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Franziska lingers there for a moment with her lips on Maya’s forehead, everstrong heart buckling and tumbling at the mere idea of pulling away. She manages, after a long moment, compromises by keeping her hand at Maya’s fever-hot cheek, cradling it delicately in the mid-morning light.
“You’re sure you’ll be alright here, schatzi?”
Maya curls deeper down into the hotel comforter, sniffling thickly and unattractively as the room blurs off-gold around her. “I’ll survive.”
It’s a rhetorical question, of course—neither of them had a choice in the matter. They’d flown overseas in an attempt to enjoy a holiday together, and not a day after they’d touched down had Maya started sniffling. She didn’t seem too bothered, and Franziska was more than delighted to stay in and relax with her, but one call from Interpol dashed all hopes of that—pressing and high stakes and apparently incapable of being done by anyone else. Franziska had yelled, and argued, and threatened Agent Lang, but in the end she was truly the only person capable of the job. By the time Franziska agreed Maya had already spiked a fever, one that had wavered here and there but refused to break.
“Are you sure?” Franziska says again, blue eyes big and eyebrows pinched. “You really don’t look well at all.”
“Yeah, I feel pretty shitty,” Maya says, grinning despite it, “but I’ll be right here when you get back. Do what you gotta do, babe.”
Maya reaches a trembling hand up to palm Franziska’s face, and the latter’s heart all but cracks in two as she places her own upon it and leans, eyes closed, into the touch. Franziska had always thought herself such a creature of iron willpower, but only when she’s leaving Maya does she realize how untrue that really is. This beautiful, beautiful young woman stands her Achilles’ heel, gorgeous now even with her cheeks fever-flushed and hair in disarray. Franziska can’t bear to leave her, not even for a second.
“Call me if you feel worse,” Franziska tells her. “I can’t guarantee my phone will be on at all times, but I’ll do what I must to be there for you as I’m able.”
“My angel on demand.”
“Always.”
Franziska pulls Maya’s palm from her face, pressing one final kiss to the back of her hand. “Feel better. Stay out of trouble.”
“No promises.”
Maya doesn’t see the reluctance with which Franziska pulls away, her eyes too heavy to keep open even a minute more. The way Franziska’s normally uniform footsteps lag out the door, the way she stops and looks back and breathes metered and slow before she finally makes it outside. The way she stands on the other side of it with a hole burning dead center to the edges of her heart, working up the courage to leave Maya where she is.
No, Maya doesn’t look as Franziska leaves—she simply turns over in bed and coughs a rattling cough into the covers, struggling to breathe around the shape of it. It’s the headache that’s bothering her most of all, to be honest—it’s been pounding incessantly on every side of her skull since the second she woke up mid-flight, and no meds or dim light or amount of hydration has seemed to assuage the onslaught. Every cough that runs through her drives it like a spike down further into her brain, and all she can really do is shut her eyes and drink her water and pray it goes away.
Franziska’s such an attentive lover—sensitive and compassionate and empathetic to a fault. If you had asked Maya years ago, she never would have guessed any of that about the woman she’s now lucky enough to call her wife, but what was life for if not pleasant surprises? Mean, abrasive, whip-happy Franziska had an impossibly gooey center, coated in a candyshell of rage—the singular emotion that didn’t put her on the verge of tears.
It’s been countless times that Maya’s been sick like this with something benign, nonthreatening, a mere annoyance if anything—and every time like clockwork Franziska managed to rile herself up into doting hysterics, flitting from room to room with hot drinks and medicine and promises to litigate Maya’s will should she perish from the common cold. More often than not it accomplished little beyond getting Franziska sick herself.
If that’s how Franziska is when they’re together, Maya can’t imagine how hard this must be for her now—off on important business while her girlfriend lies ill in a frigid hotel room. Neither of them seem to be having the best time with it, because try as she might to put on a brave face, she misses Franziska already. They should be together right now, cuddled up beneath the covers—Franziska’s long, pretty fingers undoing knots from Maya’s hair, half-hummed German lullabies sugar-sweet against the over-conditioned air.
Maya sighs, and holds onto the spare pillow, and her nose is stuffy on one side but she inhales wheezily, as deep as she’s able, drifting off to the lingering scent of Franziska’s shampoo, rose-scented and familiar and a lot less lonely.
When Maya wakes at 2:12 in the afternoon she’s hot and uncomfortable, the shifting light of the sun having settled on her eyelids and bleeding into every nerve of her body. The hotel bedding is heavy and sweltering and Maya’s headache feels threefold what it was mere hours ago, sending the room tilting on some invisible axis and her stomach into shaken-up discomfort. With an exaggerated groan Maya goes for her phone on the nightstand, flinching at the brightness of her screen when it turns on and unsurprised to see a few texts from Franziska.
They’re short, concise, grammatically perfect, and would definitely read as seething hatred to anyone else in the pair’s age range. It took Maya a while to get used to it, too—the fact of the matter was simply that Franziska von Karma texted like a fucking boomer, and if she texted someone at all it likely meant she held a great amount of love in her heart for them. Franziska texted Maya a lot.
Most of them are wordless—Franziska had a habit of sending one single blue heart emoji whenever she was thinking of Maya but lacked anything of note to say. At the very end of the chain is one sent a little over twenty minutes ago, succinct as ever and quintessentially Franziska—“Temperature.”
Ugh, but the bathroom is so far away. Maya’s kicking herself now for not having the foresight to move all her sick day supplies from the counter, but it had been Franziska flitting to and fro with pills and blankets and snacks and everything else, she supposes the thought of being alone hadn’t really occurred to either of them. Head swimming, Maya forces herself out of bed, coughing through the shiver that runs down her spine the second the blankets leave her shoulders. It’s a tumultuous journey around the corner to the bathroom, but even the thought of disappointing or worrying Franziska is simply too much for Maya to bear.
It takes her four tries to get the thermometer in her mouth proper—the first two misaligned jabs from her uselessly shaky fingers and the last put on hold while she’s at the mercy of a volley of sneezes that scrape her throat raw. She manages eventually, leaning on the counter with her hands pressed against her eyes while she silently begs the pressure behind them to settle down. Even the soft beeping of the thermometer hurts her head far more than it should.
101.6, she texts to Franziska, staring at the blank space at the bottom of the text thread, desperate for a read receipt or typing bubble or anything to bring her beloved a little closer to her arms. The message stays as is, and Maya swallows tears welling up in her throat and makes her way back to the main room on unsteady feet with an ache in her heart to rival the one in her skull.
It’s definitely the fever making her more emotional, but things are just so lonely without Franziska here. Maya does all she can to find her where she’s not—the powder blue suitcase that’s living by the door, the meticulous, uniform rows the toiletries are laid in on the bathroom counter. A jacket lying on the back of one of the hotel chairs, long arms perfectly folded in on themselves, and Maya… shouldn’t. She knows she shouldn’t do the thing she is thinking of doing, because she’s audibly contagious and faring worse by the minute, and what if Franziska needs that jacket later, and…
A shiver runs hard up her spine, and Maya lets it chase her racing thoughts away, taking it as a sign from the universe. If Franziska was here, Maya’s sure she’d allow it—hell, she’d bundle the ailing woman up herself with kisses and touches and heartsoft inquiry as to how she’s feeling. And if that wasn’t the case, well… Franziska was very forgiving despite everything, and so Maya steals the soft little thing off the chair and nestles into it like mouse into its den, swimming in the heady scent of her wife as it just barely pushes past the congestion, tries its damnedest to lull Maya out of feverish loneliness.
Crawling sluggishly back into bed, she coughs hard and productive, slumping against the headboard on the tail end of it with one arm pressed lazily across her eyes. The TV is switched on and left on low, to some nonsense show Maya isn’t invested in, but the voices make her feel a little less like falling apart, filling up the empty space with a sense of life and company. Buried in Franziska’s jacket and sterile hotel sheets she drifts in and out of feverish half-sleep, her bones feeling too heavy and splintered to do much else besides lie there and wait for time to pass.
She wakes not soon after to the Pink Princess theme blaring from her phone speakers, and it takes all Maya has not to cry from relief then and there. It’s a challenge not to drop the thing as she paws for it, fighting against the ache in her arm to make it to the bedside table, desperate for the dexterity to hit the accept call button. Swallowing some of the grit in her throat, Maya tries not to sound as lovestarved as she feels.
“Franzy?”
“Oh, darling, your poor voice,” is what Franziska says in response, and affection flowers and bursts in Maya’s chest, overflowing and loud. “I do hope you’ve slept?”
“A little,” Maya says, wiping some errant tears from her eyes, trying her best to disguise a sniffle as symptomatic, not something that’s the result of her locking herself away. She did it to herself, she knows she did—Franziska told her to call if she missed her, but Franziska’s an important person with more important things to do than coddle her clingy, plague-ridden girlfriend.
Maya knows she’s already worried, already feeling guilty, already so burdened and stressed herself. Franziska doesn’t need any more of that, let alone thrust upon her by someone she’s supposed to—
“Maya, dearest, what’s wrong?”
Damn it.
How did she do that?!
“I’m sorry!” she squeaks out before she can stop herself, rubbing more at her irritated eyes. “I just—I really missed you, I didn’t realize how bad I needed to hear your voice. I-It’s just relief, I think.”
A quiet sense of movement stirs on the other end of the line, a little breath through Franziska’s lips that isn’t quite a sigh. “You’ve nothing to apologize for, you know.”
“I just don’t like worrying you,” says Maya. “Don’t say you’re not, ‘cause I know that’s bull.”
“Darling, worrying about you is a comfort.” Maya can hear the no-nonsense way Franziska says it, unbothered as she’s ever been. “I fare best when I’ve something to nurture.”
Maya sniffles, swallowing a second wind of tightening in her already angry throat. “You’re too good to me.”
“I believe I’m probably just normal,” Franziska says. “Dry those eyes, yes? I was actually calling to make sure you’re awake, you’ll see why in about ten minutes or so.”
“What does that mean?”
“Just that I’ve taken certain liberties to ensure your continued comfort while I’m unable to be there myself.” Maya can almost hear the crossed arms, the contemplative shut eyes, the scrunch of fabric beneath her fingernails. “I’m due back, but I’ll be home tonight, alright? You have my word.”
“Yeah, alright,” Maya says, taking a breath that’s metered and deep. “I’ll see you then.”
“I love you, Maya. Do your best to feel better for me.”
“Anything for you, Franzy.”
There’s a pause before the line goes, one final hurdle for the both of them to get through. It’s just as well that it’s Franziska who folds first, a fact that Maya’s thankful for—she feels Franziska will always be braver than her, more equipped to take charge.
(She doesn’t think, of course, about the way Franziska trembled like a dying tree in the wind the night of their first date. She doesn’t think about the loud, nervous octaves her voice lived in for all those months before, and how Maya knows what it means now, years later. She doesn’t think about how it was her who took the initiative to pull this force of a woman into her arms, pushed past her own flustered heart and chose courage time and time again even when she was sure—and still is, to this day—that Franziska was so fully out of her league. Right now Maya feels weak, and sensitive, and small and sick and pitiful, and she just wants to curl up in her wife’s arms and be protected—from the world, from the noise, from her own feverish brain.)
A knock on the door snaps her out of her spiraling thoughts, and Maya can’t help the curious tilt of her head that comes instinctively. Sniffling back the last of her little meltdown she stands on unsteady feet, holding Franziska’s jacket collar closer to her neck and slowly but surely making her way to the hotel door.
Out of habit Maya checks the peephole, keeps her phone clutched like a lifeline in one hand. It’s been years, but hotel service still puts her on edge, pumps her brain full of what ifs that truly aren’t necessary. When she opens the door the small gap is more out of respect than anything—truly, she feels like there’s a violent miasma of contagion that’s very visibly hanging around her—but once she sees how truly massive the wheeled tray on the other side is she realizes that won’t be an option for long.
“Room service!” the worker chirps, brown curls bouncing in the dim fluorescents of the hotel hallway. “We did our best, I’ll admit I’m not used to such specific instructions.”
Maya has to hold back a laugh. “That’s my wife, yeah. She’s… particular.”
“Well, I say she’s a keeper, goin’ all out like that.” The woman crosses her arms. “Want me to just wheel this in for ya? Don’t mean any disrespect but you’re lookin’ a little worse for wear.”
“If you’re offering…” Maya swallows thickly, trying not to wince. “Yeah, definitely.”
The table is big and covered in a deep red sheet, a little rickety on its wheels but luxurious nonetheless, and with all the enthusiasm Maya can muster she thanks the hotel worker and wanders back to the thing’s side, waiting for the heavy not-quite-slam to echo from the room’s entrance. As soon as it rings out she feels it safe enough—to finally let the tears crop up in her eyes again, jaw trembling and fists balled and shoulders shaking.
Resting on top the bowl of ramen is dotted red, its spice emanating so potently that Maya’s sure she can feel the heat of it prickle her face. Beside it is a truly monstrous mug of tea, one Maya feels is likely more suited to soup, one she’s not entirely sure she can finish by herself. Tiramisu right beside it, garnished with some sort of chocolate sauce that’s uselessly fancy, that she will be licking off her plate like an animal. And, most impossibly of all, a bouquet of assorted flowers, one that Franziska definitely had to pull a series of strings to combine with simple room service.
She’s crying too much to think about how she isn’t hungry, big stupid tears aligned with messy slurping noises as she inhales her noodles and lets their spice make her nose run in the hopes that it’ll chase this plague out quicker. The tears come different this time, though—freely, unbidden, far more of a release than before. Maybe she’s needed to cry like this, been swallowing it for far longer than even she realized, because once she starts she finds it nigh impossible to stop.
It’s a full-body cleanse if Maya’s ever known one—the warmth in her guts overtakes all else, and once she’s managed to reel herself back in she notices how much lighter she feels. Her throat’s less sore, her head less stuffy, her heart far less heavy, and she’s so deeply in love she feels like she might explode. The tea is still warm when she’s finally able to take a sip, cinnamon-flavoured and just a hair off from how it tastes when Franziska makes it with her own two hands.
Her cheeks are still kind of wet and clammy when she finds herself staring at the flowers—knowing Franziska, each one has meaning, their exact hex code calculated and precise, their numbering intentional, a silent love letter. Maya honestly doesn’t have the eye for that sort of thing that her wife does—she’s too busy memorizing Samuraiverse trivia, her brain too full of far more useless knowledge—but that is more than okay. Tomorrow morning Maya will wake up in Franziska’s arms, and ask her to explain the arrangement in perfect detail, and Franziska will wax poetic about every leaf and petal, and Maya will lay there with sunlight on her face and a beautiful curving accent in her ears and remind herself that she is the luckiest woman on earth.
Pulling out her phone, she swallows another watery lump, trying to think of how to put all that into words. Franziska deserves so much better than her clumsy attempts, though, and so she texts an image she has on hand of a hamster sleeping inside a cookie tin, labeled “being in love with you jar.”
And Franziska texts a blue heart back, and Maya thinks about the way she probably looks before she does it—with her head tilted back, laughing the world’s most beautiful, rich, deep-voiced laugh—and finds herself as weak in the knees as the very day they started dating, flustered and lovesick and happier than she knew any person could be.