"NYPD, keep your hands where I can see 'em!"

5 minutes prior to this outburst of action, two people stepped through the doors of Sal's pizzeria. They went to the counter, quietly ordered two glasses of water and sat down at the table next to the door. Walking to the pizza place they had had a third member of their party, but she had left them a block ago, and was now standing at the joint's rear exit, pretending to be a waitress on a smoke break.

The two who had actually entered Sal's were dressed in entirely neutral clothes, almost conspicuously trying to blend in. One a short man who talked incessantly, would occasionally make disparaging comments about the décor, before being quietly shushed by his companion, a woman in a ponytail, who would every so often cast a furtive glance around the pizzeria, as if she was looking for someone.

With one such glance her eyes locked onto a man reading a newspaper, his hood pulled over his face, which he would periodically stuff with pizza. He was sat near the restroom, only ever diverting his gaze from his reading when the bell on the front door signalled the arrival of a new customer.

As the short man prattled on, the woman kept her eyes locked firmly on the back of the man's head, waiting for him to deviate from his pattern. The water arrived and she briefly turned her attention away to thank the waiter, before returning her gaze to the man in the hoodie. Only he was gone. The restroom door was still swinging shut.

"Look all I'm saying is if your going for that rustic Italian feel, why serve drinks in such kitschy glasses?"

"Charles would you shut up for just one moment!" she snapped. He immediately fell silent, a hurt expression replacing his usual one of perky cheer. "Look, I'm sorry okay, it's just you were distracting me okay? Why don't you make yourself useful and see if the guy in the hoodie went to the bathroom," the woman said in a hushed tone. Charles, as her companion was called, nodded, understanding her intentions immediately. Whatever else you might say about Charles Boyle, he was a good cop when it counted. He rose and began to make his way over to restroom. As he approached the door swung open again and the woman almost flinched, as a man exited. She had good reason to be a bit jumpy today. But she couldn't afford to. She relaxed. It wasn't the guy in the hoodie but just some man in a suit. Something was off about him though, and she racked her brain trying to figure out what it was. Then it struck her. She immediately looked back to her water, remembering that he had taken his backpack to the toilet with him, but now it was nowhere to be seen. She heard him give a quick word of thanks to Sal behind the bar, before making a beeline for the exit.

She could have stood and blocked his path, revealed her weapon and taken him into custody. But that would be too risky especially if Charles didn't know what she was doing while he was stuck in the restroom. And besides, this guy was nothing special. Nor was the guy in the hoodie, in all honesty. It was what they were exchanging that they were after. In the backpack Charles, currently (hopefully) had his eye on was a prize that could spell the end of several long years of painstaking work, the culmination of the combined efforts of dozens if not hundreds of police officers, an investigation which had already cost several lives would hopefully see no more blood spilt after today. And one of the most powerful discrete crime families would have the doors blown wide open on their sordid operation. IF they could get a hold of it. They'd been on the edge for nearly 6 months now waiting for a slip up, a mistake, something like this, a chink in the armour that they could exploit.

They'd received a tip off from an unknown source about a package that had gone missing, one the mob would dearly love to recover with as little mess as possible. Whoever had given them the information clearly knew the mob, and that Sal's pizzeria was one of the few places on the surface they would ever conduct business and even then only in the case of emergencies such as this. It was risky as hell, and it was about to blow up in their face. Again, IF they could get a hold of the package which she had a strong suspicion was now residing in a backpack in the restroom, and would be brought out by the guy in the hoodie.

Even as these thoughts clicked into place in her head, the door swung open. The hoodie, face kept firmly toward the ground, backpack slung casually (too casually) around one shoulder, began to make his way to the front door. Charles was still in there, which was absolutely correct. The last thing they wanted was for this guy to feel like he was being followed. He came with in 10 feet of the door, when the woman stood. Due to the small amount of space in the restaurant, as she rose to her feet, her chair blocked the man's path. He came to a sudden stop and threw his hands in the air, exasperatedly, muttering something that sounded like, "ya kidding me?" under his breath.

"Oh do excuse me," she said. The hoodie seemed to almost freeze at the sound of her voice. "I'm just so clumsy these - "NYPD, keep your hands where I can see 'em!" but he was already running. Commotion took over Sal's pizzeria as the hoodie began to duck and weave around the tables, backpack clattering customers. The woman had drawn her gun effortlessly, thanks to muscle memory, and kept it trained on him even as he dashed for the rear exit.

Charles took this opportunity to exit the restroom only to get body slammed by the escaping crook, straight into the door he'd just come through. "Ow my butt!" he cried as he landed awkwardly on an old injury.

"Oh my god, sorry Charles! Look you try and keep things calm here, I'll go catch this guy," his companion said as she passed him following the runner toward the exit door in the back. Ha she thought, we've got him cornered now. But as she heard the sound of the door opening, she didn't then hear the *THUNK* she was expecting of fist or other implement whacking into someone's skull with incapacitating force. She charged through the door only to see her other partner on her phone while the crook ran down the alley.

"Rosa?!" she yelled as she ran past, making a mental note to admonish her later.

"Sorry," Rosa replied in her usual grumble, "Too deep into character." Amy wasn't listening. She was too determined. This bastard was not getting away, she would make sure. They'd all worked too hard for it to fall apart now. Too much had been lost. Her mind briefly flashed to… him. How he'd struggled for this, how dedicated he'd been, and how he'd died in her arms only a year ago cut down by the mean, hateful, spiteful people like the guy she was now chasing. She could still remember it like it was yesterday. And everytime she did it brought new emotions. Sometimes grief, sometimes denial, sometimes even fear it could happen to her. Now it brought only a deep rage, and it spurred her to run faster than she ever had, faster than, she reflected later in her usually analytical way, was strictly speaking safe.

But it didn't matter. She caught the guy, just as he was about to exit the alley, tackling him with a diving leap. Having brought him to the ground she held him for a few seconds before Rosa arrived, already brandishing handcuffs. She began reading him his rights, almost like clockwork, and after the fact she'd remember how much her voice had been shaking, the feelings of hurt anger and relief all coursing through her body with her blood. It was over, all over, finally. The only thing left to do before dragging the son of a bitch off to prison shortly to be followed by the rest of his mob cronies was to look him in the eye and tell him what it meant to her. And maybe allow herself a bit of a gloat.

She yanked him up by his hands and turned him round to face her, a little rougher than she needed to. She pulled his hood back, and then she saw his face. How long had it been? 3 years? 4? He'd aged in that time. He was skinnier, bruised and had more scars. And to be honest he looked a total wreck. But it was him. She'd know his face anywhere.

Everything she wanted to say. All the things she wanted to say to him, this previously abstract faceless him, this object of her hatred, who had taken so much from her and now was going to bring her so much relief and maybe even closure for her past had now melted away. She didn't feel like gloating, or raging or in fact making any noise at all. She just stood there, not really believing it was him. His eyes were glued to the floor. She couldn't tell what expression was on his face. But he'd clearly clocked who it was arresting him before her. His eyes moved but he was looking anywhere other than at her.

Rosa, perhaps wondering what the problem was, walked round their collar to look at his face. She was for perhaps the first time in her life, genuinely shocked.

"Jake?" she breathed out.

Hello! Hope you enjoyed the first chapter of "Take me home". Afraid I can't promise a regular update schedule, but I'm super excited with this opening. If you wanna see more, please follow, favourite and leave reviews and that will encourage me to do more.

Not to give too much away, but effectively this is an AU where for various reasons, Jake never got rescued from the mob and fell in too deep. This will ultimately be the story of how the rest of the 99 try to bring him back, if that's possible. T for now, endgame Peraltiago but will be a slooooow process.