Chapter Text
The apartment didn’t feel quite right. Carina's eyes opened to walls that breathed with odd slogans, their surfaces plastered with government posters that seemed to shift when she wasn't looking directly at them. "Family First, Nature's Way" was plastered across one wall in bold red letters that was impossible to ignore.
She sat up in the narrow bed, her head heavy with a fog that wouldn't clear. The room was smaller than it should be, the ceiling lower, pressing down with a weight that made breathing difficult. Every surface bore some kind of propaganda. "Traditional Values Build Strong Nations" curved along the baseboard. "Report Deviancy, Protect Society" hung framed above a dresser she didn't quite recognize at first.
The whispers started as she swung her legs over the bed's edge. She pressed her palms against her temples, trying to silence them, but they only grew more insistent. Marry a man. Children. Duty as a wife. The words repeated in a rhythm that matched her pulse.
Carina stumbled to the bathroom, needing to splash water on her face, needing to wake up properly. But the mirror stopped her cold.
There was something off in her reflection. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but something was off in a fundamental way that made her stomach turn. She lifted her shirt, examining her body with growing confusion. Everything was... Normal. Adequate. Ordinary. Yet, she felt that something was missing and she didn’t know what.
"No, stop it, Carina." She whispered, but her voice sounded different too. Lighter. Less certain.
Her phone buzzed on the nightstand. She grabbed it with shaking hands, seeing a message from Marina. Her twin sister. The name felt both foreign and familiar, like a word in a language she'd once known but forgotten.
"Don't forget about the dinner date with Mario tonight! Mom says he's perfect for you. Good family, traditional values."
Carina's fingers moved across the screen without her conscious control, typing a response that felt like it came from someone else entirely. "Of course. Mario sounds wonderful. A real man who knows what he wants. Not like those deviants who corrupt society with their unnatural desires."
The words made her feel satisfied and sick simultaneously. She set the phone down and reached for the coffee mug on her dresser. "Hetero Harmony" was stamped on its side in official government lettering, complete with a stamp seal that seemed to watch her as she lifted it to her lips.
Memories flooded her mind. They didn’t seem her memories, but at the same time they were, because she remembered them.
She was eight years old, sitting at the kitchen table in Italy with Marina. Their father paced back and forth, his voice sharp with anger. Their mother sat silent, hands folded, eyes downcast.
"You listen to me," their father said, pointing at them with a finger that trembled with rage. "What happened when you were born was a curse. But the doctors were able to fix you, Marina. But you, Carina, you were lucky. You were born right. Born pure."
Marina had looked at him with eyes that held too much understanding for a child. Even then, she'd known she was different. The surgery hadn't fixed everything, hadn't erased what she truly was.
"This curse runs in families," their father continued. "It makes people sick. Makes them think terrible thoughts. Want terrible things. You must never give in to it. You must protect the family name. Choose the right path. Marry a good man. Have normal children. Or you'll destroy everything we've built."
Their mother finally spoke. "God is watching. Always watching. He knows what's in your heart."
The memory faded, leaving Carina gasping in the dim apartment. She clutched the edge of the dresser, trying to ground herself in the present. But which present? Which version of herself was she?
She looked at the posters again. They weren't just propaganda. They were protection. Shields against the wrongness that threatened to creep in at any moment. If she followed the rules, if she stayed on the right path, she'd be safe. Marina hadn't been that lucky. Marina had been hit by the curse.
Carina dressed mechanically, choosing clothes that felt like a uniform. Conservative. Appropriate. Nothing that might draw the wrong kind of attention. As she buttoned her shirt, she caught herself wondering what Maya would think. But who was Maya? She didn’t know anyone named Maya. The name appeared in her mind like a flash of light, then vanished before she could grasp it.
She had to get to work. Had to maintain the good behavior. Had to keep choosing the right path, even as every cell in her body screamed that something was terribly off, that she was living someone else's life, that somewhere out there was a truth she'd forgotten.
She moved through the hospital corridors with practiced efficiency, her white coat a shield against the wrongness that seemed to seep from the walls. Even here, in a place of healing, the posters were prominent. "Healthy Families, Healthy Future" adorned the nurses' station. "Report Abnormalities in Patients and Colleagues" hung near the elevator.
The break room door was slightly ajar when she passed. She almost kept walking, but Marina's voice stopped her. Low, urgent, frightened. She was on the phone talking, they seemed to be arguing.
"Please, Alice, we have to be more careful." Marina's words came in rushed whispers. "They're doing random checks now. Sample testing employees. If they find out I'm dating a woman, it's prison. Or worse."
Carina's blood turned to ice. She pressed herself against the wall, listening to her twin's voice crack with suppressed tears.
"I know you're tired. I am too. But I love you. That has to mean something." A pause. Marina's breathing was ragged. "No, don't come to the hospital. It's too dangerous. I'll find a way to see you. There's a place, underground. It’s safe. Maya can get us in."
That name again. Maya. It sparked something in Carina's chest, a flame she immediately smothered.
"I have to go. Someone might hear. I love you. Remember that, whatever happens."
The phone clicked off. Carina waited three heartbeats before pushing into the break room. Marina stood by the coffee machine, her hands shaking as she tried to pour a cup. Their eyes met in the reflection of the microwave door.
"Carina." Marina's voice was carefully neutral. "I didn't hear you come in."
"We need to talk." Carina grabbed her sister's arm, harder than necessary. "Now."
She dragged Marina down the hall to a storage closet, shoving her inside and locking the door behind them. The space was cramped, shelves of medical supplies pressing in from all sides. Marina backed against the wall, her face a mask of practiced calm that didn't reach her eyes.
"I heard you," Carina said. "On the phone."
Marina's composure cracked. "Carina, please. You don't understand."
"I understand perfectly. You're sick. You're choosing to be sick." The words tasted like ash, but Carina forced them out. "After everything Mom and Dad sacrificed to give you a normal life."
"Normal?" Marina laughed, bitter and sharp. "Is that what you call this? Living in fear? Pretending to be someone we're not?"
"We are who we choose to be. And you're choosing wrong."
Marina's eyes filled with tears. "I'm in love with Alice. It's real, Carina. It is not a choice. It is not a sickness. It is love."
The word hung between them like a challenge. Carina felt her carefully constructed worldview tilting, threatening to collapse. She grabbed onto her anger like a lifeline.
"How could you?" The words erupted from somewhere deep and poisonous. "After what Dad said about deviants ruining families? About the curse? You're throwing away everything. Our reputation. Mom's sacrifices. It's disgusting. Unnatural."
Marina flinched with each word, but her spine straightened. "Listen to yourself. You sound just like them."
"If you get caught, you'll drag us all down. They'll investigate the whole family. They'll find out about your surgery. About what you really are."
"What I really am?" Marina stepped forward, her voice rising. "I'm your sister. Your twin. We came into this world together. Two parts of one whole. Remember? That's what Mom used to say before Dad poisoned her mind with his hate."
The phrase hit Carina like a physical blow. Two parts of one whole. Something about it felt fundamentally true in a way that made her chest ache.
"That has nothing to do with you choosing a deviant behaviour," Carina said, but her voice wavered.
"That has nothing to do with them teaching us to hate ourselves, you mean." Marina reached for Carina's hand, but Carina jerked away. "I see it in you too, you know. The way you look at certain women. The way you flinch when the men you dated touch you. You're just better at hiding it."
"Stop." Carina's hands clenched into fists. "Stop trying to make me like you. I’m normal."
"I'm not trying to make you anything. I'm trying to remind you who you are." Marina's voice broke. "But you're so buried under their lies, you can't even start to see it clearly."
Carina turned to leave, her hand on the door handle, when Marina's phone buzzed. They both froze. Marina pulled it out with trembling fingers, her face going pale as she read.
"Stay hidden. They know. Someone reported suspicious behavior."
"Who sent that?" Carina demanded.
"I don't know. Someone's been warning people. Helping them escape before the raids." Marina shoved the phone in her pocket. "I have to go."
She pushed past Carina, pausing at the door. "You know what the saddest part is? You used to be the brave one. The one who questioned everything. The one who protected me. Now you're just another voice in their chorus of hate. You’re part of a cult."
Marina disappeared into the corridor, leaving Carina alone among the medical supplies. The closet felt smaller, the air thinner. She pressed her palms against her eyes, trying to stop the thoughts that wouldn't stay buried.
If it's a crime and so wrong, why did Marina's voice sound so full of love when she talked with Alice? Why did the word feel warm instead of wrong?
Carina thought about the surgery Marina had survived, the one that was supposed to fix her. But what if there had been nothing to fix? What if the curse their father spoke of was just fear dressed up as righteousness?
The questions multiplied, each one a crack in the wall she'd built around herself. She thought about Marina's girlfriend, Alice, who she'd never met but who made her sister's voice soft with affection. She thought about the underground place Marina mentioned, where people could be themselves without fear.
And she thought about Maya. The name that kept appearing in her mind like a sign, calling her toward something she couldn't name but desperately wanted to understand.
Maybe Marina was right. Maybe she was buried under lies so deep she'd forgotten what reason felt like. But admitting that would mean admitting everything she'd built her life on was wrong. It would mean becoming one of them. The hunted. The hated. The deviant.
She left the closet and returned to her rounds, but her hands shook as she examined patients. Every woman she treated made her wonder. How many were hiding? How many were pretending, just like Marina? Just like she was pretending, though she couldn't quite name what she was pretending about?
The guilt sat heavy in her stomach, a stone that grew heavier with each passing hour. She'd threatened to destroy her own sister for the crime of loving someone. What kind of person did that make her?
The restaurant bar enforced its values through architecture itself, with separate entrances marked "Couples Only" and "Singles Seeking Approval." Carina sat at a table designated for approved courtship, the menu in front of her listing "traditional pairings only" with suggested conversation topics printed on the back. Weather. Work productivity. Plans for children.
Mario was late. Twenty minutes now, though the restaurant's clock seemed to move differently, sometimes jumping forward, sometimes creeping backward. She nursed a glass of water that tasted like compliance, watching other couples engage in prescribed small talk about family values and mortgage rates.
The bartender moved with a fluidity that drew Carina's attention against her will. Blonde hair pulled back in a way that showed the strong line of her neck. Hands that mixed drinks with practiced efficiency but seemed capable of so much more. When she laughed at something a coworker said, the sound cut through the restaurant's oppressive atmosphere like light through fog.
Their eyes met across the room. Time stopped. Or maybe it had never been real in the first place.
The bartender set down the bottle she was holding and walked over, ignoring the disapproving looks from other patrons. Up close, Carina could see the defiance in her blue eyes, the way she carried herself like someone who'd stopped asking permission.
"You look like you need a real conversation." Her voice was low, warm, with an edge that made Carina's pulse quicken. "Name's Maya. Firefighter by day, bartender by night, rebel at heart."
"I'm waiting for someone." Carina's voice came out plane.
"Mario Mitchell? Traditional values, works in government compliance, favorite topic is quarterly reports?" Maya slid into the seat across from her. "He called to cancel. Something about a mandatory purity meeting."
Carina should have been upset. Should have left immediately. Instead, she found herself leaning forward. "How do you know Mario?"
"I know a lot of people. Like how you don't actually want to be here. How you're going through the motions because it's safer than admitting what you really want."
"I don’t know what you’re talking about. You don't know anything about me."
Maya smiled, and it was like watching a match strike. "I know you keep looking at my hands. I know your breathing changed when I sat down. I know you're scared of what you're feeling right now, but you're more scared of never feeling it again."
The words should have sent Carina running. Instead, they anchored her to the chair, to this moment, to the impossible pull between them.
"This is wrong," Carina whispered.
"By whose definition?" Maya leaned closer. "The same people who tell us love is only valid if it fits their narrow little box? The same ones who would rather see us dead or imprisoned than happy?"
Before Carina could respond, sirens wailed outside. The restaurant erupted in panic. Officers in black uniforms poured through the doors, scanners in hand, searching for biological anomalies, behavioral deviations.
"Random check," someone screamed. "They're scanning everyone."
Maya grabbed Carina's hand without hesitation. The contact sent electricity through Carina's entire body, rewriting her DNA at a molecular level. "Come with me. Now."
"I didn't do anything wrong." Carina tried to pull away. "I'm not one of them."
Maya's grip tightened. "That's not what your heart rate is saying right now. Or the way you're looking at me. They'll scan you, see the attraction, and that's all the evidence they need."
The scanner's beep grew closer. Maya pulled harder, and suddenly Carina was following, their hands linked as they wove through overturned chairs and panicking patrons. Maya kicked open a door marked "Storage Only," revealing stairs that descended into darkness.
They ran down, down, down, far deeper than any restaurant basement should go. The walls changed from plaster to stone to something that might have been breathing. Finally, they arrived at an underground. Mismatched furniture created cozy corners. Christmas lights strung across the ceiling provided warm illumination. People moved freely here, touching without fear, existing without apology.
"What is this place?" Carina asked, still breathless from the run and the feeling of Maya's hand in hers.
"Somewhere we can be ourselves." Maya finally let go, and Carina immediately missed the contact. "Somewhere the oppressive rules don't reach."
They found a corner with two armchairs that had seen better days. Carina sank into one, her mind spinning. Maya sat across from her, patient, watchful, beautiful in a way that made Carina's chest ache.
"I fought with my sister today," Carina said out of the blue after a while. "Marina. My twin. She's dating a woman, and I said terrible things to her. Called her disgusting. Deviant."
"But you don't really believe that."
"I don't know what I believe anymore." Carina pressed her palms against her eyes. "Everything I was taught, everything I thought I knew, it's all falling apart."
"Good. Let it fall." Maya moved to kneel in front of Carina's chair, her hands resting on Carina's knees. "I lost my family to this hate. My father, when he found out about me, he tried to fix me. Conversion therapy, they called it. Torture is what it was. But I survived. I escaped. And I learned that love isn't a crime. It's human and it’s beautiful."
Maya's hands were warm through the fabric of Carina's skirt. "You're feeling it now, aren't you? This thing between us. It's not wrong or sick or unnatural. It's the most natural thing in the world."
"This can't be me." Carina's voice broke. "I'm not like that."
"Like what? Capable of real feeling? Capable of love that isn't predetermined by someone else's rules? Have you ever felt like this?" Maya stood, pulling Carina up with her. They were close now, close enough that Carina could see flecks of gold in Maya's blue eyes. "Tell me you don't feel this."
Carina couldn't. The words wouldn't come. Instead, she surged forward, capturing Maya's lips with her own. The kiss was desperate, hungry, years of repression breaking like a dam. The world around them spun, colors inverting, gravity becoming optional. The underground shelter flickered between existing and not existing, as if their connection was rewriting reality itself.
When they pulled apart, both breathing hard, Maya smiled and reached up to cup Carina's face. "I saw you once, months ago, at the hospital. You were kind to a patient others would have reported. I knew then you weren't really one of them. You were just scared."
"I'm still scared."
"That's okay. Fear keeps us alive. But it shouldn't keep us from living." Maya's thumb stroked Carina's cheek. "Imagine a world where we're free. Where we could be together without hiding. Have kids of our own. Build a life based on love, not fear."
The words painted a picture so beautiful it hurt. Carina could see it, almost taste it. A different world. A better world. A world that felt strangely familiar to her.
"Carina?"
Carina recognized the voice and turned to see Marina standing at the entrance to their corner, eyes wide with shock. Without thinking, Carina ran to her sister, pulling her into an embrace that was apology and understanding and love all at once.
"I'm sorry," Carina whispered into Marina's hair. "I'm so sorry. I was wrong. About everything."
Marina held her tight, tears soaking into Carina's shoulder. "I knew you were still in there. My brave sister. I knew they hadn't destroyed you completely."
Over Marina's shoulder, Carina met Maya's eyes. The firefighter-bartender-rebel smiled, and in that smile was a promise of possibility, of a future that could be different from the suffocating present.
The sirens above turned into screams, the sound louder each passing second. "They're breaking through," someone shouted, but the voice came from everywhere and nowhere at once.
"Don't let go," Maya said, but her voice was fading, becoming an echo of an echo. "Whatever happens, remember this feeling. Remember it's real."
Then darkness. Then falling. Then…
Carina woke with a gasp that was almost a scream, her body drenched in sweat, heart hammering against her ribs like it was trying to escape. The sheets were twisted around her legs, evidence of fighting something that existed only in her mind.
"Baby, hey, it's okay. You're okay." Maya's voice, but the real Maya, her Maya, warm and concerned and absolutely present. Strong arms wrapped around Carina from behind, pulling her back against a familiar body. "You were screaming. Bad dream?"
Carina turned in Maya's arms, needing to see her face, needing to confirm this was real. Maya's blue eyes were worried but clear, not the defiant rebel from the dream but her wife, her partner, the mother of their coming child. Carina buried her face in Maya's neck and started crying, really crying, the kind of tears that came from somewhere deeper than grief.
"It was awful," she managed between sobs. "I was awful."
Maya held her tighter, one hand stroking through Carina's hair. "Hey, hey... You’re not awful, baby. You’re wonderful."
"My sister… Marina. She was alive, but it was all wrong. Everything was wrong." Carina pulled back enough to meet Maya's eyes. "It was this world where being gay was illegal, where people were hunted for loving wrong. And I was one of the hunters. I was cruel to Marina. I said horrible things because she loved a woman."
"That wasn’t you, Carina.” Maya's expression darkened with worry. “You know that.”
"But then I met you. You were a bartender, and a firefighter, and you were part of this underground resistance helping people escape. And when you touched me..." Carina's voice broke. "It was like coming back to reality. Like remembering who I really was."
"Hey." Maya cupped Carina's face with both hands, thumbs wiping away tears. "It was just a dream."
"But it felt so real. The fear, the hate, the way I turned on my own sister." Carina took a shaky breath. "She said we were two parts, one whole. And I destroyed that because I was so scared of what other people would think."
Maya pulled her close again. "That's not who you are. You would never do that."
"But what if I would? What if finding my real sibling changes everything? What if they hate me for having the life they didn't get? What if I hate them for existing when I thought I was alone?"
"Then we deal with it," Maya said simply. "Together. Just like we deal with everything else."
Carina nodded against Maya's shoulder, breathing in the familiar scent of her shampoo, grounding herself in the reality of their bedroom. The walls here had no propaganda, no whispers. Just photos of their life together. Their wedding. Vacations. The ultrasound of their baby.
"In the dream, you said something," Carina said quietly. "About imagining a world where we could be free, have kids, build a life based on love instead of fear."
"Sounds like dream-me was pretty smart."
"She was." Carina managed a small smile. "But real you is better.
"Come here," Maya said, lying back down and pulling Carina with her. They settled into their familiar position, Carina's head on Maya's chest, listening to her heartbeat. Strong and steady and real.
Carina closed her eyes, feeling safer than she had in weeks. The search would continue. The questions would need answers. But for now, in this moment, in this bed, with this woman, she had everything she needed to be brave.