AN: Yeah so. I'm new. Hi.

I started writing this at work because a mentally challenged monkey on acid could do my job and I can feel my brain rot with every hour I spend there. Something had to be done and well, this is that something. Read if you like, don't if you don't. I don't consider myself a writer by any stretch of the word so I don't blame you if you've already hit that back button.

Disclaimer : I own nothing except a pair of smelly black Vans and an even smellier brother.

I woke up to the sound of my bedroom door creaking open, shortly followed by the telltale noises of a very drunk someone stumbling around while trying to stay quiet.

Katie's back.

Every weekend it was the same story, weekdays too if she could manage it, so I was no stranger to this situation. In fact, this happened often enough over the past few years that I had memorized the exact routine my twin sister would follow as she fought against gravity and the space between the doorway and her bed.

"Shit. Why the hell're 'hose there?"

She'd trip and stumble over the mountain of animal print she always left lying on the floor. Each and every time Katie went out, she emptied her closet and drawers because she just absolutely had to try on every possible combination of her clothes. She never put anything back where it belonged, perfectly content to let the rejected items pile up on the floor and form an Intoxi-Katie trap. You'd think she would learn her lesson eventually, but no; Katie was a very committed slob.

Clunk. Clunk.

She'd throw her hilariously high heels carelessly into the room. The left one always landed somewhere near my nightstand, and the right one either ended up buried in her clothes pile or hidden underneath her bed. I always had to find it for her in the morning.

"Ow ow fucking OW. G'dammit! S'upid fucking useless thing."

She'd stub her pinky toe on her gigantic wooden dresser, even though its outline was clearly visible through the darkness. There was no way that thing could be anything but visible, honestly. Gigantic didn't even begin to cover it.

Thud. "...Unnnnhh fuck...ouch."

She'd fall right smack on her ass after trying to hop on one foot and nurse her injured toe at the same time. How she ever thought she'd manage to do this with more alcohol than blood in her veins was beyond me.

With one final thud, Katie collapsed onto her bed and immediately fell asleep, her snores (because god forbid Katie ever be quiet, even in sleep) filling every previously quiet inch of our room. I envied that about her. Not the snoring, obviously, but the sleeping. Sleep never came easily for me. I tossed and turned and spent every night counting the tiny, crisscrossing lines on the ceiling above my bed. I usually made it to around 4,330 before it got too dark to distinguish them from the shadows, and then I would shut my eyes and try to dream.

I tried to imagine myself in all kinds of idealized, relaxing places, the kinds of things you see in movies and magazines. Swaying hammocks, tropical drinks in coconut shells, warm sun and sand, or even curling up with a book by the fireplace of a snowed in cabin; none of it worked. During the day, it was easy. I spent most of my time daydreaming, escaping into my head, far away from overbearing twins, intolerant, terrifying mothers, and hidden secrets, but I could never escape at night. Reality was far too pressing in the dark.

Katie's snoring kept getting louder and louder until it practically made the walls vibrate. I wouldn't have been surprised if she ended up knocking them all the way down; my sister was quite the force of nature, even while passed out with one foot on the floor, trying to stop the room from impersonating a gold medal gymnast.

Fucking ridiculous. This is the thanks I get for covering for your drunk ass. I sighed, threw my covers off, gave my back a nice, satisfying stretch, and got out of bed. My day had officially started, even though it was stupid o'clock in the morning and I didn't have to be up for at least six more hours. I dragged myself with a yawn over to my dresser and pulled out a pair of teal spandex shorts and a tight white tank top, figuring I might as well make Papa Fitch proud and start my morning run early.

My father was the owner of Fitch Fitness, a small chain of gyms around the Boston area, and the man practically lived and breathed treadmills and bench-presses. He would have been sorely disappointed to find out I hadn't used my unwanted extra time to get in a decent workout and Emily Fitch was not one to disappoint, so I tied my running shoes tight, padded a onetwo onetwo rhythm down the stairs, and ran out the door.

I tried to take a different route every morning. Plymouth was dull enough as it was and my daily life never had much opportunity for change, so I had to take it where I could get it, even if that only meant taking a left instead of a right at the big oak tree on the corner. There was one thing though, one thing that had stayed the same for as long as I could remember. Without fail, no matter how far or in which direction I ran, I would always end up at the beach. It wasn't an entirely conscious effort, it just always sort of happened, like the moon had somehow decided that I was a wayward part of the tide to be pulled in. Not that I was complaining, mind, I loved the beach. Nothing could bother me when I was there; it was too peaceful, too simple and safe. It made me feel like a little kid again, hiding away from the scary monsters of the world, tucked away underneath a blanket of sea salt and sand. It was my sanctuary and once I got there, I'd always go hunting for a special kind of spot – secluded but still within sight and earshot of the breaking waves – to sit for a while and just be Emily. I seriously treasured these moments, on some days more than others, but even when I didn't feel I particularly needed them, I always wanted them, enjoyed them. Because even the best day can be made better by doing something you love, and I really, really loved just being.

The delightful start to this morning had edged the beach far past a want and settled it securely into more of a deep, burning need, so I ran faster than normal, hoping to get there as soon as possible. My feet hammered fast and steady on the sidewalk and I imagined that the little holes in the concrete came together in the shape of Katie's face as I pounded down on top of them. It gave me much more satisfaction than it should have.

I loved my sister to death, and not just because it was a well-known fact of the universe that you were required to care for someone you had shared a uterus with. I honestly, genuinely loved her, but she had a habit of putting that through some pretty fucking rigorous testing. The next time she made me stay home to feed our mother some stupid alibi so she could go out, get fucked up and fucked, and then come back and ruin my very precious few hours of sleep, I decided I would…well I didn't really know what I would do. I couldn't very well sacrifice her to our mother; nothing Katie could ever do would make her deserve that.

The wrath of our mom made the fires of hell look like the flickering flames on a candle wick. There was nothing motherly about an angry Jenna Fitch, nothing more frightening or dangerous, and I had the bruises to prove it. Only me though, it was only ever me that got hit, never Katie. Katie was loved because Katie could pretend to fit right into the cookie-cutter lifestyle that my mom would do anything to maintain. I couldn't. I was too 'Emily'and not enough 'Jenna Fitch 2.0' for my mom to ever truly, unconditionally love me the way a mother should.

She resented me for not being a plastic, factory-made, programmable little doll, for not being Katie (or at least the Katie that she knew), and she took it out on me the only way she knew how; behind closed doors with hands and feet and words that hurt even worse than both combined.

I resented myself for not being like Katie, for not being able to put on a show like she did, to be someone that I wasn't, and I took it out on myself the only way I knew how; becoming no one, withdrawing myself completely. If I couldn't pretend to be someone else, I could at least hide who I really was, keep my personality locked away, not put my 'me-ness' on display. It was painful for me to hide, but necessary. The treatment I got for being a shell would be nothing compared to what I would face if I dared to be me.

I ran out of my neighborhood, through the streets of the next one over, down a dirt road and past homes hidden behind trees and mile-long lawns. I ran back out and all the way to downtown Plymouth with only the thoughts of my mother and twin to keep me company. I wasn't getting any less upset, the bitterness refused to fade and I was busy slamming my foot down extra hard against a part of the sidewalk with an almost comically high resemblance to Katie when my feet finally lead me within sight of the beach. I changed course immediately and pushed my body harder than before as my dad's gruff voice started running through my mind, faster and faster as it tried to keep up with my legs. "Finish strong, Emsy. Come on, love. You're a Fit Fitch; you've got to finish strong." So I did just that.

I did everything in my power to sprint the last bit of anger and frustration out of my limbs as I neared the oceanfront. That kind of stuff doesn't mix well with the sound of seagulls and the tempo of the tide. That kind of stuff just does not belong at the beach, so as soon as I reached the shoreline, I took off my shoes, wriggled my toes into the still cold pre-dawn sand, and tilted my head back to face the dim twinkling of the stars. I took a deep lungful of air that I was convinced was actually magic and held it in for as long as I could before waving goodbye to my troubles with a long, loud exhale. And then I started walking.

It didn't take long before I found a reason to stop wandering, but it wasn't the one I went looking for. I had just stopped to catch my breath after trudging up a nightmarishly steep sand dune when I saw something totally bizarre from my new vantage point. Fire. I saw actual fire, off in the distance from where I stood recovering. Naturally, as it usually does in these types of situations, curiosity got the better of me and I decided to go check it out.

Unfortunately, going down steep dunes really isn't much easier than climbing up them and I did that tremendously awkward running-jumpy thing that people do when their legs want to move faster than their bodies can make them all the way to the bottom. Once I landed and managed to re-harness control of my limbs and regain my balance, I noticed that in all my elegant flailing around, I had kicked up enough sand to cover practically every inch of my body.

"Fuck's sake, Emily. Might as well have rolled down." I muttered to myself while twisting my waist this way and that, trying find the best angle to swat at the stubborn sand on my back.

"Hi."

Apparently I shouldn't have even bothered dusting myself off because that voice came out of absolutely nowhere and sent me flying right back into the sand again with what I'm sure was a very intimidating yelp.

I scrambled back up to my feet, brushed off again, and tried to find the right direction to shoot my glare into, but the sun hadn't risen yet and it's hard to do these kinds of things in the moonlight.

"Over here."

I jumped again and tripped over my feet, scarcely avoiding a third sand bath in about half as many minutes, but at least the voice came from somewhere this time and I turned to face it.

It came from a girl, maybe about my age, sitting cross-legged in the sand a few paces to my right. I walked closer to her because, from where I stood, she stayed hidden in the shadows between the dunes and I wanted to put a face to the voice that nearly stopped my nineteen year old heart. The closer I got, the more I felt my anger fade. I couldn't even find it in me to be surprised because this girl, with her pale skin and wild wavy hair, looked like she just belonged right in this moment. Like she was made for moonlight and mystery and scaring the utter shit out of unsuspecting strangers just because she could. I wanted to be mad at her, I wanted to yell and demand some kind of explanation, but it felt wrong and pointless, like getting upset with a foreigner for speaking in their language instead of yours. There's no sense in being angry with someone because you don't understand the things that come naturally to them. And this? This I knew right away was a natural as breathing for the strange person smirking up at me.

"Well, that was unexpected." I told her once my cardiovascular system was functioning properly again. "It's, uh, nice to meet you I guess? My name's Emily."

Her smirk widened to dangerous proportions. I couldn't decide if it made her more beautiful or more intimidating. Maybe both. "I'm Effy. Pleasure." she languidly extended her arm upwards and kept her wrist limp and dangling. I assumed she was waiting for a handshake, so I took her hand in mine and shook hastily. She didn't let go.

"Help me up."

It wasn't a request. I don't think I could have said no even if it was. "Oh okay. Sure." I pulled her up smoothly and easily, not needing Effy's help at all to get her to her feet. She looked taken aback, even though she probably weighed less than a phonebook. Then again, I was used to that type of reaction whenever someone discovered how strong I was. It generally came as a shock to most people that the shy little redheaded girl in the corner could probably finish a triathlon before they were halfway through their first lap.

"Well, that was unexpected." Effy repeated my words from earlier, smirk back in full force. "Wonder what else you're hiding."

"My dad's a fitness instructor." I shrugged "And I'm hiding plenty. We did just meet after all."

"No one hides as much as they think they do." Effy said profoundly, staring right at me. It was odd, the way she did it. Like she wasn't just seeing everything about me (which would have been more than unnerving enough on its own), it felt like she was waving a treat and whistling at the scared and trembling little puppy inside of me, coaxing it out from its hiding spot underneath the bed with her eyes. She was pulling everything out of me, willing it all to come out into the open and getting a much better look at the things that kept me up at night than I wanted her too. And then, suddenly, she wasn't. Suddenly, her back was facing me and she was walking away, in the direction of the fire I had all but forgotten about. I tried to ask her where she was going, but she answered my question before I had a chance to voice it. "Come on. I want you to meet the others."

"What? There are more of you?" I asked alarmed. I didn't know if I wanted to meet the people that Effy kept company with. The thought was kind of terrifying.

"Yes Emily, there are." she turned around and eyed me seriously, "I'm actually part of a group of escaped clones. You mustn't tell anyone you've seen me. It's a matter of national security." Her face looked so earnest that I thought she may have honestly believed the pure lunacy spewing out of her mouth. We looked at each other, neither of us saying a word and I kept rapidly docking her sanity points until she allowed the barest hint of that already familiar curl of her lips to creep back onto her face.

"Oh god I thought you were being serious for a second! I mean, I didn't think you really were a clone – obviously – just that you maybe believed that you were? I thought you were insane!" I laughed nervously and curled, uncurled, re-curled my toes into the sand, forcing myself to maintain eye contact.

Something dark flashed across her face, but it was gone too quickly for me to decipher. I knew instinctively that she didn't want me to see it and I imagined it would take a whole host of CIA trained analysts to decrypt any emotion that broke free of Effy's grasp, so I never really stood much of a chance anyways. "You would have been right, then. I am. Very insane. Now come on, let's go meet my friends, shall we?"

I stood frozen and slack-jawed, watching her slink off towards the fire. Did she honestly think I was going to follow her? She couldn't possibly expect me to follow her after that.

Effy must have noticed that I hadn't moved because she only got a few feet away before she pivoted back towards me and sighed, unimpressed. "Relax Emily. I'm not actually insane. And neither are my friends." She paused for a second, seemingly to consider something, "Well, not in a drown-them-in-medication kind of way, at least. You should meet them. Seriously."

"Why?"

"Because you'll like them." She said certainly, as if it was a concrete fact, like I had just asked her if the sky was blue or if 2 plus 2 equaled 4. "Just come on already. I'm not going to beg and, really, do you have anything better to do?

I really didn't, but something told me Effy already knew that, so I didn't bother answering. "Alright, fine. Lead the way."

We walked side by side for a while and somewhere along the way the silence between us became companionable. Eventually, though, it was broken, but not by either of us. My ears began to pick up on the sound of music, coming from the direction Effy was steering us into. Someone was singing and strumming away on a guitar and they were doing it very, very well. As we got nearer, I could clearly make out the words being sung and the notes being played and I was blown away by how flawless they sounded.

When I jerk away

From holding hands with you

I know these habits hurt

Important parts of you

I recognized the song. It was one of my favorites and I had listened to it countless times, but I had never heard it sound so beautiful. I had never heard anything sound so beautiful.

Remember when I was

Sweet and unexplainable

Nothing like this person

Unlovable

The music kept getting louder and a sudden thought sprung into my mind, something I probably should have realized quite a ways back. There was a fire, Effy's group of friends somewhere nearby, and someone playing a song on their guitar. You mix all those things together and you've got the textbook recipe for a bonfire on the beach. This train of thought led me straight to another, one that started stirring around excitedly in my stomach; if I was right and Effy was leading me to a bonfire, that meant she must know the owner of that voice. That was a logical conclusion, right? Please be a logical conclusion.

"Effy what – do you know who that is? She's incredible."

I just want back into your head

I just want back into your head

I'm not unfaithful but I'll stray

Incredible was an understatement. Every sound in the world that thought itself beautiful should have been jealous and bowing at the feet of this girl's voice. I wanted, no, needed to meet her.

When I get a little scared

When I get a little scared

"That would be my best friend. And yes, she is."

I couldn't stop the grin from spreading across my face. Effy knew her. I wanted to do a little dance and jump around like a teenager who just found out they were lucky caller number 5 and had won tickets to that sold-out concert they were dying to go to. Effy was best fucking friends with her. My heart was making weird jerky motions in my chest, like it couldn't decide between stopping entirely or trying to squeeze a lifetime's worth of beats into a few moment's time. I was nervous. I was excited. I was actually going to meet this girl. I started walking as fast as I could over the uneven sand, barely restraining myself from breaking out and running full pelt toward the bonfire.

Much to my displeasure, the rest of Effy's friends blocked my view of the singer. There was a blonde pigtailed girl wearing so many outrageous colors it looked like she had been dragged blindfolded and backwards through a rainbow. Katie would have gone catatonic at the sight of her. She was sitting practically in the lap of a dark-skinned boy whose smile matched the fire, bright and warm. On his right was a boy with braces and brown, untamed curly hair, sitting to the left of a lanky guy with tan skin and shaggy, dark hair. An empty chair that I guessed was Effy' separated him from a sandy blonde boy with a huge grin in his eyes who was lip-syncing dramatically and making stagy hand motions in time with the music. And then, right next to him, only a few dozen feet away now, there was the singer. I stumbled over the sand when I saw her. She was even more beautiful than her voice, and I hadn't even properly seen her face yet. It didn't matter though, I could tell from the quickest of glimpses that she was the most gorgeous thing ever created. With her platinum blonde hair and the way it fell just past her collarbone that peeked out tantalizingly from underneath a loose, light green tank top. With her endlessly long legs, shown off in almost all their glory by faded black, floral-patterned shorts that really should have come with a warning sign, and the way they were crossed and folded into each other on the worn-down camping chair. With her head tilted down and the way her eyes scrunched shut and her hands strummed fast as she poured emotion into the song.

When I get a little scared

When I get a little

Run, run, run

Run

Effy and I were close now, almost right next to her friends and their fire, so we stopped walking and listened. I could feel the heat of the flames.

Run, run, run

Run

Running was the absolute last thing on my mind at that moment. I was already having enough trouble breathing just standing there in awe of this girl. I wasn't about to run, or even walk, away to any place where I couldn't see or hear her.

The song ended and suddenly the dirty blonde boy damn near exploded with laughter. I took several quick steps away from the fire, afraid it might react to the atomic bomb of sound that just dropped next to it.

"You should see your face, girl!" He pointed wildly at me while looking around at his friends, "Guys, guys, look at her face. She's completely Stonemed!"

Everyone else, apart from the devastatingly attractive blonde now furrowing her eyebrows in a way that was so adorable I couldn't even begin to make sense of it and fiddling intently with her guitar, started laughing hard along with him, apparently sharing some inside joke. I blushed furiously. I knew I would have been nearly monochromatic, what with the red heat of the fire lighting up my cherry colored hair and freshly blood-rushed cheeks. I probably looked like a human Hot Tamale candy, the kind you can get for a quarter in those little machines at the grocery store. I felt worth about as much too, the way they all kept clinging onto the sides of their chairs to avoid taking a laughter-fueled dive right into the flames at my expense. The blonde still wasn't laughing though, seemingly off in her own world of tuning and tweaking, so I just kept my eyes on her. Not that I needed an excuse.

"Stop being dicksplashes." Okay so apparently Effy hadn't laughed either. "You're embarrassing her. Besides, it's not my fault," she paused and let out a snicker, but seemed able to muscle the rest of her laughter back into its cage "– she looks more like she's just had her Campbell rung." Scratch that, there she went, doubling over and cackling like a madwoman. Something else was happening though, something I was paying far more attention too. The blonde's head had snapped up, just before Effy finished her sentence, and her eyes locked with mine for the first time.

It was downright insane, the effect this woman had on me. My entire body and all of its senses kicked into overdrive while the rest of the world screeched to a halt and became this swirling, blurry mess in the background because her eyes were more perfect than any person's ever had any right to be. Every part of her was like that, really, but my god, her eyes. They were hypnotic, like powerful pale blue tractor beams and I was trapped. I couldn't look away even if I tried. I desperately wanted to introduce myself, nothing fancy, just a simple, "Hi, I'm Emily" would have been fine, but I couldn't because, at that moment, I didn't even know if I was Emily. I didn't know anything at all except that in a few seconds, in a single glance, my life had changed. Something cosmic just clicked into place and I really hoped she felt it too, because I had no idea what to do next. As I stood there, gaping like an idiot, another thought slowly managed to formulate itself in the blob of scrambled mush trying to pass as my brain:

Katie was now officially and completely absolved of all crimes against my sleep cycle. That, and she was going to be tackled into the hug to end all hugs the very instant I got home.

That be chapter uno. Chapter two is in the works, if it's of any concern to you lovely, lovely people of fandom.

(This is the part where I ask for reviews without asking for reviews.)

oh, P.S. the song is Back in Your Head by Tegan and Sara. If you don't know it, shame on you.