Hello friend!! Life is *whispers* actually pretty great 😎 I am still constantly exhausted but huzzah! We have a pretty good routine going as a family 🥹
And babyeggroll is…. Rolling!!!
Going back to work has been a heavy lift, and I had my gallbladder emergency removed last month, but… knock on wood……. Things have settled a bit. Heading into the holidays with high spirits 😎
1. if you could reboot one TV show, which one would it be?
This is a tough one but I would say Warehouse 13, there’s just too much potential wasted for me not to want to jump in and write it the way it should’ve been.
A while ago, I misfired, and wrote a couple chapters of “Wings.” An AU fanfic in which Maura meets Jane and her daughter the last of a race of winged people, Avem Ambi
Well, here’s a little bit more, based on “first.”
you wanna see if there’s a word in my WIPs? go ahead. Ask, and if it’s there, I’ll post the snippet.
......
Her back aches continually. Her hands, her shoulders.
Her neck.
She does the exercises Maura has planned out for her, every day, without any complaint, but when they are finished, the doctor can see the lines of pain in Jane’s forehead.
She can see the way she folds herself gently into the bed at the end, delicate, like she might break.
Finally, it is too much to bear. It is too hard to let her walk away at the end of a session, and not say anything.
“Jane?”
The other woman stops, she looks over her shoulder. Her expression is pain, apprehension, resignation, patience. In that order exactly. She believes Maura has forgotten an exercise. She will come back and complete it. It does not matter what pain it might cause.
She has said she trusts Maura, and she does. Completely.
Maura takes a deep breath. “Would -ah- would you like me to help you with the pain?”
Jane turns fully to face the doctor, one eyebrow arched in sarcastic confusion.
Maura feels her face get warm. “I mean, I can rub your back...your shoulders...If you wanted. Only if you wanted. I know they must ache from all the work you’re doing. I don’t mean to push you so hard. Not that I think you can’t do the things I ask of you. And you’re getting better every day. You really are! I just-”
But Jane, mercifully, puts up her hands to interrupt her, that slow smile - she’s grown accustomed to it now - making its way across Jane’s face. “Stop, doctor,” she says, smirking. “Just tell me how I should lie.”
This is how it begins.
This is how it continues for the next several days. Jane will do her physical therapy, and then she will lie down on her stomach, and Maura will attempt to press the soreness out of her lower back. The first few times she’d run her hands over Jane’s back, all the way up under the curve of feathers, to the bottoms of her crescent scars, she’d felt the body underneath her, tense and waiting, possibly afraid.
“Hey, love,” she’d leaned down without thinking. “Relax,” she murmured. Jane had done her best. Now, she digs her thumbs into the muscle of Jane’s lower back, on either side of her spine, and is rewarded with one of the deepest, most sensual moans she's ever heard.
Maura bites her lip, trying not to notice the way her heart speeds up at the sound.
“Tell me if I hurt you,” she says, hoping that Jane does not notice the lower pitch of her voice.
“Doesn’t hurt,” Jane answers. “Long time since anyone touched me.”
Maura’s hand pause for the space of a second. She forces herself not to hear anything but the words. She doesn’t respond, and after a moment Jane turns her head and cracks an eye to look up at the doctor.
“Do the scars look better?” she asks quietly.
Maura looks down. The stitches had come out two days ago, and the scars left behind are pale and puckered against Jane’s scapulas. “They look much better,” she says. She runs two fingers along one of the scars, smiling at the shiver that the action elicits. “And it doesn’t seem that there is permanent nerve damage either. That’s wonderful.”
Jane sighs with what might be relief. Maura leans forward a little, pressing her palm into the back of the other woman’s neck.
A quick tense, and then relief. Maura can feel the tension seep out of the body below her. “There you go,” she says. “That’s better.”
“Maura,” Jane sighs, and then, seemingly unable to put together another full sentence. “Maura. Good.”
There is no stopping the wave of arousal this time, and Maura catches her breath, holding herself still. Jane’s eyes have dropped shut again, and to Maura’s utter relief, she doesn’t notice.
When was the last time she was this intimate with anyone? Maura allows her mind to wander between shifts, thinking about the two winged creatures that inhabit the back two rooms. There’s no point in denying that she’s attracted to Jane. That It’s an emotion that has been long buried, pushed to the side by only the emotions that would keep her alive.
But as the days slide into weeks, and then to a month, two, three, Maura finds it harder and harder to keep her feelings in check.
Her hands wander a little lower. She sits a little closer.
#10 for Alex and Sam and some ruby thrown in the mix? Either way thank you for writing.
Agent Reign + 10. “What did I️ do?” “You shouldn’t have to ask.”
“Thanks for the ride back today,” Sam thanks shyly as Alex walks her back to her doorstep.
Alex shrugs. “It wasn’t a big deal. I’m sorry we had to take my bike as all. I’m sure you could’ve done without the helmet hair,” she returns sweetly.
Sam self consciously touches her hair. “It’s not so bad is it?”
Alex’s eyes widen, feeling like that was a blunder she should’ve avoided. “Oh, no! Not even, you look great!” Alex quickly says. “No helmet hair at all. I just know some people have a thing about it and you have such nice hair all the time. I didn’t want to ruin that. And like I said, it’s not ruined because you still look gorgeous...”
Sam softens at Alex’s ramblings. And her smile melts into a gentle laugh. “You should really see the look on your face right now.”
Alex stares up at Sam with massive concern written across it. “Is it bad? I know I sounded like a complete disaster just now.”
Sam shakes her head, reaching out to pat Alex’s forearm. “It’s not bad. You’re really sweet and I think there was a compliment in there somewhere right?”
“Absolutely,” Alex firmly declares. “You are--” she flaps her hand, gesturing at Sam’s figure “--always...pretty.”
Sam feels her cheeks warm and she bites her lip to stop from giggling. “You are too,” she admits, earning a blush from Alex.
Alex scratches the back of her neck, feeling the nerves set in significantly. And she glances at the watch. “I should get going huh?” There’s a bit of hesitation in her voice that catches Sam off guard and she doesn’t know what to say in response.
Maybe, she shouldn’t have complimented Alex? Are things weird now? Sam swallows and nods, “Sure. Yes, I mean if you have to go. I wouldn’t want to keep you.”
Alex smiles at her and glances to her motorcycle, hesitating still. Eventually she looks at Sam, bobbing her head in agreement. “Yeah, I’m sure you have a lot to do too. Uh, but I’ll see you tomorrow?”
Sam feels herself perk up at the prospect of seeing Alex again. “Yes,” she cheerfully chirps. “I will see you tomorrow. After all, partners for game night.”
Alex lets out a small laugh. “Yes, absolutely.” She steps back off of Sam’s porch and waves with two hands. “Goodnight, Sam.”
Sam actually lets out a small giggle and mirrors Alex’s two handed wave. “Goodnight, Alex.” She turns around to her door, realizing that she must’ve looked like an idiot for mirroring Alex like some high school girl. She unlocks her door and pushes her way into her house.
Ruby stands before her, arms crossed, tapping her foot. She looks much more imposing now that she’s older and it’s unnerving for Sam to see her daughter become a full fledged teenager. It’s like looking into a mirror.
“Are you serious?” she deadpans.
Sam looks at her daughter in utter confusion. “What? What did I do?”
“You shouldn’t have to ask,” Ruby counters, tilting her nose up. “You had a date with Alex and you didn’t invite her in.”
Sam sputters immediately. “Date? What? No! Alex just dropped me off from dinner because I don’t have the car today.”
“Dinner, mom, you had dinner with Alex.”
“And everyone else! It wasn’t a dinner date with just Alex,” Sam argues, wondering why she feels the need to vehemently defend herself. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I’m ridiculous?” Ruby throws up her hands in the same manner Sam does when she gets frustrated. And she also stalks off, grumbling to herself in better Spanish than Sam’s, which is actually getting frustrating.
“Hey! Don’t call your mother crazy!” Sam yells after Ruby.
Lol I feel like a bit of a broken record on this but PHEW going on six weeks without sleeping more than 2-3 hours at a time and the next nap opportunity becomes the only thought a lot of the time 🤣 We have a healthy and happy babyeggroll who I have to remind myself isn’t even old enough to grasp day and night yanno
I start physical therapy this week to start working on getting my body back to baseline too 🙃 Right now I’m not supposed to stand for more than 10 minutes at a time, which is hardly enough minutes to do anything at all 🫨
But I am, maybe 100 words at a time, finding the mental space to write a few times a day. It’s keeping me sane, even if it’s wildly slow going 🫣