December 24th [COMPLETED]

Part Seven: The Finale

The album got made. Somehow, someway, the album got made. George didn't believe Jae Min the first time he told her. He had to repeat it three times before it finally sank in. The company liked the album.

No. That was an understatement. The company LOVED the album. And despite George's controversy and media attention, the executives over in Seoul saw no reason she should not be given full credit for all the hard work she put in to it.

And so George got her extra week with the group. One week in New York, at the beginning of the year, after the holidays. That was all the time they had. But it felt more like a vacation having them in her studio, at her apartment, playing games at their rented brownstone after long studio session, long hours when they couldn't stop laughing between takes.

In that week the album got cleaned up, polished but never too much. Working side by side with Jae Min and CJ there was an unspoken agreement between the three of them to keep the roughness, the raw sound, the low-tech feel of the album. To keep the feeling of eight friends traveling the world and making music together deep within the very core of the album. The most they had to do were a few instrumental tracks and cleaner vocal recordings. They spent the rest of the week catching up, hanging out, playing games and touring around the city. When the members finally left to return to Seoul, there were solid plans for the members to return George and Felix's hospitality on their own turf.

It was one of the best weeks of George's life.

And so, a little over a year after George's time with the group on the road had come to an end, after her grand secret had been revealed to the world, George somehow found herself the last place she ever thought she would be.

The Grammy's.

Everything George said she would never do happened that night. All the things she hated, all the things she had avoided, all of them happened that night.

She stood, in front a bank of cameras, in a long black ballgown that shimmered in the flashing lights. Her makeup was done. Her hair fell in soft curls down her back. And she stood with Felix at her side, smiling for all the world to see.

Most of it was Vivian's doing. George had to attend that night but her usual plan of sneaking in the back while no one was paying attention wasn't going to fly. Not if Vivian had anything to say about it.

Vivian wanted her daughter front and center. This was a big night for Georgiana Burns. And so George let her mother dress her up to the nines. She even let her coordinate Felix's suit with her dress and hire a hairstylist just for him to help tame the wild curls he had been letting grow out during his year off.

They looked good, George couldn't deny that. And a small part of her was glad Vivian had gotten this chance to show off her daughter and new son-in-law. They had robbed her of the chance to throw a wedding when they eloped on a whim one random weekend and continued to shoot down any idea of doing any kind of party every time it was brought up. The least they could do was give Vivian a proper Grammy night.

George's hand held tight to Felix's and she could feel her cheek muscles finally relax as they entered the theater. She was smiling but her iron-clad grip onto Felix gave away the state of her nerves. There were reasons she had avoided the spotlight all these years, reasons she didn't walk the red carpet if she didn't have to. But as she entered the theater, being led to her seat by Sydney, George spotted the real reason she put up with all of it.

Yes, she was up for a pretty major award herself but that didn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. If George did win, that golden record player would just go sit next to the other one she already had.

No, George was here for them. And when the seven members turned to greet her, George could feel her nerves lessen, her calm start to peak it's head out from wherever it had run off to. She was here for them. She was here for the album.