Bay walked into the apartment she and Emmett were renting. She set her bags of new art supplies down on the kitchen table and walked over to her husband whose back was turned to her as he cut some carrots for their dinner.

She put her hand on his shoulder and waited for him to turn around before standing up on tiptoe, wrapping her arms around his neck, and kissing him.

"How was your day?" Emmett asked, the question still a little cumbersome in his mouth. He was taking a speech therapy class once a week. He did not speak a lot outside of their home, or to anyone but Bay really. Even with her he refused to say more than a few words at a time. The sentences he did speak were always short. But he was trying, as was Bay, to make this work.

Bay's signing had improved immensely over the past five years since they'd met. Not that she really enjoyed walking down memory lane to those days unless they only talked about their relationship exclusively.

"My day was great. The gallery downtown wants to show one of my pieces in their next show." She signed.

Emmett's smile lit up his face. "That's great, sweetheart." He signed the word sweetheart, putting his knuckles together over his heart and tapping his thumbs together.

"Thanks." Bay said before walking over to the table and picking up her bags. Then she turned to Emmett and said, "I'll be back. I'm going to put these away."

They had a system worked out, she would work on signing and learning more of that, keeping the lip reading to a minimum for him as long as he worked a little on his speech. It wasn't an exact science and they hadn't talked about setting up such a system, it was simply an unspoken agreement, in any language, English or ASL.

When Bay came back into the room, Emmett was done cutting the carrots and had just dumped them into a boiling pot on the stove.

"What are we having?" Bay signed pointing to the pot.

"Chicken noodle soup." Emmett signed.

Bay smiled. It was Emmett's favorite dish.

While they waited for the food to cook, they started setting the table. As Bay was setting her place and getting out the silverware, Emmett placed a hand on her arm to get her to face him. Then he signed, "Toby called today. I'm not entirely sure what he wanted but he tried to tell me. Anyway, I think he wants you to call him."

"Cool. Thanks for telling me." Bay signed back. She went to place the silverware on the table and Emmett stopped her again.

"Also, Daphne called and-"

"I'm sure you two had a lovely talk." Bay interrupted, trying to sign with the spoons in her hand was difficult so she walked away and put them down by their bowls.

Behind her she heard Emmett sigh and she sat down in her chair, putting a hand to her forehead.

Emmett tested the soup and then declared it done, setting it on a hot pad in the middle of the table and handing her the ladle.

As she dished up her soup, he signed, "I think you two need to talk. She's getting married. Don't you want to be there for that?"

"You remember our wedding, right Emmett? She only came because of you and hurried away as fast as humanly possible as soon as she could so she wouldn't have to talk to me." She paused and he looked like he was going to try and say something so she stopped him by signing, "Look, if she really wanted me there, she...would have contacted me directly, face to face."

He gave her a pained look. "You're my wife and she's my best friend since we were little. I want you two to get along."

"Emmett she said she didn't want to have anything to do with me or my biological father anymore. She told me to stay out of her life, so stop trying to fix this. It's not going to happen. She doesn't want me in her life or her family. That's pretty clear."

Emmett didn't say or sign anything, but he stared at his soup like it was its fault two of the three most important woman in his life, since his mother talked to both of them, hated each other.

Bay sighed and reached across the table to grab Emmett's hand. He glanced up and she signed, "hey, look, I'll go to her wedding if you really want." He perked up immediately all smiles. "But I'm not going to end up in any pictures or anything. In fact I'm not going to talk to her or intrude on her life. I'm just going to hide in the background and hope I make it through the night alive because there is no way she'll be glad to see me."

Emmett couldn't stop smiling and shook his head, starting to eat. He was so happy. Bay smiled glad that she could make him happy. Sad that she and Daphne seemed to always play tug of war with him.

That night, Bay sat in her and Emmett's art studio which was really just the apartment's spare bedroom, staring at an empty canvas, and wondering what she should give Daphne for a wedding gift.