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Alexandra’s story isn’t nearly as horrible as Keri’s – there’s not as much drunk late-night desk wrestling, and no penis-breaking – but it’s still awful. Amy and Rosa go back to the firm and grab Beefer (because of course it’s Beefer) and somehow by the time they haul him back to the Nine-Nine for questioning he’s already got a lawyer and he’s in and out in under an hour. And that’s it. Amy is sick of it. Just fucking over it.
She turns to Rosa and says, “I need a drink.”
Rosa arches an eyebrow. “It’s 11:45 a.m.”
“I need five drinks,” Amy says, and she knows she’s got steel in her eyes when she stares down Rosa because she’s practiced this look in the mirror often enough.
Rosa nods and says, “I’ve got to file a B&E from yesterday. I’ll meet you at Shaw’s in ten.”
+++
Amy tells Captain Holt that she’s been up for almost 48 hours straight and needs to leave early. She tells him that Rosa isn’t feeling well either, and he says that’s fine and lets them go. Amy feels a little guilty but this is what a lifetime of responsibility has earned her and anyway, she suspects Holt knows exactly what’s up.
Amy stops by Jake’s desk, long enough to brush her lips against his temple and say, “I’m okay, I’ll see you at home tonight.”
He squeezes her hand where she’s dropped it on his shoulder and nods, and doesn’t say anything at all.
Dear lord, she loves this man.
+++
They start with whiskey – neat for Rosa, on the rocks for Amy. Rosa’s already ordered when Amy arrives. They sit in a booth at the back, and they don’t talk while they sip. Amy has her hands cupped around her glass. The pale pink polish on her thumb has chipped off at the tip, and it bothers her. She wants to pick it all off. She wants to not have painted her nails in the first place. She rarely does – it’s such a dumb thing, when she’s constantly getting her hands dirty, when her nails are always splintered and rough at the edges.
When Rosa brings them a second round, Amy says, “It happened to me at the Six-Four. My captain.”
“Turner,” Rosa says, lips arranged in a snarl. “I heard things about him.”
“I never did,” Amy says, and she shrugs a little. “He was my mentor and then he tried to kiss me, and I thought it was me, you know? I hated him, but I hated myself a little more.”
Rosa just nods. She tosses back her second drink and gets up for another, and this time she brings back two more for both of them. She drinks one of them all at once, nurses the other.
She says, “I was in the Academy. Lt. Baker. He was always doing that thing where they give you the slow look and don’t say anything, but you know . One day he asked if I’d been a cheerleader in high school.”
“That’s so gross,” Amy says, wincing.
“Yeah, and when I just stared at him he said, I’m not even joking, that I was probably a real ‘wild cat’ in the sack.”
Rosa pauses, runs a finger around the rim of her glass. Rosa isn’t an open book for anyone, certainly not Amy, but it’s impossible to miss the grimace, and the shame that flashes in her eyes. It makes Amy’s stomach hurt to see.
“I was struggling in the first couple of weeks,” Rosa says, “didn’t have the upper body strength to keep up with the guys. Baker holds me back one day, says he can give me extra PT – extra attention, you know? And I fucking knew better, but-”
She’s staring into her glass, and Amy takes a sip from her own, ice cubes bumping cool against her lips.
“It was actually Jake who made it stop. He doesn’t know that, by the way,” Rosa says, giving Amy a wry smile. “Baker had me on the chin-up bar, put his hands on my ass, and I went, I don’t know, just cold all over. Like, is this really happening? And Jake walks in all dumb hair and dumb grin and has no clue what’s going on. But I got out of there, and that was the end of it.”
Amy feels a flush of ridiculous pride for her husband, though she knows it’s not about him, that he didn’t do anything remarkable other than not be a jerk. Still – she chose well, and she’ll never tire of being reminded of that.
“Did you report him?” Amy says. It feels rude to ask. She didn’t, of course. Most of them don’t.
And Rosa shakes her head, says, “No. He’s still at the Academy.”
Amy buys the next round.
+++
It’s close to midnight when she gets home, and Jake is passed out on the sofa. The TV is on low, on an episode of The Golden Girls Amy’s seen before.
Jake has tucked himself into a corner, and Amy slips off her shoes and drops her purse on the coffee table and settles in beside him. He’s warm and he smells like the citrusy soap they share and faintly of the pizza he probably had for dinner.
She never feels safer and more comfortable in her own body than when she’s like this, close to him, and she drops her head on his shoulder and sighs. The room spins lazily and she’s glad she’s not (yet) sick from all the whiskey.
Jake stirs, and she feels him kiss the top of her head. He shifts a little so he can tuck an arm around her shoulder and press her a little closer into his side.
“You want to talk?” His voice is husky, and she can hear the sincerity in his words.
“No,” she says, and she can feel him nod, his chin tipping against her head.
He picks up the remote from the arm of the sofa, and turns up the volume. It’s late, but Jake knows that sometimes Amy needs to spend some time with her girls. When the episode is over, after Rose and Blanche have hugged it out, Jake gets up and offers her a hand, and she lets herself be pulled up and into his arms, lets herself be held for a long breath and a sigh, and then she lets him put her to bed, finally.