Once he's dealt with the press Matt takes Dani to dinner. Dani chuckles as Matt pointedly starts eating all the bread sticks on the table, looking like a naughty schoolboy. They trade notes on the game, the aftermath of Rex's coming out.
"It will be fine, you'll see," Dani says, "and besides, in a week the press will find something else to go crazy about."
"I don't know, Dani. I think this might be a bigger deal than you realize. First football player coming out - it's history in the making. And, don't get me wrong, I'm all for it. It shouldn't matter. But there are still a lot of very conservative people in America, and a lot of them are football fans… I just wish for once we could have the spotlight about something that's actually sport's related, you know."
"Yeah, but I'm really happy for Rex all the same. It must have been so horrible for him, having to hide who he really is."
"You really care about them, don't you? All of them…"
"Of course I do. They're my patients. It's my job to help them." Dani wants to say more - about how she finally feels she's reached a point of professional fulfillment, how she'd given up on that years and years ago, when she got pregnant and then when Ray subtly manipulated her into always putting him first. She remembers Dr Gunner had been furious, way back, when she'd been accepted for not one, but two doctorate programs and decided to do neither and start a family instead. "I understand you want to take some time off, with the baby and all, Danielle," he'd said, "but why not come back after a year or so. The doctorate program will be tough, even more so in combination with baby care, but if anyone can do it, it's you." But that had meant Ray would have had to cut back on his hours as well and the mere suggestion had made him bristle and half imply she was going to be a bad mother if she put her career before her family. So she hadn't.
Presumably Dani's squinting, because Matt throws her a puzzled look, but before Dani can voice the thoughts that rankle on the inside of her brain Matt's leaned over to press a gentle kiss to her lips. It's enough to send a warm, fuzzy feeling up her spine, to have her smiling, and Dani reminds herself that this is what she wants. Matt. The man she loves. The man she can have. So it's easy to sit through dinner talking and smiling and touching, and later it's easy to take Matt home - the kids are still at Ray's - and into her bed. Making love to Matt is easy too, lush and familiar more than frantic and hot. She ignores the fact that part of her feels numb, pretty much the same way she ignores that brief moment in which Nico's face flashes in front of her eyes and how making love to Matt is nothing like the frantic, ferocious lust that had overpowered her that night, that had made her lose all sense of control, made her feel greedy and possessive as she was dragging Nico up her stairs.
Later, Matt has dozed off in post-coital bliss and Dani thinks, pressing her cheek fitfully against the warm hollow in her pillow. She thinks about what she said before - I'll have his baby if that's what he wants - tries picturing herself pregnant again, giving birth to a tiny creature with Matt's nose and her eyes. The image doesn't do much in the way of sparking an emotional reaction, doesn't make her feel nervous and simultaneously giddy with joy the way it had when she first found out she was pregnant with Ray Jay, but she knows she will love it all the same. Once she has felt it grown inside her, once she has given birth, she will love it and they will be happy, she will have a complete family again. Dani smiles and looks over her shoulder at Matt, who has a content grin on his face and is breathing gently in his sleep. "I love you," she whispers to his sleeping form, and presses a light kiss on his shoulder before she settles herself against his chest.
Dani dreams about sitting on her own patient's couch, across a stern looking Dr Gunner with his arms folded over his chest.
"But Danielle," he says, stretching out her name in his particular way that alerts her to an impending scolding. "Is this what you really want? Do you even want a baby, Danielle? Do you, really? Or are you putting yourself in second place again, giving up on what you really want again?"
"I don't know," the Dani in her dream says, squinting her eyes and biting her bottom lip.
"You do know… You just don't want to tell me," says Dr Gunner. "Or in this case; you just don't want to tell yourself."