Chapter Text
"I truly couldn't care less Montgomery." Maya says walking across the barn to get to the rig she's assigned her team to clean up after the ridiculous call they've been at. It ended up with both trucks covered in pink dust when a baby shower turned into a family fight for a burned barbecue.
"What's the point of making me clear the rig when I am completely pink myself?" He whines raising both arms in the air to exaggerate his point.
"Well he's got a point though." Vic retorts at the blonde laughing as Travis tries to push away some of the dust.
"Let's all just be super happy for the pregnancy and get this over with." Jack finishes earning quite of a killing look from his Captain. "Yeah, sorry."
Maya runs a hand through her hair and then barks for them to get in line. "I want rig and truck shiny in two hours tops, no sign of any small grain of pink, is that clear enough?"
"Bishop."
"I said: clear, Gibson?" Starting to get a little restless she points a finger at Jack's direction and forrows her brows when she notices he's not even looking at her.
"Maya." Travis manages to get her attention calling her by name and a simple gesture of the head makes the blonde turn around.
There, on the opposite side of the barn, right in front of the entrance door, stands her wife, as beautiful as Maya remembers her. As she knows her. The brunette gives her half a smile that Maya can't exchange cause she's frozen, completely glued to her spot. Every fiber in her body tenses as she has to remember how to breathe, her brain slowly working on deciding how to react.
"Hi bambina." It comes almost as a whisper, Maya has to focus on nothing but Carina's voice to truly hear those two words. "Can we...talk?"
"Come on guys, there's nothing to see here, let's get to work, these two are not cleaning up themselves." Andy instructs the whole team, the group walking different ways to get spunges, brushes, cans and whatever they might need to take that pink thing away.
"I - I'm...wh-when have you..." Maya wants to speak, she wants to ask, she wants to know. She needs to. Stuttering a few nosense words she decides to sit at the desk and take a deep, long, carefully balanced breath.
"I just arrived two hours ago." Carina replies already knowing what the full question would be. Her accent sounds somehow thicker.
"And where have you been?" The blonde whispers another question, hoping Carina would take a seat cause her neck his hurting at being forced to look up.
"I went home." She sniffles, but Maya isn't entirely sure why, if it's for a cold or the tears she's trying to suppress.
"I thought I was." Silence lingers, for at least ten excruciating seconds. Maya swallows.
"I needed time to think." The blonde knows her wife isn't trying to justify herself. Carina is too smart to think that what she did wasn't, isn't wrong.
"You had it?" Blue eyes look away from Carina's brown and close, to stop any tear from falling, she's cried enough.
"Not enough I'm afraid." The italian admits, her accent truly thicker. Carina's legs start to get tired, the jet leg having worse effects than she expected. She decides to take a seat on the opposite side of the desk.
It feels weird. Last time Maya wasn't in the office.
"What do you want?" The question comes, ad harsh as it needs go be, startling Carina out of her thoughts. Maya's voice is sore, probably for all the yelling, more likely for the tears she's holding.
"I-I don't know. You?" She says that as a question but there's no doubt in her heart, Maya is the reason why she came back.
"And you think that...just coming back here will, I don't know, solve this?" Blue eyes focus back on hers and Carina feels Maya's stare carve and travel deep into her soul. They could understand what one was thinking just by the eyes. She can't now. She doesn't understand what Maya is feeling.
"I know I shouldn't have left Maya, I know...but-" the blonde interrupts her with words she wishes she'd never had to hear.
"No Carina. You shouldn't have come back." Maya feels empty. That's how her voice feels like as the words seem like a stab in her heart.
Carina lets a silent tear fall, no effort in stopping or whiping it away. She nods, Maya's right. She had no right on showing up at the station after all this time and everything she did.
The alarm goes off for the Aid Car and both women hear the footsteps of running firefighters, Maya knows it's Vic and Ben cause she assigned them in the morning.
"I know that you don't understand." Carina breaks silence again and Maya purses her lips, nodding fiercely.
"No you're right. I don't." The blonde states. Truth is, she's doesn't have the energy nor the time to think about this now. There are reports to fill.
"Maya I - I couldn't stay." Carina tries again. She tries again because she needs her wife to understand why she left.
"Why? Why? Tell me why." Maya is starting to get angry. Carina senses it from the tone of her voice and the way her hands are now grasping at each other on the top of the desk.
"I couldn't live in that house I couldn't just stay with you, be with you after what I've done." To Maya, this doesn't make any sense. Everything doesn't make any sense. She's never blamed her wife for that, not that she's had the time.
"You blamed yourself when I had no intention to." She mumbles, moving her attention to the papers at hand, pushing some around the desk. She's nervous, she knows that if Carina speaks another word she'll snap.
"I blamed myself cause you're too blinded by the love you feel for me to understand that it was my fault." The italian points a finger at her chest as if it could make her point stronger. Part of her wishes it could reach her own heart and hold it tight to make it stop feeling that way.
"Dammit Carina for what? For what are you to blame? Tell me at least! Enlight me! Let me be part of the thoughts that are running in your head!" Maya snaps, slamming both hands on the desk, making a few pencils fall and sheets fly, her heart beating faster than ever in her chest for the anger she's trying to control.
"I should've watched him!" Carina's voice breaks in the yell and she lifts from the chair, running a hand through her hair and walking two steps away.
Maya shifts in the chair and rests on the back of it. She releases her hair from the ponytail and rubs her forehead.
"You took it off." Carina states. Maya's ring finger is naked.
"What was the reason to keep it on?" The blonde swallows hiding her hand under the other, as if she's feeling embarassed by that. The ring she's always been so attached to, the tangible symbol of their love.
"You know I should've watched him. And the sooner you realise it the better it'll be for both of us." The italian adds and turns back towards her wife, hoping Maya will say something, anything.
"Did you fly all the way here just to say that?" The question comes just as she takes her bag and walks towards the door.
"The sooner the better." She nods and heads out the door, slowly closing it behind her back.
Carina rests a hand on her stomach and sighs, closing her eyes to gather some kind of control. She can't let her wife's words cut through her, she knows better.
"Can I have a word?" Andy's voice startles her and Carina is forced to open her eyes to look at the latina. Tilting her head to the side she sighs once again.
"So that you can remind me what a shitty wife I am?" Carina takes hold of her bags with both hands and clenches her teeth. She's not ready to face not just her wife's but also her friends' lectures.
"We still have got your coffee upstairs." Andy gives her a tight lipped smile and nods towards the stairs, to the beanery. Carina knows that place too well, nods and decides to head upstairs behind the lieutenant.
"So...when did she get her position back? And you? You're back here." Carina takes the cup and rounds it to warm her hands.
"Just last month, five weeks ago I think it was." Andy sits in front of her, thankful that nobody else is in the room but still in the barn taking care of the rigs. She decided to wait outside Maya's office as soon as she heard her yelling.
Carina nods and takes a quick sip of her coffee. "You learned not to burn it." She chuckles.
"I actually never did. You have to blame Jack for that." Andy laughs along a little, turning off the laughter by taking a long sip.
"How is she?" Carina asks, suddenly incapable of holding her concern.
Andy takes a deep breath before replying.
"We are still trying to understand that." The womens' eyes meet. "She doesn't speak to any of us. We barely see her even during shifts and then she's just focused on the job and-and nothing else." Andy clears her throat, Carina can feel she's holding something, tears probably.
"I've never seen her so...shattered, Carina. Why did you go?" The latina can't hold it any longer, the question lingers in silence for a few seconds as Carina tries to gather her thoughts.
"I killed the only good thing in her life Andrea." The italian's eyes well up with tears and she grips harder at the cup.
"You were the good thing in her life." Andy retorts, careful to use her words to not make the woman go away. God knows how much those two have to say to each other.
"And I did something irreparable." Carina locks eyes with her again and her lower lip quiver, she knows she's close to bursting out crying.
"She's never blamed you for that, you went away even before she could." Shifting on the chair Andy tries to get something out of her different from the only thing Carina has been saying for the past four months. They texted once in a while and every single conversation ended the same way: 'I'm not coming back Andy.'
"And you think she wouldn't have? I blame myself for it, do you really think she wouldn't have done the same?" She's starting to get a little angry now, and anger she's still suppressing for so long. The cup of coffee is empty already.
"Give her time to say it. If it's true let her say it," Andy sighs and rubs the back of her neck, "but trust me when I say you won't hear those words leave her mouth." She hasn't been able to talk to her best friend for at least three months, but she's been watching Maya closely enough to know everything about her.
"This is something you have to discuss." The lieutenant speaks a few seconds later, standing to get the two cups away.
The alarm goes off a little later, sending them exactly where Vic and Ben have been called at. The emergency evolved in a fire.
Andy quickly apologizes and runs downstairs, meeting Maya mid-way to the barn.
"I swear to God if you say something..." The blonde starts jogging towards the truck, now shiny clean.
"Didn't say anything." The latina raises both arms in surrender and nods, before slipping her turnout and boots on along with everyone else from the team.
"Ah...were is she?" Travis whispers in Andy's ear slipping the suspenders on his shoulders and jumping on the vehicle. Cutler is driving in the front next to the Captain, so he's careful with his words.
"Upstairs in the beanery. I'm truly hoping she'll still be here when we come back." Travis nods in understanding, he hopes that too. Cause this thing that's happening with two of his favourite people can't go on much more.
"Four months ago," Carina turns around hearing the voice behind her. "Alana came. She came with her baby cause they had just discharged her from the hospital and she wanted to absolutely thank the italian doctor who delivered her little girl." Jack walks through and takes the chair Andy left at the table in front of the brunette.
"Really?" Carina sniffles to hide away the tears she's been crying.
"I told her you were coming back and to return." The firefighter rubs his forehead and crosses arms on his chest.
"I am back." Carina knows that is clearly not what he was expecting to hear. The relationship they created with one another through the clinic project burned away by her actions.
"Are you?" He retorts with a chuckle, knowing the simple presence of Carina in this room doesn't mean necessarly that she'll stay.
"I'm sorry Jack. I really am." She reaches forward to take hold of his forearm but Jack pulls away. He's not bottling up feelings, cause it's actually thanks to her that he's learned not to, but he's allowed to feel a little angry with her, right?
"We worked so hard to set up the clinic and then you just left. Did you really expect it would still have been here when you came back?" Jack had to shut it down a month after Carina left. Being the firefighter and not the doctor basically gave the clinic nothing but the face of a safe place where no treatments could be done. Especially for those pregnant mothers Carina had planned to help.
"I didn't know how long I'd have been away." It's not to defend herself, it's just to make him understand that there was nothing planned in what she'd done, driven only by grief.
"Yeah you clearly didn't." He's angry, he's definitely angry. His sight focused in the floor and arms somehow more crossed than before.
"Are you angry with me or what?" Carina tries to meet his eyes by lowering her head towards him.
"Carina, you left in the middle of the night with no warning and never came back. Have you at least tried to consider that? Have you thought about it?" He snaps finally looking her in the eyes, he's disappointed, that's what he is.
"I think about it every second of every day Jack. I will never, ever not think about it." Her voice breaks and Jack would want to apologize. Despite everything, this woman made him realise things about himself, needs he had, speaking the simplest words.
"Why not thinking about it with her? You two are a family Carina." So that's what this is about, again. The italian knows it's true, but she also knows what her heart is feeling, something that none of them can understand.
"We were a family. Not anymore." She whispers, leaning back on the chair.
"I'm pretty sure he wouldn't see it that way." Jack tries a long shot, hoping it could somehow reach Carina's petrified heart.
"You have no idea how he would see it. It matters how I see it." She points at herself again, as fiercely as she did before in Maya's office. "A mother's job is to take care of her own children and I did not do that. What else do you think should be discussed?"
"Look. They'll be back in a few. Talk to her, but for real. Not just to hear her finally blaming you. But for forgiveness and - and to be you again." Jack raises from his chair and points at her, setting up a challenge that makes Carina deeply question herself. "Carina I dare you to say you've been fine in the past five months."
"I have not." She states. And there's no doubt in her voice, no hesitation in her tone.
"Talk to your wife, don't run away from what happened." He walks out of the beanery leaving the door slightly open, and so Carina finds herself kind of forced to follow and head downstairs.
The team arrives a few hours later and slams the doors of the truck after they jumped off of it. The tension doesn't need to be spoken.
"Twelve minutes to turn off that fire is ridiculous. Don't bother showering team." The blonde barks shutting her own door and taking off turnouts.
"What?" Travis is the first one to whine taking the boots off.
"Oh come on." Ben slams his hands at the side of his exhausted body, Vic and him, though on Aid Car, ended up going inside the burning building anyway and are just as exhausted as everyone else.
"Complain once again and trust me, you'll regret it." Maya finishes walking towards her office, ready to run some drills with the team.
"Guys. Stop it. Please." She hears Andy say to them, shutting the side door of equipments.
"Why are you still here?" When she sees Carina still waiting right inside the office Maya has to hold herself not to yell again at her wife. She didn't know it, but anger has overcome the awful sense of abandonment she was feeling in these months.
"Maya..." Carina quickly stands from the chair in front of the desk.
"You are so good at leaving, just leave again." The blonde gestures towards the door hoping with everything she has that Carina will follow her intention and just go cause she's tired, she just wants to forget it all.
"Can you listen to me? Please, at least just listen." The italian waves her hands around before slowly lowering them on her thighs. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I left. But let me ask you this." She takes a deep steading breath and walks closer to her wife.
"What would you have done, if you were the one in that house?" Her eyes are welling up with tears and Maya feels the uncontrollable urge of holding her tight. But that can't happen, not yet. Seeing Carina cry though, is the worst thing for her.
"Carina." She whispers cause she needs her wife to stop already, she can't live that again, she wants to forget it.
"I left the room to get him a snack." The italian continues, steading the sound of her voice but unable to control the rate of her heart beat.
"Car..." Maya tries again, she truly needs this to stop. Not again.
"And I - I heard the noise and every nerve, every muscle in my body froze. I couldn't even move I...I only had one job Maya." Carina shakes her head, a silent tear rolling down her cheek. She knows this has to be said. It's been too long, she's done enough to ruin them and wants, for what it's worth and for how she can, to fix this. "When you walked in I had just reached him cause I realised he wasn't crying. And the...the blood was, everywhere. It was everywhere."
-
"My loves I'm home!" Maya opens the door so fast that it almost flies out of its hinges. She saw her wife's call while driving home from her shift but was only two minutes away and decided to decline it.
"Maya!" Carina yells from the living room. The sound pierces through Maya's ears and makes her freeze. That's not normal, there's nothing normal in that yell.
"Carina?" She lets the back pack fall on the floor and tries to take her shoes off.
"Maya hurry, hurry dio mio." That's when she finally moves towards the room, seeing her wife kneeling on the floor over something she can't quite see.
"Carina why ar-" her voice gets stuck in her throat when she finally sees why her wife is so worried. Her child is lying on the floor of the livingroom, right beside the coffee table, which glass in shattered on the tiles. Blood everywhere.
"I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry, mi dispiace, mi dispiace." Carina is moving frantically, trying to stop the bleeding with her own shirt staying half naked on the floor. Tears are flowing down her cheeks at a speed Maya can't even try to see.
"Car what happened?" She kneels down finally, taking her own shirt off. Her head is hurting, sight blurred and hands shaking. What are they doing? She needs to save him. It's their kid she has to save him!
"I called an ambulance but I - he's just bleeding I don't know what to do." Carina lets go of the blood drenched shirt and almost falls backwards on the floor.
"Okay okay let me..." Maya tries to wrap the kid's head with her own shirt, then checks for an heart beat, anything. She's a first respoder, she's responding, her kid's gonna be fine.
"It's the door!" Carina warns when they hear the bell ring and runs to open it just as fast as Maya did a few seconds ago.
"Carina what the hell?" It's Andy, along with the Aid Car 23. She had decided to take the call when she heard the adress and prayes any god in any heaven it weren't her friends in need of an emergency, she was wrong.
"Andy! Andy come here now!" Maya yells form the opposite side of the door making the latina run in almost pushing Carina to the side to get to her faster.
"Maya, oh my..." Andy slams a hand on her mouth when she sees her best friend laying on the floor next to their pale two year old kid drenched with blood, pieces of glass scattered on the floor.
She sets the medical bag on the floor just as the blonde starts CPR on the unconscious body of her son, moving her head to the side when hair fall on her eyes.
"Get away Maya." Andy pushes her hands away, Carina tries to help her by dragging Maya away.
"Andy no." The blonde pushes foward again, it's her kid the one laying there.
"Please, back off." The latina states again, not angry, just as worried as she can be but with the need of taking care of him at Maya's place.
"Andy it's my kid!"
"I said back off!" She finally yells, inserting a syringe in the boy's arm and wrapping his head as tight as she can. She turns towards the door and sees Theo walking in holding the yellow gourney in his armpit.
"Ruiz get me that gourney now." He runs towards her and helps Andy put the kid on it to lift it and get back downstairs as soon as they can, through the stairs without even bothering to wait for an elevator.
"I wanna come with you." Carina says, speaking after what seemed like ten years but were only ten minutes. She knows it's bed, she's studied enough to know it's bad.
"No. You two get the car and come there. Look at me, Carina look at me." Andy takes Carina's face between her hands and meets her eyes. She knows both of them are losing their minds now, but that's not what he needs. Theo loads the gourney on the Aid Car and rounds it to drive, leaving Andy in the back. "Breathe. And come to Grey Sloan with us." With that she lets go of Carina's face, watches the lost sight of Maya's eyes towards her son and jumps on the vehicle, making Maya to close the doors leaving handprints of blood on it.
They stand there for a second, a second long a lifetime. And then Maya turns, whipes away the tears and jogs to the car, keys already in hand.
"Have you closed home?" Carina asks. But she doesn't care. It's not her problem, she would let anyone rob their house entirely if it meant their son could live.
"I-I don't know." It takes Maya a second to start the engine and follow right behind the ambulance at the same exact speed ignoring people's hornes and complains.
When they get to Grey Sloan are faced with a worried Doctor Hayes, warned of the emergency, standing next to two interns dressed in gowns, ready to take the boy in.
Carina runs out of the car even before Maya has actually stopped, even if they technically can't stay in the ambulance bay, she knows Bailey won't have anything against it.
"Was he conscious at all after it happened?" Cormac asks as soon as Carina is close enough to hear.
"No he never regained consciousness." She quickly replies, taking a pair of gloves and intern hands her and slipping both on. She's going into doctor mode, the only way to prevent her emotions to flood out of the gates.
"I need to know what happened Carina." The pediatric doctor asks next, as they start wheeling the gourney inside the ER.
"I-I don't know he was in the livingroom, I heard glass shattering...he likes to jump from the bed, we've always told him not to cause it's dangerous and he could get hurt but...I think he jumped on the coffee table." She finishes explaining, the air now completely taken from her lungs.
"Thank you. We'll do whatever we can now." He gently pushes the italian out of the trauma room they walked in and closes the door. That's not something she wants to see.
From behind, Maya's arms wrap around her and that's when Carina finally takes in the presence of her wife, the full presence of her wife. Maya is there. She's right there.
"He's gonna be fine. I promise he's gonna be fine."
-
"Who are we if we can't protect them?" Maya whispers tight lipped, taking a step back, far from her wife, far from the acknowledgment of it.
"I'm sorry I didn't." Carina wants to try again, maybe take hold of her wife's hand, finally taking the comfort she's been waiting for, yearning for.
"I said I don't blame you for it." Maya sighs, finally walking fully into the office and sitting on a chair. "I promised you he was gonna be okay." She graps the arms of it with both hands.
"You couldn't know." You're not a doctor, you couldn't know. Carina knew instead. She knew from the moment she heard the noise, inside, she knew.
"Neither could you." The blonde looks up with tearfuk eyes, her strong facade threatening to fall.
"I'm sorry I left." Carina sits on the other chair and tries to control her body when it reaches forward to take hold of both Maya's hands. The blonde doesn't pull away though.
"I'm sorry I made you feel in need of leaving." Maya sniffles, whiping the tears with her shoulder. She's not ready yet, not yet.
"It wasn't your fault. I decided that. And I hurt you and I'm sorry." She knows that most of Maya's massive walls have rebuilt. She isn't sure her wife is willing to take them down again.
"Will we ever be okay?" The blonde asks, pulling Carina out of her thoughts. Hazel eyes dive in blue ones.
"I-I think we will, yeah." The brunette nods, slowly, lovingly, carefully. She doesn't know, she can't know. Not when their whole world had died that day along with him.
"I want some coffee." Maya interject the lingering silence to change topic, completely overtaken by emotions but still able to lock them up for a little longer.
"I can make an espresso." Carina nods again, sniffling softly, running a hand through her hair and standing.
"Yeah, why not." Maya nods along, in silence takes Carina's hand and gives it a gentle squeeze. Why? She doesn't know. The comfort doesn't feel as comfortable anymore, the love doesn't feel as strong. But the woman before her is still the one she loves with all of her heart.
"I don't have the strength to do it now." She whispers at Carina, releasing the hold on her hand and turning towards the door.
"I know." It'll take time, and Carina is willing to give Maya all the time she wants and needs.
"I'm sorry." She adds.
"I know." The firefighter feels like the tension can melt a little, the anger can slightly dissipate, the heart can beat a little slower and life can return to be a little lighter.
"I love you." Carina finishes, making Maya's eyes widen and fall in her. God only knows how much she's missed those words. Andrea used to tell them he loved them so much all the time, so that they would always tell each other only to make sure their kid knew his love was reciprocated. So that he could know he was born from that same love.
"I love you." She replies, not out of habit, that is long forgotten, but out of an honest sentiment of hope, hope they're gonna be just fine.