Chapter Text
Sydney should have seen all the signs from the start. She should've seen it when she decided to turn around and look back at Maggie one last time, just before she left Hope Zion. Or when she chose to stuff the scrub cap from her first hook-up with Maggie into the side of her suitcase anyway, because she couldn't not just bring it with her to Israel. And if not then, then at the very least when Amira kissed her for the first time underneath the warm glow of a streetlight in Ashdod and instead of responding, Sydney found herself thinking about all the ways in which Amira didn't kiss like Maggie.
But she doesn't realise it at any of those times. No, she misses every single one of those signs. Instead, the realisation comes to her on a Wednesday morning three months after she's moved to Israel, as she's sitting with Amira at a little bohemian cafe in Florentin, just south of Tel Aviv.
"Ugh, and he sucks up to Saul, my supervisor, like crazy -"
They've been waiting on two orders of cafe hafuch and some ragulach for what feels like forever and Amira has been passing the time by talking about some annoying guy from work who won't get off her case, when a little girl with deep, beautiful brown eyes decides to ungracefully plop herself right into Amira's lap stopping Amira in mid-rant.
"Oh - hello there, where did you come from?" Amira coos, taking a second to lift the girl up and to re-adjust her into a more comfortable position on her lap.
The little girl doesn't exactly verbalise an answer, but inadvertently gives it away when she sneaks a peek over to a middle-aged woman that looks just like her, who is sitting and conversing with a friend at another table.
"Mmm, is that your mother over there that you escaped from?"
The girl lets out a soft, mischevious giggle and Amira and Sydney soon follow suit, laughing along with her.
"Well allow me to introduce myself, I'm Amira - oh, and this is my lovely girlfriend, Sydney. What's your name?"
The little girl forces Amira to hunch over towards her just so that she can whisper her name into Amira's ear.
"Zara, you have the same name as my mother - it's very beautiful, it means 'princess' doesn't it, Sydney?" Sydney hums her agreement and the little girl blushes, tucking her head into Amira's chest. Sydney smiles and Amira can't stop smiling back at Sydney.
And maybe it's because everything just seems so perfectly domestic (or maybe it's because she hit her head too hard on the shower door the other day), but Sydney finds herself trying to imagine the portrait in front of her as the rest of her life, where maybe Amira isn't just her girlfriend, but is her wife and the little girl in front of her isn't a stranger, but their daughter. Sydney thinks about where they would live - maybe, in that beautiful house on sale in Neve Tzedek which she keeps passing by every morning or no, maybe they're back in Canada with a great little apartment in Toronto or Montreal that Sydney definitely pays too much for - Sydney doesn't really know or mind.
It's all meant to be a silly and completely meaningless hypothetical exercise for Sydney to indulge in just to pass the time, because Sydney is most certainly not ready for marriage and kids - in that particular order. But what startles Sydney the most is that in every permutation which she runs through her head, Amira is never there next to her.
It's always -
Maggie.
It's Maggie that is by her side and laughing along with their daughter. Maggie that is thrusting their daughter up upon her shoulders. Maggie that is bringing a spoonful of food to their daughter's lips and frowning, when their daughter refuses to accept it until Maggie makes an aeroplane noise. Maggie that is letting their daughter take a sip of her cafe hafuch and suppressing a smile, when the milk froth leaves their daughter with a foamy white moustache.
The realisation is more than a little unsettling and Sydney thinks it must show on her face, because Amira is looking at her with her head all titled in curiousity even while Zara squirms about on her lap.
"Sydney Katz, what are you thinking about?" The way Amira says it is playful and relief spreads across Sydney's face.
"Nothing at all, Amira - nothing at all,"
Amira looks at her like she doesn't believe her one bit and Sydney finds herself reassuring Amira again, almost too quickly.
"Really it's nothing - I was just thinking about something from work the other day".
The white lies fall out of Sydney's mouth one after another and it all feels so terribly unmensch of her to be feeding lies like this to Amira, but Sydney can't help it, because telling these white lies are easier than telling Amira that she has just come to the inconvenient and disquietening realisation that she is still in love with Maggie.