e :)

"You are a brilliant veterinary surgeon with a thriving practice in the Eixample, Y/N," Alexia had said, her voice dropping into that rhythmic, low Catalan-infused cadence that always sounded slightly like an ultimatum. "You own a luxury pet boutique. You manage an entire rehabilitation shelter. And yet, you are communicating with your staff trought phone that looks like it survived a mortar attack in the nineties. Take the box before I force you to take it."

Y/N had simply grinned, her large, heavily tattooed shoulders shifting beneath an oversized, paint-splattered charcoal hoodie. To anyone walking down the Carrer de València, Y/N looked exactly like the sort of woman who might lead an underground motorcycle club or have a strong opinion on industrial techno. She stood a comfortable five-foot-nine, broad-chested and striking, her skin a rich tapestry of intricate ink—sleeve designs of anatomical flora, geometric wolf silhouettes, and soft charcoal portraits of the very first rescue dogs she had saved during her residency in London. Her jawline was sharp, her style decidedly heavy-duty boots and distressed denim, giving off an untouchable, slightly intimidating 'bad girl' aura that made people give her a wide berth on the metro.

But inside that imposing frame lived a girl who was effectively a soft, oversized loaf of bread. A total push-over who would literally dissolve into tears if a stray kitten sneezed within a three-mile radius of her person.

"I don't need a professional camera, Ale," Y/N had mumbled, her calloused, strong hands carefully opening the box with a degree of clumsy hesitation that always made Alexia’s chest ache with fondness. "The old one still holds a charge for three hours if I don't turn the Wi-Fi on. And the crack gives the photos a nice, vintage filter. Very indie."

"It makes you look like you live in a cave," Alexia shot back, though she was already sliding across the barstool, her hands reaching out to loop around Y/N’s waist, burying her face into the soft crook of Y/N’s neck where the scent of cedarwood, expensive veterinary antiseptic, and chamomile soap always lingered. "And your shelter needs visibility. My mom says your website looks like it was coded by a badger. Use the new phone. Record the animals. People like seeing you covered in mud, apparently."

That was how the great TikTok experiment of 2026 began.

The relationship between the captain of FC Barcelona and the most soft-hearted vet in Catalonia was the worst-kept secret among their immediate circles, yet completely invisible to the broader public. Eli and Alba knew Y/N as the woman who kept their family anchored, the one who had spent Christmas dinners quietly checking their elderly aunt’s arthritic retriever under the table while everyone else drank cava. The team knew Y/N because she was the intimidatingly handsome woman who occasionally turned up at the training ground in a battered Land Rover Defender, her sleeves rolled up, casually tossing 40k bags of premium kibble over her shoulder like they were bags of crisps, before turning into absolute mush the moment Mapi León’s English bulldog came trotting over for belly rubs.

She was charming, effortlessly cool, and completely unfazed by the glittering status of the professionals around her. When Lucy Bronze had tried to discuss high-level defensive transitions with her over a coffee, Y/N had simply blinked, pointed at a tiny scratch on Lucy’s forearm, and spent twenty minutes explaining the exact cellular structure of cat-scratch fever while applying an organic ointment she’d mixed herself. The players adored her because she treated them like normal human beings who happened to have highly reactive dogs.

But nobody outside that small ecosystem knew that the luxury apartment in Castelldefels, with its sleek minimalist decor and expensive cream carpets, had essentially been converted into a high-traffic subterranean transit station for the most physically and emotionally damaged canine citizens of Spain.

Alexia had tried to set boundaries. In the third year of their relationship, after Y/N had brought home a blind Greyhound who could only sleep if he was resting his entire muzzle on Alexia’s left football boot, the captain had stood in the doorway of the bedroom, her arms crossed, trying to look like a pillar of athletic authority.

"No more, Y/N. I am serious this time," Alexia had declared, her eyes tracking a stray piece of golden dog hair that was floating toward her dry-cleaned suit. "We are a professional household. I need eight hours of undisturbed sleep for my recovery cycles. We cannot have a revolving door of broken creatures."

Y/N had simply stood there, holding a tiny, shivering, mangy puppy with one ear pointing north and the other pointing south, looking up at Alexia with those massive, dark, completely defenseless eyes that matched the dog's perfectly. She hadn't said a word. She had just shifted her grip so the puppy’s small, pink tongue poked out, licking a stray bit of dirt off Y/N’s tattooed wrist.

Alexia had lasted exactly four seconds. She had let out a long, defeated groan in Catalan, rubbed her temples, and walked into the kitchen to find a clean towel and a bottle of specialized puppy milk. "You are a manipulative woman," she had yelled from the pantry. "And this creature is sleeping on your side of the bed."

By the spring of 2026, the temporary resident of the Castelldefels fortress was Benny.

Benny was a mistake of genetics and geography—a tiny, chocolate-brown ball of absolute chaos who was supposedly a cross between a Labrador and a Weimaraner, though he mostly resembled an oversized brown bean with massive, floppy ears and the clumsy coordination of a drunken sailor. Y/N had found him tied to a rusted bench outside her clinic in the Eixample on a rainy Tuesday morning, shivering so violently his tiny teeth were chattering. He had a severe case of sarcoptic mange, a parasite load that would have killed a smaller pup, and an absolute, terrifying attachment to the sound of Y/N’s voice.

The first video Y/N uploaded to TikTok was an absolute technical disaster. It was a three-minute, unedited clip of Benny’s first bath at the clinic. Y/N hadn’t known how to cut the footage, so the video began with twenty seconds of her large, tattooed face staring directly into the lens, her forehead creased in profound concentration as she muttered, "Is the red dot mean it’s saving, or is it broken? Ale said press the button... right, okay, I think it’s doing it."

The rest of the video showed Y/N, with her sleeves rolled up to reveal her massive, ink-covered forearms, gently lifting the tiny, hairless, scabby brown puppy into a stainless-steel sink. Her voice shifted instantly from her awkward, tech-confused rumble into this incredibly soft, high-pitched, British-accented coo that she reserved exclusively for things that weighed under ten kilograms.

"There we go, my little chocolate candy," she whispered, her large fingers incredibly delicate as she worked a specialized medicated oatmeal shampoo into Benny’s raw skin. "I know it stings, darling. I know you’re a bit worried about the water, but you’re quite safe now. Look at those ears. You’re going to be a very handsome boy when we get your jacket grown back, aren't you? Yes, you are. Don't eat the bubbles, you silly goose."

She didn't use music. She didn't use captions. She didn't use any of the trending algorithms that the youth of 2026 used to gain traction. She just uploaded the raw, honest footage because her shelter coordinator had told her that 'content drives adoptions.'

Within forty-eight hours, the video had reached three hundred thousand views.

The algorithm had stumbled upon a goldmine of contrast: a tall, remarkably striking woman who looked like she could clear out a nightclub single-handedly, possessing a deep, gravelly voice, who was currently treating a tiny, pathetic street dog with the maternal gentleness of an angel. The comments section was an absolute mess of people having an existential crisis over her appearance.

“Right, who is this absolute unit of a woman and why am I crying over a mange puppy at 3 AM?”

“The tattoos? The accent? The way she’s cradling that dog like it’s made of glass? I am incapacitated.”

“Is she single? Does she need a wife? Does she need another stray dog to look after? Because I can bark.”

Y/N, entirely unaware of how the platform worked, didn't notice the numbers. She just kept uploading videos because she thought it was a digital filing cabinet for Benny’s medical chart. She posted a clip explaining how to safely clean a dog’s ears after a chronic infection, standing in her clinic uniform—a fitted black scrub top that showed off her sleeve tattoos to perfection—holding a very calm golden retriever while she spoke directly to the camera with her clear, articulate, and completely professional veterinary authority. She gave practical, no-nonsense advice about canine nutrition, warnings about local Mediterranean parasites, and detailed logs of Benny’s fur slowly growing back into a rich, shiny coat the color of dark chocolate.

She became known as "The hot Vet" across Spanish social media. People loved her no-nonsense, deeply educational style, mixed with her total lack of presentation skills. She would routinely drop her phone into the kibble bin, or Benny would jump up and lick the camera lens until the video cut out entirely.

Then came the comment that changed the nature of the digital filing cabinet.

A user with the handle Maria_BCN94 left a message on a video of Benny learning how to fetch an old tennis ball in a quiet park: “Your husband must be the most fortunate man in Barcelona. Imagine coming home to this gorgeous, talented woman and a house full of puppies every day. Literal dream life.”

Y/N saw the comment while she was sitting at the kitchen island after a long day of surgeries, her feet propped up on a stool, a glass of red wine within reach. Alexia was currently in the living room, supposedly watching film on Chelsea’s defensive block, though in reality, she was lying flat on her back on the designer rug with Benny asleep directly on her stomach, his giant brown paws twitching under her chin.

Y/N decided to do a 'video reply' because she had finally figured out how that specific button worked.

She hit record, the phone resting against a fruit bowl. She was dressed in her evening uniform—a black tank top that exposed her broad, inked collarbones and the soft, silver scars on her shoulders from an old horse-riding accident during her youth. Her dark hair was messy, tied back with a rubber band from the clinic.

"Bona tarda, Maria," Y/N said, her British accent thick and relaxed as she took a sip of her wine. "Just saw your comment about the husband. It’s very sweet of you to say, really. But there’s no husband here, I’m afraid. I don't think a man would survive the amount of dog hair that enters this household, to be quite honest. I have a girlfriend, actually. We’ve been together going on four years now."

She smiled, a soft, private expression that made her sharp features look incredibly tender. "She’s the one who actually handles the administrative side of the fosters—mostly by complaining very loudly in Catalan that we have no more room, and then secretly buying the most expensive orthopedic dog beds from my shop when she thinks I’m not looking. She’s currently through in the lounge being held hostage by Benny because he’s fallen asleep on her sternum and she’s convinced she’ll disrupt his circadian rhythm if she moves. So, yes. No husband. Just two women and an increasingly large grocery bill for premium tripe."

She hit stop. She uploaded it. She didn't tag anyone. She didn't mention that her girlfriend was currently featured on a forty-foot billboard overlooking the Diagonal.

The internet, however, is an investigative body that rivals MI6.

The comment section under the 'girlfriend' revelation went into absolute hyperdrive. People began analyzing the background of the kitchen. The sleek, dark marble countertops. The specific view of the hills behind Castelldefels visible through the high glass windows. The very distinct, modern gold light fixtures hanging over the island.

“Wait a minute... that kitchen looks incredibly familiar.” “Hold on. Is that the same marble from the house tour that a certain Catalan athlete did for a sports magazine last year?” “No, don't start this. There are thousands of houses in Castelldefels with dark marble. Don't be unhinged.” “But the accent... the vet clinic in Eixample... didn't someone see Mapi León leaving that exact clinic last month with her bulldog? Guys. GUYS.”

Two weeks later, Y/N decided to do her very first 'TikTok Live.' She had reached fifty thousand followers, and her shelter coordinator had told her that doing a live Q&A would be an excellent way to raise funds for the upcoming spring vaccination drive for the local street colonies.

She set up the phone in the living room, propping it against an expensive ceramic vase on a side table. She sat cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by a pile of donated chew toys, looking entirely comfortable as the viewer count began to climb from five hundred to five thousand within three minutes.

"Right then," Y/N said, leaning forward to read the tiny text on the screen, her dark eyes squinting. "Hullo everyone. Thanks for joining. We’re raising money for the Eixample Rescue Fund today. If you drop those little digital gifts or whatever they are, the money goes straight to the antibiotic treatments for our senior dogs. Ask whatever veterinary questions you like, and I’ll do my best to answer between checking my spelling."

For forty minutes, the live stream was a masterclass in professional competence. Y/N answered questions about feline leukemia, the correct way to clip a nervous dog’s nails, and what to do if a puppy eats a chocolate wrapper. She was articulate, charming, and completely in her element, occasionally reaching out to scratch Benny behind the ears as the puppy rumbled past her lap like a small, brown freight train.

Then, the background of the video shifted.

The heavy glass door leading from the home gym opened. A woman walked into the frame, completely oblivious to the fact that the phone was recording. She was dressed in an oversized, faded grey training top with the emblem of the Spanish National Team partially peeled off the chest, a pair of worn-out black cotton shorts, and a pair of white Nike slides. Her hair was pulled back into a chaotic, messy bun held together by a pink scrunchie, and she was carrying a half-empty shaker bottle of protein mix.

It was Alexia Putellas. The captain of Barcelona. The two-time Ballon d'Or winner. Looking exactly like a woman who had just spent two hours doing leg presses in her basement and desperately needed a shower.

Alexia didn't look at the phone. She looked straight at the floor, where Benny had immediately abandoned Y/N to go trotting over, his tail wagging so hard his entire rear end was shaking.

"Hola, mi pequeñito," Alexia murmured, her voice dropping into an incredibly soft, completely uncharacteristic baby-talk register that no football journalist had ever heard in their life. She immediately dropped her shaker bottle onto the sofa and sank down onto her knees on the rug, entirely unconcerned with her athletic dignity. She caught Benny by his front paws, letting the brown puppy launch himself into her chest, his wet tongue instantly covering her jawline in sloppy kisses.

"Ay, qué bruto eres," Alexia laughed, a warm, bright sound that echoed through the quiet living room. She rolled onto her side on the floor, letting the puppy climb over her shoulder, her hands gently grabbing his massive, floppy ears, massaging them with the practiced familiarity of someone who spent every evening doing exactly this. "Are you being a good boy for mummy? Huh? Did you eat your kibble or did you give it to the cats? You are a beautiful monster, yes you are."

Y/N froze on the screen. She looked down at the live chat, which had suddenly transitioned from standard questions about dog food into an absolute, vertical wall of capital letters moving so fast it looked like a glitching computer program.

“IS THAT WHO I THINK IT IS.”

“ALEXIA PUTELLAS IS ON THE FLOOR BABY-TALKING A LABRADOR MIX IN HER SLIDES. I AM HAVING A STROKE.”

“THE NATIONAL TEAM SHIRT. THE SCRUNCHIE. THE ACCENT. OH MY GOD THE EIXAMPLE VET IS ALEXIA’S GIRLFRIEND.”

“LOOK AT THE BACKGROUND LOOK AT HER CONCEALING THE RELATIONSHIP FOR FOUR YEARS ONLY FOR IT TO BE RUINED BY A PUPPY CO-DEPENDENCY.”

Y/N cleared her throat, her broad, tattooed shoulders turning slightly as she looked over at her girlfriend, who was currently letting Benny chew on the sleeve of her shirt.

"Ale," Y/N said, her deep voice carrying a trace of suppressed laughter.

"Qué?" Alexia replied, not looking up from the puppy. "He’s hungry, Y/N. His belly is making noises. Did you feed him the expensive wet food or the cheap one from the supermarket? Because he prefers the one with the duck."

"Ale, darling," Y/N repeated, pointing a large, tattooed finger toward the ceramic vase. "I’m currently doing that live broadcast for the shelter. The one I told you about at breakfast."

Alexia froze. Her entire body stiffened on the floor. Slowly, like a character in a horror film, she turned her head toward the side table, her hazel eyes locking directly onto the tiny lens of the iPhone 15 Pro Max. She stayed entirely still for three seconds, her brain processing the fact that her current appearance—messy bun, slides, and puppy drool—was being broadcast to approximately twelve thousand live viewers.

Without saying a single word, Alexia let go of Benny, rolled backward with the athletic agility of a seasoned midfielder, stayed low beneath the line of the sofa, and scurried out of the room toward the kitchen like a tactical commando.

Y/N burst into a loud, booming, British laugh that shook her entire chest, her hand coming up to cover her face as she looked back at the screen. The viewer count was now climbing toward twenty thousand.

"Right," Y/N muttered, her cheeks completely flushed a lovely shade of pink, her tattoos catching the light as she rubbed her neck. "Well. That’s Alexia. She’s... she’s a bit shy when she hasn't had her shower, as you can see. Let’s go back to the question about the German Shepherd’s hip dysplasia, shall we? Before I get murdered in my sleep."

The internet did not go back to the German Shepherd’s hip dysplasia.

By the next morning, TikTok and Twitter were completely flooded with screen recordings of the "Castelldefels Commando Roll." The contrast between Alexia’s fierce, untouchable public persona as the stone-faced captain of Barcelona and her reality as a woman who rolled around on a rug in slides while singing to a brown mix dog became an overnight sensation. The fans were absolutely enchanted. They loved Y/N’s calm, laughing reaction; they loved the sheer domesticity of the scene; and most of all, they loved how Y/N had casually referred to the most famous woman in women’s football as 'darling' while she scurried out of the room.

A few days later, Y/N uploaded a video titled "A Day in the Life of a Barcelona Vet."

It was a compilation of her day: starting at 6 AM, loading her Land Rover with medical supplies, performing a dental cleaning on an elderly cat at her Eixample clinic, and then—the clip that everyone was waiting for—showing her afternoon routine. The video tracked her driving toward the Estadi Johan Cruyff.

She didn't film from the luxury VIP boxes. She filmed from the standard parking area, dressed in her usual heavy leather jacket, boots, and a simple black beanie, walking toward the stadium gates with a completely calm, detached demeanor. She didn't look like a fanatic fan; she looked like a woman who was going to watch her partner do her job, carrying a small tupperware container of homemade protein bars she’d baked because she was convinced Alexia didn't eat enough density after her matches.

The camera showed a brief snippet of the match from her perspective—the crowd roaring as the team took the pitch—and then a very short, shaky clip after the final whistle. Y/N was standing near the private tunnel, where the families usually waited.

The camera was slightly tilted, capturing Y/N’s boots, when a pair of standard Barcelona training tracksuits entered the frame. A hand reached out, grabbing Y/N’s tattooed wrist with a familiarity that made the screen shake slightly.

"Did you bring the bars?" Alexia’s voice asked off-camera, sounding tired but instantly lighter.

"In the bag, love," Y/N’s deep voice replied. "Good match. Your positioning in the second half was a bit deep, wasn't it? You looked like you were playing center-back at one point."

"Mapi wasn't shifting," Alexia grumbled, her face briefly flashing into the top corner of the frame—sweaty, her hair sticking to her forehead, but looking at Y/N with an expression of such total, relaxed safety that it felt almost intrusive to watch. "Give me the keys. I want to drive the truck home. Your car smells like wet dog today."

The video cut out there, but the casual confirmation of their four-year routine sent another wave of warmth through the fanbase. There was no grand statement, no formal press release from the club. It was just an honest, comfortable glimpse into a relationship that had survived the highest levels of sporting pressure by simply focusing on who was going to drive the Land Rover home.

The true peak of the technical incompetence, however, happened the following Tuesday.

Y/N was attempting to record an educational video about the correct dosage of tick medication for larger breeds. She had set up the phone on the kitchen counter, but the device kept slipping against the smooth marble, tilting backward until it was filming nothing but the ceiling extraction fan.

"Bloody hell," Y/N muttered, her large hand entering the frame, trying to wedge a piece of cardboard under the case. "Stay still, you stupid thing. Ale said turn the grid on, but I don't see any grid... it’s just black lines..."

Alexia walked into the kitchen, dressed to head out to the morning training session. She was wearing her official club tracksuit, her training bag slung over one shoulder, looking sharp and professional. She stopped behind Y/N, watching her partner struggle with the settings with an expression of amused exasperation.

"What are you doing with the configuration, Y/N?" Alexia asked, her voice rich with fondness as she dropped her bag onto the floor. "You have adjusted the aspect ratio to cinematic mode. You are trying to film a tick tutorial like it is a feature film by Pedro Almodóvar."

"I just pressed the button, Ale," Y/N grumbled, her broad shoulders slumping as she held her hands up in defeat. "Technology is a farce. If it doesn't have a heartbeat or four legs, I don't understand how it functions. Fix it for me, would you?"

Alexia let out a soft chuckle, stepping into the frame completely. She leaned over Y/N’s shoulder, her smaller, nimbler fingers tapping the screen with practiced ease, resetting the video parameters while Y/N stood beside her, looking down at her with an expression of absolute, puppy-like gratitude.

"There," Alexia said, her hand resting naturally against Y/N’s hip as she stood close. "It is recording normally now. Don't touch anything else."

Before she turned to grab her training bag, Alexia stood on her tip-toes, her hand moving up to cup Y/N’s sharp jawline. She pressed a soft, lingering, and incredibly sweet kiss directly onto Y/N’s cheek—the kind of unvarnished, domestic kiss that belonged entirely to a quiet kitchen before work. It was slow, romantic, and thoroughly 'ñoño,' her nose nuzzling against Y/N’s skin for a second before she pulled away.

"I am going to be late," Alexia murmured, her eyes softening as she looked at Y/N’s pink cheeks. "Don't let Benny dig up the rosemary bushes while I am gone. I see him looking at them from the window."

"No promises, love," Y/N chuckled, her deep voice vibrating as she watched Alexia grab her bag. "Have a good session. Don't let Mapi tackle you too hard."

"Mapi wishes she could catch me," Alexia shot back from the hallway, the front door clicking shut a moment later.

Y/N turned back to the phone, intending to start her tutorial, but she realized with a jolt that the camera had been recording the entire time. She stared at the lens, her large hand coming up to touch her cheek where Alexia’s lips had just been.

"Oh," Y/N said to the camera, her forehead creasing. "Right. Well... I don't actually know how to clip that bit out without deleting the whole file. So... we’re just going to leave it in, I suppose. Moving on to the tick prevention..."

When she uploaded the video later that afternoon, the comment section completely disintegrated. The raw sweetness of the interaction—the casual way Alexia helped her tech-challenged partner, the soft kiss, the total lack of performative behavior—was more effective than any public relations campaign. The fans weren't looking at an elite sports celebrity anymore; they were looking at a woman who was deeply, securely, and happily in love with her partner of four years.

The final chapter of the great foster experiment occurred three weeks later.

The video began with Y/N sitting on the floor of the Castelldefels living room, a sheet of official adoption paperwork resting on her knees. Benny was currently sitting directly on top of the paper, his giant brown head tilting as he looked into the camera lens.

"Hullo everyone," Y/N said, her voice holding a mixture of defeat and immense joy. "This is an official update regarding Benny’s foster status. As you know, he’s spent the last four months recovering from his mange, his parasites, and his general lack of common sense. He is now completely healthy, his coat is beautiful, and he was officially cleared for permanent adoption this morning."

She let out a heavy, dramatic sigh, though her dark eyes were dancing with light. "The shelter had three wonderful families lined up to meet him this weekend. A lovely couple from Girona with a massive garden and two older dogs for him to play with. It would have been perfect for him."

She reached out, her large, tattooed arm wrapping around Benny’s neck, pulling the brown puppy close against her side. "However... the foster process has encountered a major administrative roadblock. And that roadblock is currently sitting on the floor behind me."

The camera panned down slightly to reveal Alexia. The captain of Barcelona was lying flat on her stomach on the rug, her chin resting on her hands, her hazel eyes fixed entirely on Benny with a stubborn, defensive expression that she usually reserved for referee disputes.

"He is not going to Girona, Y/N," Alexia said directly to the camera, her tone completely final. "The people in Girona might have a garden, but they do not have our specific couch. And Benny is accustomed to the couch. He understands the layout of this house. It would be a psychological trauma for him to relocate at this stage of his development."

"Ale," Y/N’s voice said from behind the lens, full of laughter. "He’s a dog. He doesn't have a mortgage. He will adapt to a new garden within twelve minutes."

"No," Alexia repeated, her jaw tightening as she slid forward on her stomach until she could wrap her arms around Benny’s rear legs, anchoring him to her body. "He is my son. I have decided. We are signing the paper. Amor, come down here and tell him he is staying. Come play with Benny."

The sheer, unadulterated sweetness of the phrase—"Amor, ven a jugar con Benny"—spoken by a woman who spent her weekends commanding forty thousand people from the center of a pitch, was the final blow to the internet’s collective sanity.

Y/N dropped the phone onto the rug, the video continuing to record sideways as she slid down beside Alexia. Her large, tattooed arms wrapped around both the footballer and the brown puppy, the three of them forming a chaotic, laughing pile of limbs, paws, and soft Catalan murmurs in front of the fireplace.

The video racked up four million views in twelve hours. The 'Eixample Vet' and her 'stubborn footballer girlfriend' had officially become the favorite domestic narrative of the country.

The next afternoon, Alexia decided that the privacy of their relationship no longer required the protection of silence.

She opened her official Instagram account—the one followed by millions of football enthusiasts across the globe—and uploaded a single photograph.

The image was taken in the garden of their Castelldefels home, the late-afternoon sun casting a golden, ethereal glow over the grass. Y/N was sitting on a wooden bench, looking relaxed and handsome in a dark green utility shirt, her sleeve tattoos vibrant against her skin, her large frame holding Benny across her lap. Alexia was sitting right beside her, her head resting securely on Y/N’s shoulder, her arms wrapped around Y/N’s waist, her face clear, radiant, and completely free of the pressure of her world. Both women were looking down at the brown puppy, who was currently trying to lick Y/N’s chin, their expressions identical in their soft, unshielded happiness.

The caption was short, written in elegant Catalan:

@alexiaputellas: Benvingut a casa, Benny. Gràcies per no deixar-nos espai al llit, i gràcies a la millor veterinària del món per trobar-te a la pluja. T’estimem, Y/N. (Welcome home, Benny. Thank you for leaving us no room in the bed, and thank you to the best vet in the world for finding you in the rain. We love you, Y/N.)

In the quiet kitchen of their home, away from the notifications, the retweets, and the roar of the upcoming match, Y/N sat with her new iPhone 15 Pro Max, staring at the screen with a slight frown.

"Ale," she called out, her deep voice echoing down the hallway.

"Sí, el meu amor?" Alexia replied, walking into the room with a fresh basket of laundry, Benny trotting right at her heels like a small, chocolate shadow.

"How do I leave a comment on this photo?" Y/N asked, her forehead creased in profound confusion as she tapped the glass with her thumb. "I’ve pressed the little heart thing, but now the screen has gone all blue and I think I’ve accidentally ordered a set of winter tires for the Land Rover."

Alexia set the laundry basket down, a warm, bright laugh shaking her shoulders as she walked over to the island. She slid into Y/N’s space, her arms wrapping around her neck from behind, her chin resting on Y/N’s broad shoulder as she took the phone from her calloused hands.

"Give it to me, you beautiful disaster," Alexia whispered, her lips pressing a warm, lingering kiss right into the side of Y/N’s neck. "I will write the comment for you. You just focus on the dogs. I will handle the technology."

trust emery walsh to give her own service dog a stupid name.

samira’s not so keen on welcoming a dog into the house - she’s more of a cat person herself - but emery had become enamoured with the idea.

samira blames jack for that.

he’d adopted a german shepherd a couple of months after The Incident had happened and now, the dog is his entire world. wherever jack went, storm followed, and wherever jack went usually happened to be samira and emery’s house.

she doesn’t hate dogs.

she just likes cats more.

emery, unfortunately, loves storm. jack usually brings her around when emery refuses to get out of bed, using the dog as a means to get emery out of the house, if only for an hour or so.

it works, most of the time.

emery gets some fresh air. the dog gets some exercise. samira is saved from an evening of dealing with a reactive wife who’s mood is only worsened by a banging headache.

when jack mentions the veteran’s discount on service dogs, samira does what she does best. her research.

she finds out how the dogs are trained, the best breeds for which vocations, the different kinds of harnesses they wear.

finds out what sort of dog would be best for emery.

which is how they end up in an animal centre on a random tuesday two weeks after the new year.

emery, predictably, had been a little reluctant about it all. having a service dog for ptsd means putting her struggles on display, telling strangers that she’s prone to panicking in the middle of a walmart, that the sound of a car backfiring means she can’t move for hours, that she can’t stand the smell of burning rubber.

most of that worry goes away the minute they bring the puppy in.

it’s a fourteen week-old black labrador that’s all wriggles and wrinkles, big brown eyes and a tail that waggles with its entire body.

it plops itself in emery’s lap the minute emery sits on the floor and from that point on, its history. emery’s cuddling it close, breathing in that puppy smell, laughing at how wriggly it is.

samira lets her enjoy it. she hasn’t heard that laugh for a long time.

“is there anything specific you’ll need from her?” the handler asks.

he’s a kind-looking guy who can clearly suss out some of emery’s history for himself and isn’t uncomfortable about it. samira wonders how many vets he’s worked with in this sort of thing.

“she, um, she’ll need to know how to soothe out a panic attack.” she discloses quietly. “emery knows how to handle herself she just…needs a bit of support.”

she hates talking about her wife like she’s not there, but emery barely has the words to say hello these days, let alone tell anyone what she needs.

“that’s the main objective. she just needs someone she can rely on.”

and she hates that it isn’t her.

the handler nods. “okay, well, we can definitely work on that. you said your wife’s a vet?”

“mhm, medical unit.”

“okay, great. if you’ve got her paperwork I can go and grab the forms you’ll need and we can get her discount and everything sorted today.”

she nods, grateful for his help. he smiles back.

“if I go and grab that, I’ll leave you here to bond with her. it’s good if she knows you too, knows who she’s going to be working for. pick out a name for her too, yeah? it’ll help with her training.”

he hands her the leash before she can say anything and samira’s eyes widen at the prospect of being alone with a tiny puppy.

looking down, there’s not much to be worried about.

the puppy is already half-asleep in emery’s arms, contentedly cuddled up with her, eyes closed. emery’s bent over it, her lips pressed gently to the dog’s head as she strokes her.

samira smiles and crouches down too, running a finger over the puppy’s nose.

“she likes you.”

“mm.” emery murmurs quietly. “I like her too.”

“did you get all of what he said? handler says she needs to have a name.”

emery’s mouth twitches, her version of a smile these days. “I’ve already got one.”

“oh yeah?”

she strokes the dog’s nose, her finger bumping up against samira’s as she does.

“edie.”

samira smiles, tilting her head a little in confusion. “edie? where’d you come up with that?”

“got it from you.”

“huh?”

emery lifts her head, an old knowing sparkle in her eye that samira had desperately missed.

Stage one was fine. Television. Phone. Maybe a text to Lucy.

Stage two was the gym mat in the living room, twenty minutes of something physical to give the energy somewhere to go.

Stage three was the reorganising of things that didn't need reorganising. Cupboards. The DVD collection they never watched. The drawer in the kitchen that had become an everything drawer despite Alexia's repeated attempts to make it a specific things drawer.

Stage four was the fridge.

Not because she was hungry. Never because she was hungry at stage four. Because the fridge was there and it was something to do and Jay's brain, when insufficiently occupied, had the specific quality of a toddler handed a marker pen in a white room.

Alexia was at a sponsor event. Had been since half six. It was now ten fifteen.

Jay had done stages one through three twice each and was on her fourth visit to the open fridge, standing in the cold light of it in her pyjamas, looking at the contents with the focused attention of someone who needed something to happen.

She wasn't hungry.

She was so categorically not hungry that hunger was practically a foreign concept. She had made the pasta thing at seven, the good version, the one she was getting better at, and she had eaten it at the kitchen table and it had been excellent and she was absolutely completely not hungry.

She looked at the fridge anyway.

The leftovers in the labelled containers, Alexia's handwriting on the masking tape, neat and specific. The good cheese that was for eating with things not just eating, which Jay had been told twice. The yoghurts from the specific place that were the good ones and not to be eaten all in one sitting, which was a rule Jay observed about sixty percent of the time.

And then on the top shelf, pushed to the back, separate from everything else in the way that special things were kept apart from ordinary things, a small white tub.

Very clean. Very simple. A small gold logo. French writing in a font so refined and small it was essentially the typographical equivalent of a lifted eyebrow.

Jay reached in and took it out.

Cold. Heavier than it looked. The weight of something that took itself seriously.

She turned it over.

Crème de la Mer. Several other words in French she didn't know. A small gold seal that suggested the contents had been approved by someone important in France.

She opened it.

The smell hit her immediately and it was extraordinary. Rich and floral and deeply, expensively good, the kind of smell that suggested the people who made this had access to ingredients that regular people didn't know about.

Jay looked at the contents.

Smooth and white and perfectly consistent. Very luxurious looking. Very organic looking.

She thought about the word crème.

Crème was a food word. This was completely established. Crème brûlée. Crème fraîche. Crème caramel. Crème anglaise. All foods. All things you ate. Crème was French for cream and cream was a food group and therefore this tub with its gold logo and its French writing was clearly a very high end, very organic, very fancy French cream product of some kind.

The fact that it was being kept in the fridge confirmed it was fresh.

The weight confirmed it was substantial.

The gold logo confirmed it was expensive.

The smell confirmed it was good.

Jay got a spoon.

She had a spoonful.

She sat with it.

Weird.

She had another spoonful and thought about it harder.

Not bad weird. Not off weird. Just. Unusual. Very rich. Almost waxy in texture. Floral in a way that dairy products weren't normally floral. The consistency was slightly off for yoghurt, too smooth, too uniform, like something that had been made in a very controlled environment by people in white coats.

She had a third spoonful.

Definitely weird. Definitely very organic. That was the thing about very organic products, they tasted completely different from normal products because they were unprocessed and natural and contained things that your regular supermarket yoghurt didn't contain.

Alexia was always getting things from specific places that tasted unusual and when Jay said they tasted unusual Alexia said that's because they're real, bebe, that's what real food tastes like, and Jay accepted this because Alexia knew about food in a way that Jay respected.

This was clearly just a very organic very expensive very French cream product that tasted unusual because it was extremely natural and pure and probably contained actual flowers or something.

She took it to the sofa.

She ate it over the next twenty five minutes while watching television, having periodic thoughtful spoonfuls and each time thinking about the weirdness and each time concluding that this was simply the flavour profile of something very high quality that her palate wasn't sophisticated enough to fully appreciate yet.

She scraped the bottom of the tub clean because wasting things was not something Jay did.

She looked into the empty tub.

Licked the spoon.

Put the tub on the coffee table.

Went back to the television.

It was good but... Tasted well weird though.

The key in the door was ten twenty two.

Jay heard the specific coming home after a long professional evening sounds. The bag on the hook, slightly less precise than usual. The particular exhale of someone who had been La Reina for four hours and was done being La Reina and wanted to be in her flat in her dressing gown.

"Guapa?" Alexia called.

"Sofa babe," Jay called.

Footsteps down the hall, the unhurried cadence of someone who knew where everything was, and then Alexia in the doorway.

Still in the blazer. Hair still up, one or two pieces having made a bid for freedom over the course of the evening. The slightly tired version of herself, the one that existed only after long evenings out and was one of Jay's top three favourite versions because it was the most real one, the one with all the composure still present but worn slightly soft at the edges.

She crossed straight to Jay without stopping anywhere else first.

Leaned down.

Jay turned her face up and Alexia kissed her, both hands coming to Jay's face, warm and unhurried and thorough, the proper hello kiss, the one that said I've been gone for hours and this is the first thing I wanted to do when I got in, and Jay kissed back and held Alexia's wrists and it lasted a good while.

When Alexia pulled back she stayed close.

"Hi," Jay said.

"Hola bebe," Alexia said softly. "How was your evening."

"Good," Jay said. "Quiet. Made the pasta thing."

"I can smell it," Alexia said. She kissed Jay once more, quick and warm. "It smells good. How was it."

"Getting better at it," Jay said.

"You are getting better at it," Alexia said, like this was an established fact she was confirming. She ran a hand through Jay's hair, the passing affectionate gesture of someone completely at home, and straightened up. "How was the medication. Did you take the afternoon one."

"Yeah," Jay said.

"Good," Alexia said. "I'm going to shower. I smell like a room full of sponsors."

"You smell good," Jay said.

"I smell like canapés and someone's perfume that was too strong," Alexia said, already heading back to the hallway. "Twenty minutes, vale?"

"Vale," Jay said.

The shower went on.

Jay sat on the sofa.

She looked at the empty tub on the coffee table.

She thought about moving it.

She picked it up and looked at it.

Put it back down.

Picked it up again and took it to the kitchen counter.

Looked at it there.

The gold logo looked slightly more significant now than it had in the fridge. In the fridge it had said expensive yoghurt. On the kitchen counter in the light it was saying something slightly different that Jay didn't want to examine too closely.

She turned it so the logo faced the wall.

Sat back down.

The shower was still going.

She turned the tub back around because turning it away was suspicious and she hadn't done anything wrong, she'd eaten something from the fridge and it had tasted weird and that was the whole story.

She went back to the television.

Twenty two minutes later the shower turned off.

Jay turned the volume up slightly.

Then turned it back down because that was extremely suspicious.

Alexia came through in her dressing gown, hair damp, face clean, completely herself, the dressing gown version, the best version, and she kissed the top of Jay's head as she passed.

Alexia went to the kitchen.

Jay stared at the television.

She heard the fridge open.

She didn't move.

She heard things being moved on the shelf. The specific sound of items being shifted.

She didn't move.

She heard the fridge close.

Open again.

More shifting.

Close.

A pause.

A very specific quality of pause. The kind that had something in it.

"Bebe," Alexia said.

Very calm. Very level. The particular vocal quality of someone who was being careful about being calm.

"Yeah," Jay said.

"Ven aquí por favor."

The por favor was new. Alexia didn't usually add por favor.

"I'm watching something," Jay said.

"Jay." Still calm. Still level. But different underneath.

Jay got up.

She walked into the kitchen with the specific energy of someone who had already decided their position and was committed to it.

Alexia was standing at the counter.

She was in her dressing gown with her damp hair and her clean face and she was holding the empty tub and she was looking at it and then she looked up and looked at Jay and her face was doing something Jay had never seen it do before.

It was the composure, but the composure with something enormous happening underneath it, like watching the surface of a very calm lake while something prehistoric moved just below.

"This," Alexia said.

"The yoghurt," Jay said. "The fancy one from the top shelf. It tasted a bit weird actually, might have been slightly off, worth checking the others."

Alexia looked at her.

She didn't speak for a moment.

Then she said, very carefully.. "Jay. This is not yoghurt."

Jay looked at her.

"It was in the fridge," Jay said.

"This," Alexia said, holding the tub up, "is my face cream."

Jay looked at the tub.

At the gold logo.

At the French writing.

Crème de la Mer.

Something moved in Jay's brain. A small but significant recalibration.

"It was in the fridge," Jay said again, because this remained technically true.

"Some creams go in the fridge," Alexia said, still doing the careful voice. "This cream goes in the fridge because the active ingredients are better preserved at a lower temperature. This is La Mer, Jay. This is."

She paused. She set the tub down on the counter and looked at it. "This is four hundred euros."

The kitchen was very quiet.

Jay looked at the tub.

"Say the number again," Jay said.

"Four hundred euros," Alexia said.

"For a face cream," Jay said.

"For a face cream," Alexia said.

"That lives in the fridge," Jay said.

"On the top shelf," Alexia said. "On the top shelf that has never once had food on it. In the eighteen months you have lived here that shelf has never had food on it."

"That shelf has never been explained to me," Jay said. "I didn't know about the shelf system."

"There is no shelf system," Alexia said. "There is a fridge. In the fridge there is food. Except on the top shelf at the back where there is my face cream which has a gold logo and French writing and costs four hundred euros and is clearly..."

"Clearly is doing an enormous amount of work in that sentence, I just want to point that out... it was not clear at all," Jay said.

"Dios mío," Alexia said, quietly, to a point above Jay's head.

She picked up her phone.

"What are you doing," Jay said.

"Googling," Alexia said.

"Googling what," Jay said.

"What happens when you eat La Mer," Alexia said.

The kitchen was very quiet while she read.

Jay watched her face.

Alexia's face was not a face that showed things easily. Years of press conferences and big games and everything that came with being who she was had given her a composure that was essentially structural. Things happened to Alexia's face when she was feeling things but they happened subtly and you had to know what to look for.

Jay knew what to look for.

She watched Alexia's eyes move across the phone screen.

She watched something happen in them.

"Ale," Jay said.

"It has retinol in it," Alexia said.

"Okay," Jay said.

"And seaweed extract," Alexia said.

"Okay... that's fine," Jay said.

"And something called Miracle Broth," Alexia said.

"That sounds good actually," Jay said.

"Jay," Alexia said. "It says do not ingest."

"I didn't know I was ingesting it," Jay said. "I thought I was eating yoghurt."

"How much did you eat," Alexia said, looking up from the phone.

"It was a very small tub," Jay said.

"Jay," Alexia said.

"I finished it," Jay said. "But the tub was genuinely very small so the total quantity consumed was not..."

"You ate the entire tub," Alexia said.

"Over twenty five minutes," Jay said. "It wasn't a fast thing. I was sitting with the flavour. Evaluating it throughout."

"You were evaluating it," Alexia said pinching the bridge of her nose.

"I thought it tasted weird," Jay said. "I had multiple spoonfuls thinking about the weirdness."

"And your conclusion was what exactly bebe?" Alexia said.

"Organic," Jay said.

Alexia stared at her.

Not the angry stare. Not the disappointed stare. Something else. Something that was trying to process the specific information that her girlfriend had eaten an entire tub of four hundred euro face cream over twenty five minutes while sitting with the flavour and concluding it was organic.

"You thought La Mer was an organic yoghurt," Alexia said.

"I thought the word crème meant it was a food product," Jay said. "Crème is a food word. I have examples."

"Please don't give me examples... just no bebe," Alexia said.

"Crème brûlée," Jay said.

"Jay," Alexia said.

"Crème fraîche," Jay said. "Crème caramel. Crème anglaise. All foods. All things you eat. The word crème on a product in a fridge is a completely reasonable indicator of..."

"It says La Mer on it," Alexia said. "It says La Mer in large letters on the front. La Mer, Jay. The sea. It's named after the sea."

"Lots of food things are named after the sea," Jay said. "Sea salt. Seafood. Sea bass. The sea is very food adjacent."

"Dios mío," Alexia said again, louder this time, to the ceiling.

"Also," Jay said, "in my defence, and I want to be clear that I do have a defence, why is a four hundred euro face cream in the fridge next to the yoghurt. Why is that a system that exists. Why has this never been communicated."

"It has been communicated," Alexia said. "I told you when you moved in that the top shelf was for my skincare."

"You said the top shelf was for your things," Jay said. "Your things. Not skincare specifically. I thought your things meant your yoghurt. You have specific yoghurt. You've always had specific yoghurt. I thought this was the specific yoghurt shelf."

"My specific yoghurt is on the second shelf," Alexia said. "It has always been on the second shelf. The top shelf has always been skincare."

"This has never been explained with the clarity you're suggesting," Jay said.

"Jay," Alexia said.

"I'm just saying the communication breakdown here is bilateral," Jay said.

"You ate my face cream!" Alexia said exasperated now.

"In good faith," Jay said.

"In good faith... dios mio," Alexia repeated, in the tone of someone testing whether those words could possibly mean what they'd just been used to mean.

She put the phone down.

She looked at Jay.

She looked at the tub.

She seemed to be running through something internally, some kind of decision making process.

Then she said, "Get your shoes."

"Ale," Jay said.

"Get your shoes bebe," Alexia said, and she was already going down the hallway.

"I feel completely fine," Jay said, following her. "Like genuinely. There's nothing. My stomach is completely normal, there's no pain, no nausea, nothing. I feel exactly the same as I felt before I ate the..."

"The face cream," Alexia said from the bedroom.

"The organic yoghurt that turned out to be face cream," Jay said. "Yes. I feel identical to how I felt before."

Alexia came out of the bedroom.

She had got dressed in approximately ninety seconds. Jeans. Jumper. Hair in a bun. The speed and efficiency of a woman who had made a decision and was implementing it.

"You got dressed extremely fast," Jay said.

"Shoes," Alexia said, finding Jay's trainers and handing them to her.

"You knew where my shoes were," Jay said.

"I always know where your shoes are," Alexia said. "Put them on."

"Ale," Jay said, sitting on the hall bench and putting them on because when Alexia used that specific combination of calm voice and efficient movement there was genuinely no point. "We are going to sit in A&E for four hours. The doctor is going to look at me and say you're fine and give me some water and send us home at three in the morning and the whole thing is going to be..."

"A complete waste of time during which I will know for certain you're fine," Alexia said. "As opposed to staying here wondering."

"You won't wonder," Jay said. "I feel fine. Look at me. Do I look like someone who needs a hospital."

Alexia looked at her.

Full assessment. The captain look applied to Jay's face and person.

"You look fine," Alexia said. "I want a doctor to also look at you and say you look fine."

"That's not an efficient use of NHS resources," Jay said.

"We're in Spain," Alexia said.

"Spanish medical resources," Jay said.

"Get your jacket," Alexia said.

Jay got her jacket.

Alexia drove.

The Barcelona streets at ten forty were alive and warm, people outside bars, the city doing its late evening thing with complete indifference to the fact that somewhere within it a professional footballer was being driven to hospital because she'd eaten her girlfriend's face cream.

Jay sat in the passenger seat.

She felt completely fine.

She felt so completely fine that the completeness of her fineness was almost impressive.

"My face does feel quite soft actually," Jay said.

Alexia's hands tightened slightly on the wheel.

"From the inside," Jay said. "Like internally. The retinol is doing something."

"Please don't," Alexia said.

"I'm just noting," Jay said.

"I know you're noting," Alexia said. "Please stop noting."

They drove.

"How does it work," Jay said. "The La Mer. What's the Miracle Broth thing."

"Jay," Alexia said.

"I'm interested," Jay said. "I've ingested it. I feel I have a right to know what I've ingested."

"It's a fermented sea kelp compound," Alexia said, and then immediately seemed to wish she hadn't because that was information.

"Fermented sea kelp," Jay said.

"Yes," Alexia said.

"I've eaten fermented sea kelp," Jay said.

"And retinol," Alexia said. "And several other things that are designed to go on skin not in it."

"Will I be fine," Jay said.

"You'll be fine," Alexia said. "The doctor will confirm you'll be fine. And then I'll know you're fine."

"You could just believe me that I'm fine," Jay said. "I'm telling you I'm fine. I know my own body."

"You didn't know your girlfriend's face cream from a yoghurt," Alexia said.

Fair point, Jay thought. She didn't say this.

"Four hundred euros though," Jay said quietly, to the window.

"Don't," Alexia said.

"I'm not saying anything," Jay said. "I'm just. Processing."

"Process quietly amor," Alexia said.

Jay was quiet for a moment.

"Does it actually work though," Jay said.

"My skin is very good," Alexia said.

"It is very good," Jay said. "I've always thought your skin was exceptional. I've mentioned it. I didn't know there was a four hundred euro cream behind it but looking back it makes complete sense because your skin is genuinely..."

"Jay," Alexia said.

"I'm complimenting your skin," Jay said.

"You're complimenting my skin while sitting in a car on the way to hospital because you ate my skin cream," Alexia said.

"Those are two separate things happening simultaneously," Jay said.

Alexia made a sound which was nearly a laugh.

"Are you nearly laughing," Jay said.

"No," Alexia said.

"You are," Jay said. "I can hear it."

"I'm driving tonta," Alexia said.

"You can drive and nearly laugh at the same time," Jay said. "I've seen you do it."

"I'm not nearly laughing," Alexia said, and then her shoulders did the thing, the specific movement that meant the laugh was right there, right behind the composure, pressing at the door.

"There it is," Jay said, delighted.

"Stop it," Alexia said.

"I can see your shoulders," Jay said.

"My shoulders are fine," Alexia said.

"They're doing the thing," Jay said.

"They're not..." and then she laughed. Briefly, fully, the real one, surprised out of her, and Jay grinned so hard it hurt her face.

"It's funny," Jay said.

"It's four hundred euros Idiota," Alexia said, still smiling despite herself.

"It's four hundred euros and it's funny," Jay said.

"It's not funny," Alexia said, the smile still there, fighting itself. "I came home and kissed you and you tasted like La Mer and I thought oh that's nice, Jay smells nice tonight, and now I know you tasted like La Mer because you had just finished eating an entire tub of La Mer and I..."

She stopped. The smile became something else, something warmer. "That is genuinely one of the most Jay things that has ever happened. In our entire relationship. That might be the most Jay thing."

"I'm choosing to take that as a compliment," Jay said.

"It's not a compliment," Alexia said.

"It's a little bit a compliment," Jay said.

"It's really not," Alexia said.

She reached over without looking and put her hand on Jay's knee, warm and present, the easy affectionate gesture of someone very used to reaching over and finding Jay there, and Jay put her hand over it immediately.

"Lo siento about the cream," Jay said.

"It was an accident amor," Alexia said.

"A very stupid accident," Jay said.

"A very Jay accident," Alexia said.

"Same thing," Jay said.

Alexia squeezed her knee.

"Are you actually okay," Alexia said. The real version. Not the hospital version.

"I genuinely feel completely fine," Jay said. "I promise. There's nothing. It's just embarrassing."

"It's very embarrassing," Alexia said warmly.

"Do you have to tell people," Jay said.

"Mapi is going to find out," Alexia said. "I can't stop Mapi finding out. Nobody can stop Mapi finding out things."

"Maybe don't actively tell her," Jay said.

"I won't actively tell her," Alexia said.

"Thank you," Jay said.

"She'll find out within forty eight hours anyway," Alexia said.

"I know," Jay said.

The waiting room at eleven on a Wednesday night had the specific quality of all A&E waiting rooms at all times, which was fluorescent and suspended, the particular limbo of people waiting to find out something about themselves or someone they loved.

Plastic chairs in rows. A television on the wall showing a nature documentary with the sound off, a herd of something crossing a plain in complete silence. A toddler asleep across two chairs with someone's jacket over it. A teenage boy with his arm wrapped in a football shirt looking embarrassed. A very old man reading a newspaper with complete calm like he did this regularly.

Jay and Alexia sat down in two chairs near the middle.

Jay in her pyjama bottoms and her jacket.

Alexia in her jeans and jumper and her hair in a bun, the most composed person in a room full of people having bad evenings.

"We look insane," Jay said, looking around.

"We look fine," Alexia said.

"I'm in my pyjamas," Jay said.

"Three other people are in pyjamas," Alexia said, without looking.

Jay looked. Three other people were indeed in pyjamas.

"The teenager is judging us," Jay said.

"The teenager has wrapped his own arm in a football shirt," Alexia said. "He's not judging anyone."

Jay looked at the teenager.

The teenager looked at Jay.

Jay gave him a small nod.

He nodded back with the energy of someone who had a story too.

"When they call us in," Jay said, looking back at the front desk, "and the doctor asks what happened."

"I'll say it," Alexia said.

"All of it?" Jay said.

"All of it," Alexia said.

"Including the organic conclusion," Jay said.

"Especially the organic conclusion," Alexia said.

"That's the most embarrassing part," Jay said.

"That's the most accurate part," Alexia said. "The doctor needs the full picture."

"The full picture is that I ate face cream thinking it was yoghurt," Jay said. "The organic conclusion is context."

"The organic conclusion is essential context," Alexia said. "It tells the doctor about the decision making process."

"The decision making process was fine," Jay said. "Given the available information."

"The available information included a gold logo and the name of one of the most famous skincare brands in the world," Alexia said.

"I don't know skincare brands," Jay said. "I use the blue thing in the shower."

"The blue thing is my shower gel," Alexia said.

Jay looked at her.

"I thought that was communal," Jay said.

"Nothing in this flat is communal," Alexia said. "Everything has a person."

"This has never been established," Jay said.

"It has been established several times," Alexia said. "You just don't retain it."

"I retain important information," Jay said.

"You retain football information," Alexia said. "And food information. And information about people you love. Everything else goes."

"The blue shower gel should have been communicated more clearly," Jay said.

"I've told you four times," Alexia said.

"I retain the first time," Jay said. "After that it's gone."

Alexia looked at her.

Then she looked at the ceiling.

Then she looked back at Jay and took her hand and held it, their fingers linked on Jay's knee.

"After this," Alexia said, "we're going to do a full flat orientation. Everything that is mine and not communal. Every shelf. Every product. With labels if necessary."

"Labels would help," Jay said.

"Big labels," Alexia said.

"In English," Jay said.

"In English," Alexia said. "With photographs."

"And a diagram," Jay said.

"I'm not making a diagram," Alexia said.

"A simple one," Jay said. "Like a map of the fridge. Zones."

"I'm not making a fridge map," Alexia said.

"It would prevent future incidents," Jay said.

"Nothing will prevent future incidents," Alexia said, with the resigned warmth of someone who had fully accepted this about their life. "I'm managing future incidents as they arrive."

"That's very zen of you," Jay said.

"It's very necessary of me," Alexia said.

Jay looked at her sideways.

At the profile, the nose and the jaw and the specific way her hair fell even in a bun. The warm brown of her eyes when she turned and caught Jay looking.

"You're beautiful," Jay said.

"Don't try to be charming," Alexia said.

"I'm not trying," Jay said. "I'm just. It keeps being true."

Alexia looked at her for a moment.

"You ate my four hundred euro face cream," Alexia said.

"And I'd do it again," Jay said. "I mean I wouldn't. I absolutely wouldn't. But in the sense that it brought us here together at eleven at night in the A&E which is unexpectedly quite nice…”

"It's not nice," Alexia said.

"We're holding hands," Jay said. "In a waiting room. It's quite nice."

"We hold hands at home," Alexia said.

"We do," Jay said. "But there's something about a waiting room. Very cinematic."

"You're in your pyjamas," Alexia said.

"Comfortably dressed for a cinematic moment," Jay said.

Alexia looked at her for a long moment.

The warm version of her face, the private one.

"Estás bien," she said quietly, not as a question. More as a thing she was telling herself.

"Estoy bien," Jay said. "See. My Spanish is improving."

"Your Spanish is terrible," Alexia said.

"I know estoy bien," Jay said.

"You know four phrases," Alexia said.

"Five," Jay said. "I know lo siento as well."

"You learned lo siento quickly," Alexia said.

"Useful phrase," Jay said. "Given my lifestyle."

Alexia made the sound that wasn't quite a laugh but was its immediate neighbour.

Across the waiting room the toddler woke up briefly, looked at everyone, decided nothing interesting was happening, and went back to sleep. The old man turned a page of his newspaper. The teenager had found a friend who was also a teenager and they were both on their phones in the specific hunched way of teenagers on phones.

"I'm going to get some water," Alexia said, standing up. "Do you want water."

"Please," Jay said.

"Please," Alexia repeated. "See, you're very polite when you want something."

"I'm always polite," Jay said.

"You told Mapi her driving was dangerous last week," Alexia said, going toward the vending machine.

"It is dangerous," Jay called after her. "That's not rude, that's safety information."

Alexia came back with two bottles of water and sat back down and handed one to Jay and Jay opened it and drank some and Alexia watched her drink with the specific attention she sometimes gave Jay when she thought Jay wasn't looking.

"What," Jay said, catching her.

"Nothing," Alexia said.

"You're watching me drink water," Jay said.

"I'm checking you're okay," Alexia said.

"I'm drinking water," Jay said. "That's fine. That's the most normal thing I've done all evening."

"I know," Alexia said. "I know you're fine. I just…”

"Ale," Jay said.

"Sí," Alexia said.

"I'm fine," Jay said. "I ate your face cream and it tasted weird and I feel completely fine and in approximately thirty minutes a doctor is going to confirm I'm completely fine and then we're going to go home and tomorrow I'm going to tell Lucy and Lucy is going to tell everyone and Mapi is going to put it on the whiteboard and it's going to be a whole thing but right now in this moment I am absolutely completely fine."

Alexia looked at her.

"The whiteboard," Alexia said.

"I know," Jay said.

"She'll give it a title," Alexia said.

"She always gives them a title," Jay said. "It'll be something terrible."

"The Yoghurt Incident," Alexia said.

"That's what I'll call it in my head too," Jay said. "From now on this is the Yoghurt Incident."

"It's the Face Cream Incident," Alexia said.

"In my version it's the Yoghurt Incident," Jay said. "My version is kinder to me."

"Your version is factually wrong," Alexia said.

"My version is emotionally true," Jay said.

Alexia looked at her.

Then she leaned over and kissed her cheek, warm and brief, right there in the A&E waiting room at eleven at night, and Jay turned and caught the end of it properly, a real kiss, quick and present.

"You taste like La Mer," Alexia said, pulling back.

"I know," Jay said.

"You're going to taste like La Mer for days," Alexia said.

"Probably," Jay said.

"Every time I kiss you," Alexia said.

"My own private reminder of what not to eat from the fridge," Jay said.

"I'm buying a lock," Alexia said.

"For the fridge?" Jay said.

"For the top shelf," Alexia said.

"That's excessive," Jay said.

"Is it," Alexia said.

Jay thought about this.

"The fridge map might be sufficient," Jay said.

"I'm buying a lock," Alexia said.

"Jones?" a nurse called from the door.

They both stood up.

Jay put her water bottle in her jacket pocket. Alexia picked up her bag. They walked toward the nurse together.

The nurse was in her forties, efficient looking, the specific competence of someone who had done a long shift and had several more hours to go and was not going to be thrown by anything.

She looked at Jay.

Looked at Alexia.

Looked at the pyjama bottoms.

Looked at the clock on the wall which said 23:07.

"What brings you in tonight," she said.

Alexia looked at Jay.

Jay looked at Alexia.

"She ate my face cream," Alexia said.

The nurse looked at Jay.

"I thought it was yoghurt," Jay said.

A beat.

"How much," the nurse said.

"The whole tub," Alexia said.

"It was a very small tub," Jay said.

The nurse wrote something on her clipboard.

"The cream," she said. "What brand."

"La Mer," Alexia said.

The nurse's pen stopped moving.

She looked up slowly.

"La Mer," she said.

"Crème de la Mer," Alexia said. "The moisturiser."

A pause that had several things in it.

"The four hundred euro one," the nurse said.

"Yes," Alexia said.

The nurse looked at Jay.

"I thought crème was a food word," Jay said. "Crème brûlée. Crème fraîche. Crème…”

"Follow me," the nurse said.

They followed her through the doors and down the corridor and Jay could hear it with absolute clarity, the specific sound of someone containing something with enormous professional effort, and she looked at Alexia and Alexia was looking at the ceiling.

"She's nearly laughing," Jay said quietly.

"She's a medical professional," Alexia said.

"She's absolutely nearly laughing," Jay said.

"So am I," Alexia said quietly. "I'm still taking you to a doctor."

They went into the cubicle. The nurse pulled the curtain. Got her clipboard properly. Assumed the professional expression of someone who had reset.

"Right," she said. "Tell me exactly what happened. From the beginning."

Jay took a breath.

"So," Jay said. "I was bored."

The nurse's professional expression did something very small in the region of the eyes.

"My girlfriend was out," Jay said. "And I'd done the gym mat thing and the cupboard thing and I was on my fourth fridge visit of the evening and I found this tub on the top shelf and it smelled incredible and the word crème was on it so I got a spoon."

"You got a spoon," the nurse said.

"I got a spoon," Jay confirmed. "And it tasted weird. I want to be clear that I knew it tasted weird. I had multiple spoonfuls specifically because I was thinking about the weirdness."

"And your conclusion," the nurse said.

Alexia, sitting in the plastic chair beside the bed, crossed her legs and looked at the curtain with magnificent composure.

"Organic," Jay said. "I concluded it was a very organic French cream product that tasted unusual because of its natural ingredients."

A pause.

"Organic," the nurse said.

"Very organic," Jay said. "Premium organic. The gold logo suggested significant quality."

The nurse wrote something on her clipboard with a hand that was absolutely steady and a face that was absolutely professional and a pen that was shaking slightly.

"And how much did you consume," the nurse said.

"The whole tub," Jay said. "But over twenty five minutes. It was a considered consumption. I wasn't rushing."

"She was sitting with the flavour," Alexia said, from the chair, to the curtain.

"I was evaluating it throughout," Jay said.

The nurse took a breath.

"Do you feel any nausea," she said.

"None," Jay said.

"Any stomach pain," she said.

"Nothing," Jay said.

"Any unusual sensations anywhere," she said.

"My face feels quite soft actually," Jay said.

The nurse put her clipboard down on the little shelf.

She looked at the cubicle curtain for a long moment.

She looked at Jay.

She looked at Alexia who was looking at the ceiling.

"I'm going to get the doctor," the nurse said, very professionally, "who will examine you and confirm you're absolutely fine."

"Thank you," Jay said.

The nurse moved the curtain aside.

"Could I also ask," Jay said.

The nurse turned back.

"The Miracle Broth," Jay said. "The fermented sea kelp compound. Is that going to do anything."

The nurse looked at her for a very long moment.

"I'll mention it to the doctor," she said.

She left.

The curtain swished shut.

Jay and Alexia looked at each other.

Five seconds of silence.

"She's telling someone right now," Jay said.

"She told someone before she even came to get us," Alexia said.

"She wrote organic on the clipboard," Jay said.

"She underlined it," Alexia said.

"I saw that," Jay said.

"The whole department knows," Alexia said.

"Within the next ten minutes the whole hospital knows," Jay said.

"Sí," Alexia said.

Then they both started laughing at the same time. Properly. The real kind. Jay on the hospital bed in her pyjamas and Alexia in the plastic chair, laughing in the small fluorescent cubicle at eleven at night.

It took a while to stop.

When it did Jay wiped her eyes and looked at Alexia who was still smiling properly, the full real smile, the one she didn't give to many people.

"I love you," Jay said.

"I know bebe," Alexia said.

"I'm really sorry about the cream," Jay said.

"I know," Alexia said.

“I'll buy you a new one," Jay said.

"You will absolutely buy me a new one," Alexia said.

"Two," Jay said. "One for your face and one for the shelf so I know it's not food."

"The one on the shelf will also not be food," Alexia said.

"I know," Jay said. "But I'll know it's there. It'll be like a landmark. Face cream on top shelf. Do not eat."

"I'm still buying a lock," Alexia said.

"Reasonable," Jay said.

She reached out from the hospital bed and Alexia leaned forward from the plastic chair and they met in the middle and Alexia kissed her, warm and real and with the specific quality it always had, the quality that made Jay feel like the luckiest person in any room she was in.

When Alexia pulled back she stayed close.

"You taste like four hundred euros," Alexia said.

"Worth it," Jay said.

"It is absolutely not worth it," Alexia said.

"I've got incredible skin though," Jay said.

"From the inside," Alexia said.

"From the inside out," Jay said. "Revolutionary skincare. I might write to them."

"You will not write to them," Alexia said.

"A testimonial," Jay said. "Jay Jones, professional footballer. Tried your product internally. Felt fine. Skin excellent."

"Jay," Alexia said.

"They'd use it," Jay said. "That's a compelling testimonial."

"They would not use it," Alexia said.

"They'd at least read it," Jay said.

“Dios mío," Alexia said softly, and she sat back in her chair and picked up Jay's hand and held it and shook her head very slightly.

Outside the curtain the A&E went on being the A&E. Somewhere down the corridor someone was being seen to. The nature documentary on the television in the waiting room was presumably still happening in silence.

In the cubicle it was just them.

Jay in her pyjamas on the hospital bed.

Alexia in the plastic chair holding her hand.

The small white tub of La Mer, four hundred euros, fermented sea kelp, Miracle Broth, now empty, in the bin at home.

"The whiteboard title," Jay said.

"The Yoghurt Incident," Alexia said.

"That's mine," Jay said.

"I know," Alexia said. "It's the right one."

Jay looked at her.

"Yeah?" Jay said.

"Your version is kinder to you," Alexia said. "You deserve the kind version."

Jay looked at her for a moment.

"You're very good at this," Jay said.

"At what," Alexia said.

"At being the person I come home to," Jay said.

Alexia's face did the thing.

The warm private thing.

"You don't come home to me," Alexia said. "I came home to you. You were already here eating my face cream."

"Semantics," Jay said.

"Very important semantics," Alexia said.

The curtain moved and the doctor came in.

Young. Slightly amused already, which confirmed the nurse had told him on the way.

He looked at Jay.

"So," he said. "La Mer."

"I thought it was yoghurt," Jay said.

He nodded very seriously.

"Organic," he said.

"Very organic," Jay said.

He looked at his notes.

Looked at Jay.

Looked at Alexia.

Looked back at Jay.

"Right," he said. "Let's have a look at you."

He was very professional and very thorough and it took twelve minutes and at the end of it he said exactly what Jay had said he would say, which was that she was absolutely fine, the quantities involved were not dangerous, the retinol might cause some mild stomach sensitivity at most, and she should drink plenty of water.

"The Miracle Broth," Jay said.

"Also fine," he said, with enormous professionalism.

"Thank you," Jay said.

He wrote something on his form.

Looked up.

"Try to eat food from the food section of the fridge in future," he said.

"There's going to be a map," Jay said. "And possibly a lock."

"Very sensible," he said.

He left.

Jay looked at Alexia.

Alexia looked at Jay.

"Told you," Jay said.

"You told me," Alexia said. "We're still going home and you're drinking two litres of water."

"Fine," Jay said.

"And tomorrow," Alexia said, standing up and getting her bag, "you're buying me a new tub."

"Two tubs," Jay said, getting off the bed.

"Two tubs," Alexia said. "And you're coming with me to buy them so you know exactly what they look like."

"Product familiarisation," Jay said.

"Exactly," Alexia said.

She held the curtain back for Jay and Jay went through it and they walked back down the corridor past the nurse who was at the desk and who looked up when they passed with the professional expression fully applied and said hope you feel better soon and Jay said thank you and felt the nurse watching them go.

They went back through the waiting room. The toddler was still asleep. The old man had finished his newspaper and was now looking at his phone with the expression of someone recently introduced to phones. The teenager had gone.

Jay held the door open.

They went out into the Barcelona night.

Warm and alive and the city still going at half eleven, the bars with people outside, someone's music from an open window.

Alexia got her keys.

Jay stood on the pavement and breathed the warm air.

"Ale," Jay said.

"Hmm," Alexia said, finding the car.

"I really am sorry about the cream," Jay said.

Alexia stopped.

Turned around.

Looked at Jay on the pavement in her pyjamas and jacket with her hands in her pockets.

She walked back to her.

She took Jay's face in both hands and kissed her properly, right there on the pavement outside the hospital, and Jay put her arms around her and kissed back and the Barcelona night went on around them.

When Alexia pulled back she was very close.

"Two tubs," Alexia said quietly.

"Two tubs," Jay agreed.

“And a fridge map," Alexia said.

"I'll draw it myself," Jay said.

"You have terrible spatial awareness," Alexia said.

"I'll do my best," Jay said.

"That's all I ask amor," Alexia said.

She kissed her once more, quick and warm, and stepped back and unlocked the car.

"Get in," she said.

Jay got in.

And they drove home through the Barcelona night, Alexia's hand on Jay's knee, Jay with the window slightly open, the warm air coming through, and the city doing what it always did, completely indifferent and very beautiful, and in the morning Jay would buy two tubs of La Mer and draw a fridge map and Mapi would find out within forty eight hours and the whiteboard title would be The Yoghurt Incident and it would stay there for three years and every single person on the squad would know the story.

But that was tomorrow.

Tonight was just this.

She can’t complain to anyone because Garcia is also running around saying the same “I am the OR” nonsense

She can’t even go back to nights because Doctor Cowboy probably has everyone wearing cowboy boots and hats by now

Even worse, Robby goes on sabbatical and his replacement is doing slash-trachs on her first day

When Mohan came down for that consult she was super impressed and was really happy to see Al-Hashimi

The weird feeling in Emery’s chest is obviously just professional disdain for people risking their patients lives

And nothing else

Meanwhile Samira loves doing cool procedures and thinks bonding with her coworkers means telling them about cool case studies

So she doesn’t really understand why Walsh doesn’t like the cool surgery stuff they’re doing

And sure, she doesn’t do this with any of the other emergency residents but maybe she just thinks Walsh would have made a good surgeon

Or maybe she’d be interested in some kind of advanced trauma fellowship after residency

It’s probably just professional admiration

No need to examine any of these feelings further

Eventually Emery snaps when an intern tries some bonkers treatment and it goes badly, so she confronts Samira about it

Samira realises she’s the only one who’s been having fun with the case studies so pulls away

Suddenly every other surgeon is doing consults and are being strangely well behaved

That’s exactly what Emery wanted; no more bad influences on her interns and no more wasting time trying to stop Samira’s banana pants ideas

So why does she suddenly miss arguing about medicine with Samira?

Why is she suddenly so bored in trauma?

Surely there’s no reason for that, right

Unbeknownst to Emery, Samira’s having a similar spiral upstairs

She’s trying not to think about why Emery accusing her of being reckless and endangering patients hurt so much

She’s heard worse throughout residency and med school

So why is she avoiding the ER so much?

It probably means nothing

After a while they run into each other

Emery says the interns are missing the risky procedures

Samira says the R4 is probably glad she doesn’t have to argue about them anymore

Emery says there might be some educational value for the interns

So they go back to flirting over procedures while slowly realising they do have other, completely unprofessional feelings about each other

They probably end up making out in a supply closet while still arguing about interventions or something

Even when they actually get together, no one can tell because basically nothing changes while they’re at work