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Carla Connor never drank herbal tea.
Not even her worst cases of the common cold or food poisoning had ever driven her to ingest eucalyptus or peppermint or some other homeopathic shit. And yet, here she was, staring at her chamomile brew, her last resort to get some relief for her racing heart while she waited for Lisa.
That evening, Carla had attempted to distract herself in so many ways. First, she had tried to numb her brain with the familiar characters of Eastenders and when that didn’t work - soaps without hot blonde police women didn’t really pique her attention, she had come to realize - she had dived right into paperwork for the factory, hoping that it would overwork her to the point of exhaustion. But hours later, she was still up, no amount of meditation or re-reading the same paragraph of a random book on her nightstand had been enough to placate the nagging feeling that had taken place in her stomach after the conversation with her girlfriend.
Her girlfriend .
She still couldn’t wrap her head around the fact that Lisa Swain was her girlfriend. After months of pining and fumbling her words and making the DS run for the hills while trying to keep her close, Lisa was finally hers.
But that was the problem, wasn’t it?
That she had been the one to pursue her, she had been the one to tuck blonde strands of hair behind ears and look into the clearest green eyes on a casual October evening, butterflies suddenly roaming free in her stomach, and she had been the one to finally bridge that painful gap and kiss her. She had fallen so hard and so fast that for weeks she had shoved all rational thinking aside, too focused on carefully walking the thin line of the relationship with the blonde.
Classic Carla Connor.
She led with her heart, hoping her head would catch up sooner or later.
Only, this time the catching up was proving to be harder than expected. While her heart was racing ahead to Christmas with Betsy and them living together in the future, her head was paralyzed with current fear and all she wanted to do was tuck away with Lisa in her bedroom and protect their little bubble. Hide away and pretend it was only them in the whole world. But she knew this wasn’t fair to Lisa.
Guilt had creeped in when she had realized that with her 20 seconds of insane courage and her speech about how-not-to-be-a-coward-in-your-love-life she had unintentionally over promised and under delivered to Lisa, who had made herself very clear by saying that she’d be hopeless at casual and that she was all in. She wanted to please her, so eager to shower the detective with affection and reassurance, to prove that she was worth staying, even if that meant bending a bit for her. Even if that meant accepting that her girlfriend a few hours earlier had stalked her and then abused her power to threaten her client out of pure, unjustified jealousy - and looked gorgeous while doing that.
But that wasn’t healthy, because Carla couldn’t ignore her own needs anymore. She couldn’t ignore the red warning that over the last few days had popped up in her brain saying SLOW DOWN and she certainly couldn’t ignore the annoyance she had felt when Lisa had dismissed her way of handling her newly-discovered sexuality, which for now did not involve a big coming out with Debbie Webster or every client she met for lunch. In retrospect, she was annoyed at herself, too, for asking for forgiveness when requiring time to adjust wasn’t a crime.
So, in the spirit of not letting resentment spread like wildfire over their still fragile relationship, Carla had pressed send on the least alarming text she could come up with, given it was almost midnight, asking Lisa to come over and talk.
Lisa, who was now standing in her doorway, leather jacket thrown over a matching pyjama set and slightly tousled hair making her look partly disheveled and completely adorable. A surge of affection for her detective warmed Carla’s heart and prompted her to move towards her, pecking her lips softly, as to say this is not war, it’s okay. I still want this.
Lacing her fingers through Lisa’s, she led her to the sofa, position mirroring the one they were in just a few hours earlier. A quick flash of panic crossed the blonde’s face when Carla retracted her hand to tuck it safely between her knees.
“Carla, what’s going on?” Green eyes suddenly alert with fear.
“Look, Lisa… it’s nothing major. I just kept rewinding our conversation and I couldn’t let it go, I feel like there’s more I need to say.” Lisa was still staring at her intently. “I understand what you feel, you don’t want to go back in the closet and I’d never ask you to, but this really is a big thing for me and I need some time to settle with it. I’m sorry but I just can’t promise I’m going to be out and proud tomorrow, it’s not like flipping a switch. I’m assuming that you know that.” Carla was already regretting how her frustration with her way of handling the situation had turned into bitterness towards Lisa.
“I know but..”
“Please, let me finish. I’m not ashamed of being with you or of my sexuality and I do want to be out and proud but it needs to be on my own terms, Lisa. You need to cut me some slack. You’ve been with women for the past twenty or more years, it’s been two weeks for me! Sorry if I’m not thrilled about the idea of fighting prejudices just about now.” Carla’s voice now resembled a high pitched hush.
Hot, liquid rage filled Lisa’s chest and creeped up her neck, giving her an all-natural flush. Is this how Carla had interpreted her words? Her need to show off proudly their relationship? As something to pressure her, to put her in a corner?
“Carla! I never meant to pressure you! I do know that coming out is hard, I am a lesbian, for God’s sake. But you keep sending mixed messages, why would you tell me that you’re ready to be out and proud if you aren’t?” Lisa knew that things were much more nuanced than she was making them out to be but she didn’t care, the ghost of past relationships in which she felt like a dirty little secret or a fun experience for a night haunting her heart. She just couldn’t risk it with Carla.
“I don’t know. Because I don’t want to lose you? I don’t want to watch you walk away from me ever again, you’ve sort of traumatized me over these months, with your dramatic exits.” It was a joke, an olive branch to curb her harsh tone. A small smile tugged at Lisa’s mouth.
“But that’s exactly my point. Why would you come after me, relentlessly, even when I had my walls up, just to not be sure about having a relationship with me? You know I don’t do casual, especially not with you.” Lisa swallowed even though her mouth was dry, an attempt to stop tears from spilling.
In that exact moment Lisa realized why her behavior had been so erratic, so out of character, lately. Carla meant too much to her. She had taken a leap of faith opening her heart - that had never been Lisa Swain’s MO - and now she couldn’t contain the love that was pouring out of it. She wanted to climb on a rooftop and shout it, and hold Carla’s hand while doing so. She wanted Carla to do the same, failing to consider in the excitement of it all that Carla was still new to this.
“Lisa, I do want to have a relationship with you. I want you so much. I feel like I’ve exhausted my ways of saying this.” Pleading eyes, tan fingers tentatively looking for the other woman’s hand. “I don’t want to hide away forever, I’m just asking for a bit of time while I figure out how to do this. And grace, if you have to spare. Don’t make me feel like I have to come out to every person on this street for our relationship to matter, because I would, for you. But I don’t think it would be really fair to me.”
“No. I don’t want that.” Tears were now free falling from Lisa’s eyes, pyjama’s sleeves drying wet cheeks immediately replaced by Carla’s hands. “I would never want that. But I don’t want to be kept a secret indefinitely, either, Carla. I’m too old for that.”
“It’s not going to be indefinitely, it’s only temporary. I promise. Besides, it’s not a proper secret. As I said, the people whom I truly care about know how I feel about you.” That earned a raised eyebrow from Lisa. It clearly wasn’t enough for her. She didn’t want sneaking around and having to make excuses and people assuming that Carla was single and ready to mingle; she wanted public displays of affection and feeling like she belonged to Carla and Carla belonged to her and hell, maybe even walking into the Rovers hand in hand with a couple’s alert.
“Look, Lisa, this isn’t about me personally. I really am fine with my sexuality. I met you, I liked you and you happened to be a woman, that’s it. I can roll with that.” Carla averted her gaze for a few seconds, her fingers lightly tracing lines on the blonde’s palm. “But I know how queer people still get treated, especially on our street, what people say behind their backs, the mean gossip… That’s scary, I’m not going to lie to you. I wish I could shield our relationship from all of that. It’s too precious.”
Lisa was sure that she had felt her own heart crack at Carla’s confession. Over the months they had spent getting to know each other, Lisa had developed a slightly idealized version of the older woman: in her eyes, Carla was always solid, confident, ready to fight for what she cared about. So much so that even while she was at her weakest, recovering from a brain bleed, Lisa still saw her as her safe place, her harbor, she was the one in front of whom she could let herself crumble knowing she would be caught and rescued. Maybe she had mistakenly over generalized her strength, not clocking the fact that Carla was the one needing support and reassurance now.
Seeing Carla so vulnerable hurt in such a familiar place, a place she had been in herself so many years ago and still occasionally stung. She wished she could just crawl into Carla’s skin and curl around her heart, keeping it safe, but she had to settle for squeezing both her hands, hoping her sentiment would still carry through.
“It’s true, it is scary. I feel terrible for not considering where you’re coming from. I can talk about fighting prejudice and all that because I’ve already been through the trenches, I’ve had the time to process my sexuality and accept that people can say what they like, it doesn’t affect me. And you deserve that, too, Carla. I’m sorry for rushing you.” The relief in Carla’s face was visible, her shoulders sagging as if a weight had just been lifted off. “But nothing can take away from us what we built and will keep building, I can promise you that.” A lonely tear disappeared into Carla’s smile lines.
“You have nothing to be sorry about. It won’t take long before I’m out and proud and all over you in public places.” Carla’s mischievous grin and sparkly eyes were enough to make Lisa’s heart melt. She wanted this woman so bad . But there was something else she needed to say.
“I’m also sorry for acting like a jealous stalker today, I don’t know what came into me. It was completely inappropriate and I should have never done that. It won’t happen again.” Lisa grimaced, remembering her antics.
“I mean, it was inappropriate, true…” Without ever detaching their hands, Carla had gotten closer to the blonde’s face and she was peppering soft kisses from her jawline up to her ear, where she whispered. “But it was also kind of hot.”
“Hm, really? Care to show me how hot?” Lisa smoothly shifted into Carla’s lap, her thighs pinning the older woman down and her hands coming into silky hair, and kissed her. Full and deep and wonderful. She doesn’t think she could ever get enough of Carla, not now and not in fifty years.
“It would be my pleasure.”