Chapter Text
The office of Diane Lewis was a masterpiece of neutral tones and soft lighting, designed to lower the heart rate of even the most jagged first responder. The walls were a muted oatmeal, the furniture lacked sharp edges, and the air smelled faintly of rain and expensive tea. But for Maya Bishop, the silence was a vacuum—a high-pressure void that seemed to draw the repressed screams out of her past and into the present.
Maya sat on the very edge of the mid-century modern chair, her spine a rigid, uncompromising line of steel. She wasn't just sitting; she was coiled, like a spring compressed to its absolute limit. Her fingers were interlaced in her lap so tightly that her knuckles had turned a ghostly, bloodless white, the skin stretched thin over bone, mirroring the literal and figurative scars on her hands from years of "giving it her all."
"You haven't blinked in two minutes, Maya," Diane said. Her voice wasn't a challenge; it was a calm, steady anchor dropped into the turbulent waters of the room.
Maya’s head snapped toward the wall clock. The ticking felt like a hammer against her skull. "I have a drill in forty-five minutes. I need to be sharp. My team... they depend on me to be the fastest, the strongest, the first one through the door."
"Your team depends on you to be alive," Diane interrupted gently, her eyes never leaving Maya’s. "And right now, you are running on fumes and old ghosts. You’re exhausted, Maya. Not just the kind of tired that a nap or a long weekend can fix. You are exhausted from being 'eyes forward' every second of your existence. Even in your sleep, I suspect you are bracing for a blow that landed twenty years ago."
Maya felt a flare of defensive heat rise in her chest, a familiar fire that usually fueled her through a twenty-four-hour shift. "It’s my job. If I don't brace, people die. If I’m not perfect, the roof collapses, or the fire jumps the line, or—"
"And who protects the Maya that isn't wearing turnouts?" Diane leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees, breaking the professional distance just enough to be felt. "I want to talk to you about a therapeutic tool called Age Regression. I know how it sounds. To someone like you, who has been forced to be an adult since she was three years old, it sounds radical. Weak, even."
Maya’s jaw tightened until it ached.
"But that’s the point," Diane continued. "It’s a way to let your brain take a vacation from the Lieutenant. It’s about creating a safe, controlled headspace where the world isn't your responsibility. Where you are allowed to be... small."
The word hit Maya like a physical punch to the solar plexus. Small.
Small was the little girl with dirt-streaked cheeks crying on a track because her father’s stopwatch told her she wasn't fast enough. Small was the person who got stepped on. Small was the person who lost.
"I don't do 'small,'" Maya whispered. The steel in her voice was fraying, replaced by a rare, raw fear that made her feel more naked than if she had stripped off her uniform. "I’m a firefighter. I’m a wife. I was an Olympian. I am a winner. Winners don't go backward."
"And that winner is currently breaking under the weight of her own gold medals," Diane countered softly. "Think about it. Truly think about it. Talk to Carina. You’ve spent your whole life being the shield for everyone else, Maya. Don't you think you finally deserve to be the one behind the shield for once?"
Maya didn't answer. She couldn't. She simply watched the second hand of the clock sweep past the numbers, counting down the seconds until she could escape the quiet and get back to the noise of the fire—the only place where she knew how to breathe.