Elise turned her head and pressed her lips to Sienna's hair. It was soft against her mouth and Sienna's shampoo, the hospital-issued kind that wasn't her usual one, smelled faintly of coconut and nothing like the woman Elise knew. She'd fix that tomorrow. She'd buy Sienna's real shampoo and her oat milk and her brand of tea and this apartment would smell like Sienna instead of hospital. "Tell me."
"I don't want to go back to my apartment. I know that's fast. I know we've been together for less than three months. But I nearly died on a road I was driving because I was going somewhere that wasn't near you, and lying in that hospital bed I had a lot of time to think about what matters, and what matters is being where you are." She paused. Her voice was careful, the way it got when every word cost her. "I'd like to live here. With you. If you'll have me."
Elise's chest went tight. Not with sadness, not with fear. With a joy so enormous and warm it pressed against her ribs and filled her throat and made her eyes sting. She'd imagined this conversation. Lying awake in the hospital corridor during the surgery, she'd bargained with whatever force controlled these things: give her back to me and I'll tell her every day. Give herback to me and I'll never waste another minute pretending I don't want everything.
"If I'll have you," she repeated. Her voice cracked on the words and she didn't care. "Sienna. I've been trying to figure out how to ask you that since the second night you stayed here."
"Really?"
"Your toothbrush is already in the bathroom. I will buy you oat milk. There's a shelf in the wardrobe that I cleared three weeks ago."
Sienna lifted her head and looked at her and the expression on her face was luminous. Open and surprised and so full of love that Elise's chest went tight.
"We should probably talk about the future properly," Sienna said. "Long-term. What we both want."
Elise shifted so she could see Sienna's face. "Okay. What do you want?"
Sienna was quiet for a moment. The light moved across her face and her eyes were thoughtful and certain. "I want this apartment with you, or a house eventually, something with a garden, maybe, where we can have morning tea and watch the ocean. I want to keep working with the Valkyries. I've already arranged to transfer your care to Dr. Gupta, formally, so the ethics question is settled. I want to swim in the morning and come home to you in the evening. I want a cat."
"A cat." Elise's face lit up.
"You don't like cats?"
Elise sat up straighter, tucking one leg beneath her. "I love cats. I grew up wanting one but our apartment was too small and my dad said he was allergic, which I'm pretty sure was a lie because he's not allergic to anything. We should totally get a rescue cat from the shelter.”
Sienna's smile was wide and unguarded, the kind that showed her teeth and crinkled the corners of her eyes. "I was going to say rescue."
"Of course you were. You're a physician. You fix things. You'd want to fix a cat too."
Sienna laced her fingers through Elise's. "I want to give something a home that doesn't have one. Yes." She paused. "Something small and scrappy that doesn't trust anyone yet. We'll earn its trust. The way you earned mine."
Sienna meant the parallel and her eyes were serious when she said it and Elise pressed closer, her lips against Sienna's temple.
"We'll name it something ridiculous," Elise said. "Something you'd put on a nametag."
Sienna's smile widened. It was the most relaxed Elise had seen her face in weeks, the hospital pallor overtaken by ease and the light from the window and the prospect of a future that had, until three weeks ago, been uncertain.
Sienna pressed closer. Her good hand tightened on Elise's.
"We're doing this," Sienna said. It wasn't a question. It was a declaration, quiet and certain, from a woman who had spent forty-one years avoiding declarations.
"We're doing this." Elise's voice was certain and she meant it with every fibre of her body. She cupped Sienna's face in her hand and turned her gently and kissed her. The kiss was soft and tasted of burned garlic and love, and Sienna made a small sound against her mouth that was half-laugh, half-sigh, and Elise held her face and kissed her again.
"I love you," Elise said. "I love you, Sienna Park. I loved you when you taped my shoulder and I loved you when you made me scrambled eggs and I loved you when you cried on my sofa and I loved you every day in that hospital and I am going to love youtomorrow and the day after and every day after that for as long as you'll let me."
Sienna's eyes were bright with tears. She didn't wipe them. She let them fall, two slow tracks down her cheeks, and she smiled through them.
"Forever," Sienna said. Her voice was quiet and absolutely certain. "That's how long I'll let you."
"Deal."
They sat together on the sofa in the morning light, in the apartment that was now theirs, with the terrible pasta cooling on the coffee table and the ocean visible through the window and the future stretching out ahead of them, uncertain and ordinary and full of possibility. Sienna's head was on Elise's shoulder and Elise's arm was around her and neither of them moved.
Outside, the midday sun warmed the iron balconies and the cream stucco walls and the ordinary, precious world that was waiting for them.
They were home.
EPILOGUE — SIX MONTHS LATER
