Soli Deo gloria
DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Brooklyn 99. Or Twitter. Or Die Hard. Also, The Price Is Right models are real people. So is Mario Lopez.
I love B99 so much oh my goodness.
This takes place between seasons 3 and 4, when Holt and Jake are in Witness Protection.
The two weeks that Jake and Holt were in mumps quarantine should've prepared the precinct for this. But what really could prepare you for Jake and Holt being send to some undisclosed location for an indefinite time? Really?
"Life is over as we know it," Charles said, his cheek cold against the conference room table.
"Oh, why the long face, Boyle?" Hitchcock asked cheerfully. He and Scully were making up peanut butter and marshmallow fluff sandwiches at their own table. Scully licked his fingers of peanut butter, smacking.
"Oh, maybe because the cold reality laid out before us isn't a dream, but is instead some horrible nightmare we can't wake up from," Charles mumbled drearily.
"Jake and Holt were threatened with death by Figgis and put into Witness Protection yesterday. We all shared a heartfelt goodbye at Shaw's before they were led away by masked FBI agents. You guys were there," Rosa scoffed; she sat like a statue behind Charles and Amy. She looked dead inside. She'd cried when she hugged Jake goodbye yesterday, and you know that you were in some damn dire straits if Rosa Diaz was crying.
"We can do this. As a team, we'll find Figgis and get them back before the month is out," Amy said cheerfully. She shared a table with Charles but that was the only thing they shared. He was slumped in the dumps while she sat back straight and hands folded, awaiting their assignments from their acting captain, Terry Jeffords, for the day.
"Feds business only, Amy, remember? We can't stick our fingers into this Jake and Holt pie even if we want to," Charles mourned.
"Poor choice of words, as usual, Charles," Gina said from the back, not looking up from her cellphone.
Rosa swiveled around. "Hey, aren't you gonna miss Holt at all? He's your boss and now he's in danger."
"Everybody's always in danger here." Gina scoffed when she looked up to see everyone looking at her incredulously, like they thought her heartless. "Seriously, you're cops. You put away bad guys and you shoot guns. This is just another bad guy and someone will shoot him and BOOM! Jakie and Holt will be back."
"Yeah, sure, if Figgis doesn't shoot them first," Rosa said.
"He won't," Amy snapped. Her anger disappeared into a controlled smile when Rosa rounded on her. "He won't find them. The Feds will find him first. In the meantime, they'll live in safety and we'll work hard to bring them home."
"Again, Amy, we can't—" Charles interrupted, lifting his head a whole quarter inch from the table.
"Yes, we will," Amy said, just as Rosa said, "They better. Adrian can't come back until they do." Her hand tightened around the knife she swung around her hand out of nervous habit. "So help me, if those sons of bitches hurt one hair on his head, they're going to learn the meaning of pain."
"Amy, you're so . . . 'cool' with all this," Gina said, abandoning her phone for easy topic of interest, "I would've thought you'd be off the wall with worry about Jake."
"Me? Nah, I'm totes cool with it," Amy said, flashing her a peace sign.
Gina quirked an eyebrow. "You're 'totes cool' with your boyfriend having to go into Witness Protection because he's gotten a personal death threat by some huge crime lord? I watched you in the bar after they took him away. You got up to Six-Drink Amy and just stayed there. I'm pretty sure they comped your tab out of pity."
"Lay off her, Gina," Rosa growled. "She just lost the love of her life and doesn't know when, if, she'll ever get to see him again. Figgis has ruined her life and now she has to pretend everything's okay while her boyfriend's life is in the hands of the Feds, not even in her own hands." Rosa looked at the back of Amy's neck. Good thing nobody could see Amy's shield break as she stifled a sob. "That about right, Amy?" Rosa asked in a low voice.
Amy couldn't even speak; she just stiffly nodded and laid her head down on the table right next to Charles with his lifeless goggling eyes.
Acting Captain Terry Jeffords chose this heart-sad moment to cheerfully enter the conference room. "Morning, gang! I'm back as Captain, baby, whoo!" He fist-pumped before he noticed the long faces and Hitchcock and Scully with large fists full of white bread and sugar in front of him. Terry stopped short. "Oh, sorry. Wrong entrance for the wrong crowd." He cleared his throat and stood behind the podium. His voice was strong but sympathetic. "Today is our first day without Detective Peralta and Captain Holt. We don't know how long they'll be gone. We eagerly await their return. In the meantime, we will keep doing our jobs: taking down criminals and keeping the streets of Brooklyn safe."
"Hard to say we keep the streets of Brooklyn safe when Figgis is still at large," Amy murmured drearily in the same exact voice and tone as Charles used.
"You've given voice to my innermost thoughts," Charles said. He offered a hand and she high-fived it, each without looking and still with the same sad, lifeless look on their faces.
Terry looked around the room, frustrated that there was nothing he could do or say to relieve his friends; Rosa stared back at him with vengeance, like she wanted to go slash some Figgis minions' throats just to relieve her bloodlust; Amy and Charles missed Jake more than either could say, but as much as either of them could look; even Gina gave Terry a look, like, 'Yo, we got some depressed people up in here'; Terry's eyes settled on Hitchcock and Scully, mostly because Hitchcock was wiping off a great droplet of peanut butter and marshmallow fluff from his chin and Scully was delicately picking off all the crusts from his sandwiches. Yeah, sandwiches. "Man, show some respect!" Terry waved a hand at them. "Or some decorum," he was willing to settle for. His nose wrinkled. "Or maybe just some table manners."
Hitchcock stopped eating and eyed the moody yet still disgusted faces around him. "For years, Scully and I have done this. We've been able to eat during briefings without being judged. Then Captain Holt comes in and suddenly it's banned." His voice trembled with emotion. "We thought we were accepted for who we are. We thought that you were our friends, that we could eat peanut butter and marshmallow fluff sandwiches without being judged! Well, it's nice to see your true colors." Hitchhock harrumphed while Scully opened another jar of extra crunchy PB. "Scully, we're leaving," he said, trying to be strong.
"Oh, okay," Scully said. He rewound his actions but Terry said, "No, you're not!" They looked up at him; it was hard to take either of them seriously. "Ava, my baby daughter, can get less food on her shirt than you!" Terry sighed, tightly grasping onto the podium. Hitchcock and Scully were acting out because of their sadness over Jake and Holt. They were just as sad as corpse-like Charles and mood-swinging Amy and murderous Rosa. They just sure had a gross way of showing it. "Just," Terry waved a hand at them, his voice devoid of venom, "sit down and chew quietly. Yes, I mean chew, not swallow whole!"
Hitchcock and Scully decided that Terry's demand for them to remain seated won out. They tucked into another sandwich each and, despite their loud chewing, Terry continued with his briefing.
"All right. Now," Terry said, "I think we all could use a little distraction. Not that work isn't distraction enough, but—"
Amy put up her hand like she was back in elementary school. "But we're going to low-key work on getting Jake and Holt home and not tell the FBI or let anyone outside of this room know?"
Terry shook his head sadly, like he wanted that to be the truth but knew it couldn't be. "The Feds won't let us anywhere near us. They'll put a personal guard on anyone who tries to get in contact with them or Figgis."
"So there's nothing we can do," Charles said, as Amy's hand fell so it swung back and forth like a pendulum by the side of the table. "How comforting. See, Amy? It's better if you just accept this as your inevitable, unendable future."
"Now Charles," Terry chastised, "that's no way to take it either. Not pessimistic or optimistic, but realistic. See?" He waved his hands, trying to get a positive, supportive reaction. He received nothing of the sort. "Okay." He sighed, trying to get back on track of his speech. "I figured, since I'm acting captain until they come back and we don't know when that will be, but," looking at Charles and Amy, "that will be soon, we could get some more extracurricular work done for when Captain Holt comes back—you know, to show him we didn't dilly-dally, but got great work done."
"No, Sarge, not the List," Rosa groaned.
Terry hurried to unveil his old hand-written list. "Yes, the List!" he said, splaying hands like a The Price is Right model around it.
It was the list Terry'd written up on a big pad of paper when Jake and Holt were quarantined for the mumps. None of the twenty-five items had been scratched out, except the last one: Fix the bell. And there the little bell hung, "Ready to be rung whenever we complete a task!" Terry said excitedly.
"Sarge," Amy said, sitting in an attempt to pull herself together, "how many of these are we actually going to get done? We didn't complete any in those two weeks, besides fixing the bell," here gesturing at the sad little bell.
"I know that," Terry said, "so we're going about it differently this time. There are the group activities for us all, but then the rest I'll give to pairs to accomplish together."
"How long do you expect them to be gone, Sarge? Ten years?" Rosa scoffed, folding her arms.
Charles whimpered and Amy's face drew into a sad little face.
Terry found himself insulted and depressed by Rosa's reliable pessimism. "We are going to get all these done by the time they come back, and it won't be ten years. It won't be by the end of the month either," he conceded, but perking up, "but when Captain Holt comes back, he will be proud of what we've accomplished since they went away. Right? Let's hear it: NINE-NINE!" He pumped his fist into the air.
The lackluster voices said, "Nine-nine," lamely, with no attempt at a blood-pumping fist-pump. Which, at the end of the day, was all Terry could reliably ask for.
"This is the worst idea, ever," Rosa said, stuck with Amy outside of a youth center. They were going to give a seminar to at-risk youths as they volunteered for this Juvenile Detention Program.
"I know, right?" Amy scoffed. "'Hey kids, don't get mixed up with crime, because then you'll run the streets of New York and ruin people's lives!'"
"I was thinking more of sending me and you to talk to teenagers about anything, but yeah, that too," Rosa said.
"I thought you were good with kids. Scaring them straight and tough love and all that," Amy wondered.
"Yeah, I am. I just . . . I can't be the best cop when my mind is somewhere else." Rosa scoffed. "I hate emotions. Feelings. They're distractions."
"They make you human," Amy pointed out comfortingly.
"They make you weak," Rosa said. "When they took Adrian and Jake, they hurt us, because they're our weaknesses."
Amy, flustered, said, "Jake doesn't make me weak. I'm a good cop, with or without him!"
"You're strong, Amy Santiago. I don't doubt that. But while your head's in the game, your heart's not in it," Rosa said.
Amy stared at her in amazement. "Since when did you become so astute about other people's feelings?"
Rosa shrugged. "I don't like feelings. I'm a cop, though. I can easily identify them."
Amy, flustered and vulnerable and feeling exposed, let Rosa take the lead on their seminar. Looking out at the crowd of kids, she hoped none of them would ever turn into a crime lord; she hoped that some—maybe just a few—would decide to take the fight against crime and evil in New York. She wondered if Rosa's speech, flat and blunt and poorly-worded as it was, would inspire some of the future cops on her force.
It wasn't a terrible idea, the To-Do List. It was slow-going, but progressed well. Terry put out fires, running around like a chicken with his head cut off (even with Gina's all-seeing eye and wisecracks that somehow turned out to be more wise than crack), but he stopped every time a member of his squad announced that he had an item to strike from the list. Terry, proud as a mother hen, called for all work to stop as grand ceremony called for the striker to strike out the item and then victoriously ring the bell, to great applause.
One rainy Wednesday, with Terry's promise of apple pie from Argos bakery, the entire squad, grumbling, took to task cleaning the evidence room. Sure, Hitchcock sat and squashed several boxes, Scully knocked over a shelving unit with at least twelve cases on it, Charles tore his gloves and panicked about fingerprints, Rosa was two seconds away from torching the place, Amy kept remembering memories in that room to the point of her being rendered almost useless in the art of organizing (a real feat, and a real tragedy, really), and Gina posted pictures of important case files on her Twitter feed. They remained there for a total of three minutes before Amy tackled her and Rosa wrestled her phone away to delete the pictures.
"Guys, it looks great in here," Terry said,, genuinely proud. In his arms were several pies. A well-done task was due its just deserts.
"Yeah, it does," Amy said. Then her eyes trailed over to where she and Jake shared their first kiss and she was lost to the rest of the squad.
Terry whispered to Gina, "Even organizing didn't work?"
"Nope. Turns out heartsick Amy is worse than forever-alone Amy," Gina said.
"Wow. Also, posting case files on Twitter?" Terry's eyes disapproved. "REALLY?!"
"I was on a dry run. Rainy Wednesdays got nothin' for me," Gina shrugged.
Coordinating Rapid Response with the 74th Precinct didn't help Amy, either. Terry put her in charge and she accomplished this cool plan without a flicker on her sad face.
"Charles, help a girl out. Jake's not here and Amy won't say it, but she's sad. And I'm concerned, not only as her superior officer, but also as her friend," Terry said. He sighed. "I'm no Holt. I can't cheer her up or make her listen to me. But you and her are the closest to Jake. Maybe you can help each other out or something."
"Sure. Seeing as Jake isn't here, I will do what I can to fill in his shoes." Charles popped some mints and smoothed back his hair.
Terry said, mortified, "Charles, no! Besides, I thought you have a girlfriend!"
"I do, but this isn't for Amy. This is for Jake's sake; I'd do anything for him," Charles said courageously.
"I meant talk with her and make her feel like she isn't alone, not lay your lips on your best friend's lady!" Terry cried.
"Oh." Charles shrugged. "That makes more sense."
"It makes infinitely more sense!" Terry said.
Charles decided that since there was a real lack of Jake Peralta's in Brooklyn at the moment, the only other way to cheer Amy up was to fill out forms with her. "We have 675 forms to complete," Charles said, laying files out on the table like it was a delicious feast he'd spent hours cooking, "and, for dessert, J90 reports to file with the D.A."
"Cool," Amy said.
"Wait, you're not jumping into this task with unspeakable zeal and enthusiasm as you do every other menial paperwork filing," Charles said, realizing. "You're more far gone than I thought."
"I'm not far gone, Charles," Amy said dismissively, not meeting his eyes. "I'm just . . . tired. Let's just get to work with the filing. The sooner we're started, the sooner we're done."
"No, no no no no," Charles said, taking a seat next to her. "The Amy Santiago I know and Jake loves would want to savor the paperwork filing, enjoy every moment her finger guides a pen to complete a report's destiny. Amy," Charles said, as she avoided his sympathetic eyes, "you miss Jake."
"Yeah, I do," Amy said nonchalantly. "That's expected."
"Amy," Charles said, putting a hand on hers, making her look up, "it's okay. I miss him, too. And, while it hurts me to say it, you do miss him more than me. I may be his best friend, but you are his best friend, and his girlfriend, besides." Charles's smile was kind. "It's okay, Amy. It hurts."
Amy blinked fiercely. "You're damn right it hurts," she said. She growled as she sank back in her seat, for once leaving her paperwork alone, "I'm going crazy without him. I miss his voice, I miss his laugh. I miss his jokes. I miss seeing him every day. I love him so much my heart aches without seeing him, without knowing he's okay. I'm sure the Feds know what they're doing, but they're taking their damn time finding Figgis. I don't know where Jake is, what he's doing, if he's okay. Like, I know that the Feds would let us know if something happened to him, but I can't stand not knowing." She looked at Charles with a crumpled face. "I miss him. And I know, like Gina said, that we're cops and we're under the line of fire every day and so we should be scared for our lives every day, but I'm not. I'm not scared for your life, or for mine. I'm scared for his. He—he can't be a cop wherever he is. I mean, he'll still be on his guard and ready, but he won't have his gun or the practical resources or the support of the squad. And I'm worried about him and I miss him and I hate Figgis!" Amy ended with a murderous glare to rival Rosa's before all the energy left her and she slumped back in her seat.
"Feel better?" Charles wondered sympathetically.
Amy nodded.
"We can't bring Jake back, but we're here for you, if you ever need us," Charles said.
Amy smiled weakly, her eyes a little watery. "Thanks, Charles," she said.
"Of course. I want Jake to know when he comes back that I took care of his lady," Charles said.
Amy cringed. "You know how bad that sounds, right?"
"Now I do, since you've pointed it out," Charles said, hiding his own weak grimace.
"Good," Amy said, as they hurriedly fell back into comfortable companionship and paper-filing.
Amy learned to be a part of the group and its activities again. It helped being close to people who missed Jake and Holt almost as much as she did. They won against the FDNY in an arson training scenario, even though it was technically an FDNY/NYPD joint exercise. They all get certified (again) during a CPR certification refresher (even Hitchcock and Scully ("We've known how to do it for years. We always practice on each other," Scully told the rest of the grimacing squad)). They did surprisingly well in the First Aid Certification Refresher. They also applied their refreshed skills on their own after Hitchcock and Scully sprawled to the floor when they tripped over each other— they were racing to be the first to ring the bell and strike the refresher off the list.
While everyone sympathized with Amy, they also checked in about the other half of the father/son duo (not true but totally true). "I just got off the phone with Kevin. He says he's fine, which I guess means he's just fine," Rosa said, shrugging, as she came into the Captain's office. She raised an eyebrow when she found Terry with his head in his hands as he aimlessly, almost unseeingly, fed cacao nibs into his mouth ceaselessly. "Captain," Rosa said loudly, but nope, that did not snap him out of it. So she jarred the desk by planting her hands against it and said, two inches from his face, "Cagney and Lacey are in trouble!"
Terry startled away like a man lost in a dream. "What?! MY TWINS?! WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM?!"
"Nothing." Rosa stood back on her heels; she didn't show it, but she was relieved Sarge came back that quickly. "You were lost to the world. Extreme times call for extreme measures."
Instead of blowing up at her for lying about the safety of his kids, Terry feebly turned back to his cacao nibs and said, "Right call, Detective Diaz. Man, I am down in the dumps."
"What happened now?" Rosa asked.
"It's what's been happening now." Terry met her eyes and threw the cacao nibs away in frustration. "I miss the Captain. I miss his wisdom, his strength. I didn't know how much we relied on him until he was taken away. This sucks. It's only been four months and it's felt like an eternity."
"I know. We all miss him," Rosa said.
Terry eyed her warily. "We all do?" he wondered.
Rosa conceded with a slight head nod. "We all do."
Getting Rosa Diaz to admit to emotion was like prying a murder confession from an unwilling suspect: possible, but a lot of work. "If it makes you feel any better, you're doing an exceptional job as Captain filling in his shoes," Rosa said. She waved a hand to the files on Terry's desk and to the notepad taking center stage in the bullpen. "Charles and Hitchcock and Scully and I finished setting up the Park Slope Neighborhood Watch. Gina's shamed every person in this precinct into getting their flu shots and their mumps vaccinations—"
"We really should've done that earlier," Terry muttered.
"Amy and you set up the Douglas Street House Board. We're scheduled for hazmat training next week, and tactical shotgun re-certification the week after that. Besides what you've done." Rosa waved a hand to him, making him smile and say, "Well, I did clear the report back log with you, and dispose of pre-1990 interrogation footage with Charles, and digitized pre-1979 mugshots with Amy."
"See? Look at all the progress we've made. Sometimes it just takes four months instead of two weeks," Rosa pointed out. "So, while we miss Holt with his wisdom and strength and whatever, you have been a pretty all right captain yourself."
"Really, Rosa?" Terry wondered.
"Yeah," Rosa said. Then she shut off. "Cheer up. We don't know how long this eternity's gonna last."
Terry straightened up and grabbed his laptop, falling back to his work with a will. Rosa left the office but glanced briefly at the picture of Captain Holt Amy had framed on her desk (next to a pic of her and Jake, of course). She might not be his devoted follower like Amy (who had a loud missing of Jake but also a deep missing of Holt), or his other professional/childish half like Jake, or look up to him with respect as a leader and friend like Terry, but she missed the place without him. He got her a lot more than a lot of the people in these precinct did. It was hard when your ally was gone and she had no idea where he was.
"How did Hitchcock and Scully end up with desk duty again while we're the ones busting our asses cleaning this place out?" Rosa wanted to know, wrinkling her nose in disgust and anger as she threw a dirty sock into the laundry hamper.
"They claim that they don't have a locker down here," Amy said. She unlocked Jake's locker (his password was so easy—did he even try to make it hard for her?) and sighed heavily; there were months-old dirty clothes stuffed haphazardly into his locker. "So that's why his closet is so neat," she whispered to herself. "Hey," she called out, "I found out where the stench is coming from."
"There's no one source," Charles said. "There are several origin points. You just discovered one of many."
"I don't have a locker here; why am I being roped into cleaning the locker room with you dorks?" Gina wanted to know. She laid on a bench and, her arms stuck straight into the air, scrolled through another celebrity blog.
Terry peeked his head around the corner. "You've been roped in because all you've done this morning is tell everyone you meet that Mario Lopez retweeted you."
Gina half-sat up. "Which is a life-goal for me. I thought you knew that, Terrance?" She laid back down. "Besides, I think you should be the only one in here. You're the only one who actually like, uses the locker room."
"Again, there's no gym behind those doors, Gina," Terry said impatiently, for the fifth time, "and everyone here has a locker."
"We have a cleaning crew for like, a reason," Gina pointed out. "I would've thought you smart detectives would've figured that out."
"They refuse to come down here for whatever reason, though I think we can all make educated guesses as to the reason why," Charles said, wading through locker contents like he was traipsing through a swampy wasteland.
Amy finished flinging Jake's dirty clothes into a garbage bag with gloved hands. She was just wondering where would be a good place to burn them when she stumbled upon one of his leather jackets. Its lining still smelled like him: despite being messy, he always smelled clean, all soap and leather and stupid hair gel. Looking back and forth quickly to make sure of no witnesses, Amy deeply inhaled the jacket. Her eyes closed as she sighed.
When Rosa appeared out of nowhere, Amy dropped the jacket and faked nonchalance. Rosa only acknowledged her by saying, "I sleep with Adrian's jacket every night." Rosa picked up the jacket and thrust it into Amy's hands. "Treasure it," Rosa hissed, like there was a threat there if she didn't.
Amy folded it neatly and put it into her own organized locker. Every now and then, whenever she needed a pick-me-up or a calm-me-down, she came down to bury her nose in his jacket, play some of his old voicemails off her phone, and even watch a few clips of 'Die Hard', just to feel nearer to him.
The next month passed by. The wait got easier and harder and more aggravating all at the same time. Terry wasn't sure he had the squad's full attention during their computer search and seizure course or even through the arson and explosive investigation course, or even through the advanced rifle operator course.
"It's like I can't cheer up any of y'all anymore," Terry confessed to Charles following the lackluster enthusiasm for their abduction response team training.
"It's not your fault, Terry," Charles said, "you just can't cure heartsickness. You can only wait until the heart gets what it wants. Or the person dies. Either way, those are the only two options."
Terry sighed. "I don't know when Jake and Holt can come back. It could be years."
"So you've heard nothing from the Feds about any leads they have, any progress?" Charles wondered.
"I've gotten some emails about some leads that died off. They've come close too many times to have failed so many times, Charles. It's aggravating." Terry put a hand to Charles's arm. "Don't tell Rosa and Amy about all the failed leads. It won't bring them much hope."
"It doesn't bring me much hope either, Terry, but I'll bear it manfully," Charles promised him.
Gina later found Charles sobbing in the break room. She barged into the Captain's office and said, "Terry, I hereby demand you do something to cheer Charles up. There's no living with him normally, but even I can't bear to see such a pathetic creature in so much pain."
"Well, what does Charles like? He's already shown us all the eleven-hundred pictures of Nikolaj he has on his phone. It's amazing how much storage space he has," Terry mused.
"Ohhhh, Charles loves cases. Give him a crime to solve. Duh."
"No," Terry shook his head, "Charles has been solving the same amount of crimes with Rosa and Amy as he ever did with Jake. It won't cheer him up, or it would've by now. No need to stress him out by increasing his workload."
"I thought the whole point of your stupid To-Do List was to give everyone extra work so they'd be too distracted to miss Jake and Holt," Gina pointed out.
"It's not stupid," Terry said. "Though, point made."
But even assigning Charles and Amy to test all their radio and emergency equipment did little to dissipate Charles's doom.
"Charles was sad at the 'Welcome to the Boyle Clan' party they threw for Nikolaj last night," Gina said. "I hate myself for even going. But yeah, more work does not equate to 'happier Charles'."
"Well, what else does Charles love?" Terry threw up his hands.
Then Terry and Gina met eyes and said in unison, "FOOD!"
"Ladies and gentleman, allow me to present the new vending machine for the break room!" Terry announced as the installation crew left, to an audience of squad and uniformed officers. "Charles, I want you to have the honor of ringing the bell as we strike the last item from our To-Do List."
"It's okay, Terry. I'm good," Charles said, waving his hand.
"No, you're getting out there and you're gonna ring that tiny little bell," Terry said severely.
"I'm going to go ring the bell, everyone!" Charles said, turning tail.
An audience gathered as Terry called to everyone in the bullpen, "It's been a stressful last six months, but thanks to all of you, we got a lot of important things done, and we couldn't have done it without you!" He drove a line through 'Get new vending machine for break room' to applause as Charles loudly rang the bell. Then Terry hurried to Amy's side and told her above the loud clapping, "I got an email today. You're allowed to write a one-page letter to Jake that will then be burned once he's read it."
Amy's face lit up. "Really? A whole page? And I won't even double-space!"
"Making it count, Santiago, nice." Then Terry got a little more serious. "Could you do me a favor and just let Charles slip in a little post-script? I think it would cheer him up."
Amy was so over the moon she would've given the moon to Charles if she could. "Sure!"
"Thanks, Amy." Terry put an arm around her for a quick side-hug. Then, serious again, "They're gonna come home soon, Amy."
"I know, Terry." Amy sighed, a little sadly, even as she smiled. "It's just hard. But look!" She waved a hand to the To-Do List. "Holt will be proud."
Terry looked at the completed list with admiration. "I hope he is."
"Help! Help! Help!" Hitchcock shouted, running out of the break room. All clapping and cheer ceased to exist. "Scully's got his hand stuck up the vending machine! It's broken!"
"Was it broken before or after Scully stuck his hand up into it?" Terry demanded to know. Amy stared at Hitchcock in horror as Charles, Rosa, and Gina (with her camera recording this hilarious scene) rushed into the break room.
"Before," Hitchcock said, insulted. "We're not thieves. That vending machine is the thief! It took his dollar and wouldn't give him his bag of chips, or his change! All he was doing was taking back what was rightfully his!"
Charles ducked his head out the door. "Sarge, call the EMTs. This is a 911 emergency even we can't deal with."
Terry sighed, reaching for his phone even as his eyes lingered over his completed List. "The List was all done, for about two minutes," he said, looking sadly at Amy as he dialed.
Amy nodded sympathetically. "That's a new record," she said comfortingly. She didn't feel as down and out as Terry did, though. A whole page, single-spaced! That was progress, wasn't it? It was only a matter of time now before Jake and the Captain were both back home where they belonged—until then, Amy had a letter to write and a phone call to make with the vending machine company to inquire about a warranty. . .
Thanks for reading! Review?