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The case is so routine, it’s practically a paint by the numbers. The perp is good, but he doesn’t count on Savant’s tenacious boredom. Cyber crime has become downright laughable since the man was delicately coerced into joining the Nine Nine.
Diaz pulls primary – the call going out at 9:22am – and by lunch, she and Santiago are going in for an arrest. Things are going so smoothly, Rosa even lets Amy drive with no argument.
The suspect lives on the fifth floor of a six floor walk up. A minor inconvenience that goes unremarked upon because Santiago grew up with seven brothers and desperately wants to prove she can be as stoic as Holt, and because Diaz is… well, Diaz. Still, by the time they reach their floor, Amy is clenching her jaw to keep from panting through her mouth, and the curls on Rosa’s temples glisten with sweat. This call would have to be at high noon in the middle of a heat wave, and both of them in dark blazers.
The suspect has no history of violence, no priors in the system, and roots in the community; this should be a cake-walk. Except this guy explodes out of the apartment and makes for Diaz like a bat out of hell, .45 revolver in hand, and Amy Santiago has exactly two seconds to decide between diving for cover or-
The first bullet hits her square in the chest, and even through the Kevlar it feels like she’s been impaled by a javelin. The second bullet gets her shoulder, a through and through. The pain is so intense she’s sure her arm’s been blown off.
Through the haze, Amy hears Rosa yelling at the perp to drop his weapon, and then more gun shots. She sees blood, maybe hers maybe his, pooling on the floor. Her ears are ringing, and white creeps into her vision. This has gone from Michael Jordan at half court during his prime, to Dennis Rodman visiting North Korea in a hurry.
Amy feels pressure on her arm – thank God it’s still there – and the touch is both reassuring and agonizing. She raises her head to see Rosa’s frightened face looking back down at her.
“I called for a bus. Hold on.”
Amy opens her mouth to respond, but all that comes out is a whimper; immediately she is filled with shame. She really screwed this up. She should have been faster, or more alert, or something that she can’t name because being shot is like nothing else she has ever experienced and it is impeding her ability to list things in her head.
“Por favor,” Rosa mutters, dark eyes jumping from Amy to the downed perp to the stairwell, and back again. “No te mueras. Por favor.” The other detective repeats it over and over, and Amy realizes that Rosa isn’t so much speaking to her as at her. She tries for a brave smile and reaches up with her good arm to touch the other woman’s face. She hopes to put her colleague at ease, but judging by the way Rosa’s chin trembles she guesses she is failing.
“It’s… ok…” Amy manages to whisper, pushing past the invisible elephant that seems to have taken up residence on her chest. Rosa takes a shuddering breath, but whatever she wants to say is lost as the sound of rushing waves fill Amy’s ears, and the white that danced around the edges of her vision bleeds forward until all she can see is static.
There is fear, but there is also acceptance; Amy has been prepared for the possibility of dying on the job since the first time she put on her uniform. She just wishes she had more time, there are so many little things that she never had a chance to do. Like making New York City’s youngest Latina captain, or getting her own command, or winning the stupid running bet against Peralta. Not to get the car but to see the look on his face…
Swallowing hard, Amy feels hot tears run down her cheeks, into her ears. The sound of the ocean gets louder, and she begins to tremble. The last thing she’s aware of is something soft and warm pressing against her lips.
*****
“You’re an idiot.” Rosa’s voice is flat and hard, and just a touch brittle. It’s the first thing that Amy hears as she wakes, and it’s like music to her ears. She’s alive.
Slowly, Amy becomes aware of herself; the piercing throb in her shoulder, the great weight on her chest, the pounding of blood in her ears. There is a rhythmic beeping somewhere that speeds up as her brain wakes up and the panic sets in.
“Wh-what?” Her mouth feels like it’s made of dry cotton, like she is suffering from the worst hangover ever. “Did he get away? Oh God, I ruined everything didn’t I?” Amy’s mortification is only matched by the heavy ache in her chest. She tries to desperately to sit up, but Rosa’s firm hand on her good shoulder eases her back down.
“I shot him.”
The paperwork alone would bury them. Forms for being injured on the job, for discharging their weapons, for killing a suspect… The heart monitor starts to go crazy, and she can feel herself beginning to hyperventilate.
“Relax Santiago, I got him in the leg. He’s down the hall, handcuffed to a bed.”
Immediately, the beeping regulates and the panic attack eases into a more manageable level of anxiety. The pain sets in then, making Amy feel weak and shaky.
“Why do I feel like I went 12 rounds with Scary Terry?” she asks, voice scraping against her throat roughly.
“You were shot, dummy; twice.”
“Oh…”
“Yeah. Two cracked ribs and a through and through. You’re lucky he didn’t aim three inches higher.” Diaz’s glare cows her a bit. Amy gulps hard, and it feels like she is trying to swallow a basketball.
“Oh. That makes sense…”
“I had him covered,” Rosa goes on, and an edge of frustration enters her voice. “What the hell were you thinking, Santiago?”
“I… he… you…” She stops, the beeping of the heart monitor becoming a bit erratic as Diaz shakes her head. “He had a gun on you… I just, I reacted…” Rosa only purses her lips, the expression a mix of incredulity and disappointment. “I… you said we had to get each other’s back…”
“Like I said, you’re an idiot.”
And suddenly, it all becomes too much. Being shot, the fear of screwing up their collar, being dressed down after thinking she was going to die… Amy fights back tears with the last of her will, gaze firmly on the off white hospital blanket covering her body. She takes deep, miserable breaths and waits for the feeling to pass. She says nothing.
Out of the corner of her eye she sees Rosa frown deeply, the scar bisecting her eyebrow becoming more severe. They stay like that for long seconds, in awkward silence. Rosa breaks it first.
“You could have died.” She says it like Amy can’t feel the place where the bullet passed through her body, or hear the machines hooked up to her pinging with a steady rhythm.
Their eyes meet. Again, Amy uncharacteristically says nothing.
“Don’t pull this crap again,” Rosa growls, looking away.
Amy observes her squad mate, really tries to see her. The other woman appears stoic, but there is something in her eyes that triggers the memory of softly spoken Spanish and warmth against her lips.
“You kissed me,” she says quietly, like an epiphany. Rosa’s eyebrows hit her hairline.
“Did not.” The denial is knee jerk, and the curly haired woman can’t look her in the eyes.
“Yes, you did. When I was passing out. I felt it…” Amy is firm but smiles gently to reassure the other woman.
“I was doing CPR,” Rosa insists, squirrelly, and Amy scrunches her nose.
“The hell you were. You skipped out that day.”
Diaz enters the bullpen, already unamused. Looking around with a raised eyebrow, she takes in her team, and the various medical dummies scattered about the room.
Santiago stands at the front of the room, trying to engage a stoic Holt in conversation.
The Sergeant has excused himself to try and dress one of the infant dolls, grumbling about indecency.
Peralta grins up from the floor where he is in the process of smearing lipstick onto a female specimen, while Scully tries to covertly wipe cream cheese from the bagel he is eating off the mouth of another.
Boyle and Hitchcock bicker over whether or not Hitchcock needs to be wearing a shirt for the certification process, while Gina looks on with a cat-like air of ironic superiority from her perch on Jefford’s desk, where she sits buffing her nails and texting.
Nodding her head once, as if this is what she expected to see, Diaz spins on her heel. “Nope.”
“Whatever,” Rosa mutters, looking away. If it were anyone else, Amy would say she is blushing, but it is Rosa Diaz and Amy knows better. Instead, she allows the silence to stretch out again, and after long minutes, Rosa sighs in exasperation.
“I thought you were dying,” she says finally, as if that is enough of an explanation.
Amy is getting good at letting the quiet do the talking. She smiles and Rosa rolls her eyes.
“Is this gonna be a thing, Santiago?”
“How long have you been sitting here, Rosa?”she asks instead of answering.
Now Rosa straightens her back, as if a challenge has been issued.
“Whole damn time.” She glares again, but Amy isn’t scared anymore. “You’re my partner, and you got shot. Because of me. I will stay until you tell me to go.” Her look is full of heat, some of it pride, some of it guilt, and something unknown. The heart monitor skips a beat.
Rosa settles back into the uncomfortable hospital chair, arms crossed over her chest as if daring her to say something. Amy settles back against the thin mattress, weary but strangely pleased with herself. They must be dripping something besides saline through the IV, because she is so very tired, and a bit giddy.
“Are you going to tell me why you kissed me?”
“We’re not talking about this now.”
“Because I just think-”
“Shut up and get some sleep, Santiago,” Rosa interrupts, but that’s ok because Amy doesn’t know what she was going to say anyway, and the ‘now’ in Rosa’s sentence categorizes this as a conversation to be continued.
The bed rushes up around Amy’s consciousness and her expression turns loopy.
“Promise you won’t leave?” she asks, a moment of weakness she will probably kick herself over later. Rosa smirks, but it is fond, and reaches out to adjust the pillow behind her head. She brushes a stray lock of hair behind Amy’s ear, and the heart monitor jumps again.
“Like I said, I’ll stay until you tell me to go. Cleared it with the Captain already.”
That should send Amy into spasms, the idea of looking weak in front of Holt top on the list of things she would rather take a bullet than let happen. Except that she has taken a bullet, and all she manages to feel as sleep rolls in like the tide is a deep gratitude for her colleague.
"Got my back?”
Rosa chuckles, once, and takes Amy’s hand.
“Someone’s got to.”
As she finally goes under, Amy hears Rosa murmur something that sounds suspiciously like a ‘duermate, Amisita,’ and she smiles. Maybe the case wasn’t a slam dunk, but it certainly not a bust either.