Chapter 58: Build Up to Breakdown

[theladyholl]

Author: TheLadyHoll
Pairing: Andy/Miranda
Rating: M
Disclaimer: Yes, they are mine. I own them. Come to me my pretties and dance, DANCE I SAY. Or, more truthfully, not...



New Year, New Resolution to have 2019 be the year to finish this thing!! If you're still reading this, you have my deep and sincere gratitude. Truly, writing seems to be the only place I can scrounge up positive affirmation, and I crave it like a drug.

Merry Belated Christmas! Please enjoy my belated Christmas gift. I'd love to hear your thoughts, trying to keep it real. Xoxo - Holly

‘Two P’s in a Pod - Perfect, Priestly Preemies. These are the details we’ve come to know so far regarding the two newest additions to the Priestly family. Earlier this year it was discovered that Andy Sachs, Miranda’s former assistant had taken up with the fiercest fashionista, not long before a second surprising announcement came that confirmed what we had thought were far-fetched rumours. That Ice Queen, Miranda Priestly had defrosted long enough to conceive twins, for a second time, at 50.

Despite Mama  #2’s heartfelt declaration, rumours still abound that there’s something amiss…’ Andy put down the paper as Miranda walked into the kitchen, the younger woman had already been up for hours despite not having slept well last night which was strange, Andy always slept well when she fell asleep with Miranda in her arms. She sighed inwardly as she read the older woman’s body language as she entered the kitchen, and knew she had her work cut out for her. This distance, this coldness was so strange even as it was a part of the editor she had to navigate on a frequent basis. But almost never when they slept.

That Andy didn’t understand. At night she let Andy touch her. Was it the darkness that allowed Miranda to seek comfort under the black of night, with no one to see her, not even Andy? She wished more than anything she could pull Miranda into her arms as freely as she had last night, tightly against her and kiss her until she remembered who she was again. Andy felt like she needed that reminder too. She missed ‘her’ Miranda, and if it hadn’t been for the long week spent in the hospital following the birth of the babies, Andy would have feared that it had been the pregnancy that made the editor imagine feelings for her. But the indignity, as Miranda saw it, of healing from childbirth had only encouraged a deeper intimacy than even the pregnancy had brought. Andy had never felt so many different emotions, and so much of them as the night their children had been born and Andy had watched over Miranda as finally, finally, Miranda had fallen into a fitful sleep - her exhaustion and the pain meds beating out the pain of the residual contractions and labial tear. All night she had watched Miranda, vigilant as she told herself that if she was watching the monitors, nothing bad would appear on them. She couldn’t face the fact that the indomitable woman asleep in her arms at that moment had almost died before she had even had the chance to meet the babies she was and remained, willing to die for.

She had four children. She had never known the kind of pain required to bring life into the world and yet she had been gifted with the four beautiful babies her wife to be had grown and carried under her heart. Her heart was more full than it had ever been, even never having given birth, but it ached still for those beautiful babies and their beautiful mother who seemed still to be going through the pain of delivery. More than anything she wanted that intimacy back. Now more than ever they, or at least Andy, needed that connection to deal with the difficulties they were facing with the babies, and Miranda’s health. Not to mention her beautiful girls who were hurting too.

She’d made an emergency call to the only other resource she had available to her when it came to Miranda, but the consolation was hollow as she had tried to explain what was happening to the older man.

“Six, I don’t know what to tell you. I wish I did. Kid, you know I worship the woman but only you have ever gotten even the slightest bit close to breaching those walls that were shored up over the years by ill-gotten and ill-fated relationships. But remember, you’re the same woman Miranda fell in love with the first time. Give her time and she’ll remember that too. Shoot, I’ve got to go. One of the models is down. Remind me to kill Giuseppe for designing spikes that high. That’s the second Zanotti casualty this week. Take care of her Six, and take care of yourself. You’re still the same woman.”

“But Nigel, what if…” Andy was too late though, the older man had hung up suddenly a la Miranda.

“What if she’s not the same woman who fell in love with me?” Andy still whispered her question into the phone, needing the catharsis of giving voice to her fears. But there was no one to convince her otherwise, not least Miranda.

Every move Miranda made, made Andy want to wince. She could read the older woman’s body language so clearly and could read the pain in her movements. It was a good thing Andy had learned how to interpret the editor’s body language, because her current voice was too calm, too measured to be an accurate descriptor of whatever feelings existed under the steely exterior she had once been able to penetrate.

Instead Andy relied on her journalistic skills of acute observation to try and navigate Miranda’s moods, even if it was just enough so that she could respond to her most basic needs and physical symptoms.

For instance now, as Andy watched Miranda enter the kitchen, her mind was already working a million miles an hour as she tried to figure out how best to initiate contact.

The editor was still moving slowly, and to anyone else Miranda’s movements would have simply appeared elegant and deliberate, but Andy could read the strain in the lines of the older woman’s face, and could see so clearly the tension in her shoulders that seemed nearly at breaking point.

Quickly but carefully scanning the other woman, Andy picked up other details. Even underneath her clothing, Andy could see Miranda had foregone the nursing bra she detested so much and had somehow fit herself into a delicate La Perla piece that in no way offered enough support or cushioning now that Miranda’s milk had come in. Maybe she was trying to appear unchanged for the girls? They were due to arrive in an hour or so and Miranda had largely stayed silent when Andy had tried to bring up the subject of their visit.

Andy nearly burned a hole in the other woman’s shirt as she stared, wondering if they were still as sensitive as they had been the last few days they had been in the hospital when she had faithfully applied cold compresses between feedings and pumping, trying to make Miranda as comfortable as possible as her body adjusted to supporting two infants now outside the womb. Now she felt she couldn’t even ask.

“Ah!” Miranda’s breath caught as Andy lay the cold washcloth across her chest, her nipples stiffening painfully before registering the cooling sensation that lessened the burning and leaking several drops of milk. Andy winced with her, “sorry, sorry!” She caught herself from worrying her lip with her teeth. Far from getting a break after the traumatic delivery, Miranda still seemed to be suffering unduly. She had hoped, and maybe that was where she had gone wrong, that Miranda would bounce back after the birth to her old self. Huh, now she thought it ‘out loud’ in her head she realized it did sound ridiculous. Of course she couldn’t expect Miranda to be her old self 48 hours after a premature delivery. She was just so goddamn grateful to have Miranda at all. She thought back to the labour itself, how Miranda had tried to prepare herself, and to prepare Andy for her death. She thought she was going to die. All those months of physical and mental toil, and she thought they would be her last. But she had survived.

She had survived. The memories and words echoed in Andy’s head so that she almost missed the words Miranda was speaking in the present as she poured herself a cup of coffee and pressed the lever to steam the milk.

“I believe I’ll stay home today, until the girls arrive. I…want to be here and rested for their visit. And traipsing across the city and that vacuous facility, I don’t believe is conducive to that goal.” Andy’s tired brain tried to decipher the Miranda speak, but it had given out on her. She was surprised, but she shrugged it off. Miranda knew her own body better than anyone else. If she was actually agreeing to rest, Andy wasn’t going to argue.

Disappearing into her study until the doorbell rang several hours later, Miranda looked highly uncomfortable for the entire duration of the girls’ visit, and by the end Andy was ready to scream. She knew the twins sensed it too, which was the worst thing of all. They needed to be reminded that they were the most important thing, and while Miranda wasn’t cold, none of the natural maternal instinct Andy had come to expect when it came to her Miranda and their children, seemed to be showing through, which didn’t make sense, not in the slightest.

“Thank you so much for being good while we’re back and forth at the hospital. We’re telling the babies about their big sisters all the time.”

“Andy, if Caro and I made a voice recording and sent it to you on your phone, would you play it for the babies?”

“We want them to remember our voices, since we talked to them all the time when they were inside mom.”

“I think that’s a great idea you guys. They’re probably sick of me and your mom’s voice by now.”

“When can we meet them?”

Andy’s heart hurt. She wanted all the loves of her life under one roof more than anything, and for that roof NOT to be the hospital.

“Soon baby,” Andy promised, hoping time wouldn’t make her a liar. Praying that it wouldn’t.

“Andy,” the child’s voice came as a whisper in her ear. “Is something the matter with mom? Is she still sick? I thought having the babies out was supposed to make her better?”

Crap, Andy had to quickly swallow back the lump in her throat that rose because of sadness and anger. Both of which inherently were linked to Miranda, goddammit.

“I know she seems a little different, but it takes some time to feel normal again after you have a baby. She’s going to be fine, and it has nothing to do with you, or the babies.”

“Okay, I guess”, came the quiet mumble into her shoulder. “Love you, mama.”

Andy swallowed back a second lump hearing Caroline call her mama now seemingly out of the blue, knowing she was doing so because she felt insecure. Damn! And if she didn’t blame Miranda for it.

After having been made to stay a little more than a week in the intensive care unit of the obstetrics ward, Andy understood the older woman’s need to readjust to life at home and regain some sense of normalcy before returning to the hospital where so much had happened over the course of the last few days. As it was though, she was leaving just outside the spectrum of the doctor’s qualifying her departure as AMA and voicing their desire for keeping her longer. And something had happened to Miranda once they had left the hospital. She had put up her usual shields to protect herself from scrutiny by the public and paparazzi, but she had also seemingly put up those shields around Andy, something the younger woman hadn’t had to navigate since before Paris, the first Paris. Even worse, Miranda seemed to be distancing herself from the babies. Far from her near constant presence in the NICU over the last week at all hours of the day, Andy watched in horror as Miranda declined to go to the hospital on another day, instead staying home to ‘work’ through a crisis although Andy knew well enough that she had delegated her responsibilities to Nigel, Emily and Serena respectively. After nearly a week of this happening, Andy snapped. She was exhausted from spending all her time at the hospital, exhausted from trying to keep things running as smoothly as possible at home for the girls who were home with them again, and exhausted from being constantly sick with worry over Miranda who was still unwell in addition to being unreasonable. And now, now Miranda was all but refusing to see them and using the breast pump as though it were a way for her to avoid having to see them. Andy could not understand it and she had just about reached breaking point. She had been there, every day, at the hospital since the day Miranda had been admitted, and having since left, talking and bonding with them, apologizing for their mother. Dr. Jansen had found her in tears, rocking their son and finally gotten out of her what was wrong, although she’d had a strong sense of what was amiss when the older woman stopped coming.

“Andy, this isn’t you. It’s not on you. And it’s not Miranda either, because you and I both know the woman who nearly died, and yes, I’ll tell you that now, because I think you can handle it so don’t go losing it on me, died giving life to these babies is not the woman you’re seeing right now. You know that, and Miranda knows it too. I’d bet anything she’s wondering how to get back to herself as well. But what she’s going through right now isn’t too far away from a post-traumatic stress diagnosis. She endured a trauma with the assault, and then finding out she was pregnant by that ass, and another trauma with the pregnancy complications all leading to her delivering a baby without immediate medical supervision in a touch and go labour that ended with two babies that while they aren’t ‘special needs’ in the way that she feared, they are still very much special needs. That’s an awful lot for one person to take.”

“But she doesn’t have to go through it alone! I’m here!” Andy stressed, the lovely face turned upwards towards the other woman in supplication. “I’ve been here since the beginning, why am I no longer enough? Why aren’t these babies enough to pull her out of it?”

“They are more than enough. They are everything, and she feels as though she has tainted them, because of her age, because of the way they were conceived, because of what she feels she has put them through. Believe it or not, this is her way of trying to protect them, from her.”

Andy’s shoulders slumped, and she looked down at the precious, sleeping face that like his sister, so clearly resembled the fine features of their mother and she brushed her lips against the now sleeping baby’s forehead and took one last look at his beeping vitals before transferring him back into the medically decked out bassinet whose monitor dictated how her own heart behaved these days. She loved these babies with an intensity that almost scared her. The only reason she knew she could love that much in the first place was because of their mother.

“So my question is the same as it always has been. How do I protect her?”

A sympathetic look was all she received in return from the OB/GYN and so she prepared to leave her children in the 6th day they would spend without their mother since their birth. Before she left however, she couldn’t help but sneak in one more set of snuggles from the baby girl.

“We’re so excited you’re here. I think you might just be the most loved babies in the entire world, so never think that you’re not enough.” Andy knew she was projecting her own insecurities of not being enough on the infant, but looking into the face of her daughter her fears rose anew. These babies had to be enough to bring Miranda back. After all they had been through, how could they not be?

Andy’s long hair tickled the baby’s face and wide eyes that looked so large in the tiny face blinked back up at her as their owner wriggled. “You probably miss her too, huh. But she’ll come back, I promise. And when she does I know those eyes are immediately going to see the couple ounces you’ve put on since she last saw you. Such big progress for such a tiny girl.” Andy didn’t voice the fact that the last 2 days had seen zero increase on the scale and she wished more than anything that Miranda was there, both for her own morale and to feed the often fussy - wonder where she got that from, baby girl who 5 times out of ten would turn her head away from the proffered bottle and take an ounce or fraction thereof.

Andy’s mind worked feverishly on the ride home, cringing as she passed Roy in silence because she could no more explain Miranda’s absence to him than she could to herself.

Miranda was, as she had expected, in her study rather than resting, going over an unfamiliar folder Andy would bet anything she had had delivered from the office.

Rage, fueled by exhaustion, boiled in her veins as she saw a woman who for all intents and purposes looked supremely unconcerned with anything save for the work in front of her nose, and she was just too damn tired to try and see past it. But still she tried to appeal to Miranda one last time.

“Babies were doing good today. Dr. Jansen said maybe in a week or two Chris might be strong enough for them to attempt his first surgery.”

Miranda raised her eyebrows slightly but otherwise showed no other signs of emotion other thn a distracted ‘Hmm’ as she continued reading and making notes on the pages, not even stopping to tell Andrea as she had a thousand times before, that their son’s name was Christopher, and not to be shortened. What Andy, overtired and emotional, didn’t see was the red pen slip, creating a long ugly mark over the pristine pages, the first time it had ever done so in the twenty-five year span of Miranda’s tenure at Runway and history of editing the Book.

Instead Andy told herself, this must be what all the others saw, what she was too foolish to see, and was only seeing for the first time now.

In a flash, and before she had fully thought her actions through, Andy had grabbed the makeshift book from the desk and ripped the thick pages in half, tearing through the spine and surprising even herself with the violent act of strength.

“There. Do I have your attention now?” She let the halves drop and rubbed her nose before the words started pouring forth, unchecked, as the stress of the last two weeks, the last 9 months actually, broke through the usually gentle nature.

“I hear the nurses talking. Speculating why the woman who had undergone a post-partum haemorrhage and still tried to leave her room to see her babies would suddenly stop coming. I hear them whispering, talking about it, and I don’t know what to say to that, to them! Because that Miranda is not the woman I proposed to, and to whose proposal I agreed. Nor is it the woman who fought tooth and nail for the last eight months to bring our children into the world as safely and healthy as possible. But this? I can’t defend this Miranda because I don’t know what this is. Talk to me, please, just help me understand what you’re going through.”

Rising from her chair Miranda actually ducked under Andrea’s spread arms to try and subvert Andy’s attempts to block the doorway only to gasp as she bent over, holding her side as she slowly straightened. She continued without a word, on to the bedroom and Andy’s fists actually clenched as she tried to restrain herself from helping the other woman. “Do you see? Do you know what that pain was Miranda? That pain is your body healing after nearly killing itself to deliver two live babies when all the facts pointed to their not surviving the pregnancy never even mind the birth itself.”

“Andrea, we have four children, I certainly do not need a fifth throwing tantrums at this point in time.”

But once she had started, she couldn’t stop, so a tantrum she threw. “No! You do NOT get to do this, do you hear me? You do not get to lock yourself away and hide from the world and feel sorry for yourself. You did everything you could to make sure you went as close to term as possible, and you delivered TWO babies even though the odds were against it. So you don’t get to shut down now when they, and when I need you more than ever. I’m sorry if that’s not fair, or you’re tired. I get it, I’m exhausted, and every moment of the day I am terrified that phone is going to ring and it’s going to be the hospital saying something has happened. I promised to never leave you again, and I stand by that. But you, YOU do not get to leave me, not now, not ever - okay?”

Miranda turned to her, and in the space of seconds, eyes that had so recently been dull and void of life filled with indescribable pain as tears spilled down her cheeks and she took a shuddering breath.

“I’m scared, Andrea…all the time”. Her voice was hoarse and her face was turned away now from the brunette. “It feels like knives in my chest every time I breathe, and I’m so tired. I’m just so tired, and the babies need so much. If feels like we’ll never be able to take them home, like we’re only prolonging their suffering or prolonging the inevitable.”

Andy was stunned at what she was hearing. “Hey, hey, who said anything about prolonging their suffering? Miranda you heard Dr. Jansen and the pediatric and NICU specialists.”

“I thought it would destroy me if something happened to them when I was carrying them. But now they’re here, and I’ve held them. I’m not strong enough, I’m not strong enough to lose them now.” The older woman trembled as she spoke, the intensity and desperation in her voice making up for the lack of volume. In fact with Miranda it was always the lack of volume that indicated an increased intensity.

“Miranda, listen to me, you heard the doctors. The babies are going to be fine, they’re getting stronger every day. They’re getting the best medical care in the world at NYP, what they NEED is their mother.”

“You see? You see how I’m failing them already?”

Andy closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She knew what her next question had to be; she’d had her concerns for a little while now, but today’s breakdown was the final straw.

“Miranda?” Andy kept her voice low and soothing as she approached the older woman slowly, careful not to touch her as she could still see the faint tremors in the editor’s body that told her she was still in the throes of a panic attack or whatever other demon held her its grasp.

“Miranda, please, please listen and hear me out sweetheart. I think it’s time we maybe asked Dr. Jansen about the possibility of treatment for post-partum depression…” Andy heard her own entreating words and realized that was likely the worst way she could have handled introducing the subject. Oh God, now she’d done it.

“Am I that difficult to be around? Now that I’m not pregnant and carrying your precious ‘family’, have you decided it’s not worth the effort? Now that you have cracked the shell and become privy to the mess of emotions I have spent years trying to keep below the surface, that I was able to before I met you do you - ”

“Miranda! Stop! My God, listen to yourself! If you can believe that after everything that’s happened that I would still leave you because it ‘got hard’? It’s been hard from the very beginning!” Andy abandoned the even tone she had been trying to maintain in the conversation.

“Be honest with me. Do you feel like yourself? Do you LIKE being this way?”

“But treatment Andrea, and prescriptions and pills. I’m breastfeeding, Andrea. I haven’t taken anything stronger than aspirin since I found out I was pregnant. What kind of mother am I if I can’t feed my children because I can’t get my head on straight? You say I’m not failing these babies now? What does it say that I need to be medicated to be a good mother to my children or that I’m not strong enough to get past this.”

“You ARE a good mother Miranda, the best mother. You would do anything for these babies and you have; the same goes for Cass and Caro. But at the same time, being the best mother means you have to take care of yourself as well, and that’s something you’re just not good at.” Andy moved closer. “Luckily, I happen to be excellent at that.” She tried to inject some humour into the situation, “Aced every single of my Miranda-Care 101 classes.”

“But you shouldn’t HAVE to! Andrea, if we’re to be married you must be more than a caretaker. I”

“Hey, we have to stop the merry-go-round with this topic. We take care of each other. That’s what a marriage is. Besides all the daydreams and roses and fairytale stuff, there’s the hard parts as well. And we’re lucky, or cursed as it might seem, but we KNOW going into this that we’re strong enough to make it through the bad stuff, because a lot has happened already. But you, you need to start believing that I’m here to stay. No matter how difficult or crazy or trying, I’m here.”

“But it will still mean…”

“That you’re human. That you have been through hell and a million ups and downs over the last 9 months… It’s NORMAL to need some help. No one expects you to do it alone except for you.”

Miranda lost it then, as much as Andy had ever seen, giving up the battle and slipping down until she was on the floor with her knees pulled up as close as she could to her chest given her still swollen stomach and she held her hand over her mouth as sobs poured out. Heart-wrenching, real sobs that shook her entire body in a way that Andy had only seen her cry when she was as broken as Andy had ever seen. Andy slowly knelt down beside her, not wanting to startle the distraught woman beside her, and inch by inch she moved her hand until it touched Miranda’s wrist.

Miranda wrenched away from her touch and Andy’s own heart fell, thinking that she had lost the older woman until her arms were suddenly full of Miranda, still sobbing - almost silently but as though her heart would break in a way that Andy had thought she’d never see, except now she buried her face into the younger woman’s shoulder and Andy’s own heart released everything it had been holding. The flow of her own tears increased as she thought of the difference between this woman and her Miranda, but loving them equally and wanting so badly to help.

They stayed that way for what seemed like an hour or more until Miranda finally pulled back, her breathing hard as she pressed a hand to her chest, her belly and then to her mouth. Spinning on her knees and ripping her stockings Andy was sure, Miranda crawled with incredible speed into the ensuite bathroom, hanging her head over the toilet and losing what little was in her stomach. Of course she hadn’t eaten anything to speak of…

Andy rose up onto her knees and then stiffly to her feet where she followed Miranda into the bathroom, wetting a cold cloth before kneeling again beside the hunched figure. She had never seen anyone cry until they had thrown up before and she gently ran her hand up and down Miranda’s back, waiting until the awful heaves had finished and handing her Kleenex for her mouth before holding the cold cloth to her forehead and cheeks and neck. Miranda still seemed to be having trouble regulating her breathing so Andy moved in even closer, holding the cloth to Miranda’s forehead before blowing lightly on the back of her neck to ward off the prickling sweat. “It’s alright,” she guided Miranda gently to sit against the bath. “Just breathe. That’s all you have to worry about right now Miranda, just breathe. Feel how nice and cool the tile feels against your skin. Listen to my voice and think about the roughness of the facecloth against your skin, wiping away all the sweat, all the fear and just focus on your breath.” Andy tried desperately to think back to her mindfulness meditations and hoping it didn’t come off as hokey as it sounded in her head, because she definitely wasn’t doing this right. Miranda turned to vomit into the toilet again and again Andy sat beside her, rubbing her back in wide circles and smoothing her hair back from her face as she heaved nothing but bile now into the clear water. Suddenly, Andrea’s touch was gone, but she was soon back with a fresh cloth and a glass of water. “Deep breaths now, just breathe.” Andy smiled. “Sounds kind of familiar, huh? But we have our babies.” Andy took a risk and her hand slipped down from Miranda’s chest to rest lightly on her waist as the older woman continued to take deep breaths. “You got them here safely. Our beautiful, beautiful babies who are missing their mama.” After another few minutes of deep breathing, combined with the familiar comfort of Andrea’s hand on her, Miranda was able to speak again. “They’re better off without me. Caroline and Cassidy were.”

“No!” Andy raised her voice again, stopping herself short of shaking the other woman. “That’s the post-partum depression talking, but you can’t listen to it. Instead, remember how it felt when that baby was placed on your chest that first time. You didn’t care about the mess or whatever that moment looked like to anyone else in the room. You held that tiny body against your heart with tears of gratitude rolling down your face, same as mine. And then when his sister was born, you gave every ounce of strength you had for that final push and I felt her slide into my hands, that tiny, slippery head the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen as you gave that last push and her head, and her shoulders, and her body were delivered into my arms, warm from your body and warm from the blood that pulsed through her veins because she was alive and healthy. At 34 weeks Miranda, you brought two lives into this world that some would argue never should have existed.”

“If I’d managed to carry them longer…”

“Then you might have died…or they might have. Christopher’s heart problem wouldn’t have been treatable if you were still pregnant. And Cora’s supply of oxygen and nutrients was getting worse and worse as the TTS progressed. Who knows how much longer either baby would have survived. I don’t want to think about it. But somehow, your body knew, your body knew it was time and when your water broke you came to me and I will never be able to describe the fear and the joy and the anticipation I felt as you stood in front of me, your hands on your belly preparing to deliver our children.”

“You make it sound so noble. I had no choice in the matter…”

“Maybe not. But you handled it brilliantly, like you do everything. Even when things went awry or wrong or not as expected, you managed to come through with grit and grace and I am so proud of you. I don’t know if I’ve said it before or if I’ve said it enough because I didn’t want to be patronizing, but I am so proud of you. Never did I hope to dream any of this would happen to me, for me. But you have given me everything Miranda, not only a family and a home, but your heart which is where both those things live. I love you so much and I just, I just… want to help”

“If only there were a minister in here as well those could have been your wedding vows.” Miranda tried to joke lightly, laying her head to rest gently on Andrea’s shoulder, cursing herself for denying them the comfort of each other over the last week. True, they had still slept in the same bed. But they had been strangers passing in the night. Miranda being the first to wake and the first to go to bed, and Andy living within the time zone of the NICU.

“Funny, I’d always pictured you in Valentino.” Andy joked back, smoothing back the final damp tresses from Miranda’s face. “Shall we shower and head back over to the hospital?”

“Andrea…I,” Miranda’s hand unconsciously fell to her stomach and she shook her head. “I’m...”

“Beautiful,” Andy finished the older woman’s sentence. “And don’t forget I saw you in the hospital. I’m not expecting your body to be back to a size 2, 2 weeks after delivering twins. In fact, you might call me crazy, but I think I love your body more now for what it’s given me. Just like I told you those stretch marks were precious because they brought my first set of daughters into the world ten years ago. And although your body is smokin’ hot” Andy joked as Miranda rolled her eyes, “that’s not why I fell in love with you. And if I go through all those reasons now the NICU’s going to close before we get there and that’s in 12 hours.”

Everything was going smoothly until Andy found Miranda wincing as she tried to put on a pair of Spanx and she yanked them out of her hand without a word. Good Lord, she didn’t know the woman even owned Spanx. More likely it was a recent addition messengered over by whatever poor Emily drew the short straw. Reluctantly though, Andy conceded to the older woman wearing a pair of heels, which the editor took as a personal triumph until she went to walk across the room to her closet and nearly went down after three steps only to have Andy catch her mid-fall in an impressive sort of tackle.

“As much as I love holding you in my arms, I think your core needs a little more time to ‘heal’, no shoe pun intended, before you slip on your stilettos.” Andy tried to soothe the sting of disappointment as she placed the Roberto Vitale heels back on the shelf in the enormous walk-in she still hadn’t quite gotten used to. But there were a lot of things she needed to get used to now that she was with Miranda, things that she secretly wondered if she could do. But then again, she could do anything, right?