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"Hey, loser," Amy said, perching on Jake's desk. "What you doing?" He looked up from his computer and glared at her.
"Hi, sweetheart," he said sarcastically, and then winced as she kicked him in the shin. "I'm clearing out my Facebook friends. I have way too many people on here."
"How many can you possibly have?" Amy asked sceptically, leaning over to look at the screen. "Woah. Three thousand? There's no way you know this many people."
"How dare you, these are all people I know and love and okay, fine, no, that's why I'm clearing them out! But I do know most of them," Jake said defensively.
Amy laughed, and then peered at the faces on the screen. “Do you know her? She’s a lecturer in physics. How did you meet a lecturer in physics?”
Jake looked affronted. “Hey, rude! I do know her, she’s one of Rosa’s exes. And I know that Rosa is super secretive about telling us who she dates but I know her because I am an amazing detective!”
Amy tilted her head to the side and pursed her lips, giving him a disbelieving look. He glared at her and hmmph-ed.
“Okay fine,” he said grudgingly, “I ran into them at a restaurant and she added me before Rosa could pretend I didn’t exist.”
Amy grinned smugly, and Jake scoffed, turning back to his computer, scrolling through the multitude of people on the screen.
“I didn’t know Rosa was into girls?” Amy said, nudging Jake, who turned back to look at her, frowning.
“Yeah, she’s bisexual, same as me. That’s how we bonded, actually, way back at the Academy.”
Amy smiled. “I can’t imagine you two at the Academy. Did Rosa wear leather back then too?”
Jake laughed. “Yeah, and she told me literally nothing about herself then either, the maybe seven facts I know about her I’ve prised from her over the years.”
They both glanced over at Rosa’s desk, where the woman in question was sat, feet up on the table, tapping on her phone.
“To be fair,” Jake conceded, “she was maybe slightly less secretive at the start. Or, you know, it was just the first day, when you’re desperate to make friends, any friends, and I know I come across as someone who doesn’t need anyone and doesn’t care what others think of them…”
“You don’t,” Amy interrupted, and Jake pouted.
“It was the very first day at the academy…”
Several Years Before
Jake had been looking forward to his first day at the police academy for literal years, but now that he was here it felt uncomfortably like the first day of school, except that on the first day of school he’d had Gina, and here he had no-one. He tried to shake off his discomfort. He was being stupid.
But, well. He was in a giant hall, with loads of people his age milling about, and he was feeling uncharacteristically self-conscious. There were groups of people who seemed to know each other, and there was lots of raucous laughter and posturing and punching-each-other-in-the-arm. Jake kinda wished he had a wall to lean against.
He was standing off to one side, a few people near enough to him that he could initiate a conversation if he wanted, but he was battling a sudden spark of anxiousness. He tried to focus on something else- for example, there were a lot of very pretty people. Maybe he should talk to one of them?
This grand plan stuttered to a sharp stop as a very beautiful woman walked past, and smiled at him. Jake smiled back stupidly, unable to say anything. Damn.
He nudged the woman next to him, who was tall and scary, with dark hair and a seemingly permanent frown on her face.
“She was so pretty,” Jake said wistfully.
The scary woman nodded. “Yeah she was. I’d date her.”
Jake gasped, mock-affronted. “ I’d date her too. I saw her first.”
The woman glared at him. “Dude. You can’t claim people.”
Jake smiled ruefully. “Yeah,” he said, apologetically, “sorry, my bad-” His train of thought was interrupted as a very attractive man walked past, smiling at the two of them. “He was so pretty as well!” Jake said, affronted. “Is everyone here hot?”
The woman nodded in agreement. “Yeah, I’d date him.”
“Not if I date him first!” Jake said excitedly, and then he wilted as he caught the woman’s gaze.
“Dude,” she said bluntly, and he blew out a breath.
“I’m sorry! But. Well. Fine. I bet you five bucks I can get either him or her to go out with me before you can.”
The woman looked him up and down, and Jake had to force himself not to hide. Her gaze was sharp and intense, as if she was sizing up his flaws, trying to decide whether or not she could beat him. Finally, she nodded. “Deal,” she said curtly, and stretched out a hand. They shook, and Jake grinned.
“I’m Jake, by the way. Jake Peralta,” he said, dropping her hand and gazing around, trying to spot the guy again.
“I’m Rosa,” the woman said, and then she turned on her heel, striding away, heading towards the girl, leather-clad and intimidating.
Jake stared after her, bemused. “No last name. Cool cool co-co-co-cool.” He shook himself, suddenly focused only in the way that the need to win could make him, and beamed when he spotted the pretty guy, in the opposite direction from where Rosa had gone.
“You’ve got this,” he said to himself, “you are great,” and then grimaced. “Oh, I’m so glad no-one heard that,” he muttered, and then headed towards the guy.
Present Day
“Jake. Jake!” Jake jumped, startled, to see Amy waving her hand in front of his face, looking amused. “You went off in a little nostalgic dream there,” she said, “was the guy that hot?”
Jake sighed. “He really was,” he said, “but sadly, Rosa got the girl’s number, and the guy turned out to be very straight and very homophobic, so she won that bet. And so it all began.”
Amy laughed. “So what began? The friendship? The betting? The crushing debt?”
Jake threw his pen at her, and she fielded it easily. “The friendship, obviously,” he said, and Amy smiled.
“Why am I not surprised that you bonded over a bet?”
Jake beamed. “Because you know me so well?”
Amy shook her head, smiling fondly, and Jake turned back to his screen, continuing his scrolling. Amy leaned over him again, pointing at one of the tiny pictures. “Do you know him?”
“Urgh,” Jake said, shuddering, “I don’t know if I do, but his profile picture says ‘support Trump’, so…”
“Yeah, unfriend,” Amy agreed, and Jake hit the button more emphatically than necessary. “Honestly, it’s going to take you ages to go through all these people, you’ll need to-”
“Peralta! Santiago!” snapped Holt, emerging from his office and looking pointedly at them. Amy slid off Jake’s desk and back to her own seat almost quicker than it took Jake to blink.
“Sorry, sir,” she said, and he raised an eyebrow, retreating back into his office.
“I’ll help you go through them later, if you want,” whispered Amy, leaning over her desk. “You can tell me more Rosa stories.”
Jake chuckled, closing the browser. “I’m telling you, I have very few Rosa stories. Oh! Although there was that one time where she plaited her hair…”
Amy laughed, and Rosa glanced up from her desk. “Did you say my name?” she asked, glowering at them.
“No,” Jake and Amy said together, and then glanced at each other with barely stifled laughter, before turning back to their work.