a/n: originally posted to ao3. there's a little mention of blood about halfway through so if that's something you have trouble with skip this maybe
It's been three hours and Jake's still in shock.
He didn't see it happen– it was too dark and he was too far away. All he saw was the back of their perp's sweater when he raced into the shadows. And, right before that, Amy's hand scrabbling at her side as she crumpled toward the pavement, like she was a puppet and someone had snipped her strings. Jake's brain has rendered it all haphazardly, bits and pieces of memory that he's trying desperately to shove away, like if he doesn't think about it– like if he doesn't think about how they've been gathered in the waiting room of this hospital for fifty silent minutes now– it didn't really happen.
Except that it did, because there was also the blaring of the ambulance siren. There was also Holt's voice over the phone. There was also watching his girlfriend loaded into the ambulance like cargo on a stretcher. There was, there was, there was. Too late to fix it now. And anyway, none of what he remembers is clear, none of it concrete, like he was peering at the scene through fogged-up glass. Like this is a nightmare he's about to wake up from.
But Jake's not an idiot. He's not about to fool himself into believing that a gun and a badge will keep any of them safe. Cops die. It's part of the job. Danger– that's what they all signed up for. It shouldn't come as a shock when that's what they get.
And still, it does. Because never, in all his years on the force, did Jake think anything would actually happen. Not anything serious, not anything life-threatening. And certainly not to Amy Santiago.
It's hell, the hour they spend cooped up in the hospital waiting room, him and the rest of the nine-nine. Jake's never heard them this quiet. Even Rosa looks sad. He twiddles his thumbs, taps his feet, tries to play a game on his phone, but it's impossible to focus on anything when his thoughts keep snagging on Amy. Amy, curled up on the cold pavement. Amy, the sound she made, a choked-off gasp like all the air had been knocked out of her at once. Amy, the perp's knife sticking out from between her ribs. Oh my God, Amy.
Charles tried to talk to him earlier. Jake shook him off. Holt patted his shoulder and gave him a brief nod, which Jake figures is as much as he's going to get. Now Terry's at his side with a paper cup of coffee from the machine down the hall, telling him Drink it, Peralta, you look beat. It's lukewarm and doesn't taste like a lot, and Jake downs it in four gulps.
He's the first out of his seat when the nurse who took Amy in swings around the doorway, a clipboard clamped under one arm. She raises her eyebrows, takes in their group– six of them, the squad plus Gina and minus Hitchcock and Scully, all huddled up together in one corner. "You're all here for Santiago?"
"Is she okay?" Jake's voice comes out louder than he expected it to, ringing out in the otherwise-silent room. "Can we see her?"
"She'll be fine," the nurse says. Jake hadn't realized how tight his shoulders were until he feels them relax in relief. "The wound has been treated and she is in a stable condition. We would like to keep her here for the next few days, just to ensure there's no internal bleeding or issues with the stitches, so if you all would like to head home now, then–"
"Can we see her, please?" Jake asks again, and this time he can't find it in himself to feel bad about interrupting.
"Are you family of hers?"
"What?"
The nurse's lips are thin and pink, and they stretch into a pained smile. "I can't let you in if you aren't family. Spouse, relative, the works."
"Oh," Jake says. "Oh. Um–"
"He's Amy's husband." And there's Gina, wonderful, clever Gina Linetti, sidling up to his side and squeezing his shoulder just a little too hard. "Aren't you, Jake?"
"Yeah," Jake says weakly. "That's me. Her husband."
Something warm flutters in his chest. Husband.
The nurse's brow furrows, and she gives her clipboard a skeptical once-over. "Nothing on here mentions a spouse."
"Then there must have been a mistake." Gina pats him on the shoulder. "Don't worry about my friend here. He's a bit shaken. Just wants to see his wife."
The nurse eyes them both wearily. Jake sees her gaze flick towards his ringless fingers, and he's just decided that they're not going to get away with this when she says, "Right, well. She's right this way."
She leads him down the hall, and Jake mouths a quick Thank you over his shoulder. Gina gives him a thumbs up, the kind that he knows means he definitely owes her one. She's right. He definitely does. Those improv classes she took in Queens two summers ago are finally paying off.
He's still caught up in it, in the rush of the words Amy's husband and his wife, when they stop outside her door. "I'll give you two some privacy," the nurse says, and Jake lets himself in.
His heart stutters at the sight of her in the hospital bed, and for a second he almost doesn't recognize her. She's sickeningly pale, no color in her lips, her skin waxy and yellowish under the harsh hospital lights. There's an IV in one arm, a device tracking her heartbeat clipped to the forefinger of the other; all this is offset by the way her hospital gown is three sizes too big, and she looks like she's drowning in the synthetic material. The blood's been cleaned off her face, at least, but no one's bothered to brush out her hair, and it's a thick tangled mess matted up on one side of her head. Strangely enough, it's this which makes the lump rise in Jake's throat: the sight of Amy's hair, normally so smooth and shining and well-cared for, allowed to be neglected like that.
She opens her eyes when she hears him step inside, peers up at him groggily. "Hey," she croaks.
"Hi." Jake shuts the door behind him with a soft click and carefully lowers himself down in the chair beside her bed– his own ankle's still throbbing from when he twisted it during the chase, but it's nothing compared to Amy's state. "How are you feeling?"
"Like I got stabbed," she says drily.
He winces. "Sorry about that."
"It wasn't your fault."
"Well, I mean. If I hadn't tripped and twisted my damn ankle, I wouldn't have left you on your own, and I never would have let him get close enough to...you know, stab you."
The words feel ugly in his mouth, like they are a line from a horror movie. Cops don't get stabbed, not in real life, not in their precinct. Except that they do, because Amy is lying here with a four-inch gash in her side and looking like she just got back from death's doorstep.
"Did you get him, at least?" she asks. "The perp?"
Jake hesitates. He doesn't want to lie to Amy, even though his answer isn't what she's hoping to hear. "No. He got away. Ran off while I was...uh, tending to you."
She closes her eyes. "Right."
He reaches over and curls his fingers around her wrist, running his thumb along the back of her hand. "It's not your fault, Ames."
"I know," she says, but Jake can tell by the tightness in her voice that she doesn't believe it.
But Jake knows that when it comes down to it, this is his fault. Jake's the one who neglected police protocol and stayed with Amy after she got hurt, instead of with the criminal he was supposed to catch. He's the one who let a perp get away because he chose her safety over the job. And what's shameful is that in that moment, he hadn't been thinking of her as his fellow detective– he'd been thinking of her as his girlfriend, and that was what the captain had warned them about all those months ago. Jake's the one who let his emotions get in the way of the job.
(Granted, of course, Amy's injury was life-threatening, and yeah, she might've died if Jake hadn't been at her side an instant later, stopping the bleeding with one hand and dialing 911 with the other. God, there was a lot of blood. All over his fingers, his palm, the sleeve of his jacket. What was he supposed to do? Leave her behind?)
Jake didn't even see which way the perp went, only saw out of the corner of his eye that he had rounded a corner and vanished into the darkness. And if he's being honest? Now that Amy and he are both safe, and the adrenaline has left his veins, Jake would like nothing more than to hunt that guy down and strangle him, hands around his throat and hurting him like he hurt Amy. It scares Jake that he would ever think like that. But he is.
He clears his throat. "The rest of the nine-nine's here too, by the way. They want to see you as soon as you're cleared for visitors. Charles even has peonies for you."
"Well, yeah," Amy says, "that's the flower symbolizing good health."
"Of course you would know that."
She cracks a smile, and it's so good to see that. Jake reaches out and slides his fingers through her hair, carefully loosening that tangle on the side of her head. Amy lets her eyes fall shut, leans into his touch. It's crazy, but Jake kind of gets Boyle when he says that shampooing a woman's head is as intimate as it gets. There's something special about the closeness of touching someone else's hair, about them trusting you enough to let you touch them that way, care for them that way.
It hits him suddenly, how close he came to losing her today. She's only here because the perp was too sloppy to hit her vital organs. This was closer than going undercover, he realizes, closer than WitSec, closer than prison. She almost died. His throat closes up, and for a second he can't breathe.
He blinks rapidly, struggles to pull himself together. She is here, though, he reminds himself. She is warm and safe and her hair is soft against Jake's palm. That's what matters right now.
Amy's brows draw together and she nudges him out of his thoughts. "Hey. How'd you get in here, anyway?
Jake feels a blush rise up in his cheeks. "Well, I...Gina kind of lied and told them we were married."
"Married, huh?" He thinks he sees a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth, and wonders if he's imagining it. He hopes he isn't. He shoots her an apologetic grin, shrugs, like, Well, what can you do?
"Hmm," she murmurs. "Maybe we should just do it, then."
"'Maybe we should just do it then,' title of–"
"I know, I know. Title of my sextape."
"I was gonna say our sextape, Santiago."
She gives him a crooked grin. "Jake. Come on. I'm being serious."
"About– you mean, like...the getting married thing?"
"Yeah, like, the getting married thing."
"But…" Jake suddenly feels like all the breath's been knocked out of him. "But that's not on the life calendar."
"Jake. Neither was me getting stabbed. Neither was you getting stuck in prison for months. Neither was us, romantic-stylez. Neither were you , period. Who gives a shit about the life calendar? I love you. I don't want to lose you ever again. And, you know–" She slips her hand into his, locks their fingers together. "I'd kind of like it to be our sextape for the rest of my life."
Jake thinks he likes this survived-a-near-death-experience Amy. Her curse words really come out when she's hyped up on hospital fluids and romance. One shit – that's more than he'll get all month.
But more than that, it's how soft her gaze has gone, and how sweet her little smile is, and how tenderly she's grasping his hand, like she's scared that if she lets go he'll disappear. I won't disappear, he thinks to himself, and he wonders if she can hear the thump of his heart against his ribs. I won't leave you. Never, ever.
"Okay," he says.
"Okay, what?"
"Okay, let's get married." He pulls her hand to his chest and squeezes it. His heart squeezes, too, as he stares at her, at this woman who he loves and who loves him and who he's going to be with for the rest of his life because he's never wanted anything more than he wants this. Amy's eyes are wide and dark and shining, crinkling at the corners as she grins up at him, and he can tell he's grinning just as wide. "Let's get married, Ames."
Amy gets out of the hospital a week later, her side stitched up from hip to rib, and she has to use a cane, just like Jake did after she shot him in the leg. No fun, is it, he teases her, and she rolls her eyes and tells him to shut up. Jake loves her a lot.
They don't tell the rest of the nine-nine, not right away, but Rosa figures it out when she catches Jake browsing for rings on his phone, and Gina when she spies the Pinterest board open on Amy's computer. "Planning a wedding, Ames?" she drawls, loud enough for the rest of the precinct to hear. Typical Gina. Jake can't wait for her wedding toast.
"Well, actually...yeah." Amy meets Jake's gaze across their desks and smiles, all white teeth and sparkling eyes. "We are."
a/n: hey thanks for reading, leave a review if you liked it! or if you didn't idk i'm always up for constructive criticism