Chapter Text
Cold sharp air enters Vaggie's lungs as she walks down the hill, away from the hotel. She tries to focus on the feeling of the ground under her feet, thinks about what she is going to say to Carmilla. Focus on anything except the stinging on her cheek or the ringing in her ears, try not to think about the past 24 hours, even if that's what you're going to Carmilla to talk about..
All of the thoughts contradicting in her mind start to give her a bit of a headache so she does her best to relieve it with slow breaths, but of course smoke and rubble aren't the best things to be inhaling. For a moment this smoke smell confused her, she couldn't be smelling the hotel at this point, so she takes in her surroundings, re-routing her internal map to Carmilla's warehouse. Yes, focus on that.
When she arrives she pushes down all of her fear, worry, everything. Just clicks the buzzer and smiles weakly at the security camera, the door opens quickly, Carmilla can be heard quickly clanking towards her.
"Vaggie? What are you doing here? did something happen!?" The worry in her voice both comforts and unsettles the girl,
"Oh- I..No everything is fine, in fact that's why I'm here! I wanted to tha-" she is cut off by Carmilla gently pulling her inside by her arm.
"It's freezing out there, come inside." they start slowly walking side by side,
"I wanted to thank you." she relaxed a bit, feeling safe with Carmilla, "you taught me so much and it really helped, we couldn't protect everyone..." images of Sir Pentious vanishing at the point of Adams finger flash in her mind. "but it absolutely helped..." She sniffled, Carmilla pulled her in for a hug and Vaggie broke, she didn't know when she had started crying but it sure as hell wasn't going to stop now. The two of them just stood there for a moment, Carmilla gently petting Vaggies hair.
Vaggie pushes away. "Oh my- I'm so sorry" she wiped the tears off her face, "I should go. I really-" but she can't easily escape Carmilla's grasp. "No, no, It's okay. Just stay here for a minute, I've got you" Carmilla says calmly. These words strike a chemical reaction of emotions within Vaggie, a feeling of comfort and safety that is foreign to her, and a feeling of embarrassment and shame she knows all too well. At this point Vaggie could no longer control her tears, she weeps into Carmillas arms, whispering under her breath (mostly to herself) "mama...mama".
As soon as she comprehends what she just said she makes a quick and easy escape of Carmillas gentle embrace, she makes a run for the door. "Darling," her voice is warm, inviting "you can't live in hell for as long as I have without knowing a thing or two about coping." This slows Vaggies sprint to a halt. "Wh-what?"
"What I am saying Vaggie," she sounds closer "is I would be honored to be your Mama, even if only for tonight. You obviously need it." Vaggie falls to her knees, no longer wielding any control over herself. Though her tears have slowed she still sobs, Carmilla joins her on the floor, slowly hugging the little girl. Once again they stay like that for a while, except this time Vaggie does not try to escape, she nuzzles into the woman's side, letting herself be soothed by the gentle rubbing of circles into her back, the careful fingers playing with her hair, it takes nearly 15 minutes for her to fall asleep in Carmillas arms.
Every time Vaggie blinks awake for a second she is in a new place. In the arms of a tall, warm woman, then laying in the lap of that same woman, then in a bed under soft covers, being read to by this beautiful woman. Then she awakens, she is surprisingly calm for having just woken up. But of course, that doesn't last very long. As her young fuzzy mind tries to process where she is it is bombarded with unknown scents and sounds and textures, she quickly starts crying. "Mommy!? MOMMY!?!?!" she screams out as loud as she can manage, but she stops as soon as she hears the sound of metal clanking on the ground and quickly getting closer...that is not what mommy sounds like at all.
Carmilla runs and fast as she can towards the sound of crying, hear heart aches when she sees Vaggie, crying even harder now that she is there. "Hey, hey, Vaggie, darling, it's okay, I'm here now, are you okay?" she speaks slowly and softly, punctuating her sentence with slow steps towards the bed in which Vaggie sits. Vaggie scoots as far back into the corner as she can, as far from Carmilla as is possible. "no! NO! NO NO NO!!! I WANT MOMMY!!" she screams, tears running down her face like a waterfall. It finally clicks in Carmilla's mind that she is NOT 'Mommy'. For a second she thinks about calling Charlie, because who else could 'mommy' be?, but then she realizes that if she's right, and Charlie is Vaggie's usual caregiver, then there has to be a reason that Vaggie came to her, and not Charlie.
"Vaggie, sweetheart, Mommy isn't here right now." she quickly makes up a lie as she sits herself down where she is, a few feet from the bed, "She asked me to babysit you for a bit." damn it she really needs to at least contact Charlie so she doesn't think her girlfriend is missing. "I have lots of fun food and toys for you to play with if you like?" Vaggie's crying slowed and she stopped screaming, but she did not move any closer to the big scary woman who she couldn't quite place. "Or we can sit here, that's okay too, cry it out, I will wait right here if you want any cuddles"
And that's exactly what they did for the next half hour, they sat there, 7 feet apart, and Vaggie cried until she fell asleep again. Carmilla thought maybe it'd be better if she woke up near her, so she gently picked up the sleepy angel and carried her out to the lounge, laying her down on the couch and covering her with a soft blanket.