IMPORTANT: THE SEQUEL TO STRANDED IS NOW UP - I forgot to put this reminder here earlier, so the sequel is already 3 chapters long and it is called As It Was Made To Be - you can find a link to it on my profile page!

Hello everybody! Well, it's finally here - THE EPILOGUE! It's the longest update by far, standing at about 6000 words.

While I was writing the epilogue, I realized there was way too much I saw for Emily and Naomi's future to fit it all into one little epilogue. So I'm going to be writing a sequel, though it's going to be very different from Stranded and won't be nearly as angsty!

I want to thank you all for your reviews and messages and encouragement, you've all been absolutely amazing throughout this whole process, so thank you very much!

As usual, I don't own/have anything to do with Skins.

Epilogue

June 21st, 2012

Naomi

I woke up feeling anxious and definitely scared. Today was our first appointment with a couple's therapist, and we'd already invested a lot of time and research into finding the right therapist for us, as well as the right therapeutic method to strengthen our relationship. Emily had tossed and turned all night, and I'd done much the same – it was impossible to sleep because I knew she was so anxious, and I didn't know how to comfort her because I was just as anxious as she was.

"Today's the day," she whispered as she slapped our alarm off.

"Fuck me, I'm nervous," I said as I got out of bed and headed towards the bathroom. Emily followed me in and we got ready side by side.

The decision to go to couple's therapy wasn't one that we took lightly. I was always very skeptical of therapists, and Emily was nervous about whether our therapist would be able to deal with all of her issues. We were both nervous about whether we would be treated differently because we were a gay couple. However, we both agreed that we felt overwhelmed and unprepared to deal with our issues on our own, and couple's therapy was the obvious route we decided to explore. We were both willing to try, and according to the extensive research I'd done on therapeutic techniques, that was a good thing.

We arrived at Dr. Stone's office fifteen minutes early for our appointment. We sat down and Emily quickly reached for a magazine and flipped through it so quickly I knew she wasn't actually paying attention to the magazine – she was more nervous than anything. I grabbed her hand and squeezed tightly and smiled at her. That was my way of asking her to please calm the fuck down.

We watched as a straight couple left Dr. Stone's office, the woman crying hysterically and the man left with a shocked and confused expression on his face. I turned to Emily with an obviously frightened expression on my face. In turn, she looked worriedly at me.

"Maybe we should go," Emily whispered, grabbing her purse and pulling me up.

"Ah! Not so fast!" Dr. Stone said as she walked out of her office, pointing her finger at us authoritatively. Emily looked as though she was about to wet herself in fear, and I'm sure I looked much the same. "Don't be so worried!"

I smiled at her, small and hesitant. She didn't look so bad. She was poised and refined and dressed casually and she didn't look scary. I squeezed Em's hand and lead us into Dr. Stone's office.

We all sat down, Emily and I in separate chairs and Dr. Stone sat across from us. She smiled warmly at us and pulled a notepad towards her.

"Hello, I'm Dr. Stone," she said, still smiling. Emily nodded at her.

"I'm Emily Fitch," Emily said, slightly awkwardly, looking at me for reassurance. I smiled at her.

"And I'm Naomi Campbell," I said, fidgeting with my hands in my lap. We'd only just introduced ourselves, but Dr. Stone was already frantically writing notes on her notepad. I wanted to lean over and read what she was writing. What could she possibly have gotten from that?

"Tell me about your relationship, Emily."

Emily cleared her throat and looked directly at Dr. Stone. "Well, Naomi and I have been together for about seven months now, in a sort of on and off relationship. All the breakups and time apart have really been my fault. Um, the first time I left I lied to Naomi and told her that I had a job in London and that I would only be gone a few weeks. I ended up staying there for three months."

Dr. Stone was still writing frantically. "Why did you stay away for so long?"

"Well, I was um...searching for a man who raped me two years ago. I'd been searching for him for a long time and I finally had a reliable lead on where he was. I was actually looking for him when I was in Toronto."

I looked at Emily, stunned. I never knew that. There were so many things she never told me. Dr. Stone obviously noted my shocked look, and started writing even more quickly.

"Naomi and I met in Paris due to a flight diversion. We were both coming back to London from Toronto and we ended up in Paris and the airline booked us together as hotel roommates. Um, anyway, so I was in London looking for John when I left for three months. And I found him, and I got my revenge and then I called the police and he's currently in jail and serving a life sentence, because he'd also raped about 15 other women, some of whom were underage. When I came back to Bristol, back to Naomi, I explained everything to her and she took me back. Things were going pretty well.

"About a month after I came back, I went to the Doctor's because my identical twin has premature ovarian failure, and I'm worried that I'll get it as well. The doctor mentioned things that I could do in case I ever developed early menopause. Stuff like IVF, freezing my eggs. I went a bit...mad. I guess I went baby-crazy. I convinced my sister that she could use my eggs and have a baby since we're identical twins. I talked to Naomi about having a baby. And I started going through hormone treatments for egg extraction right away, without really considering what Naomi wanted."

"This all seems like a rather sudden change – is there anything that could have brought this on?" Dr. Stone asked, taking a break from her frantic note-taking. Emily nodded and her eyes filled with tears, and I saw that she was about to break down. I handed her a box of tissues and squeezed her hand tightly.

"I...I had an abortion after I was raped," Emily said, fighting off her tears as Dr. Stone nodded and wrote a short note on her notepad. "I suppose, after dealing with John and not dealing with the abortion for so many years, it all just crept up on me.

"I knew Naomi wasn't ready to have a baby, so I confronted her about it. She said she wasn't ready, and I told her that I was planning on leaving to go to Paris, where I'd been offered a job. Naomi... she lost it. She flipped a desk and broke stuff and yelled at me and I'd never seen her act like that. I guess, throughout most of our relationship, I neglected her feelings. So I was surprised when she reacted that way. She left the apartment, and after that everything really started to fall apart. My sister, Katie, found out about the abortion and she and her girlfriend sat me down and held a sort of intervention. It didn't really work because I was so mortified that they knew that I started to pack all my things and planned on leaving for Paris right then and there. Then Naomi came back to the flat looking for her shampoo," Emily's face changed, as though she had just remembered something and looked back at me. "Shit, sorry, Naoms, I forgot to tell you, I stole your shampoo." I smiled and shrugged at her – it didn't matter now anyway, since I got it back when Emily came back to me. Emily shook her head and tried to recollect her thoughts. "So Naomi came in looking for her shampoo, and she saw me packing all my things and begged me to stay. She offered to help me through things and told me that I needed to be around people who cared about me.

"And that's when I figured out that Katie had told her about the abortion, too. I was so upset and embarrassed and Naomi kept saying that she could be my friend, and all I thought was that I wanted her to be so much more than that. It all was too much, so I left," Emily looked up and smiled at Dr. Stone. "Obviously, I didn't really leave. I only made it to the train station before I realized, with a little help, that I was making a mistake. I went back to the apartment. Back to Naomi. And now we're here."

Dr. Stone nodded. "How's your sex life?"

"Good." We answered in unison. Dr. Stone smiled.

"Okay," Dr. Stone said, making a final note on her notepad. "Well, we have just about run out of time for this week. Next week, we're going to be focusing on Naomi's interpretation of the relationship, and then after that, I think we'll start doing individual sessions with the both of you. Emily, you have a lot that we have to deal with, and from the sounds of it, Naomi has quite a lot to deal with as well. The key aspect of your relationship that needs work is communication – you two tend to communicate well through body language, and your sex life is good but communicating orally is important as well. That is where you two fall short," Dr. Stone smiled at us. "So, same time next week, ladies?"

We smiled and nodded at her. I grabbed Emily's hand and we walked out of the office.

"She's not scary at all," I said as we walked back to the flat. Emily laughed and nodded at me.

September 5th, 2012

I really never thought I'd see the day that I would be putting up a huge banner in my apartment that said HEY MUM I'M IN LOVE WITH A GIRL, but Katie and Effy were having a joint coming out party and apparently the goal of the night was to give Jenna Fitch a heart attack.

Katie and Effy had been together for ten months now, which in lesbian terms meant they were reaching their golden anniversary, and they finally decided that they should stop avoiding their parents and just tell them about their relationship. Anthea, Effy's mum, had pretty much figured it out since she once walked in on Katie and Effy having sex, but Effy had yet to confirm it to her. Almost the same thing happened with Rob Fitch, Katie's dad, but he's told Katie that he's supportive of whatever choice she makes and whoever she loves.

They also figured that now was a good time to tell their parents because they were planning on selling Katie's flat and buying a house together. I've also been hearing them talk about civil unions and lady babies but that was only because I'm really good at eavesdropping on their private conversations. I'm pretty sure nobody is supposed to know that they want to get married and have kids.

"Emily, could you pass me the hammer?" I asked. Emily was standing next to me, holding onto my legs because she was worried about me falling off the very small ladder I had to use to hang the banner up. She let go of one of my legs and reached down by her feet and handed me the hammer.

"Be careful," she said in a worried voice as she squeezed my legs tightly.

"Emily, even if I fell I wouldn't really hurt myself because I'm only two feet off the ground."

Emily slapped the back of my legs. "Dr. Stone says you shouldn't brush off my concern for your safety!"

"Ooh, blah blah blah, Dr. Stone says blah blah blah," I said in an irritating high-pitched voice as I tried to hammer the banner in place. "Why am I even using a hammer for this? Why can't I just tape this sign up here? KATIE! GET ME THE FUCKING DUCT TAPE!"

"Duct tape doesn't work for everything you know," Emily said as I handed her the hammer.

"Clearly you don't understand just how wondrous duct tape really is," I said as Katie handed me the duct tape, which eventually held the banner in place successfully.

"See! I did it!" I said proudly as I leaned into Emily's side. "Doesn't it look great?"

"It looks like a lesbian got lazy and used duct tape to solve all her problems," Emily said before picking up the hammer and putting away her tools.

"You're the one who has a tool belt! Maybe you should have been up here hanging the sign!" I huffed as I put the ladder back.

"Stop being defensive! Remember what Dr. Stone said!" Emily called back as Effy walked into the kitchen.

"You know," Effy said as she looked up at the banner and shrugged. "I'm really so happy that you and Emily went to couple's therapy. Katie and I have really learned probably as much as you two have about effective communicating and defensiveness and stonewalling and lovely Dr. Stone. You two being in couple's therapy has really helped my relationship with Katie."

I was specially trained to hear the sarcasm in Effy's voice, so I decided to chase her around the whole flat in retaliation. "Effy Stonem, you aren't going to live to see Jenna Fitch's heart attack tonight!"

"Naomi! That sounds defensive!" Effy laughed as I tackled her onto the floor. I couldn't help but laugh and we ended up laughing our asses off on the living room floor.

Katie and Emily walked in and sat on the couch, watching Effy and I as we joked about Dr. Stone. Emily and I really did love our therapist, really we did, but sometimes we couldn't help but make fun of the situation. After all, nobody has a perfect relationship, and sometimes people lash out and act defensive. The important part about our relationship was that we always worked hard at it and we always addressed issues we had with each other. Our communication had definitely improved since we first started seeing Dr. Stone. We had been talking with Dr. Stone about possible dates for our last scheduled session, and we decided on mid-November. We'd been assured that if we ever needed to come back, Dr. Stone would welcome us back with open arms, but we were hoping that we wouldn't have to go back.

Later that night, after Jenna saw our lovely banner and surprisingly did not have a heart attack and after everyone invited to the coming out party went home, Effy and Katie and Emily and I all sat in the living room.

"I can't believe your mum didn't flip out," Effy said as she took a sip of her tea. Katie nodded and Emily did as well. I'd only met Jenna on a few occasions, but she seemed...tolerant of me, I suppose. She certainly seemed to like me a lot better after I quit my online newspaper job and got a "proper job" working for an actual news agency in London. I only had to go in to the office about once a month for a few meetings, and I was always back home the same day. I think she just wanted to make sure that her daughters were taken care of.

"Jenna's not so bad," I murmured. Emily smiled at me and kissed me gently, while Effy and Katie made disgusted noises at us.

November 24th, 2012

Our last session with Dr. Stone was about a week ago, and Emily and I were still going strong without any problems. But today, we were especially emotional because it was Katie and Effy's moving out day. We were loading all of their packed boxes up into a rather large U-Haul truck. Effy and I had been crying all morning, scared shitless of how quickly our lives were changing. But we were also pretty pleased with ourselves – we'd both come a long way from the two teenage girls who were afraid of love and partied their lives away.

Emily and I had snuck out last night to Katie and Effy's new house. We spent the whole night painting their new living room to match the living room in our flat. We thought it would be a nice surprise for them, and we wanted to help them give their new house a home-y feeling.

Emily hopped up onto the back of the U-Haul and tugged the door of the back of the truck until it slid closed. Effy had tears in her eyes as she hugged me tightly.

"Don't forget to visit," She said, kissing me on the cheek. I smiled at her and nodded. It was a bit silly of her to say that, really. She was only a short walk away, and we had already made plans to come over tomorrow to help them build their new furniture and set the house up. But I knew Effy had to say it, had to remind me that we could never lose the friendship that we had.

Emily and Katie said their own tearful goodbyes, and before we knew it, Katie and Effy hopped into their truck and drove away with all their stuff. Emily wrapped her arms around my waist and kissed my cheek.

The apartment looked so empty when we went back upstairs. Katie and Effy had decided to leave us all the pots and pans and dishes, and we agreed to let them have the couch and the TV. I smiled at the sight of our empty living room – it wasn't exactly a joyful memory that popped into my head, but I remembered when the living room was empty all those months ago when we first moved in and Effy used to call it "the meditation zone" instead of the living room.

Emily was standing in the doorway of Effy's bedroom, which had sort of become both Katie and Effy's bedroom since Katie spent so much of her time here.

"What the hell are we going to use this room for?" Emily asked, gesturing to the rather large room and ensuite. It was really a second master bedroom. "Do you think Cook would want to move in and pay rent?"

I laughed and shook my head. "Cook would probably say no because this place is a bit too fancy and feminine for him. I can always ask him, though, if you want."

Emily shrugged at me. "Maybe we can get a dog and this can be the dog's room."

I stared at her blankly. "I certainly hope that if we do get a dog, we won't pamper it so much that it'll get its own room."

Emily laughed and shrugged. She was now officially the co-owner of the apartment, since she bought Effy's half of the apartment using the money she'd made from selling her own flat all those months ago while she was in London. And because she was co-owner, that meant that we had to decide what to do with the extra bedroom together.

"This conversation is making me exhausted. Can't we just go to IKEA and find a couch and some stuff for the living room?" I asked as I wandered off into the kitchen to start boiling the kettle to make a cup of tea.

"I suppose we could. Maybe once we get to IKEA we'll finally decide what kind of room we want," Emily said as she followed me into the kitchen and brought the Garibaldi's out from the pantry. I smiled at her. She knew me so well.

"Naoms," she said as she sat down at the table and I made her a cup of tea. "Do you want to get a dog or a cat or something?"

I shrugged at her, setting her cup of tea down in front of her. "Sure. A dog would be nice. I'm home during the day, so I can walk it and make sure it doesn't tear the flat apart. Plus, we have very little furniture now, so really the only thing the dog could destroy is our bed."

Emily smiled at me. "I've kind of already been looking for a dog, to be honest," She said shyly. "I wanted to get one as a surprise for you for Christmas. My dad knows someone who has a Corgi, and she just had puppies about a month ago. I was going to go over to visit them on Monday, so if you want, you could come with me."

I smiled at her and nodded.

Needless to say, that Monday we bonded with a gorgeous Corgi puppy. She had white and tan markings and was adorably fluffy. Apparently, her fluffiness meant she couldn't be used for breeding or as a show dog and that made her cheaper than the rest of the puppies. We got to bring her home when she was 8 weeks old, and by that time we had decked out the apartment with dog toys and a dog bed and everything else you could possibly need for a puppy. And yes, we had finally made it to IKEA and bought a couch and loveseat and coffee table for the living room. We also bought a new TV, but we didn't get that from IKEA.

"Here you go, Elizabeth," Emily said as she opened up the dog carrier we brought Elizabeth home in. She walked out of the crate and straight into my lap.

After Emily found out that the Queen loved Corgis, she became obsessed with finding a royal name for our puppy. I insisted that the name could be shortened so we didn't have to call our dog something ridiculous like Anne Boleyn or Mary Queen of Scots. Emily eventually settled on Elizabeth after watching The Tudors and decided to name our dog after Elizabeth I.

"I wish you wouldn't call her Elizabeth. Effy's going to think we named our dog after her," I said as Libby, as I liked to call her, moved from my lap to Emily's side. She looked between the two of us, before deciding that we were uninteresting and wandered off to explore the flat. Emily smiled at me and leaned over to kiss me.

Libby trotted over to us happily with a tennis ball in her mouth. Her whole body was shaking in excitement as she dropped the ball and barked at us. We broke apart from each other and stared at her intently as she picked the ball up in her mouth and flung her whole body so quickly that the ball flew out of her mouth and bounced across the flat. She ran after it and caught the tennis ball again.

"The dog's a bloody genius," I whispered as Libby trotted back over to us happily and did the same trick again. Emily smiled at me and went into the kitchen to set up Libby's water and food bowls.

Libby fit in well with our lifestyle. I was all too happy to wake up early and take her out to the park across the street and play with her and teach her new tricks. During the day she would lay at my feet while I worked on my articles. She would wait at the door for Emily to come home – she knew the exact time Emily was supposed to come home and would go to sit by the door exactly fifteen minutes before Em was due home. She sat next to Emily as she made dinner in the kitchen and followed us around until Emily and I were ready to take her out for her evening walk. We usually took her to Effy and Katie's house since they had a big yard and Libby loved running around outside. Effy and Katie had both fallen hopelessly in love with Libby and were now talking about getting their own dog so that Libby could have a playmate.

Even though it was winter, we would all sit and freeze our asses off as we watched Libby show off all her new tricks to Effy and Katie. They'd put up a tiny baby basketball net in their backyard for Libby and with some training, Libby learned how to put her tennis ball into the hoop.

The first time she saw snow was the most exciting day of all. Since Effy and Katie's backyard was on a slope, Libby learned that she could slide down the slope and that everybody would laugh hysterically at her fur blowing in the wind. Emily used to fret over her after she spent too long outside one day and caught a small cold, so now Libby was forced to wear snow booties and a sweater when she was outside in the snow. She really hated that and always gave Emily dirty looks when we would laugh at the way she walked in the booties.

We were blissfully happy that Christmas, though Libby was not as happy as we were because Emily forced her to wear a sweater with a reindeer on it. Though I must say, it did make for quite the cute Christmas family portrait.

February 12th, 2013

After finding out that the train tickets that Emily had bought me last Christmas were about to expire, we decided to take an impromptu and romantic trip to Paris for Valentine's day. We were quite upset to find out that Libby couldn't come with us as they didn't allow dogs on the Eurostar trains, but Effy and Katie were all too eager to dog-sit Libby for the three days we were planning on being gone. And Libby seemed very excited when we dropped her off at Katie and Effy's house, so Emily and I tried not to get too upset about leaving our adorable puppy.

When we finally arrived in Paris, the first thing we did was took a picture in front of the Eiffel tower. In hindsight, it probably seemed a little odd that we decided to head to the Eiffel tower before dropping off our luggage at the hotel. But posing in front of the Eiffel tower with Emily and our suitcases seemed fitting. We even rebuilt our suitcase fort from the first time we were in Paris, and took a picture of that in front of the Eiffel tower. We thought it was hilarious, but a few people gave us some odd looks.

Our stay was romantic and sexy and everything a Valentine's day getaway should be. It was our last night in Paris, and it was Valentine's day. We ate at a swanky restaurant that I had made reservations for about two months ago, and it was honestly amazing. Emily looked radiant in a gorgeous silk black dress, and I couldn't help but feel anxious at what I knew was coming up next. The velvet box in the pocket of my dress pants felt much heavier now than it had when I slyly slipped it in my pocket in the hotel.

We left the restaurant and I suggested, despite the cold weather, that we took a nice evening walk together. Emily nodded and tightened her trench coat around her neck. I offered her my arm, which she blushed and smiled at, and we walked towards Le Pont Des Arts. The bridge was bustling that night, but Emily and I found a quiet bench to sit on and I decided to wait until the bridge quietened down a little bit. Emily wandered around, snapping photos of the gorgeous views from the bridge. On one side was the Institut de France, and on the other was the central square of the palais du Louvre. Emily smiled at me and waved me over.

"Look," she said as she wrapped her arm around my waist and pointed to a padlock that was attached to the bridge. "People in love put them here."

I nodded and smiled at her. I had done my research on the bridge, and I knew that people did that. I'd gone to a shop a few weeks ago and bought a padlock, and then had it engraved with our initials. I pulled it out of my pocket, already unlocked and handed it to Emily.

"I know. I had one made for us," I said as she squealed in delight. She looked up at me in awe and kissed me.

"I love you, Naomi," she said, smiling as she twirled the padlock in her hands.

"I love you, too, Em."

She wandered around, holding my hand and dragging me along with her as she tried to find the perfect spot for our padlock. When she finally settled on a place, she insisted that we closed it together.

She smiled and took a picture of the padlock and then forced me to take a cheesy photo standing next to it. The bridge was almost empty now and I was starting to lose feeling in my face because it was so cold.

Emily was sitting on a bench, staring out at the Seine and Notre Dame. I sat next to her and grabbed her hand.

"Emily," I whispered, making her look over at me. She smiled nervously at me. "I really want to ask you something."

She looked stunned and held up her hands, basically telling me to stop. "Oh my god, oh my god, are you going to ask what I think you're going to ask?" She was smiling, but still looked pretty shocked. I nodded at her and blushed profusely.

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry I just ruined the moment but I really have to ask you something, too," she said as she tilted my face up so I was looking at her. She smiled at me and winked and I finally caught on.

I cleared my throat and reached into my pocket as Emily did the same, both of us pulling out ring boxes.

"Emily Fitch..."

"Naomi Campbell..."

"Will you marry me?"

And then we laughed and squealed and kissed. I put Emily's engagement ring on her finger, and she did the same for me. We kissed until my face was really numb and I insisted that we go back to the hotel.

We held hands the whole way back, with silly goofy smiles on our faces.

When we got home, Katie and Effy had happy smiles on their faces. I'd obviously told Effy about my plans to propose to Emily, and Emily had told Katie about her plans to propose to me, and obviously Katie and Effy told each other about our proposal plans so they knew we were both going to propose on the same night. Effy pointed at the ring on Emily's finger and smiled victoriously at Katie.

"You owe me 50 quid! I told you Naomi wouldn't chicken out!" Effy said as she did her happy dance and Katie rolled her eyes at her.

"You do understand that we have a joint bank account now and technically my money and your money is the same thing, so betting against me is pointless," Katie said in a monotone as Effy ignored her and started dancing with Libby.

"Hang on a second, you two placed bets on whether I would chicken out?" I asked as Effy nodded with a huge smile on her face and Katie shrugged.

"You don't really seem to be the commitment type," Katie murmured as she frowned at Effy, who was still dancing around happily. I suppose I had to agree with that – it took Emily and I three weeks to decide on what kind of couch we were going to buy, and about a month to decide on whether we would get a plasma or an LCD TV...and most of the indecisiveness had been on my part.

Libby started jumping all over Emily and I, happy to see us once again. I decided against mentioning the ridiculous sweater Emily had bought for Libby, just because Libby seemed so excited to see us and I knew how much she hated those damn sweaters.

March 23rd, 2013

The one thing Emily and I both agreed on was that we didn't want a big wedding. Gay marriage wasn't legal in England yet, so we could only have a civil partnership anyway. We decided that we would bring a few guests to the Old Council House, namely Katie, Effy, Kieran, my mum, Jenna, Rob, James Fitch, and Cook. Emily was hesitant about inviting her mum, but Jenna had become a lot more accepting over the years, and eventually Emily decided that she really wanted her mum at her wedding (even though it wasn't really a wedding).

My mum convinced Katie and Effy to wear fascinators, just like they did at the Royal Wedding. Mum had even brought an extra one for Jenna just in case she decided she wanted to join in on the fun, which surprisingly, she did. Kieran, Cook, Rob and James all wore top hats.

Emily wore a long sleeved, plain white raw silk dress that cut off just above her knees. The dress was a classic number and had a high neckline but was cut low in the back, to just about the middle of Emily's spine. She looked gorgeous.

I contemplated coming to the ceremony in jeans and a t-shirt, but Effy had taken me dress shopping weeks ago and we'd chosen a simple white dress that had thick straps that settled just at the edge of my shoulders. I ended up deciding that I should just stick to the plan and wear the dress.

We decided to just say the legal vows at the ceremony, because Emily and I didn't really need all those extra words to show that we extra loved each other. We just knew. And then finally we signed the civil partnership register and it was finally over with.

After that, we all left the Old Council House and went back to our apartment to get drunk and eat because that was what we did best. Emily put Libby in a fancy black sweater and Libby pouted all night. After Emily had a glass of champagne and was a bit loosened up, I took the sweater off the poor dog and hid it in the office – Emily never goes in there.

Rob, Jenna and James were the first to leave, soon followed by my mum and Kieran. Cook left at about 1 in the morning, and Effy and Katie stayed to help us clean up. They insisted that we shouldn't have to clean up on our wedding night.

At the end of it all, we sat down in the living room, Libby, Emily and I all on the couch, and Katie and Effy on the loveseat. Libby was lying on her back and snoring slightly. Effy and Katie were cuddled into each other.

"So, when are you two going to tie the knot?" Emily asked as she cuddled into me, playing with her wedding band.

"We want to wait until it's legal, which hopefully won't be much longer," Effy said as Katie leaned into her shoulder and yawned while she nodded. "We'll probably have kids before then, though. We'll need your help for that, though, Ems."

Emily nodded absentmindedly, as though she hadn't really heard what Effy had just said. Then, all of a sudden, she sat up completely straight and stared wide-eyed at Katie and Effy.

"Wait, so that means...do you want me to be the egg donor?"

Katie and Effy nodded, smiling slightly as Emily teared up. I knew this was a touchy subject for her, and we'd spent a lot of time in couple's therapy working through Emily's issues in regards to her abortion and any future children we may have. She smiled a watery smile and looked up at Katie and Effy.

"I'd be delighted," she whispered, letting a few tears fall down her cheeks. I smiled at her and kissed the tears away.

I don't think Katie and Effy realized just how big a step Emily had taken, but I knew, and I was so proud of her and proud of how far we had come both individually, and as a couple.

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