Let Me Carry You (Carry You Home)

1: The Blessing of Love

Maya Bishop felt incredibly fortunate.

Throughout her difficult, trauma-riddled life, there were few times where Maya could recognize just how blessed she felt. She grew up in a home where she did not know safety, and where love was a transactional condition to be earned through winning. Her father ruled the family with an iron fist, and while he never actually hit them, his temper blared bright and loud enough so that the threat was always there.

She had spent decades not knowing peace, and accepted that maybe it was not something she could earn. She'd felt that she didn't deserve it. Maya had been called cold and callous, manipulative and robotic, and sometimes it was easier to play into people's expectations than to stand alone. Maya buried her feelings, and strove relentlessly to accomplish standards that for anyone else, would be impossible. And that was fine. It was what she'd known.

All of that changed one night at Joe's bar. Maya's world, her very fabric of reality, came grinding to a halt.

Sitting next to her was the most gorgeous woman Maya had ever seen. She had cascading, deep brown curls, and eyes a shade of brown that filled Maya with warmth. Her olive-coloured skin was painted in an array of freckles and birthmarks, and Maya swallowed a mouthful of lust alongside with her whiskey. Stop it. Stop staring.

Maya wasn't here for a one-night stand. She was here to drown her sorrows in a couple glasses of high-quality whiskey, and then go home, go to bed and to face the captaincy that many felt she'd stolen, again tomorrow.

She was yanked out of her thoughts by a thickly-accented, lovely voice.

"You look familiar,"

It was such a beautiful noise. Maya smiled slightly as she turned to face the woman she'd been selfishly drinking in, momentarily stunned speechless by the woman's flawlessness but quickly composing herself into some semblance of coherent.

"Oh, no I drink here a lot," Maya explained.

"Ah, no. Were you at the hospital earlier?" The woman asked, and Maya raised her eyebrows, a small smile spreading across the woman's impossibly gorgeous face.

How was it fair for someone to look that beautiful?

"Yeah, I was... I'm a firefighter, I was... dropping something off," Maya replied, and the beautiful woman lit up as she recalled the exact situation.

"Oh my god! Y-Y-Yes, y-you were the one who ran in with the nose!" She exclaimed, and Maya laughed, the smile extending from ear to ear.

Grinning, Maya extended her hand towards the woman, confidence radiating off of her.

"Captain Maya Bishop," she introduced, and with a smile of her own, the woman took Maya's hand, lacing her own in it.

"Doctor Carina DeLuca,"

A brief pause settled, and Carina seemed to jump at the opportunity. "If I buy you a drink, will you tell me the story of how you ended up carrying a nose in a plastic bag?" Carina asked with a small grin, and a silence settled over the two as Maya pondered the request.

Maya wasn't here for a one-night stand. She was here to drown her sorrows in a couple glasses of high-quality whiskey, and then go home, go to bed and to face the captaincy that many felt she'd stolen, again tomorrow.

"I'm sorry, I'm drinking alone tonight," Maya replied softly, and Carina nodded, momentarily turning back to her drink.

"Okay... Are you sure?" She asked delicately, and Maya looked at Carina, this beautiful, radiant woman, who smiled, ever so slightly biting her lip. Maya breathed in, intoxicated by Carina's mere presence. Little did Maya know, Carina was just as mesmerized by Maya's beauty.