Work Text:
The happiness in the room was overwhelming.
The patient’s baby came into the world weighing an impressive eight pounds, nine ounces, screaming and shaking his tiny fists in the air to announce his presence. Tears of exhaustion and joy streaked his mom’s cheeks, and when she held him to her chest, the baby rubbed his little nose against her and quieted, mother and son breathing in sync.
Carina observed the entire scene as though from behind a glass.
All that beauty, all that love on display, still pure and untouched. It was the happiest part of Carina’s job, always.
This time, she could not feel a thing.
She delivered the baby and smiled and congratulated the parents, but none of that joy touched her like it usually did. Numbness engulfed her, muting her every emotion.
Carina let that numbness accompany her, protect her, for the rest of day. It allowed her to stay professional, to be able to do her job without collapsing to the ground like she wanted to.
It was only when she walked out of her last patient’s room that the day caught up to her. Only then did she allow herself to feel again, to become aware that her hands were shaking.
Carina rushed to the closest restroom and splashed freezing water on her face, hoping the shock would silence the haunting thoughts in her head.
It didn’t.
She had spent the rest of the day delivering healthy babies to healthy mothers, but her mind was stuck on Connor and Tia. How impossibly light the baby boy had felt in her hands when she’d rushed to intubate him. The terror in his mother’s voice before she had crashed, her body broken and cut open and struggling to stay alive.
Connor was fighting to stay alive, too, and would have to keep fighting in the coming weeks, because someone had decided that his mom didn’t deserve to live and that he was acceptable collateral damage.
The tremors in Carina’s hands worsened. The lockdown had been lifted, the driver caught, the crowd dispersed. But that knowledge did nothing to bring even a sliver of comfort to Carina.
If she closed her eyes, she could still see the moment the car had collided with Tia and Dr. Montgomery, the sickening crunch of their bodies hitting the concrete. They’d had to rush them into the ambulance, because even after a pregnant woman had been run over, a crowd of dozens still craved more violence. Still craved to hurt them.
Bailey was the face of the clinic, Carina and Jo’s black scrubs acted like a bullseye, making them an unmissable target.
Carina had caught a glimpse at their faces, the hatred twisting their features. For a split second, she imagined what could have happened if those people had gotten to them, what they might have wanted to do if they’d managed to get to her, or Jo, or Bailey.
Her stomach lurched.
She threw herself into a stall and barely had the time to bend over the toilet before she dry-heaved violently.
She hadn’t eaten all day, there was nothing for her to throw up except stomach juices, but the spasms continued until she was out of breath and her throat felt like sandpaper.
She felt exhausted by the time the heaving stopped. Worse, she felt brittle. Having witnessed the explosion of violence from so up-close stirred up old feelings and sensations she did not want to have.
Carina wiped the tears away and willed herself to get up. She cleaned herself up by the sink, but the shaking remained. Even her breathing was shivery. Now that her shift was over and she was no longer bound by obligations to her patients, she couldn’t bear to stay in that hospital a minute longer. She couldn’t function, not as long as she stayed within those walls.
She made her way to her office, her skin itching with the need to strip herself of her scrubs. Right after turning the corner onto the hallway, she stopped in her tracks.
Sat on the floor, right by her office’s door, was Maya.
The sight of her wife stunned Carina into stillness. For a moment, all she could do was stare at her, crouched there with her head on her knees, still covered in sweat and dirt. After their brief encounter, she had expected Maya to leave, to go back to work. It had been hours, it only made sense that she would leave after the threat had been contained. But she hadn’t.
Carina imagined Maya sitting there for hours, waiting for her, and her heart clenched in her chest.
She walked closer and the sound of her steps made Maya lift her head. The moment she saw Carina, her eyes went wide and she shot up on her feet.
“You’re still here,” Carina whispered.
Maya nodded.
“Ben left with Miranda a while ago, but I just… I needed to…”
Maya clenched her jaw, her body tense as though she was refraining from getting closer. Her blue eyes scanned Carina’s body up and down before going back to her face. They looked so soft, so full of uncertainty as she held Carina’s gaze.
“They told me it was okay to stay here, but if you want me to go…”
“You stayed,” Carina said, the ghost of a breath.
Maya took a tentative step forward, her lips trembling a little. “I needed to make sure you’re okay. I had to…”
Carina felt the sting of tears in her eyes. The fear in Maya’s voice, the love and concern in her eyes, threatened to take her out at her knees. Maya was right in front of her and all she craved to do was crumble in her strong arms, to let the warmth of her body soothe her and take away the sticky cold that clung to her skin.
It took all her willpower to resist that impulse.
“Thank you,” Carina said instead, and Maya’s tiny smile made her heart throb wildly.
“Are you leaving?”
Carina nodded, the need to get out of there only more piercing now. Maya’s presence made her aware of how fragile she felt, how unsteady.
She walked inside her office, leaving the door open for Maya to follow her. She picked up her things in a haste, taking off her white coat and putting her day jacket on directly over her scrubs.
“Don’t you need to change?” Maya asked, and Carina shook her head.
“I just want to get out of this hospital.”
“Can I walk you to the car?”
Carina nodded. “Please.”
Teddy had doubled security, every OB had to get in contact before leaving and be personally escorted to the exit. Carina didn’t fight the process, she and Maya waited for the security person assigned to her and let him accompany them outside, but despite how big and burly he was, despite the taser hanging by his belt, it was Maya’s presence next to her that made her feel safer.
The whole way out, Maya remained between Carina and the security guard, her body creating a buffer between the two, which Carina was glad for. She didn’t want to be near a stranger, she definitely didn’t want to be touched.
It had gone dark outside, the parking lot was quiet. After the chaos of the day, the silence felt almost eerie to Carina. Her eyes darted across the dark space, checking for potential threats, her muscles tense the whole way. Her heart was hammering against her ribcage by the time they reached her car.
Once the guard went back inside and she and Maya remained alone, Carina inhaled deeply, trying to calm down, but she kept checking over her shoulder, unable to let go of the fear that someone might jump them. That someone might…
“Are you okay?” Maya asked, noticing her distress.
“Yeah, I just… I need to make sure…”
“Hey…” Maya stepped closer. “I’m here with you, okay?”
Carina closed her eyes and nodded, breathing deep until her heartbeat finally started to slow down.
“Where is your car?” Carina asked Maya as she fished in her bag for her car keys.
“At the station.”
Carina looked up, furrowing her brows.
Maya seemed almost sheepish as she explained.
“When I heard what happened I couldn’t wait. We weren’t far from the hospital, so I had the engine drop me off and I ran here.”
“You ran?”
Maya nodded, swallowing visibly.
Carina felt a flutter in her stomach. Whether it was love, or worry, or wariness, or a mix of all of them, she wasn’t sure. Her emotions were all entangled when it came to Maya.
She dropped her gaze to Maya’s ankle for a moment, then went back to her wife’s face. She looked exhausted, her shirt sweaty and her hair a mess, but her eyes were clear, present. There was no trace of ‘eyes forward’, Maya was looking at her and seeing her.
After months of her wife running away from her, running in a way that almost killed her, Carina didn’t know what to do with the knowledge that this time, Maya had dropped everything and run to her.
All she knew was that it made her heart feel like it wanted to escape her chest.
The loud crack of a branch snapping made Carina jump. She spun around, searching for the source of the sound.
“It’s alright, it’s just the wind,” Maya tried to reassure her.
Carina gripped the key fob and tried to unlock the car, but her fingers were shaking too much.
“Let me—”
The moment Maya’s fingers brushed against her hand, Carina flinched away, dropping the key.
She clenched and unclenched her fists, trying and failing to stop the tremors in her body.
Next to her, Maya stood frozen, heartbreak in her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, but Carina shook her head.
“It’s not you.” She closed her eyes, breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth. “It’s not because we… I just can’t be touched right now.”
Maya nodded silently. Carina didn’t have to explain more, she took one tentative glance at her and knew that Maya understood. Whenever Carina was triggered, whenever something reawakened her demons and left her raw, Maya always understood.
Maya bent down and picked up the key fob, keeping her movements slow.
“I’m not going to touch you, but Carina… you’re shaking. Let me drive you to the hotel.”
Carina wanted to say no, she wanted to be stubborn and prove to herself that it wasn’t needed, that those criminals didn’t have the power to affect her so profoundly.
But she barely had any energy to stand on her feet, and regardless of what they were going through, she’d never had to pretend with Maya.
“Okay,” she agreed.
The drive was quiet. Maya kept true to her word and didn’t try to touch or reach out for Carina in any way. She kept her eyes on the road and both hands on the wheel, driving with the caution of someone who’d just gotten their driver’s license. Her eyebrows were knit in a little, focused frown, unfairly cute. Under any other circumstances, it would have made Carina smile. It would have made her reach out and stroke her thumb over Maya’s forehead.
Carina closed her eyes, letting herself be lulled by the motion of the car, by the knowledge that she didn’t have to think, or do anything, she could just let herself be taken care of.
A nervous tension arose once they reached their destination. Maya parked in front of the hotel and turned to Carina, waiting in silence. She was letting Carina call all the shots, but as appreciative as she was, Carina wasn’t sure about anything.
Her own desires and needs felt muddled, irreconcilable. As true as it was that she couldn’t bear to be touched, she was also aching with the need to burrow into Maya’s body. She needed space and she needed her wife. Contrasting feelings coexisted inside her, making her head spin.
“How are you going to get home?” she asked, keeping her thoughts practical to distract herself.
“I can walk,” Maya shrugged.
“It’s too far away. And it’s late.”
“I can call a cab. Or get Andy to pick me up,” Maya smiled softly. “You don’t have to worry about me, especially tonight.”
Carina stayed quiet. She didn’t know how to tell Maya that she did worry about her, that the thought of her in danger or hurt knocked the breath out of her lungs. That would never change.
“Do you want me to walk you to the entrance?” Maya asked, the silence stretching to the point of awkwardness.
Carina wished she could give a simple answer, that she didn’t feel so paralyzed, every decision requiring monumental effort.
There was an anger inside her, too, because a senseless act of violence was depriving her of her ability to function. She knew her worth, she knew she was strong, and she was capable, and she was brilliant. And someone’s brutality had left her feeling scared like a little kid.
Traumatized.
She hated the word. She knew it far too intimately.
“Carina?”
Maya’s gentle voice took Carina out of her thoughts.
Everything about her was gentle. Her voice. Her eyes. Maya was physically so much stronger than Carina was, but Carina knew that if she let her touch her now, Maya would do it so gently.
She looked at Maya and the whirlwind in her mind calmed.
One need surfaced. Crystal clear.
“Come upstairs.”
Though they’d been talking and texting all week, seeing each other on FaceTime fairly regularly, Carina and Maya had not been alone in a room together since the day Maya had taken care of Carina’s food poisoning.
So, it didn’t surprise Carina when they got to her room and Maya hesitated on the threshold.
“You can come in, Maya,” she said.
Maya gave a quick nod and stepped inside, closing the door behind her.
Carina observed her for a moment, the way she stood in the middle of the living room, shifting her weight from one foot to the other and fidgeting with her hands.
Maya was a confident woman, she could be cocky, even. She walked the world like she was ten feet tall.
But she could also be shy.
It was a side of her she didn’t show to people, Carina was the only one privy to it, to a version of Maya made of flushed cheeks and timid smiles and soft glimmering eyes.
Only a few weeks ago, that version of Maya felt lost forever to Carina, unreachable behind the wall of ice Maya had erected to keep her at distance. Anger had turned that wall into shards, so sharp and piercing that Carina was still tending to the wounds they had left.
The ice had thawed and what remained was the woman standing in the middle of Carina’s room, the woman with kind blue eyes and an even kinder soul whom Carina had married, whom she recognized now.
Carina’s gaze drifted to Maya’s hands and took in the silicone ring on her finger, how she kept rubbing and twisting it. Instinctively, Carina’s thumb went to her own ring finger, the spot between her knuckles empty.
Maya was standing right in front of her, but the fear… Carina could not fully let go of it.
She shrugged her jacket off and threw it carelessly over the desk chair. It slipped and fell, but before she could pick it up, Maya did it for her, folding it neatly and placing it back on the chair.
The gesture warmed Carina’s heart.
“Thank you for being here,” she said.
“Of course,” Maya replied with a small smile. “How are you feeling?”
“Uhh… I don’t really want to talk about it right now.”
“Okay, that’s okay,” Maya nodded, “We don’t have to talk. We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”
Carina rubbed her hands over her naked arms, her skin covered in goosebumps. The room wasn’t particularly cold, but she was only wearing her scrubs and felt like she was freezing. The doctor in her knew her body was coming down from the rush of adrenaline. She had spent hours in a state of extreme distress, it would take her a while to feel normal again.
And though she very much wanted and needed Maya there, to have her witness this vulnerable state she was stuck in made Carina want to hide away inside a hole.
“Are you cold?” Maya asked.
“It’s just the adrenaline wearing off.”
“I have no idea how you managed to keep working all day.”
“I had patients, Maya. It’s my job,” Carina replied, snappier than she intended.
She immediately regretted the harshness of her voice when she saw the hurt on Maya’s face, how she looked away as though ashamed.
“I know, I didn’t mean to imply… just…” Maya chewed on her bottom lip, then made herself meet Carina’s eyes. “You’re amazing. That’s all I meant.”
In that moment, Carina felt again that invisible pull, the aching need to close the space between them and sag against Maya’s body, with the certainty that she would hold her, she would love her.
Resisting that pull was agony.
“Have you eaten anything at the hospital?” Maya asked, the moment now gone.
Carina shook her head. She refrained from telling Maya that she’d been sick again, she didn’t want to cause her to worry, or hurt, even more.
“No, and I can’t have anything from the room service again. It’s all I’ve been eating for weeks, and my stomach feels upside down.”
“I could go get something outside.”
Carina considered Maya’s suggestion. Now that the shock was fading, she was coming back to her body, and her body was starving. Her stomach felt like it was trying to eat itself.
At the same time, being alone filled her with dread.
“You could shower in the meantime,” Maya said, as though she had sensed Carina’s hesitation. “Only if you feel like it, of course. But maybe it could make you feel better. And I’d be back before you know it. You know I’m fast.”
Maya’s tiny smile made Carina’s lips lift on their own accord.
Maya was being so thoughtful, so caring. She was being her wife.
“There’s a Chinese restaurant around the corner,” Carina finally said. “I really like their beef noodles.”
Maya nodded vigorously.
“Got it. Beef noodles on the way.” Then, more softly, she added, “I’ll be right back, okay? Just call if you need… anything.”
Carina heard it, the truth hidden behind Maya’s words.
If you need me.
The ache in her chest came back. Maya had always been her safe harbor, she was so used to finding solace in her wife. But now, she held herself back. No matter how desperately she wanted to, a part of her was still scared, and right now she was too drained to be scared.
She gave a small nod, not trusting herself to say anything, and watched Maya walk out.
The moment she was alone, cold enveloped Carina like a mantle. The events of that miserable day caught up to her, making her legs feel suddenly weak. Cold sweat stuck to her skin beneath the scrubs, the feeling unbearable.
She stripped herself naked and headed straight for the shower, locking the bathroom door behind herself.
She sighed when the spray of water hit her and braced herself against the shower wall to keep from melting on the floor.
Washing herself didn’t take long, but once Carina was done rinsing her body wash and the shampoo from her hair, she stood still. She let the water beat down on her, hot enough to make her skin sting a little but she didn’t care. She embraced it even. It made her feel like she was peeling off a layer of grime and warmth could finally seep in.
Her finger pads were pruney by the time she stepped out of the shower.
Maya still wasn’t back.
Carina made quick work of drying herself up and slipped into her pajamas. She was brushing her hair when her phone pinged with a text notification.
Bambina: There was a short queue. Coming back in 10. Everything okay?
Carina imagined her standing outside the restaurant, pacing back and forth while twisting the wedding ring. The imagine warmed her more than the scalding water of the shower.
She sent a quick text back.
Carina: I showered. I’m okay.
Bambina: <3
The warmth grew, spread from her chest through her whole body.
Carina closed the chat with Maya and that’s when she realized that there were a bunch of unread texts in her inbox. A couple were from Teddy and Jo, but most of them were from Miranda.
The doctor had sent a link, too, along with a series of expletives. Carina clicked on it, and it opened on the website for a clinic.
BALLEY MEMORIAL – Reproductive Health Center
Alarm bells went off in Carina’s head. As she scrolled through the site, it didn’t take her long to realize that the place wasn’t a real clinic.
She rang Bailey and the doctor confirmed her suspicion about the ‘crisis pregnancy center’. Rage surged inside Carina at the thought of those so-called pro-lifers preying on vulnerable people. Knowing that they had taken something as vital as Bailey’s clinic and were perverting it to hurt people instead of helping them had both doctors heated.
Carina didn’t hesitate to agree when Bailey proposed her to go undercover to try and shut the place down. She refused to stand aside and do nothing while those criminals inflicted harm.
She had just ended the call with Bailey when she heard a gentle knock and Maya walked inside.
“Hey. Sorry, it took longer than I thought.”
“It’s fine.”
Maya placed the bag on the desk and started pulling out the food boxes, but she stopped once she realized that Carina had not moved from the bed.
“Is everything okay?”
Carina was quiet, clenching the phone in her hand.
“I was on the phone with Miranda.”
“Is she okay? Is she…”
“She’s fine, it’s not that. But these people…” She growled, pinching the bridge of her nose to keep the anger at bay. “Here, look.”
She opened the link and got up, all but shoving the phone in Maya’s hand. She paced back and forth as Maya looked the site over.
“What am I looking at?” Maya asked.
“It’s a ‘crisis pregnancy center’,” Carina spat. “Which is a nice way to say it’s a scam clinic. They trick people who need reproductive health care and try to prevent them from getting abortions.”
“So… they’re trying to pass as Bailey’s clinic but instead are pro-lifers?”
Carina nodded, suppressing a shudder. The term ‘pro-life’, the hypocrisy of it, made her teeth hurt with rage.
“How can it be legal?”
“Welcome to America,” she sneered.
Maya put the phone down on the table and let out a heavy sigh.
“That’s… it’s horrible. It’s just horrible.”
“Yes.”
“Is it like this in Italy, too?”
“It’s not good,” Carina merely said.
She didn’t have the energy to explain how her country was slowly and steadily descending into fascism. There was no room in her body for this pain, too, not now.
Carina let herself fall on the bed again, sniffling quietly. She could feel the prick of tears behind her eyes, and angrily rubbed them away with the heel of her palm.
“Hey…”
Maya stepped close, then tentatively sat next to Carina, not touching her but close enough that Carina could feel the warmth of her body.
“You know,” Carina said, “I’ve witnessed and... and experienced… my fair share of human cruelty throughout my life. But I’m still shocked at the lengths human beings can go to hurt other people.”
Next to her, Maya went rigid. Carina kept staring ahead, hunched over with her elbows on her knees, glad that her hair was hiding her face from Maya. She felt so raw, like the faintest touch would set her nerves ablaze and make her scream.
She was frustrated with herself, too. With the way her trauma was compounding on each other, with how she wanted Maya to pull her into her arms but couldn’t bear the thought of being touched.
All because…
“He ran them over,” she whispered, her voice strangled. “On purpose. He wanted to kill them. These people… they call themselves ‘pro-life’ but the man who did this almost killed a 29-year-old. A 29-year-old and her baby. At twenty-eight weeks that baby boy might still…”
Carina brought a hand to her chest, trying to breathe against the awful tightness. She didn’t want to cry but there was a lump in her throat, painful every time she swallowed.
“They hate us, Maya. They call us baby killers, they think we have fun performing abortions. It’s such a small part of the work we do but that’s all they see and they think we don’t deserve to be alive because of that.”
The words kept flowing out of her mouth, and the more she talked, the angrier Carina felt. Angry and hopeless.
“It could have been me,” she choked out.
Next to her, she heard a quiet whimper.
“Don’t say that, don’t…”
Carina turned to Maya, her vision blurry with tears but she could still see all the pain and sorrow in her blue eyes, her lips slightly parted like she wanted to say something but couldn’t find her words, her voice, the horror of what Carina had just said too crushing.
“I keep seeing it whenever I close my eyes. The moment the car hit them. I hear their bones cracking.”
“You were there?”
Carina nodded.
Maya abruptly turned away. She inhaled sharply and looked up, the muscle in her jaw visibly clenching beneath the skin. It was only when she saw her eyes glimmering that Carina understood what was happening. That Maya was trying not to cry.
“Maya…”
“I’m sorry,” Maya shook her head, frowning hard to keep the tears from falling. “Sorry, this isn’t about me.”
“You don’t have to apologize for having feelings.”
“I didn’t realize you were so close to it. The thought of someone hurting you…”
She whimpered again, a tiny sound that cracked Carina’s heart open.
Maya looked at Carina again, her eyes wet with unshed tears.
“I was on a call when we got the news about Grey-Sloan. Some influencer got stuck in a cave.”
Carina nodded, finally understanding why Maya was covered in dust and dirt rather than the usual soot.
“They were lowering me down when they reported the attack on the radio, and I just…”
Maya let the sentence hang unfinished, and Carina understood from that silence, from Maya’s wet inhale, that something must have happened during the call. She tensed a little, not knowing what to make of this realization. She wasn’t even entirely sure that she was comfortable with it. Maya’s job was dangerous enough, she didn’t want to be a distraction.
Any other day, she might have told Maya this, she might have told her that she spent every day of their relationship, of their marriage, being worried for her, that she’d had to learn how to cope with it and not collapse under her fear.
But it wasn’t a normal day, and Carina’s job wasn’t supposed to be dangerous, and Maya was looking at her with such openness and vulnerability. Carina could not shut her out. She didn’t want to.
“I know we’re not okay,” Maya said after taking a deep breath. “I know I have no right to make requests. But please, Carina. Promise me you’ll be careful.”
“Maya…”
“What you do is so important. You help so many people every day, I… I admire you so much, you know?” Her lips twitched in the faintest smile before a shadow passed over her face. “But these sick fuckers… Bailey’s clinic is such an easy target for them.”
“I’m not going to stop working at the clinic.”
“I would never ask you to. Just please… please be careful.”
Carina gave a small nod, understanding. She knew the fear in Maya’s eyes, she knew it intimately. She couldn’t promise to be safe, but she could give her this at least.
“I’m sorry for what you had to experience today,” Maya said.
“It was one of the most horrid days of my life.”
“What can I do?” Maya asked, gentle.
Carina shrugged. “I just want today to end. I want to stop feeling like this.”
“How about we eat something and then you try to rest?”
“Yeah,” Carina said after thinking about it for a moment, “Yeah, that would be nice.”
They didn’t talk much at all while eating, but Carina found the quiet soothing rather than uncomfortable. The noodles tasted particularly amazing after the hellish day she’d had and having Maya next to her made her feel safe. At home. It reminded her of those late-night dinners cuddled on the couch, sharing leftovers and a glass of wine.
The pains of nostalgia only grew stronger whenever Maya would glance at her and smile, her whole face softening with it.
Once they were done, exhaustion hit Carina like a brick to the head.
She brushed her teeth while Maya disposed of the takeaway boxes. From the bathroom doorway, Carina couldn’t help but look at her. Everything about the way they were sharing the space felt so domestic. It felt so them.
Carina wanted more, she felt that yearning like she’d felt the pangs of hunger earlier. It still scared her, though, the intensity of that yearning.
“Is it okay if I use the bathroom real quick?” Maya said once Carina joined her in the bedroom again. “I’m dirty all over.”
“You don’t have to ask permission, Maya.”
“I do.”
Carina smiled a little. Maya never did anything half-way. She was a gentlewoman, almost too much even.
She kept herself from arguing and just nodded. “There’s a spare toothbrush under the sink. It’s still wrapped.”
“Thanks,” Maya said, then disappeared inside the bathroom.
After a moment, Carina heard the water running from the faucet of the sink. A part of her wanted to get inside the bathroom and tell Maya that she could use the shower, but she stopped herself. It would only be torture. For Maya, she suspected, and for herself, she knew.
Her mind drifted to the last time she and Maya had taken a shower together, a couple months ago. A hurried affair in the bathrooms of Station 19, their last attempt at conceiving. That was the day everything had gone to hell between them.
Carina didn’t remember that moment as particularly sensual. They’d had to be quick and though Maya was there, holding her, she had felt unreachable at the time.
But thinking about it now, Carina didn’t remember Maya snapping at her, or the hollowness of her eyes.
All she remembered was Maya’s mouth on her neck, her hand squeezing at her hip as she held her, the water cascading over her breasts. She remembered how Maya had fallen to her knees, careless of the cold, hard tiles.
Carina passed a hand over her face and rolled her shoulders with a groan, desperate to shake off those memories. They were no good, not when things were still so uncertain between them.
She slipped under the covers and squeezed her legs together, cursing her body for not being in tune with her brain, her brain that very much wanted her to remember that she and Maya were separated and that she had asked for time and space.
What her body wanted was something else entirely.
As exhausted and shaken as she was after the day’s events, she didn’t have the strength to muse rationally on the state of their marriage, or of Maya’s mental health, whether she could trust her progress. She was down to impulses and basic needs, and what she craved was to bury her face in Maya’s neck. Which wasn’t an option now, not really.
So, she ached. In her soul as much as in her body.
Carina’s eyelids were starting to grow heavy when Maya came out of the bathroom. Her blonde hair was still tied in a ponytail, but it was slightly wet around the hairline. The dirt was gone, her face looked fresh, rosy.
She was so beautiful.
“Ready to sleep?”
Carina nodded, tugging the comforter under her arms.
“Want me to close the curtains?”
“No. I don’t want the room to be too dark.”
“Okay,” Maya said.
She fidgeted a little on the spot, so visibly thinking about how to proceed. Clipboard Maya Bishop without her clipboard was adorable, and Carina wanted her closer.
“Do you need anything else before I leave? I can turn the lights off.”
“Maya?”
“Yeah?
“Stay.”
Maya’s throat bobbed over and over before she found her voice again. Carina didn’t miss the way she thumbed the silicone ring.
“I… are you sure?”
“Yes.” She had never been more sure of anything. “I don’t want to be alone. Stay with me tonight.”
“Okay,” Maya took a deep breath, then nodded, “yeah, okay.”
She looked around the room, oozing nervousness. Carina wasn’t sure what she was looking or waiting for, but it all fell into place when Maya took off her shoes and crossed the room, to sit on the armchair in the corner.
Carina watched her as she took one of the throw pillows and started adjusting it behind her head, clearly ready to spend the night on a back-breaking chair, just to respect Carina’s boundaries.
In that moment, Carina felt the overwhelming need to get out of bed and get on top of Maya. To cradle her perfect face and kiss her senselessly, to strip her and feel her naked body against hers, to writhe together in pleasure.
Carina was guarded, she still was. But Maya wasn’t love bombing her. She was loving her in the calmest of ways.
“Maya,” she said, her voice tinged with a smile.
“Yes?”
Carina placed her hand on the empty spot next to her.
“I meant here.”
Maya didn’t move right away. She sat perfectly still, looking at Carina with her eyes wide and hesitant. Even from across the room, Carina could practically see her overthinking.
Maya gave a small nod, an almost imperceptible thing, then got up and walked to the bed.
She lied down on top of the covers, facing Carina, on the empty side of the bed. Her side. Her arms were tucked to her chest, and she was so close to the edge that Carina was sure the tiniest movement would make her fall off, but she was in bed with her, and Carina immediately felt safer, tension draining off her body.
“Is this okay?” Maya whispered, impossibly soft.
Carina nodded and let her eyes close.
Her breathing deepened, sleep taking over her body as she allowed herself to truly relax for the first time since the attack.
She was drifting off, but she still heard Maya’s voice.
It was the last thing Carina heard.
“I won’t let anything happen to you.”
The red sun rays of the early morning hit Carina’s eyes, making her blink.
She rubbed her face, reluctant to abandon the warm embrace of sleep. She stretched her legs beneath the blankets, slowly coming back to her body. She was still a bit drowsy, but the moment she opened her eyes, sleep left entirely, replaced by the vision of Maya next to her.
She was still asleep, the sun rising behind her cast an orange glow around her that made her hair seem golden. She looked younger like this, she always did in the vulnerability of sleep. A loose strand had escaped the ponytail, the thin hair now delicately encased her face, looking so soft.
The pink line of her lips made Carina’s thumb itch with the desire to trace them, to feel them. The shell of her ear had her heart fluttering.
Carina was in love. There was no denying her feelings. She was madly, hopelessly in love with Maya.
For one small moment, while the day was still waking, Carina just allowed herself to feel, to let gravity pull her heart to the woman sleeping next to her, to her wife.
Carina’s heart beat for her, it throbbed in her chest, demanding its home back.
Maya looked healthy, she looked peaceful, and everything inside Carina wanted to trust what she was seeing. In the sanctuary of that moment, she did.
She knew once her alarm rang, once she left the bed, the fear would be back, stronger even because it was too late to put her walls up, to even pretend that she wanted Maya, that she desperately yearned for her.
Not yet though.
Carina let herself watch Maya, let herself love her.
Not yet.