So, I wrote a Rose fic. Shocking I know. Comments, constructive criticism are welcomed. Please be aware that this fic does contain some adult themes -- and if you know Rose's character from the show -- it's pretty obvious which themes I am alluding to.





Conosci te stesso (Know Thyself)
Spoilers: all the entire series I guess.
Summary: sometimes the prisons around us, are the same ones we built with our own hands.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Author’s Note: this is my attempt at writing a Rose fic, and since I can’t remember the TPTB ever really giving a back story on her, I am creating my own. Hell if they couldn’t fill in the blanks for the major characters, I am sure a minor character like Rose, wouldn’t matter. Oh I am sorry, do I sound bitter? Oh that’s right it’s ‘cause I am.


She is 18 when she meets him. Her mother always told her that she was beautiful. With soft curly brownish red hair, full lips and twinkling eyes, she knew how to catch a man’s eye.

She sits in her normal spot, bitter at her crappy ex Johnny DeMarco for dumping her the day after their anniversary. If she ever sees him again, and especially if he’s with Marie, she’s going to show him just how feisty she really is.

She’s a regular, and she’s glad that Joe, one of the nicer bartenders is on tonight, she doesn’t want any unwelcome attention. She may have the eyes of an old soul, like her Grandmother always told her, but she still has those lingering dreams of a white picket house with a fence, a happy husband, and two adorable children.

As much as she wishes, she still has an innocence that will never truly go away.

She’s on her four drink. She likes the hard stuff – whiskey and vodka – the stuff that she’s seen her father steal a nip of after work. A cigarette sits between her fingertips, her nails a bright red, unlit.

She’s 18, and yet as she catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror, she smiles bitterly. Her Ma was wrong. She’s already reached the height of her beauty. She may have a pretty name, a deep and sexy voice, but she’ll be no rich man’s bride.

He’s in the corner, his piercing brown eyes on her, causing her to almost spill her drink (it’s a good thing her genetics kicked in), but she purposely turns away.

She’s young but she’s not stupid. A man like that is only here in a smoky bar for an easy lay.

Sliding off the bar stool, her high heels taking her over to the enigmatic stranger, she smiles seductively, her hips swaying slightly. She’s not a good girl. She hasn’t been one since she was fifteen when Donnie Mannetti showed her the backseat of his Camerro.

Her mother and father don’t know that. She still wears the cross from her communion around her neck, wears demure clothing, and purposely keeps her eyes averted from the very attractive boys in church.

They all think she’s a saint.

She wants to laugh that someone like her can fool them all. She’s a sinner. One of these days she knows that she’ll get herself into trouble, and she knows that nobody else is going to help her.

She lets him take her home, in between her shoes being thrown across the floor, and the thin material of her nylons ripping, she asks him his name. Anthony.

As he rolls her over, both of them breathing heavily, she clings to his arm, and something breaks in her.

She doesn’t try to slip out of his arms in the middle of the night. For a moment, there is a momentary feeling of panic, at being trapped with this stranger, but she makes no move to escape.

Yet as his soft lips find her throat, and his gravely voice whispers her name like a prayer, she almost smiles.

She’s a bad girl, and she wonders if she’s found her savior.

She’s 22 when she tells her parents, clinging to his hand, that she’s pregnant. When she’s done talking, she’s the only one still smiling. Blinking back tears, she looks down at the floor, unable to see the blank and unhappy faces of her parents and husband.

She’s a bad girl.

It seems as if she’s always disappointing people.

She’s 24 when she starts to hide bottles of whiskey in the back of the cabinet. The first time, she snuck a drink while little Maurice was napping, she felt a twinge of guilt. The daily shots help wash it away.

She’s 25 when she gets pregnant again. She only shares the news with her best friend Nancy and her husband. She doesn’t call her parents. She’s known enough disapproval in her life. She doesn’t want to hear the cold words, the clipped conversation, and doesn’t want to tell them the truth.

She’s a failure. Her own husband disappoints her, and all she can think is so this is what it feels like.

She’s 28 when he first hits her, his loud and angry voice waking up Michael from his afternoon nap. Maurice stands by the doorway, his eyes wide and his small hands clinging to the doorframe.

He starts crying hysterically, and as his small arms envelope her shaking form, she turns away from his big blue eyes.

She understands then why her parents never wanted her to be a mother. She’s a failure. She’s a disappointment.

A good mother wouldn’t let her six year old see that, and she shouldn’t let him be the one to comfort her, but she’s weak.

She knows – that her Maurice – he’ll always be stronger than her. He’ll be her savior, and she thinks that maybe she’s really made something beautiful.

She’s 30, her face red and puffy, her lipstick barely masking the dried blood, when she watches Michael babble happily to himself. She’s making dinner, her shaking hands wrapped around a glass of watered down whiskey.

She doesn’t like to drink in front of the children, but Maurice isn’t home, and Mikey’s too young to know.

Putting the pan of red sauce on the back burner, she shuts off the stove, discarding her empty glass.

Clutching her son to her chest, she smiles as his eyes meet hers. As his chubby hands relax against her shirt, she blinks back tears.

She’s 30, and she knows with a startling clarity, that this life is hers now. She walked into that trap when she was 18, and she’s unable to escape.

She’s a disappointment, she knows that, and this is her punishment. She has her boys now. If she’ll do her time in this hell, she’ll have them.

She can’t leave.

As she strokes her son’s head, she holds him a bit tighter, she knows the reason why. You can’t open a locked door, when you never had a key to begin with.

FIN


If anyone of my "facts" clash with anything that was mentioned on the show, please tell me. Otherwise this is how I picture Rose and her relationship with Anthony, and why she choose to stay with him despite everything.