Not all research [[Kaine]]

[adifferentlife]

The library has turned into a wonderful resource for Sybil. Always an avid reader, she's discovered the books there are the best way to catch up on all that has happened in the years since her own time and the time most people in Darrow are from. Her choices that day aren't all for research, copies of the first two Anne of Green Gables books, A Princess of Mars (which had a rather scandalous cover), and The Primrose Ring. All books of her own time and all for comfort, to help offset the history books she has piled up on a table.

Her true delight was discovering that the library has phonograph records. She looks through the titles recognising so few. Finally she pulls out Gershwin and Billie Holiday almost at random. American composers and an American singer. It suits, she thinks, with all the Americans here.

Content with her finds, she settles back in at the out of the way table she's picked, determined to skim through the 1940s and 1950s before the library shuts.

Comments

[badtotheclone]

"When I first came, I thought it was... maybe because of something I'd done."

Putting on a costume and running around helping people generally seemed to be a magnet for weird shit. It was easy to see though that wasn't the case for everyone. Unless Sybil had one hell of a secret identity, I doubted that she was a superhero. Besides, the only other superhero I'd met couldn't have been Sybil.

"But I don't think that's it anymore. If the people have something in common, I haven't noticed it."

[adifferentlife]

"I wish that we did." Her observations had been much of the same. Trying for patterns and finding none. Sybil had hoped that maybe someone else had seen patterns she could not. "If there was some purpose or meaning to this, something that wasn't simply so random."

[badtotheclone]

"Maybe if it's random, it will be easier to get back," I say.

If someone wanted me in particular here, they'd probably fight harder to keep me here. If it was random, maybe I could find a way out or get sent back just like I had arrived here. Just walking along and suddenly I'd be back in Houston.

"Are you... do you want to get back badly?"

[adifferentlife]

"I miss my family. My work. I am learning a great deal here, but my work there had more purpose." It is a hard question, becoming harder every day she spends in this place. "My sisters- I cannot remember being apart from them for so long before this."

"But I have friends here."

[badtotheclone]

I miss people back home too, which is new for me. Aracely, Annabelle, Layton and Medland, all of them people I've formed some sort of bond with. I'm not sure if I like it or not. It's too foreign for me to completely be okay with it. I miss them, but I don't dwell on it.

"What are your sisters like?"

[adifferentlife]

"They're my sisters," she smiles, shy for a moment as she looks up to Kaine whilst they walk. "They're hard to explain. Mary... She's the eldest. She can also be the cruelest at times, used to winning I suppose. But she's kind inside, she's kind and loving she just keeps up a wall. Edith... Edith is thoughtful, and never nearly as good at things as Mary, except she always competed in Mary's games. Her smile is the loveliest thing, she shines when she is in her element."

[badtotheclone]

I wonder what it's like to have family like that, that you can talk about with the sound of affection in your voice. My own little family is so complicated it's ridiculous and I doubt my only living "relative" would even consider me when it came time to work out the family tree.

Sybil is lucky, but something tells me that she knows it. Even though she's, presumably, ridiculously well off she seems to not take things for granted.

"I'd like to meet them sometime. Ah, except that means they'd be stuck here. Which would be bad."

[adifferentlife]

"If you could meet them, if we could go there I would take you." Sybil says it intently, thinking she would offer the same to Lucy or Katie. Kaine, though, might be harder to explain to her parents, but she is sure she could manage. "They can be difficult sometimes, but I love them very much. What about you? You never talk of your family."

[badtotheclone]

"I- "

I what? I sort of had a father? I sort of had a brother and still do sort of have one? What about Spidercide or any of the other clones? No, I don't think she wants or needs to hear all of that.

"No, I don't. Yours sounds nice though."

[adifferentlife]

"You have no family?" It's a question, her eyes filled with concern and with curiosity. Sybil stops them, her fingers light on his arm as she turns to face him. "Did you lose them?"

[badtotheclone]

Her touch feels odd to me. Light, gentle touch is still something I'm not used to at all.

"No, I don't have family."

I don't know how I'd explain it to her. I don't know if I want to. How would she react to finding out I was grown in a lab? Not only that, but I'm a clone of someone else. She's kind, but I'm a freak.

[adifferentlife]

"An orphan," she nods as if that explains it entirely. It's the only other option as far as she can see, at least the only one that makes sense in her own world, a world that is how to escape. "That must be difficult."

[badtotheclone]

"It's all I know."

I figure letting her think I'm an orphan is the best way to go. It's a lie, but it will be the easiest way for her to understand it. I can tell myself it's for her sake I avoid the truth.

"And complaining about it doesn't change it."

[adifferentlife]

"You hardly seem the type to complain," she hasn't heard him do so yet, even when he had a bullet in his back. It makes her curious, for he isn't a happy person either, serious and sometimes seeming confused. No, confused isn't the right word, unsure of how to fit into place perhaps? Sybil sighs, dropping her hand, "but then we don't know each other very well in the end, do we Kaine?"

[badtotheclone]

I feel bad about that. Knowing me better would not be a good thing for her, but she seems to feel bad about it. Maybe for normal people that's an issue, wanting to feel connected to people. I usually feel the opposite, but the way she talks about her family I'm guessing she's not used to be around people who are such strangers to her.

"I know you're smart. You care about people because you think all people are worth caring about. You work hard but you're not, ah, obsessed with your work in an unhealthy way. You're resilient and strong but not... hard."

[adifferentlife]

His words make her pause, her chin tilted as she considers him and what he's just said. It's a compliment she thinks, but also a more honest assessment of her character than she's heard from anyone but Branson. Strange, she thinks, she wonders if Branson would like Kaine, or if he'd be jealous somehow of their friendship.

The thoughts are all too confusing and Sybil puts them away for the moment. "Maybe you do know me better than I give you credit for."

[badtotheclone]

I'm not sure how most girls would react to what I've said, but the thoughtful pause Sybil gives doesn't seem typical at all. I think that's one of the things I like about her, Sybil always seems to be thinking. I can see how men of her age, or any age, might be intimidated by that.

"Maybe I'm just terrible at showing I do."

[adifferentlife]

"Which is not the worst thing to be, is it? I think you try your best to not show things, whether it be pain or confusion or upset." Sybil thinks he deserves her honesty as he's given her his. "I'm not sure that you're used to having friends, but I would like us to be. Friends, that is."

[badtotheclone]

If Sybil had met me a few years ago, she might not think that. I was nothing but ranting, raw emotion. Some of that was still there, and I had to keep it at bay. That's why I didn't show it, because what was there wasn't safe to show.

"I... would like to be friends."

I shouldn't, it wasn't safe for her, but if I told her no... well, maybe this place would be better. Safer.

[adifferentlife]

"Good. Then we shall be." Sybil nods as if that has decided everything. Any doubts, the voices of her sisters she can practically hear, she pushes those away. This is a new place and a new life for her. "That's settled."

[badtotheclone]

I'm not sure if such a formal declaration is necessary with all friendships, just those with people from the early twentieth century, or just those with Sybil, I kind of like it. It doesn't leave any room for wondering where you stand. Very practical.

"I sort of have two brothers," I say after a moment, feeling like after all that, I owe her something about my personal life. "One of them died and the other is... it's complicated."

[adifferentlife]

"It is often complicated with family," Sybil agrees with him, the empathy in her voice reflected in her eyes, "I am sorry. It must be hard, to lose someone so close."

[badtotheclone]

"We weren't really close but... he was a good man. Selfless and never let bad circumstances make him be a bad person."

I don't think I'll ever understand Ben or Peter. I made Ben's life hell and he still never let it make him a monster and Peter's life has never been easy but all their tragedy just made them better. That's how I know I'm a monster. Same genetics and a completely different response.

"I still don't- I don't know why he's dead and I'm not."

[adifferentlife]

That's something she's heard over and over from soldiers in her care. Why did they live when a friend, a brother in arms died? It's not something she has an answer to, for all that she wishes that she did.

"Kaine," Sybil reaches out to him again, this time hooking her hand in his elbow as if he was guiding her. It's a light touch still, but her fingers tense as she looks up and sees something different in him. "I wish life were fair, but you musn't think you don't deserve this. You can only live the best life you can and honour their memories."

The same thing she's said to so many soldiers, meaning it every time.

[badtotheclone]

"I don't deserve this."

I know that without a doubt. Maybe I didn't deserve to die the first time the Jackal tried to kill me, but I've deserved it a hundred times over since then. Ben didn't deserve to die. I certainly didn't deserve to come back from the dead and be given this second chance.

"So there has to be a reason," I say. "And I just- I have to keep doing my best. But I need to try and understand why he died and I didn't."