Above the Clouds

“Home?” Sarah echoed blankly, then looked around, and slapped herself on the forehead.

“Where the bloody hell is Rachel?” The hallway was empty except for the two of them. “Is she still...wait...does Columbia still, um...exist?” She scratched at her head, then dragged her hands down over her face. Had they travelled through a Tear to another world, or to another part of that world, and if Sarah ever got back to New York, would it be the same city she had left? She could barely remember a time when she hadn’t known about crazy cities floating in the sky, or lurking in the ocean, or wherever else they were hiding.

Helena wobbled a hand back and forth and shrugged.

“Rachel is...fine,” she said. “Safe. Not here. But - “ she spread her fingers out and wiggled them. “Should I?”

Sarah considered this.

“Maybe later,” she sighed. “When I’ve got an idea of what the hell is going on.” She raised her eyebrows at Helena expectedly.

“I’ll show you!” Helena took Sarah by the hand and began to lead her towards a large metal door at the end. There was a small panel with a lever to the right of the door, which Helena pushed downwards, and the door rolled upwards, buzzing quietly. They walked into a large area with luxurious looking sofas placed at intervals along the walls, with small round tables and ashtrays between them. A martini glass sat on one table, next to a well dressed woman with dark hair tucked under a little veiled hat, and legs elegantly crossed under a full skirted dress that just covered her knees. She flicked through the pages of a magazine disinterestedly, as if just passing time.

She glanced up at the two women who had just entered, skipping over Helena and fixing on Sarah, looking her up and down. Sarah automatically treated her to a cocky half-smile, and the woman sniffed and went back to her magazine, which was evidently much more interesting now.

“Pfft, her loss,” Sarah muttered, but she looked down at herself and wrinkled her nose. She’d been living in these clothes for days now. Meanwhile, the nagging feeling of forgetfulness was growing stronger, and the headache, while still mild, was threatening to become worse every second.

Another one of the metal doorways was directly ahead of them. Brightly shining lights spelled out ‘Rapture Metro’. Over to the right was a vending machine, but instead of the mustachioed automatens from Columbia, there was a loudly colourful illustration of a clown on the top. CIRCUS OF VALUES, it proclaimed. Sarah found herself gripping Helena’s hand tightly, too tightly, surely. But Helena didn’t seem to notice, gazing around her like a kid in a candy shop.

“Sarah,” she said happily, “Don’t you remember?”  She tugged at her hand again and ran forward. The door to the Metro opened and they ran down a flight of stairs and then a cavernous passage with elegantly carved columns lining the sides. Music was playing from small speakers mounted on the walls, a woman with a sadly husky voice sang about heartache. They turned to the right at the end of the passage and Sarah stopped dead.

There were tall windows along one wall, facing a small number of stone walkways with red carpet running down the centre, and strange spherical things shining brassily in the fan-shaped lights above. They bobbed gently in the water that rippled between the walkways.

“I...I’ve been here,” Sarah said uncertainly, and rubbed her forehead, the ache beginning to pulse in her temples. “But it was - “ she looked around again, at the bright and elegant lights, the quietly gleaming rubbish bins dotted around, a glowing glass-doored cubicle with the words ‘Vita-Chamber’ spelled out in neon letters atop it. “It was different. Older?” She followed behind Helena as she skipped towards one of the round boat things. “Bathysphere!” Sarah snapped her fingers as the word popped into her head and out of her mouth. Her face screwed up as her skull began to pound, and she fell onto a plushly velvet seat inside the bathysphere, head in hands.

Helena pushed a lever in the wall of the bathysphere, and it hummed. The door clunked shut, and water rose up around them as the bathysphere submerged. She took a seat next to Sarah and touched her shoulder softly.

“It’s a doorway,” she said, twirling a finger in her hair. “And a city.” She paused, dreamily staring at nothing. “They’re all doorways.”

Sarah lifted her aching head and looked at her blearily.

“Doorways? To where?” Her foot tapped on the polished floor, in time with the blood pounding through her temples. “You said this was home, before. Is this where you and Rachel were before Columbia?” There was a small window in the door of the bathysphere, and Sarah could see they were moving down some kind of vertical tunnel, past all kinds of posters advertising what looked like vigors, but seemed to be called Plasmids here. Then they went sideways, and then straight ahead and the whole of the underwater city opened up before her eyes.

She moved closer to the window and stared at the sprawl of buildings, thousands of lights spreading out across the ocean floor. Long glass corridors connected the buildings, and Sarah could see little figures ambling back and forth. Tiny silvery fish and jewel-toned fish and sharks and octopi swam around and over and under the infrastructure and the bathysphere.

“It’s called Rapture,” Helena said quietly, “Don’t you remember, Sarah?” She hummed a few bars of a song but stopped when Sarah grasped her head again.

“Why do you keep saying that?” she snapped. “I’m not from here! I grew up in..in London. My foster mum, my...my brother…” The pounding in her behind her eyes deepened. She was dimly aware of whirring noises, metallic sounds, as the bathysphere slowed, moved sideways, and then began ascending again.

Images were flashing through her mind, faces and places and none of it made any sense. The green place...the little girls...her foster mum’s face...she could see them over and over...but memories of the foster brother she didn’t know the name of anymore, even her long journey to New York...all slipping away. Her fingers dug into her scalp as she tried to stop the memories leaking.

The bathysphere jerked to a halt, and she felt Helena take her around the shoulders and help her up and out into a chamber of polished stone, and bronzed panels of stylised oceanic art. She followed the white-clad figure up flights of stairs. Lights came flickering on as they moved upwards, and Sarah numbly held onto Helena with one hand, their fingers locked. She could hear Helena humming softly.

Her headache had eased, but still felt like someone was gently but relentlessly squeezing it in their hands, which she supposed was slightly better than doubling her over with pain.

“Helena,” she muttered, freeing her hand so she could look at the scar on the back of it, “Rachel…she said…” Sarah frowned, trying to remember. “She said...I did this to my hand. And it was me that did...that to her eye.” She shook her head and the pressure grew tighter, her thoughts more confused.  She ran her fingers over the initials on her hand, traced them.

H.M.

Helena had turned to watch her, her own hands folded behind her back.

Sarah looked up again.

“Why can’t I remember?” she said, starting to walk again, unable to keep still. “You do, yeah? You remember...everything?”

Helena hummed in agreement, walking beside her. Sarah kept rubbing her thumb over the letters on her hand, back and forth.

“You and Rachel,” she said slowly. “And me.”

Skipping ahead, Helena didn’t answer but disappeared into the gloom ahead. Lights blinked on, revealing the top of the stairs. Sarah blinked, frowned, and joined her at the door.

“I’ll show you,” said Helena, reaching out to touch Sarah’s face with a fingertip.

“Yeah, you said that already,” Sarah snapped, jerking her head away - immediately regretting it when the headache flared up. Helena’s mouth turned down at the corners, and she opened the door, stepping out into a starlit night.  Sarah followed her and stared around, then up.

They stood at the bottom of a lighthouse. It looked like it was made of stone, with a kind of statue on top that held up a great round light. Sarah rubbed her forehead. Wasn’t the light supposed to go round and round, not just…

“All the doors…” she heard Helena say quietly. “All opening.” She twirled around slowly, the white dress shimmering in the night. “They’re so beautiful, Sarah!”

When Sarah stopped staring at the light on top of the stone tower, she noticed all the other lights. And lighthouses. Her hand paused on her forehead as she gaped, turning around in a dazed circle. Hundreds of lighthouses, thousands...lights shining all around them, stretching out further than she could see, into a night sky filled with the brightest stars she’d ever seen. For a moment everything else dropped away.

Helena was right - they were beautiful.

“The stars?” she said, knowing even as she said that wasn’t what they were. Helena stepped closer and tentatively took her hand again. Sarah let her, and gave her an apologetic half-smile before raising her eyebrows at the next strange sight. A walkway was springing up out of the ocean - stone slabs slamming together, and curving out through the waves to another lighthouse.

Helena smiled back at her, tugged at her hand.

Sarah followed.

When they reached the door of the next lighthouse, Helena pulled on the handle, frowning when she found it locked. Sarah tried kicking it but only got a sore toe.

“I thought…” Helena said faintly, “Once I was here...it would…” She closed her eyes and concentrated, her free hand squeezing into a fist. Sarah could see the silvery light began to glow along her hair and skin again, until Helena smiled and opened her eyes. They glowed as well, but the light slowly ebbed away until they returned to the same greenish-brown that Sarah’s were.

She opened her hand and there was a key in it. It looked like the key that Sarah had brought to Columbia, the one that had opened the door in the tower. But when Helena twirled it in her fingers, she could see that there was no engraving on it.

“Where’d you get that from?” Sarah asked, automatically patting her own pockets. She couldn’t even remember what had happened to the original key anyway.

Helena gave a sort of breathless laugh.

“It was always there.” She kept spinning the key in her fingers, around and around. “I just. Couldn’t see it. Before.” She grinned suddenly, sharp-toothed, tossing the key up into the air and catching it, then sliding it into the lock. The door opened, and Sarah followed her through another doorway…

...that led to exactly where they had been.

“Wait…” Sarah turned and looked up. It was a lighthouse. But it was smooth, white, with windows, and a proper big flashing light on top.

It was the lighthouse that had led her to Columbia. She gazed around. Another whole ocean of lighthouses, all exactly alike. Another sky full of lights.

“See?” Helena whispered, in a delighted voice. “Doors. Not stars.”

Another walkway was rising out of the sea, wooden this time, planks and railings slotting together as Helena half-skipped forward, and Sarah wandered along behind in a kind of daze. Her head had stopped aching altogether at some point. Now it was just full of a kind of fog of half-glimpsed memories, and the sense that if she went blundering forward waving her arms around, they’d just all...blow away in the wind.

“Where do they all go?” Sarah asked. “The doors, I mean. Where did they come from?” The sound of the wooden walkways rising and the water splashing aside was louder now, and as she looked around in wonder, she could see them connecting all the lighthouses together - an infinite number of docks.

The bright lights were beginning to dim, but it was only because the sun was rising, the sky just beginning to hold hints of gold and pink and blue. Sarah squinted, staring out to sea with a hand shading her eyes, and could see nothing but lighthouses from here to forever.

“What is all this?” she waved her hand at the view.

Helena tapped a finger on her chin, gazing at what Sarah assumed was the east, the hint of sunlight making her eyes shine.

“A million different worlds,” she said lightly. “A million million. All different. All similar.” She reached out, twining her fingers into Sarah’s and pulling her close enough so their shoulders touched. “Constants. And variables.”

Sarah thought, her brow scrunching up.

“Like...all the different Columbia’s?” She felt like maybe she was starting to understand. Some of it, anyway.

“Like that.” Helena nodded. “There’s always a lighthouse. There’s always a city.” She squeezed Sarah’s hand, so tightly that it hurt. “There’s always...us.”

“Us,” Sarah echoed. She raised her right hand, still holding onto Helena’s, and turned her wrist so she could see the letters carved into the skin.

It was so obvious.

“Helena Manning,” she breathed, an image solidifying through the fog in her mind, two little girls running together along a glass corridor, the ocean outside. She blinked back sudden tears, and glanced up at Helena to find her doing the same, lips pressed tightly together, but smiling widely.

“Shit,” Sarah rubbed her eyes, ‘I don’t...what happened to us?” She began to walk blindly forward, Helena nudging her to the left a little so she didn’t walk straight off into the ocean, as another memory surfaced in her mind. The office back in New York, late afternoon sun clawing through the pulled down blinds, empty bottles lined up on her desk. Taking a swig of the half-full bottle at her elbow, then digging the switchblade out of her waistcoat and…

She shuddered.

“Part of you remembered,” Helena told her, rubbing her thumb over Sarah’s scar as they reached the next lighthouse. She opened the door and they walked in. Or out. This time Sarah wasn’t surprised to find another array of lighthouses - these ones were slightly different, thinner maybe, or made of different material. She thought about the music that had escaped into Columbia through the Tears.

“Different worlds, different times…” It was unbelievable, or at least, it would be if everything that had happened in the last few days hadn’t happened.

“Yes,” Helena said. Her eyes took on a faraway look, glowing slightly. “I can...see them all. You and me. Columbia. Rapture. Songbird…” she sighed, and kept walking along the curving wooden walkways that were sprouting up everywhere. They came to yet another door, but this time when they entered, Sarah stumbled at the sight of gleaming white floors and frosted glass and gigantic windows that looked out on a city that was bigger and shinier than even the New York of the future she had already seen.

None of the people hurrying past seemed to notice them - the woman in sharp high heels and sharper faces, or the men in suits and ties. There were some in white coats, like doctors, and Sarah scowled at them, without even knowing why, grabbing Helena by the arm when it looked like she was about to walk right through them.

Helena shrugged with one shoulder.

“They can’t see us,” she murmured. “We’re just. Ghosts.”

Something compelled Sarah to turn around, and when she did, pulling Helena with her, she found herself staring through a glass wall at two young women standing shoulder to shoulder, studying a piece of paper, who were...who looked…

“That’s…” she stuttered, “They’re…”

They were both dark-haired, like Sarah, but one wore hers up in a convoluted twist of braids, the other long and sleek and straight, flowing behind her ears and down her neck. They wore black, and white, and Sarah instinctively knew which one was her and which one was Helena.

And somehow, something about them reminded her of Rachel.

She felt lightheaded, even more so when the two women raised their heads as one and looked back at her with identical eyes. Their faces flickered with a controlled set of emotions that Sarah was sure no one but her would notice - mild curiosity, tenuous concern, subtle disdain. One placed a hand on the others arm, as if to stop her from moving, even though she had remained as still a statue.

Sarah felt an undeniable wrongness creeping in and began to back away.

“I thought you said they couldn’t see us,” she hissed at Helena, who was also staring, twisting a finger into her blonde curls, eyes flicking back and forth between the two women.

She flapped her other hand nonchalantly, and pulled Sarah through the next available door. Once they stepped through, they were in another room - or a series of rooms; a basement - empty, musty smelling, and dingily lit. Stick figures covered the walls. Helena blinked rapidly. Sarah felt an overwhelming sadness, absentmindedly rubbing at her temples.

They hurriedly stepped through another door, and this time Sarah was relieved to see the ocean of lighthouses. The light had changed to the slow gold of late afternoon, reflecting off the white round walls.

“Constants and variables,” Sarah echoed. The two of them began to walk along the wooden planks that were still rising up ahead, and when Sarah’s eye was caught by movement, she was surprised - but somehow not surprised at all - to see another version of herself and Helena mirroring them on another walkway. When she turned and saw another version, another, and another, multiple copies of the two of them, walking along in pairs, one for every lighthouse in sight, she began to laugh.

“It’s us!” she said, as she waved an arm in the general direction of everywhere, hysteria touching the edges of her words, not sure how many more of herself she could take.

Helena tilted her head.

“Yes,” she agreed, “and no.” Her face unfocused for a moment. “We swim in different oceans,” her voice sounded distant, and Sarah gulped some air down, tried to get herself together. “But we land on the same shore.” She shivered, noticed Sarah watching her, and bit her lip. “It always starts. With a lighthouse.” She looked up, craning her neck, and Sarah did too.

Both of them gazed at the slowly flashing light, turning and signaling.

To what, Sarah wondered, no ships would be coming here. She sighed heavily.

“I still don’t understand...most of this shite,” she admitted, still looking upwards. “I mean, the other...worlds and…” Her shoulders hunched as she slid her hands into her pockets.

“It’ll happen anyway,” Helena told her, mouth twitching up at one corner. “It always does.” She turned to take in the other lighthouses, the other moving pairs of themselves. “It always has. It always will.”

Sarah turned too, but only looked at Helena.

“So, what happens now? I mean...where do we go?” Her shoulders slumped. “I still don’t remember...I mean. You and me...but what about Rachel?” The anger came bubbling back up, fists clenching in her pockets. “What she did to you, Helena, you’re just gonna...let that go?”

Helena looked away, her jaw moving like she was chewing on something. Then she nodded at the door in front of them.

“It’s time,” she sighed, and held out her hand. Sarah glared at it, then rolled her eyes and freed a hand so she could take it. As their fingers curled around each other, though, she felt like she never wanted to let go.

This time when they walked through the doorway, music was playing, the same crackling voice that sounded exhausted by heartbreak crooned from the corners. Sarah looked around, and saw they were back in Rapture. Every movement echoed off the water behind them - there were no bathyspheres waiting, and it was dimmer than before. Sarah squinted upwards and saw a few of the fan-shaped light fittings were dark.

The pain had stopped hovering, and now her head felt like there was glass shards inside it.

“This way,” Helena said. They moved quickly down a passageway, up a flight of stairs. Lights buzzed off and on. The entire atmosphere was somehow seedier. As they passed through another area with sofas and tables, empty now of well-dressed women, Sarah’s eye was caught by a large poster hanging by one corner. It had a white rabbit face on it, and brightly coloured confetti, and the words ‘Rapture Masquerade Ball 1959’ in shiny gold lettering.

“1959?” she said loudly. The eyes in the rabbit face stared at her and she wanted to run. “We’re in 1959?”

Helena shook her head.

“Nineteen sixty, ” she answered, looking out the windows at the deep green darkness.

“Why,” Sarah said blankly, leaning against the glass, her back to the view. If she couldn’t see it, maybe it wasn’t really there. Her head ached.

Helena breathed on the window, and traced her finger through the condensation, drawing a little stick figure. Her head tilted to one side, and she added another, so they held tiny stick hands. “If I just tell you, it won’t work. I think.” She nudged Sarah’s shoulder with her own and pointed at the drawing. Sarah looked, her mouth turning up at the corners, then down again at the memory of that creepy basement covered with the same  drawings.

“It’s us,” she said.

Helena nodded and took Sarah’s hand again, pulling her away from the window.

“I need to show you.” She pointed at another metal door. “This way.”

Sarah tried to keep up, but as every step landed, it sent a jagged pain across her skull. Whatever it is she has to show me, I hope it doesn’t make my head explode.

They went through the door, down another corridor, and out into a huge open space. Sarah looked up. It reminded her a little of the atrium in Comstock House - the same kind of domed ceiling made of glass at the top, and several levels with balconies underneath. But here it was clothing stores and tobacco shops and music and booze and...the sign on the tobacco shop leapt out at her, and Sarah scrambled in the satchel, still miraculously around her shoulder, fingers closing around the box.

Le Marquis D'Époque. The sign and the box matched.

“I s’pose the damn Luteces just happened to have this lying around,” she muttered, angry but not entirely sure why anymore. The box went back in the satchel. Then she looked around again, noticing the other strange thing. “Where are all the people?” she asked Helena, following her down some steps and across an marble-tiled floor that made up the bottom of the atrium. The stores all seemed to be closed, and there was an eerie silence about the place.

They walked up another short set of steps and into another corridor, all curved white walls and polished floors. Halfway along there were bloody handprints on the wall and scorch marks on the floor.

“There’s a war,” Helena informed her matter-of-factly.

Sarah rubbed at her temples.

“Great,” she said, “I was missin’ the constant gunfire and almost gettin’ killed parts of life.” At least if I get my head blown off it’ll stop achin’

They turned a corner and Helena pointed upwards.

Across the way was a huge building front entirely constructed of glass. Silver letters glittered across the top of the entrance, spelling out DYAD. Sarah shook her head, something sour in her gut stirring.

“I don’t..” she began, but Helena pulled at her hand, patting at it like she was a little girl.

“It’s okay, Sarah,” she crooned, “We’re nearly there.”

When they got closer, Sarah realised this building too was closed and silent. It just sat there, shining, like some giant abandoned palace of ice. But when she craned her neck back, hands cupping the back of her head in case it fell off, she was sure she could see movement here and there, vaguely human shapes scurrying about behind the glass. The front doors were locked, but Helena didn’t seem surprised, and she led them around the side of the building to another, less ostentatious door. It should have been locked too, but Helena put a single finger on the handle and it opened. Sarah’s head hurt too much for her to wonder why she hadn’t opened the front doors that way, she just followed the white dress. The edge of it had dirt and blood on it now.

The DYAD interior was all white and bright, hallways with tiled floors and windowed rooms - offices, laboratories. A few serious looking people in white coats hurried past but didn’t seem to notice the two strange women wandering around their facility. At this point, Sarah didn’t even care - if any of them even looked at her crooked, she’d punch them.

She just wanted the pain in her head to stop.

“Here,” Helena whispered into her ear, and opened another door that led into a less shiny area, with fewer windows. They walked down a hallway with identical doors lining either side, then into an airy open area that looked like a school, or some sort of childcare centre, with toys lying around, and books stacked haphazardly stacked on low tables. There were two little girls sitting on the floor in a corner, both with long dark hair in messy braids, and matching grubby pinafore dresses. One giggled and said loudly,

“I can smell an angel! ” Both their heads turned, and they looked directly at Helena.

Sarah startled, jerking backwards. The little girls had glowing golden eyes. Just like the little monster girls in Comstock House, just like the girls in her dreams, or visions, or nightmares, or whatever the hell. Panic started to rumble up her ribcage.

“I know you!” chirped the other girl. “Sunshine made you big!”

Helena nodded and grinned widely at the girls. She guided Sarah out another door and down another hallway.

“Those girls…” Sarah hissed, “Comstock House...attacked me…” Her words broke up as she paused to wipe the blood trickling from her nose. “Oh, shite…” The blood kept coming and the pounding headache was throbbing now. Everything she looked at had sharp edges to it. Voices from up ahead wobbled and then grew louder, clearer.

“No, no, no, no!” The voice was loud, but sounded young. “Bad man! Get ‘im Mr B, unzip him, unzip him!”

Helena took a deep breath and put her hand in Sarah’s - not tugging her along this time, but as if she needed reassurance. Sarah had dug around for a handkerchief in her pockets, and was now holding a crumpled ball of linen to her nose to stem the flow. When she looked at Helena’s pale face, she felt like she was looking into a mirror.  Then she focused on the scene playing out in front of them. The little blonde girl with wild curls escaping from her braids. The little dark haired girl climbing up to join her. Climbing up a hulking metal shape with glowing lights covering a big round helmet and bellowing a sound that was distinctly inhuman, but still full of rage. The whirring of the big drill that served as an arm. It was bloody and now she saw the bodies in white coats on the floor, the shocked face of a woman across the way.

Maty?

Sarah staggered, half-turned, and leaned against a wall, pressing her forehead against the cool plaster.

How many times had she dreamed about this? Heard the screams in her sleep? More to the point - how the hell had she forgotten? Her head felt like it was splitting open now, the memories rolling over her like waves, and she clasped her hands over her ears and let herself drop to her knees.

Her and Helena, the orphanage, the Little Sisters, Rapture, Mama Tenenbaum...all of it battled with the false memories of the life she’d thought she’d had.

The blood slowly dripped from her nose onto the floor, and she was vaguely aware of Helena keeping close.

As she always had done, she thought numbly. Until …

The screams and the metallic banging faded away, and the pain in Sarah’s head followed like the tide. When she opened her eyes again, Helena was there, softly stroking the dark hair away from her face. Sarah felt drained.

“Sestra,” Helena murmured soothingly, her hand rhythmic, her face suddenly swimming in the tears that welled up in Sarah’s eyes.

“‘lena…” she replied hoarsely, the name she hadn’t used in so long falling from her mouth, and she grabbed at the hand on her hair, lacing her fingers through her sister’s.

Her sister. Sarah flung her other arm around the blonde curls, and pulled her in, feeling teeth bared in a grin against her cheek before Helena nuzzled into her neck. For a quiet moment they sat on the floor holding each other. For the first time in over a year, Sarah couldn’t feel that hole inside her, the one she’d poured so much bourbon into trying to fill. She buried her face in Helena’s hair.

At the sound of a door opening, Sarah’s head jerked up and looking around wildly, saw that they were now in a room with pink striped walls and a pink rug and two small beds. Distracted, she thought our room? It was as messy as the day they had left it - which, Sarah supposed, was actually today . Why weren’t they out there stopping it? They could change everything and -

“Who are you?” The child’s voice was instantly familiar, and somehow subtly wrong.

Sarah stiffened. Then she turned as one with Helena to stare at the intruder.

It was Rachel.

Of course it was. Her and Helena and Rachel - the three of them, together, in Rapture, home, DYAD, escape, Helena lost, Rachel disappeared...Sarah shook her head, as if that would cause the swirling recollections to settle like snow at the bottom of a glass dome.

“Rachel,” Helena said softly.

The girl stared back at them, a tiny crease between her eyebrows the only indication of any confusion. The blonde hair was slightly unkempt, the pinafore dress a little rumpled, but Sarah remembered how neat she had always been - oh god, she remembered everything now.

The girls eyes, normal eyes, flicked between the two faces, staying on Sarah a fraction longer before the sound of footsteps running down the corridor outside made her head turn away. One of her hands raised, flexed, and Sarah tensed at the sight of flames rippling along the girls fingers.

Helena squeezed her fingers just enough to say it was okay, that this wasn’t Sister Rachel, and Sarah dug her teeth into her lower lip as the footsteps hurried past without stopping and Rachel lowered her hand, fire subsiding, the silver glow fading from her eyes.

Sarah’s stomach twisted, but in the face of this child, the anger she held towards Sister Rachel was pointless. As she prodded at her own memories, Sarah extracted the vision of Rachel trying to help the twins fight off the white-coats, and then just...disappearing. She ran a hand through her hair, then noticed Rachel staring.

“What?” she snapped, then sighed as the girl stiffened her already poker-straight spine. “Sorry...I’m just…” she trailed off, and looked away, staring at one of the posters hanging on the pink-striped wallpaper.

Always Safe With Daddy. Her eyes suddenly stung with hot tears, and she wanted to smash every window in this city and let the ocean reclaim it. She’d happily drown if it meant every monster here died choking on lungs full of water. Dr Suchong, Susan Duncan, the splicers, all of them. Bloody hell, Rachel’s mother ...the cold blue eyes and the way she had treated her own daughter...

Helena still held onto her hands but she’d turned slightly to look Rachel in the face.

“Do you know who we are, Rachel?” Her voice was soft and gentle, as if she was worried about spooking the girl, and Sarah stared at her, then at Rachel, freeing a hand to rub at her eyes.

Rachel nodded once, sharply, and clasped her hands at waist level. Her forehead creased again.

“How did you get here?” Her gaze shifted from Sarah to the floor and she sagged a little. “Dr Suchong, he…” She paused and Sarah noticed her fingers moving, picking at cuticles, before she exhaled and looked up again. “One of his whitecoats tried to drag me away. I set him on fire.”

Her voice was emotionless. Sarah couldn’t stop herself from thinking good, and then hated herself for it. Beside her, Helena nodded thoughtfully.

“They are bad men,” she said, and her lips twitched into a smile, before she frowned and began to pull at her bottom lip.

Rachel’s hands tightened around each other.

“You don’t understand,” she snapped. “This is my fault. I knew. I knew and I didn’t try to warn - “ her eyelids fluttered rapidly, then she squeezed them shut. Her hands twisted. “Not until it was too late,” Rachel continued in a whisper. She took a deep breath and opened her eyes, avoiding the twins faces.

Sarah stared back at her, mouth open.

“You knew?” she hissed. “You knew they were gonna take ‘lena and you didn’t tell me?” She leapt to her feet, shaking off Helena’s grip. The anger filled her, swallowing the sorrow and the confusion. “Bloody hell, Rachel, you - “ She stepped towards the girl, fists clenched at her side so she didn’t slap her. “Why? How could you let that happen to her, to me?” Now she was towering over Rachel, who’d stepped backwards until she was pressed against the door, but kept her chin raised and her eyes steadily on the older girl.

“I’m sorry, Sarah,” she said. Her eyes flicked to Helena, who’d also stood, twirling a finger in her hair. “Helena...” Rachel hesitated.

Helena sighed and moved to Sarah’s side, touching her shoulder softly before speaking.

“Rachel. I understand.”

Sarah snorted.

“Do you? ‘Cause I bloody don’t!” She glared down at Rachel. “She’d always been jealous of you, ‘lena. And don’t even get me started on - ” Then she realised the girl looked both angry and scared behind that blank face and, and she remembered that she wasn’t twelve years old anymore...but Rachel was. Her lips tightened in frustration and she slammed her hand against the wall beside the door, then turned away and began to pace in tight circles.

Rachel let out the breath she had been holding and smoothed her hands down her wrinkled pinafore. The little crease between her eyebrows reappeared as she watched Sarah for a moment and then turned to Helena.

“I don’t understand. I just saw you being taken away, and then when I went back there Sarah was gone too. Your protector is - “ she paused as Sarah stopped and stared upwards, digging her hands into her scalp. “ - malfunctioning.”

Sarah continued to stare blindly upwards. Then she turned to face Rachel again.

“The bastards killed him,” she said hoarsely, hearing the accusing tone in her own voice. With a sharp stab of guilt, she remembered that she and Helena had brought their Big Daddy into Little Wonders that day, he shouldn’t have even been there, if they hadn’t….if Rachel had…

Dropping down onto one of the twin beds, Sarah buried her face in her hands. She’d stupidly thought that regaining her memories would fix things, not make everything hurt more . She was angry at Rachel for betraying her, and angry at her for things she hadn’t even done yet. But she will, or else they wouldn’t be here now, right?

As Sarah tried to push down the simmering rage and grief she was feeling, another thought bobbed to the surface and her hands dropped to her knees, feeling her leg begin to jump.

“Wait,” she said urgently, ‘We can fix this, yeah?” Her fingers drummed on both knees and stared up at Helena. “I mean...we’re here. We can go back and stop it, right? You can just…” she waved a hand. “...open a Tear, and we can...tell ourselves what’s gonna happen. Yeah?”

Tilting her head slightly, Rachel gave her an intrigued look.

“Time travel?” For once her voice betrayed her with an edge of excitement.

Sarah snorted.

“Bloody quantum shite,” she muttered, still fidgeting. “You used to read all those science books when you were…” she trailed off. A kid. After clearing her throat, she went on, grudgingly. “You’d probably understand it a hell of a lot better than me.” Rachel had been smart, Sarah remembered. Was smart. God, her mother had been shite, though. Sarah remembered the cold blue eyes that had looked at her and Helena like they were germs under a microscope. The way she had looked at her own daughter hadn’t been much better. Not at all like the warm blue of Siobhan’s, or the soft green of Maty’s...

God, Maty. I missed you so much.

The tears threatened to overwhelm her again, and Sarah wiped a sleeve across her face. She nodded at Helena’s concerned face, tried to smile, but it slid from her face when she met Rachel’s eyes again. The girl looked too much like her older self, and too much like the girl Sarah used to know.

And love.

Helena made quick work of explaining the Tears to her - Rachel had already been familiar with the work of Lutece, among others, and she grasped the theory easily. Any curiosity she had about where Sarah and Helena had been while away from Rapture, or even what had happened to herself seemed to have receded, although she occasionally shot glances at Sarah that seemed to measure her up against the girl she used to be.

The three of them now sat on the floor, atop the pink circle of the rug. Rachel sat with her knees neatly bent to the side and her dress smoothed down. Sarah had one leg under her and her arms wrapped around the other, chin resting upon the knee. Helena knelt in her long and ever-more-wrinkled white dress like she was about to lead a prayer.

“The question is,” she said to the ceiling, pressing her fingers against each other like a child making a steeple, “when.” She peeked through the arch of her fingers at Sarah, feeling a smile tugging at her mouth. It died away as visions of her lonely years in Rapture staggered across her mind. This place destroyed so many people, everyone who came here, not just the three of them.

And they had already changed things, somehow. Rachel freeing herself so soon hadn’t happened. But now it had. Perhaps a few atoms had spun a different way when they re-entered Rapture, and...well, she could think about that later.

She had all the time in all the worlds.

Sarah frowned at the walls and tapped her foot against the rug.

“I mean...half an hour should do it, yeah? We just need to stop that bastard Suchong from grabbing you, and then…”

“We can all leave together,” interjected Rachel, her hands clasped tightly in her lap.

Helena threaded her fingers through each other and wriggled them.

“This place...Rapture,” she said quietly, still looking up at the ceiling. Or through it. “There is so much pain here. I can...stop it. From ever starting.”

Both Sarah and Rachel stared at her, then glanced at each other. Sarah scratched at her scalp, then nodded.

“As long as we’re together, ‘lena, I don’t care where we end up,” she sighed, exhaustion suddenly filling her bones and making her slump forward. “Let’s just get this whole nightmare done with. I’m dyin’ for a cup of tea.”

Rachel, on the other hand, was silent, staring down at her white-knuckled hands. Sarah scowled at her, then rolled her eyes and reached out.

“Hey,” she said, hand stopping just short of touching Rachel’s arm, “It’ll be alright, yeah? Trust me, anything’ll be better than…” She saw the golden portal opening around Rachel and Helena. She saw herself shooting the gun at Rachel. She saw the blood spiraling upwards.

Her hand flinched away from the girl. “...better than this,” she finished, hoping she sounded more convincing to Rachel than she did to herself.

“If Rapture is...undone,” Rachel said, her voice tightly controlled, “won’t we be, as well?”

Helena looked at Rachel and saw - a friend, a traitor, a jailer, a sister, a saviour, the destroyer of worlds - everything she had been, and was going to be. But she didn’t have to be any of these things. Smiling faintly, Helena spread out her fingers and they started to glow.

“I don’t recognize that plasmid,” Rachel breathed, the glow reflecting in her eyes.

Sarah opened her mouth to say - it’s not a bloody plasmid, it’s something you did to her when you stole her away and locked her up to punish me for - but Helena caught her eye and shook her head, so Sarah shrugged and crossed her arms silently. Then she smiled kindly at Rachel, the pearly shimmering making her face radiant, her eyes beginning to shine with that unearthly light.

“You’ll still be you, Rachel.” Helena stood, the white dress shining, her blonde curls lit up with silver. “And we will be together again.” She drew her hands through the air, and it rippled like water. “I have seen it.”

Sarah stood as well, nervousness making her bounce up and down on her heels a few times. Then she held a hand out towards Rachel, letting her mouth curl up in a half-smile. A fresh start for all of them, she thought. Rachel looked up, considered, then took Sarah’s hand and raised herself up, her other hand smoothing her dress down over her ribs.

Helena placed palm to palm. She was shining like a star now, and Sarah thought she had never seen anything more beautiful. She could feel Rachel’s small hand in hers, holding on tight with the smallest tremor. Then Helena's hands moved apart, leaving after-images trailing in the air, and the glow grew stronger and stronger until it filled the entire room, and Sarah had to close her eyes.

She could still see the light through her eyelids and it took over everything until there was nothing but the light left, until Sarah felt like she was made out of light…

...and then there was nothing but the ocean.

EPILOGUE

London, 1960

Sarah woke slowly, rising up through layers of sleep as her dreams subsided. It was that same dream she had every so often, one that she could never quite piece together in her waking hours - all she could ever remember was the deep green depths of the ocean flickering with fairyland lights. Helena had the same dreams. They shared everything - even though they each had their own bed, one or the other would cross the floor during the night so they could wake up together.

When she opened her eyes, the first thing Sarah saw was her own face looking back at her.

“Mornin’ ‘lena,” she said sleepily, brushing dark hair out of her sister’s face.

“Morning, Sarah,” Helena answered, doing the same to her, making her hand into a little claw and using it to comb through the thick curls. “We saw the ocean again.”

“Yeah,” Sarah replied, closing her eyes for a moment to feel the scratching against her scalp. Then they snapped open again as a voice called out from somewhere below.

“Come on, chickens, time to get up!” The Irish lilt tempered the shouting somewhat, and the girls grinned at each other. Their mum was taking them on a trip to Cambridge today - to visit a friend at the university, she said, and maybe the two of them would soak up a little wisdom while they were at it. She’d ruffled Helena’s hair, and added promises of a fancy big lunch as well, ensuring that there would be no whining from the two eleven year olds about spending an entire hour in the car (which seemed to Sarah to be a very long time to sit anywhere).

She fairly leapt out of the car as soon as they parked, jumping up and down impatiently as Helena clambered out after her, and Mrs S, who’d looked after them since their parents died, officially adopting them after two years, locked the doors and ran a hand over her long dark hair that glinted auburn in the late morning sun, tucking it behind her ears.

When they reached the outskirts of the colleges, the twins were struck momentarily silent at the sight of the towering buildings.

“Is it a castle?” Sarah asked. Beside her, Helena steepled her fingers and framed the tall spire in them, squinting.

“Dragons,” she said, nodding at Sarah.

Mrs S raised an eyebrow.

“Dragons, hmm? Lucky Sarah brought along her slingshot that I expressly told her not to, isn’t it, then?” The sharp tone made Sarah scowl down at her shoes, but when she looked up, Mrs S’s blue eyes were laughing at her. Helena was grinning too, because Mrs S didn’t know about the tiny paring knife that she had secreted away in her coat pocket. Just in case.

The girls trailed along as Mrs S strode through the campus in her boots and trousers, hands thrust into the pockets of her big navy peacoat. Sarah and Helena wore jeans and jumpers and coats too, refusing to wear dresses unless it was absolutely unavoidable. Mrs S didn’t care a whit. Boys clothes are cheaper anyway, she said pragmatically, and easier to clean.

When she had found the lecture hall where her friend was speaking, she checked her watch, and frowned down at the twins.

“Now, do you think the two of you can sit and be quiet for ten minutes? We’re a bit early, and I wouldn’t mind catching the end of Brigid’s talk.” She dug down into a pocket and pulled out two lollipops, red and green plastic-wrapped discs that glowed in the sunlight. “Here. Now - “ she put a finger to her lips as she pulled open a door and gestured them into a room with high ceilings and seats that ran in half-circles all the way down to a small stage.

There was a woman speaking in an accent that Sarah and Helena had never heard before, but both of them found it soothing. She had wavy brunette hair and her hands moved a lot, and she used a lot of words that they didn’t understand, so the girls looked around in interest at all the people seated as Helena made short work of the plastic cover on her lollipop, handing it over to Sarah, and then unwrapping the other one for herself.

The plastic crinkled and rustled, and a girl around their own age who appeared to be taking notes turned around and glared at them from under a sharp blonde bob, delicate eyebrows meeting over greenish-hazel eyes. Helena stuck out an already bright-red tongue, then went back to staring at a pair of redheads across the hall, the lollipop stick moving back and forth across her mouth.

Sarah glared back, then pulled her own lollipop out of her mouth and held it out towards the girl as if offering to share. The blonde girl stared at the wet, sticky green disc, then back at Sarah, looked faintly disgusted, and turned back around to face the stage. Sarah stared at the girls perfect posture and perfect hair that was perfectly straight like she had ironed it or something, and wondered if she could kick the back of her chair without Mrs S noticing.

When the woman on the stage finished talking, and there was a hubbub of voices and people standing and general movement, Mrs S also stood, already smiling down towards the front of the room. She used the age-old gesture of pointing at her eyes, then at the two girls, and began to move down through the crowded aisles. When she reached the front, the brunette woman who had been on stage saw her over the heads of a crowd of students, smiled, and blushed.

Sarah and Helena looked at each other and giggled, then moving as one, they leaned forward and leant on the chairs either side of the blonde girl, dangling their arms over. She kept writing and pointedly ignored them.

“You’re not old enough to be in university,” Sarah told her, pulling her lollipop out of her mouth with a slurp. “M’names Sarah and this is Helena.” Her fingers drummed on the chair back as she tried to make sense of the girls notes. “Gen-et-ic coding,” she read out loud.

The notebook slammed shut.

“It’s impolite to read over someone’s shoulder,” the blonde girl sniffed, replacing the cap on her fountain pen with a sharp click. “Anyway, I have special dispensation to attend lectures. My father teaches here.” The notebook was top of a pile of other books, page edges lined up neatly.

“Bloody swot,” said Sarah, smirking. When this had no effect, she reconsidered, and then blurted out - “I like yer hair.”

Helena snorted, and the blonde girl froze, then smoothed down her skirt, giving Sarah a guarded sideways glance as if expecting a punchline. Sarah just grinned at her.

“What’s your name, then?” she said, crunching what was left of her lolly and chewing on the stick.

The girl finally turned around in her seat to face her.

“Rachel Duncan,” she answered, as if she expected them to know who that was. When it became clear they did not, she continued in a somewhat lofty tone. “My father is Ethan Duncan, the head of the Natural History Department. He specialises in ornithology.”

Sarah’s forehead furrowed. Helena looked thoughtful as she sucked her lips in between her teeth.

“Birds,” she said simply after a moment, and Rachel’s eyebrows raised slightly.

“Yes,’ she said, her opinion of these two intruders shifting a little.

Sarah’s eye was caught by Mrs S waving an arm at them, her hand beckoning, and she stood up reluctantly, grabbing Helena by the hand and pulling her up too.

“We’re gonna have lunch with Mrs S and that lady,” she pointed down at the two woman. Her foot kicked against the floor, shoes squeaking on the wooden floor. “D’you want to come?”

Rachel looked down at her books. Ostensibly she would eat lunch with her father on the days she attended lectures at the university, although he was often distracted and sometimes didn’t turn up at all. And if these ruffians were acquainted with Ms Tenenbaum…

“Thank you, yes.” She stood, gathering her books and clutching them to her chest tightly. Sarah grinned again, and Rachel allowed herself to smile a little. Her father would be pleased - in his own distracted but affectionate way - if she finally managed to make a friend.

The three of them made their way down the steep stairs to where Mrs S and Brigid Tenenbaum waited, the sharp blonde bob sandwiched between the two dark curly mops, watched unnoticed by the pair of redheads who remained seated across the way. They looked at each other and nodded.

“Constants,” said one.

“Variables,” rejoined the other.

And in the blink of an eye, they were gone.