Hostage | Brooklyn Nine-Nine

Six

Fawn

"What can I get you?" The bartender asks as I lean over the wooden bar, a general bustle of chatter filling the atmosphere. I ask for a fruit cider and go to pull out my purse, but out of the corner of my eye, I see someone slide a couple of notes in front of me. When I turn to the side, I see Amy look at me, a kind smile on her face.

"First drinks at Shaw's are always on the last new person," she explains as the guy behind the bar hands me a bottled cider, "it's a tradition." A smile now on my face, I raise my bottle and clink it against Amy's beer, just as we all hear Captain Holt's commanding voice address the room. 

"Attention, everyone! If you could all raise your drinks to the newest edition to the precinct, Detective Fawn Hamilton! Today, she helped Detective Santiago solve her abduction case and fixed the precinct's broken pipe system. Cheers!" The entire team cheer for me, to which I jokingly bow my head and thank everyone for their kindness. Everyone goes back to their individual conversations, so I turn back to face the bar, as does Amy. "So, how did you feel your first day went?" She asks before she takes a large sip of her beverage. 

"A lot better than my first day at training camp, that's for sure," I reply with a blunt chuckle before I take a significant swig of my cider. Amy gives me a confused look, so I set my drink down and explain it to her. 

"When you're in the armed forces, you have to be extremely serious around those higher than you and all the other trainees, unless you're in your training quarters. Everyone carries themselves with an extremely high sense of respect and pride. The drills are intense, the activities are gruelling and after the strenuous training, you come out a completely different person."

Her face displays a sense of shock and she struggles to string a response together, to which I just smile. "But I'm glad that I didn't have to go through anymore training like that. I just had to fill out forms to hand in because I've gone through that long procedure." Amy smiles back and goes to reply, but stops when a voice rings out and grabs the attention of the entire room.

I don't even need to look to recognise who just entered the room. 

Jake...

"Oh my God," I mumble, staring at my drink. I can see Amy turn back at me out of the corner of my eye and after a few seconds, I think that she's put everything together. "You recognise him?" She whispers, turning around so she's completely facing me. 

I nod my head and respond in barely a whisper. "He was my best friend in high school, I haven't seen him since we graduated." Amy lets out a small sigh and after a silent moment passes, she points across the room to an empty booth. "Go sit over there and let him come to you," she says. I nod, let out a considerably large breath I didn't realise I was holding and I walk over to the booth, cider bottle in my hand. 

Once I've sat down, I lower my head and bring my bottle up to my lips, the sweet and alcoholic beverage hitting my tongue. I avoid looking at Jake, a subtle bubble of nerves simmering underneath my skin. Anxiously, I tap my glass bottle with my finger and when I look up slightly through my thick hair, I see a pair of legs walking towards me. 

I let out a silent sigh before I prepare myself, knowing that I'm about to see and talk to Jake for the first time in years. Finally, I look up just as the legs stop walking and I see the ever familiar face of Jake Peralta. While he finally grew taller and his body has matured with him, I can never forget those eyes or that smile. 

"Hey! You're the new addition to the precinct, Captain said that I should introduce myself," he exclaims, his voice happy and chipper as he extends his hand, "Detective Jake Peralta." I can't help but smile as I shake his hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you. I... uhm... hear that you were working on a pretty big drug case?"

He sits down in front of me and starts to talk about his massive drug case, clearly ecstatic about his massive solve, so I just let him ramble and I listen to every word. Eventually, he realises that he's ranting and he stops, a small chuckle leaving his lips. 

"Sorry, I'm just so excited that I solved this case! I've been working it for months now and today was so crucial to catching the perps involved," he apologises, to which I just shake my head and tell him not to apologise. "You should be thrilled, that does sound like quite a challenging case."

He nods and says that Amy's consistent pestering about it also pushed him to get it done faster, which makes us both laugh aloud, smiles on both our faces. I heave a sigh and as I take a sip of my drink, I know that I need to come clean and reveal myself to Jake. 

"Yeah, that took a long time," Jake says, looking away as he raises her beer bottle to his lips, "god, I was so tired afterwards."

There.

That's how I can reveal myself.

I chuckle and reply with, " 'God I was so tired', title of your sex tape." Jake laughs aloud and instinctively goes along with it, but then he stops mid-sentence and looks at me, a slightly confused smile on his face. "Where'd you hear that joke? I practically invented that joke in high school."

Taking the moment, I reach into my bag and pull out the small, folded up photograph. I hesitate for just one second, but I push the hesitation away and I slide the photo into the middle of the table, Jake's face growing in confusion. 

"I'm not entirely sure that you invented it completely by yourself," I correct as I watch him unfold the photo. His eyes scan over it and I can see the moment that the realisation smacks him in the face. He looks up and down from the photo to me and when I give him a small, hopeful smile, his eyes widen in shock.

"FAWN?!" He shouts, his voice alerting every single person in the bar, which makes me turn my back to them slightly. "Yep, the one and only," I reply, my voice sounding like a whisper in comparison. I see a flurry of emotions switch on his face and when they overwhelm him, he storms out of the bar, leaving the photo discarded on the table.

His reaction doesn't surprise me, so I just grab the photo and put it away in my bag again, turn to the whole bar and apologise. Then I slink outside, but instead of following Jake, I leave out the back with an embarrassed flush across my cheeks.