Chapter Text
How do you look at someone you love and tell yourself it’s time to leave?
The hardest thing she would ever have to do was walk away while she was still madly in love with her.
But she would ask God why for the rest of her life, and never would she come to understand any of it.
—
Mapi didn’t read very many books. She never had, preferred a ball at her feet or a game in front of her eyes to digest, as opposed to words on a page.
But every once in a while, Ingrid would recommend a book with such high regard that Mapi would force herself to sit down and work her way through it, albeit with a certain slowness in her pace.
Mapi remembered exactly where she was when she read that line. Sat up in bed, with Ingrid standing across the room from her in front of the dresser, having just finished getting ready for bed.
He is half of my soul, as the poets say.
“Do you think soulmates exist?” The Spaniard had asked, her voice curious and without judgment. Ingrid looked back at her through the mirror mounted above their dresser for a second before she turned, leaning back against the wood frame of the piece of furniture. She considered the brunette’s question for a moment before she answered, her voice soft but sincere nonetheless.
“I don’t know,” she said truthfully. “But I like to think that in any lifetime you and I would find each other, and that we would put in the work, that we would do or say whatever it took to be together. I don’t know how to quantify it exactly, but it just feels like a fact that you belong with me as much as I belong with you. I love you far too much to imagine any life that doesn’t have you in it,” Ingrid answered gently, and Mapi could do nothing but watch the Norwegian, her eyes soft with affection. She looked down at the book for a second before she closed it, looking back up at Ingrid.
“I think…I think you might be half of my soul,” Mapi rasped gently in response, and Ingrid’s face softened into a smile as she ducked her head. She climbed into bed with the defender with little preamble and cuddled into her, as she always did.
—
The first thing that Ingrid remembered as she came to is the smell. She couldn’t feel her body, but she could hear the commotion around her and the sharp scent in her nostril.
Gasoline.
Smoke.
Burnt plastic.
What’s going on?
She had been driving to an appointment not five minutes ago, but confusion clouded her brain as she struggled to get her bearings.
Ingrid’s whole body hurt, ached really. She struggled to open her eyes, and when she went to move her head to the side she was met with a shooting pain that radiated down her whole side. She hears someone speaking to her in a language that she understood but somehow…doesn’t at the same time.
“Fácil, fácil, trate de no moverse señorita,” Ingrid heard, and she felt herself calming, even if she consciously didn’t understand what they were saying. The words were soothing, and somewhere deep in her mind she obeyed, lying still and not trying to move any further.
When the dark-haired woman was finally able to force her eyes open, she found that someone in a neon yellow vest was looking down at her with worried eyes. She didn’t know the man, even as she racked her brain trying to figure out how she might know this person.
She realized that she was laying on something rather hard, and when she moved her hand it hung in the air by her side.
She was on a stretcher, she realized with a start.
Why was she on a stretcher? Why was she in pain?
Ingrid closed her eyes, groaning as she tried to remember what had happened, why she would have ended up on a stretcher. She had been driving, no? Had she gotten in an accident somehow?
“Hva skjedde? What happened?” The Norwegian asked, first in her native language and then, as her brain managed to catch up to her, in English. She realized as she opened her eyes again, gingerly, that it was a paramedic who was looking down at her, based on the clothes that he was wearing.
“You were in a car accident, señorita. We’re taking you to the hospital,” the paramedic replied in broken English, but Ingrid’s mind struggled to follow his accent. It should be German…it should be a German accent given that she lives in Germany, but that was not what it sounded like. It almost sounded Spanish, but Ingrid for the life of her couldn’t figure out why.
“I need…can you call my emergency contacts?” Ingrid gasps out as she was turned. She was greeted with the sight of a mangled car, and she turned her face back to look at the paramedic swiftly. Her stomach flipped uncomfortably as her mind flashed to Frido and her mother, both of whom should know that something was wrong.
“They have been notified Ms. Engen, they are on their way and will meet us at the hospital. We’re going to get you loaded up into the ambulance now, okay?” The paramedic explained gently, and Ingrid nodded slowly. She felt some of the panic seep out of her, replaced by pure pain, which was radiating from her head and side.
It was over the course of their ambulance ride to the hospital that the paramedics were able to figure out that Ingrid wasn’t really all that injured. She had some scratches here and there that’ll require a few stitches probably, a bruised and possibly fractured rib, but the real concern wasn’t with her body.
It was with her head.
Apparently the Norwegian had somehow managed to concuss herself in the crash, and it was beginning to appear as a bit more of a significant head injury than they initially feared. After running just a few tests, the paramedics decided to leave the rest of the testing for the hospital. The shock was beginning to wane for the midfielder just slightly, so the paramedics spent the ten minute drive just keeping her talking and stable before they transferred her into the hospital.
Ingrid spent the whole drive filled with confusion as she tried to place their accents and words. Some of them she understood, but much of it she missed, both because of her confusion and her horrible ability with languages.
The Norwegian knew that her German isn’t the best, but she had been in Germany for two years now. Surely she knew more German than this, no? So why wasn’t her brain picking up on it?
Before she was able to get a concrete answer to that, they were arriving at the hospital. Ingrid was transferred into the bright, loud ER. They placed an IV and sent her upstairs, marking her as urgent for evaluation. However, the hospital needed the scanning machines for other patients, so Ingrid needed to wait. They were going to get a CT scan done of her head in the next hour, but they needed to leave the machine available for the other crash patients to come in first, all of whom apparently had head and bodily injuries as well. With that all explained to her despite her obvious confusion, Ingrid was sent up to a hospital room on a different floor, where she was told one of her two emergency contacts has already arrived.
The first thing that Ingrid saw when she was being wheeled into her hospital room was a sight for sore eyes.
“Frido!” Ingrid cried, now sat up in her hospital bed. The blonde’s face was flushed, her eyes red rimmed as though she had been crying, and Ingrid wondered if it was about her.
“Ingrid, babes,” Frido rushed toward the Norwegian as soon as she was being wheeled into the room, following the bed as the nurse got the wheels locked and hooked up all the appropriate monitors. The heartbeat monitor was a calm and yet steady presence in the room, almost as calming as it was to have Frido standing next to her.
“Oh my God I’m so glad you’re okay Ingrid, we were so scared when we got the call,” Frido sobbed out as she ran her hand over Ingrid’s forehead carefully before she reached down to take the midfielders hand. The nurse instructed Frido to keep the Norwegian awake and talking, and to hit the call button should her condition change in the slightest.
“Is the doctor going to come in soon?” Frido asked gently, as though she was afraid Ingrid would break just by being asked a simple question. She was looking at her friend with complete relief, given the fact that she had assumed the worst when she had gotten the call. Nothing could stay in her mind except for the worst case scenarios, and she imagined her best friend being brought in not even conscious. Luckily, Ingrid seemed to be banged up, but doing alright.
“Yes, within the hour they said, they need to scan my head,” Ingrid replied back robotically, her head already starting to hurt solely from the bright lights.
Ingrid glanced up at her friend, simply blinking back at her as she registered the pure emotion on Frido’s face. The blonde struggled to compose herself, before she looked down at their intertwined hands.
And that was when she first noticed it. She hadn’t seen it, not before on the stretcher or when she had been in the ambulance, but she saw it now. She stared down at her hand in intense confusion.
There was a ring on her finger. A large ring, in fact, so large that Ingrid was wondering how she didn’t recognize the weight of it on her hand.
In the center laid an emerald-cut green stone, with six tiny marquise shaped white diamonds, three on either side of what Ingrid could only assume is an emerald. The ring stared back at Ingrid in all of its brilliance, despite the circumstances. It was probably upwards of two carats in size if the Norwegian had to guess, that apparently had survived the crash right alongside Ingrid.
The only problem with this was that she had no idea why there was a ring on her finger. She was not engaged, she was not even in a relationship. The Norwegian had just broken up with Marie a little bit ago, and she had no recollection of them getting back together.
So where had this come from?
“Hey, Frido?” Ingrid began to ask, and the Swede looked up at her friend’s face insistently, her eyebrows raised in clear communication that she was waiting for Ingrid to continue.
“What’s this ring on my finger?” Ingrid questioned, letting Frido’s hand fall away as she held up her right hand to display the ring to her best friend.
Frido glanced from the ring to Ingrid and back again, her face blank. When Ingrid didn’t continue, Frido’s eyebrow furrowed, before she chuckled slightly, a nervous, thready sound.
“What are you…Ingrid what are you talking about? It’s–” Frido started, only for the dark-haired woman to cut her off again.
“And why are those signs in Spanish? We’re in Germany, not Spain,” Ingrid continued, pointing to some signage that was past Frido’s right shoulder. The blonde turned around to stare at the poster before she whirled back around to faceIngrid, sudden alarm running through her features.
“Ingrid, what are you talking about?” Frido inquired rather desperately, and her voice almost sounded a step away from hysterical. But Ingrid was rubbing her forehead, clearly filled with confusion.
“We’re in Germany Frido! And I’m not engaged, I mean I just broke up with Mari–” Ingrid was cut off by the sound of a commotion outside and rapidly approaching footsteps.
"Where is she?!"
Both of the women could hear someone out in the hallway call out in a desperate tone that sounded like it was coming closer to them. Ingrid watched as Frido paled as she turned toward the door just as it flew open, revealing a smaller brunette woman whose face was flushed red. Her chest heaved as though she had sprinted the whole way here and her eyes were wide and panicked.
“Oh my god, Ingrid,” the mystery brunette gasped. She stumbled toward the bed like a man starved, as Ingrid was her oasis. She reached for Ingrid’s hand, desperate and longing. Frido rushed to pull her away, to stop her, to say something, but she couldn’t get there in time and was simply left to watch the events in front of her unfolded.
“Ingrid, princesa, I’m so glad that you’re okay…” the brown-eyed woman carefully took one of Ingrid’s hands in her own, and the warmth of her palm seeped into the Norwegians.
Ingrid didn’t know this woman, and yet she couldn’t help but once again feel slightly comforted by the press of her hand in Ingrids. She smelled like rosewood and something musky, and it was familiar in a way that Ingrid couldn’t explain, even if she relaxed in the presence of the scent.
It was not enough to completely overpower the confusion that she feels though. Yhe woman trailed off as Ingrid retracted her hand from the strangers, holding it close to her chest in her other hand. She was not trying to be cruel, more confused than anything else, very lost as to why this woman was so relieved to see her.
There wasn’t much that seemed familiar about her in Ingrid’s mind, even if her body clearly disagreed.
“I’m sorry…do we know each other?” Ingrid inquired gently as she tried very hard to place the woman in front of her. She looked familiar, though familiar from what, Ingrid wasn’t sure. She was working her way through her memory, trying to piece together where this woman was getting such staunch familiarity, and she came up completely empty.
She stared at the woman for another second before her eyebrows knitted together, and she looked over at Frido with clear confusion spread across her features. The blonde was looking back at the woman with equal desperation, which only served to confuse the midfielder more, wondering what Frido knew that she didn’t.
“Ingrid, what are you talking about? It’s me, it’s María, your–” the woman, Mapi, started, but as soon as she said her name, Ingrid was able to place her. She completely interrupted the woman in her revelation, her face lit up with excitement at her sudden memory.
“Mapi…Mapi León right? You play for Spain, right?” Ingrid asked with an air of eagerness about her tone as she looked between Frido and Mapi hopefully. The brunette flinched as the dark-haired woman said her name, as though for some reason hearing her own name pained the smaller woman.
She still wasn’t sure what Mapi León was doing here in her hospital room or why the woman was acting like they knew each other so well when they played for completely different teams, but at least she had gotten the woman’s name right, right?
Instead of the joy she felt at her remembrance, both Mapi and Frido were staring back at her with looks of abject horror that they didn’t even attempt to hide. Mapi had flinched as Ingrid had said her name, and she now had tears brimming in her eyes. It was when she noticed that, that finally the Norwegian’s face fell, and she suddenly felt as though she’s done something wrong.
“I don’t…I don’t get it. Do we know each other?” Ingrid questioned, her tone sharp as she looked between Mapi and Frido for answers, her panic mounting. Mapi’s mouth forced itself open, and the words she let out were painful and choked with emotion that Ingrid just plainly didn’t understand.
“Know each other? Ingrid we’re…we’re engaged!” Mapi breathed out harshly, and Ingrid’s whole body jolted, sending a sharp stab of pain through her head. The Norwegian immediately ducked her head into her hands, and she vaguely registered movement and a panicked plea to get a doctor, followed by the opening of a door.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay, Frido is getting the doctor,” Mapi murmured gently. She hovered right over Ingrid, the scent of rosewood and bergamot pressing into the Norwegian comfortingly again, even if she didn’t really understand why.
Her brain felt like it’s at war with itself. On the one hand, the logical side of her wanted to shove the woman away, the woman who she had never even properly met before and yet is here trying to comfort her. The woman who was saying that they are engaged, when that plainly is just not true. But for some reason, the emotional side of her brain craved the comfort of the brunette, craved the press of her body into Ingrid’s, and is soothed by her presence beyond belief.
The whole thing made her head hurt even more. She ended up opting to push the brunette away gently, one hand still on her head as she tried to create some space between herself and this largely unknown person.
“Please don’t…I don’t know you!” Ingrid replied, admittedly more sharply than she intended, but she watched the way that the woman reacted.
The Spaniard looked like she had been physically slapped, she was so shocked. Her entire face crumpled before she managed to school it into something more palatable. Right as that happens the door burst open, revealing Frido, closely followed by two people in white doctors coats.
“You need to help…help her, somethings wrong,” Mapi choked out as she stumbled back from the bed, Ingrid still looking at her with a confused, lost expression, her eyes wide as dinner plates.
“I don’t…I don’t understand. We don’t know one another!” Ingrid exclaimed insistently as she looked toward Frido for some sort of backup and then back at Mapi. The Spaniard was biting her lip so hard to keep the sobs that bubbled up, down, that she actually drew blood from her lip.
“Frido,” Mapi breathed out, and the blonde looked completely helpless as she glanced first at the Spaniard before moving toward Ingrid, same as the doctors do.
But Mapi couldn’t do this anymore, she couldn’t be here, she couldn’t watch this. She was going to be sick, she was sure of it. She slipped out of the room where she was clearly not needed, moving into the fray of the busy hospital.
The brunette didn’t know where she was going, but she needed to be anywhere but here.
She couldn’t be here.
Clearly, Ingrid didn’t want her there anyways.
Mapi’s world was coming crashing down around her, and she hardly even knew what direction was up anymore.
Was this what it felt like to be dying?
Back in Ingrid’s room, the doctors looked between the blonde and the dark-haired woman for a moment, all parties involved confused.
“Alright, let’s all just calm down a little bit,” one of the doctors, Doctor Perez based on the nametag on her shirt, gently suggested in Spanish accented English. Ingrid settled back in her bed slightly as Frido took her hand. The Swede squeezed it comfortingly as the Norwegian tried to listen to the doctors, despite the chaos of the situation.
“We admittedly aren’t completely up to date on your case Ms. Engen, so please forgive us while I go through your chart really quickly. Why don’t you explain to Doctor Sanchez here what is going on?” Doctor Perez suggested, gesturing to the male doctor standing next to her. The dark-haired midfielder nodded slightly before she turned to the second doctor, who was watching her with a kind eye and a small smile as he held a copy of her chart as well.
“Well…um they told me I was in a car accident, and brought me here. But I’m confused, I don’t…I don’t know what I’m doing here in Spain, or why they are saying I’m engaged. I live in Germany and I just got out of a relationship!” Ingrid explained, growing more and more agitated as she continued to explain, as her confusion only blooming in size.
“Okay, okay, hey it’s alright, we’ll get this all sorted out,” Doctor Sanchez promised, placing a gentle hand on Ingrid’s shoulder as he glanced over to the blonde woman, who looked back at him with a grim expression.
“Has she had any major head injuries in the past?” Doctor Sanchez whispered to the Swede as he pulled her aside. They are just far enough so that Ingrid couldn’t hear, and the blonde racked her brain for a moment before producing an answer.
“Uh…she had a concussion back in 2022, or early 2023, I can’t remember,” Frido murmured in response. “It wasn’t serious though, just a mild one.”
After he nodded and added it to her chart, Doctor Sanchez and Frido moved back toward the Norwegian, just as Doctor Perez began to ask her some questions.
“Ms. Engen, can you just answer a few quick questions for me?” Doctor Perez asked carefully, and Ingrid looked over at Frido. The blonde nodded encouragingly at her friend before the midfielder turned back to the doctor, nodding very carefully.
“Alright, can you tell me your full name?” Doctor Perez started, and despite the trivial nature of the question, Ingrid answered calmly. She was trying to keep her heart rate under control, to not give in to the panic that was very much threatening to overtake her right now.
“Ingrid Syrstad Engen, and please, call me Ingrid,” she replied dutifully, and both doctors nodded in agreement, writing something down before they asked another question.
“Perfect Ingrid, and what is it you do for work?” Doctor Perez continued as she looked down at the Norwegian.
“I play football, professionally,” Ingrid replied once again, and all parties involved seemed relaxed with the answer, which was the correct one.
“How old are you?” Doctor Perez questioned, and Ingrid responded easily, the words rolling off her tongue without any thought.
“I’m 22, I’ll be 23 in April of next year,” Ingrid answered, considering that it was only November. Doctor Perez paused, but only for a moment as she nodded, her expression one of complete neutrality.
“And what year is it, Ingrid?” Doctor Sanchez asked this time, and Ingrid looked over at the male doctor to answer him directly.
“It’s 2020, November 2020,” Ingrid said, and it was then that she started to realize that something was wrong. Because Frido sucked in a hard breath at her answer despite her best try to stay silent, and when Ingrid looked over to her blonde friend, the forward was unable to meet her eyes.
“It’s 2020…right?” Ingrid asked again, suddenly feeling slightly like an animal backed into a corner. When Doctor Perez looked up again, it was with great regret painted into her features.
“We’re going to need to run more tests, but based on what we’re seeing Ingrid, you have a moderate to severe concussion from a head injury that was gained during the car crash you were in. This has caused what we call post-traumatic amnesia, hence the confusion of what year it is and why you don’t remember your fiance. It seems to be affecting your episodic memory as opposed to the semantic or procedural memory, but we will continue to evaluate that as time continues. We’ll need to run some more tests in order to be concurre–” Doctor Perez began to explain, but Ingrid swiftly cut him off.
“Wait, I’m sorry…I don’t understand what you are saying. It’s 2020, the year is 2020, right?” Ingrid asked helplessly, as she looked around. Frido simply gripped her hand harder, which provided absolutely no help to the confused Norwegian.
“No, Ingrid, unfortunately it’s not. It’s not November of 2020, but November of 2026,” Doctor Sanchez said, and Ingrid might as well have been slapped by the man.
“I’m sorry - what?”
—
When the doctors managed to calm Ingrid down enough, they were able to take her to get a CT scan which they had needed from the start. The plan was to run some more tests as well, with the hope that they can get some more information about the nature of her head injury.
The next thing that Frido did is rush to find Mapi. Over the five years that Mapi and Ingrid had been together, the Spaniard and Swede had grown incredibly close. Mapi was the friend that Frido never knew she needed in her life, the defender being the ever patient and level-headed calm that often Frido craved, but also being fun enough to keep the forward on her toes. Ingrid was her best friend, and always would be, but she loved Mapi deeply as well.
But she also knew that for the Mapi she had come to call such a good friend, one of the most integral parts of her was her love for Ingrid. They were the couple that all the Barcelona girls complained about, because somehow even after five years together they were just as obsessed and in love with each other as they had been at the get go.
And they teased sure, but mostly because they all loved it so much, loved the way that they loved one another.
They had just always fit together, completing each other in a way that none of them could really explain but simply…worked.
A love like theirs, it was unlike anything else that Frido had ever seen. They had wondered, when they had first begun dating, if it was too much too soon, if it would burn hot and bright and then crash, as relationships sometimes did.
But the crash never came, and five years on, they were just as enraptured and in love with one another as they had been at the start.
The word devastation didn’t even begin to broach what Frido was feeling if it was true that Ingrid had lost the last six years, so she could only imagine what Mapi was feeling.
Ingrid was her world. She had been for the past five years, a title that was Mapi’s absolute favorite.
Frido knew that seeing the Norwegian hurt was one of Mapi’s least favorite things, but this…this was something else entirely.
She scrounged the whole hospital but was entirely unable to find Mapi, and she had to get back for when Ingrid returned from her CT scan, so Frido frantically began to make some calls as she all but ran back to the Norwegian’s hospital room. She should have done that before she ever started searching, but she never could have imagined that the defender would be so challenging to find. Mapi had never been particularly good at hiding, but this proved to be the exception.
The reason that Frido couldn’t find Mapi was that she was in a place that only the Norwegian would have thought to look for her, if she had all of her memories present.
The brunette had stumbled upon the hospital chapel by accident more than on purpose in her quest to just get away. For a solid five minutes she had stared at the door, wondering whether she should go inside or not.
It had been over a year since she had prayed, and the last time she had, Ingrid had been right beside her.
Not that the Norwegian was religious, but she had done it only because of the anguish that was festering inside the Spaniard at that specific moment. Because Mapi had been, and Ingrid had known that and always chose to honor it, even if she herself didn’t believe.
But after what had happened after her prayers, Mapi had turned her back on religion, on something that had once been so integral to her identity. She hadn’t touched it since.
She felt that same anguish that she had when she had last prayed now though, maybe even greater, if solely because of the unexpected nature of it. Her entire world had been thrown off its kilter in the span of ten minutes, and she struggles to find any sense of normalcy even as she looked down at her own hands, which are posed on the door to the chapel.
The brunette pressed into the chapel, relieved to find it completely empty, devoid of anyone else. She staggered to the front row of pews, sliding into one as she all but collapsed onto her knees on the kneeler found in the pew before her.
Her whole body racked with sobs that came fast, deep, and hard.
The reality of this was beginning to hit Mapi, and she couldn’t understand how something like this could have happened.
“Is this my punishment, for my nonbelief?” Mapi whispered brokenly as she looked up, her tears streaming down her face as she felt her heart harden.
“Is this my penance? How the fuck could you, how could you do this!” Mapi said, louder this time as she gripped the back of the pew in front of her, so hard that her knuckles were turning white.
“You take everything from me, I don’t care, but don’t take her! How dare you take a single thing from her…how could you! How could you do this to her?! Take anything from me, please, please just don’t do this to her. Take everything from me, I don't care! It means nothing without her anyways," Mapi sobbed, her head clutched in her hands. She peered up at the ceiling again after a moment, her anger rising.
"Why would you do this? I’m supposed to be the one you hate, not her! Please!” Mapi screamed, not caring who could hear, not caring how desperate and stupid and childish she sounded.
She stared up at the ceiling in anger, pleading, begging for Ingrid to be okay, but in the little chapel there was nothing but empty silence that greeted her in return.
God was silent, just as he was the last time that Mapi called Him. She hated Him, and she hated herself, and she felt so much anguish and a pain that felt like it is tearing her whole body apart, it was so all encompassing.
The brunette collapsed into tears, mumbling unintelligible words of anger and disbelief as her tears hit the carpeted floor, her anger left unanswered.
—
“Are you excited to meet the new girls?” Mapi asked as she walked out with Caro and Marta, both of whom shrugged, not really seeming that excited.
“Okay, I get maybe Marta not being that excited but aren’t they both Scandinavian players? I feel like you should be more excited, Caro!” Mapi exclaimed, but the Norwegian just shrugged lamely as Mapi rolled her eyes good naturedly.
“Gee, reel it in there Caro I think your excitement will overwhelm them!” Mapi replied to herself sarcastically, and that made Marta laugh easily.
“This is Caro we’re talking about, since when has she ever gotten excited about that kind of thing?” Marta pointed out, and Mapi thought for a moment before she nodded her agreement with the Spaniard’s phrasing.
“Well I’m excited! It’s always fun to get new teammates,” Mapi said, entirely unprompted as they finally made their way out onto the pitch. The three women looked around to see if perhaps their new teammates were out as well, but there was absolutely no luck.
It was one of their first pre-season practices, and the new signings Ingrid Engen and Fridolina Rolfo had just been announced a few days ago. All of the girls were very excited to meet the Wolfsburg players, but Jonatan was quick to shut down their excitement considerably when he said that they were only going to be there at the end of practice.
Their training for that day ended up being rather grueling, so all of the girls ended up sweaty and well worked after their session in the Spanish sun.
Practice was winding down when the girls noticed two people walking out of the tunnel and onto the pitch, wearing the Barcelona crest on their training tops. Mapi had been working on a drill, so she didn’t notice the arrival of the two new women.
She had just finished running through it, and was moving around the block that she had been using when she looked up.
She looked up, and made eye contact with the most unbelievably gorgeous woman she had ever seen in her life, who was standing only a few feet in front of her. The dark-haired woman has her long, nearly black hair pulled up into a high ponytail, and it only serves to accentuate the perfect angles of her face.
She had even, beautifully spaced eyebrows and the most striking sage-green eyes that Mapi ha: ever seen, set above a pink mouth with the most precise cupid's bow.
She was stunning, and it was through her admiration of the new woman that Mapi completely miscalculated. She missed that she should be stepping around the block and instead accidentally stepped directly into it, sending the defender tumbling to the ground.
“Oh my god!” She heard the dark-haired woman say, and just as Mapi was starting to try to get to her feet she felt a soft hand at her elbow as the scent of lavender and something sweet fills her nose.
Mapi chanced a glance up, and sure enough the green-eyed woman was looking down at her, her eyebrows furrowed in complete concern. The movement had caused a wrinkle to appear in her forehead, and Mapi felt the sudden urge to reach up and smooth it with her thumb, but she didn’t, obviously.
Instead, the dark-haired woman, either Fridolina or Ingrid, reached her hand down, offering it to Mapi to help her up.
The brunette accepted the offered hand with ease, allowing the green-eyed woman to pull her up until their bodies were almost flush with one another. Mapi managed to be the one to separate them, stepping back but all the while keeping her eyes on the dark-haired woman.
“Hey,” Mapi whispered softly, and she tried to keep her gaze from falling to the woman’s lips.
“Hi, I’m Ingrid. Ingrid Engen,” the woman supplied, and Mapi swallowed rather roughly before she held her hand out for the Norwegian to shake.
“Pleasure to meet you Ingrid Engen, I’m Mapi León,” the Spaniard provided, grinning brightly at the shy smile she managed to garner from Ingrid.