46. Chapter 46

“Can I ask you something?” Maya mumbles. She’s been thinking about this topic for days now. It has taken her days to work up the balls to ask her mother though.

“Sure, dear.”

“Do you know where Mason is?” Maya’s palms are sweaty, the hairs on the back of her neck stands up in anticipation.

“Oh.” Katherine looks down at the floor.

They had been making dinner. Just the two of them. Maya is off today, and Carina is set to be done with work in forty-five minutes. So, they are preparing a meal for her and them to have when she gets home from work. Maya needs her mother’s help in making something that’s a little more complex though than throwing together a sauce and some chicken and noodles.

“I haven’t seen or heard from him in a couple of years. I do worry now with Covid though about if he’s safe or not. The last time I saw him, he came to the house one day, he said he was staying with some friends of his. It wasn’t much but he looked good. He said he was trying to get a job and make some money. I was hopeful.”

“Why was he at the house?”

“Oh.” Katherine looks over at her daughter. “He went to his room and got something from there. I don’t know what it was or what it could’ve been. I just know that him being there must have taken a lot. Your father wasn’t home, of course. I’m sure Mason knew that before he rang the doorbell. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was hidden somewhere just waiting and watching.”

Maya takes all of this new information in. “But he was good?”

Katherine nods. “He seemed good.”

“Good.” Maya chews on her lip. “You know I feel bad, right?”

“No, dear.” Katherine shakes her head. “About what?” She doesn’t know what Maya could feel bad about. She just got married. Everything should be great. She wasn’t fired from her job so that’s nothing to feel bad about.

“Mason. It’s my fault he overdosed. It’s my fault he left home. It’s my fault he is homeless.”

“Oh.” Katherine doesn’t have any better words for her confusion and surprise. “It’s not your fault. It’s my fault. It’s your father’s fault. For a long time I didn’t see how much damage he was doing to Mason. I thought, if he focused on you then he wouldn’t focus on Mason. He wouldn’t treat Mason the way he treated you.”

Maya grinds her teeth together. She doesn’t want to be mad at her mother. But hearing the woman say that she knew there was abuse happening and did nothing to stop it, doesn’t make Maya feel any better about her father or Mason.

“As bad as it sounds, and it sounds bad, cuz it is bad, I thought you could take it.”

Maya rolls her eyes and walks away from her mother. “Can you look after dinner? I’ll be in my room.”

“Oh.” Katherine mumbles.

Maya knew talking about Mason wasn’t going to be easy, but she didn’t think it would result in her running away from the conversation. It’s a habit that she’s trying to break. The instinct to run in the opposite direction as soon as something in her personal life gets messy or uncomfortable. She just needs to calm down and be able to think rationally and not yell or have an outburst at her mother. She knows she’s going to have to do some work with Dr. Lewis about all this, but right now, she just wants to be alone for a minute.

She takes a few minutes and spends some time in her room looking at everything in there. She thinks about Mason and how it’s good to know that he seemed to be doing alright. She can’t believe her mother though. She can’t believe she would say something like that, even if it was true, to say it out loud. She basically told her that she thought that Maya could take the abuse and that that was saving Mason from it.

The engine and ladder trucks pull up to the scene of a house fire. Maya hops out of the truck and assess the scene and starts giving orders. “Montgomery, Hushes get the hoses hooked up to that hydrant. Miller do any external sweep of the building. Gibson, Cutler masks up and prepare to make entry.

Captain Jack walks over to her. “What Bishop said.” He tells everybody. He grins at Maya. Toothy, teasing.

“Shut up.” Maya grumbles.

“I didn’t say anything, lieutenant.” He chuckles and looks don’t at his tablet. “Looks like there’s an addition on the back of the house. Bishop, get back there and check on it. See if the fire has extended that far.”

Maya masks up and runs off as everyone else gets set up to spray water on the front part of the house where flames are coming out.

“Bishop.” Dean nods in her direction once she reaches the back of the house.

Jack checks with the bystanders next, to ask if they are the owners and if anyone is inside. Usually if there were that’s the first thing that someone says to him as they are arriving. There seems to be no urgency in that matter. They also would get information from dispatch about any trapped civilians but didn’t with this call. He doesn’t discern who the owners are though. Everyone seems to be neighbors or just onlookers.

Maya tries the door on the back. It’s locked. She looks inside the windows and doesn’t see any fire. But does see smoke creepy into the room at the top of the interior door. She gets on the radio. “Captain, I don’t see any fire back here but there is smoke billowing in over the door into this addition. We need to get water on this building asap.”

“Copy, Bishop.” Jack looks over and the hoses are just about ready to go. “Hit this thing with water.” He calls out.

“Just can’t give it up, huh?” Dean asks.

Maya rolls her eyes at him. “No. It’s like an instinct. Jump out of the truck, assess the scene, start shouting orders. I can’t help it.” She holds her arms out at her sides. “Let’s go.” They walk around the other side of the building that Dean hasn’t inspected yet.

“Do you think Jack is going to become permanent captain?” Miller wonders as they walk. He’s been thinking a lot about it lately. They are over a month from the wedding, and little has changed at the station other than the fact that Maya isn’t captain anymore and Jack is filling in. There haven’t been any updates from the chief on the investigation or what might happen in the future.

“I don’t know, Miller.” Maya sure hopes Jack doesn’t become permanent captain. That would mean she isn’t captain at 19 again.

They are about to round the front corner of the house when there is an explosion, off to their left, knocking them of their feet. The exterior wall of the house is blown out and debris and shrapnel rains down on them.

Captain Gibson can see Bishop and Miller on the ground, they seem to be moving. He radios to them. “Miller, Bishop status?”

Dean is the one to radio back first. “I’m good, Cap.” Her looks over at Maya. She was closer to the building, she blocked some of the blow from reaching him. She’s definitely taken more of the impact of the blast. “Bishop?” Dean calls out.

“I’m fine.” Maya groans and pushes herself to her hands and knees. “What the fuck happened?” She looks over at the building with a whole blown in the side. She can see into the room as little flames dance on a table and a few other things in the room but not much else. Maya pushes herself to her feet and gets a closer look. The explosion put out whatever blaze was in that room; only little embers remain. “It’s a meth lab.” She gets on the radio. “Gibson, it’s a meth lab.”

Jack isn’t sure what to do. He looks around and now it makes sense that the owners of the building are nowhere to be found. He knows he has to notify police. Then Maya’s voice comes back over the radio.

“No one goes inside or within twenty feet of the building. This is a defensive operation. Pour water on it but stay back. Miller and I need a contamination shower and you need to call in back up since we are out of this operation now.” She instructs to the crew and Jack.

Gibson nods. He can see Maya staring at him from fifty feet away as she tells him what to do through the radio.

She and Miller get to work setting up a containment area, then stripping their gear off and showering off. Warren is assigned to help them as back up arrives. The last thing they want is for any flammable chemicals to be on their gear, so it all has to be removed and washed properly so the next time they go into a fire they don’t explode.

“You’re bleeding, Bishop.” Warren points to the side of his head near his eye.

Maya reaches up to feel for the blood. There is no real concern in Ben’s eyes, so she knows it’s nothing serious.

“Other side.” He smiles a little.

Maya feels the cut.

“It’s just a little cut.” Dean adds. He saw it as soon as Maya stood up after the explosion.

Maya tells Carina about the incident when they talk on the phone that night. She’s vowed to always tell Carina what is happening with work. If it’s a dangerous call, especially. But when she arrives home in the morning and Carina is getting ready for work, the look on Carina’s face when she sees Maya breaks something inside Maya. She never wants to see that despair on her wife’s face like this.

“No, no, no.” She moves over to Carina, taking the Italian’s hands in her own. “I’m fine. I told you that last night. It’s just a little cut.”

Carina pulls her hands from Maya’s. She reaches up and caresses her face with her left hand, the fingers of the right ghosting over the cut on Maya’s temple.

“It’s just a cut.” Maya whispers as she watches Carina’s face. The brunette’s eyes trained on the one inch cut on her left temple.

After Carina is done inspecting the cut her eyes roam the rest of Maya’s body. Clothes cover the majority of it, and she wants to rip all those clothes off and check Maya’s body for any other injuries, but she knows that won’t help Maya trust her and she has to trust that what Maya is saying is the truth.

“It’s just a little cut.” Maya says again. “That’s it.” She pinches at the bottom of Carina’s shirt near her left hip wondering if it would be too much to tell Carina it’s not a big deal that they get little bumps and scrapes and bruising, being firefighters, all the time. The problem with that is Maya hasn’t been a firefighter since they’ve been together. She hasn’t had little scraps and bumps and bruises all the time. This is the first time. Over the last couple of weeks, she has felt the tiredness and achiness of her body from having to wear her air tank, or the added weight of the tools she has to carry again on her body as they go into a fire scene. This is the first time there is a physical ache or pain. Something that Carina can see.

“Bambina.” Carina sighs and pulls Maya into her arms. “I hate to see you hurt. Even just a little bit.”

Maya wraps her arms around Carina, relaxing against her body. “I know, Carina. I know.”

She was operating on a woman pregnant with twins where one of the fetuses wasn’t getting enough blood flow. The mother went into heart failure. Carina knew she had a heart condition and had Dr. Pierce on standby in the operating room but that didn’t prevent the woman from coding on the table. They managed to get her back and finish the procedure, but it leaves Carina shaken.

While she performs surgeries and procedures, she’s not usually in the business of having things go so sideways during them. But with ever surgery comes the risk of something happening. No matter how routine it is or how healthy the patient seems to be.

She walks in the door with no expression on her face. No pep in her step. Usually, she greets Katherine and Maya if they are home, even if she’s had a rough day. But today is a bit more than a rough day.

Maya walks out of the bedroom when she hears the front door close. “Carina, which shirt do you like better?” She holds a shirt in each of her hands, looking between them and not at her wife. Maya feels like Carina always has such a better sense of fashion than she does. But then she looks up and over at Carina as she is setting her bag down on the floor. “What happened?” She asks, knowing something is not right by the way Carina stands, by her expressionless face. Maya throws the shirts on the table, forgotten. She crosses the room in three large steps and stands in front of Carina.

Carina pulls her lips up to one side. “Ciao.”

“Ciao, my love.” Maya tentatively puts a hand on Carina’s arm. “Do you want to talk about it?” She knows something is wrong, but she also knows that if it were something super bad then Carina would be more devastated than she seems. Or that if it were something that made her mad or irritated Carina would have probably come in the door ranting in Italian. So, it’s somewhere in between.

“Not right now. I’m just-“ She waves a hand in the air.

“Processing?”

“Si.”

“Okay. What do you want to do? We can-“ Maya wrinkles her face up. “Watch a movie?” Carina shakes her head. “Dance around the room?” Carina isn’t in a dancing mood. “This is one of those time I wish we had a bathtub.” Maya pouts.

Carina smiles at that. “Bath’s waste water.”

“I know but I think you seem like you deserve a nice calming bath right now.” She takes Carina’s hand and leads her into the apartment further. “Did you eat dinner?”

“No.”

“I know my cooking skills are not great but what can I make you?” The blonde offers. She just wants to be able to do something for Carina.

“What did you and your mamma have for dinner? Are there leftovers? I can just eat leftovers.”

Maya thinks this little situation deserves more than leftovers.

“We had tacos.” Maya mumbles. She knows Carina likes tacos but that’s not exactly a comfort food. Maya was thinking something more in Carina’s wheelhouse like some Italian dish.

“I love tacos.” Carina brightens up a little.

“I know but don’t you want like- lasagna or Italian pizza or caprese chicken or risotto or-“

Carina chuckles. “Maya, stop.”

“Pasta. Any pasta.”

Carina shakes her head. “Are there leftovers?”

Maya nods. “Yeah.”

“Okay.” Carina wraps an arm around Maya and opens the fridge. “There are two things that I want right now.” She looks for the taco meat.

“Right there.” Maya points it out.

“Tacos.” Carina pulls the container from the fridge. “And you.”

“Me?” maya raises an eyebrow.

“Yeah, you.” She kisses Maya’s cheek. “Bella, you are everything to me. In the good days and the bad. Today being bad. You keep me upright. I get to come home, and see you,, and kiss you and hold onto you, and you keep me standing up even when I feel like I might fall over.”

Maya hums. “I just want you to be okay. And to help you feel better, if I can.”

“Tacos and cuddles will make me feel better.” Carina raises an eyebrow.

“Okay. I’ll make the tacos.”

Carina chuckles. “Go ahead.” She’ll let Maya take care of her right now even though Carina knows she could make her own dinner.

Maya has never been one to be great at comforting people. But she’s really trying to be great at it with Carina. She tends to think it helps that she is completely in love with the woman but, still, sometimes it’s a bit of an effort to think of what she can do to comfort. That’s why she made all those suggestions, so Carina could pick one that worked best. And apparently, that means Maya is re-heating tacos meat and getting all the toppings out and ready to throw together.

She sets everything out on the little island counter as Carina disappears into their bedroom to change out of her work clothes.

Carina hovers near Maya when she comes back. Not touching her or getting in the way of what Maya is doing, but just hovering next to her as the meat heats up in the pan. “Thank you for doing all of this for me.” Maya has become her shelter in any storm.

“Olive?” Maya knows what Carina said. It just sounded like she said olive instead of all of.

Carina wrinkles up her nose. “Che cosa?”

“All of.” Maya says slowly. “Olive.”

The Italian grins and wags a finger at her wife. “No.”

But it got Carina to smile and that’s all that Maya really wanted. “You don’t need to thank me.” They are a team. “I got chu.” Maya says with a goofy grin and a wink.

Carina wraps her arms around Maya’s waist at that. She sets her chin on the blonde’s shoulder and watches as Maya stirs the meat occasionally. “I almost lost a mamma today and her two babies.”

Maya hums, not saying anything to allow for Carina to continue.

“That might be the most difficult part of my job. Those scares. You know for a long time I never lost anyone and then the pandemic and-“ She sighs. “I was doing a procedure. One of the fetuses was stealing most of the blood flow from the other.”

“Twins?”

“Si, bella. Identical. So, they share the same blood source, placenta. The mother coded. I had Dr. Pierce there because she had a heart condition, but we almost lost all of them. It’s had me shooketh the rest of the day.”

Maya laughs. “Shooketh. You’re funny.”

“Isn’t that what all the cool kids say?”

Maya shrugs. “I don’t know. I was never a cool kid. And I’m still not now.”

Carina squeezes Maya. “You are very cool to me.”

“Good.” Maya hums. “Your meat is done.”

“My meat.” Carina mumbles at takes a step back, letting Maya go.

Maya spins around with the pan and spoon. “How many tacos do you want?”

Carina stomach takes that moment to growl loudly and Carina chews on her lip with a guilty little grin.

“You’d think there were an animal in there.” Maya grins. “Sooooo all the tacos.”

Carina chuckles. “Three maybe.”

Maya puts meat on three tortillas. “I’ll put this back on the stove for now in case your stomach animal needs more.”

“Ha. Ha. Ha.” Carina garnishes her tacos with all her favorite toppings. “Will you sit with me while I eat?”

“Sure.” Maya goes over and removes the shirts from the table. “If it’s not too much, what do you think of these shirts?”

“For who?” Carina comes to sit down with her plate.

“Me. Who else? Not you. I can barely dress myself you think I’m going to start suggesting clothes for you to wear.” Maya scoffs at the idea.

Carina chuckles. “You’re not that bad, bambina.”

Maya rolls her eyes. “I’m literally asking you if these shirts are alright for me to wear. Or which one you like better. It is that bad.”

Carina grins, raising her taco to her lips. “They are both good, bella. You will look good in them.”

“Thank you.” Maya huffs. She puts the shirts on the back of the chair and sits next to Carina at the table.

“Tell me about your day while I eat.” Carina requests.

Maya puts her hand on Carina’s thigh and angles herself towards the brunette a bit before going into detail about her day.

The decision has been made that Katherine is to move out. She’s got a job working as a cook in the kitchen at an elementary school cooking and feeding kids breakfast and lunch.

Maya can’t stand it any longer. She doesn’t want to throw her mom out on the street, and she wants to support her, but the woman is always around. She doesn’t have any friends. Her job has her working from six in the morning until two in the afternoon most weekdays. It doesn’t appear that the woman has any hobbies other than knitting and there’s only so much knitting someone can do. Most of the rest of her time is spent in the apartment. She’ll be in the guest bedroom, or in the living room watching something on tv, or in the kitchen trying to figure out something to make. And Maya just can’t have her in all of her space all the time.

So, they sat down one day and discussed the possibility of Katherine moving into her own place.

Katherine was skeptical at first. It seems like such a daunting task. But she’s making money for the first time in her life. She’s making a few acquaintances at work, people who could potentially be friends down the line. But she doesn’t have enough money yet to rent her own place.

Maya and Carina agree to help her out. Maya’s idea to push her mom out of the nest, so to speak. They’ll pay the first and last months rent that is required by most landlords upfront and then they pay for the first six months.

There Saturday is spent touring a few small studio or one bedroom apartments that aren’t crazy in price range. Something that Katherine will be able to afford once she has to start paying for rent herself.

“I like this one.” Carina says. She likes that it has an actual kitchen in it and it’s not just a small oven crammed into too small of counter space like the other two places that they’ve looked at. She walks around the rest of the apartment.

Maya leans up against the counter. “What do you think?”

Katherine hums about the apartment. Her mind is stuck on the thought of living by herself. She’s never done that. And it’s scary.

“Do you think your father will find me?”

Maya’s eyes nearly pop out of her head with the question her mother is asking. “I sure hope not.”

“I know you don’t want to talk about him.” Katherine mumbles and looks down at the floor. They haven’t talked about Lane in all the weeks Katherine has been staying with Maya and Carina. Just mention here and there but nothing other than that.

“No, I don’t.” Maya’s eyelid twitches a little at the stress at the possibility of her father coming to look for her or her mother. “He’s in my past and, as far as I’m concerned, he’s going to stay there. I don’t need him ruining my life. What I’ve got now is amazing. He almost made me ruin things with Carina once. That’s not happening again.” She tells her mother resolutely.

Maya folds her arms across her chest. “And as far as him finding you. Keep a low profile. That shouldn’t be too hard. His best bet of finding you is through me and I’m not going to allow that to happen. That being said. If he does, don’t let him convince you of anything. You are not better off living with him. You are your own person. You’re not his servant or maid or whatever your relationship with him was.”

Katherine cowers at Maya harsh words.

Maya notices this and softens. “Look, you can be free from his abuse now. I’m free and you’re free and it’s scary. I know it is. He had a very strong hold over both of us. Mason had the right idea to leave when he did. And I’m sorry that I wasn’t more helpful to you. I was dealing with my own crap. When you came to the station and told me you were in therapy and that you had left him, I was mad. I was mad that you could do that, but I couldn’t. I was scared. I was scared that I didn’t know what I would be without him. And as Carina pointed out, I was in denial. I didn’t want to deal with it. I thought if I just ignored him than all the crap that he did would somehow fade. But Carina was right. Cuz Carina is usually right.”

“What am I right about?” Carina steps out of the bedroom and back into the kitchen with Maya and her mother.

Maya holds her arm out. “That my father abused me.”

Carina smiles sadly and settles at Maya’s side, putting her hand on her shoulder as Maya wraps her arm around Carina’s waist.

“I don’t want to tell you want to do but Carina and I are here to support you in whatever you might need. We get it.” Maya turns her head and looks into Carina’s wholesome brown eyes. Carina nods in agreement. “Don’t hesitate-“ She looks back to her mom. “-to call us. Or come over. Or anything.”

Katherine nods. “Thank you both, so much.”

“Aww.” Carina holds out her arm.

Katherine steps towards them and Carina and Maya each wrap and arm around her.

“I think I like this one the most.” Katherine whispers to them.

“Good. So, are we signing a lease?”

They all pull apart. Katherine nods, bashfully. “Yeah, I think so.”

“Alright.” Maya steps away from the pair. “I’ll go find Fred or Floyd or Frank or whatever f-ing name he has.” She goes out into the hallway to find the man that was showing them the apartment. She finds him down at the far end of the hall and tells him the good news.

Katherine sings a one year lease and is set to more in in two weeks. After the lease is signed, they head towards a furniture store.

“So, there’s one more thing.” Carina says as she pulls into the parking lot.

“Since you are starting fresh.” Maya avoids using the words starting over. “We thought you need a few things. Like a chair and a stand for a tv. A bedframe and mattress. A small set of drawers for your clothes. Just a few things.”

“We can’t have you sleeping on the floor.” Carina grins, trying to keep things light. She can see the tears in Katherine’s eyes though as she looks in the rearview mirror at her mother-in-law.

Maya hops out as soon as Carina stops the car. She looks up at the big building with her hands on her hips. She hates shopping. It takes Maya lots of time to make a decision and often times she’ll look at all of her options and then go home and do some research and think everything over before making a decision. She knows this isn’t for her though and that they need to purchase this stuff today. They only have two weeks until Katherine moves in. That’s a bit of a rush for furniture to arrive in time. She just hopes that if it is a few days longer than two weeks that her mother won’t need to continue to sleep at their place. Either way, they need to get some furniture.

“And you can’t have the stuff from our spare bedroom.” Maya says mostly to herself and rounds the car. She picks up her wife’s hand and they wait for her mother to be ready to go into the store.

Katherine is overwhelmed by Maya and Carina’s generosity. “I really don’t know how to thank you both.”

Maya is partly doing all this because she can’t stand living with her mother anymore. It’s been nice to get to know each other again and connect but there’s only so much of that she can handle. They’ve never had a close relationship so to be forced to live together now almost makes that relationship feel even more strained than it had been. She also still feels like her mother is watching her and judging her.

Carina is doing it simply out of generosity. “You can repay us by keeping yourself well and keeping in contact.” She wants Maya to have a relationship with her mother. No matter what it looks like. She doesn’t want them to go months or years without talking to each other or seeing each other. She wants to facilitate that. She also is doing it for selfish reasons, since her own mother is gone. She wants to be able to have someone in her life that is like a mother. “We should have dinner together once a week.” She squeezes Maya’s hand at this idea.

That sounds like a lot to Maya. “Once every two weeks. I’m very busy.”

Carina laughs. “Okay, bella. Every two weeks.”

“That would be wonderful.” Katherine coos.

“Now let’s find some furniture.” Carina is excited about this part of her adventure today; even though the furniture isn’t for her. It marks a new beginning for Katherine and that’s exciting.

“Shit.” Maya is polishing the engine when she sees the chief walk by behind it with a man that she doesn’t recognize. They don’t stop to talk to her though. They keep walking through towards reception. Maya puts her rag down and peeks around the back end of the ladder truck to try to see where the duo went.

They have entered the captain’s office and are talking with Jack.

“What’s up, Bishop?” Montgomery asks, coming around from the other side of the engine where he was working.

“The chief is here with someone.”

“Do you think it’s about your investigation?” Travis comes to stand behind Maya and peeks around the corner of the ladder truck with her. “Oh, they’re talking to Gibson.”

Maya hums. She tries to figure out what they are talking about, but no obvious clues arise from their body language.

Then Jack nods and moves towards the door.

“Shit.” Maya mumbles and ducks behind the truck.

Gibson comes into the barn. “Line up.” His tone even, he’s eyes downcast as he gives them the order, and then walks back out.

Maya and Travis line up and soon the rest of the crew is joining them. Gibson comes in last, then followed by Chief McCallister and the guy Maya doesn’t recognize.

“Alright, everybody. This is Sean Beckett. Station 19’s new captain. Gibson is being reinstated in his role as lieutenant. Have a good day.” The chief turns and walks out.

“Get back to work.” Beckett orders.

He and Jack walk out of the room first. Jack having to spend the next few hours showing Beckett around and filling him in on the happenings of the house.

Maya hangs her head as everyone files out around her. She stays rooted to her place for a few minutes, trying not to panic. The thought of a new captain doesn’t sit easy with her. The fact that McCallister didn’t address her, or her investigation doesn’t sit well with her. The abruptness with which this happened feels is like a punch to the chest. It sucks all the air from her lungs.

Maya is mad about the whole lieutenant thing. She’s mad that the chief has brought in a new captain, Beckett, to replace Jack, who is replacing her. She wonders what it means that Beckett has been brought in. She assumes that it doesn’t mean anything good for her. How can it? The chief has replace Jack’s temporary captain position with someone more permanent. How is she going to be put back in that position if there’s someone already filing it?

She’s got the day off and Carina was working. She gets absolutely plastered. Drunk off her ass.

Maya is lying on the couch, a beer bottle still in her hand and many empty bottles on the floor next to the couch, when the door opens.

“Maya?” Carina questions quietly. This isn’t normal behavior as far as Carina knows. She’s never come home to see Maya drunk. When they went out before Covid, sure they had a few drinks and a good time, but this is something different.

She sits down on the edge of the couch, next to Maya’s hip. She runs a hand over her back softly, concerned. “Bambina?” She tries to wake the blonde.

Maya groans and tries to shrug Carina’s hand off of her back. Carina frowns and goes to get a glass of water for her wife. She knows Maya has been adjusting to the changes at work and has been trying to fit in with the crew again as just another firefighter and not the captain, and it isn’t always easy. She comes back with the water and sits down again. “Hey, can you sit up?”

“Let me just lay here and wallow in my self-pity.” Maya says, fairly coherently.

Carina would have thought by the sight of the half dozen beer bottles that Maya would be completely plastered.

“When did you start drinking?” Carina wonders.

“I went to pick up a six pack after you went to work this morning.”

“Oh, bambina.” Carina sighs.

Maya opens an eye and looks over at Carina with it. “I drank them all and then passed out.”

“Drink this, please.” Carina offers the glass of water.

Maya pushes herself up from her flat position and shuffles onto her side, and then back, and then rest with her back against the arm of the couch. She holds one hand to her forehead and holds the other out for the glass. “I’m sorry.” She mumbles before taking a big gulp of water.

“For what?” Carina asks.

“For you having to see me like this. I thought if I started early that I would be good when you got home from work.” She had it all planned out. The only problem was she didn’t wake up from trying to sleep off her drunken stupor soon enough.

“So, you’re trying to hide your drinking from me?” Carina furrows her brow together. She doesn’t know or understand what is going on with Maya and it’s alarming to see this.

“It won’t happen again. But yeah. I just-“ Maya shrugs and takes another drink. “I feel so out of place at work. It’s not as bad as when I started back up. I can’t stand Sullivan he acts like nothing happened. I know he blames me for Andy getting re-stationed. I still haven’t talked to Andy about all this. I haven’t seen her, and I don’t know how to reach out to her. I blame myself for her getting transferred too. And no one at the station talks about it. Or if they do, it’s behind my back. I don’t know. And it’s been weeks and I haven’t heard anything about the investigation. I know I can’t know but I want to know how it’s progressing. I want to know if the chief has talked to everyone yet. And no one will talk about it and it’s just all sorts of awkward. And then on top of all of that, the chief came in yesterday with our new captain. A new captain, Carina. He didn’t say anything about the investigation. Just introduced the new captain, set Gibson back to lieutenant, and left. And I don’t like him. The new captain. He seems like an arrogant asshole.” She finishes off her glass of water.

“So, I feel like I’ve failed or I’m failing or I don’t even know. A new captain can’t mean anything good for me to get the position back, can it? I don’t think so. I just wanted to drown myself in alcohol, so I didn’t have to think about it today. So, I’m sorry.” Maya picks at the lint on her sweatpants. “I know it’s not a good coping mechanism.”

Carina knows this too. But as long as it’s only one day she’s not going to be concerned about it. Maya explained herself and that’s good enough for today. “You can talk to me about these things. You know that, right?”

“Yeah.” Maya sighs. “It’s just so much. Like, I know you don’t want to have to hear me bitching and moaning about it all the time.”

Carina smiles. “I love when you bitch and moan.”

Maya chuckles a little.

“How are you feeling?”

“Like I spent all morning drinking. Bloated. A headache.”

“I’ll make you some rice and beans. You want to take a shower? And maybe change. You’ll feel better after that.”

“Do I stink?” Maya grins guiltily.

Carina nods. “Brush your teeth, bambina.” She tells her affectionately. “Or no kisses.” Carina gets to her feet, holding out a hand for Maya to take, which Maya does, and Carina pulls her up from the couch. She presses a kiss to Maya’s cheek and squeezes her hand before stepping away to cook them some dinner.

Maya showers and comes to the kitchen. She wraps her arms around Carina from behind and leans into her body, her cheek presses against her back. “I brushed my teeth.” Carina giggles and it sends chills through Maya’s body.

Carina’s left hand finds Maya’s on her stomach.

“I’m just frustrated that the investigation has taken this long. It’s been two months. How long can it take? Six weeks? It can’t be that hard. He just has to talk to everyone and review the report. He was fucking there, on scene. He saw what happened with his own eyes. I refused a direct order from him. It’s not that hard. I just want to know.”

“I know you do.” Carina says. “I know.” It’s starting to get frustrating for Carina too. She is impacted too. It’s not her job, but it affects her life. It’s affected their relationship. They are in this standstill. Nothing is moving forward. It’s just a waiting game. So that’s all very frustrating. “But can we just have a nice evening. Eat our dinner and not think about it anymore?”

“Yeah.” Maya commits to that.