#i originally wrote this almost exactly six months ago but edited it for the occasion

[mental-about-you-too]

For the last six months, my overwhelming feeling has been: we should know better.

For centuries, the Jewish people didn’t have a nation-state--we had a diaspora. And a big part of Jewish identity and culture is born of that diffuse geographic situation: we didn’t have nationalism to hold us together, so we held together through spirituality, history, tradition, language. Now we have a nation-state, and guess what? Turns out we can be just as xenophobic, territorial, and violent as the nation-states that persecuted us throughout our history.

We celebrate hanging Haman on the very gallows he set up for Mordechai. We symbolically mourn the death of the Pharaoh’s first-born, but we acknowledge it as the final blow that facilitated our liberation. We are the children of the Maccabees. This isn’t to say that these are examples to emulate, only that our mythology and history are full of resistance in the face of tyranny, persistence in the face of persecution. If all we have learned from the legacy of antisemitism is self-preservation, then we have missed the more universal lesson: do not persecute people because their identity differs from yours, and do not underestimate the underdog.

When is Israel going to look in a mirror, and recognize our old oppressors in its own face?

We (I’m speaking not personally, but historically) have experienced oppression, ghettoization, dehumanization, and state-sponsored violence. We carry that generational trauma. We should know better.

To deny a people liberty, systematically impoverish them, and keep them under siege for years and decades; to demand that a million civilians evacuate their homes overnight, but prevent them from traveling safely and restrict them so severely that they have nowhere safe to go; to bomb a dense population center, while cutting off access to food, water, medical supplies, and electricity; to send in air strikes as hospitals run out of power—how could you look at such cruelty, and imagine it to be anything other than an attempt to destroy a people, body and spirit?

And Jews know the legacy of persecution with the goal of annihilation. We know the sorrow, the horror, the resilience.

This Passover, I’m giving to the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund. Because what Israel is doing is wrong. Because what the US is aiding and abetting is wrong. Because on this holiday celebrating liberation, I’m watching a government commit genocide while claiming to represent my people.

Because my people should know better.

[atsixesandcevans]

you keep me holding on

Summary: The nights were always the hardest. 

Pairing: Jake Peralta/Amy Santiago

Word count: 2.8k

Warnings: angst, fluff, mentions of suicide, Jake having a hard time in prison and literally the most cliché ending ever

A/N: so I originally posted this to AO3 like 2 years ago and honestly I completely forgot about it until today when i went to cross-post my past works here... it starts off canon-divergent and then becomes convergent bc s5e2 came out so. Title comes from Holding On by Simple Plan. Hope you enjoy :)

Read on AO3

The nights were always the hardest.

During the day, he could distract himself – with books, basketball, increasingly disturbing conversations with Caleb – but during the night, all he had were his thoughts, disturbed only by the echoed screams of another inmate’s nightmare, the uneasy squeak of the mattress springs underneath him, the rhythmic thud-thud-thud of the guard’s boots on concrete as he patrols the cells.

And nights like these, the nights after visiting day, were the worst of all.

Prolonged periods – three weeks to be exact – without Amy here meant that Jake could develop coping strategies; the pictures on his cell wall, the endless lists of what he’ll do when he finally gets out of here, but on visiting day…

Jake had thought that those days would be a relief, a sort of respite from his invasive thoughts, and they are – until Amy leaves. Because when she leaves, the deep-set sense of longing he feels is increased tenfold, and the twenty-second touching time allowed is suddenly nowhere near enough, and instead of thinking about the endless possibilities of what he could do when he gets out, he thinks about the endless things he can no longer do, didn’t get the chance – and now may not ever get the chance – to do.

His longing is helped by the recent addition of Jake’s illegal phone, but even with that, one of them has to end the conversation; whether it’s Amy being called away for a case, or Jake being summoned for mealtimes, their conversations are never enough and always disjointed and sporadic and tainted with certain tenseness and apprehension stemming from the overarching fear – fear of being caught, fear of being targeted by the countless prisoners that Jake himself had put away, fear of never catching Hawkins and having to spend a full fifteen years apart with only hour-long visits once every three weeks.

It’s these fears that Jake finds invading his thoughts late every night, on visiting days in particular, but it’s also everything Jake misses. Trivial things, mostly, like Die Hard and orange soda and Sal’s Pizza, but it’s the other things that dominate his mind. The way Amy’s skin feels against his, how safe he felt in her arms, even down to just how much he loves her, in ways he’s never loved anyone else before, and the way he’s so sure of how much she loves him, despite everything. Despite the separations, the difficulties and the differences they’ve managed to overcome, there’s also the milestones they’ve reached and things they’ve achieved, that they’ve achieved together.

What he wouldn’t do just to be together with her again, just to be near her, to feel her warmth radiating beside him as they watch Friends and Grey’s Anatomy reruns on TV late into the night, or to be sat at his desk at the precinct and glance up at her sat opposite him, the brand-new ‘Sgt. Amy Santiago’ name plaque sat pride of place next to the phone, only to find her already looking at him, an almost shy smile gracing her lips, one he returns, cheeks remaining warm with absolute contentedness even as he goes back to doing his work, safe in the knowledge that he has her, and she has him, and that that was all he needed to keep him grounded.

Sometime around his fourth month in prison, the night before Amy’s sixth visit, Jake had had a Bad Night.

He doesn’t use the mental capital letters lightly – after all, as far as he’s concerned, every night in prison is a bad night. But this particular night was Bad. Everything that could happen during a nine-hour period in a prison did happen, each event seemingly worse than the one before including, but not limited to, his phone being found, confiscated and destroyed by the guard on duty, another inmate hanging himself, and a fight in the cafeteria which the cop in Jake had tried to break up, but ended up being dragged into.

He tried to be happy and cheerful as he usually was when visiting time rolled around, but he just couldn’t muster the energy, and the bruised cheek and split lip made it hard to form any kind of convincing smile.

Amy noticed this change in him – of course she noticed, she’s an amazing detective-slash-genius, not even detective RightAllTheTime can fool her into thinking everything is just hunky dory and exactly how they ought to be. In any case, Amy tried her best to keep the conversation light and away from heavy topics like death and the overarching, boundless topics of Guilty On All Charges and Fifteen Years In Prison, and Jake loved her even more for it – if that was even possible at this point – but Jake just didn’t have it in him.

The visiting period ended just the same as it had every other time; they hugged for as long as the guard would allow, gave each other watery smiles full of longing, and reluctantly parted ways; Jake back to his cell or the yard or the library or whatever he was doing before going to see Amy, and Amy back to her car, where she would sit for five, ten, sometimes fifteen minutes, trying not to cry, and traying even harder to make her muscles move in the way she needed them to in order to leave the prison car park and drive away. Away from him, back to her – their, it was still theirs, she refused to believe otherwise – empty apartment, that was once just as empty, but was suddenly full of life and love and happiness but has now returned to its original state, except she has another person’s things there now, another life living there with her. There were still sneakers and shirts and hoodies strewn everywhere but without him there, it all seemed pointless.

And so, she did what she does when she needs to channel her emotions; she wrote them down. More specifically, she wrote them down in a letter – to Jake. Unlike other occasions, though, she didn’t go back and re-read and edit it to make it as concise and elevated as she could possibly make it. No, she wrote it, folded the paper and sealed it immediately in an envelope which she left on the side table next to the front door, telling herself she’d give it to Jake the next time she visited.

Two days later, they caught Hawkins.

She – and apparently the rest of the squad – had absolutely no idea how Captain Holt knew all that stuff about the pig-rearing but she had to admit, it was a damn smart plan.

Amy could see how she would have idolised Hawkins, just as Rosa had. You know, if she hadn’t framed her boyfriend and her best friend for crimes they didn’t commit and left them with a 15-year prison sentence and become the one person Amy hated more than anyone else on the entire planet.

The Welcome Back celebration at Shaw’s lasted well into the night and when they stumbled home to their apartment in the early hours of the morning, the letter sat forgotten on top of the table, despite them bumping into it and each other repeatedly, refusing to let go of each other out of… what? Relief, at being able to finally touch each other again? Or fear, that they’ll only be ripped apart again, perhaps in a manner even worse than six months undercover, an indefinite amount of time in WitSec, or the prospected fifteen years of only being able to see each other for an hour every three weeks, watched carefully by guards making sure they don’t exceed their touching time?

They remained touching for the entirety of the next day, made infinitely easier by the fact that they had been given the day off and hardly left their bed. They did everything they had both been craving for the months he had been away; they hugged, they kissed, they talked, they loved, and left the world of jail and cells and gangs far beyond the walls of their bedroom.

It was around midday when Jake found the letter.

Amy was dozing, and he felt his stomach rumble, so had gotten up, pulling on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt and wandering into the kitchen, praying that Amy had kept hold of some orange soda and gummy bears, pleased when he found both in the cupboard that was kept exclusively for Jake’s junk food. He was stood in the kitchen, munching and drinking, enjoying the feeling of just being there, being home, when he spotted the creamy white envelope against the deep brown of the dresser. Overcome with curiosity, he went over to see what it was, stopping short when he saw his own name on the front. With a quick glance over his shoulder to check Amy wasn’t up yet, he carefully peeled the flap open and removed the letter from inside to find Amy’s handwriting covering the neatly-folded paper.

 Dear Jake,

 I’m not sure what the purpose of this is. I guess I’m just feeling so much, and this is the best way I know how to unload all of that feeling.

 One of the things that I hoped and prayed prison wouldn’t take away from you was your liveliness and optimism of life. It was fine for the first few months, then something… changed. Something happened. I don’t know what it was, or why it was, but one visiting day you were your usual self – more tired and run-down, sure, but still you – then the next, you weren’t. You were exhausted, you were banged up… you were struggling. And that made me sad, to see that Jake, my Jake, had had his light taken from him.

Jake felt a small pang of guilt. No one has the right to make her sad. Especially him, who made a silent promise to himself that he would never do that.

 Now, before you try to tell me that you’re sorry, that you didn’t mean to make me sad, that you should’ve tried harder to seem normal that day… don’t. Because it’s not your fault. It’s Hawkins’. It’s prison’s. It’s whoever’s fight you were trying to break up.

He could still feel the dull ache in his ribs where they’d kicked him, the sting of his lip that had nearly completely healed now. Yet that fight feels like a distant memory now.

 That’s why I’m writing this. To tell you that none of it is your fault, that we’re going to get you out, that we’ve been working tirelessly to get you home and back to us. Back to me.

And it worked, they did it, they brought him and Rosa home. He knew they could do it, but still felt shocked when the warden came and told him they’d caught Hawkins. That he could go home.

 Just, hang on in there, okay? Just hold on. We’ll get you out, and we can get things back on track.

 I love you. So, so much.

 Amy xx

His mind wandered to the small, seemingly insignificant velvet-covered box hidden away in the toe of one of his sneakers, somewhere Amy wouldn’t find it, and thought about that their life would be like now if he hadn’t been sent to prison, if they hadn’t have been split apart once again.

Get things back on track.

He knew exactly how to do just that.

Almost two weeks later, everything was finalised.

He and Amy had both managed to get the day off work after spending several days and nights at the precinct working on a particularly tough case that they had finally managed to crack, bringing down a small drug cartel with it.

Jake convinced Amy to agree to go out for dinner, as a ‘celebration’ for solving the case, but refused to tell her where, claiming it to be a surprise.

At exactly 6:55, five minutes before their reservation, they pulled up outside the restaurant, and recognition washed over Amy at the sight of the red awning lit by warm lights; Bouche Manger. AKA the location of their undercover date that ended in two undercover kisses and, eventually, the for realz one the day after.

“Jake, why did you bring us here?” Amy asked, slightly disbelieving, slightly nostalgic.

“Well, I figured that last time we were here, we didn’t exactly get to enjoy it… being undercover and all. Also we gotta get accustomed to French cuisine if we’re gonna take that trip to Paris,” Jake replied with a smile and a wink, before hopping out of the car and running round to the passenger side to open the door for Amy.

They waited at the hostess stand, just as they had before, but this time, the way Amy held Jake’s arm and kissed him on the cheek were for real. They weren’t acting anymore.

They were seated at a two-person table in a different part of the restaurant than before, in a slightly more secluded corner with candles and champagne sat waiting for them on the table.

Conversation and mood remained light throughout the meal, and once they had washed everything down with the last of the champagne and were leaving the restaurant, Jake suggested that they take a walk; the night air was cool but not cold, and the sky was clear, showing various constellations.

They wandered at a comfortable pace for around half an hour, and Amy was about to suggest that they start to head back towards the restaurant when they rounded a corner to another area that was vaguely familiar; a park, at the centre of which was the tree they had hid behind to spy on Augustine when he made the drop. Except, ow the bushes and trees surrounding it were dotted with slowly twinkling fairy lights and lanterns, the grassy floor sprinkled with rose petals.

Amy stared in wonderment at the scene, but when she turned to question Jake, he was on one knee at the base of the tree, something small and cube-like grasped in his hand, rendering Amy frozen.

“Amy Santiago,” Jake started, with a nervous smile. “Ames. I’ve never been good with words or emotions, you know that, but… there are so many things I want to tell you, things I’ve wanted to tell you for god knows how long. Things I thought I wouldn’t ever get the chance to tell you. You are the most… incredible woman, smart, beautiful, and so much better than me that I still constantly ask myself what the hell you’re still doing with me, what you see in me, and I’ve never been able to figure it out, so I began thinking of all the reasons I’m with you.

You make me a better person, both in terms of how I act but also in the things you’ve taught me. Like all that useless grammar stuff you’ve taught me?” they both laughed at this, and Amy’s eyes began to water.

“Do you know what kept me going when I was undercover, in Florida, and in jail?” Amy shook her head slightly and Jake gave her a watery smile full to the brim with adoration. “It was you. The thought of you was what got me through each day in hell, the thought of coming home to you, even when we were just friends. You kept me holding on.

“We’ve been separated more than our fair share of times, and I don’t want to risk that happening again. All I’ve wanted since I got out was to do what I’ve wanted to do for months now.” He finally tore his eyes away from Amy’s and looked down at the box in his hands, opening it to reveal a delicate silver band with in-set jewels that glittered in the warm flickering light of the lanterns. Amy couldn’t help the small gasp that escaped her lips at the sight of it, one hand going to her mouth in a futile attempt to stifle it.

“Amy Santiago,” Jake’s voice cracked a little with emotion and the strength it was taking not to cry. “I love you more than I have ever loved anything or anyone in my life, and I want to spend the rest of my life loving you. Will you marry me?”

All Amy could do was nod, pulling Jake to his feet so she could kiss him, hug him, both finally letting their emotions run free down their faces. Amy felt Jake smiling into the kiss and they pulled away, laughing, while Jake slid the ring over Amy’s knuckle; a perfect fit.

Their lives were finally back on track, and neither could be happier that they’d held on to each other through everything.

The fact was, they made each other better. And even after all this time, he was hers and she was his, and they kept each other holding on.