by Rachel Gold
“No,” I repeated. And then, slowly and clearly, “You will not talk to my doctor about my medical care.”
“Nehal?”
I drew on the cocky assurance of Captain Jack, the deep competence of Athena, a million other characteristics, gendered and non-gendered. I rooted deep in myself.
“Here’s my offer,” I told him. “You withdraw the lawsuit and I will come visit you in California as your son. I will be a man when I’m with you. You may call me your son and use he/him pronouns for me all the time. You can teach me everything you wanted to about being a man.”
I paused for that to sink in, then said, “But when I’m here, home, I am Nico: queer, genderfluid, nonbinary, everything I choose to be. I will play your son for you so we can be a family and you will leave me alone to make my own choices.”
I added, “You have no need…no right to know what I did or did not choose for my body.”
His face reddened above his beard. He glared at me and at Tucker. I think if she hadn’t looked like an official person, he’d have said a lot more to me. Instead, he left.
I glanced at Tucker’s face and away, unable to sort out her expression and everything I felt. “That better not be pity,” I grumbled at her.
Her fingers curled around mine. “I love you,” she said.
“Dammit.”
“What?”
“I was about to say that like fifteen minutes ago,” I told her, shifting my hand in hers so I could feel all the places where our skin touched.
“So say it.”
“Now it’s going to sound all contrived.”
She stared at me, fierce and costumed and amazing. I grinned back at her. I didn’t need my costumes to be all the shades of me with her or with my dad or anyone. Not that I planned on giving them up any time soon.
“I love you too,” I said, hearing the full fluidity of the “I” and the “you.”
Epilogue
Tucker
I spent as much of the summer as I could down in Columbus. When I wasn’t there, Nico was at Bailey’s with me. Sure, my room in her new apartment was an old pantry and barely had room for a bed, but we made it work.
Sex felt like a big, huge thing for most of the summer. Not on Nico’s side, that was fun, learning and exploring and enjoying. But for me, parts of my body felt like a minefield of panic and anger.
Nico let me take the lead for weeks, until I was the one grabbing Nico’s hand and putting it where I wanted. Even then I had a bunch of “pause” and “no” moments. Nico was great at backing off, touching or not touching, holding me, letting me cry, being patient minute to minute as things changed.
Over time, the spikes of fear came less often, further apart. We talked more than I’ve ever talked in bed, more than I ever thought I could. Nico suggested some things that made me blush but we did them anyway. We repeated anything that was awesome and non-fear-inducing. Nico even got me to read one of yos stash of sex books and I made a few suggestions of my own.
I wasn’t eager for school to start because we’d only see each other on weekends. At least it was a short drive and I’d be back in the dorms. This year the administration didn’t give Ella her own room, but they let us stay roommates. As a junior, Shen had a room to himself, and Ella said she’d spend the weekends there or visiting her family, so Nico and I could have our own space.
The room thing wasn’t my top worry. Summer was a senior this year. Neither of us got the work study position she was so mad about, but she still blamed me. Plus me being with Nico and her not being with Tesh made her meaner. I’d already heard nasty asides about how I wasn’t trans and now I wasn’t a lesbian, so maybe I should pick an identity I could stick with.
She’d been elected to lead the LGBTQIA+ student group. She was popular and the larger group wasn’t aware of our core group drama. This meant she had first crack at the incoming students and no doubt a bunch of them were enthralled by her outspoken politics. Problem was, most of her politics were about coalition building and were great—so it was hard to notice the jabs and twists.
“I’m afraid to ask Nico to drive up,” I told Cal and Ella as we moved boxes into the room Ella and I shared. “Not like Summer’s going to do anything big, but she’ll get one of the first years to say something. Even if it’s just about how she doesn’t think I can still call myself lesbian, which I totally can, that’s going to make Nico feel bad.”
“I could threaten to ban her from the house,” Cal said. “But I think she’s planning some big campus parties. She doesn’t need the house as her nexus anymore. She’s got Quin and Katee on her planning committee. Those two are running the Black Student Union together.”
“I guess we could avoid hanging out in the union,” I said. “Nico and I can stay in the room.”
Ella shook her head. “That’s not fair. We need to educate the incoming class, not avoid them. Besides, Tesh.”
“How are they doing?”
“Rough,” Ella said. “Their mother lost it and threw away all their non-feminine clothing. They had to grow their hair out and listen to female pronouns all summer.”
“Maybe I will keep my hair like this,” I said, rubbing my hand across my head. “Tesh needs to see people support them.”
“Yeah.” Ella’s eyes got that sparkly, faraway look like she was up to mischief. “Let me know when Nico’s coming up.”
The first week of classes felt immensely long. Nico drove up Friday afternoon. Yo only had morning classes and my last was done at three, so we’d have almost half the day, plus Saturday and most of Sunday.
Ella wasn’t in the room when Nico arrived. But she texted me insistently in the middle of our damn-I-missed-you making out. After the fourth buzz, I looked at my phone.
Ella had texted a series of messages:
Bring Nico to the Union for dinner.
You and Nico dinner, Union.
Where are you?
Omg put your pants on and come to the Union, both of you. Pants! Now!
I showed Nico the screen and typed back: Are you sure? Isn’t Summer there holding court?
I’ve got this, she wrote back.
Reading that, Nico shrugged and said, “If my babygirl says she’s got it, then she’s got it. Let’s go.”
Sure enough in the student union, at the table where we usually sat, there was Summer and Quin and a bunch of other people I didn’t know. Summer glared at me and Nico. A furious round of whispering went around the table.
I wanted to grab Nico’s hand and leave at a run, but I heard Cal yell, “Over here!”
He stood by a table on the right side of the eating area, the mirror-image of the table with Summer and her crew.
And he was wearing a dress. A loud, red dress with spaghetti straps.
Beside me, Nico said, “Cylon Number Six” and broke into a huge grin.
“Oh, yeah,” I said. It was a similar dress to the one worn by the beautiful blonde Cylon in Battlestar Galactica, albeit very different on Cal’s towering, barrel-chested frame.
Nico bounded over, me in yos wake.
Shen and Johnny wore leather jackets over women’s blouses—and girly makeup! They had name badges for Gwen Cooper and Toshiko Sato from Torchwood. Ella was in the full blue dress uniform from Battlestar Galactica and Tesh’s girlfriend Alisa wore a dark man’s suit with her hair tied back. Cal’s boyfriend sported a woman’s suit jacket and a red wig.
“Can I guess?” Nico asked. Seeing the nods, yo pointed to Cal’s boyfriend. “You’re President Laura Roslin, that’s easy. Ella, are you Apollo?”
“Yep.”
“Alisa is Gaius Baltar, Cal, you’re a spectacular Number Six. Where did you change?”
Cal put a broad hand on Nico’s shoulder. “Nico, my friend, I walked all the way from my house in this dress. That is my level of commitment to being fabulous for you. But I did change my shoes.”
Tesh was the only one dressed as themself at the table, and they looked as surprised as I felt.<
br />
“This is amazing,” I said. “If you told me, I’d have dressed up.”
“And ruined the surprise,” Ella replied. “You tell Nico everything. And anyway, this was your idea when you cosplayed Ianto.”
I glanced back across the Union. It was on the early side for dinner, not half full. At the other table, Summer was on her feet, staring at us, talking quickly to the people around her. Quin blinked and rubbed one eye with her finger. She and the stocky woman next to her had turned around in their seats to fully look at us.
I brushed Nico’s arm. “Can I kiss you?”
“Here? Yeah.”
I was jittery about it up to the point where I put my hands on the sides of Nico’s face, drawing yo close to me. Then there was only Nico and me. Well, and seven of the best friends in the world standing behind us.
Cal whooped, which got the rest of the group cheering. That made me self-conscious again. I broke off, feeling Nico’s hands warm and steady on my waist.
The room went silent. Students who had nothing to do with any of this stopped in their tracks, looking from Summer’s angry face to the two of us. Waiting to see how the drama played out.
A chair scraped against the floor.
Quin marched toward us. I braced myself. Of everyone in this room, she was the one who had the most legit right to be mad at me.
She walked up to Cal and said, “You got anything for me to wear?”
He pulled his fall jacket off the back of his chair and held it out. She shrugged into it. It was an unremarkable navy windbreaker, but in the group with Ella’s uniform it could pass.
Nico saluted and said, “Commander Adama, welcome aboard.”
Quin grinned and gave Nico a nod.
“Me too,” a voice behind me said. I turned to see the light brown, sunburned face of the stocky girl who’d been sitting next to Quin. “I’m Katee,” she told the group.
Shen pulled his name-badge lanyard off and got a marker from his bag. He crossed out “Gwen Cooper” and wrote in, “Owen Harper,” then handed it to Katee.
Putting it on Katee asked, “How do I do Owen?”
“He got a surprising amount of action,” Nico told her. “So mix swagger with eccentric genius and you’re all set.”
“Sweet.”
I turned back to the former table to see Summer stomping away, trailed by three fresh-faced students. The few others from the table were drifting toward us, slow and uncertain, until Katee hollered, “Get over here!”
“What are we doing anyway?” she asked Cal.
“Cross-gender cosplay to show Nico and Tesh that we love them. And that we’ll do whatever we’ve got to in order to make this a safe campus for them,” he said.
“Damn, that’s epic. These the people you were telling me about?” she asked Quin.
“Sure are. Nico here stole Tucker from me.”
“Thank God for that,” Katee said with a big grin. “You two look happy.”
I put an arm over Nico’s shoulders. “We are. Whether we’re Athena and Starbuck, or Jack and Ianto, or especially when we’re Nico and Tucker.”
Bella Books, Inc.
Women. Books. Even Better Together.
P.O. Box 10543
Tallahassee, FL 32302
Phone: 800-729-4992
www.bellabooks.com
