AN: Hey everyone! Welcome to "Broken Toys Make No Noise". This is the sequel to "Johnny and Dora's Fantastic Weekend Getaway" so definitely read that first!

This fic will be pretty dark and I'm putting trigger warnings for Gore, Blood, and Death. Deaths described are crime scenes, so please read-on with caution. If at any point you feel I need to label my trigger warnings something different, PLEASE let me know. I don't want anyone to have an anxiety attack because of poor labeling. With that said, I hope you enjoy!

Chapter 1: Jewelry Box Ballerina – Amy

Amy shivered as a cold breeze hit her elbow and danced its way up to the nape of her neck. The gentle, invading gust prompted her to sit up from her five-wheeled chair (that was actually a dogged four-wheel chair) and close the open window near her desk in the 99th precinct office she worked in. She had opened it earlier because the room had "suddenly gotten stuffy" when her former partner stepped off the elevator and entered the office.

Jake always made sure to look straight ahead as he passed her desk and Amy, wanting to avoid the needling feeling in her chest that usually accompanied these instances, decided the room needed some air. That way, Jake didn't have to pretend her desk was unoccupied.

It was all a charade, of course. Whenever Jake passed her, Amy felt her muscles tense and Amy knew by the muscle that flexed in his jaw that he was acutely aware of her as well. Their new relationship was like a pair of Chinese handcuffs: the harder they tried to pull away, the further they were from freedom.

What could they do? Talk about it? No. No, they had talked about it. Three months ago. After the Tufton case was over, Jake made it crystal clear they needed to stay away from each other. Amy shook her head, trying to rid the memories that could pull sutures out of her not-yet healed wound. Amy was healing though. Work caused her the odd sting in her chest, but it was manageable. A "talk" could reverse that. What would she even say?

"Hey Jake, when you try to act like I don't exist, it makes it really hard for me to act like you don't exist" she thought, and scoffed at herself. That was sure to go well. No, there was nothing to be done. She had to wait it out and then, after a while, she'd stop feeling close to Jake. Eventually, he'd feel like a distant acquaintance and then, she wouldn't feel anything. He wouldn't mean anything to her. The thought of that earned her chest another ache. She hated the idea of not even being friends, but that's what had to happen.

Before shutting the window, Amy took a deep breath of the crisp, Autumn New York air. She breathed into the pain and let it go. She sat back at her desk with a renewed energy and a determination to think of other things.

She was about to sink her teeth into a particularly long case report when a booming voice commanded her attention.

"Peralta. Santiago. My office, please" Captain Holt announced at the door of his office. He ducked back inside and an awkward tension filled the precinct. Amy knew the precinct was aware of the changed relationship between her and Jake, but whenever someone asked her about it, she was less than cooperative.

"Amy, Jakey's not acting with his usual masculine optimism lately and he hasn't made fun of you in three days. The last time he did that it was because he got his wisdom teeth out and all the swelling made it impossible for him to say anything at all. Do you know what's going on?" Boyle asked her a few days after Amy confessed to Jake. The heart break was a little too fresh and Amy came up with an instant diversion. She looked down at her phone as if she had gotten a text. She had a couple of emergency excuses on hand, but panic made her jumble them up.

"Oh, no! My baby's brother is having a house fire! I mean, My house fire is having a baby brother! NO! I mean my baby is on fire at my brother's house!" she yelled, her eyes wide with panic. Boyle looked both alarmed and concerned.

"I gotta go!" she said and ran out of the precinct.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the only incident.

"Santiago, why are you and Jake avoiding each other? Is something up?" Terry asked her one day when Jake was out of the office chasing a lead. Amy, once again panicked, and threw her iPhone on the ground with such ferocity that the screen shattered spectacularly.

"Oh no! I dropped my phone! Well, I better go replace it. Bye Ter-Bear, you old loon you hahahah" she said as she ran out of the room with her newly broken phone. Terry stared on in stunned silence.

Even more unfortunately, that wasn't the last incident.

"Yo. Santiago. You and Peralta are being weird. Why?" Rosa asked and panic filled Amy once again. This time, she didn't bother trying to be clever or smooth. She just ran for a window and ran down the fire exit.

After that, the precinct learned it was better (and safer) to simply not ask. It didn't make them forget though and now, all eyes were flicking between her and Jake.

For the first time in three months, Jake and Amy looked at each other, both with expressions of surprised curiosity. It was both painful and nice to look at his brown eyes. It was short-live though, because her legs pulled her to her captain's office. She felt Jake follow her and she took a sharp inhale of breath. Whatever this was, it couldn't be good.

She entered the familiar office, her mentor sitting behind his desk, and felt her body give in to slight shaking. Why was she so nervous? There was no reason to be so nervous.

"Peralta, shut the door, please, and then take a seat" Holt said, gesturing with his glasses in-hand. Jake and Amy sat down next to each other and a heat wave went up her spine. She was so close to him, closer than they had been in three months. She could feel Jake trying to ignore her again, trying to act like the seat next to him was empty. The realization pricked another needle in her chest.

Holt examined the both of them in silence which made the hairs on Amy's neck prickle. He sighed and folded his hands on his desk.

"The precinct's numbers are down" He said with his usual lack of emotion, but Amy swore she heard a hint of disappointment in his words.

"Sir?" she asked.

"To be precise, your numbers are down. Both of you. The rest of my detectives have kept consistent numbers, and yet over the past three months you two have had a steady decline in arrests. Can one of you explain that to me?" Holt asked.

"Yeah, Hitchcock is hell to work with" Jake said, resentment on his tongue.

"That goes double for Scully, sir" Amy said, a tinge of guilt hitting her as she bad-mouthed her current partner, but it was true. Scully was slow and slow-witted. He was a crutch on and off the field. It was one of the worst parts about not being Jake's partner any more. Amy's frustration with Scully was nothing compared to the frustration Jake felt. If there was anything Jake hated, it was something hurting his numbers. Amy had known for a while that her arrests were down and she was surprised that this conversation hadn't happened earlier.

"I changed your partners because for some unforeseeable reason my best team requested a partner transfer and now, my two best detectives are dragging the rest of the precinct down" Holt said, and Amy was sure that he was angry.

"I'm sorry, sir" Amy said, guilt and shame filling her.

"I had hoped that you two could help Hitchcock and Scully become more efficient detectives, but I seemed to have been mistaken. As of today, I'm reversing the partner transfer"

"What?!" Jake asked.

"Do you have a complaint with my order, Peralta?" Holt asked.

"Sir, there's a very good reason-" Jake started.

"I don't care about your reasons, Peralta. I care about Wuntch and how she's already talked to the commissioner about the precinct's abysmal performance. We got some leeway because of the success of the Tufton case, but I'm running out of excuses. I'm putting you two back together because you get results, and any personal issues you have with each other should be resolved professionally. Is that clear, detectives?" he asked.

"Yes, sir" they both said.

"Good. Now, the precinct has recently acquired a very high profile case. The state wants us to keep it hushed so as not to alarm the public, but it seems we have a serial killer in Brooklyn and if the particulars get out, it'll be all over national news. That is the opposite of what we want. This perp would thrive on the attention and we'd get a killing a day"

"Ooh, intrigue. Tell me more!" Jake said, excited. The shock of being partnered back with Amy had melted away as soon as Holt had said "serial killer". Holt grabbed a large case file off his desk and handed it Jake.

"They're calling him the 'Toy Box Killer'. He poses his victims as popular children's toys, going so far as making elaborate costumes and painting them with as much accuracy as he can. The first victim was a twenty-eight-year-old male: Preston Vice. He was posed as a G.I. Joe doll. The killer even decorated the warehouse the victim was found in as a battlefield, sparing no detail. That was a month ago. I got a call thirty minutes ago that another victim had been found in our district, this time it was a female fashioned as a ballerina in a music box. Forensics is already at the scene. I want you two to investigate immediately. This is a dangerous criminal and I want him off the streets before we find another victim" Holt finished, his tone consistent.

Amy had to suppress a smile. This case was good. It was so good that it made the idea of working with Jake almost bearable. If they solved this it would make their careers. She'd be that much closer to being Captain.

Jake hadn't bothered to suppress his glee. His jaw was dropped in a large gasp-smile that only Jake could accomplish. Amy was pretty sure he forgot about the whole "forgetting Amy existed" charade because he looked at her with expectant eyes that asked "isn't this AWESOME?!"

"Try not to be too distressed Peralta" Holt said, his words cutting through the joy radiating from Jake. Jake cleared his throat and dropped his expression.

"Sir, Santiago and I will investigate this crime and bring this son-of-a-bitch to Justice, sir" Jake said, putting on his John McClane voice.

"Detective?" Holt asked.

"Yes, sir?"

"Get out of my office"

"Yes, sir"

Amy got in the passenger seat of Jake's beat-up Mustang and a vision of their first "date" came into her mind. It sent a wave of pain through her chest and she did her best to shake the memory away. The smell of old cheese didn't really help though.

"Can you even believe this case?!" Jake asked. He was like a kid on Christmas morning. Amy couldn't blame him though. If this was Christmas 2006, then this case was a brand new Wii underneath the tree.

"We're gonna solve this case so hard" she said, her own excitement getting the better of her.

"Yeah we are!" Jake said as he offered his hand up for a high-five that Amy eagerly accepted.

"Yeah!" she said and she found her eyes locking with Jake's. The smiles faded from both of their faces and all at once they were reminded that they were supposed to be ignoring each other, ignoring the fact that they used to really enjoy working with each other, ignoring that they were good friends, and especially ignoring that they liked each other.

It only took two minutes for the walls to come down and for Amy to be newly aware of all the things she spent avoiding for the past three months. She saw Jake the realization fall on his eyes as well. His hand had lingered on hers for just the slightest bit too long before he snatched it back, as if her hand was a hot pan he accidently touched. He looked ahead and started the car.

"Welp, we better hurry" he said, his voice distant and not his own. The car roared to life and snaked into the closest lane.

Amy let out a breath she had been holding and an uncomfortable tightness held onto her ribcage.

"Yeah" she said as she looked out the window and watched as New York blurred by her.

The scene was busy with flashbulbs bursting and forensic analysts running around collecting evidence. It was even more grandiose than Amy imagined. The victim was in the center of the bottom floor of an abandoned warehouse, but it looked more like the inside of a jewelry box. The killer had fixed the floor with cherry varnished wood in a box around the victim—the ballerina. Behind her was more of the same wood framed around a giant mirror.

Then, there was the victim herself. She was posed elegantly with her feet together in point shoes. She wore a moon-white leotard with shell-pink tights and tutu, and a sparkling headband in her hair. Her left arm was extended in front of her chest, while the right hovered above her neat, brunette bun like an umbrella. Her shoulders were back and her chest was out. Amy assumed the killer posed her before Rigor Mortis set in. It was the only way he could have gotten the pose just right. Rigor Mortis didn't support her alone, however. A metal pipe followed her arched back and then circled around her waist. Piano strings wrapped around her wrists and boards kept her legs straight. Her skin was painted a pearly-white color and her face was painted like a porcelain doll.

This was all on top of a mechanism that spun her round and round in a constant loop. The piano wires that held her arms up were connected to another mechanism that followed her spinning motion. All of this was accompanied by speakers that played a music box version of "Für Elise".

Amy looked on in horror. She had never seen such showboating in a murder before. She was horrified, yes, but a part of her was actually impressed. She cursed herself for feeling that way, but she couldn't deny the artistry, the sheer attention to detail.

Amy looked over at Jake and saw the awe in his eyes as well. She wondered if he was battling with disgust and wonderment over the scene, like she had.

"Wow, uh…" Jake said, his eyes focused in on the ballerina. For once, Jake Peralta was short on words.

"We should talk to the ME" Amy said, snapping him out of his trance. He agreed and they found a thin man with glasses wearing a jacket that said "Medical Examiner" across his back. The man was close to the body and jotting notes down on a clipboard, his brow furrowed in frustration. As they approached, the man noticed them and greeted them with an outstretched hand. Amy shook it first.

"Hi, Henry Farris: ME" he said.

"Amy Santiago: Detective" she replied back with a smile. Henry shook Jake's hand next.

"Jake Peralta: Superior Detective" he said with a smart smirk. Amy rolled her eyes and Henry looked confused.

"So, what can you tell us?" Jake asked, placing his hands on his hips.

"Not much, unfortunately. We still haven't figured out the best way to get her down without damaging evidence" he said, looking back at the ballerina and scrunching his face.

"Anything around that might identify the victim?" Amy asked. Henry shook his head.

"Nope. Wouldn't expect the killer to leave such a thing. I think it's safe to say that the killer doesn't see his victims as people, but as props. He would have thrown out anything that made her anything other than a ballerina in a jewelry box. Looking at all the muscle definition in her legs, I have a hunch she might actually come from a dance background"

"What about cause of death?" Jake asked. Henry shook his head again and sighed.

"Well, I can't see any sort of wound anywhere. Her skin seems to be perfect, so I'm thinking she might have been poisoned, but I won't know anything until I get her to the lab" he said. He looked stumped by the entire thing.

"Did you find any physical evidence? Fingerprints? Semen? Anything?" Amy asked and she jabbed Jake with her elbow when he snorted at the word "semen".

"Nothing. Absolutely nothing. This is the cleanest crime scene I've ever seen. It's incredible. All I can tell you for certain is that it's the exact same MO as the first victim. No way it's a copy-cat. It's too intricate and the mechanisms are nearly identical. We'll have to put it through forensics, but I'll bet anything it's the same kind of paint"

"What about the first victim? How was he killed?" Amy asked.

"One small bullet through the heart. I think the killer evolved though. The bullet was too messy. It left a stain on his work, so he tried something else with the girl"

"Looks like he perfected the MO" Jake said as he looked at the twirling girl.

Amy took a deep breath in, her ears filling with the song that felt like a ghost passing through her.

"Which means he'll kill again" she said, and the heavy silence that befell them assured her it was only a matter of time.

AN: Helllll yeah, I'm back bitches! And shit son, shit's about to get dark. I think I've probably been watching/reading/playing too much Batman so I needed to do some gritty detective fanfic. This will stay pretty dark, but don't worry, there will be fluff to lighten it up. I'm excited to do a murder mystery though.

I have no idea how many chapters this will be, I'll just have to see how long it'll take our dynamic duo to figure out the mystery oooooo.

The title comes from the song "Broken Toys" by 22-Pistepirkko.

Hope you enjoyed this chapter! Let me know what you think and if you want to follow me on Tumblr my handle is crystal-gem-jessie. Thanks so much for reading! :)