Post-4x22 Canon-divergence, in which Amy gets a cat during Jake's time in jail.
She hears it before she can see it, a small sound coming from behind one of the bushes nearby.
She doesn't pay it too much attention at first, lost in her own mind, sitting on the stairs leading to her building and trying to find the guts to finally go home, while one word constantly repeats itself in her head. Guilty. They found her boyfriend guilty. For a crime he didn't even commit.
They took him away from her without letting them say proper goodbyes, without leaving her the time to promise him she'll get him out of that hell place the sooner possible, and now here she is, all alone and unable to go inside of her apartment, too afraid she'll break down once she enters her house and realisation hits her.
Jake didn't come home with her.
Jake's in prison, and could be stuck in there up to fifteen years if they don't find a way to innocent him.
The sound happens again, clearer this time, and it takes her back to the reality of the moment, out of her depressing thoughts for a second. When she looks up to see where – and what – it comes from, she's met with a tiny ball of fur, its green, piercing eyes staring intently at her in fear and curiousness.
It doesn't move, simply watches her from afar. She finds herself stretching out her arm then, calling to invite it to come closer so that she can pet it.
Usually, Amy isn't a pet person. It's not that she doesn't like them – she does find most of them cute, and doesn't mind their company when she goes to someone's who has a cat –, but growing up with seven siblings didn't leave room for other animals in the house, despite how many times some of her brothers would ask their parents for it.
(The youngest of the Santiagos even tried and negotiate to trade her for a dog once, when Camila explained to him that they couldn't have one because of her allergies.)
(She still has vivid memories of the very detailed report he made of how much money they'd save keeping a dog instead of her – it'd been a real trauma.)
(Aren't love-hate relationships at the core of every family, though?)
In the end, the only pets they managed to get were goldfishes – eight on them, so that no-one would get jealous –, and it's not like they're the most caring animals.
Plus, being deathly allergic to dogs never helped her feel for them either – rather avoid them like the plague. If we don't take into account that one time she almost brought back two puppies to her place just to please her Captain, that is.
She doesn't quite now why she's so happy then, when the cat eventually seems to decide she's no threat and slowly approaches her, letting her gently touch its head when it's close enough without running away. Probably it's because she's all alone, and she needs the company right now. Probably it's because it's a good distraction, too.
But mostly, probably it's because she knows Jake would have loved this cat the instant he'd see it, and, just like a child, would have asked to take it home with pleading eyes.
She lets out a small chuckle at the thought, but in her chest her heart tightens a bit more in pain.
She knows how fond of animals he is, remembers him telling her stories of his childhood, when he'd play with her neighbour's cats because he was bored and his mother too busy to take care of him, or about that turtle his parents got him when he was young – Graham Crackers was his name, and he was his best friend in the whole world, until one day he simply disappeared and abandoned him without a warning, 'to move out with his wife,' according to Karen's words.
(Until his father actually killed him by stepping on it one morning while getting out of bed.)
(But that he found out only much later.)
She felt sorry for him when he recalled those moments with her, squeezing his shoulder tenderly in an act of reassurance, but right now, while she's herself all alone and desperate petting that cat that appeared out of nowhere, she can actually understand how he must have felt.
She lets out a long sigh. "You too are away from your family, buddy?" Amy hears herself starting talking to the little furry form, still distractedly rubbing its back.
Her fingers in its fur makes it purr in happiness, and she somehow finds the sound of it rather soothing, so she goes on confessing. "I'm sure Jake would have loved you," she says out loud what she had in mind earlier. Her voice cracks when she mentions her boyfriend's name but she forces the tears prickling in her eyes away.
She can't crack. She has to stay strong. Otherwise, if she breaks down, she won't be at her best to try and take him and Rosa out of prison.
She doesn't quite know how long she remains like this, talking to that cat about the man she loves and everything that happened that day and she kept locked inside of her until then, motivated by its purring and little rubs against her legs. Soon she finds that it really helps release some of the stress and pain she's been feeling in her core.
That's how she eventually finds the strength, when the sun starts falling down and night comes in, to stand up and go home.
The cat tries to follow her, but she gently chases it away – she's in no mood to having to take care of someone else when it's already hard enough to find the motivation to take care of herself in such a depressing situation, plus it surely belongs to someone else in the first place. She's all alone again then when she enters her apartment.
For a moment she's stuck still in the entryway, unable to make a move. There's reminders of Jake everywhere her eyes lay, from photos to objects he brought back from his own apartment to even one of his shirts lying on the floor. She feels like suffocating seeing all of this, and can sense the panic attack building up in her stomach.
Everything looks so wrong without him in there. It's not home anymore, but a strange place she hardly recognise.
She forces herself out of her trance, and goes straight to her bedroom after picking up the shirt on her way. She doesn't even take the time to change in more comfortable clothes when she lets herself fall on his side of the bed and buries her head in his pillow, his scent immediately taking over her nostrils and surrounding her as she closes her eyes.
The tears fall down her cheeks and this time she's unable to stop them.
It's a long night she spends after that. She's exhausted, but it seems like she can't bring herself to sleep, alone in that too big of a bed for only one. She gives up on having any rest after a moment lost staring at her ceiling in the dark, and gets up to find something to eat, realising just now she didn't have anything for dinner.
She looks out of her window at the life happening outside while waiting for her meal to cook, and she catches sight of 'her' cat still wandering about in the street.
She almost goes out to pick it up, suddenly feeling scared it'll get hit by a car, but finally decides against it and simply goes back to her late-night snack.
She sees it again often after that day, on her way for work or back from it, and it soon becomes an habit of Amy's to stop and take a moment to pet the cat and talk to it, updating it on the case or simply telling it about what it feels like being without Jake – it sucks, mostly, and it's hard, so hard not having him by her side.
Sometime she even gives it food, when she finds the courage to actually cook something instead of just ordering some takeout on her way and makes too much of it for herself, not used to a life as just one anymore.
She knows she might look crazy to anyone who passes by and sees her talk to a cat that clearly can't understand what she's saying and couldn't care less about it anyway, but she doesn't mind what those people might think of her, because doing it is actually the one thing that keeps her sane.
The more times she pets it, the harder it tries to follow Amy home when she decides she had enough of her 'purr therapy' (that's a real thing, she read about it somewhere not long after she started this new routine and wanted to get some information about cats), but she never gives in and allows it to do it.
Until she does.
It's late at night when Charles gives her a ride to her apartment after they traveled to South Carolina to visit Jake in prison for the first time. As if matching her sad mood, rain is pouring down outside, and as soon as she gets out of her colleague's car after a last thank you and goodbye, she rushes towards her building not to get too wet.
But, before she has the time to find her keys and go inside, she hears it. A small meowing she's come to recognise now – it sounds more desperate than usual, though.
She turns around then, and finds herself face-to-face with 'her' cat, as if it's been waiting for her the whole time, completely soaked and freezing in the cold air of the night. Its eyes are shining in the dark, and it watches her with such a look she doesn't think twice before letting it follow her this time, taking pity on it.
She'd never forgive herself if it'd get sick because she left it in the streets under such a bad weather.
She forces it to remain in the hallway for a while though, when she enters her apartment, in search of a towel to dry it. There's no way she's going to let it dirty her floor and whole house with its filthy little paws while wandering around.
"Don't get used to this, buddy," she warns it when she feeds it with some chicken leftover she found in her fridge and it takes it in its mouth, happily purring. "It's only for tonight. You're coming back where you come from tomorrow morning."
All it does in return is to purr more, and let out a meow hearing the sound of her voice.
She sighs, leaving it there while she goes change into something more comfortable, then sits on her couch. For a moment she stares at the black screen in front of her, unable to find the strength to put on the TV, memories of the previous day coming back to her mind now that she has nothing to keep her busy anymore.
She truly believed that seeing Jake again would brighten her mood a bit. And it did, at first. As soon as she led eyes on him for the first time since they had to go separate ways, a weight in her heart disappeared, and when he didn't waste one second to take her in his arms to greet her, it felt like she was finally breathing again.
But then they had to let go, the warden telling them that it was enough touching time, and that's when reality hit her hard again.
He wasn't free of doing whatever he wanted, not even something as simple and inoffensive as hugging his girlfriend.
He was in jail.
During their whole hour of visiting time, while catching up on everyone and everything – mostly his case, though –, he tried to look contented and not too destroyed by his current situation, and he did such a good job at it that someone who didn't know him as much as Amy did could have been fooled by his behaviour. But she didn't.
She could read in his eyes and every movements, the way his hands were shaking and how he tried to make jokes and force a laugh that he was nothing but okay.
And of course, seeing him like that killed her too – more than simply guessing how he was doing, like she had been doing before. Because it was real, this time – not just some assumptions she could always chase away by lying to herself with some 'maybe you're wrong, maybe he's adjusting just well and there's nothing to worry about.'
Who did she try to fool, though? He's a cop in prison. Of course there's something to worry about, even though they put him in protective custody.
Amy's suddenly taken out of her depressing thoughts by something climbing on her lap. She looks down, and watches as the cat, that must have gotten on her couch at some point without her noticing, too lost on the reminiscence of her weekend for that, makes itself at ease on her knees, purring when it finally finds the perfect napping spot.
Her first instinct is to want to push it away, worrying about her couch and not wanting the pet to leave hair on it, but it seems like she can't bring herself to do it, watching it as it looks so happy to be warm and cuddling against her, with its eyes closed. All of a sudden, she's frozen in place, afraid she'll disturb its sleep if she moves.
Plus she could use some purr therapy right now, after the long weekend she had. It already works, she can sense her body soothe at the sound.
For a long while she remains like this, simply listening to its purring while watching the cat sleep, the both of them surrounded in complete silence, until she has to get up and go to bed. And, if she gave in and let him use the couch, there's no way it's going to follow her in her room, so she makes sure to close her door before tucking herself under the warm covers.
(Not as warm as Jake's body against hers, though.)
Just like every night, she tosses and turns in her bed in hopes that she'll finally manage to get some real, refreshing sleep. But, every time she closes her eyes, she can't help but picture Jake, all alone and miserable, in his own tiny bed in his cell, and it prevents her from relaxing enough to properly doze off.
She's wide awake then when she suddenly hears the creaking of her door opening, and the sound of little paws resonating on the wooden floor. She doesn't have the time to wonder and check out what's going on, because only a few seconds later, the cat she took in is jumping on her bed and immediately coming towards her.
It curls up against her side without question, and once again she forgets about her convictions, keeping it close to her with a sigh and a shake of her head.
Clearly, that little monster knows how to get whatever it wants.
But, when for the first time in days she's startled awake by her alarm the next morning, she has to admit she's glad it didn't obey and joined her in bed, because for the first time it seems like she managed to get some true rest. It's still sleeping when she leaves the room, but it soon comes into the kitchen when it smells food.
"You have to belong to someone," Amy tells the cat as she watches it watch her eat. It's way too close to humans to be just some stray animal.
She's thought about it a lot, for the past days, every time she would see it in her streets. Maybe it got lost and its owners are looking for it right now, worried sick that something happened to it, seeing that it's not coming back home.
That's how she finds herself taking pictures of the cat and printing posters of it, putting them all around her neighbourhood on her way to work after she took the pet back where she found it. She can't keep it if it already belongs to someone else.
(She can't keep it at all, she quickly corrects herself.)
After a week and still no call of anyone claiming for their cat, she has to come to the conclusion that it is a stray cat indeed. Or that its owners just don't care about it anymore, and won't take it back if they did lose it. Maybe they didn't even lose it. Maybe they simply abandoned it.
Amy won't say it, but she's relieved no-one came and took the cat away from her – every time her phone would buzz during the past week, she'd be afraid this was it – someone telling them the cat was theirs. As weirdly as it can sound, it grew on her, after all the 'conversations' she had with it.
She would have been sad if we'd taken that away from her too, after taking her boyfriend first.
What was supposed to be a 'one-night rescue' quickly turns into letting the cat in more and more at night then, until she even keeps it there during the day when she's at work and it doesn't seem like wanting to move from her couch, quietly curled up in there.
"I think it's time to find you a name," she tells it one night while he's comfortably lying on her lap and she's petting him. She feels a bit better, having it around. She has less time to let her mind being drown into depressing thoughts about Jake and how he's doing, all those miles away. And its presence really makes her feel less lonely.
She still misses him like crazy, of course. This doesn't change. Will never change – not until he's back home and safe by her side.
So much so that the first name that comes into her mind for her cat is inspired by him when she looks around and her gaze stops at a bag of nuts laid in the kitchen.
Flashes of the night she lost their very first bet and he took her out on the 'worst date ever' take over, and a small, nostalgic smile appears on her features at the thought.
Nuts?
Only if you throw them.
"I know. What do you think of Peanut? You like it?"
Of course the animal doesn't respond in any way, simply goes on purring at her touch. "Peanut it is, then," she decides, never stopping combing her fingers through its fur.
After that day, she fully acknowledges that Peanut is all her own and she officially adopted him.
Finally, eventually, the nightmare ends and Jake walks free out of prison after two months spent in there. Of the few times she saw him, and all the times she got him on the phone once he managed to get one in jail, she somehow forgot to mention her adopting a cat.
That's why, when they come home after a long travel from South Carolina, he's startled when he's greeted by the small animal as soon as he opens the door.
"What's that?!" he turns to Amy and asks her with a puzzled look on his face, pointing at the cat.
"That's… Peanut," she sheepishly tells him, realising just now her mistake of not talking to him about it before. "I found him outside our building the day I came home after the trial and I didn't feel like going home just yet, and I… somehow go attached to him and ended up adopting him after no-one claimed him as their own."
Jake watches her without saying a word, only studying her intently, and something inside of him breaks.
She must have felt so alone, in that apartment of theirs…
He takes a step closer, still silent, leaving his small suitcase behind, and puts his now free hands on her girlfriend's waist, pulling her towards him in a long, loving kiss.
"I missed you so much," he whispers only afterwards, their heads still leaning onto one another with their eyes closed.
"I missed you so much too," Amy answers.
They remain like this for a while, until they're interrupted in their moment by a little meowing – it seems like Peanut wants some attention too. The two lovers let out a laugh when they look down at the cat rubbing against their legs, and Jake draws himself from the woman to meet his height.
"Hi, buddy," he calls as he starts petting him, and immediately the cat comes curling against his side, which makes the detective smile.
Amy watches the scene with a broad smile of her own and some tears prickling in her eyes – she still can't quite believe the nightmare is over, and Jake is back home.
"Are we keeping him, then?" he takes her out of her stare with his question, looking back up at her with shining eyes.
There's the pleading look she imagined him wearing when she first met the cat, she thinks, and she can't help but chuckle. "I mean, if you don't mind…" she trails off, though she's positive he really doesn't – quite the opposite, even.
"You kidding?! I always wanted to have a cat!" he confirms her thoughts.
He seems really excited by the idea, as he quickly stands up and kisses her again.
"He'll be like… our first child," he jokingly says as he watches Peanut, his arm around Amy's waist and her head lovingly resting on the crook of his neck. Her heart simply warms up at his word. It's not the first time they're talking about their future and a potential family, but the possibility of fifteen years in jail obviously put those things on hold during his time away.
Not anymore, thankfully. He's here, now, and ready to start a new adventure together.
(Charles seems to agree with his best friend, when they let their colleagues know about the news of having adopting a cat later at the precinct, shooting in dire happiness that having a pet is the first step before them becoming actual parents.)
As days pass and routine takes its place again in their home, it soon becomes obvious Peanut loves Jake. It's always on his lap he jumps when he and Amy are watching TV on the sofa, and at his feet he sleeps, now that there's no more space available next to the woman on the bed ever since the detective came back and she's literally glued to him, never letting go of him.
She knows it's silly, but she can't help but feel a bit jealous and betrayed by her cat, that he would prefer her boyfriend's company to the actual person who rescued him.
When she lets him know of the fact, Jake simply teases her about it. "Sorry babe, but I tend to have that effect on everyone," he tells her, before adding with a wink, "You of all people should know that by now."
And indeed she can't deny she does. She loves him so much too.