"Oh, you know who I should invite to the wedding? Jenny Gildenhorn!" Jake smirks, super proud of his wits. Amy doesn't even bother looking up from her own list of guests. "I mean, as a thank you. If wasn't for her turning me down at every opportunity, I might would have never find true love with you, my dear." this time Amy has to look up at the man-child sitting across from her in the kitchen counter, just so she can roll her eyes at him.
"Okay, my list is done." she hands him the paper so he can check her guests, but also in the hope he might take the example and learn how to make a proper list, instead of just scribing down names on a paper without any order whatsoever. "Damn! Eighty people, Ames?!" – of course she numbered all of them, already forming groups of six to fill each table according to the level of acquaintance between her guests – a slightly panicked Jake gulps, already mentally saying goodbye to all the money he managed to save since they started dating a couple of years ago. "Not my fault I have a huge family. And my dad already said he insists on helping pay for it, also not my fault."
Amy never actually dreamed of having a huge church wedding. Her parents, on the other hand, all they want is to see their only daughter walking down the aisle in a beautiful white dress, with the whole family there to see it. On top of that, Jake got into the idea of a big wedding when her parents suggested – and he let them know. For some reason, a half catholic-half jewish wedding, followed by a big party that, ideally, would go on until the sun-rise, was something that made him truly excited. His finances, though, not so much.
"Alright, I guess this is my list." he hands the paper to Amy, who immediately starts putting down the names on her own list, already organizing the sitting arrangements. His list was much shorter, it had only his closest family – mom, cousins and aunts – and their precinct friends and colleagues – he asked to put them on his side so he would have more people to bring – and, written a bit smaller and weaker, kinda scribbled in the bottom of the paper – as if he wasn't sure of it – she reads the word 'dad'.
"Oh… so you're inviting him, huh?" Amy doesn't want to sound judgmental, but it's hard not to. She does not like Roger Peralta. This is a fact. She wasn't very keen to the man the first time he came by the precinct, but it only got worse once she met Jake's mom and learned how much the sweet woman struggled to move on with her life when he left, and to help Jake move on with his as well. The man is a douchebag – she won't ever say that to his son's face, but he is. "Well, he is my dad, thus he should be at my wedding." He answers, avoiding her gaze. "He already missed all the other important things in your life, didn't think it would matter by now." she hisses.
The moment the words leave Amy's lips, she knows she shouldn't have said them, at least not like this. "What?!" now Jake is looking at her, and he doesn't seem pleased. "He's a busy man, Amy! It's not his fault." Amy sighs at this – she's probably shouldn't have, but she did – she doesn't get how Jake Peralta, amazing detective, – don't tell him she said it – just can't see something so obvious as his father's lack of ethos. "I'm sorry I said anything, okay? Just forget it." she tries to brush it off, and normally that would work for them, but this subject always makes Jake react different, distant.
"No, no. You can't just say that and then pretend you didn't." his voice is deep and heavy now, the way it only gets when he's really angry or sad… or both. "So you can invite all your family, all your brothers, sisters-in-law, all these kids they have, eighty people. Eighty!" he snaps as he angrily grabs the paper he had just handed her and crumples it into a ball. "But I can't even invite my goddamn father!" he shouts, looking up and running his fingers through his hair.
He gets up from his sit and heads to the living room, clearly not wanting to look at her right now. Amy knows she should just let it go and leave him alone, but this is already a fight, and she's not the type to just stand there and watch someone yell at her. "That's different, Jake, and you know it." she exclaims, getting up as well and facing the leaving room. Jake still has his back to her.
"Really?" He turns around to face her again. "How is that different?! Explain to me how is that different, Amy. 'Cause I must be too dumb to understand on my own." and that's when she crushes him. "All this people are an actual part of my life, that's how it's different." Jake freezes, staring at her.
They both have their eyes filled with water, but they're not giving in to the tears, not in front of the other at least. "Then, maybe, we shouldn't even do this." Jake mumbles with a broken voice, gesticulating between them. "Excuse me?" is all a shocked Amy manages to say. They're not shouting any more.
"This, the wedding… us. Maybe we really are too different after all." Amy lets some tears run down her face, she doesn't want to, but she can't hold them back anymore, not while listening to this. She also can't process how they went from making their wedding's guest list to calling off said wedding – and possibly breaking up? – in less than fifteen minutes. Maybe we are too different after all, she thinks.
Neither of them says anything anymore. They're both just angry and broke and hurt, and they don't have anything else to say anyway. Nothing to make things better, nor to make things worse. Amy reaches her engagement ring on her right hand, she looks down at it and removes the diamond ring from her finger. She doesn't even have the will power to walk up the coffee table and place it there, so she just throws it in the couch and walks away.
Jake falls on his massage chair – the one he brought with him when he moved in – at the same time that Amy slams the bedroom door behind her.
The next morning she doesn't wake him up as per usual. She considers doing it when she's at the door, ready to go, but when she looks back at him sleeping on their – her – couch, a new wave of anger and bitterness fills her, then she doesn't, knowing that he'll definitely be late – at least I won't have to speak with him at work, she thinks.
When Jake finally wakes up, almost two hours late, she's long gone.
Jake walks into the precinct already dreading to see the Captain waiting for him by his desk, but to his surprise, he isn't there. He's in his office and, when their gaze meet, the Captain just nods at him – which can only mean the news have spread.
"Jake! What happened? Are you okay? What happened? Did you guys fight? What happened?!" of course Boyle is freaking out about it. He explains to Jake that he noticed Amy wasn't wearing her engagement ring this morning, but when he asked, she just ignored him. "And where is she now?" Jake looks around but doesn't find his wife-to-maybe-be.
"She's out with Rosa, they're staking out that tagger crew. It will probably take them the whole day." Charles replies, and Jake can feel the pity in his voice. "Oh yeah, that's right. Amy said something about it last night, before we…"
"What, Jake? Before you guys what?" the worried detective insists and Jake once again can feel how much he cares – he truly is our number one shipper, he thinks. "We had a stupid fight, over something stupid, and I stupidly said I wanted to call off the wedding." As he says it, Jake realizes how truly stupid this whole thing was. He doesn't want to call off the wedding. Why would he ever do that? He loves Amy and he knows she loves him. They're great together, at everything, and all he really wants is to be with her forever.
"Oh no, Jakey! This is terrible, why would you…" Jake cuts his friend mid-sentence. He needs to go get something and it can't wait. "Sorry bud, just had an idea. Will explain later."
When Amy arrives at the precinct with Rosa, the place is almost empty. Their shift has been over for nearly an hour now and the night crew is already around, even though none of them have actually take place yet. She can't help but be relief to find Jake's desk empty – meaning no Jake, because there's all sorts of crap all over his desk – she had managed not to think about her personal problems for almost the entire day. The only two exceptions were when Boyle asked her why she wasn't wearing her ring – and she ignored him – and later when Rosa asked why she was acting all weird, and she told her the whole story.
Amy goes to her desk to grab some stuff and leave her notes. What she isn't expecting to see when she opens her top drawer is a red velvet heart-shaped box sitting on top of a note. She grabs the box and opens it, inside there's what she immediately recognizes as a one dollar ring – she wonders if it's the same one he gave her all those years ago, it seems like the same, but she clearly remembers throwing that one out in the street by the end of their act, right before they busted those guys… anyway. The note only says 'I have the real one waiting for you at home', no signature – not that she needs one to know who it's from – no 'I love you' – again, she doesn't need one to know – nothing more, just that.
"That's nice of him." is the statement that snaps Amy out of her thoughts and scares the living shit out of her – she totally forgot Rosa was still there. "Talk to him. He's an idiot, but he loves you." She knows he does. She's as sure he loves her as she's sure she loves him – she just kinda wishes the idiot part wasn't just as truthful. "I will. Thanks, Rosa." the other woman just nods, before heading out the precinct. Amy does the same, right after she grabs the note and the velvet box and puts them in her purse.
Jake is sitting down the couch reading a book – one of Amy's book from this King guy, but still an actual book, he can't believe how mature he must look right now – when he hears the front opening and immediately puts the book aside, not bothering to mark the page he had stopped – it's not like he'll keep reading it anyway, and he's pretty sure he already watched a movie with the same story. Amy walks in and, to his surprised, she looks calm, super calm, scary calm.
She hangs her coat and purse before looking his way in silence. "Hey, listen, I'm sorry, I…" Jake tries to say in a rush as he gets up, but gets abruptly interrupted by Amy pushing him back down the couch. She gets on top of him, sitting in his lap with her legs wrapped around his. She kisses him – or more precisely, she angrily kisses him.
And then she slaps his face. "No, you listen. Don't you ever break things off again unless you really mean it, okay?! Don't you dare doing that again!" Amy stares at him, her face flushed with annoyance, and Jake doesn't know if he's supposed to speak or not. She's looking down at him and simultaneously clenching her fist around his collar.
He decides he should speak. "I know. I'm sorry, it was stupid. I love you and I…" he's cut off again by her lips angrily smashing his. Maybe he shouldn't have spoken. "No! I don't wanna hear any of that right now. In fact, right now, you're taking me to that bedroom and we'll have the angriest makeup sex we ever had, and tomorrow morning we'll talk about this like adults." Jake just watches her for a second, creased brow, still processing what just happened. "So?!" she demands, kissing him again.
He can't remember seeing Amy like this before, but she seems still kinda pissed off and she said something about makeup sex and bedroom and he doesn't have to be told twice. He gets up, her legs tied around his waist and her hands grabbing his hair, they walk like this to their bedroom, and they do exactly as she said.
"Morning" she greets him as he slowly walks towards the kitchen, messy hair and wearing nothing but his boxers. "Morning, Ames."
He sits opposite to her at the kitchen counter, same place their fight started the other day, expect this time he's the one with his back to the living room. "Hey, I have something for you" he says reaching for the pocket of his leather jacket that was resting on the back of the seat.
"Fart Monster, will you still marry me?" he fake begs, holding out the ring for her, and she immediately gives him her hand – again. "Of course I will, Butthead." He slides the ring in her finger and kisses her hand before letting it go. "I must say I'm a bit offended you were not using the ring I left for you at the precinct. Don't you know I paid one whole dollar on that ring?!"
"Yeah, like I would make it that easy for you." She giggles, giving him the tongue. Call of the wedding, what an idiot I had to be, he thinks. He follows her actions with his eyes for a while – she's making them coffee – admiring everything about her. He's pretty sure he had to be a huge idiot to not want to marry that woman.
"Okay, real talk now." she sighs, pouring them some coffee. "Jake, I was a jerk with you yesterday and I'm really sorry about that." Amy says. "And, I might not be the biggest fan of Roger Peralta, but he's your father and I think you should invite him to our wedding."
"Oh… For realz?" he mumbles. "For realz." She states. Jake is a bit surprised that she changed her mind, although she does love him, so that must be why. "Thanks, and sorry I was a jerk too."
"It's okay. We're a couple of jerks, I guess." she laughs and they smile at each other.
"He probably won't even show up anyway." Jake half jokes and half whines, taking a sip of his coffee. "Then it's his loss, babe." Amy answers, holding his hand and smiling fondly at him. "And I'm keeping that dollar ring, by the way."
"What?!" he exclaims, getting up and moving closer to her. "No way, I can pay a whole olive from the wedding dinner with that dollar. I need it back." He smirks, hugging her and patting her down, as if he was searching for the ring on her pocketless shirt. "Too bad, Peralta… too bad."