#this isn't the angstiest bit but it's the only bit I can share without giving everything away

[jmflowers]

prompt #1 | prompt #2 | prompt #3 | prompt #4 | prompt #5 expanded prompts

sneak peek for prompt #6: when everything feels heavy, I’ve learned to travel light. (Seven by Sleeping at Last)

It’s the sigh that’s most telling about how her day is going: a deep, exhausted sound set free as she moves a stack of completed forms into the outgoing bin on the corner of her desk. She’s been trapped in her office for most of the afternoon, catching up on paperwork that’s been forgotten for a week too long already.

Fridays are like that, sometimes. This one, though, had begun decidedly wife-free, breakfast and the school run left on her plate while Carina spent the day in back-to-back surgeries. It’s been a lonely afternoon, without their usual post-lunch phone call, and Maya can feel that all-too-familiar ache of missing her wife’s presence building in her chest.

Which is why she jumps when her personal cell phone starts to ring, diving for it excitedly in anticipation of Carina’s face on the screen. With her scrub cap still on, most likely, checking in on how the morning went or gushing about a successful surgery or simply whispering an I love you as she heads off to give a patient some challenging news.

What she isn’t expecting to see is their children’s school on the caller ID.

“Hello?” she answers quickly, swallowing hard as her heart rate increases.

What she isn’t expecting to hear is that no one is injured.

The frustration rears its head quickly, sharp against the missing Carina and the trapped in the office and the ready to go home and relax feelings that have been swirling inside her for most of the afternoon. She wishes it were Thursday as she rises from her desk, wishes it were any other day of the week when Carina would be the one to have time to deal with this.

But it’s Friday. And Carina’s in back-to-back surgeries. And the paperwork piled on her desk, unfortunately, can wait another day.

“I’ll be right there,” she says into the phone.

~~~

Maya clutches the steering wheel so hard on the short drive to the school that her fingers are stiff when she finally arrives. She takes a moment in the car to try to center herself - to breathe and let the colour seep back into her knuckles - but it does little to help.

The frustration still simmers just below the surface, insistent.

Their Beatrice has been in the first grade for only two weeks. Her backpack is still pristine, the pink character she’d chosen not yet stained beyond recognition. The package of pencil crayons she’d excitedly picked out are still all together in her pencil case, barely sharpened. Her shoes, with the laces she’s just learned to tie, are only beginning to look scuffed from recesses spent on the playground.

And yet, when Maya steps through the doors of the school and into the office, Beatrice is sitting on a chair below a placard that reads Principal Pacheco, swinging her legs nervously. Andrea, seated beside her, at least looks properly scolded; his eyes cast down and his shoulders hunched as though he’s trying to fold over into himself.

Three years at this school and their son has never so much as brought home a bad grade. His report cards have all featured glowing reviews of his work ethic, his intelligence, his kindness. He’d won the Compassion award just last Spring, beaming proudly from the front of the auditorium while Carina had tried to pretend she wasn’t crying.

Two weeks of Beatrice’s presence was all it took, apparently, to dash the record.

“What happened?” Maya hisses as she steps around the secretary’s desk to stare them down. All the calming breaths she’d taken in the car have already been forgotten, replaced with the itchy desire to make this day just fucking end.

The principal appears in her office doorway as if summoned by Maya’s anger. She smiles one of those tight, attempting-to-put-you-at-ease smiles that doesn’t quite reach her eyes, gesturing behind herself. “Mrs. Deluca-Bishop,” she says, “May we speak in my office?”

#y'all asked for angst #this isn't the angstiest bit but it's the only bit I can share without giving everything away #and it's most definitely not the softest part because y'all know where i reside in the hygge universe #the rest coming... hopefully next weekend? #a chapter in 6 very long parts #yes it’ll go in Hygge #yes it’s maya x carina #tumblr prompt party #minefic #maya x carina fic #carina x maya fic #station 19 fanfiction #I hope you like so far? #scheduled post because I'm always working