Rosa was not what you would call, intuitive, when it came to relationships. She understood annoyance and anger but failed to see heartbreak. Unless she as the one doing the dumping, which she usually was, Rosa never saw the signs of fading feelings or her relationships fraying at the edges. She would obliviously exist in these relationships until the other person ended things. This never posed much of a problem because she would bounce back and find a new relationship or a warm bed to fall in to, in no time. It worked for her and Rosa was far too stubborn to change her ways.
It should not have come as any surprise to Rosa, that Amy would be different. Much like most of the other things in their relationship, Rosa was treading in unknown waters. She would get this ache in her chest that flowed down to her stomach and made it feel full but not in a she-ate-too-much kind of way. It was an unsettling physical reaction that came with an additional spell of emotion. This happened when Rosa actively chose to wait until their one month anniversary before they slept together, because she wanted to make sure it was as special for Amy as possible. It happened when Rosa even bothered to remember when their one month anniversary was. It also happened when they found a stray kitten, while on a stakeout, and decided to adopt it and share joint custody of it. It happened the first time they made love but Rosa thinks that may have just been an orgasm.
/
Amy stalked around the squad room like any other day, but Rosa knew there was something off. She noticed that there was only half as much bounce in Amy's step, today. She noticed that Amy drank her coffee with one less sugar, which meant that she was tired and wanted as few barriers between her and her caffeine as possible. Rosa noticed the tiny wrinkle in Amy's, usually, meticulously pressed dress shirt and the two, tiny pieces of lint on the bottom of her slacks. If it was anyone else, Rosa would not have bothered to notice or care, but for Amy, this negligence in her personal appearance was a clear indicator of emotional turmoil.
"Earth to Rosa," Jake called, snapping his finger in Rosa's face. "Did you even hear me?" He followed with a pout.
"Wasn't paying attention," Rosa finally diverted her stare from Amy, to Jake. "And if you want to keep those hands, you'll get them out of my face."
"Sorry."
"You will be."
"Anyway," Jake started in that annoying, but secretly funny, sing-song voice. "Do you want to come?"
"Huh?" Rosa asked.
"See, if you paid any attention to me, you wouldn't be so confused."
"You're really gonna drag this out aren't you?"
Annoyed Rosa was far from a strange occurrence around the office, but she usually played along a little longer before she started glaring. Jake realized that something had to be wrong. But, to be fair, it was Rosa; she could have been annoyed that the birds decided to chirp so loudly, this morning.
"I said," He began. "Me and Gina are going to a smash party and since violence is your thing, we're inviting you."
"I do like violence." Rosa thought for a minute. "What is a smash party anyway?"
Jake's face lit up. "It's when you go to an abandoned house and just smash stuff."
"Any stuff I want?"
"Yeah," Jake answered with an even bigger smile on his face. "Don't hit people though."
"What if they're annoying?" Rosa asked.
"Don't hit people, Rosa."
"Fine," She sighed. "When is it?"
"Next Tuesday, at eight. Its B.Y.O.B, though."
"Can't. And what idiot would mix property destruction with beer?"
"Why?" Jake asked. "And its bring your own bat, not beer. We're all responsible adults here."
"Book club," Rosa glared in Jake's general direction. "Not that it's any of your business."
"Come on Rosa," Gina yelled across the room. Apparently her lip reading workshops had actually been working. "Can't you miss this one? Jake and I kind of promised we'd bring some real, unadulterated rage this time, since Rocko said we were 'too soft' for his crowd." Gina knelt on one knee and slid across the floor, to Rosa's desk, in true dramatic fashion. "We don't want to get kicked out. I've finally found my crowd that I will, one day,, rule over like the true queen I was always supposed to be."
Jake made his way over to Gina and fell to his knees. The two clasped their hands together and poked their lips out in two pathetic excuses for pouts.
"You two really practiced this?" Rosa took a sip of her now cold coffee and relaxed in her chair. She was enjoying this.
"Yes we did," Jake was the one to answer. "Answer quickly please because this floor is harder than expected and my knees are killing me."
"I don't break plans and it was my month to pick the book; no way in Hell am I missing a meeting. We're reading 'Sound' by Alexandra Duncan. Plus SaraBeth is bringing peach cobbler this week and I have to make the vanilla ice cream."
"I can make you peach cobbler." Gina tried.
"No you won't."
"Would too."
"You'd buy it from the store and pretend you made it. Besides, SaraBeth is using her grandmother's recipe." Rosa stood from her chair, side-stepping the two dummies kneeling in front of her. "I didn't get any last time and I'll be damned if Rhonda's greedy ass gets my piece, again."
"You make ice cream?" Jake yelled at Rosa's retreating form.
/
Gina and Jake were attempting to get off of the, surprisingly, hard floor when Amy made her way back to the squad room. She found the two trying and failing to use each other as anchors, to pull themselves up. It would have been endearing of they were children, but watching two adults fall all over each other was pretty pathetic.
"Umm." Amy said, in lieu of a question.
"Nothing." Gina and Jake managed to answer, at the same time.
They scrambled against each other a little more before finding their footing and walking, as fast as they could, out of the room. Other officers would be concerned but it was far from the strangest thing Amy had seen in the office.
Rosa's desk was empty. That was the first thing Amy noticed once the two dummies had gone. There were still files on her desk so that meant she was still in the office.
Early in their relationship, Amy and Rosa (mostly Amy) decided to set some rules that would help them manage their relationship during work. A clear desk meant the woman was out of the office, while flies still lying about meant she was still around. This eliminated the need to text each other as much, inquiring about the other's whereabouts. If Rosa left a jacket on the back of her chair it meant that it was cold and Amy should feel free to grab the jacket if she needed it. Jackets in the locker were off limits, even to Amy. The cup of black pens on the far left corner of Amy's desk was for Rosa whenever she lost her own, which happened every other day. There were other rules about intimacy in the work place but they failed to follow those rules as strictly as they did the others. According to Rosa, they both had rocking bodies and faces to match so they should not feel ashamed about trying to get some lovin'.
Amy made her way over to her own desk, taking off her blazer and neatly rolling up the cuffs of her shirt. She had to finish writing up the report for the case she handled the week prior. If this were any other case, she would have already finished three rough drafts and would be doing her final copy but this was not just any case. She continued her cycle of staring at her notes, getting angry all over, again and giving up. This had been her reality every time she attempted to close her end of the case. Amy shoved her notes into her drawer and opened Solitaire on the computer.
Officers never became accustomed to the horrible things that people seemed to do, all the damn time, but they built up a tolerance and learned different ways to cope with seeing the worst of humanity. It was essential to working in the line of work that put you face-too-face with victims and perpetrators of the worst crimes. But, no matter how physically and emotionally prepared officers were trained to be, there would always be that one case that made it past all defenses. It would slither its way through the cracks and wrap itself around an officers heart and soul. Everyone had that case, it was only a matter of when and who. Every officer, simultaneously, dreads its arrival and welcomes it, hoping to get through it as quickly as possible.
Amy had been waiting for hers; just like every other officer before her. She tried to guess what it would be, hoping to prepare herself even more, if she at least knew the case type. Like all officers before her, the hurt slipped from her blindside and crashed right into her.
Amy thought her case would involve kids, because the terrible ones usually do, but she was wrong. This case involved a housewife and her police officer husband. Shannelle Jones was the victim of a murder-suicide. Her husband, an officer for the 97, was apparently an abusive sack of shit. Shannelle had gone to the station several times to report his attacks but he was well liked among his colleagues. His fellow officers chalked it up to Shannelle being bitter about the time he cheated on her. After several fruitless attempts at bringing him to justice, Shannelle decided to leave her husband. She had no family in the state but was able to setup and escape plan, with the help of an organization for battered spouses. Unfortunately for her, an ill-timed message on the answering machine alerted the officer to her plans. After arriving home from the grocery store, the officer questioned Shannelle about her plans. When he did not like the answer, he decided that no one would have Shannelle, if he couldn't.
The part of the case that seemed to bother her so much was the uncanny likeness Shannelle had to Rosa. They looked like they could be sisters and according to statements from Shannelle's, friends, they had matching stubborn streaks and a secret fondness for children. Amy felt bad about being thankful that Shannelle had no children of her own, to witness any of the abuse or the unfortunate end.
Amy had seen her fair share of cadavers, blood and other bits of internal human matter on the job but this crime still made her sick to her stomach. Luckily, or unluckily depending on how you viewed the situation, Amy was the first officer on scene. She was in the neighborhood after dropping Charles off to lunch, at a place that served various animal intestines, when someone called in the sound of gunshots. No one on dispatch was sure if there was still an active shooter but Amy drew her weapon and charged in anyway. She almost lost the lunch she had yet to eat, at the sight she walked in on. The living room walls were covered in blood and a myriad of other bodily fluids. Shannelle lay in the middle of the floor sporting several bullet wounds, while the officer sat, slumped in a recliner, against the opposite wall, with half of his head missing and a gun hanging loosely in his grasp.
Amy sprang into action, checking for pulses and searching the rest of the apartment for others. She dry heaved the whole way and did her best not to look at Shannelle. It took only ten minutes for reinforcements to arrive but once more officers came on to the scene, Amy bolted from the apartment. She made her way down the short hallway and hovered over the nearest trashcan. Fellow officers came to her aide but she couldn't even speak. Walking into that apartment and seeing, what looked like, Rosa lying there in a pool of blood made her heart stop and bile rise to her throat. The terrifying part, aside from the horrible crime that took place, was Amy realizing why the image hurt so much. Amy was in love.
/
"Move the queen over one, to the left."
"Shit." Rosa's voice pulled Amy back to reality. She had not even realized she was daydreaming, again.
"Ohh, someone said a bad word," Rosa moved behind Amy; close enough to whisper in her ear. "You know how much I like that." She whispered.
"Did Captain Holt hear me?" Amy looked around frantically, for their leader.
"No, he's not here. But if he was, I think he'd be more concerned with the solitaire than your choice of words." Rosa walked over to her own desk, dropping her jacket on the back of her chair. The temperature was beginning into drop and Amy's blazer would not be enough to keep her warm.
"What is that supposed to mean?" Amy questioned.
"It means that you should be working not playing games on the precinct's dime. At least that's what you told me and Jake, last week."
"You two had a Mario Kart tournament going in the break room, that's hardly he same as a little game of solitaire."
"I won a Mario Kart tournament, in the break room." Rosa corrected.
"How I spend my time is none of your damn business." Amy grabbed a few files off of her desk and stomped away to the break room. She slammed the door hard enough to shake the windows.
Rosa took this as her cue to step in. Amy's troubles were making her angry and petulant which was never a good combination when combined with the rest of Amy's personality. She was slamming doors, stomping and neglecting her work.
"What the hell are you looking at?" Rosa yelled to the bystanders now looking to Amy, behind the glass of the break room. "Get back to work or being imprisoned, depending on why you're here."
Taking a deep breath, Rosa timidly entered the break room, closing the door gently this time. Amy knew who it was without looking up from the files splayed on the table. Her Rosa Senses, as Jake called them, had returned.
"No." Was all Amy managed to say as Rosa took a seat on the couch. She was not in the mood to talk.
"Yes." Rosa fired back before she could even stop herself. Her antagonistic side took over, without warning, sometimes.
"I'm not in the mood, Rosa."
"No, we are talking," Rosa moved from the couch to the chair to the right of Amy. "Something is bothering you and you're being a real pain in the ass about it. What's wrong?"
"You sure have a way with words." Amy scoffed.
"You know I don't do this but I am doing this because I am feeling things." Rosa's cheeks flushed.
"I won't even respond to that since it made absolutely no sense." Amy returned to her paperwork, shuffling files she had already read around and making unnecessary notes just to seem busy.
"Telling me you won't respond is still responding." Rosa grumbled and sank down further in her chair. This is why she always avoided feelings.
"Oh my goodness," Amy placed her elbows on the table and held her head in her hands. "We're acting like toddlers. What do you want Rosa?"
"Something is bothering you and I want to know what it is."
"Why do you even care?" Amy sighed in defeat.
"Because I have these..." Rosa searched for the words but could not find them. "Things for you and they're making me care."
"What things?"
Rosa growled in annoyance, trying to find figure out how to explain it all. "You know that song where Mariah hits that high note, for no good reason, after the first verse?" She begins. "But she's the vocal chanteuse so you don't really question it. And then she's talking about being high. Which one is that?"
Amy raises her head at his. She quirks an eyebrow and tries to decipher Rosa's, Rosa speak. They sit in silence for a long minute before Amy bounces in her seat and begins snapping her fingers.
"You mean the one where she goes Ohhhh!" Amy does her best Mariah Carey impersonation. It is undoubtedly bad but she figured out the song.
"Yeah!" Rosa manages a more subtle bounce in her seat.
"Its 'Emotions'. You're having emotions." Amy tells her.
"Exactly. I have so many emotions for you and they make me care about whatever the hell is bothering you. When your days really suck ass I want to be able to make them not suck ass because I'm here and me just being here is comforting and all that shit."
At some point in her admission, Rosa took hold of Amy's hands and pulled them into her own lap. Rosa's body always seemed to work on autopilot when dealing with Amy. Somehow, it always knew what she was supposed to do. It always seemed to know how soft she should be, how long she should hold Amy and all the little caresses that got them through the day. It was like some weird muscle memory, though the two had not dated before now. If only her brain would catch up.
The soft look on Rosa's face coupled with the gentle way she held Amy's hands, as if adding the tiniest bit of pressure would break them, finally did Amy in. Tears rushed to her eyes, her bottom lip quivered and she began to sniffle. Days of repressed emotions caved in on her without warning.
Rosa dashed from her seat to close the blinds of the break room and to lock the door. She moved back to Amy's crumbling form and gently pulled her from the seat. Rosa wrapped her in the warmest hug she could muster and blindly guided them to the break room couch. Thankfully they had just received a new one after one – or all – of Hitchcock's bodily fluids turned the last one into a health hazard. Rosa stretched herself along the length of the couch and pulled Amy on top of her, with her head resting over Rosa's steady heartbeat.
It took a few minutes for Amy to form coherent sentences, without hiccupping and sniffling around her words. Though she did try to assure Rosa that she was fine and just needed a minute to herself. It may have been convincing if her eyes were not bloodshot, if her eyeliner hadn't smudge to the point of making her look like the commander and there was the gross snot bubble that tried to make its way out of her nose. Nevertheless, Rosa held her close and waited for the situation to make sense.
"Really, I'm fine." Amy tried to reason. She began pushing herself out of Rosa's arms.
"You're not but I'm gonna let you go anyway. Your body, your choice and all." Very reluctantly, Rosa loosened her grip and sat up. Amy's need for personal space was more important than the need to hold her close.
"It's stupid really. I don't even know why its bothering me so much." Amy sniffled some more. "We see horrible crap all of the time."
"So, is this is about something you saw?" Rosa pulled some Kleenex tissues out of the box, sitting next to the couch and a bottle of lotion. Rosa eyed the lotion wearily.
"You don't have to do this Rosa." Amy accepted the tissues and eyed the lotion bottle as well.
"I want to."
The sincerity in her voice almost sent Amy into another fit of tears. Its not that Amy had never experienced a caring partner before but there was something about the way Rosa – a person that hates everyone and most things – always knew how to make her feel better, that made her insides warm. The way Rosa had to figure out what she was feeling exactly before she did any and everything to make sure Amy was okay, made her blush.
"It was just my last case," Amy began. "I can't get it out of my head. I can't finish the report because I would have to think about it even more than I already do. I just can't."
"Sorry to break it to you but you don't really have a choice here. We're officers and its our jobs to see the worst of the world and keep moving on to the next person we need to help."
"I know but..." Amy tried to explain but Rosa cut her off.
"You can't let this beat you, Amy." Rosa tried a softer approach this time. "This is what we do. We do it because we like to help people and put fuck shit bad guys away. You just have to learn how to cope with it all. We all have at least one of these cases but we can't let them stop us from helping other people. I know you Amy; you'd hate yourself if this beat you."
"I know."
Amy let out a sigh she had not realized she was holding in. Rosa was right, though. Every officer knows that this will happen sooner or later but it does not lessen the blow.
"My case was a murder. This guy accidentally killed his son while he was trying to beat the gay out of him." Rosa turned her gaze from Amy, hopping to hide her glossy eyes. "It especially sucked because it was my first year on the force, I was still planning to come out to my parents and I knew him. The guy was my mother's friend from church. I ate dinner with that man before. His son, Mauricio, babysat me and my sisters when we were younger. He was our favorite babysitter 'cause he would braid their hair and let me beat him up. The worst part though was that Mauricio was a big guy and a damn good fighter but there were no defense wounds of any sign that he tried to fight back. He was so ashamed that he just let his father beat him to death."
"That's so terrible." Amy tentatively grabs Rosa's hands and tries to hold back even more tears.
"Yeah it is but I made sure that asshole went to jail for it and I make sure that other assholes know that I'll put them away if they even think about trying some shit like that. Knowing that Mauricio got justice and that I can at least protect some people is what keeps me going. That's one of the ways I cope."
"I'm not ready to talk about it." Amy says.
And she really isn't. The images are too fresh in her mind and they why of it all still isn't ready to come to the surface. She'll tell Rosa about it all one day; today just isn't that day.
"And you don't have to. Not right now, not to me. But you do have to get through it and you can't let it keep you from doing your job. We have a lot of dumbasses to get off the streets. You do have to talk to someone though; it'll eat away at you if you don't."
"I'll talk to the precinct therapist, how about that?"
"Promise?" Rosa asks.
"Promise."