Boyle keeps trying to negotiate, but the men are getting more agitated. The safety on the gun isn't on, its pointed at Jake's head. Negotiation isn't working, now their main concern, get the hostage- get Jake, out of the line of fire. Jake keeps Amy's gaze. He nods slightly. They're in total sync. Take the shot Amy.

She does.

Amy's not quite sure why she doesn't remember the sound of the fire, only the echo, but the other three are running now, even as Jake drops to the ground to stay out of the way.

One of the men makes a break for the car, but as he rounds it to get to the driver's side, he runs straight into Holt, gun held steady, and pure, unadulterated anger in his normally stoic gaze. Diaz takes down the other, tackling him to the ground, and Boyle manages to corner the other, taking him into custody as well.

Amy doesn't notice all that, all she sees, is Jake, dropping to the ground. She rushes towards him, falling to her knees and helping him up. He smiles at her, and she smiles back, still in shock. His legs are bent upwards, sprawled out in front of him, his hands still tightly tied together, but his smile is genuine, and he says one word.

"Hey."

Amy wasn't used to this rush of emotion, the outpouring of pent up anxiety boiling over with relief. A psychologist would explain that the anxiety and relief are both kinds of stress weighing you down just the same, and adding up on each other regardless. All she knew was that now she was exploding.

"Hey!? You got kidnapped at three am, have been missing all day, were going to be sacrificed by some crazy native American snake cult, probably involving fire, and all you have to say, is hey!?"

He smiled at her again, and she wondered if he had even stopped smiling, either way, her heart melted at his next words, "I love you."

"I love you to, you idiot."

He actually laughed at that one, "can you?" he held up his hands and Amy let out an

"Oh!"

And quickly took out her knife to cut the ropes.

"Thanks." He kept smiling at her, "You're beautiful."

She put her hand over her heart to acknowledge that, "and you're delirious, let's get you home."

"need to get the con-" his eyelids were fluttering, but he forced them open.

"we got it already, we even got all five of the guys." At that, Jakes eyes did shoot open,

"Ames, there were seven." He smiled, finally losing the battle with exhaustion, "also there wasn't any fire…"

O0o

The other two men were picked up the next day. The old woman Boyle had befriended, called the precinct when they walked into her son's convenience store.

Jake didn't wake up until five in the afternoon the next day. He was dehydrated and tired, but other than that, he was physically fine.

Fine enough to walk into the precinct on Friday to find out Holt had requested a psych eval before he could return to active duty.

"But I literally just got one!" he wasn't doing a great job of acting like an adult, "remember, me and Rosa had to have one!"

"And then you were kidnapped by a bunch of people who wanted a human sacrifice." Holt explained it without emotion, but Amy, who stood next to Jake, had no problem with emotion right now,

"They were gonna burn you!"

"Actually," Jake couldn't stop himself from correcting, "they were going to leave me tied up in the forest for a bunch of tiny people-"

"Little People!" Boyle yelled from out in the bullpen,

Jake pointed out the door at Boyle, "that; thank you," then he continued, "no fire whatsoever, actually I was mostly just really cold."

Amy let out a yell of frustration and left the room, but Holt just stared at him.

"Fine," Jake seemed to realize how whacked out that sounded, "I do see your point, I'll get the psych eval, but that doesn't mean I'll like it."

"that is not the point of a psychological evaluation."

A/N: that about wraps this up. I do have more planned, but I'm on the fence about making them into more chapters to this, or making them into a sequel. long fics do tend to be a turn off, I don't know yet. Either way it's not even finished so don't expect them for a while. anyways, I'm not entirely happy with the ending, so I might one day come back and clean this fic up a bit. so leave a review if you liked it, maybe don't be a pissy butt about things if you didn't, and see ya'll around. Dodadagohvi!