Chapter 2
It was early. Too early. Actually, by Carina's standards it was still the middle of the night but when she was awoken by a soft pair of lips covering her own she wasn't too bothered, although her brain was still half-asleep.
"Hey - go back to sleep," she heard Maya whisper as a hand stroked her cheek.
"No - come back to bed," Carina mumbled.
"I can't."
"I want to say goodbye."
"I think we said goodbye multiple times last night," Maya chuckled.
Carina just groaned, trying to pull the blonde in closer.
"I've gotta go. My car is outside," Maya said, picking up her jacket from the side table.
"I'm going to miss you," Carina said, opening her eyes up properly to get one last look at her wife. She was dressed casually yet comfortable, athletic fitted jogging bottoms and a t-shirt, a matching pair of trainers on and a baseball cap in hand.
"I'll miss you too - I promise to phone you as soon as I land and I'll try to FaceTime you at night," Maya replied, wheeling her suitcase closer to the door and picking up her duffel bag also.
"I hate when you go to these things," the brunette complained. She missed waking up to Maya next to her, or at least being in the same space as her - now she would be alone for a week.
"Me too - but it's just for a week and then you can have me all you want," Maya promised.
"I'll look forward to it," Carina winked.
"Okay - I'm going. I love you," Maya said, bringing the brunette in for a kiss, one that was full of love and passion that showed just how much she loved her wife as well as how much she was going to miss her.
"I love you too, so much. Be safe!" Carina added as they pulled away.
"I will, see you soon," Maya said, placing one final kiss on her forehead before wheeling the suitcase out of their room and carrying the duffel in her hand, closing the door with her foot.
Carina waited until she heard the closing of the front door before she fell back into the bed, the blonde's side already getting cooler with the absence of her body. Carina pulled the pillow closer to her and hugged it, the sleep taking over as she fell back asleep, the lasting touch of Maya's lips on her own occupying her dreams.
The clock had just turned seven when a ringing sounded from the side of Carina - she with a muffled groan she blindly swung her arm out and muted the invading noise. In habit she moved her hand to feel for her wife but was met by cold sheets. The first thought that ran through her brain was Maya was out on a run, but then the second thought came quickly after it - Maya was on her way to the conference.
She stared at the empty side of the bed before sighing and pushing herself out from beneath the covers.
She picked up her phone and smiled when she saw a message from the blonde.
Maya: Just arrived at the airport - I miss you and I love you xx
She'd sent that around an hour ago which meant she was probably on the plane by now but Carina still typed out a response knowing the blonde would receive it when she landed.
Carina: I miss you too bambina! Ti amo! [Picture sent]
She decided to send over a picture of herself, Maya's academy t-shirt covering her body, knowing that the blonde had a whole host of photos that she secretly took of her - which weren't all that secret as Carina had spotted the blonde scrolling through them one night.
She put her phone down and stretched her arm high over her head, a yawn escaping her just as she heard the nearing sound of scraping feet coming down the halls.
She bent down and was engulfed by a caramel brown ball of fluff and fur.
"Buongiorno Enzo!" She greeted, nuzzling into his fur as she curled up into her arms. "I know - I know she's not here for your run, but I promise I will give you lots of walks to make up for it - maybe Uncle Travis and Auntie Vic will give you one at the Station too," she said him, although she's not sure he understood any of the words part from the word walk which made his head perk up and his tail wag.
"Speaking of the Station - I need to get ready otherwise we will be late," she added, giving Enzo a kiss on his head before stepping off into the bathroom and switching on the shower.
"DeLuca!" Vic greeted as the brunette walked through the front door. "And Enzo!" She added with an excited squeal when saw her favourite dog alongside her.
Enzo ran from Carina and over to Vic who ruffled his fur and watched as he jumped up the stairs into the beanery.
"I never seen someone so excited to come to work," Carina joked.
"I mean he has all of us to see - who wouldn't be excited about that?" Vic laughed as Carina headed back into the changing room, giving a wave to Andy who was in the Captain's office filling out some reports.
"Morning!" Travis said, doing up his shirt buttons.
"Morning Travis!" She said with a smile.
"Maya off?" He asked.
"Sì, she left this morning. Poor Enzo was sad he didn't get to go for a run."
"Did you not fancy taking on the role?" He teased.
"I think I will leave that to Maya - I've been with her for over five years but I will still not join her in her runs."
"That's fair - I remember when I went through a break up and she invited me to go for a run and help me clear my mind. I was exhausted for a week and my legs hurt all day - Vic will tell you because I made her keep getting me ice-packs. But she is a machine that woman."
"She sure is," Carina smiled. A bark was heard and Carina saw her best friend's eyes light up.
"You brought him?"
"I did!" Carina laughed as the man ran from the changing room and up the stairs.
The rest of the morning went by pretty quietly, with only a small incident that Jack and Vic had attended to in the aid car. But, they were all currently sitting down having lunch, with Enzo eating out of his bowl, while the others enjoyed some lasagna Travis and Vic had made, per Carina's watchful eye. Just as she was about to eat, Carina's phone buzzed.
She picked it up and smiled.
"Maya?" Andy asked her, as everyone was in a controversial discussion about a recent call that had been made in the baseball game the night previous.
'"It is," Carina replied, looking down at the message.
Bambina: Just got to the hotel! Thank you very much for the picture - beautiful as always ;) How's the Station? x
Mi amore: Pretty quiet - Enzo has been providing some entertainment for everyone. He missed his morning run! x
Bambina: Tell him I'm sorry but we will go for a long one when I'm home! I'm guessing he's already been out for a walk with Travis? x
Mi amore: Of course he has! Oh by the way do you happen to know where my grey sweater is??
Bambina: Guilty...
Mi amore: I knew it!
Bambina: Sorry - I couldn't help it. How am I supposed to be away from you for a whole week?!
Mi amore: I'm sure you will survive Bella! You will be busy all the time!
Bambina: You are always on my mind
Mi amore: Smooth
Mi amore: Only for you ;)
Mi amore: Hm - okay. I've got to go bambina but I will text you later, or phone you before I go to sleep (if we get the chance that is)
Bambina: I'm looking forward to it xx
Mi amore: Ciao, ti amo xx
It was just after four in the afternoon when the engines and the PRT rolled back into the Station.
"Maya is going to kill me when she finds out," Andy groaned as they all shut the doors of the engines.
"Why?" Carina chuckled, joining the woman as they walked back through reception.
"Because you are injured! On my watch!"
"It's a small cut Andy - I'm not in the ICU," Carina pointed out, her hand still attached to the gauze on her head.
"Still," Andy mumbled. "Well done everyone! Good work out there - even if we did sustain a minor injury to DeLuca over here."
Travis chuckled at his interim Captain, "Yep - you're dead."
"Thank you very much for that Travis," Andy smiled sarcastically.
"You're welcome."
"I still can't believe all of that just happened," Vic said with a shake of her head.
They had responded to a call in which a pregnant woman had been wielding a baseball bat in her front lawn. Shouting and yelling bible verses and references while cans of alcohol had been lying around. Andy had put Jack and Dean in charge of getting her to a place of relative safety a.k.a a place safe from swinging wooden weapons and away from all the neighbours who had been watching in shock and amazement at the scenes unfolding.
When they'd entered the property, as Jack and Dean and gone on a wild goose chase after the woman who had run away from them after a truly....interesting rendition of Amazing Grace, they'd found, presumably, the husband who had a needle sticking out of his face.
Carina and Warren had attended to his injuries, or attempted to, which included a few cuts on his arm from him slicing it on some broken glass and some bruising to his face. But, when a scream had been heard from the other end of the house the man had run away, sending Warren crashing onto the countertops, a few plates smashing on the ground and making Carina chase after him.
After they had found the woman, who they'd found to be known as Gina, they realised she was beginning to be in active labour. However, as Carina went to take over from a very worried looked Jack and Dean, the man, Eddie, who was very high on whatever it was that was still sticking out of his face, lunged forward and managed to hit Carina in the face in the process, sending her to fall to the ground.
It had been an incredibly chaotic incident and one that had left everyone emotionally and physically exhausted from dealing with two very emotional and difficult individuals. But, Carina's face was beginning to ache a lot more as they drove back to the station.
"Please get an ice pack on that," Andy begged as she walked into Maya's office. "I don't need you having a black eye with that cut too. I'm already going to be in enough trouble."
Carina shook her head with a laugh but nodded anyway - she really didn't want this to swell because she knew it would be a lot harder to deal with if she didn't ice it now. Plus, she didn't want Maya to worry, which would be inevitable when she saw it.
It was now a few hours later and the ladder truck had been called out for a call downtown, leaving only around half of the crew including Carina at the Station. She was sitting down at the beanery table, an ice pack over her forehead and eye with an attempt to reduce the swelling and bruising from earlier.
"Hey - how's the eye doing?" Travis asked as he walked in to pull a drink out of the fridge.
Carina replied by removing the ice-pack.
"Ouch," he winced, sitting down next to her.
"Yeah - not my finest look," she said, putting the ice-pack back on.
"Benefits of the job," he teased. "It goes with your jumpsuit though. Very colour coordinated."
"You are so annoying!" She cried, hitting his arm.
"But you love me," he sang back with a grin.
"No I don't."
"Well, I'm going to go and find Enzo because he does love me," he called while walking out of the beanery.
"Have fun with that," she replied, a smile on her face at her friend's ridiculousness.
It was now Wednesday and they were all up in the beanery, hungry and exhausted after a set of teenagers had been having a BBQ and managed to set a tree on fire, which had spread and led to multiple trees being set alight.
"So - do you have any plans for next week?" Travis asked from the kitchen counter where he was making lunch.
"Plans for what?" Carina asked, a few of the other crew members listening in to the conversation.
"For Maya's birthday."
"Oh - yes. Thankfully, I managed to convince her to take the day off - which was difficult because she took some for the honeymoon and it at the conference this week, but she finally agreed. So at least we can be a bit more relaxed," Carina said. For the past few years every birthday Maya had been on shift which had meant the day had been full of calls and reports which while they both loved their jobs, was not the ideal way to spend the day together.
"Are you having a party?" Andy asked.
"I am, of course you are all invited. I was thinking just some dinner, some games, nothing too much. The shift ends at lunchtime so given no disasters I hope you will all be able to make it?" Carina asked, very aware that they would all be tired from their shift but hoping they would all still attend.
"Of course. We wouldn't miss it," Travis said with a smile.
"I can't wait. For someone who acts quite tough you never would have thought she would love her birthday as much as she does," Vic laughed.
"It is quite amusing I will say - she even has a countdown. Something she makes me aware of every day," Carina informed, making the team laugh.
"Even for her birthday she has to be organised," Jack joked.
"What have you got her?"
"Well..."
After Carina had told them the team all got very excited.
"Thank god. I cannot hear her talk about it anymore or see any more magazines about it."
"Well now Carina's got it she will probably go on about it even more and buy more of them!" Vic groaned.
"She has them all lined up at home, by date and issue order. I told her if she gets anymore they have to stay here," Carina laughed.
"I can't believe you actually got it," Dean said, his face still surprised.
"She deserves it - plus it's her first birthday and our first actual celebration as a married couple so I guess that makes it a little bit more special," Carina shrugged.
"Captain is one lucky woman," Vic smiled.
"I think I'm the lucky one," Carina countered with a silly smile, flashes of her wife flicking through her mind.
"You two are literally the best!"
It was later on in their shift and they all had some downtime which they were all immensely thankful for since it was close to midnight and they were all incredibly tired, having attended a small car fire downtown shortly after lunch as well as having to deal with three men that had walked into the station, one of which had an arrow sticking out of his head.
The fire had been put out in less than ten minutes with the necessary people removing the burnt wreckage from its place and the team able to go back to the station around an hour later, where they had then been met with the second problem. Which hadn't been as straight forward. They had designed a contraption that allowed Carina, Ben and Dean to get to the hospital in the PRT without moving the arrow. When they'd arrived at Grey Sloan the interns all seemed pretty excited to see what was going on, apart from one who collapsed at the sight of it.
But, then the neurosurgeon Dr Shepard had arrived and taken over - thanking them for their ingenuity to keep the arrow still while they'd been in transit.
Carina was now laying down on one of the bunks, her phone in hand as she was waiting for her wife to answer her call. It would only be nine in New York which felt like a reasonable time to be phoning someone so it worked out quite well for the two of them.
When Maya's face lit up on the screen Carina couldn't help but smile.
"Hey beautiful," Maya said, her hand behind her head as she looked into the phone.
"Ciao Bella - how are you?" Carina asked, her eyes stuck on the blues staring back at her.
"I'm good - I miss you still. It's only been a few days," the blonde sighed.
"I miss you too bambina. But - you'll be home before you know it. Just a few more days now." Carina promised.
"I know - it just feels like forever. I'm sorry I couldn't facetime you these past two days - the internet had a bit of a meltdown, luckily the maintenance people managed to get it all fixed," Maya apologised having only been able to phone her wife and text her.
"It's okay bambina - I've missed your face though," Carina said, making the blonde laugh.
"I've missed yours too."
"How was your day? Did you get settled okay?"
"Yeah - we had some time to unpack and get comfortable then we had an introductory talk and some lunch around one-ish, then some more talks and were given an itinerary for the week. So, just a lot of the groundwork really. But, tomorrow we have a review of the last year, performances, efficiency, call out response times, technique building - all of that sort of stuff," Maya explained.
"All sounds very Captain-y," Carina grinned.
"Oh it is," Maya smirked. "Hold on- why can I only see half of your face?" Maya asked, noticing she hadn't seen her wife in full frame yet.
"Oh - well, about that-" Carina started.
"Carina..." Maya interjected, raising her eyebrow.
"Fine." Carina tilted the phone so the blonde could see the cut on her forehead and the bruises that surrounded it.
"What the hell happened to you? Are you okay? Did you go to the hospital? Why has no one told me you were injured?" Maya rambled off.
"Bambina. Maya. Calm down. We had a tricky call on Monday and a man, Eddie, lunged forward and knocked me over. He was high on something so it wasn't totally his fault, but hence this," Carina explained circling the new additions to her face. "Then to answer your other questions - sì I am fine. It's just some bruising, it looks worse than it actually is so please don't worry. No, I did not go to the hospital because number one I am a doctor and so is Ben so he could have easily just stitched it up, had it needed to, which it doesn't. Number two it's just superficial, nothing they could have done that I don't already know. I didn't want to tell you because I knew you'd worry," Carina added, seeing the blonde was concerned based on her crinkled forehead and the way her eyes were looking a lot harder at her, almost trying to scrutinise to make sure she was being honest and not just putting on a brave front.
"You promise?" Maya finally asked.
"I promise," Carina confirmed.
"So, I don't need to hop on a plane and have a word with this Eddie man?" Maya teased.
"No - you don't," Carina laughed.
"Hmm - okay," Maya relented, a playful smile on her face.
"You know Andy was freaking out about it right?" Carina said.
"Oh I can imagine," she laughed. "First your coffee machine and now you? What else could go wrong?" She joked.
"What - you knew about my coffee machine before I did?" Carina questioned.
"Uhm...what? No!? You did yell about it very loudly - couldn't have missed it," she deflected, her guilt laced face totally giving her away.
"Hmm - okay," Carina repeated, her own playful smile forming.
"Is that my t-shirt?" Maya asked, seeing the top of the logo through the screen.
"Sure is," Carina revealed proudly, lowering the phone to show Maya's 2010 Olympic medal t-shirt that she seemed to have adopted over the years, even though Maya still deemed it as her own.
"Guess we both had the same idea then," Maya said, showing that she was wearing Carina's grey hoodie from her old hospital back in Italy, although it was left open with a black tank top underneath given that it was a bit small for the blonde.
"Great minds think alike," Carina smiled.
"I love you," Maya sighed, a tired smile coming through the screen.
"I love you too Bella," Carina replied.
"I'm going to go - you need to sleep," Maya added.
"I'm fine," Carina responded, however her body seemed to heavily contradict that statement as a yawn escaped her body.
"Hm - yeah you need to sleep," Maya laughed. "Go - I'll talk to you tomorrow."
"Okay - Bella. Buonanotte," she whispered.
"Buonanotte amore mio," Maya replied. "Oh - don't forget it's only 8 days till my birthday," she winked.
"How could I forget bambina?" Carina replied playfully, rolling her eyes.
"Night," Maya said. "I love you."
"Night Bella. I love you too," Carina replied, before pressing the red button and letting the screen go black.
She gave a long sigh before putting her phone down on the side table and then getting under the covers and closing her eyes.
Thursday quickly rolled around and it was just after one o'clock when the doorbell rang, echoing through the house with a loud chime.
Carina stopped what she was doing in the kitchen and walked over, opening it up to see her brother standing there. She'd invited him to lunch given they both finished their shifts today, Carina at eight this morning and him around an hour ago.
They hadn't seen one another since their BBQ, but they'd had much of a chance to talk as there had been quite a lot going on, so they'd taken the chance to spend some quality time together, just the two of them.
"Ciao Andrea," She greeted giving him a hug.
"What happened to you?" He asked, staring wide eyed at his sisters.
"Nice to see you too Andrea, please come in," she said sarcastically.
"Sorry. How are you?" He asked, walking inside as Carina closed the door behind him.
"Good - ready for Maya to come home," she said as they walked into the kitchen.
"I bet," he smiled. "Hey Enzo," he said, bending down to play with the dog. "So - what happened to you?" He asked again.
"All I will say is it involved a pregnant woman, a baseball bat and a man with a needle in his face," Carina answered, feeling that her brief explanation provided a good summary of the events that had occurred.
"No further words needed," he returned with a nod.
"How was work?" She asked, going back to the stove to continue cooking.
"Well, I had a car accident victim that came in from 23 and he was very much touch and go throughout the night so it was mostly focused on him. I saw 'arrow guy' though, Dr Shepard said that it came from you guys?" He asked, sitting down at the island.
"Yeah, apparently he and his friends thought it would be fun to shoot beer cans off one another's heads. They weren't very good shooters," she said, Andrea letting out a laugh.
"I will never understand this city," he said, shaking his head with amusement.
"Me either - never a quiet day. Are you coming to Maya's birthday next week?" She asked, putting down a plate of food in front of him.
"Thank you," he said looking down at the food. "When is it?"
"A week today," she said.
"Yeah I think so - I'm at work, but only in the morning. Should just be some consults and some meetings, I'll try and keep it open," he promised. "This looks amazing! Mama's recipe?" He asked, remembering the dish.
"Sì, one of our childhood favourites. She used to cook it all the time - I try to get Maya to make it but she prefers it when I make this one. She does all the others though."
"The food in this house must be good all the time between the pair of you," he laughed.
"It is," Carina confirmed.
"Speaking of my sister-in-law's birthday - did you go and pick it up?"
"It's being delivered the day before but I will keep it in the garage - but I can never hide anything from her, she finds everything. È impossibile."
"That's true. I can keep it at my place if you want?" He offered.
"Grazie Andrea - that might be a good idea. Could you bring it round on Thursday morning?"
"Yeah of course. I'll be quiet so she doesn't hear me," he promised. "Wouldn't want to ruin the surprise."
The two siblings spent the rest of the afternoon together, going for a walk with Enzo as Carina had promised her dog lots of walks since he wasn't getting his morning run.
They went over to the park that was close by where Andrea threw a tennis ball and left him entertained. It was rare they had the same day off so it was nice that they got to spend the rest of the day together, and it also helped Carina not miss her wife as much.
She found the house to be lonely without the blonde there, so having another human felt nice. Enzo was great and he was brilliant at cuddling but he wasn't much of a conversationalist.
"Thank you for coming over today," Carina said as they walked back from the park. Enzo walking by her side.
"Of course - I know in the beginning it was hard and things were complicated, but I'm really glad that we are back to where we used to be. Feels like when we were kids," Andrea said with a smile.
"Do you remember when we had that massive family get together? Zia Alessandra, Zio Maurizio, Zio Nico and Zia Rosa and Cousin Vittoria and Giovanni as well as all of our Nonni. So many people were there and Mama had been cooking and preparing food all week for the day."
"Sì, it wasn't even a special occasion, she just wanted to have a family lunch, but we were so tired of the constant questions that we all escaped through the garden and ran down to the beach. I think we took some of the beers with us too and we just messed around in the ocean."
"We came back hours later and they hadn't stopped talking, they hadn't even noticed we had disappeared," Andrea laughed.
"We had some fun as kids," Carina sighed, choosing to ignore some of the more painful memories, including that of the day her brother and mother had left for the US.
"I'm just happy we get to have all that fun again," He said, pulling his sister into a side hug as they walked.
"Me too."
"One more day!" Maya said as soon as their call connected.
"One more day," Carina replied with a grin.
"How was work?" She asked.
"Good - tiring. We had a fire at a deli downtown, a few burn victims that me and Warren took care of but it was okay. There was an explosion though, some sort of canister in the back that had been there from the old tenants. It was lucky, no one was in the building," Carina explained, recalling her day.
"Crazy how much being away for one week makes you miss fighting fires," Maya sighed.
"You managed for two weeks when we were on our honeymoon!"
"Yes but I had you to focus all my attention on," Maya winked, making Carina roll her eyes. "Here all I have are workshops and long talks on efficient uses of rapid response times. They did use the Station though as an example which was nice to see," Maya said with a proud smile.
"Well - you are the best captain in the country," Carina replied.
"Hmm I think you might be a little biased there my love," Maya chuckled as Carina smiled and shrugged her shoulders. "Now - where is Enzo? I haven't seen him in days!" Maya asked.
"He's somewhere around," Carina replied. She was about to call him when Maya decided she would do it. Through the phone. From 2500 miles away.
"Enzo! Enzo!" Maya called, making Carina laugh.
"Someone is going to think there's a problem if you keep yelling," Carina teased.
"Well there is a problem. I haven't seen our dog in days. That's a very big problem in my opinion," Maya answered.
Soon enough the sound of paws came running through the halls as he then jumped up on the bed and cuddled into Carina's chest.
"Here he is," Carina mumbled, her head buried in golden curly fur.
"Hey bud!" Maya said. At the new, but very familiar voice Enzo turned his head towards the screen and stared at it curiously before barking and wagging his tail, clearly excited to see the blonde.
"Wow - I don't know who was more excited to see me. You or the dog," Maya joked, smiling at the dog whose nose was currently pushed up against the camera.
"Oh definitely the dog," Carina quipped back. "I'm just here for the muscles and the good food."
"I cannot believe you," Maya laughed. "All these years I thought we had something special - it was all just a lie," she added dramatically, clothing at her chest and pretending to wipe a tear from her eye.
"You are so dramatic," Carina said laughing at her wife.
"But you love me," Maya grinned.
"I do, very much so. So, I will see you tomorrow?"
"I will see you tomorrow. I can't wait to hold you in my arms again."
"Me either Bella. When is your flight?"
"6 in the evening, my time, so with a five hour flight then the time difference. I should land at 8 and then be home to you for 9," Maya said thinking out loud to herself.
"Are you sure you don't want me to pick you up from the airport?" Carina asked.
"No - it's okay. Andy already said she would - plus that gives me time to talk with her about some of the paperwork and everything before our next shift," Maya explained.
"Okay Bella - well I will see you tomorrow night then. I'll be at home waiting for my wife to come back to me," Carina smiled.
"I'll be there," Maya promised.
"Night bella."
"Night Carina, night Enzo. I love you."
"Was that for me or the dog?" Carina jokes.
"Oh definitely the dog," Maya replied, repeating Carina's previous statement, a cheeky grin on her face.
"Bye bambina" Carina laughed as the call disconnected.
"She'll be home soon bambino," Carina said, hugging the dog that was now occupying Maya's pillow.
She allowed the dog to sleep in their bed, usually having him sleep on his own, but Carina wanted some comfort tonight and he was the perfect and only candidate given the blonde was a five hour plane journey away.
"Night Enzo," she said before resting her head on the pillow, wishing for 9pm tomorrow to come as soon as possible.
Saturday was finally here and Carina couldn't be happier, Maya was finally coming home. She'd attempted to keep herself busy throughout the day to make it go faster. So, she'd taken Enzo out for a long walk to the park where she'd run into a few friends, other frequent dog walkers who both her and Maya had come to get to know quite well.
She'd then decided to give the house a clean, having been too tired from work throughout the week to do anymore than wipe down a few surfaces here and there. She'd vacuumed all the floors, dusted all the shelves, done all the laundry, cleaned the oven and reorganised the spice cupboard and restocked all of the tubs and storage containers with various foods like their pastas, cereals, coffee beans as well as a collection of Maya's healthy snacks.
It was now just after three in the afternoon, Maya was already on her plane which the blonde had informed her through a picture of her sitting on the plane. Maya wasn't the only one who had her camera roll full of her wife, over the past few years Carina had seemed to have mastered the art of stealing photos of the blonde.
Carina was lying down on the sofa watching '8 1/2' which reminded her of her first date with Maya when they'd gone to the park and she'd cooked them Pasta Alla' Norma - the special recipe from Alberto and Gianna which had also become a staple in their lives.
Enzo was curled up next to her as she therapeutically ran her hand through his curls, him clearly enjoying it, giving he'd fallen asleep very quickly. She had a bowl of pretzels resting on her stomach, her eyes glued to the screen as she watched in a comfortable silence, the tiny snores from Enzo making her chuckle.
Around an hour later the doorbell rang, she paused the movie and groaned. She wasn't expecting anyone to come over but it could be a delivery driver. Maya had a strange fascination of ordering random things she saw online and now she had her games console various 'accessories', as Maya called them, had arrived at the door over the past week.
She was careful not to jostle Enzo who was peacefully asleep and then put the bowl of pretzels back down on the coffee table before walking over to the door.
She opened it expecting to see someone in a cap, a parcel in hand. Which was exactly what she did see - except that the baseball hat was placed on blonde hair and the parcels were a suitcase and a duffel bag.
Carina stared wide-eyed, shocked to see her wife at the door, five hours earlier than what she'd expected.
"Oh my god!" She cried pulling the blonde in for a bone-crushing hug. "What are you doing home?" She asked.
"Well I can always go back to the airport," Maya joked, wrapping her arms around the brunette, a feeling of comfort washing over her.
"Never," Carina mumbled into Maya's hair.
She pulled away and brought her in closer, her lips on the blonde's as she weaved her hands in her hair, deepening the kiss as she did so - it had been too long for her to not have her lips on Maya.
Maya's hands roamed down over the curves of Carina's waist before she dipped down and then lifted Carina's off the ground, her legs hooking behind Maya as their lips never broke contact.
"I missed you so much," Carina mumbled, punctuating each word with another kiss.
"Me too," Maya replied, her eyes not leaving the brown ones that were looking right back at her.
They continued welcoming each other until they finally pulled apart.
"Hi beautiful," Maya whispered, her nose touching Carina's - both never wanting to leave each other again.
"Hi bambina," Carina chuckled, a smile on her face.
"How's my soldier?" Maya teased looking at the, now minimal, bruising on Carina's face.
"I'm good - it doesn't hurt anymore."
"Good. Are you going to get down?" Maya joked, Carina still wrapped around her body.
"Nope," Carina replied with a smirk.
"Didn't think so," Maya said, giving her one more kiss before dipping down again and picking up her suitcase in one hand and her duffel bag in the other and walking into the house.
The sudden movement made Carina hold on tighter as Maya laughed.
"Wait, I have a question," Carina asked.
"Yes?"
"You sent me a picture of you on the plane like an hour ago?"
"I did - except I had just landed, I was already in Seattle while you thought I was in New York. I managed to get an earlier flight - the rest of the afternoon was just a lot of standing around and a few other people had already left so...I thought I would come home early and surprise my wife," Maya explained with a smile.
"Well consider me surprised," Carina replied, giving her a kiss.
"Now - while I very much appreciated our greeting at the door I had a lot more planned for the bedroom," Maya smirked.
"Oh - did you now?" Carina replied coyly.
"Uh huh," Maya replied, dropping her bags to the floor before carrying Carina up the stairs to show her wife just how much she missed her.
A/N: Thank you for reading! So what do you think Carina has bought Maya for her birthday!!
You are all now officially caught up with all my work (aside from my one shots) which means updates will be once a week every Monday!
I have a few gaps in my story timeline so if you have any ideas of what you would like to see please let me know - I'd be really grateful for any suggestions!!!
See you next time!