Fic: Control (1/?)

Fandom: Orphan Black

Pairing: Sarah Manning/Beth Childs. (Probably, Maybe)

Words: 2,503

Summary: PUNKCOP AU. Sarah stops Beth from killing herself in ep1 and they go on to become close.

Notes: I felt that this needed to be more of a thing. There's not nearly enough of this anywhere and by that I mean there's literally almost nothing so yeah but I wanted to read it and got bored of waiting. If a better writer does it I will applaud them for it. May or may not follow canon because AU (plus I haven't decided yet but yeah more than probably kinda).

Tell me if this something you'd be interested in reading more of.

And She Gave Away the Secrets of Her Past

As Beth walked towards the train station she wondered how it could have come to this. She'd always been so in control but recently, everything had just been spinning s quickly out of control and she didn't know what to do anymore.

She killed a person.

She knew that she had to do it. She had to, to protect herself, to protect Alison, Cosima, the German and god knows how many more of them. There could be hundreds of them for all she knows, and it was her job to protect them. Maggie Chen was after them. She wanted to hurt them, to kill them and Beth knew that she had to keep them safe, but she doesn't how she can anymore.

Everything had fallen apart. She had killed a person. She could lose her job. All that on top of whatever it is that's happening with Paul, it was just too much. She just couldn't anymore.

She stood on the platform, deliberating, wondering how to go about doing this. She puts down her bag, her I.D inside. It's important that she does this right, there needs to be no doubt as to whose body they find, she needs to keep the rest of them safe. Any other police involvement could expose them all, and god knows what would happen to them then.

As she heard the train coming she prepared walked towards the platform's edge. It wouldn't be long now she told herself she looked around the platform, taking in her surroundings and checking for any potential problems.

At first she's not sure if she's seen correctly, but lo and behold, there on the platform is another one of them. Another person she has failed, but there's nothing she can do to change that now.

She took a deep breath and prepared to jump.

At first Sarah didn't quite believe what she was seeing. There was a woman. A woman who looked exactly like her. A woman who was preparing to jump. A woman who looks exactly like her, preparing to jump. It would just not compute.

As she walked towards the stranger time seemed to slow around her. She didn't understand what she was doing, she just knew that if she wanted to know why the hell the woman looked the same as her, she had to stop her from killing herself.

She just, she had to.

Beth had not expected to be stopped.

She had seen the other woman moving towards her. Her identical. But she had not expected her to react in time.

She had not expected the arms that grabbed her around her waist just as she was about to jump. She had not expected someone to pull her back, hold her close.

'Just what do you think you're doing?' The surprisingly unfamiliar voice whispered roughly in her ear. She hadn't expected the English accent.

The day was full of surprises it seemed.

The next thing she knows she's being pulled away from the platform's edge. Slowly but surely until they come to a complete stop next to her belongings. 'Put your bloody shoes on,' her identical hissed at her as she slowly let the grip on Beth's waist slacken, as if she's trying to gauge whether or not Beth would make a run for it, 'and don't try anything stupid, yeah?.' She adds as an after- thought.

Because that would stop her.

Not that she felt remotely like trying anything again at that particular moment, this woman stopped her once, she'd have no problem doing it again, and any motivation she had had had seemed to drain from her the moment the other woman restrained her.

In fact, for the first time in a long while, she felt oddly calm. The lack of control, even though it had only lasted a second had been just as freeing as the pills had ever been. As she turned to face the other woman, she wondered how long the feeling would last. She'd take as long as she could get.

Sarah was freaking the fuck out.

She didn't know what on earth had happened. One minute she was standing looking at the woman preparing to jump, the next thing she knows, she's holding her, pulling her away from the edge of the platform. And she had absolutely no idea how that happened.

For a moment she just stood there with the other woman in her arms, unsure as to whether to let her go or not, she might make a run for it or try to throw herself in front of the next fucking train, so keeping her close at least for a little while seemed like a fan-fucking-tastic idea at that particular moment.

She needed to know who the hell this woman was, and why the fuck they look exactly the same, and to find that out she needed her to stay alive. Well she figured she could probably find out if she wanted to, and boy did she want to, but keeping her alive seemed like the easier option. For the moment at least, this woman could be a right pain in the arse for all she knew. She'd already made her life harder just by being in the place at the wrong time, who knows what she could do with a little effort.

She knew that her impromptu rescue would have probably caused a scene if the station were any busier, so Sarah thanked God for small mercies, they had gotten a few weird looks at first but they had died away with the woman's struggles. Sarah figured people assumed that they were family, sisters. Hell if it wasn't happening to her she'd assume as much. For all she knew they were family, it's not like she ever knew hers, not a biological one anyway.

As the woman turned, just for one second Sarah let herself imagine that she'd simply imagined that the woman had her face, that she'd simply saved a life, done a good deed, all that jazz.

But no.

It's never that simple is it?

She hadn't been imagining it.

Fuck.

Beth waited for the other woman to say something but she just kept staring at her. Beth supposed that the poor girl was probably in shock, or something similar. Seeing another person with your face can do that to a person, as she remembers all too well. Although, given how forceful and simply in control the other woman had seemed only moments earlier, the reaction did surprise her.

Then again she doesn't know this woman. They may look the same but they've never met and genetics can't control everything. And she knows from experience, meeting Alison and Cosima, just how different they can actually be, in her experience they only dictate the superficial.

Heavens knows how long they stood there, just looking at each other until Beth could take it no longer.

'Come on,' she said, taking the other woman by the arm as she began to walk away. Only stooping to pick up her bag as an afterthought.

'Where are we going?' her identical asked after a few moments, pulling her arm free from Beth's hold, rubbing it up and down as if she had hurt her. For a moment Beth is annoyed that the woman has stopped, that is until she considered the very real possibility that if the situation were reversed she wouldn't just blindly follow a stranger God knows where either. In fact, once she considered that, she's actually surprised that they'd made it out of the train station and let alone as far as they had.

'Just somewhere we can talk, don't worry.' She said in an attempt to temporarily placate her companion. 'Well actually, first to my car and then somewhere we can talk.' She added after a moment in the spirit of complete disclosure, she hadn't actually decided where they should go. Everything about this was unplanned.

'Why should I come with you?' Beth hadn't really considered that the other woman wouldn't follow her. Was she not curious? Did she not want to know what was going on?

'You want answers? Then you'll come. Otherwise, I can't help you.'

The other woman seemed to consider this and for a minute, Beth really isn't sure if she other woman will follow her. She finds herself both oddly disappointed and envious at the prospect that this woman could just walk away. She'd never had a choice, but this new identical in front of her right now could make a choice and walk away, she could remain ignorant, or nearly ignorant, of the whole mess that was the basis of their entire existence, and Beth didn't know whether she wanted her to or not.

After a few agonising moments and a barely there nod of the head they're on the move again.

They don't speak another word until they're sat in her living room. She couldn't think of any place appropriate to have the 'we're clones' conversation, so she settled for having privacy at least. She thanked God that Paul was away and that she would not have to face that particular situation for at least another couple of days.

She wished she had had the opportunity to take something, just to calm her nerves, before she had to try to explain everything, but she didn't trust the woman not to take off and take half her possessions with her. Of course, she could be worried for nothing, but on the other hand her paranoia could be completely justified. So no. No leaving her alone until they know each other at least a little better. Then she could at least make an informed judgement.

That being said she still had absolutely no idea how to start.

How do you even begin to tell somebody that they're actually the result of illegal human cloning?

Realising that they really hadn't even covered the basics she decided that as they had to start somewhere they may as well start there.

Having decided she gathered her courage. Turned to fully face her companion and simply stated 'I'm Beth. Elizabeth Childs.'

There. Those were words. Now just for the Rest.

Sarah was not entirely sure what was happening. She'd been dragged halfway across the city and now they were just staring at each other again, or at least she was staring at her, she just could not get over how similar they looked. The other woman seemed to be looking at something particularly interesting on the couch. Whatever they were looking at they'd just been sitting there for god knows how long. It was getting a bit ridiculous.

'I'm Beth.' Okay not what she was expecting as an opening statement, but everything has to start somewhere.

The newly identified Beth then resumed her staring. This time at her.

Okay, that was more unnerving than she'd anticipated. Why was she just looking at her? Was she waiting for something? What?

'And you are?' Beth continues after a few moments.

Ah. She wanted her name.

That makes sense.

'Sarah. I'm Sarah.' She replied. 'So you gonna tell me what's going on here, miss I have the answers, we family or something?'

'Definitely, or something' Beth replied. Because that answer wasn't ambiguous at all.

They continued to stare at each other. Sarah wasn't sure what to make of Beth. Looking around her home it seemed like she had a good life, like she was pretty together in the grand scheme of things, but then only an hour or so earlier she'd tried to top herself. So no, Sarah had absolutely no idea what to make of her.

It may have had something to do with the fact that they looked exactly the same, but there was something surrounding the woman that Sarah needed to figure out.

On second thought, it definitely had to do with the looking exactly the same thing. But that didn't mean that it didn't go further than that. It could do, she wasn't sure. She supposed only time will tell, see how long her interest lasts after the initial fascination has worn off.

She watched as Beth visibly struggled to find whatever it was she needed to be able to continue. Until.

'Clones' she suddenly stated.

Okay. Clones. That made perfect sense.

Wait. What?

Beth watched Sarah closely as the meaning of her words sank in and comprehension dawned on her.

She watched as Sarah stood and began to walk about the room. Confused at the unexpected relief that flowed through her as she realised that Sarah was not running away. Not yet, at least.

She braced herself for some sort of response as Sarah came to a stop in front of her, again staring right into her eyes. But still nothing came.

As they continued to maintain eye-contact she wondered if this was going to become a thing between them. Unrelenting, intense and completely unsettling bouts of sustained eye-contact. She wasn't entirely sure she'd mind if it did. Sarah had nice eyes, she noted. Maybe too much eye make-up, but nice all the same.

And that's a train of thought that will only lead to confusion.

'You're shitting me, right? This is some sort of joke and you're actually my long lost sister or something, right?' Sarah asked in disbelief. Beth had expected that, she'd known for a while and she still found it hard to believe.

Sarah continued to stare for a few moments longer before finally looking away, obviously finding the answer she was searching for in Beth's eyes.

'Fuck,' she breathed out, slumping down onto the couch beside Beth. 'Clones.'

'Clones.' Beth repeated simply. 'There are at least three of us in North America that we know of. Four now I guess. We've, I've, had contact with one from Europe, there are more there, I don't know how many. God knows how many of us there are.'

She watched again as Sarah seemed to take the information on board. Beth wondered how she seemed so calm, she knew that if she'd been bombarded with this information the way that Sarah had been that she would be the opposite of calm. It was a lot of life changing information for such a relatively short period of time.

'Clones' Sarah again repeated, laughing incredulously to herself. 'So that makes us what? What's our deal? We just some sort of fucked up science experiment?' Sarah asked, leaning towards Beth. The sudden shift in the intensity of her questions taking Beth by surprise.

She was surprised to hear it so bluntly put. Between them, her and Cosima and Alison, they had always tried to avoid thinking about it like that, to consider that their lives were not the same as other peoples, that there was anything different about them. Denial was the key. Hell she'd already broken one of their rules by just using the word clone to describe them.

'Yeah. I guess we are, yes.'

She didn't know the half of it.