What The Heart Wants

Chapter 7

Alison couldn't help but stare at Emily's retreating figure as she left in a hurry.

About then, Jake woke up with a startled cry. "Baba?"

"It's ok, big guy."

"El-el" that was Jakes name for his sister.

"She's not feeling so good."

Jake stood up in his crib. "El-El?" He called again.

Ellie answered, "Day!" She couldn't make the j sound just yet, and she tended to drop hard sounds at the end of words, so his k got lost too. "Ow, ow, ow!"

"Shhh." Alison soothed her. "It's okay..." Gently, she laid her wailing daughter on the changing table. As she wiggled and whined, Alison took off her small one-piece pajamas and her diaper. Meanwhile, Jake jumped up and down in his crib, calling out "El-El, El-Ele!" in frantic sympathy, followed by a bunch of nonsense words to which Ellie replied with nonsense of her own - well, maybe not nonsense to the two of them. They had their own language that only they understood.

Emily came back with the thermometer in one hand, a bottle of liquid Tylenol and a dosing syringe in the other. "We'll probably need it," she said, meaning the Tylenol.

Chance were way too good she was right.

Alison held out her hand as Ellie continued to cry and squirm. Emily passed her the thermometer - and Jake let out a wail from his crib.

"I'll get him," Emily offered. "Tylenol's right here." She set it on the shelf above the changing table and went to reassure Jake.

The thermometer registered 102 degrees. Alison put a fresh diaper on Ellie and dosed her with the Tylenol as Emily sat in the corner rocker, soothing the worried Jake.

Once Alison had Ellie back in her pajamas, she walked the floor with her until the Tylenol seemed to kick in. She finally fell asleep on her shoulder.

Alison kissed the top of her sweaty little head and glanced over to find Emily watching her. Her normally pale cheeks turned pinked as they looked at each other.

The brunette mouthed, Sleeping? At Alison's nod, Emily nodded back, pointing at Jake, who was curled up against her, sound asleep as well.

It was only a few steps to Ellie's crib. Alison carried her over there and slowly, gently, laid her down. She didn't stir as she tucked the blanket in around her.

Across the room in the other crib, Emily was tucking Jake in too. She turned off the lamp, and they tiptoed from the now-quiet room together.

"Psst. Pepe," Alison whispered. The dog lurched to his feet and waddled out after them. Alison closed the door.

"Whew."

Emily leaned back against the wall next to her bedroom and said hopefully, "maybe they'll sleep the rest of the night and Ellie will be all better int he morning."

"Dreamer. And what rest of the night are you talking about? It's already morning, in case you didn't notice."

"Don't go overboard looking on the bright side there, Alison." Emily glanced through the open door to her room and blew out her cheeks with a weary breath. "Sadly though, you're right. The clock by my bed says it's almost five. Tonight is officially over." The brunette then rubbed a frustrated hand through her hair.

"Let's hope we get lucky and they both sleep till, say, eight." Alison said trying to be positive after being a downer. Staring at the woman in front of her, leaning against the opposit wall.

"As if." Emily laughed, a sort of whisper-laugh to go with their low, careful whisper of a conversation. The low light from the wall sconce stuck red glints in her brown hair and she looked sweet as a farm girl, barefoot in those flannel pajamas that were printed with ladybugs. The top button of the flannel coming undone and Alison could have swore she wasn't wearing a bra.

Stop staring.

Alison looked down and brought her thoughts to Hanna suddenly, knew a stab of annoyance that kind of sourced the companionable moment between her and Emily - and there it was again. That word: Companionable. She'd felt companionable with her dead wife's cousin twice in one night, and she didn't know whether to feel good about that or not.

"What?" Emily asked. "Just say it."

Alison went ahead and admitted what was bugging her. "Hanna." She said sternly with a frown on her face. "She's got one of the baby monitor in her room, so she had to have heard what was happening. But she didn't even come to check to see if we needed her."

"Yeah, she did. She came in the kids' room before you. I knew she'd been out late and could use a little sleep, so I said I could handle it and sent her back to bed."

Alison hung her head. "Go ahead. Say it. I'm a crap sister."

Pepe chose that moment to get comfortable. He yawned hugely, stretched out on the floor and lowered his head to his paws with a soft doggy sigh.

Emily said, "You love Hanna. She loves you. Ten years from now, you'll wonder what you used to fight about."

"Uh-uh. I'll remember." Alison defended.

"Maybe. But you'll be totally over it." Would she? Alison hoped so. Emily then said, "When I was little, living with the band on my mother's purple bus, I used to dream of a real house like this one, dream of having sisters and brothers. Family is hard, Alison. But it's so worth it. And I think you know that it is."

"Yeah," The blonde admitted. "You're right."

Family was everything. But that didn't stop her from fantasizing about totally non-family-related things. Partying till dawn, maybe. A game of poker that went on til all hours, with a keg on tap and all the guys smoking stinky cigars, telling politically incorrect jokes. A one-night stand with a gorgeous woman she'd never met before and would never see again, a woman who only wanted to use her for hot dirty sex.

Now there was a big as if. She'd been with one woman her entire life and was perfectly happy about that - until the past few years anyways. She just wasn't the kind of person who went to bed with other woman she hardly knew. The one time she'd tried that, six months ago, she'd realized at the last possible moment that sex with a stranger just wasn't for her. Her sudden change of heart had not endeared her to the lady in question standing in front of her.

And Emily was watching her again, a hint of a smile on her full beautiful mouth.

"I'm going to work on thinking positive," Alison promised her, because she did have a point about her negative attitude. After all, it was worth changing for Emily to be comfortable.

Emily gave a whisper-chuckle. "Anything is possible."

Alison then clicked her tongue at Pepe and he dragged himself up on her stubby legs again. "Night, Emily." She turned for her master bedroom at the end of the hall.

"Night Alison," She whispered after her, watching.

XXXXXXXXXX

Look at these two... co-parenting and all. Alison's been in her head a lot. Thinking and Emily doesn't seem to mind it one bit.

~Andrea