AN: I think we were all searching for a scene like this following its absence in the most recent episode. How could I not write it myself? Hopefully this fulfills the need. -L
A Side Effect of the Hormone Shots
Carina let out a tearful grunt as she studied herself in the mirror. When she'd first started the fertility treatments, Maya had been determined to give her all of her shots. This had often been hard to uphold with one or the other having to take a trip to the other's workplace when they were on shift. However, it had been important to them that they both be as involved in the process as was possible. If that meant taking time out of their busy schedules to run to the hospital or the station, it was well worth it. The first time that Maya had missed it due to being on a call had been a slippery slope. She'd called Carina as soon as she'd gotten back, in tears. She'd been so focused on the task at hand that she hadn't even realized what time it was until her phone had buzzed with their joint alarm in her back pocket. After which Maya had been so hysterical that Captain Beckett had pulled her from the building. Normally this would have been the end of the world for Maya, but all she could think about was hitching a ride in the Aid Car to Grey Sloan so that she could apologize to her wife. This had concerned Carina.
"Bambina, we can't have you being distracted on the job. That is how you end up getting hurt, or worse," she'd said.
"Oh." The thought hadn't even crossed Maya's mind. She'd been too focused on her remorse on account of missing the injection.
"I know that we agreed that you would always come give me my shots. As happy as it makes me to have you there, being present for that part of the process, realistically you are going to be out on a call sometimes. As we learned today, feeling as though you are supposed to be with me is going to be a major distraction. I love you for that, bella, but I do not want you to be endangering yourself just so you can stick a needle in me. I am okay to do it myself when need be."
"But-"
"No buts, Maya. We are in the process of having a child, and I will never forgive you if you leave me to raise the little bambina or bambino alone," Carina had paused for effect, then sighed before continuing, "When you got demoted you told me that you never wanted to have to choose between becoming a mamma and fighting fires, and right now is one of those moments where you are going to have to make a sacrifice so that you can do both."
"You are going to make such an amazing mother, you know that?" Maya had said in response. "You're so wise." Carina had laughed.
"Grazie. You too are going to make a wonderful mother, bambina. Even if you are going to be the strict parent."
"Hey!"
"It is true. My stern Maya who gets all stiff like she's trying to control every muscle in her body," Carina had pointed out, attempting to embody the demeanor that overtook Maya in such situations. Maya had pouted.
"I'll let that slide since you are the best wife who is okay with me not being able to stand by a promise that I made to you, because I have to adhere to another, more important one."
As necessary as it had been, Carina often found herself wishing that she'd never suggested the change in their routine. She was perfectly capable of administering the shot herself, and was, after all, an expert in the field, but she missed feeling Maya's hands on her— the way that she would wrap her in a hug afterwards and check in to make sure that the pain wasn't too bad. On days when it was, she had held her a little tighter, pressing a kiss to her cheek, and offering to make hot chocolate with marshmallows. Carina missed the aftercare.
She found herself fighting the urge to cry as she examined the bruises covering her abdomen, some green and faded, some purple and mad. They had only recently started appearing. Carina wasn't even sure that Maya had noticed them yet. She hadn't really been in the mood for sex lately due to the overwhelming changes in her body. Taking hormone shots was roughly akin to actively being pregnant, and depending on when they were able to implant the embryos, Carina was looking at feeling out of wack for well over a year. Nonetheless, it was the price to pay for having a child, and she had been well aware of the possible side effects going into it. Though, that did not make Carina any less miserable, or prevent her from wishing her wife was there to hold her.
Almost as if Maya had read her mind, Carina heard the key to the front door turn in the lock. She wondered if it was already Tuesday, if Maya's shift was already over.
"Carina!" Maya called out.
"In the bathroom!" Carina suddenly found herself not caring if it was Tuesday or not. It was almost 6. Maya was just in time.
"Hi."
"Hi," Carina sighed, feeling a portion of the weight that she'd had on her shoulders begin to fall away. Maya stepped towards her and tucked some of her hair behind her ear. She softly brushed her fingers over Carina's stomach, and looked up, giving her a warm smile. Carina shivered from the contact. She felt as if she may cry again. The damn hormones.
"I took the rest of my shift off," Maya said in explanation of her early homecoming, "There is a whole team of capable firefighters that can save the citizens of Seattle. There is only one person who can give my extraordinary wife the love and care that she needs and deserves while she puts an enormous strain on her body in the name of our family." Carina huffed, throwing her hands up in surrender as the tears rolled down her cheeks.
"Mio, Maya, I was trying not to cry, and then you have to go and say that." Maya grinned and wiped away some of Carina's tears with her thumb.
"See this is why you need me here. To hold you throughout this rollercoaster of hormonal emotions, and bring you desserts to satisfy your ever growing sweet tooth, and play nurse to your injection sights." Carina, suddenly feeling shy, chewed the inside of her lip. Maya had seen the bruises. She wouldn't be surprised if they had been the catalyst to Maya's premature return.
"Si," she nodded. "But right now, what I need from you is to give me this shot to make me even more of a hormonal wreck."
"Shit! Right! I'm sorry. I was so determined to make that speech that I didn't think about the possibility of missing it. We're not too late, are we? Oh god what happens if we missed it?" Maya replied frantically. Carina shook her head. She took Maya's hand and lifted it to her lips to press a kiss to the back of her palm, in an effort to stop her spiral.
"Shhh. Breathe, bambina. The alarm hasn't gone off yet. It's only 5:58. Va bene."
"Oh. Yeah. I forgot about the alarm," Maya muttered, laughing at her own expense. "What potentially would happen if we missed it?" She walked over to the counter, took one of the needles from the box, and began to remove the packaging.
"We should try to avoid it. But if it were to happen, I would just need to get the shot as soon as possible. Unless it was too close to the next injection, in which case I would skip one, then get back on the regular schedule."
"I honestly don't know what I would do if you weren't an OB/GYN whose helped so many other women through this exact process, and immediately knows the answers to all of my dumb questions to cure my dumb anxiety," Maya announced, "Quite possibly, we would have had to give up our dream of having kids lest it stress me to death."
"Prima, bella, your questions are not dumb. They are a perfectly normal response to your anxiety, which is also not dumb. Seconda, there is not a universe where we would have had to give up on our dream of kids, because on the off chance that I had not become an OB, you would have spent months reading all about IVF, pregnancy, parenting and everything in between." Maya looked down, a sheepish smile on her face.
"Okay you're right."
"And you're adorable," Carina said. Maya blushed.
"You ready?" she asked as the alarm sounded from Carina's phone, which was placed at the edge of the sink.
"Si." Maya took hold of Carina's waist with one hand, and with the other, as gently as she could while still effectively completing the task at hand, she jabbed the shot into the skin above Carina's belly button. Carina tensed against Maya's grasp. Maya winced. She hated being the cause of Carina's pain even if it were consensually in a manner that was not entirely harmful. If there had been one upside to the weeks where she hadn't been responsible for administering her wife's IVF preparations, it had been not causing her that pain. Maya dropped the used syringe into the trash can, before enveloping the Italian in a tight hug.
"I love you. I'm sorry."
"I love you. Thank you for doing that even though I know how hard it is for you to feel as if you are hurting me," Carina said in response, "And Maya, you're not hurting me. The act itself might be hurting me, but when we look at the big picture— yes I am using an idiom— it is not hurting me because in the end it will lead to a mini us running around."
"A mini you."
"No, a mini us. This child, whenever there is one, may not look like you, bella, but nurture is equally as important as nature, and I just know that you will turn them into a mini me that acts like a mini you."
"That is true. You know, sometimes I worry that you know me too well for my own good."
"No you don't. You are just pissy about it right now because I read you for filth."
"Ugh. There you go again. Also, since when were you the master of idioms?"
"Since I had an over achiever wife who has refused to stop using them and remedying my use of them until I no longer despise them," Carina explained as she poked at Maya's back.
"Well, what do you say you and this overachieving wife of yours go to their room to catch up on some tv and cuddling?"
"Ah, I believe I said over achiever, not overachieving." Maya pulled away, her expression shifting to a playful scowl. She took a step back, and purposefully distanced her hands from Carina's, to prevent any attempts to stop her.
"Rude."
"Hey, I am just pulling your leg."
"Okay I am starting to regret my determination to teach you idioms."
"See, it is not always a good thing to be an over achiever."
"Fine. I promise that I will try not to turn our future kid into an over achiever. Are you happy?"
"Very," Carina said with a mischievous smirk. "Now, in response to your earlier question, I would tell my overachieving wife to kiss me and take me to bed." It was Maya's turn to smirk. She lunged forward, capturing Carina's lips with her own, simultaneously hoisting her up so that she was carrying her. Carina shrieked and sloppily attempted to kiss Maya back. Maya twirled them as she walked, fueled by love and happy thoughts of their future. When she reached the edge of their bed, she dropped Carina onto it.
"I definitely have fewer viable eggs after that." Maya's head shot up, her eyes filled with genuine terror.
"What? Wait really?"
"No, bambina. Mi dispiace. That really was meant to be a joke." Carina gave her a regretful frown, and once again began chewing on the inside of her lip. She should have known that saying something like that would only exacerbate the blonde's anxiety. "Baciami?" Maya took a deep breath, allowing herself to recover from the, she had since realized, irrational worry that she'd destroyed their chances of becoming parents. Then she nodded and crawled towards her wife to fulfill her request.
Carina felt herself succumb to her increasingly heavier eyelids, a battle that she had been fighting from the very first scene of the movie they'd decided to watch. She always slept so much better when Maya was there— this was true for both of them. They weren't unhealthily codependent, had adapted to sleeping alone in the years of having demanding, untraditional jobs that frequently separated them overnight. However, on the nights when they were both home, they felt safer, fell asleep more quickly and stayed so longer.
Ever since they'd set in motion the process of expanding their family, Carina had regularly found herself at the heart of the same vicious nightmare; she was standing outside a burning building, holding a screaming baby, and calling out for her wife, who was inside. Whether it be in an on-call room, on the couch in her office, or at home in their bed, she would tear herself from the dream in a panicked sweat. Upon which, she would immediately check her phone or turn on the news to make sure that Maya hadn't been injured in a five alarm. Carina tried to refrain from contacting her wife directly in the interest of not worrying her, especially given that it was usually beyond past the acceptable time for a check in text. When Maya was beside her, not only was the dream scarce, but on the sporadic occasions that it did still occur, all that she had to do was open her eyes to know that Maya was safe.
Before Carina could fully surrender to her exhaustion, she felt the cool air of the nearby open window on her bare skin. Maya, who had been curled up in a ball with her head in Carina's lap, had moved so that she was straddling Carina's legs. She'd lifted up the bottom of Carina's shirt, which explained the sudden breeze. As Carina eyed her with curiosity, Maya lowered her head so that her chin was resting on the waistband of her wife's shorts. She lightly touched the tip of her finger to the worst of the bruises that littered her abdomen. Carina's breath caught in her throat.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"What I should have been doing all along," Maya replied as she placed a tender kiss onto the very same blemish that she had just caressed. Carina's pulse quickened. Chivalry was still alive and well. Chivalry's name was Maya DeLuca-Bishop, and she had married her. Maya continued until her lips had grazed every bruise. If the wounds were necessary for the creation of their child, then Maya was going to do everything in her power to 'heal' them. Plus, it was extra practice for the motherly rite of passage that was kissing booboos better. By the time Maya was finished, Carina was out like a light. She stayed that way until the first signs of dawn began to peek over the horizon. She never had the nightmare again.