A Bambina or Bambino of Our Own

Not Easy

The station was having their annual pancake breakfast to raise money for Christmas gifts for a local group home. They had the breakfast the weekend before Halloween, every October in order to give the group home enough time to get everything they needed. They normally had a good turnout from the community, everyone always wanting to rally to give kids who were in the shittest situation at Christmas, a slightly better time.

A shift was working the shift before the breakfast and then staying to help with it. Their shift had been long and traumatic, with back to back calls the entire time with the last call of their shift involving a home burning completely to the ground with an entire family trapped inside.

They were all worn thin by the time they got back, having gotten no sleep and feeling the pain of the loss deeply. They had done everything they could to get the family out, but by the time they found them, no one was breathing, and the thirty minutes of CPR they tried proved to be useless.

No one wanted to do anything but go either drink or hug their families, but they all knew how important the pancake breakfast was so they rallied as best as they could and got to work.

Maya was in her office, finishing up her paperwork from the call, her head pounding with the grief of the day, when there was a knock on her door.

"What?" she snapped, not wanting to have to work on this case any longer than she had to.

"What's wrong?" Carina asked as she walked in, closing the door behind her.

"Nothing," Maya said, shaking her head, "Or nothing I want to talk about now. Just a shitty shift. What are you doing here?"

"I'm here to help with the pancake breakfast," Carina said, walking over to Maya and planting a kiss on her forehead.

"You don't need to," Maya sighed, having already had this discussion about half a dozen times with her wife, "You're 30 weeks pregnant. You should be resting."

"I am fine, Bambina," Carina said, "I had my check up yesterday, and everything looks good. My blood pressure is normal, the babies are still nice and cozy and not trying to come any time soon. I told you all of this yesterday. I have helped with the pancake breakfast for the past three years, and just because I'm pregnant, I'm not going to stop."

"Fine," Maya said, "B shift was supposed to get the barn set up, but I'm sure there's still plenty of cooking to do because no one on that shift likes cooking."

"You need a shower," Carina said, wrinkling her nose.

"I'll come with you," Maya said, "I can shower later."

"No offence, Bambina, but you actually want people to give you money this morning, right?" Carina said, raising an eyebrow, "If you smell like that, you are going to make them run."

"Fine," Maya said, rolling her eyes at her wife playfully, "I'll take you to the beanery where the cooking should be happening and then I will go shower."

Maya took Carina up to the beanery where Montgomery promptly put her on fruit cutting duty which made Maya happy because she had to sit to do it because the counters were covered in pancakes and bacon.

The blonde went into the showers, trying desperately to scrub the smell of their last fire off her body and out of her hair, but the screams from the neighbors they heard when they carried the bodies of the family out of the house wouldn't leave her head. There were fires that were harder than others, and this one was really hard for Maya.

She managed to pull herself together, at least a little, before getting out of the shower, changing her clothes before heading to help her team. She smiled when she walked into the beanery, finding Carina still cutting up fruit at the table while chatting with Vic and Travis who were on pancake duty.