Your typical, trope-y, run-of-the-mill pregnancy scare fic. There's no call for it really. Title from Laughing by Hooded Fang
no matter, baby, what the days bring i'll be there
Amy throws up at a crime scene.
Not unheard of for a cop really, but Jake knows it's unusual for Amy because –though he's loathe to admit it- she's usually got a stronger stomach than even he has plus the gunshot wound to the head that prompted her vomiting session doesn't even make the list of the most gruesome cases she's worked since she's been a cop.
Jake isn't even there to be the supportive boyfriend and hold her hair back, instead finding out through a brief text from Rosa. He does make a point to get back to the precinct as quickly as his department store robbery case with Charles will allow (Charles actually has to convince him out of putting the sirens on when the traffic gets bad) and he finds Amy hunched over her desk, looking pale and drawn.
"Amy," he says, kneeling next to her. He gently touches her forehead with one hand and takes hers with the other. "Rosa text me, told me what happened."
"Of course she did," Amy sighs, rolling her eyes.
"You still look queasy," Jake says, searching her face in concern. "Are you okay?"
Maybe if he'd known how she was going to reply, he'd have asked her somewhere slightly more private than the middle of the busy bullpen at midday when everyone is rushing around trying to get whatever they're doing done so they can go off to lunch. Amy takes a jagged breath in, takes his other hand and says, "Jake… I might be pregnant."
And just like that, his entire world narrows down to a single point.
-/-
It isn't that he couldn't see himself doing the parenthood thing with Amy one day. Honestly, he's actually pretty sure he wants to spend the rest of his life with her- not that he's going to tell her that just yet, at risk of going 'Full Peralta' as it were.
The thing is, he and Amy just haven't been dating that long. Five months is not nearly long enough that something as huge a commitment as a tiny human isn't mind-blowingly terrifying.
He definitely isn't financially stable enough and/or far enough out of his crushing debt yet to support a kid on his salary and while he thinks Amy probably is (being the financially savvy of the pair of them) he's also pretty sure she wanted to be a little further along in her goal of eventual captaincy before children. Jake wouldn't be surprised if she had a detailed life plan hidden away somewhere laying out the specific year in which every major life event would take place for her.
Long story short, neither of them are ready for this.
"We're not ready for this," Amy says to him when they're at lunch that day, steadily rising panic in her voice. "We are so not ready for this, Jake."
Jake takes her hand over the table, lacing their fingers together. "Everything's going to be fine. We don't even know if you're actually -you know. If you're really-"
Despite his best efforts, his mouth still can't quite form the word so he gestures with his other hand; making a round pregnancy belly in mid-air and pointing vaguely at her abdomen.
"-Pregnant," Amy supplies.
Jake feels a bit dizzy every time he hears it and even without the possible-maybe pregnancy hormones that Amy may or may not have been experiencing, he absolutely gets why she threw up this morning. He might be a dad. He's thirty-four, barely has a relationship with his own father and he might be one.
"Yeah, that." Jake does his best to collect himself because he knows whatever he's feeling about this, it's going to be magnified ten times for Amy. She doesn't need her boyfriend to be a nervous wreck right now. "We don't know yet so we're not going to freak out. Holt gave you the afternoon off so you go to the pharmacy and buy a test. I'll get there as soon as I can after my shift. If it's negative, then nothing changes-"
"And if it's not?" Amy asks.
"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," Jake says. Amy doesn't look comforted by this so Jake reaches across the table to cup her face, looking straight into her eyes. "Amy, whatever you want to do, you know I'll support you, right? If you think it's too soon and you want to have an abortion, I'll support you. If you want to keep it, then… we'll work something out. Together. Okay?"
Jake smiles at her and notes with relief that some of the tension releases out of her shoulders as she smiles back a little and leans into his hand. "Okay," she says in an exhale.
The clock in the café they're sitting in tells him he's already ten minutes over his lunch break and he winces. "I should get back to work."
He has no idea how he's ever going to concentrate on work for the next four and a half hours but he can't exactly bunk off.
They both stand up but Jake stops her leaving with a hand, a sudden worry eclipsing his mind. "Look, um," Jake starts uncertainly. "I know you're freaking out right now and I totally get that but could you wait until I'm there before you do the test? Please? I just- I really want to be there."
He wouldn't necessarily blame her for wanting to know as soon as possible so he's pleading with her rather than demanding. It's important to him for two reasons: first and most importantly, because he wants to be there for her; second, because there's a chance she is pregnant and there's a chance she might want to keep the baby even despite the complications it'll inevitably bring to every aspect of their lives. And in that case, he's going to start as he means to go on—being there.
Amy watches him for a long moment, then says, "Okay."
Jake lets out a breath he didn't realise he was holding. "Thank you." He kisses her, holding her face for a few seconds when he pulls away. "Get the tests, go home and take it easy. I'll be there as soon as I can."
-/-
As soon as I can, much to Jake's frustration, ends up being evening the next day because a time sensitive lead comes up in his and Charles' robbery case and there's no way he can get out of it. He tries to though, and Holt and Charles look at him suspiciously when he wheedles out every excuse he can think of to leave—usually he's so wrapped up in wanting to solve the case that he'll work to all hours to solve it.
Jake's pretty sure they'd let him out of it if they knew the real reason he wants to leave. Then again, he's also certain the news of 'Amy might be pregnant' would end up filtering around the precinct as 'Amy is pregnant' and that's definitely not going to help anything. Amy wouldn't want people knowing their business anyway. He watches the hours tick by with ever increasing annoyance and sends Amy a bunch of apology texts, sick with guilt that he's –albeit unintentionally- drawing this out even more for her.
It's 1 AM when they realise the lead is a bust. In response, Jake excuses himself, goes into the break room and hurls a mug at the floor (which he realises on reflection whilst cleaning up the shards, was actually Rosa's favourite. He leaves her an IOU note on the counter.)
Amy finds him fast asleep on the break room couch the next morning under Gina's angry unicorn blanket. Jake wakes up to find her sitting on the edge of the couch next to him and combing her fingers through his hair. He scrambles awake, panicked. "Did you take-"
Amy shakes her head no and Jake relaxes. "Tonight," she says. "We'll do it then."
-/-
By mid morning, Jake is back at the department store with Charles. Not that he's really contributing much to solving the robbery case at present—Charles is taking the lead on interviewing the employees and the owner while Jake confirms minor details with crime techs.
(Ever since the text from Rosa yesterday, it would be fair to say Jake hasn't been giving this case as much attention as it really deserves.)
After a crime tech finishes talking to him, Jake drifts away from the immediate crime scene and before he even realises it he's next to the infant and baby section on the floor. He's never lingered in this section of a store very long before now and suddenly it looks like the most intimidating place in the universe—tiny versions of adult clothes and things called baby grows and strollers and baby bottles and baby monitors and that isn't even the half of it. The sheer amount of stuff you apparently need to take care of a small human before they can even walk is overwhelming. Not only that, but most of the stuff is unreasonably expensive too. If Amy is pregnant and they do decide to keep it, Jake's definitely going to have to auction the last massage chair he fought hard to keep when Gina helped him pay off some of his credit card bills by putting his stuff on eBay.
Ten minutes later, Charles finds him rooted to the spot with a pack of baby socks in his hand.
"Jake?" Charles says, making Jake jump. "Ready to go?"
Jake shakes himself out of his daze. "Oh. Yeah. You got everything?"
"I think so," Charles confirms. He then looks pointedly at Jake's hand, at the baby socks he's still holding.
"Oh right, yeah." Jake quickly hooks them back on the rail he got them from. Charles is still looking at him oddly so Jake forces a smile and says, "Tiny versions of things are hilarious" by way of explanation.
-/-
They go back to Amy's apartment after work, almost in silence the whole way but Jake holds her hand tightly from the precinct to the car and from her car to her bathroom door where she slips inside and closes the door behind her. Jake leans against the door and starts panicking-talking through all their options. He's very aware he's babbling and most of it is probably useless but it helps him feel a little bit more like he's in control.
"I mean, we even could get married if you wanted-" Jake suggests when he gets to the 'a) you're pregnant and, b) we keep it' list of scenarios.
The door he's leaning on opens so abruptly that Jake very nearly falls straight into her. "Are you seriously proposing to me right now?!"
Jake's bewildered by the intensity of her reaction. "Yeah, I guess?" It comes out more like a question. "Your parents are Catholic, right? Last I checked the Catholics aren't big fans of children out of wedlock."
Judging by her expression, he definitely isn't helping. "Okay, first, Jake, one of my brothers got his high school girlfriend were they were both fifteen so after that my parents dialled down their expectations- any grandchild born to us over the age of twenty is a victory for them. Second and more importantly, call me a hopeless romantic but I do not want our proposal story to be: 'Jake asked me while we waited for my pee on a bunch of plastic sticks to tell us if I was going to be pushing a small human out of me nine months later'!"
Jake winces, pushing the heels of his hands into his forehead. He's being an idiot, overwhelming her when she's already anxious enough about what the next few minutes might bring. "I'm sorry, Amy. I'm just... freaking out right now. I say stupid stuff when I freak out."
"Really? Hadn't noticed," Amy jokes weakly. She softens. "No, I'm the one who's sorry. It wasn't that stupid, I just- I can't even think about stuff like that. Not right now."
Jake nods, pulling her in for a hug. Over her shoulder, he sees her bathroom counter. "You bought eight tests," he observes, amused in spite of himself. "Really? Eight?"
"Yeah," Amy says like it's obvious, looking at the eight white sticks lined up with military precision next to her sink. "Accounting for margin of error, it makes sense: false positives, false negatives, bad batches, everything else than can go wrong with pharmacy tests. Eight makes sense, eight's a good number. Why? You don't think I should have bought more, do you?"
She sounds so worried Jake almost bursts out laughing—this is the Amy Santiago he knows and loves. A mental image of Amy furiously buying up every pregnancy test in every pharmacy in Brooklyn and lining them up neatly over every flat surface in her apartment springs to mind. Jake shakes his head, fondness for her settling into every inch of his chest cavity. If he's going to be a parent, he's glad he's going to be a parent with her.
"No. Eight's a good number," he agrees with a smile.
Amy nods to herself, satisfied, then takes his hand and pulls him into the bathroom with her. She checks her watch. "A minute and a half left," she whispers to him. Jake's throat feels empty, thoughts rushing through his head so quickly he barely processes them before he's panicking about something else.
He pulls Amy into him, wrapping his arms around her and lacing his fingers together over her hip. It seems like Amy appreciates the closeness but if he's honest, he feels like he needs it more than she does right now. Jake kisses her temple then leans his forehead into her hair, taking in deep lungfuls of the smell of her shampoo.
"We're gonna be fine, we're gonna be fine, we're gonna be fine," he repeats quietly to Amy and himself.
Amy checks her watch again and gulps audibly. "Time's up."
They wait for the absolute longest twenty seconds of Jake's life, staring at the first test on the counter. The result appears, and clearly reads: 'NOT PREGNANT.'
Amy exhales, slumping in relief in his arms before snatching the test up and staring hard at it as if she's trying to memorise it. Finally she looks at him. "Better wait—might be a false negative."
The results come in quicker then, and the next three read respectively: minus sign, one line and 'Not Pregnant' again. (Jake is unsurprised Amy chose from several different brands of test for maximum objectivity.)
They wait for the rest anyway but after the fourth negative they can be fairly certain Amy won't be pushing a baby out of her in nine months' time. The last negative result shows up and they both look at each other, wide-eyed and weak.
"Thank God," Amy says. "I mean, not 'thank God' but… thank God."
"Yeah," Jake murmurs. "I know what you mean."
-X-
They end up on Amy's sofa together that evening; Amy lying with her head on Jake's chest and ear over his heart, his arms wrapped around her. An old episode of CSI: New York is background noise and lights up the otherwise darkness of her apartment but they're not really watching—tired from the emotional upheaval of the last forty-eight hours and wrapped up in their own thoughts.
Amy turns her head suddenly, resting her chin on his chest and opening her mouth like she want to say something. Jake stops combing his fingers through the ends of her hair and waits. "Not-" she starts hesitantly "never... though. Right?"
Jake knows immediately what she's referring to. "Not never," he agrees, smiling.