Amy never really believed all of those action movies where the bullet goes in slow motion as it inches towards its final target. Frankly, she thought it was bullshit. Everyone—including her father—had always told her that it happened way too fast, that when your partner or another officer is shot, you didn't even notice until they crumpled on the floor.
They were wrong.
Before even noticing the bullet coming towards Jake, Amy Santiago had been eyeing one of the criminals who wasn't in handcuffs yet. It was all such a frenzy; no one really fully understood what was happening besides the whole throwing murderers and extortionists in jail thing. He had the familiar brown locks of an Iannuci family member, but she didn't automatically assume because most of the people in the room looked the same to her. When she finally noticed he had a gun in his hand, it was too late. She had shouted "Gun!" but the trigger was already pulled before the man himself was tugged back by two FBI agents.
The brown bullet seemed to crawl towards Jake, and as soon as Amy shouted, he turned to scope out the area. She had no idea where the bullet was headed until it was too close to move him, because he would get even more injured if she tried to change the trajectory of the metal object. Almost instantly, Jake collapsed under his own body and his hands shot towards his right lower abdomen, where there was blood pooling out of the black and white suit he was wearing.
"Holt! Officer down, I repeat, officer down! It's Jake, we need a medic," she shouted in a frenzy, and when she met Holt's eyes, he darted outside to get the paramedics. Amy took a fucking tablecloth off of a counter and pressed it into his abdomen to try and stop the bleeding.
"Ah, damn, this was an expensive suit." Peralta chuckled as he wheezed out those words with a lopsided smile that she had missed so much. Amy couldn't lose it again. Even when he was bleeding out, the detective managed to be witty and make a joke. The girl rolled her eyes at him, but was still seriously concerned about her partner. Interrupting her thoughts, a medic came and put Jake on a gurney and began to carry him out while still pushing in the cloth. There was literally no way in hell that Amy would leave Jake, so she darted out with them. After a moment of begging, they agreed to let her ride in the ambulance. After a quick goodbye to Holt, the doors closed and they took off wildly down the road.
Closing her eyes, Amy went through the prior scenario at the wedding. Where had she gone wrong? Surely, she was going to be fired for this awful mistake that has put her partner's life in peril. For a moment, she couldn't remember anything but the suit Peralta was donning becoming stained with crimson. What had the shooter been doing when he pulled the trigger? she questioned to herself. Amy recalled being suspicious of the man who was not yet restrained by officers. Oh, my god, Amy thought, he was aiming at me. She was familiar with the man's face—he was Leo Iannuci, the mobster Jake first met after he got fired from the NYPD. That was all she knew about Jake's time with the mafia, because everything was on a need-to-know basis, but it was enough to go on.
She was the reason that her partner was bleeding out in the back of an emergency vehicle, with a paramedic desperately bandaging a wound that would probably never fully heal.
She was the reason Jake Peralta was shot.
You know, Amy always hated hospitals. The chilly hallways were lined with rooms of people who were taking their last breath, saying goodbye to former friends, and crying into their mother's shoulder as they were told they had two months to live. Perhaps it was the fact that she was strolling along the tiles because she had nearly killed her partner, but that day, it seemed to be much more horrendous than prior times.
The idea of Jake shielding her from the bullet unknowingly chased her down the entire passage way of the hospital. After a few wrong turns, Amy finally discovered the waiting room sitting in an odd corner of the building. Metal chairs clashed with wooden tables with magazines sprawled across their surfaces. If there was a somewhat better chair, she would have taken it, but sadly even in the empty room there were none available. Unhappily, the detective plopped down into a chair and covered her face with her hands. Moments ago, she had been in the back of an EMS, close to tears with a blood stained vest. Now, her heart had stopped pumping so hard that there was a possibility that it would surge out of her chest and into one of the empty silver chairs across from her. Still, she was wearing her tactical gear with mostly burgundy letters that spelled out NYPD. It would be so obvious to anyone that walked in that she was a cop, but she didn't care. Peralta's near-death experience was still on her mind, threatening to override her logistics and cause her to storm into surgery just to see how he was.
The next few hours were the most boring yet anticipating of her life. Charles and Holt both arrived first, with tears pouring out of Boyles' eyes and him falling into the chair next to Amy. Holt gave a small nod to Santiago before turning away and she swore she could see the man wipe away something from underneath his eye. Rosa came running in, literally sweating because her patrol car somehow broke down 10 blocks away from the hospital, and even though Diaz was practically devoid of any emotions, she cared enough about Jake to run that far to see him. Soon, they got a call from Terry saying that he was a few minutes away, and he had to call the sitter to get her to stay for a few more hours. Once he arrived, it was as if the whole team was mourning his absence. Except for one.
"What happened and where the hell is Jake?" a familiar voice screamed as it burst through the dense door of the waiting room. There Gina was, live and in the flesh, with red eyes and hair that looked as if it had been carried away in Dorothy's tornado. Maybe it was just Amy, but the insensitive woman seemed to be a complete mess, unlike ever before. Briefly, Boyle seemed to try to pat Gina's slumped shoulders, but she flinched and his hand traveled back to his side. The mood became heavier for a while as the team sat in distressing silence, waiting to hear from the doctor. Each were consumed with their own thoughts, not even noticing when the surgeon entered the room.
Amy was the first to see the woman. She immediately hopped up from the freezing chair and leaned towards the doctor. "Is Jake alright? What's happening?" The others followed suit in standing up, surrounding her.
"Detective Peralta is going to be fine. The bullet didn't hit any major arteries or organs, but he did lose quite a bit of blood on the way here. If someone hadn't tried to stop the bleeding, he would most likely have bled out," the doctor responded sympathetically. "You can go see him in about 3 hours, when he's more stable. The patient won't likely wake up before tomorrow morning, through."
All of the officers and Gina released a breath which could only be described as of relief. While Holt continued to speak with the doctor, Amy collapsed in her chair and closed her eyes, attempting to fall asleep.
With a start, Amy woke up. She was jolted from her dreams by a light tap on the shoulder by a finger belonging to Boyle.
"Amy, we've all gone to see Jake already. You've been asleep for about 6 hours, but it's your turn to go in and take a moment with him if you'd like. We'll wait for you," he gently murmured. Amy shook her head vigorously, trying to both get a point across and wake herself up.
"No, Charles, you all go home. It's been a long night and you deserve some rest." Before he could respond, Amy turned down the hall outside of the waiting room, not exactly sure where to go. Sometime after she began on her journey, she came upon a desk where she stopped for directions.
"I'm looking for Jake Peralta. Where is he?" she questioned. The man at the counter looked down at his computer monitor before directing her to room 238. Gliding down the hallway, she silently prepared herself for what he might look like. Was he going to be pale and ugly and broken? Probably. The possibilities were endless, and it was pretty much her fault.
She pushed the door and was overwhelmed by the sight of her partner laying on a hospital bed, hooked up to all sorts of devices and machines. It was as if he himself had become a mechanical apparatus since the last time she saw him. The crumpled snack wrappers in the trash can signified that the rest of the squad had been in to visit already—more specifically Boyle. In times of stress, the man resorted to eating junk food, even though he denied it every single time that the topic came up in conversation. Thinking of her friends, Amy absentmindedly pulled the chair to the edge of Jake's bed. He seemed so serene; laying on his bed with his hand peeking out from under the covers. A ghost of a smile danced on Amy's lips as she took notice of the fingers dangling from the cot. Even though he was deathly pale and looked tired as hell, his hands were still the same.
It was a weird thing to fixate on. His hands, of course, would be the same as always. But Amy remembered Jake handing her files, passing discreet notes, making obscene hand gestures with those hands. She remembered the Halloween heist with Holt where those hands were handcuffed to a desk in the interrogation room while she stood behind the glass, smirking at the magnificent plan they had concocted. Those hands had held a box filled with all of his belongings before he walked away from the Nine-Nine six months ago. And those hands had been around her waist a few hours prior, second before a bullet penetrated his abdomen.
It's really funny to Amy how one split second can literally change the course of life. When she was 6 years old, she had seen her father take down a criminal right outside of their car as they were driving down the streets of Brooklyn, and she knew she wanted to become a detective in that moment. It was that one second where she decided what she was going to do with her life, and she ended up in a hospital room with a fellow detective who was shot in the line of duty. That, too, had changed the course of Jake's life. His life had been going seemingly perfect—he was working undercover, living in the city, and putting his skills to the test. In an instant, he was on the floor with a bloodied tux and a hole in his skin.
One of the things that Santiago and Peralta always had in common was their utter love for the job. Practically every day, Jake mentioned how he had wanted to become a detective ever since he watched Die Hard at age 11 ("It's rated R, Jake!" "I can't help it if I was an edgy pre-teen."). Through their differences, they had managed to establish this rapport with each other about a month after they became partners. By sharing stories of their childhood NYPD dreams, the two became closer as partners and colleagues. Not everything was the same about their ambitions, though. While Amy hoped to someday be promoted to captain, though, Jake was fine with staying below that rank and continuing to do amazing detective work. Sometimes, Peralta would tease her for her aspirations when he caught her daydreaming about being the one in the big office, being the one in control.
A rustle from outside the door snapped Amy out of her imagination, and she noticed the surgeon standing in the doorway, looking at her.
"Visiting hours are pretty much over, you know," the doctor whispered.
"I think I'm going to stay overnight today. Thanks, though, Dr….Freeman," Amy replied, reading the name off of the tag on the surgeon's shirt. Dr. Freeman gave Amy an understanding look of sympathy.
"So how long have you two been together?" asked the woman. Quickly, Amy shook her head.
"We're only partners at the NYPD. Not dating. But we've been partners for about seven years now," the detective shrugs.
"Oh, I'm sorry for misunderstanding. Well, I've got to go, but good night," responded the surgeon while checking her watch. After she turned and left the room, Amy settled into her chair, trying to find a comfortable position close the bed. Finally, she gave up and simply sat in the chair, with her feet propped up on a spare table. She then was facing the same direction as her partner was. The girl's eyes traveled to Jake's smooth hands, and she decided to take one in hers and lay them on the bed. As soon as she closed her eyes, Amy Santiago was out.
In the morning, she was awoken by her neck throbbing with the pain of sleeping in a metal chair. Should've asked for a cot, she thought miserably, raising her arms into the air and stretching really quickly before gazing at her watch and seeing that it was already 7 AM. She saw she had a text from Holt, telling her to take the morning off to check on Peralta. Obviously, the team didn't know she was still there. Groaning, she realized she still was wearing her sweaty tactical gear from the previous night.
"Come on, couldn't I have remembered to change?" she murmured to herself.
"I don't know, you look pretty cute in that tactical gear," a voice grumbled with a rasp. Amy whipped her head to her right, and saw Jake groggy but with both eyes open, staring at her with a slight smirk.
"Jake?"
