Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters or anything like that.
NOTE: This is an space opera AU. I'm still working through some plot points, but you'll see a lot of the show characters and storylines (adapted, of course) throughout the fic. I don't know how often I'll update, or how long it will be, but it'll be pretty long. It's a cophine fic, so Delphine will eventually show up. It's also a Beth/Alison fic, so keep out if that's not your thing. If you find any type or any bad english, please let me know and I'll fix it. Also, Beth is obviously my own creation as a character, and I'm writing how I think she was.
It's the year 4008. Humanity has gone off and colonized a bunch of places. Because of that, giving birth for those not native to Earth no longer have the ability to give birth. So humanity found the solution by cloning. Those that can afford it can have clones altered to look like them, or to look however they want them to look. Those that can't, or simply won't for ideological differences, get a randomly assigned cloned individual. And so were our clones born. Except a different race, called Neo, is accusing the human race of stealing their ways of cloning. Now, clones everywhere are running to Earth, hoping that they will receive protection. And so are our clones, except they keep running into trouble and getting lost.
Chapter 1
The five clones and Alison's children sat at the kitchen in silence. Well, at least Cosima, Alison, Beth and Sarah did. Helena was crouched in one of the corners of the room playing with the kids, not so quietly. The others, sitting at the rectangular dinner table, were looking at each other, and then looking down in an awkward way. The kitchen was the largest common room in the ship, so it only made sense to hold their first meeting in there. Nobody wanted to talk, but somebody had to.
"So, can someone explain how, from all the planets, and all the places, we all managed to get stuck in the same ship." Sarah finally blurted out, half angry, half curious.
"We're not stuck" Alison jumped in, while rubbing her neck.
"We are going to Earth, and it's going to take a billion years. I call that stuck." Sarah responded.
"It's more like 15 years. And we're not forbidden to stop in the way. It's just safer if we don't." Beth said calmly.
"It's 13 years and 5 months." Cosima added. "I agree that it's very unlikely that we would all end up in the same spacecraft. But we're all here now, and we can analyze the probabilistic chances later. We..."
"What we need to do is figure out what we do and how we can help. I volunteer for cleaning and cooking." Alison cut in.
Both Cosima and Sarah stared at Alison in annoyance.
"I have some experience with fixing ships." Sarah said completely uninterested, just wanting the conversation, and really the whole thing, to be over.
"How much experience? I don't want to put the life of my children on the hands of someone with "some experience"" Alison once again interrupted, making Sarah roll her eyes.
"Enough experience. Worst case scenario we end up in a fueling station and call in for help. We'll be fine." Sarah said.
"Yes, and I'm sure Paul can also help if we have any problems." Beth added.
"He's the pilot, he has enough on his hand. I'm sure Sarah can figure it out. I can be the medic. My area is astrobiology, so I'm not exactly a medical doctor, but it's not like we'll be analyzing different species out here."
"I'll take care of the children." The room was suddenly quiet as Helena finally spoke up.
Alison's look of surprise merged into one of indignation.
"I don't need someone that behaves like a child to take care of my children. I need someone who's sane, not insane."
Whatever else Alison was about to say was silenced by Sarah, who jumped out and slapped her so hard she fell out of her chair. Cosima jumped to hold Sarah back, while Beth helped Alison to her feet.
"Calm down, dude." Cosima said to Sarah still holding her back.
Beth headed to the sink and got a towel wet. She came back and cleaned the blood coming out of Alison's mouth.
"I guess I'll be the one keeping an eye on everyone and making sure we all behave." Beth said, giving a pointed look to Sarah.
"She called my sister insane. She's lucky all she got was a slap." Sarah shrugged Cosima off her and went to Helena. Helena was sitting down holding her knees in a protective stance. When Sarah came around, she hid her face in Sarah's elbows and let her sister hold her.
The other three looked at the pair for a few minutes, and soon looked away to give them some privacy. Alison looked down, feeling ashamed, but not willing to apologize after what Sarah had done. Cosima looked in deep thought, although what she was thinking about is anyone's guess.
Beth continued cleaning Alison's mouth, until there was no more blood coming out of it. She then set the towel on the table.
"I should probably take a look at that..." Cosima said quietly, as if afraid talking louder would trigger Sarah into jumping on Alison again.
"We need to finish this conversation first. Elizabeth, you should also help with make sure we are properly supplied. I can help with coming up with a list of what we need." Alison said after finally composing herself.
Her voice quivered in certain parts of the conversation, but the other pretended not to notice. Sarah returned to the table, obviously tense, and Alison tensed up as well.
"It's Beth and I can do that. Besides, my contacts with the police might help if we need anything special or hard to find." Beth added with a little smile.
"Ok, seems like that is settled. We can take care about the rest after I take a look at Alison. If you'll follow me, I have med supplies back in my room." Cosima said, with the intent of separating the two clones. Beth nodded in thanks in her direction.
"I'm sure Alison didn't mean what she say. We've been forced out of our home to live with people we've never seen before. You can't hold it against her not trusting any of us." Beth said calmly, trying to placate the angry clone.
"It's no excuse to calling Helena insane. She's perfectly sane." Sarah said, quickly glancing at her sister.
"No one here thinks she's insane. She simply meant the way she was playing with the children instead of sitting with us and trying to figure out the situation."
"I don't know why you're defending her. It was bullshit her calling Hel like that, and you know it."
"I'm just trying to play my role here as a pacifier. Yes, she was wrong, but we have to stay calm the first few days. It'll take some time to adapt to this new life." Beth touched her fellow clone in the arm, but was quickly shrugged off.
"Or we could just keep to our rooms and keep out of each other's way. Hel, let's go"
With that, Sarah stood up, took her sister's hand and left the kitchen. The blonde clone said goodbye to her new friends, and followed her sister.
Beth sighed, and shook her head.
It's going to be a very long torturous 15 years.
