"Okay," she says as soon as she's settled in the car. "So talk."

I busy myself for a few moments starting up the car and driving away.

A daughter.

She has a daughter.

And then it clicks smoothly into place.

Her daughter has to be protected.

Sarah, too. Even if I still can't quite make the idea of her being one of us fit in my mind.

So.

"Is that why you took me to Felix's two nights ago? Because you didn't want me around her?"

She cocks her head. "I thought you were going to be the one doing the talking."

Not quite a question. Not quite a demand. A little bit of both.

I spare her a thin smile. "I don't know what gave you that idea."

"Yeah," she says, rolling her eyes. "Guess I should've known better."

Should have expected this from a *cop*, is the very loudly unspoken subtext. I ignore it.

"So?"

"No!" she says. "That's not why I took you there."

There's an uncomfortable silence. I wait her out. I'm good at that - it goes with the territory. Sure enough, she shoots me an aggravated look before finally breaking.

"Why's this so important to you, anyway?"

Because there are hunters out there, and I need to keep you both safe, I don't say.

I may not have known Sarah long, but I'm pretty certain that line would *not* go down well.

So, instead, I shrug and say, "Need to know where I can get hold of you, if I need to."

"Yeah, well, maybe you can spring for one of those little pink phones. Then I can *tell* you where I am. If I think you need to know."

Okay, so *that* line hadn't worked much better.

"Okay, I'll get one for you tomorrow," I say, hoping to de-escalate. "Where do you want to meet?"

She drums her fingers on the dashboard, shifting restlessly in her seat as her eyes scan the car, the surroundings. Me.

"Your apartment's fine."

I hesitate for a moment.

"It's not?" she asks, stilling.

"Paul came back tonight," I say. "There's always the chance he'll still be around tomorrow."

"Your boyfriend Paul?" she clarifies.

I nod.

"Does he know about..." she gestures between the two of us.

"No. No one does, outside myself, Alison, Cosima and now you." Something passes across her face. "Unless you've told someone else?"

"Felix," she says. I can't honestly say I'm all that surprised. "It's not like he didn't already know something was up, though."

Thanks to me.

My weakness.

Even when I thought that I was being neat, had cleared everything up...

Well, to be completely fair, it isn't as though Sarah doesn't seem to have a talent for making things... messy.

"Fine," I say. "But no one else can know. Can you make sure Felix understands that?"

"Trust me," she says. "Me and Fee know how to keep our mouths shut."

"Good." I take a breath, pushing that worry aside for now. "So, where can I meet you tomorrow?"

The look on her face sours slightly. "Felix's. You know how to find that, yeah?"

"I think I can remember the way. Anyway, you left his phone number in my cell phone."

There's a brief silence. This time I'm the one to break it. "If you're staying with Felix, where does your daughter live?"

"Why are you being so bloody persistent about that?"

"I'm a cop." That may not help the mulish look in her eyes, but it's the truth, despite everything. And maybe it'll make my next statement easier to swallow. "I need to know where everyone is. Just in case."

"Because the police have brought nothing but joy to my life." The edge on her voice could cut glass.

"I'm on your side," I try.

"Yeah. I've heard that before, too. Look, *I* may be a part of this, but she isn't. She just isn't, okay? So leave her the hell alone."

"Okay," I agree and leave it at that.

For now.

Because I'm afraid that our enemies, both hunters and anyone else interested in us, aren't going to agree with Sarah on this one.

The girl's her daughter.

I can't see how she won't become a part of this.

I become aware of Sarah looking at me, studying me. Scrutinising me, it feels like.

"What?" I ask, a little irritably.

"You didn't look so great when I arrived."

I compress my lips.

I don't want to talk about that.

I don't even want to *think* about that.

"It's nothing," I say shortly.

"Bullshit," she says, matter-of-factly. "Or did you forget that I know you tried to top yourself a couple of nights ago?"

Tried to-

All of a sudden my vision dims and I'm having trouble breathing.

Somehow, I manage to pull over and stop the car safely.

Somehow.

I don't start shaking.

And I definitely don't cry - not in front of her, never in front of her.

But it comes flooding out of me anyway.

Somehow.

Paul.

The good times.

The bad.

The times when I don't feel anything from him.

And the times when he just won't let me go. For better or for worse.

And the uncertainty - always the uncertainty.

Does he still love me?

Did he ever love me?

And - worst of all - the most recent fears on top of all of that. The inconsistencies that I've caught. The niggling fear that he's only with me because of what I am.

That he's a watcher. That he's working for Them.

Whoever They are.

Sarah just listens, looking at me with shadowed eyes.

"Why are you still with him?" she asks bluntly, when I've finally run out of words.

I scrub at my face with one hand. "What if I'm wrong about this? What if I'm on the verge of throwing away the best thing in my life because-"

Because I'm a worthless, paranoid mess of a woman undergoing yet another breakdown.

"He doesn't sound like the best thing in your life."

"Is that him, or is that just down to me? Because, really, who else is going to find *this*," I indicate myself, "Attractive?"

Her mouth opens as if she's going to say something, but no words come out and she closes it again.

Just as I thought.

"There's got to be some way you can figure out if he's up to something," she says eventually. "Be good to know *that* much, at least."

My jaw tenses, but I don't reply.

I can't.

"You're the detective," she says, apparently taking my silence as a lack of ideas. "Prove it," she adds, with a challenging glint in her eyes.

Well, fine.

"Bugging his workplace and his car seemed like a good first step," I pause for a moment. "There's a surveillance kit in the boot."

She gives me a look, and I glance away, unable to hold her gaze.

I'd thought about it.

Even made a plan.

But *doing* it, putting it into action...

It had just made it all too real.

"Fine," she says. "Run me through how to use it, and I'll handle setting it up."

I look at her doubtfully. "Really?"

"Oh yeah. *This* I can handle."

"He's away from work until the weekend," I caution.

I can only hope that's still the case.

Having him here...

It's not helping.

She thinks for a moment. "Okay. I can roll with that."

And, all of a sudden, it's like there's a weight off my back.

She can roll with that.

She can do this.

She can check Paul out.

And I... I don't have to.

I'm not quite aware of how much that means to me until I realise that my perspective has changed - tilted. That I've slumped down so I'm resting on her shoulder.

"Thank you," I whisper.

Thank you for not making me do this for myself.

She looks down at me, mouth twisted into a wry smile. "Hey. I'm not dead weight in this. You're not alone."

I'm not alone.

I'm not alone.

I press deeper into her shoulder, then fall into her body as, just for a moment, she wraps her arm around me. And, somehow, it feels more like I'm being held together than just another sign that I'm falling apart.

I'm not quite sure I can believe it.

Not yet.

But, just for a moment, I can tell myself.

I'm not alone.

I take a quick glance around.

I can't see anyone else around here. Aside from the two of us, the street seems deserted.

Just as I'd expect from Suburbia after dark, but it pays to be careful.

"Remember," I say. "Act normally, like there's nothing strange in us being together."

Sarah spares me a scornful look. "Trust me. I've had a lot more practise at this kind of thing than you have, *copper*."

"How could I forget?" I ask dryly as I get out, then lean back in to grab the briefcase.

"Scarborough," I hear her mutter as she follows me out. "I can't believe you've brought us to bloody Scarborough. I can't believe I've *let* you bring us to bloody Scarborough."

Her accent makes the name of the place sound alien and strange to my ears: Scar-bruh. Rough and hard-edged. A little like her, at least at first.

And now?

Then she jolts me out of my musings by linking arms with me as though... well, as though we've known each other a long time as I march us towards Alison's house.

It's not unpleasant.

She's even managed to make me relax a little by the time we enter Alison's yard.

I have to admit that she does manage to seem utterly at ease - possibly even more so than me - and, with some quick arranging of her hair and a pair of sunglasses she produced from somewhere, she's managed to make herself look far less recognisable from a distance.

I can't help thinking that I could probably learn a few things from her, if she's ever in the mood for sharing.

I knock on the door. Moments later, Alison jerks it open.

"Beth," she says, smiling in a way that seems to light up her whole face. She looks towards my companion, and the smile dials down a few notches toward something more neutral. "And you must be Sarah." She glances downwards, at how we're standing, and her expression flickers again, resolving itself into yet another smile. This one is somewhat more plastic-looking than the first, and her eyes are like pebbles, hard and bright.

She raises her arms in a sharp motion, holding them outstretched as if to give me a hug.

Which... okay.

That's new.

And I can't help wondering if... *that*, if what I tried to do is written over my features that clearly.

Can she really know?

Oh, Alison.

I just wanted to protect you and your family.

I hope you can understand that.

I slip out of Sarah's loose grasp, and step into Alison's arms.

She holds me tightly, briefly, then lets me go.

"Well, come on in," she trills, glancing at Sarah before performing a sharp about turn into the house. "Cosima's waiting."

"So, those are the other two," Sarah says once we're in the car afterwards.

"That's them," I say, almost surprised to find a faint smile on my lips.

Despite everything, it's... nice to be reminded of the reason why I'm doing this. Part of it, at least.

"Alison's... a little uptight, isn't she?"

My smile disappears. "She's a good person."

"Sure," she says, shrugging. "And a little territorial."

"You're new." It sounds like an explanation, if not a good one.

I've never seen her act quite the way she did tonight.

If she *could* tell... what I almost did a few nights ago, she didn't say anything. But then she might not - she's too polite to bring up something like that in company.

I really hope she doesn't know.

I wouldn't want to add to her burdens like that.

"I guess," Sarah says, a little doubtfully, then pauses for a moment and changes the subject. "Would you have even told them about Katja's death if I hadn't brought it up?"

I grit my teeth a little. "I'm still not sure what good it did to mention it. Cosima's going to Minnesota, and Alison isn't a trained investigator. The fact that there's a killer out there is just going to worry them."

"Yeah, well, speaking for myself, I'd want to know." There's a movement in the darkness beside me, and what looks like her pale face turns towards me. "There *isn't* anything else, is there? Something you haven't told me yet?" she asks sharply.

I hesitate a little too long.

"What?" she demands.

"Maggie Chen," I say, defeated. "It wasn't... I panicked. She was a hunter, following me, watching me, asking the wrong kind of questions." My chest starts to tighten, so I stop and make myself take a deep breath, sucking the much needed oxygen all the way into my lungs before continuing. "So I confronted her. It went wrong."

I hadn't meant to shoot her.

It had just happened.

"She'd recently flown in from France, paid for everything in cash. Her only phone calls had been to French cell phone numbers, but they didn't seem to go anywhere - recently acquired burner phones as far as I could tell. No leads, nothing."

And maybe, maybe she'd only managed to find me.

If I was gone...

Maybe the others would have been safe.

"The only thing I know for sure is that she called me an abomination." I attempt to give the windscreen a smile. "I'd guess that would suggest a religious motivation. Certainly it implies that she wasn't with the people who made us."

Sarah's been listening to me quietly throughout this, and I slowly become aware that at some point during my ramble she'd placed a gentle hand on my leg.

I'm not usually a touchy-feely person, but it's oddly nice. And seeing my identicals and Sarah together tonight...

I trust Alison and Cosima. I do. I love them like the sisters I never had, but always wanted.

But what I feel for Sarah isn't anything like what I feel for them.

Maybe it's the threads of trust and distrust, layered and welded together so tightly that I have difficulty telling one from the other these days.

But what I feel for her has a different tenor entirely.

"Hey," she says. "You can talk to me now." She grins suddenly. "And you can spare me the shite about trying to protect me. I don't need that from anyone. Not even you."

It's difficult, but I nod my head. "I'll work on that."

"Yeah," she says. "Do that. And maybe think about clueing the others in at some point. They deserve to know too."

"First things first, Sarah," I say, a little tartly. "First things first."

The morning dawns bright and early.

Paul groans in the bed next to me. He'd stayed up until I got back last night.

And we'd talked.

Kind of.

But it had been easier than it had been for a few weeks. The relief of knowing that I'm going to do *something*, maybe find out a little about him. And even just the relief of having told someone about it...

It had made it easier.

It makes it possible to lean over now and kiss him. "I'm off out soon," I tell him softly as I reset the alarm for him.

"I thought you were still on suspension," he mutters into his pillow.

"That doesn't mean that I'm going to let myself get soft," I reply, almost cheerfully.

He rolls over and blinks sleepily up at me. "Hey," he says. "It's good to see that you're feeling better."

It's times like this - quiet moments when everything feels just right - that remind me of why I fell in love with him.

Maybe it's going to be alright, I tell myself.

Maybe we were just going through a rough patch, and now it's all going to work out.

Maybe there is nothing else after all.

I lean over and give him a proper kiss.

"Have a good trip," I murmur. "See you on Saturday."

It's actually almost refreshing to be doing some basic, old-fashioned, boots-on-the-ground police work. Even if it isn't exactly by the book. I can feel my mind starting to kick into gear, maybe even recovering some of its former sharpness, as I make a circuit of some of the city's less-reputable gun vendors, tracking down the information I need.

The first couple of vendors I hit claim that they haven't sold any of the requisite type of rifles for a while now, and I tentatively believe them.

For the moment.

Anyway, if I don't hit any leads the first time around, I can always come back.

The third place doesn't sell rifles at all.

But that's not why I'm there.

One quick transfer of cash later, and I've got a somewhat illegal - if clean - handgun and a few boxes of ammunition.

If Sarah's determined to try to help me, then I'm going to make sure that she has something to protect herself with. As well as some training to go along with it.

"Hey," she says when I pick her up outside Felix's apartment.

"Morning," I reply as she slides in next to me. "Look in the glove compartment. Your phone's in there, with a hundred dollars of credit on it."

"Thanks for letting me decide what model-" she starts to say, then stops dead and looks back up at me. "Did you know there's a gun in there too?"

"That's going to be yours," I tell her. "After I've made sure you know how to use it."

"Yeah," she says. "Guns aren't really my thing."

"Times change."

"Yeah," she says, looking at the glove compartment again. "They certainly do. For one, I can't believe that I'm actually trusting a copper. For another, I can't believe a copper's enabling me."

I smile tightly. "Try not to make me regret doing this too much more than I already am."

She turns and squints at me for a moment. "Actually, that's a good point. Why *are* you enabling me? You're police. Why aren't you just trusting to the System?" She manages to invest the last word with a sizable amount of contempt.

The old pain flares up again.

The cold and bitter hole in the substrate of my existence.

Why have I helped to set up an illegal, if small and mostly powerless, conspiracy?

"You mean apart from the fact that if the clone thing ever came out, it would pretty much ruin any of our lives?" I choke out a laugh. "When Katja first contacted me, I seriously thought about doing just that. But over a few drinks, I got a prosecutor I'm friends with talking about the subject, at least in hypotheticals."

"Yeah? What did they have to say?"

"That human cloning's just that - a hypothetical. That there isn't any precedent about whether a clone - especially if they've been modified in any way - is counted as human or not. If it ever went to court, it'd probably go our way. Probably. But it's not a certainty. And how can I trust in a system that hasn't even decided if I'm human or not?"

Sarah snorts. "Welcome to my world. With a record, I'm not exactly first among equals at the best of times."

"Yes," I say, with an expression that's more a baring of teeth than a smile. "Well. Enough chat. Shall we get on with this?"