"G'night," Emily said around a yawn, setting Noelle in her crib.
Alex hesitated at the threshold of the makeshift nursery, watching as Noelle squirmed and fussed, clearly none too happy to be in the crib. She'd spent the entire day in a miserable mood, resisting all attempts to soothe her and apparently she intended to continue being miserable through the night. "I don't think she wants to be in the crib..." Alex observed.
She knew this was just what the parenting books described as the period of 'Purple Crying' and therefore, she knew that there was really very little that could be done to soothe her, but that didn't make it any easier for her to endure the baby's upset...
"She doesn't want anything," Emily mumbled. She looked just about ready to pass out from exhaustion – between her jetlag and looking after Noelle during the nights, she was possibly even more exhausted than Alex. "Except maybe a blood sacrifice..." she added with a wry smirk.
Alex laughed a little, even though it wasn't all that funny. "Maybe we should put her in the bassinet for tonight?" she suggested.
"Then you won't get any sleep," Emily pointed out, reminding her of the reason they'd set up the crib in the spare bedroom in the first place.
"Why should you suffer alone?" Alex replied. She was grateful for all of Emily's help during the past week, but she also didn't want to take advantage of her kindness.
Emily thought on that for a moment. It was a good point, of course, but she also wanted to pull her weight as well...even if she wasn't technically fostering the baby with her, legally speaking. "I mean, if you're sure..." she said slowly.
She offered her a soft smile. "I appreciate all you've been doing to help with her, you know that, right?" She didn't say it, but she wasn't sure she could've done this without Emily's help...
Emily returned the smile, with just a hint of shyness. She'd never been all that good at this – the whole feelings and emotions and letting your guard down part... So, to avoid having to have any kind of a heart-to-heart, she lifted the fussy baby out of the crib and followed Alex into the room they'd been designated to 'share'. (Share, in this case, meant make excuses as to why they weren't sharing a bed as couples were supposed to.)
Once Noelle was in the bassinet, Emily moved to leave the room and return to the cot in the nursery where she'd been spending the nights, under the guise of taking the night shift and letting Alex rest. But before she could close the door behind her, in a meek voice, Alex said, "You could stay..."
She paused at the threshold, frozen in place as she tried to decide whether this was some kind of test. Ultimately, still torn, she turned to fix Alex with a questioning look.
"Please?" Alex asked in a whisper. Even she didn't seem to know why she was pleading, but she also wasn't trying to take it back...
Emily sighed dramatically. "Fine," she said as if it were some great ordeal, "I'll share a bed with a gorgeous woman..."
Alex rolled her eyes. "You're so melodramatic." But nonetheless, she shifted over in the bed to make room for Emily to lay down beside her.
...
Emily woke up around two AM, which is when Noelle usually woke up hungry. She spent a few moments blinking sleep out of her eyes, vision adjusting to the darkness as she tried to figure out why she felt so warm in the dead of winter.
When she could finally make sense out of the dark forms in the night, she realized Alex was snuggled tightly into her side, arm slung over her hip, legs tangled with hers. It was familiar and comforting in a way she'd forgotten over the last few months of being apart.
She'd spent so long telling herself that she didn't miss Alex, that she was okay with the fact that they were no longer together. Afterall, it had been a mutual decision that they parted ways and she didn't want to go crawling back. Maybe because her mother had so deeply ingrained the idea that to apologize was to admit weakness. Maybe because Alex had seemed so certain that this was what she'd wanted. Maybe because a tiny little part of her believed that she deserved to be lonely like this...
No matter what the reason, she had been steadfast in their decision to break up. Now, though...she was seriously starting to wonder whether it was what she'd truly wanted. She sighed, perhaps a little sadly, and tried to shut off that nagging part of her brain telling her she was living a lie.
It was hard to ignore, though, when she could feel Alex's soft skin against her own, the warmth of her body, the soft puffs of her breaths on the back of her neck.
Part of her thought about disentangling their limbs and putting some space between them or maybe even going back to the cot for the sake of keeping things clean, so to speak. But another part of her – the bigger part, perhaps – had dearly missed this feeling of closeness, of comfort and warmth. Had missed Alex...and the way they used to spend all day in bed together, snuggling and having sex.
After a few moments of debating, she ultimately decided she didn't want to risk waking Alex (at least, that was the excuse she told herself), so she simply snuggled closer into her and closed her eyes to return to sleep.
The movement, however, woke Alex...
"Everything okay?" she asked blearily, her voice husky from disuse. She yawned, wrapping her arm tighter around Emily's hips – whether conscious or unconscious, though, remained to be seen...
A beat.
"Perfect," Emily whispered, letting out a contented little sigh. And, if only for those few moments where they were together and at peace, it was perfect.