SPOILERS FOR HEART AND SPARKS AHEAD!
This idea came to me a little while after 2x04 (How great was that episode?). It's a little after midnight now, so it ended only an hour ago. That might explain the random turn from slight sentimental to downright sappy. I get like this late at night. Anyway, the implied Sam/Jo wasn't intended at all, but I do like the effect it has on this little ficlet. You'll see what I mean.
Enjoy! :)
That first day in the Penny, he thought that maybe they would get along. They both wanted Callaghan and McNally broken up, didn't they? She had been civil, he had been polite. They had drank together.
However, he didn't factor in something very important. She loved Callaghan and he hated Callaghan. He had considered the possibility of loving McNally and she hated anyone who came within a ten-mile radius of Callaghan. So maybe any attempt at friendship was probably doomed from the start.
But who was she to judge him for having Andy on his speed dial? They were partners after all. It's easier in a crisis to hit the number 3 and send than trying to search through contacts or tapping out her whole number. It made sense. So what if he felt something for his former rookie? His speed dial programming had nothing to do with that.
There was a small element of denial there, but his irritation with the blonde at the moment blinded him to it. He just wanted Andy out of the death trap of a building and back out here where he could make sure she was safe.
He couldn't lose her now. He just couldn't. It was too soon after the shooting at Supernova where he had been terrified that he had lost her without her knowing how he felt about her. Yet he had let opportunity after opportunity slip out of his grasp after that and found himself again in the same position. He would get her out of there if it was the last thing he ever did. Which it very well might be. But it didn't matter. Hazards would never matter when it came to her.
They say that love is blind. Most people mean that in the sense that love blinds you to another's fault's but there's actually a much truer take on the phrase. Love blinds you. It blinds you from the dangers in the world, from pain, from anger, from hate, from regret. You feel those things all the time. But you can't do anything because love blinds you. He would jump off a seven story building if it meant that she would be safe. He would take a bullet for her. Hell, he would walk out of her life forever if it meant she was happy. And trust me- that would hurt a whole lot more than the physical pain.
Maybe Jo's high school-esque words shouldn't bother him this much. No, they definitely shouldn't. He should be able to brush them off without a second thought. He should be able to shoot back a retort that would have her reeling without even blinking. But they do bother him and he can't fight the fact that she's right. Totally and completely right.
She hit the nail on the head and she barely knew them. She had only met them a few weeks prior and she could already pinpoint what it takes to crack his defenses. It made her a hell of a detective, but a terrible person to have a problem with.
Where McNally had the power to make him feel lower than garbage each and every day, Rosati could make him realize what he would much rather leave untouched and neglected in the dusty recesses of his mind.
And it scared him so much more.