"I was wondering where you'd run off to..."
Emily looked up sharply at the sound of Alex's voice. "I just needed to calm my nerves before Mother arrives," she said dryly, then took a long drag from her cigarette.
"Still smoking, then?"
"Technically, I'm smoking again," she replied, though that was hardly the point. "Can we skip the part where you lecture me?"
Alex sighed, leaned back against the brick wall next to Emily. "I'm not here to lecture you, Em," she said quietly.
"Then why are you here?" she retorted, flicking ash onto the pavement of the alley. It came off more aggressive than she'd intended, but she felt mildly justified in her aggression and therefore didn't apologize.
"I just...needed a break," Alex admitted with a little shrug, absently scraping the toe of her boot across the pavement, pushing aside greying snow and cigarette butts, "I'm starting to rethink our decision to lie to everyone." When Emily shot her a quizzical expression and she explained, "They're asking how we're coping with the distance..."
"Ah..." Emily nodded slowly, sighed. "I'm sorry," she whispered, seeing as it had been her idea to keep things a secret. "I guess we should've seen this coming, huh?"
Alex laughed a little, even though nothing was all that funny.
Emily was silent as she studied Alex, gaze lingering for several moments too long to be entirely platonic. Alex seemed to sense her eyes on her and she caught Emily's gaze with question in her eyes. "Do you..." Emily started, faltered. "Do you ever miss it?" she asked, suddenly unable to keep eye contact. "Miss us?"
Alex eyes widened at the question, expression some combination of surprise and just a hint of panic. She hadn't expected Emily to be the one to say it first... She shrugged slightly while stammering for a few moments as she tried to find the 'right' answer. "We made a lot of sense," she said eventually, though it wasn't really an answer – at least, not the kind of answer Emily was looking for. After a moment, she added, "And the sex..." She shook her head, cheeks pinking slightly at the rush of memories. "Let's just say, we had chemistry."
Emily couldn't help but laugh at that. "Yeah," she agreed. "Yeah, we did." A beat. "I miss it..."
"Sex in general or with me?" Alex teased before she'd stopped to think about the playful taunt.
Not wanting to seem too desperate but also wanting to see where Alex was going with this, she replied, "Both. But mostly with you..."
In the next moment, there was barely a breath of space between them. Alex's gaze lingered for a few moments on Emily's lips, making it entirely clear what she was thinking. Voice husky, Alex gently suggested, "We could blame it on the mimosas..." She didn't specify what it was...she didn't have to.
Emily knew exactly what she was suggesting, had been thinking the same. Without wasting any time debating whether this was a good idea or pretending that she wasn't going to give in, Emily grabbed the lapels of Alex's coat and pulled her into her body, lips crashing together.
The kiss was desperate and needy and Alex could taste the remnants of Emily's cigarette as she plunged her tongue into Emily's mouth. She whimpered a little into the kiss as Emily tangled her fingers in her hair, as if afraid she might realize they were making a mistake and pull back. (It probably was a mistake, but she was already in too deep...)
Slipping her hands past the waistband of Emily's jeans and into her panties, quickly finding her clit, and was immediately rewarded with a small whimper. "Already?" she teased, smirking a little at how easily she was able to reduce Emily to speechlessness.
"It wasn't me," Emily said into the kiss.
Alex quickly pulled back from the kiss to fix Emily with a dubious expression. When Emily remained steadfast in her insistence, Alex frowned. "Then where did the sound come from?"
Glancing about the alley, Emily expected a stray cat to wander out from behind the dumpster or, perhaps, a raccoon... When nothing emerged, she was about to convince herself that they'd imagined the sound when she heard it again – louder and more insistent now.
Cocking her head quizzically, she approached the dumpster and knelt down beside some trash and cardboard boxes that had failed to make it into the garbage bin in search of the source of the sound. When she heard it a third time, she was able to pinpoint the source...
Inside one of the boxes, nestled amongst a few tatty, bloodstained blankets was a baby – barely hours old, by her estimate. With trembling hands, she reached inside to lift the infant into her arms, holding it tight to the warmth of her chest.
When she turned to fix Alex with wide, terrified eyes, Alex gasped, clapped a hand to her mouth.
Alex and Emily had been delegated to the waiting room while the doctors tended to the infant and, in spite of the fact that they had no immediate claim to the infant, neither of them had any plans to go anywhere.
When the doctor in charge of the baby's care emerged into the waiting room, Alex and Emily instantly clasped hands. "You're the ones who brought in the abandoned baby?" he asked. They both nodded. "She's lucky you found her when you did – her core temperature was dangerously low, but we're gradually bringing her up to a normal temperature in the incubator. She probably wouldn't have survived much longer in the elements..."
Both women sighed in relief. "She'll be okay, though?" Alex asked, needing to know the baby was going to pull through.
The doctor nodded. "She's a fighter." A beat. "We need a name to put on her charts," the doctor added, tapping the charts in his hand.
Alex and Emily both locked eyes in the same moment and silently shared a conversation laden with memory and history...and in the same moment, both women declared, "Noelle."