The scene where Rosa admits to Holt and Terry that she's feeling lonely and scared was one of my favourites of the episode (and made me so sad). It also got me wondering what Rosa felt, deep down, about life in prison. Because we rarely get to see her open up in person, this fic was my answer. Sorry about the angst, but hey, blame the writers, not me! Brief warning for strong language, if that's something that bothers you. This is my first b99 fic, so I hope you enjoy!
The characters belong to Dan Goor/Mike Schur and the TV network, I just like to play around with them.
Come say hi on tumblr: feeisamarshmallow
Originally posted 03/10/17 on ao3
Rosa thought about the Nine-Nine a lot. It wasn't like there was much to do in prison. Work out, eat tasteless food, sleep. Intimidate the other inmates into respecting her. And so she thought about Charles and his ability to annoy her senseless and then turn around and plan her the perfect surprise party. She thought about Terry and the way he never doubted her abilities as a detective. She thought of Amy, now the only female detective at the precinct, and even though Rosa knew she could handle herself, she wanted nothing more than to be working there with her.
But once Rosa started thinking about the Nine-Nine, she always felt a little bad. Because thinking about the squad always led her to Jake. Was he okay? How was he handling prison? And that always made her the tiniest bit angry. That was the thing about Rosa, small things made her explosively angry. Smash the computer with her bare fists kind of angry. But raw emotions, she kept those concealed somewhere deep inside of her.
And so Rosa was lying in her bunk in the dark, listening to the way the prison clanked and creaked even as the other inmates slept, trying to ignore the little spark of anger in her stomach. Because she knew the Nine-Nine cared for her, but she also knew they thought she could handle prison in ways that Jake couldn't. And damn it they were probably right. (Hell even she had been more scared for Jake than she was for herself in those agonizing days before they were transferred to their permanent locations).
But that didn't mean it was easy for Rosa. And the fact that the Nine-Nine had a little bit of faith that she would be okay made her want to shout and scream, "but I'm not okay. No one here is okay!" Yet she had to be. So just like all the other times in her life that people looked at Rosa and thought she was confident, strong, and able, even when inside she was crumbling, Rosa picked herself up and made herself okay.
She figured out pretty quickly that the other inmates weren't a big fan of cops. Turned out after the whole Lieutenant Hawkins incident, Rosa carried pretty similar opinions (not the Nine-Nine, but they were something different entirely). All she had to do was make the others understand, and it ended up her explosive anger was handy in that regard.
She wanted to say she started the riots on purpose, but really she had been working on getting the other inmates to respect her with limited progress. Scowling and using her fists had only gotten her so far (and a nasty black eye in the process). They had been eating dinner and the guard bumped into her and her food flew everywhere. When he wouldn't let her get another serving, Rosa lost it. And then another inmate, the Latina woman with two long black braids who had been cautiously approving of Rosa's silent and deadly demeanour, got up and started yelling too. The food had been especially terrible—uncooked and even dangerous at times, and the women of Connecticut Women's Correctional Facility had had enough.
Rosa was pretty sure she blacked out the whole experience. The only thing she could remember was the end of the riot. A perverse take on a middle-school food fight. Women in drab blue jumpsuits screaming, punching the guards, and each other. Overcooked mashed potatoes and undercooked carrots slung across the room and trampled underfoot. And the pain across the back of her head as one of the guards who had waded into the riot took her out with his baton.
When Rosa landed herself in solitary the next week, she refused to cry until nightfall, not trusting that no one could see her until she lay down under the cover of darkness. On her back, silent, her tears ran wet and salty down the sides her face and into her ears. When she got out, she had won the tentative approval of her fellow prisoners, but it did nothing to ease the rising feeling of hopelessness that Rosa was trying desperately to ignore.
Later, when she recounted the tale to Captain Holt and Sergeant Jeffords through a thick layer of plexiglass, Rosa heard the nonchalant tone of her voice, and she hated it. Hated the way she wanted to say, "I have never been more terrified than when I accidentally started a prison riot" and instead says, "Nobody likes cops in here, so I had to earn their respect by starting a bunch of riots. Got thrown in solitary for a week." Hated the way they nodded, like they had expected nothing less of her. Hated the way she was so good at being okay.
But most of all, she hated Lieutenant Melanie Hawkins. The elusive badass woman. The one Rosa secretly imagined would understand her. They would communicate in nods and brief glimpses of eye contact and understand the shit they had had to wade through to make it to their position. Female detectives in the predominantly male NYPD. Instead, Hawkins had screwed her over. Taken away her life and her boyfriend-maybe-fiancé. Made her re-evaluate if there even was any good to being a cop. (Even if she was a good one, putting people here? How could that ever be a good thing?). And made a part of her, as teeny tiny as it was, angry at the nine-nine. Her, she hesitated to say family. But fuck it, her family. Lieutenant Hawkins turned her life upside down.
Rosa had been lying awake on her bunk for hours, if her internal clock was correct (and it always was), and she didn't know who she was mad at anymore. The Nine-Nine? For having faith that she was okay? For not understanding what she was going though? Hawkins? For being a piece of shit? The whole fucking justice system? For failing her, but moreover for failing every single person Rosa had ever arrested and every single inmate living at the Connecticut Women's Correctional Facility?
The sun was beginning to stream weakly through the ten inch window in Rosa's cell. Very deliberately, Rosa collected herself. Took a few deep breaths, vigorously scrubbed a few errant tears from her face, and picked up all her fears, all her anger and put them back in the box she kept in the pit of her stomach. She was going to be okay. She always was.