The Garner twins.

Cast:

• Jayde
• Gemma
• David Father
• Leda Mother

History: When David met Leda....

Weirdly enough, the `straight life' as Leda called it, suited David and Leda in a weird and crazy way. David got to be Mr Successful at work with the support of Leda and her `energy' regenerated him from his mundane and stressful work life. Their home was alive with chaos and energy thanks to Leda's unstoppable enthusiasm for life and the constant stream of people, weird events and general wackiness that seemed to appear in their house weekly. David started shooting up the ladder at work and soon he jumped ship and started his own practice with some hot-shot friends that he graduated with. Leda tolerated David's working after hours, but made sure that he got `quality energy time'.

David's influence and money allowed Leda to start to `make a difference'. She spent quality time working at the things she considered really important (and would stare icy death at anyone who called it "charity work"). No longer having to worry about "earnin' bread", Leda plunged her days into finding trouble and making a difference. Leda even convinced David and his fledgling practice to do some `charity cases' for people she met who needed legal help (mainly poor minorities who had blundered into legal trouble or alternative communities in trouble with the police or government (such as Leda's old book shop vrs customs agents)). The 'charity cases' earned the new firm good press and helped it grow explosively.

Leda announced at a huge party that she was moving from her maiden and into her mother stage. David and his lawyer friends were surprised, uncomfortable and totally out of their element, but following David's reaction (after he had time to think about it), shared the happy announcement.

In the months leading up the the birth, Leda convinced David to restructure his position at work so that he was less involved in cases and more in the management of the company. David found he had a flair for management and the company was soon restructured to allow him more free time and less research/court time.

Jayde and Gemma's delivery was a very complex and difficult. Jayde was born first, healthy and prefect, but Gemma's birth was much more complex. Something went wrong and Leda died from complications from the birth and Gemma was stillborn. Doctors worked hard to revive both Gemma and Leda, but only Gemma was revived.

David sued the hospital and won a large settlement.

History: Childhood and teens

• Stella Stettner, the Garner's earthy housekeeper, the only omnipresent adult in the children's life. In Stella the twins had met their match as she wouldn't take any crap from them, although the twins certainly could make her life difficult.
• their Father rarely being home and working long hours at his legal firm, being grouchy and always on the run to or from work.
• frequent social parties for Father's lawyer friends and clients.
• a steady stream of young `aunts' and `friends' hanging off their Father arm (as if any of them was as much of a Betty as Mother).
• a steady stream of nanny's and other LIMs (live in mothers) who usually got frosted out by the twins in 6 months or less.

Stella would tell them about their mother sometimes while she was preparing their dinner. Both twins were starting to look like their mother Stella told them, but they looked at the giant portrait of their mother in the hall, but they couldn't see it.

Gemma's health problems started to hit and she would spend days at home. Soon, she needed to start schooling at home because of the amount of school she was missing. Home schooling really suited Gemma though and she excelled at it.

Jayde and Gemma were both very attractive and Jayde slotted right into the main popular and social group at school, because of her looks, her family connections and her amazing ability to get what she wanted. She was heavily involved in most of the popular 'powerbroking' activities at school and soon it was her approval or disapproval that determined what was cool and what was "like so last week". She became vice captain of the cheerleading team for her year and a year later, she was captain of the cheerleaders and organizing social events for her year group.

Gemma had be plagued with health problems since childhood, and the lengthy bouts of home schooling had made her more of a bookworm than she was before. She was smart enough to be up in the top nerdy group at school, although she never really fitted in there because of her links to the 'in' crowd and her identical looks to the geeky groups mortal enemy, the social group controlled by her sister.

Just after their 13th birthdays and after their expensive gifts had been adored, then forgotten, the twins wonderful little world was shattered. Their Father's two seater BMW sports convertible spun off the road as he and Joan, David's current `best friend' and the twin's nanny, were returning from a picnic in the country. Joan was killed and David was on the critical list in hospital. Stella rushed the girls to the hospital where they waited for news of their father.

The twins suddenly found something they couldn't change with their sweet and innocent smiles or sparking intelligence, as they waited to see if their Father would live or die. Stella's support while they waited earned her a permanent end to the hassling and chaos the girls used to send her way. Fortunately, their Father survived emergency surgery and began the long crawl to recovery.

Stella moved into the house to look after the twins while David spent an extended time in hospital, recovering and learning to regaining his previous movement in his limbs. This time cemented Stella as the proxy mother for the twins. Stella, having her own son to raise an unable to look after both households, brought her son, David (yes, two Davids, kill me), to live in the Garner's opulent home. Stella's son was more used to hanging with his posse and not at all suited to rich Californian White Bread living. For DMS (he preferred his street name ), it was an incredible change from his 'Hood.

DMS started attending school with Gem and Jay, but soon started getting in trouble with the other students as he resorted to violence when the white breads picked on him. The school and was forced to send him on 'conflict resolution and inner focus skill classes'. DMS seemed to ignore them. Gemma had some health problems again and required an extended time at home and Stella thought it wisest to bring DMS away from the school too.

When David came back, he had a limp and a walking stick. He sat the girls down and told them that their mother had visited him while he was trapped in the car. The twins hadn't heard their father talk about their mother hardly at all before, and now he was sitting there, crying, telling them about his experience.

Leda had told him that while she didn't like to pass judgment and that she understood his reasons and the emotional place that David was at and that she was sorry for her failure to contribute to the long term raising of the twins but that she felt she had to break her "use only 'I feel' phrases" policy and tell him that that she felt that he had done a pretty shitty job of raising the twins and that she was disappointed.

The twins listened, as their Father said he was sorry and that he was going to do all he could to improve. Jayde and Gemma exchanged looks trying to think if they had ever heard their father apologize to anyone before.

The stream of nanny's stopped and Stella became the undisputed Queen of the house and family. DMS, who Gemma had found to be a smart, if somewhat angry, young man, had problems with his new environment ("living with the Enemy" as he called it) and often used to argue loudly with David. After a short while, DMS ran away back to his South LA 'Hood. DMS' departure was very stressful for Stella and the twins and David had a chance return some of the support she had shown. Stella eventually let her LA residence slip and moved into some of the unused rooms in the twins house.

David stopped the parties, lessened the work he was doing and started spending `quality time' with the twins, which proved to be a shock to everyone. To the twins, he had never been the ogre that he was to everyone else, but now that he was spending time with them, and was being open about what he felt, they came to realize that he actually cared about them very much.

Turns out that while David wasn't exactly a great Father, he could be a cool, well, not friend, lets just say he could just be cool. He was social and accepting of all the friends they brought home (if a little scary) and was supportive of the twins and started to take a real interested in what they did. When he was working on a case he would still be snappy and irritable, but for the first time, that was cool, because, underneath, they were all family and if they talked to him enough and distracted him from his work then he would turn into a human being again. (Other people tried this and got ripped to shreds).

Jayde had become one of the top popularity queens of the school and was heavily involved in deciding just who was where on the school food chain. Jayde slipped into the dating side of school with ease and became known for the parties that she (and her sister) would throw periodically at their house.

Gemma had cemented some respect amongst the Poindexter groups at the school, but the latest element to cause her trouble was the stream of 'offcast' boys who were attracted to her sister, but were rejected and decided to try for Gemma, her look alike sister. This dropped off a lot once Jayde realize and publicly crucified a few of the worst offenders.

Three years before the end of highschool, Gemma had a nasty bout of asthma brought on by a horrible LA smog day. A few days later, their father came home and called a family meeting. He told them the LA air was bad for Gemma so they were moving to San Francisco to start a second office of the law firm. No argument. Needless to say, Jayde was annoyed at changing schools and social groups so late in their education and so close to the Prom (just two years to become Prom Queen, its a tragedy!).

So, during the next 6 months, their father had a huge house constructed in the expensive area of North Berkeley. The house was really huge and could really be made into three smaller self contained houses ('I hate it when things turn out to be too small' their father told the architect), but also makes for a huge house with lots of spare rooms. There is a spa, pool, two garages, and everything else you could possibly want.

The family moved in just after the house was completed. Stella moved with them after an extremely generous pay increase from David, and has one end of the house to herself (2 bedrooms, mini kitchen, study, living room and and extra room). The center of the house, which is tacky expensive LA style elegance, is the family area, it has David's bedroom, an office/library, a study, an indoor mini-pool/spa, two lounge rooms, a large library, two spare bedrooms, and the main kitchen. On the right is the twins area which has their two bedrooms, a mini kitchen, a separate garage, two spare bedrooms, a living room and two studies. David prefers that everyone uses the central living room, kitchen and dining room whenever they don't have guests to keep everyone in contact.

Making new friends and adapting to a new school ended up being busy work for the twins, especially with the Prom/SAT's being so close for Jayde/Gemma. Now that school is over and they are waiting to decide which Uni to attend (although Berkeley is looking probable), this seems like the twins first chance to relax and get to know their mothers city.

Now, as the twins looked at the portrait in the front hall, they see themselves in the face that stared out at them. Sometimes, late at night, they still catch David talking quietly to Leda while staring at the portrait, but it is always mumbled too quietly to hear exactly what he is saying.

But.....

• Are the names Gemma and Jayde too yucky? :)
• Who are their friends?
• And during the day?
  • What are they studying?
  • Are Gemma and Jayde in the last year of high school?
  • Have they just started uni?

Jayde and Gemma could still pass for one another (Jayde was is much better shape, but she helped her sister train up to a reasonable level of fitness despite her health problems), although, Stella could always tell them apart, as could David when they didn't try to deliberately fool him.

Their father has always been more protective of Gemma and will usually cave in and agree to things that Gemma wants or side with her when arguments develop between Gemma and Jayde. Strangely though, David is not really as close to Gemma as he is to Jayde. David is much more talkative and open with Jayde.

Lawyers take note: Buffy, the Vampire Slayer and Angel and all characters related belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy and fox.