A/N: Wow, I have not had it this bad for an OTP since iCarly and my obsession with Sam/Spencer and needing to write every possible scenario for them. I fear the same will happen with these two. (Ha ha, 'fear.')
AGAIN thanks go to Ashley, who keeps me sane and gave me the title (and originally told me that it was an idea I should put down in official fic form). THANKS ASH YOU ARE THE BEST ILU.
Amy Santiago is a good cop and a great detective. Nothing surprises or scares her anymore – she lives in Brooklyn and grew up with seven brothers – she's seen it all.
Then one night in the middle of a stakeout she gets a call from Holt, and she can tell by the deeper than normal octave of his voice that something bad has happened. He won't tell her what it is because she has to wait for her relief team, but his voice is very soft and low as he tells her the name of the hospital, and it's one she barely knows. This does scare her, because it's Jake. It has to be.
Two excruciating hours later she walks through the brightly lit hallways trying not to knock anything over or run into anybody. She finds Holt easily, and he stands to greet her. Before he can even say anything, the tears she's held back start running down her face, and all he can do is pull her into his arms and stroke her hair.
"He's in surgery. They were making arrests and he got caught in the crossfire." Holt's voice is so soothing and reassuring that she actually lets herself believe him when he tells her, "He's going to be okay."
She cries onto Holt's shoulder for longer than she wants to admit, but when she pulls away to sit in an empty seat next to no one, he doesn't make her look him in the eye. Boyle and Diaz are both sitting anxiously in the waiting area, but Amy can't look at either of them. Two and a half hours later, the others are all dozing in their chairs, so she's the only one to bolt upright when the doctor walks in.
She takes a deep breath as Amy holds hers. "He's stable, but still in critical condition." The doctor pauses and looks around the waiting room before focusing on her again. "Are you his wife?"
Underneath her terror, her insides squirm, but all she manages to say with a lump in her throat is, "Is he going to be okay?"
There's a moment where the doctor looks at her, unsure, but there must be something in Amy's face because she answers. "We can't say for sure, but the bleeding's stopped and he's young and healthy. I wouldn't be surprised if he makes a full recovery."
The doctor waits while relief washes over Amy. She lets out a choked sob, wiping her face half-heartedly, and she makes herself take a deep breath. Her voice squeaks when she asks, "Can I see him?"
She waits a second again before she nods, jerking her head slightly to the right, indicating Amy should follow. Amy glances back to her seat, wondering if she should grab her jacket or bag, but she catches Holt's eye – he's woken up and as far as she can tell his face says he heard all of it. He dips his head, silently telling her to go, that it's okay, and so she does.
As they walk down the hallway, the doctor explains what was and what is wrong with Jake in a hushed, low voice. It makes Amy think how good she must be at telling wives that they're now widows, or telling someone they'll never walk again. She takes comfort in it even as she wraps her arms tighter around herself, even in the little things this doctor's a practiced professional.
Her voice gets lower and softer as they stop outside of a door marked 294. "He should be waking up, but he's on a high dosage of pain medication, so he might not be coherent." Amy just nods and waits for her to say something else while they're stopped before she realizes she's going into the room alone.
"Thank you." She turns to the door, and it takes her a few tries before her hand can properly grasp the handle and push. Stepping inside she hears the doctor's footsteps squeaking away down the hallway and it puts her at ease, somehow. It's just her and Jake, and that's always been easy.
After the scorching florescent lights in the hallway, Jake's room is dim, and she stops just inside of the door so her eyes can adjust. There's a soft light on next to the bed, but she almost wishes there wasn't. Jake is whole, but he doesn't look healthy; there are dark circles under his eye where he's not bruised, and he looks far too thin, but she finds herself hoping that's just because he isn't wearing his usual five layers. He isn't hooked up to any oxygen, and she watches his chest rise and fall with his breathing.
She's next to the bed listening to his heart rate monitor and her tears hitting the stiff sheets before she realizes she can sit down. Amy has to maneuver the chair around a few pieces of medical equipment before it's next to the bed, but even when she's plopped down into it the bed feels too far away.
Amy's thought about what she would do when she finally got to see Jake again, and it always involved her hugging him so hard he couldn't breathe and then him making a wisecrack about being irresistible. Now he's in front of her, unconscious, and he looks so frail she's afraid to touch him in fear that his stitches will rip and his bandages will get ruined. Even his hand in front of her seems wrong, with his IV and tape everywhere, but Amy grabs it tightly anyway; she can feel herself getting hysterical and needs something to hold onto. She needs Jake to tell her he's going to be okay.
"Jake, you have to wake up now." Amy feels her voice break on every word, but they keep falling out of her anyway. "The doctor said you should be waking up, and she seemed like she knew what she was doing, okay? Jake – Jake, you have to wake up and tell me you're okay – tell me that I'm being stupid and overreacting. You have to tell me – tell me that we're still good. Jake, you are not allowed to die. We need you too much. The squad needs you."
Her eyes focus again on his face and the sharp knives she'd felt attacking her insides all night start stabbing and twisting again. Amy grips his hand tightly, almost laying her head down on top of it, and she keeps talking, her voice high pitched and strained, breaking on every couple of words. "I need you, Jake. You can't just leave me with what could have happened – we have to get married and have kids, okay? Your doctor already thinks I'm your wife so I'd hate to let her down, and you'll make a great dad, I know it – so you can't die." She takes a large shuddering breath still looking at his hand, and she's stuck listening to the steady beep of his heart monitor.
She closes her eyes and breathes deeply, concentrating on the slow beeping to get her breathing under control, and wipes the tears off her face with one free hand.
"Amy." The voice is soft and raspy, but it's his.
"Jake, you're awake."
Jake's eyes are open, his head tilted toward her, and one side of his mouth quirks up for a second before falling back into place. "So, how many kids are we going to have?"
Amy's been asked how many kids she wants for a long time, and she can answer automatically. Her vague answer is 'a few,' her normal-person answer is 'three if I can manage,' her hopeful boyfriend answer is 'three – or more,' because the only time she's answered truthfully, she'd been unapologetically laughed at. But she's never been asked by Jake, looking at her with his eyes full of hope, happiness, and love. So it might be from the stress, exhaustion, tears, or relief of seeing him awake, but she unconsciously wipes a stray tear and answers him truthfully. "Five."
Jake closes his eyes, and Amy thinks she sees his mouth quirk up again briefly before he responds. "No, probably six." She watches in disbelief as he pauses, taking a deep breath. "We'll try for five, but with our luck we'll have twins last."
Amy's laughing and crying at the same time, and all she wants to do is reach over to hug and kiss Jake, kiss that beautiful half-smile off his face, but she can tell he's wiped out from talking so much. "Okay, Jake."
He's smiling when he says, "Not right now though, I'm kinda tired."
"We can wait," she reassures him, and he closes his eyes, ready to pass out again. There's a tiny squeeze on her hand that's holding his, so she squeezes back softly, laying her head down next to it, and they fall asleep together.
A/N: I'm sorry for this being either too much hospital information or too little. I feel it is too little because I like specificity and I live with nurses and hear a zillion medical specific conversations all the time. But also I do not want to look up things about gunshot wounds and/or internal bleeding (I'm lazy). I am sorry if hospitals make you uncomfortable, but for your sake I did not go into detail with the IV in the hand. :)
Honestly, all I wanted was fluff about them wanting babies, and this is so not enough to quench my OTP feels or my baby feels. If you like it, I might be motivated to do an as-I-feel-like-it Baby Chronicles (which WILL be more medically accurate than any TV show I have ever seen). :)
