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“So,” Emily says, as she crawls up from between Mia’s legs as Mia catches her breathe, “I’ve been thinking. I’m gonna tell my family about us.”
A sound that is half “What” and half “Huh?” escapes Mia’s exhausted mouth, and it comes out as “Huarg?”
Emily giggles like Mia is being cute, but at the moment, Mia is having trouble even focusing her vision, let alone processing speech. All that had been coming out of her mouth for the past hour were desperate moans and involuntary choked swears, and she’s both weak in the knees and still tingling from the strength of her orgasms. Of all the times Emily could spring something like that on her, this was not one Mia agreed with.
They lay in silence for a few moments while Mia comes down, Emily leisurely stretching out beside her, her own orgasm long past.
“Say that thing you just said,” Mia breathes out eventually, “Again. But say it so it doesn’t sound crazy.”
Emily laughs. It’s a big, happy sound that makes Mia smile even though she’s concerned for her girlfriend’s sanity. Emily rolls up and over onto Mia, flattening out their bodies together, taking both her arms and pulling them up above their heads. She kisses her softly, once, twice, a third time, before nuzzling their noses together playfully. “I’m going to tell my family that I am in love with and intend to stay with a very wonderful person who loves me,” Emily says easily, smiling, “And then maybe they’ll stop pestering me to have babies because they’ll be too distracted with the gay thing.”
Mia snorts. “They’ll never stop pestering us to have babies. We could literally be abducted by aliens and have our sexual organs removed and my mother would call me and be like ‘When you giving me grandchildren? You not going to stay young and pretty forever!’”
Emily giggles and drops her head into the crook of Mia’s neck.
They’re sprawled on Mia’s pink and white bedspread in her one bedroom apartment. The TV is still on low in the living room, and the whole place smells like Emily’s flowery perfume, but not overwhelmingly. On the bedside table is a photo of their whole team taken just after they’d defeated Master Xandred two years ago, and scattered around the floor are Mia’s various cooking textbooks and class work.
Emily’s clothes take up half her closet, and there’s a lipstick stain on her mirror that Emily left one morning with a note when she had to leave too early to wake Mia up.
“Or worse,” Emily says, popping her head up and making a face, “They could give us the ‘When I was your age’ speech!”
Mia groans at the idea. She can’t even count on both hands how many times she’s heard that speech from her mother in the last few months. She knows, of course, that it isn’t just her mother putting a ticking clock on Mia’s happiness, but really the clans at large. Every descendant with any traceable blood line back to the original Pink Samurai Ranger was a member of her clan, and for some reason they all seemed to have a say in Mia’s reproductive choices. Before long they’d be sending suitors selected specifically for the task of impregnating her into her daily life, like secret baby daddy ninjas.
Emily kisses her cheek gently, and Mia’s lips quirk. “What’s the worst that could happen?” Emily wonders.
Mia makes a face. “Well, I don’t know about your folks, but if I so much as mentioned the idea to my mother that not only was I thinking of spending my life with another women, that woman was the Yellow Samurai descendant,” Mia takes a breath, “Well, first, she’d cry. Then there’d be yelling, and accusations of destroying the family honor. More crying. She’d probably try to rub sacred oils on my head to make sure I wasn’t being possessed by a Nighlock, and when she realized I wasn’t, more crying.”
Emily is giggling into her shoulder, and yes, Mia is making light of the situation, but it’s also all completely true.
“Eventually the whole clan would find out that we are breaking all of the rules,” Mia says, but Emily lets out an exasperated sigh and sits up.
“Rules!” She says, throwing her hands up. “Who in our families’ histories thought it would be a good idea to put rules on who we can love and how and when we make our families?”
“I’m sure it seemed very pragmatic in feudal Japan,” Mia yawns.
“Mia,” Emily says, nudging her with her food in annoyance, “I’m serious, I’m telling my family. I’m sick of sneaking around and saying, ‘Oh, I just haven’t met the right guy yet’.”
“What do you think they’re going to say?” Mia wonders, watching Emily stand up off the bed and try to find her underwear in the chaos that is Mia’s apartment. “Congratulations? We’re happy for you?” Mia asks sarcastically, and Emily shoots her a glare as she picks up her yellow bra and jeans. “No, they’re going to say ‘We forbid it, it’s not allowed, end of discussion’.”
“Serena will have my back,” Emily says with a shrug.
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” Mia snarks back, grinning, “But Serena is also breaking all the rules, and with the heir of the Shiba clan. If we’re having this conversation, how many times do you want to bet Serena and Lauren have had it? I’m pretty sure she’s gonna keep her mouth shut.”
Emily turns to her, still half naked, and puts her hands on her hips. “Do you want to marry me or not?” She asks seriously, all humor gone out of her face. “Do you want to have a family together? Are we building a life together?”
Mia closes her mouth and doesn’t answer.
“Because if so, the first step we have to take is telling our families, and the clans, that now that Xandred is gone they don’t own us anymore,” Emily says, and Mia has never seen her look more determined about anything, “And I am sick and tired of waiting for any of us to do anything about it. So, I’m doing it.”
Mia chews her lip. “Don’t you think we should talk to the others before you do?” She wonders, thinking of Kevin’s fragile relationship with his father and Jayden’s issues with commitment. “Give them some warning?”
“It’s been two years, Mia,” Emily calls over her should as she heads into the bathroom, “We’ve all had time to back out, but hey, look, we’re all still queer and all still in queer relationships. We’re past that point,” she calls, and then she closes the door.
Mia lays back down in bed, staring at the ceiling. She knows that once Emily sets her mind to something that there isn’t any stopping her, and she doesn’t mind that. She doesn’t know if she’s ready, personally, for all the trouble she’s about to bring down on them, for all the conversations and defenses of her life she’s going to be having, but. Emily was ready to declare her love across the rooftops, and Mia couldn’t do anything to stop her.
She wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to. She just didn’t like conflict, and it looked like that was all her life was about to become.
***
“Mom, I’m a lesbian.”
Mia waits a moment, and then she shakes her face from side to side and rolls her shoulders, looking at herself in the mirror again and taking a breath. That wouldn’t do at all.
Not only was it not entirely true, but Mia’s mother does not like the world ‘Lesbian’. She wasn’t sure she’d have any easier time understanding the word Bisexual, though.
“Mom,” Mia practices again, trying to make her face look sincere and honest, “I’m in love. With Emily Stewart.”
Nope, not the way to do it, either. It would only serve to get her mother’s hopes up before kicking her in the stomach, and Mia wasn’t cruel.
Her mother had never been outright homophobic, at least not that Mia had seen. If she disapproved of people who weren’t heterosexual, it was mostly, Mia thought, because she didn’t know any of them. Her mother was not hateful. But she did have a particular penchant for duty and honor, as every former Samurai was wont to. She had fulfilled her duty, served her lord, carried on the Pink bloodline, and earned honor as one of the heads of their clan. Mia respected her mother.
Mia did not want to be her mother.
When Victoria Watanabe had been called to duty, she was already married to Mia’s father, Derrick Watanabe, and Mia had already been born. Her legacy had been secured before she’d ever taken hold of her Samurai Morpher, and that had certainly not been the case for Mia. Had Mia fallen in battle, her morpher and powers would have passed to her brother, which, as Mia’s mother was fond of pointing out, had not happened in over twelve generations.
Mia’s father had been on The List. The List was a list of potential marriage candidates kept by the clans, though no one had been forced to choose from it since Mia’s great grandmother had rebelled and married a man of her own choosing. But still The List remained, kept just in case a potential heir needed help finding a match, and Mia’s mother had used it.
That wasn’t to say that her parents were not deeply in love or that they hadn’t been happy all these years, but it hadn’t been love at first sight, and, as Mia’s mother had confided to her once, it may not even have been true love. Derrick Watanabe was a strong man, successful, and willing to support her and her children. He had been what Victoria needed, but maybe, just maybe not entirely what she had wanted.
And of course, it was unspoken, that all of the names on Mia’s List were men.
Jayden, Mike and Kevin’s Lists would all contain women, Emily’s (it would have been made for Serena, which was all the creepier; Emily could marry one of her sisters hand me down husbands if she chose from it) would contain men. The clans, while slightly modernized with the changing of the millennium, had never allowed a direct heir to remain unmarried, or to be with someone of the same gender exclusively. There had of course been mistresses and torrid gay love affairs in their history, but always a Samurai did their duty to their family and their bloodline.
Regardless of the other safeguards in place, like the well kept ancient tomes which contained the lines of succession should illness or tragedy befall an heir, and the fact that Xandred had now been officially defeated by Mia’s team, the clans remained adamant. The heirs of the Samurai powers were duty bound to carry on their bloodlines, in case the day ever came when their powers were needed again.
As a little girl, Mia had thought The List incredibly romantic. Somewhere on it, a prince charming or knight in shining armor was waiting for her, already preselected by fate. She had asked her mother is she could see The List, but of course she’d refused. Mia had once made her own, on a long piece of old printer paper, with fake names she’d looked up from a baby naming book. She would close her eyes and point to a name, and dream up whole fantasies of weddings and children with each fake man. It had seemed like a very pleasant dream.
Now, The List seems damning.
“Mom,” Mia tries, shaking off her thoughts and looking again in the mirror, “I’m queer. We should talk about what that means, but first, I want you to know that it means I’m marrying a woman.”
What did queer mean, anyway? Antonio liked it, said it described him better than any other label could, ‘unless that label was Jayden-sexual’, he’d joked. Mia liked the word bisexual, because while she’d fallen entirely head over heels in love with Emily, she didn’t think that invalidated any of her past feelings concerning men. They didn’t disgust her, as women now seemed to disgust Kevin, who, when forced, would admit to being gay. Emily had refused to label herself at all, saying it didn’t matter. She didn’t even like the word queer, but Mia thought she aligned somewhere more the side of lesbian, like her sister Serena.
It didn’t matter, of course, what they called themselves in the privacy of their team. They were all something, but they were all happy, and labels didn’t matter to her when she was looking at Emily smiling back at her.
They would matter, though, when they tried to explain it to their families.
She had once thought Jayden and Lauren lucky; no parents, the only people they had to explain themselves to, each other. But she had realized, as they proceeded with their relationships in more secrecy than the others, that they were under even more pressure than the rest of them. They had no remaining family, no other safeguards should their bloodlines fail. Jayden and Lauren were the last Shiba’s capable of wielding the Red Ranger Powers (the rest, no doubt, wiped out by Xandred’s minions over the years), and under much more pressure than Mia who had a younger brother, or Mike who had a younger sister and four younger brothers, or Kevin, who had a cousin, or Emily, who had many, many cousins.
There was young Cody, but he was only really a Shiba in name, as his bloodlines actually traced back to the first Red Samurai’s younger brother, and therefore he would more than likely be incapable of holding the powers.
Who had thought, upon the Samurai Ranger’s arrival, to tie their powers to their blood? It was ridiculous today, the very idea, but, with a sigh Mia admits that it had been for the right reasons in feudal Japan. If the powers could have been used by anyone, no Samurai Ranger would ever have been left in piece, hunted after by assassin after assassin, for bounty’s or for their powers, and the defense against Xandred would have failed long ago.
Everything that the clans had done, every damning decision they had made, everything that seemed inconvenient for Mia and her friends today, it had all been to protect the world.
It wouldn’t be easy to undo all that precautionary planning, do away with The Lists and the rules they’d made. But it was a new age, a post-Xandred age, and a changing world. They couldn’t hold them to traditions that were no longer needed forever.
And maybe, maybe there were compromises to be made. None of them were openly against having children. Serena couldn’t, the stress would be too great after her illness, but all the rest of them were open to having families.
They just wanted them to be their families, when they were ready for them, and how they chose to have them.
It didn’t seem so much to ask, but then, Mia knew better.
***
Kevin and Mia meet for drinks every Wednesday at their favorite dive bar. It works for them, because Wednesday Mia gets out of class late, and Kevin doesn’t have early morning swimming drills Thursday mornings, so they reserve the time for each other, like best friends should.
“How do you want to have kids?” Mia wonders, after they’re a drink in and have already exchanged the events of their weeks.
Kevin gulps down his strawberry kiwi wine cooler and gives her a look. “Excuse me?”
“Emily and I can use sperm donors,” Mia supplies, letting out what’s been on her mind, “You know, we’re women, it really doesn’t take much male involvement to actually be pregnant.”
Kevin actually laughs, which she thinks is a good sign.
“But you and Mike, you know, there’s a bit more work involved. I’m just saying, if you’re thinking of asking me to be a surrogate for you at some point, we might want to start coordinating schedules. I don’t want to be pregnant for the next 10 years nonstop.”
Kevin shakes his head at her with a funny look on his face and takes another drink. “What’s brought this on?”
Mia shrugs as nonchalantly as she can, takes a long pull of her own fruity drink. “Have you ever thought about it?”
Kevin shrugs back. “I’ve thought about it,” he admits, glancing around them like someone could look at them and know what they’re talking about, “But we haven’t, I mean, we’ve never talked about it.”
“None of us tend to talk about the future much,” Mia agrees, and they both know why that is.
“Would you?” Kevin wonders, furrowing his brow. “Surrogate for us? I always thought it would be inappropriate to ask.”
Mia grins at him. “Yes, the clans would love that. The Blue and Green Samurais are not only getting gay married, the Pink one is having their baby. Imagine the scandal!”
Mia laughs, but the humor drops out of Kevin’s face. Mia may have spent the last week thinking about the clans, but she knows that Kevin spends a great deal more time thinking about it. She shouldn’t be making jokes about something which weighs so heavily on him.
“Mike once,” Kevin starts, but then he pauses and chews his lip. “He once said he thought his sister would be okay to have kids for us. I didn’t ask how he meant.”
“I always wanted a huge family,” Mia confides in return, “Six kids, specifically. That was the number I had in my head.”
“Six?” Kevin says, and he laughs.
“Not so hard when you’re with another girl,” she laughs, “Three for me, three for her!”
Kevin chuckles, and then he turns to her. “Why are we talking about this?”
Mia sips her drink while he looks at her. “Emily’s telling her parents.”
Kevin’s eyes go wide, but he stays mostly calm. He looks away and back out at the bar, thinking. “Her parents will tell the rest of our parents.”
“She’s not going to out all of us,” Mia adds reassuringly, “At least I don’t think. Just me and her.”
“That will out us,” Kevin warns, because the others will eventually be questioned, she doubts Mike would be one to lie at a time like this.
“S’why I’m telling you now,” Mia says, and she finishes off her drink and gestures for another one.
“You’re okay with this?” Kevin asks, looking over at her.
Mia shrugs. “I’m not ready to live my whole life lying to everyone I want to be honest with about who I am. So, I guess so.”
Kevin considers this, declines when the bartender offers him another drink, and Mia sips hers in the silence.
After a while, Kevin sighs. “I guess it had to happen sooner or later,” he says, like he’s resigned to it, and he orders a stronger drink.
***
“Oh, no,” Mia says, shaking her head at Emily as she continues stirring their pasta, “That was not part of the deal.”
“You have to be there,” Emily says exasperatedly. “How will it look if we don’t look united about it?”
“Like we know exactly how much trouble we’re going to be in?” Mia says, trying to looks speculative.
Emily swats her with a dish towel. “You chicken! How can you be totally calm about fighting Nighlocks and be afraid of my parents?”
“Nighlocks were cake compared to coming out to your family,” Mia jokes, knowing as she says it that it’s both ridiculous and true.
Emily laughs, and then she leans against the counter and fixes Mia with a glare. “What if I bribe you?”
“You can’t afford that,” Mia warns, assured in the knowledge there is nothing Emily could buy her, short of a restaurant, that would make her agree.
“Blackmail then,” Emily says, “No more sexy fun time for 3 months.”
“You’d never survive that long,” Mia says, pulling the pasta off the open flame and over to a cold burner, “I’m not worried!”
Emily smacks her with the towel again and huffs as she walks away to set the table.
***
“You really don’t want to come with me?” Emily asks later, as they lay in the dark in Mia’s room.
“I can’t,” Mia says, and Emily curls into her side with a pleading whine. “I’m having dinner with my family that night.”
Emily stops moving, and her head pops up from their pillow. “You are?”
Mia sighs into the dark. “I thought it would be better if they heard it from me,” she admits, and then Emily is kissing her, smiling through the kiss.
“I take it back,” Emily says sweetly, her face an inch away from Mia’s, “You are not a chicken.”
Emily kisses her again, her blonde hair falling into Mia’s face in the dark, and Mia doesn’t think there’s anything she wouldn’t do for Emily.
***
Mia attempts to soften her mom up by bring her favorite Custard Pudding for dessert, but of course this makes her immediately suspicious.
“What’d wrong?” Victoria Watanabe asks as soon as she takes the foil off the glass bowl, placing a hand on her hip. “Did you fail a class? Get a speeding ticket?”
“Okay,” Mia says, putting on an apron to help her mother finish dinner, “I got one ticket that one time, that’s not fair. And I’m doing great in all of my classes!”
Terry comes into the kitchen, see’s the pudding, and says, “Oh, good. This should be a fun night.”
Mia swats him with a spatula.
By the time her father gets off the phone and comes out of his office to kiss her hello, dinner is ready. Terry has set the table, and Mia and her mom bring out their dishes before taking off their aprons. Her father pours them all some wine, except for Terry, who is still too young.
“I’m in college,” Terry argues, holding out his glass, “I need the stress relief!”
Mia laughs, but their mother shoots him a disapproving look. “You need your brain cells,” she scolds, passing Mia the steamed spinach, “To get that Anthropology grade up.”
“It’s not even my major,” Terry complains, but he resigns himself to his water without anymore argument.
“How is school going for you, Mia?” Her father asks, cutting into his food.
“Good,” Mia says, sipping her wine before beginning to carefully cut apart her own food, “I’m finally allowed to start creating dishes in the culinary school restaurant, now. We’re going to be doing something big for some of our final dishes, since we’re so close to finishing.”
“Sounds exciting,” Mia’s mother says, smiling. “Making any friends?”
Mia knows what that question really means, but she tries not to shoot her mother a look. “I don’t have time for more friends. My team is enough work as it is!”
“Why do you still call them your team?” Terry wants to know, with his mouth half full.
“Because it’s quicker than saying Emily, Mike, Kevin, Jayden, Antonio, and Lauren,” Mia supplies, and she sticks her tongue out at her brother.
“Manners, both of you,” their mother says, but she grins into her food at them.
It’s moments like that, where she just seems happy to see them happy, that make Mia hopeful.
They talk about nothing most of the way through dinner, and afterwards Terry and her father help clear the plates and serve the dessert.
“This is delicious,” her mother says, taking a second spoonful and closing her eyes as she eats it, “Even better than you used to make it.”
“Good,” Mia says, eating some of her own, “I’m glad you like it.”
Mia imagines Emily’s family dinner has already burst into arguments and adjourned to the living room, where everyone can pace and make flaily arm movements while they talk. Emily’s family was like that; loud, movement oriented. Mia’s own family tended to be more reserved, more close-bodied when it came to times of stress. Where Emily might wring her hands in front of her, Mia would keep hers as still at her sides as possible, and it was indicative of the things they’d observed from their parents.
Even now, eating her favorite sweet treat, her mother still sits upright, prim and proper, her dated pink neck scarf tied in a delicate little knot, her black hair pulled up in a tight bun, her heels still on even after working all day.
Mia had always admired that quality, the way her mother appeared put together even when sometimes she wasn’t. She wonders what she’ll look like when Mia actually says the words, if she’ll look put together or come apart, and suddenly Mia gets nervous.
She has to say the words sometime, doesn’t she? And the night’s nearly over.
“So I’ve been thinking,” Mia says, and she picks up her wine and takes a large gulp.
“Oh?” Her father says, smirking.
“Isn’t that dangerous?” Terry asks, grinning, and Mia offers a small, tight lipped smile.
“About my life,” Mia adds, still holding onto her nearly empty wine glass, “And the choices I’m allowed to make.”
Mia’s mother’s eyes tip up from her pudding. “What choices?”
Mia takes a deep breath. “I want to talk about the rules the clans have,” she says, “And about changing them, now that Master Xandred is defeated.”
Mia’s parents freeze. It’s the smallest of movements, the way their bodies tense up almost imperceptibly, and most people probably wouldn’t notice. They share a look between them, and Mia watches carefully.
Beside her, Terry slurps his water out of his cup obnoxiously, clearly just an amused spectator. Mia wishes she could tell him to go to his room.
“Terry,” Mia’s mother says, “Perhaps you should go study.”
Small victories, Mia thinks, even as Terry protests.
“Oh, come on!” Terry says, setting his cup down, “This affects me, too! I’m still part of the family, the rules still apply to me, I should have a say!”
“Only adult clan members are allowed voices,” her father says sternly, “And if you cannot behave like an adult…”
“Alright,” Terry says, crossing his arms and sitting up straighter, “I’ll behave, I’ll behave.”
Mia snorts at that, but that earns her the same disapproving look from her father.
“Which rules,” her mother wonders, setting down her spoon, her dessert unfinished, “Are you referring to?”
“Well,” Mia says, setting her wine glass down and then regretting it now that her hands are free, “Several. The first of which, I suppose, would be the mixing of the Samurai bloodlines through marriage.”
Her parents don’t move, but beside her, Terry slowly turns his towards her with a comically shocked expression. Mia reaches for her father’s glass of wine and takes a large gulp of it as her families eyes bore into her.
“Second,” she says, setting her father’s glass down in front of him, “Things have changed a lot since the rules were made, and there isn’t any reason why, if any of us wanted to, we couldn’t have families with people of the same gender.”
Well, that does it. Terry just looses it, letting his jaw hang open and smacking his hands down on the table. “Wha-at?” Mia shoots him the most serious ‘I will kill you’ sibling look she’s ever given him, and he just smacks a hand up to his mouth and mutters, “Oh my god.”
“My team,” Mia continues, to the silence of her parents, “Is the team that fulfilled the original Samurai’s duty and permanently defeated Master Xandred, and we-”
“You don’t know that,” her mother says harshly, lifting a finger to point at her, “You don’t know that he’s gone and-”
“I can’t believe we’re still on that,” Mia says exasperatedly, “I was there, we all were, he’s really gone.”
“And if he isn’t?” Mia’s mother wants to know.
“Am I supposed to live my entire life under the assumption that he’s still alive?” Mia asks.
“Yes,” her mother says immediately, “Just like hundreds of Samurai have done before you!”
“Well, I’m not going to,” Mia says defiantly, because that just pisses her off, “And neither are my children, or their children. I’m not going to inflict the same punishments on them that were given to me simply for being born into a family of Samurai, not when our mission is finally complete.”
Mia’s mother opens her mouth, but her father raises his hand lightly, like he wants to speak, and she closes her mouth and lifts a hand to her forehead.
“I think,” he says, “You should tell us what’s brought this up.”
Mia stares back at him for a long moment. “Well, Emily decided to tell her family, and I thought you’d rather hear it from me than a phone call from the Stewarts.”
“You’re dating Emily?” Terry asks incredulously, but Mia doesn’t look away from her parents.
“I’m sure we appreciate that,” her father says diplomatically, “Or at least we will later.”
“How long has this been going on?” Mia’s mother wants to know, dropping her hand.
Mia feels bad, of course, about hiding it from them all this time, but she doesn’t hesitate to answer truthfully now. “Almost 3 years,” she says casually, and her mother turns to get up from the table with a sigh, “Since we were Rangers together.”
“Holy”- Terry starts, but her mother cuts him off.
“While you were in the house of a Shiba Lord?” She says disapprovingly, gathering the plates of pudding from before everyone, “And now you come here wanting to change centuries of traditions-”
“Bad traditions,” Mia interjects, watching her mother frantically gather the remaining dishes.
“The rules exist for reasons!” Victoria shouts, and then she turns and walks into the kitchen.
Mia follows her. “The reasons for the rules no longer exist!” She says, trailing after her mother as she dumps the dishes in the sink with a crash. “The clans can’t rule my life, or any of my friends, over something that is no longer an issue.”
“What is it you are saying, then?” Mia’s mother asks, “That you wish to be disowned? People have been removed from families for less.”
Mia feels like she’s been slapped for a moment, until she realizes that her mother is crying, and that it isn’t her mother who wants to disown her, but her fear that the clans will. It lets Mia catch her breath, anyway.
“I don’t want to be disowned,” Mia says slowly, as comfortingly as she can, “I want the clans to change. I don’t want them to change me.”
Mia’s mother lets out a loud breath before turning away and walking out of the kitchen and back to the dining room.
“I still can’t get over the fact that you’re a lesbian,” Terry says as they come back, and Mia shoots him a look.
She feels the need to correct him right there, though. “I’m not a lesbian,” she says, wondering if that alleviates something in her mother’s mind, “I’m bisexual.”
“Oh,” Terry says, nodding, “I guess that makes a little more sense.”
“The clans have never acknowledged-” her father begins, but Mia cuts him off.
“Alright, for a second, let’s forget about the clans,” she says, waving a hand over the table symbolically, “Let’s start here, with our family. If you weren’t concerned that I was destroying the family honor in the clan’s eyes, how would you feel about me being in a relationship with another woman?”
Her father sighs. “You cannot just simply ignore the context of a situation and create new ones,” he says, and Mia narrows her eyes. “We have always wanted you to be as happy as you could be, you know that.”
“Do I?” Mia wonders, glancing over at her crying mother. “Terry would you go hug mom, please?”
Terry does as he’s told, even though their mother tries to swat him away.
“If you mean that, dad,” Mia says, turning back to her father, “If you really mean you want me to be happy, then you’ll fight for me. I am ridiculously happy, and I want to get married and have a family, even a biological one if it makes the clans okay with the rest of it. And yes, I want to do all of those things with a female descendant of another clan. But seeing as the circumstances have changed, I don’t think either of those things should be obstacles for me, or anyone else anymore.”
Her father almost looks proud, but her mother still looks worried and sad.
“How do you intend to have biological children with another woman?” Her mother wants to know, and Mia nearly rolls her eyes.
“Really, Ma?” Mia asks, looking at her with a smile, “You’re going to make me say sperm donor at the dinner table?”
There’s total silence in the room until Mia’s mother starts laughing hysterically. She’s already crying, and a few more tears leak out of her eyes as she laughs, but it’s a good sign. She doubles over in Terry’s arms, unable to stop the laughs that echo out of her, and before long Terry and her father are laughing, chortling even, too.
Mia smiles at them, and just as it looks like her mother has her giggles under control she says, “Sperm donor” again in a conspiratorial whisper.
Her mother laughs a little more and shoots her a look, but Mia can’t help but smile.
“Can we please bring the pudding back out now?” Terry wonders, because their mother had taken his away before he was done. “We can talk all about sperm donors and lesbians -okay, sorry, Bisexuals- over our pudding, yeah?”
“You!” Mia’s mother says, smacking Terry on the arm, and then pointing at him, “When you are you going to find a nice girl and get married? Your sister found one, how hard can it be for you?”
Mia is the one who laughs this time, and Terry just looks affronted. “She cheated!” He yells, pointing, but that just earns him another smack from their mother.
Before they go back into the kitchen, Mia’s mother comes over and takes Mia’s face between her hands. She tilts it down and gives Mia a kiss on the forehead, and then she disappears to get more pudding, probably to calm her own nerves more than Terry’s.
Mia watches them go, standing behind her chair at the dinner table and suddenly feeling very light.
“This had got to be the most surreal moment of my life,” she says aloud to her father, who is still staring over at her.
Derrick Watanabe actually giggles before he says, “Wait until you have children.”
***
The first thing Mia does once she’s in her car is pull out her phone and call Emily.
She picks up on the second ring. “Are you okay?”
“I’m good,” Mia says, and then quickly adds, “You?”
Emily sighs into the phone. “I’m okay. It didn’t go like I thought it would, but I’m okay.”
“Mine went a lot better than I thought,” Mia says, feeling relieved.
“You headed home?” Emily asks, and Mia nods even though she can’t see her.
“In the car now,” she says.
Emily’s jeep starts up in the background over the phone. “I’ll meet you there.”
***
By the morning, there are frantic text messages on both of their phones from all their friends.
They lay in bed together, reading them aloud, tangled in the sheets and laughing.
Emily’s father hadn’t been what one might call okay with it, until Serena had spoken up about her own relationship. Then, as it often seemed to be in the Stewart house, Charlie ended up on the wrong side of the three Stewart women, and he’d given in to reason.
“Dad’s overdoing it, Serena texts,” Emily reads, grinning madly, “He’s been on the computer all morning researching LGBT rights. Asked me if we should research our buyers and stop selling to non-LGBT friendly businesses.”
“Tell him yes,” Mia says, before continuing, “Mike says we should have started with bigger shocks like we were already pregnant, so when they came down to us just being gay it would have seemed less massive.”
Emily laughs as she texts her sister back. “Antonio said the same thing. I can’t wait to see them tell their families.”
Mia doesn’t get any texts from Kevin, but she hopes he’s okay.
“Jayden wants us to wait before approaching the clans,” Emily says, closing her phone and setting it aside, “So we can do it officially, as a team.”
“But let me guess,” Mia says, closing her phone too and turning into Emily, “We get to be the trial case while they wait to see what’s said before they come out.”
“They wouldn’t do that to us,” Emily says admonishingly, running her fingers through Mia’s hair. “Would they?”
Mia shrugs. “For the greater good, I suppose.”
Emily hums, but doesn’t press it. Mia tucks herself into Emily’s shoulder, finding a comfortable place somewhere between collar bone and breast to put her cheek, and Emily plays with her hair with one hand while the other laces fingers with Mia’s.
“Mike said you told Kevin you want six kids?” Emily asks after a while, and Mia giggles.
“I did, yeah,” Mia says tiredly, “I’m open to negotiation though.”
“I’m not being pregnant three times,” Emily warns playfully. “Actually I always wanted to adopt. When I wasn’t an heir, I always thought that’s what I’d do. Maybe we could do both, have our biological kids and adopt some.”
“Maybe,” Mia agrees, listening to Emily’s heartbeat and wondering what two would sound like.
Emily falls silent again, and they lay that way for a long time, Mia dozing off in the dim room.
“You know,” Emily says later, “Something just occurred to me. We’ve been doing all this talking about kids and our lives together, and I don’t think we’ve ever actually asked each other if we want to get married.”
Mia lifts her head sleepily towards Emily’s face. “What, like a proposal?”
Emily nods. “I would have expected you to want to whole formal shebang of it all.”
Mia smiles. “I guess it never seemed like an option until today.”
Emily smiles back. “Does that mean I can be absolutely ridiculous about it?”
“If there’s not a horse and carriage,” Mia says, reaching up to bump their noses together, “I should warn you I might be disappointed.”
Emily laughs, and then she kisses her, a long, sweet, happy kiss.
When they break apart, Emily gets an excited look on her face and says, “We could go get our fingers sized later. Oh, and cake tastings! We can do cake tastings for months.”
Mia laughs, rolling off her and away to her side. “Oh, we both know I’m making the cake,” she says innocently, and Emily sits up a bit, resting her chin on Mia’s shoulder.
“Let me guess,” Emily says ruefully, “The guys will be getting special cuts that taste horrible?”
“It wouldn’t be my wedding if they didn’t have to suffer a bit,” Mia agrees, and Emily laughs.
“We should probably get out of bed today,” she says, kissing Mia’s shoulder.
“Nah,” Mia says, reaching blindly for Emily’s arm to tuck it around her, “We’ve earned a day off.”
“But what about the ring sizing’s?” Emily asks sadly, and Mia shakes her head.
“Em,” she says, looking up at her girlfriend, “We have the rest of our lives.”
Emily looks down at her, and then turns her face away as she blushes. “That sounds really nice,” Emily says through her blushing smile, “Rest of our lives.”
Mia watches her with a small smile on her lips.
“But!” Emily says, and she forcefully rolls Mia onto her back as Mia makes an unceremonious “Unf” sound, “If we’re going to spend the whole day in bed, we aren’t going to spend it sleeping.”
And she goes from blushing to devious in a second, making Mia laugh as Emily leans down over her.
“Well,” Mia agrees, feigning casualness, “If you insist.”
Emily puts both hands on Mia’s face and kisses her, and Mia brings her hands up to pull Emily’s hair away from her face, letting one rest against her cheek. Emily’s bangs tickle her forehead, their noses bump together easily, and they both find themselves smiling into the kiss, making them break apart to giggle happily at each other.
There isn’t anything she wouldn’t do for Emily.