Brie let out a nervous laugh at the question, which only caused a return glare from both the teens. With just as much nervousness, she reached for a memo pad on the table and a nearby pen. She then finally spoke, while scribbling something on the pad before her.

“Well, where you came from? I guess you could say Connor and I really were your parents; I just never actually carried you in my womb” she smiled nervously again as she slid the note across the table to them, “I’m sure you’ve heard the term test tube babies, right?” she asked, biting her lip as Sky reached out for the paper and held it up for both he and Star to read what she had written.

Scrawled shakily across the small piece of paper was ‘there’s likely bugs everywhere. Can you two fry them? Burn this.’ The two swallowed as they read the note and looked over at where she waited across the table, looking more than a bit worried right then.

Clearing his throat slightly, “great, mind if I smoke? Good, didn’t think so” he answered his own question as he reached into his pocket for a cigarette and a lighter. He then put the lighter to the note and tossed it into what was left in a glass of water discarded on the table earlier in the day. “I suppose you want me to finish the smoke outside, right? Coming Star?” he asked as he stood, Star easily following as the two gave Brie a furtive look before heading out to the balcony and closing the glass doors behind them.

Sky took a deep drag as the two looked out over the city in thought, while Brie waited inside nervously. “So, do we believe her?” Star asked quietly a moment later.

“Apparently she wants to tell us something” Sky agreed with his own nervousness in regard to the question she posed them in that note.

“So, are we supposed to try to...do what she wants?” Star replied, with deep nervousness of her own right then.

“You know there’s only one way we can do that” he told her under his breath, his own fear fighting tooth and nail with their mutual need for answers.

“How bad do we want our explanation?” Star asked, her voice breaking.

After finishing the cigarette, the two stiffly returned inside, where Brie still waited nervously for them. She forced another smile, trying to read their expressions to no avail. “You two can have the bedroom. The couch is fine for me” she smiled as she gestured to the door that led off the living room-dining room area.

Sky and Star both took deep breaths that hid so much more than they could even verbalize as she asked her question again, without asking it. They then simply nodded, steeling themselves before heading off to the bedroom, together.

Once they stepped into the other room, closing and locking the door behind them, they shared another shaky breath. Star took a wary seat at the very edge of the bed, biting her black nails, “are we really doing this, for real this time?” she asked him again, her eyes pleading with his for the strength they both needed to find if they ever hoped for any of the answers they had wanted all their lives.

“If we don’t, will we ever get another chance?” Sky whispered back through another deep breath.

After another moment to fight their fears of what their desire was capable of making happen, Star finally stood again and looked back into his eyes one more time. The two then each took another deep breath and slowly began undressing in absolute silence. It wasn’t just the mics that were likely hidden all around that kept them quiet though, as it was more the thoughts racing through their heads too loudly for them to even form any spoken words then.

Once they both were now standing there in that room, naked before each other once more, they could each feel that desire rising in them, despite their continued fear of it. They each swallowed hard, looked into one another’s eyes again, and then moved toward each other slowly. They stopped to face each other and shakily reach out for one another. Star placed her slightly shaking hands over his bare shoulders, her eyes moving down as he slowly began hardening before her. Sky reached out to gingerly place his hands at her waist, imagining that wetness starting in her again too.

They then moved closer, and he leaned down to place a gentle kiss over her lips once more. Her breath catching, Star easily kissed him back, moving closer still, so their bodies were touching once more. The kiss continued for several more dizzying moments before they finally broke it off again. Only, instead of pulling away this time, Sky moved to lift her into his arms, and carry her back to the bed.

He lay her gently across the mattress, moving to follow her with his own body. His lips were once again kissing hers as he then moved to steady himself and take that position above her, their lips continuing to try to assure one another that it would be ok; that they would be ok.

Shakily parting her legs for him as the kiss ended, the two looked one more time into each other’s eyes through ragged breaths and racing heartbeats. He then finally moved to slide himself deep inside her with the exact same gentleness as the day he took her virginity three years earlier; back when the two had no idea what truly dark times lie ahead for either of them.

Hoping upon hope that facing this fear would finally give them the explanations they had wanted all their lives; Sky continued gently thrusting into her, her hips meeting every motion, yearning for that final moment of pleasure to come and overtake them again. When it did come, the nearly fifty mics hidden around the apartment sparked and blew out just as that final gasp of release left their throats and shook their bodies, as he poured himself into her at last.

Moments after Sky collapsed in pleasure above her, inside her, and Star found herself spent beneath him, both their bodies still shaking and wet with sweat; the two heard a tentative knock at the bedroom door and just let out a breath of disbelief.

“It worked. You did it. I saw the sparks” Brie called to them through the door.

“So much for afterglow” Sky breathed the words raggedly against her ear, causing the briefest smile to cross Star’s lips as well. “Can you give us like, five seconds, Brie?” he called back to her through the door.

“Oh sorry” Brie called back, her bright blush somehow apparent in her voice.

Though, the two were more than eager for those answers, so they tried to compose themselves as quickly as they could. Sky forced himself shakily off the bed, sliding into his pants once more, before offering Star his long t-shirt to cover her own body with as well. They both took another ragged breath before he finally moved to the door to let Brie in to give them those answers they had been waiting on for nearly two decades.

“Sorry” Brie repeated again as he let her slowly step into the room where she did her best to keep her eyes averted from where the room still smelled of sex and both of their long sets of locks were slightly sweat dampened, their pale skin flushed in that painfully obvious post-coital state.

“Yes, you’ve said. You’re very sorry about everything. We got it. Now just tell us the truth already” Sky told her, his voice still ragged as he moved back to a seat on the bed next to where Star wrapped the cover about her waist below Sky’s t-shirt.

Brie took a breath to figure out how to even begin that story. She finally decided on the beginning. “What I said out there was technically true. A lot of things we told you, were technically true" she added.

“But even more were sick and twisted lies” Star interjected, her anger at all those lies, and the pain they caused, still not buried too deeply.

Brie looked down again before making herself continue, “Connor and I, we did create you. We made you” she began.

“Not from your own DNA?” Sky asked, a momentary panic passing behind his eyes.

“No, no, you’re not related to either of us. We’d never use our own DNA” she assured, “but we did create you in a lab, with sample DNA from an anonymous healthy female donor and male donor. You two really were born on the same day. That was never a lie at least. You just weren’t born to the same parents, or any parents, or really technically born at all, I guess” she attempted, still having trouble trying to explain her actions those nearly twenty years prior.

“So we’re like...clones...or something?” Sky asked with narrowed eyes.

“Sort of, in a manner of speaking. We did have to clone the donors’ DNA to make you” she admitted.

“Wait a second” Star stated as she sat up straighter, “given, I never made it past ninth grade science...” she began with a slightly accusing look back at the woman she had called mother for most of her life, “but wouldn’t you need four donors if we’re not actually related? The sperm and egg cells from his parents and the ones from mine?”

“That’s where things get...a little more complicated” Brie began warily.

“We’re listening” Sky prodded.

“If that’s all we’d done, we would have just been doing what every fertility clinic can do” she swallowed a bit.

“But you were doing something different” Star stated, waiting for the rest of those details now.

Brie swallowed again, “if you were just ‘test tube’ babies, like I claimed out there, then that wouldn’t explain the things you can do, would it? Or the way you’re drawn to each other” Brie was nearly whispering now.

“Go on” Sky pressed as they waited for that explanation.

“Um, this is the part that they’ve really wanted to hide all this time. The part that your teacher got killed for, and I’m sure that doctor too” Brie whispered.

Taking a short breath at the confession of what they had always feared about what happened to Ms. Colby, they forced themselves to wait for the rest of the confession now.

“Tell us already!” Sky exclaimed with a bit more volume after another painful moment of silence.

“You did each have two parent donors, you had to; but each of you technically have one parent who’s not...” her voice trailed off again.

“Not what?” Star exclaimed.

“Not specifically...um, human” Brie choked out that last bit of information as both teens paled.

“You’re telling us we’re not … fucking human?” Sky stammered, as Star just remained frozen in shock.

“You are Sky, I swear it.... you’ve just both got... something extra. We made you that way. And that’s why you can do those things, and why you’re only even capable of feeling any kind of true connection with one another. And you know it, in your blood and in your flesh and in your bones. You know it without a doubt... and that’s why we could never ever keep you apart. And why we tried so hard to. We knew what would happen if anyone discovered that bond you had. And what it could do, when we allowed you two to...become one” she sniffled slightly as the two just stared at her, in more kinds of shock than there were stars in the sky.

Both Sky and Star both just sat there, frozen, staring back at where Brie nervously waited for whatever reaction the two were going to have to finally hearing the most meaningful, and unbelievable part of the truth about themselves. Finally, Sky found whatever was left of his voice, “how are we even supposed to digest that?”

Brie looked back at them sadly, “Unfortunately, I can only tell you what happened in the past. When it comes to the future, and both of you, that’s where I know as little as either of you. All I know is that they, the infamous they; they don’t want anyone to know about what you two really are. And they’ve killed to keep anyone from finding out that truth, including yourselves,” she whispered with equal parts sadness and fear. “And once they realize the bugs are gone... I don’t know what they’ll do,” she finished hoarsely.

Star swallowed another breath, her shock still more than apparent, “So I guess that definitely means we can’t stay here,” she stated in a whisper.

“I’m surprised you’d even want to,” Brie stated sadly, a regret-filled smile barely making it to her lips.

“I never said that,” Star quickly reminded her of their continued upset with her part in everything that had ultimately happened to them.

“But if we gotta go,” Sky took another ragged breath of his own, “the question is, where do we even go? And what do we do with you, Brie?”