B99 – A rocky Journey to Happiness

Bored out of his mind Jake threw his pencil on his desk and leaned into his chair. "I'm not filling out any more paper! It is soooooo boring…" He talked to himself, peeking to his left sight to see, what his temporary partner Charles Boyle was doing.

With an emphatic smile he turns his upper body to Jake and holds up a beige folder. "I know, food poisoning is not your favorite kind of murder, but if you want, I would always let you in on my Tongue Journey through the delicious broth of Pumpkin spiced scampi's and a bread made out of the heavens of chia-roast with a hint of a flavor of yoghurt and… well, obviously poison."

"What did Terry hear here about yoghurt? Where is the yoghurt!", chimed Sergeant Terry Jeffords in while looking expectantly to Charles. "Eh… Well… It was infused into a magnificent and extraordinary …" When Charles started to list the ingredients of the murder-bread Jakes boredom forced him to interrupt his best colleague.

"It was in the dough of the bread. No yoghurt for you Terry!" He looks apologetic and stands up to walk to his Sarge. "These are terrifying news, man!", he scolded Charles. "Yoghurt has to be eaten fresh! So if you take it into your mouth and you can't swallow it all, the soft white texture can slowly drip down your chin. And that! Is a really great feeling!"

As Terry went on about his explanation an extremely wide grin formed on Jakes face and his eyes started to twinkle. "Oh Sarge! You're really making this too easy for me! God, where do I start? There is such a broad amount of jokes to choose out of!", declared Jake with delight, not noticing the Captain leaving his office and coming straight to them.

"Terry doesn't know, what you mean! What are you talking about, Peralta?" He searched Charles face for some clues, but he also seemed not to get, what Jake was referring to.

"For real? No one? Terry? Charles?..." Since there was no reaction of neither of them he scrunched his nose in frustration. "Oh com'on!... 'can't swallow it all'? 'The soft white texture slowly dripping down my chin'?", he quoted Terry. "That's not even asking for a gay joke! It's forcing me to do it!" He spread his arms out wide to bath in his own glory of his joke, even before he actually made it, when the Captain joined into the conversation.

"Oh really, Detective Peralta? Gay jokes? Well, keep going. I am sure I never heard any in my very long-time es an openly gay Police Officer, who was discriminated and underrated by his narrow-minded colleagues and superiors. But… Go on! I want to hear this… thought-through non-provocative and not discriminating Gay-Joke you appear to consider appropriate for this workplace. So, please! Elaborate!" The stoic and harsh voice of his superior let Jake froze on the spot and his ears turn pink in slight embarrassment.

"Capt'n… Heeey…", he welcomed him turning in an overly happy fashion with a false smile plastered on his face. "Didn't hear you coming to join our joyous conversation… and none of my very dear colleagues did warn me,", he threw Charles a blaming look. "…otherwise I totally would have integrated you in … this.. whatever this is… Actually, this is nothing, we're not talking… like… at all! Hey look! Oh wow, a ton of work in very fascinating beige folders, who all look the same with equally exciting contents in it… ready to be filed in not at all boring forms… I urgently need to get on with that! Bye!"

He wanted to flee out of that conversation, but Captain Holt didn't want to let him of the hook quiet so easily. "Stop, Detective Peralta! You still need to… fill in your colleagues here about your gay joke!", Captain Holt really enjoyed his word pun, intended to torture Jake a little bit more, even though he didn't let that show on his face.

Jake on the contrary showed a fully devastated expression upon not being able to retort to that open invitation of gay jokes due to his superior's sexual orientation and the hint of his own conscience telling him not to cross that line.

"Yeah, Jake! Please tell us, what you mean… Because I agree with Terry! If you are really doing it right, you are in such an ecstatic state, that you won't even realize how this delicious white, warm fluid runs down your chin, because you put too much of it into your mouth, because you just can't stop tasting this deliciousness." That made Jake growl outright in frustration.

"Warm?", repeated Terry irritated. "Why would the Yoghurt be warm?", he questioned and ignored Jakes antics. Proudly Charles opened his drawer and took a huge glass filled with a withe liquid out. "Oh, not again!", moaned Jake.

"Of course it would be warm! For perfect consistency you have to keep the milk always above a temperature of…" "Enough!", interjected Captain Hold. "Sergeant Jefferson, please follow me into my office." "Yes, Captain Holt!"

Jake and Charles watched both of them leave. The former trying to guess, what their conversation will be about, the ladder still thinking about Jakes Joke. After a while he gestured to his phone while saying: "Actually, I could show you a pic of me eating my first own made yoghurt!" He opened his picture album and searched for a short while.

"Here, look! Warm, white and with a bit of a sticky texture!" He held up his phone showing himself with the yoghurt dripping down his chin while he smiled widely and gave a thumbs-up to the camera.

"EW! Charles! No!" Jake turned his head away from the phone and scrunched his face up in disgust. "Why would you show me that!", he complained in a whiny tone. "Because, Jake, I would be delighted for you to taste it!", explained Charles with a knowing smile. "And I know you would really like that!"

That was enough for Jake to finally get back to his own desk. "Gross, Charles! Just gross!" He actually had to shudder and shook his head, to get his dirty thoughts out of his mind. "You'd love it!", insisted Charles before he turned back to his murder case.

Jake as well went back to work, though not without mentally complaining, and tipped his report completely unmotivated into his computer. Every now and then he looked past his monitor to the empty desk in front of him.

Three months had already passed since his beloved wife had left the precinct to further her career by getting into a trainee program. She was to become a sergeant in the next three years and had to leave the team.

Even though both promised each other, that nothing would change, Jake felt as if everything had changed. His work appeared to be dull and meaningless without their bickering and her pestering for him to do his paperwork. She always got him to be motivated enough to give in his reports in due time… plus maybe one, two, five days delay.

He sighed. Without her he even didn't get any cool jobs to work on anymore, because Holt refused to give him anything as long as he wasn't up to date with his paperwork. He really tried his best and sometimes asked himself how he did even function before his wife was on the 99, but it was to no avail. He got distracted really easily and hadn't turned in anything on time for weeks.

And as if it was not depressing enough that his job wasn't any fun anymore, he also felt kind of estranged to his wife. Not that he didn't love Amy to bids. He really did. He loved her smile, her being totally A-type with him and everything, really, and he also loved their bickering. But he missed solving cases with her.

Those times were to most thrilling, even though he would never admit that to her, because he would probably hear something about it being his fault if his bed action wasn't thrilling at all. Which in his opinion was terribly wrong. He was great in and out of bed, so he would not give her the satisfaction to criticize something, where he actually didn't have a lack of talent.

Groaning he led his head sink onto his desk, hurting his nose in the process. Fortunately, he was saved from doing more deskwork by the Sergeant leaving Holts office and asking everyone to join him in their meeting-room.

Jake was the first one to enter the room and sat down really excited in the first row, which he normally never did. Rosa Diaz entered after him and sat behind him. "What's up, Peralta? Did Amy finally infuse some working-morale into you?", she asked with a half smile, hoping to rile him up. Gracefully Jake turned in his chair to meet Rosas gaze.

"Wrong, Diaz. The only thing she infused into me, is her deep love and utter admiration!" "Pff!", dismissed Rosa him while rolling her eyes. "'f course, Jake! As if Amy would find something, she could admire about you!", she replied with a hint of malice in her words. Jake smiled unpleasantly at her.

"Hurtful! Thanks! But whatever, Diaz! You are just angry, because I choose her over you! But I already said to you, when we we're still in the academy, that you can't fall in love with me! I'm really sorry, Rosa! I have a wife now! Please refrain from pining after me from now on!"

Rosa averted her eyes being obviously unnerved. "Whatever, Jakey!"

Although Jake would have loved to keep the bickering going, he turned back to the front again as Terry und Captain Holt entered the room.

"What's going on, Captain? Am I finally gonna get my own assistant again? Because I have to tell you, these stupid people…" Gina Linetti pointed lazily around herself. "… all come to me with stupid tasks, they think I am responsible for… like … copying their crap reports or… finding things in our report-system…."

"Which is exactly your job!", intervened Holt. "Whatever… but turning them down all the time? It costs a lot of my precious time. And I would much rather like it, if I had someone, to do that for me, than having to do all of that by myself."

"You mean to tell me, I should hire someone, that would tell my Officers and Detectives that you refuse to do your job?", clarified Holt. "Exactly! I just can't be bothered to do that alone, duh! My mind is to preoccupied with all my shining ideas and my great planning and keeping all my followers up-to-date is really a full-time job… well, next to being a fantastic mother, of course… So yeah… Thank you for finally giving me an assistant, so I don't have to talk to all these morons ever again!"

"Just to clarify this: I will not employ an assistant for you, Linetti! You 'are' the assistant!" She threw her head back. "Fine! This once I will let it slide, that you are burying a young mother with various promising ambitions into such an amount of workload.", complained Gina defeated.

To stop that conversation from ongoing, Terry stepped one pace forwards and loudly cleared his throat. "Well, I assume you all want to know, what this meeting is about!" "About my new partner of course! He or she is finally coming, am I right?", interposed Jake his remark. "Huh? What happened to your last one, Jakey? Didn't knew someone left us!", questioned Scully and Jake turned to him with irritation clear on his face.

"For real, Scully? Amy? My wife? Left three months ago to become a Sergeant? … We had a very big Goodbye-party! You and Hitchcock ate all three cakes, that Amy made for herself. How can you have already forgotten about that?"

Scully's face scrunched up, as if he was thinking really hard, until Hitchcock chimed in with: "Oh yes! You remember, Scully? It was a lemon-buttermilk cake, a plate of brownies and some Buttercrumble-strawberry-cake. They were really delicious!" "Ah… yeah, right! Sorry, Jakey! Thought you got your partner killed for a moment there! But you just married her, so she left us."

Jake shook his head in incomprehension and irritation. "She didn't leave us because I married her! We are married now for over three years, why would she leave now for that? Sometimes I really am unsure, how you even got to be Detectives!"

"Well, you have to admit that you are not really holding up to your part of the bargain!", interjected Charles who had chosen the place besides Jake and was smiling at him with big, sad puppy eyes.

"Everyone is waiting for little Jamy's – which is a mix of your names: Jake and Amy - to pop out of her. I even got my certificate from my church signed for being not only able but also well suited to be a godparent to your cute little children… Oh… I so hope that they get your hair! They would look really adorable! And if you would get a girl first, that would be great! Otherwise Nicolaj is getting a little bit too old, to be marrying your daughter and we all know, that that is the main reason for you to sire children: for us to finally become a whole big family due to our children marrying each other!" Charles got a dreamy look on his face and was smiling like an idiot.

Jake didn't even know what to say to that declaration. He snapped the certification out of Charles hands. "Charles! You did get that signed even bevor Amy and my wedding!", barked Jake out in alarm.

"Well, yes!" He looked at Jake knowingly. "Your wedding seemed to be kind of rash after all these years chasing each other. So I hoped that there was already a little Jamy on his… or her… way!" Jake rolled with his eyes and threw the paper behind himself. Charles loudly protested and rushed to pick it up.

"So, Jefferson, new partner, right?", tried Jake to direct the conversation to something other than Amy's and his hypothetical children, because it made him feel kind of qualmish. Amy did talk a lot of kids as of lately and he always distracted her, because he didn't feel ready to be a father yet. They already got in a few quarrels because of that and he surely didn't want his co-workers input on that.

"Yes, thanks, Peralta. Back to the topic at hand. Well, as you all know… at least now…" he threw a look to Scully and Hitchcock. "… Santiago left us three months ago and we were not able to find a replacement up until now. Reason behind that is that there are structural changes in different precincts and they wouldn't let us employ someone in case we could close off or would have to get smaller. But it has been decided to close down precinct 98 and for us to take their cases over!"

A collective groan followed. "I know, I know. Even more work for us. But on the bright side, we do not only finally get the replacement for Santiago, we get two new detectives!", declared Terry smiling. That made Jake lift his head of his table, where he had put it in defeat in retrospect of his growing workload.

"Two?", he questioned. "Yes! Two! Although we didn't figure out, where to put the second one. We already filed a plea for another desk, but since we cannot be sure, that it will be here on time, you probably have to share your desk with one of them, Peralta."

"Does that mean I get double the time to finish my reports, since I will not be able to use my computer to 100 percent?", Jake asked hopefully.

"No, you may not assume that, Detective Peralta! On the contrary, as you are sharing your workload with two Colleagues I will reevaluate the time needed to file your reports and I will probably shorten it by half.", answered Captain Holt.

"Noooo….", complained Jake. "That is really cruel of you, Capt'n. Now I can't even look forward to my new partners!"

"Both of them will come tomorrow morning. And, Detective Peralta? Please clean up your desk! I do not want our new employees to think, that they are working for a dumpsite rather than the police!" And with that Holt let the meeting end and left.

As all reluctantly stood up to leave, Jake grumbled: "Unbelievable! To expect me to do those lame reports in even less time? He has gone crazy!"

*Author notice: Hey guys (: I am happy you've read my first chapter and really proud to present to you my first B99 fanfic. I really love this TV Show and it always makes me laugh! I actually am in the middle of season 5, but unwilling to see the last episodes, because I will have to wait too long for season six and even worse, that probably will be the last one ): that's devastating. So I decided to let the characters live on in my own work.

Criticism is highly appreciated as well as any forms of reviews (: furthermore: I am not a native speaker, as you surely noticed… so if I make horrifying mistakes… please! Notify me, I am grateful for every advice to improve my English! … and of course my writing skills…. This is not my first fanfic at all, but my first not written in my mother tongue… So I'm really looking forward to your opinions to my first chapter (:

Lots of Love

Roroly