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Magnolia woke up early. The sun breached the horizon, soft lighting only just beginning to reach their ceiling and she glared at the clock on her nightstand. Ten minutes before her alarm would go off, but now that she was awake, she wouldn't sleep again. Magnolia reaches over and turns off the clock.
Dove would stay asleep for another hour or two, and it was a pleasant thought to stay there with her for a little more. She allowed herself to lay there, for just a couple minutes longer, indulging in the comfort of her partner's arms around her waist before she began to move. Magnolia slipped out of Dove's grasp, and bit back the grin that threatened to grow at the familiar whine as Dove reached for her as she moved the blankets aside so she could slip out of their bed to begin her routine. Today would be busy.
The sun had continued its efforts to flood their home since her shower, so she goes straight towards the kitchen. She glanced over at their coffee machine and sighed. Magnolia reached for the coffee pot and walked over to the sink, filling it up enough to refill the machine so that it would be ready to brew in an hour.
That out of the way, she began her next stage of the morning. Magnolia goes to the pantry, grabs a handful of walnuts, and steps into the living room to pick up on her work. Later this week, she would receive the promised results of the pictures she had taken of the bones brought to her lab and Magnolia wanted to make sure that everything would be in order for those to be immediately processed and applicable to where she would next send them off.
Eventually, she hears their bedroom door open and unbidden, a smile begins to form. She glances up to watch the delightful show of Dove Caniry stumbling around as she rubbed sleep away from her eyes. Her partner doesn't even look her way as she moves immediately towards their kitchen, and Magnolia gets up to follow after her to put on some tea while Dove's coffee brews.
Dove yawns as she passes her, and mumbles something suspiciously like a swear as she pressed the wrong button and turned off the machine. Magnolia sets her own mug down and watches as Dove blinked, and turned the machine back on and pressed the correct button this time. The machine began to groan, as if it too were just waking, and Dove walked over to grab her preferred mug and stand beside Magnolia, her head dropping against Magnolia's shoulder with a sigh.
"Good morning, Dove."
"Mhm… hi."
The tea kettle screams and Dove's coffee machine sputters, and Magnolia nudges her partner up so that they can pour their respective drinks. Dove reaches for her hand and leads them back to the living room, and Magnolia allows herself to be moved onto the couch so that they could sit pressed together. Normally, they would sit at the table, or perhaps remain standing by the sink, but today is special. They each have the day off of work, and so they sit on the couch, holding their mugs and each other.
Magnolia gestures towards her photographs and papers on the coffee table, and begins to list out the things that she's been working on. Dove hums and nods and slowly begins to ask more engaging questions as she wakes. There's a pleasant warmth around her chest as she discusses theories and meanings behind the notches in the bones that her team was working on.
The conversation lasts longer than their drinks, but it doesn't matter nearly as much.
When she finishes her train of thought, Magnolia reaches for Dove's empty cup, then her own, and presses a kiss to her partner's temple before she goes back towards the kitchen with their mugs in hand. This wasn't quite unusual for them either, but there was a specific effort for it to read as affectionate as she cleaned their dishes. It was troublesome enough trying to get something for valentine's day, but she had it all settled and planned for and she was unashamed to say that she was proud of herself.
Of course, going out looks different tonight, but there was a place that she heard of where there wouldn't be any problem with them and took her name down for reserving a table. After their meal, she had planned on them returning and spending the evening in each other's embrace, this time uninterrupted by routines to upkeep for the evening.
She finishes up the dishes and returns to find that Dove has disappeared back into their bedroom, no doubt getting dressed for the day. Perhaps later this afternoon, they would go out and take advantage of the festivities that would no doubt plague the city streets and parks, although Magnolia would be equally approving of spending their day off in front of some movie that they would no doubt talk over the entire time. She'll ask for Dove's preference when she sees her next. Magnolia clears off her work things and puts those away neatly, checking that task off her to-do list as well. Before she settles, she goes off to slip on her house-shoes and check the mail as her final responsibility to handle before being truly available for the holiday. Things were lining up in that perfect manner that so rarely worked out, and she was beginning to feel a little unnerved as all her planning continued quickly and without issue.
Even the weather was mild outside as she returned with their mail. She wasn't positive that something would interrupt their day, but she was adamant everything going the way that she intended it to. Magnolia started to flip through their shared mail, separating out junk mail to shred later as she separated them from any genuine articles or subscriptions that they ordered when she stopped at a letter with her partner's name on it.
She frowns at the names at the corner. Dove doesn't bring up her family too often and she's not actually certain what her relationship is like with them. It's not the way hers is, she would know that by now if it was, but that doesn't mean much because they're still in contact. Perhaps she just followed Magnolia's lead and didn't bring up her parents because Magnolia didn't talk about hers? She had gone out a few months ago with her father.
Odd then, that they would send her a letter instead of calling. What did they want now?
Magnolia steps back inside their shared apartment and finds her girlfriend, now dressed for the day, back on the couch with a book in hand. Dove glances over her shoulder to greet Magnolia, and for a moment, it's all she can do to just relish in the moment. Dove nods at the letters in her hands.
"Anything important?"
"Not much, but you did get a letter from your parents." Magnolia replies lightly, watching her expression for any inclination one way or another.
Dove blinked before realization crossed her face. "Ah, of course. That makes sense. Will you hand it here?"
Magnolia nods, already moving to hand it over. "You don't seem surprised at them reaching out."
"Oh. No. My parents always like to send a card for my birthday, that's all."
The world stops and Magnolia's mind begins to race. Did she know about this? No, if she had known, she would have planned something. She tries to remember any mentions of birthdays or celebrations they might have had, and realizes that she's never asked. She had thought she'd known everything about Dove already, and somehow this was a subject that neither of them gave much attention to before. Carefully, aiming for casual and surely missing it, she asks "Is that coming up?"
Dove looks up again, the birthday card in her hands now taunting Magnolia in bright colors, and she sounds mildly surprised asking, "Do you not know?"
Magnolia bites back a gnawing feeling, defensive at the thought of missing something, of her ignorance, of the mutual realization that she had not noticed before this moment, and it bleeds into her tone, "Would I be asking if I did?"
Dove shakes her head, putting down the book and the card.
"Magnolia, it's okay, I'm not upset." But that wasn't what Magnolia had asked or implied. It wasn't what she wanted to hear, either. The issue was that Magnolia didn't know and she should have.
"Dove."
"My birthday was yesterday, dear."
Magnolia just stares at her and goes to say something like, "For my birthday, we went out and you told me that you loved me. You had told me all of your first impressions about me, what I did that was attractive to you, and about your hopes for our relationship were. Dove, you made me worth celebrating."
But "You didn't say." leaves her mouth instead. The surprised tone was the same, so no sentiment was truly lost between the two responses.
Dove shrugs, a light smile on her lips, "I told you, I don't really celebrate."
Perhaps later, she will be able to appreciate the absurdity of the situation. It is not common that she is surprised, and it is even less common for her to be confused. Magnolia can count on one hand the amount of times that she did not understand something about Dove, after all, but this is the most jarring.
"Well, why not? We could have done something."
Her partner gets up from the couch at that, and Magnolia stands there as Dove comes to drape her arms around her shoulders, her smile widening, "We are doing something. Our date tonight?"
"Our date tonight is for Valentine's day." Magnolia corrects her, and Dove rolls her eyes.
"It's not that serious, Magnolia. You know that even if we did anything separate, it would have been just the same sort of thing two days in a row." She presses a kiss to the corner of her mouth, then begins to pull away. "Birthdays are just markers of time moving on, but Valentine's is about showing people that you love them. Doesn't that sound much nicer?"
Magnolia swallows the uncomfortable feeling that she's missing something as Dove obviously deflects. She could drag this out, twist and pull until she understood what it was that Dove was avoiding. On another day, she would. Today, however, there was still the entire day left open for them to enjoy being out of the office and putting a pause on the rest of their life. She had spent too much time planning their day together for it to be ruined before midday.
She tightens her hold around Dove's waist, humming something close enough to an agreement and her girlfriend settles, relaxing in her arms in a way that was almost comical considering that she hadn't looked tense before. Magnolia pressed her cheek against Dove's head and began to think of how to rectify this issue before next February.
Next year, her plans would account for Dove's birthday and Valentine's as separate ordeals.
Why should her girlfriend have to share a day with every other couple?
"Dove, would you want to go out later before dinner?"
"Two dates? Maggie, you're spoiling me."