Summary: A heartbeat. Eyes open, A life has begun. Eyes close. No heartbeat. A life has ended.
Word count: 1797
Disclaimer: I don't own Brooklyn Nine-Nine or the characters. I do own the quote, as I thought of it while doing the dishes!

A heartbeat. Eyes open, A life has begun. Eyes close. No heartbeat. A life has ended.

It happened so fast. One minute they were in the safety of their precinct, the other they were out on the field, where the probability of getting injured was a hundred percent higher – if not more.

Sure, they had a vest on, a vest they trusted to protect them from bullets that sometimes flew to them, and they had back up, people that were they to have their back. But still, the field was more dangerous than the precinct. Right?

Of course, it was. That precinct was like home to them, the place where they met for the first time or got better friends. It was the place some got married at, so many things happened there. Halloween heists, proposals, arrests, bets, everything. And after that dreaded day, it would experience one of the worst things. The downfall of one of New York's finest.

It all started when they were called to a crime scene. It was still an active shooting, but there were – unfortunately – some casualties.

They all had their vests on and guns in place when they entered the building. The scene was an old hospital that was turned into a hotel. The hotel was remodeling, so the air still had that smell characteristic to hospitals: alcohol, chloroform and cleaning agents. It was an improvement of the usual smell that came to them: urine.

As they walk around the hotel trying to find the suspects, they hear gunshots. They all immediately go to where the sound seemed to come from, and then they heard the dreaded words every cop hated to hear: Officer down. I repeat, officer down. Need an ambulance.

It was even worse when they came to the scene. The red crimson color coming out of the abdomen, the sound of someone trying to breathe through the pain, the pleads from everyone around. To make things worse, it was someone that was part of their little family. His wife immediately goes to him, trying to stop the blood from coming out, subsequently getting her hands full of that red crimson color. Everyone tries to pull her away after he had said goodbye, but she tries so hard. And as he closes his eyes and his head tilts the other way, she breaks down.

JAKE! JAKE! They all hear the deafening sound of his name coming out of her mouth, and she's pulled away by her family, they can almost hear her giving up. Jake... It comes almost as a whisper, as the paramedics come and try their best to keep him stable. They all wait there, hoping for good news. It was only for five minutes but to them, it felt like a lifetime.

He had his vest on, how was he shot at? That answer would come later. Someone explained that the bullet used was one that could pierce through Kevlar. Made everyone feel less secure at their workplace once they went back to work and needed to use the vest.

At that moment, Jake was taken away with the paramedics, and they all followed the ambulance to the hospital. When they arrived there, unlike the ambulance, they had to park the car. So, once they found out what floor he was taken to, Captain Holt and Gina were already there. They waited and waited, despair clearly on their faces. They were all freaking out, no matter how many times they thought no news, good news they would remember the amount of blood they found once they saw him.

Amy was fidgeting with her ring, remembering the day they got married, just a year ago. It had been exactly a year ago that she married him. Her best friend, her lover, her everything. Her supporter in everything she did.

It wasn't supposed to be like this. They hadn't been together for a very long time. Amy has been staying with her parents since her mom had been a little sick. She got better and Amy went back to work, worrying completely about her mom, and forgetting her husband. They didn't speak that day. And now, Amy was sitting in a hospital room waiting for news about him.

When the doctor arrived, carrying the news of her husband, Amy got up quickly along with everyone else. He carried in him the answer to all their problems, right? When he opened his mouth, Amy fell to the ground.

This can't be happening. It's a nightmare! Was what they all thought.

No one tried to comfort Amy. There was no way for her to be okay anymore.

She didn't sleep at home, that night. She went back to her parents' house, the house she grew up in and the place she had been staying for the past week. She didn't cry. She couldn't.

Every day there would be people sending her their condolences, telling stories of how amazing Jake was. Their family was always there with her, every step of the way. Rosa and Gina would send people away when they noticed she had enough; Captain Holt would look out of the window all the time, imagining Jake being there saying something stupid. His son; Terry was always consoling Charles, who was a bigger mess than all of them – except for Amy, of course.

The funeral day arrived. As the casket went down, Amy could only hear the cries of his mother, his best friend, and the whole squad. Amy saw Rosa push the tears aside and saw Gina put her head on Charles' shoulder, to find comfort on such an awful moment. That shoulder was more stable than her world. After all, Jake was the reason for her to actually know them. He was the one that got her this job, who always protected her, their whole life. Between boys, teachers, and bullies, Jake had been there. What was she doing now?

Rosa kept thinking of their first meeting, on how she just wanted to strangle him. Always upbeat, always with a stupid smile on his face. Oh!, how she wished for that smile once more. The tears kept on going, but she didn't care anymore. Her friend was gone. Let the tears roll.

Charles kept thinking of all their moments, on how Jake was nevr going to see Nikolaj grow up, on how Jake was never going to have a kid of his own. He just thought about how he would see Jake's desk from his own, probably going to be occupied by someone else, some stranger.

Captain Holt felt broken. His husband's hand, always comforting, just didn't do the trick then. His son was dead, and he couldn't do a thing about it. No more yelling at him about the things he did, while feeling proud of him on the inside. He would never be able to tell him how proud he was when he won the Halloween Heist the first year. Oh no! The heist. What were they doing with it, now? They couldn't continue it, could they? Of course not.

Terry kept squeezing his wife's hand, as she draws small circles on it. He always thought of Jake as a little kid, maybe even his own. He always expected, since his death, to find him at the precinct, late as usual. But as the hours rolled by, he never showed up. But he kept hoping.

Even Scully and Hitchcock were feeling the loss. They would always remember the kid that showed up at the precinct for the first time all those years ago. He made it a better place. Jakey will be missed, Hitchcock thought.

His parents held each other's hands, without looking at each other. Jake always took care of his mom, and so he decided to take care of the people of Brooklyn. His mom always knew this could happen, but not now that he was happy with Amy. It broke her heart to look at her. Her face looked tired, once you noticed the dark circles under the eyes, and she kept playing with her ring, making Karen Peralta remember dinners she had with her son in the last year after his marriage with Amy. Every time the subject was her or it was boring, he started to play with the ring. She smiled.

Once the funeral was over, Amy went to Shaw's with her precinct family and her 'real' family. Her parents left after ten minutes and so did Jake's parents. The rest stayed there longer, but Amy couldn't hear another story about Jake. She missed him, and the stories weren't helping.

Paying her tab, she said goodbye to everyone and left. No one followed, and she was thankful for that. Once the got home, she changed clothes. Grabbing the cereal box that was still on top of the kitchen counter like she had left for Jake when she moved in with her mom, she ate the cereal while staring at the wall. When there was no more cereal, Amy got up to get more – she always had more under the counter so that Jake could have his breakfast, cereal was over really fast in the Santiago-Peralta household. While she got back to the couch, she noticed the phone was blinking, meaning there were new messages.

Everyone knew she hadn't been home a week before the shooting, so why would she have messages?

She got up, and clicked on the button to hear the message. A familiar voice popped-up.

Hey, Ames! I know you're not home right now, but I have to go to work and don't know when I'll see you again, so... Happy Birthday! I love ya! Bye!

Amy started to tear up. His upbeat voice that she was never going to hear again, the smile he clearly had when he said that she was never going to see again. She had completely forgotten that it had been a year of anniversary of their wedding when he was shot at. She woke up knowing, but while she was having breakfast she got a call from Terry saying they weren't at the precinct but were at a hotel. She drove there, intending to tell Jake happy anniversary, but once she heard the shots and the man down, her heart pounded hard, forgetting everything. When she found out who it was, she ran to the building, the anniversary being the last thought on her mind.

Tears were now like a waterfall, and she clicked save. She needed to hear his voice forever, as a whisper in her ear. Telling her everything was going to be okay. But it wasn't. Because he wasn't there anymore.

A heartbeat. Eyes open, A life has begun. Eyes close. No heartbeat. A life has ended.

The End

It broke my heart killing off Jake, but I felt like doing it! Sorry. Anyway, still have one story of B99 to write about, just don't know what to do next. So, in the meantime, I'm going to watch Crossing Jordan. :)