The next day they meet at JJ and Will's house, get to talking after getting Henry distracted with his favorite TV show. They sit at the table, Will and JJ across from Emily. Will holds Emily's hand from across the table briefly, and then drops it to run his fingers through JJ's, squeeze.
"We've known you for so long, but all of this is so new to us. I already love you, Emily. We already love you," Will says. "If we want to take this further, we need to talk about what that means."
Emily nods. "I want it all. I want you to be the father of this baby. I want to be Henry's mother too. I want us to find a home together. I want to make this as official as we can make it."
Will allows himself to finally believe it then, that they want the same things.
JJ speaks next. "Do you want to have your own home, where Will spends his time with you and then spends his time with us, or do you want to share a home with us?" she asks.
"No, no," Emily replies. "Together. I love you like a sister, JJ, and I love Henry more and more every day. We can make it work together. We'll definitely need something bigger than this," she says with a gesture at their two-bedroom condo.
"And the baby?" Will asks. "How will we . . . How can he just be ours?"
"Because that's what we'll tell people who have a reason to know," Emily says with a shrug. "We'll have to let in those who are closest to us, but everyone else? He's just yours."
Will aims his next question at JJ. "How do you feel about this? What do you want, hon?"
"I agree with Emily. We spend so much of our time together that it wouldn't make sense for us to be apart. And after the baby is born and Emily is at home for a while, it makes sense for her to be there for Henry too. We'll need to come up with a plan to split Will's time, try to make it as fair as possible given our work schedules. Obviously he can be there for you most of the time after the baby is born, I wont get in the way of that," JJ says. "We'll need to decide who and how we're going to tell people. Figure out how to explain this all to Henry. Talk to a lawyer, and a realtor."
They spend the next hour discussing logistics. Putting Will on the birth certificate, how to explain the FMLA leave to his boss when the baby is born, who from their families they will tell, who from work they will tell.
"Around people we can't tell the whole truth, you're the mother of my child," Will says. "If we're going to make this a marriage, what we're going to be doing could be considered illegal, and would threaten all of our jobs. We need to be very careful about who we trust with this."
A marriage, Emily thinks. Something that for so long she'd believed that she'd never want or have, soon to be hers.