Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/857460.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Supernatural_RPF
  Relationship:
      Jensen_Ackles/Jared_Padalecki
  Character:
      Jensen_Ackles, Jared_Padalecki, Cindy_Sampson, Genevieve_Cortese, Jeffrey
      Dean_Morgan, Amanda_Tapping, Danneel_Harris, Sterling_K._Brown, Christian
      Kane, Mark_Pellegrino, Ty_Olsson, Julian_Richings, Alona_Tal, Samantha
      Ferris, Chad_Michael_Murray, Aldis_Hodge, Tom_Welling, Traci_Dinwiddie,
      Rick_Worthy, Matt_Cohen, Katie_Cassidy, Julie_McNiven, Misha_Collins
  Additional Tags:
      Clones, Alternate_Universe_-_Slavery, Mpreg, Non-Consensual_Body
      Modification, Impregnation, Freedom_Fighters, Brainwashing, Teenagers,
      Dystopia, Alternate_Universe_-_Dystopia
  Collections:
      Supernatural_and_J2_Big_Bang_2013
  Stats:
      Published: 2013-06-25 Words: 29244
****** The Sake of Momentum ******
by tebtosca
Summary
     In a society that rose out of the ashes by using science to re-
     populate its workforce, two boys are created outside the regular
     mold. They're meant to serve a secret purpose. When an unexpected act
     of devotion throws those plans into turmoil, it takes courage--and
     help from a rag-tag gang of abolitionists--for Jensen and Jared to
     rise up and demand the freedom that they've been raised never to
     desire.
Notes
     Written for spn_j2_bigbang
     All art by the wonderful mylifewithin--check out her Art Masterpost
     HERE!
                                        
                               [comm-banner(2)]
                             [tsom-PARTONEheader]
“And may all your brethren live long for us.”
There’s always a pause between Commander Richings’s signature goodbye and when
the hologram shuts off. It’s in that pause that Ackles-1 likes to study the
man’s face.
The great commander is strong but wizened, as one would expect from the leader
of all. His face is long, cheeks sunken in with age and the hardship of the
world’s travails. His eyes—dark and deep in their sockets—radiate a sense of
purpose, but without the softened glow of empathy.
Those eyes frighten Ackles-1, for they belong to the only father he will ever
know.
“Lessons are done for today, little one,” Mother Tapping says as the hologram
fades. She’s standing over his sleek metal desk, the only one there in the
middle of the learning room. Her soft brown hair is up in a bun, and her smile
is warm. Twin indentations kiss her cheeks.
“Thank you, Mother,” Ackles-1 replies, standing automatically and moving
towards the door. Her hand just barely brushes the back of his head, and he
leans into it.
“What did you learn today?” she asks, just as he is about to clear the
doorframe.
“That we are special, Mother. That I am special.”
There’s a slight pause, before her lyrical voice is heard again, “That you are,
little one. That you are.”
He walks down the hallway of the center—the Home, as some of the others call it
mockingly—curving automatically to the left to find the lunch room. Sometimes
after a lesson, Mother Tapping will allow him to take his meal in his room, but
she has been discouraging this behavior as of late. If only she knew half the
reasons he prefers it that way.
The room is full when he enters it, the rush of noise filling his eardrums
automatically from the bluster of activity. The entire Murray line is at their
normal table dead center in the middle of the room, a few Hodges and one
Welling sitting with them. The younger Palicki line is sitting in a neat row,
their blonde hair in high pigtails as they sip from their cups of juice.
Ackles-1 scans the room, glancing quickly over the various Corteses scattered
throughout the room, until his eyes land of Cortese-5. She waves him over to
the corner table that she is sitting at, smiling brightly. Ackles-1 blushes at
the attention she draws from the other Wellings sitting nearby, but he heads
over to her and takes a seat quickly.
“Hey, you,” she says in greeting, bumping his shoulder with her own. Her dark
eyes are crinkled up at the corner as she grins, and he can’t help but smile
back at his only real friend.
“What are you eating?” he asks, peering over at the mysterious substance on her
plate.
“Probably something rescued from Mommy T’s toilet bowl this morning from the
looks of it,” she says with disdain, poking at the food product with her fork.
“I think I will avoid the special then, thanks,” he says, shuddering.
Dinwiddie-78, one of the staff duplicates, comes over and places a tray down in
front of him. She raises one eyebrow as to say “just eat it” before heading off
to her next duty.
“Why do you get the pink apples? This is favoritism at its most blatant,”
Cortese-5 protests with a pout, attempting to sneak her hand onto his tray to
steal whatever she can get ahold of.
“Maybe because I’m not a brat who calls our Mother names and falls asleep
during lessons,” he replies primly, but hands over one of the tiny pink fruits
to her anyway.
“Who told you that? I swear 7 can’t keep his mouth shut,” she grumbles, glaring
over at the Murray table at the back of Murray-7’s spiky blond head.
There’s a tiny pang of something in Ackles-1’s belly at the reminder that the
other duplicates get to study together, brothers and sisters united to learn
about the glory of the State and the process that keeps it running. The process
that they, as Duplicates, are a part of. An integral part, important and
special.
Ackles-1 is different, though. There are fifty-one Duplicate children in this
wing of the center. The initial ten each of five different models and him. He
is the only duplicate child who has only one of his kind, and it marks him as
different in every way.
All of the others learn about their Originals from a young age. The Cortese
line from a great and important geneticist, one of the pioneers of the process.
The Murrays, from the scion of an important legacy family. Welling, from an
All-Star athlete who was the most famous player of his time. Hodge, from a
starry medalist from celebrated games from the past called “the Olympics.” And
the little Palicki girls, all of seven years old, their Original a famous
screen beauty renowned for her grace.
Ackles-1 has never been informed about his Original. His maker, his father.
He remembers years back, when Cortese-5 came to him excitedly one day and told
of how her Original won a Nobel prize. Neither of them really knew what that
was, but it sounded important, and there was a proud puff in her chest when she
told him.
He had gone back to Mother Tapping and said to her, “Mother, who created me?”
Mother Tapping had bent down to peer into his face, her mouth curved up into a
knowing grin. “The State did, of course.”
He had persisted then, because it was suddenly important. “But who do I look
like? Why don’t I have brothers like the others?”
“You exist for all of us, little one. Put these selfish thoughts out of your
head,” Mother Tapping had replied, standing to her full height, which had been
much greater than his own at that time. Her voice was stern suddenly, and
Ackles-1 had been afraid that he had angered her.
She had tapped her finger against the “Ackles-1” stitched across his shirt,
right over his heart. They did not teach the children to read, but they did
teach them their numbers. So they would know, so they would remember. Not like
they could ever forget.
He had put his hand over hers and felt the warmth of her skin for just a moment
before she pulled away, leaving his hand touching only his designation.
“That’s a good boy. Run along,” she had said.
Cortese-5 crunching the apple brings him back to the present. The look on her
face is more thoughtful than it had been a minute ago, and he nudges her to get
her attention. He pushes a lock of dark hair that has fallen into her face, and
she smiles up at him.
“What are you thinking?”
She shrugs, but he can tell that there is something on her mind. “It’s next
month, you know.”
“What is?”
“We turn sixteen.”
He huffs in a little breath. He knows that the date is coming soon, but it
hasn’t been on the forefront of his mind because she never really talks about
it. The Cortese line is nine months older than him, and he realizes with
trepidation that the inevitable is coming his way soon.
“Are you guys excited?” he asks, trying to keep his voice calm because he can
tell the conversation is darkening her mood.
She barks a laugh and then looks away quickly. She looks almost scared, and
it’s the first time he’s ever seen that emotion cross his friend’s face. It’s
like suddenly and terrifyingly looking into a mirror.
When a duplicate reaches the age of sixteen, they go through a screening
process and then it’s decided where they are going to go to—either to the
Nursery or to the Factory. No one really knows what the screening is for, or
what really lies ahead once they leave the Home, but there have been enough
hushed whispers from the staff duplicates for the children to get an idea.
The last line to leave was a year before, when two of the Cohen models went one
way and eight of the others went another. The looks on their faces as they were
separated were devastating, and Ackles-1 feels suddenly lucky that he doesn't
have brothers that he would have to leave in ten months time.
But then Cortese-5 looks up at him—her eyes dark and sad—and he realizes that
the closest thing he has to a sister and a friend will be lost to him in much
less time than that.
“I’m not hungry anymore,” she says suddenly, putting the half-eaten fruit back
down on his tray. Her fingers are sticky with juice, and she sucks on them
absently.
He swallows and puts his head down. They sit in silence for the rest of the
lunch period.
                                 [divider one]
“You can do better than that,” Worthy-94, the duplicate in charge of physical
education, barks.
Ackles-1 clings to the rope hanging from the ceiling of the gym, his hands on
fire as the fibrous material scraps into them.
“Faster!”
Sweat beads at his forehead, and his chest feels tight as his breath quickens.
“Stop being so weak!”
He feels tears at the corners of his eyes, his head throbbing and the tinny
sounds of laughter comes from the fellow duplicates below.
“You’re holding up the rest of the class!”
A cry slips from his mouth as his hands slide off the rope and he falls,
crumpling to the ground. Cortese-5 runs to see if he’s all right, cradling his
head in her lap while two of her sisters and the coach come over to help.
“No wonder they only made one of you,” Murray-2 says from a few feet away, not
even trying to be subtle. Two of his line snicker with him, and Ackles-1 buries
his head in shame.
“That’s enough from you. Showers, now,” Worthy-94 hollers at the Murrays, who
roll their eyes in unison and head towards the showers.
“You okay, buddy?” Cortese-5 asks, her voice soothing as she strokes his hair.
He turns his head into the warmth of her belly, closing his eyes for a moment
and letting himself be held. He knows that he’s different than the others, that
there must be something wrong with him if his Original only thought he was good
enough for one copy. It hurts every time to be reminded of that fact.
“You’ll do better next time,” Worthy-94 insists, shooing the other Cortese
duplicates away and pulling Ackles-1 out of his cocoon.
“Yes, sir,” he replies, eyes downcast as he starts automatically heading back
towards his room. There is no way he’s going to shower anywhere near the Murray
line right now.
“Hey, meet me in the cove in thirty minutes,” Cortese-5 whispers, running along
side of him to catch up.
He nods in agreement, even though he wants nothing more than to go hide in his
room for a couple of days with his sketchbook and colored pencils. He knows
that he has to keep his body strong and healthy for the State, but he hates the
days when they have gym. Especially since it’s the one class that he’s forced
to take with all the others.
==
He washes quickly—too fast for the water to even get very hot—but then stands
for a few moments in front of the small round mirror in his bathroom. His face
is flushed red from the exertion and heat, the tiny dots spread lazily across
his cheeks standing at attention. He runs his fingers over his mouth—lips a bit
too plump—and the tip of his nose. He closes his eyes and feels his wet lashes
flutter against the tops of his cheeks.
He wonders what it would feel like to look at another person and see yourself
looking back. He said that to Cortese-5 once, asked her what it was like to see
her face in all of her sisters’. She had told him that all she saw were their
differences. The chime of Cortese-2’s laugh. The way Cortese-6 is ticklish if
you hit the right spot on her ribs. The tiny scar on Cortese-4’s finger from
where she cut her hand when they were ten.
“We’re different. Every one,” she had said to him.
Ackles-1 hadn’t been sure what to believe. Not when the voice of Commander
Richings was in his ear telling him that it was as one blessed unit that they
would salvage the world.
“Different,” Cortese-5 had repeated, her eyes glowing.
Fifteen minutes later, he is squeezing into a little alcove they had discovered
a few years back tucked behind the smaller kitchen used only by the staff
duplicates. Cortese-5 is sitting in it, back against the smooth metal surface
of the wall, her legs crossed and a tattered manuscript in her hands.
The duplicate children—as a rule—are not taught more than the alphabet. But the
Cortese line has genius riddled throughout their DNA, and 5 has been patiently
teaching herself to read the rudimental basics for the past six months.
Dinwiddie-71 is sweet on her, and has managed to sneak her a few copies of
contraband books from the outside.
“What’re you doing?” Ackles-1 asks, lowering himself down beside her and
squeezing into the pocket of space.
She looks up from the book and smiles at him. He wonders if she really
understands anything on the page, or if she’s just looking at the jumble and
wishing it would soak into her brain through her fingertips.
“Learning all I can before next week.”
He pulls his knees up and wraps his arms around them. His hair is wet, and it’s
slightly chilly in the cove. “Maybe you can sneak them with you when you go?”
She shakes her head just a little bit, a small frown on her face. “Maybe if I
end up in the Nursery, but you know the Factory-bound don’t get to take
anything with them.”
He knows this to be true, although no one is quite sure why. The ones chosen to
go to the Nursery are rarer, sometimes only one out of an entire line are sent
there. Mother Tapping always says that everyone has a job to do and that no
matter where they go, the State will be ever thankful for them.
“Maybe you’ll end up at the Nursery. You never know.”
“2 and 7 have been feeling down the past few days. Skin kind of itchy.”
He gulps, knowing what that means. Most of the time, the ones chosen for
transport to the Nursery start to get a fever the week before their sixteenth
birthday. It’s not always the case—Cohen-3 didn’t show any symptoms before he
left—but it’s always a good indication.
“Remember the Balaban line? They sent five to the Nursery,” he points out,
trying to be helpful. But she just puts down the book carefully on the ground
and leans her head against his shoulder.
“We don’t even know if that’s any better,” she says, her voice a whisper. It’s
weird seeing someone as usually outgoing and fiery as her so quiet.
He swallows hard, not knowing what to say. None of them know what life is like
for the duplicates when they leave these walls, so supposition is pointless.
The best thing to do is to tell oneself to be brave and true and know that the
State will do right for the blessed among it.
They sit in silence for a few long minutes, her warmth bleeding into him and
keeping out some of the chill from before. Her hair is soft where it brushes
his cheek, and reminds him of what home should feel like.
“I wish I was going with you,” he murmurs. He’s scared of what his life will be
like without her, without the small morsel of companionship they allow each
other.
He’s also scared of what his life will be like when he’s in her shoes.
She slips her fingers into his, and squeezes. It’s enough—knowing that she’s
there—even if only for the moment.
                                 [divider one]
“We wish you great tidings in this next phase of your journey. May it be one of
honor, of bravery, of depth of character, and of strength. You as a collective
unit are the blessing of this great State, and together you will keep us in
prosperity and happiness for many years to come.”
The hologram flickers on Commander Richings’s face, one last moment of
solemnity in the angles of his cheekbones. The image is large, covering the
entire wall in the auditorium where the duplicates assemble together for
ceremonial events like the one that is currently happening.
The Cortese models stand in a perfect line in the front of the collected
children. Their hair down—sleek and brown—and parted in the middle and exactly
like their sister’s next to them. The numbers on their chests are in red
stitching now, different from the black of the rest of the children.
One would never notice the tremble in their hands if one wasn’t looking for it.
Ackles-1 closes his eyes for just a moment when he sees it.
Mother Tapping stands before them. Her hair is twisted into tight braids like a
halo, and her dress is as long and yellow as the sun that they’ve seen only in
images. It’s the dress she wears only on the days of the crossover, and Ackles-
1 wonders if she chooses a gown so cheerful in order to soothe the inevitable
sense of loss in those left behind.
“This is not a farewell, but a rebirth,” she announces, her arms spread wide.
The indentations in her cheeks must hurt from their depth as she smiles.
She heads down the line, placing a hand upon each duplicate’s cheek.
“Thank you, Mother,” each intone as the touch fades from their skin.
Mother Tapping reaches Cortese-5—the last in the series of her line. Cortese-
5 tilts her chin up, her eyes glowing fierce with what Ackles-1 recognizes as
defiance.
She must hate that middle part. Hate that red stitching. Hate that Mommy T can
touch her with a feigned tenderness that she doesn’t seek.
Ackles-1 sees all of that in the tilt of his friend’s chin. But as Mother
Tapping brushes her palm across her cheek, Cortese-5’s eyes flutter closed, and
her shoulders slump in defeat.
“Thank you, Mother,” Cortese-5 says, because ritual is important.
Soon the entire line is being led out by three Dinwiddie duplicates, probably
to be prepared for their final transport. Mother Tapping tells the remaining
children that they have the rest of the day free and dismisses them.
Ackles-1—a sense of loss overwhelming him suddenly—runs to the cove in an
attempt to lessen it.
He is not there more than ten minutes before a clattering of footsteps brings
his head up and to attention. His eyes widen as he sees his friend staring back
at him.
She drops to her knees in front of him. Her hair is messier than it was during
the ceremony, and it’s such a familiar sight that he wants to reach out and
touch her face just to remember it better.
She pulls the secret compartment from the wall where she has her treasures
hidden, and takes out one of the more battered looking paperbacks. She holds it
up to him, and he sees a title that he can’t read in bright, rainbow-hued
colors. A picture of a laughing infant is in a circle in the middle of the
cover.
“I don’t know what it means,” he says, knowing that they don’t have much time
but wishing that he instinctively understood.
“It’s a book of names,” she tells him, her voice wavering in a way he’s never
heard. “It’s from before the Plagues, before the Wars. When people would have
children of their own that they would raise and love and name. They would name
them.”
Her voice is edging towards hysteria as she starts flipping madly through the
pages. Halfway through she stops, her finger pressing against the ink so hard
that the tip of it grows white.
“I have a name.”
“I don’t understand,” he says, flustered.
She holds the book up to his face, willing him to see. “I have a name. Here, it
is. This is mine, not theirs. Mine. I chose this.”
Finally, he sees. He takes the book from her, closing it gently, and putting it
down on the ground next to them.
“Tell me your name.”
Tears trickle down her cheeks. “Genevieve.”
“Genevieve.”
She chokes back a sob. He’s never seen her cry and knows he never will again.
“Genevieve,” he repeats, holding her to his chest.
“It’s pretty, right? My name,” she whispers, wet eyelashes, damp cheeks, and
swollen lips pressing against the number on his chest.
“It’s the most beautiful name in the world.”
Heavy footsteps signal someone in the hallway. They pull back from each other
with a gasp, knowing they have only moments if they don’t want to be caught.
She wipes the tears off her face, and an odd sense of serenity overtakes her
countenance. “I’m being sent to the Factory. I don’t know what that means, but
I know who I am.”
She picks up the book and presses it into his hands. He clutches it to his
rapidly beating heart.
“Be someone,” she says to him as she stands. She’s backing up, and soon she’ll
be out of his life forever.
“Genevieve,” he says again because he doesn’t have any words left.
She smiles at him one last time, and then is gone.
==
The next day, the new replacement line comes in. Little girls, perhaps three or
four years old, their hair in perfect matching pin-curls.
One comes over to him in the lunch room where he is sitting in the corner,
alone and ignored by the rest. Her shirt says McCoy-5 in black stitching. She
tugs on the leg of his pants.
“Hello,” he says, simply.
Her eyes are dark and wide and for the briefest moment, he remembers being that
age with another little girl.
“Hello,” she replies, grinning. She’s missing a front tooth.
He gives her his applesauce and turns around until she gives up and leaves.
                                 [divider one]
The next nine months are a lonely existence. The others leave him alone,
knowing it is pointless because all of their times will soon be up. Sometimes
he thinks he would forget how to speak if he didn’t greet Mother Tapping every
morning.
He spends a lot of his free time in the cove, running his fingers over the
edges of the books that Genevieve left behind. He can make out letters, but his
useless brain can’t quite put the pieces together to tell him what they mean.
He holds on to them though—as a keepsake of his only friend, and as a strange
hope that one day he’ll be someone as well.
==
He wakes up one morning—four days before his sixteenth birthday—with what feels
like a layer of fire coating his skin. He moans from the sensation, sweat
trickling down his temples, beyond his chin, and down the length of his neck.
It’s like tiny insects are dancing under his skin, pushing from underneath the
flesh in a valiant attempt at escape.
Dinwiddie-75 finds him like that when she comes to change his sheets in the
late morning. The ones underneath him are soaked with perspiration from the
terrible heat inside of him, and he’s writhing in pain. She runs to Mother
Tapping, who comes quickly and sits down at his bedside.
“Looks like it’s time, little one,” Mother Tapping says, smoothing her hand
across his reddened forehead. He barely feels the needle that slips into his
arm as blackness overtakes him.
==
He comes to later, blinking his eyes against the harsh light of the medical
suite he’s lying in. A pill is being pressed to his tongue by McNiven-49—the
nurse duplicate. He coughs at the dry object, and she shushes him and holds a
small cup of water up to help ease the way.
“What’s going on?” he asks, his voice rough with disuse. The fire is still
raging in him, but it’s softer now. Farther away like a shadow of what it once
was.
“You’re going through puberty,” the nurse says, pushing him back down firmly
when he tries to sit up.
“I don’t understand,” he says, the words not sinking in.
“Your body is preparing itself for the next step in its evolution,” she
explains, although it’s not a particularly thorough explanation.
All it’s telling him is that he knows where he’ll be four days from now.
“I’m going to the Nursery, aren’t I?”
McNiven-49 smiles, her face lovely but eyes shuttered. “We all have to start
somewhere.”
                                 [divider one]
He takes the mysterious pill four times a day. Along with ice baths daily, his
fever manages to abate. There’s an odd floating sensation inside of his head,
clearing only at intervals when everything that is soon to happen comes rushing
in. The fear is sharp and bright in those moments.
None of the other duplicates come to his room over the course of the next four
days to say goodbye. The one time he makes it into the lunch room, a few of the
Palicki girls glance over at him with shy smiles on their young faces. Hodge-
2 looks like he might say something, but Murray-3 glares at him. There is only
silence.
It doesn’t really matter to him. Genevieve is gone, and there is nothing to tie
him to this place. He’s not sure that the Nursery will be any better. Any sense
of home he felt for this building that he has spent almost the entirety of his
life in left when she walked out the door.
He spends an hour each day watching Commander Richings on the hologram. He
speaks to Ackles-1 of honor and duty, his words like poetry in his deep,
melodic voice. The content is new and obviously saved for those with the fever.
Their bodies changing instinctually at the same time that the words are meant
to mold their minds.
It’s strange to stand up there alone during his farewell ceremony. He’s staring
out into the audience, and it’s a sea of monotony. Face after face in a row
staring back at him with the same expression.
Maybe Genevieve was wrong. Maybe none of them are unique at all.
The duplicates look back at him like one monolithic mass, and his eyes are
closing before Mother Tapping and her bright yellow gown even stand in front of
him.
Later, he sits on his bed for the very last time. Mother Tapping comes into the
room and sits down next to him.
“You’re one of the chosen, little one. You and your kind will help us keep this
world full and alive.”
He nods. The words are familiar from where they poured from Commander
Richings’s thin, pale lips.
“And maybe if you’re lucky, one of the Originals will let you carry a real baby
for them. Isn’t it wonderful? Having all of that trust given to you?”
He looks up at that. Baby?
It reminds him of the book tucked in a hidden pouch in the one bag he is
allowed to bring, and suddenly it’s very important that someone acknowledge
him.
“Can I have a name, Mother?”
He clings to the skirt of her yellow dress, fingers bunching in the fabric.
It’s like grasping sunshine, light and spark and life.
“You already have one, Little One,” she says. “One.”
He can feel the color drain from his face at the realization that what he
thought was an endearment his entire life was anything but.
“Your name is One.”
                             [tsom-PARTTWOheader]
He blinks himself awake and finds himself staring up at a ceiling painted a
pale yellow. It reminds him of Mother Tapping, and he has the briefest moment
when he forgets where he is and thinks that he’s still back at the only home
he’s ever known.
It takes him a moment more to feel the flutter of chilled air over his skin,
and he realizes he is no longer wearing a shirt. He moves to sit up, but there
is a leather strap pulled snug against his torso, inhibiting his range of
movement.
“Help!” he calls out, straining his neck to see if anyone is in the room with
him. No one is and he tries calling one more time.
“Oh, good, you’re awake.” A woman with dark hair and bright white teeth comes
rushing into the room. Her hands are covered with plastic gloves, and she’s
carrying a pan of some kind of liquid.
“Help me, please,” he tries again, thinking that there must be some mistake.
He’s a good boy, has never struggled. There’s no reason to punish him now.
The woman places the pan down on a little table next to the bed he’s strapped
down to and then turns to him. Her eyes are kind, and he finds himself relaxing
just a bit. There is no number on her shirt. Unless the rules of this place are
much different than any other, she is likely not a duplicate.
“I know it must be a little scary,” she says, her mouth curling up into a small
smile. She touches his face with her hands, and he cringes back when the
plastic touches his skin.
“Is this the Nursery?” he asks, hoping that she will be able to tell him
something of his current situation.
“Is that what the kids are calling it these days?” she replies, tsking a bit.
She dips her gloved hands into the pan and takes out what looks like a sponge.
“What are you going to do to me?”
“Just going to clean you up a bit. Get you all sparkling and new before the
doctors come in.”
She grabs a hold of his arm and brings the sponge down, water running in
rivulets into the crook of his elbow. She’s firm but not harsh—long strokes
wiping with a clinician’s purpose over his torso. She brushes over his nipples,
and he can’t help the long moan that comes out of him.
“I’m sorry,” he stutters out, mortified. He’s never felt a sensation like that
before. Combined with the low-grade fever under his skin, he’s terrified at
what is happening to him.
“It’s okay, kid. Don’t be ashamed. It’s just the urges kicking in. We’ll get
your medication adjusted and knock those right out of you,” she replies,
smiling again like it was the most natural thing in the world for his nipples
to ache at the slightest touch.
He tries to stay as still as he can as she finishes her washing, trying in vain
to stop the trembling in his shoulders.
“There we go,” she announces, plopping the sponge back in the pan with flourish
and leaning over to grab a soft towel to pat down his skin. She looks pleased
with herself, so he attempts another question.
“You said doctors before…am I sick?”
She snaps off her gloves and pats his damp arm. “Nothing like that. The docs
have to check you out to make sure you are ready to start the process.”
“What process?”
She pats him again and brushes a strand of hair off his forehead. “Better to
leave that to the big shots, okay? You be a good boy. Do everything they tell
you, and you’ll make everyone happy.”
He swallows hard and looks at her with pleading eyes. “Will I be happy?”
She takes a few steps back and frowns for just a moment before plastering the
smile back on her face. “Of course you will. Making the State happy will bring
us all fulfillment and joy.”
It’s not what he wants to hear, but exactly what he expected in reply.
Her hand is on the doorknob before he calls out one more time. “Will I see you
again?”
She turns slowly and her smile this time is more genuine. “You can count on
it.”
“What should I call you?”
“I’m Nurse Sampson.” She pauses, seeming to decide something before speaking
again. “But you can call me Cindy.”
He lies there for long minutes, the time ticking by slowly. His body is still
trembling slightly, even though Nurse Cindy left the towel covering his bare
flesh. He stares at the ceiling, imagining the yellow is the sunshine and he is
lying in a field of flowers like the pictures in one of Genevieve’s books. He
can feel the warmth on his face, and he convinces himself it is the light and
not the strange and mysterious fire throughout his body.
The daydreaming stops working after a while, and the fear creeps back in. In
the home they had medical examinations twice a year, and they were never a big
deal. The duplicates rarely get ill, which is why the fever striking them is
such an odd and unknown occurrence. If anything happened—like when Murray-
4 broke his arm acting like a fool on top of the lunch table one day—the
McNiven duplicates would fix them up, and things would progress as normal.
He scrunches his eyes closed and thinks hard about what Mother Tapping had said
to him before he left the home. He remembers being on the bed, remembers her
hand on his cheek, and the horror in his mind when he realized that she might
not care for him as much as he thought she did.
Then he remembers another needle and more darkness, until he woke up here in
this chilled room with nothing but silence to keep him company.
Mother Tapping had spoken of a baby. He knows that most duplicates suspected
that the place where they went after they turned sixteen would determine their
place in the world. Some thought perhaps that they would end up at a vocational
school. They called the place he is currently in the Nursery, so perhaps he
would be trained to care for children of the Originals.
Mother Tapping called him lucky, and said he would be trusted. Listening to the
rumbles of the staff duplicates while he sat hidden in the shadows, he knew
that children in this world were a rare commodity. He wasn’t quite sure how the
State was dealing with that. But Commander Richings is wise, and surely they
have systems in place to help the human race survive.
Yes, that’s all. The doctors just need to make sure that he is healthy and fit
so that he can learn to care for the children of the future. His heart is kind
and pure. He can be trusted.
He doesn’t realize he’s mumbling the words aloud until the door opens and a
man’s deep cough interrupts his utterings.
“Hello.” The man stands at in the open doorframe, face neutral. His hair is
dark blond and gelled into a wave, and a pair of black-rimmed glasses sit
primly on his nose. He’s wearing a white coat and holding a metal clipboard to
his chest.
“Hello,” Ackles-1 responds, voice tight with instant fear when he sees the
bulky man with the neatly trimmed beard standing behind the man with the
glasses.
“I’m Dr. Pellegrino,” says that man, coming into the room. The bearded man
follows him in—shutting the door firmly behind him—before heading towards the
bed.
“Please, don’t hurt me,” Ackles-1 pleads, trying to make himself smaller but
hindered by the leather strap around his torso.
“Don’t be silly. Ty won’t hurt you. He’s just going to take that off so you can
sit up,” Dr. Pellegrino informs him. His voice is calm and flat, but it doesn’t
sound like he’s lying.
The bearded man—Ty, it seems his name is—heads over to the bed, pulling off the
towel Nurse Cindy had draped on him and quickly unbuckling the leather. Ackles-
1 instinctively brings his arms up to cross across his chest, shielding himself
as best as he can.
“Be a good boy now, and sit up for me,” Dr. Pellegrino instructs, nodding at Ty
as if to direct him to help. Ackles-1 is weakened from the medication and lack
of movement, and only hesitates for a moment before allowing Ty to lift him
into a sitting position.
The doctor just looks at him with bemusement for a moment before glancing at
his clipboard and then setting it down on the nearby counter top. He heads over
to Ackles-1 and stops just short of the bed, looking down at him with a slight
smile.
“I just wanted to come welcome you personally to our facility and do a few
quick tests,” Dr. Pellegrino says. Ackles-1 pauses for just a moment before
nodding his consent. The doctor pulls out a small device with a glowing light
at the end and holds it up to Ackles-1’s face.
“Open up,” Dr. Pellegrino instructs. Ackles-1 drops his mouth open tentatively
and Dr. Pellegrino peers inside. The doctor hums a bit before doing the same to
his ears, nostrils, and eyes. He then puts the device back into his pocket.
“That’s good. Let’s feel your abdomen. Lie down for me one more time and
breathe normally.”
He hesitantly complies, and stutters a little gasp as cold, bare hands touch
the skin of his belly. Dr. Pellegrino methodically palpates his stomach,
pressing in at certain spots and lightly grazing over others. After a minute,
he seems pleased and pulls back. Ackles-1 wraps his arms around himself again,
trying to regain his composure and fight the chill.
“We’re going to keep you in isolation for the first week. Nurse Sampson will
attend to you in your room, and you’ll have everything you need to settle in,”
Dr. Pellegrino says, turning around to write something onto the clipboard.
Ackles-1 feels his heart beating hard in his chest. “Am I sick? Is that why you
are keeping me separate from the others?”
Dr. Pellegrino turns back—glasses slid to the tip of his nose—and gives him a
half smile. “No, you’re just fine. Perfect really.”
“Then why?”
Dr. Pellegrino makes a displeased noise. Ackles-1 almost feels ashamed for
asking this man—who is clearly a person of authority and must be busy—so many
questions.
“We need to get your medication regulated. All those strange feelings inside of
you need to get fixed up so that you can prepare to do your duty.”
Goosebumps break out on his skin, and he wishes he had a shirt or a blanket to
cover himself. “I don’t understand, Doctor. What’s my duty? Mother Tapping
didn’t tell me.”
Dr. Pellegrino’s face hardens just enough for Ackles-1 to suck in a sharp
breath. “Did anyone ever tell you that you ask too many questions?”
Ty snickers from the corner, and Ackles-1 looks down, shamed and frustrated.
“I’m sorry, Dr. Pellegrino.”
“It’s all right. Once you get settled in, you’ll be just fine. The glory of
your service will keep you content.”
“Doctor?”
Dr. Pellegrino nods to Ty again, and his final words are without a doubt final.
“Ty here will take you to your room. Rest a little. You must be weary from your
journey.”
Ackles-1 wants to say something to the effect that he’s already slept for who
knows how long, and not by his own choice. But the doctor is already walking
out of the room. Ty tilts his head at him in a stiff gesture, and beckons for
him to follow.
Ty walks briskly down the long hallway, similar enough to those of the home,
but somehow colder and more intimidating. Ackles-1 has to rush to keep up with
him, his legs still weak from rest and his joints stiff from being strapped
down. He’s still half bare, and he hopes that no one sees him before he can
recover his modesty and clothe himself.
Luckily for him, the hallways are dead quiet. After what feels like an endless
pathway without seeing one living soul, they end up in a door tucked away
second to last at the end of a corridor. Ty swipes his palm over the electronic
pad outside the door and the mechanism of the lock clicks open. The sound is
loud after the silence of the last several minutes, and Ackles-1 shudders.
“Here you go,” Ty says, gesturing at the single bed in the middle of the room.
The furniture is spare and stark, but he is used to that from the home. It’s
almost a comfort to see such monotony.
“Thank you,” Ackles-1 says softly, and Ty nods in acknowledgement.
“Nurse Sampson will be by in an hour to check on you. Don’t give her any
trouble, and you won’t get any trouble from me. You hear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“All right then. Be good,” Ty says finally, heading back out and closing the
door securely behind him. The sound of the lock is heard again, and it sounds
even louder this time. More final.
He lets out the breath he didn’t realize he was holding and rushes over to the
small dresser against the wall. Inside are several shirts, all the same—white
cotton with his duplicate designation stitched across it in red. He sighs with
relief as he pulls one on. He’s thankful to be dressed again, even if he is all
alone in the room. There’s a security about it, and he doesn’t feel quite as
vulnerable as he did when he was strapped down to that table.
His hands start shaking as he sees the small duffel bag he was allowed to bring
from the home when he left. It’s sitting on the floor next to the dresser, and
he lowers himself down to the floor to open it. He hopes with everything he has
that the secret compartment stitched into the bottom of the bag hasn’t been
found.
His fingers touch the worn cover of the book that Genevieve had shoved into his
hands as her final wish, and an overwhelming sense of relief fills him. He
leans his head down until his forehead is touching the bag, finally allowing
himself to cry.
                                 [divider one]
It’s later on the next day, after Nurse Cindy delivered his lunch, when he
hears it.
Three knocks, in quick succession. Followed by silence for two beats, and then
three more knocks.
“Hello?” he says to the air, not sure if the knocking is intentional or if he’s
finally gone crazy once and for all.
The knocks get faster then—definitely showing a pattern—and Ackles-1 jumps up
from his seat on the bed and starts looking around the room frantically.
“Hello?” he says again, trying to get any indication of where the noise is
coming from.
The knocking stops, and his heart beats wildly in his chest. He’s terrified of
who the person might be, yet even more terrified that the individual might go
away and leave him all alone again.
“Don’t go!” he calls out, and he knows his voice is shaking but he doesn’t care
anymore.
“I’m here.” The voice is faint, but solid, and the relief that washes over
Ackles-1 is profound.
“Where are you coming from?” he says as loudly as his voice will carry, looking
around in anticipation.
“From the vent. Look down!”
“From the…” he mumbles, rushing around the room until he sees the small air
vent in one corner of the room hidden behind one side of the dresser. He drops
to his knees and presses his face to the vent. He knows it’s stupid. He doesn’t
know who the voice belongs to, and this place is so strange and unknown that he
could be risking himself by putting himself so close. But it doesn’t matter,
it’s a person, contact, someone calling to him, and he can’t possibly resist
it.
“I’m here,” Ackles-1 says, face so close that his mouth almost touches the
metal of the grating as he talks. “Are you still there?”
“I’m here!” the voice responds. It’s clearer now, obvious excitement coloring
it. “I can’t believe someone is actually there.”
“I got here yesterday. Have you been here long?” Ackles-1 asks. He’s deeply
thrilled that there is someone actually speaking to him, and possibly in the
same situation as he is in.
“Three days. Longest three days of my life.”
Ackles-1 huffs a laugh. “I know how that feels.”
The voice pauses for a second, but then thankfully continues. “Are you a dupe,
too?”
“A what?” Ackles-1 asks, confused by the lingo.
“A dupe,” the voice repeats. “A duplicate. What do you guys call us where
you’re from?”
Ackles-1 flushes, inordinately pleased that the boy—for the voice is definitely
masculine, but sounds young—seems to be one of his kind. “I guess we were a
little more formal than where you’re from.”
The boy laughs, and it’s the best sound that Ackles-1 has heard in months.
“Yeah, probably. Our staff dupes were all Carlsons. I think they were stoned
half the time.”
Ackles-1 is happily scandalized. “I don’t even know what that means, but it
sounds like it would be fun.”
“So are you? A dupe, I mean?”
Ackles-1 pauses before answering. Obviously the boy is like him…well as like
him as he can be, since he doesn’t have any duplicate brothers. “I am. Just
turned sixteen, and sent here.”
“Me, too! Just turned.” The voice is excited again, and Ackles-1 finds himself
pleased that he managed to do that. “Did any of your other models end up here
as well?”
His heart drops to the pit of his stomach. This is the part where things will
all go wrong, when the boy will find out that Ackles-1 is all alone and figure
out that there must be something wrong with him.
“I’m a one,” he says softly, his voice lowering to a mumble. Half of him hopes
that the boy can’t hear him.
“What did you say?”
Ackles-1 sets his chin and raises his voice. It’s the boy’s loss if he chooses
to judge him over this.
“I said that I’m a solo one. There are no others in my line.”
A startled gasp comes clearly through the vent, and Ackles-1 sits back against
the wall, pulling his knees to his chest and willing himself not to react.
It’s several seconds of silence, and he’s beginning to think that the boy is
not going to respond at all.
“So am I.”
The words comes softly, and Ackles-1 throws himself back against the vent to
hear better once more.
“What are you?” he asks, not believing his own ears.
“I’m Padalecki-1. And I’m all alone.”
Ackles-1 squeezes his eyes shut and slips his fingers through the holes in the
vent, clutching on to the metal like he was holding flesh.
“We’re not alone anymore,” he says and he swears that the sound coming through
the vent sounds like crying.
                                 [divider one]
Ackles-1 wakes up with a strange itching sensation on the back of his neck.
He jumps up from the bed—barely rumpling the pristine sheets—and heads towards
the tiny round mirror hanging on the wall over the dresser. He tries to crane
his head, but the position is awkward, and he can’t make out what’s there. He
rubs it absently and heads back to the bed to await the arrival of breakfast.
Right on time, Nurse Cindy comes in fifteen minutes later carrying a tray with
a selection of fruit, plain yogurt, and wheat toast. If he didn’t know
better—and it's possible he doesn’t—he would think they have him on a diet of
some sort.
“Did you sleep well?” she asks, setting the tray down on the little table in
the corner of the room where he takes his meals. She starts unfolding the
napkin on the tray, and nods her head, beckoning him to come sit and eat.
“My neck is itching,” he says, not sure she can do anything about it, but
figuring she is his only resource at the moment. He heads towards her slowly,
sitting down in the chair at the table and staring down at the not altogether
appetizing meal.
She hums a bit and heads behind him, running her fingers smoothly around the
nape of his neck. “It’ll do that for a few days while it heals.”
His heart rate speeds up. “Heals?”
“Yes, the marking chip. It’s a simple procedure, nothing to concern yourself
with.”
“What’s it for?”
She doesn’t bother looking at him as she spreads the napkin across his lap for
him.
“Identification, of course,” she replies. Finally she looks up, meeting his
eyes for just a moment before looking away again. “It only activates if you
leave the premises. Don’t want you to get lost.”
He’s suddenly not very hungry, but he picks up the toast and chews a bit of the
end as the thought that someone—Dr. Pellegrino, maybe—implanted something in
him to track him.
Like he would run away.
Like there was going to be a reason for him to run away.
He puts the toast back on the table and wipes his fingers across the cloth on
his lap.
“I brought you something,” Nurse Cindy says suddenly, breaking the slightly
tense silence in the room. He looks up at her and sees her smiling as she takes
a pad of paper and a pack of colored pencils out of a pocket in the apron she
has tied around her waist. She puts them down on the table next to the tray and
looks at him expectantly.
“How did you know I like to draw?” he asks slowly, reaching out to trace his
fingers over the multi-colored sticks.
“It was mentioned in your profile. I thought it might help with the boredom
while you’re in the quarantine stage,” she replies.
He wonders briefly who wrote the profile, and how in-depth it is. Does it have
his favorite foods? Does it mention Genevieve? Does they know any more of his
secrets?
“Thank you,” he says softly.
Nurse Cindy appears pleased, and pats him briefly on the arm. “You’re quite
welcome. And don’t worry, once quarantine is over, then you’ll get to meet some
of the others. Just be a good boy, take your medication, and everything will be
all right.”
He glances back down at the tray, just now noticing the little white cup with
one blue pill and one red. It makes him uneasy, but the pills have been
managing to tamper the fever inside of him. He’s thankful for that small mercy.
“You’re not a duplicate, right?” he asks, not knowing why. She has a name and
not a number designation. But this is a strange place, and he’s not sure what
is up and what is down anymore.
“No, of course not,” she tsks. “Duplicates don’t have security clearance for
this facility.”
He’s definitely not sure what that means, and he finds that he’s still tired
enough from his slumber to not care to find out.
When she sees that he’s not going to ask any further questions, she gives a
quick nod and heads towards the door. “I’ll see you for lunch,” she says, and
then is swiftly gone, the lock clicking shut once more.
“Is she gone?” The voice comes through the vent.
Ackles-1 runs hurriedly over, dropping to the floor and clutching his legs to
his chest.
“She’s gone,” Ackles-1 replies, excited that the boy seems to want to talk to
him for a second day in a row. Of course, there isn’t much competition at this
point, but he’s trying not to be greedy.
“Man, I hate fruit,” the boy grumbles. Ackles-1 laughs, delighted. It’s all
just so normal and he can’t help feeling like he’s bursting with it. Okay, well
as normal as things can be while conversing with a stranger through an air
vent.
“Nurse Cindy brought me some stuff to draw with. I thought that was pretty
nice,” Ackles-1 points out, rubbing his thumb over the knee of his sleep pants.
“Must be nice having one of the big shots sweet on you,” the boy replies, his
voice teasing.
Ackles-1 laughs. He can feel himself blushing, even though he’s all alone in
the room. “I don’t know about that. Did she bring you anything to help pass the
time?”
“No, I had that Ty guy this morning. I swear, it’s like he thinks the world
will end if he smiles or something.”
“He is kind of mean looking,” Ackles-1 giggles, putting his hand over his mouth
as if he’s embarrassed by the sound.
“I think he’s just mad that I’m taller than him.”
Ackles-1 swallows hard, and there’s a weird tingling sensation in his belly at
the thought of what the boy must look like. Ty isn’t a small guy. So if his new
neighbor is taller than him, then he must have shot up early.
“You must be pretty tall for your age then, huh?” Ackles-1 asks tentatively.
There’s a pause and he wishes he could see the boy’s face when he responds.
“The last few months before the fever came were pretty crazy. Grew six inches
practically overnight. My whole body hurt, let me tell you,” the boy responds,
and his chuckle is soft through the vent.
“Yeah, I was the same way, though I didn’t grow quite as much. Even my hair
grew faster towards the end, it was really weird.”
“They said it was our bodies preparing.” The voice stops, and Ackles-1 leans
down to see if he’s missing something.
“Preparing for what?” Ackles-1 says, almost in a whisper.
“I’m not sure.” Another pause. “Are they giving you the pills?”
Ackles-1 looks back at his tray, where the two simple looking pills sit in
their tiny cup. Nurse Cindy will certainly check on them when she comes back in
later, and make him take his second dose of the day.
“Yeah, one red and one blue. You?” Ackles-1 replies.
“Same here…I’m not sure we should take them.”
Ackles-1’s breath quickens, because he was just thinking the same thing. He’s
not sure it’s the right thing to do. In truth, the entire thing is scaring him,
just because he doesn’t know what is going on.
“It’s been helping with the fever though, right? My skin doesn’t tingle as much
as it did before.”
The boy pauses again and Ackles-1 imagines that he’s contemplating it. “I guess
you’re right. But I did wake up this morning with something weird on my neck.”
“Me, too! Nurse Cindy said it was a marking chip, whatever that means.”
Ackles-1 can hear rustling on the other end of the vent, and wonders what the
boy is doing. “A marking chip? What in the world is that for?”
“I don’t know,” Ackles-1 admits, since he’s been wondering the same thing.
“Maybe it’s a medical thing?”
“Yeah, maybe,” says the boy, but he sounds even less convinced than before.
Ackles-1 doesn’t like the somber mood and tries to bring him back to the
laughing boy from earlier. “So, what do you like to do for fun? You know,
before? I like to draw.”
More rustling, and Ackles-1 imagines the boy is sitting back against the wall
the same way he is. “I can play music pretty well. Piano, guitar, even the
violin a little bit. One of the Carlson dupes taught me, and he said I was a
natural.”
Ackles-1’s smile is so big that it threatened to fall off his face. There was a
music room at the home where he grew up. It was usually used by Mother Tapping
on the nights she would put her hair down and let some of the children curl up
around her. She’d play the loveliest music on the piano, her face serene. Those
were the nights that he could almost believe that she loved them.
“That’s really great. I wish I was musical, but I never really learned.”
“Yeah, the Carlson dupes were kind of great like that. They didn’t care too
much about what Mother Smith thought.” The boy’s voice sounds nostalgic
suddenly. “One of them even taught me how to read.”
Ackles-1 huffs out a surprised breath. “You can read?”
“Yeah, not that great, but well enough. Kind of hard to learn undercover, but
it was worth it in the end.”
“I think I was meant to meet you,” Ackles-1 blurts out suddenly, and can’t
regret saying the words because they are so very true.
There’s a slight banging sound on the vent, and Ackles-1 realizes that it’s the
boy pressing his hand against it. Ackles-1 does the same, automatically and
instinctively mimicking the movement.
“I think I was meant to meet you, too.”
The air is suddenly very serious, and Ackles-1 breaks the tension with a light-
hearted quip. “We have to actually meet one of these days.”
It works, and the boy laughs softly. “I have a feeling that there’s no way to
stop that.”
Ackles-1 hugs himself, allowing himself a happy moment, even if it’s short and
sweet.
                                 [divider one]
The week passes quicker than he expected, the secret conversations through the
vent with his new, tentative friend helping immensely. The other times he
spends drawing—mostly from memory—faces of people that he has known. Some are
familiar images, like three Palicki girls sitting on the floor cross-legged,
tongues in the corners of their mouths as they concentrate on the blocks in
front of them. Some are just hints of what could be, like the drawing of Nurse
Cindy in profile with a hint of a smile on her face.
She comes in one morning wearing that smile, the obligatory tray in her hands.
She sets it down and he goes obediently over to the table to eat his fruit.
“Are you ready for your big day?” she asks, pulling his napkin over his lap. He
had tried to stop her doing that on the third day she did it. But she seems to
like fussing over him, and part of him likes letting her do it.
“Big day?” he repeats, popping a blackberry into his mouth and letting the
juice rushover his tongue.
“Quarantine is over. You get to go to the recreation room today,” she
announces, running her palm over his hair quickly before pulling back and
popping her hands into the pouch of her apron.
His eyes grow wide, but then a quick count of the days proves that she is
correct. If he is getting out of quarantine today, that means that his new
friend is getting out as well.
“Will there be other duplicates there?”
Nurse Cindy smiles knowingly at him. He thinks she must sense how lonely he is,
and seems sympathetic to his feelings. Or at least as sympathetic as anyone
he’s met in this place.
“You bet. There’s another duplicate getting out of quarantine today, too. He’ll
probably be there. Ty or one of the other orderlies will show you around, and
Nurse Cohan will be there if you need anything,” she fills him in.
“Is someone going to tell me what’s going on here?”
Nurse Cindy purses her lips. “Don’t you worry your pretty head about it, okay?
You need to settle in first, let yourself adapt. After a little bit, they’ll
assign you your daily duty while you wait for the doctors to finish preparing
you.”
Well, like that doesn’t sound ominous at all. He’s thankful that it seems he
and the boy next door will be going through whatever mysterious process this is
at the same time, together. He holds his tongue for now, knowing that Nurse
Cindy is not going to give him any more information.
He goes back to his breakfast silently, and she’s just about to leave when
something seems to catch her eye. He tracks her gaze to the various sketches on
the bed, and the one in particular of her. Her face softens, and she looks back
at him questioningly.
“You drew me?” she asks, slightly incredulous. “From memory?”
“Yeah.” He gives a small nod, slightly embarrassed for some reason. “You have a
nice face.”
A strange look crosses her face and she tenses up, before relaxing again and
placing a hand on his arm for a quick squeeze. “You’re a lovely boy. I hope you
don’t ever forget that, no matter what happens.”
He looks at her with a frown, confused by what she’s trying to say. She looks
like she wants to say more, but she shakes her head and leaves the room as
quickly as she came.
==
It’s early afternoon when Ty comes into the room and tells him to come with
him. Ackles-1 tries not to show his eagerness, but being locked in that room
for an entire week with no one but a voice in a vent for company is getting to
him. He’s not sure what he’s going to find at the end of the multitude of
hallways, but at least it’s breaking the monotony.
Ty gives him a cursory tour of the facility, although Ackles-1 suspects that
it’s not even remotely the entire part. More than likely, it’s the designated
parts for the duplicates, and the other parts with the medical suites and labs
are far more guarded. Once again, he wonders what Nurse Cindy meant when she
said that duplicates don’t have security clearance here. Did they think they
were going to sabotage things? What reason could they possibly have for doing
that? He’s never met a duplicate that was prone to violence; even the Murrays
were more annoying than disruptive.
Ty shows him the several rooms that he calls the “work rooms” but it’s lunch
time and they are empty of any workers. Ty doesn’t explain why or who are
working in these rooms, but Ackles-1 figures that they are part of the duties
that Nurse Cindy spoke of earlier.
Finally, about twenty minutes into the tour, Ty leads him into a room with the
words “Recreation Room” next to the keypad besides the door. Ackles-1 gets
excited again, hoping beyond hope that there are actually other duplicates in
there to talk to, maybe even his new neighbor.
Sure enough, inside the room are at least a dozen duplicates, ages raging from
around his own sixteen to slightly older. They all have the white shirts with
their designations stitched to their chests, and Ackles-1 is almost ashamed at
how comforting that familiarity is to him.
They seem to be in various states of repose, a few playing what looks like
chess and others watching Commander Richings give one of his rousing speeches
on a nearby hologram machine. The most interesting thing is how unique they all
are—only one line is doubled, and the others are all singular to their models.
If they didn’t have number designations that range from 10 and higher, he would
almost think they were Ones like him.
“Have fun,” Ty says, looking almost amused, and heads back out the door.
Ackles-1 looks around tentatively, searching the faces for any sign of someone
that might be familiar. He’s not sure if he can manage a sweep of all the
shirts in the room to see if anyone has Padalecki-1 written on them, but tries
to sneak a peek regardless.
A slightly older girl with a pleasant face and long blonde hair tied back in a
braid walks over to him. Her designation says Cassidy-17, and he’s about to say
hello when he looks down the length of her slim body and sees what looks like a
pregnant belly.
The girl notices his gaze and her hands go down to cradle her stomach carefully
before looking back up with him with an easy smile. “Hello, welcome! Did you
just get out of quarantine today?”
Ackles-1 doesn’t know what to say, terribly confused by her condition. This
facility was secure, wasn’t it? How could one of the duplicates be with child?
He’s never seen anyone pregnant before and only knows about the condition from
the history holograms they were shown growing up.
She seems to sense his perplexity, and rubs her belly one a few times. “This is
the third. The first time is hard, but you’ll get used to it.”
“Excuse me?” he stutters out.
Any further questions are stifled by the sign of a tall, gangly duplicate with
messy brown hair being led into the room by one of the other orderlies. Ackles-
1 knows, knows, deep inside that this kid is Padalecki-1, his friend.
The kid catches sight of Ackles-1, and his face breaks out into the most
radiant grin he’s ever seen. The indentations in his cheeks are even deeper
than those of Mother Tapping. Ackles-1 doesn’t know how he knows who he is, but
he supposes he is sensing it as surely as he himself is.
The orderly leaves, and the kid comes right over to Ackles-1. Sure enough,
Padalecki-1 is stitched neatly in red on the shirt that stretches over his
chest. With only the slightest hesitation, the kid is grabbing Ackles-1 into
his arms for a bear hug. He presses his face into Ackles-1’s neck, and he’s at
least two or three inches taller so it’s at an odd angle. It doesn’t matter
though, as he presses them together like two puzzle pieces that suddenly
clicked together.
Padalecki-1 pulls back, his face suddenly red like he’s embarrassed that it was
his first reaction. Ackles-1 feels warmth all over his body—that strange
tingling sensation in his nipples and groin that the medication has been
tampering down rushing suddenly back. He’s suddenly flustered, and grits his
teeth a bit to will the sensations to stop.
“Hi,” he says, slightly breathless.
Padalecki-1 brushes the hair out of his faces and smiles that smile again.
“Hi.”
“Do you two know each other?” Cassidy-17 asks, her voice amused as she
continues to rub her belly.
“No, we—“ Padalecki-1 starts to answer, but he stutters quiet when he sees her
condition. He looks over at Ackles-1, who just shrugs helplessly.
Cassidy-17 seems to sense their confusion, but doesn’t address it. “I’m going
to go sit back down now. My back’s killing me, you know.”
“Yeah sure, of course,” Ackles-1 replies, not knowing at all.
“What the hell?” Padalecki-1 hisses in a whisper as soon as she’s out of
earshot.
“I have no idea,” Ackles-1 replies.
Padalecki-1 seems like he’s going to say something more, but then pauses to
just stare down at him again. It’s kind of intimidating, but Ackles-1 finds
himself preening at the same time. He can feel his face heating up, but
thankfully his body stops acting up.
They head to the corner of the room and crowd next to each other, cross-legged
on the floor. Some of the duplicates are opening staring at them, but something
inside of Ackles-1 is drawing him to the other boy. He wants a little bit of
time to be alone, or as alone as they can be in a room full of a dozen other
teenagers.
“It’s really good to see finally you,” Padalecki-1 says, his eyes soft. His
hair is brushing against his forehead in wispy strands, and Ackles-1 finds
himself wanting to stroke his hand through it. He’s never felt anything like
this in his life, and he wonders if it has anything to do with the medication
and the new sensations in his body since the fever struck.
“I feel like I already know you,” Ackles-1 blurts out, regretting the words for
only a moment before Padalecki-1 slips his hand into his, tangling their
fingers together. Ackles-1 doesn’t understand what he is feeling, but he has a
strange suspicion that he’s not alone in feeling them.
                                 [divider one]
They spend the week trying to get acclimated to their new environment as best
they can. There’s a feeling that something is going to happen sooner or later,
but right now they are content in getting to know each other and sharing some
of their experiences growing up in their separate homes. Padalecki-1 shares
stories of how the Carlson models would sneak contraband in right under the
nose of Mother Smith, and Ackles-1 would respond with descriptions of mayhem by
the Murrays.
It takes a few days of face-to-face meetings in the recreation room and late
night conversations between the vent before Ackles-1 brings up Genevieve. His
new friend is sympathetic to his loss, and there is a part of Ackles-1 that
knows their quick friendship has a lot to do with how much Padalecki-1 reminds
him of Genevieve. The quick wit, the needed banter, and the way he’ll squeeze
Ackles-1’s hand when he feels instinctively like he needs it.
That leads to what has been brewing in the back of Ackles-1’s head since he
found out that Padalecki-1 could read. He feigns a slight chill and puts on a
hooded sweatshirt over his cotton shirt before heading to the recreation room
one afternoon. Tucked inside is his most treasured possession—the baby name
book that Genevieve left him before she was taken away.
The two of them tuck away in their corner of the room like usual. The other
duplicates started leaving them alone soon after their first appearance, the
curiosity at the beginning about them quickly dissipating. Ackles-1 looks
around quickly to see if Ty or Mike, the orderly in charge of Jared, are in the
room. He doesn’t trust the orderlies, although Nurse Cohan is nice enough. His
gaze lands on the chair where the Nurse usually sits during the time the
duplicates are in the room and smiles when he sees that it’s Nurse Cindy on
duty this afternoon. She glances over at him with a quizzical look. When he
shrugs at her, she just smiles slightly and goes back looking through the chart
on her lap.
He doesn’t think he would have chanced what he’s about to do if it wasn’t Nurse
Cindy on duty. There’s something about her that makes him comfortable, even
though part of him is telling himself that it’s a dangerous thing to be. She
seems to be the only person in this place, besides Padalecki-1, that he can
possibly trust.
“I want to show you something,” Ackles-1 begins, keeping his voice low so that
the duplicates nearby won’t hear him. His back is to the room, and he is
hunched over a bit—facing Padalecki-1 with his legs crossed.
“Is it another drawing?” his friend asks, and Ackles-1 shakes his head with a
slight blush. The first time he brought his sketch pad to the recreation room,
Padalecki-1 made a big deal fawning over his “talent.”
Ackles-1 hasn’t showed him the latest sketches—all variations on his new
friend, with his goofy brown hair, indentations, and slightly crooked teeth.
His face heats up just thinking about tracing his fingers over the paper.
“No, not this time. It’s something more important.”
Padalecki-1 gets a serious look on his face, but looks intrigued, so Ackles-
1 continues.
“It’s a book of names. My friend, Genevieve, that’s what she used to pick her
name out. She gave it to me right before they took her away and told me to be
someone,” Ackles-1 says. His voice is shaking as he pulls the book slowly out
of his sweatshirt and places it in the hidden spot between their bodies.
“How did she get it?” Padalecki-1 says, his eyes wide as he glances down at the
book.
Ackles-1 shakes his head. “Not really sure. She had some of the staff
duplicates who liked her. She was charming like that.”
Padalecki-1 smiles that crooked smile of his, and leans in closer. “I know a
guy like that.”
Ackles-1 is really blushing now, but it’s impossible not to return the smile.
“So anyway, I was hoping, since you can read…”
“You want help picking out a name.”
He says the words so matter-of-fact that it takes Ackles-1’s breath away. The
idea of having a name for himself—an identity that went beyond a mystery
Original and a number sewn onto a piece of cotton—made something unidentifiable
well up inside of him. If he didn’t know better, he would think it was joy.
“Yes,” Ackles-1 says, and the confirmation makes him giggle involuntarily.
“Okay,” Padalecki-1 replies with a nod, glancing quickly over at Nurse Cindy to
make sure she’s distracted before reaching down to leaf through the book as
subtly as possible.
It’s kind of exhilarating, going through the pages and listening to Padalecki-
1 as he sounds out various names. His reading is perfunctory at best, but it
does the job, and that alone is exciting.
It’s almost ten minutes later when the right one hits them both.
“Jensen.”
“Say it again,” Ackles-1 breathes.
“Jensen.”
Jensen. Genevieve. Jen. Gen.
Ackles-1 closes his eyes—wetness at the corners—for a moment.
Jensen opens them.
“That’s the one.”
The fondest look he’s ever seen anyone give him is on his friend’s face, but
Jensen can’t do anything other than smile back in return.
“Now you,” Jensen insists, taking a deep breath. He reaches down to turn a few
pages back.
Padalecki-1 looks a bit surprised at first, until a grin grows on his face and
he starts listing names starting with a “J.” Jensen can’t help but feel a
little flustered that Padalecki-1 seems to want to match his new name in some
small way.
“Jacob? James?” he throws out, and Jensen wrinkles his nose. They don’t seem
quite right, so Padalecki-1 continues. “Jared?”
“That one!” Jensen exclaims, a little too loudly if the way a few nearby
duplicates glance at them are any indication. He grabs the book and crams it
into his sweatshirt quickly, just in case they are found out.
“Jared. I like it,” Jared says, chin tipped up. “Jared and Jensen.”
“Jared and Jensen,” Jensen repeats.
“It’s got a nice ring to it,” Jared says, and there’s that grin again.
They burst into laughter, and it’s even worth the disapproving stare that Nurse
Cindy gives them.
==
They get one more week to acclimate before finally being clued in to what their
daily duties are going to entail.
“Laundry?” Jensen says, as Ty stops in front of a row of industrial sized
machines.
“Someone has to keep you all in shirts,” Ty replies, smirking.
Jerk, Jensen thinks.
“Padalecki-1 is in charge of collection, so you need to figure out a system,”
Ty instructs, and he’s already backing out of the area. “Which means ‘don’t
bother me with stupid questions’, in case you missed that.”
“Yes, sir,” Jensen replies with a completely fake smile. He knows better than
to rock the boat and make Ty mad. Especially, since he’s lucky enough to have
Jared connected to his daily duty. If he has to actually work, at least that
made it a little easier.
“Good.” Ty nods. “The busy work is just until you two are ready to start the
process, so enjoy it while you’re still active.”
Jensen bites his tongue, wishing he could ask about these little mysterious
clues that people keep dropping but never actually explaining. He and Jared
have tried to figure it out, but all it’s done is make Jared even more
insistent about them stopping the pills. Jensen, on the other hand, is too
scared to mess up something that might be keeping them well, and there’s a part
of him that is too scared not to listen to an authority figure like Dr.
Pellegrino.
They are both healthy and strong, right? Yes, the weird feelings are still
there. But at this point, they are mostly when he is in close proximity to
Jared himself. He hasn’t said anything to Jared, but sometimes he finds Jared
watching him kind of intensely. He thinks that perhaps Jared is feeling it as
well.
There’s a large poster on the wall with picture descriptions of the laundry
process. He’s glad that there isn’t anything to read on the poster, but that
just makes him think that this is meant to be a duplicate duty only. He’s just
figuring out where all the soap is, when Jared comes in holding a large basket
full of white cotton.
Jensen laughs. The basket is so high that he can barely see the top half of
Jared’s head.
“This is so not funny,” Jared says, pouting as he drops the basket in front of
Jensen’s feet with a huff.
“It’s hilarious, actually,” Jensen replies, kicking the basket to the side and
poking Jared lightly in the ribs.
That intense expression flitters across Jared’s face but then is gone in an
instant. It makes Jensen’s toes tingle. He wonders that if he feels like this
with the fever-reducing medication, what would he feel like without it? He
remembers the final days in the home. How his skin felt stretched and tight,
his nipples swollen, and—more embarrassingly—his penis got engorged for the
very first time.
Luckily, that hasn’t happened since he’s gotten to the Nursery, but there are
moments when he wonders what would happen if it did.
Jensen shakes himself out of his reverie, mentally scolding himself for
thinking such thoughts when they are supposed to be doing laundry.
He’s never realized it fully before, but now he does: his body belongs to the
State. His life belongs to the State. It wasn’t ever something he worried about
growing up, although Genevieve would put the thought in his mind every now and
again, and there were moments he would look at the Dinwiddie or Worthy
duplicates and wonder what they went home to, if they went home at all.
He finds himself suddenly reaching for Jared, not even knowing he’s doing it
until his hands are bracing themselves on Jared’s shoulders.
“Jensen?” Jared asks, and hearing his name—his name—on the other boy’s lips is
still a new enough occurrence that it makes him giddy.
Jensen’s hands roam up the side of Jared’s neck. Jared leans into them, his
eyes fluttering closed for a moment before opening again and darkening as he
looks at him.
“Jensen,” he repeats, his voice suddenly deeper than his years. He pulls Jensen
closer, wrapping his skinny arms around him until their bodies are flush
together—one long line of flesh.
“Jared,” Jensen mumbles into his neck, the skin warm where Jensen’s lips are
touching. The heat feels good, and Jensen finds himself rubbing his mouth along
the curve of Jared’s neck and across his smooth jawline.
Jared’s hands tighten where they are twisted in Jensen’s shirt, and he pulls
them together even closer than Jensen thought possible. Their limbs slot
together, and before he knows what’s happening, Jensen is letting out a tiny
little moan right into the sudden damp of Jared’s skin.
“I don’t what’s happening to me, Jensen. But you feel it too, right? Tell me
you do,” Jared begs, one hand sliding up to the back of Jensen’s neck and the
other now cradling his hip.
Jensen pulls back just enough to look him in the eyes. He’s dizzy, the steam
and heat from the machines mixing in with all the flustering sensations
coursing through his body. His hands slide down and clutch in the material of
Jared’s shirt, right above his heart.
“I do feel it, I do,” Jensen agrees, and he barely has time to tilt his head
back before Jared is leaning down and pressing his mouth to Jensen’s.
It’s like time stands still. It’s just a press of lips, chaste and closed, but
it’s like all the pieces of the puzzle slot neatly together and the lock to
this confusing door busts open.
Jensen’s only seen someone kissing in the holograms. Only seen it in the
archival footage of happy couples before the Plague and the Wars, back when
things were simple and before the duplicates were born. The State says the
duplicates would bring that happiness back, that they would save the world and
allow the normal people, the Originals, the chance to have what the hologram
shows them.
But right now, as he pulls back from Jared and then dives back in—mouth opening
ever so slightly on every pass—all he wants is for them to have the chance to
feel this. To feel the wonder and the pleasure and the thrill of togetherness.
“Wow,” Jared exclaims as they finally pull back from each other. It might have
been only moments or hours later, but Jensen can’t tell you which because his
brain is a mess.
“Yeah, wow,” Jensen agrees, and his laugh is giddy and free.
“Laundry,” Jared says firmly, like he’s trying to convince himself. Jensen
laughs again, and kicks the basket at his feet.
“Laundry.”
With a tiny wave and a goofy grin, Jared heads back out the door, leaving
Jensen alone with his industrial washers.
==
They exist like this for a few more weeks, working their shifts during the day,
work coming by rote after a while and the ache in their muscles becoming
familiar. They spend their recreation time together in their corner, and Jared
tells him stories from children’s books he remembers reading when the Carlson
dupe was teaching him. Their pinky fingers twist together as they talk—backs up
against the wall.
No one seems to take notice except Nurse Cindy. At first Jensen is worried that
she is going to tell the doctors, and that they’ll somehow figure out about the
secret kisses and holding hands and feelings, and try to separate the two of
them. It all comes to a head one day when she overhears Jared calling him
“Jensen.”
A shrewd look comes over her face, and Jared looks stricken by what they both
see as a tremendous mistake. For a moment, they think that it’s all going to
come crashing down, and for no reason other than their need to claim an
identity for themselves.
But it doesn’t crash, and that’s the most surprising thing about this so far to
Jensen.
“I don’t know who this Jensen guy is, but you tell him he has a lovely name,”
Nurse Cindy says lightly, glancing over at Jensen until he realizes what her
choice of wording means. “No matter what happens.”
He draws another picture of her that night. Her hair flying around her in the
imagined wind, and the sunshine that he’s never seen surrounding her like a
halo. He slips it in her apron the next morning when she comes to bring him his
fruit and toast.
Later that night, the lock on his door clicks, but no one comes inside.
Instead, for the first time since he’s been there, he can push the door open
from the inside.
Curiosity gets the better of him, and he peeks out into the hallway. The only
thing out there is vague darkness and silence, but that only makes him braver
as he tiptoes out and over to Jared’s door. Just as he’s about to try to open
it, the door bursts open, almost hitting Jensen in the process.
“What the—” Jared says, as Jensen huffs.
They stare at each other for a moment, not understanding what is happening
until Jared lifts up a piece of paper.
“It was pushed under the door,” he explains, with a shrug.
On the paper, is Nurse Cindy and her sunshine halo. He realizes right then and
there that this is her show of gratitude.
It takes about five seconds more of hesitation, before Jared is grabbing Jensen
into his arms. Shutting the door behind them, he drags Jensen further into the
room.
“I have no idea why this is happening, but I’m not going to waste it,” Jared
says, laughing breathlessly. He grabs Jensen’s face with both hands and starts
devouring his mouth.
Jensen’s completely lost in Jared’s kisses—his entire body singing with them.
He lets Jared drag him back until their legs hit the bed, and they tumble down
together onto it. It’s a tight fit, especially with how quickly Jared is
growing. But like everything they’ve done together since they met, they make it
work.
They’ve become good at this, the kissing part, learning together like
everything else. Those early kisses were sweet and pure—just mouth on mouth and
sharing breath. That progressed to more—tiny licks and tongues exploring.
The past few days had been intense, Jared becoming increasingly fervent, and
Jensen had been almost afraid to ask why while Jared was sucking on his bottom
lip like a starving man.
They hadn’t progressed much into touching. Jensen is still a little worried
about the way his body will react, and a tiny part of him concerned that the
fever will come rushing back.
Now, tangled together on Jared’s twin bed, their hands begin roaming until
Jared’s hands are pressing into Jensen’s hips, and Jensen’s hands are clutched
in Jared’s hair.
Jared moans into his mouth, and Jensen can’t get enough—thrilled with how
exciting all of these new sounds and experiences are.
“Jensen,” he mumbles, hands sliding down farther until they are under Jensen’s
bottom, and pulling their lower halves together.
That’s when he feels it—Jared’s penis, swollen and hard against him.
Jensen gasps, shocked. The only time that had ever happened to him was in the
grip of the fever before the Nursery, and every association he had with it was
one of ill health and delirium.
“It’s okay. It’s okay,” Jared keeps repeating, pulling Jensen towards him
unrelentingly and grinding them together. Jensen just hangs on, hands
tightening in Jared’s hair until it feels like he’s going to rip the strands
out.
“Jensen,” Jared cries out one last time. His hips still suddenly, but an odd
dampness soaks through their sleep pants.
They lie there for a few minutes—breathing heavily and still clinging to each
other—before anyone speaks again.
“Is there something you want to tell me?” Jensen finally asks, still tentative.
“I stopped taking the pills,” Jared admits, pushing his face into Jensen’s neck
as if he’s scared of Jensen’s reaction.
Somehow, Jensen isn’t at all surprised, and to reassure Jared, he brings his
arms up around him into a loose hug.
“It feels so good, Jensen,” Jared whispers, pushing his wet groin against
Jensen’s again, like he can’t even help it.
“What does?” Jensen whispers back, not moving away even an inch.
Jared drops a light kiss on Jensen’s neck, then his jaw, and up to his mouth.
They kiss like that for a long moment, tongues dancing.
“Ever since I stopped taking the pills, it’s like my body is alive again,”
Jared explains, hands gripping Jensen’s bottom and tugging until Jensen lifts
his leg and swings it over Jared’s hip.
“But the fever…” Jensen tries to protest, but Jared shuts him up with another
kiss.
“It’s not like the fever. It’s brighter, clearer. When I look at you, when I
touch you, it’s like I want to crawl inside of you,” Jared replies. He’s
panting again, the stiff weight in his pants growing once more.
“Jared.” His voice breaks, as he throws his head back.
“They are trying to drug us, Jensen. I don’t know why they are doing it or what
they are preparing us for, but we don’t have to let them.”
“This is our life, Jared.”
Jared crawls on top of him, large and warm and overwhelming over him. “Then
let’s take a little part of it back.”
“Okay,” Jensen replies after a brief pause. He holds his hands to Jared’s face,
already thinking about where he can hide his medication. “Now kiss me. We don’t
have much time, and if Ty finds me in here, they’ll separate us.”
He doesn’t have to ask twice, as Jared swoops down into his embrace.
                                 [divider one]
The medical exams pick up to three times a week over the next few weeks, Dr.
Pellegrino or his colleague Dr. Ferris writing mysterious things in his chart
without saying much of anything to him. One time, well into the second week,
they pull out a machine that beeps ominously as they spread cold jelly across
his abdomen and look at the monitor that is turned so that he can’t see.
Dr. Ferris’s face doesn’t change at all as she watches the monitor, but she
gives a small jerky nod and scribbles something down in her chart before
handing him a towel to wipe off the jelly and instructing him to get dressed.
Jensen doesn’t say a word, knows that just nodding will get him out of there
faster and allow him to get back to his room or to laundry duty, where a
grinning Jared will be hiding behind the machines ready to greet him with a
kiss.
Jensen knows that it’s dangerous to ignore what’s happening to them, but it’s
just so easy to give into these new sensations that he’s feeling when he’s with
Jared, or even when they are apart. Jensen had stopped taking his medication
only a few days before, and already his body is beginning to respond in a
ridiculously sensitive way when Jared presses his lips to his neck or his chest
or the dip of his bellybutton.
Everything changes later that day in the recreation room, when a figure from
his past at the Home shows up in front of Jensen.
Cohen-3 stands there, one hand on his hip and the other cradling his protruding
abdomen.
Jensen’s hands start shaking so badly that he drops the pencil he’s holding
right to the ground.
Cohen-3 walks slowly over to him and sits down, his smile large and serene. His
hair is neat and brushed and his light-colored eyes are still as bright as they
ever were. The Cohen line is a fine and handsome one, their Original some kind
of important aristocrat.
“Ackles-1! I can’t believe it’s you. When did you get here?” Cohen-3 asks,
still beaming. Jensen is so dumbfounded by the fact that he appears to be
pregnant that he almost doesn’t respond.
“Oh, a little while back,” Jensen finally replies, his voice faint. He picks
the pencil up off the floor just to have something to do.
Cohen-3 rubs his belly and hums a little. “That’s probably why I didn’t see you
come in. They had me on best rest for a few months because of complications.
Didn’t realize the second one would be a little harder.” He sees Jensen’s
stricken expression and must misconstrue it for concern. “Oh, don’t worry, I’m
fine now. In the home stretch!”
“You’re pregnant,” Jensen finally chokes out the obvious.
Cohen-3 looks at Jensen a little strangely, but nods. “Of course, that’s why
we’re here. Only the lucky ones like us who get the fever are blessed with the
ability to give life back to the State.”
Jensen’s shoulders begin shaking so badly that Cohen-3 seems to notice.
“Oh, I know it must be hard that you haven’t been blessed yourself yet. But you
need to let your body complete the process before the doctors can give you your
first.”
“I have to go back to work. To the laundry,” Jensen says quickly, needing to
get out of there before his mind explodes.
Cohen-3 leans over and squeezes his arm knowingly. “They had me on laundry duty
when I first got here, too. But don’t worry, as soon as you’re pregnant they’ll
put you on light duty in the sewing room.”
“I, oh,” Jensen stumbles, pulling back from his grasp like it’s burning and
rushing out of the recreation room back towards the laundry room.
==
Ty keeps Jared working on the other side of the facility the entire day, so
Jensen is a wreck by the time he gets back to his room later in the evening.
Nurse Cindy has taken to leaving their doors unlocked at random intervals, so
as to not make it too suspicious. He hopes against hope that tonight is one of
those nights.
Sure enough, after dinner—only managing to choke down a few bites of chicken
due to the queasiness in his stomach—he sits quietly until bed checks are done
and enough time passes for the click of the door being unlocked. He waits a few
beats before rushing out and practically throwing himself against Jared when he
opens his door.
“Hey.” Jared looks surprised by his enthusiasm, but wraps Jensen up in his long
arms and pulls him into the room. He places a soft kiss on Jensen’s mouth and
Jensen takes a moment to stay still and let the touch center him.
They spend a few minutes wrapped together, just standing in the middle of the
room and holding each other as their tongues tangle together. For the first
time since his meeting with Cohen-3, Jensen feels a sense of peace.
It doesn’t last long, however. He pulls back and motions for Jared to come sit
on the bed next to him. Jared wiggles his eyebrows suggestively, but then gets
serious when he sees the expression on Jensen’s face.
Jensen sits on the bed, rubbing his damp palms on the cotton of his sleep
pants.
“What’s wrong, Jensen?” Jared asks, sitting down next to him and reaching over
to fold their hands together. He holds Jensen’s hand up to his mouth and kisses
his knuckles. Jensen can’t help but sigh and smile a little.
“I saw one of the duplicates from the home where I grew up. He’s few years
older than us, but he ended up here,” Jensen starts, and Jared gives him a look
as if to tell him to go on.
Jensen pauses, not knowing how to say the next part. “He’s pregnant.”
Jared looks momentarily perplexed, but then shrugs. “Okay. I mean, it’s rarer
for male dupes to be carriers, but we learned in class that it’s possible.
What’s the problem?”
“Jared, have you stopped to wonder how and why there are several pregnant
teenagers here?” Jensen asks, eyebrows raised.
Jared’s face is calm for a moment before realization crosses it. “Are you
saying that they were sent here on purpose to get pregnant?”
Jensen slowly nods his head, and Jared’s face is stricken before he continues
on. “Are you saying the we were sent here for that, too?”
“I think so,” Jensen whispers, and grabs Jared’s hand again to steady their
shaking. “The way he was talking…I think the fever is the sign that it’s
possible, and the process they are having us go under is to prepare us to have
babies.”
“For the State?” Jared chokes out. “They are breeding us?”
“I don’t know, but I think so,” Jensen says helplessly. “Jared, I’m so scared.”
“Hey, it’s okay. It’s gonna be okay,” Jared says, pulling Jensen into his arms
and dropping sweet kisses on his face. Jensen clings to him, breathing in his
scent and letting his warmth wrap him in a blanket of comfort.
“How do you know that for sure?” Jensen asks, Jared’s hands brushing his face.
“We’re together, right? We’re strong and smart and they can’t take that away
from us,” Jared replies, his voice as fierce as Jensen’s ever heard it before.
It reminds him so much of Genevieve, that Jensen wants to weep and cling to him
even stronger.
Jensen doesn’t have any more words. He falls back on the bed, pulling Jared
along with him until he covers Jensen’s body with his own. Their movement
becomes more urgent, the material of their shirts being pulled off frantically
and thrown onto the floor without a thought. Jared starts mouthing his way down
Jensen’s chest. Stopping on the increasingly sensitive nubs of Jensen’s
nipples, he pulls them with his teeth and then soothes the pricks of hurt with
small licks of his tongue.
“Jared!” Jensen gasps.
Jared keeps going lower, trails of saliva running wet across his abdomen and
dipping into his bellybutton. Jensen laughs breathlessly as tickling fingers
and tongue trace circles down the cut of his hip bones.
“Can I, Jensen? Let me make you feel good,” Jared pleads, his fingers wrapped
in the waist band of Jensen’s sleep pants as if he’s waiting for permission to
take them off. They’ve never gone this far before, limiting themselves to
stolen touches through cotton.
Jensen nods, still a little afraid to voice all the things that his body is
feeling, but knowing that he wants every single bit of it with Jared.
Jared is pulling Jensen’s pants off in one fell swoop and nosing around the
fine thatch of hair before Jensen can even finish the movement.
Jensen’s erection is hard and proud rising up against towards his belly, a
surprising and intense side effect since stopping the daily medication. He
realizes then that the medication must be used to tamp down the urges that
their bodies naturally felt once the fever had set in. Although he’s not
exactly sure why, it must have something to do with the preparation process the
doctors are putting them under.
It doesn’t matter much now, because Jared’s curious tongue is licking circles
around the sides of his thighs and up over Jensen’s rock-hard penis. There’s no
grace in it, no skill, because neither of them having any idea of what they are
doing past the idea that it feels ridiculously good.
Jared is kissing the underside of the shaft, his nose teasing the crown. He
flattens his tongue and licks a long stripe up and down, then around, and back
again. His eyes are closed, and there is a weird mix of concentration and
devotion on his face. Jensen is so overwhelmed that all he can do is lie back
and open his legs wider in invitation.
Then Jensen feels Jared sliding nimble fingers to the underside of his sack,
massaging around and then down and swiping teasingly against the crack of
Jensen’s bottom. Side to side they go, ghosting their touch close to the round
furl of his hole.
“Let me,” Jared is mumbling again, and his mouth is going lower until his
tongue is flat against the tiny muscle that his fingers just sought.
“Jared, what are you doing?” Jensen cries out, and he can feel his entire face
grow hot with a blush. Jared doesn’t stop though, just uses his giant hands to
spread Jensen further so he can break him open with the wetness and power of
his tongue.
Jensen’s never imagined anything could feel like this—his body on fire with
sensation as Jared breaks him open from the inside out. He’s afraid that he’s
moaning too loudly. The fear of discovery courses through him for a moment
before it ebbs quickly away with the feel of Jared pressing his thumb right
alongside his tongue.
“Jared, please. I need you,” Jensen begs, not knowing what he’s asking for, but
needing everything the boy can give him.
Jared pulls out of him completely. Jensen is momentarily bereft by the
emptiness, before Jared is moving quickly up his body and blanketing him. Jared
seals their mouths back together. Jensen knows that this should feel
disgusting—knowing where Jared’s mouth just was—but he can’t feel anything
other than euphoria that they get to have this.
There’s a sudden, sharp stretch at the brink of his hole, and Jensen realizes
with mild hysteria that Jared is pressing himself inside of him. Jensen cries
out from the burst of pain, but Jared just mouths kisses over his face,
shushing him. He slows the push inside, but keeps sliding into him and joining
them in a way that neither of them ever learned or thought possible.
Once Jared is all the way inside of him, pelvis and sack flush to Jensen’s
body, Jared opens his eyes and stares down at him. The look of awe on the boy’s
face is almost too much for Jensen, who just opens his mouth wide and keens a
broken sound.
The shocking pain of the intrusion throbs brightly for a moment, and Jared must
sense it because he is keeping himself very still. Finally after a long moment
of them sharing panting breaths, Jensen gives a tiny nod, and Jared starts
moving again. Not four strokes later Jensen feels it, a bright burst of
pleasure that courses through his body unexpectedly.
“There!” Jensen huffs out. Jared looks bewildered for a second, but gets the
idea soon enough. He attempts to keep a steady enough rhythm to hit whatever it
was inside of Jensen that made that glorious pleasure happen.
“Jensen, Jensen,” Jared gasps, his hips snapping harder and faster. His chosen
name on Jared’s lips, combined with the thrusts inside of him and the movement
of Jared’s belly over Jensen’s erection, is just enough to send him falling
over the cliff of completion.
Jensen cries out, white erupting from him in the most dizzying pleasure that
he’s ever felt. Nothing like that has ever happened to him, and he’s just
barely able to process it before Jared is following him over and finishing deep
inside of him.
Jensen can feel the burst of wetness deep within him. It fills him with a
sudden and solemn sense of connection to Jared, beyond any that he’s ever felt
before. He knows—as surely as he knows his own name—that this act has bonded
them for as long as they are on this journey’s path.
Jensen hisses as Jared pulls himself out of his body, the pinpricks of pain
returning momentarily. Jared collapse on top of him, his breath coming so
rapidly that Jensen almost asks him if he’s all right.
“Jared?”
“Yes, Jensen?”
The words Jensen has never spoken sit right on the tip of his lips. Words that
they are taught mean selfishness if not applied to the greater good. Commander
Richings taught them that.
In this moment, none of it matters. Not the State or the Commander or their
duty or the world.
“I love you, Jared.”
“I love you, too, Jensen.”
                                 [divider one]
It’s like the old saying goes, once you know something is happening, you
suddenly see it everywhere.
Cassidy-17 is gone from the recreation room one day, and the talk is that she
got taken to the other side of the facility to give birth. Cohen-3 is nearing
the end of his pregnancy, and ends up back on bed rest. Chikezie-22 and
Hartley-39 start showing, bellies pressing against white cotton proudly.
It suddenly makes the time he spends with Jared all the more precious. Stolen
moments in the back of the laundry room and whispering in the corner of the rec
room are fine, but it’s the nights they are able to spend together that make
all the difference.
Some nights, the sound of the lock being undone doesn’t come. Usually those are
the days that Nurse Cohan brings him his fruit and toast, and while Jensen
realizes that Nurse Cindy needs her days off, it makes the time almost
unbearable for him.
The next time she comes in, her face will attempt to stay a stoic mask, but
there will be a flitter of something apologetic there. They never talk about
it, Nurse Cindy and Jensen. The words never cross their lips because saying it
out loud would somehow betray not only the risk that she is taking, but also
the gratitude that he can never repay her.
He draws her more pictures. Sometimes of her—all smiles and dark hair blowing
in the wind. Sometimes of himself, the features distorted in a way that he
doesn’t quite understand but that come out of his fingertips against his will.
He slips those in her apron and, the day after the darker ones, she’ll
sometimes place a hand on the back of his neck. Besides Jared, her warmth is
the only thing that gives him comfort in this cold, sterile place.
But the nights that he and Jared are together are the happiest nights of
Jensen’s young life. It’s not just the physical aspect of it, though they
explore each other’s bodies as if every inch is a wonderful adventure. It’s
beyond that, being able to hold each other close, to tell each other secrets
and fears and hopes in a whispered voice pressed against the other’s ear. It’s
the tenderness of intimacy in a world that celebrates only duty.
A month after the first night that Jensen and Jared spend together, Jensen is
in the medical suite getting the first of his thrice weekly exams. It’s by rote
at this point—the coldness of the jelly, the methodical rhythm of the doctor’s
hands, and the mute nod when asked questions about the medication that he had
long since stopped taking. He had wondered if they would be able to tell, but
besides the increase in physical pleasure and sensation when he’s near Jared,
there doesn’t seem to be any other symptoms.
Dr. Ferris is in charge of exams on Mondays, and her routine is the same as any
other time at the beginning. Her fingers massage over his abdomen, and it’s
almost soothing enough at this point that Jensen can close his eyes and relax
if the jelly that she then puts on wasn’t so chilled.
She’s running the wand over his stomach a few times when suddenly her hand just
stops. It stays in one place for a long moment, long enough for Jensen to open
his eyes and see what’s going on. Her face is still the usual mask, but there
is a slight twitch at the corner of one eye that Jensen almost misses.
Her hand starts moving again, but the patterns she starts taking with the wand
are different than the usual. Jensen will sometimes count the strokes,
picturing the patterns in his head and then drawing them later in bright reds
and yellows. It helps sometimes, to disassociate from what is happening to his
body by turning it into beauty and light.
But this is different, and Jensen can feel panic tightening his chest.
Without a word, she puts down the wand and heads over to the intercom on the
wall next to the door.
“I think you should come see this,” she says in a clipped voice, just loud
enough for Jensen to hear the words, but barely.
Not two minutes later, both Dr. Pellegrino and Ty are coming into the room.
Jensen’s first instinct is to jump off the table and make a run for it, but
they’ve gotten to the point where they don’t strap him down for examinations.
He knows with Ty there especially, it would be a futile attempt that would
serve him no good.
Dr. Ferris nods over to the monitor next to the bed that is attached to the
wand. Jensen can’t see it from where he is laying, and his only indication that
there is something on it worth looking at is the widening eyes on Dr.
Pellegrino’s face.
“How is that possible?” he asks finally. His voice is as calm as his face, but
Jensen can see the distress there clearly in his eyes behind the frames of his
glasses.
Dr. Ferris swallows audibly, and for the first time ever, he sees nervousness
crossing her face. “I’m not sure, Doctor. His body is obviously at the proper
stage of the process, which was why we were going to begin prepping him for
implantation soon.”
Jensen sits up quickly, alarm in every fiber of his being, but Ty takes a few
steps towards him in a show of dominance. Jensen stays sitting, but doesn’t
move from the table. His heart is beating wildly in his chest, but he listens
as they talk as if he’s not in the room at all.
“Looks like someone beat you to the punch,” Dr. Pellegrino responds, and
there’s an undercurrent of viciousness in the words that startles Jensen. The
doctors—for all their disaffected nature—never seemed more than cogs in the
machine. Seeing the anger and fear laced in their words is both new and
frightening.
Dr. Ferris takes a step back, as if Dr. Pellegrino’s words are physically
pushing her. Dr. Pellegrino glances once more at her dismissively, and then
turns to Ty. “Take Ackles-1 back to his room. He needs his rest.”
Without another word, Ty is grabbing Jensen by the bicep and leading him back
towards his room. Ty’s walking so swiftly that Jensen stumbles as he tries to
keep up, but Ty doesn’t say one word to him as he pushes him into his room and
locks the door behind him.
It’s during the workday, so Jared isn’t in the next room to even talk to
through the vent. Jensen starts pacing the room, not knowing exactly what is
going on but having a suspicion that can’t possibly be true.
Can it?
It seems like hours pass before Nurse Cindy comes flying into the room,
shutting the door securely behind her. Her face is red and shiny, and it looks
like she’s been running.
“What have you done?” she says incredulously, rushing over to him and just
stopping before she reaches him.
He steps back instinctively, suddenly afraid. She must sense his fear, because
her face softens and she reaches out to him with both hands on his hunched
shoulders.
“Jensen,” she says, and it’s the first time she’s ever acknowledged his name.
It should be a happy moment, but there is a gravity behind the words that tells
him that what is coming next is anything but.
“I’m pregnant, aren’t I?”
The words pop out, unbidden. He doesn’t know how he knows, but suddenly he’s
never been surer, and his hands fall instantly to cradle his still flat
stomach.
She nods solemnly, but then turns and curses. “But it’s not possible. The
inhibiters make it impossible. You shouldn’t even have the ability to engage in
the physical act.”
“You mean the pills?” he asks, knowing the answer before she replies.
She nods again and turns back to him. “Yeah, besides the fact that you
shouldn’t even know how, the inhibiters are supposed to stop both physical
erection and the sexual urges caused by puberty.”
Her voice is so matter-of-fact, and it burns Jensen up inside that they can so
casually talk about forcing a substance on them that changes the very chemistry
of their bodies.
Who is he kidding? Their bodies never belonged to them for even one moment
since birth.
“Is Jared going to get in trouble?” Jensen asks. What he really wants to ask is
if they are going to be separated, but even putting the idea out into the
universe is terrifying to him.
She breathes in deeply. “Jared’s the other father, right?”
Jensen nods, numbly. Father. They are going to be fathers.
Nurse Cindy closes her eyes tightly, a torn look crossing her face. She looks
like she’s trying to make a decision, one that she is struggling with.
“Please, just tell me. Cindy, please,” he pleads, because there is already
uncertainty literally growing inside of him. He doesn’t know how much more he
can take.
She straightens up then and it seems her decision has been made.
“You and Jared were created to make this baby. They just didn’t think it would
ever be this way, obviously.”
Jensen stares at her incredulously, her words making no sense. “What are you
talking about? Do you know who our Originals are?”
“I do,” she states, but cuts him off with one palm when he looks at her
excitedly. “But it’s a story for another time.
“Another time? I find out that not only was I being drugged, but that I’m now
pregnant because no one taught me that was even possible? I’ve spent my whole
life wondering who I am, and you tell me that not only do you know who my
Original is, but that I was created for some top secret reason to breed with a
boy that I didn’t even know until a few months ago? And you think another time
would be good?”
“Jensen,” Nurse Cindy says, leaning over and placing her hands on his cheeks.
He doesn’t even realize he’s crying until she’s wiping the moisture from his
skin.
“I’m so scared,” he whispers, wrapping his fingers in the front of her shirt.
Without the slightest hesitation, she wraps him up in her arms and pulls him
into a hug, rocking him softly where they stand.
“You were supposed to cuddle,” she says suddenly with a laugh. It’s tinged with
just enough hysteria that it makes him start laughing as well.
“We did cuddle,” he protests, head buried in her shoulder.
“Not like that!” she replies, and Jensen practically snorts.
There’s a moment of silence as the tension—broken for just the moment—returns.
She gently pushes him back and looks him directly in the eye. Her face is as
serious as he’s ever seen it before.
“They are going to take the baby.” She sees him startle and puts her hands
firmly on his shoulders to keep him in place. “Once they confirm that it’s
Jared’s, they are going to separate the two of you and send you the high-value
maternity ward. Then, when the baby is born, the men that created you and Jared
will take the child for whatever purpose they designed you for.”
“Please,” he says, and there’s nothing else he can say because hope seems so
futile.
He thinks he sees a shimmer of moisture in her wide, dark eyes. “I want you to
live, Jensen. I want you to decide for yourself what you want to be and who you
want to be with. I’ll never have a child, so I want to give you that.”
She pauses, then sets her jaw and continues. “I’m going to give you a choice.”
Jensen realizes in awe that it’s the first time anyone’s ever done that.
He nods slowly.
“Do you trust me?” she starts, and he nods more quickly this time. He does,
absolutely.
“Tomorrow Dr. Pellegrino and Dr. Ferris are going to run more tests on you. Let
them. When they ask you questions about your condition, play dumb. They won’t
do anything before they talk to the people above their pay grade so it’ll buy
us a bit of time.”
“Time for what?” he asks, fear tingling in his belly alongside the hint of what
could be his child.
“Tomorrow night, after bed checks. I need you to be ready. Do you hear me,
Jensen? Be ready.”
“Ready for what?”
She runs a hand along his cheek. “To leave this place, Jensen."
Excitement burns through him, but also resolve. “I’m not going anywhere without
Jared!”
Cindy smiles fondly and rolls her eyes. “I figured you would say that. Jared,
too."
“Okay,” he says, letting out a deep breath. “I can’t thank you enough for
helping us. No one has ever been so nice to me before.”
She looks away and it looks strangely like she’s struggling with his words.
“It’s the least I can do. Just be ready tomorrow night.”
She’s gone before he can say anything else. Jensen goes over to the vent,
sitting down on the ground with is legs pulled up to his chest.
He waits for Jared’s voice whispering through the grate, what seems like hours
later.
“Jared, I have something to tell you,” Jensen begins.

                            [jensen-mf] [jared-mf]
The entire next day is full of anxiety and anticipation. As Nurse Cindy
predicted, he spends most of the day in the medical suites having tests run on
him. He’s prodded by cold hands and even colder jelly, his limbs moved and
insides photographed.
The doctors talk about him like a test subject, as if he’s not even there and
not a living, breathing person with emotions and a brain. It makes him so
angry, the fire of rage burning inside of him for the first time in his life.
It soothes him at the same time and gives him purpose. It makes him act dumb
when they quiz him on how he ended up like this and shrug his shoulders like
the brainless animal they take him for.
It makes him long for the night. For the thought of holding Jared’s hand as
they flee this terrible place. Even though the world outside these walls are
unknown, at least they are making the choice to live in it.
Jared takes the news surprisingly well. Jensen thinks that there is something
innate in Jared that senses that things are going to be all right. He wonders
if there are any latent psychic abilities mixed up in their genetic code. Even
when he shushes himself and tells himself that it’s just fiction, a small part
of him thinks it might actually be true.
Jared had said to him, “I will follow you anywhere, Jensen.” And in that moment
Jensen knew that they had to leave in order to survive.
Finally, the night comes. Jensen barely eats his dinner—the anticipation for
what is soon to come combined with the new creature growing inside of him
making it almost impossible to keep anything down. He knows he needs his
strength, but it’s difficult.
Ty comes around to do bed checks, and Jensen stays still in the dark until he
hears his heavy footsteps heading down the hall. He doesn’t know exactly what
their working schedule is, but Nurse Cindy always manages to come unlock their
doors after this point in the night, so Ty must leave the facility before she
does.
Jensen trusts that Nurse Cindy knows what she’s doing and stays in bed.
It’s closing in on an hour later when the door creaks open and two figures come
in, their shapes noticeable only via flashlight. Jensen’s heart thumps wildly
in his ear when he recognizes Nurse Cindy, but then sees the male figure in
dark clothing and messy black hair next to her.
“Jensen, get up! We need to leave the lights off so we don’t trip the sensors.
We have to move quickly,” Nurse Cindy commands, keeping her voice low and
level. She and the man come over to the bed, where Jensen is scrambling to
untangle himself from the bed sheet.
“This is Dr. Collins,” she introduces. Jensen looks at her with accusation in
her eyes for bringing another doctor into his room.
“Not that kind of doctor, at least not anymore,” the man interrupts wryly,
glancing between the two of them. “Call me, Misha.”
“I’m Jensen,” he replies. Misha’s eyes widen a bit at that.
“They gave you a name?” he asks, and the surprise is obvious.
“I gave myself a name,” Jensen replies, chin tipped up defiantly.
Misha barks out a low, sharp laugh. “I like you, kid.”
“Not a kid,” Jensen protests.
“No arguing now,” Cindy says, shushing him.
“We need to get rid of the chip first. That’s why I’m here,” Misha explains,
pulling a long device with pinchers on the end out of the pocket of his jacket.
He motions for Nurse Cindy to shine the light closer to the back of Jensen’s
head.
“Can I?” Misha asks, motioning towards Jensen’s neck. Even though Jensen is
suddenly terrified of what’s next, he nods and turns around enough for Misha to
get to the space where the tracking chip is located.
There’s a sharp stinging sensation as Misha brings the end of the device to his
skin, and then a feeling like a punch that shocks him. Jensen hisses and
hunches his shoulders, but it’s over before he knows it. Misha pushes a piece
of gauze onto the back of his neck.
“Hold it there, okay?” Misha instructs, and Jensen takes over pressing the
gauze to the wound.
Misha puts the minute track chip right in the center of Jensen’s bed. Since the
device will only activate if it leaves the premises, it should buy them some
time, at least overnight.
Jensen grabs the tiny duffel that he arrived at the Nursery with, Genevieve’s
book tucked firmly in the bottom. It’s the only thing he takes with him as they
head quickly next door to Jared’s room.
“Jensen!” Jared says, rushing to him and squeezing him tightly in his arms.
It’s the first they’ve seen of each other since Jensen found out about the
baby, and the need to be together and feel skin on skin is overwhelming.
“No time for that now, guys. It’s how you got in this mess in the first place,”
Nurse Cindy scolds, gesturing for Jared to turn around so Misha can perform the
same procedure on him. Jared doesn’t protest except for a soft yelp when the
chip comes out, and they leave the chip in Jared’s bed also.
The four of them start moving down the hallway, staying towards the walls per
Nurse Cindy’s instructions to avoid detection. They end up down a corridor that
the boys have never seen before. Jensen realizes that it’s probably the staff
entrance.
Nurse Cindy quickly unlocks the door leading out of the facility, and suddenly
new people are coming in. There are three of them—an older man with a salt-and-
pepper beard, another man with smooth dark skin and a closed shaved-head, and a
lithe woman with long blonde hair and a hard expression. They all carry weapons
that Jensen has never seen before, and he instinctually backs up and away from
them.
“It’s okay. They are friends,” Nurse Cindy whispers to him and smiles. He nods
and looks over at the first man, who seems to be the leader of the group.
“You finally coming with us this time, Cin?”
“You know I can’t do that, JD,” Nurse Cindy replies. She’s smiling, but Jensen
can tell her eyes are sad even in the dim lighting.
“Why not?” Jensen butts in, not realizing until it was said that he wants her
to come, too. “Why can’t you come with us?”
Nurse Cindy touches his face one last time. “I’m not brave like you, Jensen.”
Jensen starts to protest, but she’s already turning away from him and staring
over at the group. “You need to knock me out and then kick the door in from the
outside. It needs to look like an ambush or my ass is toast.”
“I can’t knock you out,” JD insists. The blonde woman pushes him aside and
lifts her weapon.
“I should have known you’d have no problem doing it,” Nurse Cindy states, as
the woman rolls her eyes one last time before knocking Cindy out cold with the
butt of her weapon.
“No problem at all,” the woman grins, nudging Cindy unconscious body with her
toe before heading back towards the open door.
“Alona, that was so not necessary,” JD deadpans, but he’s heading towards the
door quickly as well.
“Are you sure we should go with them?” Jared says, and his voice sounds
terrified.
Jensen’s about to agree with him, when he looks down at Nurse Cindy and
realizes how much she’s risking so that they can be safe and free.
“It’s our only chance,” Jensen replies, and holds out his hand for Jared to
take.
They step over the threshold of the doorway together, and the first burst of
real fresh air hits them. Jared gasps in a breath and looks over at Jensen, who
is staring back at him in awe.
It’s the very first time in their lives they have been outside.
The rebels rush them into the back of a black van.
“Where are you taking us?” Jensen finally thinks to ask.
JD turns around in his seat and grins at them, teeth bright in the moonlight.
“To freedom, kiddo.”
                            [tsom-PARTTHREEheader]
It’s warm in the van—too warm—but Jensen snuggles closer to Jared where they
sit pressed up against the worn leather seats in the back. In the dark of the
interior, he takes in their rescuers slouched in various spots around the
vehicle. Some are tense, like Alona, clutching her weapon, or laid-back with
eyes closed like Misha.
“We’ve been driving a long time,” Jared whispers, nuzzling his nose against the
side of Jensen’s face. Jensen pushes back into it and reaches up for a quick
kiss.
Jensen sees Alona looking at them with an unreadable expression, but is too
emotionally and physically exhausted to care what she thinks about them.
“Go to sleep, boys. We’ve got a while yet,” JD’s voice comes from the front of
the van where he’s driving. Jensen stiffens for a moment, but then the van is
rocking and Jared’s shoulder is comfortable and he lets his eyes close.
“I’ll keep watch. Don’t you worry.” Jared’s comforting words are the last thing
Jensen hears as darkness finally overwhelms him and he sleeps.
==
Jensen’s woken up by Jared shaking him. He rubs his eyes sleepily, and allows
himself to be wrapped in a blanket before stumbling towards the door of the
van.
Jensen blinks rapidly, eyes adjusting to something they’ve never felt before.
Sunshine.
The blanket falls to the rocks and dirt at his feet as Jensen turns his face to
the sky in awe.
A hand creeps into his own, and Jensen turns quickly to see Jared’s dazed face
looking back at him. Slowly—with wonder and eyes shiny—they smile at each other
and let the warmth wash over them.
A strange sound hits them, and they turn to see a group of birds flying over
their heads. They soar together as a group—one unit beautiful in their
synchronicity—but then a single one breaks off and dives out of rotation.
Jensen envies that little bird, respects it for claiming its own space. Even
though it might end up in the same place as his brethren, he’s the one choosing
the direction.
“What’s the hold up, Sterling?” JD shouts from up ahead. Jensen realizes they
must have been standing there for a while, because JD is already opening up a
hatch leading into a ramshackle structure built into what looks like the side
of a mountain.
The man with the dark skin and shaved head stands watching them from a few feet
in front of them. He’s looking at them with an odd expression, mouth tilted up
in what might be an attempt at a smile.
“I think they are watching the birds, JD,” Sterling finally replies with a
drawl, shaking his head in amusement as he cocks his head to get the boys to
follow him.
“Got ourselves a couple of nature lovers. Danni’s gonna love that,” JD says
with a snicker, and Jensen thinks he’d be a lot more embarrassed if he wasn’t
so enraptured by the fact that he’s still standing in the sunshine.
“Feels good, huh?” Alona says, voice low. Jensen jumps a bit because he hadn’t
realized she was behind them. She picks up the blanket and tosses it to him.
Jensen—not knowing how to put how profound the moment is into words—simply nods
and squeezes Jared’s hand even tighter.
They finally start moving and Jensen has but a minute to look over the barren,
rocky land around them before they are being ushered through the hatch and down
a set of stairs to what appears to be an underground bunker. Jensen misses the
sunshine the second the clang of metal sounds behind him.
They proceed down a long hallway for what seems like ages, lit by a string of
fluorescent lights at the top near the low ceiling. Jensen, still exhausted
from the journey, struggles to keep up not only with the athletic rescuers, but
also Jared and his extra-long legs. He stumbles, but, like always, Jared is
there to catch him.
Finally, the hallway twists to the right, and opens up into a large room with
much higher ceilings and a massive lighted table dominating the space. Misha
has already thrown his jacket down on a nearby table and is sitting back in a
chair with his feet up. Another man —this one short and stocky with long brown
hair tied back in a ponytail—comes up to talk to JD, completely ignoring the
new guests.
“Took you long enough,” the man says gruffly, clasping his forearm to JD’s in
what Jensen supposes is a greeting.
“You know me, Kane. Safety first,” JD replies, as the man rolls his eyes.
“Anyone tracking you?” Kane continues. His voice is harsh, and Jensen is a
little wary about what his place in the group is.
“Nah, we’re good. Rhodes and her crew blew up the sweatshop building over on
North Hudson right past midnight. Had all the uniforms in the area heading in
that direction.”
Jensen looks up at Jared, who is chewing on his bottom lip nervously. Blowing
up buildings?
“How did you get us out so easily?” Jensen blurts out. Kane finally looks over
at them like he just noticed they were there.
“They think they are safe because we never hit the non-dupe breeding
facilities.” JD grins, but his eyes are dark and vicious. “Hubris is a bitch.”
Jensen swallows hard at the word “breeding” and doesn’t understand half of what
they are talking about, but just nods for now and figures they’ll find out more
eventually.
“Didn’t anyone teach you fools manners? “ Another new person, this time a woman
with reddish brown hair tied up in a bun and a round, kind face, comes up and
holds her hands out to them.
“Go ahead, take them,” she urges, a little indentation popping up at the bottom
of her cheek as she wiggles her fingers.
Jensen looks over at Jared quickly, before reaching out and taking one of her
hands in his. Jared copies the movement and the three of them look at each
other for a moment.
The woman smiles brightly, and she looks pleased. “My name’s Danneel. Welcome
to your new life.”
“I’m Jensen, and this is Jared.” Jensen hears the rumbling in the room, and
even Danneel manages to barely hide the surprise in her face.
“Well, aren’t those fine names,” Danneel says, her voice slow and firm. “Did
you pick them yourselves?”
Jensen holds his head up with pride, belly fluttering at the acknowledgement of
their identities. “Yes, ma’am, we did.”
“Oh god, I’m only thirty three. None of this ma’am stuff!” Danneel says with a
laugh, squeezing their hands one last time before slipping the blanket off of
Jensen’s shoulders and ushering them to some chairs near the table.
“That what it says on your shirts?” Kane says, voice like steel.
Jensen can hear Danneel cluck her tongue in annoyance at Kane’s tersely asked
question.
Before Jensen can brace himself, Kane is across the room and standing right in
front of them, grabbing at the thin cotton against their chests. Jared
instinctually reacts and starts pushing him off of Jensen, but not before Kane
manages to get a good glimpse at their duplicate designations.
His eyes bulge and he stumbles back, spinning around to glare at JD.
“Are you fucking out of your mind?” Kane hollers.
Jensen flinches, and Danneel rubs her hand over his neck in a comforting
gesture.
JD stands firm, but Sterling pushes in closer just in case. The air in the room
is suddenly alive with friction, and even Misha puts his feet down and leans
forward in anticipation.
“Padalecki and Ackles? Are you fucking high?” Kane continues, vein bulging out
of his forehead as JD continues to stare at him as still as a statue.
“Stop your hysterics. Cindy told me they needed help, and that’s that,” JD
says. His expression turns shrewd. “We help people, Kane. Or did you forget
that somewhere along the line?”
Alona snorts, and Kane nearly snarls at her.
JD, obviously seeing the situation heading towards a spiral, relaxes his body
and holds up a placating hand. “Look, we’ve been driving all night. We’re
tired. Let’s go rest up, and we can discuss this later over Danni’s latest
casserole concoction and a whole lotta booze. Deal?”
“You love my casseroles,” Danneel responds, clucking her tongue, and the
tension bleeds out of the room.
“If I believed in things like romance and happiness, I’d marry you for those
casseroles,” JD responds, and the grin Danneel attempts—and fails—to hide is
enough to get a tiny corresponding one out of Jensen.
“I’m gonna throw up,” Alona deadpans, which gets a laugh out of Sterling and
Misha, and half-a-smirk out of Kane.
“I can’t believe I put up with any of you,” Danneel announces, pulling the boys
to their feet and shooing them towards the doorway and back down the hallway.
“Get some rest, boys!” JD calls after them, his voice getting father away as
they walk.
Another winding path leads them to a small room with a couple chairs, one
decent sized cot, and a dresser with a mirror. Danneel waves them towards the
middle of the room.
“We don’t have a lot of extra room around here, so I hope you don’t mind
sharing a bed.”
Jensen looks over at Jared, whose cheeks are warming up into a blush.
“Yeah, I thought so,” Danneel replies with a smirk, reaching up to pat them
both on the cheek before leaving the room. She closes the door behind her, and
suddenly there is complete silence.
Jared blows out a long breath and flops down on the bed. He pats the space next
to him, and Jensen gladly goes to take it. Jared wraps his arm around Jensen’s
shoulders, holding him tight to his body. Jensen listens to Jared’s breath and
his heartbeat. They are as comforting and as familiar and as necessary as his
own.
“At least we’re together,” Jared says after a long moment. The truth of it is
so deep that Jensen can’t think of anything else to do but nod.
Tilting Jared back on the bed, Jensen crawls next to him and holds him tight.
He listens to the steady, reassuring beating of Jared's heart and lets
exhaustion take him.
Later, Jensen wakes up and watches a still-slumbering Jared, the rhythmic
cadence of his breathing soothing. He knows that soon they will have to face
the others, but right now all Jensen wants to do is snuggle back into Jared's
warmth and let himself feel safe.
So he does.
                                 [divider one]
It’s weird wearing other clothing.
Jensen tugs at the sleeves of the flannel shirt Danneel gave him to put on
instead of the cotton duplicate uniform. He’s not used to the fabric, and he
almost feels a phantom itch on his skin where it’s touching the tiny hairs on
his forearm.
“Thank you,” Jensen says softly as Danneel puts a bowl of what looks like pasta
and vegetables down in front of him. It’s later that night, and they are in a
different, yet still large room, this one with a long metal table and what
looks like a kitchen attached to it. Jared sits next to him, like always.
“Where’s mine?” JD asks, scruff around his mouth turning down as he frowns.
“I’m not your maid. Get it yourself,” Danneel retorts, shooting him a perfectly
pissy expression and sitting down next to Jensen to start eating her own
dinner.
Titters go around the room as JD rolls his eyes and heads off towards the
kitchen to feed himself. It’s still early yet, but Jensen’s trying his best to
get a sense of the dynamic between the group. One minute, it’s fraught with
tension, and the next it’s relaxed and more casual than Jensen is used to. It’s
almost amazing how free everyone seems.
“This is really good,” Jared says, mouth full of pasta and look of ecstasy on
his face. Jensen smiles fondly at him; there’s nothing his boy loves more than
food. Except for maybe Jensen himself.
Jensen tries hard not to blush just thinking about it, but it must not work
because Danneel nudges him and winks.
JD comes back, dropping a bowl down in front of Sterling, who salutes him and
raises the bottle he’s drinking from. JD taps his own bottle against it, and
they drink.
It goes like that for a while, the companionship easy in the silence as they
finish their meal. It’s only when they are finishing—when the second bottles
turn into three and then four—that things get looser yet more charged.
“What is this place?” Jared finally asks. He’s the brave one, Jensen thinks. If
anyone is going to be the one to get information out of these hardened adults,
it’s him.
JD looks around the room, almost like he’s checking to see how the others feel
about giving out information. Sterling nods his head, and Kane and Alona shrug.
“It’s a former military base. One of a string of underground bunkers that were
commandeered by the first rebel off-shoots after the last of the Great Wars.”
JD pauses, and looks back and forth between the two boys. “How much do you kids
know about your history?”
Jensen’s about to launch into what he remembers from the history holograms
growing up, but Jared interrupts him.
“Nothing,” Jared says, and his voice is as bitter as Jensen as ever heard it.
“Everything they told us was a lie.”
JD nods at that and gives a quick, humorless bark of a laugh. “Yeah, you’re
probably right.”
Misha continues for him. “It started with a eugenics program. Geneticists
attempting to create the ‘perfect child’. But for some reason they decided that
instead of altering the child, they would start with the parent.”
“They created a ‘good virus,’ one that was supposed to purify people of genetic
abnormalities,” JD keeps going. “They put it in the water supply.”
“There was a…” Misha pauses. “…bad reaction. The ones who didn’t die became
infertile, and with the way the world was setup, it quickly spread and became a
global problem. For a moment in time, the human race stopped being able to
replicate itself.”
There’s silence in the room for a long moment. Jensen’s hand is shaking when he
slips it into Jared’s.
JD clears his throat and keeps going. “When people found out what the leaders
here had done, there was a coup led by members of the military who had been
waiting for the opportunity. There was a series of civil wars after that, and
after the dust settled the population was decimated and this part of the world
became isolated from the rest."
Sterling pounds his bottle back on the table, face tight. “And to solve that
problem, they brought in the docs again to create their little science
projects.”
“We’re not science projects, we’re people!” Alona interjects, face red and
mouth set in a grim line.
Jensen looks at her, startled. “You’re a duplicate?”
Alona gives a tight nod and leans back in her chair, pointedly not looking at
anyone in the room.
JD gives it a moment and then brings the attention back to himself. “They
didn’t publicize it because it probably would have led to mass abductions, but
there were still some women left who could carry a pregnancy to term. The newly
formed State created the duplicate system and used these women as incubators to
start the program and replenish both the population and the work force.
Eventually, it became self-sustaining, especially when they figured out a way
to trigger a reproductive heat cycle in both dupe genders. The problem is that
they weren’t able to ensure this ability in every model.”
“Nature’s complex randomness wins,” Misha adds, draining the last of his drink
and pushing the bottle away from him.
“But now they are running scared, and that’s where we come in.” Kane finally
speaks up and Jensen wonders why he’s been silent this long.
“But what about Commander Richings?” Jensen asks, thinking of that wizened face
staring back at him his entire life.
JD snorts rudely. “Richings has been dead almost twenty years.”
Jared lets out a shocked gasp, staring at Jensen with wide eyes. Jensen shrugs
helplessly. It almost feels like he’s lost a father, as sick as that thought is
after everything they’ve just heard.
“They still use his face and speeches as propaganda across the entire hologram
network. But he died in a bomb blast. His number two, General Heyerdahl, took
over in the immediate aftermath. But the uniforms were split, and there’s been
in-fighting ever since. Which is good for us, for obvious reasons.”
Kane picks up where JD leaves off. “Info has gone cold for a while now, but the
last we heard there was a General Fuller who was fighting his way to the upper
levels. Rumor has it that he’s just a puppet for a civilian company run by the
two richest men in the State.”
Kane pauses and stares directly at Jared and Jensen.
“Those men are named Tristan Padalecki and Ross Ackles.”
Jensen’s thankful that he’s sitting, because there’s the possibility that he
might pass out any moment.
“Here honey, drink this,” Danneel says soothingly, holding her bottle up to his
lips and starting to tip it, before Misha interjects with a loud “Stop!”
Misha grits his teeth and looks quickly at JD and then back to Jensen. “He
can’t have alcohol. He’s pregnant.”
It’s like an explosion goes off as half the table jumps to their feet, and
bottles go smashing to the ground.
“JD, are you fucking insane? Stealing Ross Ackles’s pregnant dupe like it’s
just another raid?” Kane asks, his face switching between rage and disbelief.
“You’ll bring the entire State down on us.”
“Can’t take the heat, Kane? Still just a poor little rich kid rebelling against
Daddy by playing with the big bad freedom fighters,” Misha mocks from where
he’s still sitting nonchalantly at the table.
“Well at least I wasn’t helping create slave babies for those sick fucks,” Kane
growls back at him, and Misha’s cool exterior is washed immediately with shame.
His eyes flick to Alona, who is in the corner of the room pacing with a
completely unreadable expression on her face.
Jensen finds himself instinctively holding his stomach and backing away from
the group. Jared senses his movement and starts following him, as does Danneel,
who is suddenly a ball of pissed off den mother.
“That’s enough, all of you! Don’t you think these boys have been through enough
without having to listen to your shit? Humanity is not worth saving if people
can’t even bother acting like rational adults.”
“Danni’s right, that’s enough,” JD agrees, standing to his full height and
using every extra inch he has above Kane.
“Fine. Not like anyone is asking my opinion anyway,” Kane replies, voice tight,
as he turns on his heels and stalks out of the room.
JD rubs a hand over his face wearily, and Jensen notices for the first time the
worried lines around his eyes and mouth. “I’m sorry you had to see all of that.
Kane’s a good guy, we all are. We’re just in a precarious situation, and we
have to figure out what to do about it.”
“But we’re not figuring out anything tonight,” Danneel says firmly, giving JD a
look that Jensen figures brooks no argument.
“Not tonight,” JD agrees. “Sterling and I are going to go get drunk on bootleg
whiskey. I would suggest you do the same, but considering you’re teenagers,
that would be a bad influence of me.”
JD’s smile turns soft, and Jensen can’t resist giving him a one in return.
“Let’s just go to bed, Jensen. I want to hold you,” Jared says quietly, just
for him. He wraps his arms around Jensen and leans into his space.
Jensen lets out a shaky breath. Tomorrow’s another day, right?
“Yeah, let’s do that.”
==
The calm lasts for a few days. JD, Sterling, Kane, and Alona are gone during
most of the day, leaving the boys with Misha and Danneel, neither of whom are
telling them much. Jensen and Jared try to acclimate themselves to the new,
tentative reality—resting and eating and spending as much time together as
possible.
There’s a part of Jensen that knows he should be thinking about the life
growing inside of him, but it’s still such an overwhelming and terrifying
prospect that he tries to push it to the back of his mind. Jared’s hand will
absently head towards Jensen’s stomach every now and again, but Jensen can see
the moment Jared hesitates and pulls back. Jensen doesn’t say anything, because
not saying anything somehow keeps it from being real.
On the third day of their new life, the entire crew sits down around the
lighted table in what JD calls “The War Room.” Now less exhausted than when
they first arrived, Jensen takes in his surroundings and notices an elaborate
hologram setup and what looks like virtual maps set directly into the table.
He’s intrigued but still a little tentative in inquiring exactly what it all
means.
“So what now? Are we going to stay here forever?” Jared goes ahead and asks,
drumming his fingers nervously on the table. JD’s standing at the head of the
table, wiping a hand over his face a few times, before he sits down.
“No, this is only a temporary safehouse.” JD pauses, spreading his hands out on
the table. “We’ve been putting some feelers out to contacts in the State. We
know that Padalecki and Ackles know about your abduction, as they are calling
it.”
“Are they coming for us?” Jensen asks, his voice wavering, but trying to stay
strong enough to deal with what they need to.
JD shakes his head. “Not yet, but that’s not going to last long. They also know
about the baby, which seems to have been the plan of your creation all along.”
“Sterling and I have been talking,” Kane butts in.
“That’s never a good thing,” Alona retorts before Kane cuts her off with a look
and continues.
“We have to be smart about this. These two and the kid are leverage, the best
we’ve had in years. We could try and trade them in for an entire facility of
dupes—"
“These are people, not cattle for fuck’s sake,” Misha interrupts. Sterling
holds up a hand to shut him up.
“It’s a good plan, JD. And you know it,” Sterling adds, looking at JD with a
stoic expression.
There’s a tense silence in the room and no one breathes until finally Danneel
breaks it.
“You can’t be seriously considering this, Jeffrey Dean,” she says
incredulously, standing up and placing a protective hand on Jensen’s shoulder.
JD looks grim. “No, I’m not considering it. We’re not going to start trading
people like they are objects.”
“Thank you,” Misha interjects, exasperated.
JD’s not smiling though, and Jensen gets the ominous sense that there is
something he’s considering that they won’t like.
“But that’s not all, is it?” Jensen says, his voice soft but firm.
JD looks over at him, and slowly nods. “No, that’s not all. Their main priority
is that baby you’re carrying. I think it’s best for everyone involved if we
terminate. Misha was a dupe doctor, he can do it. It’s the best chance you two
have of getting away from these people and having a new life.”
Jensen’s too shocked to say anything. He doesn’t have to, because seconds later
Alona explodes, standing up from the table and rushing at JD.
“That’s not your damn decision to make,” Alona insists, pushing at JD even
though he’s got half a foot on her.
“It’s a hell of a lot more my decision than yours, Tal,” JD growls, holding her
back by the forearms. She flinches at the name, and Jensen realizes that must
be that of her Original.
“Fuck you,” Alona hisses, struggling in his grasp.
“That’s ‘fuck you, boss’.”
She finally breaks the hold and punches him straight in the jaw, as the whole
room finally awakens from its frozen state and starts rushing to separate them.
Alona brushes Kane off when he tries to touch her, and starts walking
backwards, holding her hand against her chest.
“I don’t have a boss, and neither do those boys. If you think we do, then
you’re just as bad as the people you say you’re trying to stop,” Alona says
soberly, spinning around and heading towards the door.
“Alona, wait!” JD calls after her, rubbing his jaw and waving off Misha’s
attempts to come tend to him.
Jensen watches the entire scene play out like a messed-up hallucination, before
finally standing up and heading towards the door himself. Maybe Alona is right,
maybe these people they are trusting are just as bad as the doctors. Maybe they
are worse, because they give false hope and care.
“Jensen,” JD says, noticeably softening his voice. “It’s okay, son. We’ll work
it out.”
Jensen glances at him and then back at Jared, who is staring at him with a
conflicted face that must match his own.
“I need to be alone. Please,” he mumbles, and runs out of the room as fast he
can.
                                 [divider one]
Jensen’s breathing heavy by the time he gets back to the little room he shares
with Jared, both because of the physical exertion of running all the way and
from the emotional toll that all of this information is giving him.
He slumps down on the cot, back against the wall, and tries to calm himself.
His breathing slows, and wetness starts prickling the corner of his eyes, but
he tries fiercely to hold it back.
His fingers itch, and he wishes desperately that he had a pad of paper and some
pencils so that he could draw all the feelings that are rushing up inside of
him.
Jensen feels the confusion and a weird mix of hope and uncertainty. Those
things are normal, considering that they are on a path that they don’t know the
ending to. Then there is the rage, the tiny spark of fire that even more people
are taking it upon themselves to decide his future. This is also a feeling that
seems normal, if not overwhelming.
But the thing that Jensen can’t get over is the feeling of disappointment over
the revelation of his Original.
His Original. A powerful, terrifying, faceless man…no, not faceless. His face
is Jensen’s face.
Jensen gasps with the knowledge, and wonders what else from this man is
embedded in the strains of his DNA. His ruthlessness? His ability to create
life for his own nefarious purposes? Is all of that inside of Jensen just
waiting to rear its ugly head when he least expects it?
In a sense he’s lost two fathers in the last few days—the wizened face that he
saw as his leader, and the face he sees in the mirror that is suddenly corrupt.
And then what of the child growing inside of him? How could Jensen know if he
was capable of taking care of someone? Of giving it what it needs and, not only
that, but what it should expect? He is sixteen. He would be a child raising a
child in a cold, dark world that once seemed simple in its conformity, but now
is prickly with complexity.
Maybe JD is right—maybe it’s better for everyone involved if Jensen just lets
go.
A knock on the door breaks him out of his reverie, and he looks up expecting it
to be Jared coming to see how he is doing. Instead, it’s Danneel, a small smile
twisting her lips as she pushes open the door and slowly enters the room.
“Hi,” Jensen says, his voice soft. He wipes at his face, content to find no
betraying streaks of moisture on his cheeks.
“Hi,” she replies, nodding towards the bed as if asking for permission to sit
down next to him. He hesitates only for a moment before agreeing. Danneel, out
of all of them, has been the kindest to them so far, and he is taking a chance
that it’s sincere.
They sit in silence for a moment, Danneel rubbing her hands along her thighs.
Jensen sits tucked up close to the wall, his knees to his chest protectively,
arms tugging around them.
Finally, Danneel seems to sense that he is not going to speak first, so she
starts.
“Cindy and I grew up together. Our fathers were high level military in
Richings’s administration, and we lived on a base with the other families of
the big shots. Like so many people, our mothers were unable to carry a baby to
term, so they used duplicates to carry us.”
Jensen’s fingers tighten their grip on his legs, but he stays quiet and lets
her continue.
“There are two types of breeding facilities. Ones to breed new dupe lines,
usually ten at a time of each model to test the strength of the line, and ones
to carry children of people who can afford to have their own. That was the type
of place that I was conceived in. “ Danneel pauses, swallowing hard, and Jensen
can see her struggle with the memory. “We didn’t know this at the time of
course. All we’re taught is that there is a hierarchy to the world, and the
dupes had their place in helping it survive, for the good of the rest of us. It
wasn’t until later, when Cindy and I were in nursing school, that we learned
more details about what really was happening.”
“You were a nurse, too?” Jensen asks, voice barely a whisper.
Danneel shakes her head and gives a tiny smile. “Almost, but not quite. In our
third year of school, we met JD and Sterling. They were former military, but
had deserted to join the rebel factions that had splintered off from Richings’s
group. At first it was just about the excitement. Here were these dangerous
guys who were preaching something completely opposite the way we were raised.
They were talking about liberation and uprising and justice and it was such a
foreign concept, but almost sexy at the same time, you know?”
“Did you go with them right away?” Jensen asks, the tension slowly easing from
his body. He stays against the wall, but he lets his legs drop from his chest.
“Not right away. Cindy was a total Daddy’s girl and couldn’t believe that her
father could possibly be partaking in something that sounded like modern day
slavery. She believed what we were told, that the duplicates had their purpose
and that purpose was above anything else. I had never thought much about it,
frankly, but after being around JD and Sterling for a while, I went to my
father and asked about the dupe who carried me. What was she doing now? Did
anyone take care of her? Was she loved? Was she even a she?”
“What did he say?”
Danneel blinks a few times, and Jensen wonders at the shine in her eyes. “He
laughed and shook his head. Told me to stop worrying about ‘silly things that
don’t matter’ and patted me on the head like I was a child asking for candy
before bedtime. A week later, I left school with JD and Sterling and never
looked back. I haven’t seen my parents in over ten years.”
“I’m sorry,” Jensen says, and he means it. He knows how it feels it lose
someone he cares about, for reasons that are beyond his control.
“Don’t be,” she replies, placing her hand on his knee and squeezing quickly
before removing it. “The reason I’m telling you this is because you need to
know how messy it can be when you have choices to make. I chose to leave
everything I knew to fight for a cause I didn’t quite understand. Cindy chose
to stay and attempt to help from the inside, showing kindness where she could.
We make mistakes, Jensen, we’re fallible. Sometimes the choices that we make
are the wrong ones, but freedom’s in the choosing.”
“I don’t know what to do,” Jensen whispers, chest constricting with an ache
that he can’t quite name.
She places her hand gently on his face, wiping away the tears that have
struggled so mightily to escape. “And that’s okay, too. Because you will, and
when that time comes, you’ll see the beauty in the choice itself. That’ll help
you once you’ve made it and have to live with it.”
Jensen’s hand comes up to cover hers and they sit still in the silence for a
long moment. He takes the comfort that he sought as a child from Mother
Tapping—comfort that he knows now was never genuine. This though, this moment
feels right, and he will be forever thankful to Danneel for that.
“Jared’s almost bit my face off when I told him to stay until I got back. Is it
alright to send him in here, if only to save my good looks?” Danneel says
finally, grinning when it gets a small laugh out of Jensen.
He nods, taking in a deep breath as she kisses his cheek and leaves him alone
once more.
==
That night, Jared and Jensen hold each other. Skin to skin—the natural heat of
Jared’s body bleeding into Jensen until he is warmed from within.
Jensen kisses him first, a gentle press of lips that turns deeper when Jared
opens his mouth and submits fully to his advances. Their tongues touch, stroke,
a slick dance as their teeth clack, and Jared’s hands come up to cradle
Jensen’s face with reverence.
They twist in the little cot, Jensen resting back, legs opening easily, and
Jared slotting between. Puzzle pieces coming together, simple and by design.
Jared’s hands are warm and smooth, fingers long as they rub down Jensen’s body,
along his thighs, and down to his opening. They are slick with something other
than spit, and Jensen looks at Jared questioningly until Jared motions towards
a small bottle of oil on the nightstand and whispers, “Misha. It was
embarrassing,” with a shrug.
Jensen laughs softly, and then moans as Jared’s fingers find their way home.
“Jensen, my Jensen,” Jared mumbles against his mouth, the words the most
beautiful Jensen knows because they mean so much.
It’s slow this night. Intimate. They move together—limbs twisting, pelvises
meeting, words panted quietly into mouths. Jared brushes a hand over Jensen’s
belly on the way to the hardened shaft of Jensen’s erection, and Jensen
climaxes just like that. Jared follows quickly behind as Jensen’s muscles tense
and twist.
Afterwards, Jensen lies half on top of Jared, their bodies sticky with sweat
and seed but relaxed and lethargic.
Jared raises Jensen’s hand to his and kisses his knuckles, one by one, as he
did on another night that now seems so long ago.
“No matter what you decide to do, I’ll support you,” Jared says, kisses them
again, and then once more.
Jensen tilts his head up, nose grazing over Jared’s jaw as he breathes in the
damp scent of him.
“This is your life, too, Jared.”
Jensen can feel him smiling as he speaks. “And isn’t it wonderful that we get
the chance to say something like that?”
Jensen doesn’t have a response to that so he cradles himself deep in Jared’s
arms and lets himself stop thinking.
                                 [divider one]
Jensen soon realizes that there is only one other person that truly understands
what he and Jared are going through as duplicates starting new lives—and that’s
Alona. She’s prickly and quiet most of the time, standoffish in a way that
Jensen suspects is a defense mechanism. The others obviously respect her skills
both in fighting and with the hologram machine, but Jensen gets a sense that
she doesn’t quite fit in.
That is a feeling that Jensen knows all too well, and it’s with this in mind
that he goes to her a few nights later to see if she will talk to him.
He finds her in the War Room, hunched over the maps lighting up the table, her
pretty face full of concentration. He doesn’t want to disturb her, but this is
the first time he has managed to see her alone. He knows that talking to her
outside of the stare of the others is the only way to get her to talk freely
with him.
“Am I bothering you?” he asks, standing in the doorway and waiting for her
permission to enter.
She looks him up and down quickly, a frown on her mouth. “Would it matter if
you were?”
“If I say yes, will that help?”
The frown turns into a hint of a smile, and Jensen takes that as a sign to
enter. He does, walking over to the table and taking a seat opposite her.
They sit in silence for a moment, as she goes back to her maps. He can see her
eyes flickering back to him, and eventually she gives up the pretense of work.
“How are you feeling? With the, you know,” she says, nodding towards his
stomach without saying the words.
“Physically, I’m fine. No sickness.” He pauses, figuring truth is his only
chance at this point. “But, honestly? I’m terrified. Sometimes I’ll forget that
something is inside me, and then I’ll remember and it’s like my body doesn’t
even belong to me.”
“It didn’t belong to you, not then anyway,” she says, still not looking at him.
“I was already scared to begin with about the changes that my body were going
to go through, what was possible for my body to do. They didn’t teach us that,
even when the fever came. They said ‘be good, little one’ and just expected me
to understand all the feelings that were suddenly coursing through me.”
“Just wait until you start showing,” she says, finally raising her eyes, a
haunted look embedded in them.
“You know what that’s like, don’t you?” he says. It’s a wild guess, but his
instinct tells him it’s the right one.
“Three times.” She pauses before continuing, and he’s surprised her voice never
wavers. “I carried children for them three times.”
“Did you know what was happening?”
“No.”
“Did you get to see them when they were born?”
“No.”
“Do you know where they ended up?”
“The answer is always going to be no, Jensen. Letting us know what was
happening to us was never going to be an option.”
Jensen swallows hard, hand going to his stomach without him even thinking about
it. “What happened after the third?”
Alona wipes a hand across her mouth, and closes her eyes briefly before
answering. “I couldn’t carry any more, so they were going to ship me to one of
the brothels where the prettier models went when they became ‘defective.’”
“And Misha?”
“Misha was my doctor. He rescued me.” Her eyes lost a bit of focus, like she
was thinking of another time and place. “He was also the one that did that to
me all three times. He overcompensates now because of his guilt but I'm not
sure it helps. It’s easy to try and forgive, but you never really forget.”
The tension between them suddenly makes sense, and Jensen wishes he could reach
out and offer her comfort. He doesn’t think she would accept it, however, so he
keeps his hands pressed against his stomach.
She looks up at him after a moment, really seeing him for the first time in a
while. “But it wasn’t like that with you, was it?”
Jensen can’t help the blush and the small smile that breaks out over his face
when he remembers stolen kisses and warm nights in Jared’s arms.
“No, it wasn’t like that at all. Jared and I came together out of love.”
“Well then, you’re already different than the rest of us,” she replies. She
smiles briefly and then looks back to the maps, the dismissal obvious but not
mean.
He nods absently to himself and stands, heading back to the door from which he
came.
“Do you ever wonder where they are? The children you carried?”
He doesn’t know why he asks it. Knows it’s both inappropriate and cruel.
“You would expect me to say yes, but the answer is no. They weren’t mine and
had nothing to do with me besides using me as their incubator. That might be
selfish, but it’s the only way I get through the day.”
Jensen ponders her answer for a moment, his back still turned so that he can’t
see the expression on her face. He thinks of one word out of her response and
suddenly realizes exactly what he’s going to do.
He touches his still-flat belly with the tips of his fingers.
Mine, he thinks.
==
It takes Jensen three days to get up the courage to sit down at a table full of
hardened adults and tell them that he is going to be the one to decide his
future, and that of his unborn child.
Jared sits next to him, holding his hand for support. They’ve talked long and
hard the past few days, discussing their fears and their hopes, and what they
would do if things happen to go wrong. The one thing they decided for certain
is that they are going to go through everything together, and face the future
as the family unit they never knew to dream of.
“Tell me what our Originals want the baby for,” Jensen asks JD, knowing that
he’s been out the past few days doing recon work and trying to throw the State
off their trail.
“That baby represents the genetic mixture of the two most powerful men in the
State,” JD starts, pausing to let that sink in. “It’s consolidation of power.
It’s the future.”
Jensen and Jared glance at each other quickly. They had figured something like
that was the reason behind all of this, but hearing it out loud was still
numbing. Just knowing that they were only in the world because of some sick war
game, all of the loneliness of their childhood to force some kind of government
coup.
“Could they try it again? Attempt another duplication?” Jensen asks.
JD shrugs. “I suppose they could, but they don’t have the years to do it with.
The State is a ticking time bomb. All it needs is someone to pull the
detonator.”
“I want to be that someone.” The room is silent at Jensen’s words, the air
heavy.
“I take it you’re going to keep the baby,” JD says, and it’s more statement
than question.
Jensen takes Jared’s hand and puts it on top of the table, so everyone can see
their intertwined fingers.
“I’m not going to pretend that I’m not scared, because I am. I don’t know how
I’m going to react down the line, or even if me and Jared will make good
parents. But I know that this baby is ours. Jared and Jensen’s, not Padalecki
and Ackles’s. We’re not going to let them take our family away from us.”
JD takes a long, deep breath, his face a mask of contemplation as he takes in
the words. Finally, after a moment, he nods his head and scratches the scruff
of his beard. “Well, alright. It sounds like you’ve thought about this so I
respect your decision, and I’m going to help you in any way I can.”
“The island,” Danneel interjects, sending the boys a comforting smile.
“Right, the island,” JD echoes. “There’s an island off the coast that is a
designated Free State. It’s run by an older duplicate couple named Jim and
Loretta. They help people either settle down or move on to another destination.
It’s not easy to get to because the State guard patrols the waterway in-
between, but the rule goes that if you get one foot on land, they’ll take you
in.”
JD pauses, and the confident grin from the night he rescued them comes shining
forward. “I’ll get you there, boys. Don’t you worry about that.”
“What do you think?” Jared whispers to Jensen. Jensen just nods his head
encouragingly.
“Sounds like it’s worth a chance,” Jensen replies, leaning forward for a quick
kiss before turning back to JD. “Before we go though, we want to know if there
is anything we can do to help you all.”
“Alona?” JD says, turning their attention to where she is sitting in the corner
of the table. Jensen looks at her expectantly, and she smiles briefly.
“There is actually something you can do.”
“Tell me what it is. We owe you our lives,” Jensen agrees.
“I finally figured out a way to hack into the hologram mainframe. All the
holograms in every duplicate facility, and in the general public are connected
by one giant unit. Hack into that, and we can broadcast whatever we want, all
at once, to every hologram in the system.”
Jensen feels a weird mix of dread and excitement in his stomach, as he thinks
about growing up watching what he now knows is State propaganda told through
the lines and hollows of Commander Richings’s long-dead face.
“What would you broadcast?” Jensen asks. Alona’s face lights up with the
biggest smile since he first met her. She’s beautiful and Jensen hopes that
helping her with this will enable many more of those grins in the future.
“The State drugs the dupes as they go into their heat cycle so that they don’t
feel things like attraction or arousal. They keep it that way so that their
insides work for breeding, but in a completely mechanical and detached way. If
we can get the dupes to understand that they are just like anyone else, that
they can love and lust and feel and procreate because they want to and not
because they have to, then they are one step closer to undermining the system
that they are propagating.”
“And you boys are a perfect example of that future,” JD throws in. “A real live
duplicate family, in living color.”
“And the clones will inherit the Earth,” Sterling says dryly, sipping his
whiskey.
Alona tips her chin up and smirks. “We’re the ones who saved it.”
“I’ll do it,” Jensen blurts out quickly, knowing in his gut that it’s the right
decision. He doesn’t know what he’s going to say—or if it will do anything in
the long run—but he knows that he has to at least try.
Alona looks at him, emotion suddenly warring on her face. “Thank you.”
Jensen just nods, breathing in the moment.
                                 [divider one]
“You’re a lot more aesthetically pleasing than Richings, that’s for sure,”
Danneel quips, putting some weird stuff in Jensen’s hair as he sits on the
chair they’ve designated for him for the hologram broadcast.
“Not being dead helps,” Misha retorts from the back of the room, feet once
again propped up on a flat surface.
“Don’t listen to him, you’re a handsome prince of a child,” Danneel says.
Jensen starts giggling at the fact that she’s actually cooing at him.
“Stop! You’re making me nervous,” Jensen says, but he lets Danneel pinch his
cheeks and give him a quick kiss on the forehead for good luck.
“You’ll be fine, just speak from the heart,” JD says, coming up to stand behind
where Alona is setting up the equipment.
Jensen takes a deep, shaky breath, and then blows it out and focuses himself in
on the light in front of him. He stops and thinks a moment about who is going
to be listening to him in a moment; will Genevieve be among them? Will any of
this matter?
“Whenever you’re ready,” Alona says, and Jensen looks straight ahead and
smiles.
“Hello. My name is Jensen, and I’m a duplicate. It took me sixteen years of my
life to finally know who and what I am—an individual, with needs and wants of
my very own. For sixteen years, I was known only as Ackles-1, but that wasn’t
who I was. To all of you listening right now, to the duplicates who don’t know
their own strength or the general populace who don't truly know what is going
on—let me tell you a story.”
Jensen smiles at Jared over Alona’s shoulder, and Jared winks.
“This is just the beginning.”
                             [tsom-EPILOGUEheader]

3_Years_Later
“Genny! Come here so Papa can feed you.”
Jensen watches with fondness as his toddler bumbles over to him from her spot
in the sandbox. There are traces of sand all over her long, light brown hair,
and her bangs are sticking up all over the place just like Jared’s. She gives a
dimpled smile and holds out her arms to him.
“Oof, you’re getting so big,” Jensen says with an exaggerated groan, picking
her up in his arms and squeezing her until she giggles herself silly. He pops
her on his lap and pulls the bag full of tiny pink apple pieces out of the pack
on the bench next to him.
She’s barely two pieces into it—juice all over her fingertips—when Jared comes
running up from behind them and leans over to hug them both at the same time.
“Tell Daddy he’s squishing me,” Jensen protests, leading his head back so Jared
can drop a soft kiss on his mouth.
“You love it,” Jared grins, coming round to the front and snatching their
daughter right out of Jensen’s arms. He dances a squealing Genevieve around,
and Jensen just shakes his head and laughs.
Jared’s just back from work, where he teaches guitar and piano to the children
of other duplicates that were rescued by the rebels and relocated to the island
that has become a refuge for the liberated.
Jensen—while raising little Genevieve—has become increasingly involved in the
abolition movement, partly through educating the other duplicates about their
rights as human beings and not just blunt tools and broodmares created by the
elite. The rebels have done a lot of work in the past few years, and the public
sentiment has started to turn against the government. Entire pockets of the
State have been liberated, and many of the duplicates freed have joined the
cause.
It’s a long road and a hard process. But for once in his life, Jensen feels
like he’s accomplishing something good. It’s only a matter of time.
Jared swings Genevieve around a few more times and then collapses them both on
the bench with a loud huff. Jensen looks over and remembers the other amazing
thing he accomplished.
In the end, keeping the baby was the best decision they ever made, but for a
long time it was a struggle. At times, Jensen felt like his body was betraying
him—a foreign entity cruelly mocking him with the changes happening against his
will. Misha and Danneel stayed on the island with them until Genevieve was
born. A familiar presence during a time of great change and upheaval.
They decided to stay and raise their family on the island. It became a way
station of sorts for the newly freed, some staying for only a fortnight and
some settling down to join the growing community they had created.
Genny is thriving and happy, much like her parents. Ultimately there is no
greater gift than that.
The future is never certain, but now, at least, it’s theirs.
 
The End
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