Chapter 5: Nutcracker – Amy

Jake wasn't looking at her. He seemed excited about getting a lead from the ME, but after that, he kept his eyes out the window of her car. The sedan drifted into an uneasy silence and Amy found it hard to breath. Jake kept doing this. One minute he was joking and teasing her like he used to, then he'd shut down the next. It was giving Amy whiplash.

She wondered if the whole "son" thing threw him off. It wasn't a big deal, it's not like they had to be intimate or anything, but I guess it did make her think of possible scenarios. It was easy to imagine Jake as a father and it sparked a weird attraction to him she wasn't normally aware of. It's not that Amy really wanted kids or anything (she was still thinking about it), but she did have that weird biological clock thing that would trick you into thinking you wanted a baby despite your brain having other ideas.

She just wondered if the idea of having a child with her had freaked Jake out a little. It freaked her out a little. She felt heat underneath her cheeks.

"Get it together, Santiago!" she thought. Her having a crazy, family fantasy about Jake was not a road she was going to go down. Jake was her partner. Just her partner. And he was going to stay just her partner. They had already had that conversation and it was time for her to woman-up and get over it.

They continued their drive in silence. It wasn't until they met up with Dr. Farris at the lab that they talked at all.

"What's up, Doc?" Jake asked in his best Bugs Bunny impression. Amy sighed and rolled her eyes.

"Are you ever going to get sick of that?" Amy asked.

"Nope" Jake said immediately.

"Detectives?" Dr. Farris interjected.

"Sorry, Dr. Farris. Please, what did you want to speak with us about?" Amy asked, reverting back to her default 'teacher's pet' mode.

"Well, I got the test results back on the poison. It's a flower called Conium Maculatum or, more commonly, Poison Hemlock. It's incredibly potent and efficient. It has chemical in it called Coniine that acts a lot like nicotine in that it attacks the nervous system. If you take just six to eight leaves of this stuff your muscles start shutting down. It starts in your legs and moves its way up until you go into respiratory paralysis and die from the lack of oxygen"

"Would the killer have to export this stuff?" Amy asked.

"No. It was a plant you'd only see overseas, but you can find it anywhere now"

"How long does it take to kill?" Jake asked.

"Symptoms start in about thirty minutes, but it takes hours for the paralysis to ascend"

"Great" Jake said, shaking his head.

"What else you got for us?" Amy asked.

"Ah, yes! We found traces of cyanide on the victims' faces," referencing his clipboard, "and I found a positive ID on the third victim. Her name was Anita Hampton and she was an amateur model. She just got an agent, actually"

"Well doesn't that break pattern? Isn't Barbie like an aerobics instructor or something?" Amy asked. Jake laughed.

"Oh, Amy, so uneducated. Barbie, while being trained in many professions, since she's a woman of the world, was originally a teen model when she first debuted" Jake said and Dr. Farris nodded.

"Why do you know so much about this?" Amy asked.

"I didn't discriminate against toys, Amy. Barbie happened to be a favorite" he replied and Amy rolled her eyes.

"Ms. Hampton was nineteen so it fits pattern pretty well. No doubt in my mind this is the same guy" Dr. Farris added.

Amy took a deep breath in. It wasn't a surprise by any means. She knew as soon as she saw Anita that it wasn't a copycat. Still, the fear that he would kill again gripped her. His moves were sporadic and they had no way of gauging when he'd take his next victim. Amy felt powerless, which was, to her, the worst feeling to have as a cop. She looked to Jake, but he didn't meet her gaze.

After speaking with Dr. Farris they went back to the bullpen and called around for people who saw Kelly Fieldson last. Jake had finally gotten hold of one of her instructors who gave up the name Kayla Rodriguez, Kelly's best friend. Jake promptly called her to set up an interview.

"Hi, Ms. Rodriguez? Yeah, hi. My name's Detective Jake Peralta. We're investigating the murder of your friend, Kelly Fieldson. My partner and I were wondering if you could come down to the precinct and answer a few questions. Yeah, that's perfect. Thank you. Bye" Jake said into the phone on his desk.

"She's coming?" Amy asked from her desk.

"A-yup. Says she can be here in an hour" Jake said, his eyes hovering on his phone. Amy looked at his face and then down at her hands.

"Jake…" she almost whispered as she looked back up at him.

"What's up?" he asked, now looking at a case file. A sad frustration overwhelmed her and she shook her head.

"Nothing, never mind"

When Kayla arrived, Amy and Jake shook her hand and led her to an interview room. Kayla was a pretty girl, with caramel skin and dark hair. Her figure was elegant and Amy was impressed by how muscled her calves were. A dark cloud loomed over the girl and she brought in the aura of grief with her as she entered the room.

Jake motioned to a seat that Kayla could take and the two of them sat across from her. She looked down into her lap.

"Ms. Rodriguez, your instructor told us that you were very close to Ms. Fieldson. This whole thing must have been very hard on you. We're very sorry for your loss" Amy said, her voice soothing. Kayla looked up at her.

"Thanks" she said.

"Kayla, can you tell us the last time you saw Kelly?" Jake asked.

"Um, yeah. It was Saturday night. I had a recital and she came to support me. I mean, it was more like a showcase than a recital. It was just scenes from different ballets. We did a scene from 'The Nutcracker'. I was the Sugar Plum Fairy. It wasn't like a full show or anything, but I've always wanted to play that part and she was in the front row with a big bouquet of flowers," Kayla said, smiling at the memory, "She was always supporting me. In dance programs, normally everyone's is at each other's throats, but Kelly was always my friend"

Tears formed in Kayla's eyes and quickly fell.

"How was she that night? Did anything seem out of the ordinary?" Amy asked. Kayla shook her head.

"No. She seemed fine. All smiles and congratulations, y'know?"

"This may seem like an odd question, but did Kelly have any reason to visit a toy store? Did she have any younger siblings or cousins?" Jake asked. Kayla shook her head again.

"No, I think she was the youngest. At least, she never told me about any kids in her family" Kayla said, her words choking on tears.

Jake and Amy rattled off some more questions for the sake of thoroughness, but nothing seemed to connect Kelly to Preston Vice. Amy felt them hit another wall. After they escorted Kayla back to her car, Jake and Amy went back to the evidence board they had set up in the conference room.

They both stared at the board in silence. There was something there, but Amy couldn't find it. She sighed.

"I think we need to cover more ground. Interview more people. Do some canvasing around the toy store…" Amy suggested. Jake looked on at the board.

"Yeah, good idea" he said.

"It's all just so clean. He knocks them out, takes them to a separate location, the murder weapon is a plant which, of course, they digest, so no possibility of prints, and then he leaves no physical evidence" She said, once again looking at Jake.

"I know. This guy is good" Jake said, still not looking back at her. Amy felt her blood beginning to boil.

"Jake…" she said, her tone even.

"Yeah?" Jake asked with his eyes still on the board, refusing to look at her. Some sort of feeling that was a cross between anger and hurt and disappointment filled her bones. She was through with playing nice.

"Jake!" Amy said with poison on her tongue. Amy was absolutely done with being invisible. Luckily, her acid tone got him to look at her.

"What?!" he asked in confusion.

"Jake, you haven't looked at me all day. I'm sick of it" She said and she felt fire in her eyes.

"That's not true…"

"Yes it is! Maybe you haven't noticed, but I sure as hell notice when someone pretends I don't exist, especially since I've been experiencing it pretty heavily for the past three months" She said. The conversation took a turn she didn't mean it to go. She couldn't help it and, if she was honest, she didn't care. She was pissed.

"Look, Amy, I didn't mean to-"

"Screw what you 'meant to', okay? All that matters is what you did. Look, I know we were both trying to cope with the whole Johnny and Dora thing and I get you were trying to protect yourself, but I'm pretty sure not talking to me or looking at me for three months wasn't the best solution. At least, not for me" Amy said and she felt tears prickle at her eyes. She refused to cry, however, and blinked them back. Jake's expression changed and a softness came over his eyes.

"Amy, I'm so sorry. You're right. I just didn't want us to sink deeper into what we were already in and Amy, if we just went on as normal…"

"What?" she asked, unwilling to let him off the hook.

"I would have been in more trouble. You don't understand how much I-" he stopped himself and all of Amy's breath left her. She wasn't sure she could hear the end of that sentence. Not right now.

"Never mind. It's okay. I just can't keep working like this, okay? Just…stop trying so hard. To be honest with you, I'm not sure Holt's going to have us switch partners again, but you know what? I don't want him to. Jake, I like working with you. We make a good team" She said and smiled. He smiled back.

"We do make a good team" he said and took in a deep breath.

"Friends?" she asked and raised her hand. Jake looked at it and gave it a firm shake.

"Friends" he said and a smile spread across his lips, while a spark lit up his eyes as he looked into hers.

"And maybe, once this case is over, we should take some time to talk about…everything" she said.

"Yeah. Yeah that would be good" he agreed and Amy felt something like hope well in her chest.

AN: Here's Chapter 5 after a few days away. I hope the case is at least a little interesting. It's super hard! Chapter 6 is going to have some pretty intense developments so stay tuned for that.

Am I the only one who has that weird biological clock thing? Like, I'll see a cute kid and then my body will be all "WE NEED A BABY IN US NOW" and I just randomly want one? Even though I'm 24 and I probs don't want a kid for like 10 years. But it's legit a thing. A scary, scary thing.

Speaking of kids, I saw that someone on Tumblr did this cute fancast of Amy and Jake's kids and they named one of them Leo Robert Peralta. His middle name was Robert because that was Amy's father's name in this fic. I saw that and thought it was so cool! Haha I'm basically just a huge nerd who's very, very flattered anybody reads the weird shit I write so thanks for that!

Thank you guys so much for reading! I appreciate it so, so, so much. Please, let me know what you think and if you want to hang with me on tumblr, my new handle is talking-bird-jessie. Come say hiiiiii.