As they were tucking her in, Bette had been exchanging messages with someone on her phone, and Tina had wondered about it, but figured Bette would tell her soon enough.

“I’m planning to fly out to Luxembourg sometime next week,” Bette answered, quietly.

Tina stopped walking, and looked at Bette in the eye.

“Bette…”

“I have to look at something in the storage in the freeport there,” Bette began to explain.

“Who …”

“Tyler will be joining me. He’ll fly out from DC, and we’ll meet up in the city there. Then we’ll head over to the freeport.”

Tina cast her glance downward, blew out a breath, counting back from five.

Finally, she raised her eyes to look at Bette’s, “Can you take a long flight like that already?”

“Yes. I checked with the doctors earlier this week.”

“You checked?”

“I would have mentioned it earlier, but I didn’t know ‘til now whether or not we could go. Tyler just texted me to say he was able to get out of his meetings, and could accompany me. So …”

Tina held up her hand before Bette could continue talking.

“I should go with you then.”

Bette shook her head. “Baby, we’ve talked about this …”, she started to answer, gently rubbing Tina’s arms to calm the increasingly agitated blonde.

Tina crossed her arms in front of her, preparing to debate this point, “Bette … fine. You want to protect me, make sure I can plausibly deny knowing anything,” she paused. Then continued firmly, “Then Diane should go with you. She knows some parts of what happened already. You figure something out. Maybe she doesn’t actually go into the storage unit. Maybe she stays back in the freeport’s office. I don’t care.”

Tina blew out a breath, then added, “You’re not flying out from New York alone.”

They each took a step back, with Bette gently rubbing Tina’s arms, then pulling on them to loosen the crossed arms, and held on to Tina’s soft hands.

She answered slowly, “T … I don’t want us to fight.”

Tina smiled, pulled her closer and gave her a quick kiss, and then said, “I don’t want to fight, either. But this is not up for debate, baby. She goes, or you don’t.”

Bette was about to respond with another argument, but Tina’s mouth was set in a firm line. She sighed, “Ok. I’ll ask her now. I may have to talk to her and Jules, though.”

Tina nodded, “Do what you need to. “

She gave her a warm smile, and then pulled on Bette’s hand so that they could resume walking down the stairs.  She thought, I guess this time’s as good as any to tell her what I’ve decided also.

“But … baby, can you fly out after the insemination?”

Bette stopped in mid-step and rocked back on her heels. Wordlessly, she pulled Tina closer to embrace her tightly.

“I love you,” she said, after a few minutes, savoring the moment, committing it to memory. Tina. Under the starry skies, smell of ocean spray, getting lost in the warm, inviting feel of Tina’s body. My love.

After a pause, while holding on to Bette, Tina responded softly, “Love you more.”