Em dried her hands on the pink lace towel and picked up a purple bottle sat on Alison's bathroom countertop. The musty scent of overpowering lavender floated into her nose.
"Shit." Em stifles her coughs as she exits the room.
"I'm sorry, but she wants me to impersonate her in front of her own daughter. Who she hasn't seen in almost a year." Em found her brother sat opposite her sister's most virtuous clone. Alison's back was as straight as a ruler and her brows furrowed at an intense angle as she looked over disapprovingly.
"Ten months." Em pipes up as she returns to her seat next to Fe.
Alison ignores the teen, "This is terrible parenting, Felix. I mean, that poor child."
The teen rolled her eyes and turned back towards her brother whose frustration isn't well hid, "I don't think you understand the situation here. If Sarah misses tonight, then she may never get Kira back".
Alison huffs, "I'm sorry, but a request like this… Maybe the child is better off with your foster mother".
Felix leans forward, his voice grows louder, "Excuse me? Sarah is out there risking her life, playing cat and mouse with killer clone so that your kids don't end up orphans and you think that she should lose her child for that?" Upon this outburst, Alison looks embarrassed at her selfishness.
Felix continues, "Yeah, I think you need to step up here, sister".
Alison clears her throat, straightens her back even more, "Well, I did just play Annelle in Steel Magnolia".
"Seriously?"
"Glendale Community Theatre."
"Well it was terrible casting…" Felix looked over the clone.
"Um, it was actually very good acting, Felix. Trust me, Sarah's no stretch. I got great reviews."
"From the whole neighbourhood I'm sure…"
"Okay, enough!" Em interrupted their bickering. "Doesn't matter how good you reckon you are, the only person you need to convince is S and, believe me, she'll be able to tell."
Alison turns to Em, "So, where do we start?"
We have a connection.
Sarah stood outside the station, leaning against the car as she tried to make sense of what happened to her dreaded clone.
Cosima's accent rang through the phone, "So, what do the cops know?"
"She's a churchy psychopath, duh… She's a loner, probably abused as a child."
Sarah could hear papers rifling as Cosima explained her findings, "Okay, so the fish reads Christian and crafted onto a weapon, a personal crusade."
"Great, is that it?" Sarah's sarcasm melted through the line. Cosima rambled on about the crazy killer clone but Sarah's mind travelled to a scary place; one where Helena was right by her, breathing down her neck. The killer clone had been here. She had been seen. She was so close to Sarah and yet the Brit couldn't stop her. Could she even stop her?
"Sarah. Sarah?" Cosima's voice pulled her out of her thoughts.
"Hmm? So, they hate us? And she's killing us, even though she's identical to us."
"Well, but if you were a messed up, abused loner whose faith compels you to belong and somebody that you trusted told you that this was the way to redeem yourself in the eyes of God, I mean…"
"Yeah, I might become an angry angel too."
Sarah ignores Art's glare as he walks up beside her, "Something you want to tell me?"
She heads to the desk and flings her coat around the back of the chair, "About Paul? No. I've got him wrapped around my finger."
Truth is, however, Sarah was beginning to doubt her seduction skills. Paul was a live bomb and she didn't know how much pressure she could apply before he exploded.
"What's he talking about? Leaving? We just got you back, Beth."
Art was referring to one of the many side effects of having a killer clone. Moments before, Paul had charged into the precinct and come face to face with Art, spitting out Beth's anxieties and existential crises for the whole station to hear. Paul's presence was just one more broken cog in the machine went it came to pulling off this whole charade. He was a problem.
But Sarah had to focus on the biggest threat. Which brought her here. Sat at Beth's desk and listening to the now familiar yet haunting accent whispering through the telephone. "We have a connection."
Sarah drops Beth's accent, "You want to tell about that?"
"In person. You have my invitation." Helena hangs up just as a new email comes through.
Sarah selected the video attached and a pale, dark eyed clone appeared on her screen.
Sarah frantically turns the volume down as the fake Beth begins to speak.
"My name is Detective Beth Childs. I murdered Margaret Chen. It wasn't an accident. I shot her on purpose."
"Do you own anything that isn't pink?" Felix pulls a face as he picks up yet another one of Alison's fluffy garments.
"Hey, hey! Be careful with that. It was a Christmas gift from my mother." Alison delicately folds the piece of clothing and places it upon the growing pile of rejected 'Sarah' costumes.
"Not 'Hey'. You're a punk. Be one."
Alison clears her throat, "Oi!".
"Better!"
"Oh Christ. This is never gonna work. It's 'S' you're trying to fool, not a bunch of kids at a 'Punch and Judy' show." Em scoffed, rolling her eyes.
"Well, not with that attitude." Fe muttered as he began cutting up Alison's 'Glendale Community Theatre' shirt.
"No, no, Emma. I can do this. I can do this." Alison repeats, almost questioning herself rather than convincing the teen.
"Yeah, this'll work...this, won't." Felix sighs, holding up the now ripped pink shirt.
Em flopped onto the couch, a profound sense of futility pushing her further into the cushions.
"Hmm," Felix eyes up Em's outfit and raises a single eyebrow, "Take your shirt off."
"You what?"
It had worked, she couldn't believe it but it had actually bloody worked!
Back at Alison's, Em had begrudgingly switched outfits with the soccer mom and they had made their way to S' house. Somehow, Alison's pantomimed portrayal of Sarah had garnered great (passable, at the very least) reviews and S had bought it! In fact, the only ones acting particularly out of the ordinary were Felix and Em, grinding their teeth and biting their nails in anxiousness as Alison pulled off the charade.
Em stayed behind when Felix left to take Alison back to suburbia, but before they vanished, S had extended Sarah (Alison) an olive branch, allowing her to pick up Kira from school, "as long as you bring her straight home".
"Bye." Em shut the door behind her, not before giving Alison a relieved smile, and turned towards her mother. "Well, unleash the doves, world peace must be around the corner."
S gave a slight smirk, "Piss off, you." Before disposing of the teapot and mugs into the sink.
"No, seriously. It was nice. Having all of us in one room again. No fighting. No spilled blood!" Em leaned against the couch, watching S move around the kitchen. It had been a successful ruse, so why did the room feel so… off? "Mum? You okay?"
S turned towards Kira, who was tidying up her art table, "Off to bed now, Chicken. I'll be up in a bit."
"Mum, she'll be fine at pick up tomorrow." Em tried reassurance.
"That wasn't Sarah." S took a seat at the kitchen table.
You know when you're a kid and you fall over but there is a split second that you are aware of your body moving slowly towards the ground and it feels like forever until you finally make contact? That's how Em felt in that moment.
"Of course it was." Em tried denial. What the fuck does S mean? How could she know? There's no way she could know. How would her first conclusion be that Sarah was a clone? Was she involved in this all too? Alison was convincing enough, right? Right? Em's mind was racing as her body slowly fell.
"There was no fighting. She was so… so appreciative. Sarah would never admit that she was wrong, let alone admit that I was right!"
"It's still Sarah. She's just finally showing up." Em tried acceptance.
Finally showing up, how ironic.
"I'm just, I'm not used to an honest word on the subject." S let herself finally settle in the idea that maybe this time, it would work out. Maybe this time, she'll stay.
Welcome back and to all my new readers Welcome to the trip!
Another big apology for my hiatus! But, I did manage to visit Toronto for a few days and stayed around the same area where the external shots of Felix's loft were filmed! Definitely got a good feel of the place and it gave me loads of inspiration and ideas for this story.
Thank you so much for all your kind words, it really does encourage me to write more when I know people are reading and enjoying this little story.
I know this chapter was short and not great but I needed to give you something as I have been taking my time on the next chapter.
Have a lovely day/evening.
- tryautumn