Maya had arrived at the barracks at almost nine o'clock after driving a little over an hour back from her grandmother's house.
When she arrived at Station 19, everything was surprisingly quiet, too quiet. She had gone to her office to change into her outfit and then she had gone upstairs to check on her team.
- "surpriiiiise!!! Happy Birthday Captain!" shouted the firefighters from 19 as she entered the break room.
- "wow did you guys train to be so in sync?"
- "A little, maybe." Dean replied.
She had gone over and taken everyone without her arms one by one.
- "I know it's probably not us you wanted to see first today..." Andy whispered in her ear, which had earned her a slightly sad smile from the blonde.
- "if our captain wants to take the trouble" added Vic, showing her a chair so that she could sit down.
- "and our briefing?!"
- "Captain, it's your birthday, can't we do the briefing over breakfast? Once a year..."
- "if I do it for mine, you'll want to do it for yours"
- "we're not crazy enough not to take a day off for our birthdays... You're the only one who wants to work on your birthday" replied Jack
- "it's not that I want to, it's that I don't mind."
- "Well, I hope you're hungry!" Dean said.
- "you're scaring me"
-"I don't know if we prepared this breakfast for you or for us... There are scrambled eggs, bacon, hasbrowns, tacos, poridge, pancakes, fruits, cereals... Frosted mini wheats of course, and sushi from yesterday" Andy told her
-"and no one thought to make my favorite breakfast".
-"Sorry Captain, we thought it was inappropriate to bring in the pretty Italian girl and lay her on the table" replied Jack
-"How much do you like chores?" Maya asked through clenched teeth as she turned to him.
-"nooo Bishop! I was kidding, not the bathroom please, I'm sick of it."
-"Well, let's say the gym then, there's so much of our sweat germ mixed in there that it wouldn't hurt to spend... Four hours cleaning everything".
- "four hours?!" He asked shocked
- "oh yes four hours, you will rub each weight, each bar, everything" answered Maya in a sensual way.
- "and to answer your question, a protein shake is not breakfast... At least not a breakfast for a birthday party with friends."
-"You should have asked Carina to come, she would have made French toast" Maya whispered to her best friend, sulking a little.
-"She couldn't come... And wouldn't give me her recipe... She said she would... That she would make you some, tomorrow morning... So you're sleeping together again?"
- "wild card!" Maya replied as she sat upright in her chair.
-"Maya it's me," Andy said, leaning forward to keep their conversation between them.
-"Yes, and I know you love me and I know you love Carina and I know you think that even though she's the love of my life, I shouldn't get involved like this because I don't know when she'll be ready. But you know what? Sex isn't everything and yes she's gorgeous and yes I want her, but you know I've been waiting to see her for over ten years so I can wait for the rest."
- "I'm sorry... anyway I hope my maid of honor will have a pretty girl she loves on her arm and that will make her happy at my wedding."
- "oh yeah? Who is your maid of honor ?"
- "Well, you! What a question!"
- "you didn't... Asked me"
- "I didn't think it was necessary, it seemed logical to me"
- "yes but it's always nice to feel wanted"
- "I thought you had your fill of that. I still think you shouldn't be so ... Intense because you're going to explode, but I think the more the years have gone by the more Carina looks at you with desire. She's going to make you have spontaneous combustion one of these days."
- "trust me, she already does"
- "too many details, I haven't eaten yet"
Not long after breakfast, brief, birthday, the Station 19 alarm had sounded in the barracks.
Maya, Dean, Jack, Travis, Vic, Theo had left for a response and Andy had stayed at the firehouse with Emmett Dixon, Kline, Larson and Barnes, three other firefighters from the A-team.
They had arrived on their call. On the highway a truck had a tire blow out and overturned creating a pileup several feet long. Station 26 was also on the scene.
When they arrived, the captain of station 26 asked Maya to split the intervention in two. Paramedics were also on site to get everyone to the hospital as quickly as possible.
Maya dispatched her team and then contacted Andy and asked her to send Kline, Larson and Barnes. She would stay with Emmett who was at the front desk.
They would take care of the truck and the cars closest to it. There were a lot of victims.
Maya, Jack and Dean were looking after the driver. They had to break the window of the tractor to get him out and he had hit his head and was trying to speak, but the three firefighters couldn't understand what he was trying to say.
After several long minutes, Maya understood that the man was saying that he had stowaways in the trailer.
She then asked Larson and Kline to go cut the door open while they were still trying to dislodge the man who was trapped under the dashboard.
- "Maya, Captain, can you come in here please," Kline had asked on the walkie-talkie.
The blonde had gone to the back of the truck and asked what was going on.
- "I don't know what this load is supposed to be, but there was no information that there were hazmat products inside, on the back door."
- "or that hazmat?"
- "the cans that are spilled there, those are chemicals. I think if there's anybody in that trailer, we're going to need more EMTs, they must be unconscious from the fumes that are coming off."
-"I don't want to go to Seattle Grace because of this procedure. I can't even ask this man for an explanation, he is incomprehensible."
They had spent several hours on this procedure. Vic and Travis who were in the ambulance, as well as Kline, Barnes and Larson who were in the second ambulance, had left to take the last two victims to the hospital while the rest of the team, Maya, Theo, Dean and Jack, had gone straight back to the barracks. They had spent a lot of time on the scene because the stowaways were crushed under the cans and the boxes, and they had to be meticulous because the products could not be mixed not to create a chemical reaction.
They were taken upstairs.
- "hey! You all get in the shower and wash your uniforms! I don't want a chemical reaction because of this jerk!" Maya told her guys. "I hope you all have a change of uniforms, otherwise you'll be going to intervention in your underwear or sportswear and you'll have to explain that to the chief" she laughed
She had turned to the kitchen to get a bottle of water from the fridge before going into her own shower.
"you missed a hell of an intervention Herrera! We're all a little high!" She laughed
It is only by approaching that she had seen that on the other side of the island, at the level of the table was the Italian, the Italian she had not seen for over four days.
Her eyes had opened wide and her smile had reached one ear and then the other. Suddenly her best friend did not exist any more, she had advanced with a decided step towards the Italian.
-"tanti auguri Bambina" said Carina with a huge smile too.
-"I missed you" replied Maya, placing her two hands on the cheeks of the brunette and approaching her lips to hers.
Andy, on the other side of the island, had frozen, her hand in the air with her spoon full of milk and cereal. Not daring to move, her eyes fixed on them.
The blonde had stopped just before their lips made contact.
"I'm sorry" she had turned even whiter than she usually was and had turned on her heels to head back to her office.
Carina had turned her eyes to Herrera who had shrugged before finally putting her spoonful of cereal in her mouth.
- "Maya!" She said before walking in the direction of the blonde, towards the bottom floor.
She had entered her office without bothering to knock and had closed the door by leaning on it.
"Maya!"
The blonde was facing her desk and with her back to the door.
- "excuse me, I should have gone to the hospital, I might have inhaled too much toxic vapor too"
- "Bambina"
- "no, excuse me Carina, I just need to..."
The brunette had come to take her hand on the desk and pulled her towards her captain's room.
"Carina..."
She had tackled her against the open door. She'd undone the first two buttons on her shirt and slid her hands astride her neck, her thumbs on her jaws and her pinkies on her trapezius.
She had brought her mouth close to Maya's.
- "Happy birthday Bambina, never apologize for wanting to kiss me"
She had come to kiss Maya's cheek, up to her ear and the American had slid her hands over her waist.
"I missed you too" she had whispered against.
The lips of the captain had come to place in the neck of the Italian and this one had slipped one of her hands in the hair of the blonde, and her other arm in the top of her back to approach her, she had closed her eyes and had slightly leaned her head to give more access to the blonde.
Maya's hands had come to rest on Carina's back, she had removed her shirt from her pants and slid her hands down her back, to rest her palms against her skin.
- "Maya..."
The brunette had moved closer and she had glued her body to the blonde's against the door.
"Ouch... What's in your pocket?"
- "nothing" replied the blonde as she continued to kiss her.
- "yes there's something" Carina shifted from the blonde and reached into her pocket to pull out a small red velvet box. "Are you planning to propose to me?!" Laughed the Italian as she opened the box before discovering a Solitaire ring.
She had stepped back and sat on the bed while staring at the ring with her eyebrows furrowed, before looking up at Maya.
- "this is absolutely not what you're thinking!"
/Flashback/
Maya and her grandmother were at breakfast, the American had just had a coffee. Before going downstairs, the blonde had talked a little with the Italian by message, she had sent her some very charming messages for her birthday. And now, the captain could not help having a smile denied on the face. She was going to leave soon to go to the barracks and especially, she was going to see the brunette again soon.
- "Well, are you going to tell me what's going on?"
- "about what?"
- "since you arrived you smile stupidly and you didn't tell me anything... Are you in love?"
- "noooo!!!"
- "oh yes that's convincing. It's about time. You know I really liked Carina, but it was time for you to move on, don't you think?"
- "no..."
- "you haven't seen her in thirteen years. So I'd say it's about time. So who are you in love with and when did you introduce her to me? You know I'm not eternal? I'd love to meet the woman you're going to marry before you join your grandfather."
- "you wouldn't believe me"
- "Don't tell me you realized you were in love with your best friend, Andy?!"
- "yuck! No grandma! She's like a sister to me."
- "so what's this girl's name?"
- "Carina"
- "you have a type... I mean a favorite name"
- "what if I say Grandma Gaga?"
- "no!" Said Maya's grandmother as she put down her cutlery and banged on the table surprised and overexcited despite her advanced age.
-"Yes, Carina, my Carina. She moved several weeks ago to Seattle."
- "and why isn't she here?!"
- "you were pretty... Upset after London"
- "you spent weeks crying! And I'm only talking about what happened in this house. But you know that from the first time she walked into this house I loved her. And she looked at you as if you were already her universe at seventeen years old. And from the smile she puts on your lips, I guess nothing has changed."
- "some things have changed"
- "thirteen years is a long time"
- "she was married and had a child"
- "oh! So you are... Stepmother?"
- "no, no grandma I'm not a stepmother, she, a, she lost her son to an illness"
- "oh no poor little hearts. And her ex-husband?"
- "they got married because she was pregnant. But she wasn't in love."
- "I can't imagine this young woman looking at anyone else the way she looked at you. But doesn't that make you feel weird?"
- "no, you want to see her son?"
- "do you have a picture?"
- "yes, I have one because I gave her a birthday present and I needed a picture of him... Here look"
- "oh my god, don't tell your brother this, but he is the most beautiful little boy I have ever seen. Look at his big blue eyes" she had marked for a while "they look like yours" Maya had then smiled at her. "And his blond curls. He's beautiful."
- "he was"
- "yes sorry"
- "if I bring Carina back, you'll have to be careful"
- "I promise. But then..." Maya's grandmother had stood up.
- "where are you going?"
She had returned two minutes later and handed Maya a red velvet box.
- "wowww what's that?"
-"The ring your grandfather proposed to me with. Your father wanted to propose to your mother with his mother's ring, which I understand... And between us I don't care, your father is a jerk, but you my little heart, you I've been waiting for years for you to bring me the woman who would be worthy of marrying you."
- "and you think this girl is Carina?"
- "I think you'll never love anyone the way you love that little girl, not even ten percent of the way you feel about her. So yes I think when the time comes you should propose to her... If you can just remember that I won't live forever, and that I love you both very much and I'd like to be there."
Maya had stood up and put her arms around her shoulders, "thank you grandma, you're the best"
- "so that's a yes?"
- "of course I want to propose to Carina, but we just met a little over two months ago, so maybe it's a little early"
- "no, but you're right, I understand, you've only been in love for sixteen years. You shouldn't be rushed".
- "grandma!!!"
- "I'm just saying" replied Katherine's mother, raising her hands in the air.
/End of Flashback/
- "don't do that"
- "I wasn't going to... but thanks"
- "then, wh-why?"
- "my grandmother passed it to me this morning, because I told her that you were back in my life. She passed it to me for... Later on. I just... Put it in my jeans pocket, then in my outfit pocket I don't know why, like, like you're kind of with me, because indeed, I hope that happens ..."
The brunette had closed her eyes, "I'm sorry, you know I want to marry you, one day, I just think it's too soon."
- "and I think so too, that's what I told her and then I would like us to be together before..."
- "aren't we?" Did she all the sadness in the world in her eyes.
- "I don't..."
- "I know we, we don't have sex, or... Nothing else... But... I just... I thought that... We, we're still holding hands and... I mean, I'm not saying that we're together, together, but a little bit. I mean, I, uh... You, you still haven't had sex with anyone else?"
- "I haven't even laid eyes on another woman since the fourteenth of June"
- "so we're not together?"
- "if you want to be with me..."
- "more than anything" Carina cut her off, desperate to the point of crying, that box still in her hand.
-"Then we are together" answered Maya with a smile full of hope perceptible in her eyes, coming to kneel in front of the brunette and recovering, as if nothing had happened, the box before putting it in her captain's bedside table, while looking the brunette in the eyes.
- "I know it's a big... Sacrifice, and if you need... Sex, just... Says it, don't, don't go sleeping with anyone without me knowing about it. I-I would understand it's a, a natural need."
- "did you just ask me to be your girlfriend three minutes ago and you just gave me permission to cheat on you?!"
- "not really permission, but I would like to be... informed"
- "Carina I wouldn't go to other women. It's mine, not another... Finally woman I..." {Woman and wife is the same word in french ... So it's this sentence sound different}
-"Maya, it's okay, you don't have to justify yourself," she said, placing both hands on the cheeks of the blonde still kneeling before her. Her eyes had gone down a little more and she had looked between the open buttons of the captain. "you don't have a shirt?!" Said she with a voice between astonishment and spontaneous desire.
- "no, I forgot to bring some and..."
The brunette had tugged at the flaps of her shirt to undo a few more buttons.
- "mamma mia... Are you sure it's your birthday?! I have a feeling it's mine instead."
- "Carina! What are you doing?"
- "I'm looking at my girlfriend's body" the Italian woman slid off the bed and came to rest her buttocks on the blonde's thighs, before undoing the last buttons of her shirt.
- "Carina!"
-"If you knew how many times I imagined this... Didn't you normally wear a sport's bra under there?"
- "would you rather?"
- "absolutely not" the Italian woman said as she placed her hands on Maya's collarbones and lowered them to her chest.
She had left them on top of her breasts without cupping them and could feel her heart racing.
Carina had raised her eyes to the blonde.
"You are truly sublime my love."
The Italian's hands had come up and she had run her arms against her trapezoids. The hands of the blonde had come to put themselves on her buttocks and she had gone up them along her thighs to come to squeeze the brunette against her. Maya had passed her nose against the neck of the brunette several times.
-"I have to go to the shower" Maya whispered and she had felt Carina swallow against her lips which were now against the throat of the brunette.
The Italian had taken the collar of the shirt of the American and had pulled on it to remove it to the maximum of her body although her arms were still surrounding her.
"Carina."
- "Ché?"
- "Can you stop trying to undress me?"
- "I wouldn't have to try if you'd let me."
- "we're not there yet"
- "are you sure? You saw me in my underwear".
- "you were drunk and probably unaware of what you were doing"
- "I don't think I was ever unaware of what I was doing when I was undressing in front of you, drunk or not... And I really want to see you... Naked"
- "we went from underwear to naked?"
- "don't you want to take a shower with me?"
Maya had let go of her embrace to look at the Italian and had turned red.
"It looks like you do."
- "I don't think we should."
- "Maya, I can't get intimate with you, or let myself kiss you... But I really want to see you in the simplest way possible."
-"I can't believe what I'm about to say... But I'd prefer not."
- "prefer is the word you're using right now?"
- "you got me"
The brunette had slid her hand over her cheek and had come to kiss her opposite jaw: "I'm not sure" Her lips had slid on the side of her neck then on her trapezium: "your nipples are hard". The few days spent away from each other had opened their eyes even more to the fact that they could not live without each other, they needed the slightest physical contact.
-"I assure you that this is not the part of my body that is the most sensitive."
-"you need me to leave you... Space, for this shower? Do you want me to go upstairs?" She asked as she dropped the blonde's bra strap
- "I wouldn't touch myself in the shower amore mio"
The Italian had pulled her face back to look at the captain, her eyes were suddenly full of stars and wet, she cracked a huge smile.
-"I like when you call me like that" she said, putting her forehead against the lips of the blonde.
- "and I love you"
- "I'll wait for you here... And if you want to touch yourself..."
- "no"
-"... And if you want to touch yourself, I'd be happy to listen. And as soon as you're done with work we'll go to my place... To finish your birthday day"
-----
Hello!!!
I think that these few days of separation have been beneficial... Carina is starting to loosen up little by little...
See you in two days !
xx
-¥-