Serenity Two-by-Two! Finale! by Andrea Lena DiMaggio

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3l473qX5Uw
(Score to go along with story)

“We’ll work it out somehow, but don’t go.” She said as her sobs waned. She put her hand on Georgie’s other cheek and turned her face and kissed her. Not a romantic kiss in the truest sense, but one still of romance since that starts sometimes and ends sometimes with sacrifice and friendship.

“I feel so…” The girl looked in the mirror, a standup, antique gilt and wooden framed which seemed right at home in the opulence of the room. Curtains of brocade of all colors and textures adorned the walls, which were hard and cold save for the decorations. The bed was laid out in similar fashion, with a very pretty satin comforter in a dark teal floral. The smell of incense filled the air with freesia, symbolizing the new beginnings of the couple.

“Must be funny….you look nice, but you also look so scared. What’s it like to be scared of clothes?” The other girl sat on the bed, kicking her legs and looking idly at a glass blown dove she held over her head.

“I’m…not …this feels so…silly? I’m sorry… I want to fit into your world.” She looked down at herself, feeling so uncomfortable and out of place. The flowing robes ended at her sandal shod feet, the toes of which were painted a royal blue. Long drapes of silk adorned her sleek body, surrounding her with pink and marigold and canary yellow folds of soft fabric which caressed her. Draped around her neck was a gold thick braided necklace that held a single large drop of onyx, matching her earrings and nose piercing. Her hair was unusually long, and was bound up in a twist at the back of her head, held with combs of tortoiseshell. She was surrounded by the aroma of roses from the perfume she had just dabbed lightly behind her ears.

“You smell nice…it’s good to smell nice. Hygiene is important.” The girl on the bed nodded as she patted the cushiony cover beside her.

“Yes…hygiene is important, my dear.” She tried to stay in character, but the words seemed stuck in another room, locked in an external hard drive along with her physics homework. She began to cry.

“Hey…stop that. No crying in space.”

“This isn’t working. I’m sorry.” Stella pulled off the wig and tossed it on the bed and ran out of the room. Georgie shook her head, feeling lost and alone once again. She looked at the open door, as if Stella would make a quick return, but the doorway remained empty. She shook her head once, trying to make sense of it all, but the pieces still didn’t seem to all belong to the same puzzle. She lay down on her back on the bed and pulled up the long skirt of her gown and covered her head and began to cry.

“Sacrifice, honey. You both love each other, so it’s a matter of giving, not taking, right?”

“I know, Mom,” Georgie bit into the apple she held and sighed. Stella was trying hard to fit into Georgie’s world, but the matter and anti-matter clash of her non-temporal amygdala kept clashing with Stella’s logical hypocampus-driven mind.

“What did Nancy say at your last session?” Marie looked at her daughter and smiled. A week of prayer would sorely test her faith with little progress; how much more would she be on her knees. It made little sense; a sweet child in love but feeling lost like Alice in Georgies’s Wonderland, Stella wanted so hard to please.

And Georgie wanted so hard to think in terms of time and convention, and in most cases, she had fit into Stella’s world, which was only a bit to the side of what most folks considered normal. But to fit in such a way that they dove-tailed? They were still moving the pieces of the puzzle around, trying desperately to make the edges fit. So far they barely had the border connected.

“I don't know, Mom...Maybe I shouldn’t be a girl after all.” Georgie shuddered at her own words; the shock almost like having icy water thrown in her face.

“No, honey…that’s not the solution, and you know that. You start from who you are, both of you. How you express yourself after that’s established? That’s what you’ll figure out.” Marie remained positive and hopeful, and not just to encourage her daughter, but she really believed the two girls would find a way.

“But isn’t she …didn’t she say she wanted to have children?” Georgie bit her lip; the thought hurt on too many levels only recently discovered. She wanted children just as much as Stella, but it hurt to know that she wouldn’t be able to contribute for one thing. For another, she was realizing just how much of a woman she was, and it hurt to know that even before she ever said I do, that she was barren.

“Does Nancy have any suggestions?” Marie asked hopefully.

“Yes…but I don’t think they would be a good idea to…” Georgie shook her head. Having the blessing of her sister and her mother was one thing, but what would God say? Marie knew where she was headed.

“It’s okay, honey. I think that the person who made you the way you are won’t have any problem with you finding out and using whatever they left you to make things work…anything that you can do?”

Some days later...

“Are you sure about this, Georgie?” Stella looked into her love’s eyes, wanting so badly to be accepted. Too many years of her own oddity and pain made it hard to feel loved and accepted, but if anyone could, it would be the strange girl she so desperately adored. She smiled and raised her left eyebrow slightly.

“It’s …how it fits…how we fit, okay?” Georgie looked down at her body, nervous and frightened of the feelings of rejection she felt for herself.

“It won’t last forever, right? We want two…doesn’t matter what kind?” She said it as if the future Pasquale offspring were a commodity rather than a possible expression of genders.

“Girl or boy or both….nope, doesn’t matter.” Stella began to cry.

“Why?” Georgie touched Stella’s face, questioning her tears.

“It isn’t fair. We…both.” Stella looked down at her own body, her breasts were small and almost boyish. Further down the differences were glaring and almost at odds even with the compatibility established eons ago.

“We fit…it doesn’t matter what’s there as long as we know we fit, right? Afterwards...there's plenty of time.” Georgie said with a smile; the need to convince herself was long established and past. Only the foolish shame and guilt to dispense of.

“Gorram gonads,” Stella said with a laugh, but she began to weep, feeling entirely lost in guilt over the sacrifice that her future bride would have to make.

“No… it’s all good! Juh jen sh guh kwai luh duh jean jan. I love you!” Georgie gathered Stella in her arms and kissed her, their tears mingling in a mixture of abating fears and growing faith.

Several years later...Centre Mont-Royal...Montreal....

The lobby was filled with guests, all dressed in an array of costumes. Bright colors adorned beautiful young women and a few daring young men. Others wore browns and grays, looking determined and brave, their allegiance to their crews and their cause. A few young men sported worn, nearly dirty tee shirts and bright orange wool hats, while some girls wore brown jackets, carrying fierce menacing weapons. One enterprising girl came dressed in similar fashion, but carried a large wrench instead of a gun.

There were all manner of ages, shapes, and sizes. Even a few much older men wearing the garb of a Shepherd, carrying bibles and sporting gray hair. And in the midst of it all, a couple stood, holding each others hands as well as the hands of two children.

The couple was dressed in nearly identical fashion. One wore her brown hair in a ponytail, but still as long as her partner’s dirty blond hair. They both wore long gauze dresses, one grayish green, the other the palest of blues, sleeveless, with leather cords tied like bands on their upper arms. Each wore a necklace, also made of leather, with one gem. The blond liked turquoise while the brunette favored topaz. Both bantered on occasion in what sounded like Chinese, much like the other folks in the lobby.

“Ooooh, Mommy, is that…” Stella felt the tug on her hand. The little girl was about seven. She wore a brown leather vest and a long-sleeve blue shirt and looked ready for anything.

“Yes, Zoe, it’s Adam Baldwin.” She smiled as the man nodded. He walked over and leaned down and shook the little girl’s hand before signing her program.

“Thank you.” Stella said as the man nodded once again before walking up to another child across the room.

“Momma? I’m really thirsty,” Georgie felt the squeeze on her hand. The child was about nine and wore a long flowing gown just like Inara Serra, Morena Baccarin from the show.

“Okay, let’s go find a water fountain.” The two walked down the hall by the lobby and stood in a short line behind other parents and children with the same idea.”

“Momma? I’m glad you and Mommy brought us here. He’s here this time, isn’t he?” The child pointed to Nathan Fillion’s picture on the program.

“Yes, honey…I think he is. Maybe we can get to talk to him.” She smiled and tossled the child’s hair. Just then there was a commotion as a tall man walked out of the Mens room down the hall.

“Momma…it’s him…It’s him!” A brief wait proved the child right as Nathan Fillion stayed and talked to the fans. A moment later the two gained his attention. He stepped closer and smiled.

“Hello Ma’am…I’m glad you came,” the man said warmly.

“Hello. I’m Georgie and this is my son Mal.”

"GÇ’urá¬de!" Nathan said with a laugh and shook the boy's hand.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebA-RPfD07k

Mal's Theme (Ballad of Serenity)
composed by Joss Whedon and Greg Edmondson