A New Life

seventeen.

"I will Danielle, I promise."

Danielle's POV

"Are you ready?? I'm so excited!" Stefania exclaims.

Tonight is the premiere of season 5 of Station 19, and we typically would have a big cast party, but it somehow slipped all of our minds this year so nobody planned it. Stefania and I decided that the two of us would watch together though, as we do for many of the episodes.

I texted Abby yesterday to tell her that Stefania and I were watching the premiere together and she could come too, but she said she had a big exam for school to study for so she wouldn't be able to come. That made me sad, but I'm glad to be spending the night with Stefania.

It's been about two weeks since Abby's birthday, and recently she has been much more closed off, which concerns me. I try to ask her what's going on, but she acts like she's fine. I don't pry anything out of her because the last thing I want to do is push her away after we had gotten so close.

"I'm excited too," I smile up at Stefania. We're in her kitchen right now, and she is finishing up our dinner.

"Can you bring these into the other room bambina?" she asks me, handing me two glasses of wine.

"Of course," I walk out into Stefania's living room, and she joins me on the couch a few moments later.

"This looks delicious," I compliment, looking at the dinner she has made.

"Oh, thank you bella," she smiles.

We start eating our food and a few minutes later, the first episode of season 5 begins to play. Naturally, the very first scene of the episode is an intimate scene between Maya and Carina. My stomach turns at the memory of filming it.

"Of course this is the scene they use to start the season," I joke and Stefania just laughs.

"I don't even want to know what the fans are saying about this right now," she laughs more, opening Twitter on her phone.

We watch the beginning of the episode in comfortable silence while we finish eating, and we both go into the the kitchen to clean up during one of the commercial breaks.

"What do you think so far?" she asks me as she reaches across my body to grab a towel.

"Of the episode?" I watch her hands intently.

"Mhm,"

"It's good," I smile, looking up to see that Stefania is already looking into my eyes. "I don't like how much Maya is in this episode though," I laugh, the both of us walking back into the living room. "I hate watching myself on tv."

"Well, I personally love how much Maya is in this episode," I bite my lip and Stefania's eyes sparkle as she smiles and sits down on the couch right next to me. "Seeing you in charge and all captain-y...it's hot." she giggles. Not knowing what to say, I just look into her eyes for a moment. Her eyes glance down to my lips momentarily, but quickly dart back up to my eyes.

My attention is brought back the the tv when the commercial break is over, and Stefania gets comfortable in the corner of the couch before holding her hands out, motioning for me to come cuddle. I smile and scootch over to her, crawling into her arms as she wraps them around me. I lay my head down on her chest and one of her hands travels up to play with my hair. I smile to myself, knowing that she can't see my face right now.

We watch as our scenes play, before the final commercial break of the episode begins. I readjust myself, so I'm sitting up more straight now but still cuddled into Stefania's side. I pull out my phone and open Twitter to see what everyone is saying about the episode so far. Stefania is watching me scroll, and points at a tweet that says:

"Watching Danielle and Stefania act together is magic. You can see their chemistry and their true love for one another just by the way that they look into each others eyes."

I read the tweet to myself and then turn my head to the side to look at her, and there is a big smile on her face. I get mesmerized by her eyes for a moment, before turning my gaze back down to my phone and liking the tweet that I just read. Knowing that Stefania is watching my every move right now, I decide to reply to the tweet as well:

"@spampistefania is pretty magical...and yes, I do love her very much<3"

I hit send before looking back over to Stefania, seeing a small blush that has risen on her cheeks.

"Is the Stefania Spampinato blushing because of me?!" I joke. "Wow, that almost never happens."

"Stop that," she smiles as she brings her hands up to her face to cover the redness in her cheeks.

"Don't cover that pretty face of yours," I grab her hands with mine, lowering them from her face while mimicking what she said to me when I did the same thing weeks ago.

Once again, we lock eyes for what seems like eternity, this time my eyes glancing down at her lips before we are both pulled from our trances as the episode comes back on. She has to be feeling this too, I think to myself.

One of the last scenes that is played is a slow, tender kiss between Maya and Carina.

"I got so many butterflies when we filmed that kiss," Stefania says quietly, her eyes glued to the screen.

"Really?" I look over at her, smiling.

"Yeah," she giggles, looking into my eyes before looking down to play with her fingers.

I bring my hand up to her chin and gently lift her head back up. She looks into my eyes, once again glancing down at my lips after a long moment of silence. I think she just leaned in slightly, so I lean in as well, not making a move yet as I'm scared that I'm misreading the moment. I look down at her lips, and just as I look back up I see her eyes dart down to look at mine again.

I try to lean in even more, and I can feel my heart beating out of my chest as I slowly bring my hand up to the side of her face. The corners of her lips turn up ever so slightly into a smile before she leans in the extra couple of inches to finally close the gap in between us. When her soft lips connect with mine, I feel an explosion of butterflies in my stomach. The kiss is extremely short and innocent, both of us pulling away with soft smiles on our faces.

"I've been wanting to do that for so long," Stefania whispers, bringing her thumb up to caress my cheek.

"Really?" My eyes widen at her confession and it feels like the entire world just stopped. I pull her back in, pressing another kiss to her lips, this time slightly more passionate than the first.

"I've been wanting to do that for so long too," I admit once we pull away.

"Yeah?" she whispers, a big smile gracing her face.

"Mhm," I pull her in yet again, this time parting my lips slightly and running my hand through her hair.

"I just got butterflies again,"

a/n: finally!! writing this chapter made me so happy:)