A Wet Comforting "I Just Received Bad News" Hug

Despite the actual – and truly unexpected – good news they come home with, Amy's still in shock when they enter what's soon to be her and Jake's apartment.

(Not that he can really linger much into that happy thought right now.)

She goes inside the room without a word, as mute as she was during the whole ride from the hospital (and even as they were waiting back there – except for when she'd creepily break into songs from the Great American Songbook) and stops at the doorstep. She looks around for a moment. It seems as though she doesn't quite know what to do next and is stuck in some kind of trance.

Jake's heart, already shattered from the events of the day, breaks a little more at the sight she offers.

She's wearing his leather jacket and if it were another day, another occasion he would definitely find it somehow fits her better than it does him. He would make a suggestive comment about it and she'd probably roll her eyes at him while still blushing at the compliment, starting at the tip of her ears. But this is not another day nor another occasion and right now all he can think about is the reason why he gave her the jacket in the first place.

He gave her the jacket because she was cold, and she was cold because she had to take out her own coat because it was covered in blood. Their friend's blood. Who had been declared dead for two full minutes before miraculously coming back to life.

They almost lost Gina today.

"She woke up. She's stable now. It looks like she'll make it." Jake tries to remember the – reassuring – words from her doctor after all these awful hours of not knowing anything about her condition.

It took so long for them to get any update he actually got the time to helplessly witness Amy braid and de-braid her hair three times. Last time he saw her jump that quickly from one level to another in her Santiago Panic Scale was right before he got sent to Florida, and he truly wished he would never have to see that side of her ever again.

(It's better if he doesn't try and think about the moment he finally entered his oldest friend's room and saw her for the first time after the accident, though. Being alive did not mean being – nor looking – well.)

Amy's coat isn't the only piece of her clothes covered in blood. There are a few red stains standing out on her usually impeccable navy blue blouse as well. And if he looked down, he could still see the remnants of what he already managed to help her wash out her hands back at the hospital stuck under her nails. He hasn't asked for details, but it's easy to put two and two together and understand that she tried to stop the bleeding while waiting for 911 to arrive at the scene of the accident.

"Let's get you changed, okay?" He helps her out of his jacket to emphasize his words and make her move then leads her to their room.

He takes her favorite NYPD T-shirt, the one she loves to sleep in, out of her pile of fresh clothes while she still silently starts to work on the buttons of her blouse.

Her hands are shaking so much in the process though, panicking at the sight of the blood on her knuckles that he has to step in and do it for her.

"Hey, it's alright. You're alright. Gina's okay now. She'll be just fine," he tries to whisper reassuring words.

Amy watches him undress her with her eyes fixed on his hands.

"She was dead." Her voice is so low he almost doesn't hear her – but he does, and he does catch the tremors and desperation in her tone too. His heart misses a beat at the sound of it.

When he looks up at her face, he sees there are tears falling down her cheeks as she's finally breaking down. She was too in shock earlier to even cry.

"They couldn't feel her pulse. There was no pulse."

She's clearly spiralling. Her breathing is sharp and her shoulders start shaking with unstoppable sobs and although it's obviously hard to see her like that, Jake's somehow relieved she's finally letting all of her emotions go. It surely wasn't good to keep it all in for all this time.

"Shhhh." He stops what he's doing and pulls her into a hug. She immediately wraps her arms around his shoulders and buries her head into his neck.

Jake can feel the tears wetting his own shirt but he doesn't care. All he cares about right now is Amy and what he can do to make her feel better; how to take her mind off the traumatic event she witnessed.

"You heard what the doctor said." He holds her tighter and turns his head to press a soft kiss into her hair. He gently strokes her back with his hand in a comforting gesture, running up and down, up and down. "She's gonna make it. Plus it's Gina – she wouldn't let Charles be the last person whose text she reads before she dies."

He tries to joke but the words have a bittersweet taste in his mouth. The image of his best friend in a just as traumatized state of mind (if not worse) as Amy is still very vivid and extremely painful.

"It's my fault… I should have never sent that text… I should have never asked to be part of the group chat again…" He couldn't stop blaming himself.

Jake shakes his head to focus. Now's not the time to dwell on that dreadful memory. Not when he's got his girlfriend sobbing inside his arms.

The joke still seems to work though as he feels her body shake against his with a small chuckle through her tears. He counts this as a victory and smiles.

He rests his head on top of hers after another kiss there.

They remain wrapped in their embrace for a little longer until Amy eventually draws away by herself. Jake carefully studies her as she wipes some of her tears off her face then fixes her gaze on him.

She seems a lot less traumatized than before and really, it's a relief. There's nothing more dreadful than seeing his girlfriend, the woman he loves so much, in such an awful state.

"Y'know what I couldn't stop thinking about while we were waiting for some news at the hospital?"

Clueless, Jake shakes his head in response.

"About how you never watch when you cross the street and how it could have so easily been you I had to watch get hit by a car."

Again, she doesn't say but it's very much implied in her tone. Though she technically didn't see him at the time, he did get hit as well in the past – but he thankfully got a lot luckier than Gina in the process.

(Maybe if he wouldn't he would be more careful with it now. Maybe their friend would have been scared enough to never do the same mistake as he did. He knows he won't ever do it again now, after what happened to her.)

(After what Amy just revealed.)

"I–…" His own heart stops for a full second at the confession. Guilt quickly washes over him as he learns he was partly responsible for Amy's panic.

"I'm so sorry, babe." He lowers his head. "I promise I'll be more careful now. This whole thing kinda freaked me out too." Jake brings his eyes back on her to show how sincere he is about this. She offers him a smile in return; it's shy but it's still something – actually it's the first since the accident happened.

Another victory.

She slowly grabs his hand and intertwines their fingers together.

"Good. Because I couldn't bear the thought of losing you. Especially for something as stupid as that when we face danger every day with our jobs."

"I couldn't bear the thought of losing you too." He extends his free hand to her face and wipes a few remaining tears with his thumb before pulling her into another hug. "Today was so scary." He eventually lets out his own fears with a sigh now that Amy seems to have calmed down, whispering the words against her back.

He feels the grip of her arms around his body tighten after that.

"It was," she agrees as she settles herself deeper into the embrace.

(But thankfully it's over now. Thankfully another day is about to begin, a brighter future full of recovery for Gina and exciting changes for Jake and Amy as he's about to move into her apartment, taking their relationship to a whole new level.)