Just a tiny little post-5x04 fic.
Title is from Love Story by Taylor Swift. Because hey, it's Jake we're talking about. (And the lyrics pretty much sums up the story too lol.)
I Talked to Your Dad, Go Pick Out a White Dress
It's late in a Fall afternoon when Victor Santiago listens to his voice mailbox.
He's been out without his phone the whole day, and is rather surprised when he sees the missed phone call appear on his screen. Rather worried as well, when he reads the sender's name.
Jake Peralta, his only daughter's boyfriend.
He's never called him before, let alone left a voicemail, which startles him that he did so that day. A rush of panic starts coursing through his veins as he presses the button to listen to what the other man had to say then, afraid it's something serious.
Afraid something might have happened to one of the two most important women of his life.
How shocked he is finally, when Jake's recorded voice starts talking through the other end of the line, letting him know of the news -
Mr. Santiago, I'm calling you to inform you that I plan to ask your daughter to marry me, but…
He listens to the whole thing in religious silence, his heart aching a little at the thought of Amy, his Amy, his little tiger who was still just a baby not so long ago (many years ago), on the verge of getting married. In the end he can't help but smile too, though – it's true he didn't think Jake would make a good boyfriend for her at first, but it seems like he is, now.
And even if he's not perfect… the most important is that he loves her really, very much. That he could tell from the first time they met, without any doubt.
Just like he can tell his daughter does love him too, he knows that for sure – recalls desperate phone calls in the middle of the night after the detective was found out guilty, then joyful ones when he got out of jail.
(I miss him, Dad, she'd say through hurtful cries.
He's back, Dad, she'd say through happy tears.)
"Care to share what's making you smile so brightly?" a voice startles him out of his thoughts, and when he turns in its direction, leaving his gaze away from his phone he's been holding in his hand the whole time after Jake stopped rambling inside, he finds his own wife staring at him with an amused, but questioning, look in her eyes.
He's still grining when he answers her, before putting the voicemail on repeat for her to hear by herself what he means, "I think our daughter finally found the one."
She cries of happy tears in response to the perfection of her son-in-law-to-be's speech.
(Later, when Jake finally proposed and Amy calls her parents to let them know about the great news, excitation easily recognisable in her voice as she's telling him that Jake and I are getting married!, he asks to have a word with him after congratulating her. All the fear he's started feeling when his fiancée gave him the phone, not knowing what her father wants from him, is replaced by his heart simply melting out of happiness when the older man only tells him, meaning every word of it:
"Welcome to the family… son.")