Chapter Text
Amy Santiago is getting married today.
In just a few hours she’ll walk down the aisle, stand by Jake’s side, vow to be his wife and take him as her husband.
There’s absolutely no reason to be nervous.
Expect for the fact that a swarm of bees have taken over the flowers, her dress hasn’t arrived yet and there was a leak in the room where the ceremony will take place. But it’s okay. She’s Amy Santiago. She’s got this. She just needs to turn on her extreme high-strung mode and deal with this because there’s no way in hell she’s letting anything go wrong with her wedding.
But when she sits down, takes three deep breaths and tries to focus, her mind is still blank. She’s looking at herself in the huge mirror in the room where she’s supposed to be getting ready, still wearing a bathrobe and a towel wrapped around her head. And everything around her is absolute chaos.
Gina and Rosa are fighting over who was responsible for the dress and whose fault it is that it isn’t here yet. Kylie is yelling at someone over the phone about the flowers and her mother is so drunk that she’s about to make the girl hired to be the master of ceremony cry because she doesn’t speak spanish. There are shoes everywhere, garment bags all around the floor and makeup products on every single surface imaginable.
Wasn’t this moment supposed to be as relaxing as possible? Weren’t they supposed to be drinking bellinis (a normal amount), telling jokes and stories about Amy and how she and Jake are perfect for each other? Were they not supposed to be doing everything to calm her nerves?
Amy feels the panic begin to rise and decides she will go outside, get some fresh air and come back with a refreshed perspective. Yes, that’s it. She just needs to get out of that room.
But as soon as she opens the door, she sees Terry on the doorway, about to knock.
The first thing she notices is that he’s crying. A lot. Literally, full on sobbing. The second thing she notices is that he’s holding a big white square box. Oh, great. She thinks - Something else is wrong.
“Terry, take a deep breath and tell me what’s the problem. Is everything okay with Jake?”
“N-n-no. It’s nothing. It’s just that… that…that...” - And there he goes again. She lost him.
Amy’s about to turn around and ask Gina to scare the Sarge into talking when she hears it.
“Santiago.” - This single word makes her automatically stand up straighter.
Captain Holt steps up beside Terry and takes the box from him. Yeah, this really can’t be good.
“Sergeant, I think I should take it from here.” - And Terry just nods and walks aways, still crying. “You must excuse Sergeant Jeffords, he is extremely emotional today. He keeps saying quote my work babies are all grown up and getting married to each other unquote. But, there’s nothing to be worried about really. Peralta just asked us to bring you your wedding gift.” He says, handing Amy the box.
“Oh. Thank you, Captain. I’ve already sent mine or I would’ve asked you to take it to him.” - She says while taking the box from his hands.
“He has gotten it and believe me, I don’t think I have ever seen him as excited. And you know that’s saying something.” - Amy smiles and slightly shakes her head. She would’ve given anything to see his reaction.
“Well, I should let you finish getting ready. Excuse me.” When she’s about to close the door, she hears him again.
“Oh, and Amy. I’m very glad you and Jake are getting married. The love you two share is unique and will bring you much joy. You’re both very lucky to have found each other.
He leaves and Amy lingers for a while on the doorway, letting the words of her mentor sink in.
When Amy finally goes back to the room, reality washes over her again. Everything is still a mess but she’s still not ready to deal with that right now. So, she decides to do what any mature adult would do: lock herself in the bathroom (believe it or not, the most peaceful environment she could find) and open her present.
She sits on the ground and opens the box, curiosity through the roof.
The first thing she sees is a handwritten note from Jake sitting on top of baby blue tissue paper. It reads:
Hey, babe.
Because I’m an amazing work AND life partner, I know you pretty well.
That means I knew there’d be a very high chance you’d be getting all nervous and stressed out about things going right right now. But listen, that’s not your job today, okay? The only thing you have to do is show up and marry me. Let your mom and Kylie and the rest of the wedding party put out the fires and try to relax a bit.
I made you something that I hope will help you do that.
Don’t press play until you turn the first page. And no peeking!
She already knew she would love whatever came out of that box, and when she removed the paper, she found his cellphone (she recognized it from the huge crack on the screen), connected to headphones on top of more tissue paper.
She took the phone, put on the headphones and unlocked it. It opened to a spotify playlist titled From A to Jay and Amy was already smiling wide when she removed the last sheet of tissue paper to reveal what was underneath it.
And oh, boy.
Jake had made a scrapbook.
She takes it from the box and when she gets a good look at the title, she’s giggling. “The Peraltiago Story”. After the bartender had named that drink after them, Jake started using the term to refer to the both of them any chance he could.
After settling the scrapbook on her lap, she turns the page and grabs the phone to press play.
The second the beats of “Funky Cold Medina” start playing, Amy’s full on laughing. She already knew what this was about and just like every time she hears that song, her mind goes back to her first few weeks at the 99.
After the most awkward first encounter she had ever had with human being thanks to Charles, both Jake and Amy tended to avoid being alone with each other as much as they could. That’s why, Amy recalls, she’d been nervous when they worked on their very first case together. A case that, as luck would have it, required long hours of staking out in Jake’s old Mustang.
At first they were quiet, talking only when absolutely necessary and looking at everything except at each other. But, within 15 minutes of sitting in a car in silence, Jake’s restlessness got the best of him and he pressed play on the very old cassette player on the console and Funky Cold Medina started playing. Amy rolled her eyes but didn’t say anything as Jake followed the beat of the song on the steering wheel with his hands.
Then the song ended.
Then it started again.
The reason Captain Holt had said “you can’t work with Jake Peralta for three years without knowing what the Funky Cold Medina is” a few years ago was because that goddamn cassingle was stuck in the deck and Jake didn’t see that as a problem at all.
That meant that any person who was lucky enough to sit in his car for any period of time would be listening to Funky Cold Medina over and over and over again.
Amy tried to endure it, she really did. But around the time the song played for a fourth time, her annoyance was through the roof and she kindly asked “Detective Peralta” to turn off the music.
Unfortunately for her, she had not managed to hide her discontentment very well and that was her undoing. Amy remembered Jake’s eyes actually start to sparkle as he realized how pissed off she was and all of sudden, he had a target.
“No. It’s my car, I’m driving, I get to choose what I want to listen.”
“First of all, you’re not choosing what you want listen. You’re choosing to listen to the most irritating song on the planet repeatedly for no reason other than to annoy me. Second of all, your “car” stinks. I bet this this hasn’t been cleaned in about a year, at least.” Amy said as she moved to shut the thing down.
“I’m going to ignore those very rude things you just said. So, you like bets, huh? Let’s play a game. Every round I win, I get one play. Every round you win, you get 5 minutes of silence.”
Amy didn’t bat an eye.
“30”
“20”
“Deal. What game?”
“Hm… Oh, I know. Two truths and one lie. You’re the new girl, gotta prove your detecting abilities to the best detective of the 99th Precinct.”
“I have to prove absolutely nothing to you.”
“Okayyyyy. Should I go first?”
They played the game for the duration of the stake out. That’s how he found out about her seven brothers, her teeth brushing obsession and her eleven straight birthdays at the planetarium. That’s how she found out about his horrifying eating habits, his six massage chairs and about pineapples.
He had thought she was a nerd.
She had thought he was a mess.
Now they were getting married.
God. Amy thinks, as she catches up with the present time and focuses her attention on the previously forgotten scrapbook on her lap, the song still playing through the headphones.
As her eyes ran over the page, her smile grew wider. Amy had no idea how Jake managed to do this but he had actually found the outtakes of the first official portrait of the 99th Precinct Squad after Amy joined them. It was a few day after their first stake out together and ever since then, they had fallen into a comfortable dynamic. He’d tease her, she’d hit back, and vice versa.
The day that portrait was taken, Jake had done his very best to screw up as many takes as possible, making Amy as annoyed as possible. Under the title “SONG #1” (written in his painfully ugly handwriting), there were about seven of those discarded pictures attached to the page with what Amy recognized as some of the washi tapes from her stationary collection. In each one of them Jake had the silliest face imaginable and Amy had an increasing frown.
She rolled her eyes at the memory. It was okay, though. The next day she came in earlier and reorganized Jake’s desk. His absolute panic at the pristine conditions of his workplace was incredibly satisfying to Amy.
The song ended and Amy startled when she realized there was someone banging on the bathroom door.
“Amy?”
Rosa.
She pressed pause before the next song started playing.