A/N: Yes I've been to weddings before and I know that the ceremonies are longer than how I've depicted it in the story. For the sake of impact, I've massively cut down the time of a normal wedding ceremony. But also... they're two clones for chrissake. It's not going to be a normal wedding in normal circumstances anyways.
That being said, enjoy the story and don't forget to review! It does my heart good. :)
This is the story of a bride in white, waiting on her wedding day, anticipation welling up inside...
It's the best day of Sarah's life.
She is standing out in the sun, tall and proud, wearing a beautiful white wedding gown that Mrs. S had insisted upon but that she secretly loves. A soft gentle breeze rustles the leaves, shaking loose the occasional dead one, leaving it to float down onto the waiting rows of chairs below at its own leisure. Sarah watches with an uncontainable smile as her daughter, who stands as her maid of honor, reaches up and plucks one of the falling leaves out of the air, twirling it in her fingers as she twists back and forth at her hips.
It's a picture of perfection. And even as her heart swells in excitement and nerves, she knows that one thing is missing. But that would all change in the next few minutes,she thinks happily as she twists her bouquet of flowers in her hands, shooting the occasional sly glance down the aisle, waiting.
And as she waits, the layers of the dress begin to grow hot and uncomfortable underneath the summer sun. I still don't see why people bother with these things everyday, Sarah grumbles inwardly, her hand twitching to fix the layers of the dress before Mrs. S could come down the aisle with Cosima and tell her off.
But the itchy material, and the way that it scratches against her skin, is all forgotten as Cosima appears from around the corner on Mrs. S's arm. To see Cosima in her beautiful white wedding gown, with its train flowing out behind her, makes it all worth it. To see her for the first time, her face glowing with the biggest grin that Sarah had ever seen and her entire being just radiating joy, it almost overwhelms Sarah to the point of tears. She finds that she can't even form thoughts as emotions hit her like a tidal wave, singing in her heart what her lips can't even begin to express. She loves this woman.
Then, about halfway down the aisle, Cosima breaks away from Mrs. S into a graceful run, making each step seem confident and strong and showing absolutely no hint of the blackness that ravages at her veins. The organist tried to play the traditional wedding march faster to match her pace but soon gave up after a few bars, letting the air be filled instead with the music of Cosima's laughter.
"Sarah," she says, throwing herself forward the last few feet, allowing Sarah to catch her with ready and amazed arms. "Hey... you don't need to cry, alright? Today's our special day, please don't spend it crying."
"I just love you so much, Cos," Sarah murmurs, resting her forehead on Cosima's as Cosima touches her face gently, collecting her tears with her thumbs. "I wish we had more days to spend together..."
"We have today," Cosima says firmly, forgetting where they're standing for a moment as she cups Sarah's face in her hands and kisses her gently.
"Ladies," a voice coughs, causing them to turn towards the alter where Felix is standing, looking extremely out of place wearing a tux and a bow tie. But Sarah had insisted that he be a part of the ceremony and he agreed, but only because he refused to let 'Big Dick Paul' marry his sister to Cosima. And so he became the minister.
"You're supposed to wait until after you say I do and after I say you may kiss the bride you know," he explains with a roll of his eyes, "I guess there's no need for me then, yeah? You two are married, go have some champagne and wedding sex and then say I do, I suppose?"
"Fee," Sarah rolls her own eyes, mirroring her sibling to a tee, "You know that I want to do this right for her," she says quietly in his ear, stepping as far away from Cosima as their hand hold would allow so that Cosima wouldn't hear her next words. "We've already figured out... that... well, I just want to do this one thing right. I've never done anything the right way in my life before and I want this to be the one thing that I can say that I actually did right."
He nods solemnly then and pushes her back gently, "Then spend it with your bride and not me," he teases as Cosima looks over at Sarah and squeezes her hand.
"I love you, you know that?" Cosima smiles, a smaller one than the one that Sarah had first seen gracing her face at the end of the aisle, but it was no less filled with love and beauty.
"Of course I do," Sarah replies with a gentle smile of her own, squeezing back. "But I'm scared for the future Cos," she continues underneath the sound of Felix opening the ceremony to the few guests who are sitting in the front seats.
"You don't need to be Sarah," Cosima assures her as Sarah let her head fall onto Cosima's shoulder, her gaze unfocused on her brother's out of place outfit. "We're going to take it one day at a time. And I'll be right there with you, through everything. You know that. I know you do."
Sarah nods, finally pulling her head reluctantly from Cosima's warm sun-kissed shoulder as she turns to look at the other woman. "Yeah, I do," she smiles, the feeling of peace in her soul clouding with a sense of something wrong.
"Well, that's not exactly the traditional response to that question, but when has Sarah ever been traditional? Marrying herself and all that," Felix jokes, earning a snicker from Alison, who has already found the large selection of wines that they had managed to collect through both Sarah and Cosima's combined pilfering efforts.
"What?" Cosima asks, causing both women to pull themselves from their own little world.
Felix gives out a long-suffering sigh and just shrugs. "You may kiss the bride," he says pointedly.
"Right," Sarah nods, needing no further encouragement as she pulls Cosima into her arms and swings her partway round, dipping her slightly and meeting her lips in an eager kiss. But the embrace didn't last long as Sarah suddenly finds herself supporting the entirety of Cosima's weight in her arms, the sudden upset nearly overbalancing her.
"Cosima!" she grunts as she adjusts her stance to keep them upright. "Would you not pull stupid pranks like that? Christ, I nearly-" And that's when she tastes the blood on her own lips and becomes horribly aware of Cosima's gore-spattered ones. "Cosima!" she screams next, pulling her upright, the only thing keeping her from falling is Sarah's tight grip on her shoulders.
"What is it?" Felix asks as he pulls a chair from the front row and sets it underneath the wedding arch so that Sarah can lower her new bride onto it. "What's happened?"
"I don't know, it's-" Sarah begins nervously, watching the way that Cosima's eyelids flutter, her pupils, barely visible from her half-opened gaze, are dilated wide. "Cosima, baby?" Sarah asks, hitting her cheeks gently, "Please... you can't... you need to wake up alright? Just wake up. Come back to me, yeah?"
Alison is the first one out of her seat, followed very closely by Mrs. S. "What's happening?" she asks through a slight drunken hiccup and Sarah feels a surge of vicious anger towards the other woman. How dare she get drunk when Cosima is- No. No, she's fine, she will be fine, Sarah thinks as she takes Cosima by her shoulders once more, shaking harder.
"We must call the hospital," Delphine speaks up as she worries at her lower lip.
"Yeah, and what will they do?" Sarah whirls on the other woman, malice glittering in her eyes, "You think they'll bloody know how to bloody deal with this bloody disease?! My wife has been working on a cure for herself for bloody ages and she hasn't bloody found anything so what makes you think that stupid doctors will understand what's bloody going on with her?!" With great satisfaction, Sarah watches Delphine shrink back into the background, the French woman knowing full well that the only reason she is at this ceremony is because Cosima had worked very hard to win Sarah over.
"Sa... Sarah?" a voice rasps.
"Cos!" Sarah exclaims, whirling back around to see Cosima supporting herself in the chair, the pure white of her dress marred by the evidence of her illness.
"How... many times... do I need to tell you... to stop giving Delphine.. a hard time?" she manages, a weak smile hovering around the corners of her lips.
Sarah smiles sheepishly, taking her wife's hand and kissing each of her fingers. "I'm sorry," she murmurs against her soft skin.
"You three will need to find a way to work together in the future," Felix smirks, handing Cosima a glass of water as he rubs her back.
"It's okay," Cosima smiles as Sarah swats at Felix's hands and takes over, her hands pressing lightly into Cosima's back. Cosima closes her eyes underneath the feel of Sarah's gentle touch as she continues on, "We'll have all the time in the world to figure it out."
It is the worst day of Sarah's life.
She is kneeling out in the darkness, broken and anguished, wearing clothes of black. Of mourning. There's snow gathering all around her, adorning the gravestone before her with a blanket of white, covering the inscription chiseled there. The snow only further reminds Sarah of her wife's beautiful wedding gown. Before it was stained with the red that came from her choked lungs.
And as she kneels next to the grave of her wife, the branches of trees long dead wailing as they scrape against each other under the influence of the howling wind. Scouring wind that immediately dries the tears that stream down Sarah Niehaus-Manning's face.
It is a picture of desolation. And as her heart fills with sorrow and death, she knows that one thing is missing. For a fleeting moment, she sees Cosima once again, walking down the aisle with that radiant smile on her face. Then it's missing. Gone. And that would never change. Not for the rest of her lifetime.