Chapter Text
Rosa had been in a lot of crazy situations. She’d taken down huge drug rings, tackled armed criminals, gotten framed and sent to jail, where she’d gained the respect of her mates by beating up multiple gang leaders. And that had only been in the last five years. She’d gone into all those experiences the way she went into everything; incredibly determined and free of fear. But now, she was terrified, because she was in the craziest situation yet. She was staring down the barrel of a loaded gun. Or, more accurately, she was staring into the eyes of a three-year-old girl.
“You want me to watch it?” She asked, unable to hide her distaste. “For how long?
Jake grimaced and set down his daughter on the chair in front of him. “Her, and only for a couple of hours.” He took off the baby supply bag slung across his shoulders and handed it to Rosa, who stared at him unmoving. “C’mon, you’ll be fine.” He said, realizing she wasn’t reaching out for the bag and choosing to drop it on the floor.
Amy stepped in from the hallway, her expression almost as worried as Rosa’s. “Are you sure you can handle it?”
“No. I’m not. I’ve told you as much, many times.” Rosa said, unable to rip her eyes away from Rachel, who was sitting on her beautiful faux leather couch watching some weird kids show on an iPad. She seemed chill right now, but from the stories Jake and Amy told about her, that couldn’t be the case for long.
About an hour ago they’d called, frantically looking for a babysitter. Apparently, Amy’s parents were out of town, Jake’s mom had the flu, and Amy’s complicated network of backup babysitters had somehow failed them. So their only option was Rosa, because she’d taken care of her niece right? And while this was technically true, her sister had never left the building and Rosa’d only started hanging out with her when she was seven or eight. Her niece was cool, she melted barbies in microwaves. Rachel however, was a toddler, who from what she’d heard was very talkative and very energetic, two of Rosa’s least favourite qualities.
Jake grinned, somehow not noticing or choosing not to notice the tension in the room. “You’ll be fine. In there,” he gestured to the bag, “you’ll find a very detailed binder, and enough toys and snacks to keep her fed and entertained forever. And, to help you out, we brought…” he dramatically gestured to the doorway and Charles stepped out of the shadows dramatically, smiling like an idiot.
Rosa would’ve sworn if there wasn’t a child present. “Charles was available to babysit? Then why are you still dragging me into this mess?” She hissed, glancing back to make sure Rachel’s attention was fixed on the screen.
“Well, last time we had a mishap where Charles went against the binder and fed Rachel too many popsicles, which gave her a stomachache.” Amy supplied, walking over to Rachel while Charles drooped with guilt. “She’s really good at getting people to give her things.” She squatted in front of the chair Rachel was in and planting a kiss on her forehead, which Rachel responded with a gap-toothed smile. “It’s the same reason there’s an outdoor swing in our indoor apartment.”
“I didn’t even assemble it, babe!” Jake argued, bending down and tickling Rachel.
“But why would you buy it?” Amy retorted, standing up. “Anyway, we’ll be back in two hours tops. Between the two of you, I’m sure you can figure out a way to entertain Little Miss Rae.” She put a mock-stern expression on her face. “Rachel, don’t give Tia Rosa any trouble.” She wagged her finger at her and Rachel simply giggled. Amy turned around and grabbed Jake’s wrist, beginning to tug him out of the door.
“Bye, Booger! Be good!” He called, as Amy hustled him out the door. “This is the hard part. Oh, god, here come the waterworks…”
Rosa quickly shut the door behind him. “That’s enough of that.” She turned back to Rachel, who seemed pretty calm at the disappearance of her parents. She gave Rosa a cursory glance before returning to her video, which from what Rosa could decipher was about a monkey and a lizard in a spaceship.
She turned to Charles, who’d gone to the sofa next to Rachel and started rummaging through the bag. “What are they even doing that’s so important?” She wondered, realizing in all her panic she’d forgotten to ask.
“Anniversary dinner.” Charles supplied, taking out the binder with some difficulty and propping it on his lap. “The last two months Jake’s been on that armed robbery case, and Amy’s been getting used to being a lieutenant, but they both promised themselves they’d take a night off tonight, but then their babysitters fell through.”
Rosa sighed and went over to Charles. She’d had a hard week, but they definitely deserved this break more than her. She’d just thought since she’d finished a big batch of paperwork and Jocelyn was out of town, she’d take the opportunity to catch up on sleep. She looked up to see Rachel giggle at something on the screen and she had to struggle not to smile. She loved her about as much as someone could love the child of their two best friends in the world, but she’d never known how to deal with children. Although as of right now, Rachel seemed fine.
“She seems pretty content.” She said, voicing her thoughts to Charles. “Why don’t we just leave her like that for the next two hours?”
“Because,” Charles replied, thumbing through the binder, “the very first line in the chapter regarding drop-off,” he angles the binder so she can read the page, “states, ‘Confiscate the electronic device as soon as we leave. It is only given to Rachel to ease the process of dropping off, otherwise screen-time should be kept to a minimum.’” He turns the page. “Amy packed her some toys in the bag, she should be fine with those.”
Rosa scowled. She was fine with things the way they were, but remained silent as Charles gently took the iPad away from Rachel and helped him bring out toys from the bag. She wasn’t about to be the one to go against Amy’s binder. That woman was crazy.
She took out a lego set and placed it on the carpet. Of course Rachel had to like something so hard to clean up. “Is this what she usually plays with?” There seemed to be more in the bag.
“Do you wanna play with the Legos, Rae-Rae?” Charles asked, wiggling his eyebrows.
“Uh-huh!” She nodded enthusiastically and maneuvered herself onto the carpet, where she began emptying every single Lego from the bag onto the carpet. “I’m gonna build a castle!” She declared.
Charles clutched his heart. “Ugh! I almost can’t stand it.” He pointed to the bag. “You should also bring out the bag filled with all the tiny plastic animals,” Rosa sighed, knowing she’d probably be finding them under her couch for weeks after this, “and the golden retriever stuffed animal.”
Rosa froze. “She brought that?”
“Yeah, it’s her favourite stuffed animal.” Charles sat on the carpet and began handing Rachel lego pieces whenever she needed one. “She takes it everywhere.”
This time Rosa couldn’t help smiling. She’d seen a stuffed animal that looked exactly like Arlo, and she’d thought of Rachel so she got it for her for Christmas. She’d heard that Rachel was a huge fan of dogs and since she would most likely never get to have one because of Amy, she’d gotten it. Since she was kind of the precinct’s baby and people were constantly getting her toys, she hadn’t thought much of it. But knowing she carried it everywhere…well, that warmed her cold, dead heart. She brought out the toys specified by Charles and put them next to Rachel.
“Whoa!” Rachel said, as though seeing them for the very first time. She abandoned what she was building (which looked to be more of a pillar than a castle) and opened the bag of animals. “This is a tiger.” She announced, and then made the animal roar at Charles, who played along and pretended to be scared. She then proceeded to do that for every single animal in the bag, even ones that most definitely didn’t roar, and Charles continued to feign fear.
This’d been fine so far, Rosa thought to herself. She’d basically just been standing awkwardly and watching her play, which was much better than she’d seen this going. She’d expected her to be way more helpless, but apparently, three-year-old children were pretty cool.
“Don’t just stand there. Come play.” Charles insisted. “Don’t you want to play with Tia Rosa?” Rachel paused disassembling her structure and nodded.
Now she had no choice. She sat on the other side of Rachel. “Um,” she picked up the stuffed animal, “you wanna play with this?”
“Johnny?” Rachel gave her a look like she was crazy. “He’s sleeping.” She grabbed him and laid him back on his side. “Shhhh.” She held a finger to her lips.
She looked so deadly serious that all Rosa could do was nod solemnly. “Sure. Um, let’s keep building this castle.”
And so for like an hour, they did that, with Rachel randomly telling them about things that had happened to her recently. Apparently, she and her dad had ice cream for breakfast but they couldn’t tell her mom. Also, she’d learned Spanish for ‘dog’ because it was her favourite animal, but she couldn’t pronounce R’s, much less roll them, so it came out sounding like ‘pewo’, which amused Rosa to no end. Eventually, she banished both Charles and Rosa to the couch, because she had some grand plan for her toys that neither of them would be able to fathom.
“See,” Charles smiled, “isn’t this so peaceful?” She only stared at him in response. “This is why Genevieve and I want to adopt a toddler.” He took out his phone and showed Rosa a picture of a one-year-old girl with an adorable gap-toothed smile. “This is Eliana. She’d a sixteen-month-old we met at an orphanage in Long Island. Genevieve and I are so close to being able to adopt her.”
Charles often vented to Rosa about how hard and unpredictable the adoption process was. A bunch of other adoptions had fallen through in the last year since they’d started trying again. “Good luck.” She said, and she really meant it. It kind of worried her, since presumably that would be how she and Jocelyn would have kids if they ever wanted to, but she wasn’t going to think about that.
“Mommy.” Rachel suddenly whimpered. She and Charles turned around to find that in the seconds since they’d stopped looking at her she’d walked over to the door and was sadly trying, and failing, to turn the locked doorknob. Somehow, she’d only just realized that her parents were no longer here. “I want my mommy.” Her face crumpled. “I want my daddy.”
Oh, god. This was Rosa’s worst nightmare. While she stood frozen not knowing what to do, Charles rushed over to console her.
“It’s okay, Rachel.” Charles said gently, reaching out to hold her, but she shied away from him and let out something dangerously close to a wail. He turned to Rosa. “Can you try?”
“What?”
“Pick her up.” He hissed.
She couldn’t see herself being any more successful, but she came over and held her hands out. Surprisingly Rachel wrapped her hands around her neck and she picked her up. She didn’t have a chance to wonder if she was holding her correctly when Rachel wrapped her legs around her and clung to her like a monkey. She wasn’t crying, but in a flash, she’d somehow gone from happiness to despair. Man, kids were weird.
“I want my daddy.” Rachel asserted yet again, chin resting on Rosa’s shoulder. “I wanna go home.”
“Your mommy and daddy will be here soon.” Rosa assured her, spotting Charles taking pictures of her and scowling at him. “But for now, you can play with Tia Rosa and Uncle Charlie. ” She attempted, walking over to the couch. “How does that sound?”
Rachel burrowed her face into her shoulder as a response.
“What am I supposed to do about this?” She hissed at Charles, who finally put his phone down once he saw her panic.
“Just offer things to her until you find out what she wants!” Charles suggested, running over to the couch and rapidly flipping through the binder.
That sounded like a terrible plan, but it was all she had. She walked over to where Rachel had scattered all the toys. “Wow!” She tried to feign enthusiasm. “That looks fun. Do you wanna play with the Legos?”
“No.” She replied in a world-weary tone that was way too dramatic for the situation. Definitely Jake’s daughter, then.
“Ooh, what about the animals?”
“No.”
“Wow, Johnny looks like he’s waking up. Why don’t you…I don’t know, play catch?”
“No.”
“What about a snack?”
She perked up at that, so Rosa went over to Amy’s bottomless bag and rummaged around. “How about some yoghurt?” She took Rachel’s silence as a resounding yes and used one hand to support her, and the other to rut the yoghurt tube in her mouth and rip it open with her teeth. That probably went against the hygiene section of the binder, but right now she couldn’t care less. She handed it to Rachel who started to suck on it with a pout on her face.
Rosa slowly sat on the couch and faced Rachel forward so she was sitting on her lap. The crisis had been temporarily averted, but now that she’d lost interest in her toys, she really wished she could just sit her in front of the iPad. Rachel suddenly put down her still full yoghurt onto the couch and began to tug at her hair.
“What’s up, Rachel?” Charles asked, carefully transferring the yoghurt to the coffee table.
“I don’t like my hair.” She complained. Rosa personally thought the two stubby braids she had were fine, but she kind of understood. Her mom always put her hair in tight updos and that was why she preferred to have it down. Curly hair was such a curse.
“I could give you a different hairstyle.” She suggested. She’d picked up a few tricks from Jocelyn, and she’d been dealing with her own unruly hair for years. After all, Jocelyn’s hair skills had always been a hit with her niece. “Something way cooler.”
Rachel nodded vigorously, and Rosa began undoing her braids. Rachel didn’t seem to know how to sit still, but then a story Jake had told her occurred to Rosa. “Do you want to hear a story while I do your hair?” According to Jake, since she was a baby, hearing cop stories always took her full attention and kept her completely entertained. “Let me tell you about your dad’s first case…”
And so Rosa, while she put Rachel’s hair in space buns, told of Jake’s first case. And when she’d finished the hair, Rachel still wanted more, so she went on to tell her about the time Amy tacked a guy while wearing a wedding dress, as well as her parents’ first case together, which they solved in under ten hours while hating every second of it. By this time, Charles joined in with sound effects and sometimes tried to mime scenes.
“Uncle Charles is a dumb-dumb, huh?” She’d say, and Rachel would giggle, and it made her feel so good for some reason.
She was rounding up the story of the first Jimmy Jabs when a familiar voice said, “Knock knock,” from outside of the apartment.
She had to hold on to Rachel while Charles unlocked the door because she was so excited. In walked Jake, looking very pleased with himself, and Amy, looking anxious.
“Mommy! Daddy!” she ran over to them and Jake hoisted her in his arms and spun her around.
“You guys look happy.” Charles gave them a knowing look. “Is it safe to say baby number two is on the way?”
“Charles!” Jake said at the same time Amy said, “Gross!”
“That was definitely not two hours.” Rosa remarked, walking over to the door.
“I know, right?” Jake smirked. “After Amy made fun of me for worrying, she kept thinking something crazy happened to Rachel. So she dragged me out in the middle of dessert and we took a cab here.”
“That was only because you didn’t call. What else was I supposed to think?” She gestured at the binder, which lay open on the coffee table. “Didn’t you see you’re supposed to make bi-hourly check-ins in the ‘Contact’ section of the binder?”
“It would’ve taken me two hours just to get that far in.”
“Good point.” Jake bounced Rachel on his hip. “Hey, Booger. Did you have fun with your Tia Rosa?”
“Yeah!” She beamed. “We played with toys, and I ate yoghurt, and Uncle Charles is a dumb-dumb!”
Amy groaned and Rosa smirked. Teaching her that word was probably her greatest achievement.
“And I want to be a cop!” Rachel suddenly announced, causing Jake and Amy to look at each other with absolute panic in their eyes. They definitely didn’t want that happening.
“Okay sweetheart, go pick up your toys.” Amy said as Jake set her down. To rosa’s surprise, she didn’t complain, but eagerly ran over and began methodically putting the toys back in the bag, one by one. She even seemed to be enjoying herself. It seems all her worries about her house being a mess were for nothing; this was Amy’s daughter after all.
Soon, she’d packed all her stuff and Jake hoisted the once again full baby bag over his shoulder, while Amy perched Rachel on her hip. “Thanks for this.” Jake said. “Seriously, I know this isn’t really your thing.”
Rosa shrugged. At times she’d been confused, but it’d been nothing compared to what she’d thought it would be. Rachel reminded her of Arlo, in that she was adorable, and Rosa would not hesitate to kill for her. But instead of saying this, she said, “Rachel is cool.”
“So am I back in your good graces as a babysitter?” Charles asked, looking anxious.
Amy frowned. “I don’t know about you, but Rosa definitely is.”
“What?” Rachel was adorable and all, but they shouldn’t make this a regular thing. She was physically and emotionally drained. And she had a busy life she had to deal with.
“Face the facts, Rosa.” Jake said, slowly backing out of the doorway. “She loves you. She’s happy, unhurt and she’d to an adorable new hairstyle. You can look forward to having her here a lot more often.” By this time, he and Amy were fully out of the door. “Say adios to Tia Rosa!”
“Adios, Tia Wosa!” Rachel waved, and before she could protest, Jake and Amy darted away, and Rachel's laughter echoed through the hallway.