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It wasn’t always easy.

The clouds followed her everywhere. Heavy and gray, thick enough to press against her lungs. They loomed when she was running, when the sound of her own breath should have been freedom but instead was just another reminder of how trapped she felt. 

They hovered over her when she tried to sleep, pooling in the corners of her bedroom until she woke up with a start, restless and wired. They clung to her even at work, curling around the station like smoke that refused to lift.

Sometimes, usually, the clouds felt comforting. That was the dangerous part. In the middle of a fire, when the heat scorched her face and the air thinned to nothing, the clouds whispered to her. They told her it would be easy, too easy, to stop running, to let the flames take the weight off her shoulders. To let go.

She didn’t. Not yet.

She would keep moving. Keep fighting. The clouds were tempting, they offered a kind of safety in surrender, but she wasn’t ready to give in. 

Not today. 

Maybe tomorrow. But not today.

The pull of the clouds grew stronger each day, and that was something that should have probably scared her, but it didn’t. She met it with something closer to resignation than fear. She had earned her captain’s bars, a victory carved out of years of discipline and sacrifice. And in the same breath, she had lost her family.

The crew she’d bled with, who she had laughed with and had lived alongside.

They were a family.

She had thought they were hers too. That they loved her, even when they teased her, even when they didn’t understand her sharp edges. For the first time in years she had let herself believe she belonged somewhere, that she wasn’t just a weapon honed by someone else’s hand.

Maybe that was too much to ask. 

Maybe she wasn’t meant to have a home the way others did.

But lately, in the quiet spaces, she was finding a different kind of home.

Carina.

The thought of her name was enough to shift the air, to make the clouds thin just a little. They hadn’t been on many dates yet, not enough for it to be anything solid, not enough for it to be safe. And still- Carina made her smile without even trying. 

Carina could look at her with those impossibly kind eyes and, for a moment, Maya would forget how much she was carrying. There was a pull, magnetic and terrifying, that made her want to lean closer, to stay.

And that might have been scarier than the clouds themselves.

She wasn’t supposed to be doing this. Dating, letting someone in, falling.

it wasn’t part of the plan. Gibson once said she was made in a Russian lab, designed for nothing but perfection and endurance. She wasn’t built for love.

But Carina… Carina was luminous. Gentle and sharp, kind and clever, beautiful in every way Maya could name and in a hundred more she couldn’t. She laughed easily, she listened carefully, she carried herself like someone who had weathered storms and still believed in sunlight.

Maya didn’t know how she could possibly stand a chance. And yet, she wanted to try. Even if it meant stepping out of the clouds for just a breath longer.

Like a mountain, the clouds clamber over me
I was far from my home when she opened me
And stole my heart from out of my breast
Like an ocean, your arms they did flow to me
Brought me in to your waves
I was hopelessly bound to never do better than this

She was tired.

So, so tired.

Every bone in her body felt heavy, as if someone had poured concrete into her boots. This shift had been an absolute disaster from the first alarm to now, one endless string of calls and chaos with barely a breath in between. And still, thirty minutes after their shift had officially ended, they were out here. Another call. Another emergency. 

Another moment pulled from a life she desperately wanted to be living elsewhere.

All she wanted to do was go home.

She was going over to Carina’s place tonight. That thought had been her anchor all day, the thing she clung to while the smoke and noise and tension built up around her. They’d only been dating a few weeks, but it was already enough to reshape the edges of Maya’s world. 

Carina was- perfect felt too small a word. She was warm where Maya was cold, gentle where Maya was sharp. The way Carina smiled at her made something inside her loosen, made her feel like she could exhale again.

But instead of laying next to her, Maya was still here. Still on a call, still drenched in sweat and exhaustion, still watching her night slip away.

If she could, she’d run straight through the flames, end this call, and go home. Not because she was reckless, though maybe she was, but because she needed to see her. 

To soak up even a handful of minutes before the world intruded again.

They’d been stuck on opposite shifts all week. Passing each other like ghosts, texts in between calls, the occasional voicemail. Maya was desperate now. Desperate to reclaim even a second of her life back, to press her forehead against Carina’s, to breathe her in. 

One second, she thought. One second would be enough.

She just wanted Carina.

And the cruel thing was, she already knew tonight would be fleeting. Maya had an early meeting in the morning. She’d have to sneak out long before the sun came up, not the playful kind of sneaking she’d done when they’d first started sleeping together, heart hammering, shoes in hand, grinning to herself in the dark. 

This would be different. 

Quiet. Practical. 

She’d slip out of Carina’s bed like a shadow so she wouldn’t wake her before she had to.

She would go quietly. Gently.

And she hated how much that thought hurt. Because even in her exhaustion, even with everything else demanding her attention, Maya would have walked through anything; fire, storms, chaos, just to lay next to her. Just to have that one moment.

Whatever it takes
I would walk over fire just to lay
By your side and I don't have to stay
It's okay, one second's enough
For to be by your side
I'll be gone by the morning's first light
Before your weary head it does rise
I'll go quiet, go gently, my love

It wasn’t always easy.

Her life came in waves.

Highs and lows that seemed like a boat in the middle of a storm. Some days she sailed smoothly, steady on the surface, the horizon almost clear. Other days the waters turned rough without warning, the sky splitting open, thunder cracking against her ribs. She was tossed, dragged, pulled under by the weight of her own thoughts.

And then there were the clouds. Always there. Sometimes they felt heavier than any storm, thick and inviting, curling soft and sweet around her edges. They promised quiet, a place where she could stop fighting. There were nights when the clouds seemed more welcoming than anything else, more tempting even than Carina’s arms. 

That truth, when it came, scared her now.

It didn’t last long, never did. Because Carina was… Carina. The pull toward her was undeniable, stronger than the promise of any quiet end. Still, the clouds were patient. They lingered, whispering at the edges of her mind.

She hid it well. Perfectly well. She had trained her whole life to hide weakness, to carry the weight of impossible expectations without ever letting it show. She decided early on that Carina, her perfect girlfriend, this brilliant, amazing woman who had walked into her life and tilted it on its axis, would never see that part of her. 

Carina didn’t need to know how often she thought about laying down in the clouds, letting them close over her. That darkness wasn’t something she would share. Not with her.

But then, with Carina, the clouds weren’t as necessary.

Most of the time, Maya didn’t even feel their pull. She was too wrapped up in the way Carina’s laugh caught her off guard, in the way her accent softened even the hardest words, in the way she seemed to see straight through every sharp edge Maya thought made her unlovable. She was too in love to want the clouds. Too busy sinking into thoughts of her Italian girlfriend to need their false comfort.

Carina made her feel like she was floating. Not drifting aimlessly, not unmoored, but weightless, like gravity itself eased when Carina was near. With her, everything felt lighter, brighter. The world didn’t seem so impossible.

There was something terrifying about that too, the openness she felt around her. Maya had never been good at letting people see the truth of her. Vulnerability had been dangerous once, a crack that others had pried open and used against her. 

But with Carina, it was different. 

It wasn’t dangerous. It was safe. Safe in a way she hadn’t even known to hope for.

And because it was safe, she began to let herself imagine things she had never dared before. A future. A life that wasn’t all storms and clouds, but sunlight and warmth and maybe, just maybe, love that stayed. 

Carina made her hopeful, in a way that felt reckless and wild and impossible.

Hope had always been dangerous too. But lying next to Carina, listening to her breathe in the dark, Maya thought maybe it was worth the risk.

Like a voyaging boat, I have rocky spells
But they come and they go, you could never tell
I was sinking just thinking about you
And like a white circling bird I was floating
Like a long winding road I was open
Like a maid in the night I was hoping

She wanted her wife.

The thought sounded pathetic even in her own head, needy in a way she had never let herself be. But it rose up anyway, stubborn and insistent, the only truth she could hold onto. 

She wanted her wife.

She would do anything for it. Anything to just be beside her. One second would be enough. A stolen moment, a breath, a touch of skin. That was all she needed. If it came to it, she would crawl through fire, drag herself out from under twisted beams and crumbling concrete, stagger through smoke and blood, if it meant getting back to Carina. No flame could burn hotter than the ache of not being near her.

Years ago, it had been different. Years ago, the clouds had still been louder than love. She had laid in bed next to her girlfriend at the time, watching her sleep, and still thought about giving in, about disappearing into that endless, suffocating gray.

Weeks ago, even with her wife, her heart, begging her to open up, she had felt the clouds creeping close again. Carina had held her face, kissed her knuckles, whispered in the dark, Talk to me, please, and Maya had bitten down against the words, too afraid of what it meant to admit how tempting it was.

But not now.

Not anymore.

Now the clouds didn’t matter. Now they couldn’t touch her, because no comfort compared, no silence compared, nothing could ever compare if it wasn’t Carina’s. The clouds could not cradle her the way Carina’s arms did. The thought of them had lost its sweetness. Without Carina, nothing soothed her. 

Without Carina, nothing mattered.

She didn’t need to stay forever. She told herself she didn’t. She wanted to. God, she wanted to. But she would take anything, even the smallest sliver of time. Just one second with her wife. A confirmation that Carina was real, that she was still here, still breathing, still hers. A reminder. That was all. Just a reminder.

She wanted her wife.

She wanted to spend the night with her, in the simplest, quietest way. No sex. No heat. She wasn’t chasing intimacy, not like that. She wasn’t sure she deserved it anymore. Her body still felt like a battleground, scarred and foreign, something she didn’t know how to offer without flinching. No- what she wanted was so much smaller, and so much bigger than that.

She wanted to lay in their bed, press her forehead to Carina’s shoulder, and let the sound of her breathing lull her into something like peace. She wanted to feel the weight of Carina’s hand on her hip, grounding her without asking for more. She wanted the quiet. She wanted the safety. 

She wanted her wife.

And she swore she wouldn’t take more than that. She wouldn’t make it harder than it already was. By the morning she would be gone. Carina wouldn’t even have to deal with her, wouldn’t have to see the cracks in her armor when the daylight came.

She would leave quietly. Gently. She would tuck the covers around Carina’s body, make sure she was warm, secure, untouched. And then she would slip out without a sound, let the door click softly behind her.

She would ignore the tears, because they would come, they always did. She would swallow them down as she walked away, let them sting against her skin where no one could see.

All she wanted- God, all she wanted, was her wife.

Whatever it takes
I would walk over fire just to lay
By your side and I don't have to stay
It's okay, one second's enough
For to be by your side
I'll be gone by the morning's first light
Before your weary head it does rise
I'll go quiet, go gently, my love

It hadn’t been easy. There had been storms, fractures, silences heavy enough to split them apart. There had been nights when Maya thought she had lost everything, when the clouds pressed so close she couldn’t see the future at all. But somehow, piece by piece, they had found their way back to each other. 

And now, looking around at the family they had made, she knew every fight, every tear, every stumble had led here.

Liam had been the first. Theirs. She could still remember signing the papers, her hand shaking as she wrote her name, Carina’s eyes shining with tears beside her. The official words, permanent, irrevocable, forever, had lodged in Maya’s chest like a promise. 

Liam wasn’t going anywhere. Neither were they. 

When he called her “Mommy” for the first time,, Maya thought her heart would never recover from the beauty of it.

Then Andrea.

Carina’s belly had grown round and luminous with her, and Maya had hovered like the world’s most anxious bodyguard. Every flutter of movement beneath her hand had felt like a miracle. 

And when Andrea was born, Maya swore she saw the universe rearrange itself in that tiny hospital room. Carina’s hair was plastered to her temples, her smile exhausted but radiant, and Andrea’s cry pierced the air like a declaration: I am here. 

Maya had cradled her daughter against her chest, kissed Carina’s damp forehead, and thought; this is it. This is everything.

And then Gianna.

This time it had been Maya’s turn, her body carrying the weight of possibility. It had terrified her, humbled her, undone her in ways she hadn’t expected. She had hated parts of it, the sickness, the sleepless nights, the doubts that she wasn’t strong enough. 

But she had loved it too. Loved the way Carina’s hands soothed her swollen skin, loved the way Liam kissed her stomach goodnight, loved the way Andrea would rest her head against Maya’s lap as if already loving her sister. 

When Gianna finally arrived, when Maya pulled her slippery and new against her chest, she sobbed like she hadn’t sobbed in years. Carina was crying too, whispering words in Italian that Maya couldn’t even translate, but she understood every one.

Three children. All of them theirs. Each of them proof that they had survived the hardest parts, proof that the clouds hadn’t won, proof that she had chosen life and love and been given this in return.

Maya knew she would never stop being afraid of losing it. That fear lived in her bones, the constant whisper that it could all be taken. But then she would look at them—Liam sprawled on the couch with his too-big headphones, Andrea telling stories from her seat at the table, Gianna’s tiny hand curling around her thumb—and she would know.

They weren’t going anywhere.

Carina wasn’t going anywhere.

None of them would ever be gone, not as long as Maya was living. And all of her heart, all of it, was theirs.

Even if life gave her only one night, one second, she knew it would be enough. Because she had been loved by Carina. Because she was “Mommy” to her three babies and “Bambina” to her wife. Because she had them, and they had her, and that was forever.

Oh you'll never be gone as long as I'm living
And all of me heart is all that I'm giving
For one night, for one second's enough

The room smelled like lemon and linen and the faintest trace of hospital disinfectant. Not the acrid stench of the station, not the smoke of a fire, but a clean, sterile quiet she’d never quite learned to trust. Sunlight slipped in through the blinds and drew lines across the blanket over her knees. Her hands, once so steady, trembled faintly where they rested on top of it.

Maya had never liked stillness. It had felt like weakness, like waiting to be overtaken by something bigger than her. But lately she’d learned there’s a stillness that isn’t surrender. A stillness that’s simply being.

She was sick. She knew it. They all knew it. 

The word terminal had been said in soft voices in doctors’ offices and repeated in Carina’s accent at night, when she thought Maya was already asleep. There were days when the pain was sharp and days when it dulled to something she could ignore. But it was always there, like the clouds used to be.

Patient, persistent, waiting.

She thought about all the times she had gone quietly. The times she had slipped out before dawn so Carina wouldn’t wake. The times she had bit down on her own pain rather than speak it aloud. The times she had folded her longing into silence because she thought that was what strength looked like.

Now, lying in the soft half-light. Her whole body wanted to beg. To cling. To say don’t leave me, don’t let me go. Everything in her wanted to reach for Carina and hold on until her knuckles went white. But she didn’t. She couldn’t.

She would not make this harder for her wife. If the last thing she did was stay strong for Carina, then that would be enough.

She turned her head on the pillow, and there Carina was, sitting in the chair next to her bed, her hair a little silver now but her eyes still kind as always, her hands folded on top of the bed, like she was keeping herself from reaching out. 

Maya knew what her wife really wanted, she wanted to lay beside her, climb in bed with her. But there were too many wires, too many tubes. 

Still, her eyes remained soft, watching Maya with a love that had survived storms, survived babies and nights apart and the clouds that once threatened to swallow them both.

Maya’s chest ached with it. Not the sickness, the love.

She thought of Liam, grown now, visiting with his own family. She thought of Andrea, her smile so much like Carina’s. She thought of Gianna, taller than she’d ever imagined, her laugh echoing through the house. 

She thought of the nights when all three of them had been little, climbing into bed, pressing their warm bodies between her and Carina like puppies. She thought of the years of mornings and evenings, the dinners and birthdays and firehouse visits, the ordinary miracles of a life she had once believed she wasn’t meant to have.

All of it, every second, had been hers. Had been theirs.

And now she was here. Not gone. Not yet.

Maya reached out, her fingers brushing Carina’s. Carina startled a little at the touch, then laced their hands together. Maya squeezed, weak but sure. “I’m okay,” she whispered, her voice rough but steady.

Carina’s eyes filled, but she smiled anyway, that small private smile she’d always given just to Maya.

Maya closed her eyes and let herself rest in the warmth of that hand in hers. She didn’t need to beg. She didn’t need to fight. Carina was here. 

She always had been.

And when the time came, whenever it came, she would go gently. Quietly. She was sure of that. But not yet. Not today.

Today, she would hold her wife’s hand and breathe.

Oh and there'll be a time where I'm surely dying
And lay by my side, but don't you be crying
'Cause I'll go quiet, go gently, my love