Brooklyn Nine Nine

Chapter 1: Waking Up Jake

Jackson's eyes snapped open.

The ceiling above him was unfamiliar — stained, slightly cracked, and holding a spider web in the corner. He sat up with a groggy groan, his head spinning slightly. The air smelled like leftover Chinese food and old socks. Around him were food cartons, laundry piles, magazines, and what looked like a half-eaten sandwich on a file folder. It was chaos. Total chaos.

"This isn't my room," he muttered.

Then it hit him — a sharp, sudden jolt in his mind like static bursting through his skull. Memories, names, emotions, scenes he hadn't lived. Detectives. Rosa. Holt. Amy. The Nine-Nine. A precinct in Brooklyn. A name.

Jake Peralta.

His breath hitched.

He rushed to the nearest mirror, stumbling over a pizza box. The reflection staring back wasn't his. Brown hair. Tired but charming eyes. Jake's face. Jake Peralta's face.

He stumbled back, overwhelmed. "No freaking way."

And then everything went dark.

He woke up again to the sound of birds outside the window. The clock read 5:30 AM.

Jake — or rather, Jackson in Jake's body — lay still for a while. Processing. Accepting. His old life hadn't been much to mourn. No close family, no dream job, no real direction. Honestly? This was an upgrade.

Still weird, though.

Eventually, he pushed himself out of bed. The apartment looked worse in daylight. Clothes hung from chairs. Takeout containers were stacked on shelves. There was an empty fish tank filled with socks. Jackson winced. "Yeah… this needs work."

An hour later, the place looked a little better. Trash in bags. Floor visible. Dishes soaking. It wasn't clean, but at least it didn't look like a crime scene anymore.

He found a box labeled "Important Stuff" — mostly unopened letters and receipts. Sorting through it gave him a picture of Jake's financial life. It wasn't pretty.

One bank statement made his stomach twist.

Debt: $25,000

Jackson groaned. "Seriously, Jake?"

He dove into Jake's emails and financial accounts, opening the laptop and filtering through subscription lists. Magazine subscriptions, multiple streaming services, some weird online games with recurring charges, and even a recurring donut delivery service.

"Why do you need four different music streaming apps?"

He spent an hour canceling everything unnecessary, tracking monthly expenses, and making notes to budget. This life might've been a mess, but he was going to fix it. Starting now.

After another long shower — because the first one didn't count in this weird new world — he got dressed, made a simple breakfast (toast and eggs, surprisingly edible), and stared at himself in the mirror again.

"Alright, Jake Peralta… or Jackson… or whatever I am now. Let's go be a cop."

He picked up the NYPD badge on the nightstand, clipped it to his belt, and walked out the door.

A new day had begun.