nod of her head, Jake instantly understood just how thankful his friend was.

The sounds of the rest of the squad calling to Rosa and spluttering through their tear-filled promises that they'd visit her soon quickly reminded Jake that he still hadn't been left totally alone. Not just yet.

He almost shuddered as he recognised one voice calling to him with a despairing softness amongst all the others that filled his head. Judge Marinovich's second bailiff was making a beeline for him from the very back of the courtroom as Jake finally swivelled around on the spot.

His eyes were facing the wooden floor. His hands were fidgeting with the buttons of his orange jumpsuit. He sort of wished he could just be dragged out of the courtroom as viciously as Rosa had been, leaving his impulsive path of recklessness behind him. But of course, the ever-stubborn Amy Santiago was never going to let that happen.

"Jake," she called to him again. When he finally looked up at her, all kinds of terror swirling in the brown water colour of his eyes, Amy held her arms open, beckoning her boyfriend towards her.

She could almost swear for some reason that he was mulling over something in his brain for a short second, but Amy quickly shook off the thought as Jake came within her reach.

She leaned over the wooden railing in front of the pews as far as she could and wrapped her arms around Jake's torso, locking her hands behind his back. He couldn't quite return her tight embrace seeing as he was still in handcuffs, but God, Amy didn't even care in that moment. She never wanted to let Jake go.

Amy forced down a sob, standing up on her toes to breathe in the scent of Jake's hair at the nape of his neck. Heaven only knew how long it might be until she'd be able to do that again.

"I'll get you out of here," she whispered in his ear, "However long it takes, whatever it takes, I don't care. I'll do whatever I have to do, Jake, I swear."

Amy's words sunk into the back of Jake's mind and made another shiver shoot all the way up his spine. He despised the thought of her putting her neck on the line for him and his mistakes. Obviously he and Rosa had been framed, but if only he had backed completely away from Hawkins' case when she first told him too, then maybe...

Jake squeezed his eyes tightly shut, breathing out hard against Amy's shoulder. He wasn't really certain if he deserved his girlfriend's utterly unyielding defence of him. But what he was certain of, was that Amy sure as hell didn't deserve to have her life put on hold for fifteen, long years.

When the bailiff eventually approached them and grabbed him by the arm, Jake took a step back, daring to glimpse down at Amy.

As soon as he did, Amy felt her chest freeze over to ice.

The pain stung sharply at her ribs - just as sharply as the usual twinkle has completely diminished from Jake's eyes. That same twinkle that had been there just mere days ago when they had been holding each other in the middle of in their room and he had rescued her life calendar and kissed her and told her he loved her was suddenly just... gone.

There was something wrong. Something other than the fact that he was going to prison. Amy could tell just by staring into him. She licked her bottom lip, nervously opening her mouth to speak again, but before she could even get the words out, Jake was being dragged away by the brutish bailiff carelessly grasping at his jumpsuit. Santiago's murmurs were instantly drowned out by the rest of the squad calling out their sad goodbyes to their favourite son.

All the while, until he had completely vanished, Jake's eyes never left Amy's.

She didn't think it was possible for her heart to snap any further when it was already totally broken, but somehow, that was exactly what Amy felt as the courtroom door slammed behind Jake.

It was all exactly like she thought it would be. In the blink of an eye, Amy's life had turned completely upside down.

Chapter title and lyrics by Panic! At The Disco.

Strap in tight ladies and gents - if you came here looking for a sweet, happy time, I can't guarantee that's what you're going to get. At least not any time soon.

I'm equal parts nervous and excited to finally be posting this first chapter in my new story. I've been planning this in the back of my mind ever since Jake actually went to jail in the show (July-ish last year? Holy moly). I just hope I can keep the ideas flowing and give this story the justice I've built up for it within myself.

It's been a very long time since I've written a long multi-chapter fic, so you will pretty please have to bear with me :) I'm probably too much of a perfectionist when it comes to posting even a single chapter - I don't like to force my way through writer's block and end up posting something crappy just for the sake of posting at all. So if I need to take break for a couple of weeks, or even a couple of months in some cases, please know that its all in the best interest for the story's quality and my own personal sanity :)

With that being said, I would really love to hear what you thought of this first chapter! Any possible predictions this early on of what may end up happening with Jake and Amy and everyone else later are also very welcome :) I truly do appreciate any and all reviews!

So, I suppose that just leaves me with saying... Till next time guys,

Reneyyyyyyyy x