One step, Two steps part 2

[tamoline]

Title: One step, Two steps part 2
Author:Tamoline
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Orphan Black
Pairing: Sarah/Beth

Warning: Suicide attempt, suicidal thoughts

Summary: One step.

Two steps.

Three steps.

I reach the edge of the platform.

Or - the AU where Sarah grabs Beth before she goes off the platform. There are still a lot of steps left.


Her words hit me like a slap.

For a moment, the pain overwhelms everything.

Katja's dead.

Vivacious Katja, who'd seemed so full of life when she'd first contacted me.

Katja, who'd told me only a few days ago that her time was running out.

Then I suppress my feelings, ruthlessly pushing them down into a little box and locking them away.

I've still got a job to do.

"Take a breath," I tell her.

I hear her inhale, then exhale. There's the sound of the car running in the background.

"Okay. What happened?" I ask.

"She was shot. We were talking in the car, and a hole appeared in her head. Then they tried to shoot me, but I ducked out of the way."

This is my fault.

This is all my fault.

I'd known that there were hunters.

If I'd been there...

Not important.

That's not important at the moment.

"Are you still in danger?"

"No," she says. "I don't think so. I drove away, and I can't see anyone following me."

I think. "You were in a car - my car?"

"Yes."

"Are you still in it?" Changing cars wouldn't have been an unreasonable thing to do, even if it would cause problems later. For me.

"Yeah."

I look out of the window.

It's getting dark.

That's good for some cover, but anyone who gets too close might still see the bullet holes.

"Where are you at the moment?"

She reels off her location. I recognise it as one of the city's less trafficked industrial districts.

"Find an alley or side street - preferably one without streetlights - ring me back with the location and then wait. I'll be there as quickly as I can."

"You want me to just wait around until you arrive. With a dead body in the car. Isn't there *something* I could be doing in the meantime? Anything?"

I think. "We'll need to clean the car. You could start on that."

"Okay. I can do that," she says, and rings off.

I look over at Felix, who has clearly been listening in on at least my half of the conversation.

"Was that Sarah?" he asks. "What happened?"

"Do you have a car?" I ask, ignoring his questions for the moment. "Failing that, how quickly can you get hold of one?"


"You're completely bonkers if you think I'm letting you leave this car without either a bloody good explanation or me in tow," Felix tells me as he parks the car in the general vicinity of Sarah's bolthole.

I purse my lips. I know Sarah took me to him last night, but there's a big difference between trusting him with that and literally letting him know where the bodies are buried.

"It's dangerous," I say. "It's dangerous and I'm going to have enough problems looking after Sarah without adding someone else into the mix. Do you want to risk her like this?"

"You still haven't told me what's so dangerous."

"You can ask Sarah. Later. When she's out of danger."

He glares at me. "If you let a single hair on Sarah's head come to harm, I'll make sure that you regret it forever. You *owe* her."

"I know," I tell him tiredly. "I know."

Sarah's waiting outside the car when I get to the alley. For a moment, I almost don't recognise her - she's obviously raided my wardrobe and is wearing her hair in a far more professional style than I remember.

She notices me, and marches in my direction. As she gets closer, I can see that she's also wearing far less makeup and has even dyed her hair back to its natural colour.

It's not such a surprise that Art thought she was me.

"What the *hell* have you got me involved in?" she asks.

"I don't have time for this at the moment. I've got a body," Katja, "to deal with. Felix is over there," I point over in the direction I came from. "With a car. We can talk tomorrow." I go to reclaim my purse that she borrowed earlier, but she steps back.

"You don't think that I'm going to let you off that easily, do you?" she asks, eyes narrowed slightly.

I try to not let my shoulders slump. She'd only take it as a sign of weakness. But I really don't need this, not tonight. "Please, Sarah. Can I just handle this first?"

First this.

Then the explanation, again.

Then the hearing, assuming that's still an option.

Then finding whoever did this.

And then...

And then...

I drag myself back to the present.

There's no point dwelling on the future.

Just take this one step for now.

The rest will come later.

Sarah's been looking at me whilst I was briefly spiralling, an odd expression on her face. "You don't have to do this alone, you know."

I blink. "What?"

"I could help. And maybe then you could give me some kind of fucking clue what this is all about."

"Oh."

I don't know what to say.

I don't have help.

Not for things like this.

It just doesn't *work* that way.

"It's not like I'm stupid or a fuck-up, you know," she says, apparently taking my silence for rejection.

"Okay," I say. "Thanks. I'd... appreciate that." I pause for a moment. "You'd... better let Felix know that you're going to be staying then."

She nods, passes me the purse, starts in Felix's direction, then stops, turns around. "You'll still be here when I get back?"

I nod, jerkily. "Yeah. I'll be here."

She gives me a small smile, then turns back and is on her way.

It isn't until she's disappeared, it isn't until she's gone, that I realise that my face is wet with tears.

And I'm not even quite sure whether it's because of Katja or...

Or something else.

It doesn't matter.

I turn back towards the car.

Towards Katja.

She's been pushed into the foot well of the back, but the front passenger seat still has the bloom of her passing on it.

Something of it, anyway. Apparently Sarah took my advice about the cleaning.

There's a bullet hole in the windscreen to match it, as well as a few more, but I check her body just to make sure.

Her sightless eyes stare at me as I take a closer look.

I have to be sure, as sure as I can be.

She had met with Sarah and she had died.

No sign of powder burn. No sign that she was killed in any other way than by a long range shot.

I want to trust Sarah.

But I have to be sure.

I purse my lips.

I'll get the location of where Katja died, and I'll check it out.

Tomorrow.

There are other things I have to do tonight.

First things first.

I climb into the driver's seat, and grab the metal briefcase in the passenger side foot well.

The lock's clearly been tampered with.

Inside, the samples still look present and intact. Hopefully Cosima will be able to tell for sure.

There's more, though. Photocopies of the European identicals' passports.

But there's also Allison's address as well.

I rub my face.

Allison.

Allison has enough on her plate already.

I'll... I'll find out if there's a problem.

And deal with it if necessary.

I stow the briefcase back in the foot well, and perform a quick check on my purse.

Everything *seems* to be there - though I might have a few less notes in my wallet than I used to - but it would if she's competent.

Wouldn't it?

It's not important, not tonight.

Sarah can rip me off tomorrow, if she chooses to.

As if summoned by my thoughts, she appears at the mouth of the alley and walks quickly towards the car. She veers towards the passenger side when she sees where I've seated myself.

"So," she says as she opens the car door and plops down next to me. "Where to first?"

"Somewhere the body won't be found for some time."

There are advantages to being a detective. One being that I know all the *best* places to hide things.

"What the hell's up with the three of us?" she asks abruptly after I've been driving a minute or so. "Were we identical triplets separated at birth or something?"

"If only," I say. "There're more than three of us. And I knew my parents." For what *that* had been worth.

"Knew?" she asks, and I can see her looking at me from out of the corner of her eye, though I can't read her expression.

I inwardly curse my slip of the tongue. "We don't speak any more."

For as long as I'd known him, my father had been an ultra-type A manipulative, abusive bastard.

And my mother had been so tranquilised on pills she hadn't given a damn. She never could protect me. From anything.

Truly I'm a triumph of nurture over nature.

And cutting my ties with them had probably been the best thing I'd ever done.

"So what *are* we?"

"Genetic identicals. Or so I've been told," I tell her. "Clones," I add when she doesn't seem enlightened.

"What? *Clones*?" she says, disbelief lacing her voice.

I have problems caring, this night of all nights. "If you have a better explanation, I'd love to hear it."

"How many of us are there?"

I shrug. "Three of us in the North American cell. Katja was the only contact with the European cell I had. There were more there. Less now. We're being killed off."

"Like Katja."

"Like Katja," I say tonelessly. "And she was good. Trained in surveillance and counter-surveillance." I don't know the history behind that. She'd never offered. I'd never asked. And now I never would.

It wasn't chance that the hunter had taken her out before they'd taken a shot at someone they thought was me.

She's silent for a moment. "You think I led them to her."

I want to close my eyes, but I can't. Instead I just focus on the road. "No. I did. If I hadn't-" I cut the sentence off before I can say anything more.

"Oi," she says, her words laced with genuine anger. "I can own my own bloody fuckups, thank you very much."

"You didn't know. I didn't tell you." Though I don't know what she could have done, even if I had.

"I didn't exactly give you much of a chance, did I?"

"True enough," I say. "True enough."

"If we're clones, who made us?"

"If anyone knows, they haven't told me yet."

"And who's killing us? The same people who made us?"

Maggie Chen's face flashes in front of me. Abomination, she'd called me, before I'd pulled the trigger.

"I don't think so," I say softly.

Sarah shoots me a quizzical glance.

"Intuition," I tell her. "Maybe I'll be able to find out more tomorrow. What else can you tell me about the incident?"

She stiffens for a moment, then slowly, grudgingly, starts to give me details.

The process takes long enough that we get to where I'm heading for.

"Nice location," she says, looking around.

"That's the idea." I get out and open the back door. Getting the body out isn't as easy as it looks. "If you're going to help, I'd appreciate a hand here." Rigor mortis has started setting in. This would make it easier to carry her, if she weren't wedged in the foot well.

In the end, the spade serves double duty.

And not for the last time.

It's not Katja, I tell myself.

Now it's just meat.

"What are you doing?" she asks with a kind of horrified fascination as I raise the spade above my head,

It's just meat, I tell myself again as I drive the edge into Katja's chest.

"Making sure the corpse doesn't dig itself out again."

It's just meat, as I sever her fingers.

"No fingerprints."

It's just meat, as I smash her teeth.

"No dental records."

In the end, it's hard to identify her as anything else.

In the end, it's all she has left.

Digging the grave itself is a relief after that.

And if the exercise makes my muscles burn?

It feels something akin to penance.

Sarah's quiet as I get back in the car.

"It was necessary," I tell her, tell myself.

"Yeah," she says, then, "I know a place we can give this car a proper wash."

I look at her for a moment, then get back out of the car.

"Please," I say. "Feel free to drive us there."

She drives for a little while in silence. "You said that there were three of you in the North American cell."

I think for a moment.

"Are you actually planning on sticking around, helping out after this? Because if you aren't, the less you know..."

She shoots me a sharp glance. "I'm helping out right now, aren't I?"

"I'm trying to give you an out here," I tell her. "Hopefully, the hunters think you were me. If you run now..." I shrug. "They should come after me first. Maybe I'll even manage to stop them."

"If you actually try and keep yourself alive long enough," she mutters, then gives me a quick, almost remorseful look,

The moment hangs between us, sharp and crystalline.

Then I give her a slight smile,

"Just so."

It's not as though she's *wrong*, after all.

Between the two of us, the cleaning goes quickly.

Better yet, it keeps us busy enough that neither of us feels the need to talk.

Then I smash the windscreen - to hide the bullet holes - and call for an emergency replacement.

The wait there is more problematic, but I fill my half by noting down all the details I don't want to forget.

Incriminating, yes, if any of my colleagues ever gets the chance to have a look at it.

But I need to get to bottom of this.

For all our sakes.

After the repair vehicle has been and gone, I turn to look at her.

"Where would you like me to take you? Felix's?"

She hesitates for a moment. "I could come home with you?" she offers.

"You don't need to do that." It's only as I say the words that I realise how fragile they sound.

She snorts. "Don't get me wrong. It's just your pad is far nicer than anywhere I've dossed down for a while."

"Of course."

"And you wouldn't believe how much Felix would complain if I came knocking at his door this time of night."

I make a sound that might be one of agreement, if it didn't sound so strangled.

"And, really, how much protection are you going to be if..." she makes an abortive movement with one hand. “You know what? Just forget I said anything."

I don't say anything - I can't say anything - but she doesn't ask to be taken anywhere else, and she doesn't complain when I pull up in front of my apartment.

I don't know what this is - I can't even begin to think about it.

I just don't have anything left.

All I can do is passively accept it, and see where it leads.

I enter the apartment cautiously. "Paul?" I call, just in case.

But he doesn't respond, and I can't see any sign that he's come back early,

One small thing to be grateful for.

I wave Sarah in.

"Want me to take the sofa?" she asks.

I shrug. "If you want."

Because I don't know what I want.

And it's not as though we have a guestroom.

But she follows me into the bedroom and doesn't leave even after I hand her a pair of pyjamas.

"Really?" she asks, holding them up.

"Why? What do you sleep in?"

She smirks a little, begins to answer, then abruptly seems to change her mind. "You know what? Your house, your rules."

"In which case, I'll have the first shower."

I go to the bathroom and get in, blasting myself with as much heat as I can bear.

It doesn't cleanse me, doesn't make me pure.

But I feel like I might be able to live with myself for a little while longer.

I pause in front of the medicine cabinet, but in the end I leave my pills alone.

After what I've done this evening, I don't feel like giving myself that out.

Not right now.

The morning, though. I'll need them in the morning.

I get back into the bedroom, to find her stretched out on the bed.

"The shower's all yours," I tell her.

"Thanks," she says and makes her way out of the room.

I lie down on my bed, in my usual position, and close my eyes.

Maybe I can be asleep by the time she gets out.

The day's events catch up to me, though, and I feel a pressure like a silent scream building up inside of me.

I can't let it out, though.

I can't remember the last time I was able to let anything out.

The shower stops, and I hear footsteps leave the bathroom and approach the bed.

So.

This is how it's going to be.

There's the creak of springs and the pressure of her getting into the other side, but I keep my eyes closed and don't react.

Because, really, considering my normal over the last few months?

Lying in bed with someone I can't trust - or someone I can't bring myself to trust?

There's no difference.

No difference at all.

It's almost comforting in its familiarity.

I force myself to think of nothing, force myself to shove everything inside the smallest box I can imagine.

Just like normal.

Gradually my breath begins to slow and sleep seems almost achievable.

It's then that she rolls over, and breaths into my neck. "Don't trust me. Please. You can't trust me."

I don't know if she even realises that I'm still awake enough to hear her.

But it's those words that do it.

Those words that make everything real.

Those words that undo whatever hold I had on... everything.

I begin to tremble.

Begin to shake.

Shake hard enough that I start coming apart.

I still might not be able to bring myself to make a sound, but the tears rolling down my face mean *something*.

Mean more than... than I can remember allowing myself.

And maybe she did know, maybe she did know what those words would do to me.

Because she holds me all the while.

Holds me until the tears run dry.

Holds me until I stop shaking.

Holds me until I drift to sleep, more naturally, more empty this time.


In the morning, I wake up and she's gone.

As I half knew she would be.

It doesn't matter, though, because she was there for that one night.

And that one night was enough.

Enough for now.

And there's a note on the table my side of the bed.

'I didn't have a chance to tell you. Your hearing has been rescheduled to 10 am today, due to a stomach bug you came down with yesterday.

I'm taking your advice, and getting out whilst the going's good.

Good luck and goodbye,

Sarah'