GIRL WITH THE DENIM JACKET | R.DIAZ

ONE

'NOVAK! You chose a bad day to be late!' A stressed voice raised as the woman in question walked into the bullpen.

'I know- my bad, Sarge, the traffic was awful.' Isla responded, collapsing into her desk chair, chucking her bag to the side. Sergeant Jeffords sighed, walking over to her desk despite her poor punctuality, and tossed a file onto her desk.

'It's not me you've gotta explain yourself to.' Terry warned, nodding in the direction of the unoccupied Captain's office. At least, it was unoccupied for the time being.

'This is like, the fourth time you've been late over the past two weeks, what's up with you?' Amy interjected as she walked over to her own desk.

Isla sighed, dropping her head into her hands, knowing today was already going to be hell. She turned around to face Amy with a forced smile.

'Okay, one- weird that you know that. Two, that's on a need to know basis.' Isla's forced smile quickly dropped, spinning around back to her desk.

'Ooh, Isla's got a secret!' Charles spun around, now invested in the conversation. 'Dish bish.' He smiled with glee.

Typically, on literally any other day, Isla would've been able to cope with her coworkers incessant weirdness, however, today she lacked the sleep to handle such personalities with care. She loved the people she worked with, practically considered them family, but damn, they could be a lot sometimes. But before she could even retort to Boyle about his comment, another of her coworkers had jumped on the bandwagon of 'Let's interrogate Isla over nothing'.

'Novak! C'mon, you can tell me, your bestie, Jake.' Peralta walked back over to his desk from the kitchen. 'Or I could guess! Like...Oh- you're in love with Charles.' He smiled, he was a good detective, but a terrible guesser.

'I'm not even gonna dignify you all with a response.' She sighed, staring at her computer as she logged on. Everyone soon got bored of the subject, and quickly started work, which actually got done sometimes around there.

Isla zoned out pretty fast, flipping through the file that Terry had tossed on her desk earlier.

'You look awful.'

Isla looked up.

'Thanks Diaz.' Isla smiled weakly, rubbing her eyes which had slowly developed dark circles underneath them. At least Rosa was the only one acting normal with her. Her desk partner had a tendency to steer away from office drama, unless someone was being punched in the face, which Isla often appreciated.

Rosa was a peculiar person. She was cold, but thats the Rosa everyone was used to; calling Charles a moron, her daily threatening of Hitchcock and Scully, just her average day. But Isla liked to think that her relationship with the black haired nightmare was a little different, she supposed that in a way, Rosa's relationship with the other detectives were all different in their own little ways. But Rosa had always treated Isla a little different.

———

4 Years Ago

'Detective Diaz!'
Rosa looked up from her chair, seeing Captain McGintley stood in front of the set of desks, aside him, a woman stood clad in a white t-shirt under a navy checkered shirt, black jeans and a light denim jacket. Her badge hung around her neck as she stood with a hopeful smile on her face.

'This is Detective Novak, she's going to be your new desk mate and partner.' He stated bluntly before waddling off back into his office. The two were left in an uncomfortable silence before Rosa broke it.