AN: So someone mentioned that the previous chapters read like Lauren and Cosima didn't have their own personalities, and I completely agree. My problem writing them I think is a mix of they're both really similar, with similar traits and insecurities, I've never written Cosima before, and I haven't got any material of the two of them together to work off of, so this is a work in progress. I've really tried to improve on that here, so let me know what you think. Once I get better at it, I'll go back to the first few chapters and refurbish them.

When they got to Lauren's apartment Tamsin and Kenzi were both waiting outside the front door: Kenzi was sprawled on the ground, sulking, Tamsin was standing with her arms crossed. She rolled her eyes when she saw them.

"What are you doing here?" Lauren asked them both, moving forward to unlock the door.

"Making sure you came home alive. Is this her?" Tamsin asked, looking Cosima up and down. "She's cute, for a human."

A human? Cosima thought. What did she mean by that? It's not even true, technically.

Not giving Lauren a chance to respond she continued. "Well, you're alive and in one piece, that should satisfy Bo, I'm going to go report to her then maybe get back to my own life." With that she walked down the hall and out of sight.

Kenzi mimed gagging, "I wouldn't if I were you; she's being all lovey dovey with Rainer. It's disgusting," Kenzi said hauling herself to her feet.

Lauren opened the door and before she could object, Kenzi had flounced in, dropping onto the couch and propping her feet up.

"Kenzi" Lauren asked.

"What? I'm sick of being around them, I don't like him, gives me the hebejebes," Kenzi replied, poking through the papers on the coffee table.

"Kenzi."

"What?" When Lauren didn't say anything, she answered her own question. "You're gonna make me leave aren't you?" Lauren nodded.

"Now's really not a good time, I'm sorry," Lauren replied.

Eyeing Cosima, Kenzi tried again, "I promise I won't get in your way, whatever you two are doing, you won't even know I'm here." When that didn't work she resorted to begging. "Please!" Lauren still didn't give in. "C'mon, you know how desperate I would have to be to come to you!" She whined but Lauren simply pointed to the door. "Ugh, you're even more of a party pooper than Dyson!" Kenzi complained, standing up again. "Geez, both of you need to learn to chill," she complained, storming out of the apartment dramatically.

"Sorry about that," Lauren said once she'd closed the door behind Kenzi. "Let's get to work shall we?"

Cosima nodded, following Lauren over to the newly vacated couch.

"What is this big secret?" Lauren started. "Why are you in hiding?"

"Well, I've been working and living with some pretty crazy science stuff," Cosima stalled.

"Yeah, I can relate. Crazy science indeed," Lauren laughed humourlessly.

"For me it's experimental stuff," she replied, not sure how to continue without sounding crazy.

"Uh, mythological," Lauren added her own, lips pursed slightly. She'd seen Cosima's discomfort and figured it might be easier for her if she had some idea of the craziness Lauren had already seen.

"Bullshit…," surely… "For real?" Still Lauren didn't continue. "You wanna explain that?"

"Not really. The politics are complicated, I don't want to risk you getting trapped by the people I work for."

"They'd have to get in line," Cosima said bitterly. "You actually did it," Cosima realised suddenly, "You studied cryptozoology!" Cosima recalled. "You've wanted to do that since you were like 6 and you couldn't even pronounce it," Cosima laughed. "You still knew what it mean though."

"You weren't so bad yourself at 6," Lauren said, nudging her shoulder into the other woman. "Don't change the subject," Lauren scolded gently. "This line?"

At Lauren's raised eyebrow Cosima elaborated. "I'm," she hesitated, "patented." Before Lauren could object, she hurriedly added, "I know that sounds crazy-,"

"-It doesn't," Lauren cut off her rapid fire response. "I spent five years as an indentured servant."

"Actually? Tell me you're not still a servant?" Lauren shook her head. "How did you get free?"

"I changed sides, so to speak," Lauren stated, not willing to say more.

"How did it happen? The servitude, I mean."

"I signed a contract."

"Because…?" She knew from her own experiences that the signing of such contracts could only be motivated by some pretty extenuating circumstances.

"The woman I loved was sick, they said they would help me find a cure."

"What happened?"

"She died."

"Sorry."

Seeing the question in Cosima's eyes she continued, taking a deep breath. "Turns out not only were they the cause of her condition, they were also misleading me in the search for an antidote."

Not wanting to get bogged down in nostalgia, Lauren changed the subject. "How can you be patented? There are laws against that," Lauren asked her.

"Those laws only apply to humans…"

"Are you saying you're not human?"

"Look at you, you're not even joking, you actually believe me?"

"Cryptozoology, remember?"

"Wow, yeah. Theory and reality are two very different things…" She trailed off. "I'm a clone. A human clone. 324B21. I'm also breaking the first rule of clone club by telling you this…" she added, more to herself than Lauren.

"Club? How many of you are there?"

"Originally, in my project? 12. Of those, 6 are still alive including me."

"What happened to the others?"

"One committed suicide, four were assassinated, one died of the same condition I have and at least one of the four who were assassinated had the same condition," Cosima explain, biting her bottom lip.

"Assassinated?"

Cosima nodded. "A religious extremist group," she said shrugging, like it wasn't the big deal it actually was. "They indoctrinated one of the other clones, made her kill us off. She's since realised the error of her ways."

Lauren nodded, filing all of this information away in her head. "And what is this medical condition?"

"Respiratory, obviously," she rolled her eyes, mentally slapping herself on the head. She was carting around an oxygen tank for crying out loud. Her hands moved up to touch the cannula self-consciously. "Symptoms include shortness of breath and coughing up blood. Upon performing an autopsy on the one who died of it, we found tumours in her throat and more pronounced ones in her abdomen. Initially we thought that might be the reason all-," she stopped, "most, of us are infertile. Then we found out that we were designed infertile, and the tumours were an unplanned side effect."

"Designed? By who?"

"This neolutionist company, called Dyad. They're the ones who patented us," Cosima told her.

"I've heard of neolution. The modern eugenics movement, right?"

"Basically. The lab we were created in along with the leading scientists and all their research was destroyed years ago so everyone has been flying pretty well blind since then. Now we have the encryptions, but not the keys, and well that's been proving difficult to decode, and I'm rambling again. Sorry."

Lauren laughed, "That's not new; it was and is one of your most attractive traits. I mean, it's very you, not that you don't have more attractive...," she trailed off, now herself confused as to what she was saying.

"I seem to recall you also had a tendency to ramble," Cosima teased.

"Oh but you rapid rambled," Lauren returned. "People had trouble keeping up."

"Not you though," Cosima smiled. "I do believe I still do that. I seem to apologize for it often enough."

"You're adorable when you babble," Lauren told her.

"Well thank you," Cosima said, sliding forward slightly on the table.

"Uh, yes, well," Lauren mumbled, pulling back. "We should stay on task, time is of the essence if I'm correct?" Remain professional, she berated herself silently. Just stick to the science, she came to you for the science, she thought to herself.

Cosima gave a curt nod in response, laughing affectionately internally. Still just as socially awkward, Cosima thought, not that she herself was any better. It was one of the things they had had in common.

"Alright, what do you have so far?" Lauren asked her. Cosima opened her suitcase had been left beside the door and began pulling out lots of files.

"A big mess," Cosima replied, adding a handful of discs to the pile.

AN: I know I've still got a way to go with writing each of them as their own person, but please let me know whether this chapter was any better than the others in that regard!