maskormenacelogs | ( closed ) no need to laugh or cry

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( closed ) no need to laugh or cry

WHO: Alison, Cosima, Sarah, Sarissa.
WHERE: Alison's house
WHEN: 3rd Oct-ish? Give or take for convenience, basically.
WHAT: One of these Tatianas is not like the others.
WARNINGS: Potential reference to past abuse & violence, I'll update as necessary.

( She's late.

Largely because that's just what she does; be late, be a disaster, be a bit ridiculous. At least this time she's late with a pretty good reason, and the reason is that she was walking past a florist and then thought hey and figured she'd duck in, because flowers and things Alison would appreciate seemed to go together, in lieu of wine or something. She has to run after she gets it, which doesn't give her time to dwell on the fact that the bouquet might be ridiculous, all bright and cheery when Autumn's knocking in. It's not the right time of year for Autumn anyway, it should be Spring, and she should probably be either feigning dramatics or being a smug bastard about Grand Finals outcomes, and starting to get used to warm weather clothes in Melbourne (which is to say maybe three layers instead of five.)

Sarissa bounds up to the door, knocks, and corrects her "I just had to run here" alertness to something more like a lazy slouch. When someone answers the door, she's fiddling with the paper wrapping the flowers, and doesn't look up. )

Sorry I'm late, ( she says, not sounding at all sorry, ) but I reckon it doesn't count unless Cosima got here first.

( Cosima definitely got here first. )

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[By some sort of miracle, Cosima did arrive first. And she had shared some information that Alison's still not quite sure how to process. She takes in Sarissa - flowers in hand and trying too hard to look like she doesn't care - and actually feels sick to her stomach. But this isn't her job, she did not sign up for this. So she accepts the flowers with a strained smile.]

... these are lovely, but you didn't need to bring flowers, Sarissa. Cosima and Sarah are upstairs in my room. I'll just... I'll go get a vase for these and I'll meet you there.

[Is it probably a bad sign that Alison isn't acting put-off about Sarissa being late? Probably.]

Oh, those?

( She grins, that lazy smile of hers; less sharp than her usual, less like nature was trying to slap a warning sign on her. The smile that only the clones get, because the girls are family. )

Nah, date gave 'em to me. Figured you'd like 'em better.

( Lies spoken like the truth and truth spoken like a lie are too often the case with her, that permanent element of dramatisation and too much emphasis put on words, as if she were eternally making fun of the world. Sincerity happens more often than she'd like, but there's no need to ever really acknowledge that.

With a nod, she walks in, passes the flowers to Alison, and heads for the stairs. ) Don't blame me if there's another blanket fort when you get up there.

( And up she goes, jogging up the stairs and leaning into Alison's bedroom. ) Hey.

[ Sarah barely looks up when Sarissa comes walking into Alison's room like everything is normal. She can't look at Sarissa because she feels ill, physically sick, like she's been punched in the stomach, and what's coming next is only going to hurt worse. Her fingers pick at a loose thread on Alison's bed, twisting and twisting. ]

Hey.

[ From beneath her eyelashes, she sneaks a glance at Cosima. Cosima did the test. Cosima had to be a brilliant scientist about it (later, she'll feel bad for this thought, but not now. Not today). Let Cosima be the one to do the talking, to explain. ]

[Cosima's sitting cross-legged on the ground, back leaning against the side of Alison's bed. She has a folder in her lap- a folder full of data that should reassure her, but instead just fills her with a sense of dread. She knows that Sarissa isn't going to take this news well. But she also knows that they have to tell her. Or well, by the looks Sarah is giving her, Cosima has to tell her.

At Sarah's prompting, Cosima gestures with one hand for Sarissa to take a seat. The other hand taps an agitated rhythm out on her knee.]

Hey. You wanna sit down? I've got results back from those blood tests.

( Sarah is being quiet. That said, Sarah seems to do that, sometimes, be quiet. She's become pretty familiar with Sarah being quiet when in too close a proximity to mental, and she guesses it comes with some internal praying for the parrot to leave her be. There's not much time to ponder it, and maybe she's breezing in too happy-go-lucky.

In this instance Sarissa's gaze flickers from Sarah being quiet to Cosima asking her to sit down, and she raises an eyebrow as she remembers Alison not reprimanding her for being late.

True to form, she slouches to sit, and recklessly ignores the quiet feeling of disease coiling in her gut, and huffs out a laugh. )

Shit. Don't tell me I've gotta start drinking more water, Tiger. It tastes boring.

[Cosima tries to match Sarissa's laugh, but she can't quite manage it. Cosima's nerves are almost tangible, flowing out of her with each stunted hand motion. There's usually a fluidity to Cosima's motions and speech, despite her tendency to take off on any tangent, but it's missing tonight. This conversation is not easy for her.

She glances at Sarah for support or words or something, but she can't even catch the other clone's eye. Sarah has no intention of helping her out with this. With a sigh, Cosima pushes onward, opening up the file in her lap and offering it to Sarissa.]

Everyone should drink more water. But you're not sick. And you're not gonna get sick, I can promise you that.

Saying that to someone with an allergy to water would be very insensitive.

( Instinctively, she leans forward, elbows on her knees, and reaches out to gently nudge Cosima’s arm. )

Hey, ease up. ( Quiet, because Cosima is tense, and she’s not sure if she’s over-caffeinated or if something’s happened with Clara again, or if she’s about to tell Sarissa that it turns out her blood suggests she has super powers—

well, you know. Something like that. ) You alright?

( She takes the file, mind, though she doesn’t look at it, head quirked to the side. )

[Cosima leans into the touch, letting out a shaky breath. If that isn't answer enough to Sarissa's questions, she also shakes her head slowly. She's not alright and can't even bother to pretend that she is.

With one hand, she flips through a few sheets of paper in the file, until she comes to print out of what appears to be a seemingly endless string of lots of letters. A genetic code, though Cosima's not sure if Sarissa would recognize it as one.]

... That's the good news. The, uh, less good news is why I can promise you won't get the mysterious clone illness.

( Her brow is furrowed, and she looks at Cosima for a long moment. The first instinct is to ask why, to ignore this blood nonsense and disease thing and ask what's got Cosima twisted up and why they're doing this now. There's a split second look to Sarah, and—

Oh. Belatedly her gaze drops to the alphabet soup, and then raises to look at Cosima. )

Do I have some different sickness... thing?

( A moment, and she summons up a grin to try and lighten the mood. Sickness— whatever it was, she'd fight her way through it, because that's what she does. She probably could fight her way through sleeping, if it occurred to her to try. ) Hey, I'm not going to end up like Rachel, am I? There's no way she's not sick in the head.

[Cosima's shaking her head, wanting Sarissa to get the notion of illness out of her head. As far as Cosima can tell, she's completely healthy. Her cough likely had been just a string of colds or allergies.

Cosima can't quite look at Sarissa as she continues. Instead her focus is on the open page of the file. She taps it a few times, pointing out sections of letters that are red instead of black.

Cosima had run a genome comparison as almost an afterthought. She was curious, but hadn't expected to come up with anything. There was no reason her and Sarissa's genomes should be different. But when the results had come in... She had never hated the color red so much.]

No, no, it's... See that? It's different than mine. You're not... We're not genetically identical.

[ It's at this point that Sarah loses what's left of her rapidly fraying temper. Listening to Cosima and Sarissa dance around the same bloody topic, Sarissa confused, Cosima unwilling to come right out and say it. It makes her furious, it makes her sad, it makes her more than anything want this to be over and done with already. Her head snaps up so she can glare at Cosima, but her fingers keep twisting the same thread on Alison's bedspread. ]

Christ, Cosima, just say it. Say it so she understands.

( Sarissa's brow raises with surprise, gaze staying on Cosima until that outburst. Her gaze jerks towards Sarah, and back to Cosima, and she snorts out a laugh. )

Hilarious.

( No. It doesn't sound like she actually thinks it's hilarious, but she's brushing it off with that signature disregard for what's in front of her. With another huff of amusement she rolls her eyes, looking at the red letters, and attempts to sound them out like a word. For the record? She fails horribly. )

Yeah— no, nice try, but you'll have to do better than that. ( With a simply fold of her hand, the file closes, though she holds onto it. ) I’m gonna tell Alison about this when she gets up here, and she’ll probably tell you what bad fucking taste that was, for the record.

Edited 2016-10-02 03:05 (UTC)

[Cosima winces as the file closes, looking incredibly hurt and confused. Sarissa thinks she's joking. She thinks that Cosima would think a joke like this was funny. Of all the reactions Cosima had played out in her mind, this one had never come up. It's far more devastating than any of the options she'd thought of.]

I'm not joking. Why would I joke about something like that? Look, I know it makes no sense. I don't know how this happened, but the data doesn't lie. We're not... We're not clones.

You're—you're really lucky, you know.

[ Does Sarah sound bitter? That's because she's really fucking bitter. She's not sure whether it's because Sarissa's not her sister and Sarah really wants her to be, or because of the truth that Sarissa really is lucky not to be a clone. Maybe both. Maybe because she's blaming herself, too, for seeing Sarissa and just assuming she was supposed to be with them. For inviting her into this club without first checking to make sure she belonged there. It would've been easy to ask Cosima to do a blood test early on, wouldn't it? That first day, even? Why hadn't she done that? ]

No clone disease, no monitors, no patent. You just get to go be a person. Really lucky.

Stop.

( Just—

anger has crept into her voice, but it’s quiet and strained and she has to take a second to just swallow it, because this is Cosima and Sarah, and Alison is just downstairs, and this is not—

You don’t lose it at family. You don’t lash out at the people you love. Toughen up, Sarissa.

On the inside of tightly closed fists she can feel the burn of sparks starting and bursting against bare skin, and she ignores it. Her skin has gone very pale. She can’t make herself look at Sarah, because being told she’s lucky feels like bare skin being dragged over gravel. Instead her gaze is locked on Cosima. )

Tests can be wrong, though, shit happens all the time that fucks up tests. Your data can be wrong, just— run the test again.

... I ran it three times.

[Sarissa isn't the only one who had doubts, Cosima hadn't believed her own results. DNA sequencing isn't perfect, she doesn't have the best technology, it's possible she'd messed something up and had contaminated the sample. She'd run the test again. And again, hoping that they'd give her a different answer. The answer was the same each time, and data doesn't lie consistently.

Cosima had dealt with her denial and anger in the privacy her lab, surrounded by her trusty PCR machine and DNA sequencer that hadn't failed her like this before and she'd been angry not for the first time at science and how it continued to fail her. Science had once again become an integral part of her personal life, and maybe that was a problem. Cosima had wrapped up her love of science too much with her everything in her life, even her very being. It was a problem, but Cosima couldn't separate them. They were both important. She couldn't turn off her desire for answers and her need to experiment, even if it ended up hurting her.]

... I'm sorry.

[Cosima's voice shakes with the apology, tears beginning to pool in her eyes. She needs Sarissa to accept the truth and her apology.]

[It's then that Alison opens the door, precariously balancing a tray of brownies and four mugs of tea. She's been deliberately taking her time in the kitchen, trying to delay going upstairs as if it will ward off Sarissa being hurt. How are you supposed to just stop thinking of someone as family?

She's obviously missed the grand reveal, judging by the expressions on everyone's faces. She's glad she didn't have to witness it and she's ashamed to feel that way. Alison can't even meet Sarissa's eyes when she speaks.]

... Cosima told you?

[It's a redundant question and she knows it.]

( Sorry. She's sorry.

Sarissa's expression twists and she's having to grit her teeth when she looks up at Alison, mouth shut tight, and there's venom on the tip of her tongue that she wants to push down and put away and make sure no one ever saw. Not them, because they didn't deserve it, and not when she'd lost her temper at two of them before and still regretted it.

The question stings, and the way Alison won't even look at her stings more.

Sarah barely speaking, Alison not looking at her, and it feels real, now. This is a thing that's actually happening. Her heart goes from feeling like it's beating too fast to beating too slow, and her eyes sting.

It's like for the first time she's clued in to something visceral and devastating that she should have known all along. And them? Now they aren't obligated to, they won't even—

There's that moment like when you're falling, that second before hitting the ground when there's nothing but air and maybe time has stopped because there's just nothing.

And then comes the impact. )

Yeah, she told me. ( Each word bitten out, harsh and raw, and she hates that when the dam breaks that there's no hope of it seeming like she doesn't care. There is no way to hide what this is.

Her hands are still clenched tight and shuddering and the sparks from her powers hurt, and are no longer contained to the curled inside of closed fists. Sarissa looks at Cosima, then and she wished that she looked like she despised her, instead of looking like she was just slapped. )

And she said she was sorry. But if you were bloody sorry, Cosima, then you would have lied.

( Says Sarissa, who always talks about hating lies. ) If you were sorry at all you wouldn't have told everyone, and you wouldn't have told me. But I guess this is better for all of you, isn't it. You don't—

( She falters, for a second, steels herself and bares her teeth. ) You don't have to worry about having the same flesh and blood and bones as some loose cannon freakshow, right? "Oh, thank Christ that one's not one of ours, she's barely fucking functional!" That about sum it up?

[ Sarah looks at Cosima again, and though she doesn't say anything, the judgment is obvious in her expression. Sarissa's right—if Cosima was really sorry, she would have kept this to herself. Let them all go on believing Sarissa was one of them, and eventually, they would all go back home and forget. Now Sarissa's going to spend the rest of her time here knowing the truth, and look what it's doing to her already. ]

That's not it. [ This, she says to Sarissa, in some kind of effort to get her to calm down. But her own temper's flaring, and she can't blame Sarissa for being pissed off, either. ] I don't know why she ran the test, since we never asked her to. So why was it, Cosima? Just couldn't help yourself? Happy now?

[Cosima looks between Sarah and Sarissa, eyes wide. Of all the reactions, their anger directed so firmly at her was not what she was expecting. For Cosima, doing the test, telling Sarissa the results of the test, they were obvious and necessary. She never considered that Sarissa and Sarah wouldn't want to know the truth.

The tears are falling now, flooding behind her glasses. It's obvious that they don't want an apology, but Cosima doesn't know what else she can do. Her voice cracks as she tries to explain, tries to justify what she'd done and make them realize that she never meant to hurt anyone.]

I didn't-- I-I wanted to make sure she wasn't sick. And then, yeah, maybe I got carried away? Maybe a little. Are you seriously telling me all of you would've rather I kept something this huge a secret? I couldn't do that. I'm not gonna keep something like that from my sisters. [At the word sisters she gestures to all of them, making it clear that it includes Sarissa.]

This doesn't have to change anything. We don't have to let it.

[Alison puts down her tray - it's obvious that they are well beyond the point of tea and brownies helping the situation. She looks at Sarissa and Sarah - twin images of resentment - and poor Cosima in tears and wonders a little bit that they didn't all see this kind of implosion coming sooner. She steps in front of Cosima, as if she can shield her from the hurt feelings.]

This isn't Cosima's fault and everyone needs to keep their voices down! No one here is excited about this news, and we're not gearing up to "kick you out" or whatever it is you think we're planning, Sarissa. We're just all in shock and we need time to digest this, okay?

Yeah, right.

( Her tone is caustic, directed at all of them as she pushes herself up from the floor where she'd been sitting opposite Cosima. Part of her wants to snap at Sarah to lay off Cosima, the other part wants to keep blaming Cosima relentlessly.

This is why it was better to keep people away.
Be flippant, hold them arm's length, make sure your reach was always long than theirs. The moment people got a hold on you they started pulling pieces away. Human beings were like layers of glue and paper; easy to stick together, but when you had to peel them apart again, one of them would end up in pieces. )

You said I could ruin everything the first time we even spoke. You said it was a nightmare that I was even here.

( There had also been comments about watching each others backs, too, but that is conveniently forgotten. )

And bullshit it doesn't change anything. It changes everything, it means I'm—

( On the verge of tears, actually, but her throat is hoarse and she won't let any of them see how much this hurts, even if hurt is the only thing she's got, now. Now she really is what her other family made her, flesh and blood and bones, mental screw ups and all. She has them written into her in ways she can't dismiss, anymore, and it had been so good to believe that there was nothing to link her to her father, anymore, not even genetics, like some part of what he was had been written into her irrefutably. Knowing it all along would have been better than getting to think otherwise, for a while.

Her powers surge, and the body of the watch on her left wrist combusts, a small but vicious little explosion against her skin that makes her swear before the metal strap slides away to fall on the ground. ) Jesus Christ.

[ The tiny explosion of the watch seems to startle Sarah back into some semblance of reality, or maybe shame her. She looks guiltily from Sarissa to Alison back to Cosima, and then her hand goes back to the bedspread, finding that same string and wrapping it around her index finger. ]

Alison's right. We're not—this wasn't to... [ She can't bring herself to utter the words "throw you out," ends up shaking her head instead. ]

[Cosima startles at the explosion, slamming her back against the bed, almost in shock. She can't believe this is happening. She recovers quickly, peering around Alison to look at Sarissa. She reaches out a hand, hoping that Sarissa will still let her help her, will allow Cosima to use her powers.]

You're still one of us, okay? Please, believe that. Can I...

[She gestures again, from her hand to Sarissa's injured wrist.]

What else was it gonna be, Sarah?

( She hates how miserable that sounds, how wounded; her voice cracks on the else, and she looks down at her wrist. Char marks stretch over the skin, burned raw and livid. Her hands aren't in fists any more, aren't sparking, but her palms are all blisters and red, bloody skin from the heat that she'd kept enclosed in them.

Spite is the only thing she has for this. )

You just wanted to draw the line about how we were different, but we can still braid each other's hair and watch Breakfast Club? You can make yourselves feel better by patching me up? Don't touch me. I'm not your pet project.

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