IN THIS SKIN -- CHICAGO FIRE

48;

It was only when Marley and Ji had been on several more dates and their feelings had grown even more that she became aware that she had been, subconsciously, hiding her new relationship from most of the people in her life. Whilst she was truly thrilled that Kelly had accepted her without so much as batting an eyelid, and however grateful she was that Squad who had been the first people she told had kept it to themselves, she was terrified of judgement. Sure, everyone had accepted Shay with open arms and hearts, but she knew that for some people it would be more difficult to accept her than it was for them to accept Shay. After all, things had been going well for Marley for a while now; there was a voice inside her telling her that it was only a matter of time before something went wrong.

She had decided that telling her colleagues and friends at work would be easier than the firehouse, so she started there. Marley and Ji had already discussed whether they were going to 'come out' to people, and after a passionate rant from Ji about the stupidity that was the ideology of straight people being the norm and anyone who didn't fit into that category being abnormal and requiring to tell everybody in their immediate circles "Hi, I'm gay, or something kinda in between," in order to be able to openly love who they want to, they had both decided that they didn't want to make a big thing of it. 

But that didn't do an awful lot to ease her anxiety walking into the precinct. 

She only had a short shift today helping to catch up on reports and paperwork, and she had arranged for Ji to meet her at the end of her shift to go out for lunch together. Afterwards, the two teenagers were going to Molly's to meet Kelly and, Marley could only assume, many others. It was a non-shift day, after all. 

However, as most desk days went whilst sat between Mouse and Adam, the three were running behind schedule. Olinsky had quietly got on with most of his paper work, along with Jay, Kevin and Kim. Though the four had happily thrown various debate starters to the other three and listened as they argued back and forth without so much as touching their work. It wasn't until Voight returned to the bullpen, uttering a stern "Marley, you have a visitor," that alerted her to the time. Following somewhat nervously behind the gruff looking man, was Ji, two paper bags in her arms. Marley felt panic rush through her as Ji walked more confidently over to her - they had reached the stage of their relationship where it wasn't abnormal to greet each other with a kiss. Should she kiss her in front of everyone? Would that make Ji uncomfortable? Would it make her uncomfortable?

Soft lips on hers cut off her internal debate.
"Hey," Ji said quietly to the blushing girl in front of her, smiling, "are you going to introduce me?" She asked, gesturing to the adults in the room who didn't seem to know where to look.
"Oh," Marley exclaimed, standing up and offering a smile to everyone. "Guys, this is Ji, my..." She trailed off awkwardly, not really knowing what to call her. 
"-Girlfriend." Ji finished for her, proudly.
 "Ji, this is Greg, but you know him as Mouse, Jay, Kim and Kevin, that is Hank Voight, over there is Alvin Olinsky and you probably recognise Adam from a few weeks ago," She introduced, pointing at each person respectively.
"It's nice to put some faces to the names, Marls speaks highly of you all," Ji said warmly, "I brought you all some cookies and stuff from the bakery - I figured Marls was running late when she didn't show up so thought you could all use some treats too." She said, placing one of the bags down on the nearest desk that just so happened to be Kevin's. Eagerly, he opened the bag and pulled out a large red velvet cookie.
"If you're trying to butter us up so we'll let you get away with kissing our girl," Voight said in his usual tense tone of voice, marching towards the bag and girl. He paused for a moment, glancing at the teenagers before reaching in the bag and pulling out a packet of iced doughnuts, "then it's working." A rare grin was etched upon his face as he walked past Marley, patting her shoulder as he did. A breath she didn't realise she had been holding escaped and relief flooded her body. Kim and Jay had taken it upon themselves to introduce themselves properly and find some more information about the girl who happily engaged with all their questions.