Summary: Sarah needs Alison, just like Alison needs Cosima, and Cosima needs Sarah. You see it's sort of an unspoken thing between them all. A clone-line of silent support.
Of Silent Support And Red Port
Cosima needs Sarah after a bottle of wine, when everyone is buzzing bright and relaxed and Felix has his drinks trolley out. Cosima needs Sarah, who grabs for Cosima's own polished off wine glass, holding it loosely, setting it aside. Because Sarah is the steady hand mindlessly drifting to lend help as she stands, dizzy and mellow. Science spilling from her mouth even as her veins burn with the remnants of alcohol and her hands don't drift fluidly through the air, but rather stutter upon certain words and rest low by her sides. And it's when the night has turned into the bleary beginnings of morning, wine rings upon surfaces and voices raw from simply talking all night, that Cosima swallows her last sip of red liquor.
She's rip-roaringly drunk and pale from a night without rest. Shaky as she stands and clumsy when she moves, but Felix is lively, there's music playing from somewhere and Alison is talking without pause. And the bleary morning gives way to an experimental shot of vodka and a coffee more alcoholic then caffeinated, and suddenly Cosima can't see straight if at all. She needs Sarah when her body succumbs to the onslaught of intoxicants, although she neither registers or acknowledges this until she goes to spin around and everything goes black.
Cosima careens over and barely misses nailing her face on a coffee table. Sarah catches her, badly, grabs a fistful of Cosima's long sleeve shirt. Arms stiff and body tense, and the reaction is instinctive. Like a warm hand to a child's shoulder to appease them after a shock. Cosima's body on the ground, Alison discretely putting away the last of the wine with a bemused although slightly terrified expression, and Sarah unlocking her death grip on Cosima's shirt. It's all a silent statement of support. If only to prevent bodily damage whilst intoxicated. So Cosima needs Sarah.
Just like Alison needs Sarah at 2am when her hands are jumpy from her fifth glass of wine and her thoughts have turned into outside twitching, fingernails rap against a polished surface, breath held deep within her lungs but always easily huffed out. And she needs Sarah to murmur down the phone line, croaky voice full of sleep, reassuring her wild thoughts with off-handed comments. She's not Beth. Not a real cop. And her attitude is a far-fetched guideline that does little to guide and a lot to give Sarah a distressing habit of finding trouble. Beth was different. She was more collected, pieced together, and brave. Alison had once needed Beth, but Beth was gone, another statistic to add to the list of jumpers. So now, at 2am, Alison needs Sarah. Because she's not Beth, not a cop, not anything like Beth really. But she is there and she does answer when Alison dials, and it's enough for Alison to contain her unrelenting thoughts at least for another night.
It's when Kira is brought into a conversation. The heated topic over whether or not she is safe and Cosima's lizard theory debunked, that Sarah realises she needs Alison. It's a soft realisation. One that sort of sits high in her chest and warms her through without ever really being proclaimed out aloud. Because Cosima keeps talking about experiments and DNA sequences and how Kira may not be completely safe, and Sarah can't listen, she can't sit still long enough to hear those words constantly repeated again and again, just in different geek speak. Cosima's not to fault. But Sarah is agitated and snaps. Outside the air is cold and Sarah's jacket does little to hide her shivers, her breath is fast, frustrated. Stuck.
Thoughts of Kira assault her mind like a fast playing movie. She sees the tiny feet of her daughter, kicking from birth, always so full of energy. The smile Kira has grown into, one that sat large upon her face as a toddler, steadily shaping into Sarah's own smile and always, always cheeky. And it breaks her heart. Because Kira's safety is paramount and Sarah isn't sure if she can do it alone. If she's ready to do it alone. She's not experienced, not brave, she's just Sarah Manning. That's all.
Alison's hand lands on Sarah's back, tentative and noiseless, an action that remains stock-still for a heavy exhale. The firm press of Alison's palm high upon Sarah's shoulder blades doesn't need words to accompany it. The gesture alone speaks louder then anything Alison might have thought to say, and Sarah is thankful for the silence. She's thankful for the understanding Alison holds. Both of them have kids. So she gets it a hell of a lot more then Cosima could have hoped to, and it hits Sarah like a hard boot to the gut how truly different they all are. Because Cosima is smart when it comes to science but she can't grasp certain things involving interactions. And Alison is stubborn and head-strong, a mix of both tentative calm and unruly turmoil, but she grasps the things Cosima can't quite.
Sarah needs Alison, in detached silence and without a spoken word.
But Alison needs Cosima in words and reassuring statistics and facts. Over a sweet white wine to dull the bitter taste of Katja's death and the news about Beth's suicide, Alison sits. Her glass is filled to the brim, the sides tapped and clinked and held under the pressure of her fingertips. Bearing a tight hold so that perhaps the grief won't hurt as much. But every swallow is painful. Her stomach churns and the empty state of it makes bile sit heavy in her throat.
Cosima sits on the chair opposite her. Her glasses catch the shine of the moonlight and she tries her hardest to be quiet when she talks, so as not to wake up Alison's kids. Her breath is soft and her words even more so and for once Alison just wants Cosima to be loud, so that maybe the science student could drown out the turmoil in her own head, but Alison had put rules in place early on. When Beth was still alive and Katja was just a voice over the phone. And Cosima doesn't break these rules. Not even when Alison rolls her shoulders and bites her tongue, desperate to keep her expression indifferent, to keep that suburban mask in place.
Alison needs Cosima, the steady lilt of her voice as she explains things Alison really doesn't understand, but listens to anyway. She needs Cosima when Sarah steps onto the scene. Asks her to come all the way to her house just so she doesn't have to explain things to Sarah on her own, and Cosima does. Cosima's the calm voice of support and the only one out of both herself and Sarah that actually keeps a level head during the ordeal, and Alison, although she never shows it and very rarely acts upon it, is grateful.
They don't have a say in their biology. Sarah insists that there is only one of her, and she is right, because there is only one of her.
Just like there is only one of Alison and Cosima, Katja, Beth, Helena.
They might be clones. Genetic identicals and all that bullshit. But that is the only thing they share. Looks. The same features, set differently, expressed in completely separate manners. Sarah doesn't smile the same way Alison does. Just the same as Cosima doesn't think on the same wavelength as Sarah. And Helena was messed up, so far removed from society that she mirrored no one. So they are not the same.
Polar opposites – identical – but unfitting.
Yet when all else is said and done, the messed up life that is all of theirs, is out of their control. So Sarah needs Alison, and Alison needs Cosima, and Cosima needs Sarah and the round about circle of that is always unspoken. But if it's one thing they've all got in common, it's that.