Chapter Text
When Terry finally gets home from the precinct, he sees his baby twins laughing and running around with Gina and Rosa, who too are laughing and running around. They all wield small water pistols and appear to be engaged in some sort of all out war, as the mess in his living room suggests. Books and sofa cushions and scraps of paper are strewn across the room, and in the center of all the chaos are two chairs placed with their backs against each other, pink skipping rope gathered in a coil-like fashion around the chairs.
No one even notices him, they’re all having too much fun. And frankly, it’s a heartening scene for Terry to watch. His two coworkers who are basically family to him have transformed before his very eyes. The usually frowning Rosa Diaz who stares daggers into anyone that crosses her now looks so carefree as she abandons her water gun to hold up Cagney so that she has a better vantage point from which to attack Gina and Lacey. The ever so sardonic Gina Linetti on the other hand, who would be voted Most Likely To Save Her Phone Over A Person’s Life any day of the week- is actually acting as some sort of human shield for Lacey, pretending to sacrifice herself so that Lacey can live.
But Terry’s not one bit surprised.
Okay, he didn’t expect this, but he doesn’t find this situation to be completely unexpected. Gina and Rosa were softies at heart, and if any two children could bring that side out of them they would be his baby girls.
He feels all the fatigue and ache from these daunting past few days seep away from his shoulders, contentment and bliss taking over instead, which is when he finally decides to make his presence known.
“Guess who’s home?”
“Daddy!”
Like flies with honey, Cagney and Lacey drop their toys and run as fast as their tiny legs can carry them into Terry’s arms as he effortlessly lifts them up in a big hug.
“Did you have fun playing with Aunt Gina and Aunt Rosa?” Terry asks as he directs grateful looks at the two, who seem to be straightening themselves up, futilely brushing water off their now rather drenched clothes.
“Yes!” Cagney and Lacey excitedly cheer in unison as they both stretch their arms out.
“That’s great, girls. Now go get Mr Quack-Quack, it’s bath time!”
Terry puts Cagney and Lacey down which sends them running to locate their favorite rubber duck. He looks up at Gina and Rosa again, who are now giving him incredulous looks.
“You call your rubber ducky Mr Quack-Quack?”
Rosa’s grin broadens as Gina points this out, and Terry sighs because they wouldn’t be Gina and Rosa if they didn’t tease him about the names of his children’s bath toys, would they?
“Cagney and Lacey call their rubber ducky Mr Quack-Quack. Terry doesn’t have a rubber ducky, because Terry’s an adult man.”
“Whatever you say,” Rosa replies. “Mr Quack-Quack.”
Gina starts cracking up and soon the two women dissolve in uncontrollable laughter.
“But seriously you two,” he interrupts because he can’t spend all night watching them laugh, he has to get his daughters washed up and tucked into bed within the next two hours. And he also has to clean up the huge mess that appears to have been caused by a tornado striking his house, rather than two grown women and his twins. “Thank you so much for taking care of Cagney and Lacey.”
Rosa shakes her head. “Nah, it’s cool. We had nothing to do anyway.”
“But we will be requesting a fee of five thousand dollars,” Gina adds. “Seriously, your kids tied us up for half an hour- how are they so strong?”
Rosa seems to shudder at the memory.
“I’m not going to give you five thousand dollars,” Terry clarifies, although he does sympathize with what they went through. Cagney and Lacey were already on their third babysitter. For that month. “But you have my gratitude, and I owe both of you one.”
“That’s sweet and all Terr-Bear, but gratitude don’t pay the bills.” Rosa rolls her eyes somewhat affectionately at Gina as she says this before she grabs her by the shoulder and starts moving her away.
“Yeah, we were just leaving. Bye Sarge.”
The door slams shut just as Cagney and Lacey run back with Mr Quack-Quack. And Moo Moo. And President Long Neck, plus her twin sister who is also coincidentally named President Long Neck. Terry sighs as he begins another negotiation with the twins regarding how many toys they’re allowed to bring into the tub.
He loses.
“So where to?” Gina asks as they walk away from Terry’s house into the street. They’ve got their hands in their pockets because the night brings a chill that isn’t helped by the fact that they were just soaked from head to toe in a no-holds-barred water pistol fight. But strangely, walking with her shoulders occasionally bumping against Rosa’s as they take brisk steps towards Rosa’s motorbike, Gina’s never felt warmer.
“I’m taking you back home,” Rosa says simply as she tightens the grip she has on her leather jacket, cursing herself for parking her bike so far away from Terry’s house.
“Not the precinct? My car’s still there.”
“Just leave it there. I’ll give you a ride to work tomorrow.”
They had traveled to Terry’s house together on Rosa’s motorcycle in a hurry, because Cagney and Lacey’s babysitter had a family emergency and couldn’t wait for Terry to get home from work before leaving. But Gina didn’t mind- riding on the back of Rosa’s bike sent a rush through her as they sped down the streets of Brooklyn. And Gina has to admit she loved the experience of wrapping her arms around Rosa’s waist, gripping tighter every time they turned a corner.
“That’s nice and all, but why would you do that?” Gina asks as they finally spot Rosa’s bike where they had hastily parked it before making their way to Terry’s house. “You’d have to make the extra trip- are you in that much of a hurry to get home?”
Gina’s worried that there’s an ‘Adrian Pimento’-sized reason why Rosa wants to hurry up and dump Gina at home. And that worry makes her stomach churn with jealousy; a feeling Gina’s grown all too familiar with because of Rosa.
But then Rosa shakes her head.
“It’s fine. And I’m not in a hurry, I just don’t want you going home by yourself this dark out. S'not safe.” Rosa hands Gina her helmet, and she puts it on without question.
She kind of appreciates this protective side of Rosa. That jealousy of hers fades to dust, replaced with a nervous tingling that runs up and down her spine- plus something else hopeful and yearning, which Gina knows are dangerous feelings but she recklessly embraces them anyway. Because for once- they don’t seem so stupid.
“You’re such a cop, Rosie,” Gina teases as they get on the sleek black motorbike. “Protecting innocent civilians like me.”
She almost feels Rosa grin somehow, even though she can’t see her face.
“Shut up,” Rosa retorts almost as playfully as Gina had been, and then the engine hisses as they speed off into the night.
Fifteen minutes of a deafening roar as Rosa’s bike rips down the roads to Gina’s apartment go by before fading to nothingness when they grind to a halt. This had been accompanied with another round of Gina’s hands gripping Rosa’s waist, inhaling the sweet scent of tangerines along with a piercing mint belonging to Rosa’s brilliant curls of hair as the wind combed through it in gusts of freezing air.
“Thanks for the ride,” Gina remarks carefully as she removes her helmet and hands it to Rosa. How she plays out the next few moments will be vital, possibly a watershed in their relationship.
“Sure,” Rosa shrugs, and her eyes dart to Gina’s apartment building. “Come on, I’ll walk you up.”
“Of course you are, we wouldn’t want anything to happen to me- Ginazon would be lost without my guidance.”
Rosa lets out a small, subdued laugh and it’s enough to make Gina’s heart sing with unbridled joy. Things seem to be going according to- well, Gina wouldn’t call it a plan, but. She knows what she wants, and she has a feeling she’s going to get it. And by it Gina means her. And by her Gina means Rosa. Duh.
As they make their way to the elevator, Gina can’t help but dwell happily upon how Rosa offered not only to send her home but also to walk her all the way back up to her apartment. Crime is down in Brooklyn, it isn’t nearly late enough for Gina to be in any sort of danger (for real though, Gina’s returned home way later than this and she had been alone then), and in the first place- Gina’s neighborhood is completely safe, as it has always been when Jake’s grandmother lived there.
So Rosa going to all this trouble- it has to mean something, right?
She’s doing it all of her own accord too, and as they step into the enclosed steel walls Gina gathers the courage to make Rosa an offer.
“Hey- you wanna stay for a drink or something? We went through an ordeal back there.”
Rosa offers a tired smile and lightly jabs her thumb at the lift button for Gina’s floor.
“Yeah, okay.” She even yawns and stretches her arms in fatigue. “Even though those kids weren’t so bad, I’d feel less exhausted chasing down criminals all over the city.”
“Oh, don’t get me wrong,” Gina corrects as she secretly admires the way Rosa’s body looks while she stretches. “Those twins are adorable and I want ten of them. The 'ordeal’ I’m talking about is how the hell we both survived the past few hours without getting our drink on. We aren’t usually sober this time of day.”
“Damn, you’re right.” The elevator stops and a familiar ding coincides with the opening of the doors.
Gina digs out her keys as they step out and frantically unlocks her door, Rosa snorting at her failed attempts.
Gina gets her front door open pretty quickly despite the initial setbacks, and Rosa steps in before her, stopping in place ten strides into the living room to take in the apartment that just screams of Gina from every nook and cranny.
“Hey, so where do you keep-” Rosa’s question is muffled as Gina slams her door shut and throws her keys on the counter, rushing forth to engulf her lips in a deep kiss.
Gina knows she’s making a rather sudden move- but is it really so sudden? Rosa has been giving her signals all week, no, all month. A few months, at least.
She sees these looks Rosa shoots her when she thinks Gina’s too busy looking at her phone to notice at work, and while that might be true, Gina is nothing if not a master of (secretly, when it comes to noticing Rosa) multitasking. She’s half the reason the Nine-Nine runs as smoothly as it does- between all the shenanigans that are usually caused by Hitchcock and Scully, the occasional food accident Boyle will bring to the break room, or anything anyone else might’ve done that day- she’s also helping Holt by being his assistant and the Civilian Administrator.
Damn, someone should give her a Nobel prize.
Anyway, point is- Gina can check her Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat simultaneously and still immediately realize whenever Rosa’s looking at her. Sometimes it’s official work reasons, like needing a case file, or needing to hand her an arrest report.
But other times, especially when Rosa has been running on just a few hours of sleep, three cups of coffee, and suffering from the effects of working for over ten hours- Gina will catch Rosa looking up at her, and she’ll try to do something to make Rosa laugh. Play a prank on someone, like Charles for instance, or make fun of someone. Gina realizes over time that Rosa laughs rather easily. When it comes to stuff she does.
And there are times when Gina has been in danger. Or close to danger. Or demanding to enter a situation where she would been in danger. She’ll see this fear flash across Rosa’s face and suddenly, Rosa can totally do this dangerous thing Gina volunteered to do as well as whatever she’s been assigned with. Or- someone else is more suited for this task and maybe Gina should do this other thing that’ll coincidentally keep her out of trouble.
Any other person and Gina would’ve felt offended and fought even harder for her way- but with Rosa, she craves the way she protects her, sometimes even volunteers to do risky stuff on purpose to see that look on Rosa’s face. That look that will never fail to send sparks flying through Gina.
Gina feels herself melt into Rosa’s arms and almost smiles when she feels Rosa kiss back. She’s almost proud when she runs her hands down Rosa’s back and she shivers ever so slightly. Somewhere in the back of Gina’s head, the word finally echoes and burns, and a storm of emotion hits Gina.
It’s all the more shocking when Gina feels Rosa stop kissing her abruptly and shove her away. She knows the hurt in her eyes are evident, she sees it reflected in Rosa’s pupils and pain turns to confusion which turns into agony. Her heart just got stepped on by a pair of Rosa’s boots, and for all of Gina’s talents- in that moment she’s plenty sure she forgets how to breathe.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Rosa practically spits this out and Gina’s stomach twists, she feels so empty; and this can’t be happening- it was going great, Gina had kissed Rosa and she had kissed back. She had kissed back.
“Look at you like what?” Gina’s voice sounds very pained, even though she’s going for cold and aggressive. Her eyes are also burning, but she can’t afford tears of any kind right now.
“You-” Rosa gulps and her throat bobs shakily. She seems to be just as affected as Gina is. Good. Suffer. “You know I have a boyfriend.”
Why did you kiss me? Is Rosa’s underlying question, and it isn’t so much a question as it is an accusation. Gina rolls her eyes, because she knows as well as Rosa that her words are utter bull.
Boyfriend? No one’s seen Adrian Pimento in months- Gina’s very sure of that, he hasn’t dropped by the precinct or Shaw’s or anywhere, really. Definitely not since Gina’s accident. But, not like Gina was keeping score or anything.
And Rosa hasn’t said a word about Pimento in ages. Not a peep. Like the psycho never even existed, which was a thing that made Gina happy, if she’s being honest.
Boyfriend?
Where was Rosa’s boyfriend when she chose to spend all those nights after work hanging out with Gina at Shaw’s, only occasionally joined by other members of the squad or some of Gina’s friends? How many nights had Rosa chose to spend drunk off her ass with Gina, playing pool whilst Gina mostly watched because watching Rosa bend ever so sultrily over a table beat holding a stick of her own any other day?
And no, she is no longer talking about pool.
But seriously, boyfriend? If that were really true, Rosa is the worst girlfriend ever because she spends all her time hanging out with some other girl and as far as anyone around her is concerned, this boyfriend doesn’t exist.
Gina tells her as such.
“Boyfriend? The way he never shows up, I’d have thought he was dead.”
She knows it’s a low blow, and Gina knows it hurt because Rosa fixes her with a sharp glare.
“Shut up,” Rosa swallows her words however, and Gina huffs sharply- they both give away how much they’re hurting with each passing second.
“You never talk about him,” Gina tells Rosa, and the way she averts her eyes lets Gina know that she knows this, was probably aware about this at some point. Rosa’s a private person, but when she cares about someone she tends to mention them in conversations.
“And I never see him hanging out with you, you’re always with me.”
Gina emphasizes this almost angrily, because somehow she feels cheated. Like all her feelings and the signs she saw were for nothing. She was just seeing what she wanted to see, and Rosa wanting Gina just as she wanted her was all just a big hallucination on her end. Gina feels her first tear fall. She wills herself to not let there be a second.
“We’re… we’re friends, Gina.” Rosa weakly throws this out. “Friends hang out.”
It’s a flimsy excuse, and they both know it.
“Sure, but not like we do. Not as much as we do. You- you clearly prefer me over him.”
“Don’t say that.” Rosa shakes her head, and that only makes what Gina said more true.
“What do you want me to say? That- that I’m sorry for kissing you? That I should’ve asked if you wanted to dump your boyfriend- who no one even sees these days- for me?”
Rosa gives up on the conversation, turning around to leave, but freezes when Gina grabs her by the hand. It’s a desperate attempt but it appears to have worked.
Gina goes for an even more desperate, hinging on risky, move.
“Why’d you kiss back?”
And then Rosa Diaz bolts out of Gina’s apartment like it just caught fire and she needs to evacuate the building.
Gina’s heart feels like it’s on fire. And it’s not one that can be extinguished by the endless tears falling down her face right now as her knees give way and she leans with her back against the door; bawling so hard and so shrilling that Rosa would be able to hear if she was still close by. Gina hopes Rosa hears, and in the thousand imaginary scenarios she creates in her head, Rosa comes back and apologizes, kissing Gina and promising to break up with Pimento.
Rosa doesn’t come back, and Gina keeps sobbing her heart that she had laid out on the line, only to get it ripped to shreds.
She doesn’t sleep that night, neither of them do.
As if by some unspoken arrangement after that, Gina and Rosa start treating each other like ghosts at the precinct.
They stop talking. Hanging out. They don’t so much as look each other in the eye.
No one questions this of course, because most of their hang outs had been secret, and if anyone noticed something had changed between the two of them, they were too afraid to ask.
Gina wishes someone would ask.
Weeks fly by, and they keep ignoring each other. Gina takes to hanging out with Amy- in her head she’s doing Amy a service- if Holt was Amy’s work mentor, Gina feels like she’s Amy’s life mentor.
Rosa takes to hanging out with Jake, or working cases with Jake, and well, strangely, it works in helping them keep apart.
They just make sure they back off when Jake decides he wants to look for Amy or Amy wants to talk to Jake, and it’s the perfect set up to avoid each other.
In group situations, Gina makes sure never to respond to anything Rosa says, and as much as it hurts, she feels Rosa doing the same thing.
They’re pulling away from each other.
During the party at Cop Con, they both get way too drunk and some of these rules slip away; Gina recalls flashes of a broken memory, dancing against the girl of her dreams as they do shot after shot and get more handsy while the night bleeds into day.
It’s a good thing Gina wakes up first the next morning- and sees her legs tangled with Rosa’s. As tempting as it was to keep things that way she removes herself from Rosa’s tight embrace and finds another bed in another room.
They stop laughing at each other’s jokes and antics, maintaining either neutral expressions or downright scowling.
It’s one of the hardest things Gina Linetti’s ever had to do, and she got hit by a bus.
So far, this feels worse than that.