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"Yes please," Cosima says, maybe a little more fervently than she means to. She isn't sure how much she wants to discuss her sisters, but she's the one who brought it up. She can see there's something more than how many that Ruby wants to ask. She wonders what it is.

A pause, then almost abruptly: "Three I've met. But I know of at least five more."

"Holy crap."

Wait. She pauses, partway to standing and holding both their flagons, and is kind of frozen in that oh god that was a terrible response place, gentle mortification written all over her face as she tries to think of something - anything - to say that might salvage the situation.

"I..." Uh. "Mean." Help. "That's... impressive?"

Impressive? She makes a face at herself, wondering if there is an etiquette book like Speaking To Clones For Dummies, and opts instead for: "Same again? Or, uh. There's wine?"

"Holy crap is accurate. Wine please."

Cosima realizes there's a difference between "I'm a clone" and "god knows how many genetic identicals I have running around." She'd learned both at once, but the first didn't necessarily mean the second, after all.

"Once we've got drinks, I'll answer whatever that question was, if you want." She sounds a bit resigned; she'd let herself relax with Ruby but it's not as if she can expect people to just take it in stride.

"Got it."

Wine. So much wine. Ruby rests her hand on Cosima's shoulder for a second before wandering off, a quiet gesture of solidarity or something. It doesn't take her too long to return, with two full glasses of wine and a full jug to match, setting them all down without spilling a drop. "I got the Orlesian stuff. Fereldan wine is kind of like drinking vinegar."

Spoken with a little partway smile at Cosima, before she drops back into her seat. "Okay. So, straight up... you can totally ask me anything about the fairy tale stuff. Fair's fair, right?" And since she's holding Cosima to what she said before about asking, she starts. "Is the clone stuff... I mean, is it just a physical thing or do you kind of gel personality wise, too? Is that a horrible question? You don't have to answer it."

"No - I mean, I think it's a normal question. If normal applies in this situation. But one of the major reasons I could think of that someone would approach human cloning this way would be to look at nature versus nurture. What traits show up in all of us, even if we're raised by different people under different conditions."

She sits back, and takes a generous drink of wine.

"But to answer your question... we're genetically identical, but our personalities are pretty different." An understatement - she almost smiles, thinking briefly of Alison and Sarah. Even Beth, though that's complicated. After another pause, she adds, "Our interests are different, too, pretty radically. The others don't wear glasses, at least not at our current age, so that's environmental."

"Huh."

She takes up her glass, lightly taps it against Cosima's, and tips back a generous mouthful of it. "I was finding it very hard to imagine a bunch of Cosimas, somehow." Didn't really seem possible to have more than one of those.

Despite the complicated nature of it all, she grins. "Didn't eat your carrots, huh?"

"Too many all-nighters reading textbooks. Or too much screen time, you can pick," she says, with a half smile. "No, there's only one me. And X-many identical twin sisters. Sort of. It was really weird the first time I met one of them with a radically different accent."

Weird in the sense of more weird than having clones.

"Those kids and their darn video games." It lacks the Lucas flair that Granny would probably put into it, which is really just the Eugenia Lucas flair, but God forbid anyone ever told her that she had a penchant for the dramatic.

Slowly, Ruby exhales and shakes her head before sipping her wine and setting the glass back down. "That definitely sounds surreal. I mean... I can't even imagine getting my head around suddenly more... Not-Rubys. I can imagine a few colourful things my grandmother would have to say about it, mind you. 'Ruby, you don't wear enough as is, you can't afford to go sharing your wardrobe with every floozy that has your face.'" Dramatised, of course, and said entirely in good humour as she huffs out a laugh.

"Did you have accent envy? Is that the real problem, here?"

Cosima laughs a little - subdued, but warm. "No, not really. Of the three I know well, two are Canadian and one's British." Referring to Beth as "is" instead of "was" is still habit - it hasn't been that long. "I talked with a German on the phone, but we never met in person. I don't have much of an ear for mimicry, though, I'm stuck with good old California."

"In your defence, the California accent is pretty much a staple of pop culture. I mean, I won't lie, I mostly think of the intense Valley Girl kinda thing, but I guess you sound okay, too."

Okay, but more seriously, Ruby leans against the table, forearms laying across it.

"Must be hard not to have your family with you, though." That, at least, she can relate to.

"Yeah. I mean... it's weird, you know? Until a few months ago, I was an only child. Just my parents and me. Now suddenly..." She sweeps her hand, indicating all this. "But it's hard not to feel like my sisters are the only people I can trust, sometimes. It's not like you can go around talking about being a clone. Well. I mean, I guess I brought it up to you, but generally."

A pause, then, "There's a frickin' intellectual property notice coded in my DNA. It's not something you just bring up in casual conversation. I don't even think my parents know."

Ruby listens in a shocked kind of silence. Granted, she found out that she was a fairy tale character kind of out of nowhere, but this is a whole different kind of weird. There was only so much denial you could go through when you were dealing with your own memories.

And what's the right thing to say? But hey, now you have more family! or Aw, you're still an only child, too, kinda. Both seemed horribly simplistic, hanging onto the old or naively cutting down the new and ignoring the complications.

"That's... wow." A little pause, and the faintest tug of a smile. "I'm sorry. Are you okay?" With that. Even if it's old news. It's never not going to be big news, far as she can figure out.

"Um. Comes and goes, but... mostly, yeah. I mean, it's a lot personally, but it opens up a lot scientifically too. Some of the tech - it's years ahead of where the mainstream thinks we are. I mean, it's also totally unregulated and pretty illegal, for the record but."

Cosima exhales. "Hey - I'm sorry. We were just going to have a drink, you didn't sign up to be my therapist."

"Hey, come on. It's totally okay. Some secrets'll just... weigh down on you if you have to try and keep your head wrapped around them all on your own." Ruby's smile is lopsided.

"I know a little about that. It's fine. And your secret's safe with me, for the record."

"Thanks." It's subdued, but very genuine. "So, who do you tell your secrets to?" It's half teasing; she doesn't seem to necessarily expect a real answer, but Cosima's afraid dwelling on her sisters could get maudlin.

"Me?"

Ruby is very surprised, shaking her head. "Secrets and I have a bad history, I prefer the open book approach. Keeps people safer."

Whiiiich means she sips her wine, and clears her throat. "So.... in fairness I guess that means you should know I'm also the Big Bad Wolf."

"Oh." Get it together, Cosima, that is a terrible response - "I mean... that had to be a major adjustment. When your memories came back. How does it work? If you don't mind the question."

Ruby may have just claimed to be an open book, but Cosima can still identify a sensitive subject when she sees one.

A slight wince. "Yeah."

That could have gone worse. "The Curse was... it was meant to rob us of our happy endings. Honestly, for a while I wanted the Curse back. Being Ruby was a whole lot easier than being Red."

And a little shrug, to indicate not minding. "I had to learn to control it. Wolfstime if I don't wear the hood, I can't stop the change. Rest of the time it's a matter of whether I let the Wolf out or not."

She smiles, still, but its a sad thing, being the monster people tell tales of.

Impulsively, Cosima reaches across the table to touch Ruby's hand, a gesture of support for a situation she's not quite sure she's got the words for. "That's got to be a lot of stress, right?" she says, quietly.

"Oh," Ruby starts with wavering brightness, "what girl hasn't been chased out of town with fire and pitchforks a few times?"

Feelings are hard and bad. The contact is nice, though, and she makes another attempt at a smile.

Edited 2016-08-02 23:34 (UTC)

"Pretty sure that's also the end of a lot of movies where someone builds you in a lab," Cosima observes with a crooked smile that's more rueful than not. "Fuck those guys, though, that's hateful and a giant cliche."

Oh, God. Ruby's eyes widen and she just-- "Crap, I'm sorry. God."

Stupid, Ruby. Nice going.

"You aren't a monster." Swallowing is oddly painful. "I, uh. Before I knew I was a Wolf, I kind of--"

Hhggrrhh.

"I killed some people. Ate them, actually. Including my boyfriend."

"No, that wasn't... you don't have to apologize to me." She lets go of Ruby's hand, then, but mainly so she can take a drink of wine. "How did you find out, eventually? If you didn't remember changing."

Cosima hadn't meant to make Ruby feel worse, and she feels badly equipped to help. But if nothing else, she can empathize with feeling apart from everyone around her. (And she wonders, sometimes, if she should have done something when it became clear Beth was unstable. It's not the same, not at all the same, but... even so.)

Ruby's hand closes in a loose fist, pensive. Wine seems like an extremely good idea, and she takes up her own glass.

"I thought Peter was the Wolf, and I td hin. He trusted me, so he chained himself up, and I stayed to keep him company, but I didn't have my hood, so...."

She swallows, then. Her throat feels raw. "Granny knew. She shot me with a silver bolt before I could hurt anyone else, and then Snow and I had to run." A smile, selfmocking. "Not quite like the girl in the stories."

"Shit," Cosima says, quietly, to that. "I think you got the worse deal, to be honest." Which, considering that the alternative is being eaten, is saying something. "I'm going to guess the Enchanted Forest wasn't big on therapy, either."

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