"Meeting her was like, bam! Instant connection. She just… got me, you know? I didn't have to explain anything to her, we just got down to it."

Cosima lay on her side, fingers tracing over Sarah's nail bitten ones.

"When we were together it felt like… like the charge in the air before a lightning strike."

"Oh? You've been struck by lightning? You've never mentioned that before," Sarah interjected, rolling her eyes at Cosima's emphatic hand movements.

Cosima kicked at Sarah's legs under the covers.

"Hey! You are supposed to be listening and supporting. You promised!"

"Fine," Sarah groaned. "Tell me more about the blonde."

"Thank-you. Well, it was all going great, we've been seeing each other for a while, then she starts getting all distant, you know?"

"Distant?"

"Yeah. Like, sometimes when I'm talking to her, it's like she's hearing me, and she says all the right things back, but she's not really taking it in." Cosima's brows furrowed before she added, "and she never tells me anything about herself. Not really.

Like, she tells me little things about her day, and things she wants to do, but there is all this basic stuff she just hasn't told me. I know almost nothing about her family. I think she mentioned a brother once. I don't know if there is some giant family feud or something, so I don't pry, but it just feels weird. She's holding back this huge part of herself and I don't know why."

"You think she's lying to you?" Sarah asked, slipping her fingers in amongst her double's to keep them from fluttering about more and more wildly.

An abrupt knock on the bedroom door startled them both.

"Cosima! Get off the phone and come to dinner," a female voice came from the other side.

"I'll be right there!" Cosima called out.

"In five minutes," she continued in a whisper to Sarah.

"Not lying, exactly," Cosima responded. She couldn't let such an accusation go without challenge. Even if maybe it was true. "Witholding."

Sarah's fingers closed more firmly over the ring bedecked hand fluttering under her grasp.

"She sounds like a piece of work, Cos. You should to back the fuck away from that shit."

Cosima opened her mouth to protest again. There was a second of silence before it closed again, and she dropped her eyes. Sarah gently brushed a thumb over the hand in hers.

Cosima stared at the chipped black polish on Sarah's nail, and spoke in a slower, older voice than before.

"I've never really been good at doing what I should."