We're In Love || Nyla Harper

°•fallout•°

Bold + italics = Spanish

Some little bits of Spanish will just be written as Spanish.. larger bodies of text tho have been written in English in bold+italics so that I don't need to include large paragraphs of translation for anyone who doesn't understand Spanish. If anything is wrong, let me know, (I'll change it!!) but equally if there's a longer paragraph that isn't translated then feel free to stick it in the comments and I'll add that in too :)

Also, since I don't think I've mentioned it yet.. Carmen is currently blonde while undercover and has been, to various degrees, for all of her time as Anita. That will change when she's no longer undercover but, for now, she is blonde and has been for a while. (I just didn't mention it last chapter.. oops x)

╔═══━━━─── • ───━━━═══╗

"You can't be here"

It had been months since they had spoken as themselves, and it would be many more before they should, but Nyla didn't listen to rules - she never had.

"You're not allowed to be a CI while undercover"

Carmen stopped what she was doing and turned around to face Nyla, swallowing harshly as Nyla stepped impossibly closer in the small storeroom of the bar, "you're not supposed to threaten case managers for information on ongoing ops"

"Oh that? That was a promise," Nyla's eyes scanned over Carmen, settling on the still healing stitches from the incident at the club "and he's not doing a good job at making good on his own promise"

"And you aren't making good on yours."

Nyla felt like the air had been stolen from her lungs as Carmen spoke.

Undeterred, Carmen added, "You promised to go, and to not look back."

"I never agreed to that."

"You did..." Carmen tried to smile but felt it waver, her eyes beginning to cloud over "And it's okay. I needed you safe and you needed to fix things here. It's okay, Ny, really-"

Her words halted, caught on the tip of her tongue as Nyla raised her hand to wipe away Carmen's freshly fallen tear, before gently caressing her cheek in an attempt to soothe her. Carmen forced herself to not lean into her touch, her heart aching with the weight of her restraint; she couldn't fall into her old habits, not when she knew that Nyla wouldn't be able to hold her when she fell apart anymore.

She was Anita, and she was alone.

"Go... please"

"Carmen-"

"No. No, Nyla. I promised Banks that we wouldn't be a problem, that this" she gestured between them "whatever 'this' is, wouldn't prevent me from doing my job but.. ever since Guatemala I am constantly tired, and hurt, and scared-"

"and I'm not there anymore" Nyla breathed out, her voice shaking as they stood there in silence; it was an awkward dance of knowing each other inside out while having to relearn the situations they were newly trapped in and neither were sure they could find their footing.

Together, or alone.

Except, 'Anita' was alone and thus her decision was made for her.

"No, you're not, but that's the job," Carmen finally found the strength to step away from Nyla and moved so that she faced the small mirror hung on the wall beside her instead. "We both knew what we agreed to when you used your golden ticket to come back to LA and make things right with Lila. We knew that they would never allow us both to leave when the job wasn't finished, golden tickets be damned,.. and that's okay. We just need to accept that someone we spent the last 4 years of our lives with is gone, at least until I finish what we started; I thought I had but clearly I've just been lying to myself"