Making It Happen Part 2
Summary - part 2
Word count - 8.2k
A week later, they called Marta and confirmed Donor 0203.
It should have been a practical phone call, a simple administrative step between two appointments, but nothing about it felt simple once the words were actually spoken aloud. Alexia sat at the kitchen island with one hand curled around a mug of tea she had forgotten to drink, Jay beside her on the other stool, one knee bouncing beneath the counter with a quiet, frantic rhythm that had already made Alexia place a calming hand on her thigh twice. The folder was on the marble between them, closed for once, though the elastic strap around it looked strained, as if even the stationery had begun to question the seriousness of its role in their family planning.
Marta's voice came through the phone, calm and warm and professional in the way Alexia had already begun to trust. She went through the identification again. Donor 0203. Confirmed characteristics. Confirmed availability. Confirmed that the clinic would reserve the sample for them moving forward. Confirmed the next stage. Confirmed the assessment appointment.
Alexia listened, nodding even though Marta could not see her, her eyes fixed on the pale grain of the kitchen counter as the words moved from possibility into decision.
Jay, beside her, was terrifyingly still now.
That was worse than the knee bouncing.
Alexia glanced sideways and found her staring at the phone as though the device contained a tiny priest, a contract lawyer and the future genetic scaffolding of their child all at once. Her hands were folded tightly in front of her, tattoos shifting across the backs of them each time her fingers flexed. She had not said a word since the call began, which was almost always the clearest sign that something enormous was happening inside her. Jay in ordinary nerves asked too many questions. Jay in proper awe went quiet.
"Does that all sound alright?" Marta asked.
Alexia looked at Jay.
Jay looked back.
For a second, neither of them spoke.
It was ridiculous, really, because they had already chosen. They had discussed it for days. They had read the file, walked away from it, returned to it, argued about the difference between instinct and evidence, slept on it, woken up still certain. They had imagined the donor not as a person, exactly, but as a contribution. A doorway. One piece of a future that would belong entirely to them once it began.
Still, the confirmation pressed against Alexia's ribs with a weight she had not anticipated.
She reached for Jay's hand beneath the counter.
Jay gripped it immediately.
"Yes," Alexia said, her voice quieter than she expected. "Yes. It sounds right."
Jay swallowed, then leaned closer to the phone. "Yes. Definitely. Donor 0203. We confirm."
Marta's smile was audible. "Perfect. I'll make a note now."
Jay squeezed Alexia's hand so tightly that Alexia turned her head and murmured, "Bebé, I need circulation."
Jay loosened instantly. "Sorry. I was emotionally notarising."
Marta paused for half a second on the other end of the line.
Alexia closed her eyes.
"Emotionally notarising?" Marta repeated, clearly trying not to laugh.
"It felt legally significant."
"It is administratively significant," Marta said.
Jay nodded solemnly, as though Marta had supported her. "Exactly."
Alexia pressed her lips together and stared at the ceiling.
Marta continued with the next details, the assessment appointment, the timings, what they should expect, what paperwork to bring, what Alexia should avoid beforehand, and by the time they ended the call, Jay had opened the folder despite claiming she would not need to. She wrote one note, underlined it twice, then added a small star beside Donor 0203's number.
Alexia watched her for a moment.
"You have starred him."
Jay looked down at the paper. "Yes."
"Why?"
"Because he's important."
"He does not know he has been starred."
"That's not the point."
"What is the point?"
Jay tapped the page with her pen. "Recognition."
Alexia stared at her.
Jay looked completely serious.
"Jay."
"What?"
"You cannot give the donor a gold star."
"It's not gold."
"That is not the issue."
"He's contributed to the project."
"The project?"
Jay opened her mouth, paused, then winced. "Not the project. The baby. The possible baby. Our baby. I panicked and went corporate."
Alexia's face softened despite herself.
Jay noticed immediately and leaned in with a hopeful expression. "Can the star stay?"
"No."
"It's tiny."
"No."
"It's respectful."
"It is strange."
Jay looked at the starred number, then back at Alexia. "What if it's a symbolic star?"
"Still no."
Jay sighed with visible suffering and crossed it out, badly. The star remained entirely visible beneath the single line.
Alexia reached over, took the pen from her, and drew a thick block over the top of it until it disappeared.
Jay watched the destruction with quiet horror.
"You didn't have to murder it."
"I did."
"That star had emotional value."
"You emotionally notarised enough for one morning."
Jay leaned against her shoulder, dramatic and boneless. "I'm being censored in my own fertility folder."
Alexia kissed the top of her head. "Sí. And yet somehow you survive."
Jay slid an arm around her waist and stayed there for a while, her cheek pressed against Alexia's shoulder, the folder open beneath them, the future written in neat black ink and one badly concealed patch where a star had died. Alexia let her own cheek rest against Jay's hair, breathing in the familiar smell of shampoo and skin, and felt the decision settle.
Donor 0203.
Not a baby yet.
Not even close.
But one step nearer.
A week after that, they returned for the assessment.
It was the same clinic, the same discreet plaque beside the entrance, the same soft lighting inside and the same impossible number of healthy plants arranged around the waiting area as if fertility could be encouraged by botanical confidence. The receptionist recognised them and smiled in that gentle, practised way that managed to be both welcoming and careful, as though she understood that everyone who entered carried a private weather system through the door.
Jay carried the folder.
Of course she did.
This time, however, it was noticeably smaller.
Alexia had watched the downsizing operation the night before with a mixture of tenderness and suspicion. Jay had sat cross legged on the living room floor in front of an arrangement of papers that looked less like preparation for an assessment and more like the evidence board of a detective determined to solve conception. She had removed duplicate printouts, condensed notes, reorganised tabs, and then spent nine minutes deciding whether "Emotional Variables" should be renamed because Alexia had laughed at it too hard.
"What would you call it?" Jay had asked, pen in hand, deadly serious.
"Feelings."
Jay had looked pained. "Too vague."
"Pregnancy feelings."
"That sounds like a leaflet."
"Feelings about possible pregnancy."
"That's just Emotional Variables with less professionalism."
Alexia, stretched out on the sofa with one leg thrown over Jay's thigh because she enjoyed being a physical obstacle to Jay's administrative intensity, had said, "Delete the whole section."
Jay had pressed the folder to her chest. "You take that back."
Now, standing in the clinic waiting area, Alexia saw Marta glance at the slimmed down folder and bite back a smile.
Jay noticed immediately.
"It's smaller," she said.
Marta's face remained admirably neutral. "I didn't say anything."
"You thought it."
"I thought you seemed very prepared."
"It only has essential tabs."
Alexia looked at Marta. "There are nine."
Jay turned to her. "Seven of them are essential."
"What are the other two?"
Jay adjusted the folder under her arm. "Emotionally supportive."
Marta coughed into her hand.
Alexia looked delighted. "You made Marta cough."
"I did not make Marta cough. Marta coughed independently."
"I'm fine," Marta said, though her mouth was definitely twitching.
Jay pointed lightly at Alexia. "This is exactly why emotionally supportive tabs are necessary. Hostility in the room."
"Hostility?"
"From my own future co parent."
"Co parent?" Alexia repeated, her voice softening around the word before she could stop it.
Jay's expression changed instantly.
The humour did not disappear, but it grew quieter, folding itself around the sudden tenderness. "Yes," she said, carefully now. "If we are lucky."
Alexia reached for her hand.
Marta looked away for a moment with the professional grace of someone giving intimacy somewhere to land.
The assessment itself went better than Alexia had allowed herself to hope.
She had not realised how much tension she had carried into the room until Marta began to speak in calm, approving sentences. Everything looked as it should. The timing made sense. The results were good. The plan remained solid. Nothing in the assessment closed a door. Nothing delayed them. Nothing made Marta's voice turn careful in the way Alexia had privately feared.
Hope, she was discovering, was not light.
People spoke about hope as if it floated.
It did not.
Hope had weight. It pressed into the chest and sat behind the eyes. It made every good sentence feel enormous because good did not mean certain, but it did mean possible, and possible was enough to make a person tremble if she wanted something badly enough.
Marta walked them through the next phase.
Dates.
Medication.
Timing.
The day itself, when it came.
Alexia asked questions in the voice she used when she wanted to sound calm and competent rather than like someone whose body had become the site of their shared future. She asked about practicalities, discomfort, timing, what she should expect afterwards, what was normal and what was not. Marta answered with patience. Then Jay asked questions too, because of course she did, but they were good questions, annoying only in the way good questions became annoying when they forced the room to acknowledge that Jay had probably read three clinical papers, two pamphlets and at least one forum she had been specifically told not to visit.
"Jay," Alexia said after question six.
Jay held up one finger without looking away from Marta. "This one is medically relevant."
"The previous five were medically relevant."
"Exactly. Pattern of excellence."
Marta smiled. "It's alright. Ask."
Jay looked triumphant for half a second before remembering that triumph in a fertility clinic was probably inappropriate and rearranging her face into something more humble.
Alexia leaned back in her chair. "Dios mío."
When Jay eventually apologised for, in her own words, "perhaps overdoing it slightly, but in a well intentioned and scientifically curious way," Marta closed the file in front of her and looked at them both with a kindness that settled something in the room.
"You'd be surprised how many people wish they had asked more before the day arrived."
Jay turned to Alexia as if Marta had just placed another Champions League medal around her neck.
Alexia held up a hand. "Do not."
"I said nothing."
"You are glowing amor.”
"I'm allowed to glow. Marta validated my tab culture."
"Marta validated questions."
"Questions live in tabs."
"They do not live anywhere. They are questions."
Jay leaned closer and whispered, "Preparedness is sexy."
Alexia did not look at her. "Not in a clinic."
"Especially in a clinic."
"Jay."
"What? You love competence."
"I love quiet."
Jay pressed her lips together.
Marta's shoulders moved with silent laughter.
When they left the clinic that afternoon, the city looked different again.
Alexia knew, rationally, that nothing outside had changed. Barcelona remained Barcelona, bright and impatient and alive around them, scooters sliding through gaps in traffic, sunlight on shop windows, people moving along the pavements with their own errands and private hopes. Yet something in Alexia had shifted enough that the same streets seemed altered by association. They had entered the clinic carrying possibility, and they left with dates.
A timeline.
A set of steps.
A day circled in their shared calendar that neither of them named too loudly at first, though both of them began looking at it every morning.
The Day.
Jay called it that by accident three evenings later while cutting vegetables so badly that Alexia had taken the knife away twice and been ignored both times.
"When The Day comes," Jay said, trying to slice a carrot into pieces that varied wildly in size, "we should probably leave earlier than we think because traffic near the clinic is unhinged and I refuse to let a bus driver called Jordi interfere with conception."
Alexia looked up from the sofa.
"The Day?"
Jay froze with half a carrot in her hand.
The expression on her face was so earnest, so instantly vulnerable beneath the humour, that Alexia's chest softened. Jay had a tendency to name things before she knew she was naming them. To turn emotional landmarks into titles. The Walk. The England Thing. The Sofa Agreement. The Day.
"Too much?" Jay asked.
Alexia shook her head.
"No."
Jay watched her carefully.
Alexia smiled. "It is The Day."
Jay's shoulders eased.
"Good. Because I already mentally capitalised it."
"Of course you did."
From then on, it was The Day.
The Day arrived on a Tuesday.
Alexia woke before the alarm.
Not a few minutes before, not in that convenient way where the body politely rises ahead of schedule and gives you the pleasant illusion of control. She woke an hour and a half early, eyes opening in the dim bedroom with the immediate, full body knowledge that the day had arrived. The appointment was at eleven. The alarm was set for half seven. The room was still grey and quiet, the curtains admitting only a thin line of morning where they did not quite meet the wall.
Still, she knew.
The day sat in the air.
In the hush around the furniture.
In the shape of Jay beside her.
Alexia lay on her back, one hand resting low on her stomach, which was still flat and familiar and not yet changed by anything they were about to do. That thought moved through her strangely. Her body looked the same as it had yesterday. It would look the same tomorrow. There would be no visible evidence of this morning's significance, no mark on the skin, no immediate sign that something had begun or failed to begin.
And yet, by lunchtime, they would have done something extraordinary.
Something quiet enough to happen in a clinic room and enormous enough to rearrange the rest of their lives.
She was not exactly nervous.
Nerves, Alexia understood. Nerves had accompanied her into finals, surgeries, public speeches, penalty shoot outs, matches where expectation had felt like a whole stadium pressing between her shoulder blades. Nerves could be managed. They could be breathed through, directed, turned into focus.
This was different.
This was anticipation with fear folded carefully into it.
Readiness with a tremor beneath.
The feeling of standing at the edge of a life she wanted so badly that wanting itself had become dangerous.
Beside her, Jay was lying on her back.
Still.
Too still.
Alexia stared at the ceiling for another few seconds, listening.
Real sleep had weight. Jay's real sleep was full bodied and shameless, warm limbs flung across the bed, one foot wedged beneath Alexia's calf, occasional nonsense murmured into the pillow with great conviction. This stillness was not sleep. It had tension inside it. Awareness.
"You are awake," Alexia said into the dark.
For two seconds, nothing happened.
Then Jay exhaled.
"I was being quiet."
Alexia turned her head. "How long?"
Jay continued staring at the ceiling. "Depends what you consider long."
"Jay."
"Since five."
Alexia blinked. "Five?"
Jay's mouth tightened. "Possibly four forty."
"Bebe.”
"I woke up and my brain said congratulations, it's The Day, and then refused to return to unconsciousness."
"You should have woken me."
"You were asleep."
"I am awake now."
"You weren't at four forty."
"How do you know?"
Jay turned her head towards her.
In the soft grey morning, her eyes were open and bright, her hair a mess against the pillow. "Because I was watching you like a totally normal and emotionally well adjusted person."
Alexia's mouth twitched. "That sounds very normal."
"It was from a respectful distance."
"You were beside me."
"Emotionally respectful."
Alexia rolled carefully onto her side so she could face her properly. "I have been awake since six."
Jay's eyebrows lifted. "You have?"
"Sí."
"And you didn't say anything?"
"You did not say anything."
They stared at each other across the small space between their pillows, both caught in the ridiculous tenderness of their mutual silence.
Then Jay laughed softly.
It broke the tension just enough.
"We've both been lying here awake in silence for half an hour trying not to disturb each other."
"Being considerate."
"Being idiots."
"Also that."
Jay turned fully onto her side, facing Alexia. Her hand came up and found Alexia's cheek in the dark with the ease of long practice, thumb brushing slowly over the skin just beneath her eye. The touch was familiar enough to settle Alexia immediately and tender enough to make the fear rise again.
"How are you feeling?" Jay asked.
Alexia gave the automatic answer before she could stop it. "Fine."
Jay's thumb paused.
"Ale."
Alexia breathed out.
She could have insisted. She had done that for most of her life. Fine was a useful word, a captain's word, a word that closed doors and kept other people from crowding the room. But this was not a day for locking Jay outside. Jay was not asking as a spectator. She was in the centre of it too, even if the procedure would happen to Alexia's body.
"I feel..." Alexia searched for the shape of it. "Aware."
Jay waited.
"Ready, but not calm. Strange inside."
"Strange how?"
Alexia looked past Jay towards the faint outline of the wardrobe, the chair, the curtains. "Like today is already a memory and it has not happened yet."
Jay went very still.
Not the anxious stillness this time.
The recognised one.
"That's exactly it," she said quietly.
Alexia shifted closer until their knees touched beneath the duvet. "You?"
Jay made a small sound, somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. "I feel like my body wants to run, cry, make breakfast, reread the folder, call Marta to confirm the confirmed confirmation, and fight God if necessary, all at the same time."
"Normal Tuesday for you."
"Rude." Jay leaned forward and kissed Alexia's forehead. "Accurate, but rude."
Alexia smiled.
Jay's hand slipped from her cheek into her hair, fingers moving gently against her scalp. "I need you to tell me what you need today."
"I will."
"No. Actually tell me." Jay lifted her head enough to look at her properly. "Don't manage me. Don't manage the room. Don't do captain face and decide it's easier if you become a beautiful Spanish statue while quietly having a crisis."
Alexia narrowed her eyes. "Beautiful Spanish statue?"
"Compliment first. Concern second."
"You have made rules."
"Yes."
"For my procedure day."
Jay's expression softened. "Our procedure day."
Alexia felt the correction land gently but firmly between them. It mattered. Not because Jay was trying to claim her body or take something from her, but because she needed to belong inside the process. Needed not to stand politely outside the doorway of something that would make them mothers together.
Alexia nodded. "Our procedure day."
Jay kissed her once, pleased. "Rules still stand."
"Your rules are usually dramatic."
"These are excellent."
"What are they?"
Jay shifted onto one elbow, suddenly very serious. "Rule one, you tell me what you need. Rule two, I can provide anything I notice before you say it, within reason, and without making you feel like you're being assessed by airport security."
Alexia's mouth twitched.
"Rule three," Jay continued, "if you say you're fine in the suspicious tone, I'm allowed to ask once more."
"The suspicious tone?"
"You have one."
“I do not."
"You absolutely do. It's very elegant and extremely false."
Alexia looked unimpressed.
Jay continued before she could argue. "Rule four, no unnecessary Googling by either party, mainly me. Rule five, we eat breakfast."
"You added breakfast as a fertility rule?"
"Blood sugar is infrastructure."
"Dios mío."
"Rule six, if either of us cries, we don't make it weird."
"You always make crying weird."
"Incorrect. I make crying British, which is different."
Alexia laughed despite herself, and Jay smiled immediately, the private triumphant smile she always wore when she managed to make Alexia laugh on a morning that felt too large.
"Accept the rules," Jay said.
Alexia sighed dramatically. "Vale."
Jay looked delighted. "Vale."
Then she kissed her again, slower this time.
It was not hungry or urgent. It was the kind of kiss that gave the morning somewhere to begin, soft and warm and unhurried, Jay's hand still in Alexia's hair, Alexia's palm settling against the steady beat of Jay's heart beneath her T shirt. They stayed there for a long moment, breathing each other in, allowing the fear to exist without letting it take the whole room.
When Jay pulled back, she rested her forehead against Alexia's.
"Breakfast," she whispered.
"You are very committed to infrastructure."
“Sexy, isn't it?"
"No."
"You're lying."
"A little."
Jay grinned and got out of bed.
Alexia remained beneath the duvet and listened to the house wake around her. The coffee machine began first, then the cupboard doors, the faint clink of plates, the fridge opening, the low mutter of Jay talking to herself in the kitchen. Normally Jay's morning routine had the logic of a pinball machine. She moved from task to task according to an internal system visible only to her, starting coffee, forgetting coffee, feeding the cats they did not own in theory because she had once left tuna outside for a stray and now considered herself part of a neighbourhood welfare programme, returning to coffee, opening the wrong drawer, remembering three unrelated things at once.
This morning was different.
There was intention in the sounds.
Quiet efficiency.
The kind that revealed how much Jay cared because she was pouring every restless piece of herself into the act of making the morning gentle.
Alexia stayed in bed because she had accepted the rules, and because there was something unexpectedly tender in allowing herself to be looked after without managing the edges of it.
Jay returned carrying a tray.
An actual tray.
The wooden one they had bought months earlier at a market because Alexia said it was beautiful and Jay, after holding it for half a second, had declared, "This is dangerous. This is how people become tray people." They had bought it anyway, of course, and then almost never used it because Jay preferred carrying too many mugs at once in her hands like a circus act with no insurance.
Now the tray held two coffees, toast from the good bakery, a glass of water, a small bowl of yoghurt, and a mango sliced exactly the way Alexia liked it.
Alexia stared at the mango.
Jay froze.
"Don't."
"I have not said anything."
"You looked emotional."
"It is mango."
"It's a significant mango."
"Fruit cannot be significant."
Jay carried the tray to the bedside table with great care. "That's where you're wrong."
Alexia looked at her.
Jay climbed back onto the bed beside her, suddenly shy beneath the humour. "You've wanted mango all week. I bought it yesterday in case you wanted it this morning. I didn't know if you would, because your body has become a mystery with excellent cheekbones, but I wanted it to be available."
Alexia's eyes stung immediately.
Ridiculous.
Completely ridiculous.
She had stood in front of cameras after devastating losses with dry eyes. She had taken questions after injuries, finals, pressure, public scrutiny, the endless demands of being Alexia Putellas in rooms that wanted strength more than truth. Yet Jay buying a mango the day before just in case she wanted it had pushed something soft and perilous beneath her ribs.
Jay pointed at her. "You're going to cry about mango."
"I am not crying about mango."
"You're very close."
"I am having a normal emotional response to fruit."
"That sentence is not helping your defence."
Alexia looked away because if she continued looking at Jay's face, she absolutely would cry about mango, and she refused to give Jay that kind of material on The Day.
Jay touched her chin gently and turned her face back. "You can cry about anything today, baby. Mango included."
Alexia let out a wet laugh that she immediately resented. "You are annoying."
"I'm deeply supportive."
“You are staring."
"I am checking."
"You can check without staring."
"No, I check visually. It's part of the system."
"The system has too many parts."
"The system loves you."
Alexia took Jay's face between both hands and kissed her.
Jay softened instantly, one hand closing around Alexia's wrist as though she needed somewhere to hold on. The kiss was brief because breakfast existed and because the day was already too full to rush through, but it steadied them both.
They ate in bed.
Jay watched Alexia eat the mango with such profound satisfaction that Alexia eventually paused with a piece halfway to her mouth and said, "You are proud of yourself."
"I selected well."
"It is mango, Jay."
"I assessed ripeness by feel, smell and emotional potential."
"Mangoes do not have emotional potential."
"This one did. Look at you."
"I am going to ban this conversation from the conception story."
Jay leaned back against the pillows, holding her coffee with both hands. "You can try, but if this works, the mango becomes historically relevant."
"Our child will not hear the sentence, 'First, there was a mango.'"
"It has a mythic quality."
"It has a restraining order quality."
Jay grinned into her mug.
They talked about ordinary things because ordinary things made extraordinary days survivable. Jay described a video Lucy had sent of a toddler trying to kick a football and falling over with such dramatic betrayal that Jay had diagnosed "early midfield energy."
After breakfast, Alexia showered.
When she came out wrapped in a towel, hair wet and skin warm from the water, her clothes were laid out neatly on the bed. Soft trousers. Comfortable shirt. The bra that did not annoy her. Socks folded as if Jay had briefly become a hotel employee. Even the underwear was the pair Alexia would have chosen herself, which should not have moved her because it was only underwear, but The Day had apparently made her defenceless against domestic competence.
Jay stood in the doorway, suddenly very interested in the ceiling.
Alexia looked at the clothes, then at her.
"You laid these out."
"I guessed."
"You guessed correctly guapa.”
"Good."
Alexia walked towards her slowly, the towel tucked securely beneath her arms. Jay's gaze remained with unnatural commitment on the wall behind her.
"You are doing rule two," Alexia said.
Jay blinked. "What?"
"Noticing before I say."
"Oh." She rubbed the back of her neck. "Yeah. Is that okay?"
Alexia reached her and touched her fingers to the front of Jay's T shirt. "It is very okay, guapa."
Jay finally looked at her.
Whatever she saw in Alexia's face made her expression soften immediately, all nervous brightness falling away into something quieter. Alexia leaned up and kissed her, slow enough that Jay's hand found her waist beneath the towel by instinct and then immediately froze as if her self control had remembered the importance of context.
Alexia smiled against her mouth. "You can touch me."
"I know." Jay's voice had gone low. "I'm being respectful."
"You look like you are defusing a bomb."
"You came out in a towel on The Day. My nervous system has departments arguing."
Alexia laughed and kissed her again because flustered Jay was one of the great privileges of her life.
They left the house just after ten.
The drive to the clinic was quieter than the first appointment, but not heavy. Jay put music on low, soft enough that it did not compete with the morning, and her hand found Alexia's over the centre console before they reached the end of the street. Alexia watched Barcelona pass in flashes of light and movement, bakeries opening, shutters halfway raised, people stepping around delivery vans, a man carrying flowers under one arm while shouting into his phone as if romance and conflict had made an appointment for the same hour.
"Talk to me," Jay said.
Alexia turned slightly. "About what?"
"Anything. Whatever is in your head. Unless it is terrifying, in which case still tell me but perhaps begin gently."
Alexia looked out through the windscreen.
“I am thinking that if this works, they will never know this drive."
Jay's hand tightened.
"They will know the city," Alexia continued. "They may know this road one day. They may pass the clinic and not know. Not unless we tell them. To them, the morning will be a story, not a memory."
Jay was quiet for a moment.
Then she lifted Alexia's hand and kissed her knuckles. "We'll remember it for them."
Alexia looked at her.
"We'll remember the drive," Jay said. "The mango. The fact I almost took the wrong turning because I was thinking about whether babies can sense vibes from before conception."
Alexia stared.
Jay glanced at her quickly. "Can they?"
"No."
"You say that confidently."
"I say it because they do not exist yet."
"Right. Good point."
Alexia shook her head, but she was smiling.
"We'll tell them," Jay continued, voice softening. "When they're old enough. Not dramatically. Not like, gather round children, your origin story begins with clinical paperwork and your mother emotionally bonded with tropical fruit. Just... this was the morning we went to try for you."
Alexia's throat tightened.
"I cried about mango in this version?"
"You emotionally approached mango."
"Do not make mango central."
"No promises."
At the clinic, Marta was waiting for them.
She greeted them with the same calm warmth, her face lighting with recognition in a way that felt personal without becoming too much. "How are we today?"
"Good," Alexia said.
Jay nodded. "Good."
Marta looked at Jay for one second longer.
"Also nervous?"
Jay opened her mouth.
Alexia squeezed her hand.
Jay closed her mouth again and sighed. "Yes."
Marta smiled. "Very normal."
"I wasn't going to lie," Jay said.
Alexia murmured, "You were absolutely going to lie."
“I was going to emotionally edit."
"That is lying with stationery."
Marta laughed softly. "Come through."
The room was different this time.
More clinical, but still warm. A chair for Jay. A place for Alexia. Soft lighting. Clean surfaces. The same careful effort to make the space gentle without pretending it was not medical. Alexia appreciated that more than she expected. She did not want false softness. She wanted competence with warmth. Marta had both.
Marta explained everything again, step by step.
What would happen.
How long it would take.
What discomfort might feel like.
What they would do afterwards.
When testing would make sense.
What not to over interpret.
Alexia listened, though she had read the information many times. Hearing Marta say it aloud steadied the abstract knowledge into something held by another person's calm.
Jay stood beside her.
Too still.
Alexia could feel the energy in her contained so tightly that it almost vibrated. Jay's hand remained in hers, warm and strong, thumb moving slowly across the back of Alexia's fingers. Her whole body angled towards Alexia, not crowding her, not taking over, simply present with such fierce attention that Alexia could feel herself leaning into it without meaning to.
When Marta finished, she asked, "Any questions before we begin?"
Jay inhaled.
Alexia said, "Tab seven."
Jay froze.
Marta looked between them.
"It is a short tab," Jay said.
"We can ask afterwards."
"There are only two questions."
"Afterwards."
Jay turned her head. Alexia held her gaze, calm and firm.
This was part of the rules too. Not the written ones, but the real ones beneath them. Jay could prepare. Jay could care. Jay could be Jay. But she also had to let the moment happen without turning it into a meeting.
Jay exhaled slowly.
"Afterwards."
Marta nodded with admirable seriousness. "I'll be available afterwards for tab seven."
Jay pointed at her. "Thank you."
Alexia whispered, "You have infected Marta."
"Preparedness is contagious."
The procedure was as Marta promised.
Quick.
Straightforward.
Not nothing.
Alexia realised that very clearly as it happened. Anything involving the body and hope was never nothing. It could be simple without being small. It could be medically routine and emotionally enormous at the same time. She breathed through it, eyes on the ceiling, one hand locked around Jay's.
Jay's hand became the whole room.
The pressure of her fingers.
The warm sweep of her thumb.
The way she leaned down once and kissed Alexia's temple without asking a question.
Alexia focused on that. Not the ceiling. Not the clinical details. Not the possibility of failure. Jay's hand. Jay's breathing. Jay beside her, steady despite whatever storm was taking place behind her eyes.
When it was done, Marta's voice came gently.
"That's it."
Alexia breathed out.
Jay leaned down at once, mouth brushing her temple again. "You okay?"
"Sí."
"Pain?"
"No. Just strange."
"Good strange or bad strange?"
Alexia thought about it.
"Important strange."
Jay kissed her cheek. "You were brilliant."
"It was not a match."
"You were brilliant."
"I lay there."
"Brilliantly."
"Jay."
"I'm recording it officially."
"In the folder?"
"There will be a note."
"No."
"Yes. The Day. Alexia brilliant. Mango successful. Tab seven deferred under protest."
Alexia laughed softly and closed her eyes.
For a moment, she allowed herself simply to exist there, in the quiet after. No certainty. No answer. No change she could feel. Yet something had been attempted. They had walked through a door together, and even if they later had to walk through it again, this first time would remain.
Marta gave the aftercare information again, the waiting period, when testing would make sense, what symptoms did and did not mean, when to call. Jay asked the tab seven questions afterwards, and they were good questions. Alexia let her ask them because today the folder was not a shield or a form of control. It was Jay's love trying to put its hands somewhere useful without crowding the room.
When they stepped outside, Tuesday afternoon met them as if nothing extraordinary had happened.
The sun had risen higher. The city had warmed into itself. Traffic moved through the street. People walked by carrying groceries, handbags, takeaway coffees, phones held to their ears. A cyclist shouted at a taxi. A delivery driver laughed with someone outside a café. Ordinary life continued with almost insulting confidence, completely unaware that Alexia had just stepped back into the world possibly, maybe, impossibly at the very beginning of carrying their child.
Jay stood beside her on the pavement.
For once, she did not speak immediately.
Alexia looked at her. "You are quiet."
Jay nodded.
"That is suspicious."
"I'm full."
Alexia's expression softened. "Full?"
"Too much feeling. No storage."
That almost undid her.
Alexia reached for Jay's face and drew her closer. "How do you feel?"
Jay looked at her for a moment, eyes bright in the sunlight. "Like something happened today that I will remember forever, even if it doesn't work this time. Even if we have to come back. Today happened. We tried."
Alexia's eyes stung again.
The mango had weakened her permanently.
"We do not know yet," she said quietly.
“I know."
"It may not work first time."
"I know."
"We may have to do this again."
"Then we do it again."
"And again."
"As many times as it takes," Jay said. "Or until we decide together that we need to pause, or change direction, or breathe. But I'm here. Every appointment. Every result. Every weird symptom you Google and then pretend you didn't. Every mango. Every tab. I'm here."
Alexia looked at her, this impossible woman who had spent so much of her life believing love was something people left behind, standing on a pavement in Barcelona promising to stay through uncertainty.
Every day, Alexia thought.
Every day Jay made her fall in love with her again.
Sometimes it was dramatic. Sometimes it was Jay outside a clinic with emotion bright in her eyes. Sometimes it was a mango sliced before breakfast. Sometimes it was the way she touched Alexia's hand in a medical room and made the room feel less clinical. Sometimes it was an overfilled folder with too many tabs and a donor number that had once had a star.
Alexia kissed her.
Right there outside the clinic, because Jay was looking at her like that and because some days became too large for privacy. Jay kissed back with both hands settling at Alexia's waist, careful and warm and completely hers. It was not a kiss for anyone watching. It was contact. Gratitude. Fear. Hope. The strange intimacy of having done something no one else could fully understand from the outside.
When Alexia pulled back, Jay kept their foreheads together.
"Lunch," Jay whispered.
Alexia laughed. "You always say lunch when you are emotional."
"Food is grounding."
"You are using lunch to avoid crying."
“I may cry into patatas bravas. That is between me and the potatoes."
Alexia kissed her again, smaller this time. "The place I like?"
"The place you like."
"You know its name."
"I do. But the place you like means I know you like it because I pay attention."
Alexia's chest tightened.
"Every day," she said.
Jay blinked. "What?"
"Every day you make me fall in love with you again."
Jay's face opened, vulnerable and almost startled. "Ale."
"Every day," Alexia repeated. "The mango. The car. The folder. Standing beside me in there. Even tab seven, though it was annoying."
"Tab seven was emotionally relevant."
"It was," Alexia admitted.
Jay looked overwhelmed. "You can't say things like that outside clinics."
"Why?"
"Because I have limited emotional storage."
Alexia placed her hand against Jay's chest. "Put it here."
Jay covered Alexia's hand with hers and held it there.
For a moment, neither moved. The city continued around them, bright and indifferent. Inside Alexia's body there was nothing they could know yet. No certainty. No answer. No promise. Only the beginning of possibility, delicate and terrifying, held between them like something neither dared grip too tightly.
Jay took her hand.
They walked towards lunch with their fingers linked, shoulders brushing, Jay pressing kisses to Alexia's temple at crossings and Alexia muttering, "Dios mío, enough," with absolutely no conviction. The folder was tucked beneath Jay's arm this time, safe against her side, and every few minutes Jay touched it as though checking the future had not fallen out.
Halfway down the street, Jay said, "So we agree we don't test early."
Alexia looked at her. "We agree."
"Because early testing is chaos."
"Sí."
"And we are not chaos."
Alexia stopped walking.
Jay stopped too. "What?"
“We are absolutely chaos."
"We are structured chaos."
"You had a folder called Emotional Variables."
Jay looked wounded. "That section was private."
"It was not a section. It was a cry for help with dividers."
"It had good formatting."
Alexia laughed and pulled Jay close by the front of her jacket. "You are ridiculous, guapa."
Jay's smile softened. "You love it."
"I love you."
"That too."
Alexia kissed her again because she could, because the pavement was warm beneath them and the day had become enormous, because Jay was frightened and brave and funny and hers. Jay kissed back with a small, quiet sound of happiness, one hand sliding to Alexia's lower back while the other kept the folder tucked securely under her arm like sacred paperwork.
When they separated, Alexia glanced down at it. "Do not add a tab for the two week wait."
Jay's silence was damning.
"Jay."
"It might help."
"No."
"A symptom tracker."
“No."
"A mood tracker."
"Absolutely not."
"A mango consumption tracker?"
Alexia stared at her.
Jay grinned. "That one was a joke."
"Was it?"
"Mostly."
Alexia shook her head and started walking again, pulling Jay with her. "No early tests. No symptom tracker. No telling Mapi."
Jay gasped. "I was not going to tell Mapi."
"You were thinking of telling Mapi."
"I was thinking she has strong energy for secrets."
"She has terrible energy for secrets."
"True. She'd stare at your stomach every three seconds and shout, 'I am not looking.'"
"Exactly."
"Lucy?"
"No."
"Keira?"
"No."
"Your mother?"
Alexia hesitated.
Jay noticed, because Jay always noticed.
Alexia sighed. "Not yet."
"Okay," Jay said immediately.
No argument.
No push.
Alexia looked at her. "You don't mind?"
"I mind because I want the entire world to know we did something brave today," Jay said. "But what I want more is whatever feels safe for you."
Alexia had to look away because the tears were back again, threatening over a sentence that did not even contain fruit.
Jay squeezed her hand. "Emotionally approaching again?"
"No."
"You are."
"I am walking."
"You can emotionally approach while walking."
"I hate you."
"No, you don't."
"No." Alexia leaned into her side as they walked. "No, I do not."
They reached the restaurant Jay always called the place you like and sat outside beneath a striped awning. Jay ordered for them in Spanish, concentrating so hard on the words that the waiter looked charmed before Alexia had even finished being proud. She stumbled once, glanced towards Alexia in panic, and Alexia slipped into Spanish smoothly, correcting with a soft apology that made Jay stare at her mouth with open admiration.
When the waiter left, Alexia lifted an eyebrow. "You are staring."
"I like when you do that."
"Correct your Spanish?"
"Rescue me in Spanish." Jay leaned back, eyes warm. "Very attractive."
"You are impossible."
"And yet chosen for reproductive destiny."
Alexia closed her eyes. "I should never have said that drunk."
"You absolutely should have. It was one of your best speeches."
"I had one shoe."
"Exactly. Iconic."
"You are not telling the baby this story."
"I am telling the baby a carefully edited version."
"No."
"Once upon a time, your mum came home with one shoe and a dream."
Alexia laughed into her hand. "Dios mío, Jay."
"And your other mum, brave and medically confused, said, 'That's not how it works, babe.'"
"I hate this already."
"But then there was mango and tabs and Donor 0203, who briefly had a gold star before your mum censored my appreciation."
Alexia pointed at her. "Do not make our child's conception sound like a football transfer."
Jay grinned. "A very loved football transfer."
Alexia looked at her across the table, sunlight catching in Jay's hair, tattoos bright along her arms, folder balanced on the chair beside her because she refused to place it on the floor. Jay was smiling, but beneath the smile Alexia could see the same fear from the car, the same old ache that lived behind so many of Jay's jokes. Only now it was threaded through with hope.
Alexia reached across the table.
Jay took her hand at once.
For a while they sat like that, fingers linked over the table, the city moving around them and lunch arriving in small plates between them. They ate slowly. Jay created a ranking of possible first words, placing "goal" above "mama" until Alexia threatened to leave her at the restaurant. Alexia caught Jay rereading the aftercare leaflet beneath the table and confiscated it without negotiation.
"I was casually reviewing."
"You do nothing casually except flirt with danger and forget laundry."
"That is unfair."
"You forgot laundry yesterday."
"I remembered eventually."
"It was wet for nine hours."
"It was marinating."
"It was suffering."
Jay opened her mouth, then closed it. "Fine. Fair."
After lunch, they walked back to the car slowly, in no rush to leave the day behind. Jay kept touching her. Hand at her back. Fingers around hers. A kiss to her hair while they waited at crossings. Alexia let herself receive all of it. Let herself lean. Let herself be loved without managing the edges.
In the car, before Jay started the engine, Alexia placed one hand over her lower stomach.
It was still flat.
Still the same.
Nothing visible.
Nothing certain.
Jay noticed and went utterly still.
Alexia looked down at her own hand, then at Jay. "Maybe nothing."
Jay covered her hand with hers.
"Maybe something," she whispered.
Alexia nodded.
"Maybe something."
They sat like that in the parked car, palms layered over Alexia's body, the folder on the back seat, Barcelona bright beyond the windscreen. It was too early for anything. Too early for signs, too early for knowing, too early for celebration, too early for grief. But not too early for love. Love had been early from the beginning, arriving before certainty, before plans, before either of them knew what shape their courage would have to take.
Jay leaned across the console and kissed Alexia softly.
"Whatever happens," she said against her mouth.
"Whatever happens," Alexia echoed.
"We do it together."
"Sí, bebé. Together."
Jay kissed her once more, then started the car.
On the drive home, Alexia rested her head against the seat and held Jay's hand over the console. Jay kept the music low. Neither of them spoke much, but every few minutes Jay lifted Alexia's hand to her mouth and kissed it, as if checking she was still there, as if saying the things words could not hold.
When they got home, Jay carried the folder inside and placed it carefully on the kitchen counter.
Alexia watched her.
"You know," she said, "you can put it down like normal paper."
Jay looked offended. "This is not normal paper."
"It is clinic information."
"It is possible baby paperwork."
"Possible baby paperwork," Alexia repeated, smiling.
Jay nodded gravely. "Sacred documents."
Alexia crossed the kitchen, slipped her arms around Jay's waist from behind and pressed her cheek between Jay's shoulder blades. Jay covered Alexia's hands with hers.
"Thank you," Alexia said softly.
Jay's body stilled. "For what?"
"For today. For the mango. For the car. For not asking tab seven until after. For choosing with me. For wanting this enough to learn Spanish lullabies badly."
Jay turned in her arms. "They won't be bad."
"They will be a little bad."
"They'll be heartfelt."
"That, sí."
Jay's eyes softened. "Thank you for letting me be there."
Alexia frowned. "Letting you?"
Jay shrugged one shoulder, old fear passing over her face so quickly it almost disappeared. "You know what I mean."
Alexia did know.
She hated that she knew.
She took Jay's face in both hands. "You are not a guest in this, amor."
Jay's throat moved.
"You are not helping me have a baby," Alexia continued. "We are trying to have our baby. Ours. Every appointment, every paper, every tab, every mango, every ridiculous Spanish lesson. You are in the centre of this with me."
Jay's eyes brightened.
Alexia switched into Spanish because the feeling became too large for English, the words warm and certain on her tongue. "Estás conmigo. Siempre. ¿Me escuchas? No estás fuera. No eres extra. Eres su madre también, desde el principio."
Jay did not understand every word.
Alexia saw the exact moment she caught enough to break.
Jay blinked hard. "From the beginning?"
"From the beginning," Alexia said in English. "Always."
Jay pulled her in.
The kiss that followed was slow and deep and full of everything the day had asked them to carry. It was not softened for a clinic pavement or careful for public eyes. It was home. Alexia melted into it, hands sliding into Jay's hair, body pressed close, her heart a wild thing beneath her ribs. Jay kissed her like she was accepting something. Like she was promising something. Like she was terrified and grateful and fully there.
When they finally separated, Jay rested her forehead against hers.
"I'm going to learn the lullabies."
Alexia smiled. "Sí?"
"Yes."
"And no Mapi."
Jay hesitated.
"Jay."
"No Mapi."
"And no secret early tests."
"Agreed."
"And no two week wait tab."
Jay opened her mouth.
Alexia pointed at her. "No."
Jay shut her mouth.
A moment passed.
"What about a very small note?"
"No."
"A feelings note?"
"No."
“A mango inventory?"
Alexia tried to remain stern.
She really did.
But Jay's face was too pleased with itself, and the day had been too big, and the sacred documents were sitting on the counter with possible baby paperwork inside them, and the whole house seemed full of maybe.
Alexia laughed.
Jay grinned, catching her hand and kissing her palm. "You love my infrastructure."
"I love you."
"Same thing."
"No."
“A little."
Alexia shook her head and pulled Jay back into her arms.
They stood in the kitchen for a long time, wrapped around each other in the golden quiet of late afternoon. Outside, the city carried on. Inside, the folder rested on the counter, the mango knife sat in the sink, and somewhere beyond certainty, beyond timing, beyond everything they could control, a beginning waited.
For now, there was only this.
Jay's arms around her.
Alexia's cheek against Jay's chest.
The silence after a huge day.
And the almost unbearable tenderness of maybe.
