Post-5x02. Jake's first morning after he came back from prison.

(Title is from Calls Me Home by Shannon LaBrie.)

I'm Coming Home (From All the Places I Have Been)

It's not the usual music of the first of her three alarm clocks that wakes Amy up that morning, but the actual voice of someone singing coming from somewhere inside her apartment.

She's startled at first, when she hears it, still kind of stuck in that place between awake and sleep, and even a little worried – who the hell broke into her place?! – but then she turns her head, and actually sees the crumpled sheets on Jake's side of the bed, and that's when she remembers as she finally emerges completely from her sleeping state.

She's dreamt of it so many times the past few months – of him being back here, with her – that it now feels a bit surreal, that this is the truth. That he is indeed in their apartment, doing whatever he is doing presently, only a few meters separating them from one another.

For a moment she doesn't move, laying in the dark of the room with her eyes wide open staring at the ceiling, a smile growing wider and wider with each new second passing during which she just listens to his cover of a Taylor Swift song (or what she thinks she recognises as a Taylor Swift song – from where she is, she can't quite figure out the words nor the melody) until realisation suddenly hits her, and her attitude immediately changes from relaxed to completely worried.

She is the one who's always the first to be up in the mornings, and Jake doesn't even have to go to work today – not yet. Which means he doesn't have to wake up early either.

And she knows him all too well to be certain that if he doesn't have to, he won't, in any case.

Fears starts coursing through her veins, then, as she holds her hand to grab her phone where it has been put on the nightstand the previous night. Please, please, please, don't tell me I'm late… she silently prays as she presses the opening button, her fingers trembling slightly, and stares at her locked screen (a selfie of Jake and her making silly faces at the camera), letting out a sigh she's been holding when she finally reads the time written in big, white letters on top of them:

6:43am. This means she still has about half an hour before her first alarm even goes off.

All this soothes her for a few seconds only, because soon enough she starts wondering again – why on earth would her boyfriend be up before her? It wasn't really like him to do so.

And even though it was, she kind of expected to wake up in his arms, to be quite honest, after all these nights spent on her own. She missed his presence next to her.

Since she knows her questions won't be answered by her staying in bed, she decides it's time for her to leave the room as well, and join him to see for herself what he's doing. As soon as she's out of the heat of the covers surrounding her body, though, she feels a breeze of cold air on her skin, and doesn't wait any more second to take Jake's NYPD hoodie and it her on, just as she's got used to do for the past few months.

Only then does she walk towards where the sound of his voice is coming from, and stops when she finally notices him in the kitchen, his back in front of her, apparently busy with cooking something (some meal that smells pretty good, she can tell from the smell that is currently filling the whole place) while dancing and singing in rhythm.

This simple sight is all it takes to warm her fully – to watch him as he's back where he belongs, and that he seems really happy about it too.

It doesn't seem like he heard her coming, so she stays where she's standing, enjoying the view he's offering her, the grin on her face never leaving her as a tender feeling takes hold of her heart.

Though she isn't the one who's been away during this whole time, Amy still feels like she's finally home again. Truly, completely home. There's nothing – no one – missing anymore.

It's crazy, how someone can become such a huge part of your everyday life that quickly, without you realising it at first, but so much that you don't seem to remember how you were able to live before they came into your existence when you have to be apart. She's been living alone in this apartment way longer than he's been here with her, and yet she couldn't bear not having him in it with her anymore when he had to leave. It didn't feel right, then – it was way too calm, too empty.

As Jake is finally coming to the last verse of his song, he starts turning around, with a pan in his hand, and throws the pancake he's been cooking in the air, letting the words go out of his mouth as he nimbly catches the pancake back before it falls onto the floor:

Marry me Juliet, you'll never have to be alone, I love you and that's –…

"Ames!" he exclaims as he suddenly stops in his tracks when he eventually spots her, and his eyes meet hers. A big smile, similar to Amy's own grin, comes lighting his face as he goes on, "I didn't know you were up already. I was going to bring you breakfast in bed, so you're kind of ruining my romantic move, here. Would you mind going back to bed and pretend like nothing happened?"

He pouts, feigning his disappointment in her, and the other detective can't help but laugh in return to this, which immediately makes him lose it as well. They laugh so much their chests start hurting, but in a good way, for the first time in what seemed like forever to them. They're simply happy – to be here, to be together, and still so madly in love with each other despite everything.

"What's the occasion?" Amy asks when she's calmed down a bit, and has gone closer to him, now encircling his waist with her arms, and looking up at him with pure bliss in her eyes.

"Because I love you," he only shrugs, and she swears her heart melted entirely.

"I love you too," she answers, then kisses him slowly, so tenderly.

"And because I wanted to thank you for all of what you've done for me while I was in jail," he adds when they part, in a very serious tone this time.

"I told you I would never stop fighting for you," she repeats the words she's told him before he was first found guilty at his trial, and she means every word of it.

He smiles, but doesn't say anything back, simply stares at her with pure love in his eyes as he just wants to enjoy this moment they're having now, the two of them back home together.

(He wouldn't tell her right now, but this song he was so happily singing, he didn't started singing it by accident – he clearly chose it to remind himself that soon, he would ask her the question…

Marry me, Amy, you'll never have to be alone (again), I love you and that's all I really know.)