Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

In every moment of her duration Nature is one connected whole; in every moment each individual part must be what it is, because all the others are what they are; and you could not remove a single grain of sand from its place, without thereby...altering something throughout all parts of the immeasurable whole.

--Johann Gottlieb Fiche, The Vocation of Man

Her parents had always called her their “miracle girl,” their “impossible child.”

In retrospect, that should’ve been foreshadowing.

But her life had been so simple, so perfect--too carefully perfect, all curated and polished. A beautiful house full of beautiful things, a hardworking father and a smiling mother and a beautiful daughter. And if the father went through bottles of fine alcohols a bit too quickly to just be savoring the taste, and the mother gripped the daughter’s arms tight enough to leave red marks, if the daughter had the hisses of arguing parents as her lullabies--well it was hardly as if anyone would notice those things.

Her parents ferried her to and from school, music lessons, doctor’s appointments, never left her to nannies or tutors, never looked away. She learned how to smile like her mother and stand straight-backed like her father and hide from them both. She tried, tried so very hard to be that perfect daughter she saw them watching for--and she very nearly succeeded.

If it wasn’t for the nightmares.

Strange, nonsensical things, they’d gripped her for as long as she could remember dreaming--blue light, hands and legs bound, and monster-men without faces but with long, long teeth that they stuck deep into her. Sometimes her father was there, in the corner, watching.

Her mother was there always, after. She’d always hear Delphine crying before she’d even woken, and Delphine would wake to her mother holding her hard to her chest, whispering nonsense words until Delphine had worn herself out with screaming. They only happened a few nights a month, always the same and always horrible; and yet Delphine found herself looking forward to them, just a little bit. It was when her mother would come to her, would not interrogate her, would just be there with Delphine. It was when her mother would hold her.

But even at eight years old, when she first had that thought, she knew it was too pathetic to even voice.

The nightmares clung on as the years went on, until there was one night when she was thirteen that was particularly bad. She’d managed, somehow, to give herself a thin jagged cut up from the inside of her elbow during her dreaming, her foot aching as if she’d kicked someone--or the wall, it had to have been the wall, there was nothing and no one around for her to kick. But she’d woken, hurting and bleeding and screaming in her mother’s arms, and her mother had nearly smothered her as she’d held on, cooing gently into Delphine’s ear.

When she stopped screaming, however, her mother didn’t leave like she had every time before. Instead she stayed, her elegant frame folded into Delphine’s small bed, and lay silent, stroking Delphine’s hair.

You must have gotten that hair from your Grandmother, her mother always said, while plaiting Delphine’s hair. It’s so different from mine and your Papa’s, isn’t it? Those lovely curls.

“Mother?” Delphine asked softly, trying to hide her confusion. Her mother only smiled, but oh her smile was shaking, and her hand stilled.

“Does your arm hurt?”

“It is not so bad.”

“A brave girl. You’ve always been brave, haven’t you my girl?” her mother asked. Delphine was so used to being looked at, but she is not used to being seen, not like this, and she doesn’t know what to say.

“No,” she says finally, because that feels close to true, and for some reason that makes her mother cry.

“Your father wanted you so badly, you know that? Wanted this. Our miracle girl,” her mother murmurs. “Our impossible, perfect girl. Anything for have you. And I loved him, so I agreed. I should have run, my girl. I should have taken you and run away.”

“I don’t understand,” Delphine says, because she doesn’t. “Is something wrong?”

“No.” Her mother kisses her cheek--and it is gentle, it is so soft, without even a smear of red lipstick left behind and Delphine doesn’t know what to do with that, doesn’t know where to take that, and her mother doesn’t give her a chance, slipping out of bed and smoothing her hand over Delphine’s hair one last time. “Get some sleep, my miracle girl. I have something to do.”

“Where are you going?” Sleep is already rising back up around her, but something about this feels so terribly, terribly important. Her eyelids are so heavy, but she thinks she sees her mother smile.

“I’m going to make the nightmares end.” She paused in the doorway, shadow falling so Delphine couldn’t see her face. “I love you, Delphine.”

Her parents die that next day--a car accident as they leave the house. Something wrong with the fuel lines, they’d leaked everywhere around the inside of the car, and then a single spark--

A tragic accident. So terribly unlikely. How random and awful. Nothing left but that strange child of theirs.

Her mother had lied. The nightmares never stop.

Delphine is shunted to an aunt, who shunts her to boarding school. At boarding school she--

She--

She makes a mistake.

She moves forward.

She doesn’t think she was supposed to, doesn’t think anyone thought she would--orphan girl all alone, only friend the school nurse who is a bit overattentive (although what would you expect, after--), she doesn’t have any friends, watched her parents burn right in the driveway, how awful--

Nobody thought she would move forward.

So she does.

Stubborn and silent and with nobody left to disappoint, Delphine quietly excels in her classes. It is in biology that she buries herself, in biology that she grounds herself. There are facts and answers here, an understanding and process and logic, and a beauty. The world created stepwise from nothingness to infinite complexity, all down to chance and luck. People built from two-cells up, of billions of pieces, billions of chances for everything to go wrong, and so relatively few times when it does. Here is the world, made comprehensible. Here is the world, more miraculous than she’d ever dreamed.

She goes from boarding school to university and very little changes--she could’ve stretched out her degree, given herself some free time, but she decides to pursue an MD and PhD simultaneously instead. The school nurse said she would keep in touch, but doesn’t--but that’s all right, there’s a friendly TA who chats with her, checks in on her the way the school nurse had. Later, there’s Leo, who is gentle and caring and kind, and everything anyone could want in a boyfriend. She graduates and gets a good job. A few years later she gets an email from a research group, offering her a good job, a dream job and the night before the scheduled Skype interview Leo takes her dancing. He buys her champagne and she lets him kiss her neck, he tells her how beautiful she looks and how brilliant she is and spins her around and around until the whole world is nothing but smears of light and color and she is flying, flying, flying above it all.

She is happy.

Oh, she is happy.

That night he helps her with her zippers, untangles her hair from her necklaces, and they both laugh as they kiss, sloppy and more silly than sexy, and Delphine falls asleep the moment her head hits the pillows.

The next morning she wakes to Leo, smiling and holding out a hangover cure. She mumbles something almost comprehensible as she takes it, then nearly spills it over herself when Leo tries to kiss her.

“I haven’t brushed my teeth, Leo.”

“We’ve been living together six months,” he replies, but doesn’t try again. Instead he leaves her to drink her cure and stumble into the shower. She feels more alive when she’s done, slipping into the clothes she’d picked out for the interview days ago. Leo is just finishing his breakfast when she walks into the kitchen.

“You look nice.”

“Interview today, remember?”

“Of course. You’ll do great.” He glances up from rinsing his dishes to grin at Delphine, wide and guileless like always. Delphine smiles tightly back. “Manager called me in for an extra shift today, so I might be back late tonight, okay?”

“Okay.” Delphine pours herself a cup of coffee, leaning back against the counter. Leo works at a local store--only temporarily, he’s told her time and again, until he gets his book written. It’ll be a great book, he knows it--or maybe a collection of short stories--or poetry--Delphine stopped listening a few months into their relationship, and he still hasn’t noticed. “I’ll see you tonight for dinner, then?”

“Might be late, a few of the guys said we might grab drinks.”

“Okay.” She feels like she should be more upset about this, but honestly she’s more concerned with the coming interview and relieved he won’t be around to distract her. “Try not to wake me when you come back in, then.”

“Just going to read and sleep? So boring,” he says--going for teasingly, she’s sure, even if he doesn’t quite make it--but she ignores him in favor of drinking more coffee. “Maybe if the interview goes well, we can do something a little more fun tomorrow, hm?”

“Maybe.”

“Okay, have a good day.” Leo ducks in for a kiss and Delphine indulges, waving her fingers in a quick farewell as he leaves. She gives herself fifteen minutes of savoring the quiet and her coffee, then heads off to finish preparing.

She spends longer than perhaps she’d like to admit arranging her room, ensuring that nothing too embarrassing would be visible to the computer camera and the desk looked like that of a professional, not too cluttered. Ten minutes before the scheduled call time she sits before the computer, forces herself not to fiddle with her hair, and waits.

Five minutes after the scheduled call time, the Skype call tone rings. Delphine takes a deep breath, lets it ring through twice, and answers.

“Hello!” The voice is speaking English, a North American accent, and familiar in a way Delphine can’t quite place. The camera itself looks like it has a piece of paper covering it--there’s a little light coming through, but she can’t quite make out a silhouette. “Is English alright with you?”

“Yes.” Delphine fumbles for a moment, but her English scores had always been good. “It is Ms. Childs I am speaking to, yes?”

“That’s right. Great to finally speak with you, Dr. Cormier. Is there anyone else in the room?”

“No.”

“Anyone in the house? We might end up discussing some proprietary information,” Ms. Childs adds, like an afterthought. “Things that shouldn’t get overheard.”

“I understand,” Delphine says, even though she doesn’t really.

“Could you turn the computer around and show me the room, just to be sure? I know it’s odd, but well...policy.”

“Of course.” More confused than before, Delphine turns the laptop around, showing the closed door and shaded windows. “My, ah, boyfriend is at work, and we have no roommates.”

“Great.” Delphine sets the laptop down, and the woman reaches up and pulls what looks like a post-it note off her laptop camera. “Sorry about the deception, but if I told you what this was really about--well, you’d never have believed me.”

The woman sitting on the other side of the camera is sitting in some nondescript office, her blouse not quite buttoned up all the way. Her hair is pulled back in a messy bun, blonde curls escaping to frame her face.

Her face is the same as Delphine’s.

“I didn’t lie completely,” the woman is saying. She’s smiling, somewhere between embarrassed, nervous, and excited. Her smile doesn’t look like Delphine’s, but the way her eyes crinkle at the corners--and the way her loose hair curls--the color of her eyes--she was her parent’s miracle child, their only child, they’d never give up any child they had--they look like the same age, their faces are the same shape--their eyes are the exact same shade-- “My name is Elizabeth Childs, and I am from Toronto. But I’m a police detective, not a representative of a biomedical company. And I--”

“You’re my clone,” Delphine blurts, eyes wide.

On the screen, Elizabeth Childs’ eyes widen too. Then, she grins.

“You’re damn right. Should’ve known you’d figure it out--I saw your name on all those publications, but I didn’t understand a word of them.”

“But how--how--I was born in 1984--”

“Apparently our creators had science way beyond the mainstream.”

“But how many of us are there?” As a sample size, two is far too small-- Delphine’s mind is racing far faster than her emotions can catch up. The number of embryos they’d have to have created to achieve a significant number of viable ones alone, the number of surrogates--

“I’ve made contact with four others, including you,” Elizabeth Childs says, and Delphine is whirling--who are they where did they grow up do they look like us how is this possible-- “But I know of three others I wasn’t able to contact who were in Europe as well.”

“Distributed across the world,” Delphine says dully. It makes sense--the first question anyone would ask if they had human clones--if they didn’t immediately start wondering about the ethical implications--would be that ancient nature vs nurture question, and what more effective way than to send genetic identicals across the world. “But I don’t understand--they couldn’t just turn us loose, there would need to be testing--monitoring--”

“Did your parents take you to the doctor a lot when you were younger?” she asks, and it’s not pity in her voice, but empathy--she understands. How could she not? Her gaze is soft and with the same hurt in their same eyes. “You mentioned a boyfriend--is he perfect? Does he never leave you, no matter what you do?”

“No,” Delphine says, but it’s a pointless denial--pointless because there is nothing Elizabeth is saying that isn’t true. She thinks about the research lab she’d done an internship in--about the cloned mice they’d kept in clear plastic cages, the way they’d run in circles or huddled in corners or tried to dig their way through their bedding to the outside world. About how they’d raised them and killed them. “No, it isn’t possible--”

Miracle girl, her parents had called her. Her parents who never went to church, her father who scoffed at the idea of the Divine. Impossible girl.

“It’s a lot to process,” Elizabeth says with a grimace. “But it isn’t the only reason I contacted you.”

“Oh,” Delphine says, biting down on the hysterical laugh threatening to bubble out. “There is more.”

“Yeah, and I’m afraid it’s urgent.” She shifts, shoulders settling back, and Delphine can see the police officer in her. “You remember how I mentioned three European clones I wasn’t able to contact?”

“Yes.”

“They’re dead.” Delphine’s breath catches, and something in Elizabeth’s eyes says it’s getting worse.

“An illness, or--?”

“They were killed.”

Delphine closes her eyes--as if this will make it less real, more bearable. “They were targeted.”

“I’m sorry,” and she does sound genuine as she says it. “But Danielle Fournier was found dead yesterday. She lived in district 19 of Paris.”

Paris. Delphine’s eyes snap open, meeting Elizabeth’s again. “That is only a few hours from here.”

“You need to get out of there. Do you have a passport?”

“Yes, but I--I’ve only ever been out of the country for weekend trips, I--”

“Katja--my German contact--is already making arrangements to come over here, though it will take her a few days. She was in touch with the three dead girls, let me know we were being hunted--” Hunted. Beth continues on. “She’s bringing me blood and hair samples. Do you think you could meet her over here?” Elizabeth’s face is slightly apologetic, mostly hopeful. “This is stuff we could really use a scientist’s help with.”

“You are asking me to uproot my entire life and come to Canada, to throw away everything I have here to analyze samples from dead women who were hunted because they were clones--because I am a clone and next on their list--less than ten minutes after I have met you. And without any evidence.”

“Yes.” Elizabeth doesn’t blink. “You’ll die if you don’t. I’m sorry, that’s not a threat; that’s a fact. And we need you.”

Delphine takes a breath, settles back in her seat. Her small apartment looks the same as it had this morning--nothing moved, nothing out of place.

And yet everything is different.

She is different.

This place she shares with Leo, she cannot fit here anymore--if she’d ever fit here at all. And Leo--Leo, why had she agreed to move in with him in the first place, why had she dated him, why could she never tell--

“Dr. Cormier?”

“I--” Delphine closes her eyes, takes a breath. “I will be on the first plane I can catch. Give me an address.”

“Ontario,” Elizabeth says, rattling off an address. Delphine copies it down carefully and repeats it to herself. “I can’t meet you at the airport, obviously, but if you can get a room at a hotel, I’ll pick you up from there. We have a lot to talk about, obviously.”

“Obviously.”

“You can’t bring your boyfriend.”

That startles a scoff out of Delphine. “I would not.”

“You can’t bring anyone, you can’t tell anyone,” Elizabeth continues. “Act as normally as you can. Give them as little reason to be suspicious as possible.”

“I understand.”

“And move as quickly as you can.”

“Of course.”

“I am sorry for this, Dr. Cormier.” Elizabeth Childs, for a fleeting moment, looks deeply, achingly sad. She looks small. And then it disappears, and she is a detective again, a leader again. “And thank you.”

“Delphine,” she says. “Please. My name is Delphine.”

“And I’m Beth,” Elizabeth--Beth--says with a smile. “It’s good to meet you, Delphine. Good luck.”

The Skype call closes, and Delphine is alone.

She breathes once. Twice.

Then she goes to find her suitcase.

“I don’t understand.”

“I’m going to interview for a job. In Toronto.” Delphine doesn’t pause sorting through her jewelry. “The Skype interview went well.”

“You’re packing a lot for an interview.”

“Leo, I’m not coming back.”

The air goes still. Delphine zips up her travelling jewelry organizer.

“I don’t understand, Delphine.”

“I’m not asking you to. I’m asking you to let me go.”

“So, what? You want to do this long-distance all of a sudden?”

“No, Leo. I don’t want to do this at all.”

She heads toward the bathroom, and Leo catches her arm. “You’re breaking up with me? Like this?”

His blue eyes are wide and earnest, swimming in hurt. She can almost believe him.

“I’ve been thinking about this for a while.” That, at least, is not a lie. “This is just...everything aligning. I need a change.”

“Delphine.” He hasn’t let go of her arm, and steers her into a nearby chair, forcing her to sit.

“Leo, let go.”

“Delphine,” he says again, kneeling in front of her. He looks like he’s about to start crying. Delphine looks away. “Tell me what I did wrong. Tell me how I can fix this.”

“You can’t. This is my decision. I’m sorry.”

“You can’t do this to me, Delphine, come on. Come on,” he adds, more angry than anything.

“My flight leaves in a few hours, I have to go.”

“Let me come with you, then. If this is your dream, I want to help you, I want to support you. I speak English, I can get a job--”

“You like your job. You’ve always said.”

“You’re more important.”

“You’re not coming.” She hopes it comes out strong, defiant. She thinks it should be harder to do this. It should be harder to know that the longest relationship she’s ever had is fake. She should be angry--and there is anger, dull and cold, at the fact that she’d been deceived, that she hadn’t known. There’s frustration at how he insists on keeping up this facade, and how horrible of a facade it is, really.

But she is a scientist. She goes through life looking for answers, not pretty lies. And oh, this answer makes so much more sense than all the pretty lies she’s been fed.

Her parents. That school nurse. Leo. Maybe everyone who’s ever been kind to her, who showed a bit of extra interest in the odd girl at school. How deep could the conspiracy go? A group with the power and resources to set up a worldwide human cloning project, to have it monitored even now, thirty years own--how much of her life had they controlled?

“I love you,” Leo insists, and Delphine laughs, burying her face in her hands.

“That’s enough, Leo. God, you’ve done enough. You can stop now.”

“Delphine--”

“I’m going, Leo.” She pushes herself past him at last, grabbing her packed bags. Everything essential is in there; she’s got her credit cards, she can buy whatever else she needs.

She needs to get out of this place.

“I love you,” he says, like she might not have heard him. She keeps going to the door. “Delphine, I love you.”

She stops, the door already open.

“I never asked you to, Leo.”

She doesn’t slam the door behind her--she doesn’t see the point in it. She closes it softly and firmly instead, on Leo’s angry and betrayed face, on France, on the life she’d thought she’d understood and thought was her own. It should be more momentous, perhaps--with the sun rising or setting behind her, or the clouds finally parting in the sky, or a great swelling of orchestral music.

But all she is doing is standing in the hallway of her apartment building, cases in hand, and Leo could come storming out of their--now his--apartment at any moment.

So she holds her head high, and moves on.

The hotel is nice enough--or at least it would be, if Delphine could sit still. She’d taken three taxis there from the airport, never directly from one to the other but stopping off instead at other hotels, meeting places and cafes. She’d made sure to pay them all in cash as well, all of which she’d withdrawn at the airport in France.

It was her first time playing fugitive, but she’d watched plenty of crime dramas while in school. Hopefully at least something was accurate in them.

She makes her third round of the small room, checking again that the curtains are drawn tightly over the windows and the extra deadbolt is on the door. The alcohol in the minibar looks more tempting each time around, but she knows at the very least it’ll be better to have a clear head.

For the first time in her life, she wishes she had a gun.

A group of children runs past, mother calling tiredly after them, and Delphine nearly jumps out of her skin. She rounds the room again, and again, pulling out her cigarettes and putting them back until her fingers stop shaking.

And someone knocks on the door.

“Allô?” she calls, moving slowly toward the door, one hand on the wall. “Who is there?”

“A friend, Delphine,” Beth calls back. Delphine breathes, and opens the door.

It is unbearably bizarre to stand in front of another person wearing your face. Beth is wearing jeans, a blouse, and a suitjacket, starkly different to Delphine’s own black leggings and fluffy white cardigan. Beth’s hair is up, a messy bun again, while Delphine’s curls fall in waves that brush her shoulders. Delphine’s arms are loosely hugging her, while Beth’s hands are shoved into her pockets.

But their heights are the same, hair close to the same texture, noses the same shape, forehead the same size. Like the funhouse mirrors at the carnival she’d been to when she was young--everything there, but some parts stretched and others small, bits pulled and pushed and some blurred to the point of nonrecognition. Everything the same, but nothing at all the same.

Beth smiles with more teeth than Delphine does, but softness there all the same. “I think you’d better let me in.”

“Yes,” Delphine says, then startles. “Yes, of course, please.”

“Thanks.” Beth slips in and quickly locks the door behind her. “Did you tell anyone you were coming?”

“No. I told Leo I was going to Canada for a job interview, nothing more.” She shifts a little uncertainly. “He will not be expecting me back.”

“Probably for the best. Did you check in under your name?”

“Yes I--I had no fake ID, but I have not used my credit cards since leaving France.”

“That’s alright, that’s good. There’s a lot of French names in Canada, so it should slow them down some, and we’re gonna get you out of this hotel now anyway. You didn’t unpack, did you?”

“No, I only brought a couple bags--”

“Great, I’ll help you with them. We’re gonna go out the back and get you to a safe house, and one of us will come back and check you out in a day or two.”

“Yes--yes, okay,” Delphine says, starting to lead the way into the hotel bedroom. “They are just through here, I--”

“Hey,” Beth interrupts gently, placing her hand on Delphine’s shoulder. It’s warm and steady, grounding. In the back of her mind, Delphine notices callouses on Beth’s hand that she doesn’t have, a firmness and confidence she’d always envied in the way she’s standing. “Delphine, look at me.”

Beth’s eyes aren’t pitying like she’d feared, but full of a deep understanding, sadness and weariness warring at the edges. She squeezes Delphine’s shoulder, nothing but kindness in the gesture.

“This is a lot to take in. It’s overwhelming and scary and frankly ridiculous. But we’re gonna get you somewhere safe, and explain as much of it as we know to you, okay? The important thing is that you’re safer now, and you’re not alone, okay?”

Delphine nods, leaning just a little into the touch. She’s not sure if she does believe--but she wants to. And if she could read a lie on anyone, it should be on her own face.

“Okay.” Beth smiles and lets go. “Let’s get your bags.”

The apartment Beth takes her to is in a dark and seedy part of town. It’s a long and creaking staircase she leads her up, with the few figures they pass in the hallways seeming as desperate to not be seen as they are. A mouse runs by and Delphine flinches, making Beth chuckle.

“Sorry.”

“We’re almost there,” Beth says. “Sorry for the walk, but there are cameras in the elevators.”

“It’s fine.” Delphine hopes her smile is convincing. Judging by Beth’s expression, it isn’t, but she lets Delphine get away with it while she walks up to a yellowed door and knocks.

“Who’s there?” someone asks roughly.

Beth shifts in response to the voice, leaning away from the peephole but close to the doorframe. “Just one, I’m a few, no family too, who am I?”

“Sounds an awful lot like a sexy cop,” the same voice says, turning to a drawl. “Did you bring your handcuffs, officer?”

Beth sighs, her head thudding against the doorframe. “You’re supposed to take this seriously, Tony.”

“Life’s too short, sis.” A deadbolt slides and a few locks click, and the man in the apartment swings the door open.

He’s in an oversized flannel tank top, hands shoved deep in his pockets. His hair is wavy and brushing his shoulders, tied half-up to keep it out of his face. He’s got a goatee and a shit-eating grin.

He has Delphine’s face.

“Well damn.” He looks Delphine up and down. “Beth said you were coming. Never said you were hot.”

“At least let her get inside before you start flirting,” Beth groans. He steps back with a sardonic half-bow. Delphine, feeling rather like she’d been hit in the head very hard, lets Beth push her inside.

“I’m Tony Sawicki,” the man calls over his shoulder while re-locking the door. “Third face always makes it more real, yeah?”

“Third?”

“Oh, don’t tell me you’ve never looked in a mirror, beautiful.”

“Let her breathe, Tony,” Beth interrupts, guiding Delphine over to a faded green couch. “We don’t all take it as well as you did.”

“You’re telling me. I can still hear Alison shrieking.” His tone is blasé, but he comes over to hand Delphine a glass of water. “You’re Delphine, yeah?”

“Yes, Delphine Cormier. Doctor,” she adds as a reflex.

“Doctor Cormier, fancy,” Tony says, somehow not mocking at all as he sits next to her on the couch.

“Medical doctor and PhD, fluent in two languages to boot,” Beth adds, pulling over a barstool and perching on it.

Tony whistles, low and impressed. “And you’re sure we’re from her gene pool?”

“Genetics have a limited influence on things like personality and ambition,” Delphine adds softly, everything more comprehensible through the lens of science. “Identical twin studies have shown that nurture has a significant influence on the expression of some traits, even if the genetic potential is there. As we were raised in different countries and I presume differing family environments, our innate identical potentials have merely been expressed in different ways.”

There’s a silence after her statement that Delphine tries to escape by drinking her water.

“Finally,” Tony says at last. “A clone as smart as me.”

“Don’t make me come over there and smack you, you shit,” Beth warns, and Tony cackles. Delphine laughs too, though it comes out a little strained.

“Look,” Beth interrupts, holding out her hands. “Let’s just break this down, okay? It’s a crazy bombshell we’re dropping on you,” she adds to Delphine. “So let’s start with the basics. My name’s Beth--Elizabeth Childs. Born and raised in East York, here in Canada, I applied to the police academy when I turned 19. I’m a detective now,” she says, a bit of true pride seeping into the words. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“And I’m Tony Sawicki,” Tony chimes in. “Born in good ol’ Montana on the other side of the border. Parents kicked me out when I came out, back in high school. I bounced around for a while, got into a bit of trouble with the law--which is how the lovely Detective tracked me down--” Tony inclines his head toward Beth, who responds with a sardonic bow. “And now you’re looking at the best damn barista Canada has ever seen. Who just happens to be a clone.” He holds out his hand, and Delphine takes it. “Your turn, girl genius.”

“I--I am not so interesting,” Delphine laughs, dropping her gaze to her water glass. “I grew up in Lille, France. After secondary school I earned a medical degree and a doctorate in immunology. I came over to Canada when Beth called.” She manages a smile, and both Tony and Beth smile back. “Delphine Cormier. Enchanté.”

“Damn,” Tony whistles. “Hot, smart, and that French accent--”

“Don’t leer, you ass, she’s your clone.”

“You jealous, Childs?”

Beth actually stands at that, walking over to smack him in the head. Tony winces theatrically, half-doubling over.

“You’re gonna kill me, Childs.”

“Don’t tempt me.” Beth pinches Tony’s ear for good measure before heading over to gather her things. “Listen, there are a few things I still need to take care of, and I have to get back early enough so Paul doesn’t get suspicious. Tony’ll be putting you up for a few days if that’s alright with you, Delphine?”

“Yes,” Delphine says, “If it’s all right with him.”

“Not a problem,” he reassures her quickly. “This isn’t the kind of place where I’ve got any nosy neighbors who are gonna poke in, anyway.”

“Please,” Delphine interjects quickly, when it looks like the conversation is about to move on. “Can you tell me what you know? About all of this?”

Tony and Beth glance at each other, but it’s Beth who takes a deep breath and starts speaking.

“We don’t know much. Just that we’re scattered around the world. Europe and America definitely--maybe not Asia, since we’d stand out, but nothing’s confirmed. We know we’ve got monitors assigned to us--Tony’s largely off the grid, so he’s managed to shake his--and some whispers tracing back to the DYAD institute, but not much else.”

“DYAD?” Delphine asks, something tickling at the back of her mind. “I have heard of them, I think. I’ve read papers published by them, at least.”

“You do run in their circles,” Beth acknowledges. “A multinational corporation with deep pockets no one can trace.”

“And we are being hunted?” Delphine asks, and something like a shutter comes over Beth’s face.

“That, we know even less about--even if it’s really happening.”

“You were worried enough to pull me from France.”

“Well,” Beth says with a tired smile. “Better safe than sorry, right?”

“But--”

“I really do have to go,” Beth says, and her apology does sound genuine. “But I’ll be in touch in a few days, alright? I’ll pass on as much as I know, promise. Here.” She digs in one of her bags before passing Delphine a cell phone in a bright pink case. “Mine and Tony’s numbers are in there--it’s a special kind of phone, harder to trace, and we’ve all got one. If anything comes up, call okay?”

“Okay.”

“Great.” Beth stops to place a hand on Delphine’s shoulder on her way out. “A rushed introduction, but welcome to the family, Delphine.”

“Merci,” Delphine murmurs, and Beth smiles before slipping out, leaving Delphine and Tony alone.

“Well,” Tony says brightly once the door shuts. “Hand over your glass, let me get you a refill.”

“I haven’t drunk it all--”

“I think you need something a little stronger than water, don’t you?” He shoots her a wink before disappearing into the kitchen. “Vodka or beer?”

“Do you have any wine?”

“Oh, we aren’t classy here,” he laughs, “But I might have some Jack if you’re interested--whiskey.”

“Please.”

He comes out with a six-pack of beer and half-full bottle of Jack Daniels, a cup tucked beneath his arm. “Come on, new sis, I think you need to get shit-faced.”

“Merci,” she says as he pours her a generous glass. She takes a long, bracing swallow, only grimacing a bit. “You waited until Beth was gone--she does not like drinking?”

“You noticed that, did you?” Tony cracks open a beer of his own. “It’s not that she doesn’t approve, it’s just--” He blows out a long breath. “This is deep shit, you know? And Beth’s deeper in than all of us, not that she’ll share.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just--she’s known about this for longer, and I’m pretty sure she knows more than she’s sharing. And she’s tough, she’s probably the best of all of us--but it’s hard. She’s got it hard, and I know dealing with it’s even harder. She’s doing better I think--at least around me--but--” He gestures with his bottle. “I’m not gonna make it harder by waving this in her face.”

“I understand.” Delphine swirls her whiskey before taking another long swallow. “This is all--”

“A bit much?”

“Perhaps more than a bit.” She shakes her head, staring into her drink. “I have made clones, do you know that? In the laboratory, most of the mice for research are clones. I helped to breed them, many times as a student. I thought nothing of it.”

“Little different when you’re the lab mouse, huh?”

“Yes.” Delphine finishes her whiskey. “Could I have another?”

“You and I are gonna get along just fine,” Tony grins.

“I do not normally--”

“Is anything about this ‘normally’?”

Delphine concedes that with another swallow of whiskey. “How long have you known?”

“A month or so?” He shrugs. “It’s not just me Beth’s contacted--there’s a suburban housewife living in Scarborough, Alison, but she’s--she’s not quite dealing with any of this.”

“You are dealing well.”

He shrugs. “I went through all that identity and soul-searching crap in high school. Had to figure out exactly who I was so I could throw it in the faces of all the dickweeds trying to tell me I was wrong. After all that--this was something I could deal with.”

“That is a good philosophy. How do you call--very admirable.”

“Well, merci, Madame,” he says, saluting her with his beer. “And how are you holding up?”

Delphine shrugs as casually as she can, though she takes a rather deep drink. “It has been a few days--perhaps it has not sunk in yet? But all I can think is…” she trails off, shakes her head. “It explains so much.”

“It does, does it?”

“The way my parents were with me, as a child, all the doctor visits…” she shrugs, light and casual, and takes another drink. “Well, it is not as if I need to have an existential crisis at the same time a murderer is hunting me. I shall focus on surviving for now.”

“I’ll drink to that.” Tony raises his beer, and Delphine clinks her glass against it. “I have never done this, you know.”

“What, get drunk with your clone? I thought it was a rite of passage. Maybe it’s an American thing.”

“Had a drink with someone and enjoyed it. Or a drink with someone whose company I enjoy,” she amended, then quickly took a too-fast gulp of her whiskey to try and mask whatever she’d just said.

“Well,” Tony said once she’d finished coughing. “This is a regular tradition in el casa de Tony, so you’d better get used to it.”

She smiles at him, and he nudges her shoulder and grins wolfishly back. “Welcome to the trip.”

Delphine is unused to having nothing to do, and two days later it’s showing. She isn’t pacing, but she has gone through most of Tony’s limited collection of books and is completely caught up on the medical journals she’s subscribed to online.

Beth had come by both nights, bags under her eyes but a smile on her face. She and Tony ribbed easily at each other while Delphine watched. She’d brought information, though not quite enough to satisfy Delphine--Kajta was held up in Germany, trying not to raise any suspicion. No new bodies had shown up on either Katja’s or Beth’s radar, not that it necessarily meant anything. A friend of Beth’s had gotten into the hotel computer and edited records so it looked like Delphine was still staying there and her bill paid for the week, though Beth wouldn’t say anything about the friend or how. Delphine didn’t have enough data to either interpolate or extrapolate anything about what was going on outside, as hard as she tried.

Danielle Fournier, b. 1984, Paris, France, killed, she writes in a little black notebook Tony had given her, for anything to organize her thoughts. Janika Zingler, b. 1984, Salzburg, Austria, killed. Aryanna Giordano, b. 1984, Genoa, Italy, killed.

She flips a page and starts again. Tony Sawicki (FTM), b. 1984 Dec. 10, Butte, Montana. Barista. Elizabeth Childs, b. 1984 Dec. 1, East York, Canada. Police detective. Katja Obinger, b. 1984 Dec. 24, Wuzburg, Germany. DJ. Alison Hendrix, b. 1984 Dec. 18, Scarborough, Ontario, Canada. Housewife.

She takes a deep breath, tapping the pen twice against the margin of the page, and writes.

Delphine Cormier, b. 1984 Dec. 21, Lille, France. Immunologist, M.D., Ph.D.

And that’s it. All the information she has on all the clones she knows. Three of the eight are dead, two she hasn’t met. Soon, whenever Katja makes her way to Canada, she’ll have blood and hair, but she has the distinct feeling of looking through a microscope at a painting, trying to figure out the subject of the portrait from a few pieces of pigment.

She sighs, letting her head fall back against Tony’s grimy green couch. Tony himself is at his kitchen table, furiously tapping at a game on his phone. Delphine has never committed herself with such intensity to a game--her own phone has little other than email and contacts, and some music and podcasts. He sits in a way entirely different to her, shoulders hunched and knees tucked up, his feet resting on the crossbar between the chair’s legs instead of on the floor. A beanie sits low on his head, and looks good on him--would it look good on her? Could she or would she wear it in that same way, with the same reckless confidence that seems to be his default?

Tony had never completed high school. Tony flirted easily and shamelessly, and grinned like he was ready to follow it with a bite. Tony lived in an apartment nothing like the home Delphine had left behind, and was viciously happy with it. Tony had known he was a man before he was even an adult, transitioning proudly. Tony couldn’t understand a word of French.

Could this have been Delphine? All the traits that she has defined herself by, all her life--her ambitions, her studies, her gender, her culture--they are all gone and replaced, none of them solid.

She wants to see Tony’s genome laid bare before her, to trace the markers. She wants samples of the air, the water, the mold levels in Tony’s home growing up, at his school, at every place he’s lived. She wants psychological profiles on every person he’d been close to growing up and she wants to know exactly what his mother ate while she was pregnant. She wants to know everything that makes him who he is.

She wants to know who she is.

“I can hear you thinking, Blondie,” Tony calls, not looking up from his phone.

“Désolée,” she says quickly, sitting up. “I was only…”

“It’s cool,” he says, waving a hand. “I can kinda tell you’re not the sitting-around type.”

“I haven’t been without a task since…” she shrugs.

“Try treating it like a vacation?”

“I’ve never been good at those either.”

“I can’t believe we’re related.” Tony swears rather colorfully as he dies in the game.

“How do you stand it?” Delphine asks, before he can start another round. “The sitting and waiting? What do you do?”

Tony looks at her for a long moment, and Delphine can almost see the moment he decides not to lie.

“Keep a secret?”

“I think I can manage another one,” she quips, making both of them smile.

“I’m studying for my GED.”

“GED?”

“General equivalency diploma,” he explains, turning away a bit, but not so much that Delphine can’t see the faint flush on his cheeks. “For high school dropouts and failures like me, you know? Not exactly highest priority given all the clone shit, I know, but…” he trails off, that tough bright mask sliding just enough to the side for Delphine to see something vulnerable and stinging in his eyes. “It’d be nice to have, even if I’ve got to get it under a false name.”

“I think it is wonderful,” Delphine says honestly, and Tony’s shoulders relax. “And if you ever need help studying, I am here.”

“I’m gonna take you up on that,” he warns, waving a finger. “Because I don’t get this science shit at all.”

“It is not shit!” Delphine objects, making Tony cackle. “It is fascinating!”

“I don’t see it.”

“Then I will show you,” she says with a decisive nod.

“Bet you 50 bucks you can’t.”

“It is on.”

A knock at the door shatters the light mood. Delphine stands, moving quickly out of sight of the doorway. Tony heads for the door, deliberately casual.

“Yo?”

“Just one, I’m a few, no family too, who am I?” and both of them relax.

“A clone, my dear,” Tony grins, unlocking the door and showing Beth in. “You’re earlier than usual. Gave us both a fright.”

“Am I? Sorry about that.” Beth smiles, but it’s strained. Her clothes are rumpled, and her eyes a bit red. Easy enough to miss, easier still to explain away if the subject was pressed, but Delphine does have a medical degree--she was trained to see the signs.

“Hello, Beth,” she says, not letting her face shift as Beth’s gaze falls on her. “Can I get you anything? Water?”

“Look at this,” Beth says brightly, turning back to Tony. “What kind of shit host are you, when your guest is offering me refreshments?”

“Screw you, I’ve got charm coming out of my ass.”

“I can tell,” Beth says dryly, sitting heavily on the couch. Tony does come back over with a water glass, that he pushes into Beth’s hands. Maybe he isn’t so unobservant as Delphine had thought. “You’ve got your worried face on--what’s up?”

“Katja’s still overseas,” she sighs, taking a drink of the water. “She shook her monitor a while back, but someone approached her and she got spooked. Doesn’t want anyone linking the two of you, or bringing back a tail. She’s okay, she’s good at lying low, but it could be a bit.”

“The samples are still viable?”

“I’m not a scientist, but she doesn’t seem concerned. I’m assuming she’s storing them properly.” Delphine nods, not entirely satisfied, but enough for the moment. “She should be here within the month. I’m sorry, I know it’s frustrating--”

“It’s fine,” Delphine reassures her quickly. “I only feel bad because I am not contributing anything.” She takes a breath before speaking again, not sure how Beth will take her next statement. “I would like to get a job in a laboratory.”

Beth’s silent for a moment. “You’d need to use your real name and credentials for that.”

“Yes,” Delphine says, having anticipated this. “But they already know I came to North America for a job interview--I told Leo that. It will look more suspicious if I disappear now than if I get a job. I’ve found several open positions at universities nearby that I am already overqualified for, including one at the University of Minnesota. It is far enough away that I would not automatically link back to any of you, but near enough that it is logical I would look there if my job interview in Toronto did not go well. We are trying not to catch their attention, yes? Then I must move forward as normally as possible.”

Beth stares at Delphine, assessing. “You’ve thought this through.”

“I’ve had little to do but think.”

“Well,” Beth says, blowing out a long breath. “It would be useful to have access to lab equipment.”

“I need it to properly analyze the samples. It’s likely less risky than breaking into other labs to look at the samples.”

“You’ve got a point.” She nods, half to herself. She rubs her hands together in a way that looks less like a habit and more like she’s trying to hide any shaking. “Start with U of Minnesota--you’ll have to get an apartment there too. Alison and I have funds to help you out if you need it.”

“I’m gonna miss my roomie,” Tony pouts, and Beth rolls her eyes. “But for the greater good…”

“I’ll send in my application,” Delphine says happily, leaning back. “And we still have Skype, Tony.”

“Ain’t the same,” Tony fires back, but he looks happy for her all the same. “Anything else, Beth?”

“Nothing else you need to know.” She starts gathering up her things.

“Hey, hey,” Tony interrupts. “We aren’t trying to chase you out. Stay for a while, let me whup your ass at some video games--”

“I need to get back to Paul,” Beth says quickly.

“Aw, he’ll keep for a bit--”

“I need to go,” Beth snaps, harsher than Delphine’s heard her. Judging by Tony’s flinch, it’s not normally directed at him either. “We can’t all just fuck around like you do, Tony.”

“Beth…” Delphine starts, though she has no idea what to say. Beth gathers herself, her hands still rolled into fists.

“Sorry. I’m sorry, Tony,” she mutters, not looking at either of them. “I have to go.”

Tony says nothing, and Beth vanishes out the door.

“Tony…”

“Don’t,” he says quickly. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not.”

“This is tough shit. She’s struggling, but she’s dealing.” He’s talking to himself more than Delphine, and she lets him. A moment later he sighs, turns to Delphine, and grins. “Hey, movie night? I’ve got everything from G to XXX.”

It’s an obvious change in subject. She lets it happen. “Sure.”

She goes in for the interview--a postdoctoral position in their immunology department that would give her plenty of excuses for lab time. While they’re waiting the next few weeks for the university, she and Tony drink, gossip, and study. He picks up on the science quickly, without much help from Delphine, but she helps him with the math. She abhors the English, which means that Tony asks her for help with it every chance he gets. He claims her rants about the ridiculous entity that is the English language are more entertaining than any video game.

Beth doesn’t drop in nightly anymore, but she texts--Katja still held up. No indications they know where you are. No news. She does ask Delphine once to stop by Alison Hendrix’s home, which was quite the experience. Alison is a housewife with two children, a lovely home, a husband she’d been married to for years. When they’d met, she’d had her hair back in a neat ponytail, and a small gold cross hanging around her neck.

Her pupils had been blown so wide it was hard to see the brown in them.

She’d wrapped one of Delphine’s curls around her fingers and cried over the fact that Delphine was French while Alison had gotten a C- in French while in middle school, and Delphine had fled suburbia as quickly as her car would take her.

Tony had laughed until he cried.

She gets the postdoctoral position and Tony buys her the nicest red he can afford to celebrate. He can’t help her move of course, but they do go on an online shopping spree after she’s had several glasses of wine and he’s gone through a few beers. Delphine wakes up to find she has no lack of furniture for the apartment, though that furniture includes a loveseat shaped like a large pair of lips and a wall hanging of Klimt’s Danae that, sober, Delphine cannot look at without blushing.

Also, a 6-foot replica of the Eiffel Tower that Tony absolutely refuses to let her return. Only when she sends it a picture of it in a corner of her new living room does he stop badgering her about it.

Her job is fine. Her boss is eccentric but distracted enough that she’s sure he can’t be a monitor, and she starts to feel comfortable in her apartment, lip-shaped couch and all. She Skypes with Tony and texts with Beth, and drives up on the long weekends, when she can manage it. Her life still makes no sense, but she is starting to feel at home with it.

And then Beth stops texting.

She’s texted nightly--ever since she’d first given Delphine the phone, she’s texted nightly. Yes, she’s been struggling, a little more unpredictable, but not like this.

She calls, but Beth doesn’t pick up.

“This isn’t like her, Tony,” she frets over their Skype call that night. “She hasn’t answered at all.”

“She might just need some space. There’s a lot going on--”

“I know. I know, and I have not known her as long as you. I just…” she shrugs. “I worry.”

“I know. It’s adorable.”

“And you are not.”

Tony claps a hand to his chest. “Wounded. I am wounded.” Delphine can’t hold back a laugh, and Tony grins. “Seriously, Delphine. Beth brought us all together, she’s been there from the start. Bravest of us all. She’ll be back, you’ll see.”

“If you say so.”

“And I do. Now,” Tony continues, pulling out a folder. “Help me with my vocab.”

“I have a ‘vocab’ word for you,” Delphine replies. “Merde.”

Tony laughs, and Delphine lets herself relax.

Beth will be fine.

Chapter Text

“Hello?”

Delphine’s breath gusts out of her, a mix of relief and anger. “Beth! It’s been days, I’ve been worried sick.”

“Yeah, yeah…” Beth’s breathing is ragged on the other end of the phone, like she’s been running. “It’s, uh, well, it’s a long story.”

Delphine goes quiet. Beth keeps half-gasping on the other end. “Are you all right?”

“No, I’m not, no I’m not, she--” Beth takes a breath and goes quiet. Delphine doesn’t think she’s breathing at all.

“What?”

“She’s dead.”

Delphine freezes.

“Who? Beth, who’s dead?”

“The German! The German, she--someone shot her. Someone shot her.”

“Katja?” There’s blood rushing, loud and frightened, in her ears. This can’t be happening. “Katja’s dead?”

“They shot her. Someone shot her right in front of me,” and Delphine presses a hand to her mouth. Her hand is shaking.

“Are you hurt?”

“No, no they missed me but--she’s in the back of my car. There’s blood everywhere! Jesus Christ--”

Delphine stumbles backward until she hits a wall. She doesn’t realize she’s sliding down it until she hits the floor.

“You said I would be safe here.”

“What?”

“You said I would be safe,” she repeats, numbness giving way to terror. “You said I would be safe here! But they followed her--whoever is killing us, they must have followed her from Europe--”

“Jesus fucking Christ!” There’s a thud from the other line, like Beth had kicked something. “Fucking hell--”

Delphine wraps her arms around herself and takes a deep breath. Beth is falling apart. She has to keep it together.

“Beth. Beth, Beth,” she repeats until there’s a break in Beth’s gulping breaths.

“What?”

“Is it still in your car?”

“What?” Beth sounds less aggressive and more bewildered.

“Katja. The body,” Delphine corrects herself quickly. “Is it still in your car?”

“Yeah. Yes, what--”

“You need to get rid of it.”

There’s a beat. “How?”

“I--”

“How am I supposed to do that?”

“I do not know, I--” Delphine shakes her head. “You are police, Beth, I--bury it or however the criminals do it.”

“Shit. Shit,” Beth mutters, more to herself and Delphine. “Yeah, that’s fine. I’ll just buy a bloody shovel, shall I?”

Delphine nods, though Beth can’t see. “And get her samples.”

“Samples?”

“Hair and blood. And get her briefcase, Beth. We need that.”

“Briefcase?”

“The briefcase and samples, we need them. I’m sorry to ask you to do this,” she adds. “But you know how important it is.”

“If you’re so sorry, why don’t you come help me?”

“I can’t, Beth. I’m sorry.” Delphine breathes shakily. “Call when it is done, d’accord?”

“Yeah. Yeah, we’ll see,” Beth says, and then there’s a dial tone in Delphine’s ear. She picks herself up and crosses to her desk, pulls her little black notebook out from underneath her work papers. Crosses out Katja’s name on the page of ‘living known’ and adds it to ‘deceased’ with a note--killed--and the date. Sets the notebook back in its hiding place.

She breathes.

They’d followed Katja. Not her. There’s no evidence that they know where she is. Beth is--not okay, but she’s alive, she’s safe. It’ll be alright.

She grabs her pink phone and calls Tony.

“‘Yello.”

“Tony,” she breathes, “Tony, I spoke to Beth.”

“Yeah? Is she alright?”

“She--” Delphine has never been a fan of pacing; she lets the wall take some of her weight instead. “Tony, Katja’s dead.”

“What?”

“Beth, she--she said someone shot Katja, while they were in the car together.”

“Shit,” he says with feeling. “Shit, Delphine--”

“I know.”

“They’re really after us.”

There’s not much to say to that.

“They must have followed her--I don’t think they followed me, I was careful--I tried, but I did use my real name, I had to--I--”

“Delphine, Delphine.” Tony’s patient voice cuts off her rambling. “It’s not your fault. You’re right, they probably followed Katja. But Beth got away, yeah? And they were both up in Canada, you’re in Minnesota. You’ll be fine.”

Delphine nods, eyes closed. “What about you?”

“Aw, hell, I’m tougher than a load of bricks. Nobody’s gonna get one up on me.”

“I do not understand your slang.”

“It means you can’t mess with the Tony,” he says, and Delphine can’t help the small smile. He’s softer when he speaks again. “Delphine, you wanna drive up? Spend the night?”

“No I--I can’t,” she says, even as something warms at the offer. “I have a class to TA in the morning and a shift later--we have to continue acting as normal as possible.”

“Want me to drive down, then?”

“No, it’ll be safer if we stay separate. But call often, yes?”

“Deal, I’ll check in with you tomorrow.”

“D’accord. I need to call Alison,” she adds, chewing on her lip. “And, Tony?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

She can hear the smile in his voice as he replies. “Anytime, Blondie.”

Beth doesn’t pick up when Delphine calls her back.

Delphine gets death glares from her fellow TAs every time she slips out of the room to try calling again--Julie, a TA who’d started around the same time as Delphine, asks what’s wrong every time--but for once she doesn’t care about what others think. She cares far more about making sure Beth hasn’t landed herself in a shallow grave next to Katja.

Katja. The name sends a lump of ice into her stomach. What was her job? she wonders automatically. How did she wear her hair? What was her height, her weight, her I.Q. score? Who were her parents, what was her socioeconomic status?

None of it matters, the other part of her replies. She had your genes, and they killed her because of them.

She was like you, and she’s dead.

Delphine bites her lip, and slips out to call Beth again.

It’s hours later when Beth finally answers.

“Beth,” she breathes, and it’s as much surprise and relief as it is a greeting. “Beth, you frightened me.”

“Yeah, I’ve been--I’ve been busy,” Beth replies, still sounding half-distracted. Of course, Delphine scolds herself, Katja did die in her car only yesterday.

“Of course. I only wanted to make sure you were all right.” Delphine’s pacing in the hallway, in tight two-step circuits. She can’t help herself. Someone walks by and she shoots him a small and likely unconvincing smile, hand tight on the phone. “Did you get the briefcase?”

“No. Why?”

“Why--” Delphine sputters, teeth hard in her lip as she gathers herself back up. “Beth, we need that.”

“Well she didn’t have it on her, alright?”

“Then you must find it,” Delphine says, running her hand through her hair. “Which hotel was she staying at?”

“Um…” There’s a few moments of rustling before Beth comes back. “Carlsborough Hotel, room 303.”

“All right,” Delphine says, “then you need to go there. Find the briefcase before anyone else does. I will call you tonight.” She’s supposed to be hosting office hours, and sees a student out of the corner of her eye. “I have to go.”

She hangs up before the student has any chance of overhearing, and does her best to smile and care about his grade. Part of her wants to call Tony, to check in about Beth’s behavior--but she remembers how protective he seems to be of Beth, and how worried that made him in turn. He doesn’t need to be worried about something that might be nothing. Her erratic behavior is understandable, after all--trying to manage the clone thing and the fact that they might all be next to die, while managing a job on top of it. It would put a strain on anyone.

“Thanks, Dr. Cormier,” says the student whose name and question she’s already forgotten.

“Of course. Come by anytime.” He smiles, and she waves before turning around in her chair, picking at her clone phone’s pink case.

They need the samples. She needs the samples--needs something to ground herself, to start making this situation comprehensible the only way she knows how. If she even had just one hair sample--

Oh.

Oh.

She stands and gathers her things, stopping to knock on a neighboring TA’s door.

“Julie, sorry, I am, ah, not feeling well.” She gestures vaguely to her stomach and sees her fellow TA’s face fold in sympathy. “I think I will go, if you could take any students who come by…”

“Of course, of course!” Delphine is waved off immediately and compassionately, and she only feels a bit guilty. “Go get some rest. You’ve seemed off all day.”

“Merci.” She smiles and hurries off before Julie can say anything else, or any more students can catch her with questions.

It’s worryingly easy to sneak into the medical school.

The students are all overworked, overfocused, and overtired, while the professors bustle from lecture to lecture. She slips into an empty phlebotomy lab, pockets what she needs, and slips out. No one gives her a second glance. Not there, not on the bus ride home, not on the walk up to her apartment.

She locks her door firmly behind her.

She doesn’t empty her pockets until she gets to her bathroom, where she gathers the last few supplies. Only then does she spread out her spoils, and begin.

The hair sample is simple. A few strands, pulled out from the root so the follicle is attached and sealed carefully into a plastic bag. She only winces for a moment, carefully folding the bag and setting it aside.

The blood sample is harder.

It’s not until she’s wearing gloves that she remembers contamination is hardly an issue, given who the blood is coming from. Med school had truly drilled protocol into her. Her professors would be delighted.

She ends up sitting on her toilet lid, elbow on the counter, pulling the tourniquet tight with her teeth. It’s been a long time since she’s drawn blood, and never on herself, but--well. It’s not as if there’s anyone she can trust.

She hisses as the needle goes in, but makes it to the vein on the first try.

The blood flows in and she releases the tourniquet, letting it fall to the ground. The syringe fills slowly, Delphine taking her time thanks to the awkward angle. She doesn’t let herself look away.

Finally, it’s full, and Delphine sets the syringe next to her sink, wishing she’d stolen a tube rack along with it while she’d been in the medical building. A bit of blood trickles down her arm before she catches it with a square of gauze, taping it into place.

After that, it’s a simple matter of transferring the blood into a tube and capping the needle, stashing it in the back of a drawer to dispose of properly later. It’s a few moments work to make the bathroom look the same as before.

As if nothing had happened.

She labels the tube neatly, the way she was trained to. Her initials, but reversed, and the date. It could be anyone’s blood like this. There’d been a time she looked at blood and always thought it could be anyone’s, and a longer time when she’d looked at blood and known that it was full of clues to what made a person who they were, from traces of drugs to infection to DNA buried deep in white blood cells.

Now she looks at her blood again, and it could be anyone’s. Her own, or Beth’s, or Alison’s, even Katja Obinger’s.

Her blood is not her own.

And she has been standing too long holding the tube. She quickly moves to her freezer, the temperature set just above freezing, and nestles it in the back, behind frozen dinners and ice cream. The hair she tucks deep into the inner pocket of her purse.

It’s still early enough that the labs will be full, so she grabs her bag, fully intending to lock herself away in her room to catch up on grading when she notices that bright red loveseat. It’s not exactly forgettable--a massive pair of lips in her mostly-monochrome living room--but she’s managed to get used to them. Still, they make her think of Tony, and make her grin. She settles herself into it, shaking her head a little at the ridiculousness of it all, and pulls out her grading.

It’s just after eight when she goes into the lab--late enough that the building is quiet, only a few workaholics in their offices. The lab itself is much the same, only one woman tucked into a corner bench who barely looks up when Delphine enters. Delphine herself goes for the other corner, setting up her purse like a barrier before she settles in to work.

It’s good work, routine. Spinning down the blood to isolate the white blood cells, lysing those cells down to pull the DNA out. She’s just wrapping up purification, getting ready to set up PCR, when there’s a shout from behind her.

“Shit. Shit!”

It’s the woman from before, rapidly backing up from her bench. She’s holding a dripping bottle delicately in one gloved hand.

Delphine only takes a moment to stash away the blood vial before jumping up. “Acid or base spill?”

“Base,” the woman calls, cursing again. “None on me, but…”

Delphine grabs the basic spill kit, jogging over. The woman is already clearing the bench, containing the spill so it doesn’t seep onto the ground, so it falls to Delphine to spread the contents of the kit, the liquid neutralizing with a loud hiss.

“Thank you. God, such a rookie mistake,” the woman laughs, shaking her head. “I’m making a great first impression, aren’t I?”

“You are fine.” Delphine smiles, taking her first real look at the other woman. She’s short, is the first thing Delphine notices, her hair twisted into dreadlocks and the dreadlocks pulled into a high ponytail. The second thing are her glasses, perched on the bridge of her nose above a nose ring, and the swoops of eyeliner. They’re black, all curved lines and angles, the glasses cat-eye and the eyeliner almost Egyptian, following the lines of her eye and face perfectly.

The third thing is her eyes themselves.

They’re a rich brown, the light seeming to come from them instead of merely reflecting. They’re deep, like the ocean or the sky--the kind you could fall into without ever reaching the bottom.

They’re wide, and fixed on Delphine.

Delphine drops her own gaze in response. “It happens to us all.”

“I’m gonna bet it’s never happened to you,” the woman retorts. “All poise and grace, not a spot on your lab coat.”

“Well, I have been here less than a month,” Delphine demurs. “It has not had much of a chance to be dirtied.”

“Shit, seriously?” The woman throws back her head and laughs. It’s an enchanting sound. “This is my second day.”

“I--” Delphine tries to think of something to say to that, but a giggle bursts out of her first. She’s horrified, but the other woman doesn’t seem offended, laughing harder if anything. “I am so sorry.”

“That’s not even the funny part. The funny part…” The woman takes a deep breath. “I forgot to do something my PI asked me to do earlier today. I snuck in late to do this because I wanted to make a good impression.”

“Oh…” Delphine cringes in embarassed sympathy. “Oh no.”

“I know.”

“Well…” Delphine looks at the bench and its scattered supplies, the pile of neutralized base that still needs to be cleaned, and the damningly near-empty bottle at the woman’s side. “I only need to centrifuge my samples twice more and place them into the machine, it should only take five minutes, then I will help you clean up, d’accord?”

“Oh, no, no, I can’t ask you--”

“I am offering,” Delphine says quickly. “You want that good first impression, yes?”

“Yeah. Speaking of first impressions…” The woman sticks one gloved hand out. “I’m Cosima.”

“Delphine.” She takes the offered hand, and Cosima holds on tight. “Enchantée.”

“Enshantee.” The accent is horrendous, but Cosima’s smile is bright, and Delphine returns it.

“Five minutes, okay?”

“Okay.”

Delphine hurries back to her own bench. Cosima leans back and watches her go.

“So, full disclosure,” Cosima says while they’re setting right the last few traces of the earlier chaos in the lab. “I kinda already knew who you were.”

Delphine stills. “Did you?”

“Yeah,” Cosima continues, straightening from where she’d been hiding the nearly-empty bottle. “I’m studying evo-devo--”

“Evo…?”

“Oh, evolutionary development,” she explains quickly, and Delphine chuckles, embarrassed. “Anyway, I was doing some research on the coevolution of hosts and parasites a while back, and came across your paper on Paragordius tricuspidatus and Nemobius sylvestris. It was killer.”

“Oh.” Delphine ducks her head, trying to hide the way a small pleased feeling is curling in her stomach. “I, ah, I did not know that one had been translated.”

“I was just upset more of your papers hadn’t been,” Cosima fires back, the two of them crossing over to the lab sink to wash their hands. Delphine expects Cosima to move away to one of the other sinks, but she leans in instead, her side pressed against Delphine’s while she strips off her gloves. “Seriously, bilingual, an MD, and a genius, what can’t you do?”

“I think you are flattering me,” Delphine replies, and Cosima snorts.

“Of course I am. I’ve gotta have someone to call for next time I spill a chemical everywhere.”

“Oh, there will be a next time?”

Cosima just grins, rolling up her sleeves and plunging her hands under the water. She’s got two tattoos, Delphine realizes, one on each forearm. On her right, a nautilus that looks painted on, the swooping lines uneven just enough to look natural. On her left, a row of four bird skulls done in careful precision, each with a differently-shaped beak.

“I didn’t mess up your evening too badly, did I?”

“Oh, no,” Delphine reassures her quickly. “I was only working on a personal project. I finished everything I wanted to.”

“Good, good.” Both of them finished, Cosima turns off the water and they both pat their hands dry. “In that case, can I buy you some coffee or something? Or…” she glances at the clock on the wall. “A drink, I guess, since most coffee places are closed by now.”

“Ah…” Delphine glances at the clock, biting her lip. She needs to call Beth, needs to get her hands on the briefcase, to check in with Tony. What she doesn’t need is to drag anyone else into this. “Tonight is not a good night, I am afraid.”

Cosima’s face falls so quickly and dramatically that Delphine finds herself adding quickly, “But another night, perhaps?”

“Another night,” Cosima agrees. “I’m gonna hold you to that, Dr. Cormier.”

“I understand.”

“I don’t think you do. This is serious business, and I can’t just take your word for it.” Cosima’s voice is deadly serious, but her eyes are sparkling. “We’re going to have to sign a more lasting contract.”

Cosima holds out one hand, little finger raised. It takes Delphine a moment to understand, but when she does, she’s giggling again.

“You cannot be serious.”

“Deadly.”

“I did not realize the university employed kindergarteners.”

“You gonna make the commitment or not, Dr. Cormier?”

Delphine sighs, but doesn’t quite manage to make it exasperated. She raises her hand and links her pinky finger with Cosima’s.

Her finger is warm, hand bumping against Delphine’s. Cosima almost looks startled when Delphine squeezes her finger around Cosima’s, though Delphine can’t imagine why.

“It is a promise, then.”

Cosima nods, dragging her gaze up from where she’d been looking at their linked fingers. “And you can’t break a pinky promise.”

Delphine gives Beth two hours to call, then calls herself.

“Hello?”

“Beth.” Delphine breathes out, letting her head drop in relief. “I was worried.”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

There’s a silence. “Did you get the briefcase?”

“Someone else got to the hotel first. They completely trashed the place.”

“Merde,” Delphine says, with feeling. “No briefcase?”

Beth takes a breath. “I didn’t say that.”

Something is off. Delphine finds herself pacing again, her free arm wrapping around herself. “I do not understand. Do you have it?”

“Hold on.” There’s a muffled noise, something that sounds suspiciously like someone saying screw this, and then--

“Who is this?” It’s a rough voice, British, ragged at the edges.

It’s not Beth.

Everything in Delphine freezes.

“Who is this?”

“Are you Alison?” Fear buzzes up the back of her neck like ice water. “Am I speaking to Alison Hendrix?”

“Where is Beth?”

“Beth’s unavailable right now.”

“What have you done to her?”

“Look, she said to say I have the briefcase. I can bring it to you, if you want.”

“Beth said to contact me.”

“She gave me your number.”

Delphine takes a breath, eyes shut tight. “Just one, I’m a few, no family too, who am I?”

“Sorry riddler, that means nothing to me.”

Delphine’s breath catches. “You don’t know Beth.” The woman makes a noise like she’s about to say something, but Delphine hangs up.

She resists the urge to fling her phone away.

Her fingers slip twice while thumbing through her speed dial, but she makes it to Tony’s name. She does not scream when it goes to voicemail.

“Tony, something’s happened to Beth. I think we’re in danger. I’m driving up. Call me back. Please.”

Alison’s phone goes directly to voicemail--not too much of a surprise, given how she tends to pretend her clone phone doesn’t exist whenever she can, but it makes Delphine bite her lip in some odd combination of worry and annoyance anyway--and she leaves a message there as well, and then she’s moving around her apartment, throwing together whatever she can.

Her laptop, both of her phones, and that innocuous black notebook with all the clone data inside all go into her bag. She shoots a quick email to her PI explaining that she’s caught a highly contagious stomach bug, and that she’d rather not go into detail but she thinks it’s best if she doesn’t come into work, for a few days at least and throws together a few changes of clothes, and then she’s in her car, apartment door locked securely behind her, and driving up toward the border.

Tony calls her a few hours into the drive.

“Delphine, what the fuck is going on?”

“I don’t know,” she replies. “But I don’t think it’s good.”

“I just got a call from Alison, she said some clone she’d never seen before showed up at her kid’s soccer game and offered her the briefcase in exchange for information.”

“Another clone? Not one from any of Beth’s files?”

“I don’t think so--Alison just said she looked dirty and like a street rat, not that that was super helpful.”

“Did she say anything about Beth?”

Tony goes silent. “Alison doesn’t think we can trust her.”

“Tony.” Delphine’s knuckles go white on the steering wheel. “What did she say about Beth?”

“She said Beth was dead.”

Delphine breathes out, long and shuddering. “Are you all right?”

Tony laughs, but it’s low and almost frightening. “Let’s not go there. How’d you know something was up before Alison did?”

“I was on the phone with her--I thought it was Beth, until she dropped the act. She thought that I was Alison.”

“God, she seriously doesn’t know anything then. How the hell did she end up here, sticking her nose any and everywhere it doesn’t belong?”

“I don’t know, but we cannot let her continue. If she’s a threat, we must learn what she knows. And if she isn’t…”

“She’s just blundering around, showing up at kid’s soccer games and stealing shit. She’s gonna get herself killed.”

“And us with her, if she’s already this close.”

“Do you think she got Beth killed?”

Delphine shakes her head, even though Tony can’t see. “I think we need to wait and see what else is going on.”

“She had Beth’s phone, Delphine. She’s got the briefcase. I don’t know how she could’ve gotten Beth’s phone unless…”

“I should be in town by mid-morning,” Delphine says instead of responding to that. “I’ll try calling Beth again--”

“The unknown’s got Beth’s phone.”

“Her other number, maybe. Or calling her on Skype, maybe--or the station--there must be some way to contact her--”

“Alison said Beth killed herself.”

Delphine takes a long moment before she breathes again. “I cannot have this conversation while I am driving, Tony.”

“Okay. Okay.” She imagines Tony on the other end, running a hand through his hair or rubbing at his beard. “Sorry.”

“It is fine.” Although it isn’t, really--she hasn’t even been seeing the road, these last few miles. She should pull over--but that would mean stopping, taking longer to get to Tony and Alison, and so she only takes a few moments to orient herself, and steps a little harder on the gas. “I will be there soon, Tony.”

“Okay. Okay.” She can hear him breathing, ragged but trying to calm. “Any ideas on how to handle the rogue?”

“We need to bring her in--to tell her what’s going on, at least, if she truly doesn’t know what she is. We cannot let her get herself killed.”

“Yeah, I hear you. Clone Club’s gonna gain another member.”

Delphine snorts, a little bit of tension going out of her shoulders. “We are not calling ourselves that.”

“Aw, screw you, it’s brilliant. I’m brilliant.”

“You may tell yourself whatever you like, Tony.”

“You’re awful, Dr. Cormier. No idea why I put up with you.”

Delphine lets her head fall back against the headrest, moving easily through the familiar routines of driving down a highway. “Get Alison to set up a meeting with the unknown, we’ll try to all meet her at once perhaps, and see where it goes from there.”

“Yeah, okay. You’ll be in by morning, right? Are you driving through the night?”

“A few coffee shops and I will be fine. Do not worry about me.”

“Yeah, that ain’t happening. You’re crashing at my place, by the way, don’t you dare try staying anywhere else.”

“D’accord,” Delphine says with a light laugh. “But I will be sleeping in your bed, not the couch.”

“Only in your dreams.” Tony hangs up and Delphine sets the phone down within reach.

There are storm clouds on the horizon.

Delphine drives directly toward them.

“Hey, hey, hey.”

Tony crushes Delphine to his chest as soon as she knocks on his door. Delphine holds him back, leaning into his shoulder.

“Hi.”

“Hi. Missed you.”

“I missed you too,” Delphine replies. “But I think I should perhaps come inside.”

“Right, right.” Tony pulls Delphine inside, checking the hallway before locking the door firmly. “Shit, Delphine.”

“I know.”

“Alison said to come by at 8:30, to use the back door, to knock very softly not to wake her kids, and to absolutely not be seen by anyone in the neighborhood.”

“Sounds just like Alison.”

“Yeah, so I think she’s dealing,” Tony huffs. “Or at least, as close to dealing with it as Alison ever deals with anything.”

“That is good, at least.” Tony takes her bag, and Delphine slumps gratefully down onto his couch, sliding her feet out of her heels. “And how are you dealing?”

“Well, we don’t have any proof of anything yet,” Tony says, flopping down on a nearby barstool. “So I’m mostly just drinking. And kicking ass at Candy Crush, but mostly drinking.”

“Tony…”

“It’s fine, I’ve had worse binges. I just want to forget about it until I can’t forget about it any more, you know?”

“I think I understand.” Delphine leans her head against the back of the couch, her eyes sliding shut for a moment before she forces them open again.

“We gotta stop talking about me, because you look horrible.”

“I have just driven fifteen hours!”

“And I can tell.” Delphine starts to sit up, and Tony shoves her back down. “I even put a pillow on the couch for you, look.”

“Oh, merci, monsieur,” Delphine snarks back, but the couch really does look wonderful, and that pillow is actually very soft under her head, and she can actually fit her whole body on the cushions if she curls her legs up a bit, and she’s only going to close her eyes for a moment--

She feels her heels being pulled off, and a blanket being tucked under her chin, and she’s going to tell Tony he doesn’t need to baby her. In just a moment.

In just...

“Delphine, it’s almost eight.”

Delphine makes a muffled noise into the pillow, and hears a distinctive amused snort come from above her.

“Tais-toi,” she mumbles, sitting up and rubbing at her eyes. “What is the hour?”

“Almost eight. We’ve gotta leave in fifteen.”

Delphine blinks. “And you only wake me now?”

“I can’t help it, you look so cute when you’re sleeping.”

The glare she shoots Tony is undermined by the smeared mascara and mussed hair, not to mention the fact that it’s the same glare he uses when he’s upset but not actually that upset.

“You can use my bathroom if you have to. Personally I think we look hot all the time, but I understand how you might not like walk-of-shame chic.”

“Tais-toi,” she tells him again, heading into the bathroom.

“I’m gonna use Google Translate and totally get back at you for whatever you said!” he calls back as Delphine closes the door.

She splashes some water on her face, scrubbing off whatever makeup had clung on through the day of work, night of driving, and half-day of sleeping before digging in her pockets for an eyeliner pen and tube of mascara.

For all Tony lacks in any sort of makeup, he makes up for in haircare, and it only takes her a few more moments to tame her hair and straighten out her clothes as best she can. She shuffles out of the bathroom in bare feet to see Tony holding out her heels and purse.

“Damn. That can’t be a genetic thing, because it takes me forever to get ready.”

“Yes, I noticed the amount of product in there.”

“And I noticed that you used some of them. Don’t think I can’t smell it.” He passes her one of his hoodies. “You’re gonna have to muss your curls, though. Don’t want my neighbors looking too closely when we leave.”

“Of course.” She pulls the hoodie on over her clothes--it fits well, though she doesn’t know why she’d expect anything different--and pulls the hood up to cover her hair and most of her face. “Ready?”

“Let’s go initiate a new member of Clone Club!”

“We will not call it that!” she insists, but Tony only slings his arm through hers and leads them both out the door.

“Wipe your feet.”

“Great to see you too, Alison,” Tony mutters, dutifully wiping his boots on the mat before stepping inside. Delphine wipes her feet as well, shrugging off the hoodie as she steps in.

Alison’s basement is perfectly clean, the carpet white and the furniture all matching. Alison herself is in a white sweater with gold cross prominently displayed. She and Tony are giving each other impressive amounts of side-eye while Delphine tried to edge past them both.

“Ah! You’re Dr. Cormier, yes?”

Delphine only freezes for a moment before smiling and taking the hand Alison offers. “Yes, good evening, Mrs. Hendrix. We have met before, actually, though you might not remember--”

“Oh yes, I wasn’t actually feeling well that night, I’m afraid I may have given you an...improper perception. It is so good to meet you formally and properly.”

“Yes, you as well,” Delphine says politely.

“Can I offer either of you anything? Water, coffee…?”

“I’m fine, thanks Ali.”

“Please don’t call me that,” Alison says in that same polite tone she’s had the entire conversation. “Dr. Cormier?”

“Delphine, please. And no, I am fine, thank you.”

Alison nods, gesturing for them both to sit. “Well, I told Sarah to come here by nine, though who knows if she’ll be punctual or not. We could be here quite a while.”

“Her name is Sarah?”

“It’s what she said.” Alison’s eyes dart to Tony, who is slouching defiantly on the couch, manspreading like his life depends on it. Delphine, sitting next to him, finds herself sitting up straighter, hands folded in her lap like she’s trying to compensate for him. “I don’t know if we should trust anything about her, though.”

“I don’t think she’d lie about her name, Alison,” Tony points out, still slumped.

“She could lie about anything! What’s she doing, turning up out of nowhere, somewhere my kids could have seen!”

“If it helps, Mrs. Hendrix,” Delphine interrupts, if only to diffuse the building tension. “I think if she was from the scientific groups that are behind this, she would not have appeared somewhere others can see--it would simply be irresponsible, as they clearly do not want anyone to know about us.”

Alison sniffs, but nods like she is conceding the point.

Then there’s a quiet knock at the back door.

“Up, up, go,” Alison hisses, shooing them both to their feet. Even Tony half-jumps to his feet. “Wait in the craft room.”

“Wait, why--” Tony starts, but Alison hushes him.

“We don’t know that it’s her.” She shoves them both in a back room covered in bright fabrics and craft scissors before rushing out--but not before grabbing something out of a drawer.

Tony and Delphine are left staring at each other.

“Was she holding…”

“No.” Tony shakes his head. “There is no way uptight Ali has a gun.”

“You’re gonna shoot me while your kids are sleeping?”

“You wake them up, you show your face, and yes I will shoot you.”

Delphine looks meaningfully toward the slightly-muffled voices coming from the other room, then back at Tony.

“Damn it,” Tony sighs, leaning back against one of the craft cabinets. “Now I have to respect her.”

The voices are getting raised, and Delphine glances around the doorway. “Should we…?”

“Guess we should. Bite the bullet, huh?” He moves past Delphine, hands shoved deep in his pockets and trademark cocky grin.

“I’m Tony Sawicki, and who the hell are you?” he announces, and Delphine breathes out, shaking her head a little and following.

“Bonjour, Sarah. My name is Delphine Cormier.”

Sarah looks like a storm cloud in Alison’s perfect house. She’s in black leather, black jeans, and combat boots that have scattered dirt onto the white carpet. Her hair is tied up like Beth’s, her makeup done like Beth’s, but she stands completely differently, bow-legged with her hands in her pockets, shoulders squared like she’s ready to fight.

Her eyes are wide, going from Alison to Tony to Delphine and back around.

“Bloody hell,” she gasps, still staring. “How many of us are there?”

Delphine and Tony look at each other. Alison looks like she wishes she hadn’t set down her gun.

“Perhaps we should sit? If it is all right with Mrs. Hendrix,” Delphine suggests. “I feel that this is not a conversation we should have standing.”

“I don’t think we should be having it sober,” Tony adds.

“Okay, I like him,” Sarah says, pointing. Tony beams and Alison tuts, but eventually they all end up seated and facing each other.

“Right, Sarah,” Tony says once they’re all settled. “So how’d you slip through the system this long?”

“I don’t know,” Sarah says bluntly, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees. “I mean, I was a foster kid, I bounced around a lot until I was adopted when I was like, eight. Moved here when I was twelve and I’ve been here ever since.”

“So she has a tragic backstory that is conveniently hard to corroborate, wonderful.” Alison stands, arms crossed tightly enough to threaten circulation. “And this proves she didn’t hurt Beth how?”

“Listen, I said I didn’t hurt her!” Alison scoffs, and Sarah looks halfway to standing. “I’m sorry, but she killed herself. I was there.”

“Convenient again. So you just happened to be there and just happened to be looking for an identity to steal.”

“I got stuck. It’s not like I set out to--”

“Wait.” It’s Tony who interrupts, leaning forward. “You stole Beth’s identity?”

“I--” Sarah breathes out sharply. “I’m in a bad place, alright? I needed money, and she left her purse on the platform. I was gonna take it and run, it just got away from me.”

Alison turns away from Sarah in disbelief. On Delphine’s other side, Tony starts to lean back, away from Sarah.

“You have to believe me. I never wanted to be her.”

“Sarah…” All three gazes snap to Delphine and she swallows. “All three of us knew Beth, you have to understand. And we know that she was struggling, that…” Tony’s words would be in deep shit, but Delphine talks around that. “That things were especially difficult for her--”

“That doesn’t mean suicide,” Alison bursts. “Beth was a cop. Beth had tools, Beth--Beth wouldn’t do this,” she finishes weakly.

“I’m sorry about your friend,” Sarah says, and she sounds genuine. “Really. But look, I just want to know what the hell is going on.”

“And you expect us to just tell you,” Alison says.

“Yeah, I do.”

“Alison…” Tony starts, though even he doesn’t look like he knows what he’s going to say.

“Fine! Fine!” Alison throws up her hands, eyes going heavenward. “You want to tell her what’s going on? We’re clones. We’re an experiment, and now they’re killing us off!”

Sarah stares. Tony winces. From the top of the stairs, there’s a tiny yawn.

“Mommy?”

“Oh, Gemma! Gemma, Gemma, Gemma.” Alison runs up the stairs, scooping up the tiny girl and turning so she can’t see into the basement. “Sweetie, you’re supposed to be sleeping!”

“I heard voices. Who are they?”

“Just Mommy’s friends baby, now let’s get you back into bed!” Alison’s chatter, briefly punctuated by her daughter’s replies, fades out as the two hurry out of the basement. Sarah looks between Tony and Delphine.

“She isn’t serious.” It’s not a question.

“Well…” Tony draws out the word, leaning back. “Thing is, she is.”

“It is not how I would have put it,” Delphine supplies. “But it is an accurate summary of the situation.”

“Jesus fuck.” Sarah leans forward, burying her face in her hands.

“Missed that verse in Bible class.”

“Tony,” Delphine scolds before turning back to Sarah. “We do all appear to be genetically identical. Tony is from America, I am French, Alison is Canadian, and you are...British?”

“No,” Sarah says. “I mean, yeah, I’m from London, originally, but--clones?” She stands, not noticing Alison coming back down the stairs behind her. “I thought I’d found some--bloody lost twin, not some sci-fi bullshit story--”

“It is a lot to take in,” Delphine starts, but stops as a shadow passes by the basement door. Something outside is moving.

Alison is grabbing her gun and out the door, Sarah a half-step behind her.

The shouting starts a moment later.

“Well,” Tony says brightly, slapping his knees as he stands. “That went swimmingly.”

Delphine can’t even find it in herself to glare at him. She stands instead, grabbing Sarah’s phone and heading out the door. She nearly runs into Alison, who’s scurrying back inside and holding her face, but she’ll let Tony deal with her.

Sarah’s outside, scolding a dark-haired man who must’ve been who they saw moving around in the yard, and doesn’t notice Delphine at first.

“What the hell were you doing--”

“Sarah,” Delphine interrupts, and sees the man’s eyes go wide. “You forgot this.”

The man is still staring, and Delphine waves, a little awkwardly. “Bonsoir, I’m Delphine.”

“Yeah, I have so many more questions right now than what your name is, sweetheart.”

Delphine concedes that with a small nod. Sarah holds out her hand for the phone, but Delphine hesitates.

“You really cannot keep bringing people into this.”

“What, first rule of Clone Club is no talking about it?”

Delphine blinks at Sarah confusedly. “Have you been talking to Tony?”

“What? No, it’s--” Sarah shakes her head. “Can you just give me my phone, please?”

Delphine passes it over, but grabs Sarah’s arm before she can turn away. “You have all of our numbers, of course, but Sarah--I can explain this to you, give you as many answers as you want, but we need the briefcase. It is...it is life-and-death.”

“Answers? Alison just pointed a gun at my brother! You think I want anything to do with you?”

“Sarah--”

“No. No,” Sarah repeats, jerking her arm out of Delphine’s grasp. “Here’s the deal. I give you the bloody briefcase and you stay the hell away from me and my family.”

“Sarah.” Sarah and the man--her brother--are striding away, but at Delphine’s call, Sarah stops. Her brother takes a few steps before stopping, turning around with an exasperated look. “Have you had the nightmares yet?”

“What?”

“The nightmares. Tied down, with men looming over you, reaching into you, needles and probes and being less than human. Have they started yet?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“They will. And you can give us the briefcase and leave us, or we can help you.”

“I don’t need your help.”

Delphine doesn’t answer that. “You have our numbers.”

Sarah looks at her for a long moment, and their eyes are almost the same. Then she disappears into the night, her brother at her side.

Tony appears behind her. “She in the Club, you think?”

“I think she is hiding something, and I worry if we cannot help her.” Tony bumps her shoulder with his, and Delphine leans back into him. “And we are not calling it Clone Club.”

“Just wait. It’ll grow on you.”

“No. Tony, no.”

“Tony yes.” Delphine laughs, Tony chuckling victoriously in her ear for a moment before they both sober, leaning into each other for support. “Do you think she’ll call?”

“I hope she does.” She bites her lip before asking her next question. “Do you think she was telling the truth about Beth?”

“I--” She hears Tony swallow hard, and gives him some semblance of privacy by not turning around. “I thought she was doing better, Delphine, I--I should’ve--”

“No, Tony, no,” Delphine says, and doesn’t think before turning around, holding him, and he lets her, wrapping his arms around her and holding tight. Alison would have a fit, seeing them standing in the middle of the yard where anyone could see, but the night is quiet and there are more important things than Alison’s paranoia right now.

“Are you going back to Minnesota tonight?”

“No,” Delphine replies. “I am staying with you. For as long as you need.”

“Okay,” Tony says, and they both pretend they can’t hear the relief in his voice. “Okay.”

It’s late, and Tony has finally passed out, but Delphine isn’t sleeping. She can’t sleep, to be more precise, pacing in silent circles around Tony’s living room. She’s been holding her pink clone phone for so long that it’s hot in her hand.

The clock above Tony’s small stove reads 2:03, the digital numbers bright in the dark room, and Delphine makes a conscious decision to set her phone down, lie back on Tony’s couch, and fall asleep.

Five minutes later, she’s reaching for her phone again.

It’s her personal phone instead of her clone she grabs, however, a blinking light alerting her to an unread message.

Cosima: Hey, it’s Cosima! Heard through the grapevine you’re not feeling great :( anything you need? Soup, oj, chemicals spilled?

Delphine’s smiling almost immediately, rolling onto her side as she taps out a reply.

Me: Merci, Cosima, but I will decline, especially the chemicals. I am staying with a friend for a few days, he will make sure I am well taken care of.

A text bubble indicating Cosima is typing pops up almost immediately, like she’d been waiting for Delphine’s reply.

Cosima: Good :) you think you’ll be back soon?

Cosima: You owe me a coffee!! Or i owe you one but you have to come with

Me: Yes, within a few days I hope. I look forward to the coffee :)

Cosima: Wait

Cosima: You’re sick! Why are you up??

Me: Why are you?

Cosima: Im late to bed, late to rise. Kind of always late.

Cosima: But im not sick either. Whats your excuse?

Delphine surprises herself with an honest reply.

Me: It has been a rough day here.

Cosima: Im sorry :( wanna talk?

Me: No

Delphine winces at her blunt response, hurrying to try and soften it.

Me: I am sorry, I only mean I think I should sleep now

Cosima is typing…

Cosima is typing…

Cosima: I agree. Sweet dreams! :)

Delphine sends Cosima a quick you too before setting her phone down and pulling Tony’s spare blanket over her shoulders. There’s a certain relief that comes with speaking to someone outside of all this mess, she muses to herself. A reassurance that there is still a world outside of this crazy one she’s found herself pulled into, a world beyond conspiracies and clones. A world that she might get to return to, someday.

She rolls over and finally falls asleep.

Chapter Text

The next day, Tony has gone back to work, and Delphine is fielding emails on her laptop, including three from fellow TA Julie asking about her health. She knows the stomach bug excuse will not hold up forever--she’s been gone two days already--but she doesn’t want to leave Canada now, not when everything is so off-balance. Sarah is a wild card. She’s worried about Tony, and even Alison.

And there’s a part of her she won’t admit to that doesn’t want to be alone, not with Beth gone and killers stalking in the shadows.

With her thoughts in such dark spots, she startles when her phone rings.

She’s startled again when she looks and it’s her clone phone, Sarah’s name on the caller ID.

“Hello?”

“Do we have matching fingerprints?”

Delphine blinks, thrown. “...I’m sorry?”

“Look, can you just answer the bloody question?” Sarah snaps, hard to understand through her thick accent and the rushed, half-whisper way she’s speaking.

“Ah, no, no, fingerprints are not entirely genetics-based, they may be similar, but they are nonidentical--” She freezes. “Why are you asking?”

“Beth’s partner found the German...well, part of her?”

“Part?”

“I messed up when I buried her, okay? The body went through a grinder but they’ve got parts. Including a hand.”

“Oh…” Delphine runs a distracted hand through her hair, sitting up straight. “Sarah, this is not good.”

“Yeah, no shit Sherlock, I’m at the bloody crime scene right now pretending to be a bloody cop so I need to know really bloody quick if they can bloody identify her based on whatever they’ve got!”

“Please stop saying ‘bloody,’” Delphine requests quietly, choosing to ignore Sarah’s exasperated huff. “When you say ‘grinder,’ is it...like a blender? Are all of the bits gathered into one spot or, ah, strewn?”

Sarah mutters a few choice words, but pauses like she’s twisted to look. “I mean it’s some kind of rock crusher--but yeah, everything goes into one bin--” There’s a retching sound, and Delphine winces. “I shouldn’t’a looked. But they are finding...more of her.”

Delphine carefully does not let herself wonder what that means, focusing on what she knows instead. “If they have hair, blood, then they will be able to separate a DNA sample and test it. But I do not believe Katja’s DNA would be on any police database, other than perhaps INTERPOL and I doubt they would do that. As long as none of us have any of our DNA on a criminal database, there should be no problem.”

Sarah is silent for a long moment. “Those cheek-swab things...if the cops took one of those, would that mean your DNA is on file?”

“...It is possible,” Delphine says slowly. “Sarah, are you saying you--”

“Look, we can’t all be bloody brilliant doctors, can we?” Sarah snaps back. “Just--petty fraud, assault, I only bit a guy once and he had it coming, okay? They took the DNA to match my spit or something. The important thing is if they run the DNA and get a match they’re gonna see a mugshot of someone who looks like Beth, only it’s yours truly, and I’m already dead.”

“I…” Delphine’s mind casts around, and finds nothing. “Sarah, this is not good.”

“You are seriously not helpful, you know that?”

“Désolée,” Delphine replies automatically, shaking her head. “The good news is that processing DNA, especially when it is difficult to obtain, will take some time.”

“How long, exactly?”

Delphine doesn’t answer right away. “We need the briefcase, Sarah.”

“Seriously? You wanna do this now?”

“If you want our help, you must help us in return.”

“My ass is on the line here--”

“You are not the only one at risk,” Delphine says firmly, not letting Sarah continue. “There is a bar called the Tangled Web. I will be there at nine. If you want help, bring the briefcase.”

She hangs up, shuts her eyes, and lets out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. Tony isn’t due back for another few hours at least, so Delphine turns back to her laptop and starts researching forensic procedure and facial reconstruction.

At 8:45, Delphine walks into the Tangled Web with her messenger bag slung over her shoulder. Despite choosing it as her meeting spot, she’s never actually been here before--simply spotted the name on Google Maps while driving up the first time. Tony had never been, making it an ideal spot for meeting Sarah.

She perches at the bar, in a spot where she can see both the door and the exit, and orders a red wine. The bartender almost manages to conceal his leer at her when he passes it over. Delphine rewards him with a tight smile before pulling out a copy of La Revue de Médecine Interne and ignoring him entirely.

It’s 9:07 when Sarah walks through the door.

Delphine starts cataloguing her characteristics as soon as she sees her--shoulders held in a different slump, a wider stance and longer steps than Delphine has ever had, her hair tumbling loose past her shoulders and longer than Delphine’s has ever been. Dark rings of mascara around her eyes, a black coat like armor and messily-tied boots. Delphine feels her own perfect posture, the starched and ironed fabric of her white blouse against her skin, her own neat curls brushing her jawline.

She then notices the silver briefcase in Sarah’s hands.

Sarah spots Delphine a moment later and heads over, taking the seat next to her. She puts the briefcase on the counter and folds her hands over it, not looking away from Delphine.

“Christ, that’s weird.”

“You are only the fourth one of us I’ve met,” Delphine admits, pushing her medical journal aside. “It is odd for me too.”

“You gonna tell me how many of us are out there?”

“Will you give me the briefcase?”

Sarah taps her fingers against the briefcase lid. “I just want to know what I’m dealing with.”

“I know.”

They’re interrupted by the bartender, whose leer somehow manages to become even more pronounced when he sees Sarah.

“Twins,” he says with a lopsided and disgusting grin. “So you’re the smart one, and you’re the wild one, huh?”

“Yeah,” Sarah drawls back, meeting his gaze head on. “We’re clones, actually.”

Delphine shoots Sarah a panicked look, but the bartender just laughs like he’s in on the joke.

“Bourbon, rocks,” Sarah says pointedly before twisting in her barstool, turning her back on the bartender entirely. Delphine just glances into the depths of her wine instead of at at him, and a few moments later he leaves.

“So you’re the scientist the German was on about, then?”

“I suppose, yes. I am doing postdoctoral research at the University of Minnesota at the moment--I completed my PhD and medical training in France.”

“Shit,” Sarah half-laughs, not looking at the bartender as he sulkily slides over her drink. “So you’re like, actually smart.”

“It is more a matter of the definition of smart than degrees, I think,” Delphine demurs. Sarah shoots her a disbelieving look over her glass. “I am heading back to Minnesota tonight.”

“Well, since you know about this stuff, the German was sick. Is that something I have to be worried about?”

Delphine sits up straighter, setting down her glass. “Sick how?”

“I didn’t exactly know her for a long time. But she was--I don’t know, pale and sickly? Coughing up blood?”

Delphine’s mind is running through a thousand explanations in that first moment--what were Katja’s risk factors, did she smoke, what was the blood’s consistency, what did the cough sound like?--but they aren’t answers Sarah will have.

And to be frank, rough-edged storm cloud Sarah scares her, just a little.

“If I can have the briefcase, I can run some tests and see if we are at a genetic risk, and get you some answers.”

“All depends on the briefcase, huh.”

“Yes, it does.”

“If you’ve got so many answers, wanna tell us who’s killing us?”

Delphine takes a deep breath, and then a long sip of wine. “We do not know.”

“Bloody brilliant.”

“It is--it was Katja who first contacted Beth, when she noticed the pattern among the European clones. That we were being hunted.”

“Hunted?” It’s a question, but Sarah isn’t really looking for an answer. “Jesus Christ.”

“Beth began looking in North America, using her police credentials and facial recognition software, which is where she got two matches--”

“Grunge-goatee and soccer mum.”

“Tony and Alison, yes. Katja was searching the databases in her own way--there was someone helping with, um, hacking? But somehow whoever was hunting was ahead until they were able to find me--likely a day or two later, I would also be dead. The last known clone killed on European soil lived in Paris.”

“And whoever’s been doing that, they followed Katja here.”

“It appears so, yes.”

“And you’ve got no idea who’s doing this? None at all?”

“That is what we need to know.” Delphine leans forward, trying to catch and keep Sarah’s wary gaze. “All of us need to know this--why we have been created, why we are now being killed, and who is responsible for making and destroying us. But Beth was our best chance of getting those answers, and...we have lost her.”

Sarah can call Delphine ‘actually smart,’ but Sarah is hardly slow, and Delphine can see the moment her mind catches up to what Delphine has been planning this entire conversation.

“What are you saying?”

“I am saying we still need a cop, and you have the most experience of us.”

“Yeah, three days, because I conned my way in.” Sarah’s shaking her head, leaning half-away.

“We need you to help us.”

“How?” She runs a frustrated hand through her hair. “I am not a cop, okay? Beth’s partner’s already suspicious, and I’m not going to be able to keep this up. This is what got me into this shit in the first place, and you want me to keep going.”

“I know. I am sorry, Sarah, I am. But this is your life now--this is our life, now. We are your biological imperative. This is what we all need.”

“You don’t know shit about what I need, okay?” Delphine has been leaning forward but now Sarah jerks back, hands still on the briefcase. “Don’t you come in here and start telling me what it is I need.”

“You are right, you are right, I’m sorry.” Delphine leans back, hands spread placatingly. “Tell me what it is you need, then.”

“A way out of all this.”

Delphine thinks about that for a beat. “If you do not want to be arrested, you will need to get to Katja’s DNA results before the police see them. At the very least, you will be put under investigation, and I imagine you will not want that.”

“Let me guess. The best way to do that is to keep being Beth.”

“Yes it is.”

Sarah sighs, an angry burst of air, and finishes her bourbon. “Okay. Okay.”

Delphine bites her lip and waits.

“If I’m doing this--if I’m gonna stay Beth to fuck up their investigation enough that they don’t find me--tell me how to do it. How I can be Beth well enough that they don’t find me out.”

“Tony perhaps would be better to ask.”

“Well Tony’s not here, is he.”

“Beth…” Delphine breathes for a moment, running her fingers along the stem of her wine glass. “Beth was a police officer in every way, from what I knew of her. She was tough and she was kind when she could be and she was brave always.”

“So a real hard-ass?”

“No, no,” Delphine shakes her head, a small smile on her face as she thinks. “She was funny, and she could be very--ah, vulgar, is that the word?”

“Vulgar by my standards or yours? Because those are very different, princess.”

Delphine acknowledges the truth of that with a nod. “Mine, I suppose. But rarely mean, and very funny. She and Tony could go back and forth all day. Beth was very witty and always had a sense of humor about things.” She pauses. “Until she did not.”

Sarah leaves a few minutes later.

She leaves the briefcase for Delphine.

There is something about driving for hours that is completely exhausting, and though she gets back around eight, she falls asleep almost instantly.

Her body is still used to her usual schedule, however, and that means she’s awake by three AM, making coffee in her apartment’s tiny kitchen.

The night is dark outside her window, the pitch-black pushed back by the city lights. Delphine looks out at them all while her coffee steeps, and tries desperately hard not to think. Not about Sarah, or how Tony is coping, or Alison and her children, or Beth.

It doesn’t work terribly well.

She sighs, both hands wrapped tight around her coffee mug. It’s hot--too hot to be holding, really--but she doesn’t let go, taking a small scalding sip.

There are no new messages on her clone phone. On her other phone, there are some messages from her boss, and a few from Julie about grading and asking when Delphine will be back in. It’s none of those she chooses to answer, though.

Me: Bonjour, Cosima. I am back and better now, if you would still like to get that coffee.

Her phone lights back up a moment later, startling her into a smile.

Cosima: what even is your sleep schedule

Cosima: do you sleep at all

Cosima: omg are you a vampire

Cosima: you should tell me now so we can avoid that awkward convo

It makes Delphine laugh--actually, truly, laugh out loud--as she texts back.

Me: No, I am not a vampire

Cosima: sounds like something a vampire would say

Me: I swear I am not

Me: Are you a vampire? You are also up after all.

Cosima: chronic insomniac. this is pretty normal for me.

Cosima: whats your excuse?

Delphine bites her lip, halfway to lying, when another text pops up.

Cosima: you dont have to tell me if you dont wanna

Delphine makes her decision.

Me: It has been a rough few days is all.

Cosima: :(

Cosima: i assume you dont just mean the sickness

Cosima: want me to come over?

Me: You do not have to

Cosima: its fine, im supposed to be up in two hours anyway

Cosima: but if it makes you uncomfy i get it

Delphine looks away from her phone--out at the city, full of the lights and the people. Back into her apartment, and the dark rooms beyond the kitchen.

She sends Cosima her address.

Me: I will make the coffee :)

Cosima arrives just before four, an apologetic grimace on her face.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry. I totally didn’t think it was going to take me so long to get here.”

“It is fine,” Delphine assures her, quickly stepping aside to let Cosima in. “I am still surprised you came over at all.”

“Hey, us sleepless ones have to stick together, right?”

“I made coffee,” Delphine offers, showing her through to the kitchen. Cosima lingers a little, sticking her head into Delphine’s living room.

“I like the decor.”

“I--oh,” Delphine flushes, following Cosima’s gaze to the fiercely-red lip-shaped couch and the six-foot Eiffel Tower replica in the corner beyond it. “Those are not mine.”

“Someone broke in and left them behind?”

“No,” she says with an embarrassed shake of her head. “A friend of mine, he--well, we were both drinking a bit, and he suggested online shopping.”

“Drunk you has interesting taste.”

“My friend would not let sober me return anything.” Cosima laughs, a bright delighted noise, and Delphine relaxes, just a little. “Please come into the kitchen. I made coffee.”

“Great! I brought breakfast.” Cosima follows into Delphine’s kitchen--kitchen supplies had been on neither drunk-Tony nor drunk-Delphine’s mind, and so it is mainly sparse and white--and sets a paper bag onto the table.

“You did not have to--”

“Yeah, but I wanted to,” Cosima counters, smiling her thanks as Delphine pours her a cup of coffee. “Besides, I didn’t know what you like, so you might hate it.”

“May I?”

Cosima nods, and Delphine unwraps the bag, gasping softly when the smell of warm chocolate and flaky bread rises up to meet her.

“Where did you find a bakery with pain au chocolat at this hour?”

“I’ve got my ways.” Delphine slides the pastries out of the bag and onto plates, happily inhaling the scent of fresh, warm bread and chocolate. It’s warm, buttery, and like all the wonderful parts of France--the bits that were simple, bright, and beautiful. “How do you say it, again?”

“Pain au chocolat.”

“Pan O’shoclat?”

Delphine winces, and Cosima just laughs again. “We will have to work on that.”

“Deal.” Cosima takes a drink of coffee and sighs happily. “Damn, that’s good coffee. I’ve been living off the stuff in the grad lounge.”

“That is awful coffee.”

“Believe me, I’ve noticed.” Cosima takes a long drink, and Delphine bites into her pain, murmuring happily.

“This is exactly what I needed,” she admits to Cosima around a mouthful of buttery pastry. Cosima looks up, right into Delphine’s eyes.

“Me too.”

Delphine glances down and away, but the small smile is harder to push away.

“Can I use your bathroom, actually?”

“Yes, of course,” Delphine says quickly, gesturing down the hall. “It is the second door on the left.”

“Thanks.” Cosima grins, slipping out of the kitchen. Alone now, Delphine lets herself settle back into her chair, and lets that small smile blossom into something bigger.

“So I’ll swing by your office around five and give you a ride back?”

“D’accord.” Delphine and Cosima are in the university parking garage, standing outside Cosima’s silver, slightly beat-up Prius. Cosima had insisted on giving Delphine a ride, despite all of her objections--think about the environment! It hardly makes sense to take two cars when we’re going to the same place, does it?--and Delphine had been unable to convince her not to give her a ride home, thanks to the same logic. “Merci, Cosima.”

“Hey, it was my pleasure.” They’re not touching, but they are close--close enough that if either moved, they would be. Delphine is suddenly very aware of it--that their hands are only a few inches apart, that Cosima’s just a little flushed from the cold, her nose pink, smiling up at Delphine.

“I should head up,” Delphine says, “I have a lot of work to catch up on,” but she doesn’t move. Neither does Cosima.

Delphine leans in and presses kisses to Cosima’s cold cheeks, one on either side. It’s an easy gesture, one she’s done a hundred times at home--but despite the cold air, Delphine’s lips--and cheeks--feel warm as she steps away.

“Ciao, Cosima.”

“Yeah,” Cosima says, and Delphine is sure she’s imagining the breathlessness in Cosima’s voice, even though she knows she’s just a bit breathless herself. “Ciao.”

Delphine smiles, waggles her fingers in just a bit of a wave, and hurries off toward her office.

The small bubble of warmth lingers in her chest until she gets to her office.

“Julie?”

“Oh!” Julie, the other immunology TA, jumps up from where she’d been bent over Delphine’s desk. “Delphine, I didn’t expect you to be back so early!”

“Well I am,” Delphine says slowly, closing her office door. “What are you doing?”

“Oh, I just wanted to leave you these,” Julie says quickly, gesturing to a few papers. “Notes from the professor, so you can get all caught up! You’re feeling better, huh?”

“I am, yes.”

“Was it norovirus, or…?”

“Food poisoning.” Delphine’s answers are clipped, but Julie doesn’t seem to notice, still standing over Delphine’s desk.

“Oh, ouch. Where did you eat? I’ve always had suspicions about the cafeteria--”

“Why were you in my desk?”

“What?” Julie has big blue eyes, a bit like Leo’s, and she’s blinking them wide and guilelessly. “Oh, that! I was going to leave you a note, but I forgot a pen.” She waves a small post-it pad that she’d grabbed off Delphine’s desk. “So I was looking to see if you had one!”

“I see.” Julie is still standing there, bright post-its in hand. “Thank you for the notes, then.”

“Yeah, of course!” Delphine moves over to her desk and sets her bag down, though Julie doesn’t seem to get the message and keeps standing there. “Hey, listen, a few TAs were thinking about doing a coffee thing later--”

“I am busy.”

“Oh but I didn’t tell you when--”

“Thank you, Julie.” She gestures to the door, and Julie finally seems to get the message, heading for the door.

“Okay, well, I’ll catch you later, then. Maybe we could work on grading together?”

“Maybe.” Julie smiles, and Delphine closes the door on her face.

And she lets herself take a long, shuddering breath before heading for her desk. The small black notebook--the one with the names, status, and all the information she has about all the other clones--is still in the messenger bag, safely away from her office. She quietly resolves to move it to a hiding spot in her apartment that night, to avoid any risk in case this happened again.

Then she pulls out her clone phone and texts Tony.

I think I have met my new monitor.

The lab is silent, and it makes sense, and Delphine lets her mind go silent as she works. She isolates the white blood cells from the blood, the DNA from the white blood cells. It’s work she could get an undergrad to do for her, simple and beneath her, maybe, but it is nice to have something straightforward, something that makes sense.

She works on a list of genetic markers to check for--predispositions to cancer, antitrypsin deficiency, cystic fibrosis--and loads the samples into the PCR machine, adjusts the settings, and starts it up.

She closes her eyes and breathes.

It’s nearly one, the usual lunch lull will be ending soon, and with it her stolen peace. Tony hasn’t texted her back yet, which means nothing at all. He’s mentioned a new manager at the coffee place, one who’s over-fixated on procedure and threatened to report him if she’d spotted him on his phone during his shift again--he must be working. He doesn’t want to lose this job, he knows. He’s just trying not to take risks. Just like she is. It’s fine. He’s fine. It’s fine.

Two people clatter into the lab, chattering between them, and Delphine does not startle, she does not. Instead she pulls off her gloves with a snap, tapping a quick reminder into her phone to come and get the samples in 90 minutes. She does not look at the other lab workers as she strides out, only goes into the bathroom to wash her hands and splash water on her face.

She’s fine.

It’s fine.

Her reflection looks pale, paler than usual. She breathes, careful and measured, and gently finger-combs her hair, pushing a few curls back into place and patting her cheeks until a bit of color comes back into them.

Someone opens the door.

“Oh, Delphine!”

Delphine carefully arranges her face into a smile and turns. “Julie, hello.”

“I was looking for you!” Julie walks over and Delphine takes a small step back and clears her throat.

“You were?”

“Yup! There are donuts in the break room. Thought you should know!”

“And that is all.”

Julie tilts her head, like a confused kitten. “I don’t think I understand.”

“Okay.” Delphine nods, sidestepping Julie as she heads for the door. “I have to go.”

“Oh, okay, I--I’ll see you around!”

“I am sure you will.” Delphine moves away from the bathroom perhaps a bit too quickly to be casual, but the important thing is that she does get away, back to her office with a door that locks. Her messenger bag is still over her shoulder, the notebook still safe, her clone phone in her pocket, warm against her hip.

It’s fine.

It’s fine.

Her phone buzzes and she nearly jumps out of her skin, half-dropping the phone as she checks her messages.

Tony: oh shit

Yes. That sums it up well.

“Hey. I had to come track you down.”

Delphine’s head jerks up and she drops her pipette.

“Woah, sorry, I thought you heard me come in.” Cosima grabs a glove and then her pipette off the floor.

“I’m sorry,” Delphine says, taking the pipette with a grateful smile. “It has...I have been off, lately. I think I am getting a cold.”

“Oh, no! Right after your stomach flu thing?”

“Yes, well, compromised immune systems.” Delphine finishes up her work as quickly as she can, leaving her workspace a little messier than usual as she follows Cosima out of the lab. “I am sorry you had to go to so much trouble.”

“No trouble at all, promise.” Cosima holds doors open for Delphine, like a hundred men have done for her before, but Delphine finds herself ducking her head and thanking Cosima, red cheeks and all. “So do you have to get back to your place right away? I was thinking I could finally get you that coffee.”

“You brought me pastries this morning!”

“Yeah, but I promised you coffee.”

“There is no need to--”

“Ah!” Cosima holds up her finger, cutting Delphine off mid-sentence. “Did I, or did I not, make you a pinky promise to treat you to a coffee?”

“Well, yes--”

“And can you break a pinky promise?”

“You said no--”

“And there we are.” Cosima links her arm through Delphine’s--a casual, friendly gesture, that means nothing, nothing at all. But Delphine feels every whisper of Cosima’s coat against her arm, the heat of Cosima’s skin seeping through, and she starts to feel warm. “So? Coffee?”

Delphine wants to say yes--she does, she truly does. But there is so much going on that Cosima cannot imagine, and that she cannot explain to Cosima, and she cannot drag Cosima into it.

And she needs to check in on Tony and Alison, and make sure Sarah isn’t driving everything they’d worked into the ground.

“I cannot tonight.”

“Oh no?”

“No, I am sorry.” Cosima waves a hand like it’s nothing, but Delphine finds herself apologizing again anyway--because she’s finding more and more that she really, truly wanted to go out to coffee with Cosima. “But I will text you, yes?”

“Yeah,” Cosima says brightly. “I’d really like that.”

They get to Cosima’s car, and Delphine darts ahead so she can open the door as payback for all the doors Cosima has held open on the way there.

“Well, merci, madam.”

“Madame,” Delphine corrects gently as she climbs in her own side. While Cosima looks to the road, Delphine pulls out her phone--the pink one, not her usual--and sees several unread texts and two missed calls. The top text is from Alison and reads simply Call Sarah.

“Everything okay?”

“Yes, of course.” Delphine stashes the phone and turns to Cosima, hoping her smile is natural. “But I should get home.”

“Yeah, no worries.” She thinks there’s something odd about Cosima’s smile, but she can’t be sure. “I’ll get you where you gotta be.”

Despite Alison’s foreboding and vague texts, Delphine calls Tony first.

She wants to know what she’s getting into.

“You’re sure this girl’s your monitor?”

“I cannot be sure of everything. This is all--unknown waters,” Delphine says, perched in her desk. The only signs of her frustration and fear are her moving fingers, going through her papers again and again, picking up pens but with nothing to write. “But she is very interested in me, almost following me, it seems. And I do not like her at all.”

“So that’s your evidence? That you don’t like her?”

“It is more than that!” Delphine objects, despite recognizing Tony’s attempt to lighten the situation. “I only...she is all big eyes and kindness, you know? Just like Leo was in the early days.”

“Shit. Yeah, I feel you.” Tony’s silent for a few moments. “Julie. Not exactly the kind of name that makes you fear either her or the shady as fuck organization she works for, is it?”

“Part of their power comes from not being feared.”

“That’s too deep for this conversation.” Tony goes quiet again, but it’s heavier this time--Delphine can hear him thinking. “But it’s weird, isn’t it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well--before this it was Leo, right? And Beth’s got Paul, I had Sammy--they seem to like putting monitors in romantic positions with us.”

“From a scientific standpoint, it makes sense. It is easy for a romantic partner to gain access to a subject’s home and private information.”

“Yeah I get that--but now they’ve got this girl trying to be your friend? Seems like a change in M.O.”

Delphine chews on her lip. “I see what you are saying, yet at the same time I likely rather forced their hand with the sudden move, non? And they have not all been boyfriends for me--my school nurse, I think, was one. Besides, no men have been approaching me.”

“Hon, you look like me. You can’t tell me guys aren’t falling over you all the time.”

Delphine snorts inelegantly. “No one persistent, then. I am not interested in them.”

“You’re sure? No one seems to be romantically interested in you?”

Delphine’s mind drifts to Cosima, against her will. Cosima’s arm through Delphine’s, Cosima’s body pressed up against hers, that pinky promise they’d made and the way Cosima looks up at Delphine through her eyelashes--but this is America, and men and women are so strange about their body language here. This could be ordinary between two women. Cosima could be thinking nothing of it.

And besides, Delphine isn’t interested in women that way.

Right?

Right?

“Delphine?”

“Sorry, Tony,” Delphine says quickly, shaking her head as if it’ll clear her mind. “But no. No one I suspect.”

“No one you suspect? What does that mean?”

“It means I have to call Sarah. Alison seems to think she has some important information for me.”

“You’re backing out of this conversation very quickly--”

“Au revoir, Tony,” she says firmly, hanging up mid-objection. Thumbing through her sparse contact list, it doesn’t take her long to find Sarah Manning, the only number on this phone she’s never dialed.

She firmly tells herself that it is ridiculous to be nervous, and hits call.

Sarah takes so long to pick up Delphine’s begun to wonder if she’d bothered keeping the clone phone at all.

“Hello?”

“Sarah? Hello. It is Delphine. Delphine Cormier.”

“Yeah, I know who you are, you’re in my bloody contacts, aren’t ya?” Sarah doesn’t give Delphine a chance to respond to that before continuing. “What do you want?”

“Ah, Alison said I should call you. She seemed to think you have some important information.”

“Yeah, that’s one way of putting it.” Sarah sighs, sounding more exhausted than he’s done before. “I think I know who’s attacking us. She attacked me.”

Delphine’s back goes painfully, suddenly straight. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah. She’s not, though. I stuck rebar through her stomach.”

Delphine breathes out, long and low, and decides not to explore that train of thought. “Did you get any information about her?”

“Yeah, just that she’s batshit. And one of us.”

“One of us?” It’s so clear what Sarah is saying, and so impossible it takes her a long moment to understand. “It is one of the clones who is killing us?”

“She’s working really damn hard at it too.”

“But--I do not understand. She cannot be working alone--we must find how she is finding us, who it is that is feeding her the information--”

“And how do you wanna do that, then?”

Delphine worries at her lip. “If she is not dead, we must find her.”

Sarah sighs loudly, more of resignation than surprise. “I go back to being Beth.”

“The resources--”

“I get it, I get it.” There’s a pause, like Sarah getting into a more comfortable position. “I think I’m safest with them, honestly.”

On the other line, Delphine heard Felix object to that, and Sarah shove him off.

“I cannot believe you told Alison this and she was all right.”

“Oh, I didn’t tell Alison, are you kidding? She’d crap her lululemons.”

Delphine frowns. “Then why did she say I needed to speak with you?”

“I told you what I thought you needed to know.”

“But not what Alison thought I needed to know.”

“Look it--” Sarah sighs loudly into the phone. “It’s not like it’s a big deal, alright? I’ve just got a daughter, is all. I mentioned it to Alison and she got all weird.”

Delphine inhales sharply. “Sarah, could we continue this on Skype? I feel we should be doing this in person, but I cannot drive up to Canada right now.”

It takes several minutes to set up a connection, partially due to the various proxies and things Delphine doesn’t understand but Beth’s friend (and it does make a sharp pain go through her, the thought of Beth) set up for them all, and partially due to Sarah and her foster brother Felix having to go through his things to find a laptop. Delphine takes that time to make herself some lemon tea in the hopes of chasing out a cold that seems to be settling in her chest, and to try and rein in her whirling thoughts. She hasn’t got the data yet. There’s nothing to be drawing conclusions about. No point in speculation.

But a child--

Her computer pings and she hurries to answer, settled at her desk as if she’s been doing nothing but patiently waiting this entire time.

Over her webcam, Sarah Manning glares.

“What’s so important about my kid?” Sarah demands, straight to the point as usual. Her brother Felix is in the background, the both of them sitting on what looks like a large bed. Sarah is holding a mug of tea as well--something dark and bitter, no doubt, as far away from Delphine’s sweet tisane as possible.

“I need to know some information first, Sarah--you have a daughter? A biological child?”

“I’m not gonna tell you anything unless you tell me what’s going on. You think I just give my kid’s information out to anyone?”

That is...fair enough, Delphine supposes. “Sarah, the clones are sterile.”

“Well clearly not,” Felix interrupts, cut off with a wince when Sarah smacks his arm.

“They are.” Delphine insists. “All of us--the known ones--are. So if you have a child, Sarah--”

“What, that means I’m more of a freak than the rest of you?”

“It means your child is--is an anomaly. An impossibility. There has never--there is not even taxonomy for the child of a clone, Sarah.”

“So what are you saying?”

“That your child should not exist. And whoever is after us will want her.”

Behind Sarah, Felix lets loose a long string of curses. Sarah, for an instant, goes very, very still. It does not look right on her.

“No.”

“What?”

“I said no.” Sarah stands up, the laptop jostled by the movement. Delphine sees a brief moment of Felix, standing and reaching for his sister, then nothing but the ceiling.

“Sarah--”

“NO!” It’s an enraged shout, and even knowing Sarah is a country away, Delphine flinches. “This isn’t happening. I got into this shit because I was gonna take Kira away, not put her in even more bloody danger!”

“Sarah, what are you going to do?” It’s Felix who calls out the question, but it’s what Delphine is desperate to know too.

“I’m gonna get out of here, aren’t I?” There’s a sound like things being thrown and another flurry of curses. “Before they can use me to hurt her.”

“You just came back, Sarah, it will destroy her if you leave now!”

“You cannot run from this, Sarah,” Delphine adds, half-pleading. Her screen is full of Felix for a moment as he reaches for the computer, then turns it around so she’s facing Sarah. Sarah’s breathing hard, blonde hair wild, and holding a bag that’s half-filled with what looks like whatever had been nearby. “Deleting the DNA results, pretending to be Beth, these are all--what is the word--band-aids. They will not last. They will reconstruct Katja’s skull, or Paul will become suspicious, and whoever is after us or made us will start looking. They’ll find your death certificate, and trace it back to Kira’s birth certificate.”

“So I’ll take Kira with me, then.”

“S would call the police,” Felix says, voice low and more serious than Delphine’s ever heard it. “Sarah, for Kira’s sake, you know she would.”

“And with you looking like Beth,” Delphine contributes. Sarah paces back and forth, like a caged animal, running her fingers roughly through her hair. “Sarah, you cannot do this alone.”

“Well I’ve done everything else alone, haven’t I?”

And before Delphine can respond, Sarah grabs the laptop and the screen goes dark. A moment later, Delphine’s screen flashes with Call disconnected.

She buries her face in her hands.

“Merde.”

She coughs and takes a long drink of tea, cool enough now that it doesn’t burn. She tries very hard not to think of Sarah’s little girl, but she does anyway.

What was the pregnancy like? Were there complications? The birth--vaginal or C-section? What’s her temperament like, does she have developmental issues, did she meet her milestones on time? Who was the father, what is in his DNA? How is the child of a clone possible? What makes Sarah different from the rest of them--what mutated when she was implanted?

And then the smaller, softer questions following: does Kira know how special she is? What does she look like? What are her favorite games?

Does she know what her mother is involved in, the people who are after her? Is she afraid?

Delphine reaches into her bag, pulling out that innocuous black notebook, and starts a new page. She hadn’t lied to Sarah--there is no word for the offspring of a clone. After a long moment of consideration, she writes simply: Kira Manning. Biological daughter of Sarah Manning.

She’ll ask Sarah for more information if she ever hears from Sarah again. She finishes her tea and drops the mug in the sink before going back into her cupboards and finding her half-hidden bottle of cognac.

It feels like that kind of night.

“Hey, you look tired.”

“Merci, Cosima,” Delphine replies dryly, looking up. She hadn’t exactly planned to meet Cosima here, in the library where she’s retreated to do some research, but with grant application deadlines looming it’s not exactly a surprise.

“Shit, totally didn’t mean it like that.” Cosima doesn’t take one of the chairs next to Delphine, sitting on the table’s edge instead. Delphine, charmed despite herself, caps her highlighter and sets it aside. “You look amazing. Like you always do. Just a more tired amazing than you usually do. Like there are some bags under your eyes--but they’re totally not noticable--I mean I noticed but only because I was looking really closely and I should really just stop talking now, shouldn’t I?”

Delphine giggles, muffling the cough that tries to chase them. “Perhaps.”

“Right. Shutting up. Starting over. Hey, Delphine, fancy meeting you here. You look stunning as ever.”

“Merci, Cosima.” Delphine leans back in her chair, abandoning all pretense of working. “And you are right. I am a little tired.”

“Well you don’t look it,” Cosima says, and they both laugh. “But maybe it would be a good time to finally buy you that coffee I owe you?”

She shouldn’t--she should finish what she’s doing, she should call Tony, check in about Sarah, make sure Alison is holding up all right and stay late in the lab so she can continue running tests on the blood samples--but Cosima is looking at her wide-eyed and entreating, and there is a warmth and a want blooming in Delphine’s chest like she’s never felt before.

“D’accord,” she says, and Cosima’s grin manages to go even wider. “Lead the way.”

She’d fully intended to only spend a few hours out of the library, but suddenly the coffee shop is closing and Cosima is escorting Delphine out, insisting on walking her home. Their hands have ended up tangled together between the two of them, and Delphine doesn’t mind at all. It’s snowing the tiniest bit, the flakes melting on Cosima’s cheeks and settling in her dreads, and Delphine--Delphine is light. She can’t feel the cold at all.

She is happy.

“You’ve seriously never built a snowman?”

“Vraiment.”

“Or had a snowball fight?”

“The snow is cold! Why would I want more thrown at me?”

“Because it’s fun!” Cosima laughs, bumping gracelessly into Delphine’s side. “We’ve gotta have at least one snowball fight. When the snow’s deep enough.”

“Okay,” Delphine agrees, because she can’t find a single reason within herself to say no. “When the snow is deep.”

They’ve arrived at Delphine’s apartment building far too quickly. Cosima stops a few feet in front of the door and Delphine stops as well, realizing with mild embarrassment that she’s still holding tight to Cosima’s hand. She starts to pull back her hand but Cosima just follows the movement, steps closer, close enough that Delphine can smell the antiseptic from the lab clinging to Cosima’s skin and the richer, natural smell below it that must be just Cosima and--

Oh.

Cosima’s lips are so soft.

They are warm, flavored like black coffee and plain chapstick, and they are pressed up against Delphine’s. Her eyes flutter shut almost against her will. She’s never kissed someone shorter than her before. She’s never kissed a woman before.

So how does it feel so right, then, to be kissing Cosima Niehaus?

Cosima pulls away without stepping back, eyes wide and looking up at Delphine. She looks nervous, something close to vulnerable. Delphine stares back, half-frozen, her tongue wetting her lips in an automatic gesture.

“Did I misread that?” Cosima asks, and she looks so genuine--like if Delphine said yes, she’d apologize and leave. They could never speak of it again, probably. Go back to being friends.

“No,” Delphine breathes, and Cosima’s beaming smile is beautiful from far away, but like this, where it’s all she can see, it is stunning.

“Invite me upstairs?”

And Delphine does.

The thing is, Delphine knows how to sleep with men. She is very good at sleeping with men. She knows how to unhook her bra, or subltly help them unhook it themselves, which moans sound the most flattering and genuine, how to arch her back and angle herself and where they like to touch her.

But when she is with Cosima, it is nothing like that.

With Cosima, she knocks off Cosima’s glasses when she tries to take off Cosima’s shirt, her fingers slip on Cosima’s brastrap, she accidentally pulls one of Cosima’s dreadlocks. And all Cosima does is laugh gently, set her glasses safely on Delphine’s nightstand, take off her bra herself (and that was a sight that left Delphine breathless) and tie up her hair more securely.

“I’m sorry,” Delphine murmurs, “I do not normally--” but there are Tony’s words in her head, is anything about this ‘normally’? and isn’t that true? Everything in her life is complicated and frightening, and for this moment, this feels good. This feels so good. “I have never done this with a woman before.”

“Oh.” Cosima pauses, sitting up. Delphine sits up too, suddenly wanting to cover her bare chest, or take back her words. “Are you--okay? With doing this?”

“I--” Delphine swallows, her throat suddenly dry. “I have never considered bisexuality, not for myself, you know? But as a scientist I know that sexuality--it is a spectrum. But, you know, social biases, they codify attraction. It’s contrary to the biological facts.”

“That’s oddly romantic,” Cosima comments, her voice light, and Delphine lets out a laugh that’s somewhere between embarrassed and nervous. “And it’s totally encouraging.”

Delphine bites her lip and then, before she can lose her nerve, touches Cosima’s cheek. Cosima tangles their fingers together and kisses Delphine’s palm, and Delphine feels more than hears her own breath catch.

“You relax,” Cosima murmurs into Delphine’s skin, kissing her way up Delphine’s arm. “Just lay back,” and Delphine does, Cosima bent over her. She’s reached that spot where Delphine’s shoulder meets her neck, lips hot against skin, and Delphine doesn’t recognize the noise of need that forces its way past her lips. “I’ll teach you what to do.”

Cosima captures Delphine’s mouth in a kiss and Delphine responds without thinking, one hand tangling in Cosima’s dreads, the other gripping at Cosima’s shoulder, pulling her in. A low noise comes from Cosima’s throat and Delphine gasps, breaking apart just enough to met Cosima’s eyes.

She has never been more exposed.

She has never felt more alive.

Cosima kisses her again, deep, just on the crushing edge of gentle, and Delphine lets herself go.

“Are you okay?”

They’re tangled up in Delphine’s sheets, still naked and sweating, and for some reason Delphine’s body has chosen this moment to burst into tears.

“Hey, hey…”

“It’s fine,” she says quickly, even as Cosima gently strokes her cheek. “It--this happens sometimes. After sex with boys too.”

“I get it. It’s a lot, right? A little overstimulation’s natural.” Her fingernails scrape gently over Delphine’s scalp and she finds herself closing her eyes. “Why don’t you take a quick nap, okay? I’ll poke around in the kitchen a little, maybe throw something together for when you wake up?”

“I think there is some ice cream in the freezer,” Delphine mumbles, too tired to be embarrassed about the fact that she is already half-asleep.

“Ooh,” Cosima says, still running her fingers through Delphine’s hair. “Do you have any eskimo pies?”

Delphine frowns. “Eskimo?”

Cosima laughs, soft and gentle. “I’ll bring some over next time.”

Next time. The words alone are enough to make Delphine smile sleepily, making a small noise of agreement. Cosima kisses her--gentle, quick--and slides out of the bed.

“You get some sleep, okay?”

Delphine isn’t awake to hear her bedroom door close.

When she wakes, for a moment she thinks she’s still dreaming.

Cosima isn’t in bed, but she can hear Cosima’s voice nearby, low and urgent. Delphine shifts a little and Cosima goes quiet, then starts again when Delphine goes still. After a few moments her brain starts to catch up, translating Cosima’s voice into words.

And she goes cold.

“--definitely self-aware, she’s been in contact with at least three other clones, maybe more--"

Chapter Text

“--definitely self-aware, she’s been in contact with at least three other clones, maybe more. She’s got extensive notes--well some of them are in French--I took one semester of French in high school so I could sit next to a cute girl, Aldous, I can’t just translate them on the fly. Just hold on.”

Delphine opens her eyes the tiniest fraction, looking around her room through her eyelashes. Cosima stands by her desk, shirt thrown on, no pants.

She is holding Delphine’s little black notebook.

Stupid, stupid, stupid! Delphine fights to keep her breathing steady and body limp while Cosima flips through that precious little notebook, muttering to the unknown ‘Aldous’ on her phone.

“Okay, so some of them are dead, looks like--but on the other pages she’s got listed an Alison Hendrix, a Tony Sawicki, and a Sarah Manning?” A pause. “No, nothing else on her. Look, she could wake up anytime, I’ve gotta go.”

Cosima hangs up her phone and shoves the black notebook back into the messenger bag. Delphine sits up.

“Well done.”

Cosima startles, dropping the bag. Delphine almost laughs.

“You did a much better job than Leo ever did, even if the illusion did not last as long. Did he brief you on his mistakes?”

“Delphine,” Cosima says, her mouth open in an expression of shock and hurt, and Delphine wants to laugh, because how ridiculous is all this, how impossible is it for Delphine to be standing there and for Cosima to be hurt? “Delphine, it’s not--”

“It is not what?” She picks up a robe from the side of the bed and slips it on, her face blank. “It is not you, fulfilling your mission as a hired monitor? It is not you, giving up these people I care about, to an organization that wants them dead? It is not you, uncaring that these are humans, that one is a little girl--”

“I didn’t tell them about Kira,” Cosima cuts her off, like that could save her. “I wouldn’t--I know what they’re capable of, but I promise--”

“You promise?” She spits the word like it is poison, and Cosima flinches. Her eyes are big and watery under her glasses, and Delphine hates it, hates her for showing weakness like this, hates herself for wanting to comfort.

“You’re in danger!” Cosima tries to step closer and Delphine steps back. “There’s someone killing you--clones have been dying--”

Delphine shakes her head, and Cosima falls silent. “I know this. I know this all. And I know that nothing has been done to stop it.”

“That’s not true--they’re trying--”

“What will they do?”

Cosima opens her mouth and shuts it. Delphine laughs, low and humorless, and sits on her bed.

“I am so stupid.”

“No--Delphine, no,” Cosima says, crossing over. “You’re not, this isn’t your fault--”

“I trusted you, did you know that?” She isn’t looking at Cosima, but can hear her breathing stop all the same. “I thought to myself, it could not be Cosima. Not when she is so kind and funny, not when we met by such an accident. I thought, Cosima is safe. I thought, I am allowed to have good things.”

“Delphine…” There is an ocean of hurt in Cosima’s voice, and Delphine does not want to hear any of it.

“Is it even your real name? Cosima?”

“Yes,” Cosima says quickly, then softer, “but my last name is Niehaus, not Johnson. If you google it, you’ll find the papers I’ve published through DYAD.”

“Merde.” Delphine buries her head in her hands. Cosima’s hand brushes her shoulder, and she slaps it away. “You are a brilliant actress, I will give you that. I have given you everything already, anyway.”

“Delphine, it wasn’t--” Cosima makes a noise of frustration and grabs Delphine’s wrists. She pulls them, despite Delphine’s protests, until Delphine can no longer hide behind her hands, can no longer look anywhere but Cosima’s face. Cosima is kneeling before her, crying. Delphine says nothing.

“It wasn’t acting. You can feel that, right? I lied to you, okay, and I started getting close to you because it was my job--” and somehow it hurts more and feels better, all at once, to hear the words blunt in the air-- “but it wasn’t all that. Something changed. There’s something here, between us, can’t you feel it? Something pulling us together, holding us together, and that’s real. Earlier, that was just us. That was real.”

“And I am supposed to believe this.” Her voice comes out dull, rough and cracked. She clears her throat. “You want me to trust you, after what I just woke up to, after only learning now your real name. You want me to believe you, and what? Fall into your arms to weep with joy? To love you and kiss you again?”

Cosima doesn’t respond to that. “What do you want?”

“I want you to take your pants and go.”

Cosima nods, more to herself than Delphine, tear tracks still on her face. Delphine wants Cosima to clean herself up and be a professional about this. She wants to be nothing but a job to Cosima, for Cosima to be a researcher. For their roles to be clear and unquestionable.

She wants Cosima to stop crying.

She doesn’t look up as Cosima stands, doesn’t turn to see where Cosima goes as she picks up her clothes. She should, probably--it would be smart, not to let her monitor wander freely around her home. But Cosima has already seen the notebook and called her superiors; what does Delphine have left to lose? Nothing but her own sense of security, perhaps, and that seems to be already long-gone.

“Delphine,” Cosima calls from the doorway. “Please, I just--I am sorry. I want you to know that, okay? I am just--I’m so sorry.”

Delphine does raise her head at that, turning to make eye contact with Cosima. She remembers just a few hours ago, the joy, the warmth, the grins and the laughter.

“I had never been with a woman before, you know this? Not before you. You took that from me too.” Cosima flinches, and Delphine does not pull back. “You say sorry like it could ever be enough.”

Cosima stops, looks like she’s about to say something--and leaves.

Delphine waits until she hears her apartment door shut firmly, then waits a few moments more.

Then, she shatters.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. How could you? How could you do this, how could you let this happen? She slides from her bed onto the floor, bent double, gasping cries muffled in her knees. Her anguish feels bottomless, like a hole through the center of her, even as a part of her chastises herself for even indulging in this, for putting herself in this position at all.

Idiot girl. Idiot. How much danger are they in now, because of you? Because you liked her eyes, her hair, her smile? She presses the back of her hand to her mouth, trying to quiet her ragged sobs, to cover the coughs punctuating them. The other hand goes up to her hair, tangling and pulling hard enough to hurt. What have you done now? What on earth have you done now?

Stupid girl. Stupid, stupid girl. She presses her forehead to her knees, feels her shoulders shuddering violently around her ears. How could you?

How could you fall for her?

Her phone rings for the third time in ten minutes and Delphine finally rolls over to squint at the screen.

Sarah Manning calling.

She drags one hand over her face, telling herself firmly that she is not disappointed that it is Sarah who is so desperate to speak to her, and answers.

“Hello?”

“Jesus, finally. What took you so long?”

“I was sleeping, Sarah. It is early.” And it is--not quite seven yet, the sun just creeping its way through the windows. It feels even earlier than that--Delphine had spent much of the last night washing her sheets until they smelled like detergent and nothing else, and finding a new hiding place for her black notebook.

She hadn’t fallen asleep for a long time.

“Well get moving, can you? I need to Skype with you.”

“Now?”

“No, in three days. Yes bloody now! Why do you think I’m calling?”

“Please stop yelling.” Delphine pulls herself out of bed, padding over to her closet. “I have just woken, Sarah. I need to dress.”

“You think I care what you look like?”

“I care. Fifteen minutes.”

“Jesus, Princess--”

“Fifteen minutes, Sarah,” she repeats, hanging up before Sarah can respond. It still takes her a long moment to haul herself out of bed.

She looks awful--red-rimmed eyes, mussed hair, and dark circles betraying exactly how little she’d rested. She’d run everything over in her head, again and again, for hours--there’d been nothing in the notebook that DYAD did not know, Cosima couldn’t speak French so not all of it had been passed along, there wasn’t proof that Delphine had been in contact with the others, just that she knew of them.

The only person in danger is herself.

She’d run over Cosima’s words as well--Cosima’s desperate face, her pleading, her apologizing, her crying--

She slaps those thoughts away and some color into her pale cheeks, washing her face until the redness is gone and coaxing her hair into its usual style. There’s just enough time for her to start up her coffee maker before her computer begins to chime with Sarah’s Skype call.

Delphine glances at her clock as she answers. Nine minutes after Sarah’s initial call.

“About bloody time.” Sarah is sitting in what looks like a living room, all of it done up in white and chrome. It takes Delphine a moment to realize why it is so markedly different than the bed and grimy loft from which Sarah had Skyped before--it’s Beth’s apartment, and Beth’s clothes Sarah is wearing.

“Where is Paul?” she asks immediately. “It is not safe--”

“He’s at the gym or some shit, it’s fine.” Sarah takes a breath, but exhales more shakily than Delphine is used to hearing from her. She’s fiddling with something in her hands. “You remember when we met the first time, and you asked me about nightmares?”

“Yes.”

“Yeah, well…” Sarah sighs, leaning back in her chair. “Had my first one last night. And they left something behind.”

Delphine sits up, ignoring the beeping of the coffee machine behind her. “Show me.”

Sarah holds up the object she’s had in her hands, moving closer to the screen so Delphine can see. It’s small, a rounded square with a bit of wire protruding from one end. Delphine hasn’t seen one since her residency, but they’re distinct.

“I coughed it up this morning when I was brushing my teeth,” Sarah says, twisting it back and forth. “Really would’a thought it was just a dream without it--none of it felt real.”

“You were likely drugged,” Delphine says absent-mindedly, leaning back from the screen. “Anything else?”

“Yeah, a mark on my arm.” It takes some maneuvering to get into a position where Delphine can see, but the small circle nestled in the crook of Sarah’s elbow is easily recognizable. Delphine had sported her own for a while, after gathering her own samples for analysis. “So do I need to worry about--I dunno, being poisoned or implants or some shit?”

“No, no, unless you have other marks or pains…?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Then it appears to be a diagnostic test, perhaps Paul noticed you--Beth--was acting differently than usual. It could also be routine--it has happened to all of us I believe, more than once.”

“Christ.” Sarah slumps forward, looking exhausted. “That’s fucked up.”

“I believe much of this is what you would call ‘fucking bullshit.’”

Sarah looks up at that, a slow sly grin growing over her face. “Hey, listen to you, Princess. You’re learning.”

“Tony has been teaching me.”

“Yeah. Tony’s a good one.”

They both fall silent for a beat, Sarah’s hands tugging loosely at her hair, Delphine slumping back in her chair.

“So speaking of good clones and bad clones…” Sarah trails off for a moment, her forced-light tone the opposite of her posture. “You remember the crazy bitch clone trying to murder us?”

“She is hard to forget.”

“I ran into her again.”

“You--alone?”

“Yeah. We got lunch, actually. Oh, and, if I don’t give you all up by midnight, I’m the first one dead.”

“She sounds charming.”

"God, I don’t know what to do. Maybe I should just give you all up, wash my hands of all this shit.”

I may have already done that. I may have already fed all of us to DYAD, Delphine doesn’t say. Another thought comes to her instead. “Maybe.”

“Woah, Princess. Seriously?”

“Not to her,” she clarifies quickly. “But perhaps to the ones who made us. They would not want us all killed off--not after so much time and money.”

“Are you serious? Just go and give ourselves up to those people?”

“They have the resources to protect us--”

“And to probe and kill us. I’m not going to just hand myself over wrapped in a fucking bow--”

“I am trying to help, Sarah, and they could help--”

“You cannot be so blind--”

“What do you want from me, if not my help?”

“Maybe I want you to leave me the hell alone.” The screen goes black a moment later, and though Delphine doesn’t slam her laptop shut, she does close it with a little more force than necessary.

It does leave her thinking, however. About DYAD, and their resources, and their motivations. About the mess of vines that is the company, reaching deep into every part of her life, into Alison and Tony and Sarah, about how they reached and wrapped around Beth until they strangled her.

And about the glorious potential of human clones, scattered around the globe, the value in a few vials of their blood, just a little of their hair--anything with a bit of DNA, and all that entails.

And what a company with that much power would want.

“Neolution. A philosophy of today for tomorrow, rooted in our past, in the very evolution of the human organism.”

Delphine slips in late to the lecture, her head down and hugging the wall. She sees Dr. Leekie’s eyes flick over to her, just once and just briefly, before he continues.

“But before we got to the future, let me take you back 3,000 years, to that great Greek philosopher Plato and his twilight years.”

He keeps talking as she slides into an empty seat. The girl next to her glares as she pushes past, one silver contact gleaming unnaturally in her face. The room is full of others like her, blonde and silver and staring transfixed at Leekie as he speaks. Leekie himself stands in the middle of the lecturing platform, a projection of a globe spinning lazily above his head. He is older, bald, but he stands like he’s a god.

The others in the room look at him like he is one, too.

“For example, you.” He gestures, and Delphine looks.

Oh.

It’s Cosima, sitting in the very first row. She’s grinning up at Dr. Leekie, eyes sparkling behind her glasses, looking for all the world like another student, happy to be singled out by a distinguished lecturer. Like that’s all in the world she ever could be.

“Your glasses, they you somewhat...well, platonic. But within the very near future, I’ll be able to offer you the ability to see into new spectrums, ones never before seen by the naked eye. Infrared, x-rays, ultraviolet. Are you interested?”

“Maybe I just want basic Lasik,” Cosima says, and the hall bubbles with laughter.

Such a cheeky girl.

“And so you should! That’s making an evolutionary choice, and your choice to make. Neolution gives us the opportunity at self-directed evolution. And that is something I believe is not only a choice, but a human right.”

He keeps talking, but Delphine stands up instead, shoving past the blonde, glaring girl, and out into the hall, walking until she’s running, running until she’s found a restroom, and crying until she’s coughing into the sink.

The lights are bright and harsh, and they feel like they’re biting into every exposed bit of her, drawing out the paleness in her cheeks, the red around her eyes, the shuddering in her chest.

She’s cried so much for all of this already.

Something begins buzzing in her purse and Delphine takes a long breath, clearing her throat before reaching into her bag. It takes a moment to find her pink phone, buried beneath a few other things.

“‘Ello?”

“Delphine, it’s Alison. I’m back from couples camp with Donnie and I just wanted to let you know that I’m taking a break from all of...this.”

The words are so jarring and so completely Alison that all Delphine can do is blink.

“You were at couples camp?”

“Yes, Delphine, I’m sure I mentioned it, keep up! It was meant to be a weeklong getaway, but--well. We’re getting a divorce. And so I’m just going to--spend some time away from all of--this. To focus on my kids. And my life.”

“Yes, okay,” Delphine says numbly. “I understand.”

“Great! I just wanted to let you know. Since I won’t be picking up for the next few days. Unless something major happens--well, just don’t call unless there’s something major. That’s all.”

“Okay.”

“Delphine,” Alison says slowly. “Are you alright?”

Delphine’s throat works for a moment before she answers. “Sarah ran into the clone again, the one who is hunting us. But she does not know our names, so for now you should be safe.”

“Right. Right, good. Well.” And Alison hangs up.

“Well,” Delphine echoes into the dead air.

Her reflection still looks ghastly, staring back at her. Somehow, even next to the white porcelain sink and the gleaming countertop, her skin still looks pale. The lighting, maybe--fluorescents never did anyone any good.

She coughs shallowly, then deeper, covering her mouth on instinct even as her other hand grips at the counter’s edge for support.

Something hot and wet hits her palm.

It’s some time--feeling longer than it actually is, she’s sure--before she straightens up, breathing clearly again.

And then she looks at her hand, and her breath stops again.

Sarah’s voice echoes in her mind. She was--I don’t know, pale and sickly? Coughing up blood?

And there, smeared across her pale hand, is blood.

She breathes once. Twice. Her mouth tastes like metal.

She spits into the sink, then turns on the water, thrusting her hand into the stream before the water’s even warmed up. For a moment it’s red on white, ridiculously vibrant, and then it’s gone.

She rinses out her mouth, then washes her face. The paper towels are scratchy against her face, and she coughs lightly into one before folding it carefully, sliding it into her purse. She doesn’t look at it.

The bathroom door swings open.

“Delphine--I thought I saw--please, listen, I just want to talk--”

Delphine pushes past Cosima without looking back.

“Doctor Leekie. It’s an honor.”

“The honor is all mine, I’m sure. And who might you be?”

Delphine smiles, though she doesn’t try to have it reach her eyes. “Delphine Cormier. Your lecture was fascinating.”

“Ah, merci, mademoiselle.” He takes her hand, then presses a kiss to the back of it. “C'est un honneur de rencontrer un admirateur.”

“Je suis plus qu'un admirateur,” Delphine replies smoothly. “And we both know this, oui?”

Leekie’s face goes just a bit wooden, his hand stiff on hers. Delphine takes the chance to pull him just a little closer, murmuring into his ear.

“Could we speak in private?”

“What, exactly, can we do for you, Dr. Cormier?”

Dr. Leekie’s idea of “private” is a booth in the back corner of a restaurant, a glass of expensive wine in front of each of them. He’s leaning forward, every part compassionate and caring. Delphine, for her part, is settled into her usual picture-perfect posture, hand wrapped around her wine glass though she hasn’t yet taken a sip.

“You know that I am aware of what I am. Of what DYAD has done.”

“Cosima had mentioned something along those lines, yes. Some three others that you’re in contact with?”

“Mm.” Leekie takes a sip of wine, his eyes never leaving Delphine.

“Now, don’t look at me like I’m the enemy, Dr. Cormier. We both know that’s not the case.”

“If you say so, Dr. Leekie.”

“Aldous, please. I already look old, I don’t need all those titles around to make me feel old as well.”

“You don’t use your own technology?”

“Some of our science-fiction sounding ideas are still just fiction. And some of them are miracles in the flesh.”

“Am I mean to take that as a compliment, Aldous?”

“If you would like it to be.”

Delphine takes a sip of her wine at last. It’s an excellent quality.

“But down to business, Dr. Cormier. Why have you pulled me aside? I assume it’s not to state facts we both already know.”

“No.” Delphine takes another swallow of wine. “I am because you are going to hire me.”

“Oh.” Leekie leans back with a rusty half-chuckle. “This is unexpected. I have to say, I half-thought you’d come here to blackmail us. I should have known to expect better from you.” He swirls his wine, half-distracted. “But why, exactly, would we hire you? We’ve followed your career with interest, it’s true, but it could be seen as a bit of a conflict of interest to have you working for us.”

“I would not only work for you, but I would give myself over to you as well. To examine, to take samples from, to scan--whatever you need, you can have. A scientist and subject, all in one.”

“And why would you do that, hm?”

Aldous Leekie is excellent at pretending, Delphine knows this already. The trouble is, she cannot quite tell what he is, and what he’s presenting himself to be. The showman, standing in the classroom, drawing hundreds into his world? The grandfatherly figure, humoring her and feeding her? The scientist who is eager to unravel her, to put her under lights and broken down into bits until all her secrets are gone? The man, who sees her and wants to have her?

She may not be able to tell who he is as a person, but Delphine is a scientist, trained to see truth instead of what she wants, and she can tell who Aldous Leekie is to her.

Her best hope.

Delphine reaches into her purse and pulls out that folded square of paper towel, pushing it across the table to Aldous. She watches his face, not looking down at the table, and she sees the moment he unfolds the paper, his expression falling from confusion to comprehension.

“Oh, Delphine.”

“I am invested, Aldous,” she says. “Moreso than anyone working for you now.”

“Yes, yes.” His face is folded in sadness, worry--maybe guilt? Delphine tries to see underneath it, to see if there is anything more. “I’m sure we can work something out. There are plenty of our scientists who would be happy to work with you.”

Or on. Delphine nods. “Thank you.”

“Please don’t thank me,” Aldous says, and there is a heaviness in his eyes when he looks into Delphine’s, a softness in his hand when he reaches across the table to touch Delphine’s. “It’s our duty, Dr. Cormier.”

“I am sorry,” Delphine says slowly, “you turned the clone that has been killing us against the DYAD?”

“Helena,” Sarah’s voice crackles through the Skype connection. “And yeah. Two birds, one stone and all that shit.”

Delphine leans back into Tony’s couch and lets out a long, controlled breath. Next to her, Tony drops down onto the couch with a beer, chuckling low in his throat.

Delphine had come to Tony’s for lack of any other place to be. It had only taken a few hours for a black-suited man to appear at her door, with a contract to sign and an ID badge. It was a relief, in a way--of course they had her address on file. Of course they already had her picture. All the cards on the table, everyone knowing where they stand.

In other ways, it was horrible, and so she’d come to Tony’s without telling him why.

And now there is Sarah, and her way of handling problems.

“Ballsy, Sarah,” Tony praises next to her, raising his beer in a mock-salute.

“I know,” Felix chimes in, leaning over Sarah’s shoulder. “Totally batshit, but impressive.”

“Did you not think making deals with Helena was a bad idea?”

“I was mainly thinking of, you know, not getting killed,” Sarah snaps back. “And don’t think I can’t hear the judgement, Princess. This is all your fault.”

“My fault?”

“You fucked up the science!”

“I did not.”

“You did too. They knew I wasn’t Beth from the tests! And you said our DNA was identical!”

“It is, that is the definition of clones--”

“Maybe you got the definition wrong--”

“Okay, okay ladies,” Tony interrupts, looking mildly worried. Delphine and Sarah both fall silent, but neither back down. “Look, DYAD is some freaky shit, they could’ve figured it out some other way that wasn’t Delphine’s fault--”

“This is my point,” Delphine interjects before Sarah can speak. “We cannot have them against us, they are too powerful--”

“You’re saying ally ourselves with them?” Sarah scoffs, glaring through her computer screen. “We talked about this, about, y’know, how they want us dead.”

“Their resources--”

“Are bullshit, Princess, and maybe you should wake up and see that. You wanna get black-bagged and thrown into a pit--”

“If I go to them on my own terms they will not--”

“Don’t tell me you’re seriously thinking--”

“I already have.”

She hadn’t meant to say it, but there it is, hanging in the air.

“Delphine…” Tony says into the silence.

“You’re shitting me.”

“I am not, Sarah.”

“Jesus, Delphine, whose bloody side are you on?”

“Hang up,” Felix shouts back. “She’s a freaky Leekie.”

“Sarah--” Delphine starts, before the screen goes black. Delphine closes the laptop with only a little additional force, rising from the couch. “Tony, you still have the whiskey?”

“Yeah,” he says, twisting to look at her. “But Delphine--”

“I have signed the contract, Tony. There is nothing to discuss.”

“Yes, there is! What’s going on? You’re just willingly handing yourself over to the Leekies, without talking to any of us about it?”

“I did not realize being your clone meant you needed to approve of all my decisions.”

“You know that’s not what I’m saying.”

Delphine pours herself two fingers of whiskey, taking a deep swallow before turning. Tony’s followed her from the living room to stand in the kitchen doorway. He’s staring at her like he’s worried, like he cares, like all he wants to know is what’s going on. Like he’ll be there for her, no matter what.

She’s seen that look before. She thinks she could even trust it, coming from Tony.

But she can’t burden him any more than he already is. And she can’t say aloud what is going on. She can’t make it anything more than the weight in her chest and the extra tissues in her purse and the memory of that look on Aldous’ face.

She cannot make it real. Not yet.

“I am doing what I must, Tony. You must trust me.”

“You’re making it pretty hard to do that, Blondie.”

Delphine finishes her drink, rinses the glass, and places it in Tony’s sink.

“I am doing this for all of us.”

“Are you telling me that, or yourself?”

Delphine brings her shoulders back and walks past Tony, grabbing her coat and heading for the door. “I have to go. I’ve a meeting at DYAD early tomorrow.”

“Delphine--hey, Delphine, come on--”

She shuts the apartment door behind her--Tony is not stupid enough to follow her out into the hallway, not where everyone can see--and makes it halfway down the hallway before her breath catches and she stops, massaging her chest, breathing carefully until it feels like she can take a full breath again.

She makes it to her car, then to her apartment, all without a cough, all without even a hint of a wheeze.

And then she gets to her apartment and freezes, because Cosima is there.

“Delphine, please don’t--”

“Don’t what? Call the police? Throw you out?”

“I mean, technically, I’m not in your apartment,” Cosima says, trying for a smile. “I don’t know if your authority extends to the hallway.”

“And how far does your authority extend, Cosima?”

Cosima sighs, breathing out long and low. “Yeah, that’s what I’m here about. But we shouldn’t talk about it out here.” She glances up at Delphine, cautious in a way that doesn’t look right on her face. “Can I come in?”

Delphine looks at Cosima--really looks, at the way she’s running her fingers along the bangles on her wrists, the unsteady way she gets to her feet like she’s been crouched waiting for Delphine for a while, the bright spark of worry in her warm brown eyes.

She remembers the last time Cosima stood at her door, the way they’d laughed and bumped into each other, only partly on accident, and how eagerly Delphine had opened the door and let Cosima in.

“Please, Delphine.”

And Delphine doesn’t know why, but she says “Okay.”

Cosima still looks out of place in Delphine’s apartment, still too colorful against Delphine’s white minimalism. She still smiles at the Eiffel Tower in the corner, and the bright red lip-shaped couch. Delphine thinks Cosima and Tony would get along, and then she thinks of how Cosima called Aldous and handed him Tony’s name, along with the others, and shuts that train of thought down.

“Aldous told me you’ve taken a job with DYAD.”

“Did he.”

“I’m still assigned to you,” Cosima says while Delphine moves through her apartment, hanging up her coat and setting down her bag. “So I had to know--”

“As my monitor, yes.”

“But I’m not here as that, Delphine.” Delphine goes into the kitchen and pours herself a glass of wine. “I’m here as your...Cosima. I’m here as Cosima. Just Cosima.”

“I see.” Delphine keeps her back turned. “And where does the monitor end, and Cosima begin?”

“Delphine.” Cosima waits. Delphine does not turn. “Delphine, you can’t work for DYAD.”

“No?”

“No. Delphine, no.” Delphine swirls the wine in her glass. “How could you even consider working for them? They manipulated you, and they lied to you--”

“Those sound like things you did, Cosima.”

“Jesus, Delphine, can you please just look at me?”

Delphine does. Cosima stands there, eyes so wide, so earnest, and Delphine can see Cosima smiling in Aldous’ lecture, hear her listing off names on the phone--and at the same time she can see Cosima’s smile, feel Cosima’s hands in hers, on her, and she hates Cosima so much because she cannot hate Cosima, not at all.

“Will you let me show you?”

Delphine drops Cosima’s gaze, but she gestures and Cosima sits on the couch, pulling out a laptop and external drive. “I heard about happened with Sarah. That she was being Beth but they figured it out.”

“Yes, through medical testing.”

“Which doesn’t make much sense, right? I mean, sure, lifestyle differences, but both Sarah and Beth had substance abuse problems, indications of instability--sorry,” Cosima adds belatedly. Delphine doesn’t try to respond, only gestures for Cosima to continue. “Well, they shouldn’t have been able to distinguish them from basic diagnostic testing.”

“Unless the DNA had been watermarked in some way. Key sequences or tags to differentiate the clones. It would be logical, but none of the data I’ve been given from DYAD indicate--”

“Exactly. The data DYAD gave you. Or, more specifically, Aldous.” Cosima’s laptop has booted up by now, and she plugs the drive in, hitting a few keys until a DNA sequence fills the screen. “He scrubbed the key sequences, and your ID tags. This is your DNA in full.”

Delphine takes the laptop from Cosima, scrolling through the screen. She’s read through hundreds of DNA sequences like this, maybe thousands. It looks no different.

“Right,” she says, pretending she can’t feel Cosima’s eyes on here. “Here I am. Where do we begin?”

“Here,” Cosima says suddenly, after enough combing through the sequence that the letters have started to blur. Her shoulder bumps into Delphine’s as she leans forward, finger jabbing at the screen. “This is a synthetic sequence. Which means…”

“Here.” Delphine spots it even as Cosima opens her mouth to speak again, trailing her finger along the sequence of bases. “A differentiated portion.”

“That’s it. Your encrypted I.D. tag.”

“Right.” Delphine taps the screen, the simple chain of letters. “How is it encoded?”

“That, I don’t know.”

“Right,” Delphine says again, leaning back into the couch.

“But I know where to start,” Cosima adds. “I know your tag number.”

“You do?”

“Yeah, I saw it a hundred times--wrote it down even, as part of some of my reports.” She’s very carefully not looking at Delphine, and Delphine is very carefully not looking away from here. “324b21.”

“324b21.”

“Yeah.” Cosima’s eyes dart up, and Delphine looks away too late. “Delphine--”

“We have a known sequence as a starting point. Let’s begin a decryption program…”

“Yeah,” Cosima says. For a moment, Delphine thinks she’s about to say something else, but she catches herself. “Let’s do that.”

But seven programs in, none of the results have come near to matching the ID, and Delphine is halfway to pulling out here hair.

“Okay, think. Something has to match the key,” Cosima mutters, mostly to herself. “It’s 30 years ago. We’re molecular-encoding.”

“What coding languages would they have had in the 80’s?” Delphine asks aloud, wishing she knew more about computers.

“Delphine, that’s it!” Cosima grabs for the laptop, suddenly excited, and Delphine lets her, swept up in it. “It wasn’t nucleotides, they were coding base pairs!”

“AT and CG,” Delphine says, a grin growing despite herself. “Two letters--”

“Ones and zeros,” Cosima says, completing the sentence, beaming. “It’s binary. ASCII!”

“What are we waiting for, then?” Delphine waves her hand at the screen, and Cosima moves, pulling up a new program and pasting the synthetic sequence into it.

It takes an agonizingly long time for the program to work, but then there it is, blinking at them.

324B21

“We did it,” Cosima laughs. “We did it!”

But the program isn’t done.

THIS_ORGANISM_AND_DERIVATIVE_GENETIC_MATERIAL…

“No,” Cosima breathes. Delphine is silent, watching.

..._IS_RESTRICTED_INTELLECTUAL_PROPERTY

Delphine closes the laptop. “I have to make a call.”

For a moment, Delphine is terrified Sarah won’t pick up at all--that she’s too late, or Sarah’s too pissed to want anything to do with her anymore, that Sarah’s already lost--

“Hello?”

“Sarah, I was wrong.” There’s no time for politeness, no time to think about Cosima sitting a few feet away. “You cannot make a deal. You have to get out of there.”

“What? Why?”

“The things they promise, the freedom, it is--it is shit, Sarah, all of it.” There’s a lump in her throat that Delphine cannot afford to indulge. “There is a patent embedded in our DNA. It applies to all of us--our bodies, everything we are or will be--it is theirs. We are their property.”

Delphine looks back at Cosima. “Sarah, they could claim Kira.”

For a moment, there’s only Sarah’s breathing on the other end, then a cold dial tone.

Delphine lowers her phone.

“Delphine,” and she can’t read what’s in Cosima’s voice, isn’t sure if she wants to.

“Did you know?”

“No, Delphine, I swear to you--”

“And I can trust you?”

“You have to,” Cosima says, and there’s enough truth in that statement that Delphine cannot snap back. “You don’t have anyone else. But I promise--God, I promise, you have me.”

Delphine shakes her head, mute, and Cosima reaches forward, grabs Delphine’s hands.

“Let’s run away.”

“What?”

“We have to get away from them--you have to--”

“You are going to tell me what I must do?”

“You know this is what you have to do!”

“I cannot just run,” Delphine objects, pulling away. “I cannot--”

“You have to. They want to use you, Delphine. They want to use all of you. They’re the kind of people who--who do this to you. You can’t poison your ethics--”

“Ethics?” Delphine asks. “You think you have the right to speak to me about ethics?”

“I know how hypocritical it sounds, okay,” Cosima says, and Delphine thinks oh no, no you don’t. “But that’s why I’m trying to warn you--as someone who made that mistake. I know you, your morals--”

“Morals. I am not trying to survive this with my morals intact, Cosima,” Delphine spits, shocking herself with the white-hot kernel of rage in her chest. “I am only trying to survive!”

The shout leaves her with a heaving chest and ragged breaths. She wants nothing more than to retreat, slam a door, or stand tall while Cosima stomps out, but the body that has never really been hers betrays her again, and she folds at the waist instead, coughing into her palm.

Cosima starts to reach for her, but Delphine flinches away.

Cosima doesn’t try again.

“You want to see?” Delphine asks, once she can breathe again. She has never been good at putting steel in her voice, fire in her eyes, and so her voice wobbles, but her back is straight and certain. “What your people have done to me? Those people who hired you to snoop and spy and steal from me, the brilliant scientists?”

She doesn’t give Cosima the choice. She thrusts her hand out between them, her hand glistening in the light. It looks like nothing other than what it is: a palm, covered in blood. A dire warning, come late.

“I’m sick, Cosima,” she says, and hates the crack in her voice, the way her knees start to buckle, the way she hasn’t the strength to pull away when Cosima comes to hold her up.

“Delphine…”

“I’m sick.”

“Delphine, oh God, Delphine.” Cosima presses Delphine close, and Delphine isn’t sobbing, is biting her lip hard enough to hurt instead, her hands curled over her chest. “It--it’s going to be okay. I’ll fix this. I promise you.”

“Promise?” Delphine shoves herself away from Cosima, stands, feels the tears aching to spill over. “You have no right. You have no right!”

“Delphine--”

“How dare you. You speak to me like a child, like an idiot. As if I do not already know what will happen to me. And you dare to promise that you can change this. That you can fix this broken thing. I am a scientist too, Cosima! I know!”

“I know you do, shit, I’m sorry.” Cosima presses her hands to her face, then looks up. Spreads her hands wide in surrender. “You’re right. Delphine, you’re right.”

All the fight drains from Delphine in an instant. As if some small part of her had been holding on, waiting for Cosima to keep fighting, to say that she could promise a solution. As if some small part of her has just died already.

“I can’t promise you a cure,” Cosima says, and she’s crying, tears rolling freely while Delphine’s have yet to spill. “I can’t promise you a solution. I wish I could. God, Delphine, I wish I could.”

Delphine is shaking, just a little. She sinks down onto the couch, and Cosima sinks down next to her.

“But I can promise you me.”

Cosima reaches out, so slow, so cautious. Delphine lets her. Delphine lets her place a hand on her cheek, tilt her head up, so their eyes are meeting.

There is no trace of a lie in Cosima’s eyes.

“I promise you me. Whatever it is that comes. Whatever happens to either of us. I promise you me, and my heart, on your side, by your side. It’s the only thing I have guaranteed--and God I wish it was enough--and it’s yours. It’s for you.”

“You promise?” and it’s meant to come out scathing, but it comes out hopeful instead.

“Better than that,” Cosima says, and reaches out with her free hand, gently looping a pinky finger around one of Delphine’s own.

“You cannot be serious.”

“Hey,” Cosima says, and her eyes are sparkling with tears, and with something like fear, something like hope. “You can’t break a pinky promise, can you?”

“No,” Delphine says, and then she is laughing, a strange bubbly sound, and Cosima is laughing too. It’s all wet giggles and sniffles and nothing dignified, nothing beautiful, and it makes a precious feeling flare in Delphine’s chest like never before.

She still has one of Cosima’s hands on her face. As the giggles fade, Cosima uses it to guide Delphine’s gaze down.

A gentle press of lips to her forehead, and then, Cosima’s forehead pressed to her own. Their faces so close, it’s as if they’re all that exist in the world.

Delphine lets her eyes slide shut. She does not cry.

But she lets herself be held.