died8yearsago | Office #26; Friday Morning [09/21].

Apparently, Rosa had an office.

She'd found the key for it the other day and wondered what the hell it was, and then decided maybe she'd actually go check it out, as weird and confusing as she thought it was. It's not like she was doing anything else, anyway, and she highly doubted there was anything really going on at the station, and, if there was, Kincaid had her number.

Maybe she'd been vaguely hoping there'd be something interesting in there left by the last person who used it, but it looked like there hadn't been anyone using it for a while now. So it just continued to confuse her as she looked around.

"What the hell am I going to do with an office?"

She didn't even use her desk at the station for much more than a place to put her feet. But as she looked around and considered the space, she figured she could always just move the desk against a wall and make it a yoga studio or something. But even then, the best place for that was the evidence room. The shelves there were almost always empty and they were just the right size for her to fit into, just like at the Nine-Nine. It was great. The troopers had yet to find her when she was in there.

But there she was, anyway. In...her office.

"What the hell am I going to do with an office?"

Apparently, it beared repeating.

[[it's open! and also: seriously, girl.]]

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"Well, I use mine to keep all my paperwork in?"

Karolina couldn't help poking her head in the door when she heard the question. Though, now that she saw it was Arlo 2's Hot Mom who'd asked it, she was having second thoughts.

"Also to meet with students," she added. "But mostly the paperwork, or at least that's what it feels like, a lot of the time."

"Ugh."

As if she didn't get enough paperwork at her real job.

And that was being generous towards what she did around here with the FPD, really.

But she tried not to look too grossed out by the idea as she turned around to scope out the person in the doorway.

"Seems like a lot of space for....paperwork."

The person at the door was a tall blonde who was dressed like you'd find her by Googling 'California hipster bohemian girl' and mixed that with 'but make it appropriate for a high school staff member'. (Mostly that addition just meant the hemlines were lower.)

She was also much less floaty and literally glowy than she had been at the Pride parade.

"I don't know, there seems to be a lot of paperwork in mine," she said, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear. "But a lot of that's left over from the lady who had it before me. I don't know if she actually did anything with it, or if she just let it... accumulate."

"Mine just seems to have collected dust bunnies," Rosa said with a rueful glance back at the room. "Which, around here, I'm actually worried might turn into actual bunnies."

Which might mean good training on finally getting Arlo 2 to be that vicious guard dog she always imagined.

Yeah, right.

Back to the hippie; she was marginally more interesting than the dust. "So what's your deal around here?"

It was probably a good-thing, bad-thing that Rosa didn't remember the whole glowy thing.

If nothing else, it was a great excuse for Karolina not to feel bad about not being recognized.

"Oh, I'm the guidance counselor," she said. "Karolina. My office is downstairs." Which was not relevant information, at all. Just sort of... fell out of her mouth anyway.

Guidance counselor? She barely looked old enough to be out of college, but at the same time, Rosa knew she'd hardly complain if she were still in school.

"How's that working out for you?"

"Okay, I guess?" Karolina said, shrugging, with a wane little smile. "It's just really hard to get the students to come by, you know? I think maybe everyone's so used to being tough and independent that they don't think they'd benefit from it."

Which was something Rosa knew nothing about, Karolina was sure.

Rosa made a face, wrinkling her nose. "I always hated having to see the guidance counselor," she admitted. "Waste my time, sitting there listening to some hag who couldn't hack it as a teacher, who wouldn't shut up my lack of direction and wasted talent and how the girls felt 'threatened' and 'unsafe.'"

...clearly. Rosa knew nothing about it at all.

And obviously, Hippie Chick over here was of an entirely different ilk than the counselor she'd had at the Academy, but Rosa was one hundred percent sure the phrase 'untapped potential' would have left her mouth at some point.

Well, at least Karolina hadn't said it to anyone so far? But she was a ridiculous optimist, so it was more likely than not that she was going to.

But, also:

"Oh wow, I wouldn't want to do that," Karolina said, brows knitting together. "Kids should do what makes them happy. It's hard enough without trying to live up to expectations coming from the outside." Look, she'd had a lot of authority fgures try and tell her what she should do when she'd been a teen. (And a recently orphaned one, at that.) "I just want people to try and be happy. And, like, healthy."

A beat.

"But, okay, I would definitely bring up people feeling unsafe."

Aww. That was cute.

Delusional, in the opinion of this relentless cynic, but cute.

"So," Rosa had to ask, folding her arms and quirking an eyebrow, "what do you do when what makes the kid happy is also what makes other people feel unsafe?"

"Um, well, that depends on what they're actually doing," Karolina replied, her head tilting a little. "Because if it's something that people, like, should feel unsafe about, and not like something where they're just scared of something that's unfamiliar --"

Heeeey, alien speaking here!

"-- then, um, I would try and work on finding a way to do the thing that makes them happy in a way that scares people less."

Hmmm. Nice, vague, and probably only possible on paper. Sounded pretty much as she expected.

"So then everyone's happy," Rosa said, leaning back on the desk for a moment before pushing herself to sit, "right?"

She didn't sound terribly convinced.

It was hard to be specific when the question was vague, too!

"No," Karolina said, with no small amount of wryness. "But it'd be great if life was that easy, right?"

Well, at least she could admit that much. There might have been a small amount of wryness out of Rosa there, too, in the very corner of her mouth, but you had to look awfully close to find it.

The shrug of her shoulders was a little more obvious. "Sounds pretty boring, if you ask me."

Karolina shrugged righg back.

"Anyway, so I'm not looking to fix anyone, especially not, like, into reaching some standard I set for them," she said. "I just want to help people if they need it." She paused, and smiled a little. "So, do I pass?"

Sorry, Rosa, your attitude had made this feel a little like a test. Even if Karolina sounded like she was at least half joking about it.

"Pass what?" Rosa snorted. "Like I'm giving you some kind of test or something?"

She totally was.

And she did.

Mostly.

"Just...shootin' the shit," she said. "With my...colleague. In...my office."

Still super weird, sorry.

"My office is my first one, too." Well, at least she was assuming this was Rosa's first office, from the confusion. "You get used to it."

Kinda.

Office #26; Friday Morning [09/21].

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