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Carina had been at a conference for five days. It had been very fun, and she had learned a lot, but she had also broken her phone on the first day and had had no time to even try to find a place to get it fixed, meaning she had barely talked to her fiancé the entire time she was gone. She had emailed her a few times, but she was going from 8 am to 10 pm every day and by the time she was done, all she wanted was to fall asleep.
Maya has actually thought about going with her because the conference was in LA and there was a lot to do there, but Carina had told her this was not the conference to come to because of how busy it was.
She had actually not really heard more from Maya in the past four days other than a goodnight and a love you, but even that hadn't happened the past two nights. Carina was a little worried, but she was sure Maya was just busy.
She headed back to Seattle, going home first. She was pretty sure Maya was supposed to be on shift, but she honestly couldn't remember. When she walked in the door, she realized that Maya's jacket that she had left out as she was running out the door was still sitting on the back of the chair which was off because Maya was pretty anal about having the apartment clean.
She went into the kitchen and realized there were dishes in the sink from the day she left. She was worried even more. She decided to pull out her laptop, hoping maybe Maya had emailed her while she was on the place, making a mental note to go get her phone fixed later that day.
She didn't have any emails from Maya, but she did have one from Bailey, telling her Jo Wilson had come down with the flu and asking if she could come in and work today. Carina had fully intended on going to the station to check on Maya, but she knew she needed to go in to work. She also knew if anything was seriously wrong with Maya that Bailey would have made sure she knew about it.
She grabbed her stuff, heading to the hospital. She got straight to work, delivering three babies in the first two hours she was there. She got paged down to the pit, Bailey coming up to her as she was working on her chart.
"Hey," Bailey said, "How was the conference?"
"It was good," Carina said, nodding as she finished up her note, "Very busy, but very informative. How were things here?"
"At the hospital, good," Bailey said, "But you know what happened at the station, right?"
"No," Carina said, worry filling her body, "My phone has been broken and Maya has not really been returning my emails."
"Oh," Bailey said, "Well, there was an incident…"
"Is Maya ok?" Carina asked, "And Ben?"
"Yes," Bailey nodded, "I'm sure you heard about the transfer from 88? Tyler? They were working a 5-alarm call and something happened, and he didn't make it out. Apparently, Bishop gave him the assignment of where to go and suddenly the building collapsed. There was no hope in getting him out, but your fiancé tried. It's been hard on all of them."
Carina sighed, knowing from the early experiences with Rigo and Captain Herrera that losing a firefighter in the line of duty wrecked the house, and she knew it was usually especially hard on Maya because as Captain, she felt responsible for every member of her house.
"Have you talked to my fiancé?" Carina asked, knowing the answer was probably no, but she had to ask.
"No," Bailey said, "I have barely talked to my husband. I have been busy here and he has been busy there. Bishop gave whoever needed or wanted it time off, but I don't know that anyone took any extra time except maybe Gibson who had gotten close with Tyler."
"I need to go check on her," Carina said.
"And I want to let you," Bailey said, "But I need an OB here, and you are it right now. Brown is on at 5 so you just have to wait another couple of hours."
Carina nodded, running her hand over her face. She was sad for her fiancé and her fiancé's friends. She had met Tyler a few times when she was stopping by the station to see Maya and had enjoyed the little bit she had gotten to know him.
She headed back up to her floor only get to called back to the pit within ten minutes.
When she got down there, she saw Vic and Dean wheeling in her patient. She was quickly told that the woman had fallen from a ladder and had an obvious arm deformity, but she was also 5 months pregnant so they wanted to check the baby. Carina quickly did a scan, assuring the mamma that her baby was just fine, everything was intact and normal. She promised to have someone follow up after they fixed her arm and made sure the woman knew to let someone know if anything changed.
Carina then left, happy to find that Vic and Dean were just finishing up their paperwork at the desk.
"Hey," she said, knowing these two would be able to let her know how her fiancé was really doing, "How are you guys?"
"It's been rough," Vic sighed, looking at the ceiling to keep from crying, "It always is. I'm sure your fiancé has told you."
"No," Carina said, shaking her head, "Actually, I just got back from a conference and my phone has been broken and I have barely talked to her. How is she?"
"That actually explains a lot," Dean said, "She hasn't left the station since it happened, and she has been in full on beast Maya mode."
"What?" Carina said, eyes wide, having heard from Bailey that that was four days ago, "Why…I…. Why did none of you make her go? Don't you care?"
"That's not fair Carina," Vic said, tears welling up in her eyes, "This is hard as hell on all of us. We have tried. We care more than…"
"Hey," Dean said, stopping an actual fight from starting, "Listen. We did what we could, and it's not anyone's fault. You know we care Carina. We are all hurting and struggling right now and we do not need to argue."
"Sorry," Carina sighed, taking a deep breath, "I didn't mean it. I know you are all a family and you care for each other so much. I'm just mad at myself for not being here. Is she ok?"
"No," Dean said honestly, "She hasn't eaten with us all week, she barely leaves her office except for calls or to work out in the middle of the night. She hasn't gone home. None of us are ok because we lost one of our own, but she is taking it extra hard."
"Dr. Lewis came and talked to us," Vic said, having calmed down, knowing Carina was only being protective, "But Maya decided to go out with C shift while we were talking to her so I have no idea if she ever did. She assigned him to the spot he was working and I wouldn't be surprised if she's having a hard time with that."
"She didn't know it was going to collapse, right?" Carina asked, already knowing the answer.
"No one did," Dean said, shaking his head, "We found out later the building had been changed and was no longer up to code, but it was changed without a proper inspection or anything after so it was never filed with the city meaning we didn't know about it."
"But you know how Maya gets," Vic said, "We've all tried to talk to her, but you know how she gets."
"Si," Carina sighed, running her hand over her face, "I will come down there once I am off. I can't leave early today."
"Just come when you can," Vic said, "We need to get back."
"Bye," Carina said, "I am so sorry for what happened. If you see Maya, tell her I love her."
"We will," Vic said, nodding, "Thanks Carina."
The brunette sighed, looking up at the clock. It was only 3, meaning she had at least another two hours on before she could go to Maya and it was killing her.
She finished up her shift, getting dragged into an emergency C-section with massive complications about twenty minutes before she was supposed to be off, meaning she ended up working until close to seven.
Once she was done, she handed over her service to Brown before heading to the station.
When she got there, she found Andy sitting at the front desk, her permanent position now that she was nearing her 6th month of her first pregnancy.
"Hey Carina," the Latina said, buzzing her in, "How are you?"
"I am fine," Carina said, "Worried. Where is everyone?"
"They are out on a call," Andy said, sitting back down, "Are you looking for Maya?"
"Always," Carina nodded, "I heard about what happened, and I am so sorry."
"Thanks," Andy said, taking a deep breath, "He was only here for a month, but Tyler was good people. He is going to be missed. It's eating Maya up."
"I heard," Carina sighed, "I wish I had been here."
"Yeah," Andy said, resting her hands on her ever-growing bump, "Well, you are now. Are you coming to the funeral tomorrow?"
"It's tomorrow?" Carina said, "Sorry. My phone broke on my trip, and I have barely had any communication with Maya while I was gone."
"Oh," Andy said, nodding, "Yeah, it's tomorrow. We will all be there. I'm sure Maya would appreciate you being there. His former captain is giving the eulogy, but Maya and Jack are going to ring the bells."
"I will go," Carina nodded, "Has the team eaten yet?"
"No," Andy said, shaking her head, "They got called out just before dinner prep. I was going to throw together something when they said they were coming back."
"I can go do it," Carina said, "I am exhausted and if I sit, I will fall asleep which is the exact opposite of what I want to do so I will go cook."
"I'll come up and check on you soon," Andy said, the phone starting to ring, "Just text me if you need anything."
Carina nodded, going upstairs to the beanery. She immediately started cutting vegetables for a soup, pulling out some ground turkey and browning that in a pan too before putting all of it, along with some chicken broth, into a big pot. She had gotten very good at cooking in mass quantities since she started dating Maya because she cooked for the station quite often.
Once she had the soup going, she pulled out some rice, knowing that after fires, the team was always starving and craving carbs. Just as she was getting rice done, Andy came in.
"Hey, it smells awesome in here," she said, smiling as Carina started fluffing the rice.
"Grazie," Carina said as Andy opened the soup pot, giving it a quick stir, "It's just soup and rice."
"Well, everything you make is bomb so I'm excited," Andy said, "The team is on their way back. They should be here in ten minutes."
"If I can convince Maya to come home with me, can you and Jack cover?" Carina asked.
"Of course," Andy nodded, "She hasn't gone home in almost a week, so if you can get her out of here…Yeah, we've got it."
They heard the barn doors open, the trucks pulling in and then Maya yelling at the team, "19, that was sloppy work. Don't even bother to shower, we are going to be running hose drills in ten minutes."
Carina winced, hearing the scratchiness and strain in Maya's voice even from upstairs.
"I will go take care of that," Carina said, handing dinner over to Andy.
"I am going to go tell the team to come eat," Andy said, covering the food before turning off the stove and following Carina, "And to shower. I'm sure the call was fine. And even if it wasn't, hose drills are not what they need right now."
"Si," Carina nodded, walking toward Maya's office door.
"Good luck," Andy mouthed before going into the barn as Carina took a deep breath before knocking on the door.
"What the hell do you want?" Maya bellowed, her voice cracking and coming out more as a squeak at the end, the door slowly opening, "This better be…Oh, Carina."
"Hi Bambina," Carina said, slowly coming into the office to find her fiancé on the floor doing push-ups in her turnout pants and boots, "Come here."
"I don't have time right now, Carina," she said, shaking her head as she did another five push-ups before standing up, "I need to go do hose drills with my team and…"
"Calmati," Carina said, stopping Maya from moving, "Bambina, be still. I heard what happened from Vic and Dean and Andy."
"I'm fine," Maya said, voice getting more and more raspy as she talked, pulling out of Carina's grasp, "But my team is being lazy and I need to go run drills with them so that we don't have any more mistakes that lead to…I need to have them prepared. I didn't and look what happened."
"Bambina, from what I have heard, this had nothing to do with you being prepared or not doing the right things," Carina said as Maya started to pace, "It was an accident because of someone else's mistakes. You didn't do anything."
"He was on my team," Maya said, voice barely coming out anymore, but she kept pushing it, "He was my responsibility. Everything is the captain's responsibility and I failed at that."
"You did not fail, Bambina," Carina said, shaking her head, "It is not your fault."
"Then why does it feel like it is?" Maya asked, stopping her pacing and looking at Carina, "I brought my station to the scene and didn't bring them all home. Tyler had two kids, 8 and 10, and now they are going to grow up without their dad because I didn't keep him safe."
Carina saw Maya start to spin out, seeing the panic starting to build.
"Bambina, come here," Carina said, grabbing Maya's shoulders gently, just to get her to focus, "This is not your fault."
Maya tried to fight Carina for a second, trying to get away from her. However, Carina wasn't going to let her go. Maya struggled for a second before the floodgates opened and the tears started, her entire body falling into Carina's.
Carina struggled to hold her up slowly lowered them to the floor, just holding Maya as she cried. She rubbed her back, rocking them a little as Maya let out the emotions she had been bottling up for days.
"I'm right here, Bambina," Carina whispered gently, "Just let it out."
Maya sobbed in her arms for at least half an hour, Carina just holding her tightly, trying to provide her whatever comfort she possibly could. Eventually, the tears tapered off, Maya staying buried in Carina's arms.
As they sat there, Carina noticed Maya seemed warm, though she wasn't sure if it was because of all the crying or if she was actually running a fever.
Finally, after another ten minutes in Carina's arms, Maya pushed back a little, Carina handing her a tissue she had just manage to reach off a shelf.
"Sorry," Maya said, wiping her eyes, "I just…I don't…"
"Bambina, hey," Carina said, "It's ok. You went through something traumatic. However, you need to deal with that is ok. What is not ok, is running yourself into the ground and blaming yourself for something you didn't do."
Maya hung her head, knowing that Carina was right but also having a hard time believing it wasn't her fault.
"I haven't been able to go home," Maya said quietly, "Because he will never get to go home again. I know it's stupid, but I don't know. I just…"
"It's ok," Carina said, "You don't have to know why, but you do need to come home because you cannot just stay here forever."
"I can't go home now," Maya said, the two of them getting off the floor, "I have to work."
"Andy and Jack can handle things here," Carina said, "I already talked to Andy."
"I…I'm on shift," Maya said, rubbing her forehead, trying to ease the headache that had been there all day but was so much more intense now as she sat down in her chair, "And the funeral is tomorrow. I have to be here for that."
"Bambina, you have not been home in almost a week," Carina said, "And when was the last time you had a meal or slept?"
"I have been grabbing protein shakes here and there," Maya said, "But my stomach has been feeling sick since it happened and every time I try to eat anything else, I feel like I'm going to throw up. I actually couldn't keep anything down for the first two days after it happened so the shakes are an improvement. And I have slept a little, maybe half an hour a night."
"Bambina, we are going home," Carina "You have to take care of yourself, or I am going to take care of you. You are more of a liability to your team than an asset at this point."
"My team. I told them we were going to run drills, I need to go…woah," Maya said, going to stand up only to find herself insanely dizzy.
"Maya," Carina said, by her side in a second, "What's wrong?"
"I just got really dizzy," Maya said, rubbing her forehead.
"We are going home," Carina said, more adamantly this time, "You are clearly not ok, and you need to rest. And tomorrow, you will rest except the funeral, and the day after too. You are hurting yourself Bambina."
Maya almost argued back, but she was feeling shitty and overwhelmed and really just wanted to be in Carina's arms so she just nodded, tears running down her cheeks again.
"Bambina, what's wrong?" Carina asked, squatting in front of her.
"I don't know," Maya said, "I'm sorry I didn't sleep or eat or take care of myself. I'm sorry."
"Shush, now," Carina said, pulling her into a hug, "I am not mad at you. I know how hard it is for you to remember to take care of yourself. We are going to go home, though. Don't worry about your team, Andy told them to go eat. I made soup so they are well fed. Now, you are going to let me take care of you."
"Ok," Maya rasped, standing again, this time with Carina's support, "I need to get out of my uniform and put my turnouts away."
"Do you need help?" Carina asked as they walked into Maya's bunk.
"No," Maya said, "But just don't leave?"
"I am right here," Carina said as Maya stepped out of her turnouts.
Maya didn't really want to put back on the clothes she had come to the station in 5 days ago so she pulled out a pair of sweatpants she kept around for sleeping and one of her t-shirts before slipping on her tennis shoes.
"Ready to go?" Carina asked as she grabbed Maya's backpack.
"I need to put my turnouts away," Maya said, her voice all but gone at this point.
"I will carry them," Carina said, seeing how tired Maya truly looked.
Maya didn't argue which Carina took to be a good sign that Maya was accepting help. Carina picked up the pants, surprised a little at their weight but not saying anything because she wanted to help Maya.
They stepped out of the office as Maya grabbed Carina's hand.
"Going home?" Andy asked from her place at the desk.
"Yeah," Maya nodded, "You got the station?"
"With Gibson, yeah," Andy nodded, "Go get some rest. You look and sounds like hell."
Maya rolled her eyes a little, guiding Carina to the turnout room.
"This is my spot," Maya said, getting her pants in correctly, "I need to go get my jacket and helmet too, from the barn."
"Come on," Carina said, taking Maya's hand again.
They went into the barn, finding Travis there polishing the engine.
"Hey Cap," he said, smiling, "Hey Carina."
"Hello Travis," Carina said as Maya grabbed her helmet and jacket.
"What are you doing?" Travis asked as Carina took the helmet from Maya, placing it on her own head.
"I'm going home," Maya rasped out, "I'm not feeling great and I am not in a position to captain you all well."
"Good," Travis said, knowing how hard it was for any captain to admit they were not in a place to do their job, especially his captain, "You need it. See you tomorrow?"
"Yeah," Maya nodded, "I'll be there."
"Feel better," Travis said as they headed into the turnout room.
"You look really sexy in that helmet," Maya said, smiling at Carina, "Like insanely sexy."
Carina stuck her tongue out at her fiancé but also posed for a couple of pictures for Maya before putting the helmet away as Maya hung her jacket.
"Let's get you home Bambina," Carina said as Maya yawned.
The blonde nodded a little, holding Carina's hand as they headed out of the station.
"Bye guys," Andy called, "See you tomorrow. Get some rest Maya."
They both waved before walking out, Maya shivering a little in the cool air. They drove home, Maya just staring out the window as they did.
Once they got home, Carina helped Maya out of the car before going upstairs.
"I am going to go heat up some chicken broth," Carina said, "or something else if you want it."
"I'm not hungry," Maya rasped out, shivering more.
"I know," Carina said, pulling Maya into a hug, using the opportunity to press a kiss into her forehead, wincing at how hot she felt, "But you need to eat something. Just some broth, ok?"
Maya nodded, just letting Carina hold her for another minute before they broke apart.
"Before we do anything, you need a shower," Carina said, "You still smell like smoke."
"I know," Maya said, rubbing her eyes, "Will you join me?"
"Is that even a question?" Carina asked, taking Maya's hand and guiding her into the bathroom, "Sit here for a second."
Carina sat Maya down on the closed toilet seat, pulling out a thermometer and sticking it in Maya's mouth before starting the shower.
Once the thermometer beeped, she pulled it out of her mouth, frowning as she looked at it.
"101.6," Carina said, "Bambina, you must feel terrible."
"It's probably mostly because I haven't been sleeping," Maya mumbled as she pulled off her clothes, "But I do feel pretty bad."
They got in the shower, neither of them having the energy to do anything other than get clean. Once they were done, they pulled on pajamas before going into the kitchen, Carina starting some chicken broth, adding some homemade noodles to give it some substance before making herself a sandwich.
"Do you need help?" Maya asked, yawning a little bit as she filled two cups with water.
"No," Carina said, "This is just about done."
Carina dished up the food before they both went into the bedroom.
"Thanks Carina," Maya rasped out, "God, my voice sounds so bad."
"This is why you shouldn't yell so much at work," Carina said, handing Maya her mug, "Or you have picked up a virus because you haven't been taking care of yourself. Rest your voice tonight."
Maya nodded, taking a sip of the broth. The two of them ate their dinner, Carina telling Maya about her week away as they did so.
Once the food was done, Carina took the dished into the kitchen. Maya went into the bathroom, getting herself ready for bed. Carina joined her after a minute, both of them so sleepy. They finished getting ready before going back into the bedroom.
"Get some sleep, Bambina," Carina said, pulling Maya close, "And wake me up if you need anything."
"Thanks," Maya nodded, "Just a heads up, I have been having nightmares every time I close my eyes so if that happens, I will go sleep on the couch so you can sleep."
"No," Carina said, shaking her head, "If you have a nightmare, I will wake up with you and help you. You don't have to do this alone, Maya. I am right here."
"I love you," Maya rasped out, tears filling her eyes, "So much."
"I love you too," Carina said, kissing her forehead, "Now, sleep. I am right here."
Maya nodded, letting her eyes slip closed. She knew tonight was probably going to be hard, but she knew that with Carina by her side, she was going to make it through.
What did you think? Thanks for reading! More to come Thursday!