Helena followed her onto the balcony and wrapped her arms around her.

‘What makes you think you would ever loose me?  Did something happen Lexi?’

Alexa shrugged.  ‘I keep having this stupid dream.  I’m back home and everything between us has been a dream or something and I call out for you and you’re not there.’

Helena turned Alexa to face her.  ‘I’m right here,’ she said and squeezed Alexa’s hands.

‘I’m marrying you in one week, til death do us part alright?  I love you so much it sickens me sometimes,’ said Helena trying to inject a little humour back into the situation and Alexa took the bait.

‘Sickens you?  Please don’t tell me you are quoting from your wedding vows.’

………………………………………………………………………………………………

‘There’s something I’ve been wondering about today,’ said Helena the night before the wedding.  They had just spent their last night of sin making love together before their wedding the following morning, having refused to indulge in the traditional path of separation.

‘What’s that?’ asked Alexa, still basking in the afterglow of great sex.

‘About after the wedding, about our names.  I mean it doesn’t matter either way but I wondered if you might like to change your name to Peabody.’

Alexa had honestly never considered this before.  ‘Wow Lena, that’s….I don’t know.  I mean you could just as easily change your name to mine,’ she said in the spirit of independence.

‘I know, but with the business being the Peabody foundation and being known with my contacts that way it doesn’t really work.  Besides I wouldn’t really feel comfortable taking the name of a family who won’t even acknowledge us.’

Alexa wished Helena hadn’t brought this up now; she just didn’t know how to feel about this.  ‘I understand,’ she admitted.  ‘I never really thought you would change your name to mine, I hadn’t thought about names at all.’

But she tried to think about it now.  She wanted to be married to Helena, she wanted them to officially be each other’s family in the eyes of the law.  The Peabody name was one thousands would die to have, one associated with class, wealth and power but her name was perhaps the last remaining link she had to her family of birth.  She imagined the tears on her mothers face, reading of their wedding in some local gossip magazine of the sort that had begun to take an small interest in Helena lately, seeing her face with the caption Alexa Peabody.