- November 21st 2024 -
"Is it normal that every single time I smile at him, he just wants to steal my nose?" Maya laughed looking at her baby boy on the toy blanket lying on the floor.
"It's because of how you crinkle it." Carina laughed, walking closer to her wife.
"Don't mock me for my nose." Maya replied laughing along and taking Carina's hand in hers to drag her to the couch.
"He's wonderful." The American spoke after a little while, eyes still on the baby.
"He is." Carina smiled thinking about the past few years that brought them to that exact moment.
Bah came running in a few minutes later, both women lying on the couch in their back, TV turned on but completely ignored.
"Hey puppy." Maya laughed when the dog jumped on the couch and walked to rest on her abdomen.
"When are your mom and Mason coming?" Carina asked now that they weren't focused only on each other anymore.
"They should be here in...half an hour." Maya answered reading the time on her watch and standing up from the couch, releasing herself from Carina's embrace.
The italian wined, closing her eyes and pucking her lips to have a kiss. Maya complied before taking her wife's hands to lift her.
"We have to dress Joy, she's still in her PJ." The brunette chuckled, giving he wife a soft kiss before walking upstairs to wake the little girl.
"I'm gonna go wake Leslie." The blonde replied following her wife.
She stopped in front of Leslie's room, the door closed and knocked a few times before opening it.
"Girl. Grandma and Mason are gonna be here in a few, we're having dinner all together." She told the girl, walking inside to open the window. "And try at least once a week to make air circulate in this room." She pulled the sheets off of Leslie's body.
"Mom come on! It's cold." She immediately took the sheets back to cover herself.
"Try not to wear shorts then." Maya laughed leaning down to kiss her on the forehead.
"You know that I always do." Leslie sank her head in the pillow to hide her face from her mom's kisses.
"We worked for like thirty hours straight, just let me sleep." She wined covering her eyes from the light.
"I'll give you ten minutes to get dressed, or even just stay in your shorts and catch a cold." The older firefighter joked turning to exit the room. She stopped to ask something else. "Do you want to invite also Treena over?"
"Ehm...no, why? I mean she's like busy with...something. I don't think she could make it." Leslie stumbled on her words and Maya knew it wasn't just because of her daughter's exhaustion.
"Okay. No problem. Get dressed." She spoke one last time walking out with Leslie's groans in the background.
Katherine and Mason arrived on time around twenty minutes after Leslie was downstairs fully dressed.
The family gathered around the table chatting about thousand of different things, from Elia's morning routine to 19's last shifts and delivered babies.
Once finished Katherine took both of her younger grandchildren to go and play with them in the livingroom, leaving the mothers and the older daughter to tidy the kitchen, Mason helping here and there.
"Mom can I ask you something?" Leslie spoke a few minutes later, looking at her blonde mother.
"Shoot." Maya replied, taking the glass Carina was handing her to dry it with the towel and pass it to her brother who could set it in the cabinets.
"Are we ever gonna meet Lane?" She asked keeping her sight focused on the blonde as she closed a drawer.
The glass that Maya was handing to her brother slipped in the passage, smashing on the ground.
"Dammit." Maya spoke loudly, earning a glare from Carina who gestured to the little babies on the other side of the room.
"Sorry. Sorry." She spoke twice.
Leslie swallowed loudly and turned to look at her italian mother mouthing an 'I'm sorry' and giving her a half smile.
"Why do you ask that?" Mason questioned, kneeling to help Maya pick the pieces. "Is it becoming kind of our thing now? To pick pieces of broken glass from the ground?" He asked his sister when he remembered they had done it when Mason first came to the station not long ago.
"I was just wondering. Mom never speaks about him. Not that I want you to." Leslie gestured to her mother shaking her head. "But I mean...are you sure that he doesn't want to have anything to do with either one of you and not even meet any of us?" She pointed to her siblings.
"I don't think so bambina. You know the story right?" Carina told her daughter hoping the answer would be enough, sensing Maya's tension even a few steps far from her.
"i don't think so either. Plus I actually kind of...don't want to?" Mason shrugged looking at his niece.
Leslie nodded, fully aware of the Bishop family history. She thought if she would want to ever meet her father again, maybe in a few years.
Their family wasn't clearly conventional, abusive fathers, passed away mothers, long forgotten and refound siblings, dead siblings. Their history could turn into a family drama kind of sitcom or reality show.
Somehow different broken people had found each other, in a way or another, to form a whole that nothing could ever break.
- December 13th 2024 -
"I've got something for you." Leslie spoke while walking out of the station with Treena.
The girl turned towards her friend, giving her a shy smile and taking a step forward to be closer to her.
Leslie cleared her voice and brought in front the hands she was holding behind her back.
"You got me a white box!" Treena faked enthusiasm, making the older girl burst out laughing.
"I actually did, thought you might like it." The firefighter played along, making Treena laugh as well. "No seriously. Open it." She reached forward so that she could take the box and open it.
"Oh Les." Treena pulled a smartphone out of the box turning it around to give a look. "You don't have to do this, why?" She looked deeply into Leslie's green eyes hoping that the girl would give her a fair explenation.
They had developed a bond in the past two months, for sure. But Treena wasn't much aware of the reason her friend would gift her with that device.
She had been speaking with Mason about Leslie a lot lately, her being his niece was something the man hadn't aknowledged yet.
They both felt some kind of connection for one another, but a connection that neither of them could put a name to yet.
Treena tried to come to the station almost every shift of A-team, spending time chatting and joking. Leslie had also let her try the pole once, but her fear for heights didn't actually let her do that ever again.
She felt good, with Leslie and with everyone else, like Mason and her finally had a family, a village.
"Why not? You don't have one." Leslie explained, well aware that the answer wouldn't be enough. She knew that she had to tell her sooner or later.
"Yeah well, you'll have to give me more than that." The younger girl joked flipping the phone around and turning it on to give a look.
"I...I'm gifting you with this because I want you to call me. Or text me. Because I want to know where you are and what you are doing during the day." She cleared her throat, not a good choice of words. "Okay well that makes me look like a stalker." She laughed, which made Treena laugh along.
"I know you're not though...are you?" She teased, replacing the device back in it's box.
"I want to know that you got home safe if it's dark outside. And tell me that you'll stop by the station so that I can warn you if we're out on a call. And I want to be able to tell you that I'm fine after a big fire, that there's nothing you have to worry about. I want to call you at the end of a rough shift and to be able to reach you if ever you need any help. I want to ask you how you're doing in the middle of the day, text you good night at the end of it and goodmorning at the beginning of the next one. I want to send you stupid pictures that I took with my siblings and...and I really want to text you if you wanna go out on a date with me tonight, because I really can't ask you that face to face." She emptied her mind and heart, pulling her own phone out of the back pocket to immediately write her a text, having already saved her number in it.
Treena, completely at a loss of words took the phone back in her hands, replying at her text with a 'yes, I would love to.'
Leslie smiled reading the answer, looking up at her.
"I'll text you the details." She spoke a few second later, her smile threatening to split her face in half.
"I'll be waiting." She replied, turning around to walk away.
Leslie remained there for a while, looking at her and holding her phone tight in her hands. Turning to walk back in she let a silly scream come out jumping a little while the door closed behind her.
- December 7th 2024 -
"Is my nineteen year old daughter really drinking white wine on the couch?" Maya asked sitting next to Leslie.
The young girl sighed, slightly turning towards her mother giving her a half smile.
"Are you gonna tell me what's wrong or you just wanna get drunk in front of your mother?" The older firefighter teased leaning on her daughter.
"I wouldn't say something's wrong." Leslie reply came a few seconds later after she had taken a sip of her wine.
"You're simply acting like your mother then?" Maya asked, knowing that something was bothering her, but patiently waiting for whenever she was ready.
"How do you know...how did you know that you were in love with mom?" Leslie finally asked, her glass already empty, eyes still on the wall.
"I -" Maya wanted to simply answer her, but her motherhood instinct was telling her to ask Leslie why she was questioning that.
"Why are you asking me that baby?" She decided to answer with her question, now fully focused on her daughter, turning her whole body towards her and placing her legs crossed on the couch.
"Because I wanna know if I am actually in love." Leslie replied turning towards her mother in the same position.
"With Tyler?" She was finally putting the pieces together, understanding what her daughter was trying to ask her.
"Yeah." Leslie nodded, filling the glass with the bottle she had placed on the table.
Maya's hand reached forward to take the glass that Leslie was holding to her mouth.
"Please. I want you to speak to me sober girl." She spoke, hoping she would be as honest as Maya wished.
"I don't know mom. I - I don't know." She leaned forward, to rest her head on Maya's shoulder. "I think that I'm not."
"You're not what?" Maya saw Carina approaching, holding Joy in her arms and gestured her to stop where she was.
Carina did, turning around to the kitchen. Maya heard Joy asking why they couldn't go watch the movie her mamma had promised, the italian soothed her explaining they would watch it in a few minutes.
"I think I have loved him. But that I'm not...anymore. Cause I have different feelings for...someone else." The girl explained, still leaning down on her shoulder.
"Do I know that someone else?" Maya knew where this was going. She started caressing Leslie's back to soothe her.
The girl nodded on her.
"And does she feel the same?" The blonde asked, knowing that Leslie was aware she knew who she was talking about.
"I don't know. I don't want to disappoint Tyler though." She spoke raising her head looking into her mother's blue eyes.
"Baby. If he loves you, if he really loves you, than he will never, ever be disappointed with you being honest. With you being in love." She replied, holding Leslie's cheek in her hand.
"But I should be in love with him." Carina heard her saying from the opposite side of the room and forced herself not to go and hug her daughter, to tell her she was free to love whoever she wanted.
"No baby girl. There's nothing that you should or shouldn't be to please someone else. You need to make yourself happy, not others." Maya knew, deeply, that there was nothing more true than that, nothing else that she wanted for her beside being happy.
"So what do I have to do?" Leslie asked, her eyes now filling with tears. "What if she doesn't? What if I'm just throwing everything away?" She sobbed, her mother's hand wiping away a few tears.
"Then you'll have learned. And you'll know yourself deeper. There's nothing wrong with that." Maya pulled her in a tight embrace, feeling her shake against her.
"Thanks." Leslie mumbled through the sobs, holding her mother even tighter.
Carina walked with Joy, Elia fast asleep upstairs in the nursery, holding the device that was communicating with the room.
She took a seat on the couch next to her daughter.
"Why you cry Lelie?" Joy asked, reaching forward so that Leslie could take her on her lap.
"Oh baby J, you'll know when you'll be older." Both Maya and Carina chuckled, the italian's hand stroking Leslie's dark hair.
"I'm big!" Joy replied taking her sister's cheeks in her hands and giving a kiss to her nose, just like Carina used to do everytime she would cry. "Better?" The baby girl asked, turning to lean on Leslie's chest.
"A lot better, thanks." She smiled, looking at both women.
"Now. What did you want to watch bambina?" Carina asked taking the remote to turn the TV on.
"Frozen mamma." Joy said, clapping when the movie started and singing along at the opening titles.
Notes
Hello!
I wanna know your thoughts. Are we about to meet Lane again? Get ready.
I'm interested in your opinion about Leslie and Treena, if you like the characters and the idea of a relationship between the two. I thought that with Tyler being so far away for college Leslie needed someone right here with her.
Get ready for the date.
We're almost alligned with AO3
Hope you enjoyed, leave comments
Giulia_Rachel