When Everything Falls Apart (Your Arms Hold Me Together)
Usually, Jake likes the color red, especially on Amy.
It's a shade that suits her well – the color of the dress she wore on their first date, he perfectly recalls, and God knows how gorgeous she looked in it.
(She always does.)
But right now, as his wet, puffy, red from crying too much, eyes try and scan the place in search of his girlfriend in the middle of the bustle, and all he can lie his gaze upon are the blinding red of the ambulance's lights or the dark red of stains of blood on the road, he finds the color quite suffocating to watch, and almost sickening.
Obviously, with his job, it's not the first time he's called on the scene of an accident – it is the first time the injured civilian lying unconscious on the street is his oldest friend, though.
("Gina got hit by a bus," Amy's trembling voice said through the phone, asking, pleading him to hurry up there, needing him, needing his support, completely shaken up from the horror she just witnessed.
"She's not breathing. She's not breathing!" He could hear Charles panicking by her side in his conversation with 911 and in contrast to the woman's lack of life getting out of her lungs, Amy's own breathes became louder, quicker on the other end of the line.
Jake ran, the fastest he ever ran, the tears falling like water from his eyes with each new step he took until he stopped in front of the perimeter, already locked by officers and emergency doctors.)
When he finally spots her, Amy's wrapped up in a blanket, sitting on the cold floor of the pavement with her arms curled around her knees, staring blankly into the distance, barely acknowledging the man in front of her trying to talk to her and calm her down, in shock. His heart misses a beat, hurting a little more in his chest at the sight of his girlfriend like this, but he tries his best to repress it all.
He removes the salty pearls from his cheeks with the back of his hand and lets out a deep sigh before joining her.
Usually, Jake likes the color red, especially on Amy.
It's a shade that suits her well – except when said red color comes from their colleague's blood and covers her hands, her blue shirt, and even some spots on her face and hair like it presently does, he notices first when he finally reaches her.
("Way to go, Char–…"
"GINA!"
Gina's body got thrown away a few meters with the impact of the huge bus against her back and, after one full, silent, dreadful second standing still in absolute shock, her friends left their spot and hurried up to her side, kneeling next to her, Amy's hands working their way to cover the other woman's bleeding wounds and stop the flow on pure instinct, unable to think straight otherwise.
"Stop staring and call 911!" she shouted at Charles to make him move and do something, taking out her own phone from her pocket.)
"Sir, please, I'm gonna have to ask you to step aside. This woman here needs space," the doctor by Amy's side brings Jake back from his own staring trance, preventing him from getting any closer to her with a wave of his arm.
"She's my girlfriend!" His tone may be a little too harsh – after all, the other man isn't supposed to know who he is, and all he wants, just like himself, is Amy's well-being – but it's hard for the detective to keep his calm under such conditions. One of his best friends is stuck between life and death while the woman he loves is clearly in a state of shock and on a verge of a panic attack.
If he can't do anything about the first one's state, he can and definitely will help the second by being here with her, and no one will stop him from doing so.
Thankfully, he doesn't have to argue more, because when he lowers down in front of her to meet her level, Amy finally lets out her first word in a while, whispering his name, her eyes filling with tears as she buries herself into his open arms, sobbing against her boyfriend's chest, letting go of every emotion she's been feeling until then. And he tries, he really does, to stay strong, to be the shoulder she can cry on and needs so much right now, stroking her back gently with his palm spread wide over her blanket, up and down, up and down, while pulling her the closest he can into his embrace, but hearing her, seeing her like this, only makes him cry along with her, hiding his head in the crook of her neck, wetting her long, raven hair in the process.
They can't lose Gina.
They must be quite the sight, wrapped up in each other, trying to fight the pain away by closing themselves off this cruel world and holding onto each other as if life depends on it, all alone in their corner now that the doctor went and left them be without them even noticing it, going to check on other possible traumatized passers-by while his coworkers still take care of the victim lying on the floor, taking all the precautions they need before moving her and bringing her to the nearest hospital.
They must be quite the sight, wrapped up in each other, but they don't even care, because right now it's the only thing keeping them from going crazy and preventing their depressing thoughts to suck them into the darkness, this reminder that they still have each other – will always have each other during those harsh times they have to go through.
They can't lose Gina.
While still hugging his girlfriend, Jake can hear Charles moan somewhere in his back, blaming himself for what happened. It breaks him a little more than he already is, tightening his grasp around Amy's body at the sound of his weeping best friend, and he has to fight all of his better instincts not to stand up and take him in their embrace as well – Holt and Rosa are with him, he reminds himself, hearing them too tell him this is not his fault.
That's their job – his is to take care of Amy presently, who needs him more than anything and anyone – and to be perfectly honest, he needs her and her only right now too.
None of them know how long they remain like this but after a while, their captain comes to them, putting a hand on Jake's shoulder to make him look up, ending their moment.
"They are taking Gina to the hospital. Do you need a ride?"
"Thanks, but we'll take my car. We'll join you there," Jake answers after one shared glance with Amy, who's still trembling inside his arms, reading into them she'd rather be alone with him. Holt only nods in return without question before leaving the pair, taking Rosa and Charles with him – Terry's already on his way.
"Hey." Jake gently brushes his thumb over Amy's cheek once it's only the two of them again, attempting a shy smile at her while he puts his whole attention back on her and removes a tear from her face, along with a stain of still fresh blood. "She's gonna be just fine, okay? It's Gina – she'll never agree on going like this, hit by a dumb bus. She'd be too ashamed."
He tries to crack a joke, whispering reassuring words into her ear, and it seems to work for a moment as Amy lets out a small chuckle in response. The sound of it makes Jake's smile turn a little brighter, and his chest hurt a little less.
He kisses her temple then, pulling her close again. "She's gonna be just fine…" he repeats one last time – and he wants to believe it's true.
Amy doesn't say anything back right away, simply shuts her eyes as she lets herself melt into her boyfriend's warm embrace. Until eventually, she opens them again, studying Jake's face when she speaks again, a new glint shining in her wet gaze, voice hoarse and barely audible, her fingers intertwining with his, holding tight. "I love you so much."
"Me too. I love you so much too."
He presses his lips on hers this time, softly. Then, after another few seconds spent like this, he invites her to stand up with him, so that they can finally go to the hospital, where Gina and the rest of their squad are waiting for them. The drive there is spent in silence, and most of the time they remain in the waiting room as well, sharing short, worried glances and Jake's knuckles pressing into Amy's thigh in stress and impatience while she plays with her hair, unconsciously starting to braid some stains together.
That is, until a doctor comes in and tells them the news.
"Your friend's alive." And the whole room, filled with Gina's friends and colleagues, lets out a relieved sigh at once.