AN: Basically a little rewrite/made up scene during the first episode of season 2 so that Jake and Amy end up together. And just to let you know all the factual parts of it are accurate and I didn't make up anything so it would sound vaguely science-ish.
"You don't have to act so weird around me, you know?" Jake said from behind Amy, taking her by surprise. She had walked onto the balcony in hopes of sneaking a shame cigarette, but with Peralta there it looked like that option was out the window. It had been so weird since he came back from undercover the week before, and it was taking them longer than she had hoped to get back into the swing of things, working together like they used to. It all stemmed from the confession he left her with to obsess about for months. And it didn't help when he learned the other day that she had broken up with Teddy while he was gone and he got this hopeful look on his face and she hadn't said anything about it to him. Amy had just been weird and awkward and avoiding her partner as much as possible, even though she knew it was the childish thing to do. She didn't know how to tell him how hazy and confusing everything was, and she didn't know how to tell him that she was an absolute coward.
"Really, it's okay," he reiterated. "This happens sometimes, and we're both adults, and we can deal with it. I can deal with it. You don't have to worry about hurting my feelings or anything, because I can deal. I get that you don't want us to... be together. But you don't have to feel bad," he leaned back against the brick wall behind him with his hands in his pockets with a reassuring smile on his face that didn't quite reach his eyes. It surprised her how mature he was being. Amy didn't expect him to throw a fit or anything, but more like just ignore it until things got better (because they definitely couldn't get any worse). She wasn't sure how much longer she would have lasted without freaking out or breaking down and telling him how she felt, but when he was there with her now, trying to absolve her of any guilt or blame- she couldn't hold out any longer.
"You're wrong."
"Really, Amy, you didn't do anything wrong, so don't worry about it," Jake broke the thought with a sigh and a rake of his hand through his hair. He really screwed this all up. And having no contact for 6 months probably made it a million times worse than it would have been otherwise. All he needed was for things to get back to normal because he couldn't stand the way they were dancing around each other like strangers. Amy was his friend first and foremost, and he'd made a bad decision and fucked things up, but he was trying to do everything he could to fix it. Jake was sure they'd probably never get back to where they were, or it would take an absurd amount of time but he didn't want to think about that, only that he could start making it better right then. "Really, it's alright," he said as he shook his head, and shifted to stand up straight and Amy feared he would walk away.
"You're wrong. I do want us... together," Amy had taken the steps toward him to grab his jacket or do anything to stop him from leaving, but she froze a few feet in front of him and forced herself to lower her arm.
He turned back to face her and studied her face in an attempt to see if she was even serious or not. He was surprised by how panicked she looked. Amy did a lot of things that he didn't understand. Like how she liked getting to work early, or enjoyed color coding her backups for all of her reports, or managed to put up with him for years without shooting him, but this made the top of the list. Jake couldn't think of how the words she said just now met up with the her actions over the past few days. She avoided him, and would only send her polite and obviously fake smile in his direction, and the first thing she did when he got back was shake his hand. So he couldn't connect her motivation to what the pasts few days had been like.
"So what are you waiting for?" He asked slowly, and his voice was so low that it sent shivers down her back. His expression was guarded, and she hated that. One of the best things about Jake was how she never had to guess what he was thinking because he wore his heart on his sleeve. She could always see when he was having a bad morning, or the way his face lit up when he saw her after a long day. She really wanted to see his face light up at that moment, but it seemed that that was asking too much. Amy knew he deserved an answer, but she didn't know what to tell him. She didn't want to tell him that she was absolutely terrified of every great and amazing and horrible and awful thing that could happen so much that she froze. She didn't want to tell him how she was so confused and head was spinning and she felt so dizzy that she was sure to topple over soon. The adrenaline pumping through her and the spiraling that she was positive was in her head brought her back to a specific memory of he childhood where she was spinning, spinning, spinning. She knew she couldn't keep him waiting any longer, so she just opened her mouth and let the words spill out.
"It's like when you're on the merry go round at the playground, that circle thing that you stand on and try to hold on to the bars as it keeps turning faster. And you have a good grip and it's easy at first and you yell at whoever's pushing you to go faster and faster until it's so hard to hold on but you keep yelling faster and your fingers start slipping and you know that any second now you're gonna fly off and hit the ground," Amy rambled and she didn't know if she was making any sense though he looked like he was paying attention, watching her intently, but she had no idea if she was getting through. "I really don't want to hit the ground, Jake." She finished as a quiet, desperate plea.
At first she was afraid that she had froze him too, which definitely wouldn't help the situation. But then he surprised her by pressing the heel of his hands into his eyes like he was trying to relieve a headache with a groan.
"Fuck, Santiago. I have done my best to block out everything about high school," Jake gripped while she had absolutely no clue what that had to do with anything. He suddenly looked up at her with earnest eyes that knocked the breath out of her. "That's the spinny thing, right? Like when you spin a basket of apples on your arm and none of them fall out when it's upside down?"
Amy had used that analogy because she thought that the dizziness, the fear, and the equipment at almost every park was a universal experience enough, but the last thing she expected was for him to connect with the math behind the experience. She wasn't even thinking about that. If someone had just made that weird speech to her, she never in a million years would have thought back to what she learned in high school, and she didn't know how Jake managed to do it.
"Centripetal force," she nodded, and she had half a mind to ask him where that came from, but she didn't break his train of thought because she really needed to hear where he was going with this.
"I'll be your basket," Jake said with complete certainty.
"What?"
"The only reason you'll fall off is because you won't have anything backing you up, right? So I'll be your basket. Or in your equally absurd scenario I'll be like a bar or a wall or something just as ridiculous and you can let go. And in this scenario I'm totally bolted to the floor, so I'm not going anywhere," he promised, and for some unknown reason she believed him. "I won't let you fall."
She almost felt like laughing at how crazy it was to be having an even remotely academia related conversation with Jake, much less one that he was actually contributing to instead of trying to get out of. But the thing that had her stock still was how sincere he was. He didn't look guarded, and actually quite the opposite. The worry was etched into his face, and his eyes scoured hers for any semblance of a response, but she could barely manage to breathe, so it was nearly impossible tell him everything that was running through her head.
It was killing Jake that he couldn't tell what she was thinking. She had that deer caught in head lights look that she would get every now and again. Usually he could help her calm down and comfort her or tell her a joke and get her to laugh, but he had never been the reason before. The car barreling down the high way with its brights on and he was about to crash into her while she stared at him with wide eyes. He dryly noted that he was getting a bit carried away with the analogies that night, but she started it so he didn't think it mattered.
"And I completely resent you for actually making me use my brain for once, and the minute this conversation ends I am going home and watching all of the lifetimes movies in my DVR so I can numb my brain and forget all about my teenage years." She didn't outright smile, but the corners of her lips did upturn, which he considered a small victory. He considered leaving it at that, but he realized that he was so deep in, and every part of him just said fuck it.
"And I hate that that was a complete lie, because if you don't say something soon I'm gonna go straight to the store and buy one of those discount 4th grade textbooks because if the only way you're going to listen to me is if I talk nerdy to you, then it's not even a choice I have to make. And you're gonna be left dumbing down all your stupid smart physics explanations for me because it's gonna take a while for me to work up to middle school and the only reason I remember that stupid apple thing is because our teacher had us explode the apples afterward and the sprinklers went off and the flooded the school so it was shut down for a week and it was probably the best science experiment I ever had, so I really don't remember anything more than that and I would-"
And Amy finally shut his stupid mouth by pressing her lips to his. She wasn't even sure he took a breath in that whole mess of babbling, but he could breathe through his nose or pull back and take a gasp, because she sure as hell wasn't gonna let go of him for any reason. He got over his initial shock quick enough as he dropped his hands to her waist and she curled her fingers in his hair. Amy pushed him back against the brick wall harder than she meant to, but if the smile he pressed into her lips was any indicator he didn't mind. Her tongue roamed his mouth, which she had been fantasizing about doing for months now, but reality was so much better. She grinded into his hips in what she would later claim was an accident if he asked, but the moan that he let out into her mouth sent fire to her core and was positive that she needed it to go a lot farther by the end of the night.
She was actually the first to pull back because she really needed to gasp to get all of the oxygen her lungs were screaming for.
"I'll help you study," she smiled, hoping it was unambiguous enough for him to get the idea that she wanted this, wanted him, wanted them. She wanted him to know that she was in this for good, and she wasn't running anymore. And she decided that maybe falling wouldn't be so bad if she was falling with him.
"Hottest teacher ever," Jake declared and she just rolled her eyes. She didn't care about his stupid joke, she was just so relieved to see that lighthearted grin on his face that he reserved only for her. She missed it. She missed him.
"What's that look for?" He asked when he noticed it. It was a nice look with a warm smile (not to mention the drop dead flush on her cheeks) and he knew that if he never found out what she was thinking at that moment he would regret is because he wanted to do anything to recreate that look. Amy looked so happy, and... he didn't want to say loving, but he decided he sure as hell could think it. Amy was looking at him like she loved him, and he never wanted that look to go away.
"I missed you," she said simply like it didn't matter, but it did. To him, at least. Jake thought of all the things he could tell her about how much he missed her and how he thought about her the whole time and how many times he almost called her because he was sure he wouldn't be able to make it without hearing her voice even though it would have screwed up the whole operation and he wanted to tell her about every little thing that came into his mind because he just wanted her to know everything about him. But he decided he could say all that later on in the night, because at that moment all he needed was to feel her.
"I'm right here, y'know?"
She laughed and made quick work of molding her lips back to his.
AN:
So this one is a little close to my heart. When I was in elementary school or something I asked my engineer dad why when you spin a basket of apples on your arm the apples don't fall off (because even young me had heard of gravity) and while my preteen brain couldn't quite understand the concepts of forces and inertia, I knew it existed and I knew it was cool and I loved it. As I grew up every so often I would forget the name (c'mon, centripetal force is a hard name for a 10 year old!) so I would always ask my dad the same question, always using the term basket and apples, though it could have been anything (like a bucket filled with bouncy balls or literally anything else). When I got to physics in high school, it was like "woah! So that's what that is!"
I wasn't a big fan of physics, but centripetal force will always be my baby. So if anyone needs some help with the difference between Centripetal and Centrifugal force or the difference between "fictitious/inertial" forces (it's a stupid name because they are real, not false) and "genuine" forces, hit me up, cause I got those motherfuckers down!
And man, you would not believe how much work I put into the title of this. Yeah, I had to take a quick refresher of the actual science since it's been awhile since I was in physics, but that was barely anything compared to the ridiculous amount of time and how much stupid though I put into the title. I was originally going to call it Equal and Opposite Reactions, but then I realized that was kinda misleading since literally the only relation to it and this fic it that they both involve physics. And then I had the idea of the current title that I went with, but then I was like 'Wait. Would momentum be anymore accurate?'
I knew inertia would totally fit without a doubt cause of the whole definition of centripetal force, but I liked momentum much better because it's actually a word that people occasionally use in common conversation. And inertia would have been such a serious title and I didn't want to turn anyone off just cause of a stupid word. So I tried to find out the difference/relationship between momentum and inertia, and let me tell you, when physics professors argue with each other, they go all out. Like seriously harsh. I read a forumish type thing with all of these people with doctorates talking with each other, but they were only a step away from calling each other 'stupid head' and 'idiot face' all while mixing in equations like nobody's business. I understood that they disagreed, but I did not expect the level of maliciousness.
Anyway, I read through enough of the arguments that I concluded that momentum was closely related enough to centripetal force to be an appropriate title, but I wonder- was it worth it?
And deep inside me there's a voice that says I would do it all over again out of sheer pedanticness, and I know it's right.
Anyway, tell me what you thought- or if this whole thing was a completely awful idea I should have just kept in my head.
Hope you guys have a good day/night cycle for wherever and whenever you read this.