Chapter Text
When Emma comes home, Keira’s crying, curled into a little ball on the floor.
“Keira? What’s wrong?” She asks, confused. But the younger midfielder physically recoils upon seeing her, bawling louder. She sobs until her breath is raw.
“What do you want, Kei?” Emma tries again, her voice exasperated. She’s had a long day, and she just doesn’t have enough patience to deal with this.
The little girl’s body shakes with the intensity of her sobs, cowering away from Emma, her face the picture of fear and absolute desolation.
Eventually, she begins to beg, her voice barely a whisper.
“What are you saying?” She prompts, impatiently.
“Lucy!” Keira whimpers, wiping her nose on the back of her hand.
At the mention of Keira’s ex-girlfriend, Emma’s face hardens. She looks down at Keira with nothing but contempt.
“I’m not fucking calling that woman.”
It was hard for Emma not to feel threatened by her girlfriend’s attractive, confident ex. Lucy is charming but cocky, and yet the entire world would hang onto her every word as if she was the living form of God. Emma, for one, had never understood it. Lucy seemed arrogant, to her at least.
“Need!” Keira continues, waving her arms in the air.
Emma grabs a hold of Keira’s shoulder, holding her in place with such force that the younger girl yelps out in pain.
“You will be quiet, Keira.”
It takes her a while to calm down but eventually, Keira stops whimpering. Emma lets her go. There are still salty tears rolling down her cheeks.
“I’m going to call Aitana to come and deal with you Keira, because I cannot fucking be asked to deal with this bullshit again.”
The moment she leaves the room Keira begins to cry again. Her bawling is guttural, deep in the back of her throat and sometime after Emma’s left she wets herself, lying on the floor in her soaked leggings and underwear, her body too numb to move.
She’s still crying softly when Aitana, Mapi and Alexia arrive. Aitana sits on the floor beside Keira for a few moments, stroking her hair like you would a frightened kitten.
Alexia deals with talking to Emma, gently letting Keira’s girlfriend know that they would be happy to look after Keira for the night. She doesn’t like the relief in Emma’s face, and less the look she gives Keira before escaping up to their shared bedroom.
“Keira, chica. Let’s get you out of here.”
The ginger’s still wailing as she’s lifted into Alexia’s arms, whimpering softly for a woman who she hasn’t talked to outside of football for just under a year.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Alexia whispers the English phrase as she buckles Keira’s seatbelt in the passenger’s seat of her blue Cupra Formentor. The three Spanish women all exchange looks regarding Keira’s desperate begging. To call and explain the situation Lucy is one thing. Convincing her to come to her ex-girlfriend’s aid is something else entirely.
It’s Mapi who carries Keira into Alexia’s house, whispering little comforts into her ear as Keira stuffs her thumb into her mouth and hides her face in the smaller woman’s shoulder.
Alexia unlocks her door and Mapi deposits Keira onto the couch. She watches with dismay as the English midfielder crawls off and into a dark corner of Alexia’s living room, curling herself back into a little ball and starting to sob.
“I’m going to call Lucy,” Alexia says, decisively. Aitana and Mapi give her a look. “She’s been crying for hours, and she needs to be changed. If she’ll let Lucy do that, it’s a win.”
So she picks up her phone and searches for the number of the English right back, her thumb pausing over the call button. Alexia knows that as Captain, she could force Lucy to come over. She doesn’t want to do that, though. She wants to give the defender a choice.
…
Lucy doesn’t entirely know what she’s doing as she gets into her car and drives the short distance to her Captain’s house. Her knuckles are white as she grips the steering wheel, not really caring if she’s speeding as she races down the main road and then turns into Alexia’s street.
She’s always considered herself to be a level-headed person, with her feet firmly on the ground. Of course she’s confident, some would say overconfident, but there’s a difference. When it comes down to it, she’s sensible. She knows when she’s needed, and what she has to do to help her friends.
Even if it involves helping her ex-girlfriend. In her mind, though, Keira and little Keira are separated.
Keira is the woman who hurt her, and who she also hurt. Little Keira is an innocent, sweet girl, who’s done her no wrong. And if little Keira needed her help, of course Lucy would be there. There aren’t a lot of things Lucy wouldn’t do for the little midfielder.
As she knocks on the door, Lucy takes a few moments to steady herself. She hasn’t seen Keira outside their football since the breakup.
Alexia answers the door, and her face is thankful enough for Lucy to not regret her decision. Through the kitchen, she can hear the sound of crying, and she winces. Lucy could recognise the sound of Keira’s cry anywhere, and it makes her feel slightly sick with a feeling she can’t quite place.
She doesn’t bother with shoes, striding purposefully through the kitchen and into where she can hear is the source of the cries. Mapi and Aitana are crouched on the floor at least five feet away from Keira, not intervening with her cries but just sitting, watching.
The moment Lucy kneels down, Keira recognises her in a heartbeat. Her smell, her face, her sad smile, and then her voice.
“Hey little lamb. Can you take a few deep breaths for me?”
Keira throws herself into Lucy’s chest, and the defender stumbles back a little before wrapping her strong arms around the littler girl’s backside, cradling her in her chest.
“Good girl,” Lucy croons, as she strokes Keira’s hair and the little girl’s cries begin to quiet. “My sweet little lamb, you’re doing so well.”
“Mama,” Keira mumbles into Lucy’s chest. The defender’s head feels light, as if she’s underwater.
“She needs to be changed.” Mapi pipes up, her voice nervous. She doesn’t want to interrupt whatever’s going on between the pair. “We didn’t think she’d let us.”
“Thanks, Maps.” Lucy says, easily, watching fondly as Keira’s eyes begin to droop and her head rests on Lucy’s shoulder. “I’ll run her a bath, if that’s alright with you Alexia?”
The captain nods quickly, gesturing for Lucy to carry Keira upstairs, which she does, kicking off her shoes before going up. She tries to set the girl down on the toilet seat so that she can run the bath, but Keira begins to whimper at the thought of not being in the arms of Lucy, and steadfastly refuses to be put down.
Lucy chuckles, balancing Keira on her hip and leaning down to quickly turn on the faucet. She begins to take off Keira’s damp underwear and leggings, rubbing the girl’s bare back affectionately as she waits for the water to rise up the sides of the bath.
When the temperature is warm, she shimmies off Keira’s shirt and deposits her carefully in the bath. And with a small flannel, she carefully wipes the inside of Keira’s thighs and then presses a kiss to her forehead.
“Good girl. You’re sitting very nicely for Mama, aren’t you Keira?”
Keira smiles, pleased at the affection.
“Good for mama.”
Lucy returns the smile easily. “You are.”
She runs her eyes over Keira’s soft skin with a strange nostalgic fondness. But then she stops, as her eyes rest on her shoulder.
“Keira, love? I’m going to ask you a question, and I want you to answer as best as you can.”
Keira nods eagerly, desperate for praise from her mama.
“What happened here?”
She points to the bruise on Keira’s shoulder, and the little girl giggles and puts her fingers in her mouth. Lucy instantly relaxes, realising that she probably had assumed the worst. After all, they were athletes. And she knew better than anyone that athletes got injured; sometimes their bodies wouldn’t act the way that they should.
“Emma grab me.”
Lucy slows.
“She grabbed you, little lamb?”
Keira nods, her face still smiling.
“And did it hurt when she grabbed you?”
Another nod, another little giggle.
Lucy adjusts her face to curious when really she can feel her blood begin to boil. “Was it a joke, Keira? Is that why you’re laughing?”
Keira shakes her head. “No joke. Angry.”
“She was angry?” At Keira’s confirmation, she continues. “Can you tell me why she was angry, sweetheart?”
“Cry.”
“She was angry because you were crying?”
“And small. She no like.”
“She doesn’t like it when you feel small?”
Lucy grips the side of the bathtub to stop herself from exploding. She continues to wash Keira in silence, before speaking again.
“It wasn’t right for her to grab you if you didn’t like it, love. Can you promise to tell Mama if something like that happens again?”
Keira agrees, but Lucy’s not entirely sure whether she understands. Lucy helps Keira out of the bath before lying her down on Alexia’s guest bed duvet.
She starts off with the pull-up, hoisting it over Keira’s hips and then squashing it round her middle until it sits comfortably just below her belly button. Then she pulls some pyjama bottoms over the padding and a sleep shirt of her own, one that Keira wore often when they were together after the midfielder had stayed the night at Lucy’s without any of her own clothes to change into.
A soother is offered and slipped between the midfielder’s lips. It comforts her almost immediately, and Lucy watches as she sucks pleasurably.
“Can you walk downstairs, or do you want Mama to carry you, sweetheart?”
Keira opens her arms to be picked up and Lucy happily obliges, gathering the smaller woman into her chest. The midfielder leans her head against Lucy, inhaling the older woman’s scent that she had missed so much.
She’s sleepy, but when Lucy asks her to do something, she will do it.
“Can you tell Alexia how you got that bruise, little lamb?”
Keira rubs her nose before answering, lisping slightly around the pacifier in her mouth. “Emma grab me.”
Alexia’s eyebrows raise, and Aitana steps forward.
“Did you like the grabbing, Kei?”
Keira shakes her head, clinging tightly onto Lucy’s shirt. The older defender looks at her sadly, and then at the others with a demonstrative frown.
“I’m going to take her home.”
A little gasp escapes from Mapi’s lips.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea, Lucy?” Aitana asks, quietly.
Lucy laughs suddenly, aware of her lack of clarity. “I meant my house, not back to hers!”
Alexia avoids her eye when she admits, “we know.”
All Lucy can say is, “Oh.”
“If you’re fine with it, then okay..” Aitana trails off, looking to the other two for help.
Alexia stares at Lucy, her face serious. “Just, please don’t do anything you’ll regret.”
Lucy brushes her off. “Of course not. Not when she’s little.”
There’s a silence, and Lucy feels that she’s misunderstood something between the other three. But as Keira begins to whine slightly, presumably from being overtired, Lucy puts her shoes back on and carries the younger girl to her car.
She pulls out of the drive, the only sound the little sucking noises Keira makes against her pacifier, and the little crinkle her pull-up makes as she shifts in her seat. Lucy doesn’t think of anything as she drives. She hasn’t really processed that she’s taking Keira back to her house, a house that had once been hers, too.
Keira shuffles in her arms as they approach the front door, with what Lucy guesses could be some sort of recognition. She unlocks the door and then carries Keira up to her bedroom for a quilt and the little lamb stuffy that Keira adored. She lies Keira down in the spare bedroom, tucking the lamb beside her neck and the little girl under the duvet.
She presses a goodnight kiss to Keira’s forehead and stays next to her for a few minutes, watching as her eyes close and the sucking on her soother begins to go slack. Lucy can’t help but wonder.. what if?
What if they hadn’t fought that night? What if she hadn’t ended it?
Would she and Keira still be together? Would her little girl still have that fucking bruise on her shoulder?
She strokes her hair lightly, her touch delicate over her delicate little girl, and tries not to think of what will happen when Keira wakes up in the morning. Even when they had been together, Keira’s littler side had worried the girl endlessly.
Lucy had had to deal with constant anxiety from Keira: What if she dropped at training? What if the public found out? What if her friends found out, and thought she was disgusting?
Not that Lucy minded comforting Keira. Of course, seeing Keira so worried made her feel shit, too. But the amount of faith Keira put in to her caring about the midfielder was, well, Lucy couldn’t quite put it into words. Even if the next morning after a day of being little, Keira would avoid her eyes, Lucy knew that with a little extra reassurance the midfielder would easily come around. After all, their relationship had been built entirely on trust. That’s why it worked so well.
And why it hurt so much when that trust was broken.
Lucy takes a last look at her little girl before leaving the room and getting changed herself. She doesn’t return until an hour later, having made herself a cup of tea and settled on the sofa, set on finishing her tv programme before the next episode aired in a couple of days.
As it’s only when there’s a break in noise from the TV, that Lucy can hear other sound. She immediately pauses the show, listening intently. And then she gets up, striding back into Keira’s bedroom. The little girl has begun to cry again.
“Keira, sweetheart?” Lucy rounds on her, her voice gentle. “Hey, hey, why the tears?”
Keira sneezes lightly, letting Lucy lift up her body and climb into bed beside her, wrapping the girl in her arms. Sure enough, Keira’s sobs begin to slow and her heart rate falls.
“I’ve got you,” Lucy repeats, slowly. “Mama’s got you.”
And Keira falls back asleep, tangled in the duvet and the arms of the woman she told herself she wasn’t going to think about. Lucy feels her own eyes closing and she lets them, with both Keira and her lamb pressed up against her chest.
..
The next morning, it’s Keira who wakes up first. As she takes in the familiar smell of her ex-girlfriend, and the sensation of being enclosed in someone’s arms, she relaxes suddenly.
She spots her lamb beside her and picks him up, nuzzling her face into the wool for a few moments before her tranquility is suddenly ripped away as she remembers.
Remembers Emma and remembers crying and remembers Aitana and Mapi and Alexia and..
She turns her head slightly, and is met with the dark brown hair of Lucy. Shifting slightly in her wet pull-up, Keira tries to free herself from the older woman’s grip, but fails miserably. She wants to get changed; she can feel the wet material presses right up against her skin. And yet, she can’t make herself leave Lucy’s arms.
The older defender, in the early months of their relationship, had been very quick to establish what Keira would need help with whilst or directly after being little, and one of those things was changing herself. Even if she was big, Keira found it hard - both physically and mentally - to take herself out of a wet pull-up and make sure that she didn’t get any rashes or sores from the wetness. Lucy had quickly taken over that duty, no matter whether Keira was big or little. Admittedly, it did make her embarrassed. And yet, Lucy handled it with so much care that Keira slowly began to feel, well as comfortable as she could, with Lucy cleaning her up and changing her into and out of pull-ups.
Again, she knew she was very grateful. Once she had met Emma, the woman had refused to even give her comfort when little. Which quickly led to her trying to repress it, meaning her little feelings came out in huge meltdowns and tantrums. That was even worse for Emma to deal with.
But Keira had quickly gotten used to the idea that Lucy had been special, and that she shouldn’t expect love or care when she was little. That she had to look after herself.
She hugs the lamb tightly, trying to urge herself to get up. But she waits.
It’s at least half an hour before Lucy opens her eyes, and as soon as they look at each other, Keira flushes a deep red and moves out of the older woman’s arms.
Lucy just looks at her, cautiously. “Are you okay?”
Keira shrugs, and upon realising that the lamb is still nestled against her face she jumps, chucking it onto the floor.
Lucy smiles, picking it back up and settling it down on the pillow. They look at each other for a few moments before Keira opens her mouth, an attempt at conversation.
“I, um,” Keira begins to stutter, tucking a piece of her hair behind her ear.
“It’s okay, take your time,” Lucy reminds her, gently. She watches as Keira takes a deep breath before speaking.
“I’m sorry you had to do that. It’s not fair; we had our boundaries and made a plan for what we were going to do and I didn’t mean to break that.”
Lucy shakes her head. “It’s completely okay. I don’t blame you, at all. You can’t control it.”
Keira nods, uncertainly.
“I really don’t give a shit what happened between us, Keira. If you need me, I’m going to be here.”
They don’t say anything for a few moments, Lucy’s statement hanging in the air between them. Keira shuffles slightly, and the crinkly noise makes her cringe.
“Do you want..?” Lucy gestures towards her. She doesn’t have to say it; Keira already knows what she’s asking. The midfielder flushes again, and Lucy can’t do anything more than look at her sympathetically.
At her little nod, Lucy gets out of the bed, picks the lamb off the floor and walks to the bathroom, Keira following close behind. She gets out the moisturiser and spare underwear from the drawer where she used to keep and yet still keeps the supplies. If Keira’s surprised by this, she doesn’t say anything.
Lucy rolls out the soft mat onto the floor and Keira lies down, eyes looking at everywhere other than Lucy. The defender wants nothing more to stroke her, to rub her shoulder, to do anything to comfort Keira. And yet, she restrains herself for fear of overstepping or making the younger woman uncomfortable, gently urging the lamb into her arms.
She makes quick work of pulling the pull-up out from under Keira’s backside, but perhaps selfishly takes her time with the moisturiser and the wipes, the maternal roll filling her heart in a way she’s never been able to describe.
Pulling a pair of plain underwear up Keira’s legs, Lucy gently sits her back up and then helps her off the floor, watching with a little knowing smile as Keira quickly pulls on her trousers and she rolls away the mat.
“Well, thank you,” Keira says quietly, making her way over to the door. “And I, yeah.”
They stand, looking at each other. Deciding which is the least awkward way to say goodbye to each other. Eventually, Lucy holds her hand out for a handshake and Keira outstretches her arms for a hug. Keira drops her arms immediately, as if she had been shot, and the blush that Lucy’s becoming very familiar with again, splatters across her cheeks.
Lucy laughs inwardly, and pulls the younger woman into a hug. She’s still clutching onto the lamb, who gets crushed a little between their arms.
They stay in the hug a little longer than they should: Keira taking in the scent of Lucy’s shampooed hair and Lucy, Keira’s. When they break away, Lucy smiles softly.
“Take care, Keira. I’m always here if you need me.”
“I know,” she replies, quietly. She stays there for a little while, standing on Lucy’s doormat as she urges her feet to leave and take her away. Eventually, Lucy tickles the belly of the lamb and Keira giggles, despite her headspace.
She sombres, suddenly, and gives Lucy a quick nod before disappearing out of the door. Lucy sighs, deeply, and returns to the spare bedroom to make the bed.
The sheets are fine, which means the pull-up thankfully did it’s job. She puts the soother on the bedside table, and plays with it absent-mindedly as she sits on the edge of the bed, which is now overwhelmed with the smell of roses, soft blankets and unmistakably, Keira.