***ALEX***

When I emerge from my room after spending an hour up there, Juliet's nowhere to be found. Which sucks. Instead, I find Fionna idly changing channels in the living room. "Ooh, that Orphan Black marathon's still going on," she says after finally settling on BBC America. "You like that show, right, Feathers?"

"I love it," I say with a grin. Unfortunately, right now I can't really get interested in this installment of the misadventures of the sestras of Clone Club. I've got too much on my mind. When the next commercial break comes by, I tell Fionna how Juliet's been acting so weird since we came to the Second 'Verse.

"Like you haven't been acting weird yourself," she says.

"Yeah." I blush. "It's true."

"'Cause you're around me too," she says, looking down at the floor and collecting her thoughts. "You still love me, don't you?"

No response from me. Nothing verbal, anyway.

"If it's any consolation, I don't like it either," Fionna says, taking my hand. "I wanna be happy, but I want you to be happy too. Don't think you have to chase me to the far corners of the world - this one or the Prime one."

"I know. I know I shouldn't. But I can't help myself."

"Tell me about it."

"Literally or figuratively?"

Fionna shrugs. "Literally. Why not?"

"As you wish," I laugh. "Well, I...I just wish we could've had things be more normal for us. I'm always picturing it, how everything could've been different. We could've gotten together for the first time on that blind date, had that first double date with Gabe and Kyle...but then there wouldn't be any of that Red Rain shit. You wouldn't have died, Gabe wouldn't have died. I'd have been able to bring you home for Christmas to meet my mom - she would've loved you, I bet."

The music in Fionna's head turns up for a moment - "Everybody Loves Me" by OneRepublic.

"Exactly," I say. Holding her hand tighter, I continue. "And then we could've...after dinner, we could've laid out a blanket on the roof or the front lawn or something, and just...rested there. Looking up at the stars and holding hands." I wipe the tears from my eyes. "This is gonna sound so stupid, but...I don't think my life would be complete if I don't do that at least once before I graduate. Hold hands with a girl and look at the stars, that is."

Fionna can't help but laugh. "See, that's funny 'cause..." She lets go of my hand. "Not 'cause it's stupid, but 'cause it's different. Most boys your age have a more sexy goal in mind for before they graduate."

There is no way she doesn't want me to laugh along with her, not with the way she's sliding her left index and middle fingers through a circle made with her right index and thumb. Her goal is accomplished - I find myself guffawing at her suggestive gesture, even more tears streaming from my eyes as a result.

"Don't tell me that was part of your alternate-universe fantasy," she says.

"What, you mean us sleeping together?"

She nods. "Yeah, that."

"I'd like to think we would've gone all the way, yeah." I look at my feet, feeling my face flush. "I'd like to think that, by now, I would've come to love and trust you enough. Probably would've gotten a hotel room on prom night so we could've-"

"Okay, that's enough," Fionna snickers. "Yeah, you're right, that would be a perfect world for us. But you gotta admit, the experiences we did end up having, they were a hell of a lot more interesting."

"If by 'interesting' you mean 'deadly'-"

"Touché." She seems to deflate a bit, sinking into her seat, slouching and frowning. "Again, I'm sorry. I...I really do wanna see you go back home to those you love. I want you to be happy. But..." She looks up at the TV screen. "Can you blame me for wanting you to cuddle with me while we watch Orphan Black, and agreeing that Sarah's the hottest in Clone Club?"

I shake my head. "Yeah, Sarah's beautiful. And it's cool that you appreciate her looks, even though you're...wait, is this your way of saying you're bi?"

Fionna takes her turn to shake her head. "No, I just have a killer girl-crush on Sarah."

"Of course, I wouldn't mind if any girl I ever dated were bi," I say quickly. "I'm already dating one..." I cover my mouth, but it's too late. Juliet's open about her sexuality, but I shouldn't tell others about it. I don't tell people Gabe's gay if they don't know, for example.

"Ooh, party foul, Feathers."

I glare at her for a second, then do a facepalm. "Thanks for loosening my tongue."

"You're welcome. And don't worry, I can keep a secret."

"You rock."

Fionna lays her head on my shoulder, rubbing her cheek against me like a cute furry animal. Or like Tatiana Maslany - am I the only one who can totally see Maslany doing that?

"And as for the sestras" - Fionna snickers at my Helena impression - "you know which one I love the most?"

"Don't tell me-"

"Cosima."

As if on cue, Cosima herself shows up on screen, in all her bespectacled, dreadlocked glory, side by side with Allison in the bathroom - to the consternation of the passive-aggressive type who apparently adopted the latter (I heard some dialogue earlier confirming that she was Allison's mom), and can't believe her daughter has a "mulatto" doppelgänger.

"That's so ironic," Fionna says, "that you're crushed out on the lesbian clone."

"I thought she was bi," I say.

"Maybe, but remember 'As a lesbian...supporter?'"

"Oh yeah..." I stare up at the ceiling as that scene comes back to mind.

"Aww, you look so cute when you do that." Fionna keeps on doing her cheek-rubbing thing until I wriggle away from her. "Hey, but can I say something?"

"Shoot."

"Not literally?"

"You know it."

"You gotta keep our memory alive." She jabs her finger into my chest as she turns serious. "Mine and Gabe's. If we're really gonna be in here forever, then you have more than one person to protect in the Prime 'Verse." She looks up at me, the stern look on her face softening at the edges. "And we'll do the same for you. When we finally get to be guardians for our mortal selves, we'll be your guardians too. Count on it." I have to fight to not burst into tears as she slides up and kisses me on the lips. "You won't be alone, Alex," she whispers. "I swear to God."

"So," I ask, "are you saying you'd be like Kyle - ready to stop me if, say, I tried to kill myself?"

Those lips of hers twist into a frown, and she pulls away from me. "Don't even think about that," she says, looking stern once again. "I'd kill you first."

"No," Gabe says. "You'd kill him second. I'd be first."

Surprised, Fionna and I fall off the couch. She lands on top of me, and judging from the look on Gabe's face, our position looks every bit as sexual as I think it does.

"Uh...hi?" I say as we wave to him awkwardly. "Thanks for the heart attacks, by the way."

"Only for you, you cheeky bastard."

"How'd it go with Kyle?" I ask as Fionna grabs the edge of the coffee table and uses it to pull herself up.

Gabe sits to her left, while I sit to her right after I finally get back to my feet. "Weird," he says. "But not really in a bad way."

"Why?" Fionna asks. "'Cause you're connected and can't really explain why?"

"Um..." Gabe scratches his neck and laughs lightly. "Well, the weird thing is, Kyle and I...we're basically two guys who've never met before, and yet we know a suspicious amount of trivial shit about each other already." He folds his hands and purses his lips. "Can you imagine if you met Alex's human, Fionna? And you told him you were once dating another version of him who had wings and telepathy and power over water and ice?"

"I can imagine it's worse for you," I say, "'cause not only were you dating Kyle back home, you were sleeping with him too."

"Not regularly, but I get your point." Gabe starts to bite his lip. "And...yeah, I kinda want to sleep with this Kyle, just to feel better about all this. But...but it wouldn't be the same." He blinks a few times - is he about to cry? He's not known for producing a surplus of tears, except at the absolute worst of times, but I've learned to recognize the signs. "The Kyle I knew, and this Kyle, they're very different. And not just 'cause they have different hairstyle, different powers, even different species. Their personalities are different. I can't connect with scriv-Kyle like I did with angel-Kyle. Scriv-Kyle, he's got too much baggage. And he's not as open to opening up, you know what I mean?"

"I think so," Fionna says.

"So what are you gonna do with him?" I ask.

"Maybe I'll try and get intimate with scriv-Kyle eventually," Gabe says, "but first, I'll have to stop calling him 'scriv-Kyle.'" He chuckles to himself. "But...but if not, he says he'll still be there to help me out if I ever need it. And I probably will need it, being freshly dead and all."

"Help like what?" I ask.

"Moral support, mostly. And, if and when this is all over and I decide to throw myself into the dating game again...apparently, there's a pretty thriving gay scene in this 'verse."

"You don't seem like a 'scene' kind of dude," Fionna says.

"Well, if you consider Panic! at the Disco to be scene..." Gabe finally gets back into "you cheeky bastard" mode, raising his eyebrows at me.

"I don't," Fionna says, catching our shared glances, "but is there a good story here?"

"We used to dress like Panic! all the time when we were, like, seven or eight," I say, staring into space and fondly recalling those memories.

"I still can't believe they actually made kid-sized red suits for us!" Gabe says.

"I still can't believe Mom actually let us wear them to school," I say. Far from being mortified about it, though, we were both inordinately proud of what we called our "twindividuality." Maybe that was why nobody was foolish enough to beat us up at school that day. They only waited long enough for the gay slurs to make some amount of sense when used against one of us.

Stretching her arms, Fionna turns around and looks at the stairs, kneeling on the sofa in a strangely cat-like pose. "Are we supposed to be downstairs or anything?"

"Yeah, or maybe next door?" Gabe looks at the wall, as if expecting to see through it. "No, that's not one of my postmortem powers," he says. "The only specifically Second 'Verse one I've got is invisibility." He holds up his hand, allowing it to fade out of the visible spectrum. "I kinda hope I can learn to do force fields too," he says. "Like Sue Storm, or Violet Parr."

"Violet would be more your color," I say, nudging Fionna's arm. Under her fox hoodie, she's wearing one of her favorite striped long-sleeve tees - purple and pink, in this case.

"I wouldn't hold out for the force field thing," she says. She grabs Gabe's wrist and holds his invisible hand in front of her face, gazing right through it. "Trust me, that was one of the first things I asked about when I came here. They said it's very rare, and most people discover they have the ability by accident."

A backfiring noise sputters through Gabe's lips. "One of us has to discover it on purpose, then."

"'Has to?'" Fionna repeats, scoffing.

Orphan Black ends, and as the credits roll, I check the time. "Noon already?" I say. "It sure doesn't look like it's the middle of the day." I gesture to the windows, which show nothing but the same pitch-black sky.

"Yeah, how is it possible for anyone to be alive here?" Gabe asks. "I mean, you'd think that without the sun, there'd be no life. How...how do you get photosynthesis around here, for one thing?"

Fionna reaches up to twist some loose strands of hair around her fingers. She wears her hair in a shorter, messier style compared to when she was alive, with lightened tips. It suits her, I think. It makes her look a tad bit punky. "It's always warmer than you'd think, too," she says. "There were times in Bearville when it got downright sweltering." She lets go of her hair and adds, "And believe it or not, it's actually warmer up here than in Bearville, even though we're at a way higher altitude."

"Really?" I ask. "I hadn't noticed."

"Neither did I," says Gabe, "but remember, bro, she's been here longer. To us, this place is cold."

"Oh, and next time we go outside," Fionna says, "take a look at the streetlights. They've always got hella plants around them, and they're way brighter than streetlights in the Prime 'Verse." She ruffles Gabe's hair, laughing lightly. "Funny you should talk about photosynthesis - I'm thinking the streetlights are all UV lamps that help the plants grow."

"And keep our Vitamin D levels somewhere close to normal?" I get off the sofa and walk over to the top of the stairs. "Speaking of vitamin levels, you think they have lunch-worthy food next door?"

"It's gotta be better than the lightweight organic crap that's all over the kitchen in this place," Gabe says, turning his nose up at the kitchen's entrance. "At least the fair-trade coffee was good, but I'm not about to have that for every meal."

"That's a yes," I say. "Fi? What about you?"

Reaching for the remote control, she says, "Yeah, sure," before shutting the TV off.

"Cool." I lead the way downstairs. Before we make our way over to the next-door condo, I stop to look at the flowers planted near the parking lot entrance. As Fionna pointed out, they're illuminated by an extra-bright streetlight, with a bluish tint. I've seen UV lights glowing that same color before. Unwilling to risk a sunburn in this sunless place, I avoid the blue light, gravitating instead towards the more normal, warm-toned light above the front door of the Troys' main condo, where Gabe's already rung the doorbell.

"I don't blame you guys for coming here for lunch," Annie says as she opens the door for us. "The Troy boys aren't well-known for their cooking skills, except for Harlan. And even then...well, I'm sure by now, you've seen the mostly hideous selection of food he's got to choose from."

"Mostly, yeah," Gabe says as we climb the stairs to the second floor.

"I didn't know people actually drank wheatgrass juice," Fionna says. "Like, for real."

"Maybe it tastes better when you're high?" asks Kyle, who's upstairs in the dining room, munching on a ciabatta-roll sandwich.

Gabe and Fionna go off to join him, and I spot Juliet in the far corner of the room, picking at her own lunch. I approach her and apologize to her. "It was totally uncalled for," I say, "and-"

"It's all right." Juliet takes a bite of her sandwich, chews and swallows, then continues, "I shouldn't walk out on you for getting a little paranoid." She reaches for a glass of water and takes a sip.

My eyes flick over to Fionna just as something one of the boys says makes her laugh uproariously. I try not to think about the kisses and cuddles she just stole from me. "A little paranoia might be a little healthy."

I guess Juliet's in a bit of a mood for jokes after all, because she manages to snort some water up her nose as she laughs. Wiping her mouth and her streaming nose, she says in an undertone, "Well, that's our relationship issues taken care of, for now. Who should we put through couples therapy next?"

"I dunno. How 'bout Gideon and Luca?"

Juliet laughs almost as loudly as Fionna does. "Oh yeah, sure, let's call Luca and ask if he's still crushed out on Gideon. He totally is, isn't he?"

"He won't admit it, but..." I bury my face in my hands as I laugh along with her. Reflexively, my hand touches my back pocket, where my phone rests snugly between my ass and the chair in which it's sitting. "Can I call him from here, I wonder?"

"No, but I can give you a message from him," Annie says - evidently, she's been eavesdropping. "Russell and I, we have phones that can talk back and forth through the Terminal, and he just sent me a voicemail from Luca." She plays said voicemail on her phone, and I smile to myself, knowing Luca's all right.

Gabe and Fionna finally make their way to the dining room table as well. Annie directs us (along with the just-arrived Freddie) to the kitchen, where a sort of sandwich buffet is set up on the counter - a plate of bread, a plate of meats and cheeses, a plate of tomatoes, lettuce, bottles of ketchup, etc. After we make ourselves the lunches we want, she then offers to take us downstairs, where her dad and Park are still in the process of interrogating the would-be mini-golf gunman.

Right as we reach the foyer, the doorbell rings again. Everyone who isn't Annie freezes. Freddie, Fionna, and Kyle, in particular, actually look wildly around the confined space - for cover, I'd guess. Annie, however, shows us that our current caller is no threat - although she's the only one who delivers a remotely warm greeting to Thompson Holly as he comes through the door, his elegant black cane tapping on the floor with each step.

"Hello, children," he says, shaking hands all around. Annie's the only one who doesn't look visibly reluctant to do so. "I suppose you were on your way to witness the interrogation?"

"Don't tell us we can't," I say. "Especially not me, 'cause I was there to see that guy get caught."

"And you lent a hand in his apprehension," Thompson says, "so you do have the right to learn more about why he was. It should give you some much-needed context about why you're here." He looks around, then walks over to the laundry room and places his hand on the wall. "And since you would, in all probability, inform your comrades about what you see and/or hear anyway, they're all invited along as well." A hidden panel retracts, exposing a keypad into which he types a code. Eleven digits. I follow the first three - "677" - but after that, I lose track of which buttons he presses. Except the final button, which is 5. "A word of warning, though - the observation cubicle is not much larger than this laundry room, so it will, literally, be standing room only. The tallest among us - that is, Mr. Prado and the twins - will want to be in the back so the rest of us can get a decent view."

Once we're all in place downstairs (Thompson wasn't kidding about how cramped the observation room was), he turns the lights off and directs our attention to the two-way glass, through which we see Jensen and Park facing the lone gunman and his resting bitch face. Thompson then presses a button on the console beneath the window, and a small red light turns on as we hear the conversation come in from the other side.

"Let me get this straight, Florin," Jensen says. "You were not there at the mini-golf course to commit a gruesome mass murder?"

"I only wanted to meet my contact," Florin says, his voice unusually deep. I say "unusually" because, at second glance, based on his fresh-skinned face (which bears only the faintest hint of stubble), he's a lot younger than I first thought. Probably my age, at most. It makes my stomach turn over, thinking about the possibility of Holly getting people so young to work for him. Of course, anyone on his side who met me would probably be equally disturbed. They might even think I'd been brainwashed or something.

"And your contact was Marian Aspen-Troy?" Park says, sounding quite incredulous.

Annie can't help but gasp - I guess nobody informed her about her mom after all. Thompson leans forward, an intent look on his face. This must be news to him too.

"Obviously not," says Florin. "The real Marian wouldn't have left me to be taken away. She must've been a plant by you guys." He looks at Park with undisguised, unfiltered contempt. "And I knew it was a bust when I saw you and that other guy come after me. That's why I shot my weapon - as a warning."

"Should we believe you?" asks Jensen.

"Believe it, boss," Florin says. "My dad - Dan Florin, Sr. - he went to Heaven and killed himself for Holly." His ugly mask cracks, and he begins to cry. "That's why I went looking for people who claimed they'd been to the Third 'Verse. I-I just wanted answers! And y-you guys tricked me! You t-t-took it away from me!"

"We didn't trick you," Jensen says. "I dunno who that woman was you wanted to meet, but based on my colleague's description, I'm inclined to believe she really was Marian. But how did you find her? She's..."

"Dead, I know," Florin says, wiping his nose with cuffed hands. "But she Skyped me, and I recognized her right away. That's why I thought she was the real deal."

"She very well could've been," Jensen says. "Of course...Florin, do you realize what this means?"

At this point, Annie can't stay. She steps aside, mutters something about telling Russell, and leaves the room. She's crying too, as we can all attest - because for a few seconds, we look not at the interrogation-turned-conversation in the next room, but at the dark staircase up which she's just disappeared.