Chapter Text
When Amy wakes up at the hospital, she thinks she’s had one of her stress-induced faints. She’s had those before, times when the stress would choke her blind and she’d awake at a hospital room, just like now. She blinks as she takes in everything in the hospital room, her mind foggy.
She nearly screams at the strange man sitting beside her, his chest rising as he sleeps, slight snores emitted. Instead, she pauses and looks for anything to shield her incase he tries anything on her. She glances at the door, not surprised to find it unlocked. What kind of hospital just lets strange people in other’s rooms?
Where are her parents? Why didn’t they stop this strange man from entering her room? Her head feels like it’s filled with hornets and she groans slightly. Yeah, she definitely knocked her head on the way down.
Despite this, she needs to find something to protect her from the strange man. God, who knows how long he’s been sitting by her bedside. She slowly grabs the umbrella resting on the side of the bed, making her way up. If there’s no one here to protect her, then she’ll protect herself.
He awakes as she stands, Amy braces herself, weapon in hand. His eyes go from adoring to startled in less than three seconds.
“Amy-”
“Who are you?” her voice is rocky and her hands shake as she holds the weapon in her hands. He stands slowly, palms facing her in a ‘don’t hurt me’ manner. Amy’s eyes shoot daggers at him and she tightens her grip on the umbrella. “I said, who are you? And how do you know my name?”
“I-I-” he shakes his head in confusion, his own hands shaking. “Are you okay? What’s going on with you-”
“Answer me!” her socked foot slightly slips and the umbrella whips foward on accident, almost striking him. Luckily, he jumps out of the way.
“Woah! Ames!” he nearly screams. “Amy!” His eyes are scared as he takes in her wild appearance. She knows her hair probably looks like a sandstorm hit her but she has no time for vanity in the face of danger.
“How do you know my name?” she asks, her hands shaking as she holds the homemade weapon. “Who are you?”
“It’s me, Amy. It’s me Jake!”
“Okay, Jake,” she spits the word out like a hard cherry stone. “you still haven’t told me who you are or why you’re in my hospital room.”
“I’m-I’m your husband.” he stutters and the words shock her like an exposed wire. She drops the umbrella. “It’s me, Amy. Your husband.”
Husband, the word echoes in her mind and before she knows what’s going on, she’s fainting again.
The next time she awakes, it’s to her father’s warm eyes.
“Dad?” she asks, lip quivering. Her father’s warm hand caresses her face and catch a tear that runs down the side of her face.
The confusion that she felt earlier is still there, clouding her brain but she feels immobilized, like she’s below a six feet of dirt.
He’s still there, the man she almost assaulted earlier. Her husband, or so he says.
Her mother’s hand rests on his arm while he gazes at her with a look that could be described as adoring. Butterflies swarm her belly.
She looks back to her father’s warm eyes.
“What’s-what’s-” she stutters, her mouth feeling sandy.
“Shh. It’s okay. You fainted again and they had to sedate you.” he’s speaking quietly, like she’s a child or a thing.
Suddenly, she’s angry but her treacherous limbs remain at her sides. A man in a white coat, her doctor, approaches slowly, evenly. “Miss. Santiago, I’m Dr. Melona.” Amy nods, or thinks she nods. Her body isn’t cooperating with her, nothing is. She glances at her mother’s hand once again.
His eyes, sunlit and everlasting remain on her. She blinks back to the doctor.
“Can you tell me what’s the last thing you remember?”
She stutters, tries to find the words. “Precinct. I was supposed to go to the new precinct today.” she holds onto her dad’s hand tightly, and he squeezes back.
Dr. Melona nods and asks, “What year do you think it is, Miss Santiago?” She furrows her eyebrows in confusion.
“What kind of question is that?”
Her doctor exchanges looks with her father and her father nods.
“What? What’s going on?”
“Amy, tiger-” her dad begins, one of his hands stroking her hair back.”answer the doctor. What year is it?”
“2009, obviously.”
Her mother drops her hand off his shoulder as he drops his crossed hands. Her father’s grip on her hand intensifies.
Nothing makes sense to her.
Ten years, they tell her. She’s lost ten years. Two elections, 120 full moons, 315,360,000 seconds. All lost, gone.
After the revelation, everyone slowly drifts out. It starts with her doctor, telling her to take her time processing the information, it continues with her parents, following after the doctor, asking him questions about what’s next.
Finally, it ends with him, the one person who hadn’t spoken a word since he’d said husband. One of his hands reaches over to her and she turns away from him, closes her eyes. She doesn’t want to face it, she doesn’t want to look into his sad eyes. She doesn’t want to talk about them, when she had just found out less than an hour ago that that this them existed.
She doesn’t open them until she’s sure he’s gone. Then, she starts to cry.
They shoot her up with painkillers that make her loopy and will help with the headache. In her haze, she hears Jake talking on the phone to someone. Some Rosa and then later, a Charles. He’s always hushed, sitting in the background while her mom fawns over her, while her dad reads the newspaper to her.
She can tell he aches and something tells Amy that he’s not used to staying still and quiet. They’re never alone which means Amy never has time to ask him anymore about their marriage or about her life.
Instead, she fades in and out and listens as people console him over the phone, like he’s the one in the hospital bed and not her.
She’s in the hospital for six days, while they monitor her vitals. She asks what happened, what the accident was and they fuddle over their words. Even Jake, who looks startled that she’s directed her words towards him. Finally, her father tells her.
“You fell down some stairs.” his face looks sad and Amy doesn’t ask anymore questions. She has so many, though. She has so many things she wants to know about, including but not limited to, her husband. Her husband who always stands in the back of the room like a ghost, watching with wide eyes. The circles underneath his eyes getting darker, until they resemble a dark purple sky. At night, he slips out with a quiet, “Goodnight”.
She asks her mother about him when he’s not there. “Am I really married to him?”
Her mother’s face softens at the tone of her voice and she says, “Happily.”
Amy nods, the words settling somewhere within her. “Jake.” she says, tasting out the name in her mouth.
Her mother awaits another question but Amy finishes eating her jello. Her mother fidgets with her hands and then says, “He’s asleep outside. He hasn’t gone home in days.”
Amy’s hand shakes and she sets the jello aside. Somehow, she knew this but she’s still surprised, shaking. “How long was I under for?”
“A week.”
13 days till the accident and she’s to go home the next day.
Amy closes her eyes and asks, “Can I see him?”
Her mother nearly runs out to get him. He comes in less than ten seconds later. His face is unshaven and his sunlight eyes look more like dusk now, dimming him. He stays at the edge of the room, closing the door quietly after him.
“Hi.” she says from her bed.
“Hey.”
“They’re letting me leave tomorrow.” she says.
“Yeah, I know.” slowly, he makes his way over to her. Slow, as if she’s going to attack him with an umbrella again. He settles at the edge of her bed, by her feet. Amy curls her toes under the covers.
“I don’t…” she trails off, unsure of how to put it. “Am I supposed to go home with you?” The question had been weighing heavy in her mind. The question made her anxious and now, the look of fragility on his face makes her more anxious than it ever did.
“If you want.” he says. “I don’t want to force you.”
Amy wants to say that she wants to live with her parents, wants to tell him that all she wants to do is crawl under her childhood room’s covers and wake up to find this nothing but a bad dream.
But, she remembers the adoration in his eyes when he first spotted her, before she almost clubbed him with an umbrella. And she remembers her mother’s words, happily. She remembers that it isn’t a dream and that she has to face it one day or another. That living with him is one step in the ‘remembering the last ten years’ direction.
So, she says, “Okay.”
He lets out a relieved breath.
”One last thing..” she trails off. He nods quickly, obidiently.
“Anything.”
”Can you tell me about it?” she asks. His eyebrows furrow in confusion. “About my life.” His eyes soften and he nods.
”Anything.”
The apartment is not what she’s expected. It’s homey, warm, like she’s stepped into the sun. This is her home until she remembers everything, she thinks as she walks around the living room. A framed picture sits on the coffee table in the living room. She picks it up slowly, it's a picture of her in her sergeant's uniform, huge smile on her face.
Her heart beats faster. Her precinct. Apparently it had all happened for her, but now it was put on pause after her accident. Now, she was sequestered to this apartment and so was he. He explained that he took a leave of absence to her earlier that day. Amy had nodded, unsure of how to act.
He told her parents while she pretended to sleep back in the hospital. Her mother tried to fight him, said, “What about your exam?”
“There are bigger priorities right now.”
Amy wondered what exam he was supposed to be taking and why her mother sounded so scandalized.
“I got it framed when you got promoted.” he says he sets her bags down, noticing the picture in her hands. She sets it down automatically. She fidgets and fingers the scar on her upper arm. A scar shaped like a bullet hole. Her body had changed in ten years, so much of her had.
Her parents follow into the living room with the pretty flower arrangement her squad had sent. The names on the card were meaningless to her but it still warmed her heart to know she was loved.
Jake watches her with hungry eyes as she looks around the room. She aches to find an anchor, some kind of tunnel to lead her into her lost self. She finds nothing.
She leaves Jake and her parents behind as she walks around the rest of the apartment, running her fingertips on the walls. She pauses at the room at the very end of the hall with the closed door. The master bedroom. She hesitates and opens it, the door making a slight sound as she turns the door handle.
Behind her, in the kitchen, she can hear Jake and her parents talking quietly. She closes the door behind her, leaving their shushed voices behind.
The room smells of jasmine, a lit candle on the dresser casts a shadow on the wall. She takes off her shoes and steps onto the cream rug. Her toes curl in the softness, wanting to shrink and live in the soft paradise.
She sits on the bed, running her hands on the soft comforter. She sighs and lays down, legs dangling. She imagines sleeping here, waking up next to her husband. She tries to conjure up a memory, anything. She can’t.
Her fingers grasp the comforter in annoyance and she groans. The door bursts open with a worried Jake. She sits up quickly and he lets out a relieved sigh.
“Sorry, I heard something. I thought..I don’t know, something might’ve happened.” he rubs his neck nervously, not meeting her eyes. She feels guilty for the look in his eyes and makes a note to be more quiet around the apartment. But something tells her that she won’t be unnoticed no matter how quiet she is.
“Sorry, I stubbed my toe.” It’s the first lie she’s told him and she knows he doesn’t believe it.
“Uh-huh, well…” he trails off. Amy tries to will him to leave but she knows he won’t, not with his heart at his throat. She wants him gone so she could scour through the drawers for some remnants of her past life. But he won’t leave.
So, she stands and walks over to the kitchen. He follows after her closely, making sure her elbow doesn’t touch anything, making sure she doesn’t hurt herself again.
Her parents stay for an hour, her mother flitting around her like a nervous butterfly. Her dad asks her if she’s okay with his eyes. Amy nods.
Then, they leave. Leaving her with a husband she has no recollection of.
Dinner is quiet. Jake calls takeout and then tries not to stare at her as she eats her potstickers.
She doesn’t know what to say or what to do. What is she to say to a man whom she never knew existed?
Suddenly, she’s regretting coming home with him.
They eat their dinner in silence. He cleans the table, telling her not to get up. He does a sloppy job of washing the dishes and Amy leaves him in the kitchen and goes to the bedroom.
She’s sitting in the comforter again when he stops by.
“How long have we been married?” she asks. Jake pauses at the door, licks his lips.
“Almost two years.” he says. She nods, looks at the cream carpet again. “We dated for about two years before I proposed.”
She looks up again. He’s leaning against the door, trying to remain casual but his sunlight eyes burn like the midday sun. Amy plays with the scar on her upper arm, tracing it until it’s raw. Jake sighs and walks over to her. She stiffens unintentionally and he steps back, leaving a large gap between them.
“I proposed on Halloween.” he says. Amy looks up at him, eyebrows furrowed.
“I hate-”
“-Halloween.” he finishes and nods. “I know.” He doesn’t explain why on Earth he’d propose on a holiday she hates.
“Do we have any kids?” she asks, only because she fears they’re out there, missing a mother who has no recollection of them.
He stiffens and shakes his head, eyes turned towards the cream carpet. It was obviously a sore subject. Amy makes note of it for later analyzation.
“Did we ever try or-”
Jake jumps in, stopping her. “No, no kids.” Amy nods slowly. Yeah, definitely a tough subject. She plans to ask her mom about it later. But, she remembers the hand on his arm and knows they’re close, at least closer than him and her father. Her father, he’d probably tell her.
“Did we get married on Thanksgiving?” she asks, hoping to break the mood from the awkward Halloween question, his lips quirk and he shakes his head.
“Nope.”
“Do you have a picture of our wedding day?”
“Yes.” he nearly runs to the other room and returns with a framed picture. Her hands shake as she holds it. She looks at the unabashed adoring look on his face, like the one she saw when he saw her again for the first time. Her eyes relay the same image, warm and teary, she holds her husband’s hand. The happiness in the picture is staggering and she drops it.
Jake picks it up but doesn’t hand it to her, he’s staring at it too closely as if trying to conjure up this happy, in love individual that Amy once was. Amy fears he’s forgotten she’s in the room.
“Why am I not wearing a dress?” He jumps a little, remembering her. and her heart stings a little.
“It was…a last minute thing.” he says, not meeting her eyes.
“What do you mean?” she pushes.
He sighs and closes his eyes. “We had a whole wedding planned but then, Romero, the guy from when I was in prison, returned and we had to go into hiding-” he pauses, opens his eyes. He reads the worried look on her face and his eyes warm. “We were gone for six months. I took you with me. I couldn’t bear if they did something to you. I couldn’t leave you. Not this time.”
“This time?” she asks.
“We were separated many times.” he sighs again. “Four times, actually.” His brown eyes meet hers and Amy can hear the unspoken words, five with this one.
“So, when we came back we got married?”
“Not exactly.” he pauses. “You didn’t want to wait and neither did I but you deserved that big wedding. The dress, the pretty flowers, all of it. You had like six binders ready since when you were eight years old and..” he trails off.
“What happened?” she’s scared to ask, suddenly fearing the sad look in his eyes.
“You got shot.”
Amy traces the suddenly cold scar on her upper arm.
He leaves a little after that, taking the photo with him and holding it to his chest, as if his heart is going to plop down on the floor if he doesn’t. He returns a while later and says he’s going to go to his friend’s Boyle’s house. He says the name slowly, eyes hopeful and Amy nods. The name means nothing to her. Jake leaves with his back hunched.
She’s just glad she gets to be alone for the first time in days.
Amy closes her eyes and tries to take a nap. The cold drilling of her heart in her chest doesn’t stop and she groans, fluffs and punches her pillows but sleep avoids her.
She slowly makes her way to the closet, feeling like a snooping guest in her own home. She opens the sliding wood doors, surprised at the orderliness of Jake’s side.
She fingers the material, trying to remember afternoons nestled against him or the feel of the scratchy plaid against her cheek as they hugged. He has an impressive amount of leather jackets and she tries one on, surprised at how well it fits. She finds three spare dollars in the pockets and a receipt for candy. She tucks everything back where it belongs, leaving the jacket on.
On her side of the closet, everything is arranged by color. She’s relieved to find that this part of her hadn’t changed. She fingers the silks, the cottons, overwhelmed by the colors. She holds a silky purple top to her face and smells it, hoping it brings her memory.
But, nothing. It just smells like faded lavender perfume and slight smoke. She cringes, obviously her smoking hadn’t gotten better.
In the back, she feels the edge a box, a huge laden thing. She turns over her shoulder, knowing that Jake was probably at this Boyle’s house telling him about her questions, about her curiosity. She thinks his voice is probably hopeful, eyes alit and she squirms, hating that she’s probably letting him down.
She shoves that down, hoping to forget it like she’s forgotten the last ten years of her life.
Amy grabs the box, setting it down on the closet floor. It’s thick, a black box with a silver trim. A memory box.
She opens it slowly, feeling like Pandora, a quiver of fear in heart at the imaginary monster she was going to release into the world. No monter arises, however.
Inside, there are pictures, tons and tons of pictures of the two of them. Her, Jake and some other people she figures are the people from the signed flower arrangement. Her squad.
She thinks he set these pictures here after the accident, not wanting her to get overwhelmed by the mass of it all. But these pictures help much more than the flimsy answers Jake had given her in the hospital. These pictures recall lost memories better than anything said by a nervous Jake.
She fingers the pictures, sitting on her knees as she goes through every single one. There are tons of pictures.
Pictures of her and Jake before they were probably JakeandAmy. Her and Jake with the squad, arms around one another. Another one where he’s staring at her like she’s the sun, the stars, all of it.
She’s laughing at something, her hand on his arm, telling him with her eyes, you’re the whole universe. My very own Milky Way.
Happily, her mother had said and now Amy knows this to be true.
“Who are you?” she asks the happy individual. “And how do I find you?”
When Jake comes home, she’s sleeping in a pile of pictures, holding the happy one to her chest, his jacket still on.
Kylie stops by three days later. Amy’s glad for a familiar face. She’s tired of Jake’s hopeful eyes following her as she walks, she’s tired of him showing her random things and asking if she remembers it. She’s tired of disappointing him.
Kylie looks the same but also different. She's taller now, with longer hair but her smile is still Kylie's. She works in Seattle now, she tells her and she’s engaged to a girl she met there.
“Her name is Lydia.” Kylie smiles as she shows her the picture from her phone and Amy’s surprised at the jealousy in her heart. She’s jealous she remembers her fiance’s name when she doesn’t even remember her husband.
Jake leaves them two alone and before he leaves, he asks if she needs anything. She shakes her head, anxious to ask Kylie all the questions she didn't have the guts to ask Jake.
“So, do you have any questions?” she asks as soon as Jake leaves.
“So many.” Amy says. She asks her about Jake, about her squad, about her boyfriend Oliver, the guy she was dating in 2009.
“You guys broke up after he moved to London.” Kylie answers.
“And Jake?” she asks.
“What do you mean?”
Amy licks her lips. “Did I ever tell you when I fell in love with Jake?”
Kylie’s eyes soften. “No, you didn’t.” She hesitates and then says, “He confessed before he went undercover but you were dating someone then and-” she shakes her head. “It’s not my story to tell, Amy. You need to ask him about it.”
Kylie leaves shortly after that, but not before saying she’d come by later that week. Amy fake smiles at her, slightly angry that her closest and oldest friend refused to tell her about her life. Was she siding with Jake now? Was there some agreement between them about keeping Amy's life under wraps?
When Jake arrives, she’s still looking at the walls.
“Hey, did Kylie leave?”
“What did you confess?” she asks suddenly.
“What?” Jake asks, taking his jacket off and hanging it off a chair. “What are you talking about?”
“Kylie said you confessed something before going undercover.” Amy says, her voice becoming stronger with each word spoken.
“Yes, I did.” He’s fidgeting and Amy raises her eyebrows in question. There’s a slight roar in her ears. Suddenly, she’s tired of games. Tired of it all. She just wants the plain truth, all of it. Jake closes his eyes slowly and then says, “I confessed that I liked you but you were with Teddy. I was gone for several months after that.” Teddy, that’s probably the boyfriend Kylie was talking about.
“You were in prison.” she says then. Jake nods. “Why?”
“ I was set up by Lieutenant Hawkins. Rosa and I were in prison for eight weeks.” Jake says.
“Rosa. She’s part of the squad?”
“Yes.” he says softly, nodding. Amy lets out a relieved breath, hating the fact that she was jealous. She feels like a highschool girl.“I also went under witness protection after this guy tried to kill me and our Captain.”
Amy nods, trying to fit this information in her head. But, it’s too much, she’s bitten off more than she can chew. Jake licks his lips and walks up to her. “This is why the doctor advised the squad not to visit. He’d thought it’d be too much for you.” he pauses. “Don’t beat yourself up for not remembering. It’s okay.”
Amy doesn’t answer. Instead, she’s thinking of how crazy her life is. Her husband has been in jail and has gone not only undercover but under witness protection. Suddenly, she’s falling apart. She’s turning into pebbles on the floor.
Jake’s hand touches her shoulder lightly, he’s still talking, the words sounding like buzzing in her ears. “-but, with time, i'm sure that you're going to be Amy again and-”
“Stop treating me like a child.” she says quietly but fiercely. He doesn’t hear her, his hand now grasping her shoulder tightly, still talking. “I’m not a child!” she nearly screams, her voice like the serrated edge of knife. Jake stumbles back as her words hit him with force. As her words toss him against the wall. She doesn’t have time to feel to sorry or to feel anything at all but the anger in her chest.
The truth is, she’s a wanderer, an orphan, in her own life. It’s like she’s been dropped from one planet onto another. She’s tired of searching an empty head for memories that aren’t there.
She’s tired of grasping at the edge of a happy life that will never come to her. It’s a dissolving daydream, that life of hers.
A life that was never truly hers, at least not this Amy. She knows this now. This, all of this, is too much.
“Ames-”
“I am not Ames." Jake stops talking at once, the sound of him swallowing thickly overtaking the entire room. "And I don’t think I’ll ever be her again.” she says quietly, the anger not deflating out of her but cooling down to a simmering calm, a sadness. The sadness takes up the whole room and burrows into Jake, the pain ever so present on his face.
Jake can only stare at her, his palms held up and Amy closes and opens her eyes quickly, heart almost beating itself out of her chest.
“..romantic stylez.” The feel of her coat in the cold night, surprise blooming within her, brown eyes staring into hers and then-
She blinks and it’s gone. There’s just Jake and the debris that her words left on the cold ground. She runs her hands through her hair, trying to get her thoughts in order. What the hell was that?, she asks herself and pulls at the string in her mind, hoping for another reveal but nothing comes.
Her mind has gone still again, the rippling water turned into a calm lake. So unlike the beating of her heart. Her soul itches to get out of her body and her body aches to leave this prison of an apartment.
“I think..I think I should go to my parent’s. I need some time to think…” she swallows thickly. He doesn’t answer. “Ten years...it’s a long time and-” she stops, swallows the giant skyscraper in her throat and blinks quickly. She’s honestly relieved, this is what she’s been wanting to do since day one.
However, the look of utter heartbreak in Jake's face whips the words out of her. She stops talking and instead leaves the living room for the bedroom. His eyes burn onto her back.
She packs quickly, not paying any attention to the organization of her clothes. She grabs whatever she can.
She doesn’t even have enough time to ask herself if this is the right move. She looks over her shoulder and Jake’s watching her from the door. She turns back into stuffing her clothes into her suitcase, cringing at the wrinkles that were going to appear.
“Let me help you.” he says quietly and starts arranging her clothes into her suitcase in order, just like she likes them. She tosses more pants into the suitcase and he grabs her hand, stopping her. Amy's skin prickles at the feel of his skin against hers. His brown eyes warm her from the inside as she meets them, melt her like chocolate on a hot sidewalk. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry for pushing you."
"Don't be." she says quietly, squeezing his hand once, liking the way his skin feels against hers.
Before she leaves, she turns on her heel and awkwardly hugs him, one of his hands settles on the small of her back. She closes her eyes, surprised at the tears in them. She feels the weight of his lips on her hair and closes her eyes as she breathes him in, trying to find the edge of a memory she got earlier.
One of her tears dribbles off her face and darkens the faded red on his plaid shirt, making it look like a bleeding wound.
“Take all the time you need.” he whispers and Amy blinks her eyes open, pulls back and looks into his eyes. "I'll be right here when you need me." He wipes a lone tear off her cheek.
Then-
...the hunch of his shoulders as he walks away and the-
She blinks. The lake has gone still again. Slowly, she untangles herself from him, clears her throat and grabs her bag. She's regretting this already, but it's what she needs, it's the next step in finding herself.
“I’ll be in touch.” she say, hoping her voice doesn’t sound too cold. Jake swallows thickly and nods once.
“I'll be here.”
She leaves, the door closing tightly after her. The tears blur her vision all the way to her parent’s house. Her father takes her into his arms as soon as he opens the door and doesn’t let her go when she unravels in his arms.
On the other side of town, Jake stares at the closed door, the slight slam echoing in his head.