It seems wherever she is (somewhere in the back of the precinct in this very floor, he’s pretty sure, like either the evidence lockup or the bathroom or something) she’s at least partially aware of the effect her anxiety is having on Jake - he can feel her familiar attempts at tamping it all down, probably the result of her doing a breathing exercise he’s coached her through in the past. It works, if only a little; he can feel his own head clearing, his racing thoughts slowing, until the blurriness to his vision sharpens and he can hear himself breathe over the blood pounding in his ears.

He’s not even fully aware of his own thankfulness until he feels Amy’s bewilderment - and of course she’s bewildered, why wouldn’t she be bewildered at his thankfulness invading her mind like alien baby chest-bursters.

His newly-cleared vision lands on a slightly crumpled post-it taped to the bottom of his computer monitor - get a grip tonto, it tells him in Rosa’s scrawl - and he inhales deeply through his nose, letting the words reverberate around his skull. Get a grip, get a grip, get a grip.

It’s probably more of a reflection on him than it is on her that, despite his somewhat-diminished sense of world-ending panic, he can’t quite get the unevolved caveman part of his brain to stop replaying their first kiss. It’s not his fault - Amy Santiago is a good kisser, even under all the duress and pressure of an undercover mission seconds away from going sideways. She’s a good kisser when she’s sporting a gruesome black eye, a good kisser when she’s out of breath, a good kisser when she’s falling, a good kisser at the bottom of one of the nastiest dumpsters Jake’s ever had the misfortune of smelling in his life. Even if nothing else ever happens and he spends the rest of his life replaying this one memory on a loop, he’ll get it tattooed to his forehead:

Amy Santiago is a good, good kisser.

But, the fact still remains: he never asked for this.

He definitely hoped for this, but he never asked for it.

He kind of asked for it.

It’s not his fault.

It was a natural reaction - anyone who was in his place would have done the same thing, dammit! She’s his partner and she was in danger - and, okay, maybe the only reason he knew that in the moment was because he felt her sudden spike of shock and fear more than he heard knuckles connecting with flesh and her responding gasp of pain in the room he’d just crept out of. But the fact still stands - he would have gone and thrown that jerk off of any of his fellow detectives.

He would have gotten just as much savage, feral pleasure at punching that perp’s lights out. He would have yanked any of his fellow detectives into a bone-crushing hug. Just as Amy would have pulled any of the other detectives into a panic undercover kiss upon hearing their other perps coming back toward them at the commotion.

Right.

Amy Santiago is a good kisser, even when she’s unwittingly establishing their soulmate connection and feeling every last ounce of his emotion flood her nervous system for the very first time.

(He tries not to think about the fact that she’d gasped into his mouth or that she’d gone stiff as a board in his arms for all of one-second - tries to chalk it up to the sound of their perps storming in somewhere behind them and wolf-whistling at their display, too distracted by them to notice their companion out cold on the floor at their feet.)

And he really tries not to think about his stupid, fumbling attempts at leading them out the back door into the alley behind the warehouse before the perps caught on - about how he’d misjudged the distance, sending them both toppling over the edge of the loading dock and straight into the open dumpster below.

(And the weight of her settling over them even as they’d both grunted on impact - how she’d pulled back for a second, eyes blown wide, before leaning back in - how he’s still not sure if the desperation he’d seen in her eyes was case-related or them-related.)

It was messy, and stupid, and so completely and utterly them - and the fact that they managed to make all of their arrests gives him hope that someday, they might be able to laugh about this.

Of course, the fact that she did not speak one word directly to him and studiously avoided his gaze the whole way back to the precinct gives him severe anxiety.

It’s two-o’clock in the morning and his connection to Amy is a living, breathing entity - what was a soothing glimmer as delicate as spider’s silk glows bright an overwhelming now, rearing up and glittering like ocean waves beneath a setting sun. She’s everywhere, she’s everything, and he’s certain now that he won’t be able to live without her, and maybe that’s not the best thing to be thinking at two o’clock in the morning when he smells like a dumpster and there are half-finished arrest reports strewn about his desk, but it doesn’t matter.

Because the hailstorm of emotions originating from Amy suddenly taper off into a quiet and firm kind of resolution - and Jake’s stomach bottoms out at the feeling. He can’t tell around his own stupid anxiety if she’s happy or sad or angry or anything other than calm - it’s the exact opposite of the way he feels, only more so when his phone buzzes with a new text.

Will you please meet me in the evidence lockup?

She doesn’t have to ask if he’s still at the precinct, he notes with a certain amount of trepidation as he pockets his phone and slowly stands from his desk. She’s only felt his emotions for a matter of hours, now, and already she can read them well enough to deduce that he’s been paralyzed at his desk since they got back.

It would be comforting, if he wasn’t so freaked out.

She’s tucked toward the back of the evidence lockup when he slowly edges inside, leaned back against the shelves, arms crossed loosely over her chest. She straightens a little when the door squeaks on its hinges; he winces, both at the sound and at the fact that her face is entirely unreadable. She’s pulled her hair up into a low, loose bun in the time that has passed since he last saw her - a move he recognizes from her previous panic attacks, a half-conscious effort to allow cool air to touch the back of her neck. He forces himself to keep moving toward her for as long as he can stand it - all in, he stops about five feet short from where she’s standing, hands jammed so deep in his pockets he’s at risk of ripping holes through the seams.

Amy stares at him for a long moment, the only sound in the room the quiet mechanical whir of the precinct’s computer servers against the wall to his left. He tries to hold her gaze, really - it proves to be too much, the way the blinking server lights reflect off the molten brown chocolate of her irises, seconds away from piercing the very foundation of his soul. He focuses instead of her hands - on the way her fingers twist around her grandmother’s ring, knotting together in a way that reminds him of the knots in his own stomach. He inhales through his nose, holds it for a beat, and slowly releases it through barely-parted lips.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Her voice is soft, curious; not an ounce of accusation colors her words. His heart leaps unbidden at the sound of her voice and her eyes practically double in circumference. “Jake, I…” she trails, her fingers pressing briefly over her heart. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

He rocks back on his heels, fighting his flight instinct urging him to shrug. “I don’t, um…I just, I didn’t want you to, y’know, feel…obligated.”

Her swell of affection is undeniable; he peers up at her through his lashes to find her gaze soft and a little bit sad.

Boldness sweeps through him.

“I mean, you were right about all of this - the choice part of it, I mean. I knew you were my soulmate the day I met you, but -”

He’s nearly knocked breathless at the sudden punch of disbelief from Amy. “Eight years?” she whispers, and he bites the inside of his cheek. “You’ve known for eight years?”

“Uh-huh,” he curls his fingers inside his pockets, twisting the fabric of his jacket between his nails. “I mean, it was rough at first - we weren’t exactly best friends, remember? And I thought I was wrong for a while, too, but I - I wasn’t. And, I dunno, I was starting to come around to the idea of telling you about it when -”

He stops, drops his chin, stares at the fraying seams of his sneakers. “When, what?” Amy prompts him after a moment.

“You were right that morning in the break room,” he says quietly. “When you were talking about, uh, the nature of free will. I didn’t realize how important it was to me until after we talked, but -”

“The morning my brother found his soulmate,” she interrupts suddenly, understanding washing through her. “Oh, Jake,” she says softly, “I was such an ass about it -”

“No, you were right,” he insists. “I had never really thought about it that way. It made me rethink a lot of things, actually. I realized I had been planning my whole life around - well, around you. But I didn’t even know you. It’s like you said, some cosmic force just decided that that’s how things were gonna be for me, and I never questioned it. But after we talked that morning, I realized that I wanted to want this. I wanted to want you. Not because someone else said I should, but because I chose to. And I - I wanted you to, uh, choose me. So…” he sucks in a deep breath, and Amy’s chin ticks up a degree. “You don’t have any obligation to me, Ames.” he says, pleasantly surprised to find his voice unwavering. “If this isn’t what you want, I…I get it. Really.” He tries to ignore the sharp ache in his chest as the words leave his lips, but based on the way her face crumbles he’s certain he’s done a terrible job. “Okay, eventually. I’ll get it eventually.” A half-smile quirks the corner of her mouth upward, and he feels himself steadying. “But if…if this is something you want…I’m yours. I want you. I choose you.”

It’s strange - up until now, he thought he’d felt every single one of Amy Santiago’s emotions. This one - this swelling, morphing mass of something - is entirely new to him, though. It’s bubbling up and folding in on itself, growing faster than he can comprehend, intensifying tenfold with each slow, tentative step Amy takes closer to him, and now her molten gaze has him pinned in place all the moisture in his mouth evaporating in an instant -

Her hands are warm and steady where they brush against his jaw and curl around the back of his neck, firm when they tug him down two inches, soft where they gently skate up into his hair. Her lips are pliant against his, coaxing and inviting, moving with him in perfect synchronization.

Amy Santiago is an excellent kisser.

But above everything else, Jake feels radiant acceptance swelling like a warm hug around his tripping heart. She wants him, too, it’s in her hands and her lips and her steady, steady heartbeat. He all but melts against her, releasing an involuntary hum as the tension leaks from his joints and his hands slide up the gentle slope of her spine. She lets out a little hum of her own when his fingers spread and flex over the space between her shoulder blades, and he tucks the sound away, fully intent on figuring out exactly how to make her do it again.

She pulls away first, pressing a hand to the side of his face when he momentarily strains to follow, and for a long moment they stand foreheads flush together, trying to catch their breaths. Her left arm flexes where it’s wrapped around his neck and he slowly curls his fingers around the curve of her waist, smiling at her quiet, breathless laugh.

“You really meant that, didn’t you?” she whispers.

He swallows thickly, reveling in the warmth of her skin seeping through his shirt, ignoring the now-distant ache in his chest at the thought of her not wanting this. “Yeah,” he breathes, and it’s the strangest thing - it’s like his conviction is echoing back to him.

She pulls away to look him in the eye, though her grip around his neck never falters; he bites back a smile at the feeling of her fingers curling into the material of his hoodie. “This is - it’s - a lot,” she mumbles, eyes briefly squeezing shut. “Like, a lot to process - is it usually this intense?”

“Never,” he says quickly. “I mean, like, sometimes if emotions were running high - like if you were really pissed off about something, or, like, having a panic attack - but that was before you could - I mean, that was when it was just me. I don’t - I don’t really know what happens now.”

She nods slowly, eyes darting down to his lips for the barest second before meeting his gaze again. “I…really want to find out,” she whispers.

It takes all of one nanosecond before the joy comes blazing in - a tsunami of it, all-encompassing and all-consuming. He yanks her back to him sharply, her responding laughter little more than a muffled buzz against his lips and a pleasant simmer in his belly. Fear and dread and panic are nothing more than distant memories now, and through it all Jake finds himself wondering why on earth he didn’t do this sooner.

“Jake -” he cuts her off with another kiss, earning yet another muffled laugh, pressing against her over and over again until he’s effectively smothering her. “Jake - Jake, let’s - Jake!”

He’s laughing when he pulls away, biting his lip, reaching up to touch the tendrils of hair fallen from her bun. “Sorry,” he mumbles, not sorry at all, “I’ve just been waiting for a really long time to do that -”

“I’m not saying we have to stop,” she says, “just - let’s go somewhere, anywhere else. I don’t even care where, just - together.”

“I smell like a dumpster, so -”

“Me too.”

“- shower? And then somewhere? I can pick you up at your apartment -”

“Or we could just…both go somewhere that has a shower.”

There’s mischief in her eyes and excitement in her veins and he can’t tamp down the grin on his face if he tried. “I think I know a place,” he says pseudo-thoughtfully, and this time it’s Amy pressing her lips to his to smother his laughter.

“Let’s go together,” she says when she pulls away too soon. “We can come back for the other car tomorrow, but let’s go together.”

“Yeah,” he says, an absurd hitch in his voice. “Together.”

She steps back and the loss of her heat against him is jarring until her fingers lace through his and gently squeeze; her affection and adoration is an undeniable hearth in his heart glowing in her eyes. “Together,” she whispers, chin briefly touching his shoulder.

There’s an urge somewhere deep to tack something stupid like ‘forever’ on the end, but he ignores it in favor of a broad, blinding grin.