"What did she say?" Emily asked eagerly, coming running the second she head the door slam shut behind Alex.

No reply.

"Al?" Emily emerged from the kitchen, drying her hands on a dishtowel, just in time to see Alex's back disappear down the hall towards the bedroom. Following her, she arrived in the bedroom just as the bathroom door shut and the shower turned on.

This kind of behaviour from Alex was odd – normally it was Emily hiding and Alex trying to coax her into talking – but Emily knew her girlfriend well enough to know that sooner or later, she'd need to talk. So, she settled on the edge of the bed to sit and wait.

As she did so, she accidentally knocked Alex's purse onto the floor, the contents spilling across the hardwood. When she bent to pick up the items, several things caught her eye: the business card for a fertility specialist, a pamphlet titled Next Steps, and a slip of paper peeking out from the book Alex always carried with her (this month's selection was titled Queer Conception).

Normally, Emily wouldn't have even thought about looking at said slip of paper, out of respect for her girlfriend's privacy, but in that instance, her concern over Alex's well-being was taking precedence. With careful fingers, she plucked the paper from between the pages and unfolded it to reveal a long list of names.

"Throw it away," Alex said, emerging from the en-suite looking rather like a drowned rat. Her voice was gravelly, from – Emily could only assume – withheld tears.

At the sound of her voice, Emily stood suddenly, whirling around to face her. "I'm sorry," she immediately apologized, "I didn't mean to be nosy, I was just concerned. I wanted to know what was upsetting you and..."

Alex snatched the paper from her hands and tore it to shreds. "This is what's upsetting me!" she snapped, shaking the fist clutching the shreds of paper. "Months and months of hoping for a miracle that's never ever going to happen because apparently it's asking too much to get the one thing I want more than anything in the world!"

"Al..." Emily tried to interrupt.

Alex didn't let her. "No! Don't even start, I don't want your pity!" Tears were pooling in her eyes and it was clearly all she could do to keep them from falling in front of her. "Can you please leave me alone, now?"

And, though she was clearly reluctant to do so, Emily gave her the solitude she'd requested.

"I'm sorry I was such a bitch," Alex whispered beside Emily's ear as she wrapped her in an embrace from behind.

Emily turned her head to give Alex a quick kiss on the cheek. "Don't be," she murmured, "I get it. It's okay."

"No, it's not okay," Alex insisted, taking the seat next to her at the kitchen table where she was working diligently at something. She reached for one of Emily's hands and squeezed it tightly in hers. "I was being selfish. I'm not the only one allowed to be devastated by the news that we can't have a baby..."

"Al, this doesn't mean we can't have children," Emily reminded gently. "We'll just have to find another way." Alex rolled her eyes, but didn't say anything. "I'm serious," Emily insisted. "We'll be have a big old noisy happy family. I'm certain of it."

Alex couldn't help but smile softly, a single rebellious tear escaping her control to spill down her cheek. Clearing her throat, she changed the subject, "What are you doing?"

Emily turned over the piece of paper she was very carefully piecing back together so that Alex could see her own printing on the front.

"Want to tell me more about it?" Emily gently prodded.

Taking the note in her trembling hands, Alex explained, "When we started talking about the possibility of having a baby, whenever I found a name I liked, I wrote it down so that when the day finally came where we needed it, we'd have a list to choose from..." Her cheeks pinked slightly with embarrassment as she spoke.

With a warm smile, Emily cupped Alex's cheek tenderly. "This is beautiful," she whispered. Then, gently teasing, she added, "You were really hoping for a girl, then, huh?" A subtle reference to the fact that there were at least twice as many girl's names as boy's.

"Yeah," she said with a shy smile and a shrug, but didn't elaborate. "You don't have to put it back together," she added, "We can just make a new one. Together. With names we both choose."

"Why?" Emily said simply. "This list is perfect exactly as it is. In fact, I want it to be the first thing our daughter sees every morning when she wakes up and the last thing she sees before she goes to sleep. So she'll always know that her mother wanted her so badly before she ever even existed. That's why tomorrow we're going shopping for a frame."

Alex laughed, a sound somewhere close to a sob. Gently, she pulled Emily in for a soft kiss, pouring all the love and thanks she couldn't articulate into that kiss. "Do you like the names, then?" she asked when she eventually pulled away.

Emily nodded. "I can't wait to meet Noelle and watch her take after you in every way."

"Noelle?" Alex repeated in question.

She nodded. "It's the first name on the list, isn't it? The first one you fell in love with." A beat. Then, in reference to the second name on the list, she said, "But her middle name absolutely will not be Elizabeth."

Alex cracked one eye open, then the other, blinking blearily a few times as she tried to figure out what had woken her. In the next moment, Emily shoved a cup of coffee under her nose.

Combing her hair away from her face, Alex pushed herself to sit up in the hospital waiting room chair where she'd slumped over when she'd nodded off. Gratefully, she accepted the cup and took a greedy sip.

"Did you go to Starbucks?" she asked upon realizing there was no way the coffee had been made in the hospital cafeteria.

"Our parents were waiting on pins and needles for news – your father especially – they all wanted to help, so I sent them on a Starbucks run," Emily explained. A beat. "I couldn't bear to leave," she added in a meek voice.

Alex nodded, stretched out the kink in her neck. "How long was I asleep?"

Emily glanced at her watch. "Only an hour. You looked so exhausted, I figured with jetlag having me till on London time, I'd take the first shift."

Offering a tight smile, Alex mumbled her thanks, feeling awkward for reasons she couldn't quite pinpoint. "Any news?" she asked.

"Not yet."

"So, what happens now?" Alex asked, "Legally speaking?"

"She'll go into foster care," Emily said. "They'll look for her parents, but chances are their parental rights will be terminated. She'll be adopted in a heartbeat, though. Everyone wants to adopt babies."

Several long moments of silence followed. Then, voice barely there at all, Alex said, "I don't want someone else to adopt her..."

"What?" Emily said.

"Nothing," Alex quickly lied.