#title from another greatest showman song bc of course it is!

[peraltasames]

mountains and valleys (and all that will come in between) - chapter one

Jake, Amy, and four distinct yet painfully similar times the universe pulled them apart and pushed them back together.

read on ao3

part one: undercover

When Jake leaves Amy standing outside the precinct, her mouth slightly agape and the air sucked out of her lungs, she doesn’t know when she’s going to see him again.

In a much darker realm of possibility that she doesn’t dare to explore for too long, she doesn’t know if she’s going to see him again.

She recalls in vivid horror the time that her old precinct, back when she was a beat cop, received word that one of their detectives was tortured and killed on an undercover operation scarily similar to the one Jake is embarking on. She hopes and prays that the detective the NYPD lost that day five years ago didn’t leave some unlucky man or woman with a confession of love and longing that they would never get the chance to act on.

She stands in place, her feet incapable of movement, for an indefinite amount of time. She isn’t sure if it’s five minutes or an hour that pass by - or, if she’s lucky, the entirety of the three to five months that the FBI estimates Jake’s mission to take - but eventually the wind picks up and a shiver runs up her spine. She feels her phone buzz in her pocket and wonders how long it’s been doing that, how long she’s been completely unaware her surroundings.

Teddy Wells

Hi, Amy. Are you still coming over? It’s unlike you to be late.

Teddy Wells

(2) Missed Calls

There are a million things she wants to do right now: run after Jake (though he’s long gone), scream, throw something breakable, drink an entire bottle of vodka, flee the country. Spending time with Teddy is low on the list. She isn’t obligated to - they haven’t been dating for that long and it’s perfectly okay for her to choose a night in without giving him a full explanation - but blowing off her boyfriend would mean that something has changed.

She can’t admit that she feels as though her entire world has been shifted on its axis. Not to herself. Definitely not to the man she is dating. And not to Jake, either, because he never gave her the damn chance to.

He disappeared like a wildfire that was suddenly extinguished, and she’s left to deal with the rubble.

-

According to the alarm clock next to her bed, which she must arch her body over Teddy’s sleeping form to read properly, it’s nearly three in the morning.

Precisely five hours after the time that Teddy insists they go to bed following their evening crossword, and she’s gotten - in total - about one hour of sleep.

It’s not Amy’s fault. She knows she has to be up in three hours for work and it’s going to be a busy day working as a secondary on Rosa’s homicide case. She knows she’s barely slept all week and her body is hating her for it.

She blames a part of her brain that she knows from AP bio but is too damn tired to recall for the images that appear every time she closes her eyes.

Jake, laughing in the passenger seat of her squad car about the imaginary backstory he’s invented for one of his undercover personas.

Jake, biting his lip and absentmindedly running his hand through messy hair as he stares pensively at a case file, the gears in his mind turning wildly.

Jake, standing in front of her eight days ago and saying “I kinda wish something could happen between us...romantic-stylez”.

The ethical complications of thinking such thoughts about another man while in bed next to her sleeping boyfriend clog her mind, making it even harder to rest.

She trudges to the kitchen, surrendering to her losing battle with sleep. Her socked feet tip-toe on the hardwood floor to avoid any creaking sounds that may wake Teddy.

It isn’t until she raises a glass of water to her lips that she notices her hands are shaking. Her entire body is shaking, actually, which is one of the first indicators of an oncoming panic attack. She tries to breathe slowly, close her eyes and count to ten, like she’s been instructed to. It works some of the time.

“C’mon, Amy,” she mumbles to herself, shutting her eyes even tighter as she feels tears threaten to escape. “Get it together.”

I know you’re with Teddy, and I know it’s going really well.

She shakes her head, slamming her glass down on the counter a bit too loudly. “Stop thinking about it,” she says aloud, willing Jake’s voice in her head to just disappear.

I don't know what's gonna happen on this assignment, and if something bad goes down, I think I'd be pissed at myself if I didn't say this.

Her fingernails dig into her palms as she tries to ground herself to reality. She’s worried that these thoughts and emotions are going to eat her alive.

“Fuck,” she blurts out, her hand coming to cover her mouth the moment she blurts out the word. The Santiagos conditioned their children not to curse at a young age through loss of before-bed reading time, and it’s stuck with her through to adulthood. She rarely swears, and only does so in situations that demand such a word to be spoken. But, damn, if this doesn’t fit the bill, what does?

I kinda wish something could happen, between us, romantic styles.

In the darkness of her kitchen, with not a soul there to hear her, she whispers:

“So do I.”

-

It takes another five days for Amy to confide in someone. She’s not thinking about Jake - one of the rare moments of the past two weeks that her thoughts manage to travel elsewhere - as she sits on Teddy’s living room sofa, reading one of her favourite crime novels while he flips through the channels.

“Do you want to watch this one?”

She’s too engrossed in her novel, which is steadily climbing towards the big climax she’s read a dozen times but never tires of, to look up from its pages.

“Whatever you want, I’m not really watching,” she mumbles, hastily turning the page.

Teddy murmurs words of agreement and selects whatever title he was pondering, and it takes about twenty seconds for Amy to recognize the dialogue.

“You throw quite a party. I didn’t realize they celebrated Christmas in Japan.”

Before she looks up at the screen, she’s briefly transported to several distinct memories of the past few years: Jake’s couch four months ago, a half-eaten pizza and two cans of orange soda in front of them, watching this very movie; a year before that, viewing it (along with the sequel) at Charles’ place during Jake’s surprise birthday party; her first year at the Nine-Nine, sitting in the break room with a shitty laptop on the table playing the film while Captain McGintley took his afternoon nap, despite Amy’s better judgement.

“Everything okay?”

Amy glances down at the book, which she unknowingly dropped in her lap as her eyes fixed on Bruce Willis shooting a gun on Teddy’s television. She realizes with a sharp pain in her chest that this is the first time in years that she’s watched this movie without Jake present.

“Do you not like Die Hard? We can watch something else-“

“No,” she interrupts, shaking her head. “I mean, no, I don’t like Die Hard, but...that’s not what’s bothering me.”

Teddy furrows his eyebrows and turns off the television, twisting his body to face her and, perhaps, to figure out what she’s thinking.

“There’s a reason I’ve been kind of weird the past couple of weeks.”

He prompts her to continue with a slow nod. It certainly has not gone unnoticed the way she’s flinched away from so many of his touches, declined his advances in the bedroom every evening, stared into space for most of their dinners together.

“You know how Peralta got fired?”

Teddy nods again, somewhat more apprehensively. Jake’s been a source of tension for them before, from their first date after Tactical Village Day when Teddy questioned if they had some sort of romantic history and Amy rambled incessantly about how he’s her coworker and she would never date him rather than giving a simple and far less suspicious “no.”

“You can’t tell anyone this, but he had to get fired so he could go on an undercover mission with the FBI. And before he left, he, um...” She swallows the lump in her throat, which now feels incredibly dry. “He told me he had feelings for me.”

Teddy’s eyes widen, and he discards the blanket previously draped over his lap.

“Well, you told him it’s never gonna happen, right?” he asks quickly, anger building in his voice.

“I didn’t really get the chance, he kinda just dropped the bomb and walked away and we can’t have any contact-“

“Do you have feelings for him?”

The right answer to that question isn’t immediately evident to Amy - a “no” would be a blatant lie, but “yes” would immediately terminate a relationship that she isn’t sure she’s ready to see the end of. Teddy is the perfect man on paper, the kind of man that her father would probably approve of upon their first introduction. He’s a good cop, just like Jake, but his approach to detective work is methodical and precise and completely unlike the frantic (brilliant) energy of Jake solving a case nobody else, even Amy herself, could solve. She feels comfortable with him, she feels safe, but she’s wondered from time to time if it’s a little too safe. It’s only logical - there’s no way he can break her heart if he never really has it in the first place.

Regardless of her intentions, she gathers from Teddy’s disappointed glare that the right answer is probably not complete silence.

“I think I-I’m confused.”

Teddy pauses, his ears reddening like he’s gearing up for an argument, but instead lets out a heavy sigh and nods his head. “Okay. I guess you should probably-“

“Go home and take some time to think,” Amy finishes.

“I was going to say we should talk about this, but…if that’s what you need.”

Amy looks at him apologetically and presses a quick peck to his cheek before standing to gather her things.

“I’ll call you on the weekend,” she calls out to him before shutting his front door behind her, scurrying downstairs and to the nearest bodega to buy a pack of cigarettes.

-

The next three months bring longer days and warmer weather to New York. Summer means the precinct is at a more acceptable temperature for Amy’s eternally-cold skin, it means the majority of her colleagues are cashing in their time off and she has more casework to keep herself busy, and this year it means long nights hiding at work to avoid her boyfriend who is still, somehow, her boyfriend despite her weeks of confusion and claiming she felt they were “out of sync.”

Really, the confusion is far from resolved. It definitely won’t be until Jake is back and she can at least speak to him about everything, but it’s become increasingly unclear when that will be as the three-month park passes and they still have little to no information on the status of his case.

It’s a particularly hot June afternoon, shortly before the end of her shift and the beginning of the weekend. She’s heading to New Jersey tomorrow morning (it’s no coincidence that she’s visiting her parents so much more frequently these past few months - Jersey is a Teddy-free zone, and therefore a hard-to-answer-question-free zone) and wrapping up the last of a string of open-and-shut B&Es.

Her head jolts up from her desk when she hears the sound of the captain exiting his office, the familiar clacking of his shoes on the tile floor a sound that she’s taught herself to respond to with alertness.

“Jeffords, Santiago, Boyle and Diaz, can I see you all for a moment?”

She’s up at her feet in an instant, the first to enter the captain’s office as the others follow behind her. Rosa’s the last to walk in, and Holt closes the door immediately behind her.

“What’s going on, sir?” Terry asks, crossing his arms.

“A friend of mine at the FBI has given me some insight into Peralta’s case that I felt I should share with all of you,” Holt explains, moving to stand behind his desk.

She can’t gage from his expression whether the news is that he’s coming home or that he’s dead or something else entirely, but her knees go weak nonetheless and she grabs onto the back of a chair as subtilely as possible.

“What is it?” Charles asks quickly with wide eyes. “Is Jake okay?”

“He’s alive,” Holt says quickly, and Amy’s world stops spinning long enough that she’s able to nod in understanding and stand a little straighter. “The case is going well, and there is a chance that they’re getting close to being able to set up a sting. Unfortunately, the closer that Peralta gets to the Ianucci family, the more their enemies become his. He hasn’t sustained any major injuries, but the danger of the case has grown exponentially…”

Amy watches Holt’s lips move for another minute or two, but the rest of the words fade out into a dull humming sound in her ears. She wants to collapse to the floor or run to the bathroom and throw up, but her feet are glued to the floor.

“Santiago, are you alright?”

It’s not the first time the voice of her commanding officer is the only thing to snap her out of a heavy trance. She looks up at Holt and realizes that he’s done his spiel and his eyes, along with everyone else in the room’s, are fixed on her.

“I’m fine, sir,” she says, supporting her statement with a contender for the most obviously fake smile in history. “I’m sorry, will you excuse me? I think I’m getting a-a call-“

With a small nod of approval from Captain Holt, she’s pushing past Rosa towards the exit and running to the roof. She needs air. She needs nicotine. She needs, and this one is by far the most pressing, to see Jake Peralta healthy and alive.

-

A dark corner at Shaw’s and several bottles of beer, Amy quickly realizes, is the best and only available antidote for the day she’s had. No Teddy, no smalltalk with coworkers, nothing but the numbing effect of the alcohol on her tired brain.

She hasn’t spent much time here over the past few months. It turns out there are a lot of places that feel just a little bit wrong without Jake around. Some are unavoidable - work, for instance, and the little deli across the street that they both love. Others, she avoids at all cost - the bar, his neighbourhood, that one apartment building on Barton Street where they conducted a stakeout many months ago on the worst (yet somehow, best) date of her life.

“What’s up with you?”

She looks up from anxiously picking at the wrapper of her bottle at her fellow detective and - sometimes, Amy thinks - friend.

“Oh, hey Rosa,” Amy says quickly, already raising her guard. “Um, nothing’s up with me. What’s up with you?”

She sighs as Rosa gives her the look that she knows by now to mean that she is not having any of her bullshit and subsequently slides into the seat across from her.

“Fine,” Amy mumbles after a few moments of Rosa’s hard stare. She’s a little drunk and feeling a lot of emotions, so she settles on the one that’s the easiest to express right now - anger. “I’m mad at him.”

Rosa narrows her eyes. “Teddy?”

Amy shakes her head incredulously. She supposes it’s the natural assumption, him being her boyfriend and all, but she’s never mad at Teddy. He doesn’t do anything wrong. Even if he did, she doubts he could ever make her feel as mad as she does right now.

“Peralta,” Amy clarifies, not helping the look of confusion on Rosa’s face. “He’s…the worst. I’m pissed at him.”

“For what? He’s been gone for months.”

Amy laughs, taking a long swig of her beer until its contents are completely drained. She imagines she looks like a crazy person as she slams the bottle on the table and continues laughing.

“That’s the problem, Diaz. He left for months, right after he-” She hiccups from the recent chugging of her beverage. “He told me he likes me. Like, likes me likes me. For realz, romantic-stylez, likes me. Jake Peralta.”

Rosa eyebrows raise a little bit, but there is no gasp of shock that follows Amy’s confession. After a moment, she simply nods.

“Hold up,” Amy mumbles, her hands gripping the table as she begins to feel slightly dizzy. “Did you know? Did he tell you?”

“No, Jake and I don’t talk about that crap,” Rosa asserts quickly. “But…I suspected it for a while. I think everyone kinda did.”

Amy lets out a sigh of exasperation, suddenly feeling like the worst detective on Earth. Has he really liked her for a while? Potentially before she embarked on her current relationship, satisfactory yet completely dull in comparison to the excitement of bickering with Jake while on a case?

“He just left and now he could get hurt or-or die and he didn’t even give me the chance to respond,” she whines, burying her face in her hands as her hair falls like a curtain around her head. “What a complete ass.”

“So you like him back, huh?”

Amy hurriedly brushes the hair out of her face to look the other woman in the eye.

“I never said that,” she snaps, once again reverting to the defensive. “I-he’s Jake, I wouldn’t-I mean, maybe, but I’m still with Teddy and I’m just confused, okay?”

“Okay.”

“I just don’t want him to die. That doesn’t mean I like him.”

“Okay.”

“It would be nice to get the chance to figure it out, though. With him here.”

“I know.”

“And…I don’t want to lose him.”

Rosa’s eyes soften a little this time, though her tone remains steady: “You won’t.”

Amy holds her coworker’s - no, they’re definitely friends - gaze, nodding slowly. Rosa’s right about pretty much everything. She hopes this is no exception.

“I need another drink.”

“I don’t think so, Santiago,” Rosa stands and blocks her path back to the bar. “C’mon, I’ll take you home. I haven’t had anything to drink yet.”

A few minutes later, in the passenger seat of Rosa’s car, Amy opens her eyes for the first time since they left the Shaw’s parking lot and turns her head to face Rosa as she focuses on driving.

“Do you think me and Jake - uh, romantic-stylez - would be bad idea?”

Rosa pauses and glances over briefly. “I don’t think you’re gonna remember this tomorrow.”

Amy just curls in on herself and gives into her drunken desire to zone out and stare out the window at the passing city lights.

“But no,” Rosa mutters faintly just before Amy passes out. “I don’t think it’s a bad idea.”

-

Amy doesn’t get much warning that he’s coming back. There’s been whispers among their detective squad, but no real confirmation that this would be unlike the many other times they were close to a sting but couldn’t quite pull it off.

She has the weekend off, and Sunday evening she gets a text from Rosa:

Jake’s back. They got most of the Ianuccis yesterday - busted at a family wedding. He’ll be at work tomorrow.

She’s beyond grateful for the heads up, because she has at least twelve hours to compose herself before she’s face-to-face with him for the first time in six months..

On one hand, she’s entirely unprepared to see him. On the other, she’s tempted to drive to his apartment right now and kiss him harder than she’s ever kissed anyone.

The more rational part of Amy, the part that is still in a relationship with a reasonable man for a woman approaching her thirties to be dating, wins this one.

She barely sleeps the night before he returns, her mind drafting a dozen options for what she may say to him when they reunite. Some are more dramatic or cliche than others, many would morally require her to break up with Teddy first. All of them end with some acknowledgement of her feelings, but none end up leaving her mouth when the time comes.

They’re in the evidence lockup, alone in a room together for the first time in so long - it felt like an eternity for her, at least - and she just can’t say it. Not like this, not now, not yet.

“I’m still with Teddy. Romantic-stylez.”

The hurt, slightly surprised look on Jake’s face - which she has been subconsciously re-memorizing since the moment he stepped off the elevator - makes her regret the choice instantly, but the real sweeping blow to her heart comes when he takes back his confession a moment later.

Later that day - somewhere between the clinking of glasses, Jake respectfully informing her that he does indeed still have feelings for her but understands that she’s still with Teddy, and a quiet walk alone to the subway after she decides she needs some air - Amy back to square one in terms of the confusion as to where her heart lies.

She arrives at Teddy’s at their agreed upon time and lets herself in, taking her boots off and placing them in the orderly line of his shoes on the rack by the door.

“In the kitchen, Amy!”

The sight before her in his large, well-lit kitchen with marble countertops is nothing new. She can estimate immediately that he’s about halfway through his Pilsner-brewing process, which he’s recently become quite obsessed with. Simply through frequent observation, she’s pretty sure she could make Pilsners in her sleep at this point.

“How was work today?” Teddy asks without looking up from the stove. “I heard Peralta’s back from his big, fancy FBI operation.”

The ignores the condescending tone and obvious jealousy, taking a seat at one of the stools and dropping her purse.

“It was fine.”

“Did you finally tell him nothing’s gonna happen between you two?”

Amy nods slowly, staring at her hands in her lap, and then realizes he still isn’t facing her. “Yeah. I told him.”

Teddy adjusts the burner on the stove and turns to her with a wide smile that fades the moment they make eye contact.

“What’s wrong?” he demands, brows furrowed. “Did he give you a hard time? If he’s being a jerk-“

“No.” God, she wishes he was a jerk. It would be so, so much easier if he was an entitled asshole. “No, he was perfectly respectful. I’m not upset, just-”

“Confused?”

Teddy repeats her choice of words from months ago - a word that is still haunting her - and she wants so badly to lie and shake her head and pretend that everything is fine and there’s nothing to be worried about. She can’t do that in good conscience, but she figures she can keep dating Teddy and see where that relationship takes her as long as she’s at least relatively honest with him.

“Yeah,” she confirms. “So, what flavour is this batch?”

She can see it in his eyes that Teddy isn’t happy with her answer, but at least she knows that she told him (part of) the truth as she sits back and listens to him talk about yeast and fermentation for the next forty minutes.

What she doesn’t admit to him, nor to herself quite yet, is that their relationship has been a ticking time bomb from the moment Jake flagged her down outside the precinct six months ago. Whether she likes it or not, it’s only a matter of time before it explodes and destroys everything in its reach.

Destruction isn’t always the worst thing, though. Not when it’s making room for something new and, if she’s lucky, something beautiful.