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Mark knows he’s training to be military, knows it in the way he and his brothers are raised, like perfect biting dogs, always ready to heel, to snap, to lunge. Mark knows that he’s being groomed to be someone that he isn’t supposed to be, knows it feels wrong , feels the way his skin crawls when he sees Rudy’s smiles―sharp, predatory―when he hits a bird out of the sky, or Seth’s leering face whenever Parsons says something soft.
Mark doesn’t want that. Not for himself, not for his brothers, the boys he’s known since birth, who sleep walk in tandem and pile up like puppies in a corner, harmless in sleep―so unlike the way they are in waking.
Mark is being trained to be dangerous, to be sharp. Scathing.
He doesn’t want that.
He wishes that the Castors were more like the Ledas, sometimes, able to map out their own destinies, but then bile rises in his throat at the very suggestion because he’d rather be able to know his brothers, have them close, be able to love them for all their imperfections, than not know them at all. He and Parsons and Ira were not meant for this―Mark wishes, sometimes, that Susan Duncan snatched him from the puppy pile, late at night, instead of his smallest brother, the gentlest out of all of them, always more interested in their history classes than the physical training required for military life―he thinks, not like Styles and Seth and Rudy or any of the others. He was not meant for this, but it is his life regardless.
Sometimes, a small, wishful part of him hopes that he will be free someday.
He allows himself to think it now because he is alone, as alone as he ever will be.
Mother sends them out on scouting missions , she calls them, to practice their skills out in the field. It’s very practical, because they can’t live in a military base all together forever, so they each go out on little field trips―suitably chaperoned by mother’s military lackey’s, of course―to go and spy on one of the Leda clones. Or, observe covertly from a distance , as mother had said, like practice for espionage.
Mark makes a game out of it.
His Leda is a girl named Jennifer who is entirely unassuming. He notes, with mild interest, that her hair is curlier than all of her sisters’―he and his brothers all share the same severe military style cuts, just another part of themselves they aren’t allowed to individualize. Sometimes it really feels like they are truly being forced into the same mold, all of them, even though Mark knows he is distinctly different from Parsons and Seth and Rudy and Styles and even Ira, especially Ira, but he can’t help but feel like Virginia― mother― sometimes sees them all as the same.
Jennifer-with-the-curly-hair’s last name is Fitzsimmons, and something noteworthy about her is that she has two mothers. Mark only has one, and he thinks she’s severe enough for his liking, a second would be overkill.
Currently, he’s watching her swim laps in an olympic size pool, his guard―chaperone, nanny, whatever mother was calling them these days―somewhere on the premises. She’s with her team, and she’s doing very well. Backstroke is her best, by far, breaststroke her weakest. This he attributes to the bone structure of the Leda’s hips, it simply isn’t suited for the movements required by breaststroke.
He’s wearing a swimsuit in the name of blending in, had raced earlier with a group of boys who shot him odd looks―because his mother has a way of pulling strings, convincing people―but accepted him among their ranks with little complaint, because to them, he was just a new face.
It’s a strange concept, being around people who don’t look like you, don’t expect anything of you.
It’s refreshing.
He watches Jennifer-with-the-curly-hair whose last name is Fitzsimmons swim, noting the way she moves, her athleticism. She’s probably the most fit of the Ledas, along with Beth―Parsons comes home with the most interesting stories that make Mark’s stomach churn to match Parson’s pale face, and Seth just laughs, and mother says they aren’t to do anything about it, the Leda people will handle it―and Mark admires her for that, respects her.
Smugly, he thinks about how he’s always been the fastest swimmer out of his brothers.
Over the summer, mother takes them to a compound out east by a river, away from the deserts they usually frequent, and they splash around and race, getting a brief moment where they’re allowed to pretend to be boys instead of beasts in training. Mark’s always the fastest, and Rudy always tackles him when he loses―Rudy’s a sore loser, always has been.
He smiles at the memory, and then suddenly Jennifer is out of his line of sight, and he’s scrambling to find her. Stupid , he scolds himself. If mother were here, watching him, she would thwip him on the ear and tell him to do better, be more alert, on guard, because you can never be too prepared―
“Hiya!” He startles violently at the voice, too bright, too cheery, much too close to his ear, and turns, knowing that he’s found his lost Leda, and panic rises in his chest faster than the time Rudy held him under the water. He’d floundered, then, arms and legs kicking frantically, but Rudy just kept pushing him, because he was angry , for something, something ―being made to look like a fool? Mark doesn’t know, he never knows with Rudy―and mother had just sat there and watched until Mark forced his way out, panting, and punched Rudy in the face so hard he floated down the river. (They still curled up in a pile that night, though, they were brothers. Brothers fought, but they still loved each other.)
The Ledas aren’t supposed to see them, though. Let alone talk to them.
Mother would be furious .
He looks around frantically for his guard, and finds him nowhere, only then allowing himself to relax slightly. Jennifer watches him curiously, eyes bright, corners of her lips tugging up, and Mark stops himself from telling her that her emotions are too easy to read. She’s not being trained to be military.
Jennifer with the curly hair whose last name is Fitzsimmons can be whoever she wants to be.
“Well you’re awfully skittish,” she comments, but she isn’t mean about it, just observing. Mark swallows then, unsure of himself, because he’s supposed to be the one doing the observing, but he’s still young, not very good at this. He can hear mother’s harsh tongue in the back of his mind and he winces at the thought of it.
“I’m Jennifer,” she introduces herself when he doesn’t speak, thrusting her hand out in front of him like a prize, and he eyes it warily. Jennifer huffs, unaccustomed to being ignored, eyebrows furrowing in concentration, and Mark can practically see the moment a thought pops into her mind―notes the way her eyes light up and her pinched face relaxes.
“I’ve got it!” she declares. “You and I can race, and if I win, you have to talk to me, and if you win, I’ll leave you alone. Deal?” Mark smiles, thinking about his races with his brothers, and nods, still not speaking, because this is something he’s certain that he can win.
He doesn’t.
Jennifer pulls ahead of him early on and finishes at least three seconds ahead, and Mark does his best to not let it sting his pride.
“Maybe next time,” Jennifer offers wryly, offering her hand out again, “but a deal’s a deal.” He shakes it grudgingly, still keeping an eye out for his mother’s lackey, who is nowhere to be found.
“Mark,” he says, slowly, because maybe this won’t hurt so much.
“Well, Mark,” Jennifer says, and her voice is all cheer again, “that wasn’t so bad, was it?” He doesn’t think she expects an actual answer, so he remains silent, and she continues. “I noticed you watching me race, and at first I thought it might just be because you were scopin’ out the competition or something, but then I realized I didn’t recognize you at all so I came over here to ask you where you were from. We don’t get many new people around here, really.”
Jennifer has the tendency to ramble, Mark noticed early on. When she speaks, she moves her whole body, gesticulates widely with her arms, but her movements are gentle, graceful, more reserved than the wild bulky movements of Cosima―Styles despises her, claims that she gives him headaches with how much she talks about science―different. All the Ledas are all so different.
Mark envies them.
“I was just in town,” he shrugs, because he doesn’t really know what to say. Certainly not the truth. I’m actually genetically your twin brother and there are a bunch of clones of us running around the world―surprise! Oh, and my mother sends my brothers out to go spy on you and your sisters sometimes because she has a vendetta against their mother, who also stole one of my brothers, it’s a mess, really. “You seemed like the best so I decided to watch you.” He settles on flattery instead.
Jennifer preens, smiles gently, and it’s so genuine and warming that it catches Mark off-guard.
She reminds him of Ira, a little bit.
“Well, if you ever need a friend here, I’m your gal,” she tells him seriously, knocking him on the shoulder softly, playfully―his brothers are almost never playful anymore, there’s too much of an edge to them now, even Parsons, who is softer, like him, but they are all expected to be hard, now―and humming, “you weren’t too shabby yourself, gave me a run for my money.”
“Wasn’t fast enough to get you to leave me alone, though,” he jokes, and Jennifer laughs, bright and airy, and Mark smiles. Thinks about the fact that this girl is his sister, technically. He thinks Jennifer with the curly hair whose last name is Fitzsimmons would make a good sister.
The Ledas are lucky to have her.
“You’ll just have to keep in touch, come back for a rematch someday.”
“Someday.” He agrees. He spies his mother’s dog on the outskirts of the facility and his expression sours. “I have to go, though.”
“Oh.” She sounds as dissapointed as he feels.
Mark turns to leave, before they’re seen together, but then he thinks of something and he turns back.
“Jennifer?”
“Yeah?”
“If you could be anything in the world, absolutely anything, what would you be?” He often thinks of what he would do if he had a life outside of his mother, his brothers, if the Castors were more like the Ledas and had the freedom to choose the freedom of ignorance. He wonders what makes him uniquely him , sets Mark separate from Parsons or Seth or Rudy or Styles or Ira with the same severe military haircuts and the same severe military future.
Jennifer blinks owlishly at him, as though confused―they have just met, in her eyes, after all, she doesn’t know about their deeper relationship―before she smiles, sure of herself.
She’s thought of this before.
“A teacher,” she says, definitively, “I’ve always wanted to help people.”
Mark smiles at her and then walks away, heart pounding in his chest.
He thinks, if he could choose to be like anyone, he would choose to be like this girl with the curly hair whose first name is Jennifer and last name is Fitzsimmons, with the warm smiles and the bright laughter and the desire to help people.
A teacher.
He likes that.
He keeps walking.
Beth finds Jennifer by accident.
Maybe it’s a cruel twist of fate, that the two sisters who will be taken so soon, so unfairly―not that they know it―find each other completely by chance.
Beth’s aware of her sisters at that point. Katja has dragged her, completely unwittingly, out of her ignorance, in the name of needing help, of needing a savior, and she had chosen Beth , for some inexplicable reason.
Beth never gets to choose anything.
But she’s helping, whether she wants to or not, because there are people depending on her, and Beth has never been one to let people down, not even when there have been so many people who have let her down, in her life. She looks down at the badge on her desk and suddenly her throat feels tight and the air around her feels heavy and Beth needs to remind herself how to breathe, deeply, in and out, practiced and concise.
Air is a luxury she now knows she won’t be able to afford, not forever, not if what Katja is telling her is true.
She needs to visit Cosima, but her flight gets cancelled overnight in Michigan because of snowstorms, and so Beth finds herself holed up in a little town by a lake that she’s quite certain she’ll never remember the name of, and she’s exhausted and weary but she sleeps better in the lumpy hotel bed than she ever does at home, because here, at least, she is away from her demons, away from Paul , doesn’t feel like there are people watching her, constantly.
It’s refreshing.
She wakes up earlier than she needs to, her flight isn’t leaving until the afternoon, and decides to go on a run.
She hasn’t had time for runs recently, not with the mess of Katja and killer clones and Cosima and Alison and of monitors and DYAD and so many things that Beth still doesn’t understand.
Everything is brighter surrounded by snow, sharp against Beth’s eyes. The air is crisp and cool and settles in her lungs sharply, but not harshly. Beth runs and lets the familiar rhythm of her feet synchronize with the pounding of her heart in her ears, just taking in the scenery, the mood of the little lakeside town, the homeliness of it all.
A boy waves at her eagerly and Beth waves back tentatively, not thinking much of it. She’s read articles before about how people in small towns are supposed to be friendlier than people in big cities and she believes it, because in the city there is always somewhere to be, something to do , a larger goal, and people aren’t afraid to push strangers out of their way, clawing and kicking, to get wherever they need to be.
Here, there is none of that anxious energy.
It’s blissfully calm.
Another teenager waves, this time a girl, and Beth waves back more readily this time, even offering a small smile, mood warming, because small town life is nice . She could get used to it.
She doesn’t think anything of the children.
Until a third waves and calls a greeting after her, a good morning Miss Fitzsimmons!
Beth waves back on reflex but keeps running, and her mind is racing , now, the pounding in her ears louder than it was before, more frantic, uneven, and her feet tear at the sidewalk like its nothing, and she feels like she’s flying, grasping for something that she’s missing, and then―
Beth collides with a girl that shares her face.
The woman, Miss Fitzsimmons , presumably―Jennifer, Beth remembers reading about her briefly when she was searching for others, after Katja called, trying to find proof―looks at her and startles so violently she forgets to collect herself off of the ground and the two of them remain there, tangled up with one another, bruises rapidly forming on their foreheads.
“You―” she finally starts, once she’s collected herself enough to speak, and Beth realizes that Jennifer is blissfully unaware of the mess she’s just run, quite literally, headfirst into, and Beth groans inwardly when she realizes that the duty now befalls on her to enlighten Jennifer to the situation.
She texts Cosima quickly and tells her to not expect her for another day or two at least.
“Not here,” Beth convinces, and something about the urgency in her voice convinces Jennifer that this is serious, that this is more than just a story about twins separated at birth, and Jennifer quickly whisks her away down the road and a stone path that leads to a quaint home slightly secluded by the nearby forestry.
They stare at each other for a long moment, and then Jennifer thrusts out her hand, entirely too trusting, face alight with curiosity and wonder and maybe a little touch of fear. Beth takes it without hesitation.
“Jennifer Fitzsimmons.”
“Beth Childs.”
It doesn’t feel like fate, but it doesn’t feel like chance either. It feels somewhere in-between.
Maybe this was meant to happen, or maybe it wasn’t. Within moments of knowing Jennifer Beth decides that it would have been a tragedy to never meet her, so she figures that whatever the cosmos had planned, this is a good thing, for both of them. It has to be.
Jennifer coughs violently into her arm, breaks out into a fit that seizes her and she can’t breathe until Beth rubs circles at her back and forces some water down her throat, and Beth realizes that maybe she was meant to save Jennifer, too.
“There are more of us?” Jennifer asks, curiously, hopefully, and Beth nods.
“I’ve met three,” four , if you count Mika, but Mika doesn’t want anyone to know about her and Beth respects that, even though she doesn’t think Jennifer would tell anyone, “one from Germany, one from California, and one from Canada, like me.”
Jennifer thinks this is all very wonderful and decides instantly that she likes Beth, even though their first meeting involved the two of them crashing into one another headfirst, and she takes Beth around a tour of her childhood home.
“My mothers are off exploring the world,” Jennifer explains, “so I just live here with my boyfriend, Greg, and the cats, but they’ll be back eventually and Greg and I will either move out and get an apartment or still live here but that’ll sure be a full house when we think about kids.” Jennifer tends to ramble, and reminds Beth of Cosima in that regard, and sometimes Beth marvels about how they can be so similar and yet so different at the same time.
The home is obviously well loved, and seeing it stings, a little bit, because Beth has been wondering, recently, now that she knows that there are others, that she is just one of many in an experiment, why she was the one who ended up with the home that was so broken, ended up with the monster hiding in a father’s skin, why the other’s got to have happy homes with worn, scratched bannisters from sliding down on Sunday mornings.
Beth just smiles at her and reminds herself to breathe.
Jennifer talks about her kids in-between the talk about clones and sickness, not biological, of course―she, like all the other Ledas, is stricken with the same, gut-wrenching barrenness that prevents them from multiplying, from spreading like a disease―but her students. They might as well be her own children, though, because it’s clear that Jennifer loves them from the way she speaks, voice flooded with affection, and Beth thinks back to the teenagers who waved to her in the morning, their faces eager and happy to see her.
She thinks they love her, too.
Beth pauses at one picture, of Jennifer in her college graduation gowns, standing next to a severe looking young man in a suit with an even more severe looking haircut wearing a pressed suit, because Beth knows that face, has seen him trailing along behind Susan Duncan like a lost puppy.
“Who’s that?”
“Hm?” Jennifer turns, and then her expression softens even more than it had when she was talking about her kids, if that was possible. “That’s my friend Mark.” She traces the frame softly, as though she’s remembering, soft smile fixed on her face. “We met when I was thirteen, I think. He’s the closest thing to a brother I’ve ever had.”
Beth thinks about the man she’s seen shadowing Susan Duncan like a second skin, and notices the differences between the two.
This one is more muscular, obviously more trained in the physical aspects in life, while Ira Blair doesn’t look like he could harm a fly if he wanted to. There is a weariness in his eyes she doesn’t remember seeing in Ira’s, a resigned nature, but the smile on his face is genuine, standing next to a beaming Jennifer.
Beth doesn’t think anyone could be downtrodden next to her, this sister exudes warmth as though she were the sun itself.
“Does he have any brothers?” she tries to make it sound casual, but she’s invested, and Jennifer looks at her curiously.
“He’s mentioned a few, actually, I’m pretty sure he’s from a big family,” she pauses, “military, they move around a lot.” Beth thinks she ought to look into the origins of Ira Blair more keenly when she’s back in Canada.
Jennifer has many questions and Beth does her best to answer them, gives her her phone number and promises to send her a burner, because she’ll need it.
Beth doesn’t know that in a few months she will meet another girl completely by chance, at a train station instead of a lakeside town, when Beth is doing another kind of running, does not know about the offer Jennifer will get from DYAD for treatment, doesn’t know that they’re both doomed, the two of them.
Jennifer just smiles at her and tells her the story about an out-of-place thirteen year old who couldn’t beat her in a race and as a result had to tell her his name, and Beth tells her about some of the moments after , during the recovery, when she thought she might be whole again.
Jennifer exudes so much warmth that she feels like the sun and for once, Beth lets herself be warm.