Carulia Oneshots

Nobody Compares to You

Day 2 of Carulia Week! - "A Chance Meeting"

Julia and Carmen run into each other unexpectedly at a cafe in Poitiers :)

~words: 662

.....

Julia had left ACME again. She didn't like to feel like a hypocrite, but the thrill had just...left the chase after VILE was disbanded and Carmen had retired to Argentina. So she resigned peacefully, and Chief had let her go. Julia knew that Chief still hoped she would find her way back to ACME again, but Julia knew she wouldn't. She was done with the life of a law enforcement agent.

So here she sat, 8am on a Sunday in her favorite coffee shop just off campus, staring off into space in the general direction of her computer screen instead of planning her lectures for the coming week and half listening to the light chatter in French all around her. A subject which normally would have engrossed her for hours, ancient history had become nothing more than what the general public thought of it—dry, dull and dusty.

Julia sighed and absentmindedly sipped of her tea. She couldn't seem to escape her thoughts lately.

Patrons filtered in and out of the coffee shop all day long—Julia had sat at a table and read for a whole afternoon once—so she never looked up when the bell rang to announce a new customer.

Until someone sat down across from her and startled her out of her thoughts, that is.

"I'm sorry, I'm not—" The words died in Julia's throat when she looked up and saw who she was speaking to.

"Hey, Jules."

"I—Carmen? What are you doing here?"

Carmen's lips curved into a smile and suddenly the temperature in the sun filled cafe seemed to jump a few degrees. "I was just out on a morning coffee run. I'm here with my mother, showing her around the places I used to go. What about you? I didn't expect to see you. Here, of all places."

She meant where it had all started.

"I, uh, live here again. I transferred universities," Julia said in response to the slightly confused look on Carmen's face.

"Well, planned or not, I'm glad to see you again."

Just like that. Did she know how much those simple words made Julia's heart flutter?

"I—" Julia coughed. "And you as well. It's been a while," she said quietly.

Carmen averted her eyes from Julia's gaze to study her hands. "I know. And I'm sorry. On the list of all the things I wish I had done differently, leaving you like that is pretty high up there."

Julia looked at Carmen's bowed head somewhat sadly. So she did feel some remorse for how she had left things. Julia placed her own hand upon Carmen's on the tabletop.

At the contact, Carmen's grey eyes flickered up to meet hers. "Jules."

Simple. Just the name she had been given at birth, the name she had heard day in and day out for twenty six years, but somehow Carmen made it seem like she was worth more than the jewels her name referred to, she made it seem special.

Carmen made her feel special.

"I've never been the best at relationships," Carmen began. Julia tried to protest but Carmen held up a hand, silencing her. "It's true, I'm not. But I want to make all that up to you, if you'll believe me. Just one more time."

The din of the cafe seemed to cease in that moment.

Carmen wanted to have a relationship with...with her?

"Why?" Julia's voice came out much smaller than she would have liked. What was so special about a petite British professor?

Carmen's brow furrowed slightly. "What?"

"I mean, why me? Out of anyone else you could have chosen in the whole world, why me?"

Carmen's lips began to curve into a smile again and she twisted her hand so she could intertwine her finger's with Julia's. "Because...because I've traveled the globe, I've seen the sights and met the people. Nobody compares to you."

Julia smiled. Maybe life as an ancient history professor wasn't so bad after all.