"I think maybe I should try going off my antidepressants."

Emily hummed a quiet note, doing her best to avoid sounding too judgmental before she'd had the chance to explain. "Really?"

Said best attempts, though, fell short... "You think it's a bad idea," Alex said quietly.

Emily could almost feel the waves of disappointment rolling off her. "I didn't say that," she said. She nuzzled the back of Alex's neck, pressed a tender kiss there. "Why do you want to stop them? Are they not working anymore?"

"They're working," Alex insisted. "Maybe a little too well."

"In what way?" Emily inquired.

Alex heaved a sad little sigh. "I'm tired of it, Em..." she whispered. "I want to be with my wife and feel something! I want to look at her and feel attracted to her with my mind and my body. I want to feel the way I can remember her fingers making me feel. I want to fucking feel!"

"Okay."

A beat.

"W-what?" Alex stammered, she'd clearly been anticipating more of an uphill battle on the issue. "Really?"

Gently, Emily reached up to turn Alex's head so that she could kiss her properly, her other hand resting on her stomach. "Alex, we'll do whatever you need to do. Anything at all. Okay?"

Alex was too lost in the tenderness of the moment to reply. She'd always been a sucker for Emily's particular brand of affection. Unsurprisingly, her love language had always been words of affirmation, but her second highest was physical touch. It had been easy to satisfy that need when sex was something she actually enjoyed, but since then it had become a need they sometimes had to go out of their way to satisfy.

In that moment, she was leaning back against Emily's chest in the hot tub that had quite literally been the factor that convinced Emily this was the right house for them. Emily pressed a kiss to Alex's bare shoulder. "I need to hear you say it, sweetheart," she murmured a gentle reminder.

She just couldn't, though...

"Listen to me, Ally," she said, commanding Alex pay attention to her words. "Do I think the antidepressants are helping you? Yes. But I also think they're hurting you, in a way. And if you've decided it isn't a price you're willing to pay any longer, I'm going to move Heaven and Earth to find you something that works better. Okay?"

She nodded faintly.

"I've been doing a little research," Emily continued, "If you want to switch medications, I've heard that tricyclics tend to have fewer sexual side effects. Or acupuncture works for some people. Anything you want to try."

Alex sighed softly, leaned more heavily against Emily's chest. She leaned her head so her temple rested against Emily's. She didn't say that she was afraid that no matter what she tried, she'd never get her sex drive back. She didn't say that she felt like she was broken. She knew Emily knew without having to be told.

As much as Alex hated the idea of talking to her doctor about the issues she was having with the side effects, her desire to feel something outweighed her mortification. (She was thankful, at least, for the small blessing that her doctor was a woman and seemed to understand her frustration...)

Her doctor agreed that they could try switching to a tricyclic antidepressant, but before they could do that, they had to taper her off her current medication.

Which is why Emily had been quite reluctant to attend the weekend long seminar for work. As far as small blessings went, it was local, but Emily just had a feeling that Alex was going to need her... Alex had insisted, though, that she was a grown woman and she could handle being left to her own devices for a few hours.

Technically, Emily wasn't supposed to keep her phone turned on during the seminars – not that she'd ever cared all that much for the rules – so when it started buzzing against the table, it attracted several annoyed stares.

Emily saw none of them, though, because she'd seen Alex's name flash across the screen and she just knew that she needed to take the call. "I'm here, Ally. I'm here," she said by way of answering, already packing up her possessions and digging her keys out of her purse.

All she could hear on the other end of the line was sobbing.

Emily tapped on the car window, startling Alex who was leaning against the steering wheel, sobbing. "Oh, Ally..." Emily whispered when Alex opened the door and flung herself into Emily's arms. She quietly shushed her, rubbing a hand up and down her back soothingly.

For several minutes, Emily said nothing, merely holding her wife as her entire body shook with the force of her sobs. Eventually, she was able to suss out that Alex had been at the grocery store when a toddler mistook her for his mother and came sprinting at her, reaching for her hand and hollering Mama!...and that simple case of mistaken identity was enough to have Alex falling apart in the middle of the aisle. She'd managed to escape to her car before breaking down completely, but she was too shaken up to drive and had been crying in the parking lot ever since.

When Emily managed to soothe her enough that they could have a conversation, she said as gently as possible, "I know it's not what you want to hear, but maybe quitting this medication isn't the answer we'd hoped..."

Alex nodded slowly, sniffled. "You're right," she agreed, voice cracking slightly as she spoke.

"But we'll find something that does work," she insisted. "You remember what I promised, right?" When Alex nodded, Emily offered an encouraging smile. "Heaven and Earth, okay?"

Alex attempted a smile, though it failed to reach her eyes.

"Say it for me," Emily coaxed, trailing tender fingers up and down her forearms.

"Heaven and Earth," Alex echoed. It was just a little hollow, but there was the faintest hint of a smile on her lips and Emily knew she was getting through to her.