disclaimed

Here's the thing; Jake Peralta was a guy solidly entrenched in the relaxed lifestyle. At one point, his life's motto was boobs farts boobs whatever. He'd made it a point to not care seriously about much other than his mom.

If he had to list his priorities, it would go

1. Mom
2. Work
3. Bad beer
4. Other stuff

But here's another thing; time marched on and his list expanded and rearranged. Somewhere along the way, Amy Santiago made the list, tying with his mother and knocking the wind out of him for a good six months, during which time he only got shot at six times by various gangsters. When he returned to the NYPD, he was still a bit of a mess.

That was, until he got his act together and tried to ask her out, failing by mumbling something about pizza and running away muttering boobs farts boobs whatever, and ended up clumsily kissing her later that day at the bar after closing a particularly gruesome case that would provide conversation fodder for the next two NYPD events he would be forced to attend.

He didn't think it would get any worse than that—his friends from the force fell under work, his friends from the outside were other stuff. Bad beer was cut out altogether, unofficially replaced with making Amy laugh.

And then—

And then Amy didn't come into work one day, year and a half down line, and all he got was a text asking him to come by her place after he left the station. He stopped by the bodega kitty-corner to her apartment to pick up cold and flu medication, Cherry Garcia, and some off brand ramen.

He anticipated sick-Amy, who was all sniffles and cuddling, not I'm-on-a-mission-Amy, who grabbed his shoulder and yanked him into her apartment roughly, dragging him into the bathroom, where there were six pregnancy tests lined up, side by side on the counter.

Needless to say, priorities changed.

Fast forward eight months.

Amy's sleeping, snoring akin to the noise his first car's engine made on one of its last runs. And their daughter—little Cora Faye Peralta—named first for herself, second for his mother at Amy's insistence—she's in his arms, eyes dark and unfocused and sleepy, lips pouting as she stares back at him.

During labor, Amy had rattled something off last second, something about babies not being able to focus on things further than ten inches—was it eight?

How much is eight inches? Why doesn't he know this? He's a dad now, he should know useless fact, right?

The baby squirms in his arms, and he panics just a little.

If he was holding her wrong, she'd be crying, right?

Cora blinks sleepily, curling her fist up next to her cheek. She's small and pink skinned, with dark hair beginning to curl on the top of her skull, and her head is a bit cone shaped, which the nurses assured him was normal. Recently being born and all.

Jesus fuck—his kid is born. Kid. His. Pride and joy. Apple of his eye. Fruit of his loins. H

e winces the second that that phrase crosses his mind. But still. His priorities are no longer ranked at all—she takes up the first ten spots easily.

The squad came through earlier, with even Rosa and Holt cracking genuine grins. Boyle, in true Boyle form, brought a stuffed bear so large that it is currently squeezed into the second chair in the room, and it's just barely hanging on.

Cora makes a mewling noise, smacking her lips together in her doziness. And this is it. This is all there will ever be for him, and, yeah, a couple of years ago, the thought would have made him scream and cry a little bit, but now—

well.

He still wants to cry a little bit. But for totally different reasons, he swears.

Amy stirs beside him, her eyes opening and focusing on the little bundle in his arms immediately. It's like she has a radar, or something. "Gimme," she demands, opening her arms to reach for their daughter.

Jake obeys silently, standing to shift Cora into her mother's arms.

"You're not freaking out, are you?" she asks, staring at him in concern.

"Me?" His voice is hitting falsetto notes he didn't know were within the human register. He clears his throat and tries again. "Nope, not at all. Cool as a cucumber."

The look she levels at him is withering; she's obviously too tired to work through the layers it would take to get to the root of his problem. Amy gets this way sometimes—they both do. They are too different and too alike, and sometimes neither has time to work through the other's complexes.

He's tired too. So—

"What if I screw this up so badly?"

Amy softens, and she cradles her—their daughter close, staring at her for a moment before looking back up at Jake. "You're here, aren't you?" After a beat of silence, he realizes that this is not a rhetorical question and that she expects an answer. Jake nods, looking down at his hands.

He hears rustling of sheets and looks up. Amy's holding Cora to her body with one arm and shifting to one side of the narrow bed with the aid of the other. It's an obvious invitation, but he waits for a verbal one—something about this moment makes him feel so lost, so uncertain.

"Come over here." It's less invite, more demand, and suddenly Jake is aching to be there, with her, with them, the two suns that his measly little planet now revolves around. He complies with startling immediacy, springing up from the couch like his muscles were just waiting for this, coiled beneath skin stretched too thin.

The bed's a bit too narrow to be comfortable, and Jake tries to give Amy the majority of the space. Having just squeezed a human out of her body, he figures she's a bit…sore, and he doesn't want to jostle her.

Shifting the baby to be cradled in her other arm, Amy carefully threads her fingers through Jake's. "You're already a hundred times better than your dad. We'll be better than our parents."

By our, she means your—Amy's parents are fantastic, but he appreciates the unity nonetheless. Cora's fallen asleep, by then, her face turned into her mother's body.

And Jake is good.

No, really—this is all he's ever really wanted, now that he thinks about it. A family. People to claim him and for him to claim. He'd had his mom, and then there's the team—but this.

This is it.

sometimes i need a little fluff dONT JUDGE ME