Thank you Guest(s?) for your reviews, and explanations about how it goes for visiting in prison – even though thanks to the season 5 stills I also got a pretty good view of how it'll be in the series :) It's too late to change anything now though but I'll know for later!
Anyway, here's a little Peraltiago OS I was inspired to write after seeing a Tumblr post writing "Amy Peralta", because why shouldn't it be "Jake Santiago"? ;)
"Ready to lose, Mr. Santiago?"
As she gears up for her shooting test, gun in her hand, sunglasses on her nose and noise-cancelling headphones ready to be put on her ears, Amy turns to her partner, giving him a challenging look.
"You wish, Mrs. Peralta," he replies in the same tone, insisting just like she did on the last name.
Everything started a few weeks ago, soon after he popped the question.
(Amy Santiago, you've made me the happiest man on Earth. Will you marry me?
Yes. A thousand times yes.)
Only a few hours after that, actually, as they were in their apartment, curled up in bed in the afterglow of what had been the proper celebration of their recent engagment. Amy was looking at the beautiful ring Jake had put on her finger that same evening, her heart aching with happiness in her chest and a huge smile never leaving her features, the same her fiancé was wearing as he was watching her, his dark eyes shining with true love.
"So…" he broke the silence after awhile spent like that. "What do you feel about becoming Mrs. Peralta soon?" he asked what was only supposed to be an innocent and heartfelt interrogation at first.
(What, he didn't know yet, would turn into an endless – but friendly, always friendly – fight between them.)
It startled Amy, though, who looked up to meet his eyes, brows frowned in confusion. "Mrs. Peralta?" she repeated his last words. "Why should I take your name? You could take mine as well, y'know. It's not 1950 anymore – we can actually chose which of our two names we'd like to keep."
He knew her enough to understand quite immediately, from the way she was reacting, that she wasn't joking, and was really taking this conversation very seriously.
"I know," he told her then, gently caressing her arm as he spoke, and offering her a loving smile. "But I thought that since you have seven brothers to keep your name alive, and I'm an only child… it would be only fair that we take my name. Can you imagine me having been the last of the Peraltas if I become a Santiago?! It would be such a shame."
It made her laugh (and roll her eyes a little, too), his over-dramatic way of stating the thing, and he laughed along with her. "Actually, two of them took their partner's name already," she argued, though. "And three of them still aren't married, so I can't know for sure if they'll keep our name or not."
"That still means two of them will keep it, right?"
"Yeah, but still. It's something we really need to think about," she was back to being serious about the topic again.
He agreed with her, obviously, if that was what she wanted. Even if, to be honest, as long as he would spend the rest of his life with her, it didn't really matter how they'd be called. He could even take the silliest name on Earth, if that meant he would be married to this incredible woman. He just didn't want to talk about it right now – had other plans in mind, as he just wanted to enjoy tonight without arguing.
"We have plenty of time to do it later, it's not like we're getting married tomorrow," he pulled her closer to his chest, and gently kissed her as an answer. "For now… let's just enjoy our first night as fiancés."
His kiss became more passionate then as his hand found its way to her waist, and she felt a bit bad about making such a big deal out of a such a simple and sweet question. "Sorry," she managed to say between to kisses, preventing him from kissing her once more with her palm on his chest so that she could go on with her explanation.
She stared at him a second, with a smile full of love for the man in front of her upon her face, then went on, caressing his cheek with the tip of her fingers. "To answer your initial question, being your future wife makes me feel like the happiest and luckiest woman on Earth. I love you more than anyone in the world."
"And I love you more than anyone in the world," he replied before kissing her again, and again, and again…
The topic came back on the table several times after that night, and it soon seemed like none of them was willing to come to an agreement – not because they didn't want to take the other's last name, but more because it soon went from a serious conversation to a real competition between the two – to the point that they got the whole squad involved in the affair to help them prove their point that their name was the best one.
It didn't help that much, though. When Gina and Charles undoubtedly posted themselves on Jake's side, Rosa and Terry strongly paired with Amy. Holt, him, refused to take part of this in any way.
(As for Hitchcock and Scully, they didn't even seem to understand the couple was getting married, even though they were there when the proposal was made. No need to try and seek their opinion on the matter, then.)
That put them in a dead-end. Only until the same person who didn't want to get involved in their silly argument gave them the solution one day, at the end of their morning briefing.
"I've just received our slots for the annual renewal of our shooting certification," their Captain informed his squad of the procedure. "We're going next Tuesday at 2."
He just had time to announce the news that the same idea seemed to come across both of the newly fiancés' minds as they turned to face each other in a perfectly synced move. "Y'know what that means?!" Jake asked, and Amy nodded in response, staring intently at him, never leaving his gaze.
"Yeah," she answered with conviction. "It's time for a new bet."
"Best shooter gets to keep his name," they agreed in a same voice.
They were about to shake hands when a voice cut them in their shared moment. "Detectives, this is not a competition," their boss reprimanded them. "I need you to take that test seriously."
"All due respect, Captain," the male brunette turned back to look at him, an amused grin on his face. "I couldn't take this test more seriously than I am now. The future of the Peralta name is at stakes, after all."
Holt didn't reply anything to that, too exasperated to think about something else to say. He only let out one word in a sigh, then.
"Dismiss."
Which takes us to that same Tuesday afternoon, with Amy now ready to shoot her bullets, her gun pointed at the target a few meters away from her. She quickly glances one last time at Jake before finally concentrate fully, and pull the trigger once, then several times – they have ten shoots to make in total. Everything's over in just a few seconds.
"Not bad," her fiancé acknowledges when she takes off her noise-cancelling headphones and they both look at the target, now covered with holes on its head and heart.
"Not bad?! I think you mean it's a perfect shot," the woman brags as she puts her gun back in its holster, beaming widely.
"Nah. This is a perfect shot," he replies in challenge, and she watches him as he takes place in front of his own target, gets ready just as she did before, and… puts his ten bullets in the silhouette's skull. "What do you say now, huh, Mrs. Peralta?" he teases her when he's finished, wagging his eyebrow, taking his glasses off his nose.
Amy isn't intimidated by it. "I say it's a tight," she assures. "I believe we're back to square one."
"What? No! We can't judge that by ourselves, it's unfair. We need to ask the others," Jake complains, then jockingly adds, "I'm sure they'll agree my shoot was the coolest."
But no one wants to take part of their competition anymore – except for Charles, who's way too excited since the two got engaged and thus wants to get involved in everything related to it, but since he's not really objective when it comes to Jake, they decide his vote doesn't count if he's the only one giving his opinion.
They find themselves debating alone about the rightful winner for some time then, until a voice cuts them in the middle of their silly argument. "What are you guys fighting about?" Hitchcock, who was passing by with Scully, asks. They stop in their chatting, and Jake is the one to answer.
"We're trying to know who made the best shoot this afternoon so that the winner gets to keep his name at our wedding."
"You guys are getting married? Congrats!" the older detective answers, and the couple only sighs back in desperation. It's been weeks since the proposal now, and the topic was always coming back one way or another at the precinct. So they really can't understand how he's still not aware of that pretty important fact.
They don't have time to reply with anything though, since Scully finally talks after remaining silent until now, shrugging as if he's making a really obvious statement. "Why aren't you taking both your names?"
It startles them, this question, because it's actually quite a clever and interesting comment he's making, for once, indeed. A good compromise. Something they didn't even think about before…
"Yeah… why not?" Amy is the first one to answer after considering it for awhile. She turns to her fiancé to seek his own opinion with a smile on her face. "I mean, it's a bit long, for sure, but I can totally see myself as Amy Santiago-Peralta. It sounds quite good."
"Santiago-Peralta?!" the other one doesn't wait to react, and repeat her statement. "I believe you meant Peralta-Santiago."
"Why should your name come before mine?"
"Because 'P' is before 'S' in alphabetical order!" Jake pitifully tries to argue.
It actually makes his partner laugh, and in other times she would have agreed with him on that point, but she soon becomes all serious again, and fights back. It appears they're stuck in an impasse again (even though deep down, all of this doesn't really matter, is just their way of having fun – as long as they're together, they'll be happy with whatever they chose to do in the end, and they both know that).
But for now, it's just a chance the wedding isn't planned before a few months ahead.