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Fresh out of the police academy, Rosa Diaz knew exactly what she wanted. She wanted to prove she was just as capable as any white man in her precinct. She wanted to make detective before she was thirty. She wanted to bust a murderer, a drug ring, and go undercover.
She never wanted to meet her soulmate.
She had read the poems, watched the movies, and she still didn’t understand what could possibly be so great. She didn’t need the universe to tell her who to be with. And no matter what anyone said, she was not looking for her other half. Her soul was perfectly complete, with or without some mystery person.
And anyway, color couldn’t possibly be that great.
--
It wasn’t that she didn’t understand soulmates, or even their appeal. She had spent her life surrounded by happy, twin-souled couples.
But it wasn’t for her. For one, she hated surprises. She hated waking up every morning knowing that if she made one wrong move, looked at the wrong person, her world would change, irreversibly. It would twist and contort, become saturated. It would suddenly hold a wealth of information she had never even asked for. Moreover, she would be standing next to another person, one as startled as herself, and no matter who they were, they would have to make it work or risk losing out forever.
It made Rosa’s mouth grow dry. Better never to meet your soulmate than to meet them and fuck it up.
--
Rosa hated Jake and Amy with all her soul. The two were different, opposite, even, and it was utterly unfair that they of all people should have been able to make it work. Worse, make it look easy.
They had met back when Rosa and Jake were nothing but starry-eyed recruits fresh from the academy. They had walked into the precinct, along with the other new beat cops, and gotten all of ten steps before Jake froze, a half dozen people almost bumping into him.
“Jake,” Rosa said quietly, pulling on his sleeve.
He didn’t respond; he was paralyzed, an unreadable look on his face, staring across the precinct to a cop nervously adjusting a row of pens in the pocket of her uniform.
Rosa watched him, slightly horrified, well aware of what was happening.
He opened his mouth and tried to say something, but no words came out.
Finally, Rosa rolled her eyes and loudly cleared her throat.
The traffic had dissipated, and the sound instinctively caused Amy Santiago to glance over. She was frozen, too, suddenly, staring at Jake with wide eyes.
Rosa clapped Jake on the shoulder and left.
There were roadblocks, of course. Jake and Amy soon learned that although they loved each other, they were completely different people. They had to change for each other, bend, like flowers growing up a trellis. Within three years they were settled. Comfortable. Domestic. Married.
And they weren’t even thirty.
--
It wasn’t until a few years after that fateful first day that Jake would ruin things once again.
“Hey,” clicked Rosa, leaning over Amy’s desk, “where’s Peralta? We worked together on this bust, I’m not doing all this paperwork by myself.”
“Oh,” Amy started, smiling politely, “he’s helping a friend… He should be…” She trailed off.
“What?” asked Rosa.
Amy pointed toward the Captain’s door, open and filled with smoke. “Gina,” she said, almost apologetically. “She’s here for a job interview.”
“So she set the place on fire?” asked Rosa, incredulous.
“It’s just some dry ice. I help her dance team set up sometimes.”
Through the fog two figures slowly emerged. Jake came out first, grinning and doing some sort of slow-motion music video walk. He paused at the doorframe and gestured back toward the entrance, where a woman was slowly swaying into view.
“Ladies and gentlemen…” she said, in a low, husky voice. She rose in pitch as she came into view, and something inside Rosa shifted. “It is I, the great Gina Linetti, here for the very first time in the 99th precinct of the NYPD!”
The smoke machine sputtered.
Seemingly pleased with the total lack of attention she received, Gina grinned and gave a small wave to the precinct before heading to the exit, kissing Jake quickly on the cheek.
“I’d better pack up that smoke machine,” muttered Amy, brushing aside her paperwork and standing up.
“Huh?” Rosa said, looking back at Amy and blinking twice.
She realized what had changed.
It hadn’t been like she’d expected, dramatic like an old movie. She hadn’t fainted, or cried, or even gasped. It had come slowly, and without her noticing. There had seemed, at the time, no other way to view Gina Linetti.
But now, more in control, Rosa cast her eyes over the precinct, alive and technicolor. She smiled.
“You okay?” asked Amy, leaning into her line of sight.
“Fine,” she snapped.
--
So she was curious. Sue her.
Working five feet away from her soulmate was like a scab you willed yourself not to pick. Sure, it was tempting, and it would have be so easy... But it was pointless. You’d just end up bleeding.
Sure, she sometimes wondered if Gina had seen what she had seen. And yes, she sometimes wanted to kiss Gina, even if it was just to shut her up. And okay, she sometimes thought she could listen to Gina talk forever.
When that happened, she shook her head, took a sip of coffee, and anxiously rubbed the knife on her hip. This was safer.
--
Soon after Rosa’s promotion to detective, Gina perched herself on Rosa’s desk. She started talking about the totally super-cool better than the official badge she was going to make her. She placed a hand under her chin and asked “Before I bust out my bedazzler, do you have a favorite color?”
Rosa barely looked up from her paperwork. She grunted. “I don’t know, black? Not like there’s a lot of options, are there?”
A pang of regret, sure, but worth it in the long run. But then Rosa did glance up, and because she had to, she asked, “Do you?”
Gina was already standing up, walking backwards towards her own desk. “Like you said, sweetheart. Only two.”
Rosa looked down and tried not to think about it.
--
They were on a stake-out when Jake mentioned it.
Rosa whipped her eyes around from the binoculars she was holding. “Seven times? She’s been engaged seven times?”
Jake shrugged, squinting into his own. “I keep telling her to wait it out and meet her soulmate, but she’s always like, 'You don’t get me, Jake. I’m a free spirited race horse with a coat made of pure spider silk.' You two might actually get along.”
Rosa just shrugged. “Kind of thought she’d buy into the whole true love thing.” She tried not to sound bitter.
“Me, too,” said Jake. “But she doesn’t like being tied down.” He paused. “But, I mean, she’s never actually gotten married, so.”
“You think she’s waiting,” said Rosa, with just a pang of guilt.
Jake shrugged. “I know Gina better than anyone, and even I can’t read her mind.” He looked back at Rosa. “But if I had to guess? Yeah, she’s waiting.”
Their perp came into view. Rosa sprang into action and brushed everything else off. Thank god for the job.
--
I should not be doing this, thought Rosa, as she made her way to Gina’s desk. “Hey," she grunted.
Gina didn’t lift her head off of her desk. She groaned. “Not now, Ro-Ro.”
“Come on,” said Rosa, grabbing Gina’s arm and carefully pulling her up. Gina threw her arm over her shoulders, and Rosa tried hard not to focus on anything but making the next step, practically dragging the surprisingly heavy woman.
“Where are you taking me?” asked Gina. She was tinged green, but she still looked up and grinned. “Finally having your way with me in a supply closet? If I’d known you felt that way I wouldn’t have made you wait so long…”
Gina was clearly feverish.
“No more sewer raves for you,” was all Rosa replied.
She led Gina into the bathroom. It wasn’t perfect, but she had put some effort into making it presentable.
Gina’s eyes lit up. “You have a secret bathroom?” she asked, as if she were saying, You have superpowers?
Rosa shrugged.
“It needs a little work,” said Gina, sweeping her eyes over every nook and cranny, “but it could be perfect. What’s it called?”
“What do you mean, what’s it called? It’s a bathroom.”
Gina rolled her eyes. “A secret bathroom. It should be called something cool, like, I don’t know, Babylon.”
“Fine,” said Rosa, smiling at the ground, “Babylon.”
--
Gina got engaged again. Rosa bought her a toaster and skipped the party, instead thoughtfully choosing to spend the night drinking in Shaw’s Bar.
She was halfway through her second drink when Gina stumbled in, her eyes bleary and her green dress soaking wet. She took the stool next to Rosa’s and ordered a drink.
The first thing Rosa said was, “It’s not raining.”
Gina turned to look at her, twirling the olive in her drink. “I keep forgetting you’ve never been to a Gina Linetti party.”
Rosa studied the counter, smirking. “Isn’t that where you should be?”
Gina shrugged. “Amy helped me sneak out. She’s planned, like, three of these things, so she knows the drill.”
Rosa bit her tongue to keep from asking what she wanted to.
Finally, the silence became too much, and Gina said, “It’s fun, okay?”
“What?” asked Rosa, looking up from the bar.
“You’re judging me for getting engaged again, and that’s my answer. It’s fun.”
Again, Rosa said nothing.
“It’s not like the guys are getting their hearts broken, okay? They’re not my soulmate, I’m not theirs. But it’s -- it’s the fantasy part of relationships, you know? Before everything gets real.”
Rosa did not say that any type of commitment, even fake commitment, was her worst nightmare. Instead she said, “Still don’t get the party. I mean, you got engaged, like, two days ago. You want fantasy? 72 hour sex-fest.”
Gina smirked. “And who’d have paid for my toaster then? Me? I don’t think so.”
“I’ll drink to that.”
--
They all met Captain Holt, and they went to that dumb dinner party, and somewhere between Kevin laughing at all of Holt’s non-jokes, and Gina going on and on to a group of psychologists about her aura being tastier than a maple bacon bar, Rosa almost started to understand soulmates.
--
Rosa was staring into her bathroom mirror, biting her lower lip, when she came to a decision. “Find your soulmate,” she muttered, “It’ll be fun, they said…”
She began to psych herself up, when she realized exactly how emo doing this in front of the mirror was. She knelt and reached into one of the drawers below a sink and rummaged around until she found a gun.
At the shooting range, she muttered, “I love her,” over and over, popping holes in a cardboard cutout.
--
Rosa took a deep breath.
Charles and Gina had had casual sex. So what? It would be a total asshole move of her to be mad. It wasn’t like she owned Gina.
It wasn’t like Gina was hers.
--
Rosa’s heart sank the moment Gina threw her ID badge down on her desk.
She supposed it should have made things easier, but it didn’t. She had never realized how quiet the precinct was without Gina. The colors weren’t as bright, somehow.
--
Rosa liked Marcus. She didn’t love him, but that was okay.
It was different from any other relationship she had ever had. Marcus was sweet, and kind, and funny, and he really liked her. It was a little weird at first, what with him being Holt’s nephew and his own soulmate being out of the picture, but it grew on her.
With Marcus, she was settled. Comfortable. Domestic. She was all the things she swore never to be, and it was actually okay. She told him she loved him, he said it back. Rosa would never use the word, but it was almost lovely.
Until their one year anniversary. They were eating dinner, a fancy one, with a white tablecloth and candles. He had rented out the whole restaurant, just like on her birthday. She sipped wine, laughed at his jokes, and really listened when he told her about his day.
And then he said it. With a half-eaten salmon in front of him, his hand over hers, a smile on his face, he said it. Taking her in color she knew damn well she didn’t give him, he said it.
“So... what do you think, babe? Could you see us married someday? Some little Rosas scaring the crap out of some old neighbors on the front lawn?”
It was a hypothetical. It wasn’t real. But it felt real. She could picture it: on maternity leave with a baby in her arms and a two-year old by her side, Marcus coming home from work and kissing her on her forehead. Mortgages, pre-planned meals, a mini van.
It was commitment, and it was terrifying.
It was terrifying because, on autopilot, she almost said yes.
Rosa Diaz, a woman who had achieved everything in life she had ever wanted to, had almost settled.
She lasted through the rest of dinner with a tight smile. At the end, he dropped her off at her apartment. She went inside only to grab a coat and the knife he never let her bring on dates.
She paced around the block, her gaze fixed on the sidewalk, the cold biting at her face and hands. She had been so close to saying yes, to placating him. To giving in and accepting the mundane.
She had always told herself that that was what scared her, the mundane. But it wasn’t, not with Gina, because with Gina it was never even an option.
And if through some twist of fate Gina’s life was actually mind-numbingly ordinary, well, at least Rosa knew she would rather have ordinary with Gina than with any other person on the planet.
--
“The thing is,” she said, “I really care about Marcus. But he wanted to get married, and… I didn’t.” Her voice broke on the last word, and suddenly she was crying in the Captain’s office. “And what if that was it, my one chance at a family? What if I never get a second chance?”
Holt was crying, too, then. “He wasn’t your soulmate, was he?”
“I wasn’t his, either,” she said, like it justified something.
“Then you were right to walk away,” he said. After a moment, his voice still shaky, he added, “It’s Gina, isn’t it?”
She nodded miserably.
“I understand. That must be very difficult.” He squeezed her hand.
“What if she doesn’t love me back? What if I ruin it?”
“You have to try,” he told her.
“Thank you for acknowledging my feelings,” she sniffled.
“Thank you for acknowledging mine,” he replied.
“We’re both great at this!”
--
There was a time limit, then, with Holt always watching out of the corner of his eye.
Finally, pumped up on adrenaline you only get from a mental Rosa Diaz pep talk, she pushed her chair out from her desk and stood up. She walked over to where Gina was seated and said, “Babylon, five minutes.”
Gina’s earbuds were in, but Rosa didn’t doubt she heard.
--
In Babylon, Rosa stood straight and tall, but still somehow awkwardly, her hands clasped together in front of her. She paced slightly, running over what she was going to say. Oh, god, she should definitely have planned this more. Maybe she could make up an excuse. Maybe she could run away and change her name and Gina would never find her. Or maybe not; Gina’s Facebook skills were scary strong. She would have to get off the grid completely, sell her phone and--
“Rosa?”
Gina was standing in the entryway, under the light fixture they had picked out together, grinning and looking impossibly flawless. Everything she had planned flew out of Rosa’s head.
She took a breath. “Gina,” she started. She stopped.
“Uh, Rosa, some of us like to do our work during the day, you know?”
Rosa smiled. “Not you.”
“True dat.”
“Gina,” Rosa said again, the smile fading, “please shut me up if I’m being an idiot. But it’s been, like, nine fucking years, and I have to make sure you know. Gina, you’re my--”
Gina shut her up.
Rosa wasn’t complaining.
--
When she woke up, curled in Gina’s bed, the first thing Rosa noticed was that there was an arm thrown over her. Gina’s arm. The second was that the colors around her were impossibly vibrant. If someone told me this would happen, she thought, I’d have told her a long time ago.
Gina stirred next to her.
Rosa looked down and met her eyes, quickly looking away.
Gina giggled. “Aw, you’re blushing,” she said. “You should be. I’ve been waiting for last night for nine years, Rosa.”
“So, I take it I'm your…?”
Gina sat up and kissed her. “Yep.”
“...Soulmate,” Rosa finished.
Gina snorted. “Glad you’re finally catching up to reality.”
--
They moved in together less than a year later, deciding they had both spent enough time playing games.
It was lovely. They were settled. Comfortable. Domestic.
Rosa glanced at her hand. And soon, she thought, married.