Story takes place after season 1, when Jake returns from his 6 month stint undercover.

Jake sat alone in the waiting room hallway leading to the bullpen. The night shift was on, but the precinct wasn't overly busy for a Saturday- even after tonight's major bust at the wedding. His head rested in his hands, exhausted after the evening events behind him. While slowly straightening up, he raised his right hand to run his fingers through his hair, only to be met with resistance from the gel he had combed through it before the wedding.

"Christ, I can't wait to shower this awful shit out," he muttered to himself while rubbing his face with his hands. It was 3 in the morning and he had finally finished answering what felt like a million questions, and filled out a tonne of paperwork. He didn't understand why it couldn't wait until the morning.

"Hey."

Jake nearly jumped out of his skin- and the tacky silver suit his mafia buddy Derek lent him for the wedding. He looked around to find the source of the greeting. Amy was standing 10 feet away, in civilian clothing, a little make up and a simple ponytail. Her face brought back so many memories he had been suppressing while on the job- to keep from going mad.

"Santiago... what are you doing here?" he asked, his eyes burning into hers.

She averted her gaze, nervous under his dark watchful eyes. "I, um- I couldn't sleep, so I decided to get an early start on my day." She came a few steps closer, while still looking anywhere but his face.

"It's 3am Santiago. I know I've been gone a while, but I also know you are not THAT much of a workaholic."

Dodging the subtle dig at her workhorse tendencies, she looked at him carefully, now only standing a few feet away from his bench. "Okay. Cards on the table. I wanted to check on you to see if you were okay. Are you okay Jake?"

Taken aback, Jake looked at her quizzically. He honestly couldn't remember the last time someone had asked him if he was okay.

He also wasn't entirely sure how to reply.

"I…" he paused for a few seconds, trying to think of the next thing to say. The last time he was alone with her, he completely disrupted their working relationship by admitting to feelings he had developed. Not knowing her final answer to his grand admission of wanting to be with her 'romantic-styles', right before disappearing for months, had been torture. She was, for all he knew, still with Teddy, still very serious, and looking forward to a blissful future as Mrs. Teddy Bornheimer.

He spent 6 months working his way into the good graces of the Lanucci Crime Family. He did jobs he would normally put guys away for. He saw horrible things, and often participated in them to keep up appearances. He took bribes, fixed a boxing match, drove getaway cars- just enough to get them to trust him. Afterall, they sang Piano man together, and you can't get much closer that that. There was however some pretty dark shit he witnessed- It was as though he was caught in a waking nightmare and he couldn't scream for help. Just kept his head down, and started the car.

It all came back to that question. Was he okay?

"I...I honestly couldn't tell you, Amy."

She stood there quiet for a few moments with a strange expression. She finally looked like she was about to say something,

"Jake, I'm-"

"You know what Santiago," he interrupted abruptly, "I'm honestly too tired to do this right now. My head is fucked from this whiplash of a night, my desk drawer is filled with fucking maggots, my hair is harder than a bicycle helmet and all I really want to do now is go to my apartment and sleep off the last half a year of my life. So if you don't mind, I'd like to be alone right now."

"Oh," Amy faltered, clearly hurt. "Yeah, of course, it was nothing, I just wanted to see you for myself. I'm...I'm glad you're back Peralta." With that she turned on her heel and quickly hurried down the hallway and down the stairs. He briefly caught the upset look in her eyes before she was gone.

Jake felt like an asshole. He wasn't okay; he WAS an asshole. He didn't even give her a chance to say what she clearly came to the precinct to say. He could have at least been polite to the woman he was obsessed with before starting the damn undercover op. Standing up, he began to pace. The last few months felt like a lifetime. At first, it was his dream job opportunity. For as long as he remembered, going undercover was a life-long goal.

Sure, when he began it was fun. Getting to know Freddy and the boys- pretending to be one of them was actually rather easy at the start. He always loved drama class in school, and this was the ultimate role.

Then the job got harder- the jobs became dirtier, and before long, everything started to look grey where it was once black and white. He hated being a dick to Amy, but he knew she was going to try to pick up their conversation where it left off before the mission, and he wasn't ready to hear her rejection while still trying to shake his mafia headspace.

3:15am. He decided it was time to go home. He needed a shower desperately. Between the chaos of the raid, and the 'whore's bath' he gave himself with cologne, he truly wasn't looking, or smelling, great. Captain Holt told him to take the next few days off. Normally he would try to get right back to work, but he really didn't want to talk to anyone yet about the whole thing.

He briefly considered texting Rosa. Perhaps she was still awake for one of their classic silent drinking hangouts.

"Go home Peralta," he quietly muttered to himself.

He wasn't cleared yet to have his gun and badge back, so he just grabbed his suit jacket and bundled it under his arm before walking out of the building. In an attempt to return to some form of Detective Peralta normalcy, he decided to dip down to Sal's for some after-hours, display temperature pizza. Thank fuck for New York, the city that never slept.

3 minutes after leaving Sal's, with an all-dressed slice folded in his hand, Jake continued down the quiet streets looking forward to some bad TV in bed.

He turned down the alley leading to his place, when a familiar voice echoed through the darkness.

"Look who we have here. Surprised to see you out so soon, Ladyhands."

Hey! Thank you so much for reading. This is my first attempt at fanfiction since I was about 13 (almost 15 years), so go easy on me haha. I wanted to get back into writing, so I figured this would be a fun way to practice. I don't have an editor. If anyone is interested, please let me know, because I'd love to work with someone!

I see this story going for about 5 chapters, with some Amy/Jake goodness coming soon. I love their relationship, but I always found it weird how 6 months in the mafia hardly affected him when he came back.

Let me know if you'd like more! I have the outlines of the chapters ready, so I'll post if there is even a little demand 3

Willow