Positive

Maya was keyed up about something, Carina wasn’t sure what, but she could tell that whatever Maya had planned for today was making her nervous. Carina put her hand Maya’s head rest before moving it to lightly stroked Maya cheek hoping to relax Maya some. Maya turned into Carina’s touch while keeping her eyes firmly on the road. Carina sees the smile break across Maya’s face, and Carina smiles too, feeling a small victory because she had managed to lighten Maya’s stress for a second. She and Maya had been doing well since they had been going slow, and they were falling back into their marriage, stronger than before.

Watching Maya drive Carina was reminded of the first time they went on vacation together, Maya had been so rigid about leaving at a certain time and was focused on the drive, Carina wasn’t sure Maya was having any fun and understood why Maya had told her she wanted to try to go on a vacation with Carina. Carina let Maya micro manage the details and had relaxed in the passenger seat, laughing, and trying to coax Maya into relaxing with her eventually she had succeeded in getting Maya to sing along to a song on the radio and they made an unscheduled detour at a little café that Carina had seen and wanted to try. It had been the first of many road trips they had gone on together and Maya was always like this when she drove, focused. Determined. But today there was just something that Carina couldn’t identify in those expressive blue eyes.

“Are you going to tell me where you are taking me, Bambina?” Carina asks.

“It’s a surprise, but like a good one, I think. Maybe. It could be a horrible idea,” Maya babbled gripping the wheel harder. Clearly trying to both talk herself up and down about whatever it was she had planned. Carina wasn’t sure which was winning.

Carina was curious, where could Maya be taking them. Carina relaxed into her seat, letting her hand drop to Maya’s thigh and looked out the window, to try to figure out where Maya was taking her. They were in a neighborhood, and she noticed that it was halfway between Grey-Sloan and the Station. It was cute, there were good sized yards, and it had some character in the homes, which Carina liked, she hated the cookie cutter houses that seemed to line all neighborhoods in America from what Carina could tell.

Maya pulls up in front of a house that looks like a fire had gotten the better of, Carina looks over at Maya, “what are we doing here?”

Instead of answering Maya gets out of the car and pops her trunk gets something out of the trunk and makes her way to Carina’s side of the car and opens in the door. She opens Carina’s door and holds out a pair of boots, “you should put these on.”

“Maya, what is this?” Carina asks again taking the boots from Maya and she took her own shoes off and put the boots on before getting out of the car. She looked down at the boots, and smiled because Maya had to have gone out and bought these for her specifically for this as Carina didn’t own any footwear that would be deemed appropriate near the ruins of a fire. Carina looked down at Maya’s feet and saw that she was wearing her boots that she had to wear with her turnout on.

“What do you think?” Maya asks and waves her hand in the direction of the house destroyed by fire.

“What do I think of… what?” Carina asks not sure what Maya is getting at.

“Right, well maybe it’s better if I show you,” Maya says and holds out her hand which Carina takes.

“Bambina, what is this?” Carina asks again as she lets herself be pulled towards the house. Wondering why Maya would want to show her a ruined house.

Maya heads towards the door and gets a set of keys out of her pocket and opens the door, Carina wasn’t sure why anyone would bother locking the door of this place, Maya looks over her shoulder and says, “we did overhaul, and everything should be stable and safe, but watch your step. No chance of reignition, but there is exposed wood and some metal, but the boots will keep you safe from anything sticking up in the floor.”

“Maya, what are we doing in a burned-out house?” Carina asks as she walks into the house behind Maya.

They walk into what Carina thinks was once a living room and she watches as Maya rubs her hands together, she was nervous about this, whatever this was. And Carina watches Maya breath in and exhale looks up at Carina and begins speaking, “okay, well I was here last shift, house fire,” Maya gestures around, “clearly. And during overhaul I got to thinking, this place has great bones, there is a ton of space. There are four bedrooms, an office off the kitchen, and the basement isn’t bad either.” Maya pauses and then continues what Carina is sure is very prepared speech, “I want you to come home, but I also know that the apartment doesn’t feel that way. And that it doesn’t feel safe to you anymore, and I’m not sure we could fix that, or we probably could with time. I know you aren’t ready to live together again, even if I do spend most nights at the hotel with, but I want us, when you’re ready, to begin again in a new place, free of all the bad. And begin again in place we can fill with all kinds of good.”

“Maya…” Carina begins.

“I’m almost done,” Maya says holding up her hand to keep Carina from interrupting, “I swear. I love you, Carina and I am all in. I want you. I want a family with you. Kids. I want to meet them, and we would need more room with kids. And they should grow up somewhere they can ride their bikes down the street and if we have more than one, they need their own room or they might kill each other. I mean we don’t have to have more than one obviously, but I always kinda figured we might. Two is a good number and yesterday I thought this house would be a good place to raise them, when we are ready to, not that has to begin again. I mean, obviously we would have to… what I’m trying to say is I’m all in and I wanted you to know that,” Maya finishes clearly forcing herself to quit talking before her rambling gets out of control.

Carina looks around, she notices that this living room has a wall of windows, and the light would be coming in, if it weren’t for a board covering the windows. She looks back at Maya who is staring intently at Carina waiting for her to say something, “you want us to raise our bambinos in a burnt-out house?”

Maya looks around ringing her hands, “well this place is down to the studs, down to the foundation. We would be able to make it our own. Build it into something amazing, just like we are doing with us.” Maya smiles clearly enjoying the metaphor that they had been living for weeks now.

“What happened here?” Carina asks still looking around at everything, Carina could admit with a ton of work this house would be beautiful. It had great bones, she wandered towards the kitchen wanting to see what it looked like.

Maya hurried towards Carina, “just be careful where you are walking. The house wasn’t in the best condition before the kids last night tried to perform a seance or something, I don’t know. The kid who got out before the fire really got going, was a walking contact high according to Theo and the one I got out smelled more like pot than smoke.”

“A séance?”

“Yea, the place was empty for months before that so they broke in and then stupidly set the place on fire,” Maya explains and then noticing Carina was still staring around the kitchen, “I was thinking we could put a breakfast table over here do most of the meals here and then have the formal dining room for like Christmas dinner and stuff like that,” Maya pointed, “and a chef’s block big enough for all your cheeses and pastas and everything else but enough room to still work on it. And we’ll paint it something lively and something better than the boring white the apartment has.”

Carina smiles at Maya feeling the magic between them, Carina knows that Maya had put a lot in thought into this and she sees what Maya sees in the house. This could be theirs; they could make the magic here and they could raise their baby here. Carina absently put a hand on her stomach, they could be happy here, Carina just first had to tell Maya. She hoped that Maya would be happy that they finally had a positive and not be sad that she hadn’t been there so that they could find out together.

“Hey, Carina, is everything okay?” Maya asks having noticed a tear running down Carina’s face. Carina watches the nervous smile on Maya drop completely and she moved over to Carina, stopping short sure she had messed up.

Carina quickly batted the tears away, and took Maya’s hand, “Maya…”