Once Caroline had collected her key from the reception desk and asked for some tea to be brought to her room, the women made their way up the grand staircase to Caroline's room. Opening the door, Caroline was filled, suddenly and overwhelmingly, with the memory of that weekend. Her motivation, all those months ago, for bringing Kate here had been to talk her out of trying to have a baby and she had spent the last long months coming to the understanding that it had been wrong of her to have wanted to do that. She wondered now how she could possibly have been so cruel as to dismiss Kate's fundamental need to have a child of her own. To expect Kate to watch her with William and Lawrence, to develop her own relationship with them even, but never to experience motherhood for herself.
She forced herself to push it back down inside her. She knew they would need to talk about what had happened but she also knew that she couldn't think about that yet. She still wasn't sure she dared think about reconciliation. She concentrated instead on Kate's hand in hers. Warm and soft and familiar. Her thumb stroked the back of Kate's fingers and she recognised the bumps and crevices of the skin there. The recognition steadied her and she felt herself calmer in Kate's presence. Kate stepped into the room after her and Caroline was suddenly aware of the rather uncharacteristic mess she had left carelessly that morning. She shut the door and glanced sheepishly at Kate.
"Um... who are you and what have you done with my Caroline?" Kate grinned.
"Your Caroline?" Caroline started to pick up the clothes that were draped across the chair and on the bed, looking across in embarrassment at the unmade bed.
"Yes." Kate nodded, still grinning. Caroline swept the make up from the dressing table into its bag and tossed it into the overnight bag on the floor. She stopped to look at Kate.
"I've always been yours, Kate, I think. Really from almost the first time we met. It just..." she took a sudden inward breath, "it just took me a while to understand that...and what that meant." She frowned. "I am sorry, Kate, for all the things I got wrong, for all the times I hurt you, for all the times I was just too much of a coward." Kate could see the tears beginning to threaten Caroline's only recently recovered composure. She closed the gap between them and pulled Caroline to her, slipping her arms around Caroline's waist. Caroline responded, willingly, wrapping her arms around Kate's neck, burying her face in Kate's hair and breathing in the smell of her skin. They stood still, holding each other, for several minutes, remembering how it felt to be together, how it felt to be able to touch each other and breathe each other in.
There was a knock at the door.
"Room service," came a voice from the other side. The women reluctantly let go of each other and moved apart. Caroline opened the door and watched as the young waiter crossed the room to set down the tea tray on the small coffee table in front of the sofa.
"Thank you so much." Caroline's Headteacher voice was back as she addressed the waiter. She followed him back to the door and shut it behind him. As she turned, Kate was already setting out the cups and lowering herself carefully onto the sofa.
"Good lord, Kate, I didn't think!" Caroline exclaimed. In the surprise that had followed Kate's reappearance, she had almost forgotten her advancing pregnancy. "You must be tired." She moved towards Kate and placed her hand on Kate's shoulder, sitting closely beside her, their bodies touching, all the way down. She looked at Kate's face. "How're you doing?" Caroline spoke more gently.
"I'm fine really...tired, you know what it's like. I'm getting bigger and it's harder to move around, get comfortable...you know. But, I'm fine, Caroline. I'm not too tired. You know, for you, for us to talk." Kate moved her hand across to Caroline's knee and squeezed it gently. She felt Caroline coming back to her, the together Caroline, the not-frightened Caroline and she was relieved. Kate couldn't even begin trying to verbalise the way she had missed Caroline while they'd been apart. She'd missed everything about her, even the things she'd once found difficult. She'd missed waking up to see her face, she'd missed the comfortable silences of their companionship; she'd even missed the chaos that was Caroline's life. Not knowing what was happening to the woman she loved was much worse, it turned out, than being consumed by it. And although she didn't want to be cast aside in favour of it again, she did want to be part of Caroline's life again. Very much.
Kate sat forward and poured the tea, suddenly grateful for the comforting warmth of the cup in her hand and the tea as she drank it. She slid Caroline's cup gently along the coffee table and turned the handle to face her.
"Thank you." Caroline's voice was quiet again. She lifted the cup to her lips, appreciative that it wasn't more champagne. The two women sat quietly again, as they drank their tea, and listened to the sounds from outside the room. It was getting late, nearly ten; they were able to hear footsteps in the corridor outside and other people's doors closing. Both women silently hoped that they wouldn't be disturbed. They both hoped that Caroline's usually high maintenance family would not come looking for her until the morning, but they also realised that it wasn't totally impossible. Once both cups had been returned to the tray, the women sat back in their seats and contemplated each other.
Caroline reached her arm out and hesitated for a second as she brought it closer to Kate's bump. She looked up at Kate wordlessly waiting for Kate to allow her touch. Kate's face broke into a smile and permission was so granted. Caroline lowered her hand and felt Kate's ripened body under her rounded palm. She moved her hand slowly up and down.
"Hello little one." Caroline had waited too long to be able to do this. The little girl growing inside Kate had taken a place in Caroline's heart, when she'd seen her at Kate's scan, and she closed her eyes, revelling in the feel of both Kate and her unborn child. Suddenly, Caroline's touch was rewarded as the baby met her hand, kicking inside Kate. Caroline gasped. "Kate!" Kate smiled again.
"She's not usually active at this time of time; she's saying hello back!"
"Is she? Is she really? You're not just saying that?"
Kate shook her head, taking huge pleasure in Caroline's joy. "No, Caroline, she usually makes her presence known during the early evening and quite often in the early hours of the morning... but not often late at night, like this."
"Right. Ok...blimey Kate, she's amazing!" Caroline looked up at Kate again with wide eyes and then down again. There were so many things Caroline wanted to tell this baby, about how much she loved her already, about what her life would be like. But not yet. She didn't want to make assumptions about what might or might not happen. "Hello sweetheart. I can't wait to meet you. You're going to be so lucky, so loved." Caroline's voice cracked with emotion and even as she tried to stop them, her eyes began to fill with tears.