She IS alive. Simply overwhelmed with the advent of both finals & the Christmas season of retail (get it? advent? haha! Wow, I must be tired if I'm punning in the first line.) Anyway, a short update to keep you all interested (hopefully) until I can get the next chapter up. Basically some sugary-sweet romantic fluff before...well you'll find out in a few chapters.

As always, your reviews keep me sane in the midst of academia-induced hysteria! Much love, TLH


That 'City of Lights' that had long before turned grey and tired through Miranda's jaded gaze, turned once more into a fairy world of twinkling lights and sparkling ivory walls that proved magnificent battlements against the outside world and the cares and crises outside them. Everything this girl touched was made better for it, Miranda mused idly as she watched Andrea take in Paris. She snorted slightly, thinking herself ridiculous for such thoughts. Love had clearly addled her brains. She wasn't nearly naïve enough to believe it would always be like this; certainly even before now they had had rough patches and the divorce, the trial and the pregnancy added to the media blitz amounted to nearly impossible odds against their making it. But that small ember of hope that Miranda had clung to all these years still flickered against the odds against it, and when Andrea's gaze turned to hers and she saw the love shining out of her eyes, that was somehow, impossible though it seemed, meant for her and her alone - that flicker became a roaring flame.

Wandering freely and unnoticed through the arondissements, far away from the circus and melee of Fashion Week, Miranda showed Andrea 'her' Paris. The tiny apartment above a café where she had lived for a year before being transferred back to England and British Runway, introducing her to the son of the man who had owned the café.

"Mademoiselle M!"

A young man in his early thirties turned away from the French press machine, beaming as he heard a soft 'Bonjour Jacques' from behind him. It had been more than twenty years since he had last heard that voice in person, but he would have remembered it anywhere as belonging to the young woman he recalled as a boy. Impossibly beautiful, he remembered thinking she must have been an angel, her hair lightening even at the age of 22.

"Mademoiselle M?" Andy asked, eyes twinkling as Miranda pulled back from the fond embrace the man had swooped her up in.

"I hadn't yet become 'Miranda Priestly'" Miranda explained. "But I didn't want to be Miriam Princhek ever again," her gaze darkened for a moment before clearing as she smiled and wrapped her arm around the young woman's waist. "Alors, Mademoiselle M. You must call me Miranda now, Jacques."

The younger man just smiled and shook his head. "My father would never forgive me if I treated 'La princesse' as such, although if what I see in the papers is true, you are much more 'La Reine' than 'La Princesse' maintentant."

"I can't think of how many lattes and croissants and late-night croque-monsieurs I owe him for the year I lived with your family."

"You and I both know that were he still alive, he would never accept any kind of repayment."

"Je suis tres desolee, Jacques. Vraiment, ton pere etait un bon homme, mieux que la plupart bien sur. If there is anything…"

"Non, thank you. Merci, but no, there is nothing I or my family need."

"Your family?"

"Papa!" At their father's gesture, two little girls who looked to be about three and four ran forward from where they had been standing by the door of the café with a lovely auburn haired woman. "Papa, qui est-ce-que? Son ventre est tout gros, est-elle d'avoir un bébé aussi?"

Andy's mind took a few moments to translate the excited chatter of the older of the two girls who had been swept up into her father's arms, while the younger hung back warily, clinging to his pant leg as she examined the newcomers. But Miranda understood instantly, and laughed at the inquisitive little girl.

Jacques shook his head ruefully. "Please excuse my daughter, Miranda, ma femme, my wife Rochelle, is newly pregnant with our third, and as you can see my daughters are consumed by all things 'baby' at the moment ever since they found out they are going to have a little brother."

"It's fine, Jacques," Miranda assured the man, "I have two of my own at home already as well." She turned back to the two children still eyeing her increased girth with undisguised curiosity.

"Oui ma chérie, il ya deux bébés dans ici. And I have two daughters at home as well."

"Deux bebes?" The little girl's eyes widened. "Que sont-ils? Ma maman dit que je vais avoir un petit frère."

Caught up on the conversation now, Andy dropped easily into a crouch, beaming brightly at the two little girls as she reached over to rub Miranda's belly. "Ils sont jumeaux." Andy struggled for a moment for the word for twins and looked up at Miranda, who mouthed the answer. "Un petit garçon et une fille."

"Maman, je veux des jumeaux aussi! S'il vous plait?"

The adults all laughed and talked a while longer before the two women took their leave.

It was the best day either woman could recall; with no worries about the press, their jobs, the babies or the trial. In between the regular 'tourist stops' that Andy insisted on, Miranda showed her glimpses and snatches of the 'real' Paris, her Paris. This included a riverside bistro tucked away in a corner of a residential arondissement where the bouillabaisse was so good that the two women ended up in a feverish embrace in the tiny bathroom. The look of orgasmic pleasure and the sounds the younger woman made while eating, coupled with raging pregnancy hormones meant that Miranda was even less patient and unwilling to wait for her 'dessert' as she watched plump, red lips devouring the sweet and savoury stew, desperately wanting those lips to devour something else entirely.

The 'Belly Band' Andy had packed for Miranda and cajoled her into that morning seemed to be working, and despite some expected fatigue at the long hours they had been walking around Paris, there was no flare-up of her sciatic nerve, prompting the pair to begin the walk back to their hotel along the Seine instead of calling for the car straight away.

"Thank you." Andy slowed her pace, and Miranda with her as they were walking arm in arm. She turned to the older woman as they came to the end of the walking path before an abandoned looking wharf. "Today has been amazing, and I know how much it took for you to take an entire day off during Fashion Week just to show your girlfriend Paris."

"Andrea, I'm beginning to realize I would do anything to keep you in my life. My darling you are so much more than merely my 'girlfriend'. And I also realize how difficult it has been these last few months and how unfair it must seem to start a relationship this way." She held up a hand to silence the young woman's protests.

"And I know you don't agree with that description." Now it was Miranda's turn to pause, her gaze flitting briefly to the churning wake of the tide against the stone walls that seemed to echo the sudden uneasy feeling in her stomach.

After a moment though, her eyes found the warm brown it seemed she had been searching for all her life, and as her eyes settled on the familiar gaze, so did her stomach and any lingering nerves. "What I hope you will agree to, is to become my wife." A brilliant princess-cut stone glittered in the afternoon sunlight against the pale backdrop of Miranda's palm, pave diamonds set flush against the platinum band. "I won't always make you happy, and I won't always listen or concede an argument when I should, and…"

"Yes. Yes, yes, yes, a thousand times yes," Andy crushed her lips to Miranda's, pulling her as close as the bump would allow, her breath hitching on a sudden sob as she felt Miranda's sigh as she threaded her fingers through Andrea's hair and returned the kiss wholeheartedly.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you," Miranda murmured as they both regained their breath.

"Miranda, you never EVER have to thank me for loving you."

"It can't be easy, loving someone like me. No one else ever has so well…they haven't known how to or cared enough to try." Miranda admitted within the embrace of young, strong arms and letting her head rest against a beating heart she still couldn't quite believe belonged to her.

"I know exactly how to love you, and once my ring is on that finger there's not going to be a single person in the world who would try to take you away from me. I can't fly you to Paris, or offer you wealth or power like you have for me. But I can promise to be here always, Miranda. You will have me forever, and I will love you until, and after, the day the breath leaves my body. Every day before that, and whatever comes after, I will spend loving you. And yes, probably fighting with you, getting frustrated with you, hurting you and being hurt because that's just the way life seems to work. But we're always going to get through that because that love is so much stronger than any hate and any anger will ever be. Deal?"

Miranda laughed softly through her own tears, not even attempting to wave them off as a by-product of hormones, and she lifted Andrea's left hand, pressing the ring finger to her lips.

"Deal."