Why did Rosa break up with Adrian Pimento? Another character study one-shot examining one of my personal favourite headcanons, bisexual aromantic Rosa. Ft. post-prison experiences and Rosa & Amy friendship.

Originally posted on ao3 16/10/17

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There were many reasons why coming home from prison was hard. The way Rosa felt the need to constantly look over her shoulder, afraid Melanie Hawkins would be there to arrest her, again, this time maybe for good. The way she woke up in the morning and still expected to see the rusted underside of a bunk when she opened her eyes. The way every time someone asked how she was doing, she'd answer with a tip-lipped "fine", no matter how much she wanted to break down and spill all the ways prison had beat her down and broken her soul. The way she felt angry, all the time, at everyone.

But most of all, coming home was tough because that meant Adrian was there. In person. Welcoming her home with a bone-jarring hug, wide-eyed, before pulling her hunting knife out of his sleeve. "Thought you should be welcomed home by your favourite weapon," he had said, eyes glinting maniacally.

And in the moments where the heat grew between them, and Rosa felt herself drawn to him, and his unruly hair and intense eyes, Rosa could ignore the growing presence of Adrian. They lost themselves in the sensation of skin on skin, the way his leg pressed between her thighs and she groaned a little too loudly, and she licked a thin line up his neck and around his ear.

But even between Rosa and Adrian, the fire eventually had to fade, to die into coals until next time. And that's when Rosa became all too aware that Adrian was here. In Brooklyn. With her. Asking her if she'd like to spar, or go the shooting range, or buy a new sword, because he found that violence really helped him adjust after trauma. And he looked at her with such care bundled up in his own recklessness, that Rosa felt her skin crawl.

Later, once she was back at the precinct, Amy asked her if she was happy that she and Adrian were reunited. Amy looked at her with such complete joy, and such complete sadness. Rosa thought about the way Amy and Jake sat at the morning briefing holding hands under the table, as if they couldn't let go for fear of losing each other again, and she felt utterly guilty. The kind of guilt that was dark and raw and all-consuming. "Yes, of course. We had lots of reunion sex." And that was true, but Rosa still thought she saw Amy flinch when she slammed the door to the breakroom. Rosa waited ten minutes to make sure Amy didn't follow her, and then spent her lunch break crying silently in the bathroom.

Prison was a nightmare. But if she was honest, it was a relief in terms of her relationship with Adrian. At first it had been fun, sexy, raunchy. Adrian seemed like the last type of man to have serious, romantic intentions. But the more their relationship grew (and they almost got married, but then didn't get married, and really that had been the beginning of the end), Rosa felt this unidentifiable pressure in her chest. The way Adrian went through all his obscure weapons magazines and circled the ones he thought Rosa would like. The way she came home to a candle-lit dinner and he presented her with a dainty pendant filled with his blood ("So you can always have some of my DNA, baby.") It was bizarre and off-putting, and completely Adrian. But it was also undeniably romantic.

Girls were supposed to love this stuff. To dream about their wedding, and a man (or woman) to sweep them off their feet with flowers and dinner-dates and eventually a sparkly little ring. And god, Rosa had had all that and more with Marcus. And that's why she had broken it off with him. The way he looked at her with utter adoration. The way he knew her well enough to throw a solo birthday party. That night he had delicately taken her hands in his, and looked her in the eyes and told her that she meant the world to him. And Rosa had stared back at him, she knew she was supposed to return the sentiment. To melt into his arms, to share a kiss and let the professions of love flow freely from her lips. But instead she felt herself shutting down. She was acutely aware of the way his hands felt slightly clammy against hers. And the way one eye was placed slightly higher than the other on his face (his eyes of adoration that looked at her, tenderly, lovingly, expectantly). Something deep inside Rosa closed off. She choked through a similar profession of endearment, the words clumsy and false on her lips. Later that night she told Marcus she wasn't feeling well, just so she could have a moment in the bathroom alone to wallow in her guilt.

With Adrian it was supposed to have been different. Not like Marcus (or Chris or even Maria). Maybe she just hadn't found the right person yet, she repeated over and over. But what it felt like was she kept finding the right person, and something was just wrong with her. The way that anytime the relationship turned serious, turned from a fling, or a deep friendship, or awesome sex (or a combination) into something romantic, all of a sudden Rosa wasn't interested.

But how could she tell anyone that? Much less Adrian himself? That she was a free woman, reunited with her loving, if slightly unstable, boyfriend, and she wished she was back in prison because it was easier to fake feelings on paper than it was in person. (And to make matters more confusing, the sexual desire was back more than ever, she had just spend six months in prison after all, but the desire for a committed romantic relationship? She felt nothing.) She looked at Amy and Jake, and the way their faces practically glowed with happiness, and she wished to god she could feel that too.

Then she thought Adrian was cheating. Or maybe she just convinced herself that Adrian was cheating. In her black hole of anger and confusion and guilt, it became perverse point of happiness. That maybe Rosa could find a legitimate reason to break up with Adrian, and then no one would have to know that, really, she wanted to break up with him.

Adrian completely blindsided her with his admission of learning Spanish. The way he spoke to her, all manic eyes and grandiose gestures, so eager for her love and approval. She felt a wave of anger, that he could love her and still not see how she truly felt, and then was abruptly swallowed by guilt. Guilt of feeling angry, of not loving Adrian enough, of wanting to break up him. Of being disappointed that he wasn't cheating—god what was wrong with her?

It was the black hole of guilt that finally pushed her to tell Amy. Amy, for all her uptightness and rule-following nature, was the closest thing Rosa had to an unconditionally supportive friend. "I think you know what to do," and Rosa did know, deep down, she had to break up with Adrian. She couldn't keep feeling this way, trapped, uncomfortable, fake. Even if the sex was really great.

Half a year later, it was Amy again who ended up relieving a bit of the deep-seeded guilt Rosa had about being somehow unable to commit to any sort of relationship. It was pride month and Amy had sent around an email with a list of definitions and a brief history of pride as part of her weekly e-newsletter (an initiative she spearheaded, chaired, and implemented single-handedly). Rosa's first instinct was to trash the newsletter. She was busy with the paperwork for last week's armed robbery case. She was comfortable, proud even, of being bisexual, but the boisterous nature of pride went against all the pains Rosa took to keep her personal business to herself. (And it hadn't always been this way, as a scared college freshman trying to explain to her Catholic parents, why exactly it was important to come out as bisexual even though she had been dating Chris for two years). But Amy had put so much effort into the newsletter, and added links to her sources and to sites for further information, and Rosa was, a tiny bit, proud that she had gotten to the point in her life were she was comfortable with her sexuality. So she minimized the browser with the case information and open Amy's newsletter.

Huh, there were some terms and identities Rosa had never even heard of. And that's when something in the back of her mind clicked, "Aromantic: Someone who does not experience romantic attraction (note this is not the same as asexual, an aromantic may or may not experience sexual attraction." Rosa tried to keep focus on skimming the newsletter, but something stopped her and made her look across the precinct in thought. Images flitted through her head, Marcus' smiling adoringly up at her after buying out the whole bar for her birthday, her not-wedding to Adrian Pimento, the way she kept thinking all the flowers and balloons and white drapery couldn't possibly be for her. And before that, the way that sometimes, after a particular hot makeout session, Maria would ask Rosa about what she wanted in the future (marriage? Kids?) and Rosa would lean over and plant her lips on Maria's, mostly to avoid the conversation.

There were too many feelings swirling around Rosa's head. So she did what she always did when overwhelmed by emotions, ignored the shit out of them. But the in between throwing herself into cases, working out, doing yoga, redecorating her kitchen (she was keeping her eye out for a nice vase or two), fencing, you know, normal Rosa stuff, in between that her brain kept turning over the term "aromantic". Finally one night, alone in bed in the dark, Rosa opened her laptop, made sure all her security settings were turned on, and typed the word into google.

Three years later, Rosa no longer expected to wake to a guard rattling her cell, but she still sometimes felt the panic in her chest when a woman with Hawkins' curly chestnut hair sat too close to her in Starbucks. She was still a cop, but no longer worked cases. (It had been too hard, knowing what it was like in there. Seeing the disproportionate number of Latina and black women, knowing it was a few degrees that separated Rosa's life as the child of immigrants from many of their experiences. What if her parents hadn't been trained as teachers back in Argentina? What if they hadn't been able to transfer their degrees with relative ease here?* Would Rosa still have ended up in prison, but under very different circumstances?). Instead, she chaired a task force on restorative justice, worked to keep the most people out of prison as possible.

But most importantly, three years later and Rosa was happy with her person (that's what they decided to call each other). Because right from the beginning Rosa was able to tell her about being aromantic, and she had nodded and accepted Rosa without question. It was unromantic and it was glorious. She was badass, she was sexy, she trusted Rosa implicitly, even when Rosa refused to share a personal detail. And there were no candle-lit dinners, no marriage proposals, no romance.

Four years later, they celebrated their relationship with select friends and family at Shaw's bar (it had been a small concession Rosa had been willing to make) and in a moment of quiet Rosa found herself sitting next to Amy, who thankfully hadn't had anything to drink yet. "Hey remember back at the Nine-Nine you sent around that email about Pride?" Amy's eyes lit up at the thought of her beloved e-newsletter project. "First time I heard about aromanticism. Pretty dope." Rosa gives her curt nod, and maybe Amy has had a drink or two, because she envelopes Rosa into a hug and tells her how happy she is for them, and for once Rosa lets herself lean into the embrace.

~~fin~~

*I actually don't know how easy it is to transfer teaching credentials, I'm just making up Rosa's family history for the sake of the fic without any real knowledge, if this is offensive and/or wrong, please let me know.

This fic was particularly cathartic to write, because some of Rosa's experiences are inspired by my own. And it sounds silly, but by writing Rosa a happy ending, it makes me feel that I can have one too. I'm convinced at this point that bisexual aromantic Rosa is canon. To me, it is the missing explanation behind her breakup with Marcus, her initial attraction to Adrian and then subsequently why she broke up with him in the last episode. And of course, makes me feel reflected in a character, which is a great feeling. And Stephanie Beatriz confirmed that, to her at least, Rosa is bisexual, so that's good enough for me! I also wanted to be able to address a little bit of how prison affected Rosa and her ability and feelings about being a cop. And of course I had to add in Rosa & Amy friendship, because I adore it so much. The title is taken from the wonderful tegan and sara song "BWU", which I personally think perfectly encapsulates Rosa's feelings about her relationships. Thanks for reading!

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