Inspired by the tiny peace of interview (if we can even call it that way) we got from Melissa Fumero at the TCA party the other night.
Guest, if you come back here, thank you for your review on my previous OS, that's very much appreciated! :)
I Can't Sleep Tight (When I'm Not in Your Arms)
It's been three nights since the night of the trial, and Amy is alone at her desk as she's already been the past three nights when Holt finally leaves his office way past the end hour of their shift.
He notices her there, and just like he did the past three nights, he tells her, "Go home, Santiago."
She barely looks at him as he goes on, too focused on something she's reading on her computer, "you need some rest. All of the others have left. We'll get back to work tomorrow."
It's been three nights since the night of the trial, which means three nights Jake and Rosa have spent in jail after being found guilty of some crime they didn't commit. From then, their colleagues didn't stop their efforts to try and find some evidence of their innocence – except at night, of course, when they allowed themselves to take a break.
Most of them, anyway. Because Amy never took a break.
Couldn't take a break.
"Yeah," she vaguely answers then. "I just have one thing left to do, and I'm out. Promise."
Her Captain doesn't really believe her words – it's was she's told him the past three days, and he knows for a fact, despite what she told him, that she never went home during those days – and so is tempted to stay until she leaves with him, to make sure she actually leaves with him this time, but finally decides to just nod and heads towards the elevator.
"Goodnight, Santiago," is all he says.
"Goodnight, Captain," she replies, and with no further details she's back to work.
He learns he should have followed his instincts and stay the following morning, when he's the first to walk into the precinct and finds her fully-asleep at the same place he left her the night before – at her desk, in front of her still-turned on computer and with a cup of coffee in her hand.
Apparently it didn't help a lot.
He gently approaches her not to scare her awake, and has to call her name several times and temptatively shake her shoulder before she reacts and finally opens her eyes.
"Captain!" she shouts a little too loudly, startled, while raising her head from where it was leaning before, her hair falling in front of her face. It's a good thing it's only the two of them there now.
For a few seconds she stares blankly around her, trying to recall where she is, and what time it can be. Holt uses that moment to really stare at her and all he can see is the huge bags under her seemingly tired orbs. It's clear she didn't have much rest during the past three nights.
Maybe it's even the first time she actually manages to sleep.
"I thought I told you to go home, yesterday," he simply states when she appears to be back to reality, and she can't really tell from his facial expression and his tone of voice if he's mad at her for not having done what he asked, or genuinely concerned about her well-being…
… or if he's just enunciating a fact.
She goes for a mix of the first two options. "I know, I just…" she starts her explanation. "I thought I found some lead in our case, and you know me," she giggles nervously this time, "I couldn't stop until I got some answers. I suppose I fell asleep in the process."
"Was it at least helpful, what you found?" he asks with the same still voice as previously.
"I'm afraid not. Appeared it was a dead end," she admits, defeated.
A few seconds passes before the Captain speaks again, as if he was thinking about something. "So you don't have anything to do here anymore, right? You can finally do as I asked you to – go home and have some real rest now?"
"No!" she answers a little too quickly again, and immediately feels bad for talking to her boss like this for the second time in the space of only a few seconds. "I mean," she recompose herself then, "I'm afraid I can't do that, Sir. I don't have time to go back home before the start of our shift, and we have so much to do, maybe it's better if I just stay here and start working on, you know, our let's-take-Jake-and-Rosa-out-of-jail mission before new cases come, no?"
She's so positive he'll agree with her she actually startles when he answers, "no. You're not staying here any longer. Take your day off. I don't want to see you near this precinct in the next 24 hours."
"Sir…" she wants to argue, but he cuts her off.
"This is an order. Go. Home," he insists on the last word.
At that she remains silent, but he can see her struggle with herself about whether to add something or not, and sees how she's way less confident than she usually show herself to be.
She decides to spill it out, finally. "I can't… I can't go home," she shyly confesses, breaking a little inside, with her gaze stuck on her desk. She's incapable of looking Holt in the eye right now.
"Why is that?" the man asks, somehow surprised, as he can't make out a reason to that statement.
His detective manages to look at him, then. She can't believe she's about to share what she feels deep inside with her boss, but it appears she does. She needs to talk to somebody.
And Jake isn't here to listen to her, and she doesn't know when she'll be able to see him again to speak to him about it all, so…
She takes a deap breath to give herself some sort of courage, and goes on with her explanation. "Because, you know… Jake and I may have been separated before – a lot, even – it was never like it is right now. We weren't living together at the time, so I was kind of used to go home and be alone there. I'm not anymore, and it appears I… I really got used to having him around all the time. So now every time I go back to our apartment, I get stressed out by how quiet it is without him, and I can't go to sleep because our bed is so big for only one person now. I know it's silly because it's only been three days and if I'm already freaking out, how am I supposed to get through to up to fifteen years without him but I… I don't know how he's doing on his own and I miss him, and…"
She stops there, because she can't say anything anymore. She's in tears, she notices. It's the first time she's allowed herself to break down since the trial, too focused on working on a way to get her boyfriend and Rosa out to actually think about what she was feeling. But it appears being sleep-deprived wasn't helping to keep it together right now.
She hates it though, to look that vulnerable in front of her mentor.
"Oh, I see," is all he replies however after a long pause, not really knowing how to react. "Well, maybe this will help you: I finally got you permission to see him by the end of the week."
In a matter of fact, it does help her. She needs no more than just that to make her stop crying, and actually look at him with relief in her eyes for once. "You did?!" she asks, only to make sure she heard it right.
"I did. So go to sleep and only come back when you've had enough rest. You don't want Peralta to see you like this, and freak out about you freaking out about him, do you?"
Amy knows the Captain's right. Of course she doesn't want that to happen. So she takes her stuff, and goes home. It takes her some time to finally fall into slumber but she eventually does, with Holt's words in her mind, and Jake's hoodie covering her chest.
It's nothing like his arms wrapped around her though, but she'll have to make do with it for now.
At least it still smells like him, so with her eyes firmly closed, she can imagine he's right there, lulling her like he does when she's too stressed out by some silly things to sleep.
(Until he's actually right there, really lulling her to sleep on their first night back together, and she has the best sleep she's ever had in the past three months she's spent without him by her side.)
Seriously I have absolutely no idea how being able to visit someone in jail happens so I'm really sorry if this is something that couldn't happen in real life, to be able to see someone after only one week spent there. But well, it's fiction after all, so let's just say anything can happen there x)