Touched By You

"We're so young, Princess, we have so much time."

"No." Lauren was growing tired of saying the word and every time she said it, she felt her resolve begin to crumble.

"You said you'd think about it!" Camila argued back, knowing full-well that Lauren was right but ever the persistent one in the relationship.

"Camila, I'm just kick-starting my career, you have a tour coming up and we're still not even sure what we're doing with Leo while all this is happening and you want to bring a child into the equation? We're so young, Princess, we have so much time."

And Lauren was right, Camila knew this and she knew that her want for a child was so unexpected and irresponsible at this point of their lives...but she did. She wanted to raise someone that could change the world the way Lauren was starting to. She wanted to see them become a family in every sense of the word. She wanted Lauren to have a family that would be more than the one she had as a child. Camila knew they were young but that was part of her argument, she wanted to grow with her child, to learn new things as they did. She didn't want to be a mother in her late thirties, completely unaware of the new dilemmas faced by kids, she wanted to be able to understand her child.

"I get it," Lauren sighed, draping her arm over her wife's shoulder and placing a kiss to her temple. "I want this with you, I want to be able to look at this tiny walking shitbag and smile because it's ours and we get to raise it and teach it the values we've learnt from each other and the world around us...but we can't just spontaneously make this kind of decision, Camz, it wouldn't be fair on them. I know what it's like to have absent parents, I don't want that to be us."

"But-"

"Camz," The older girl smiled as she rolled her eyes. "No buts, just...trust me. Now is not the right time."

Camila's pout began to morph into a reluctant, lopsided smile as Vero's deepened as she recalled the last of her story with Lucy to Alessia.

"She was...having the time of her life." Vero recalled Lucy jumping up and down on the spot as her hands worked to produce music that lifted everyone's spirits in the room. "It was like...she was in a world of her own, it was so fucking beautiful. She knew what she was doing, she knew she had everyone in the palms of her hands."

"Why do I get the feeling that while everyone else was dancing...you were watching?" Alessia nudged her friend playfully, hoping to bring back Vero's small smile, the one she always sported when talking about her wife.

"I always watched Lucy," Vero wiped at the tear that slipped down her cheek quickly. "It came naturally to me."

"We can stop there, if you want?"

"No," Vero shook her head hastily. "No, I need to talk about the rest, you should know it."

"I wanted to know Lucy, V," Alessia put her hand on her friend's shoulder. "From what you've told me, she grew more secure in her self-worth but...she didn't really change much. She was still the girl I knew way back when."

"I never saw her get shot." Vero closed her eyes, the whole ordeal replaying her head and for the first time, she wasn't losing her breath in panic. "We got out of there as soon as Normani was shot, but I never saw Lucy go down. The next time I saw her was in the hospital room after they'd gotten all the bullets out and she was stabilised...or so they thought. Hell, Lauren made it back before we got to see her."

"I remember those two together, I can imagine that Lauren would've been barking orders at any doctor she could find."

"She-Lucy was her sister. I don't know how we could've expected her to keep a level head. She pushed everyone away, Camila included."