#Holt's would be firecracker i think

[nixotinix]

Soso! In some funky book I bought a while back, i read a little fact I didn't know before- Holt plays Roller Maze! I think it's absolutely criminal that it isn't even brought up in Friday Night Frights, even more so the fact that he didn't get a doll. So, I had to change that! Say hello to my SKRM holt design!

(please click Tumblr crumpled this poor fella)

[letsperaltiago]

a merry little christmas

Welcome to (once again belated) door four of four! 

Behind my Christmas calendar’s fourth door is a... baby’s first christmas, pure fluff oneshot ♥️ 

Summary: It's Baby's First Christmas and Jake and Amy are taking it all in - both presents and tiny surprises from their son. Pure domestic fluff for days.

Rating: G

Words: 2.2k

Read on AO3 here

Right then and there keeping a straight face, or just anything that looks somewhat close to it, is beyond impossible.

It’s Christmas morning, six AM to be more precise, and the still rather new, little family of three is slowly making their way through the presents waiting for them under this years’ Christmas tree. As a matter of fact, it’s rather Jake opening gifts meanwhile Amy is on the couch with their two-month-old son eating his second breakfast - that is if his previous meal at three AM can be considered breakfast. Jake likes to call those meals Midnight Mac Snacks.

“They really need to communicate more,” Amy chuckles, which causes her chest to jolt just the tiniest bit, alas apparently enough that it earns her a grumpy little cry from Mac to which she immediately reacts by stroking and repositioning the tiny infant’s head. “No need to complain, Mr. Mac. Mommy and daddy are just having some fun.”

“He’s bitter because all he got for Christmas is ‘Baby’s first Christmas’-ornaments.” Jake hasn’t stopped laughing since he opened the third ornament, from auntie Roro, which came after uncle Charles’ ornament. Upon unpacking this second ornament, from Charles, matching the first ornament from Holt, it didn’t cause much worry. The new parents simply saw it as a matching coincidence and they’d just keep both. Although upon unpacking a third one, they should’ve known: it was a perfect, hilarious 99th precinct-disaster.

Fast forward to present time, Jake is sat on the living room floor with not three but six ‘Baby’s First Christmas’ ornaments for his son. Sure, they’re all different styles and designs but Jake can’t help but laugh. In retrospect, he and Amy had told the squad that baby Mac didn’t need anything grand for Christmas as he was still so small and had everything he needed so far. They told their friends to save the money and spoil Mac for next Christmas, a Christmas he’d understand much better than the current. Turns out great minds think alike and everyone’s creative take on Mac’s gift had been the same.

“It’s kind of cute that they all had the same idea.” Mac has gone back to quietly suckling on Amy’s breast, allowing her time to chime in on perhaps this Christmas’ funniest moment yet. It’s too soon to declare it the funniest as they’re headed to a huge Santiago Christmas-dinner in the evening and anything can happen there.

For Christmas morning though they very early on, already before Amy gave birth, decided to stay home as they knew it’s what they’d prefer with their very new son. Sitting there, in the moment, looking at gifts from their incredible friends and Mac quietly eating in the lights coming from the Christmas tree, they’re both thankful to have made that choice. Sure, Santiago-Christmas morning was an event that you didn’t want to miss out on but this year, with very few hours of sleep behind them and vomit on both clothes and hair, it’s nice to be able to soak in the sweet surrender of their little trinity.

“We do have the best friends.” He picks up the ornaments, hanging them on his fingers to put on display for his wife. “What do we do with these?” A sheepish smile replaces the goofy grin from before.

“I don’t know…”

The doubt on Amy’s face, biting her lip, thinking hard, is clear as day which is understandable since Jake himself doesn’t hold the answer for their little dilemma. Giving them back to their respective giver is not an option - what would Holt do with a ‘Baby’s First Christmas Ornament’? -  and getting a refund also seems too cold. Fact is that each of their friends has had the same idea: they wanted to mark and somehow be a part of Mac’s first Christmas. Jake and Amy can’t, nor want to, take that away from their son nor their friends. All in all, there seems to be no good solution but one: keep all six ornaments.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Jake cocks an eyebrow, implicitly suggesting what his wife is already thinking.

“If you’re thinking that we should keep them all and put them on the tree, then yes, I am thinking what you’re thinking.”

At just the right time, almost as if he’s agreeing, Mac lets go of his mom’s nipple before letting out a small, hazy gurgling sound. A sound he’s never made before. Both parents freeze on the spot, forgetting all and everything about the ornament-issue.

“Did you hear that?” Amy asks, making it sound as if she doesn’t believe her ears and a second opinion is needed. Having studied all and everything for her first child’s arrival, everything this could possibly imply, Amy shouldn’t be surprised that her two-month-old is finally introducing his first small noises. The fact resides very clearly on the Milestones to Expect-index, page 2, in her ‘Two month’-binder. Yet here she is, Jake right there with her, surprised by this new accomplishment of her newborn - one of many accomplishments that she both loves and, even two months in, still is a bit nervous about discovering as she just rather know her baby fully by heart already. On those occasions where Mac’s changing, something she swears happens daily, makes her feel uneasy as if she doesn’t know him at all, she holds onto Jake’s reasoning: Some tests can’t be studied for.

And no matter how much she hates that fact, Amy knows her husband is right and she does love him for reminding her whenever she happens to fall down a spiral of doubt and frantically tries to grasp for the control that lies within facts, books, and lists.

Jake jumps from his spot on the floor as if it were lava and falls into place beside her on the couch where he can hover over his incredible son.

“I did but I didn’t fully realize where it came from right away, but oh my gosh, Ames! Our son is a genius!”

“Perhaps… Or simply in accordance with average-”

“No, Amy - a genius! Like his parents.”

Her husband looking as if he could burst any second, a firecracker of sorts and there’s no stopping the explosion, Amy hurries to put down her before lifted shirt and places Mac against her shoulder. Here she hopes he can both burp and, hopefully, make another glorious sound for them to be proud of. Jake leans in as though he and Mac are to exchange secrets behind Amy’s back and the milk-drunk infant, unable to control a whole lot, waves around his arm and just so happens to grab Jake’s index finger. During these first two months of Mac’s life, this has happened a few times already, the first time being at the hospital which caused Jake to cry happy tears Still, every single time, Jake feels reaffirmed by the fact that creating this tiny human being is one of his best decisions ever - that and telling Amy Santiago that he wished something could happen between them - romantic stylez.

“C’mon, mister. Show daddy how you talk.” Jake coos even though the little man of the moment seems far from interested in or bothered by his parents’ admiration and swooning over his new talent. His mommy patting his back does feel good though, especially when it helps a burp escape and Jake, of course, has to laugh because Mac is truly and fiercely his son. “Now that’s talking!”

“Not what I had in mind but nice to know he’s burped.” Amy chimes in and replaces the soft patting with small loving strokes, hoping to soothe her boy to sleep as the next step in his ‘eat, burp, sleep’-routine - even if Amy wishes Mac would make another sound. Just to confirm that she wasn’t hallucinating before.

“Make a sound for mommy, baby. Just a tiny one.” Amy takes her turn cooing a plea but it happens to be very much in vain.

“Aaand he’s dozed off,” Jake chuckles quietly whilst using his thumb to caress the tiny fist still wrapped around his index fingers, a fist that doesn’t let go even though the owner is already fast asleep with a mix of drool and milk caught in the corner of the gaping mouth.

“That was fast.”

“I don’t blame him. Life is exhausting.” Jake is carefully pecking his son’s head covered by thing, soft, black hair and even though Mac on her shoulder blocks the view, Amy smiles and wonders how she got to lucky with these two boys.

“Bedtime?” Amy asks, expectant of confirmation of whether or not Mac is far enough gone to be moved without waking up and throwing a tantrum that’ll mean they’ll have to spend another half hour or so lulling him back to sleep.

“I sure wouldn’t mind. I did prepare breakfast though.” It comes out mid-yawn, proving Jake’s point further, as he nods his head in the direction of the pancakes, courtesy of Jake, and hot cocoa, courtesy of the local bakery that has blessed their lives by opening at five AM, waiting for them in the kitchen.

“Not you, silly. McClane. You and I are definitely having that delicious cocoa. The smell of it has been tempting me since I sat down to feed.”

They mostly call him Mac. Mac or a thousand other things like Mr. Mac, Magic Mac, baby, monkey - one time, macadamia nut - and the options are limitless and renewed every day. Jake doesn’t know for sure but this might be the reason why the full name McClane being said, the context being that it’s his son’s name, makes him feel butterflies in his belly.  Either that or because he still can’t believe they named their son that. Perhaps it’s a bit of both reasons.

“Still can’t believe you agreed to that name.”

“Must’ve been a moment of weakness for me. I was pregnant and delusional.”

Amy teases and proceeds to carefully remove sleeping Mac from his spot on her shoulder, relocating him to the safety of her cradling arms.

“Delusional from the incredible round of sexy timez we had just prior to picking his name.”

“Jake,” she scolds as if the sleeping baby, which doesn’t even grasp the concept of speaking yet, were to be scarred by their explicit flirting.

“What?”

Amy’s already up on her feet, heads down the hall and into their bedroom with Jake close on her heels.  “I remember it so vividly.” Jake points to their bed. “We were right here, post incredible sex, and we got talking about baby names because a new suggestion had stroked your mind right before I came in and wooed you with my good, amazingly hot looks.” Amy’s head whips around from where’s she’s just focused on placing Mac in his cradle, double-checking that he’s still asleep, now displaying a cocked brow and overall expression that challenges his recollections of that conclusive night. Defeat hits him and his shoulders drop with a sigh.

“Okay, you were seven months pregnant and going through a particularly horny phase - which I, by the way, loved - and I, being a dutiful husband, couldn’t decline your explicit requests. But I do still stand by the fact that I boinked my way to the name McClane.”

“Oh my god,” Amy groans, partly in reaction to her husband, partly in reaction to her sore back making an appearance when she straightens up from tugging in the baby. “Stop besmearing our child’s name. I can still change my mind.”

“I’m right though.” In the meantime, Jake has approached his wife and wraps his arms around her. Pulling her closer, back to chest, and she instantly relaxes under the pecks he places on her neck. “And it’s an amazing name for an amazing little human.”

They smile in unison as they admire the life they created, carelessly and contently sleeping Christmas morning away, before them. Wrapped up in her husband’s arms and their perfect little son to look at, a fuzzy feeling that is way beyond and greater than happiness flows through Amy’s veins. The pecks to her sweaty and tired-feeling skin pick back up where they left off, systematically and how he knows she likes it, going around her neck and shoulder-area.

“I really wanna give in to how inappropriately horny you’ve suddenly made me, but…” she trails off with a sigh.

“You can’t stop thinking about the hot cocoa.” He finishes her sentence and the pecks are replaced by a muffled chuckle that tickles her skin. “It’s okay, Ames. I’m right there with you.”

“Thank God,” she groans.

“Hot cocoa and a Christmas movie we can fall back asleep to?”

This suggestion of Jake’s that will allow Amy to give into her tiredness is what she’s wanted to hear all morning.

“Sounds perfect. Grab the baby monitor?” She turns around to follow him back to their kitchen only to see him already holding the gadget with a tired, knowing smile plastered across his face and to Amy, even with his messy curls and shirt clad with stains of baby-vomit, her husband looks absolutely perfect.

Baby’s First Christmas might just be her favorite Christmas so far.

[coffee-obsessed-writer]

Hi! If requests are still open, can i have a Rosa Diaz imagines. Where Rosa’s wife is pregnant, and she is in the precinct so Rosa can keep an eyes on her. And they go into lockdown and the reader is about to give birth. So they have to help her give birth in the 99, and at the end it’s fluff with Rosa, the reader and there baby! Thank you! :)

Here ya go, anonny! Sorry it took so long…

Imagine Being Rosa’s Wife and Giving Birth at the 99

WC: 3K

Warnings: None

Rosa Diaz x Female!Reader

Tags: @sorenmarie87 @cloverhighfive @kazosa @whelp-that-just-happened

“This is completely unnecessary you know,” you said as you waddled towards the breakroom. She had insisted that you go to the station with her that day, despite feeling extra tired. Your back was especially sore, and there was a war of indigestion raging in your chest. But, with the recent rise in break-ins in your neighborhood, Rosa didn’t want you to leave her side. “Babe, I don’t need a babysitter. I would have been fine at home.”

“Yes you do,” Rosa mumbled and helped lower you to the couch there. “You’re nine months pregnant with our baby, and if you think for a second I’m letting you stay at home with all the craziness that’s been going on in this city, you’re just as bad as the… crazies out there,” she stuttered a little, shook it off, rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest. “Sorry babe, you’re stuck here for now. My shift is over soon and then we can go home, and–” she trailed off, looking around to make sure no one could hear her, “I’ll rub your feet for you.”

“Well now, Diaz, are you being soft for me?” you teased.

“No. Shut up,” she scoffed, took one more look around and bent down to kiss you quickly before turning towards the door. “So, stay put, eat some crap from the vending machines and take care of our little girl.”

“Yes ma’am,” you winked and gave her a mock salute.

Trying to settle in for her long shift, you got as comfortable as you could, laid your head back and closed your eyes. There was a nice, ambient lull to the precinct that day, and you weren’t even mad that she dragged you across town just so she could keep an eye on you. Rosa must have put the fear of death into the squad not to bother you, because for more than an hour straight, neither Hitchcock or Scully even came near the room for snacks, or the use of their favorite couch.

In fact, it wasn’t until you heard the crack and then whoosh sound of someone opening a soda can, did you even start to stir. You opened your eyes and saw Jake standing near the vending machines, orange soda can in hand, and a look of fear on his face as he saw you wake up.

“Hiiii, Y/N. Sorry to wake you,” he whispered loudly. 

You laughed. “Its fine, Jake. How ya been?”

He looked nervously out into the bullpen and then back to you. “Good, good. Go back to sleep. If Rosa knew I woke you up, she’d kill me. Like, literally. She promised to hog tie anyone who disturbed you and then said she would tie them to the back of her bike then give them a tour of Brooklyn. I’ve already seen Brookly, Y/N. I don’t need a tour.”

“Come on, man, you really think I’d let her do that. Help me up off the couch and I promise your secret is safe with me.”

Jake put his soda down and gave you both his hands to help heave you up from the couch. 

“Damn, little Rosa seems ‘bout ready to pop, huh?”

“Dude, you have no idea. This little girl is a firecracker. She’s already taking after her mommy.”

“Aww, that’s so great, I can’t wait–”

“Jake!! What the Hell?!” Rosa exclaimed from the doorway. “I told you, what would happen if you woke her up!” Rosa glared and went to slowly pull something from the inside of her leather jacket, then stopped. “You’re lucky I don’t have the bike today.”

“Babe, stop. He didn’t wake me. In fact, he helped me up off the couch and then was about to get me a snack, right Jakey?”

“Yep, exactly. See! Uncle Jake is helping…”

“Fine,” Rosa relented and turned to you. “Have a good nap?”

“Yeah, it was great. Now I’m gonna eat the vending machine crap–”

“Over my dead body,” Charles chimed in from behind Rosa. Boyle walked further into the breakroom, his hands on his hips, his eyes wide with disbelief and cast as shameful look at Rosa. “How could you let the mother of your child dare to poison herself and that sweet wittle baby with vending machine crap!?”

“It’s fine Charles, I’m okay with it,” you laughed, knowing he meant well, but cheese puffs and an orange soda actually sounded pretty good. 

“I’m–I’m appalled. At both of you. I am going down to the deli and bringing you back the most AMAZING Italian sub. They shave the lunchmeat so thin–”

“Alright, Boyle. Thank you for feeding her, now go before I have to hear something gross about shaved meat and feel the urge to punch you,” Rosa groaned and looked back to you with a little shrug as Charles turned and bolted quickly, most likely afraid Rosa would change her mind. 

The moment he was out of sight, you walked over to the vending machine and procured the snack and soda you really wanted while Charles was gone. As you tasted the sweet orange bubbles, you smiled as it refreshed the dry throat leftover from your nap. You were about to say something when out in the bullpen a bout of chaos pulled everyone’s attention.

Jake and Rosa passed a curious, but a nervous glance and both turned to venture out to see what was happening. In the doorway, Rosa turned back to you. 

“Stay in here, okay?” she asked but you knew it wasn’t a request. 

The blinds were drawn so you couldn’t get a good look at what was going on, but you heard a variety of shouts and sounds of a scuffle. From somewhere else in the building, it sounded like a gunshot went off. You pushed your back flush up against the vending machines, suddenly terrified of what was going on. That’s when you felt the trickle of water running down your thigh, then a gush if it soaking your shorts. 

“Shit!” You nervously touched the wet spoke of the shorts, worried that you’d see blood there, but thankfully there wasn’t. Sighing with relief, you tried to move off the machines and towards the door to get Rosa. 

Jake came through the door just as the first few moments of a strong contraction were making you stop to rest at the table.

“Y/N?!” Jake exclaimed. “What’s wrong?”

“Labor…” you managed to get out, trying not to scream as the pain spiraled quickly through your back and legs. “Get Rosa, pleeease!”

“Ok, okay… come on, let’s get you somewhere comfortable. The precinct is on lockdown. Had a perp escape custody downstairs. The whole building is on lockdown until the situation is resolved. Let me take you to Holt’s office, at least his couch isn’t covered in Hitchcock and Scully leavings…”

You groaned in both pain and disgust as Jake slung an arm around your waist and you put yours around his shoulder. As he got you from the breakroom and out into the main room of the precinct, Rosa came running over. 

“What’s wrong, are you–” she stopped at seeing the wetness on your shorts. “Shit. Water broke. You need to get to the hospital. Now.”

“We can’t get out, Diaz. Let’s get her to Holt’s office, maybe he can call in paramedics at least.” 

Rosa nodded and helped prop you up from the other side as they assisted you into the Captain’s office. His door was already open, and he waved you in immediately. 

“Sir, Y/N’s water broke, her first contraction has already started. Is there any way you can pull rank and get some paramedics up in here? I know this can hours but–”

You inadvertently cut Jake off by a cry of pain as another contraction pierced through you. 

“–you can see things are speedin’ up a smiidgal.”

“Yes, I can see that. Thank you, Peralta. Diaz, stay here with Y/N, try your best to keep her calm. Let me make a call and see what I can do about getting medical help. Jake, find Amy, brief her of the situation and see if she has some kind of binder for this emergency. After Sharon went into labor, I believe she put a protocol together just in case it should happen again.”

Jake nodded in confirmation, while Holt followed behind and closed the office door behind him. Rosa knelt by your side and squeezed your hand tightly. The pain from the contractor subsided a little and you tried to remember the breathing techniques from the one Lamaze class you and Rosa attended. You couldn’t help but laugh when you remembered why you never went back.

“What?” she asked. “What’s so funny?”

“I was just thinking of the one birthing class we went too,” you replied, swallowed thickly and wishing you had some of the orange soda to wet your throat. “There was that one couple… The Bernbacks… Bernsteins? I don’t know… Bern–somethings…”

Rosa rolled her eyes at the mention of their names. “I don’t care what the instructor said, we totally beat them at all the exercises. They thought they were so perfect in the burrito roll, telling me how I should–”

“Alright, babe… I didn’t mean to rile you up. I just can’t believe its happening. All this time we waited… and now here she comes.” You felt a severe rush of hormones and emotions take over, tears quickly bubbling to the surface and spilling down your cheeks.

“What? What’s wrong?” Rosa asked, trying to assess what was causing you to cry. 

“Please don’t let the first thing our daughter see be Scully or Hitchcock… or some weird food ritual for newborns that Charles tries to present.”

“I promise you, I would let either of those two bozos within a hundred yards of our little girl,” Rosa said. “You just breath and relax.”

“We never did pick a name,” you said, trying to think of the hundreds of options you and Rosa had discussed over the nine months. “Think we can try and settle that before she makes her grand entrance?”

“You know my choice…” Rosa shrugged casually and exhaled through her nose. “But you didn’t want Nancy.”

“I am not naming our daughter after Nancy Meyers… please pick something else.”

“I just don’t want it to be all… froo-froo.”

“Ok, then, besides Nancy, what do you like?”

Rosa was thoughtful for a moment but ultimately shook her head. “I don’t know. I think you should pick, and whatever you pick, I’ll love it. Right now all I can focus on is making sure you and her are both okay.”

You nodded and couldn’t help but laugh. “Alright, I’ll think of the perfect name for this little firecracker.”

Rosa comforted you and did her best to keep you calm, as another couple minutes went by before the next contraction hit. By the time it subsided, Holt, along with Jake and Amy returned to the office with hurried excitement. 

Holt explained to Diaz paramedics were on their way, but there was still a situation on the second floor. They were letting them in through the back entrance and could hopefully get them up here with no trouble. Amy was on the couch, a binder in hand and asking you a flurry of questions about pressure here, pains there, and if you thought your cervix had softened. 

“Amy!” Rosa admonished. “Come on dude, just… help her.”

“I’m not a doctor Rosa! I just… know the steps and questions a doctor would ask. I didn’t think you or Y/N would be comfortable–I’m NOT, by the way–to check it myself!”

“Fair enough,” Rosa relented and came back to kneel by your side. “Help is on the way, but I don’t know how long before it gets here.”

“Ookay…” you breathed, trying to fight the urge to scream. “I hope its soon because I feel like I need to push.”

“No, no. Don’t do that, not yet,” Amy warned. “At least let me read ahead and see what the binder says. This isn’t exactly like trying to teach someone how to rotate a tire, or organize a closet.”

“Yeah, maybe a bit more complicated, babe,” Jake said and touched her shoulder lovingly, trying to guide her up off the couch. “Come on, let’s give the binder to Captain Holt, then you and I give Y/N and Rosa a minute to breathe, okay? There we go…” Jake slipped the binder from Amy’s arm and handed it to Holt before they left the office.

The contractions came and went quickly over the course of the next twenty minutes, and when the elevator opened, a paramedic team with a stretcher getting off on their floor brought everyone a deep sigh of relief. 

They got you moved to the stretcher, and realized that there was no time to move you, the baby was coming. They cleared Holt’s office, letting only Rosa stay to hold your hand. The paramedics worked fast to cut away the shorts and cover your lower half. The pain tore through you as they told you to bear down and push. 

It felt like hours went by, but in reality, it was only about ten to twenty minutes of hard labor before a big, piercing cry filled Holt’s office. From the other side of the drawn blinds, an eruption of shouts and cheers filled the bullpen at the sound of a healthy baby. 

You were exhausted, in pain and yet smiling from ear to ear as the paramedics gave the baby a quick once over before bundling her up and handing her to you. Gazing down at her little face, you looked up at Rosa, whose dark brown eyes were filled with tears, a soft smile quivering on her lips. 

“She’s so beautiful,” Rosa whispered and delicately touched the baby’s cheek. “She’s perfect.”

“Ok, mom and baby, you guys ready to travel? Let’s get you to the hospital and make sure baby… she have a name yet?”

You and Rosa locked eyes for a moment, and just as she was about to say no, you said. “Yes, actually, we do.”

“We do?” Rosa snorted. “Since when? Literally twenty minutes ago, she was gonna be Baby-Not-Named-Nancy (Y/L/N).”

You shrugged and looked down at the beautiful baby currently sleeping in your arms. “I was thinking, Charlotte Marie Diaz. You can call her Charlie, thought that wouldn’t be too… what was the word you used? Froo-froo?”

“Diaz? I thought…” Rosa hesitated, surprised at hearing her last name and not yours. 

“The way this girl heard a bit of commotion, then raced to get here to see it… she is a Diaz through and through. Just seems like she should have her feistier mom’s name.”

“It’s perfect.” Rosa bent down and kissed the side of your head and mumbled, “I love you.”

As the EMT’s rolled the gurney through the precinct, Amy, Jake, and Captian Holt were standing by to catch a glimpse of the newest addition to the Nine-Nine family. Right before the elevator, you asked them to pause just for a moment, so you could introduce everyone to little Charlotte. Even Captain Holt couldn’t stop himself from cooing at her. Everyone was so enamored with the little pink bundle, no one saw Hitchcock and Scully approaching from the other side. 

“Hey, we found this, thought maybe you could give this to the baby from us!” Scully said, beaming with pride at the treasure he was holding out towards Charlotte. 

Jake saw him first and quickly moved to stand between the dark, furry item that Scully assumed was a stuffed animal of some time. Blocking you and the baby from even having to see it. 

“Noooo… No. Not gonna give her that,” Jake groaned and quickly disposed of whatever it was. “Go! Go!” Jake waved the EMT’s, along with Rosa to get you into the elevator. Amy and Holt blocked Hitchcock as he also went to hand a baby blanket that had been in the lost and found since 1995. 

“No! Hitchcock!” Amy admonished and smacked it from his hand to the floor. “No gifts from you for the baby. I’ll find you something you can give her. New… from a store. Not something you pulled from lost and found.”

“No, that’s not from lost and found! That’s just old evidence from a–”

“Alllright,” Holt called out, getting everyone’s attention. “Let’s go, mother and child need to get to the hospital.”

Acting as a barrier, Holt, Amy, and Jake waited until the elevator doors opened. Charles came through the elevators, holding the bag from the deli and a look of sheer exasperation on his face. The moment he stepped off the elevator, he started rambling, completely unaware of the EMT’s and the fact that you were on the gurney, holding a baby in your arms.

“You will NOT believe what just happened. I ran down to the deli, and it took a minute or two longer because they had this gorgeous goat’s head in stock. Can’t find a good goat’s head in Brooklyn these days. Anyway, so I was trying to get back in the building, but the stupid lockdown. Had to wait until they finally lifted–”

“Charles!” Amy, Holt and Jake all yelled, interrupting his story. Incensed at being interrupted during his rant, he followed their line of sight to see you, and finally notice the baby. 

“Wha-How-I missed…baby…” he trailed off and his eyes rolled back as he fainted to the floor. 

“And down he goes,” Jake narrated and shook his head with a laugh. “You guys go, we got Boyle. Meet you over there soon, okay?”

“Thanks, Jake,” Rosa smiled and followed the paramedics onto the elevators. 

As the door closed, you were gazing down at your daughter, who was starting to get fussy and was probably ready to eat. Despite the pain and exhaustion set into your body, you felt a rumble of hunger yourself. 

“Oh man,” you mumbled, making Rosa look down as the elevator descended to the bottom floor. 

“What?”

“I shoulda had you grab the sandwich from Charles. Hospital food sucks.”

Rosa laughed and rolled her eyes. “I promise, once you and Charlie here are all checked out, I will bring you whatever you want to eat. Anything at all.”

“You spoil me,” you teased and leaned your head against her side. 

“Now I get to spoil both of you,” she mused dreamily, unable to take her eyes from Charlotte. “Maybe I should take some time off work. We could just chill at home with the kid… just enjoy life a little,” Rosa shrugged, but once she saw your reaction, she couldn’t hide her smile. 

“Charlotte and I approve of that decision. Very, very much.”

As the EMT’s pushed you and the baby through the precinct doors and out into the light of day, Rosa squeezed your shoulders. 

“Good. Now let’s get you two to the hospital before there are any more crazies coming out of the woodwork today.”

[pumpkins-s]

What if Loraine was still alive and went to Kerberos with Sam, Matt and Shiro? What if she's kicking galra ass and part of space pirate crew an year later??

(On AO3 as Prison Toys)

Pidge gets used to not talking about Kerberos.

Mostly. Somewhat. Little bit.

She has her moments, when it all gets to be too much, and she doesn’t think she can sit through another five minutes of talk about where Kerberos went wrong and what we can learn from it lectures in class without screaming. When she snaps and fights back with sharp words off a barbed tongue of barely controlled grief against Iverson or whichever asshole has opened his mouth on that particular day. But for the most part, she learns to keep her mouth shut.

For the one, it’s a necessary evil to put up with their excuses, their lies, in order to protect her identity. Katelyn Holt could throw a fit and threaten a Garrison officer for talking shit about her family, for leaving them to rot in the cold depths of space. Pidge Gunderson cannot.

Pidge Gunderson, for all intents and purposes, is just a single child from a nice, Midwestern family, with a private school education and an interest in radios—on paper, at least.

Still, what’s on paper is all Pidge has left anymore. She knew the consequences of her mission, and accepted them as a necessary sacrifice. All that she was is now obsolete, and she must become the illusion to the best of her ability.

Besides, it is…tiring, not to be believed all the time. The Garrison, her former friends, even her mother, none of them would listen. Why waste time now arguing with people who won’t ever understand, when it will be easier to prove them wrong.

Which she will, she’ll prove them all wrong. She will find the truth if it kills her.

She thinks about them a lot lately, especially now that she’s here, in the Garrison. Her family, her father and brother, are of course never far from her mind, but the others too—Shiro, who had been Matt’s friend so long he was practically family himself. And the woman, Pidge’d only met her a couple times, but she’d seemed nice enough. She remembers her mentioning having a little sibling around Pidge’s age, someone who looked up to her, someone to come back to.

None of them deserved—do deserve—to be abandoned like this.

She will bring them home, all of them. Bring Matt and her father back to herself and her mother, and the others to their own families.

As far as she knows, all Shiro’d really had was Keith, in terms of family or close friends outside of Matt or…whatever that was. Regardless, they’d been important to each other, and that’s about as far as she cares about it.

Pidge’d only seen Keith the once, after Kerberos. The same day she’d broken into the Garrison, and had been dumped in the waiting room of the commander’s office while Iverson called her mother to come pick her up, already working on her plan to get back in as she sat stewing. She’d stared at him from across the room in their respective plastic chairs, at the scowl on his face and the large, fresh bruise spreading across his cheek, and wondered just what had happened to the kid she used to know that followed Shiro around like he’d strung up the sun.

“What the hell happened to you?” she’d asked bluntly, and he’d snorted.

“McClain’s brother punched me.”

McClain. Lieutenant McClain, Shiro’s co-pilot. The one with the starry smile and the little sibling she’d been planning to take photos for in space.

“Why?”

Keith had shrugged, looking mildly uncomfortable and almost guilty, and her stomach had churned. “Some new report came out about the pilot error they think might have caused the crash, and I told McClain it must have been his stupid sister that was driving the damn thing when it happened, because Shiro would have never made mistakes like that.”

She’d tried to imagine what it would be like if the world was saying the crash was Matt’s fault, and shook her head. “That’s just cruel.”

“…I know,” he’d said, and she decided the undirected misery in his eyes made him look like the most pathetic creature alive. “But I just needed someone to blame. I don’t want it to be Shiro’s fault.”

“Do you really think they’re dead?”

“I don’t know,” Keith shook his head. “I’m not sure I want to know.”

From the next room over, through the window, she’d seen Iverson hang up the phone, and she’d stood, sneering. “If you refuse to go looking for answers just because you’re afraid of what you might find, you’re nothing more than a coward.”

It wasn’t until after Iverson had come back, and led her to the door, that she’d heard Keith whisper. “Yeah, probably.”

After that, he’d just been another non-believer no longer needed in her world.

She’d not heard anything about him until long after that, when she’d returned to the Garrison as Pidge, and realized the position in the fighter class her new teammate had just inherited had been Keith’s previous one. He’d been expelled, apparently. Some combo of telling his Garrison-assigned therapist to go fuck herself, threatening an officer, and breaking into the file room to look through the Kerberos records.

Well, at least he’d done something.

It didn’t matter either way, she’d decided. Keith wasn’t her problem. They’d never been particularly close to begin with, and she’d realized discarding her identity meant leaving all things, including former interpersonal relationships, behind. Katie may have been sort-of-friends with one Keith Kogane, but Pidge Gunderson was not. If they ever met again, they’d be nothing more than strangers.

Besides, she didn’t—doesn’t have time for friends, now. The mission is more important than anything else, no matter what that anything else may be.

Which is something she kind of wishes her new teammates would realize, because they really…really haven’t.

On some level, she understands the desire to try and get along with your teammates. Her father had always stressed that team cohesion is key to a mission’s ease and success, and so as far as that logic extends she can get why one might try to build a rapport with the people they’ll be stuck working with for at least the next year or two. But at some point, you have to be willing to accept when someone doesn’t want to be your buddy, and move on. A memo her beloved teammates have not gotten, apparently.

It’s mostly the engineer, Hunk. He talks in this loud, booming voice to try and fill up the empty spaces between the three of them, hands always fiddling with one another and eyes twitching nervously to the corners of each room as if looking for some inevitable danger. When he speaks to her, he always seems to instinctually look well above her head, as if expecting someone else to be walking with them as their third, before correcting himself and dipping his head to see her. Pidge doesn’t belong here, that much is obvious to her, but it doesn’t stop Hunk from clinging. Mostly to their other teammate, but to her as well, always ready to shuffle up to her side and follow her walking path one step too close behind. It’s infuriatingly like how her mother behaved towards Pidge after her father and brother went missing, as if she expected her to vanish at a moment’s notice, and it leaves her with a sick feeling in her stomach that only makes her hate it all the more.

Hunk’s not a bad person in the slightest, even given his annoying habits, but he’s too soft. Too warm and well meaning, and all the more likely to get cut on the barbed wire of her hate-riddled soul. He doesn’t deserve the mess Pidge is looking to make of the Garrison, and so she pushes him away at every opportunity. Running from kind, ramblings words and unsteady smiles, leaving him to care for his other self-proclaimed ward.

Said ward being their team’s pilot. Lance. Lance is—well, she doesn’t know quite what to make of him, honestly.

He’s all these mismatched, odd ends. Sewn together with rough twine that cuts the hands and salvaged thread of all colors that can’t quite keep him together.

Sometimes he’s loud and boisterous, posturing grandly and bouncing off the walls with all this excess energy and not a second thought. Other times he’s serious and methodical, all narrowed eyes and a sharp, steely focus that could cut with just a glance.

Mostly he’s just…quiet.

It’s his eyes that get her. They’re a dark blue that look as if they should sing of the ocean, of crashing waves and salt-kissed lips and birdsong. But, no matter whether he’s the enthusiastic force of the tides, the single-minded focus of the sniper, or the silent shadow at Hunk’s side, his eyes always just seem…dead. Like the life was sucked out of them an eternity ago and he just kept moving regardless.

Broken, she decides. He looks broken—in all the ways she might look, if she wasn’t wrapped up in layers of clever lies and anger-made chainmail to protect herself.

Lance tries, occasionally, to be nice to her. The first time they met, he was in one of those firecracker moods, vibrating with enthusiasm, until he turned to see her, and she got her first glimpse of those dead eyes. He’d frozen in place, completely silent—something she later learned was just a thing that happens with Lance— and Hunk had smoothly taken over introductions. Following that, he’d been almost overly friendly, but after the first couple times she made it clear his presence wasn’t wanted beyond when it was required, he mostly left her alone. Now he just watches her with shrewd, wary eyes she can’t quite puzzle out, and doesn’t bother her so long as she keeps up in simulations.

He’s got a kind of unwavering dedication to the program, to climbing the ranks as soon as possible, that Pidge just can’t understand. Maybe once upon a time she wanted to go to the Garrison out of genuine interest and a desire to further the world with her work, but after everything that’s happened, all she feels is disgust for this place. It’s built on a foundation of rigorous hierarchy and self-preservation that she can’t stand with a loathing that runs deep into her bones.

This is the place that sent four innocent people into space and then left them to die. The only reason she’s here is because she has to be; she’d never willingly follow their rules of her own volition.

And—okay, yes, most people don’t have the reasoning she does, but Lance is almost unnerving. He sits through every lecture about how they’re just not cutting it, each hurled insult about him being the replacement pilot, with the same polite smile fixed in place, those empty eyes always present.

If he knows genuine anger, he doesn’t seem to show it. To Pidge, who has coated herself in her own righteous fury as both sword and shield, he is an enigma. A glitch in the code that is the Garrison she should be able to understand and manipulate perfectly, free from the consequences of her old life and name.

Hunk isn’t much better, in all that unnamed, terrified grief she can’t quite make sense of, but at least she can get some genuine read on him when she looks at his face, on how he’s feeling and what he might be thinking.

She tells herself she doesn’t care, one way or another. So she has a couple weird teammates. She severed herself from everything else—from Keith, her friends, her school, to her own mother—so why should this be any different? Pidge can’t afford to get caught on the spikes of whatever the hell it is Lance and Hunk are dealing with.

All that matters is the mission. The high-range broadcast equipment she smuggled into her room under the guise of Pidge Gunderson’s documented high school radio interest, and the photo of Matt and herself tucked under her pillow.

All else is secondary. All else is meaningless.

Pidge only sees Lance snap the once—after she picks a fight with another cadet, a real fight.

She doesn’t mean to. Normally she knows better, she’s not Keith for God’s sake. She is usually controlled, keeping an iron-tight grip on the lid of her simmering pot of anger, but it is one of those days where she could not sleep without Matt’s imagined screams in her dreams. Where she stood silently between Hunk’s fidgeting and Lance’s blank stare through another of Iverson’s lectures, and felt the fury of a daughter without a father and a sister without a brother coil in her chest.

It’s one of those days where it’s all just too much, and when she hears some idiot from the cargo-level training class talking shit on his phone in the otherwise empty hallway about how stupid the Kerberos crew must have been to crash a Garrison ship, when the simulators built to match are so easy to fly, she just…breaks.

She’s on him before she can think, kicking and hitting everything she can reach and screaming until her voice runs raw and jagged. For a moment, Pidge feels like the storm, crashing down on those that would dare stand in the way of her pain, of her righteous vengeance in the face of what she’s lost.

And then Lance and Hunk yank her off and away from the boy.

Pidge comes back to herself in a rush, the shame boiling over—not at her actions, because that prick got what he deserved, but at her loss of control. Only then does she notice Hunk’s shaking hands where they grip her arm to keep her from attacking the boy again, the tight dig of Lance’s nails into her shoulder that she doubts is intentional but bites regardless. She looks up to them, and Hunk is ashen and trembling, as she might expect, but Lance…his eyes are narrowed at the cadet they just yanked her off of, and for the first time they look not dead but freezing with a kind of hate she never expected from someone like him.

Suddenly, she feels not so much like stormy water itself as she does the child dragged under by its currents.

Perhaps they’re both the two of them, herself and Lance, more broken than she gave them credit for.

They end up in the commander’s office, awaiting a disciplinary hearing, unsurprisingly, and Pidge finds herself sitting in the same chair Keith was, all those months ago. She figures it’s appropriate.

Despite Hunk and Lance being the ones to break up the fight—if it can even be called that—they all wind up in front of Iverson’s desk. They weave a lie of how the boy shoved Pidge first in perfect unison, not even hesitating, and she sits through the rant of one more incident, boys, one more incident and you’re out with her nails digging into her palm. She bites her tongue so hard she tastes blood to stop herself from screaming at him, and she decides to count that as a success.

Where’s my family, her heart whispers despite it all, where the fuck is my family you absolute bastard. She shoves it down where it cannot be heard as they’re escorted out of the office, and tries not to meet her teammates eyes once the door into the hall shuts behind them.

Lance turns on her instantly, those suddenly alive eyes cutting into her. “What the hell was that? Are you trying to drag us all down with you?”

She sneers on instinct, wanting nothing more than to go back to her room and just not think for a while, the sooner the better, even if it means being cruel. “It’s not like I asked you to get involved, fuck off.”

Pidge turns to leave, and Lance grabs her arm. She shakes it off with a scowl, wheeling around to face him again, and the hurricane descends on her. “You’re not the only one with something at stake here,” Lance snarls. “We’re a team, Pidge. You may not care about whether you ever graduate or not, but I do, and I’m frankly not in the mood to wait while they try to find us another communications officer because you’re trying to get your ass expelled! I need this to work, ok?”

“What would you know?!” she screams, and the blood in her mouth tastes like grief. “What the hell would you know about why I do the things I do?”

Lance straightens up, and the anger in his expression is gone, lost to a cold indifference that leaves her feeling tiny. “Not all of us have the luxury of time or circumstance to defend echoes that can’t hear,” he says. “You may be one of the smartest people I’ve ever met, but if you can’t be bothered to do a basic Google search on your own teammates, then you’re an idiot. What the hell do you even know about me?”

He’s right, Pidge has to admit, and she shrinks beneath his gaze. She’d never wanted anything to do with the two of them beyond what is necessary, and has studiously avoided trying to learn any of the details of who they are. She knows the names they’d given her, their speaking habits, and their grades in class, and that is the extent of it.

She hadn’t wanted the attachment, hadn’t wanted to care. The less of a life she has as Pidge Gunderson, the more of Katie Holt she can save within herself, even if she may never be able to reclaim it as her own.

Lance scowls, and turns. “C’mon Hunk, this is a waste of time.”

He makes it five steps, Hunk trailing unsurely behind him, casting glances back at Pidge all the while, before she breaks.

“They’re not dead!” she screeches, an echo of the question she’d asked Keith, and she doesn’t quite know why. “I know they’re not dead.”

Lance stops.

“You’re right,” he says, and Pidge’s world shatters.

No one has said this to her before, has acknowledged the lie as Pidge has known it for the better part of a year, and it takes her breath away.

“You’re right,” Lance repeats quietly. “They’re not dead. I’d know if they were, trust me. But—“ he glances over his shoulder at last, and those sea-storm eyes are filled with a kind of sympathetic understanding that makes Pidge want to claw her skin off. “You can’t get what’s missing back with scanners and radios. If you want to find a lost thing, you have to go looking for it yourself, and you can’t do that stuck on the ground.”

He disappears down the hall, dragging Hunk with him, and Pidge is left standing there, lost in her own head.

Later that night—much later, after curfew when the lights have been shut off—she powers up her laptop, and hacks the Garrison student records. It’s the work of five minutes, being so low down on the security priority list that she enters with full confidence of avoiding detection, and she pulls up the fighter-class simulation teams in order to sort by her own and find Lance’s file.

When she does, the realization that she’d never bothered to learn Lance’s last name, hadn’t even considered, hits her like a train, and her world rewrites itself as she stares down at the tiny letters glowing on her screen. Silently, she closes her laptop, and crawls into bed, trying to ignore the words swimming behind her eyelids.

Lance. Lance. Lance effing McClain.

Objectively, she knows that she needs to get some rest, that they have simulation testing tomorrow, and she cannot afford another fuck up—still she tosses, still she turns.

Across the room, illuminated by a sliver of light from the window, the poster of the Kerberos crew that she’d tacked up as a reminder of why she’s here is thrown into sharp relief. Moonlight dances across a picture of a young woman with blue eyes, a smile of stars, and the name below her.

Loraine McClain, co-pilot.

Sleep doesn’t come for a long time after, for neither Pidge Gunderson nor Katelyn Holt.

The next morning, dead eyes, nervous fingers, and barbed wire hatred go back to work, same as usual. They don’t talk about it, for better or for worse.

It is what it is, after all.

Everyone always wants something they can’t have back. That’s just the way of their world.