la princesa

It had been three months since Mapi and Ingrid had first slept together, and they had officially been dating for five months now. It had been wonderful, for the most part. They were over at Ingrid’s house, but both of them moved between the others' houses so freely it felt like they lived in both places. They had keys, full access, at any time. It just made life easier, and Ingrid never felt like either of them really had anything to hide of big concern.

They went out for cute coffee dates, traveled all over Spain and Europe winning game after game, and spent such vast amounts of time with each other that to outside eyes, they were nauseated with happiness.

And they were! For the most part…

But Ingrid can’t seem to get over the hurdle of telling Mapi about her past, about her relationship with Maia, all of the horrible things that she had both done and received. She couldn’t really understand why, especially not when the Spaniard was as kind and understanding as she was.

Every time the opportunity had presented itself, the Norwegian choked. She never knew what to say, or how to start, or even how to approach the conversation in general. It all felt so overwhelming, she could never do it.

So she didn’t. Her relationship suffered for it, but she never mentioned it, and Mapi never brought it up.

And they continued.

The two had just gotten back from a game the night before against Sociedad, and had gone straight back to the midfielder’s place. They had gone into work for recovery today, but it was a light day and they had the weekend off, so spirits were good.

Ingrid was sitting in a chair next to her couch, scrolling on her phone waiting for Aitana, Pina, and Frido to arrive. The girls were going out to get drinks at a nearby bar that was only a twenty minute walk from the brunette’s apartment.

Mapi would usually come with them, but she had a sunrise photoshoot the next morning for a sponsorship she had gotten recently, so she elected to stay behind and go to bed soon in anticipation of her early morning.

The Spaniard had gone in to shower while Ingrid had been getting ready to go out, slipping into tight jeans and a skin tight top that Mapi ogled at appreciatively before the brunette shooed her into the bathroom, her cheeks turning fire engine red.

No matter how many times the defender showed or voiced her obvious attraction to the brunette, it always made Ingrid’s heart race, butterflies erupting in her stomach at the appreciative glint in Mapi’s eyes. It wasn’t possessive, really, but rather an affectionate gaze, and the midfielder preens under the attention of the defender.

The Spaniard emerged from the shower, her damp hair dripping down onto her white shirt, her black sweats sitting low on her hips, revealing just a sliver of tanned and well muscled abs. The view had Ingrid looking up curiously, glancing over at the clock. She had a few minutes before the girls arrived, and she licked her lips subconsciously before she looked a little closer at Mapi’s body language, which caused her to pause.

The center back was standing rather defensively, and everything about her was tight and taut, and not in the good way. But the biggest tell was the fact that she was wringing her hands, and Ingrid was immediately skeptical, her eyebrow raising right as Mapi shifted from one foot to another.

“Mapi, what's wrong? You’re scaring me,” the taller woman asked, standing as the blonde looked around the room for a moment before opening her mouth.

“I’m getting a new mirror delivered.” Mapi blurted out, her speech stilted and audibly uncomfortable. She finally quit playing with her hands, letting them fall to rest neutrally at her side as she watched Ingrid to see what her reaction would be.

The Norwegian is so stunned she can hardly formulate a response, her mouth opening in surprise. It’s as if she can feel herself leaving her body at Mapi’s words, and she doesn’t quite feel like she has a handle on her actions or thoughts, but there are a million different ones racing through her head at the same time.

No.

It was too much, too soon.

This was too much.

She needed that mirror (why?)

It couldn’t leave.

That mirror had been there since her first day in Barcelona. It had been there through everything, a reminder of her progress and an acceptance of her faults. And Ingrid knows it probably isn’t really Mapi overstepping to want to get a new mirror, but the midfielder somehow feels like a line has been crossed.

Yeah, Ingrid realizes that a line has been crossed. But the problem is that it’s the line that has stopped her from sharing all of herself with the defender. All the blonde is trying to do is know the brunette just a little bit more.

The Norwegian should want that. The midfielder does want that. But instead of using this as a chance to be more open and honest with Mapi, Ingrid reverts back to her old habits, her fight or flight response kicking in.

“You did what?” The Norwegian finally managed to choke out, and she doesn’t quite recognize her voice. It’s thick and low, an anger in it she didn’t really realize she was capable of possessing around the blonde. She knows that voice, remembers it from the countless arguments between her and Maia. She never wanted to use it again, especially with Mapi, but she can’t seem to stop herself. She can tell that the center back notices the shift in her speech too, the way that the blonde’s body repositions back into a neutral stance, as if she had prepared for this backlash from her girlfriend.

“You deserve to have a mirror that isn’t shattered, Ingrid. That mirror has been sitting there, covered for months, before we even started dating, and I don’t even know why! Every time I ask about it you change the subject, but regardless you deserve to not have to live with a broken mirror in your home every day,” Mapi reasons calmly, but Ingrid’s irrational anger only flairs at her words, her feet planted on the ground as her brain screams at her to calm down.

But her heart is flashing back to all the times that Maia would tell her about what she deserved. All of the times that she had screamed that Ingrid wasn’t worth anything, that she didn’t deserve anything. The blonde had no idea what she deserves, because at the end of the day she didn’t know the real Ingrid. The Norwegian had never shared it with her. Maia had done horrible things in their relationship, but Ingrid was by no means passive. She had done terrible things as well, said horrible things to her girlfriend. She didn’t deserve the good, not when she had done such horrible things. And maybe a tiny part of her brain can acknowledge the fact that maybe she does still deserve love in spite of that, but the bigger part of her brain right now, the one that is on autopilot, is absolutely sure that she is a monster and deserves nothing.

But Mapi didn’t understand that, because the brunette had never informed her. She had kept that part of herself hidden, desperate for the blonde to still think she was a good person.

And that exact choice is now blowing up in her face as her temper gets the better of her.

Mapi couldn’t possibly know that something as simple as telling her she was deserving of a mirror would be something that would set Ingrid off in such a dramatic way, but suddenly the Norwegian is past rationality in the flash of an instant. Suddenly she’s reminded of all those times in her tiny apartment in Wolfsburg, her and Maia screaming at one another until they were purple in the face.

When she looks back on this argument, Ingrid will see that somehow, the way that this transpired was a trigger. It’s an unfortunate turn of events considering how well the last five months had been. The two had been happy together and Ingrid had managed not to fuck things up royally yet, making her best effort at communicating.

But there are still shadows lurking in the background that she hasn’t dealt with, clearly. She hadn’t been a good girlfriend to Mapi, and she was on the precipice of ruining everything she had tried so hard to work on for the last five months.

“Why the fuck would you do that? This is my house, my life Mapi!” Ingrid seethes, her voice just on the side of too loud, her face settled in anger. But the Spaniard doesn’t take the bait, and manages to stay calm. The midfielder hates (loves) her for it. She wants to get a reaction, wants Mapi to fall to her level and yell at her, to give her some justification for all of this. But the blonde is steadfast, refusing to let Ingrid ruin this.

The defender had been expecting this at some point. Maybe not about this necessarily, she’s a little lost on how a mirror has such instrumental importance to the Norwegian’s life, but she expected this. Ingrid might not have told her anything, but Mapi wasn’t stupid. She knew that her relationship with Maia, from what little she knew, had been toxic and poor on both ends.

The Spaniard is determined to work through it, to not let one instance stop them from what is such a good thing.

“I know that it’s your life. But I also know that to keep getting better, you need to push yourself, or be pushed. And I feel like the mirror was a bad reminder of everything, of everything that you’ve worked to move away from since you’ve moved here. You’re not that person anymore Ingrid, you don’t have to be. It hurts me to come over here and see it every day, to think that you still think that way about yourself. I just want you to be kind to yourself,” Mapi reassured gently, trying to walk on eggshells and reason with the green eyed woman.

But Ingrid was beyond reason, entirely different from the person that Mapi knew and had come to care so deeply about. The Norwegian knew that she was beyond help, and she knew from the look on her face that Mapi knew that too, but that didn’t stop her from trying to find some way to turn this in her favor. The twisted, sick part of her that she thought that she had left behind in Wolfsburg needed for the reckless hope in the shorter woman’s eyes to let go.

Deep down, for the past five months, Ingrid had been waiting for Mapi to let go. Waiting for the blonde to leave, to decide that the Norwegian was too much or too damaged. But at every chance she had to leave or sub out, she stayed.

Maybe somewhere deep down, the brunette is trying to get the blonde to leave. At least in this scenario, it’s on her own terms, she has something to place blame on. It’s a better alternative than having to watch Mapi leave because she realizes just how screwed up Ingrid is.

“Mapi this isn’t your life, these aren’t your decisions, you don’t get to tell me what I deserve,” Ingrid hurls out at her, before she refrains herself for a moment. It’s just a second, but finally she knows exactly what to say to win this. It’s all she needs to deliver the final blow, and if this doesn’t get something out of the amber eyed woman, she doesn’t know what will.

“This is something that Maia would have done,” Ingrid spat out, and finally, finally, Mapi breaks. Ingrid watches the way that her face transforms, just for a moment, anger seeping through her features.

“Ingrid!” She barks out, a mixture of hurt and anger, and the midfielder can genuinely say that despite her attack she wasn’t expecting Mapi to raise her voice. She didn’t think the center back would actually take the bait, even if that had been her goal. The blonde had never done it before, not when they had gotten in petty little arguments, not really even when they had their argument before sleeping together for the first time.

Ingrid rationally knows that she’s 24, living in her house, standing here with Mapi in Barcelona, but for a flash of a second she’s 22 again, standing in her little apartment in Wolfsburg, listening to Maia scream at her on the top of her lungs.

She flinches at Mapi’s raised voice. She doesn’t mean to, not really, she just reacts. Like there’s still some part of her that’s waiting for Maia to come and shove her back into the wall all over again like she always would. She doesn’t think that Mapi is capable of something like that, but her mind betrays her, even if it's just for a millisecond.

Mapi doesn’t miss it, and Ingrid watches in horror as the color in the Spaniards face drains, a distinct realization dawning across her face. She’s just bordering on pity, and the brunette is spiraling, needs to find some way to turn this around.

“For fucks sake Mapi,” she spits back out, her words laced with venom as she tries to gain control of the situation, and she watches as the blonde practically startles backward at the shift in Ingrid, her entire face falling at the taller woman’s words, and the sick, masochistic part of the brunette that used to rule so much of her life is screaming in triumph.

Mapi’s face is painted in so many different emotions, this maelstrom of hurt and mortification and shock, and Ingrid knows it's going to be burned into her head for the rest of her life, seeing the Spaniard like that.

That she was the one who caused Mapi to have that expression. Everything in her is screaming at her to stop but she won’t, she can’t, she’s in too deep to stop now.

All of the progress that she’s made over these last five months feels like it’s wailing, a dull ache in the back of her head that she shoves away. The blonde seems to try and settle herself, fighting to get back to the neutrality and patience she had started this conversation with.

“I am not Maia, and I know that you know that. And I know that everything you’re saying right now is coming from a place of hurt, and you’re trying to hurt me but I’m here to tell you—”

Mapi is interrupted by the sound of knocking on the door, and they can both hear laughter coming from the other side of the wooden door. Both women freeze, looking over at one another for a moment before Ingrid turns, grabbing her purse and walking around from the couch and directly up to her girlfriend, until she’s standing just a few feet in front of her.

“Mapi, if it really is so hard for you to watch me be a fuck up, then honestly you should just go. Because news flash, that’s what I am, this is who I am and nothing you say or do with your little hero savior complex is ever going to change that,” Ingrid says as she steps past Mapi, striding forward until she’s nearly reached the door, when her steps falter for a second, and she comes to a stop.

Her brain is catching up with her, and she can already feel herself turning her brain into a punching bag, nothing but why the fuck did you just do this? and why did you screw up one of the only good things in your life? as she steps toward the door.

But the thing is that really, despite her insistence on the fact, Ingrid isn’t a cruel person. She may say some bad things, but in her heart she wasn’t a bad person. She might disagree, but she really wasn’t, and the defender knows that. So the Norwegian takes a deep breath, and says what she needs to in order to clean this up somewhat. She knows Mapi is going to leave, and she wants her to know that it’s okay, that she understands.

Nobody could ever love someone as barbarous as herself.

“Coming!” She calls out gently to the girls standing behind her door, before she drops her head, turning it to the side just slightly. She can see Mapi’s silhouette standing there, watching her.

The amber eyed woman is always watching her.

“Mapi, you should go. I’m not worth this, all of this anger and cruelty is not worth this,” Ingrid says quietly, but she doesn’t offer Mapi the chance to respond, she can’t. She’s a coward, but she can’t face the outright rejection of the woman that she loves, of the woman she never got the chance to tell that fact to.

So instead, she steels her expression into a pretend smile as she pulls the door open, drifting out into the hallway and whisking her friends away from the scene of her latest crime, from her latest victim.

Mapi listens as the commotion of the group of women recedes before she sits heavily onto one of the dining room chairs, raking her hands through her hair and trying to figure out how all of this went so wrong, so downhill, so quickly.

—

Ingrid doesn’t mean to get drunk when she goes out with her friends. Really, she planned on just having one or two drinks and calling it good, enough to get a pleasant little buzz but not enough to have a hangover.

But her mind has seemingly made up this lovely drinking game where every time she thinks of Mapi’s hurt expression after she had screamed at her, she’s reaching for the nearest glass of alcohol, and before long she’s so drunk she can hardly stand up straight. She can hardly think straight, and there’s nothing swirling around in her brain but how much she’s screwed her relationship up in the span of ten minutes.

Frido had immediately noticed something was off, as soon as Ingrid had appeared through the door. On the walk to the bar, she lets Aitana and Claudia walk ahead until she has the Norwegian by herself. The forward looks over at the midfielder, at the downfallen expression and generally quietness of the Norwegian.

Frido has known Ingrid for a long time. She’s seen her at her best, right when she came to Wolfsburg, and at her worst, in the thick of both relationship and football problems. The Swede had watched her isolate herself even more once she came to Barcelona, and then as if on a dime turn around and blossom into the friendly, loving person that Frido always knew who she was.

The brunette was a kind, sweet person, despite the way that she wrote herself off. Frido knew who the real Ingrid was.

And she also knew when something was wrong.

“Hey Ingrid,” Frido said gently, offering a small, sympathetic smile to the Norwegian, who lifts her head and does her best to offer one back.

“Hey Frids,” Ingrid says, but there’s something off in her tone. It’s just…not right.

“Is everything okay?” Frido asks, and Ingrid nodded, but when the blonde looked at her skeptically for a moment, the brunette caved, her shoulders falling in as she shook her head slightly.

“It’s…it’s complicated,” Ingrid said, and Frido could tell from tone and expression that she wasn’t getting anything else out of the brunette. She placed her hand on the green eyed woman’s shoulder softly, and gave it a little squeeze.

“Okay, well I’m always here if you need or want to talk, okay? Anytime, for anything,” Frido said, and Ingrid nodded once, placing her hand over the Swede’s for just a moment.

“Thanks,” Ingrid said softly.

“Now, let's go have some fun!” she added, trying her best to shake off the inner turmoil she was feeling to have fun with her friends, shaking Frido’s arm playfully before she charges ahead to throw her arms around Claudia and Aitana’s shoulders.

Frido smiled at her friend's antics, but something pulled at the back of her brain.

Ingrid was excellent at hiding things. Frido didn’t say it to be mean, it was just simply the truth. The brunette was a master at hiding her own emotions, and if she was showing any mental instability, it meant that something was really wrong.

A part of Frido wants to cancel this whole thing, feign illness and ask Ingrid to take her home, or come up with some other excuse. But the other part of her decides to trust the brunette, knows that she needs to let the Norwegian have her own limits.

When Frido catches up with the group, she notices Aitana looking at her strangely out of the corner of her eye. She turns to look at the Spaniard, who quickly flashes her eyes toward Ingrid, who is walking ahead with Claudia.

Aitana's eyes are skeptical, and Frido can tell immediately that she realizes that something is off with Ingrid as well, but the forward just shakes her head slightly. Aitana offers a small nod back, but the skepticism never leaves her face.

By the time they’re an hour into being at the bar, Frido is beginning to regret her decision not to make up an excuse to go home.

Ingrid had been fine for the first fifteen minutes. The girls had gotten some drinks, done a little bit of dancing. But the Norwegian’s energy had seemed to sap out of her after that, her face darkening as she shrunk back into herself.

It was at that point that she had started drinking more, ordering round after round after round, until even Claudia, who tended to air on the side of more clueless, is looking over at Frido and Aitana with concern.

They try to pull the drinks away from her, but Ingrid had just swatted them away, stating that she’s fine. Everything about her screams that something is wrong, but the Norwegian is tight lipped, doesn’t say a word about anything despite the fact that she’s drinking like an alcoholic.

Finally, when they’ve only been at the bar for about an hour, and Ingrid has downed more drinks than any of the girls could keep track of, they call time of death on the night. Ingrid is practically slumped over at the table they are at, so drunk she can hardly stand.

“I think…I think maybe we should call Mapi,” Claudia says quietly after a moment of looking at the brunette, and Aitana and Frido both just nod, having thought the same exact thing. All three of them are starting to regret not calling the Spaniard sooner as they take in the sight of Ingrid, but Claudia steps away quickly, walking out of the loud bar with the phone to her ear while the other two stay to watch over the midfielder.

“Ingrid? We called Mapi, she’s going to come and take you home,” Frido offers softly as she places her hand on the brunette’s shoulder again, figuring that will put the very drunk Ingrid at ease. What she did not expect was for the Norwegian’s face to fall, despair settling into her features as she looked up at her friend, her eyes unfocused and her cheeks flushed.

“No! You can’t call Mapi…she…she won’t come,” Ingrid slurs out, her eyes wild at the thought of them even calling the defender. Aitana and Frido look over at each other for a moment with confusion, neither of them having thought of the possibility that maybe the center back was the reason that Ingrid was upset. Or that she had anything to do with the brunette being upset, in any capacity really.

The green eyed woman wasn’t secretive, not exactly, she just held things close to her chest, and didn't share easily. She didn’t share very often in general, and as much as it felt a bit like a cheat to talk to her when she was this far gone, both of the women couldn’t help but push a little more into what was making the Norwegian so upset. Frido was going to take any chance she could to learn more about Ingrid if she thought it would help make her friend feel better.

“Did…did something happen with Mapi, Ingrid?” Aitana asks softly as she looks over at Frido, her voice as soft as she can manage over the thumping music of the bar that they’re in. When Ingrid looks up at the two of them again, having previously had her head in her hands, there are tears in her eyes and Frido and Aitana go from confused to concerned in the blink of an eye.

There’s a million thoughts flying through Frido’s head in that moment, from wondering if Ingrid’s in trouble to thinking that maybe Mapi said something, to anything else in between. The Swede had only seen the midfielder cry a handful of times, and the look on the brunette’s face scares her.

“I fucked it up you guys…I…we got in a fight and I said shit that I didn’t mean but I was so mean and I…she’s so good and I messed it all up for myself, like always,” Ingrid murmurs out, her voice hardly legible to the other girls, tears flowing down her cheek. She slumps back against the table, her shoulder’s shaking, and Frido’s heart breaks at the sight, at the pain her friend is clearly putting on herself.

She looks over at Aitana, who is looking at Frido with concerned, furrowed eyebrows. The blonde glances at Ingrid, at the puddle of tears she’s collecting, and she looks back at her smaller friend, her brain doing its best to think logically.

“Aitana, can you check to see if she’s coming?” Frido says quietly, hoping that Ingrid can’t hear her. The brunette nods before slipping away, heading toward the entrance of the bar where Claudia had gone to call Mapi.

Frido slips in to sit next to Ingrid, splaying a hand against her back and rubbing up and down in a soothing motion. The Swedish player was in an interesting position, having known Ingrid for longer than most of the girls here. She had watched helplessly as her friend had crumbled before her eyes, and she had hoped with everything in her, with reckless abandon, that a move to Barcelona could be different for the Norwegian. And it had seemed to be working, for a while at least, but she always knew that the setbacks were inevitable.

“Ingrid, you did not fuck anything up,” Frido says with resolution, and the midfielder looks up at her with disbelief in her eyes. “You aren’t perfect, none of us are. You are going to make mistakes, but the important thing is that you apologize and try to be better. Mapi will understand, Ingrid. It’s Mapi for gods sake,” Frido adds on with a wave of her hand, but Ingrid shakes her head firmly.

“Frido, this isn’t the kind of thing I can just apologize for. I said horrible things, cruel things,” Ingrid insisted, and the Swede shook her head easily, knowing that the brunette wasn’t looking at this logically.

“Ingrid, I think you would be surprised by how far an apology gets you in life. Mapi will understand, she knows who you are in here,” Frido says softly, pointing at Ingrid’s heart, but the encouraging words only cause the Norwegian to screw her eyes shut tightly, trying to keep the fresh wave of tears she feels coming on at bay.

“No, Frido, I said mean things, and I’ve hardly told Mapi about what the fuck happened with Maia. I’m…I’m turning into her,” Ingrid said quietly, her voice barely over a whisper. The forward blanches at the suggestion, her face flying open in surprise before she quickly furrows her brows.

“Ingrid, please don’t say that about yourself. Maia was abusive, you are not abusive. You said some words in anger, and now you feel horrible about it. Which person is the real you Ingrid? The one who did something you think is awful, or the one who's horrified by what you think is an awful thing? Is that part of you not allowed to forgive the other?” Frido asks, her eyes intent and warm on Ingrid, trying to convey to her friend a gentleness and security in her words.

The green eyed woman is staring back at her with surprisingly alert eyes considering how drunk she is, almost as if she’s really considering Frido’s words. The Swede can tell that the brunette’s brain is working, trying to digest her words and think about what Frido really said.

Frido isn’t able to say anything else though, because Aitana and Claudia are coming back, and Frido’s heart is clenching in fear. She could talk to Ingrid until the cows came home, but this was the moment of truth. Frido didn’t actually know if Ingrid had fucked up as badly as she said she did, and she doesn’t know what Mapi’s reaction will be.

She had only known the Spaniard for a few months, having arrived to Barcelona at the same time as Ingrid. But everything about the defender screamed warmth and light and kindness (off the field, that is), and Frido knows without a shadow of a doubt that Mapi loves Ingrid, and that the Norwegian loves her just as much. The midfielder wouldn’t be acting like this if she didn’t.

But Frido is a little surprised when Ingrid had told her that she hadn’t informed Mapi of what had gone down while she had been living in Germany. She had been under the assumption that the brunette had been doing better, opening up and making progress with the life she was leading, but that didn’t seem to be the case.

At this point, she could only hope that the blonde wouldn’t give up on Ingrid, and if there’s any time where that was going to happen, it felt like it would be right now. Frido watched Aitana and Pina walk closer with bated breath, crossing her fingers silently under the table.

Please, please say that Mapi is coming. I’m not sure I can salvage this if she’s not, Frido can’t help but think as Aitana and Claudia walk through the door. The blonde can’t see their face because they are turned as they walk, whispering to one another, but when they turn back to Frido and Ingrid the forward can see that there’s no regret on their faces, thankfully.

“She’ll be here in just a few minutes,” Claudia offers with a worried smile, her eyes flickering between the Norwegian and the Swede. The brunette wipes at her tears furious as Frido shifts out of the booth to stand with the other three, her opportunity to speak to Ingrid having left as soon as her two teammates had returned.

She didn’t want Ingrid to reveal more to Claudia and Aitana than she was comfortable with, and the midfielder was far too drunk to keep anything inside tonight, the blonde could tell. The three teammates are looking at each other with skepticism for a second, unsure of exactly what to do while waiting for the center back to arrive.

“Maybe we can get her some water?” Claudia says after a beat, and they all look over to see that Ingrid has slumped against the table, her hair splayed out over the wood.

“Probably not your worst idea, Pina,” Frido says quickly, starting toward Ingrid to help her up as Aitana turns to head to the bar.

—

Mapi pulls up in front of the bar going well over the speed limit, throwing her car into park, unbuckling her seatbelt in a flurry and shoving the door of the car open, making sure at the last moment to grab her keys before she turns back toward the bar. She marched right in the front door, and saw Pina almost immediately, standing in the back of the bar next to a booth. The blonde begins walking over, finally able to see what Claudia was looking at as she moved around the people who were obstructing her view.

Frido was sitting on one side of the booth with Ingrid next to her, a half full glass of water sitting on the table in front of them. Ingrid is slumped over into Frido, her hair covering her face, and Frido it seems is talking to her gently, her hand on the brunette’s back. Claudia looks up and over, seeing Mapi, her face relaxing in thinly veiled relief. The whole scene looks like it’s out of some American movie where the girl gets too drunk and everyone laughs at her, but there is nothing comical about this situation specifically. All the amber eyed woman can feel is concern, because this is just so unlike everything she’s come to know about Ingrid.

That concern only deepens when Ingrid lifts her head, her hair coming around to frame her face, which is revealed to Mapi as she walks toward the booth. The brunette is tear stricken, her face flushed and her eyes red rimmed. The Spaniard watches as the midfielder looks up, watches at the way that the brunette turns to Frido and immediately begins whispering furiously, her words frantic and her expression full of anguish.

“Hey Mapi,” Claudia says as Mapi walks over to meet her and Aitana halfway between the booth and the bar, the blonde’s lips turned down in a frown as she looks over at the Scandinavian pair.

“What the hell happened? Is she okay?” The center back asked, and Pina immediately began talking, but Aitanas face is full of resignation, her expression unreadable to Mapi.

“She’s…she’s really drunk. And we’re not exactly sure why, but something is really off. I’m not sure but I just…” the small forward explains, raising her hands with confusion. Aitana is watching Mapi closely to see how the blonde reacts, but the defender is silent other than a slight head nod, her gaze focused almost entirely on Ingrid, sitting back in the booth leaning heavily on Frido again.

“It’s okay Pina, it’s probably just best to get her home,” Mapi interrupts softly, turning back and placing a hand on her younger teammate’s shoulder. The smaller woman nods as Mapi moves toward the table that the Swede and brunette are sitting at. She glances back at Aitana, who looks at her with raised brows before she continues moving toward Frido and Ingrid.

This is exactly the opposite of how Mapi was expecting her night to go. She had been more than a little anxious watching Ingrid walk out of that door after such a divisive argument, but the blonde had to have some trust that the midfielder would be okay.

And well, the fact that she was going out with Frido certainly didn’t hurt anything.

That being said, Mapi had still been surprised to get a phone call from Pina, saying that she needed to come pick Ingrid up. The Norwegian wasn’t really a big drinker, Mapi had only seen her even tipsy just a handful of times, so immediately alarms were going off in her head.

Arriving at the bar had cleared little up in the Spaniard’s mind. Ingrid looked drunker than she’d ever seen her, Pina seemed confused, Frido was shooting her a concerned look, and Aitana was still entirely unreadable, her eyes insistently on her defensive teammate. The blonde shoots her friend a glance back, her face set, before she starts to walk over to Ingrid and Frido, who are whispering furiously at each other back in the booth they are sitting in.

Mapi moves over to the table quietly, her eyes connecting with Frido as the Swedish player looks up from her conversation with Ingrid. The blonde forward shakes her head softly, her eyes wide and pleading, and the center back can’t tell exactly what she’s thinking but she has a few guesses which are probably going to be pretty close.

But then Ingrid is looking up and right at her, her eyes wide, unfocused, and tears streaming down her cheeks. It snaps the Spaniard’s heart entirely in half, and she has to refrain from moving closer to the brunette instantly.

“Mapi,” Ingrid murmurs softly, more to herself than the others really, but the blonde smiles softly at the drunk woman, her expression pooling in concern as her forehead creases with worry at the state of the Norwegian.

“Hi princesa. How are you?” Mapi asks gently, and everything in Ingrid relaxes at the familiar nickname, her shoulders visibly untightening. It bolsters the shorter woman’s confidence a little bit, and she looks over at Frido, receiving a reassuring nod.

Mapi wasn’t sure if Ingrid was going to try to push her away, be happy to see, be mad at her, or anything in between. The Spaniard hated to say it, but the brunette was a bit of a wild card in that way, at least right now.

“Not so good,” Ingrid mumbles, and Mapi offers a sympathetic smile as she shifts closer to the side of the booth where the Norwegian is sitting.

“How about we get you home?” Mapi asks, to which Ingrid nods, and the blonde can hear the brunette whisper the word home a few times as if she needs to remind herself of the word.

Frido shifts out of the booth, and Ingrid follows suit, her movements languid but without direction, all confused long arms and legs. The Swede helps to get her moved to the end of the seat so she can stand.

Which is exactly what she does, right before she proceeds to fall gracelessly to her left. Luckily Mapi is standing right there, and quickly slings an arm around her girlfriend's waist to keep her from falling. Ingrid’s hand comes to rest on the amber eyed woman’s back, and she turns her head, looking right at the Spaniard. The blonde turns her head in response, looking up at Ingrid, her amber eyes pools of sympathy. But the midfielder is looking down at her with such apprehension, as if she somehow expects Mapi to disappear any minute.

“I’ve got you princesa,” Mapi whispers softly, nodding her head, and Ingrid nods back a few times in response, turning to look forward as they begin to walk out of the bar.

Frido comes around to stand on Ingrid’s other side, but the brunette is able to lean on Mapi as they walk out, Aitana and Pina getting the door for them. Ingrid nearly stumbles into the car as soon as they’re out on the pavement, but luckily for her Mapi is stronger than she looks, and she’s able to catch the brunette with a stabilizing hand on her sternum. The center back is able to maneuver Ingrid over to the passenger side of the car, getting her settled and buckled in before gently closing the door, making sure not to catch any stray limbs with the car door.

The blonde walks back around to the driver's side of the car where Aitana, Claudia, and Frido are all standing, looking at Mapi with equal parts concern and skepticism. The Spaniard runs a hand over her face roughly, glancing back at the Norwegian before she shakes her head, biting her lip.

“We got in a fight,” Mapi says with a sigh, and understanding dawns on Claudia's face as Aitana and Frido nod tightly. Frido takes in just how concerned Mapi is from body language alone. Her stance is taut, her shoulders tight and her jaw set, and it makes the blonde Swede nervous, wondering what had happened. It’s not exactly her place, but she can’t help but wonder after what Ingrid had told her in the bar.

“What happened?” Frido asks carefully, and Mapi shakes her head, trying to shove down the tears she had just managed to get herself past. She looks down the street for a moment, swallowing thickly before she turns back to face her three teammates, her eyes wet despite how hard she’s trying to hold her tears in.

“I screwed something up, said something wrong and it just made her really upset really quickly. I figured she’d go out with you guys, calm down and enjoy herself and then we could talk about it later. I had no idea it was going to turn into this, I am so sorry guys,” Mapi explained, her sincerity sliding through her words.

Frido looks over at the car, at the way that Ingrid is sitting with her hands in her lap, nervously playing with her own fingers. She was surprised by what the Spaniard had said considering what the Norwegian had said inside the bar, when she had implied that it was her who had messed something up, not Mapi. It was at this point that the Swede decided she needs to attempt to clear at least some of this up, if she can. She’ll do it as privately as she can, but she knows where this is going and she’s not about to let it happen without at least trying to stop it. She turns back to the group just as Aitana speaks up in response.

“She’ll come around Mapi. She was really upset about what she said,” Aitana offers, and the defender nods along with the statement but doesn’t look entirely convinced. Frido looks over at Pina and Aitana, trying to convey her seriousness through her expression while still holding kindness.

“Could you guys give us a minute?” Frido asks gently, her tone gentle but without room for discussion. The midfielder and forward take the hint immediately, nodding and turning to go back into the bar, leaving Mapi and Frido out in the late night Spanish air.

“In the bar, she told me that she said some shit. Did she?” Frido asks quietly, not bothering with beating the bush any longer.

Mapi doesn’t answer, crossing her arms over her chest and looking over the Swede’s shoulder for a minute, unable to meet her eye. It was all the confirmation that the forward needed, and she sighs roughly, shaking her head slightly.

“Ok so she did. Unforgivable shit?” Frido asks, and the defender blanches at the implication, her expression horrified.

“No, God no! Not unforgivable, it was just…it was a fight! Things got ugly, but instead of staying and trying to work through it she just, left,” Mapi said with resignation in her tone. The Swede takes in the tone of the Spaniard, the pain in it.

This goes beyond just Ingrid leaving during a fight, and Frido knows it.

“She hasn’t told you anything about Maia, has she?” The taller woman asks quietly, her voice barely audible. Mapi’s shoulders collapsed in on each other, her eyes screwed shut as she shook her head.

“She hasn’t, and I don’t want to rush her, because she doesn’t deserve that. But there’s just…I want to know all of her, Frido, and I can never get past the feeling that she doesn’t want me to know all of her,” Mapi explained honestly, and suddenly everything became incredibly clear for Frido, who nods in understanding.

“She doesn’t,” Frido replied simply, and Mapi looked up at her with a surprised expression, and the Swede quickly continued her explanation.

“Mapi, I can’t tell you what happened in Germany because it’s not mine to tell, but it’s ugly. What happened to her, what Maia did to her, what she did to Maia, it’s complicated and messy and painful. And I know her, I understand where her head is at, a little bit at least. She wants her pain to be polite and silent, doesn’t want it to get in the way. But it’s a part of who she is, as much as football is.”

“She’s going to wake up one morning and realize that you are right there with her. That you will take her for who she is, the good, the bad, every wonderful and horrible thing she’s ever done. One day, she’s going to realize that she can’t hold herself to perfection, that she’s allowed to make mistakes and forgive herself for those,” Frido continued, and Mapi has to look away from the blonde’s eye contact, the intensity and sincerity of it.

The forward is saying everything that she would have expected, everything that she herself had been thinking.

Somehow, it’s so much worse when it’s a confirmation as opposed to just a suspicion.

“Don’t let her push you away Mapi. It’s what she’s going to try to do. Don’t let her, not if you don’t really want her to,” Frido finishes, and Mapi looks over at her teammate with a disbelieving expression, as though she wouldn’t have even considered the thought.

“Never,” the center back said, her voice rough and a step away from being upset. Frido looked over at the Norwegian before she looked back at the Spaniard, a quiet resignation in her eyes.

“I know you say that now, but I also hope that you remember it when shit happens. Because she doesn’t deserve someone who's going to leave when things get hard. And if it’s too much for you, let it be that and don’t drag this on longer, for either of you,,” Frido said softly, shaking her head gently before continuing.

“Once she’s in it with you, she’s there. She’s one of the most loyal people I know, without a shadow of doubt in my heart. She’s just…a little lost right now,” Frido explained quietly, watching out of the corner of her eye as Aitana and Claudia peered out at her from inside the bar.

“I’m not going anywhere Frido, trust me,” Mapi said softly, and the blonde nodded, placing her hand on the smaller woman’s bicep briefly, squeezing softly before she moved away, back toward the bar.

“Hey Frido?” Mapi called out, and the blonde looked back over her shoulder, an eyebrow raised.

“Thank you,” the Spaniard called out quietly, and the Swede nodded once solemnly, a small, sad smile gracing her lips before she opened the door to the bar, disappearing inside back with their two teammates.

Mapi moved toward the door of the car, opening up the driver's side and slipping in quietly.

Ingrid is slumped against the seat, turned sideways so that she was facing the driver's seat, her head leaning against the headrest in her seat. The blonde reaches over, helps the midfielder sit back and buckle her seatbelt gently. The brunette sits with her hands in her lap, looking over at Mapi with big eyes.

The brunette is like putty under her fingers, malleable and moveable with little to no argument. She sits back, her head swinging slightly from side to side before she settles on looking over at Mapi again, who has since turned the car on and started the drive back to the Norwegian’s apartment. She makes sure to drive at a slow pace, turning the car going well under the speed limit, in a quest not to jostle the green eyed woman more than she needed too.

They rode in silence, Mapi’s hand clutched on the car’s shifter in case Ingrid needed something. But the brunette is quiet, an unsettling quiet. The Spaniard was used to quiet, especially around the midfielder, but there was an uncomfortable air about this, like Ingrid wanted to say something but couldn’t quite get herself to.

She’s beyond rip roaring drunk, but the blonde could probably cut the tension in the car with a knife. Mapi has never seen Ingrid drunk like this before, doesn’t know what the protocol or standard is here. She’s just about to say something, anything, when the taller woman finally opens her mouth to speak.

“Mapi, you need to get out,” Ingrid slurs out, and the blonde's eyebrows fly up in surprise. She certainly didn’t expect that from the midfielder, and isn’t entirely sure she even understands what the brunette is actually saying.

She expected anger, rage, something seething and bubbling that forces Mapi to stay calm. But this isn’t anger, this is almost…sadness. She’s incredibly drunk, but her words are startlingly clear despite that fact. There’s a resignation in her tone that sets the center back on edge, makes her stomach clench uncomfortably.

Mapi has to stay relatively focused on the road to make sure the car is going straight, but the little roads near their apartment complexes are relatively empty, and she looks over at Ingrid with confusion.

“Get out? Of the car?” Mapi questions, a little lost on what the brunette is talking about. Her hand drifts over to Ingrid’s thigh, placing it there gently, just feeling the sudden inexplicable urge to touch her.

One of the Norwegian’s hands comes to cover hers, the younger woman’s delicate fingers laying over hers, before she lifts Mapi’s hand off of her thigh. She holds the defender’s hand in her own for a moment, not really in the way someone holds hands per say but more as though examining something precious, a quiet reverence to her movements.

Ingrid’s face is wondrous as she examines her fingers, as if Mapi’s hand is the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen in her entire life. She stares at it for a long moment, the blonde letting her do so, before she places it with a gentle admiration back where it was before.

Or, more accurately, she tries to place it on the gear shift but in her drunken haze ends up putting it in the cup holder instead (it's the thought that counts?)

Mapi turns onto Ingrid’s street, and the Norwegian notices immediately. She perks up more, her hazy eyes unfocused but mildly wild, looking around with confusion.

“No, no, Mapi no,” Ingrid says, louder this time, but her words are slurring together just enough that it’s causing the blonde’s heart to tighten in concern.

She pulls the car up right in front of Ingrid’s apartment, grateful for once that there is a spot right in front of her building. Usually it’s impossible to find one, but she doesn’t really give a flying fuck about any of that right now when the green eyed woman is so drunk her attempt at standing up straight is actually her standing at a forty five degree angle.

The Spaniard has just put the car into park when Ingrid looks over at her with anguished eyes, her face turning redder by the minute and tears already beginning to well in her eyes.

“Mapi no, you have to get out!” The brunette exclaimed, and the defender unbuckled her seatbelt, still very confused about what this was all about.

“Out of what? The car? Okay, I can get out of the car…” Mapi countered with caution, stepping out of the car. This seemed, however, to be the wrong answer, as it was the one that caused Ingrid to somehow panic even more, unbuckling her seatbelt and throwing the car door open in a flurry of movement.

For someone who is incredibly drunk, the Norwegian gets out of the car in record speed, walking forward and directly toward the street, by way of the sidewalk that is right outside her car door. Mapi is left to lurch after her, calling out for her in the quiet of the night.

“Ingrid!” She pleaded, but the Norwegian just shook her head, so aggressively that Mapi could see the movement from behind her.

“No, no, Mapi, you have to get out!” The midfielder begged, screaming as she turned to face Mapi in the driveway–

—

The first thing Ingrid thinks when she wakes up is that she’s pretty sure that she’s still drunk.

That is her first thought, and her second is that she might have been hit by a truck last night.

That’s genuinely the only way she can justify the way that she is feeling presently. There is a little bit of light streaming through the curtains of her bedroom window, and she groans as she rolls into the covers of the bed.

She can’t remember the last time she’s felt this ill. Her head is pounding, her stomach is churning, she feels like she’s burning up.

Her stomach is really churning.

Oh fuck no—

Just as Ingrid turns her head over the bed in a last ditch attempt to vomit over the side of the bed and not in it, there is a trash can appearing in her line of vision, and she throws her head over it in relief, retching into the black can.

She can feel someone pulling her hair back, someone standing over her, but she’s too focused on throwing up her entire dinner to pay any mind to who it is or what all of this means.

After a few dry heaves, Ingrid rolls back onto her back, her head hitting the pillow too hard given how much it feels like it’s going to explode now.

When she turns her head just slightly, she’s greeted to the sight of her girlfriend setting the trash can down, sitting on the edge of the bed next to her and looking over her with a very concerned expression.

Ingrid thinks that she might be hallucinating, because the clock reads 6am and Mapi is supposed to be long gone, was supposed to get up and be out of there earlier for the sunrise.

But the evidence is right in front of her, not that she trusts herself right now. She’s shivering, one step away from her teeth chattering as she stares at the Spaniard with big eyes, her head pounding in time to her rapid, fluttering heartbeat.

Ingrid curls slightly to the side, a weak attempt to get closer to the blonde.

“Mapi?” She tries, but her voice fizzles and dies before it even really comes out, and she has to try again.

“Mapi?” She asks a second time, but this time her voice actually comes out, but the defender stays frozen for a moment, just long enough that the Norwegian is really beginning to wonder if this whole thing really is a dream.

But then Mapi is shifting forward just slightly, leaning in and bringing her hand to run over Ingrid’s sweaty and pale face, and the midfielder settles under her gentle touch.

“Hey,” Mapi whispers gently, running her hand softly over Ingrid’s cheek. The brunette leans into the touch, entirely lost as to how the enter back is here, that this whole thing is a dream.

Ingrid pushes off her hands, sitting up quickly and promptly regretting that choice, her stomach swirling uncomfortably. Mapi places a bracing hand on her shoulder, reaching for the trash can, but the brunette’s stomach settles, and she shakes her head slightly.

The midfielder reaches forward, running just the tips of her fingers over Mapi’s cheek, and instead of going through the shorter woman like she’s a ghost, her fingers are touching warm skin, and the green eyed woman can feel the muscles in Mapi’s face moving as she smiles just slightly, but her eyebrows are still furrowed and her face is painted in concern.

“You’re here,” Ingrid breathes out, her voice disbelieving and unsure. She’s swaying slightly from her upright position, and has decided that she’s probably still a little drunk. Her mind is too foggy, the world spinning too much for her to be entirely sober.

Mapi gently removes the midfielder’s hand from her face, holding it in her own, setting it in her lap. Ingrid resists the urge to lean entirely into her, trying to keep herself upright and not falling into the blonde’s lap.

“Yeah, I’m here,” Mapi confirms, and Ingrid shakes her head slightly, immediately regretting the action when her head pounds more aggressively, and the hand that isn’t being held by the defender comes up to clutch her forehead, and she gives herself a moment to collect her very scattered thoughts before she responds.

“You’re not supposed to be here. ‘Supposed to be gone, to the thing,” Ingrid insists, swiveling her head slowly to look at the clock. The little clock stares right back at her, the time 6:07am, confirming to her that Mapi should be gone by now.

“You needed me,” the Spaniard murmurs gently, rubbing her thumb in soothing circles over the back of the brunette’s hand.

“You…you stayed?” Ingrid asks, complete innocence and surprise in her expression. Mapi wants to crumble under it, instead nods lightly, gripping the midfielder’s hand just slightly tighter.

“Yeah, yeah I stayed here with you. I’m always going to be here if you need me,” Mapi whispered, her voice barely audible in the already silent bedroom. The taller woman looks back at her with skepticism in her eyes, not entirely believing what she was hearing.

“Do you remember last night?” The center back questioned gently, and the brunette's eyebrows furrow adorably, her entire thought process written on her confused face as she tries to remember exactly what happened last night.

“Last night? We were…the bar? You…you came,” Ingrid slurs, her voice both tired and confused, and Mapi regrets her decision to ask, shushing the midfielder lightly as she helps her lay back.

“It’s okay, we can talk about it later,” Mapi whispers, tucking Ingrid under the covers before she stands, heading into the bathroom. She empties the trash can, washing it out quickly and replacing it next to her girlfriend’s side of the bed.

The blonde crawls under the covers, right next to Ingrid, who has shifted to face the middle of the bed. She opens one eye experimentally when Mapi returns, her eyes widening comically at the sight of the blonde.

“Mapi! You…you came back,” Ingrid mumbles, and the Spaniard’s heart snaps in half as she forces a nod, swallowing thickly.

“Yeah, yeah princesa, I came back. I’m always going to come back if you need me,” Mapi assured, tucking Ingrid into her body. The Norwegians hands come out to grip the soft cotton of her t-shirt in her hands, her head tucked under the blonde’s chin.

“Thank you,” Ingrid murmured, barely a noise, but the sound reverberated up through Mapi’s chest to her ears, and if it was at all possible, she relaxes more, pulling the midfielder into her even tighter.

“Always, princesa. Sleep,” Mapi instructs quietly, and Ingrid does exactly that.

—

“Ingrid!” Mapi pleaded, yelling out into the night air as she ran after Ingrid, but the Norwegian just shook her head, so aggressively that the center back could see the movement from behind her.

“No, no, Mapi, you have to get out!” Ingrid begged, screaming as she turned to face Mapi.

For a moment, they both just stand where they are, neither moving a muscle. Ingrid is standing on the edge of the road, right where the concrete of the sidewalk turns to the actual road.

The street is quiet, lined with cars and full of families and people who have long gone to bed. Everything is still it seems, except for Ingrid.

The Norwegian scrubs her hands over her face, raking them back through her hair. Her chest is heaving, and she’s just a small step away from hyperventilating, her eyes wild as tears begin to well in her eyes.

“Ingrid,” Mapi calls out softly, stepping toward the brunette, but the midfielder holds her hand up wildly in an attempt to stop the Spaniard from coming closer.

“No, Mapi, no, you need to get out,” Ingrid insisted, one of her hands coming over to clutch at her chest.

The center back feels absolutely helpless staring at her girlfriend. She has no idea what Ingrid is talking about, considering that she has now left the car and isn’t confined by anything. She can tell that the Norwegian is incredibly drunk, but there’s a strange edge to her words that are screaming at Mapi to listen to her as though she’s stone cold sober.

“Ingrid I don’t, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Get out of what? I’m out of the car, I’m not in the house yet I mean I don’t…get out of what?” Mapi asks with a renewed sense of urgency, spurred on by the disheveled and upset figure of the brunette.

Ingrid is gripping her head in her hands, her knuckles turning white with the amount of pressure that she’s holding her head with. When she looks up, her face is just a step away from anguished, and she’s so incredibly upset it just seems etched into her features somehow.

She’s the most beautiful mess this street has seen in awhile, Mapi can’t help but think.

Mapi feels helpless, standing there watching. Ingrid won’t let her get closer, Ingrid won’t tell her what’s going on, or how she’s feeling.

In a way, it feels a little symbolic of their relationship.

Sure, they’ve been dating for five months, but the brunette has always kept Mapi just an arms length away. She tells Mapi just enough to keep the blonde satisfied and understanding about her life, but all of the deep, the dark, the truly ugly? She couldn’t bring herself to explain, knew that it would mean losing the Spaniard.

As soon as Mapi knew the truth, she would be gone and she would never come back, and Ingrid knew that without a shadow of doubt in her heart.

The Norwegian loved Mapi with every piece of her heart, felt torn in two trying to decide whether or not she should tell her.

Because on one hand, she wants to hold the blonde tight and never let her go. Never not have her in her life, never not be around her. Life is simply better with Mapi in it, there was no doubting that fact.

But on the other hand, the Norwegian knows that she’s cruel. She imagines sometimes that her girlfriend is a delicate glass ornament, beautifully crafted, something everyone would want. Ingrid, well, Ingrid is the hammer that held itself over the ornament, eventually crashing and breaking it into smithereens. Exactly the same as her mirror, the very one the center back was trying to replace.

Mapi looks at her with so much conviction and belief, and Ingrid can’t even get herself to be honest with the blonde. The Spaniard deserves so much better than that, on so many levels. She’d known that this was coming, even if she didn’t expect to be so drunk she could hardly tell which direction her house was in.

“Mapi, you need to get out. This, this is a sinking ship – I am a sinking ship. You need to leave now, before I fuck this up more than I already am,” Ingrid states resolutely, her words only slurring together slightly.

Mapi’s face falls in realization. A lifetime of emotions cross her face in an instant, grief and sorrow and understanding and determination and anguish. It’s too nuanced for Ingrid to really see, but she can tell that the blonde’s face falls at her words, at the sudden knowledge of what the Norwegian is really talking about.

Mapi realizes that earlier in the car, she had been too focused on the drive, too focused on Ingrid’s drunkenness and her own emotions, to remember what the midfielder had said earlier in the night. Before she had even left the house initially, at the beginning of the night.

“Mapi, you should just go. I’m not worth this,” Ingrid had said, a plea more than the dig that Mapi had taken it for. The entire drive, Ingrid hadn’t been telling her to get out of the car.

She had been telling Mapi to get out of her life.

“Ingrid,” the brunette started, but the midfielder shook her head slowly, tears finally streaming down her cheeks. Fat, bumble bee-like tears that drip down onto her shirt and the ground beneath her.

“Mapi, I am a sinking ship, this relationship is one, and it’s one you need to get off of, right now.”

“I am a monster Mapi, and I’m going to do the same thing that I did with Maia with you and I can’t…I won’t let you be put through that. I won’t let myself do that to you. Not you. Never you,” Ingrid chokes out, her hand clutched over her chest, trying valiantly to keep the total barrage of tears at bay.

“Ingrid, don’t do this, don’t push me away. Please,” Mapi begs softly, her voice cracking over the word, and she can feel the sting of tears behind her own eyes, threatening to make their way out.

Because the center back thought she had known pain. She thought she had known pain when she injured herself, when she broke her ankle playing football as a child. She thought she knew pain when she lost one of her closest friends when she was younger. She thought she knew pain when she had been broken up with, leaving her in a horrific mess as she had moved on with her life.

But really, none of those came close to what she was feeling now.

Because this? This was anguish, in the highest degree.

But Ingrid was just shaking her head, taking a wobbly step forward before she marched ahead, right past Mapi and directly up to her apartment building. The Spaniard turns, watching her go before she follows her, not directly behind her but just a few steps behind.

It’s only when she gets near the door of her own apartment that Mapi realizes what the Norwegian is trying to do, and she breaks into a run right as Ingrid throws the door open, shutting it and locking it directly behind her, right as the Spaniard throws her body weight into it.

It’s no use though because Ingrid has already gotten to the lock, and she stands with her hands on the door, her eyes wide as both of her palms are pressed to the door. Everything that’s happening feels like it’s in a haze, like it isn’t quite real.

But Mapi banging on the door is definitely real, and the blonde has her own tears streaming down her face now as she jiggles the lock, a sob bubbling up in her throat. She is terrified of Ingrid trying to hurt herself like this, terrified she won’t open up the door and talk to her.

She doesn’t care about the fact that it’s the middle of the night, or that Ingrid’s neighbors might come out and yell at her to be quiet. That is the last thing in her mind, really.

“Ingrid please, PLEASE open the door. Please, just let me in. Please just let me stay,” Mapi pleads, resting her head against the door for a moment before she leans back, swiping the tears from her cheeks.

She’s not a religious woman, but at that moment the defender is praying to whatever is out there for the brunette to let her in.

“Ingrid, I won’t let you do this to me, or to us. Please open the door. I know that you’re beating yourself up in there, and I also know that you want to figure this out as much as I do, and we still can. It’s not too late, you just have to open the door. Please,” Mapi breathes out, knowing that this is it. If Ingrid can’t open this door right now, this might be the end of the line.

She’s never wanted someone to open a door more in her entire life than she wants Ingrid to open this door right now.

But for several minutes, there is nothing except silence.

Mapi’s never minded silence. She enjoys it, the quiet stillness a balm in many ways. But she hates the stillness right now, the uncertainty that hangs in the air as the minutes pass.

There are a million thoughts in the Spaniard’s head as she sits outside the door of Ingrid’s apartment. The fierce love she feels for the brunette. The reckless hope that she feels for the love they share. The sadness at whatever, or whoever, caused Ingrid to ever feel that she had to act this way.

She hates to say it, to even think it, but after a few minutes, Mapi is genuinely not sure whether or not Ingrid will open the door for her. She decides to give it a few more minutes, praying to whoever is listening to ease some of the midfielder’s pain.

But finally, a very small part of Mapi gives up. She silently turns away from the door, and from all the love and adoration she has for the woman behind it.

There’s a lot of defeat in her line of work, but this is ten times worse. Because this is something she has no control over it, and she absolutely hates that. She wants to come back with a battering ram, throwing herself into the apartment and demand that Ingrid understand every bit of what she’s worth (everything).

She’s just taken her third step away from the door, her head hanging, when she hears the lock click, and the door slide open.

She turns in an instant, and there Ingrid is, staring at her with wide eyes, tears still tracking down her face. She looks entirely uncertain, a million emotions on her face, all at once.

“Ingrid,” Mapi whispers, barely audibly, and she’s flying forward, right through the door and into the brunette’s body, causing the Norwegian to stagger back with the momentum she carried with her.

The taller woman tucks her head into Mapi’s neck as the blonde keeps her arms wrapped around the green eyed woman’s neck, holding her ferociously tight.

“Mapi,” Ingrid starts, not removing her head from where it's tucked in the amber eyed woman’s neck.

“I’m—”

—

When Ingrid wakes up for the second time that morning, she’s gathered in Mapi’s arms, her entire body pressed against the blonde in every possible place. The Spaniard is warm against her, and she’s tucked in so her head is pressed on Mapi’s sternum, secure and relaxed in her arms.

She still feels ill, but the ache in her head has managed to recede slightly, and she feels less shaky and foggy. She feels hungover as hell, but it wouldn’t be the first time she felt that way. It still feels foreign somehow, like the person she was years ago and not the person that she is now.

The brunette lifts her head off of Mapi’s chest, looking around the bedroom. There’s a heap of clothes on the floor near the bathroom, and the curtains are haphazardly drawn. Ingrid can’t quite remember everything that happened the night before, at least not clearly.

She remembers driving home, getting out of the car and arguing by the road, locking Mapi out of her apartment.

She remembers standing at the door, listening to the Spaniard plead and beg with her to just open the door. Regret fills her from the bottom of her feet to the top of her head, discomfort swirling in her stomach at her own actions.

It all feels so far away, like it happened a lifetime ago and not last night.

Ingrid settles back into the blonde, who is fast asleep, but she can’t fall back asleep herself.

She loves Mapi, that much she knows. But she also knows that if they continue like this, they’re going to crash and burn in exactly the same way that she and Maia did. She’s determined not to let that happen to the Spaniard.

She’s determined not to let that happen to herself.

Ingrid, despite her hangover haze, realizes that she needs to take a step back from this situation. She wasn’t about to lose the most important person in her life over her own undealt with shit. Mapi didn’t deserve that, and as much as she sometimes thought that she didn’t deserve the center back, the blonde always showed up.

She wanted to show up too. She needed to show up. And she needed the space in order to show up for both herself, and not just for Mapi. She wanted to do this for her and her girlfriend both, so that they could be happy together.

So she snuggles into Mapi, relishing in the feeling of the blonde’s warm body against hers, the comfort and ease that it provides her with. The defender shifts in her sleep, but it’s only to pull Ingrid tighter into her, her palms splayed over the midfielder’s back.

I love you I love you I love you I love you, Ingrid thinks, over and over and over again until it's ingrained into her brain.

Mapi wakes up just thirty minutes later, her legs stretching out from under her. She’s all soft, fluid movements as she pulls the Norwegian in, kissing the top of her head before she releases the brunette, letting her roll off of her.

It takes her a minute, but Ingrid watches as Mapi’s memory catches up to her. The defender's face goes from relaxed and sleepy to awake, alert, and concerned in the span of just a few seconds.

“How are you feeling?” She asks in lieu of a greeting, sitting up to meet the brunette, who is rubbing a hand over her face roughly.

“I’m alright, I feel better now,” Ingrid explained honestly, and the amber eyed woman nods once, her expression unreadable.

“Thank you last night, for staying. And this morning,” the midfielder adds after a few seconds, and Mapi’s expression relaxes, a small smile gracing her features.

“Always,” the center back says earnestly, and Ingrid believes her.

Mapi might be one of the most loyal people she knows. The defender would go to the end of the earth for the people she cares about.

It’s that same fact that makes the Norwegian love her so much, while also being the very thing that means that she has to do this.

“Mapi, I…I think we need to take a break,” Ingrid finally says in one breath, and she watches the alarm that immediately rises into the shorter woman’s features, the way that the blonde lurches forward just slightly.

“I’m not…Mapi, I really care about you. But I’m going to hurt you if I don’t figure my shit out. I need to be honest with you, all the way honest, and I just…I need a little bit of time to figure things out, I think. It’s not for forever, but just for right now. I’m not showing up for you, or for me, or for our relationship, in the way I need to, and it’s hurting both of us,” Ingrid explained, and Mapi has gone rigid next to her in bed, clearly trying to stave off whatever reaction she was having.

The blonde is quiet for a moment, clearly thinking about the midfielder’s words. She nods after a moment, swallowing roughly before she finally opens her mouth to speak.

“How long?” Mapi asks, and her voice betrays her, pain laced with each word, her voice cracking.

The brunette thinks for a moment. She wants to be realistic, but she also can’t fathom a life without Mapi in it for too long. They’ll still see each other at training, and she’s lucky that they’ve been good enough at keeping their work lives separate from their personal ones.

“Two weeks,” Ingrid decides with more confidence than she feels, and Mapi nods in agreement, relaxing slightly.

“I can do two weeks,” the center back says softly, and Ingrid leans forward to hug the smaller woman, tucking her head over the Spaniard’s shoulder and holding her tight, for just a few seconds.

The Norwegian is going to fix this. She’s going to do right for Mapi, and for herself.

Because she deserves this.

—

When their first training back after the weekend break finishes, Ingrid showers quickly and immediately runs up to see Carmen.

She knew she wasn’t going to be able to unpack this all herself, and she was really hoping that the level headed psychologist could provide some clarity.

She had gone onto the team's calendar after Mapi had left her apartment Saturday morning, and had booked a double session with Carmen.

After that, she had invited Frido and Aitana over and explained the entirety of the situation and what had happened, while the two listened patiently.

“Wow,” Aitana said softly, after the Norwegian told them the whole thing.

She told them about her fight with the Spaniard, the way that she locked her out of the house and her drunken screaming. She told them about Maia, about the things that she had done and said. She told them all the things that she had said and done.

And instead of pushing her away, instead of thinking she was some horrible monster, Aitana got up and wrapped her arms around Ingrid, tightened her arms.

“I’m so proud of you,” her fellow midfielder said softly, but her voice was just a hint of uneven. The brunette pulled back in surprise, her eyes searching over Aitana’s face, over the sincerity and quiet kindness there.

“Thank you for not thinking less of me,” Ingrid whispered softly, and Aitana shook her head firmly, looking back at the Swede and nodding at her. The blonde stands, and the two wrap their arms around their teammate, who holds tightly to her friends.

And there, in the safety of their arms, she lets herself break, just a little bit. She cries, and sobs, and shakes until there are no tears left in her eyes.

Ingrid knows she can do this. She still has a long way to go, but she can do this.

And now, the midfielder marches herself into Carmen’s office with a confidence that she hasn’t felt in awhile, closing the door to the room and not even bothering to sit down before she blurts out what's been on her mind.

“Listen, I know I come in here and talk a lot about being a fuckup and whatever in the hypothetical, but I have a situation that I’m actually about to screw up and I need to fix it. I’m…I’m asking for your help to help me try to fix it,” Ingrid requested, and Carmen observes her for a minute, taking both her words and body language into account.

The Norwegian pauses for a moment, flushing slightly.

“I’m asking for your help to fix it, please. And thank you,” she adds hastily for good measure, offering up a weak smile.

The brunette seems, on all accounts aside from what she tacked on at the end, rather determined.

“Alright, how about you sit down then, and we can get started,” Carmen answered calmly, and the midfielder does exactly that.

—

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Ingrid murmured into Mapi’s neck as the blonde staggers into her.

“It’s okay, it’s alright,” Mapi whispers back, fighting to keep the tears that she feels springing to her eyes down, the sheer relief that the brunette is okay combined with the fact that she actually let Mapi in.

The Spaniard holds Ingrid to her for a few moments, holding the back of the Norwegian’s head securely as they stay where they are, pulled flush against one another.

But eventually the shorter woman leans back, taking the chance to survey the brunette and actually make sure that she is okay, at least physically. The blonde holds the midfielder out at arm's length, her eyes carefully checking Ingrid from head to toe, not finding a scratch. Her mascara is running and her hair is a bit of a mess, but other than that she’s fine, at least physically.

Her tear stained cheeks say differently, but Mapi doesn’t quite know what to do to help with that right now, not exactly.

Ingrid sniffles lightly, and the defender watches as she swallows nervously, looking over the amber eyed woman’s shoulder for a moment at the door before she looks at the blonde.

“I’m sorry I did that, I don’t quite…I don’t really know what I was thinking I just…” Ingrid trails off, unsure of exactly what to say or do. Even she herself feels volatile, like she’s not 100% in control of her actions or thoughts.

But Mapi, in yet another space where she has an opportunity to leave, chooses to stay and to show the brunette the compassion that she deserves. That she always deserved.

“It’s okay,” Mapi assures, bringing her hand up to cup the Norwegian’s cheek, running her thumb along the soft, slightly damp skin there.

“You opened up for me in the end, and that’s what really matters,” The Spaniard murmurs gently, and the brunette exhales at the statement, the anxiety in her body washing away by the reassurance of the blonde.

It’s not that they aren’t going to need to discuss this because they most definitely are, but the Norwegian is in absolutely no state to do that, and Mapi is very aware of that fact.

“Come on, let's go get you cleaned up,” the center back smiled softly, trying to be as comforting as possible for the midfielder, who followed Mapi easily back through the bedroom and into the bathroom.

The Spaniard still has to help support Ingrid as she walks, the brunette tottering with absolute no balance in her drunken state, and the blonde ends up setting her on the edge of the bathtub, praying that she can sit up well enough on her own for Mapi to take her makeup off and get her into bed.

Luckily, Ingrid seems to be able to sit easily enough, and the center back quickly turns to start digging through the cabinets in the midfielder’s bathroom, trying to find her makeup remover. She’s spent a lot of time in this bathroom, but has never really had a need to go through Ingrid’s stuff, so she’s flying blind while half of her attention remains on the brunette, making sure that she doesn’t fall and get a concussion.

“You’re too nice to me Mapi,” Ingrid slurred right as the blonde found the makeup remover, poking her head out of the cabinet it had been shoved under, her eyebrow raised.

“What do you mean?” Mapi asked, turning around to grab a cotton round to put some of the makeup remover on.

“I put you through all this shit, and you still haven’t even laid a hand on me. Too nice for all the shit I pull,” the Norwegian muttered, and Mapi felt herself freeze.

Ingrid had never really talked about her relationship with Maia, outside of the broad strokes that it was something that had happened, and that it had been bad. The Norwegian always seemed incredibly uncomfortable whenever it was brought up, and the topic seemed to make her choke, unable to speak.

So to hear her talk about it at all was enough of a surprise, on top of the actual content of the words she was saying, to send a flare of concern up through Mapi.

The defender was starting to, through some very subtle context clues, think that perhaps there had been presence of physical violence in the Norwegian’s relationship with Maia. But it was never anything she could prove, just a hunch that the blonde had, nothing to back it up.

The thought of anyone laying their hands on their partner was enough to make Mapi’s stomach roll uncomfortably.

But the thought of someone laying their hand on Ingrid?

Ingrid, who loved roses and had a laugh like an angel and remembered everyone’s birthdays even if they only told her once. Ingrid who stayed after practice to make sure that every drill was perfect, who didn’t really like scoring goals but loved celebrating with her teammates. Ingrid, who always smiled at the center back like she had given her the world and who bought her red carnations because she loved them so much.

Ingrid, who only ever wanted those around her to be happy.

The thought of anyone hitting that person, that special, unbelievably kind and compassionate person? It made Mapi’s blood boil, filled her heart with a rage she didn’t feel very often.

“But I’m also kinda glad that you haven’t, because I love you a lot more than I ever loved Maia, and I would really hate it if we hit each other,” Ingrid continues, even as Mapi turns around, trying to stay as neutral as possible in the face of so much information.

One half of the Spaniards brain is still stuck on what Ingrid had just told her about Maia. And about the fact that she would love to deck Maia if she ever got the opportunity.

The other half of her is absolutely flabbergasted by what Ingrid had immediately followed that with.

Was it possible? Did the brunette really love her?

But Mapi shoves both of those thoughts down, bending down to wipe the makeup off of the midfielder’s face silently, running the cotton round over the Norwegian’s face, removing any evidence of the evening's sorrows.

When she finishes, she discards the dirty cotton rounds into the trash, using the hand still on Ingrid’s face that had been holding her still for stability's sake, and uses it to tilt the Norwegian’s chin up.

Mapi is almost positive that the brunette won’t remember this in the morning, if the hazy and unfocused look in her eyes is anything to go by.

“Listen, Ingrid. I’m not sure what happened between you and Maia, but I would never hit you. You don’t do that to the people you love, and I love you very, very much Ingrid. Even all the parts of yourself that maybe you don’t love yet, I love those parts. I love all of you,” Mapi whispered softly, and Ingrid melts into both the contact and the words, two tears making their way down her cheek slowly.

Mapi leans forward, wrapping the midfielder in a tight, albeit slightly awkward hug given the angle, but the sincerity of it is all the same.

“We’re going to figure this out, Ingrid. You and me, okay? It’s all going to be alright,” the blonde promises, holding the brunette to her tightly.

She can’t quite explain it, but she has the distinct feeling it might be one of the last chances for her to do this, at least for a while. Something about tonight, and the events that have occurred, Mapi knows that this is a turning point. She’s not sure where they will be turning toward, but it’s going to be something different.

Mapi cancels her morning photoshoot, claiming illness and instead choosing to curl up with the brunette, listening to the steady beating of her heart against the center backs as they both fall asleep.

The blonde resolves, in that moment, that just as Frido said just a few hours ago, that she is not going to let Ingrid end this because she’s scared that she can’t do it. Because Mapi knows that the Norwegian loves her, and that she loves her just as much, and that this could be so, so good. They might need a little more help, a little more work. But they’ll get there, and Mapi doesn’t mind waiting. Not for someone as special as her.